THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
27, upon purity of body and soul as a preparation for communion. Chrysostom, who is specially strong on this point, requires a particular preparation by penance, prayer, almsgiving, and spiritual exercises, lasting for days.
As to frequency of celebration, the most which can be said for the primitive age with any certainty is that it occurred at least every Sunday, and there is plenty of proof for this in the second century. The tendency was toward greater frequency, and days of religious observance (Saturdays, fast-days, the anniversaries of martyrs) were thus marked. Daily celebration became customary in the West, by the beginning of the third century in Africa, as evidenced by Cyprian; in Rome at
7. Fre- least in the time of Jerome, or much quency of earlier if we are to accept as genuine
Celebration, the fragments on Proverbs ascribed to Hippolytus. For Spain the same evidence is given by Jerome; for Gaul by Cassian; for Milan by Ambrose. In the East (except Egypt), Sunday and Saturday were the regular days. But here, too, greater frequency began to prevail. According to Basil (Epist. xciii.) the rule at Csesarea in Cappadocia was four times a week, and he was anxious to see it daily. In Egypt and the Thebaid the Sunday celebration remained the rule for a long time, though an expression of Cyril of Alexandria implies that by his time the Western practise was coming in.
The elements used in the Eucharist were bread and wine, everywhere throughout the Church. The bread was common leavened wheat bread, made in little round loaves, with a cruciform incision to facilitate breaking (see Altar Bread). The wine, whether white or red, was mixed with water. Cyprian mentions (Epist. lxiii.) as a widespread African custom the reception of pure water and no wine at all. But this practise, which is neither primitive nor based on ascetic principles but simply an exaggerated insistence on the prevalent custom of drinking no wine in the morning, never spread further and died out completely. Milk, honey, and salt were used at various times (for the salt, cf. the Clementine Homilies, xiv. 1). The use of milk and honey is first mentioned in connection with the communion of neophytes. A similar custom — a purification by
8. The honey — occurs in the Mithra cult; but Elements, it could hardly have come from that
source into Christian usage if passages like Jer. xi. 5 and Ezra xx. 6 (cf. also Isa. lv. 1) had not seemed to commend it. From the neophytes' communion the custom spread into more general use; sometimes honey was mixed with the wine (Council of Auxerre, 585 or 578, can. v.); or milk was substituted for wine, as in the old Spanish provinces of Gallacia and Asturia, where wine was scarce (Fourth Council of Braga, about 675, can. ii., cf. also can. lvii. of the Second Trullan Council, 692).
A regular reception every Sunday was undoubtedly the normal custom of the primitive age. This is evident, if from nothing else, from the statement of Justin (/ Apnl. lxvii.) that the consecrated elements were carried by the deacons to the houses
of those who could not be present at the celebration. The practise of the whole congregation communicating, which continued into the third century, disappeared with surprising rapidity in the fourth. Chrysostom complains more than once of the fewness of communicants; Eusebius of Emesa rebukes those who leave the 9. Various church before the communion, and
Customs, such persons are threatened with excommunication by the Apostolic Canons (ix.) and the Council of Antioch (341, can. ii.). In the East the custom gradually prevailed of receiving the sacrament only once a year, Easter and Epiphany being the most usual days. In the West more frequent communion remained usual. Not a few early councils, indeed, in Gaul and Spain (e.g., Elvira, 305; Toledo, 398 or 400; Agde, 506) threatened with penalties those who abstained from communion; but this was directed against cryptic sects, whose members came to church, but had their own communion in their secret meetings. For the vessels used in the celebration, see Vessels, Sacred.
It seems to have been first in the West that the custom grew up of carrying home either fragments of the consecrated bread or the whole portion received, in special little boxes called area (Tertullian, Cyprian). Basil attests the existence of the same custom in Egypt, and it must have spread rapidly. With these particles a sort of domestic celebration would be performed (Council of Laodicea, can. lviii.; of Gangra, about 350, can. x.; of Toledo, 400, can. xiv.). They were also carried about the person as a protection against dangers, as shown by the evidence of Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzen. To the sick and to prisoners the Eucharist was carried not only by priests but by laymen and even women.
The commemoration of the death-anniversaries of the martyrs took place at their graves, and can hardly have consisted in anything but the Eucharist. The custom became more general with the fourth century, and altars were erected over the graves. The practise must also have soon arisen of commemorating the other dead either on the third (ninth, fortieth) day after death or on the anniversary.
As to the eucharistic celebration among the early sects not much information has been handed down. Relatively the most is known about the Gnostics. In the Pistis Sophia a description is given of a function which it is hard to identify as eucharistic or baptismal, so much have the two sacraments been fused into one. Substantially nearer to the practise of the Church are the celebrations described in the Acta Thomce and Acta Johannis; here the Eucharist is an independent function, separate from the agape, and taking place in the morning, but not connected with the Scripture-
10. The reading and preaching service; here
Heretical too appear the oblation, the prayer
Sects. of consecration, the breaking of the
bread, and the administration with a
definite formula, to which the receiver respond*
with " Amen." But there is a doubt how far these
originally Gnostic writings have been changed by