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On the Lord’s Prayer

St Gregory of Nyssa, tr. Graef, 1954

1. The Lord’s Prayer: Sermon 1

The Divine Word teaches us the science of prayer. And to the disciples worthy of it, who eagerly asked to learn to pray in such a way as to win the favour of the Divine hearing, this science is proposed in the words that prayer should take. Now, I make bold to add a little to what Scripture says; for the present congregation needs instruction not so much on how to pray, as on the necessity of praying at all, a necessity that has perhaps not yet been grasped by most people. In fact, the majority of men grievously neglect in their life this sacred and divine work which is prayer. In this matter, therefore, I think it right first of all to insist as much as possible that one must persevere in prayer, as the Apostle says;¹ secondly, that we must listen attentively to the Divine Voice which proposes to us the manner in which we should offer prayer to the Lord. For I see that in this present life men give their attention to everything else, one concentrating on this matter, another on that; but no one devotes his zeal to the good work of prayer.

The tradesman rises early to attend to his shop, anxious to display his wares sooner than his competitors so as to get in before them, to be the first to attend to the customer and sell his stock. The customer does the same; he takes good care not to miss what he wants by letting someone else anticipate him; and so he hastens not to church but to the market. Thus all are equally keen on gain and anxious to be on the spot before their neighbours, and the hour for prayer is usurped by those things that hold their interest and is turned into time for trafficking.

It is the same with the craftsman, with the orator, with the man who brings a lawsuit as well as with the judge; everyone devotes all his energy to the work he has in hand, forgetting completely the work of prayer because he thinks that the time he gives to God is lost to the work he has purposed to do. For the craftsman considers that the Divine assistance is quite useless for the work he has in hand. Therefore he leaves prayer aside and places all his hopes in his hands, without remembering Him who has given him his hands. In the same way someone who carefully composes a speech does not think of Him who has given him speech; but he pursues his own and his pupils’ studies as if he had brought himself into this existence; hence he fails to realize that something good might come to him through the action of God and prefers study to prayer. It is the same with the other occupations: the fact that the mind centres its attention on material, earthly things prevents the soul from devoting itself to the better, heavenly things. Thus it comes about that life is so full of sin, which is always increasing in growth and involved in all human pursuits; therefore everyone keeps forgetting God, and men do not count prayer among the good things worth pursuing. Covetousness enters together with trade; but covetousness is idolatry.²

Thus the husbandman does not cultivate the land according to his needs, but is always intent on getting more, and so makes a large entrance for sin in his profession by enlarging his property at the expense of others. Hence arise disputes which are difficult to compose, people becoming incensed against each other over their boundaries, because they are all afflicted with the same disease of covetousness. Hence arise feuds, occasions of evil and attacks on one another that often end in bloodshed and murder. In the same way the contentions in the courts give rise to a variety of sins and find a host of excuses for injustice. The judge, for example, may either wilfully incline the balance of justice towards the side of gain, or be involuntarily misled by the subtlety of those who distort the truth, and thus gives an unjust judgement. But how could anyone describe in detail all the different ways in which sin is mixed up with human life? And the reason for this is none other than that men will not ask the help of God for the things they have in hand.

If work is preceded by prayer, sin will find no entrance into the soul. For when the consciousness of God is firmly established in the heart, the devices of the devil remain sterile, and matters of dispute will always be settled according to justice. Prayer prevents the farmer from committing sin, for his fruit will multiply even on a small plot of land, so that sin no longer enters together with the desire for more. It is the same with everyone; with the traveller, with somebody who prepares an expedition or a marriage. Whatever anyone may set out to do, if it is done with prayer the undertaking will prosper and he will be kept from sin, because there is nothing to oppose him and drag the soul into passion.³ If, on the other hand, a man leaves God out and gives his attention to nothing but his business, then he is inevitably opposed to God, because he is separated from Him. For a person who does not unite himself to God through prayer is separated from God. Therefore we must learn first of all that we ought always to pray and not to faint.⁴ For the effect of prayer is union with God, and if someone is with God, he is separated from the enemy. Through prayer we guard our chastity, control our temper, and rid ourselves of vanity; it makes us forget injuries, overcomes envy, defeats injustice, and makes amends for sin. Through prayer we obtain physical well-being, a happy home, and a strong, well-ordered society. Prayer will make our nation powerful, will give us victory in war and security in peace; it reconciles enemies and preserves allies. Prayer is the seal of virginity and a pledge of faithfulness in marriage; it shields the wayfarer, protects the sleeper, and gives courage to those who keep vigil. It obtains a good harvest for the farmer and a safe port for the sailor.

