silent prayer in late antiquity

"More Interior than the Lips and the Tongue": John of Apameaand Silent Prayer in Late Antiquity

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 20, Number 2, Summer2012, pp. 303-331 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/earl.2012.0011

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Journal of Early Christian Studies 20:2, 303–331 © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press

This essay was first delivered at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010. I am grateful to the members of the group and the guests for their inspiration (Oded Irshai, Aryeh Kofsky, Hillel Newman, Roger Scott, David Satran, and Samuel Rubenson), and especially to Derek Krueger, István Perczel,

“More Interior than the Lips and the Tongue”: John of Apamea and Silent Prayer in Late Antiquity

BROURIA BITTON-ASHKELONY

As scholars have observed, silent prayer was not a common mode of prayer in antiquity, and it was usually regarded with considerable suspicion as an anomalous practice. This essay explores the experience of the silent praying self in late antiquity, a world deficient in established and explicit typologies of prayer. It deals with the emergence of the concept of silent prayer in eastern Christianity, which is deserving of more scholarly attention than it has so far received. The first part provides an overview of the idea of silent prayer in late antiquity and serves not so much to trace the overall development of the topic as to argue that a new religious sensibility was emerging within Syriac Christi-anity, revealing the delicate balance between transformation and rupture with regard to the notion of “converse” with God, not only with non-Christian tra-ditions but also with the Christian past itself. This notion is demonstrated in the second part of the paper through the fascinating treatise On Prayer written by the early fifth century Syriac author John of Apamea. I argue that John developed an innovative theory and cultivated a distinctive pattern of the silent praying self, one profoundly grounded in his perception of God as silence and his theology of incarnation. Placing John of Apamea’s theory of silent prayer in the broader context of late antique phenomenology and theology of prayer suggests that his concept was far removed from neoplatonic vocabulary and thought, and that there is no clear adherence to Evagrius’s teaching on pure prayer. Rather, John is representative of a unique moment in Syriac spiritual-ity—just before it was affected by the Evagriana Syriaca and reshaped by the concept of pure prayer.

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and Lorenzo Perrone for their invaluable suggestions and comments. I also wish to thank Columba Stewart for discussing with me this topic.

1. On individual prayer as a new spiritual exercise, see my article “Demons and Prayers: Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries,” VC 57 (2003): 200–221. The discussion here is related to Pierre Hadot’s groundbreaking study, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Allbin Michel, 1987); trans. Arnold I. Davidson and Michael Chase, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).

2. The bibliography on the various sorts of individual prayer is vast. See, for exam-ple, the bibliography on pure prayer, unceasing prayer, and Jesus prayer provided by Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza, Supple-ments to Vigiliae Christianae 78 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 157–82.

3. Michel Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (Boston: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 16–49.

4. A case in point is the different sense of the heart and the mind in the western and eastern Christian traditions, which clearly affected the definitions of inner prayer, as has been argued by Sebastian Brock, “The Prayer of the Heart in Syriac Tradition,” Sobornost 4 (1982): 131–42.

The radical change in models of piety, in the ways humans imagined their interaction with the divine, and the effects of transcendence in ascetic life in the late antique Mediterranean world brought forward new concepts and patterns of individual prayer, such as pure prayer, unceasing prayer, spiritual prayer, Jesus prayer, remembrance of God, and prayer of the heart, thus adding a new component to the prevalent non-Christian tradi-tions of spiritual exercises.1 These new configurations of individual prayer, well attested in Greek and Syriac texts and largely cultivated in eastern Christian thought and behavior during and after the fourth century, were not marginal. Each type of prayer, which was closely related to the spe-cific concepts of religious anthropology and the self-perception developed by each thinker, had a long history and vital function in shaping the new eastern spiritual world of late antiquity and beyond, extending to later Byzantine spirituality and culminating in the vibrant Hesychastic move-ment of the fourteenth century.2 These prayers were, in fact, new spiritual exercises or new technologies of the self in the Foucaultian sense of the term,3 serving as a tool for orienting the self toward the divine, and they profoundly affected mystical techniques and language in eastern Chris-tianity. These new configurations rested on the extent to which biblical notions and interpretations, theological stances, and philosophical con-cepts and terminology penetrated the ascetic culture. It is worth noting at the outset that the typology of these individual prayers is a complicated issue and the distinctions in many texts are not easy to draw.4

BITTON-ASHKELONY / SILENT PRAYER 305

5. Among the rare studies on silent prayer as a distinct sort of prayer in antiq-uity is the insightful article by Pieter W. van der Horst, “Silent Prayer in Antiquity,” Numen 41 (1994): 1–25.

6. On silence in Greek philosophy, Philo, Gnostic texts, and early Christian lit-erature, see Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence, 2 vols. (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986).

7. On apophatic language in general, see Michael Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

8. Several early Christian texts in which silence in prayer is mentioned in passing are indicated by Adalbert Hamman, “La prière chrétienne et la prière païenne, formes et différences,” ANRW 2.23.2 (New York: De Gruyter, 1980): 1226–27. Here, too, the author made no clear distinctions between the various sorts of prayer.

9. See, for instance, Cassian’s acknowledgment (Conlationes 9.9) about the diffi-culty to describe the different types of prayers mentioned in 1 Tim 2.1, and Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky, Monastic School of Gaza, chap. 8.

The same is true for the intriguing notion of silent prayer.5 An examina-tion of Greek and Syriac patristic and monastic literature reveals a com-plicated and hesitant approach to silent prayer in eastern Christianity. Certainly, “silence” (σιγή), “stillness” (ἡσυχία), and non-vocal prayer are complex categories in philosophical and religious thought and practice.6 Indeed, the absence of sound is one of the most obvious features of silent prayer and one that is easily discerned. Yet silence is not an absence, and it is not perceived here as an inability to conceptualize. Therefore, silent prayer, a sort of an inner communication with God, is not merely a pos-ture before the divine, a tribute to not speaking, or a sort of mystical lan-guage of unsaying.7 Rather, it is a mental state in which one, through the movement of his thoughts, communicates with God and uses the concept of silence to give utterance to the essence of this interaction. The faculty that prays a silent prayer is not limited to the mind, as in pure prayer; rather the whole self is involved. As we shall see, it is an inner experience and discourse that has its own creative power and transformative effec-tiveness in spiritual progress, which was fully embodied in late antique ascetic culture. It seems imperative to distinguish between the various patterns of non-vocal prayers and their typical mechanism and function, as well as to recognize the sporadic allusions to silence during prayer in early Christian literature.8 Yet in many writings the distinctions between, for example, spiritual prayer, pure prayer, and silent prayer are blurred, casualties of a terminological overlapping that generated ambiguities and misunderstandings concerning this subject. The widespread search of late antique Christian authors in the East for distinctions, and questions as to the precise sense of the various categories of individual prayer and how one should pray, revealed the lack of knowledge and lucidity on the matter in their society.9 On the other hand, there is sufficient evidence to follow the


10. David A. Ousley, “Evagrius’ Theology of Prayer and the Spiritual Life,” Ph.D. Diss. (University of Chicago, 1979); Gabriel Bunge, “The Spiritual Prayer: On the Trinitarian Mysticism of Evagrius of Pontus,” Monastic Studies 17 (1987): 191–208; Gabriel Bunge, Das Geistgebet: Studien zum Traktat “De oratione” des Evagrios Pontikos (Cologne: Luthe-Verlag, 1987). An analysis of pure prayer in the context of mystical life is provided by Antoine Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert: Évagre le Pontique, Textes et Traditions 8 (Paris: Vrin, 2004), 298–306; and Luke Dysinger, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2005). In relation to Greek philosophy, see Columba Stewart, “Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus,” JECS 9 (2001): 173–204; Kevin Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 170–73.

11. David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 70–77. Recently Virginia Burrus explored the topic in the context of eros; see her “Praying Is Joying: Musings on Love in Evagrius Ponticus,” in Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline, ed. Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 194–204.

12. See, for example, Kallistos Ware, “The Origins of Jesus Prayer: Diadochus, Gaza, Sinai,” in The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold (London: SPCK, 1966), 175–84.

13. Since the publication of Irénée Hausherr, Hésychasme et prière, OCA 176 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1966), which consisted of sev-eral articles he had published on this topic in the early 1930s, much study has been undertaken in the field of monastic culture in the late antique Mediterranean world. Although I believe that a lot of Hausherr’s contributions and intuitions are still rele-vant, it seems important to question one of his major paradigms, namely, the direct link he perceived as running from several biblical notions of communication with the divine to the ascetic value of stillness (ἡσυχία) and the various modes of personal prayer, culminating in the fourteenth-century Hesychastic movement. At least with regard to the topic of silent prayer Hausherr’s historical picture is fairly unclear. In the same direction on ἡσυχία and prayer is Kallistos Ware’s “Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia,” in One Yet Two: Monastic Tradition East and West, ed. Basil Pennington, Cistercian Studies Series 29 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 22–47. On the relationship between praying, keeping silent, and the Jesus Prayer, see Kallistos Ware, “The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality,” Fairacres Publications 43 (1974): 1–33. The same approach to ἡσυχία and prayer was adopted by Anne G. Keidel, “Hesychia, Prayer and Transformation in Basil of Caesarea,” SP 37 (2001): 110–20. In the same spirit, and also lacking a clear

emergence of the various concepts and patterns of individual prayers in eastern Christianity from the fourth century on. Scholars have also been able to depict the integration of several models of individual prayers into a complex system of thought and praxis of specific authors; a great atten-tion has already been paid to, for example, Evagrius’s influential concept of pure prayer in relation to his theology and metaphysics,10 the therapy of desires, and the concept of eros,11 as well as to Jesus prayer and its impact on the Hesychastic movement;12 yet this is not the case with silent prayer.13


typology of inner prayer, is Jill Gather’s study, “Teaching on the Prayer of the Heart in the Greek and Syrian Fathers,” Ph.D Diss. (Union Theological Seminary, 2009).

