A Catholic Response to Answering Catholics on the Lord’s Prayer, the Early Church Fathers, the Communion of Saints, and Christian Intercession
Patrick O’Brien’s Answering Catholics published a page entitled “Prayer Discussed by the Early Church Writers.”
The article reproduces a passage from Tertullian’s On Prayer, Chapter 2, concerning the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer.
Tertullian explains that Christians address God as Father, that this relationship comes through faith in Jesus Christ, and that the Father and Son are united.
There is nothing objectionable about those truths.
Catholics profess every one of them.
The difficulty arises if this passage is presented as evidence against the Catholic understanding of prayer, particularly the intercession of the saints, the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Church’s participation in Christian prayer.
Tertullian’s words do not establish any such exclusion.
Indeed, the passage contains a fascinating detail that deserves considerably more attention.
While explaining the words “Our Father,” Tertullian explicitly mentions Christ and the Church.
He speaks of the Father.
He speaks of the Son.
And he speaks of:
“our mother the Church.”
That is not an incidental observation.
It reveals that Tertullian understood Christian prayer within the relationship between God and His Church.
And when we examine the rest of On Prayer, together with other early Christian witnesses, a much richer picture emerges than the isolated quotation suggests.
Let us examine the evidence.
1. Begin With What Tertullian Actually Says
Tertullian begins his explanation of the Lord’s Prayer by emphasizing that the Christian addresses God as Father.
He connects this privilege with faith in Jesus Christ and the believer’s adoption as a child of God.
He then explains that the Son is not excluded when the Father is invoked.
And finally, he brings the Church into the discussion.
Tertullian, On Prayer, Chapter 2
These are unmistakably Christian themes.
They are also thoroughly compatible with Catholic theology.
The Catechism teaches:
“There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2664
And it explains that Christian prayer receives access to the Father through Jesus Christ.
That is Catholic doctrine.
The Church does not teach that Mary replaces Jesus.
She does not teach that the saints possess independent divine power.
She does not teach that Christians require someone other than Christ to make the Father accessible.
Christ is the way to the Father.
But notice the distinction.
The fact that Christians pray to the Father through Christ does not establish that Christians may never request the intercession of other members of Christ’s Body.
Those are different propositions.
And the second does not logically follow from the first.
2. The Lord’s Prayer Is Catholic Prayer
Christ Himself taught:
“Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
Matthew 6:9
The Catholic Church prays these words constantly.
At Mass.
During the Rosary.
In the Liturgy of the Hours.
During personal prayer.
In families.
At the bedside of the dying.
In the sacramental life of the Church.
The Our Father stands at the center of Catholic spirituality.
The Catechism devotes an entire section to this prayer, identifying it as the prayer taught by the Lord Himself.
CCC §§2759–2865
So if the argument is simply:
“Tertullian taught Christians to pray to God the Father.”
The Catholic response is straightforward:
Yes. So does the Catholic Church.
No disagreement exists.
The disagreement would arise only if someone added:
“Therefore all other forms of Christian intercession are forbidden.”
But that additional conclusion is not found in Tertullian’s quotation.
Nor is it found in Matthew 6:9.
3. Tertullian Explicitly Includes the Son in Prayer to the Father
One of the most interesting statements in the passage concerns Jesus Christ.
Tertullian explains that the Son is invoked when Christians call upon the Father because Christ Himself teaches:
“I and the Father are one.”
John 10:30
Tertullian’s explanation is theological.
The Christian does not approach an isolated Father divorced from the Son.
The Father and Son belong together within the mystery of divine life.
This matters because Catholic prayer is fundamentally Trinitarian.
We pray to the Father.
Through the Son.
In the Holy Ghost.
We also pray directly to Jesus Christ, who is true God.
And we invoke the Holy Ghost.
The Catechism explicitly recognizes prayer addressed to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
CCC §§2665–2672
The Church’s liturgical prayer often ends:
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
That is the theological world Tertullian is describing.
The Father is not separated from the Son.
Christian prayer is grounded in Christ.
Nothing about this conflicts with Catholic doctrine.
