On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

If we understand what prayer is, perhaps we ought not to pray to anyone born [of woman], …

If we understand what prayer is, perhaps we ought not to pray to anyone born [of woman], nor even to Christ himself, but only to the God and Father of all,¹ to whom also our Saviour prayed, as we have mentioned before,² and teaches us to pray.³ For when he heard “Teach us to pray,” he did not “teach” them “to pray”⁴ to himself, but to the Father, saying, “Our Father⁵ which art in heaven,”⁶ and so forth. For if, as is shown elsewhere, the Son is different from the Father in person and in subject,⁷⁸ we must pray either to the Son and not to the Father, or to both, or to the Father alone. Now, everyone without exception will agree that it would be most absurd to pray to the Son and not to the Father, and that to maintain this would be contrary to revealed truth. If we were to pray to both, this would involve making our requests in the plural, saying in our prayers “provide ye,” “do ye good,” “supply ye,” “save ye,” and so on: this would be in itself incongruous, nor can anyone give an instance from the Scriptures of any persons using this mode of expression. It remains, therefore, to pray only to God the Father of all, but not apart from the high priest,⁹ who was “appointed”¹⁰ by the Father “with the taking of an oath,” in accordance with the words “he sware¹¹ and will not repent himself, thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”¹²

When therefore the saints give thanks in their prayers to God, they acknowledge his favours through Christ Jesus. And as it is not fitting that a man who prays with due care should pray to him who prays¹³ but rather to him whom our Lord Jesus has taught us to call upon in prayer, even the Father, so also no prayer should be offered to the Father apart from him, as he himself shows us clearly when he says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of my Father, he will give it you in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.”¹⁴ For he did not say, “Ask me,” nor yet, “Ask the Father” simply, but, “If ye shall ask anything of my Father, he will give it you in my name.” For until Jesus had given this teaching,¹⁵ no one had “asked the Father¹⁶ in the name” of the Son. It was a true saying of Jesus: “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name”; and true also the saying: “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.”

But if anyone, thinking that he ought to pray to Christ himself, and confused by the meaning of the word “worship,” should bring forward to us the saying: “Let all the angels of God worship him”¹⁷ (admittedly in Deuteronomy spoken of Christ), we should say to him that the Church also, named Jerusalem¹⁸ by the prophet, is said to be worshipped by kings and queens, who have become her nursing fathers and mothers. The passage is as follows: “Behold, I lift up mine hand to the nations, and will lift up mine ensign to the isles; and they shall bring thy sons in their bosom, and will lift up thy daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall worship [thee]¹⁹ with their face to the earth, and lick the dust of thy feet: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and shalt not be ashamed.”²⁰

Without doubt, he who said,²¹ “Why callest thou me good?²² none is good save one, even God, the Father,”²³ might also say,²⁴ “Why dost thou pray to me? It is right to pray to the Father alone, to whom I also pray: as you learn from the holy Scriptures. For you ought not to pray to him who was ‘appointed high priest’²⁵ on your behalf by the Father and who received from the Father the office of ‘advocate,’²⁶ but rather through the high priest and advocate, who ‘can be touched with the feeling of’ your ‘infirmities,’ and ‘hath been in all points tempted’ as you are, yet because of the gift bestowed on me by the Father ‘tempted without sin.’²⁷ Learn therefore how great a gift you have received from my Father, having ‘received’ through regeneration²⁸ in me ‘the spirit of adoption,’²⁹ that you may be called ‘sons of God.’³⁰ For you have read the saying addressed to the Father that was spoken by me concerning you through David: ‘I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I sing thy praise.’³¹ It is not reasonable that those who have been deemed worthy to have ‘one’³² Father with him³³ should pray to a brother. Therefore your prayer ought to be offered to the Father alone with me and through me.”³⁴

