The roots of communion at home: feeding the hungry?
Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century is the first Christian writer to describe the practice of sending bread – and in this case at least apparently wine also – by the hands of the deacons from the Sunday eucharistic celebration to those unable to be present at it (First Apology 65.5; 67.5), while Tertullian at the end of that century refers to bread being carried home for consumption during the week by those who had been present at the celebration (Ad uxorem 2.5; cf. also De oratione 19). Both these practices continue to be attested by later sources, with occasional references to wine being included in what was carried home by communicants.1 What was it, however, that gave rise to these customs? It has been suggested that the second – the taking home of consecrated elements for consumption during the week – came into being independently of the first around the beginning of the third century as a response to a desire for more frequent communion during times of persecution.2 But Tertullian’s reference to it seems to imply that it was already an established practice at that time, and sustained and widespread persecution did not occur until the middle of the century. Is it possible therefore that both belong together and are much older, arising in the first century out of the necessity for the poor in the Christian community to have their physical hunger satisfied every day, and being continued later with more token quantities of bread (and wine) as a way of continuing to feed spiritually on Christ each day?
When we attempt to visualize the Last Supper, many of us are unconsciously influenced by Renaissance artistic depictions into imagining the disciples as being seated at one long table, with Jesus in the centre, whereas not only that occasion but also the subsequent formal eucharistic meals of the early Christians would very probably have conformed to the cultural norms of their age, with the company reclining on couches arranged around three sides of the room and eating from small tables and the host placed at one end.3 Indeed, the use of a single table and the practice of standing for the eucharist probably only arose when the serving of a full meal ceased. We may also reasonably presume that at these early ritual suppers Christians would have continued to adhere to the prevailing social conventions in other respects too, not least with regard to their treatment of the poor.
In the complex world of Greco-Roman culture in the time of Jesus, the wealthy might invite to dinner with them not only friends of equal standing, but also people of lower social status – their dependent clients, although often these would be seated apart and the food and drink served to them would be of a quite different quality from that being enjoyed by the host and his more privileged guests.4 Similarly, there were times when clients would have to make do with a charitable handout of food from their patron to take home rather than with a place at table.5 Thus, it was within this cultural context that the leading members of each Christian community in the first few generations would have invited their fellow-believers, both rich and poor, to share regular eucharistic meals in their homes. Many of these communities apparently saw themselves as brothers and sisters within one family, a phenomenon that was not unknown in some other associations within that culture.6 Not only is familial language used of them in the New Testament, but they also exchanged kisses with one another, an action normally only performed within that culture between very close friends or family members.7 Apparently so real did this new relationship feel to some that they refused to exchange kisses any longer with members of their natural family who were not believers.8
In such communities we may naturally expect that what otherwise would have been the conventional social stratification at meals between rich and poor, men and women, would have disappeared, and all would have been treated equally at the eucharistic suppers (cf. Galatians 3.28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’). However, this does not appear to have been the case everywhere. The apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthian church for perpetuating social distinctions between rich and poor, with the rich arriving first at the meals, bringing their provisions with them and consuming them without waiting for or sharing their food and drink with the poor.9 There is also later evidence of continuing segregation by gender in some Christian assemblies (Didascalia Apostolorum 2.57), but not in others: Tertullian notes that the practice of kissing the ‘brothers’ could pose a problem for women married to unbelievers (Ad uxorem 2.4).
Nevertheless, even if the poor were not treated as equals in every Christian community, the concern to be charitable to the needy seems to have been adopted as a high priority within the early Christian movement – so much so indeed that Acts 6 tells of the burden that ‘serving tables’ placed upon the Twelve in Jerusalem and the consequent need to have others take on that ministry. There are also references within the New Testament to collections being made for those in need (Acts 24.17; Romans 15.25–8; 1 Corinthians 16.1–2; 2 Corinthians 8.3–5; 9.1ff.); and a similar practice is recorded by Justin Martyr as accompanying the weekly eucharist:
Those who have provide for all those in need . . . And those who have the means and so desire give what they wish, each according to his own choice; and what is collected is deposited with the president. And he provides for both orphans and widows, and those in need through sickness or through other cause, and those who are in prison, and strangers sojourning, and, in a word, he becomes a protector for all those who are in want.
(First Apology 67.1, 6–7)
The so-called Apostolic Tradition also gives instructions both about suppers being given for the benefit of the poor and about donations of food being made to them to take home (chapters 28, 30), both of which, as we have seen, were common cultural practices, while Didache 13.4 directs that in the absence of prophets in a Christian community to be the recipients of the firstfruits that have been offered, they are to be donated to the poor.
