We have, first, in these words of St. Paul, the Divine Son accepting His mission as the first act of His human nature, and, further, expressing the nature of His mission-to do the will of His Father, that will being that He should take the body which His Father had prepared for Him. In that acceptance is comprised all the labours and sufferings of the thirty-three years foreseen from the beginning, willed by the Father, freely chosen by the Son in His manhood, as the first act of that manhood, which yet is prolonged through His whole life.
After this the Apostle goes on to exhibit the second act of His High-Priesthood, springing out of the first, and its consummation-the abrogation of the ancient sacrifices, although divinely inst.i.tuted, and the subst.i.tution for them of that Body which G.o.d had fitted to Him. "In saying before, Sacrifices and oblations and holocausts for sin Thou wouldst not, neither are they pleasing to Thee, which are offered according to the law: then said I, Behold I come to do Thy will, O G.o.d: He taketh away the first, that He may establish that which followeth. In the which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the Body of Jesus Christ once." As the first act, the Incarnation, runs on into the second, the Atonement, so the second depends on the first. Without the a.s.sumption by G.o.d the Son of a created nature, the nature of man, there would be no sacrifice for man and no reconciliation. The source of sanctification is the offering of the Body of the G.o.d-man, of no other body; and without the G.o.dhead of Christ His religion would be the shadow of a dream.
How, again, was this second act of His High-Priesthood, the oblation of His Body on the cross once for all for the sins of the whole world, to be impressed upon the world?
Human acts pa.s.s away into the abyss of past time, and the ever-flowing tide of successive existence sweeps them into the background. The sufferings and teachings of our Lord Himself, even His death upon the cross, would in themselves as human acts be subject to this lot. How were they to be made ever-living and ever-present, rescued from oblivion, carried in the heart and professed by the lips of men in every succeeding generation until the day of doom?
Truly there was wisdom needed for this effect, and what did our Lord do?
He was at the very point of completing that will of G.o.d which He came to do, and for which a Body was fitted to Him. Having celebrated the Pasch of the Law, which had been inst.i.tuted so many ages before, as the speaking type of what He was to accomplish, He with a word made His disciples priests to offer that Body which He then first gave to them, which on the morrow He was to offer on the cross, and in doing this utter the "Consummatum est." The Priesthood, which was to carry in itself the whole power and virtue of His Church, He created before the sacrifice of the cross, but in immediate view of it, as the first act, as it were, of His Pa.s.sion.
But the Priesthood which He created, and the offering in which it consisted, sprung from the union of the two acts which formed His own High-Priesthood, the a.s.sumption of the manhood for the purpose of redeeming man, and the execution of that purpose by His death on the cross. The Priesthood contained them both in itself, for the Body given was the Body broken on the cross, the Blood given was the Blood shed on the cross; and they were both the Body and Blood of a G.o.d-man. "Do this, He said, in commemoration of Me;" and as long as it was done daily, the double truth, the double benefit of G.o.d to man, the double marvel of redeeming love, offering itself and offering what is divine for the erring creature, could not fade from remembrance. It is as present now as it was at the hour of the crucifixion, and will be equally present to the end of the world.
But in order better to understand the force and meaning of our Lord"s action, it is necessary to consider the inst.i.tution which, at the time of it, was in existence and full operation all over the world, the inst.i.tution, that is, of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.
From the beginning of history, and in all countries, the intercourse between G.o.d and man consisted in two things, prayer and sacrifice, and they were carried on together. For this much the Greek may fitly represent all Gentilism. Now Plato represents Euthyphron as saying to Socrates, "If any one knows how to say and to do things acceptable to the G.o.ds by praying and by sacrificing, that is piety, and such conduct preserves both private families and the commonwealth; and the contrary to these acceptable things is impiety, which overthrows and destroys everything." To which Socrates replies, "You call, then, piety a certain knowledge of sacrifice and prayer." "I do." "Then sacrifice is giving to the G.o.ds, and prayer asking of them."[84]
A most careful student[85] of the Greek mind tells us: "As the need of the G.o.ds was felt by man in all the events of his life, in every work and every purpose, sacrificial worship, the burnt-offering, or the briefer libation-offering, ran through the whole of his being, and seemed to be prayer clothed in action." And again, "We have shown that man conceived of the G.o.dhead not only as by its immortality infinitely exalted above himself, but likewise as the Ruler and Administrator of the whole universe and the being of man; and moreover, that man, in spite of all doubt and error as to the nature of his G.o.ds, in spite of his allowing impersonal powers to be at their side who threaten their dignity, yet never detaches himself from them, because he always feels himself impelled to seek a living personal G.o.dhead. To this he was riveted by the insoluble bonds of a spiritual and natural need; and the recognition of this dependence, the expression of human subjection, the tribute of homage which man offers in the certainty of needing its grace, that is piety, as it is shown in action and in word, that is to say, in sacrifice and in prayer." And "the whole worship, that is, all sacrifices and divination, are made by Plato to be identical with the communion of G.o.ds and men with each other."[86]
Another writer,[87] most learned in Greek and Roman antiquity, says: "These two const.i.tute the oldest and most general form of honouring G.o.d.
