On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

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THE OCCASION OF THE TREATISE ON PRAYER

THE TREATISE On Prayer AND The Exhortation to Martyrdom are distinctive among the extant works of Origen as being occasional in respect of their composition, that is to say, they were called forth by the special needs of a particular incident. De Faye¹ styles them, happily enough, Écrits de Circonstance. It was otherwise with the De Principiis, in which Origen deliberately attempted to give a systematic exposition of theology, or the Hexapla, the fruit of his textual studies, or the commentaries and homilies which he poured forth during his lifetime as an expounder of Holy Scripture. The Contra Celsum, although it was an answer to a particular book, the True Word of the philosopher Celsus, can hardly be ranked as an occasional writing, since it was composed about seventy years after the book to which it was a reply. But the Exhortation to Martyrdom was written for the immediate object of consoling and exhorting two of his friends who had been cast into prison for their faith. And the treatise On Prayer arose, similarly, out of a particular occasion. Just as I Corinthians may be said to have been written, at any rate in part, in order to answer certain questions put to Paul by the Corinthian Church or individuals in it, so also On Prayer arose, as we shall see, out of a specific question about prayer. In both cases, the answer in scope and fullness far transcended the limits which the particular situation necessitated.

The year when On Prayer was written can be determined with more or less exactitude.² A topical allusion has been usually found in the language of XXVIII, 10: “Certain persons, I know not how, arrogating to themselves powers beyond the priestly office, perhaps because they have no accurate grasp of the knowledge that a priest should possess, boast that they are able to pardon even idolatry and to absolve adultery and fornication, on the ground that by means of prayer offered for those who have committed these deeds even the sin unto death is absolved.”

The most obvious reference in this is to be found, not to powers exercised by martyrs and confessors (who were not necessarily priests), but to Callistus, Bishop of Rome (c. 217–223), who was accused by the rigorist party of that day, and notably by Hippolytus, of laxity in the matter of pardons and absolutions; and since the plural (“certain persons”) is used, the reference is extended to include the successors of Callistus, namely, Urbanus (223–230) and Pontianus (230–235), under whom the Hippolytean schism is supposed to have continued. With this controversy, at any rate in its earlier stages, Origen was personally acquainted, for he visited Rome about the year 212, and listened, at least on one occasion to the preaching of Hippolytus, who at that time was engaged in his feud against Zephyrinus, the predecessor of Callistus, whom Zephyrinus had made his archdeacon.³ Origen’s temperament would naturally lead him to support the rigorist party.

Literary allusions in the treatise serve to date it more exactly. (1) In XXIII, 4, Origen refers to his comment on the passage Gen. 3:8, 9. Now the Commentaries on Genesis were begun at Alexandria, and eight volumes were written there,⁴ the remaining four being added at Caesarea. In the twelve volumes he only covered the first four chapters of Genesis.⁵ The comment on Gen. 3:8, 9 can hardly therefore have been in one of the earlier volumes; and in any case he speaks of the Commentaries on Genesis as a completed work: “we have treated these matters at length in our Commentaries on Genesis.” This places the treatise On Prayer after his removal to Caesarea, i.e., after 231 or 232. (2) There is a reference in XV, 1, in the words “as is shown elsewhere,” to the tenth tome of the Commentary on John.⁶ The present tense is taken by Koetschau and de Faye to indicate that this Commentary was still in process of being written. In any case tomes vi–xxii were written, after Origen had left Alexandria, in Caesarea, and, according to Koetschau, between 232 and 235. Therefore 233 or 234 may be conjectured as the date of the composition of the treatise On Prayer. (3) Further, in this treatise there is no reference to martyrdom, although the opportunity to do so is not lacking.⁷ This is a reason for placing its composition before the persecution of Maximin (235–237).

The immediate occasion of the treatise was a letter addressed to Origen by his friend Ambrose, in association with a lady named Tatiana, which stated, either on their own behalf or on that of others, certain objections and difficulties in regard to the practice of prayer.⁸ From this letter Origen quotes a passage which makes it quite clear what was the nature of the difficulties urged against it. “First: if God knows the future beforehand, and it must come to pass, prayer is vain. Secondly: if all things happen according to the will of God, and if what is willed by him is fixed, and nothing of what he wills can be changed, prayer is vain.”⁹

Had Origen been acquainted with Milton, he might have pointed out to Ambrose and Tatiana that such questions were discussed and discussed in vain by the fallen angels, who:

reasoned high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.¹⁰

But to evade a difficulty, or to give it up as insoluble, was never Origen’s way; and least of all could he have adopted such a method towards a request made by Ambrose. He was, of course, none other than his devoted patron, friend, and admirer, to whom he owed both the incentive to produce books (if indeed Origen needed any such incentive) and also the abundant means to produce them. As to the incentive, Origen playfully refers to Ambrose as his task-master or slave-driver (ἐργοδιώκτης: Ex. 3:7; 5:6–14); and in a fragment of a letter printed by Delarue (I, 3) gives a lively picture of his importunities. “The holy Ambrose . . . supposing that I am a zealous worker and utterly athirst for the word of God, convicted me by his own zeal for work and passion for sacred studies . . . for neither when we are engaged in collating can we take our meals, nor, when we have taken them walk and rest our bodies. Nay, even at the times set apart for these things we are constrained to discourse learnedly and to correct our manuscripts. Neither can we sleep at night for the good of our bodies, since our learned discourse extends far into the evening. I need not mention that our morning studies also are prolonged to the ninth, at times to the tenth, hour.”¹¹ Ambrose was equally insistent in supplying Origen unstintingly (for he was a wealthy man) with the means to produce his commentaries, and also, we cannot doubt, such a treatise as the present one. Thanks to his liberality, as Origen dictated “there were ready at hand more than seven shorthand writers, who relieved each other at fixed times, and as many copyists, as well as girls skilled in penmanship.”¹² The picture reminds us of a professor today in a university in the New World, who can command unlimited resources in respect of money and material and helpers for the production of learned works covering a vast field of inquiry. Therefore we can understand how Origen, even when engaged on a large and important work such as the Commentaries on John, could at the same time break in upon it and also produce a treatise which not only answered the particular questions propounded to him by his friends, but also (as we shall see) went on to deal with prayer in general and to give a lengthy exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. His mind, through long training and practice, was fully equipped with a working knowledge of the principal philosophical systems. His knowledge of Holy Scripture was unrivalled. As an exegete his skill was remarkable. With all this knowledge and capacity in himself, he had only to dictate what flowed from his teeming brain to the shorthand writers. Eusebius notes that there were more than seven of them and that they relieved one another at fixed times. No doubt when Origen was dictating such an arrangement was as humane as it was necessary. Then the “copyists” transcribed the shorthand into longhand. And finally the girl scribes produced neatly written copies of the work.

Later on we shall give an analysis of the treatise. It is sufficient to say here that Origen himself gives a brief description of its contents in ch. XXXIV when he speaks of having treated (1) the problem of prayer, and (2) the prayer that is found in the Gospels, and the preceding context in Matthew. We must add, however, to these a third section containing a supplement to the general discussion of prayer, which should more appropriately have come after section (1). The work was, in fact, somewhat hastily put together, and Origen seems to have been aware of this, for in his concluding words he expresses the hope that he may be able “to treat again of these same matters with greater breadth and elevation and clarity,” and adds “for the present you will read this book with indulgence.” Furthermore we can detect throughout the composition signs which indicate a diversity of aim. Origen, in fact, wished at one and the same time to answer the questions of Ambrose and Tatiana and dissipate their doubts, to handle the subject of prayer generally, and finally to give an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. As a result, both here and in the treatise On Martyrdom, matter which should have been combined is broken up, and Origen repeats himself.¹³ These faults in structural arrangement, however, do not seriously detract from the general “effect” of the treatise, which is perhaps the most readable of his works,¹⁴ and reveals attractively many of his characteristic qualities. To these we shall now turn.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ORIGEN

To a student of Church History, the most obvious aspect of Origen is that he represents the Greek element in Christianity, as did also his predecessor in the Catechetical School at Alexandria, Clement. We cannot, however, simply leave the matter there, but rather must go on to ask, which characteristics in the Greek genius does he exemplify? The moment this question is asked, we begin to see that we must qualify such a general description and distinguish between certain elements within it. Origen shows, for example, little appreciation of Greek literature as such.¹⁵ In his day, at Alexandria, Homer was the bible and the foundation of secular letters. His poetry represents, perhaps better than any other writer, the soul of the Greek genius and the imagination of the race. Origen cites him frequently in his other works, and calls him “the best of poets,”¹⁶ but he shows little appreciation of his purely poetical qualities. It is the same with the other, rather few, Greek poets that he quotes from or refers to, such as Hesiod, Euripides, Aristophanes, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius. The references to Hesiod are particularly significant, as de Faye points out.¹⁷ This poet inspires in him no admiration. He makes fun of Celsus because he calls him a divine poet. He appears to find no grace or beauty in the description of the formation of Pandora, which he transcribes. In fact, Hesiod is for him only a retailer of myths. For the prose writers of Greece in the day of its glory Origen shows no greater appreciation, nor for its art.

Neither does Origen exhibit the Greek genius in his style and method of composition. Not for him the “nothing too much” or “the half is greater than the whole.” On the contrary, he is diffuse, discursive, repetitive. His immense erudition, and especially his Biblical knowledge, frequently leads him aside into irrelevant digressions. The torrent of words and exuberance of ideas are at times reminiscent of the opening chapter of Ephesians. They certainly do not recall the reticence and restraint and economy of the classical period of Greek literature. If Greek “balance” is to be seen at all in Origen, it is in his grasp of the Christian revelation as a number of related truths. His De Principiis is the first and perhaps the greatest work on systematic theology. But this attempt “to see life steadily, and see it whole” was due, I imagine, less to an inner sense of artistic completeness than to a grasp of divine revelation as a unifying principle. That God shall be all in all was the vision which dominated his thinking and gave form to his conception of all things whether in heaven or on earth.

The Greek element in Origen is most truly seen in his love of inquiry and speculation. His training in philosophy and his subsequent teaching of it implanted in him the habit, which became a second nature, of asking questions, of probing into the meaning of things, and of conjecturing when no certain answer could be found. As a Biblical student, he is never tired of wresting from a passage its inner meaning, of comparing one passage with another and of confronting difficulties that may thereby arise. After the manner of the schools his custom is to bring forward an objector imaginary or real. This method of conducting an argument occurs again and again. Perhaps we owe Paul’s doctrine of the resurrection body to the question of an inquiring and quick-witted Greek: But some one will say, How are the dead raised?¹⁸ We meet the same kind of thing frequently even in a treatise such as On Prayer.¹⁹ And this is not surprising because for Origen Christianity was chiefly an illumination of the reason, which by itself and without revelation was incapable of knowing God, and growth in grace was a deeper and deeper apprehension of divine mysteries and of the Logos as he communicates himself more and more to the soul of man. So it was that living in a day when few, at any rate in Alexandria, questioned the validity of the allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures, Origen regarded it as one of the highest achievements to pierce beneath the outward and obvious meaning of a passage to the hidden and esoteric meaning that lay beneath. And even if such a meaning escapes our present understanding, Origen is sure that it exists and is known to the divine Logos “who has contemplated the Father’s will.”²⁰

It would be a great mistake, however, to picture Origen as a mere intellectualist and his religion as simply and solely a kind of higher gnosis. The intellectual side of him was balanced by purity of soul, flame of devotion and virtue of life. “Dedicated to God” or “genuinely devoted to God”²¹ was for him a description of the true Christian. If, on the one hand, he seems to lay much stress upon prayer as contemplation of God, on the other he speaks “of the whole life of the saint as one great unbroken prayer,” since he “combines with the prayer the needful deeds and the prayer with the fitting actions.”²² Again and again he reminds us of the duty of love and forgiveness, a virtue which, in view of his cruel wrongs, he had himself much occasion to practise.²³ From boyhood his soul was aflame for martyrdom; and there is little doubt that the end of his life was hastened by the tortures he endured for the name of Christ. Origen was indeed one of those rare souls whose light “shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”²⁴ Whether his doctrine of the pre-existence of souls is true or false, it seemed from the first that his body was inhabited by something from another sphere. “It is said that many a time his father would stand over the sleeping boy and uncover his breast, as if a divine spirit were enshrined therein, and kissing it with reverence count himself happy in his goodly offspring.”²⁵

In his capacity for combining as a unity in himself intellectual passion with warm personal devotion to God in Christ and the practical virtues of a Christian, Origen is perhaps unique among the Fathers. He had many disciples, and has had many followers, but never one of them who equalled him in this. Arnobius could write a long work without revealing a distinctively Christian spirit. Boethius could keep his philosophy and theology apart, and write The Consolations of Philosophy without betraying that he was a Christian. We have only to reflect for a moment to see that such detachment would be impossible for Origen. John Scotus Erigena is a kind of “throw-back” to Origen across a gulf of some six hundred years, and like Origen was a great intellectualist: but we have no reason to suppose that he matched him as a devotional or practical Christian. Hence, to follow Origen in his never-resting spirit of inquiry concerning all things would inevitably involve for lesser mortals a less sure grasp of Christianity as a way of personal life. This thought has been beautifully expressed in the lines of Isaac Williams in the Lyra Apostolica:

Into God’s word, as in a palace fair,
Thou leadest on and on, while still beyond
Each chamber, touched by holy wisdom’s wand,
Another opes, more beautiful and rare:
And thou in each art kneeling down in prayer,
From link to link of that mysterious bond
Seeking for Christ: but oh, I fear thy fond
And beautiful torch, that with so bright a flare
Lighteth up all things, lest the heaven-lit brand
Of thy serene Philosophy divine
Should take the colourings of earthly thought,
And I, by their sweet images o’erwrought,
Led by weak Fancy, should let go Truth’s hand,
And miss the way into the inner shrine.²⁶

THE TREATISE ON PRAYER AND ORIGEN’S ORTHODOXY

The concluding words of the poem just quoted lead us naturally to consider those questions concerning Origen’s orthodoxy that arise out of the Treatise On Prayer. The first of these is concerned with the Person to whom prayer should be addressed. It is commonly stated that Origen teaches that prayer is to be made to God alone, and not to Christ. This is not quite accurate. Origen, following I Tim. 2:1, makes a distinction between four forms of prayer, namely, “supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings” (XIV, 2). Of these, he says, “intercession and thanksgiving” may be addressed to all men, Christians (“saints”) or not, while “supplication” may be made to “saints” only (XIV, 5). It follows, then, a fortiori, that “thanksgiving” and “intercession” (and “supplication”) may be addressed to Christ, “who has wrought such benefits for us by the will of the Father”; and indeed Origen quotes from Scripture an example of intercession to Christ, namely, the words of Stephen, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”²⁷

It is only, then, “prayer” in the special sense of the term that is to be addressed to the Father alone. Origen defines this kind of prayer as follows. “Prayer,” he says, “is offered in a dignified manner with ascription of praise by some one concerning matters of importance.”²⁸ He gives two examples of this, which, however, do not quite seem to square with his own definition: (1) “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, with a song. O Lord, I have heard thy voice, and was afraid: O Lord, I perceived thy works and was astounded; in the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be known, when the years draw nigh thou shalt be observed.”²⁹ (2) “Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly, and he said, I called in my affliction unto the Lord my God, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell thou heardest my crying, even my voice. Thou didst cast me forth into the depths of the heart of the sea, and the rivers were round about me.”³⁰ But in the first of these it is not easy to see what are “the matters of importance” concerning which the prayer is offered; and in the second there is no ascription of praise. It would seem, therefore, that Origen has not quite clearly thought out the distinctions he is endeavouring to make. Still, however, the fact remains that in the De Oratione he does not allow “prayer” as he defines it to be offered to Christ, but to the Father only. And it is this limitation, chiefly, that caused the treatise to be under a cloud, and added yet another reason for holding its author suspect.

