Frederick C. Conybeare and William E. Collins

“ The general sense is clear, that those who consume the holy food without a clear conscience, like those who handle sacred objects with impure hands, will suffer physical harm from its contact, as if they were undergoing the ordeal of touching a holy thing. The idea, therefore, seems to be that as we must distinguish the holy food over which the words “This is my body” have been uttered from common food, so we must separate ourselves before eating it from all that is guilty and impure. The food that is taboo must only be consumed by persons who are equally taboo or pure. ”

“ In 830–850, Paschasius Radbert taught that after the priest has uttered the words of institution, nothing remains save the body and blood under the outward form of bread and wine; the substance is changed and the accidents alone remain. The elements are miraculously recreated as body and blood. This view harmonized with the docetic view which lurked in East and West, that the manhood of Jesus was but a likeness or semblance under which the God was concealed. So Marcion argued that Christ’s body was not really flesh and blood, or he could not have called it bread and wine. ”

“ The only food he recognizes is spiritual; e.g. knowledge of the divine Essence is “eating and drinking of the divine Word.” So Origen declares the bread which God the Word asserted was his body to be that which nourishes souls, the word from God the Word proceeding, the Bread from the heavenly Bread. Not the visible bread held in his hand, nor the visible cup, were Christ’s body and blood, but the word in the mystery of which the bread was to be broken and the wine to be poured out. “We drink Christ’s blood,” he says elsewhere, “when we receive His words in which standeth Life.” ”

“ The Eucharist of the synoptists is rather a covenant or tie of communion between Jesus and the twelve, such as will cause his life to survive in them after he has been parted from them in the flesh. An older prophet would have slain an animal and drunk its blood in common with his followers, or they would all alike have smeared themselves with it. In the East, even now, one who wishes to create a blood tie between himself and his followers and cement them to himself, makes under his left breast an incision from which they each in turn suck his blood. ”

“ The substance of the elements remain as well as their accidents, but like baptismal water they gain by consecration a hidden virtue benefiting soul and body. Ratramnus’s view thus resembled Serapion’s, after whom the elements furnish a new vehicle of the Spirit’s influence, a new body through which the Word operates, a fresh sojourning among us of the Word, though consecrated bread is in itself no more Christ’s natural body than are we who assimilate it. ”

“ Participation in the Eucharist gave actual life, and it was due to their irregular attendance at it that many members of the Corinthian church “were weak and sickly and not a few slept” (i.e. had died) . As the author already cited adds (p. 313) : “The notion that by eating the flesh, or particularly by drinking the blood, of another living being, a man absorbs its nature or life into his own, is one which appears among primitive peoples in many forms.”
But this effect of participation in the bread and cup was not in Paul’s opinion automatic, was no mere opus operatum ”

“ Even benefit societies were feared and forbidden by the Roman autocrats, and the “dominical suppers” of the Christians were not likely to be spared. Pliny accordingly forbade them in Bithynia, and the renegade Christians to whom he owed his information gave them up. These suppers included an Eucharist; for it was because the faithful ate in the latter of the flesh and blood of the Son of God that the charge of devouring children was made against them. If, then, this afternoon meal did not include it, Pliny’s remark that their food was ordinary and innocent is unintelligible. ”

“ Harvey ii. p. 500) , sketching the rite and calling the elements antitypes:
“The oblation of the Eucharist is not fleshly, but spiritual and so pure. For we offer to God the bread and the cup of blessing (εὐλογία) , thanking him for that he bade the earth produce these fruits for our sustenance. And therewith having finished the offering (προσφορά) we invoke the Holy Spirit to constitute this offering, both the bread body of Christ and the cup the blood of Christ, that those who partake of these antitypes (ἀντίτυπα, i.e. surrogates) may win remission of sins and life eternal.” ”

“ The term εὐχαριστία was at first applied to the act of thanksgiving associated with the sacrament; later, so early as the 2nd century, to the objects, e.g. the sacramental bread and wine, for which thanks were given; and so to the whole celebration. The term Mass, which has the same connotation, is derived from the Lat. missa or missio, because the children and catechumens, or unbaptized believers, were dismissed before the eucharistic rite began. Other names express various aspects of the rite: Communion (Gr. κοινωνία) , the fellowship between believers and union with Christ ”

“ A youth who has murdered his mistress takes the bread of the Eucharist in his mouth, and his two hands are at once withered up. The apostle immediately invites him to confess the crime he must have committed, “for, he says, the Eucharist of the Lord hath convicted thee.”
It has been necessary to consider at such length St Paul’s account of the Eucharist, both because it antedates nearly by half a century that of the gospels, and because it explains the significance which the rite had no less for the Gnostics than for the great church. ”

“ For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink. For as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by Word of God and possessed flesh and blood for our sake; so we have been taught that the food blessed (lit. thanked for) by prayer of Word spoken by him, food by which our blood and flesh are by change of it (into them) nourished, is both flesh and blood of Jesus so made flesh. For the apostles in the memorials made by them, which are called gospels, have so related it to have been enjoined on them: to wit, that Jesus took bread, gave thanks and said: This do ye in memory of me ”

