AGAPE (ἀγάπη «love, charity» in the New Testament). — According to traditional usage, a liturgical practice in Christian communities of the first four centuries, modeled on and in memory of the Last Supper, to manifest fraternal charity and to assist the poor. Initially it was joined to the celebration of the Eucharist, then separated. But the nature of the agape (especially its relation to the Eucharist) and its origins are now highly controversial; the problem is one of the most obscure of the apostolic age.
Today, while rationalist critics tend to emphasize the antiquity and importance of the agape, many Catholics significantly reduce its scope. Four prevailing opinions may be distinguished, the first three of which trace the agape to apostolic times, while the fourth places it after A.D. 150. The first two opinions connect it with the Eucharist, the last two (mostly supported by Catholics) separate it entirely.
1) The traditional opinion, upheld by conservative Protestants (Th. Zahn, J. F. Keating) and by many Catholics (R. Cornely, J. E. Belser, F. X. Funk, V. HERMON, F. Cabrol, J. M. Hanssens, B. Allo, A. Arnold), sees the origins of the agape in apostolic tradition, in close connection with the Eucharist; it relies mainly on 1 Cor 11:20-34; the separation from the Eucharist occurred in the second century.
2) Many rationalists (after J. Bingham and E. Renan: F. Spitta, A. Jülicher, A. Harnack, E. von Dobschütz, E. Grafe and C. Clemen, A. Eichhorn, F. Hoffmann, H. Lietzmann) assert that the agape, as a fraternal meal, was the primitive form of the sacramental Eucharistic rite. The first Palestinian faithful would have revived one of the customs most dear to the Master: the daily Tischgemeinschaft (Mt 18:20); the simple rite was permeated with eschatological hopes: after the invitation “Maranatha” followed the chant “Hosanna.” Then came the common meal, called κυριακὸν δεῖπνον. But the agape separated from the “fractio panis” when the blessing of the cup (of Pauline origin) was juxtaposed to that of the bread, and later when the Eucharistic celebration was transferred to the morning; then the Eucharist became joined to the didactic synaxis and became the Mass, while the agape degenerated, remaining in some places as a secondary evening liturgy. Such is the fanciful reconstruction of H. Lietzmann (Messe und Herrenmahl, pp. 202-210, 249 ff.), which summarizes and expands the theories of his predecessors; but A. Schwicker, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus (Tübingen 1930), p. 270, reacts against II.
3) The agape dates from apostolic times, but from the beginning it was separate from the Eucharistic celebration (E. Baumgartner, K. Völker); even the Greek Fathers, from Chrysostom to Theophylact, could place this meal after the Eucharistic rite. H. Leclercq considers the agape a funeral meal derived from analogous Jewish and pagan usage.
4) The agape was introduced only in the second century; it therefore has no connection whatever with the Eucharist (P. Batiffol, followed by P. Ladeuze, J. Thomas, H. Rongy, W. Goossens).
This last negative thesis, first advanced by G. Albaplino (Aubespine, 1630), seems preferable, despite the recent reaction of A. Arnold. From the texts of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, one cannot demonstrate the existence of common meals that were liturgically joined to the Eucharist. The “breaking of bread” (cf. Acts 2:42; 20:7, 11) was the Eucharistic celebration; even if in Acts 2:46 common meals are mentioned, it does not follow that they were united with the Eucharist, much less that they were charitable meals such as those in Acts 6:1-6. In Jude 12 and 2 Pt 2:13 (in codex B and a few others, the more attested reading being “feasts” rather than “blemishes”), the agapai of Christians are mentioned, but (although the Vetus Latina in both passages translates them as “feasts, banquets”) these agapai are the communities or assemblies of the faithful, as in St. Ignatius of Antioch. The classical locus is 1 Cor 11:20-22 and 33-34; the common interpretation (opinions 1, 2, and 3) sees here a ritual fraternal meal, connected (not by Baumgartner and Völker) with the Eucharist: St. Paul does not reproach the meal nor its Eucharistic relation, but the disorders to which it gave rise. But Batiffol, Ladeuze, Thomas, and Goossens seem to understand better: the Corinthians had introduced on their own initiative, before the Eucharistic supper, a banquet which the Apostle condemns as an intolerable abuse.
