A few disclaimers are in order. First of all, this is probably the only article by Gary North I will ever repost, and I endorse none of his political writings. Second, no disrespect is intended to the memory of Ronald Reagan; I may take issue with his politics, but mocking someone with Alzheimer’s would be despicable. Finally: my reason for posting this is to highlight the relationship between salvation, grace, understanding, and what it means to be a member of Christ. 

My own tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, baptizes and communes infants as full members of the community of faith, in expectation that the young person will grow into the faith as it is taught and lived around him. However, most other Christian traditions, while they may baptize infants or not, reserve the Eucharist for adults. In this article I think the author brings up some meaningful questions that arise from our various traditions’ practices of Communion.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF RONALD REAGAN: A LITERARY INVESTIGATION
(2003 version)
by Gary North

Ronald Reagan is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. Most of us fear this disease as we grow older because the older we get, the more likely we will be its victims.

Mr. Reagan is a member in good standing in Bel Air Presbyterian church (PCUSA), and has been for decades. The theological question arises: Should he be allowed to take the Lord’s Supper?

Why should this question arise? Because of the centuries-old tradition in Presbyterianism that anyone who does not understand what the theological meaning of the Lord’s Supper is not allowed to partake. This principle is almost universally applied to young children. It is also applied to people with Down’s Syndrome.

Why isn’t it applied to Alzheimer’s victims? One possible reason: “The victim’s correct understanding years ago still counts judicially.” But this does not answer these theological questions:

1. Why does someone who doesn’t understand today allowed to partake?
2. How can we be sure the person was ever truly saved, since confession of faith is judicial evidence of such salvation?
3. Isn’t a participant supposed to examine himself before partaking, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11?

The fact that pastors prefer not to deal publicly with this problem doesn’t make it go away.

What about you? Will you be allowed to partake? If not, doesn’t that mean you have been excommunicated? Excommunication is defined as cut off from Holy Communion, i.e., the Lord’s Supper. Not only must you worry about Alzheimer’s, are you also to worry about being unofficially excommunicated?

To help you understand the theological issues in this controversial topic, I offer this hypothetical dialogue, which would never take place in a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. But it might happen in your congregation with someone less famous than Mr. Reagan. If it wouldn’t, be grateful, but you owe it to yourself find out why it wouldn’t. If it wouldn’t happen mainly because Ronald Reagan is an important person, then you are at risk unless you are an equally important person. So, you might consider showing this essay to your pastor. See if he disagrees with it, and why.

The following discussion is between Reagan’s pastor and his legal guardian at the time of the fictitious incident.

* * * * * * * * *

Pastor: I have invited you to my office to discuss the matter of Mr. Reagan’s membership in this congregation.

Guardian: Is there something wrong?

Pastor: Well, frankly, there is. Mr. Reagan has Alzheimer’s disease.

Guardian: Yes. He has had it for some time.

Pastor: I suppose the elders should not have waited so long to deal with this.

Guardian: Deal with what?

Pastor: The fact that Mr. Reagan no longer understands theology.

Guardian: What has his understanding of theology got to do with his membership?

Pastor: He is a communicant member. Or, I should say, he was a communicant member. He is no longer.

Guardian: What do you mean?

Pastor: The elders voted him a non-communing member at last week’s meeting.

Guardian: On what authority?

Pastor: On the authority of Book of Order.

Guardian: Where does it say that you can refuse to offer the Lord’s Supper to him without a trial?

Pastor: Well, it doesn’t actually say this, but we posses this authority.

Guardian: On what basis?

Pastor: Because we are authorized to determine at what age a child is eligible for communing membership. The Book of Order is quite clear about this: G-5.0100, “The Meaning of Membership, Section c.”

http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/01_FOG.pdf

Guardian: He is not a child.

Pastor: On the contrary, he is a child. He has the mentality of a toddler.

Guardian: But he is 91 years old.

Pastor: In years, yes. In mental ability, he is about three years old.

Guardian: But baptized adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper.

Pastor: Mental adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper. Mental children are not.

