[225] St. Augustine, in _Epist._, cxviii., _Ad Januar._, cc. vi. vii., was one of the first to suggest this idea. The passage is quoted by Bingham, _Antiqq._, XV. vii. 8.
[226] See the exhaustive article on Agapæ in Smith's _Dict. Christ. Antiqq._, vol. i., p. 39.
[227] The early Christians celebrated the Holy Communion in memory of Christ's resurrection as much as in memory of His death. The resurrection of Christ was, in fact, the central point of their belief and thought. This alone would have conduced to the practice of early morning communion, even before day, inasmuch as it was at that time the resurrection took place. Cf. _Dict. Christ. Antiqq._, vol. i., p. 419, on the hours of celebration of the Holy Communion. On p. 41 of the same volume the writer of the article on the Agapæ makes an extraordinary statement that it was only at the third Council of Carthage, A.D. 391, that the time of Eucharistic celebration was changed to the morning, and that then the Agape was first separated from the Holy Communion. The change and the separation had taken place in Pliny's time, as I have already shown.
[228] This whole subject of fasting communion is discussed at length with all the authorities duly given in Bingham's _Antiquities_, Book XV. ch. vii. sec. 8, whence I have taken my references, and where he quotes Bishop Fell's Notes on Cyprian, _Epist._ lxiii. p. 156, who says that "the custom of communicating after supper lasted for a long time in the Church": cf. Socrates, _H. E._, v. 22, and the _Dict. Christ. Antiqq._, vol. i., p. 417, on _Fasting Reception of H. C._
The celebration of the Eucharist was not the only subject which engaged St. Paul's attention at Troas. He preached unto the people as well; and following his example we find from Justin Martyr's narrative that preaching was an essential part of the communion office in the days immediately following the apostles' age; and then, descending to lower times still, we know that preaching is an equally essential portion of the eucharistic service in the Western Church, the only formal provision for a sermon according to the English liturgy being the rubric in the service for the Holy Communion, which lays down that after the Nicene Creed, "Then shall follow the sermon or one of the Homilies already set forth, or hereafter to be set forth, by authority." St. Paul's discourse was no mere mechanical homily, however. He was not what man regarded as a powerful, but he was a ready speaker, and one who carried his hearers away by the rapt intense earnestness of his manner. His whole soul was full of his subject. He was convinced that this was his last visit to the churches of Asia. He foresaw too a thousand dangers to which they would be exposed after his departure, and he therefore prolonged his sermon far into the night, so far indeed that human nature asserted its claims upon a young man named Eutychus, who sat in a window of the room where they were assembled. Human nature indeed was never for a moment absent from these primitive Church assemblies. If it was absent in one shape, it was present in another, just as really as in our modern congregations, and so Eutychus fell fast asleep under the heart-searching exhortations of an inspired apostle, even as men fall asleep under less powerful sermons of smaller men; and as the natural result, sitting in a window left open for the sake of ventilation, he fell down into the courtyard, and was taken up apparently lifeless. St. Paul was not put out, however. He took interruptions in his work as the Master took them. He was not upset by them, but he seized them, utilised them, and then, having extracted the sweetness and blessedness which they brought with them, he returned from them back to his interrupted work. St. Paul descended to Eutychus, found him in a lifeless state, and then restored him. Men have disputed whether the Apostle worked a miracle on this occasion, or merely perceived that the young man was in a temporary faint. I do not see that it makes any matter which opinion we form. St. Paul's supernatural and miraculous powers stand on quite an independent ground, no matter what way we decide this particular case. It seems to me indeed from the language of St. Paul--"Make ye no ado; for his life is in him"--that the young man had merely fainted, and that St. Paul recognised this fact as soon as he touched him. But if any one has strong opinions on the opposite side I should be sorry to spend time disputing a question which has absolutely no evidential bearing. The great point is, that Eutychus was restored, that St. Paul's long sermon was attended by no fatal consequences, and that the Apostle has left us a striking example showing how that, with pastors and people alike, intense enthusiasm, high-strung interest in the affairs of the spiritual world, can enable human nature to rise superior to all human wants, and prove itself master even of the conquering powers of sleep: "And when he was gone up, and had broken the bread, and eaten, and had talked with them a long while, even till break of day, so he departed."