The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist

By James T. O'Connor

The Hidden Manna has become a classic on Eucharistic teaching. Now in a second edition, accompanied by a new introduction by Fr. Kenneth Baker, a new preface from the author, new material from John Paul II, and the original foreword by Cardinal John O'Connor, this in-depth study lets the breadth and richness of the Church's Tradition speak for itself.

Fr. O'Connor presents and comments on substantial excerpts from the major sources of the Church's Tradition extending all the way back to apostolic times. Focusing on the doctrine of the Real Presence, he follows the earliest witnesses through the challenge in the Middle Ages of Berengarius through the Protestant Reformation and modern disputes.

ಜFather James O'Connor gives us nothing less than a comprehensive study of the Church's meditation on the Mystery of the Eucharist... The Hidden Manna is a superb work.ಝ
Cardinal John OಙConnor

ಜ...We owe a debt of gratitude to Fr. James OಙConnor for writing this beautiful treatise on ಘthe Sacrament of Sacramentsಙ. The Hidden Manna is a remarkable accomplishment of Catholic scholarship.ಝ
Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Jun 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681494999

Book preview

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER REGARDING THE REVISED EDITION

Fifteen years ago I received an unsolicited manuscript by Msgr. James T. O’Connor, a priest of the archdiocese of New York and a faculty member of its seminary in Dunwoodie. This manuscript was such a lucid and compelling account of the Church’s teaching—from earliest times—on the Eucharistic sacrifice and the Real Presence that we immediately decided to publish it without sending it out to any others for additional review.

We have been gratified that the book has continued to sell well since 1990 when it was first published. Now that the Holy Father, John Paul II, has declared a Year of the Eucharist, it seemed to be an appropriate time to issue the book, updated by the author, along with an updated author’s preface and a brief introduction. Fr. Kenneth Baker’s review of the book in Homiletic and Pastoral Review of October, 1990, seemed imminently apt to serve this purpose.

We hope that this reedition will help many new readers to come to a deeper appreciation of this great Sacrament of Sacraments.

Joseph D. Fessio, S.J.

Publisher

FOREWORD

It doesn’t surprise me that Father O’Connor would use Flannery O’Connor’s reverential irreverence to comment on the Eucharist as Mystery. It is typical of both the whimsy of his writing and the brilliance of his teaching.

He is speaking of the shock created at Capharnaum by Jesus’ words: My flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed. Whoever eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood will never die. Jesus anticipated the shock, Father O’Connor tells us, and knew well that it would be for many simply too much to accept. The scandal of the Mystery has never gone away. Flannery O’Connor talks about it in one of her letters in The Habit of Being, in recalling a visit she had made to another well-known author and former Catholic:

[She] said that when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it. That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.

That just happens to be one of my own favorite Flannery O’Connor stories. Much more importantly, it tells us a great deal about Father O’Connor’s thinking and his book. In a day of far too much ambiguity about both the meaning of the Mass and the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle, he gives us a ringing affirmation of the Church’s traditional and unmistakable teaching. His scholarliness is indisputable, his own faith unshakeable, yet his arguments are straightforward and uncomplicated, and his understanding of the difficulties of those neither schooled as he is nor gifted with his faith is sensitive and authentic.

As he does so carefully in his Christological study, The Father’s Son, Father O’Connor respects modern scriptural exegesis and studies in the development of doctrine. He is no fundamentalist. The Hidden Manna is rooted in exhaustive study of scripture, commentaries and sermons of the Church Fathers and insights of modern theologians. He gives us nothing less than a comprehensive study of the Church’s meditation on the Mystery of the Eucharist from the first centuries to our own times. I suspect that he would summarize his own convictions about this Mystery of Faith in the words of Pope John Paul II’s Message to the Eucharistic Congress at Lourdes (July 21, 1981).

