When it is said
The monk gave it first against thoughts of lust, then said to use it against other thoughts too.
It is not a service prayer. It takes a breath to say and can be repeated each time a thought returns.
Where it comes from
No author known
Walking past the cook-shops
An old monk spoke about thoughts of lust with a picture from the street. A man walking past the cook-shops catches the smell of roasting meat. Whoever wants to goes in and eats, and whoever does not smells it and walks on. Shake off the thought the same way, the monk said, then stand up and pray “Lord, Son of God, help me.” He said to do the same against other thoughts.
Verba Seniorum, book 5, part 5, saying 16, in Migne, Patrologia Latina 73
Wrestlers against thoughts
The monk gave a reason, which the old versions keep in two forms. In the Latin we are not uprooters of thoughts but wrestlers against them. The scholar Wallis Budge’s 1907 English of the Syriac reads, “we are not the roots of the thoughts, but are those who strive against them.”
Verba Seniorum, book 5, part 5, saying 16, in Migne, Patrologia Latina 73; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, vol. 2 (1907), saying 593
Where the saying comes from
The sayings of the desert monks were first gathered in Greek by someone whose name is lost. This one survives in the Latin of Pelagius, a deacon of the Roman Church, and in the Syriac collection of Anan-Isho, a monk of northern Mesopotamia who lived in the late 500s and early 600s. Budge made his English from Anan-Isho’s Syriac.
Migne, Patrologia Latina 73, on book 5 of the Lives of the Fathers; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, vol. 1 (1907)
The Scripture in it
The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Latin
Domine Fili Dei, adjuva me.