The Origin of the “Jesus Prayer”. A Critique of Traditional Opinion in the Context of the Phenomenon of Spontaneous Prayers

Abstract

Introduction. The history of Byzantine spirituality is inextricably linked with the mystical tradition of Hesychasm, in which the practice of the “Jesus Prayer” occupied the central place. Both in the patristic literature and scientific historiography, particular attention has been paid to the question of the appearance of the formula of the “Jesus Prayer”. The generally accepted opinion was and remains that the formula of the “Jesus Prayer” was compiled on the basis of the texts of the New Testament. We find this opinion in the late Byzantine literature analyzing the formula of the “Jesus Prayer”. Modern scholarly literature also contains its own line of argumentation in favor of this opinion. Methods and analysis. Our scholarly interest in this topic was largely motivated by disagreement with this generally accepted view. This disagreement was initially intuitive, and it took us some time to be able to express our intuition logically and factually. The main line of our argumentation is based on the attraction of the phenomenon of spontaneous prayers to the analysis of the history of the “Jesus Prayer”. Results. This article summarizes the work that we have done. The fallacy of the traditional scientific approach to the “Jesus Prayer” as a fixed formula compiled on the basis of the texts of the New Testament is pointed out.