RICHARDSON, Eastern and Western Liturgies. the Primitive Basis of Their Later Differences. a Note...

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Harvard Divinity School

Eastern and Western Liturgies: The Primitive Basis of Their Later Differences: A Note forthe Study of Eucharistic OriginsAuthor(s): R. D. RichardsonSource: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 125-148Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School

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EASTERN AND WESTERN LITURGIES: THEPRIMITIVE BASIS OF THEIR LATERDIFFERENCESA NOTE FORTHE STUDYOF EUCHARISTIC RIGINS

R. D. RICHARDSONRIPoN HALL, OXFORD

THE DIFFERENCESetween the developed liturgies of East andWest appear at first sight to be matters of purely ecclesiologicalinterest, but more closely examined they are found to shed lighton primitive Christianpractice and on the growth of the text ofthe New Testament. The differences themselves are commonlystated thus: 1

(i) In the recital of institution as concerns the bread, theWest follows more closely the form of Matthew and Mark, theEast that of Paul and Luke;(2) After the recital of institution the West deems con-secrationto have been effected,while the East requiresthat aninvocation of the Holy Spirit yet be pronounced.The second of these statements is accurate; but the first isof too generala nature and concealsdivergencesfar more radi-cal than an appeal to slightly different texts. Moreover thereis another important difference between the liturgies:(3) The West has inherited the idea of gift-sacrifice, the

East that of communion-sacrifice.It is worth while to examine these differencesin some detailand to trace if possible the history of their development.I (a). The recitals of institution as a whole, in the developedliturgies of both East and West, purport to describe the actionsand the words of Jesus at the Last Supper; and interest centreson differences in the words said to have been spoken over thebread. In the Roman Canon, both in its Gregorianand Gelasianforms, we read "This is my body"; and this wording, which isthat of both Matthew and Mark, is supported by the so-called"Ambrosian"rite, by the treatise de Mysteriis and, much earlier,1 Cf. e.g. E. Bishop, Observations on the Liturgy of Narsai (Texts and Studies,viii.I.I45).

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126 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWby Justin Martyr. On the otherhand, the treatise de Sacramentisand the liturgy of the Roman (?) schismatic Hippolytus add"whichis broken for many (you)"; and this form of recital, al-thoughwe shall see that it is typically Eastern,is matchedby somesimilarlyreflective and explanatory languageboth in the prayersof the later Roman rite itself and in the writings of the WesternFathers. For this reason, some have assumed that the laterRoman rite represents a revision of Western rites whose earlyform did not differ materially from those of the East. But thisis too ready an assumption; it overlooks the significanceof thedivergencebetween the two forms of bread-recital and does notexplain why they mingled in the West for, possibly, the first sixcenturies. A more likely hypothesis is that there existed fromearly times (exactly how early will be suggested in due course)a Western type of rite upon which Eastern influences were forlong allowed to exercise an uncheckedinfluence. If so, the finaladoptionof one form of bread-recital,"This is my body,"markedin the West a reversion to type. Now this type is quite insuffi-ciently explained by the traditional statement that "the Westfollows more closely Matthew and Mark"; for, in the first place,it follows them exactly, and in the second place it must do morethan merely copy a text common to both these Gospels. An or-ganic relationshipof this form of bread-recital with a particularinterpretationof the Last Supperis indicated,and it is importantfor us to know precisely whence that interpretationderives. Forthe moment, however, we only note that of these two GospelsMark's alone can be of Westernorigin; the questionof a possiblerelationshipbetween the Western rite and a particular Gospel isone that will arise again as we consider the other distinguishingfeatures of the West. But first it will be more convenient toexaminethe characteristicEastern bread-recital,the evidence forwhich is fuller and the theological implicationsof which are moreeasily discerned.

I(b). Apart from unimportantdifferences,all fully developedEasternliturgies- whetherSyrian, EgyptianorlaterSyro-Byzan-tine - read "This is my body which is broken for you for remis-sion of sins": to whichmost Syriacliturgiesadd "andlife eternal."



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EASTERNAND WESTERNLITURGIES 127If then it be said, as in the statement of Eastern and Westerndifferencesgiven in the first paragraphof this essay, that thereis agreementbetween the Eastern bread-recitaland the wordingof Paul and Luke, this agreement is plainly of a very generalnature only. Even as regardsthe first section of the bread-recital- "This is my body which is broken for you" - the word"broken"is not properly attested in either Paul or Luke. Thelonger text of Luke (xx.19b) reads not "broken" but "given,"while the shorter and no doubt more originalLucan text omits allthe words after "body." For the wordingof Paul, i.e. of I Cor.xi.24, the evidence is divided. The consensus of the old Latin sup-ports "broken" but the word does not appear to have been in-cluded in the old Syriac, whilst the main Greek MSS likewiseomit this, or any cognate, word; so that we must concludethat theauthenticreadingof I Cor.xi. 24 is "This is my body which is foryou." Therefore,as regardsthe word "broken,"which is the cruxof the liturgical recital, the East cannot be said to follow thegenuine text of eitherLuke or I Cor.xi. 24.Whence then is the authority for this word derived? Andwhence derives the authority for the other expressions in theEastern bread-recital? The most probable answer is that it de-rives from what the East calls "Holy Tradition." Lietzmannhasalready shown with great clearness, in chapter ii of Messe undHerrenmahl,that the characteristic feature of Eastern recitals asa whole is their divergencefrom Biblical texts, due to the pressureof liturgical and doctrinal traditions; e.g., after the fashion ofthe celebrant,Jesus himself is said to have "shown"the bread toGod and to have mingled the chalice at the Last Supper. Similarinfluencesmay be expected to have shaped the actual bread andwine recitals; and this is manifestly so as regardsthe final words,"for life eternal," which form no part of any New Testamentaccount of the institution of the eucharist. This expression ispart of the earliest languageof the Church on the fruits of unionwith Christ; it occurs, for example, in John vi, in the prayers ofthe Didache and those of other liturgies; but it only enters therecitals of institution under the influenceof a particulardevelop-ment in traditional Eastern eucharistic theology. Thus: in theliturgicalhomilies of Narsai of Edessa and Nisibis (c. 437 A.D.),



