What "church" looked like in the early Church: Fourth century

Third Century

    In my past few posts, I have shared what I’ve been learning about the development of the church gathering during the first three centuries. Here we’ll look at how the liturgy developed in the fourth century, when the Church was able to regularly, openly gather in public for the first time. During this period parts of the liturgy crystallized into their final form: for example, the anaphoras of St Basil and St John Chrysostom, which were written in the late 4th century, are still widely used in the Eastern Church. The main texts I will use here are the Apostolic Constitutions 2.57; 8.5-15; the Travels of Egeria; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 22–23; Ambrose of Milan, On the Sacraments 4.5-6.4; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Baptismal Homily 5.

Where?

    After Christianity was declared a licit Roman religion in 313, worship moved into more public spaces, especially basilicas, which were used for civic assemblies. [43] These buildings had a large central nave – a large rectangular area often flanked by columns – and a semicircular apse at one end. The altar and the throne from which the bishop preached were usually in the center, although later they moved to the apse. [44] There were mosaics on the walls and ceiling of the basilica, usually depicting narrative scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and the semicircular ceiling of the apse had a mosaic of Christ in the center with various saints surrounding him (see especially Santa Costanza in Rome). [45]

    The Apostolic Constitutions, a late 4th-century Syrian church order which expands on the earlier Didascalia, describes how an ideal church building should be laid out:

First let the building be long, turned toward the east, with the vestries on each side at the east end, so it will be like a ship. Let the bishop’s throne be placed in the middle, and let the presbyters sit on each side of him, and let the deacons stand nearby in close-fitting garments, for they are like the mariners and managers of the ship. With regard to these, let the laity sit on the other side, with all quietness and good order... Let the reader stand on some high place in the middle. (2.57)

    Like in the third century, church buildings were to be oriented to the East to facilitate standing prayer ad orientem (cf. Apostolic Constitutions 2.57.14; Basil, On the Holy Spirit 27.66). However, we can also see some clear developments. For example, there are vestries (pastophoria), rooms dedicated for the clergy’s vestments. There is also a raised floor for the reader to stand on while reading the Scriptures, which we don’t see in any third-century text. The Church also saw new rituals imported from Roman civic life, such as the use of incense, which is first documented in the late 4th-century travel diary of the pilgrim Egeria (24.10). [46] For that matter, the fourth century is the first time that we see an interest in pilgrimage to holy sites for worship, as exemplified by Egeria herself.

When?

    Sunday morning was still the primary time for the eucharistic gathering in the fourth-century Church, along with some Saturdays (e.g., Apostolic Constitutions 2.59; 5.20; 7.23, 30; 8.33). During the fourth century, churches also began having prayer services without the Eucharist in the morning and evening on weekdays. [47] This practice is documented by Eusebius of Caesarea (Comm Ps 64), St Basil (Letter 207.3), and Egeria (Travels 24.1-7; 25.5), among others. The Apostolic Constitutions (8.34-39) outlines what took place at these daily gatherings: the morning or evening psalm was read, then the catechumens and other groups were dismissed, the bishop offered the prayer of thanksgiving, and blessed and dismissed the faithful.

    The fourth century also saw the full blossoming of the liturgical calendar. [48] Apostolic Constitutions lists the Nativity (25 Dec), the Epiphany (6 Jan), Lent (fasting Mon-Fri for 40 days), Holy Week (fasting Mon-Sat), Pascha, Thomas Sunday (7 days after Pascha), Ascension (40 days after Pascha), and Pentecost (50 days after Pascha) in its calendar (5.13, 18-20). The debate over the date of Pascha was finally put to rest by the Council of Nicaea in 325, in favor of the Roman practice of celebrating on Sunday. Canon 20 of Nicaea also formalizes the practice of standing, rather than kneeling, for prayer on Sunday and on all the days between Pascha and Pentecost (cf. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 27.66).

Who?

    With the peace of the Church, there was a huge influx of converts who were not as knowledgeable about their faith or deeply committed as earlier generations of believers. This led to an increase in the number not only of catechumens, but also penitents – baptized Christians who couldn’t commune at a certain time due to sin – and non-believers who attended church services (“hearers”). Still, only baptized believers could take the Eucharist, and clergy emphasized the need for repentance and salvation for communion to one’s benefit (e.g., John Chrysostom, Hom Eph 3.4). [49] Therefore, an elaborate series of dismissals between the sermon and eucharistic prayers developed in the fourth century (Apostolic Constitutions 8.6-9). These dismissals (missa) may be the reason that the liturgy came to be known as Missa (“Mass”) in the Latin-speaking West. [50]

    As the Christian population grew, the former ideal (at least in the East) of one church in each city under one bishop became less possible to sustain. The bishop gradually became the overseer of a diocese with multiple parishes, each with a presbyter who offered the Eucharist under his authority. This began in the third century, as we find an example in St Cyprian (Letter 27) and learn from the Liber Pontificalis that there were 25 parishes in Rome by AD 309. In the fourth century, however, this arrangement increasingly became the norm even in the East.

    Early 4th-century councils state or imply that presbyters offer the Eucharist without condemning this practice (e.g., Ancyra 1; Neocaesarea 9, 13; Nicaea 18). The Council of Arles in 314 says that even deacons were performing services, but resolves that this “should happen as little as possible.” The Apostolic Constitutions refers to both the presbyters and the bishop as “priests” (8.1), and in its ordination prayer for a presbyter, “that he may perform the sacred rites” (8.16). At the end of the fourth century, St John Chrysostom (Hom 1 Tim 11) and St Jerome (Letter 146.1), among others, state that the only difference between a bishop and a presbyter is that the former can ordain. [51] Thus, the parish with its presbyter became the foundational ecclesial unit during this period, but only within the diocese under the authority of the bishop.

What?

    The rise in converts had two major effects on the events of the eucharistic gathering: (1) the liturgy became in part a catechetical tool, to help instruct new believers in the faith, and (2) many believers began to receive the Eucharist less often, because they were less prepared. [52] St Ambrose of Milan wrote against the practice of communing once per year, which he noted to be widespread in the East, in favor of daily communion (On the Sacraments 6.24-25). St John Chrysostom frequently complains about disorder and irreverent behavior during liturgy in the church at Constantinople (e.g., Hom Matt 19.7-9; 73.3; Hom John 3.1; Hom Acts 24.4). This also led to instructions by the deacons during the liturgy, such as “Let us stand,” “Let us bow down,” etc., as seen for the first time in multiple texts from this period.

    The fourth-century church gathering began an opening greeting from the priest and response from the congregation. The readings from Scripture, which varied across time and place, then immediately began. In late 4th-century Syria, there were two readings from the Old Testament, followed by a reading from Acts or Paul’s letters, and a deacon would read from the gospels (Apostolic Constitutions 2.57). These readings were followed by the sermon, and if the bishop and multiple presbyters were present, they might each deliver a sermon (Ibid.; Travels of Egeria 25.1-2, 10; 26; 27.6; 42; 43.2). The deacon then exhorted hearers and unbelievers to leave, and the priest prayed over the catechumens, possessed, and penitents before dismissing them (Apostolic Constitutions 2.57; 8.5-9). Then the deacon offered intercessory prayers for the world, the church, the clergy, all believers, and anyone in need, and the priest prayed over the faithful, followed by the kiss of peace (8.9-11). [53]

    Once the catechumens and other non-communicants departed, the deacons brought the bread and cup for the priest to consecrate. During this period, the eucharistic prayers began to crystallize into familiar patterns. In the Antiochene and Byzantine prayers, there was an initial dialogue → preface (giving thanks to God for who he is) → Sanctus hymn (“holy, holy, holy”) → anamnesis (remembering God’s works, concluding with the “words of institution”) → epiclesis (praying the Holy Spirit to descend on the gifts) → intercessions for the living and the dead → doxology. East Syrian and Alexandrian prayers had the same structure, but with the intercessions before the epiclesis and the Sanctus respectively. [54] The Roman prayers lacked the Sanctus unit and had the intercessions before the anamnesis. [55] These are the same structures still used in both the West and the East.

    After the eucharistic prayers, the deacon would offer more intercessory prayers (Apostolic Constitutions 8.12-13). The congregation then prayed the Lord’s Prayer (Catechetical Lectures 23.11-18; On the Sacraments 5.18-30), which in the East was followed by the exclamation, “The holy things are for the holy,” with the response, “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ” (Apostolic Constitutions 8.13; Catechetical Lectures 23.19), or, “One holy Father, one holy Son, one holy Spirit” (Baptismal Homily 5.22-23). The communicants would then come up in order and receive the Eucharist, perhaps while Psalm 33/34 (“Taste and see that the Lord is good”) was chanted (Apostolic Constitutions 8.13; Catechetical Lectures 23.20). The service would end with a prayer of thanksgiving and the dismissal (Apostolic Constitutions 8.14-15; Baptismal Homily 5.29).

Why?

    As I noted above, the liturgy during the fourth century took on a catechetical function in addition to its main purpose. We also have a few commentaries on the liturgy from this period that draw out the meaning of the prayers (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 22–23; Ambrose of Milan, On the Sacraments 4–6; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Baptismal Homily 5). In order to understand the “why” of the fourth-century liturgy in detail, it would be best to read these texts. Of course, the main purpose of the liturgy according to these writers is still the Eucharist itself. They offer arguments for the real presence of Christ in the sacrament (Catechetical Lectures 22; On the Sacraments 4.14-28; 6.1-4).

