Silence and Brevity in Prayer

When they meet to celebrate the rites we have described, which they call synaxes, they are all so perfectly silent that, though so large a number of the brothers is gathered together, you would not think a single person was present except the one who stands up in the middle and chants the Psalm. This is especially so when the prayer is offered up. Then there is no spitting, no clearing of the throat, no noise of coughing, no sleepy yawning with gaping mouths, and no groans or sighs that might distract those standing nearby. No voice is heard except that of the priest concluding the prayer. The one exception is perhaps a voice that escapes the lips when the mind is carried out of itself, and that takes the heart by surprise before it knows it. For the heart is then set on fire with a fervor of spirit it cannot control or hold back, and what the glowing mind cannot keep to itself tries to escape from the inmost chambers of the breast in a kind of groaning too deep for words. But if anyone, infected with coldness of mind, prays out loud, or makes any of the sounds we have mentioned, or is overcome by a fit of yawning, they declare him guilty of a double fault. [a]

He is to blame, first, for his own prayer, because he offers it to God carelessly; and second, because by his ill-mannered noise he disturbs the thoughts of another, who might otherwise have been able to pray with greater attention. So their rule is that the prayer should be brought to a quick close, in case, while we linger over it, some excess of spittle or phlegm interrupts the end of our prayer. And so the prayer, while it is still glowing, is to be snatched as quickly as possible out of the jaws of the enemy. He is always hostile to us, but never more hostile than when he sees that we are eager to offer prayers to God against his attacks. By stirring up wandering thoughts and every kind of phlegm and catarrh, he tries to draw our minds away from attending to our prayers, and in this way he tries to make the prayer grow cold, though it began with fervor. That is why they think it best for the prayers to be short and offered very often: on the one hand, so that by praying to the Lord so often we may be able to cling to him continually; on the other, so that when the devil lies in wait for us, we may, by their terse brevity, escape the darts with which he tries to wound us, above all when we are saying our prayers. [b]