On Prayer 1
Summary: Christ, the Spirit, Word, and Reason of God, gave his new disciples a new, brief form of prayer, to be offered in secret, that sums up the whole gospel.
Latin text · CSEL 20:180–181
Dei spiritus et dei sermo et dei ratio, sermo rationis et ratio sermonis et spiritus utriusque, Iesus Christus dominus noster nouis discipulis noui testamenti nouam orationis formam determinauit. oportebat enim in hac quoque specie nouum uinum nouis utribus recondi et nouam plagulam nouo adsui uestimento. ceterum quicquid retro fuerat, aut demutatum est, ut circumcisio, aut suppletum, ut reliqua lex, aut impletum, ut prophetia, aut perfectum, ut fides ipsa. omnia de carnalibus in spiritalia renouauit noua dei gratia superducto euangelio, expunctore totius retro uetustatis, in quo et dei spiritus et dei sermo et dei ratio approbatus est dominus noster Iesus Christus, spiritus quo ualuit, sermo quo docuit, ratio qua uenit. sic igitur oratio a Christo constituta ex tribus constituta est: ex sermone, quo enuntiatur, ex spiritu, quo tantum potest, ex ratione, qua docetur. docuerat et Iohannes discipulos suos adorare; sed omnia Iohannis Christo praestruebantur, donec ipso aucto, sicut idem Iohannes praenuntiabat illum augeri oportere, se uero deminui, totum praeministri opus cum ipso spiritu transiret ad dominum. ideo nec extat, in quae uerba docuerit Iohannes adorare, quod terrena caelestibus cesserint. qui de terra est, inquit, terrena fatur, et qui de caelis adest, quae uidit, ea loquitur. et quid non caeleste quod domini Christi est, ut haec quoque orandi disciplina? consideremus itaque, benedicti, caelestem eius sophiam, inprimis de praecepto secrete adorandi, quo et fidem hominis exigebat, ut dei omnipotentis et conspectum et auditum sub tectis et in abditum etiam adesse confideret, et modestiam fidei desiderabat, ut, quem ubique audire et uidere fideret, ei soli religionem suam offerret. sequens sophia sequenti praecepto perinde pertineat ad fidem et modestiam fidei, si non agmine uerborum adeundum putemus ad dominum, quem ultro suis prospicere certi sumus. et tamen breuitas ista, quod ad tertium sophiae gradum faciat, magnae ac beatae interpretationis substantia fulta est quantumque substringitur uerbis, tantum diffunditur sensibus. neque enim propria tantum orationis officia complexa est, uenerationem dei aut hominis petitionem, sed omnem paene sermonem domini, omnem commemorationem disciplinae, ut reuera in oratione breuiarium totius euangelii comprehendatur.
English · Claude translation
The Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Reason of God, Word of reason and Reason of word and Spirit of both, Jesus Christ our Lord, has laid down for the new disciples of the new covenant a new form of prayer. For it was fitting that in this respect too new wine should be stored in new wineskins and a new patch sewn onto a new garment. For the rest, whatever had gone before was either changed, like circumcision; or supplemented, like the rest of the law; or fulfilled, like prophecy; or perfected, like faith itself. The new grace of God has renewed all things from carnal to spiritual by bringing in the gospel, which settles the account of the whole former age; in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been shown to be the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Reason of God: the Spirit by which he was mighty, the Word by which he taught, the Reason by which he came. So the prayer established by Christ is composed of three: of the word by which it is spoken, of the spirit by which alone it has power, of the reason by which it is taught. John too had taught his disciples to pray; but all of John's work was laying the way for Christ, until, when Christ increased (as the same John foretold that he must increase and he himself decrease), the whole work of the forerunner passed over, together with the Spirit himself, to the Lord. That is why it is not extant in what words John taught them to pray: because earthly things have given way to heavenly. “He who is from the earth,” he says, “speaks earthly things, and he who is present from heaven speaks what he has seen.” And what that belongs to the Lord Christ is not heavenly, as this rule of praying is too? Let us consider, then, blessed ones, his heavenly wisdom: first, in the precept to pray in secret, by which he both required faith of a person, that he should trust that the sight and hearing of almighty God are present under roofs and even in a hidden place; and desired modesty of faith, that he should offer his worship to him alone whom he trusted to hear and see everywhere. The next wisdom, in the next precept, likewise concerns faith and the modesty of faith: that we should not think the Lord must be approached with a column of words, since we are certain that he provides for his own of his own accord. And yet this brevity, which belongs to the third step of wisdom, is supported by the substance of a great and blessed meaning; and as much as it is compressed in words, so much is it spread out in sense. For it embraces not only the proper duties of prayer, the veneration of God or the petition of man, but almost the whole teaching of the Lord, the whole record of his discipline, so that in the prayer there is truly contained a summary of the whole gospel.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- Tertullian's triad Spiritus/Sermo/Ratio names Christ as God's Spirit, Word, and Reason; “Word” renders sermo, “Reason” ratio. The allusions are Matt 9:16–17, Luke 11:1, John 3:30, Matt 6:6, and Matt 6:7–8; the quotation is a free form of John 3:31–32. The digital text has a stray numeral “III” after sophia, removed.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (stray numeral in the digital text): sophia III sequenti → sophia sequenti.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Or. 1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-oratione/1/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Or. 1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-oratione/1/).
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