Cannibalism” and “human sacrifice” were charges often whispered against the first generations of Christians. The early Christian apologists took them up in order to dismiss them as gossip. Yet through the distorted lens of the pagans’ gossip, we can see what was the most identifiable element of Christian life and worship.

It was the Eucharist: the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the sacramental meal where Christians consumed Jesus’ body and blood. It was the distortion of these facts of faith that led to pagan calumnies against the Church—though it’s easy to see how the pagans misunderstood. In the early Church, only the baptized were permitted to attend the sacraments, and Christians were discouraged from even discussing these central mysteries with non-Christians. So the pagan imagination was left to run wild, fueled by small scraps of fact: “this is My body . . . this is the cup of My blood . . . Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood . . .” The pagans knew that to be a Christian was to participate in some strange and secretive rites.

To be a Christian was to go to Mass. This was true from the first day of the New Covenant. Just hours after Jesus rose from the dead, He found His way to a table with two disciples. “He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened . . . He was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:30–31, 35). The centrality of the Eucharist is evident also in the Acts of the Apostles’ capsule description of the early Church’s life: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (ch. 11) contains a veritable handbook of liturgical theory and practice. Paul’s letter reveals his concern to transmit the precise form of the liturgy, in the words of institution taken from Jesus’ Last Supper. “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me’ ” (1 Cor 11:23–25). Paul emphasizes the importance of the doctrine of the Real Presence and sees dire consequences in unbelief: “Any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor 11:29).

We note the same themes as we move from the New Testament books to other Christian sources from the age of the Apostles and immediately afterward. The doctrinal content is identical, and the vocabulary remains remarkably similar, even as the faith spread to other lands and other languages. The clergy, teachers, and defenders of the early Church were united in their concern to preserve the Eucharistic doctrines: the Real Presence of Jesus’ body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine; the sacrificial nature of the liturgy; the necessity of properly ordained clergy; the importance of ritual form. Thus, the witness to the Church’s Eucharistic doctrines is unbroken, from the time of the Gospels till today.

Aside from the books of the New Testament, the earliest Christian writing that has survived is a liturgical manual—what we might call a missal—contained within a document called the Didache (Greek for “Teaching”). The Didache claims to be the collected “Teaching of the Apostles,” and was likely compiled in Antioch, Syria (see Acts 11:26), sometime during the years A.D. 50–110. The Didache uses the word “sacrifice” four times to describe the Eucharist, once stating plainly that “this is the sacrifice that was spoken of by the Lord.” From the Didache we also learn that the usual day of the liturgy was “the Lord’s day” and that it was customary to repent of one’s sins before receiving the Eucharist. “On the Lord’s own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” As for the order of the sacrifice, the Didache offers a Eucharistic Prayer that is stunning in its poetry. We can find its echoes in liturgies and hymns of Christians today, both Eastern and Western:

As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and, gathered together, became one, so may Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever and ever. But let no one eat or drink of this Eucharistic thanksgiving, except those who have been baptized into the name of the Lord. . . .

Almighty Master, You created all things for Your name’s sake, and gave food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to You; but You bestowed upon us spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Your Son. . . .

Remember, Lord, Your Church. Deliver it from all evil and perfect it in Your love; and gather it together from the four winds—the Church that has been sanctified—into Your kingdom which You have prepared for it.

The liturgy of the ancient Church drew deeply from the rites and the Scriptures of ancient Israel, as does our own liturgy today. In Chapter 2, we considered how Jesus instituted the Mass during the feast of Passover. His “thanksgiving”—His Eucharist—would fulfill, perfect, and surpass the Passover sacrifice. This connection was clear to the first generation of Christians, many of whom were devout Jews. Thus the prayers of Passover soon found their way into the Christian liturgy.

Consider the prayers over the wine and the unleavened bread in the Passover meal: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, Creator of the fruit of the vine. . . . Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth.” The phrase “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts! The earth is full of His glory” (Is 6:3) was another commonplace of Jewish worship, which found its way immediately into Christian rites. We will encounter it in the Book of Revelation, but it also appears in a letter composed by the fourth pope, St. Clement of Rome, around the year A.D. 96.

Perhaps the most striking liturgical “ancestor” of the Mass is the todah of ancient Israel. The Hebrew word todah, like the Greek Eucharist, means “thank offering” or “thanksgiving.” The word denotes a sacrificial meal shared with friends in order to celebrate one’s gratitude to God. A todah begins by recalling some mortal threat and then celebrates man’s divine deliverance from that threat. It is a powerful expression of confidence in God’s sovereignty and mercy.

Psalm 69 is a good example. An urgent plea for deliverance (“Save me, O God!”), it is at the same time a celebration of that eventual deliverance (“I will praise the name of God with a song . . . For the Lord hears the needy”).

Perhaps the classic example of the todah is Psalm 22, which begins with “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Jesus Himself quoted this as He hung dying upon the cross. His listeners would have recognized the reference, and they would have known that this song, which begins with a cry of dereliction, ends on a triumphant note of salvation. Citing this todah, Jesus demonstrated His own confident hope for deliverance.

The similarities between todah and Eucharist go beyond their common meaning of thanksgiving. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has written: “Structurally speaking, the whole of Christology, indeed the whole of Eucharistic Christology, is present in the todah spirituality of the Old Testament.” Both the todah and the Eucharist present their worship through word and meal. Moreover, the todah, like the Mass, includes an unbloody offering of unleavened bread and wine.

The ancient rabbis made a significant prediction regarding the todah. “In the coming [Messianic] age, all sacrifices will cease except the todah sacrifice. This will never cease in all eternity” (Pesiqta, I, p. 159).

