Friday, April 26, 2024

Haimo of Auxerre (c. 820-875) on Hebrews 10

 


Haimo goes on to make a connection between the offerings of the old covenant and the Eucharist, which is likewise an “offering” made frequently. Is the Eucharist, he asks, useless for the cleansing of sins? By no means; for it differs fundamentally from the sacrifices of the old covenant. Christ’s presence resides in the bread offered everywhere and every day by Christians since Christ is everywhere and fills all things; but the Eucharist is a remembrance of his one sacrifice, and it is the power of this sacrifice that cleanses Christians from sin. (Benjamin Wheaton, Suffering, Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages [Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Academic, 2022], 197)

 

Hamo of Auxerre, In Epistolam Hebraecos PL 117.889, as quoted in ibid., 197 n. 32:

 

“For our sacrifice that is repeated in the same way differs in this way from that old sacrifice often repeated, since the former is the truth, the later an image; the former makes a human being perfect, the latter not at all; and the former is not repeated by reason of its weakness; since it is not able to confer perfect salvation but is performed in remembrance of Christ’s passion, just as he himself said: Do this in remembrance of me: and this is a single sacrifice, not many as the latter were.”