Providential Romans

[Kendall K. Down]

In his second oration, Eusebius offers "proofs" for the resurrection of
Jesus, but so far those "proofs" are rather unsatisfactory. His chief
evidence appears to be that 1) God raised up the Roman empire to provide
word-wide peace and safety, under which the Christian message could
spread, and 2) that the message has, in fact spread.

He rather makes a point of contrasting the Christian religion, which is
spiritual, with the gross sacrifices of heathenism, which require the
killing and immolating of animals - and of humans!

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Who else but our Saviour has taught His followers to offer those
bloodless and reasonable sacrifices which are performed by prayer
and the secret worship of God? Hence is it that throughout the habitable
world altars are erected, and churches dedicated, wherein these
spiritual and rational sacrifices are offered as a sacred service by
every nation to the One Supreme God. Once more, who but He, with
invisible and secret power, has suppressed and utterly abolished those
bloody sacrifices which were offered with fire and smoke, as well as the
cruel and senseless immolation of human victims; a fact which is
attested by the heathen historians themselves? For it was not till after
the publication of the Saviour's Divine doctrine, about the time of
Hadrian's reign, that the practice of human sacrifice was universally
abandoned.
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That the Romans themselves offered human sacrifices I already knew from
Livy, who mentions how a youth and a virgin were buried alive in the
forum when the state was facing a particular emergency, but he seems to
regard that as an unfortunate aberration. I presume, therefore, that it
was non-Roman nations which offered the human sacrifices which were only
finally abandoned in the time of Hadrian.

The second point is Eusebius' emphasis on "bloodless and reasonable"
sacrifices, which involve prayer and inner worship. It may be that he
was merely contrasting Christian worship with animal sacrifice, but
nonetheless the reference to "bloodless" does call into question any
idea that the Eucharist is an offering of Jesus body and blood
(tranmuted bread and wine).

Nevertheless, one can see how Eusebius' language could easily give rise
to the idea that the Eucharist was "a sacrifice" and from there to
speculating about exactly what was sacrificed and offered is but a short
step.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down