The point obviously raises the whole question of Origen’s doctrine of God, upon which, I suppose, the last word will never be said. The matter is further complicated by the fact that often we cannot be at all certain what Origen actually did write, for many of his works are extant only in the Latin translation of Rufinus, who is notoriously and admittedly unreliable as a translator. It cannot be doubted that he frequently altered Origen’s language in a more orthodox direction. I have showed that he did this also with some phrases of Eusebius of a doubtful theological character.³¹ Hence only those passages of Origen of which the original Greek is extant can be safely trusted to give his meaning. But it is not difficult to see that Origen’s language concerning the relation of the Son (or the Word) to the Father must fail to be satisfactory from an orthodox point of view. Origen started from the conception of an absolutely transcendent God. God is intelligence, simple, invisible, incorporeal, or even beyond intelligence and being (substance), and cannot be comprehended save by him who was after the image of his intelligence.³² God is above truth, wisdom, light,³³ and even above eternal life.³⁴ Elsewhere³⁵ Origen discusses whether God is not also beyond substance, and leans to the conclusion that he is; for we cannot say that he partakes of substance: rather, he causes all beings, the Logos included, to partake of it.³⁶

On these premisses, such a conception as that of the Logos was essential, on the one hand, if revelation were to become possible for man; and, on the other, it was very difficult in relating the Logos (or Son, for the terms for Origen are interchangeable) to God to maintain their co-equality. In fact, Origen postulates a real subordinationism; and the logical outcome of it all is seen in the present passage, in which he teaches that “prayer” is to be directed to the Father alone.

In respect of this matter, two extreme attitudes towards Origen have been taken in later times. Some have aimed at establishing his orthodoxy in the terms of the Nicene Faith, labouring in the effort to explain or explain away everything that seems to point in the opposite direction; and such defenders have also brought to their aid the works of Origen known only in the Latin translation of Rufinus, although it is certain that Rufinus made them appear more orthodox than they really were. The opposite school has roundly accused Origen of heresy.

Both of these have forgotten that Origen was the child of his environment and of his age. His philosophic background at Alexandria provided him with a conception of God into which it was very difficult, if not impossible, to fit a doctrine of the essential Trinity. And, secondly, Origen lived before the controversies and the great conciliar decisions of the fourth and fifth centuries had given formal expression to the Catholic Faith. At the begining of the third century thought was fluid on these matters.

In his endeavour to systematize and state Christian theology Origen was a pioneer, and made the mistakes of a pioneer, especially as he was a daring pioneer. Many of his speculations were simply speculations, upon which the Church has not pronounced an opinion; and we may let them pass. In other matters, including the doctrine in question, Origen failed to reach the position which was afterwards seen to be orthodox. But Origen never intended heresy, or to set his opinions against those of the Church.³⁷ Eusebius tells us that when only seventeen or thereabouts Origen could not be persuaded to associate in prayer with a certain heretic named Paul “keeping the rule of the Church, even from boyhood, and ‘loathing’—the very word he himself uses somewhere—the teachings of the heretics.” And it is interesting to note that—to go no further than this present treatise—Origen refers to heretics and heretical teaching in a way that betrays no sympathy with them or it, but very much the contrary; and he certainly would have been distressed beyond measure, had he been told that one day he would be classed among them. For example, in XXII, 3, he speaks of “numbers of heretics” who for their own purposes say Jesus is Lord. In XXIV, 5, he refers to the “most impious conceptions” and “godless thought” contained in Tatian’s interpretation of Let there be light. In XXIX, 10, we have a vigorous passage, denouncing those who misinterpreting the Scriptures fall into error concerning the Son and the Father. In XXIX, 13, we have a clear reference to the Marcionites, who “have imagined a God other than the creator of heaven and earth because they find many such things in the Law and the Prophets and have taken offence against him as not good who utters such sentiments.” And lastly, when in V, 1, he is dealing with objections to prayer, he roundly denounces those who reject prayer completely as “downright atheists” who “deny the existence of God” or else as people “who go as far as to accept the name of God but do away with his Providence.” These passages make it clear that Origen was definitely on the side of orthodoxy as he conceived it.

Moreover, Origen was essentially a Biblical theologian, and his subordinationism sprang not only from his conception of Deity but also from what he conceived the Scriptures to teach. Texts that he quoted for this purpose were, “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28); “That they should know thee, the only true God” (John 17:3); “Why callest thou me good?” (Mark 10:18); and especially I Cor. 15:28: “And when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”³⁸ Similarly, in support of prayer to God alone he turns to Scripture.³⁹ If prayer is to be offered to the Father, it is to be offered in the name of Christ, as taught in John 16:23, 24. Christ is the high priest (Heb. 2:17, etc.), and therefore prayer is not offered apart from him. Christ is also the brother of those who pray (Heb. 2:12); and “it is not reasonable that those who have been deemed worthy to have one Father should pray to a brother.”⁴⁰ … Origen’ s mistakes will not have been in vain, if they lead us to a fresh investigation of this matter.

The second point which threw suspicion on the orthodoxy of the treatise On Prayer is one which will not cause us so much concern today. In XXXI, 3, Origen says that it has been shown by those who have treated of the matter that the bodies of heavenly beings are spherical. The sources from which he drew this conclusion are given elsewhere.⁴¹ The modern Church may be disposed to receive such a notion with humorous indulgence. But it was not so in earlier times when Origenistic controversies waxed hotly.⁴² As we shall see, the Emperor Justinian included this opinion among the nine tenets for which he anathematized Origen; and it is also to be found among the fifteen “Anathemas against Origen” which, though not properly part of the proceedings of the Fifth General Council, contain contemporaneous matter discussed and circulated at that time. The opinion, therefore, that heavenly bodies are spherical severely damaged the treatise in orthodox eyes, especially as Origen goes so far as to say that the opinion had been “demonstrated.”⁴³ …

CHARACTERISTIC IDEAS OF ORIGEN IN THE De Oratione

Besides the two particular ideas mentioned above, the treatise On Prayer also contains much of Origen’s characteristic outlook.

1. Relation between body and soul, seen and unseen, earthly and heavenly

As a Platonic idealist, the whole thought of Origen is dominated by the conviction of the inferiority of the material and visible as compared with the immaterial and invisible, and consequently by the dualism involved in this outlook. Characteristically, at the outset of the treatise⁴⁴ he quotes the words of Wisdom of Solomon 9:15.

A corruptible body weigheth down the soul,
And the earthy frame lieth heavy on a mind that is full of cares;

and he speaks of the human mind as “still imprisoned in the body.”⁴⁵ The same conviction appears also, under various forms, in his treatment of the supposed saying of the Lord: “Ask for the great things, and the little things shall be added unto you; ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly things shall be added unto you.”⁴⁶ He invariably interprets the “great” and “heavenly” things as spiritual blessings, the “little” and “earthly” things as material blessings. “It is clear,” he says,⁴⁷ “that all symbolical and typical things are ‘small’ and ‘earthly’ in comparison with the true and spiritual things.” It is thus that we are to interpret passages in the Old Testament which speak of the saints there as requesting material blessings: “In all likelihood the divine word . . . indicates the ‘heavenly’ and ‘great’ things by means of matters connected with ‘earthly’ and ‘little’ things, saying [to us], ‘Ye who desire to be spiritual ask in prayer, so that having received them as ‘heavenly’ ye may inherit the kingdom of heaven, and as ‘great’ ye may enjoy the greatest blessings; but the ‘earthly’ and ‘little’ things, of which ye are in want for bodily necessities, the Father will supply unto you in accordance with the measure of your need.” In accordance with this principle, Hannah, Hezekiah, Judith, Jonah, and the Three Holy Children, although Holy Scripture speaks of them as having received earthly benefits or deliverance, received in reality spiritual blessings which far outweighed the former.⁴⁸ We can obtain today such spiritual blessings as the Old Testament spoke of in type.⁴⁹ Earthly blessings are indeed only the “shadow” of spiritual blessings; and just as the sun may not cast a shadow at all in certain circumstances and at certain latitudes, so some spiritual blessings are accompanied by no earthly blessing.⁵⁰ Those on earth are hampered by certain impressions arising from attendant circumstances and so have a tendency to follow the worse course, but this is not so with those in heaven, who possess a soul that is perfected by reason and alien to the influence of these impressions, and make use of a body that is ethereal and absolutely pure.⁵¹ One of the benefits of prayer for us is that “the eyes of the understanding are lifted up, away from converse with earthly things and occupation with material impressions,” and therefore they “can transcend created things.”⁵² And finally this principle governs entirely Origen’s exegesis of “Give us this day our daily bread.”⁵³ As we shall see when we come to consider his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer clause by clause, the bread that Origen would have us pray for is no material substance.⁵⁴ Origen appears to indicate the philosophical basis of his conviction concerning the inferiority of material things in ch. XXI, 2. “No material or bodily thing is single; but every one of them, though reckoned single, is split up and cut in pieces and divided into several parts, having lost its unity.” And since, in accordance with Greek belief, “virtue is one, vice is many,” therefore the multiplex character of material things demonstrates this imperfection. Consistently with his general position, Origen quotes⁵⁵ from Ignatius⁵⁶ with approval the saying “nothing that is seen is good.” But Origen, nor yet Ignatius, did not push this statement to its logical conclusion. Just as Ignatius vigorously asserts, in reply to gnostic error, the reality of the Eucharist, so Origen⁵⁷ attacks “those who completely reject objects of sense, and use neither Baptism nor Eucharist.” Such persons, according to him, are influenced by the persuasions of Satan.

2. Immateriality of God

This follows from the foregoing. It was one of Origen’s firmest beliefs, and duly finds a place in this treatise, especially in ch. XXIII in connection with the words “which art in heaven.” “When the Father of the saints is said to be in heaven, we are not to suppose that he is circumscribed in bodily fashion and dwells in heaven; otherwise, if the heaven contained him, God would be found less than, because contained by, the heaven; but we must believe that by the ineffable power of his Godhead all things are contained and held together by him.” Simple folk, however, take in a literal sense phrases in Scripture which seem to assert that God is in a place; and such passages must be given their true meaning. Thus, for example, when in St. John’s Gospel the Lord speaks of “departing out of this world to the Father,” of “coming forth from God, and going to God,” and so forth, and of the Father and the Son “coming” unto the believer and “making our abode with him,” these sayings, according to Origen, “do not conceive of a local departure of the Father and the Son to him who loves the word of Jesus, nor are they to be taken in a local sense.” Similarly, the words at the end of the same Gospel, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to the Father” are to be taken in a mystical sense as an ascent of the mind rather than of the body. Again, we cannot take literally the passage (Gen. 3:8) which speaks of the Lord God “walking in the garden.” Is a literal garden so much larger than God that it contains him as he “walks” in it? We are, rather, to compare the passage “I will dwell in them, and walk in them” (II Cor. 6:16). God’s “walking” in the garden is of the same kind as his “walking” in the saints. And, on the other hand, every sinner, like Adam and Eve, “hides” himself from the presence of God, avoids his visitation, and shuns open speech with him, just as Cain “went out from the presence of God” (Gen. 4:16). Again, in ch. XXV, Origen teaches that “the kingdom of God” is immanent and spiritual. The Saviour says (Luke 17:20, 21), “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, Lo, there! but the kingdom of God is within you”; and to this Origen adds the saying in Deuteronomy (30:14), “for the word is very nigh, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.” This is comparable to the saying quoted above: “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Every saint who takes God as his king and obeys the spiritual laws of God dwells in himself as in a well-ordered city. By God’s kingdom is meant the blessed state of the reason and the ordered condition of wise thoughts.⁵⁸

3. Angels, heavenly powers and departed saints

It is not surprising that Origen, for whom the unseen world was the great reality, should give the place he does to the ministry of angels and of those who have passed within the veil. Chapter XI is devoted to this thought. Angels ministered to Jesus when he was on earth, and no doubt they still minister to him as he carries out his work for the salvation of men. Moreover, Scripture speaks of the angels in heaven rejoicing over the sinner that repenteth, and of the ministry of Raphael, as recorded in the Book of Tobit, in helping forward the prayers of Tobit and Sarah. So, according to Origen, we may assume that angels, who watch over things and minister to God, are at times brought into the presence of this or that man who is praying in order that they may join in his requests. Each one’s guardian angel also joins in our prayers and gives us his aid.

With regard to the ministry of departed saints, Origen’s line of thought is as follows. Love to one’s neighbour, we are taught in God’s Word, is one of the chiefest virtues. Care for the members of the body, the Church, is a mark of that love: and it is not only by those in this life that such love is exercised. Rather, “we must hold that the saints who have fallen asleep before us exercise it towards those who are struggling in this life much more than do they who are compassed about with human weakness and are struggling in company with feebler folk.”