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128 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWthe elements are said to be transformed,by consecration,fromthedead into the risen body of Christ; after which, continuesNarsai,"the priest begins to break the body of Christ (that sits in glory). . . and to distribute." 2 As a result of such teaching, both thebread and wine recitals of many Syriac liturgies were expandedby the words "for life eternal." It should be noted however thatthe teaching expresses itself primarily in relation to the bread."Break the body . . . and distribute" (even though the bodyinclude the blood) assumes that bread, and the breaking of it,provided the primary symbols; and nowhere in this liturgy arethese words supplementedby a separate elucidationof the sym-bolism of the wine in relation to eternal life.3A similar tradition,centringon the breakingof bread, appearsalso to have governed the introduction of the phrase "for re-mission of sins" into the Eastern recitals of institution. Its earli-est undisputed appearance is in the bread and wine recitals ofthe fourth century Apostolic Constitutions viii; yet the phraseappearsin the New Testament (Matthew only) in relation to thebread alone. Moreover the bread-recital of this liturgy is linkedwith the words"This is the mysteryof the New Covenant,"wordswhich the Gospel again links with the cup alone; and this time,they are not even repeatedin the cup-recitalof the liturgy. Noth-ing but a strong tradition as to the primacy of the bread canaccount for so startling a divergence from the Gospel. A studyof the sources of Apostolic Constitutions viii confirms the con-clusion that "for remission of sins" cannot merely have beenassimilated to the bread-recitalby parallelismwith the cup-recital.One of these sources is the liturgy of Hippolytus, whose bread-recital we have already noted to be Eastern in its form of "Thisis my body which is broken for you." We now observethat someMSS add "for remission of sins," but that they make no similaraddition to the cup-recital. If this expansionof the bread-recitalbe part of the original text, we get a very early date for the de-

2Texts and Studies viii (ed. R. H. Connolly), pp. 4, 22, 29.SIn a subsequent passage Narsai uses the phrase "medicine of immortality"to include both the bread and the wine, when it could so well have been reservedfor the wine alone. It is interesting that the logos-epiclesis of Sarapion does ex-actly the same. Can this be explained except by the hypothesis that the wine wastraditionally regarded as subsidiary?



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EASTERNAND WESTERNLITURGIES 129velopment; if it be not original, then its witness to the centralityof the brokenbread at the later date when, in this case, the wordswill have been inserted in the Eastern MSS only, is even moreremarkable.4 The other source of Apostolic Constitutions is anearlier form of the Antiochenerite, and althoughthis form is onlyconjectural,it is consideredto have resembledthat of Addai andMari (see p. 142), which in turn invites comparisonwith the riteof the Didache, whose stress on the breaking of bread is undis-puted.

Only a most tentative conjecture can be made as to the kindof way in which "remission of sins" first entered the Easternbread-recital. I have shown elsewhere, with reference to theDidache, that althoughits Supper-rite s not based on a commandheld to have been given by Jesus, it may, nevertheless, look tothe Last Supper5 as the occasion of the founding of a Covenantunder which the worshippers held themselves, at least at themoment of communion,to be free of sin. If this be so, then itwould be naturalfor the thoughtto findexpression n the eucharis-tic prayer at that point in the developmentof the rite when thebroken bread which is its central feature had come to be re-garded as setting forth Christ's death. The fact that the NewCovenant,set up at the Last Supperfor the remissionof sins, hadbeen related by Matthew to the cup, would create no great diffi-culty in the Churchof the Didache, for the Didache itself, whilstappearingto know Matthew better than any other Gospel, usesit in general with freedom. Hence the association of the NewCovenant for remissionof sins with the breadin all those Churches

"The combination of Eastern and Western elements in Hippolytus has not re-ceived sufficient attention; nor has that in Justin, of whose eucharistia the liturgyof Hippolytus may well be a formalized expression. Justin was a native of theEast who came under the influence of Rome; Hippolytus was apparently of Romanbirth, but his teacher, Irenaeus, had been a disciple of Polycarp; and this mixtureof influences is proportionately reflected in their rites. See infra, p. 132 concern-ing Justin's rite. In that of Hippolytus, the central and controlling position givento the words of institution is a definitely Western trait; and because they acquiredthat position early in the West, their expansion from the brief "This is mybody," even though made under Eastern influences, could take place earlier thanin the East itself, where the recital of institution seems for long to have formedno essential part of the eucharistia. See pp. 141.SIn the English edition of Lietzmann's Messe und Herrenmahl, by D. H. G.Reeve and R. D. Richardson. Cf. A. D. Nock in The Trinity and The Incarnation,ed. J. A. Rawlinson, p. 130.



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130 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWwhose liturgies appearto have a root in the Didache or in a primi-tive type of similarnatureto that of the Didache.Of earlier inclusion in the Eastern bread-recital than the twophrases already discussed is the word "broken." We have seenalready that it has no place in any Biblical words attributed toJesus at the Last Supper, so that we must conclude that it toooriginated in a tradition that centred on the actual breaking ofbread. How important was the broken bread, KXdo-pa, s clearboth from the rite of the Didache and also from that of Hippoly-tus. And the latter not only uses this word of the fragmentsdistributedin communion,but accompaniesthese alone (as doesthe later liturgy of Narsai already mentioned) by proper wordsof administration: "The Bread of Heaven in Christ Jesus."6This word KXao-dotaappears in the Gospels only in the story ofthe Feeding of the Five Thousand, and it provides a furtherexampleof the way in which all traditionsrelevant to the eucharistwere incorporated n the final form of the Eastern bread-recitals.In these, the word took its participial form, KXWUJUEVOV,s qualify-ing aprov.There remain the final words only, "This is my body," theoriginal nucleus of the bread-recital. The whole of the earliestevidence for the Eastern rite - as represented, that is, by theshorter text of Luke, Acts, Didache and perhaps the Ignatianepistles '- shows that it was an act of spiritual fellowship. OnlyLuke and I Cor. x, of course, use the actual phrase "body ofChrist,"but in all alike the bread was broken and distributed asa symbolof the union that is in Christ. No doubt it had this sig-nificance when Jesus broke bread with his disciples in Galilee;and "body of Christ" in this sense is also an integral part of

6 The words for the cups of water, milk and wine in the Paschal eucharist heredescribed have no closeness to the thing signified and are plainly secondary. Theyconsist merely in a Trinitarian formula (to which is added a mention of the Church)spread over the administration of each cup thrice: "In God the Father Almighty;And in the Lord Jesus Christ; And in (the) Holy Spirit (and) in the HolyChurch." Cf. Ed. G. Dix, p. 42.

SIgnatius of course stresses not only the union of Christians but also their needof ecclesiastical unity; yet when he turns to the "sacrifice of the altar" in supportof it, his appeal is based chiefly on the broken bread: "breaking one bread" etc.He refers only once to the cup in this connection. Cf. ad Ephes. v, xx, ad Phil.iv.2. This is particularly interesting if the letters are not genuine, but belong tothe middle of the second century.