The sacrifice of the Cross is so decisive for the future of man that Christ did not carry it out and did not return to the Father until he had left us the means to take part in it as if we had been present. Christ’s offering on the Cross—which is the real Bread of Life broken—is the first value that must be communicated and shared. The Mass and the Cross are but one and the same sacrifice. Nevertheless the eucharistic breaking of bread has an essential function, that of putting at our disposal the original offering of the Cross. It makes it actual today for our generation. By making the Body and Blood of Christ really present under the species of bread and wine, it makes—simultaneously—the Sacrifice of the Cross actual and accessible to our generation, this Sacrifice which remains, in its uniqueness, the turning point of the history of salvation, the essential link between time and eternity.

I find myself touched particularly by Father O’Connor’s dedicating this work to Mary and its overall Marian orientation. He is, after all, one of the outstanding Mariologists in the United States, and his recognition of Mary’s role in giving us the Eucharist is both moving and insightful.

For the lay reader who wants a rich understanding of the Eucharist, for either teacher or student of the theology of the Eucharist, for the preacher who, as in my own case, is always seeking deeper insight to share with God’s People, The Hidden Manna is a superb work. I am personally most grateful to its author.

† John Cardinal O’Connor

PREFACE TO THE 1988 EDITION

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly, wrote G. K. Chesterton, attempting to combat our tendency to use that other famous dictum If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well as an excuse for doing nothing. Now, having completed this work on the Eucharist, I am sadly aware of how well I have followed Chesterton’s advice. What we really need in the English language is an updated version of Darwell Stone’s monumental two volume work, from which I have learned so much. Long out of print, it is a study that still leaves one amazed at the breadth of Stone’s scholarship and the balance of his judgments. Even the admirable synthesis of the history of Eucharistic doctrine that is found throughout the four volumes of The Christian Tradition, written by Jaroslav Pelikan, another non-Catholic scholar, is not able to replace Stone’s work, simply because Pelikan has endeavored, successfully, to provide us with a study that encompasses so much more than the doctrine on the Eucharist, thereby limiting the space he might spend on any one theme. If one must at times question something reported as a specific fact or disagree with a particular interpretation of these men, it can be done only with the recognition of the lasting value of their achievements.

We also need in English a work on the Eucharist that would be written with the love and fervor of an Ignatius of Antioch or of Chrysostom or Augustine or Aquinas. And so, on the counts of both scholarship and fervor, this present book is most deficient. Nonetheless, Aquinas, anticipating Chesterton, wrote that the theme of the Eucharist is so special that we must take a risk in offering our praise and do as much as we are capable of accomplishing.

I have made no attempt to deal with the history of the Eucharistic liturgies. There is, as well, no direct treatment of the sources of the theme as found in Sacred Scripture, since I trust that the abundant references to the Scriptures by the Fathers of the Church and the great theologians will be more than adequate to present the Bible as it is read and meditated upon by the Church.

Like Mr. Dick of David Copperfield, who discovered that King Charles’ head kept creeping into his never completed Memorial, so I recognize that certain authors appear repeatedly in what follows. Augustine and Aquinas are everywhere. For this, however, I offer no apology. Whatever of value there is to be found here is due in very great measure to them.

Completed in the year which Pope John Paul II proclaimed particularly Mary’s own, this book is dedicated to her who, in Augustine’s words, gave milk to our Bread. The treatment on Our Lady and the Eucharist as found in Chapter Four is an edited version of a paper previously published in Marian Studies, vol. 39. I pray that it is to her honor.

I want to express my gratitude to Mother Mary of the Blessed Sacrament, O.P., whose prayers for me before the Host I shall never be able to repay, to Fr. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., who read and offered helpful advice on the section dealing with the Fathers of the Church, and to Sr. Ellen Gaffney, R.D.C., and Mrs. Barbara Carey of the Library of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie for their prompt, patient, and generous assistance. And, in a particular way, thanks is owed to Cardinal John O’Connor, who kindly agreed to write the Foreword, and whose own love for and preaching on the Eucharist has been a source of edification.

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

What I wrote in the original Preface expresses what I still believe and feel, so I add nothing to it except to say that it is an honor to have been requested to help prepare this new edition of The Hidden Manna for the Year of the Eucharist (October 2004 through October 2005). It has given me the opportunity to revise or add some material and to include a brief treatment of Pope John Paul II’s notable contributions to Eucharistic devotion.

