After the Old Testament and the Incarnation, Part III follows how the early Church lived the Name of Jesus: in Acts, Baptism, Eucharist, exorcism, martyrdom, and the Egyptian desert.
Foreword: From the Resurrection to the Prayer of the Catacombs
In the first two articles of this series we traced how the Name of God, hidden behind the veil of the Temple in the Old Covenant, was revealed in the fullness of time through the Incarnation. The Name YHWH — which the pious Israelite did not dare to pronounce — was revealed in Christ, and the Son-Logos, the bearer and revealer of the eternal Name, received through the Incarnation a human pronounceable name: Jesus, "YHWH saves." What the prophets had called Shem, what was kept beneath the veil in the Temple, is now disclosed through the Person of the incarnate Son: Christ, the Word of the Father, takes upon Himself flesh, blood, human voice, and the human name Jesus.
But the disclosure of the Name in Christ does not stop on the day of the Resurrection or of the Ascension. Christ continues to act through His Name, in the Holy Spirit, in the faith of the Church. And He acts not as a memory, not as a historical mark, not as the recollection of a person who once lived in Galilee — but as a present Person who heals through the calling of His Name, who casts out demons through His Name, who opens the heavens, who strengthens the martyrs, who gives birth to saints, who builds the Church.
The question of Part III is this: how did the early Church live the Name of Jesus? How was it pronounced, invoked, confessed in the first three centuries — in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in the catacombs of Rome, in the desert of Egypt? How was the entire liturgical, sacramental, ascetical, and martyrial life of the Church born from the apostolic experience of the Name? And how did the prayer of the Name — which over the centuries would become the Jesus Prayer — gradually emerge from this common experience of the first Christians?
This is not a historical study for its own sake. It is a spiritual study. For what the early Church lived, we live also — or ought to live — every time we make the sign of the cross "in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," every time we kneel at the Divine Liturgy, every time we whisper "Lord Jesus Christ" in the silence of the heart. Tradition is not a museum. Tradition is the same power of the Name which opened the prisons of Paul and which opens, today, our hearts.
In the early Church, the Name of Jesus is neither a magical formula nor a mere remembrance. The Name is the living invocation of the Person of Christ, working in the Holy Spirit, within the faith of the Church.
I. The Name as Living Power in the Acts of the Apostles
1.1. The Key Word of the Book: en tō onomati
The Acts of the Apostles — written by Saint Luke, according to the patristic tradition, around the year 63 — is, in many respects, the book of the Name. The Greek expression ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ ("in the Name of Jesus") and its related forms (διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος, "through the Name"; ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι, "upon the Name") appear more than thirty times in the twenty-eight chapters of the book. This is not a stylistic coincidence; it is a theological thread. Saint Luke shows, with an almost juridical clarity, that the Church does not preach about Jesus, but in His Name — as in a place, as in a reality, as in a power.
This distinction — between about and in — is fundamental for understanding the difference between a modern rationalist sermon and the apostolic confession. The apostles did not pronounce ideas about Jesus; they invoked the Name, and the Name worked. Preaching and miracle were, in the Acts of the Apostles, two faces of the same reality: the presence of the One Named through His Name.
1.2. Pentecost: The Name as the Foundation of Christian Baptism
The first Christian sermon — that of Saint Peter on the day of Pentecost — culminates with a commandment about the Name: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Baptism "in the Name of Jesus," which the Acts of the Apostles mention in several places (2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5), is not a competing formula with the Trinitarian one of Matthew 28:19, but a concentrated expression of the entire theology of the Name: in the Name of Jesus the whole divine Name is contained — that of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit — for in Jesus all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).
Therefore, when Saint Peter commands the three thousand Jews converted at Pentecost to be baptized "in the Name of Jesus Christ," he is not proposing a ritual; he is opening to them a spiritual place — the Name as the homeland of the baptized. Baptism is not a washing, but an entry into the Name. The baptized one begins to live within the Name, as in a house.
1.3. The First Apostolic Miracle: "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Rise Up and Walk"
Immediately after Pentecost, Saint Peter and Saint John go up to the Temple for the prayer of the ninth hour. At the gate called "Beautiful" they meet a man lame from birth, who was begging for alms. Peter speaks to him the words that have remained for all ages: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk!" (Acts 3:6).