Guardian: I have never heard such an interpretation before.

Pastor: That’s because the elders of this congregation have just discovered this principle.

Guardian: But it’s not part of Presbyterian law.

Pastor: It’s part of a well-established traditional interpretation of Presbyterian theology. The basis of the prohibition against toddlers’ taking communion has always been this: the toddlers’ inability to understand theology. Toddlers don’t understand what communion means. Neither does Mr. Reagan.

Guardian: You’re saying that access to the Lord’s Supper is based on a person’s IQ.

Pastor: Well, we wouldn’t want to put it that way.

Guardian: But that’s the implication of what you’re saying. “No brains, no communion.”

Pastor: Well, yes, I suppose that is our position.

Guardian: He understood communion before he got Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But he doesn’t understand any longer.

Guardian: But doesn’t his intelligence carry over legally?

Pastor: How? He doesn’t understand the meaning of communion. So, he cannot search his heart before he takes communion, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11.

Guardian: Well, I can do this for him, now that I’m his legal guardian and trustee. So can the elders, if I fail in my duty.

Pastor: I’m afraid your argument doesn’t apply. If we accepted its logic in your case, we would have to accept it for toddlers and infants.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: Because it’s the same argument, judicially speaking. You’re saying that a legal guardian who is a member of this congregation and is mentally competent can judge the moral state of his or her mentally incompetent ward. If we were to accept your argument regarding Mr. Reagan, we would have to accept it for the parents of every toddler. The parents would say that the child has not done anything so evil since the date of the last communion that the child should be denied access to the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: But he hasn’t done anything deserving of excommunication.

Pastor: But he has.

Guardian: What has he done?

Pastor: He got Alzheimer’s.

Guardian: Are you saying that a disease is grounds for excommunication?

Pastor: This disease is grounds for exclusion from the Lord’s Table. Also any other disease or head injury that lowers a person’s IQ to the level of a toddler.

Guardian: Then contracting such a disease is the same, judicially speaking, as committing adultery.

Pastor: No, I’m not saying that.

Guardian: No, I guess you aren’t. That’s because someone can repent from committing adultery. A person can’t raise his IQ. You’re saying that Alzheimer’s is a legal basis for permanently excommunicating a person, but adultery isn’t.

Pastor: Well, now you put it that way, I agree with you. I hadn’t thought of that.

Guardian: There is a whole lot that you haven’t thought of.

Pastor: Like what?

Guardian: Like the fact that anyone can get Alzheimer’s. Like the fact that you are condemning in advance millions of old people to excommunication. Like the fact that you are bringing despair to millions of spouses who are married to people with Alzheimer’s. You are also raising a specter of separation from the Lord’s Table to every Presbyterian, who must now fear the day that he will be treated the way you are treating Mr. Reagan, should they contract this terrible disease.

Pastor: Well, that’s what we tell parents of toddlers.

Guardian: Parents of toddlers have hope that their children will get smarter as they grow older. Their pain is bearable, especially because your interpretation is backed up by tradition.

Pastor: Parents of low IQ children have to live with this despair, and it’s permanent. They don’t complain. They know that Presbyterians have always accepted this risk as a cost of being Presbyterians.

Guardian: But why should this be? Why should you treat Down’s Syndrome victims as sinners who are forever cut off from the communion table?

Pastor: Because they are stupid.

Guardian: You mean intelligence is a matter of saving grace?

Pastor: Oh, no. We wouldn’t say that.

Guardian: You already have. You are saying a lot worse. You are saying that having a low IQ is worse than committing adultery, because repentance is possible for adulterers.

Pastor: Being excluded from the communion table isn’t the same as excommunication.

Guardian: Really? How is it different?

Pastor: Because you have to be convicted of a sin in order to be officially excommunicated.

Guardian: But what’s the difference in the objective result? In both cases, the person is cut off from the Lord’s Table. Excommunication is considered the supreme negative sanction that the church can impose. Why isn’t it a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome child to be cut off from the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: What kind of view of the Lord’s Supper are you teaching here? Are you people Baptists?

