Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries

by Werner Elert

I don’t know what I was expecting here. This book drops you straight into some pretty challenging material, uses Greek terms without defining them, and was overall a lot of work to read. Surprisingly, that gets better after the first few chapters – maybe those are the “weed out” chapters…

Schleirmacher’s view (which I reject): Koinonia (fellowship) is brought about by the actions of men. The church continues to exist by the voluntary actions of men. Elert says, “There is no conceivable bridge between such a view and that of the early church.” (3)

In 1 Corinthians 10:16, koinonia means many using, enjoying, or taking part in a common thing. (4) In Latin, communio. Sometimes “fellowship” (“Gemeinschaft), but that has another meaning (simply “to have something to do with another person”) which is not what koinonia means.

What links us in the Lord’s Supper is not our human relationship but the thing we partake of together. (4)

The Apostle’s Creed “was never ecclesiastically accepted” in the East.

Elert makes the case (from grammar and the history of the phrase) that “the communion of saints” refers not to the church but to the Lord’s Supper. This point is made at length – it is the take-away from chapter 1 which is summarized in the first sentence of chapter 2 (15): “The Creed’s sanctorum communio in its original Greek form meant the Lord’s Supper.” The word sanctorum can be a plural or “sancti” (saint) or of sancta (referring to the consecrated elements).

Koinonia is not comradeship. Communio is not merely society. Communion is not a club. (16) Koinonia is in the partaking without reference to the other participants.

“Understanding the Sacrament as a partaking of the body and blood of Christ is as old as the theological interpretation of the Sacrament itself.” (17) The body and blood are “the mysteries” – “The Sacramant is called ’the holy metalepsis’” in Funk.

Sidebar on Funk. This refers to Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostollorum. Like the Didache, this work collects early church orders and was written near Antioch. Funk was a German Catholic who collected and published the ancient texts in 1905. They are in Latin and Greek. I found a PDF with the correct page numbers and used ChatGPT to help translate. It says, “Let all who enter the church and hear [listen without participating, I think], or who abstain from prayer and the Holy Metalepsis, as if claiming some disorder, be corrected by the Church.”

Metalepsis is using a word or phrase from a trope/cliche in a new context. For example, “he saved me from the rabbit hole,” ie, he kept me from being distracted. I’m not sure of the meaning of The Holy Metalepsis. Kind of like calling the Lord’s Supper “The Holy Metaphor”? But that seems to undercut the Real Presence. Later, from p. 36, metalepsis = “partaking”. Or, from p. 63, “having a share in something.”

By the time of Athanasius, koinonia was the “fixed and popular term for the Sacrament.” (18)

Chrysostom: “You are about to receive the King through the koinonia.”

Basic: You can give yourself the Lord’s Supper in times of distress of persecution. In Alexandria and Egypt, people kept it in their houses to partake of any time! (Reminds me of Internet communion…)

1 Cor. 10:16 is a key verse for interpreting koinonia. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?” To “communicate” means to partake of the body and blood of Christ. (23)

Koinonia of the sufferings of Christ – Phil. 3:10 (“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death”). Koinonia of the Lord’s Supper – like death, it is an “individual event.”)

The church is gathered together (synaxis) but it is God who does the gathering. (25)

Exclusion from the Lord’s Supper = Exclusion from the congregation. (27)

Koinonia is 1) individual partaking, 2) being drawn into the body of Christ, becoming its members. (28)

Paul and Luther would not view something “spiritual” as being “confined to the mind.” “As we are made one spiritually by the Holy Spirit, so bodily by Sacramental partaking of the body of Christ.” (29)

John of Damascus: The Lord’s Supper gives us koinonia with Christ but also with each other. The first koinonia leads to the second. (33)

The word synaxis refers to the congregation, a lateral koinonia, Christ gathering His Church. (35)

Gold:

Of all that the Bible says about the Sacrament, 1 Cor. 10:16 made the deepest impression on Luther. "I have extolled this text and do extol it as the joy and crown of my heart." But the words of Christ, "This is My body," meant even more. There may be no disputing about these words. This was the conviction that prompted him that moment in Marburg. They are not words _about_ the Sacrament. They are not words of Scripture like other Scripture. They may not be subjected to exegetical discourse as the words of John or Paul may. **They are the creative words of Christ Himself.** They are without analogy and are therefore not to be explained by means of other examples. **They do not describe the Sacramant; they constitute it.** They claim faith, and yet unbelief cannot frustrate them. (38)

“They are the creative words of Christ himself.” What he says “This is My body,” he is saying it in the same way that He said, “Let there be light.” This was eye-opening for me. In fact, I have thought of and repeated this point several times this year without remembering that I read it in this book, but only now as I write up these notes and I’m reminded that it came from Elert.

