The Last Supper: No Layman's Blessing

Among the aspirations of modern liturgical reformers, the desire to reconstruct the Church's primitive, apostolic liturgy, and to model modern liturgy thereafter, holds the pre-eminence. The Anglican Benedictine Dom Gregory Dix's 1945 work, The Shape of the Liturgy, may be quoted as a representative (and highly influential¹) example:

Can we hope to penetrate through this (fourth-fifth century) period of growing uniformity, and behind that through the period of the unordered growth of local traditions (in the third-fourth century) back to some sort of original uniformity? Can we hope to find in the primitive church, say in the second century, coherent universal principles which can guide our own ideas about liturgy?²

Historically, there have been two schools of thought as to how to approach this task. Some have looked to the Eucharistic prayer of Hippolytus as the primitive form of the Eucharist, it being the only extant example of such a prayer from the pre-Nicene period. Others have seen two different liturgies as both being primitive: the Judeo-Christian liturgy of St. Peter, and the Greek liturgy of St. Paul.

Dix says that there is no hope of ever finding the original apostolic text, but we can find general principles. He compares the various ancient liturgical texts that contain evidence of thanksgiving prayers (the Jewish berakah, the description of the Eucharist in Justin Martyr, Hippolytus' Eucharistic prayer, and the Egyptian Liturgy of St. Mark). He then, after supposing that the Liturgy of St. Mark originally contained a series of thanksgiving prayers which unfortunately are not present in the text which has come down to us, comes up with a shocking theory: "This suggests that the institution narrative is originally an addition to the primitive prayer, though an early one, perhaps the very first of all the various items which were appended in the course of time to the primitive nucleus of the Egyptian prayer."³

Dix asserts that this primitive sequence of thanksgivings, which he equates with our Lord's command, "do this in memory of me" (the amnanesis), constitutes the primitive Eucharist, and that all other elements contained in the various Eucharistic prayers (including the most primitive one, that of Hippolytus), are later additions. He further argues that, in the past, liturgists have erred by searching for a Greek model for the primitive Eucharist, rather than a Jewish one.

For his part, Dix finds his Jewish model for the Eucharist in the chaburah meal, a formal family or community supper which is described in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakoth, chapters 6-8. He argues that all primitive Christian liturgy shared a common four-fold shape, derived from the chaburah meal, based on the verbs "took," "thanked," "broke," and "gave":

We have seen that the liturgical eucharist, as it emerged from its association with a meal in the 'Lord's supper', consisted always of four essential acts, all of which were derived from the jewish customs of the chaburah supper: (1) The offertory, the 'taking' of bread and wine, which in its original form in the four-action shape was probably derived from the bringing of contributions in kind for the chaburah meal. (2) The prayer, with its preliminary dialog of invitation, derived directly from the berakah or thanksgiving which closed the chaburah meal. (3) The fraction, or breaking of the bread, derived from the Jewish grace before all meals. (4) The communion, derived from the distribution of the broken bread at the beginning and the cup of blessing at the end of the supper of every jewish chaburah. The liturgical eucharist consisted simply of those particular things in the ordinary chaburah customs to which our Lord at the last supper had attached a new meaning for the future. These had been detached from the rest of the chaburah ritual and perpetuated independently. To these the primitive church added a preliminary greeting and kiss, and a single final phrase of dismissal. This is the whole of the pre-Nicene eucharist.⁴

Modern Catholic Liturgical Thought

Many Catholic scholars have come to conclusions similar to those of Dix. In 1983, Jose Manuel Sanchez Caro published an article in the journal Salmanticensis, entitled "Bendición y eucarístia: Veinticinco años de estudios sobre el género literario de la plegaria eucarística" [Blessing and Eucharist: Twenty Five Years of Studies Concerning the Literary Genre of the Eucharistic Prayer].⁵ In this survey, Sanchez Caro explains how Catholic theologians have reinterpreted the Mass to make it more ecumenical, and more open to a "scientific" point of view. Extremely technical, it shows that Catholic scholars have reinterpreted their liturgy on an entirely new basis: that of Jewish literary models. Catholic scholars, like Dix, have supposed that it is not the words of Institution alone which consecrate the Eucharist; rather the entire Eucharistic prayer consecrates in its capacity as a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