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EASTERNAND WESTERN LITURGIES 131Pauline thought.s But the phrase does not bear this meaning inMark andI Cor.xi, so that "This is my body" cannot have enteredthe Eastern liturgy in the first place under the influence of theseinterpretationsof the Last Supper.There is then more than a presumption, arising from an ex-amination both of the New Testament texts and of the distinc-tively Eastern bread-wordsthemselves, that the form of the latterwas shaped in the course of liturgical practice and under the in-fluence of doctrinal developments, and that the words were nottaken in the first place from Gospel and Pauline texts concerningthe Last Supper. St. Basil says that some of "the words of invo-cation at the consecration"come from what "the Apostle or theGospel" mention, whilst "other things" which "we utter bothbefore and after" come from "the unwritteninstruction."9 Andthis is true; expressionsfrom the New Testament accountsof theLast Supper did, inevitably, enter the Eastern "Invocation"which here means the whole central part of the anaphoraand notmerely the epiclesis- but it is the Traditionwhich dominates andwhich even bends the New Testament words to its own peculiaruse; not even the Pauline anamnesisis actually quoted- save insome of the latest and most developedliturgies- but it is utilizedand expandedas part of a liturgical form: "Rememberingthere-fore . . ." (the passion, tomb, resurrection, ascension, session atthe Right Hand and the coming to judgment,- these are addedone by one). Working backwards through all these develop-ments, it seems legitimate to conclude that the heart of thegoverning tradition was that Jesus broke bread, at the LastSupper, as on other, earlier occasions. Subsequently as thesymbolism of that central act was drawn out, religiously, doc-trinally and liturgically,and stage by stage - the Eastern recitalof institution acquired its wording and finally its place as aseparate section of the eucharistia.

2(a). With regard to the second point of differencebetweenthe developed Eastern and Western liturgies, i.e. the momentwhen consecrationis deemed to have been effected, the late, dis-8 Rom. xii. 4f, I Cor. xii. I2ff, Ephes. iv. 4ff.' de Spiritu Sancto xxvii.2.



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132 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWtinctively Roman witnesses already quoted for the wording ofthe bread-recitalevidently fix it as that in which the words havebeen pronounced. De Sacramentisalso, this time, supports theRoman view: "When the time comes for consecrating the ven-erable sacrament,the priest no longeruses his own words but thewords of Christ. So then the word of Christ consecrates thissacrament." 10A similar point of view is to be found among earlier repre-sentatives of the West, although not so plainly stated. But ofcourse a clear-cut theory of consecrationand, in particular,of aspecific moment of consecration,had not yet been worked out.It is therefore not surprisingto find that there also exist unmis-takable signs of the influence of Eastern consecratory theoriesupon the early Western witnesses. The Eastern view, broadly,is that the bread and wine are offered to God as likenesses, anti-types or symbols of the body and blood of Christ, and that theyneed some outpouringof the Divine to effect their consecration.Thus, in addition to the authoritiesalreadyquotedfor the definiteRoman view, we find also the following divided evidence. Ful-gentius, in the early sixth century, says that "the Holy Spirit isasked for from the Father in order that the sacrificemay be con-secrated." Earlier, Augustine says that "the word impingesupon (accedit ad) the element and behold! (fit) a sacrament." 2Still earlier, Cyprian both uses symbolic language, such as thatthe blood of Christ is "shown forth" (ostenditur) in the cup, andalso says that Christ offered to God bread and wine, "that is, hisbody and blood." " Tertullian uses very similar language.14Hippolytus both makes words of institution central in his liturgyand subsequently (Latin and Ethiopic MSS) invokes the HolySpirit.5 Optatus 16 and Justin 17 use the characteristic Roman

10iv.4.I4.nad Monimum ii.7.12in Ioann. Tract lxxx.3.' Ep. lxii.2.14adv. Marc.iii.gs, iv.220, V.255.15Apost. Trad. (ed. Dix) xxiii.i, iv.9.16 c. Donat. vi.I.2.1 Just. I Apol. lxvi. The passage is difficult to interpret, the argument itselfbeing confused, but the tendency to translate r7 e'exs X6you ro70 rap' avroDby "the word of prayer that proceeded from him," i.e. the words of institution,



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EASTERNAND WESTERN LITURGIES 133bread-words, "This is my body," but also language which ap-proaches an epiclesis, of Holy Spirit type and Logos type re-spectively.We are evidently confronted by a variety of evidence similarto that which exists in regardto the Western bread-recital. Andonce again it is fairly clear that the distinctively Western typehas not been superimposedupon an earlier Eastern type but isnative to the West, Eastern influences mingling freely with itonly during an interim period. We shall see that the East, onthe other hand, had from the beginning a clear and consistentprinciple of eucharistic thought, and that this governed logicallyall developments,whereas Western ideas were at first only adum-brated and contingent, without obvious necessity in a basis ofexperienceand thought; it is as if the West had its own characterand was true to it instinctively, but did not yet know itself fullyor what was properly inconsistent with it. We must thereforeseek to discover how and when the West received the imprint ofwhich it ultimately became fully conscious and to which there-after it remainedentirely faithful. And a long drawn-outdispute,of very early origin, between East and West appears to disclosethe evidence that we need- the Paschal controversy.The Paschal controversyemergedinto the clear light of Churchhistory with the visit which Polycarp of Smyrna is said to havepaid to Anicetus of Rome in the year 154 A.D. Anicetus couldnot persuade Polycarp to abandonthe observance of a ChristianPassover on the 14th Nisan, the essence of the Eastern positionbeing the traditional observance of Passover rituals and datingsinterpreted in terms of the redemption wrought by Christ. Afast, of shorter or longer duration, reached its climax of mourn-ing for Christ's crucifixionduring the time of the sacrificeof thePassover lambs; and this fast was followed, the same night, by afestival supperat which it would seem that a lamb or sheep waseaten.8xIn the West, however, it was held that Jewish ceremoniesseems too modern in its implications and, philosophically speaking, anachronistic.Justin is steeped in the Logos theology and chooses this expression because itfurnishes some parallel with the Incarnation. Irenaeus has strong links with Justinand a definite logos-epiclesis; adv. Haer. v.ii.3.18Epiph. Haer. 1. 3 etc. Cf. J. Drummond, The Character and Authorship ofthe Fourth Gospel, ch.viii, for a full discussion and references.



