And he prays constantly (deeds of virtue or fulfilling the commandments are included as part of prayer) who unites prayer with the deeds required and right deeds with prayer. For the only way we can accept the command to pray constantly^[1] as referring to a real possibility is by saying that the entire life of the saint taken as a whole is a single great prayer. What is customarily called prayer is, then, a part of this prayer. Now prayer in the ordinary sense ought to be made no less than three times each day. This is evident from the story of Daniel, who prayed three times a day when such great peril had been devised for him.^[2] And Peter went up to the housetop about the sixth hour to pray; that is when he saw the sheet descending from heaven let down by four corners.^[3] He was offering the middle prayer of the three, the one referred to before him by David, In the morning may you hear my prayer, in the morning I will offer to you and I will watch.^[4] And the last time of prayer is indicated by the lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice. Indeed, we do not even complete the nighttime properly without that prayer of which David speaks when he says, At midnight I rise to praise you because of your right-eous ordinances.^[5] And Paul, as it says in the Acts of the Apostles, prayed about midnight with Silas in Philippi and sang a hymn to God so that even the prisoners heard them.^[6]

Or is anyone enticed by this contemplation^[1] that, although water alone seems to be offered in the morning, yet, when we come to dinner, we offer a mixed chalice? But when we dine, we cannot call the people to our banquet that we may celebrate the truth of the sacrament with all of the brotherhood present. But, in fact, the Lord offered the mixed chalice not in the morning but after dinner. Ought we then to celebrate the sacrifice of the Lord after dinner so that by repeated sacrifices we may offer the mixed chalice? It was fitting for Christ to offer the sacrifice about evening of the day that the very hour might show the setting and evening of the world as it is written in Exodus: And the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall slaughter it in the evening.^[2] And again in the Psalms: The lifting up of my hands as evening sacrifice. But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.

A sermon has to be preached about the evening sacrifice. We prayed after all as we sang, and we sang as we prayed, May my prayer rise straight up like incense in your presence; the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice. In the prayer we observe the person, in the extension of the hands we recognize the cross. So this is the sign that we carry on our foreheads, the sign by which we have been saved. A sign that was mocked, in order to be honored; despised in order to be glorified. God appears in visible form, so that as man he may intercede; he remains hidden so that as man he may die. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.^[1] So this sacrifice, in which the priest is also the victim, has redeemed us by the shedding of the Creator’s blood.

But what should be said concerning the evening sacrifices, since even in the Old Testament, by the law of Moses, these are ordered to be offered continually?^[1] We can show that the morning whole-burnt offerings and evening sacrifices were offered every day continually in the temple, although with figurative offerings. This is seen from what is sung by David: Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as the incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice. We can understand in a still more spiritual sense that the true evening sacrifice is what was given by the Lord our Savior in the evening to the apostles at the Supper, when he instituted the holy mysteries of the church,^[2] and what he himself, on the following day at the end of the ages,^[3] offered up to the Father by the lifting up of his hands for the salvation of the whole world. The spreading forth of his hands on the Cross is quite correctly called a lifting up. For when we were all lying in Hades, he raised us to heaven, according to the word of his own promise, when he says: When I have been lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.^[4]

But of course it is also true that the confession of sins is equally salutary. That is why we heard in the psalm that was read first, Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips, and do not incline my heart to words of malice, to excusing my sins with excuses. He asks God to put a guard on his mouth. And he goes on to explain what it is a guard against. There are people, you see, and plenty of them, who as soon as they are blamed for anything rush to make excuses. Now to make excuses is to look for reasons and to adduce pretexts why a sin should not be regarded as belonging to you. One says, The devil did it for me; another says, My luck did it for me; another, I was forced to it by fate; no one blames himself.

