On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

Now if Jesus prays, and does not pray in vain, obtaining through prayer what he asks for …

Now if Jesus prays, and does not pray in vain, obtaining through prayer what he asks for (and perhaps he would not have received it without prayer),¹ which of us may neglect prayer? For Mark says, “In the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.”² And Luke: “And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him”³; and elsewhere: “and he continued all night in prayer to God.”⁴ And John records his prayer thus: “These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”⁵ Also, the saying of the Lord “I knew that thou hearest me always,”⁶ recorded by the same writer, shows that praying “always” is “always” heard.

Examples from Scripture of answered prayer (Chapter XIII, 2)

But why need I tell the tale of those who have obtained the greatest blessings from God by praying as they ought? Each one can collect for himself from the Scriptures many examples. Hannah ministered to the birth of Samuel, who was reckoned along with Moses,⁷⁸ when, having no child, she prayed in faith to the Lord.⁹ Hezekiah, when as yet he was childless,¹⁰ on learning from Isaiah that he was about to die, prayed,¹¹ and has been given a place in the genealogy of the Saviour.¹² Again, when the people [of the Jews] were about to be destroyed as a result of the plot of Haman under a single decree, the prayer with fasting of Mordecai and Esther was heard, and it gave birth to “the” joyful “day of Mordecai”¹³ among the people,¹⁴ an addition to the feasts established by Moses. Judith, moreover, when she had offered up a holy prayer overcame Holophernes with the help of God, and a woman of the Hebrews single-handed brought shame upon the house of Nebuchadnezzar.¹⁵ Also, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in due answer to their prayer were sent “a whistling dewy wind”¹⁶ which prevented “the flame of fire” from exerting its power.¹⁷ And the mouths of the Babylonians’ “lions in the den” were stopped by the prayers of Daniel.¹⁸ And Jonah too did not despair of being heard from “the belly of the great fish” which “swallowed” him, and when he came out from the belly of the fish he fulfilled what was lacking of his prophecy concerning the Ninevites.¹⁹

Similar prayers are also answered today (Chapter XIII, 3–5)

How many things could each of us tell of, had we the desire, out of a thankful remembrance of benefits conferred upon us, to offer praises to God concerning them? 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 filled with perceptions of truth. How many enemies have been destroyed, when time and again myriads of a hostile power fought against us and sought to turn us from the divine faith? Then we took heart of grace because “some” trust “in chariots” and “some in horses,” but “we” calling upon “the name of the Lord”²⁰ perceive that truly “an horse is a vain thing for safety.”²¹ Moreover, he who puts his trust in praise to God oftentimes brings to nought “the chief captain”²² of the adversary, even that deceitful and plausible word, which causes many to cower for fear, even of those who are reckoned faithful. For Judith signifies praise. What need is there also to speak of the numbers of those who have often encountered trials, hard to overcome, more searing than any flame, and yet have suffered therein no hurt, but have passed through them quite unharmed, not even receiving in the ordinary way the harm of “the smell of the” enemy’s “fire.”²³ Moreover, how many wild beasts, enraged against us, even evil spirits and cruel men, have they fallen in with,²⁴ and by their prayers often stopped their mouths, so that they could not fasten their teeth upon those of us who have become “the members of Christ”?²⁵ Often for each of the saints “the Lord hath broken the great teeth of the lions,” and “they have melted away as water that passeth by.”²⁶ And we have often known those who had fled from the commandments of God and were “swallowed up”²⁷ of death, which in days gone by had power over them, who through repentance were saved from utter disaster, because they did not despair of the possibility of salvation even when held fast “in the belly of”²⁸ death. For “death, prevailing, swallowed them up; and God hath taken away again every tear from off every face.”²⁹

I consider that, after giving a list of those who have been benefited by prayer, it has been most necessary to add this, in order to turn away from prayer for trivial and earthly things earnest seekers after spiritual life in Christ, and to exhort the readers of this book to the pursuit of things mystical, of which the aforesaid were types. For prayer concerning the spiritual and mystical blessings that we have indicated above, is always and in every case brought to good effect by him who “does not war according to the flesh,”³⁰ but who “by the spirit mortifies the deeds of the body,”³¹ those who seek out and establish the higher sense being preferred to those who appear to receive benefits prayed for according to the letter. And in our case we must make it our endeavour that the soul³² be not childless or barren, as we listen to the spiritual law with spiritual ears: so that putting aside childlessness or barrenness we may be heard as Hannah and Hezekiah were, and may be delivered from enemies that plot against us, even the spiritual forces of evil, as Mordecai and Esther and Judith were. And since “Egypt” is “an iron furnace,”³³ being a symbol³⁴ of every terrestrial place, let every one who has escaped from the evil in human life, and has not been set on fire by sin, nor had his heart full of fire like a furnace, give thanks no less than they did who were tried in a “fire of dew.”³⁵ Moreover, let him who has been heard when in his prayer he said “deliver not to the wild beasts the soul that hath acknowledged thee,”³⁶ and has suffered no hurt “from the adder and the basilisk,” because Christ has enabled him to “tread upon” them, and has “trampled under foot the lion and the dragon,”³⁷ and has used the good “power given” by Jesus “to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy,”³⁸ and has been in no wise harmed by such like—let such a one give greater thanks than Daniel did, inasmuch as he has been delivered from more fearful and harmful wild beasts. And further, he who is persuaded of what “great fish” that which “swallowed” Jonah is the type,³⁹⁴⁰ and comprehends that it is the one spoken of by Job, “Let him curse it that curses the day, who is ready to overpower the great fish,”⁴¹ if at any time he should happen to find himself because of disobedience “in the belly of the fish”⁴²; let him repent and pray, and he shall go forth therefrom; and going forth and continuing to obey the commandments of God he shall be able in “the kindness” of “the Spirit”⁴³ to prophesy to the Ninevites that are perishing even now and become for them a cause of salvation, if he is not displeased at the “goodness of God” and does not seek that his “severity”⁴⁴ should continue towards them that repent.

