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Translated by W. Curtis.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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104 Pages
Page 66
So, too, the spiritual forces of evil which still dwell in the heavenly places but have their commonwealth on earth and plot against men the means whereby they wrestle against mankind, and lay up treasure on Earth, and wear an image of the Earthly One who the beginning of the Lord's fashioning made to be mocked by the angels, are not heavenly nor by reason of their vicious disposition do they dwell in the heavens. Accordingly when it is said: Thy will be done on Earth also as in Heaven, we are not to reckon those beings as in heaven at all, because through pride they have fallen along with Him who fell from heaven like a thunderbolt.
And it may well be that our Savior, in saying that we ought to pray that the Father's will may be done on Earth also as in heaven, does not by any means order prayer for things spacially on earth that they may be made like things spacially in heaven, but His will in enjoining prayer is that all things on earth, that is things inferior and conformed to the earthly, be made like the better which have their commonwealth in heaven, which have all become heaven.
For he that sins, wherever he may be, is earth, and will turn into the like somehow, unless he repents, whereas he that does the will of God and does not disobey the spiritual laws of salvation is heaven. Whether therefore we are still earth because of sin, let us pray that the will of God may extend restoringly to us also as it has already reached those who have become or are heaven before us: or if we are already accounted not earth but heaven by God, let our request be that, in like manner with heaven, on earth also, in inferior things I mean, the will of God may be fulfilled unto what I may term earth's heaven-making, so that there shall be no longer earth but all things become heaven.
For if, on this interpretation, the will of God be done on earth also as in heaven, earth will not remain earth, just as to make my meaning clearer with another illustration--if the will of God be done in the case of the wanton as it has been with the temperate, the wanton will be temperate, or if it should be in the case of the unrighteous as it has been with the righteous, the unrighteous will be righteous. If, therefore, the will of God be done on earth also as it has been in heaven, we shall all be heaven; for though flesh that helps not; and blood that is akin to it, are unable to inherit God's kingdom, they may be said to inherit it if they be changed from flesh and earth and clay and blood to the heavenly essence.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/prayer.asp?pg=66