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134 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWand seasons had been done away in Christ; and, althoughan anni-versary commemorationof the redemptionwroughtby Christwasobserved, the fast was prolongeduntil the Lord's Day followingthe 14th Nisan, when naturally the celebrations had their con-summationin the Lord's Day eucharist.Now it was from the Gospel of Mark, and from Mark only,'9that this Western attitude to the Jewish Passover received itsdirect warrant, for in his Gospel he interprets the Last Supper,with its use of bread and wine and absence of Passover dishes, asa substitute for the Passover; the old Covenant made throughMoses was then abolished and another Covenant was set upthroughthe prefiguredsacrificeof Christ. This Covenant Supperitself could not, in the nature of things, be repeated, and it issignificant that the annual observances described above were inno sense a commemoration f the institutionof the eucharist. Butthe Lord's Day eucharist, which, in the West, markedthe end ofthe annual mourning for Christ's death and the beginning ofthanksgiving for his resurrection, nevitably took on the charac-ter of the sacrificial Supper which was held by Mark to haveabolished the Old, and set up the New, Dispensation; 20 and wecan see that sooneror later this charactermust also have affectedthe weekly Western Supper rite. The earliest evidence that itwas beginning to do so appears at the turn of the first century,when the Fourth Gospelsilently combats the Marcan interpreta-tion by giving a different account of the Last Supperand by re-lating its eucharistic teaching to the needs of the hungry soul

18 We now see that the Roman bread-recital cannot have its source in Matthew,for this, Eastern, Gospel attempts to weaken Mark's interpretation in favor of theEastern view of the Passover; Mk. xiv.I2 cf. Mt. xxvi.I7; Mk. xiv.I4 cf. Mt.xxvi. 8.20 We see this clearly in later times, when the evidence is fuller; and it seemslikely that the eating of a lamb in early times in the West, as well as in the East,but during the Sunday of the Pascha, and sometime after communion, was gradu-ally brought more closely into conjunction with the eucharist itself. In the 9th

century, East charged West with sacrificing a lamb, together with the Lord's body,upon the altar; certainly a lamb was offered in some way. Later, it was eaten,roasted, by the Pope and eleven Cardinals "in figure of" the Last Supper. Finally,the eating of the lamb was replaced by distributing wax cakes in the form of alamb, a custom continued to modern times. Cf. the old Ordo Romanus (Mabillon,Museum Italicum, Luteciae-Parisiorum, 1689, t.ii, p. 142); Bingham Ant. xv.2.3;E. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures 1888, pp. 296ff; DACL. Art. Agneau Pascal; J. Drum-mond, op. cit., pp. 455ff.



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EASTERNAND WESTERNLITURGIES 135instead of to the thought of the Christian Covenant. Further, byplacing his teaching in the setting of the Feeding of a Multitudein Galileeat the time of the Passoverpreviousto the Last Supper,John seems to signify that a rite in which the breakingof bread21was the principal feature is a spiritual counterpartto the Pass-over and does not abolish the Passover itself.22This divergency between Mark and John could hardly havebeen the subject of vital controversyat the time when the FourthGospelwas written if a rite similar to that of Mark's Last Supperhad existed since Christ's death. And if we put aside all pre-suppositions (based on I Cor.xi alone) as to what the ChristianSupper must have been from the beginning, we shall see howmuch other evidence agrees with the conclusion that Mark'sinterpretation was only just beginning, at the end of the firstcentury, to stamp itself upon the West. Thus neither the Epistleto the Hebrews, which develops the Marcanidea of the Covenantsacrifice of Jesus and is most probably of Roman antecedents,nor the Epistle of Clement of Rome, which is dependenton He-brews, provides any warrant for supposingthat there yet existeda regularrite which was held to have been formally instituted atthe Last Supper. Moreover Justin Martyr, who, towards themiddle of the second century, is our first witness for an actualRoman rite, still expounds the weekly eucharist on basicallyEastern lines, and only reinforces his teachingat the end by quot-ing bread and wine recitals based on Mark. How much longerthis two-fold influence continued in the West we have alreadyseen. Yet Mark's interpretationof the Last Supper,with all itscreativeness and originality- though we must never forget thatit was an interpretation gradually subordinated to itself, onceit had been receivedby the West, all other elementsin the weeklySupper. Accordingly, by the time we come to Hippolytus, wefind that the rite has been made to hinge upon its formal institu-

2 It should be noted that the bread distributed to the multitude and the mannabestowed in the wilderness are the sole types of the Bread of Heaven throughoutJohn vi. Only towards the end, in four consecutive verses (which, incidentally,are otherwise repetitive) is there any reference to drinking Christ's blood; whilethe blood and the flesh together stand for the one Christ, who is still typified bybread only. There is no mention of wine in this sacramental discourse.' Cf. B. W. Bacon, The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate, ch. xiv.



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136 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEWtion at the Last Supperand that it is steepedin Paschal thoughts.23A little later,Cyprian s the first to speak definitelyof the eucharis-tic sacrificein terms of the propitiatorysacrificeupon the Cross.24And all the time, the appealto the Last Supperas having set up aduly-instituted Prototype carries with it the implication that byits re-enactment alone the bread and wine are consecrated. Sowe advance to the periodwhen the Roman Churchbegan to for-mulate systematically its eucharistic theology. Then, the starkrealism of the words "This is my body," and the idea of a specificmoment in which "conversion" of the sacrifice was effected, in-vited one another and made their indissoluble union in the clear-cut Latin mind. Bread-recital,view of consecration and view ofsacrifice all have their source in Mark; there is an organic rela-tionship between them. Otherelements in the Roman Canon aresurvivals from the period of close contact with the Eastern sym-bolic view.

2 (b). The Eastern view of consecration as effected by an in-voked outpouringof the Divine is more fully traceable throughthe stages of its gradual development; and we find that like theEastern bread-recital t is part of a complexof ideas that sprangup round the breaking of bread, not round a given formula ofinstitution.

Thus, in the Synopticaccountsof the Feedingof the Multitudes,when Jesus breaks the loaves he lifts his eyes to heaven- nodoubt, in the view of those amongst whom the accounts circu-lated - to invoke the supernatural power by which the breadshould not fail for the sustenance of so many. It is not that thistouch of magico-sacramentalismenters into the Gospels them-selves; we mention it here because the look of Jesus, connectedonly with the breaking of bread for the multitudes, became afeature of the later eucharistia, n which it was balancedby God'sanswering look upon the offering and the interpretationof thislook in terms of the descent, outpouring,etc. of the Holy Spirit.25In the Johannine account of the Feeding the upward look ofJesus is omitted,becausethe writer'sview of himis that he already

23 Cf. G. Dix, The Apostolic Tradition, pp. 74f.24 Cf. J. H. Srawley, The Early History of the Liturgy, pp. 133, 227.25 Cf. A.C. viii and its later Syro-Byzantine developments.