It might perhaps be said that the first word of the original man was a prayer, and the first act of the fallen man a sacrifice. Moses in Genesis, at any rate, carries the origin of sacrifice up to the first history of man, to Cain and Abel; the Greek legends, to Prometheus and the centaur Chiron, or to the eldest kings, Melisseus, Phoronaeus, and Cecrops.
"In Gentilism as in Judaism, actual sacrifices of animals are everywhere the rule; beside them, in particular cases, offerings also of vegetable substances. Indeed, sacrifices were offered not merely for expiation, but wherever man had need of the G.o.ds, or reason to thank them, on all important moments of life, at the beginning and end of every weighty action, in order to maintain and make manifest the unbroken connection of man with G.o.d.
"Those most ancient domestic precepts recorded by Hesiod enjoin on every one, at declining and at dawning day, to conciliate the G.o.ds, with pure and chaste heart, by holy sprinklings and fragrant perfume, that their heart may incline to us with good-will and peace, and as often as thou returnest from a journey, offer fair sacrifices to the immortal G.o.ds. In family life sacrifices were made specially at birth, marriage, and death.
The Cretans, who considered human marriage as a transcript of the heavenly marriage between Zeus and Hera, made offerings on occasion of it specially to these G.o.ds. If a man wished to marry at Athens, he first made his prayers and sacrifices to the so-called Tritapatores, the first father"s of life, for the happy generation of children, since no birth takes place without G.o.d. At the marriage itself, again, there were sacrifices, when the gall of the victim was thrown behind the altar to signify that no bitterness should infect their union. Moreover, the bride at Athens was introduced by a sacrifice into her husband"s race; and again, a victim was offered upon the inscription of children on the tribe list. At Sparta mothers were wont, on the espousal of their daughters, to make offerings to Aphrodite Hera, the G.o.ddess of married love; the Botians and Locrians to Artemis Euklea; the maidens of Haliartus made a preparatory gift to the fountain Kissoessa, according to ancestral custom. If the marriage was blest by a child, a sacrifice was offered for this on the seventh or tenth day after the birth, and thereupon the child was named. At death, again, sacrifices were offered for the peace of departed souls, as well by individuals as by the commonwealth. According to Plato, it was an orphic doctrine that there were certain deliverances and purifications which availed also for the dead. The gravestones were anointed and crowned with flowers, pyres were erected, and victims slaughtered on them, or cakes were thrown into the fire, holes made in the earth, and libations of wine, milk, and honey poured into them. Only no sacrifices were offered for children, because, as they had departed unstained by intercourse with earthly things, they needed no further reconcilement. Plutarch describes the great public sacrifice for the dead which the Plataeans, in late times, continued to offer yearly for those who had fallen in battle against the Persians.
"In agricultural life, also, which is the beginning and foundation of all religious habit, every important moment was sanctified by sacrifice. The Athenians, at the beginning of tillage, before they turned up the land, offered the preparatory sacrifice to Demeter[88] for the prosperity of the future fruits, and are said on one occasion, in the fifth Olympiad, at a time of general dearth, to have made such an offering for all h.e.l.las at the command of the Delphic G.o.d. So at the end of the winter, when the fruits of the field began to grow, all the magistrates, from eldest time, offered the previous thanksgiving[89] to Athene, the protectress of the city. So they offered at Rome, at the time of the pear-tree blossom, before ploughing, vows and grain cakes, for the health of the labouring oxen; then before harvest offerings to Ceres of bread and wine, and so again when a wood was cleared, at the digging and blessing of the fields.
So both peoples were wont in general to give the first-fruits of everything which the favour of the G.o.ds gave to them; fruits of the field as of the herd, of the vintage, and of the trees; the former liquid, and the latter solid. These first-fruits represented the whole ma.s.s, for all the productions of nature belong to the Giver thereof. Aristotle holds the offering of such first-fruits of the field to be the oldest kind of offerings in general, and a Roman writer finely says, since the ancients lived in the belief that all nourishment, the fatherland, nay, life itself, is a gift of the G.o.ds, they were wont to offer something to these of everything, more to show their grat.i.tude than because they believed that the G.o.ds needed it. Hence, before they ate anything of the new fruits, they consecrated a portion to the G.o.ds; and since they possessed both fields and cities in fee from the G.o.ds, they dedicated to them a portion for temples and chapels, and some were wont to offer to them the hair, as the topmost portion of the body, for the sound state of the rest. Thus the Bhagavadgita[90] says: "Sacrifice to the G.o.ds; they will give you the wished-for food. He who eats what they have given without first offering therefrom is a thief; they who ate what remained of the sacrifice are free from all sins." The fathers of families made an offering every month to Hecate for reparation of sins committed in the house. Certain dishes were prepared and carried through the whole house, while the curse which rested on evil deeds committed was put therein, and then they were placed at midnight upon a cross-road. Whoever ate of this, it was believed he took the curse into him with the food. Only curs and currish men did it.
