Words of Institution - Early Liturgies

Early Liturgies

There is no consensus among scholars if the Words of Institution were used in the celebrations of the Eucharist during the first two o three centuries or if their use was only sporadic. In her study The Function of the Words of Institution in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper Ros Clarke refers to evidence that suggests that Words of Institution were not used in the celebration during the 2nd century. She says that the evidence from the early church suggests that the words of institution were not then used liturgically, but only catechetically, and so the narrative of the Last Supper was not used in celebrating the Eucharist. What was essential, she says, was the ritual, consisting of the four actions of taking bread, giving thanks, breaking it, and giving it to be eaten, accompanying the actions by saying some words identifying the bread with Jesus' body, and similarly with respect to the cup. Father Robert Taft states definitely that there is not a single extant pre-Nicene (325 AD) Eucharistic prayer that one can prove contained the Words of Institution.