Three things must be noted here. First: Peter does not say "I heal you," nor "God heals you"; he says in the Name. The apostle places himself in the Name as in an authority that does not belong to him, but which works through him. Second: the healing is not the psychological effect of a conviction, but the real effect of the invocation of the Name — the lame man, who had never walked, "leaping up and praising God" enters with the apostles into the Temple. Third — and most important for our theme: when Peter explains the miracle to the gathered people, he formulates what will become one of the densest theological affirmations of Acts: "And His name through faith in His name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know" (Acts 3:16).
The Name strengthens. The Name heals. The Name is not a symbol — the Name is power. And faith is, in a very precise sense, adherence to the Name.
1.4. "There Is No Other Name Under Heaven"
Gathered before the Sanhedrin, Peter and John are asked by the high priest: "By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?" (Acts 4:7). The question itself shows that the Jewish authority recognized, at that time, that the apostolic work was being accomplished through the Name. Peter, "filled with the Holy Spirit," answers with a text that will remain, in all ages, the confession of the Church: "By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole" (Acts 4:10). And then, two verses later, the sentence which will resound in all Christian missions: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
This affirmation — there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved — is not a polemical formula against other religions. It is a positive, ontological affirmation: because Jesus is the only Name in which God has made His fullness accessible, salvation cannot be anywhere else but in this Name. Not because other names would be evil, but because no other name contains the same fullness. Salvation is entry into the Name, and this Name is Jesus.
1.5. The Name Among the First Disciples: The Joy of Suffering "for the Name"
A few verses later, the Sanhedrin beats the apostles and commands them no longer to speak "in the Name of Jesus." The apostles’ reaction is astonishing: "They departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name" (Acts 5:41). This is the first scriptural attestation of a motif that will run through the entire history of Christian martyrdom: to suffer for the Name. Martyrdom is not, in the apostolic understanding, suffering for a cause or for an ideological conviction — it is suffering for the Name. And the joy of the martyrs is the joy of being "counted worthy" to bear the shame of a Name worthy of such shame. We will return to this point when we speak of sub-apostolic martyrdom.
1.6. Saul-Paul: "A Chosen Vessel to Bear My Name"
The conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus is, above all, an encounter with the Name. The voice on the way says: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" — and to Saul’s question "Who art Thou, Lord?" the answer is heard: "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9:4–5). For three days blind, in the house of Judas, Saul waits. And when the Lord speaks of him to Ananias, He formulates the Pauline mission through an expression which must be remembered: "He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel" (Acts 9:15).
The apostolic mission is not, in the language of Acts, "to preach the Gospel" in an abstract sense — it is to bear the Name. The apostle is a bearer of the Name (onomatophoros — a term Saint Ignatius of Antioch will later use of all Christians). Paul carries the Name from Antioch to Rome. And when Festus sends him to Caesar, what he carries onward is not a doctrine — it is the Name.
1.7. Conclusion of the Section: The Name as the Center of the Apostolic Church
If we open the Acts of the Apostles with this key — Christ working through His Name — the entire book takes on a spiritual coherence which the modern, rationalist reading loses. Acts is not a chronicle of a "religious movement" born in Jerusalem; it is the testimony of how, after the Ascension, Christ continued to work in His Church through His Name, in the Holy Spirit, by the faith of the apostles. He is no longer seen with bodily eyes, but He is present through His Name; and where the Name is invoked with faith, in the Holy Spirit, Christ Himself is present.
It must be emphasized from the outset, so that all that follows may not be misunderstood: the Name does not act as an autonomous power, separate from the Person of Christ. The Name Jesus is the living invocation of the Person of the risen and ascended Christ at the right hand of the Father; and the work that is done "in the Name of Jesus" is, essentially, the work of the Person of the Son, in communion with the Father, through the Holy Spirit. This precision — which we shall repeat several times in what follows — guards our entire reflection from any drift toward a magic of the Name or toward a theology that would make the Name an "object" autonomous from the One Named. The Name is real, but its reality is Christ Himself, in the communion of the Holy Trinity.
