Because even among you doors
will be closed, and you will not kindle fire on my altar freely (v. 10): it is not difficult for me even
now to make my Temple inaccessible to you and stop you serving at my altar,
since you have committed such sins. I actually did this, consigning the Temple
to flames, since I saw you guilty of intolerable behavior, and consigning you
to captivity in which you found yourself, unable to perform anything required
for priestly ministry. My good pleasure
is not found among you, says the Lord almighty, and I shall not accept an
offering from your hands: you are well aware that as long as you commit
such sins, I shall turn away from what is done by you and not accept your
sacrifices, so that you do not gain the benefit you hope to achieve by offering
these sacrifices. Because from the rising
of the sun to its setting may my name be glorified by the nations, and in every
place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering, because my name is
great among the nations, says the Lord almighty (v. 11): everywhere on
earth all people wherever they may be found seek after my name, each of them
anxious to reverence God and honor his name as master and Lord, as in fact I
am, so that even if they are deceived in applying my name to what they should
not, all still honor it as mine and in my name they perform their sacrifices,
believing the divinity excels and surpasses everything. You, on the contrary,
are seen to insult what is believed by everyone to be so mighty and venerable,
since by treating my table as common and lacking anything beyond the ordinary,
by believing what is placed on it to be worthy of no attention, and by offering
such things to me you clearly insult my name and appear to set at nought the
divinity, who is rightly regarded by everyone as so mighty, fearsome, august,
and surpassing everything. (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on
the Twelve Prophets [trans. Robert C. Hill, vol. 108, The Fathers of the
Church 108; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], 403-4)
Note the
following from the translator concerning Theodore’s interpretation of Mal 1:11:
This v. 11 has been taken in various ways over the ages, from
messianic and even eucharistic interpretation to an endorsement of other
religious traditions. On first principles Theodore shows no interest in the
former, and in a guarded fashion sees value in the latter, though principally
seeing the words directed at the restored community’s indifference. (Ibid.,
404 n. 12)
