Origenes: Über das Gebet. Studien zur Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der frühen Kirche

The understanding of prayer in early Christianity will be dealt with in this work. Besides Christian prayer, philosophic prayer will be researched in the second and third centuries. Philosophic prayer in this work includes the platonic understanding of prayer from Maximus Tyrius, Plotin and Porphyrius as well as the stoic understanding of Prayer from Seneca. In early Christianity, Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage recognized the importance of prayer in Christian life in the latin language area, whereas Clemens of Alexandria and Origen in the Greek language area. These fathers of the Church wrote their thinking about prayer generally or about the Lord’s Prayer specifically. Particularly, it will be described how the Greek fathers of the Church like Clemens of Alexandria and Origen defended the Christian faith in their works against the philosophers, gnostic and heretic, by using their philosophical knowlege about faith. At the center of my work stands, especially, the explanation of the script of Origen, On Prayer. The complete structure of his scriptwill be presented and the method of his interpretation, which Origen used for the interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer and for the development of his theory about prayer, will be analysed,. The various Greek terms of prayer like (Prayer), (Prayer to God), (Intercession), (Thanks), (Praise), (Request) are defined by Origen himself and serve as a basis for his theory about prayer. The reception of the Lord’s Prayer is restricted to the Lord’s Prayer in the Didache, the interpretation of Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen up to the third Century.