From all those who have found this work helpful over these last ten years—and who may find it so in the future—I would ask a prayerful remembrance before the Eucharistic Lord, through the intercession of those whom he chose to give him flesh and be its guardian, Our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph.

St. Joseph’s Parish, Millbrook, N.Y.

Feast of the Holy Rosary, 2004

INTRODUCTION

A REVIEW BY

FR. KENNETH BAKER, S.J.

It is not easy these days to find solidly orthodox books on Catholic theology, not just in the area of the sacraments, but in any area. So we owe a debt of gratitude to Fr. James T. O’Connor for writing this beautiful treatise on the Sacrament of Sacraments and to Ignatius Press for printing it.

The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter I presents the tradition of the Church from the time of the Apostles to about the year 1000. The Didache, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. John of Damascus, Pascasius Radbertus, and many others, are cited to show that the faith of the Church from the beginning was the same as it is today after Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II. The language has changed and developed, but the faith in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and that the Mass is a Sacrifice, has not changed.

Chapter II covers the next thousand years, and begins with the disputes surrounding the new theories of Berengarius of Tours, who said that the reality of bread and wine remain after the consecration. Fr. O’Connor explains the positions of the early Reformers such as Wyclif and Hus; then he covers the various positions of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, and others. Coming to more recent times, he explains why the Church rejects the new theories of transfinalization and transignification because, in some formulations, they deny any objective change in the bread and wine as a result of the consecration. He concludes this part with a brief treatment of recent efforts at ecumenical understanding on the Eucharist, especially with the Anglicans.

Peter and the Eucharist is the title of Chapter III. Here the author shows the role of the Popes from the early centuries up to John Paul II in explaining and defending the faith of the Church in the Real Presence and the Mass as a mystical or sacramental representation of the one Sacrifice of Calvary. In this section he clearly explains how the marvelous change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ came to be explained as transubstantiation and what it means in Catholic theology.

In Chapter IV, Fr. O’Connor offers a brief, clear explanation of the doctrine of the Church on the Real Presence, transubstantiation, the Eucharist as Sacrifice. He concludes with a treatment of the relationship between the Eucharist and the Church, and the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Finally, there is an extensive and excellent bibliography on the Eucharist, and a helpful index so the reader can find any point he wishes to look up.

The Hidden Manna is a remarkable accomplishment of Catholic scholarship. It is suitable for use in the classroom, either in a seminary or in a university. Priests and lay Catholics who would like to know more about the Eucharist, or to refresh what they may have forgotten, could not find a better book today, in my estimation, than this treatise by Fr. O’Connor. It is scholarly, but not offensively so; it is also easy to read, because Fr. O’Connor knows how to write good English.

In summary, the author has given us a lucid explanation of the Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, with an emphasis on the three key points of that doctrine: the Real Presence, the Mass as Sacrifice, and transubstantiation. The treatment is primarily historical, but he explains the doctrines in the context of their historical development. Mary’s relationship to the Eucharist is brought out beautifully when the author quotes the incomparable St. Augustine who said: She gave milk to our bread (p. 350). The hidden manna is the bread of life.

Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor

Homiletic & Pastoral Review

New York, N.Y.

I

Lauda, Sion

Prelude

The Wisdom of God creates poets. How evidently this is so can be seen by considering Mary of Nazareth. When she had given to the Lord of Hosts the Flesh that would become our Bread, Wisdom caused her to break into a poem of praise, a song repeated by more people than probably any other ever composed. The Presence within stirred her to exult and proclaim the One who has filled the hungry with good things. And the praise owed to the Presence of embodied Wisdom among us has never ceased in the Church from that day until this. So great is his power that he has even made the dumb, the mute, speak. In that regard one thinks particularly of St. Thomas Aquinas, so taciturn by nature that his classmates named him the dumb ox. Yet the Eucharist made this very prosaic man a poet, perhaps the greatest of Eucharistic troubadours after Our Lady. In the awesomely beautiful texts that he composed for the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord, Thomas began the Sequence of the Mass with the following words:

Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem

Lauda Ducem et Pastorem

In hymnis et canticis.

