Sunday
Sunday
Pagan Prayer
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Matthew 6:7
The Greek verb battalogeo is variously rendered “to use vain repetitions,” “to heap up empty phrases,” and “to keep on babbling.” It occurs nowhere else, and nobody knows for certain what it means. Some scholars think it was derived from a King Battus, who stuttered, or from another Battus who was the author of tedious and wordy poems. Most, however, regard it as an onomatopoeic expression, the sound of the word indicating its meaning. Just as battarizo meant “to stammer” and barbaros was a “barbarian,” whose language the Greeks could not understand, so battalogeo might simply mean “to babble.”
What, then, was Jesus prohibiting in prayer? Not all repetition, since he himself in Gethsemane kept on praying saying the same words, but rather all prayers that consist of words without meaning. It would certainly include prayer wheels and prayer flags. Also the mindless repetition of a mantra in transcendental meditation. Indeed, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has himself expressed regret at his misleading choice of the word meditation, since true meditation always involves the conscious use of the mind. Christ’s prohibition would also cover the use of the rosary, unless the telling of the beads genuinely aids thought instead of dispensing with it.
What about liturgical forms of worship? Are Anglicans guilty of battalogia? Yes, no doubt some of us are, if our mind wanders. But most of us find that the use of set forms aids concentration.
To sum up, what Jesus forbids his people is any kind of prayer with the mouth when the mind is not engaged. Pagans go through the pretense of prayer because they think that the more they say, the more likely they are to be heard. What an incredible notion! What sort of a God is this who is chiefly impressed by the mechanics and the statistics of prayer? “Do not be like them,” Jesus says (v. 8).
For further reading: Matthew 6:5–8