SACRIFICE
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SACRIFICE
of the Cross holds in the whole economy of salvation,
we must briefly discuss the realitv of this sacrifice.
(1) The Dogma of the Sacrijiee of the Cross.— The universal conviction of Christianity was expressed by the Synod of Ephesus (431), when it declared that the Incarnate Logos "offered Himself to God the Father for us for an odour of sweetness" (in Den- zinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion," n. 122), a dogma explicitly confirmed by the Council of Trent (Sess. XXII. cap. i-ii; can.'ii-iv). The dogma is indeed nothing else than a clear echo of Holy Writ and tra- dition. If all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and especially the bloody sacrifice, were so many types of the bloody sacrifice of the Cross (cf. Heb., viii-x), and if the" idea of vicarious atonement was present in the Mosaic bloody sacrifices, it follows immediately that the death "on the Cross, as the antitype, must possess the character of a vicarious sacrifice of atonement. A striking confirmation of this reasoning is found in the pericope of Isaias concerning God's "just servant," wherein three truths are clearly expressed: (a) the substitution of the innocent Messias for guilty mankind; (b) the deliverance of the guilty from sin and punishment through the suffering of the Messias; (c) the manner of this suffering and satisfaction through the bloody death on the Cross (cf. Is., hii, 4 sqq.). The Mes- sianity of the passage, which was unjustifiably con- tested by the Socinians and Rationalists, is proved by the express testimony of the New Testament (cf. Matt., viii, 17; Mark, xv, 28; Luke, xxii, 37; Acts, viii, 28 sqq.; 1 Peter, ii, 22 sqq.). The prophecy found its fulfilment in Christ. For, although His whole life was a continuous sacrifice, yet the sacri- fice culminated in His bloody death on the Cross, as He Himself says: "He came to give His life a redemption for many" (Matt, xx, 28). Three factors are here emphasized: sacrifice, vicarious oflfering, and expiation. The phrase, "to give his life" (Sovvai TTiv ^vxv"), is, as numerous parallel passages attest, a Biblical expression for sacrifice; the words, "for many" (avrl woWQv), express the idea of vicarious sacrifice, while the term, "redemp- tion" (XiJrpoy), declares the object of the expiation (cf. Eph., V, 2; II Cor., v, 21). Rationalism (Soci- nus, Ritschl) seeks in vain to deny that St. Paul had this idea of vicarious expiation on the ground that the expression iinl voWdv (in the place of many) is foreign to him. For, apart from the fact that he clearly expresses in other terms the idea of substitu- tion (cf. II Cor., V, 1-5; Gal., iii, 13), his phrase "for many" (inrip iroXkSiv instead of dvrl iroWQv), taken in connexion with the idea of sacrifice current in his writings, bears the pregnant meaning "instead of many, ' not merely "for the advantage of many". This is clearly indicated by I Tim., ii, G: "\Mio gave himself a redemption for all [ivTiXvTpov vnkp -irimuv]."
As in the Old Testament the expiatory power of the sacrifice lay in the blood of the victim, so also the expiation for the forgiveness of Bins is ascribed to the "Blood of the New Testament" (see Mass, Sacrifice of the). There is thus nothing more precious than the Blood of Christ: "... you were not red<!emed with corruptible things as gold an(l silver . . . . , but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled" (I Peter, i, 18 nt].). While the foregoing considerations refute the a.sw;rtion of modern "critics" that the expiatory sacrifice of (Christ was first introduced by Paul into the Gospel, it is still true that the bloody sacrifice of the Cross occiiy)ic'd the central position in the Pauline preaching. He speaks of the Redeemer as Him "whom Clod liath proposefl to be a propitia- tion \l\afff^piov]. through faith in his blood" (Rom., iii, 2.5). Referring to the types of the Olfl Testament, the Epistle to the Hebrews especially elaborates this idea: "For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the
ashes of a heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as
are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy
Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse
our conscience from dead works" (Heb., ix, 13
sq.). With the multiplicity and variety, the ineflS-
cacy and inadequacy of the Mosaic bloody sacrifices
is contrasted the uniqueness and eflScacy of the
sacrifice of the Cross for the forgiveness of sins (cf.
