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Translated by W. Curtis.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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104 Pages
Page 4
For prayer `as we ought' is restrained unless the marriage mysteries which claim our silence be consummated with more of solemnity and deliberation and less of passion, the `agreement' referred to in the passage obliterating the discord of passion, and destroying incontinence, and preventing Satan's malicious exultation. Yet again instructive for prayer `as we ought' is the passage: "If you are standing at prayer, forgive aught that you have against any man;" and also the passage in Paul "Any man who prays or preaches with covered head dishonours his head, and any woman who prays or preaches with unveiled head dishonors her head" is descriptive of the right manner of prayer.
Paul knows all these sayings, and could cite, with subtle statement in each case, manifold more from law and prophets and gospel fulfillment, but in the moderation, yes, and in the truthfulness of his nature, and because he sees how much, after all of them, is lacking to knowledge of the right way to pray what he ought, he says "but what we ought to pray we know not how to as we ought," and adds thereto the source from which a man's deficiency is made up if though ignorant he has rendered himself worthy to have the deficiency made up within him:
"The Spirit himself more than intercedes with God in sighs unspeakable and He that searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because His intercession on behalf of saints is according to God." Thus the Spirit who cries "Abba Father" in the hearts of the blessed, knowing with solicitude that their sighing in this tabernacle can but weigh down the already fallen or transgressors, "more than intercedes with God in sighs unspeakable," for the great love and sympathy He feels for men taking our sighs upon himself; and, by virtue of the wisdom that resides in Him, beholding our Soul humbled `unto dust' and shut within the body `of humiliation,' He employs no common sighs when He more than intercedes with God but unspeakable ones akin to the unutterable words which a man may not speak. Not content to intercede with God, this Spirit intensifies His intercession, "more than intercedes," for those who more than conquer, as I believe such as Paul was, who says "Nay in all these we more than conquer."
Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/prayer.asp?pg=4
