Origen: prayer to God alone through the Son; invoking angels is irrational
Here it should be carefully noted that Origen says the countless holy powers, by which he means the angels and blessed spirits, do pray together with those who want to worship God, but uncalled, without being summoned. He teaches not only in general that one God is to be adored and religiously worshiped, undivided and inseparable, but also that our prayers are to be directed to him alone, and that no kind of prayer or invocation is to be used toward the blessed angels or any other creatures whatever.
"Away," he says, "with this advice of Celsus, who bids us pray to daemons" (that is, in the Platonists' usage, spirits who serve the supreme God); "he is not to be listened to in the least. Prayers are to be offered to God, best and greatest, alone; and also to the only-begotten Word of God, the firstborn of all creation, who as High Priest is to be asked to carry our prayer, when it reaches him, to his God and our God, his Father and our Father." (Against Celsus, book 8.)
In book 5 of the same work he says: "It is fitting to send up every supplication, prayer, entreaty, and thanksgiving to the supreme God, the Lord of all things, through the living Word and God, the High Priest who is above all angels. We will also pray to the Word himself, entreat him, give him thanks, and offer him prayers, provided we can understand the difference between prayer in the proper sense and prayer in a loose sense."
"For it is contrary to reason that angels should be invoked by us, since we have by no means received knowledge of them; that is something beyond human reach. And even granting that knowledge of them, wonderful and hidden as it is, could be grasped, that very knowledge, by showing their nature and over whom or what each of them is set and appointed, will forbid us to dare pray to anyone but the Lord who is over all and amply sufficient for all things, through our Savior, the Son of God."
Latin
LXVI. Ubi valde notandum est quod dicit Origenes, innumerabiles potestates sacras, quo nomine Angelos & Spiritus Beatos designat, una cum iis qui Deum colere volunt, precari quidem, sed ἀκλήτους, non vocatas. Nec enim solum in genere docet unum Deum esse adorandum, & religiose colendum indivisibiliter & inseparabiliter, sed etiam preces nostras ad eum solum dirigendas esse, nec ulla precationis & invocationis specie erga Beatos Angelos, aut alias quascunque creaturas utendum. Apage, inquit, hoc Celsi consilium jubentis orari daemonas (id est, Spiritus qui summo Deo ministrant, ex Platonicorum more atque loquendi usu) qui ne tantillum quidem audiendus est. Soli enim Deo Optimo Maximo preces offerendae sunt; Et vero unigenito Dei verbo, primogenito creaturae totius offerendae, qui ut Pontifex rogandus est, ut nostram, quae ad eum pervenit, orationem perferat ad Deum suum & Deum nostrum, Patrem suum, & Patrem nostrum. Eodem contra Celsum lib. 8. Ejusdem vero operis libro quinto, Omnem, inquit, precationem, atque orationem, omnem obsecrationem, & gratiarum actionem Deo summo rerum omnium Domino, per vivum verbum, Deumque, Pontificem qui supra omnes Angelos est, emittere, seu deferre decet. Ipsum autem etiam verbum orabimus, & interpellabimus, & gratias ei agemus, precesque etiam offeremus, si modo intelligere possimus propriam & Catachrestice dictam precandi rationem. Angelos enim a nobis, qui eorum scientiam, sive notitiam, rem scilicet supra homines constitutam minime accepimus, invocari, a ratione alienum est. Et ut demus, eorum notitiam, quae mirabilis & arcana est, comprehendi, haec ipsa notitia eorum naturam, & quibus, vel ad quae singuli praefecti atque ordinati sint demonstrans, prohibebit ne audeamus ullum alium precari, quam Dominum qui est supra omnia, quique abunde ad omnia sufficit, per servatorem nostrum Dei filium.