To this topic that also is applicable which is read,
according to the new translation, in Acts 13:1, 2: Barnabas, Simeon,
Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen and Saul sacrificed--i.e. they offered an
oblation, which can and ought justly to be understood not of an oblation
made to idols, but of the mass, since it is called by the Greeks
liturgy. And that in the primitive Church the mass was a sacrifice
the holy fathers copiously testify, and they support this opinion. For
Ignatius, a pupil of St. John the Apostle, says: "It is not allowable
without a bishop either to offer a sacrifice or to celebrate masses."
And Irenaeus, a pupil of John, clearly testifies that "Christ taught the
new oblation of the New Testament, which the Church, receiving from
the apostles, offers to God throughout the entire world." This bishop,
bordering upon the times of the apostles, testifies that the new
evangelical sacrifice was offered throughout the entire world. Origin,
Cyprian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, Basil, Hilary, etc., teach and
testify the same, whose words for brevity's sake are omitted. Since,
therefore, the Catholic Church throughout the entire Christian world
has always taught, held and observed as it today holds and observes, the
same ought today to be held and observed inviolably. Nor does St. Paul
in Hebrews oppose the oblation of the mass when he says that by one
offering we have once been justified through Christ. For St. Paul is
speaking of the offering of a victim--i.e. of a bloody sacrifice, of
a lamb slain, viz. upon the cross--which offering was indeed once made
whereby all sacraments, and even the sacrifice of the mass, have
their efficacy. Therefore he was offered but once with the shedding of
blood--viz. upon the cross; today he is offered in the mass as a peace
making and sacramental victim. Then he was offered in a visible
form capable of suffering; today he is offered in the mass veiled in
mysteries, incapable of suffering, just as in the Old Testament he was
sacrificed typically and under a figure. Finally, the force of the
word shows that the mass is a sacrifice, since "mass" is nothing but
"oblation," and has received its name from the Hebrew word misbeach,
altar--in Greek thysiasterion, on account of the oblation. It has been
sufficiently declared above that we are justified not properly by faith,
but by love. But if any such statement be found in the Holy Scriptures,
Catholics know that it is declared concerning fides formata, which works
by love (Gal. 5), and because justification is begun by faith, because
it is the substance of things hoped for. Heb. 11:1. Neither is it denied
that the mass is a memorial of Christ's passion and God's benefits,
since this is approved b the figure of the paschal lamb, that was at the
same time a victim and a memorial, Ex. 12:13, 14, and is represented not
only by the Word and sacraments, but also by holy postures and vestments
in the Catholic Church; but to the memory of the victim the Church
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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