This reality — that Christ comes into His Church through the invocation of His Name — is not the invention of later theologians. It is the very reality of the Acts of the Apostles. And it is the foundation upon which, in the following three centuries, will be built the Liturgy, the Sacraments, martyrdom, and the desert.
II. The Name in the Liturgical and Sacramental Life of the Early Church
The transition from the Acts of the Apostles to the liturgical forms of the early Church is not a transition from "charisma" to "institution," as some Protestant theologians claim. It is a transition from the Name working through the apostles to the Name working through the entire assembly. The Liturgy does not domesticate the Name; the Liturgy places the Name within the Body of the Church as in its proper vessel.
2.1. Baptism: Entry into the Name
The oldest Christian liturgical document we possess after the writings of the New Testament is the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles — a manual of the Syrian communities, dated by patristic tradition to the last quarter of the first century (between the years 70 and 90, thus contemporary with some texts of the New Testament; modern academic scholarship sometimes proposes slightly later dates, up to the early second century). In its seventh chapter, the Didache gives the first practical instruction on Christian Baptism: "Now concerning Baptism, baptize as follows: having said all this beforehand, baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in running water. But if you have no running water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot do it in cold water, do it in warm. But if you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Didache, VII, 1–3).
Three observations are required. First: the formula of Baptism is the same as that commanded in Matthew 28:19 — in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism "in the Name of Jesus" mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles does not contradict this formula; it expresses it concentratedly (for, as we noted above, in Jesus the entire divine Name is contained). In the Didache, the Trinitarian form becomes the normative form, preserved to this day in all the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Second observation: the quantity of water does not matter (running, still, cold, warm, or even poured on the head), but the Name spoken. The Name is the power of Baptism, not the water. Third observation: the threefold pouring on the head shows that, already in the first century, the threeness of the Name was expressed sacramentally through the threefold action with water.
For the Apostolic Fathers, Baptism is entry into the Name — the Name spoken over the water makes it "the water of salvation" (Didache, IX), just as the Name spoken over the bread and wine effects the fulfillment of the Holy Eucharist. Saint Cyprian of Carthage, in the third century, will formulate explicitly: "The waters are sanctified by the invocation of the divine Name" (Epistle 70). And Saint Ambrose of Milan, in his work De Mysteriis, will explain to his catechumens that the waters of the Jordan were ordinary water until they were touched by the Name of Jesus through Baptism; from that moment they became a fountain of salvation. Thus the entire sacramental theology of the Church is born from this simple affirmation: the Name sanctifies matter.
2.2. The Holy Eucharist: The Name That Transforms
The same Didache gives us the oldest Christian eucharistic prayer we possess (chapters IX and X). At its end stands a formula that will remain, for all ages, in all Eastern Liturgies: "We give Thee thanks, Holy Father, for Thy holy Name which Thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith, and immortality which Thou hast revealed to us through Jesus Thy Servant" (Didache, X, 2). The Name of God "dwells in our hearts" — a formulation of extraordinary depth. Not "faith" dwells, not "doctrine" — the Name Itself is what enters the heart of the Christian through the Eucharist.
In later eucharistic prayers — in the Liturgy of Saint James (the oldest one we possess in complete form, 3rd–4th c.), then in the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great and of Saint John Chrysostom — this invocation of the Name will develop into what we call the epiclesis: the calling down of the Holy Spirit upon the Gifts that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Eucharist, the Church prays to the Father, through the Son, calling the Holy Spirit upon the Gifts. The Name of Christ does not work in isolation, as a formula, but within this Trinitarian breath of the Liturgy. The transformation of the Gifts is the work of the Holy Trinity, and the Name of Jesus is the living invocation of the Person of the One present in the Mystery. This is the form you know today: "Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these Gifts here set forth" — pronounced in the Name of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to the Father. The entire Liturgy is thus a Trinitarian work in which the Name Jesus is the invocation that makes manifest the presence of the One Named, the Son-Logos, in the communion of the Holy Trinity.
