Texts in conversation

Compare Didache 14:3 and Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.17.5

Early Christian

Summary

The Didache, an early church manual, connects the Christian Eucharist to Malachi's prophecy of a pure sacrifice offered everywhere. The Christian theologian Irenaeus interprets Malachi the same way, following a common interpretive tradition.

Passages

Didache 14:3

Early Christian

1 On the Lord's Day, gather together, break bread, and hold the Eucharist, after confessing your sins, so that your offering may be pure. 2 But let no one who is in conflict with another person join your gathering until they are reconciled, so that your sacrifice is not tainted. 3 For this is what the Lord said: 'In every place and time, offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great king, and my name is held in awe among the nations.'

90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.17.5

Early Christian

5 Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of His own, created things — not as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither unfruitful nor ungrateful — He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, This is My body. And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve prophets, thus spoke beforehand: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, unto the going down [of the same], My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Omnipotent — indicating in the plainest manner, by these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure one; and His name is glorified among the Gentiles.

175–190 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book 4

References

“... The timing is for Sunday (although some have wanted to make the rather strange turn of phrase refer only to Easter). The requirement for prior confession of sin may derive from Leviticus 5:5–6, while the requirement for reconciliation within the fellowship certainly comes from the saying of Jesus recorded at Matthew 5:23–24 (a text frequently evoked later in connection with the Eucharist, e.g. by Irenaeus Haer. 4.18.1, and by Cyril of Jerusalem Myst. Cat. 5.3). The application of Malachi 1:11 concerning the “pure sacrifice” will be repeated in Justin (Dial. Tryph. 41; cf. 117) and Irenaeus (Haer. 4.17.5), and it will become a commonplace that the Eucharist is to be offered “always and everywhere” (semper et ubique). ...”

Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 1010.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Confession and Reconciliation on the Lord’s Day

Didache16 chapters

Compare Didache 14:3 and Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.17.5

Summary

Passages

Didache 14:3

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.17.5

References

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