This theology of the Eucharist as a Jewish meal blessing makes what Our Lord did at the Last Supper an act of a simple prophet praising and thanking God, rather than God's divine Son transforming the bread and wine into His Body and Blood by His fiat: This is My Body, This is My Blood. It reduces Christ's blessing of the bread and wine at the Last Supper from that of a God-priest to that of a layman. Furthermore, it posits that the priest acts in the name of the Church rather than in the person of Christ.

Sanchez Caro notes that, in 1958, J. P. Audet proposed that the two Greek verbs used at the Last Supper, "to thank" (eucharistein), and "to bless" (eulogein), have the same meaning, and therefore that Our Lord's blessing of the bread and wine at the Last Supper (which Audet equated with Eucharistic Consecration, although we do not grant this⁶) consisted in His prayer of thanksgiving to God. This, Audet argued, justified him in reading Eucharistic blessing as an "ascending" blessing. Some background: a descending blessing is one which descends from God to an ordained minister (priest), who possesses, by virtue of his ordination, the divine power to consecrate an object or person.⁷ The blessing descends from God to the bishop to the priest and down through him to the thing he blesses. An ascending blessing, on the other hand, rises from man to God; the man blesses God with thanks and praise, and any blessing of persons or things will have to be accomplished by God Himself. This is the blessing of a layman. Obviously, then, if Eucharistic consecration is an ascending blessing, there is no need for the traditional Catholic priesthood.⁸

Sanchez Caro states that Audet used modern Jewish prayer forms, specifically those said during meals, in order to derive the thesis that the primitive Christian liturgies (e.g., those of Hippolytus and the Apostolic Constitutions), were modeled after Jewish meal blessings, birkat ha-mazon, and not on the Passover.

Audet's thesis was contradicted by the liturgical scholar Henri Cazelles. In 1965 at the St. Sergius Institute in Paris, Henri Cazelles, using evidence from the Old Testament, the Mishnah, the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Philo, demonstrated that eucharistein comes from the Hebrew verb yadah, (to confess, to praise), not from barak (to bless); and so the Greek noun eucharistia comes from the Hebrew noun todah. Therefore Audet was wrong to equate our Lord's "blessing" of the bread and wine with a prayer of thanksgiving. Unfortunately, however, in spite of his error, Audet's influence has persisted among liturgical scholars; indeed, he appears to have influenced the vernacular translations of the Novus Ordo Mass which are currently in use (more on this later).

Also unfortunate, some modern liturgists misinterpret the todah as well. In an effort to understand the Last Supper of Jesus Christ in an ecumenical manner, they emphasize the meal aspect of the todah, such that the sacrifice comes to consist in the eating and drinking of the offering, rather than in its oblation by the priest:

The Sacrificial basis of the todah emphasizes this relationship between the form and the core: the fundamental essence is transmitted by the action of eating. There is neither a recalling, nor a symbol, nor a commemoration, nor a remembrance in the sense in which we normally understand these; there is an azkarah, i.e., a manifestation of the identity of the thing designated, with that to which it refers: there is an identity between the act of eating, of destroying the bread by breaking and eating it, and the death of Christ on the Cross. The Eucharist understood and lived as a todah becomes worship through which the community members at their deepest physical level of being experience the event which has caused their salvation. Just as Jesus on the Cross has reached his goal, toward his new being, toward the kingdom of God, so also the participant in the Supper takes an active part at this same stage and revives his hope in the definite accomplishment of salvation.⁹

Thus, according to this theory, the Eucharist is not a sacrifice until it is consumed.

