This is part of a series on Roman Catholicism and the eucharist. See this index.

Throughout the 40-part series on the Eucharist, I often demonstrated, but did not define, what the early church meant by eucharist. In “Part 8: Interlude” I discussed the meaning in more detail. That provides a lot of very good information, but I wanted to expand upon it here.

The word itself means “thanksgiving” (as a noun) and “to give thanks” (as a verb). This “thanksgiving” was offered to God as a sacrifice. But what was the precise nature of this thanksgiving? What was constitutes an actual offering of thanks?

Many early writers in the first 300 years of the church attested to the eucharist in various ways.  Here is a non-exhaustive list of what they included as thanksgiving:

• giving of thanks
• gratitude
• prayers
• praise
• hymns
• firstfruits and tithes
• blessings
• a pure and contrite heart and mind
• service
• glory to God

All of these were offered to God^[1] during the thanksgiving during each gathering of believers for worship.

These had their origin in the ancient Hebrew practice of the thank offering, a freewill offering to God.^[2] The Hebrew scriptures describe bread, meat, thanksgiving, praise, and song as thanksgiving sacrifices freely offered.

The OT Law mandated 10% tithe offerings to support the priesthood and the poor. This same purpose carried over into the early church. But, like the Widow’s Mite, the giving of the ‘tithe’ in the church is nonspecific and voluntary: it is a free will offering^[3] used to support those in need^[4].^[5]

The early writers associated all of these things as the collective sacrificial giving of thanks during their gatherings. The early church viewed this freewill thanksgiving sacrifice to be the fulfillment of Malachi 1. Eleven fathers explicitly made the connection between the thanksgiving (eucharist) of the church and the sacrifice prophesied by Malachi,^[6] while still others did implicitly by citing other related scriptures (see: Part 40: Conclusion). Interestingly, despite the ample opportunity to do so,^[7] not a single one of them associated the sacrifice of Jesus Christ with the sacrifice prophesied in Malachi 1!

Even within the offering of firstfruits and tithes—an integral and necessary part (but not the whole) of the giving of thanks—the early writers describe a wide variety of things which were offered by the faithful as part of their eucharist. Here is a non-exhaustive list:

• bread
• wine
• cheese
• ointment
• milk
• honey
• grapes
• olives
• oil
• fruits: fig, pomegranate, pear, apple, blackberry, peach, cherry, plum
• almonds
• raw grains
• raw flour
• dough
• beer
• beans
• poultry and meat
• incense
• currency

That’s quite the list of things included in the eucharist. When was the last time you celebrated “The Eucharist” and saw these things being offered as a sacrifice to God?

Notably missing from either of these lists is the body and blood of Christ. That’s because in the first 300 years of the church, the body and blood of Christ were never offered as the thanksgiving sacrifice, not even once. Until the late fourth century,^[8] the consecration—by the words of institution or epiclesis—happened after the bread and wine were offered (eucharisted per Justin Martyr in the second century) as part of the sacrifice (oblation) of thanksgiving (eucharist).

Now here is where we must be careful with the terminology.

All of these gifts were for the use by poor and needy. When used for this purpose, the gifts remained the eucharist. They still bore that name, for that is what they were: the eucharist.

Some of the gifts were also used liturgically. Oil, ointment, and incense were taken from the altar of the eucharist and used as part of the church’s practices (incense use started in the late fourth century, but it nonetheless came out of the sacrificed tithe). They were still the eucharist.

The bread and wine were also used liturgically, as part of the Lord’s Supper. Like the oil, ointment, and incense, they were taken from the altar after they were eucharisted. Then they were consecrated by saying the words of institution—”This is my body, this is my blood”—and then consumed in a memorial service. But like all the tithes, they remained the eucharist. They did not change into something else after they were consecrated. They remained bread and wine that symbolically represented the body and blood of Christ. Here is a pertinent example:

In all three examples, the early writers referred to these as the eucharist. This is especially notable, because if the bread and wine had literally transubstantiated into the real flesh and blood of Jesus, then they wouldn’t have been the eucharist anymore, they’d have been something else. But whether given to the poor or used liturgically, the elements of the tithe remain the eucharist regardless of how they are ultimately used.

What makes them thanked (eucharisted) is that they were offered in thanksgiving. The tithes, praise, hymns, service, etc. are all offered in thanksgiving. All are the eucharist because all are purely offered to God in thanks. They are the eucharist before they are put to use and they remain the eucharist after they are put to their various uses.

The bread and wine are the eucharist not because they are the body and blood of Christ. Rather, just as the gifts the poor receive are the eucharist, the body and blood of Christ are the eucharist because they are symbolically represented by the bread and wine that had been offered in thanksgiving.

So when the early writers speak of the deacons taking the eucharist to be distributed to the poor, this is the distribution of the tithe, not a distribution of the consecrated elements of the Lord’s Supper. After all, the poor included those who were not eligible to participate in the Lord’s Supper, including those who were dismissed from participation because they were not baptized believers or had unrepentant sin.

This is, incidentally, why “the eucharist” is called “the sacrifice of the dismissal” (or “the sacrifice of the mass“). While anyone in need could receive the unconsecrated eucharist, only those who were pure could offer it to God as their tithe or receive the consecrated bread and wine during the Lord’s Supper.

Footnotes

^[1] Note that tithes and service, like prayers and hymns, are things you do, but the reason you do it is what is makes it an offering. A person who wished to tithe without the correct reason would not be making an acceptable sacrifice to God. Such a person had to be dismissed and forbidden from making an offering.

^[2] Leviticus 22:29; Psalm 50:14-23; Psalm 107:21-22; Psalm 116:17; Amos 4:5; Jonah 2:9

^[3] Acts 2-6; 2 Corinthians 9:7

^[4] 1 Corinthians 16:1-3; Philippians 4:17-19

^[5] Cyprian of Carthage wrote in Treatise 4 of “The Lord’s Prayer”:

The sacrifice which was offered (per Paul in Philippians 4:18) is the self-same sacrifice prophesied by Malachi. And what does Cyprian assocaite Paul’s sweet smelling sacrifice with? Gifts for the poor, that is, one’s tithe.

^[6] The Didache, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Aphrahat, Athanasius, Eusebius, Lactantius, and Cyril,

^[7] Origen, Cyril, and Augustine directly failed to associate John 6 with the Lord’s Supper and the literal body and blood of Christ.

^[8] The first reference to the offering—albeit symbolic—of the body and blood of Christ comes from “Cyril of Jerusalem” in 350AD, more than 300 years after the Last Supper.