Father Michael of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of New Zealand, Ecumenical Patriarchate, serves the Divine Liturgy in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Saint Maximos the Confessor on the Lord's Prayer
...impelled to write through goodwill, lest my failure to do so should be construed as hatred. And so,
as requested, I write, not what I think - for, as Scripture says, 'men's thoughts are pathetic" (Wisd.
9:14) - but what God wills and grants by grace so that good may come of it; for 'the Lord's counsel
stands for ever,' says David, 'and the thoughts of His heart from generation to generation' (Ps. 33:1
1). Perhaps the, counsel of God the Father to which David here refers is the unfathomable self-emptying
of the only -begotten Son which He brought about for the deification of our nature, and by
which He has set a limit to the ages; and perhaps the thoughts of His heart are the principles of
providence and judgment by which He wisely orders our present and future life as if they were
separate generations, assigning to each its appropriate mode of activity.
If the purpose of the divine counsel is the deification of our nature, and the aim of divine thoughts is
to supply the prerequisites of our life, it follows that we should both know and carry into effect the
power of the Lord's Prayer, and write about it in the proper way. And since you. Sir, in writing to me
your servant have been inspired by God to mention this prayer in particular, it is necessarily the
subject of my own words as well; hence I beseech the Lord, who has taught us this prayer, to open
my intellect so that it may grasp the mysteries contained in it, and to give me words equal to the
task of elucidating what I have understood. For hidden within a limited compass this prayer
contains the whole purpose and aim of which we have just spoken; or, rather, it openly proclaims
this purpose and aim to those whose intellects are strong enough to perceive them. The prayer
includes petitions for everything that the divine Logos effected through His self-emptying in the
incarnation, and it teaches us to strive for those blessings of which the true provider is God the
Father alone through the natural mediation of the Son in the Holy Spirit. For the Lord Jesus is
mediator between God and men, as the divine apostle says (cf. 1 Tim; 2:5), since He makes the
unknown Father manifest to men through the flesh, and gives those who have been reconciled to
Him access to the Father through the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 2:18). It was on their behalf and for their
sake that without changing He became man, and is now the author and teacher of so many and such
great new mysteries as yet beyond our understanding.
Of these mysteries that He has granted to men in His boundless generosity, seven are of more
general significance; and it is these whose power, as I have said, lies hidden within the Lord's
Prayer/ These seven are theology, adoption as sons by grace, equality with the angels, participation
in eternal life, the restoration of human nature when it is reconciled dispassionately with itself, the
abolition of the law of sin, and the destruction of the tyranny that holds us in its power through the
deceit of the evil one.
Let us examine the truth of what we have said. Theology is taught us by the incarnate Logos of
God, since He reveals in Himself the Father and the Holy Spirit. For the whole of the Father and the
whole of the Holy Spirit were present essentially and perfectly in the whole of the incarnate Son.
They themselves did not become incarnate, but the Father approved and the Spirit co-operated when
the Son Himself effected- His incarnation. At the incarnation the Logos preserved His intellect and
His life unimpaired: except by the Father and the Spirit He was not comprehended in essence by
any other being whatsoever, but in His love for men was united hypostatically with the flesh.
The Logos bestows adoption on us when He grants us that birth and deification which, transcending
nature, comes by grace from above through the Spirit, The guarding and preservation of this in God
depends on the resolve of those thus bom: on their sincere acceptance of the grace bestowed on
them and, through the practice of the commandments, on their cuhivation of the beauty given to
them by grace. Moreover, by emptying themselves of the passions they lay hold of the divine to the
same degree as that to which, deliberately emptying Himself of His own sublime glory, the Logos
of God truly became man.
The Logos has made men equal to the angels. Not only did He 'make peace through the blood of
His Cross . . . between things on earth and things in heaven" (Col. 1 :20), and reduce to impotence
the hostile powers that fill m the intermediary region between heaven and earth, thereby making the
festal assembly of earthly and heavenly powers a single gathering for His distribution of divme
gifts, with humankind joining joyfully with the powers on high in unanimous praise of God's glory;
but also, after fulfilling the divine purpose undertaken on our behalf, when He was taken up with
the body which He had assumed. He united heaven and earth in Himself, joined what is sensible
with what is intelligible, and revealed creation as a single whole whose extremes are bound together
through virtue and through knowledge of their first Cause. He shows, I think, through what He has
accomplished mystically, that the Logos unites what is separated and that alienation from the Logos
divides what is united. Let us learn, then, to strive after the Logos through the practice of the
virtues, so that we may be united not only with the angels through virtue, but also with God in
spiritual knowledge through detachment from created things.
The Logos enables us to participate in divine life by making Himself our food, in a manner
understood by Himself and by those who have received from Him a noetic perception of this kind.
It is by tasting this food that they become truly aware that the Lord is full of virtue (cf Ps. 34:8). For
He transmutes with divinity those who eat it, bringing about their deification, since He is the bread
of life and of power in both name and reality.
