It is evident from this passage, as from 1 Cor. xiv., that in this primitive Christian worship great freedom was allowed. There is no Bishop, President, or Elder, to whom the right of leading the service or uttering the prayers and thanksgivings is reserved. This duty and privilege is shared by all the males alike. In the recently discovered _Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles_ nothing is said as to who is to offer the prayers, of which certain forms are given. It is merely stated that in addition to these forms _extempore_ prayer may be offered by "the prophets." And Justin Martyr mentions that a similar privilege was allowed to "the president" of the congregation according to his ability.[39] Thus we seem to trace a gradual increase of strictness, a development of ecclesiastical order, very natural under the circumstances. First, all the men in the congregation are allowed to conduct public worship, as here and in 1 Corinthians. Then, the right of adding to the prescribed forms is restricted to the prophets, as in the _Didache_. Next, this right is reserved to the presiding minister, as in Justin Martyr. And lastly, free prayer is abolished altogether. We need not assume that precisely this development took place in all the Churches; but that something analogous took place in nearly all. Nor need we assume that the development was simultaneous: while one Church was at one stage of the process, another was more advanced, and a third less so. Again, we may conjecture that forms of prayer gradually increased in number, and in extent, and in stringency. But in the directions here given to Timothy we are at the beginning of the development.
"Lifting up holy hands." Here again we need not suspect any polemical purpose. St. Paul is not insinuating that, when Gnostics or heathen lift up their hands in prayer, their hands are not holy. Just as every Christian is ideally a saint, so every hand that is lifted up in prayer is holy. In thus stating the ideal, the Apostle inculcates the realization of it. There is a monstrous incongruity in one who comes red-handed from the commission of a sin, lifting up the very members which witness against him, in order to implore a blessing from the God whom he has outraged. The same idea is expressed in more general terms by St. Peter: "Like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, ye shall be holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet. i. 15, 16). In a passage more closely parallel to this, Clement of Rome says, "Let us therefore approach Him in holiness of soul, _lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him_, with love towards our gentle and compassionate Father who made us an elect portion unto Himself" (_Cor._ xxix). And Tertullian urges that "a defiled spirit cannot be recognized by the Holy Spirit" (_De Orat._, xiii). Nowhere else in the New Testament do we read of this attitude of lifting up the hands during prayer. But to this day it is common in the East. Solomon at the dedication of the temple "stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and _spread forth his hands toward heaven_" (1 Kings viii. 22); and the Psalmist repeatedly speaks of "lifting up the hands" in worship (xxviii. 2; lxiii. 4; cxxxiv. 2). Clement of Alexandria seems to have regarded it as the ideal attitude in prayer, as symbolizing the desire of the body to abstract itself from the earth, following the eagerness of the spirit in yearning for heavenly things.[40] Tertullian, on the other hand, suggests that the arms are spread out in prayer in memory of the crucifixion, and directs that they should be extended, but only slightly raised, an attitude which is more in harmony with a humble spirit: and in another place he says that the Christian by his very posture in prayer is ready for every infliction. He asserts that the Jews in his day did _not_ raise the hands in prayer, and characteristically gives as a reason that they were stained with the blood of the Prophets and of Christ. With evident reference to this passage, he says that Christian hands must be lifted up pure from falsehood, murder, and all other sins of which the hands can be the instruments.[41] Ancient Christian monuments of the earliest age frequently represent the faithful as standing with raised hands to pray. Eusebius tells us that Constantine had himself represented in this attitude on his coins, "looking upwards, stretching up toward God, like one praying."[42] Of course this does not mean that kneeling was unusual or irregular; there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. But the attitude here commended by St. Paul was very ancient when he wrote, and has continued in some parts of the world ever since. Like so many other things in natural religion and in Judaism, it received a new and intensified meaning when it was adopted among the usages of the Christian Church.