Eucharist and Lord's Supper

EUCHARIST AND LORD'S SUPPER 79
That this was so can be seen from its special name, 'The Eucharist' (-ic
Prayer), he eucharistia, 'The Thanksgiving', which is simply the direct
translation into Greek of its ordinary rabbinic name, berakah. To 'bless' a
thing and to 'give thanks' to God for a thing over it were synonymous in
jewish thought, because in jewish practice one only blessed a thing by
giving thanks to God for it before using it. There were thus available two
Greek words to translate the one Hebrew word berakah: eulogia = a
'blessing', or eucharistia= a 'thanksgiving'; according to whether one put
the chief emphasis on the idea of the thing for which one thanked God, or
of God to Whom one gave thanks for the thing. Accordingly we find these
two Greek words used apparently indifferently in the N.T. as translations
of this same Hebrew verb. Thus Mark (xiv. 22, 23) in successive verses
says that our Lord 'blessed' (eulogesas) the bread and 'gave thanks' over
(eucharistesas) the wine, where a jew would have used the word berakh in
both cases.!
S. Paul tends to use eucharistein rather than eulogein, even in caseswhere
not 'the eucharist' but ordinary 'grace before meals' is certainly intended,
e.g. of meat bought in the market;2 though he uses eulogein especiallyof the
eucharist itself.3 Outside the gospels and S. Paul eucharistein does not
appear in the N.T. Evidently terminology took a generation to settle down.
The word 'eucharist' came in the end to be applied technically (a) to the
christian sacramental prayer, then (b) to the whole action or rite of which
that prayer furnished the formal verbal expression, and (c) finally to the
elements over which the prayer was uttered and on which the rite centred.
This seems to be due not to the language of scripture, which supplied no
decided rule, but to the accident that the usual form in which the jewish
word berakah was taken over into Greek christian usage was eucharistia
when the change from the 'seven-' to the 'four-action shape' of the liturgy
was made in the first century. (But for this we in England to-day might
have spoken habitually of 'Celebrations of the Holy Eulogy', instead of the
'Holy Eucharist'.) The inference is that the terminology was not framed
by S. Paul.
In making the exceedinglyimportant change in the structure of the rite
which resulted from leaving out the supper, the church scrupulously retained
everywhere the old jewish invitation of the chabfirah president to
his companions to say 'the Thanksgiving'-'Let us give thanks unto the
Lord our God'. This is phrased in that particular form which was restricted
by the rabbis to occasions when 'one hundred persons are present',4
1 But it is at least an interesting point that the bread-blessing translated literally
into Greek would begin eulogetos ho kyrios, whereas the opening words of the
Thanksgiving in Greek would be eucharistesomentoi kyrioi. There may be a lingering
tradition of the actual formulae used by our Lord behind the apparently casual
choice of words in Mark xiv. 22,23.
, I Cor. x. 30. 3 I Cor. x. I6.
• Berakoth, M., vii. 5 (p. 62).