On Prayer

Tertullian, ANF 3

Chapter 28

For this is the spiritual victim¹ which has abolished the pristine sacrifices. “To what purpose,” saith He, “(bring ye) me the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of holocausts of rams, and I desire not the fat of rams, and the blood of bulls and of goats. For who hath required these from your hands? “² What, then, God has required the Gospel teaches. “An hour will come,” saith He, “when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and truth. For God is a Spirit, and accordingly requires His adorers to be such.”³ We are the true adorers and the true priests,⁴ who, praying in spirit,⁵ sacrifice, in spirit, prayer,—a victim proper and acceptable to God, which assuredly He has required, which He has looked forward to⁶ for Himself! This victim, devoted from the whole heart, fed on faith, tended by truth, entire in innocence, pure in chastity, garlanded with love,⁷ we ought to escort with the pomp⁸ of good works, amid psalms and hymns, unto God’s altar,⁹ to obtain for us all things from God.

Notes

1 Pet. ii. 5.
Isa. i. 11. See the LXX.
John iv. 23, 24.
Sacerdotes; comp. de Ex. Cast. c. 7.
1 Cor. xiv. 15; Eph. vi. 18.
Or, “provided.”
“Agape,” perhaps “the love-feast.”
Or, “procession.”
Altare.