Origin of The Eucharist - Early Christianity

Early Christianity

In the three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, Christian practices and beliefs regarding the Eucharist took definitive shape as central to Christian worship. At first, they spread through word of mouth, but within a generation Christians had begun writing about Jesus and about Christian practice, the Eucharist included. The theology of the Eucharist and its role as a sacrament developed during this period.

Basing himself on the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr writing around 150 AD, K.W. Noakes deduces the following liturgical structure was in use at that time:

1. Scripture Readings and Homily.
2. Intercessions and Kiss-of-Peace.
3. Bread and Cup are brought to the President.
4. Eucharistic Prayer (flexible) but following a fixed pattern with congregational “Amen”
5. Distribution of the elements by the deacons to those present and absent.
6. Collection.

This corresponds in general outline to the structure of the rite as used today and is the earliest known example. The theology is as follows: the bread and wine are transformed into the Flesh and Blood of Jesus; they are the pure sacrifice spoken of by Malachi (1:11) and the eucharistic prayer itself is both a thanksgiving for creation and redemption and an anamnesis (Greek: memorial) of the passion (and possibly the incarnation).

Information from the intervening period is scanty. Both the author of 1 Clement (about 96) and Ignatius of Antioch(about 108) are concerned that due order be maintained.; "Give heed to keep one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup unto union with His blood. There is one altar, as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants; that whatsoever you do, you may do according unto God" (Letter to the Philadelphians,4). The dating of the Didache is contentious, dates from the middle of the first century to the early third century have been suggested, but it may well be from the same period as 1 Clement and Ignatius. It states that the unbaptized left the assembly before the Eucharist proper began "Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist but such as have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for of a truth the Lord hath said concerning this, Give not that which is holy unto dogs.". A composite of several documents, it includes ritual prayers and a mention of what it calls the εὐχαριστία (Thanksgiving or Eucharist). According to the overwhelming consensus among scholars, the section beginning at 10.1 is a reworking of the Birkat hamazon the prayer that ends the Jewish ritual meal. Also, there is one possible pagan reference to an early morning celebration from about the year 112 in a letter of the younger Pliny to the emperor Trajan.

Evidence from a slightly later period comes from Irenaeus and from the Apostolic Tradition. In his debate with gnostics who favoured an immaterial religion, the former affirms: "Whenever, then, the mixed cup and the bread that has been made receive the word of God, the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ, and by it the substance of our flesh is nourished and sustained". The Apostolic Tradition poses a number of critical problems including the question as to whether the liturgies were ever used. However, the editors of The Study of Liturgy conclude that "it is clearly safe...to use the document as evidence for early third-century Rome". It contain what must be considered a complete prayer of consecration including a version of the Institution narrative.

It is clear from the New Testament evidence that some primitive Christian ceremonies involved a full meal and the word "agape"(love-feast) is used. At some point these died out possbly as a result of increasing numbers and possibly due to abuses. Writing shortly after Justin, Tertullian describes "love feasts". Clement of Alexandria (c.150-211/216) distinguished so-called "Agape" meals of luxurious character from the agape (love) "which the food that comes from Christ shows that we ought to partake of". Accusations of gross indecency were sometimes made against the form that these meals sometimes took. Clement of Alexandria also mentions abuses,Stromata III,2, and the editor comments: "The early disappearance of the Christian agapæ may probably be attributed to the terrible abuse of the word here referred to, by the licentious Carpocratians".

Augustine of Hippo also objected to the continuance in his native North Africa of the custom of such meals, in which some indulged to the point of drunkenness, and he distinguished them from proper celebration of the Eucharist: "Let us take the body of Christ in communion with those with whom we are forbidden to eat even the bread which sustains our bodies." He reports that even before the time of his stay in Milan, the custom had already been forbidden there. Canons 27 and 28 of the Council of Laodicea (364) restricted the abuses.