On Prayer

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–5.6 · 6.1–12.2 · 13.1–17.2 · 18.1–23.5 · 24.1–26.6 · 27.1–27.17 · 28.1–28.10 · 29.1–30.3 · 31.1–34.1

1. 1.1Things impossible for human nature, such as wisdom and knowledge of God's mind, become possible by God's grace through Christ and the Spirit.
2. 2.1Origen tells Ambrose and Tatiana that explaining prayer rightly is humanly impossible; even Paul confessed that we do not know how to pray as we ought.
3. 2.2Origen distinguishes what we should pray for, such as heavenly things and laborers for the harvest, from the right disposition in prayer, such as reconciliation, purity, and self-control in marriage.
4. 2.3Paul confessed he did not know how to pray as he ought, but the Spirit intercedes for the saints with groanings too deep for words.
5. 2.4The mind cannot pray rightly unless the Spirit prays first; so a disciple, though trained in Jewish prayer, asked Jesus to teach them to pray as John had.
6. 2.5Spiritual prayers written in Scripture, such as Hannah's and the psalms titled “prayer,” are full of the doctrines of God's wisdom.
7. 2.6Origen prays for the Spirit's help before beginning his treatise on prayer.
8. 3.1Origen begins by noting that the Greek word for prayer, euchē, first appears in Scripture as Jacob's vow at Bethel.
9. 3.2The word euchē means a vow, but Scripture also uses it for ordinary prayer, as when Pharaoh asks Moses to pray against the frogs.
10. 3.3Origen traces where the word for prayer occurs in the story of the plagues of Egypt.
11. 3.4Many passages of the law, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Acts use euchē in the sense of a vow rather than a prayer.
12. 4.1Proseuchē, the usual word for prayer, can also be joined with a vow, as in Hannah's prayer for a son.
13. 4.2Hannah both prayed and made a vow; her promise to give her son to God was a vow like Jephthah's, not a prayer in the strict sense.
14. 5.1Almost no one who believes in God's providence rejects prayer, but some heretics who reject baptism and the Eucharist have been persuaded that one should not pray.
15. 5.2The first objection: God already knows what we need and cares for us like a father, so prayer seems unnecessary.
16. 5.3The second objection: if God has preordained everything, praying for what will happen anyway is as foolish as praying for the sun to rise.
17. 5.4A further objection: if Scripture says some are sinners from the womb and others chosen before birth, as Jacob and Esau were, prayer seems to change nothing.
18. 5.5The objection continues: if the elect are chosen before creation and Josiah and Judas were foretold, prayer cannot change God's unchangeable purpose.
19. 5.6Origen quotes Ambrose's two questions: if God foreknows everything, and if his will cannot change, is prayer not vain?
20. 6.1Origen distinguishes things moved from outside, things moved by their nature, animals that move themselves, and rational beings who move by their own reason.
21. 6.2Denying free will is absurd: we experience ourselves choosing, and everyone praises and blames others as responsible for their acts.
22. 6.3God foreknows our free choices from the creation of the world, but his foreknowledge does not cause them; it lets him fit each choice into the government of the universe.
23. 6.4God foresees how each person will pray and orders in advance whether and how to answer, even which angel to send to help each one.
24. 6.5God foresaw Josiah's goodness, Judas's fall, and Paul's persecution and conversion, and arranged his help accordingly without taking away their freedom.
25. 7.1Even the sun and stars have free will and praise God; but since they are wise and steady, nothing could turn them from their course, so praying for sunrise is not a fair analogy.
26. 8.1Just as children require a woman, some things are obtained only by praying rightly: without babbling, anger, or unforgiveness, and for heavenly rather than earthly things.
27. 8.2Even apart from being answered, prayer benefits the one who prays, because recalling God's presence restrains him from sin and moves him to good.
28. 9.1From 1 Timothy: men should pray with holy hands, free of anger and distraction, and women with modesty in soul and body, adorned with good works.
29. 9.2Lifting the eyes and soul to God in prayer transforms the one who prays into God's image and makes the soul spiritual.
30. 9.3Coming to prayer free of grudges, as the prophet and Jesus command, already gives us the best of gifts.
31. 10.1One who prays rightly, content with God's providence and without secret murmuring, will hear God say “Here I am,” as Isaiah promises.