The greatest thing that Samuel is said to have wrought by prayer, this in the spiritual sense it is possible for every one who is genuinely devoted to God to accomplish even now, since he has become worthy of being heard. For it is written: “And now stand, and see this great thing, which the Lord doeth before your eyes.⁴⁵ Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, and he will give thunder and rain.” Then, after a little: “And Samuel called,” he says, “unto the Lord, and the Lord gave thunder and rain that day.”⁴⁶ For to every saint and to the genuine disciple of Jesus it is said by the Lord: “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.”⁴⁷ Verily at that season of harvest “the Lord doeth a great thing before the eyes” of them that hear the prophets. For when he who has been adorned with the Holy Spirit has “called unto the Lord,” God gives from heaven “thunder, and rain” that refreshes the soul, so that he who was formerly in wickedness might “greatly fear the Lord”⁴⁸ and the minister of the benefit wrought by God, manifested as reverend and venerable in that his prayer is heard. And Elijah also opened “the heaven,” after it had been “shut up” by the divine word for “three years and six months”⁴⁹ because of transgressions. And this good result follows always for everyone whomsoever who through prayer receives the rain of the soul, having been formerly deprived of it by reason of sin.

Notes

XIII, 1. perhaps he would not have received it without prayer] Cf. In Joh., XIII, 1: “The opinion may perhaps be held that no one who does not ask it receives the heavenly gift. Certainly, in the psalm the Father urges the Son himself to ask that it shall be given him, even as the Son similarly teaches us, saying: ‘The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.’”
Mark 1:35.
Luke 11:1.
Luke 6:12.
John 17:1.
John 11:42.
Jer. 15:1; cf. Ps. 99:6.
XIII, 2. Samuel, who was reckoned along with Moses] Cf. In I Sam. hom., XXVIII, 3 (C.B., VI, 285): “Moses who has been coupled with Samuel, according to the saying [Jer. 15:1].”
I Sam. 1:9 ff.
XIII, 2. Hezekiah, when as yet he was childless] Origen bases this statement on the prayer of Hezekiah, when he was recovered of his sickness, as given in the LXX of Isa. 38:19, “From henceforth I will beget children, who shall proclaim thy righteousness, O Lord of my salvation,” a passage which Origen quotes in contra Celsum, VIII, 46. The Hebrew Scriptures speak of one child—Manasseh—born three years after the illness of his father (II Kings 20:6; 21:1).
Cf. II Kings 20:1 ff.; Isa. 38:1 ff.
Matt. 1:9, 10.
II Maccabees 15:36.
Cf. Esth. 3:6, 7; 4:16, 17; 9:26–28.
Judith 13:4–10.
XIII, 2. “a whistling dewy wind”] πνεῦμα δρόσου διασυρίζον. A detail wholly absent from the Hebrew, which is found in the Greek versions, LXX, and Theodotion, of Dan 3:50. The phrase is referred to again in XIII, 4, “fire of dew,” and also in XVI, 3, “the material dew which conquered the flame kindled by Nebuchadnezzar.” Tertullian, De Oratione, XXIX, also refers to “the angel of dew in mid-fires” (“roris angelum in mediis ignibus”: P.L., I, 1195).
Dan. 3:24, 49, 50 (LXX).
Dan. 6:16, 22.
Jonah 1:17; 2:1; 3:1–4.
Ps. 20:7.
Ps. 33:17.
Judith 2:4, etc.
Dan. 3:27.
XIII, 3. have they fallen in with, etc.] This is the reading of T. Probably read “have we fallen in with, and by our prayers,” etc.
I Cor. 6:15.
Ps. 58:7, 8.
Jonah 2:1, 2.
Jonah 2:1, 2.
Isa. 25:8.
II Cor. 10:3.
Rom. 8:13.
“soul” is supplied from a conjecture of Bentley.
Deut. 4:20.
XIII, 4. “Egypt” is “an iron furnace,” being a symbol, etc.] Cf. In Jerem. hom., IX, 2 (C.B., VI, 66).
Dan. 3:49, 50 (LXX).
Ps. 73:19 (LXX).
Ps. 91:13.
Luke 10:19.
Jonah 1:17.
XIII, 4. of what great fish . . . type, etc.] Similarly in In Levit. hom., VIII, 2 (C.B., XXIX, 397 f.) Origen speaks of the “great fish” which swallowed Jonah as the type of that referred to in Job 3:8, and identifies it with the devil.
Job. 3:8.
Jonah 2:1.
Gal. 5:22.
Rom. 11:22 (cf. Jonah 4:1, 2).
XIII, 5. “this great thing, which the Lord doeth before your eyes”] I Sam. 12:16. Here and lower down in this section Origen reads “doeth” for “will do” of the LXX. It being wheat harvest, i.e., May-June, it was a season when thunder and rain were almost unknown in Palestine. Such a period is likened by Origen to a period of spiritual drought when the “thirsty soul” longs for the “refreshing grace” of God.
I Sam. 12:16–18.
John 4:35, 36.
I Sam. 12:16–18.
Luke 4:25; cf. James 5:17, 18.