Martyr Sentence Examples

John Penry, the Puritan martyr, was born at Cefn-brith in this parish.

Stephen became a martyr in August 257.

He was represented as a warrior performing superhuman feats, as a ruler dispensing perfect justice, and even as a martyr suffering for the faith.

The fraternity of White Penitents buried the body with great ceremony, and performed a solemn service for the deceased as a martyr; the Franciscans followed their example; and these formalities led to the popular belief in the guilt of the unhappy family.

The Terrorists paid a veritable worship to his memory, as to a martyr of Liberty.

She started to refuse, but he insisted, Don't be a martyr.

As long as the Christian Church was itself persecuted by the pagan empire, it advocated freedom of conscience, and insisted that religion could be promoted only by instruction and persuasion (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius); but almost immediately after Christianity was adopted as the religion of the Roman empire the persecution of men for religious opinions began.

Ever since he has been venerated as a martyr.

He was beheaded on the 14th of September 258, the first African bishop to obtain the martyr's crown.

But be this as it may, he had no sooner adopted his new creed than he resolved to profess it; " a momentary glow of enthusiasm " had raised him above all temporal considerations, and accordingly, on June 8, 1753, he records that having " privately abjured the heresies" of his childhood before a Catholic priest of the name of Baker, a Jesuit, in London, he announced the same to his father in an elaborate controversial epistle which his spiritual adviser much approved, and which he himself afterwards described to Lord Sheffield as having been " written with all the pomp, the dignity, and self-satisfaction of a martyr."

In the year 202 a persecution arose, in which the father of Origen became a martyr, and the family lost their livelihood.

Ardent spirits craved the martyr's crown, and to confess Christ in persecution was to attain a glory inferior only to that won by those who actually died.

Another motive for multiplying the number of graves operated when the cubiculum contained the remains of any noted saint or martyr.

They consisted in a gathering at the martyr's tomb on the anniversary of his death.

But a martyr's death in itself was enough.

He was murdered, which led to his veneration as a martyr.

The headsman's axe proved more fatal, and the martyr's body was borne by angels to Mount Sinai, where Justinian I.

The year 1498, in which Savonarola was to die a martyr's death, opened amid seemingly favourable auspices.

It has monuments to Patrick Hamilton, the martyr, and Thomas Hog (1628-1692), the Scottish divine, for some time a prisoner on the Bass.

Martyr inflicted another heavy defeat on the mutineers at Mruli.

Colonel Martyr at the close of the year (1899) undertook an expedition up the Nile, and extended the limits of the protectorate in that direction.

The custom of delivering expositions or comments more or less extemporaneous on the lessons of the day at all events passed over soon and readily into the Christian Church, as may be gathered from the first Apology (c. 67) of Justin Martyr, where we read that, in connexion with the practice of reading portions from the collected writings of the prophets and from the memoirs of the apostles, it had by that time become usual for the presiding minister to deliver a discourse in which "he admonishes the people, stirring them up to an imitation of the good works which have been brought before their notice."

The most important feature of the town is the great shrine of Hosain, containing the tomb of the martyr, with its golden dome and triple minarets, two of which are gilded.

This temple owes its preservation to its use as a church of St Barbara, a local martyr, also claimed by the Egyptian Heliopolis.

Justin Martyr (163-167) certainly uses the Gospel; but his conception of Jesus' life is so strictly Synoptic that he can hardly have accepted it as from an apostolic eyewitness.

It may be noted also that the same view of the origin of the Gospel of Mark appears to have been held by a contemporary of Papias, Justin Martyr.

With the middle of the century we reach a considerable writer in Justin Martyr.

The poet Prudentius describes how, on the day of the martyr's death, an innumerable multitude of pilgrims flocked round the site.

The caution of Gelasius was not long preserved; Gregory of Tours, for example, asserts that the saint's relics actually existed in the French village of Le Maine, where many miracles were wrought by means of them; and Bede, while still explaining that the Gesta Georgii are reckoned apocryphal, commits himself to the statement that the martyr was beheaded under Dacian, king of Persia, whose wife Alexandra, however, adhered to the Christian faith.

