In Book 10 of City of God, St. Augustine contrasts the way that Christians worship God only and the way that the Platonists worship angels and other heavenly powers. The worship of angels is the main topic on Augustine’s mind, and he devotes several chapters to explaining why Christians do not worship angels. Along the way, he fields the challenge of the term worship. With certain parallels to Reformation-era debates, Augustine explains that there are several different words that might be translated as “worship.” There are many words that could be translated as “worship” which could fairly be applied to creatures in addition to God. But still, for Augustine, there is one category of worship that is reserved for God alone. That worship is latreia.

Augustine acknowledges that the word “worship” is potentially equivocal. He illustrates this at the forefront of the discussion, in City of God 10.1. He lists “cult,” “religion,” and “piety.” All of these can be used to indicate divine worship. But they can also be used to indicate other kinds of service or honor that you might pay to other humans.

Still, there is a kind of worship that is higher than all of these and which Christians may only offer to God. Augustine says that the Latin word for this sort of worship is servitus. This word, much like its English translation “service,” is not as technical and airtight as it might need to be, however, and so Augustine looks to the Greek language for an even better term. The term of art which Augustine uses for the kind of worship that is only allowed for God is latreia. This word would become the standard for Christian theology ever after.

Many casual Protestants are unaware of this distinction. In English, at least, they still only have the word “worship.” And “worship” can be tricky, especially in older centuries. The Book of Common Prayer has the husband vow to “worship” his wife with his body. “With my body, I thee worship.” This could sound strange to Americans in the 21st century, but it simply meant that the husband was promising to use his body, and his bodily labors, to serve and provide for his wife and her needs. When it comes to bodily needs, he will put her first. You also come across people giving “worship” to the king. This means civil respect and obedience. And while the king might be a symbol of God or a representation of divine power and rule on earth, no English Christian ever worshipped the king with divine service. The court propaganda might sometimes get risky here, but people always understood the difference. The theologians certainly always knew the difference between latreia and other kinds of service (sometimes translated “dulia”).

And so what makes latreia different? What do you do in latreia that you don’t do in other kinds of “worship”? Augustine gives two specific answers. In latreia, a worshipper offers sacrifice to God and they consecrate themselves or their possessions to Him. Regarding sacrifice, Augustine is clear in several places: “who ever thought of sacrificing save to one whom he knew, supposed, or feigned to be a god?” (City of God 10.4).

This seems straightforward enough. But what does Augustine mean by sacrifice? It isn’t actually the killing of a bull or a goat. Those were only typical sacrifices, pointing forwards to true sacrifice. Jesus and His death is the true and ultimate fulfillment of those sacrifices. But there is also another continuing sacrifice that Christians make. What is that?

If one is too inclined to jump ahead in church history, then they might expect Augustine to discuss the eucharistic sacrifice here. The Church continues to sacrifice by offering Christ in the sacrament. But that is not where Augustine goes at this point. What Augustine does say will also help us understand what service can be offered to others and what and only be offered to God.

In City of God 10.3, Augustine writes:

This being so, if the Platonists, or those who think with them, knowing God, glorified Him as God and gave thanks, if they did not become vain in their own thoughts, if they did not originate or yield to the popular errors, they would certainly acknowledge that neither could the blessed immortals retain, nor we miserable mortals reach, a happy condition without worshipping the one God of gods, who is both theirs and ours.  To Him we owe the service which is called in Greek λατρεία, whether we render it outwardly or inwardly; for we are all His temple, each of us severally and all of us together, because He condescends to inhabit each individually and the whole harmonious body, being no greater in all than in each, since He is neither expanded nor divided.  Our heart when it rises to Him is His altar; the priest who intercedes for us is His Only-begotten; we sacrifice to Him bleeding victims when we contend for His truth even unto blood; to Him we offer the sweetest incense when we come before Him burning with holy and pious love; to Him we devote and surrender ourselves and His gifts in us; to Him, by solemn feasts and on appointed days, we consecrate the memory of His benefits, lest through the lapse of time ungrateful oblivion should steal upon us; to Him we offer on the altar of our heart the sacrifice of humility and praise, kindled by the fire of burning love.  It is that we may see Him, so far as He can be seen; it is that we may cleave to Him, that we are cleansed from all stain of sins and evil passions, and are consecrated in His name.  For He is the fountain of our happiness, He the end of all our desires.  Being attached to Him, or rather let me say, re-attached,—for we had detached ourselves and lost hold of Him,—being, I say, re-attached to Him, we tend towards Him by love, that we may rest in Him, and find our blessedness by attaining that end.  For our good, about which philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else than to be united to God.  It is, if I may say so, by spiritually embracing Him that the intellectual soul is filled and impregnated with true virtues.  We are enjoined to love this good with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.  To this good we ought to be led by those who love us, and to lead those we love. 

Here we see true divine worship. It can be external or internal. The Church collective and the individual believer are equally “the temple” and the dwelling place of God. Our heart, when it is lifted up, is the true altar. The only interceding priest is the Only-begotten Son. Instead of “bleeding victims,” we bear witness and defend the faith, even to the point of martyrdom. The true incense is love. We offer our hearts, and our sacrifices are humility and praise. (The lyrics of “Come Down, O Love Divine” and “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” were both echoing in my mind when I read this chapter from Augustine.) Worship is, finally, making God our highest good and source of greatest happiness. He is the final or chief end.

With this in mind, we can also understand what Augustine means by saying that latreia also includes consecrating ourselves. When we promise to set ourselves or our possessions apart from ordinary use and instead to dedicate them to a particular sacred person’s desires, then we are saying that that person is a god. That person is ordering or governing our actions and possessions, and we are promising to do their will. We do this on the assumption that this will bring them honor and that we will obtain some spiritual blessedness or happiness. By consecrating ourselves in God’s name, we expect to be cleansed from sin and evil passions. If we cry out to someone and promise to change our lives for their sakes, in the hopes of obtaining some spiritual blessing, then we are consecrating ourselves to them. “Thus man himself, consecrated in the name of God, and vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world that he may live to God” (City of God 10.6).

And so, those are the things that you must do to God. And those are the things that you must not do to another. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”