^{page 56 note 1} See, most recently, the Report of the Working Party on The Child and the Church, British Council of Churches, 1977Google Scholar, and bibliography there.

^{page 56 note 2} Even those who question whether this has any legal basis in the church readily admit that the practice is established by use and wont.

^{page 56 note 3} The First Book of Discipline, ed. Cameron, J. K., p. 184.Google Scholar

^{page 57 note 1} The point may be made, however, that the requirement of self-examination applies only to adults; it does not necessarily follow from this that no children were present and participating. The argumentum e silentio that the households whose baptisms are recorded in Acts contained children should logically apply in relation to communion also.

^{page 58 note 1} The question of the extent to which the practice at Corinth was normative in the early church is one to which the NT supplies no ready answer. It is, however; safe to assume that Paul, in attempting to correct abuses, would direct the Corinthians to the practice which he regarded as normative—as in fact he does at 1 Cor. 11.16.

^{page 58 note 2} He returns to it in w. 33–4.

^{page 58 note 3} The Lord's Supper was obviously at this time an Agape meal (to use the later term) to which each person brought his own food.

^{page 58 note 4} ἔνοχος … το σώματος: v. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT⁴. ET, Chicago and Cambridge, 1957 (hereafter cited as BAG)Google Scholar, s.v. ἔνοχος, 2bγ: the genitive denotes the person or thing against whom the sin is committed, cf. Is. 54.17 ἔνοχοι, σου ‘those who wrong you’. The thought here is parallel to that of 1 Cor. 8.12 ‘In thus sinning against your brothers … you sin against Christ’, and to that of Heb. 6.6 where lapsed Christians are said to crucify again (so NEB mg., BAG s.v. ⋯νασταυρ⋯ω) the Son of God and mock his death.

^{page 58 note 5} The original ambiguity of this verse has been restored by textual criticism. There is little doubt that ⋯ναξ⋯ως crept into the text under the influence of v. 27, and that the phrase μ⋯ διακρ⋯νων τ⋯ σμα did not originally have το κυρ⋯ου appended to it. These additions are absent from p⁴⁶ and the original hand of several important uncials.

^{page 59 note 1} aBornkamm, G., ‘Lord's Supper and Church in Paul’, in Early Christian Experience. ET, London, 1969, p. 144Google Scholar. This work is hereafter cited as Experience.

^{page 59 note 2} Experience, p. 149.

^{page 59 note 3} Barrett, C. K., The First Epistle to the Corinthians², London, 1971, p. 272.Google Scholar

^{page 60 note 1} Barrett, C. K., First Corinthians, p. 273.Google Scholar

^{page 60 note 2} This is the nuance implied for 1 Cor. 11.28 in any attempt to make that verse justify profession of faith as a necessary precondition to admission to communion.

^{page 61 note 1} Either by the person themselves or, whom failing, by the church. Originally in Scotland the Elder's visit was to catechise the people and examine their worthiness to take communion, cf. Henderson, G. D., The Scottish Ruling Elder, London, 1935. pp. 45ff.Google Scholar

^{page 62 note 1} The difficulty is that while Paul discusses several features which make up the worship meeting, there is no reference to the celebration of the Lord's Supper; but this is not decisive as we shall see.

^{page 62 note 2} Bultmann, R., A Theology of the NT. ET, London, 1952, vol. I, p. 145.Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 1} First Corinthians, pp. 324–5.

^{page 63 note 2} Experience, p. 176, n. 2.

^{page 63 note 3} ibid.

^{page 63 note 4} cf. the examples listed under συν⋯ρχομαι in BAG, s.v., 1.

^{page 63 note 5} V. 18, , V. 20 v. 33 and, most interesting of all, when introducing the topic under discussion in v. 17, the verb is used absolutely συν⋯ρχεσθε.

^{page 63 note 6} The only qualification upon is whether the meal involved is or . This suggests that the only question at Corinth was what sort of eating went on συνερχομ⋯νων … ὑμν, and that therefore some eating was normally part of their meeting and, but for the abuses, that this had been the Lord's Supper.

