From Meal to Mass: The Historic Origins of the Eucharistic Service in the Second Century

Introduction

Your first experience when attending a liturgical church service can be both confusing for the unacquainted, and deeply moving for those who understand its meaning and rich history. At first glance, the liturgy appears to be something not of this world; and you would be correct. When you attend this ceremony at your local congregation on any given week, you will leave all modern amenities, entering into the same upper room to which the Son of God was sitting and sharing a meal with his followers. It may sound of mysticism, but the reality of the partaking of the bread and wine during the Eucharist meal in and of itself is a rite that supersedes time. As you will see in this paper, partaking of this ritual is like stepping back into an era when a simple Jewish meal concealed a hidden ceremonial promise, whose fullness would not be known until after the officiant’s death and resurrection. The richness of the historic liturgy is too vast for the confines of this paper, so we will be keeping our field of inquiry to a deceptively simple subject: The Historic Origins of the Eucharistic Service in the Second Century.

We shall commence our delve into the rite by analyzing the context of the Jewish meals and prayers in which Jesus performed his Last Supper. In this essential framework we will come to an understanding of the crucial elements that are required to adequately perform the Supper as instructed. We will then navigate to the accounts of the service as it develops throughout the early church practices detailed in the Didache, an early first century church manual that more than likely was constructed to instruct newly appointed bishops in how to run their new congregations. Finally, we will journey into the first-person expressions of second century liturgy in the accounts of church fathers such as St. Ignatius of Antioch and the early canons described by Justin Martyr. It is within these liturgical narratives that we get a glimpse into the earliest versions of what would become our modern Eucharist service.

Jewish Origins of the Last Supper

In order for us to adequately explain how this ceremony performed within the context of a meal overtime became the Eucharist rite as we all recognize today, we first need to establish the context in which this meal took place. Looking into the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper we can see a pattern emerge on how Jesus conducted this strange affair:

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Matthew 26:26-28

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them." Mark 14:22-24

"After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." Luke 22:17-20

This pattern of course, might already be obvious as a meal which has four distinct parts: take, thanksgiving (blessing), breaking, and distribution to the believers.1 However, I would like to discuss briefly the meal in which Jesus was celebrating when he broke this bread that night in order to give us a deeper understand of why he chose this meal in particular, to reveal his sacrifice on the cross. On the night Jesus was betrayed, as the Gospel accounts record in Matthew 26:17a, Mark 14:12a, Luke 22:7-8, and John 13:1 attest that Jesus was preparing for the Passover, or Pesach meal which in Jewish tradition was celebrated when the sun goes down on 15th day of Nisan in the Jewish Calendar.2 Confirming it was Passover, and that Jesus was asking his disciples to prepare a meal (Luke 22:8, Mark 14:12b, Matthew 26:17b), it is safe to assume the meal he was preparing for was the traditional meal served on this night: The Seder. According to the Mishnah, the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions from the third century,3 during this meal as a sign of thanksgiving the family, or whoever was present, would gather and the head of the household, while holding the bread, blessed the meal and then broke and distributed it to the rest of his family. He does so also with two cups of wine, prepared at the beginning and end of the meal referred to as the Kos Shel Beracha, or Cup of Blessing. He blesses these two cups with a short form prayer known as the Berakah, and the final cup with the chief blessing at the end of the meal known as the Birkat Ha-Mazon.4

It is from this blessing that we see the roots of many early Christian liturgical prayers over the bread and wine. The blessing of the cup according to the Mishnah is quite simple, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.” This is followed by the blessing of the bread, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” The final prayer, known as the Birkat Ha-Mazon was a three-part prayer of blessing, thanking, and then requesting mercy upon The Lord.5 This was the most important prayer of the Seder as it was directly commanded in the Torah (Deut. 8:10) and is the longest of the two prayers presented:

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who feeds the whole world with goodness, with grace and with mercy. Blessed are you, O Lord, who feeds us all.

We thank you, O Lord our God, that you have caused us to inherit a goodly land, the covenant, the Torah, life and food. For all these things we thank you and praise your name forever and ever. Blessed are you, O Lord, for the land and for the food.

Have mercy, O Lord, our God, on your people Israel, and on your city Jerusalem, and on your Temple and your dwelling-place and on Zion your resting-place, and on the great and holy sanctuary over which your name was called, and the kingdom of the dynasty of David may you restore to its place in our days, and build Jerusalem soon. Blessed are you, O Lord, who builds Jerusalem.

