In the early days of the Christian Faith, there were seasons when it was against the law to be a Christian and this was often enforced with severe persecution. With the emperor against them, or the local rulers with the emperor’s tacit approval, what was the attitude of the Church to government? What was the reaction to such laws and policies? We need to add to that what seems unthinkable to us, the emperors were all every one idol worshipers and immoral (often to a degree unimaginable). What was the Church’s attitude toward such men?
There were several Christians who took pen in hand to write to the Emperor seeking to explain the Faith, defend Christians against false charges, and asking for better treatment. These were called Apologies. Below is a extract from the Apology of Tertullian, written around 197. He explains the attitude of the Church toward the Emperor and reveals the prayer life of the Church.
I share this with the hope and prayer that believers today would embrace this attitude, and that pastors would lead their churches back into this apostolic practice, namely praying for our leaders publicly, by name. I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
“To this Almighty Maker and Disposer of all Things it is that we Christians offer up our prayers…and in all our prayers are ever mindful of all our emperors and kings wheresoever we live, beseeching God for every one of them without distinction, that He would bless them with length of days and a quiet reign, a well-established family, a stout army, a faithful senate, an honest people, and a peaceful world, and whatever else either prince or people can wish for.
But these are blessings I cannot persuade myself to ask of any, but Him who I know can give them, and that is my God, and my God only, who has them in His disposal; and I am one to whom He has obliged Himself by promise to grant what I ask, if I ask as I should do; for I am His servant, and serve Him only, and for whose service I am killed all the day long, and to whom I offer that noble and greatest of sacrifices which He has commanded, a prayer which comes from a chaste body, an innocent soul, and a sanctified spirit.
Thus, then, while we are stretching forth our hands to our God, let your tormenting irons harrow our flesh; let your gibbets exalt us, or your fires lick up our bodies, or your swords cut off our heads, or your beasts tread us to earth. For a Christian upon his knees to his God is in a posture of defence against all the evils you can crowd upon him.
Consider this, you impartial judges, and go on with your justice, and while our soul is pouring out herself to God in the behalf of the emperor, do you be letting out her blood.
BUT perhaps our vows and intercessions with heaven for the life of the emperor are to be looked upon merely as the spices of flattery, and a trick only to elude the severity of the laws. Thou therefore that thinkest that the Christian religion expresses no concern for the life of Caesar, look into the word of God, the word we go by, and which we do not suppress in private, and which many accidents have thrown into the hands of strangers, and there you may see with what superabundant charity we are commanded to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them which despitefully use us, and persecute us. And who such cruel persecutors of Christians as the emperors for whom they are persecuted ? And yet these are the persons we are commanded by the word of God expressly, and by name, to pray for; for thus it runs—" I exhort therefore, that first of all supplications and prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty". For when the government is shaken, the members of it feel the shock, and we, though we are not looked upon as members by the people, yet we must be found somewhere in the calamity of the public.
BUT there is another and more prevailing reason which determines us to intercede with heaven for the emperors, and for the whole estate of the empire, and their prosperity. And it is this, that we are of opinion that the conflagration of the universe which is now at hand, and is likely to flame out in the conclusion of this century, and to be such a horrid scene of misery, is retarded by this interposition of the Roman prosperity; and therefore we desire not to be spectators of dissolving nature; and while we pray for it to be deferred, we pray for the subsistence of the Roman Empire.
BUT what need I say more to show the sacred tie which binds on the duty of allegiance upon Christian subjects? It is enough to say that we look upon ourselves under a necessity to honour the emperor as a person of God's election; so that I may very deservedly say that we have much the greatest share in Caesar, as being made emperor by our God. And therefore it is I who more effectually recommend him to God, because I not only earnestly ask it of Him who can give it, or because I am such a petitioner as have the most reason to obtain it, but also because by setting Caesar below his god, I set him higher in his affection, to which God alone I subject him ; and I subject him to God, by not making him his equal."
This is excerpt is from the Wm Reeve translation of the Apology. You can read the entire apology here or a different translation here
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