Morning Prayers of the Same Emperor

pursue it (for it is soft); rather, one must hold fast to it intently, strengthened by good hopes, and indeed show oneself a man, by adding to your previous zeal and eagerness a second, greater measure. If you are thus disposed, and if you cling to your duties with tenacity, you will obtain everything according to your heart’s desire, above all through your own manly effort, to which you will surrender yourself excellently, but primarily from God, whose will is accompanied by the very capacity in all things.

THE MORNING PRAYERS OF THE SAME EMPEROR

Glory to the Author of light, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Glory to you, Father, glory to you, Son, glory to you, Holy Spirit; glory to you, the simple and consubstantial, ^B and undivided, and unconfused Trinity; glory to you, Wisdom and Word of the eternal Father, on account of your administration, which you yourself undertook for us, as it seemed good to the co-eternal, and to your Father who has no beginning, with the cooperation of the Spirit who shares with you equal majesty and throne; glory to your goodness and loving-kindness for all that ever comes to us from your right hand, both privately and publicly, not excluding those things which seem indeed at times to be adverse, but are absolutely not so. For whatever proceeds from you, who are goodness itself, cannot but be good. ^C

Most benign and incomprehensible Lord, who, having used a condescension that surpasses the mind, did come for my sake, becoming like me, in order to save me, fulfill what you have proposed; accomplish what you have begun. For it is not right that it should be otherwise. Let not your infinite grace appear inferior to my great sins and great ingratitude and hardness of heart, which nevertheless have an end; but rather, having shown that what you came for is capable of being accomplished by you, snatch me from the belly of the beast that destroys souls, which has all but swallowed me up in its own estimation; and for the future, render its fury against me, and its ferocity against you (for since I suppose it ought to be restrained by fear—for fear of trying to snatch from your hands what is yours in so many ways, and as if it belonged to itself—make it ^D vain and empty), and its devices and crafts [alike]

which have been discovered by the one attempting to act cleverly and shamelessly against you. Let these things be so, and it is better to believe that they will be so.

Nevertheless, I thought it necessary to propose for myself something further, burdened as I am by sins against Him who has called such as these ^B to rest. Therefore, you who are patient regarding my offences, waiting for my conversion, and then remaining for those same previous ones—because I have acquired a habit of evil—open to me every manner of recognition, and lead me through all things, from whence I had originally fallen from you and from your kingdom. Do you, who have also granted me this day as an occasion for repentance, establish for me the resolution that was yours from the beginning, and grant me a pure conversion, and display a healing as great as the need of the wound that is swollen and inflamed.

Deliver me from my accustomed vice (how great it is!) and from my connatural and terrible obstinacy—which is sufficient in itself to destroy me—and furthermore from the mire of my transgressions, in which I am always wallowing and am not even ashamed, in the manner of those who have lost their senses through wine or disease.

Extend your hand to me as I lie upon the ground, and loosen the bonds of my misdeeds for me; I who for so many years have not even taken into my mind to what [depths] of evils I have been brought down by an extreme lack of feeling, nor have I been able to stir myself toward you at all, because of the numbness ^C of long-standing transgressions.

Hasten, I beseech you, and save me, as you will. For you have the power always joined to your will. Quicken the process of snatching me, my God, from the material abyss of my unlawful deeds, in which I have stuck fast of my own will, and there is no substance, to speak according to your prophet; or rather, let us append other things to what has been said, the mere memory of which, if nothing else, would bring gain to [our] souls.

"I have grown old among all my enemies; I have become a mockery to them, and a trampling-foot for their feet." And now, a terrible mouth is wide open, hastening to swallow me. May your hand reach out to save me, "lest like a lion he snatch my soul, while there is no one to redeem or to save." There is no health in my flesh; "peace for my bones is far off, and there is an absence of rest from their marrow." All that is mine is disturbance. All is disease; and hope, the consolation of evils, has all but been removed and perished, as I myself am the one summoning the causes of evils.

