Tertullian — Commentary on Scripture

Matthew 6:7

Nevertheless, the proceeding of a discussion on the necessaries of faith is not idle, because it is not unfruitful. In edification no loquacity is base, if it be base at any time. And so, if the discourse be concerning some particular good, the subject requires us to review also the contrary of that good.

Of Patience

Matthew 6:8

Since, however, the Lord, the Foreseer of human necessities, said separately, after delivering His Rule of Prayer, "Ask, and ye shall receive; " and since there are petitions which are made according to the circumstances of each individual; our additional wants have the right-after beginning with the legitimate and customary prayers as a foundation, as it were-of rearing an outer superstructure of petitions, yet with remembrance of the Master's precepts.

On Prayer

Matthew 6:9

Our Lord so frequently spoke to us of God as Father. He even taught us to call none on earth father, but only the one we have in heaven. Therefore, when we pray to the Father, we are following this command. Blessed are they who recognize their Father! Remember the reproach made against Israel, when the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness, saying, “I have begotten sons and they have not known me.” In addressing him as Father we are also naming him God, so as to combine in a single term both filial love and power. Addressing the Father, the Son is also being addressed, for Christ said, “I and the Father are one.” Nor is Mother Church passed over without mention, for the mother is recognized in the Son and the Father, as it is within the church that we learn the meaning of the terms Father and Son.

ON PRAYER 2.2-6

Matthew 6:9

self looked up, and prayed, and made supplication of the Father; whither also He taught us to raise ourselves, and pray, "Our Father which art in heaven," etc., -although, indeed, He is everywhere present.

Against Praxeas

Matthew 6:9

Prayer begins with a demonstration of our belief in God and a blessed act of faith at the moment when we say, “Father, who art in heaven.” For we are thereby both adoring God and demonstrating our faith, and this form of address is the result. It is written, “To those who believe in God he gave the power to be called the children of God.”

ON PRAYER 2.1

Matthew 6:10

When we pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we do not imply that anyone could prevent the fulfillment of God’s will or that he needs our prayer to accomplish his will. Rather, we pray that his will be done in all. Think of heaven and earth as a picture of our very selves, spirit and flesh. The sense of the petition is the same, namely, that in us (as spirit and flesh, as heaven and earth combined) the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, what does God will more than that we ourselves walk according to his ways? We ask therefore that he supply us with the energy of his own will and the capacity to do it, that we may be saved, both in heaven and on earth. The sum of his will is the salvation of those whom he has adopted.

ON PRAYER 4.1-2

Matthew 6:11

How unworthy, also, is the way in which you interpret to the favour of your own lust the fact that the Lord "ate and drank" promiscuously! But I think that He must have likewise "fasted" inasmuch as He has pronounced, not "the full; "but "the hungry and thirsty, blessed: " (He) who was wont to profess "food" to be, not that which His disciples had supposed, but "the thorough doing of the Father's work; " teaching "to labour for the meat which is permanent unto life eternal; " in our ordinary prayer likewise commanding us to request "bread," not the wealth of Attalus therewithal.

On Fasting

Matthew 6:12

Having considered God's generosity, we pray next for His indulgence. For, of what benefit is food if, in reality, we are bent on it like a bull on his victim? Our Lord knew that He alone was without sin. Therefore, He taught us to say in prayer: 'Forgive us our trespasses.' A prayer for pardon is an acknowledgment of sin, since one who asks for pardon confesses his guilt. Thus, too, repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because God wills this rather than the death of the sinner. Now, in Scripture, 'debt' is used figuratively to mean sin, because of this analogy: When a man owes something to a judge and payment is exacted from him, he does not escape the just demand unless excused from the payment of the debt, just as the master forgave the debt to that servant. Now, this is the point of the whole parable: Just as the servant was freed by his lord, but failed in turn to be merciful to his debtor and therefore, when brought before his lord, was handed over to the torturer until he paid the last penny, that is, the least and last of his faults, (Christ) intended by this parabl…

Having considered God's generosity, we pray next for His indulgence. For, of what benefit is food if, in reality, we are bent on it like a bull on his victim? Our Lord knew that He alone was without sin. Therefore, He taught us to say in prayer: 'Forgive us our trespasses.' A prayer for pardon is an acknowledgment of sin, since one who asks for pardon confesses his guilt. Thus, too, repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because God wills this rather than the death of the sinner.
Now, in Scripture, 'debt' is used figuratively to mean sin, because of this analogy: When a man owes something to a judge and payment is exacted from him, he does not escape the just demand unless excused from the payment of the debt, just as the master forgave the debt to that servant. Now, this is the point of the whole parable: Just as the servant was freed by his lord, but failed in turn to be merciful to his debtor and therefore, when brought before his lord, was handed over to the torturer until he paid the last penny, that is, the least and last of his faults, (Christ) intended by this parable to get us, also, to forgive our debtors.
This is expressed elsewhere under this aspect of prayer; 'Forgive,' He said, 'and you shall be forgiven.' And when Peter asked if one should forgive his brother seven times, our Lord said, 'Rather, seventy times seven times,' that He might improve upon the Law, for in Genesis vengeance was demanded of Cain seven times, of Lamech seventy times seven.

