THE ORIGINS of the JESUS PRAYER [ 5th – 9th cent.]: Diadochus, Gaza, Sinai Bishop Kallistos Ware     Roman Missal, BM MS 0136, 1370 f. 329

The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn, Wainwright, Yarnold
(Oxford University Press, 1986) pp. 175-183.  Note that page numbers in this artile refer to this edition.

BETWEEN the fifth and the eighth centuries a method of prayer emerged which has proved deeply influential in the Christian East: the remembrance or invocation of the name of Jesus, commonly termed the ‘Jesus Prayer’ or ‘Prayer of Jesus’. This takes the basic form of a short sentence addressed to Jesus Christ and designed for frequent repetition. The standard phrasing of it runs, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’; but there are many variations. It is, however, unusual in the Christian East to repeat the name ‘ Jesus’ entirely on its own. Round the use of this brief ‘arrow prayer’ a Jesus-centred spirituality has gradually developed, in which four main elements can be distinguished:

1. Devotion to the Holy Name ‘ Jesus’, which is felt to act in a semisacramental way as a source of power and grace.

2. The appeal for divine mercy, accompanied by a keen sense of compunction and inward grief (penthos).

3. The discipline of frequent repetition.

4. The quest for inner silence or stillness (hēsuchuia), that is to say, for imageless, non-discursive prayer.

THE last three of these elements can all be found in monastic sources from fourth-century Egypt (see “‘The Desert Fathers’“, pp. 119-30; “‘Evagrius’“, pp. 168-73). The Apophthegmata or Sayings of the Desert Fathers assign a central importance to the second element, penthos. ‘This is a man’s chief work,’ says St Antony, ‘always to blame himself for his sins in God’s sight’ (Alphabetical collection, Antony 4). When asked what he is doing in his cell, the monk can briefly reply, ‘I am weeping for my sins’ (Dioscorus 2); for ‘the monk should always have penthos in his heart’ (Poemen 26).

The third element, the use of short phrases frequently repeated, is also emphasized in the Apophthegmata. Mindful of Paul’s injunction to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess. 5.17), the early monks strove at all times to preserve mnēmē Theou, the ‘remembrance of God’ or sense of the divine presence -- while performing manual labour, when eating, even when talking with others or resting. Like St Basil (see p. 164), they looked on this mnēmē as the heart of the spiritual life. To assist them in maintaining the constant awareness of God, it was their practice to repeat aloud or inwardly a verse from Scripture, especially from the Psalms. Abba Lucius used the first verse of Psalm 51, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God . . .’(Apophthegmata, Lucius 1); Abba Isaac, as reported by St John Cassian, recommended the continual recitation of Psalm 70.1, ‘O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me’ (Conferences, x.10). In other cases the phrase could be of a monk’s own devising. Abba Apollo, for example, repeated the words, ‘As man, I have sinned; as God, forgive’ (Apophthegmata, Apollo 2): here the second element, sorrow for sin, is very marked. From the time of John Climacus (seventh century), the repetition of short phrases in this manner has been known as ‘monologic prayer’, that is, prayer of a single logos, a single word or phrase. While the name of Jesus figures occasionally in the ‘monologic prayers’ employed by the fourth-century desert fathers, it enjoys no special prominence. A wide variety of formulae prevails, and there is as yet no trace of a spirituality centred particularly upon the Holy Name. The early Egyptian desert, then, provides evidence for the second and third of our four elements, but not for the first.

There is evidence in early monastic Egypt also for the fourth element, non-discursive prayer, if not among the Coptic monks, then at any rate in the writings of Evagrius. Prayer, so he teaches, is ‘the putting away of thoughts’ (On Prayer, 71) -- not of sinful and impassioned thoughts only but, so far as possible, of all thoughts: the intellect (nous) is to become simple and ‘naked’, free from shape or form, wholly unified, transcending the division between subject and object. But, although commending the use of ‘brief but intense prayer’ (On Prayer, 98), and also in the Antirrhētikos the repetition of verses from the Psalms as a weapon against the demons, Evagrius does not link this specifically with the ‘putting away of thoughts’. Thus the fourth element, non-discursive or ‘apophatic’ prayer, is not as yet explicitly connected with the third, the discipline of repetition. Evagrius does not attach any special significance to the name of Jesus.

