On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

Of things that are moved, some derive from without that which moves them, as for example …

Answer to these objections (Chapters VI to VIII, 1)

Of things that are moved,¹² some derive from without that which moves them, as for example things that are without life, held together merely by their form,³ and things that are moved by nature and soul, which are moved now and then not as such, but in a manner similar to things that are held together merely by their form. For stones and pieces of wood, which are cut out of the quarry or have lost the power of growing, being held together merely by their form, derive from without that which moves them; moreover the bodies of living creatures and the produce of what has been planted, when they are changed in position by something, are not so changed qua living creatures or plants, but similarly to stones and to pieces of wood which have lost the power of growth; and even if they are moved in virtue of the fact that all bodies as they decay are in a state of flux, this motion which they have is inseparably connected with their state of decay.

In the second place, and distinct from the foregoing, are things that are moved by their own inherent nature or soul,⁴ which are said to be moved “out of themselves” by those who use the words in their proper sense. A third kind of movement is that which takes place in living creatures, which is called movement “from within themselves”; but I think that the movement of rational beings is movement “through themselves.” But if we take away from the living creature this movement “from within itself,” it can no longer be conceived of as a living creature, but it will be like either a plant, which is moved merely by nature, or a stone, which is propelled by an external force. But if a thing is inseparably connected with its own movement, since we have called this movement “through itself,” of necessity it must be rational.

Therefore, they who hold that we have no free will,⁵⁶ necessarily take up an extremely foolish position: in the first place, that we are not living creatures; and in the second, that neither are we possessed of reason, but moved, as it were, by some external moving force, and therefore it can in no wise be said of us that we do what we are reckoned to do. Let a man pay particular attention⁷ to his own experience and see if it is not impudent for him to affirm that he does not of himself will, or of himself eat, or of himself walk, or of himself assent to or accept⁸ any opinions of any sort, or of himself dissent from others as false. On the assumption that free will is not preserved, a man cannot possibly adopt an attitude towards certain opinions, supported though they may be ten thousand times by skilful and plausible arguments, nor, similarly, can one adopt an attitude in regard to human affairs. Who takes up the position that nothing may be apprehended? Or who lives in suspense of judgment⁹ about everything whatsoever? Who does not rebuke his servant, when he imagines negligence on the part of a slave? And who is there, who does not accuse a son for failing to render what is due to parents, or does not blame and censure as guilty of a disgraceful act the adulterous wife? For the truth forces and compels us, in spite of thousands of plausible arguments, to take action and to praise and to censure on the assumption that free will is safeguarded, and deserves our praise or blame.¹⁰

If then free will is preserved, with its countless tendencies towards virtue or vice, and, again, towards what is fitting or what is not fitting, it must needs be that this, with all else, has been known to God, before it come to pass, “from the creation”¹¹ and “the foundation of the world,”¹² of what sort it shall be; and in everything which God arranges beforehand in accordance with what he has seen concerning each act of free will, he has so arranged it that that which is to happen in virtue of his providence, and also that which is to come to pass in the train of future events,¹³ will be the due result of each movement of the free will. But the foreknowledge of God is not the cause of all future events or of future actions performed by us of our free will and mere motion. Even if, for the sake of argument, God were not to know the future, we should not for that reason lose the power of accomplishing or willing this or that. From foreknowledge, however,¹⁴ it follows that each act of free will is adapted to such an arrangement of the whole as the settled order of the universe demands.