Although the reception of communion was restricted to the baptized (Justin Martyr, First Apology 66.1), this does not mean that charitable feeding was limited only to those persons. It is important to note that while Apostolic Tradition 27.1 directs that catechumens are not to ‘sit at the table of the Lord with believers’, chapter 26.2 apparently does include them in some eating and drinking, but with ‘exorcized bread’ and their own cup because they are not yet pure (cf. 26.1). The presence of a prohibition against the unbaptized sharing in the eucharist in Didache 9.5 could also be thought to imply that they were there at that event. In such contexts, therefore, it would seem that catechumens only became excluded from presence at the eucharistic action and restricted to the liturgy of the word once a full meal was no longer part of eucharistic practice.
The earliest Christian eucharistic meal, therefore, did not merely express symbolically the love that the believers had for one another but was itself a practical expression of that love, as those who had means fed those in the community who were hungry, sending them home with leftovers to sustain them during the week and distributing portions to those unable to be present. It was no wonder then that one of the names used to designate that meal in some Christian communities was agape – the Greek word for ‘love’.10
Daily communion in the fourth century
It is impossible to know how widespread the custom of communion at home was during the first few centuries, but in North Africa in the third century we see signs of its reception at church becoming more frequent than appears originally to have been the case. All our early evidence points to ‘the Lord’s day’ as being the normal weekly occasion for the eucharistic celebration, even if that were at first Saturday evening rather than Sunday morning. But Tertullian speaks of the distribution of communion, even if not a full eucharistic celebration, as being also a regular feature of the two station days, Wednesdays and Fridays,11 and some years later Cyprian’s language implies that, at least during a period of persecution, the eucharist might been celebrated more often still, even daily (Epistulae 5; 57.3).
Within fourth-century sources can be found plentiful references to at least some Christians receiving communion more often than once a week. However, when early Christian writers speak of feeding on the Lord’s body and blood daily, it is sometimes hard to know precisely what they mean, which has led some scholars to see more eucharistic references in these texts than are actually there. Indeed, Augustine himself commented that the petition for daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer could have different meanings: it could refer to material needs, to ‘spiritual food’, or to ‘the sacrament of the body of Christ, which we receive daily’ (De sermone Domini in monte 2.25); and in one of his sermons he speaks of the daily readings in church and of singing hymns, as well as the eucharist as being ‘daily bread’ (Sermo 57.7). In others he speaks of the word of God being daily bread to catechumens, and of Christ feeding them every day (Sermones 56.10; 132.1). Hence we need to be cautious whether apparent references to daily communion are to physical consumption or not, and indeed even if they are, how literally ‘daily’ is to be taken. So, for example, in a certain Abbot Isaac’s discourse on prayer, does his exposition of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Give us today our daily bread’, refer to actual eating or not?
For where it says ‘daily’ it shows that without it we cannot live a spiritual life for a single day. Where it says ‘today’ it shows that it must be received daily and that yesterday’s supply of it is not enough, but that it must be given to us today also in like manner. And our daily need of it suggests to us that we ought at all times to offer up this prayer, because there is no day on which we have no need to strengthen the heart of our inner man, by eating and receiving it, although the expression used, ‘today’, may be taken to apply to this present life, i.e., while we are living in this world supply us with this bread.12
Other texts suggest that actual eucharistic practices among the monastic communities in the Egyptian desert varied. In some communities attendance at a eucharistic celebration appears to have been restricted to Sundays, and there is no indication of daily communion by individuals in their cells.13 On the other hand, while the Rule of Pachomius refers only to this practice (Praecepta 15–16), other Pachomian sources describe as the normal custom both a Sunday eucharist celebrated in the monastery by a priest coming in from outside, and the monks also going to a nearby village for a Saturday evening synaxis.14 Cassian similarly tells of the monks of lower Egypt assembling on both Saturdays and Sundays for communion ‘at the third hour’ but not otherwise leaving their cells (De institutis coenobiorum 3.2), as does the Historia monachorum in Aegypto.15 The ecclesiastical historian Socrates adds an interesting detail about the form that the Saturday assemblies took among Christians in the region of Alexandria and Thebes: they ‘do not participate in the mysteries in the manner usual among Christians in general: for after having eaten and satisfied themselves with food of all kinds, in the evening making their offerings they partake of the mysteries’ (Historia ecclesiastica 5.22). This suggests that the association of the eucharist with a Sabbath evening meal may have continued here from earliest times, even after Sunday supplanted it elsewhere as the primary occasion for the celebration of the eucharist. The celebration of the eucharist on Saturdays as well as Sundays is very widely attested in the East in the fourth century, though not this particular form on the Saturday. Indeed, Saturday celebrations were so common that Socrates mistakenly believed that Alexandria and Rome, which had celebrations only on Sundays, must once have also had Saturday celebrations but ‘on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this’.16
At the same time, there is also evidence for the reception of communion every single day and not just Saturdays and Sundays among at least some of the desert fathers. Armand Veilleux insists that daily communion was not a feature of Pachomian monasticism,17 but the Historia monachorum in Aegypto describes the reception of communion at the ninth hour, before supper was eaten, as being a daily practice among some other desert ascetics, and strongly encourages it.18 Cassian’s Conferences also include references to the practice (7.30.2; 14.8.5), and it continued to be a feature of many later monastic traditions: the Rule of the Master, for example, prescribes daily communion of both bread and wine after None and before going into the refectory to eat (Regula Magistri 21–2).
