Origen: even the stars, which he thought pray to God, may not be prayed to
It should also be noted here that Origen, like many other teachers of the Christian school in that age, thought the sun, the moon, and the other stars were rational living beings, endowed with virtue and enlightened with the light of knowledge by the Wisdom that is the radiance of eternal light. He does not oppose Celsus at all when Celsus praises them as the most glorious heralds of things above and truly heavenly angels, and he himself was fully convinced that the sun, moon, and stars offer prayers to God, the Lord of all things, through his only-begotten Son.
So if, in Origen's view, God's angels deserve some religious worship, the sun, moon, and stars ought by the same reasoning to be thought worthy of it as well. Yet when Celsus complains that the Jews do not worship the sun, moon, and planets, Origen not only denies in general that it is right to revere and bow down to those creatures, that is, to worship and adore them; he also declares it unlawful to make supplication to them or sing hymns to them. "We judge," he says, "that it is not fitting to pray to those who themselves pray."
He adds that the sun and the stars themselves want it so: they would rather send us on to God, to whom they themselves pray, than draw us down to themselves, or split off from God the power of prayer we have and take part of it for themselves. Later he adds that since the Lord is everywhere with us and near us, it is absurd to seek to pray to something that does not reach to all things, whether the sun, the moon, or any other star.
Finally, when Celsus writes that we would seem to honor the great God more if we also sang hymns to the sun, he answers that he knows the opposite is true: "We sing hymns to the only God, the Lord of all things, and to his only-begotten, God the Word." (Against Celsus, book 5.)
Latin
LXVII. Hic etiam observandum est Origenem, ut multos alios illius aevi Scholae Christianae Doctores, existimasse Solem, Lunam, & reliqua Sydera esse animantia quaedam rationalia, & virtute praedita, & cognitionis lumine illustrata a sapientia illa quae est splendor aeterni luminis: nec eum ullo modo repugnare Celso illos praedicanti, tanquam illustrissimos rerum superiorum praecones, ac vere caelestes Angelos, ipsique plene persuasum fuisse, quod Sol, Luna, & Stellae preces Deo offerrent rerum omnium Domino per unigenitum ejus. Proinde si aliquo religionis cultu, ex Origenis mente, digni sint Angeli Dei, eo quoque par est dignum existimari Solem, Lunam, & Astra. Et tamen querente Celso quod Judaei Solem, Lunam, & Planetas non colant, non solum in genere negat fas esse creaturas illas σέβειν καὶ προσκυνεῖν, colere atque adorare; sed etiam asserit illicitum esse illis supplicare, & hymnos canere. Judicamus, inquit, non decere eos precari qui ipsi precantur. Quin addit Solem & sydera ipsa ita velle, nosque ad Deum, quem ipsa precantur, remittere potius quam ad seipsa dejicere ac demittere, vel eam quam habemus precandi potestatem a Deo dividere, & aliquam ejus partem etiam sibiipsis sumere. Et postea subjungit, Cum Dominus ubique nobiscum & prope nos adsit, absurdum esse quaerere eum precari, qui non ad omnia usque pertingit, Solem, & Lunam, vel aliam aliquam Stellam. Ac denique Celso scribenti eo nos magnum Deum magis colere videri, si & Soli hymnos canamus, Respondet se contrarium scire. Hymnos enim, inquit, in solum Deum universorum Dominum dicimus, & in unigenitum ejus Deum verbum. Adversus Celsum lib. 5.