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Course 20 · Lesson 4.2

The Jesus Prayer: its words, its sources and its history

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 20 outline

Module 1: Spiritual Formation and the Doctrines Behind Prayer

  1. What spiritual formation means in Scripture and tradition
  2. How the Trinity, the Incarnation and grace shape Christian prayer
  3. A map of the prayer traditions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant
  4. Ways and stages of growth: purgation, illumination and union, and their critics

Module 2: The Desert and Early Monasticism

  1. Anthony, Athanasius and the beginning of the desert movement
  2. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: how to read them
  3. John Cassian and the eight thoughts that trouble the mind
  4. From the hermit to the community: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict

Module 3: Praying with Scripture and with the Church

  1. Lectio divina: its history and the four movements
  2. The Psalms as the prayer of the church
  3. The Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours: hours, texts and structure
  4. Using the daily office alone, and the Protestant daily prayer tradition

Module 4: Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer

  1. Stillness and the prayer of the heart in the early Eastern church
  2. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its sources and its history
  3. Gregory Palamas and the fourteenth century controversy over light and energies
  4. Practice and cautions: the role of a guide and the warnings of the tradition

Module 5: Fasting, Discernment and Spiritual Direction

  1. Fasting in Scripture and in the three traditions
  2. Asceticism: its purpose, its dangers and its abuses
  3. The discernment of spirits from Antony and Cassian to Ignatius of Loyola
  4. Spiritual direction: the elder, the confessor, the pastor and the mentor

Module 6: Contemplation and Action

  1. Mary and Martha: how the church has read the two lives
  2. Prayer that issues in service: Benedict, Brother Lawrence and the Reformers on vocation
  3. When practice goes wrong: pride, quietism and spiritual experience without doctrine

Module 7: Building a Rule of Life

  1. What a rule of life is, and what the word rule meant for Benedict
  2. Choosing practices: Scripture, prayer, fasting, rest and service
  3. Dryness, failure and starting again
  4. Reviewing and adjusting a rule over time

All courses

Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 4.2

What you will learn

  • State the traditional words of the Jesus Prayer and its biblical roots.
  • Trace its history from the desert and Gaza through Sinai and Athos to modern Russia and the West.
  • Explain why the Name of Jesus carries weight in the tradition.
  • Distinguish the historical and theological account of the prayer from instructions for practicing it.

The big idea

The Jesus Prayer is a short prayer, usually said as: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Its parts come from the Gospels: the cry of the blind man Bartimaeus, the prayer of the tax collector, and the confession of Christ as Son of God. It took shape gradually in the desert, in Gaza, at Sinai and on Mount Athos, was gathered into the Philokalia, and came to the West through a nineteenth-century Russian book. The tradition holds that the Name of Jesus is not a magic formula but a means of calling on a person.

Key terms

Jesus Prayer
A short prayer addressed to Jesus, whose usual form is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Forms vary.
Kyrie eleison
Greek for Lord, have mercy. An ancient cry used in the liturgy and the root of the mercy petition in the Jesus Prayer.
The Name
In Scripture, a name expresses a person’s nature and presence. Christians pray in the Name of Jesus (John 14:13), and the Jesus Prayer is also called prayer of the Name.
Staretz (starets)
A Russian word for an elder, a monk or priest with spiritual experience who guides others.
Prayer rope
A knotted cord, usually of wool, used to count repetitions of the prayer. In Greek it is a komboskini and in Russian a chotki.
Philokalia
A collection of texts on prayer and watchfulness compiled by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Macarius of Corinth and published in 1782.

Background

The Jesus Prayer is old, but its history is not simple. No single author invented it, and scholars disagree on when the common form became fixed. What is clear is that Christians were calling on the name of Jesus from the beginning. In Acts, believers are those who call on the name of the Lord (Acts 9:14), and Paul writes that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).

The parts of the prayer come from the Gospels. Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, cries out: Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me (Mark 10:47). The tax collector in Jesus’ parable says: God be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13). Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy, runs through the Psalms and the liturgy. In later centuries, these strands were combined.

This lesson deals with the history and the doctrine of the Name. How a person might use the prayer is a practical question, and Course 25 addresses it. The lesson after next treats the cautions the tradition itself names.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Early traces

Several early writers prepare the way. The desert elders recommended brief, frequent prayer, and Cassian taught the use of a single verse of a psalm, such as O God, make speed to save me, as a constant prayer (Conference 10). Diadochus of Photice, in the fifth century, spoke of remembering God by calling on the Lord Jesus. Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, in the sixth century, advised their correspondents to say a short prayer with mercy in it, though the exact wording differs from the later one.

Scholars treat these as stages in a gradual formation, and avoid reading the later form back into early sources.

Step 2: Sinai and the connection with breath

John Climacus, abbot at Sinai in the seventh century, wrote in the Ladder that remembrance of Jesus should be united with the breath. Phrases that speak of the Name of Jesus, and a call to let the remembrance cleave to the breath, were taken up by later writers. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Gregory of Sinai and others on Athos described the prayer with greater detail, including bodily practices, which the next lesson discusses in the context of the controversy.

By this time the prayer was frequently said in the form familiar now: with the title Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, and the mercy petition.

Step 3: The Philokalia and Russia

In 1782, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Macarius of Corinth published the Philokalia in Venice, gathering texts on prayer and watchfulness from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. Paisius Velichkovsky, a Ukrainian monk, translated it into Church Slavonic in 1793, and it spread through Russia. The elders of Optina and Seraphim of Sarov, among others, guided many lay people and monks in the prayer.

