Metropolitan John Zizioulas
Proving the eschatological character of the Divine Eucharist in the New Testament would not require much effort. The description of the Last Supper in the Gospels already orientates us toward the Kingdom of God. The Twelve partake of the Supper as a foreshadowing of the new Israel, and for this reason the Evangelist Luke places within the narrative of the Last Supper the words of Christ to the Twelve: “As my Father appointed a Kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:29-30). As we shall see later, this passage is very important in the origin and shaping of the various functions in the Eucharist, and in the Church more generally. For the moment, we note the fact that the Last Supper was an eschatological event, inextricably bound up with the Kingdom of God. This is why in the course of the Supper, Christ refers to the Kingdom explicitly and with particular intensity of feeling: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall never eat it again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God . . . for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:15-16, 18 and parallels).
In the context of the strongly eschatological character which the Last Supper has in the Gospels, Christ’s commandment to His Disciples “Do this in memory of me,” cannot be unrelated to the Kingdom of God. As has already been observed by well-known biblical theologians (J. Jeremias[1] and others), the “remembrance” of which the Lord speaks is most likely to refer to the remembrance of Christ before the throne of God in the Kingdom which is to come. In other words, the eucharistic remembrance is in fact a remembrance as a foreshadowing, a foretaste, and a “fore-gift” of Christ’s future Kingdom. As we shall see below, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom which is celebrated in our Church expresses this with a clarity which challenges our common sense. The remembrance, then, of the Last Supper, and by extension of the Eucharist, is a remembrance not only of past events, but also of future “events” i.e., of the Kingdom of God[2] as the culmination and fulfillment of the whole history of salvation.
But the most significant point in confirmation of the eschatological character of the Eucharist is the fact that the roots of the Eucharist are to be found historically not only in the Last Supper, but also in Christ’s appearances during the forty days after the Resurrection. During these appearances, we have the breaking of bread and the risen Christ eating with His Disciples (Luke 24, John 21). The prevailing atmosphere is one of joy, since the Resurrection has demonstrated God’s victory over His enemies, which is the dawning of Christ’s Kingdom in history. It is not accidental that in the Acts, Luke stresses that the early Church celebrated the Eucharist “with glad hearts” (Acts 2:46). Only the Resurrection and the Parousia could justify, or rather necessitate, such an atmosphere of rejoicing.
This eschatological orientation of the Eucharist is evident in the first eucharistic communities. The Aramaic expression Maranatha (1 Cor. 16:22), which is unquestionably a liturgical-eucharistic term, is eschatological in content (the Lord is near, or is coming, or will come). When the Apostle Paul repeats the eucharistic words of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:23-26), he adds a reference to the Second Coming (“until He comes”).[3] The Revelation of John, which is basically a eucharistic text and seems to have had an influence on the shaping of the Orthodox Liturgy, does not only consider the Eucharist an image of the Kingdom, something that takes place before the Throne of God and the Lamb; it also ends with an emphatic reference to the expectation of the last times: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come’. . . . Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:17, 20)
This vivid expectation of the last times has disappeared from our eucharistic consciousness. And yet if the Book of Revelation is inaccessible for various reasons to the members of our eucharistic assemblies, there is another text which is not only at the heart of the Divine Liturgy but on the lips of all believers within the Liturgy and outside it, which ought to remind us strongly of this expectation. It is the Lord’s Prayer.
This prayer has now lost both its eschatological and its eucharistic character in our minds. And yet we must not forget that this prayer was not only eschatological from the first, but also formed the center and the core of all the ancient liturgies: it is not impossible, indeed, that its historical roots were eucharistic. In this prayer there are two prominent references to the last times[4] which usually escape us. One is the petition “hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come,” which reminds us of the “Maranatha” and “Come, Lord” of the first eucharistic liturgies. The second, and more important, is the petition “Give us this daily our daily (ἐπιούσιον) bread.” Exegetes have been unable to agree on the meaning of these words.[5] There is, however, plenty of evidence leading to the conclusion that the “bread” we ask for in this prayer is not the ordinary bread we eat every day, which is the way we usually understand it, but the Bread of the Eucharist, which is ἐπιούσιος in the sense that it is “of that which is coming” or “to come”—in other words, of the Kingdom which is to come.
However much this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer admits of differing interpretations, the position in the Divine Liturgy which this prayer has occupied with notable consistency from earliest times, i.e., immediately before Holy Communion, is evidence that, at least in the mind of the early Church, the petition for ἐπιούσιος bread refers not to the bread we eat every day, but to the meal and the nourishment of the Kingdom. This is “the bread which comes down from heaven,” in other words the flesh or body of the “Son of Man” (John 6:34)—who, it should be noted, is also an eschatological figure. In the Eucharist, we ask today for the bread of tomorrow, the future or “coming” bread of the Kingdom.
One could add many other elements from Scripture which bear witness to the eschatological character of the Eucharist and its connection with the Kingdom of God. But where we find this connection expounded in depth and established in the consciousness of the Church is in the theology of the Greek Fathers and the eucharistic liturgies of the ancient Church, which continue to be in use in our Church.
[1] In his classic work Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu, especially the third edition, Göottingen 1960.
[2] The phrase “Kingdom of heaven” should not be understood as some kind of static state above the earth (a kind of Platonic notional or ideal reality). It is quite simply a paraphrase of the expression “Kingdom of God,” since the phrase “the heavens” paraphrases the word “God,” which the Jewish Christians avoided using out of reverence (cf. St. Matthew’s Gospel, where the phrase occurs 31 times—see J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, vol. 1 [New York: Scribners, 1971], p. 97). This observation has been thought necessary because in the thinking of the faithful, the phrase “Kingdom of heaven” is very often translated as “heavenly Kingdom,” i.e., in spatial and often Platonic contrast with whatever exists or is done on earth. See below. In the New Testament, as J. Jeremias observes (New Testament Theology, p. 102), “the Kingdom is always and everywhere understood in eschatological terms. It signifies the time of salvation, the consummation of the world, the restoration of broken communion between God and man.”
[3] The meaning of this passage is: “we proclaim the death of the Lord looking with joy for His coming” (J. Moffat, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954], p. 169). Cf. Acts 2:46: “in gladness.” The earlier theory of H. Leitzmann, that the Eucharist was celebrated in the Pauline Churches in an atmosphere of sadness as a remembrance of Christ’s death, but in an atmosphere of joy in the Church of Jerusalem, is shown to be wrong. In each case, the Eucharist was celebrated in an atmosphere of joy and gladness because of its connection with the Kingdom.
[4] It is probable that the other petitions, such as “forgive us our trespasses and lead us not into temptation” also have an eschatological meaning.
[5] The question hinges on whether the term ἐπιούσιος comes from or ἐπουσία, in which case it would mean “essential for our existence,” or from , which would mean “coming” or “of the day which is to come.” The antithesis in the text between ἐπιούσιος and “this day” and the evidence of ancient sources in both East and West both point to the second of these two meanings. But even if it is talking about the bread we eat every day, as E. Lohmeyer points out (The Lord’s Prayer [London: Collins, 1965], p. 15), all Jesus’ references to bread and meals have an eschatological meaning.
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