[223] Here we have an illustration of 1 Cor. xiv. 16: "Else if thou bless with the Spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of the unlearned say the Amen at the giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?" See also ch. lxv. of Justin's same _Apology_ for another reference to the Amen, and cf. _Apost. Constitutions_, viii. 10; Cyril of Jerusalem, _Cat._, ch. v.; Euseb., _H. E._, vi. 43 and vii. 9; Ambros. _De Sacrament._, iv. 4; Jerom., _Epist._, 62; Chrysost., _Hom._, xxxv. on 1st Cor.; Bingham's _Antiqq._, XV. iii. 26; and the article on Amen in the first volume of Smith's _Dict. Christ. Antiqq._ The preceding chapters of Justin's _Apology_, lxv. and lxvi., are full of information. They expressly state that in the Primitive Church no unbaptized person was allowed to communicate, an elementary point of Christian practice about which some persons and some Christian societies seem at present very uncertain. Hooker's words, _Eccles. Pol._, Book V. ch. lxvii., are very clear on this topic.
[224] The continuous character, the strong conservatism of the early Christian Church receives an interesting illustration from the history of the Sabbath as distinguished from the Lord's Day. The Jewish Church gave the outward form to Christianity; and though Christianity parted company with Judaism by the end of the first century, yet the sacred character of the Sabbath was still perpetuated among the Gentiles notwithstanding St. Paul's strong language in Galatians and Colossians. In the fourth century the Sabbath was observed in many places in the same manner as the Lord's Day. St. Athanasius says: "We meet on the Sabbath, not indeed being infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath." Timothy, one of his successors at Alexandria, says that the Holy Communion was administered on the Sabbath as on the Lord's Day, and that these two were the only days on which it was celebrated in that city. In the time of St. Chrysostom the two great weekly festivals were the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. It was the same in the fifth century in the Egyptian monasteries, where the services for Saturday and Sunday were exactly the same. See a full account of this matter in Bingham's _Antiquities_, Book XIII. ch. ix. sec. iii.
There was, however, a difference between the celebration at Troas and the celebrations of which Justin Martyr speaks, though we learn not of this difference from Justin himself, but from Pliny's letter to Trajan, concerning which we have often spoken. St. Paul met the Christians of Troas in the evening, and celebrated the Holy Communion with them about midnight. It was the first day of the week according to Jewish computation, though it was what we should call Saturday evening. The ship in which the apostolic company was travelling was about to sail on the morrow, and so St. Paul gladly joined the local church in its weekly breaking of bread. It was exactly the same here at Troas as reported by St. Luke, as it was at Corinth where the evening celebrations were turned into occasions of gluttony and ostentation, as St. Paul tells us in the eleventh of First Corinthians. The Christians evidently met at this time in the evening to celebrate the Lord's Supper. It has been often thought that St. Paul, having referred just twelve months before in the First Corinthian Epistle to the gross abuses connected with the evening celebrations at Corinth, and having promised to set the abuses of Corinth in order when he visited that church, did actually change the time of the celebration of Holy Communion from the evening to the morning, when he spent the three months there of which this chapter speaks.[225] Perhaps he did make the change, but we have no information on the point; and if he did make the change for Corinth, it is evident that he did not intend to impose it as a rule upon the whole Christian Church when a few weeks after leaving Corinth he celebrated the Lord's Supper at Troas in the evening. By the second century, however, the change had been made. Justin Martyr indeed does not give a hint as to the time when Holy Communion was administered in the passages to which we have referred. He tells us that none but baptized persons were admitted to partake of it, but gives us no minor details. Pliny, however, writing of the state of affairs in Bithynia,--and it bordered upon the province where Troas was situated,--tells us from the confession extracted out of apostate Christians that "the whole of their fault lay in this, that they were wont to meet together on a stated day, _before it was light_, and sing among themselves alternately a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by a sacrament (or oath) not to the commission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft or robbery or adultery." After this early service they then separated, and assembled again in the evening to partake of a common meal. The Agape or Love-Feast was united with the Holy Communion in St. Paul's day. Experience, however, showed that such a union must lead to grave abuses, and so in that final consolidation which the Church received during the last quarter of the first century, when the Lord's Second Coming was seen to be not so immediate as some at first expected, the two institutions were divided; the Holy Communion being appointed as the early morning service of the Lord's Day, while the Agape was left in its original position as an evening meal. And so have matters continued ever since. The Agape indeed has almost died out. A trace of it perhaps remains in the blessed bread distributed in Roman Catholic churches on the Continent; while again the love-feasts instituted by John Wesley and continued among his followers were an avowed imitation of this primitive institution. The Agape continued indeed in vigorous existence for centuries, but it was almost always found associated with grave abuses. It might have been innocent and useful so long as Christian love continued to burn with the fervour of apostolic days, though even then, as Corinth showed, there were lurking dangers in it; but when we reach the fourth and fifth centuries we find council after council denouncing the evils of the Agape, and restricting its celebration with such effect that during the Middle Ages it ceased to exist as a distinctive Christian ordinance.[226] The change of the Holy Communion to the earlier portion of the day took almost universal effect, and that from the earliest times. Tertullian (_De Corona_, iii.) testifies that in his time the Eucharist was received before daybreak, though Christ had instituted it at a meal-time. Cyprian witnesses to the same usage in his sixty-third Epistle, where he speaks of Christ as instituting the Sacrament in the evening, that "the very hour of the sacrifice might intimate the evening of the world," but then describes himself as "celebrating the resurrection of the Lord in the morning."[227] St. Augustine, as quoted above, writing about 400, speaks of fasting communion as the general rule; so general, indeed, that he regards it as having come down from apostolic appointment. At the same time St. Augustine recognises the time of its original institution, and mentions the custom of the African Church which once a year had an evening communion on Thursday before Easter in remembrance of the Last Supper and of our Lord's action in connection with it. My own feeling on the matter is, that early fasting communion when there is health and strength is far the most edifying. There is an element of self-denial about it, and the more real self-denial there is about our worship the more blessed will that worship be. A worship that costs nothing in mind, body, or estate is but a very poor thing to offer unto the Lord of the universe. But there is no ground either in Holy Scripture or the history of the primitive Church justifying an attempt to put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which they cannot bear and to teach that fasting communion is binding upon all Christians. St. Augustine speaks most strongly in a passage we have already referred to (_Epist._ cxviii., _Ad Januar._) about the benefit of fasting communion; but he admits the lawfulness of non-fasting participation, as does also that great Greek divine St. Chrysostom, who quotes the examples of St. Paul and of our Lord Himself in justification of such a course.[228]