History of Prayer

Through his teaching and example, Jesus laid the foundation for the universal church's understanding of prayer. The New Testament letters and subsequent writings from Christian leaders over the past two thousand years have further fleshed out Jesus’ teaching, but the heart of prayer has not changed. Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane and the "Lord's Prayer," his model for his disciples, still comprise the most basic theology of prayer for the living church today. What one sees in Paul’s theology of prayer in the first century or Thomas Aquinas’ belief on how often one should pray is each scholar is trying to get to the true meaning of prayer and decipher what true, godly prayer looks like and is comprised of. Each tries to unpack the teaching of Jesus and pray like he did in the Lord’s Prayer.

When studying the history of prayer in the first century of Christianity, one must start by looking at the prayer life of Jesus. He taught fellow Christians how to pray with the Lord’s Prayer. John Stott believes the primary theme Jesus was trying to teach in the Lord’s Prayer was the need for prayer to be thoughtful and not mechanical. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus opposes the Pharisees’ practice of religion because it was not sincere. In Matthew 23:27, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for their lack of authentic faith: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.” The prayers of Christians must be both real and sincere. Jesus calls for Christians in their prayers to God to lay everything down on the table as is, as filthy as it may be, without embellishment.

Secondly, as seen in both the Lord’s Prayer and the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus seeks the Father’s will in prayer and at the same time pleads his own, “‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done’. . .And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:42, 44). Jesus has pled his case with his father and knows what the Father’s will is, “Thy will be done.”

Like Jesus, Paul devoted a great deal of time to personal prayer. Looking at the amount of time both men spent on prayer, it is evident that one does not drift into disciplined prayer. This is why Jesus gave future Christians the Lord’s Prayer as a model and also why Paul wrote extensively about prayer in his letters to the early church. In 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12, Paul expounds on what the content of prayer should be. He begins by thanking God for His grace and that the faith of the Thessalonica church is growing. Next he boasts about the perseverance believers under trial have in Christ; he encourages their focus upon the Kingdom of God in prayer and says there will be vindication for those that do not know God. Last, Paul teaches the church to pray that it may be worthy of God’s calling. In summary, not only does Paul expand on Jesus’ teaching, he also provides numerous models (i.e., 1 Thes 3:9-13, Col 1:9-14, Phil 1:9-11, Eph 1:15-23) for the church to pattern its prayers of seeking and obeying God’s will.

Most of what historians know about first century prayer comes from New Testament accounts. Outside of the New Testament, historical evidence is unclear regarding the early church’s frequency of prayer and how it was patterned. There is an assumption among scholars (that cannot be proven or disproven) that the early Christians continued to pray three times a day, in the morning, afternoon, and evening, like the Pharisees. This assumption arises from the number of times Paul goes to the synagogue in addition to a reference in Acts 10:9 and Peter praying at the sixth hour, “About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.”

Second, in the early church, historians assume that corporate prayer was performed only in the presence of believing Christians. This assertion comes from Matthew 5:6-7 when Jesus commands,

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Third, in the Apology of Justin Martyr, he notes that in the first century, only baptized believers were permitted to partake of the food, which was called eucharist (thanksgiving) by the Christian community. It was also at these “thanksgivings” that there was a great deal of corporate prayer.

Prayer in the Second Century

Scholars rely upon three remaining descriptions of what Christian worship and prayer looked like in the second century: Pliny the Younger (a Pagan), Justin Martyr (a Christian), and the Didache (a handbook of Christian practices). We learn little if any from Pliny concerning prayer except that he thought Christians were just superstitious city-dwellers. Justin mentions nothing of little concerning prayer rather he focuses on the content and flow of the Christian services of scripture reading, baptism, and partaking of the eucharist. The Didache builds upon the first century assumption that there was to be prayer three times a day when it advises the Lord’s Prayer be said thrice daily, preferably in private (8:3).

