The second point is the phrase in 11^': 'Ye pro- claim the Lord's death till he come.' The addi- tion 'till he come' is reminiscent of Mk 14-^ and parallels, though the saying, as recorded in the Gospels, says nothing about the Lord's return, but speaks only of the joys of the Messianic Kingdom, to be shared by Him with Christians. The idea implied in the phrase ' till he come ' is similar — namely, that the Eucharist is but a provisional rite, and looks forward to the day when communion with Him shall be more direct in His Kingdom.
V\Q may now consider St. Paul's view of the effects of communion, and here the main thing to notice is the realistic character of St. Paul's thought. Participation in the one loaf produces a unity among Christians. ' Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, because we all partake of that one bread' (10"). This unity is not the cause but the eflect of the communion. There is a close parallel to the eflect produced by participa- tion in an idol-sacrifice, in which the worshippers are united to one another as well as to the demon. Besides this unity of believers which is produced by participation, there is of course the communion with the Body and Blood of Christ. It seems clear that the parallel with the heathen sacrifices still holds good. The communicant really enters into communion with Christ conceived as a sacrificial Victim. Whether this will be for his benefit or for his undoing depends upon his own disposition ; but, whatever his disposition may be, in no case is that which he receives ordinary food. The bread since it has been broken, and the cup since it has been blessed, have assumed special characters. And it is no light matter for anyone to partake.
Here the question must be faced whether St. Paul's views on the subject of the Eucharist differed from those of the Corinthians. It has been held by W. Heitmiillert that St. Paul's conception
* Op. cit. p. 144, following Heinrici.
t Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus, Gottingen, 1903.
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differed from theirs in that he believed that it Avas tlie dying Christ -with whom the communicant entered into communion, whereas they thought rather of the glorified Christ. According to this idea, in ch. 10 St. Paul adopts the view of the Corinthians, but in ch. 11 he gives them his own view. It is true that the behaviour of the Corinth- ians at the supper would suggest at first sight that their beliefs about it were of no very solemn charac- ter, and it may seem strange that men who believed that they were actually commemorating Christ's Last Supper and Death, should treat the meal as an opportunity for self-indulgence ; but it is by no means impossible that this may have been so. St. Paul's attitude throughout is that of a man who is reminding others of what they already know rather than of one who is giving new instruction. His view of the nature of the Eucharist rests ultimately upon his view of the institution, and as to this he expressly states that he had given them instruction before (11^). It is not an uncommon thing for men to need to be reminded of a fact with which they are perfectly well acquainted, nor indeed is it un- common for men to act in a way which is quite inconsistent with their religious beliefs, even though these beliefs are quite honestly held. What the Cor- inthians had learned about the Eucharist they had learned from St. Paul. It is therefore unlikely that their view of the Eucharist was essentially different from his, though no doubt they may not have wholly understood it. Some of his language suggests that they thought that communion would benefit them mechanically, and that their dispositions did not much matter. This is in line with the general view of them which we get from the Epistle as a whole.* They laid stress on the value of yvQcns and attached insufficient importance to morality. If there is any point in which their views difiered from St. Paul's, it is probably to be found here. It may be that when he speaks of the possibility of eating and drinking judgment unto themselves, he is giving them new teaching. But this does not involve the consequence that their intellectual belief about the Eucharist was seriously different from his, but rather that their conscience needed to be awakened.
i. St. Paul's account of the institution of the Eucharist. —The investigation of the relation be- tween the various accounts which we possess be- longs properly to the study of the Gospels. It will be sufficient here to notice that, in spite of verbal differences, St. Paul's account is much the same as that of St. Mark and St. Matthew, except that it contains the command of repetition, ' L)o this in remembrance of Me,' which is otherwise found only in the longer text of St. Luke. "Wiiether this indicates Pauline influence upon the Gospels is a difficult question, but one which does not fall Avithin the scope of this article. St. Paul refers the communion at Corinth back to an institution by our Lord on the night of His betraj-al — an in- stitution at which He alluded to His Death in sacrificial terms, and commanded the performance of the rite in memory of Himself. This narrative of the institution (1 Co H^s-si) jg introduced by the words iyco yap vapiXa^ov dirb rod Kvpiou, It has been supposed that by this expression St. Paul means to claim that he had received the whole narrative of the institution, which he goes on to give, by direct revelation from Christ. If this were bis claim, it would very seriously affect the historic value of St. Paul's evidence in the matter. But his words do not necessarily bear any such mean- ing. The theory has been put forward that we have in these words an indication that the Eucliar- ist as a rite was invented by St. Paul, and that he was the first to connect the social meal of the Chris- * See art. Cobinthians, Epistles to the.