    One of the best expositions of the fourth-century view of the Eucharist is St Gregory of Nyssa’s Catechetical Oration 37. Because the human is a composite of soul and body, salvation must involve bodily union with God as well as spiritual (37.1-3). According to physiology, the body comes into union with something by consuming it (37.4-7). For this reason, the Word of God makes bread that we eat into his body, by his word, “This is my body,” and wine that we drink into his blood (37.8-11). Thus, “the God who was made manifest [i.e., Christ]... in order that humanity might be deified by communion with the divinity... mixes with the bodies of the faithful so that, by union with the immortal, man might become a partaker of incorruption” (37.12). If I were to summarize Gregory’s argument somewhat crudely: you are what you eat, and so by his grace, we eat God.

     The fourth-century Church Fathers continue to understand the Eucharist as a sacrifice, and even more explicitly as Christ’s own sacrifice: “we offer Christ sacrificed for our sins” (Catechetical Lectures 23.10; cf. Ambrose, Exp Ps xii 38.25; John Chrysostom, Hom Heb 17.3). [56] The eucharistic prayers from this period and afterward all refer to the sacrament as a sacrifice. Going back to the second century, as early as St Ignatius of Antioch, the Eucharist is seen as the means of bodily salvation by which the human is made immortal. With the greater reflection on Christ’s divinity in the fourth century,  we see an even stronger emphasis that partaking of the body and blood of Christ is the way that the human being is bodily deified (e.g., Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 22.3; Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Oration 37).

Reconstruction

    In this last section, I’ll try to reconstruct what a liturgy celebrated in the late fourth-century Antiochene rite might have looked like, since those are our most detailed sources from this period. I suspect this will look very familiar to Christians who use the Byzantine rite today (whether Catholic or Orthodox), but keep in mind that there were also East Syrian and Roman rites during this period, which are also still used today with some modifications in those traditions!

• On a Sunday morning, you enter the basilica in your city with a large crowd – hundreds to thousands of other people. The deacons guide each person to their place, all facing toward the eastern apse.
• The priest enters the church and takes his place in front of the altar. Facing toward the crowd, he greets everyone, “The Lord be with you all,” to which you respond, “And with your spirit.”
• Right after this, the reader stands on a high place in the center of the building and begins to read the day’s excerpts from the Old Testament. He then reads an excerpt from one of Paul’s letters. When the deacon takes the place of the reader, most of you stand reverently as he reads the gospel.
• You sit down again as the priest gives his sermon, explaining the meaning of the Scriptures that were just read, how they fit together, and exhorting everyone to take to heart and live out the words that you have just heard.
• When the sermon is finished, you all stand as the deacon takes his place again, proclaiming, “Let none of the hearers and unbelievers remain.” He exhorts the catechumens to pray and for you all to pray for them, and the priest lays his hands on them and prays for them, then they are dismissed. The same is repeated for the penitents in the crowd.
• After everyone but the faithful have been dismissed, the deacon leads a litany for the peace of the world, for the church and its unity, for the bishops and clergy, for all the faithful, and for everyone in need. With each petition, you pray silently, “Lord have mercy.”
• Once the litany is completed, the priest prays for all the faithful who are present. He says, “Peace be with you all,” and you respond, “And with your spirit,” then give the kiss of peace to the other believers around you.
• The deacons bring the bread and the cup to the altar, along with water for the priest to wash his hands. He makes the sign of the cross on his forehead, saying, “The grace of God, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” You respond, “And with your spirit.” “Lift up your hearts.” “We lift them up to the Lord.” “Let us give thanks to the Lord.” “It is good and right to do so.”
• The priest begins the eucharistic prayer by giving thanks to God the Father for who he is, for his great goodness, that he made all things by his Son, that he is surrounded by innumerable hosts of angels who sing (and the people sing with them): “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts, heaven and earth are full of his glory, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
• The priest recalls in prayer what God has done for us in history, culminating in his Son’s taking flesh and being crucified for us, in the night on which he was betrayed taking bread and saying, “This is my body,” and the mixed cup and saying, “This is my blood.”
• The priest continues, remembering Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming, and offering the bread and cup to God, he asks that God would send the Holy Spirit upon the offering to show them to be the body and blood of Christ. He prays intercession for various groups of people, including all the believers present, and he concludes with a doxology. You respond, “Amen.” “The peace of God be with you all.” “And with your spirit.”
• Having finished the eucharistic prayers, the deacon leads another litany for the offering itself, for the church, the clergy, everyone in authority, and all the faithful.
• After this, the priest prays again for everyone present, and you with the rest of the congregation pray the Lord’s Prayer. The priest proclaims, “The holy things are for the holy,” and you respond, “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever to the glory of God the Father.”
• Everyone who is partaking comes forward to take the Eucharist as Psalm 33 (“Taste and see that the Lord is good”) is chanted. When your turn comes, you go up to the priest, who says, “The body of Christ,” and you reverently receive the body in your hand, careful not to lose any crumbs, responding, “Amen.”
• You turn to the deacon who holds the cup, who gives you a sip, saying, “The blood of Christ.” You respond, “Amen,” careful not to spill a drop. You press your hand to your still-wet lips and make the sign of the cross on your forehead. You know that this is the medicine of immortality, which unites you bodily to Christ and makes you a member of his own Body.
• Once everyone has partaken, the deacon thanks God for giving us this sacrament, and prays that it would be for salvation rather than condemnation. The priest also offers a prayer of thanksgiving.
• Finally, the deacon proclaims, “Bow down and receive the blessing.” You incline your neck as the priest blesses you all, asking God to protect you in soul and body. The deacon says, “Depart in peace,” and you leave with the rest of the faithful to return home, bringing Christ himself with you bodily out into the world to sanctify it.

Conclusion

     If anyone has actually read this far, I hope you enjoyed this series of posts! It was a fun change of pace for me to try to reconstruct what “church” itself looked like during the first few centuries, and I definitely learned a lot in researching this topic. I hope I’ve made it clear that these reconstructions aren’t necessarily accurate – especially in the first two centuries, we only have scattered testimonies about the church gathering, and my reconstruction assumes more uniformity than there likely was. Still, I tried to be careful only to include information that we find in the primary sources from these centuries.

    I think it’s important to notice both the familiarity and foreignness of the early church liturgy, especially in the first two centuries. One might be tempted to look only at the similarities with one’s own tradition, but this would be a mistake. For example, as far as I know, the deipnon-symposion structure of the first century church gathering isn’t found in any Christian tradition today!

    Even so, by the fourth century, the liturgy had mostly crystallized into the forms still found in various Christian rites. This was one of the things that spurred my own journey from restorationist Protestantism to more liturgical Christianity and ultimately to Eastern Orthodoxy. I believe that the history of the Christian liturgy shows us both that there is a wider range of genuine Christian expression than sometimes recognized, and that liturgy developed for a reason, thus we should be cautious about changing it, or worse, abandoning it entirely.

______________________________

[43] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 73-77; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 61-62.

[44] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 76.

[45] Jensen and Ellison, Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 86-103.

[46] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 62.

[47] Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 171-178; Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 89-92.

[48] Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 182-190; Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 109-111.

[49] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 66.

[50] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 74-75.

[51] John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries (Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 205-217.

[52] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 62-69.

[53] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 78-80; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 72-75.

[54] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 81-82; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 75-101, 111-129. For fourth-century examples of the Antiochene structure, see Apostolic Constitutions 8.12, St Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lecture 23.4-10, and the anaphoras of St Basil and St John Chrysostom (still in use today). For the East Syrian structure, see the anaphora of Addai and Mari and of St Peter (both also in use today). For the Alexandrian structure, see the Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis and the Strasbourg Papyrus.

[55] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 101-109. The only fourth-century source for the Roman anaphora, as far as I’m aware, is St Ambrose of Milan’s On the Sacraments 4.21-29.

[56] Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 129-132.

What "church" looked like in the early Church: Third century

Second Century

    In this series of posts, we’ve been trying to reconstruct what early church gatherings looked like. We have already seen the development from the first to the end of the second century. The third century marked a watershed moment in the history of the Christian gathering, since for the first time Christians had their own spaces of worship, which made it possible to further develop the ritual space and actions surrounding the Eucharist. The main texts that I will use here are Apostolic Tradition 4; 22; 35–37; Didascalia 2.57-58; 5.10-20; 6.21-22; and Cyprian, Letter 62. [31]

Where?

    In the third century, the eucharistic gathering moved from private homes and rented spaces into designated places of Christian worship. The church buildings at Megiddo and Dura-Europos were constructed ca. 230, and Eusebius refers to the construction of many other buildings during the lack of persecution from 260 to 303: “vast assemblies... in the houses of prayer, because of which, not being satisfied any longer with the ancient buildings, they built, from the foundations up, spacious churches” (Church History 8.1.5). These buildings were destroyed at the onset of persecution (8.2.1). Origen of Alexandria (d. 253) is the first to refer to a building, rather than the eucharistic gathering itself, as a “church” (Orat 31.7). [32]

    The ritual use of these spaces is documented by the Didascalia, a church order from mid-3rd century Syria. This document says that the bishop’s throne must be set on the eastern side of the house, with presbyters surrounding him, and the laity in another part of the house, in order to facilitate standing prayer toward the east (2.57). The practice of praying toward the east is well-documented by the third century (e.g., Origen, On Prayer 20). [33] In the church building at Megiddo, there was a raised altar in the center of the floor which was donated by a private individual, Akeptous.

