Origin of the Eucharist
Encyclopedia
Christians find the origin of the Eucharist in the Last Supper
, at which Jesus established a New Covenant
in his body
and blood
, fulfilling the Mosaic covenant
. In this ancient rite or sacrament Christians eat bread and drink a cup of wine as the body and blood of Christ. While certain beliefs and practices regarding the Eucharist may have changed over time and may vary today, the practice itself dates back to apostolic times
and the earliest Christian writing
.
The earliest extant written account of the Christian eucharistia (Greek: thanksgiving) is that in the First Epistle to the Corinthians
of the mid-50s, in which Paul the Apostle relates "eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord" in the celebration of a "Supper of the Lord" to the Last Supper
of Jesus some 25 years earlier.
The Eucharist is a central religious rite of the Roman Catholic Church
, the Eastern Orthodox Church
, Oriental Orthodoxy
and several of the Christian denominations that have emerged since the Protestant Reformation
. Letters of Ignatius of Antioch
speak of it as a central rite for the Christians of the first years of the 2nd century, and it is recorded as celebrated more than half a century earlier by the Christian community at Jerusalem
and elsewhere.
Contemporary scholarship examines whether Jesus meant to institute a ritual at his Last Supper and whether the Last Supper was an actual historical event in any way related to the undisputed early "Lord's Supper" or "Eucharist". Writers associated with the Jesus Seminar
suggest that the Lord's supper seems to have had its origins in a pagan context, where dinners to memorialize the dead were common and the Jewish prohibition against drinking blood did not prevail; and that the rite that Paul describes probably originated in the Christian communities that he had founded in Asia Minor and Greece. C. S. Lewis
, though, had already answered and refuted the Pagan-origins argument in his book, Miracles
, which was published a half century before the Jesus Seminar writers made their claims.
From a very early date the Eucharist was a regular part of Christian worship and was held to have been instituted by Jesus, and the service is recorded in Acts 2:42,46 as celebrated by the first Christians in Jerusalem. Some scholars hold that the tradition that Paul recorded in his first letter to the Corinthians dated from his earliest years as a Christian, some eight years before he began his missionary activity, and twenty before he wrote that letter to a congregation that he had established about seven years before.
, the first document to give explicit instruction regarding prayers to be said at a celebration that it called the Eucharist.
The cup/bread liturgy of the Didache, from the Jerusalem tradition, does not mention Passover, or Last Supper, or Death of Jesus/blood/body, and the sequence is meal + thanksgiving ritual. For Crossan, it is dispositive that
Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in the context of correcting the habits of the Corinthians serves to reestablish "the Pre-Pauline tradition, ritual of bread/body + meal + ritual of cup/blood." Hellenized Jew Paul references a Greek weekly Lord's Supper, which is not an annual Jewish Passover meal, and does not have the participants giving thanks ("Eucharistia"), rather the purpose is to proclaim Jesus' death until he comes again, in the manner of Hellenic societies formed "to hold meals in remembrance of those who had died and to drink a cup in honor of some god."
Both sequences underline the primary importance of the Shared Meal to historical 1st century Christian ritual. In the Jerusalem tradition, of James and Peter, the meal is of higher importance than blood and body since the Didache fails to mention them. Both traditions reflect the pitfalls of a shared meal among social unequals, namely freeloading. The Didache says in 12:3-4, "If (a traveler) wants to settle with you and is an artisan, he must work for his living. If, however, he has no trade, use your judgment in taking steps for him to live with you as a Christian without being idle." Paul, in says: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." In Crossan's view, "both stipulations must presume a communal share-meal or they make no sense." The administrative difficulties of communal meals, easily glossed over in a small congregation of Jewish peasants, become more intractable as the church succeeds and grows and adds Gentile adherents, foreshadowing the eventual reduction to symbolism over substance.
argues in Eucharistic Origins that it is not until after the 1st century and much later in some areas that the Eucharist and the Last Supper became placed in a relation of dependence: many Eucharists did not relate to the Paschal mystery and/or the Last Supper. On the other hand, in the middle of the 1st century Paul the Apostle explicitly placed the celebration of the Lord's Supper in relation to what Jesus did on the night he was handed over, in giving his disciples bread with the words "This is my body" and, after the supper, giving them the cup with a similar declaration about his blood.
After examining these various theories that have been put forth, he concludes:
advanced the theory that the Christian Eucharist arose from a ubiquitous worldwide practice of sacramental sacrifice or memorial, with wine symbolizing blood.
there are four accounts of the institution of the Eucharist, one by St Paul and three in the Synoptic Gospels. The ritual itself is recorded as celebrated by early Christians at Jerusalem
and by St Paul on his visit to Troas. From a very early date, the service was a regular part of Christian worship, and was held to have been instituted by Christ. The letters of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles make it clear that early Christianity believed that this institution included a mandate to continue the celebration as an anticipation in this life of the joys of the banquet that was to come in the Kingdom of God.
Scholars of the Jesus Seminar generally regard the gospel accounts of the Last Supper as cult legend, that is, a story that accounts for some ritual practice in the Jesus movement.
The New Testament recounts a number of practices of religious table fellowship that would later be called eucharistic. Paul the Apostle devoted about two percent, of his First Epistle to the Corinthians
, usually dated to AD 52–57 and nothing in any of his other letters, to abuses at a meal that the Corinthian Christians had at their meetings and that he did not deem worthy to be called "a Supper of the Lord." (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον). He follows that paragraph with two that indicate how he thought the meal should be celebrated; and elsewhere in the same letter he writes: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." Paul's letters are more likely to have been read at meals than at "business meetings."
Dennis E. Smith says that the earliest Christians worshiped at table in their hosts' dining rooms. and that the earliest Christians shaped the traditions about Jesus to fit that setting. In his study Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values, and Status concerning practice at the meals designated in Latin
by the word "convivium", equivalent to "deipnon" and/or "symposion" in Greek
, The number of participants at such meals in private houses, as opposed to other specially designated places, would be at most a dozen.
The symposium after the meal was the time for teaching and conversation, for the singing of hymns, for the contributions of those who prophesied or spoke in tongues.
Paul had first evangelized the inhabitants of Corinth, in Greece, in 51/52 CE. Paul's nascent congregation there was made up of pagan, not Jewish, converts . All first-generation Christians were necessarily converts, either pagan or Jewish. They had written him regarding numerous matters of concern. Criticizing what he had heard of their meetings, at which they had communal meals, one paragraph in Paul's response reminded them about what he asserted he had "received from the Lord" and had "passed on" about Jesus' actions and directives at his Last Supper. The ambiguities some find in that wording has generated reams of books, articles and opinions about the Origins of Eucharist. The Last Supper
(a one-off event) and the eucharist
(a periodically repeated rite) are not the same thing. Clearly the religious table fellowship tradition had been going on in the Early Christian Church, antedating Paul's conversion, unless the contention is made that Paul invented it. See table below for Paul's paragraph regarding the Last Supper .
The paragraph preceding this gives Paul's complaints against how the Corinthians actually celebrated "the Lord's Supper", and the two paragraphs that follow it give his appeal to them to celebrate it worthily, since otherwise they would be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
In his 1994 book, A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus through Johannine Circles, Bruce Chilton wrote that Paul "indeed 'received from the Lord' (1 Corinthians 11:23, through Cephas (Galatians 1:18), what he 'handed over' (1Corinthians 11:23) to his hearers. … He reminds his hearers of what he already had taught as authoritative, a teaching 'from the Lord' and presumably warranted by the earliest 'pillars': in that sense, what he hands on is not his own, but derives from his highest authority, 'the Lord' (11:23)."
Eugene LaVerdiere wrote: "That is how Paul introduced the tradition, presenting himself as a link in the chain of Eucharistic tradition. He received (paralambano) the tradition of Eucharist in the early 40s while in the community at Antioch. He handed it on (paradidomi) to the Corinthians in the year 51 when first proclaiming the gospel to them. Like Paul, the Corinthians also were to become a link in the chain of Eucharistic tradition, handing on to others what Paul handed on to them. Several years later, circa 54, Paul reminded them of this in 1 Corinthians."
James Still admits that most contemporary commentators argue that what Paul "receives from the Lord" is church tradition with the authority of the Lord behind it, rather than a direct revelation from Christ, and quotes as representatives of this view Kilmartin, Jeremias and Marshall. But he himself argues that Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians
, "denies that any of his teachings are from other men in authority", "goes to great lengths to distance himself from the Jerusalem Church and its gospel", and "goes on to contrast his gospel from the perverse teachings of those 'who were reputed to be something' (the three 'pillars' of James, Cephas, and John) and to defend himself from their interference". He then mentions as a possibility that "Paul needed to look no further for his soteriology than the pervasive Dionysian cult in the pagan world", but adds: "However, it is not necessary to think that he went outside of Hellenistic Judaism for his gospel."
