On Prayer

Origen, tr. Oulton, 1954

In praying, however, do “not” let “us use vain repetitions,” but rather let us speak to …

In praying, however, do “not” let “us use vain repetitions,”¹² but rather let us speak to God. Now we “use vain repetitions” when we fail to examine for blemishes³ either ourselves or the words of prayer we offer up, and so speak of corrupt deeds or words or thoughts, which are mean and blameworthy and alien from the incorruptibility of the Lord. Indeed, he who “uses vain repetitions” in “praying” is actually in a worse case than those who frequent “the synagogues,” of whom we spoke above, and in a more grievous condition than they who stand “in the corners of the streets,”⁴ since he does not preserve a trace of even a pretence of good. According to the text of the Gospel, they who alone “use vain repetitions” are “the Gentiles,”⁵ who have no notion whatever of great and heavenly requests, but offer up every prayer for bodily and outward things. Therefore he who requests things of below from him who dwells in the heaven and above the highest heaven, even the Lord, is like unto a “Gentile using vain repetitions.”

It seems indeed that he who speaks much⁶ “uses vain repetitions,” and he who “uses vain repetitions” speaks much. For no material or bodily thing is single; but every one of them, though reckoned single, is split up and cut in pieces and divided into several parts, having lost its unity. Virtue is one, vice is many;⁷ truth is one, falsehood is many; the wisdom of God is one, the wisdoms “of this world,” and “of the rulers of this world, which are coming to nought,”⁸ are many; the word of God is one, those who are estranged from God are many. Therefore no one “shall escape transgression for much speaking,”⁹ and no one, though “thinking” that he “shall be heard for” his “much speaking,” can be heard thereby. And so our prayers must not “be like unto” the “vain repetitions” or “much speaking” of “the Gentiles,”¹⁰ or to whatever else they may do “after the likeness of the serpent.”¹¹¹² “For” the God of the saints, being a “Father, knoweth what things” his sons “have need of,”¹³ since they are things worthy of the Father’s knowledge. But if a man knows not God, and knows not the things of God, he knows not “what things” he “has need of”: for the things which he thinks he “has need of” are entirely wrong. On the other hand, he who contemplates what higher and holier things he lacks, will attain to the objects of his contemplation, which are known by God and have been known to the Father or ever the request was made. Having said so much on the passage which precedes the prayer in the Gospel according to Matthew, let us now go on to see the meaning of the prayer itself.

Notes

Matt. 6:7.
XXI, 1. do not let us use vain repetitions] We have kept the Authorized Version and Revised Version rendering of Matt. 6:7, although it is doubtful if it is correct, and still more doubtful if it expresses the meaning that Origen took out of battologia. Both here and in VIII, 1 (q.v.), he connects the word, at any rate in part, with the practice of asking God for “bodily” or “outward” or “earthly” things. On the contrary, in prayer we are to “speak to God,” that is to him, as we are taught in the Lord’s Prayer, who is “our Father, which art in heaven”; and since he is “in heaven” we shall ask him for “heavenly things.” Battologia, therefore, includes (a) asking for the wrong things and (b) forgetfulness of the true character of him to whom we pray. Possibly Origen would not disagree with Hesychius, who defined it as argologia, “idle speech.”
XXI, 1. examine for blemishes] μωμοσκοποῦντες. In the LXX μῶμος is a flaw or blemish which vitiates a person or thing for holy purposes. The use of the verb is confined to Jewish (e.g., Philo) and Christian writers. It is suitable in this context because Origen goes on to speak of “the words of prayer offered up (ἀναπεμπομένους),” and this verb is used in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, in Justin Martyr, and in the Greek Liturgies, as well as in Clement of Alexandria and Origen, of offering up prayer to the throne of grace. (Lightfoot on Mart. Polyc., XV).
Adopting an emended text (Matt. 6:5).
Matt. 6:7.
XXI, 2. he who speaks much] With a reference to “much speaking” in Matt. 6:7. It is clear from this section that “much speaking” is “ill speaking.” And indeed in a fragment from his Commentary on John (Brooke, II, 230; Philocalia, ed. J. Robinson, 45) Origen says that “he who utters anything whatever that is foreign to godliness speaks much.” The moral connotation which he places upon “much speaking” is obviously connected with the conception in his mind (see the note following) that vice is many.
XXI, 2. virtue is one, vice is many] A characteristically Platonic doctrine. Cf. Rep., IV, 445c: “while there is only one form of virtue, there are infinite varieties of vice.” Similar statements about the unity of virtue may be found in, e.g., Prot., 329cd, Meno 72c. Any virtue we attempt to explain must, according to Plato, be defined as “the knowledge of what is good”; so that every virtue “seems on examination to cover the whole field of the conduct of life, and none can be in principle distinguished from any other” (A. E. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His Work, 64). Cf. Xenophon, Mem., III, 9:5: “[Socrates] said that justice and every other virtue is wisdom.” The Pythagoreans had also held the unity of virtue; but Aristotle, who criticized on this point Platonic doctrine (Pol., I, 13), praises them at the expense of the Platonists, in that they, sc. the Pythagoreans, made the One good, instead of the good one (Eth. Nic., I, 4:1096b). Thus, in constructing (after the fashion of the time) a double column of good and bad things, respectively, (see Lightfoot on Gal. 4:25), they would place “the one” and “the good” in the same column, and “the many” and “the bad,” opposite them, in the other (Aristotle, Met., I, 5:986a). Platonists, on the contrary, as Origen does here, would head one column “The One” and the other “The Many,” and place underneath good things and bad things, respectively. In other words, Origen follows the Platonists in making the good an abstract unity. Possibly Paul had this idea of “the one” and “the many” in his mind when he spoke (pace the English Litany) of the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19, 22).
I Cor. 2:6.
Prov. 10:19.
Matt. 6:7, 8.
Ps. 57:5 (LXX).
XXI, 2. after the likeness of the serpent] The reference is to the LXX of Ps. 57:4, 5: “Sinners were estranged from the womb, they went astray from the belly, they spoke falsehood; their mind is after the likeness of the serpent.” The words “falsehood” and “estranged,” which occur earlier in this section, seem to have suggested to Origen’s too susceptible mind their use in this Psalm, and so led him to refer to the “serpent,” which otherwise appears inconsequential.
Matt. 6:8.