Note 29 — Chapter I · LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.
Reading edition
See the passages from Origen advers. Celsum, cited in Stahr’s Aristotelia, vol. i. p. 146.
Among the titles of the lost works of Aristotle (No. 14 in the Catalogue of Diogenes Laertius, No. 9 in that of the Anonymous; see Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, pp. 12-18), one is Περὶ Εὐχῆς. From its position in the Catalogue, it seems plainly to have been a dialogue; and the dialogues were the most popular and best-known writings of Aristotle. Now we know from the Nikomach. Ethica (x. 8, 1178, b. 6-32) that Aristotle declared all constructive effort, and all action with a view to external ends, to be inconsistent with the Divine Nature, which was blest exclusively in theorizing and contemplation. If he advocated the same doctrine in the dialogue Περὶ Εὐχῆς, he must have contended that persons praying could have no additional chance of obtaining the benefits which they prayed for; and this would have placed him in conflict with the received opinions.
Respecting the dialogue Περὶ Εὐχῆς, see Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 120-122; and Rose, Arist. Pseudepigr. pp. 67, 68.