(12) Prayer is, then, to speak more boldly, converse with God. Though whispering, consequently, and not opening the lips, we speak in silence, yet we cry inwardly. For God hears continually all the inward converse. So also we raise the head and lift the hands to heaven, and set the feet in motion at the closing utterance of the prayer, following the eagerness of the spirit directed towards the intellectual essence; and endeavouring to abstract the body from the earth, along with the discourse, raising the soul aloft, winged with longing for better things, we compel it to advance to the region of holiness, magnanimously despising the chain of the flesh. For we know right well, that the Gnostic willingly passes over the whole world, as the Jews certainly did over Egypt, showing clearly, above all, that he will be as near as possible to God.

(1) So it is right to pray to the father and to call on him with our soul—not externally with our lips but with the spirit, which is inside and comes from the depths, sighing, repenting for the life we led, confessing sins, recognizing the deception we were in as shallow; perceiving the empty zeal; weeping over how we lived in darkness and in the wave; mourning for what we were so that he might pity us; hating ourselves for what we still are.

(85) If you will pray to God, then call upon God (your heavenly Father) in the Name of his son Jesus Christ, [desiring] that he would forgive your Sins, for the Sake of his Sufferings and Death, and give you what is good for you, and may further your Salvation. Give up and yield all whatsoever is earthly to his Pleasure and Will; for we know not what we should desire and pray for, but the holy Spirit helps us in Christ Jesus, before his heavenly Father. Therefore there is no Need of many Words [or long Prayers,] but a believing Soul, which with its whole earnest [resolved Purpose] yields itself up into the Mercy of God, to live in his Will, in the Body of Jesus Christ, and continues constant; then he is sure and safe from the Devil.

(62) And now if we consider in our own Reason, and (in the Consideration of our high Knowledge) look upon what the World at Babel has introduced in this high Article [of Prayer,] whereof we are about to treat, in that Antichrist has set himself therein, and shown his great Power therein, then our Reason might well keep us back, because of the great Sting and Danger that might befall us from the fierce Wrath of Antichrist. But seeing it appears to us without our Knowledge, therefore we will rather obey the Voice of God, than the earthly Fear, in Hope to be recompensed. And though it should happen that Antichrist should destroy our earthly Body, which yet stands in the Permission of God, which we must not withstand, yet we will more highly esteem that which is to come, than that which is transitory, which [Things to come,] if we attain them, are our true native Country, out of which we (in Adam) are gone forth; and the Spirit invites all Men's Attention before this Glass.

(1) "Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens, Not circumscribed, but from the greater love Thou bearest to the first effects on high, Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence By every creature, as befitting is To render thanks to thy sweet effluence. Come unto us the peace of thy dominion, For unto it we cannot of ourselves, If it come not, with all our intellect. Even as thine own Angels of their will Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, So may all men make sacrifice of theirs. Give unto us this day our daily manna, Withouten which in this rough wilderness Backward goes he who toils most to advance. And even as we the trespass we have suffered Pardon in one another, pardon thou Benignly, and regard not our desert. Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome, Put not to proof with the old Adversary, But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver. This last petition verily, dear Lord, Not for ourselves is made, who need it not, But for their sake who have remained behind us."

(5) Therefore if I should speak and write that which is purely heavenly, and altogether of the clear Deity, I should be as dumb to the Reader, who has not the Knowledge and the Gift [to understand it.] Yet I will so write in a divine, and also in a creaturely Way, that I might stir up any one to desire and long after the Consideration of the high Things: And if any shall perceive that they cannot do it, that at least they might seek and knock in their Desire, and pray to God for his holy Spirit, that the Door of the second Principle might be opened up to them; for Christ bids us to pray, seek, and knock, and then it shall be opened unto us. For he says, All that you shall ask the Father in my Name, he will give it you: Ask and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

(21) But if voice and expression are given us, for the sake of understanding, how can God not hear the soul itself, and the mind, since assuredly soul hears soul, and mind, mind? Whence God does not walt for loquacious tongues, as interpreters among men, but knows absolutely the thoughts of all; and what the voice intimates to us, that our thought, which even before the creation He knew would come into our mind, speaks to God. Prayer, then, may be uttered without the voice, by concentrating the whole spiritual nature within on expression by the mind, in un-distracted turning towards God.

(15) This shall arise in the depth, in great plainness and simplicity. But why not in the height in art? [In order] that no man should dare to boast that he himself has done it, and that hereby the devil's pride should be discovered and brought to nothing.

(67) Now when thou worshippest or prayest to the holy God in his heaven, then thou worshippest or prayest to him in that heaven which is in thee, and that same God breaketh through in thy heart with his light; and in his light the Holy Ghost breaketh through, and generateth thy soul to be a new body of God [or new divine body] which ruleth and reigneth with God in his heaven.