Daily communion, however, was not merely a monastic practice. We know that the eucharist was celebrated only on Sundays at Rome in the fourth century, but in a letter written in 383 Jerome asserts that daily communion was practised there, apparently with both bread and wine, as he speaks of drinking as well as eating (Epistula 21.26–7); and in another letter written in 398 he says that it was the custom ‘of the churches of Rome and Spain’ (Epistula 71.6). Augustine was of the opinion that the majority of those who did not receive communion daily were ‘in Eastern parts’ (De sermone Domini in monte 2.26). There is also evidence that some would carry the eucharist with them on journeys for the purpose of daily communion, though it may also have been as a protection against the forces of evil.19 Thus, in the sermon at the funeral of his brother Satyrus, Ambrose of Milan relates how Satyrus, even though he was not yet baptized and when the ship on which he was travelling was in danger of sinking, asked for the consecrated bread from some baptized companions, wrapped it in a cloth and fastened it round his neck before casting himself into the sea and so came safely to land (De exitu fratris 1.43). Although his intention was obviously apotropaic – to ward off the power of evil – yet it is probable that the others were carrying it primarily for the purpose of communion. Confirmation of this practice is provided by Palladius, who in his Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom20 tells of John receiving communion while on a journey. Whereas it is commonly assumed that bread alone would have been used for home communion and while travelling, it is worth noting that Jerome tells of a certain Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, who used to carry both bread and wine: ‘his wicker basket contains the body of the Lord, and his plain glass-cup the precious blood’ (Epistula 125.20). When this evidence is added to that of the Apostolic Tradition and to Jerome’s remark about ‘drinking’ referred to earlier in this paragraph, it seems to confirm that in some places at least the tradition was for home communion to be in both kinds.
Daily celebration of the eucharist
The instances we have examined so far seem to be of communion from elements reserved from a Sunday celebration: this would necessarily have been so in the case of monastic communities in the desert and Christians on journeys, and appears to have been so for Rome and Spain too. In other cases, we have evidence for the celebration of the eucharist on some weekdays. Several fourth-century sources speak unambiguously of this, although there was obviously considerable variety from place to place, as Augustine notes: ‘some receive daily the Body and Blood of the Lord, others receive it on certain days; in some places no day is omitted in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice; in others it is offered only on Saturday and Sunday, or even only on Sunday’.21 In the West, weekday celebrations seem generally to have been limited to northern Italy and North Africa. Ambrose in Milan declares that the eucharist was celebrated there at midday on ‘most days’, but on fast days communion was received at the conclusion of the fast just before the evening meal (Sermones in psalmum 118 8.48; 18.28). In this latter case, it appears that the eucharist itself was not celebrated, and hence there was a reversion to what had presumably been the older custom. Is it possible that it was Ambrose himself who introduced more frequent celebration of the eucharist on other days? Daily eucharist also seems to have been a feature of North Africa in Augustine’s day. Was that too something that Augustine imported from Milan, or simply a continuation of the trend towards more frequent celebrations of the eucharist that we see in Cyprian in the third century?22
As for the East, Chrysostom states that in Antioch ‘on the Preparation [Friday], on the Sabbath, on the Lord’s day, and on the day of martyrs, it is the same sacrifice that is performed’ (Homiliae in epistulam I ad Timotheum 5.3). Egeria seems to know of the addition of a Wednesday eucharist at Jerusalem to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday pattern described by Chrysostom, except for Lent, when Wednesday and Friday reverted to being purely services of the word with the eucharist celebrated only on Saturdays and Sundays (Itinerarium 27.6), an arrangement also prescribed by canon 49 of the Council of Laodicea (c.383), while canon 51 directs that in the Lenten season the feasts of the martyrs also should not be kept, but they should instead be commemorated on Saturdays and Sundays. Alexandria, on the other had, seems to have retained a pure service of the word on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, for Socrates not only declares that in that city the eucharist was celebrated only on Sundays but also that on Wednesdays and Fridays ‘the Scriptures are read, and the doctors expound them; and all the usual services are performed in their assemblies, except the celebration of the mysteries’ (Historia ecclesiastica 5.22).
To complete the picture, we need also to mention that towards the end of the fourth century we encounter attempts to limit or even suppress celebrations of the eucharist in private houses. Thus, while on one occasion Basil of Caesarea speaks of his allowing presbyters under interdict to celebrate in private but not in public congregations (Epistula 199), in his shorter monastic rule he forbids celebrations in houses except in cases of extreme necessity (Regulae brevius tractatae 310). The Council of Laodicea, canon 58, refused to allow either bishops or priests to celebrate in houses, while the Second Council of Carthage (c.390), canon 9, allowed presbyters to do so only with the permission of their bishop. Nevertheless, both the practice itself and also attempts to control it continued in succeeding centuries, suggesting that it was a deep-seated and long-established usage rather than a novelty of the period, and thus may be the lingering remains of the domestic origins of Christian eucharistic meals.