4. Why Does Tertullian Mention “Our Mother the Church”?
Here the quotation becomes particularly interesting.
Tertullian explicitly calls the Church our mother.
On Prayer, Chapter 2
He sees the Church as belonging to the Christian’s relationship with God.
That does not mean Tertullian is claiming that the Church is divine.
He is not.
Nor does this phrase by itself establish every later Catholic teaching concerning ecclesial authority.
But it does demonstrate something important.
Tertullian did not understand Christian life as an isolated relationship between an individual believer and God, detached from the Church.
The Church belongs to the Christian’s spiritual identity.
That is entirely consistent with the teaching of St. Paul.
Paul calls the Church:
“The house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
1 Timothy 3:15
He also describes Christians as members of one Body:
1 Corinthians 12:12–27
And teaches that believers are joined together in Christ.
Romans 12:4–5
So when Tertullian invokes the image of the Church as mother, he is drawing attention to something Catholics have always taken seriously:
Christian faith is personal, but it is not individualistic.
We come to the Father through Christ as members of His Church.
5. “Call No Man Father” Does Not Abolish Spiritual Fatherhood
Tertullian’s passage also cites Matthew 23:9.
Christ warns His disciples against claiming for human beings the ultimate fatherhood that belongs to God.
Some Protestant objections take this statement as a literal prohibition against calling Catholic priests Father.
But Scripture itself demonstrates that such an absolute interpretation cannot be correct.
St. Paul writes:
“For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.”
1 Corinthians 4:15
Paul explicitly describes himself as a spiritual father.
St. Stephen begins his address:
“Ye men, brethren, and fathers, hear.”
Acts 7:2
The New Testament therefore cannot be teaching that the word father is intrinsically forbidden when applied to a human being.
Christ condemns the pride and usurpation of divine authority that characterized the religious hypocrisy addressed in Matthew 23.
He is not abolishing ordinary or spiritual fatherhood.
Catholics call priests Father because of their spiritual ministry, not because they believe priests replace God the Father.
God alone is Father in the ultimate and absolute sense.
All authentic human fatherhood depends upon Him.
6. The Word “Our” Reveals the Communal Character of Prayer
Christ did not teach His disciples to pray:
My Father.
He taught:
Our Father.
That distinction received considerable attention among the early Christians.
St. Cyprian of Carthage, writing in the third century, explains that the Lord’s Prayer is not merely an individual petition.
It is the prayer of the whole people of God.
He teaches that Christians do not pray merely for themselves but for the entire community because they are united as one.
St. Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer, Chapter 8
This is exactly the Catholic understanding of ecclesial prayer.
At Mass, the congregation prays together.
Christians pray for one another.
The faithful remember the sick.
They intercede for the suffering.
They pray for the conversion of sinners.
They remember the departed.
All of this reflects the communal nature of Christian life.
And that leads to an important theological question:
Does membership in Christ’s Body suddenly become meaningless when a faithful Christian dies?
Catholic theology answers:
No.
The Church exists in communion across death because its life comes from the risen Christ.
7. Scripture Commands Christians to Intercede for One Another
Before discussing heavenly intercession, we should establish a basic biblical principle.
Christian prayer is not limited to asking God for oneself.
St. Paul commands:
“I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men.”
1 Timothy 2:1
St. James writes:
“Pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much.”
James 5:16
Paul repeatedly requests prayers from other Christians.
Romans 15:30; Ephesians 6:18–19
That is significant.
If requesting another Christian’s intercession necessarily compromised Christ’s unique mediatorship, why would the Apostles command it?
They would not.
Christian intercession exists because Christ has made believers participants in His saving life.
No Christian possesses saving power independently of Him.
Rather, members of Christ’s Body pray for one another through Him.
The Catholic understanding of the communion of saints begins with this fundamental biblical truth.
8. Does Christ’s Unique Mediatorship Exclude the Saints?
The standard objection appeals to St. Paul:
“For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
1 Timothy 2:5
Catholics wholeheartedly confess this.
Jesus Christ alone is the mediator who reconciles God and man through His Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
No saint accomplished our redemption.
