A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

185Ch. 23. As to kneeling, also, prayer is subject to diversity ofobservance on account of a few who abstain from kneeling on theSabbath. Since this dissension is particularly on its trial beforethe churches, the Lord will give His grace that the dissentientsmay either yield or else follow their own opinion without offenceto the others. We, however, as we have received, only on theSunday of the resurrection ought to guard not only against thiskneeling, but every posture and office of anxiety; deferring evenour businesses, lest we give any place to the devil. Similarly, too,the period of Pentecost, is a time which we distinguish by the [166]same solemnity of exultation. But who would hesitate every dayto prostrate himself before God, at least in the first prayer withwhich we enter on the daylight? At fasts, moreover, and stations,no prayer should be made without kneeling and the remainingcustomary marks of humility. For then we are not only praying,but making supplication, and making satisfaction to our LordGod.Ch. 25. Touching the time, however, the extrinsic observanceof certain hours will not be unprofitable; those common hours, Imean, which mark the intervals of the day—the third, the sixth,the ninth—which we may find in Scripture to have been moresolemn than the rest.Ch. 28. This is the spiritual victim which has abolished thepristine sacrifices.… We are the true adorers and true priests,who, praying in the spirit, in the spirit sacrifice prayer, properand acceptable to God, which, assuredly, He has required, whichHe has looked forward to for Himself. This victim, devoted fromthe whole heart, fed on faith, tended by truth, entire in innocence,pure in chastity, garlanded with love [agape], we ought to escortwith the pomp of good works, amid psalms and hymns, untoGod's altar, to obtain all things from God for us.(b) Tertullian, De Jejun., 3. (MSL, 2:100.)