Eucharistic Origins was published a number of years ago. This revised edition continues to incorporate the work of the latest liturgical scholars in establishing that the earliest Christian celebrations arose out of varied forms of their ritual meals, and not out of the Last Supper. The custom of centering Christian practice in ritual meals seems to have lasted for about one hundred and fifty years before it began to be replaced by morning meetings at which the sacrament was distributed, and subsequently by a complete celebration of the Eucharist. It is here, in the third and fourth centuries, and not in the distant Jewish past, that the forms of the classical eucharistic prayers emerged and developed. The most important of these are presented in full, and their theology discussed.
Circa l’autore
The Rev. Dr. Paul F. Bradshaw is Professor of Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame. He has written or edited over twenty books and composed more than ninety essays and articles in the field of liturgical studies, among them THE SEARCH FOR THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, which has gone through two editions since it was first published in 1992 and has been translated into four languages.