[466:4] Opera, i. 267.

[466:5] See Minucius Felix.

[466:6] Tertullian, “De Oratione,” c. 14.

[466:7] See Bingham, iv. 324.  In prayer the Christians soon began to turn the face to the east.  See Tertullian, “Apol.” c. 16.  This custom appears to have been borrowed from the Eastern nations who worshipped the sun.  See Kaye’s “Tertullian,” p. 408.

[467:1] Thus Prideaux mentions how the Persian priests, long before the commencement of our era, approached the sacred fire “to read the daily offices of their Liturgy before it.”—­Connections, part i., book iv., vol. i. p. 218.  This liturgy was composed by Zoroaster nearly five hundred years before Christ’s birth.

[467:2] See Clarkson on “Liturgies,” and Hartung, “Religion der Romer.”  It is remarkable that the old pagan Roman liturgy, in consequence of the change in the language from the time of its original establishment, began at length to be almost unintelligible to the people.  It thus resembles the present Romish Liturgy.  The pagans believed that their prayers were more successful when offered up in a barbarous and unknown language.  See Potter’s “Antiquities of Greece,” i. 288.  Edit.  Edinburgh, 1818.  The Lacedaemonians had a form of prayer from which they never varied either in public or private.  Potter i. 281.

[467:3] “In the persecutions under Diocletian and his associates, though a strict inquiry was made after the books of Scripture, and other things belonging to the Church, which were often delivered up by the Traditores to be burnt, yet we never read of any ritual books, or books of divine service, delivered up among them.”—­Bingham, iv. 187.

[467:4] It is worthy of note that, in modern times, when there is any great revival of religion, forms of prayer fall into comparative desuetude even among those by whom they were formerly used.

[468:1] See Tertullian, “De Oratione,” c. 9; and Origen, “De Oratione.”

[468:2] 1 Tim. ii. 2.

[468:3] Tertullian, “Apol.” c. 39.

[468:4] See Tertullian, “De Praescrip.” c. 41.

[468:5] See Guerike’s “Manual of the Antiquities of the Church,” by Morrison, p. 214.

[468:6] Guerike’s “Manual,” p. 213.

[469:1] There is reference to this in the “Apostolic Constitutions,” lib. ii. c. 57.  Cotelerius, i. 266.

[469:2] Euseb. vii. 30.

[470:1] See Bingham, ii. 212.

[470:2] Letter from Pius of Rome to Justus of Vienne.

[470:3] Bingham, ii. 451.

[470:4] See Period II. sec. i. chap. iii. p. 320.

[472:1] See the “Epistle of the Church of Smyrna,” giving an account of his martyrdom, Sec. 9.

[472:2] The Latin version of his words, as given by Jacobson, is—­“Octogesimum jam et sextum annum aetatis ingredior.”—­Pat.  Apost. ii. 565.  See also the “Chronicum Alexandrinum” as quoted by Cotelerius, ii. 194; and Gregory of Tours, “Hist.” i. 28.