The Lord’s Prayer, Part I
Concerning Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
They kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Concerning Prayer
Terullian, On Prayer 1
On the LP as an “epitome” of the Gospel
The Prayer is as diffuse in meaning as it is compressed in words. For it has embraced not only the special duties of prayer, be it veneration of God or petition for man, but almost every discourse of the Lord, every record of His Discipline; so that, in fact, the Prayer is comprised an epitome of the Gospel.
Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer 2–3
2. The Gospel precepts, beloved brethren, are nothing other than divine teachings, foundations on which hope should be built, buttresses for strengthening faith, nourishment for cheering the heart, directions for guiding our journey, bulwarks for obtaining salvation. While these precepts instruct those who are learning the faith on earth, it leads them to heavenly kingdoms. There are many things God willed to be said and heard by means of his servants, the prophets. But how much greater are those things that the Son speaks, the Word of God who was in the prophets, bearing witness with his own voice. No longer is he commanding us to prepare the way for his coming, but he himself is coming and opening and showing us the way, so that we, who once were wandering reckless and blind in the shadow of death (Is. 9:2), have been illuminated by the light of grace, holding to the way of life, with the Lord as our leader and guide.
These are his beneficial admonitions and divine precepts by which he directs his people in the way of salvation. He also gave us a model for prayer, advising and instructing the purpose of our prayer. He who brought us to life also taught us to pray with the same kindness that he willed to give [us life]. . .
For what can be a more spiritual prayer than what is given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy Spirit was given to us? What request to the Father can be more truthful than what the Son delivered to us out of the very mouth of the one who is the truth (John 14:6)? . . .
3. When we make our prayer let the Father recognize the words of his own Son. May he who lives inside our heart be also in our voice, and, since we have an advocate with the Father for our sins (1 John 1:9), let us, as sinners petitioning on behalf of our sins, express the words of our advocate. For since he says that whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in his name (John 16:23b) he will give us, how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ’s name, if we ask for it using his own prayer?
Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer 9
How great, dearest brethren, are the mysteries of the Lord’s Prayer, how many, how magnificent, gathered together in a few words, yet abundant in spiritual power. There is nothing whatever with regard to our pleading and our prayer omitted, nothing not contained in this summary of heavenly doctrine.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer 1
The many effects and virtues of prayer
A person who does not unite himself to God through prayer is separated from God. Therefore we must learn first of all that we ought always to pray and not to faint. For the effect of prayer is union with God, and if someone is with God, he is separated from the enemy. Through prayer we guard our chastity, control our temper, and rid ourselves of vanity; it makes us forget injuries, overcomes envy, defeats injustice, and makes amends for sin.
Through prayer we obtain physical well-being, a happy home, and a strong, well-ordered society. Prayer will make our nation powerful, will give us victory in war and security in peace; it reconciles enemies and preserves allies. Prayer is the seal of virginity and a pledge of faithfulness in marriage; it shields the wayfarer, protects the sleeper, and gives courage to those who keep vigil. It obtains a good harvest for the farmer and a safe port for the sailor.
Prayer is your advocate in lawsuits. If you are in prison, it will obtain your release; it will refresh you when you are weary and comfort you when you arc sorrowful. Prayer is the delight of the joyful as well as solace to the afflicted. It is the wedding crown of the spouses and the festive joy of a birthday no less than the shroud that enwraps us in death.
Prayer is intimacy with God and contemplation of the invisible. It satisfies our yearnings and makes us equal to the angels. Through it good prospers, evil is destroyed, and sinners will be converted. Prayer is the enjoyment of things present and the substance of the things to come. (Graef, 23-24)
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Sermon the Lord’s Prayer 1
On the relationship between prayer, doctrine, and good works
Our Lord, after having said: Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, added: And teach them to observe all things I have commanded you (Matt. 28:19–20). He showed in this that, alongside the doctrine of religion and the right knowledge, we should endeavor to harmonize our lives with the Divine commandments. In addition to the words of the Creed, they added the prayer that our Lord taught to his disciples in short terms, because it contains the teaching for good works in a sufficient manner. Every prayer contains teaching of good works to any one who cares to think attentively of duty, because we wish our works to be that which we ask in our prayer that they should be. He who cares, therefore, for perfection and is anxious to do the things that are pleasing to God, will pay more attention to prayer than any other thing, and he who does not care for any virtue and is not anxious to do the things that are pleasing to God, it is clear that he will show also no interest in prayer. . . .
