Photios I of Constantinople

This is spoken to those who would still be at a loss, asking, “How do you say, ‘you have an altar’? For what was offered on it?” It is Christ himself whom you neglect above and below and fail to see that he was sacrificed, since his sacrifice and offering took place for the world, although he himself has not been sacrificed on your altar. For it is manifest that “he suffered outside” the city of Jerusalem. Therefore he says to them, “Yes, he suffered outside, but through this very fact it has rather been accomplished that ‘we have an altar.’ For even among you ‘the bodies’ of the sacrificial victims ‘are burned’ not on the altars themselves, but ‘outside the camp.’ And still for this reason ‘he suffered outside the gate,’ so that he might sanctify all and not merely the priests. And if the sacrifice took place for all, how could it not have been an altar?” But the statement “in order to sanctify the people” gives a different interpretation. He says, “I said that ‘those serving the temple do not have authority to eat’ from our altar, not because this is impossible for them, but because in their opinion they reject themselves as unworthy, since—due to the mercy of Christ—not only is it not forbidden, but for this very reason he once suffered.” He says, “ ‘He suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people,’ not this people or that one but all the people and to grant them to have the authority to eat also from this altar.”