On Prayer 13.3

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.”