^{page 63 note 7} This was certainly the case later. In Martyr, Justin, Apology I, 67Google Scholar the Sunday service of ca. 150 A.D. is described, and it includes the reading of the memoirs (sic) of the Apostles, speaking by the president and the celebration of the supper. By this time we are well on the way to later practice, and the eucharist had ceased to be a full meal and was simply the rite of the bread and the wine. This picture is complicated by the fascinating evidence on the treatment of Christians in Bithynia-Pontus ca. 112 A.D. (Pliny, Epp. x. 96). During investigation into Christians' practices, Pliny found that, prior to his edict banning meetings of societies, the Christians in that area had met twice on a Sunday (stato die), once ante lucem for a meeting which included a hymn and an exhortation, followed by a meeting later in the day ad capiendum cibum (whether this was an agape or eucharist, as in Justin, is not clear from Pliny's language). As this is the only evidence from this period for the practice of holding two Sunday meetings, the truth of Bultmann's remark (supra) is demonstrated!

^{page 64 note 1} First Corinthians, p. 270.

^{page 64 note 2} V. 23 with the aorist subjunctive denotes ‘what is expected to occur under certain circumstances from a given standpoint in the present, either general or specific’, Blass-Debrunner, A Grammar of NT Greek, 371.4; cited BAG, s.v. ⋯⋯ν 1.

^{page 64 note 3} First Corinthians, p. 324.

^{page 65 note 1} So BAG, s.v. ἰδιώτης 2: ‘The ἰδιται are neither similar to the ἄπιστοι ‥ nor are they full-fledged Christians; obviously they stand between the two groups as a kind of proselytes or catechumens.’

^{page 65 note 2} First Corinthians, p. 325.

^{page 66 note 1} Justin, Apology I, 67.7: the memoirs of the Apostles or writings of the prophets were read for as long as time permitted before the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

^{page 66 note 2} Did. 10.6. So Dibelius, M., ‘Die Mahlgebete der Didache’, in ZNW 37 (1938), pp. 32–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar and especially pp. 40f.

^{page 66 note 3} Experience, p. 169; cf. p. 178, n. 1 for literature. So also Robinson, J. A. T. in JTS 4 (1953), pp. 38ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a different view, cf. Moule, C. F. D., in NTS vi (1959–1960), pp. 307–310Google Scholar.

^{page 66 note 4} Experience, p. 170.

^{page 67 note 1} In TWNT I, pp. 354–355.Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 2} First Corinthians, p. 279.

^{page 67 note 3} Experience, p. 171.

^{page 67 note 4} cf. Did. 14.1, a confession of sin preceded the sacrament.

^{page 68 note 1} First Corinthians, 397

^{page 68 note 2} Experience, p. 171, citing (p. 179, n. 11), Knopf, R., HzNT 16 (1953 ²), pp. 181ffGoogle Scholar: ‘Thus the unbaptised were occasionally admitted to the celebration of the meal, which is forbidden here.’

^{page 68 note 3} The strength of the warning Paul issues by the Anathema shows that he still views careless participation in the sacrament as seriously as he did in 1 Cor. 10.

^{page 69 note 1} Apol. I, 66.1: ‘none is allowed to partake except he who believes our teaching is true.’

^{page 69 note 2} We should remember that the present form of the requirement of (a single) profession of faith (‘joining the church’) before admission to communion is itself a departure from the earlier, post-Reformation practice of catechising members before each communion.

^{page 69 note 3} Church history can furnish examples of the manner in which communion was celebrated, and of the attendant abuses, in both pre- and post-Reformation Scotland which gave rise to the horror of ‘promiscuous communion’ and hence the need to ‘fence the table’.

^{page 70 note 1} cf. e.g., Baker, J. A., The Foolishness of God. Fontana edn., 1975, pp. 334ffGoogle Scholar, and especially 335: ‘So far from belief in the Christian creed being a pre-condition of membership it is one of the results of membership, one indeed which may take a whole lifetime to achieve. It is the end of a process, not the beginning.’

^{page 70 note 2} In ‘The Interpretation of Tongues’, in SJT, xxviii (1975), pp. 49f.Google Scholar