Tertullian's treatise 'On Prayer' works line by line through the Lord's Prayer and then surveys the disputed customs of Christian worship in Carthage around 200 CE, from veiled virgins to kneeling on the Sabbath.
De Oratione ("On Prayer") is Tertullian's short manual on Christian prayer, built in two clearly separated halves. The first half is a clause-by-clause commentary on the Lord's Prayer, which Tertullian calls a "compact prayer" that sums up the whole of the gospel: he moves through Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, daily bread, forgiveness of debts, and deliverance from temptation and evil, reading each phrase against Scripture and against the Church's daily life. The second half turns from the words of prayer to its manners and occasions: whether to pray with cloaks on or off, whether to sit after praying, how loud to speak, whether fasting excludes the kiss of peace or the Eucharist, whether virgins must be veiled, whether to kneel on the Lord's Day, and what hours of the day are fitting for prayer.
The treatise unfolds as a working churchman's response to a community with more customs than certainties. Tertullian repeatedly distinguishes precept (what the Lord or apostles actually commanded) from superstition (what people have added out of scruple or imitation of pagan practice), and he uses that distinction as his adjudicating tool throughout: praying bare-headed like pagans before idols, sitting down 'like the nations' after prayer, and omitting the kiss on station days are all measured against apostolic precedent and largely rejected or qualified. The virgin-veiling question receives the longest single treatment, run as a close argument about whether Paul's word for "woman" in 1 Corinthians 11 covers virgins, tracing the word back to Eve's naming in Genesis.
Historically the work matters as a rare, dated window (Tertullian wrote from Carthage around 200-206 CE) into the actual, contested liturgical practice of an early North African church, still visibly negotiating its distance from both Judaism and paganism and still lacking uniform custom on basic questions like kneeling, veiling, and the timing of prayer. It is also the earliest surviving full commentary on the Lord's Prayer, predating later patristic treatments and shaping how the prayer would be read as a summary of Christian doctrine for centuries afterward.
“Jesus Christ our Lord, marked out for his new disciples of the new covenant a new form of prayer. For it was fitting that in this respect too new wine should be stored in new skins, and a new patch stitched onto a new garment.”
— De Oratione – Chapter 1
“In the compass of a very few words, how many pronouncements of the prophets, the gospels, the apostles are touched — the Lord's sayings, parables, examples, precepts!”
— De Oratione – Chapter 9
“God is not a listener to the voice but to the heart, just as he is its watcher.”
— De Oratione – Chapter 17
“We are the genuine worshippers, we the genuine priests, who, praying by the spirit, present in spirit a sacrifice fitting and pleasing to God — prayer, the very sacrifice he has required, the very one he has looked for in advance for himself.”
— De Oratione – Chapter 28
“Prayer is the wall of faith, our weapons and our missiles against the enemy who watches us on every side. And so let us never go forward unarmed.”
— De Oratione – Chapter 29
It is Tertullian's treatise on Christian prayer, written in two parts: a phrase-by-phrase commentary on the Lord's Prayer, and then a survey of disputed customs surrounding prayer, such as posture, veiling, fasting, and timing. Tertullian presents it as a guide grounded in 'heaven's own wisdom' rather than mere local habit.
He treats it as a divinely composed summary of the entire gospel, stating that 'in the compass of a very few words' it touches on the sayings, parables, and precepts of the prophets, gospels, and apostles at once. Each petition -- Father, name, kingdom, will, bread, debts, temptation -- gets its own chapter of doctrinal unpacking.
He argues at length that Paul's instruction for 'women' to veil their heads while praying applies to virgins as well as married women, tracing the word 'woman' back to Genesis, where Eve is named 'woman' before she is ever married. He treats this as settling an active dispute among the churches of his day.
He says kneeling should be avoided on the Lord's Day and throughout Pentecost, since those seasons call for joy rather than the posture of penitence, but that on fast days and stations 'no prayer should be observed without kneeling and the rest of the manner of humility.' He notes this practice was already disputed among the churches.
He points to the third, sixth, and ninth hours as traditionally solemn times, tied to biblical events like the outpouring of the Spirit and Peter's rooftop vision, and suggests praying at least three times a day. He adds that prayer should come before food or bathing, since 'the heavenly comes before the earthly.'
He reserves that label for practices followed 'without the authority of any precept of the Lord or the apostles,' especially ones that imitate pagan worship, such as removing one's cloak to pray or sitting down afterward the way people do before idols. His test throughout is scriptural precedent, not inherited custom.
In the closing chapters he lists prayer 'washing away sins,' repelling temptations, healing the sick, freeing prisoners, and calming storms, contrasting it with Old Testament prayer that merely rescued 'from fires and from beasts and from starvation.' He frames Christian prayer as taught by Christ to work only good, never harm.
Yes -- Tertullian addresses whether those fasting should omit the customary kiss of peace after shared prayer, since a fasting face is supposed to be hidden. He allows the kiss to be postponed at home for concealment but insists it should not be skipped on days like Easter, when fasting is public anyway.
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