He made use of these short words as if to say that prayer does not consist so much in words as in good works, love and zeal for duty. Indeed, any one who is inclined to good works, all his life must needs be in prayer, which is seen in his choice of these good works. Prayer is by necessity connected with good works, because a thing that is not good to be looked for is not good to be prayed for. More wicked than death by stoning is death, which would come to us if we asked God to grant us things which contradict His commandments. He who offers such prayers incites God to wrath rather than to reconciliation and mercy. A true prayer consists in good works, in love of God, and diligence in the things that please Him. He who is intent on these things and whose mind contemplates them, prays without hindrance always, and at all times, whenever he does the things that please (God). To such a one invocations of prayers are always needful, because it is fitting for him who strives after good things to ask God to help him in these same things after which he is striving, in order that all his life might be in accordance with God's will.
Augustine, sermon 56.4
On the Lord’s Prayer as the “form of our desires”
The reason he wanted you to pray is so that he can give to a desiring person, so that what has been given does not become cheapened. This desire is something he himself has instilled. So, then, the words our Lord Jesus Christ taught us in his prayer give us the form of desires (forma desideriorum). You are not allowed to ask for anything else except what is written here.
Augustine, Sermon 58.12
Three eternal and four temporal petitions
So we see that the three earlier petitions—Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, as in heaven, also on earth—are forever. The four that follow, though, belong to this life. Give us today our daily bread—are we going to go on asking for our daily bread every day, when we arrive at that total satisfaction? Forgive us our debts—will we be saying that in that kingdom, when we will not have any debts? Bring us not into temptation—will we be able to say it then, when there will not be any temptation? Deliver us from evil—will we say it, when there will not be any to be delivered from?
So the latter four are necessary because of daily life, the former three because of eternal life. But let us ask for them all, so that we may reach that life; and here let us beg, in order not to be cut off from it. This prayer is to be said by you every day once you have been baptized. This Lord’s Prayer, you see, is said every day in the church at God’s altar, and the faithful hear it. So I am not afraid of our not remembering it very exactly. Even if some of you cannot keep hold of it very perfectly, you will keep hold of it by hearing it every day.
John Cassian, Conferences 9.25
On the Lord’s Prayer as the path to ineffable prayer
It would seem, then, that this prayer, the Our Father, contains the fullness of perfection. It was the Lord Himself who gave it to us as both an example and a rule. It raises up those making use of it to that preeminent situation of which I spoke earlier. It lifts them up to that prayer of fire known to so few. It lifts them up, rather, to that ineffable prayer which rises above all human consciousness, with no voice sounding, no tongue moving, no words uttered. The soul lights up with heavenly illumination and no longer employs constricted, human speech.
Jacob of Sarug, On the Lord’s Prayer 3
On the disciples’ request, “Lord Teach us to Pray”
They said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” lest prayer ever be spoken without Him. They were also bringing down from the Word something for natural [man], for they cannot live except by His possession alone. He commanded them not to be anxious to speak before judges, and they added those [words] to His commandment. They had prepared themselves neither to speak before His father nor before Him with prayers prepared without Him. They said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, lest we even raise prayer to Your Father except by You.” The disciples asked Him to teach them to pray—the loving request clearly pleased the Son of God. And the great Scribe began to teach the partakers of His mystery, how it is fitting to pray when they pray.
Lest riches be mentioned in prayers, He composed those things that are necessary in the prayer He taught them. Indeed, first He commanded that when they pray riches should not be mentioned by them. He taught them with care to not make lengthy prayers lest prayer languish by lengthy speeches, find this message, by which He continues to speak to me, the beautiful prayer which our Lord taught is disclosed.
And the message seeks a hearing cleared of all evils and friendship with the Lord —the culmination of good deeds, and love—the great bond of faith. And among these the message is pleasing to the hearers. Surely in the message are all the highest virtues; if the hearer does not love Him, it does not please him. The prayer the Son of God taught the partakers of His mystery becomes clear to you when you listen affectionately. The disciples asked [Him] to teach them to pray; since He knew what was right, they asked Him—He did not deny them.
