CHAPTER XXX,
Tertullian' s Apology Sor the Christians.
CHAPTER XXX,
CONCERNING
THE GOD OF
CHRISTIANS
BY WHOM KINGS REIGN, AND
THE PRAYERS
CHRISTIANS
FOR THE LIFE OF THE
EMPERORS,
z » THE God we pray to for the life of emperors is the eternal God, the true God, the God of life, and whom above all the emperors themselves principally desire to propitiate ; they know by whom they reign as kings and live as men.
They are sensible that He is the only God, and in whose power alone they are; and that they
_ themselves are, next under Him, supreme; and after Him the first in honour above all men, and all your other gods too into the bargain.
And why not? since they are above all men living, and the living surely are above the dead.
They consider how far their power will go, and find it infinitely below the reach of heaven, and .
. so come to be sensible of a God above them ; and consequently that the powers they have must be from God.
Let an emperor make war upon heaven, and pride himself with the thoughts of leading captive heaven in triumph ; let him set guards upon heaven, and try to reduce it to a Roman province, and he will find his weakness.
He is therefore great, because he is 'but less than heaven ; for he is a creature of His who made heaven and every creature that ever had a being.
He made 'him an emperor who _made hima man; the author of his life is the author of his power.
To this Almighty Maker and Disposer of all Things it is that we Christians offer up our prayers, with eyes lifted up to heaven, unfolded hands in token of our simplicity, and with uncovered heads,
1 Wluc suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis, etc.
The primitive Christians at their devotion did not only lift up their hands to heaven, for so we find the heathens did, according to that of Virgil—
Et duplices tendens ad sidera palmas, but they laid their expanded hands transverse in the form of a cross; and so we are to understand our author here by his manibus expansis, and so likewise in his book de Orat. cap. 11—Nos vero non attollimus tantum, sed etiam expandtmus, et Dominicé Passione mcdulamur.
Vid. Not. Vales. in Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 14, p. 242.
I cannot but take notice here of a most extraordinary objection against set forms of prayer, urged by David Clarkson in his discourse concerning liturgies, from this passage : '' That the Christians then lifted up their hands and eyes to heaven in prayer, which shows they had no books."
It shows it indeed just as much as our lifting up our hands and eyes shows now that we
~~ have no Common Prayer-Book in our Church; but certainly both ministers and people being constantly used to one form may have so much memory as to find time to look off from their books, and look up to heaven at proper seasons,
- /
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians. because we have nothing to blush for in our devotion ; and without a prompter,! because we pray with our hearts rather than our tongues; and in all our prayers are ever mindful of all our emperors and kings wheresoever we live, beseeching God for every one of them without distinction, that He would bless them with length of days and a quiet reign, a well-established family, a stout
1 Denique sine Monitore, quia de Pectore oramus.
This is just such another obscure passage as the #2 Advems in Justin Martyr already mentioned ; but as dark as it is, yet with some men it is as clear as the day for the use of extempore prayer in Tertullian's time.
But before I enter upon this controverted place, I desire the reader to take notice first, that though our author does _ not give us the very form, because he wrote to unbelievers, yet in this chapter he gives the heads of a stated prayer for the emperor, namely, a long life, a 'quiet empire, a well-established family, a valiant army, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, ete.
Now he could not deliver in these particulars as a proof of the Christian loyalty, unless they prayed constantly for these things, and that must be by a constant settled form for extempore prayer is as uncertain as the wind, and could have been no evidence in this or any other case.
Secondly, by this phrase, '' without a monitor," cannot possibly be meant without any one to dictate a form of words to them, because in all their public prayers the minister was always the mouth of the congregation, and whether he prayed by a form, or extempore, his words must be a form of words to the people who prayed after him.
Whatever therefore this dubious expression may mean, it cannot possibly mean without a form, unless it means without a minister; because, as I have said, the prayers of the minister must be a form to the people.
And now for the phrase itself; we pray Sée Monitore, without a prompter or monitor, because de Pectore, from the heart, that is extempore, as Mr. Clarkson and the antiformulists expound it.
Bishop Bilson, in his Christian Subject, with great modesty says, '' This seems to be meant of the miraculous gift of prayer, which dured in the Church unto his time."
Vid. Christian Subj. part iv. p. 411.
But then he supposes withal that this extraordinary gift ceased soon after, and that liturgies came into practice long before the time of St. Basil or Chrysostom ; so that, allowing this conjecture, it will by no means follow that because ministers, while divinely inspired, prayed without a form, therefore they ought to keep on praying extempore when the days of inspiration are over.