We can see, as noted Jewish Scholar Louis Finkelstein (1895-1991) had once thought, that these early Seder prayer forms are most likely the source text used in creating the Eucharist anaphorae in Chapter Ten of the Didache, dated by most scholars from the first century A.D.6:

We thank Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy name which You didst cause to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You modest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Thou, Master almighty, didst create all things for Thy name's sake; You gavest food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to Thee; but to us You didst freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Thy Servant. Before all things we thank Thee that You are mighty; to Thee be the glory for ever. Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in Thy love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for Thy kingdom which Thou have prepared for it; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God (Son) of David! If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.

These comparisons reveal to us how clearly the writers of the Didache held the Eucharist to be the extension of the Passover Seder, so much so that they even used its prayers as their own. There can be no doubt, as Frank Senn states in his The Christian Liturgy, that this Jewish meal is the origin to the Christian Eucharistic rite.7 But this Jewish meal, despite being the origin of our Eucharistic bread and wine, is not necessarily the prayers or the rite that we continue to use today. For that, we must observe how the Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Christians interpreted the meal, and thus how they held their services in light of the now resurrected Christ.

From Jewish Seder to Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Celebration

We have now established the roots of the Last Supper firmly in the Jewish Seder, but we still haven’t quite connected it to the rites as noted in the Roman canons of Justin Martyr, from which the core of our rite can be argued to have derived from. In order to connect these dots, we must first see how Jesus’ disciples, now apostles in wake of his resurrection, observed this meal before we can proceed any further. With that knowledge in hand we can then move on to how the early church fathers in succession have interpreted and celebrated the Eucharist and determine a faithful line of teaching handed down from Apostolic to Post-Apostolic stewardship.

There is a single instance of direct mention of the Lord’s Supper in Apostolic writing, and that is by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, in which Paul rebukes the Church in Corinth’s abuses of the non-instituted Agape meal (a meal shared in joy between believers) with the true body and blood of Christ which was contained within the bread and wine of the Eucharist meal (the actual sacrament of body and blood)8. In his First Letter to the Corinthians (c. 53-54 A.D.) Paul mentions how the Eucharist meal has already been established as a “tradition” by the time of his writing (1 Corinthians 11:2). He also adds the rubric of “Do this, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:23) as the first occurrence of this phrase with regard to celebration of the Eucharist meal. This phrase Paul mentions, being of Palestinian background as Joachim Jeremias (a twentieth century Lutheran theologian and scholar) would suggest, references the third part of the Birkat ha-Mazon.9 These words of Paul, of course, should sound familiar to any Lutheran presbyter as a part of the Words of Institution, which are still given during the rite to this day.

In the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 80-110 A.D.) who became the third bishop in his namesake city, succeeding St. Evodius (the immediate successor of St. Peter as the second Bishop of Antioch)10, we see a nearly unchanged interpretation of the Eucharist meal. St. Ignatius writes in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans (c. 80 A.D.) "Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us…They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."11

This is a weighty account then, as his testimony is not only once removed from the Apostle Peter himself, but he also was the Bishop of, according to the account in the Book of Acts, one of the first evangelized communities, and thus was entrusted with the believers who likely were converted and catechized by Peter, himself (Acts 11:19). With this knowledge in mind, we should hold his assessment of what the Eucharist was as not only an accurate account of what was being taught at the time, but also was the teachings of the Apostle Peter, and thus, Jesus Christ during the Last Supper. We see as early as the first century that the Eucharist was seen as the physical manifestation of the True body of Christ, as well as that there was a clear distinction between regular food and wine, and this supernatural meal which was taking place. In St. Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans (c. 80-110 A.D) he states, "I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed."11 Beyond the simple words of Christ referring to the bread as his body, and the wine as his blood, we can see the interpretation of the first century church fathers are in like mind: the bread and body are something supernatural, far beyond the substance of regular food. This is essential information for us, as it connects us to Justin Martyr’s First Apology, in which we see his description of the Eucharist12, “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." - (First Apology, Chapter 66).