It was both corruption within the church as well as evil in the world that led to the monastic retreat. The first Christian monastery was founded in 320 AD on the Upper Nile River in Egypt. Cassian, considered the west’s great writer on monasticism, saw prayer as the “means and end” of spiritually. He believed there was a fourfold nature to prayer:

4. Thanksgiving are the result of recalling the past or contemplating God’s present or future goodness

Cassian arrived at these ideas by looking at the life of Christ and the High-Priestly prayer of John 17. Further, he emphasized that when we pray, we must address God as “Our Father” as Christ taught us in the Lord’s prayer. He also expands on the idea that our prayer should be offered in solitude with the door shut. Concerning the content of prayer, he had a very high view of what needed to be said in prayer. He did not encourage prayer about the ordinary concerns of life; rather, he speaks of the “higher state of prayer, the glowing, nay inexpressible prayer which surpasses all human understanding, which has nothing to do with the sound of the voice or the movement of the tongue.” In a sense, his prayer could almost be described more as a wordless state and than an act.

Cassian had little to say about the subject of the relationship of God and man in prayer but he spoke in great deal as to posture in prayer. He describes monks that pray together in a service pray standing and with arms outstretched alongside an obvious silence in which only the priests voice is ever heard. At the end of the service, everyone bows in unison and the practice of standing and kneeling is to be repeated when each individual monk prays in his personal cell.

The writings of Basil, who, like Cassian, wrote a great deal on the Monastic tradition, have also been preserved. In his Longer Rules and Shorter Rules Basil urges his readers to turn to God in prayer who will judge them. Basil is even more extreme than Cassian by believing that the true road to God is asceticism. In addition, any occupations that do not involve uneconomic goods are not to be made or sold and one should not work in any job that takes away from prayer.

Whether they were right or not, Basil and Cassian are two examples of devoted monks who went to the extreme while trying to please God and commune with Him through prayer.

Augustine of Hippo, born in 354, was a true pioneer in the field of prayer for a number of reasons. As one who was extremely educated, his theology developed over the course of his life. He was influenced a great deal by the Greek philosophers at first but over time saw many inadequacies in teaching and after he came to know Jesus, he relied strongly upon what Paul had written in his letters, not only for Paul’s theology but also for who and what he prayed for.

In Augustine’s Confessions, he allowed everyone to see what his personal life with God was comprised of. Readers follow the spiritual pilgrimage of one of the greatest Christian leaders and scholars of all time. All of Augustine’s sins are laid bare: from an association with an unnamed woman to pride, ambition and lying. His confessions are threefold: sins, faith, and praise. First, he engages in the process of cleansing his soul from specific temptations and actions as well as philosophical and theological errors he committed. Second, he proceeds to describe his true faith and the joy it gives him in Christ. His Confessions forever changed the way man/woman reveal their inward nature and who they are in relation to God.

Second, Augustine introduced mysticism to the church. Unlike other scholars who were mostly intellectual or mystical, he was both. Although he was an intellectual, he had a sure trust in the supernatural and leaned on it his entire Christian existence. The church of today can trace a great deal of its mystical roots to Augustine.

Augustine had a threefold view of prayer. The first stage was the human personality, our personal and intimate nature. “It is living religion that knocks and to living religion the door is opened: it is the heart which must seek and to the heart the door shall be opened.” Second, man/woman must seek nothing from God except God himself. Third, we are to be devoted solely to God and God alone and in our prayers we are to only pray through Jesus Christ and in this process we need to ask for salvation and eternal life.

Augustine’s view on prayer can be summed up in his own words from Confessions:

When we cherish uninterrupted desire in the exercise of faith, hope, and charity we pray continually. But at certain stated hours and seasons we also use words in prayer to God . . . we recall our minds from other cares and business . . . to the business of prayer . . . To use much speaking in prayer is to employ a superfluity of words in asking a necessary thing; but to pray much is to have the heart throbbing with continued pious emotion toward Him to whom we pray. For in most cases, prayer consists more in groaning than in speaking, in tears rather than in an outpouring of words.

Just like Paul, Augustine seems to have a virtual fellowship with God in his life. To Augustine, God is transcendent. Reading Augustine’s works, there is a great deal of focus on the individual soul’s reaction to God in prayer while in the community it seems to be neglected.

Each age and church has a tendency to focus on a different aspect of God in prayer and the early Eastern Church (beginning in 324 AD when Constantine established a new capitol in Constantinople) was no different. Its continual focus of prayer was on the Resurrection of Christ. However, the church did not just focus on the facts of the resurrection, it spent a great deal of time in prayer and meditation on the mysterious and abstract nature of the resurrection.