Marco (now converted into a national museum), a series of frescoes, beginning towards 1443; in the first cloister is the Crucifixion with St Dominic kneeling; and the same treatment recurs on a wall near the dormitory; in the chapterhouse is a third Crucifixion, with the Virgin swooning, a composition of twenty life-sized figures - the red background, which has a strange and harsh effect, is the misdoing of some restorer; an "Annunciation," the figures of about three-fourths of life-size, in a dormitory; in the adjoining passage, the "Virgin enthroned," with four saints; on the wall of a cell, the "Coronation of the Virgin," with Saints Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Benedict, Dominic, Francis and Peter Martyr; two Dominicans welcoming Jesus, habited as a pilgrim; an "Adoration of the Magi"; the "Marys at the Sepulchre."

Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, who was slain by the Danes about 870, and owed most of its early celebrity to the reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king.

When he did emigrate in 1792 he found himself regarded as a martyr to the church and the king, and was at once named archbishop in partibus, and extra nuncio to the diet at Frankfort, and in 1794 cardinal.

He is commemorated as a martyr by the Greek Church on the 16th of November, and by the Roman on the 21st of September, the scene of his martyrdom being placed in Ethiopia.

In 1275 Amicia, countess of Devon, claimed to hold fairs at Tiverton at the feasts of St Andrew and St Giles, and at the translation of St Thomas the Martyr.

Theodore Beza from Geneva and Peter Martyr Vermigli from Zurich appeared at the colloquy; the German theologians to whom invitations had been despatched only arrived in Paris after the discussion was broken off.

Royalist authors have made of Cottereau a hero and martyr, titles to which his claim is not established.

Amongst them may be mentioned a history of the dispute with Palamas; biographies of his uncle and early instructor John, metropolitan of Heraclea, and of the martyr Codratus of Antioch; funeral orations for Theodore Metochita, and the two emperors Andronicus; commentaries on the wanderings of Odysseus and on Synesius's treatise on dreams; tracts on orthography and on words of doubtful meaning; a philosophical dialogue called Florentius or Concerning Wisdom; astronomical treatises on the date of Easter and the preparation of the astrolabe; and an extensive correspondence.

The Apostolic Fathers say nothing about Simon Magus, but with Justin Martyr we get startling developments.

This discovery has led many to suspect that Justin Martyr has somehow been hoaxed.

But Justin Martyr was decidedly weak in history, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that he may have confused the Simon of Acts with a heretical leader of the same name who lived much nearer to his own time, especially as this other Simon also had a great reputation for magic. A full century must have elapsed between the conversion of Simon Magus to Christianity and the earliest date possible (which is the one that we have adopted) for the composition of Justin Martyr's First Apology.

Justin Martyr could not have been mistaken as to the fact that the bulk of his countrymen were followers of a religious leader named Simon, whose disciple Menander he seems to speak of as an elder contemporary of his own.

The circumstances of Lull's death caused him to be regarded as a martyr, local patriotism helped to magnify his merits, and his fantastic doctrines found many enthusiastic partisans.

At Oxford he first adhered to the conservative side, and defended the doctrines of the church against Hooper; but his confidence was somewhat shaken by another public disputation which he had with Peter Martyr.

Stanton in 1887, where he is styled " a martyr whose cause is deferred for future investigation."

He has been claimed as a martyr, and as such his name is given in the Roman calendar and elsewhere, but his title to this honour is by no means proved, and he has been probably confused with another bishop of the same name.

His merit lies in the fact that he was the first to deal systematically with the question of Church and State, and the position thus taken up by him, and the manner in which that position was assumed, gave rise to a lifelong conflict between Giannone and the Church; and in spite of his retractation in prison at Turin, he deserves the palm--as he certainly endured the sufferings - of a confessor and martyr in the cause of what he deemed historical truth.

Two years later biographical studies of Theodore Beza and Peter Martyr Vermili (Leben des Theodor de Beza and des Peter Martyr Vermili, Heidelberg, 1809) revealed more genuine scholarship. In 1812 appeared his History of the Iconoclastic Emperors of the East (Geschichte der bilderstiirmenden Kaiser des ostromischen Reichs), in which he controverted some points in Gibbon and sought to avoid painting the past in present-day colours.

