Didache and Lord's Supper
Does the Didache dictate that the "Lord's Supper" was to involve a real meal? I read Douglas, Sally. Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine: The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. and it said that the Didache indicated that its audience would have a meal in conjunction with the Eucharist but when I looked for the reference I cannot find it.
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Part of the problem is your 3rd century concepts that you're overlaying the early 2nd century. Chap 10 hints at it; chap 14 is more specific.
However, the Pliny > Trajan message implies the two were separated in time (same day).
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I suspect you are conflating two things - the agape meal (love feast) and the Eucharist. There are several traditions in which the agape meal has been retained. However what the Didache says about them is unclear.
[quote]
It remains relatively debated how Did. 9 and Did. 10 are related to one another. Do these two chapters reflect: (1) an agape meal, denoting a fellowship meal; (2) only the bread and wine instituted by the Lord; (3) a Eucharist meal, whereby a community simultaneously eats a meal and celebrates the Eucharist; (4) a celebration of the Eucharist followed by an agape feast; or (5) “table prayers, reworked out of Eucharistic prayers, used in ascetic circles.”
Shawn J. Wilhite, The Didache: A Commentary, ed. Paul A. Hartog and Shawn J. Wilhite, vol. 1, Apostolic Fathers Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019), 178.
This author is inclined towards 3 which your question implies your source did as well.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Christian Alexander said:
Does the Didache dictate that the "Lord's Supper" was to involve a real meal?
Books Search suggestion is:
Keep Smiling [:)]
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MJ. Smith said:
There are several traditions in which the agape meal has been retained.
I would be curious to know which traditions still practice this and what it looks like in practice.
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Frank Hodges said:
I would be curious to know which traditions still practice this and what it looks like in practice.
Eastern Orthodox, St. Thomas Christians (Oriental Orthodox), and Moravians are the ones that come to mind immediately. There are also a number of churches trying to revive the practice - the pietist movement ones come to mind.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Frank Hodges said:MJ. Smith said:
There are several traditions in which the agape meal has been retained.
I would be curious to know which traditions still practice this and what it looks like in practice.
Certain churches of Christ have what are commonly called 'Fellowship Halls' where meals are often shared. I'm not aware of how often it is framed as the agape meal.
EDIT: Everett Ferguson has a great book Early Christians Speak, Vol. 1 3rd Ed.: Faith and Life in the First Three Centuries with a section dedicated to the agape. He picks out early Christian writers and then adds his own comments.
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The Last Supper when Jesus instituted the "Lord's Supper" would no doubt have been a complete meal, not just the wine and bread. In fact, we already know it was a Passover meal, involving lamb.
This doesn't address your question about the Didache, but I participated in a very meaningful Lord's Supper celebration once at a retreat for one of my classes in seminary, in which it was done as part of a real meal. We were seated at picnic tables which had been arranged in the shape of a cross, with benches all around the perimeter. I can't remember what we ate for the meal, but wine and bread were present on the table. The professor led us in the Communion service (before we at the meal), lifting up bread and wine from the table to direct us to follow with him in eating/drinking portions of them in unison. Then we finished the rest of the bread and wine as part of the meal, as we surmised Jesus and his Disciples would have done on that evening ~2000 years ago.
That made more of an impact on me and was more memorable than all the hundreds of church Communion services I've participated in. Not saying that we should do it this way all the time, not by a long shot. But it was wonderful to have that special time.
My church, pre-Covid, used to have a potluck meal after the service the last Sunday of every month. It wasn't called an "agape meal" but it was very much part of us being a fellowship together. We sang the Mennonite Doxology as our grace for the meal as the last thing we did in the service in the chapel before moving over to the dining hall. I miss those days. We didn't own that building, we were only renting in it, and it's been sold, so even though we are beyond the pandemic days of not being able to eat communal meals together, we still have not been able to get back to our monthly potluck meals.
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Frank Hodges said:MJ. Smith said:
There are several traditions in which the agape meal has been retained.
I would be curious to know which traditions still practice this and what it looks like in practice.
I go to an Orthodox Church where there is a meal after Liturgy every Sunday. We call it "Coffee Hour," but it's always an entire meal :-)
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I was thinking more of antidoron as a remanent of an agape meal
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
I was thinking more of antidoron as a remanent of an agape meal
Ah. Well, we certainly give out antidoran at the end of Liturgy, too.
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In the Southern Baptist tradition we called 'em potlucks, and they were mostly reserved for arguing over what color carpet should go in the sanctuary... the food was always good though [:P]Morgan said:Certain churches of Christ have what are commonly called 'Fellowship Halls' where meals are often shared
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Frank Hodges said:
mostly reserved for arguing over what color carpet should go in the sanctuary...
I think specifying church carpet color would have benefitted early on, regardless of denomination. I think Peter had a good eye for what things looked like. 1 Peter 6, maybe.
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To a very large extent, how one attempts to answer this will depend on how much continuity or discontinuity a person believes is "in play" with regard to what happens in the upper room as it relates to Passover.
As a staunch anti-discontinuity-ist [:P], I see nothing new and everything falls readily into place. If you see "new things", well...I guess you get to make it up as you go along.
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Frank Hodges said:
In the Southern Baptist tradition we called 'em potlucks
In the open brethren we called them potlucks or hymnsings. The food was amazing and the fellowship around the person of Christ was equally so.
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