Jesus' Last Supper is an event so significant to the Early Church that all four Gospels include a version. See table below. A passage found only in Luke
records a command, found also in Paul, that the breaking of the bread be done "in remembrance of [Jesus]", though is does not specify whether it should be performed annually, as per the Passover
, or more frequently. A number of commentators conclude that passage, i.e., the second half of 22:19 and all of 22:20 are later interpolations. The Rev. E.C. Radcliffe, the Canon of St. Mary's, Ely, writing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 13th Edition (1926) Eucharist article, declared: "The textus receptus
indeed includes the command, but the passage in which it occurs is an interpolation of the Pauline account; and whatever view be taken of the Lucan text, the command is no part of the original. The evidence, therefore, does not warrant the attribution to Jesus of the words 'This do in memory of Me'." Jeremias says "Do this in remembrance of me " would better be translated "That God may remember me."
and tell of the very first Christians "continuing steadfastly in the breaking of bread", interpreted by some as a reference to Eucharist, written some twenty years later than the reference in 1 Corinthians.
Chapters 13-17 of the Gospel of John
attribute to Jesus a series of teachings and prayers at his Last Supper, but does not mention any meal rituals. On the other hand, , in particular verses such as ("For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him"), is widely interpreted as an allusion to the Eucharist. Peculiarities in phrasing as compared to the Synoptics are thought to reflect the liturgical tradition of the Johannine community.
The term "Agape
" or "Love-feast" appears in the New Testament epistle dated to the turn of the 2nd century, in : "These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves". J.C. Lambert stated that the general opinion in 1915 http://www.studylight.org/enc/ was that, though held together, the Agape and the Eucharist were distinct, the Eucharist coming at the end of the Agape, as the special rite instituted by Jesus followed a celebration of a Passover meal.
Seder
meal, the kiddush
blessing with wine, and the chaburah fellowship.
involves four cups of wine.
Whether the Last Supper
was a Passover Meal (as the chronology of the Synoptic Gospels
would suggest) or not (as St John
), it is clear that the Eucharist was instituted at Passover time, and Christian writers from Saint Paul onwards have stressed that the death of Christ was the fulfilment of the sacrifice foreshadowed by the Passover."
The majority of scholars of the Last Supper do not believe that it was a Passover meal, a position consistent with the account given by the Gospel of Saint John. A minority believe that it was a seder or Passover meal, a position consistent with the Synoptic gospels. However, as Enrico Mazza has argued, the minority view "remains a theological interpretation. The historical fact is that the Last Supper was not a Passover celebration and, consequently, that its liturgy was not that of the Jewish Passover."
Qiddush is the "Jewish benediction and prayer recited over a cup of wine immediately before the meal on the eve of the sabbath or of a festival. After reciting the Qiddush the master of the house sips from the cup, and then passes it to his wife and to the others at the table; then all wash their hands, and the master of the house blesses the bread, cuts it, and passes a morsel to each person at the table.
Joachim Jeremias, in about the same time period, disputed the view that the Last Supper was Qiddush, because the Qiddush was always associated with the Sabbath, and even if there was a Passover Qiddush, it would have taken place immediately before the seder, not the day before. Jeremias argued in favor of a Seder as Last Supper.
Ratcliffe wrote: "Though the Qiddush accounts for the '[Johannine]' Last Supper, it affords no explanation on the origin of the eucharist . . . the Last Supper and the Sabbath-Passover Qiddush was therefore no unusual occurrence. It represented consistent practice since Jesus had first formed the group. It is from this practice, rather than from any direct institution from Jesus, that the eucharist derives its origin. The practice was too firmly established for the group to abandon it, when its Master had been taken away; the primitive apostolic eucharist is no other than the continuation of Jesus's chaburah meal. This is the 'breaking of bread' of Acts ii. 42."
The form of the supper was largely the same as the chief meal of the day in every pious Jewish household. Each kind of food was blessed when it was first brought to the table. At the end of the meal came the grace after meals - the Blessing or Benediction as it was called. This long prayer was said by the host or father of the family in the name of all who had eaten the meal. On important occasions, and at a chaburah supper, it was recited over a special cup of wine known quite naturally as "the cup of blessing." At the end of the Thanksgiving prayer this cup was sipped by the leader and then by each of those present. The chaburah supper was concluded by the singing of a psalm, after which the meeting broke up.
Jeremias also disputed that the Last Supper was a chaburah meal, interposing the objection that the chaburah was a "duty" meal, held appurtenant to a formal occasion such as a 'bris' or a betrothal.
In the 8th century BC, the Judean shepherd/prophet Amos
denounced the luxurious social and ceremonial religious practices of Israel's wealthy and referred to these practices (assemblies, feasts, reclining, songs, harp music, ointment, and bowls of wine) negatively.
During the Second Temple period, Hellenic practices were adopted by Jews after the conquests of Alexander the Great. By the 2nd century BC, Jesus Ben Sirach writing in the longest biblical wisdom book, Sirach, described Jewish feasting, with numerous parallels to Hellenic practice, without disapproval.
Gentile and Jewish practice was that the all-male participants reclined at table on their left elbows, and after a benediction given by the host (in the case of a Jewish meal), would have a deipnon (late afternoon or evening meal) of bread with various vegetables, perhaps some fish or even meat if the meal was extravagant.
Among the Greeks, a ritual libation, or sacrificial pouring out of wine, followed, with another benediction or blessing, leading to the 'symposion' (as in Plato's Symposium) or wine-drinking course and entertainment. Thus was established an order of breaking bread and drinking wine. Cups of wine were even passed from diner to diner as a way to pass responsibility for speaking next. "Plutarch spoke in the highest terms of the bonds created by the shared wine bowl. His words are echoed by Paul who spoke of the sharing of bread and wine as the act that created the one body, that is to say, it was a community-creating ritual."
Early Christianity spread through a Hellenized populace. Jewish feast practices had taken on Hellenic forms as noted above. Dionysus was "god of 'the vine' - representing wine, the most universally popular beverage in the ancient world." Barry Powell
suggests that Christian notions of eating and drinking the "flesh" and "blood" of Jesus were influenced by the cult of Dionysus. In contrast, the ancient Greek tragedy, The Bacchae
, a ritual involving the wine of Dionysus is not drunk, but poured out as a libation. In the Greek novel, Leucippe and Clitophon
by Tatius, Dionysus is said to have given a sheperd of Tyre his first wine. When Dionysus shows the grape cluster where he got the wine from, Tatius parodies the Christian eucharist rite.
over the wine cup instead of the Greeks' libation to Dionysus. But eating together was a central activity for Jewish religious groups such as Pharisees and Essenes.
"Thanksgiving" (in Greek, "εὐχαριστία"[eucharistia]) is probably to be regarded as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew "ברכה" [berakhah, berakah], the Jewish "blessing" (in Greek, "εὐλογία" [eulogia]) "addressed to God at meals for and over the food and drink. It is in this sense that the term was originally used in connection with the common meal of the early Christian community, at which the 'blessing' or 'thanksgiving' had special reference to Jesus Christ."
One formulation had it that "(t)he eucharistia was the berakhah without the chaburah supper, and the agape is the chaburah meal without the berakhah.
The Eucharistic celebrations of the early Christians were embedded in, or simply took the form of, a meal. These were often called Agape Feasts
, although terminology varied in the first few centuries along with other aspects of practice. Agape
is one of the Greek
words for love, and so "agape feasts" are also referred to in English as "love-feasts".
This Hellenic ritual was apparently a full meal, with each participant bringing a contribution to the meal according to their means. Perhaps predictably enough, it could at times deteriorate into merely an occasion for eating and drinking, or for ostentatious displays by the wealthier members of the community. This was criticized by Saint Paul in .
