Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Ethical/On Prayer/Of the Spiritual Victim

by Tertullian

Chapter XXVIII.—Of the Spiritual Victim, Which Prayer is.

For this is the spiritual victim^[1] which has abolished the pristine sacrifices.  “To what purpose,” saith He, “(bring ye) me the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of holocausts of rams, and I desire not the fat of rams, and the blood of bulls and of goats. For who hath required these from your hands?”^[2] What, then, God has required the Gospel teaches.  “An hour will come,” saith He, “when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and truth. For God is a Spirit, and accordingly requires His adorers to be such.”^[3] We are the true adorers and the true priests,^[4] who, praying in spirit,^[5] sacrifice, in spirit, prayer,—a victim proper and acceptable to God, which assuredly He has required, which He has looked forward to^[6] for Himself! This victim, devoted from the whole heart, fed on faith, tended by truth, entire in innocence, pure in chastity, garlanded with love,^[7] we ought to escort with the pomp^[8] of good works, amid psalms and hymns, unto God’s altar,^[9] to obtain for us all things from God.

Footnotes

1. 1 Pet. ii. 5.
2. Isa. i. 11. See the LXX.
3. John iv. 23, 24.
4. Sacerdotes; comp. de Ex. Cast. c. 7.
5. 1 Cor. xiv. 15; Eph. vi. 18.
6. Or, “provided.”
7. “Agape,” perhaps “the love-feast.”
8. Or, “procession.”
9. Altare.