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EASTERNAND WESTERNLITURGIES 137"is in heaven"26 and is himself the Bread Eternal. And this ledon to a variant sacramental theory, in which the broken breadof the Supperwas regardedas itself endowed with the virtue ofits Prototype, the Eternal Bread or divine Logos.The first hint of these consecratorytheories in a table-rite ap-pears in I Cor.x.16-2 . Here, a broken and divided loaf providesthe essential symbolism of a corporate community, "the body ofChrist,"which the mystical Christ indwells; but the later versesof the section, in drawing a parallel between the Christian riteand Jewish or heathen sacrifices,carry the connotation that com-munion with God or demon is effected by the partaking of foodwhich has been blessed. The argumentis no doubt ad hominemand does not yet express a thought-outex opere operatoview.The ideas of I Cor.x reappearin the rite of the Didache, mostprobably assigned to a region not far from Antioch. But here itis the "Name,"or nature,of God that comes to dwell in the heartsof the "holy" through their partaking of the wine and "brokenbread," the latter being still the principal feature of the meal.27And if the Last Supper exercises a possible influence upon thisrite, which is referred to variously as a "eucharist,""breakingofbread" and "sacrifice,"it is still far from being regardedas theprototype of the rite itself. Nor, even, does Ignatius of Antiochso regardit, but, in speakinglikewise of the "eucharist"or "sacri-fice of the altar,"simply extends the Johannine teaching given tothe multitude: the mystic food is itself endowedto be the "medi-cine of immortality." 8When the curtain next rises on the worship of these regions,we are, as R. H. Connolly says, in "an appreciable-sizedChurchin the same part of Syria" as that for which the Didache waswritten, and the date is the first half of the third century. Thedocument before us, the comprehensiveDidascalia Apostolorum,which is next in the line of the ChurchOrders and is admittedlyinfluencedby the Didache, contains no adequatedescriptionof theeucharist; but its passing allusions suggest a symbolismwhich isstill constructedonly on the bread:

* Jn. iii.I3, vii.34.27 ix and x.28 ad. Rom. vi and vii; ad Ephes. xx.



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138 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEW"Offeran acceptableeucharist, the likeness (similitudinem) ofthe royal body of Christ . . . pure bread that is made withfire and sanctifiedwith invocations."29"For if the Holy Spirit is in thee, without [just] impedimentdost thou keep thyself from . . . the eucharist; . . . (for)whether is (the) greater,the bread,or the Spirit that [sanctifieththe bread. . . .] ? 30In this second quotation there seems to be an allusion to laterdifficultiescreatedby teachingsuch as is found in the Didache-

that only the sinless may partake of the heavenly food. But themain points to note are, first, that the symbolism of the unityof Christians throughpartaking of the one bread has now defi-nitely passed into that of bread offered as a similitude of Christ'sbody; and secondly, that an epiclesis of the Holy Spirit on thebread would seem to be replacingearlier ideas of its associationwith an invoked spiritual power or with the "Name" of God.Of much the same date as the Didascalia is the AnaphoraofHippolytu's, already discussed in connection with its Easternbread-recital. In the third section of the prayer is included alsothe first definite invocationof "holy Spirit""1upon the oblation,to the end that through participation the "saints" may receivethe spiritualbenefits of union and "confirmationof (their) faithin truth."Linked with Hippolytus, and our chief witness for develop-ments in West Syria, is Apostolic Constitutionsviii. This is thefirst actual liturgy to adopt an epiclesis of the Holy Spirit thatthe elementsmay become the body and blood of Christ, althoughthe word used, adrof', is weak compared with those used insome other liturgies.32 Apostolic Constitutions is of very greatimportanceas provingthat the epiclesis did not arise as a trans-fer to the elements of the Jewish conceptionof the Shekinah, ordivine Presence,among worshippers.33This theory, now popular,

29, 30 Ed. R. H. Connolly, pp. 252f, 244f. See also p. lxxxix of the same work.31G. Dix, op. cit., p. 79, although arguing strongly against the genuineness of thisepiclesis, rightly hesitates to exclude it. If it is to be omitted, then Hippolytusmerely becomes more strongly Western and his evidence does not affect this sectionof the present essay. C. C. Richardson confirms my view, HTR. xl.2.32 J. H. Srawley, op. cit., p. 77.Cf. W. O. E. Oesterley, Jewish Background, pp. 224ff for a careful expositionof this view, and contrast Lietzmann, op. cit., pp. 68ff.



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EASTERNAND WESTERN LITURGIES 139cannot be upheld in face of Lietzmann'smarshalledevidence thatthe liturgies of Chrysostom, Basil, James and Mark, which in-clude an invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the worshippers,areall developments from Apostolic Constitutions, whose invoca-tion is upon the elements alone.34 It is true that this invocationis followed by a prayer for the fruits of a good communion,butthis is not the same as an invocation upon the worshippersthem-selves; it is the ground-workout of which the epiclesis has un-doubtedly developed; and it will alreadyhave been observedthatthe ultimate object of all earlier forms of invocationis that bene-fit may come to the worshippersas they partake of the conse-crated food. It need hardly be added that a liturgy so late asApostolic Constitutions, and with a root in Hippolytus, regardsitself as following the commandof Jesus at the Last Supper, al-though its recital of institution is manifestly shaped by EasternTradition.A similar development to that which we have considered inSyria took place in Egypt. First, Clement of Alexandriaquotesfrom Theodotus the gnostic (c.i6o A.D.): "The breadis hallowedby the poweror the Name of God; remainingthe same in appear-ance . . . it is transformed into spiritualpower." 35 The indige-nous Egyptian church had strongly gnostic antecedents; but atemporarydeviation from its naturaltype is revealedin the logos-epiclesis of Origen,Athanasius and the later form of the liturgyof Sarapion. The thoughtsof Origen, althoughwe must rememberthe paucity of his eucharistic references, appear to arise in con-nection with the bread alone: "bread sanctified by the Xo'yogofGod and prayer," whereby it becomes "profitable in virtue";"loaves"which become "on account of the prayer a certain holybody which sanctifies those who use it aright."36 It should beadded that although Origen knows the words of institution heappears reluctant to cite them,"3and that the character of his

t"Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and make us pure" as a substitute for "Thykingdom come" in the Lord's Prayer (Greg. Nyss., Maximus, 7oo and 162) re-flects the Byzantine liturgies. Burkitt and Creed seem to be right, as againstStreeter, in holding that this was not the reading of Q.5 Excerpta ex Theodoto, lxxxii.

36 in Matt. xi.14: cf. also c. Cels. viii.33 and in I Cor. vii.5.7 Cf. W. H. Frere, The Anaphora, p. 42.



