„ „ .. . covered over with Various Altars. 1, 2. 1-^vptian, from .
bass-reliefs (Rossellini). '3. Assyrian, maglc formulas or found at Khorsabad (Layard). 4. cuneiform inscrip- Babylonian, Biblintheque Rationale flons This is also (Layard). 5. Assyrian, from Khorsa- . , '. . "c
bad (Layard). tlle A lew oi ^esc-
nius and Maurer. (2.) The Assyro-Damascene altar erected by Ahaz for his own use (2 Kings xvi, 10-13). See Ahaz. It probably resembled one of those in the annexed cut. — Winer, i, 49, 194 sq. ; ii, 303 ; Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. v. III. Christian. — 1. Significance. — The word altar is used, figuratively, to denote the Lord's table, not, how- ever, in a sacrificial sense. As there is but the one sac- rificing priest, the Lord Jesus, and the one propitiatory sacrifice, namely, the sacrifice of himself, so there is but the one altar, that upon which he gave himself a ransom for all. The apostles in no instance call the bread and wine a sacrifice, or the Lord's table an al- t ir, or the Christian minister a priest. And this is the more remarkable in this case ; for they do speak of priests, and sacrifices, and altars under the Chris- tun dispensation, but never in reference to the Lord's Supper. There cannot but have been design in this omission. In the earliest age of Christianity the table was not called altar (Lardner, Works, iv, 212) at a later period both altar and table were used in differently, the former word, however, not in a Jew- ish or pagan sense. When the ancient apologists were reproached with havin ; no temples, no altars,
was table, with the addition of some epithet imply- ing the peculiar use of it in a Christian church. In Chrysostom it is termed the mystical and tremen- dous table ; sometimes the spiritual, divine, royal, immortal, heavenly table. Wherever the word altar was used, it was carefully distinguished from the Jewish altar on which bloody sacrifices were laid, and from heathen altars, connected with absurd idolatries. The Church of England never uses the word " al- tar" for communion-table in her rubrics, and she carefully excludes the notion of a literal sacrifice, which altar would imply, by expressly referring in her communion -service to the sacrifice of Christ ("who, by his one oblation of himself once ottered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world") ; and by studiously intro- ducing into the same service the word " sacrifice" in the several figurative senses (warranted by Scrip- ture) which it will bear ; applying the word to our alms, to our offering of [ raise and thanksgiving, to the offering of ourselves, souls and bodies, but never applying it to the elements. That the English re- formers wished to discountenance the notion of al- tars, and sacrifices thereon, appears from the fact that at- the Reformation altars were ordered hence- forth to be called tables, in consequence of a sermon preached by Bishop Hooper, who said, "that it would do well, that it might please the magistrate to turn 'altars' into 'tables,' according to the first insti- tution of Christ ; to take away the false persuasion of the people, which they have of sacrifice to be done upon the altars; for as long as altars remain, both the ignorant people and the ignorant and evil-per- suaded priest will always dream of sacrifice" {Hoop- er's Writings, Parker Society, p. 488 ; Burnet, Hist, of Reformation, ii, 252, 253). Other Protestant Church- es, in particular the Lutheran, have retained the use of' an altar, at which the Liturgy is read, the Lord's Supper celebrated, and other ecclesiastical actions per- formed.
2. Material and Form. — In the time of Augustine it appears that the altars in the churches of Africa were of wood, and it is commonly thought that stone altars began to be used about the time of Constantine. In the time of Gregory Nyssen altars began to be made generally of stone ; and the twenty-sixth canon of the council of Epaone, A.D. 517, forbids to conse- crate any but a stone altar; from which and other evidence (see Martene, lib. i, cap. iii, art. 6, No. 5) it appears that wooden altars were in use in Erance till that and a much later period. In England wooden altars were originally in common use (William of Malmesbury, iii, 14, Be Vita Wulstani, Ep. Wigorn. : " Erant tunc temporis altaria lignea, jam inde h pris- cis diebus in Anglia, ca ille per dicecesin demolitus, ex lapidibus compaginavit alia"). At the English Reformation stone altars were removed and wooden taldes substituted. The eighty-second canon of the synod of London, 1G03, orders that a convenient and decent table shall be provided for the celebration of the holy communion, covered with a carpet of silk, or other decent stuff, and with a fair linen cloth at the time of communion. As to its position, the rubric be- fore the communion-service states that it may stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel.
Altars in the Romish Church are built of stone, to represent Christ, the foundation-stone of the spiritual building, the Church. Every altar has three steps going up to it, covered with a carpet. It is decked with natural and artificial flowers, according to the season of the year, and no cost is spared in adorning it with gold, silver, and jewels. The tabernacle of the Holy Sacrament is placed on the holy altar, on each side* of which are tapers of white wax, except at all offices for the dead, and during the last three days of Passion-week, at which time they are yellow. A cruci-