For truly, my sins—those committed by me in ignorance, in sloth, and by the occurrence of opportunity, and even others by intent, study, and purpose—have risen above my head. And to me this terrible thing has occurred because of your countenance of wrath, and desertion, and turning away; and also because of the countenance of my own folly, on account of which my scars have already begun to reek, and the wounds of my soul have rotted.

Woe is me! Miserable man that I am, that I have exchanged you, who are good, for the vilest deeds, by which, as they are rubbed against me, I am...

^A agglutinated; for evil action is followed by what harms, and it renders the calamity more grievous. Truly, those things I have mentioned are very miserable, but those omitted because of their multitude are more miserable; and who could speak without tears of the wonder of how much power vice has to excite despair in the soul? Willingly I fall continually, and I wish to lie like things that are inanimate; what is more wretched than this? The cause of my evils, by which I have rendered myself altogether miserable, is that I do not wish to run to you, who are ready to help; nay, rather, I flee you in every way, you who seek to save me by every means. Whence then to me the calamity and the state of being ill arises, since the will of the soul is sluggish to be recalled, even though it was eager to fall. ^B

Let rightfully even an envious and hostile person lament for me, and hate me, if indeed I have ordered my affairs so well that my soul is even worse off than he might have desired to see my body. Yet, I must also take heart because of you, and hope for better things concerning my salvation, for the sake of which you performed and endured things that are wonderful and full of horror. For it is surely mine, and that of my depravity, to sin; but yours, O Lord, who are God and man, and that of your clemency, to have mercy, to reach out a hand, to recover, and to save: you who even for the sake of your enemies died on the cross (a terrible matter) and interceded with your Father on behalf of your tormentors and those who heaped insults upon you, at the very time you were being outraged and put to death by them. ^C

Beyond all these things, the following is what exalts and adorns your clemency. For just as you gave yourself up for all the created world in common, so also for each one of all men—partly for those affecting you with ignominy and provoking you to anger through the transgression of your commandments, and partly for those worshipping created things and evil spirits in your stead—you gave yourself up to insults, and injuries, and tortures, and death; and by your death you saved, as far as you are concerned, all men entirely; not only those who existed before your administration on earth (for their souls, held in the underworld, you yourself, having arrived with your deified soul, set free, O Savior—those, I mean, who acknowledged you), but also those who have been born from that time until now, and those who will be born hereafter. ^D For you are the same yesterday, and today, and unto the ages.

Whence it is gathered from what has been said that it is fitting in every way, on account of the wickedness of my deeds, having truly advanced to the extreme, to despair entirely of salvation, and not even to dare to open my mouth, to move my tongue, and to speak anything; but on account of you, and your goodness, which is great, ineffable, incomparable, which is in fact both an abyss and a certain gulf—concerning which whatever good anyone might say, it falls short of its proper dignity, being unable to reach—

^A a nature participating in reason can attain, so that I may conceive better hopes in my soul; and that by the former I may grieve, and by the latter I may hope, and by these hopes cheer myself.

For Thou art the good Shepherd, who layest down Thy soul for the sheep, who desirest not the death of the sinner, who hast said: "Ask, and it shall be given to you." And do not, O only lover of mankind, being that I am alone among all men, shut up Thy mercies in Thy wrath, ^B since Thou clearly assertest through Isaiah, Thy wonderful prophet, that even the maternal heart is far surpassed by Thy love for the perpetually hard-hearted and disobedient. But looking upon Thyself, and Thy unspeakable love for me, and that very goodness of Thy unsearchable judgments, which brought Thee down from the heavens unchangingly to the earth for the salvation of all men—who almost hate Thee—receive my miserable soul, squalid, filthy, stained, polluted, casting itself into the sea of Thy mercies for the sake of purification.