Unless one thinks that God requires only self-restraint in terms of the desires of the inferior parts of one’s flesh, the following is also sung in the psalm: Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth and a door of continence round about my lips. Now, in this testimony of divine eloquence if we understand mouth as we ought to understand it, the watch placed there is continence, inasmuch as we understand it as a gift of God. Surely, it is a slight matter to restrain the mouth of the body lest something that is not expedient come forth from it through the sound of the voice. Within is the mouth of the heart where he who said those words and directed us to say them desired that a guard and gate of continence be set for him by God. There are many things that we do not speak from the mouth of the body but shout from the heart. Yet, no word of any thing proceeds from the mouth of that body in whose heart there is silence. Thus, whatever does not emanate from there does not sound outside, but what does emanate from there, if it is evil—even though it does not move the tongue—defiles the soul. Continence, therefore, must be placed there where the conscience, even of those who are outwardly silent, speaks.

And so that he might more clearly indicate the interior mouth that he signified by those words when he said, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door of continence round about my lips, he immediately added, Incline not my heart to evil words. This inclination of the heart, what is it if not consent? For, he has not yet spoken who has not yet consented by an inclination of the heart to the onrushing suggestions in his heart of any act whatsoever. If, however, he consented, he has already spoken in his heart even though he has not made a sound with his mouth. Even though he has not done the deed with his hand or any other part of his body, he has committed it because he has determined in his mind to do it, and he is guilty of the act, by the laws of God even though it remains concealed from the sight of people—the word being spoken in the heart though no act be committed in the body.

Of course, what we have to set our minds on first and foremost is not to sin, in case we get on fairly familiar and friendly terms with sin, as a serpent. In fact, of course, it slays the sinner with its poisonous fangs and is not at all the sort of thing to make friends with. But if it should happen to catch you in its coils when you are weak, or creep up on you when you are getting careless, or grab you when you have lost your way or trick you into losing it again, then you must not let it irk you to confess and to accuse yourself instead of looking for excuses. That is what he prayed about in some psalm or other when he said, Lord, set a guard on my mouth and a door of self-restraint around my lips, and do not turn aside my thoughts to ill-natured words, to excuse on excuse for sins.

But the blow inflicted by the tongue is incurable. The tongue strikes lightly, but it always stirs up deep sighs in the chest through the sorrow it causes. The prophet no doubt knew how great was the evil of the tongue when he cried out, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door about my lips, that my heart may not turn to evil words. Therefore, if anyone is wise, let him set a guard before his mouth, and let him put the bond of silence on his lips.

Let not my heart incline to evil words, to make excuses in sins. O unhappy race of human beings! We seek excuse for sin by saying, Nature got the better of me, and all the while it has been in our power to sin or not to sin. We are always justifying ourselves and saying, I did not want to sin, but lust overwhelmed me; that woman came to me; she made the advances; she touched me; she said this or that to me; she called me; and while we ought to be doing penance and crying, Lord, I have sinned, we excuse ourselves instead, and yoke sins to sin. We all have the same kind of body, but with our own particular difficulties. God is not a respecter of persons.^[1] Would you know that we have the same bodies as the saints? Paul the apostle says, I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin that is in my members;^[2] and again, But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps after preaching to others I myself should be rejected.^[3] Later, he says, Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?^[4] We all have our own struggles, therefore, and it is in proportion to his struggles that each one receives his reward.

When a person is advanced in years, you must not be too ready to believe evil of him; his past life is itself a defense, and so also is his rank as an elder. Still, since we are but human and sometimes in spite of the ripeness of our years fall into the sins of youth, if I do wrong and you wish to correct me, accuse me openly of my fault: do not backbite me secretly. Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner enrich my head.^[1] For what does the apostle say? Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.^[2] By the mouth of Isaiah the Lord speaks thus: O my people, they who call you happy cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.^[3] How do you help me by telling my misdeeds to others? You may, without my knowing of it, wound some one else by the narration of my sins or rather of those which you slanderously attribute to me; and while you are eager to spread the news in all quarters, you may pretend to confide in each individual as though you had spoken to no one else. Such a course has for its object not my correction but the indulgence of your own failing. The Lord commands that those who sin against us are to be arraigned privately or else in the presence of a witness and that if they refuse to hear reason the matter is to be laid before the church, and those who persist in their wickedness are to be regarded as heathens and publicans.^[4]