    When Christians obtained their own spaces of worship in the third century, they began to decorate them with religious art (see the Roman catacombs, Dura-Europos baptistry, Megiddo church mosaic). This art wasn’t merely didactic or decorative, but invited ritual participation. The baptistry at Dura-Europos invites the participant to identify with David at their anointing, with Christ in the tomb at their baptism, and with members of the Good Shepherd’s flock as they come out of the water. [34] In the catacombs, orant-figures invite onlookers to imitate them in prayer – perhaps for the intercession of the dead Christian depicted in this way – in more than one case, through another image of Christ the Good Shepherd. [35]

When?

    The main weekly assembly of Christians was still on Sunday in the third century (e.g., Apostolic Tradition 22.1; Didascalia 5.10). For the first time, however, there is an explicit distinction made between the Eucharist in the morning and the agapē-feast in the evening. St Cyprian of Carthage insists that in the evening, “we cannot call the people together to our banquet to celebrate the truth of the sacrament,” because “the whole brotherhood” (omnis fraternitas) is unable to attend at that time (Letter 62.16). The Apostolic Tradition states that at the evening gathering, the bishop “should not say, ‘Lift up your hearts,’ because that is said for the oblation” (25.6), and the meal is “blessed” but “is not the Eucharist” (26.1)

    During the third century, there was also a push toward daily gathering instead of only weekly, which is foreshadowed by Tertullian’s injunction to take the Eucharist on the weekly fast days (On Prayer 19). [36] The Apostolic Tradition says that, before going to work, believers should assemble to listen to the Word and partake of the Eucharist if possible (35–36; 39; 41.1-3). Origen (On Prayer 27) and Cyprian (On the Lord’s Prayer 18) both interpret “daily bread” in the Lord’s prayer to refer to the Eucharist. Some of Origen’s sermons refer to the Scripture reading of the previous day (Hom Gen 10.3; Hom Josh 4.1).

    The third century also saw further development in the liturgical calendar. The Didascalia describes a six-day fast during Holy Week, from Monday through Saturday, based on the historical events of that week (5.13-14). During this fast, believers should eat only bread and water through Thursday, and then nothing at all on Friday and Saturday, while praying for the repentance of non-believing Jews (5.14-19). Pascha should be celebrated on Sunday after the fast (5.20). If anyone misses the fast, they should fast after Pentecost instead (Apostolic Tradition 33.3). The lack of fasting and kneeling during prayer from Pascha to Pentecost continued through the third century. [37]

Who?

    During the third century, the Christian gathering became more restrictive in terms of who was allowed, due to the prevalence of sects outside the Church. In the first century, it had been enough to know whether someone had been baptized to allow them to partake of the communal meal (Didache 9.5). In the third century, when someone came from another congregation, the deacon not only had to ask if she was baptized but “if she is a daughter of the Church, or perhaps belongs to one of the heresies [i.e., sects]” (Didascalia 2.58). This necessarily led to the restriction of communion, since as St Justin Martyr said a century earlier, the Eucharist is meant for those who “believe the things we teach are true” (1 Apol 66.1).

    The problem of schism also increased during this period, especially in the West. During persecution, a rigorist sect that wanted to prevent lapsed Christians from re-entering the Church appointed the presbyter Novatian as a rival bishop of Rome. The Novatianists were strongly opposed by St Cyprian, who insisted (much like St Ignatius in the preceding century) that the Church only exists where the genuine bishop, as successor to the apostles, exists (On the Unity of the Catholic Church). This is the basis for his statement, “the bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop, and if anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church” (Letter 68.8). This ecclesiology was agreed upon by other bishops in Africa and the East, although St Stephen, bishop of Rome, notably disagreed that schismatics must be rebaptized (Letter 69–70; 74; Eusebius, Church History 7.2-5).

    The roles of the bishop, presbyters, and deacons during this period are outlined in the Apostolic Tradition. The bishop has the priesthood, and therefore offers the sacrifice of the Eucharist and has the power to forgive sins (3.4-5); the presbyter is called to “help and guide” the people, that is, they have an advisory and teaching role (7.2; cf. Didascalia 2.26-27, 34); the deacon is not ordained to the priesthood, nor to the council, but to serve the bishop and the people, and to offer up what has already been offered by the priest, i.e., the Eucharist (8.1-11). During the eucharistic gathering itself, the deacons break the bread, while the bishop hands the sacrifice to the people – by himself if possible, or with the presbyters, and if necessary even the deacons (22.1-3).

What?

    After the second century, the basic structure of the liturgy (Word-Eucharist) didn’t change (Apostolic Tradition 35–36; Didascalia 2.58; 6.21), although some elements have been shuffled around. For example, the Apostolic Tradition suggests that the holy kiss, now called the “kiss of peace,” was moved from the beginning of the gathering to just before the eucharistic prayers (4.1ff; 18; 21.23ff), where it still is in the Christian traditions that practice it. This is also the first text of which I’m aware that tells us what catechumens did during the liturgy: they would stay to hear the Word and the sermon, then after certain prayers and the kiss of peace, the teacher would lay hands on them and pray and they would be dismissed from the gathering (17–19).

    The Apostolic Tradition provides eucharistic prayers, and instructs that the bishop “give thanks according to all that was said above,” but not necessarily “with the very same words given above,” rather “according to his ability” (4.2-13; 9.3-5). [38] The structure of the prayers includes an opening dialogue, formula of thanksgiving to God, remembrance of Christ’s work leading into the “words of institution,” formula of offering, calling down of the Holy Spirit onto the offering, and doxology, all of which are familiar from later liturgies. [39] The same opening dialogue is referenced by St Cyprian: the priest says, “Lift up your hearts,” and the people respond, “We lift them up to the Lord,” to remind them that they should think of nothing other than the Lord during prayer (On the Lord’s Prayer 31).

    As for other activities during the gathering, such as reading Scripture and singing hymns, some details are found in third-century writings. Origen at least was accustomed to the reader reading consecutive passages from the same book on successive days, then exegeting the passage for his sermon (Hom Num 15.1; Hom Lev 7.1). [40] He complained that some believers would leave after hearing the Scripture and not listen to his sermon (Hom Exod 12.2). Some third-century hymns are known (e.g., P. Oxy. XV 1786; P. Rylands 470), and psalms would also be recited during the gathering, to which the people would respond, “Alleluia” (Apostolic Tradition 25.12-15).

Why?

    A clear account of the third-century understanding of the Eucharist is given by Cyprian, in a letter that he wrote against the practice of using only water in the eucharistic cup instead of wine mixed with water (Letter 62). [41] This is because “the blood of Christ is surely not water, but wine” (62.2). Water instead represents baptism (62.8-9), so when the water and wine are mixed, the assembly of baptized believers is made one with Christ (62.13). The cup is not water alone or wine alone, but the two mixed, just as “the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone, unless both are united and joined and compacted in the mass of one bread, in which sacrament our people are shown to be made one... body” (62.13). The Eucharist is not legitimately celebrated unless it imitates Christ’s passion (62.9), and the priest imitates Christ’s offering of himself to the Father (62.14). Thus, the Lord’s passion is mentioned in the eucharistic prayers, “because the Lord’s passion is the sacrifice that we offer” (62.17).

    Here we see the same understanding as in Paul: the bread and cup are Christ’s body and blood, which are offered as a sacrifice, and establish the unity of the Church as the one body of Christ. In this period, for the first time, we see the “words of institution” and the anamnesis (remembrance of Christ’s passion) explicitly included in the eucharistic prayers (Apostolic Tradition 4.8-11; Cyprian, Letter 62.17). These prayers are what sanctify the bread through the Holy Spirit (Didascalia 6.21-22). According to Origen, “this bread becomes by prayer a sacred body, which sanctifies those who sincerely partake of it” (Cels 8.33). The Apostolic Traditions states that the Eucharist which “is the body of Christ” must not be eaten by an unbeliever or an animal, and the cup which “is the antitype of the blood” must not be spilled (37–38).

Reconstruction

    Having looked at some liturgical texts from the third century, we can try to reconstruct what it would have been like to attend a church gathering during this period. This will probably look very familiar to most Christians from liturgical traditions, as the third-century eucharistic prayers begin to crystallize into the same form that they take today.

