On the Lord’s Prayer 1 part 4/4

Let us, then, from this point make an enumeration of human offenses against God.

The first penalty man incurred toward God was that he removed himself from his Maker, and deserted to the enemy, becoming a fugitive from his natural master and an apostate.

Second, that he exchanged the evil slavery of sin for the freedom of self-determination, and preferred, instead of being with God, to be tyrannized by the corrupting power.

But also the failure to look upon the beauty of the Maker, and the turning of one's face instead toward the ugliness of sin — as what second among evils might this be judged? And the disdain for the divine good things, and the preference for the enticements of the evil one — to what rank of punishment should this be assigned? And the effacement of the image, and the marring of the divine character formed in us at the first creation, and the loss of the drachma, and the departure from the Father's table, and the attachment to the foul-smelling life of the swine, and the corruption of the precious wealth, and all such offenses as one may see set forth both through Scripture and through reasoning — what account could enumerate them? Since, then, humanity is answerable to God for the payment of punishment in things so many and so great, for this reason, it seems to me, the teaching of prayer instructs us in no way to be bold in our approach to God as though with a clean conscience, even if one be as far removed as possible from human transgressions.

For perhaps someone, having trained his own life by the commandments after the manner of that rich young man, might have such a thing to boast of concerning his own life and say to God, 'All these I have kept from my youth,' and might suppose that, because he has offended in nothing against the commandments, the petition for the remission of debts is not very fitting for him — as fitting only for those who have sinned — and says that such a cry is proper for one defiled by fornication, or that the request for pardon is necessary for one who has practiced idolatry through covetousness, and, in general, for everyone who has stained the conscience of his soul through some transgression, that it is good and fitting to take refuge in mercy.

But if it be that great Elijah, or he who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, the great one among those born of women, or Peter, or Paul, or John, or any other of those who have been testified to the better end by the divine Scripture, to what use would he put such a cry, the one that begs release from debts, seeing he has no debt arising from sin? This is so that no one, looking to such examples, might become presumptuous, after the manner of that Pharisee who did not even recognize what he was by nature (for had he known that he was a man, he would surely have been taught by the holy Scripture that human nature cannot be found pure of defilement, which says that it is not possible to find a single day of human life without stain) — in order, then, that no such passion might arise in the soul of one who approaches God through prayer, the teaching enjoins us not to look to our own achievements, but to renew the memory of the debts common to human nature, of which surely each one also partakes himself, sharing as he does in nature's portion, and to entreat the Judge to grant an amnesty for our transgressions.

And it counsels us to do likewise: to be occupied with earthly enjoyment, and to drag our own heart down with thoughts that cling to the ground and grovel low, and to 'go upon our belly' — that is, to spend our time about a life of pleasure. Being, then, in such a state, like that prodigal son after the long wretchedness he endured while feeding swine, when we return to ourselves as he did, and take thought of our heavenly Father, we do well to make use of such words as, 'Forgive us our debts'; so that even if one be a Moses or a Samuel, or any other of those distinguished for virtue, he considers this cry no less fitting for himself — inasmuch as he is a man, sharing in the nature of Adam, and sharing also in his fall.

For since, as the apostle says, 'in Adam we all die,' it is fitting that the cry proper to Adam's repentance be common to all who have died together with him, so that, the amnesty of our transgressions being granted to us, we might again be saved by grace through the Lord, as the apostle says.

But these things have been said as one might consider the matter before us by looking at the more general sense.

But if one should seek the true meaning of the saying, I do not think there is need, in our own case, to refer the sense to what is common to human nature.

For conscience, from the things each has lived through, is sufficient to make the request for mercy necessary.

For I think that, since our life in this present existence is exercised in manifold ways — partly according to the soul and the intellect, partly according to the senses of the body — it is difficult, or even altogether impossible, not to be swept along by some one passion toward sin.

What I mean is this: since this pleasure-loving life according to the body is apportioned among our senses, while the life according to the soul is contemplated in the impulse of the intellect and in the movement of moral choice — who is so lofty and so great of soul in his understanding as to be, through both, outside the defilement of vice? Who is sinless in respect of the eye? Who is blameless in respect of hearing? Who is a stranger to this brutish pleasure of the throat? Who is pure of the contact that grasps at sin through touch? Who does not know the riddle of Scripture, which says that death has entered through the windows? For the senses, through which the soul, peering out, lays hold of things outside according to its own inclination, Scripture has called windows, through which, it says, death makes a way of entrance.

