RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
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In the Didache the ceremony in all its relations is called uniformly he thusia (xiv. 1, 2) — a real " offering," but it is not made plain whether anything more than prayers and alms is meant, unless, possibly, xiv. 3 gives a hint by citing Mai. i. 11. Justin applies this passage to the bread and 2. Further the cup (Trypho, xxviii.-xxix., xli.,
Develop- cxvi.-cxvii.). If the Didache is by one merit. writer, it must belong to the time when the agape and the Lord's Supper had been separated (see Agape). How early and where this first happened is not certain. The Epistle to the Hebrews may presuppose the separation. Justin attests it for Rome (I Apol. Ixv.). It can hardly have been due to purely practical considerations; a tendency to idealization must have given the first impulse. Most probably, in course of time, perhaps under Paul's influence in the first instance, the ceremony in reference to the " body of Christ " and the " new covenant in his blood " took on such a character that " one bread " (I Cor. x. 17) and " one cup " were set apart and came to be regarded as so superior to all other bread and wine, which served merely to satisfy natural needs, that it was found necessary to separate the agape and the Supper. When the tendency to such a separation had once developed, a new conception of the " this do " {touto -poieite) was made easy. Neither Jesus nor Paul thought of the words as a command to' " offer " anything. But as early as the second century the poieite was interpreted as " offer." Of course " to do something " can acquire the meaning " to offer " only from the connection (as when the thought is to " do something to God," expressed or implied; cf. Ex. xii. 47 sqq., Septuagint, where poiein is used to render the Hebrew 'asah), and the use of " eat " before and after the " this do " may have suggested the idea of sacrifice. But the most effective impulse came from the effort to accommodate early Christian concepts to Greco-Roman thought. The " new covenant " was wholly unfamiliar to non-Jews. The Latins translated it novum testamentum, not [novum faedus, and the Greeks too, for the most part, understood the diatheke as a last will and testament prescribing doctrines and ordinances, of which the chief was the Eucharist. The contents of the cup now come to the foreground. Neither Jesus nor Paul had spoken of the wine, and there is nothing to indicate that the former thought of the wine as representing his blood. But the notion of sacrifice called up the thought of his blood, and it was an intelligible idea that he sealed the covenant by a holy drink. The blood thus came to take the place of the new covenant in the second part of the Supper. The notion of the " wine-blood " brought with it that of the " bread-flesh." To be sure, people still said " body " (soma), but they thought " flesh." The twofold conception of Jesus that his followers would always have, and commemorate both his living presence among them and the new covenant with God, became transformed into the thought that the Lord was present in twofold manner, viz., that one saw his flesh in the bread and his blood in the cup. It was then almost inevitable that the ancient mind should conceive of the Lord's Supper as a myste-
rious sacrificial institution. It is possible that even in the second century the development had not gone beyond the conception of a sacrificial meal. But the association of ideas must soon have led farther. That in the second century and perhaps from the beginning the Eucharist had in a certain sense the character of a sacrificial act is not contested. It was called " Eucharist " because of the prayers of thanksgiving, and early Christianity designated prayer as " offering." Also the agape was held with gifts of the rich, which were brought as " offerings " (prosphorai) before God and consecrated to God. For a long time after the " Lord's Supper " was separated from the " common meal" (the agape), the " elements " were furnished by the congregation in such profusion that a considerable surplus remained for the poor and the clergy. Such gifts of the congregation were consecrated by prayer and passed as " offerings." Hofling and others maintain that " offering " in connection with the Supper means no more than prayers and alms till the third century. But once the ideas of the " body and covenant " were displaced by the " flesh and blood," the thoughts that the Eucharist was a representation of the sacrifice on Calvary and was essentially a sacrifice must have entered. A time when sacrifice was everywhere a living institution of the cult, while it noted the symbolism and spirituality of all Christian worship in the eucharistic service, could not fail to discern also in it the thought of an offering of Christ beside the offerings of prayer and alms.
The important sources after the Didache are Justin, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. For Justin, taking all in all, the Eucharist was a " sacrifice " (Trypho, xxviii.-xxix., xli., cxvi.-cxvii.; / Apol., lxv.- Ixvi.). Ignatius speaks of the Eucharist 3 . The and prayer (eucharistia and proseuche) as two
Sources, things (" Smyrnaeans," vii. 1), and the former " is the flesh which suffered [sarx pathousa] of our Savior Jesus Christ." He does not directly call the Eucharist a sacrifice. But he knows an altar of the congregation (" Philadelphians," iv.; " Trallians," vii. 2), the congregation itself is the temple and altar of God, and the true priest in it is Jesus (" Magnesians," vii. 2; " Philadelphians," ix. 1). His thought is that Jesus, in that he is present at the Eucharist as the " flesh which suffered," presents himself here in the name of the congregation, living, as a sacrifice to God. .Irenseus in the passage which needs chiefly to be considered (Hoer., iv. 29-32) is writing from the apologetic side and makes no attempt to set forth the real character of the Eucharist. But he applies the prophecy of Mai. i. 10-11 to the Lord's Supper and calls the " body " and " blood of Christ " the " offering of the New Testament " and, later, the " pure sacrifice." Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian had little occasion to speak of the Lord's Supper except as a meal; in so far as they refer to it as sacrifice at all, they set forth no theory. Clement often speaks of the " offerings " of Christians, meaning prayer and alms. But he calls the Eucharist the " offering " (prosphora; Strom., i. 19), meaning the entire ceremony collectively. Tertullian, when he speaks of the " sacrifices " or " offerings " of the Christians, generally means prayers. But there are passages where he applies to the Supper as a whole the expressions " sacrifice," " offering," or " to offer " (De cultu feminarum, ii. 11; Ad uxorem, ii. 8; and elsewhere). Only De oratione, xix., however, can be adduced as direct proof that he does not restrict " offering " to prayers, alms, and the like. This passage assumes that the ceremony of the Eucharist is a unit, and that it necessarily closes with the " reception " of the body of the Lord. Its significance lies in a distinction between the " prayers of the sacrifices " (plural) and " participation in the sacrifice " (singular). To be sure it proves in itself no more than that Tertullian knew of the view of the Supper as a sacrificial meal. But taking it with the expressions of earlier writers, it is
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