TERTULLIAN'S

TRACT ON
THE PRAYER

THE LATIN TEXT

with
critical notes
an English translation,
an introduction and
explanatory observations

by

ERNEST EVANS

[Inside front sleeve]

TERTULLIAN'S TRACT
ON THE PRAYER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

Tertullian's Treatise Against Praxeas

Q. SEPTIMII FLORENTIS TERTULLIANI
DE ORATIONE LIBER
--------

TERTULLIAN'S TRACT
ON
THE PRAYER

The Latin text with critical notes,
an English translation, an introduction,
and explanatory observations

BY

ERNEST EVANS
D.D. Oxford, Hon. D.D. Glasgow
Vicar of Hellifield, and
Canon of Bradford

LONDON
S.P.C.K
1953

First published in 1953
by S.P.C.K.
Northumberland Avenue, W. C. 2

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge
(Brooke Crutchley, University Printer)

-----------------------------------
CONTENTS
-----------------------------------

PREFACE                                                                                             vii

INTRODUCTION                                                                              ix

MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS                                                xix

LATIN TEXT AND ENGLISH VERSION                                       2

NOTES                                                                                                  42

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL AND OTHER REFERENCES         63

INDEX VERBORUM LATINORUM                                              66

FRANCISCAE MARGARITAE
MARGARITAE ELIZABETHAE
CHRISTINAE MARIAE

|vii

-----------------------------------
PREFACE
-----------------------------------

The Latin text here presented is deliberately conservative. To some
extent in this treatise, but still more elsewhere, Tertullian seems
to have been even too well served by his editors. The great
scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose immense 
learning is the admiration of all time, introduced their own
conjectures (which have now become the standard text) in places
where it seems possible that the manuscripts give not only
a tolerable but a preferable reading. There remain, however,
a few places whose difficulty has not yet been solved, on some of
which I have ventured to make suggestions which I submit to the
judgement of the learned.

Professor G. F. Diercks' grande volumen came into my hands
when my own work was, as I thought, complete. In view of it
I have thoroughly revised all I had written. How much I owe to
this magnificent work is made abundantly clear in my critical
notes. I hope also that my translation will escape the severe
censure passed by Professor Diercks on two previous English
translations of this book.

The Introduction and Notes are not intended to be exhaustive.
They will serve their purpose if they introduce to young students
one of the most brilliant and versatile writers of Christian
antiquity, a master of Latin prose, and suggest to them the
possibility of further studies of the same kind. The general reader
also may find some benefit from this very early example of
a Christian devotional work, along with an insight into the
thought and practice of an ancient Christian community.

E. EVANS

HELLIFIELD
Candlemas 1952

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