Rethinking the Origins of the Eucharist. Martin D. Stringer

Lietzmann aims to demonstrate that all the material found in the Eucharistic Prayer attributed to Hippolytus can be traced back to the writings of Paul, including its sacrificial elements. The understanding of sacrifice in the anaphora of Serapion, however, is not seen in relation to the death of Jesus but rather in terms of ‘the laying of the elements on the Lord’s table and in their consecration by prayer’ (1979, p. 159).

      This is followed by a discussion of the agape, especially as that is seen in the Apostolic Tradition, and by a detailed discussion of the Last Supper. Lietzmann is keen to demonstrate that the Last Supper could not have been a Passover meal, as it does not contain any of the elements that would be expected in such a meal. Rather he sees the Last Supper as a haburah meal or ‘a Jewish festal meal in a narrow circle of friends’ (1979, p. 185), which takes the form of ‘the blessing of bread at the beginning, the blessing of wine at the conclusion, [and] the actual meal between the two’ (1979, p. 185). The text of the Didache is then investigated to show that this contains a ‘type of the Lord’s Supper with no reference to the tradition extant in Mark and Paul’ (1979, p. 193), but with language and content that is similar to that of Serapion. ‘This confirms us in assuming’, Lietzmann suggests, ‘a connection between the ancient Egyptian liturgy and that of Didache’ (1979, p. 194).

      It is only having dealt with all this material that Lietzmann can begin to present his own ideas about the primitive form of the Lord’s Supper. Here he draws on material from the apocryphal Acts of John, Thomas and Peter to illustrate a form of the Lord’s Supper that included bread and water instead of bread and wine and so suggests that this was the earliest form of the supper, relating to the breaking of bread in the Acts of the Apostles. This was also a haburah meal, following the practice of Jesus and his disciples, but with no reference to the death of Jesus, and with the idea of sacrifice contained in the offering of the bread and the saying of a blessing or thanksgiving over it. Lietzmann refers to this as the ‘Jerusalem type’ (1979, p. 205). It is Paul, Lietzmann suggests, who creates a ‘second type’ (1979, p. 205) by combining the Jerusalem type with ideas derived from the Hellenistic meals held as memorials for the dead to create a supper that focuses on the death of Jesus and links the ideas of sacrifice specifically with the words over the bread and wine. These two types are then developed through the Didache (and on into the Egyptian tradition) and through Hippolytus.

      Through the whole of his analysis Lietzmann pays particular attention to the forms of words used in worship, with most of the first two-thirds of his text being a detailed analysis of elements of the Eucharistic Prayer. It is by taking these ideas back, through the application of Baumstark’s comparative method (1958), that he is justified in arguing behind the extant manuscripts to the origins of the texts that they contain, and then behind the texts to the reconstruction of ideas that predate the written material. It is where this backward movement of archaeological analysis meets the forward development of Spitta and Weiss that the construction of the theory of origins is developed. It is also in the speculative and controversial nature of much of this backwards analysis that the work of Lietzmann ultimately fails, and has been critiqued by many scholars over the years (Richardson 1979). Unfortunately by criticizing those elements that cannot stand up to scrutiny, the whole theory has been dismissed, along with the idea of the two types of the Eucharist that forms the core of its central thesis.

      Other authors in the early part of the twentieth century, however, did follow up on Lietzmann’s work and developed it in different ways. Cullmann, for example, provides one of the most convincing developments in a short essay originally published in 1936 (1958). This focused particularly on the meal tradition that Lietzmann associates with Jerusalem and, like Weiss before him, Cullmann linked this to the traditions surrounding the resurrection appearances, many of which are associated with meals and have a joyful eschatological feel (1958, pp. 8–12). Cullmann argues that it is the meal that keeps the resurrection memories alive within the community and he links this to thoughts about the second coming. He identifies the ‘maranatha’ used both by Paul and by the compiler of the Didache as a link to this eschatological tradition (1958, pp. 13–16). Even Cullmann’s analysis, however, could not save the two Eucharists theory and this was eventually swamped by another more substantial line of enquiry, that which related the earliest Eucharists to contemporary Jewish models.

