The Parable of the Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:5–8)

Public-Domain Patristic Commentary

Immediately after teaching the Lord's Prayer, Christ gives this short parable: a man goes to his friend at midnight asking for three loaves to set before an unexpected guest, and the friend within, though unwilling because the hour is late and the door shut, finally rises and gives "because of his importunity." The Lord then draws the lesson: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The parable is about perseverance in prayer, and it is found only in Luke.

Cyril of Alexandria gives the fullest patristic treatment below, on why we must persevere and why God sometimes delays. He is joined by the Greek and Eastern Fathers gathered in the Catena Aurea on Luke (St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. J. H. Newman, 1841), and by an early Western witness. All texts are quoted verbatim from public-domain translations.

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St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444)

Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (on Luke 11:5–13) Source: trans. R. Payne Smith, 1859. Public domain. Full text: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/cyril_on_luke_07_sermons_66_80.htm

On the danger of weary, half-hearted prayer, and why the parable teaches perseverance:

But it was possible that those who had obtained from Him this precious and saving lesson, might sometimes make indeed their supplications according to the pattern given them, but would do so wearily and lazily. And so, when not heard at their first or second prayer, would desist from their supplications, as being unavailing to their benefit. In order therefore that we may not experience this ... He teaches us that we must diligently continue the practice, and in the form of a parable plainly shows that weariness in prayer is to our loss, while patience therein is greatly to our profit: for it is our duty to persevere, without giving way to indolence.

On why God, like a wise father, sometimes delays:

Earthly fathers do not immediately and without discretion fulfil the desire of their sons: but often delay in spite of their asking, and that not because they have a grudging hand, nor again because they regard (merely) what is pleasant to the petitioners, but as considering what is useful and necessary for their good conduct. And how will that rich and bounteous Giver neglect the due accomplishment for men of what they pray for, unless of course, and without all doubt, He knows that it would not be for their benefit to receive what they ask?

On praying with knowledge and patience, since what costs nothing is despised:

We must therefore offer our prayers to God with knowledge, as well as with assiduity: and even though there be some delay in your requests, continue patiently ... as being well assured that what is gained without toil, and readily won, is usually despised: whereas that which is gathered with labour is a more pleasant and abiding possession.

On the answer to the doubter, given by the Giver Himself:

But perchance to this you say; "I draw near frequently, making requests; but the vintage therefrom has wandered far away. I am not slothful in supplications, but persevering and very importunate: who will assure me that I shall receive? who is my security that I shall not labour in vain?" "Therefore I also say to you;" and it is the Bestower of divine gifts Who Himself enters, and speaks;—"I also say to you, Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: for every one that asks receives; and he who seeks finds: and whosoever knocks, it shall be opened to him."

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St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the distinction between asking, seeking, and knocking, and the diligence the search for God requires:

Now by asking, He means prayer, but by seeking, zeal and anxiety ... For those things which are sought require great care. And this is particularly the case with God. For there are many things which block up our senses. As then we search for lost gold, so let us anxiously seek after God.

On why we must wait even when the gate is not opened at once:

He shows also, that though He does not forthwith open the gates, we must yet wait. Hence he adds, Knock, and it shall be opened to you; for if you continue seeking, you shall surely receive. For this reason, and as the door shut makes you knock, therefore he did not at once consent that you might entreat.

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St. Basil the Great (c. 330–379)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On why God delays, that our earnestness may be redoubled and the gift may be guarded:

For perhaps He delays purposely, to redouble your earnestness and coming to him, and that you may know what the gift of God is, and may anxiously guard what is given. For whatever a man acquires with much pains he strives to keep safe, lest with the loss of that he should lose his labor likewise.

On standing before God watchful and trembling, and persevering until we receive:

Now we must ask for the Divine assistance not slackly, nor with a mind wavering to and fro, because such a one will not only not obtain what it seeks, but will the rather provoke God to anger. For if a man standing before a prince has his eye fixed within and without, lest perchance he should be punished, how much more before God ought he to stand watchful and trembling? ... If then you thus command yourself, do not depart until you receive.

On the reasons our prayers go unanswered, and the right order of desire:

For whenever you ask and receive not, it is because your request was improperly made, either without faith, or lightly, or for things which are not good for you, or because you left off praying. ... He knows undoubtedly, and gives us richly all temporal things even before we ask. But we must first desire good works, and the kingdom of heaven; and then having desired, ask in faith and patience, bringing into our prayers whatever is good for us, convicted of no offense by our own conscience.

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St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the children in the bed: those who through ascetic struggle have recovered the freedom from passion laid up in our nature:

Well does he call those who by the arms of righteousness have claimed to themselves freedom from passion, showing that the good which by practice we have acquired, had been from the beginning laid up in our nature. For when any one renouncing the flesh, by living in the exercise of a virtuous life, has overcome passion, then he becomes as a child, and is insensible to the passions. But by the bed we understand the rest of Christ.

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Theophylact of Ohrid (c. 1050 – c. 1107)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the friend as God who loves all men and wills the salvation of all:

God is that friend, who loves all men, and wills that all should be saved.

On the midnight as the depth of temptations, and the three loaves as the relief of body, soul, and spirit:

The midnight is the depth of temptations, in which he who has fallen, seeks from God three loaves, the relief of the wants of his body, soul, and spirit; through whom we run into no danger in our temptations. But the friend who comes from his journey is God Himself, who tries by temptations him who has nothing to set before him who is weakened in temptation. But when He says, And the door is shut, we must understand that we ought to be prepared before temptations.