THE real beginnings of a distinctive spirituality of the Jesus Prayer must therefore be sought in the fifth rather than the fourth century. St Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), in the course of his voluminous correspondence, [there are problems of authenticity: see A. Cameron, in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies xvii (1976), pp. 181-96]  advocates the ‘invocation’ or ‘remembrance’ of the name of Jesus, urging that this should be so far as possible continuous (Letters, ii.140, 214; iii.273, 278); but these are only brief allusions made in passing.

FAR more important in the history of the Jesus Prayer is St Diadochus, Bishop of Photike in northern Greece (second half of the fifth century). He acts as a decisive ‘catalyst’: although the second element, penthos, is not particularly prominent in his teaching, he establishes an explicit connection between the other three elements, treating the constant repetition of the name of Jesus precisely as a means of entry into non-discursive, imageless prayer. Diadochus is influenced both by Evagrius and by the Macarian Homilies -- the first in a long series of Eastern Christian writers to effect a synthesis between these two complementary ‘currents’. From Evagrius he inherits, among other things, an understanding of prayer as the ‘putting away of thoughts’; from the Homilies he derives an ‘affective’ emphasis upon the spiritual senses, upon feelings and conscious experience, while at the same time he is firmly opposed to the more extreme Messalian views.

In consequence of the fall, so Diadochus teaches, the ‘perception’ of the human soul has become divided into two contrary tendencies (Chapters 24-5), and this division has affected both the will (78) and the memory (88). At the same time the intellect (nous) suffers from restlessness, ‘requiring of us imperatively some task that will satisfy its need for activity’ (59). How are we to unify our inner faculties and bring them to stillness, while at the same time providing the ever-active intellect with an appropriate occupation? The will, he answers, is to be unified through the practice of the ‘active life’ (in the Evagrian sense); the memory, through the ‘remembrance’ (97) or ‘invocation’ (85) of Jesus, which will satisfy the intellect’s ‘need for activity’ while overcoming its fragmentation. ‘We should give it nothing but the prayer Lord Jesus. . . Let the intellect continually concentrate on this phrase within its inner shrine with such intensity that it is not turned away to any mental images’ (59). Here Diadochus clearly connects the invocation of Jesus with the attainment of imageless prayer. He seems to envisage, not merely the ‘remembrance’ or ‘recollection’ of Jesus in a diffused sense, as some have held, but an actual invocation through a specific formula of prayer. Perhaps other words also followed the phrase Lord Jesus, but if so he has not told us what they were.

Significantly Diadochus says ‘nothing but the prayer Lord Jesus’. The diversity of monologic formulae, as found in fourth-century Egypt, is now giving place to a greater uniformity. The repetition needs to be unvarying, so as to bring the intellect from fragmentation to unity, from a diversity of thoughts and images to a state of single-pointed concentration. While itself an invocation in words, by virtue of its brevity and simplicity the prayer Lord Jesus enables us to reach out beyond language into silence, beyond discursive thinking into intuitive awareness. Through habitual use, Diadochus states, the prayer becomes ever more spontaneous and self-acting, an organic part of us, as with a child instinctively ‘calling for his father even when asleep’ (61). For Disdochus, indeed, this is more than a mere analogy, for he sees the Jesus Prayer as an eminently effective weapon against the demons when we are on the threshold between waking and sleeping (31). The invocation of Jesus leads, so he teaches, to a vision of the ‘light of the intellect’ and at the same time to a feeling of ‘warmth in the heart’ (59). Here his double debt to Evagrius and the Macarian Homilies is evident: the intellect’s vision of its own light is a characteristically Evagrian theme (see Praktikos 64), while his words about the feeling of warmth recall the ‘affective’ spirit of the Homilies with their imagery of fire.