Soon after the year 100, Ignatius of Antioch
refers to the agape or love-feast: "Let that eucharist alone be considered valid which is celebrated in the presence of the bishop, or of him to whom he shall have entrusted it. ... It is not lawful either to baptize, or to hold a love-feast without the consent of the bishop." Letter 96 from Pliny the Younger
to Trajan
in about 112 suggests that "a common but innocent meal" was celebrated among early Christians. Tertullian
too writes of these meals. Clement of Alexandria
(c.150-211/216) distinguished so-called "Agape" meals of luxurious character from the agape (love) "which the food that comes from Christ shows that we ought to partake of". Accusations of gross indecency were sometimes made against the form that these meals sometimes took. Referring to Clement of Alexandria, Stromata III,2, the Christian editor, perhaps Philip Schaff
(1819–1893), commented before the discovery of the Didache: "The early disappearance of the Christian agapæ may probably be attributed to the terrible abuse of the word here referred to, by the licentious Carpocratians. The genuine agapæ were of apostolic origin (2 Pet. ii. 13; Jude 12), but were often abused by hypocrites, even under the apostolic eye (1 Corinthians 11:21). In the Gallican Church, a survival or relic of these feasts of charity is seen in the pain béni; and, in the Greek churches. in the or eulogiæ distributed to non-communicants at the close of the Eucharist, from the loaf out of which the bread of oblation is supposed to have been cut."
Augustine of Hippo
also objected to the continuance in his native North Africa of the custom of such meals, in which some indulged to the point of drunkenness, and he distinguished them from proper celebration of the Eucharist: "Let us take the body of Christ in communion with those with whom we are forbidden to eat even the bread which sustains our bodies." He reports that even before the time of his stay in Milan, the custom had already been forbidden there.
Canons 27 and 28 of the Council of Laodicea
(364) restricted the abuses. The Third Council of Carthage
(393) and the Second Council of Orleans
(541) reiterated this legislation, which prohibited feasting in churches, and the Trullan Council
of 692 decreed that honey and milk were not to be offered on the altar (Canon 57), and that those who held love feasts in churches should be excommunicated (Canon 74).
There have been various survivals and revivals, however. In the 18th century, Pietist
Christians began to hold Love Feasts
that looked back to the ancient Agape. Many Christians today after celebrating the Eucharist or another liturgy, now routinely participate in an informal sharing of light refreshments and conversation. This post-Eucharistic gathering is often called "fellowship hour" or "coffee hour" and is regarded by many clergy as a particularly opportune time for engaging adults in Christian education. Others hold ritual Agape meals.
See also Agape feast
.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians
and the three Synoptic Gospels
, do not use identical words in recounting what Jesus said at the Last Supper and, like the Words of Institution
in the liturgies, do not claim to repeat word for word what exactly he said. A similar variety of expression is found in their accounts of what Jesus said on other occasions, giving the tenor, but not claiming to repeat the exact words of Jesus, which in any case were presumably spoken in Aramaic
, not in the language of these sources, which is Greek
. The words of institution used in present-day liturgies are different combinations of words given in Saint Paul's letter and in the Synoptic Gospels and may even include words not given in the 1st-century sources, such as the Roman Rite
's "et aeterni" and (formerly) "mysterium fidei
".
In a lecture on the place of the Words of Institution in the Eucharist, Father Robert Taft states that there is not a single extant pre-Nicene
Eucharistic prayer that one can prove contained the Words of Institution. Even when the recounting of what happened at the Last Supper became a regular part of the Eucharistic prayer, no particular interest was manifested in the precise moment of the consecration until well into the Middle Ages, when the theory of matter and form was applied to the Eucharist. This theory was sanctioned in the decrees that Pope Benedict XII
(1334–1342) issued after the Council of Florence
, and was later so commonly accepted in the West that in 1822 Pope Pius VII
spoke of the view that the epiklesis was necessary for the consecration as a "new opinion".
In her study The Function of the Words of Institution in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper Ros Clarke too refers to evidence that suggests that Words of Institution were not used in the celebration of the Eucharist during the 2nd century. She says that the evidence from the early church suggests that the words of institution were not then used liturgically, but only catechetically, and so the narrative of the Last Supper was not used in celebrating the Eucharist. What was essential, she says, was the ritual, consisting of the four actions of taking bread, giving thanks, breaking it, and giving it to be eaten, accompanying the actions by saying some words identifying the bread with Jesus' body, and similarly with respect to the cup.
The liturgies that fully developed by the late 4th century in the great Anaphora
s of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Canon of the Mass
of the Roman Rite
, and similar anaphoras in other Churches, generally refer explicitly to what Jesus did at his Last Supper.
, which is a Eucharistic liturgy in use from time immemorial that does not expressly contain the words of institution. It has been described as "an authentic anaphora
of early Christianity, close to the primordial patterns of the Eucharistic prayer". It speaks of "the commemoration of the Body and Blood of your Christ, which we offer to you on the pure and holy altar, as you have taught us in his life-giving Gospel" and of "commemorating this mystery of the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ".
The Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari
has been in continuous use in the Assyrian Church of the East
without the words of institution since at least the 7th century, and originated long before that.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes its validity, considering that it dates back to the early Church, that the Church of the East has otherwise preserved the orthodox faith in regard to the Eucharist and Holy Orders
, and because, though the Words of Institution are not spoken expressly, the Catholic Church judges that their meaning is present: "The words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession."
, probably of the start of the 2nd century, but which some attribute to the 1st century itself, states: "Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist but such as have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for of a truth the Lord hath said concerning this, Give not that which is holy unto dogs."
itself as a name for it. However, the corresponding verb does appear in all four New Testament accounts of the Last Supper that are associated with the institution of the Eucharist, so that the use of the term "is explained either because at its institution Christ 'gave thanks' or because the service is the supreme act of Christian thanksgiving." Early occurrences of the term as a noun referring to the rite are in the Didache
, Saint Ignatius of Antioch
and Saint Justin Martyr
.
The epistle of the Apostolic Father Clement of Rome addressing the problem of dissension within the Church at Corinth makes no explicit reference to the Eucharist. The Didache
contains, among its components, the earliest surviving written church order. It is usually dated to the early 2nd century. A composite of several documents, it includes ritual prayers and a mention of what it calls the εὐχαριστία (Thanksgiving or Eucharist). According to the overwhelming consensus among scholars, the section beginning at 10.1 is a reworking of the Birkat hamazon
the prayer that ends the Jewish ritual meal. (see The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity by Hubertus Waltherus Maria van de Sandt, David Flusser pp 311–2)
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch
, writing c. 107-110 CE referred to Eucharist three times in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans and once in his Letter to the Philadelphians, though they contain no reference to bread and wine. A Glossary of Eastern Orthodox Terms quoted in Father Symeon Ioannovskij, Orthodox Publishing Society. concludes that for Ignatius as well as Saint Hippolytus of Tome the two terms, "eucharist" and "love-feast" were synonymous.
Justin Martyr
, writing around 150, is generally credited with the first description of the Eucharist as rite, both as a weekly celebration and (with less details about the rite) as a celebration after a baptism. In his description of the latter he states: "This food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined."
Christians came to describe the Eucharist as a sacrifice, specifically an unbloody sacrifice. It was said to be particularly beneficial when undertaken for the aid of the dead in the intermediate state
between death and the Resurrection (see Requiem mass).
In the Greek Church, priests came to use leavened bread, in order to further distinguish Christianity from Judaism, and its tradition of unleavened bread at Passover. In the Latin Church, priests used either. In the 15th century at the Council of Florence, this difference, along with papal supremacy, purgatory, and one word in the Latin version of the Nicene Creed, were among significant disputes between the Greeks and Latins. (See Azymite
.)
The 1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church
gives a modern summary of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Eucharist.
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
, at which Jesus established a New Covenant
New Covenant
The New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment...
in his body
Body of Christ
In Christian theology, the term Body of Christ has two separate connotations: it may refer to Jesus's statement about the Eucharist at the Last Supper that "This is my body" in , or the explicit usage of the term by the Apostle Paul in to refer to the Christian Church.Although in general usage the...
and blood
Blood of Christ
The Blood of Christ in Christian theology refers to the physical blood actually shed by Jesus Christ on the Cross, and the salvation which Christianity teaches was accomplished thereby; and the sacramental blood present in the Eucharist, which is considered by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and...
, fulfilling the Mosaic covenant
Mosaic Covenant
The Mosaic Covenant or Sinaitic Covenant are terms used for the biblical covenant between God and the Israelites...
. In this ancient rite or sacrament Christians eat bread and drink a cup of wine as the body and blood of Christ. While certain beliefs and practices regarding the Eucharist may have changed over time and may vary today, the practice itself dates back to apostolic times
Apostolic Age
The Apostolic Age of the history of Christianity is traditionally the period of the Twelve Apostles, dating from the Crucifixion of Jesus and the Great Commission in Jerusalem until the death of John the Apostle in Anatolia...
and the earliest Christian writing
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
.
