Chapter XIV.—Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day

Chapter XIV. ²⁴⁹⁰ —Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day.

1. But every Lord’s day ²⁴⁹¹ do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, ²⁴⁹² that your sacrifice may be pure. ²⁴⁹³ 2. But let no one that is at variance ²⁴⁹⁴ with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. 3. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; ²⁴⁹⁵ for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations. ²⁴⁹⁶  

Footnotes

381:2490

Verses 1 and 3 are given substantially in Apostolic Constitutions, vii. 30. This chapter would seem to belong more properly before chap. viii.; but the same order of topics is followed in Apostolic Constitutions,—a remarkable proof of literary connection.  

381:2491

Comp. Rev. i. 10. Here the full form is κατὰ κυριακὴν δὲ Κυρίον. If the early date is allowed, this verse confirms the view that from the first the Lord’s Day was observed, and that, too, by a eucharistic celebration.  

381:2492

Comp chap. iv. 14. No parallel in Apostolic Constitutions.  

381:2493

On this spiritual sense of “sacrifice,” comp. Rom. xii. 1; Phil. ii. 17; Heb. xiii. 15; 1 Pet. ii. 5.  

381:2494

“That hath the (or, any) dispute” (ἀμφιβολίαν); comp. Matt. 5:23, 24.  

381:2495

[See Mal. i. 11. See Irenæus, cap. xvii. 5, vol. i. p. 484.]  

381:2496

Mal. 1:11, 14. Quoted in Apostolic Constitutions and by several Ante-Nicene Fathers, with the same reference to the Eucharist.