(10) Whence, as is right, there being only one good God, that some good things be given from Him alone, and that some remain, we and the angels pray. But not similarly. For it is not the same thing to pray that the gift remain, and to endeavour to obtain it for the first time.

(4) A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or, he may be in Church and be aware of God; but, if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him. He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere. St Bernard saith, "How is it that mine eye and not my foot sees heaven? Because mine eye is more like heaven than my foot is. So, if my soul is to know God, it must be God-like."

(2) And the third and most perfect species of prayer is the seal of ineffable union with the divinities , in whom it establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination ; the second , to a communion of operation ; but through the energy of the third , we receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire . And sometimes, indeed, supplication precedes ; like a precursor preparing the way before the sacrifice appears. But some times it intercedes as a mediator ; and sometimes accomplishes the end of sacrificing . No operation, however, in sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer.

(21) Little by little, so that you see not the process. In like manner this breath of ours by degrees " The good word riseth up to Him," Our breathings are lifted up in fear of God, Then come down to us rewards for our praises, The double thereof, yea, mercies from the King of Glory. Therefore are we constrained to utter these praises That slaves may attain the height of God's gifts. And so this rising and descent go on evermore, To speak in plain Persian, this attraction

(134) Herein the spirit seeth into the depth of the Deity; for in God, near and afar off is all one; and that same God, of whom I write in this book, is as well in his Ternary in the body of a holy soul, as in heaven.

(1) FIRST, with your permission, let us examine the all-perfect Name of Goodness, which is indicative of the whole progressions of Almighty God, having invoked the supremely good, and super-good Triad--the Name which indicates Its whole best Providences. For, we must first be raised up to It, as Source of good, by our prayers; and by a nearer approach to It, be initiated as to the all good gifts which are established around It. For It is indeed present to all, but all are not present to It. But then, when we have invoked It, by all pure prayers and unpolluted mind, and by our aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to It. For, It is not in a place, so that It should be absent from a particular place, or should pass from one to another. But even the statement that It is in all existing beings, falls short of Its infinitude (which is) above all, and embracing all. Let us then elevate our very selves by our prayers to the higher ascent of the Divine and good rays,--as if a luminous chain being suspended from the celestial heights, and reaching down hither, we, by ever clutching this upwards, first with one hand, and then with the other, seem indeed to draw it down, but in reality we do not draw it down, it being both above and below, but ourselves are carried upwards to the higher splendours of the luminous rays. Or, as if, after we have embarked on a ship, and are holding on to the cables reaching from some rock, such as are given out, as it were, for us to seize, we do not draw the rock to us, but ourselves, in fact, and the ship, to the rock. Or to take another example, if any one standing on the ship pushes away the rock by the sea shore, he will do nothing to the stationary and unmoved rock, but he separates himself from it, and in proportion as he pushes that away, he is so far hurled from it. Wherefore, before everything, and especially theology, we must begin with prayer, not as though we ourselves were drawing the power, which is everywhere and nowhere present, but as, by our godly reminiscences and invocations, conducting ourselves to, and making ourselves one with, it.

(59) Now we pray thus, Our Father [which art] in Heaven, hallowed (or sanctified) be thy Name. And in the first of Genesis it is written, God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Water, by which is [meant or] understood the Heaven of the third Principle: And yet indeed he has created it out of his own Heaven wherein he dwells. Thus you may easily find, that the Birth of the Holy Deity stands in the Source of Water, and the powerful Spirit is moreover the Former, Framer, and Fashioner therein.

(2) Farther still, having said “ that pure intellects are inflexible , [i. e. not to be changed or altered ] and unmingled with sensibles ,” you doubt, “ whether it is requisite to pray to them .” But I think it is necessary to pray to no others than these. For that in us which is divine, intellectual, and one, or intelligible, if you are willing so to call it, is most clearly excited in prayer; and, when excited, vehemently seeks that which is similar to itself, and becomes copulated to perfection itself. But if it should appear to you to be incredible, that an incorporeal nature can be capable of hearing sounds, and it should be urged by you, that for this purpose the sense of hearing is requisite, that it may apprehend what is said by us in prayer; you willingly forget the excellency of primary causes, which consists in both knowing and comprehending in themselves at once the whole of things. The Gods, therefore, do not receive prayers in themselves, through any corporeal powers or organs, but rather contain in themselves the energies of pious invocations; and especially of such as, through sacred ceremonies, are established in, and united to, the Gods. For then, in reality, a divine nature is present with itself, and does not communicate with the intellectual conceptions in prayer, as different from its own.