Origen says, Provided Celsus
will specify what kind of "therapeusis" he would wish to be paid to
those angels and archangels whose existence we acknowledge, I am ready
to enter upon the subject with him. This is all he says. And we of the
Anglican Church are ready from our hearts to join him. Call it by what
name we may, we are never backward in acknowledging ourselves bound to
render it. We pay to the angels and archangels, and all the company of
heaven, the homage of respect, and veneration, and love. They are indeed
our fellow-servants; they are, like ourselves, creatures of God's hand;
but they are exalted far above us in nature and in office. By the grace
of God, we would daily endeavour to become less distant from {145} them
in purity, in zeal, in obedience. Origen here speaks not one word of
adoration, of invocation, of prayer. He speaks of a feeling and a
behaviour, which the Greeks called "therapeusis," and which we best
render by "respect, veneration, and love." Far from us be the thought of
lowering the holy angels in the eyes of our fellow-creatures; equally
far from us be the thought of invoking them, of asking them even for
their prayers. They are holy creatures and holy messengers: we will
think and speak of them with reverence, and gratitude, and affection;
but they are creatures and messengers still, and when we think or speak
of the object of prayer, we think and speak solely and exclusively of
God.
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