He restores human nature to itself. First, He became man and kept His will dispassionate and free
from rebellion against nature, so that it did not waver in the slightest from its own natural
movement even with regard to those who crucified Him: on the contrary, it chose death for their
sake instead of life, thereby demonstrating the voluntary character of His passion, rooted as it is in
His love for humankind. Second, having nailed to the Cross the record of our sins (cf. Col. 2:14),
He abolished the enmity which led nature to wage an implacable war against itself; and - having
summoned those far off and those near at hand - that is, those under the Law and those outside it -
and having broken down the obstructive partition-wll - that is, having explained the law of the
commandments in His teaching to both these categories of humankind - He formed the two into one
new man, making peace and reconciling us through Himself to the Father and to one another (cf.
Eph. 2:14-16): our will is no longer opposed to the principle of nature, but we adhere to it without
deviating in either will or nature.
The Logos purifies human nature from the law of sin by not permitting His incarnation for our sake
to be preceded by sensual pleasure. For His conception took place miraculously without seed, and
His birth supranaturally without the loss of His Mother's virginity. That is to say, when God was
bom from His Mother, through His birth He tightened the bonds of her virginity in a manner
surpassing nature; and in those that are willing He frees the whole of human nature from the
oppressive rule of the law which dominates it, in so far as they imitate His self-chosen death by
mortifying the earthly aspects of themselves (cf. Col. 3:5). For the mystery of salvation belongs to
those who choose it, not to those who are compelled by force.
The Logos destroys the tyranny of the evil one, who dominates us through deceit, by triumphantly
using as a weapon against him the flesh defeated in Adam. In this way he shows that what was once
captured and made subject to death now captures the captor: by a natural death it destroys the
captor's life and becomes a poison to him, making him vomit up all those he was able to swallow
because he had the power of death. But to humankind it becomes life, like leaven in the dough
impelling the whole of nature to rise like dough in the resurrection of life (cf 1 Cor. 5:6-7). It was to
confer this life that the Logos who was God became man - a truly unheard of thing - and willingly
accepted the death of the flesh.
The Lord's Prayer, as I have said, contains a petition for each of these things. First, it speaks of the
Father, His name, and His kingdom. Second, it shows us that the person who prays is by grace the
son of this Father. It asks that those in heaven and those on earth may be united in one will. It tells
us to ask for our dally bread. It lays down that men should be reconciled with one another and
unites our nature with itself when we forgive and are forgiven, for then it is not split asunder by
differences of will and purpose. It teaches us to pray against entering into temptation, since this is
the law of sin. And it exhorts in to ask for deliverance from the evil one. For the author and giver of
divine blessings could not but be our teacher as well, providing the words of this prayer as precepts
of life for those disciples who believe in Him and follow the way He taught in the flesh. Through
these words He has revealed the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge (of. Col. 2:3) that as
pure form exist in Him; and in all who offer this prayer He kindles the desire to enjoy such
treasures.
It is for this reason, I think, that scripture calls this teaching 'prayer', since it contains petitions for
the gifts that God gives to men by grace. Our divinely inspired fathers have explained prayer in a
similar way, saying that prayer is petition for that which God naturally gives men to the manner
appropriate to Him, while a vow.
Conversely, is a promise of what men who worship God sincerely resolve to offer Him. The fathers
cite many Scriptural texts to illustrate this distinction such as, 'Make your vows to the Lord our God
and perform them' (Ps. 76:1 1. LXX), and 'I will give Thee, Lord, what I have vowed' (Jonah 2:10.
LXX), which refer to vows. On the subject of prayer they quote such texts as 'Hannah prayed to the
Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed listen to Thy handmaid and give me a child' (cf.
ISam. 1:11), and 'Hezekiah the king of Judah and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz prayed to the
Lord' (cf 2 Chr. 32:20), and 'Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven' (Matt. 6:9), as the
Lord said to the disciples. Consequently, a vow is a decision to keep the commandments, confirmed
by a promise on the part of the person making the vow; and a prayer is a petition by one who has
kept the commandments that he may be transformed by the commandments he has kept. Or, rather,
a vow is a contest of virtue that God welcomes most readily whenever it is offered to Him; and
prayer is the prize of virtue that God gives joyfully when the contest is won.
Since, then, prayer is petition for the blessings given by the incarnate Logos, let us make Him our
teacher in prayer. And when we have contemplated the sense of each phrase as carefully as possible,
let us confidently set it forth; for the Logos Himself gives us, in the manner that is best for us, the
capacity to understand what He says.