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140 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEWeucharist is not sacrificial but mystical and symbolical and suchas is indicatedby its name.In the received form of Sarapion, the logos-epiclesis, whosewording distinctly echoes Origen, seems to be part of variousmaterial used in the last half of the fourth century to expandan ur-Sarapion.3sThe epiclesis of the latter resembles the earlierthought of Theodotus already quoted, for it is an invocation ofthe "Lord of Powers" to fill the sacrifice with his "power andparticipation," once again in order that the worshippersmayhave the fruits of a good communion. This invocation is utteredwhile the elements are being offered (neither before nor after) "3as a likeness (6~olhoa) 40 of Christ's body and blood. Nothingcould show greater independenceof the Pauline command to re-peat the rite of the Last Supper. Even the recitals of institutionwhich now, inevitably, follow in the received text, although it isunlikely that they were included in the Urtyp, have for theirobject only to explain the sense in which the elements are a"likeness." It may be noted that the bread recitalof this liturgy,which comes from a Churchin the Nile Delta, includes "broken"against the whole weight of the Alexandrine texts of I Cor.xi.24.After Athanasius, the friend of Sarapion, who likewise con-tinues Origen'stradition of a logos-epiclesis,the Egyptian Fatherstestify to an invocationof the Holy Spirit as himself the Conse-crator,and so we reach the fully developedEastern type.

For the JerusalemChurchwe have no evidence before350 A.D.,when the liturgy described in lecture xxiii of the MystagogicCatecheses of Cyril exhibits an epiclesis for conversionof the mostliteral type and, at the same time, omits all mentionof the wordsof institution. The latter are of course known to Cyril and hequotes them in his precedinglecture as provingthat it is the bodyand blood of Christ that are received in the divine mysteries,-although his Eastern use of symbol still mingles with a literal

' Lietzmann has tried to disengage this Urtyp in Messe and Herrenmahl, ch. xi.For a careful criticism see A. D. Nock, JTS xxx, pp. 382ff.* Lietzmanntranslates7rpoayvEyKacLe by "we have offered,"but A. D. Nock,op. cit., has pointed out that the aorist is unlikely to carry this precise significance.40 Lietzmann's discussion of words like 6btohweia,dvri7rrov, afApoXovs valuable;pp. 19off.



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EASTERNAND WESTERNLITURGIES 141interpretation;and Lietzmann,as well as more traditionalschol-ars, has concluded that the words of institution must thereforehave been included in Cyril's eucharistia. But it is really quiteevident that they were not; 41 whilst the verbal affinities of thisprayerwith the Syriac James and Sarapionare such as to suggestthat the words of institution in these latter have been super-imposedupon earlier forms of the Antiochene and Egyptian rites.There can be little doubt that it is the Western element in theliturgy of Hippolytus (so often called the "Egyptian ChurchOrder") mediated by Apostolic Constitutions in the case ofJames- that has affected the later forms of both. Cyril repre-sents a pure Eastern development, in which the gifts of breadand wine, offered up to God in sacrifice, undergo conversionthrough the agency of the Holy Spirit. Intercessions, also ofadvancedtype, follow the dreadmoment of consecration n Cyril'sliturgy, and these concludewith one brief phrase- "propitiatingGodthat loveth mankindon their behalf as well as on ourown"-which reveals their developmentfrom the ancient prayer for thebenefits of communion. For the rest, however, all reference tothe value of communion has disappeared.No stress is laid here upon the evidence of the various gnostic"Acts." Lietzmann'spoint is well made, however, when he saysthat their rites, in which bread or bread and water were the ele-ments, could hardly have arisen had not the essence of the eucha-rist been thought to lie in the bread. In the most important ofthem, the SyriacActs of JudasThomas (judgedto have been com-posed before the overthrow of the Parthian dynasty in 224 A.D.),42the broken bread is blessed and distributedwith such words as"Bread of life, thou art he that vouchsafeth to receive a gift,that thou mayest become unto us remissionof sins and that theywho eat thee may become immortal"; and the invocationswhichfollow, or precede, are such as "Come,holy dove"; "We invokeupon thee the name of (thy) Jesus"; "Let the powers of blessingcome, and be establishedin this bread." 3

41I am glad to find that G. Dix, with whom I am so often in disagreement,here reaches the same conclusion. Cf. The Shape of the Liturgy, pp. 196ff.42Cf. F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 216, and M. R. James,Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 228, 388, 422." Cf. Lietzmann, op. cit., pp. 243ff, or M. R. James, op. cit., pp. 388, 422.



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142 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWMore important are the many Syriac liturgies, in particularAddai and Mari, the type of which possibly goes back to the latethirdcentury. E. C. Ratcliff thinks that originallythis eucharistiamay have been said over bread alone, and he finds in it affinitiesto the rite of the Didache. It goes beyond the Didache in look-ing expressly to the Last Supper, but, although the prayer hasbeen worked over, there is no justification for assuming that it

originally included a recital of institution additional to the fol-lowing: "We . . . have received by tradition the example whichis from thee." As in Sarapion, the prayer then speaks of "per-forming . . . the likeness" (this time, "of the passion, and deathand burial and resurrection of our Lord . . ."); and we see aforeshadowingof the typical Eastern recital of institution in theinvocation, evidently primitive, of the Holy Spirit of Jesus tobless and hallow the oblation "that it be to us . . . for the pardonof offencesand remissionof sins and for the great hope of resur-rection from the house of the dead and for new life in the king-dom of heaven . . ." Here again the invocation is part of aprayer for the fruits of communion.44Finally, as evidence for East Syria, we come to Narsai, whosays that the bread and wine are to be regarded as likenesses,types or symbols of the body and blood of Christ only before theinvocation. Then, "through the brooding and operation of theHoly Spirit," they become his actual glorifiedbody, broken andgiven to each worshipper as individual manifestations of theRisen Christ, on the analogy of his appearancesto his variousfollowers after the Crucifixion.4"From the Eastern evidence as a whole, the developmentof thecentral part of the anaphorais now perfectly to be seen. Every-thing arose in connection with the breaking of bread and theutterance which accompaniedits offering. As the broken breadtook on increased significance, so the invocation expressed that

"4E. C. Ratcliff argues that the epiclesis in Addai and Mari is out of place;and his suggestion that it may have come originally before the act of communiongives greater weight to the conclusions of this essay. See JTS xxx, pp. 29f. G. Dix,The Shape of the Liturgy, p. 182, would seem to be misled, here as elsewhere,by overworking his theory of Jewish derivations.5 Ed. R. H. Connolly, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai (Texts and Studies,viii, pp. T7ff, 24).