The earliest extant written account of the Christian eucharistia (Greek: thanksgiving) is that in the First Epistle to the Corinthians
First Epistle to the Corinthians
The first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...
of the mid-50s, in which Paul the Apostle relates "eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord" in the celebration of a "Supper of the Lord" to the Last Supper
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
of Jesus some 25 years earlier.
The Eucharist is a central religious rite of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, the Eastern Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
, Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy is the faith of those Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils — the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the First Council of Ephesus. They rejected the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon...
and several of the Christian denominations that have emerged since the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
. Letters of Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology...
speak of it as a central rite for the Christians of the first years of the 2nd century, and it is recorded as celebrated more than half a century earlier by the Christian community at Jerusalem
Jerusalem in Christianity
For Christians, Jerusalem's place in the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age gives it great importance, in addition to its place in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.-Jerusalem in the New Testament and early Christianity:...
and elsewhere.
Contemporary scholarship examines whether Jesus meant to institute a ritual at his Last Supper and whether the Last Supper was an actual historical event in any way related to the undisputed early "Lord's Supper" or "Eucharist". Writers associated with the Jesus Seminar
Jesus Seminar
The Jesus Seminar is a group of about 150 critical scholars and laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk under the auspices of the Westar Institute....
suggest that the Lord's supper seems to have had its origins in a pagan context, where dinners to memorialize the dead were common and the Jewish prohibition against drinking blood did not prevail; and that the rite that Paul describes probably originated in the Christian communities that he had founded in Asia Minor and Greece. C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, though, had already answered and refuted the Pagan-origins argument in his book, Miracles
Miracles (book)
Miracles is a book written by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947 and revised in 1960. Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that...
, which was published a half century before the Jesus Seminar writers made their claims.
From a very early date the Eucharist was a regular part of Christian worship and was held to have been instituted by Jesus, and the service is recorded in Acts 2:42,46 as celebrated by the first Christians in Jerusalem. Some scholars hold that the tradition that Paul recorded in his first letter to the Corinthians dated from his earliest years as a Christian, some eight years before he began his missionary activity, and twenty before he wrote that letter to a congregation that he had established about seven years before.
Early Christianity
In the three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, Christian practices and beliefs regarding the Eucharist took definitive shape as central to Christian worship. At first, Christian beliefs and practices spread through word of mouth, but within a generation Christians had begun writing about Jesus and about Christian practice, the Eucharist included. The theology of the Eucharist and its role as a sacrament developed during this period.Establishment of the Eucharist
Various scholars maintain that Jesus made table fellowship central to his ministry, that he established the Eucharist at the Last Supper, that Paul established it in his missions among the Gentiles, or that it arose from multiple traditions.Jesus at table
Table fellowship was central to Jesus' ministry. He was infamous for violating codes of honor to eat freely with outsiders, termed "sinners and tax collectors" in the Gospels. Jesus presumably taught at the dinner table, as was customary. Jesus' emphasis on table fellowship is reflected in the large number of eating scenes in early Christian art.Jesus Christ's New Covenant
The synoptic gospels affirm that Jesus instituted the ritual of bread and wine at the Last Supper, with his disciples on the night before he was crucified. With this ritual, Jesus instituted a new covenant in his own body and blood. All four gospels link Jesus' passion to the Jewish Passover.Instituted by Jesus and developed later
Professor Robert J. Daly, S.J., argues that Jesus did indeed institute the Eucharist, though it took generations and centuries of guidance from the Holy Spirit for the Eucharist to reach its current form.Paul as the Eucharist's founder
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians is the earliest record of Eucharistic practice. He refers to the Lord's Supper, a communal meal, which he links to the Last Supper and describes as a memorial of Jesus to be kept until his return. Arguments in favor of Paul's having founded the Lord's Supper in a pagan context include the Jewish prohibition against drinking blood, the pervasive history of Greek memorial dining societies, and Paul's own hellenistic background." Paul, however, explicitly stated that he was rehearsing a Christian tradition, something that he himself had "received" and had already "handed on" to the Corinthians.Two Eucharist traditions
John Dominic Crossan suggests that there are two traditions "as old as we can trace them" of the eucharist, that of Paul, reflecting the Antioch Church's tradition, and that of the DidacheDidache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, the first document to give explicit instruction regarding prayers to be said at a celebration that it called the Eucharist.
The cup/bread liturgy of the Didache, from the Jerusalem tradition, does not mention Passover, or Last Supper, or Death of Jesus/blood/body, and the sequence is meal + thanksgiving ritual. For Crossan, it is dispositive that
even late in the first century C.E., at least some (southern?) Syrian Christians could celebrate a Eucharist of bread and wine with absolutely no hint of Passover meal, Last Supper or passion symbolism built into its origins or development. I cannot believe that they knew about those elements and studiously avoided them. I can only presume that they were not there for everyone from the beginning, that is, from solemn formal and final institution by Jesus himself.
Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in the context of correcting the habits of the Corinthians serves to reestablish "the Pre-Pauline tradition, ritual of bread/body + meal + ritual of cup/blood." Hellenized Jew Paul references a Greek weekly Lord's Supper, which is not an annual Jewish Passover meal, and does not have the participants giving thanks ("Eucharistia"), rather the purpose is to proclaim Jesus' death until he comes again, in the manner of Hellenic societies formed "to hold meals in remembrance of those who had died and to drink a cup in honor of some god."
Both sequences underline the primary importance of the Shared Meal to historical 1st century Christian ritual. In the Jerusalem tradition, of James and Peter, the meal is of higher importance than blood and body since the Didache fails to mention them. Both traditions reflect the pitfalls of a shared meal among social unequals, namely freeloading. The Didache says in 12:3-4, "If (a traveler) wants to settle with you and is an artisan, he must work for his living. If, however, he has no trade, use your judgment in taking steps for him to live with you as a Christian without being idle." Paul, in says: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." In Crossan's view, "both stipulations must presume a communal share-meal or they make no sense." The administrative difficulties of communal meals, easily glossed over in a small congregation of Jewish peasants, become more intractable as the church succeeds and grows and adds Gentile adherents, foreshadowing the eventual reduction to symbolism over substance.
| 1. Graeco-Roman formal meal | 2. Jesus' practice | 3a. Didache 10 | 3b. Didache 9 | 4. 1 Corinthians | 5. Mark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| deipnon (supper, main meal), then symposion | a meal that later and in retrospect was recognized as having been their last one together | Give thanks, no reference to Passover, Last Supper, or Death of Jesus | Eucharist, no reference to Passover, Last Supper, or Death of Jesus | Lord's Supper | Passover Meal |
| Bread course followed by ritual libation followed by wine course | Open Commensality - radical social egalitarianism in seating for meal | Common Meal followed by Thanks to the Father, no ritual with bread or cup | Common meal, ritual with Cup (thanks for the Holy Vine of David) and Bread (thanks for the life and knowledge of Jesus) | Bread/body, Thanks, Common Meal, Cup/blood | During meal, first Bread/body, then Cup/blood and Thanks |
| No ritual | No mention of the death of Jesus | No mention of the death of Jesus | Passion Remembrance in both cup and bread | No command for repetition and remembrance |
View that Eucharist was originally unrelated to the Last Supper
Paul F. BradshawPaul F. Bradshaw
Paul F. Bradshaw is Professor of Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame.A specialist in the early history of Christian liturgy, he has taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1985...
argues in Eucharistic Origins that it is not until after the 1st century and much later in some areas that the Eucharist and the Last Supper became placed in a relation of dependence: many Eucharists did not relate to the Paschal mystery and/or the Last Supper. On the other hand, in the middle of the 1st century Paul the Apostle explicitly placed the celebration of the Lord's Supper in relation to what Jesus did on the night he was handed over, in giving his disciples bread with the words "This is my body" and, after the supper, giving them the cup with a similar declaration about his blood.