If then each act of free will has been known to him, it is a reasonable consequence that what has been foreseen by him is arranged by Providence suitably for every single person, and that it is understood beforehand¹⁵ what so-and-so will pray for, his kind of disposition, the nature of his faith, and what he desires to happen to him; and, this being understood beforehand, some sort of arrangement as this will accordingly have been made in the disposing of things: “I will hear this man¹⁶ who will pray intelligently, for the very prayer’s sake which he will pray; but this man I will not hear, either because he will be unworthy to be heard, or because he will pray¹⁵ for things which are neither profitable for him who prays, nor proper for me to grant; and for this prayer (let us say) of so-and-so I will not hear him; but for that, I will hear him.” (If anyone is disturbed by the thought that things have been determined by necessity because God, who knows the future beforehand, cannot lie, it should be said to such a one that this very thing is assuredly known to God, that such and such a man does not assuredly and firmly desire what is better, or that he will so will what is worse that he will be incapable of changing towards what is preferable.) And again, “I will grant this or that to this man who will pray, because it is meet for me to do this for a man who will pray blamelessly and will not prove careless in the matter of prayer; and when he shall pray for a certain time, I will bestow this or that upon him ‘exceeding abundantly above’ what he ‘asks or thinks,’¹⁷ for it is meet for me to overpass him in good deeds and to supply him with more than he has been able to ask for. Moreover, to such a one, destined to become such as this, I will send this ministering angel, to be his fellow- worker unto salvation from such a time onward, and to continue with him until such a time. To another, destined to become greater than the first, I will send this angel (let us say), who is more honourable than the other. And as for this third, who after embracing higher teaching is about to grow somewhat weaker and turn backwards to worldly things, from him I will remove this mightier fellow-worker: and when he has departed, some inferior power, seizing the occasion to assault him in his slackness, will now deservedly come upon him,¹⁸ and finding him given over and ready to sin, will incite him to such and such sins.”

It is in some such way as this that he who orders beforehand the universe will say: “Amon will beget Josiah, who will not emulate the evil deeds of his father, but will find the path that leads on to virtue, and with the help of those that shall be his fellows will prove to be a good and worthy man, and will ‘break down the altar’ of ‘Jeroboam’ that was iniquitously built.¹⁹ And I know also that Judas, when my Son has come to sojourn among mankind, at the beginning will be a good and worthy man, but afterwards will turn aside and fall into the sins that are common to man, on account of which he will rightly suffer such and such things.” (And this foreknowledge, perhaps in respect of all things but certainly in respect of Judas and other mysteries, appertains also to the Son of God, who saw in his understanding of the future circle of events Judas and the sins that would be committed by him: so that with direct apprehension, and before Judas was born, he said by the mouth of David, “O God, pass not over in silence my praise,”²⁰ and so forth.) And knowing the future, and what power²¹ for godliness²² Paul will have, “by myself,” he says,²³ “or ever I create the world or set my hand to begin to make it, I will choose out him, and as soon as he is begotten I will provide him with those powers that work together for the salvation of men, ‘separating’ him ‘from’ his ‘mother’s womb,’²⁴ and permitting him at first in his youthful and ignorant zeal under the cloak of godliness to ‘persecute’²⁵ them that have believed on my Christ, and to keep ‘the garments’ of them that ‘were stoning’ my servant and ‘martyr Stephen,’²⁶ so that, when this wanton outburst of youth is over, starting again and changing for the better he should ‘not glory before’²⁷ me, but rather say, ‘I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,’²⁸ and, perceiving the bounty that should come to him after the errors committed in youth under the cloak of godliness should say, ‘by the grace of God I am what I am,’²⁹ and being prevented by the conscience still with him of what he had done in the impulse of youth, he will not be ‘exalted overmuch by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations’³⁰ that will be manifested to him by an act of bounty.”