Abstaining from communion: why did it occur?
For students of liturgical history who have been persuaded to abandon the idea that the fourth century was some sort of golden age for Christianity, there is the temptation to transfer that vision to an earlier century: to regard the legitimization of Christianity under Constantine as the turning-point when things began to decline and new converts were allowed to enter the Church without careful scrutiny as to the depth of their faith and dedication, while the faithful members in earlier generations had all been intensely committed to their beliefs and constantly maintained the highest levels of conduct. However, there are signs that this was not always the case, especially with regard to regular attendance at Sunday worship and participation in communion.
Already at the end of the second century Tertullian refers to some in his region of North Africa who had scruples about receiving communion on the weekly station days because they thought it would break their fast (De oratione 19). More seriously, the early-third-century Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum mentions that there are some who apparently prefer to go to the theatre rather than attend Sunday worship (2.59); and Origen also complains that some scarcely come to church even on feast days (Homiliae in Genesim 10.1). Furthermore, several years before the Peace of Constantine was established, the Synod of Elvira in Spain in 306 found it necessary to threaten with punishment those who absented themselves from church for three Sundays in succession (canon 21), while among the canons attributed to the Synod of Antioch in 341 but possibly belonging to an earlier synod in 33023 is one that applied sanctions to those who attended church and listened to the ministry of the word but did not participate in prayer or communion with the rest (canon 2). This legislation recurs among the canons of later councils.
Evidence from the latter part of the fourth century reveals that by then, if not sooner, abstention from communion was not limited to a matter of weeks, but could last for months and even a year or more. Thus John Chrysostom in one of his homilies reveals that ‘many partake of this sacrifice once in the whole year, others twice; others many times. Our word then is to all; not to those only who are here, but to those also who are settled in the desert. For they partake once in the year, and often indeed at intervals of two years.’ He went on to indicate that, not surprisingly, those who communicated once a year generally did so at Easter, at the end of the forty-day fast of Lent:
Tell me, I beseech thee, when after a year thou partakest of the Communion, dost thou think that the Forty Days are sufficient for thee for the purifying of the sins of all that time? And again, when a week has passed, dost thou give thyself up to the former things? Tell me now, if when thou hast been well for forty days after a long illness, thou shouldest again give thyself up to the food which caused the sickness, hast thou not lost thy former labour too? For if natural things are changed, much more those which depend on choice. As for instance, by nature we see, and naturally we have healthy eyes; but oftentimes from a bad habit [of body] our power of vision is injured. If then natural things are changed, much more those of choice. Thou assignest forty days for the health of the soul, or perhaps not even forty, and dost thou expect to propitiate God? Tell me, art thou in sport? These things I say, not as forbidding you the one and annual coming, but as wishing you to draw near continually.24
As Chrysostom’s reference to those ‘who are settled in the desert’ indicates, this lengthy abstention did not just involve lay people in the towns and cities but extended also to some who were leading eremitic and monastic lives in the desert. This is confirmed by the exhortation to receive the communion every Sunday that was addressed by a certain Abbot Theonas to some Egyptian monks who were apparently doing so only once a year:
We ought not to suspend ourselves from the Lord’s Communion because we confess ourselves sinners, but should more and more eagerly hasten to it for the healing of our soul, and purifying of our spirit, and seek there rather a remedy for our wounds with humility of mind and faith, as considering ourselves unworthy to receive so great grace. Otherwise we cannot worthily receive the Communion even once a year, as some do, who live in monasteries and so regard the dignity and holiness and value of the heavenly sacraments, as to think that none but saints and spotless persons should venture to receive them, and not rather that they would make us saints and pure by taking them. And these thereby fall into greater presumption and arrogance than what they seem to themselves to avoid, because at the time when they do receive them, they consider that they are worthy to receive them. But it is much better to receive them every Sunday for the healing of our infirmities, with that humility of heart, whereby we believe and confess that we can never touch those holy mysteries worthily, than to be puffed up by a foolish persuasion of heart, and believe that at the year’s end we are worthy to receive them.25
On the other hand, there were other desert fathers who discouraged the reception of communion by monks whom they considered were in an unworthy spiritual state. The Historia monachorum in Aegypto tells of a certain priest called Eulogius, who is said to have received the gift of the knowledge of the spiritual state of each monk who approached the altar, and would instruct certain ones not to receive: ‘Abstain for a while from the sacred Mysteries and repent with all your soul that you may win forgiveness for your sins and become worthy of the Communion of Christ. If you do not first purify your thoughts you may not approach the grace of God.’ Another priest called Dioscorus would tell those who had ‘pondered on the image of a woman during the night’ not to approach the sacred mysteries.26