For in truth the eye often becomes the entrance of many deaths — whether seeing someone in anger and being roused in turn to the like passion, or seeing someone prospering beyond his desert and being inflamed to envy, or seeing someone behaving arrogantly and falling into hatred, or seeing some fair-colored substance, or a more comely shaping of form, and sliding wholly into desire for the thing that has pleased it.

In this way the ear too opens windows for death, through which, by hearing, it admits many passions into the soul: fear, grief, anger, pleasure, desire, the dissolving of laughter, and such things.

And the enjoyment of taste is, as one might say, the mother of particular evils.

For who does not know that preoccupation with the throat is nearly the root of the transgressions concerning this life? For from it hang luxury, drunkenness, gluttony, dissoluteness in diet, excess, satiety, revelry, and the brutish, irrational plunge into the passions of dishonor.

Likewise the sense of touch is the last of all sins.

For all the things that are practiced upon the body by lovers of pleasure are maladies of the faculty of touch, the particulars of which it would take long to recount.

Nor indeed is it fitting to mix in, along with more dignified discourse, the accusations that belong to touch.

But as for the swarm of offenses committed in respect of the soul and moral choice, what account could enumerate them? 'From within,' he says, 'proceed evil thoughts.'

And he added the list of the things that defile us through inward reflection.

If, then, the nets of sin are thus spread around us from every side, through all the organs of sense, through the inward movements of the heart of the soul, who will boast, as Wisdom says, that he has a pure heart? Who has been cleansed from defilement? — as Job testifies concerning this.

Defilement of the soul's purity is pleasure, which mingles itself with human life in many parts and in many ways, through both soul and body — through reflections, through senses, through movements of intention, through bodily activities.

Who then has a soul pure of this stain? How has he not been struck by conceit? How has he not been trodden by the foot of arrogance? Whose hand has the sinful hand not shaken? Whose foot has not run into wickedness? Whom has a disorderly eye not defiled, and undisciplined hearing not sullied, and taste not busied itself for its own sake, and whose heart has remained inactive toward vain motions? Since, then, these things attend us — worse and harsher in those more brutish, more moderate in those more careful — yet in every way and altogether, in all who share in our common nature, there is also a sharing in the transgressions of that nature; for this reason, falling down before God through prayer, we entreat that our debts be forgiven us.

But such a cry is ineffective, and does not reach the divine ears, unless our conscience cries out with us that the sharing of mercy is good.

For he who judges that loving-kindness is fitting for God (for he would not, unless he thought it fitting, have thought it worthy to come to what is unfitting and inappropriate) — such a one would do well to confirm by his own deeds his judgment concerning the good, so that he might not hear from the righteous Judge such a word as, 'Physician, heal yourself.'

'You exhort me to loving-kindness, of which you yourself gave no share to your neighbor? You ask for the remission of debts?'

'How then do you throttle your debtor? You pray that the bond written against you be wiped out, you who carefully keep the contracts of those in your debt? You ask for the cutting-off of debts, you who feed the loan on interest? Your debtor is in prison, and you are in the house of prayer? He is in anguish over his debts, and you deem it right that your own debt be forgiven you? Your prayer is unheard, for the voice of the one in anguish drowns it out.'

If you release the bodily debt, the bonds of your soul will be loosed for you.

If you forgive, you shall be forgiven; you shall be your own judge, you shall be your own lawgiver, bringing upon yourself, by your disposition toward the one subject to you, the verdict from above.

Something of this sort, it seems to me, the Lord also teaches in another discourse, setting forth this doctrine by way of narrative, where a certain king appears in the story, sitting in fearsome state, bringing his servants to judgment, and seeking an account of what each had managed.

One of the debtors having been brought forward, and having obtained loving-kindness, since, falling down, he offered supplication in place of the payment of the money, but then, being harshly and cruelly disposed toward his fellow servant over a moderate debt, made the king angry at his cruelty toward his fellow servant, and the king ordered the torturers to alienate him, together with his whole family, from the king's house, and to extend the punishment for so long, until he should pay the fitting penalty in full.