"Sacrifices were connected not less with all important acts of political life. "Those before us," says Philo, "began every good action with perfect victims, deeming this the best means to bring about a good end to them," In the consciousness that all were stained with sin, but that sinful men could discover no good counsel, swine were sacrificed before every a.s.sembly of the people at Athens, and their blood sprinkled as a purification over the seats of the meeting. A priest then carried certain parts of the victim round the a.s.sembly, and cast their sins into these parts. When this was done, incense was offered, and the same priest went with a vessel of holy water round, blessing the a.s.sembled people therewith for the matter which it was to undertake. Then the herald recited the customary prayers, and the consultation at last began. The sacrifices by which the council, the generals, the Prytanes, and all public magistrates entered on office were similar. In like manner sacrifices preceded the sittings of justice and the taking of oaths. In war no important step was taken before the sacrifices were prosperous and announced a good result. Sacrifice was offered at the first start, at the pa.s.sage of boundaries and rivers, at making an advance, at taking ship, at landing, before a.s.sault of besieged cities, before battle, and after victory. The Athenian generals were wont specially to sacrifice to Hermes, the leader. All truces, peace-makings, leagues, and treaties were accompanied with sacrifice. A direction was attached to all sacrifices ordered by law or oracular decrees, that they should be according to the hereditary three customs, that is, take place on months, days, and years, _i.e._, solar years, lunar months, and days of the month. Plato enjoins, as in Athens was really the fact, that on every day of the year the magistrate should offer sacrifice to a G.o.d or genius for the city and its inhabitants, their goods and chattels. Of Julian, the last emperor attached to the h.e.l.lenic worship, it is expressly said that he, not only on new moons, but every day, welcomed the rising sun-G.o.d with a b.l.o.o.d.y victim, and accompanied his setting with another, and served the G.o.ds not by other hands, but himself took part in the sacrifice, ran about the altar, took up the mallet and held the knife, and that, in order the better to discharge these duties, he had built a temple to the sun-G.o.d in the midst of his palace. The shedding of blood was everywhere the bond of union between man and man, and between man and G.o.d; to the commonwealth the guarantee of its security, the firmest pillar of its government."
If we extend this description of the prevalence of sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans to all the nations of antiquity, we shall be able to form a conception which, after all, will be very feeble when compared with the reality, of the degree in which the whole religious life between man and G.o.d, the national life in the various nations, the social life in each nation, the domestic life in each family, was alike dominated by the idea and practice of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.
The ceremonial of sacrifice was as follows: "The sacrificial usages themselves were very solemn. Everything expressed that the sacrifice was made freely and joyously. Those who offered to the heavenly G.o.ds wore white robes, and crowns on the head and in the hands. Those who offered to the G.o.ds beneath the earth were robed in black. The victim was also crowned and adorned with ribbons, and on solemn occasions its horns were gilt. It was led by a loose cord, to indicate that it followed willingly and of its own accord. If the animal took to flight, that was a bad prognostic. It had to be put to death, but might not be led up again to the altar. Before touching the sacrificial utensils, the hands were washed in order to approach the holy with purity. As with us, a boy poured water over the hands of the sacrificant. Then the sacrificial cake or sacred salt-meal and the knife of sacrifice were brought in a basket and carried round the altar. A branch of laurel or olive, symbol of purification and peace, was dipped in the water-stoup and the bystanders sprinkled therewith. The holy water itself was consecrated with prayers and the dipping into it of a firebrand from the altar. Silence was then enjoined, and when the profane had been dismissed with such words as "Depart, depart, whoever is a sinner," the herald cried with a loud voice, "Who is here?" those present answered, "Many, and they pious."
Then the proper prayer of sacrifice began for the gracious acceptance of what was offered; and after the victim had been proved sound and faultless, a line was drawn to mark its willingness with the back of the sacrificial knife from the forehead to the tail, and grain was poured over its neck until by nodding it seemed to give its consent to be sacrificed. Then there were fresh prayers; the priest took a cup of red wine, tasted the blood of the vine, allowed also those present to drink of it, and poured the remainder between the animal"s horns. Then the hair of its forehead was cut off and cast into the fire as a firstling; incense was kindled, and the remaining grain finally poured upon the altar with music of pipe and flute, that no ill-omened word might be heard during the sacred action. In specially solemn sacrifices there were also choral hymns and dances. The animal was struck with the axe and its throat cut; when the sacrifice was to the G.o.ds above, with hands raised towards heaven; when to the G.o.ds below, with head bowed to the earth. The blood was then received in a vessel and partly poured out upon the altar, partly sprinkled on those around, that they might be delivered from sin.
Especially all who wished to have a portion in the sacrifice had to touch the victim and the sacrificial ashes. According to the oldest usage the whole victim was burnt; later only certain portions-the head and feet (the extremities for the whole), the entrails, especially the heart as the seat of life, the shanks as the place of strength, and the fat as the best portion. Then red wine, unmixed, was poured upon the flames. The sacrificers consumed the rest, as in the Hebrew thank-offerings and among the Egyptians and Indians, in a sacred festive meal; among the Arcadians, masters and slaves altogether. Such meals were usual from the most ancient time after the completion of the sacrifice, and in them originally the G.o.ds were considered to sit as guests with men. All sang thereby, as law and custom determined, sacred hymns, that during the meal moral comeliness and respect might not be transgressed, and the harmony of song might consecrate the words and the conduct of the speakers. By this common partaking of the pure sacrificial flesh, the communion of the offered meats, a substantially new life was to be implanted in the partakers; for all who eat of one sacrifice are one body.