• On a Sunday morning, you go to the local church building to gather with the faithful. The deacon greets you at the entrance and ushers you to your place. Everyone has a place, with the bishops and presbyters seated in front of the altar.
• As you stand in the gathering, your eyes are drawn to the images on the wall, reminding you to imitate the good conduct of figures from the Scriptures and guiding you to prayer.
• Once everyone is gathered together, the reader reads some passages from the Scriptures, picking up where he left off earlier in the week.
• After the Scriptures are read, one of the presbyters instructs you all about the meaning of these passages. The bishop also gives a sermon to the congregation which encourages everyone to take seriously the words of Scripture in your daily life.
• When the sermons are finished, the bishop leads the people in more intercessory prayers. After these prayers, you give the kiss of peace to one another. The catechumens come forward and a presbyter lays hands on them and prays for them, then dismisses them from the gathering.
• Then the deacons bring the bread and the cup out, and the bishop with the presbyters lays his hands on them. He says, “The Lord be with you,” and you all respond, “And with your spirit.” “Lift up your hearts.” “We lift them up to the Lord.” “Let us give thanks to the Lord.” “It is right and just.”
• The bishop prays over the bread and cup,
• “We render thanks to you, God, through your beloved servant Jesus Christ, whom in the last times you sent to us as Savior and Redeemer and Angel of your will, who is your inseparable Word, through whom you made all things and it was well pleasing to you, whom you sent from heaven into the virgin’s womb, and who conceived in the womb was incarnate and manifested as your Son, born from the Holy Spirit and the virgin; who fulfilling your will and gaining for you a holy people stretched out his hands when he was suffering, that he might release from suffering those who believed in you.
• “Who when he was being handed over to voluntary suffering, that he might destroy death and break the bonds of the devil, and tread down hell and illuminate the righteous, and fix a limit and manifest the resurrection, taking bread and giving thanks to you, he said: ‘Take, eat, this is my body that will be broken for you.’ Likewise also the cup, saying, ‘This is my blood that is shed for you. When you do this, you do my remembrance.’
• “Remembering therefore his death and resurrection, we offer to you the bread and cup, giving thanks to you because you have held us worthy to stand before you and minister to you.
• “And we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit in the offering of your holy church, that gathering them into one you will give to all who partake of the holy things to partake in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, for the strengthening of faith in truth, that we may praise and glorify you through your servant Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and honor to you, Father and Son with the Holy Spirit, in your holy church, both now and to the ages of ages.” [42]
• You respond, “Amen,” and come forward to take the offering from the hand of the bishop. You eat it reverently, and trust that you are sanctified by the body and blood of Christ, being united to the one body of the Church through this offering.
• After you return to your place, the bishop leads the Church in various psalms, as well as other hymns of praise that are new compositions, and after each one you joyously say “Alleluia!” 
• The bishop concludes with another prayer and dismisses everyone from the congregation. You return home and start the workday, and recalling the words of Scripture and the sermon that you heard, do your best to imitate and manifest Christ in a world that seeks to persecute him.

______________________________

[31] The Apostolic Tradition is traditionally attributed to St Hippolytus of Rome, ca. AD 215, but the attribution is doubtful and the date is contested: Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 80-83. However, it is still useful for reconstructing the third-century liturgy: Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 33-35; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 40-41.

[32] Aliykin, Earliest History, 55-56; see also Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 37-39.

[33] Lang, Turning Towards the Lord, 42-48.

[34] Jensen and Ellison, Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 281-282; Robin Jensen, “Ritual and Early Christian Art,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual (Oxford, 2018), 598-601.

[35] Jensen and Ellison, Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 26-28; Robin Jensen, “Ritual and Early Christian Art,” 589-592.

[36] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 44-45; Aliykin, Earliest History, 95-99.

[37] Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 182-183.

[38] This indicates that there were certain conventions by which the eucharistic prayers were expected to abide, but that they were not yet fully standardized. Cf. Origen’s statement in his dialogue with Heraclides that the prayers for “the offering... must abide by agreements”: Aliykin, Earliest History, 243-244.

[39] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 41-43; Aliykin, Earliest History, 242-243; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 40-41.

[40] Aliykin, Earliest History, 175-177.

[41] This practice was also written against by St Irenaeus in the late second century (Against Heresies 5.1.3), and it persisted for several centuries among ascetic Christian groups: Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Clarendon Press, 1999), 143ff.

[42] This is the anaphora found in Apostolic Tradition 4.3-13, although it was not expected to be followed exactly in actual gatherings (9.3-5).

What "church" looked like in the early Church: Second century

First century

    Recently we’ve been examining what the earliest Christian gatherings looked like. In my last post, I tried to reconstruct a first-century church gathering based on (mostly New Testament) texts from this period. Here we’ll take a look at the second century, when the basic shape of the liturgy became both more standard and more formal. The main texts that I will use here are Pliny the Younger, Letter 10.96.7-8; Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 7–8; Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 66–67; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.14.113; Tertullian, Apology 39; and On the Soul 9.4.

Where?

    In the first century, as we saw, believers gathered in dining rooms which could hold at most a few dozen people. When the Christian movement grew in the second century, the ideal was that all the believers in one city would gather together. At the beginning of the second century, St Ignatius of Antioch exhorts the believers at Ephesus and Philadelphia to continue to “have only one Eucharist” and “break one and the same bread” (Phil 3.1; Eph 20.2). St Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-2nd century in Rome, writes that “there is a gathering in the same place of all those living in cities or country areas” (1 Apol 67).

    This ideal may not have been maintained, at least, possibly not in Rome where the Christian community was large and diverse. In his Martyrdom (2), Justin told the Roman prefect during his interrogation that they meet “wherever one chooses and is able.” However, when pressed further, he admits that he only knows of one such meeting place in Rome, at the apartment of Martinus in the Timotinian baths. At least some gatherings, therefore, must have taken place in the larger apartment (insula) dining rooms that could hold about a hundred people. [20] Celsus, the 2nd-century pagan critic, alludes to the Christian practice of meeting in apartment buildings (Origen, Cels 3.55). The apocryphal Acts of Paul 14.1 depicts a gathering of Christians in a barn just outside Rome which Paul rented.

    Some believers, as well as some gnostic groups, continued meeting in private homes during the 2nd century as shown by the apocryphal Acts of Peter (8; 13; 19–21) and Acts of Paul (3.4-7). St Theophilus of Antioch (mid to late 2nd century) converted his own house into a church meeting place (Clementine Recognitions 10.17). In summary, the ideal in the second-century Church was for all believers in a city to gather in one place, which may not have been followed everywhere. The growing number of Christians meant that congregations moved from private homes to larger, rented spaces like insula dining rooms and even barns.

    From the middle of the second century, tombs and catacombs also became places for Christians to gather. The Martyrdom of St Polycarp of Smyrna (ca. 170) reports that Polycarp’s followers took his bones and placed them “where, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom” (18). The Catacomb of St Callixtus, which began to be used in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries, is full of Christian art, including a depiction of a eucharistic meal (room A2). [21] This suggests that the catacomb may have been used for gatherings.

When?

    The second century saw a gradual shift from the Sunday evening gathering to Sunday morning. [22] The first indication of this is actually found in a hostile witness, Pliny the Younger, who wrote to Trajan in AD 112 about Christian gatherings based on knowledge he had gotten from apostates’ confessions: “they were accustomed to assemble at dawn on a fixed day, to sing a hymn antiphonally to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by an oath... When these rites were completed, it was their custom to depart, and then to assemble again to take food” (Letter 10.96.7). Therefore, in early 2nd-century Asia Minor, believers met on Sunday morning to sing hymns and swear an oath against harmful activity (is this a garbled account of confession of sins as prescribed in Didache 14?), then later the same day for the communal meal.

    By the mid-2nd century, the morning gathering began to include the Eucharist itself, at least in some cases. Apuleis is a hostile witness whose Metamorphoses (ca. 150–180) ridicule a Christian woman as having invented “meaningless rites” in order to have “sold her body to drink from dawn” (9.14). St Justin Martyr’s account of the eucharistic gathering might refer to Sunday morning, since he refers to Sunday as the day on which God made the world out of darkness (i.e., dawn; 1 Apol 67), although he doesn’t specify the time of day. Tertullian of Carthage, at the end of the 2nd century, states that “we take, in congregations before daybreak... the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Lord commanded to be eaten at meal times” (De corona 3.3), while still recognizing the agapē meal in the evening (Apology 39).

    The reason for this transition is suggested by St Cyprian of Carthage, who in the third century finally rejects the association of the Eucharist with the evening meal. This is because not everyone could attend a meal in the evening, and since the sacrament is supposed to realize one body of the faithful, it should be held in the morning (Cyprian, Letter 62.13-16). As Christianity grew and became more embedded in the world, many believers had to work throughout the day, so it made more sense to gather before dawn when everyone was available to attend.

    In addition to the Sunday gathering, the second century saw the growth of the liturgical calendar. [23] As I noted above, the Martyrdom of Polycarp (18) refers to a yearly gathering at St Polycarp’s burial site on the anniversary of his death. Tertullian refers to an established practice of making “offerings” (i.e., the Eucharist) for martyrs on the anniversary of their death, as well as avoiding fasting and kneeling for prayer between Pascha and Pentecost (De corona 3). The mid-to-late 2nd century saw a controversy over the date of Pascha between the Roman church, which celebrated Christ’s resurrection on a Sunday each year, and the Asian churches, which always celebrated it on 14 Nisan according to the Jewish calendar (Eusebius, Church History 5.24).

Who?

    In the second century, the fact remained that all baptized Christians regardless of social status were invited to the Eucharist, while others (including catechumens) were not (Justin, 1 Apol 66.1). What developed was the role of the bishop, which became more pronounced. The overseers of the local church in the first century were certainly important: Clement of Rome insists that they are successors to the apostles who offer the sacrifice of the Eucharist, and therefore should not be removed unjustly or abandoned (1 Clem 40–47). However, as schisms increased in the early 2nd century, it became increasingly important for the gathering to be presided over by a genuine bishop.