There is, however, a certain coolness about the hero's affection for his wife which somewhat detracts from the merit of his sacrifice; while the Christian part of the matter is scarcely so well treated as in the Saint Genest of Rotrou or the Virgin Martyr of Massinger.

A virgin martyr who is threatened with loss of honour as a bitterer punishment than loss of life offers points as powerful as they are perilous.

Our earliest detailed accounts of baptism are in the Teaching of the Apostles (c.90-120) and in Justin Martyr.

In exceptional cases it sufficed for a martyr to be sprinkled with his own blood.

And yet Justin Martyr, Tertullian and other apologists of the 2nd century had found nothing to conceal from the eye and ear of pagan emperors and their ministers.

Patrick Hamilton, the Scottish martyr, was one of his pupils; and it was at Lambert's instigation that Hamilton composed his Loci communes, or Patrick's Pleas as they were popularly called in Scotland.

The factions which had prevailed during the reign of Edward the Martyr seem to have continued to rage during his brothers minority, yet iEthelreds earliest years were his least disastrous.

It may be noted that he showed a special reverence for the old English royal saint, and christened his eldest son after him; wbile his second bore the name of Edmund, the East An.glian martyr.

Such severity was most impolitic, and Lancaster was ere long hailed as a saint and a martyr.

We only know that they continued to exist, and occasionally produced a martyr.

Peter Martyr in a letter to Lope Hurtado de Mendoza in 1513 is the first to state that it is of native origin.

But what, in the opinion of most modern Moslems, and especially the Persians, confers the greatest sanctity on the day of Ashoora is the fact of its being that on which El-Hoseyn, the prophet's grandson, was slain a martyr at the battle of the plain of Karbala."

The lineaments of Greek Christian theology show themselves more clearly in Justin Martyr than in the other Apologists, but still more plainly in Irenaeus, who, with little speculative power, keeps the safe middle path.

Haldane, in the Scottish Church lawsuit of 1904, is found telling the House of Lords that Justin Martyr had a grasp of speculative truth which was impossible to St Augustine.

His death caused intense excitement throughout the country, and he was everywhere regarded by abolitionists as a martyr to their cause.

This was the decree of the state, and it had the effect of making him a martyr in the eyes of the populace and of bringing about the downfall of the ministry.

It was at Dokkum in Friesland that he met a martyr's death (754) Charles the Great granted the Frisians important privileges under a code known as the Lex Frisionum, based upon the ancient laws of the country.

Besides the "new market" of Domesday Book the abbots obtained charters in 1215 and 1253 for fairs during the octaves of All Saints and St Thomas the Martyr.

In subsequent poetical works he was more successful, notably the Fall of Jerusalem (1820) and the Martyr of Antioch (1822).

There was a second chapel of Semo Sancus on the island in the Tiber with an altar, the inscription on which led Christian writers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Eusebius) to confuse him with Simon Magus, and to infer that the latter was worshipped at Rome as a god.

Diocletian's persecution secured the martyr's crown for the Edessenes Shamona, Guria (297), and Ilabbib (309), and shortly thereafter Lucian " the martyr," who though born at Samosata received his training at Edessa; but the bishop Qona, who laid the foundations of " the great church " by the sacred pool, somehow escaped.

On the way to the execution, Alban converted the executioner to Christianity and he became a martyr, too.

Since his opponents were Arian heretics, he is claimed as a Catholic martyr.

A virgin martyr in Rome whose relics are now venerated in Los Angeles, of which she is the main patron-saint.

We are not called upon to wear the martyr's crown, but it is ours to share the martyr's crown, but it is ours to share the martyr's faith.

As a martyr, he must explain his actions and give meaning, however paradoxical, to his last moments.

A martyr venerated from early times in Carthage in North Africa.

In these books therefore there are 23 small martyr woodcuts making a total of 45 appearances.

In 1571 Elizabeth granted to the town a market on Tuesday and two fairs each to last two days, at the feasts of St George the Martyr and the Conception of the Virgin.

Justin Martyr writes a Dialogue with Trypho; Origen deals with many anti-Christian arguments borrowed by Celsus from a certain nameless Jew.