"Hence the first Christians obstinately refused to eat of the flesh of heathen victims. "I had rather die than feed on your sacrifices." "If any one eat of that flesh he cannot be a Christian."[91] At the end of the feast, as it seems, the herald dismissed the people with the words ?a???
?fes??-Ite, missa est."
Thus we find that sacrifice existed from the beginning of history in all nations, and was a.s.sociated with prayer; the two together made up worship, and the spiritual acts of the mind, expressed in prayer, were not considered complete without sacrifice, a corporeal act as it were, so that the homage of soul and body together const.i.tuted the complete act of fealty on the part of man to his Maker. But we find also more than this.
The spiritual acts which are contained in prayer, as the expression of an innocent creature to his Creator, are three: adoration, which recognises the supreme majesty of G.o.d; thanksgiving, which specially dwells on the benefits received from Him; and pet.i.tion, which speaks the perpetual need of Him felt by the creature. And with these in a state of innocence prayer would stop. But if the harmony between the Creator and the creature has been broken, if sin has been committed, and a sense of guilt arising from that sin exists, then prayer expresses a fourth need of the creature, which does not exist in the state of innocence-the need of expiation. Now offerings of the natural fruits of the earth, of whatever kind, correspond, it is plain, to the three former parts of prayer-to adoration, thanksgiving, and pet.i.tion for support; but the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice of living creatures, in which occurs the pouring out of their blood in a solemn rite, the presentation of it to G.o.d, and the sprinkling of the people with it, can only be accounted for by a consciousness in man of guilt before G.o.d. The existence of a rite so peculiar in so many nations, and its a.s.sociation everywhere with the most solemn act of prayer, is not accounted for even by such a consciousness alone; for what power had the shedding of an animal"s blood to remove the sense of guilt in man or to propitiate G.o.d? There was no doubt the consciousness of guilt on man"s part, but what should ever lead him, of himself, to conceive such a mode of expiating his guilt, such a mode of propitiating G.o.d? It was much more natural for him to conceive that the act of pouring out the blood of a creature, in which was its life, the most precious gift of the Creator, would be an offence to that Creator, the Lord of life, its Giver and Maintainer. Thus the act of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice can only be accounted for as in its origin a directly divine inst.i.tution, a positive law of G.o.d. As such it is plainly recognised by Moses when he introduces it in the history of Cain and Abel, where, in the first man"s children, it appears as already existing. G.o.d alone, the absolute Lord of life, could attach together prayer and b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, and enact that the worship which He would receive from His creature, the worship which not only adored Him as Creator, thanked Him as Benefactor, asked His help as Preserver, but likewise acknowledged guilt before Him for sin committed, should be made up of a compound act, that of solemn prayer, and that of shedding and offering blood, and partaking of a victim so offered. The rite of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice is, therefore, the record of the Fall stamped by the hand of G.o.d on the forehead of the human race at its first starting in the state of guilt. The death of a vicarious victim was the embodiment of the doctrine that man had forfeited his life by disobedience to G.o.d his Creator, and that he should be restored by the effusion of the blood of an innocent victim. The fact of the concentration of these four acts of prayer about the rite of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, through all Gentilism, as well as in Judaism, has no end of significance.
This conclusion was drawn by St. Augustine,[92] who says: "Were I to speak at length of the true sacrifice, I should prove that it was due to no one but the one true G.o.d; and this the one true Priest, the Mediator of G.o.d and men, offered to Him. It was requisite that the figures promissive of this sacrifice should be celebrated in animal victims, as a commendation of that flesh and blood which were to be, through which single victim might take place the remission of sins contracted of flesh and blood, which shall not possess the kingdom of G.o.d, because that self-same substance of the body shall be changed into a heavenly quality.
This was signified by the fire in the sacrifice, which seemed to absorb death into victory. Now such sacrifices were duly celebrated in that people whose kingdom and whose priesthood were both a prophecy of the King and Priest who was to come, that He might rule, and that He might consecrate the faithful in all nations, and introduce them to the kingdom of heaven, the sanctuary of the angels, and eternal life. Now this being the true sacrifice, as the Hebrews celebrated religious predictions of it, so the Pagans celebrated sacrilegious imitations; for in the Apostle"s words, what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to G.o.d. For an ancient thing is that immolation of blood, carrying an announcement of the future, testifying from the beginning of the human race the Pa.s.sion of the Mediator that was to be, for Abel is the first in sacred writ recorded to have offered this."
The rite of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, thus enacted by G.o.d, and set by Him upon flesh and blood as a perpetual prophecy, is one of those acts of supreme worship which may be offered to G.o.d alone. "Genuflexions," says St.
