Will Blessing Same-Sex Marriages Lead To Blessing Polygamous/Polyandrous Marriages?

When Irving Bible Church of Irving, Texas, announced in 2008 that a woman was going to preach from the pulpit, Tommy Nelson, the pastor of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, responded as follows:

The problem, [Nelson] said, is how to determine between what is accommodation to ancient culture and what is timeless truth. If the Apostle Paul’s teachings on roles of women are no longer valid, he asked, how can one know the Trinity is true? The same logic that justifies women in the pulpit, he said, is also used by those who argue that homosexuality is not a sin. (From https://goodfaithmedia.org/texas-church-says-egalitarian-view-not-an-option-for-evangelicals-cms-12879/)

(You can read more about it at A Woman In The Pulpit: “Lions And Tigers And Bears! Oh, My!”)

Nelson seems to be suggesting that egalitarianism (the belief that women may serve and function in the church in any office or capacity or gifting that men do) will lead to Christians and churches no longer condemning homosexuality (sic) and presumably approving of and blessing same-sex marriage.

While egalitarianism can be supported biblically,* and neither subverts “timeless truth” nor leads to approving of same-sex marriage, a valid question is: Will approving of and blessing same-sex marriage lead to approving of and blessing polygamy?

Those approving of same-sex marriage have in the past answered “No” to this question, and there are numerous discussions of this online, many from non-Christian/non-religious positions.

However, when I asked an earlier version of the following questions at a Facebook theology forum, the respondents said they didn't think it possible to both Scripturally affirm same-sex marriages and Scripturally reject polygamous and/or polyamorous marriages.

The questions I asked, and which I post here for you to consider and answer, are:

1. For those churches and Christians that affirm/bless same-sex marriages and therefore do not believe that marriage must be restricted to male-female unions, is there a Scriptural or biblical argument or basis for restricting Christian marriage to two-person unions versus polygamous ones? If your answer  is “Yes,” what is that Scriptural or biblical argument? (Assume for the question that polygamy is not illegal where you live.)

[1 Timothy 3:2 and 5:9 speak of “husband of one wife” and “wife of one husband,” but people disagree on whether Paul is referring to a) monogamy or b) not remarrying after one’s spouse dies or c) (idiomatically) being faithful to one’s spouse (and people in polygamous or polyamorous marriages can agree to be sexually faithful to those they are espoused to). That the New Testament only envisions or deals with married couples  may be because plural marriage wasn’t legal under Roman law.]

2. For those churches and Christians who affirm/bless same-sex marriages (i.e., two men only or two women only) for Christians, do you also a) affirm polygamous or polyamorous marriages for Christians, or do you b) reject them? Please give your Scriptural or biblical argument for your position, whether you a) affirm both same-sex marriages and poly marriages, or you b) affirm same-sex marriages and reject poly marriages.

TERMS

• Polygamy = polygyny (one male/husband, more than one female/wife/sexual partner) or polyandry (one female/wife, more than one male/husband/sexual partner).

• Polyamory = each person is a husband/wife/sexual partner to each/any/all of the other persons. In its smallest arrangement it could consist of one male and two females in which the male is espoused to both females and the females are espoused to the male and to each other, or of one female and two males in which the female is espoused to both males and the males are espoused to the female and to each other.

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* Here is a list of resources that make a biblical case for egalitarianism from a conservative Christian perspective.

The Didache

Linked from The Lord’s Supper In The Church Meeting

The Didache

I - Cup and Bread 

Many or maybe most churches (Protestant, at least) conduct communion by doing a recitation of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 (NRSVue): 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

with the members then eating their wafer or piece of bread and drinking their thimble or cup of juice or wine.

The Didache (Greek Διδαχή Didachē, pronounced dih-duh-khay or dih-duh-khee; full title (there are both short and [long] versions): Teaching of [the Lord through] the Twelve Apostles [to the Nations] Διδαχὴ [κυρίου διὰ] τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων [τοῖς ἔθνεσιν] Didachē kyriou dia tōn dōdeka apostolōn tois ethnesin), which many scholars date to 80–110 CE, and some even as early as 50 CE, gives a different order of service for the Lord’s supper than we read in the gospels and in 1 Corinthians, and its Eucharistic prayers seem to support the “do this for my memorial” aspect of communion being a reminder to the Father rather than a personal or corporate reflecting on Jesus’s death.

Also note that whereas in 1 Corinthians 11 Paul says that Jesus’s giving thanks for the bread was at the beginning of the supper and his taking and sharing the cup was after the supper, the Didache has the thanksgiving for both the bread and the cup at the beginning of the supper, with the thanksgiving for the cup coming before that for the bread.

Chapter 9:

1 As for thanksgiving, give thanks this way.
2 First, with regard to the cup:
“We thank you, our Father,
For the holy vine of David your servant,
 which you made known to us
 through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.”
3 And with regard to the *Bread:
“We thank you, our Father,
For the life and knowledge
 which you made known to us
 through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.
4 As this < … > lay scattered upon the mountains
and became one when it had been gathered,
So may your church be gathered into your
 kingdom from the ends of the earth.
For glory and power are yours,
 through Jesus Christ, forever.”
5 Let no one eat or drink of your thanksgiving [meal] save those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord, since the Lord has said concerning this,
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs.”

Chapter 10: 

1 When you have had your fill, give thanks this way:
2 “We thank you, holy Father,
For your holy name,
 which you made dwell in our hearts,
And for the knowledge and faith and immortality,
 which you made known to us
 through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.
3 You, almighty Lord, created all things for the
  sake of your name,
 and you gave food and drink to human
  beings for enjoyment,
 so that they would thank you;
But you graced us with spiritual food and
  drink and eternal life
 through <Jesus> your servant.
4 *For all things, we thank you, Lord, because
  you are powerful.
To you be glory forever.
5 Be mindful, Lord, of your church,
 to preserve it from all evil
 and to perfect it in your love.
And < … > gather it from the four winds,
 into the kingdom which you have prepared
  for it.
For power and glory are yours forever.
6 May grace come, and may this world pass by.
Hosanna to the God of David!
If anyone is holy, let him come.
If anyone is not, let him repent.
Maranatha! Amen.”

7 Allow the prophets, however, to give thanks as much as they like.

Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 144,155. * = Textual emendation by the author

The reference in the Didache 10:3 to “spiritual food and drink” echoes the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:

1 Corinthians 10:1–4 (NRSVue) 1 I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

though Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10 for “food” and “drink” (βρῶμα brōma and πόμα poma, respectively) differ from those in the published editions of the Greek text of the Didache (τροφή trophē and ποτόν poton, respectively).

This may mean that they regarded the bread and [the drink in] the cup of these meals as being something different than ordinary food. On the other hand, the Didache seems to be contrasting the fellowship meal (introduced by giving thanks with the cup and the bread), and not the cup and the bread themselves, with the “spiritual food and drink and eternal life” we receive through Jesus.

Jesus had repeatedly said in John 6 that people were to come to him and believe in him, and in response to the disciples’ shock at being told to eat his flesh and drink his blood, Jesus explained:

John 6:63 (NRSVue) 63 “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

So an argument could be made (as many Protestants do) that “eat[ing his] flesh” and “drink[ing his] blood” is about coming to Jesus and believing in him, and not about eating his real flesh and drinking his real blood in the more literal sense that the Roman Catholic and [Eastern] Orthodox Churches teach and confess. With this understanding the bread and wine of the Lord’s supper don't become or need to become anything other than the ordinary bread and wine that they are, as “spiritual food and drink and eternal life” are about and are obtained by coming to Jesus (and hence to the Father through him) and believing in him, and not by eating the bread and drinking the cup.

II - Sacrifice

Chapter 14 of the Didache reads:

Chapter 14

1 Assembling on every Sunday of the Lord, break bread and give thanks, confessing your faults beforehand, so that your sacrifice may be pure.

2 Let no one engaged in a dispute with his comrade join you until they have been reconciled, lest your sacrifice be profaned.

3 This is [the meaning] of what was said by the Lord: “‘to offer me a pure sacrifice in every place and time, because I am a great king,’ says the Lord, ‘and my name is held in wonder among the nations.’”

[ Translation supplement

] Translation supplement

Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 194.

I wrote in The Lord’s Supper In The Church Meeting:

The church also began treating the Eucharist as being sacramental, including regarding the bread and wine as being or becoming Christ’s real body and blood. In conjunction with or subsequent to that, a hierarchical priesthood arose or was instituted in order to offer the bread and wine as sacrifices,... 

Though it is commonly held that “your sacrifice” in the Didache 14:1,2 refers to the offering of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, I suggest that the shared meal and offered prayers and worship of the believers is the sacrifice. As Paul exhorts in Romans 12:1: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.” And Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:5: “[L]ike living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (NRSVue).

Niederwimmer and Attridge explain:

What is meant by θυσία, the sacrifice to be presented at the meal?¹⁸ It seems tempting to understand θυσία to refer to the sacred action of the eucharistic celebration,¹⁹ or more precisely to associate it with the eucharistic elements (as, e.g., Justin does in Dial. 41.3 [Goodspeed, 138]).²⁰ In that case Did. 14.1–3²¹ would represent the oldest explicit instance of the understanding of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice.²² This interpretation, however, is uncertain. The context permits still another possibility: that θυσία refers in a special sense to εὐχαριστήσατε. The sacrifice that is spoken of so often here would then be the eucharistic prayer offered by the congregation.²³ It is stained if guilty persons speak it, but it is pure if their guilt is removed. But is this alternative a justifiable interpretation of the Didache text? No matter how unsatisfying it may appear to a later, more reflective consciousness, one cannot exclude the possibility that these alternatives are utterly foreign to the state of mind reflected in the text (and other, similar texts); that is, the tradition that comes to light here associates the sacred meal with the idea of sacrifice in the most general way, without making detailed specifications about what precisely is to be understood by “sacrifice” in this instance.²⁴ That seems to be the most appropriate understanding of the Didache text. In any case, it is true that participation in the θυσία demands moral purity as ritual purity—and the prior purification by exhomologesis is intended in that sense.

