Better to Pray in a Building Than in the Desert

Now then, I would also answer my accuser’s other and only remaining objection. He says that the building was not finished, and that prayer ought not to have been made there. But the Lord said, “But you, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door.” What, then, will the accuser answer? Or rather, what will all sensible and true Christians say? Let Your Majesty ask the opinion of such people. For of the other it is written, “The foolish person will speak foolishness”; but of these, “Ask counsel of all who are wise.” When the churches were too small, and the people were so many and wanting to go out into the deserts, what ought I to have done? The desert has no doors, and anyone who likes may pass through it. But the Lord’s house is enclosed with walls and doors, and marks the difference between the devout and the profane. Will not every wise person, then, as well as Your Piety, Sire, prefer the latter place? For they know that here prayer is lawfully offered, while there some suspicion of irregularity attaches to it. Unless, of course, no proper place for it existed and the worshipers lived only in the desert, as was the case with Israel; though after the tabernacle was built, they too had from then on a place set apart for prayer. [a]

O Christ, Lord and true King of kings, only Son of God, Word and Wisdom of the Father, I am accused because the people prayed for your gracious favor and through you begged your Father, who is God over all, to save your servant, the most religious Constantius. But thanks be to your goodness that it is for this that I am blamed, and for keeping your laws. The blame would have been heavier, and the charge more true, if we had passed by the place the emperor was building and gone out into the desert to pray.

How the accuser would then have vented his folly! With what show of reason would he have said, “He despised the place you are building. He does not approve of your undertaking. He passed it by with scorn. He pointed to the desert to make up for the lack of room. He hindered the people when they wanted to offer their prayers.” This is what he wanted to say, and he looked for an occasion to say it; and finding none he is annoyed, and so at once invents a charge against me. If he had been able to say this, he would have put me to shame. As it is, he injures me, copying the ways of the accuser and watching for an occasion against those who pray. So he has turned his knowledge of the story of Daniel to a wicked purpose. But he has been deceived. For he ignorantly imagined that Babylonian practices were in fashion with you, and did not know that you are a friend of the blessed Daniel and worship the same God, and that you do not forbid but want everyone to pray, knowing that the prayer of all is that you may go on reigning in lasting peace and safety.