Thomas,[93] "prostrations, and other indications of such-like honour, may be offered also to men, though with a different intent; but no one has judged that sacrifice should be offered to any one unless he esteemed him to be G.o.d, or pretended so to esteem him. But the external sacrifice represents the internal true sacrifice, according to which the human mind offers itself to G.o.d. Now, our mind offers itself to G.o.d as being the Source of its creation, as being the Author of its operation, as being the End of its beat.i.tude; and these three things belong to the supreme principle of things alone. Whence man is bound to offer the worship of sacrifice to the one supreme G.o.d alone, but not to any spiritual substances."
The Gentile world broke this primary law of worship in offering the rite of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice to numberless false G.o.ds. It is, therefore, no wonder that, falling so low in its conception of the G.o.dhead as to divide G.o.d into numberless parts, it fell likewise into oblivion of the meaning and prophecy contained in the sacrifice itself; yet though it might forget, it could not efface the idea enshrined in the act, so long as it preserved the material parts of the act, which in so striking a manner exhibited to the very senses of man the great doctrine that without effusion of blood there is no remission of sins. And this was declared not merely in the Hebrew ritual, divinely inst.i.tuted for that very purpose, and in full operation down to the very time of Christ; but in all those sacrifices of the dispersed and corrupted nations, which, debased in the persons to whom they were offered, and performed with a routine oblivious of their meaning, yet bore witness to the truth which G.o.d had originally impressed on the minds of men, and committed to a visible and prophetic memorial.
If we survey the whole world at the coming of Christ, we may say that the inst.i.tution of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice is the most striking and characteristic fact to be found in it. This conclusion will result in the mind if four things be noted which are therein bound up together. The first of these is its specific character; for surely the ceremonial of sacrifice, as above described, deserves this t.i.tle, if anything ever did. It is a very marked and peculiar inst.i.tution, conveying an ineffaceable sense of guilt in those who practise it, and a quite singular manner of detaching from themselves the effects of that guilt. Secondly, it is found everywhere; without sacrifice no religious worship is complete; its general diffusion has with reason been alleged as a proof of its true origin and deep meaning. Were it only found in single or in rude nations, it might have been attributed to rude and barbarous conceptions; but all nations had it, and the most civilised offered it in the greatest profusion. Thirdly, it had the most astonishingly pervading influence; from the top to the bottom of the social scale it ruled all; the king made it the support of his throne; the father of the family applied it to his children; bride and bridegroom were joined together in its name; and warring nations made peace in the blood of the sacrificed victim. Fourthly, the three notes just given are indefinitely heightened in their force when we consider that the inst.i.tution, far from being of itself in accordance with man"s reason, is quite opposed to it. Reason does indeed suggest that the fruits of the earth should be offered in mark of honour, grat.i.tude, and dependence to that Almighty Lord by whose gift alone they are received; but reason of itself, far from suggesting, flies back from the notion that the Giver of life should accept as a propitiatory offering from His creature the blood of animals, in which, according to the general sense of antiquity, their life itself consisted. That this blood should be poured out, and sprinkled on those present as an act of religious faith; that it should be accompanied by words expressing adoration, thanksgiving, and pet.i.tion; and further, that it should be considered to remove guilt,-the whole of this forms a conception so alien from reason, that he who reflects upon it is driven to the conclusion of a positive enactment, bearing in it a mysterious truth, which it was of the utmost importance for man to know, to bear in mind, to practise, and not to forget. And if we put together these four things, the specific character of the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, its universality, its pervading influence, and the token of unreason, apart, that is, from the significance of a deep mystery, which rests upon it, we must feel that there is nothing in the const.i.tution of the world before our Saviour"s time more worthy of attention than this. There is no solution of it to be found but that of St. Augustine, "that the immolation of blood, carrying an announcement of the future, testified from the beginning of the human race the Pa.s.sion of the Mediator that was to be."
But there is likewise a series of portentous facts, bearing upon the inst.i.tution of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, which runs through all human history.
This is the offering of human sacrifices in expiation of guilt, or to ward off calamities. The religious ideas which lie at the bottom of this are, that as life is a gift of G.o.d to man on the condition that he fulfils G.o.d"s commands, every sinner has thereby forfeited his life. The rule of inexorable justice is set forth in strongest language by the Greek tragedians, as when aeschylus says, "It abides, while Jove abides through the series of ages, that he who has done a deed shall suffer for it. It is an ordinance."[94] But as all men stand in a real communion of life to each other, and as members of one living whole are bound in one responsibility to the G.o.dhead, the idea also prevailed that one man"s life could be given for another"s; that one might offer himself in expiation for another, and the willing sacrifice of the innocent was esteemed to have the more power in proportion as the vicarious will of the offerer was pure, and therefore acceptable to the G.o.ds: "For I think that a single soul performing this expiation would suffice for a thousand, if it be there with good-will," says dipus in Sophocles. So kings offer themselves for their people; so the royal virgin gains for the host with her blood prosperous winds. But from such acts of self-devotion, freely performed, we proceed to a further step, in which men are sacrificed against their will. At Athens is found the frightful custom that two miserable human beings, one of each s.e.x, were yearly nourished at the public cost, and then solemnly sacrificed at the feast of the Thargelia for expiation of the people. Not only did the Consul Decius, at the head of his army, solemnly devote himself for his country, but so often as a great and general calamity threatened the existence of the Roman State human sacrifices were offered, and a male and female Gaul, a male and female Greek, or those of any other nation whence danger threatened, were buried alive in the ox-market, with magic forms of prayer uttered by the head of the college of the Quindecemviri. Nay, the human sacrifices yearly offered upon the Alban Mount to Jupiter Latiaris were continued down to the third century of our era.