32. 10.2The one who prays rightly shares in the Word of God, the high priest and advocate who prays with those who pray; Jesus' parables urge us to pray always and without shame.
33. 11.1Christ is not alone in praying with us: the angels, as Raphael shows in Tobit, and the departed saints, as Jeremiah shows in 2 Maccabees, pray for us too.
34. 11.2The departed saints, perfected in love of neighbor, care for those still struggling on earth even more than they did in this life, as Christ counts believers' sufferings as his own.
35. 11.3Angels who ministered to Jesus on earth still serve him in gathering and building the church, as the angels of the churches in Revelation show.
36. 11.4The angels help those who pray, much as God may bring a physician to a sick man who prays, or a generous rich man to a poor man in need.
37. 11.5God, who numbers every hair, brings angels to help those who pray; each believer's guardian angel prays and works with him.
38. 12.1The prayers of the saints are powerful, like light and like arrows, weakening and wounding the evil spirits that try to bind us in sin.
39. 12.2To pray without ceasing is to make one's whole life a prayer by joining it to good works, while also praying at least three times a day, as well as at night.
40. 13.1If Jesus himself prayed and received what he asked through prayer, none of us should neglect to pray.
41. 13.2Scripture gives many examples of answered prayer: Hannah, Hezekiah, Mordecai and Esther, Judith, the three youths, Daniel, and Jonah.
42. 13.3Every believer can recount answered prayers: barren souls made fruitful, spiritual enemies scattered, temptations passed through unharmed, and sinners rescued from death through repentance.
43. 13.4The deliverances in Scripture are types of spiritual gifts; Christians should pray not for earthly things but for fruitfulness of soul and deliverance from spiritual enemies.
44. 13.5As Samuel's prayer brought thunder and rain and Elijah's opened the heavens, the saints' prayers now bring the rain of grace to souls in the harvest of the gospel.
45. 14.1The unwritten saying “ask for great and heavenly things, and small and earthly ones will be added” means we should pray for the spiritual realities of which Scripture's stories are types.
46. 14.2Origen distinguishes the four words of 1 Timothy 2:1: supplication asks for what is lacking, prayer glorifies God about greater things, intercession asks with boldness, and thanksgiving acknowledges gifts received.
47. 14.3Examples of supplication: Zechariah's prayer for a son, Moses' pleas for Israel, and the prayers of Mordecai and Esther.
48. 14.4Examples of prayer in the strict sense, offered with glorification: Azarias, Tobit, Hannah, Habakkuk, and Jonah.
49. 14.5Examples of intercession, made with boldness, are the Spirit's intercession, Joshua's command to the sun, and Samson's last words; Jesus' thanks to the Father is an example of thanksgiving.
50. 14.6Supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving may be offered to people too, especially to saints; still more should we thank Christ and intercede with him, as Stephen did.
51. 15.1Origen argues that prayer in the strict sense should be addressed only to the Father, not to Christ, but always through Christ the High Priest.
52. 15.2Prayer is to be addressed to the Father, but always through and in the name of Jesus, as he taught.
53. 15.3To the objection that angels are told to worship Christ, Origen answers that Scripture also says kings will bow down to the church, so worship in this sense is not the same as prayer.
54. 15.4Origen imagines Christ saying: do not pray to me but to the Father, through me as your High Priest and brother.
55. 16.1Christians should not be divided by praying some to the Father and some to the Son, but should pray to God through Christ, serving him out of love rather than fear.
56. 16.2Bodily blessings follow spiritual gifts like a shadow follows a body; God gives the spiritual gifts, and the earthly ones come with them.
57. 16.3The answered prayers of Hannah, Hezekiah, Esther, Judith, the three youths, Daniel, and Jonah were more spiritual than bodily deliverances.
58. 17.1Like shadows that vary with the sun's position, earthly blessings may or may not accompany spiritual gifts; the one who has the light does not care about the shadow.
59. 17.2Whoever has glimpsed the soul's true beauty, the unshakable kingdom, and the heavenly powers will despise earthly beauty, rank, and power, and pray for heavenly things.
60. 18.1Having treated prayer in general, Origen turns to the Lord's Prayer.
61. 18.2Origen sets out the Lord's Prayer as given in Matthew and in Luke.
62. 18.3Origen suggests that the prayers in Matthew and Luke, given on different occasions, may be two different prayers with parts in common; Mark has none.
