RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lord's Supper
munity, or of members specially adapted to it or visiting prophets (Didache, x. 7). To realize the significance of the change from this to the speaking of the eucharistic words as a specialized function of the officials, it is necessary only to remember how utterly distinct from what was called worship in heathen tradition, from all sacerdotal and theurgic action, were the earliest Christian assemblies— the gatherings " to edifying " of I Cor. xiv. 23, 26 and the agapse of I Cor. xi 20. The distinction, then, grew less when the administration of the Eucharist became the function of appointed officials (cf. Ignat., Ad Smyrn. viii. 2; ANF, i. 89, " Let that be deemed a proper eucharist which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it ")• It grew still less when the Agape (q.v.) was gradually separated from the Lord's Supper. Alms and oblations, at first connected closely, began to be separated, the latter term designating the eucharistic elements, which alone received the mystical blessing of the bishop (Justin's " chief," Gk. proestos); and it was an easy step to finding the sacrificial act in this blessing, instead of in the free-will offering by the members. But, however this development is traced, the terms used by Justin are certainly noteworthy. If it was the proestos who "made the bread of the Eucharist a memorial of the suffering of Christ," it can hardly be denied that the distance is but short from this to the words of Cyprian: " the priest imitates that which Christ did and offers a true and complete sacrifice in the Church to God the Father " (Epist. lxiii.). Remembering that many of the ancient mysteries had their dramatic representations of sacred cultlegends, that the conception of the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of Christ continued to shade off from a symbolic-imitative commemoration feast until after the time of Gregory the Great, and that the Greek Church in the final development of its mass approaches closely to a dramatic representation of the Passion, it will seem not too much to say that the above-quoted formula of Justin is in the direct line of development that leads to the Roman mass. The really important thing is that in the interval between Justin and Cyprian, the "sacrifice of praise" had become a priestly " sacrifice of propitiation." Immense as the change seems when judged by the New-Testament standard, it will not surprise any one acquainted with the Greco- Roman world of that period; the conception of sacrifice, once admitted, brought with it all its natural concomitants. Nor were connecting links wanting. Prayer was made for those who brought the oblations; to emphasize the communion with the departed, oblations were made for them too; and the " offerings for the dead " which Tertullian knows as a custom already ancient (De corona, iii.) show a more propitiatory character than those for the living. Tertullian still considered the giver of the oblations as the one who offered the sacrifice; commending his dead to God " through the priest" (De exhortatione castitatis, xi.). But even here a priestly mediation is assumed, and it is but a short step to the priestly sacrifice as the Church of the latter half of the third century knew it,
It has been necessary to discuss this development of the sacrificial conception of the Eucharist because it was the deciding factor in the final shape assumed by the conceptions of the early Church as to the sacramental gift. In attempting to discover what this latter was, it is expedient 7. Doctrine to discuss separately the developoflrenseus. ment in the East and the West, though the examination will not be detailed. All that may be expected is a gradual assimilation of various views, without deliberate discussion, but under the influence of liturgical forms and popular conceptions; it is necessary here only to take up such views as offer a notion of one or other of the fundamental conceptions that were to be assimilated. Irenseus gives the first of these. He was appealed to in the Formula Concordia; of Wittenberg (1536), as he had already been by Luther in 1527, to support the Lutheran view; and it was not difficult for those who then read his words in the light of their own beliefs to find such support. His words, however, must be considered in their simple objective meaning, apart from modern ideas. Irenaus' words are (Har. IV., xviii. 5) : " Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with his blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? For, as the
bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity" (ANF, i. 486). And again (Har. V., ii. 3), of the bread and wine, that, " having received the Word of God, they become the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ " (ANF, i. 528). The interpretation of the first quotation hinges on the meaning given to the " heavenly reality," which has been variously explained by those who have forgotten the caution just given. If one must define precisely the " heavenly reality," it will appear, from the parallel between the " becoming the Eucharist " of the elements and the " becoming incorruptible " of the body, as well as from Har. V., ix. 3, to be the Spirit of God, who is invoked upon the elements. But so precise a definition is not really needed. It is sufficient to observe that by the ekklesis or epiklesis (Hcer. IV., xviii. 5) something heavenly is added to the elements, by which they become what they were not before — a food that guarantees the partaking of eternal life to the receiver. If this were the whole of Irenaus' conception, it would not be difficult to find in it a Greek view of the eucharistic mystery modified by the primitive thoughts about the resurrection of the flesh. But it is not the whole. Other passages, such as Hair. V., ii. 2, must be taken into account in the attempt to determine the teaching of Irenseus. As a theologian familiar with the Greek culture of his time, he took the view which he found in common Christian tradition (specifically that of the school of John and of Asia Minor) — that the Eucharist is in some sense the body and blood of Christ, intended as a food unto eternal
Lord's Supper