The practice of lengthy abstention from communion seems to have been more prevalent in the East than the West. Ambrose in Milan, in an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer to the newly baptized, describes it as being the custom of ‘the Greeks in the East’. While this must surely be something of an exaggeration, it must have been sufficiently widespread there for him to think of it as such; but his inclusion of a warning about it in this address indicates that it was not unknown in Milan as well, and so might lead his hearers to imitate it: ‘If bread is daily, why do you take it after a year, as the Greeks in the East are accustomed to do? Receive daily what is of benefit to you daily! So live that you may deserve to receive it daily! He who does not deserve to receive it daily does not deserve to receive it after a year.’27 Augustine in Africa was rather more irenic in his approach to the issue. Having referred to those claiming that the eucharist was not to be received every day but only on days when one was living ‘with greater purity and self-restraint’, and also to those who took the opposite view, he claimed that both were honouring the Lord in their respective ways (Epistula 54.4). Yet, the fact that he even raised the matter suggests that it was an issue in his community. On the other hand, Jerome in Italy, while desiring those who had engaged in sexual intercourse to refrain from receiving communion at home, implies that abstention from communion in church for any reason was not common in Rome:
The Apostle Paul tells us that when we have intercourse with our wives we cannot pray. If, then, sexual intercourse prevents what is less important – that is, prayer – how much more does it prevent what is more important – that is, the reception of the body of Christ? . . . I know that at Rome it is customary for the faithful always to receive the body of Christ, a custom which I neither censure nor indorse. ‘Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.’ But I appeal to the consciences of those persons who after indulging in sexual intercourse on the same day receive the communion – having first, as Persius puts it, ‘washed off the night in a flowing stream’, and I ask such why they do not presume to approach the martyrs or to enter the churches. Is Christ of one mind abroad and of another at home? What is unlawful in church cannot be lawful at home.28
As the words of these various fourth-century figures reveal, the primary motivation for prolonged abstention from communion in most cases at this time seems to have been a sense of personal unworthiness rather than a lack of adequate commitment to the faith and practice of Christianity, although there is some evidence for a general indifference towards liturgy among certain early adherents of the monastic movement that would no doubt have also contributed towards it.29 But what gave rise among so many to this attitude of unworthiness to receive communion? The usual answer given by liturgical historians to this question is that preachers like Chrysostom instilled it in them by insisting on the necessity of purity of conscience in order to approach the eucharistic table. And certainly he does attack those who appear to him to have a casual attitude towards the reception of communion and receive it at specific holy seasons regardless of the state of their soul:
I observe many partaking of Christ’s body lightly and just as it happens, and rather from custom and form than consideration and understanding. When, saith a man, the holy season of Lent sets in, whatever a man may be, he partakes of the mysteries, or, when the day of the Lord’s Epiphany comes. And yet it is not the Epiphany, nor is it Lent, that makes a fit time for approaching, but it is sincerity and purity of soul. With this, approach at all times; without it, never.30
However, it appears that these same people were already abstaining from communion at other times of the year:
At the other times ye come not, no, not though often ye are clean; but at Easter, however flagrant an act ye may have committed, ye come. Oh! the force of custom and of prejudice! In vain is the daily Sacrifice, in vain do we stand before the Altar; there is no one to partake. These things I am saying, not to induce you to partake anyhow, but that ye should render yourselves worthy to partake.
He went on to urge them, if they were not intending to receive communion, to leave the eucharistic assembly after the ministry of the word – in effect, to return to the status of catechumens – because if they were unworthy to receive communion, they were equally unworthy to join in the prayers of the faithful:
As then it is not meet that any one of the uninitiated be present, so neither is it that one of them that are initiated, and yet at the same time defiled. Tell me, suppose any one were invited to a feast, and were to wash his hands, and sit down, and be all ready at the table, and after all refuse to partake; is he not insulting the man who invited him? Were it not better for such an one never to have come at all? Now it is just in the same way that thou hast come here. Thou hast sung the hymn with the rest: thou hast declared thyself to be of the number of them that are worthy, by not departing with them that are unworthy. Why stay, and yet not partake of the table? I am unworthy, thou wilt say. Then art thou also unworthy of that communion thou hast had in prayers.31
