Eucharist and Lord's Supper

EUCHARIST AND LORD'S SUPPER 61
cribed as 'instituting the eucharist', since there was in His mind no thought
of a future rite) was concerned only with the breaking of bread, while the
sacramental use of the cup is an addition by S. Paul upon the model of
hellenistic mysteries!. In this form, without the cup, the rite is supposed
to have been originally practised at Jerusalem. This theory is really based
on the abnormal 'bread-eucharists' found in certain apocryphal 'Acts' of
various apostles, and on the traces of 'bread-and-water eucharists' even
within the catholic church in the second and third centuries. But it enlists
also the 'shorter text' of Luke XXii,2 as the only authentic account of all that
happened at the last supper, preserved for us by 'that careful historian S.
Luke'. The case is strengthened by the apparently technical use of the
phrase 'the breaking of bread' aloneto describe the whole rite in the Jerusalem
church in the 'pre-Pauline' years. 3
To take the evidence in the same order: (1) There is no single scrap of
the evidence for 'bread eucharists' or 'bread-and-water eucharists' outside
the New Testament 4 which can conceivably be dated earlier than c. A.D.
150;5 i.e., it is all later than the rise of that wave of ascetic enthusiasm
which culminated in a whole group of similar movements classed together
by modern scholars as 'Encratite'; some of these were outside and some
remained inside the church. But all alike rejected, amongst other things, the
use of wine; and to their fanaticism on the subject we can reasonably attribute
the disuse of wine in these cases at the eucharist. All the apocryphal
'Acts' which furnish the evidencefor these peculiar eucharists also teach the
'Encratite' view of sexual intercourse. It also seems quite unscientific to
attribute a weight to the tradition represented by these relatively late documents
comparable (let alone superior) to that of the statements of 1 Cor.,
Mark and Matt., which are at all events first century evidence. There is
no other matter on which their evidence on the history of the apostolic age
has secured similar respect from serious scholars. In any case, they shew
themselves in some points (e.g. in the 'four-action shape' of their 'breadand-water
eucharists') dependent on the developed ecclesiasticaltradition.
(2) What of the 'shorter text' of Luke xxii? This exists in several different
forms. That which is best attested, the oldest form of the 'Western
1 This is the theory put forward with learning and ingenuity by Lietzmann Cop.
cit.pp. 249 sqq.)and with more naIvete by Dr. Hunkin, The Evangelical Doctrine, etc.,
PP·19 sqq.
2 This omits both the words'... which is given for you. Do this,' etc. over the
bread in v. 19, and aU mention of the cup of blessing after the meaJ, together with
any trace of a 'Blood-Covenant' saying by our Lord in any connection, i.e. the
whole of Luke xxii. vv. I9b and 20 in the Authorised Version.
3 Acts ii. 42, 46.
« Collected by Lietzmann, op. cit. p. 240 sq. Dr. Hunkin altogether omits thisthe
only solidly established part of the evidence.
5 The earliest is either in the Leucian Acts of John, or perhaps that of the original
version of the Acts of Judas Thomas. The Acts of Paul and Thecla (c. 165 A.D.) offer
the earliest evidence for 'bread-and-water eucharists' held by people certainly inside
the catholic church, and Cyprian Ep. 67 about the latest.