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On the Lord’s Prayer

St Gregory of Nyssa, tr. Graef, 1954

2. The Lord’s Prayer: Sermon 2

Our Father, who art in Heaven

When the great Moses undertook to initiate the Israelites into the Divine mysteries¹ which had been inaugurated on the Mount,² he did not deem them ready to receive the theophany until he had ordained the purification of the people by chastity and the sprinkling of water. But even so they did not brave the manifestation of the Divine power, but were struck down by all the apparitions, the fire and the darkness, the smoke and the trumpets. So they turned back and asked the Lawgiver to be their mediator of the will of God, seeing that they were not fit by their own power to draw near to God to receive the Divine manifestation.

But when our Lawgiver the Lord Jesus Christ is bringing us to Divine grace, He does not present Mount Sinai covered with darkness and smoking with fire,³ 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 dirt away; nor does He leave all the assembly behind at the foot of the mountain, granting only to one the ascent to its summit, which, moreover, is hidden by a darkness completely concealing the glory of God. But, first of all, He leads us not to a mountain but to Heaven itself, which He has rendered accessible to men by virtue. Secondly, He gives them not only the vision of, but a share in, the Divine power, bringing them as it were to kinship with the Divine Nature. Moreover, He does not hide the supernal glory in darkness, making it difficult for those who want to contemplate it; but He first illumines the darkness by the brilliant light of His teaching and then grants the pure of heart the vision of the ineffable glory in shining splendour. The water He gives us for sprinkling does not come from alien streams, but wells up in ourselves, whether we understand by it the fountains of tears streaming from our eyes, or the pure conscience of the heart that admits no impurity coming from evil; He proclaims as a law chastity not only from the lawful intercourse between husband and wife, but that springing from a nature entangled in material passions, and thus leads us to God through prayer. For this is the force of His words, that we should learn by them not to pronounce certain sounds and syllables, but the meaning of the ascent to God which is accomplished through a sublime way of life.

But now it is time that we should learn the Divine discipline through the words of the prayer itself. When you pray, He says. He does not say “When you make a vow,”⁴ but “When you pray”: a vowed promise ought to have been made before approaching God in prayer. Now what is the difference in meaning between these words? It is this: a vow (euche) is the promise of something consecrated to the service of God; whereas prayer (proseuche) is the offering to God of a supplication for good things. Since, therefore, we need confidence⁵ to approach God with the request for the things that are profitable for us, the performance of a vow must necessarily come first. Thus, when we have accomplished our part, we are confident of being made worthy to receive in return the things that are God’s to give.

Therefore says the Prophet, I will pay Thee my vows, which my lips have uttered,⁶ and Vow ye and pay to the Lord your God.⁷ And this meaning of euche can be seen in many places in Scripture, so that we should know, as has been said, that euche is the promise of a thank offering; whereas proseuche signifies our approaching God after the fulfilment of the promise. Hence the passage teaches us not to ask something from God without first having offered Him an acceptable gift. One must first vow (euxasthai) and then pray (proseuxasthai); first the sowing, then the fruitbearing, so to speak. Hence we must first cast the seed of the vow, and thus reap what has grown from this sowing, receiving grace in return for prayer. Since, then, there can be no confidence in relationship with God unless we have prepared our approach to Him by vow and the offering of gifts, euche must precede proseuche.

Assuming therefore that this has already been done, the Lord says to His disciples: When you pray, say: Our Father, who art in Heaven.⁸ Who will give me wings like a dove, says the great David somewhere in the Psalms.⁹ This I, too, would say, boldly using the same words. Who will give me those wings, that my mind may wing its way up to the heights of these noble words? Then I would leave behind the earth altogether and traverse all the middle air; I would reach the beautiful ether, come to the stars and behold all their orderly array.¹⁰ But not even there would I stop short, but, passing beyond them, would become a stranger to all that moves and changes, and apprehend the stable Nature, the immovable Power which exists in its own right, guiding and keeping in being all things, for all depend on the ineffable will of the Divine Wisdom. So first my mind must become detached from anything subject to flux and change and tranquilly rest in motionless spiritual repose, so as to be rendered akin to Him who is perfectly unchangeable; and then it may address Him by this most familiar name and say: Father.