We can clearly see in Justin Martyr’s statements a direct confirmation of what was spoken by St. Ignatius nearly one hundred years earlier, namely, that the meal given during the Eucharist service is not merely one of bread and wine, but one of the True body and blood of our Lord. It also is changed by a blessing spoken as a prayer of His word, into the body and blood of Christ. This is a second century depiction of the Words of Institution that we speak over the bread today, blessing the bread and wine by reciting the Words Christ spoke on the night of His Last Supper. Despite what many Protestant denominations would claim, as early as the first and second century we have first-hand accounts of the earliest interpretations of those words spoken at the Last Supper to mean this meal is nothing shy of supernatural. This sharp distinction between regular communal meals, and the meal which contains the real presence of our Lord, was one of several causes for concern that Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians 11.

A Shift in Focus: Thanksgiving to Sacrificial

We would be amiss to not mention the tonal differences of the prayers between the pre-Christian Birkah ha-Mazon, and the now established Lord’s Supper of the first and second centuries. A cursory glance into the Birkat Ha-Mazon (as laid out on pg. 4 and 5 of our paper) reveals a particular prayer focus on thanksgiving that we do not see when comparing the liturgy as laid out in the Apologies of Justin Martyr or that of the Canon’s of Hippolytus, another second century church father with an account of the historic church’s liturgy. [13][14] They do not contradict each other so much as they detail the realization of what, and more importantly who, the Seder is actually about. What caused this shift, and why it has been continued in Western liturgies since then will be our focus in this next segment.

It is important to preface our research with the unoriginal statement that this meal was always sacrificial in nature. The shift in prayer focus from thanksgiving for creation to thanksgiving for Jesus’ sacrifice does not indicate a lapse in tradition per-se, but more so a realization of its fulfillment. This is particularly obvious when we read Exodus chapters 12 and 13. In these chapters, God first commanded the Seder to be celebrated by the His people and then reveals to Moses what is necessary for not only the salvation of Israel from Egypt, but also how it is to be celebrated in every generation thereafter. We see a clear image of Christ in the meal which he instigated: “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household… The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.” And, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.” - Exodus 12:3, 4-8, 12-14

The topic of Christology in these few passages could comprise a lengthy paper in and of itself, so we will only note some of the allusions to Christ in the Sacrifice of the Seder meal. The sacrifice God deemed suitable to Moses must have been a young male lamb, without any defect or blemish, slaughtered at twilight. You must then use its blood to indicate where the people of God dwell, as to have His wrath Passover every household in which it covers. In the Seder tradition we are to celebrate this passing over of judgement, but at its core it has always been a bitter-sweet meal, as a Lamb as well as numerous Egyptian children must die in order for the celebrants to live. The sheep’s body is consumed by the family, both nourishing it, and acting as a commemoration (lit. zakar, or remembrance in Hebrew, the same word used in Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corn. 11:24 when discussing the Lord’s Supper). We Christians too, despite deserving God’s wrath have too been passed over by the covering of the Lamb’s blood. A sacrifice once, and for all, celebrated every Sunday in the fullness of the Seder Meal to which Jesus celebrated during his Last Supper.

It was around the first century that we see the ancient Church solidifying this type and shadow of Jesus’ sacrifice into their Lord’s Meal, shifting their prayers from merely thanking God for his abundant creation as in the Birkat Ha-Mazon would delineate, to now thanking God for the Lamb who was slain for them.15 Thus, as we partake in the meal, and as the early church so dually noted, it has always been Christological in nature, and prophetic in perspective.

A Shift in Celebration: From Evening to Morning Service.

We will not devote more time than is necessary to explain a shift that occurred in the early church, from the practice of a more Jewish based evening eucharistic celebration to the newly celebrated morning service. Coverage of such a topic may at first seem out of place in this paper, retracing the church’s steps from the Seder, to the Last Supper and then finally to the more solidified rite in the second century canons. However, this shift has some historical significance to ponder. It is then plain to see a discrepancy in the modern observance of a Sunday Eucharist service, as it is celebrated on Sunday mornings as opposed to the classic Jewish observance of an evening Sabbath. There were many changes from Jewish form to a uniquely Christian one in the first and second century, but I will only expound upon the changes which directly affect the celebration of the Eucharist within the Christian church.