Luther: It is the Lord’s Supper, not the Christian’s Supper. (40)

The unified church in Ephesus is “the church as seen by God. He knows more than we are able to perceive.” (44)

3 Norms of the early church: 1) the episcopate, 2) the NT canon, and 3) the Rule of Faith. (52)

For Cyprian (mid-3rd century), “the true bishop was distinguished by the apostolic succession.” But there was much division even among bishops of the apostolic sees. (53)

Re: the NT canon, “Read the works of the heretics,” which are richly decorated with passages from the NT and OT. The same is true today. The early church learned that the canon was not enough – we “must distinguish between the Holy Scripture and what men made of it.” (54)

The Rule of Faith is the Apostolic doctrine. This “accredited the apostolic succession of the bishops.” Basically, the creeds and their theological meanings. “The Rule of Faith provides a rule for the right understanding of Scripture.” (55) I.e., dogma, confession, creed.

The early church used the language we do, to “be in communion with someone” (or some church or bishop). (63)

The Lord’s Supper and prayer “make a congregation out of a cluster of believers.” (65)

The Didache and other early church “codes” present “long catalogs of prescriptions and prohibitions as if these were the Gospel.” The Church became a disciplinary institution, with rules for inclusion and exclusion. (68)

Fellowship is “on the basis of confessed faith,” not “mere mental appropriation of doctrinal material.” (71)

“The koinonia of every congregation was a fellowship of faith,” which must involve a verbal confession. Thus, “a confessional fellowship.” (72)

Worship was not public. A closed assembly. Even catechumens had to leave. (76) “Closed communion” meant restricting participation to full members of the congregation.

The Apology of Justin Martyr describes Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the second century. (77)

A good explanation of closed Communion is found on page 80. “The quest was critical” for the early church: “Is it in harmony with the koinonia of the body of Christ that Christians who are not at one should go to Holy Communion together?” “The partakers become ‘one body and one spirit.’ Therefore there may be nothing separating or dividing them, for that which divides would do injury to the koinonia and so to the unity of the body of Christ.” (80) Therefore they did not believe that “all the baptized may without distinction partake of the Eucharist together.”

Divisions can be confessional, with two congregations having different confessions. They can also be between individual. Such divisions must be put right before the Lord’s Supper.

When a brother is unrepentant of a “gross sin,” do not eat with him (1 Cor. 5:11). Likely a reference to the Lord’s Supper. In any case, the Lord’s Supper “could certainly not be an exception.” (84)

“The power of absolution is… in the readiness to forgive.” (89) Gospel.

In downplaying sins of thought, the danger “is the externalizing of sin, for which a man may then compensate with equally external ‘works.’” (92)

The early church did not have the major and minor bans. (94)

Believers are not to pray with the excommunicated. If you do, you yourself are excluded. (94)

Basil the Great, 450s AD, refers to the Lord’s Supper as a “sacrifice.” (96)

They excluded gross sinners from the Lord’s Supper for years, even for the rest of their lives (in the case of murder), with stages of penance to be readmitted. The deathbed was an exception (101), even for murderers. “All parts of church discipline are muted in the face of death.”

Re: heresy, as the church gets more strict in rooting out and opposing heretics, some critics can be sympathetic to them. They “assume that the opponents of orthodox doctrine also oppose the insistence on orthooxy.” But heretics also insist on orthodoxy. (108)

“The early church was never in doubt that unity in doctrine was a prerequisite of altar fellowship.” (109)

“Heresy” is “of profane origin”. The Greek hairesis originally meant “choice” or “selection” – no negative connotation. It came to mean a sect of a philosophy school. Negative connotation came later. This is different from a schism, which is a non-doctrinal division.

Dogma. Only that “which is worthy of the liturgy” is considered dogma by the early church. Calling Mary “Mother of God,” believing that God can suffer (theopaschitism). (111)

A kerygma is a proclamation. Like a confession of faith. The core teachings. Irenaeus calls “the faith received from the apostles” kerygma, e.g. (111)

The church confesses the death and resurrection of Christ not as mere information. It is the life of the church. (111)

“Orthodox confession is divine worship.” (111) See 1 John 2:23, “He who confesses the Son has the Father also.” The reverse is also true: “all divine worship is confession.” (112)

“Heterodoxy [a different kerygma] breaks church fellowship” (including altar fellowship). (113)

The early church has communion registrars. (115) The Didascalia (probably 3rd century) describes having deacons question “every stranger whether he belongs to the church or to a sect (hairesis).”