Footnotes

¹⁸ “During the first three centuries the Eucharist was understood in a threefold way as sacrifice. The sacrifice presented to God is, first of all, the prayers, second, the bread and wine, … third, the sacred action at the altar itself as analogue to the sacrifice of the death of Christ” (Lietzmann, Mass, 68).

¹⁹ E.g., Harnack, “Prolegomena” 139; Knopf, Lehre, 36: “θυσία: the Eucharist as sacrifice”; Lietzmann, Mass, 193; Drews, “Apostellehre” 279: θυσία refers to the Lord’s Supper, not merely the prayers, as sacrifice. The proof of this is said to be the Malachi quotation that follows; see Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 214–15.

²⁰ Περὶ δὲ τῶν ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ ὑφʼ ἡμῶν τῶν ἐθνῶν προσφερομένων αὐτῷ θυσιῶν, τοῦτʼ ἔστι τοῦ ἄρτου τῆς εὐχαριστίας καὶ τοῦ ποτηρίου ὁμοίως τῆς εὐχαριστίας, προλέγει [sc. the prophet Malachi, 1:10–11] τότε (“concerning the sacrifices offered to him by us, the nations, in every place, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and, likewise, the cup of the Eucharist”). Justin, however, is also acquainted with the other idea according to which the eucharistic prayers are a sacrifice to God: Dial. 117.1 (Goodspeed, 234).

²¹ The term θυσία is used three times (the third in the quotation from Malachi).

²² 1 Clem. 44.4 may be considered older, but the meaning of the phrase δῶρα τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς there is uncertain. Otherwise one must obviously distinguish between the explicit examples and the idea itself; the latter can be older than the former. Thus, e.g., it seems to me that 1 Cor 10:16–22 implicitly presupposes the idea of the Eucharist as sacrifice.

²³ Thus, e.g., Harris (Teaching, 106), with reference to the quotation in Ps.-Cyprian De aleat. 4 (CSEL 3.3.96): ne inquinetur et inpediatur oratio vestra (“lest your prayer be troubled and impeded”); Johannes Behm, “θύω,” TDNT 3 (1967) 189–90 (cautiously). Wengst thinks that θυσία probably means first of all the prayers spoken by the congregation and second, in a broader sense, “the congregation itself as those who celebrate” (Didache, 55).

²⁴ It seems to me that the statements of Audet (Didachè, 462–63) tend in the same direction, as do especially those of Vööbus, Liturgical Traditions 107: “According to all the canons of typology, this [the reference of the word θυσία to the Eucharist] is the answer which must be given. However, for the sake of circumspection, the question should be raised whether the same notion also covered prayer, thanksgiving, hymns, in one word, all the acts of worship. There are reasons for thinking that the line between these acts and the εὐχαριστία as ‘sacrifice’ par excellence was not yet sharply drawn.” Vööbus adds (pp. 107–8) that θυσία here does not yet have the usual meaning of propitiation for sins. Cf. also Frank, “Maleachi 1, 10ff.” 72: “It is impossible on the basis of the text to attempt to define the precise referent of ‘sacrifice,’ whether the congregation’s prayer of thanksgiving or the breaking of bread. All that is permitted us is the conclusion that the whole action of the congregation on Sunday is understood as a sacrifice before God.” According to Moll (Opfer, 110) θυσία refers to “the whole action”; 115: “the sacrificial gifts in particular,” or rather “the … eucharistic prayer of thanksgiving spoken over the bread, which remains symbolically attached to the sacrificial gifts.”

Justin Justin Martyr
Dial. Dialogue with Trypho
Did. Didache

Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 196–197.

III - Eucharist and Meal

I earlier mentioned that scholars debate when the church began separating the Eucharist from the fellowship meal. The Didache complicates the issue, and Niederwimmer and Attridge discuss how scholars have tried to explain the Didache’s structure in relation to this debate:

3. After the introductory liturgical formula περὶ δὲ τῆς εὐχαριστίας (“As for the thanksgiving”), the reader of a later era expects to find directions for the sacrament of the Eucharist, and that expectation is heightened by the context. Chap. 7 described baptism, and chaps. 9–10 are to deal with the Lord’s Supper. But what emerges in chaps. 9–10 is surprising in a number of ways. The sequence of elements appears to be reversed. The liturgical directions begin with the prayer of blessing over the wine (9.2), and only then follows the blessing of the bread (9.3–4).⁹ Still more striking is that the words of institution are absent; it is also questionable whether the prayers of blessing contain any reference at all to the kerygma of the passion.¹⁰ In addition, the expression in 10.1 (μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἐμπλησθῆναι) implies a full meal. Under these circumstances the question arises whether chaps. 9–10 really deal with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This has been one of the crucial problems in Didache research from the outset.

4. What kind of meal is this, then?

a. Among those who considered it to be eucharistic are Harnack,¹¹ Völker,¹² Greiff,¹³ Middleton,¹⁴ Creed,¹⁵ Richardson,¹⁶ Bosio,¹⁷ Glover,¹⁸ and Kraft.¹⁹ There is an especially interesting variant in the work of Hans Lietzmann.²⁰ In his interpretation this is “an agape introduced by a eucharistic celebration.”²¹ Did. 9.1–5 describes the eucharistic celebration, and this was followed by an agape, which was a complete meal (between chaps. 9 and 10). The agape meal was then in turn followed by the prayers of thanksgiving in 10.1–6; the text in 10.6 (part of the eucharistic liturgy) is misplaced.²² This description played a particular role within the framework of Lietzmann’s conception of the twofold origins of the Eucharist.

b. Among those who considered this meal an agape were F. Kattenbusch,²³ Connolly,²⁴ Vokes,²⁵ Dix,²⁶ Adam,²⁷ and Gero.²⁸

c. Drews had his own solution to the problem: the meal prayers in chaps. 9–10 are said to refer to “a Lord’s Supper celebrated in the form of a unified, complete community meal,” while chap. 14 describes the official Sunday Eucharist of the local community, led by a bishop.²⁹ Knopf’s judgment was similar. He wrote of the prayers in chaps. 9–10, “What we have here is a celebration in a smaller group where there is still a genuine meal (10.1), whereas [chap.] 14 refers to the celebration of the whole community, on Sunday, without a meal: the Mass with the consumption of the sacrament alone, as in Justin 1 Apol. 67.”³⁰

d. The opinion that the prayers in chaps. 9–10 are agape prayers followed by the Eucharist in 10.6 has been widely adopted.³¹ The most important arguments for this idea are found first in the work of Zahn³² and later   p 142  in that of Arthur Darby Nock,³³ August Arnold,³⁴ Martin Dibelius,³⁵ and others. Agape prayers (or table prayers for the community meal) followed by the Lord’s Supper are also suggested by, among others, Bultmann³⁶ and Jeremias,³⁷ and with caution by Stuiber,³⁸ Vielhauer,³⁹ and (again cautiously) now Rordorf and Tuilier as well.⁴⁰

e. Audet produced a remarkable variant on this model.⁴¹

f. Vööbus completed a thorough investigation⁴² in which he again spoke in favor of interpreting this as a eucharistic celebration. Chaps. 9–10 are eucharistic prayers, and the fact that the meal is a full-course dinner need not disturb us because Eucharist and agape had not yet been separated. Finally, Johannes Betz, adopting and correcting an idea of Peterson,⁴³ advocated the idea that the table prayers in the Didache were originally eucharistic prayers, but the redactor of the document has made them agape prayers.⁴⁴

g. Most recently Wengst has defended the idea that chaps. 9–10 depict nothing but a full-course meal.⁴⁵ It bears the name εὐχαριστία, but it has nothing to do with the Christian Lord’s Supper. The celebration spoken of in chaps. 9–10 is purely a meal for the satisfaction of hunger, and nothing else.⁴⁶

5. It seems to me that if we are to reach a conclusion in this matter we must begin with Did. 10.6, a text that must be placed before the sacramental Communion.⁴⁷ This means that the Eucharist in our sense, that is, the sacramental Lord’s Supper, must begin after chap. 10. It is characteristic that Lietzmann, who defended a different position, raised objections to the placement of 10.6.⁴⁸ If we allow the text to stand as it has been handed down we have scarcely any other choice but to suppose that 10.6 is the invitation to the Lord’s Supper, which follows immediately thereafter. In that case, however, the meal envisioned in Did. 10.1 cannot be a Eucharist in the sacramental sense, but only a community meal. This is indicated also by ἐμπλησθῆναι, if we do not attempt to interpret it artificially against its context.⁴⁹ In that case the difficulty otherwise produced by the “reversed” sequence of wine and bread in 9.2–4 disappears. If we are to suppose that the sacramental meal follows after Did. 10.6 it seems plausible (with Rordorf)⁵⁰ to understand the prayer of thanksgiving in 10.2–6 as also a kind of “preface” preceding the sacrament to follow; the text itself, in its individual phrases, favors this interpretation.

Thus we find the following progression of the liturgy: community meal (“agape”?) as meal for satisfaction of hunger, introduced in each part (9.2–4) by short blessings of wine and bread (in which the formularies point to Jewish blessings of wine and bread as models); after the full meal (10.1) follows the prayer of thanksgiving (modeled on the Jewish prayer after meals, but strongly Christianized), which at the same time introduces the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (10.2–5); this prayer in turn is followed by the invitation (10.6) and then (or after the free prayers of the prophets: 10.7) the Lord’s Supper itself.

Two major objections may be raised against this interpretation. First, the rubric in Did. 9.1 speaks expressly of εὐχαριστία. If we are to maintain the position just enunciated we must suppose that εὐχαριστία here does not have the ordinary, sacramental sense, but describes the nonsacramental community meal. This would be a singular but early usage of the word, not yet restricted to the sacrament. Correspondingly, εὐχαριστεῖν in 9.1 and 10.1 would mean the speaking of the prayers of blessing that are to be offered at the community celebration.⁵¹ These propositions would be in harmony with the archaic character of the liturgy given here.