Quantum potes, tantum aude:

Quia major omni laude,

Nec laudare sufficis.

O Sion, praise your Savior,

Praise your Leader and Shepherd

In hymns and canticles.

Dare to praise as much as you are able,

Because he is greater than all praise,

Indeed no praise is sufficient.

The Lauda Sion is an injunction to the Church (Sion) to praise the Eucharistic Presence, joined with the realization that no praise is or can be sufficient. The theme surpasses our ability. Yet both before and since Aquinas, the Eucharist has been the inspiration for innumerable compositions of great beauty in prose, poetry, art, and music, all of it a sign of the depth of feeling aroused in the faithful by this Mystery.

The praise is not always literally poetry, at least not in poetic form. Often it is prose that is as beautiful as poetry. Consider, for example, the poetic nature of the following words of St. Augustine as he preached to the faithful, commenting on the sixth chapter of St. John, which contains the Eucharistic discourse of the Lord. Commenting on verse 44 (No one can come to me unless the Father draws him. . .), Augustine says:

Do not think that you are drawn unwillingly, because the mind is also drawn by love. Nor should we be afraid of men who weigh words but are far removed from understanding realities, especially divine realities and who perhaps reprove us in respect to this Gospel word as found in Holy Scripture, saying to us: How am I to believe willingly, if I am drawn? I respond, It is a little thing, since you are also drawn willingly by pleasure. What does it mean to be drawn by pleasure? Delight in the Lord and he will grant your heart’s requests (Ps 37:4). There is a certain pleasure of the heart to which this heavenly Bread is sweet. Indeed if the poet can say, His pleasure draws each man (Virgil, Eclogues 2), it is not necessity but pleasure; not obligation but delight. Should we not then say more forcefully that a man is drawn to Christ, who delights us with truth, delights us with happiness, delights us with justice, delights us with eternal life—all of which Christ himself is? Or is it to be that the senses of the body have their pleasures while the mind is deprived of its own pleasures? If the mind does not have its own pleasure, how is it said, The sons of men shall hope under the protection of your wings; they will be inebriated by the fullness of your house, and you will give them to drink from the torrent of your pleasure; because with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see the light (Ps 36:8-9)?Give me a man in love and he’ll know what I am talking about. Give me one who is desirous and hungry and traveling as a pilgrim in this wilderness, one who is thirsting and yearning for the fountain of our eternal homeland, give me such a man and he’ll know what I am talking about. But if I speak to someone who is frigid, he will not know what of I am speaking. Such were those who murmured among themselves, and so Jesus says, Whomever the Father shall have drawn will come to me.¹

Thus, says Augustine, the Father draws us by the sweet appeal that this heavenly Bread makes to our minds. Although not speaking of the Eucharistic Mystery, the Apostle John, too, had sung the praises of the Word of life: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life (1 Jn 1:1).

What we have heard, looked at, and touched with our hands is what we proclaim. In this way one can sum up the testimony of Christians—beginning with the Fathers of the Church—to the Word of life who has made himself the Bread of life.

There are many aspects from which one may approach the writings of the Fathers of the Church. They can be viewed as privileged depositories of Christian Tradition, and thus one can read and present them as witnesses to the continuity and development of Catholic doctrine. This perspective is certainly an essential one. In respect to their writings on the Eucharist, it enables one to see how quickly some insights into the mystery of faith manifested themselves and how others developed only gradually and often enough with that lack of clarity in expression or thought that accompanies any initial efforts to probe the riches contained in what God has revealed. This lack of clarity can at times be a cause of wonder or concern to someone who would expect to find a fully elaborated presentation of the Church’s doctrine on the Eucharist in the Patristic writings. In fact, however, no such expectation should exist at all. Most of the literature that remains for us to examine exists in the form of letters, sermons, or works of Christian apology whose direct concerns were other than a presentation of a Eucharistic theology. Indeed, the first full treatise on the Eucharist was produced only in the ninth century. Nonetheless, granted the limitations imposed by the nature and purpose of the writings, the extant works of the Church Fathers give ample testimony to almost all the facets of the Eucharistic Mystery that are treated in a systematic theological study.

