On the Words of the Divine Jesus Prayer

HOW MUCH more power is possessed by the Prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and what gifts it confers on those who practice it, and to what spiritual state it leads them, it lies beyond our power to say. The words which constitute this Prayer were initially formulated by our Holy Fathers. They did not, however, themselves make up these words, but took them originally from Holy Scripture and from the chief disciples of Christ. Or, to express it better, they received them as an inheritance from the Fathers who were before them, and passed this inheritance on to us. Thus from this alone, for those who have not learnt it from experience, it is clear that this holy Prayer is something divinely inspired and is as it were a sacred oracle. For we believe that Christ spoke through the holy Apostles, and that everything entrusted to them—either to repeat verbally or to write down—constitutes the divine oracles, spiritual revelations and the words of God.

Thus St. Paul, addressing us from the third heaven (cf. 1 Cor. 12:2), states: “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except through the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). By using the negative words “no one,” St. Paul admirably reveals that the invocation of the Lord Jesus is very sublime and beyond the power of most people. In addition, St. John the Theologian, who speaks of things spiritual “with a voice of thunder,” begins with one of the words that St. Paul provides, and then gives the continuation of the Prayer, as follows: “Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:2). Here certainly he makes an affirmative statement, but attributes, as does St. Paul, the invocation and the confession of Jesus Christ to the grace of the Holy Spirit. Then, thirdly, St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, completes the Prayer. Thus, when our Lord asked His disciples, “Whom do you say that I am?” St. Peter, as usual in his enthusiasm forestalling the other disciples, answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” this being revealed to him, as the Savior Himself testified, by the same heavenly Father or—which is the same thing—by the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 16:15-17).

Observe, then, how these three holy Apostles follow one another as though in a circle, the one taking up from the other the divine words in such a manner that the last word in the statement of the first is used as the first word in the statement of the second, and the last word in the second is used as the first word in the third. Thus St. Paul says, “Lord Jesus”; St. John, “Jesus Christ”; and St. Peter, “Christ, Son of God.” Thus the last links up with the first as though in a circle, as we said; for there is no difference in saying “Lord” and “Son of God,” since both these titles reveal the divinity of the only-begotten Son of God and affirm that He is of one essence and of equal rank with the Father.

In this manner the blessed Apostles taught us to invoke our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God and to confess Him through the Holy Spirit; and since these Apostles are three, they are entirely to be trusted, for according to Holy Scripture every statement confirmed by three witnesses is valid (cf. Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19).

*Excerpt from The Philokalia: Volume 5 (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 2023), pp. 318-319. Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books