“He has made known to us through all the Prophets that He does not need holocausts or oblations, saying at one time: [Isaiah 1:11-13] ‘What is the multitude of you sacrifices to Me?’ Says the Lord, ‘I am sated with holocausts and desire neither fat of lambs nor blood of bulls and goats, not even when you come to appear before Me. For who has demanded these things from your hands? You shall no longer tread My court. If you bring flour, it is in vain. Incense is an abomination to Me. I cannot suffer your new moons and Sabbaths.’ This He accordingly did away with, so that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ might be without restraining yoke and without man-made offering.”
(Letter of
Barnabas 2:4-6, ca. 97, in Fathers of the Church 1:192)
“we who worship
the Creator of this world; we who say, as we have been taught, that he does not
need blood, and libations, and incense; we who praise him, to the best of our
ability, by a word of prayer”
(Justin Martyr,
ca. 153, First Apology 13:1, in Oxford Early Christian Texts 11:109)
“The creator and
Father of this universe needs no blood nor fat of sacrifice nor fragrance of
flowers and incense, for He is Himself perfect fragrance”
(Athenagoras, ca.
177, Embassy for the Christians 13, in Ancient Christian Writers 23:43)
"Incense . .
. . was introduced in the Christian liturgy at a relatively late date, due to
the hostility toward anything that could recall the pagan rites: see the
precise positions of Tertullian (Apol. 30) and Augustine (Enar. in ps. 49,14).
. . . Constantine gave to the Lateran Basilica incense burners . . . . It is
believed that the use of incense in the liturgy began to establish itself in
both East and West at the end of the 4th c[entury]."
(Francesco Scorza
Barcellona, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 2:327)
(my thanks to my friend Errol Amey for providing these quotations)