Chrysostom repeated in other homilies the message of the need for worthiness before receiving communion:
What then? Which shall we approve? Those [who receive] once [in the year]? Those who [receive] many times? Those who [receive] few times? Neither those [who receive] once, nor those [who receive] often, nor those [who receive] seldom, but those [who come] with a pure conscience, from a pure heart, with an irreproachable life. Let such draw near continually; but those who are not such, not even once. Why, you will ask? Because they receive to themselves judgment, yea and condemnation, and punishment, and vengeance.32
In another homily he spelled out more fully the consequences of unworthy reception:
Since the Priests cannot know who are sinners, and unworthy partakers of the holy Mysteries, God often in this way delivers them to Satan. For when diseases, and attacks, and sorrows, and calamities, and the like occur, it is on this account that they are inflicted. This is shown by Paul. ‘For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep’ [1 Cor. 11:30]. But how? saith one, when we approach but once a year! But this is indeed the evil, that you determine the worthiness of your approach, not by the purity of your minds, but by the interval of time. You think it a proper caution not to communicate often; not considering that you are seared by partaking unworthily, though only once, but to receive worthily, though often, is salutary. It is not presumptuous to receive often, but to receive unworthily, though but once in a whole life.33
And he insisted that those who administered communion were also responsible for ensuring that the unworthy did not receive:
These things I say to you that receive, and to you that minister. For it is necessary to address myself to you also, that you may with much care distribute the gifts there. There is no small punishment for you, if being conscious of any wickedness in any man, you allow him to partake of this table. ‘His blood shall be required at your hands.’ Though any one be a general, though a deputy, though it be he himself who is invested with the diadem, and come unworthily, forbid him, the authority thou hast is greater than his. Thou, if thou wert entrusted to keep a spring of water clean for a flock, and then wert to see a sheep having much mire on its mouth, thou wouldest not suffer it to stoop down unto it and foul the stream: but now being entrusted with a spring not of water, but of blood and of spirit, if thou seest any having on them sin, which is more grievous than earth and mire, coming unto it, art thou not displeased? Dost thou not drive them off? And what excuse canst thou have? For this end God hath honoured you with this honour, that ye should discern these things. This is your office, this your safety, this your whole crown, not that ye should go about clothed in a white and shining vestment.34
As the above quotations indicate, while Chrysostom certainly desired more frequent reception of communion, he neither approved nor condemned those who abstained. That was not his primary focus, but, like certain of the desert fathers cited earlier, he was much more concerned to prevent unworthy reception whenever that might occur. The quotations also imply that infrequent reception was already a long-established custom in his day, and not something brought about by his preaching. Many of those against whom he was directing his strictures were already abstaining from communion, and Chrysostom was focusing his attention on the occasions on which they did decide to communicate, because he thought that they were still unworthy to do so. We need to search elsewhere, then, for the original causes of this phenomenon. Although a definitive answer is not immediately obvious, the following factors need to be noted:
• Absence from church by some on Sundays was already occurring before the Peace of Constantine, according to the evidence cited earlier in this chapter, but in so far as we can discern a reason for it at this time, it seems to have been lack of commitment rather than a sense of unworthiness.
• Prior to the fourth century those living deep in the countryside would often have been unable to attend the eucharist every Sunday, unlike those in towns and cities, because of the distances involved. Did this encourage an expectation that less frequent attendance or participation in communion was acceptable?
• Many of the new converts after the Peace of Constantine would not have been accustomed to a religion that expected such intimate involvement in its rites on a weekly basis and the need for constant purity that accompanied it. Was it among them that the sense of unworthiness to receive communion frequently arose?
• While some of the fourth-century desert ascetics were practising daily communion, others were being discouraged from receiving the sacrament at all if they were in an unworthy spiritual state. As the flight to the desert was often marked by a heightened awareness of human sinfulness, is it possible that prolonged abstinence from communion first arose there as a result of that attitude and then spread elsewhere?
• The generally observed prohibition on fasting or kneeling for prayer on Sundays, first reported by Tertullian (De corona 3; De oratione 23), meant that penitential prayer in preparation for the reception of communion was not possible within the eucharistic rite itself.35 Did this absence of a means to purify oneself at the time of reception also help to discourage some from communion?