Influence on the Novus Ordo

For more than 1,500 years, the Roman Canon contained the following prayers of Eucharistic consecration:

Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and having raised His eyes to heaven, to You O God, His Almighty Father, giving thanks to You, He blessed it, broke it, gave it to His disciples, saying: All of you take and eat of this: FOR THIS IS MY BODY.

In like manner, after He had supped, taking also into His holy and venerable hands this goodly chalice, again giving thanks to You, He blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: All of you take and drink of this: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT: THE MYSTERY OF FAITH: WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS. As often as you shall do these things, you shall do them in remembrance of Me.

These prayers were modified as part of the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council, but left substantially intact. A comparison of the Latin text of the traditional Roman Canon with the modified form which subsists in the Novus Ordo as Eucharistic Prayer I (one of four options) reveals three changes. First, the words quod pro vobis tradetur (which will be given up for you) from Luke 22:19 have been added to the Consecration of the Body. Second, the words Mysterium Fidei have been removed from the consecration of the Precious Blood (having been placed after the words of Institution as an acclamation). Third, the traditional formula Haec quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis (As often as you shall do these things, you shall do them in remembrance of Me), based loosely on 1 Corinthians 11:25, has been replaced by the simpler formula Hoc facite in meam commemorationem (Do this in remembrance of me) from Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24. Nevertheless, the reformed Roman Canon retains, in its Latin original, gratias agens (giving thanks) and benedixit (blessed) as distinct verbs in the Consecration of both the Body and the Blood.¹⁰ Eucharistic Prayer III retains this distinction as well.¹¹

On the other hand, Eucharistic Prayer II drops benedixit from the Consecration of both the Body and the Blood, such that the Institution narrative begins, "Qui cum Passioni voluntarie traderetur, accepit panem et gratias agens fregit, deditque discipulis suis."¹² Similarly, Eucharistic Prayer IV uses only benedixit in the Consecration of the Body and only gratias egit (gave thanks) in the Consecration of the Blood,¹³ which, while clearly orthodox per se, is consistent with the position that these two words are synonyms.

To make matters worse, ICEL has surreptitiously eliminated the word "blessed" from the English translation of Eucharistic Prayers I and III. These now read, respectively:

The day before he suffered, he took bread in his sacred hands, and looking up to heaven, to you, his almighty Father, he gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, etc. When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, etc.¹⁴

On the night he was betrayed, he took bread and gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, etc. When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, etc.¹⁵

Notice that ICEL has mistranslated "blessed" as "praised," and changed the object of this verb from the bread and wine to God. It is thus subsumed into Audet's ascending blessing. Notice also that this mistranslation yields Dix's four fold shape, mentioned above: took, gave thanks (and praise), broke, and gave. So, the cumulative effect of the original Latin texts of the reformed Eucharistic prayers and their English translations is that, at present, none of the Eucharistic prayers which a typical English speaking Catholic will hear at his local parish clearly indicate a distinction between giving thanks and blessing. On the other hand, all four of them are consistent with Audet's and Dix's theories.

Why should Catholics insist on making a clear distinction between giving thanks and blessing, even though this distinction is not clear in the biblical institution narratives themselves? We should so insist for much the same reason that St. Athanasius insisted on describing Christ as homoousios (consubstantial) with the Father, even though this term is not in the Bible, namely, it protects biblical and Catholic doctrine. To give thanks and praise is an ascending blessing, an action appropriate either to a priest or to a layman, whereas traditional Catholic teaching holds that both the blessing of the bread and wine prior to the Consecration and the Consecration itself are priestly, descending blessings. We must therefore resist any attempt to understand these as equivalent to a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

A Brief Defense of Descending Blessings

Exodus 29:37 and Exodus 30:29 illustrate the concept of the descending blessing. "Seven days shalt thou expiate the altar and sanctify it, and it shall be most holy. Every one that shall touch it shall be holy" (Ex 29:37). "And thou shalt sanctify all [the implements of Tabernacle worship], and they shall be most holy: he that shall touch them shall be sanctified" (Exodus 30:29).

