At the Feet of the Fathers: St. John Chrysostom on the Devil Attacking As We Pray

At the Feet of the Fathers

Monday, November 7, 2022

St. John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom (c. AD  347 – 14 September AD 407) was an important early Church father who served as archbishop of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey). He is known for his preaching, public speaking, his stand against abuses both among secular authorities and in the church, and his Divine Liturgy, used to this day in Eastern Orthodoxy. The name Chrysostom means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and was given to him for his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was one of the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church.

Expect Satan’s Attack When You Pray

The devil, that deceiver, lies in wait when we pray. For he sees how much we gain from prayer, so that’s when he attacks us the most, to break down our defenses and send us home empty-handed.

Earnest prayer is a light to the understanding and the soul—an inextinguishable and perpetual light. For that reason, he throws countless trash heaps of ideas into our minds, things we would never have imagined, putting them all together at the very moment when we're praying and raining them down on our souls. Just as it's being lighted, the devil, when he sees us lighting the flame of prayer, blows on it from every direction with gusts of countless thoughts and doesn't stop until he has put out the light.

But we should do just what you do when you’re lighting a lamp. What do you do? You put your finger over the hole in the lamp and keep the wind out. As long as the devil attacks from the outside, we can stand up to him. But if we have opened the doors of our minds to him, and let the Enemy in, then we can’t hold him off even a little bit. He puts our memory on all sides, and then, like a smoking lamp, we speak only empty words.

-St. John Chrysostom, Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren, 5