2.3. Exorcisms: The Name That Drives Out Demons
One of the oldest testimonies regarding how the first Christians used the Name of Jesus comes from non-Christian authors themselves. Origen, in Against Celsus (3rd c.), reports the observation of the pagan philosopher that "many Christians, even the simplest, drive out demons by invoking the Name of Jesus" (Contra Celsum, I, 6). This practice was so widespread in the first three centuries that it became, for the Greco-Roman world, a distinctive sign of Christianity. Jews, pagans, Gnostics — all recognized that the Name of Jesus did what no other name invoked in the ancient world could do.
Saint Justin Martyr, in his Second Apology (chapter 6), written around the year 160, testifies before the Roman Emperor: "For many of our people, being Christians, have healed and still heal many possessed by demons throughout the world and in your own city, casting out the demons through the Name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate — when all other exorcists, magical formulas, and herbs had failed." And Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, bishop at the end of the second century, in his work Against Heresies, reinforces: "His disciples, having received grace from Him and working in His Name, do good works for the whole human race, according to the gift each has received. Some truly and indisputably cast out demons, so that often those very ones cleansed of evil spirits believe and become Christians" (Adversus Haereses, II, 32, 4).
It must be remembered that Christian exorcisms of the first centuries were not magic composed of complicated formulas. They consisted essentially in pronouncing with faith the Name of Jesus Christ over the one possessed. That alone. And the demons fled. Saint Athanasius the Great, in the Life of Saint Anthony — a text written around 360 but describing the Egyptian monastic life of the years 270–356 — repeatedly recounts how Saint Anthony the Great confronted evil spirits by invoking the Name of Christ; and he stresses that the demons "cannot bear this Name," that "they flee from it as from fire." This conviction is preserved to this day in the Euchologion (Book of Needs) of the Orthodox Church — particularly in the prayers of Saint Basil the Great over those harassed by spirits, where the repeated invocations "in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ" are not rhetorical formulas, but precisely the power of exorcism.
2.4. Blessing, the Sign of the Cross, and the Signaculum Nominis
In the pre-Nicene era, the sign of the Cross — made on the forehead, on the breast, on the eyes, on the mouth — was always accompanied by the invocation of the Name. Tertullian, writing around the year 200, attests in De corona militis: "At every step and movement, at every coming in and going out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we eat, when we light the lamps, when we go to bed, when we sit down — in every undertaking of life — we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross." The sign of the Cross was "the Name spoken with the hand" — the seal (sphragis, signaculum) by which the Christian placed himself, in every circumstance of daily life, under the cover of the Name.
This practice is so ancient that some texts of the second century link it directly with the "marks" Saint Paul mentions in Galatians 6:17: "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." For the Christians of the catacombs of Rome and for the hermits of Egypt, the sign of the cross meant the same thing as the speaking of the Name — and therefore, in early Christian iconography, we often see the Chi-Rho (☧, the monogram of the Name "Christ" formed of the Greek letters X and P) carved on the walls of catacombs, on sarcophagi, on graves. The Name was the seal of the baptized; the sign of the Cross was the visible form of this seal; and martyrdom was its confirmation in blood.
2.5. Synthesis of the Section: Liturgy as the Continual Calling of the Name
All these things — Baptism, the Eucharist, exorcisms, the sign of the Cross — form one spiritual whole. The Liturgy is the continual calling of the Name within the Body of the Church. There is no moment of the Liturgy that is not placed under the invocation of the Name of the Holy Trinity — from "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" to the closing "Let us depart in peace! — In the Name of the Lord." And the life of the Christian of the first ages was, entirely, life under the Name: at birth one was baptized in the Name, at meals one spoke the Name, on the road one made the sign of the Cross, in danger one called the Name, at death one entrusted one’s soul to the Name of Jesus. And each time, through the calling of the Name, Christ Himself was the one who acted, in the Holy Spirit, in the communion of the Church.
This reality shows us, once again, that Tradition is not a layering of "customs" over a "simple faith." Tradition is the very life of the Church within the Name of the Holy Trinity — the life of the Church as the Body of the One Named.
III. The Name and Martyrdom: To Die for the Name
If the Liturgy is the continual calling of the Name in life, martyrdom is the calling of the Name in death. The two are not in opposition: they form one spiritual arc. And for the Apostolic Fathers, martyrdom is Liturgy — for it is essentially self-offering through the Name, in the Name, for the Name.
