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See also: epistle of See also: Jude 12: " These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they banquet with you." But this is not certain, for in 2 Pet. ii
.
13 the verse is cited, but See also: reading It r&rai.s (" deceits ") for &y&sraLs, and the See also: oldest See also: MSS. hesitate
.
The See also: history of the See also: agape coincides, until the end of the 2nd century, with that of the eucharist (q.v.), and it is doubtful whether the following detailed account of the agape given in See also: Tertullian's See also: Apology (c
.
39) is to be regarded as exclusive of an accompanying eucharist: " It is the banquet (See also: triclinium) alone of the Christians that is criticised
.
Our supper (coena) shows its character by its name
.
It is called by a word which in See also: Greek signifies love (i.e. agape)
.
Whatever it See also: costs, it is anyhow a clear gain that it is incurred on the score of piety, seeing that we succour the poorest by such entertainments (refrigerio)
.
We do not lie down at table until prayer has been offered to See also: God, as it were a first taste
.
We eat only to appease our See also: hunger, we drink only so much as it is See also: good for temperate persons to do
.
If we satisfy our appetites, we do so without forgetting that throughout the See also: night we must say our prayers to God
.
If we converse, it is with the knowledge that the See also: Lord is listening
.
After washing our hands and See also: lighting the lamps, each is invited to sing a hymn before all to God, either taken from See also: holy writ or of his own composition
.
So we prove him, and see how well he has drunk
.
Prayer ends, as it began, the banquet; and we break up not in bands of brigands, nor in See also: groups of vagabonds, nor do we burst out into debauchery
...
. This meeting of Christians we admit deserves to be made illicit, if it resembles illicit acts; it deserves to be condemned, if any complain of it on the same score on which complaints are levelled at factious meetings
.
But to do harm to whom do we ever thus come together ?"
The evidence of Tertullian is good for See also: Africa
.
But in See also: Egypt about the same See also: time (18o-21o), See also: Clement of Alexandria in his Pedagogus (ii
.
I) condemns the " little suppers which were called, not without presumption, agape." This word, he complains, should denote the heavenly See also: food, the reasonable feast alone, and the Lord never used it of See also: mere junketings
.
Clement wished the name to be reserved for the eucharist, because the love-feasts of the See also: church had degenerated, as Tertullian too discovered, as soon as he turned Montanist
.
For in his
See also: tract on fasting (ch. xvii.) he complains that the See also: young men misbehaved with the sisters after the agape
.
Among the See also: spurious See also: works of See also: Athanasius is printed a tract entitled About Virginity, ch. xiii. of which directs how the sisters after the synaxis of the ninth See also: hour (3 P.M.) are to dine: " When you sit down at a table and come to break See also: bread, See also: seal it thricewith the sign of the See also: cross and thus give thanks : ` We thank thee, our See also: Father, for thy holy resurrection; for through Jesus thy servant thou hast shewn it unto us
.
And as this bread on this table was scattered, but has been brought together and become one, so may thy church be brought together into thy See also: kingdom
.
For thine is the power and the See also: glory, for ever and ever, See also: Amen.' This prayer as you break the bread, and are about to eat, you must say
.
And when you See also: lay it on the table and See also: desire to eat it, repeat the ` Our Father entire
.
But after See also: dinner (or breakfast), and when we rise from table, we use the prayer given above, viz
.
` Blessed be God, who hath pity and nourisheth us from our See also: infancy, who giveth food to all flesh
.
Fill our See also: hearts with joy and gladness, that ever having of all things a sufficiency, we may superabound in all good works, in Christ Jesus our Lord, &c.' " The writer then enjoins that, " if two or three other virgins See also: ate See also: present, they also shall give thanks over the bread set out, and join in the prayers
.
But if a See also: catechumen be found at the table, she shall not be suffered to join with the full believers in their prayers, nor shall the latter sit with her to eat the morsel " ('ca 6 , used specially of the sanctified bread)
.
" Nor shall they sit with frivolous and joking See also: women, if they can help it, for they are sanctified to God, and their food and drink have been hallowed by the prayers and holy words used over them
.
.
..