14. See van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 1–2; Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 73–75; Danièle Aubriot-Sévin, Prière et conceptions religieuses en Grèce ancienne jusqu’à la fin du Ve siècle av. J.-C (Lyon: Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, 1992), 146–96, and his conclusion on the predominance of vocal prayer in Greek religion, 500–502; Simon Pulleyn, Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 184–88.

15. Van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 2–10, discusses the various motifs for silent prayer in antiquity and provides several examples of silent prayer in ancient Greek literature.

16. Tractate 1 Poimandres, translated from the Corpus Hermeticum, vol. 1, ed. Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 459. See also the text known as The Three Tablets of Seth, which describes the three ascents toward silence and then the descent, in Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 158. On the skepticism about the value of language in Gnostic texts, such as in the Tripartite Tractate, see Mortley, From Word to Silence, 2:25–32. On the centrality of silence (σιγή) in Gnostic writings in general, see Mortley, From Word to Silence, 1:55–60, 121–24.

17. Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 98. It is known only in a single Coptic manuscript from Nag Hammadi; the original Greek text is lost. The text combined various tra-ditional materials, telling selectively the Gnostic myth from the second principle to the crucifixion of Jesus. Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 86, suggests that the date of composition is before 350 c.e. See also Jean-Marie Sevrin, “La prière gnostique,” in L’expérience de la prière dans les grandes religions, ed. Henri Limet and Julien Ries, Actes du colloque de Louvain-La-Neuve et Liège 1978 (Louvain-la Neuve: Centre d’histoire des religions, 1980), 367–74.

SILENCE IN THE DISCOURSE ON PRAYER IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

As scholars have observed, silent prayer was not a common mode of prayer in antiquity, and it was usually regarded with considerable suspicion as an anomalous practice.14 Apart from the practice of magic, curses, and peti-tions of criminal, erotic, or sexual nature, prayers in Greek religion were usually said aloud.15 Yet the notion of silent prayer and the identification of God with silence were widespread in the Gnostic milieu; an invocation such as occurs in the following anonymous prayer of blessing, “O you who are beyond verbal expression, ineffable, and invoked in silence,” was common in Gnostic literature.16 The unknown author of First Thought in Three Forms, discovered in Nag Hammadi, prays:

And there is light that exists hidden in silence, and which emanated.But the latter [silence] exists alone and silent.It is I alone, who am the ineffable, incorruptible, immeasurable, inconceivable verbal expression . . .That is, the inexplicable sound of the mother’s glory, the glory of the engendering of the deity, a male virgin from a hidden intellect;That is, silence—hidden from the entirety and inexplicable . . . 17


18. Ennead 5.1.6.9–12 (ed. Arthur H. Armstrong, Plotinus: Ennead 5, LCL 444 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984], 28–29, with Michael Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead 5.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases: A Commentary with Transla-tion [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983], 128–31). On the lofty aspect of prayer in this passage, see John M. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1967), 211–12. Similarly, Origen, De oratione 31.2 explains that one should come to prayer by stretching out his soul instead of his hands, and straining his mind toward God instead of his eyes.

19. Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.34.2; Van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 10–11. 20. Van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 13 and 18. 21. For Plotinus’s view on prayer of demand and magic incantation, see Rist,

Ploti nus, 199–212. 22. This is John Rist’s conclusion in “Plotinus and Christian Philosophy,” in The

Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 386–413. An insightful comparison of Gregory of Nyssa to Plotinus’s view on union with the One is provided by Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge and Divine Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 117–30. Laird’s conclusion is much in line with Rist, who acknowledged the rather limited direct influence of Plotinus’s thought on Gregory.

Pieter W. van der Horst has argued that from the early imperial period on things began to change, and the new trend to pray without words evolved alongside a change in the conception of the nature of the deity. According to him, it was mainly the later Platonists, with their ever more elevated conception of the purely immaterial noetic divine world that gave a decisive impulse to the new concept of silent prayer as the only fitting way to wor-ship God. Drawing on the well known passage from Plotinus’s Ennead—“Let us speak of the νοῦς in this way, first invoking God himself, not in spoken words, but stretching ourselves out by means of our soul in prayer toward him, since this is the way in which we are able to pray to him, alone to the alone”18—and on his disciple Porphyry, who suggests vener-ating God in profound silence and with a pure soul,19 as well as on other neoplatonic authors, Van der Horst concludes that in early Christianity, it was the combination of biblical and Platonic elements that facilitated the acceptance and propagation of silent prayer.20 I am not persuaded. Seeing the marginality of the topic of prayer in, for example, the writ-ings of Plotinus—the most representative author of Neoplatonism in the third century, it becomes hard to ascribe a prominent role to neoplatonic trends in the change of the concept of prayer in Greek Christian thought.21 Moreover, there is little evidence of a specifically Plotinian influence among eastern Christian writers down to the late fourth century, a situation that slightly changed with the Cappadocian fathers, particularly in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa.22 The road to, or awareness of, the One/Good, as


23. On the levels of the self in Plotinus’s teachings, see Pierre Hadot, Plotin ou la simplicité du regard (Paris: Institut des Études Augustiniennes, 1989), trans. Michael Chase, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 23–34.

24. See, for example, Ennead 6.7.35 and John Bussanich, “Mystical Elements in the Thought of Plotinus,” ANRW 36.7 (New York: De Gruyter, 1994): 5300–5330. On the journey of the soul to God in Plotinus’s teachings, see Pierre Hadot, “Neopla-tonic Spirituality: Plotinus and Porphyry,” in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, ed. Arthur H. Armstrong (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 230–49. For a comprehensive summary of Plotinus’s doctrine on the access to the One, see John Bussanich, “Plotinus’s Metaphysics of the One,” in Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. Gerson, 38–65.

25. Meditations 4.23, 9.40. See also Meditations 5.7 and Richard B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), 91, 200–205. On the prayer to the Monad, see Pierre Hadot, La citadelle intérieure: Introduction aux Pensées de Marc Aurèle (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 160. Relating to the incompat-ibility of Stoic philosophy and the notion of prayer of request, see Gilles Dorival’s comments on Meditations 9.40, in his “Païens en prière,” in Prières méditerranéennes hier et aujourd’hui, ed. Gilles Dorival and Didier Pralon (Aix-en-Provence: Publica-tions de l’Université de Provence, 2000), 94–95. On prayer in the Stoic milieu com-pared to early Christian prayers, see Marcel Simon, “Prière du philosophe et prière Chrétienne,” in L’expérience de la prière, ed. Limet and Ries, 205–24.

26. Proclus, Commentary on 2 Timaeus 206.26–214.12. André Bremond, “Un texte de Proclus sur la prière et l’union divine,” Recherches de science religieuse 19 (1929): 448–62, has already observed that “[c]e texte est, je crois, un des plus consi-dérables de la literature néoplatonicienne sur la prière” (448). See also the discussion on this passage by Robbert M. van den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary, Philosophia Antiqua 90 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 86–87. On Proclus’s piety and prayers, see Henri D. Saffrey, “Quelques aspects de la spiritualité des phi-losophes néoplatoniciens: De Jamblique a Proclus et Damscius,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 68 (1984): 169–82.

Plotinus conceived of it, engaged the various levels of the self,23 involving a whole dynamic with the various levels of the nous and with the topmost level of the nous as a faculty by which it might be achieved, and not by the spiritual technique of prayer.24 Likewise, Marcus Aurelius, who represents the Stoic attitude on contemplative life in the second century, used prayer for requests, for advocating the ideal of self-sufficiency, and for extolling one’s relation with the Monad; but he did not distinguish silent prayer as a particular spiritual device.25 That would be the fifth-century Proclus’s contribution, with whom the craft of inner prayer in the non-Christian milieu reached its peak.26 Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to provide a full explanation of the different approaches of Plotinus and Proclus regarding the function of prayer in their philosophical systems, it is still not an issue that should be ignored. I am inclined to build on John Rist’s insight that Proclus seems to be thinking all the time from man’s


27. John M. Rist, “Mysticism and Transcendence in Later Neoplatonism,” Hermes 92 (1964): 213–25.

28. Van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 11. Although he discussed several early Christian texts referring to silence in prayer, van der Horst himself acknowledged that “[o]ne does not at all get the impression that silent private prayer quickly and easily made itself the usual pattern of prayer behavior in Christian antiquity” (“Silent Prayer,” 20). Furthermore, taking into consideration the examples of silent prayer from late antique Jewish sources mentioned by van der Horst (for instance, Mishna Berakhot 3.4–5, and the Babylonian Talmud on Berakhot 20b–21a, where a specific case of reciting Shema in silence is discussed), one can barely argue for Jewish influence on late antique Christianity in this matter.

29. For an analysis of the shift in ancient views of the self relating to the concep-tions of Origen, Plotinus, and Proclus, see Patricia Cox Miller, The Corporeal Imagi-nation: Signifying the Holy in Late Antique Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 18–41. On the origins, formation, and limits of the self in late antiquity, see the rich material provided in the collective volume Religion and the Self in Antiquity, ed. David Brakke, Michael L. Satlow, and Steven Weitzman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005).

