On Prayer 23.5 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: “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.

Greek text · Koetschau 2:353

προστεθείκαμεν δὴ ὀλίγα καὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης ῥητὰ, νομιζόμενα ἐν τόπῳ παριστάνειν τὸν θεὸν. ὑπὲρ τοῦ πάντοθεν κατὰ τὴν διδομένην ἡμῖν δύναμιν πεῖσαι τὸν ἐντυγχάνοντα ὑψηλότερον καὶ πνευματικώτερον ἀκούειν τῆς θείας γραφῆς, ὅταν δοκῇ ἐν τόπῳ διδάσκειν εἶναι τὸν θεόν. ἔπρεπε δὲ ταῦτα συνεξετασθῆναι τῷ „πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, “ οἱονεὶ ἀφιστάντι τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν γεννητῶν· οἷς γὰρ οὐ κοινωνεῖ, αὐτοῖς δόξα τις θεοῦ καὶ δύναμις αὐτοῦ. καὶ, ἵνʼ οὕτως εἴπω, ἀποῤῥοὴ τῆς θεότητος ἐγγίνεται αὐτοῖς.

English · Claude translation

We have added, then, a few passages of the Old Testament that are thought to present God as in a place, in order to persuade the reader in every way, according to the power given us, to understand the divine Scripture in a loftier and more spiritual way when it seems to teach that God is in a place. It was fitting to examine these together with “Our Father in heaven,” which as it were separates the being of God from all created things; for on those in which he does not share, a certain glory of God and his power, and, so to speak, an emanation of the divinity, comes to be.

About this passage

Source

Koetschau 2:353 · Paul Koetschau, ed., Origenes Werke 2: Buch V–VIII gegen Celsus, Die Schrift vom Gebet, GCS 3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899), 297–403 · Greek text: P. Koetschau, Origenes Werke 2 (GCS 3, 1899), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Koetschau, GCS 3. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Koetschau, GCS 3; made independently of existing English translations. No public-domain English translation exists; reviewed against the Greek.

Topics

Prayer, Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Origen, Or. 23.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-oratione/23/5/).

Plain text

Origen, Or. 23.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-oratione/23/5/).