Sunday, December 27, 2015

Tertullian on Christian Gatherings Around 198CE

We are a united body. We are bound together by a common religious conviction, by one and the same divine discipline and by the bond of common hope. We form a permanent society and come together for communal gatherings as if forming an army around God and besieging Him with our prayers. This is the kind of force in which God rejoices. …

In these meetings of our society there is also encouragement, admonition, and divine correction, for holding judgment is a matter which carries great weight among us, as it should be among people who are sure of God’s presence. … The most proven men preside; the “elders” as we call them. They have attained this honor only through their good name, never through the use of money.

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