it was conceived as the offering of
the heart and of obedience, as well as the consecration of the whole
personality, body and soul (Rom XIII. 1) to God.[272] Here, with a
change of the figure, the individual Christian and the whole community
were described as a temple of God.[273] In a more special sense, prayer
as thanksgiving and intercession,[274] was regarded as the sacrifice
which was to be accompanied, without constraint or ceremony, by fasts
and acts of compassionate love.[275] Finally, prayers offered by the
worshipper in the public worship of the community, and the gifts brought
by them, out of which were taken the elements for the Lord's supper, and
which were used partly in the common meal, and partly in support of the
poor, were regarded as sacrifice in the most special sense ([Greek:
prosphora, dora]).[276] For the following period, however, it became of
the utmost importance, (1) that the idea of sacrifice ruled the whole
worship, (2) that it appeared in a special manner in the celebration of
the Lord's supper, and consequently invested that ordinance with a new
meaning, (3) that the support of the poor, alms, especially such alms as
had been gained by prayer and fasting, was placed under the category of
sacrifice (Heb. XIII. 16), for this furnished the occasion for giving
the widest application to the idea of sacrifice, and thereby
substituting for the original Semitic Old Testament idea of sacrifice
with its spiritual interpretation, the Greek idea with its
interpretation.[277] It may, however, be maintained that the changes
imposed on the Christian religion by Catholicism, are at no point so
obvious and far-reaching, as in that of sacrifice, and especially in the
solemn ordinance of the Lord's supper, which was placed in such close
connection with the idea of sacrifice.

2. When in the "Teaching of the Apostles," which may be regarded here as
a classic document, the discipline of life in accordance with the words
of the Lord, Baptism, the order of fasting and prayer, especially the
regular use of the Lord's prayer, and the Eucharist are reckoned the
articles on which the Christian community rests, and when the common
Sunday offering of a sacrifice made pure by a brotherly disposition, and
the mutual exercise of discipline are represented as decisive for the
stability of the individual community,[278] we perceive that the general
idea of a pure spiritual worship of God has nevertheless been realised
in