3.1. Saint Ignatius of Antioch: The First "God-Bearer"
Saint Ignatius of Antioch (†107 or 110) is one of the clearest testimonies of the theology of the Name from the sub-apostolic Church. Bishop of Antioch — the third after Saint Peter and Saint Evodius — Ignatius was arrested under the Emperor Trajan and taken to Rome to be devoured by wild beasts in the Colosseum. On his way to martyrdom he wrote seven epistles addressed to various local Churches — texts which constitute, alongside the Didache, the very first Christian literature after the writings of the New Testament.
Ignatius gives himself, from the very first line of each epistle, a name that will remain: Theophoros — "God-Bearer." This name is not a personal label; it is the condition of every Christian. All Christians are, according to Ignatius, bearers of the Name — Christophoroi, "Christ-bearers" — for through Baptism Christ Himself has dwelt in them, and they bear, in their bodies, His Name as a living seal.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians (chapter 7), Ignatius formulates one of the densest Christological statements of sub-apostolic literature: "There is one Physician, both fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God come in flesh, true Life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible — Jesus Christ our Lord." And in his Epistle to the Romans (chapter 4), where Ignatius prepares for martyrdom, he writes the words that have become famous: "I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread of Christ. (…) Allow me to enjoy those wild beasts which are prepared for me. (…) Give me nothing more than Christ." And, in Epistle to the Romans chapter 7: "I desire the Bread of God — which is the flesh of Jesus Christ. (…) And I desire the drink of life, which is His blood, the imperishable love."
For Ignatius, martyrdom is not a tragedy borne with stoic heroism; it is the perfect Liturgy — self-offering in the Name. "Let me be an imitator of the suffering of my God," he writes. And those who knew him already called him "bearer of the Name" — for his body, on the verge of being torn by beasts, bore the Name of Jesus.
3.2. Saint Polycarp of Smyrna: "How Could I Blaspheme My King?"
The second great sub-apostolic testimony is Saint Polycarp of Smyrna (†155 or 156), direct disciple of Saint John the Apostle and bishop of Smyrna. The document Martyrium Polycarpi — written shortly after his martyrdom, around the year 156 — is the very first Christian act of martyrdom we possess, and has set, for all subsequent ages, the literary model of martyrological hagiography.
Saint Polycarp was arrested at age 86. Brought to the stadium of Smyrna, the proconsul exhorts him to sacrifice to Caesar and to blaspheme Christ. Polycarp’s response — preserved almost verbatim by those who accompanied him — is one of the most famous texts of martyrological literature: "For eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no harm. How could I blaspheme my King who saved me?" (Mart. Pol., IX, 3).
And then, when the proconsul insists that Polycarp pronounce at least a formula of denial, the elderly bishop says clearly: "I am a Christian" (Christianos eimi, Christianus sum) — a formula which, in martyrological literature, becomes the first confession of faith. And in his prayer upon the lit pyre, Polycarp begins thus: "O Lord God Almighty, Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have come to know Thee…" (Mart. Pol., XIV, 1).
Through Jesus we have come to know Thy Name. This is, in two words, the entire theology we developed in Part II of this series: the Name of the Father (the YHWH of the Old Covenant) was revealed to us through the Name of the Son. And Polycarp, at the moment of his martyrdom, confesses that this knowledge of the Name takes place through Jesus — in Jesus — for Jesus.
3.3. "I Am a Christian" as Confession of the Name
The formula Christianos eimi — "I am a Christian" — which Polycarp pronounces before the proconsul, appears in dozens of acts of martyrdom of the first three centuries: in Saint Justin Martyr, in the martyrs of Lyon (177), in the martyrs of Scilli (180), in Saint Cyprian of Carthage (258). This formula seems short, but it contains the entire theology of the Name: I am Christ’s, I bear His Name, I live within His Name. To be a Christian — in the language of the first centuries — did not mean to profess a particular teaching (although it presupposed that); it meant to bear the Name. And to bear the Name meant to be ready to pay for it with one’s blood.
Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia, writing to the Emperor Trajan around the year 112 about the Christians of his province, observed with almost pedagogical precision: "Those who confessed themselves to be Christians, I asked them two and three times, threatening them with punishment, and I commanded those who persisted to be put to death. For, however the matter stood, I had no doubt that such stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished" (Letter X, 96). And Pliny goes on to say that, before executing them, he ordered the Christians to curse the Name of Christ — Christo maledicere — for this formula was considered the absolute proof of renunciation. Those who could not curse the Name were executed.
Thus, the martyrdom of the first centuries is not, in essence, a phenomenon of suffering for a doctrine; it is suffering for a Name. And the joy of the martyrs — attested in all martyrological acts from Stephen onward — is the joy of being the Name’s, of bearing it in the body, of confessing it with the voice, of sealing it with the blood.
3.4. Saint Justin Martyr and "Truly Being a Christian"
Saint Justin the Philosopher (†165), one of the most prominent apologists of the second century, formulates, in his First Apology, chapter 4, a linguistic observation of great spiritual depth: "The Name ‘Christian’ (Christianos) ought not to attract punishment, as if it were a name evil in itself; but if anyone is guilty, he must be punished for the deed — not for the name. And if anyone has done no evil, it is unjust to punish him only for the name."
Justin writes these words at the court of Emperor Antoninus Pius, attempting to convince the Roman Empire that the mere bearing of the Name cannot constitute a crime of state. But the argument, though juridical in form, is profoundly theological in substance: the Name has its own reality. To bear the Name is, in itself, an act — not a label. And the Roman Empire was punishing Christians for the Name precisely because it recognized, however negatively, this power of the Name.
Justin himself will die, in 165, for the Name. And the acts of his martyrdom — known as the Acta Iustini — preserve a brief but lapidary dialogue with the Prefect Rusticus. Asked what his teaching was, Justin replies: "The true teaching which we Christians piously believe is this: to know and to confess one God (…) and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God (…). I believe that, confessing this, I shall receive my reward from Him."
The confession, homologia, is — in the language of the first Church — the speaking of the Name. And the homologetēs (confessor) is the one who has spoken the Name before the authorities, whether at the cost of his life, or escaping death yet with his body marked by tortures.
3.5. Synthesis of the Section: Martyrdom as Liturgy of the Name
Resuming the thread: martyrdom of the first centuries is not heroism, but Liturgy. The martyr is the vessel of the Name — a chosen vessel (Acts 9:15) — in whom the Name of Jesus is made visible. The blood of the martyrs, in the famous formulation of Tertullian in his Apology, "is the seed of Christians" — for in that blood the power of the Name is made manifest. And the Church does not honor the martyrs for their human courage, but because the Name has shone forth through them.
This is also the reason why, in the service of the consecration of an antimins (the cloth which replaces, on the Holy Table, the tomb of Christ), the holy relics of the martyrs are placed: that the Liturgy may be celebrated over the bodies of those in whom the Name has shone forth. Thus, every Divine Liturgy in the entire Orthodox Church is, in itself, a continuation of martyrdom — an offering of the Name in the Name of those who died for the Name.
IV. The Name in the Desert of Egypt: The Prayer of a Single Word
If in the Acts of the Apostles we see Christ working through His Name in the gathered Church, in the Liturgy we see Him invoked at the heart of the entire sacramental life, and in martyrdom we see Him shining through the body of the confessors — in the desert of Egypt we see the Name entering into the depths of the heart. Here is shaped one of the living roots of what, over the centuries, will receive the full form of the Jesus Prayer.
4.1. Saint Anthony the Great and "the Hidden Work"
Saint Anthony the Great (†356) is regarded, in the Tradition of the Church, as the founder of monastic life. As a young man, he hears at the Liturgy the words of the Savior to the rich young man: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow Me" (Matthew 19:21) — and he departs into the desert. The Life of Saint Anthony, written by Saint Athanasius the Great around the year 360, is one of the most widely circulated texts of ancient Christian literature. And in this text appears, for the first time, the practical description of an inward work which over the centuries will become the prayer of the heart.
