the chamber at the top of the house for retirement." Hence we may identify the place in which the disciples "broke bread," as related in Acts ii. 46, with the " upper room" in which the Apostles and others "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication" before the day of Pentecost, and with the "upper chamber" in which the disciples at Troas met to "break bread" (Syr. vers. again, "to break the Eucharist "") and hear S. Paul preach. In fact "those private upperrooms were places always devoted to sacred purposes by the Jews, at least from the time that Daniel was related to have gone up into his chamber to pray." Hence it is evident. that we may understand from verse 46 that, while the first Christians at Jerusalem went daily to the Temple at the hours of prayer, they assembled in the oratories at the top of their houses for the great distinctive act of Christian worship, in which those under the law could have no part, viz., to break the Bread of the holy Eucharist.4

S. Ignatius, A.D. 107, speaks of it as a duty to obey the Bishop and Presbyters with an undivided mind, and to "break one Bread, which is the medicine of immortality, an antidote against death and means of eternal life in Jesus Christ." In the Recognitions falsely ascribed to S. Clement of Rome, but probably as early as the end of the second century, to "break the Eucharist "6 is to celebrate it.

1 H. J. Rose, in Parkhurst's Lex. of the N. T., who refers to Schleusner, Wahl, and Bretschneider; see Acts x. 30; xi. 13 (comp. x. 9). In Acts ii. 2... Wahl takes it for the upper chamber of the house as in the places just quoted; " (Ibid.) and similarly Bishop Pearson (u.s. in Note 6, § vi. p. 321), who gives a tradition from Nicephorus, L. viii. c. 30, that a Church built by Helena on Zion enclosed the house in which took place "the descent of the Holy Ghost in the upper chamber."

2 Waterland, Rev. of the Eucharist, ch. i., Wks., vol. iv. p. 473; Oxf. 1843. 3 Pearson, u.s. § vii. p. 321.-The idolatrous Jews also used the tops of their houses as places of worship. See Jer. xix. 13; Zeph. i. 5. In 2 Kings xxiii. 12 we read of altars "on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz."

4 Some see another example in S. Luke xxiv. 35:— "He was known of them in the (T) breaking of the (Tou) bread." To maintain this, however, it is not enough to suppose that our Lord designed a suggestive resemblance to His former action at the institution, which seems probable; we must suppose an actual celebration (as Lucas Brugensis, Maldonatus, De Sacy, etc.); but as no wine was used, nor any words proper to the Sacrament, the latter hypothesis must be rejected.

5 Ep. ad Eph. c. xx. p. 294, ed. Jacobson.

6 L. vi. c. xv. Patr. Apost. Cotelerii, tom. i. p. 552. It may be worth

noting that the phrase, agreeing with the Syriac version of the N. T. (see p. 9), points to a Syriac origin of the Recognitions, and it is remarkable that the earliest author whose writings contain a passage found also in the Recognitions, is Bardesanes, a Syrian, A.D. 180. See Cave's Lives of the Fathers, S. Clem. Rom. c. xi. vol. i. p. 160; Oxf. 1840.

4. LITURGY.]—-Among the ancient Greeks this word (XEToupyía) denoted any public service, especially such as were gratuitously performed;-as the building of a ship for the navy, or contributing to the support of the army in time of war; or providing a feast, theatrical representations, music, etc., at festivals. Hence in the New Testament it is applied to offices and works of charity.1 In the Septuagint, the Gospel of S. Luke, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is used of the Service of the Priests and Levites in the tabernacle or temple, or of the performance of the appointed rites therein. It is the word employed by S. Paul, when he says, "If I be offered up on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all."5 The writer to the Hebrews uses it to express the duties of the priesthood as borne by our Lord Himself:-" Now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant."6

The word must from the first have been transferred to the worship of the Christian Church; for we find the cognate verb so used by S. Luke :-" As they ministered (performed service or liturgy) to the Lord and fasted;"7—and liturgy itself by S. Clement, in the first century :-"Let no one transgress the prescribed rule of his own service." 8 The same

writer speaks of " offerings and services," and ascribes to the Bishop, under the name of high-priest, his own proper services, and tells us that the Apostles, in order to prevent " contention on account of the episcopate," took care so to provide for its future supply that "at their death other approved men might succeed to their ministry (liturgy)." 10 By later writers it was used both generally, as here, of the whole service of God, or all the duties of the sacred ministry, as when Eusebius says that Primus "obtained the ministry" of the Church of Alexandria, "the fourth from the Apostles;"11 or where the Council of Antioch, A.D. 341, forbids deposed bishops, priests, and deacons to "perform any part of the ministry;" 12—and also specifically of the celebration of the Eucharist, that being pre-eminently the service or ministration of the Church of Christ, as where Theodoret tells us that "in all the Churches"

1 2 Cor. ix. 12; Phil. ii. 30.