No church fellowship, no altar fellowship. The only exception is the deathbed. (116)

Closed communion was a universal practice, never questioned in the early church. (118)

“We must maintain with all strength that the Eucharist is to be neither received from nor given to heretics.” (121, quoting John of Damascus)

“Exclusion from one congregation is valid for all congregations.” (127)

Cyprian’s theory: “That the unity of the church is guaranteed by the unity of the bishops.” (139)

“Unless he is contradicted, a bishop may regard himself as united in the faith with his own congregation. Since he has the office of teacher, he represents what is taught both within and without. … We see how doctrinal unity is always in question. It is not an assured possession but an unremitting task.” (144)

When Bishop Paul of Samosata (3rd c.) was deposted (for teaching Jesus was born a man and later infused with the logos), he refused to give up the church building. The Church had to get the emperor involved, took over four years. (150)

Encyclicals were circular letters, “letters to everywhere.” They presuppose unity. But they “became a document of fractured unity” as churches sent encyclicals against other churches’ encyclicals. (152)

Simeon Stylites - a monk who lived on a pillar for 30+ years. (153)

Civil authority “is always interested in the external unity of the church.” (156)

“Admonition from a strangers is very effective” (162) – referring to a visiting bishop preaching to a congregation that wasn’t his own.

Doctrinal unity and altar fellowship go hand in hand. (162-3) If a layperson communes in another congregation, “it is, so to speak, a private affair, but if a clergyman [does]…, his participation… is evidence of altar fellowship.”

There are no levels of fellowship – it is either complete or there is none. (164)

To demostrate fellowship with churchs who used a different date for Easter, Irenaeus sent them the consecrated elements! (165)

A schism begins with breaking altar fellowship and ends with restoring it. (167)

During a split between Bishop Memnon (in the majority) and John of Antioch (minority), the Council of Ephesus was called in 431 AD. The imperial commissioner, Candidian, asked that neither side commune. Both sides had excommunicated the other. If they celebrated the Lord’s Supper separately, “the split would be consummated.” (168)

Communing at a church with a different confession was unthinkable. (172)

Participating in the Divine Service but being excluded from the Lord’s Supper was abnormal. The occurred with Arians at Constantinople. It was only normal for lapsed Christians as penance. (I wonder how this worked for newcomers.)

Re: attempts at unification by forcing all to commune together, this implies viewing fellowship as the result of the act of communing together. “But it takes a strong imagination to credit so much theological reflection to people who try to achieve unity by the use of force.” (179) Zing!

Re: recognizing fellowship, there is a good example on p. 180. Two Christians, after talking for a while, “discovered that nothing stood between them.” They then recognized fellowship that existed between them (due to doctrinal agreement) by taking the Lord’s Supper.

“By his partaking of the Sacrament in a church, the Christian declares that the confession of that church is his confession. Since a man cannot at the same time hold two differing confessions, he cannot communicate in two churches of differing confessions. If anyone does this nevertheless, he denies his own confession or has none at all.” (182)

Macedonius was the bishop of Constantinople from 342-360 AD. The emperor and his court were “rigorously Arian.” Nicaeans were a minority in Constantinople. Macedonius “demanded that they receive Communion with him.” Imprisoned some. Others had wood wedged into their mouths and the consecrated elemebts were stuffed in.” (!!!) Brutal. But this shows Macedonius accepted “the premise unquestioned in the early church that where Holy Communion is celebrated, there is church fellowship.” (192-3)

Imperial church politics led to this kind of approach. “By receiving communion together they were ready to put up a show of unity which did not exist.” (193)

Twice he quotes Augustine saying of heretics, “compel them to come in” to the catholic church. I wonder what Augustine meant. Elert writes as if Augustine wanted a police-enforced unity. (196)

Communing separately “not in order to destroy the peace, but for the sake of peace,” so you know you have no divisions with those you commune with. (200)

Vocab

• apposition - defines, explains (9)
• et passim - “and throughout” (31)
• dimissory - formal permission from a bishop (letters dimissory) for a person from one diocese to be ordained in another (161)
• diptych - a painting, especially an altarpiece, on two hinged wooden panels which may be closed like a book (160)
• genetive - expresses possession
• Monophysites - believed Christ had a Divine nature but not a human one
• pleonasm - the use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning (171)