'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come" (Matt. 6:9-10) It is
appropriate that at the outset the Lord should teach those who pray to start with theology, and
should initiate them into the mode of existence of Him who is by essence the created Cause of all
things. For these opening words of the prayer contain a revelation of the Father, of the name of the
Father, and of the kingdom of the Father, so that from this beginning we may be taught to revere,
invoke and worship the Trinity in unity. For the name of God the Father exists in substantial form as
the only-begotten son. Again the kingdom of God the Father exists in substantial form as the Holy
Spirit: what Matthew calls 'kingdom' in this context one of the other Evangelists has elsewhere
called 'Holy Spirit', saying, 'May Thy Holy Spirit come and purify us. For the Father's name is sot
something which He has acquired, nor is the kmgdom a dignity ascribed to Him: He does not have a
beginning, so that at a certain moment He begins to be Father or King, but He is eternal and so is
eternally Father and King. In no sense at all, therefore, has He either begun to exist or begun to exist
as Father or King. And if He exists eternally, not only is He eternally Father and King but also the
Son and Holy Spirit co-exist with Him eternally in substantial form, having their being from Him
and by nature inhering in Him beyond any cause or principle: they are not sequent to Him, nor have
they come into existence after Him in a contingent manner. The relationship of co-inherence
between the Persons embraces all three of them simultaneously, not permitting any of the three to
be regarded as prior or sequent to the others.
At the outset of this prayer, then, we honor the coessential and supraessential Trinity as the creative
cause of our coming into existence. Secondly, we are taught to proclaim the grace of our adoption,
since we have been found worthy of addressing our Creator by nature as our Father by grace. Thus,
venerating this title of our begetter by grace, we strive to stamp our Creator's qualities on our lives,
sanctifying His name on earth, taking after Him as our Father, showing ourselves to be His children
through our actions, and through all that we think or do glorifying the author of this adoption, who
is by nature Son of the Father.
We hallow or sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify our desire for
material things and purify ourselves of corrupting passions. For sanctification is truly the complete
mortification and cessation of desire in the senses. When we have achieved this we assuage the
uncouth turbulence of our mcensive power, for the desire that arouses it and persuades it to fight for
its own pleasures has now been quelled by holiness. For anger, being by nature the protagonist of
desire, stops of its own accord when once it sees the desire has been put to death.
It is thus fitting that, anger and desire repudiated, we should next invoke the rule of the kingdom of
God the Father with the words 'Thy kingdom come' (Matt. 6:10), that is, 'May the Holy Spirit
come": for, having put away these things, we are now made into a temple for God through the Holy
Spirit by the teaching and practice of gentleness. "For on whom shall I rest,' says Scripture, 'but on
him who is gentle and humble, and trembles at my words?' (cf. Isa, 66:2). It is dear from this that
the kingdom of God the Father belongs to the humble and the gentle. For 'blessed are the gentle, for
they will inherit the earth' (Matt. 5:5). It is not this physical earth, which by nature occupies a
middle place in the universe, that God promises as an inheritance for those who love Him - not, at
least, if He is speaking truly when He says, 'In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in.
marriage, but are as the angels in heaven' (Matt. 22:30), and 'Come, you whom my Father has
blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world' (Matt. 25:34), and
elsewhere again to someone else who has striven with goodwill, 'Enter into the joy of your Lord'
(Matt. 25:21). And after the Lord St Paul also says, 'The trumpet will sound and first the dead in
Christ will rise up incorrupt; then we who are alive and remain will be caught up with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be with the Lord for ever' (cf. 1 Thess. 4:16-17).
Since these things have been promised to those who love the Lord, what man prompted by
intelligence and wishing to serve it would ever say, from a literal reading of Scripture alone, that
heaven, and the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world, and the mystically hidden joy
of the Lord, and the perpetual dwelling with the Lord enjoyed by the saints, are to be identified with
the earth? In this text (Matt. 5:5) I drink that the word 'earth' signifies the resolution and strength of
the inner stability, immovably rooted in goodness, that is possessed by gentle, people.
This state of stability exists eternally with the Lord, contains unfailing joy, enables the gentle to
attain the kingdom prepared from the beginning, and has its station and dignity in heaven. It also
permits the gentle to inherit the principle of virtue, as if virtue were the earth that occupies a middle
place in the universe. For the gentle person holds a middle position between honor and obloquy, and
remains dispassionate, neither puffed up by the first nor cast down by the second. For the
intelligence is by nature superior to both praise and blame; and so, when it has put away the sensual
desire, it is no longer troubled by either the one or the other, having anchored the whole power of
the soul in divine and unassailable liberty. The Lord, wanting to impart this liberty to His disciples
says, 'Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will
find rest for your souls' (Matt. 1 1 :29). He calls the rule of the divine kingdom "rest' because it
confers on those worthy of it a lordship free from all servitude.