Maximus the Confessor, On the Lord’s Prayer 1
If then the realization of the divine counsel [i.e., the “self-basement of the Son”] is the deification of our nature, and if the aim of the divine thoughts is the successful accomplishment of what we ask for in our life, then it is profitable to recognize the full import of the Lord’s Prayer, to put it into practice and to write about it properly. … Indeed this prayer contains in outline, mysteriously hidden, or to speak more properly, openly proclaimed for those whose understanding is strong enough, the whole scope of what the words deal with. For the words of the prayer make request for whatever the Word himself wrought through the flesh in his self-abasement. For the words of the prayer make request for whatever the Word of God himself wrought through the flesh in his self-abasement….
For men and on their account, he himself worked and taught many new mysteries whose number and dimension the mind can in no way grasp or measure. There are seven in number …. The scope of [the Lord’s] prayer … mysteriously contains their meaning: theology, adoption in grace, equality of honor with the angels, participation in eternal life, the restoration of nature inclining toward itself to a tranquil state, the abolition of the law of sin, and the overthrowing of the tyranny of evil which has dominated us by trickery.
“Our Father, who art in heaven”
Tertullian, On Prayer 2-3
2. The prayer begins with bearing witness to God and on the value of faith: Our Father who is in heaven. For we both pray to God and confessing the faith of which this mode of address is an indication. It is written: To them who believed in him he gave the power, that they should be called the sons of God (John 1:12). Although the Lord very often proclaimed God as a Father to us, he also declared that we are to call no one on earth “father” except the Father in heaven (Matt. 23:9). And so, by praying in this way we are obeying his instruction. Happy are they who recognize God as their Father! . . . However, when we say “Father” we are also naming God in a form of address which demonstrates both devotion (pietas) and power (potestas). Moreover, the Son is invoked in the Father, for he says, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). Nor is the mother, the church, neglected, since the mother is found within the Father and the Son, for the name of Father and Son find their meaning in her.
Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer 8, 11
Common prayer signifies the unity of the church
8. Before everything else, our teacher of peace and instructor of unity does not want prayers to be made alone and individually with the result that a person prays only for himself. For we don’t say, “My Father, which art in heaven,” nor “Give me this day my daily bread.” Nor should anyone ask that only his own debt be forgiven him, or that he alone may not be led into temptation or delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we do not ask for the individual, but for the whole people, because we are all one people. The God of peace and the teacher of harmony, who taught unity, willed that everyone should pray in this way for all, just as he, himself, brought us all into one (cf. John 17:21).
We should live as children of the Father
11. So great is the mercy of the Lord, so abundant his condescension and goodness, that he desired that we should make our prayer in this manner in the sight of God, that we should address the Lord as “Father,” and that we should be considered sons of God, as Christ the son of God. . . . We should remember, therefore, dearest brethren, and realize that when we address God as our Father we should act as children of God, so that just as we have pleasure in having God as our Father, so he should have pleasure in us. Let us act as temples of God (1 Cor. 6:19), so that it may appear that God dwells in us. Let our conduct not fall away from the spirit; rather, we, who have begun to be spiritual and heavenly, should think and perform spiritual and heavenly things.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer
Jesus’ gives us a share of heavenly power
When our Lawgiver, the Lord Jesus Christ, brings us to divine grace, he does not do so at Mount Sinai covered with darkness and smoking with fire (cf. Ex. 19:16–19; Heb. 12:18–24). Nor does he strike fear into us by the meaningless sound of trumpets. He does not purify the soul by three days’ chastity and by water that washes away dirt (cf. Ex. 19:12–15). Nor does he leave the whole assembly (as Moses did) behind at the foot of the mountain (Ex. 19:23–24), allowing only one to make the ascent to its summit, which was hidden by a darkness completely concealing the glory of God.
