20. When ye come together therefore into one' place, (this) is not to eat the Lord's supper.
Ye coming together then into one place. Yerse 19 is an interruption. The connection with v. 18 is resumed by the particle (ow) then. When you assemble it is not to eat the Lord's supper. This is not the real, though it is your pro- fessed purpose. 'You come together for a common, and that too, a disorderly, unbrotherly meal.' The words, however, admit of two other interpretations. We may supply, as our translators have done, the word this. ' This is not to eat the Lord's supper ; your meal does not deserve that sacred char- acter.' Or, 'Ye cannot eat the Lord's supper.' The sub- stantive verb (co-Ti) followed by an infinitive often means can y ovK ecTTiv €t7r€tv, one cannot say / ovk ecm ^ayetj/, one cannot eat, ' Coming together as you do it is impossible to celebrate the Lord's supper.' This gives a very pertinent sense. The Lord's supper is the supper instituted by the Lord, one to which he invites the guests, and which is celebrated in com- memoration of his death. That was a very different service from the Agapae, or love feasts, as they were afterwards called, and which, on account of the disorders attending them, were subsequently prohibited by the Council of Carthage. These Agapae were feasts to which each one brought his con- tributions, during and after which (the bread during^ and the cup after) the consecrated elements were distributed. See Augusti^s Antiquities of the Christian Church, I. p. 299 ; and PooPs Synopsis on Matt. 26, 26. Coleman^s Ancient Christianity, p. 443.
21. For in eating every one taketh before (other) his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
For., i. e. the reason why the Corinthian suppers were not the Lord's supper, is (so far as here stated) that there was no communion, or eating together. They were not all partakers of one bread, 10, 17. They did not wait for each other. Comp. V. 33. On the contrary, each one took beforehand, i. e. before others could join with him, his own supper., i. e. that which he had brought. The consequence was, that one was hungry ; the poor had nothing ; while another was drunk. Such is the meaning of the word. Whether the apostle intended to say