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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comHistory of the Christian Church: Vol. 2, Ch. 05, § 066-069
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66. Parts of Worship
1. The reading of Scripture lessons from the Old Testament with practical application and exhortation passed from the Jewish synagogue to the Christian church. The lessons from the New Testament came prominently into use as the Gospels and Epistles took the place of the oral instruction of the apostolic age. The reading of the Gospels is expressly mentioned by Justin Martyr, and the Apostolical Constitutions add the Epistles and the Acts. During the Pentecostal season the Acts of the Apostles furnished the lessons. But there was no uniform system of selection before the Nicene age. Besides the canonical Scripture, post-apostolic writings, as the Epistle of Clement of Rome, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas, were read in some congregations, and are found in important MSS. of the New Testament. The Acts of Martyrs were also read on the anniversary of their martyrdom.
2. The sermon was a familiar exposition of Scripture and exhortation to repentance and a holy life, and gradually assumed in the Greek church an artistic, rhetorical character. Preaching was at first free to every member who had the gift of public speaking, but was gradually confined as an exclusive privilege of the clergy, and especially the bishop. Origen was called upon to preach before his ordination, but this was even then rather an exception. The oldest known homily, now recovered in full (1875), is from an unknown Greek or Roman author of the middle of the second century, probably before a.d. 140 (formerly ascribed to Clement of Rome). He addresses the hearers as “brothers†and “sisters,†and read from manuscript. The homily has no literary value, and betrays confusion and intellectual poverty, but is inspired by moral earnestness and triumphant faith. It closes with this doxology: “To the only God invisible, the Father of truth, who sent forth unto us the Saviour and Prince of immortality, through whom also He made manifest unto us the truth and the heavenly life, to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.â€
3. Prayer. This essential part of all worship passed likewise from the Jewish into the Christian service. The oldest prayers of post-apostolic times are the eucharistic thanksgivings in the Didache, and the intercession at the close of Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, which seems to have been used in the Roman church. It is long and carefully composed, and largely interwoven with passages from the Old Testament. It begins with an elaborate invocation of God in antithetical sentences, contains intercession for the afflicted, the needy, the wanderers, and prisoners, petitions for the conversion of the heathen, a confession of sin and prayer for pardon (but without a formula of absolution), and closes with a prayer for unity and a doxology. Very touching is the prayer for rulers then so hostile to the Christians, that God may grant them health, peace, concord and stability. The document has a striking resemblance to portions of the ancient liturgies which begin to appear in the fourth century, but bear the names of Clement, James and Mark, and probably include some primitive elements.
The last book of the Apostolical Constitutions contains the pseudo- or post-Clementine liturgy, with special prayers for believers, catechumens, the possessed, the penitent, and even for the dead, and a complete eucharistic service.
The usual posture in prayer was standing with outstretched arms in Oriental fashion.
4. Song. The Church inherited the psalter from the synagogue, and has used it in all ages as an inexhaustible treasury of devotion. The psalter is truly catholic in its spirit and aim; it springs from the deep fountains of the human heart in its secret communion with God, and gives classic expression to the religious experience of all men in every age and tongue. This is the best proof of its inspiration. Nothing like it can be found in all the poetry of heathendom. The psalter was first enriched by the inspired hymns which saluted the birth of the Saviour of the world, the Magnificat of Mary, the Benedictus of Zacharias, the Gloria in Excelsis of the heavenly host, and the Nunc Dimittis of the aged Simeon. These hymns passed at once into the service of the Church, to resound through all successive centuries, as things of beauty which are “a joy forever.†Traces of primitive Christian poems can be found throughout the Epistles and the Apocalypse. The angelic anthem (Luk_2:14) was expanded into the Gloria in Excelsis, first in the Greek church, in the third, if not the second, century, and afterwards in the Latin, and was used as the morning hymn. It is one of the classical forms of devotion, like the Latin Te Deum of later date. The evening hymn of the Greek church is less familiar and of inferior merit.
The following is a free translation:
“Hail! cheerful Light, of His pure glory poured,
Who is th’ Immortal Father, Heavenly, Blest,
Holiest of Holies - Jesus Christ our Lord!
Now are we come to the Sun’s hour of rest,
The lights of Evening round us shine,
We sing the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Divine!
Worthiest art Thou at all times, to be sung
With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of Life alone!