There is, also, another perspective from which one can approach the writings of the Fathers on the Eucharist, namely, as examples and expressions of a truth we have already mentioned: Sion’s desire to praise her Savior. Reading the Fathers can be compared to listening to a sustained hymn of praise for the Eucharistic gifts. It is a chorus of many voices, in different languages, from various times and places, each seeking to exalt or explain or defend or merely wonder at this Bread that has been given to us from heaven. No one voice is sufficient, no particular insight comprehensive enough, yet all together form a Christian Canticle of Canticles to a love that is both divine and human in a relationship more intimate than even that of marriage. Read from that point of view—while still searching precisely for the truths expressed—the writings of the Patristic age are basically an invitation to prayer and meditation.

The Patristic literature on the Eucharist covers, of course, almost nine centuries, and so it is impossible to treat it in any way that is nearly adequate in a book of this size. All one can attempt to do is to choose those Fathers and texts that are most significant and most beautiful, trying to make the selection truly representative. Normally the selections will be left to speak for themselves, the commentary being limited to indicating matters of major importance for the Church’s understanding of this memorial of the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood.

The Didache

One of the oldest of Christian documents still in existence is the Didache, the so-called Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. The exact date of its writing is disputed, with estimates ranging from A.D. 50 to 150. Internal evidence, not perhaps absolutely conclusive but nonetheless very strong, suggests that parts of it, including Sections 9 and 10, which are of immediate concern here, are to be dated somewhere between A.D. 30 and 100.² Its words on the Eucharist, frequently cited and in part well known through being adapted for use in modern Christian hymns, are as follows:

   (9) As far as concerns the Eucharist [Gk. eucharistias], give thanks in this fashion. First, in respect to the cup: We give you thanks [Gk. eucharistoumen], Our Father, for the holy vine of your servant [Gk. paidos] David, which you made known to us through your servant [Gk. paidos], Jesus; yours is the glory forever and ever. Then, in respect to the broken bread: We give you thanks, Our Father, for the life and knowledge that you made known to us through your servant Jesus; yours is the glory forever and ever. As this broken bread was scattered on the mountains and, having been gathered together, became one, so may your Church be gathered into your Kingdom from the ends of the earth, for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever and ever. However, let no one eat or drink of this Eucharist unless he has been baptized in the name of the Lord; for concerning this the Lord also said: Do not give to dogs what is holy.

   (10) After it has been completed, give thanks in this fashion: Holy Father, we give you thanks for your holy Name, which you have made dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality that you have made known to us through your servant Jesus. Yours is the glory forever. Almighty Master, you created all things for your Name’s sake and gave man food and drink for enjoyment so that they might give thanks to you, but you gave us spiritual food and drink [Gk. pneumatiken trophen kai poton] and eternal life through your Servant. . . . Remember, Lord, your Church and deliver her from all evil and make her perfect in your love, and gather your holy Church from the four winds into your Kingdom, which you have prepared for her; for yours are the power and the glory forever. . . . Let the prophets indeed give thanks as they wish.

. . .

   (14) And on the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing [Gk. proexomologesamenoi] your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. And let no man having a dispute with his companion join your assembly until they have been reconciled so that your sacrifice may not be defiled; for this is that sacrifice spoken of by the Lord: "In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice [Gk. thusian]; for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my Name is wonderful among the nations" [cf. Malachi 1:11].³

The prophets mentioned are the high priests of the Christian community, the ones who offer the Eucharist (cf. Didache, 13, 3), but the task of the overseers or bishops (Gk. episkopoi) is identical with theirs (cf. Didache, 15).⁴

Several things are to be noted in the above citation from the Didache.

