ETTWEIN, et'vain, JOHN: Moravian bishop; b. at Freudenstadt (40 m. s.w, of Stuttgart), Würt temberg, June 29, 1721; d. at Bethlehem, Pa., Jan. 2, 1802. In 1754 he emigrated to America. In 1772 he led the Christian Indians from Susque hanna County in Pennsylvania to the Tuscarawas River in Ohio. He was a friend of Washington, and devoted himself to the care of the sick soldiers in the general army hospital at Bethlehem, Pa. In 1787 he founded the Society of the United Breth ren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, to which Congress granted several townships on
the Tuscarawas, in trust, for the Christian Indians. He was consecrated bishop June 25, 1784, and stood at the head of his Church till his retirement, on account of ill health, in 1801. He prepared a vocabulary of the language of the Delaware Indians, which has been published by the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.Bibliography: J. T. Hamilton, Hist, of the Unitas Fratrum, in American Church History Series, vol. viii., New York. 1895; idem, Hist. of the Church Known as the Moravian Church, Bethlehem, 1900.
EUCHARIST, yfi'ca-riat.
Eucharist is a term employed for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, especially in the primitive Church, to which the present consideration is restricted. (For the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church see Mass, II.; of theChurchesof the R.eformation, Lord's Supper, IV. For the doctrine of the Lord's Supper see Lord's Supper, I.-III.; Mass, I.; Transubstantiation.) In early Christian literature, however, the word is also applied (1) to the prayer of thanksgiving spoken over the elements (in the East; only once in the Latin Went, Tertullian, De orations, xxiv.); (2) to the elements themselves; (3) by an extension of meaning, to any consecrated element or sacrnmentum-as in Cyprian, Epist. lxx. 2, to the consecrated oil. The application to the entire celebration of the Lord's Supper continued only so long as it was an actual meal (cf. especially Ignatius), and then reappeared only in the Middle Ages.
The eucharistic celebration of the primitive Church underwent a very important change about the middle of the second century. Originally, either as a common meal or in connection with one, it formed a separate observance which took place in the evening, while the congregation assembled in the morning to hear the Word. At the date mentioned these two were fused into one service, a change which made possible the development of the later mesa (see Mass, II., 1, § 1) and still exercises an influence even upon Protestant liturgical conceptions. The first witness for the combination of the Eucharist with the morning service is Justin (I Apd. lxv.-lxvii., written c. 150). Though the famous letter of Pliny (x. 96, c. 113) attests the prevalence of the older custom in Bithynia, the Didoche (ix., I. Combi- x.) at least for Egypt, and Clement nation of (I Cor. xliv.) for Rome, Justin shows the Even- the new as universally adopted, even ing Agapee if the old for a while existed alongand the side of it. The grounds for the Morning change have been sought in the accuService. sations of the pagans, who charged the Christians with the commission of hideous abominations at their agapte. But this is an improbable theory; both the evening agapae
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In studying the liturgical development, the earliest stage is wrapped in obscurity. Exclusive of
the Gospel narratives of the institution (see
Lord's Supper,
Introduction and I.), the only sources are
is supported by the Didache, where (ix., x.) is found the same sequence of customs: after the act of reconciliation, the so-called exomologeais (xiv.), the blessing of cup and bread by a short prayer (ix.), common participation (Gk. emplesthenai, x. I), and a final thanksgiving (x.). The formulas of blessing are indeed purely Christian, but the double blessing of cup and bread, and the placing of the cup first, point clearly to a Jewish origin. Like the Sabbath meal, again, the whole ceremony is one; the contention of Zahn, Weizskcker, and Haupt that the prayers for the agape are found in chapter ix. and those for the Eucharist in x. can not be upheld. The partaking of the consecrated elements was nut (as has been supposed from a misunderstanding of I Cor. xi.) the final but the initial act; it was the blessing of the bread and wine that made the meal "the Lord's Supper." Inquiring how the unity was dissolved, it appears that the reception of the consecrated elements at the beginning became more and more the principal thing, while, on the other hand, the subsequent meal became more and more an agape, or set of charity on the part of the rich believers toward their poorer brethren. This, deprived of its most significant accompaniment, for which the later eulogia (q.v.) offered an insufficient equivalent, gradually decayed and perished, while the Eucharist. lived on with power in its new form, took precedence of the service of Scripture-reading and preaching, and finally, as the mass, became the supreme act of worship.
