good pleasure (i. e., the chosen people of God). * Sa'Aio XpitTToD — Ai.uo KpiffTov, norripiov ^ai^s. ' In the Liturgy of St. Mark : 2x.uo ayiov — Afjuo rltiiov rov Kvplov koI Qeov kcu 516 THIED TEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. The holy act closes with prayers of thanksgiving, psalms, and the benediction. The Eucharist was celebrated daily, or at least every Sunday. The people were exhorted to frequent communion, especially on the high festivals. In Xorth Africa some com- muned every day, others every Sunday, others still less frequent- ly.' Augustine leaves this to the needs of every believer, but says in one place : " The Eucharist is our daily bread." The daily communion was connected with the current mystical in- terpretation of the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer. Basil communed foui* times in the week. Gennadius of Massilia commends at least weekly communion. In the East it seems to have been the custom, after the fourth century, to commune only once a year, or on great occasions. Chrysostom often complains of the indifference of those who come to church only to hear the sermon, or who attend the eucharistic sacrifice, but do not commune. One of his allusions to this neglect we have already quoted. Some later comicils tlu'eatened all laymen with excommunication, who did not commune at least on Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. In the Oriental and North African churches prevailed the incongruous custom of infant communion, which seemed to follow from infant baptism, and was advocated by Augustine and Innocent I. on the authority of John vi. 53. In the Greek church this custom continues to this day, but in the Latin, after the ninth century, it was disputed or forbidden, because the apostle (1 Cor. xi. 28, 29) requires self-examination as the condition of worthy participation.'* With this custom appear the first instances, and they ex- ceptional, of a communio sub una specie; after a little girl in 2a!T^poj i]ii.uiv. In the Mozarabic Liturgy the communicating priest prays : " Corpus et sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat corpus et animam meam (tuam) in vitam setemam." Resp. : '■'■ AmenP So in the Roman Litiirgy, from which it passed into the Anglican. ' Augustine, Epist. 118 ad Januar. c. 2 : " Ahi quotidie communicant corpori et sanguini Dominico ; ahi certis diebus accipiunt ; alibi nullus dies intennittitur quo non offeratur ; alii sabbato tantum et dominico ; alibi tantiun dominico." "' Comp. P. Zom: Historia eucharistise infantum, Berl. 1736; and the article by Klin" in Herzog's Encvkl. vii. 549 ff. § 98. THE LITUKGIEB. THEIE OKIGIN AXD CONTENTS. 517 Carthage in the time of Cyprian had been made drunk by receiving the wine. But the withholding of the cup from the laity, which transgresses the express command of the Lord : " Dri"hk ye all of it," and is associated with a superstitious hor- ror of profaning the blood of the Lord by spilling, and with the development of the power of