Mary did not die upon Calvary to redeem mankind.
No Apostle possesses a rival priesthood independent of Christ.
No creature can replace the Incarnate Son.
But read the context.
Only four verses earlier Paul commands Christians to offer intercessions for others.
1 Timothy 2:1
Therefore, the same Apostle teaches both:
Christ is the one mediator.
And:
Christians must intercede for one another.
The two teachings cannot be contradictory.
The explanation is straightforward.
Christ’s mediation is unique, foundational, and redemptive.
Our intercession is entirely dependent upon His mediation.
When I ask another Christian to pray for me, I am not creating another Savior.
I am asking a member of Christ’s Body to join me in petitioning the one Savior.
The Catholic understanding of heavenly intercession operates according to the same principle.
9. The Saints in Heaven Are Not Spiritually Dead
A central biblical principle is that those who die in the Lord remain alive to God.
Christ declares:
“Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him.”
Luke 20:38
Death does not destroy the life God has bestowed upon His faithful servants.
St. Paul teaches that neither death nor life can separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:38–39
The Church on earth and the saints in heaven therefore remain united in Christ.
The Catechism teaches:
“All of us, however, in varying degrees and in different ways share in the same charity towards God and our neighbours…”
CCC §954
The saints do not become separated from Christ’s Body by attaining the glory toward which the entire Church is journeying.
They are alive in Him.
They worship Him.
They participate in His heavenly kingdom.
And Catholic theology holds that their love for the Church continues.
That is why asking for their intercession is not an attempt to communicate with spirits through occult practices.
It is an appeal for prayer within the communion established by Christ.
10. Scripture Portrays the Saints Praying in Heaven
The Book of Revelation gives us a remarkable picture.
St. John sees the souls of martyrs beneath the heavenly altar.
They cry out to God:
“How long, O Lord (holy and true), dost thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
Apocalypse 6:10
Notice several things.
The martyrs are conscious.
They are alive.
They address God.
They are concerned with events connected to the earth.
And they pray.
Tertullian himself invokes this passage in On Prayer, Chapter 5.
That is important because it occurs in the very treatise from which Answering Catholics quotes.
The same author who explains the Lord’s Prayer also acknowledges the prayers of the departed martyrs in heaven.
This passage does not, by itself, demonstrate every detail of Catholic invocation of saints.
It does, however, establish that heavenly prayer is a biblical reality.
The glorified do not cease to pray simply because they have departed this earthly life.
11. Heaven Is Not Disconnected From the Prayers of the Church
St. John also describes the heavenly worship of the Lamb.
In Apocalypse 5:8, the heavenly figures possess golden vessels containing the prayers of the saints.
The following chapters describe heavenly liturgical worship.
Then:
“And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.”
Apocalypse 8:4
These passages contain a profound truth.
Earthly prayer is not disconnected from heavenly worship.
The prayers of God’s people are presented before Him within the heavenly liturgy.
The precise identity and function of every figure in these visions remains a matter of interpretation.
Catholics should not pretend that these verses independently demonstrate how every individual saint receives every individual petition.
But they do show that the heavenly assembly is not portrayed as indifferent to the prayers offered by God’s people.
Heaven and earth are joined in worship before God.
That is thoroughly compatible with the Catholic understanding of the communion of saints.
12. Asking for Intercession Is Not the Same as Worshipping a Creature
Another distinction must be maintained.
Catholics do not adore the saints.
Adoration belongs to God alone.
The Church distinguishes between the worship due to God and the honor given to His holy servants.
The Catechism explains:
“Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan.”
CCC §2683
When a Catholic says:
“St. Peter, pray for us.”
the request is not:
“St. Peter, save us by your divine power.”
When a Catholic says:
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.”
the request is not:
“Mary, replace Jesus Christ as our Redeemer.”
The request is for intercession.
The salvation sought comes from God.
The grace comes from God.
The mercy comes from God.
Christ remains the one mediator of redemption.
The difference between asking someone to pray and worshipping someone as divine is fundamental.
To confuse the two is to misunderstand the Catholic teaching being criticized.