63. 19.1Before the Lord's Prayer Jesus warns against praying to be seen, like the hypocrites, or babbling, like the Gentiles.
64. 19.2Jesus condemns praying for human glory; those who pray or give to be seen already have their reward, as the rich man had his good things in this life.
65. 19.3Those who follow the broad, crooked road of pleasure, even praying at feasts while drunk, are the ones who pray “at the street corners,” not on Christ's narrow and straight way.
66. 20.1The saint prays not in the “synagogue” or on street corners to be seen by men, but in the church, on the narrow way, to appear before God.
67. 20.2Hypocrites are actors of righteousness in their own theater; the true worshiper shuts the door of the senses in the inner room of the heart, where the Father and the Son dwell.
68. 21.1Prayer should be speech about God, not babbling; to babble is to ask God for bodily and earthly things, as the Gentiles do.
69. 21.2Many words mean many and divided things, as evil and falsehood are many while good and truth are one; the Father knows what his children truly need.
70. 22.1The Old Testament calls God Father and his people sons, but Origen finds no prayer there in which anyone addresses God as “Father.”
71. 22.2Under the old covenant God's sons were like children under guardians; with Christ's coming believers receive the spirit of adoption and become God's children in truth.
72. 22.3Only true children of God, whose lives and hearts agree with their words, can rightly call God “Father,” just as only a life of obedience truly says “Jesus is Lord.”
73. 22.4The saints are an image of Christ, who is the image of God, and so bear the likeness of sonship; the Son came to destroy the devil's seed in sinners so they may become God's children.
74. 22.5“Our Father in heaven” should be said by our whole life, lived as citizens of heaven, not only at set times of prayer.
75. 23.1“In heaven” does not mean that God is enclosed in a place; biblical language of place, like Jesus' going to the Father, must be understood spiritually.
76. 23.2The Son's “going to the Father” is not a movement from place to place but his return from his humble state to his own fullness, an ascent of the mind rather than of the body.
77. 23.3To think God is in a bodily place implies he is a body, divisible and corruptible; so passages like God walking in paradise must not be taken literally.
78. 23.4God “walks” and “dwells” in the saints and in Christ; “heaven” may mean the saints or Christ himself, the Father's throne, with the church as his footstool.
79. 23.5“In heaven” sets God's being apart from all creatures, though they receive his glory and power; Scripture's language of place must be read spiritually.
80. 24.1Origen asks how a human being can pray that God's name be made holy, and what God's “name” and its hallowing mean.
81. 24.2A name expresses a person's distinctive quality; God's unchanging name is “He who is,” and to hallow it is for our conception of God to become holy.
82. 24.3Scripture's “name of God” means his distinctive quality: it is taken in vain when misapplied, and it is called upon by teachers whose words refresh hearers like rain and dew.
83. 24.4To exalt God's name together is to reach a shared true knowledge of God; one exalts God by dedicating one's own soul to him as a house.
84. 24.5The Lord's Prayer uses imperatives that express wishes; Origen refutes Tatian, who wrongly took God's “Let there be light” as a prayer rather than a command.
85. 25.1The kingdom of God is within us; to pray “your kingdom come” is to ask that God's rule may grow and be perfected in our souls, displacing the rule of sin.
86. 25.2We keep praying “hallowed be your name” and “your kingdom come” because we grow toward perfection only by degrees, until God is all in all.
87. 25.3God's kingdom cannot coexist with sin's; if we put sin to death and bear the Spirit's fruit, Christ reigns in us until every enemy, even death, is defeated.
88. 26.1Found only in Matthew, this petition asks that we on earth may do God's will as the heavenly beings do, and so become like them.
89. 26.2“As in heaven so on earth” may apply to all three petitions: God's name, kingdom, and will are already realized in heaven and are prayed for on earth.
90. 26.3Since evil spirits exist even “in the heavenly places,” one solution takes heaven to mean Christ and earth the church, which prays to do the Father's will as Christ did.
91. 26.4An objection from Christ's words “all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” is met by applying them to the human nature of Christ, exalted and united with the divine Son.
92. 26.5Evil spirits are not truly “in heaven,” because where one belongs depends on the will, not on place; the saints on earth are heavenly, and the demons, though in the heavens, are earthly.
93. 26.6Whoever sins is “earth” and whoever does God's will is “heaven”; the petition asks that God's will transform all that is earthly until everything becomes heaven.
