The Living Sacrifice

'Obsecro itaque vos, fratres, per misericordiam Dei, ut exhibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventiam, sanctam, Deo placentem, rationabile, obsequium vestrum. Et nolite confimari huic saeculo: sed reformamini rennovatione sensus vestri: ut probetis quae sit voluntas Dei, quod bonum, et beneplacitum, et perfectum Quoniam, inquit, ostendimus a sacrificiis carnalibus recedendum, secundum quod et Propheta dicit: Hostias et oblationem noluisti, nec placita sunt tibi : nunc, ait, doceo vos quibus hostiis delectetur Deus: et haec doceo non quasi imperans, nihil enim proficit legis imperium, sed quasi qui officium susceperim reconciliandi vos Deo, osbsecro vos, fratres; et obsecro non per potentiam, sed per misericordiam Dei. Quia enim, sicut supra ostendi omnes conclusi sunt sub peccato,  nunc iam non in meritis, sed in misericordia Dei salus humana consistit. Quid autem est quod vos obsecro? Ut exhibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventem, santam, Deo placentem, ut sit rationabile obsequium vestrum. Obsequium hic cultum Dei dicit. Qui cultus quoniam dudum in pecudum mutorum corporibus consistebat, nunc, inquit, in corpore rationabilis hominis offeratur, et corpora magis vestra quam  pecudum fiant sacrificiorum quae in Levitico lata est secundum spiritalem intelligiam complent. Verbi causa, ut ibi offerebant vitulum primo loco, vel secundo arietem, aut tertio hircum, aut quarto turtures, vel etiam pullos columbarum, ut in his uniuscujusque anima purificaretur pro qualitate gestorum; haec nunc in suo corpore unusquisque purificans, et spiritali sensu discernens, rationabili obsequio viventem hostiam offert Deo. De quibus singulis, cum in librum Levitici aliqua diceremus, pro viribus explanare tentavimus quomodo unusquisque rationabili obsequio cultus Dei, si superbiam corporis sui vincat, immolet vitulum; si iracunduam superet, arietem jugulet; si libidinem vincat, holocaustum offerat hircum; si vagos et lubricos cogitationum resecet volatus, columbas et turtures immolet. Origenes, Commentarium in Epistolam Ad Romanos, Liber IX, Interprete Rufino Aquileiense

'I beg you, brothers, through the mercy of God, that you show your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy , pleasing to God, and a reasonable offering. And do not conform to this age: but be remade in  the renewal of your mind that you might discover what is the will of God, what is good, and pleasing, and perfect.'1   Because, he said, we are shown that we must withdraw from carnal sacrifice, when the Prophet says 'Sacrifices and oblations You did not want nor are they pleasing to You,' 2 now, he says, I shall teach you what sacrifices delight God: and I teach not like one who commands, for the rule of the law profits not, but as one who has taken up this office for reconciliation with God, and I beseech not through power, but through the mercy of God. Because indeed, as we have said before, everyone has been bound up within sin, 3 and so man's salvation is brought about not by his own merit but by the mercy of God. And what is this I ask? That you show your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, a reasonable offering. Here he speaks of worship as being an offering to God. That worship then which a little time ago consisted in the changeable bodies of cattle, now, he says, shall be offered with reason by the body of man, and so let your body, not beasts, be brought to sacrifice, that one may have a spiritual understanding of Leviticus. By the word, we offer there in first place flesh, or as second a ram, or third a goat, or fourth turtle doves, or even doves, that the soul may be purified by the quality of deeds, these things now purifying the body, discerned with spiritual sense, offered humbly as a reasonable sacrifice to God. Concerning these things we have mentioned from the book of Leviticus we shall try to explain how each one may be a rational offering for the worship of God. If  a man would conquer pride of body he sacrifices flesh; if anger he would overcome, he chooses a ram, if lust he would defeat he offers a holocaust of goats, if he would fly from wandering and slippery thoughts, he sacrifices doves and turtle doves. Origen, Commentary on Romans, Book 9, Translated by Rufinus of Aquileia. 1 Rom 12 -1-2 2 Ps 39.7 3 Rom 11.32