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On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

Our Father which art in heaven. It is worth while examining with unusual care the Old …

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
(Chapters XXII and XXIII)

Our Father which art in heaven.1 It is worth while examining with unusual care the Old Testament, as it is called,2 to see if it is possible to find anywhere in it a prayer in which someone calls God “Father.”3 Though we searched to the best of our ability,4 up to the present we have found none. We do not mean that God is never called “Father,” or that those who were wont to believe in God are never styled “sons of God,” but that we have not yet succeeded in finding in a prayer that confident affirmation in styling God as “Father” which was made by the Saviour. That God is called “Father,” and that those who have drawn nigh to the word of God are called “sons,” may be seen from many passages, as for example in Deuteronomy: “Thou hast forsaken the God who begat thee, And hast forgotten the God who nurtureth thee”5; and again: “Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee, and hath made thee and established thee?”6; and again: “Sons in whom is no faith”7; and in Isaiah: “I have begotten and brought up sons, but they have rejected me”8; and in Malachi: “A son will honour his father, and a servant his master: and if I am a father, where is mine honour? and if I am a master, where is my fear?”9

Therefore, even though God is spoken of as “Father,” and those begotten by the word of faith in him as “sons,” it is not possible to find in the ancients at any rate a firm and unchangeable affirmation of sonship. For example, the passages we have quoted show that those called “sons” are blameworthy:10 since, according to the apostle, while “the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed of the father”11; but “the fulness of the time”12 arrived13 at the sojourn of our Lord Jesus Christ, when those who desire it “receive the adoption of sons,”14 as Paul teaches in the following words: “For ye received not the spirit of bondage unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”15 And in the Gospel according to John: “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believed on his name.”16 And because of this “spirit of adoption,” we learn in the general Epistle of John as concerning those “who are begotten of God” that “whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.”17

Nevertheless, if we consider the meaning of the words “When ye pray, say, Father,”18 as it is written in Luke, we shall hesitate if we are not true sons to address him by this title, lest perchance in addition to our sins we should incur the charge of impiety also. What I mean is something like this. Paul says in his former [epistle] to the Corinthians, “No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit”; and “no man speaking in the Spirit of God19 saith, Jesus is anathema.”20 He uses “Holy Spirit” and “Spirit of God” as synonymous terms. But what the meaning is of “saying in the Holy Spirit Jesus is Lord” is by no means clear, for countless hypocrites and numbers of heretics use this title,21 and sometimes even demons when they are overcome by the power that is in the Name. No one will dare to maintain that any of these “says Jesus is Lord in the Holy Spirit.” Nor could they even be shown to say “Jesus is Lord,” since those only from the heart say, “Jesus is Lord,” who while serving the word of God and while engaged in doing anything whatsoever call none other “Lord” save him. If it be such that say, “Jesus is Lord,” it may be that everyone who anathematizes the divine Word in transgressing by his own actions cries out: “Jesus is anathema.” Therefore, just as such a one says, “Jesus is Lord,” and he of an opposite mind, “Jesus is anathema,” so also, “whosoever is begotten of God” and “doeth no sin,” through partaking of the “seed”22 of God, which turns him aside from every sin, says by his deeds: “Our Father which art in heaven,”23 “the Spirit himself bearing witness with” their spirit, “that” they “are children of God,” and his “heirs,” and “joint-heirs with Christ,” since suffering “with him” they have good hope to “be also glorified with him.”24 And in order that such may not only half say, “Our Father,”25 “the heart” also, which is the fountain and source of good works, in conjunction with the works “believeth unto righteousness,” and in harmony with them “the mouth maketh confession unto salvation.”26

Every deed and word and thought of theirs, having been formed by “the only begotten Word”27 after his likeness, imitates “the image of the invisible God,”28 and is “after the image of the Creator,”29 who “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust,”30 so that there is in them “the image of the heavenly,”31 who is himself “the image of God.”28 The saints, therefore, being “an image” of an image (that image being the Son), acquire an impression of32 sonship,33 becoming “conformed” not only “to the body of the glory”34 of Christ, but also to him35 who is “in the body.”3637 They become conformed to him who is in “the body of the glory,”34 as they are “transformed by the renewing of the mind.”38 If such persons in everything say, “Our Father which art in heaven,”39 evidently “he that doeth sin,” as John says in his general [epistle], “is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.”40 And as the “seed” of God, “remaining in him that is begotten of God,”41 becomes for him who has been conformed42 to “the only begotten Word”27 the cause that “he cannot sin,”41 so in everyone “that doeth sin” the seed of “the devil”40 is present, and, so long as it is inherent in the soul, prevents him who has it from being able to perform right actions. But since “to this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,” it is possible, by the dwelling in our soul of the Word of God, when “the works of the devil” have been “destroyed,”43 for the evil seed implanted in us to be done away with, and for us “to become children of God.”44

Do not let us think that we are taught to say actual words at a certain fixed time of prayer. If we understand what has been said above45 in our discussion about “praying without ceasing,”46 our whole life as we “pray without ceasing” shall say, “Our Father which art in heaven”47: its “citizenship” shall in no wise be on earth but in every way “in heaven,”48 which is the “throne”49 of God; for the kingdom of heaven is seated in all those50 who “bear the image of the heavenly,”51 and therefore are themselves heavenly.