Therefore, in all the world, Thy glories, Lord, we own.â€
An author towards the close of the second century could appeal against the Artemonites, to a multitude of hymns in proof of the faith of the church in the divinity of Christ: “How many psalms and odes of the Christians are there not, which have been written from the beginning by believers, and which, in their theology, praise Christ as the Logos of God?†Tradition says, that the antiphonies, or responsive songs; were introduced by Ignatius of Antioch. The Gnostics, Valentine and Bardesanes also composed religious songs; and the church surely learned the practice not from them, but from the Old Testament psalms.
The oldest Christian poem preserved to us which can be traced to an individual author is from the pen of the profound Christian philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, who taught theology ill that city before a.d. 202. It is a sublime but somewhat turgid song of praise to the Logos, as the divine educator and leader of the human race, and though not intended and adapted for public worship, is remarkable for its spirit and antiquity.
Notes
I. The Prayer of the Roman Church from the newly recovered portion of the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ch. 59-61 (in Bishop Lightfoot’s translation, St. Clement of Rome, Append. pp. 376-378):
“Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy Name which is the primal source of all creation, and open the eyes of our hearts, that we may know Thee, who alone abidest Highest in the highest, Holy in the holy; who layest low the insolence of the proud: who scatterest the imaginings of nations; who settest the lowly on high, and bringest the lofty low; who makest rich and makest poor; who killest and makest alive; who alone art the Benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh; who lookest into the abysses, who scannest the works of man; the Succor of them that are in peril, the Saviour of them that are in despair; the Creator and Overseer of every spirit; who multipliest the nations upon earth, and hast chosen out from all men those that love Thee through Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through whom Thou didst instruct us, didst sanctify us, didst honor us. We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succor. Save those among us who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself unto the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; release our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art God alone, and Jesus Christ is Thy Son, and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pastures
“Thou through Thine operation didst make manifest the everlasting faithful of the world. Thou, Lord, didst create the earth. Thou art faithful throughout all generations, righteous in Thy judgments, marvellous in strength and excellence. Thou that art wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which Thou hast made, that art good in the things which are seen and faithful with them that trust on Thee, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousnesses and our transgressions and shortcomings. Lay not to our account every sin of Thy servants and Thine handmaids, but cleanse us with the cleansing of Thy truth, and guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteousness and singleness of heart, and to do such things as are good and well-pleasing in Thy sight and in the sight of our rulers. Yea Lord, make Thy face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Thine uplifted arm. And deliver up from them that hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and to all that dwell on the earth, as thou gavest to our fathers, when they called on Thee in faith and truth with holiness, that we may be saved, while we render obedience to Thine almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon the earth.
“Thou, Lord and Master, hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we knowing the glory and honor which Thou hast given them may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resisting Thy will. Grant unto them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure. For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, givest to the sons of men glory and honor and power over all things that are upon earth. Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well pleasing in Thy sight, that, administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which Thou hast given them, they may obtain Thy favor. O Thou, who alone art able to do these things and things far more exceeding good than these for us, we praise Thee through the High-priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be, the glory and the majesty unto Thee both now and for all generations and for ever and ever. Amen.â€
II. A literal translation of the poem of Clement of Alexandria in praise of Christ. 'd5Ì”Ì'ec'ed'ef'f2 'f4'ef'f5Í‚ 'd3'f9'f4'e7Í‚'f1'ef'f2 'f7'f1'e9'f3'f4'ef'f5Ì. ('d3'f4'ef'ec'e9Ì'ef'ed 'f0'f9Ì'eb'f9'ed 'e1Ì“'e4'e1Ì'f9'ed).
“Bridle of untamed colts, O footsteps of Christ,
Wing of unwandering birds, O heavenly way,
Sure Helm of babes, Perennial Word,
Shepherd of royal lambs! Endless age,
Assemble Thy simple children, Eternal Light,
To praise holily, Fount of mercy,
To hymn guilelessly Performer of virtue.
With innocent mouths Noble [is the] life of those
Christ, the guide of children. Who praise God
O Christ Jesus,
O King of saints, Heavenly milk
All-subduing Word Of the sweet breasts
Of the most high Father, Of the graces of the Bride,
Prince of wisdom, Pressed out of Thy wisdom.
Support of sorrows,
That rejoicest in the ages, Babes nourished
Jesus, Saviour With tender mouths,
Of the human race, Filled with dewy spirit
Shepherd, Husbandman, Of the spiritual breast.