Instead, he leads us, not to a mountain, but to heaven itself, which the Lord has rendered accessible to men by virtue. Furthermore, he gives us not merely visions of the divine power (cf. Eph 1:19), but a share in that power, bringing us, as it were, to kinship with the divine nature. He does not hide his supernal glory in darkness, making it difficult for those who want to perceive it. Rather, he illumines the darkness by the brilliant light of his teaching and then grants the pure of heart (cf. 5:8) the vision of his ineffable glory in shining splendor.
The prodigal returning to the Fatherland
Our Father who art in heaven. The words seem to indicate a deeper meaning, since they remind us of the fatherland from which we have fallen and of the noble birthright that we have lost. In the story of the young man who left his father’s home and went away to live after the manner of swine (Luke 15:15–16), the Word shows the misery of humanity in the form of a parable, which tells of the young man’s departure and dissolute life. And he does not bring him back to his former happiness until he has become fully conscious of his present plight and entered into himself, rehearsing words of repentance. Now these words agree, as it were, with the words of the prayer, for he said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you (Luke 15:21). He would not have added to his confession the sin against heaven, if he had not been convinced that the country he had left when he sinned was not heaven. This confession, therefore, gave him easy access to the father who ran toward him and embraced and kissed him (Luke 15:20c). And thus, the return of the young man to his father’s home became to him the occasion to know the Father’s great love. For this paternal home is the heaven against which, as he says to his father, he has sinned.
In the same way, it seems that if the Lord is teaching us to call upon the Father in heaven, he wants to remind you of our beautiful fatherland. And by putting into your mind stronger things, he sets you on the path toward your original country.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homily on the Lord’s Prayer 1
The freedom of the Spirit for children of the Father
Those who have received the Holy Spirit by whom they necessarily expect immortality, while still in this world, it is fitting that they should live in the Spirit, resign themselves to the Spirit and possess a mind worthy of the freedom of men led by the Holy Spirit, and that they should also flee from all the works of sin and acquire a conduct that is in harmony with the citizenship of the heavenly abode.
This is the reason why I do not teach you to say our Lord and our God, although it is evident that you ought to know that He is God, Lord and Maker of everything and of you also, and that it is He who will transfer you to the delight of these benefits. I order you to call Him our Father, so that when you have been made aware of your freedom and of the honor in which you have participated and the greatness which you have acquired—things by which you are called the sons of the Lord of all and your own Lord—you will act accordingly till the end. I do not wish you to say my Father but our Father, because He is a Father common to all in the same way as His grace, from which we received adoption of sons, is common to all. In this way you should not only offer congruous things to God, but you should also possess and keep fellowship with one another, because you are brothers and under the hand of one Father. |8
I added who is in heaven, so that the figure of the life in heaven, to which it has been granted to you to be transferred, might be drawn before your eyes. When you have received the adoption of sons, you will dwell in heaven, and this abode is fit for the sons of God.
Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father 4
On the mystery of the Holy Trinity implied in the Address of the LP
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come” (Matt. 6:9-10). First of all the LORD, by these words, teaches those who say this pray to begin as is fitting by “theology,” and he initiates them into the mystery of the mode of existence of the creative Cause of things, since he himself is by essence the Cause of things. Indeed, 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 honor, invoke, and adore the Trinity in unity.
For the name of God the Father subsists essentially is the only-begotten Son, and the kingdom of God the Father who subsists essentially is the Holy Spirit. Indeed, what Matthew here calls “kingdom” one of the other Evangelists has elsewhere called “Holy Spirit,” saying, “May Thy Holy Spirit come and purify us” [a rare variant of Luke 11:2, which Maximus probably got from Gregory of Nyssa, LP 3]. For the Father’s name is sot something which He has acquired, nor is the kingdom 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.
“Hallowed be they Name”
Tertullian, On Prayer 3
The name of God the Father had been revealed to no one, not even Moses, who had expressly asked concerning it, got his answer, but by another name (Ex. 3:14–15). But to us it has been revealed in the Son. For we know that the Son is the Father’s new name: I am come, he says, in the name of Father (John 5:43). And again, Father, glorify thy name (John 12:28). And,
more openly, I have manifested your name to people (John 17:6). It is that name we ask to be hallowed, not because it is fitting for people to wish God well—as though there were some other to whom such wishes could be made, or as though he would be in trouble unless we did so. Of course it is fitting for God to be blessed at every place and time, and by everyone, with a view to the remembrance of his benefits, which are always due. But this clause nonetheless serves the purpose of speaking well. Besides, when is the name of God not of itself holy and hallowed, since it is he of himself who hallows others? He is the one to whom the attendant angels do cease not to say, Holy, holy, holy (Is. 6:3). Therefore we also, should we prove worthy, are to put on angelic vesture, are here already learning that heavenly song to God and that task of future glory.
Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer 12
We say [“Hallowed be thy name”] not wishing that God should be made holy by our prayers, but asking the Lord that his name should be hallowed in us. Indeed, how could God, who is himself the one who hallows, be hallowed? As he said himself, Be holy, as I too am holy (Lev. 20:7; 1 Pet. 1:16). We ask and beseech that we sho are made holy in baptism should have the ability to persist in the way we have begun. And we request this every day. Our need is of daily sanctification, so that we who daily fail should have our sins purged by continual hallowing. . . . He says that we have been hallowed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God and we in turn, because our master and judge warns the one who has been healed and revived by him to sin no more lest something worse should befall him (John 5:14), pray that this hallowing should remain within us.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer 3
Learning to hallow God’s name by consideration of its opposite—blaspheming God’s name
But if the name of God is always holy, and nothing escapes His powerful dominion; if He rules all things, and nothing can be added to His holiness, since He is in all things absolutely perfect—what does it mean to pray: Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come? Perhaps by using such form of prayer the Word intends to set forth something like this: namely that human nature is too weak to achieve anything good, and that therefore we can obtain nothing of the things for which we arc anxious unless the good be accomplished in us by Divine aid. And of all good things the most important for me is that God's name should be glorified through my life. But perhaps our meaning will become clearer if we start from the opposite end.
I have heard Holy Scripture somewhere condemn those who are guilty of blaspheming God. “Woe to those,” it says, “through whom my Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.” Now the meaning of these words is something like this: Those who have not yet believed the word of truth closely examine the lives of those who have received the mystery of the faith. If, therefore, people arc "faithful" only in name, but contradict this name by their life, whether by committing idolatry for the sake of gain or by disgracing themselves by drunkenness and revelry, being immersed in profligacy like swine in the mud—then the pagans immediately attribute this not to the free choice of these evil-living men, but to the mystery which is supposed to teach these things. For, they say, such and such a man who has been initiated into the Divine mysteries would not be such a slanderer, or so avaricious and grasping, or anything equally evil, unless sinning was lawful for them. Therefore the Word holds out a grave threat to such men, saying to them: “Woe to those through whom my Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.”
Now if this has been properly understood, it will be time to consider the opposite. For I think it is necessary to make this before all else the principal part of prayer that the Name of God might not be blasphemed, but hallowed and glorified through my life. The prayer says, in effect, let the Name of His dominion which I invoke be hallowed in me, that men may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven. Who would be so absurdly unreasonable as not to glorify God if he sees in those who believe in Him a pure life firmly established in virtue? I mean a life purged from all stain of sin, above any suspicion of evil and shining with temperance and holy prudence.
A man who leads such a life will oppose fortitude to the assaults of the passions; since he partakes of the requirements of life only as far as necessary, he is in no way softened by the luxuries of the body and is an utter stranger to revelry and laziness as well as to boastful conceit. He touches the earth but lightly with the tip of his toes, for he is not engulfed by the pleasurable enjoyments of its life, but is above all deceit that comes by the senses. And so, even though in the flesh, he strives after the immaterial life. He counts the possession of virtues the only riches, familiarity with God the only nobility. His only privilege and power is the mastery of self so as not to be a slave of human passions. He is saddened if his life in this material world be prolonged; like those who are seasick he hastens to reach the port of rest. How could anyone who sees such a man fail to glorify the Name invoked by such a life? (Graef, 49-50)
John Chrysostom
“Hallowed” means “glorified”
Concerning the one who calls God “Father,” it is appropriate to ask nothing before one prays for the glory of the Father, and to regard everything else secondary to the work of praising him. For hallowed means “glorified.” For he is perfect in his own glory, and that remains the same forever. However, he commands us when we pray to seek to give him glory by our lives. This is the very thing he had said before, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (5:16). So too, the seraphim give glory to God: Holy, holy, holy (Rev 4:8).
Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father 4
We sanctify the name of the Father in grace who is in heaven by mortifying earthly lust, of course, and by purifying ourselves from corrupting passions, since sanctification is the total immobility and mortification of sensual lust. Arrived at this point, we quiet the indecent howling of anger which no longer has, to excite it and persuade it to be carried over to familiar pleasures, the lust which is already mortified by a holiness conformed to reason. Indeed, anger, as a natural ally of lust, ceases to rage once it sees that lust is mortified.”
“Thy Kingdom Come”
Origen, On Prayer 25.1
If, according to the word of our Lord and Savior, the Kingdom of God does not come with observable signs, . . . but rather the Kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:20–21), then it is clear that whoever prays for the coming of the kingdom of God rightly prays that the kingdom of God may be established, bear fruit, and be perfected in him. . . . Every saint who is ruled by God as his King and obedient to God’s spiritual laws, as it were, lives within himself as in a well-ordered city. The Father is present to him, and Christ reigns with the Father in the soul that is perfect according to the words that mentioned earlier: We will come to him and will make our dwelling (John 14:23). And I think that the kingdom of God may be understood as the blessed condition of the governing mind and the right ordering of wise thoughts. By the kingdom of Christ, the saving words reach those who hear, and the works of justice and the other virtues are accomplished. For the Son of God is himself the Word and Justice.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer 3
How can He who IS king BECOME king?
In the following clause we pray that God's Kingdom should come. Could this really mean that He who is King of the universe should become King? He who is always the same and incapable of change, since He could not find anything better into which to change? What, then, does this prayer mean that asks for the Kingdom of God?
Its true significance may be known to those to whom the Spirit of truth reveals hidden mysteries. Our own interpretation of the saying is this: There is one true and perfect power which is above all things and governs the whole universe. But it rules not by violence and tyrannical dictatorship, which enforces the obedience of its subjects through fear and compulsion. For virtue must be free from the fear of a taskmaster, so as to choose the good by a voluntary act; since it is a principle that all that is good should be subject only to the power that gives life.
Now since man's nature was deceitfully led astray from the discernment of the good, the inclination of his free will has been directed to the opposite and his life subjected to every base thing; his nature has been mixed up with death in a thousand ways, for every form of evil is, as it were, a way of death for him. Since, then, we arc hard pressed by such tyranny and become slaves to death through the assaults of the passions, which attack us like executioners and enemies in war, we rightly pray that the Kingdom of God may come to us. For we cannot escape the wicked dominion of corruption except the lifegiving power take over the government in its place.
So if we ask that the Kingdom of God may come to us, the meaning of our request is this: I would be a stranger to corruption and liberated from death; would that I were freed from the shackles of sin and that death no longer lorded it over me. Let us no more be tyrannized by evil so that the adversary may not prevail against me and make me his captive through sin. But may Thy Kingdom come to me, so that the passions which still rule me so mercilessly may depart from me, or rather may be altogether annihilated.
For “As smoke vanisheth, so shall they vanish away; and as wax melteth . . . , so shall they perish” (Ps. 68:2). The smoke which dissolves in the air leaves no trace of its existence, nor can wax be found any more once it has been in the fire. But as the latter, having nourished the flame with its own substance, has evaporated into the air, and as the smoke has disappeared into complete nothingness, so, when the Kingdom of God comes upon us, all the things that now hold sway will cease to exist. Thus darkness vanishes before the presence of light, and illness passes when health has been established. The passions cease to be troublesome when apatheia has appeared; death is undone and corruption is no more when life and incorruption reign in us unopposed. (Graef, 51-52)
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homily on the Lord’s Prayer 1
It is fitting for those who have been called to the Kingdom of Heaven in the adoption of sons, and who expect to dwell in heaven with Christ (as the blessed Paul said, we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord [1 Thess. 4:17])—to think of things that are worthy of that Kingdom, to do the things that are congruous with heavenly citizenship, to consider the earthly things small and believe them to be below their dignity to speak and think of them. No one who is so placed as to live in the court of a king, and is considered worthy to see him always and converse with him, will go and wander in the bazaars and inns and such like, but will have intercourse only with those who always frequent the places where he is. In this same way, we who are called to the Kingdom of Heaven, are not allowed to relinquish our fellowship with it or with the things that suit the citizenship therein, and busy ourselves with the commerce of this world in which there is much evil trading and unholy work.
Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father 4
The Kingdom is the “earth” inherited by the Meek—i.e., the stable middle place of virtue
It is thus fitting that, anger and desire repudiated [see above, “hallowed be thy name], we should next invoke the rule of the kingdom of God the Father with the words “Thy kingdom come” (Matt. 6:l0), 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 clear 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…. 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 think 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.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
Tertullian, On Prayer
Next comes Thy will be done in heaven and on earth. This does not mean that anything is preventing God’s will from being accomplished, and that we are praying that he may succeed in carrying out his will. No, what we are asking is that his will be done in all things. Using a figurative interpretation of “flesh” and “spirit,” we ourselves are “earth” and “heaven.” Even if the verse should be understood in its plain sense, the point of the prayer is still the same: that his will be done in us on earth, as it is able to be done in heaven. What does God wish other than that we should walk according to his teaching? We pray, therefore, that he may provide us with the means and opportunity of doing his will, such that we may be saved both in heaven and on the earth. For the whole point of his will is the salvation of those whom he has adopted.
There is also the will of God that the Lord accomplished in preaching, and in the performing of works and in his perseverance. Since he declared that he was doing the will of the Father, not his own will (John 6:38)—without doubt the things he did were the Father’s will. By his example, we are now urged to preach, perform works, and persevere even unto death. This we can accomplish only through the will of God.
Origen, On Prayer 26.3
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We might ask how is the will of God done in heaven where there are spirits of wickedness (Eph 6:12), on whose account the sword of God will be stained with blood even in heaven (Isa 34:5)? If we pray that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven, are we not inadvisably praying that there remain on earth hostile spirits that dwell in the heavens? For many places of the earth become wicked because they are conquered by the spirits of wickedness that are in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12).
But if we understand heaven allegorically and maintain that it stands for Christ and earth stands for the Church (for who is worthy to be the throne of the Father except Christ, and what can be compared to the Church as a footstool for the feet of God [cf. Isa 66:1]?), we will easily solve the difficulties raised here. We claim that each member of the Church should pray that he might accomplish the will of the Father and accomplish it perfectly (John 4:34). By being joined to him we can become one spirit with him (1 Cor. 6:17) and consequently accomplish the will of God so that it will be fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven. He who is joined to the Lord, according to Paul, is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). This interpretation, if considered carefully, cannot be easily dismissed.
And perhaps when our Savior says we should pray that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven, he is not telling us to pray that those physically on earth should become like those who are in heaven. Rather, by enjoining this prayer, the Lord wills that all beings on the earth, that is, those of the lower kind or earthly, should become like them whose citizenship is in heaven and have become fully all heavenly. For the sinner, wherever he may be, is on earth. If he does not repent, he will pass somehow to that which he is most alike. But he who does the will of God by obeying his saving and spiritual laws, is in heaven.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer 4
Now the health of the soul is the accomplishment of the Divine Will, just as, on the other hand, the disease of the soul that ends in death is the falling away from this good Will. We fell ill when we forsook the wholesome way of life in Paradise and filled ourselves with the poison of disobedience, through which our nature was conquered by this evil and deadly disease. Then there came the true Physician who cured the evil perfectly by its opposite, as is the law of medicine. For those who had succumbed to the disease because they had separated themselves from the Divine Will, He frees once more from their sickness by uniting them to the Will of God. For the words of the prayer bring the cure of the disease which is in the soul. For He prays as if His soul was immersed in pain, saying, Thy Will be done. Now the Will of God is the salvation of men. If therefore we prepare to say to God: Thy Will be done also in me, it is absolutely necessary first to renounce what was contrary to the Divine Will and to give a full account of it in confession. (Graef, 58-59)
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But what means the additional clause, on earth as it is in Heaven?