If the indestructible power of the pure kingdom is given to the humble and the gentle, what man
will be so lacking in love and so completely without appetite for divine blessings that he will not
desire the greatest degree of humility and gentleness in order to take on the stamp of the divine
kingdom, so far as this is possible for men, and to bear in himself by grace an exact spiritual
likeness of Christ, who is by nature the truly great king? In this likeness, says St Paul, 'there is
neither male nor female' (Gal. 3:28), that is, there is neither anger nor desire. Of these, the first
tyrannically perverts judgment and makes the mind betray the law of nature, while the second
scorns the one dispassionate cause and nature, that alone is traly desirable, in favor of what is
inferior, giving preference to the flesh rather than to the spirit, and taking pleasure more in visible
things than in the magnificence and glory of intelligible realities. In this way with the lubricity of
sensual pleasure it seduces the intellect from the divine perception of spiritual realities that is proper
to it.
It is our aim to make the intelligence stand alone, stripped through the virtues of its affection for the
body: for this affection, even when totally dispassionate, is still natural. The spirit, completely
triumphing over nature, has to persuade the intellect to desist from moral philosophy m older to
commune with the supra-essential Logos through direct and undivided contemplation, in spite of the
fact that moral philosophy help the intellect to cut itself off from, and to go beyond, things
pertaining to the flux of time. For when the intellect has become free from its attachment to sensible
objects, it should not be burdened my longer with preoccupations about morality as with a shaggy
cloak.
Elijah clearly reveals this mystery in a typological manner through his actions (cf. 2 Kgs. 2:11-14).
For when he was borne aloft he gave Elisha his cloak, that is, the mortification of the flesh which
constitutes the chief glory of moral conduct. He did this so that Elisha should have the support of
the Spirit in his battle against hostile powers and should triumph over the flux and instability of
nature, typified by the Jordan: so that, in other words, he would not be immersed in the turbidity
and slime of material attachment and thus prevented from Crossing over into the holy land.
Meanwhile, Elijah himself advanced freely towards God, Unencumbered by attachment to any
created thing. His desire being undivided and his will unmixed, he made his dwelling with Him who
is simple by nature, carried there by the interdependent cardinal virtues, harnessed spiritually to one
another like horses of fire.
Elijah knew that in the disciple of Christ there must be no imbalance of dispositions, for such
diversity is proof of lack of inward unity. Thus the passion of desire produces a diffusion of blood
around the heart, and the incensive power when roused causes the blood to boil. He who already
lives and moves and has his being in Christ (cf. Acts 17:28) has annulled in himself the production
of what is imbalanced and disunited: as 1 have said, he does not bear within him, like male and
female, the opposing dispositions of such passions. In this way, the intelligence is not enslaved by
the passions and made subject to their fickleness. Naturally endowed with the holiness of the divine
image, the intelligence urges the soul to conform itself by its own free choice to the divine likeness,
in this way the soul is able to participate in the great kingdom that exists in a substantive manner in
God, the Father of all, and to become a translucent abode of the Holy Spirit, receiving - if it may be
expressed in this way - the whole authority of the knowledge of the divine nature in so far as this is
possible. Where this authority prevails, the production of what is inferior automatically comes to an
end and only what is superior is generated; for the soul that through the grace of its calling
resembles God keeps inviolate withm itself the Substance of the blessings bestowed upon it. In
souls such as this Christ always desires to be bom in a mystical way, becoming incarnate in those
who attain salvation, and making the soul that gives birth to Him a Virgin Mother; for such a soul,
to put it briefly, is not conditioned by categories like those of male and female that typify a nature
subject to generation and corruption.
Let no one be shocked to hear me speak of the corruption that is inherent in generation. For when
one has justly and dispassionately examined the nature of what comes into being and ceases to be,
one will clearly see that generation begins with corruption and ends in corruption. Christ, and the
Christ-like way of life and understanding, as 1 have said, are free of the passions characteristic of
such generation. At least, this is the case if St Paul was speaking the truth when he said that in
Christ Jesus "there is neither male nor female" (Gal. 3:28), meaning by these terms the
characteristics and passions of a nature subject to generation and corruption. For in Christ and the
Christ-like way of life there is only a deifonn understanding imbued with divine knowledge, and a
single disposition of will and purpose that chooses only virtue.
Moreover, in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew (cf. Gal. 3:28). By this is meant differing or,
rather, contrary views about God. The Greek affirms a host of ruling principles and divides the one
fundamental principle into opposing operations and powers, devising a polytheistic worship full of
contradictions because of the multitude of objects to be venerated, and ridiculous because of its
many modes of veneration. The Jew affirms a fundamental principle which, although one, is
narrow, imperfect and almost non-existent, since it is devoid of immanent consciousness and life;
and so he falls into an evil which is just as bad as that into which the Greek falls for the opposite
reason, namely disbelief in the true God. For he limits the fundamental principle to a single Person,
one that exists without Logos and Spirit, or that merely possesses Logos and Spirit as qualities; for
he fails to realize what kind of God this would be if deprived of these two other Persons, or how He
could be God if assigned them as accidents by participation, as is the case with created intelligent
beings. Neither Greek nor Jew, then, has any place at all in Christ. In Him there is only the principle
of true religion and the steadfast law of mystical theology, that rejects both the dilatation of the
Divinity, as in Greek polytheism, and the contraction of the Divinity, as in Jewish monotheism. In
this way the Divine is not full of internal contradictions, as it is with the Greeks, because of a
natural plurality, nor is it regarded as passible, as it is by the Jews, because of being a single Person,
deprived of Logos and Spirit, or only possessing Logos and Spirit as qualities, without itself being
Intellect and Logos and Spirit.