What spirit a man must have to say this word—what confidence, what purity of conscience! Supposing a man should try to understand God as far as possible from the names that have been invented for Him and so be led to the understanding of the ineffable glory: he would have learned that the Divine Nature, whatever It may be in Itself, is absolute goodness, holiness and joy, power, glory and purity, eternity that is always absolutely the same. These and whatever other things thought could learn about the Divine Nature, whether from the Divine Scriptures or from its own meditation, he would consider—and after all that should he dare to utter such a word and call this Being his Father? If he has any sense, he would obviously not dare to call God by the name Father since he does not see the same things in himself as he sees in God. For it is physically impossible that He who is good by essence should be the Father of an evil will, nor the Holy One of him whose life is impure. No more can He who is changeless be the Father of a man who is turning from one side to the other, nor can the Father of life have as His son someone whom sin has subjected to death. He who is wholly pure cannot be the Father of those who have disgraced themselves by unseemly passions, nor He who pours out benefits of him who is self-seeking. In short, He who is seen to be pure goodness cannot be Father of those who are wholly involved in some evil. If therefore on examining himself a man finds that he still needs to be purified because his conscience is full of vile stains and sores, he cannot insinuate himself into the family of God until he has been purged from all these evil things. The unjust and impure cannot say Father to the just and pure, since this would mean calling God Father of his own wickedness, which would be nothing but pride and mockery. For the word Father indicates the cause of what exists through Him.

Hence if a man whose conscience accuses him of evil calls God his Father, he asserts precisely that God is the cause and origin of his own wickedness. But there is no fellowship of light with darkness, says the Apostle;¹¹ but light associates with light and justice with what is just, beauty with what is beautiful and incorruption with the incorruptible. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.¹² If then someone who is dull of heart and seeks after lying,¹³ as the Scripture says, yet dares to use the words of the prayer, he should know that he does not call the Heavenly One his Father, but the infernal one, who is himself a liar and father of every lie, who is sin and the father of sin.¹⁴ Hence the Apostle calls men who are subject to the passions children of wrath,¹⁵ and one who has fallen away from the true life is named the son of perdition;¹⁶ someone who is lazy and effeminate is termed the son of deserting maidens.¹⁷ In the same way, conversely, those whose conscience is pure are called children of light and day,¹⁸ and others who aspire to the Divine strength sons of power.¹⁹

If therefore the Lord teaches us in His prayer to call God Father, it seems to me that He is doing nothing else but to set the most sublime life before us as our law. For Truth does not teach us to deceive, to say we are what we are not and to use a name to which we have no right. But if we call our Father Him who is incorruptible and just and good, we must prove by our life that the kinship is real. Do you see how much preparation we need, and what kind of life we must lead? How ardent must be our zeal so that our conscience may achieve such purity as to have the courage to say “Father” to God? For if you make such prayer with your lips while you are keen on money and occupied with the deceits of the world, while you are seeking fame among men or are enslaved by sensual passions—what, do you think, will He say to it who sees your life and knows what your prayer really is? It seems to me that God would say to such a man something like this: You, whose life is corrupt, call the Author of incorruption Father? Why do you defile the pure name with your polluted word? Why do you belie this word and insult the undefiled Nature? If you were my child, your life would be marked by my own good qualities. I do not recognize the image of my Nature in you. Your characteristics are the exact opposite of mine. What fellowship hath light with darkness?²⁰ What kinship has death with life? How can there be intimacy between pure and impure? The Giver of good things is far removed from the man who is covetous. There can be no intercourse between Him who is merciful and him who is cruel. The evils that are in you have another for their father; for my offspring are made lovely by the goodness of their Father. The child of the Merciful and Pure is himself merciful and pure; the corrupt is not related to the incorrupt. In a word, good comes from good and just from just. But as to you, I know not whence you are. Therefore it is dangerous to dare to use this prayer and call God one’s Father before one’s life has been purified.