    This emphasis is most clearly seen in the writings of St Ignatius, who stresses that the “one Eucharist” celebrated by the faithful in a city (Phil 3.1) must be presided over by one bishop:

See that you all follow the bishop, as Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles, and reverence the deacons, as a command of God. Let no one do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a certain Eucharist which is under the leadership of the bishop or one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop appears, there let the multitude of the people be; just as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic Church. It is not permitted without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate an agapē; but whatever he shall approve of, that is also well-pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be assured and certain. (Smyrn 8)

The rationale for this is clear from Ignatius’ exhortation: “Avoid divisions as the beginning of all evils” (Smyrn 7.2). The churches in Asia Minor seem to have been fracturing under pressure from gnostic groups, but by gathering with the genuine bishop, believers in these communities could remain confident that their Eucharist was “assured” or “certain” (bebaia). St Ignatius is also the first writer to make a clear distinction between the offices of bishop and presbyter, which first appears here in Asia Minor and only later at Rome, after the mid-2nd century (cf. Shepherd of Hermas, Vis. 2.8.3; 3.5.1). [24]

    St Justin Martyr’s account of a eucharistic gathering describes how all the believers in a given area would gather on Sunday, with the “president” who would give a sermon and bless the bread and wine, and the deacons who would distribute the meal to those who were present or absent (1 Apol 67). The office of deacon is also mentioned by Pliny the Younger, who reports that he tortured two slave women “who were called deacons” in order to get information about Christianity (Letter 10.96.8). Tertullian is the first to refer to “reader” (i.e., one who reads Scripture at the gathering) as an office alongside bishop, presbyter, and deacon (Praescr 41.2). [25]

What?

    The most detailed description of what took place at a second-century church gathering is found in St Justin Martyr’s First Apology (67.3-6):

On the day called Sunday, there is a gathering in the same place of all those living in cities or country areas. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has stopped, the president verbally instructs and exhorts the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and as we said before, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, “Amen.” There is a distribution to each and a participation of the things for which thanks have been given [tōn eucharistēthenōn], and a portion is sent to those who are absent by the deacons. Those who are well off and willing give what each thinks fit, and what is collected is deposited with the president, who helps the orphans and widows and the destitute, due to sickness or any other reason, and the prisoners and the strangers, and simply takes care of all those in need.

    The same basic structure of the gathering is found in other second-century texts. [26] Clement of Alexandria says that Christians “give thanks” (eucharistousa) to God through reading the Scriptures, investigating them, “the holy offering” (i.e., the bread and cup), prayer, and singing hymns of praise (Stromata 6.14.113). Tertullian describes a litany of intercessory prayers → reading Scripture → exhortations → collections → eucharistic prayer → eucharistic meal → hymns and prayer (Apology 39; cf. On the Soul 9.4). The apocryphal Acts of John depict sermon → prayers → meal (106–110), while Acts of Peter (1–2; 20–22) and Acts of Paul (3.5; 9) alternately depict the sermon before or after the meal. This indicates a transition between the earlier deipnon-symposion and the later sermon-Eucharist model.

    Unfortunately, the earliest securely datable liturgies belong to the third century, so we can’t be sure what the eucharistic prayers looked like in the second century. [27] Justin Martyr’s description (“according to his ability”) suggests that these prayers were extemporized, at least in some cases. The eucharistic prayers in the Acts of John and the Anaphora of Addai and Mari (late 2nd/early 3rd century) lack the so-called words of institution (“This is my body... This is my blood”) and primarily focus on giving thanks to God for his grace and redemption, exemplified in the Eucharist itself. [28] They look like more developed versions of the type of prayers of thanksgiving found in the Didache.

Why?

    The reason for gathering in this way is articulated by St Ignatius of Antioch: if anyone does not gather “within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God” (Eph 5.2-3). The bread of God is “the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ,” which Ignatius desires above all along with “the drink of God, namely his blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life” (Rom 7.3). This bread is connected with sacrifice and martyrdom: Ignatius is “the wheat of God” and desires to be “ground” in martyrdom that he may become “the pure bread of God” (Rom 4.1-2). The Eucharist is the foundation of church unity: there is one Eucharist, one flesh of Jesus Christ, one cup, one unity in his blood, one altar, and one bishop (Phil 4). The gnostics “abstain from the Eucharist” because they do not accept that it “is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ,” and in doing so they “perish” (Smyrn 7.1). This is because the bread is “the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, that we should live always in Christ Jesus” (Eph 20.2).

    This is the same basic understanding we already saw in St Paul, and what we find in later second-century writers. [29] St Justin Martyr says that “this food [bread and wine mixed with water] we call ‘Eucharist,’ which no one is allowed to partake except the one who believes the things we teach are true, and has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins and regeneration, and who is living as Christ has enjoined” (1 Apol 66.1). Christians are taught that “this food which is blessed by the prayer of his word, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transmutation, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh” (66.2-3; citing Luke 22:19-20). Justin connects the Eucharist to the fulfillment of Malachi 1:10-12, which says that the nations will offer sacrifice to God in every place (Dial 41.1-3).

    Tertullian refers to the Eucharist when he says, “the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may likewise fatten on its God” (On the Resurrection 8; cf. On Modesty 9). Like Ignatius, he uses the sacrament to refute gnostics who deny that Jesus had a real body, because if he didn’t, then the Eucharist is merely bread (Against Marcion 4.40). Clement of Alexandria refers to “the holy offering” as a way in which Christians “give thanks” (eucharistousa) to God (Stromata 6.14.113). “To drink the blood of Jesus,” that is, the eucharistic mixed cup, “is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality... those who partake of it by faith are sanctified in body and soul” (Paed 2.2). This understanding that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus, the sacrifice par excellence, which gives immortality to those who partake by faith, is also found in St Irenaeus’ Against Heresies (4.17-18; 5.2).

Reconstruction

    The second century was a period of transition for the church gathering: from private houses to rented spaces, from evenings to mornings, from a deipnon-symposion to a Word-Eucharist structure, to more standardized church governance, more elaborate eucharistic prayers, and a more developed understanding of the Eucharist itself. In this century, the basic shape of the liturgy first appears, which is still found among most Christians. Once again, we can try to reconstruct what a church gathering during this period might have looked like:

• You wake up before dawn on the first day of the week, so that you can gather with the Church before the workday begins. With the rest of your household, you go to the apartment that has been designated as the meeting place.
• All the baptized believers in the city gather in the dining room, which despite its large size becomes a bit cramped. The bishop takes his place at the head of the table, with the presbyters surrounding him, as the deacons prepare to wait the table.
• The bishop leads the congregation in prayers for the emperor and others in authority, for general welfare, for peaceful times, and so on. When this is finished, you greet each other with a kiss.
• When the prayers are finished, the Scriptures are brought out and someone reads an excerpt from the prophets and from a letter sent decades ago by the apostle Paul. The bishop gives a sermon based on these passages, exhorting you all to imitate the example of the prophets and apostles.
• You stand again as the congregation offers further prayers to God. The bread and cup are brought out, and the bishop prays:
• “Glory to you, the adorable and glorious Name, who created the world in his grace and its inhabitants in his compassion, and redeemed humankind in his mercy, and has wrought great grace towards mortals.
• “We, Lord, your sinful servants, give you thanks because you have brought about in us your grace that cannot be repaid; you put on our humanity to give us life through your divinity; you lifted up our low state and raised our fall; you restored our immortality; you forgave our debts, you justified our sinfulness, you enlightened our understanding, you vanquished our enemies and made triumphant our lowliness. For all your graces towards us, we send up to you glory and honor, now and for ever and ever.
• “Lord, in your abundant mercies make a gracious remembrance of all the upright and just fathers, of the prophets, apostles, martyrs and confessors.
• “And for your wonderful plan for us, we, redeemed by your blood, give you thanks with open mouth in your church, now and for ages of ages.” [30]
• You all respond, “Amen,” and take your seat at the table.
• The bishop breaks the bread, and the deacons distribute a portion of the bread and mixed cup to everyone baptized who is present. You partake of the body and blood of Christ, and are yourselves forged into one body, both sacrificed and made immortal, died and risen.
• You, and the rest of the body, rise and sing psalms and hymns of praise to God, and conclude with a final prayer.
• There is a collection for those in need and you donate as much as you are willing and able. You leave the apartment as the sun is rising, and begin your workday, manifesting Christ to the world according to your ability.

Third Century

______________________________

[20] Aliykin, Earliest History, 53-54.

[21] Jensen and Ellison, Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 23.

[22] Aliykin, Earliest History, 79-102.

[23] Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship, 178-190; Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 58-61.

[24] Note that all of Ignatius’ letters to local churches in Asia Minor refer to their bishop, and the distinction between bishop and presbytery (Eph 1.3; 4.1; 20.2; Magn 2–4; 6–7; 13; Tral 1.1-3.2; 7; 12.2; 13.2; Phil 1.1; 3–4; 7.1-8.1; 10.2; Smyrn 8.1-9.1; 12.2; Polycarp 6.1). In contrast, his letter to the Roman church is conspicuously missing a reference to their bishop, along with any mention of a distinction between bishops and presbyters.

[25] Aliykin, Earliest History, 178-181.

[26] Metzger, History of the Liturgy, 39-41; Aliykin, Earliest History, 65-67.

[27] Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 73-117, esp. fig 4.2; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 36-44.

[28] Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship, 107, 111-112; Aliykin, Earliest History, 239-242; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 36-40.

[29] Aliykin, Earliest History, 132-140; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 44-58.

[30] This is a possible reconstruction of the original (late 2nd/early 3rd century) anaphora of the Liturgy of Addai and Mari: Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, 39-40.