Helm, Bridle, Let us sing together
Heavenly Wing, Simple praises
Of the all holy flock, True hymns
Fisher of men To Christ [the] King,
Who are saved, Holy reward
Catching the chaste fishes For the doctrine of life.
With sweet life Let us sing together,
From the hateful wave Sing in simplicity
Of a sea of vices. To the mighty Child.
O choir of peace,
Guide [us], Shepherd The Christ begotten,
Of rational sheep; O chaste people
Guide harmless children, Let us praise together
O holy King. The God of peace.â€
This poem was for sixteen centuries merely a hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational minister, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, by a happy reproduction, in 1846, secured it a place in modern hymn-books. While preparing a sermon (as he informs me) on “some prominent characteristics of the early Christians†(text, Deu_32:7, “Remember the days of oldâ€), he first wrote down an exact translation of the Greek hymn of Clement, and then reproduced and modernized it for the use of his congregation in connection with the sermon. It is well known that many Psalms of Israel have inspired some of the noblest Christian hymns. The 46th Psalm gave the key-note of Luther’s triumphant war-hymn of the Reformation: “Ein’ feste Burg.†John Mason Neale dug from the dust of ages many a Greek and Latin hymn, to the edification of English churches, notably some portions of Bernard of Cluny’s De Contemptu Mundi, which runs through nearly three thousand dactylic hexameters, and furnished the material for “Brief life is here our portion.†“For thee, O dear, dear Country,†and “Jerusalem the golden.†We add Dexter’s hymn as a fair specimen of a useful transfusion and rejuvenation of an old poem.
1. Shepherd of tender youth,
Guiding in love and truth
Through devious ways;
Christ, our triumphant King,
We come Thy name to sing;
Hither our children bring
To shout Thy praise!
2. Thou art our Holy Lord,
The all-subduing Word,
Healer of strife!
Thou didst Thyself abase,
That from sin’s deep disgrace
Thou mightest save our race,
And give us life.
3. Thou art the great High Priest;
Thou hast prepared the feast
Of heavenly love;
While in our mortal pain
None calls on Thee in vain;
Help Thou dost not disdain -
Help from above.
4. Ever be Thou our Guide,
Our Shepherd and our Pride,
Our Staff and Song!
Jesus, Thou Christ of God
By Thy perennial Word
Lead us where Thou hast trod,
Make our faith strong.
5. So now, and till we die,
Sound we Thy praises high,
And joyful sing:
Infants, and the glad throng
Who to Thy church belong,
Unite to swell the song
To Christ our King!
67. Division of Divine Service. The Disciplina Arcani
Richard Rothe: De Disciplinae Arcani, quae dicitur, in Ecclesia Christ. Origine. Heidelb. 1841; and his art. on the subject in the first ed. of Herzog (vol. I. 469-477).
C. A. Gerh. Von Zezschwitz: System der christl. kirchlichen Katechetik. Leipz. 1863, vol. I. p. 154-227. See also his art. in the second ed. of Herzog, I. 637-645 (abridged in Schaff’s “Rel. Enc.â€).
G. Nath. Bonwetsch (of Dorpat): Wesen, Entstehunq und Fortgang der Arkandisciplin, in Kahnis’ “Zeitschrift f'fcr Hist. Theol.†1873, pp. 203 sqq.
J. P. Lundy: Monumental Christianity. N. York, 1876, p. 62-86.
Comp. also A. W. Haddan in Smith & Cheetham, I. 564-566; Wandinger, in Wetzer & Welte, new ed. vol. I. (1882), 1234-1238. Older dissertations on the subject by Schelstrate (1678), Meier (1679), Tenzell (1863), Scholliner (1756), Lienhardt (1829), Toklot (1836), Frommann (1833), Siegel (1836, I. 506 sqq.).
The public service was divided from the middle of the second century down to the close of the fifth, into the worship of the catechumens, and the worship of the faithful. The former consisted of scripture reading, preaching, prayer, and song, and was open to the unbaptized and persons under penance. The latter consisted of the holy communion, with its liturgical appendages; none but the proper members of the church could attend it; and before it began, all catechumens and unbelievers left the assembly at the order of the deacon, and the doors were closed or guarded.
