The Spiritual Sacrifice and the Fulfillment of Scripture

Regarding number. You know that if we do not conceive something as necessary and do not desire to report it to another, how can we ever say 'thus and thus', when we know that we have not sat down to say what we intended? And this one therefore says: 'I have reported and I have spoken'. Since none of your thoughts is like 'I have reported and I have spoken'. It can also be taken this way: 'I have reported' according to the intention, according to the thought, and 'I have spoken' perceptibly according to the utterance; for first it is necessary to conceive, then thus to speak.

Regarding the statement 'They were increased beyond number' —these thoughts, which no one can match.e can match. You did not desire sacrifice and offering. Therefore he says: 'He brought me up out of the pit of misery and out of the mire of filth, having set my feet upon a rock, having directed my steps' (Ps 40:2). How much it was necessary to sacrifice and to offer as a burnt offering to God regarding these Christological words and the even greater benefits! But you did not desire the perceptible burnt offerings, the bodily sacrifices from the slaughter of animals and others, the shadowy ones. 'A body he has prepared for me' (Ps 40:6). Instead of these, the apostle has interpreted that this body is the logical and bloodless sacrifice. When therefore a greater sacrifice is found, then he no longer wants the former; they are no longer desired by him.

Let not the words of the Diimorites trouble you; for they say: 'Do you see that it is a body'? —for the one saying 'a body he has prepared for me', this he says as 'only'; for even one having a perfect man has a body, but not only. And I said the psalm was one-personed from the beginning; for from the beginning to the end the same speaking person has entered. Just as he said here: 'but a body he has prepared for me', and in the following he says: 'those seeking my soul, let them seek it'. Behold, he has a soul also, behold, he has a body also.

And since the passage refers to perceptible sacrifices superseded by the Spirit, he spoke of the new sacrifice. It is not the soul that becomes the sacrifice according to this meaning, but the body. And it is also good that it is not 'he prepared', but himself 'he has prepared', 'the Holy Spirit having come upon' Mary 'and the power of the Most High having overshadowed her' (Lk 1:35). Because of this, you no longer desired those sacrifices and offerings, since 'a body he has prepared for me' which is to be offered on behalf of all. And this can be said: because of this, he th...

You did not desire a physical sacrifice and offering, since I have prepared for us a body, which we are able to perform as a sacred rite and sacrifice to you; 'I urge you through mercies to present your bodies as a logical sacrifice' (Rom 12:1). In other interpretations it is said: 'And you have prepared ears for me.' One interpreter says this: since you did not desire a sensory sacrifice and offering, 'you have prepared ears for me,' through which I hear those things concerning the things made manifest by the sensory, such as the intellectual sacrifice of understanding: 'sacrifice to God a sacrifice of understanding.' Furthermore, if you call me to a lecture, you no longer seek sensory things being performed, so that what is said might be like: 'The Lord's instruction opens my ears' (Ps 119:16). An unmusical man does not have ears for hearing musical words.

And another of the interpreters said: 'You have dug out ears for me,' since you removed their dullness, you removed that which obstructs hearing. Furthermore: regarding Jesus, how do we receive him? —I said that the 196 allegories are not smoothed out to match the histories. And often I omitted the matter of Abraham and the two women. I said to you that the soul of Jesus is not an unshakeable essence. It is of the same kind as the others, and everything it has that is good, it has from the Word of God. Since therefore it also has the ability to hear well, it has that from the Savior. It surpasses the temple in which it is housed.

7 You did not seek burnt offerings and things concerning sin. Nor did you seek, nor did you still delight in the things of the shadow. 'What multitude of your sacrifices to me is there? I am full. I do not want the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of lambs' (Ps 50:6). 8 Then he said: 'Behold, I have come' (Isa 6:8). Then I, for whom a body was prepared, said: 'Behold, I have come,' instead of saying: since the purpose of his coming is this, to receive the end of the shadow, so that sacrifices and burnt offerings are no longer brought, I have come, in order to fulfill the sacrifice by becoming a burnt offering.

8 It has been written in a heading of a book concerning me. The heading of a book is called 'all inspired Scripture'; for the main point of the Scripture is the life rule of life concerning Christ. According to a second account, let it also be said concerning others; for if the coming were not about to happen, the old writings would not have prefigured the Gospel. Furthermore: was this written during the Pentateuch? —He says every Scripture is a book, whose heading is the end for which the writings are given, which is salvation, the coming. Furthermore: the Genesis...