But let us once more listen to the words of the prayer, if perhaps, through frequent repetition, we may be given to understand some of its hidden meaning. Our Father, who art in Heaven. That one must win God’s favour by a virtuous life has been made sufficiently clear through what has been said before. But the words seem to me to indicate a deeper meaning, for they remind us of the fatherland from which we have fallen and of the noble birthright which we have lost. Thus in the story of the young man who left his father’s home and went away to live after the manner of swine the Word shows the misery of men in the form of a parable which tells of his departure and dissolute life; and He does not bring him back to his former happiness until he has become sensibly aware 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 thee.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 Heaven. Therefore this confession gave him easy access to the father who ran towards him and embraced and kissed him. And this signifies the yoke of the Word, which had been placed on man through the mouth, that is to say, through the tradition of the Gospel, after he had thrown off the first yoke of the commandment by shaking himself free of the protecting law. And he put on him the robe, not another one, but the first robe, of which he had been deprived by his disobedience,²² when he had tasted of the forbidden fruit and seen his own nakedness. The ring on his hand, because of the carved stone, signifies the regaining of the Image. But he also protects his feet with shoes so that if he approaches the head of the serpent, it may not bite into his naked heel. Thus the return of the young man to his Father’s home became to him the occasion of experiencing the lovingkindness of his Father; for this paternal home is the Heaven against which, as he says to his Father, he has sinned. In the same way it seems to me that if the Lord is teaching us to call upon the Father in Heaven, He means to remind you of our beautiful fatherland. And by thus putting into your mind a stronger desire for these good things, He sets you on the way that will lead you back to your original country.

Now the way which leads human nature back to Heaven is none other than that of avoiding the evils of the world by flight; on the other hand, the purpose of fleeing from evils seems to me precisely to achieve likeness with God.²³ To become like God means to become just, holy, and good and suchlike things. If anyone, as far as in him lies, clearly shows in himself the characteristics of these virtues, he will pass automatically and without effort from this earthly life to the life of Heaven. For the distance between the Divine and the human is not a local one so as to need some mechanical device by which this heavily weighted earthly flesh should migrate into the disembodied intelligible life. No; if virtue has really been separated from evil, it lies solely within the free choice of man to be there where his desire inclines him. Since, therefore, the choice of the good is not followed by any labour—for possession of the things that are chosen follows the act of choice—you are entitled to be in Heaven immediately, because you have seized God with your mind. Now if, according to Ecclesiastes, God is in Heaven,²⁴ and you, according to the Prophet, adhere to God,²⁵ it follows necessarily that you should be where God is, because you are united to Him. Since then He has commanded in the prayer to call God Father, He tells you to do nothing less than to become like to your Heavenly Father by a life that is worthy of God, as He bids us do more clearly elsewhere when He says: Be you therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect.²⁶

If we have now understood the meaning of the prayer, it may perhaps be time to prepare our souls so that we may pronounce the words with bold confidence: Our Father, who art in Heaven. For as there are obvious characteristics of resemblance to God through which one may become a child of God (for He says: As many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God²⁷ —but he who receives the perfect good receives God); so also there are certain signs belonging to the evil character the bearer of which cannot be the son of God, because he is stamped with the image of the contrary nature.²⁸ Would you like to know the features of the evil character? They are envy and hate, slander, conceit, cupidity, passionate lust and mad ambition. By these and similar signs the form of the adversary is recognized. If then a man whose soul is impregnated with such stains shall call upon his father, what kind of a father will hear him? Evidently one who is akin to the man who calls upon him; and this is not the heavenly, but the infernal father. For the one who bears the family features will surely recognize his own kind. Therefore as long as the evil man persists in his wickedness, his prayer is an invocation of the devil. But when he has abandoned his wickedness and is living a good life, then his words will call upon the Father who is good. For this reason, before we approach God we should first examine our life, if we have something worthy of the Divine kinship in ourselves, and so we may make bold to use such a word.

For He who has commanded us to say Father, has not permitted us to pronounce a lie. He, therefore, who lives in a manner worthy of the Divine nobility, has the right to look towards the Heavenly City, calling the King of Heaven his Father and the celestial beatitude his fatherland. For what is the purpose of this counsel? That one should think of the things that are above, where God is. There should be laid the foundations of the house, there the treasures should be stored, there the heart should be settled. For where the treasure is, there is also the heart.²⁹ We should always look at the beauty of the Father and fashion the beauty of our own soul on His.

There is no respect of persons with God, says the Scripture.³⁰ Let your beauty also be without this blemish. The Divine is pure from envy and from all stain of passion. Therefore let no such passions defile you, neither envy nor vanity nor any of those things that would pollute the Divine Beauty. If such is what you are, you may boldly address God by a familiar name and call the Lord of all your Father. He will look upon you with the eyes of a Father, He will clothe you with the Divine robe and adorn you with a ring; He will shoe your feet for the upward journey with the sandals of the Gospel and will restore you to the Heavenly Fatherland, in Christ Jesus Our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

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