The earliest witness for this strict separation is Tertullian, who reproaches the heretics with allowing the baptized and the unbaptized to attend the same prayers, and casting the holy even before the heathens. He demands, that believers, catechumens, and heathens should occupy separate places in public worship. The Alexandrian divines furnished a theoretical ground for this practice by their doctrine of a secret tradition for the esoteric. Besides the communion, the sacrament of baptism, with its accompanying confession, was likewise treated as a mystery for the initiated, and withdrawn from the view of Jews and heathens.
We have here the beginnings of the Christian mystery-worship, or what has been called since 1679 “the Secret Discipline,†(Disciplina Arcani), which is presented in its full development in the liturgies of the fourth century, but disappeared from the Latin church after the sixth century, with the dissolution of heathenism and the universal introduction of infant baptism.
The Secret Discipline had reference chiefly to the celebration of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, but included also the baptismal symbol, the Lord’s Prayer, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and other fathers make a distinction between lower or elementary (exoteric) and higher or deeper (esoteric) doctrines, and state that the latter are withheld from the uninitiated out of reverence and to avoid giving offence to the weak and the heathen. This mysterious reticence, however, does not justify the inference that the Secret Discipline included transubstantiation, purgatory, and other Roman dogmas which are not expressly taught in the writings of the fathers. The argument from silence is set aside by positive proof to the contrary. Modern Roman archaeologists have pressed the whole symbolism of the Catacombs into the service of the Secret Discipline, but without due regard to the age of those symbolical representations.
The origin of the Secret Discipline has been traced by some to the apostolic age, on the ground of the distinction made between “milk for babes†and “strong meat†for those “of full age,†and between speaking to “carnal†and to “spiritual†hearers. But this distinction has no reference to public worship, and Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, addressed to a heathen emperor, describes the celebration of baptism and the eucharist without the least reserve. Others derive the institution from the sacerdotal and hierarchical spirit which appeared in the latter part of the second century, and which no doubt favored and strengthened it; still others, from the Greek and Roman mystery worship, which would best explain many expressions and formulas, together with all sorts of unscriptural pedantries connected with these mysteries. Yet the first motive must be sought rather in an opposition to heathenism; to wit, in the feeling of the necessity of guarding the sacred transactions of Christianity, the embodiment of its deepest truths, against profanation in the midst of a hostile world, according to Mat_7:6; especially when after Hadrian, perhaps even from the time of Nero, those transactions came to be so shamefully misunderstood and slandered. To this must be added a proper regard for modesty and decency in the administration of adult baptism by immersion. Finally - and this is the chief cause - the institution of the order of catechumens led to a distinction of half-Christians and full-Christians, exoteric and esoteric, and this distinction gradually became established in the liturgy. The secret discipline was therefore a temporary, educational and liturgical expedient of the ante-Nicene age. The catechumenate and the division of the acts of worship grew together and declined to, together. With the disappearance of adult catechumens, or with the general use of infant baptism and the union of church and state, disappeared also the secret discipline in the sixth century: “cessante causa cessat effectus.â€
The Eastern church, however, has retained in her liturgies to this day the ancient form for the dismission of catechumens, the special prayers for them, the designation of the sacraments as “mysteries,†and the partial celebration of the mass behind the veil; though she also has for centuries had no catechumens in the old sense of the word, that is, adult heathen or Jewish disciples preparing for baptism, except in rare cases of exception, or on missionary ground.
68. Celebration of the Eucharist
The celebration of the Eucharist or holy communion with appropriate prayers of the faithful was the culmination of Christian worship. Justin Martyr gives us the following description, which still bespeaks the primitive simplicity: “After the prayers [of the catechumen worship] we greet one another with the brotherly kiss. Then bread and a cup with water and wine are handed to the president (bishop) of the brethren. He receives them, and offers praise, glory, and thanks to the Father of all, through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, for these his gifts. When he has ended the prayers and thanksgiving, the whole congregation responds: ‘Amen.’ For ‘Amen’ in the Hebrew tongue means: ‘Be it so.’ Upon this the deacons, as we call them, give to each of those present some of the blessed bread, and of the wine mingled with water, and carry it to the absent in their dwellings. This food is called with us the eucharist, of which none can partake, but the believing and baptized, who live according to the commands of Christ. For we use these not as common bread and common drink; but like as Jesus Christ our Redeemer was made flesh through the word of God, and took upon him flesh and blood for our redemption; so we are taught, that the nourishment blessed by the word of prayer, by which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation (assimilation), is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.â€
Then he relates the institution from the Gospels, and mentions the customary collections for the poor.
