The Lord's Prayer

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

SUMMARY: In the Lord’s prayer is comprised an epitome of the whole Gospel. Tertullian. The Lord teaches us of the Father who is in heaven. Irenaeus. It is indisputable then that the Lord is the Son of the Creator. Clement of Alexandria. The Father is always the Father, since the Son is always with Him, on account of whom He is called the Father. Alexander of Alexandria. The Father is above all. Hippolytus. We are not permitted to pray to any other. Origen. When we call God Father, we ought to act as God’s children. Cyprian. What, moreover, does God will, but that we should walk according to His discipline? Tertullian. He who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God prays for rising and fruit bearing and perfecting of God's kingdom within him. Origen. We ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, even as we also ask that His name may be sanctified in us. Cyprian. Give us today our daily “needful bread” or “the food of today.” The Didache, and Tatian. We are enjoined to ask what is sufficient for the preservation of the substance of the body: not luxury. Hippolytus. Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian also believed Christ is the “daily bread” for Christians. It was not only in words, but in deeds also, that the Lord taught us to pray. Cyprian. He has taught us to say in prayer, “And forgive us our debts;” since indeed He is our Father, whose debtors we were, having transgressed His commandments. Irenaeus. A Christian never remembers those who have sinned against him, but forgives them. Clement of Alexandria. The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless One, and so He teaches that we beg “to have our debts remitted us.” Tertullian. Let us pray for nothing else but pardon for our sins, even though we have none. Lactantius. “Lead us not into temptation:” that is, do not allow us to be led into it, by him who tempts; but far be the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt. Tertullian. We ought therefore to pray, not that we be not tempted—that is impossible—but that we would not be encompassed by temptation. Origen. It is shown that the adversary can do nothing against us except God shall have previously permitted it. Cyprian. And when we say, “Deliver us from evil,” there remains nothing further which ought to be asked. Cyprian. Three times in a day thus pray. The Didache. For extended discussion, see Origen, On Prayer, twelve through nineteen, Tertullian, and Cyprian. The Didache: Thus pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us today our daily, needful, bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, or evil; for Yours is the power and the glory for ever.” Three times in the day thus pray.

IRENAEUS: That God is the Creator of the world is accepted even by those very persons who in many ways speak against Him, and yet acknowledge Him, styling Him the Creator, and an angel, not to mention that all the Scriptures call out to the same effect, and the Lord teaches us of this Father who is in heaven, and no other.

TATIAN: Now pray after this manner: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us the food of today. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgave those that trespassed against us. And do not bring us into temptations, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: And the Lord says in His prayer, “Our Father in heaven.” And the heavens belong to Him, who created the world. It is indisputable, then, that the Lord is the Son of the Creator.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: “But sanctify the Lord Christ,” he says, “in your hearts.” For so you have in the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be Your name.”

TERTULLIAN: The Father willed that the Son should be regarded as on earth, and Himself in heaven; to which the Son also Himself looked up, and prayed, and made supplication of the Father; to whom also He taught us to raise ourselves, and pray, “Our Father in heaven,” and so on,—although, indeed, He is everywhere present. This heaven the Father willed to be His own throne; while He made the Son to be “a little lower than the angels,” by sending Him down to the earth, but meaning at the same time to “crown Him with glory and honor,” even by taking Him back to heaven.

TERTULLIAN: In the Lord's Prayer is comprised an epitome of the whole Gospel. The prayer begins with a testimony to God, and with the reward of faith, when we say, “Our Father in the heavens;” for, in so saying, we at once pray to God, and commend faith, whose reward this appellation is. It is written, “To them who believed on Him He gave power to be called sons of God.” However, our Lord very frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us; more than that, even gave a precept “that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens:” and so, in thus praying, we are likewise obeying the precept. Happy are they who recognize their Father! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, “I have begotten sons, and they have not recognized me.” Moreover, in saying “Father,” we also call Him “God.” That appellation is one both of filial duty and of power. Again, in the Father the Son is invoked; “for I,” He says, “and the Father are One.” When we say, “Hallowed be Your name,” we pray this; that it may be hallowed in us who are in Him, as well in all others for whom the grace of God is still waiting; that we may obey this precept, too, in “praying for all”, even for our personal enemies. And therefore with suspended utterance, not saying, “Hallowed be it in us,” we say,—“in all.”

HIPPOLYTUS: I shall not indeed speak of two Gods, but of one; of two Persons however, and of a third economy, namely, the grace of the Holy Ghost. For the Father indeed is One, but there are two Persons, because there is also the Son; and then there is the third, the Holy Spirit. The Father decrees, the Word executes, and the Son is manifested, through whom the Father is believed on. The economy of harmony is led back to one God; for God is One. It is the Father who commands, and the Son who obeys, and the Holy Spirit who gives understanding: the Father who is above all, and the Son who is through all, and the Holy Spirit who is in all. And we cannot otherwise think of one God, but by believing in truth in Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

ORIGEN: Having thus learned to call these beings “angels” from their employments, we find that because they are divine they are sometimes termed “god” in the sacred Scriptures, but not so that we are commanded to honor and worship in place of God those who minister to us, and bear to us His blessings. For every prayer, and supplication, and intercession, and thanksgiving, is to be sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest, who is above all the angels, the living Word and God. And to the Word Himself shall we also pray and make intercessions, and offer thanksgivings and supplications to Him, if we have the capacity of distinguishing between the proper use and abuse of prayer. For to invoke angels without having obtained a knowledge of their nature greater than is possessed by men, would be contrary to reason. But, conformably to our hypothesis, let this knowledge of them, which is something wonderful and mysterious, be obtained. Then this knowledge, making known to us their nature, and the offices to which they are individually appointed, will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than to the Supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, and that through our Savior the Son of God.

ORIGEN: Pray to the Word of God, who is able to heal, and still more to his Father.

ORIGEN: Celsus, a pagan critic, forgets that he is addressing Christians, who pray to God alone through Jesus.