30. Alain Le Boulluec, Alexandrie antique et chrétienne: Clément et Origène, Collection des Études Augustiniennes 178 (Paris: Collection des Études Augustini-ennes, 2006), 137–49. See the four kinds of prayer in 1 Tim 2.1 and 1 Thess 5.17 on unceasing prayer.

31. For the central function of prayers of request in Greek religion in the archaic and classical periods, see Pulleyn, Prayer in Greek Religion, 56–69; André Méhat,

standpoint, while Plotinus thinks rather from the standpoint of the One;27 this might explain Proclus’s innovative and creative concept of inner prayer, resulting in what might be termed a minor treatise On Prayer, integrated into his Commentary on 2 Timaeus (206.26–214.12). He advocates, and inserts into a coherent system of thought, the notion of prayer as an inner mechanism for self-transformation, one that contains precise degrees of progress and leads to a unification of man with the divine. Thus, even if we agree with the approach that takes into consideration the change in the conception of deity as pure nous, which “inevitably leads to a worship in total silence,” it does not provide an explanation for the profound change in the concept of prayer within neoplatonic circles, nor for the emergence of new patterns of inner prayer in late antique eastern Christianity.28 Certainly, the new perceptions of the self, manifested in Christianity and Neoplatonism between the third and fifth centuries, also account for the rise of the new techniques by which man seeks to encounter the divine.29

As Alain Le Boulluec has observed, drawing on biblical paradigms,30 Clement of Alexandria and Origen enhanced the traditional notion of prayer common in the Greek and Roman religions, which consisted mainly of petitions or requests addressed to the divine, or prayer that accompanied the offering of sacrifices.31 Clement related to the notion of silent prayer


“La prière dans le monde gréco-romain,” DSAM 12 (1986), cols. 2202–11. On prayer in the Greco-Roman world, see H. S. Versnel, “Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer,” in Faith Hope and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, ed. H. S. Versnel (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 1–63; Édouard des Places, La religion grecque: Dieux, cultes, rites et sentiment religieux dans la Grèce antique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1969), 153–70. Des Places uses the phrase “La prière culturelle” (153), which represents for him the prayer of the Greeks in general, stressing the difficulty in distinguishing between prayer in poetic texts and in philosophical compositions. See also, André Motte, “La prière du philosophe chez Platon,” in L’expérience de la prière, ed. Limet and Ries, 173–204.

32. Str. 7.1.2.3 (ed. and trans. Alain Le Boulluec, Clément D’Alexandrie: Les Stro-mates, SC 428 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997], 42–43). These aspects were discussed by Raoul Mortley, “The Theme of Silence in Clement of Alexandria,” JTS n.s. 24 (1973): 197–202.

33. This is a subject that Clement developed in, for example, Str. 7.35 and 7.41 (SC 428:128–31, 145–47).

34. Str. 7.43.5 (SC 428:150–51). 35. Str. 7.37.1 (SC 428:134–35). 36. Str. 7.36.5 (SC 428:134–35). Clement mentioned prayer in the mind, Str.

7.49.6–8 (SC 428:168–69).

within a broad context in which he tackled the issue of communication with the divine, raising the complex topic of the identity of the true gnos-tic, that is, the true Christian. Silence is for Clement an ethical attitude, a virtue, and a metaphorical way of referring to the transcendence of God, stating that God is to be worshipped not by voice, but through reverence and silence (σιγή).32 Choosing the topic of prayer as a mark of distinc-tion imparted a polemical tone to his views on the matter. For Clement, the prayer of Christians differed sharply from that of others—in particu-lar, certain Gnostic sects—regarding many aspects, such as place, time, direction, movement, and voice.33 Yet Clement did not directly tackle the Gnostic identification of the divine with silence (σιγή) or the Gnostic con-vention of invoking God in silence. Basing himself on God’s omnipresence, he acknowledged that there is no need to pray in a particular place or at a particular time; likewise, that there is no need to pray with the voice. Given the nature of God, he said, it is possible to pass over the voice in prayer. To pray is to present all of one’s spiritual being “interiorly” in order to produce the intangible voice (φωνὴν τὴν νοητήν) through an unceasing turning toward God.34 Clement makes it explicit that, given the incorporeal nature of the divine and that God has no need of the senses (αἰσθήσεων), though the Stoics mistakenly believed otherwise,35 God knows and hears everything, not only the voice but also the thought (τῆν ἐννοίας).36 As is well known, Clement considered the prayer of the true gnostic to be a


37. Str. 7.46.4 (SC 428:158–59). 38. Str. 7.49.3 (SC 428:166–67).39. Str. 7.49.5–6 (SC 428:168–69).40. Str. 7.38.1 (SC 428:136–37). 41. Str. 7.49.4 (SC 428:166–67).42. Str. 7.39.6 (SC 428:140–41). André Méhat suggests finding the origin of this

definition of prayer in Aristotle’s dialogue On Prayer. See André Méhat, “Sur deux définitions de la prière,” in Origeniana Sexta, ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le Boulluec (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 115–20. This definition of prayer, shared also by Evagrius Ponticus, On Prayer 3, and the second-century sophist Maximus of Tyre, Disserta tiones 5.8. See also J. Kevin Coyle, “What Was ‘Prayer’ for Early Christians?,” in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, ed. Pauline Allen, Raymond Canning, and Law-rence Cross, 2 vols. (Queensland: Center for Early Christian Studies, 1998), 2:25–42.

43. Additional references on silent prayer are provided by van der Horst, “Silent Prayer,” 18–19.

spiritual exercise in the contemplative life;37 in fact, “[the gnostic’s] entire life is a sacred fest” (ἅπας δὲ ὁ βίος αὐτοῦ πανήγυρις ἁγία).38 The true gnos-tic, he explained, is familiar with “other sorts of offerings” yet does not use the abundant chatter of prayer that goes through the mouth (Matt 6.7);39 piety toward God (θεοσέβειαν), he said, is not in hymns or speech or through Scripture and doctrines.40 It would be a mistake, however, to think that Clement neglected the tangible aspect of prayer. He differen-tiated the prayer of the “true gnostic” from other traditional modes of piety, all the while repeatedly acknowledging that the gnostic, through his offerings—of prayers, eulogies, scriptural reading before a meal, and also hymns and psalms during meals and before going to bed—becomes one with the divine choir (διὰ τούτων ἑαυτὸν ἑνοποιεῖ τῷ θειῳ χορῷ).41 It appears, then, that although Clement perceived individual prayer as an “interior cry,” in his eyes it consists also of exterior acts. After discussing the nature of the divinity, Clement provides the prevailing definition of prayer in the Greco-Roman world: “Prayer is a conversation (ὁμιλία) with God.” It is precisely in this context that he relates to silent prayer, explain-ing that even if we speak to God in a murmur, without opening the lips, in silence (μετὰ σιγῆς), God listens to our inner conversation (ἐνδιάθετον ὁμιλίαν).42 It appears that Clement was not troubled by the Gnostic ten-dency to worship the divine in silence; both modes of prayer, vocal and the “interior cry,” were embraced by him, without disclosing his prefer-ence and without creating a specific concept of silent prayer. More or less the same stance was adopted by Tertullian (De oratione 17.3–4) and by Cyprian (De dominica oratione 4–5), who stressed that God listens not so much to the voice as to the heart.43

In the same spirit, in Origen’s treatise On Prayer, written around


44. For a comparative study of Origen’s On Prayer, see Lorenzo Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: L’impossibilità donata (Brescia: Morcelliana Editrice, 2011).

45. For example, Or. 2.5, 4.1–2, 13.2, 16.3 (ed. Paul Koetschau, GCS 3 [Leipzig, 1899], 303, 307, 326, 337), with Lorenzo Perrone, “La prière des chrétiens selon Origène,” in Prières méditerranéennes, ed. Dorival and Pralon, 201–21.

46. Or. 14.2 (GCS 3:330–31). 47. Or. 14.4, 4.1–2 (GCS 3:332, 307). On this terminology of prayer in comparison

with the pagan’s vocabulary of prayer, see Hamman, “La prière chrétienne et la prière païenne,” 1190–1247. See also the thorough investigation of the function and charac-teristic form of the verb εὔχεσθαι in Greek religion as attested in ancient inscriptions, Mary Depew, “Reading Greek Prayers,” Classical Antiquity 16 (1997): 229–58. For the use of εὔχεσθαι for a prayer of request, see Édouard des Places, “Deux études sur la prière en Grèce,” Revue des études grecques 81 (1968): 167–71.

48. Relating to 1 Cor 14.15 and Rom 8.26, Or. 2.5 (GCS 3:303). See also Or. 12.1–2 (GCS 3:324–25), on the words of the saints’ prayers.

49. Hom. 1 Reg. 1.8–9 (ed. Pierre et Marie-Thérèse Nautin, Origène, Homélies sur Samuel, SC 328 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1986], 122–29).

