A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

AGAPÆ. Love feasts, or feasts of charity, among the early Christians, were usually celebrated in connexion with the Lord’s supper, but not as a necessary part of it. The name is derived from the Greek word ἀγαπὴ, which signifies love or charity. In the earliest accounts which have come down to us, we find that the bishop or presbyter presided at these feasts. It does not appear whether the food was dressed in the place appointed for the celebration of the feast, or was previously prepared by individual members of the Church at their own homes; but perhaps either of these plans was adopted indifferently, according to circumstances. Before eating, the guests washed their hands, and a public prayer was offered up. A portion of Scripture was then read, and the president proposed some questions upon it, which were answered by the persons present. After this, any accounts which had been received respecting the affairs of other Churches were recited; for, at that time, such accounts were regularly transmitted from one community to another, by means of which all Christians became acquainted with the history and condition of the whole body, and were thus enabled to sympathize with, and in many cases to assist, each other. Letters from bishops and other eminent members of the Church, together with the Acts of the Martyrs, were also recited on this occasion; and hymns or psalms were sung. At the close of the feast, money was also collected for the benefit of widows and orphans, the poor, prisoners, and persons who had suffered shipwreck. Before the meeting broke up, all the members of the Church embraced each other, in token of mutual brotherly love, and the whole ceremony was concluded with a philanthropic prayer.

As the number of Christians increased, various deviations from the original practice of celebration occurred; which called for the censures of the governors of the Church. In consequence of these irregularities, it was appointed that the president should deliver to each guest his portion separately, and that the larger portions should be distributed among the presbyters, deacons, and other officers of the Church.

While the Church was exposed to persecution, these feasts were not only conducted with regularity and good order, but were made subservient to Christian edification, and to the promotion of brotherly love, and of that kind of concord and union which was specially demanded by the circumstances of the times.

At first these feasts were held in private houses, or in other retired places, where Christians met for religious worship. After the erection of churches, these feasts were held within their walls; until, abuses having occurred which rendered the observance inconsistent with the sanctity of such places, this practice was forbidden. In the middle of the fourth century, the Council of Laodicea enacted “that agapæ should not be celebrated in churches;” a prohibition which was repeated by the Council of Carthage, in the year 391; and was afterwards strictly enjoined during the sixth and seventh centuries. By the efforts of Gregory of Neocæsarea, Chrysostom, and others, a custom was generally established of holding the agapæ only under trees, or some other shelter, in the neighbourhood of the churches; and from that time the clergy and other principal members of the Church were recommended to withdraw from them altogether.

In the early Church it was usual to celebrate agapæ on the festivals of martyrs, agapæ natalitiæ, at their tombs; a practice to which reference is made in the epistle of the church of Smyrna, concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp.

These feasts were sometimes celebrated on a smaller scale at marriages, agapæ connubiales, and funerals, agapæ funerales.

The celebration of the agapæ was frequently made a subject of calumny and misrepresentation by the enemies of the Christian faith, even during the earliest and best ages of the Church. In reply to these groundless attacks, the conduct of the Christians of those times was successfully vindicated by Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Origen, and others. But real disorders having afterwards arisen, and having proceeded to considerable lengths, it became necessary to abolish the practice altogether; and this task was eventually effected, but not without the application of various means, and only after a considerable lapse of time.—Riddle, from Augusti and Siegel.

AGAPETÆ. In St. Cyprian’s time certain ascetics (who wished, perhaps, to add to their religious celibacy the additional merit of a conquest over a special and greater temptation) chose persons of the other sex, devoted like themselves to a life of celibacy, with whom they lived under the sanction of a kind of spiritual nuptials, still maintaining their chastity, as they professed, though living, in all things else, as freely together as married persons. These were called Agapetæ, Subintroductæ, Συνείσακτοι. This practice, however pure in intention, gave rise to the utmost scandal in the Church; and those who had adopted it were condemned severely, both by the individual authority of St. Cyprian, and afterwards by the decrees of councils. See Dodwell’s Dissertationes Cyprianicæ.

AGISTMENT. The feeding of cattle in a common pasture for a stipulated price; and hence tithe of agistment is the tithe due for the profit made by agisting. The Irish parliament, in the last century, most iniquitously declared that man an enemy of his country who should demand tithe of agistment.—Jebb.

AGNOETES or AGNOETÆ. (ἀ and γνῶμι.) A sort of Christian heretics about the year 370, followers of Theophronius the Cappadocian, who joined himself with Eunomius; they called in question the omniscience of God, alleging that he knew not things past in any other way than by memory, nor things to come but by an uncertain prescience.