Similar thoughts are to be found in ch. XXXI, 5, 6, 7; only here it is not a question of the individual and his need of assistance, but of the Church when assembled for worship. On such occasions there is an invisible, as well as a visible, company present. Each worshipper’s guardian angel is there to help him whom he is charged to guard, so that there is a double church, the one of men, the other of angels; and there are present also the spirits of those who are fallen asleep. The spot, therefore, where believers come together in one place, has a peculiar sacredness. There is a power, not of this world but derived from things invisible, present to that assembly, which is not to the same extent to be found in prayer offered by the individual believer.

4. Evil spiritual powers

Belief in evil spiritual powers is correlative to the foregoing, and like it is based on Scriptural language. With Paul, Origen is convinced that “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”⁵⁹ In XXVI, 3 he takes up the concluding words in this sentence. Why are we told to pray, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” if in heaven there are these malevolent powers opposed to the will of God? An answer to this is put forward in XXVI, 5, 6. “The mind is its own place.” He who has his citizenship in heaven, though literally on earth, is no longer of the earth, but of heaven and the heavenly world. Similarly, the spiritual hosts of wickedness that still reside in the heavenly places have their citizenship on earth, and because of their evil disposition dwell no longer in heaven; for they have fallen in mind with him who fell from heaven after the manner of lightning. Again, just as in an assembly of Christians for worship there is a twofold company, of holy men and of blessed angels, so there may be also in such an assembly a double gathering of a different sort, of wicked men and of bad angels: for church assemblies are not entirely composed of men genuinely devoted to God, but also, it may be, include some who have given themselves up to angels of the devil through their sins and wicked disregard of God.⁶⁰ Finally, Origen finds no difficulty in the concluding words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from the evil one.” The presence and power of a personal devil was well within the content of his beliefs. He finds Scriptural warrant for it in the account of the temptations of Job, and those of the Saviour, and in the words of Paul already quoted—“the fiery darts of the evil one.”

5. Ascetic view of life

That Origen lived a disciplined and ascetic life is plainly stated for us by Eusebius.⁶¹ At any rate in his earlier days, “he continued to live like a philosopher, putting aside everything that might lead to youthful lusts; all day long his discipline was to perform labours of no light character, and the greater part of the night he devoted himself to studying the divine Scriptures; and he persevered, as far as possible, in the most philosophic manner of life, at one time disciplining himself by fasting, at another measuring out the time for sleep, which he was careful to take, never on a couch, but on the floor. . . . He is said, for example, to have walked for many years without using a shoe of any description, yea more, to have refrained for a great many years from the use of wine and all except necessary food, so that he actually incurred the risk of undermining and destroying his constitution.”

The treatise On Prayer, though not concerned with prescribing any particular mode of life, is entirely consistent with the description of its author as given by Eusebius. It is the work of a man for whom, as we have pointed out above, the body and bodily things held a negligible place. The conviction that the life of the spirit is everything is expressed in an eloquent passage in XVII, 1. “If spiritual things are present to us and we are being enlightened by God in the complete possession of what is truly good, we shall not waste words about the paltry thing that is the shadow. For all material and bodily things, of whatever kind they may be, have the value of an unsubstantial and feeble shadow, and can in no way be compared with the saving and holy gifts of the God of the universe. What sort of comparison can there be between bodily riches and the riches in all utterance and in all wisdom? Who that is not a madman would compare health of flesh and bones with a healthy mind and a robust soul and a balanced reason?” Again, in ch. XXIX, on “Bring us not into temptation,” life is depicted as what Keats calls “a vale of soul-making.” The whole of human life upon earth is a temptation. No one can escape from this discipline, rich or poor, high or low, healthy or sick. In this way God in his mercy shows us our weakness that we may discover his power, and gives us satiety of sin that we may be purified and come to hate what we formerly desired and retrace the path towards holiness. Even when temptation is not present, “in the times between successive temptations, we ought to take a firm stand against what is impending, and prepare ourselves for anything that may possibly happen, so that, whatever it may be, we shall not be proved unready, but shall be made manifest to have disciplined ourselves with the utmost care.”⁶² In addition to this general teaching there are also a few particular references which indicate the ascetic trend of Origen’s mind. Prayer “as we ought” is hindered unless in the performance of the ineffable mysteries of marriage due regard is paid to gravity, infrequency, and the absence of passion.⁶³ “It is a question whether it is a holy and pure thing to intercede with God in the place where sexual intercourse occurs—I do not mean unlawful intercourse, but that which is allowed by the apostolic word ‘by way of permission, not of commandment.’ For if it is not possible to give oneself to prayer as one ought, unless given over to it by consent for a season, perhaps the same consideration should be applied, if possible, to the place.”⁶⁴ He who has perceived what the beauty of the heavenly Bride and Bridegroom is will be ashamed to honour even with the same name of beauty the bodily beauty of woman or boy or man. Flesh does not contain beauty in the true sense of the word, seeing that all of it is shameful.⁶⁵ But a more modest expression of self-control is found in XXVIII, 2: “We are debtors in what we owe to ourselves in so using the body that we do not waste its strength through love of pleasure.”

6. Allegory

Speaking of the treatise On Prayer, Westcott⁶⁶ says that “no writing of Origen is more free from his characteristic faults.” … This is no doubt partly due to the fact that he is treating a subject, not commenting directly upon a Biblical text. Occasionally, however, in this treatise he betrays his penchant for this kind of thing. In XXVI, 3, in the petition “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” “heaven” and “earth” are allegorized as “Christ” and “the Church” respectively. The text in Proverbs (15:17), “Better a dinner of herbs where friendship and grace are than a stalled ox and hatred therewith,” is interpreted as follows: The simple-minded Christian who cannot receive the stronger and more important points of doctrine, is to be preferred to him who though more skilful and quick-sighted yet fails to see clearly what concerns the peace and harmony of the whole, and indulges in high-flown words exalted against the knowledge of God.⁶⁷ When the three men turned in and lodged with Abraham and partook of food with him (Gen. 18:2–6), perhaps this is to be taken quite figuratively, for the saints are able to partake on occasion of spirtual and reasonable food with diviner powers, and the angels in turn are glad and nourished therewith and co-operate the more readily with him who nourishes them with the nutriment of teachings formerly prepared.⁶⁸ …⁶⁹ In XXVII, 14, Origen does not doubt that there are hidden meanings connected with certain Jewish ordinances such as the feast of the seven weeks and of the seventh month, and with the seven years of the freedom of the Hebrew servants and with the Jubile, and so forth, but these are part of the Father’s unsearchable judgments and his ways past finding out, and are known only to the mind of Christ, who has contemplated the Father’s will concerning his ordinances in all ages. A similar thought—that the inner mysteries underlying certain ordinances are things beyond man in this life—appears again afterwards in XXVII, 16. But Origen’s most characteristic effort in the matter of exegesis in this treatise is to be found in XXIX, 9. According to the LXX of Canticles 2:9, 10, the beloved is to be found “glancing through the meshes” (“he sheweth himself through the lattice,” Revised Version). The beloved is, of course, the Saviour. The meshes are the meshes of temptation, which the Saviour entered for the sake of those who were caught in them aforetime. He now promises deliverance to his bride, the Church, when he says: “Rise up, come, my near one, my fair one, my dove.” …

7. Different grades of hearers

One of Origen’s most frequently expressed opinions is that there are two classes of Christians, the less mature and the more mature, to whom respectively teaching must be adapted according to their spiritual capacity to receive it. This idea he derived ultimately from the New Testament.⁷⁰ And he found it suited admirably his style of Biblical interpretation. The “babes in Christ” could receive and understand the plain, literal meaning of Scripture; but the inner, allegorical meaning could be imparted only to those who were spiritually “fullgrown.” This idea finds its place in the treatise On Prayer, as in all his writings. In II, 4, he suggests that even John the Baptist observed such a distinction, imparting certain teaching about prayer to some only of his followers. “Simple folk,”⁷¹ when they read “Our Father, which art in heaven,” imagine that God is in a place; whereas this, and other passages open to a like misinterpretation, must be taken “in a loftier and more spiritual sense.”⁷² The discussion on “the daily bread” also gives Origen ample opportunity to express the idea of classes of hearers. The Word, which nourishes us is varied and diverse, for not all are able to be nourished with “the solidity and vigorous force of the divine teachings.”⁷³ Those who are “more perfect,” when they read of “bread,” will understand it of “the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers did eat, and died.” Then Origen goes on to quote I Cor. 3:1–3 and Heb. 5:12–14, and in their light to interpret Rom. 14:2: “One man hath faith to eat all things: but he that is weak eateth herbs.” This saying is not principally concerned with bodily nourishment, but rather with the words of God that nourish the soul: the stronger man is able to partake of all teachings, the weaker and less perfect is content with simpler instruction. A similar thought is found in XXVII, 9: “When the word of God is given either as ‘milk’ suitably for ‘babes,’ or as ‘herbs’ suitably for them that are ‘weak,’ or as ‘flesh’ seasonably for those who are contesting, each of those who are nourished, in proportion as he has offered himself to the word, can accomplish this or that thing, or becomes such or such a person.”

On the other hand, in another passage in this context, Origen betrays an anxiety, based no doubt upon experience, that dangers may lurk for those who pursue such higher interpretations, for they may give rise to “high-flown words” proclaiming “a doctrine foreign to the Father of our Lord Jesus who has given the Law and the Prophets” (the followers of Marcion seem to be intended). And this is indicated in Prov. 15:17: “Better a dinner of herbs where friendship and grace are (i.e., simpler teachings) than a stalled ox and hatred therewith (i.e., heretical presumptions).”

8. Free Will

That man and all creatures of reason possess free will is a fundamental point in Origen’s whole theological system, and is affirmed in all his writings.⁷⁴ He believed in a pre-mundane Fall, that is to say, that in the transcendent world a conscious act of will on the part of spiritual beings took place, whereby they fell from their high estate; and, further, that the return to God, in the case of such beings, will be achieved also by an act of free will. Moreover, since for Origen the action of God upon human souls, in respect of their redemption and uplift, is always educative and disciplinary, it follows that God must have free creatures to respond to such education. It is not surprising, then, that when Origen is discussing the difficulties concerning prayer which his friends had brought to his notice (see p. 250), he should place in the forefront his reasons for believing in free will.⁷⁵ These will be examined later on in this volume.⁷⁶ Towards the end of the treatise⁷⁷ the same conviction receives characteristic expression: “I verily believe that God orders every rational soul with a view to its eternal life, and that it always maintains its free will, and of its own motion either mounts ever higher and higher until it reaches the pinnacle of virtue, or on the contrary descends through carelessness to this or that excess of wickedness.” Then, in this latter case, after being glutted with sin, men may “hate what they formerly welcomed, and so when they are healed they can possess more securely the health that comes to their souls by being healed.” In XXIX, 15, we are told that “God does not wish that good should come to anyone as of necessity, but of free will.”

9. Universalism

There are only a few allusions to this doctrine in the treatise. In XXVII, 15, Origen says that “in the ages to come God will ‘shew the riches of his grace in kindness’:⁷⁸ when the greatest sinner, who has spoken ill of the Holy Spirit, and is under the power of sin throughout the present age, will, I know not how, be under treatment from beginning to end in the ensuing age that is to come.” It is implied that this “treatment” will be successful. Purification after this life is over is referred to in XXIX, 14, and in the following section the cleansing of even the most reprobate sinners.

10. Church Ordinances and Worship

As a general rule Origen has little to say about these in his writings, and the present treatise is no exception, the greater part of which is concerned with private, individual prayer to God. Here and there, however, there are a few references to the visible order of the Church. In V, 1, Origen, when roundly denouncing certain persons who think that they ought not to pray, says that “the champions of this opinion” (which Origen attributes to the Evil One) “are those who completely reject objects of sense, and use neither Baptism nor Eucharist.” In XV, 4, he speaks of those who have received through regeneration the spirit of adoption that they may be called sons of God: but the reference to Baptism is not actually made explicit. In XXVIII, 4, Origen speaks of the responsibilities of the several orders of ministers. “There is a certain debt . . . due from a deacon, and another from a presbyter, but the debt due from a bishop is the heaviest, since it is demanded of him by the Saviour of the whole Church, and retribution follows if it be not paid.” Later on in the same chapter (sections 9 and 10) occurs the passage, to which reference is made elsewhere,⁷⁹ about priestly absolution. Chapter XXXI, 5–7, is the only passage that treats of prayer in the public assembly of the Church. In this Origen touches on the superiority of public over private prayer, as arising from the probability that in the former there are also present invisible, angelic powers and spirits of departed church members, not to speak of the power of the Lord and Saviour himself. But the passage throws no light upon the nature of the worship or the order of service.

ANALYSIS OF THE TREATISE
Introduction
Chapters I and II

What is impossible for man alone is made possible by the grace of God in Christ. Paul, who says that we know not what we ought to pray for as we ought, also says that the Spirit helps us to pray. The insufficiency of man’s power was perceived by the disciple who besought the Lord for teaching on prayer.

Discussion of Prayer in General
Chapters III to XVII
THE WORDS EUCHE AND PROSEUCHE
Chapters III and IV
OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER
Chapter V

(a) By those who reject God altogether, or at any rate the idea of Providence.

(b) By those who though they accept God and Providence yet maintain that everything is known to God beforehand and predetermined by him.

ANSWER TO THESE OBJECTIONS
Chapters VI to VIII, 1

(a) Free will is proved by the power of motion: to deny free will to man would mean that he was neither a living creature nor a rational being.

(b) In every day life we act on the assumption that we and others possess free will.

ADVANTAGES OF PRAYER
Chapters VIII, 2 to X, 2

The Scriptures are opposed to the foregoing objectors in that they speak in many places of the blessings that flow from prayer.

THE ANGELS, AS WELL AS CHRIST, PRAY WITH US
Chapter XI
OUR WHOLE LIFE OUGHT TO BE A PRAYER
Chapters XII to XIII, 1

(a) The meaning of “Pray without ceasing.”

(b) The example of Jesus in prayer.

EXAMPLES FROM SCRIPTURE OF ANSWERED PRAYER
Chapter XIII, 2

Examples given are Hannah, Hezekiah, Mordecai, and Esther, Judith, the Three Holy Children, Jonah.

PRAYER: (a) CONTENT (b) FORM (c) TO WHOM ADDRESSED
Chapters XIV to XVII

(a) What we ought to ask for is made clear in the saying: “Ask for the great things, and the little things shall be added unto you” (chs. XIV, 1, XVI,1–XVII, 2).