If a See also: rich woman sits down with them at table, and they see a poor woman, they shall invite her also to eat with them, and not. put her to shame because of the rich one." The last words See also: echo r See also: Cor. x., and the prayer is nearly the same as that which the teaching of the Apostles assigns for the eucharistic rite
.
Here, then, we have pictured as See also: late as the 4th century a Lord's supper, which like the one described in z Cora x. is agape and eucharist in one, and it is held in a private See also: house and not in church, and the celebrants are holy women
!
The historian See also: Socrates (Hist
.
Ecd. v
.
22) testifies to the survival in Egypt of such Lord's suppers as were love-feasts and eucharists in one
.
Around Alexandria and in the Thebaid, he says, they hold services on the See also: sabbath, and unlike other Christians partake of the mysteries (i.e. See also: sacrament)
.
For after holding good cheer and filling themselves with meats of all kinds, they at eventide make the offering (srpoes op&) and partake of it
.
So See also: Basil of See also: Cappadocia (Epistle 93), about the See also: year 350, records that in Egypt the laity, as a See also: rule, celebrated the communion in their own houses, and partook of the sacrament by themselves whenever they See also: chose
.
In the old See also: Egyptian church See also: order, known as the Canons of See also: Hippolytus; there are numerous directions for the service of the agape, held on Sundays, See also: saints' days or at commemorations of the dead
.
The 74th See also: canon of the council of Trullo (A.D
.
692) forbade the holding of symposia known as agapes in church
.
In his 54+th See also: homily (tom. v. p
.
365) See also: Chrysostom describes how after the eucharistic synaxis was over, the faithful remained in church, while the rich' brought out meats and drink from their houses, and invited the poor, and furnished " See also: common tables, common banquets, common symposia in the church itself." The council of Gangra (A.D
.
355) anathematized the over-ascetic See also: people who despised " the agapes based on faith." Only a few years later, however; the council of See also: Laodicea forbade the holding of agapes in churches
.
The 42nd canon of the council of See also: Carthage under Aurelius likewise forbade them, but these were only See also: local See also: councils
.
In the age of Chrysostom and Augustine the agape was frequent
.
In the See also: east Syrian, the Armenian and the Georgian churches, respectively Nestorian, Monophysite and Greek Orthodox in their tenets, the agape was from the first a survival, under Christian and Jewish forms, of the old sacrificial systems of a pre-Christian age
.
See also: Sheep, rams, bullocks, fowls are given sacrificial See also: salt to lick, and then sacrificed by the See also: priest and deacon, who has the levitical portions of the victim as his perquisite
.
In Armenia the Greek word agape has been used ever since the 4th century to indicate these sacrificial meals, which either began or ended with a •eucharistic celebration
.
The earlier usage of the Armenians is expressed in the two following rules recorded against them by a renegade Armenian prelate named Isaac, who in the 8th century went over to the See also: Byzantine
church: " Christ did not See also: hand down to us the teaching to celebrate the mystery of the offering of the bread in church, but in an ordinary house, and sitting at a common table
.
So then let them not sacrifice the offering of bread in churches
.
It was after supper, when his disciples were thoroughly sated, that Christ gave them of his own See also: body to eat
.
Therefore let them first eat meats and be sated, and then let them partake of the mysteries." These old canons are adduced by way of ridiculing the Armenians, yet they reflect old usage
.
They are given in the Historia Monothelitarum of Combefisius, col
.
317
.
Older MSS. of the Greek Euchologion contain numerous prayers to be offered over animals sacrificed; and in the See also: form of agape such sacrifices were common in See also: Italy and See also: Gaul on the natalis See also: dies of a See also: saint, and Paulinus. of See also: Nola, the friend of Augustine, in his Latin poems, describes them (c
.
400) in detail
.
See also: Gregory the See also: Great sent to See also: Mellitus, See also: bishop of See also: London, a written rite of sacrificing bulls for use in the See also: English church of the early 7th century
.
In Augustine's See also: work against Faustus the Manichean (xx
.
4), the latter taxes the Catholics with having turned the sacrifices of the See also: heathen into agapes, their idols into martyrs, whom they worship with similar See also: rites
.