Problem of the historical Jewish prohibition against blood-drinking
In a 10,000 word analysis in the Biblical Theology Bulletin of 2002, Michael J. Cahill surveys the state of scholarly literature from some seventy cited sources, dating from the 1950s to the present, on the question of the likelihood of a Jewish Jesus proposing the drinking of blood in the Eucharist.After examining these various theories that have been put forth, he concludes:
The survey of opinion, old and new, reveals wide disagreement with a fundamental divide between those who can accept that the notion of drinking blood could have a Jewish origin and those who insist that this is a later development to be located in the Hellenistic world. What both sides share is an inability to proffer a rationally convincing argument that can provide a historical explanation for the presence of this particular component of the Eucharistic rite. Those who hold for the literal institution by Jesus have not been able to explain plausibly how the drinking of blood could have arisen in a Jewish setting. In fact, this difficulty has been turned into an argument for authenticity. For example, Jeremiah [sic] quotes Dalman: "Exactly that which seems scandalous will be historical" (170-71). W. D. DaviesW. D. DaviesWilliam David Davies , always called W. D., was a Welsh congregationalist minister and academic theologian.-Life:He was born in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Educated at the University of Wales and at Cambridge , he was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church in 1941, and served parishes...
draws attention to the fact that Dalman also argued that the Pauline version of the institution arose in a gentile environment to eliminate the difficulties presented by the more direct Markan form (246). It would appear to be obvious that the difficulties would have been greater in a Jewish environment. Davies' conclusion is apt: "When such divergent conclusons [sic] have been based upon the same evidence any dogmatism would be foolish" (246). On the other hand, I have earlier argued that previous suggestions supporting the non-Jewish source have been vitiated by vague generalities or by association with inappropriate pagan rituals.
Worldwide practice
Early in the 20th century, Edward CarpenterEdward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....
advanced the theory that the Christian Eucharist arose from a ubiquitous worldwide practice of sacramental sacrifice or memorial, with wine symbolizing blood.
New Testament accounts
In the New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
there are four accounts of the institution of the Eucharist, one by St Paul and three in the Synoptic Gospels. The ritual itself is recorded as celebrated by early Christians at Jerusalem
Jerusalem in Christianity
For Christians, Jerusalem's place in the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age gives it great importance, in addition to its place in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.-Jerusalem in the New Testament and early Christianity:...
and by St Paul on his visit to Troas. From a very early date, the service was a regular part of Christian worship, and was held to have been instituted by Christ. The letters of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles make it clear that early Christianity believed that this institution included a mandate to continue the celebration as an anticipation in this life of the joys of the banquet that was to come in the Kingdom of God.
Last Supper
The earliest account of the Lord's Supper, Paul's epistle to a congregation he'd founded in Corinth, links it to Jesus' directions given at the Last Supper.Scholars of the Jesus Seminar generally regard the gospel accounts of the Last Supper as cult legend, that is, a story that accounts for some ritual practice in the Jesus movement.
Six "Eucharists" in the New Testament
Bruce Chilton suggests that we can find in the New Testament six different ways of celebrating what Christians came to call the Eucharist, and can locate each of these in its own specific socio-religio-political setting. This would seem to make irrelevant a number of time-honored scholarly approaches, fundamental to which were, first, the "literally true" vs. "literary fictions" debate, and, second, the assumption that there was a unified line of development from the established Eucharist of later centuries back close to the time of the historical Jesus.| Jesus' Table Fellowship | The "Last Supper" | Petrine Christianity | The Circle of James | Paul and the Synoptics | John |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jesus joined with his followers in meals that were designed to anticipate the coming of God's kingdom. The meals were characterized by a readiness to accept the hospitality and the produce of Israel at large. A willingness to provide for the meals, to join in the fellowship, to forgive and to be forgiven, was seen by Jesus as a sufficient condition for eating in his company and for entry into the kingdom. Jesus' approach to purity qualification was distinctive in its inclusiveness. For Jesus, the primary markers of purity, the primary requirements for table fellowship in the kingdom were: Israel as forgiven and willing to provide of its own produce. | Jesus sought to influence or reform purity practices associated with the Temple. In his meals, as he shared wine, he started referring to it as the equivalent of the blood of an animal shed in sacrifice, and in sharing bread, claiming that its value was that of sacrificial flesh. "Here was a sacrifice of sharings which the authorities could not control, and which the nature of Jesus" movement made it impossible for them to ignore. Jesus" meals after his failed occupation of the Temple became a surrogate of sacrifice, the second type of Eucharist." | In this stage of Eucharistic development, the berakhah prayer of Judaism seems to have become a principal model of Eucharist. Bread took precedence over wine, and, as Acts 1:12-26, 2:46, and 3:14:37 clearly describe, a double domestication took place. Instead of seeking the hospitality of others, as the itinerant Jesus seemed to do, adherents of the movement, under the leadership of Peter and/or the Twelve, gathered in the homes of colleagues where they "broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people" (Acts 2:46-47). In addition, apparently they also acknowledged the validity of sacrifice in the Temple. In doing this they changed the nature of the meal and the memory of what Jesus had said at that meal. For example, there is no mention of wine, nor does there, in this account of the earliest Christian gatherings, seem to have been any sense of being in tension with the officials of Judaism or its religious practices. | The tendency to domestication is here pursued further, for the Eucharist is now seen as a Seder meal, open only to Jews in a state of purity, and to be celebrated only once a year, at Passover, in Jerusalem, as prescribed in Exodus 12:48. The effect of this Jacobean program—a possible antecedent to the later Quartodeciman practice?--"was to integrate Jesus' movement fully within the liturgical institutions of Judaism, to insist upon the Judaic identity of the movement and upon Jerusalem as its governing center," but without actually replacing Israel's Seder. | Paul vehemently resisted Jacobean claims. He also emphasized the link between Jesus" death and the Eucharist, and he accepts what Chilton calls the Hellenistic refinement of the Petrine type that presented the Eucharist as a sacrifice for sin. This is also what we find in the Synoptic Gospels which use words to suggest that Jesus' blood is shed in the interests of the communities for which those Gospels were composed: for the "many" (in Damascus?) Matthew 26:28 and (in Rome?) Mark 14:24: on behalf of "you" (in Antioch?) Luke 22:20. | Jesus identifies himself in John 6 as the manna, now developed to construe the Eucharist as a mystery in which Jesus, not literally but sacramentally, offers/gives his own personal body and blood in Eucharist. This would probably not be a totally new idea to Hellenistic Christians who followed synoptic practice. But Johannine practice now makes this meaning explicit. It was, as is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, an unambiguous, clear break with Judaism. For with this development, Eucharist has become a "sacrament" understandable only in Hellenistic terms, and involving "a knowing conflict with the ordinary understanding of what Judaism might and might not include." |
Allusions to the Eucharist in the New Testament
Common meals figured significantly in Jesus' ministry. In accordance with Jesus' general message of forgiveness and inclusion, Jesus ate meals with outsiders. According to both Matthew and Luke, critics called him a "glutton and a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners." Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus drank wine.The New Testament recounts a number of practices of religious table fellowship that would later be called eucharistic. Paul the Apostle devoted about two percent, of his First Epistle to the Corinthians
First Epistle to the Corinthians
The first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...
, usually dated to AD 52–57 and nothing in any of his other letters, to abuses at a meal that the Corinthian Christians had at their meetings and that he did not deem worthy to be called "a Supper of the Lord." (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον). He follows that paragraph with two that indicate how he thought the meal should be celebrated; and elsewhere in the same letter he writes: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." Paul's letters are more likely to have been read at meals than at "business meetings."
Dennis E. Smith says that the earliest Christians worshiped at table in their hosts' dining rooms. and that the earliest Christians shaped the traditions about Jesus to fit that setting. In his study Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values, and Status concerning practice at the meals designated in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
by the word "convivium", equivalent to "deipnon" and/or "symposion" in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, The number of participants at such meals in private houses, as opposed to other specially designated places, would be at most a dozen.
The symposium after the meal was the time for teaching and conversation, for the singing of hymns, for the contributions of those who prophesied or spoke in tongues.
Paul had first evangelized the inhabitants of Corinth, in Greece, in 51/52 CE. Paul's nascent congregation there was made up of pagan, not Jewish, converts . All first-generation Christians were necessarily converts, either pagan or Jewish. They had written him regarding numerous matters of concern. Criticizing what he had heard of their meetings, at which they had communal meals, one paragraph in Paul's response reminded them about what he asserted he had "received from the Lord" and had "passed on" about Jesus' actions and directives at his Last Supper. The ambiguities some find in that wording has generated reams of books, articles and opinions about the Origins of Eucharist. The Last Supper
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
(a one-off event) and the eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
(a periodically repeated rite) are not the same thing. Clearly the religious table fellowship tradition had been going on in the Early Christian Church, antedating Paul's conversion, unless the contention is made that Paul invented it. See table below for Paul's paragraph regarding the Last Supper .
The paragraph preceding this gives Paul's complaints against how the Corinthians actually celebrated "the Lord's Supper", and the two paragraphs that follow it give his appeal to them to celebrate it worthily, since otherwise they would be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
In his 1994 book, A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus through Johannine Circles, Bruce Chilton wrote that Paul "indeed 'received from the Lord' (1 Corinthians 11:23, through Cephas (Galatians 1:18), what he 'handed over' (1Corinthians 11:23) to his hearers. … He reminds his hearers of what he already had taught as authoritative, a teaching 'from the Lord' and presumably warranted by the earliest 'pillars': in that sense, what he hands on is not his own, but derives from his highest authority, 'the Lord' (11:23)."