Notes

XV, 1. but only to the God and Father of all] For this limitation concerning prayer (in the proper sense of the term according to Origen), see Introduction, pp. 187 f., 231.
Cf. contra Celsum, V, 4: “Every supplication and prayer and intercession and thanksgiving is to be offered to God who is over all through the high priest who is above all the angels, the living Word and God. But we shall supplicate the Word himself and intercede with him and give thanks, yes and pray also, if we are able to pay attention to the correct use and the abuse of terms concerning prayer.” The concluding words, if they are to be brought into line with De Orat., XV, 1, must mean that “prayer” in the looser, but not in the stricter, sense may be addressed to Christ.
On similar lines is contra Celsum, VIII, 13: “We worship the one God and his one Son and Word and Image with entreaties and requests according to our ability, bringing our prayers to the God of the universe through his only-begotten: to whom first we offer them, counting him worthy who is the propitiation for our sins to bring as a high priest our prayers and sacrifices and intercessions to the God who is over all.”
A less decisive passage is contra Celsum, V, 11 (end): “And although one may not be so great (as the sun), nevertheless let such a one pray to the Word of God as able to heal him, and much more to his Father, who sent his Word to them of old time and healed them and delivered them from their afflictions.”
On the other hand, a different point of view is indicated in In Rom., VIII, 5: “If therefore Enoch and Moses and Aaron and Samuel called upon the Lord, and he heard them, doubtless they called upon Christ Jesus as Lord: and if to call upon the name of the Lord and to pray to the Lord are one and the same thing, as God is called upon, Christ is to be called upon; and as God is prayed to, so also Christ is to be prayed to; and as we offer prayers to God the Father first of all, so also to the Lord Jesus Christ; and as we offer requests to the Father, so we offer requests to the Son also; and as we offer thanksgiving to God, so also we offer thanks to the Saviour” (P.G., XIV, 1165 f.). But as this passage is found only in the Latin translation of Rufinus, it may have been altered in the interests of orthodoxy.
The Anonymous, however, in a learned and able note (Reading, 78 f.), confining himself to a consideration of those passages in which the Greek is extant, endeavours to make Origen consistent with himself. He maintains that in the passage of the De Oratione Origen is speaking of Christ only under the aspect of “high priest and advocate” (see XV, 4), and therefore insists that Christ qua mediator is not to be prayed to; but that when Origen is referring to Christ as Word or Son of God (e.g., in contra Celsum V, 4 and V, 11) he says something different. The Anonymous also draws attention to the limited connotation of the word “prayer” as used in the De Oratione here.
See XIII, 1.
Cf. Matt. 6:5 ff.; Luke 11:1 ff.
Luke 11:2.
XV, 1. “Teach us to pray” . . . “Our Father,” etc.] Origen here confuses Matthew and Luke. The words “Teach us to pray” come from Luke 11:2, but “Our Father,” etc., from Matt. 6:9. Indeed, in XVIII, 2, Origen gives the text of the prayer in Luke as “Father, Hallowed be thy name,” etc.
Matt. 6:9.
See note.
XV, 1. the Son is different from the Father in person and subject] ἕτερος . . . κατ᾽ οὐσίαν καὶ ὑποκείμενόν (-ός τ) ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ πατρὸς. Apparently Origen uses οὐσία here in the sense of Person (that which distinguishes the Son from the Father); as he also does in In Joh., II, 23, where he argues that because the Son is called light and the Father is called light, it does not follow that the Son is not in οὐσία (i.e., Person) different from the Father. Cf. also In Joh., I, 28 fin. and contra Celsum, VI, 64. ὑποκείμενος is similarly used in In Jerem. hom., VIII, 2 (C.B., VI, 57). A similar use of the term οὐσία appears in Eusebius, H.E., VI, 33, in describing the heresy of Beryllus of Bostra, whom Origen converted to orthodoxy. On the other hand, οὐσία and ὑποκείμενος are distinguished in In Joh., X, 37, οὐσία meaning “essence,” and ὑποκείμενος “person” or “subject.” See Bigg, 203 (note), Bethune Baker, 149, F. Prat, Origène 172.
Heb. 2:17, etc.
Heb. 8:3.
XV, 1. in accordance with the words “he sware”] The Anonymous would read “the Lord sware” following Ps. 109:4 (LXX) and Heb. 7:21.
Heb. 7:20, 21.
XV, 2. it is not fitting that a man . . . should pray to him who prays] Cf. contra Celsum, V, 11.
John 16:23, 24.
XV, 2. had given this teaching] An emendation of the Anonymous, followed by Koetschau. T reads “shall give.”
XV, 2. no one had “asked the Father”] In XXII, 1, Origen points out that nowhere in the Old Testament is God called “Father” in prayer.
Deut. 32:43 (LXX); Heb. 1:6.
XV, 3. named Jerusalem] Actually “Sion” is the word used (Isa. 49:14).
“thee,” absent from the MS. T, is supplied from the LXX.
Isa. 49:22, 23.
For text of this passage, see note.
XV, 4. “Why callest thou me good?”] This quotation from Mark 10:18 is a favourite one with Origen when he touches on the subordination of the Son to the Father. Cf. contra Celsum, V, 11; In Joh., I, 35; II, 13; XIII, 36; also VI, 47; XIII, 25; Exhort. 7. See H. B. Swete, ad loc.
Mark 10:18.
XV, 4. he who said . . . might also say] This emendation by Delarue makes it clear that the words put into the mouth of the Son, which follow, are merely hypothetical.
Cf. Heb. 8:3.
Cf. I John 2:1.
Heb. 4:15.
Cf. I Peter 1:3, 23.
Rom. 8:15.
Rom. 8:14; Gal. 3:26.
Ps. 22:22 (Heb. 2:12).
Cf. Heb. 2:11.
XV, 4. “one” Father with him] Reading αὐτῷ for αὐτῶν with Bentley and the Anonymous.
XV, 4. to the Father alone with me and through me] i.e., in company with me (as your brother) and through me (as your mediator).