(b) Forms of prayer: these are indicated in the four expressions, “supplications,” “prayers,” “intercessions,” “thanksgivings,” in I Timothy 2:1 (ch. XIV, 2–5).

Discussion of the Lord’s Prayer
Chapters XVIII to XXX
THE TEXTS OF THE LORD’S PRAYER
Chapter XVIII, 2, 3

Matthew and Luke do not hand down the same prayer.

THE INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAYER IN MATTHEW
Chapters XIX to XXI

Jesus teaches us where and how we ought to pray:

(a) Not in the streets or in the synagogues (chs. XIX, XX).

(b) Nor with vain repetitions (ch. XXI).

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
Chapters XXII, XXIII
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
Chapter XXIV
THY KINGDOM COME
Chapter XXV
THY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN, SO ON EARTH
Chapter XXVI
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
Chapter XXVII

(a) By “bread” the Logos according to John is to be understood.

(b) The word for, “daily” (ἐπιούσιος) is to be derived from οὐσία, not from ἐπίεναι.

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS
AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS
Chapter XXVIII

(a) We have obligations to men and to God.

(b) We are debtors all the time; similarly others are in debt to us.

BRING US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
BUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE
Chapters XXIX, XXX

(a) All life is a temptation.

(b) Therefore the petition to be delivered from it is that we should not be overcome by it.

(d) The advantage of temptation is clear.

(e) But also the petition to be delivered from it is well grounded.

Supplement to General Discussion on Prayer
Chapters XXXI to XXXIII
DISPOSITION AND POSTURE IN PRAYER
Chapter XXXI, 1–3
THE PLACE WHERE ONE OUGHT TO PRAY
Chapter XXXI, 4–7
THE SUPERIORITY OF PRAYER TOWARDS THE EAST
Chapter XXXII
THE SUBJECTS OF PRAYER
Chapter XXXIII
Conclusion
Chapter XXXIV
ORIGEN’S CONCEPTION OF PRAYER IN GENERAL

The theological starting point in Origen’s treatment of the subject of Prayer is to be found in the absolute transcendence of God and the impossibility that man can know him or his will unaided.⁸⁰ “What man shall know the counsel of God? Or who shall conceive what the Lord willeth? Hardly do we divine the things that are on earth. But the things that are in the heavens, who ever traced out?”⁸¹ Of ourselves, therefore, we do not know what we ought to say, when we pray, or how we should dispose ourselves to pray. But revelation has come to our assistance. The Scriptures tell us “what we ought” to pray about, and “how we ought” to pray. More particularly, there is the passage which declares that the Spirit himself maketh intercession to God on our behalf, as we address ourselves to prayer.⁸² And Origen also recalls how one of Christ’s disciples, recognizing his human weakness and ignorance in the matter of prayer, said to the Master, “Lord, teach us to pray.”⁸³ Therefore, as he begins his difficult task, Origen knows that he needs the illumination of the Father, the teaching of the first-begotten Word, and the operation of the Spirit, if he is to treat worthily so weighty a matter, and accordingly he opens with a prayer that he may be able to speak rightly about prayer and to interpret rightly the prayers that are recorded in the Gospels.⁸⁴

This introduction displays at the outset what is the outstanding feature of the treatise On Prayer and of all Origen’s works, namely, their unvarying Biblical character. No one else in the early Church had so intimate and profound a knowledge of Holy Scripture or was so unremitting in using it as the basis of all his teaching. It is not surprising, therefore, that with this strong Biblical background Origen should go on to speak of some of the words used for prayer in the Greek Bible, Old and New Testaments. In point of fact, however, this is the least valuable part of the treatise. The discussion in chs. III and IV on the words euche and proseuche fails to throw much light on the difference between them. The passage seems to have been hastily composed, and to be based upon reminiscences of certain texts rather than on a careful study of the terms in question.⁸⁵ Of greater value is Origen’s discussion, in XIV, 2–5, of the four words used in I Tim. 2:1, namely, “supplication” (δέησις), “prayer” (προσευχή), “intercession” (ἔντευξις) and “thanksgiving” (ἐυχαριστία). He notes, correctly, that “supplication” is a petition offered for the obtaining of some particular thing, and that ἔντευξις (which does not necessarily mean what the English word “intercession” does—prayer in relation to others) involves the notion of a free or “bold” approach to God. “‘Intercession,’ he says, is a request to God for certain things made by one who possesses more than usual confidence.” Origen also notes the fact that “prayer”(προσευχή) is a word reserved for address to God; whereas the other three, “supplication,” “intercession,” “thanksgiving,” may not unsuitably be addressed to holy men also.

But “prayer,” according to Origen, is not simply asking God for something, nor are its benefits to be confined to the obtaining of what we ask for. On this point he is insistent: and indeed some of the most eloquent sentences in the treatise are devoted to expressing it. Great benefit, he says, results simply from a proper disposition or preparation for prayer. “Without doubt he whose mind is set on prayer is in some measure profited merely by the settled condition involved in praying, when he has disposed himself to approach God and speak in his presence as to one who watches over him and is present.”⁸⁶ “The greatest benefits result from the attitude of, and preparation for, prayer, considered simply by themselves, of the man who has dedicated himself to God.”⁸⁷ The calling to mind of a wise and famous man may check evil impulses and stir up to emulation. How much more profitable is it to recollect God, in whom we have put our trust, who knows the secrets of our heart, and is present with us!⁸⁸ And not only in the mere disposition for prayer is there a looking up to God, there is also a looking away from earthly things and bodily impressions. Quoting the words of the Psalmists, “Unto thee have I lifted up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heaven,”⁸⁹ and “Unto thee have I lifted up my soul, O God,”⁹⁰ Origen goes on to say, “When the eyes of the understanding are lifted up, away from converse with earthly things and occupation with material impressions, and when they are elevated so high that they can transcend created things and fix themselves solely upon the contemplation of God and of reverent and seemly intercourse with him who hears, it must needs be that the eyes themselves derive the greatest benefit, when ‘with unveiled face they reflect as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and are transformed into the same image from glory to glory.’⁹¹ . . . Moreover, when the soul is lighted up and follows the spirit and severs itself from the body . . . it must needs be that laying aside the nature of a soul it becomes spiritual.”⁹² He who prays must follow the precept of Christ,⁹³ and enter into his own inner chamber, shutting himself in upon the riches laid up in store, “the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”⁹⁴ He must never bend outside or gape at the things outside, but “shut every door of the faculties of sense, so that he may not be enticed by the impressions of sense and their image may not penetrate into his mind.”⁹⁵

But the mind of him who sets himself to pray has not merely to be free from sense impressions. He must also put away all angry or licentious thoughts.⁹⁶ He must bear no malice or hatred in his heart. Thus he will observe the commandment of the Saviour when he says, “If ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against anyone.”⁹⁷ By such preparation for prayer it is clear that we have already obtained the greatest benefits. And, further, he must not approach God in prayer with a heart that is secretly discontented, grumbling against Providence and murmuring at its lot. Those who do this are like wicked servants who, though they do not openly cavil at their master’s orders, nevertheless among themselves mutter their displeasure at them. We are warned against this sort of thing in Deuteronomy⁹⁸ in the saying, “Beware that there be not a hidden word in thine heart, a lawless thing.” On the other hand, it is written of one who was sorely tempted by the trials of life to murmur:⁹⁹ “In all these happenings did not Job sin with his lips before God.”

This emphasis upon contemplation of God, apart from petition, and its benefits to the soul, is characteristic of one aspect—the mystical side—of Origen, which has been recently the object of numerous studies.¹⁰⁰ By its means, he says, by this mental catharsis, he who prays becomes more capable of union with God, and participates in the prayer of our Advocate, the Word of God, who stands in the midst even of those who know him not, and never fails the prayer of anyone.¹⁰¹ No doubt, for Origen, it was a stage on the way towards the heavenly vision, the epopteia of the Mysteries, which was and is the goal of all mystical aspiration. But it would be a complete mistake to suppose that Origen is unpractical and merely visionary in his treatment of the subject of prayer. Quite the contrary. It has been said that mystics are among the most practical of people, and Origen appears to be an example of this fact, if it be a fact. For few writers have more definitely connected prayer with life, the vision of God with daily work, than he has in this treatise. He discusses¹⁰² the meaning of Paul’s command: “Pray without ceasing.”¹⁰³ And it is to be noted that he makes no attempt to evade the difficulty evolved in it. Actual prayer, he says, ought to be engaged in not less than three times every day, citing the examples of Daniel¹⁰⁴ and Peter¹⁰⁵ and referring to relevant passages in the Psalms. We can, however, regard “Pray without ceasing” as a practicable saying if we include the performance of good deeds and the fulfilling of commandments as part of the prayer. “That man ‘prays without ceasing’ who combines with the prayer the needful deeds and the prayer with the fitting actions.” In other words, prayer and action based on it are not to be regarded as two things but as one, joined indissolubly together. Thus we can “speak of the whole life of the saint as one great unbroken prayer.” No other saying about prayer links up prayer so closely with practical duties. It is not as if we said laborare est orare or orare est laborare, as if the one could be regarded as an equivalent substitute for the other; but rather that both form part of a connected whole. Nor is it a saying which strives to balance the two sides of the Christian life—the devotional and the practical—and secure a fitting proportion between them: its purpose is rather to infuse new meaning into each of them, when it is shown that they are so interrelated as to form an integrated whole. Later on in the treatise,¹⁰⁶ in speaking about the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, he returns to this thought, which was evidently for him no passing phrase. “Do not let us think,” he says, “that we are taught to say actual words at a certain fixed time of prayer. If we understand what has been said above in our discussion about ‘praying without ceasing,’ our whole life as we ‘pray without ceasing’¹⁰⁷ shall say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven’:¹⁰⁸ its ‘citizenship’ shall in no wise be on earth but in every way ‘in heaven,’¹⁰⁹ which is the ‘throne’¹¹⁰ of God, for the kingdom of heaven is seated in all those who ‘bear the image of the heavenly,’¹¹¹ and are therefore themselves heavenly.”

Origen’s treatment of the practical benefits to be derived from prayer, as apart from its contemplative side, is enriched and fortified by the examples he gives from the Bible of the personal advantages of prayer. In XIII, 2, he names, for example, Hannah, Hezekiah, Mordecai and Esther, Judith, the Three Holy Children, and Jonah. In all these cases the results of prayer were manifest and notable. And he prefaces them by reference to the supreme example,¹¹² Jesus, who prayed and did not pray in vain, obtaining what he asked for, and on one occasion testifying to the Father “I knew that thou hearest me always.”¹¹³

If, as we have noted,¹¹⁴ Origen begins his treatise with the thought of an absolutely transcendent God, he certainly does not leave us baffled and helpless when faced with God’s awful remoteness. Origen, for all his transcendence, was no Deist. It is indeed rather from the intellectual aspect that he speaks of the vast gulf that separates God from men. Unaided, man can in no wise apprehend divine wisdom. But his doctrine of revelation is as clear and unhesitating as his doctrine of transcendence. What is impossible for man alone becomes possible through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.¹¹⁵ Through these channels mediation, illumination, grace, stream down from him who is above all. So it is that Origen’s doctrine of prayer, and its benefits, is warm, rich and personal. To reject prayer, he says, is the tenet either of those who are downright atheists and deny the existence of God, or else of those who go as far as to accept the name of God, but do away with Providence.¹¹⁶ On the other hand, the prayers commended by him are the prayers of those “who are confident in themselves that they stand before and speak to God as one who is present and hears.”¹¹⁷ It is evident that Origen was touched to the quick by the opinions subversive of prayer which his friends had communicated to him.¹¹⁸ And this was so because Origen the intellectualist, the critic, the speculator, was also Origen the mystic, the devoted disciple and the practical Christian. The latter aspect of him is, naturally enough, prominent in this treatise, which for this reason is indispensable if we are to form a balanced view of the man as a whole.

Where Origen falls short of the richness of Bible teaching about prayer is in connection with the range of things for which the Christian ought to pray. As a Platonist he is convinced concerning the inferiority of the material world. It is shadowy, un- substantial and of small account as compared with the true, substantial and abiding invisible realities. Consequently, the things that we can see, hear and touch with the bodily senses, indeed the whole life of the body, are comparatively of little moment. And when we approach the invisible God in prayer, it is not for these bodily things that we are to pray, but for the spiritual only. As we have noted elsewhere,¹¹⁹ it is thus that Origen interprets the saying traditionally supposed to come from the Lord: “Ask for the great things, and the little things shall be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly things shall be added unto you”¹²⁰—the “little” and “earthly” things being, of course, the things of the body. Accordingly, “earnest seekers after spiritual life in Christ” should “turn away from prayer for trivial and earthly things,” and pursue instead things mystical, of which the aforesaid are types.¹²¹ The Old Testament, indeed, tells of material benefits bestowed upon the saints in answer to their prayers; but these only foreshadow the greater, immaterial blessings that flow, under the New Covenant, to the Christian through prayer. If Hannah in her barrenness was given a child in answer to her prayer,¹²² so also “souls that have long been sterile, perceiving the barrenness of their own reason and the sterility of their own mind, have by the Holy Spirit through persistent prayer conceived and given birth to saving words.”¹²³ Similarly, the deliverances from bodily dangers and death, vouchsafed to Hezekiah, Esther, Judith, the Three Holy Children, and Jonah, are but types of deliverances today from the spiritual hosts of wickedness. It is on these lines that, in XVI, 2, Origen answers an objection that may be made to his treatment of this matter, namely that the Bible tells of things pertaining to the body as being granted to prayer, and the Saviour speaks of such things as being “added” unto us. Take an illustration, he says, from ordinary life. “If some one were to give us a bodily object of any kind whatsoever, we should not say that such a one bestowed upon us the shadow of the bodily object. For in giving the bodily object he did not design to give two things, the object and its shadow, but the design of the giver was to give the bodily object: it followed, however, that with the gift of the object we also received its shadow. Similarly, when our understanding has grown in stature and we note what are the gifts which are preeminently given us by God, we shall say that bodily things are the most natural accompaniments of the great and heavenly gifts.”

