A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Irenæus, of the same [the second] century, mentions the sacrifice of the eucharist more than once, either directly or obliquely. Tertullian, not many years later, does the like. Cyprian also speaks of the sacrifice in the eucharist, understanding it in one particular passage of the lay-oblation. This is not the place to examine critically what the ancients meant by the sacrifice or sacrifices of the eucharist. But, as oblation anciently was understood sometimes of the lay-offering, the same may be observed of sacrifice; and it is plain from Cyprian. Besides that notion of sacrifice, there was another, and a principal one, which was conceived to go along with the eucharistical service, and that was the notion of spiritual sacrifice, consisting of many particulars, and it was on the account of one, or both, that the eucharist had the name of sacrifice for the two first centuries. But by the middle of the third century, if not sooner, it began to be called a sacrifice, on account of the grand sacrifice represented and commemorated in it; the sign, as such, now adopting the name of the thing signified. In short, the memorial at length came to be called a sacrifice, as well as an oblation: and it had a double claim to be so called; partly as it was in itself a spiritual service or sacrifice, and partly as it was a representation and commemoration of the high tremendous sacrifice of Christ God-man. This last view of it, being of all the most awful and most endearing, came by degrees to be the most prevailing acceptation of the Christian sacrifice, as held forth in the eucharist. But those who styled the eucharist a sacrifice on that account took care, as often as need was, to explain it off to a memorial of a sacrifice, rather than a strict or proper sacrifice, in that precise view. Cyprian is the first who plainly and directly styles the eucharist a sacrifice in the commemorative view, and as representing the grand sacrifice. Not that there was anything new in the doctrine, but there was a new application of an old name, which had at the first been brought in upon other accounts.—Waterland.

Bishop Burnet remarks, that Christian writers called the eucharist an unbloody sacrifice, as being a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; and adds, “In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a sacrifice: one is, because there is an oblation of bread and wine made in it, which being sanctified, are consumed in an act of religion: to this many passages in the writings of the Fathers do relate. Another respect in which the eucharist is called a sacrifice is, because it is a commemoration and a representation to God, of the sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the cross; in which we lay claim to that as to our expiation, and feast upon it as our peace-offering, according to that ancient notion, that covenants were by a sacrifice, and were concluded in a feast on the sacrifice. Upon these accounts we do not deny, but that the eucharist may be well called a sacrifice; but still it is a commemorative sacrifice, and not propitiatory,” &c.—Burnet.

The ancients, says Bishop Cosin, called the whole communion “the sacrifice of praise,” as our Church doth: whereas the Romanists only call it a sacrifice, without any other addition. But it is not the sacrifice of Christ which we here speak of; for that is always pleasing to God, and was absolutely perfect: but it is our own peace-offering, in commemoration thereof, in which there have been many failings, and therefore we desire and beg that it may be accepted in mercy.—Dean Comber. In this regard, and in divers others also, the eucharist may, by allusion and analogy, be fitly called “a sacrifice,” and the Lord’s table “an altar;” the one relating to the other, though neither of them can be strictly and properly so termed. It is the custom of Scripture to describe the service of God under the New Testament, be it either internal or external, by the terms which otherwise belonged to the Old: as, immolation, offering, sacrifice, and altar. So the evangelical prophet Isaiah, foretelling the glory and amplitude of the Christian Church, speaketh of God’s altar which shall be there, upon which “an acceptable offering shall be made.” (See also Rom. xv. 16; Phil. ii. 17; Heb. xiii. 10.) And indeed the sacrament of the eucharist carries the name of a sacrifice, and the table, whereon it is celebrated, an altar of oblation, in a far higher sense than any of their former sacrifices did, which were but the types and figures of those services that are performed in recognition and memory of Christ’s one sacrifice, once offered upon the altar of his cross. The prophecy of Malachi concerning the Church under the New Testament, (see Mal. i. 10,) applied by the doctors of the Roman Church to their proper sacrifice, as they call it, of the mass, is interpreted and applied by the ancient Fathers, sometimes in general to all the acts of our Christian religion, and sometimes in particular to the eucharist: that is, the act of our prayers and thanksgiving for the sacrifice of Christ once made for us upon the cross, as here we use in the Church of England. The Church of England therefore herein followeth the Holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers. (See also Heb. xiii. 16; Rev. viii 3; Ps. cxli. 2.)—Bp. Cosin.

