Equally baffling are the references
to the Eucharist in the Dialogue [with Trypho[. In chapter 41.1-3 (260 A, B)
Justin describes the Eucharist as a celebration prescribed by Jesus Christ in
memory of the suffering which He endured on behalf of those who are purified in
soul from all iniquity. The thanksgiving which the name of the sacrament
implies is offered for two things, first for the fact that God has created the
world and all things therein for the sake of man, second “for delivering us
from the evil in which we were, and for overthrowing principalities and powers
with a complete overthrow through Him who suffered according to His will.” The
bread and cup of the Eucharist are sacrifices offered to God, by which the name
of God is glorified. We have here probably a very early form of the prayer of
thanksgiving for our creation and preservation, and perhaps more phrases of the
present Prayer of General Thanksgiving were then in use (cf. Ap. I.13.2 [60D]).
But in spite of the fact that Justin here calls the Eucharist a sacrifice by
which God is glorified, he still offers no explanation of the Eucharist,
whether as to its nature or to its operation upon the communicant. The
sacrament seems indeed to be rather a celebration for benefits already received
than a source of new blessings.
In another passage Justin states
that the prophecy “Bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure,”
refers “to the bread which our Christ gave us to do (ποιειν), in remembrance of His being
made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the
cup which He gave us to do (ποιειν) in remembrance of His blood with giving of
thanks” (Dial. 70.3, 4 [296 D ff]). Here Justin has clearly St. Paul’s account
of the institution in mind, and is giving the Apostle’s words a sacrificial interpretation.
But still he gives no basis for a theory of the Eucharist.
In another passage, Justin speaks
of the Eucharist as a sacrifice presented by Christians through all the world (Dial.
117.103 [344 C ff.]). He admits that prayers and thanksgivings offered by
worthy men at any time and anywhere are perfect and well pleasing sacrifices to
God, but insists that the Christian Eucharist is the only prayer and
thanksgiving which has been worthy to be called truly a sacrifice. The
Christian offering then is apparently unique only in the degree of its
worthiness as a prayer and thanksgiving and not because of any peculiarity of
its nature.
Justin’s remarks on the Eucharist,
taken together, show that he regarded as it is the supreme form of worship. In
partaking of the sacrament which had been instituted by Christ Himself
Christians partook of the body and blood of Christ, in remembrance of His
incarnation and suffering. The sacrament was a sacrifice to God, of so
exalted a character that it alone could be truly called a sacrifice pleasing to
God. But theory of the Eucharist he probably did not have at all. He was
content to take the spiritual blessing of the Eucharist without questioning
just how the elements he was eating had become, or in what sense they could be
called, the body and blood of Christ. But he makes quite clear that by his
time the separation between the Agape and the Eucharist was complete, and that
the Eucharist was celebrated as a conclusion to the rites of baptism as well as
at the weekly assembly of the congregation. (Erwin R. Goodenough, The Theology
of Justin Martyr [1923], 275-76, emphasis in bold added)