III

The references to the Eucharist as a sacrifice continue to be of much the same character during the period from the sixth to the tenth century as at an earlier time. It is unquestioned that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. There is little explanation of the way in which it is so. Occasionally the sacrifice is connected with the passion of our Lord or with His whole incarnate life or with His work in heaven. Its earthly culmination is in Communion.

Eutychius the Patriarch of Constantinople in his Sermon on Easter and the Hold Eucharist says that our Lord “mystically sacrificed Himself” in the Upper Room at the Institution of the Sacrament, and that on “rising from the dead. He offered Himself to God the Father for the salvation of the whole human race”.

In his Answers to questions submitted to him St. Anastasius of Sinai states that it is right for the Eucharistic offering to be made on behalf of the departed, though he limits the sins for which forgiveness may thus be obtained for the dead to lesser offences. In his discourse On the Holy Communion he refers to the Eucharist a; “the bloodless sacrifice,” and in one place speaks at some length of its connection with our Lord’s heavenly life.

“Since the priest is the mediator between God and men and makes propitiation to God for the remission of the sins of the people, observe how he warns and exhorts all, saving to the congregation in some such words as these, since ye have set me as a mediator with God on your behalf at this mystic Table, I beseech you, be ye also zealous together with me: depart from all worldly thoughts; leave every bodily care; for it is the time for earnest prayer and not for vain idleness. Hearken how the deacon addresses you, ‘Let us stand rightly,’ ‘let us stand with fear’. Let us draw near to the holy oblation, let us bow our necks, let us bind our thought, let us bind our tongue, let us fill our mind, let us go up to heaven. Let us lift up our mind and our hearts, let us raise the eye of our soul up to God, let us pass through the heaven, let us pass through the angels, let us pass through the cherubim, let us run even to the very throne of the Lord, let us lay hold of the undefiled feet of Christ themselves, let us implore, let us put constraint on the tenderness of His mercy, let us make confession at the holy and super-celestial and spiritual altar. Thus the priest exhorts us saying, ‘Let us lift up our hearts’. And what is our answer? It is, ‘We lift them up unto the Lord’.… Take heed, I beseech you, lest you lift not up your heart to the Lord but drag it down to the devil. What are you doing, O man? The priest offers the bloodless sacrifice on your behalf to the Lord, and are you despising it? The priest is in conflict on your behalf. Standing at the altar as at a dread tribunal he beseeches and earnestly strives that the grace of the Holy Ghost may descend from heaven upon you, and are you careless about your own salvation?”

The treatment of the Eucharistic sacrifice by St. John of Damascus is much briefer than his statement about the effects of consecration. It is worth notice that in his account of the institution he quotes our Lord’s words in the form in which they are given in the Liturgy of St. James containing a reference to the resurrection of our Lord as proclaimed in the Eucharist, “As often us ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the death of the Son of Man and confess His resurrection until He come”. In distinct allusion to the sacrifice he only says:—

“With bread and wine did Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High, receive Abraham as he was returning from the rout of the aliens. That table prefigured this mystic Table, as that priest was the figure and image of Christ the real High Priest. For, says Scripture, ‘Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek’. Of this bread the shewbread was an image. This is the pure even the bloodless sacrifice which the Lord said through the prophet should be offered to Him from the rising to the setting of the sun.”

At the Second Council of Nicæa Epiphanius the deacon spoke of the Eucharist as “the bloodless sacrifice that is offered by means of the priest” and “our bloodless sacrifice, the memorial of the passion of our God and of His whole dispensation”.

Nicephorus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, refers to the Eucharist as a sacrifice of the body of Christ, in which Christ “our great High Priest is in His manhood victim and lamb and sacrifice”; and says that in it Christians “proclaim the death of the Lord, and confess His resurrection”.

In the Byzantine rite of the eighth and ninth and tenth centuries, as shown in the texts previously referred to, mention is made of the reception of the earthly sacrifice at the heavenly altar; our Lord’s passion and resurrection and presence in heaven are spoken of in close connection with the oblation; and the commemoration of His death and resurrection is associated with Communion.

The Prayer of the Prothesis in the Liturgy of St. Basil contains the words:—

“O God, our God, who didst send forth the heavenly Bread, the nourishment of the whole word; our Lord and God Jesus Christ, as Saviour and Redeemer and Benefactor, blessing and sanctifying us, do Thou Thyself bless this oblation; and receive it at Thy heavenly altar.”

Between the recital of the words of institution and the invocation of the Holy Ghost the Liturgy of St. Basil has the following:—

“We also mindful of His saving sufferings. His life-giving cross, the burial for three days, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, the sitting on the right hand of Thee our God and Father, and His glorious and terrible second coming.”

In the same place the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom has much the same words:—

“Mindful of this saving command and of all the things which have been done on our behalf, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascent into heaven, the sitting on the right hand, the second and glorious coming again.”

At the end of the celebration the Liturgy of St. Basil has the following prayer:—

“Accomplished and completed, so far as is in our power, are all thing which Thou hast appointed unto us as the mysteries of immortality: we have found the memorial of Thy death, we have seen the figure of Thy resurrection, we have been filled with Thy inexhaustible dainties, we have tasted of Thy endless life, which mayest Thou count us all worthy to attain in the world to come, O Christ our God.”