1. It is possible to interpret the opening words as a reference to no more than a thanksgiving that is not the specific Eucharistic liturgy of Christians but perhaps the agape meal, or even to simple Christian table blessings.⁵ It is thought by many that, like the early Christian Eucharistic celebrations, Christian prayers at such meals would have derived from the beraka (thanksgiving, blessing) prayers of Judaism, especially as these were used at Jewish meals and at the Passover commemoration.⁶ We are familiar with this type of prayer from the words of Jesus himself (Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth: Mt 11:25) and from our own Eucharist when the bread and wine are offered (Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation). The sections of the Didache cited above could reflect this tradition. However, in the light of the third paragraph of the citation, which clearly refers to the Sunday assembly and uses the same terminology as the previous sections, and the reference to spiritual food and drink, the notion that the prayers of the Didache are (non-Eucharistic) table prayers must be reckoned as a possibility without any real likelihood.⁷

Viewing the citation as simply a reference to a thanksgiving that is not the liturgical Eucharist would eliminate a difficulty that many have found with the Didaches instruction, viz., the lack of any mention of the Lord’s words of Eucharistic Institution—words that later theology and the Church’s teaching came to recognize as among the necessary elements for a true or valid Eucharistic celebration.⁸ Some who admit that the Didache’s references are truly Eucharistic have drawn the conclusion—from the lack of any words of Institution—that at least certain communities in the primitive Church celebrated a Eucharist without including the dominical words, and that, at least for that period of Church history, the words of Institution were not necessary for a valid Eucharist. As further evidence for such a conclusion, appeal is made to another liturgical text, the Eucharistic Prayer, or Anaphora of Addai and Mari. This document, probably deriving originally from those Christian communities centered around Edessa and Nisibis and whose tradition today is carried on in part by the Catholic Churches of the Chaldean and Malabar Rites in the Middle East and India, is surely an important and interesting one, although it is surrounded by much uncertainty. We possess no manuscript of the Anaphora that predates the tenth or eleventh centuries. Therefore, the speculated original date of the work ranges from the second to the seventh centuries. It is possible, too, that the Anaphora represents a heterodox form of Christianity, since, during the aftermath of the Nestorian controversy and the Council of Ephesus, theological dissension and poor communications separated some of the Churches that may have given birth to the Anaphora from the Church of Rome and from the patriarchal Sees of Constantinople and Alexandria. Also, it is known from manuscripts of other Eucharistic prayers that the words of Institution were not always included in the text even when it is certain that they were used and considered necessary. Their exclusion was due in part to the fact that they existed in so fixed a form that the celebrant was expected to know them by memory.⁹ These general difficulties are compounded by the fact that a number of the experts on the text are of the opinion that it originally did contain a narrative of Institution. They have reconstructed the text accordingly.¹⁰ The state of the question being such, it would be precipitous to appeal to this document as proof—along with the Didache—that there was indeed a time when the Eucharist was celebrated with an anaphora or canon or prayer that did not include the institutional words of Jesus. As far as the Didache is concerned, it is quite possible that the instructions given refer to the prayers to be said after the Institution narrative.

The Epistle of Clement of Rome

Another ancient piece of Christian literature—perhaps the oldest outside the New Testament, depending on the dates assigned to the Didache and to the Odes of Solomon—is the letter of the Church in Rome to the Church in Corinth. In it the Romans rebuke the Corinthians for having deposed some of the leaders of their local Church. The epistle was held in great repute by the early Church and was universally attributed to Clement, the third Bishop of Rome after St. Peter.¹¹ It was written sometime between A.D. 70 and 96.¹²