Matthew 6:13

And certainly, when the Son of God has faith's protection absolutely committed to Him, beseeching it of the Father, from whom He receives all power in heaven and on earth, how entirely out of the question is it that the devil should have the assailing of it in his own power! But in the prayer prescribed to us, when we say to our Father, "Lead us not into temptation " (now what greater temptation is there than persecution?), we acknowledge that that comes to pass by His will whom we beseech to exempt us from it.

On Flight in Persecution

Matthew 6:13

To complete the prayer that was so well arranged, Christ added that we should pray not only that our sins be forgiven but also that they be resisted completely: “Lead us not into temptation,” that is, do not allow us to be led by the tempter. God forbid that our Lord should seem to be the tempter, as if he were not aware of one’s faith or were eager to upset it! That weakness and spitefulness belongs to the devil. For even in the case of Abraham, God had ordered the sacrifice of his son not to tempt his faith but to prove it. In him he might illustrate that which he was later to teach, that no one should hold loved ones dearer than God.… The disciples were so tempted to desert their Lord that they indulged in sleep instead of prayer. Therefore the phrase that balances and interprets “lead us not into temptation” is “but deliver us from evil.”

ON PRAYER 8.1-3, 5-6

Matthew 6:14

For what sort of deed is it to approach the peace of God without peace? the remission of debts while you retain them? How will he appease his Father who is angry with his brother, when from the beginning "all anger" is forbidden us? For even Joseph, when dismissing his brethren for the purpose of fetching their father, said, "And be not angry in the way.

On Prayer

Matthew 6:16

Thereafter He prescribed to fasts a law-that they are to be performed "without sadness: " for why should what is salutary be sad? He taught likewise that fasts are to be the weapons for battling with the more direful demons: for what wonder if the same operation is the instrument of the iniquitous spirit's egress as of the Holy Spirit's ingress? Finally, granting that upon the centurion Cornelius, even before baptism, the honourable gift of the Holy Spirit, together with the gift of prophecy besides, had hastened to descend, we see that his fasts had been heard, I think, moreover, that the apostle too, in the Second of Corinthians, among his labours, and perils, and hardships, after "hunger and thirst," enumerates "fasts" also "very many"

On Fasting

Matthew 6:16

their own peace? What prayer is complete if divorced from the "holy kiss? " Whom does peace impede when rendering service to his Lord? What kind of sacrifice is that from which men depart without peace? Whatever our prayer be, it will not be better than the observance of the precept by which we are bidden to conceal our fasts; for now, by abstinence from the kiss, we are known to be fasting.

On Prayer

Matthew 6:21

The mind compasses the whole man about, and whither it wills it carries him. But where thy heart shall be, there shall be thy treasure. Be there our heart, then, where we would have our treasure.

Ad Martyras

Matthew 6:24

How many other undoubted proofs we have had in the case of persons who, by keeping company with the devil in the shows, have fallen from the Lord! For no one can serve two masters. What fellowship has light with darkness, life with death?

De Spectaculis

Matthew 6:24

For who would doubt that faith undergoes a daily process of obliteration by unbelieving intercourse? "Evil confabulations corrupt good morals; " how much more fellowship of life, and indivisible intimacy! Any and every believing woman must of necessity obey God. And how can she serve two lords -the Lord, and her husband-a Gentile to boot? For in obeying a Gentile she will carry out Gentile practices,-personal attractiveness, dressing of the head, worldly elegancies, baser blandishments, the very secrets even of matrimony tainted: not, as among the saints, where the duties of the sex are discharged with honour (shown) to the very necessity (which makes them incumbent), with modesty and temperance, as beneath the eyes of God.

To His Wife Book II

Matthew 6:24

"Amongst other things," says she, "there has been shown to me a soul in bodily shape, and a spirit has been in the habit of appearing to me; not, however, a void and empty illusion, but such as would offer itself to be even grasped by the hand, soft and transparent and of an etherial colour, and in form resembling that of a human being in every respect.

A Treatise on the Soul

Matthew 6:24

"But I was under contract." "None can serve two lords." If you wish to be the Lord's disciple, it is necessary you "take your cross, and follow the Lord: " your cross; that is, your own straits and tortures, or your body only, which is after the manner of a cross.

On Idolatry

Matthew 6:24

So you see idolatry is not without its gain, selling, as it does, Christ for pieces of gold, as Judas did for pieces of silver. Will it be "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" to devote your energies to mammon, and to depart from God? Will it be "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's," not only not to render the human being to God, but even to take the denarius from Caesar? Is the laurel of the triumph made of leaves, or of corpses? Is it adorned with ribbons, or with tombs? Is it bedewed with ointments, or with the tears of wives and mothers? It may be of some Christians too; for Christ is also among the barbarians.

De Corona

Matthew 6:25

For in him matter is abundant: whence he presumes that even the soul is material; and therefore much more (than other men) he has not the Spirit from God, being no longer even a Psychic, because even his psychic element is not derived from God's afflatus! What if a man allege "indigence," so as to profess that his flesh is openly prostituted, and given in marriage for the sake of maintenance; forgetting that there is to be no careful thought about food and clothing? He has God (to look to), the Foster-father even of ravens, the Rearer even of flowers.

On Monogamy