Diadochus, then, combines the Evagrian insistence upon ‘pure’ or non-discursive prayer with the practice of monologia or frequent repetition, as used by the desert fathers; and at the same time he treats the name of Jesus as the focal point of this repetition. In this way he takes a decisive step forward by proposing a practical method for attaining imageless prayer, which is something that Evagrius himself had failed to do; and he endows this method with a powerful force of attraction by centering it upon the Holy Name.

IN the early part of the following century the tradition of the Jesus Prayer is continued by St Barsanuphius and St John, two hermits living close to a monastery outside Gaza, who gave spiritual guidance both to the monks of the monastery and to a wide circle of outside visitors, clerical and lay. In the sources they are described respectively as ‘the Great Old Man’ and ‘the Other Old Man’. Since they refused to meet anyone except the abbot of the monastery, their disciple Seridus, all questions had to be submitted in writing, and their answers were likewise given in writing. Nearly 850 of these questions and answers survive, and there is no other patristic source providing such vivid, first-hand insight into the ministry of spiritual direction in the early Church.

The two Old Men of Gaza are openly hostile to Origen and Evagrius (Questions and Answers 600-7). [References are given according to the Chitty/Regnault numbering (somewhat different from the Nicodemus/Schoinas enumeration)].  They stand, not in the speculative, platonizing line of Alexandria but in the pragmatic tradition of the Apophthegmata. They have many practical suggestions to make concerning humility, obedience and the excision of self-will. While urging the need to watch over the thoughts (logismoi), they do not envisage prayer as imageless and non-discursive. For them, as for the desert fathers, prayer and the remembrance of God should be so far as possible unceasing, and in this connection they recommend the constant repetition of short phrases. But, unlike Diadochus with his insistence upon uniformity, Barsanuphius and John suggest a variety of formulae: among others,

[1] ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’ (175, 446) -- this is close to what was termed above the ‘standard phrasing’;

[2] ‘ Jesus, help me’ (39, 268);

[3] ‘Master Jesus, protect me and help my weakness’ (659);

[4] ‘ Lord Jesus Christ, save me from shameful passions’ (255).

 Although also commending short prayers without the word ‘ Jesus’, in general they attach paramount value to the Holy Name. Even when not referring specifically to monologic prayer, their letters are full of remarks such as ‘Cry out to Jesus’ (148), ‘Run to Jesus’ (256), ‘Let us awaken Jesus’ (182).

THE chief disciple of Barsanuphius and John is Dorotheus, who around 540 founded his own monastery not far from Gaza. In his main work, the Instructions -- widely read in the West, and used in particular by the early Jesuits -- he adopts a practical approach similar to that of his two teachers, attaching central importance to humility, but he is more open to Evagrian influence than they are. The invocation of Jesus is not mentioned in the Instructions, but it plays a notable role in one of Dorotheus’ other works, the Life of Dositheus. Coming as a boy to the monastery of Abba Seridus, Dositheus is entrusted to Dorotheus’ care, and he is taught to preserve the ‘remembrance of God’ by saying continually

[1] ‘ Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’,

[2] and then at intervals ‘Son of God, help me’ (10).

 Here, as in Barsanuphius and John, more than one formula is proposed; indeed, the second phrase does not in fact include the name of Jesus. When Dositheus falls gravely ill, Dorotheus tells him to keep saying the Prayer as long as he can. But when he finally grows too weak, Dorotheus says: ‘Then let the Prayer go; just remember God and think that he is in front of you’ (10). Thus the actual saying of the Prayer, however important, is only a means to an end: what really matters is the unceasing remembrance of God. Continual prayer does not mean merely the continual saying of prayers; it may also take the form of an implicit state rather than a series of outward acts.