The earlier apologists dispute the natural immortality of the soul; Athanasius himself, in De Incarnatione Dei, §§ 4, 5, tones down the teaching of Wisdom; and the somewhat eccentric writer Arnobius, a layman - from Justin Martyr downwards apologetics has always been largely in the hands of laymen - stands for what has recently been called " conditional immortality " - eternal life for the righteous, the children of God, alone.

There is, however, a certain coolness about the hero's affection for his wife which somewhat detracts from the merit of his sacrifice; while the Christian part of the' matter is scarcely so well treated as in the Saint Genest of Rotrou or the Virgin Martyr of Massinger.

A martyr who refused to worship idols and suffered a slow death in Imola in Italy.

John then joined Education Minister Estelle Morris laying wreaths on the grave of martyr James Hammett.

In fact, along with Cancer, the Pisces man can sometimes see himself as something of a martyr, constantly giving of his time, emotions and resources without getting much back in return.

However, Pisceans need to be careful that they don't become a martyr in their quest to help others.

This deed, however, was viewed with far different feelings in Paris and by the partisans of the League, the murderer being regarded as a martyr and extolled by Pope Sixtus V., while even his canonization was discussed.

Hafiz was surrendered, a voluntary martyr; other ministers were deposed; Mustafa Pasha, aga of the janissaries, was saved by his own troops.

Captivite de la famille royale au Temple (2 vols., 1852, and many subsequent editions), containing copies Of original documents, and essential to the study of the question, although its sentimental pictures of the boy martyr can no longer be accepted.

The zeal of Ignatius (c. 115), who begs the Roman Church to do nothing to avert from him the martyr's death, was natural enough in a spiritual knight-errant, but with others in later days, especially in Phrygia and North Africa, the passion became artificial.

The palm branch, which is also of frequent occurrence, is not an indisputable mark of the last resting-place of a martyr, being found in connexion with epitaphs of persons dying natural deaths, or those prepared by persons in their lifetime, as well as in those of little children, and even of pagans.

This to a certain extent is doubtless true, as in the case of the chapel of Santa Priscilla, where the altar or stone coffin of a martyr remains, with a small platform behind it for the priest or bishop to stand upon.

If a family vault was required, or a burial chapel for a martyr or person of distinction, a small square room was excavated by the side of the gallery and communicating with it.

Framlingham (Frendlingham, Framalingaham) in early Saxon times was probably the site of a fortified earthwork to which St Edmund the Martyr is said to have fled from the Danes in 870.

It is taken for granted that the readers will know who the martyr is, and the exegesis of the Church applies the passage to our Lord.

Spent with weakness and fatigue he asked leave to rest his head on his companion's lap, and quickly fell into a quiet sleep. As Niccolini tells us, the martyr's face became serene and smiling as a child's.

Most of these were primarily writers, but Justin Martyr has left a reputation for speaking, especially in debate, as well.

Kattenbusch does not shrink from suggesting that he shows acquaintance with the Roman Creed, and that Justin Martyr also knew it, in which case all the so-called Eastern characteristics have been imprinted on the original Roman form, and are not derived from an Eastern archetype.

Ochino was at once cited, but was deterred from presenting himself at Rome by the warnings of Peter Martyr and of Cardinal Contarini, whom he found at Bologna, dying of poison administered by the reactionary party.

While incumbent of Curdridge Chapel near Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, he published (1835) The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems, which was favourably received, and was followed in 1838 by Sabbation, Honor Neale, and other Poems, and in 1842 by Poems from Eastern Sources.

So we must suppose that before his death the schismatic was received again into the bosom of the Church, and this is confirmed by the fact that his memory was henceforth celebrated in the Church as that of a holy martyr.

Although several of these leaders were Voltairians, they held up Louis XVI., who had been executed in January 1793, as a martyr to Catholicism, and the Vendeans, who had hitherto styled themselves the Christian Army, now adopted the name of the Catholic and Royal Army.

She did much for letters in Spain by founding the palace school and by her protection of Peter Martyr d'Anghiera.

A note by Cyril Lucar states that it was written by Thecla, a noble lady of Egypt, but this is probably merely his interpretation of an Arabic note of the 14th century which states that the MS. was written by Thecla, the martyr, an obviously absurd legend; another Arabic note by Athanasius (probably Athanasius III., patriarch c. 1308) states that it was given to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and a Latin note of a later period dates the presenta tion in 1098.