In XVII, 1, Origen continues the same line of thought, and this time employs an illustration from the sun-dial. In some latitudes and seasons, he says, the gnomon of the dial casts no shadow. This causes no concern to the man who rejoices in the sunlight. “If a man who seeks the rays of the sun has this indispensable thing, he is neither rejoiced nor grieved by the presence or absence of bodily shadows. . . . So also, if spiritual things are present to us and we are being enlightened by God in the complete possession of what is truly good, we shall not waste words about the paltry thing that is the shadow. For all material and bodily things, of whatever kind they may be, have the value of an unsubstantial and feeble shadow, and can in no way be compared with the saving and holy gifts of the God of the universe.” Likewise, the petitionary part of the model prayer outlined in XXXIII, 1, is to be concerned with “great and heavenly things.”

This point of view is carried by Origen to its logical conclusion in his treatment of the petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.”¹²⁴ “Some suppose,” he says, “that we are told to pray concerning material bread.” But the opinion is false and must be refuted. The Lord who has taught us elsewhere to pray for “great” and “heavenly” things cannot forget here his own teaching, and command us to ask the Father for a “small” and “earthly” thing. The true interpretation, according to Origen, is along the lines of certain sayings in John, ch. 6, as for example: “Work not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which abideth unto eternal life.”¹²⁵ This spiritualizing of what seems on the face of it to be a petition for bodily sustenance is comparable with Clement of Alexandria’s treatment of the “riches” which the young man in the Gospels was told to give up. “So with regard to the rich, who shall hardly enter the kingdom, we must understand the word in the spirit of disciples, and not clumsily, rudely, or literally; for it is not spoken thus.”¹²⁶ …

Towards the end of the treatise Origen turns to particulars concerning the posture and the subjects of prayer. When we are praying, he says, “that attitude in which the hands are stretched out and eyes lifted up is to be preferred to all others.”¹²⁷ This is an image of the qualities suitable to the soul and mind, by virtue of which the soul is intent upon its object and the mind directed to God. Standing (which Origen assumes to be the normal posture in prayer) is also a symbol, signifying that the reason is not earth-bound but lifted up towards the Lord of all. There is, however, a kind of prayer which demands that we should kneel.¹²⁸ “When one is about to accuse oneself of his sins before God, supplicating him for healing therefrom and for forgiveness thereof,” then kneeling “is a symbol of the man who is abject and submissive.” But it is not clear if this refers to a particular prayer of an especially penitentiary character or to the penitential part of the model prayer that he outlines later on.¹²⁹ In praying, we should turn towards the east.¹³⁰ It is the quarter in which the sun rises: therefore prayer in that direction is symbolical of the soul looking to the rising of the true light.

Prayer, says Origen, ought to fall into four parts according to subject.¹²⁹ First, in the beginning or preamble, God is to be glorified through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Next comes thanksgiving, both general and particular. In the third place comes confession of sin, followed by prayer for deliverance from the habit of sin and for forgiveness of the past. In the fourth place, he who prays should “add his request for great and heavenly things, his own and general, and also for his family and his dearest.” Finally, the prayer should end as it began, by glorifying God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Characteristically, Origen bases these subjects of prayer on Holy Scripture, and gives examples therefrom of each of the four subjects.

ORIGEN’S TREATMENT OF THE LORD’S PRAYER
Chapters XVIII to XXX

As a textual scholar Origen carefully distinguishes between the forms of the Prayer as found in Matthew and Luke, respectively. It might seem, he says, to most people that these Evangelists record the same prayer. But he rejects this point of view on two grounds: first, on account of their differences; and, secondly, because the prayers are found in two different contexts: Matthew placing it in the Sermon on the Mount, Luke as the answer to a disciple who asked the Lord, “Teach us to pray.” So he thinks that perhaps the preferable view of the matter is that “the prayers are different, though they have some parts common.”¹³¹

It is characteristic also that before he speaks about the Prayer itself he should expatiate on the introduction to the Prayer in Matthew, with its teaching on how we are to pray—this point being a feature of this treatise. Indeed Origen himself reminds us that he has already dealt with the manner of our approach to prayer. Accordingly he has a good deal to say about the Lord’s teaching concerning the manner of praying, as given in Matthew 6:5–9, upon which he comments at large in his usual discursive manner.

The texts, as given by Origen, in XVIII, 2, are, with one trifling exception,¹³² identical with those that underlie the rendering of the Revised Version. So the prayers are as follows:

Our Father which art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And bring us not into temptation.
But deliver us from the evil one.¹³³

and

Father,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins;
For we ourselves also forgive every one who is indebted to us.
And bring us not into temptation.¹³⁴

There is no reference to the variant “Let thy Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us” (in place of “Thy kingdom come” or “Hallowed be thy name”) which is attested by Origen’s disciple Gregory of Nyssa among others, nor, of course, to the much later doxology. After dealing with the Introduction to the Prayer as given in Matthew, Origen proceeds to comment, at varying lengths, upon each petition separately.

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
Chapters XXII, XXIII

Origen notes from his express examination of the Scriptures for this point that to address God as Father in prayer is a distinctively Christian attitude, as distinguished from the usage of the Old Testament, where indeed God is often styled “Father” and men his “sons,” but not in a prayer. The use of “Father” in prayer by our Lord indicates a confident, firm and unchangeable affirmation as concerning our relationship to God. But a caveat is necessary. Sonship, according to Origen, is not simply a status, it involves character, good works, and a state of progressive conformation to the divine image. On the other hand, “he that doeth sin”¹³⁵ has within him the seed of the devil, and so long as it is inherent in the soul he cannot “right himself.” It is when the Word of God dwells in him that it is possible for the works of the devil to be destroyed, for the evil seed to be done away with, and for him to become the child of God.

The words “which art in heaven” give Origen an opportunity which he is by no means loath to take of denying that God is circumscribed in bodily fashion and dwells locally in heaven. If this were so, it would follow that God was less than, because contained by, “heaven.” Such an idea arises from a too literal interpretation of these and other words in the Bible on the part of simple folk. But these passages must be understood in a manner that befits grand and spiritual conceptions of God. Origen then proceeds to mention some of them and to expound them in a spiritual sense. And he points out further that to suppose that God is in a place after the manner of a body leads to the most impious opinions, namely, that he is a body, and therefore divisible, material and corruptible. This vigorous passage shows us Origen at his best as an interpreter of Scripture. … on the score of his teaching that God must not be thought of as possessing anything like a human form.¹³⁶

HALLOWED BE THY NAME
Chapter XXIV

As arising out of this petition, Origen asks three questions: (1) Can a man ask that the name of God be hallowed, as if it had not been hallowed? (2) What is the “name” of the Father? (3) What is its hallowing? The second question is answered first. A “name” is “a compendious appellation manifesting the individual quality of the being named. For example, Paul the apostle has a certain individual quality; a quality of soul, which makes it of a certain kind; a quality of mind, which makes him capable of contemplating certain kinds of things; a quality of body, which makes it of a certain kind. The individuality of these qualities, which is incommunicable to another (for no being is exactly similar to Paul) is indicated by the name ‘Paul.’ ” To apply this to God—the idea that we are taught to have within us of God is that he is holy, and this conception of God is manifested to us in his several actions, when “he creates, foresees, judges, chooses, forsakes, receives, turns away from, deems worthy of honour, punishes each one according to his deserts.” In this way the individual quality of God is characterized for us: and we have what is called the “name of God” in the Scriptures. Anyone who connects the idea of God with things that are not fitting “takes the name of the Lord in vain.” On the other hand, he who by his words refreshes, encourages or edifies the soul of another, is able to do this because of the “name”: for the character of God is seen in his action upon men for their own good and that of their fellows. So we come to question (3), What is the “hallowing” of God’s name? Origen quotes Ps. 34:3: “Let us exalt his name together.” We are commanded here, he says, “to haste unto the true and lofty knowledge of the distinctive being of God.” “To exalt the name of God” is when “a man partaking of Deity exalts that very power of God of which he has partaken.” The answer to question (1) is left to the end of the chapter. When we say, “Hallowed be thy name,” though the verb is in the imperative mood, the meaning is optative “may thy name be hallowed.” This usage, says Origen, occurs frequently in the Septuagint. Tatian, in fact, imagined wrongly, from its frequent use, that it was always so, and accordingly fell into error concerning expressions in the first chapter of Genesis.

THY KINGDOM COME
Chapter XXV

For Origen the kingdom of God is immanent and spiritual. He has no qualms, as some moderns seem to have, about accepting the saying in Luke “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or Lo, there! but the kingdom of God is within you.”¹³⁷ Indeed, he combines with this the saying in Deuteronomy,¹³⁸ “the word is very nigh, in your mouth, and in your heart.” “I think,” he says, “that by God’s kingdom is meant the blessed state of the reason and the ordered condition of wise thoughts.” “Every saint who takes God as his king and obeys the spiritual laws of God dwells in himself as in a well-ordered city.” He draws a distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Christ. The latter is rather a saving power that goes forth into the world and is seen in action. “By Christ’s kingdom is meant the words that go forth for the salvation of those who hear them and the works of righteousness and the other virtues which are being accomplished.” This distinction helps Origen to lead up eventually to one of his favourite texts, which speaks of the time when Christ “shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father . . . that God may be all in all.”¹³⁹

But the use of this text also indicates that for Origen the eschatological element in the kingdom of God was not entirely lacking. Indeed, when he speaks of the kingdom as being within us, he acknowledges that he may be met with the objection, Why, then, should we pray: “Thy kingdom come”? How shall a man “still fittingly pray concerning things that are present already as if they were not present”? The answer is that spiritual knowledge and understanding (with which Origen’s conception of “salvation” is largely bound up) must be a growing thing. We have “the word of knowledge” and “the word of wisdom” even now, but we nevertheless pray for these things, to receive more and more of them, so that in this present life our knowledge “in part” will become as great as may be. When, however, “that which is perfect is come,” the mind without sense perception will come in contact with spiritual realities, and without this the perfection of the “kingdom” cannot be. Our journey, therefore, in this life is “unto perfection”;¹⁴⁰ and as we advance unceasingly the kingdom of God that is in us will reach its highest point when the saying of I Cor. 15:28 is fulfilled. So we may fittingly here and now pray, “Thy kingdom come,” even though “the kingdom of God is within us.” Similarly also, in the moral life the work of God within us, begun now, will be perfected when our corruptible has put on incorruption, and the mortal has put on immortality.

THY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN SO ON EARTH
Chapter XXVI

Origen points out that the words “as in heaven, so on earth” are to be taken not only with “Thy will be done,” but also with “Hallowed be thy name” and “Thy kingdom come.”

When we do the will of God when on earth, he says, we are made like unto those in heaven, inasmuch as we bear, as they do, the image of the heavenly and shall inherit heaven.

An objection to the petition is next considered. We are told that there are spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,¹⁴¹ who bring about evil things on earth. If therefore we pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we may unwittingly pray that these opposing forces may remain on earth, to which they came from heaven. A solution to this difficulty is ready to hand if we allegorize “heaven” and “earth,” understanding “heaven” as “Christ” and “earth” as “the Church.” We shall then be praying that even as Christ accomplished the Father’s will in its entirety, so we, the members of the Church, being joined to Christ and become one spirit¹⁴² with him, may likewise achieve it. (It is no objection to this that Christ says he has been given all authority in heaven and on earth;¹⁴³ for Christ is both man and Saviour, man mingled with Deity, and therefore, both realms being his, he takes as his fellow-workers his disciples that he may bring the things on earth to a blessed issue.) But it still remains, on the ordinary interpretation, to explain how the will of God is done in heaven, when the spiritual hosts of wickedness are in the heavenly places, wrestling against those on earth. Origen replies, in effect, “Because the mind is its own place.” These hosts do not really dwell in heaven, because of their evil disposition; and therefore when we pray, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” it is not to be reckoned that they are in heaven, since they have fallen in mind with Satan who fell from heaven like lightning.¹⁴⁴ Similarly, he whose citizenship is in heaven, though still on earth, is no longer of the earth in the world below, but of heaven and of the heavenly world that is better than this one.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
Chapter XXVII

This is one of the longest chapters on the Lord’s Prayer, and certainly the least satisfactory. Dominated, as we have already remarked,¹⁴⁵ by the Platonic conception of the material world, Origen dismisses the plain, literal meaning of this petition. In fact he asserts that it is a false opinion, to be refuted, to suppose that we are here told to pray concerning material (lit. “bodily”) bread.¹⁴⁶ Accordingly, the “bread” we pray for is not the bread that is to lie on our tables, but the meat which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give. To feed on it is to feed on the spiritual teachings of Christ. “What is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, and what is more precious to the mind of him who makes room for it than the Wisdom of God? And what is more appropriate to the rational soul than truth?”¹⁴⁷

Scripture, however, calls every kind of food “bread,” and therefore the Word which nourishes is varied and diverse, for not all are able to be nourished by the solidity and vigorous force of the divine teachings.¹⁴⁸ Thus Origen introduces us to one of his favourite thoughts, as we have seen,¹⁴⁹ that of different grades of hearers who live on different levels of spiritual apprehension, and must be treated by the teacher accordingly.¹⁵⁰

The unusual word for “daily” (ἐπιούσιος) bread next claims Origen’s attention. He gives his view that it was coined by the evangelists.¹⁵¹ He derives it from epi and ousia:¹⁵² (the bread that comes together) into substance, and he compares periousios laos,¹⁵³ the people (dwelling) around substance.

The mention of the word ousia is sufficient to set Origen off into a philosophical disquisition,¹⁵⁴ and he now proceeds to give an account of the views of different schools of thought on “substance.” This done, he shows that there must be a kinship in “substance” between the bread given and the person who receives it. The bread, as he believes to have shown, is “spiritual.” Therefore epiousios bread¹⁵⁴ “is that which is best adapted to a reasonable nature and akin to it in its very substance: it provides at once health and strength and vigour to the soul, and imparts a share of its own immortality (for the word of God is immortal) to him who eats of it.”¹⁵⁵ He ends this part of the discussion by references from the Bible to food partaken in common by men on the one hand and greater and inferior spiritual powers on the other.¹⁵⁶ There is no reference to the Eucharist. The remainder¹⁵⁷ of the chapter is concerned with the meaning of “today” and “day by day,” which Origen interprets as this present age and successive ages, respectively.

