The Lord’s Supper commemorates the meal when Jesus broke bread and distributed wine to his 12 disciples as symbols of his body and blood. How did this tradition, which the early Christians called the Lord’s Supper (or the Agapē), transition into what Christians today commonly call the Eucharist, Holy Communion or a sacrament? How did it evolve from a full meal to a ritual in the early Christian church?
The Synoptic Gospels recount that Jesus gave bread and wine to his 12 disciples during a Passover meal (Mark 14:22–25; Matthew 26:26–30; Luke 22:14–23). For the earliest Christians, Jesus’ final meal became a model for their own meals.
The phrase the “Last Supper” implies Jesus ate many meals during his life, and indeed several are recorded in the Gospels. During these meals, Jesus calls social outcasts to repentance and discipleship (Mark 2:13–17; Luke 15:1–2; Luke 7:34–50).1
According to the earliest account of Christian activities in the Book of Acts, presumably written by Luke the Evangelist, the community in Jerusalem “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers” (Acts 2:42). Biblical scholars agree that this meal tradition called the “breaking of bread” was a full communal meal in which symbolic bread and wine were distributed to guests who shared a table in the dining room of houses.
Early Christians participated in meals characterized by inclusivity, care for one another and unity (Acts 2:43–47; cf. Acts 6:1–7). But as Paul’s letters indicate, these idealistic practices at the Lord’s Supper sometimes became abused because Christians either practiced Jewish purity laws at the table (e.g., considering what types of foods were appropriate to consume), or they transformed the meal into a gathering modeled after Greco-Roman banquets by drinking too much wine (Galatians 2:11–14; cf. Romans 14–15; 1 Corinthians 11:17–34).2
To correct the abuses at the Lord’s Supper in Corinth, Paul reminded the Corinthians that the bread represented their unity as Jesus’ followers and that they shared in the blood of Christ as members of the New Covenant by drinking the wine (1 Corinthians 10:16; cf. 1 Corinthians 11:25). Undoubtedly, this emphasis on unity explains an alternative name for the Lord’s Supper in early Christian literature, Agapē, a Greek word that is usually translated as either “love” or “love feast” (Jude 12; cf. 2 Peter 2:13).
The Didache, one of the oldest collections of Christian teachings, relates that early Christians offered a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread and/or cup. The Didache calls this prayer the Eucharist, a term that derives from the Greek word for “thanksgiving.” In some early Christian communities, this title for the prayer became an alternative name for the Lord’s Supper (Didache 9–10, 14).3 Perhaps, as some Biblical scholars postulate, the memory of Jesus’ Jewish blessing and prayer of thanksgiving at the Last Supper became part of the early Christian meal (Mark 14:22–25; 1 Corinthians 11:23–25).4
In the second century, Justin Martyr’s community in Rome assembled Sunday evening for a full meal. During this meal, as he relates, the president offered a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread and wine before distributing it to those who were present (Apology 65).5 According to some scholars, various Christian communities sometimes shifted their worship practices due to local circumstances.6 For example, in some cities Christians may have drunk water instead of wine at their communal meal.7
By the third century, the Lord’s Supper transitioned from a full meal to a ritual. Whereas Christians previously gathered for a full meal in the evening in the dining room of a house, the apologist Tertullian recounts how his community in Carthage began to assemble in the mornings to participate in a separate Eucharistic ritual at an altar (De Corona 3).8 Nearly half a century later, the evening banquet had drastically declined in popularity. According to Cyprian, a third-century bishop, Christians in Carthage regularly gathered as one large assembly in064 the morning at an altar for a Eucharistic sacrifice in buildings devoted to religious activities (Epistle 62.14–17; Epistle 33.4–5).9
The Eucharist experienced more change than continuity for various reasons: (1) culturally-based abuses of the evening meal encouraged the clergy to distribute the Eucharist in a more formal environment in contrast to the setting of a mundane meal; (2) Roman pressure to offer altar sacrifices to the gods motivated Christians to perceive the bread and wine as a Christian sacrifice; (3) the desire for all the members of a Christian community to gather as one large group required buildings devoted to religious activities, since the dining rooms of houses had a limited capacity; and (4) Christian communities may have preferred to partake of the Eucharist in a morning ritual that was separate from the evening meal.10
Thus the Lord’s Supper, which originally consisted of a full evening communal meal, transitioned over a period of approximately three centuries to a Eucharistic ritual. By at least the third century, Christians referred to the Eucharistic bread and wine as an “oblation,” that is, a sacrificial offering at an altar (The Apostolic Tradition 4).11
The Lord’s Supper commemorates the meal when Jesus broke bread and distributed wine to his 12 disciples as symbols of his body and blood. How did this tradition, which the early Christians called the Lord’s Supper (or the Agapē), transition into what Christians today commonly call the Eucharist, Holy Communion or a sacrament? How did it evolve from a full meal to a ritual in the early Christian church? The Synoptic Gospels recount that Jesus gave bread and wine to his 12 disciples during a Passover meal (Mark 14:22–25; Matthew 26:26–30; Luke 22:14–23). For the earliest Christians, Jesus’ final […]
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1. Craig Blomberg, Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), pp. 98–103.
2. For an overview of the integration of Jewish and Greco-Roman table habits at the Lord’s Supper, see Dennis Edwin Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003); R. Alan Streett, Subversive Meals: An Analysis of the Lord’s Supper Under Roman Domination During the First Century (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013).
3. For the in-text citations, see The Apostolic Fathers Greek Texts and English Translations, trans. Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007). Andrew Brian McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), p. 33.
4. See Thomas J. Talley, “From Berakah to Eucharistia: A Reopening Question,” Worship 50 (1976), pp. 115–137; Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), pp. 15–17.
5. For the in-text citation, see The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, vol. 1, Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).
6. Scholars commonly emphasize that Christianity did not emerge as a uniform phenomenon; see Karen L. King, “Which Early Christianity?” in Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).
7. For an overview of the diversity in conduct and food at the Christian meal, see Andrew Brian McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999).
8. For the in-text citation, see Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, vol. 4, Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).
9. For the in-text citation, see Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix, vol. 5, Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).
10. For an excellent overview of some of the major changes that took place in the Lord’s Supper and Eucharist between the second and third centuries, see McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 47–55.
11. For the in-text citation, see Alistair Stewart-Sykes, On the Apostolic Tradition: An English Version with Introduction and Commentary (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001).
