On Prayer 13.1–17.2

And if Jesus prays, and prays not in vain, obtaining through prayer what he asks for, which perhaps he would not have received without prayer, which of us will neglect to pray? For Mark says that “in the morning, while it was still very dark, he rose and went out and departed to a desolate place, and there he prayed”; and Luke, “And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him”; and elsewhere, “And he continued all night in prayer to God.” And John records a prayer of his, saying: “These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven he said: Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you.” And the words, “I knew that you always hear me,” recorded in the same Gospel as spoken by the Lord, show that one who “always” prays is “always” heard.

But why need I list those who, by praying as they ought, obtained the greatest things from God, when each can gather more for himself from the Scriptures? Hannah ministered to the birth of Samuel, who was counted with Moses, when, being childless, she prayed in faith to the Lord. Hezekiah, while still childless, having learned from Isaiah that he would die, prayed and was taken up into the genealogy of the Savior. When the people were about to perish by a single decree through Haman's plot, the prayer with fasting of Mordecai and Esther was heard and, in addition to the feasts appointed by Moses, brought forth for the people the day of Mordecai's rejoicing. Judith, too, having offered a holy prayer, overcame Holofernes with God's help, and one Hebrew woman brought shame on the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Ananias and Azarias and Misael, being heard, were counted worthy to receive “a whistling wind of dew” that did not allow the flame of the fire to act. The lions in the pit of the Babylonians were muzzled through Daniel's prayers. And Jonah, not despairing of being heard from the belly of the sea monster that had swallowed him, came out of the monster's belly and completed what was lacking in his prophecy to the Ninevites.

And how much could each of us recount, if he wished, remembering with thanksgiving the benefits done to him, to send up praise to God for them? For souls that had long been barren, perceiving the sterility of their own ruling faculties and the barrenness of their own minds, have conceived by the Holy Spirit through persistent prayer and given birth to saving words full of the contemplation of truth. And how many enemies have been scattered, when often myriads of the opposing power have marched against us wishing to wipe us out from the divine faith, while we took courage because “some trust in chariots” and “some in horses,” but “we” call “on the name of the Lord,” and see that truly “a horse is a false hope for safety”! And also the deceptive and plausible word of the adversary's chief general, which makes many even of those thought to have believed cower, is often cut down by the one who trusts in praise to God; for “Judith” means “praise.” And what need is there to speak of how many, having fallen into temptations hard to overcome and more burning than any flame, have suffered nothing from them but have come through entirely unharmed, without suffering even the slightest harm from the smell “of the” enemy's “fire”? And how many beasts raging against us, evil spirits and cruel men, have they often muzzled by their prayers, when they happened upon them, so that they could not fix their teeth in those of us who have become members of Christ? For often in the case of each of the saints “the Lord has broken the jaw-teeth of the lions,” and they have come to nothing “like water running away.” And we know that often those who fled from God's commands, swallowed up by death, which had first prevailed against them, were saved from so great an evil through repentance, not despairing of being able to be saved even when already held “in the belly of” death; for “death prevailed and swallowed them up, and again God took away every tear from every face.”

I think it most necessary to say these things after the list of those who have been benefited through prayer, in order to turn those who long for the spiritual life in Christ away from praying about small and earthly things, and to call those who read this treatise to the mystical things of which the things I have mentioned were types. For every prayer for the spiritual and mystical things we have set out is always accomplished by one who does not war “according to the flesh” but “by the Spirit” puts to death “the deeds of the body,” preferring what is presented by the higher sense, after examination, to the benefit that appears, according to the letter, to have come to those who prayed. For we too must strive that there be nothing barren or sterile in us, listening to the spiritual law with spiritual ears, so that, putting off barrenness or sterility, we may be heard like Hannah and Hezekiah, and may be delivered from the plotting enemies, the spiritual forces of wickedness, like Mordecai and Esther and Judith. And since Egypt is an iron furnace, a symbol of the whole earthly region, let everyone who has escaped the wickedness of human life, and has not been set on fire by sin, nor had his heart like an oven full of fire, give thanks no less than those who experienced “dew” in the fire. And let the one who has been heard when he prayed and said, “Do not deliver to the beasts a soul that confesses you,” and has suffered nothing from the asp and the basilisk because through Christ he has trodden on them, and has trampled “the lion and the dragon,” using the good authority given by Jesus “to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy,” and has been harmed by none of these, give thanks more than Daniel, since he has been delivered from more fearful and more harmful beasts. Moreover, let the one who is convinced of what sea monster the one that swallowed Jonah was a type, and has understood that it is the one of which Job said, “Let him curse it who curses that day, who is about to overcome the great sea monster,” if ever through some disobedience he comes to be “in the belly of the sea monster,” pray with repentance, and he will come out from there; and having come out, and persevering in obedience to God's commands, he will be able, in accordance with the kindness of the Spirit, to prophesy even now to the perishing Ninevites and become a cause of salvation for them, not being displeased at God's kindness nor seeking that he should persist in severity toward those who repent.