A second difficulty results from the absence of the words of institution. If, understandably enough, one is not satisfied with Bultmann’s solution (the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper “[did] not need to be set down because it [was] familiar to all”),⁵² one might be tempted to suppose that there is a deliberate suppression of the words of institution, in order not to profane them.⁵³ This supposition is awkward, however, because there is no evidence at this early period for the so-called arcane discipline.⁵⁴ Thus there remains an unresolved problem at this point.

Footnotes

⁹ 1 Cor 10:16–17 is not a parallel. Klauck, Herrenmahl 262: “the cup-bread sequence does not indicate a different liturgical praxis, … but rests on a reversal by Paul (as in v. 21).”

¹⁰ This is asserted by Sandvik, Kommen des Herrn 59–60; “life” in Did. 9.3; 10.2–3 is said to refer to the resurrection and “servant” to Jesus’ suffering. There would thus, in fact, be an anamnesis of Jesus’ passion, “but here the accent is on his resurrection, not on his death” (p. 60).

¹¹ Harnack, Lehre, 28–36; idem, “Prolegomena,” 58–60. Harnack thought that the Eucharist was celebrated as part of the agape (Lehre, 28), as “a genuine meal” (Apostellehre, 3). Cf. also “Prolegomena,” 60: “This complete obscuring of the death of Christ and the forgiveness of sins is characteristic of the postapostolic or, better, the non-Pauline origin of the prayers.”

¹² Karl Völker, Mysterium und Agape: Die gemeinsamen Mahlzeiten in der Alten Kirche (Gotha: Klotz, 1927) 105–7, 126–28, and passim.

¹³ Pascharituale, 109–11, and passim.

¹⁴ “Eucharistic Prayers,” 259–61.

¹⁵ Didache, 374, 386–87.

¹⁶ “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 165–66: “a period when the Lord’s Supper was still a real supper, and when the joyful and expectant note of the Messianic Banquet had not yet been obscured by the more solemn emphasis on the Lord’s Passion” (p. 166).

¹⁷ Padri apostolici, 1.21.

¹⁸ “Quotations,” 26–27.

¹⁹ Kraft (Didache, 168) thinks of an “annual Baptism-Eucharist-service” as the Sitz im Leben for chaps. 9–10.

²⁰ Mass, 188–94, at 189–90.

²¹ Lietzmann, Mass, 190.

²² Lietzmann, Mass, 192–93.

²³ “Messe, I: Dogmengeschichtlich,” RE³, 12.671.

²⁴ Richard H. Connolly, “Agape and Eucharist in the Didache,” DRev 55 (1937) 477–89.

²⁵ Riddle, 197–207.

²⁶ The Shape of the Liturgy (repr. of 2d ed.; London: Black, 1970; New York: Seabury, 1982) 90.

²⁷ “Herkunft,” 32–33 (combined with certain remarks on the myron prayer: see below).

²⁸ Gero, “Ointment Prayer” 82; for his remarks in this connection regarding the myron prayer, see below.

²⁹ “Untersuchungen,” 74–79, esp. 78–79 (quotation on p. 79).

³⁰ Knopf, Lehre, 24. Cf. Klein, “Gebete,” 144–45: the meal in chap. 9 is a festive Sabbath meal held in the evening, at the beginning of the Sabbath (perhaps also a baptismal meal occasioned by the baptisms performed on Friday evening). On the Sabbath the community celebrates a festive, full-course meal, and on the Lord’s day (chap. 14) the Eucharist.

³¹ For the sequence of the two celebrations the following variants have been proposed:

    • Originally, the full meal could have been inserted in the sacramental celebration (cf. “after dining,” μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι in 1 Cor 11:25), so that the sequence would have been: eucharistic bread, full meal, eucharistic wine.
    • At an early date the full meal was transferred to the beginning of the celebration (as it appears in the Didache), so that the sequence “agape”—Eucharist resulted. Cf. also Ep. apost. 15, Ethiopic (NTApoc, 1.257–58).
    • The reverse sequence (Eucharist—agape) is attested in the Didache, according to Lietzmann.
    • Finally, there is also early evidence of the separation of Eucharist and agape.

³² Kanon, 3.293–98. The prayers in chap. 9 are agape prayers. “The prayers in Doctr. 10 constitute the transition from the agape to the sacrament proper” (p. 296).

³³ “Liturgical Notes,” 390–91.

³⁴ Der Ursprung des christlichen Abendmahls im Lichte der neuesten liturgiegeschichtlichen Forschung (2d ed.; FThSt 45; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1939) 26–31.

³⁵ “Mahl-Gebete,” 126–27: “the special sacred action, whatever its makeup, did not occur between 9 and 10, but after 10.6. Between 9 and 10 is only the meal proper” (p. 126). He then says (p. 127) that the sacred action following 10.6 is the Eucharist.

³⁶ Theology of the New Testament (trans. Kendrick Grobel; 2 vols.; New York: Scribner’s, 1951–55) 1.151: “It does appear to be true that the words of 10:6 are to be understood as a transition to the sacramental Eucharist, the liturgy of which does not need to be set down because it was familiar to all. But then it is clear that two celebrations of entirely different kind have been secondarily combined. Therefore, the celebration implied in Did. 9 and 10 existed at first by itself, and it must have been from it that the Lord’s Supper took over the title ‘Eucharist’ (‘Thanksgiving’), which is a very strange term for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.”

³⁷ Eucharistic Words, 117–18, 134.

³⁸ “Eulogia,” 914; cf. also 919.

³⁹ Geschichte, 38–39.

⁴⁰ Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 40–41. Cf. also Rordorf, “Didachè,” 15–16; Moll, Opfer 106–15.

⁴¹ Audet, Didachè 372–77. At 405–7 he distinguishes between the “breaking of the bread” (which, however, is not to be understood as an agape) and the Eucharist itself (which follows chap. 10). The whole celebration is a vigil. It is introduced by the breaking of bread. Did. 10.6 is the transitional formula: the baptized move to another room for the Eucharist proper, the “great ‘eucharist.’”

⁴² Liturgical Traditions, 63–74.

⁴³ Peterson, “Probleme” 168–71. Behind the prayers in chaps. 9–10 of the Bryennios text are remnants of ancient eucharistic prayers of the Egyptian church, or a church prayer (in chap. 10). For the Novatianist (?) redactor of the document responsible for the the Bryennios version, these prayers have been devalued and (in chap. 10) abbreviated to table prayers for ascetic circles.

⁴⁴ So Betz, “Eucharist” 251–53. Betz counts Did. 9.2–4; (9.5); 10.2, 3b–5 among the ancient parts. The blessing of the cup (9.2) has been shifted by the redactor; 10.3a is a later addition by the redactor, and 10.1 is also redactional. Klauck (Herrenmahl, 263) uses the same explanation as Betz and sees the table prayers as reflecting the influence of the Hellenistic synagogue, as does Dibelius (see below).

⁴⁵ Wengst, Didache, 43–56. Bread and wine are sufficient for the satisfaction of hunger. “From the fact that this eucharist had the character of a full meal we may by no means conclude that the meal consisted of anything more than, or different from, bread and wine. Bread was the food for satisfaction of hunger” (p. 45).

⁴⁶ Of course, in that case, Did. 10.6 creates difficulties. Wengst admits (Didache, 46) that “originally” (as he says) this was “a fragment of a Lord’s Supper liturgy.” But the text in its present context has lost that function. In that case, however, how did this liturgical text come to be placed at the end of the prayer of thanksgiving? This “may be because of its eschatological orientation” (p. 47).

⁴⁷ Vööbus’s attempt (Liturgical Traditions, 70–74) to show that Did. 10.6 is redactional (p. 73), and in fact “a general admonition and warning to the readers of the manual reminding them of the demand for purity as a requirement of preparedness” (p. 74), is not persuasive.

⁴⁸ See p. 141 above.

⁴⁹ Ἐμπλησθῆναι can be understood metaphorically; cf. Rom 15:24 and the linguistic parallels for that verse in BAGD. Thus Karl Völker (Mysterium und Agape: Die gemeinsamen Mahlzeiten in der Alten Kirche [Gotha: Klotz, 1927] 107) thought of a spiritual satisfaction in Did. 10.1. But even Zahn (Kanon, 3.293) wrote, “Here, however, it is a matter of eating bread and drinking wine, and hence ἐμπλησθῆναι is to be understood as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst.” Cf. also the analogous μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι in 1 Cor 11:25, and the replacement of the didachistic ἐμπλησθῆναι by μετὰ δὲ τὴν μετάληψιν in Const. 7.26.1 (because there, in Constitutions, the author is thinking not of a full meal but of the sacrament).

⁵⁰ “Didachè,” 18. Cf., however, Arthur Darby Nock, “Liturgical Notes,” JTS 30 (1929) 391; and Stuiber, “Eulogia” 912: “The participants in the meal are invited to the prayer after the meal in a special address concluding, simultaneously, the eating, drinking, and table conversation. This invitation and the prayer after the meal that follows provided the formal basis for the later Christian eucharistic prayer.”

⁵¹ I believe that the redactor’s usage was already different, i.e., more advanced. The term εὐχαριστία in 9.5 (redactional) could already include the Lord’s Supper. Something analogous is then true of εὐχαριστεῖν in 10.7 and 14.1.

⁵² Theology of the New Testament, 1.151.

⁵³ This is suggested by Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 40 n. 2. One should compare Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, 132–37.

⁵⁴ “To this time there is not a single secure proof of the existence of a Christian ‘arcane discipline’ in the first two centuries,” Otto Perler, “Arkandisziplin,” RAC 1 (1950) 671.

Did. Didache
Justin Justin Martyr
1 Apol. First Apology

Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 140–143.

IV - Jewish Roots

Louis Bouyer writes this about the Didache and Jewish prayers:

THE FIRST EUCHARISTIC LITURGIES: THE DIDACHE

Yet it still seems that it is the Didache which has preserved for us the most ancient example of these formulations of the eucharist where the Church, like Christ at the last Supper, still used the Jewish formulas, merely giving a new sense to their expressions with the help of a few insertions.