Eugene LaVerdiere wrote: "That is how Paul introduced the tradition, presenting himself as a link in the chain of Eucharistic tradition. He received (paralambano) the tradition of Eucharist in the early 40s while in the community at Antioch. He handed it on (paradidomi) to the Corinthians in the year 51 when first proclaiming the gospel to them. Like Paul, the Corinthians also were to become a link in the chain of Eucharistic tradition, handing on to others what Paul handed on to them. Several years later, circa 54, Paul reminded them of this in 1 Corinthians."
James Still admits that most contemporary commentators argue that what Paul "receives from the Lord" is church tradition with the authority of the Lord behind it, rather than a direct revelation from Christ, and quotes as representatives of this view Kilmartin, Jeremias and Marshall. But he himself argues that Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians
Epistle to the Galatians
The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia...
, "denies that any of his teachings are from other men in authority", "goes to great lengths to distance himself from the Jerusalem Church and its gospel", and "goes on to contrast his gospel from the perverse teachings of those 'who were reputed to be something' (the three 'pillars' of James, Cephas, and John) and to defend himself from their interference". He then mentions as a possibility that "Paul needed to look no further for his soteriology than the pervasive Dionysian cult in the pagan world", but adds: "However, it is not necessary to think that he went outside of Hellenistic Judaism for his gospel."
Jesus' Last Supper is an event so significant to the Early Church that all four Gospels include a version. See table below. A passage found only in Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
records a command, found also in Paul, that the breaking of the bread be done "in remembrance of [Jesus]", though is does not specify whether it should be performed annually, as per the Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
, or more frequently. A number of commentators conclude that passage, i.e., the second half of 22:19 and all of 22:20 are later interpolations. The Rev. E.C. Radcliffe, the Canon of St. Mary's, Ely, writing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 13th Edition (1926) Eucharist article, declared: "The textus receptus
Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...
indeed includes the command, but the passage in which it occurs is an interpolation of the Pauline account; and whatever view be taken of the Lucan text, the command is no part of the original. The evidence, therefore, does not warrant the attribution to Jesus of the words 'This do in memory of Me'." Jeremias says "Do this in remembrance of me " would better be translated "That God may remember me."
| 1 Corinthians | Mark | Matthew | Luke |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, 21 for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 22 Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not! 23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. 32 When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. 33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. 34 If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment. And when I come I will give further directions. | MK 14:16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. 17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating . . . 22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. 25 "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God." |
19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. 20 When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21 And while they were eating . . . 26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." 27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom." | So they prepared the Passover. 14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. |
and tell of the very first Christians "continuing steadfastly in the breaking of bread", interpreted by some as a reference to Eucharist, written some twenty years later than the reference in 1 Corinthians.
Chapters 13-17 of the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
attribute to Jesus a series of teachings and prayers at his Last Supper, but does not mention any meal rituals. On the other hand, , in particular verses such as ("For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him"), is widely interpreted as an allusion to the Eucharist. Peculiarities in phrasing as compared to the Synoptics are thought to reflect the liturgical tradition of the Johannine community.
| Ten factors substantiating Passover | Nine factors in objection to Passover actions that would be in violation of ritual regulations | Two further objections |
|---|---|---|
* The Last Supper took place in Jerusalem
|
* the walk to Gethsemane
|
* The absence of any reference to the lamb in the accounts of the Supper.
|
The term "Agape
Agape feast
The term Agape or Love feast was used of certain religious meals among early Christians that seem originally to have been closely related to the Eucharist...
" or "Love-feast" appears in the New Testament epistle dated to the turn of the 2nd century, in : "These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves". J.C. Lambert stated that the general opinion in 1915 http://www.studylight.org/enc/ was that, though held together, the Agape and the Eucharist were distinct, the Eucharist coming at the end of the Agape, as the special rite instituted by Jesus followed a celebration of a Passover meal.
Passover, Kiddush and Chaburah: Jewish Ritual Meal Practice
Scholars have associated Jesus' Last Supper and the 1st-century Eucharist practices with three Second Temple Jewish meal practices: the PassoverPassover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
Seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
meal, the kiddush
Kiddush
Kiddush , literally, "sanctification," is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays.-Significance:...
blessing with wine, and the chaburah fellowship.
Passover Seder
Passover commemorates God's saving of his chosen people, the Israelites, who, according to , were spared death through the blood of lambs. The Passover SederPassover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
involves four cups of wine.
Whether the Last Supper
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
was a Passover Meal (as the chronology of the Synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
would suggest) or not (as St John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
), it is clear that the Eucharist was instituted at Passover time, and Christian writers from Saint Paul onwards have stressed that the death of Christ was the fulfilment of the sacrifice foreshadowed by the Passover."
The majority of scholars of the Last Supper do not believe that it was a Passover meal, a position consistent with the account given by the Gospel of Saint John. A minority believe that it was a seder or Passover meal, a position consistent with the Synoptic gospels. However, as Enrico Mazza has argued, the minority view "remains a theological interpretation. The historical fact is that the Last Supper was not a Passover celebration and, consequently, that its liturgy was not that of the Jewish Passover."
Qiddush
The Johannine Supper, Ratcliffe has suggested, was the Jewish ordinance known as Qiddush, the details of which involved the leader of the mixed-sex ceremony taking a cup of wine, sanctifying it by reciting a thanksgiving blessing, and passing it around. There was a similar blessing and breaking of bread.Qiddush is the "Jewish benediction and prayer recited over a cup of wine immediately before the meal on the eve of the sabbath or of a festival. After reciting the Qiddush the master of the house sips from the cup, and then passes it to his wife and to the others at the table; then all wash their hands, and the master of the house blesses the bread, cuts it, and passes a morsel to each person at the table.
Joachim Jeremias, in about the same time period, disputed the view that the Last Supper was Qiddush, because the Qiddush was always associated with the Sabbath, and even if there was a Passover Qiddush, it would have taken place immediately before the seder, not the day before. Jeremias argued in favor of a Seder as Last Supper.
Ratcliffe wrote: "Though the Qiddush accounts for the '[Johannine]' Last Supper, it affords no explanation on the origin of the eucharist . . . the Last Supper and the Sabbath-Passover Qiddush was therefore no unusual occurrence. It represented consistent practice since Jesus had first formed the group. It is from this practice, rather than from any direct institution from Jesus, that the eucharist derives its origin. The practice was too firmly established for the group to abandon it, when its Master had been taken away; the primitive apostolic eucharist is no other than the continuation of Jesus's chaburah meal. This is the 'breaking of bread' of Acts ii. 42."
Chaburah
The chaburah (also 'haburah', pl 'chaburoth') is not the name of a rite, rather it was the name of a group of male friends who met at regular intervals (weekly for Dix) for conversation and a formal meal appurtenant to that meeting. Nothing is said about them in the Bible but scholars have been able to discover some things about them from other sources. The corporate meeting of a chaburah usually took the form of a supper, held at regular intervals, often on the eve of sabbaths or holy days. Each member of the society contributed towards the provision of this common meal.The form of the supper was largely the same as the chief meal of the day in every pious Jewish household. Each kind of food was blessed when it was first brought to the table. At the end of the meal came the grace after meals - the Blessing or Benediction as it was called. This long prayer was said by the host or father of the family in the name of all who had eaten the meal. On important occasions, and at a chaburah supper, it was recited over a special cup of wine known quite naturally as "the cup of blessing." At the end of the Thanksgiving prayer this cup was sipped by the leader and then by each of those present. The chaburah supper was concluded by the singing of a psalm, after which the meeting broke up.
Jeremias also disputed that the Last Supper was a chaburah meal, interposing the objection that the chaburah was a "duty" meal, held appurtenant to a formal occasion such as a 'bris' or a betrothal.
Deipnon, libation and symposion
Analysis of Jesus' meal practice, including the Last Supper, requires familiarity with Greek banquet meal practices, established centuries earlier.In the 8th century BC, the Judean shepherd/prophet Amos
Amos (prophet)
Amos is a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Amos. Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a sheep herder and a sycamore fig farmer. Amos' prior professions and his claim "I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet" indicate that Amos was not from the school of prophets,...
denounced the luxurious social and ceremonial religious practices of Israel's wealthy and referred to these practices (assemblies, feasts, reclining, songs, harp music, ointment, and bowls of wine) negatively.
