§ 36. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ITS VARIOUS PARTS.[99]
There was a tendency from the 2nd century onwards more and more to dissolve the connection of the Lord’s Supper with the evening _Agape_ (§ 17, 7). Trajan’s strict prohibition of secret societies, _hetæræ_ (§ 22, 2) seems to have given the first occasion for the separation of these two and for the temporary suppression of the love-feasts. The Lord’s Supper was now observed during the Sunday forenoon service and the mode of its observance is described even by Justin Martyr. In consideration of the requirements of the Catechumens the service was divided into two parts, a _homiletical_ and a _sacramental_, and from the latter all unbaptized persons, as well as all under discipline and those possessed of evil spirits, were excluded. Each part of the service was regularly closed by a concluding benediction, and in the West bore the designations respectively of _Missa catechumenorum_ and _Missa fidelium_, while in the East they were distinguished as λειτουργία τῶν κατηχουμένων and λειτουργία τῶν πιστῶν. In connection with this there grew up a notion that the sacramental action had a mysterious character, _Disciplina arcani_. Owing to the original connection of the Supper with the Agape it became customary to provide the elements used in the ordinance from the voluntary gifts brought by the members of the church, which were called _Oblationes_, προσφοραί,--a designation which helped to associate the idea of sacrifice with the observance of the Lord’s Supper.
§ 36.1. =The Agape.=--That in consequence of the imperial edict against secret societies, at least in Asia Minor, the much suspected and greatly maligned love-feasts (§ 22) were temporarily abandoned, appears from the report of Pliny to the Emperor, according to which the Christians of whom he made inquiries assured him that they had given up the _mos coeundi ad capiendum cibum promiscuum_. But in Africa they were still in use or had been revived in the time of Tertullian, who in his _Apology_ makes mention very approvingly of them, although at a later period, after he had joined the Montanists, he lashes them in his book _De Jejuniis_ with the most stinging sarcasm. Clement of Alexandria too is aware of flagrant abuses committed in connection with those feasts. They continued longest to be observed in connection with the services in commemoration of the dead and on the festivals of martyrs. The Council of Laodicæa, about the middle of the 4th century, forbade the holding of these in the churches and the Second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 renewed this prohibition. After this we find no further mention of them.