In 1 Samuel 9:13 we see the word "bless" used in the sense of a priest blessing and consecrating a thing (as opposed to praising God) "As soon as you come into the city, you shall immediately find him, before he go up to the high place to eat: for the people will not eat till he come: because he blesseth the victim, and afterwards they eat that are invited. Now therefore go up, for to day you shall find him." Similarly, the Dead Sea Scrolls "Manual of Discipline," which is written in Hebrew and dated to the 2nd Century B.C., states: "And when the table has been prepared for eating, and the new wine for drinking, the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine."¹⁶

The early Church applied this vocabulary to the Christian Eucharist. The Didache, which is from the first century, applies Matthew 7:6 to the Eucharist: "Give not that which is holy to the dogs."¹⁷ St. Justin Martyr, in his First Apology, from the 2nd Century, asserts of the consecrated bread and wine that "not as common bread and common drink do we receive these."¹⁸ Notice also that when St. Justin speaks of Eucharistic blessing, it is not God who is blessed; rather, it is the food that is blessed:

[T]hose who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water which have been eucharistized... The food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.¹⁹

Finally, Eucharistic Consecration must be a sacerdotal blessing because it effects a real change in substance in the Consecrated species, which a layman's blessing could not do. The biblical evidence for this is amply discussed in many works, so there's no need to repeat it here. Suffice it to add some evidence from the ancient liturgies of the Church.

Make This Bread...

The majority of the Eastern and Western Eucharistic prayers contain a verb of change describing the bread and wine becoming or being made the Body and Blood of Our Lord.

The Prayers of Sarapion, from the 4th century: "Let your holy Word come on this bread, O God of truth, that the bread may become the body of the Word..."²⁰

Apostolic Constitutions, from the 4th century; "...and to send down your Holy Spirit upon this sacrifice, the witness of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, that he may make this bread the body of your Christ..."²¹

Byzantine Liturgy of St. Basil, from the 4th century: "...that your Holy Spirit may come upon us and upon these gifts set forth, and bless them and sanctify and make this bread the precious body of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ..."²²

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, from the 4th century: "...send down your Holy Spirit on us and on these gifts set forth; and make this bread the precious body of your Christ, changing it by your holy Spirit..."²³

Coptic Liturgy of St. Mark, from the 5th century: "...send your Holy Spirit to sanctify and perfect them, and make the bread the body...and the cup the blood..."²⁴

Liturgy of St. James, from the 5th century: "...and by his holy and good and glorious coming may sanctify them, and make this bread the holy body of Christ..."²⁵

The Roman Canon, from the 5th century: "Vouchsafe, we beseech you, O God, to make this offering wholly blessed, approved, ratified, reasonable, and acceptable; that it may become to us the body and blood of your dearly beloved son Jesus Christ our Lord."²⁶

The change of the bread and wine, which Catholics believe takes place at the pronunciation of the Words of Institution by the priest at Mass, is clearly signified by the words which we have just seen in the Church's various rites and Eucharistic prayers. While the words used in the New Testament accounts of Saints Matthew and Mark can be interpreted in two different ways (that Jesus blessed the Father, or that Jesus blessed the bread), the constant tradition of the Church is to interpret the word bless as a sanctification of the bread, not as a praise of God. So, the mistranslation of "bless" and its subsumption into an ascending blessing in the vernacular text of the New Rite of Mass merits to be promptly corrected.

Our Holy Father Benedict's program of liturgical reform includes the liberation of the 1962 Missal, the implementation of more literal and reverent vernacular translations of the Novus Ordo Mass, and, possibly, a return to reciting sacramental formulae in Latin only. As things stand presently, the English Novus Ordo Mass is open to the misinterpretations of Audet and like-minded liturgists: that it is not the words of Institution alone which change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood; instead, the entire preface + canon consecrates by being a prayer of praise to God the Father. However, as our Holy Father's program proceeds, this interpretation is being slowly edged out.