Athanasius writes that Anthony "continually directed his mind to the Lord" and that, in his struggles with evil spirits, "he spoke the Name of Christ" — and the demons fled. One of the most well-known visions of Saint Anthony is the one in which, in the midst of demonic attacks, he sees a light coming down from above. Asking Christ "Lord, where wert Thou? Why didst Thou not come from the beginning to ease my pains?", he receives the answer: "Anthony, I was here, but I was waiting to see your struggle. Now, since you have endured and have not been overcome, I will help you always and will make your name known throughout all the earth" (Vita Antonii, 10).
Three things must be noted. First: Anthony is guided by the continuously invoked presence of the Name of Christ. Second: the struggle with the demons is essentially the struggle not to let the Name leave the heart. Third — and most important for the hesychast tradition that will follow: Anthony did not use long formulas, but short prayers, repeated. These will be called, in the patristic Egyptian tradition, monologistos euchē — "prayer of a single word."
4.2. Monologistos: The Prayer of a Single Word
The earliest clear attestation of this form of prayer we find in Saint John Cassian (†435), a Scytho-Roman monk who lived in the desert of Egypt between 380 and 399 before founding monasteries in southern Gaul. In his Spiritual Conferences with the Fathers of Egypt (Conlationes), Cassian wrote a text that would influence the entire ascetical theology of East and West. In the Tenth Conference, with Saint Abba Isaac as interlocutor, Cassian receives the teaching about "the formula of unceasing prayer."
Abba Isaac says to him: "We will share this little talisman with the brothers who seek the understanding of prayer. (…) Behold the short formula I give you to keep always in mind: «O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me» (Psalm 69:1). This verse must be repeated unceasingly in the heart; it must be like a shield against all temptations, like medicine against all the passions" (Conl. X, 10).
This is the first systematic description of a short form of unceasing prayer in monastic literature. Abba Isaac, through Cassian’s voice, hands on the Egyptian teaching: a single short formula, continuously repeated, until it comes to beat in the rhythm of the heart. At this stage, the formula is not yet the one we know — "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" — but the psalm-verse "O God, come to my assistance." But the method is the same: a single short phrase, repeated unceasingly, that the Name may dwell in the heart.
4.3. Transition to the Formula Jesus: Abba Macarius and the Apophthegms
In the same Egyptian literature we find, gradually, the transition from the psalm-verse to the direct invocation of the Name Jesus. The Apophthegms of the Desert Fathers — a collection of sayings of the Fathers, compiled in the 5th–6th centuries but containing oral tradition that is much older — preserves numerous testimonies about short prayers addressed directly to Jesus.
Abba Macarius the Great (†391), one of the greatest Fathers of the Egyptian desert, a disciple of Saint Anthony, is asked by a brother: "Abba, how should one pray?" The answer of Macarius, which has remained for all ages: "There is no need for many words. Stretch out your hands and say: «Lord, as Thou wilt and as Thou knowest, have mercy!» And if the warfare presses upon you, say: «Lord, help me!» He knows what is good for us and will be merciful to us."
In other apophthegms of the same tradition we find invocations that come ever closer to the classical formula of the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me"; "Lord Jesus, help me"; "Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on the sinner." The form gradually rounds itself out, always preserving the two essential elements: the Name Jesus + the petition for mercy. These two elements come directly from the Gospels. The Name Jesus — as we showed in Part II — concentrates all the fullness of the divine Name revealed in the Incarnation. And the petition for mercy comes from the cry of the two blind men of Jericho: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!" (Matthew 20:30) and from the prayer of the Publican in the Temple: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13).
Thus, the Jesus Prayer in its final form — "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" — is not a late monastic invention, but the apostolic synthesis: it gathers into a single phrase the apostolic confession of Peter (Matthew 16:16: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God"), the cry of the two blind men of Jericho, the prayer of the Publican, and the short form (monologistos) of the Egyptian hermits.
4.4. The Liturgy of the Hermits: The Cell as Church
It must be noted, essentially in order to understand Tradition: the hermits of Egypt — Anthony, Macarius, Paul, Pambo, Poemen — did not invent a new prayer. They lived, in their cells, the same liturgical prayer of the Church, but concentrated into a single phrase. The parish Liturgy says, in the litanies, "Lord, have mercy" dozens of times in a service; the hermit says the same word in his cell ten thousand times a day. The Liturgy speaks the Name Jesus at every "through our Lord Jesus Christ," "by the calling of Thy Name," "in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"; the hermit speaks the same Name in the silence of his heart.
