On Prayer
For For anyone wanting the earliest commentary on the Lord's Prayer and early prayer practice — short and devotional; not for a technical reader.
Length About 7,500 words, under an hour.
Tertullian's De Oratione stands as the earliest surviving Christian treatise devoted entirely to prayer, written around 198 CE for the Christian community in Carthage. As a recent convert from paganism and trained rhetorician, Tertullian addressed fellow believers who needed practical guidance on how to pray as Christians rather than as former pagans or Jews, providing instruction that would distinguish Christian prayer from both pagan ritual and Jewish custom.
The work centers on a detailed exposition of the Lord's Prayer, treating each petition as a window into proper Christian worship and theological understanding. Tertullian argues that Christ gave this prayer not merely as one option among many, but as the perfect template that contains everything necessary for Christian petition. He explores how addressing God as Father establishes the believer's relationship to the divine, how praying for God's kingdom shapes Christian hope, and how requesting daily bread teaches dependence on divine provision. Beyond the Lord's Prayer itself, Tertullian addresses practical questions about prayer posture, timing, and appropriate content, while defending distinctly Christian practices like praying with raised hands and kneeling during certain seasons.
De Oratione has endured as a foundational text because it captures the earliest systematic Christian thinking about prayer while addressing concerns that remain relevant across centuries. Tertullian's combination of theological precision and pastoral practicality established patterns that would influence later Christian reflection on worship and devotion. Students of early Christianity will find here essential evidence for how second-century believers understood prayer's role in Christian life. Those seeking to understand the theological foundations underlying Christian prayer practices will discover Tertullian's rigorous scriptural reasoning and his attention to how prayer shapes Christian identity. This work is not for casual readers seeking devotional inspiration, but for those willing to engage seriously with the intellectual foundations of Christian worship.
Editions
External off-site sources
Free downloads
- OTHER De Oratione (CCEL) PDTrans. S. ThelwallDe Oratione in the same Ante-Nicene Fathers translation by S. Thelwall, hosted by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library with chapter-by-chapter navigation and downloadable as EPUB or PDF. Choose this over the single-page copies if you want to move around the text or take it offline.
- OTHER De Oratione (New Advent) PDTrans. S. ThelwallDe Oratione in the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation, translated by S. Thelwall, on New Advent as a single continuous page with the chapter divisions kept and the editors' notes gathered at the foot. No introduction and no apparatus — the plainest way to read it straight through. A manageable single sitting for most readers.
- OTHER De Oratione (The Latin Library (Latin)) LatinDe Oratione in Tertullian's Latin, unaccompanied: no translation, no introduction and no notes — just the text, section-numbered, on one page at The Latin Library. For readers working with the original, or checking an English rendering against it.Much harder than the work: Original Latin, no translation — read alongside an English edition unless you have the language.