2 e.g. Num. viii. 22, 25, xviii. 4; 2 Chron. viii. 14, xxxv. 10; Ezr. vii. 19. The verb Necroupyeîv is yet more frequent.

3 Ch. i. 23.

6 Ch. viii. 6, comp. vv. 1-5.

4 Ch. ix. 21.

5 Phil. ii. 17.

7 Acts xiii. 2.

8 Ep. i. ad Cor. c. xli. p. 140, Patr. Apost. (ed. Jacobson). For date see p. x.

9 Ibid. c. xl. pp. 136, 138.

11 Hist. Eccl. L. iv. c. i. p. 93.

10 Ibid. c. xliv. p. 150.

12 Can. iv., Bev. Pand. tom. i. p. 434.

the Apostolical benediction, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, was used as "a preface of the mystic Liturgy." Hence, by an easy transition, when "the order of the administration" of this Sacrament was committed to writing, it was called a Liturgy, and this has been for many ages the ordinary and proper signification of that word.

5. THE OBLATION.]-This name attached itself to the holy Eucharist from the several offerings or oblations (πрoσpoρai) which are made in the celebration. There is the oblation of alms (in kind or in money) for the poor, the clergy, and the fabric of the church; the special oblation for the use of the Altar of a part of the bread and wine already offered as alms; and the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ, when the sacrifice of His death is commemorated and pleaded before God in the prayers and ritual action of this most holy Sacrament. It does not appear that the Eucharistic commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ was spoken of as an offering before the third century; but whenever it obtained the name, this would naturally soon come to be regarded as the chief, and at length perhaps as the only, reason why the whole rite should be termed "the Oblation;" for this is the most sacred and essential notion of an offering connected with it. When, therefore, the Eucharist is spoken of as "the Oblation," it is brought before us in its aspect of a commemorative sacrifice; that is to say, as an ordinance of divine worship in which, by God's appointment, we represent and commemorate the one archetypal and all-sufficient sacrifice of His Son upon the Cross.

Offerings at the celebration are mentioned from the first; thus S. Clement, Bishop of Rome:-"It will be no small sin to us if we depose from the Episcopate those who have irreproachably and holily offered the gifts." When Justin Martyr says that "the oblation of the fine flour," commanded to be offered by those cleansed of the leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist,3 and Tertullian declares that Satan, imitating the mysteries of God in pagan rites, baptizes and "celebrates an oblation of bread," they both imply that this sacrament was regarded as, and might be called, an oblation. The name is expressly given to it by S. Irenæus: -"He taught the new Oblation of the New Testament; "5

