Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/462

436 in need of it, but rendering thanks for His gift, and thus sanctifying what has been created. For even as God does not need our possessions, so do we need to offer something to God; as Solomon says: "He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord." For God, who stands in need of nothing, takes our good works to Himself for this purpose, that He may grant us a recompense of His own good things, as our Lord says: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and ye visited me; in prison, and ye came to me." As, therefore, He does not stand in need of these [services], yet does desire that we should render them for our own benefit, lest we be unfruitful; so did the Word give to the people that very precept as to the making of oblations, although He stood in no need of them, that they might learn to serve God: thus is it, therefore, also His will that we, too, should offer a gift at the altar, frequently and without intermission. The altar, then, is in heaven (for towards that place are our prayers and oblations directed); the temple likewise [is there], as John says in the Apocalypse, "And the temple of God was opened;" the tabernacle also: "For, behold," He says, "the tabernacle of God, in which He will dwell with men."

1. Now the gifts, oblations, and all the sacrifices, did the people receive in a figure, as was shown to Moses in the mount, from one and the same God, whose name is now glorified in the church among all nations. But it is con-