Note 65 — Chapter II
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 65:
(return)
Paul knew that the designation of God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was the new Evangelic confession. Origen was the first among the Fathers (though before him Marcion) to recognise that the decisive advance beyond the Old Testament stage of religion, was given in the preaching of God as Father; see the exposition of the Lord's prayer in his treatise De oratione. No doubt the Old Testament, and the later Judaism knew the designation of God as Father; but it applied it to the Jewish nation, it did not attach the evangelic meaning to the name, and it did not allow itself in any way to be guided in its religion by this idea.