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Course 11 · Lesson 6.3

The Eucharist in the early church

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 11 outline

Module 1: What the Church Is

  1. Biblical images of the church: body, people, temple and bride
  2. One, holy, catholic and apostolic: the four marks
  3. The mission of the church
  4. The visible and invisible church in Augustine, the Reformers and the East

Module 2: Ministry and Apostolic Succession

  1. Ministry in the New Testament: apostles, elders, overseers and deacons
  2. The bishop in the early church: Clement, Ignatius and Irenaeus
  3. Apostolic succession: three meanings (a line of bishops, the teaching, the mission)
  4. Ordination in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions

Module 3: Scripture, Tradition and Church Authority

  1. Scripture and tradition in the early church
  2. The Catholic account: Scripture, tradition and the magisterium
  3. The Orthodox account: the living tradition of the church
  4. The Reformation and the question of sola scriptura

Module 4: Three Systems of Authority

  1. The bishop of Rome in early history
  2. Papal primacy and infallibility in Catholic teaching
  3. Orthodox conciliarity and the role of the patriarchs
  4. Protestant principles of authority: Scripture, confessions and the priesthood of believers
  5. The strongest objections each tradition raises against the others

Module 5: Sacramental Theology

  1. Mystery and sacrament: the words and their history
  2. Augustine and the definition of a sacrament
  3. How many sacraments? Seven, two, or none
  4. Validity, efficacy and the role of faith

Module 6: Baptism and the Eucharist

  1. Baptism in Scripture and the early church
  2. Infant baptism and believers baptism
  3. The Eucharist in the early church
  4. Real presence: transubstantiation, the Orthodox mystery, Lutheran, Reformed and memorial views

Module 7: Reconciliation and Liturgical Worship

  1. The forgiveness of sins in Scripture
  2. Confession and penance in the history of the church
  3. Confession across the traditions: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed practice
  4. Liturgy, word and table, and the church year
  5. Worship without a fixed liturgy and its principles

Module 8: Schism and Christian Unity

  1. Early schisms: the Donatists and the churches after Chalcedon
  2. East and West: the long division and the events of 1054
  3. The Reformation divisions
  4. Ecumenism and the prospects for unity

All courses

Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 6.3

What you will learn

  • Describe the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper and Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper.
  • Summarize what the Didache, Ignatius, Justin and Irenaeus say about the Eucharist.
  • Explain the early language of body and blood, thanksgiving and sacrifice.
  • Compare how the traditions read the early evidence and why it is debated.

The big idea

From the beginning Christians gathered to eat the meal Jesus had commanded them to keep in his memory. The New Testament tells of the Last Supper and of Paul’s instructions to Corinth. Early writers describe a weekly thanksgiving over bread and wine, speak of the elements as the body and blood of Christ, and call the rite a sacrifice. Their language is rich and not always precise. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians each find in it support for their own teaching, and historians warn against reading later doctrines of the Eucharist back into the first centuries.

Key terms

Eucharist
From the Greek eucharistia, thanksgiving. A name for the central act of Christian worship, also called the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Mass or the Divine Liturgy.
Breaking of bread
An early name for the shared meal (Acts 2:42).
Anaphora
The great prayer of thanksgiving said over the bread and wine.
Epiclesis
A prayer calling on the Holy Spirit to come on the gifts and the people.
Agape
A Greek word for love. In early church life, also a fellowship meal connected with the Eucharist.
Real presence
The teaching that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. Its meaning is explained differently by different traditions.
Memorial (anamnesis)
A Greek word meaning remembrance, in the sense of making present by remembering. Used in the words Do this in remembrance of me.

Background

Jesus ate a final meal with his disciples before his death. The three Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, report his words over the bread and the cup. He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body”, and he took the cup and spoke of his blood and of the covenant (Mark 14:22-24). Luke and Paul add a command to do this in remembrance of him. Scholars debate whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal, as in the synoptic Gospels, or took place the evening before, as John’s dating may suggest.