It was originally a harmony of the four gospels made by Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, towards the end of the 2nd century.

Other leading works are - in Munich, the "Virgin" sinking on her knees in adoration of the Divine Infant, who is lying in a garden within a rose trellis; in the Borghese gallery, Rome, a Peter Martyr; in Bologna, the frescoes in the church of St Cecilia, illustrating the life of the saint, all of them from the design of Raibolini, but not all executed by himself.

Perhaps Gertz deserved his fate for "unnecessarily making himself the tool of an unheard-of despotism," but his death was certainly a judicial murder, and some historians even regard him as a political martyr.

He has been identified, without any foundation, with Alexander, a martyr of the Via Nomentana, whose day is the 3rd of May.

Their method and aim were entirely congenial to the rising Catholic Church, and one is not surprised to find from writers in the East (Theophilus of Antioch, Justin Martyr) and West (Irenaeus, Tertullian and the author of 2 Clement) that they were widely read and valued.

The victory was won on the 10th of January, the feast-day of St Sebastian the Martyr, who became the patron saint of the new settlement and gave it his name - Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro.

It possesses a town hall, a grammar school (1576), and a Martyr's Memorial HallThe most noteworthy building, however, is the parish church, restored in 1863, which contains a curious old fresco and several interesting brasses, and has a Norman tower.

The chantry of St Edmund the Martyr which stood on the opposite side of the town was a part of Edward III.'s endowment to the priory, and became so famous as a place of pilgrimage, especially for those on their way to Canterbury, that the part of Watling Street which crossed there towards London was sometimes called " St Edmund's Way.

His special interest in Christian Greek was partly the cause of his editing in 1877 The Apologies of Justin Martyr, " which" (to use his own words) "I used unblushingly as a repository for my syntactical formulae."

He made some mark as a teacher at Oxford, and became after 1547 one of the chief disciples of Peter Martyr.

He was, nevertheless, suspected, fled to London, and thence to Frankfort, which he reached in March 1555 There he sided with Coxe against Knox, but soon joined Martyr at Strassburg, accompanied him to Zurich, and then paid a visit to Padua.

He that dies in defence of it is a holy martyr.

The church collected and buried the remains of the martyr, who had been burnt, in order duly to celebrate the anniversary of the martyrdom at the place of burial.

In a vault where more than one martyr was buried an altar might be erected for each.

Alexander's diplomatic skill and moral authority, reinforced by the Capetian alliance and the revulsion of feeling caused by the murder of Becket, enabled him to force the despotic Henry to yield, and even to do penance at the tomb of the martyr.

The mother church of Armenia was established by Gregory at Ashtishat in the province of Taron, on the site of the great temple of Wahagn, whose festival on the seventh of the month Sahmi was reconsecrated to John the Baptist and Athenogenes, an Armenian martyr and Greek hymn writer.

Two phials preserved in the cathedral are believed to contain the blood of the martyr.

The energy which warriors were accustomed to put forth in their efforts to conquer was now " exhibited in the enterprise of conversion and teaching " 5 by Wilfrid on the coast of Friesland, 6 by Willibrord (658-715) in the neighbourhood of Utrecht,7 by the martyr-brothers Ewald or Hewald amongst the " old " or continental Saxons, 8 by Swidbert the apostle of the tribes between the Ems and the Yssel, by Adelbert, a prince of the royal house of Northumbria, in the regions north of Holland, by Wursing, a native of Friesland, and one of the disciples of Willibrord, in the same region, and last, not least, by the famous Winfrid or Boniface, the " apostle of Germany " (68 o-755), who went forth first to assist Willibrord at Utrecht, then to labour in Thuringia and Upper Hessia, then with the aid of his kinsmen Wunibald and Willibald, their sister Walpurga, and her thirty companions, to consolidate the work of earlier missionaries, and finally to die a martyr on the shore of the Zuider Zee.

The successor of Xavier, Antonio Criminalis, was regarded by the Jesuits as the first martyr of their society (1562).

Mary received the announcement with majestic tranquillity, expressing in dignified terms her readiness to die, her consciousness that she was a martyr for her religion, and her total ignorance of any conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth.