And what Samuel is said to have done, the greatest thing, through prayer, each of those truly devoted to God can accomplish even now spiritually, once he has become worthy to be heard. For it is written: “And now stand and see this great thing which the Lord does before your eyes. Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain”; and then a little after: “And Samuel called upon the Lord,” it says, “and the Lord sent thunder and rain on that day.” For to every saint and true disciple of Jesus it is said by the Lord: “Lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are white already for harvest; he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life.” In this time of harvest, then, the Lord does “a great thing” “before the eyes” of those who listen to the prophets; for when one adorned with the Holy Spirit calls “upon the Lord,” God gives from heaven “thunder and” the “rain” that waters the soul, so that he who was formerly in wickedness may greatly fear the Lord and the minister of God's benefits, who is shown to be revered and venerable through the fact that he is heard. And Elijah too by a divine word later opened the heaven that had been shut to the ungodly for three years and six months; which is always accomplished for anyone who through prayer receives the rain of the soul, of which he had formerly been deprived because of sin.

Having interpreted these things with reference to the benefits that came to the saints through prayers, let us consider the saying: “Ask for the great things, and the small will be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly will be added to you.” All things symbolic and typical are “small” and “earthly” in comparison with the true and intelligible things; and it is likely that the divine Word, calling us to imitate the prayers of the saints so that we may ask in truth for what they obtained in type, speaks of “the heavenly” and “great” things signified through those about earthly and small matters, saying: “You who wish to be spiritual, ask through your prayers for ‘the heavenly’ and ‘great’ things, so that, obtaining them as heavenly, you may inherit the kingdom of heaven, and, as great, may enjoy the greatest goods; while the ‘earthly’ and ‘small’ things, which you need for bodily necessities, the Father will supply to you in due measure.”

And since four names for four things akin to the subject of prayer are used by the apostle in the First Letter to Timothy, it will be useful to set out his words and see whether we rightly understand each of the four when taken in its proper sense. He says: “I urge, then, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,” and so on. I think, then, that supplication is the prayer sent up by someone who lacks something, with entreaty that he may obtain it; that prayer is that which is sent up by someone with glorification, about greater things, in a more exalted manner; that intercession is a request to God about certain things by someone who has somewhat greater boldness; and that thanksgiving is the acknowledgment, with prayers, for having obtained good things from God, when the one acknowledging has grasped the greatness of the benefit done to him, or when it appears great to the one who has received it.

Examples of the first are Gabriel's words to Zechariah, who, it seems, had prayed for the birth of John, which run thus: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your supplication has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John”; and what is recorded in Exodus at the making of the calf, in this way: “And Moses made supplication before the Lord God and said, Why, O Lord, does your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great strength?”; and in Deuteronomy: “And I made supplication before the Lord a second time, as before, forty days and forty nights (I neither ate bread nor drank water), for all your sins which you had sinned”; and in Esther: “Mordecai made supplication to God, remembering all the works of the Lord, and said: O Lord, Lord, King almighty,” and Esther herself “made supplication to the Lord God of Israel and said: O Lord, our King.”

Of the second, in Daniel: “And Azarias stood and prayed thus, and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire he said”; and in Tobit: “And I prayed in grief, saying: You are righteous, O Lord, and all your works; all your ways are mercy and truth, and you judge true and righteous judgment for ever.” But since they have marked the passage in Daniel with an obelus as not found in the Hebrew, and those of the circumcision dispute the book of Tobit as not in the canon, I will set down from the first book of Kingdoms the prayer of Hannah: “And she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said: O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look upon the humiliation of your servant,” and what follows; and in Habakkuk: “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, with song. O Lord, I have heard your voice and was afraid; O Lord, I considered your works and was amazed; in the midst of two living creatures you will be known; as the years draw near you will be recognized.” This prayer shows very clearly the definition of prayer, that it is sent up with glorification by the one who prays. And also in Jonah: “Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the sea monster and said: I cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and he heard me; out of the belly of Hades you heard my cry, my voice. You cast me into the depths of the heart of the sea, and rivers surrounded me.”