THE standard form of the Jesus Prayer, ‘ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’ -- combining the two formulae in the Life of Dositheus -- is first found in the Life of Abba Philemon. He was an Egyptian monk, living perhaps in the sixth century, but possibly one or two centuries later than this. In his spiritual teaching Philemon is indebted to both Evagrius and the Apophthegmata, but his chief master is Diadochus. Yet he is far less definite than either Evagrius or Diadochus about the need for ‘pure’, non-discursive prayer. He places strong emphasis on inward grief (penthos) and on stillness (hēsuchia). ‘Inner work’ or ‘secret meditation’ are to be continual, a point to which he attaches the utmost importance: here, as so often, the influence of 1 Thess. 5.17 is evident. The Jesus Prayer is seen as a way of maintaining this continual remembrance: ‘Without interruption, whether asleep or awake, eating, drinking, or in company, let your heart inwardly and mentally at times be[:]

[1] meditating on the Psalms,

[2] at other times be repeating the prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’“ (ET, p. 348).

As this passage makes clear, Philemon is less strict than Diadochus in requiring uniformity, for the use of the Jesus Prayer is to be combined with meditation on the Psalms. Alongside the standard formula, as given above, Philemon also commends the shorter version found in Barsanuphius and Dorotheus, ‘ Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’, and sometimes he simply repeats ‘Lord, have mercy’.

THE Jesus Prayer is also recommended by three writers associated with Sinai: St John Climacus (seventh century) and his two followers St Hesychius (? eighth-ninth century) and St Philotheus (? ninth-tenth century). Some modern specialists regard the Jesus Prayer as distinctively an expression of what they term ‘Sinaite spirituality’, but this is misleading, As we have seen, the earliest evidence of the Prayer’s use comes from elsewhere; Sinai plays the role of transmitting rather than originating. None of the three Sinaite authors specifies a precise formula or formulae for use when saying the Prayer.

Climacus occupies in ascetic theology a position similar to that occupied in Christology by his contemporary Maximus the Confessor (see pp. 190-5). Both are synthesizers, drawing together and creatively integrating the disparate strands in previous tradition. Climacus’ work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, forms in this way a first, and remarkably successful, attempt to produce a ‘directory’ of monastic spirituality, and as such it still remains widely popular. While written initially for monks-it is normally read in monasteries every year during Lent--it is also valued by many Orthodox lay people. Climacus draws heavily upon the Apophthegmata and at the same time, like Diadochus, he combines the Evagrian and Macarian ‘cuffents’.  From Evagrius he derives much of his technical vocabulary and his practical teaching, while discarding the speculative, Origenist aspect of Evagrianism. He does not quote the Macarian Homilies explicitly, but he is close to them in his repeated emphasis upon direct personal experience. Most of all he is indebted to the Gaza ‘school’--to Barsanuphius, John and Dorotheus--although never mentioning them by name. There are no clear traces of any influence from Dionysius.

Most of the Ladder is concerned with the ‘active’ life--with the struggle against the passions and with the acquisition of such primary virtues as obedience, humility and discernment (diakrisis). There is an important section, Step 7, on ‘joy-creating sorrow’ and the gift of tears, which is seen as renewing the grace of baptism. Tears are not only an expression of penitence, but a loving response to divine forgiveness: they are ‘sweet’ as well as ‘bitter’. ‘Dispassion’ (apatheia) is closely linked with love. To this last Climacus devotes the final section, Step 30, and in language that recalls Maximus he extols it as the ultimate end of all spiritual striving. The last words of the Ladder are from 1 Cor. 13.13: ‘Love is the greatest of them all’.