Pastor: That is a terrible thing to accuse anyone of being, unless he’s a Baptist.

Guardian: Well, that’s the view of the Lord’s Supper that you’re defending. You’re saying that the Lord’s Supper is one thing for one person, and another thing for someone else. It’s whatever a person thinks it is. It has no judicially valid authority in its own right.

Pastor: I don’t follow you.

Guardian: If being denied access to the Lord’s Supper is a negative sanction for an adulterer, then it’s also a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome victim.

Pastor: But this isn’t a negative sanction for the Down’s Syndrome victim.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: There doesn’t need to be a trial. My point is that the same negative sanction applies to both the Down’s Syndrome victim and the adulterer. If the sanction is the same for one, it’s the same for the other. It’s not just what the participants think it is. The Westminster Confession of Faith is clear about this. It’s right here in Chapter XXI. Let me read it to you.

These sacraments, both of the Old Testament and of the New, were instituted by God not only to make a visible distinction between his people and those who were without the Covenant, but also to exercise the faith of his children and, by participation of these sacraments, to seal in their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of that most blessed conjunction, union, and society, which the chosen have with their Head, Christ Jesus. And so we utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls. . . .

Therefore, if anyone slanders us by saying that we affirm or believe the sacraments to be symbols and nothing more, they are libelous and speak against the plain facts.

Pastor: I’m not saying that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper has no independent power on its own authority. I’m not a “memorial only” theologian.

Guardian: Then why do you deny access to the Lord’s table for a member in good standing?

Pastor: Because a member in good standing has to have an IQ over 80.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: So he can understand what’s going on.

Guardian: You think a Down’s Syndrome person doesn’t understand that he is not being allowed to participate, when everyone else in the church is taking the elements except those people nobody talks to — adulterers, thieves, and child molesters?

Pastor: Yes, that’s what I’m saying, at least the victims of extreme Down’s Syndrome.

Guardian: His parents understand, and they act on his behalf. They can decide that he has not committed an excommunicable sin. You should support their decision.

Pastor: They don’t have the authority to act on his behalf. He has to be responsible. He has to act on his own authority.

Guardian: I was right. You’re a Baptist.

Pastor: I deeply resent that accusation.

Guardian: I apologize. You’re only half-Baptist. If a parent who is a member in good standing can act on behalf of the child when it comes time to baptize the child, then why not allow the parent to make the same representative decision in the case of the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because that’s what Presbyterianism has done for centuries.

Guardian: So, you’re saying that Presbyterians are half- Baptists. Presbyterians draw a judicial line at the Lord’s Table, and say to parents, “Your authority ends here.” Then you treat their young children just as you treat excommunicated adults. Meanwhile, the Baptists stand on the sidelines and taunt you. “You don’t really believe in all that representation stuff. You hold the same view that we do regarding the Lord’s Supper. There has to be an age of accountability. The difference is, we take baptism as seriously as you take the Lord’s Supper. We close access to baptism to toddlers and morons and people with Alzheimer’s.”

Pastor: But the child isn’t missing out. Not really.

Guardian: Of course he is missing out. The Confession says that “in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.” I ask you: Is it a positive sanction to be able to take the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: I think I see where you’re going with this.

Guardian: Good. Then you have not yet developed Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace or something like that.

Guardian: Well, isn’t that what answer 96 of the Shorter Catechism says? “The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is shewed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.”

Pastor: Yes, but answers 96 and 97 say that these benefits are limited to worthy receivers. “It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.” Toddlers, morons, and Alzheimer’s victims are not worthy.

Guardian: Nobody is worthy except Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Of course, of course. But there are worthy members and unworthy members.

Guardian: Is an infant worthy?

Pastor: That’s a trick question.

Guardian: Only for Presbyterians with tricky answers.

Pastor: An infant is worthy to be baptized, but not to take the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: What is the difference?

