such a distinction does not really work for much of the evidence that is available. When does a sharing of bread (with or without any further accompaniment) cease to be ‘eucharistic’? Others are very clear to distinguish between Eucharists proper and what has generally been termed the agape. Again the question of boundaries remains problematic. A significant number of the more recent accounts blur these boundaries completely and simply refer to all meals held within the early Christian communities as Eucharists, so following a standard position among biblical scholars to see any reference to eating or drinking in the New Testament as ‘eucharistic’. What interests me within the following study, however, is any activity that involves shared eating and drinking among early Christian communities. So far I would position myself with McGowan and those who follow him. Where I would want to differ, however, is that I do not want to presuppose that the communities concerned saw all these activities, or even the majority of them, as ‘eucharistic’, even if they did have such a concept to work with. Throughout the text, therefore, I will be careful to refrain from using the term ‘Eucharist’ in any way, unless it is clearly used by the evidence that I am considering – and then I will want to be very careful about how the word is interpreted – or by modern authors that I am engaging with. I will also do all that I can to prevent myself, and the reader of this text, from assuming that we know what ‘eucharistic’ means.
The second parameter is related to this, and focuses on the difference between action and meaning. Almost all the studies that have been discussed, even the most sociological, have been primarily concerned with the meaning that communal meals had for the early Christian community. Even Smith, who is interested in seeing the roots of the early Christian meals in the wider Graeco-Roman symposia, is using Douglas to develop what she describes as the ‘social code’ of the meal and hence bringing the discussion back round to one of meaning and even theology (Smith 2003). Meanings are, of course, important and a study of the development of imagery and ideas surrounding eating and drinking in the first 150 years of Christian existence could be very interesting. That, however, is not what this study is about. Having said that, I must also note that it is not going to be possible to discuss activity – what people did – without asking some questions about meaning – what people thought about their activities – as the two are intimately linked. It is the action, however, what can be discovered about who did what, and perhaps from my point of view most importantly, when they did it, that is going to form the core of this study.
Third, therefore, I want to set a parameter in relation to the material that I am using: the evidence that is available. It is true that the number of relevant texts for the period up to 160 ce is very limited. All of them have been studied extensively and there may not be much more to find out from them. However, it is also the case that the archaeological evidence for the same period is almost non-existent, particularly that related to specifically ‘Christian’ evidence. It is this that has led many scholars, especially in recent years, to look beyond the Christian evidence at what is available within Jewish literature, or at evidence from the wider Graeco-Roman context. It has also encouraged those with a sociological concern to look for theoretical material that will help them to interpret the evidence they have. The parameter I am setting myself, however, is to begin with the Christian evidence that is available and to ask what this does suggest, and also, and just as importantly, what it does not indicate about what people were doing. I am not, therefore, going to begin with wider discussions and theories. I am going to begin with the earliest documentary evidence that is available, that is, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. I will then build from this through the various texts, and, where relevant, with reference to other kinds of data (Stringer 2005, pp. 26–9). In my final chapter I will return to the wider theoretical consideration.
Taking these three parameters into account – to focus on all kinds of eating and drinking; to focus on the practice of the early Christian communities rather than on meanings; and to focus on the evidence in roughly chronological order – it might be thought that very little that is new could ever be said. In the strictest of terms this is entirely true. Very little is known, and there is probably very little else to know. There is, therefore, one other element of my methodology that I need to explain at this point before I move on to the evidence itself.
I am going to work on the assumption that it is possible, and appropriate, for the scholar to make some wild guesses about what was going on within, or behind, the various texts under scrutiny (Stringer 2009). Without some level of imaginative engagement with the texts the study becomes very dry and uninformative. Scholarship moves forward by trial and error on the part of those who make informed guesses when the evidence does not provide the answers. I am going to be making a series of informed guesses, therefore, throughout this work, and I will be very explicit about what these are. In each case it is my contention that the guess provides the best explanation of the gaps within the literature. I do not expect every reader to agree with me. I do, however, expect other scholars to look at the evidence and to argue against me in relation to that evidence and to suggest that other guesses may provide a better fit. What I arrive at, in Chapter 8, as my own narrative of the origins of the Eucharist may or may not be historically accurate. The reality will never be known. What I do contend, however, is that it will provide a reasonable narrative based on the evidence available, and a narrative that has to be taken seriously as a possible contender for the origins of the Eucharist among all the other possibilities that have been looked at within this Introduction.
In what follows, therefore, I will begin with the biblical material and through Chapters 1–3 I will look in turn at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the Passion narratives in the Synoptic Gospels (particularly Mark) and the range of other evidence of meals in the rest of the New Testament. In Chapter 4 I will look at the evidence from the wider Graeco-Roman context and the Jewish material from this period. In both cases I will argue that there is very little relevant evidence of any kind that can inform our view of Christian practice. In Chapters 5–7 I will look at the second and third generation of Christian authors focusing on Antioch, Asia Minor and Rome respectively. This will give me the opportunity to look at the Didache, the letters of Ignatius, and the work of Justin Martyr among others, and to try and track the development of meals and the sharing of bread, wine, water and other foodstuffs through the first half of the second century. In the final chapter I will bring all this together and outline my own speculative narrative of the origins of the Eucharist based on the evidence that I have presented in the previous seven chapters.
1
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians
In this study I am breaking with much of the tradition in the search for the origins of the Eucharist by beginning, not with the accounts of the Last Supper in the Gospels, but with the account of the Lord’s Supper in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. This is partly because this account is the first literary record of a ‘Christian’ meal that still survives and partly because I am convinced that if it is possible to rethink what this meal may or may not have been then all the other accounts of meals in the early Christian literature will have to be rethought in the light of this re-analysis. There is no indication within the text of how often the Lord’s Supper was held. The only reference to any regular activity comes in the recommendation by Paul to put some money aside each week for the collection he is due to take to Jerusalem (16.2). It is only the subsequent history of the Eucharist, and particularly the accounts in the Didache and in the writings of Justin Martyr, that has led to the assumption that because the Lord’s Supper has some elements in common with what was to become the Eucharist, it must have been held on a weekly basis. If that subsequent history did not exist then what kind of assumptions might be drawn from the account given in the letter?
Any solution to this question must be suspect on two grounds. First, it is clear that the subsequent history does exist and therefore it is not possible to look at the account without some pre-formed ideas. Second, as the account does not provide information on the frequency of the supper then any proposal has to be speculative and one guess might well be as good as another. Let me, therefore, rephrase the question that I want to address in this chapter: is it plausible to suggest that