The Didache, 9-10, where Zahn and Lietzmann see the agape united with the Eucharist, seems to refer only to the Eucharist (Batiffol, Völker, Greiff); in 11:9 there is probably mention of a common, non-liturgical meal, and in 14-15 of the exclusively Eucharistic celebration.
Decisive are the texts (of A.D. 107/8) of St. Ignatius of Antioch (Rom., prol.; Smyrn. 6:2; 8:2; 12:1; Trall. 2:3; Magn. 1:1; Philad. 11:2), where ἀγάπη, understood as a concrete institution, always means “community” or “assembly” (as συναγωγή, with a more intimate tone of brotherhood). In 112, Philo (Epist., X, 97, to Trajan) reports of common evening meals of Christians with ordinary table prayers, but it does not appear that they were liturgical. St. Justin, who carefully describes the Eucharistic synaxis (1 Apology, 65-66), does not mention any common meal.
It is therefore very doubtful that before 155 there existed common meals called agape, and even more uncertain that they served as a framework for the Eucharistic celebration.
The agape appears in some churches as an organized institution in the second half of the second century. The term ἀγάπη “fraternal association” takes on the sense of “common meal”; an identical semantic shift had already occurred for συναγωγή and “assemblies,” the reverse for συναγωγή and “synagogues.”
In Asia Minor, the Epistula Apostolorum, 15 (c. A.D. 175) connects it with the Eucharist on Easter morning. But, while preserving its purpose and religious value, the agape is a simple “banquet” of the community (ἀγάπη ἀγάπη 80 times) in the Didascalia Apostolorum, II, 28, 1-5 (ed. F. X. Funk, I [1905], pp. 108-109). At Carthage, Tertullian describes the agape in 197 (Apologeticum, 39): a banquet presided over by the clergy, “which is called what in Greek is dilectio... we assist the poor with this refreshment,” and, having become Montanist (De ieiunio adversus psychicos, 17), he reproaches: “with you the agape simmers in cooking pots.”
Similarly, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, 17, calls a fraternal official meal an agape (“they did not dine freely but celebrated an agape”), but without any connection to the Eucharistic liturgy. Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus, 2:1) contrasts with worldly δειπνάριε, acceptable to the Lord, who prescribed inviting the poor. Ecclesiastical ordinances, whether official or quasi-official, describe the agape and its evolution in the third and fourth centuries. The Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus, called the Constitutions of the Egyptian Church (early third century), lays down various norms concerning the agape (XVIII-XXII: F. X. Funk, Constitutiones Apostolorum, II [1905], pp. 113-14). After canon 11 of the Council of Gangra in Galatia (343), the Canons of Hippolytus (second half of the fourth century) are very explicit: canons 164-68 on meals for the poor (more important and solemn), canon 169 on ἀγάμησις for the dead; canons 183-85 on meals for widows. These meals concluded the “peace offerings”: the remains of the victims or oblations were consumed in the temple precincts (Deut 14:23, 26), and it was recommended that such banquets have a charitable purpose (Ps 21[22]:27; Is 58:7).
W. O. E. Oesterley and H. Lietzmann trace the origin of the Palestinian agape to the haburah (a Jewish religious association that gathered around a teacher for a meal). A slight influence (too much emphasized by H. Leclercq) of pagan funeral banquets, widespread in various confraternities (hetaeriae [Pliny, loc. cit.]) or collegia, ἐπανοι or θάσσοι, which often had the sole purpose of gathering for common meals (συσσίαι, δεῖνα φυλετικά or δεσμοτικά or φρατικά or ὀργενοικά), especially funeral meals (νεκύσια, silicernium, coena novendialis), is also plausible. The practice of the Parentalia was very widespread among the pagans.