When, however, we come back to the second passage I have translated, we find one clause(410) in which there is a various reading, where those which are acknowledged to be the best MSS. speak of the Word (i. e. the personal Word, Jesus Christ regarded especially in his divine nature,) as _offered to God_ in the Eucharist, and the Jews are affirmed to be incapable of offering the oblation in it because they did not receive him. Now it is no doubt possible that Irenæus may have intended to speak of a spiritual offering up of our Lord with the oblation, i. e. of an offering of it in and through him; but that is all that can be implied, for there is no hint whatever of the repetition of the sacrifice of atonement for the remission of sins. The _only_ offering is before the invocation of the Holy Ghost; and it is only after that invocation that the elements are to be regarded as the body and blood of Christ, capable of communicating remission of sins. If, therefore, according to him, there is any offering up of our Lord, it must be _with_ the oblation of the material elements, to render that thank‐offering acceptable. But there is another reading(411) which is more consonant with other passages, and therefore probably to be preferred; viz. that which represents “the Word” as the Mediator or Propitiation _through_ whom the oblation is made. We have that idea distinctly expressed in a former passage(412), in which he speaks, in reference to this very text of Malachi, of the Church as offering _through_ Jesus Christ; and it is implied in the Fragment, in which he speaks of our offering these things “_with remembrance_ (ἐν τῇ ἀναμνήσει) of the Lord(413).” But whichever reading we take, there is no foundation for the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice of Christ under the figure and appearance of the consecrated elements.