Question II: What is required that a sacrifice be right

D. BONAVENTURE on Luke 2 says that at the Presentation of the Lord four persons made an offering: Ioseph, Mary, Simon, and Anna, because the soul that wishes to offer a true Sacrifice to God must have the company of the four Cardinal Virtues. By Simon, whose name means Hearing, Prudence is understood. The wise man that hears will be wiser. Prov. 1. By Anna, whose name means Grace, Temperance is understood: It is better to establish the heart with grace than with meats. Heb. 13. By Ioseph the just man, Justice is understood; and Ioseph means increase: 2 Corinth. 9: He will multiply your seed, and increase the growths of the fruits of your justice. By Mary, who is called Mistress, Fortitude is understood: Proverb. 16: Better is the patient man than the strong.

A Sacrifice, that is, something sacred to God, can certainly be vitiated by some evil circumstance; thus even the vow of Jephte, to sacrifice the first who met him from his house, is called a sacrifice, and yet it was perverse, as D. Bonav. teaches in 4. dist. 38. quaest. 2. ex D. August. super Iud. cap. 49. et qu. veter. testam. cap. 43, where he says that he was foolish in vowing and impious in paying.

First, it is necessary that the sacrifice be instituted by God, either by internal instinct, as were the sacrifices used by the Patriarchs in the Law of nature; or by a special command, as D. Bonav. teaches in 4. dist. 1. p. 2. quaest. 5; and all the more was this inherent in those sacrifices because they were in memory of the Redeemer to come, in whose faith they had their virtue. Therefore, for sacrifices to please God, they must be conformed to the will of God; and this we cannot know except by the right dictate of nature or by revelation.

Second, on the part of the offerer it is required that he be such as the Divine institution requires. Hence in ancient times sacrifices could not be offered except by persons dedicated to Divine worship. Whence in 1 Reg. 13 Saul is most gravely reprehended because he sacrificed, even though compelled by necessity. Therefore also in chapter 15 it is said: Obedience is better than victims, as the holy Doctor observes in Dicta, tit. 3. cap. 1.

From these things it follows that sacrifice is to be offered to the one true God alone, as D. Augustine says lib. 10. de civit. cap. 14.

Moreover, for the perfection of the sacrifice the same conditions are required as for prayer, of which we have spoken in disp. 3. quaest. 5. et 10. and the following.