We need not argue at this point about the origin of the Didache, which has been placed either at the very beginning of the Church or else after the year 180 at the time of the Montanist crisis.⁶⁵

Let us say once again—and this will not be the last time—that the date and the origin of a liturgical prayer must not be confused with that of the collections in which it is found. What now interests us in the Didache for our study is only the prayers themselves. That these are of Jewish origin, as Dibelius was the first modern scholar to acknowledge,⁶⁶ is obvious once we connect them with the traditional Jewish meal prayers. We must even go further than Dibelius who thought that he had found here a prayer of hellenistic Jews. Let us recall that the Synagogue of Dura-Europos has given us a fragment of papyrus where we read a Hebrew prayer which is the central element of the berakah of the Didache.⁶⁷

But in the Didache, it is clear that the prayer used by the Christians has undergone a few additions, not without some awkwardness, which are intended to specify the renewed sense given to it.

Concerning the Eucharist, give thanks in this way.
First for the cup;
‘We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David thy servant, which thou madest known to us through thy servant (παῖς) Jesus.
To thee be the glory for ever.’
And for the broken bread;
‘We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge, which thou madest known to us through thy servant Jesus.
To thee be the glory for ever.’
As this broken bread was scattered upon the hills, and was gathered together and made one, so let thy Church be gathered together into thy kingdom from the ends of the earth; for thine is the glory and the power through Christ Jesus for ever. ‘… And after ye are filled, give thanks thus:
‘We give thee thanks, Holy Father, for thy holy name, which thou hast made to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith and immortality which thou hast made known to us through thy servant Jesus.
To thee be the glory for ever.
Thou, Lord Almighty, didst create all things for thy name’s sake, and gavest food and drink to men for their enjoyment, that they might give thee thanks; and to us thou didst grant spiritual food and drink and life eternal, through thy servant.
Above all we thank thee that thou art mighty.
To thee be glory for ever.
Remember, Lord, thy Church, to deliver her from all evil and to make her perfect in thy love, and to gather from the four winds her that is sanctified into thy kingdom which thou didst prepare for her; for thine is the power and the glory for ever.
Let grace come, and let this world pass away.
Hosanna to the God of David.
If any is holy, let him come:
if any is not holy, let him repent.
Maran atha.
Amen.’⁶⁸

We have italicized the obviously Christian additions. Their small number and their laconicism will be noted. It will also be noted that we have not italicized the mentions of the Church. The rediscovered Hebrew text shows that ἐκκλησία in our text simply corresponds to the Hebrew qahal, which for the first composers and users of the prayer simply designated the expected foregathering of the diaspora of Israel.

Arguments are still in vogue among Christian critics, who are ignorant (willingly or no) of the parallel Jewish texts, about whether we have here a eucharistic prayer in the strict sense or a prayer for the agape meal which they suppose to have already been separated from the eucharist, or again two groups of texts to be used in different celebrations. They are rendered useless once we are aware of the Jewish parallels. The whole is in continuity, and follows the traditional succession of the meal berakoth (blessing over the initial cup, blessing over the broken bread, threefold blessing over the last cup). But, in their final state, they obviously apply to a sacred meal of a Christian community that is still very close to Judaism, and it could only be its eucharist. It can be all the better understood that the Christians kept the Jewish prayers practically intact since this form of those prayers certainly represented a special form of them proper to the communities dominated by the expectation of the Messiah. What particular community was its author? This is undoubtedly an unanswerable question. But from these texts we can get some idea of what must have been done with the traditional Jewish prayers, before the first Christians, by Jews such as those from Qumrân or the Zadokite community of Damascus.

The mention of the hills where wheat was scattered indicates a Palestinian origin, or at least a Syrian one. The connection between life and knowledge, and even the mention of the spiritual food and drink, can belong just as well to this messianic Judaism as to primitive Christianity, like the insistence on the revealed divine Name and even the title “our Father” given to God. But for Christians all of this was so easily charged with a more precise content that they could hardly have felt the need at the moment to say anything more. Jesus, as Daniélou has so well shown, was this revealed divine Name for them,⁶⁹ just as he was spiritual food and drink as well as life and knowledge, which were found in faith in him and procured immortality through participation in his resurrection.

Up to the final invocation (“Let grace come, and let this world pass away”) there is nothing which may not have been Jewish before being taken over by the Christians. On the other hand, “Hosanna to the God of David” seems a cryptic expression, typical of primitive Christianity, of belief in the divinity of Jesus. It seems to be an echo, by its correction of the formula repeated by the gospels: “Hosanna to the son of David,” of the discussion Jesus had with the scribes about the 110th Psalm.⁷⁰

The following words are an invitation to communion which seems to be the most ancient expression that we have of the need for penance on the part of Christians who wish to approach the holy table after having sinned. But we might also wonder if the disciples of the Baptist, for example, could not have used them as well.

Maran atha, the expression of the expectation of the parousia, which St. Paul has preserved for us,⁷¹ confirms what he himself has allowed us to see of the eschatological orientation of these first Christian eucharists, where they “proclaimed” the death of the Lord, “until he comes.” As many an appearance of the risen Lord must have been in relation to the first celebrations, they were done in the expectation of his return. But we may indeed wonder, particularly if we consider that the entreaty for the coming of the Messiah was already, at least on feast days, to be found at the conclusion of the Jewish berakah over the cup, whether the formula Maran atha itself was not borrowed by the first Christians from other earlier groups of pious Jews.

Footnotes

⁶⁵ Cf. Audet, La Didachè (Paris, 1958).

⁶⁶ Cf. Audet, op. cit.

⁶⁷ Cf. above, p. 27.

⁶⁸ Didachè, 9 and 10. For the translation, cf. Henry Bettinson, Documents of the Christian Church (London, 1959), pp. 90 ff.

⁶⁹ J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (Chicago, 1964) p. 189 ff.

⁷⁰ Matthew 22:41–45 and parallels.

⁷¹ 1 Corinthians 16:22.

Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 115–119.

Joachim Jeremias On The Memorial Formula

Linked from The Lord’s Supper In The Church Meeting

Joachim Jeremias on the Memorial Formula

(from The Eucharistic Words of Jesus by Joachim Jeremias)

(b) Palestinian memorial formulae

Quite a different picture is to be seen when we turn to the realm of Palestinian Judaism.

1. In Palestine memorial formulae are very common in religious language.

We find them first in connection with the cult. That part of the cereal offering which was burnt is called already in the Old Testament azkarah, LXX, μνημόσυνον (‘memorial [portion]’, Lev. 2:2, 9, 16 etc.); the frankincense which is put with the shewbread is said to serve leazkarah, LXX, εἰς ἀνάμνησιν (‘as a memorial [portion]’, Lev. 24:7); the blowing of the trumpets by the priests over the burnt-offerings and the peace-offerings is to serve lezikkaron liphne elohekem, LXX, ἀνάμνησις ἔναντι τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν (‘for remembrance before your God’, Num. 10:10), i.e. to insure that God remembers mercifully the givers of the sacrifices. God’s merciful remembrance is similarly insured by the stones set in Aaron’s breastplate, which bear the names of the twelve tribes lezikkaron (‘for [continual] remembrance’, Ex. 28:12, 29; 39:7), and by the atonement money which brings the people lezikkaron liphne Yhwh (‘to remembrance before the Lord’, 30:16). The twelve precious stones which Jael will put above the cherubim, erunt in conspectu meo (God’s) in memoria (A: in memoriam) domui (A: domus) Israel.¹ Examples of the use of the construction μνημόσυνον in relation to the cult (bells and precious stones in Aaron’s breastplate, incense, the sound of trumpets) are to be found in Ecclesiasticus (45:9, 11, 16; 50:16) and will be discussed below.²

Related to the temple and synogogue (sic) cult are the donation formulae, which are also concerned with remembrance.³ The oldest is to be found in Zech. 6:14, where it is said that a crown should be deposited in the temple of Jahweh to the merciful remembrance (leḥen … lezikkaron) of certain individuals,⁴ i.e. to ensure God’s merciful remembrance. Numerous later examples have been found in synagogue donors’ inscriptions, which mostly begin with the phrase dkyr lṭb in which the passive is circumlocution of the divine name, therefore: ‘God remember so and so mercifully’.¹ In the donor’s inscription in the synagogue at Jericho this phrase is explicated by the additional sentence: ‘He who knows their names and (the names) of their children and (the names) of the people of their households, shall write them in the Book of Life (together with) the Just.’² E. R. Goodenough has shown that the conclusion to be drawn from this is that the donor’s inscription is eschatologically oriented; the prayer is that God’s remembrance may be realized through the acceptance of the donor in the Book of Life.³

Next, memorial formulae are to be found in the liturgy and in prayers. Among the special prayers (musaph prayers) of the New Year festival are the malkiyyot, zikronot and šopharot. The zikronot⁴ are prayers which enclose biblical passages concerned with ‘remembrance’, exclusively with God’s merciful remembrance of his covenant promises in the past and in the future. The closing prayer of the zikronot ends with the doxology: ‘Praised be thou, O Lord, that rememberest the covenant (zoker habberit).’ Already in the Old Testament it is said that the passover is to be celebrated lezikkaron (Ex. 12:14; Targ. Jer. 1, Onḳ. ldwkrn’). In the blessings for Sabbath, festivals and the new moon God is praised as the one who has given Sabbaths, festivals and new moons lezikkaron (b. Ber. 49a). It is said explicitly of prayers that they are raised εἰς μνημόσυνον (I Enoch 99.3), that they, together with alms, have ascended ‘as a memorial before God’ (Acts 10:4), that they are lzkrwn (1QS 10.5). An especially important example of an ancient prayer for God’s remembrance is the liturgical prayer quoted below, p. 252.

Further, the memorial formula is to be found in ritual language. The pharisaic custom of wearing prayer phylacteries on the head, which can be traced back to pre-Christian times in Palestine,⁵ is dependent upon the (literally interpreted) commandment Ex. 13:9: ‘And it shall be to you … lezikkaron (Targ. Jer. 1, Onḳ. ldwkrn) between your eyes.’