Notes

See note.
VI, 1. Of things that are moved, etc.] As in De Princ., III, 1, 2, Origen bases the reality of free will on the faculty of motion. In order to demonstrate this, he arranges objects into three (or four) classes, as follows:
(1) (a) Things without life, held together merely by their form (e.g., stones cut out of the quarry, wood that has lost the power of growing).
(b) Bodies of living creatures and growing plants when moved, not qua living creatures or plants, but by an external force, or when moved in virtue of the fact that they are in a state of decay and, consequently, of flux.
(2) Inanimate things (ἄψυχα: De Princ., III, 1:2) moved by their own inherent nature or soul, i.e., “out of themselves” (ἐξ ἑαυτῶν), e.g., a growing plant.
(3) Animate things (ἔμψυχα), living creatures (ζῶα), moved “from within themselves” (ἀφ᾽ αὑτῶν). The impulse of the spider to weave a web, or of a bee to produce wax, are examples of this (De Princ.). [In De Principiis Origen, while maintaining the distinction between classes (2) and (3), also groups them together as objects which are moved “in themselves” (ἐν ἑαυτοῖς).]
(4) Rational creatures, which are moved “through themselves” (δι᾿ αὑτῶν). In this case the movement and the mover are inseparably connected.
In the De Oratione Origen does not distinguish formally between classes (3) and (4); perhaps because he is anxious to point out, as he does, that to deny free will to us would be to deny that we are even living creatures (class 3), much less creatures of reason (class 4).
This argument from the power of self-motion is clearly derived, ultimately, from Plato (cf. Phaedrus, 245C et seq. and Laws, X, 893B et seq.), who regards it as constituting the essential character of the soul. On this point Plato was criticized by Aristotle (De Anima, I, ch. III).
VI, 1. held together merely by their form] Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 14, and Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math., VIII, 2, for a very similar phrase.
VI, 1. moved by their own inherent nature and soul] Cf. Proclus, Inst., 20.
See note.
VI, 2. that we have no free will] Lit. “that nothing is in our power.” We have translated the phrase τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν (“that which is in our power”) as free will in this section, in VI, 3, 4, and in ch. VII. It is found frequently also in contra Celsum, (I, 66; II, 20; IV, 3, 67 (bis), 70; V, 21). The plural, τὰ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, occurs in contra Celsum, V, 21, and De Orat., VI, 3. By the phrase the Stoics meant the inner court of judgment, that in a man which has the power to accept or reject certain impressions; and Origen took it over from them in the sense of the power of judgment or choice, as for example the power to resist evil passions and refrain from evil actions. The possession of this power was held to be open to question in Origen’s day by the Sceptics: cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outline of Pyrrhonism, III, 70, “And if anyone should seek refuge in the notions of ‘impulse’ and ‘purpose,’ we must remind him of the controversy about ‘What is in our power,’ and how it is still unsettled, since hitherto we have failed to find a criterion of truth.” This quotation suggests, which is indeed a fact, that by this time the phrase had become through usage a recognized term, so much so indeed that it signified generally the power of choice, and could be used of a third person, in which case the “our” had no significance. Thus we have in ch. VII (beginning) τοῦ ἡλίου ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, “the free will of the sun,” and later on in the chapter “the free will of the sun and moon and stars”; and in contra Celsum, I, 66, τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν Ἡρώδου, “the free will of Herod.” See de Faye, III, 182 ff., who translates the phrase: “ce qui dépend de nous.”
VI, 2. Let a man pay particular attention, etc.] So in almost the same words Origen begins a similar line of argument in De Princ., III, 1:4 (C.B., XXII, 198).
VI, 2. Some external moving force . . . assent to or accept] Following emendations adopted by Koetschau in his translation.
VI, 2. in suspense of judgment] ὡς ἐπέχων. This was a characteristic feature of the philosophy of the sceptics. Cf. Sextus Empiricus (c. 200 A.D.) Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 10: “‘Suspense’ [ἐποχὴ] is a state of mental rest as a result of which we neither deny nor affirm anything.”
VI, 2. and deserves our praise or blame] I read τοῦ for τούτου with Wendland. For “praise or blame” cf. Plato, Laws, 639C.
Cf. Rom. 1:20.
Cf. Matt. 25:34; Luke 11:50; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; Rev. 13:8; 17:8.
VI, 3. the train of future events] τὸν εἱρμὸν τῶν ἐσομένων. Origen uses the same phrase in a similar argument in In Rom., I (Philocalia, 227, 229).
Reading πλήν.
Adopting the reading of Bentley.
VI, 4. “I will hear this man,” etc.] This is not the only passage in which Origen adopts the method of putting his own conception of the mind of God into words as if spoken by God himself or Christ: cf. XIV, 1; XV, 4; XXIX, 14.
Eph. 3:20.
VI, 4. some inferior power . . . will now deservedly come upon him] Reading ἤδη for ἦδε ἡ with Koetschau in his translation.
II Kings 23:15; cf. II Kings 21:24; 22:2.
Ps. 109:1.
Lit. “tension.”
VI, 5. power for godliness] “Power” is literally “tension.” Origen borrowed this term from the Stoics (see XXVII, 8, and especially the reference of Plutarch to Cleanthes in note there, p. 367). According to them “tension” when imparted to the soul was the cause of virtues and vices. Origen points out that in Paul it was an enablement towards virtue.
The words “he says” are inserted by Koetschau.
Gal. 1:15.
Acts 9:5.
Acts 7:59; 22:20.
I Cor. 1:29.
I Cor. 15:9.
I Cor. 15:10.
II Cor. 12:7.