Melchizedek's unbloody offering of bread and wine. The sacrifice of Melchizedek is therefore made of great account by Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysos- tom, and other church fathers, on the strength of the well- known parallel in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 4. The subject of the sacrifice is the body of Jesus Christ, which is as truly present on the altar of the church, as it once was on the altar of the cross, and which now offers itself to God through his priest. Hence the frequent language of the liturgies : " Thou art he who offerest, and w^ho art offered, O Christ, our God." Augustine, however, connects with this, as we have already said, the true and important moral idea of the self-sacrifice of the whole redeemed chm*ch to God. The prayers of the liturgies do the same.* 5. The offering of the sacrifice is the exclusive prerogative of the Christian priest. Later Koman divines take the words : " This do {TToieiTe) in remembrance of me," as equivalent to : "This offer,^'' and limit this command to the apostles and their successors in oflice, whereas it is evidently an exhortation to all * De sacerd. iii. c. 4 (torn. i. 46*7): "Qrav IfSjjs rhv Kvpiov Te^v/ifvov ku.\ Ktinevov, Kol Tov Ifpea i<pi(jriiiTa tw bv/xaTi, Koi eirevx^M'^i'oi', k.t.A. Homil. XV. ad Popul. Antioch. c. 5 (torn. ii. p. 18Y): "EvSia 6 Xpiarhs Kurai re^vnevos. Comp. Horn, in torn. ii. p. 394, where it is said of the sacrifice of the Eucharist: ®u(fia irpoaipxv ippiKrij Ka\ a7i(^ ' i(r<payixfvos irpoKeiTat 6 XpiffTos. ^ Freeman regards this as the main thing in the old liturgies. " In all liturgies," says he, 1. c. p. 190, " the Church has manifestly two distinct though closely con- nected objects in view. The first is, to offer herself in Christ to God ; or rather, in strictness and as the highest conception of her aim, to procure that she may he offer- ed by Christ Himself, and as in Christ, to the Father. And the second object, as the crowning and completing feature of the rite, and woven up with the other in one unbroken chain of service, is to obtain communion through Christ with God ; or, more precisely again, that Christ may Himself give her, through Himself, such com- niunion.'''' § 96. THE SACKIFICE OF THE EUCHAKIST. 509 believers to the commemoration of the atoning death, the commuiiio sacrarnciiti, and not to the immolatio sacrijicii. 0. Tlie sacrifice is ethcaeious for the whole body of the church, including its departed members, in procuring the gifts which are implored in the prayers of the service. All the old liturgies proceed under a conviction of the un- broken communion of saints, and contain commemorations and intercessions for the departed fathers and bi'ethren, who are conceived to be, not in purgator\^, but in communion with God and in a condition of progressive holiness and blessedness, lookhig forward in pious longing