What "church" looked like in the early Church: First century

Some background

    In the last post, we started to examine what church gatherings looked like in the early Church by studying the Lord’s supper and ritual meals in the Greco-Roman world. Now that we have this background information, we can look at the details of the first-century Christian gathering. The main first-century texts that I will use here are the accounts of Jesus’ last supper (Matt 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-38); Acts 2:42-47; Acts 20:7-11; 1 Corinthians 10–14; and Didache 9–10, 14.

Where?

    First of all, where did the earliest Christians come together? Our earliest sources unanimously tell us that they met in houses. The book of Acts says that breaking bread, corporate prayer, and teaching all took place kat’ oikon (“by house”: 2:46; 12:12; 20:20). St Paul’s letters refer to “the church in their/her/your house” (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Phlm 1:2), and St John instructs a certain local church not to receive those who deny Christ’s manifestation in the flesh “into your house” (2 John 1:10).

    What would the meeting area have looked like? The gathering took place in the dining room, which in most houses would have been upstairs (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12; Acts 1:13; 20:8, 11). It likely was arranged according to the standard pattern, with three tables arranged in a U-shape seating about a dozen people at most, which testifies to the small number of Christians at this time. As the local church grew, the participants would spill out into other rooms of the house, eventually requiring a change in location altogether. Insofar as gatherings continued into the night (see below), the room was lit by oil lamps (cf. Acts 20:8).

    The posture of those at the gathering is indicated by Paul as “sitting” (1 Cor 14:30) rather than reclining, although this might have been a necessity to fit a larger number of people around the tables. [9] The ideal in the gospel accounts is still reclining at the table (Matt 8:11; 26:7, 20; Mark 2:15; 14:3, 18; Luke 13:29; 14:7-11; 24:30; John 13:12; 21:20). The same passage indicates that those prophesying at the table would stand, since Paul distinguishes “someone sitting” from the prophets who are speaking (1 Cor 14:29-30). The ideal posture for praying was also standing, with hands outstretched (Matt 6:5; Mark 11:25; 1 Tim 2:8; cf. Ps 63:4; 134:2; 141:2; Philo, Vit Cont 66, 80, 83). [10] The Christian practice of praying toward the East can be traced back at least to the mid-2nd century, with some scholars arguing for a first century origin. [11] Philo reports that the Jewish Therapeutae sect also prayed toward the East during their communal meals (Vit Cont 89).

    How were the meeting rooms decorated, if at all? We know that as soon as Christians obtained their own designated spaces for prayer in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, they were decorated with religious imagery, as shown by the Roman catacombs and Dura Europos church. [12] The gnostic Acts of John shows that the creation and veneration of portrait icons of saints was already known among Christians in the 2nd century. [13] But there is no contemporary evidence for Christian art in the first century, and it seems unlikely that first-century believers would have entirely painted or redecorated their dining rooms with no obvious rationale. At most, there was likely a cross inscribed on the wall of some house churches, as seen in a pre-AD 79 houses at Pompeii. [14]

When?

    Now that we’ve seen where the early Christians gathered, and how this space was used for worship, let’s investigate when they gathered. Acts 2:46 tells us that the very first Christians in Jerusalem were breaking bread together “every day.” However, from very early on, “the first day of the week” (i.e., Sunday) was marked out for gathering and breaking bread (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2). St John states that the first appearance of the risen Jesus to the assembled disciples was at “evening on that day, the first day of the week,” and his subsequent appearance “a week later [when] his disciples were again in the house” (John 20:19, 26). The Didache, a first-century church order, says that believers gather “on the Lord’s own day” (kata kyriakēn... kyriou) to break bread and give thanks (eucharistēsate).

    The gathering took place in the evening, according to our earliest sources, as expected for a supper. This is implied in Acts 20:7-11, where the believers in Troas meet to break bread “on the first day,” and Paul holds discourse with them at length “until midnight,” after which they actually broke bread and continued to converse “until dawn.” Jesus’ last supper began in the evening (Matt 26:20; Mark 14:17), he broke bread on the evening after his resurrection (Luke 24:29-30), and his first appearance to the assembled disciples was “evening on... the first day of the week” (John 20:19), according to the gospel accounts. The evening of the first day may have been Saturday evening (since Jewish practice reckoned days from evening to evening) or Sunday evening, with more recent scholarship arguing for Sunday evening. [15]

    In the early second century, the hostile witness of Pliny the Younger (who persecuted Christians) shows the beginning stage of the Sunday morning gathering. Pliny writes to the emperor Trajan, reporting the testimony of apostate believers about Christian practices:

They maintained, however, that all that their guilt or error involved was that they were accustomed to assemble at dawn on a fixed day, to sing a hymn antiphonally to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by an oath, not for the commission of some crime, but to avoid acts of theft, brigandage, and adultery, not to break their word, and not to withhold money deposited with them when asked for it. When these rites were completed, it was their custom to depart, and then to assemble again to take food, which was however common and harmless. (Letters 10.96.7)

This report is clearly skewed by the apostates’ attempt to appear harmless to Pliny – for example, their insistence that their “oath” is about civil obedience and that the eucharistic meal is “common and harmless.” However, we can see that in early 2nd century Asia Minor, Christians were accustomed to meet twice on Sundays, first in the morning for prayer and hymnody, then again in the evening for the communal meal. Over time (in the 2nd and 3rd centuries), the meal would also gradually migrate to Sunday morning.

Who?

    Keeping in mind when and where the first-century Christian gathering took place, who was present and involved? In the typical Greco-Roman banquet, women were not invited and slaves waited on the men who dined. In the Christian gathering, on the other hand, women were included as full participants who could pray and prophesy alongside the men (1 Cor 11:4-5). Likewise, gentiles were included as full participants alongside Jews, even though de facto there was some segregation, which St Paul condemned (Gal 2:11-14). The table was not served by slaves, but by voluntary attendants (diakonoi, deacons: Acts 6:1-6; cf. Philo, Vit Cont 68, 70-72). This was central to the self-understanding of the earliest believers as a community: “There is neither Jew nor gentile, slave nor free, male and female, for indeed you all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

    However, the inclusivity of the early Christian banquet wasn’t unlimited. The Didache insists that only those “baptized into the name of the Lord” can “eat or drink of this Eucharist,” citing Jesus’ statement, “Do not give the holy things to the dogs” (9.5). The Didache later refers to the necessity of confessing sins before breaking bread, “that your sacrifice may be pure,” and says that no one with an unreconciled disagreement should join, “that your sacrifice may not be defiled” (14.1-3).

    St Paul likewise writes to the believers at Corinth that they should examine themselves before partaking, since “all who eat and drink without discerning the body eat and drink judgment against themselves” (1 Cor 11:27-32). He said this in reference to their tendency to divide themselves at the gathering, eating their own food which they brought rather than sharing communally (11:18-22). This was a local manifestation of the earliest believers’ tendency to fall back into discriminating according to social status at their banquets, which was condemned (Luke 14:7-11; 22:24-27; James 2:1-6). At the first-century Christian gathering, therefore, only baptized believers were invited. But all baptized believers could participate equally, except those in public, harmful, and unrepentant sin (cf. 1 Cor 5:1-2), including those who discriminated against others at the meal.

    What about those who served at the meal? The New Testament texts distinguish two offices (Acts 6:1-6; 20:17-35; Phil 1:1; 1 Tim 3:1-13; 5:17-20; Titus 1:5-9; 1 Pet 5:1-2): the overseer (episkopos, bishop) or elder (presbyteros, priest) and the attendant (diakonos, deacon). Other first-century texts refer to the same two offices (Didache 15; 1 Clem 42.4-5; 44.1-5). [16] The deacons would attend the table (Acts 6:1-6), while the bishops/priests would “offer the gifts,” i.e., the bread and cup, themselves (1 Clem 44.3). In the first century, these functions could also be carried out by itinerant apostles, teachers, and prophets (Didache 15.2). [17]

What?

    Then what exactly took place at these first-century Christian gatherings? The main event, so to speak, was the meal itself, the bread and the cup. St Paul writes that when the Corinthian believers “come together,” it is “to eat the Lord’s banquet” (1 Cor 11:17-18, 20, 33-34; cf. Didache 14). Before eating, a blessing (eulogia) or thanksgiving (eucharistia) was pronounced over both the bread and the cup. Fixed prayers of thanksgiving over the cup and the bread, separately, are provided in the first-century Didache, along with a prayer of thanksgiving for after the meal, although these were not always precisely followed: “prophets” could extemporize their own prayers (Didache 9-10). The assembled believers would respond to each thanksgiving with “Amen” (1 Cor 14:16).

    Most first-century texts describe the blessing of the cup followed by the bread (Luke 22:17-19; 1 Cor 10:16; Didache 9-10; Papias in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.33.3-4). However, the accounts of Jesus’ last supper describe the blessing of the bread followed by the cup (Matt 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25). [18] This implies that there was no universally accepted, fixed order of prayers of thanksgiving in the first-century church.

    Paul lists a few other activities that might take place at the Christian gathering: “a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation” (1 Cor 14:26). Elsewhere he advises believers not to get drunk (presumably during the symposion), but rather “to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves” (Eph 5:18-19; cf. Col 3:16). Some examples of hymns are found in the late 1st/early 2nd century Odes of Solomon. Acts 2:42 refers to “the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” and “the prayers” alongside breaking bread. The letters of apostles and other authoritative writings would be publicly read at these gatherings (Acts 15:22-30; Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27; 1 Tim 4:13; Phlm 1:1-2; Rev 1:3). The apostles exhorted believers to greet one another with a “holy kiss” or “kiss of love” (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14). The Didache (14.1) also prescribes confession of sins before breaking bread together.