Thus, eremitic life is not an abandonment of the Liturgy, but the concentration of it. And the Jesus Prayer — which we shall develop at length in Part IV of this series — is essentially the Liturgy that has entered the heart. The Name which, in the parish Liturgy, is spoken aloud at fixed moments, is spoken, in the cell of the hermit, unceasingly, in silence and with tears.
This is the reason why the Egyptian Fathers could say — and they say it frequently in the Apophthegms — that "the cell is the Holy Church." Not because they would have despised the Church of the assembly (all the first hermits received Holy Communion weekly or more often), but because, in the cell, the Name worked just as in the Church. And where the Name works, there is the Church.
V. Conclusion: The Life of the Church Is the Life of the Name
We have traced, in this article, the journey of the Name through four major stages of the life of the early Church: the Acts of the Apostles (the Name as living power), the Liturgy and Sacraments (the Name as the foundation of sacramental life), martyrdom (the Name as the seal of confession), and the desert of Egypt (the Name as inward prayer). In all these four stages, the Name Jesus is not an abstract theological concept; it is living presence, working power, mystery of the Church.
The synthesis we may make is this: the life of the early Church cannot be conceived apart from the calling of the Name. The apostles heal and preach in the Name. Baptism is performed in the Name. The Eucharist is celebrated through the Name. Demons are cast out through the Name. Martyrs die for the Name. Hermits pray with the Name. And through all these forms, one and the same presence of the One Named — Christ Himself, through the Holy Spirit, in the communion of the Father — flows through the Body of the Church.
This is, essentially, the very patristic definition of Tradition: Christ working, unceasingly, through His Name, in the Holy Spirit, by the faith of the Church, throughout the ages. And the faithfulness of the Church to doctrine, to Liturgy, and to canonical order is, in its depth, faithfulness to Christ Himself — to His Name confessed purely, without distortion. Doctrines guard the truth about the Person of the One Named. The Liturgy invokes the presence of the One Named. Martyrdom confesses the One Named. And these three things together are the same faithfulness — for there is no living faith separate from the life of the Name in the Church.
Against this background, let us look at our Christian life today. How many of us still live with this consciousness of the Name? How many of us make the sign of the Cross with true reverence, conscious that we are sealing our body with the Name of the Holy Trinity? How many of us say "Lord, have mercy" at the Liturgy as a cry of the heart, and not as a monotonous formula? How many of us pray at home in such a way that prayer becomes our breath? How many of us know, even for a few minutes a day, the silence in which Christ comes into the heart through His Name?
The neptic Tradition of the East — Cleopa Ilie, Arsenie Papacioc, Joseph the Hesychast, Sophrony Sakharov — repeats, each in his own tongue and in his own way, the same exhortation that Abba Isaac received from the Fathers of Egypt: "Brother, let not prayer rest." And prayer, in its deepest meaning, is nothing other than the calling of the Name Jesus with faith, in the heart, unceasingly. The Name Jesus through which Christ raised up the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, cast out the demons from the cell of Anthony, and burned upon the pyre of Polycarp, works now, in us, if we open our hearts to Him.
In Part IV of this series we shall enter the depth of this prayer — the Jesus Prayer and hesychasm, synthesized by Saint Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, but lived unceasingly from Anthony the Great to Father Cleopa of our own days. We shall see how the work we have begun to glimpse here — the entry of the Name into the heart — becomes, in the Athonite Tradition, the entire theology of deification. And we shall see that there is nothing "advanced" or "reserved for monks" in this Tradition: it is the Liturgy entering the heart, it is Baptism bearing its fruit, it is Christian life reaching its fullness.
Until then, a practical proposal: for one week, stop two or three times a day — at waking, at lunchtime, before sleep — and say slowly and with attention either "Lord, have mercy on me" or "Lord Jesus, help me." No more than that. Not a technique. A single short phrase, like the one Cassian received from Abba Isaac. And observe, after a few days, what begins to change in the heart. This is monologistos — and in this short phrase, simple as the air, is contained the entire Tradition we have unfolded here.
The Name is present. The only question is whether we are present to the Name.