We are not warranted in carrying back to this period the full liturgical service, which we find prevailing with striking uniformity in essentials, though with many variations in minor points, in all quarters of the church in the Nicene age. A certain simplicity and freedom characterized the period before us. Even the so-called Clementine liturgy, in the eighth book of the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, was probably not composed and written out in this form before the fourth century. There is no trace of written liturgies during the Diocletian persecution. But the germs (late from the second century. The oldest eucharistic prayers have recently come to light in the Didache,which contains three thanksgivings, for the cup, the broken bread, and for all mercies. (chs. 9 and 10.)
From scattered statements of the ante-Nicene fathers we may gather the following view of the eucharistic service as it may have stood in the middle of the third century, if not earlier.
The communion was a regular and the most solemn part of the Sunday worship; or it was the worship of God in the stricter sense, in which none but full members of the church could engage. In many places and by many Christians it was celebrated even daily, after apostolic precedent, and according to the very common mystical interpretation of the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer. The service began, after the dismission of the catechumens, with the kiss of peace, given by the men to men, and by the women to women, in token of mutual recognition as members of one redeemed family in the midst of a heartless and loveless world. It was based upon apostolic precedent, and is characteristic of the childlike simplicity, and love and joy of the early Christians. The service proper consisted of two principal acts: the oblation, or presenting of the offerings of the congregation by the deacons for the ordinance itself, and for the benefit of the clergy and the poor; and the communion, or partaking of the consecrated elements. In the oblation the congregation at the same time presented itself as a living thank-offering; as in the communion it appropriated anew in faith the sacrifice of Christ, and united itself anew with its Head. Both acts were accompanied and consecrated by prayer and songs of praise.
In the prayers we must distinguish, first, the general thanksgiving (the eucharist in the strictest sense of the word) for all the natural and spiritual gifts of God, commonly ending with the seraphic hymn, Isa_6:3; secondly, the prayer of consecration, or the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the people and the elements, usually accompanied by the recital of the words of institution and the Lord’s Prayer; and finally, the general intercessions for all classes, especially for the believers, on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for the salvation of the world. The length and order of the prayers, however, were not uniform; nor the position of the Lord’s Prayer, which sometimes took the place of the prayer of consecration, being reserved for the prominent part of the service. Pope Gregory I. says that it “was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the oblation only by the Lord’s Prayer.†The congregation responded from time to time, according to the ancient Jewish and the apostolic usage, with an audible “Amen,†or “Kyrie eleison.†The “Sursum corda,†also, as an incitement to devotion, with the response, “Habemus ad Dominum,†appears at least as early as Cyprian’s time, who expressly alludes to it, and in all the ancient liturgies. The prayers were spoken, not read from a book. But extemporaneous prayer naturally assumes a fixed form by constant repetition.
The elements were common or leavened bread (except among the Ebionites, who, like the later Roman church from the seventh century, used unleavened bread), and wine mingled with water. This mixing was a general custom in antiquity, but came now to have various mystical meanings attached to it. The elements were placed in the hands (not in the mouth) of each communicant by the clergy who were present, or, according to Justin, by the deacons alone, amid singing of psalms by the congregation (Psa_34:1-22), with the words: “The body of Christ;†“The blood of Christ, the cup of life;†to each of which the recipient responded “Amen.†The whole congregation thus received the elements, standing in the act. Thanksgiving and benediction concluded the celebration.
After the public service the deacons carried the consecrated elements to the sick and to the confessors in prison. Many took portions of the bread home with them, to use in the family at morning prayer. This domestic communion was practised particularly in North Africa, and furnishes the first example of a communio sub una specie. In the same country, in Cyprian’s time, we find the custom of infant communion (administered with wine alone), which was justified from Joh_6:53, and has continued in the Greek (and Russian) church to this day, though irreconcilable with the apostle’s requisition of a preparatory examination (1Co_11:28).