ORIGEN: Yet if we offer thanksgiving to men who are saints, how much more should we give thanks to Christ, who has under the Father's will conferred so many benefactions upon us? Yes and intercede with Him as did Stephen when he said, "Lord, set not this sin against them." In imitation of the father of the lunatic we shall say, "I request, Lord, have mercy" either on my son, or myself, or as the case may be. But if we accept prayer in its full meaning, we may not ever pray to any begotten being, not even to Christ himself, but only to the God and Father of All to whom our Savior both prayed himself, as we have already instanced, and teaches us to pray. For when He has heard one say. "Teach you us to pray," He does not teach men to pray to Himself but to the Father saying, "Our Father in heaven," and so on. For if, as is shown elsewhere, the Son is other than the Father in being and essence, prayer is to be made either to the Son and not the Father or to both or to the Father alone. That prayer to the Son and not the Father is most out of place and only to be suggested in defiance of manifest truth, one and all will admit. In prayer to both it is plain that we should have to offer our claims in plural form, and in our prayers say, “Grant you both, Bless you both, Supply you both, Save you both,” or the like, which is self-evidently wrong and also incapable of being shown by anyone to stand in the scriptures as spoken by any. It remains, accordingly, to pray to God alone, the Father of All, not however apart from the High Priest who has been appointed by the Father with swearing of an oath, according to the words He has sworn and shall not repent, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” In thanksgiving to God, therefore, during their prayers, saints acknowledge His favors through Christ Jesus. Just as the man who is scrupulous about prayer ought not to pray to one who himself prays but to the Father upon whom our Lord Jesus has taught us to call in our prayers, so we are not to offer any prayer to the Father apart from Him. He clearly sets this forth himself when He says, “Verily, verily, I tell you, whatsoever you may ask of my Father He shall give you in my house. Until but now you have not asked aught in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.”

ORIGEN: “Our Father in Heaven.” It deserves a somewhat careful observation of the so-called Old Testament to discover whether it is possible to find anywhere in it a prayer of one who addresses God as Father. For though I have made examination to the best of my ability, I have up to the present failed to find one. I do not say that God is not spoken of as Father or that accounted believers in God are not called sons of God, but that I have not yet found in prayer that confidence in calling God Father which the Savior has proclaimed. That God is spoken of as Father and those who have waited on God's word as sons, may be seen in many places, as in Deuteronomy, “You have forsaken God your parent and forgotten God your nourisher,” and again, “Is He not your Father himself that got you and made you and created you?” and again, “Sons who have not faith in them.” And in Isaiah, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me;” and in Malachi, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master: If then I be a father, where is my honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear?” So then, even though God is termed Father and their sons who have been begotten by reason of their faith in Him, yet sure and unchangeable sonship is not to be seen in the ancient people. The very passages I have cited since the subjection of those so-called sons, since according to the apostle "the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.” But the fullness of time is in the sojourn of our Lord Jesus Christ, when they who desire receive adoption as sons, as Paul teaches in the words, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery unto fear, but you received a spirit of adoption as sons, wherein we cry 'Abba Father;'” and as it is in the Gospel according to John, “To as many as received Him He gave authority to become children of God if believers on His name;” and it is by reason of this Spirit of adoption as sons, we learn in the catholic Epistle of John regarding the begotten of God, that “Everyone that is begotten of God does no sin because His seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God.” And yet if we think of the meaning of the words which are written in Luke, “When you pray say: 'Father,'” . . . we shall hesitate to address this expression to Him unless we have become genuine sons in case, in addition to our other sins, we should also become liable to a charge of impiety. My meaning is as follows. In the first Epistle to Corinthians Paul says, “No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' save in a holy spirit, and no one that speaks in God's spirit says 'cursed be Jesus' calling the same thing a holy spirit and God's spirit.” What is meant by speaking in a holy spirit of Jesus as Lord is not quite clear, as countless actors and numbers of heterodox people, and at times even demons conquered by the power in the name, utter the expression. No one therefore will venture to declare that anyone of these calls Jesus 'Lord' in a holy spirit. For the same reason, indeed, they could not be shown to call Jesus Lord at all, since they alone call Jesus Lord who express it from inward disposition in service to the word of God and in proclaiming no other Lord than Him in all their conduct. And if it be such who say Jesus is Lord, it may be that everyone who sins, in that he curses the divine Word through his transgression, has through his actions called out, “Cursed be Jesus.” And accordingly, as the one type of man says “Jesus is Lord,” and the man of opposite disposition “Cursed be Jesus,” “so everyone that has been begotten of God and does not sin” because he is partaker of God's seed which turns him from all sin, says through his conduct “Our Father in Heaven,” the spirit himself witnessing with their spirit that they are children of God and heirs to Him and joint heirs with Christ, since as suffering with Him they reasonably hope with Him also to be glorified. But in order that theirs may be no one-sided utterance of the words "Our Father," in addition to their actions they have a heart—a fountain and source of good actions—believing unto righteousness, in harmony with which their mouth makes acknowledgment unto salvation. . . . Let us, therefore, not think that it is words we are taught to say in any appointed season of prayer. On the contrary, if we understand our former consideration of prayer without ceasing, let our whole life of prayer without ceasing speak the words “Our Father in the Heavens,” having its commonwealth in no wise on earth but in every way in heaven, which is God's throne because of the foundation of the kingdom of God in all who wear the image of the Heavenly One and therefore become heavenly. When the Father of saints is said to be in the heavens, we are not to suppose that He is circumscribed by material form and dwells in heaven.

