Malachi
A Pure Offering in Every Place
Malachi 1:11 has the Lord declare that 'from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation' -- worship offered in specifically sacrificial language, not in Jerusalem's temple but everywhere, among the nations. Within a single generation of the apostles, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus -- writing independently in Syria, Rome, and Gaul -- identified this offering as the Eucharist, a reading the Eastern liturgy and the Council of Trent both carried forward.
450 BC – AD 100
The Messenger Who Prepares the Way
Malachi promised a messenger who would prepare the way before the Lord came to his temple, and a figure like Elijah before the great Day of the Lord. Jesus identified John the Baptist as that messenger, sent in the spirit and power of Elijah. The non-Christian historian Josephus independently confirms John's desert ministry and execution by Herod Antipas.
450 BC – AD 28