Notes

  1. Matt. 6:9.
  2. XXII, 1. the Old Testament, as it is called] The phrase may suggest that “Old Testament” was not yet an absolutely settled title for the first portion of the Bible. In the previous century, however, c. 170, Melito of Sardis had spoken of “the books of the Old Testament” (ap. Eusebius, H.E., IV, 26, 14), and by Origen’s time “Old Testament” must have been well on the way to general acceptance as a description of the writings embodying the “covenant” that God had made with his ancient people Israel. Tertullian testifies for Latin Christianity to the title, e.g., in Adv. Marc., IV, 22 (P.L., II, 414): “oportebat in eo suggestu consignari novum testamentum, in quo conscriptum vetus fuerat.”
  3. XXII, 1. a prayer in which someone calls God “Father”] Cf. In Joh., XIX, 5: “Though there are countless prayers to be found written in the Psalms and the prophets and also in the law, we did not find a single one in which God is addressed as Father.” For another passage, emphasizing the distinctive Fatherhood of God under the Christian Dispensation, see In Matt., XVII, 36 (C.B., XL., 702).
  4. XXII, 1. we searched to the best of our ability] Cf. also XVIII, 3, “We searched the Gospel of Mark,” and III, 1, “the word ‘prayer’ occurs for the first time, so far as my observation goes.” This “searching of the Scriptures” must have been a laborious task under the conditions of Origen’s time, and affords eloquent testimony to the pains he took to ensure that his theology was formed on the usage of the Bible.
  5. Deut. 32:18.
  6. Deut. 23:6.
  7. Deut. 32:20.
  8. Isa. 1:2.
  9. Mal. 1:6.
  10. XXII, 2. those called “sons” are blameworthy] Sections 1 and 2 of this chapter, if read by themselves, might suggest the view that Christian sonship involves complete freedom from sin; for on the one hand Origen contrasts it with what is implied in passages of the Old Testament where God rebukes his sons, and, on the other, he quotes the words of John, “whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin.” Other passages from his writings, however, modify or even oppose this inference. In In Matt., XIX, 23 (C.B., XL, 416 ff.), Origen contrasts the washing of regeneration by water and spirit with the eschatological regeneration spoken of in Matt. 19:28. The former cleanses from defilement, so that he who is born from above is pure, “if I may make so bold to say”, “in a glass darkly”; but he who comes to the other regeneration will be absolutely pure (καθαρώτατος) from defilement and will see “face to face.” In the washing of regeneration we are buried through baptism with Christ; but in the regeneration at the last day we shall be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory. In Jesu Nave hom., XXI, (C.B., XXX, 431), of which the Latin is extant, is more decisive: “I do not think that anyone’s heart can become so pure that the thought of evil never stains it.” See J. Daniélou, Origène, 72 f.; Bigg, 250.
  11. Gal. 4:1, 2.
  12. Gal. 4:4.
  13. Reading ἐνέστη.
  14. Gal. 4:5.
  15. Rom. 8:15.
  16. John 1:12.
  17. I John 3:9.
  18. Luke 11:2.
  19. XXII, 3. “no man speaking in the Spirit of God”] So the Anonymous reads for “no man speaking in the Holy Spirit,” rightly, as the next line shows.
  20. I Cor. 12:3.
  21. XXII, 3. numbers of heretics use this title] Origen is thinking especially of the followers of Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus, of whom he says (In Jerem. hom., X, 5: C.B., VI, 75 f.): “They name the name of Jesus, but they do not possess Jesus; for they do not confess him as they ought.”
  22. I John 3:9.
  23. Matt. 6:9.
  24. Rom. 8:16, 17.
  25. Matt. 6:9.
  26. Rom. 10:10.
  27. John 1:14, 18.
  28. Col. 1:15.
  29. Col. 3:10.
  30. Matt. 5:45.
  31. I Cor. 15:49.
  32. See note.
  33. XXII, 4. acquire an impression of sonship] ἀπομάττονται υἱότητα. The verb is used of “taking an impression of,” as a sculptor would do. Those who are called to be sons of God bear the image or likeness of the Son of God, who is himself the image of the invisible God.
  34. Phil. 3:21.
  35. Reading τῷ ὄντι.
  36. Cf. II Cor. 12:2, 3.
  37. XXII, 4. but also to him who is “in the body”] T has ἀλλὰ καὶ ὄντι ἐν τῷ σώματι. The emendation τῷ ὄντι of the Anonymous seems necessary to make sense. The sons of God are not only united with and therefore conformed to the glorified body of Christ, but also to Christ in his glorified body. This is accomplished, as Origen points out in the next sentence, by the renewing of their mind: so that mind as well as body bears the impress of the divine image.
  38. Rom. 12:2.
  39. Matt. 6:9.
  40. I John 3:8.
  41. I John 3:9.
  42. Cf. Gal. 4:19.
  43. I John 3:8.
  44. John 1:12.
  45. Ch. XII.
  46. I Thess. 5:17.
  47. Matt. 6:9.
  48. Phil. 3:20.
  49. Cf. Isa. 66:1.
  50. XXII, 5. the kingdom of heaven is seated in all those, etc.] According to Origen the kingdom of heaven or of God is preeminently immanent and spiritual. See XXV, 1.
  51. I Cor. 15:49.

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