The whole rational creation is divided into the incorporeal and the corporeal natures. The incorporeal species is the angelic creature, and the other one is we men. The spiritual creature, inasmuch as it is separated from the body that weighs down—I mean the earthly body that is solid and heavy—sojourns in the upper region. It dwells in the light and ethereal places and is of a nimble and agile nature. But the other nature has necessarily been allotted to the earthly life because of the kinship of our body, which is, as it were, a sediment of mud, with what is earthly.
Now I do not know what was the purpose of the Divine Will in so ordering it. Perhaps it was to bring the whole creation into relationship with itself, so that neither the lower portion should be without part in the heavenly heights, nor heaven wholly without a share in the things pertaining to earth. Thus the creation of man would effect in each of the elements a participation in the things belonging to the other; for the spiritual nature of the soul, which seems to be decidedly akin to the heavenly powers, dwells in earthly bodies, and in the restoration of all, this earthly flesh will be translated into the heavenly places together with the soul.
Yet the desire for the good and the beautiful is equally inherent in both natures, and the Lord of the world has both equally endowed with self-determined free will and complete freedom from necessity. Thus, every being privileged to possess a rational mind is meant to be governed by an autonomous free will. Now the heavenly life is perfectly free from evil, and none of the powers known to be opposed to it has communion with it. On the other hand, every impulse or emotion connected with the passions resides in the life below, where human nature is at home. Therefore the Divinely inspired Word fixes the attention on the heavenly city, the dwelling place of the holy powers, which is perfectly free from even the slightest stain of sin and evil. (Graef, 61-62)
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Since, then, the life above is passionless and pure, whereas this wretched life here below is immersed in all manner of passions and miseries, it should be clear that the city above, being pure from all evil, is firmly established in the good Will of God. For where there is no evil there must necessarily be the good. But our life, which has fallen away from sharing the good things, has at the same time fallen away from the Divine Will. Therefore the prayer teaches us thus to purify our life from evil that the will of God may rule in us without hindrance, in the same way as it does in the life of heaven. In other words: As Thy Will is done by the thrones and principalities and powers and dominations and all the supramundane hosts, where no evil hinders the action of the good, so may the good be accomplished also in us. Thus, when all evil has been removed, Thy Will may be accomplished in our souls in all things. (Graef, 62)
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homily on the Lord’s Prayer 1
[Concerning the petition, “thy will be done”.] This will happen if in this world we strive as much as possible to imitate the life which we shall live in heaven, because heaven contains nothing that is contrary to God, as sin will be abolished and the power of the demons will cease, and, in short, all things that fight against us will be destroyed. When all earthly things have ceased to exist, we shall rise from the dead and dwell in heaven in an immortal and immutable nature. We will do the will of God better than in anything else by wishing and acting as God wishes, and by thinking of things belonging to heaven, where there will be no power and no passion which will incite us against the will of God.
In this world we ought to persevere as much as possible in the will of God and not to will or do things that are against him. As we believe that the will of God reigns in heaven, so it should also hold sway in earth; and in the same way as it shall be in heaven, it is right for us not to do now the smallest act which by our will or our thought would contradict that will. This, however, is not possible as long as we are in our mortal and changeable nature, but we must turn our will away from the passions that are contrary (to the will of God) and not listen to them in any way, and do that which the blessed Paul commanded in saying: Be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:2). He does not command that passions should not beset us, but that we should not be conformed to things that will surely vanish with this world, and that the will of our soul should not be conformed to the ways of acting of this world.
Let us strive against all happenings whether painful or joyful, sublime or abject, in one word in any capacity high or low, which are capable more than others to lead us astray towards harmful thoughts and to divert our mind from good will, and let us be careful not to let our love fall on them, but let us strengthen our thoughts with daily improvements and cast away from us the injurious insinuations that come to us from the passions of this world, and bend our will day by day towards virtues, in our search for the things which are pleasing to God. We should only consider as unqualified good that which is pleasing to God, and endeavor in everything to spurn the pleasures of this world. We should also bear the tribulations that befall us, place the will of God before everything, and consider ourselves happy when we act thus, even if all the afflictions of this world should surround us. If we do not act in this way we shall be more wretched than all men, even if we are prosperous in all earthly things.