Justin, known as “the martyr” for obvious reasons, undertook a defense of Christianity and published his Apology around AD 155-158, while Antionous Pius was emperor. Antionous was one of the “good” emperors—an adjective Roman historians used to describe him, along with a few of the others.
To the unintended favor of the Christians, though, Antionous continued a policy, begun with the emperor Trajan. Mob action against Christians was not tolerated. But that’s what got Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, burned at the stake: because a spineless governor placated the yowling rabble.
Justin’s Apology isn’t an apology at all. It is a legal brief, possibly in reaction to the murder of Polycarp some short while before. Justin’s brief to Antionous sought to overturn Trajan’s precedent. Christians should be arrested and convicted and executed, he wrote, on the same basis as other citizens, but not for the “crime” of being Christian.
He wanted to prove, legally, that Christians are unexceptionally loyal Romans and that their practices and beliefs were based on philosophy, reason, and truth.
I am always drawn to Justin for two reasons: his depiction of early Christian life, and his depiction of early liturgical form. I suspect the “Christian life” he describes may be bit idealized. Nonetheless, Christians are “patient of injuries, and ready to serve all . . . free from anger.” He has other examples at hand. I said that Justin’s brief may have been a tad idyllic, but enough Christians were Christian enough that it could be remarked on.
I love digging through his portrayal of Christian worship. One can read from his brief a second century outline of the ordo still used among liturgical churches. What we do from Sunday to Sunday is what Justin did, so early in the history of the Church. He was born on the cusp of what is called the post-Apostolic period, about AD 100; it is not impossible that he knew people who knew an apostle. What he describes is essentially the same outline of worship that we possess:
We gather.
We hear scripture.
An exhortation is delivered from scripture.
Prayers are said.
Gifts are collected and presented, the Peace is exchanged.
The bread and wine are “eucharized.”
The elements are distributed, but not as “ordinary food and wine.”
The deacons carry a portion of the Eucharist to any who are absent.
The congregation is dismissed.
The first half is all Jewish synagogue, a set lectionary and a sermon—another Jewish invention, pagan ceremonies had nothing like it—and prayer. The rest is the Pauline Last Supper of First Corinthians (Paul, at the least, was the first to write it down, the formula probably largely being in place very soon after the resurrection). It is a two-covenant trajectory of worship for Christians, the first rising from the synagogue and giving direction to the second.
We learn a lot about the Lord’s Supper, though, from Paul’s condemnation of its antithesis in Corinth. The communion was set possibly within a larger fellowship framework—more of a pot-luck. Perhaps bread and wine were selected out for particular use as the elements, as with the Passover meal. In any case, the Corinthians skipped some of that and went straight ahead to noshing it down “without waiting for anybody else.” One remains hungry and another sloshes the wine in a semi-binge. An infuriated Paul flays Corinthians hides: Whatever it is you think you are doing, “it is not the Lord’s Supper.”
They were, in fact, profaning the Body of Christ, the Church. So he warns them that eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord unworthily is a sin against the body and blood of the Lord. “Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
This isn’t about believing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though present the Lord is. It is fundamentally about recognizing Christ in the person next to you, the one to whom you are called to be servant.
“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the Church door,” St. John Chrysostom once said, “you will not find him in the Chalice.” I would guess that there are a lot of people we might care to include among beggars when we ask about who is worthy to share our Communion.
Russell E. Saltzman lives in Kansas City, Missouri and can be reached at russell.e.saltzman@gmail.com.His latest book is Speaking of the Dead and his previous First Things contributions are here.
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