Four Kinds of Prayer

So we have laid this down about what prayer is like, though not as fully as the importance of the subject requires, but as fully as the pressure of time allows, and at any rate as far as our slender abilities and our dullness of heart permit. Now a still greater difficulty awaits us: to explain one by one the different kinds of prayer, which the apostle divides into four when he says: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made.” And we cannot possibly doubt that the apostle did not make this division idly. To begin with, we must investigate what is meant by supplication, by prayer, by intercession, and by thanksgiving. Next we must ask whether the one who prays is to take up these four kinds all at once, that is, whether they are all to be joined together in every prayer. Or are they to be offered in turn and one by one? For instance, ought supplications to be offered at one time, prayers at another, intercessions at another, and thanksgivings at another? Or should one person present supplications to God, another prayers, another intercessions, and another thanksgivings, according to the measure of growth toward which each soul is advancing by the earnestness of its purpose? [a]