Pastor: The judicial authority of his parents. In the sacrament of baptism, the parents are worthy on his behalf, but not in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Confession or the Catechisms?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Bible?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Pastor: Where does it say that Alzheimer’s victims are unworthy?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: So, the elders of this congregation added together a series of implications, and they concluded that Mr. Reagan just had to be excommunicated.

Pastor: I wish you wouldn’t use that word.

Guardian: Then what word would you use? If being officially denied access to the Lord’s Supper isn’t excommunication, what is it?

Pastor: We like to think of it as “safety-first righteousness.”

Guardian: It’s more like “righteousness, emeritus.”

Pastor: Mr. Reagan is still righteous, in a childish sort of way.

Guardian: Toddlers are righteous in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: That’s it, exactly.

Guardian: Infants are baptized in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: No, that’s completely different. Infants are baptized in a judicially representative way. Their parents speak on their behalf.

Guardian: Then the sacramental issue is the competence and judicial standing of the parents.

Pastor: Yes, but only with respect to infant baptism, not young child communion.

Guardian: Then toddlers are denied access to the Lord’s Table in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: Very well put.

Guardian: What about an Alzheimer’s victim who commits adultery?

Pastor: What about him?

Guardian: Is this an excommunicable sin?

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: But what if he didn’t know that the other person was not his spouse? After all, he has Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: Well, in that case, it wouldn’t be an excommunicable sin.

Guardian: But it would be for the woman who deceived him.

Pastor: Yes, but not for him.

Guardian: Then the only difference between the adulterer and the Alzheimer’s victim is that the adulterer knew what she was doing.

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: Then the moral and judicial difference between the two kinds of sexual contact outside of marriage is that the deceiver, who lures the Alzheimer’s victim into adultery, is legally responsible.

Pastor: I don’t like where this line of reasoning is headed.

Guardian: I’ll bet you don’t.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the person with legal authority in the case of adultery is the mentally competent decision-maker, not the mentally incompetent person who obeys the words of the person he believes is in authority.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: And then you’re going to go from the representative authority of the decision-making adulterer to the representative authority of a decision-making parent.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: You’re trying to make access to the Lord’s Table as much a matter of representative parental authority as baptism is.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: Well, I’m not going to say that.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because it doesn’t sound Presbyterian to me.

Guardian: Neither does excommunicating a person with Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But that is the logical implication of Presbyterianism.

Guardian: It is the logical implication of a particular Presbyterian tradition. But it is not the logical implication of the doctrine of parental representation in the Presbyterian doctrine of baptism.

Pastor: You’re trying to confuse me.

Guardian: Not too difficult a task.

Pastor: You’re implying that Presbyterianism is theologically schizophrenic: that its doctrine of representation regarding parental authority in baptism is in conflict with the Presbyterian tradition of denying parental authority in the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: I’m not implying it. I’m inferring it. They are in conflict.

Pastor: You want me to believe that Mr. Reagan should not be excluded from the Lord’s Table even though he has the mind of a toddler or a Down’s Syndrome child.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: But if I drew that conclusion, I would have to open the Lord’s Table to toddlers and Down’s Syndrome victims.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: And all this is based on the theology of judicial representation.

Guardian: Yes. That’s an important Presbyterian doctrine. Let’s begin with Adam.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then let’s begin with the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then where should we begin?

Pastor: With Presbyterian tradition.

Guardian: You want to substitute ecclesiastical tradition for the Bible and covenant theology?

Pastor: I didn’t say that.

Guardian: But that’s what is implied by what you did say. You are saying that an ecclesiastical tradition that is inconsistent at this point with the doctrine of judicial representation — covenant theology, in other words — carries more authority than covenant theology.

Pastor: Tradition is important.

Guardian: It isn’t that important. Or was Luther wrong in 1517? Was Calvin wrong in 1536? Was the Reformation a mistake?

Pastor: You’re making this more complicated than it is.

Guardian: No, you’re making it more complicated than it is. The doctrine of representation is not all that complicated. Adam sinned on our behalf. Jesus Christ died on our behalf. Parents speak on behalf of their infants. If the concept of “on behalf” is abandoned, then Christianity loses its judicial character. And Presbyterianism is nothing if not judicial.

