With respect
to the early Christian usage of “sacrifice” (Greek: θυσια; Latin: sacrificium) as well as early Christian application of Malachi 1:11
to the Eucharist, one Anglican commentator wrote:
Origen called preaching the gospel a sacrificale opus (Hom. In Rom. 15) and so did Chrysostom (In Rom. Hom. 39 Ipsum mihi
sacerdotium est, praedicare et evangelizare. Hanc offero oblationem [‘My
priestly work is to preach and evangelise. This is the oblation I offer’]).
Augustine (De Civ. 5) calls mercy ‘a
true sacrifice, and acceptable to God’. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. V. 5, 11, 67) defines the ‘sacrifice
which is acceptable to God’ as ‘unswerving separation from the body and its
passions’, and prayer is frequently called a sacrifice (Clem Alex. Strom. vii. 6, 31, 32; Origen c. Celsum vii. 1, viii. 21; Didascalia, p. 47 [Gibson’s edition])). This
should warn us against attributing too much doctrinal significance to sacrificial language about the Eucharist. It was a sacrifice in the literal sense—something
made holy, something set apart for God: like prayers, alms, mercy and
evangelism. It is very interesting to notice in this connection that even
Malachi i.11, the passage which was the origin of the sacrificial language being
applied to the Eucharist, was by no means confined to it. Tertullian
interprets the ‘pure offering’ as the preaching of the gospel among the
heathen (Adv. Jud. 5); in another
place he says, ‘The sacrifice that Malachi meant is devout prayer proceeding
from a pure conscience’ (Adv. Marc. vi.
I). This exegesis is not peculiar to Tertullian; both Jerome (Com. In Mal. i.11) and Eusebius (Demonstr. Evang. i. 6) explain Malachi’s
sacrifice as the prayers of God’s people the world over. Harnack (History of Dogma, i. pp. 209ff) point
out that Justin’s citation of Malachi i.11 in Dialogue 117 arises out of a discussion of the Eucharist, but that
the only things he calls sacrifice as the prayers.
‘The elements’, says Harnack, ‘are only δωρα, προσφοραι, (dōra,
prosphorai) which obtain their value from the prayers in which thanks are
given for the gifts of creation and redemption as well as for the holy meal . .
. The sacrifice of the Supper in its essence, apart from the offering of alms,
is here also (even in Justin) nothing else than an act of prayer (see Apol. I. 13, 65-67: Dial. 28, 29, 41, 70, 116-18).’ (E.M.B. Green, “Eucharistic
Sacrifice in the New Testament and the Early Fathers” in J.I. Packer, ed. Eucharistic Sacrifice: The Oxford Conference
of Evangelical Churchmen [London: Church Book Room Press, 1962], 58-83,
here, pp.73-74)
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