From the earliest period, Christians met to break bread (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7). Paul describes the supper at Corinth as a sharing in the body and blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) and warns that those who eat and drink unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). John 6 records a discourse in which Jesus speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Interpreters differ on whether the chapter refers directly to the Eucharist.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Didache

The Didache, of uncertain date but often placed in the late first or early second century, gives prayers for the Eucharist in chapters 9 and 10 and instructions in chapter 14. The prayers thank the Father for the cup, the broken bread and the knowledge and life made known through Jesus. They pray that the church be gathered from the ends of the earth into the kingdom, as the bread was gathered from scattered grain. Only those baptized may eat and drink. Chapter 14 tells the community to gather on the Lord’s day, to confess their sins and to offer a pure sacrifice, citing Malachi 1:11.

The text does not use the words body and blood of the bread and cup in the prayers as they are preserved, which leads scholars to different explanations. Some think the prayers were adapted from Jewish meal blessings and show an early form. Others think that the text describes a separate meal from the Eucharist. The text’s date and unity are debated.

Step 2: Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius, in the early second century, wrote against teachers who denied that Christ had a real body. He says they hold aloof from the Eucharist and prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of the Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for sins, and which the Father in his goodness raised up (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6 to 7). He calls the bread one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, in his letter to the Ephesians (20).

Ignatius also says that a valid Eucharist is one held under the bishop or someone appointed by him (Smyrnaeans 8). His words are strong. Catholic and Orthodox readers find in him a clear teaching of real presence. Protestant readers often grant that he speaks realistically and point out that he does not discuss how Christ is present. The question is whether his words describe a change in the elements, a spiritual presence, or a participation in the saving flesh of Christ.

Step 3: Justin and Irenaeus

Justin Martyr, in his First Apology (chapters 65 to 67), describes a Sunday gathering in which Scripture is read, the president preaches, prayers are offered, bread and wine mixed with water are brought, and the president gives thanks. Those present say Amen, the elements are distributed, and deacons carry them to those absent. Justin says that this food is called the Eucharist, and that it is not received as common bread and drink. Rather, as Jesus Christ the Savior was made flesh through the word of God, so the food over which thanks has been given by the prayer of his word is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.

Irenaeus, in Against Heresies 4.18 and 5.2, argues that the Eucharist, consisting of an earthly and a heavenly reality, is the church’s offering of the first fruits of creation to God, and that the bread, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread. He uses the Eucharist as an argument against Gnostics who despised the body, saying that if the flesh were not saved, the Lord would not have redeemed human beings by his blood, and the cup would not be the communion of his blood.

Step 4: Sacrifice and presence in later writers

By the third and fourth centuries, writers spoke of the Eucharist as a sacrifice and used the vocabulary of change. Cyprian spoke of the priest imitating Christ and offering a true and full sacrifice. Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose taught that the bread and wine are changed. Augustine used language of sign and body, and was read by later writers both as supporting a realist view and as supporting a more symbolic one. Tertullian once calls the bread a figure of the body, which writers on all sides have discussed.

Scholars of different traditions debate whether such language shows belief in a change of substance, a spiritual presence, or a symbolic sign. Most agree that the early church had not yet formed the precise categories of later centuries and that its language included strong realism and symbolism together.

Step 5: What the early evidence shows

Points of wide agreement: the Eucharist was weekly and central; it was a thanksgiving prayer, a sharing and a remembrance; it was limited to the baptized; it was linked with the bishop or president; it was understood as a participation in Christ’s body and blood; and it was called a sacrifice, in the sense of an offering of praise and of the church’s gifts. Points of disagreement: whether the elements were thought to change, in what sense the Eucharist was a sacrifice, and how closely the earliest practice resembles later liturgies. These disagreements are carried into the later debates.

  1. Does the writer speak of the elements as body and blood, as signs, or both?
  2. Is the Eucharist described as a sacrifice, and in what sense?
  3. Who may receive, and who presides?
  4. What problem is the writer addressing?
  5. What does the writer not say about how Christ is present?
  6. How have different traditions used this text?

Examples

Justin’s Sunday

Justin describes Christians who gather on the day called Sunday, from city and country, to hear the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets, to hear the president exhort, to pray, to share the bread and wine and to give to the poor. The account is the earliest detailed description of the Eucharist and shows a service similar in shape to later liturgies.