Pastor: You’re trying to persuade me to begin with the doctrine of judicial representation.

Guardian: No, I’m trying to persuade you to end up with the doctrine of judicial representation that you officially begin with as a Presbyterian. You keep ending up a Baptist. If Mr. Reagan had wanted to be a Baptist, he would have joined a Baptist church. There are surely a lot more voters who are Baptists than there are Presbyterians. He took Presbyterianism seriously. I’m asking you to take Presbyterianism seriously.

Pastor: I’ll have to think about this.

Guardian: Good. I would suggest that you and the elders put his excommunication on hold until you make up your mind.

Pastor: This will have to go to a committee.

Guardian: Somehow, that does not come as a surprise.

###

PAEDOCOMMUNION

Two decades ago, Rev. Ray Sutton and James Jordan each wrote a brief paper, “Presuppositions on Paedocommunion,” and “Theses on Paedocommunion,” respectively. That’s a fancy word for young child communion.

The same judicial is at stake as with Reagan. If a child can be lawfully separated from the Lord’s Supper merely because he doesn’t understand it, what about Down’s Syndrome victims and Alzheimer’s victims?

The two authors concluded that the Lord’s Supper should be open to young children. Their conclusion was accepted by the Reformed Episcopal Church, which Sutton later joined. It has been ignored by most Presbyterians and other Protestants. Here are their articles on the subject. They download slowly.

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s1.pdf

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s2.pdf

These papers were circulated widely, but rarely referred to publicly. They never became the focus of a formal debate in Presbyterian circles.

In 1983, David Chilton wrote an essay in dialogue form, “Conversations With Nathan.”

http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/cc_4.pdf

It covered the same theological issue. It was even more ignored than the Sutton-Jordan papers. I imitated Chilton’s educational approach in my essay: a dialogue.

CIRCULATE THIS ESSAY

I authorize anyone to send this report to any mailing list. I authorize its posting on any Web site. But this authorization applies only if the entire report is mailed or posted. If you want a copy of your own, send an e-mail to:

reagan@kbot.com

Wait 30 seconds after your e-mail has been sent. Then Click SEND/RECV to download it.

What are the actual historical evidences, before Zwingli, for the Baptist view of the Lord’s Supper?

Long story short: No answer. If there are evidences, then someone needs to write a book, asap. It’s long overdue.

The Baptist position requires that the early church go decisively wrong in a critical matter following the second century, with not only no dissenting majority, but no dissenting minority. Until Zwingli, the historical evidence for the Baptist position is restricted to interpretation of the New Testament and the Didache…

More…

At the Altar Table the overweight parson is doing something or other with the bread as his assistant stands by with the wine. In the pews, the congregation sits more or less patiently waiting to get into the act. The church is quiet. Outside, a bird starts singing. It’s nothing special, only a handful of notes angling out in different directions. Then a pause. Then a trill or two. A chirp. It is just warming up for the business of the day, but it is enough.

The parson and his assistant and the usual scattering of senior citizens, parents, teenagers are not alone in whatever they think they’re doing. Maybe that is what the bird is there to remind them. In its own slapdash way the bird has a part in it too. Not to mention “Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven” if the prayer book is to be believed. Maybe we should believe it. Angels and Archangels. Cherubim and seraphim. They are all in the act together. It must look a little like the great jeu de son et lumière at Versailles when all the fountains are turned on at once and the night is ablaze with fireworks. It must sound a little like the last movement of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony or the Atlantic in a gale.

And “all the company of heaven” means everybody we ever loved and lost, including the ones we didn’t know we loved until we lost them or didn’t love at all. It means people we never heard of. It means everybody who ever did – or at some unimaginable time in the future ever will – come together at something like this table in search of something like what is offered at it.

