Origins
The prayer's origin is most likely the Egyptian desert, which was settled by the monastic Desert Fathers in the 5th century.
What may be the earliest explicit reference to what became the standard version of the Jesus Prayer is in Discourse on Abba Philimon from The Philokalia. Philimon lived around AD 600. But while the prayer itself was in use by that time, John S. Romanides writes that "We are still searching the Fathers for the term 'Jesus prayer.'"
The earliest known mention is in On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination of St. Diadochos of Photiki (400-c. 486), a work found in the first volume of the Philokalia. The Jesus Prayer is described in Diadochos's work in terms very similar to St. John Cassian's (c. 360-435) description in the Conferences 9 and 10, which gives, as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer, not the Jesus Prayer, but "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." St. Diadochos ties the practice of the Jesus Prayer to the purification of the soul and teaches that repetition of the prayer produces inner peace.
The use of the Jesus Prayer is recommended in the Ladder of Divine Ascent of St. John Climacus (c. 523–606) and in the work of St. Hesychios the Priest (ca. 8th century), Pros Theodoulon, found in the first volume of the Philokalia. Ties to a similar prayer practice and theology appear in the 14th century work of an unknown English monk The Cloud of Unknowing. The use of the Jesus Prayer according to the tradition of the Philokalia is the subject of the 19th century anonymous Russian spiritual classic The Way of a Pilgrim.
Though the Jesus Prayer has been practiced through the centuries as part of the Eastern tradition, in the 20th century, it also began to be used in some Western churches, including some Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
Read more about this topic: Jesus Prayer
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