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN
OUR DEBTORS
Chapter XXVIII

In contrast to his treatment of the foregoing petition, Origen expounds this one with refreshing realism. We all owe debts to one another, he says, not only in respect of money, but also in respect of particular actions, and gentle speech, and a charitable disposition. Further, there are debts to be paid because we are in a certain relationship to others—debts to our brethren in Christ, and debts due from us as citizens, as husband or wife, as a widow cared for by the Church, as a deacon, or presbyter, or bishop, and we have a debt to ourselves so to use the body that we do not waste its powers in pleasure. And, above all, we owe it to God to love him with all our heart and strength and mind; we are debtors to Christ, since he has bought us with a price, and also to the Holy Spirit. We are debtors also to our guardian angel, even though we do not know precisely who he is.

Others are in debt to us: but we must be gentle towards them, when they are slow in paying back, remembering the parable of the unmerciful servant. There is a limitation, however, in respect of our forgiveness of others, says Origen: and with this point he closes the chapter. It might seem, when Luke adds “for we ourselves also forgive everyone that is indebted to us,” that there is no such limitation. But the Lord said to the apostles, “whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained,”¹⁵⁸ and John says: “There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request.”¹⁵⁹ In the law also a sacrifice might not be offered for presumptuous sins. It follows, then, that the Christian also, the true follower of Jesus, forgives what God forgives, and retains such sins as God retains. This leads Origen on to refer to those persons¹⁶⁰ who have arrogated to themselves powers beyond the priestly office and boast that they are able to pardon even idolatry and forgive even such deadly sins as adultery or fornication.

BRING US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
Chapter XXIX

It is not surprising to anyone who knows Origen that he at once faces the obvious difficulty confronting the interpretation of this petition. How can we be bidden, he asks, to use these words in prayer, when the whole of human life upon earth is a temptation?¹⁶¹ While on earth we are compassed about with the flesh that warreth against the spirit,¹⁶² and we wrestle, not only with the flesh, but also against the spiritual hosts of wickedness?¹⁶³ And Paul tells the Corinthians, not that God will not suffer them to be tempted, but that he will not suffer them to be tempted beyond their power.¹⁶⁴ Other passages of Scripture are brought in for the purpose of proving the inevitability of temptation. Even the apostles were not free from it, as is clear from Paul’s account, in the Epistles to the Corinthians, of his trials and sufferings. Moreover, temptation assails men in every condition of life—the poor, the rich, the sick, the whole, persons of low as well as those of high degree, the abject and those who are held in high esteem among men. Even the Saviour was tempted, and like the bridegroom in the Song of Songs, looking at us through the meshes of temptation, bids us arise.¹⁶⁵ Indeed, temptation lurks even in the reading of the Holy Scriptures, as is evident from the errors of those who, like the Marcionites,¹⁶⁶ misinterpret the doctrine of God as it is set forth in the Old and New Testaments.

The true meaning, therefore, of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer is “not that we may not be tempted (for that cannot be), but that we may not be encompassed by temptation, a thing that happens to those who are held fast in it and overcome.” (Similarly, Origen interprets the warning “not to enter into temptation”¹⁶⁷ as meaning to avoid being encompassed by temptation.)

It is impossible, then, to think that the good God should encompass anyone with evil and cause him to be held fast by it. It may be said, however, that the Lord in giving the Prayer was speaking to men of prayer and exhorting them to prayer against temptation. What of those who do not pray, or those whose prayer cannot be heard? Can God lead them into temptation in the sense of being brought under its domination? This question is suggested by such phrases as are found in the first chapter of Romans with reference to persons of dissolute character. “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness”; “God gave them up unto vile passions”; “God gave them up unto a reprobate mind.” The Marcionites cannot maintain that these words are used of the God of the law (who, they mistakenly suppose, is other than the good Father of our Lord Jesus Christ) and therefore they must find in them a stumbling-block to their notions. Nevertheless, the difficulty in such phrases as “God gave them up unto vile passions,” as well as in “Bring us not into temptation,” remains. How is it to be overcome? Origen puts forward the following solution.¹⁶⁸

“I verily believe that God orders every rational soul with a view to its eternal life, and that it always maintains its free will, and of its own motion either mounts higher and higher until it reaches the pinnacle of virtue, or on the contrary descends through carelessness to this or that excess of wickedness.” If the soul chooses the downward grade, and falls into a sinful state, it may be that a rapid and brief cure will cause it to regard lightly the disease into which it has fallen, so that after being restored to health it may fall the second time into the same condition. Therefore in such cases God may for a time disregard increasing wickedness up to a certain point, and even overlook it when it has developed to such an extent as to be incurable, in order that the soul may take its fill of evil, and being glutted with the sin it desires may at last become conscious of its evil plight and hate what it formerly welcomed. A parallel is adduced from “the mixed multitude” when in the wilderness they lusted after the fleshpots of Egypt.¹⁶⁹ The Lord glutted them with the food they desired “for a month of days” until it came out at their nostrils and became loathsome unto them.¹⁷⁰ So also the kind and good God may even be said to “give up” men to their evil passions, in order to satiate them with their lust; that, this life ended, they may no longer wish to return to them, but recognizing their desperate condition may of their own free will come to hate that which they formerly desired and seek for heavenly things.

The chapter ends with a short account of the use of temptation. It reveals character. What our soul has received is unknown to all except God—is unknown even to ourselves; but it is manifested by means of temptations. Temptations when they come make it plain to us of what sort we are, make known the hidden things of the heart. This is clearly stated in Scripture, as, for example, in the passage in Deuteronomy which says that the trials in the wilderness were sent in order that the things in the heart of God’s people might be made known.¹⁷¹ Similarly, the temptations which beset Eve, Cain, the sons of Noah, Esau, and Joseph did not for the first time make them what they were seen to be, but rather manifested the weakness or strength that already lay in their characters. Therefore we must not wait until the temptations come, but prepare ourselves by the power of God in the times between temptations, so that we shall not be proved unready when they come.

DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE
Chapter XXX

The student of Origen will not need to be told that he believed in a personal devil. Consequently, it is clear throughout the short passage which deals with this petition that he interprets τοῦ πονηροῦ as masculine, with the Revised Version, and not as neuter with the Authorized Version. The passages of Scripture used to describe the assaults of the devil are Eph. 6:16 and Job, chs. 1 and 2. Origen expounds “Deliver us from the evil one” on the same lines as “Bring us not into temptation.” God delivers us from the evil one, not when the enemy or the ministers of his will in no way attack us, but when we conquer bravely, taking a firm stand against circumstances. This is clearly indicated in the Book of Job. The patriarch was delivered from the evil one, not by immunity from attacks of the devil (for the Lord gave him authority to attack Job), but by the fact that in all his trials “Job sinned not before the Lord.” The experience of the Saviour in the wilderness likewise illustrates the meaning of this petition. His deliverance consisted, not in absence of temptation (indeed, he was three times assailed), but in his conquest over it. As for ourselves, the soul must be prepared for such attacks, if we are to overcome them. We are to have within ourselves “rivers of water springing up unto eternal life,”¹⁷² if we are to quench “the fiery darts of the evil one.”¹⁷³ Contemplation of the truth will stamp upon the soul of the spiritual athlete inspired and saving thoughts for his use in time of need.

COMPARISON WITH THE De Oratione OF TERTULLIAN

Origen was not the first of the Fathers to write a treatise on Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, being preceded in this respect by about twenty years by Tertullian, whose work is placed between the limits of 196–203¹⁷⁴ or 200–206.¹⁷⁵ The purpose and scope of the two treatises are so different that any attempted comparison between them is certainly very difficult and may seem to be even misleading. Origen writes, as we have seen, primarily for Christians of standing and intelligence, who were disingenuous enough to propound questions which struck at the very root of the efficacy of prayer. Tertullian wrote for catechumens,¹⁷⁶ who are described in his De Baptismo as “those whom the grace of God awaits”; and he assumes without question the rationale of prayer. Again, as regards length, Origen’s treatise occupies 106 pages of the Berlin Corpus of the Fathers, Tertullian’s twenty pages only of the Vienna Corpus; and the treatments of the Lord’s Prayer vary correspondingly in length. But against this disparity in length we must set the fact that Tertullian is as concise as Origen is discursive.

In spite of these differences of approach to the subject, however, a comparison between the two treatises may have its value, since no two men can traverse the same ground without revealing those differences which lie deeper than the mere setting in which their treatment of the theme is found, and also the common ground, great or small, on which, in spite of differences, they stand.

In this particular case, the common ground is by no means large. There are, however, a few points of resemblance between the two treatments of the subject. For both writers the Lord’s Prayer is the primary source and model of Christian teaching to which they refer. Again, both writers dwell on what the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. ch. 6) has to say about ostentation and “much speaking” in prayer. The distinctively Christian address of “Father” in prayer is noted by both writers. And they both speak of the proper attitude of mind and disposition of him who comes to prayer. There must be no hatred of our brother, or anger, or even perturbation of mind.¹⁷⁷

But at the outset of the treatment of the Lord’s Prayer itself, differences begin to appear. Origen is a critical, textual scholar. He notes that the Prayer, according to the Gospels, was given on two different occasions, and that the text of the two prayers differs considerably. Before he begins his exegesis, he sets out the two texts,¹⁷⁸ and continues to keep their differences before him. Tertullian, on the other hand, ignores the presence of these differences (if he knew of them), and confines his exposition to what is broadly speaking a version of the Matthaean text; although, curiously enough, he begins simply with “Pater,”¹⁷⁹ as does the Lukan text. Even though his version contains at least one feature which must have been abnormal (he places “Thy kingdom come” after “Hallowed be thy Name, Thy will be done in heaven and on earth”), he does not comment upon any facts of this kind.

In the exegesis of the Prayer much of the difference in the two writers is to be traced ultimately to a difference in philosophical outlook, conscious in the case of Origen, perhaps unconscious for Tertullian, and particularly in respect of transcendence and immanence, material and spiritual. For Origen¹⁸⁰ the kingdom is above all things immanent and spiritual, and the eschatological aspect is secondary and in the sense that the spiritual apprehension of the truth must go on growing and increasing until the consummation is reached, when that which is perfect is come, and God shall be all in all. Tertullian,¹⁸¹ on the other hand, emphasizes the literal and eschatological sense of the kingdom of God. It is true that there is never a time when God does not reign; and he reigns in us: but the coming of the kingdom is the coming manifestation of the rule of God. It is future. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar cry out, “How long?” It is for us a matter of earnest expectation. Tertullian’s attitude is definitely “other-worldly.” He would approve of the sentiment of the prayer in which we ask God “shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect and to hasten thy kingdom.” Christians, he says, are illogical if with the words “Thy kingdom come” on their lips they desire any delay of the final consummation, seeing that now we are in servitude, then we shall reign: “optamus maturius regnare, et non diutius servire.”

In expounding the petition “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” both writers admit that a simple, literal interpretation is on the surface impossible. But when they proceed to consider what the deeper, spiritual meaning of “earth” and “heaven” may be, they part company. Tertullian¹⁸² holds that, in this sense, “earth” and “heaven” mean, respectively, “flesh” and “spirit.” Origen allegorizes differently. He notes the difficulty arising out of the fact that there are spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. “Heaven” may mean, then, “Christ”; while “earth” may be interpreted “the Church.”¹⁸³ But he goes on to give another, and, it would appear, a preferable interpretation, namely, that setting aside all local and temporal ideas, he that doeth the will of God is “heaven,” and persons of bad character are “earth.”¹⁸⁴

In the next petition, even more marked differences of treatment appear. As we have noted, Origen spiritualizes altogether the “daily bread”: and in fact calls it a false opinion to hold that material bread is spoken of.¹⁸⁵ Tertullian¹⁸⁶ extols the Divine Wisdom which has so arranged the order of the prayer that after things heavenly should come earthly necessities. This, he points out, is in accordance with the command: “Seek ye first the kingdom, and then these things also shall be added unto you.” Having said so much, however, Tertullian goes on to say that “nevertheless we may rather understand ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ spiritually. For Christ is our Bread, and Christ is Life, and bread is life, and he said ‘I am the Bread of life.’” But even on this plane of interpretation differences between the two writers manifest themselves. Tertullian at once speaks of the Eucharist and of the bread of which Christ said, “This is my body.” Origen, who has a long disquisition on the petition, never includes in it a reference to the Eucharist: to feed on Christ is to feed on his spiritual teachings.

The remaining two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer do not provide much material for the purposes of comparison, either in respect of agreement or of disagreement. And so we may pass on to underline an important difference between the two treatises that is to be found throughout them as a whole. Origen speaks almost entirely of private prayer, of individual prayer, although he notes the added value of prayers in common when Christian disciples meet for worship;¹⁸⁷ and he refers very seldom to the ordinances of the Church.¹⁸⁸ Tertullian, on the other hand, at the outset of his treatise,¹⁸⁹ places prayer in the context of the Church. Speaking of the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, he says, “In the Father the Son is invoked; for ‘I,’ saith he, “and the Father are one’” (notably different from Origen, who allows prayer in the proper sense of the term to be addressed to the Father only).¹⁹⁰ … “Nor is even our mother the Church passed by, if, that is, in the Father and the Son is recognized the mother, from whom arises the name both of Father and Son.” Accordingly in the course of the treatise, and especially when he comes to speak of the manner and posture and place of prayer, he has many references to Church ordinances and seasons and customs—the liturgical setting of prayer. He speaks of Eucharist and the words “This is my body,”¹⁹¹ of the kiss of peace, and about communicating on station days.¹⁹² Later on, he mentions the singing of the Psalms and the liturgical use of Alleluia.¹⁹³ Speaking of the question of kneeling at prayer,¹⁹⁴ he mentions that though some refrained from kneeling on Saturdays, the tradition he has received is that we do not kneel on Sundays or in the Spatio Pentecostes (? interval between Easter and Pentecost) “quae eadem exultationis sollemnitate dispungitur.” We are, however, to kneel on fasts and station days; and we ought to prostrate ourselves before God every day, or certainly when we pray the first thing in the morning. Per contra, when Origen¹⁹⁵ is discussing this question, he speaks only of kneeling as a symbol of the man who is abject and submissive, and says nothing about kneeling in church.