At first the communion was joined with a love feast, and was then celebrated in the evening, in memory of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. But so early as the beginning of the second century these two exercises were separated, and the communion was placed in the morning, the love feast in the evening, except on certain days of special observance. Tertullian gives a detailed description of the Agape in refutation of the shameless calumnies of the heathens. But the growth of the churches and the rise of manifold abuses led to the gradual disuse, and in the fourth century even to the formal prohibition of the Agape, which belonged in fact only to the childhood and first love of the church. It was a family feast, where rich and poor, master and slave met on the same footing, partaking of a simple meal, hearing reports from distant congregations, contributing to the necessities of suffering brethren, and encouraging each other in their daily duties and trials. Augustin describes his mother Monica as going to these feasts with a basket full of provisions and distributing them.
The communion service has undergone many changes in the course of time, but still substantially survives with all its primitive vitality and solemnity in all churches of Christendom, - a perpetual memorial of Christ’s atoning sacrifice and saving love to the human race. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are institutions which proclaim from day to day the historic Christ, and can never be superseded by contrivances of human ingenuity and wisdom.
69. The Doctrine of the Eucharist
Literature. See the works quoted, vol. I., by Waterland (Episc. d. 1740), D'f6llinger (R. Cath., 1826; since 1870 Old Cath.), Ebrard (Calvinistic, 1845), Nevin (Calvinistic, 1846), Kahnis (Luth. 1851, but changed his view in his Dogmatik), E. B. Pusey (high Anglic., 1855), R'fcckert (Rationalistic, 1856), Vogan (high Anglic., 1871), Harrison (Evang. Angl., 1871), Stanley (Broad Church Episc., 1881), Gude (Lutheran, 1887).
On the Eucharistic doctrine of Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, there are also special treatises by Thiersch (1841), Semisch (1842), Engelhardt (1842), Baur (1839 and 1857), Steitz (1864), and others.
H'f6fling: Die Lehre der 'e4ltesten Kirche vom Opfer im Leben und Cultus der Christen. Erlangen, 1851.
Dean Stanley: The Eucharistic Sacrifice. In “Christian Institutions†(N. Y. 1881) p. 73 sqq.
The doctrine concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained indefinite and obscure. The ancient church made more account of the worthy participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She looked upon it as the holiest mystery of the Christian worship, and accordingly celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and blood. It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic discussion of this subject.
1. The Eucharist as a Sacrament
The Didache of the Apostles contains eucharistic prayers, but no theory of the eucharist. Ignatius speaks of this sacrament in two passages, only by way of allusion, but in very strong, mystical terms, calling it the flesh of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, and the consecrated bread a medicine of immortality and an antidote of spiritual death. This view, closely connected with his high-churchly tendency in general, no doubt involves belief in the real presence, and ascribes to the holy Supper an effect on spirit and body at once, with reference to the future resurrection, but is still somewhat obscure, and rather an expression of elevated feeling than a logical definition.
The same may be said of Justin Martyr, when he compares the descent of Christ into the consecrated elements to his incarnation for our redemption.
Irenaeus says repeatedly, in combating the Gnostic Docetism, that bread and wine in the sacrament become, by the presence of the Word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the body and blood of Christ and that the receiving of them strengthens soul and body (the germ of the resurrection body) unto eternal life. Yet this would hardly warrant our ascribing either transubstantiation or consubstantiation to Irenaeus. For in another place he calls the bread and wine, after consecration, “antitypes,†implying the continued distinction of their substance from the body and blood of Christ. This expression in itself, indeed, might be understood as merely contrasting here the Supper, as the substance, with the Old Testament passover, its type; as Peter calls baptism the antitype of the saving water of the flood (1Pe_3:20, 1Pe_3:21). But the connection, and the usus loquendi of the earlier Greek fathers, require us to take the term antitype, a the sense of type, or, more precisely, as the antithesis of archetype. The bread and wine represent and exhibit the body and blood of Christ as the archetype, and correspond to them, as a copy to the original. In exactly the same sense it is said in Heb_9:24 - comp. Heb_8:5 - that the earthly sanctuary is the antitype, that is the copy, of the heavenly archetype. Other Greek fathers also, down to the fifth century, and especially the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, call the consecrated elements “antitypes†(sometimes, like Theodoretus, “typesâ€) of the body and blood of Christ.
