On Prayer 14.5

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.”