Some have raised the possibility that the long prayer found in sections 59 to 61 of Clement’s letter is drawn from the Eucharistic liturgy as celebrated in Rome at that time.¹³ This is certainly not impossible, but it is a conjecture that cannot be verified by any other evidence presently available to us. What is clear, however, is that Clement makes a distinction between the leaders of the community, and the faithful in general. The former he calls presbyters (elders) and bishops (overseers) without apparently making any further distinction between them;¹⁴ the latter Clement, using the word in Christian literature for the first time, calls laity.¹⁵ Working from this distinction, he draws the conclusion that each one of us, brothers, in his own order should fittingly give thanks to God with a good conscience, not transgressing the assigned rule of his ministry (Gk. mē parekbainōn ton horismenon tēs leitourgias autou kanona).¹⁶ He thus gives evidence of a rule for liturgical service that will appear again and again in the documents of the Church. When he comes to speak of the ministry proper to the presbyter-bishops, he refers to it as the offering of the gifts: Our sin will not be a light one if we expel those who worthily and blamelessly have offered the gifts of [proper to?] the episcopacy.¹⁷ In the light of Matthew 5:23 and Leviticus 1:2 and 7:38, it seems quite clear that the offering of gifts referred to by Clement is the equivalent of calling the Eucharistic liturgy a sacrifice.

The Odes of Solomon

Until 1909 the Odes of Solomon were known only through scattered references in other early Christian writings. In 1905 a Syriac manuscript was found, and all forty-two Odes were published in 1909. Although scholars differ, it would appear that they were originally written in Syriac and represent an orthodox and often very moving example of poetry that derives from Christians of a Jewish background.

There is a possible reference to the Eucharist in the daring imagery of Ode 19.

   Ode 19

A cup of milk was offered to me,

and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord’s kindness.

The Son is the cup,

and the Father is he who is milked;

and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him;

Because his breasts were full,

and it was undesirable that his milk should be released without purpose.

The Holy Spirit opened her bosom

and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father.

Then she gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing,

and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.

The womb of the Virgin took it,

and she received conception and gave birth.

And she labored and bore the Son but without pain

because it did not occur without purpose.

And she did not seek a midwife,

because he caused her to give life.¹⁸

The cup of milk is the Son, milked by the Spirit from the breasts of the Father. Although the imagery is bold in that it depicts feminine attributes of the Father, its intentions are clear and perfectly orthodox. The Son is of the substance of the Father, a truth that the Council of Nicaea in 325 would capture by its use of the term homoousios, one in being. The action of the Spirit in milking is a reference to the later credal statement conceived by the Holy Spirit, since the action of the Spirit results in the reception of the Milk in the womb of the Virgin Mary, whose parturition is virginal. Mary acts as the servant through whom the Milk is passed to us to drink in the sweetness of the Lord. Thus, the Father’s Milk becomes our nourishment; we feed on and drink of his substance.

St. Ignatius of Antioch

The references of St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107) to the Eucharist in the seven authentic letters he wrote while on his way to Rome to suffer martyrdom are sufficient to indicate that the Mystery of the Lord’s Body and Blood was a most significant aspect in his thought and in his own spiritual life. In his letter to the Christians of Tralles, for example, he apparently compares the virtues of faith and love to the Eucharistic Mystery when he writes: Therefore, arming yourselves with gentleness, renew yourselves in faith, which is the Flesh of the Lord, and in charity, which is the Blood of Jesus Christ. Hold nothing against your neighbor.¹⁹ His letter to the Romans is almost mystical in its Eucharistic allusions. He compares his own coming tortures to the process that the wheat must undergo (a comparison later taken up and used by St. Augustine with great effect).²⁰ In facing death, Ignatius states that his only remaining desire is to encounter him who has made himself the food and drink of Christians. He writes:

I am God’s grain, and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts in order that I may be found [to be] pure bread for Christ.

   My [earthly] love [lit. eros] has been crucified, and there is in me no fire of material love, but rather a living water, speaking in me and saying within me, Come to the Father. I take no pleasure in corruptible food or in the delights of this life. I want the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who is of the seed of David; and as drink I want his Blood, which is incorruptible love.²¹

The above passages are filled with allusions, intended or not by Ignatius it is difficult to say, although the surest hypothesis would hold that they were. The living water that speaks within him recalls the words of Christ to the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:10) and is a reference to the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 7:38-39). The Spirit’s words are an invitation to the Father, who will feed the one who accepts that invitation with the Bread of God, an allusion to John 6:32-33, where Jesus is recorded as saying: It is not Moses who has given you the Bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true Bread from heaven. For the Bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And, following Christ, Ignatius identifies the Bread of God with the Flesh and Blood of Jesus himself. For emphasis Ignatius refers to Jesus Davidic descent, thereby stressing—as he does so often throughout his letters—the historical and material reality of the Incarnation.

