A First Word on Their Prayers

The plan of these Institutes now brings us to the system of the canonical prayers. We will save the fuller treatment of them for the Conferences of the Elders, where we will speak of them at greater length when we begin to tell, in the elders’ own words, what their prayers are like and how unbroken they are. Still, I think it well, as far as this place and my account allow and as the occasion offers, to touch briefly on a few points for the present. In this way, by picturing the movements of the outer man for the time being, and by laying now, as it were, the foundations of prayer, we may later, when we come to speak of the inner man, build up the complete structure of his prayers with less labor. Above all I am providing for this: if the end of life should overtake us and cut us off from finishing the account we are eager, God willing, to put together fittingly, we may at least leave you in this work the beginnings of so necessary a subject. For to you everything seems a delay, because of the fervor of your desire. And if a few more years of life are granted to us, we may at least sketch for you some outlines of their prayers, so that those who live in monasteries above all may have some knowledge of them. At the same time I am providing for those who perhaps will come upon only this book and be unable to obtain the other. They will find themselves supplied with some sort of information about the nature of these prayers. And just as they are instructed about the dress and clothing of the outer man, so too they will not be ignorant of how he ought to conduct himself in offering spiritual sacrifices. For these books, which with the Lord’s help we are now arranging to write, are mainly taken up with what belongs to the outer man and the customs of the coenobia. The others, however, will be concerned rather with the training of the inner man and the perfection of the heart, and with the life and teaching of the anchorites. [a]