13. The Early Church Did Recognize Heavenly Intercession
If our concern is what early Christian writers actually taught, we should examine more than one paragraph from one author.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the fourth century, describes the Eucharistic liturgy and the commemoration of patriarchs, prophets, Apostles, and martyrs.
He explains that the Church commemorates them so that God may receive the Church’s petitions through their prayers and intercessions.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 23.9
Notice the setting.
This is not a medieval devotional manual.
It is an explanation of early Christian liturgical worship.
The Church prays to God while invoking the value of the intercession of those who have gone before us.
Cyril also distinguishes this commemoration from prayer offered on behalf of departed Christians.
Catechetical Lecture 23.9–10
That distinction matters.
The Church asks for the intercession of the saints in glory.
She also prays for the departed who may still need purification.
The two practices are related through the communion of the Church, but they are not identical.
And both appear in ancient Christian liturgical testimony.
14. St. Gregory Nazianzen Addresses St. Basil After His Death
The historical evidence becomes even more explicit with St. Gregory Nazianzen.
In his funeral oration for St. Basil the Great, Gregory addresses his departed friend.
He asks Basil to look upon those still living and to assist them through his prayers.
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 43.82
He appeals to Basil to obtain spiritual assistance through his heavenly intercession.
This is a remarkably direct example of Christian appeal to a departed holy person.
Gregory does not treat Basil as a god.
He does not suggest Basil possesses independent divine power.
His appeal presupposes Basil’s life with God and asks for his intercession.
That is precisely the distinction Catholic theology maintains.
Here we find a fourth-century bishop and major theologian expressing a form of prayer entirely recognizable within Catholic devotional life.
This does not mean every detail of modern Catholic devotion had already developed.
It means that requests for heavenly intercession have genuine roots in ancient Christianity.
They cannot simply be dismissed as inventions of the medieval period.
15. Tertullian Himself Discusses Prayers and Offerings for the Dead
Now return to Tertullian.
The page under examination quotes his explanation of the Lord’s Prayer.
But Tertullian wrote much more about Christian prayer and worship.
In De Corona, Chapter 3, he refers to Christian offerings for the departed on the anniversaries of their deaths.
In On Monogamy, Chapter 10, he describes a widow praying for her deceased husband’s soul and making offerings on his behalf.
These are significant historical witnesses.
They demonstrate that, in Tertullian’s Christian environment, prayer was not necessarily restricted to the needs of those still living on earth.
Now a distinction is necessary.
Praying for a departed person is not the same as asking a saint in heaven to pray for us.
These passages should not be confused.
And Tertullian’s testimony does not independently establish the entire later Catholic theology of Purgatory or saintly intercession.
But his writings do demonstrate that prayer and the departed were already connected within early Christian practice.
That historical reality deserves acknowledgment whenever Tertullian is cited as an authority concerning Christian prayer.
16. The Same Treatise Discusses the Eucharist and the Lord’s Body
There is another remarkable feature of Tertullian’s On Prayer.
In Chapter 6, while explaining the petition for daily bread, Tertullian connects Christian prayer with Christ, the Bread of Life, and recalls the words:
“This is my body.”
Matthew 26:26
Then in Chapter 19, Tertullian discusses fasting, prayer, reception of the Lord’s Body, and participation in the Eucharist at God’s altar.
The point is not that this one passage provides a complete explanation of transubstantiation.
It does not.
The point is that Tertullian’s teaching on prayer belongs to an identifiable Christian sacramental and ecclesial setting.
He did not write On Prayer as though Christianity were merely private devotional activity without the Church, its liturgy, or its sacred mysteries.
The same treatise that opens by explaining prayer to the Father later discusses Eucharistic participation.
That is important historical context.
Early Christian prayer was both personal and ecclesial.
It was prayer to God.
Prayer with the Church.
Prayer within the sacramental life of Christianity.
These realities belonged together.
17. Repeated Prayer Is Not Necessarily Vain Repetition
Some criticisms of Catholic prayer also challenge the use of established prayers, including the Rosary.
