Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries
Overview
Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries examines the nature of church fellowship in the early history of the church. It explores the vocabulary of fellowship in the Christian community and the evidence for agreement in the confession of the faith and church practice in the Lord’s Supper.
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- Prefaces by the author and translator
- Bibliographical references and indexes
Top Highlights
“What links those who partake of the Lord’s Supper is not that they have something to do with one another, their human relationship with each other, but that which they share together.” (Page 4)
“The Apostolic Constitutions enjoin that a visiting presbyter is to be ‘received into [their] fellowship’ (προσδεχέσθω κοινωνικῶς) by the presbyters, and similarly a deacon by the deacons. In the service a visiting bishop should sit with the local bishop, who should accord him equal honor. The local bishop should call on his visitor to address some words of instruction to the congregation because admonition from a stranger is very effective. He should also permit him to offer the Eucharist. If he modestly declines this, he ought to be induced at least to give the congregation the blessing (II, 58, 3 f.).” (Page 162)
“By ‘closed Communion’ we mean the restricting of participation to full members of the congregation.” (Page 76)
“The Holy Communion of the early church is rightly ‘closed Communion’ at least to this extent that no unbaptized person may partake of it. Church fellowship is as much Eucharistic fellowship as Baptismal fellowship and in both cases exclusive.” (Page 79)
“Before the distribution at every Eucharist every early Eastern Christian heard the call τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις and knew exactly what was meant. Τὰ ἅγια is not a plural but a dual form referring to the consecrated elements. Accordingly the koinonia means the koinonia of the Eucharist, and the whole phrase refers to the Lord’s Supper. In Latin, therefore, the sancta of the phrase sanctorum communio do not refer, as some scholars have suggested, to the sacraments but to the consecrated elements, and the whole phrase to the Sacrament of the Altar. The reference of the phrase is sacramental.” (Pages 9–10)
- Title: Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries
- Author: Werner Elert
- Translator: N. E. Nagel
- Publisher: Concordia
- Publication Date: 1966
- Pages: 231