I have been playing with this for a while, but seeing that the CP (http://www.logos.com/product/27365/alexander-souter-studies-in-early-christianity-collection) is about to go though, figured releasing a portion of what I did before the collection was offered could be interesting advertizement for the Logos product. Included here is Tertullian's Exposition of the Lord's Prayer.
The main source for this is http://www.tertullian.org/articles/souter_orat_bapt/souter_orat_bapt_03prayer.htm with comparison with the version available on internet archive...
There are reasons why Tertullian has been described as the "Church Father we all love to hate" (as someone once described him at a conference I attended) - he was controversial in his day, dying a heretic, but it is hard to imagine western theology without him. I offer the following brief excerpt to show what to expect, and that much of what he voices is still around our religious world, so to speak...
But when is God’s name not holy and hallowed in itself, seeing that its power makes all others holy? Before His presence the surrounding angels never cease to say: “Holy, holy, holy.” So, therefore, we too, candidates for the position of angel, if we earn it, even in this world can fully learn that heavenly word with which to address God, and the duty pertaining to our future state of glory. So far concerning God’s glory. Again, as regards our petition, when we say: HALLOWED BE THY NAME, we ask that it should be made holy in us, who are in Him, and at the same time in all others, on whom the grace of God is still waiting, that we may obey this precept also, by praying for all, even for our enemies. And therefore, by curtailing our utterance and by refraining from saying “let it be hallowed in us,” we mean “in all.”
Souter, A. (. (1919). Tertullian's Treatieses (22). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
SDG
Ken McGuire