Finally, there are the Jewish tomb inscriptions in which is to be found both in Hebrew⁶ and Greek⁷—with many variations—the formula from Prov. 10:7, ‘the memory of the righteous is a blessing’. This biblical text was differently understood in hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism. In hellenistic Judaism it was interpreted, as the multilingual tomb inscriptions show, as referring to the good memories which the deceased left behind among his contemporaries. In Palestinian Judaism, on the other hand, it was understood as a wish (‘may the memory of the righteous be a blessing’) relating to the merciful remembrance of God. We can see that from, among other things, the formula of blessing to be used of a father who had been dead for more than a year: zkrwnw lbrkh lḥyy hʿwlm hb’, ‘His memory be for a blessing, (namely) for the life of the world to come’.¹ In this context also we find the εἰς-formula: LXX, Ps. 111 (112):6, εἰς μνημόσυνον αἰώνιον ἔσται δίκαιος, ‘the righteous will be for eternal remembrance’; Targ. Ps. 112:6, ldkrn ‘Im yhy zky.

2. For our question it is especially important to notice that the command for repetition εἰς ἀνάμνησιν, which we sought in vain in the hellenistic records of the institution of commemorative meals, is not only to be found in the language usage of Greek-speaking Judaism but is also—when we consider the parallel phrases εἰς μνημόσυνον and in memoriam as well as the Hebrew² and Aramaic³ equivalents—to be found with what may be described as extraordinary frequency in late Judaism as a whole. The review which we have just given shows that the formula is found several times already in the Old Testament and that it is used frequently in the Judaism of New Testament times. We find it in Ecclesiasticus, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in I Enoch, in the Essene literature, in Pseudo-Philo and in the rabbinical literature.

In the LXX we notice immediately a significant fact: whereas εἰς ἀνάμνησιν is used in the Wisdom of Solomon, a book composed in Greek, of men remembering the commandments of God (16:6), in Lev. 24:7 LXX it is used meaning ‘that God may mercifully remember’.⁴ It has the same meaning in the remaining two places in which it is found in the LXX: Ps. 69(70):1f., τῷ Δαυιδ. Εἰς ἀνάμνησιν, εἰς τὸ σῶσαί με κύριον (note the explanatory addition of the infinitive), and similarly Ps. 37 (38):1. The same is true of the parallel εἰς μνημόσυνον. Occasionally it is used in the LXX of human remembering, although almost only in the more profane context of things being written down in a book εἰς μνημόσυνον (so several times in the book of Esther).¹ In religious or cultic contexts, on the other hand, εἰς μνημόσυνον regularly² has God as the subject. Such is the case throughout Ecclesiasticus. We read that Aaron had bells on his garments εἰς μνημόσυνον υἱοῖς λαοῦ αὐτοῦ, ‘that God might remember mercifully the children of his people’ (45:9), the stones on his garment were inscribed εἰς μνημόσυνον (45:11), he offered incense and fragrance εἰς μνημόσυνον (45:16), and the priests sounded the trumpets εἰς μνημόσυνον ἔναντι ὑψίστου (50:16). Further examples of the use of εἰς μνημόσυνον in New Testament times have been found in the fragments of the Greek text of I Enoch.³ Following a series of woes over sinners it says: ‘Then make ready, you righteous, and offer your prayers εἰς μνημόσυνον; place them as a testimony before the angels, that they may bring the sins of the unrighteous before the most high God εἰς μνημόσυνον’ (99.3); again it is the merciful and punishing remembrance of God that is meant by εἰς μνημόσυνον, and μνημόσυνον has the same meaning in the two other places at which it is to be found in these fragments (97.7; 103.4).

To summarize: the formula εἰς ἀνάμνησιν and its variations were not infrequently used in Judaism in Jesus’ time with reference to human remembering, but the occasions are for the most part (a) in texts originally written in Greek such as the Wisdom of Solomon (εἰς ἀνάμνησιν), 4 Macc. 17:8 (εἰς μνείαν) and twice in Philo (εἰς μνήμην),⁴ or (b) translations of such Old Testament texts as speak of human remembrance. By far the more frequent practice of Judaism at the time of Jesus, however, is to use εἰς ἀνάμνησιν and its equivalents of God’s remembrance. The reader who will take the trouble to check the references to Old Testament and Jewish remembrance formulae gathered together on pp. 244–6 from the viewpoint as to whether they are concerned with human or divine remembrance will see at once that for the most part they speak of God’s remembrance.¹

3. Where, however, εἰς ἀνάμνησιν and its equivalents mean ‘that God may remember’, this has a twofold significance. In the first place it means that something is brought before God.² So, for example, when a bequest is deposited in the temple lezikkaron (Zech. 6:14), when of the shewbread it is said that it is laid before the eyes of the Lord εἰς ἀνάμνησιν (LXX, Lev. 24:7), when the priests sound the trumpets at a sacrifice to effect μνημοσύνη (Ecclus 50:16), when the prayers of the righteous and their complaints against the sinners are brought before God εἰς μνημόσυνον (Enoch 99.3, Gr.), when prayers and alms ascend ‘as a memorial before God’ (Acts 10:4)—always it is not simply a matter of God being reminded of a person or thing, but of something being brought before God. This is conceived quite realistically. When in Num. 5:15 it says of the offering brought on the occasion of a complaint of adultery that it is a zkrwn-offering, a θυσἰα μνημοσύνου ἀναμιμνήσκουσα ἁμαρτίαν (LXX), this means that the sin itself is ‘re-called’ before God by means of the offering, is re-presented before him,³ the past thus becoming present before God. ‘Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance (before God?’), cries the widow from Zarepheth to Elijah after the death of her son (1 Kings 17:18). The meaning could be similar when the Epistle to the Hebrews says of the Old Testament Day of Atonement sacrifices, that the blood of bulls and goats only effects ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν (10:3)—it can bring the sins to life before God, but it cannot blot them out.⁴ In all of these places ἀνάμνησις denotes representation before God.

This is, however, only one side of that which is said in the phrase εἰς ἀνάμνησιν when this is used of God. This calling into the presence of God, this bringing to life before God, this recalling of the past, this is, on the other side, effective. It has a purpose, it is intended to effect something: that God may remember—mercifully or punishingly. God’s remembrance is, namely (this is an important fact to which O. Michel called attention), never a simple remembering of something, but always and without exception ‘an effecting and creating event’.¹ When Luke 1:72 says that God remembers his covenant, this means that he is now fulfilling the eschatological covenant promise. When God remembers the iniquities of Babylon the Great (Rev. 18:5), this means that he is now releasing the eschatological judgment. When the sinner ‘is not to be remembered’ at the resurrection, this means that he will have no part in it (Ps. Sol. 3:11). And when God no longer remembers sin, when he forgets it (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12; 10:17), this means that he forgives it.² God’s remembrance is always an action in mercy or judgment.

This is therefore the result of our investigation of the use of the construction εἰς ἀνάμνησιν and its variants in Palestinian linguistic usage: (1) εἰς ἀνάμνησιν is said for the most part in reference to God and (2) it then designates, always and without exception, a presentation before God intended to induce God to act.

(c) Τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν (‘This do in remembrance of me’)

It is clear that these conclusions are important to an understanding of the command for repetition. We recall, before we turn to the exegesis of this command, that it is given twice by Paul, both after the word over the bread and after the word over the cup (1 Cor. 11:24, 25), by Luke on the other hand only after the word over the bread (22:19). Since Luke (alone) gives the ‘for you’ twice, it is not very likely that he is himself responsible for the omission of the second command for repetition. In giving the command only in connection with the bread word he is more probably reflecting an earlier stage of the tradition.³

We consider first the command τοῦτο ποιεῖτε (‘this do’) and then the purpose given εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν (‘in remembrance of me’). Τοῦτο ποιεῖτε is, as can be seen from comparison with Ex. 29:35; Num. 15:11–13; Deut. 25:9; Jdg. 12:3,⁴ an established expression for the repetition of a rite. This usage lives on in the Qumran texts.¹ 1QS 2.19 commands the annual repetition of the covenant renewal with the words kkh yʿśw, and in 1 QSa 2.21 a depiction of the ritual beginning of a meal in the Messianic time is followed by ordaining that this rite be observed, using the phrase wkḥwḳ hzh yʿś(w).² If the command for repetition uses τοῦτο in reference to a rite, then the question is which rite is intended. It cannot refer to the simple recital of the words of interpretation (that is ruled out by ποιεῖτε which contemplates action); nor can it mean the whole meal (that is ruled out by the repetition with the cup and the limiting ‘as often as you drink’, 1 Cor. 11:25); there remains only the possibility that τοῦτο refers to the rite of breaking the bread, i.e. the rite of grace at table. To be exact, it is scarcely possible that the reference is to the normal table prayer—that would need no special instruction—it is rather to the special grace by means of which the table fellowship of the Messianic community was established, which extolled the salvation activity of God and prayed for its consummation,³ a prayer which Jesus himself may have used during his lifetime.⁴ As we saw, 1QSa 2.21 uses an analogous formula to organize a specific form of the beginning of the meal and of the constitution of the table fellowship. Paul also refers the τοῦτο to the rite of grace at table; this can be seen from 1 Cor. 10:16, ‘The cup of blessing which we bless.… The bread which we break’: ‘we bless’ and ‘we break’ refer to the carrying out of the command τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, which he has in a doubled form.⁵ There is, finally, one further argument, and a strong one, in support of this interpretation of the τοῦτο ποιεῖτε as referring to the rite of grace at table. We have seen that very early, presumably even before the writing of I Corinthians, the normal meal and the Eucharist were separated from one another.⁶ That such a separation should have become desirable is understandable when we realize that in the beginning the non-baptized took part in the meal.⁷ But how did it come about that the particular, and somewhat strange, solution to the problem was chosen, of giving an independent existence to the rite of breaking the bread and repeating it together with the rite of blessing the cup at the end of the meal? This question allows of scarcely any other answer than this: even before the separation of the Eucharist from the meal proper the rite of breaking the bread (Luke 22:19) and, as a consequence, the rite of blessing the cup (1 Cor. 11:25) already possessed an importance by themselves. This intrinsic importance of the breaking of the bread, which is also expressed in the use of ‘the breaking of bread’, ‘to break bread’ as technical terms,¹ is probably due to the command for repetition.