Of the third, in the apostle, who reasonably assigns prayer to us and intercession to the Spirit, as being superior and having “boldness toward” the one with whom he intercedes: “For what we should pray for as we ought,” he says, “we do not know, but the Spirit himself intercedes exceedingly with God with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” For the Spirit “intercedes exceedingly” and “intercedes,” but we pray. And an intercession, it seems to me, is also what Joshua said about the sun standing still at Gibeon: “Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when God delivered the Amorite into the hands of Israel, when he crushed them at Gibeon, and they were crushed before the sons of Israel. And Joshua said: Let the sun stand still at Gibeon, and the moon at the valley of Elom.” And in Judges I think that Samson was interceding when he said, “Let my soul die with the Philistines,” when “he bowed with his strength, and the house fell on the lords and on all the people in it.” Even though it is not written that Joshua and Samson interceded but that they spoke, their words seem to be an intercession, which, if we take the names in their proper sense, we consider different from prayer. And an example of thanksgiving is the saying of our Lord: “I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants”; for “I confess” (ἐξομολογοῦμαι) is equivalent to “I give thanks.”

It is not absurd to offer supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving to men also, to saints; but two of them (I mean intercession and thanksgiving) not only to saints but also to other men, while supplication only to saints, if someone like Paul or Peter should be found, so that they may benefit us by making us worthy to obtain the authority given them to forgive sins. Unless indeed, even if someone is not a saint, but we have wronged him, it is permitted, when we are conscious of our sin against him, to make supplication even to such a person, that he may grant pardon to us who have wronged him. And if these things are to be offered to holy men, how much more must we give thanks to Christ, who by the Father's will has done us such great benefits? And we must also make intercession to him, as Stephen did when he said, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and imitating the father of the epileptic boy, we shall say, “I beg you,” “Lord, have mercy,” either on “my son,” or on myself, or on whoever it may be.

But if we understand what prayer is, perhaps we should pray to no one who is begotten, not even to Christ himself, but only to the God and Father of all, to whom our Savior himself prayed, as we have set out before, and to whom he teaches us to pray. For when he heard, “Teach us to pray,” he did not teach them to pray to himself but to the Father, saying, “Our Father in heaven,” and so on. For if, as is shown elsewhere, the Son is other than the Father in being and in subject, then we must pray either to the Son and not to the Father, or to both, or to the Father alone. That we should pray to the Son and not to the Father, anyone at all will admit would be most absurd, and would be said against the evidence. If to both, clearly we would make our requests in the plural, saying in our prayers, “Grant,” “do good,” “supply,” “save” (in the plural), and anything like these; which is plainly incongruous, and no one can show it written in the Scriptures as said by anyone. It remains, then, to pray to God alone, the Father of all, but not without the High Priest, who was appointed by the Father “with an oath,” according to the words, “He has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”

So the saints, giving thanks in their prayers to God through Christ Jesus, acknowledge their gratitude to him. And just as one who is exact about prayer ought not to pray to the one who prays, but to the Father whom our Lord Jesus taught us to call upon in prayer, so no prayer should be offered to the Father without him, as he himself clearly shows when he says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name. Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” For he did not say, “Ask me,” nor simply “Ask the Father,” but, “If you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name.” For until Jesus taught these things, no one had asked “the Father” “in the name” of the Son; and what Jesus said was true, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name.” And true also is, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

But if someone, thinking that one ought to pray to Christ himself, and confusing this with what is meant by worship, should bring against us the words, “Let all the angels of God worship him,” admittedly spoken in Deuteronomy about Christ, we must say to him that the church too, called Jerusalem by the prophet, is said to be worshiped by kings and princesses, who become her nursing fathers and nurses, in these words: “Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and to the islands I will raise my signal; and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and carry your daughters on their shoulders; and kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their princesses your nurses; with their faces to the earth they will worship you, and lick the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be ashamed.”

And how would he not say, like the one who said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God the Father”: “Why do you pray to me? You must pray to the Father alone, to whom I too pray; which you learn through the holy Scriptures. For you must not pray to the High Priest appointed for you by the Father, who has received from the Father the office of advocate, but through the High Priest and Advocate, who is able to sympathize ‘with your weaknesses,’ having been tempted ‘in every respect’ as you are, but, because of the Father who has granted it to me, tempted ‘without sin.’ Learn, then, how great a gift you have received from my Father, having received through your rebirth in me ‘the spirit of adoption,’ so that you may be called ‘sons of God’ and my brothers. For you have read the words spoken by me through David to the Father about you: ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will sing your praise.’ And it is not reasonable for those counted worthy of one Father to pray to a brother; for you must send up prayer to the Father alone, with me and through me.”

Hearing Jesus say this, then, let us pray to God through him, all saying the same thing and not being divided about the manner of prayer. Or are we not divided, if some of us pray to the Father and some to the Son? Those who pray to the Son, whether with the Father or without the Father, commit a sin of simple people through great simplicity, because they have not tested or examined the matter. Let us pray, then, as to God; let us intercede as to a Father; let us make supplication as to a Lord; let us give thanks as to God and Father and Lord—though not by any means the Lord of a slave. For the Father might reasonably be thought both Lord of the Son and Lord of those who have become sons through him; but just as “he is not the God of the dead but of the living,” so he is not the Lord of ignoble slaves, but of those who at first, because of their infancy, are ennobled by fear, but afterwards serve with a service according to love, more blessed than that in fear. For there are clear marks in the soul, visible only to him who sees hearts, of the servants of God and of his sons.