• Could the notion that the consecrated bread and wine had power to protect or heal without the need to consume them have also played a part? Third-century sources reveal the existence in a belief in the apotropaic power of the eucharist when consumed,36 and fourth-century sources extend this idea, referring both to its application to parts of the body in connection with its consumption,37 and also to its healing power when applied to an infection or wound without consuming it.38
Conclusion: a communion-centred eucharistic piety
The cumulative effect of the practices outlined above – the early adoption of weekday communion at home, the taking of the sacrament to those unable to be present, the eventual multiplication of opportunities to receive communion at church during the week, whether in a distribution of previously consecrated elements or in a full eucharist – is to suggest that, while ‘official’ eucharistic theology, the theology of church leaders, may have centred on the importance of the congregation of believers offering the sacrifice of praise together in the celebration, the actual piety of ordinary Christians may have been shaped more by a focus on communion, on feeding on Christ. Whether this was done alone or with others, at a eucharist or outside it, may have seemed relatively inconsequential to them – just as the fundamental needs of the poor had been to have their hunger satisfied, and whether this was to be done at the supper or by the reception of leftovers was of much less importance than the reception of the food itself. It is also worth noting that in much pagan sacrifice central importance was accorded to the worshippers’ participation in the consumption of the sacrificial victim and not in their presence at or assistance with its offering as such, and this would have formed the background piety of many converts to Christianity. Even the prolonged abstention from communion by some is a sign of the significance that was being attached to its reception at the time, in spite of the fact that in the long term it contributed to the view that the communion of all the faithful was a dispensable element in the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice. Indeed, if it is correct to interpret a statement by Innocent I in his letter to Decentius at the beginning of the fifth century as denoting the existence in the tituli churches of Rome on Sundays of services of the word accompanied by the distribution of communion consecrated by bread brought from the papal celebration rather than independent eucharists, then communion divorced from consecration formed the normal eucharistic experience for the majority of Roman Christians for a good many years.39
These ancient precedents, however, should not be treated as constituting legitimate justification for continuing such present-day practices as regularly dispensing communion from the reserved sacrament rather than from elements consecrated at the time or for importing previously consecrated bread and wine from another eucharistic community when the absence of a priest makes a full eucharistic celebration in one community impossible. Early Christians were just as capable of theological and liturgical distortions as their modern counterparts; and there are signs to suggest that some of them at least may have been aware of the dangers of such a communion-centred piety. Whether for this reason, or simply because of a desire to curb a practice that was not subject to ecclesiastical control and so could allow Arians to receive communion, the Council of Saragossa (379–81), canon 3, and the Council of Toledo (400), canon 14, tried to prevent the sacrament from being taken home. Similarly, Leo the Great in Rome in the fifth century seems to have preferred to have more than one celebration of the eucharist in a church on greater festivals as a lesser evil than the people being deprived of their opportunity to participate in the oblation:
when any of the greater festivals has brought together a larger congregation than usual, and too great a crowd of the faithful has assembled for one church to hold them all at once, there should be no hesitation about repeating the oblation of the sacrifice: lest, if those only are admitted to this service who come first, those who flock in afterwards should seem to be rejected: for it is fully in accordance with piety and reason, that as often as a fresh congregation has filled the church where service is going on, the sacrifice should be offered as a matter of course. Whereas a certain portion of the people must be deprived of their worship, if the custom of only one celebration be kept, and only those who come early in the day can offer the sacrifice.40
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1 Apostolic Tradition 38A is unclear, but may refer to preserving wine at home: see Bradshaw, Johnson and Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, pp. 184–5. See also below, p. 26, for a later instance.
2 W. H. Freestone, The Sacrament Reserved, Alcuin Club Collections 21 (Mowbray, London/Oxford 1917), pp. 33–4.
3 See further Blake Leyerle, ‘Meal Customs in the Greco-Roman World’, in Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman (eds), Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN 1999), pp. 29–61, here at pp. 30–4.
4 See Ludwig Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire (Routledge, London 1913), I, pp. 199ff.
5 For references to primary sources, see Charles A. Bobertz, ‘The Role of Patron in the Cena Dominica of Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition’, Journal of Theological Studies 44 (1993), pp. 170–84, here at pp. 175–6; Matthias Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemein-schaft (Francke Verlag, Tübingen 1996), pp. 143–9.
6 See Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2003), pp. 30–3.
7 See L. Edward Phillips, The Ritual Kiss in Early Christian Worship, Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Study 36 (Grove Books, Nottingham 1996).
8 See Michael Penn, ‘Performing Family: Ritual Kissing and the Construction of Early Christian Kinship’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 10 (2002), pp. 151–74, esp. pp. 166–9.
9 1 Corinthians 11.17–22. See Peter Lampe, ‘Das korinthische Herrenmahl im Schnittpunkt hellenistischrömischer Mahlpraxis und paulinischer Theologia Crucis (1 Kor 11,17–34)’, Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 82 (1990–1), pp. 183–213; also his English article, ‘The Eucharist: Identifying with Christ on the Cross’, Interpretation 48 (1994), pp. 36–49.
10 See Andrew B. McGowan, ‘Naming the Feast: Agape and the Diversity of Early Christian Meals’, Studia Patristica 30 (1997), pp. 314–18.
11 De oratione 19. For the precise nature of these gatherings, see Andrew B. McGowan, ‘Rethinking Agape and Eucharist in Early North African Christianity’, Studia Liturgica 34 (2004), pp. 165–76, here at p. 170.
12 John Cassian, Conferences 9.21.
13 See Palladius, Historia Lausica 33.2 (where a priest and a deacon go to a community of women only on a Sunday); 59.2 (where a nun, Taor, does not go to the local church on Sunday with the rest of the community); and Daniel 7 in Benedicta Ward (ed.), The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Mowbray, London 1975), p. 45. See also Jerome’s account of monastic practices in Bethlehem (Epistula 108.20.3).
14 See Armand Veilleux, La liturgie dans le cénobitisme pachômien au quatrième siècle, Studia Anselmiana 57 (Pontificium Institutum S. Anselmi, Rome 1968), pp. 228–32. He believes that the absence of any reference to a Saturday eucharist in the Rule can be explained by the fact that the section of the Rule that mentions the Sunday celebration is dealing with variations in the office on Sundays and feasts, and not specifically listing all the days on which the eucharist took place (pp. 233–4).