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EASTERN AND WESTERN LITURGIES 143significance more completely, always in relation to the fruitsof participation. Then, as development reached its fullness, asignificantmomentwas distinguishedin whichsymbol passed intoactuality, so that it became necessary to arrange the prayer inan orderedsequence. In this way, language concerningthe sym-bolism of the elements and the benefits of receiving them cameto be put first, in a "recital of institution": "This is my bodywhich is broken for you for remissionof sins (and life eternal)."This recital foreshadowedthe moment of consummation,when,by the invoked activity of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice becamethat which it represented. Out of thoughts of the fruits of com-munion arose the now added intercessions, as being speciallyefficacious n the presenceof the most dread miracle of consecra-tion. And the fraction46 couldnow take place only after consecra-tion, when the true body lay upon the altar. Finally, even com-munion itself began to disappearin the all-absorbing thought ofthe offeringof a sacrifice. We must add that the second half ofthe anaphora, in which all these related developments occur,manifestly contains the nucleus out of which the Eastern liturgieshave grown. G. Dix, in maintainingthat it is the first half of theprayer that contains the originalnucleus, is completelymisled byhis theory that the eucharistia was derived directly from aJewish berakah. The reactionagainst Hellenism as a determininginfluence on primitive Christianityhas gone too far, and the bal-ance needs urgently to be redressed.

4'It cannot be assumed that from the beginning the fraction always took placeafter the eucharistia, as part of an ordered "fourfold shape" of the liturgy. Itwould on the one hand be natural not to break the bread until it had beenblessed, but a feeling for dramatic symbolism may very easily have caused it tobe broken at the mention of this word, and then perhaps again for distribution.There was no rule about it and no special ceremony until full liturgical develop-ment had taken place; e.g., Augustine says that the "mystic" eucharistic prayer isoffered while the elements are blessed and consecrated and broken for distribution"(de Trin. iii.4; Sermo. 227). In some rites the fraction appears in a variety ofplaces,- sure witness to the fact that it had no ancient, uniform position. Auseful summary of the facts is to be found in Handbook to the Christian Liturgy,by James Norman, pp. 282 ff; cf. also 107 ff, 120 ff. G. Dix gives no properaccount of the variations concerning the fraction. Its omission by Justin he dis-misses as just "odd"; nor can I find that he mentions its omission in the usualplace in A.C. Liturgists usually assume that it took place during the Deacon'slitany after the consecration; it may have done so, or it may not. This omissionfrom A.C. is important, as further witness to the fluidity of the rite from whichall Syro-Byzantine liturgies were developed.



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144 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEW3. Final developmentsin the West concerningthe Canon, andin both West and East concerningthe sacrifice, can now also betraced. With the assertion of different views of the moment of

consecration, Eastern and Western liturgies drew apart. Sym-bolic material which East and West for long had shared re-mained permanently embedded in the Western masses, but itwas divorced as far as possible from suggestions of consecra-tion by a special invocation. Lietzmann (and others) havesuggested that a thorough revision took place in the Westat the time of the Gregorian reform, c.6oo A.D.; and inperhaps the most valuable part of his book, from the pointof view of strictly liturgical studies, Lietzmann shows in de-tail how all the epiclesis material was apparently reshapedand dispersed throughout the Western masses; he maintainsthat it reveals its original nature most clearly in the Te igiturand Suppliceste rogamus.In agreementwith these changes,the mass now developedprim-arily as a re-enactmentof Christ's sacrificial death; the earlierEastern ideas of EvXapLorla, and of the elements as an offeringto God of his own bounties, were subordinated. In the East,likewise, sacrificialdevelopmentstook place, not howeverthroughsubordinatingthe offeringof the gifts but through concentratingon the sacrificewhich they mystically represented. Thus, interestin the later Western and Eastern liturgies centres respectivelyontwo differentideas of sacrifice. Each is quite clearly linked withthe bread-recitaland view of consecrationof its particulartype ofliturgy and is indeed traceable,in conjunctionwith these, from apoint in the second century. The typical sacrifice of Christianshad at first been consideredto be prayer,or the spiritof prayer; 4but with the destructionof the Jewish Temple, and the infiltrationof ideas fromcontemporarypaganmysteries,the ChristianSupperrite began to be interpretedas the "pure sacrifice" 8 which theprophetshad demanded. And so the Supperwas graduallytrans-formed on the two main lines suggestedabove, from a simplemealin which dispositionsof love and fellowshipwerepre-eminent nto

"' Rom. xiii.I; Heb. xiii.Is; Rev. v.8, viii. 3f; I Clem. lii, etc."'E.g., Did. xiv.I; Justin, Trypho, 28, 41, ii6; cf. I Apol. lxvi; also Iren.,Tert., Clem. Al.



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EASTERNAND WESTERN LITURGIES 145liturgicalrites of splendor,mystery and dread. Always it is sacri-fice that evokes the elaborate cultus.49

The Roman Mass belongs to the ancient type of gift-sacrifice,in which the victim is offered whole to God and its earthly lifesurrendered; the Eastern eucharist belongs rather to the type ofcommunion-sacrifice,n which the victim is destroyed, even thebones being pounded up, whilst its life is received into the life ofthe worshippingcommunity." The two conceptionsare of courseto some extent intermingled this had happened already in theJewish sacrificial system - so that the sacrifice is in both casespropitiatory and also for communion; but the former elementpredominatesin the Roman, and the latter in the Eastern, rite;or to put it anotherway, the one rite is more definitely sacrificial,the other mystical. The Passover festival has its origin in gift-sacrifice, the lamb being a firstling whose bones must not bebroken, and we see this conception clearly carried over into theGospel of Mark, who represents the Last Supper as a Passovermeal at which the Paschal victim himself was present to foundthe Christian Covenant and typify his imminent sealing of it onthe Cross, where his blood was outpouredwhile his body was un-broken. This conceptionwas bequeathed by Mark to the RomanChurchwhich, after the period in which Eastern influenceswereadmitted,firmlyembracedit and developedit; and the open sym-bol of this view was the gradualRomansubstitution,accomplishedby the eleventh century, of unleavened wafers for the leavenedbread of the ancient eucharist.51The wafers are not broken for

9 The earliest elements of synagogue worship were developed from the Templeservice and from the custom of sacrificial watches (Ma'amad) at the times ofsacrifice. The Tannaim (7o-c. 220 A.D.) began the systematic ordering of theJewish liturgy, including one prayer in remembrance of the sacrifice; but nothingis more interesting in the comparative study of religions than the way in whichthe idea of sacrifice has in the end completely faded from Judaism while it liveson in Christianity as the result of the sacrificial interpretation of Christ's death.' But W. Robertson Smith's theory that gift-sacrifice developed from com-munion-sacrifice seems no longer tenable. On communion-sacrifice among theancient Greeks see L. R. Farnell, Greece and Babylon, pp. 232ff. and HibbertJournal, 1904; also, for further modifications, A. D. Nock, The Cult of Heroes(HTR. xxx.vii.2). It appears that whilst the ancient Romans did not think of acommunion with deities in food, the ancient Greeks felt that some measure of bless-ing attached to food after its consecration in sacrifice. This natural tendency tocommunion-sacrifice developed under the influence of the mysteries.