To make any sense of this shift, we must first look to scripture. Paul writes in Colossians 2:16-17, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” He is writing to the church in Colossae to not let anyone, meaning both non-believing and believing Jewish members of the community, to judge the believers based on whether or not they upheld the Jewish celebrations as dictated in the Mosaic covenant. Those festivals and sacred times, as Paul states in verse 17, were merely shadows which pointed to the real events which have taken place now in Christ. The Seder meal was a shadow of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s redeeming work for his people within it, as we stated in the previous pages, and the Sabbath is no different. Jesus proclaims himself as the Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5). Paul here makes the distinction between the Jewish shadow, and what Christians are to celebrate in light of Christ’s advent. We now can see a distinctly Christological reasoning in not celebrating the Sabbath as early as the mid first century.

To see the results of this Christological understanding of the Sabbath, we look to the church fathers, the students of the Apostles along with their students, to see how it developed over the next century. We have quite a few voices which describe the early church’s thoughts on the Lord’s day. The Didache shows a distinction between the Lord’s Day observance and the Sabbath as early as 70 A.D: “But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” - (Didache Chapter XIV.11 —Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day. 14 [A.D. 70]). St. Ignatius of Antioch, the 3rd successor to St. Peter shows us as early as 110 A.D. that the church had already shifted from the Sabbath observance of Saturday to the Christian Lord’s Day on Sunday:

“If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master” - (Letter to the Magnesians Chapter IX.—Let us live with Christ [A.D. 110]).

We may continue this inquiry to the early church fathers even as far as Tertullian and Origen, however I feel like our point has been made potent enough. As early as within the lifetime of the last living Apostle (John of Patmos) the church has seen that the Sabbath has come in fullness within the context of the Cross, and by the end of that century had designated its own day, the Lord’s Day, as the time for Christian worship and celebration. We may have explained the shift from a Saturday to a Sunday observance, but this still doesn’t explain how we departed from an evening service, like with the Sabbath was, to a morning service we now celebrate today. This occurrence unlike most other changes in the newly forming Christian liturgy had less to do with Theology and more to do with the Politics of Rome at the time.

According Frank Senn in his The Christian Liturgy, he believes that the change may have taken place due to the Roman Government’s objection to evening “clubs and assosications”.16 Our earliest coherent description of a Christian Liturgy comes from the Roman Governor: Pliny the Younger in a letter dated c. 111-112 to Emperor Trajan on his interactions with Christians. “…they assured me that the main of their fault, or of their mistake was this:-That they were wont, on a stated day, to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn to Christ, as to a god, alternately; and to oblige themselves by a sacrament [or oath], not to do anything that was ill: but that they would commit no theft, or pilfering, or adultery; that they would not break their promises, or deny what was deposited with them, when it was required back again; after which it was their custom to depart, and to meet again at a common but innocent meal, which they had left off upon that edict which I published at your command, and wherein I had forbidden any such conventicles.”16

Trajan had given Pliny a command to forbid clubs and activities in the evening, which was when the Jewish Sabbath service as well as the “innocent” Agape, or fellowship meal was celebrated by the early church. In response, they decided to move their evening service to a morning service as to obey this new edict, in light of the knowledge that Christ was actually the Lord of the Sabbath, and thus the exact time to celebrate was less important as who was being celebrated during this time. With a morning, spiritual bread and wine service having been established and recorded by our research, we can finally turn to the exact origins of the second century liturgies, and the crescendo of our inquiry.

The Liturgy Contained Within the Apologies of Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr was a second century Christian apologist famous for his defenses of Christian Morality in response to secular government’s criticisms.17 Despite most of his works being lost to time, two Apologies of the Christian faith, and a dialogue did survive. For our purposes, we will be focusing on his First Apology (c. 155-157 A.D.) written to the Roman Emperor Antonius Pius, in order to persuade him to cease his persecution of this new religious sect. Justin provides two descriptions of Christian worship, although we cannot confirm whether this was of general Christian celebration or specifically that of the Churches in Rome. He writes, “But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to γένοιτο [so be it]. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.” Chapter 65, First Apology18

It is with this insight, albeit an incomplete Eucharist liturgy, we can see a now solidified glimpse into the Post-Apostolic celebration of the Last Supper. We have prayers offered before the bread is taken by the “president” of the congregation (probably a Bishop, just referred to in his liturgical function), who then thanks God for it at length. The President then gives the bread to deaconesses of the church to be distributed to those present and then to those who are not. We see here the exact formula Jesus used, based on the Jewish traditions mentioned on pages 3-4, which are still acted out in Justin’s account of Roman Christian worship: they took the bread, thanked God for the bread (blessed), broke and distributed the bread to all believers, and they ate it as Jesus had commanded. This text was written nearly one hundred and thirty years after the ascension of Christ into Heaven, and yet his rubric had been faithfully passed down and carried out every week by the disciples of his disciples, and all who were far off.