ORIGEN: “Hallowed be Your name.” Although this may represent either that the object of prayer has not yet come to pass, or after its attainment, that it is not permanent in which case the request is for its retention; the language in this instance makes it plain that it is with the implication that the name of the Father has not yet been hallowed, that we are bidden—according to Matthew and Luke, that is—to say “Hallowed be Your Name.” Then how, one might say, should a man request the hallowing of God's name as though not hallowed? Let us understand what the Father's name, and what the hallowing of it, means. A name is a summary designation descriptive of the peculiar character of the thing named. Thus the Apostle Paul has a certain peculiar character, partly of soul which is accordingly of a certain kind, partly of intellect which is accordingly contemplative of certain things, and partly of body which is accordingly of a certain kind. It is the peculiar in these characteristics, the unique combination—for there is not another being identical with Paul—that is indicated by means of the appellation Paul. In the case of men, however, whose peculiar characteristics are changed, their names also by a sound usage are changed according to scripture. When the character of Abram was transformed, he was called Abraham; when that of Simon he was named Peter, and when that of Saul the persecutor of Jesus, he was designated Paul. But in the case of God, inasmuch as He is himself ever unchangeable and unalterable, the proper name which even He may be said to bear is ever one, that mentioned in Exodus, “He that is,” or the like. Since therefore, though we all have some notion of God, conceiving of Him in various ways, but not all of what He is, for few and, be it said, fewer than few are they who comprehend His complete holiness—we are with good reason taught to attain to a holy conception of Him in order that we may see His holiness as creator, provider, judge, elector, abandoner, acceptor, rejector, rewarder and punisher of each according to his desert. For it is in such and similar terms that God's peculiar character may be said to be sketched which I take to be the meaning of the expression, God's name according to the scriptures in Exodus: “Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain;” in Deuteronomy: “Be my utterance awaited as rain: as dew let my words descend, as showers upon herbage and as moisture upon grass: for I have called on the Lord's name;” and in Psalms: “They shall remember your name in every generation.” On Prayer.

CYPRIAN: Let each one of us pray to God not only for himself, but for all the brothers and sisters, even as the Lord has taught us to pray, when He bids to each one, not private prayer, but enjoined them, when they prayed, to pray for all in common prayer and concordant supplication. If the Lord shall behold us humble and peaceable; if He will see us joined one with another; if He will see us fearful concerning His anger; if corrected and amended by the present tribulation, He will maintain us safe from the disturbances of the enemy. Discipline has preceded; pardon also will follow. Let us only, without ceasing to ask, and with full faith that we will receive, in simplicity and unanimity beseech the Lord, entreating not only with groaning but with tears.

CYPRIAN: He, among the rest of His salutary admonitions and divine precepts wherewith He counsels His people for their salvation, Himself also gave a form of praying—Himself advised and instructed us what we should pray for. He who made us to live, also taught us to pray, with that same kindness, that is to say, wherewith He has condescended to give and confer all things else; in order that while we speak to the Father in that prayer and supplication which the Son has taught us, we may be the more easily heard. Already He had foretold that the hour was coming “when the true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth;” and He thus fulfilled what He before promised, so that we who by His sanctification have received the Spirit and truth, may also by His teaching worship truly and spiritually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than that which was given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy Spirit was given to us? What praying to the Father can be more truthful than that which was delivered to us by the Son who is the Truth, out of His own mouth? So that to pray otherwise than He taught is not ignorance alone, but also sin; since He Himself has established, and said, “You reject the commandments of God, that you may keep your own traditions.” Let us therefore, brothers and sisters beloved, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears in the prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let Him also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we petition on behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our Advocate. For since He says, that “whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in His name, He will give us,” how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ’s name, if we ask for it in His own prayer! . . . Before all things, the Teacher of peace and the Master of unity would not have prayer to be made singly and individually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. For we do not say, “My Father in heaven,” nor, “Give me this day my daily bread;” nor does each one ask that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does he request for himself alone that he may not be led into temptation, and delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we do not pray for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one. The God of peace and the Teacher of concord, who taught unity, willed that one should thus pray for all, even as He Himself bore us all in one. . . . “After this manner,” He says, “pray: Our Father in heaven.” The new man, born again and restored to his God by His grace, says “Father,” in the first place because he has now begun to be a son. “He came,” He says, “to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.” The man, therefore, who has believed in His name, and has become God’s son, ought from this point to begin both to give thanks and to profess himself God’s son, by declaring that God is his Father in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and carnal father, and that he has begun to know as well as to have as a father only Him who is in heaven, as it is written: “They who say to their father and their mother, I have not known you, and who have not acknowledged their own children; these have observed Your precepts and have kept Your covenant.” Also the Lord in His Gospel has bidden us to call “no man our father upon earth, because there is to us one Father, who is in heaven.” And to the disciple who had made mention of his dead father, He replied, “Let the dead bury their dead;” for he had said that his father was dead, while the Father of believers is living. Nor ought we, beloved brothers and sisters, only to observe and understand that we should call Him Father who is in heaven; but we add to it, and say our Father, that is, the Father of those who believe—of those who, being sanctified by Him, and restored by the nativity of spiritual grace, have begun to be sons of God. A word this, moreover, which rebukes and condemns the Jews, who not only unbelievingly despised Christ, who had been announced to them by the prophets, and sent first to them, but also cruelly put Him to death; and these cannot now call God their Father, since the Lord confounds and confutes them, saying, “You are born of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. For he was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” And by Isaiah the prophet God cries in wrath, “I have begotten and brought up children; but they have despised me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood me. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with sins, a wicked seed, corrupt children! You have forsaken the Lord; you have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.” In repudiation of these, we Christians, when we pray, say “Our Father;” because He has begun to be ours, and has ceased to be the Father of the Jews, who have forsaken Him. Nor can a sinful people be a son; but the name of sons is attributed to those to whom remission of sins is granted, and to them immortality is promised anew, in the words of our Lord Himself: “Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant does not abide in the house forever, but the son abides forever.” But how great is the Lord’s indulgence! How great His condescension and plenteousness of goodness towards us, seeing that He has wished us to pray in the sight of God in such a way as to call God Father, and to call ourselves sons of God, even as Christ is the Son of God,—a name which none of us would dare to venture on in prayer, unless He Himself had allowed us thus to pray! We ought then, beloved brothers and sisters, to remember and to know, that when we call God Father, we ought to act as God’s children; so that in the measure in which we find pleasure in considering God as a Father, He might also be able to find pleasure in us. . . . After this we say, “Hallowed be Your name;” not that we wish for God that He may be hallowed by our prayers, but that we beseech of Him that His name may be hallowed in us. But by whom is God sanctified, since He Himself sanctifies? Well, because He says, “Be holy, even as I am holy,” we ask and entreat, that we who were sanctified in baptism may continue in that which we have begun to be. And this we daily pray for; for we have need of daily sanctification, that we who daily fall away may wash out our sins by continual sanctification. And what the sanctification is which is conferred upon us by the condescension of God, the apostle declares, when he says, “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor deceivers, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such indeed were you; but you are washed; but you are justified; but you are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.” He says that we are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. We pray that this sanctification may abide in us and because our Lord and Judge warns the man that was healed and quickened by Him, to sin no more lest a worse thing happen to him, we make this supplication in our constant prayers, we ask this day and night, that the sanctification and quickening which is received from the grace of God may be preserved by His protection.