Under which name of the Christian sacrifice, says Joseph Mede, first know, that the ancient Church understood not, as many suppose, the mere sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, but the whole sacred action or solemn service of the Church assembled, whereof this sacred mystery was then a prime and principal part, and, as it were, the pearl or jewel of this ring, no public service of the Church being without it. This observed and remembered, I define the Christian sacrifice, ex mente antiquæ ecclesiæ, in this manner: An oblation of thanksgiving and prayer to God the Father through Jesus Christ, and his sacrifice commemorated in the creatures of bread and wine, wherewith God had first been agnized. So that this sacrifice, as you see, hath a double object, or matter; first, praise and prayer, which you may call sacrificium quod. Secondly, the commemoration Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which is sacrificium quo, the sacrifice whereby the other is accepted. For all the prayers, thanksgivings, and devotions of a Christian are tendered up unto God in the name of Jesus Christ crucified. According whereunto we are wont to conclude our prayers with “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And this is the specification, whereby the worship of a Christian is distinguished from that of the Jew. Now that which we, in all our prayers and thanksgivings, do vocally, when we say per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum, the ancient Church, in her public and solemn service, did visibly by representing him, according as he commanded, in the symbols of his body and blood: for there he is commemorated and received by us for the same end for which he was given and suffered for us; that through him, we receiving forgiveness of our sins, God our Father might accept our service and hear our prayers we make unto him.

What time then so fit and seasonable to commend our devotions unto God, as when the Lamb of God lies slain upon the holy table, and we receive visibly, though mystically, those gracious pledges of his blessed body and blood. This was that sacrifice of the ancient Church, which the Fathers so much ring in our ears. The sacrifice of praise and prayer through Jesus Christ, mystically represented in the creatures of bread and wine.

But yet there is one thing more my definition intimates, when I say, “through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, commemorated in the creatures of bread and wine, wherewith God had first been agnized.” The body and blood of Christ were not made of common bread and common wine, but of bread and wine first sanctified by being offered and set before God as a present, to agnize him the Lord and giver of all: according to that, Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus: and “let no man appear before the Lord empty.” Therefore, as this sacrifice consisted of two parts, as I told you, of praise and prayer, which, in respect of the other, I call sacrificium quod; and of the commemoration of Christ crucified, which I call sacrificium quo; so the symbols of bread and wine traversed both, being first presented as symbols of praise and thanksgiving to agnize God the Lord of the creature in the sacrificium quod; then, by invocation of the Holy Ghost, made the symbols of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrificium quo. So that the whole service throughout consisted of a reasonable part and of a material part, as of a soul and a body; of which I shall speak more fully hereafter, when I come to prove this, I have said, by the testimonies of the ancients.

Again, the Lord’s supper is a sacrifice, according to the style of the ancient Church.

It is one thing to say, that the Lord’s supper is a sacrifice, and another to say, that Christ is properly sacrificed therein. These are not the same; for there may be a sacrifice, which is a representation of another, and yet a sacrifice too: and such is this of the New Testament, a sacrifice wherein another sacrifice, that of Christ’s death upon the cross, is commemorated: thus the Papists gain nothing by this notion of antiquity, and our asserting the same; for their tenet is, that Christ in this sacrifice is really and properly sacrificed, which we shall show in due time that the ancients never meant.

To begin with this: as in the Old Testament the name of sacrifice was otherwhile given to the whole action in which the rite was used; sometimes to the rite alone; so in the notion and language of the ancient Church, sometimes the whole action of Christian service (wherein the Lord’s supper was a part) is comprehended under that name; sometimes the rite of the sacred supper itself is so termed, and truly, as you shall now hear.

The resolution of this point depends altogether upon the true definition of a sacrifice, as it is distinguished from all other offerings. Which, though it be so necessary, that all disputation without it is vain, yet shall we not find, that either party interested in this question hath been so exact therein as were to be wished. This appears by the differing definitions, given and confuted by divines on both sides; the reason of which defect is, because neither are deduced from the notion of Scripture, but built upon other conceptions: let us see, therefore, if it may be learned out of Scripture, what that is which the Scripture, in a strict and special sense, calls a sacrifice.