MASS
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MASS
XXII, c. ii), according to which in the Mass "the
priests offer up, in oljedicnce to the command of
Christ, His Body and Blood" (see Denzinger, " En-
chir.", n. 949), could hardly take its stand on Apos-
tolic tradition; the bridge between antiquity and the
present would thus have been broken by the abrupt
intrusion of a completely contrary view. An impartial
study of the earliest texts seems indeed to make this
much clear, that the early Church paid most attention
to the spiritual and subjective side of sacrifice and laid
chief stress on prayer and thanksgiving in the Eucha-
ristic function.
This admission, however, is not identical with the statement that the early Church rejected out and out the objective sacrifice, and acknowledged as genuine only the spiritual sacrifice as expressed in the "Eu- charistic thanksgiving". That there has been an his- torical dogmatic development from the indefinite to the definite, from the implicit to the explicit, from the seed to the fruit, no one familiar with the subject will deny. An assumption so reasonable, the only one in fact consistent with Christianity, is, however, funda- mentally different from the hypothesis that the Chris- tian idea of sacrifice has veered from one extreme to the other. This is a priori improbable and unproved in fact. In the Didache or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles", the oldest post-Biblical literary monument (c. A. D. 96), not only is the "breaking of liread" (cf. Acts, XX, 7) referred to as a "sacrifice" (Ouo-io) and mention made of reconciliation with one's enemy be- fore the sacrifice (cf. Matt., v, 23), but the whole passage is crowned with an actual quotation of the prophecy of Malachias, which referred, as is well known, to an objective and real sacrifice (Didache, c. xiv). The early Christians gave the name of "sacri- fice" not only to the Eucharistic "thanksgiving," but also to the entire ritual celebration including the htur- gical "breaking of bread", without at first distin- guishing clearly between the prayer and the gift (Bread and Wine; Body and Blood). Wlieu Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107), a disciple of the Apostles, says of the Eucharist: "There is only one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, only one chalice containing His one Blood, one altar (tv ffvaiaffrripiov), as also only one bishop with the priesthood and the deacons" (Ep.,ad. Philad., iv), he here gives to the liturgical Eucharistic celebration, of which alone he speaks, by his reference to the "altar" a'n evidently sacrificial meaning, often as he may use the word "altar" in other contexts in a metaphorical sense.
A heated controversy had raged round the concep- tion of Justin Martyr (d. 160) from the fact that in his "Dialogue with Tryphon" (e. 117) he characterizes "prayer and thanksgiving" (fiix"' ™' tuxapicrT(ai) as the "one perfect sacrifice acceptable to God" (xAeiai liivai Kal (i6.p«TToi. dvfflai.). Did he intend by thus emphasizing the interior spiritual sacrifice to exclude the exterior real sacrifice of the Eucharist? Clearly he did not, for in the same " Dialogue" (c. xli; P. G., VI, 564) he says the "food offering" of the lepers, assur- edly a real gift offering (cf. Levit., xiv), was a figure (TiJiros) of the bread of the Eucharist, which Jesus commanded to be offered (iroie?>') in commemoration of His sufferings". He then goes on: " of the sacrifices which you (the Jews) formerly offered, God through Malachias said : ' I have no pleasure, etc' By the sacri- fices (BvaiCiv), however, which we Gentiles present to Him in every place, that is (tout^o-ti) of the bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the chalice of the Eucharist, he then said that we glorify his name, while you dishonour him." Here " bread and chalice " are by the use of tout^ctti clearly included as objective gift offerings in the idea of the Christian sacrifice. If the other apologists (Aristides, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, Arnboius) vary the thought a great deal — God has no need of sacrifice; the best sacrifice is the knowl- edge of the Creator; sacrifice and altars are unknown
to the Christians — it is to be presumed not only that
under the restraint imposed by the disciplina arcmii
they withheld the whole truth, but also that they
rightly repudiated all connexion with pagan idolatry,
the sacrifice of animals, and heathen altars. Tertul-
lian bluntly declared: "We offer no sacrifice (non
sacrificamus) because we cannot eat both the Supper
of God and that of demons" (De spectac, c, xiii).
And yet in another passage (De orat., c, xix) he calls
Holy Communion "participation in the sacrifice"
(participatio sacrificii), which is accomplished "on the
altar of God" (adaramDei); he speaks (De cult, fem.,
II, xi) of a real, not a mere metaphorical, "offering up
of sacrifice" (sacrificium offertur); he dwells still fur-
ther as a Montanist (de pudicit, c, ix) as well on the
"nourishing power of the Lord's Body" (opimitate
dominici corporis) as on the "renewal of the immola-
tion of Christ" (rursus illi mactaliitur Christus).
With Irena;us of Lyons there comes a turning-point, inasmuch as he, with conscious clearness, first puts forward "bread and wine" as objective gift offerings, but at the same time maintains that these elements become the "body and blood" of the Word through consecration; and thus by simply combining these two thoughts we have the Catholic Mass of to-day. According to him (Adv. hser., iv, 18, 4) it is the Church alone "that offers the pure oblation" (oblationem puram offert), whereas the Jews "did not receive the Word, which is offered (or through whom an offering is made) to God" (non receperunt Verbum quod [aliter, per auod] offertur Deo). Passing over the teaching of the Alexandrine Clement and Origen, whose love of allegory, together with the restrictions of the disciplina arcani, involved their writings in a mystic obscurity, we make particular mention of Hip- polytus of Rome (d. 235) whose celelirated fragment Aehelis has wrongly characterized as spurious. He writes (Fragm. in Prov., ix, i; P. G., LXXX, 593), "The Word prepared His Precious and immaculate Body (a-Qtm) and His Blood (af/xa), that daily (itoff' iKduTTrjv) are set forth as a sacrifice (iTrLTeXoOvrai 6v6iiei/a) on the mystic and Divine table {rpan^fy) as a memorial of that ever memorable first table of the mysterious supper of the Lord". Since according to the judgment of even Protestant historians of dogma, St. Cyril (d. 258) is to be regarded as the "herald" of Catholic doctrine on the Mass, we may likewise pass him over, as well as Cyrd of Jerusalem (d. 386) and Chrysostom (d. 407) who have been charged with ex- aggerated "realism", and whose plain discourses on the sacrifice rival those of Basil (d. 379), Gregory of Nyssa (d. c. 394) and Ambrose (d. 397). Only about Augustine (d. 430) must a word be said, since, in re- gard to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he is cited as favouring the " symbolical " theory. Now it is precisely his teaching on sacrifice that best serves to clear away the suspicion that he inclined to a merely spiritual interpretation.
For Augustine nothing is more certain than that every religion, whether true or false, must have an exterior form of celebration and worship (contra Faust., xix, 11). This applies as well to Chri-stians (1. c, XX, 18), who "commemorate the sacrifice con- summated (on the cross) by the holiest oblation and participation of the Body and Blood of CJhrist" (cele- brant sacrosancta oblatione et participatione corporis et sanguinis Christi). The Mass is, in his eyes (de civ. Dei, X, 20), the "highest and true sacrifice" (sum- mum verumque sacrificium), Christ being at once "priest and victim" (ipse offerens, ipse et oblatio); and he reminds the Jews (Adv. Jud., ix, 13) that the sacrifice of Malachias is now made in every place (in omni loco offerri sacrificium Christianorum). He re- lates of his mother Monica (Confess., ix. 13) that she had asked for prayers at the altar (ad altarc) for her soul and had attended Mass daily. From Augustme onwards the current of the Church's tradition flows
