THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
mark on the expression is Isidore of Seville (d. 636), who says that " missa is the time of sacrifice, when the catechumens are dismissed
1. Etymol- and for this reason is it called missa, ogy and because those who are not yet regen-
Meaning. erated can not be present at the sacrifice of the altar " (Etymologice vi. 19) . He clearly understands missa as equivalent to missio with the meaning " dismissal," and he is right in so far as he conceives of missa as a noun. Explanations which make it a participle, connecting it with the formula of dismissal {Ite, missa est) and completing the latter by supplying oratio or hostia (" the prayer or the sacrifice has been sent [to God, by an angel] ") or concio (" the assembly is dismissed ") are to be rejected. Isidore's interpretation, however, may be called in question. Probably missa as a by-form of missio has two meanings, one in which it signifies the rite of dismissal and another in which it serves as translation of the Greek leitourgia, and only in the latter sense is missa the mass. It is used from the fourth century and probably earlier for all sorts of divine service, especially for ritual ceremonies in the church, therein corresponding exactly to leitourgia, which meant first a public service at Athens performed by the richer citizens for the community, then any public service or work and specially the public service of the gods, whence it was transferred in Christian usage to the service or ministry of priests (Septuagint) and public worship generally, more particularly to the Eucharist. It thus approximates to the English " mission," which is the duty or service on which one is sent. Against the interpretation " dismissal " and the connection with Ite, missa est is the following consideration. The Greek Church had its apolysis, corresponding to the Ite, missa est, but it did not transfer the name to the entire service, as would be expected if the Latin Church did so, since the liturgical terminology of the two Churches is essentially parallel. If the Latin missa is not the translation of the Greek leitourgia, the Latin Churph has no parallel expression for leitourgia. Silvia of Aquitaine (later fourth century) repeatedly uses missa for the dismissal (= apolysis), but also in connections where it clearly means the entire service ( = leitourgia; cf. Peregrinatio Silt/ice, ed. G. F Gamurrini, pp. 82, 87, 99, 101, Rome, 1888). Proof of a like use of the word after 400 is given by Rottmanner. The distinction between the missa catechumenorum and missa fidelium in the sense of a twofold " mass " was first made probably in the twelfth century (Ivo of Chartres); missa in these phrases, at any rate in the passages thus far cited, means simply " dismissal."
2. New Testament and Early Catholic Ideas : The Lord, when he founded the Supper, neither performed nor instituted a sacrificial act. All that he did with the bread and the wine was directed to the disciples ; in the later terminology it indicated a sacrament, not a sacrifice. But it had
1. The New reference to his death as a sacrifice, and Testament, was intended to impress upon the disciples that he in his death was the sacrifice of the new covenant, wherein the new covenant was made perfect. It was in connection with
the cup that the thought of sacrifice first entered, this act having a somewhat different significance from that with the bread (cf. C. von Weizsacker, Apostolisches Zeitalter, pp. 576-577, Freiburg, 1890). Paul, the oldest witness (cf. Luke xxii. 19-20; Matt. xxvi. 26, sqq. and Mark xiv. 22 sqq., represent a later tradition), applies the bread or the "body" to the congregation, the church, the members of which represent their communion (koinonia) with one another and with their Head when they break it together, and prove themselves the " body of Christ " (cf. the course of thought in I Cor. xi. 20 sqq.; also xii. 13, 27; Col. i. 18, ii. 19; Eph. i. 23). The thought of Jesus may have been that even in the future, when his followers broke the bread in his memory, he would be with them, would himself "nourish" them as if he were present "in the body." His own have his " body," that is, himself, always with them like bread for their nourishment. His act corresponded in ritual form to the promise of Matt, xviii. 20. The counterpart to the " body " in the second transaction is not the " blood," but the " new covenant." The Lord did not offer his " flesh," but his " body " — it was a change of far-reaching consequences when the Church began to talk of the " flesh " instead of the " body "—and he did not offer his " blood " but the " new covenant." Paul speaks nowhere of drinking the " blood," but always of the " cup." So far as he sets the acts with the bread and the cup parallel, he seems to bring the latter into relation with the " one spirit " of the congregation (I Cor. xii. 13, which really proves only that Paul did not have a "dogma" about the Supper). If the thought of Jesus were as just stated, this in connection with the " cup of the covenant," which was made by the " blood," by a sacrifice, could lead to the notion that the Supper of the Lord had some, though a limited, resemblance to a sacrificial meal. Paul drew a parallel between the " table of the Lord " and the sacrificial meals of both Jews and Gentiles (I Cor. x. 18 sqq.); but this must not be pressed. Paul has in mind here only the close relationship of the participants to one another in case of the Jews, the relationship with their gods in case of the heathen. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 10 sqq.) the combination between the celebration of the Supper and the sacrificial meal is developed further. The conception that " we [the Christians] have an altar," from which others may not eat, is not expressed by Paul, though he may have suggested it. Just how far the idea of the writer went is not made plain. His thought may have been that the congregation of Jesus " ate " directly from the cross as its altar, that it continually renewed a " sacrificial meal " in addition to the " offering once for all." But he may have meant that in the Lord's Supper the congregation renewed the " sacrifice " in cultic-commemorative manner, that the eucharistic ceremony was a repetition of what had taken place on Calvary. In any case the Epistle to the Hebrews shows how easily the conception of the Lord's Supper passed over into that of a sacrificial meal, even of a sacrificial act. That it eventually became only a sort of dramatic memorial of the sacrificial death of Jesus is easily comprehended.