Ed Snyder
July 15, Anno Domini MMVIII

[1] James F. White, in Christian Worship in Transition (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1976) p. 99, says of Dix that "his influence has been present in every committee engaged in preparing eucharistic texts ever since that of the Church of South India [Anglican]." It is stated by Anglicans that all the modern Anglican Eucharistic prayers were influenced by Dix's theory. Furthermore, the January 2005 Bishops Committee on the Liturgy (BCL) newsletter states that Dix influenced Fr. Pierre-Marie Gy, O.P., one of the most widely read Catholic liturgists of modern times, who in turn influenced the reforms of Vatican II. As an aside, Gy wrote an article against Cardinal Ratzinger's book, The Spirit of the Liturgy -- "The Spirit of the liturgy of Cardinal Ratzinger, is it faithful to the Council, or in reaction to it?", which appeared in the journal La Maison Dieu in 2002. The same year, Cardinal Razinger wrote a reply to Gy, appearing in the same journal: "The Spirit of the Liturgy or fidelity to the Council. Response to Pere Gy." These articles have not, to my knowledge, been translated into English.

[2] Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London: Continuum Press, 1945) p. 208.

[3] Ibid., p. 226.

[4] Ibid., p. 103.

[5] Sanchez Caro, "Bendición y eucarístia: Veinticinco años de estudios sobre el género literario de la plegaria eucarística," Salmanticensis, ISSN 0036-3537, Vol. 30, Fasc. 2, 1983, pp. 123-147.

[6] Traditional Catholic theology understands the "blessing" mentioned in Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, and the Roman Canon as a blessing which is distinct from the Consecration itself. Cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, Ch. 1. It is the analog of the blessing of the bread and wine during the Offertory of the Roman Liturgy.

[7] I.e., through prayer, usually combined with a rubrical action such as the sign of the cross, anointing with oil, sprinkling with holy water, or the laying on of hands.

[8] Perhaps this explains why Cardinal Antonelli, a member of Bugnini's Concilium responsible for reforming the Roman liturgy, had to intervene to ensure that the new Rite of priestly ordination would contain a reference to the Eucharistic sacrifice: "Nevertheless, at least during one of two moments, when the bishop describes the munera presbiteri [priestly gifts], talking to the faithful and talking to the ordinands, he should clearly spell out that the priest has the praecipuum munus offerendi sacrificium eucharisticum [principle gift of offering the eucharistic sacrifice]" (Nicola Giampietro, El Cardenal Ferdinando Antonelli y la reforma liturgica (Editiones Christiandad, 1998) pp. 246-247). The original Spanish is: "Sin embargo, al menos en uno de los dos momentos, cuando el obispo describe los munera presbiteri hablando a los fieles y hablando a los ordenandos, se debe reconocer claramente que el sacerdote tiene el praecipuum munus offerendi sacrificium eucharisticum." That it was at all necessary for Cardinal Antonelli to fight this battle is very revealing of the dispositions of many of the liturgical reformers of the time.

[9] D. Bach, "Sacrifice et eucharistie: pour une relecture oecumenique des textes D'Institution de la Cene [Sacrifice and the Eucharist: towards an ecumenical rereading of the texts of the Institution of the Supper]," Revue D'histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, 1979, N. 3-4, p. 526.

[10] Missale Romanum, Editio Typica Altera (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1975) pp. 451-452.

[11] Ibid., p. 462.

[12] Ibid., p. 457.

[13] Ibid., p. pp. 468-469.

[14] The Sacramentary (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1985) p. 505.

[15] Ibid., p. 513.

[16] James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994) p. 173.

[17] Lightfoot translation, from the internet: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-lightfoot.html

[18] Roberts-Donaldson translation, from the internet: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html

[19] Ibid.

[20] R.C.D. Jasper and G.J. Cuming, Prayers of the Eucharist, Early and Reformed (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990) p. 77.

[21] Ibid., p. 111.

[22] Ibid., p. 120.

[23] Ibid., p. 133.

[24] Ibid., p. 66.

[25] Ibid., p. 93.

[26] Ibid., pp. 164-165.