During the Second Temple period, Hellenic practices were adopted by Jews after the conquests of Alexander the Great. By the 2nd century BC, Jesus Ben Sirach writing in the longest biblical wisdom book, Sirach, described Jewish feasting, with numerous parallels to Hellenic practice, without disapproval.
Gentile and Jewish practice was that the all-male participants reclined at table on their left elbows, and after a benediction given by the host (in the case of a Jewish meal), would have a deipnon (late afternoon or evening meal) of bread with various vegetables, perhaps some fish or even meat if the meal was extravagant.
Among the Greeks, a ritual libation, or sacrificial pouring out of wine, followed, with another benediction or blessing, leading to the 'symposion' (as in Plato's Symposium) or wine-drinking course and entertainment. Thus was established an order of breaking bread and drinking wine. Cups of wine were even passed from diner to diner as a way to pass responsibility for speaking next. "Plutarch spoke in the highest terms of the bonds created by the shared wine bowl. His words are echoed by Paul who spoke of the sharing of bread and wine as the act that created the one body, that is to say, it was a community-creating ritual."
Mystery Cults
Parallel to the religious duties to god and state, "the Hellenic world also fostered a number of 'underground' religions, which countless thousands of people found intellectually and emotionally satisfying." They were known as the "mysteries," because their adherents took oaths never to reveal their rites to the uninitiated. Several honored young male gods born of a divine father and human mother, resurrected after a heroic death. In some of these secret religions "celebrants shared a communal meal in which they symbolically ate the flesh and drank the blood of their god."Dionysus cult
Early Christianity spread through a Hellenized populace. Jewish feast practices had taken on Hellenic forms as noted above. Dionysus was "god of 'the vine' - representing wine, the most universally popular beverage in the ancient world." Barry Powell
Barry B. Powell
Barry B. Powell is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, author of the widely used textbook Classical Myth and many other books. He is a specialist in Homer and in the history of writing...
suggests that Christian notions of eating and drinking the "flesh" and "blood" of Jesus were influenced by the cult of Dionysus. In contrast, the ancient Greek tragedy, The Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
, a ritual involving the wine of Dionysus is not drunk, but poured out as a libation. In the Greek novel, Leucippe and Clitophon
Leucippe and Clitophon
The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon , written by Achilles Tatius, is one of the five surviving Ancient Greek romances, notable for its many similarities to Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, and its apparent mild parodic nature.-Plot summary:...
by Tatius, Dionysus is said to have given a sheperd of Tyre his first wine. When Dionysus shows the grape cluster where he got the wine from, Tatius parodies the Christian eucharist rite.
Pre-Pauline Confluence of Greek and Hebrew Traditions
By the time the Roman conquest, Jews practiced festive dining in essentially the same form as the Greeks, with a dinner (deipnon) followed by the symposium proper, where guests drank wine and enjoyed entertainment or conversation. There were, to be sure, cultic differences, such as a berakhahBerakhah
In Judaism, a berakhah, bracha, brokhe is a blessing, usually recited at a specific moment during a ceremony or other activity. The function of a berakhah is to acknowledge God as the source of all blessing...
over the wine cup instead of the Greeks' libation to Dionysus. But eating together was a central activity for Jewish religious groups such as Pharisees and Essenes.
"Thanksgiving" (in Greek, "εὐχαριστία"[eucharistia]) is probably to be regarded as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew "ברכה" [berakhah, berakah], the Jewish "blessing" (in Greek, "εὐλογία" [eulogia]) "addressed to God at meals for and over the food and drink. It is in this sense that the term was originally used in connection with the common meal of the early Christian community, at which the 'blessing' or 'thanksgiving' had special reference to Jesus Christ."
One formulation had it that "(t)he eucharistia was the berakhah without the chaburah supper, and the agape is the chaburah meal without the berakhah.
Agape feast
Agape feast
The term Agape or Love feast was used of certain religious meals among early Christians that seem originally to have been closely related to the Eucharist...
, although terminology varied in the first few centuries along with other aspects of practice. Agape
Agape
Agape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term...
is one of the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
words for love, and so "agape feasts" are also referred to in English as "love-feasts".
This Hellenic ritual was apparently a full meal, with each participant bringing a contribution to the meal according to their means. Perhaps predictably enough, it could at times deteriorate into merely an occasion for eating and drinking, or for ostentatious displays by the wealthier members of the community. This was criticized by Saint Paul in .
Soon after the year 100, Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology...
refers to the agape or love-feast: "Let that eucharist alone be considered valid which is celebrated in the presence of the bishop, or of him to whom he shall have entrusted it. ... It is not lawful either to baptize, or to hold a love-feast without the consent of the bishop." Letter 96 from Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo , better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him...
to Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
in about 112 suggests that "a common but innocent meal" was celebrated among early Christians. Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
too writes of these meals. Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
(c.150-211/216) distinguished so-called "Agape" meals of luxurious character from the agape (love) "which the food that comes from Christ shows that we ought to partake of". Accusations of gross indecency were sometimes made against the form that these meals sometimes took. Referring to Clement of Alexandria, Stromata III,2, the Christian editor, perhaps Philip Schaff
Philip Schaff
Philip Schaff , was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and a historian of the Christian church, who, after his education, lived and taught in the United States.-Biography:...
(1819–1893), commented before the discovery of the Didache: "The early disappearance of the Christian agapæ may probably be attributed to the terrible abuse of the word here referred to, by the licentious Carpocratians. The genuine agapæ were of apostolic origin (2 Pet. ii. 13; Jude 12), but were often abused by hypocrites, even under the apostolic eye (1 Corinthians 11:21). In the Gallican Church, a survival or relic of these feasts of charity is seen in the pain béni; and, in the Greek churches. in the or eulogiæ distributed to non-communicants at the close of the Eucharist, from the loaf out of which the bread of oblation is supposed to have been cut."
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
also objected to the continuance in his native North Africa of the custom of such meals, in which some indulged to the point of drunkenness, and he distinguished them from proper celebration of the Eucharist: "Let us take the body of Christ in communion with those with whom we are forbidden to eat even the bread which sustains our bodies." He reports that even before the time of his stay in Milan, the custom had already been forbidden there.
Canons 27 and 28 of the Council of Laodicea
Council of Laodicea
The Council of Laodicea was a regional synod of approximately thirty clerics from Asia Minor that assembled about 363–364 AD in Laodicea, Phrygia Pacatiana.-Historical context:...
(364) restricted the abuses. The Third Council of Carthage
Councils of Carthage
Councils of Carthage, also referred to as Synods of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the town of Carthage in Africa...
(393) and the Second Council of Orleans
Council of Orléans
The Council of Orléans may refer to any of several synods held in Orléans:*First Council of Orléans *Second Council of Orléans *Third Council of Orléans *Fourth Council of Orléans *Fifth Council of Orléans...
(541) reiterated this legislation, which prohibited feasting in churches, and the Trullan Council
Quinisext Council
The Quinisext Council was a church council held in 692 at Constantinople under Justinian II. It is often known as the Council in Trullo, because it was held in the same domed hall where the Sixth Ecumenical Council had met...
of 692 decreed that honey and milk were not to be offered on the altar (Canon 57), and that those who held love feasts in churches should be excommunicated (Canon 74).
There have been various survivals and revivals, however. In the 18th century, Pietist
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
Christians began to hold Love Feasts
Agape feast
The term Agape or Love feast was used of certain religious meals among early Christians that seem originally to have been closely related to the Eucharist...
that looked back to the ancient Agape. Many Christians today after celebrating the Eucharist or another liturgy, now routinely participate in an informal sharing of light refreshments and conversation. This post-Eucharistic gathering is often called "fellowship hour" or "coffee hour" and is regarded by many clergy as a particularly opportune time for engaging adults in Christian education. Others hold ritual Agape meals.
See also Agape feast
Agape feast
The term Agape or Love feast was used of certain religious meals among early Christians that seem originally to have been closely related to the Eucharist...
.