235 c.e., the notion of silent prayer is not a prevailing topic.44 Although he interpreted key biblical passages and referred numerous times to biblical paradigms associated with non-vocal prayer, such as Hannah and Jonah, he did not explicitly advocate this mode of prayer.45 He evoked these examples in the course of elucidating the typology and definition of the various sorts of prayer listed in 1 Tim 2.1: supplications (δεήσεις), prayers (προσευχάς), intercessions (ἐντεύξεις), and thanksgivings (εὐχαριστίας).46 Hannah’s prayer in 1 Sam 1.10–12 (“And she prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. And she prayed a prayer . . .”) served as an example of prayer-προσευχή, as well as a basis for his distinction between εὐχή and προσευχή, the first term signifying a vow and the second an invocation.47 Likewise, Origen used the example of Hannah’s prayer “in her heart” (1 Sam 1.12–13), to illustrate his understanding of prayers that are “truly spiritual,” since the Spirit prays in the heart of the saints.48 But he did not emphasize the dimension of silence when commenting on the most obvi-ous verse relating to non-vocal prayer in the Bible, that is, 1 Sam 1.13: “Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk.” Origen’s view on Hannah’s prayer becomes clear in his first homily on 1 Kings, where he explicitly feels the need to explain her prayer while consecrating Samuel to God (1 Sam 1.28). Here Origen interpreted the whole episode at length and evoked the question whether Hannah’s words in 1 Sam 2.1–3 might be considered as a prayer.49 Origen explained that her words are not a prayer in the strict sense of the term; however, he used this example to resolve the intriguing instruction in 1 Thess 5.17 to pray unceasingly, interpreting it


50. Hom. in 1 Reg. 1. 9 (SC 328:128–29). 51. Or. 12.1 (GCS 3:324): προσευχόμενοι πνεύματι προσεύχονται καὶ τῷ νοΐ. 52. Or. 20.2 (GCS 3:344).53. Str. 7.43.3 (SC 428:150–51); Le Boulluec, Alexandrie antique et chrétienne,

142–43.54. Perrone, “La prière des chrétiens selon Origène,” 214 with n. 62 and 63; Per-

rone, La preghiera secondo Origene, 352–59.55. Hom. in Num. 10.3.56. Hom. in Ex. 5.4 (ed. Marcel Borret, Origène: Homélies sur L’Exode, SC 321

[Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1985], 162–65). On the role of the Spirit in prayer, see Per-rone, “La prière des chrétiens selon Origène.”

57. Or. 2.4 (GCS 3:301–2).

as a way of life of the just one, who proceeds according to God’s will and the divine commandments.50 Nor did he develop the notion of silent prayer in the course of commenting on such verses as 1 Cor 14.14–15 (“For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with my spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also”)51 or Matt 6.5–9 (“Pray in secret with the door shut”), which he interpreted as closing the doors of the senses (τὴν θύραν τῶν αἰσθητηρίων ἀποκλείσας), a sort of disposition of prayer, instructing one to pray in a secret chamber.52 Le Boulluec attempted to explain Origen’s disregard of silent prayer in his treatise On Prayer as being a consequence of his wish to avoid using the image given by Clement of communication with God as the communica-tion of consciousness to consciousness.53

As Lorenzo Perrone has noted, unlike the almost total absence of the notion of silent prayer in On Prayer, Origen in his Homilies is quite explicit about it.54 For instance, in Homilies on Numbers Origen posits vocal prayer in contrast to inner prayer, for which he uses the image of the interior altar (Exodus 27), and combining the notions of praying in a secret chamber (Matt 6.6) and praying with the spirit and with the mind (1 Cor 14.14–15). Yet this leads Origen to merely alert the priests about what is hidden behind the veil, that is, to be vigilant in order to keep the interior man immaculate.55 Referring to the “cry” of Moses to the Lord (Exod 14.15), Origen asks how the saints cry to God without words. He answers by making an intrinsic connection between Rom 8.26 (“What we ought to pray for as we ought we do not know, but the Spirit makes special intercession with God with sighs too deep for words”) and Gal 4.6 (“God sent forth the spirit of his Son into your heart, crying, Abba, Father”); it is through the intercession of the Holy Spirit that the silent cry of the saints is heard.56 He also explains that the mind would not be able to pray unless the Spirit prayed for it, as if obeying it.57 Though Perrone’s conclu-


58. Perrone, “La prière des chrétiens selon Origène,” esp. 207.59. For a different view on Origen’s concept of prayer, one that stresses its silence

aspect, see Mortley, From Word to Silence, 2:69–71.60. Short Rules 277 (PG 31:1277; trans. Anna M. Silvas, The Asketikon of St.

Basil the Great [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], 426). In Short Rules 208, Basil answered the question whether it is good to practice silence. See also Silvas’s comments on these rules at Asketikon, 198 and 208; cf. Keidel, “Hesychia, Prayer and Transformation in Basil.”

61. Long Rules 13 (PG 31:949; trans. Silvas, 198).62. Basil, Homily 342.4, quoted by Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, The Trans-

formation of the Classical Heritage 20 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), 128.

63. Evagrius, Gnostikos 41 (ed. and trans. Antoine et Claire Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique, Le gnostique, SC 356 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989], 166–67). For par-allel statements in neoplatonic tradition and Gregory of Nazianzus, see Gnostikos 41 (SC 356:169).

sion that Origen avoided any rigid classification of prayer is quite sound,58 it is intriguing that even when he interpreted the biblical paradigm par excellence of silent prayer, Origen preferred to emphasize other aspects of Christian prayer and not necessarily its silent dimension.59

The intensification of ascetic tendencies and the emergence of monas-ticism in eastern Christianity from the fourth century on brought with it changes and an amplification of the discourse on silence. Thus the monas-tic literature of the period is replete with praise for stillness (ἡσυχία) and with the notion of silence as refraining from speech. Yet it did not yield a theory of silent prayer. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, though discussing the contemplative dimension of prayer in his treatise The Lord’s Prayer, did not allude to Matt 6.6 (“When you pray, enter into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you”), as one might expect; nor did he hint at any biblical examples relating to non-vocal prayer. When his brother, Basil of Caesarea, was asked about the meaning of the “secret chamber,” which the Lord commands anyone who prays to enter (Matt 6.6), he answered that in the event that one is caught up in a passion, he would do well to remain apart in prayer and solitude until he overcomes this passion.60 Perceiving the discipline of silence as proof of self-control, Basil states that training in silence is indeed valuable to newcomers: “One must keep silence—except, of course, for the psalmody.”61 Basil, however, does value the notion of honoring the mysteries of the Trinity by one’s very silence.62 In the same vein and stemming from the same cultural milieu, Evagrius Ponticus extols such silent honoring: “In silence the ineffable should be adorned.”63 Likewise, his teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, states in relation


64. Gregory of Nazianzus, Discourse 28.20 (ed. Paul Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 27–31, SC 250 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1978], 140–41).

65. Basil, Homilia in martyrem Julittam (PG 31:244). 66. Jean Gribomont, Saint Basile: Évangile et église, 2 vols., Spiritualité orientale

et vie monastique 36 and 37 (Bégrolles-en Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1984), 2:426–42.

67. The other four virtues are temperance, almsgiving, poverty, and long-suffering, Homily 37, Greek, pp. 268–69. See also, Homily 40, a spiritual chain in which prayer is the first, pp. 214–15, Greek text, p. 275. All the virtues are mutually bound to one another; like a spiritual chain, each is dependent upon the other. On Psuedo-Macarius’s teachings, see Columba Stewart, “Working the Earth of the Heart”: The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD 431 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). On the centrality of prayer in Psuedo-Macarius’s thought, see Marcus Plested, The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradi-tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 38–42, 49–50.

68. Homily 6.1 and 6.3 (ed. Hermann Dörries, Erich Klostermann, and Matthias Kroeger, Die 50 Geistlichen Homilien des Makatios, PTS 4 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964], 63–65).

to 2 Cor 12.1–4: “Because those are ineffable things, let us honor them in silence (σιωπῇ τιμάσθω).”64 Basil, as is well known, advocated the notion of remembrance of God and perceived continual prayer as a disposition toward the divine, “not as unceasing act of speeches on the lips,” but the whole of life as a continual prayer.65 Yet Jean Gribomont’s conclusion that Basil showed himself reticent about speaking of prayer seems plausible. According to him, prayer in Basil’s teaching is not a complicated exercise that requires a specific method or guidance.66

Even an author such as Pseudo-Macarius in Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth century, whose corpus of writings, especially the treatise known as the Epistula magna, noticeably ascribed to prayer an especially impor-tant role in the virtuous life, and who believed that one who obeys the Lord builds up piety by means of the five virtues, the first being prayer—his statements on the silent aspect of prayer did not result in any rich account or defined theory.67 His ascetic rhetoric included such proclamations as “we ought to pray neither according to any bodily habit (ἔθος σωματικόν), nor with a habit of loud noise (κραυγῆς ἔθει), nor out of a custom of silence (συνηθείᾳ σιωπῆς) or on bended knees.” Although silence was precious to him, he did not go beyond such general statements as “those who approach the Lord ought to pray in stillness (ἡσυχίᾳ), peace (εἰρήνῃ), and with great quietness (καταστάσει), and not with disturbing outcries.” The true foun-dation of prayer, he affirmed, is to be vigilant over thoughts (λογισμοί) and to pray with much stillness and peace. For him, those who pray with great noise are like coxswains who exhort the rowers to keep time.68 He understood prayer also as an activity of the mind, as “sending the mind


69. Homily 6.1 (ed. Heinz Berthold, Makarios/Symeon: Reden und Briefe. Die Samm lung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B), GCS 55 and 56 [Berlin: Akademie- Verlag, 1973], here GCS 55:82).

70. Homily 33 (PTS 4:258). 71. For example, Cassian, Conlationes 9.25–26 (ed. Dom E. Pichery, Jean Cassien.

Conférences, SC 54 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1958], 61–62; trans. Boniface Ramsey, John Cassian: The Conferences, Ancient Christian Writers 57 [Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997], 345–46). For “fiery prayer” in the general context of the experience of prayer according to Cassian, see Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 114–21; Monique Alexandre, “La prière de feu chez Jean Cassien,” in Jean Cassien entre l’orient et l’occident, ed. Cristian Badilita and Attila Jakab (Paris: Beauchesne, 2003), 171–203.

