By them, therefore, as by brethren (for
both men and angels are sons of the same Creator and Father)
they are praised."--In Genes. Hom. xvii. p. 110.]
Celsus accused the Christians of being atheists, godless, men without
God, because they would not worship those gods many and lords many, and
those secondary, subordinate, auxiliary, and ministering divinities with
which the heathen mythology abounded: Origen answers, we are not
godless, we are not without an object of our prayer; we pray to God
Almighty alone through the mediation only of his Son.
"We must pray to God alone ([Greek: Mono gar proseukteon to epi pasi
Theo]), who is over all things; and we must pray also to the
only-begotten and first-born of every creature, the Word of God; and we
must implore him as our High Priest to carry our prayer, first coming to
him, to his God and our {140} God, to his Father and the Father of those
who live agreeably to the word of God." [Cont. Cels. Sec. 8. c. xxvi. vol.
i. p. 761.]
But Celsus, in this well representing the weakness and failings of human
nature, still urged on the Christian the necessity, or at all events the
expediency, of conciliating those intermediate beings who executed the
will of the Supreme Being, and might haply have much left at their own
will and discretion to give or to withhold; and therefore the
desirableness of securing their good offices by prayer.
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