The breaking of bread by the disciples (τοῦτο) shall be done (ποιεῖτε) εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν (‘in remembrance of me’). The expression is ambiguous. It is clear that ἐμήν² represents an objective genitive.³ The phrase therefore means: ‘that I be remembered’, ‘in rememberance (sic) of me’ (RSV). The only question is: Who should remember Jesus? The usual interpretation, according to which it is the disciples who should remember, is strange. Was Jesus afraid that his disciples would forget him? But this is not the only possible interpretation, indeed it is not even the most obvious. In the New Testament we find a parallel construction εἰς μνημόσυνον at two places: Mark 14:9 (par. Matt. 26:13) and Acts 10:4, ‘as a memorial before God’. Acts 10:4 specifically names God as the subject of the remembering⁴ and similarly Mark 14:9 par., ‘in memory of her’, in all probability relates to the merciful remembrance of God: ‘that God may (mercifully) remember her (at the last judgment)’.⁵ This is in agreement with what we saw above, pp. 246–9, that in the Old Testament and Palestinian memorial formulae it is almost always God who remembers. In accordance with this the command for repetition may be translated: ‘This do, that God may remember me.’

How is this to be understood? Here an old passover prayer is illuminating. On passover evening a prayer (yʿlh wybʾ) is inserted into the third benediction of the grace after the meal, a prayer which asks God to remember the Messiah.¹ The wording of this prayer has been transmitted with unusual accuracy (it is practically the same in all the rites)² and it may go back in essence to the time of Jesus.³ It runs: ‘Our God and God of our fathers, may there arise, and come, and come unto, be seen, accepted, heard, recollected and remembered, the remembrance of us and the recollection of us, and the remembrance of our fathers, and the remembrance of the Messiah, son of David, thy servant (zikron mašiaḥ ben Dawid ‘abdeka), and the remembrance of Jerusalem thy holy city, and the remembrance of all thy people, the house of Israel. May their remembrance come before thee, for rescue, goodness.…’⁴ In this very common prayer, which is also used on other festival days,⁵ God is petitioned at every passover concerning ‘the remembrance of the Messiah’, i.e. concerning the appearance of the Messiah, which means the bringing about of the parousia. We shall see⁶ how very strongly this petition that God may ‘remember’ the Messiah has influenced and even determined the whole passover festival: every passover celebration concluded with the jubilant antiphonal choir which one day would greet the Messiah at his entry into Jerusalem. Consequently the command for repetition may be understood as: ‘This do, that God may remember me’: God remembers the Messiah in that he causes the kingdom to break in by the parousia.

It is in this way that Paul already understood the ἀνάμνησις commandment, and his words have special weight in that they represent the oldest interpretation of the commandment which we possess. After quoting the liturgical formula, 1 Cor. 11:23–25, Paul continues: ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’ (v. 26). We must first clarify the relationship between v. 26 and the liturgical formula. Both the resumptive ‘as often as’ (ὁσάκις) and above all the ‘for’ (γάρ) show that v. 26 is directly related to the preceding sentence, i.e. to the ἀνάμνησις-commandment. ‘The Lord has commanded the repetition εἰς ἀνάμνησιν and you are indeed fulfilling this command;¹ for at every celebration of the Lord’s supper you proclaim his death.’ The ἀνάμνησις commandment is therefore fulfilled by the proclamation of the death of Jesus at the Lord’s supper. So everything depends upon how the ‘proclamation of the Lord’s death’ is to be understood. That it is a verbal proclamation, and what the probable form of this proclamation was, we saw above, pp. 106ff. The content of the ‘proclamation of the Lord’s death’ has to be deduced from the subordinate clause ‘until he comes’ (ἄχρι οὗ ἔλθῃ).² This clause is not a simple time reference, but ἔλθῃ is a prospective subjunctive which, as appears from the omission of ἄν, has a certain affinity with the final clause³ and may therefore be freely translated ‘until (matters have developed to the point at which) he comes’, ‘until (the goal is reached, that) he comes’. Actually, in the New Testament ἄχρι οὗ with the aorist subjunctive without ἄν regularly introduces a reference to reaching the eschatological goal, Rom. 11:25; 1 Cor. 15:25; Luke 21:24. ‘Until he comes’ apparently alludes to the maranatha of the liturgy⁴ with which the community prays for the eschatological coming of the Lord. This means that the death of the Lord is not proclaimed at every celebration of the meal as a past event but as an eschatological event, as the beginning of the New Covenant.⁵ The proclamation of the death of Jesus is not therefore intended to call to the remembrance of the community the event of the Passion; rather this proclamation expresses the vicarious death of Jesus as the beginning of the salvation time and prays for the coming of the consummation. As often as the death of the Lord is proclaimed at the Lord’s supper, and the maranatha rises upwards, God is reminded of the unfulfilled climax of the work of salvation ‘until (the goal is reached, that) he comes’. Paul has therefore understood the ἀνάμνησις as the eschatological remembrance of God that is to be realized in the parousia.

Paul does not stand alone in this eschatological understanding of the ἀνάμνησις-commandment; it is supported by all the other texts to which we have access. In this connection we must first consider the meal prayers of the Didache. It is significant that the grace after the ordinary meal leads up to a prayer for the eschatological remembrance of God: ‘Remember, Lord, thy Church to deliver it from all evil and to perfect it in thy love; and gather it together from the four winds, (even the Church) that has been sanctified, into thy kingdom which thou hast prepared for her’ (10.5). The community celebrating the meal petitions God that he may ‘remember’ his Church, in that he grants her the consummation and gathers her into the kingdom which he has prepared for her. Still more important is the fact that the prayer calls immediately following, which lead up to the celebration of the Eucharist, are absolutely and completely directed towards the parousia:

‘May the Lord (Coptic) come and this world pass away.
Amen.
Hosanna to the house (Coptic) of David.¹
If any man is holy, let him come; if any man is not, let him repent. Maranatha.
Amen (10.6).’

At every celebration of the Eucharist therefore the community prays for the coming of the Lord, indeed it anticipates the blessed hour by greeting the returning Lord with the jubilant Hosanna, the cry of salvation at the parousia.² With a similar intent, Luke speaks of the ‘gladness’ (ἀγαλλίασις), the eschatological jubilation, which ruled the mealtimes of the earliest community (Acts 2:46).

To summarize my argument: it seems to me certain that the command for repetition may no longer be interpreted on the basis of hellenistic presuppositions, but must be interpreted against a Palestinian background. ‘In remembrance of me’ can then scarcely mean ‘that you may remember me’, but most probably ‘that God may remember me’.¹ This means that the command to repeat the rite is not a summons to the disciples to preserve the memory of Jesus and be vigilant (‘repeat the breaking of bread so that you may not forget me’), but it is an eschatologically oriented instruction: ‘Keep joining yourselves together as the redeemed community by the table rite, that in this way God may be daily implored to bring about the consummation in the parousia.’ By coming together daily for table fellowship in the short period of time before the parousia and by confessing in this way Jesus as their Lord, the disciples represent the initiated salvation work before God and they pray for its consummation.²

If this is correct, then the question of authenticity must be raised anew. In any case a reference to the parousia is much nearer to Jesus than would be a hellenistic foundation formula. But we can say more than this. We shall see in the next section that the liturgical anticipation of the parousia was a regular part of the passover ritual. The anticipation of the antiphonal choir at the parousia, with which the passover celebration ended, is an illustration of the way in which God could be petitioned, in a liturgical rite, to remember the Messiah. What Israel did annually at the passover meal the disciples should do daily. This close relationship between the command for repetition and the passover ritual makes it very probable that the command goes back to Jesus himself, and this is supported by the considerations mentioned above, pp. 250f.

LXX Septuagint

RSV Revised Standard Version

Page 244 Footnotes

¹ Ps.-Philo, Ant. bibl. 26.12 (G. Kisch, Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [Publications in Mediaeval Studies. The University of Notre Dame 10], Notre Dame, Indiana, 1949, 187).

² See below, p. 247.

³ K. Galling, ‘Königliche und nichtkönigliche Stifter beim Tempel von Jerusalem’, ZDPV 68 (1946–51), 134–42.

⁴ For the text (lḥn) cf. O. Procksch in R. Kittel, Biblica Hebraica³, Stuttgart, 1937, ad loc.; F. Horst in T. H. Robinson—F. Horst, Die Zwölf Kleinen Propheten², Tübingen, 1954, 236; Galling, op. cit., 138.

Page 245 Footnotes

¹ S. Klein, Jüdisch-palästinisches Corpus Inscriptionum, Vienna-Berlin, 1920, 69f. no. 3 (ʿAin ed-Dōq), 75 no. 4 (Kafr Kenna), 77 no. 5 (Sepphoris), 82 no. 12 (Khirbet Kanef); E. L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, London, 1934, 72 (Beit Djibrin), 73 (ʿAin ed-Dōq), 75, 76 (Naʿaran), cf. 76 (Beit Alpha: μνησθῶσιν). Rabbinical examples in J. Jeremias, ‘Mc 14, 9’, ZNW 44 (1952–3), 106 n. 21, and in E. Bammel, ‘Zum jüdischen Märtyrerkult’, ThLZ 78 (1953), col. 124 n. 50.

² English translation by M. Avi-Yonah in D. C. Baramki-M. Avi-Yonah, Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 6 (1936–7), 76 n. 2, quoted by E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series 37) I, New York, 1952, 261; II, 1952, 129.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Text, e.g., in P. Fiebig, Rosch ha-schana (Neujahr), Giessen, 1914, 53–58.

⁵ Billerbeck IV, 251.

⁶ Klein, op. cit., 39 no. 114; J.-B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum (Sussidi allo studio delle antichità cristiane 1), Vatican City-Rome-Paris, 1936, 446 no. 625, 447f. no. 629, 453f. no. 635, 474f. no. 661. Cf. Ecclus 45:1 (of Moses): zkrw lṭwbh.

⁷ Frey, op. cit., 60 no. 86, 140f. no. 201 (268f. no. 343), 287f. no. 270, cf. 361f. no. 496: simply μνησθῇ.