72. Conlationes 9.35 (SC 54:71–77; trans. Ramsey, 353).

to God”;69 yet he was less systematic, for instance, than Evagrius Ponticus and quite nonchalant regarding spiritual distinctions, glibly using such terms as “the spiritual pure prayer.”70

Although certain major biblical passages relating to silent prayer are not ignored by the authors I have mentioned, their comments on the silent aspect of prayer represent, for the most part, the merging of the silent dimension of prayer with the notion of prayer of the spirit and of the mind, without ascribing to it any specific function in itself. Nor did they rank the silent aspect of prayer independently as a part of spiritual prog-ress, such as the centrality of “fiery prayer” in Cassian’s teaching on the ecstatic experience of God. Cassian, nonetheless, characterized the “fiery prayer,” which according to him is known and experienced by very few, by deprivation of voice, movement of the tongue, and pronunciation of words: “The mind is aware of it when it is illuminated by an infusion of heavenly light from it, and not by narrow human words.”71 While com-menting on Matt 6.6, Cassian disclosed his understanding of the silent dimension in prayer:

We shall fulfill this in the following way: we pray in our room when we withdraw our hearts completely from the clatter of every thought and concern. . . . We pray with the door shut when, with closed lips and in total silence, we pray to the searcher not of voices but of hearts. We pray in secret when, intent in heart and mind alone, we offer our petitions to God alone. . . . We must pray with the greatest silence.72

The correspondence of Barsanuphius and John with monks in the com-munity of Gaza in the sixth century provides one of the rare instances in which the challenging aspect of silent prayer was plainly addressed. One of the monks asked whether one should pray and recite psalms vocally (μετὰ φωνῆς)—drawing on Ps 50.17 (“Lord, you shall open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise”) and Heb 13.15 (“the fruit of our


73. Questions and Answers 165 (ed. François Neyt, Paula de Angelis-Noah, and Lucien Regnault, Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza: Correspondance, SC 427 and 451 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998, 2001], here 427:562–65).

74. Questions and Answers 430 (SC 451:506–9).75. For instance, Diadochus of Photice, Gnostic Chapters 59–61; see also the intro-

duction of Édouard des Places in his critical edition, Diadoque de Photicé: Oeuvres spirituelles, SC 5 bis (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997), 49–52; Plested, The Macarian Legacy, 168–73. Kallistos Ware, “Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia,” has gathered a wealth of materials on the topic.

76. Or. 13:2–4 (GCS 3:326–29), discussed by Perrone, La preghiera secondo Ori-gene, 109–17.

lips”)—the monk being well aware of the inconsistency that Scripture might present for silent prayer. Putting the question in this manner dem-onstrates that even though advocating hesychastic values, the monks of Gaza did not as a direct consequence embrace silent prayer. The answer of John, their spiritual guide, indicates his stance that prayer should be done not only in the mind, but also with the lips (οὐ μόνον διὰ τοῦ νοός, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τῶν χειλέων χρεία).73 Yet, despite this clear statement in favor of vocal prayer, Barsanuphius also expressed the opposite view: relating to another biblical passage, he said to the monk that, if he happened to invoke God “not with your mouth,” he should not imagine that he is not invoking, since it is written in Scripture, “Shut your door and pray to your Father in secret, that means close your mouth and pray in your heart.”74

What I observe in all these texts, as well as in others not cited here—such as the Pachomian corpus, the Apophthegmata patrum, and the wealth of questions and answers on prayer tackled in the monastic corpus of Gaza—is the absence of a fully developed theory of silent prayer in Greek litera-ture. In other words, in late antique Greek literature the notion of silent prayer did not mature and reach the theoretical dimension or influence attained by the concept of pure prayer developed by Evagrius Ponticus toward the end of the fourth century, and the theoretical achievements of Diadochus of Photice in the fifth century, in reshaping the biblical concept of remembrance of God.75

PRAYER AS SILENCE IN THE TEACHING OF JOHN OF APAMEA

However, if we turn to Syriac literature created from the fourth century on, we may gain an entirely different picture about the notion of silent prayer. In his exposition on the biblical paradigms of prayer—a list that resembles that of other Christian writers such as Origen and Tertullian76—Aphrahat relates thus to the example of Hannah: “Let us now come to the prayer of


77. Aphrahat, Demonstration 4.8 (ed. Ioannes Parisot, PS 1 [Paris: Instituti Francici Typographi, 1894], 152; trans. Sebastian Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life, Cistercian Studies Series 101 [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publica-tions, 1987], 11).

78. On this passage and prayer of the heart, see Brock, “Prayer of the Heart,” 131–42.

79. Hymns on Faith 20.9 (ed. Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO 154, Scr. Syri 73 [Louvain, 1955], 75); trans. Brock, 34).

80. Hymns on Faith 20.1 (CSCO 154:74; trans. Brock, 33). 81. Russell, “Ephraem the Syrian,” 32–33.

silence (o`˙◊¾ o˙rÏı) that Samuel’s mother, Hannah, prayed.”77 Unlike Origen’s interpretation of the same passage, Aphrahat terms Hannah’s prayer a silent prayer. Turning then to discuss Samuel’s prayer and sacri-fice, Aphrahat furnishes a list of biblical figures who prayed to God and received help, among them Jonah, who prayed from the depth of the sea, exhorting, “Our Savior taught the following kind of prayer: ‘You should pray in secret to him who is hidden, but who sees all.’ For he said, ‘Enter the chamber and pray to your Father in secret and the Father who sees in secret will reward you.’” Here Aphrahat was commenting on the key passage from Matt 6.6 (“Pray to your Father with the door closed”), that is, pray in the heart; according to him, the door is the mouth, which one should close, and the chamber is the temple of the Lord (1 Cor 3.16).78 As Sebastian Brock has noted, Ephrem provides a similar interpretation (Hymns on Faith 20.6), drawing on the paradigm of Jonah who, according to him, “prayed a prayer that had no sound: the herald was put to silence in the fish’s belly . . . and God on high heard, for his silence served as a cry.”79 In addition to the explicit evocation here of Matt 6.6 and Jonah 2, Ephrem employs the imagery of giving birth, voice, and silence to denote the dynamic of faith and prayer and their necessity for Christians: “To you, Lord, do I offer up my faith with my voice, for prayer (o˙rÏı) and petition (o˙rÚ·) can both be conceived in the mind and brought to birth in silence, without using the voice (oÏ˜ oÏ¾ o˜˙◊· w„Ï=˙R).”80 He insists on the hidden and non-vocalized experience of prayer, addressed to the “hidden ear of God, while faith is for the visible ear of humanity,” imagin-ing it “like a hidden taste within our body” (Hymns on Faith 20.10–11). Furthermore, Ephrem went so far as to represent God through the imag-ery of silence and stillness: “You are stillness which cannot be sensed and silence which cannot be heard.” Nonetheless, as Paul Russell has convinc-ingly argued, “In Ephrem’s eyes, silence is not only a metaphor for God it also wraps itself around the few true things we are able to know about God.”81 Whatever precise significance Ephrem attached to this metaphor,


82. Or, mistakenly, John of Lycopolis. On the problem of the identity of John, see Irénée Hausherr, Hésychasme et prière, OCA 176 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1966), 63–86; Irénée Hausherr, “Un grand auteur spirituel retrouvé: Jean d’Apamée,” OCP 14 (1948): 3–42 (= Etudes de spiritualité orientale, OCA 183 [Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1969], 181–216. Hausherr claims that there are three different authors under the name of John of Apamea. Another attempt to identify John of Apamea was Werner Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea: Sechs Gespräche mit Thomasios, der Briefwechsel zwischen Thomasios und Johannes und drei an Thomasios gerichtete Abhandlungen, Patristi-sche Texte und Studien 11 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1972), 81–115. Strothmann identifies three aspects of the same author. A good summary of the various arguments relating to John’s identity is provided by Paul Harb, “Doctrine spirituelle de Jean le Solitaire (Jean d’Apamée),” Parole de l’Orient 2 (1971): 225–28. Harb is in favor of an author from Syria. See also René Lavenant, “Le problème de Jean d’Apamée,” OCP 46 (1980): 367–90; René Lavenant, Jean d’Apamée: Dialogues et traités, SC 311 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1984), 15–19. Lavenant’s conclusion is in line with that of Hausherr.

83. Ed. and trans. Sebastian Brock, “John the Solitary, On Prayer,” JTS n.s. 30 (1979): 84–101; Brock, Syriac Fathers, 191–96.

84. Identified and published by Paolo Bettiolo, “Sulla Preghiera: Filosseno o Giovanni,” Le Muséon 94 (1981): 75–89. Bettiolo published the Syriac text with an Italian translation. This recension also contains (76–77) two brief fragments: on con-tinual prayer (o˙R=Óo o˙ÂÏ) and on pure prayer (o˙=Î� o˙ÂÏ).

85. Hausherr, “Un grand auteur spirituel retrouvé.” Hausherr summarized John of Apamea’s three letters published by Lars Gösta Rignell, Briefe von Johannes dem Einsiedler (Lund: Hakan Ohlssons, 1941).

it might have affected the later conception of God and the relation of the human and the divine in Syriac Christianity. Ephrem, however, did not extend his view to a theory of silent prayer, as happened later in the Syriac ascetic milieu; it seems that, in the fourth century, the distinction between the various sorts of non-vocal prayer and silent prayer was still in the making.