But meanwhile, when it was united with the other service, of Scripture-reading and prayer, it naturally took with it the essential forms which had up to that time constituted it. Some notable changes took place; the two prayers of blessing on the elements were fused into one, and the offering of the bread and wine, by members of the church, now took on the dignity of a liturgical function. What the order of the various parts was at this period we learn from Justin to have been as follows: (1) the kiss of peace;. (2) the
3. The oblation (Gk. proaphora); (3) the euService in charistic prayer of the "president"
Justin's (Gk. proestos), i.e., the bishop, with Time and intercessions, and the response
Later. " Amen "; (4) the communion; (5) the payment of the congregation's contribution (sops), and distribution to the poor. The last was dropped in later times, and a respon sory (preface) added, which may, indeed, have been in use as early as Justin, though he does not men tion it. But the same groundwork continues to show itself, e.g., in Tertullian and Cyprian. Thus, too, about 348, Cyril of Jerusalem describes sub stantially the same order: (1) the washing of the hands of the bishop and presbyters; (2) the kiss of peace; (3) preface with Trisagion and Epiklesis, or invocation of the Holy Spirit; (4) intercessions; (5) Lord's Prayer; (8) communion; (7) final prayer. As to the later detailed development, see Mass, II.We must now consider more definitely the individual parts of this primitive service. After the kiss of peace (q.v.) came the oblation, which was
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performed by the deacons receiving the offerings and carrying them to the bishop. When they were numerous, special tables were necessary to hold them, which stood on each aide of the altar. Besides bread and wine there were present other kinds of food, such as milk, oil, honey, etc., which were used for the support of the poor. These gifts were bleared, and the givers commemorated by name. As the first spontaneous generosity languished and the Old Testament was increasingly taken as a
model, the offering of all kinds of first 4. The fruits was insisted on. The disturb-
Oblation. ante to the service caused by thebringing of these various offerings gave rise to attempts to limit them, at the beginning of the fourth century, to bread and wine, or other things used in ecclesiastical functions, such as oil for the holy unction, mills and honey for the reception of neophytes, and the like. In the time of Chrysostom scarcely anything but bread and wine was brought (cf. Augustine, Sean. lxxxii. 3, b), and the offering was not made every Sunday by all the members, but on special festivals and in honor of the departed. The church provided the bread and wine from its own resources.
The central prayer (originally prayers), as is seen
from the
Didache (ix.),
at first contained thanksgiving for both bodily and spiritual nourishment,
in free adaptation of the ordinary Jewish
formulariea referred to above. Later this prayer was
broken by the
Trisagion
(from
probably in Syria, where the liturgies g. The show a really organic connection be-
Prayers. tween it and the prayer which it
follows. This prayer usually contains a thanksgiving for the benefits of redemption,
leading up to a recitation of the words of institution. That these formed a part of
the earliest
Christian liturgy can not be safely concluded from
oldest Egyptian liturgy known. The use of the Lord's Prayer as a part of the liturgy seems to have been known to Tertullian and Cyprian, but is first certainly attested by Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Jerome. It is not mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions.
The actual communion, as long as the Eucharist
had the form of a:cal meal, was accomplished by
the passing of the consecrated elements from hard
to hand. When it became a formal act, it was
prefaced
(demonstrably as early as the end of the
second century) by the bishop saying, "Holy things
to holy persona" (from the Septuagint version of
Only baptised Christians could receive the
communion; this was a universal principle from the
beginning. Heretics, schismatics, and
unreconciled penitents were also excluded, though it was
sometimes
given to the lapsed when dying. It
was the general practise to give it to children.
The custom of placing it in the mouth of dead
persons must have been deeply rooted, to judge from
the number of councils which found it necessary
to prohibit it (see
Communion of The Dead).
Fasting communion is an old and quite universal
practise, in fact, a church law, which was referred
to apostolic command by Augustine; an
exception
was made on Maundy Thursday, when the
Eucharist was celebrated in the evening. Much
emphasis was laid, following
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As to frequency of celebration, the most which can be said for the primitive age with any certainty is that it occurred at least every Sunday, and there is plenty of proof for this in the second century. The tendency was toward greater frequency, and days of religious observance (Saturdays, fast-days, the anniversaries of martyrs) were thus marked. Daily celebration became customary in the West, by the beginning of the third century in Africa, as evidenced by Cyprian; in Rome at
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