Parse errors

Please forgive me. New to WP. I get parse errors on the host side ANY time I modifiy a PHP template. It doesn’t matter what I change! For example, I changed a simple size parameter (SIZE=22) in comments.php to (SIZE=20). Didn’t touch another piece of code. Saved the changes and I keep getting “Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘<‘ in /home/alizardt/public_html/WordPress/wp-content/themes/default/comments.php on line 6”. It’s always the same error on either line 5 or line 6! Doesn’t matter what code I attempt to modify, or how simple the change is. Could this be a permissions issue? I’m at a loss!