John of Apamea, or John the Solitary, is the earliest Christian author known to me to shape a theory of silent prayer.82 His short treatise On Prayer—published by Sebastian Brock and Paolo Bettiolo—was trans-mitted by both West and East Syrian manuscript traditions, including manuscripts attributing the treatise to the East Syrian writer Abraham of Nathpar (sixth/seventh century),83 and an additional recension was trans-mitted under the name of Philoxenos of Mabbug.84 In this treatise, John of Apamea developed a coherent and innovative theory of silent prayer, thus marking a new stage in the history of Syriac spirituality and attest-ing to a new religious sensibility. Already in 1948, Irénée Hausherr in his study, “Un grand auteur spirituel retrouvé: Jean d’Apamée,” recognized the enormous effect that John’s writings had exerted on later Syriac ascetic literature and spirituality.85 Scholars had great difficulty in locating this


86. Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, 68–80.87. André de Halleux, “La christologie de Jean le Solitaire,”Le Muséon 94 (1981):

5–36; Halleux, “Le milieu historique de Jean le Solitaire,” in IIIe Symposium Syri-acum 1980, ed. René Lavenant, OCA 221 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1983), 299–305.

88. Halleux, “Christologie de Jean le Solitaire,” 35.89. Halleux, “Milieu historique de Jean le Solitaire,” 299–305. 90. For instance, according to Brock, “Discerning the Evagrian,” 62, the word

θεωρία occurs a small number of times in John’s writings. 91. This question was recently raised by Brock, “Discerning the Evagrian,” 67–68,

who stated that it needs further exploration.92. On Evagrius’s doctrine of the nous, see Antoine Guillaumont, Les “Képhalia

Gnostica” d’Evagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’Origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens (Paris: Seuil, 1962), 37–43; Julia S. Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), esp. chap. 4.

93. See, for instance, John’s exegesis on the Cherubim and Seraphim in Dialogue 3, in Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, 25–35, and also Lavenant’s introduction at SC 311:22–24.

94. Brock, “John the Solitary,” 84 n. 8.

author, about whom we have almost no information; it is now commonly agreed that John was a native of Apamea in northern Syria who lived dur-ing the first half of the fifth century. On the basis of his Christology, Werner Strothmann has claimed that John of Apamea was a post-Chalcedonian Monophysite.86 This view was rejected by André de Halleux, who had found no evidence of such a hypothesis in either John’s vocabulary or his Christology; instead, Halleux dated John’s literary activity to the period between the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, that is, between 431 and 451.87 Halleux sees John as a theologian of mysticism whose Christology is simply a “christologie d’en haut” in line with early Syriac pre-Chalcedonian theology, which John would have derived from the school of Edessa.88

It is important to emphasize here that, while John of Apamea certainly knew Greek,89 he hardly ever used Greek terminology in his writings and he was far removed from neoplatonic thought.90 In addition, there is no clear adherence to Evagrius’s speculative mysticism and teaching on prayer, and it is still an open question to what extent John knew at least some of Evagrius’s writings.91 As is well known, Evagrius’s concept of pure prayer centered on the inner dynamic of the mind (νοῦς), thus a major part of his descriptions is devoted to the nature and experience of the mind itself, whereas John’s concept of silent prayer centered on the entire self.92 Furthermore, the role of the Bible in his spirituality, a sort of continual meditation on Scripture, is central,93 and his patterns of thought are easily characterized as typically Semitic.94 John’s written corpus is representative


95. Several examples attesting the influence of Ephrem’s theology on John are listed by Halleux, “Christologie de Jean le Solitaire,” 18 n. 52. See also Paul S. Russell, “Ephraem the Syrian on the Unity of Language and the Place of Silence,” JECS 8 (2000): 21–37. Russell notices that Ephrem does not value silence more than human speech but rather sees it as necessary and appropriate with regard to certain subjects in certain circumstances (29).

96. Ed. Sven Dedering, Johannes von Lykopolis: Ein Dialog über die Seele und die Affekte des Menschen (Leiden: Brill, 1936); trans. Irénée Hausherr, Jean le Solitaire (Pseudo-Jean de Lycopolis). Dialogue sur l’âme et les passions des hommes, OCA 120 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1939).

97. See, for instance, Dialogue, 13 and 66. For a summary of John’s threefold model, see Bruce Bradley, “Jean le Solitaire,” DSAM 8 (1974), cols. 768–71. An important analysis of John’s spiritual model is provided by Harb, “Doctrine spiritu-elle,” 229–60. See also, Brock, Syriac Fathers, 79–80.

98. Dialogue, 14, and Harb, “Doctrine spirituelle,” 235–36.99. See, for example, Ep. 2 (Rignell 56*–62*).100. Dialogue 3 (Dedering 61).

of an early phase and unique moment in Syriac spirituality: just a brief moment before the great Syriac theological mutation of the second half of the fifth century—namely, an openness to Greek culture and fidelity to the old theology of Ephrem—and just before it was affected by the Evagriana Syriaca, and by the concept of “pure prayer” that would reshape Syriac spirituality and influence its religious thought and behavior as well as its literary yield for many generations.

It is difficult to trace John’s sources for his concept of silent prayer, and although in many senses it might be considered an innovation, the influence of Ephrem, who perceived silence as the highest form of communication with the divine, seems most likely.95 It is certainly grounded in his anthro-pology of a tripartite model, which he described at length in his treatise Dialogue on the Soul and in his letters, stressing that he based his under-standing on Scripture.96 His concept consists of three levels, or orders, for which John used the Greek τάξις: The somatic level (oR¯pÙ), the level of the soul (oR◊ÙR), and the level of the spirit (oRÁÂ}).97 At the bodily level, there is no possibility to know God’s mystery. At the level of the soul, spiri-tual prayer is located.98 This model is a gradual process of liberation from sin and passions to purity of soul, leading to the luminosity of the soul (o◊ÙRq o˙Â=Ù◊), a progression that takes place as the result of a process of “self-emptying” (o˙Â˜}ÒÓ), in imitation of Christ’s self-emptying (Phil 2.7, “Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”), toward the stage of perfection (o˙Â}=ÓÐ).99 John assumed that a person can ascend beyond the state that he terms as the purity of the mind (oR=Ú}„ o˙Â=Î„) in this life only if he receives divine revelation.100 He develops at length the third stage (o}·Â„ oRÁÂ}), which it is possible to attain only in the new


101. Dialogue 3 (Dedering 64). On the new life in the resurrection, see, for exam-ple, Letter 3, 83–88.

102. Dialogue 4 (Dedering 90).103. Usually o=Ï◊ is the equivalent term for ἡσυχία. Ephrem too distinguished

between the two terms in the context of prayer (Hymns on Faith 20.6). 104. Syriac: Brock, 89; trans. Brock, 97.105. For such an interpretation of Rom 8.26, see John Dalyatha, Ep. 12.4. 106. The notion of movement of prayer o˙ÂÏ� oÚÂ6 is prevalent in Syriac spiri-

tuality and gained further development in Isaac of Nineveh’s teaching on prayer.

life, after the Resurrection. This stage is not a result of good actions or virtues; it is a mind that partakes with God in the knowledge of his mys-teries, a stage that only Christ was able to attain in this life.101

Toward the end of the fourth Dialogue, John concludes his distinction of the threefold order by supplying a brief explanation of the spiritual and corporal aspects of various topics. In this context he inserts an addi-tional distinction dear to him: visible and invisible things, stating that the request concerning invisible things is spiritual prayer (o˙=RÁÂ} D‰ o˙ÂÏ). He thereby created a further distinction of three levels of stillness: corpo-ral stillness (oR}ÐÙ o=Ï◊), which is the ceasing of speech; stillness of the soul (oR◊ÙR o=Ï◊), when the mind no longer quarrels in its thoughts; and spiritual stillness (oRÁÂ} o=Ï◊), when the soul no longer accounts for its opinions.102 This threefold model of stillness corresponds to his model of spiritual progress, in which spiritual prayer is located in the second stage. It is worth noting that John was very accurate about terminology; thus he did not confuse silence (o˜˙◊) with stillness (o=Ï◊), and he was consistent in his use of the former in his treatise On Prayer.103

John’s theological starting point in his treatise On Prayer is John 4.21–24 (“Those who worship God should worship him in spirit and in truth”) and 1 Cor 14.15 (“I will pray in spirit and in my mind”), reject-ing the possibility that prayer consists solely in words, and explaining that spiritual prayer (o˙=RÁÂ} o˙ÂÏ) is not something that is learned and does not reach fullness as a result of either learning or the repetition of words, “It is to Him who is Spirit that you are directing the movements of prayer. You should pray, therefore, in spirit, seeing that He is spirit.”104 At first glance it seems quite surprising that John did not mention Rom 8.26 in this context. Probably, the intercessionary aspect of this verse, an aspect that was not within the spectrum of John’s discussion on silent prayer, is the reason for his textual choice here.105 However, except for the particular notion of the movement of prayer (o˙ÂÏ� oÚÂ6), there is nothing either idiosyncratic or surprising in such a statement in the con-text of the rhetoric of prayer.106 Yet it is precisely from John’s subsequent


107. On Prayer 2 (Syriac: Brock, 89; trans. Brock, 97).108. For the history of singing the Trisagion in eastern Christianity, see Juan Mateos,

La célébration de la parole dans la liturgie Byzantine (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1970), 99–126.