Again, when we compare passages which cite the Scriptures as proving the power and efficacy of prayer, we discover a difference of outlook between the two writers. We have seen¹⁹⁶ what Origen’s treatment of “Give us this day our daily bread” is, and also how he contrasts the Old Testament with its record of material benefits vouchsafed through prayer with the purely spiritual objects, the “great and heavenly things,” for which a Christian ought to pray. In fact, when he says¹⁹⁷ that prayers similar to those which brought blessing to Old Testament saints are answered also today, he is not referring to the same kind of answer but to a spiritualized version of it. Tertullian’s treatment of this matter is different. The concluding chapter¹⁹⁸ of his De Oratione is an eloquent description of the power and efficacy of prayer. Like Origen he contrasts Old Testament with Christian prayers. “Prayer in olden times, indeed, used to free from fires and from beasts and from famine” (he is probably referring to Dan., chs. 3 and 6, and I Kings, ch. 18, with James 5:17,18) “but how far more fully operative is Christian prayer! It does not station the angel of dew in mid fires,¹⁹⁹ nor stop the mouths of lions nor transfer to the hungry the rustics’ meal;²⁰⁰ it has no grace given it to remove any sense of suffering; but it supplies with endurance those who are suffering, feeling, grieving.” But this spiritual power, this ability to endure, be it noted, is given because of the presence of material afflictions or tortures, it is not a defence against the unseen powers of evil, as Origen would interpret. And again, according to Tertullian, “Is it any wonder if prayer knows how to extort the rains²⁰¹ of heaven, which was once able to procure its fires?”²⁰² And this is natural rain, not “the rain of the soul,”²⁰³ which according to Origen is the fulfilment of which the rain procured by the prayer of Elijah is the type. Further, in conclusion, among the many benefits resulting from Christian prayer Tertullian reckons many which concern the body: prayer is able “to recall the souls of the departed from the very path of death, to renew the weak, to heal the sick, to purge them that are possessed of devils, to open prison bars, to loose the bonds of the innocent.”

Finally, it is impossible to avoid contrasting the general outlook of Tertullian upon Christianity and the particular subject of prayer with that of Origen. For Tertullian Christianity is a spiritual law and discipline with its prescribed duties. When we pray, we obey an order (praeceptum) of God, and when we call him Father we acknowledge his authority (potestas).²⁰⁴ It is not indeed that Tertullian hankers after Judaism. That indeed has passed away: the gospel is the fulfiller²⁰⁵ of the whole ancient system. But in its place have come the commandments of God in Christ, including particularly his command concerning prayer and its prescribed form; and our mother the Church (deduced by Tertullian as a natural consequent of Father and Son)²⁰⁶ also prescribes services and forms and customs. The whole setting of the treatise is placed in the sphere of spiritual duty. The life of the household the Church is conceived after the manner of domestic life in a Roman household, where the patria potestas was a living reality, setting a rule and standard for all its members. In that setting there is little room or desire to dwell upon matters which might weaken the sense of prescribed duty, such as differences in the text of Holy Scripture, criticism and interpretation of the Bible, possible objections, alternative renderings, speculations, and insoluble problems. With all of these, on the contrary, Origen is pre-occupied. It is part of his conception of Christianity, which is, to apprehend the truth of Christ and to feed upon his teachings. If Tertullian’s watchword is “duty,” Origen’s is “understanding,” though not simply understanding that is intellectual but including also mystical apprehension and self-devotion which issues in a Christian way of life.

Thus in less than two hundred years profound differences of outlook had manifested themselves in Christianity. Carthage and Alexandria are in the same continent. About a thousand miles of coastline separate them one from the other. But Tertullian and Origen inhabit a different world spiritually and intellectually—a difference that may be expressed in various ways, as for example by saying that the one was Latin, the other Greek, the one authoritative, the other speculative, the one exclusive, the other comprehensive, the one reactionary, the other liberal. “Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis?”²⁰⁷ cries Tertullian. “What have Athens and Jerusalem in common?” And he proceeds, “Away with those who put forward a Stoic, a Platonic, a dialectic sort of Christianity! We have no need for curious speculation, once we have accepted Christ Jesus, nor for inquiry after receiving the gospel. Once we believe, we desire no further belief. For our belief is this, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides.”

… In comparing these two treatises of Tertullian and Origen, the present writer makes no attempt to establish a common “pattern” between them. He has pointed out a few similarities of thought and treatment. But the two works, as well as the two authors, differ toto caelo. They exhibit, not a “pattern,” but the “much variegated wisdom of God.”²⁰⁸

TEXT, TRANSMISSION, MANUSCRIPTS, AND EDITIONS

That the treatise On Prayer has come down to us at all must be regarded as a fortunate circumstance. As we have seen,²⁰⁹ certain passages in the work were accounted heretical, and this in turn doubtless affected its transmission from early times, quite apart from the general destruction of Origen’s manuscripts as a result of the controversies of which he was the storm centre. In fact, we are ultimately dependent for the Greek text upon a single MS. which has had a precarious history and might well have never survived its chequered fortunes. And there is no Latin translation of the De Oratione as there is of so many of Origen’s other works. There are indeed few references to the treatise in the extant literature of the early Church. The Apologia pro Origene, written conjointly by Pamphilus and Eusebius c. 308, “because of the fault-finders,”²¹⁰ mentions it as extant. It is true that we possess this Apology only in the Latin translation of Rufinus (and that, too, of the first book only), but there is no reason, but rather the contrary, why Rufinus should have included a reference to the book if he did not find it in the original. This translation was made in 398. The reference is as follows:²¹¹ “Denique in tam multis et tam diversis eius libris nusquam omnino invenitur ab eo liber proprie de anima conscriptus, sicut habet vel de Martyrio, vel de Oratione, vel de Resurrectione.”²¹² There is no reference to the De Oratione in the list of Origen’s works to be found in Jerome, Ep., XXXIII, ad Paulam.²¹³ But Jerome is here chiefly concerned to enumerate Origen’s labours in Biblical exegesis: “qui tanto in sanctarum scriptarum commentariis sudore laboravit, ut iuste adamantis nomen acceperit.” Therefore his omission to mention the treatise is not conclusive of his ignorance of its existence; in fact, he does not mention the Contra Celsum either. Nor does it follow that Gregory and Basil did not know the De Oratione because they did not include a passage from it in the Philocalia. This work mainly consists of passages which exemplify Origen’s power of resolving difficult questions arising out of the Holy Scriptures.²¹⁴

The synodical letter of Theophilus of Alexandria, a bitter opponent of Origen, “ad Palestinos et ad Cyprios episcopos missa” (c. 400) and translated by Jerome,²¹⁵ mentions the De Oratione expressly when it includes among the errors of Origen what he wrote about praying to the Father only: “cum legeretur . . . in alio libro, qui ‘de oratione’ scribitur: non debemus orare filium, sed solum patrem, nec patrem cum filio, obturavimus aures nostras et tam Origenem quam discipulos eius consona voce damnavimus, ne et modicum fermentum totam massam corrumperet.” Again, in another, a paschal, letter, also translated by Jerome,²¹⁶ Theophilus attacks at greater length the same point in Origen’s teaching. He places Origen on a level, in this respect, with Pharaoh, who said, “I know not the Lord.”²¹⁷ “Nec est aliud dicere ‘nescio Dominum’ quam hoc, quod dicit Origenes, ‘non est orandus filius.’” Inasmuch as Christ is the Son of God it follows as a right and proper consequence that he is to be invoked, and prayer is to be made to him, as indeed we are taught in the Scriptures to do (Acts 7:60; Phil. 2:10). The first of these quotations is an unhappy one from the point of view of Theophilus’s criticism, as Origen expressly quotes these words of Stephen (“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”) as an example of intercession (which he distinguishes from prayer in the full sense of the term) being rightly made to the Son.²¹⁸ Origen, says Theophilus, does not believe in the Deity of the Son: “itaque nec deum credit Origenes filium dei, quem non putat adorandum.” The name of divinity that he gives him is only an empty name. He thinks that he understands the meaning of the Scriptures, but he does not hear what Moses says against him. “Whosoever curseth God shall bear his sin; he that nameth the name of the Lord shall surely die; the whole congregation shall stone him.”²¹⁹

Acquaintance with the De Oratione has been claimed for Ambrose, in virtue of certain passages in the De Sacramentis²²⁰ and De Fide;²²¹ see note on XXVII, 9. There are marked differences, however, between Ambrose and Origen.

The writings and pronouncements of the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century afford evidence of his knowledge of the De Oratione, in so far as he finds in it the idea that the resurrection body is spherical. In his Epistle to Mennas, Patriarch of Constantinople, he says:²²² “For he [sc. Origen] says that in the resurrection men’s bodies are raised spherical. O! the folly and stupidity of this crazy fellow, this expounder of Greek opinions! Darkened in his understanding, and eager to mix up myths with the Christian faith, he aimed at casting insult upon the very hope and salvation of Christians, that is, the resurrection promised to us, not even reverencing the resurrection of the Lord . . . For if, as Origen madly supposes, the body of the Lord was spherical, how was he able to show the piercings of his hands and feet, or the wound in his side? Or how could he eat, or be recognized at all by his disciples? And how also could the bodies of the saints, which were raised after the Lord’s resurrection and seen in the holy city, have been known by others, if they were really in a form different from that which they had in life?”

The Epistle to Mennas concludes with a series of ten anathemas against Origen’s teachings, of which the following is the fifth:²²³ “If anyone says or holds that at the resurrection men’s bodies are raised spherical, and does not acknowledge that we are raised upright, let him be anathema.” A similar condemnation is to be found in the tenth of the Fifteen Anathemas against Origen, discovered by Peter Lambeck, the Librarian of Vienna, towards the end of the seventeenth century, which some hold to have been adopted by the Fifth General Council, but others, more probably, assign to a “Home Synod,” that is, a Synod held in 543 at Constantinople of the bishops of the locality.²²⁴ The translation of this Anathema runs as follows: “If anyone shall say that after the resurrection the body of the Lord was ethereal and spherical in form, and that such shall be the bodies of all after the resurrection; and that after the Lord himself shall have rejected his true body and after the others who rise shall have rejected theirs, the nature of their bodies shall be annihilated: let him be anathema.”

On the other hand, Photius²²⁵ refers to an anonymous defender of Origen. “The counts on which he asserts that he [sc. Origen] was falsely accused are fifteen in number, which he declares to be mere slanders. . . . He is charged with teaching that prayer should not be offered to the Son, and that he is not absolutely good.” It is probable that this is a reference to the teaching of the De Oratione, because although Origen elsewhere in his writings²²⁶ says that prayer should be addressed to the Father it is only in the present treatise that he enjoins prayer—in the proper sense of the term—to the Father alone, that is to say, in so many words.

It is not surprising, therefore, that under this barrage of criticism, although it was directed against at the most two points in the treatise, its circulation came almost to an end. In fact it is preserved for us in a single MS., which if it had been lost—and it might well have been—no trace or fragment or copy of the work would now remain. This MS. is now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (B.8.10: formerly styled “Holmiensis”),²²⁷ known under the symbol T, written on paper, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Apart from eight inconsiderable lacunae near the beginning, it contains the whole of the treatise. Bound together with it is another work of Origen, his Commentary on Matthew, written in another, older hand.

The scribe of T appears to have been a conscientious person, for where the text he was copying was missing or illegible, he leaves in every case just so much empty space as seems necessary to him, so that he could eventually later on supply the missing words from another codex. Lacunae falling at regular intervals are found at the beginning of the MS., pointing to the fact that in the archetype the first or last lines of a page were partly or wholly destroyed, or rendered illegible, by some cause, probably damp. It cannot now be determined to what century this archetype belonged; but Koetschau²²⁸ argues that not many intermediaries lay between it and T, since the text has been handed down in comparatively good order.

T has had an interesting, but precarious, history. When the cathedral library of Worms was plundered by soldiers, it was purchased from them for a small sum by a person named Rumfius, physician to Elizabeth, Queen of the Bohemians. He brought it from Germany to The Hague, where it passed from his possession to that of the famous scholar Isaac Voss, who in turn brought it to Sweden, where it was lodged along with other manuscripts in the library at Stockholm. There, some twenty years after Voss had acquired it, another scholar, Peter Daniel Huet, came across it in the Library and made a copy of it in the year 1652. Subsequently Voss allowed the use of the MS. to Herbert Thorndike (1598–1672), fellow of Trinity College, who was contemplating an edition of the complete works of Origen.²²⁹ It remained in Thorndike’s possession. Later on he bequeathed it to the Library of his College.

The transcript made by Huet is known as Cod. Parisin. Suppl. Gr. Nr. 534.

The concluding part of the treatise On Prayer (from XXXI, 1 to XXXIII, 3) has been separately handed down in another MS. (Cod. Parisin, Gr. Nr. 1788, Colbert 3607, cited as “Col”), written, according to a subscription written in Greek, by a monk named Gennadius, in the year 1440. A note, written in a hand of the fifteenth century, gives the following facts concerning the history and ownership of the codex (which is of a miscellaneous character, containing several works) of which this fragment forms part, namely, that it came originally from Constantinople, having been purchased, after the capture of that city, by a certain man named Luke Zonaras, who was from “the wholly wretched and miserable island of Lesbos.” It remained in his possession until the taking of this island (i.e., in the year 1462), when it passed into the hands of one Sophianus of Phocia,²³⁰ and then finally into those of Sophianus the writer of the note. The first editor to use this fragment was Delarue (see below), who believed that it was a valuable help in the restoration of that part of the text of the treatise which it contains. But Koetschau²³¹ has shown that the most of the variants of Col from T are scribal errors and omissions, due to negligence or wilful alteration, and that Col has never more to offer, but in numerous passages less, than T, and that in fact in T we see the text from which Col is derived. This view is confirmed by the fact that T and Col have certain mis-readings in common. “Further, the scribe of Col behaves throughout in so inconsistent and arbitrary a manner, that one need not, in order to expose his many faults, interpose an intermediary between T and Col.” Since, then, T and Col are not independent, and since Col, as we have seen, originally came from Constantinople, it is not unlikely that T also had its habitat there, and hence also in all likelihood its place of origin. Perhaps the passage I quoted earlier²³² in this section from Photius may be significant in this connection. If in Constantinople of the ninth century there were known to be apologists of Origen’s treatise, it is likely enough that a MS. containing it would escape the harsher fate that fell upon its fellows in other parts of the world.

The following are the editions of this treatise that have been published up till now.

