The Lord’s Supper in the Early Church Part I: The Lord’s Supper in the Second Century -- By: George W. Dollar

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 117:466 (Apr 1960)
Article: The Lord’s Supper in the Early Church Part I: The Lord’s Supper in the Second Century
Author: George W. Dollar


The Lord’s Supper in the Early Church
Part I:
The Lord’s Supper in the Second Century

George W. Dollar

[George W. Dollar is Professor of Historical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary.]

[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on the general subject “The Lord’s Supper in the Early Church.”]

Introduction

Students of early church history are constantly confronted with several problems in understanding the teachings and practices of early Christians. Difficulties crop up in the way of translation, vagaries in expression, and the lack of materials with which to work. One may fall back on the writings of the fathers as indicative of the general conditions and views but at best this is somewhat presumptuous.

In no area of early church life among Christians is there greater uncertainty than in the matter of the Lord’s Supper. It was not called by its New Testament titles such as the “breaking of bread,” “the giving of thanks,” and “the cup of blessing.” The most common designation seemed to be the “Eucharist” (from the Greek word for praise or thanksgiving) with the basic connotation of praise to the Lord—and it would have remained a good name if it had not been corrupted by Romish ceremonial. Coleman has concluded that names for the Supper were “chosen out of regard to some peculiar views relating to the doctrine…(with) very few known to the Apostles and primitive Church.”1 The fact is that no church father called it the Supper in a single instance and Pauline names for it ceased.

Much of the language of the fathers of this era reflects Jewish ideas as seen in the common use of such terms as altar, priest, ablations, sacrifices, and offerings. This is evident to such a high decree that the scholarly Neander wrote that we have “the whole system of the Jewish priesthood transferred to the Christian Church.”2 An Anglican scholar has studied this aspect carefully and found that by the end of

the second century the “importing of Jewish terms and ideas had increased fearlessly and freely.”3 The American church historian McGiffert believed that this drift had gone so far that there was in embryonic form “the historic Catholic system complete in all its main features.”4 If this is true, and every evidence points that way, then we may have the seeds for such a thing as the “Mass” beginning (Latin, missa, sent), arising from the custom of ...

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