diseases.  It is a word of very wide import.  It signifies the care which a physician takes of his patient; the service paid to a master; the attention given to a superior; the affectionate attendance of a friend; the allegiance of a subject; the worship of the Supreme Being.  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.

With regard to Origen’s opinion, as to the invocation of the souls of saints departed, a very few words will suffice.  He clearly records his opinion that the faithful are still waiting for us, and that till we all rejoice together, their joy will not be full:  he leaves among the mysteries not to be solved now the question whether the departed can benefit the human race at all; and he has added reflections, full of edifying and solemn admonition, which would dissuade his fellow-believers from placing their confidence in any virtues, or intercessions, or merits of saints, and in any thing except the mere mercy of God, through Jesus Christ, and our own individual labour in the work of the Lord.

In his seventh homily on Leviticus, in a passage partly quoted by Bellarmin, we read[51]—­“Not even the Apostles have yet received their joy, but even they are waiting, in order that I also may become a partaker of {146} their joy.  For the saints departing hence do not immediately receive all the rewards of their deserts; but they wait even for us, though we be delaying and dilatory[52].  For they have not perfect joy as long as they grieve for our errors, and mourn for our sins.”  Then, having quoted the Epistle to the Hebrews, he proceeds,—­“You see, therefore, that Abraham is yet waiting to obtain those things that are perfect; so is Isaac and Jacob; and so all the prophets are waiting for us, that they might obtain eternal blessedness with us.  Wherefore, even this mystery is kept, to the last day of delayed judgment.”