The earliest traditions appear to imply that he died a natural death (Eusebius, Jerome, and even Isidore of Seville); but the Martyrologies claim him as a martyr, though they do not agree as to the manner of his martyrdom.

Most of the martyrologies and calendars assign April 25 as the day on which he should be commemorated; but the Martyr.

His name is remembered in Belgian annals as a patriot martyr to the cause of liberty.

In 1549 he matriculated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and in May 1550 he migrated to Pembroke Hall, where he had the martyr John Bradford for a tutor.

There is, however, a trace of early masonry which may have belonged to the Saxon house where, in 978, King Edward the Martyr was murdered.

The church in the town, almost wholly rebuilt, is dedicated to St Edward the Martyr.

The little book was perhaps used by Justin Martyr in his own Dialogue with Trypho, and probably also by Tertullian and Cyprian, but it has not been preserved.

About the same time he also founded and endowed a college at Pavia, which he dedicated to Justina, virgin and martyr.

Favras was generally regarded as a martyr to his refusal to implicate the count of Provence, and Madame de Favras was pensioned by Louis XVI.

Now began what Harriet Martineau called "the martyr age in America."

The other works of Lord Hailes include Historical Memoirs concerning the Provincial Councils of the Scottish Clergy (1769); An Examination of some of the Arguments for the High Antiquity of Regiam Majestatem (1769); three volumes entitled Remains of Christian Antiquity (" Account of the Martyrs of Smyrna and Lyons in the Second Century," 1776; " The Trials of Justin Martyr, Cyprian, &c.," 1778; The History of the Martyrs of Palestine, translated from Eusebius," 1780); Disquisitions concerning the Antiquities of the Christian Church (1783); and editions or translations of portions of Lactantius, Tertullian and Minucius Felix.

The martyr of an impossible loyalty, Wallace shares the illustrious immortality of the great Montrose, and is by far the most popular hero of his country's history.

The details of the final and successful plot were uncertain - the martyr Wishart cannot be identified with Wishart the would-be murderer - but with Beaton practically expired the chances of the French and Catholic party in Scotland.

On the 24th of April, Mary wedded the Dauphin, and about the same date Walter Milne, an aged expriest, was burned as a heretic, the last Protestant martyr in Scotland.

He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church."

James Guthrie (1612-1661), the martyr, and Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1794), founder of the Scottish Secession Church, were two of the most distinguished ministers.

Descartes was not disposed to be a martyr; he had a sincere respect for the church, and had no wish to begin an open conflict with established doctrines.

Not only is the whole atmosphere Christian in colouring, but we actually find the Greek gods in the guise of Enoch, Elijah, &c., while Philip is a Christian martyr, and Alexander himself a great apostle, even a saint; quotations from the Bible are frequent.

To the Shiites he is a martyr, being believed to have been poisoned by Mamun.

But we know, from the undoubtedly genuine Acta SS Justini et sociorum, that Justin suffered the death of a martyr under the prefect Rusticus between 163 and 167.

Such treatment aroused the sympathy of the Southern people, who regarded him as a martyr to their cause, and in a great measure restored him to that place in their esteem which by the close of the war he had lost.

Among the rectors of Hadleigh several notable names appear, such as Rowland Taylor, the martyr, who was burned at the stake outside the town in 1 555, and Hugh James Rose, during whose tenancy of the rectory an initiatory meeting of the leaders of the Oxford Movement took place here in 1833.

While he expressed dissatisfaction with some of Calvin's earlier writings, he approved of the Consensus Tigurinus negotiated in 1549 between the Zwinglians and Calvinists of Switzerland; and it was this form of religion that he laboured to spread in England against the wishes of Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer, Peter Martyr and other more conservative theologians.

In spite of such a foolish ending, his funeral was that of a martyr, and by many of his adherents he has been regarded since with feelings almost of religious devotion.

The Didache and Justin Martyr are no less unsatisfactory from the Roman point of view.

He owed his Christian names to a vow which his father, actuated by the death of several children in infancy, had made to dedicate any that survived to the Dominican saint, Peter Martyr, who lived in the 13th century.

That facing the entrance was the place of greatest honour, where in many instances the remains of a martyr were deposited, whose tomb, according to primitive usage, served as an altar for the celebration of the eucharist.