Origen's Origins: a Review

“I think it must have been the awakened consciousness of human weakness falling short of prayer in the right way, above all realized as he listened to great words of intimate knowledge falling from the Savior’s lips in prayer to the Father, that moved one of the disciples of Jesus to say to the Lord when He ceased praying, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples.’”¹ Jesus responded by repeating the most famous prayer in history — the Pater Noster, the Our Father (or the Lord’s Prayer). Almost two hundred years after Christ spoke his teaching on prayer, the Christian scholar Origen took up the study of prayer, in a treatise appositely named Origen on Prayer. Importantly, Origen did not attempt to reinvent the subject of prayer, or even try to lay out a brand new system for prayer; instead, he chose to take as a model the greatest manual of prayer given by Jesus: the Our Father. 

Origen was uniquely suited for the job. He was an astute Scripture scholar as well as a man of general learning, as he “drew deeply on every possible source – among them Jewish tradition, philology, philosophy, and the natural sciences – to aid him in his principal enterprise, interpreting Scripture.”² At the beginning of the treatise, we immediately begin to see this love for the Word at work. 

Prayer is named and demonstrated in the Old Testament, as Jacob prayed while fleeing a wrathful Esau;³ a desperate Pharaoh begged Moses to pray for God to lift the scourge of frogs from Egypt;⁴ and again a desperate and aging Hannah wept and besought the gates of Heaven while on the steps of the temple, vowing to give a son to the Lord if she was accorded such a gift.⁵ In this way, Origen sets the stage perfectly for a discussion of prayer: for, in the early Church, doctrine and practice were still so nascent that any theologian who expounded on a topic was likely the first theologian to ever actually write on that topic. Origen was not contributing to an established body of thought, but rather building the foundation for the study of prayer as a whole, and basing that study in Holy Writ.

After finding his footing in the Old Testament, Origen proceeds to address those who object to prayer, for the reason that God is omnipresent and all-knowing, and knowing all things does not admit of petitions or prayers to change what is destined to be; therefore rendering prayer useless. In truth, this objection is a weighty one, and it must have been as pervasive in Origen’s day as in modernity. The idea of a predestined life and a general absence of free will eventually lead the Christian away from prayer, into fatalism, and ultimately away from the faith itself. Origen’s response to this objection is so complete and instructive that it merits inclusion in its entirety in tour review: "If our free will is in truth preserved with innumerable inclinations towards virtue or vice, towards either duty or its opposite, its future must like other things have been known by God, before coming to pass, from the world’s creation and foundation; and in all things prearranged by God in accordance with what He has seen of each act of our free wills. He has with due regard to each movement of our free wills prearranged what also is at once to occur in His providence and to take place according to the train of future events. God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of all future events including those that are to have their efficient cause in our freewill guided by impulse.”⁶ 

The next several chapters continue apace, as the author provides numerous examples and illustrations to assist those who continue to struggle with the idea of prayer. Several objections and answers are presented in due course, dealing with the conditions necessary for prayer to take place, the concern that prayer is not heard and that the supplicator is therefore alone in his prayer; we are shown the place of prayer in the daily life of a Christian, and then again how Christ himself prayed to great effect in the New Testament.⁷

Next, Origen describes what he calls the four “moods” or types of prayer. These four loosely correspond (although not perfectly) to the kinds of prayer most commonly known in the modern Church. Origen cites the apostle Paul to Timothy where he says “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men…” (1Tim 2:1) The Catechism also contains these four types as Origen explains them: blessing and adoration, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving (and the Catechism adds the prayer of praise as distinct from blessing and adoration).⁸ Each of these forms of prayer can be offered to different recipients and for different objects, Origen says; some prayers are fit to offer to other men, some to saints, and some for God alone.⁹ Further, each individual prayer will have a unique object, but it is essential that prayer be primarily concerned with holiness and those things which attenuate sin and amplify virtue: "We should therefore pray for the principal and truly great and heavenly things, and as for those concerned with the shadows accompanying the principal, commit them to the God who knows before we ask Him what things, by reason if our perishable body, we have need.”¹⁰

Thus Origen concludes the practical section of his treatise; heretofore he has busied himself with preparing his reader to pray; establishing the importance of prayer, dealing with objections to and fears of prayer, and most recently teaching the various practical purposes and goals of prayer. In the succeeding chapters, Origen walks systematically and theologically through the Pater Noster, the ultimate prayer, as we observed in the beginning. His exegesis is thorough and lengthy, but stunningly beautiful; too complex and extensive to be represented in such a short exposition as this, and yet what a shame to be unable to describe in the same detail that which follows! Origen’s words must be read; many gems reside therein for the taking to enrich the life of the Catholic, such as his monition to use appropriate language when speaking to the Lord: “When we pray let us not babble but use godly speech. We babble when, without scrutiny of ourselves or of the devotional words we are sending up, we speak of the corrupt in deed or word or thought, things which are mean and reprehensible and alien to the incorruptibleness [sic] of the Lord.”¹¹

To conclude his treatise, Origen makes mention of some final details, such as the physical postures of prayer, the importance of private individual prayer, and the sweetness and power of fellow believers united in prayer. At the last, Origen shows tremendous humility, saying “according to my ability I have struggled through my treatment of the subject of prayer and of the prayer in the Gospels…”¹² In this, as throughout the rest of the treatise, Origen demonstrates his reliance on the Scripture and on the illuminating intelligence of the Spirit, by whose light he strove to walk. Despite the author’s disclaimer, Origen on Prayer is a work that deserves to grace the shelves of every theologian and historian.

¹ Origen, n.d. Origen on Prayer, Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 4.

² Trigg, Joseph Wilson, Origen, Taylor & Francis e-Library ed. The Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge (2002), P. 1, s. 4.

³ Origen, 6.

⁴ Origen, 6.

⁵ Origen, 7

⁶ Origen, 11-12.

⁷ Origen, 20-22

⁸ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994, 2626-2643.

⁹ Origen, 25-26

¹⁰ Origen, 28.

¹¹ Origen, 31.

¹² Origen, 67.