Prayer is your advocate in lawsuits. If you are in prison, it will obtain your release; it will refresh you when you are weary and comfort you when you are sorrowful. Prayer is the delight of the joyful as well as solace to the afflicted. It is the wedding crown⁵ of the spouses and the festive joy of a birthday no less than the shroud that enwraps us in death.

Prayer is intimacy with God and contemplation of the invisible. It satisfies our yearnings and makes us equal to the angels. Through it good prospers, evil is destroyed, and sinners will be converted. Prayer is the enjoyment of things present and the substance of the things to come. Prayer turned the whale into a home for Jonas; it brought Ezechias back to life from the very gates of death; it transformed the flames into a moist wind for the Three Children. Through prayer the Israelites triumphed over the Amalecites, and 185,000 Assyrians were slain in one night by the invisible sword.⁶ Past history furnishes thousands of other examples beside these which make it clear that of all the things valued in this life nothing is more precious than prayer. I wish we could already turn to prayer itself; but we would rather add a little to what has been said, and consider how many diverse good things we have received from Divine grace, for the gift of which we should make a return to our Benefactor by prayer and thanksgiving.

Now I think that, even if we spent our whole life in constant communion with God in prayer and thanksgiving, we should be as far from having made Him an adequate return as if we had not even begun to desire making the Giver of all good things such a return.

Time is measured by a threefold division, past, present, and future. In all three we receive the munificence of the Lord. If you consider the present, it is through Him that you live; if the future, your hope that your expectations might be fulfilled is founded on Him; if the past, you will realize that you did not even exist before He made you. Your very birth you have received as a benefit from Him; and once born, another benefit was conferred on you in that, as the Apostle says, you should live and move in Him.⁷ The hopes of the future depend upon the same Divine action. You, however, are master only of the present. Therefore, even if you never cease to give thanks to God throughout your life, you will hardly thank Him for the present; and as for the future and the past, you will not be able to find a means of rendering Him His due.

Yet, though we are so far from being able to thank Him properly, we do not even show our good intention as far as we can—I will not say all day long, but not even by devoting a tiny part of the day to the service of God. Who has spread the earth under my feet? Whose wisdom has made water passable? Who has set up the vault of the sky? Who carries the sun before me like a torch? Who causes the springs to come forth from ravines? Who has given the rivers their beds? Who has subjected the animals to my service? Who, when I was but lifeless ashes, gave me both life and a mind? Who fashioned this clay in the image of the Divine?⁸ And, when this Divine Image had been tarnished by sin, did not He restore it to its former beauty? When I was exiled from Paradise, deprived of the tree of life, and submerged in the gulf of material things, was it not He who brought me back to man’s first beatitude? There is none that understandeth, says the Scripture.⁹

Truly, if we considered these things, we should give thanks all our life without ceasing; but actually human nature is almost completely involved in the pursuit of material things. For these it is eagerly ready, with these memory and hope are occupied. In its desire for more, human nature gives itself no rest whatever where there is a chance of gain. Whether it be a question of honour and reputation, of abundant wealth, or of the disease of carnal appetite, in all these things nature desires increase. Yet to the truly good things of God, both those that can already be seen and those that are promised, no thought is given. But it is time to consider as far as we are able the meaning of the words of the prayer.

It is clear that in order to obtain our desires we must learn how we ought to pray. What, then, are we taught about it? When you are praying, do not babble as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard.¹⁰ Perhaps the meaning of the teaching is quite clear in itself. It is cast in rather simple language. It needs no subtle learning, except that it is worth discussing what is meant by the term battalogia (babbling), so that by realizing its sense we may avoid what is forbidden. It seems to me that He is castigating empty minds and crushing those who immerse themselves in vain desires. Hence He invented this strange novelty of a word in order to rebuke those foolish people who rush hither and thither in order to gratify their desires for completely useless things. For the sensible and rational word, which is concerned with useful things, is properly called a logos (word), but that which is poured forth by vain desires for empty pleasures is not a logos, but a battalogia. And if anyone would explain the meaning in better Greek, he would say phlyaria (nonsense) or leros (humbug) or phlenaphos (chatter), or something like that.

Which advice, therefore, does this passage give us? That in the time of prayer we should not allow such things to enter as passion puts into the mind of fools. For example, childish people do not reflect how a thing could possibly take place according to their fancy, but they imagine for all they are worth wonderful things happening to themselves. They daydream about riches, marriages and kingdoms and big cities that are to be called by their name, and they imagine that they actually are in such a position as their silly ideas suggest.