94. 27.1Origen rejects the view that “daily bread” means bodily bread, since Jesus taught us to ask for heavenly and great things.
95. 27.2Jesus taught in John 6 that the true bread from heaven is himself, the Word, which nourishes the inner man made in God's image.
96. 27.3In John 6 Jesus speaks of the bread from heaven both as the Father's gift and as himself, the bread of life.
97. 27.4Christ's flesh, the Word made flesh, is true food for the mature; when we eat and drink him, he dwells in us and we behold his glory.
98. 27.5As Paul says, milk is for spiritual infants and solid food for the mature; even Romans 14 on eating everything or only vegetables refers mainly to spiritual teaching.
99. 27.6Simple but sound teaching is better than brilliant teaching that denies that the Father of Jesus gave the law and the prophets; we should ask the Father for the living bread.
100. 27.7Origen notes that the word translated “daily,” epiousios, seems coined by the evangelists, and derives it from ousia, “being”: the bread that sustains our being.
101. 27.8Origen reviews two philosophical views of “being”: the Platonist view that being belongs properly to incorporeal things, and the Stoic view that it is the qualityless matter underlying bodies.
102. 27.9The “daily bread” is the Word of God, which passes into the soul's very being as food passes into the body, strengthening each according to his capacity and imparting immortality.
103. 27.10The daily bread is also the tree of life and the wisdom of God, the food of the angels, which the psalm calls “the bread of angels.”
104. 27.11Abraham's meal for the three visitors may figure how saints can nourish even angels with spiritual food, as Christ promises to dine with whoever opens the door to him.
105. 27.12Christ is food that makes us sons of God, while those who feed on the devil become like serpents; Peter's vision shows that the clean and unclean animals signify kinds of people, all of whom God can cleanse.
106. 27.13Origen prefers his derivation of “daily” from “being” to one from “the coming day,” and explains that in Scripture “today” can mean this whole age and “yesterday” the past age.
107. 27.14The feasts, sabbaths, and jubilees of the law may be shadows of the ordering of whole ages, known fully only to God.
108. 27.15Origen conjectures that the present age is the end of one “year” of ages, after which further ages will come in which God will show the riches of his grace.
109. 27.16Whoever glimpses God's vast ordering of the ages will not be petty about the present, but will prepare to receive the daily bread “today” and “each day,” and more than he can ask or imagine.
110. 27.17Origen briefly notes that the bread is called “ours” because, as Paul says, all things belong to the saints.
111. 28.1The petition on debts recalls Paul's teaching that we owe others not only money but kind words, deeds, and above all love.
112. 28.2We owe duties to fellow Christians, to family, to fellow citizens, to all people, and even to our own body, soul, mind, and speech.
113. 28.3Above all we owe God wholehearted love, Christ the price of our redemption, the Holy Spirit fruit that does not grieve him, our guardian angels their due, and the watching world a worthy performance.
114. 28.4Widows, deacons, presbyters, and above all bishops have special debts to pay, as do husband and wife to each other; in this life no one is ever free of debt.
115. 28.5Every unpaid debt of duty is written on the soul as a bond against us, to be read at the judgment seat of Christ.
116. 28.6Remembering our own unpaid debts to God and others should make us gentle toward those who fail in their duties to us.
117. 28.7Whoever will not forgive will be treated like the unforgiving servant in the parable; we must forgive the repentant even seven times a day and seek the healing even of the unrepentant.
118. 28.8Everyone can forgive sins committed against himself; but only one who has received the Spirit, like the apostles, can forgive what God forgives and retain incurable sins.
119. 28.9As the law's priests could not offer sacrifice for adultery or murder, so the apostles and those like them, taught by the Spirit, know which sins can be forgiven and which must be retained.
120. 28.10Origen criticizes clergy who claim they can forgive idolatry, adultery, and sexual immorality by their prayers, ignoring the “sin unto death,” and contrasts Job's care even over possible sins of thought.
121. 29.1Since all human life is a time of testing, Origen asks how we can pray not to enter into temptation.
122. 29.2Scripture teaches that all life on earth is a trial; God does not spare us temptation but keeps it within our strength, whether we wrestle against the flesh or, as the mature do, against spiritual powers.
123. 29.3God tests everyone, as Judith, the Psalms, and Acts all show, so the petition cannot mean escaping every test.