Do not, then, turn Thy face away from Thy servant, nor reject Thy creation, nor allow Thy image to become a toy for evil spirits, ^C who envy without cause; since Thou hast Thy unsearchable long-suffering interceding for me, extended into infinity by an immeasurable goodness. Because of it, Thou dost not cleave the earth for me, nor hurl thunderbolts, though it would be just, as I have surpassed all those who are famous in sins.

By this, therefore, O merciful One, Thy ineffable long-suffering entreats Thee: have mercy on me, Thou who rejoicest more in doing this than those do who receive the mercy.

And grant me also this: to intend what is pleasing to Thee, and to perform what is proper ^D for me, being unable to do either myself. For my mind has long since grown faint, and the strength of the spirit has perished, while the flesh, being neatly groomed, revels and weighs down both. Give, then, a true understanding, give a will, give whatever shall be likely to bring some light to my thoughts, which are blinded by passions; so that before I return to the earth by death—which is perhaps near at hand even now, arriving with an unceasing course—I may return to Thee, who art Life itself, in the recognition of what is better. Commit my soul to a faithful angel, my guardian.

Grant me, my King and Lord, to spend this whole day, and the remainder of my life, in most sincere faith, and knowledge, and repentance, and in Thy peace, and with thanksgiving; and to use justice and truth in thoughts, deeds, and words, with self-reproach and modesty. Dismiss, remit, forgive, Thou who alone canst do this, whatever I have done to provoke Thee to anger and to embitter Thee, O Lord; whatever I have offended Thee in, and whatever I have sinned, willfully or unwillfully, from childhood even unto this day, in deed, in word, in thought, and in all my perception, at every time and in every

^A hour, by running directly counter to Thy commandments, as no other man has done, even now; not once, not in part, not for a brief season have I committed this evil, but I have consumed my whole life in constant provocation of Thee, as if vying in wickedness.

Deliver me, O mighty and loving Lord, by Thine omnipotent power and hand, from all evil, whether of soul or body, from despondency, grief, untimely ambition, fear, boldness, strife, and whatever pertains to these: from forgetfulness of those things I ought to remember; from remembrance of those I should have forgotten; from harmful imagination and the fiction of the mind, which is full of great folly; from notions that are neither good nor noble, which have long been rooted and settled within it; from my base and wicked habit, will, and disposition; from the malice and assault of enemies, both visible and invisible. In a word, deliver me from the weakness of this clay, and from the inclination and choice toward base things. ^B

Guide me in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth. Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God from my mother's womb. Sustain me when I am in danger of falling; raise up my leaning mind; revive me when I am brought down by the habit of many evils; and stirring up the sloth of my soul, grant strength to my limbs that are weary of the return. Free my mind from the heavier cares that do not allow me to look up, and kindling its fiery power with more divine meditations, make its wings lighter through the hope of the pleasures stored up in the life to come. ^C

I know that I ask for great things, though I deserve the greatest evils; and there is fear that I might provoke Thee further to anger by asking too much. But Thou hast come to call sinners, Thou preventest the prayers of them that ask, Thou grantest grace greater than the things requested, and the salvation of all depends upon Thy loving-kindness. For without Thee, who freely suppliest good things, nothing excellent can be performed by anyone. This is Thy word, O Saviour, who didst promise to be present even before the prayer of those who entreat Thee is finished.

Wherefore, since Thou art so good, so liberal, and munificent, so overflowing from Thyself with eternal goods, how could it be right that, when I beseech Thee for the fault of my transgressions, Thou shouldst not only forgive me without delay, but also make me a partaker of Thy grace? This is Thy custom, and it has been done continuously from the very beginning of all things. ^D

Wherefore, having my eyes fixed upon Thee and upon the infinity of Thy goodness (and these things would move even a heart of stone to desire to approach Thee for its own sake), having been justly delivered from righteous fear, I have dared to offer unto Thee this morning celebration and profession of faith, with thanksgiving and confession, beseeching Thee