Works Tertullian (160-220) De oratione On Prayer

Chapter XIX.--Of Stations.

Similarly, too, touching the days of Stations, 1 most think that they must not be present at the sacrificial prayers, on the ground that the Station must be dissolved by reception of the Lord's Body. Does, then, the Eucharist cancel a service devoted to God, or bind it more to God? Will not your Station be more solemn if you have withal stood at God's altar? 2 When the Lord's Body has been received and reserved 3 each point is secured, both the participation of the sacrifice and the discharge of duty. If the "Station" has received its name from the example of military life--for we withal are God's military 4 --of course no gladness or sadness chanting to the camp abolishes the "stations" of the soldiers: for gladness will carry out discipline more willingly, sadness more carefully.

  1. The word Statio seems to have been used in more than one sense in the ancient Church. A passage in the Shepherd of Hermas, referred to above (B. iii. Sim. 5), appears to make it ="fast." ↩

  2. "Ara," not "altare." ↩

  3. For receiving at home apparently, when your station is over. ↩

  4. See 2 Tim. ii. 1, etc. [See Hermas, Vol. I., p. 33.] ↩

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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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