What the Early Church Believed: The Sacrifice of the Mass

The biblical basis

The first Christians recognized the sacrificial meaning of Jesus' words, "Do this in memory of me" (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25), better rendered "Offer this as my memorial offering." Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly writes that the early Church regarded the Eucharist as the distinctively Christian sacrifice. Christians took Malachi's prophecy (1:10-11) that God would reject Jewish sacrifices and receive a "pure offering" from the Gentiles in every place as a prophecy of the Eucharist. The Didache calls the Eucharist a sacrifice (thusia), and Justin understood "Do this" as "Offer this," with bread and wine offered as a memorial of the Passion.

The witness of the early Church

• The Didache (70): confess your faults before offering the Eucharist so your sacrifice may be pure, and be reconciled first (Matthew 5:23-24); this is the pure sacrifice foretold (Malachi 1:11, 14).
• Pope Clement I (80): it is no small sin to eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly offered its sacrifices.
• Ignatius of Antioch (110): one Eucharist, one Body, one cup, one altar of sacrifice, one bishop.
• Justin Martyr (155): the Gentiles who offer the pure sacrifice of Malachi 1:10-11 are Christians offering the bread and cup of the Eucharist.
• Irenaeus (189): Christ taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant foretold by Malachi.
• Cyprian (253): Christ offered himself and commanded this be done in his memory, so the priest who imitates him functions in Christ's place.
• Serapion (350): "to you we offer this living sacrifice, this unbloody oblation."
• Cyril of Jerusalem (350): the Spirit makes the bread and wine Christ's Body and Blood; over that propitiatory victim we pray for the Church, the world, and all in need.
• Gregory Nazianzen (383): the priest, with his voice for a sword, in an unbloody cutting cuts the Body and Blood of the Lord.
• Ambrose (389): though Christ is not seen offering, he himself is offered in sacrifice when his body is offered.
• John Chrysostom (387–403): the Lord lies immolated on the altar. God changed the sacrifice from beasts to the offering of himself. We offer daily in remembrance of his death, yet it is one sacrifice, not many, as Christ is one everywhere, complete here and there.
• Augustine (412, 419): Christ is immolated in the sacrament every day; the sacrifice of the priest after the order of Melchizedek, his body and blood, has succeeded all Old Testament sacrifices (cf. Ecclesiastes 2:24).
• Sechnall (444): Patrick daily offered worthy sacrifices to God for the Irish.
• Fulgentius of Ruspe (524): the Catholic Church throughout the world never ceases to offer a sacrifice of bread and wine.