23 THE BAPTISMAL EUCHARIST
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hippolytus, Antipope and Easton, Burton Scott
Compare the distinction between the baptismal and the regular eucharist in Justin, Apology 65 and 67 and in Didache 9-10 and 14.
1. The conception of consecration by thanksgiving is 94 stated so baldly that the Latin (“gratias agat panem quidem in exemplum”) is wholly unidiomatic, but in all probability the prayer normally included an invocation like that in 4. 12. Here, in place of the “spiritual food” language in 4. 12, the result of the consecration is expressed in the terms of the institution. Yet Hippolytus appears to shrink a little from calling the species absolutely the body and blood of Christ: the bread is the “image” (ἀντίτυπον) of the body and the cup the “likeness” (ὁμοίεμα) of the blood. The former word is used in the same way by Cyril of Jerusalem (23, 20; as an adjective) and the latter by Sarapion in his first oblation before the words of institution; compare “figura” in Tertullian, Against Marcion III, 19 and IV, 40, and the prayer in the Constitutions (VIII, 12, 39) that the species may be made to “appear” (ἀποφάναι) as the body and blood. None of this language, however, is “symbolic” in the modern sense; whatever unlikeness theologians[208] might feel existed between the symbols and the things signified was overshadowed by the realistic connection that existed between them. But in the earlier Patristic period the deeper nature of this connection was left unexplored.
2. Tertullian (chaplet 3, Against Marcion I, 14) and Clement of Alexandria (Pedagogue I, vi (45, 1)) bear contemporary testimony to the custom of giving new Christians milk and honey, so the rite must have been widespread. It is not in the Constitutions or the Testament, but the other sources have it. And the 24th canon of the Third Council of Carthage (397) reads: “The first-fruits, namely milk and honey, which are offered on a most solemn day for the mystery of infants,[209] although offered on the altar should have a blessing of 95 their own, that they may be distinguished from the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood”.
Clement of Alexandria, like Hippolytus, cites the Old Testament prophecies of the promised land,[210] so the meaning of the rite was to assure the participants of a share in salvation. But Hippolytus adds a further explanation of his own; the milk represents Christ’s flesh and the honey his gentleness. The Canons—possibly with a misrecollection of Isaiah 7. 15—interpret the food as proper for the newly born.
3. The purpose of the water is to extend the baptismal washing into the inner man; a somewhat pedantic ceremony that reappears only in the Ethiopic, although the Testament applies the theory to the water in the mixed eucharistic chalice.
5. This is the earliest known formula for eucharistic administration.
7-11. What is most curious about these directions is that the sacramental wine is not distinguished in administration from the other two cups; the other versions correct this.[211] Perhaps in this ceremony there has survived something of the tradition in the earliest text of Luke 22. 19-20, where the whole emphasis is laid on the bread.
The little four-clause creed is interesting.
12. An admirable little summary of Christian duty.
13. Hippolytus (compare I. 1) refers to some earlier work or works of his own, possibly Concerning God and the Resurrection, whose title is listed on his statue.
14. By the “white stone” (Revelation 2. 17) evidently something very concrete is implied. This cannot be any part of the creed, which is recited while baptism is in progress, and so the Testament’s explanation of the 96 secret as the doctrine of the resurrection[212] is excluded. The only other possibility would appear to be the Lord’s Prayer, on which Hippolytus is strangely silent. Christians of this age regarded the Prayer as having an almost magical efficacy. It was, moreover, allowed to none but the baptized and was first uttered by Christians immediately after their baptism,[213] a custom which in the light of Romans 8. 15 and Galatians 4. 6 may actually go back to apostolic times.