This is the oil of the sinner with which the prophet does not want his head to be anointed, as he says: The just person shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me, but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. Thus, he prefers to be corrected by the severe mercy of the just rather than to be praised by the soothing ointment of flattery. Whence, the prophet said, They that call you blessed, the same deceive you.^[1] Therefore, regarding a person whom false flattery has made arrogant, the popular saying states it correctly: He has a swelled head; that is, his head has been fattened by the oil of the sinner, and this is not the effect of the harsh truth of correction but of the soothing deceit of praise.

And again, he^[1] quotes as words of David, Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head, when David has been speaking of the flattery of the smooth speaker deceiving with false praise, so as to cause the head of the person praised to become great with pride. And this meaning is made manifest by the words immediately preceding in the same psalm. For he says, Let the righteous smite me. It shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me; but the oil of the sinner shall not break my head. What can be clearer than this sentence? What more manifest? For he declares that he would rather be reproved in kindness with the sharp correction of the right-eous, so that he may be healed, than anointed with the soft speaking of the flatterer, so as to be puffed up with pride.

This brother^[1] will bring you^[2] some things I have written. If you have the time to read them, please be completely candid and merciless in your criticism. The Bible reminds us, The righteous shall correct me in compassion and reprove me, but the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head. This means that the real friend heals me by his criticism, but the false friend merely flatters me. I cannot be a fair critic of my own work because I am either too strict or not strict enough. For I sometimes see my own faults, but I would rather hear a better judge, just in case I begin to flatter myself after a harsh bit of self-criticism, because I decide I am too hard on myself.

The just person shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me—but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head.^[1] What does this mean? It would be better for me if the just person who sees my sin would correct me, not spare me, tell me that I have done wrong, be furious over my sin, in order to free me from it. He would seem to speak harshly, but inside he would be gentle in mercy, according to the words The just person shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me. When the just person thus reproves and shouts and rages, he shows mercy, for it all arises from his paternal pity and not hostile cruelty. Moreover, since he does not want you to die in sin, he loves you all the more when he cuts; he is unwilling to allow your other members to decay from the rottenness of sin.

Therefore in all matters where great flattery has even exceeded the limits proper to humanity, you must recall that well-known lesson of David, in which he shunned the poison of flatterers with these words: The just person shall correct me in kindness and shall reprove me, but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head.^[1] The oil of the sinner is flattery, which uses a smooth, suave unction to brighten up, as though with cosmetics, the head of the inner person, that is, the heart. Therefore, the prophet David said that it was better for him to be corrected or advised by a just person than to be praised by any flatterer. It was right that he should denote the flatterer with the name of sinner, since his is the greatest and most detestable crime in the sight of God—to hold one thing in his heart, to speak another with his lips. Of such he also says in another psalm: His words are smoother than oil, but they are drawn swords.^[2] Of the just person he says, He speaks the truth in his heart and works not deceit with his tongue.^[3] Although in these ways any subtle remarks of people, even without the pleasing sensations of praise, may draw your credulous mind to agreement, turn rather to the deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels, and you will find that the Lord of lords^[4] left us a great example of sacred humility amid the praises of people. Practice humility, then, take it for your mistress, set it as your guide when flatterers entice. Humility will tell you just how much of the things that people ascribe to you in praise is really yours and how long it will last. Humility does not let you be attentive to lies. ^[5] DRIVEN AGAINST THE ROCK, WHICH IS CHRIST JEROME: Their judges driven against the rock were swallowed up, just as another passage in Scripture says: Happy the one who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!^[1] But the rock was Christ.^[2] The little ones are trifling thoughts before they grow into ones of serious consequences. Even heretics, although they seem to despise the simplicity of the church, as compared with Aristotle and Plato; when they turn to the Scriptures, are swallowed up immediately by the Rock, that is, by Christ, and are converted to him. ^[3]