Works Tertullian (160-220) De oratione On Prayer

Chapter XIV.--Apostrophe.

Albeit Israel washed daily all his limbs over, yet is he never clean. His hands, at all events, are ever unclean, eternally dyed with the blood of the prophets, and of the Lord Himself; and on that account, as being hereditary culprits from their privity to their fathers' crimes, 1 they do not dare even to raise them unto the Lord, 2 for fear some Isaiah should cry out, 3 for fear Christ should utterly shudder. We, however, not only raise, but even expand them; and, taking our model from the Lord's passion 4 even in prayer we confess 5 to Christ.

  1. See Matt. xxiii. 31; Luke xi. 48. ↩

  2. I do not know Tertullian's authority for this statement. Certainly Solomon did raise his hands (1 Kings viii. 54), and David apparently his (see Ps. cxliii. 6; xxviii. 2; lxii. 4, etc.). Compare, too, Ex. xvii. 11, 12. But probably he is speaking only of the Israel of his own day. [Evidently.] ↩

  3. Isa. i. 15. ↩

  4. i.e. from the expansion of the hands on the cross. ↩

  5. Or, "give praise." ↩

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Einleitung: Kathechteische Schriften (Über die Schauspiele, Über die Idolatrie, über den weiblichen Putz, An die Märtyrer, Zeugnis der Seele, über die Busse, über das Gebet, über die Taufe, gegen die Juden, Aufforderung zur Keuschheit)

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