    Was there an order to these activities? The Didache (9–10; 14) presents a basic structure for the deipnon of the meal: confession of sins → blessing of the cup and bread → eating → prayer(s) of thanksgiving. St Paul addresses issues at Corinth throughout the whole meal, and the structure of his critique implies that the meal was (like the typical Greco-Roman supper) a deipnon followed by a symposion involving various spiritual activities (1 Cor 10–14). They had no fixed order for the varied activities during their symposion, which led to some practical issues that Paul confronts (14:26-33). Acts 2:42 suggests an order for the earliest Jerusalem churches: teaching and fellowship → breaking bread → prayers, while Acts 20:7-11 gives a description of a particular communal meal which involved (at least) discourse → breaking bread → further discourse.

Why?

    Finally, why did Christians in the first century gather together for a communal meal? The clearest statement about this, once again, comes from St Paul’s letter to the Corinth church:

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: Are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

What do I imply, then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (1 Cor 10:16-22)

The communal meal for first-century Christians is a sharing, or communion (koinōnia), in the body and blood of Christ which constitutes the believers as themselves the one body of Christ. This is the uniquely Christian form of sacrifice, analogous to Israelite and pagan sacrifices – for what is Christ’s body if not the sacrifice par excellence?

    The earliest fixed eucharistic prayers (Didache 9–10) don’t include what later came to be known as the words of institution (“This is my body... This is my blood”). However, their inclusion in all of the New Testament accounts of the Lord’s banquet shows that this was very much in the background of the earliest Christians’ celebration of the communal meal (Matt 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25). [19] The prayer over the bread asks God to gather his Church to become one just as the bread has become one (Didache 9.4; cf. 1 Cor 10:17), and the author refers to the meal as “sacrifice” (14.1-3; citing Mal 1:11). Clement of Rome also references bishops in the first century serving “the offerings” (ta dōra; 1 Clem 44:4).

    The activities during the symposion of the meal also had a function. Paul expands on his statement about believers becoming “one body.” They are “the body of Christ” and, like any human body, there are many members with different functions, in order to collectively build each other up in love (1 Cor 12–14; esp. 12:12-27). If the purpose of the banquet is to constitute all the believers in one communion of the body of Christ, then the symposium with its various activities – prayer, hymnody, teaching, prophecy – strengthens this reality and makes it visible. Thus, the Lord’s supper visibly manifests Christ himself within the world in and as the communion of the faithful.

Reconstruction

    Now that we’ve examined these first-century sources for details about the earliest Christian Eucharist, we can try to reconstruct what an ideal gathering of believers would have looked like at that time. Keep in mind that this is necessarily speculative, since we can’t be sure it looked the same everywhere and these texts come from different contexts.

• On the evening of the first day of the week, you head to the house of the overseer (one of them, at least) of your local church. Only those who have been baptized into the Way are invited, but everyone baptized is invited, regardless of social status.
• When you arrive, you go upstairs to the lamp-lit dining room. You take notice of the cross carved into the wall and remember what Jesus, the Messiah, endured for your sake.
• You greet the other believers there with a kiss. If there’s anything left unresolved between you and others, you make sure to confess and reconcile with them. You know that this is a serious matter, and there can be no divisions as you will all be united by this meal. Some have been prevented from joining before, because they were unrepentant about their harm toward others.
• You take your seat at the table as the deacons bring out the food and drink, which was brought by other members of the community. The overseer takes his cup and prays: “We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of your child David, which you made known to us through your Son Jesus. Yours is the glory unto ages of ages.” With the rest of the believers, you say “Amen.”
• The overseer takes bread and breaks it. “We give you thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through your Son Jesus. Yours is the glory unto ages of ages. As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, so may your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ unto ages of ages.” “Amen.”
• Now that the food and drink has been blessed, the deacons share the food between everyone there. You all eat joyously, knowing that in this meal you are sharing in Christ’s own body and blood, and partaking in his sacrifice. You are all being united into one body of Christ.
• After the meal, the overseer prays again:
• “We give you thanks, holy Father, for your holy name, which you have made to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which you have made known unto us through your Son Jesus. Yours is the glory unto ages of ages.
• “You, Almighty Master, created all things for your name’s sake, and gave food and drink to men for their enjoyment, that they might give you thanks. And you have given us spiritual food and drink and eternal life through your Son. Most of all, we give you thanks that you are powerful. Yours is the glory unto ages of ages.
• “Remember, Lord, your Church, and deliver it from all evil and perfect it in your love. Gather it – the sanctified one – together from the four winds into your kingdom which you have prepared for it. For yours is the power and the glory unto ages of ages.
• “May grace come and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If any man is holy, let him come; if any man is not, let him repent. O Lord, come!”
• You, and the rest of the body, agree: “Amen.” A prophet who is passing through your city stands and offers his own prayer, along with some others in the body.
• A letter that you all previously received from the apostle Paul is read aloud. Someone who is known as a teacher in your community offers an exhortation based on this letter. Another also offers a word of advice. You stand and lead the gathered body in a hymn that you all know, and the overseer and a few others do the same after you.
• You and the believing members of your household return home well after dark. There is a renewed understanding that you all are part of something truly holy, that you are united to Christ himself, and you and your household will do your best to manifest this reality as shining lights in a dark world.

Second Century

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[9] Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 178.

[10] This is borne out by second- and third-century Christian art in the Roman catacombs, which depicts this posture also at the eucharistic table (Catacomb of St Callixtus, Room A2).

[11] Uwe Michael Lang, Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (Ignatius Press, 2009), 35-61.

[12] Robin M. Jensen and Mark D. Ellison, The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art (Routledge, 2018), see especially chaps. 2, 12, and 17 on the catacombs, panel portraits, and Dura-Europos baptistry.

[13] Acts of John 26-29 describes how the disciple Lycomedes, who had been resurrected by God through John, commisioned a portrait of John, took it to his bedroom, crowned it with garlands, and lit lamps before it. John, the mouthpiece of the gnostic author, confronts him for “still living in heathen fashion.” Lycomedes answers that he has only one God, but “next to that God, it is right that the men who have benefitted us should be called gods.” John retorts that the portrait captures only his “fleshly image,” being “a dead likeness of the dead,” and Lycomedes should instead paint with the virtues. This episode implies that debate over venerating panel-portrait icons was already underway between Christians and gnostics in the 2nd century (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4.13).

[14] Bruce W. Longenecker, The Cross before Constantine: The Early Life of a Christian Symbol (Fortress Press, 2015), 121-148; The Crosses of Pompeii: Jesus-Devotion in a Vesuvian Town (Fortress Press, 2016); but for a contrasting perspective, see John Granger Cook, “Alleged Christian Crosses in Herculaneum and Pompeii,” Vigiliae Christianae 72, no. 1 (2018): 1-20.

[15] Aliykin, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering, 40-49.

[16] The terms episkopos and presbyteros are clearly used interchangeably in first-century texts. However, this doesn’t mean that monepiscopacy is a later development, if by this we refer to the fact that only one person actually offers the Eucharist, which is the original and most important meaning of “one bishop” found in St Ignatius’ writings (Smyrn 9). The designation of one person as the host, or symposiarch, or president, was a common feature of banquets in the Greco-Roman world. In light of this, we can’t really speak about the post-apostolic development of the episcopate as an office, but rather the development of the presbytery as a separate office between bishop and deacon. Even the reference to multiple “bishops” in one city (Phil 1:1) is unsurprising, given the fact that the dining rooms in which first-century Christians held their gatherings likely couldn’t accommodate all the believers in some cities, whereas other cities did have only one gathering (e.g., Rom 16:23).

[17] Aliykin, Earliest History, 69-73.

[18] St Luke’s account describes the blessing of the cup followed by the bread, then another cup after the banquet. This reworking suggests that he was trying to reconcile the existing accounts of the last supper (bread-then-cup) with his own community’s practice (cup-then-bread before meal): Aliykin, Earliest History, 233-234.

[19] St John’s gospel doesn’t include these words in his account, which lacks any description of the supper itself, giving a lengthy account of the symposium discourse instead. However, the pericope about chewing Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood (John 6:51-58) would hardly have been understood as referring to anything other than the Eucharist: Aliykin, Earliest History, 130-132.

What "church" looked like in the early Church: Some background

    How did the earliest Christians experience “church”? This is something I’ve recently been interested in studying. After all, while the intellectual history and development of doctrine in the early Church is certainly important and interesting, that would have been above the pay grade of the average believer. For most Christians – as well as for the theologians and bishops who formulated doctrine – their faith was primarily encountered in the gathering as a community of faith to offer prayers and commune together. In this series of posts, I’ll do my best to reconstruct what this gathering would have looked like in the first through fourth centuries. [1]

    As a disclaimer: even if we can know what “church” looked like in the first century, that doesn’t mean it’s an ideal to which we should return today. Just because something is more ancient does not mean that it’s more valid. Some aspects of early Church practice were accidental, prompted by the historical circumstances of the period, while others are indeed essential to the Church; it’s not possible to tell them apart without looking from the vantage point of a certain tradition. I strongly suspect that believers from every Christian tradition today would find both familiarity and foreignness if they walked into a first-century church gathering.

