Limitation to his magic power.
Great, however, as was Balaam’s fame and power, he could only curse and not bless, an indication that he operated by the agency of demons who also only work evil and not good. It is true that King Balak said to him: “I know that whom you bless will be blessed,” but Origen regards this as false flattery. Magicians employ the services of evil spirits, but cannot invoke such angels as Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, much less God or Christ. Christians alone have the power to do this, and they must cease entirely from the invocation of demons or the Holy Spirit will flee from them.
Divine prophecy distinct from magic and divination.
It is true also that God in the end did speak through the mouth of Balaam and that he blessed instead of cursed Israel. Origen will not admit, however, that Balaam was worthy of this, or that a man can be both a magician and a prophet; if God spake through Balaam, it was only to prevent the demons from coming and helping Balaam to curse Israel. Origen also attempts to solve the difficulties and inconsistencies involved in the repeated appearances and conflicting commands of God and the angel to Balaam. Finally we may note that Origen sees the similarity between the use of cauldron-shaped tripods in human arts of divination and the donning of the ephod by the prophets described in the Old Testament.[1939] But he affirms that divine prophecy and divination are two different things and cites the Biblical prohibition of the latter.
The ventriloquist really invoked Samuel for Saul.
In his commentary upon the First Book of Samuel,[1940] Origen takes the ground that when Saul consulted the witch or ventriloquist (ἐγγαστριμύθος), Samuel’s ghost really appeared and spoke to Saul, for the Scriptural account plainly says that the woman saw Samuel[1941] and that Samuel spoke to Saul. Consequently Origen cannot agree with those who have held that the woman deceived Saul or that both she and he were deluded by a demon who assumed the guise of Samuel. No demon, he thinks, could have prophesied that the kingdom would pass to David. It has been objected that the enchantress could not raise the spirit of Samuel from the infernal regions because he was a good man, but Origen holds that even Christ descended to hell and that all before Him had their abode there until He came to release them. From this position not even the parable of Dives and of Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom with the great gulf fixed between them can shake Origen.
Christians less affected by magic than philosophers are.
Origen disputes the statement of Celsus that philosophers are not affected by the magic arts by pointing out that in Moiragenes’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, who was himself both a philosopher and magician, it is affirmed that other philosophers were won over by his magic power “and resorted to him as a sorcerer.”[1942] On the other hand Origen makes the counter-assertion that the followers of Christ “who live according to His gospel, using night and day continuously and becomingly the prescribed prayers, are not carried away either by magic or demons.”
Their superstitious methods against magic.
If these “prescribed prayers” were set forms of words, they would seem not far removed in character from the incantations of the magicians which they were supposed to counteract. An even clearer example of preventive magic is seen in Origen’s explanation that the practice of circumcision was a safeguard against some angel (sic) hostile to the Jewish race.[1943]