Heb., ix, 28: "So also was Christ once [fiTra^] offered
to exhaust the sins of many"; x, 10: "In the which
will we are sanctified by the oblation of the body
[5ia T^y irpo(r<popS.<i tov <rw/uoToj] of Jesus Christ once").
The bloody death on the Cross is specially charac-
terized as a "sin offering": " But this man offering
one sacrifice for sins {/xiav vir^p anapriQv irpoffev^yKas
dvfflav], for ever sitteth on the right hand of God"
(Heb., x, 12; cf. II Cor., v, 21). The "heavenly
sacrifice" of Christ, the existence of which is assumed
by Thalhofer, Zill, and Schoulza, cannot be deduced
from the F.pistle to the Hebrews. In heaven Christ
no longer sacrifices Himself, but simply, through
His "priestly intercession", offers the sacrifice of
the Cross (Heb., vii, 25; cf. Rom., viii, 34).
^^^lile the Apostolic Fathers and the apologist Justin Martyr merely repeat the Biblical doctrine of the sacrificial death of Christ, Irena;us was the first of the early Fathers to consider the sacrifice of the Cro.ss from the standpoint of a "vicarious satisfaction" {satisfaclio vicaria) ; this expression, however, did not come into frequent use in ecclesias- tical writings during the first ten centuries. Irenaeua emphasizes the fact that only a God-Man could wash away the guilt of Adam, that Christ actually re- deemed mankind by His Blood and offered "His Soul for our souls and His Flesh for our flesh" ("Adv. hajr.", V, i, 1, in P. G. VII, 1121). Though Irenaus bases the redemption primarily on the Incarnation, through which our vitiated nature was restored to its original holiness ("mystical interpretation" of the Greeks), he nevertheless ascribes in a special manner to the bitter Passion of the Saviour the same effects that he ascribes to the Incarnation: viz. the making of man like unto God, the forgiveness of sin, and the annihilation of death (Adv. ha;r., II, XX, 3; III, xviii, 8). It was not so much "under the influence of the Graeco-Oriental mysteries of expia- tion" (Harnack) as in close association with Paul and the Mosaic sacrificial ritual, that Origen regarded the death on the Cross in the light of the vicarious sacrifice of expiation. But, since he maintained pref- erentially the Biblical view of the "ran.som and redemption", he was the originator of the one-sided "old patristic theory of the redemption". Inci- dentally ("In Matt., xvi, 8," in P. G., XIII. 1397 sqq.) he makes the rash statement that the ransom rendered on the Cross was paid to the Devil — a view which Gregory of Nyssa later systematized. This statement was, however, repudiated byAdaman- tius ("De recta in Deum fide", I, xxvii, in P. G., XI, 17r)r) sq(j.) as "the height of blasphemous folly" (woWrj p\d(T4)vtJ-oi ifoia), and was positively rejected by (jlregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus. This r(;[)ulsive theory never became general in the Church, although the ifiea of the supposed "rights of the Devil" (erroneously derived from John, xii, 31; xiv, 30; II Cor., iv, 4; II Peter, ii, 19) survived among some ecclesiastical writ(!rs (!ven to the time of B(!(l(! and Peter Lombard. Whatever Origen anfl Gr(!gorv of Nyssa say of our ransom from the Evil Oii(>, they are both cl(!ar in their statements that Christ offeTS the sacrifice of expiation to the Heavenly F'ather and not to the Devil; the redemption from the slavery of the Devil is effected by Christ thrroigh His sacrifice on the Cross. As, according to Har- nack's admission, the idea of vicarious exi)iation "is genuine among the Latins", we may easily dispcoBe