CYPRIAN: It was not only in words, but in deeds also, that the Lord taught us to pray, Himself praying frequently and beseeching, and thus showing us, by the testimony of His example, what it behoved us to do, as it is written, “But Himself departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” And again: “He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” But if He prayed who was without sin, how much more ought sinners to pray; and if He prayed continually, watching through the whole night in uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to watch nightly in constantly repeated prayer! But the Lord prayed and besought not for Himself—for why should He who was guiltless pray on His own behalf?—but for our sins, as He Himself declared, when He said to Peter, “Behold, Satan has desired that he might sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith does not fail.” And subsequently He beseeches the Father for all, saying, “Neither do I pray for these alone, but for them also which will believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be one in us.” The Lord’s loving-kindness, no less than His mercy, is great in respect of our salvation, in that, not content to redeem us with His blood, He in addition also prayed for us. Behold now what was the desire of His petition, that like as the Father and Son are one, so also we should abide in absolute unity; so that from this it may be understood how greatly he sins who divides unity and peace, since for this same thing even the Lord besought, desirous doubtless that His people should thus be saved and live in peace, since He knew that discord cannot come into the kingdom of God.

ARCHELAUS: The Lord Jesus taught men to pray: “When you pray, say, 'Our Father in heaven;'” and again, “Pray to your Father which is in secret.”

ALEXANDER OF ALEXANDRIA: The Father is always the Father. But He is the Father, since the Son is always with Him, on account of whom He is called the Father. Therefore, since the Son is always with Him, the Father is always perfect, being destitute of nothing as regards good; who, not in time, nor after an interval, nor from things which are not, has begotten His only begotten Son.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The earthly Church is the image of the heavenly, as we pray also “that the will of God may be done upon the earth as in heaven.” “Putting on, therefore, bowels of mercy, gentleness, humbleness, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if one have a quarrel against any man; as also Christ has forgiven us, so also let us. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you are called in one body; and be thankful.”

TERTULLIAN: According to this model, we subjoin, “Your will be done in the heavens and on the earth;” not that there is some power withstanding to prevent God’s will being done, and we pray for Him the successful achievement of His will; but we pray for His will to be done in all. . . . What, moreover, does God will, but that we should walk according to His Discipline? We make petition, then, that He supply us with the substance of His will, and the capacity to do it, that we may be saved both in the heavens and on earth; because the sum of His will is the salvation of them whom He has adopted. . . . The Lord also, when He had wished to demonstrate to us, even in His own flesh, the flesh’s infirmity, by the reality of suffering, said, “Father, remove Your cup;” and remembering Himself, added, “not my will, but Your will be done.” Himself was the Will and the Power of the Father: and yet, for the demonstration of the patience which was due, He gave Himself up to the Father's Will. “Your kingdom come” has also reference to that whereto “Your will be done” refers—in us, that is. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings? But whatever we wish for ourselves we predict for Him, and to Him we attribute what from Him we expect. And so, if the manifestation of the Lord’s kingdom pertains to the will of God and to our anxious expectation, how do some pray for some prolonging of the age, when the kingdom of God, which we pray may arrive, tends to the consummation of the age? Our wish is, that our reign be hastened, not our servitude protracted. Even if it had not been prescribed in the Lord's Prayer that we should ask for the advent of the kingdom, we should, unbidden, have sent forth that cry, hastening toward the realization of our hope. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar cry in jealousy to the Lord, “How long, Lord, do You not avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” for, of course, their avenging is regulated by the end of the age. Nay, Lord, Your kingdom come with all speed,—the prayer of Christians, the confusion of the heathen, the exultation of angels, for the sake of which we suffer, rather, for the sake of which we pray!

ORIGEN: “Your Kingdom Come.” According to the word of our Lord and Savior, the Kingdom of God does not come observably, nor shall men say, “Lo it is here,” or “Lo is it there,” but the Kingdom of God is within us; for the utterance is exceedingly near in our mouth and in our heart. It is therefore plain that he who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God prays with good reason for rising and fruit bearing and perfecting of God's kingdom within him. For every saint is ruled over by God and obeys the spiritual laws of God, and conducts himself like a well-ordered city; and the Father is present with him, and Christ rules together with the Father in the perfected soul, according to the saying that I mentioned shortly before: “We will come unto him and make abode with him.” By God's kingdom I understand the blessed condition of the mind and the settled order of wise reflection; by Christ's kingdom the issue of words of salvation to their hearers and the practice of acts of righteousness and the other excellences; for the Son of God is word and righteousness. We are wayfaring toward perfection if we forget the things behind, pressing on toward those before us. The kingdom of God within us will therefore be consummated in us as we advance without ceasing, when the saying in the Apostle is fulfilled, that Christ, His enemies all made subject to Him, shall deliver the kingdom to God the Father that God may be All in All. For this reason let us pray without ceasing with a disposition made divine by the Word, and say to our Father in heaven: Hallowed Be Your Name: Your Kingdom Come. Of the kingdom of God it is further to be said by way of distinction that as righteousness has no partnership with lawlessness and light no community with darkness and Christ no argument with Belial, so a kingdom of sin is incompatible with the Kingdom of God. If, accordingly we would be ruled over by God, by no means let sin rule in our mortal body nor let us obey its commands when it calls our soul forth to the works of the flesh that are alien to God, but let us mortify our members that are on earth and bear the fruits of the Spirit that the Lord may walk in us as in a spiritual garden, ruling alone over us with His Christ seated within us on the right of the Spiritual power that we pray to receive, sitting until all His enemies within us become a footstool for His feet and every rule and authority and power be undone from us. These things may come to pass in the case of each of us, and death the last energy be undone, so that Christ may say within us also, “O death, where is your sting? O grave! Where is your victory?” Even now, therefore, let our corruptible put on the holiness and incorruptibility that consists in chastity and purity, and our mortal, death undone, wrap itself in the paternal immortality, so that, being ruled over by God, we may even now live amid the blessings of regeneration and resurrection. On Prayer.