1. Editio Princeps. Printed and published in Oxford in the year 1682. The editor is anonymous. In his Praefatio he says that he has given a transcript (apographum) of that manuscript “which is now preserved at Cambridge in the Library of the College of the holy Trinity,” of whose existence Voss had made him aware. This codex, he remarks, is “non admodum feliciter descriptus,” it contains considerable lacunae, and is so full of abbreviations that it required “an interpreter rather than a reader” to transcribe it. A Latin translation is added, in which the editor acknowledges the help he had received from Gale,²³³ who not merely translated the Greek text supplied him by the editor, but also reviewed suspected passages by reference to T: so that the Latin translation, as corrected by Gale, is often a substantial improvement.

2. Next in order of time is the edition of the Treatise published at Basle by J. R. Wetstein, the elder, in 1694. The improvement in this edition over its predecessor is mainly due to the fact that Gale’s recension of Codex T is utilized. The exemplar of the Oxford edition used by Wetstein is now in the Library of Göttingen University. It contains in the margin Gale’s collation of each passage. But it will be seen from what follows that much further work had yet to be done on the text. Indeed the “Master of a College in Cambridge,” referred to in the following paragraph, scathingly speaks of “the Basil Edition” as “being a mere repetition of the Oxford, bating a few alterations of little moment, some for the better, some for the worse.”

3. First in order of merit among early editions is that of William Reading (London, 1728). This edition is dedicated to Baron Roger Meredith, who is described as ornatissimus vir. Its special value lies in the fact that Reading made use of a fresh collation of T and Notes by an anonymous scholar—in fact, a new edition of the book—which were sent to Reading by “the Master of a College in Cambridge,” whom Reading describes in his Preface as vir singularis eruditionis, animique in me benevolentissimi, with permission to publish them, if he thought fit, without however disclosing the name of the donor. The reason for all this secrecy is not apparent. In any case, the work of the anonymous scholar, included in this edition, was the most valuable contribution to the criticism of the De Oratione that had so far been made. Not only did he collate Codex T more systematically and thoroughly than either of his two predecessors, but by his notes, which are the result of genuine scholarship and of knowledge in particular of the writings of Origen, he contributed, even more than Richard Bentley did, to the purifying and emendation of the text.

4. Charles Delarue in his edition of Origen’s Works (Vol. I, pp. 196–272, Paris, 1733) reproduced the text of Wetstein’s edition, but also utilized an—admittedly insufficient—collation of Codex T, which “John Walker, an English presbyter,” had made for him. He also examined the fragment contained in Codex Paris. no. 1788 (“col”). He added a Latin translation, made by Claudius Fleury for Huet. But a more momentous addition appeared in the footnotes, which give the ingenious, though often audacious, conjectural emendations of Richard Bentley.

5. Charles Henry Edward Lommatzch, who published a recension of the work of Delarue in twenty-five volumes, gives the text of the De Oratione in Vol. XVIII, pp. 82–297 (Berlin, 1844). This differs only in a few places in the text from that of Delarue; and whereas Delarue had printed the critical notes of the anonymous scholar at the end of his first volume, Lommatzch adds these to each respective passage of the text.

6. The edition used in preparing this translation is that of Paul Koetschau (Leipzig, 1899) in the Berlin corpus of the Fathers entitled Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte. The Introduction to “Die Schrift von Gebet” is in Vol. I of Origen’s Works, pp. lxxv–xcii, the text in Vol. II, pp. 297–403. This edition, which is a worthy contribution to modern scholarship and to the series in which it is included, is based on a new collation of Codex T made by C. J. Bellairs Gaskoin. It is indispensable to a critical study of the treatise. Koetschau has been careful to give as accurately as possible the number of letters or lines to be estimated for each of the lacunae in T. His apparatus criticus gives full information concerning not only variants but also emendations of the Anonymous, Bentley, and others. He says, however, that “from the text in T, I have departed only seldom and for compelling reasons.”²³⁴ From this point of view it is not surprising that Koetschau often, and to the mind of the present writer too frequently, dismisses proposed emendations with the terse formula “ohne Grund.” This, however, does not seriously impair the value of Koetschau’s text, of which every serious student of the De Oratione must be conscious. I must personally acknowledge my own indebtedness to his edition, not only throughout this book, but especially in writing this section of the Introduction and the section which deals with the occasion of the treatise. Koetschau stands out among those who in the last three hundred years have laboured to make this work of Origen accessible in scholarly form. It appears here in an English translation, which, it is hoped, will not be found entirely inadequate. But the translator must conclude, as Origen himself does, by acknowledging the difficulty of the task as a ground for asking the indulgence of the reader.

Notes

I, 190.
See Koetschau, I, lxxv–lxxvii. De Faye follows Koetschau in the matter of date (I, 190, 191).
Lawlor and Oulton, II, 201.
Eusebius, H.E., VI, 24.
Contra Celsum, VI, 49.
X, 37 (21); Brooke, I, 230.
E.g., XXV, 3; XXIX, 2.
II, 1; V, 1, 6.
V, 6.
Paradise Lost, II, 558–561.
See Lawlor and Oulton, II, 213 f.
Eusebius, H.E., VI, 23. Cp. J. de Ghellinck, Patristique et Moyen Age, II, 215 f.
Koetschau, I, lxxxi.
“No writing of Origen is more free from his characteristic faults, or more full of beautiful thoughts.” B. F. Westcott in D.C.B., IV, 124.
See de Faye, I, ch. 14.
Contra Celsum, VII, 6.
I, 215.
I Cor. 15:35.
See p. 270.
XXVII, 14.
IX, 2; XIII, 5.
XII, 2.
See IX, 3; XXVIII, 7, 8.
Prov. 4:18.
Eusebius, H.E., VI, 2:11.
I owe this reference to A. R. Whitham, History of the Christian Church, 138.
Acts 7:60.
XIV, 2.
Hab. 3:1, 2 (LXX).
Jonah 2:1, 2, 3.
J.T.S., XXX, 153–156.
Contra Celsum, VII, 38.
In Joh., II, 23 (18).
Ibid., XIII, 3.
Contra Celsum, VI, 64.
De Faye, III, 31, 32.
H.E., VI, 2:14.
Cf. XXV, 2.
XV, 1, 2.
XV, 4.
See pp. 381, 382.
See p. 232.
The word he uses is ἀποδεδειγμένων.
I, 1.
XVII, 2.
II, 2.
XIV, 1.
XVI, 3.
XIII, 3, 4, 5.
XVII, 1, 2.
Ch. VII.
IX, 2.
Ch. XXVII.
See pp. 212, 218 ff., 361 ff.
XX, 2.
Romans, 3.
V, 1.
See further, pp. 216 ff.
Eph. 6:12.
XXXI, 6.
H.E., VI, 3:9–12.
XXIX, 19.
II, 2.
XXXI, 4.
XVII, 2.
D.C.B., IV, 124.
XXVII, 6.
XXVII, 11.
XXVII, 12.
I Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:13, 14; cf. I Cor. 2:6.
XXIII, 1.
XXIII, 5.
XXVII, 4.
De Faye, III, 214.
Chs. VI–VIII, 1.
See pp. 336 ff.
XXIX, 13.
Eph. 2:7.
Pp. 180 ff., 372 ff.
I, 1.
Wisdom of Solomon 9:13, 16.
Rom. 8:26, 27.
Luke 11:1.
II, 6.
See note, p. 334.
VIII, 2.
IX, 2.
VIII, 2.
Ps. 123:1.
Ps. 25:1.
II Cor. 3:18,
IX, 2.
Matt. 6:6.
Col. 2:3.
XX, 2.
IX, 1.
Mark 11:25.
Deut. 15:9.
Job 2:10.
Cf. J. Daniélou, Origène, 287 f.
X, 2.
XII, 2.
I Thess. 5:17.
Dan. 6:10.
Acts 10:9–11.
XXII, 5.
I Thess. 5:17.
Matt. 6:9.
Phil. 3:20.
Cf. Isa. 66:1.
I Cor. 15:49.
XIII, 1.
John 11:42.
p. 330.
I, 1.
V, 1.
VIII, 2.
See pp. 247, 250.
Pp. 331 f.
II, 2.
XIII, 4.
XIII, 2.
XIII, 3.
XXVII, 1.
John 6:27.
Quis Dives, 18.
XXXI, 2.
XXXI, 3.
XXXIII, 1.
XXXII.
XVIII, 2, 3.
In the Lukan version Origen has τῷ ὀφείλοντι instead of ὀφείλοντι.
Matt. 6:9–13.
Luke 11:2–4.
I John 3:8.
F. J. Foakes Jackson, History of the Christian Church, 445.
Luke 17:20, 21.
Deut. 30:14.
I Cor. 15:24, 28.
Heb. 6:1.
Eph. 6:12.
I Cor. 6:17.
Matt. 28:18.
Luke 10:18.
See pp. 210 f.
XXVII, 1.
XXVII, 2.
XXVII, 4.
See pp. 199 f.
XXVII, 4–6.
See note, p. 363.
Elsewhere (section 13) he rejects the derivation from epienai “to come close upon.”
Ex. 19:5.
XXVII, 8.
XXVII, 9.
XXVII, 10–12.
XXVII, 13–16.
John 20:23.
I John 5:16.
See p. 310.
Quoting Job 7:1.
Gal. 5:17.
Eph. 6:12.
I Cor. 10:13.
See pp. 376 f.
They are not actually named.
Cf. Luke 22:40.
XXIX, 13.
Num. 11:4–6.
Num. 11:18–20.
Deut. 8:2, 3, 15.
John 7:38; 4:14.
Eph. 6:16.
Harnack.
Bardenhewer and d’Alès.
“consideremus itaque, benedicti,” ch. I. For benedicti see De Baptismo, XX: “benedicti, quos gratia dei expectat.”
Tertullian De Oratione, chs. XI, XII.
Ch. XVIII.
But in Adv. Prax., 23, “Pater noster.”
XXV, 1, 2.
Ch. V.
Ch. IV.
XXVI, 4.
XXVI, 6.
XXVII, 1.
Ch. VI.
XXXI, 5.
See pp. 201 f.
Ch. II.
XV, 1.
Ch. VI.
Chs. XVIII, XIX.
Chs. XXVII, XXVIII.
Ch. XXIII.
XXXI, 3.
Pp. 218 ff., 263–266.
XIII, 3.
XXIX.
Origen also refers to the “whistling dewy wind” (Dan. 3:49, 50, LXX), which tempered the fire for the Three Holy Children.
Bel and the Dragon 33.
A reference to the story (Apologeticus, V; Eusebius, H.E., V, 5) of the “Thundering Legion,” when Christians in the army of Marcus Aurelius by means of prayer brought down a refreshing shower upon soldiers who were in danger of perishing by thirst.
II Kings 1:10 ff.
XIII, 5.
Ch. II.
Ch. I.
Ch. II.
De Praescriptione, 7.
Eph. 3:10.
See pp. 187 ff.
Eusebius, H.E., VI, 33:4.
Ch. 8.
Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, IV, 379.
C.V., LIV, 253 ff.
γραφικῶν ζητημάτων καὶ ἐπιλύσεων.
Jerome, Ep., XCII (C.V., LV, 148, 149).
Ibid. (Ep., XCVI), 172 ff.
Ex. 5:2.
See p. 269.
Lev. 24:15, 16.
V, 24, VI, 22.
III, 127.
P.G., LXXXVI (1), 973.
Ibid., 989.
Hefele, IV, 221 ff.; N.P.N.F., XIV, 316 ff.
Library, I, 117, ed. J. H. Freese, 206.
See pp. 346 ff.
So-called, because it was once lodged in the Library of Holmia (Stockholm).
I, lxxxvii.
T. A. Lacey in his Herbert Thorndike, pp. 25 ff. mentions many Greek and Latin Fathers whom Thorndike cites, but Origen is not among them. But B. F. Westcott (D.C.B., IV, 141) notes that Thorndike had indeed contemplated an edition of Origen’s works, but had abandoned the project. because inter alia he had learned of Huet’s intention to carry out a similar task.
In Asia Minor.
I, lxxxv.
P. 232.
I.e., Thomas Gale, Dean of York (c. 1635–1702).
I, xc.

On Prayer

d1

THE OCCASION OF THE TREATISE ON PRAYER

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ORIGEN

THE TREATISE ON PRAYER AND ORIGEN’S ORTHODOXY

CHARACTERISTIC IDEAS OF ORIGEN IN THE De Oratione

1. Relation between body and soul, seen and unseen, earthly and heavenly

2. Immateriality of God

3. Angels, heavenly powers and departed saints

4. Evil spiritual powers

5. Ascetic view of life

6. Allegory

7. Different grades of hearers

8. Free Will

9. Universalism

10. Church Ordinances and Worship

ANALYSIS OF THE TREATISEIntroductionChapters I and II

Discussion of Prayer in GeneralChapters III to XVIITHE WORDS EUCHE AND PROSEUCHEChapters III and IVOBJECTIONS TO PRAYERChapter V

ANSWER TO THESE OBJECTIONSChapters VI to VIII, 1

ADVANTAGES OF PRAYERChapters VIII, 2 to X, 2

THE ANGELS, AS WELL AS CHRIST, PRAY WITH USChapter XIOUR WHOLE LIFE OUGHT TO BE A PRAYERChapters XII to XIII, 1

EXAMPLES FROM SCRIPTURE OF ANSWERED PRAYERChapter XIII, 2

SIMILAR PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED TODAYChapter XIII, 3–5

PRAYER: (a) CONTENT (b) FORM (c) TO WHOM ADDRESSEDChapters XIV to XVII

Discussion of the Lord’s PrayerChapters XVIII to XXXTHE TEXTS OF THE LORD’S PRAYERChapter XVIII, 2, 3

THE INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAYER IN MATTHEWChapters XIX to XXI

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVENChapters XXII, XXIIIHALLOWED BE THY NAMEChapter XXIVTHY KINGDOM COMEChapter XXVTHY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN, SO ON EARTHChapter XXVIGIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREADChapter XXVII

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTSAS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORSChapter XXVIII

BRING US NOT INTO TEMPTATIONBUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONEChapters XXIX, XXX

ORIGEN’S TREATMENT OF THE LORD’S PRAYERChapters XVIII to XXX

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVENChapters XXII, XXIII

HALLOWED BE THY NAMEChapter XXIV

THY KINGDOM COMEChapter XXV

THY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN SO ON EARTHChapter XXVI

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREADChapter XXVII

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVENOUR DEBTORSChapter XXVIII

BRING US NOT INTO TEMPTATIONChapter XXIX

DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONEChapter XXX