Ignatius and the heretics

The teachers Ignatius opposes avoided the Eucharist because they denied the real flesh of Christ. His answer is that the Eucharist is the flesh of the Savior. The passage shows that belief in the real body of Christ and in the Eucharist were linked in the early church.

Paul at Corinth

Paul writes that some in Corinth ate and drank while others were hungry, and he corrected them with the words of the Lord’s institution (1 Corinthians 11:20-34). The example shows that the early Eucharist included a meal and that unity and care for the poor were part of its meaning.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholics read the early writers as witnesses to the church’s belief in the real presence and the sacrifice of the Mass, in germ. The Council of Trent cites Ignatius, Justin and others. Catholic scholars acknowledge that the language of transubstantiation came later, and see it as a faithful way of explaining what the fathers believed.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers read the fathers as teaching that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ by the Holy Spirit, and prefer the language of mystery to Western philosophical terms. They stress the epiclesis, the prayer for the Spirit, in the early liturgies.

Protestant

Protestants differ. Lutherans find support for the real presence in Ignatius and Justin. Reformed writers stress the spiritual feeding of believers and cite Augustine, and point out that the fathers speak of signs as well as of body and blood. Others, in the memorial tradition, stress the remembrance and the thanksgiving.

Scholarly view

Historians note that the early church had a variety of practices and that the sources are brief. They also note that terms such as sacrifice and body had broader meanings than in later theological systems. Many scholars caution against assuming that second-century writers answered questions that arose later.

Why it matters

The Eucharist is the center of Christian worship for most of the world’s Christians, and the disagreement about it is one of the most serious. Reading the earliest sources shows the common ground: thanksgiving, communion, sacrifice, remembrance. It also shows how much interpretation lies between these sources and the later definitions.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The early church held the same doctrine of the Eucharist as the Council of Trent.

Correction: The early church spoke of body and blood in strong terms and called the Eucharist a sacrifice. The later definition of transubstantiation uses Aristotelian vocabulary that belongs to the Middle Ages.

Misunderstanding: The early church treated the Eucharist as a bare memorial.

Correction: The earliest writers speak of participation in the body and blood of Christ and of the medicine of immortality. Memorial views have a place in history, but they do not summarize the early evidence.

Misunderstanding: Ignatius explained how Christ is present in the Eucharist.

Correction: He states that it is the flesh of the Savior and does not explain the manner. Later traditions provide different explanations.

Misunderstanding: The word sacrifice was unknown for the early Eucharist.

Correction: The Didache and later writers speak of sacrifice, often in the sense of an offering of thanksgiving and of the gifts of the church. How far this means the same as the later Catholic doctrine is debated.

Knowledge check

What does Paul say about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11?

He says the cup and bread are a sharing in the blood and body of Christ and make the many one body (10:16-17). He recounts the Lord’s words at the supper and warns that those who eat and drink unworthily are guilty of the body and blood (11:23-29).

What does Ignatius say against those who avoided the Eucharist?

He says they avoid it because they do not confess that it is the flesh of the Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for sins and was raised by the Father. He thus links the Eucharist with belief in the real body of Christ.

What does Justin’s First Apology describe?

A Sunday gathering with readings, a sermon, prayers, the bringing of bread and wine and water, a prayer of thanksgiving, the people’s Amen, and distribution to those present and absent. He says the food is not common bread but the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.

Name one point on which scholars of different traditions agree and one on which they disagree about the early Eucharist.

They agree that it was weekly, limited to the baptized and understood as a participation in Christ. They disagree about whether early writers believed in a change of the elements and about how far the language of sacrifice matches later doctrine.

Think it through

  1. How might the shape of the service in Justin help in judging later changes?
  2. Why might the early church have tied the Eucharist to the bishop?
  3. What does it mean to call a meal a sacrifice?
  4. How can a reader judge whether a text is describing a symbol or a reality?

Independent assignment

Reading the early Eucharist

In your notebook, read Didache 9 to 10 and 14, Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 6 to 8, Justin First Apology 65 to 67 and Irenaeus Against Heresies 4.18. For each, list what the text says about the elements, about sacrifice, about who presides and about who receives. Then write 250 to 350 words on how a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant Christian would each use these texts. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study