Words of Institution
In modern understanding, the Words of Institution are the segment of the Eucharistic liturgy in which the priest enacts Jesus' command at the Last Supper to eat bread as his flesh and to drink wine as his blood.The First Epistle to the Corinthians
First Epistle to the Corinthians
The first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...
and the three Synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
, do not use identical words in recounting what Jesus said at the Last Supper and, like the Words of Institution
Words of Institution
The Words of Institution are words echoing those of Jesus himself at his Last Supper that, when consecrating bread and wine, Christian Eucharistic liturgies include in a narrative of that event...
in the liturgies, do not claim to repeat word for word what exactly he said. A similar variety of expression is found in their accounts of what Jesus said on other occasions, giving the tenor, but not claiming to repeat the exact words of Jesus, which in any case were presumably spoken in Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
, not in the language of these sources, which is Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. The words of institution used in present-day liturgies are different combinations of words given in Saint Paul's letter and in the Synoptic Gospels and may even include words not given in the 1st-century sources, such as the Roman Rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
's "et aeterni" and (formerly) "mysterium fidei
Mysterium fidei (Latin phrase)
Mysterium Fidei, a Latin phrase meaning mystery of faith or mystery of the faith, is a Christian theological term for an article of faith or doctrine which defies man’s ability to grasp fully...
".
In a lecture on the place of the Words of Institution in the Eucharist, Father Robert Taft states that there is not a single extant pre-Nicene
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325...
Eucharistic prayer that one can prove contained the Words of Institution. Even when the recounting of what happened at the Last Supper became a regular part of the Eucharistic prayer, no particular interest was manifested in the precise moment of the consecration until well into the Middle Ages, when the theory of matter and form was applied to the Eucharist. This theory was sanctioned in the decrees that Pope Benedict XII
Pope Benedict XII
Pope Benedict XII , born Jacques Fournier, the third of the Avignon Popes, was Pope from 1334 to 1342.-Early life:...
(1334–1342) issued after the Council of Florence
Council of Florence
The Council of Florence was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It began in 1431 in Basel, Switzerland, and became known as the Council of Ferrara after its transfer to Ferrara was decreed by Pope Eugene IV, to convene in 1438...
, and was later so commonly accepted in the West that in 1822 Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...
spoke of the view that the epiklesis was necessary for the consecration as a "new opinion".
In her study The Function of the Words of Institution in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper Ros Clarke too refers to evidence that suggests that Words of Institution were not used in the celebration of the Eucharist during the 2nd century. She says that the evidence from the early church suggests that the words of institution were not then used liturgically, but only catechetically, and so the narrative of the Last Supper was not used in celebrating the Eucharist. What was essential, she says, was the ritual, consisting of the four actions of taking bread, giving thanks, breaking it, and giving it to be eaten, accompanying the actions by saying some words identifying the bread with Jesus' body, and similarly with respect to the cup.
The liturgies that fully developed by the late 4th century in the great Anaphora
Anaphora (liturgy)
The Anaphora is the most solemn part of the Divine liturgy, Mass, or other Christian Communion rite where the offerings of bread and wine are consecrated as the body and blood of Christ. This is the usual name for this part of the Liturgy in Eastern Christianity, but it is more often called the...
s of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Canon of the Mass
Canon of the Mass
Canon of the Mass is the name given in the Roman Missal, from the first typical edition of Pope Pius V in 1570 to that of Pope John XXIII in 1962, to the part of the Mass of the Roman Rite that begins after the Sanctus with the words Te igitur...
of the Roman Rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
, and similar anaphoras in other Churches, generally refer explicitly to what Jesus did at his Last Supper.
Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari
The Roman Catholic Church acknowledges the validity of the Holy Qurbana of Addai and MariHoly Qurbana of Addai and Mari
The Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari belongs to the East Syrian liturgical family and is in regular use in the Assyrian Church of the East, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church. Saint Addai and Saint Mari are credited with having written it...
, which is a Eucharistic liturgy in use from time immemorial that does not expressly contain the words of institution. It has been described as "an authentic anaphora
Anaphora (liturgy)
The Anaphora is the most solemn part of the Divine liturgy, Mass, or other Christian Communion rite where the offerings of bread and wine are consecrated as the body and blood of Christ. This is the usual name for this part of the Liturgy in Eastern Christianity, but it is more often called the...
of early Christianity, close to the primordial patterns of the Eucharistic prayer". It speaks of "the commemoration of the Body and Blood of your Christ, which we offer to you on the pure and holy altar, as you have taught us in his life-giving Gospel" and of "commemorating this mystery of the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ".
The Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari
Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari
The Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari belongs to the East Syrian liturgical family and is in regular use in the Assyrian Church of the East, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church. Saint Addai and Saint Mari are credited with having written it...
has been in continuous use in the Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
without the words of institution since at least the 7th century, and originated long before that.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes its validity, considering that it dates back to the early Church, that the Church of the East has otherwise preserved the orthodox faith in regard to the Eucharist and Holy Orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
, and because, though the Words of Institution are not spoken expressly, the Catholic Church judges that their meaning is present: "The words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession."
Exclusion of the Unbaptized
The DidacheDidache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, probably of the start of the 2nd century, but which some attribute to the 1st century itself, states: "Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist but such as have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for of a truth the Lord hath said concerning this, Give not that which is holy unto dogs."
Term "Eucharist"
The noun "εύχαριστία" (thanksgiving, Eucharist), which became the usual term for the rite, does not appear in the New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
itself as a name for it. However, the corresponding verb does appear in all four New Testament accounts of the Last Supper that are associated with the institution of the Eucharist, so that the use of the term "is explained either because at its institution Christ 'gave thanks' or because the service is the supreme act of Christian thanksgiving." Early occurrences of the term as a noun referring to the rite are in the Didache
Didache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology...
and Saint Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....
.
Development of the Eucharist tradition
The historical record is too sparse in original texts to put a date upon the first use of the term "eucharistia" as referring to the name of an ecclesiatical ritual and not ordinary thanksgiving for a common meal.The epistle of the Apostolic Father Clement of Rome addressing the problem of dissension within the Church at Corinth makes no explicit reference to the Eucharist. The Didache
Didache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
contains, among its components, the earliest surviving written church order. It is usually dated to the early 2nd century. A composite of several documents, it includes ritual prayers and a mention of what it calls the εὐχαριστία (Thanksgiving or Eucharist). According to the overwhelming consensus among scholars, the section beginning at 10.1 is a reworking of the Birkat hamazon
Birkat Hamazon
Birkat Hamazon or Birkath Hammazon, , known in English as the Grace After Meals, , is a set of Hebrew blessings that Jewish Law prescribes following a meal that includes bread or matzoh made from one or all of wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelt...
the prayer that ends the Jewish ritual meal. (see The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity by Hubertus Waltherus Maria van de Sandt, David Flusser pp 311–2)
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology...
, writing c. 107-110 CE referred to Eucharist three times in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans and once in his Letter to the Philadelphians, though they contain no reference to bread and wine. A Glossary of Eastern Orthodox Terms quoted in Father Symeon Ioannovskij, Orthodox Publishing Society. concludes that for Ignatius as well as Saint Hippolytus of Tome the two terms, "eucharist" and "love-feast" were synonymous.
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....
, writing around 150, is generally credited with the first description of the Eucharist as rite, both as a weekly celebration and (with less details about the rite) as a celebration after a baptism. In his description of the latter he states: "This food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined."
Christians came to describe the Eucharist as a sacrifice, specifically an unbloody sacrifice. It was said to be particularly beneficial when undertaken for the aid of the dead in the intermediate state
Intermediate state
In Christian eschatology, the intermediate state or interim state refers to a person's "intermediate" existence between one's death and one's resurrection from the dead...
between death and the Resurrection (see Requiem mass).
In the Greek Church, priests came to use leavened bread, in order to further distinguish Christianity from Judaism, and its tradition of unleavened bread at Passover. In the Latin Church, priests used either. In the 15th century at the Council of Florence, this difference, along with papal supremacy, purgatory, and one word in the Latin version of the Nicene Creed, were among significant disputes between the Greeks and Latins. (See Azymite
Azymite
Azymites is a term of reproach used by the Orthodox churches since the eleventh century against the Latin Churches, who, together with the Armenians and the Maronites, celebrate the Eucharist with unleavened bread...
.)
The 1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official text of the teachings of the Catholic Church. A provisional, "reference text" was issued by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1992 — "the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council" — with his apostolic...
gives a modern summary of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Eucharist.
Anaphoras
Some liturgies still in use today date back to early Christian anaphoras, or central eucharistic prayers. The Apostolic Tradition dates back to Hippolytus (c 170 - c 236). The Liturgy of Addai and Mari dates back perhaps the 3rd century. Soon after the end of the early Christian period, St. Basil's liturgy would later take its final form at Basil's hands.External links
- Enrico Mazza: The Eucharist in the First Four Centuries, in Anscar J. Chupungco, Handbook for Liturgical Studies: The Eucharist, pp. 9-60
- Passover, Last Supper, Eucharist, from a Christian website.
- Evolution of the Eucharist, from an Anglican church's website