124. 29.4If the petition meant escaping all trials, the apostles, who suffered countless hardships, would have prayed in vain.
125. 29.5No condition of life is free from temptation: the poor may steal, the rich grow proud, and even Paul and Hezekiah were in danger of pride.
126. 29.6Poverty, wealth, and moderate means each bring their own temptations.
127. 29.7Health and sickness both bring temptations: the healthy to sins of the body, the sick to impure thoughts, impatience, and shame at bearing Christ's name.
128. 29.8Honor among men is also a temptation, leading the high born to pride and the low born to flattery that counterfeits love.
129. 29.9Since all life is a trial, we pray not to escape temptation but not to be overcome by it; Christ enters the net of temptation to call his bride out of it.
130. 29.10Even reading Scripture is a temptation: many have misread it and invented a false Father or Son, worshiping a figment instead of the true God.
131. 29.11We pray not to escape temptation but not to be overcome; Origen then asks how the good God can be said to “lead” anyone into temptation.
132. 29.12Paul says God “gave up” sinners to their desires; this refutes those who divide the Godhead into a just God of the law and a merely good Father who never judges.
133. 29.13God governs each free soul toward its eternal life, sometimes letting sinners have their fill of sin so that they come to hate it, as he gave Israel quail until they loathed it.
134. 29.14God gave Israel meat until they were sick of it, so that they would be cured of their craving; so he may let sinners be sated with sin until they hate it and return to heavenly food.
135. 29.15Idolaters given up to shameful passions receive the penalty of their error; but the purifying fire and prison of God's judgment are a benefit, cleansing sinners so that they may freely turn from evil.
136. 29.16God's hardening of Pharaoh and his snares are just and remedial; we should pray to do nothing that would deserve being led by God's judgment into temptation.
137. 29.17Temptations reveal what is hidden in our souls, even from ourselves, so that we can recognize our evils and give thanks for our good.
138. 29.18Examples from Genesis show that temptation reveals what was already in the heart: Eve's weakness, Cain's wickedness, Ham's impiety, Esau's profanity, and Joseph's self-control.
139. 29.19Between trials we should prepare for every possible temptation; God will make up what our weakness lacks.
140. 30.1Luke's shorter prayer includes “deliver us from evil”; God delivers us not by removing trials but by helping us overcome them, afflicted but not crushed.
141. 30.2God delivered Job from the evil one not by sparing him temptation but by keeping him faithful through two great trials; the threefold victory over the tempter was reserved for Christ.
142. 30.3We should pray not to be conquered by temptation, quenching the evil one's fiery darts with the shield of faith and the living water of saving thoughts.
143. 31.1Origen turns to practical matters of prayer: the disposition of soul, bodily posture, place, direction, and time.
144. 31.2Before prayer one should collect oneself, put away distractions and grudges, and ordinarily pray standing with hands outstretched and eyes raised, though the sick or busy may pray sitting, lying, or unseen.
145. 31.3Kneeling is fitting when confessing sins; the “bowing of every knee” in heaven and earth to Jesus must be understood spiritually, since heavenly beings do not have bodily knees.
146. 31.4Any place can serve for prayer, but it is best to have a quiet, set place at home, free of past sin; Origen even suggests avoiding the place of marital intercourse.
147. 31.5Prayer in the assembly of believers is especially valuable, because angels, the power of Christ, and the spirits of the saints, living and departed, are present with the church.
148. 31.6Where a congregation is full of unrepentant sinners, it becomes an assembly of wicked men and evil angels, from which God turns away his eyes.
149. 31.7Communities that abandon God's law are abandoned by him and his angels, as Jerusalem was, and like the barren fig tree lose even the little faith they had.
150. 32.1Christians should face east when they pray, as a symbol of the soul turning to the rising of the true light, even indoors.
151. 33.1Origen outlines the parts of prayer: begin with praise of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, then thanksgiving, confession, requests for heavenly things, and end with praise.
152. 33.2An example of praise is Psalm 104, which glorifies God as Creator.
153. 33.3An example of thanksgiving is David's prayer after God's promise through Nathan.
154. 33.4Examples of confession come from the Psalms.
155. 33.5An example of petition comes from Psalm 28.
156. 33.6Prayer should begin and end with praise of the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.
157. 34.1Origen closes by asking Ambrose and Tatiana to read his work with indulgence and to pray that he may later write more worthily on prayer.