Matthew 6:7–8
That is why Christ urges that prayers be made briefly. He knows the mind is easily pulled aside and led astray by empty thoughts and cares, especially at the time of prayer. He commands us to ask God soberly and quickly for what we seek — not by announcing everything we happen to want. That is extreme mind-harm. God knows what we need even before we ask.
“Battology” means many words. It is named from a certain Greek, Battus, who made long, many-lined hymns to the idols, full of the same thing said over again. Battology is speech outside the good. The ancients call many-speaking battology from someone so named who made many-lined prayers to the idols and said the same words through one set of expressions after another.
Greek
Τὸ οὐκ ἐπιορκήσεις καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. ἐάν τις ἀναιδὴς ἐπάγῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις ὅρκον, ἀντὶ τοῦ ὅρκου ἔσται αὐτοῖς τὸ ναὶ καὶ τὸ οὔ.
About this text
Catena fragments on Matthew (CPG 5206). Contents follow Matthew chapter and verse. Edition fragment numbers stay in About this text and under each passage.
English follows the named copy-text (Aegean/khazarzar Migne PG 72 extract). Other prints were checked as noted; no silent merge of recensions.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Migne PG 72 Commentarii in Matthaeum (Aegean Digital Patrologia / khazarzar) (Greek · CPG 5206 catena fragments (290 parsed heads))
- Checked print matia.gr mirror of same Aegean extract (Greek · Byte-identical PDF; integrity check only)
- Checked print Internet Archive PG 72 volume OCR (bim … 1859_72) (Greek (OCR damaged) · Locus confirmation only; not used as reading text)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.