Everyone, therefore, who asks God for “earthly” and “small” things disobeys the one who commanded us to ask for “heavenly” and “great” things from God, who knows how to grant nothing earthly or small. And if someone objects with the bodily gifts given to the saints in answer to prayer, and also with the saying of the gospel that teaches that “earthly” and “small” things are added to us, we must answer him thus. Just as, when someone gives us some body, it must not be said that so-and-so has given us the shadow of the body (for he did not intend to grant two things, a body and a shadow, when he gave the body; the intention of the giver is to give a body, but along with the gift of the body it follows that we also receive its shadow); so, if with a mind grown nobler we consider the gifts given us by God in the principal sense, we shall say that bodily things are most fittingly consequences of the great and heavenly spiritual gifts, given “to each” of the saints “for the common good,” or “in proportion to faith,” or “as” the giver “wills.” And he wills wisely, even if we cannot give, for each of the gifts, a cause and reason worthy of the giver.

So it was the soul of Hannah, changed from a kind of barrenness, that bore fruit, more than her body when it conceived Samuel; and Hezekiah begot divine children of the mind more than of the body, though these were born of his bodily seed; and Esther and Mordecai and the people were delivered more from spiritual plots than from Haman and those who conspired with him … she cut down the power of the ruler who wished to destroy her soul, more than that of the famous Holofernes. And who would not acknowledge that the spiritual blessing that reaches all the saints, spoken by Isaac to Jacob, “May God give you of the dew of heaven,” came to Ananias and his companions more than the bodily dew that overcame the flame of Nebuchadnezzar? And the invisible lions were muzzled for the prophet Daniel, unable to do anything against his soul, more than the visible ones of whom all we who read that Scripture have understood. And who has so escaped from the belly of the sea monster subdued by Jesus our Savior, which swallows every fugitive from God, as Jonah did, who as a saint became capable of receiving the Holy Spirit?

It is no wonder if, of all who receive the bodies, so to speak, that produce such shadows, the same shadow is not given to all alike, but to some alike. For to those who study the problems of sundials and the relation of shadows to the illuminating body, it is clearly shown that this happens also with bodies: for some, at a certain time, the pointers cast no shadow, for others, so to speak, short shadows, and for others longer shadows than for others. It is no great matter, then, if, since the intention of the giver grants the principal gifts according to certain secret and mystical proportions, fitting for those who receive them and for the times when the principal gifts are given, sometimes no shadows at all follow for the recipients, sometimes not for all but for a few, sometimes smaller in comparison with others, while greater follow for others. Just as, then, the presence or absence of the shadow of bodies neither pleases nor grieves one who seeks the sun's rays, since he has what is most necessary once he is illuminated, whether he is without shadow or has more or less of it; so, if spiritual things are present to us and we are illuminated by God for the complete possession of the true goods, we shall not quibble about the paltry matter of the shadow. For all material and bodily things, whatever they may be, have the character of a feeble and powerless shadow, and can in no way be compared with the saving and holy gifts of the God of all. For what comparison is there between bodily wealth and wealth “in all speech and all” wisdom? And who, unless mad, would compare health of flesh and bones with a healthy mind, a strong soul, and well-proportioned thoughts? When all these are ordered by the Word of God, bodily sufferings make only a trifling scratch, or whatever we think smaller than a scratch.

And whoever has considered what the beauty is of the bride whom the “bridegroom,” being the Word of God, loves—the soul blossoming with a beauty above heaven and above the world—will be ashamed to honor with the same name of beauty the bodily beauty of a woman or a child or a man. For flesh does not contain beauty in the proper sense, being all ugliness. For “all flesh is as grass,” and its “glory,” which appears in what is called the beauty of women and children, is compared to a flower according to the prophetic word, which says: “All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass withered and the flower fell; but the word of the Lord abides for ever.” And who will still properly call nobility what is commonly so called among men, when he has understood the nobility of the sons of God? And how will the mind that has contemplated the “unshakable kingdom” of Christ not despise every earthly kingdom as worth nothing? And having seen clearly, as far as a human mind still bound to a body can, and grasped the army of angels, and among them the chief captains of the Lord's hosts, and archangels and thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities above the heavens, and that it is possible to obtain from the Father equal honor with them, how will he not despise these things admired by the foolish as most obscure and worth nothing in comparison, even if he is feebler than a shadow, and, even if all these were given, disregard them so as not to fail to obtain the true rulers and more divine authorities? We must pray, then, we must pray for the things that are principally and truly great and heavenly; and the matter of the shadows that follow the principal things must be entrusted to God, who knows “what” we “need” because of our perishable body “before” we “ask him.”