On Prayer 11

So that we may not be as far from God's ears as from his precepts, the remembrance of the precepts paves the way to heaven for our prayers. Chief of these is that we should not go up to God's altar before we have settled any discord or offense we have contracted with our brothers. For what is it to approach the peace of God without peace? To seek the remission of debts while retaining them? How will one who is angry with his brother appease the Father, when all anger has been forbidden us from the beginning? For even Joseph, sending his brothers away to bring their father, said, “And do not be angry on the way.” He was warning us, of course (for elsewhere our discipline is called “the way”), that when we are set on the way of prayer we should not go to the Father with anger. Then the Lord, openly enlarging the law, places anger against a brother on a level with murder. He does not allow it to be discharged even by an evil word; even if one must be angry, not beyond the setting of the sun, as the apostle admonishes. And how rash it is either to pass a day without prayer while you put off making amends to your brother, or to lose your prayer by persisting in anger!