109. On Prayer 2 (Syriac: Brock, 89; trans. Brock, 97). The Trisagion is also associ-ated with the ascent to heaven. See, for example, the tradition in Acts of the Martyr-dom of Perpetua and Felicitas 12 (ed. Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)], 121): “We heard the sound of voices in unison chanting unceasingly: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’”

110. On Prayer 2 (Syriac: Brock, 89; trans. Brock, 97).111. On Prayer 2 (Syriac: Brock, 89; trans. Brock, 97).

statements that we can discern he has something different in mind with regard to “spiritual prayer,” something that goes beyond the Pauline view. It is precisely in this context that he reveals his creativity and appears as an innovative thinker who interiorized the notion of non-vocal prayer: “He does not say anything at all about the tongue. The reason is that this spiritual prayer is not offered up by the tongue or prayed by the tongue, for it is more interior than the lips and the tongue, more deeply interior-ized than anything on the lips, more interiorized than any words (oÏœÓ) or vocal song.”107 It is this kind of prayer that John identified as the first transformative moment in individual prayer, drawing on the heavenly liturgical connotation, namely, the solemn singing of the Trisagion, when one joins the “region of the angels,” and prays with them.108 John situated the person who prays in the place where spiritual beings and angels are to be found (ÌoÎ oÎoÏœÓ�Â oRÁÂg� o˙ÎÂ�·Â); “like them, he utters ‘holy’ without any words” (n�`Ó oÏœÓ oÏ�Â).109 In contrast to the earthly liturgy, in which the Trisagion was uttered vocally, John perceived this elevated spiritual stage as a silent moment. Thus this liturgical contrast reinforces his opening statement about the spiritualization of worship: “No special place is required for someone who prays to God. Our Lord said: ‘The hour is coming when you will not be worshipping the Father in this mountain or in Jerusalem’ (John 4.21).”110

This interior liturgical experience, however, is not static; once one ceases from this kind of prayer and recommences the prayer of vocal song, then, said John, he is distanced from the region of the angels and becomes again an ordinary man (oÓ=Á◊ o◊Ro }·).111 This dynamic aspect of the spiri-tual journey, which seems to be at the heart of John’s concept of silent prayer, rests on a dichotomy he formulated of the “just” (o˜=�6) and the “spiritual being” (oRÁÂ¯), probably reminiscent of the dichotomy already featured in the Liber Graduum, which uses the terms upright (oRoÎ) and perfect (o}=ÓÐ ), terms also used by John of Apamea in his letters and in


112. On Prayer 3 (Syriac: Brock, 89–90; trans. Brock, 98); Liber Graduum 13–14. The “upright” is described in concrete terms as avoiding evil; the “perfect” as tran-scending worldly conflict. For the terms o˜=�6 and oRoÎ as synonyms, see John of Apamea, Dialogue (Dedering 59 and 61).

113. On Prayer 3 (Syriac: Brock, 89–90; trans. Brock, 98).114. On Prayer 3 (Syriac: Brock, 89–90; trans. Brock, 98).115. On Prayer 4 (Syriac: Brock, 90; trans. Brock, 98)116. On Prayer 4 (Syriac: Brock, 90–91; trans. Brock, 98–99). The eighth-century

author John Dalyatha (Letter 12.7 [ed. Robert Beulay, La collection des lettres de Jean de Dalyatha, PO 39.3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), 340–41]), discerned the limit of mystical experience as a place where there are no more words, a realm in which a boundary (oÓÂÁ˙) was imposed, that is, silence (o˜˙◊). Only the intellect (oÚ�Ó) is permitted to pass over and see in this place all the mysteries (Ô=6o}).

117. Brock, Syriac Fathers, 180. The manuscript dates to the tenth or eleventh century.

Dialogue on the Soul.112 John believes that whoever sings, using his tongue and his body, and perseveres in this worship both day and night, such a person is one of the “just.” “But the person who has been deemed worthy to enter deeper than this, singing in mind and in spirit (1 Cor 14.15), such a person is a ‘spiritual being.’” John explained that a “spiritual being” is more exalted than one of the “just”; yet one becomes a “spiritual being” after being one of the “just.”113 John described in detail the stage of the “just,” which consists of all the well-known components of ascetic life, such as fasting, vocal psalmody, long periods on the knees, constant vigils, the recitation of psalms, supplication, abstinence, limited food, humility, and remembrance of God.114 This ascetic behavior, which includes as well various sorts of individual prayers, corresponds to the first stage of John’s threefold spiritual model, that of the body. When someone achieves all this, he will arrive at singing as a spiritual being. What we have here is not simply prayer without voice, but a clear hierarchical spiritual system in which, paradoxically, the necessity for vocal prayer is decisive. John, then, without any hesitation, proceeds to introduce the main theological argument from which his concept of silent prayer stemmed: “For God is silence (o‰Ïo }=Ð Â‰ o˜˙◊), and in silence is he sung.”115 Far from any rhetoric of inexpressibility and gnostic inclinations, he immediately makes it clear that he is not speaking of “the silence of the tongue,” which he considers an exterior silence. Rather, he employs a new image, the “inte-rior tongue of the mind” (oÚ�Ó ÂÐÏ� oR◊Ï); it will be still from all speech and from all thought.116 It is worth mentioning here the text entitled “On Prayer: From the Teaching of the Solitaries,” whose style, according to Sebastian Brock,117 suggests it may be derived from the works of John of Apamea: “Grant me, Lord, by your grace that my mind may have converse with the greatness of that grace—not by means of that converse which is


118. Anonymous 2; Brock, Syriac Fathers, 184.119. He also mentioned by name Eusebius of Caesarea and referred to his Eccle-

siastical History in Dialogues 4, 55.120. Henry Chadwick, “The Silence of Bishops in Ignatius,” Harvard Theological

Review 43 (1950): 169–72.121. Magn. 8 (ed. Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and

English Translation [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992], 154–55). On silence as a char-acteristic of God, see also Ignatius, Eph. 19.

122. John related to Valentian concepts. See Dialogue 4, in Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, 36.

123. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 110*), quoted by Brock, “John the Solitary,” 86–87.124. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 89*).125. Rom. 4.6 (Holmes, 170 and 172).126. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 90*).

constructed from the body’s voice or which is carried on by the tongue of flesh, but grant rather that converse which praise you in silence, you the Silent One who are praised in ineffable silence.”118 John’s powerful state-ment that “God is silence” inevitably calls to mind incarnational theol-ogy of Ignatius of Antioch, the only ancient author from whose writings John of Apamea quoted directly.119 Ignatius, who attached a peculiar value to silence120 and associated God with silence, described Christ in a famous passage as the “Word-Logos that came forth from silence (ἀπὸ σιγῆς).”121 Ignatius’s thought and terminology is generally recognized as having affinities with Gnostic ideas and vocabulary, yet this is not the case with John of Apamea. Despite mentioning several Valentinian con-cepts, he was far removed from any Gnostic ideas. However, he greatly valued Ignatius’s writings and incarnational theology.122 As scholars have noted, the notion “God is silence” is related to John’s understanding of the incarnation as he described it in his letter to Eutropius and Eusebius, “God’s silence spoke with our voice so that we might hear.”123 John’s let-ter, in fact, is a long christological exhortation, which he introduced as “On the man of voice and word” (o˙ÏÓÂ oÏ˜� o◊R}· QÚ). John here was cherishing the image of word-voice and overtly informing his reader that he was drawing on Ignatius’s teachings.124 He first repeated some details relating to the main course of events of Ignatius’s martyrdom as described in his letters, mainly his plea to the Christians not to release him, since, as he said, “I die for God of my own free will,” wishing to be “an imi-tator of the suffering of my God.”125 He followed by quoting Ignatius’s Letter to the Romans 2—“For if you remain silent and leave me alone, I will be a word of God (ἐγὼ λόγος θεοῦ; or‰o o‰Ïo� o˙ÏÓ), but if you love my flesh (σαρκός), then I will be again voice (πάλιν ἔσομαι φωνή; oQ˜ GÏ oRo or‰ ·Â˙)”126—and then tried to interpret this paradigmatic


127. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 90*).128. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 94*). Halleux, “Christology de Jean le Solitaire,” 33–35,

shows that John used oÐ6ÂÓ and oR‹ÏÂÁ not in their profound scientific meaning but rather in that of the ancient Syriac literature, that is, the oR‹ÏÂÁ of Christ as the mystery of communion, as a model of Christ’s association with us.

129. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 95*). 130. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 118*).131. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 119*). 132. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 118*). On this passage, see Brock, “John the Solitary,” 87;

Harb, “Doctrine spirituelle,” 256. 133. Ep. 3 (Rignell, 118*). 134. Dialogue 2, in Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, 14–15, alluding to

1 Cor 13.8.

declaration by asking, what does Ignatius mean when he says, “After leav-ing this world he [Ignatius] will become word, and if he remains he will be voice”?127 According to John, Ignatius wanted to declare that in the future world man will become spirit. Refining his theological statement, John stresses that even more excellent than the mingling (oý/ÂÓ) of the word-λόγος in the voice, is the mixture of God-logos endued in the body (~·Ï� o}ÐÙ· o˙ÏÓ o‰Ïo� oRËÏÂÁ).128 John uses this imagery to argue for the unity of Christ:129 as the word and the voice create one unity, one intellection (oÏÎÂÒ), one understanding (oR=Â·), the same is true for the Son of God—that is, one impression (oÓ◊Â}) perceived in two powers. Returning to Ignatius’s statements, John then explains that Ignatius was expressing his desire to be with God and not in the world of the voice, the corporeal life, desiring to become silence and no longer voice.130 The soul, John states, tends toward silence, perceiving the spiritual life as an ascent consisting of three orders (oÒÎË)—voice, word, and silence. According to this scheme, however, the realm of silence will be attained only in the new life.131 Thus Ignatius’s dynamic of λόγος-φωνή, was fully adopted and elaborated on by John of Apamea to express the key notion of his theory of silent prayer, namely, the desire to become word-λόγος in an awareness of hidden things (o œ̇ =ÒÎ� o˙ÂR◊Ð }Ó· oÂ‰o o˙ÏÓ) and to ascend to silence (oÏÚ˙o o›˙◊Ï).132

John perceived silence as the divine realm, “the invisible world in which there is no voice,”133 and he saw the transformation in the future life as the reduction to silence of all language, the cessation of all words and all demonstrations.134 Once he had established the concept that God is silence, John turned to introducing his concept of silence (o˜˙◊), which we might describe as the mapping of the silent praying self: “Thus there is a silence of the tongue, there is a silence of the whole body, there is the


135. On Prayer 5 (Syriac: Brock, 91; trans. Brock, 99).136. Brock, “John the Solitary,” 99 n. 3: “Or when the body is in a sort of death.”137. Brock, “John the Solitary,” 99 n. 7: “In this state it is truly silent, aware that

the silence which is upon it is itself silent.”138. Brock, Syriac Fathers, 194–95.139. On Prayer 7 (Syriac: Brock, 91; trans. Brock, 99–100).

silence of the soul, there is the silence of the mind, and there is the silence of the spirit.”135 Each faculty has its own silence:

The silence of the tongue is merely when it is not incited to evil speech; the silence of the entire body is when all its senses are not occupied by a propensity to evil deeds;136 the silence of the soul is when there are no ugly thoughts bursting forth within it; the silence of the mind is when it is not reflecting on any harmful knowledge or wisdom; the silence of the spirit is when the mind ceases even from the stirrings caused by created spiritual beings and all its movements are stirred solely by Being, at the wondrous awe of the silence137 which surrounds it.138

John was describing here the degrees and measures to be found in silence and utterance, all the while introducing a powerful model of prayer in which the whole self is touched by the embodiment of silence and oriented toward the divine. He was fully aware that such a spiritual stage is rarely attained. If one has not reached these higher states, then he advised using psalmody and praise of the tongue.

As John makes clear in the last section of his treatise On Prayer, the incarnation in the praying self does not cease in the realm of silent prayer. Rather, the recitation of the words of prayer will not be merely out of obligation, “but let your very self become these words” (oÏœÓ Ôœ =R‰ KÓÂR› ˙Ro oÂ‰˙� oÏo). John stressed that the recitation is not advantageous unless “the word actually becomes embodied in you (K· Ì◊Ð ˙˙), and becomes a deed,” thus rendering it possible to become a man of God even in this world.139 In this striking passage, John assumes that during vocal prayer, the incarnation continues, making a descent from silence into the word. By expressing this earthly self-transformation, John appears here as a mystical thinker who ascribes great value to the descent from heaven of the person who was for a brief moment a “spiritual being.” This dynamic of silent prayer also attests to the significance that John ascribes to the threefold scheme, which represents not only a hierarchy of spiritual progress but also a coherent perception of the self, one in which the body, soul, and spirit function almost simultaneously. As he himself prays, “How much more will you, Lord, magnify and praise that person


140. Trans. Brock, Syriac Fathers, appendix, “Prayers of the Mystics: Prayers of John of Apamea,” 341.

141. This is a characteristic of John’s spirituality, prominent in his Dialogues. See also Lavenant, Jean d’Apamée, 24–25.

142. On this topic, see my essay, “Personal Experience and Self-Exposure: From Pseudo-Macarius to Symeon the New Theologian,” in Between Personal and Insti-tutional Religion: Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity, ed. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Lorenzo Perrone (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).

143. On mysticism as an intensification of religious life, see Moshe Idel, “Perfor-mance, Intensification, and Experience in Jewish Mysticism,” Archaevs 13 (2009): 95–136.

144. As coined by Paul F. Gehl, “Mystical Language Models in Monastic Educa-tional Psychology,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 14 (1984): 219–43, esp. 220. He discussed this sort of rhetoric in the western monastic context in “Competens Silentium: Varieties of Monastic Silence in the Medieval West,” Viator 18 (1987): 125–60.

145. For this aspect of silence, see, for example, P. Salmon, “Le silence religieux: Pratique et théorie,” Mélanges benedictins (1947): 13–57; Joseph A. Mazzeo, “St. Augustine’s Rhetoric of Silence,” Journal of the History of Ideas 23 (1962): 175–96; Marcia L. Colish, “St. Augustine’s Rhetoric of Silence Revisited,” Augustinian Studies 9 (1978): 15–24; Ambrose G. Walthen, “The Word of Silence: On Silence and Speech in RB,” Cistercian Studies 17 (1982): 195–211.

who offers his whole self to you.”140 It is within this pattern of cultivating the self that John’s theory of silent prayer should be understood.

In addition to the indispensability of the doctrine of incarnation in its Ignatian sense to John’s spirituality, he also operated with a sharp distinc-tion between the visible and invisible realm, a peculiarity that dominated his thought and prevailed throughout his writings. He assumed that the revelations that God makes of the knowledge of mysteries are in their essence totally invisible, that is, there are no exterior signs of the revela-tions in the person who receives them.141 This stands in contrast to, for instance, fourth- and fifth-century perceptions of the personal experi-ence of God as it emerged in a variety of patristic writings, especially the Macarian homilies and Diadochus of Photice’s Gnostic Chapters.142 Thus John’s transformative model of spiritual life is neither theophanic in the strict sense of the term nor ecstatic. Rather, he embraced a mystical model of intensification of the religious life, culminating in the experience of the inner liturgical silence.143

CONCLUSION

What I have discussed here is not a sort of “rhetoric of inexpressibility,”144 a kind of a language beyond language.145 Nor have I been concerned with


146. On the Evagrian legacy of pure prayer, see my essay, “The Limit of the Mind (ΝΟΥΣ): Pure Prayer according to Evagrius Ponticus and Isaac of Nineveh,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 15/2 (2011): 291-321. See also the use of the Evagrian termi-nology and concept of pure prayer in the anonymous text from the sixth or seventh century translated by Brock, Syriac Fathers, 181–84. The Evagrian influence is also apparent in Dadisho’ Qatraya, Discourse on Solitude, in Early Christian Mystics, ed. A. Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies 7 (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1934), 232–34.

silence as an ascetic discipline. Rather, I have dealt with the experience of the silent praying self and with the transformative power of silence, point-ing to the surfacing of a new religious sensibility in Syriac Christianity in the first half of the fifth century. It is difficult to decide whether John of Apamea’s new concept of silent prayer was part of a wider theological trend that came to appreciate, more than previously, Ignatius’s incarna-tional theology and the identification of God with silence, a trend that stuck to Ephrem’s proclamations on silence as well. Indeed, John appears here as an innovative thinker whose Christology and spirituality were largely shaped by the notion of silence. While giving prominence to silence in the context of prayer, John offered for the first time in eastern Christianity a lucid concept of silent prayer that reconfigured the New Testament’s notion of addressing the divine without words, inserting it into a coher-ent and dynamic system of ascetic life that he perceived as a movement of the whole self, an ascent from voice to silence—from the stage of “just” to “spiritual being”—and descent from silence to voice. In John’s con-cept, we witness a delicate balance of continuity and discontinuity with the Christian past; he incorporates Ignatius’s insight into a new spiritual context and lifestyle, with no dread of the gnostic perception of God as silence, all the while raising the somehow prevalent minor dimension of silence in prayer to a new stage, to be an independent entity, a transfor-mative power that guided the whole self toward God. This is a profound change in practice and attitude associated with individual prayer.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to inquire whether John’s concept of silent prayer had any impact on the Syriac spirituality of the next genera-tions or if it simply vanished. It is noticeable, however, that John’s concept did not enjoy the great success of Evagrius’s theory of pure prayer, one of the most inspiring and innovative mystical theories of late antiquity, which dominated the Syriac ascetic scene for many generations.146 To a large extent, Syriac spirituality would express its principles in terms consonant with the Evagrian tradition. The terminology and phraseology coined by Evagrius in his theory of pure prayer became well known and normative among Syriac authors, among them Isaac of Nineveh in the second half of


147. For example, Sebastian Brock, “Discerning the Evagrian in the Writings of Isaac of Nineveh: A Preliminary Investigation,” Adamantius 15 (2009): 60–72; Sabino Chialà, “Evagrio il Pontico negli scritti di Isacco di Ninive,” Adamantius 15 (2009): 73–84. See also Antoine Guillaumont, “Les versions syriaques de l’oeuvre d’Évagre le Pontique et leur role dans la formation du vocabulaire ascétique syriaque,” in IIIe Symposium Syriacum 1980, ed. René Lavenant, OCA 221 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1983), 35–41. The influence of Evagrius on the Latin world through Cassian’s teaching has long been recognized by scholars. See, for instance, Owen Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 92. However, it is only with Columba Stewart’s study on the technique and experience of prayer that the nature and scope of the Evagrian influence on Cassian is fully traced. See Stewart, Cassian the Monk, chap. 5 and 7.

the seventh century, and his contemporary Dadisho’ Qatraya.147 One might speculate that the Evagrian legacy of pure prayer adopted in late antique Syriac Christianity muted the remarkable concept of silent prayer created by John of Apamea. However, we still need to clarify to what extent John was an influential author and trace the fusion of his thought and termi-nology with other traditions in Syriac ascetic culture.

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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