For truly the debts owed to us by our brothers are like some small, easily-counted obols set beside myriads of talents, in comparison with our own transgressions against God.

It is certainly a loss, or an occasion for insult brought about by someone, or the wickedness of a servant, or even a plot against one's bodily life.

Then you are provoked, in the inflammation of your heart, to take vengeance for these things, and you seek out every device for the punishment of those who have previously wronged you.

Do you not consider — if your anger blazes against a servant — that it is not nature, but power, that has divided humanity into slavery and mastery?

For the steward of the universe ordained by law only that irrational nature should serve man, as the prophet says: 'You have put all things under his feet, sheep and all oxen, and the birds, and the cattle, and the fish.'

But man he adorned with the grace of self-determination.

So that he who has been yoked under you by custom and law has an equal standing with you in the dignity of nature: he did not come into being from you, nor does he live in you, nor has he received from you the activities of body and soul that he possesses.

Why then do you seethe so violently against him with anger, when someone has been negligent, or has run away, or perhaps has shown contempt toward you to your face — when you ought rather to look upon yourself, and consider what sort of person you have become toward your own Master, who formed you and brought you forth through birth, and made you a partaker of the wonders in the world, who set forth the sun for your enjoyment, and freely granted you all the means for living from the elements — from earth and fire and air and water — who supplied you with the grace of understanding, the perceptive sense, the knowledge that discerns good from worse? How is it, then — are you truly obedient and blameless toward such a Master? Did you not run away as a fugitive to sin? Did you not exchange him for an evil mastery? Did you not, so far as lay in your power, leave desolate the Master's house, in which you were appointed to work and to keep watch, having deserted it? And are not the transgressions here enumerated committed with God as witness, he who is everywhere present and oversees all things — whatever improper thing you do, or say, or think? Being, then, such a one, and indebted for so much, do you think you are granting some great thing to your fellow servant, if through patience you should overlook something of what has been done amiss against you? If, therefore, we intend to bring before God our supplication for mercy and pardon, let us prepare boldness in our conscience, so as to set our own life forward as advocate for this word, and to say truthfully that we too have forgiven those who owe us.

But what does the clause that follows next upon what has been said intend? I think it necessary not to pass over this too without examination, so that, knowing to whom we pray, we may bring our supplication with the soul and not with the body alone.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Perhaps, then, 'temptation' is also one of the names conceived concerning him — the evil one — and the connection of what has been said confirms this supposition for us.

For having said, 'Lead us not into temptation,' he added 'to be delivered from the evil one,' as though the same thing were signified by both names.

For if he who has not entered into temptation is altogether outside the evil one, and he who has come to be in temptation is of necessity in the evil one, then temptation and the evil one are, as regards their meaning, one and the same thing.

What then does this teaching of prayer enjoin upon us? To become outside the things observed in this world, as he says elsewhere to the disciples, that 'the whole world lies in the evil one.'

Therefore he who wishes to be outside the evil one will necessarily remove himself from the world.

For temptation has no room to touch the soul, unless the evil one, having wrapped this worldly preoccupation like a bait around his hook, holds it out to the more greedy.

But the thought might become clearer to us, rather, through other examples.

The sea is often violent from a heavy swell, but not so for those who dwell far removed from it.

Fire is destructive, but only of the material that falls under it.

Just as he who flees the calamities of the evils arising from war prays not to fall into war, and he who fears fire prays not to come to be in it, and he who shudders at the sea prays not to come under the necessity of a voyage, so too let him who fears the assault of the evil one pray not to come to be in him.

As we have said before, Scripture says that the world lies in the evil one, and that in worldly affairs are the occasions of temptations; rightly and fittingly, then, does he who prays to be delivered from the evil one entreat to be outside of temptations.

For no one would swallow the hook, without having gulped down the bait in his greediness.

But let us too rise up and say to God, 'Lead us not into temptation' — that is, into the evils of life — 'but deliver us from the evil one,' who has acquired power in this world; from whom may we be delivered by the grace of Christ our God, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.