consolation and aid to all our wants and necessities. Again, their
insinuations that in the mass Christ is not offered must be
altogether rejected, as condemned of old and excluded by the
faithful. For Augustine says this was a very ancient heresy of the
Arians, who denied that in the mass an oblation was made for the
living and the dead. For this is opposed both to the Holy
Scriptures and the entire Church. For through Malachi the Lord
predicted the rejection of the Jews, the call of the Gentiles and
the sacrifice of the evangelical law: "I have no pleasure in you,
he saith, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from
the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my
name shall be gret among the Gentiles, and in every place
incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering." Mal
1:10, 11. But no pure offering has already been offered to God in
every place, except in the sacrifice of the altar of the most pure
Eucharist. This authority St. Augustine and other Catholics have
used in favor of the mass against faithless Jews, and certainly
with Catholic princes it should have greater influence than all
objections of the adversaries. Besides, in speaking of the advent
of the Messiah the same prophet says: "And he shall purify the
sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may
offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the
offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in
the days of old and as in former years," Mal. 3:3, 4. Here in the
spirit the prophet foresaw the sons of Levi - i.e. evangelical
priests, says Jerome - about to offer sacrifices, not in the blood
of goats, but in righteousness, as in the days of old. Hence these
words are repeated by the Church in the canon of the mass under
the influence of the same Spirit under whose influence they were
written by the prophet. The angel also said to Daniel: "Many shall