Mystical theology teaches us, who through faith have been adopted by grace and brought to the
knowledge of truth, to recognize one nature and power of the Divinity, that is to say, one God
contemplated in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It teaches us to know God as a single unoriginate
Intellect, self-existent, the begetter of a single, self-existent, unoriginate Logos, and the source of a
single everlasting life, self-existent as the Holy Spirit: a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in Trinity. The
Divinity is not one thing in another thing: the Trinity is not in the Unity like an accident in a
substance or vice versa, for God is without qualities. The Divinity is not one thing and another
thing: the Unity does not differ from the Trinity by distinction of nature; the nature is simple and
single in both. Nor in the Divinity is one thing dependent on or prior to another: the Trinity is not
distinguished from the Unity, or the Unity from the Trinity, by inferiority of power; nor is the Unity
distinguished from the Trinity as something common and general abstracted in a purely conceptual
manner from the particulars in which it occurs: it is a substantively self-subsistent essence and a
truly self-consolidating power. Nor in the Divinity has one thing come into being through another:
there is within it no such mediating relationship as that of cause and effect, since it is altogether
identical with itself and free from relationships. Nor in the Divinity is one thing derived from
another: the Trinity does not derive from the Unity, since it is ungenerated and self -manifested. On
the contrary, the Unity and the Trinity are both affirmed and conceived as truly one and the same,
the first denoting the principle of essence, the second the mode of existence. The whole is the single
Unity, not divided by the Persons; and the whole is also the single Trinity, the Persons of which are
not confused by the Unity. Thus polytheism is not introduced by division of the Unity or disbelief in
the true God by confusion of the Persons.
When Christian doctrine avoids these errors it achieves a genuine splendor. By Christian doctrine I
mean the teaching of Christ, the new proclamation of trath in which there is neither male nor
female, that is, the signs and passions of human nature when subject to birth and decay; neither
Greek nor Jew, that is, contrary views of the Divinity; neither uncircumcision nor circumcision (cf.
Col. 3:11), that is, the different kinds of worship appropriate to these views, the first divinizing
nature because of the passions and setting the creature against the Creator, and the second because
of its misuse of symbols of the Law vilifying visible creation and slandering the Creator as the
source of evil. Both constitute equally an insult to the Divine and lead equally to evil.
Neither in Christian doctrine is there barbarian or Scythian, that is, the deliberate fragmentation of
the single nature of human beings which has made them subject to the unnatural law of mutual
slaughter; neither is there bond or free, that IS, the fortuitous division of this same nature which
leads to one person despising another although both are by nature of an equal dignity, and which
encourages men to dominate others tyrannically, thus violating the divine image in man. 'But Christ
is all and in all' (Col. 3:1 1), in spirit fashioning the unoriginate kingdom by means of that which
lies beyond nature and law.
This kingdom is characterized, as we have shown, by humility and gentleness of heart. It is the
combination of these two qualities that constitutes the perfection of the person-created according to
Christ. For every humbler person is invariably gentle and every gentle person is invariably humble.
A person is humble when he knows that his very being is on loan to him. He is gentle when he
realizes how to use the powers given to him in a manner that accords with nature and, withdrawing
their activity completely from the senses, places them at the service of the intelligence in order to
produce the virtues. In this way his intellect moves incessantly towards God, while where his senses
are concerned he is not in the least perturbed by any of the things that afflict the body, nor does he
stamp his soul with any trace of distress, thereby disrupting his joy -creative state. For he does not
regard what is painful in the senses as a privation of pleasure: He knows only one pleasure, the
marriage of the soul with the Logos. To be deprived of this marriage is endless torment, extending
by nature through all the ages. Thus when he has left the body and all that pertains to it, he is
impelled towards union with the divine; for even if he were to be master of the whole world, he
would still recognize only one real disaster: failure to attain by grace the deification for which he is
hoping.
Let us, then, 'cleanse ourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit' (2 Cor. 7:1), so that when
we have extinguished our sensual desire, which indecently wantons with the passions, we may
hallow the divine name. And with our intelligence let us bind fast our anger, deranged and frenzied
by sensual pleasure, so that we may receive the kingdom of God the Father, that comes to us
through gentleness.