What thus took place in Greece and Rome is found likewise amongst almost all the Eastern and Western peoples. The most cruel human sacrifices were nowhere more frequent than among the idolatrous races of Shem, whether Canaanites, Phnicians, or Carthaginians. These specially offered the eldest or the only son. Egyptian, Persian, Arabian, the most ancient Indian history, and that of the Northern peoples, Scythians, Goths, Russians, Germans, Gauls, British, and the Celts in general, give us examples of the same custom.
The conclusion from all this is, how strong and general in the religious conscience of all ancient peoples was the sense of sinful man"s need to be purified and reconciled with G.o.d, and that the means of such reconcilement were thought to be in the vicarious shedding of human blood.
At any rate, we may draw from this custom a corroboration of the meaning which lay in the rite of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice of animals, that the vicarious offering of an animal"s life, which was deemed to be seated in the blood, was made in the stead of a human life as a ransom for it, as is exactly expressed in the lines of Ovid-
"Cor pro corde precor, pro fibris accipe fibras, Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus,"
-_Ovid_, _Fasti_, 6, 161.
The vicarious character of animal sacrifice is shown in the Egyptian usage, wherein a seal was put upon oxen found pure and spotless for sacrifice, which represented a man kneeling with hands bound behind his back, and a sword put to his throat, while the bystanders lamented the slaughtered animal and struck themselves on the breast. The same idea that the victim was a ransom for man"s life is also found in the Indian sacrificial ritual.[95]
The inst.i.tution of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, then, was not merely an instinctive confession by man of guilt before G.o.d, though this confession was contained in it in an eminent degree, but sprung from a direct divine appointment. This conclusion is borne in upon the mind by its existence every where, and by the astonishing force with which it seemed to hold all parts of human life in its grasp. Such an influence, again, shows the extent to which, in the original const.i.tution of things, all human life was bound up in a dependence upon G.o.d. Not mental acts only, acts of adoration, thanksgiving, pet.i.tion, and expiation were enjoined, but all these were expressed in a visible, corporeal action, and a.s.sociated with it. It is precisely in this a.s.sociation that I trace the stamp of the divine appointment, as well as a seal of permanence, which is shown in the unbroken maintenance of the rite through so many shiftings of races and revolutions of governments in the lapse of so many centuries.
Thus on the original human society, the family of the first man, G.o.d had impressed the idea that man by sin had forfeited his life before G.o.d; that there must be reparation for that forfeiture; that such reparation was one day to be made by the offering of an innocent victim; that in the meantime the vicarious sacrifice of animals should be offered to G.o.d as a confession of man"s guilt; that their blood poured out before Him and sprinkled on the sacrifices should be accepted by G.o.d in token of an expiation.
Now what we have seen of the original inst.i.tution of sacrifice will help to show how absolutely divine an act it was which our Lord took upon Himself in establishing a sacrifice for His people. But He was not only ordering a new worship; He was likewise at once fulfilling and abolishing by that fulfilment the old, that which had prevailed from the beginning of man"s race. Instead of the blood of animals poured out profusely all over the world, He said, "This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you;" and speaking as the Lamb of G.o.d who takes away the sin of the world, using also the special sacrificial term, He said, "This is My Body, which is given for you; do this for a commemoration of Me." The act was doubly a divine act, in appointing a sacrifice for the whole human race, and in making His own Body that sacrifice; the first an act of divine authority, the second not that only, but pointing out the personal union of the G.o.dhead with the Manhood, in virtue of which the communication of His flesh gives life to the world, as He had foretold a year before: "The bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world."[96] Thus the Christian sacrifice is the counterpart of the original inst.i.tution, and throws the light of fulfilment upon that offering of the blood of bulls and goats which seemed in itself so unreasonable; which would have been so, but that it earned in itself the mystery hidden from the foundation of the world. Thus it was that the animal creation placed below man was chosen to bear witness in its flesh and blood to the offering which was to restore man, and the Lord of life made use of the life which He had given to signify in a speaking prophecy that supreme exhibition of His mercy, His justice, and His majesty, which He had purposed from the beginning.
If the earth without Calvary might seem to have been a slaughter-house, Calvary made it an altar.
But if this be the relation of the Christian sacrifice to the original inst.i.tution in general, it has a special relation to that whole order of hierarchy and sacrifice which was established by Moses. The whole body of the Mosaic law, from head to foot and in its minutest part, was constructed to be fulfilled in Christ. It was alike His altar and His throne, prepared for Him fifteen hundred years before His coming. Moses found the patriarchal priesthood and the patriarchal sacrifice, and drew out both so as to be a more detailed picture of the Priesthood and Sacrifice which were to be.