Page 246 Footnotes

¹ b. Ḳid. 31b.

² lzkrwn, lʾzkrh, lzkr.

³ ldkrn, ldwkrnʾ.

⁴ See above, p. 244.

Page 247 Footnotes

¹ But each time (1:1p; 2:23; 9:32; 10:2) without an equivalent in the Hebrew text.

² LXX, Ps. 111 (112):6, εἰς μνημόσυνον αἰώνιον ἔσται δίκαιος, ‘the righteous will be for eternal remembrance’, is to be judged according to what has been said on Prov. 10:7 above, p. 246.

³ Ed. C. Bonner, The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek (Studies and Documents 8), London, 1937.

⁴ Philo, Quis rer. div. heres sit 170; De vita Mos. 1.186.

Page 248 Footnotes

¹ That additions such as Acts 10:4 (ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ θεοῦ), Ecclus 50:16 (ἔναντι ὑψίστον), I Enoch 99.3 (ἐνώπιον τοῦ ὑψίστου θεοῦ) are found only occasionally is to be explained by the fact that the formulae are firmly established.

² R. Stählin, ‘Herrenmahl und Heilsgeschichte’, Evangelisch-lutherische Kirchenzeitung 2 (1948), 153b.

³ Dix, Liturgy, 161.

⁴ Ibid.

Page 249 Footnotes

¹ O. Michel, μιμνῄσκομαι κτλ., TWNT IV (1942), 678.26f.

² Heb. 10:18: therefore there is no further need from that moment for any sin-offerings. The meaning of the cry of the penitent thief in Luke 23:42 is similar: with the words ‘Jesus, remember me when you come as king’ (ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ [א C  Θ pl Th] σου = bemalkutak, ‘when you become king’, i.e. at the Parousia) he asks that Jesus speak for him at the final judgment.

³ Schürmann, Einsetzungsbericht, 70.

⁴ All of these texts have kakah (LXX, οὕτως) with a jussive form of ʿaśah (LXX, ποιεῖν).

Page 250 Footnotes

¹ This was pointed out to me by my son, Gert Jeremias.

² On this text see above, p. 35.

³ Cf. Did. 9.1–10.5.

⁴ On this possibility see above, p. 109 n.8 and p. 120 n. 3 under 2a.

⁵ Cf. also 1 Cor. 11:26, where the words ‘as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup’ also describe the carrying out of the doubled τοῦτο ποιεῖτε-command (see below, pp. 252f.).

⁶ See above, p. 121.

⁷ See above, p. 133.

Page 251 Footnotes

¹ On these see above, p. 120f.

² The emphatic position of the possessive pronoun before the noun has led many to see a contrast between the remembrance of Jesus and the remembrance of the Passover (e.g. O. Procksch, ‘Passa und Abendmahl’, in H. Sasse, Vom Sakrament des Altars, 23). But it is most questionable whether in Aramaic the pronoun was especially emphasized (by dili).

³ An objective genitive with ἀνάμνησις, μνημόσυνον is the established usage, cf. Mark 14:9; Wisd. 16:6; Ecclus 10:17; 23:26; 38:23; 39:9; 41:1; 44:9; 45:1; 46:11; 49:1, 13; LXX, Esth. 8:12 u; 1 Macc. 3:7, 35; 8:22; 12:53; 2 Macc. 6:31.

⁴ Cf. Num. 10:10, LXX, ἔσται ὑμῖν ἀνάμνησις ἔναντι τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν.

⁵ I have attempted to give the linguistic arguments in support of the eschatological interpretation of Mark 14:9 (‘Amen, I say to you, when [God’s angel] proclaims the [triumphant] message in all the world, then will what she has done be told [before God], so that he may [mercifully] remember her’) in ‘Mc 14, 9’, ZNW 44 (1952–3), 103–7. Cf. also Jeremias, Promise, 22f.

Page 252 Footnotes

¹ The prayer is to be found in all the countless editions of the passover haggadak. In the Schocken Books edition, New York, 1953, it is on pp. 63f.

² Elbogen, Gottesdienst, 125.

³ Elbogen, Gottesdienst, 125: ‘since the days of the first Tannaites’. Elbogen gives the evidence for this on p. 533.

⁴ Quoted from The Passover Haggadah, Schocken Books, New York, 1953, 63.

⁵ S. R. Hirsch, Siddur tephillot Yiśrael. Israels Gebete³, Frankfurt a. M., 1921, 146, 274, 330, 396, 598, 624, 657, 684. Cf. H. Kosmala, ‘Das tut zu meinem Gedächtnis’, Novum Testamentum 4 (1960), 85.

⁶ See below, pp. 256ff.

Page 253 Footnotes

¹ In view of the preceding γάρ, καταγγέλλετε must be taken as indicative; before the γάρ we must therefore again (cf. p. 211 n. 4) supply the thought which is to be supported by it.

² Cf. ‘d bw’ 1QS 9.11, and ʿdʿmwd CD 12.23; 20.1.

³ Blass-Debrunner, §383.2.

⁴ J. Schniewind, ἀγγελία κτλ., TWNT I (1933), 70 n. 25.

⁵ Schlatter, Paulus, 325.

Page 254 Footnotes

¹ ‘The house of David’ is not, as Audet, La Didachè, 422, erroneously supposes, the temple, which is never called ‘the house of David’, but the ruling house. ‘Hosanna to the house of David’ therefore means ‘Hosanna to (the descendant of) the ruling house!’, ‘Hosanna to the Messiah!’

² See below, pp. 258ff. For the history of the hosanna greeting and the change of its significance from a cry for help to an acclamation, see below, p. 260 n. 4.

Page 255 Footnotes

¹ Cf. LXX, Ps. 131 (132):1: μνήσθητι, κύριε, τοῦ Δαυιδ, ‘Lord, remember David’.

² A. D. Müller, Leipzig, remarks on this: ‘The objective theological content of the Lord’s supper celebration and the activity of the community are not mutually exclusive, but rather one demands the other. Precisely because God himself is the acting subject of the service in the vicarious death of the servant of God for the “many”, the world’s people, the community is included in the sacramental accomplishment not only as object but also as subject with full responsibility.’ (Letter dated May 13, 1950.)

Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (London; Philadelphia, PA: SCM Press; Trinity Press International, 1966), 244–255.

Paul’s Church Meetings

Linked from The Lord's Supper In The Church Meeting

Paul's Church Meetings

Michael B. Thompson provides a comprehensive description of Paul’s vision for church meetings and worship:

Paul’s vision begins and ends with God, whose mercies in Christ by the Spirit are the ground, motivation, and enablement of praise. That praise is characterized by thanksgiving, and glorying in what God has accomplished (in addition to Rom 1 and 12: Col 3:17; 1 Thess 5:18; 1 Cor 11:26). It includes considerable singing of psalms and hymns (1 Cor 14:26; 14:15; cf. Col 3:16; Eph 5:19); we may have a song fragment in Phil 2:6–11 (although this continues to be disputed); cf. Eph 5:14; 1 Tim 3:16; etc. Prayer is an obvious feature (1 Cor 14:15), including blessings and thanksgivings in the Spirit (with interpretation, 1 Cor 14:16f), supplications and intercessions (e.g. Phil 4:6; 1 Thess 5:17). In particular we find prayer for Christ’s return (1 Cor 16:22; cf. Rev 22:20), and in a later letter, prayer for those in authority (1 Tim 2:1ff, 8).

Paul assumes a coming together (1 Cor 11:18, 20) for worship that remembers (particularly in the Lord’s Supper, 1 Cor 11:24f), that proclaims (1 Cor 11:26), and that is worthy (1 Cor 11:27–33). The Lord’s Supper is celebrated as part of a meal, which is to be entered into with discernment and consideration for the needs of each other (1 Cor 11:17–34). It is a sharing with and in Christ (1 Cor 10:16, 21f). The frequency with which Paul’s churches met and observed the eucharist is uncertain; at any rate, corporate worship was regularly on Sundays (1 Cor 16:2).

Worship is fundamentally corporate and united. We have already seen this implied in the singular ‘sacrifice’ (θυσία) of Rom 12:1, and 1 Cor 11:18 makes this explicit. It is inclusive of Jews and Gentiles glorifying God with one voice (Rom 15:6, 7–13—arguably the climax of Romans; cf. 1 Cor 12:13), if exclusive with regard to those who cause dissensions in opposition to the teachings received by the community (Rom 16:17; 1 Cor 5:3–5). It is characterized by uniformity of aim (Phil 2:2; Rom 15:5) but is wide enough to allow for diversity of expression and practice (Rom 14:5f).

Spiritual gifts are to be used for the common good (1 Cor 12:7). The gifts to be foremost in worship are the greater gifts (1 Cor 12:31), i.e. those which are intelligible and build up the community (Fee 1994:196f; 1 Cor 14:26). Love should govern their use (1 Cor 13; 14:1) and is the goal of instruction (Phil 1:9; cf. 1 Tim 1:5). Potentially each person has a contribution to make (1 Cor 14:26), although unintelligible speech should be accompanied by interpretation (1 Cor 14:27f), and prophecies should be weighed (1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:21). Like synagogue meetings, it probably includes readings from the Old Testament (Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:6; cf. 2 Tim 3:16); the reading of Paul’s letters has already been noted.

Paul envisions a worship that is ‘free’, enabled and empowered by an unquenched Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), yet orderly (1 Cor 14:40). This call to order implies local leadership (cf. Rom 12:8; 1 Thess 5:12; Phil 1:1), although some students of Paul see the existence of leaders in worship as a later development. Both sexes played leading roles (women prayed and prophesied, 1 Cor 11; cf. Horbury in this volume), but there were differences and limits as seen to be appropriate (1 Cor 14:34f). Here, as no doubt in many other respects, Paul’s vision was constrained by social realities. We may consider him to have been inconsistent in carrying through his declaration of equality (Gal 3:28; see Chester’s discussion in this volume), but any failure to eliminate all ‘barriers’ between men and women was probably rooted in a concern for mission; Paul urged what was ‘seemly’ in order not to erect barriers to others coming to faith. The same issue of consistency appears in his own policy of being all things to all people, that he might by all means save some (1 Cor 9:22).