Whatever other reasons we have for coming to such a place, if we come also to give each other our love and to give God our love, then together with Gabriel and Michael, and the fat parson, and Sebastian pierced with arrows, and the old lady whose teeth don’t fit, and Teresa in her ecstasy, we are the communion of saints

— from Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized

In the new humanity, them becomes us, they becomes we, and those become ours. This is why it is very dangerous when a church becomes known for being hip, cool, and trendy. The new humanity is not a trend. Or when a church is known for attracting one particular kind of demographic, like people of this particular age and education level, or that particular social class or personality type. There’s obviously nothing wrong with the powerful bonds that are shared when you meet up with your own tribe, and hear things in a language you understand, and cultural references are made that you are familiar with, but when sameness takes over, when everybody shares the same story, when there is no listening to other perspectives, no stretching and expanding and opening up – that’s when the new humanity is in trouble.

The beautiful thing is to join with a church that has gathered and find yourself looking around thinking, “What could this group of people possibly have in common?” The answer, of course, would be the new humanity. A church is where the two people groups with blue hair – young men and older women – sit together and somehow it all fits together in a Eucharistic sort of way. Try marketing that. Try branding that. The new humanity defies trends and demographics and the latest market research.

In Acts 8 some of Jesus’ first followers are healing people, and a man named Simon sees this and offers them money and says, “Give me also this ability.” Simon is seduced into thinking that the movement of the Spirit of God is a commodity to be bought and sold like any other product. The apostles chastise him for his destructive thinking, because … the Eucharist is not a product.

Glossy brochures have the potential to do great harm to the body and blood. Church is people. The Eucharist is people. People who have committed themselves to being a certain way in the world. To try to brand that is to risk commodifying something intimate, sacred, and holy.

A church is not a center for religious goods and services, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographic to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer niche.

The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It’s about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it’s our participation in the new humanity, it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness. To turn that into a product blasphemes the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is what happens when the question is asked, What does it look like for us to be a Eucharist for these people, here and now? What does it look like for us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing of these people in this time in this place? The temptation is simply to duplicate the Eucharist of someone else.

— from  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile

The body which was born of the Virgin Mary, without any stain, without destruction of her virginity, without opening of the womb, without presence of man, and which was crucified by the unbelieving people out of spite and envy, and which arose after three days from death, and sits upon the right hand of God the father in heaven, in glory and in dignity before the angels of heaven.  It is the body the same as it is in this great glory, which the righteous consume off God’s table, that is, off the holy altar.  For this body is the rich medicine of the faithful, who journey through the paths of pilgrimage and repentance of this world to the heavenly homeland.  This is the seed of the resurrection in the life eternal to the righteous.

— From the ancient Irish manuscript called the Leabhar Breac, the “Speckled Book.”

In many ways the writings of the ancient Christians of Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul sound familiar to Orthodox ears. Here’s an Irish writer, whose words would be just as much at home in ancient Egypt, Palestine or Syria.

Christian Baptism

I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers’ wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if ye refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

And for this rite we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the layer the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.

Its imitation by demons

And the devils, indeed, having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and burnt-offerings, also to sprinkle themselves; and they cause them also to wash themselves entirely, as they depart from the sacrifice, before they enter into the shrines in which their images are set. And the command, too, given by the priests to those who enter and worship in the temples, that they take off their shoes, the devils, learning what happened to the above-mentioned prophet Moses, have given in imitation of these things. For at that juncture, when Moses was ordered to go down into Egypt and lead out the people of the Israelites who were there, and while he was tending the flocks of his maternal uncle in the land of Arabia, our Christ conversed with him under the appearance of fire from a bush, and said, “Put off thy shoes, and draw near and hear.” And he, when he had put off his shoes and drawn near, heard that he was to go down into Egypt and lead out the people of the Israelites there; and he received mighty power from Christ, who spoke to him in the appearance of fire, and went down and led out the people, having done great and marvellous things; which, if you desire to know, you will learn them accurately from his writings.

Baptism and the consecration of the Eucharist

But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized illuminated person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to genoito so be it. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.

The Eucharist

And this food is called among us Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.

Weekly worship of the Christians

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.