A different view, approaching nearer the Calvinistic or Reformed, we meet with among the African fathers. Tertullian makes the words of institution: Hoc est corpus meum, equivalent to: figura corporis mei, to prove, in opposition to Marcion’s docetism, the reality of the body of Jesus - a mere phantom being capable of no emblematic representation This involves, at all events, an essential distinction between the consecrated elements and the body and blood of Christ in the Supper. Yet Tertullian must not be understood as teaching a merely symbolical presence of Christ; for in other places he speaks, according to his general realistic turn, in almost materialistic language of an eating of the body of Christ, and extends the participation even to the body of the receiver. Cyprian likewise appears to favor a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, yet not so clearly. The idea of the real presence would have much better suited his sacerdotal conception of the ministry. In the customary mixing of the wine with water he sees a type of the union of Christ with his church, and, on the authority of Joh_6:53, holds the communion of the Supper indispensable to salvation. The idea of a sacrifice comes out very boldly in Cyprian.
The Alexandrians are here, as usual, decidedly spiritualistic. Clement twice expressly calls the wine a symbol or an allegory of the blood of Christ, and says, that the communicant receives not the physical, but the spiritual blood, the life, of Christ; as, indeed, the blood is the life of the body. Origen distinguishes still more definitely the earthly elements from the heavenly bread of life, and makes it the whole design of the supper to feed the soul with the divine word. Applying his unsound allegorical method here, he makes the bread represent the Old Testament, the wine the New, and the breaking of the bread the multiplication of the divine word! But these were rather private views for the initiated, and can hardly be taken as presenting the doctrine of the Alexandrian church.
We have, therefore, among the ante-Nicene fathers, three different views, an Oriental, a North-African, and an Alexandrian. The first view, that of Ignatius and Irenaeus, agrees most nearly with the mystical character of the celebration of the eucharist, and with the catholicizing features of the age.
2. The Eucharist as a Sacrifice
This point is very important in relation to the doctrine, and still more important in relation to the cultus and life, of the ancient church. The Lord’s Supper was universally regarded not only as a sacrament, but also as a sacrifice, the true and eternal sacrifice of the new covenant, superseding all the provisional and typical sacrifices of the old; taking the place particularly of the passover, or the feast of the typical redemption from Egypt. This eucharistic sacrifice, however, the ante-Nicene fathers conceived not as an unbloody repetition of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but simply as a commemoration and renewed appropriation of that atonement, and, above all, a thank-offering of the whole church for all the favors of God in creation and redemption. Hence the current name itself - eucharist; which denoted in the first place the prayer of thanksgiving, but afterwards the whole rite.
The consecrated elements were regarded in a twofold light, as representing at once the natural and the spiritual gifts of God, which culminated in the self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Hence the eucharistic prayer, like that connected with the typical passover, related at the same time to creation and redemption, which were the more closely joined in the mind of the church for their dualistic separation by the Gnostics. The earthly gifts of bread and wine were taken as types and pledges of the heavenly gifts of the same God, who has both created and redeemed the world.
Upon this followed the idea of the self-sacrifice of the worshipper himself, the sacrifice of renewed self-consecration to Christ in return for his sacrifice on the cross, and also the sacrifice of charity to the poor. Down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the eucharistic elements were presented as a thank-offering by the members of the congregation themselves, and the remnants went to the clergy and he poor. In these gifts the people yielded themselves as a priestly race and a living thank-offering to God, to whom they owed all the blessings alike of providence and of grace. In later times the priest alone offered the sacrifice. But even the Roman Missal retains a recollection of the ancient custom in the plural form, “We offer,†and in the sentence: “All you, both brethren and sisters, pray that my sacrifice and your sacrifice, which is equally yours as well as mine, may be meat for the Lord.â€
This subjective offering of the whole congregation on the ground of the objective atoning sacrifice of Christ is the real centre of the ancient Christian worship, and particularly of the communion. It thus differed both from the later Catholic mass, which has changed the thank-offering into a sin-offering, the congregational offering into a priest offering; and from the common Protestant cultus, which, in opposition to the Roman mass, has almost entirely banished the idea of sacrifice from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except in the customary offerings for the poor.
The writers of the second century keep strictly within the limits of the notion of a congregational thank-offering. Thus Justin says expressly, prayers and thanksgivings alone are the true and acceptable sacrifices, which the Christians offer. Irenaeus has been brought as a witness for the Roman doctrine, only on the ground of a false reading. The African fathers, in the third century, who elsewhere incline to the symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, are the first to approach on this point the later Roman Catholic idea of a sin-offering; especially Cyprian, the steadfast advocate of priesthood and of episcopal authority. The ideas of priesthood, sacrifice, and altar, are intimately connected, and a Judaizing or paganizing conception of one must extend to all.