For Paul, worship is not simply cerebral but worked out in appropriate postures (kneeling: Rom 14:11; Phil 2:10; cf. Eph 3:14; prostration: 1 Cor 14:25; standing: 1 Tim 2:8), attire (1 Cor 11:4–16) and ritual acts (the holy kiss: Rom 16:16; 1 Thess 5:26; 2 Cor 13:12) which signify and depict theological truths (baptism as a death: Rom 6:3f, and resurrection: Col the washing/rebirth in Tit 3:5; eucharist proclaiming the Lord’s death: 1 Cor 11:26). It could take particular liturgical forms such as the Amen (1 Cor 14:16) uttered in Christ’s name (2 Cor 1:20), the Maranatha formula (1 Cor 16:22), the cry ‘Abba’ (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), confession formulae (Rom 10:10; Phil 2:11), benedictions (Gal 6:18; Phil 4:23; 1 Cor 16:23), doxologies (Rom 1:25; 9:5; 2 Cor 11:31; Rom 11:36; Gal 1:5; cf. 2 Tim 4:18; Eph 1:3), and the triadic blessing (2 Cor 13:14).

Where then would Paul ‘go to church’ today? Who best reflects his ‘vision’ for worship? An unspoken assumption in such questions of course is that his vision remained static and never changed. Nevertheless, we can offer a few observations with some degree of certainty. Besides the usual ingredients of prayer, praise and instruction that we might expect, the sort of gathered worship Paul hoped would characterize his congregations featured freedom yet form, unity yet diversity, authority yet mutuality. Gathered worship was not escape from the world where a life of worship is lived, nor an individualistic exercise in piety, nor essentially a one-way flow from a person ‘up front’ to the rest of the flock. Precisely in his insistence on the use of gifts and mutual ministry (1 Cor 14:26) he summoned his hearers to take risks that many find difficult to accept today. The risk includes the possibility of a genuine encounter with God that challenges, renews and transforms—and potentially embarrasses. The extent to which a church replaces that risk with control reflects its departure from at least a part of Paul’s vision.

Michael B. Thompson, “Romans 12:1–2 and Paul’s Vision for Worship,” in A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology in Honour of J. P. M. Sweet, ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Michael B. Thompson (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1997), 129–131.

James D. G. Dunn writes the following:

34.3 Paul. Of the two early patterns of worship [temple and house-meeting] Paul was apparently more influenced by the free house churches of the Hellenists, though to what extent is not clear. Certainly house churches were an important locus of community life in Paul’s mission (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philemon 2), as well of course as the larger (weekly?) gatherings of the whole community (1 Cor. 11; 14; cf. 16:2). But his concept of worship is more than a rationalizing of inherited forms and stems primarily from his concept of the local church as the body of Christ. We recall that the body of Christ is for Paul the charismatic community, that is, the community functioning charismatically. The body of Christ comes to expression, lives and moves, through the mutual interplay of gifts and ministries, the diversity of manifestations being integrated into a unity of purpose and character by the controlling Spirit of Christ (see above §29). But this means that the body of Christ comes to visible expression pre-eminently in and through worship: it is most clearly in worship that the diversity of functions (= charismata) demonstrate their mutual interdependence and unifying force (hence the discussion of charismata in 1 Cor. 12–14 centres on the assembly at worship).

How did this work in practice? The clearest answer is given in 1 Cor. 14:26–33a: ‘When you meet for worship, each of you contributes a hymn, a word of teaching, a revelation, an utterance in tongues, an interpretation …’. Here, beyond dispute, Paul conceives of worship as a very spontaneous affair, without regular structure or form, and wholly dependent on the inspiration of the Spirit. The only regulations he gives are: that there should not be an unbroken sequence of glossolalic utterances—an utterance in the vernacular, an interpretation, must follow each utterance in tongues, otherwise tongues should be wholly excluded; that each prophetic utterance should be evaluated by the prophets and/or the whole community (cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–15; 1 Thess. 5:19–22); and that no more than two or three glossolalic and two or three prophetic utterances should be allowed in any meeting. The period of worship then would consist in a sequence of contributions in which those with regular ministries would participate (prophets and teachers), but where any member might experience the urging of the Spirit to manifest a particular charisma (including a prophecy or teaching). The regular ministries were not expected to dominate the meeting or necessarily to provide leadership. Leadership would be provided by the Spirit, possibly through a regular ministry of leadership, but possibly also through an occasional gift of guidance or word of wisdom (1 Cor. 6:5; 12:28). As we noted above (pp. 122f.), in I Corinthians anyway Paul does not seem to envisage any established leadership as such.⁷

Whether women participated in this charismatic worship is not clear. 1 Cor. 14:33b–36, if original, appears to exclude any contribution from women, but a less rigorous interpretation is possible (for example, it forbids only their interrupting the process of evaluating prophetic utterances (14:29–33a) by asking unnecessary questions), and should probably be accepted in view of 1 Cor. 11:5 which clearly envisages women prophesying. Compare Acts 2:17f.; 21:9; Col. 4:15 and Rom. 16:1–12 (see above p. 134).

Finally we might note that there is no hint in 1 Cor. 11 or 14 as to how the meeting for worship was related to the common meal. The discussion of each does not seem to embrace the other or to leave much room for the other, and we best assume that Paul envisages two separate gatherings for the different purposes (cf. particularly Pliny, Epp., X.96.7).

Footnotes

⁷ However, one of my doctoral students, John Chow, argues that the leaders could not provide the answer because they were the problem!

and:

40.3 The Lord’s Supper in Paul. Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper only in 1 Cor. 10:14–22; 11:17–34, but these few paragraphs are enough to show us where the communion celebrated in the Pauline churches was continuous with earlier tradition and where it had developed. The continuity with earlier tradition is most evident at three points. (1) Paul cites old tradition as the basis for his understanding of the Supper (1 Cor. 11:23–25)—a tradition which stems ultimately from the last supper of Jesus and his disciples. This is tradition which must have been handed on to Paul from earlier believers, even though its authority for Paul lay in the fact that he received it ‘from the Lord’ (see above p. 72). (2) The continuing eschatological emphasis of the Supper—1 Cor. 11:26: ‘… until he comes’. Though we should also note that the emphasis is not so strong: indeed v. 26 (‘For …’) looks very much like an explanatory note added by Paul himself rather than part of the tradition he received. (3) The Supper is still seen as a fellowship meal: in 1 Cor. 10:18–22 he draws a double comparison between the sacrificial meal in Israel’s cult (Lev. 7:6, 15), the Lord’s Supper and the feast in a pagan temple—and the point of comparison is that each is an expression of fellowship (koinōnoi, ‘partners’—10:18, 20);²⁰ and in 1 Cor. 11:17–34 the Lord’s Supper is clearly thought of as taking place within the context of a meal.

At the same time certain developments are also evident.

(a) The relation between the fellowship meal and the words of interpretation over the bread and the wine is now somewhat clearer, since the partaking of the bread and the wine seems to be in process of becoming something in itself and to come at the end of the meal. This is somewhat speculative on the basis of a few clues, but the probability is that the rich Corinthian Christians were going ahead with their meal, while the poor (slaves, etc.) were usually able to arrive only in time for the Lord’s Supper itself (11:21, 33). Hence the rebukes of 11:27, 29: ‘not discerning the body’ probably means an eating and drinking which does not express fellowship with the poor and weak; ‘guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord’ is probably a re-expression of 8:11f. and means sinning against the weaker brother.²¹

(b) Although the eschatological note is present, the backward look to Jesus’ death is much stronger in 11:26. Here a shift in emphasis again becomes evident—from the fellowship meal as a whole as a symbol of the messianic feast, to the Lord’s Supper as such as a proclamation of Jesus’ death.

(c) Has Paul also allowed himself to be influenced by syncretistic thought so that the Lord’s Supper has become something of a magical rite? The case has been argued on the basis that pneumatikos in 10:4 should be understood to mean ‘conveying Pneuma (Spirit)’, that 10:16f. reveals a much closer equation between bread and body of Christ and between wine and blood of Christ than that of symbolism alone, and that 11:29f. is evidence of Paul’s own superstition at this point.²² Paul’s language is certainly open to such an interpretation. But it is clear from 10:1–13 that Paul is warning against precisely such a sacramentalism on the part of the Corinthians—such a view of the Lord’s Supper is a corruption of the Lord’s Supper. And since 10:1–4 is an allegory (‘the rock’ in the tradition is to be interpreted allegorically as ‘Christ’, etc.) pneumatikos is better understood in the sense ‘allegorical’ (see above p. 98). The passage 10:16f. could be taken as implying the Hellenistic idea of union with the cult deity (Christ) through eating his body. But v. 20 shows that Paul is thinking rather in terms of fellowship or partnership—a fellowship expressed through participating in the same meal, at the same table. The emphasis is not so much on what was eaten and drunk as on the sharing (koinōnia) of the same bread and cup (v. 16); believers were one because they shared the same loaf (v. 17) not because of some efficacy in the bread itself (see above p. 179 and n. 20). And in 11:29f., since the Corinthians made too much of the Lord’s Supper rather than too little (10:1–13), Paul is probably thinking of the illness and death as a result of sinning against the community (the body of Christ—cf. 5:5) rather than as an effect of the elements themselves.²³

Footnotes

²⁰ Not that each is a sacrificial meal; see e.g. W. G. Kümmel, An die Korinther, HNT, 1949, pp. 181f.; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, A. & C. Black 1968, pp. 235ff. See also below n. 23.

²¹ Schweizer, Lord’s Supper, pp. 5f.

²² See e.g. E. Käsemann, ‘The Pauline Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper’ (1947–48), ENTT, pp. 108–35; J. Héring, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 1948, ET Epworth 1962, p. 120.

²³ See e.g. A. J. B. Higgins, The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament, SCM Press 1952, pp. 72f.; Kümmel, Theology, pp. 221f.

James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, Third Edition. (London: SCM Press, 2006), 140–141; 178–180.