They appeal to Christ’s warning concerning vain repetition.
Matthew 6:7
But Christ condemns empty verbosity and the notion that God is manipulated by the sheer multiplication of words.
He does not condemn every repeated prayer.
Christ Himself prayed again using the same words in Gethsemane.
Matthew 26:44
The heavenly worship described in Revelation includes repeated praise of God’s holiness.
Apocalypse 4:8
The Church therefore distinguishes between heartfelt repetition and empty repetition.
A Christian can repeat the Our Father with genuine devotion.
He can also recite it mechanically.
The problem is not the prayer itself.
The problem is the absence of faith and attention.
St. Cyprian, in On the Lord’s Prayer, insists that Christians must pray attentively rather than allow their minds to wander while their lips speak.
On the Lord’s Prayer, Chapter 31
That is a thoroughly Catholic concern.
The Church does not teach Christians merely to multiply words.
She teaches them to pray with faith, hope, charity, humility, and perseverance.
18. The Catholic Position Is Christ-Centered From Beginning to End
The Catechism describes prayer as a living relationship with God.
It teaches that Christian prayer is directed to the Father through Christ in the Holy Ghost.
It encourages prayer to Jesus.
It encourages invocation of the Holy Spirit.
It also teaches communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the intercession of the saints.
CCC §§2558–2565; 2664–2684
These teachings are not presented as competing paths of salvation.
They exist within the one communion established by Jesus Christ.
The Church does not say:
Christ is insufficient, so we need the saints instead.
She says:
Christ has united His members so profoundly that they can continue to love, pray for, and assist one another in Him.
All authentic Christian intercession depends upon the grace of Christ.
All salvation comes through Him.
All adoration belongs to God.
And the prayers of the Church are directed ultimately toward communion with the Most Holy Trinity.
That is the actual Catholic doctrine.
It should be answered as such.
19. Put the Burden of Proof Where It Belongs
Let us return to the quotation published by Answering Catholics.
Tertullian explains the Lord’s Prayer.
Catholics agree.
He teaches that God is our Father.
Catholics agree.
He connects our adoption with faith in Christ.
Catholics agree.
He recognizes the unity of the Father and Son.
Catholics agree.
He acknowledges the Church as mother.
Catholics agree.
But if anyone wishes to use that passage against Catholic prayer, several questions must be answered.
Where does Tertullian say that asking the saints for intercession is forbidden?
Where does he say that prayer to the Father excludes all requests for intercession from fellow members of Christ’s Body?
If Christ’s unique mediatorship abolishes subordinate intercession:
Why does St. Paul command Christians to pray for one another in the same chapter in which he calls Christ the one mediator?
If those who have died in Christ cannot pray:
Why does Revelation depict departed martyrs praying in heaven?
If heaven has no connection with earthly petitions:
Why does Revelation describe the prayers of the saints being presented before God?
If early Christianity knew nothing of heavenly intercession:
Why does St. Cyril of Jerusalem describe the Church seeking the prayers and intercessions of departed saints?
Why does St. Gregory Nazianzen address the departed Basil and ask for his spiritual assistance?
And if Tertullian is to be treated as an important witness to early Christian prayer:
Why should we examine only Chapter 2 while neglecting his discussions of the Church, Eucharist, heavenly martyrs, and prayer for the departed elsewhere in his writings?
These questions deserve careful answers.
A quotation concerning the Our Father cannot settle theological questions it does not actually address.
Conclusion
Tertullian’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer is beautiful.
It reminds Christians that God is our Father.
That faith in Christ makes us children of God.
That the Father and Son are united.
And that the Church belongs to our spiritual life.
Catholics should embrace those truths.
But the passage does not teach that the communion of saints is false.
It does not say heavenly intercession is impossible.
It does not condemn requests for the prayers of the departed saints.
It does not present Christian prayer as isolated from the Church.
In fact, Tertullian explicitly identifies the Church as mother.
Elsewhere, he recognizes the prayers of heavenly martyrs.
He discusses the Eucharist and God’s altar.
And his other works record early Christian prayers and offerings for the departed.
