The Lord’s Supper in the Early Church: Covenant Extension or Eucharistic Presence?

Seminary Room N335

This study seeks to show how the Lord’s Supper lost its relational and historical (past-present-future) covenant focus and instead became fixed on the Platonic now of mystical contemplation. I propose that this resulted from the Hellenistic interpretation of reality in general and Christian rituals in particular. The first section explores the nature of God and the Old Testament covenant, followed by the covenant’s continuity in the New Testament through the Lord’s Supper. The second portion analyzes the Didache’s Jewish-Christian perspective of the Lord’s Supper and contrasts it with the Hellenistic-Christian stance of Justin Martyr and Ignatius of Antioch.