When it is said
St Dorotheos gave it for the moment you are angry with someone and the turmoil inside will not settle.
The “both of us” in the prayer are you and the one you are angry with.
Where it comes from
Author known
Who was St Dorotheos?
St Dorotheos of Gaza was a monk and abbot who lived from about AD 500 until AD 560 or later. He came from a well-off family in Antioch and studied medicine, and in his monastery he set up and ran a hospital. Translators carried his Greek teachings into Syriac, Arabic and Georgian in the Middle Ages.
Where the prayer comes from
It comes from his teaching on how to correct a brother. He quotes the Fathers: anyone who grows angry while rebuking someone has only fed his own passion, and no sensible man pulls down his own house to build his neighbour’s. For turmoil that will not pass, St Dorotheos gives this prayer and tells the reader to force his heart to pray it.
St Dorotheos, Doctrina XVII, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca 88, column 1801
After the prayer
Once your heart has calmed, St Dorotheos goes on, you can correct your brother with understanding and compassion, the way you would care for a weak limb. Then your brother sees his own hardness and takes the correction in faith, and your own peace brings peace to his heart.
St Dorotheos, Instruction 17, in the Russian translation on Azbyka; Azbyka’s prayer book, “Prayer against anger”
What the words mean
Why “two of Your children”?
The line echoes Rebekah in Genesis 27:41-45. Esau was so angry with his brother Jacob that he planned to kill him, so their mother sent Jacob away until the anger passed, asking why she should lose both sons in one day. In the Greek Bible, her word for that loss is nearly the same as St Dorotheos’s word here.
The Scripture in it
Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!” And the wind died down, and it was perfectly calm.
“until your brother’s rage against you wanes and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
“What gain is there in my bloodshed, in my descent to the Pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it proclaim Your faithfulness?”
The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Ὁ Θεὸς ὁ φιλάνθρωπος καὶ φιλόψυχος, ὁ τῇ ἀφάτῳ σου ἀγαθότητι ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ποιήσας ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ μεταλήψει τῶν σῶν ἀγαθῶν, καὶ ἀποστήσαντας ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐντολῶν σου ἀνακαλέσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ μονογενοῦς σου Υἱοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν·
καὶ νῦν παράστηθι τῇ ἀσθενείᾳ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἐπιτίμησον ὥσπερ ποτὲ κυματουμένῃ τῇ θαλάσσῃ, οὕτως νῦν τῇ ταραχῇ τῆς καρδίας ἡμῶν, καὶ μὴ ἀτεκνωθῇς ἐν μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων ἡμῶν θανατωθέντων τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, καὶ μὴ εἴπῃς ἡμῖν·
Τίς ὠφέλεια ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου, ἐν τῷ καταβαίνειν με εἰς διαφοράν;
Καὶ· Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐκ οἶδα ὑμᾶς, διὰ τὸ σβεσθῆναι τὰς λαμπάδας ὑμῶν ἐλαίου λείψαντος.
From Migne’s Patrologia Graeca 88 (Paris, 1864), column 1801, read from the page image.