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Prayers

St Augustine’s prayer for self-control: “Give what You command”

In this prayer from his Confessions, written about AD 400, St Augustine asks God to give the self-control He commands.

Picture: Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Wilderness, 1872

The words of the prayer

Plain English

All my hope is in nothingbut Your very great mercy.Give what You command,and command what You will.

You command us to be self-controlled.As someone has said,“I knew that no one can be self-controlledunless God gives it,and this too was wisdom,to know whose gift it is.”

By self-control we are gathered upand brought back to the Onefrom Whom we had scattered into many things.He loves You too littlewho loves anything alongside Youthat he does not love for Your sake.

O Love, You always burnand are never put out!O Love, my God, set me on fire!You command self-control:give what You command,and command what You will.

Traditional wording, 1886

And my whole hope is only in Thy exceeding great mercy.Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.

Thou imposest continency upon us, “nevertheless, when I perceived,” saith one, “that I could not otherwise obtain her, except God gave her me; . . . that was a point of wisdom also to know whose gift she was.”

For by continency are we bound up and brought into one, whence we were scattered abroad into many.For he loves Thee too little who loves aught with Thee, which he loves not for Thee,

O Love, Who ever burnest, and art never quenched!O Charity, my God, kindle me!Thou commandest continency; give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Latin of his Confessions, with J. G. Pilkington’s 1886 translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: J. G. Pilkington, The Confessions, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1886.

When it is said

Pray it when you have decided to change a habit and keep failing, or before a moment you know will test you.

Its heart is one line, “Give what You command, and command what You will”, short enough to say under your breath.

Where it comes from

Author known

Where it comes from

It comes from the tenth book of St Augustine’s Confessions, written about AD 400. In that book he looks honestly at the desires that still pull at him: food and drink, sweet sounds and beautiful sights, and the love of praise. Before he turns to them, he puts his whole hope in God’s mercy with this prayer.

J. G. Pilkington’s translation (1886), Book 10; Britannica, “Saint Augustine”

He prays it again over food

Two chapters later he turns to eating and drinking. He could give up sexual relations once and for all, he says, but not food, so he must hold the reins on eating every day. There he prays, “Strengthen me, so that I can. Give what You command, and command what You will,” and recalls the prayer “Take from me the cravings of the belly” (Sirach 23:6).

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, in Latin

The words that started a quarrel

In his later book On the Gift of Perseverance, Augustine tells how a bishop in Rome quoted these words, “Give what You command, and command what You will”, to the monk Pelagius. Pelagius argued against them so warmly that he and the bishop nearly broke with each other.

J. G. Pilkington’s note to Book 10 (1886)

What the words mean

The words he quotes

The words he quotes after “as someone has said” come from the Book of Wisdom 8:21. In Augustine’s Latin Bible they say that no one can be self-controlled unless God gives it. Pilkington’s English of 1886 follows another reading, “that I could not otherwise obtain her”, where “her” is wisdom. The plain wording follows Augustine’s own Latin.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, in Latin

The Scripture in it

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8 Echoed God is love, and Augustine calls on Him as Love that never stops burning.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

In Latin

Et tota spes mea nisi in magna valde misericordia tua.

da quod iubes et iube quod vis: imperas nobis continentiam.

'et cum scirem,' ait quidam, 'quia nemo potest esse continens, nisi deus det, et hoc ipsum erat sapientiae, scire cuius esset hoc donum.'

per continentiam quippe conligimur et redigimur in unum, a quo in multa defluximus.

minus enim te amat qui tecum aliquid amat quod non propter te amat.

o amor, qui semper ardes et numquam extingueris, caritas, deus meus, accende me!

continentiam iubes: da quod iubes et iube quod vis.

From the Latin Library, Confessions, Book 10.

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Berean Standard Bible