1 Ad. Joann. Econ. Ep. cxlv. tom. iii. p. 1032, ed. Sirm.

2 Ep. i. ad Cor. c. xliv. p. 155, Patr. Apost. tom. i. ed. Jacobson.

3 Dial. c. Tryph. c. 41, p. 132, ed. Otto.

4 De Præscript. Hæret. c. xl. Opp. vol. ii. p. 40.

5 L. iv. c. xvii. § 5, p. 612, ed. Stieren.

"the Oblation of the Church which the Lord taught to be offered throughout the world." The so-called Apostolical Canons speak of "the time of the holy Oblation," and order that any clergyman not communicating "when the Oblation takes place " shall give his reason. When S. Cyprian speaks of making an oblation, though the phrase implies a celebration, it refers more explicitly to the reception of gifts from the worshippers (offered for themselves or in the name of others), and their presentation at the Altar. In his writings, however, we see a change in progress. The commemoration of the self-oblation of Christ on the Cross which is made in this Sacrament begins to be spoken of as an oblation itself, and is therefore henceforth, so far as that language prevails, the principal idea conveyed by the word oblation when applied to the holy Eucharist. "The Lord Jesus Christ and our God," says the Father last named, "is Himself the High-Priest of God the Father, and first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded this to be done in remembrance of Him;" whence he infers that the Priest rightly discharges his office "who copies that which Christ did; and he then offers in the Church a true and complete sacrifice to God the Father, if he so take in hand to offer according to that which he sees that Christ Himself offered."4 Here the oblation must be of that which has been consecrated and has become the Body and Blood of Christ; and accordingly in the same Epistle he speaks of "the Blood of Christ being offered," and says that "the Lord's sacrifice is not celebrated by a lawful consecration unless our oblation and sacrifice has corresponded to His Passion."5 A century later, at Jerusalem, S. Cyril says, "We offer Christ, who was slain for our sins." Agreeably to the usage thus introduced, "to communicate without Oblation "7 was to be admitted (as a penance) to the Celebration without being allowed to partake at the altar; "to attain to the Oblation," or to "partake of the holy Oblation," meant to receive; and to "impart the Oblation "10 was to administer the blessed Sacrament.

1 L. iv. c. xviii. p. 613.

2 Can. iii. Bever. Cod. Can. Eccl. Prim. p. xl. Ep. lxiii. p. 155; Brem. 1690.

6 Catech. Myst. v. § vii. p. 298; Oxon. 1703.

3 Can. viii. p. xli.

5

Ep. lxiii. p. 152.

7 Conc. Ancyr. A.D. 315, Cann. v. vi. viii. ix., Pandect. tom. i. p. 379, etc.; Sim. Conc. Nic. Can. xi. ; ibid. p. 71.

8 Conc. Ancyr. Can. xvi. p. 392.

9 S. Chrysost. Hom. De Beat. Philog. N. vi. § 4, tom. i. p. 611; Par. 1834.

10 Conc. Nic. A.D. 325, Can. xiii., Pand. tom. i. p. 74.

4

6. THE SACRIFICE.]—This appellation of the holy Eucharist seems to have run a course parallel with Oblation, to which in sense it is so nearly related. At first the rite was called a Sacrifice, on account of the material offerings that were presented at it; but afterwards chiefly, and at length entirely, because it is a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ. As it was briefly expressed by one of the Fathers of the Reformation, "The Holy Communion beareth the name of a Sacrifice, because it is a Sacrifice memorative." The word was used by Justin Martyr2 with the former reference; for he says that the sacrifices which Jesus Christ commanded are "of the bread and the cup at the Eucharist;" and that they are offered by Christians "in acknowledgment of their food, both dry and liquid." According to S. Irenæus, Christ taught His disciples "to offer to God firstfruits of His creatures' as a token of gratitude when "He took bread and gave thanks," etc., at the institution, and this rite he repeatedly calls a sacrifice; and comparing it with the Jewish sacrifices says, "Oblations in general were not disapproved; for there are both oblations there, and there are oblations here; sacrifices in the people [of Israel] and sacrifices in the Church; only the kind has been changed, forasmuch as it is not now offered by slaves but by the free." Tertullian speaks of the whole rite as a sacrifice, and again of reception of the Sacrament as a partaking of the Sacrifice :-" Persons fasting, having prayed with their brethren, withdraw the kiss of peace, which is the seal of prayer. .. What kind of sacrifice is that from which men depart without peace? . . . In like manner also with regard to the days of Stations (the half-fasts of Wednesday and Friday), most do not think that they ought to attend the prayers of the Sacrifices, because the Station must be broken by the reception of the Lord's Body. Will not thy Station be more solemn if thou stand at the Altar of God? If the Body of the Lord be taken and reserved, both ends are secured,-both the partaking of the Sacrifice and the performance of the duty." Hence we infer, that by the close of the second century the name referred at least equally to the commemoration of the great Sacrifice. A little later, A.D. 220, S. Hippolytus says, that the Body and Blood of Christ are "daily consecrated at the

1 Latimer, Works, vol. ii. p. 275; Camb. 1845.

2 Dial. c. 117, p. 386.

4 L. iv. c. 17, § 5, p. 612.

6 De Orat. c. xiv. vol. iv. p. 14.

3 Ibid. p. 388.

5 L. iv. c. 18, § 2, p. 614.