ORIGEN: “Your will be done on earth also as in heaven.” After the clause “Your Kingdom come,” Luke has passed over these words in silence and placed the clause “Give us daily our needful bread.” Let us therefore examine next in succession the words I have placed first as set down in Matthew alone. As suppliants who are still on earth, believing that the will of God is done in heaven among all the household of the heavens, let us pray that the will of God may be done by us also who are on earth in like manner with them, as will come to pass when we do nothing contrary to His will. And when the will of God as it is in heaven has been accomplished by us also who are on earth, we shall inherit a kingdom of heaven as having, alike with them, worn the image of the Heavenly One, while those who come after us on earth are praying to become in turn like us who have come to be in heaven. . . . Everyone in the church ought to pray to receive the paternal will in such wise as Christ has done, who came to do the will of His Father and accomplished it completely. For it is possible by being joined to Him to become one spirit with Him and therefore receptive of the will to the end that, as it has been accomplished in heaven, so it may be accomplished on earth also; for he that is joined to the Lord, according to Paul, is one spirit. . . . For he that sins, wherever he may be, is earth, and will turn into the like somehow, unless he repents, whereas he that does the will of God and does not disobey the spiritual laws of salvation is heaven. Whether therefore we are still earth because of sin, let us pray that the will of God may extend restoration to us also as it has already reached those who have become or are heaven before us: or if we are already accounted not earth but heaven by God, let our request be that, in like manner with heaven, on earth also, in inferior things I mean, the will of God may be fulfilled unto what I may term earth's heaven-making, so that there shall be no longer earth but all things become heaven.

ORIGEN: We are taught to say in the Lord's prayer, “Your kingdom come!” as if it has not yet come. And the Lord himself, when he began to preach, does not say: The kingdom of heaven has come, but: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” The present time, however, I would say seems not so much a time of reigning as of war, since the dominion of death is now broken in part and being gradually destroyed, a dominion which had previously spread itself out to all men. This agrees with the words of Scripture, “For he must reign until he puts every enemy under his feet.”

CYPRIAN: There follows in the prayer, “Your kingdom come.” We ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, even as we also ask that His name may be sanctified in us. For when does God not reign, or when does that begin with Him which both always has been, and never ceases to be? We pray that our kingdom, which has been promised us by God, may come, which was acquired by the blood and passion of Christ; that we who first are His subjects in the world, may hereafter reign with Christ when He reigns, as He Himself promises and says, “Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” Christ Himself, dearest brothers and sisters, however, may be the kingdom of God, whom we day by day desire to come, whose advent we crave to be quickly manifested to us. For since He is Himself the Resurrection, since in Him we rise again, so also the kingdom of God may be understood to be Himself, since in Him we shall reign. But we do well in seeking the kingdom of God, that is, the heavenly kingdom, because there is also an earthly kingdom. But he who has already renounced the world, is moreover greater than its honors and its kingdom. And therefore he who dedicates himself to God and Christ, desires not earthly, but heavenly kingdoms. But there is need of continual prayer and supplication, that we do not fall away from the heavenly kingdom, as the Jews, to whom this promise had first been given, fell away; even as the Lord sets forth and proves: “Many,” He says, “will come from the east and from the west, and will recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” He shows that the Jews were previously children of the kingdom, so long as they continued also to be children of God; but after the name of Father ceased to be recognized among them, the kingdom also ceased; and therefore we Christians, who in our prayer begin to call God our Father, also pray that God’s kingdom may come to us. We add, also, and say, “Your will be done, as in heaven so in earth;” not that God should do what He wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills. For who resists God, that He may not do what He wills? But since we are hindered by the devil from obeying with our thought and deed God’s will in all things, we pray and ask that God’s will may be done in us; and that it may be done in us we have need of God’s good will, that is, of His help and protection, since no one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God. And further, the Lord, setting forth the infirmity of the humanity which He bore, says, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;” and affording an example to His disciples that they should not do their own will, but God’s, He went on to say, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as You will.” And in another place He says, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” Now if the Son was obedient to do His Father’s will, how much more should the servant be obedient to do his Master’s will! As in his epistle John also exhorts and instructs us to do the will of God, saying, “Do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of life, which is not of the Father, but of the lust of the world. And the world will pass away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides forever, even as God also abides forever.” We who desire to abide forever should do the will of God, who is everlasting. Now that is the will of God which Christ both did and taught. Humility in conversation; steadfastness in faith; modesty in words; justice in deeds; mercifulness in works; discipline in morals; to be unable to do a wrong, and to be able to bear a wrong when done; to keep peace with the brothers and sisters; to love God with all one’s heart; to love Him in that He is a Father; to fear Him in that He is God; to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, because He did not prefer anything to us; to adhere inseparably to His love; to stand by His cross bravely and faithfully; when there is any contest on behalf of His name and honor, to exhibit in discourse that constancy wherewith we make confession; in torture, that confidence wherewith we do battle; in death, that patience whereby we are crowned;—this is to desire to be fellow-heirs with Christ; this is to do the commandment of God; this is to fulfill the will of the Father.