As Augustine focused a great deal on the individual, the Eastern Church tended to be much more corporate than other church divisions during this period (starting in 324 AD and going to the middle ages). The church allowed children to worship and join in the response at the end of prayers. In addition, instead of just having the priest pray, at the end of each prayer, the congregation would respond together with an “Amen.” Last, apart from the Western Church, the Eastern Church emphasized the relationship of Jesus Christ as the only means to get to heaven and Jesus as the only way of forgiveness. The result of this belief meant they did not need to confess their sins to another Christian but could personally confess their sins directly to Jesus and no one else.

Comparing the Eastern Church to the other movements, Trevor Hughes notices that the more a church incorporates ritual prayers (i.e,. the Eastern Church), the more it cuts down on the spontaneous, prophetic element in worship. Thus, compared to the Monastic lifestyle, the Eastern Church is the more conservative of the two.

We do not have as much writing on prayer in the Middle Ages as one may hope but there are some great writings from Monks and scholars that have preserved from this time that gives one a sense of the way prayer was evolving through this time.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) was one of the greatest students and teachers of the middle ages. He blended reason, faith, and mysticism and presented this mixture to a world in which reason was beginning to challenge authority. Aquinas did not just seek enlightenment through books but sought it through prayer. In this he advocated a “contemplative” life in which one meditated upon and communed with God. In his writing, he devotes and entire section to the subject of prayer which he sums up as the “unfolding of our will to God that He may fulfill it.”

For all that Aquinas did in explaining prayer, he conceived of many radical ideas that have influenced many future generations. One idea he promoted was that is was appropriate and good to pray to angels. By doing this, it might help our prayers become more effective. Next, he believed it was imperative to intercede in prayer for the conversion of sinners and praying that they may come to the same realization of who Jesus Christ and the church were. Other insights he had on prayer was one’s prayer may not always be answered because there are hindrances in those for whom we pray for (i.e. sin) and when one prays, it is better to offer many short prayers frequently than long prayers with many words.

Aquinas view of a person praying to God is the relation of a sinner before God. He described this relationship as a prisoner before a judge. As a result of this, there is little fellowship between the two. This is a drastic difference between the way the Eastern Church and even Augustine viewed the relationship between God and man.

The Evolution of Prayer

During the two thousand years that separate Jesus' life from that of twenty-first century Christians, many theologies of prayer have developed. From St. Augustine's Confessions to Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, many Christian writers have attempted to break down the questions of what prayer is; how it should be performed; and how it affects God's plans. During this vast historical period, the philosophies and practice of prayer have varied considerably; some have consistently mirrored Jesus' teaching and example, while others are off-base or simply heretical. But not lost was the heart of Jesus' message, and it is clear that from the early church, through the Middle Ages, to today, Christians continue to pattern their prayer life after that of Jesus, and scholars continue to build upon the biblical theology of prayer expounded by Jesus.

Bradshaw, Paul. 1982. Daily Prayer in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Pres.

Cabaniss, Allen. 1989. Pattern in Early Christian Worship. Macon: Mercer University Pres.

Carson, D.A. 1992. A Call to Spiritual Reformation. Grand Rapids: Baker Books.

Heiler, Friedrich. Trans. by Samuel McComb. 1932. Prayer. New York: Oxford University Pres.

Hughes, H. Trevor. 1947. Prophetic Prayer: A history of the Christian doctrine of prayer to the reformation. London: Epworth Pres.

O’Connell, Robert. 1969. St. Augustine’s Confessions: the Odyssey of Soul. Cambridge: Belknap Pres.

Stott, John. 1978. The Message of the Sermon on the Mount. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Pres.

Hughes, Trevor, p. 1

Stott, John, p. 142

Carson, D.A. pp. 39-50

Bradshaw, Paul, p. 24

ibid, p. 19

Cabaniss, Allen, p. 7

ibid. p. 18

Hughes, Trevor, p. 82

ibid. pg. 84.

ibid.

ibid, p. 87

ibid. p. 88

ibid. p. 91

ibid. p. 89

ibid, p. 101

ibid, pp. 101-102

ibid, pp. 104-105

ibid, p. 93

ibid, p. 94

ibid.

ibid, p. 109

ibid, p. 110

ibid, p. 111

To pray like Jesus

Prayer in the Second Century

The Evolution of Prayer