The Way of a Pilgrim, an anonymous Russian account of a wanderer who learns the prayer, appeared in the 1880s and was later translated widely. Historians treat it as a work of spiritual literature, whose author and details are uncertain.

Step 4: The theology of the Name

In the Bible, a name expresses a person. To call on the name of the Lord is to turn to him. Jesus tells his disciples to ask in his name (John 14:13), and Paul writes that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Philippians 2:10). The tradition holds that the Name is not a magic charm. Its power belongs to the person named, and it is invoked in faith.

The prayer also contains a confession of doctrine: Jesus is Lord, Christ and Son of God, and the one praying is a sinner in need of mercy. In this way the prayer sums up the gospel in a line.

Step 5: The prayer in the West

The Way of a Pilgrim and the writings of Orthodox emigrants after the Russian Revolution brought the prayer to Western readers in the twentieth century. Catholic and Anglican Christians took it up, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions it as the most usual form of the prayer of the Name. Some Protestants use it. Others raise concerns about repetition and technique, which the tradition itself addresses.

  1. What does each phrase of the prayer say about who Jesus is and who I am?
  2. What do I think it means to call on a name?
  3. How do I react to the repetition of a short prayer?
  4. What do the Gospel roots of the prayer add to its meaning?
  5. Why might the tradition say the prayer must not become a formula?
  6. What would be lost if the mercy petition were removed?

Examples

Bartimaeus

In Mark 10, the blind man cries out and is told to be quiet by the crowd. He cries louder. Jesus stops and calls him. Orthodox writers point to his persistence as a pattern for the prayer.

The tax collector

In Luke 18, Jesus contrasts the Pharisee’s self-praise with the tax collector, who stands far off and strikes his chest. Jesus says the tax collector went home justified. The prayer carries this posture in a sentence.

The Pilgrim

In the Russian narrative, a wanderer reads 1 Thessalonians 5:17, pray without ceasing, and asks how it can be done. He meets an elder who teaches him the prayer. The book is not a manual but it shows the question from which the practice grew.

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians regard the prayer as a treasure of the church, taught in monasteries and parishes, and linked to Scripture, repentance and the sacraments. They teach that it should be received through the church and with a guide, and that it does not stand apart from the liturgy.

Catholic

The Catechism says the prayer of the Name is the most usual form of the prayer of the heart, and that the Church invites all to pray it. Eastern Catholic churches share the tradition with the Orthodox, and many Latin-rite Catholics have also taken it up.

Protestant

Protestant views vary. Some are drawn to its Scriptural roots and its confession of Christ. Others worry that repeated prayer becomes vain repetition, appealing to Matthew 6:7. Defenders answer that Jesus warned against empty words, not against brief repeated prayer with the heart engaged, as in the cry of Bartimaeus.

Scholarly view

Historians distinguish the prayer’s firm Gospel roots from the later uncertainty over details such as dates, wording and the connection with breathing. They also note that the prayer’s popularity in the West owes much to a single book, the Way of a Pilgrim, whose origins are obscure.

Why it matters

The Jesus Prayer is widely admired and widely misunderstood, often treated as a technique borrowed from Eastern religion. Knowing its history shows that it is a Christian prayer built from Gospel words and shaped over many centuries. It also shows that the tradition itself insisted on its context: the church, repentance and a guide.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Jesus Prayer is a mantra.

Correction: Some find the comparison helpful, but the tradition describes it as address to a person, with a confession of faith and a plea for mercy. Its meaning cannot be separated from its words.

Misunderstanding: It was invented by a single saint on a particular date.

Correction: It developed gradually from Gospel phrases and desert practice. Scholars disagree about when the full form became common.

Misunderstanding: Jesus forbade repeated prayer in Matthew 6:7.

Correction: He warned against empty heaping of phrases as the pagans do. The Gospels also record repeated cries, such as Bartimaeus’s, which the tradition takes as models.

Misunderstanding: The prayer works automatically if said enough times.

Correction: The tradition denies this. The prayer is a plea to a person, and its fruit is humility and love, not guaranteed results.

Knowledge check

What are the Gospel sources of the Jesus Prayer?

Bartimaeus’s cry for mercy in Mark 10:47, the tax collector’s prayer in Luke 18:13, and Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Son of the living God in Matthew 16:16. The Greek cry Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy, also runs through the Psalms and liturgy.

What did the Philokalia of 1782 do?

It gathered writings on prayer and watchfulness from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, compiled by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Macarius of Corinth. A Slavonic translation by Paisius Velichkovsky in 1793 helped spread the tradition of the prayer through Russia.

What does the Name of Jesus mean in the tradition?

In Scripture a name expresses the person. Calling on the Name is calling on Jesus himself, in faith. It is not a magic word. The power belongs to the person named, and the prayer confesses that he is Lord and Son of God.

Why do scholars caution about the prayer’s early history?

Because early writers used short prayers in varied forms, and the full wording and the link to breathing appear later. Reading the later form into earlier sources would distort the record. The history is a gradual development from Gospel and desert roots.

Think it through

  1. What is the difference between repeating words and meaning them?
  2. Why might a prayer of one sentence be both easy and hard?
  3. What would it mean to receive the prayer within a church and not as a private technique?

Independent assignment

The prayer in its sources

In your notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Read Mark 10:46-52 and Luke 18:9-14. Write out the prayer and underline each phrase’s source. Then describe in a paragraph what the prayer confesses about Christ and about the one who prays, and in a second paragraph one question about its history that you would like a historian to answer. Do not share this with anyone.

Further study