In his teaching on prayer, Climacus underlines the value of using few words: ‘Pray in all simplicity. The publican and the prodigal son were reconciled to God by a single utterance.’ Our aim should be monologia, brevity, not polulogia, garrulousness (Step 28 [ 1129D, 1132AB]; ET, pp. 275-6). He makes only three allusions to the Jesus Prayer in the Ladder, and so this cannot be considered a central theme of the work as a whole; but these three references have proved remarkably influential. He is the first Greek writer to use the actual phrase ‘Jesus Prayer’ (Iēsou euchē); he terms it ‘monologic’ (monologistos), and like Diadochus he advises its use as we drop off to sleep (Step 15 [ 889D], p. 178). He sees it as an effectual weapon against the demons: ‘Flog your enemies with the name of Jesus’ (Step 21 [945C], p. 200). Most significantly of all, he connects the Prayer with stillness (hēsuchia): ‘Stillness is the putting away of thoughts . . . Stillness is unceasingly to worship God and wait on him. Let the remembrance of Jesus be united with your breathing. Then you will appreciate the value of stillness’ (Step 27 [ 1112A-C), pp. 269-70). Note the clear insistence here upon continuity: prayer is to be as constant as breathing. Note also the way in which Climacus adapts Evagrius’ phrase, ‘Prayer is the putting away of thoughts’ (On Prayer, 71): for the author of the Ladder, as for Diadochus, the invocation of the Holy Name is a means of entry into the inner silence of the heart, a way of attaining nondiscursive prayer.

WHEREAS Climacus refers only occasionally to the Jesus Prayer, Hesychius makes it the central and recurrent theme throughout his work On Watchfulness and Holiness. The term ‘watchfulness’ (in Greek, nēpsis: sometimes rendered ‘sobriety’) he understands in a wide-ranging sense: it means vigilance, attentiveness, keeping guard over the thoughts and the heart, but also embraces the whole practice of the virtues (1-6) [References follow the Philokalia numbering; PG follows a different system]. The chief way of maintaining watchfulness is to call upon Jesus: ‘Attentiveness is the heart’s stillness (hēsuchia), unbroken by any thought. In this stillness the heart breathes and invokes, endlessly and without ceasing, only Jesus Christ the Son of God’ (5). In his teaching on the Jesus Prayer --a phrase that he frequently employs--Hesychius stresses two things in particular. So far as possible, the invocation is to be continual, and it is to be without thoughts or images: for him, as for Diadochus and Climacus, it is a path of ascent to ‘pure’ prayer in the Evagrian sense. Hesychius writes of the Jesus Prayer in an outstandingly attractive manner, stressing the sense of joy, sweetness and light that it brings to the heart: ‘The more the rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, the more we call upon Christ’s Holy Name, the greater the rejoicing and exultation that it brings to the earth of our heart’ (41). There is much in Hesychius that recalls the fervent devotion to the name of Jesus expressed by Western medieval writers such as St Bernard of Clairvaux (see pp. 287-8) or Richard Rolle of Hampole (see pp. 330-2).

PHILOTHEUS follows closely in the steps of his Sinaite predecessors, seeing the Jesus Prayer as a means of ‘gathering together’ the fragmented self. ‘Through remembrance of Jesus Christ concentrate your scattered intellect’ (Texts on Watchfulness, 27). This ‘remembrance’ leads to a vision of light in the heart: ‘Invoked in prayer, Jesus draws near and fills the heart with light’ (29); ‘at every hour and moment let us guard the heart with all diligence from thoughts that obscure the soul’s mirror; for in that mirror Jesus Christ, the wisdom and power of God the Father, is delineated and luminously reflected’ (23). The Greek word for ‘luminously reflected’ is phōteinographeisthai, literally ‘photographed’: the pure soul is a photographic plate, on which is marked the divine light of Christ. Here Philotheus points forward to the ‘light mysticism’ of St Symeon the New Theologian and St Gregory Palamas.

All three Sinaite authors link the invocation of Jesus with the breathing: ‘Let the remembrance of Jesus be united with your breathing’ (Climacus, Step 27); ‘Let the Jesus Prayer cleave to your breathing’ (Hesychius, 182; Cf. 5, 170, 187, 189); ‘We must always breathe God’ (Philotheus, 30). Is such language merely metaphorical, or does it point to a specific technique whereby the recitation of the Jesus Prayer was coordinated with the rhythm of the breathing? It is hard to say. There are passages in the Coptic Macarian cycle (? seventh-eighth century) which indicate more than a mere analogy, clearly implying some kind of breathing technique. But in the Greek tradition the first unambiguous references to such a technique are to be found only in the thirteenth century, in pseudo-Symeon and Nicephorus the Hesychast (see pp. 244-5).