'1See Bingham, Antiquities, xv.2.5 and 3.35. Cardinal Bona's (1609-74) ex-



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146 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEWparticipation by the communicants,although the host itself onthe altar is broken (into three), thereby preserving, as so oftenin the Romanrite, some relic of primitivepractice.52 In the East-ern rites the use of leavenedbreadhas remainedunchanged; andfrom the sacred loaves, which now replace bread taken from thepeople's offerings,a central portion called the "Holy Lamb" isdividedand, with realisticintent, then "speared"and "stabbed""as a sacrificein the prothesis. This was done formerlyat the altaras the second part of the offertory. "Ever eaten and never con-sumed,"the Lamb of God is slaughteredto becomespiritual foodthroughan indwellingof the Spirit.

Two obvious problemsdemand final brief consideration:Howwas an early Eastern rite, in which the cup preceded the bread,transformedinto one in which the bread precededthe cup? Andwhat is the relationof Mark to I Cor.xi? The first of these prob-lems loses most of the difficultywhich some have felt concerningit as soon as it is realizedthat Eastern rites derive from a primi-tive type in which bread had the chief importance. Distributionof brokenbreadwas likewise the central feature of Jewish meals,both on ordinaryand on solemn occasions; and the East, as wehave seen, was at first much more under Jewish influences thanthe West. Among the Jews, on solemn occasions, a kiddish-cupwas also usually drunk, although its position was not fixed, andwas a matter of dispute, during the first two centuries.54Thus,althoughthe drinkingof the kiddish-cup at the beginningof thesolemnmeal is now establishedin Jewish practice, it must at firstplanation of the change of practice as for convenience sake may be dismissed as apiece of rationalisation by a hard-pressed controversialist, especially in view ofthe general Roman argument that unleavened bread is primitive. Its doctrinalorigin is plain, but we do not know how much earlier than the IIth century it maybe. Can. 80 of the 2nd Trullan Council (A.D. 692) forbade all representations ofChrist under the form of a lamb; and whereas the East continued to regard thesacred loaf as if it figured a lamb, it would be a natural step for the West tosubstitute Passover for ordinary bread. Cf. note 20.52 Cf. also Ordo Romanus I (Migne P. L. lxxviii), in which one of the twoloaves offered by the Pope is broken and one part placed on the altar, that it (i.e.the altar) may not be "without sacrifice upon it during the performance of thesolemnities of the mass."

3 Cf. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, pp. 356 ff. English translationin The Liturgies, J. M. Neale and R. F. Littledale, pp. 179 ff.' Cf. Lietzmann, op. cit., pp. 202 ff.



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EASTERNAND WESTERN LITURGIES 147have been a local customwhich influencedChristians iving amongJews who had adopted it. Even if the Christiancup-bread ritespread widely, as might be inferred from D and other texts ofLuke's account of the Last Supper, the position of the cup inrites of Eastern originwas never of supreme importance; so thatwhen the eucharist ceased to be a meal, and the breakingof breadand the drinkingof the cup were made consecutivein a ritual act,the traditionalsignificanceof the bread would be emphasizedbyplacing it first. It must further be rememberedthat the accountof the Last Supper in I Cor.xi and in other Gospel sources thanthe shorter text of Luke necessarilyexercised in the East a grow-ing general influence,if not one fully formativeas against a deep-rooted Tradition. Thus, the order of bread before cup prevailed.The secondproblemis more difficult. We cannot be finally surethat the Marcan account of the Last Supperhas not some aetio-logical motive15 in respect of a weekly Supperrite such as we arein the habit of assuming, from I Cor.xi, to have existed amongChristians from the first. But it is significant that no externalevidence can be adduced in support of a rite of this particulartype before the time of Justin Martyr. And we have also seenthat the one self-evidentobject of Mark's sacrificial nterpretationof the Last Supperis to displace the Passover and to proclaimtheCovenant which Christ sealed by his death. This interpretationis evidently as original in Mark as it was influentialamong laterwriters, and no one has yet clearly demonstrated that becausethe command to repeat the Supperwas not integral to Mark-and the whole Synoptic tradition follows this Gospel in not re-cording it - another account must be presupposed in which itwas recorded. Such a conclusiondependsentirely on our estimateof I Cor.xi. 23-26, and it is by no meanscertain that this passagedoes not representa compromisebetween Mark's account of theLast Supperand an existing Christianrite which, although it toolooked to the last meal of Jesus with his disciples, had been builtup on the symbolical significancewhich the bread and the wine

SThere is no doubt an aetiological motive in Mark's description of the orderlyFeeding of the Multitudes at eventide; and the evidence for a very early Westernrite in which bread was of chief importance would be extended if, as F. C. Burkittwas the first to suggest, a lost sequel to Mark has provided some of the source-material for the first half of Acts, with its stress on the "Breaking of Bread."



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148 HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL EVIEWwould naturally possess for Christians. For example the bread-recital- "This is my body which is for you"

- to considerationof which we must confine ourselves as specially relative to thisessay, seems to hesitate between Mark's "This is my body" andthe Eastern formula "This is my body which is broken for you";and the verse was unable to maintain itself against the liturgicalneeds of both East and West. No liturgy adopted it, and even alarge numberof New Testament texts inserted"broken,"or somecognateword, to explainits meaning. Again, as regardsthe words"for you": If, in the construction from Mark of the uncertainwine-formula "This cup is the new Covenantof my blood"-the Marcan words "for many"had been droppedfrom their con-nection with the cup, they would be likely to reappear in adifferentcontext, as so often happens in liturgical innovations."For many," in its liturgical form of "for you," may well havebeen transferredin this way to the bread-formula of I Cor.xi;certainly, without the word "broken,"it has none of that powerof closeness to the thing signifiedwhich is a sign of original in-spiration. Its form might however be natural to one who, whilstunder a liturgical compulsionto add to Mark's wording,was un-willing to tamperwith his theology. In otherwords,just as Markcould not use the word "broken," so neither could the earlyliturgist,for the meal is the new Passover and Christ is the PaschalLamb, "not a bone of whose body might be broken."Such a hypothesis must, of course, ultimately stand or fall atthe bar of critical studies devoted to the investigationof the textof I Corinthiansas a whole; and this is a matter far beyond ourpresent scope. The main thesis of this essay is that the bread-recitals and views of consecrationand sacrificewhich are distinc-tive of the West and of the East are organicallyrelated in eachtype of liturgy, and that those of the East were developed froma symbolic breaking and offeringof bread rather than from anyNew Testamentaccount of the Last Supper.

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RICHARDSON, Eastern and Western Liturgies. the Primitive Basis of Their Later Differences. a Note...

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