One Sacrifice. (Homilies on Epistle to the Hebrews, Xvii.)19
Tell me what need was there of having many sacrifices when one is sufficient? That there being many which were constantly offered might show their inefficacy for purification. Just as a powerful remedy, which is productive of health and able to remove all the malady, does everything by one application, and when this one application does everything, it shows its strength in not being applied again; and this is also its work, for if it be always used it is a sign that it has no efficacy. The merit of a remedy consists in being applied once and not often. And so it is here. Why, then, are they always cured by the same sacrifices? If they had been free from all sin, sacrifices would not have been offered up every day. Therefore, they were fixed things, so as to be invariably offered up for all the people both in the evening and in the morning. Thus, it was a confession of sins, not a remission of sins; a confession of weakness, not a manifestation of strength. Since the first sacrifice availed nothing the second was offered up, and that also proving ineffectual another followed, so that it was an acknowledgment of guilt. On the one hand, the act of offering was a confession of sin, and the ever-recurring offering was a confession of weakness. Now, with Christ it was the contrary. He was once offered up, and His one oblation sufficed for all time. He expressed it well by calling them images, for they present the figure only and not the strength of the reality. Just as an image represents the likeness of a man but not his power, so the truth and the figure have something in common with each other. The likeness is the same but not the living power. So it was in the matter of heaven and the tabernacle. The figure was equal, for it was holy; but the power and the other qualities were not the same. What is the meaning of He hath appeared for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself? What is the putting away? Contempt; for sin has no longer any assurance. It has been put away. How? Whereas it should have paid a penalty it did not, that is, force was put upon it; for just when it was likely to destroy all men it was itself taken away. He hath been made manifest, he says, by the sacrifice of Himself; that is, He was manifested to God and went to God. Now, because the priest did this many times in the year, do not think that this has taken place by chance and not through weakness. If not through weakness, why then did it take place? If there are no wounds, then neither are remedies necessary. Therefore, He enjoined that the sacrifice should be always offered up on account of weakness, and that it should take place as a commemoration of sins. What then? Do we not offer up sacrifice day by day? We do indeed, but we commemorate His death. This sacrifice is one, not many. How one and not many? Because it was once offered up, just as that one sacrifice in the holy of holies. This is a type of that, and that of the other. We are ever offering up the same Person. Not one sheep to-day and another to-morrow, but ever the same sheep, so that the sacrifice is one. Now, in virtue of this argument, since the sacrifice is offered up in many places, are there many Christs? By no means, but there is everywhere one Christ, as perfect in one place as in another, one body. Therefore, as He Who is offered up in many places is one Body and not many bodies, so is it one Sacrifice. He is our High Priest Who offered up the sacrifice which purifies us. This is that which now also we offer up; the One then offered up, the Inconsumable. This is done in commemoration of what was then done, for He says, This do in commemoration of Me. We are ever offering not another sacrifice, as the high priest then did, but always the same; or rather we make a commemoration of a sacrifice. And since I have spoken of this sacrifice, I would say a few things to you who are initiated, a few things in volume though possessing great power and help. What we speak is not ours but the Divine Spirit’s. What, then, is it? Many partake of this sacrifice once in the whole year, some twice, some often. Now, we speak to all, not only to those who are here, but to those who dwell in the desert. For they receive once a year, often, indeed, once in two years. Well, then, whom shall we prefer? Those who receive once, or those who receive twice, or those who receive often? Neither those who receive once, nor those who receive often, nor those who receive seldom, but those who receive with a pure conscience, and an undefiled heart, and an irreproachable life. Let such as these ever approach, and those who are not so not even once. Why? Because they take judgment to themselves, and condemnation, and chastisement, and penalty. Wonder not at this. For just as food, which by its nature is nourishing, if taken by a diseased stomach, destroys and withers up everything and prepares disease, so is it with this case of the tremendous mysteries. You are partaking of a spiritual table, of a royal table, and do you again fill your mouth with mud? You use perfumes, and do you again fill yourself with ill odours? Tell me, I beseech you, if you receive communion once a year, will forty days suffice you for the atonement of your sins during all that time? Again, at the end of a week perhaps, you return to your former ways. Now, tell me, if you were to enjoy good health for forty days after a long illness, and then were to go back to unwholesome food productive of disease, would you not waste your trouble? Evidently you would. If physical things are so changed, how much more those which belong to the will. Thus for instance, we see by nature, and we have naturally a healthy sight. But often our eyes fail from disease. If, therefore, natural things are so mutable, how much more that which is a matter of free-will! You give up forty days to the care of your soul’s health, often not even that, and you think to have appeased God? You are trifling, man! I say this, not forbidding you the one communion in the year, but wishing rather that you should always approach the holy things. So it is that the deacon raises his voice to call the holy, and, in doing this, scrutinises all, so that no one should approach unprepared. As with a flock of sheep, where many of them are sound and many are diseased, these latter have to be separated from the sound ones, so is it in the Church. Since here, too, some sheep are sound and some diseased, through this cry which is everywhere heard, this most awful voice, the priest separates the one from the other, invites and urges the holy to approach. As, however, man cannot know his fellow-man—for what man has known that which is in man, if not the spirit of man that is in him?—this cry he raises after the sacrifice is completed, so that no one should approach the spiritual fountain negligently or as if by chance. In the case of the flock—for there is no reason why we should not again make use of the same illustration—we shut up the sick ones within the fold, and keep them in a dark place, and give them different food. We allow them neither fresh air, nor pure grass, nor water in the open. Hence that voice is instead of a chain. You will not be able to say, ‘I was in ignorance of any danger following upon this act’. We have, too, the special witness of Paul in the matter. But you say, perhaps, ‘I have not read about it’. This is an accusation rather than an excuse. You are coming into the church every day and still do not know these things.