But with all respect to this learned prelate, he seems not to reach the design and meaning of '
Tertullian in this place; and in order hereunto, it is to be remembered that the heathen had abundance of deities, and every deity to be invoked in a several form, for such blessings as lay within his particular province.
Thus, for instance, Bacchus was invoked in this wise, O Bacchus! son of Semele, the giver of | riches, etc.
Vd. Casaub.
Exercit. lib. xvi. p. 42.
And so again for Janus, O Father Janus! with this cake I offer thee my good wishes, etc.
Vad. Fest. in verb, Signif.
And so again for Jupiter, Mars, and all the rest.
Now in such a swarm of deities and different invocations, a god might easily be passed over,
— . or the invocation ill worded, or ill pronounced (which was looked upon very ominous, and hence perhaps that phrase of Bona Verba).
For fear, I say, that there should be any omission or blunder in. these divine addresses, these several forms of invocation were not only read out of the ritual by one priest, but there was another priest also appointed, as a public monitor, to oversee and set them right in their repetitions.
And that this was the case seems very probable from — that of Pliny, lib, xxviii. cap. 2—J/nprecationibus, me quid Verborum pretereatur,
Lertullian's Apology for the Christians.
army, a faithful senate, an honest people, and a peaceful world, and whatever else either prince or people can wish for.
But these are blessings I cannot persuade myself to ask of any, but Him who I know can give them, and that is my God, and my
God only, who has them in His disposal; and Iam one to' whom He has obliged Himself by promise to grant what I ask, if I ask as I should do; for I am His servant, and serve Him only, and for aul preposterum adicatur de Scripto preire aliquem, rursusgque alium Custodem dart, qui attendat, 'In certain prayers, lest any of the words should be omitted, or preposterously repeated, there is one to dictate to the people out of a book,
_ and another appointed as overseer, to attend how they pronounce." * Now this last, whom Pliny calls the cusées, or overseer, seems not unlikely to be the monitor alluded to by Tertullian.
-We pray then without a monitor, because de Pectore, from the heart ; which may either signify that we repeat not our prayers aloud after the priest, as you do, but join with him in our soul; or else, that we can say our prayers by heart, and so have no occasion for such a monitor, and then de Pectore answers exactly to érorrnfifev, and such Grecisms are much
"affected by this writer.
- Vid. Thornd. Relig. Assemb. p. 237.
Another learned person understands this phrase de Pecfore of those prayers which every private
Christian used in the solemn assemblies on the stationary days, in the intervals between the public offices of the Church, while the congregation kept silence ; and considering that they stayed at these stations for nine hours together, and _ that all this time was not taken up in reading, expounding, singing, and in common prayers, it is not improbable but the interspaces were allowed for the exercise of mental devotion.
And then this phrase de Pectore can argue nothing _against set forms in public prayers, Besides, it was a custom, and taken notice of by Plutarch, that while the priest was officiating, for another to go behind him with this admonition, Hoc age guod agis, ''Be sure to mind what you are about ;" and this perhaps might be the monitor.
But Christians who prayed de fectore, with all their hearts and souls, had no need of such an officer.
Lastly, if we consider that Tertullian is here proving the sincerity of the Christian loyalty above that of the heathens, it seems most agreeable to his design in my opinion, and what the words will very well bear, to understand him thus: the heathens were obliged to offer up their vows and sacrifices in public for the life of the emperor; and for fear they should omit to. name him, either out of negligence or malice, or name him only by way of imprecation, there was a custos, or monitor, appointed to see that they rightly pronounced the form of words dictated by another priest from writing.
And to this Seneca no doubt alludes in these remarkable words, /ib. de Clement. cap. 19—Quid pulchrius est, guam vivere optantibus cunctis, ef vota non sub Custode nuncupantibus ?
"What more lovely or desirable than to live in the hearts of his subjects, and to _. have them all praying for him without the help of a monitor?"
And therefore, _ says our author, we pray szze Monztore, without an overseer, because de Fectore, that is, ex animo, because we pray for emperors from our very heart and soul,
Thus then we see how many ways there are of expounding this obscure passage, each of which is much more probable than that which is urged for the justification of extempore prayer.
And thus likewise we see how the authority of the ancients is valued like an oracle, when they deliver themselves in agreeable ambiguity ; but when they cannot be made to speak for the party, why then the _ Fathers are very ordinary people.