Eucharist and Lord's Supper

THE SHAPE OF THE LITURGY
At the end of the second century wefi.nd twoseparate institutions, already
traditionally called 'the eucharist' and 'the agape' or 'Lord's supper',
existing side by side in the same churches, celebrated under different circumstances,
by different rules, for different purposes, at different times of
the day. It is evident that though they are clearly distinguished, both are
ultimately derived from the chabilrah supper; and it is, I think, also clear
how their separation has been effected. The eucharist consists simply of
those things in the chabztrah supper to which our Lord had attached a
special new meaning with reference to Himself, extracted from the rest of
the Lord's supper, to which no special christian meaning was attached.
The agape is simply what remains of the chabilrah meal when the eucharist
has been extracted. This appears when we examine their forms.
The Primitive Eucharist
We have seen that the universal 'four-action shape' of the liturgical
eucharist consists essentially of four parts: offertory, prayer, fraction and
communion.
(I) The offertory. Each communicant brings for himself or herself a
little bread and wine, and also very frequently, other small offerings in
kind of different sorts, oil, cheese, vegetables, fruit, flowers, etc. l These
latter were placed upon or beside the altar, where they were blessed in a
special clause at the end of the eucharistic prayer-a clause which maintains
its place at the end cfthe Roman canon to this day, the per Quem haec
omnia. 2 This is simply a survival of the custom of providing the chabilrah
supper out of the contributions in kind by its members, though in the case
of the bread and wine another meaning was given to the offering by the
church before the end of the first century.
(2) The prayer. When the eucharist was extracted from the chaburah
supper, the disappearance of the intervening meal brought the breaking of
bread at its beginning and the Thanksgiving over the cup of blessing at its
end into conjunction. The traditional brief jewish bread-blessing in itself
had no special connection with the chabilrah meeting, but was simply the
ordinary grace before all meals, with reference to the supper that followed.
It consequently went along with the supper, and re-appears at the agape,
not at the eucharist. The long Thanksgiving at the end of the meal was
always regarded as and called in jewish practice'The Blessing' for all that
had preceded it. It was also specifically the blessing for the 'cup of blessing'
itself (which did not receive the ordinary wine-blessing). Accordingly
it now becomes 'The Blessing' or 'The Prayer' of the eucharist, said over
the bread and wine together.
1 Hippolytus, Ap. Trad., v., vi., xxviii.
, Cf. the place of the blessing of chrism etc. on Maundy Thursday, the blessings
of grapes and so forth in the Leonine Sacramentary, and other surviving traces of
the practice.