Ignatius words are clearly an example of his own desire to imitate Christ. In expressing this desire, the Bishop of Antioch is responding to an explicit invitation of the Lord himself, who had said, Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Mt 11:29), an injunction seconded by St. Paul when he wrote: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5) and By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you (2 Cor 10:1). In Ignatius this idea of the imitation of Christ (which was to have so central a place in Christian spirituality) passed, by a natural progression, from the imitation of Christ as he had manifested himself in Palestine to an imitation of the Eucharistic Lord as he continues to reveal himself in the Mystery of his Flesh and Blood. Indeed, it is probably true to say that the Eucharist served as model not only for Ignatius view of his own approaching death but also for the marked Christocentric nature of all his spirituality.

What I need is the meekness by which the prince of this world is destroyed.²²

Without him we do not have true life.²³

Let me be no more than a libation [cf. Phil 2:17] for God while an altar of sacrifice [Gk. thusiasterion] is still at hand.²⁴

I greet you in the Blood of Jesus Christ, which is eternal and abiding joy.²⁵

Let me be an imitator of the Passion of my God.²⁶

Let us do all things as [having] him dwelling in us.²⁷

I pray that there may be in them [i.e., the Churches] a union of the Flesh and Spirit of Jesus Christ.²⁸

Remember me as Jesus Christ [remembers] you.²⁹

The last words of the citation from Ignatius letter to the Romans (I want his Blood, which is incorruptible love) offer differing possibilities to the translator. The words in Greek are ho estin agape aphthartos, and they may be translated as love immortal, thereby indicating the undying love of Christ for us as he feeds us with his Flesh and Blood. Or the agape referred to may be an allusion to the supper celebrated by Christians in conjunction with the Eucharist (cf. 1 Cor 11). The former interpretation, however, is to be preferred.³⁰

Ignatius desire for God’s Bread is grounded in the realism with which he identifies that Bread with the Flesh and Blood of Christ. That such an identification is not merely something of his own invention but rather the teaching of the Christian community in general is clearly seen, although in an indirect fashion, when Ignatius comments on the beliefs of some who call themselves Christians but who stay away from the Christian Eucharist. Of them he writes:

Observe well those who are heterodox in respect to the grace of Jesus Christ that has come to us; see how they are opposed to the mind of God. Charity is of no concern to them, nor are widows and orphans or the oppressed, either those in prison or at liberty, or the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised. . . . It would be better for them to show love in order they [also] might rise.³¹

The people Ignatius is referring to are those who manifest some of the tendencies that later would be grouped under the generic term Gnostic. A common trait of the various Gnostic or proto-Gnostic groups was a disdain for material reality. Therefore, those marked by such an outlook in Ignatius time rejected Eucharistic fellowship because it meant participating in a Mystery all too material for their views, namely, the eating of the very Flesh that had suffered and been raised. Their rejection of Eucharistic fellowship indicates that the orthodox Christian communities held for an identity between the Eucharist and the crucified and risen Body of the Lord. Such an identity carried clear notions of materiality, since the Eucharistic and risen Body is, in fact, the identical Flesh that had suffered Crucifixion, as Ignatius affirms in the same letter when he writes: For I know and believe that after the Resurrection he exists [lit., is] in the flesh.³² Perceiving that this was what the orthodox Christians were maintaining, they separated themselves from so carnal an understanding of the Eucharistic reality. Such a realistic understanding of what the Christians were saying about the Eucharist was that not only of Gnostic-type fellow Christians but also of pagans, one of whose frequent charges against the Christians was that of cannibalism.³³

It is evident, then, that both Ignatius and his opponents offer strong evidence for that aspect of the Eucharistic Mystery that