" You appease," he says, " the shades of the dead with wines and banquets, you celebrate the feast-days of the heathen along with them
.
. . in their way of living you have certainly changed nothing." This was true enough, but there is truth also in the remark of Prof
.
Sanday (" Eucharist " in Hastings' See also: Dictionary of the See also: Bible) that See also: Providence even in its revolutions is conservative
.
The See also: world could only be christianized on condition that old holy days and customs were continued
.
The early Christian agape admitted of adaptation to the older funeral and sacrificial feasts, and was so adapted
.
The association in the synoptics of the earliest eucharist with the See also: paschal sacrifice provided a See also: model, and long after the eucharist was separated with the agape on other days of the year, we still find celebrated on the evening of Maundy See also: Thursday the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, immediately followed by an eucharist
.
The 41st canon of the council of Carthage enacted that the sacraments of the altar should be received fasting, except on the anniversary of the Lord's supper
.
It is clear that at an earlier date the agape preceded the eucharist
.
See also: Pagan Analogues.—In See also: ancient states common meals called sussitia (vvovtrta) were instituted, particularly in the Doric states, e.g. in Lacaedemon and in Crete
.
See also: Plato advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the Spartan community
.
See also: Trade and other See also: gilds in antiquity held subscription suppers or gpavot, similar to those of the early Corinthian church, usually to support the needs of the poorer members
.
These hetairiae or clubs were forbidden (except in cities formally allied to See also: Rome) by Trajan and other emperors, as being likely to be centres of disaffection; and on this ground See also: Pliny forbade the agape of the Bithynian churches, See also: Christianity not being a lawful See also: religion licensed for such gatherings
.
The See also: custom which most resembles the eucharist and agape was that known as charistia described by See also: Valerius See also: Maximus ii. r
.
8
.
It was a solemn feast attended only by members of one clan, at which those who had quarrelled were at the sacrament of the table (apud sacra mensae) reconciled
.
It was held on the loth of See also: February
.
Ovid in his See also: Fasti, ii
.
617, alludes to it
Proxima cognati dixere charistia cari,
Et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos
.
Agapen " and " Mahle " in the Realencyklop. d. christl
.
Altertiimer; P
.
Ladeuze, " L'Eucharistie et See also: les repas communs " in the Revue de l'orient chretien, No
.
3, 19o2; See also: Sir W
.
M
.
See also: Ramsay, The Church in the See also: Roman See also: Empire (London, 1894); A
.
See also: Spitta, Zur Geschichte and Litteratur (See also: Gottingen, 1893) ; E. von der Goltz, Das Gebet in dltesten Christianheit (See also: Leipzig, 1901); F
.
E
.
See also: Warren, The See also: Liturgy and Ritual of the Antenicene Church (London, 1897) ; T
.
Zahn, See also: art
.
" Agapen ", in Hauck's Realencyklop
.
; F
.
C
.
Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum (See also: Oxford, 1905; it contains the oldest Latin and Greek forms), The
See also: Key of Truth (Oxford, 1898), and art. on " The Survival of Animal Sacrifices " in the
See also: American Journal of See also: Theology (See also: Chicago, See also: Jan
.
1903) ; F
.
X
.
Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn, 1906) ; V
.
Ermoni, L'Agape ( See also: Paris, 1904) ; G
.
Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles, translated from Ethiopic and Arabic MSS
.
(London, 1904) ; Thefr
.
Drescher, See also: Diss. de See also: vet
.
Christianorum Agapis (Giesse, 1824) ; L
.
A
.
See also: Muratori, Anecdota Graeca, " De agapis sublatis
(Patavii, 1709); I
.
A
.
See also: Fabricius, Bibliogr
.
See also: Ant. p
.
587; Muenter, Primord
.
Eccl
.
Afr. p . I i 1; Walafrid See also: Strabo, De See also: Rebus See also: Eccles. capita 18, 19; Gregory of See also: Tours, De miraculis S
.
Juliani, xxxi.; Paulini Nolani Carmen xii. in S
.
Felicem
.
(F
.
C
.
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