Having done all this, we may go on to the next phrase of the prayer, saying, 'Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10). He who worships God mystically with the faculty of the
intelligence alone, keeping it free from sensual desire and anger, fulfils the divine will on earth just
as the orders of angels fulfill it in heaven. He has become in all things a co-worshipper and fellowcitizen
with the angels, conforming to St Paul's statement, 'Our citizenship is in heaven' (Phil. 3:20).
Among the angels desire does not sap the intellect's intensity through sensual pleasure, nor does
anger make them rave and storm indecently at their fellow creatures: there is only the intelligence
naturally leading intelligent beings towards the source of intelligence, the Logos Himself. God
rejoices in intelligence alone and this is what He demands from us His servants. He reveals this
when He says to David, 'What have I in heaven, and besides yourself what have I desired on earth?'
(Ps. 73:25. LXX). Nothing is offered to God in heaven by the holy angels except intelligent
worship; and it is this that God also demands from us when He teaches us to say in our prayers,
'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10).
Let our intelligence, then, be moved to seek God, let our desire be roused in longing for Him, and
let our incensive power struggle to keep guard over our attachment to Him. Or, more precisely, let
our whole intellect be directed towards God, tensed by our incensive power as if by some nerve,
and fired with longing by our desire at its most ardent. For if we imitate the heavenly angels in this
way, we will find ourselves always worshipping God, behaving on earth as the angels do in heaven.
For, like that of the angels, our intellect will not be attracted in the least by anything less than God.
If we live in the way we have promised, we will receive, as daily and life-giving bread for the
nourishment of our souls and the maintenance of the good state with which we have been blessed,
the Logos Himself; for if was He who said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven and gives
life to the world', (cf. John 6:33-35). In proportion to our capacity the Logos will become
everything for us who are nourished through virtue and wisdom; and in accordance with His own
judgment He will be embodied differently in each recipient of salvation while we are still living in
this age. This is indicated in the phrase of the prayer which says, 'Give us this day our daily bread"
(Matt. 6:11).
I believe that the expression "this day" refers to the present age. It is as if one should say, after a
clearer understanding of the context of the prayer, "Since we are in this present mortal life, give us
this day our daily bread which Thou hast originally prepared for human nature so that it might
become immortal (cf Gen. 1:9); for in this way the food of the bread of life and knowledge will
triumph over the death that comes through sin." The transgression of the divine commandment
prevented the first man from partaking of this bread (cf. Gen. 3:19). Indeed, had he taken his fill of
this divine food, he would not have been made subject to death through sin.
He who prays to receive this daily bread, however, does not automatically receive it all as it is in
itself: he receives it in accordance with his receptive capacity. For the Bread of Life in His love
gives Himself to all who ask, but He does not give to all in the same way. He gives liberally to those
who have done great things, and more sparingly to those who have achieved less. Thus He gives to
each person in accordance with the receptive capacity of his or her intellect.
The Savior Himself has led me to this interpretation of the phrase we are considering, because He
commands His disciples explicitly not to take any thought at all for sensible food saying, "Do not
worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will
put on. For the heathen seek all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things as well will be given to you' (Matt. 6:25, 32, 33). How then can it
be that He teaches us to pray for what He commands us not to seek? Obviously He does not order
us to do anything of the kind: we should ask in prayer only for things that we are commanded to
seek. If the Savior commanded us to seek only the kingdom of God and righteousness, then surely
He intended those who desire divine gifts to ask for this kingdom in their prayers, in this way, by
showing what petitions are blessed by His grace. He conjoins the intention of those who ask with
the will of Him who bestows the grace.
If, however, we also take this clause to mean we should pray for the daily bread that sustains our
present life, let us be careful not to overstep the bounds of the prayer, presumptuously assuming that
we will live for many cycles of years and forgetting that we are mortal and that our life passes by
like a shadow; but free from anxiety let us pray for bread sufficient for one day at a time, thus
showing that as Christian philosophers we make life a rehearsal for death, in our purpose
anticipating nature and, even before death comes, cutting off the soul's anxiety about bodily things.
In this way the soul will not transfer its natural appetite to material things, attaching itself to what is
corruptible, and will not learn the greed that deprives it of a rich possession of divine blessings.
Let us therefore shun the love of matter and our attachment to matter with all the strength we have,
as if washing dust from our spiritual eyes; and let us be satisfied simply with what sustains our
present life, not with what pampers it. Let us pray to God for (his, as we have been taught, so that
we may keep our souls unenslaved and absolutely free from domination by any of the visible things
loved for the sake of the body. Let us show that we eat for the sake of living, and not be guilty of
living for the sake of eating. The first is a sign of intelligence, the second proof of its absence. And
let us be exact in the way we observe this prayer, thereby showing through our actions that we
cleave fast to the one life lived in the spirit alone, and that we use our present life to acquire this
spiritual life. We use it, that is to say, only in so far as we do not refuse to sustain our body with
bread and to keep it as far as possible in its natural state of good health, our aim being not just to
live but to live for God. For we make the body, rendered intelligent by the virtues, a messenger of
the soul, and the soul, once it is firmly established in the good, a herald of God; and on the natural
plane we restrict our prayer for this bread to one day only, not daring to extend our petition for it to
a second day because of Him who gave us the prayer. When we have thus conformed ourselves to
the sense of the prayer, we can proceed, in purity to the next petition, saying, 'And forgive us our
debts as we forgive our debtors' (Matt. 6:12).
