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With this post, we conclude our series on the creative but unconscionable rewriting of the early liturgies to make them conform to the late-4th century novelty in which Christ is said to be offered to the Father in the Eucharist. From the earliest days of the Church, the Eucharist was a sacrifice of thanks and praise to the Lord, a tithe offering. It was followed by an “Amen” (1 Corinthians 14:16) and then bread and wine from the thank offering were taken and consecrated for the Lord’s Supper. The moment of Consecration originated as a simple recitation of Christ’s words of institution: “This is My body, broken. … This is My blood, shed…”. It later came to be called “the Epiclesis,” literally, the Invocation, the liturgical moment when God—the Spirit, the Son or the Trinity—is asked to make the bread and wine into a spiritual meal for His people. And thus, a very simple liturgy prevailed for three hundred years: A Eucharist. An Amen. An Epiclesis. At the end of the 4th century, the order changed and the Epiclesis was moved before the Eucharist offering, which changed a simple tithe offering for the poor into a sacrifice of consecrated bread and wine. Thus was born the abominable Roman Catholic liturgical sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood. That discontinuity in the history of the liturgy puzzled and confounded scholars, historians, translators and apologists who could not explain why the early liturgy was so fundamentally different from the medieval one. Attempting to establish retroactive continuity, the academic community therefore engaged in a reprehensible campaign to edit, redact, mistranslate and subvert the early liturgies to “correct” the ancient writers and force them into conformity with the late 4th-century novelty. The effect of the historical revision has been to make the ancient Eucharist consecratory, essentially collapsing the ancient Eucharist into the Epiclesis, and thus creating the appearance that the ancient Eucharist offering of the early church was itself the Consecration.

Continue reading The Collapse of the Eucharist, Part 5 →

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As we have noted in this series, from the earliest days of the Church through the end of the 4th century, the Eucharist was a thank offering to the Lord, a tithe, an expression of gratitude for the Lord’s provisions to His people. It was followed by an “Amen” (1 Corinthians 14:16) and then bread and wine were taken from the tithe offering to be consecrated for the Lord’s Supper. That Consecration came to be called “the Epiclesis,” or invocation. And thus, a very simple liturgy prevailed for three hundred years: A Eucharist. An Amen. An Epiclesis. But by the end of the 4th century, the order was changed and the Epiclesis was moved before the Eucharist, turning a simple tithe offering into a sacrifice of consecrated bread and wine. Thus was born the abominable Roman Catholic liturgical sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, an offering utterly foreign to the Scriptures and the Apostolic Church. That sudden 4th-century shift in the liturgy puzzled and confounded scholars, historians, translators and apologists who could not explain why the early liturgy was so different from the medieval one. So the rewriting of history began, and the academic community participated in a painstaking campaign to establish retroactive continuity. Early liturgies were translated, edited, reinterpreted, mistranslated and even rewritten to “correct” the ancient writers and force them into conformity with the late 4th-century novelty. The effect has been to give the appearance that the ancient Eucharist offering was itself the Consecration, essentially collapsing the Eucharist into the Epiclesis.

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As we have noted in this series, for three centuries, the Eucharist—which is to say, the thanksgiving or the tithe offering—was followed by an “Amen” in accordance with 1 Corinthians 14:16, at which point bread and wine were taken from the thank offering and consecrated for the Lord’s Supper. A Eucharist. An Amen. An Epiclesis. But that order changed at the end of the 4th century, and the Eucharist was moved after the Epiclesis so that consecrated bread and wine began to be offered as a liturgical sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood. As a result, the “Amen,” instead of a corporate affirmation of gratitude to God, became an affirmation of the Consecration. The academic community could find no explanation for the shift, and so through creative editing, translation and redaction of the ancient evidence, revised the early liturgies to conform to the later novelty. That editorial revision of history created the false impression that the medieval Roman Catholic liturgical sacrifice of consecrated bread and wine had been handed down from the Apostles.

The mode of the revision was to collapse the early Eucharist into the early Epiclesis, essentially combining two distinct, ancient liturgical events into one. The effect has been to hide the evidence and give the impression that the ancient Eucharistic prayer was actually the Consecration, suggesting that the ancient tithe offering was really a liturgical sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. It was not.

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We continue now with our series on the liturgical shift that occurred in the latter part of the 4th century, three hundred years after the Apostles. For three centuries, the Eucharist—which is to say, the tithe offering—was followed by an “Amen” in accordance with 1 Corinthians 14:16, at which point bread and wine were taken from the tithe offering and consecrated for the Lord’s Supper. A Eucharist. An Amen. An Epiclesis. What was offered in the Eucharist was simply the unconsecrated first-fruits of the harvest and the grateful prayers of the saints. What was consumed in the Lord’s Supper was consecrated bread and wine. Unconsecrated food was offered as a tithe as a fulfillment of Malachi 1:11 and consecrated food was consumed as a memorial meal, in accordance with the instruction of Christ at His Last Supper. The Apostolic “Amen” separated those two liturgical events. But that order changed at the end of the 4th century, and the Eucharist was moved after the Epiclesis so that consecrated bread and wine began to be offered as a liturgical sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood. The academic community—men of every stripe—were puzzled and confounded by that sudden shift, and instead of acknowledging and discerning its significance, opted instead to bury it. The early liturgies have for centuries been handled in such a way—through editorializing, mistranslation, redaction and suppression—as to collapse the Eucharist into the Epiclesis, essentially combining two distinct liturgical events into one. The effect has been to hide the evidence and give the impression that the ancient Eucharistic prayer was actually the Consecration, suggesting that the ancient tithe offering was really a liturgical sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. It was not.

Continue reading The Collapse of the Eucharist, Part 2 →

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In our previous post, we observed that the Pauline liturgy placed an “Amen” (1 Corinthians 14:16) between the thanksgiving (the Eucharist) and the Consecration (sometimes called the Epiclesis), and that the Scriptures and the ancient liturgies consistently place the Eucharist prior to the Consecration. We also showed that the Eucharist in the early Church consisted of the grateful prayers and the tithe offerings of the Church. These were offered during the Sunday liturgy in imitation of Christ Who gave thanks to His Father at the Last Supper. Those prayers and tithes were understood by the early writers to be the fulfillment of the “incense” and the “pure offering” prophesied by the prophet Malachi (1:11). Only Christians in good standing could participate in that tithe offering, for only in Christ could one bring “the tithes into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10) with a pure heart and a clear conscience. The unbeliever, the catechumen and the backslider were therefore dismissed from the service at the time of the offertory. The original Sacrifice of Dismissal (oblationem missa) or what eventually came to be known as the Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore, was simply a reference to the tithe offering that occurred immediately after the Dismissal. It did not refer to an offering of consecrated bread and wine.

Continue reading The Collapse of the Eucharist, Part 1 →

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Ironically, one of the most profoundly divisive practices in the history of Christianity is the Lord’s Supper. It separates denominations, one from another, and divides denominations from within. Protestants and Catholics certainly celebrate it differently, Roman Catholics understanding the Supper to be a sacrificial offering of Christ’s body and blood, and Protestants generally, though not universally, understanding it to be a memorial meal rather than a sacrifice. Within the broader classification of Protestants, there are divisions. Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists and Presbyterians all celebrate it differently, some weekly, others monthly or quarterly. Yet even within denominations there are differences of opinion. Anglicans, for example, historically have been divided on whether the Lord’s Supper, or “the Eucharist”, is a sacrifice or a commemoration.

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