Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Ethical/On Prayer/Of the Spiritual Victim

Chapter XXVIII.&#8212;Of the Spiritual Victim, Which Prayer is.

For this is the spiritual victim which has abolished the pristine sacrifices.&#160; &#8220;To what purpose,&#8221; saith He, &#8220;(bring ye) me the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of holocausts of rams, and I desire not the fat of rams, and the blood of bulls and of goats. For who hath required these from your hands?&#8221; What, then, God has required the Gospel teaches.&#160; &#8220;An hour will come,&#8221; saith He, &#8220;when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and truth. For God is a Spirit, and accordingly requires His adorers to be such.&#8221; We are the true adorers and the true priests, who, praying in spirit, sacrifice, in spirit, prayer,&#8212;a victim proper and acceptable to God, which assuredly He has required, which He has looked forward to for Himself! This victim, devoted from the whole heart, fed on faith, tended by truth, entire in innocence, pure in chastity, garlanded with love, we ought to escort with the pomp of good works, amid psalms and hymns, unto God&#8217;s altar, to obtain for us all things from God.