The broader historical record adds still more.
St. Cyprian emphasizes that Christian prayer is communal.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem describes the Church seeking the intercessions of the saints.
St. Gregory Nazianzen directly addresses St. Basil after his death and asks for his heavenly assistance.
Scripture itself commands Christians to intercede for one another and portrays the saints alive before God.
None of these realities competes with Jesus Christ.
Christ is the source of every grace.
Christ is our Redeemer.
Christ is the one mediator of salvation.
Christ is the Head of His Church.
The communion of saints does not replace Him.
It exists because of Him.
So the question is not whether Catholics believe the Lord’s Prayer.
We do.
The question is whether the command to pray to God somehow abolishes the communion of prayer among those united to Christ.
And neither Tertullian’s quotation nor the New Testament establishes such a prohibition.
The Catholic answer remains straightforward:
We pray to the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost.
We intercede for one another.
We ask the saints to intercede for us.
And we adore God alone.
That is not a departure from Christ-centered prayer.
It is Christian prayer understood within the fullness of Christ’s Body, the Church.
Amen.
Sources
Sacred Scripture — Douay-Rheims: Matthew 6:5–13; 23:9; 26:44; Luke 20:38; John 1:12; 10:30; Acts 7:2; Romans 8:38–39; 12:4–5; 15:30; 1 Corinthians 4:15; 12:12–27; Ephesians 6:18–19; 1 Timothy 2:1–6; 3:15; James 5:16; Hebrews 12:1, 22–24; Apocalypse 4:8; 5:8; 6:9–11; 8:3–4.
Tertullian, On Prayer, Chapters 1–6: Explains the Lord’s Prayer, Christian adoption, prayer to the Father, the unity of Father and Son, the Church as mother, heavenly martyrs, and the connection between Christ and the petition for daily bread.
Tertullian, On Prayer, Chapters 18–19: Discusses prayer, the kiss of peace, fasting, Eucharistic reception, the Lord’s Body, and God’s altar.
Tertullian — On Prayer, Complete Text
Tertullian, De Corona, Chapter 3: Records early Christian practices, including Eucharistic observances, the sign of the Cross, and offerings for the departed on their anniversaries.
Tertullian, On Monogamy, Chapter 10: Describes a Christian widow praying for her deceased husband and making offerings on his behalf.
St. Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lord’s Prayer, Chapters 7–8: Explains the communal character of the Our Father and teaches that Christians pray as one people.
St. Cyprian — On the Lord’s Prayer
St. Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer, Chapter 31: Emphasizes attentive, reverent prayer and warns against allowing the mind to wander while praying.
St. Cyprian — On the Lord’s Prayer
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 23.8–11: Describes early Christian Eucharistic prayer, the commemoration of departed saints, their intercessions, and prayer for the faithful departed.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem — Catechetical Lecture 23
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 43.82: Addresses the departed St. Basil the Great and appeals for his heavenly prayers and spiritual assistance.
St. Gregory Nazianzen — Oration 43
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2558–2565 — What Is Prayer?: Explains prayer as covenant and communion with God.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2634–2636 — Prayer of Intercession: Explains Christian intercession as participation in Christ’s intercession.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2663–2679 — The Way of Prayer: Teaches prayer through Christ, prayer to Jesus, invocation of the Holy Spirit, and communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2683–2684 — A Cloud of Witnesses: Explains the role of the saints as intercessors and spiritual guides within the Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§954–962 — The Communion of Saints: Explains the unity of Christians on earth, the departed undergoing purification, and the saints in heavenly glory.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2759–2865 — The Lord’s Prayer: Presents the Our Father as the model and summary of Christian prayer.
Target of this response — Answering Catholics, “Prayer Discussed by the Early Church Writers”: Reproduces Tertullian’s discussion of the opening clause of the Lord’s Prayer in On Prayer, Chapter 2. The page does not itself develop an explicit argument against Catholic invocation of saints; this response addresses the theological questions that the excerpt may raise and examines the broader patristic evidence.
Answering Catholics — Prayer Discussed by the Early Church Writers