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Origen (c. 185–254)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On how it can be that those who pray are not heard, and what right asking requires:

But some one may seek to know, how it comes that they who pray are not heard? To which we must answer, that whoso sets about seeking in the right way, omitting none of those things which avail to the obtaining of our requests, shall really receive what he has prayed to be given him. But if a man turns away from the object of a right petition, and asks not as it becomes him, he does not ask. And therefore it is, that when he does not receive, as is here promised, there is no falsehood.

On the bread, the fish, and what God will never give in their place:

Consider then this, if the bread be not indeed the food of the soul in knowledge, without which it can not be saved, as, for example, the well planned rule of a just life. But the fish is the love of instruction, as to know the constitution of the world, and the effects of the elements, and whatever else besides wisdom treats of. Therefore God does not in the place of bread offer a stone, which the devil wished Christ to eat, nor in the place of a fish does He give a serpent ... Nor generally in the place of what is nourishing does he give what is not eatable and injurious, which relates to the scorpion and egg.

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St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 339–397)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On Christ as the greatest friend, and on praying by night as well as by day:

Who is a greater friend to us, than He who delivered up His body for us? Now we have here another kind of command given us, that at all times, not only in the day, but at night, prayers should be offered up. ... As David did when he said, At midnight I will rise and give thanks to you. For he had no fear of awakening them from sleep, whom he knew to be ever watching.

On how much more we ought to pray, who sin so often:

For if David who was occupied also in the necessary affairs of a kingdom was so holy, that seven times in the day he gave praise to God, what ought we to do who ought so much the more to pray, as we more frequently sin, through the weakness of our mind and body? But if you love the Lord your God, you will be able to gain favor, not only for thyself, but others.

On hope as the ground of persuasion to frequent prayer:

The argument then persuading to frequent prayer, is the hope of obtaining what we pray for. The ground of persuasion was first in the command, afterwards it is contained in that example which He sets forth.

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Blessed Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the three loaves as the food of the heavenly mystery, sought when the learned have gone to their rest:

But what are these three loaves but the food of the heavenly mystery? ... A friend then comes to you on his journey, that is, in this present life, in which all are traveling on as strangers, and no one remains possessor, but to every man is told, Pass on, O stranger, give place to him that is coming.

On knocking at the Lord's own door when human teachers cannot answer:

You are not permitted to ask Paul himself, or Peter, or any prophet, for all that family is now resting with their Lord, and the ignorance of the world is very great, that is, it is midnight, and your friend who is urgent from hunger presses this, not contented with a simple faith; must he then be abandoned? Go therefore to the Lord Himself with whom the family is sleeping, Knock, and pray.

On why God delays, lest the gift given at once should grow common:

He delays to give, wishing that you should the more earnestly desire what is delayed, lest by being given at once it should grow common.

On God's greater willingness to give than ours to receive:

But He would not so encourage us to ask were He not willing to give. Let human slothfulness blush, He is more willing to give than we to receive.

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St. Bede the Venerable (c. 673–735)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On how those who give good gifts are yet called evil, and on the Holy Spirit as the fullness of God's gifts:

Or, he calls the lovers of the world evil, who give those things which they judge good according to their sense, which are also good in their nature, and are useful to aid imperfect life. ... The Apostles even, who by the merit of their election had exceeded the goodness of mankind in general, are said to be evil in comparison with Divine goodness, since nothing is of itself good but God alone. But that which is added, How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, for which Matthew has written, will give good things to them that ask him, shows that the Holy Spirit is the fullness of God's gifts, since all the advantages which are received from the grace of God's gifts flow from that source.

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An early Western witness: Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220)

Against Marcion, Book IV, ch. 26 Source: trans. in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III. Public domain.

On perseverance, that the asking, seeking, and knocking lead to entry:

man, who by sinning had offended his God, might toil on (in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking might enter.

On the friend at whose door we have the right to knock:

the preceding similitude represents the man who went at night and begged for the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger, and makes him knock at a friend's house and not at a stranger's. ... At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children, whom He had willed to be born.

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Note on sources and other Fathers

Cyril's reading is the heart of the patristic tradition on this parable: the point is not that God is reluctant like the sleeping friend, but that the disciple must not grow weary, since "weariness in prayer is to our loss, while patience therein is greatly to our profit." His comparison of God to a wise father who delays "as considering what is useful and necessary" for the child guards the parable against a crude reading, and he lets the Lord Himself speak the guarantee: "Ask, and it shall be given you." This is the same point the verses 9–10 make explicit.

The Greek and Eastern Fathers gathered here from the Catena Aurea on Luke confirm and deepen this reading: Chrysostom distinguishes the ascending labour of asking, seeking, and knocking; Basil teaches that God delays to redouble our earnestness and to make us guard the gift, and lists the reasons our prayers go unanswered; Gregory of Nyssa reads the children in the bed as the souls restored to their natural freedom from passion; Theophylact opens the friend, the midnight, and the three loaves as the relief of body, soul, and spirit in the depth of temptation; and Origen weighs what it means to ask rightly and what God will never give in place of true food. Athanasius is also preserved here, noting that the Holy Spirit, called good, must be of the substance of God who alone is good.

Among the Latin Fathers received in the East, Ambrose summons us to pray by night as well as by day after the example of David, and Augustine expounds the three loaves as the food of the heavenly mystery and bids us knock at the Lord's own door when human teachers have gone to their rest; the verses on asking, seeking, and knocking he expounds at length elsewhere in his work on the Sermon on the Mount, on the parallel words in Matthew 7. Bede the Venerable draws out that the Holy Spirit is the fullness of God's gifts.

Tertullian's witness is among the oldest that survives on this parable, from the early third century, and is included here for that reason; a reader assembling a strictly Orthodox collection may wish to note that he wrote as a Latin apologist and is not numbered among the canonized Fathers, and that this passage comes from his polemic Against Marcion, where his concern is to show that the Father at whose door we knock is the Creator, the one true God, and no other.