BETWEEN the fifth and the eighth centuries, then, the Jesus Prayer emerged in the Christian East as a recognized spiritual ‘way’. By modern Western writers it is sometimes termed a ‘Christian mantra’, but this could give rise to confusion. The Jesus Prayer is not simply a rhythmic incantation, but an invocation addressed directly to the person of Jesus Christ, and it presupposes conscious, active faith in him as only-begotten Son of God and unique Saviour.

It is not, however, a form of discursive meditation upon particular incidents in Christ’s life, but has as its aim to bring us to the level of hēsuchia or stillness--to a state of intuitive, nondiscursive awareness in which we no longer form pictures in our mind’s eye or analyse concepts with our reasoning brain, but feel and know the Lord’s immediate presence in a direct personal encounter. ‘Prayer is the communion of the intellect with God’, states Evagrius. ‘What state, then, does the intellect need so that it can reach out to its Lord without deflection and commune with him without intermediary?’ (On Prayer, 3). The Jesus Prayer seeks to achieve precisely that: to commune with the Lord Jesus face to face without intermediary.

THE references to the Jesus Prayer in the early period, while influential upon later Byzantine spirituality, are scattered and relatively infrequent. There is no reason to believe that its use at this time was universal or even widespread. It is nowhere mentioned by Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor or Isaac of Nineveh, nor during the eleventh century in the authentic writings of Symeon the New Theologian or in the vast anthology known as Evergetinos.

● It is not until the fourteenth century that its employment in the Byzantine and Slav world becomes frequent, and even then it is largely restricted to certain monastic centres.

● Only in our present twentieth century has it come to be adopted on a large scale by Orthodox lay people (see p. 272). Indeed, allowing for its contemporary popularity among Western Christians as well as Orthodox, it can be claimed with confidence that never before his the Jesus Prayer been practised and loved as much as it is today.

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Diadochus, Hundred Gnostic Chapters, Greek text and French tr. E. des Places, SC 5, 3rd edn, 1966; ET G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, K. Ware, The Philokalia, vol. i (London and Boston, Faber, 1979), pp. 252-96.

Barsanuphius and John, Questions and Answers, Greek text ed. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain/ S. Schoinas (Volos, 1960); critical edn and ET (incomplete) D. J. Chitty (PO xxxi, 3, 1966); French tr. L. Regnault and P. Lemaire (Solesmes, 1972).

Dorotheus, Life of Desitheus, Greek text and French tr. L. Regnault, SC 92 (1963), pp. 122-45.

The Life of Abba Philemon, Greek text in Philokalia tōn ierōn nēptikōn, vol. ii (Athens, 1958), pp. 241-52; ET The Philokalia, vol. ii (1981), pp. 344-57.

John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Greek text PG 88. 632-1208; ET C. Luibheid and N. Russell, with introduction by K. Ware. CWS 1983.

Hesychius of Sinai, On Watchfulness and Holiness, Greek text PG 93.1480-1544; ET The Philokalia, vol. i, pp. 162-98.

Philotheus of Sinai, Forty Texts on Watchfulness, Greek text in Philokalia tōn ierōn nēptikōn, vol. ii, pp. 274-86; ET The Philokalia, vol. iii (1984), pp. 16-31.

STUDIES

The Jesus Prayer: I. Hausherr, (ET) The Name of Jesus, Cistercian Studies Series 44 (Kalamazoo, 1978); A Monk of the Eastern Church [ L. Gillet], (ET)

The Prayer of Jesus (New York, 1967); P. Adnès, in Dict. Sp. 8. 1126-50; on monologic prayer, see L. Regnault, in Irénikon, 47 (1974), pp. 467-93; on the Coptic evidence, see A. Guillaumont, in ECR, 6 (1974), pp. 66-71.

Barsanuphius: D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford, Blackwell, 1966), pp. 132-40.

Hesychius: J. Kirchmeyer, in Le Millénaire du Mont Athos, vol. i (Chevetogne, 1963), pp. 319-29.

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