CYPRIAN: In the Gospel according to John: “I did not come down from heaven to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” Of this same matter, according to Matthew: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Also in the daily prayer: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” Also according to Matthew: “Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father which is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Also according to Luke: “But that servant which knows his Lord’s will, and did not obey His will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” In the Epistle of John: “But he that does the will of God abides forever, even as He Himself also abides forever.”

HIPPOLYTUS: For this reason we are enjoined to ask what is sufficient for the preservation of the substance of the body: not luxury, but food, which restores what the body loses, and prevents death by hunger; not tables to inflame and drive on to pleasures, nor such things as make the body wax wanton against the soul; but bread, and that, too, not for a great number of years, but what is sufficient for us today.

TERTULLIAN: But how gracefully has the Divine Wisdom arranged the order of the prayer; so that after things heavenly—that is, after the “Name” of God, the “Will” of God, and the “Kingdom” of God—it should give earthly necessities also room for a petition! For the Lord had additionally issued His edict, “Seek first the kingdom, and then even these shall be added:” albeit we may rather understand, “Give us this day our daily bread,” spiritually. For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” He says, “the Bread of Life;” and, a little above, “The Bread is the Word of the living God, who came down from the heavens.” Then we find, too, that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. But, because that word is admissible in a carnal sense too, it cannot be so used without the religious remembrance of spiritual discipline; for the Lord commands that bread be prayed for, which is the only food necessary for believers; for “all other things the nations seek after.” The like lesson He both teaches by examples, and repeatedly handles in parables, when He says, “Does a father take away bread from his children, and hand it to dogs?” and again, “Does a father give his son a stone when he asks for bread?” For He thus shows what it is that sons expect from their father. Nay, even that nocturnal knocker knocked for “bread.” Moreover, He justly added, “Give us this day,” seeing He had previously said, “Take no careful thought about the morrow, what you are to eat.” To which subject He also adapted the parable of the man who pondered on an enlargement of his barns for his forthcoming fruits, and on seasons of prolonged security; but that very night he dies.

TERTULLIAN: How unworthy, also, is the way in which you interpret to the favor of your own lust the fact that the Lord “ate and drank” promiscuously! But I think that He must have likewise “fasted” inasmuch as He has pronounced, not “the full,” but “the hungry and thirsty, blessed:” He who was accustomed to profess “food” to be, not that which His disciples had supposed, but “the thorough doing of the Father’s work;” teaching “to labor for the food which is permanent unto life eternal;” in our ordinary prayer likewise commanding us to request “bread,” not wealth.

ORIGEN: “Give us today our needful bread,” or as Luke has it, “Give us daily our needful bread.” Seeing that some suppose that it is meant that we should pray for material bread, their erroneous opinion deserves to be done away with and the truth about the needful bread set forth, in the following manner. We may put the question to them—how can it be that He, who says that heavenly and great things ought to be asked for as if, on their view, He has forgotten His teaching now enjoins the offering of intercession to the Father for an earthly and little thing, since neither is the bread which is assimilated into our flesh a heavenly thing nor is it asking a great thing to request it? For my part I shall follow the Teacher's own teaching as to the bread and cite the passages in detail. To men who have come to Capernaum to seek Him He says, in the Gospel according to John, “Verily, verily, I tell you you seek me not because you saw signs but because you ate of the loaves of bread and were filled” . . . for he that has eaten and been filled with the loaves of bread which have been blessed by Jesus seeks the more to grasp the Son of God more closely and hastens toward Him. Therefore He will enjoin: “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that abides unto life eternal which the Son of Man shall give you.” And when, upon that, they who had heard inquired and said: “What are we to do that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them: “This is the work of God that you believe on him whom He has sent.” As it is written in Psalms, God sent His Word and healed them, that is the diseased, and believers in that Word work the works of God which are food that abides unto life eternal. “And my Father,” He says, “gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” It is true bread that nourishes the true man who is made in God's image, and he that has been nourished by it also becomes in the Creator's likeness. What is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, or what more precious to the mind of him that is capable of receiving it than the Wisdom of God? What is more congenial to the rational nature than Truth? Should it be urged in objection to this view that He would not in that case teach men to ask for needful bread as if something other than Himself, it is to be noted that He also discourses in the Gospel according to John sometimes as if it were other than Himself but at other times as if He is Himself the Bread. The former in the sense of the words: “Moses has given you the bread from heaven yet not the true bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” In the latter sense, to those who had said to Him, “Ever give us this bread,” He says: “I am the bread of life: he that comes unto me shall not hunger, and he that believes on me shall not thirst;” and shortly after: “I am the living bread that is come down from heaven: if anyone eat of this bread he shall live unto eternity: yes and the bread which I shall give is my flesh which I shall give for the sake of the life of the world.”

CYPRIAN: As the prayer goes forward, we ask and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And this may be understood both spiritually and literally, because either way of understanding it is rich in divine usefulness to our salvation. For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all men, but it is ours. And according as we say, “Our Father,” because He is the Father of those who understand and believe; so also we call it “our bread,” because Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And we ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ’s body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, “I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my bread, he will live forever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” When, therefore, He says, that whoever will eat of His bread will live forever; as it is manifest that those who partake of His body and receive the Eucharist by the right of communion are living, so, on the other hand, we must fear and pray lest anyone who, being withheld from communion, is separate from Christ’s body should remain at a distance from salvation; as He Himself threatens, and says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you will have no life in you.” And therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body. But it may also be thus understood, that we who have renounced the world, and have cast away its riches and pomps in the faith of spiritual grace, should only ask for ourselves food and support, since the Lord instructs us, and says, “Whosoever does not forsake all that he has, cannot be my disciple.” But he who has begun to be Christ’s disciple, renouncing all things according to the word of his Master, ought to ask for his daily food, and not to extend the desires of his petition to a long period, as the Lord again prescribes, and says, “Take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow itself shall take thought for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.”