Then as the whole ancient worship, whether Patriarchal, or Jewish, or Gentile, had been concentrated in sacrifice, the Lord of all, coming to create the world anew, in the night of His Pa.s.sion, and as the prelude of it, inst.i.tuted the new Priesthood, and made it the summary of His whole dispensation. The Priest according to the order of Melchisedec came forth to supply what was wanting in the Levitical priesthood. Signs pa.s.sed into realities, and the Precious Blood took the place of that blood which had been shed all over the earth from the sacrifice of Abel onwards.[97] St.
Paul has told us how the King of justice and of peace, fatherless, motherless, and without genealogy in the sacred narrative, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, as then recorded, was the image of the Son of G.o.d, who remains a Priest for ever. For though He was to offer Himself once upon the altar of the cross, by death, to G.o.d His Father, and to work out eternal redemption, His Priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death. Therefore in the Last Supper, on the very night of His betrayal, He would leave to His beloved bride the Church a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man required. This should represent the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice once enacted on the cross; this should preserve its memory fresh and living to the end of time; this should apply its saving virtue to the remission of sins daily committed by human frailty. Thus He declared Himself a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. He presented His Body and His Blood under the species of bread and wine to G.o.d His Father. Under these symbols He gave them to His Apostles to receive, and so doing He made them priests of the new testament, and charged them, and those who should succeed them in this priesthood, to make this offering, by the words, "This do in commemoration of Me;" thus, as St. Paul adds, "showing the death of the Lord until He come."[98] For when He had celebrated that old Pasch which the mult.i.tude of the children of Israel immolated in memory of their coming out of Egypt, He made Himself the new Pasch, that this should be celebrated by the Church through her priests in visible signs, in commemoration of His pa.s.sage from this world to the Father, when by the shedding forth of His own Blood He redeemed us and delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into His own kingdom. This is the pure oblation, incapable of being stained by the unworthiness or malice of those who offer it, which G.o.d by the mouth of His prophet Malachias prophesied, saying, "From the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof My name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a clean oblation." This St.
Paul pointed out with equal clearness when he wrote, "The things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to G.o.d; and I would not that you should be made partakers with devils. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the chalice of devils: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils." For as in the one case the table indicates the altar on which the heathen sacrifice was offered, so on the other it indicates the altar on which the sacrifice of Christ is offered; and the reality a.s.serted in the one case is equally a.s.serted in the other. And this, in fine, is that offering, the figure of which was given by those various similitudes of sacrifices in the time of nature and the time of the law; for, as the consummation and perfection of all these, it embraces every blessing which they signified.
All the force which sacrifice originally had to represent doctrine in a visible form, in accordance with the twofold nature of man, belonged in the most eminent degree to the sacrifice thus inst.i.tuted. It became at once the centre of the Church"s worship, being celebrated by the Apostles daily,[99] as we are told, while the Liturgies of the East and West make any question as to the character of the sacrifice impossible, and show how the great acts of adoration, thanksgiving, pet.i.tion, and expiation were united in it and with it. It was the voice of the Christian people evermore mounting to the Eternal Father, and representing to Him in an action of infinite solemnity how He "so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have life everlasting."[100]
But more particularly let us observe the doctrines which our Lord taught, and as it were clothed with flesh in the daily sacrifice of the Church.
First, the cardinal doctrine of religion from the beginning, as it is equally the certain witness of human reason, the unity of the G.o.dhead; for the sacrifice is offered to the one G.o.d alone. It is the guardian of this great primary truth from all corruption, whether the polytheistic corruption of division and limitation, or the pantheistic corruption of vagueness and impersonality. Wherever this sacrifice is offered, the great Christian unity of the one living and holy G.o.d, the G.o.d who knows, the G.o.d who wills, the G.o.d who creates, is maintained by those who offer it.
Secondly, the Trinity of the Divine Persons; for the sacrifice consists in the offering of G.o.d the Son in His human nature as a sin-offering for man to His Father: "Wherein the same Christ is contained, and immolated without blood, who once on the altar of the cross offered Himself with blood;"[101] which, moreover, is accomplished by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the gifts. Thus the three Divine Persons enter into the sacrifice, He to whom it is offered, He who offers it, and He by whose operation it is consummated. So distinct yet so interwoven is their action, so divine in each, that the sacrifice guards the doctrine of the most Blessed Trinity as it guards that of the Divine Unity, and those who offer this sacrifice are faithful in the maintenance of the second mystery as in that of the first. But the Divine Unity and Trinity is the very life of G.o.d, the very source of beat.i.tude, to the knowledge and the faith of which this sacrifice subserves. It preaches these truths as no mere word could preach them; for action and word enter into each other and complete themselves reciprocally in the sacrifice.
