intelligible appeal. It belongs to the same order of ideas that
the headship of the Messianic ecclesia in Judea was assigned after
the death of Jesus to his eldest brother James, and after him for
several generations to the eldest living representative of his family.
To the modern mind it is absurd that an image or symbol should be taken for that which is imaged or symbolized, and that is why the early history of the Eucharist has been so little understood by ecclesiastical writers. And yet other religions, ancient and modern, supply many parallels, which are considered in the article Sacrament.
Authorities.—Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites; Goetz, Die Abendmahlsfrage; G. Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen (Göttingen, 1894); Sylloge confessionum (Oxford, 1804); Duchesne, Origins of Christian Culture; Funk’s edition of Constitutiones Apostolicae; Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, vol. ii.; Geo. Bickell, Messe und Pascha; idem. “Die Entstehung der Liturgie,” Ztsch. f. Kath. Theol. iv. Jahrg. 94 (1880), p. 90 (shows how the prayers of the Christian sacramentaries derive from the Jewish Synagogue); Goar, Rituale Graecorum; F. E. Brightman, Eastern Liturgies; Cabrol and Leclercq, Monumenta liturgica, reliquiae liturgicae vetustissimae (Paris, 1900); Harnack, History of Dogma; Jas. Martineau, Seat of Authority in Religion, bk. iv. (London, 1890); Loofs, art. “Abendmahlsfeier” in Herzog’s Realencyklopädie (1896.) Spitta, Urchristentum (Göttingen, 1893); Schultzen, Das Abendmahl im N.T. (Göttingen, 1895); Kraus, Real-Encykl. d. christl. Altert. (for the Archaeology); art. “Eucharistic”; Ch. Gore, Dissertations (1895); Hoffmann, Die Abendmahlsgedanken Jesu Christi (Königsberg, 1896); Sanday, art. “Lord’s Supper” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible; Th. Harnack, Der christl. Gemeindegottesdienst. (F. C. C.)
Reservation of the Eucharist
The practice of reserving the sacred elements for the purpose of subsequent reception prevailed in the church from very early times. The Eucharist being the seal of Christian fellowship, it was a natural custom to send portions of the consecrated elements by the hands of the deacons to those who were not present (Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 65). From this it was an easy development, which prevailed before the end of the 2nd century, for churches to send the consecrated Bread to one another as a sign of communion (the εὐχαριστία mentioned by Irenaeus, ap. Eus. H.E. v. 24), and for the faithful to take it to their own homes and reserve it in arcae or caskets for the purpose of communicating themselves (Tert. ad Uxor. ii. 5, De orat. 19; St Cypr. De lapsis, 132). Being open to objection on grounds both of superstition and of irreverence, these customs were gradually put down by the council of Laodicea in A.D. 360. But some irregular forms of reservation still continued; the prohibition as regards the lay people was not extended, at any rate with any strictness, to the clergy and monks; the Eucharist was still carried on journeys; occasionally it was buried with the dead; and in a few cases the pen was even dipped in the chalice in subscribing important writings. Meanwhile, both in East and West, the general practice has continued unbroken of reserving the Eucharist, in order that the “mass of the presanctified” might take place on certain “aliturgic” days, that the faithful might be able to communicate when there was no celebration, and above all that it might be at hand to meet the needs of the sick and dying. It was reserved in a closed vessel, which took various forms from time to time, known in the East as the ἀρτοφόριον, and in the West as the turris, the capsa, and later on as the pyx. In the East it was kept against the wall behind the altar; in the West, in a locked aumbry in some part of the church, or (as in England and France) in a pyx made in the form of a dove and suspended over the altar.
In the West it has been used in other ways. A portion of the consecrated Bread from one Eucharist, known as the “Fermentum,” was long made use of in the next, or sent by the bishop to the various churches of his city, no doubt with the object of emphasizing, the solidarity and the continuity of “the one Eucharist”; and amongst other customs which prevailed for some centuries, from the 8th onward, were those of giving it to the newly ordained in order that they might communicate themselves, and of burying it in or under the altar-slab of a newly consecrated church. At a later date, apparently early in the 14th century, began the practice of carrying the Eucharist in procession in a monstrance; and at a still later period, apparently after the middle of the 16th century, the practice of Benediction with the reserved sacrament, and that of the “forty hours’ exposition,” were introduced in the churches of the Roman communion. It should be said, however, that most of these practices met with very considerable opposition both from councils and from theologians and canonists, amongst others from the English canonist William Lyndwood (Provinciale, lib. iii. c. 26), on the following grounds amongst others: that the Body of Christ is the food of the soul, that it ought not to be reserved except for the benefit of the sick, and that it ought not to be applied to any other use than that for which it was instituted.
In England, during the religious changes of the 16th century, such of these customs as had already taken root were abolished; and with them the practice of reserving the Eucharist in the churches appears to have died out too. The general feeling on the subject is expressed by the language of the 28th Article, first drafted in 1553, to the effect that “the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped,” and by the fact that a form was provided for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist for the sick in their own homes. This latter practice was in accordance with abundant precedent, but had become very infrequent, if not obsolete, for many years before the Reformation. The first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. provided that if there was a celebration in church on the day on which a sick person was to receive the Holy Communion, it should be reserved, and conveyed to the sick man’s house to be administered to him; if not, the curate was to visit the sick person before noon and there celebrate according to a form which is given in the book. At the revision of the Prayer-Book in 1552 all mention of reservation is omitted, and the rubric directs that the communion is to be celebrated in the sick person’s house, according to a new form; and this service has continued, with certain minor changes, down to the present day. That the tendency of opinion in the English Church during the period of the Reformation was against reservation is beyond doubt, and that the practice actually died out would seem to be equally clear. The whole argument of some of the controversial writings of the time, such as Bishop Cooper on Private Mass, depends upon that fact; and when Cardinal du Perron alleged against the English Church the lack of the reserved Eucharist, Bishop Andrewes replied, not that the fact was otherwise, but that reservation was unnecessary in view of the English form for the Communion of the Sick: “So that reservation needeth not; the intent is had without it” (Answers to Cardinal Perron, &c., p. 19, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology). It does not follow, however, that a custom which has ceased to exist is of necessity forbidden, nor even that what was rejected by the authorities of the English Church in the 16th century is so explicitly forbidden as to be unlawful under its existing system; and not a few facts have to be taken into account in any investigation of the question. (1) The view has been held that in the Eucharist the elements are only consecrated as regards the particular purpose of reception in the service itself, and that consequently what remains unconsumed may be put to common uses. If this view were held (and it has more than once made its appearance in church history, though it has never prevailed), reservation might be open to objection on theological grounds. But such is not the view of the Church of England in her doctrinal standards, and there is an express rubric directing that any that remains of that which was consecrated is not to be carried out of the church, but reverently consumed. There can therefore be no theological obstacle to reservation in the English Church: it is a question of practice only. (2) Nor can it be said that the rubric just referred to is in itself a condemnation of reservation: it is rather directed, as its history proves, against the irreverence which prevailed when it was made; and in fact its wording is based upon that of a pre-Reformation order which coexisted with the practice of reservation (Lyndwood, Provinciale, lib. iii. tit. 26, note q). (3) Nor can it be said that the words of the 28th Article (see
