The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus Translated into...

Fundamental for any comprehension of the first liturgical history of the eucharist is the fact that among Jews a “blessing” of food is without exception a “thanksgiving”; a Jew never says “Bless this food”, but always “Blessed be God”. So in the New Testament, when such a blessing is in question, εὐχαριστέω and εὐλογέω are used without distinction; compare, e.g., Mark 8. 6-7.

The various Jewish blessings in their oldest literary forms are collected in the Mishnah tractate Berakhoth;[166] 69 this was finally compiled in the third century, but most of its contents are much earlier; note in chapter 8 the account of the pre-Christian controversy between the schools of Hillel and Shammai. The form of all the blessings is the same; after the opening words of praise the worshipper recites the particular act of God for which thanksgiving is due. So over bread the formula is:

To eat without thanksgiving was a sin, and he who did so at least violated God’s law commanding thankfulness. But most Jews would also have held that unblessed food is unfit for consumption, and that pronouncing the benediction removes this quasi-uncleanness, i.e., “hallows” it: “Nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God[167] and prayer”.[168] In other words, the act of thanksgiving was construed as having a consecratory effect, potent even for ordinary food and therefore especially potent for sacred food. So St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10. 16: “The cup of thanksgiving over which we give thanks, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?” In Hippolytus the same conception appears unambiguously in 21. 6 and 23, but it also underlies his use of “thanksgiving” in 4. 2 and 10. 4.

Accordingly, since at the Christians’ greatest liturgical service the essential formula was a solemn thanksgiving, the service itself and food consecrated at the service both came to be called simply “The Thanksgiving” or (in Greek) “The Eucharist”.[169] And—certainly in the second century, since Hippolytus gives the formula—the eucharistic prayer was prefaced by the invitatory, “Let us make our thanksgiving to the Lord”, and this in turn by the appropriate words, “Lift up your hearts”.

Since extempore prayer was still largely practised (4), the contents of the Christian thanksgivings naturally varied widely, but it would appear inevitable that at first, in accord with Christ’s example, God’s provision of food for men was the normal topic: the beautiful prayer in the Didache is formed on this model, which Hippolytus follows closely in chapters 5-6. But the thought of food in the bread and wine was overshadowed by the thought of redemption, and even in the Didache the earthly species only typify the salvation wrought in Christ. In chapter 4 of Hippolytus the “table” form of the blessing is abandoned altogether for the praise of Christ’s redeeming works, and the same is true of practically all later liturgies. As is entirely natural, Hippolytus’s thanksgiving concludes with reciting the work of Christ most vividly in mind at the moment: his institution of the rite that the church was engaged in celebrating.[170]

The evidence of the later liturgies shows us that the 71 purely Christian objects of thanksgiving in Hippolytus were by no means the only ones for which God was blessed; thanks could be given with entire appropriateness to the Father for any of His benefits from creation on. For such prayers Jewish synagogue formulas provided models that were freely utilized; compare, e.g., Constitutions VII, 33-38. These thanksgivings often included (VII, 35, 3) or culminated in the hymn of Isaiah 6. 3 (“Sanctus”), and in this way this hymn passed into the Christian eucharistic prayers, to become an all but universal feature in them. In the liturgy in the Constitutions it stands at a place that shows its origin, at the close of the (Jewish) thanksgivings for Old Testament benefits (VIII, 12, 27) and before the (Christian) thanksgivings for Christ’s incarnate acts.

After the completion of the thanksgiving (4. 10) Hippolytus makes certain additions. 4. 11 declares that in performing the rite the church remembers Christ according to his command: this is the germ of what in the later liturgies is known as the “anamnesis”. And the offering is formally presented to God; this likewise reoccurs regularly and is called the “oblation”. Either or both of these features could have been used in any eucharistic prayer from the earliest time.

4. 12, however, shows a later concept. In the age of Hippolytus the consecratory effect of thanksgiving was growing unfamiliar, and a special petition was thought needful in order that the bread and wine might truly be made “a communion” of the body and blood of Christ. The liturgy’s thought is simple: if earthly food is truly to become “spiritual” food,[171] God must send upon it the Spirit. The prayer is phrased accordingly, and is the first known instance of what is technically known as the “invocation”, universal in Eastern 72 liturgies, although absent from the present Roman. But the testimony of Irenaeus shows that in the late second century at Rome the invocation was regarded as the truly consecratory formula,[172] and Hippolytus continues Irenaeus’ tradition.