“ This writer’s thought is coloured by the older speculations of Philo, who in metaphor called the Logos the heavenly bread and food, the cupbearer and cup of God; and he seems even to protest against a literal interpretation of the words of institution, since he not only pointedly omits them in his account of the Last Supper, but in v. 63 of this chapter writes: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.”
In Acts ii. 46 we read that, “the faithful continued steadfastly with one accord in the temple” ”

“ That it may be more rightly and clearly understood how the flesh and blood of Christ can be food and drink of the faithful, and be received by them unto eternal life, let us add these few remarks. Chewing is not of one kind alone. For there is a corporeal chewing, by which food is taken into the mouth by man, bruised with the teeth and swallowed down into the belly. ”

“ The matter has become one of no little practical importance owing to modern developments of English Church life. On the one hand, it is widely felt that neither the form for the Communion of the Sick, nor yet the teaching with regard to spiritual communion in the third rubric at the end of that service, is sufficient to meet all the cases that arise or may arise. On the other hand, it is probable that in many cases the desire for reservation has arisen, in part at least, from a wish for something analogous to the Roman Catholic customs of exposition and benediction ”

“ This representation of baskets of loaves and several fishes, or of one fish and several loaves, seems to contradict the usage of one loaf. It may represent the agapé or Lord’s Supper as a whole, of which the one loaf and cup formed an episode. Or the entire stock of bread may have been regarded as flesh of Jesus in virtue of the initial consecration of one single loaf. ”

“ This cement is nothing else than the actual life of the sacred and kindred animal, which is conceived as residing in its flesh, but specially in its blood, and so, in the sacred meal, is actually distributed among all the participants, each of whom incorporates a particle of it with his own individual life. ”

“ Every Sunday at least they are to celebrate it. A prophet can “in the Spirit appoint a table,” that is, order a Lord’s Supper to be eaten, whenever he is warned by the Spirit to do so. But he must not himself partake of it—a very practical rule. The prophets are to give thanks as they like at these “breakings of bread,” without being restricted to the prayers here set forth. In xv. 3 the overseers or bishops and deacons, though their functions are less spiritual than administrative and economic, are allowed to take the place of the prophets and teachers. ”

“ In the West it has been used in other ways. A portion of the consecrated Bread from one Eucharist, known as the “Fermentum,” was long made use of in the next, or sent by the bishop to the various churches of his city, no doubt with the object of emphasizing, the solidarity and the continuity of “the one Eucharist”; and amongst other customs which prevailed for some centuries, from the 8th onward, were those of giving it to the newly ordained in order that they might communicate themselves, and of burying it in or under the altar-slab of a newly consecrated church. ”

“ After we have thus washed the person who has believed and conformed we lead him to the brethren so called, where they are gathered together, to offer public prayer both for ourselves and for the person illuminated, and for all others everywhere, earnestly, to the end that having learned the truth we may be made worthy to be found not only in our actions good citizens, but guardians of the things enjoined. ”

“ Reservation of the Eucharist
The practice of reserving the sacred elements for the purpose of subsequent reception prevailed in the church from very early times. The Eucharist being the seal of Christian fellowship, it was a natural custom to send portions of the consecrated elements by the hands of the deacons to those who were not present (Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 65) . ”

“ Hot water was mixt with the wine in the Greek churches for some centuries, and this custom is seen in catacomb paintings. It increased the resemblance to real blood.
Position of the Faithful at the Eucharist.—Tertullian, Eusebius, Chrysostom and others represent the faithful as standing at the Eucharist. In the art of the catacombs they sit or recline in the ordinary attitude of banqueters. In the age of Christ standing up at the Paschal meal had been given up, and it was become the rule to recline. ”

“ If, in any case, all present had eaten in their homes beforehand, the giving of the cup would immediately follow on the breaking and eating of the one loaf, but Paul’s words indicate that the common meal within the church was the norm. Those who ate at home marked themselves out as both greedy and lacking in charity. ”

“ Original Significance of the Eucharist.—It is doubtful if the attempts of reformers to spiritualize the Eucharist bring us, except so far as they pruned ritual extravagances, nearer to its original significance; perhaps the Roman, Greek and Oriental churches have better preserved it. ”

“ Out of these they provide the Suppers held every Lord’s day, offering them as “a pure sacrifice.” Bishops and deacons hold a subordinate place in this document; but the contemporary Epistle of Clement of Rome attests that these bishops “had offered the gifts without blame and holily.” The word “liturgy” is also used by Clement.
Pliny’s Letter (Epist. 96) , written A.D. 112 to the emperor Trajan, about the Christians of Bithynia, attests that on a fixed day, stato die (no doubt Sunday) , they met before dawn and recited antiphonally a hymn “to Christ as to a god.” ”

“ In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant through my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” Paul adds that this rite commemorated the Lord’s death and was to be continued until he should come again, as in that age they expected him to do after no long interval: “As often as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye do (or ye shall) proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.”
The same epistle (x. 17) attests that one loaf only was broken and distributed: “We who are many, are one loaf (or bread) , one body ”