According to the first interpretation proposed for the preceding section of the prayer, the words 'this
day" symbolize the present age; and the person who prays in this age for the incorruptible bread of
wisdom, from which we were cutoff by the original transgression, delights in one thing only: the
attaimnent of divme blessings. It is God who by nature bestows these blessings, but it is the
recipient's free will that safeguards them. Similarly, such a person knows only one pain: the failure
to attain these blessings. It is the devil who prompts this failure, but it is the person himself who
makes it an actuality, because of his weakness of will with regard to the divine, and because he does
not hold fast to the precious gift for which he has prayed. But if someone is not in the least
concerned with anything in the visible world, and consequently is not overcome by any bodily
affliction, then such a person truly and dispassionately forgives those who sin against him: for no
one can rob him of the good to which he aspires and which by nature is unassailable.
A person of this land makes himself a pattern of virtue for God, if it may be put in this way: for by
saying 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors', he exhorts God, who is beyond imitation, to
come and imitate him: and he begs God to treat him as he himself has treated his neighbors. For he
wishes to be forgiven by God as he himself has forgiven the debts of those who have sinned against
him: hence, just as God dispassionately forgives His creatures, so such a person must himself
remain dispassionate in the face of what happens to him and forgive those who offend him. He must
not allow the memory of things that afflict him to be stamped on his intellect lest he inwardly
sunders human nature by separating himself from some other man, although he is a man himself.
When a man's will is in union with: the principle of nature in this way, God and nature are naturally
reconciled: but, failing such a union, our nature remains self-divided in its will and cannot receive
God's gift of Himself.
This surely is why God wishes us first to be reconciled with one another. He Himself has no need to
learn from us how to be reconciled with sinners and to waive the penalty for a multitude of
atrocious crimes: but He wishes to purify us of our passions and show us that the measure of grace
conferred on those who are forgiven corresponds to their inward state. It is evident that when man's
will is m union with the principle of nature, he is not m a state of rebellion against God. Since the
principle of nature is a law both natural and divine, and there is nothing in it contrary to the Logos,
when a man's will functions in accordance with this principle it accords with God in all things. Such
a condition of the will is an inner state actively characterized by the grace of what is good by nature
and hence productive of virtue.
This, then, is the inner state of the man who prays for Gnostic bread. After him comes the man who,
constrained by nature, seeks ordinary bread, but sufficient for one day only. He will attain the same
inner state as the first when he has forgiven his debtors their debts, as he knows that he is by nature
mortal. Moreover, by accepting the uncertainty of the future and waiting each day for what is
provided by nature, he anticipates nature, choosing to become dead to the world and to comply with
the text, 'For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long: we are regarded as sheep for
slaughtering' (Ps. 44:22: Rom. 8:36). He makes his peace with all in order to be free from all the
depravities of this present age when he departs to eternal life, and to receive from the Judge and
Savior of the universe a just recompense for what he has done in this life. Both these kinds of men,
therefore, need to exhibit a pure disposition towards those who have offended them. This is true in
general: but it has particular reference to the concluding words of the prayer: 'And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from what is evil' (Matt. 6:13).
Scripture reveals in these words that he who has not completely forgiven those who stumble, and
has not brought his heart to God free from grievance and illuminated with the light of reconciliation
with his neighbor, will fail to attain the grace of the blessings he has prayed for. Indeed, he will
justly be handed over to temptation and to evil, so that, having retracted his judgments of other
people, he may learn to purify himself of his own sins. Scripture here means by temptation the law
of sin, of which the first man was free when he was created. And by 'what is evil' it means the devil,
who has mixed this law of sin with human nature, deceitfully persuading man to transfer his soul's
desire from what is permitted to what is forbidden, and to turn aside to the transgression of the
divine commandment. The result of this is the loss of the incorruptibility which had been given by
grace.
