Читать книгу A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Joseph Cullen Ayer - Страница 22

The following passage is of significance as bearing not only upon the extent to which Christianity had spread, after making due allowance for rhetoric, but also upon the conception of the eucharist and its relation to the ancient sacrifices held, by some Christians at least, in the first half of the second century. Cf. ch. 41 of the same work, v. infra, §§ 12 f.

Therefore, as to all sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ commanded to be offered, i.e., in the eucharist of the bread and cup, and which are offered by Christians in all places throughout the world, God, anticipating them, testified that they are well-pleasing to Him; but He rejects those presented by you and by those priests of yours, saying: And your sacrifices I will not accept at your hands; for from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles (He says), but ye have profaned it.10 But since you deceive yourselves, both you and your teachers, when you interpret what was said as if the Word spoke of those of your nation who were in the dispersion, and that it said that their prayers and sacrifices offered in every place are pure and well-pleasing, you should know that you are speaking falsely and are trying to cheat [pg 019] yourselves in every way; for, in the first place, not even yet does your nation extend from the rising to the setting sun, for there are nations among which none of your race ever dwelt. For there is not a single race of men, whether among barbarians or Greeks, or by whatever name they may be called, of those who live in wagons or are called nomads or of herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Maker of all things. For, furthermore, at that time, when the prophet Malachi said this, your dispersion over the whole earth, as you are now, had not taken place, as is evident from the Scriptures.