The Lord’s Banquet

    St. Paul is our earliest witness to what Christian gatherings looked like. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, he writes that when they “come together as a church” it’s supposed to be to eat something called “the Lord’s banquet” (kyriakon deipnon; 1 Cor 11:18-20). From this very early stage, believers in Jesus connected their gatherings to a particular historical event in the life of Jesus of Nazareth: the banquet that he held “on the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23). Paul claims to have received this tradition from the Lord himself and handed it on to the Corinthians.

    Each of the gospel accounts records Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. However, St. Luke is the only one to explicitly connect it with an ongoing practice. Here is his account:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?” “Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” So they went and found everything as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:7-20)

    The fact that St. Luke (unlike St. Mark or St. Matthew) presents Jesus as saying, “Do this in remembrance of me,” implies that he is consciously modeling his account of the supper after the practices of his own community. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the other gospel writers didn’t have the same practice; Paul’s comments imply that this was universal among apostolic-era Christians. Therefore, the other accounts are also useful for our purposes. There are only a handful of differences between the synoptic gospels.

• Matthew only says that Jesus and the disciples will have the Passover meal at the (unnamed) man’s house, while Mark and Luke specify that they will be in the upstairs room for guests.
• Mark and Matthew place the discourse about the one who will betray Jesus before the blessing of the bread and the cup, whereas Luke places it after the blessing.
• Mark and Matthew describe the blessing of the bread followed by the cup, whereas Luke describes the blessing of a cup followed by the bread, then another cup “after the banquet.”
• Mark and Matthew both state that they sang “the hymn” after eating, which Luke does not record.

St. John, on the other hand, records very little about the banquet itself (other than that it took place), instead he puts the emphasis on the discourse which he presents as following the supper (chaps. 13–17).

    I don’t think that we can know whether these differences actually reflect differences in the practice of the gospel writers’ communities. However, as I’ll show below, there was a diversity of custom in the earliest church gatherings which seems to at least partially correspond to the differences between gospel accounts. There is a broad similarity between the synoptic accounts of the last supper: (1) it took place within a house (2) on the evening of Passover, (3) involving a blessing of the bread and cup (4) in which Jesus declared them to be “my body” and “my blood,” (5) with a discourse either preceding or following the blessing and (6) a hymn at the end (albeit not reported by Luke).

The Greco-Roman Supper

    Let’s be clear: it would be completely wrong to look for “the Eucharist” in the first century, if we mean the ritual eating of a small piece of bread and sip of wine. Every single source from this period describes a full meal taking place when gathered together, which was in no way distinguished from the sacrament itself. St. Jude refers to this meal as the “love feast” (Jude 1:12), which was still used as a synonym for the Eucharist by St. Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century (Smyrn 8.2). When Luke-Acts refers to “breaking bread,” it likely indicates the same corporate meal (Luke 24:30; Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11).

    However, it would be just as much of a mistake to think that there was no ritual involved at all in the earliest church gatherings. In fact, banquets in the ancient Jewish and wider Greco-Roman world were very ritualized affairs. The ideal evening meal in classical Greece comprised two parts: a banquet (deipnon) followed by drinking and discourse (symposion). [2] The second stage was initiated by various rituals including a libation, pouring out a small amount of wine accompanied by prayer to a deity. [3] The host would arrange the guests, who reclined around a U-shaped table, according to their social rank; women and slaves were not invited. Although actual suppers often deviated from this structure, it was considered the ideal for several centuries. [4]

    Jewish suppers were also ritualized in the ancient world, at least partially due to Hellenistic influence. In the early 2nd century BC, the book of Sirach (31:12-32:13) provides banquet etiquette along the lines of the classical Greek practice, including the invitations, the singular host/president, ranking guests according to social status, music, and the deipnon followed by symposion, although he warns against excessive luxury. [5]

    The Greco-Roman supper also influenced later rabbinic practice, although with clear differences: the ideal meal consisted of three courses, each including a mixed cup of wine and water, with the ritual washing of hands (by servants) and benediction between each course; the prayer might be said by the host or by all of the participants, depending on the circumstance. [6] The rabbinic Passover liturgy, which crystallized in the late 3rd century AD, involves a first course (the deipnon) with the mixed cup, benediction, and meal, then a second course (the symposion) with another mixed cup, designated readings from Deuteronomy, Exodus, and the Psalms, followed by prayers of praise (and a third and fourth mixed cup). [7]

    The evidence for Jewish meal practices in the first century is somewhat scantier. We know that the Pharisee sect advocated ritual hand washing before meals, which Christians apparently rejected (Matt 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23). Our best evidence comes from the Essene sect at Qumran, which left us the Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus reports that twice per day the members of the community would wash themselves ritually and put on linen garments, then come together to the dining room of an apartment and eat together. Both before and after the meal, the priest would recite a blessing, and the participants would praise God together (Wars II.129-133). The Community Rule at Qumran provides a similar description:

Wherever there are ten men of the Council of the Community there shall not lack a Priest among them. And they shall all sit before him according to their rank and shall be asked their counsel in all things in that order. And when the table has been prepared for eating, and the new wine for drinking, the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine.

And where the ten are, there shall never lack a man among them who shall study the Law continually, day and night concerning the right conduct of a man with his companion. And Congratulation shall watch in community for a third of every night of the year, to read the book and to study Law and to pray together. (1QS 6.3-8)

This seems to correspond to the deipnon-symposion structure (meal followed by discourse), with seating “according to their rank” (cf. 6.8-9) and a blessing pronounced by a priest. It looks like there was also a discourse preceding the meal, however (they “shall be asked their counsel in all things in that order”), to which Josephus also alludes (Wars II.132). The rules governing this discourse are given in 1QS 6.9-13. The communal meal of the Essenes could only be participated after one year of being a member, and the communal drink after two years (6.16-23); certain infractions were punished by exclusion from the meal, from ten days to lifelong (6.24-7.24; cf. Wars II.143-145).

    Philo of Alexandria (mid-1st century) describes the communal meals of the Therapeutae, another Jewish sect, contrasting them with both the Essenes and Greek banquets (Vit Cont 30-37, 64-89). According to his account, members of this sect would assemble once per week, especially every seven weeks, for their communal feast. They would begin by standing and praying with hands outstretched. Then both men and women would recline (on the right and left, respectively) on wooden boards and be served, not by slaves (because they had none), but by voluntary attendants. The “president” of the gathering would offer remarks, interpreting the Scriptures allegorically and/or answering a question posed by another. Then the members, beginning with the president, would sing hymns (all together chanting the refrains). After this, the attendants would bring in the meal itself, which was “all-holy” (panagestaton) leavened bread and pure water. Finally, the members would rise and form two choirs (male and female) to sing antiphonal (i.e., two-part) hymns throughout the night.

    The basic structure of this feast, prayer → discourse → hymnody → bread and cup → hymnody, should be familiar to most Christians. This is the basic shape of the liturgy that is found in every Christian rite, both Eastern and Western. In fact, Christians in the fourth century and later found such familiarity here that they equated the Therapeutae with the earliest Christian ascetics (Eusebius, Church History II.17; Epiphanius, Panarion 29.5; Ps.-Dionysius, Church Hierarchy 6.1.3). If this is correct, then Philo is an incredibly valuable witness to the basic shape of the Christian liturgy before AD 50! However, there are chronological difficulties with equating the Therapeutae and early Christians. [8] Even so, this shows what a ritual meal looked like in another first-century Jewish sect.

    Originally I had intended to reconstruct the details of a first-century church gathering in this post, but it started to get way too long! I will continue this study in my next post, and we'll look at when and where this gathering took place, who was there, what would have happened there, and why the earliest Christians felt it was important to gather for a meal in this way.

First century

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[1] In studying this topic, there were a few books that I found very helpful (among other sources): Marcel Metzger, History of the Liturgy: The Major Stages (Liturgical Press, 1997); Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2002); Dennis E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Augsburg Fortress, 2003); Valeriy A. Aliykin, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries (Brill, 2010); Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Liturgical Press, 2012).

I was inspired to try my hand at reconstructing an early Christian gathering, from an Orthodox perspective, by these reconstructions from Christians of other traditions: Steven Alspach and Daniel Alspach, “A First Century Liturgy,” posted 1 Feb 2021, by The Catholic Brothers, YouTube, 27:39, https://youtu.be/hect5BG02gU; Gavin Ortlund, “What Church Was Like in 150 AD,” posted 30 Mar 2026, by Truth Unites, YouTube, 38:01, https://youtu.be/6h9mkybHep0.

[2] Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 1-46; Dennis E. Smith, “The Greco-Roman Banquet as Social Institution,” in Meals in the Early Christian World (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 23-33.

[3] Although this exact structure was not always, or even typically, followed: Charles H. Cosgrove, “Banquet Ceremonies Involving Wine in the Greco-Roman World and Early Christianity,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 79, no. 2 (2017): 299-316.

[4] Smith, “The Greco-Roman Banquet as Social Institution,” 31-32.

[5] Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 134-144.

[6] Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 144-147, citing t. Ber. 4, 8, 98.

[7] Siegfried Stein, “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesaḥ Haggadah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 8, no. 1-2 (1957): 13-44; Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 147-150.

[8] Philo died in ca. AD 50 or earlier, while the traditional date for the arrival of Christianity in Alexandria is in the early 40s or later. Even if we allow the maximum range, there would only have been a few years for the Christian community to become established and for Philo to take notice and write about them. This seems rather unlikely to me.