Alternatively, by temptation Scripture means the soul's predilection for the passions of the flesh:
and by 'what is evil' the actual way in which this impassioned proclivity is satisfied. The just Judge
does not liberate a man from either of these if he has not forgiven his debtors their debts. So long as
he prays merely in words for liberation, God. allows him to be defiled by the law of sin: and so long
as his will is stubborn and raw. He abandons him to the domination of evil: for he has chosen the
shameful passions (cf Rom. 1 :26), of which the devil is the sower, in preference to nature, of which
God is the creator. God leaves him free to incline, if he so wishes, towards the passions of the
-flesh, and actually to satisfy that inclination. Valuing the insubstantial passions more highly than
nature, in his concern for these passions he has become ignorant of the principle of nature. Had he
followed that principle, he would have known what constitutes the law of nature and what the
tyranny of the passions - a tyranny brought about, not by nature, but by deliberate choice. He would
then have accepted the law of nature that is maintained through activities which are natural: and he
would have expelled the tyranny of the passions completely from his will. He would have obeyed
nature with his intelligence, for nature in itself is pure and undefiled, faultless, free from hatred and
alienation, and he would have made his will once more a companion to nature, totally stripped of
everything not bestowed by the principle of nature. In this way he would have eradicated all hatred
for and all alienation from what is by nature akm to him, so that when saying this prayer he would
be heard and would receive from God a double rather than a single grace: forgiveness for offences
already committed, and protection and deliverance from those which lie in the future. For he would
not be allowed to enter into temptation and to fall into the power of evil for one simple reason: his
readiness to forgive his neighbors their debts.
Thus - to go back a little and comment briefly on what has been said - if we really wish to be
delivered from evil and not to enter into temptation, we should trust in God and forgive our debtors
their debts. "For if you do not forgive people their sins', says Scripture, 'your heavenly Father will
not forgive you yours' (Matt. 6:15). We should do this not only to receive forgiveness for the
offences we have committed, but also to defeat the law of sin -because then we would not be
allowed to undergo the experience of bemg tempted by it - and to trample on the originator of this
law, the evil serpent from whom we entreat God to deliver us. For Christ, who has overcome the
world (cf. John 16:33), is our leader. He arms us with the laws of the commandments, and by
enabling us to reject the passions He unites us m pure love with nature itself. Being the bread of
life, of wisdom, spiritual knowledge and righteousness. He arouses in us an insatiable desire for
Himself If we fulfill His Father's will He makes us co-worshippers with the angels, when in our
conduct we imitate them as we should and so conform to the heavenly state. Then He leads us up
still further on the supreme ascent of divine truth to the Father of lights, and makes us share in the
divine nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1 :4) through participation by grace in the Holy Spirit. By virtue of this
participation we are called children of God and, cleansed from all stain, in a manner beyond
circumscription, we all encircle Him who is the author of this grace and by nature the Son of the
Father. From Him, through Him and in Him we have and always will have our being, our
movement and our life (cf. Acts 17:28). When we pray, let our aim be this mystery of deification,
which shows us what we were once like and what the self- emptying of the only -begotten Son
through the flesh has now made us; which shows us, that is, the depths to which we were dragged
down by the weight of sin, and the heights to which we have been raised by His compassionate
hand. In this way we shall come to have greater love for Him who has prepared this salvation for us
with such wisdom. Bringing the prayer to fulfillment through our actions, we shall manifestly
proclaim God as our true Father, by grace. We shall show that the evil one, who is always
tyrannically attempting to gain control of our nature through the shameful passions, is not the father
of our life, and that we are not unwittingly exchanging life for death. For both God and the devil
naturally impart their qualities to those who approach either of them: God bestows eternal life on
those who love Him, while the devil, operating through temptations that we subject to our volition,
causes the death of his followers.
For according to Scripture there are two kinds of temptation, one pleasurable, the other painful. One
is the result of deliberate choice: the other is unsought. The first kind generates sin. We have been
commanded by the Lord's teaching to pray not to fall into this, for He says, "Lead us not into
temptation" (Matt. 6:13), and 'Watch and pray so that you do not enter into temptation' (Matt.
26:41). The other kind of temptation punishes sin, chastising a sin-loving disposition with sufferings
that are unsought. To the person who endures this kind of temptation - which comes in the form of a
trial - and who in particular is not riveted to evil, the words of the apostle James may be applied:
'My brethren, regard it as a great joy whenever you find yourselves beset by many trials; because
the testing of your faith produces patient endurance; this endurance shapes the character; and the
character thus shaped should be brought to fruition' (cf. Jas. 1 :2-4: Rom. 5:4). The evil one works
his malice both through the temptation that is subject to our volition and through the trial that comes
unsought. Where the first is concerned, by sowing the soul with bodily pleasures and by exciting it
in this manner, he contrives to divert its desire away from divine love. Where the trial is concerned,
in his wish to destroy nature through pain, he cunningly tries to force the soul, enervated by its
sufferings, to calumniate and abuse the Creator.
But, knowing the wiles of the evil one, let us pray for deliverance from the temptations subject to
our volition, so that we do not defied our desire from divine love; and let us bravely endure the
trials that come unsought, since they visit us with God's consent and by enduring them we show that
we have not put nature before the Creator of nature.
May all of us who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be delivered from the present
delights and the future afflictions of the evil one by participating in the reality of the blessings held
in store and already revealed to us in Christ our Lord Himself, who alone with the Father and the
Holy Spirit is praised by all creation. Amen.
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