On Thursday of the Third Week of Lent our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the book of Exodus (34:10-28) entitled "The second version of the Book of the Covenant". Our treasure, which follows, is from the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian, priest.
Tertullian was a priest and a prolific second century Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy.
His most famous quotes include: "Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame", "Hope is patience with the lamp lit", "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church".
Tertullian gives us the essentials on prayer. Starting with the Lord's Prayer, he breaks down each section, giving us expounded meaning into each phrase. He then goes on to discuss where and when we should pray, how we should pray and what the importance of prayer is in our faith life.
The second book of the Pentateuch is called Exodus, from the Greek word for "departure," because its central event was understood by the Septuagint's translators to be the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. Its Hebrew title, Shemoth ("Names"), is from the book's opening phrase, "These are the names…." Continuing the history of Israel from the point where the Book of Genesis leaves off, Exodus recounts the Egyptian oppression of Jacob's ever-increasing descendants and their miraculous deliverance by God through Moses, who led them across the Red Sea to Mount Sinai where they entered a covenant with the Lord. Covenantal laws and detailed prescriptions for the tabernacle (a portable sanctuary foreshadowing the Jerusalem Temple) and its service are followed by a dramatic episode of rebellion, repentance, and divine mercy. After the broken covenant is renewed, the tabernacle is constructed, and the cloud signifying God's glorious presence descends to cover it.
These events made Israel a nation and confirmed their unique relationship with God. The "law" (Hebrew torah) given by God through Moses to the Israelites at Mount Sinai constitutes the moral, civil, and ritual legislation by which they were to become a holy people. Many elements of it were fundamental to the teaching of Jesus as well as to New Testament and Christian moral teaching.
