Agape — Conv.
Canonical sources attest to the widespread organization of the rite in the East and West (though it does not appear that its use was universal). The agape was opened by the prayer of the bishop or presbyter, who presided, over the poor and benefactors; then some were invited to read or speak on the Scriptures (sometimes, if "spiritual," they spoke extemporaneously), followed by a common prayer of thanksgiving, and, before dispersing, the singing of psalms. Catechumens were excluded. Before sitting down, the guests received the "bread of blessing" (eulogiae?).
From Tertullian onward, the agape had a charitable purpose. Already by around 200, "refrigerare, refrigerium" were technical expressions designating semi-liturgical agapes in honor of the Martyrs. In the catacombs of St. Sebastian, the "triclinium" or hall in which Christians celebrated this "refreshment" was discovered (1915-16) (v.).
After 350, the funerary character of suffrage for the dead predominates. It is incorrect, however, for Leclercq to see in the agape always and only the meaning of a funeral banquet.
It does not seem that the Eucharistic celebration was normally united with II. The agape usually took place in the evening ("post lumina": Tertullian, Apol., 39), and the Eucharist, at least since the time of Trajan, was celebrated separately in the morning. The Eucharist was later celebrated jointly but distinctly in the funeral meal (Canones Hippolyti, 169: "Primium antequam discumbant, mysteria sumant").
A certain dependence of the agape on Jewish funeral banquets may be admitted (2 Sam. 3, 32; Jer. 16, 5, 7; Tob. 4, 17-18; cf. Hos. 9, 4 and Ezek. 24, 17, 22; for New Testament times: Flavius Josephus, Ant. Jud., II, 1, 1), and from the customs of the
strange associations, whose usages help to explain the widespread adoption of an institution that would today seem impracticable. St. Jerome, In Os., 9, 4 (PL 6, 891), refers to the νεκροδείπνα of the Greeks and the parentalia of the Latins. But St. Augustine, in agreement with St. Cyril of Alexandria (PG 4, 216), denies any dependence on those pagan religious usages: "Nec sacrificia eorum vertimus in agapes... agapes nostrae pauperes pascunt sive frugibus sive carnibus" (Contra Faustum, XX, 20: PL 42, 383).
The antagonistic reaction would have given it a stable form, according to K. Völker (Mysterium und Agape, pp. 184-203, where he studies the influence of extra-Christian factors).
In the 4th century, the meal offered to the needy by the Church or by some wealthy faithful was absorbed by broader charitable institutions and began to disappear. The Council of Laodicea in Phrygia (c. 360-65) (can. 27-28) forbade "what is called an agape in the basilicas, to eat in the house of God and to set up tables there" (Hefele-Leclercq, I, p. 1014). The Council of Hippo of 383 (can. 29) and the 3rd Council of Carthage (397), can. 30, renewed this prohibition, with the sole exception "for the necessity of hospitality." But the tenacious custom had to be forbidden again by the Councils of Orléans (533), of Tours (567), and the Trullan Council (692).
Excluded from the churches, the agape survived in the cemeteries, associated with the cult of the dead as "refrigerium," as an almsgiving in suffrage, but was soon forbidden by ecclesiastical authorities in Italy and Africa because of the abuses it occasioned and the pagan interpretation to which it lent itself. Cf. St. Ambrose, De Helia, 17, 62 (CSEL 32, 2, 448). St. Augustine (Confess., 6, 2: PL 32, 719) recounts an episode concerning his mother.