      Discovering Jewish roots

      Lietzmann linked the ‘Jerusalem type’ of the Eucharist and the Last Supper with the haburah meal from Jewish tradition. He also looked for Jewish roots to many of the texts that became part of both types of Eucharist and their subsequent developments. In particular he identifies the texts of the Didache and the Hippolytan agape with Jewish meal blessings (1979, pp. 161–71), and sees the development of the preface in the Eucharistic Prayer of the Apostolic Constitutions, concluding with the Sanctus, as deriving from the morning service of the synagogue (1979, pp. 100–11). In doing this Lietzmann is part of a much wider tradition within the literature that has looked for Jewish origins to the Eucharist and its associated texts.

      Duchesne, for example, in his classic work on the origin and evolution of Christian worship, simply states ‘the Christian Liturgy to a great extent took its rise from the Jewish Liturgy, and was, in fact, merely its continuation’ (1904, p. 46). He goes on to clarify that this is only true for synagogue worship, temple worship having no influence on Christian worship at all, and that the Eucharist is an exception to this general statement as this derives directly from the Last Supper which constitutes ‘the principle elements of the Mass in its entirely Christian and original aspect’ (1904, p. 49). Others, however, have also sought Jewish antecedents for the Eucharist. The most detailed of the early studies in this area is Oesterley’s work, The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy (1925).

      Oesterley begins his study by asking about the reliability of the Jewish documents. He claims to be drawing primarily on the Mishnah and other related texts, and while he acknowledges that these were compiled in the early years of the third century he notes that ‘what it records is prior to this date’ and could perhaps go back as far as 250 bce (1925, p. 32). He also notes the importance of the Old Testament, intertestamental literature and the development of the oral tradition. From this Oesterley develops what he calls the pre-Christian elements of the Jewish liturgy and then looks at the general view of early Christian worship and notes in particular the paucity of data that is available. However, he does identify a number of examples to show that Jewish liturgical influence is a reality (1925, p. 154). When looking specifically at the Eucharist, Oesterley notes that the institution of the rite took place at the end of a meal. The real question, therefore, for Oesterley is to determine what kind of meal this was.

      Oesterley focuses on the Last Supper, which he argues was a festal meal on the eve of Passover (transferred from Friday to Thursday because of the date of the feast in that particular year) that ended with a kiddush or sanctification ceremony. ‘This consisted’, according to Oesterley ‘of the commemoration and institution of the Sabbath, the blessing over the cup and its partaking by all; then the memorial of redemption from the Egyptian bondage, followed by the blessing over the bread and its distribution’ (1925, p. 171). Oesterley links the supposed text of the Passover kiddush to the language of the Didache and to other early Christian texts. Finally, Oesterley sees the agape as a continuation, within a Christian context, of the Jewish Sabbath meal with the term agape being ‘a Greek equivalent to the neo-Hebrew Chaburah’ or fellowship (1925, p. 204).

      Undoubtedly the most famous author in this tradition is Gregory Dix who, in the Shape of the Liturgy, follows Oesterley in arguing that the Last Supper was probably a haburah supper, one that had a special religious status among a group of pious friends (1945). It is not the link with the haburah meal, however, that particularly distinguishes Dix’s approach. More significant is his emphasis on the sequence or ‘shape’ of the meal rather than the content of any of the words used. It is the shape of the liturgy, Dix argues, that could be ‘genuinely apostolic tradition’ while the words demonstrate considerable differences (1945, p. 5). In doing this Dix prefigures some of the more sociological approaches that became more common towards the end of the twentieth century. He emphasizes that the Eucharist was something that was done, that it is a communal act within the assembly, and he stresses the possible structure and spatial context of that assembly (1945, pp. 12–35).

      Dix sees the liturgy