They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them like the bread of mourners; all that eat of it shall be defiled: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.
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Cyprian of Carthage
AD 258
Let not the people flatter themselves as if they could be safe from contagion of sin, communicating with a sinful priest and yielding their obedience to the unjust and unlawful episcopacy of their leader, when the divine censure threatens through the prophet Hosea and says, “Their sacrifices shall be like the bread of mourning: all who eat them shall be defiled.” [This] teaching obviously [shows] that all are indeed involved in sin who have been contaminated by the sacrifice of a blasphemous and unjust priest.
Having collected the fruit of the vine into the winevats, they offered the firstlings as a libation to the demons, and not to the God who gave them. They also offered loaves of bread as firstfruits of the harvest—except that the sacrifice will become for them defiled and impure, he says, and the offerings will be considered as mourning breads (that is, disgusting, impure and odious). For what reason? For the law considered unclean anyone who approached a dead body either by blood relationship or rather by the very touching of the body. Therefore it was easy for the relatives or friends of the dead person to become unclean during mourning, since they handled the dead body and since they were willing to do for him what was customary. And whatever they touched became unclean. Therefore the mourning bread is that bread which was at hand as food for those who were mourning for the dead; for those who strive to avoid contamination with a dead body it is considered terrible even to taste this...
Wine. They shall be at a distance from the temple, and in a country where the wine will not be deemed pure. The Jews will drink none which they have not made; and they usually lift up the cup, and pour out a little in God's honour. This they could not do in Assyria, (Calmet) not having liberty to do all about the wine.
Sacrifices. The Israelites had long neglected to offer any in the temple, (Haydock) though they had no hindrance. In exile, the fruits, were all accounted unclean, like meats used in mourning, (Calmet) which defiled those who partook of them, Deuteronomy xxvi. 14., and Numbers xix. 11. "The sacrifices of heretics are the bread of mourning. They offer them not to God, but to the dead, to wicked heresiarchs. "(St. Jerome)
Soul. They have need enough of it. (Haydock)
"Let them gratify their appetite; I love not what is unclean. "(St. Jerome)