Conclusion

As you can see, despite 1900 years of history between the penning of Justin’s writings, the thousands of miles between the Roman houses in which these rites took place and our modern-day churches, the many languages and cultures these traditions have been transposed from and into have all revealed a singular truth: staunchly little has changed when compared to the celebration that we encounter at our local congregations to this day. Justin’s reports discern a “Shape of the Liturgy” which even though was not his intent, shows us a great lineage of our traditions in this holy, catholic and apostolic faith: Gathering of the believers, Readings of the scriptures, Preaching, Intercessory Prayers, a Kiss of Peace, Presentation of Bread and Wine, Great Thanksgiving, Distribution and Reception of Eucharistic Gifts, and Extended Distribution to the Absent.[19][20] If your pastor is faithful to the liturgy that was handed to him, I’m sure this formula will seem familiar to you.

This rite, preserved by biblical and extra-biblical historians has been a way for men to partake in the Sacrifice of the Cross, and the many promises of God for millennia. Throughout this paper we have traced the origins of the Eucharist meal from a hidden promise concealed within a Jewish sacred meal, to the celebration of the Last Supper by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. From there we dove into the rich Apostolic celebrations and interpretations of the rites and ritual of the first and second century churches. This unbroken chain ties us not to a ritual, but to a person. And the rock of this meal was the Promise for salvation given to us in the beautiful sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. His body and blood shed for the remission of all our sins. That any who believes and is Baptized might be saved, and by feasting on the flesh of this lamb of God’s own provision, we might be not only spared from his wraith, but also nourished unto everlasting life. Amen.

Bibliography

1. Shapiro, Mark Dov. "How Long is Passover?". sinai-temple.org. Sinai Temple. Retrieved April 9, 2015.

2. Silverstein, Rabbi Shraga The Mishna with Obadiah Bartenura: Pesaḥim 10:3-5.

3. Encyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 14, p. 319.

4. The Mishnah, trans. With an introduction by Herbert Danby (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), Berakoth 8:1, 8.

5. Louis Finkelstein, “The Birkat ha-Mazon,” Jewish Theological Quarterly, n.s. 19 (1928-29), 211-62.

6. Cross, edited by F.L. (2005). The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 482. ISBN 978-0192802903. Retrieved 8 March 2016.

7. Senn, Frank C. Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. p. 58

8. Senn, Frank C. Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. p. 61

9. Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. By Norman Perrin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 106ff

10. David Hugh Farmer (1987), "Ignatius of Antioch", The Oxford Dictionary of the Saints, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 220, ISBN 978-0-19-103673-6

11. Roberts, Alexander, James Donaldson, A. Cleveland Coxe, Allan Menzies, Ernest Cushing Richardson, and Bernhard Pick. The Ante-Nicene Fathers.: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325.Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885.

12. Justin, Martyr. First Apology of Justin Martyr: Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Place of Publication Not Identified: Nabu Press, 2010. Chapter 66

13. The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome (London, 1937; reprinted S.P.C.K., 1968), 6-9; alt.

14. First Apology of Justin Martyr, in The Library of Christian Classics, I. Early Christian Fathers, 285-6.

15. Colossians 2:16–17

16. Pliny, Epistle X, 96; trans. By J. Stevenson in A New Eusebius (London: S.P.C.K., 1968), 14.

17. Rokeah (2002) Justin Martyr and the Jews p.22.

18. Justin, Martyr. First Apology of Justin Martyr: Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Place of Publication Not Identified: Nabu Press, 2010. Chapter 65

19. Justin, Martyr. First Apology of Justin Martyr: Addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Place of Publication Not Identified: Nabu Press, 2010. Chapter 67

20. Senn, Frank C. Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. p. 76

Biblical Index

1. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, 12:1-8

2. Mark 14:22-24, 2:23-28

3. Matthew 26:26-28

4. Luke 22:17-20, 6:1-5

5. Exodus 12:3, 4-8, 12-14

6. Acts 11:19