From Antioch, in Syria, again comes our next witness to the newborn Church’s Eucharistic doctrine. Around A.D. 107, St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote often of the Eucharist as he traveled westward to his martyrdom. He speaks of the Church as “the place of sacrifice.” And to the Philadelphians he wrote: “Take care, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to show forth the unity of His blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, along with the priests and deacons, my fellow-servants.” In his letter to the Church of Smyrna, Ignatius lashed out against heretics who, even at that early date, were denying the true doctrine: “From the Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.” He counsels readers on the marks of a true liturgy: “Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is administered either by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it.”

Ignatius spoke of the sacrament with a realism that must have been shocking to people unfamiliar with the mysteries of Christian faith. Surely it was words like his, taken out of context, that fed the Roman Empire’s gossip mills, which in turn spewed out the charges of cannibalism. In the following decades, the Church’s defense fell to a scholarly convert from Samaria named Justin. It was Justin who lifted the veil of secrecy over the ancient liturgy. In A.D. 155, he wrote to the Roman emperor describing what we can, even now, recognize as the Mass. It’s worth quoting at length:

On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place. The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits. When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things. Then we all rise together and offer prayers for ourselves . . . and for all others, wherever they may be, so that we may be found righteous by our life and actions, and faithful to the commandments, so as to obtain eternal salvation. When the prayers are concluded we exchange the kiss. Then someone brings bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren. He takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks (in Greek: eucharistian) that we have been judged worthy of these gifts. When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all present give voice to an acclamation by saying: “Amen.” When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the “eucharisted” bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent.

Justin begins his description by placing it squarely on “the day of the sun”—Sunday, which was the day Jesus rose from the dead. This identification of “the Lord’s day” with Sunday is the universal testimony of the early Christians. As the primary day of worship, Sunday had fulfilled and replaced the seventh day, the sabbath of the Jews. It was the Lord’s day, for example, when John, worshiping “in the Spirit,” had his vision of the Apocalypse (Rev 1:10).

Justin explains the Church’s sacrifice and sacrament. Yet he does not downplay the Real Presence. He uses the same graphic realism as his predecessor, Ignatius: “The food that has been made the Eucharist by the prayer of His word, and which nourishes our flesh and blood by assimilation, is both the flesh and blood of that Jesus Who was made flesh.”

When speaking with Jews, Justin went further and explained that the Passover sacrifice and the Temple sacrifices were mere foreshadowings of the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ and its re-presentation in the liturgy: “And the offering of fine flour . . . which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed.”

Such was the catholic, or universal, experience of the Eucharist. Yet, while the doctrine remained the same throughout the world, the liturgy was, for the most part, a local affair. Each bishop was responsible for the celebration of the Eucharist in his territory, and, gradually, different regions developed their own styles of liturgical practice: Syrian, Roman, Gallican, and so on. What is remarkable, however, is how much all these liturgies—widely varied as they were—kept in common. With few exceptions, they shared the same basic elements: a rite of repentance, readings from the Scriptures, the singing or recitation of psalms, a homily, an “angelic hymn,” a Eucharistic Prayer, and Holy Communion. The churches followed St. Paul in taking special care to transmit the words of institution, the words that transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ: “This is My body . . . This is the cup of My blood.”

From the beginning of the third century onward, the papyrus trail shows a greater concern with preserving the precise words of the liturgies attributed to the Apostles. In the early 300s A.D., in northern Syria, surfaces another compilation of the received tradition: the Didascalia Apostolorum (“Teaching of the Apostles”). The Didascalia includes pages of texts of prayers as well as detailed instructions for the liturgical roles and etiquette of bishops, priests, deacons, women, children, young adults, widows, orphans, and travelers.

Around A.D. 215, Hippolytus of Rome composed his great work, The Apostolic Tradition, in which he set down the liturgical and theological teachings the Roman Church had preserved from the days of the Apostles. One section sets out a tightly scripted liturgy for the ordination of priests. Whereas in Justin’s description we can “see” our Mass, in Hippolytus’s work we can hear it.

PRIEST: The Lord be with you.
CONGREGATION: And with your spirit.
PRIEST: Let us lift up our hearts.
CONGREGATION: We lift them up to the Lord.
PRIEST: Let us give thanks to the Lord.
CONGREGATION: It is right and just.

From the same period, we find the oldest texts of the liturgies that claimed apostolic lineage, the liturgies of St. Mark, St. James, and St. Peter—liturgies still used in many places throughout the world. The liturgy of St. James was the favored rite of the ancient Jerusalem Church, which claimed James as its first bishop. The liturgies of James, Mark, and Peter are theologically dense, rich in poetry, rich in citations from the Scriptures. Remember, since few people could read, and still fewer could afford to have books copied out, the liturgy was the place where Christians absorbed the Bible. So, from the Church’s earliest days, the Mass has been saturated with the Scriptures.

Though their words speak eloquently of Christ’s sacrifice, the ancient liturgies are just as resounding in their silences:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and stand with fear and trembling,
and meditate nothing earthly within itself.
For the King of kings and Lord of lords,
Christ our God, comes forward to be sacrificed,
and to be given for food to the faithful.
And the bands of angels go before Him
with every power and dominion,
the many-eyed cherubim, and the six-winged seraphim,
covering their faces, and crying aloud the hymn:
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Keep all of this in mind: the sounds and the silences of the Church’s first Masses. You’ll encounter them again in heaven, when we examine the Book of Revelation more closely. You’ll encounter them again in heaven, when you go to Mass next Sunday.