LATER ADDITIONS
ETH[24.] ¹On Saturday and Sunday the bishop shall whenever possible give the people the bread with his own hand, while the deacons break it. ²The presbyters too shall break the bread to be delivered; and whenever a deacon approaches a presbyter he shall hold out his robe,[147] and the presbyter shall take the bread and deliver it to the people with his hand.
³On other days they shall give the bread as the bishop determines.
On this section compare [p. 31]. It may be further observed that section 2 is pretty clearly an addition.
ETH26. ¹⁴In time of need the deacon shall be diligent in giving the blessed bread[148] to the sick. ¹⁵If there is no presbyter to give out what is to be distributed, the deacon shall pronounce the thanksgiving and shall supervise[149] those who carry it away, to make sure that they attend to their duty and [properly] distribute the blessed food; the distributors must give it to the widows and the sick. ¹⁶Whoever is entrusted with the duty by the church[150] must distribute it on the same day; if he does not, he must [at least] do so on the next day with the addition of what is then given him. ¹⁷For [it is not his own property]; it is given him only [in trust] as bread for the poor.
¹⁸When evening has come and the bishop is present, the deacon shall bring in a lamp. ¹⁹Then the bishop, standing in the midst of the believers, before giving thanks shall first give the salutation:
The Lord be with you all.
²⁰And the people shall say:
[And] with thy spirit.
²¹And the bishop shall say:
Let us give thanks to the Lord.
²²And the people shall say:
It is meet and right:
Majesty, exaltation and glory are due to Him.
²³But they shall not say “Lift up your hearts”, for that belongs to the oblation. ²⁴And he prays thus, saying:
We give thee thanks, O God, because thou hast enlightened us by revealing the incorruptible light. ²⁵So we, having finished the length of a day, and being come to the beginning of the night, satisfied with the light of the day that thou hast created for our satisfaction; and now, since by thy grace we lack not a light for the evening, we sanctify thee and we glorify thee. ²⁶Through thine only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom be to thee with him glory and might and honour with [the] Holy Spirit, now, etc.[151]
²⁷And they shall all say: Amen.
²⁸Then, rising up after supper, the children and virgins having prayed, they shall sing psalms. ²⁹Then the deacon, holding the mixed cup of the offering, shall say a Hallelujah Psalm.[152] ³⁰Then, the presbyter having commanded, “And also such-and-such Psalms”, after the bishop has offered the cup[153] with the proper thanksgiving, all shall say “Hallelujah” as the Psalms are sung. ³¹And they shall say:
We praise Him who is God most high;
Glorified and praised is He,
Who founded the world with a single word.[154]
³²Then, when the Psalm is completed, he shall give thanks over the bread, and shall give the fragments to all the believers.
On these sections compare [p. 31]. An evening service, that included bringing in the lamp, is widespread in early Christianity and is eventually derived from Judaism; the particular service described here is a prelude to a congregational agape. There is nothing in sections 18-32 that necessarily implies a date later than Hippolytus, but the ceremony is badly placed between the private agapes and the equally private meals for the widows, and it is followed by a duplication of 26. 2, 10-12.
LAT[31.] ¹The faithful, early in the morning, as soon as they have awaked and arisen, before they undertake their tasks shall pray to God and so may then go to their duties. ²But if any instruction in the word is held, let each give first place to that, that he may attend and hear the word of God, to his soul’s comfort; so let each one hasten to the church, where the Spirit abounds.
[32.] ¹But let each of the faithful be zealous, before he eats anything else, to receive the eucharist; for if anyone receives it with faith, after such a reception he cannot be harmed even if a deadly poison should be given him. ²But let each one take care that no unbeliever taste the eucharist, nor a mouse nor any other animal, and that nothing of it fall or be lost; for the body of Christ is to be eaten by believers and must not be despised. ³The cup, when thou hast given thanks in the name of the Lord, thou hast accepted as the image of the blood of Christ. ⁴Therefore let none of it be spilled, so that no alien spirit may lick it up, as if thou didst despise it; thou shalt be guilty of the blood, as if thou didst scorn the price with which thou hast been bought.[155]
In the Oriental versions the position of chapters 31-32 between chapters 30 and 33 is impossible. Chapter 30 addresses the church’s officers, chapters 31-32 individuals, chapters 33-34 the officers, and chapter 35 individuals again; chapter 31, in addition, is only a condensation of 35. 1-3. But the Hauler manuscript clears up the difficulty. In it chapter 32 is followed immediately by the Latin A form of 37. 1-38. 2a, breaking off at the end of a leaf with “apo” (for “apostolic”). The next leaf begins with “God” in the middle of 36. 5, and the text continues through 36, gives the Latin B form of 37. 1-38. 2a and breaks off this time with “tra” for “tradition”. So two versions of the work were current with different endings; in one chapter 30 was followed by 31-32 and the A conclusion, in the other it was followed by 33-35 and the B conclusion. In the Hauler manuscript both endings were reproduced, although the leaves containing the last two sentences of the first and a considerable part of the second have been lost. In the Oriental versions—or the Greek codex underlying them—the glaring duplication caused by the ending after 32 was suppressed, although the doubling of 35. 1-3 in 31 remained.
Since chapter 34 is unmistakably Roman and consequently Hippolytean, the longer ending is original; chapter 33, moreover, is perfectly in place after chapter 30. So Schwartz[156] and Jungklaus are correct in holding[157] that chapter 32 is not by Hippolytus; the only alternative would be to assume that he issued two versions of his book with different endings—a difficult supposition that would leave unexplained why the very important practice stressed in chapter 32 is omitted in the longer version.
On the other hand it is true, as Connolly argues,[158] that the rules of chapter 32 are truly third-century. The custom according to which each Christian kept the consecrated eucharist in his house and received it each morning is attested in Tertullian’s To his Wife II, 5, and the reason given (Mark 16. 18) for receiving fasting is not that of the later church (compare on [chapter 29]); Connolly observes further that the home reservation of consecrated wine as well as consecrated bread is unknown elsewhere.
Very curious, too, is the phrase “when thou hast given thanks” in section 3, for the section as a whole is addressed to the laity. Is there here some reminiscence of earlier corporately celebrated eucharists, like the agapes in [chapter 26]? Or are 3-4 a later addition, addressed to the clergy? Or is there textual confusion?