There are people who are gripped even more violently by this folly. Passing beyond the limits of nature, they develop wings or shine like stars, or carry mountains in their hands; they journey through the heavens or live for myriads of years, becoming young again in their old age, and whatever other bubbles the empty mind of childish people may throw up. Now supposing someone was engaged in some work and did not give his attention to things promising good results, but busied himself with ridiculous aspirations—he would be making a pitiful fool of himself, wasting on these daydreams the time he ought to spend thinking out some profitable proposition. In the same way if a man during prayer is not intent on what profits his soul, but would rather that God should fall in with the emotional¹¹ uncertainties of his own mind, he is truly like a silly battalogos, who prays that God should become a willing servant of his own crazy ideas.

To give an example. Someone approaches God in prayer, but failing to appreciate the exalted greatness whom he is addressing, unwittingly insulted His majesty with nothing but base petitions. It is just as if a very poor and uneducated man who thought earthenware precious, approached a king who had decided to distribute riches and honours. But the poor man would not make requests worthy of the king, but ask from so great a personage to take clay and make it into something according to his own mind. In the same way the man who makes prayer without being properly taught, will not lift himself up to the height of the Giver, but wants the Divine power to descend to the mean, earthly level of his own desires. Therefore he offers unruly cravings to Him who sees into the hearts, not desiring Him to heal the perverse movements of his mind, but to make them worse, for through the help of God the evil desire would become a fact. Because someone gives me pain and my heart hates him it says to God: Strike him; almost crying out: Let my own passion be in Thee, and may my wickedness pass over into Thee. Obviously, just as in human fights one cannot support one of the parties without sharing in the anger of the person who is infuriated against his opponent, thus it is also clear that he who tries to set God against his enemy, asks Him to share his own angry excitement. But this means that the Divine should succumb to passion, behave in a human manner and change from His own natural goodness into the ferocity of a beast.

Such is the behaviour of a man mad after fame, or of one who in his arrogance lusts for more; these are the manners of men bent on winning a lawsuit, pressing for the crown in the games or ambitious for fame in the theatre, often also of those consumed with the insane passions of youth. They all do not pray to God that they might be delivered from the disease that holds them captive, but that the disease might be brought to perfection. And if they fail to obtain these things, each one holds this to be a calamity. Truly they babble nonsense, imploring God to become their fellow patient in this mental disease. Worst of all, they want to move the Divine towards contrary desires, they would divide the power of God into two, namely into savagery and lovingkindness. On the one hand they want Him to be gracious and gentle to themselves, on the other they ask Him to show Himself hard and bitter to their enemies. Oh, the folly of the babblers! For if God is harsh to them, He will not be mild to you. If you hope that He will be inclined to show mercy to you, how can He change to the opposite, from mercy to bitterness?

But argumentative people anticipate such reproach and immediately adduce words from prophecy in defence of their own bitterness, such as those of David who desires sinners to faint away and calls down shame and confusion on his enemies;¹² or of Jeremias who desires to see God revenge him on his enemies,¹³ and Osee asking that his adversaries may be given a childless womb and dry breasts.¹⁴ And they collect many sayings which are scattered throughout the Holy Scriptures and prove from them that one should pray against one’s enemies; and thus they want God’s kindness to co-operate with their own bitterness. But in order to stop the babblers who have been led from such starting-point to its opposite, we shall deal with this objection point by point.

Of the true Saints, inspired by the Holy Spirit, whose sayings have been recorded by Divine dispensation for the instruction of later generations, none can be shown to have desired anything evil; but their words aim solely at the correction of the evil that is holding sway over human nature. Thus, in the same way as a man who prays that there may be no sick or no poor, does not want that such people should be exterminated, but that sickness and want should cease, so every Saint, too, must be understood if he prays for the destruction of what is utterly hostile to nature; though this may put into the heads of the ill-instructed the idea that he is greatly incensed against men.

If the Psalmist says, Let sinners be consumed out of the earth and the unjust, so that they be no more,¹⁵ he prays that sin and injustice may be destroyed. For man is not man’s enemy, but the evil movement of free will ranges within the order of enemies what is united by nature. If he prays, therefore, that evil may cease, this does not mean that man is something evil; for how could the image of good be evil?¹⁶ Hence when he calls down shame and confusion on his enemies he shows you the battle array of adversaries coming forth from the invisible fiend to fight against the life of man. About these St. Paul speaks plainly in greater detail when he says that our wrestling is against principalities, against powers and the rulers of this world, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.¹⁷ There are the diabolic plots by which wicked opportunities of sin are devised for men, occasions for wrath, inducements to lust, matter for envy, hate, pride, and similar evils. When the great prophet prays against the enemies, he asks that such things may be put to shame which he sees treacherously agitating the soul of everyone.