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: A Christian never remembers those who have sinned against him, but forgives them. Therefore also he righteously prays, saying, “Forgive us; for we also forgive.” For this also is one of the things which God wishes, to covet nothing, to hate no one. For all men are the work of one will.

TERTULLIAN: The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless One, and so He teaches that we beg “to have our debts remitted us.” A petition for pardon is a full confession; because he who begs for pardon fully admits his guilt. Thus, too, penitence is demonstrated acceptable to God who desires it rather than the death of the sinner. Moreover, debt is, in the Scriptures, a figure of guilt; because it is equally due to the sentence of judgment, and is exacted by it: nor does it evade the justice of exaction, unless the exaction be remitted, just as the lord remitted to that slave in the parable of his debt; for here does the scope of the whole parable tend. For the fact in addition, that the same servant, after liberated by his lord, does not equally spare his own debtor; and, being on that account blamed before his lord, is made over to the tormentor to pay the uttermost farthing—that is, every guilt, however small: corresponds with our profession that “we also remit to our debtors;” indeed elsewhere, too, in conformity with this form of prayer, He says, “Remit, and it will be remitted you.” And when Peter had put the question whether remission were to be granted to a brother seven times, “Rather,” He said, “seventy-seven times;” in order to remold the law for the better; because in Genesis vengeance was assigned “seven times” in the case of Cain, but in that of Lamech “seventy-seven times.”

ORIGEN: “And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors,” or as Luke has it, “And forgive us our sins, for we also ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” Concerning debts the Apostle also says: “Pay your debts to all—to whom you owe tribute, tribute, to whom fear, fear, to whom taxes, taxes, to whom honor, honor: owe no man anything except mutual love.” We owe therefore in having certain duties not only in giving but also in kind speech and corresponding actions, and indeed we owe a certain disposition towards one another. Owing these things, we either pay them through discharging the commands of the divine law, or failing to pay them, in contempt of the salutary word, we remain in debt. The like reflection applies to debts toward brothers and sisters, to those who in the religious sense have been born again with us in Christ, as well as to those who have a common mother or father with us. . . . Remembering what as debtors we have not paid but withheld during the time which it was our duty to have done this or that for our neighbor had run by, we shall be gentler toward those who have fallen in debt to us in turn and have not paid their indebtedness, especially if we do not forget our transgressions against the Divine and the unrighteousness we have spoken against the Height either in ignorance of the truth or else in displeasure at the misfortunes that have befallen us. But if we refuse to become gentler towards those who have fallen in debt to us, our experience will be that of him who did not remit the hundred shillings to his fellow servant and of whom, according to the parable set down in the gospel, though already pardoned, the master exacts in severity what had already been remitted, saying to him: “Wicked servant and slothful, was it not right for you to pity your fellow servant as I also pitied you? Cast him into prison until he pay all that is owed.” And the Lord continues: “So shall the heavenly Father do to you also if you do not forgive each his brother from your hearts.” It is however on profession of penitence that we are to forgive those who have sinned against us, even though our debtor often does so; for He says: “If your brother sin against you seven times a day and seven times turn and say, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him.” It is not we who are harsh towards the impenitent, but they who are wicked to themselves, for he that spurns instruction hates himself. Yet even in such cases we should seek in every way that healing arise within him who is so completely perverted as not even to be conscious of his own ills but to be drunken with a drunkenness more fatal than from wine, from the darkening of evil. When Luke says, “Forgive us our sins,” he means the same as Matthew, since sins are constituted when we owe and do not pay, though he does not appear to lend support to him who would forgive only penitent debtors when he says that it is enacted by the Savior that we ought in prayer to add: “for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us.” And it would seem that we have all authority to forgive the sins that have been committed against us as is clear from both clauses: “as we also have forgiven our debtors;” and “for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us.” But it is when a man is inspired by Jesus as were the apostles, when he can be known from his fruits to have received the Spirit that is Holy and to have become spiritual through being led by the Spirit after the manner of a Son of God unto every reasonable duty, that he forgives whatsoever God has forgiven and holds those sins that are irremediable, and as the prophets served God in speaking not their own message but that of the divine Will, so he too serves the God who alone has authority to forgive.

ORIGEN: For you will find frequently in the divine books that sins are called debts, just as the Lord himself taught us to say in prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

CYPRIAN: In the Gospel, in the daily prayer: “Forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors.” Also according to Mark: “And when you stand for prayer, forgive, if you have anything at all against anyone; that also your Father who is in heaven may forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your sins.” Also in the same place: “In what measure you mete, in that shall it be measured to you again.”

LACTANTIUS: But that he may obtain the favor of God, and be free from every stain, let him always implore the mercy of God, and pray for nothing else but pardon for his sins, even though he has none. If he desires anything else, there is no need of expressing it in word to one who knows what we wish; if anything good shall happen to him, let him give thanks; if any evil, let him make amends, and let him confess that the evil has happened to him on account of his faults; and even in evils let him nothing less give thanks, and make amends in good things, that he may be the same at all times, and be firm, and unchangeable, and unshaken. And let him not suppose that this is to be done by him only in the temple, but at home, and even in his very bed. In short, let him always have God within himself, consecrated in his heart, inasmuch as he himself is a temple of God. But if he has served God, his Father and Lord, with this diligence, obedience, and devotion, justice is complete and perfect; and he who shall keep this, as we before testified, has obeyed God, and has satisfied the obligations of religion and his own duty.

