On Prayer 13.4

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.