15 20.7; ET in Norman Russell, The Lives of the Desert Fathers (Mowbray, London 1981), p. 106.
16 Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.22. Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 11, confirms that Sunday was the only regular day for the eucharist in Alexandria.
17 Veilleux, La liturgie dans le cénobitisme pachômien au quatrième siècle, p. 235.
18 8.50–1, 56–7; ET in Russell, The Lives of the Desert Fathers, pp. 77–8, but note that his literal translation in note 12 (p. 131) conveys the accurate meaning of receiving communion rather than celebrating the eucharist. See also 2.7–8 (Russell, p. 64), where communion is received daily before the evening meal; but cf. 13.4, 8 (Russell, pp. 93–4), where a certain John is said to have eaten nothing except communion, which the priest brought him on Sundays.
20 Ancient Christian Writers 45 (Newman Press, New York 1985), pp. 73, 189 n. 420.
21 Epistula 54.2; ET from Saint Augustine: Letters, I, Fathers of the Church 12 (New York 1951), p. 253.
22 For Cyprian, see above, p. 24; and for a thorough review of the evidence for daily celebrations of the eucharist in the West in the fourth century, see Daniel Callam, ‘The Frequency of Mass in the Latin Church ca. 400’, Theological Studies 45 (1984), pp. 613–50.
23 See H. Hess, The Canons of the Council of Sardica (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1958), pp. 145–50, Appendix II, ‘The Origins of the Canons of Antioch’.
24 John Chrysostom, Homiliae in epistulam ad Hebraeos 17.7; ET from NPNF, First Series, 14:449.
25 John Cassian, Conferences 23.21; ET from NPNF, Second Series, 11:531. For other instances of abstention from communion among desert ascetics, see also Palladius, Historia Lausica 17.9; 27.2; 59.2.
26 16.1–2; 20.1–2; ET from Russell, The Lives of the Desert Fathers, pp. 100, 105.
27 Ambrose, De sacramentis 5.25; ET from Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works, Fathers of the Church 44 (Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC 1963), p. 317.
28 Jerome, Epistula 48.15; ET from NPNF, Second Series, 6:75.
29 See Robert F. Taft, ‘Home Communion in the Late Antique East’, in Clare V. Johnson (ed.), Ars Liturgiae: Worship, Aesthetics, and Praxis: Essays in Honor of Nathan D. Mitchell (Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago 2003), pp. 1–15, here at pp. 4–7.
30 Homiliae in epistulam ad Ephesios 3.4; ET from NPNF, First Series, 13:63. See also Homiliae in epistulam I ad Corinthios 28.1.
31 Homiliae in epistulam ad Ephesios 3.4; ET from NPNF, First Series, 13:64. It is interesting to observe that a parallel argument against non-communicants remaining in church while others received communion was also advanced in the first exhortation included in the eucharistic rite of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England.
32 Homiliae in epistulam ad Hebraeos 17.7; ET from NPNF, First Series, 14:449.
33 Homiliae in epistulam I ad Timotheum 5.3; ET from NPNF, First Series, 13:425.
34 Homiliae in Matthaeum 82.6; ET from NPNF, First Series, 10:477.
35 The only penitential reference in many eucharistic rites until several centuries later was the Lord’s Prayer, with its petition for forgiveness, which makes its first appearance in some, but apparently not all, eucharistic rites in the second half of the fourth century: see Robert F. Taft, ‘The Lord’s Prayer in the Eucharistic Liturgy: When and Why?’, Ecclesia Orans 14 (1997), pp. 137–55, esp. p. 153, and below, pp. 132–44.
36 See Cyprian, Epistula 57.2; Apostolic Tradition 36.
37 ‘Then having carefully sanctified the eyes with a touch of the holy body, consume, taking heed not to drop any of it . . . Then after partaking of Christ’s body, come also to the cup of the blood, not stretching out the hands but bowing and saying Amen in the manner of worship and reverence, sanctify yourself also by partaking of Christ’s blood. And while the moisture is still on the lips, touching it with your hands, sanctify both the eyes and forehead and the other organs of sense’ (Mystagogical Catecheses attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, 5.21–2); Theodore of Mopsuestia: ‘When you have received the body in your hands, you adore it . . . With a great and sincere love you place it on your eyes, kiss it and address to it your prayers as to Christ our Lord . . .’ (Baptismal Homily 5.28; ET from AIR, p. 242).
38 Augustine, Contra Iulianum 3.162; Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 8.18. See also Ambrose’s account of his brother Satyrus carrying the eucharistic bread around his neck for protection against evil (De exitu fratris 1.43), above, p. 26.
39 See John F. Baldovin, ‘The Fermentum at Rome in the Fifth Century: A Reconsideration’, Worship 79 (2005), pp. 38–53.
40 Epistula 9.3; ET from NPNF, Second Series, 12:8.