Now this means that the enemy may be saved, for it is natural that someone who has been defeated in a fight should be ashamed of his defeat, just as contrariwise the victor glories in his victory. That this is so is made clear by the form of the prayer. For he says: Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul.¹⁸ For he does not utter imprecations against those who make plots for financial damage, or who dispute about the boundaries of land, or plan bodily harm against him, but against those who design evil against his soul. But what is an evil design against the soul if not estrangement from God? Now the human soul cannot be alienated from God except through a mind enslaved by passions. For as the Divine Nature is altogether impassible,¹⁹ a man who is always entangled in passions is debarred from union with God. In order not to suffer this the Psalmist prays for the confusion of his enemies. This is what is meant by praying for his own victory against his enemies; for these enemies are the passions. Jeremias in his zeal for God’s worship did the same: when the king and his subjects with him were mad on idols, he did not trouble about his own suffering, but prayed for the common good of men that through the attack against the godless all men might be brought to their senses.

So also the prophet, seeing how widespread evil was among the Israelites of the time, rightly condemns the people to childlessness and desires the bitter breasts of sin to dry up, so that evil may not be born and bred among men. Therefore he says, Give them, O Lord, a womb without children and dry breasts. And whatever other expressions signifying indictment and wrath be found in the Saints bear a similar meaning, that is to say, they want not to destroy man but to abolish evil.²⁰ God made not death. Do you hear the denial? How then should he be likely to ask God for the death of his enemies, seeing that God is a stranger to death? He does not delight in the perdition of the living. But he who babbles and wants to rouse the Divine lovingkindness against his personal enemies, asks Him to delight in human misery.

But, it might be said, some people who desired offices, honours, and riches, and obtained them by having recourse to prayer, were believed to be loved by God on account of their good fortune. Why then would you prevent us from asking God for such things?

Now it is quite obvious, and nobody would deny it, that all things depend indeed on the Divine Will, and that life here below is ordered from above. But we have learned that there are other causes for the success of such prayers. Not as if God did not dispense to those that ask Him also these things as something good; but this is done in order that through it the faith of the weak should be confirmed. They will gradually learn from their experience with smaller petitions that God hears their supplications, so that they may rise to the desire for the higher gifts which are more worthy of God. It is the same as we see in our children. For a time they cling to their mother’s breast, sucking from it as much as nature can hold; but when the baby grows up and becomes capable of speech, he despises the breast and seeks other things, whether the pinned-on front locks²¹ or the mantle or some such things that delight the eyes of infants. But when he grows still older and his mind develops with his body, he leaves behind all childish desires and asks his parents for those things that belong to the adult life.

It is the same in relation to God, who often is not deaf even to man’s smallest petitions in order to accustom him to look to Him for everything; for so He can call a man who has obtained this gracious favour in small things to the desire for the higher ones. And if somebody or other has by Divine Providence become famous and admired despite his humble origin, or has obtained anything else of the things that are sought after in this life, such as high office or riches or publicity, you must consider the purpose of these things. This is that the love of God manifested in them should show forth His power, so that, because you have obtained these childish toys, you might offer the Father petitions for the greater and more perfect things. For those are the things that profit the soul.

It would be a very silly thing, indeed, to approach God in order to seek temporal things from the Eternal, earthly goods from Heavenly Goodness. For this means to seek low things from the Highest, some contemptible temporal good fortune from Him who bestows the Kingdom of Heaven; to seek from Him who gives those things that cannot be taken away the temporary use of some inessential trifles which will certainly be taken away, which are enjoyed only for a little time, and the use of which is fraught with danger. Well does He show the absurdity of such requests by adding as the heathens. For to be eagerly interested in the things of sense is characteristic of those who have neither hope in the world to come nor fear of judgement and the threat of hell. Since they expect none of the good things for which we hope in the resurrection, they are, like cattle, concerned only with the present life, how to indulge their palate and stomach and the desire for other luxuries of the body. They consider desirable either to be esteemed quite superior to the rest of men or to sit on many moneybags, or whatever else may belong to the deceits of this life. But if anyone speaks to them of the hope to come he seems to them a perfect fool, raving about Paradise and the life of the Kingdom of Heaven and so on. Since then attachment to the present life is the characteristic of those who are without hope, Scripture rightly says that the quite superfluous desires which people addicted to pleasure fancy to get fulfilled by prayer belong to the heathens. For they suppose that if they persist in asking for these absurdities, the Divinity will help to get them however unfitting they may be. For they think, He says, that in their much speaking they may be heard. Now through what we have just been considering we have learned what we ought to know. But what kind of prayer we ought to offer to God we will consider next time, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

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