Thirdly, the stupendous mystery of G.o.d the Creator a.s.suming a created nature for the sake of the creature enters into the very substance of the sacrifice. This can scarcely be expressed more distinctly than by the very words of St. Justin Martyr in the second century, who says, "We receive not these as common bread or common drink, but as by the word of G.o.d Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught also that the food which has been blessed by the word of prayer made by Him, from which our blood and our flesh are by their change nourished, are the flesh and the blood of that incarnate Jesus. For the Apostles, in their memorials called the Gospels, have handed down that thus Jesus enjoined them: that He took bread, and having blessed it, said, This do in commemoration of Me: this is My Body; and that He took likewise the chalice, and having blessed it, said, This is my Blood."[102] Here the martyr appeals to the reality of the flesh a.s.sumed by the Word, as a supposition necessary to understand the reality of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, as St. Ignatius had done before him, and as St. Irenaeus and others did after him.[103] In this connection, Eusebius of Caesarea, setting forth the typical character of the Jewish Pasch and its fulfilment in the new covenant, says, "The followers of Moses sacrificed the Paschal Lamb only once a year, on the fourteenth day of the first month about evening tide, but we in the new covenant celebrating the Pasch every Sunday, are ever satisfied with the Body of the Lord, and ever take part in the Blood of the Lamb."[104] And here, once more, wherever this sacrifice is truly offered, the offerers show themselves truly penetrated by that belief which comes next in preciousness and dignity to the belief in the Divine Unity and Trinity-the belief of that a.s.sumption by the Divine Son of human nature, on which the Christian faith rests.
Fourthly, the sacrifice in St. Paul"s words, "Sets forth the Lord"s death till He come," that is, the divine act of redemption; for in it our Lord lies upon the altar in the state of a victim, the flesh and the blood separated, as in the state of death, which He took upon Himself voluntarily for the sin of the world, being offered because He willed it Himself. The sacrifice exhibits most directly this act of the divine love, which with that other act just treated of, the a.s.sumption of human nature, makes up the double mystery of G.o.d"s love to man-the double mystery which, boundless and immeasurable as are the power and the wisdom disclosed to man"s reason in the structure of the visible universe, disclosed equally in the infinity of smallness as in the infinity of greatness, disclosed in every branch of science and every portion of nature, makes both power and wisdom to pale before the greatness of condescendence and affection; for truly it is greater that the Maker of all these things should, for the sake of one of them, descend from His greatness, and that the Lord of life and Author of beauty should encounter death and embrace dishonour, than that He should have created the universe in all its magnificence by the word of His power. But here, in this sacrifice, He lies before His people in the state of annihilation, dishonour, and death. The world"s ransom is ever in the sight of those whom He has ransomed, in the very act of paying their debt: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world goes through its unfolding centuries, ever presenting to His Father the price which He has paid for the salvation of His brethren. And it may be noted that those who offer the Divine Sacrifice in the complete faith of the Church preserve at the same time their full a.s.surance in that redemption which separated sects seem to lose as a consequence of their division, it being too great and awful a doctrine for their weak and paralysed condition to bear.
For it is impossible, fifthly, to separate the gift of adoption from the Divine Sacrifice, which contains it and imparts it. Wherefore does the Son of the Eternal Father lie upon the altar in the state of death? He cries out aloud there, "Behold I and my children whom G.o.d has given Me."
It is precisely out of the act a.s.suming our nature, and out of the act offering that nature to death, that He draws His human family. It is after the detailed account of His sufferings in the 21st Psalm that He concludes with the words which St. Paul has quoted in this connection:[105] "I will declare Thy name to My brethren: in the midst of the Church will I praise Thee." It is in the act of priesthood that He creates His race. "Because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner has been partaker of them, that through death He might destroy him who had the empire of death." Thus, "It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest before G.o.d." And the daily act of His Priesthood thus performed, the unb.l.o.o.d.y immolation for ever presented before G.o.d in the eyes of His people, is the bond and pledge to them of the communicated sonship. They who have the Church"s daily sacrifice have never fallen from the belief of the divine brotherhood, have never subst.i.tuted for it the natural kinship of fallen man. They have not sunk away from the bond of redemption giving sonship, to the phantom of brotherhood, dispensing with faith, and vainly calling on men to unite in the midst of national enmity, broken belief, and thirst for material enjoyment. The Divine Sacrifice, as it is the instrument, so also it is the guardian of divine adoption, and perpetuates it upon the earth.
There are three parts, so to say, of adoption which are further distinctly contained in the Divine Sacrifice. The first of these is the derivation of spiritual life from the Person of Christ; for here especially is fulfilled what He said of Himself, "The Bread of G.o.d is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world." In the act of sacrifice He becomes also the food of His brethren: here He was from the beginning daily; here He is to the end. This is the inmost junction of life with belief, so that the faithful people by its presence attesting belief in the Divine Unity and Trinity, in the Incarnation of the Son of G.o.d, in His redemption of the race, in the adoption of man by G.o.d, at the same time become partakers of the life which these doctrines declare. The perfection of the divine inst.i.tution consists in this absolute blending of belief, worship, and practice. The unbelieving Jews strove among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Our Lord answered by establishing a rite on which His Church lives through all the ages, in which He bestows Himself on each believer individually, being as much his as if He was for him alone. s.p.a.ce and time disappear before the Author of life in the act of communicating Himself, and He is the sole Teacher of His Church, in that He alone feeds it with the Divine Food, which is Himself.