ARNOBIUS: Before Him we all prostrate ourselves, according to our custom; Him we adore in joint prayers; from Him we beg things just and honorable, and worthy of His ear. Not that He needs our supplications, or loves to see the homage of so many thousands laid at His feet. This is our benefit, and has a regard to our advantage. For since we are prone to err, and to yield to various lusts and appetites through the fault of our innate weakness, He allows Himself at all times to be comprehended in our thoughts, that while we entreat Him and strive to merit His bounties, we may receive a desire for purity, and may free ourselves from every stain by the removal of all our shortcomings.

POLYCARP: Forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; “watching in prayer,” and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God “not to lead us into temptation,” as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

POLYCARP: I praise You for all things, I bless You, I glorify You, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, with whom, to You, and the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.

THE DIDACHE: “And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (or, evil); for Yours is the power and the glory for ever.” Three times in the day thus pray.

THE DIDACHE: A prayer after Communion: But after you are filled, thus give thanks: We thank You, holy Father, for Your holy name which You caused to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever. You, Master almighty, created all things for Your name’s sake; You gave food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to You; but to us You freely gave spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Your Servant. Before all things we thank You that You are mighty; to You be the glory forever. Remember, Lord, Your Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in Your love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for Your kingdom which You have prepared for it; for Yours is the power and the glory forever. Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God, Son, of David! If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not so, let him repent. Maran atha. Amen.

TERTULLIAN: For the completeness of so brief a prayer He added—in order that we should supplicate not touching the remitting merely, but touching the entire averting, of acts of guilt—“Lead us not into temptation:” that is, do not allow us to be led into it, by him (of course) who tempts; but far be the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt, as if He either were ignorant of the faith of any, or else were eager to overthrow it. Infirmity and malice are characteristics of the devil. For God had commanded even Abraham to make a sacrifice of his son, not for the sake of tempting, but proving, his faith; in order through him to make an example for that precept of His, whereby He was, by and by, to enjoin that he should hold no pledges of affection dearer than God. He Himself, when tempted by the devil, demonstrated who it is that presides over and is the originator of temptation. This passage He confirms by subsequent ones, saying, “Pray that you are not tempted;” yet they were tempted, (as they showed) by deserting their Lord, because they had given way rather to sleep than prayer. The final clause, therefore, is consonant, and interprets the sense of “Do not lead us into temptation;” for this sense is, “But convey us away from the Evil One.”

ORIGEN: “And bring us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” In Luke the words “but deliver us from evil” are omitted. Assuming that the Savior does not command us to pray for the impossible, it appears to me to deserve consideration in what sense we are told to pray not to enter into temptation when all human life on earth is a test. In that on earth we are beset by the flesh which wars against the spirit and whose intent is enmity to God as it is by no means capable of being subject to the law of God, we are in temptation. That all human life on earth is a trial we have learned from Job in the words: “Is not the life of men on earth a trial,” and the same thing is made plain from the seventeenth psalm in the words: “In you will I be delivered from trial.” Paul, too, writing to the Corinthians says that God does not bestow freedom from temptation but freedom from temptation beyond one's power. We ought therefore to pray, not that we be not tempted—that is impossible—but that we not be encompassed by temptation, the fate of those who are open to it and are overcome. Now since, outside of the Lord's Prayer, it is written, “Pray that you do not enter into temptation,” the force of which may perhaps be clear from what has already been said, whereas in the Lord's prayer we ought to say to God our Father, “Bring us not into temptation,” it is worth seeing in what sense we ought to think of God as leading one who does not pray or is not heard into temptation. If entering into temptation means being overcome, it is manifestly out of the question to think that God leads anyone into temptation as though He delivered him to be overcome. Well, it is my belief that God rules over each rational soul, having regard to its everlasting life, in such a way that it is always in possession of free will and is itself responsible alike for being, in the better way, in progress towards the perfection of goodness, or otherwise for descending as the result of heedlessness to this or that degree of aggravation of vice.

CYPRIAN: With mutual prayers, let us by turns cherish, guard, arm one another; let us pray for the lapsed, that they may be raised up; let us pray for those who stand, that they may not be tempted to such a degree as to be destroyed; let us pray that those who are said to have fallen may acknowledge the greatness of their sin, and may perceive that it needs no momentary nor over-hasty cure; let us pray that penitence may follow also the effects of the pardon of the lapsed; that so, when they have understood their own crime, they may be willing to have patience with us for a while, and no longer disturb the fluctuating condition of the Church, lest they may seem themselves to have inflamed an internal persecution for us, and the fact of their unquietness be added to the heap of their sins.

CYPRIAN: Moreover, the Lord of necessity admonishes us to say in prayer, “And do not permit us to be led into temptation.” In which words it is shown that the adversary can do nothing against us except God shall have previously permitted it; so that all our fear, and devotion, and obedience may be turned towards God, since in our temptations nothing is permitted to evil unless power is given from Him. . . . Now power is given against us in two modes: either for punishment when we sin, or for glory when we are proved, as we see was done with respect to Job; as God Himself sets forth, saying, “Behold, all that he has I give to your hands; but be careful not to touch him.” And the Lord in His Gospel says, in the time of His passion, “You could have no power against me unless it were given to you from above.” But when we ask that we may not come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness in that we thus ask, lest any should insolently boast himself, lest any should proudly and arrogantly assume anything to himself, lest any should take to himself the glory either of confession or of suffering as his own, when the Lord Himself, teaching humility, said, “Watch and pray, that you do not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak;” so that while a humble and submissive confession comes first, and all is attributed to God, whatever is sought for suppliantly with fear and honor of God, may be granted by His own loving-kindness. After all these things, in the conclusion of the prayer comes a brief clause, which shortly and comprehensively sums up all our petitions and our prayers. For we conclude by saying, “But deliver us from evil,” comprehending all adverse things which the enemy attempts against us in this world, from which there may be a faithful and sure protection if God deliver us, if He afford His help to us who pray for and implore it. And when we say, “Deliver us from evil,” there remains nothing further which ought to be asked. When we have once asked for God’s protection against evil, and have obtained it, then against everything which the devil and the world work against us we stand secure and safe. For what fear is there in this life, to the man whose guardian in this life is God?