Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 20:7

"And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and prolonged his speech until midnight." — Acts 20:7 (ASV)

Upon the first day of the week...—This and the counsel given in 1 Corinthians 16:2 are distinct proofs that the Church had already begun to observe the weekly festival of the Resurrection in place of, or, where the disciples were Jews, in addition to, the weekly Sabbath.

It lies in the nature of the case that those who were slaves, or freedmen still in service under pagan masters, could not transfer to it the rigid abstinence from labour that characterised the Jewish Sabbath.

And on this day they met together, obviously in the evening after sunset, to “break bread.” On the semi-technical significance of that phrase, as applied specially to the Lord’s Supper, the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, see Notes on Acts 2:46 and 1 Corinthians 10:16.

Two further questions, however, arise:

1. On what evening was the meeting held?
2. How far was a meal such as was known as the Agapè, or Feast of Charity, combined with the Lord’s Supper?

In answer to the first question, it seems probable that in churches so largely organised on the framework of the Jewish synagogue, and containing so many Jews and proselytes familiar with its usages, the Jewish mode of reckoning would still have been kept. As the Sabbath ended at sunset, the first day of the week would therefore begin at sunset on what was then, or soon afterward, known as Saturday. In this case, the meeting of which we read would have been held on what we would call Saturday evening, and this feast would present some analogies to the prevalent Jewish custom of eating bread and drinking wine at that time in honour of the departed Sabbath (Jost, Gesch. Judenthums, i. 180).

Regarding the second question, looking to St. Paul’s directions in 1 Corinthians 11:33–34, it is probable that the hour of “breaking bread” gradually became later, so as to allow those who would otherwise have been hungry to take their evening meal at home before they came.

The natural result of this arrangement was, as in the instance now before us, to push the Eucharistic rite forward to midnight or even later. Since this was obviously likely to cause both inconvenience and scandal, the next step was to separate it entirely from the Agapè and to celebrate the purely symbolic feast very early in the morning of the first day of the week, while the actual meal came later in the evening of the same day. We see that this was the case in the regions of Troas and Asia from Pliny’s letter to Trajan (Epp. x. 96), in which he describes the Christians as meeting on “a fixed day” for what he calls a sacramentum at break of day, and again in the evening to partake of a simple and innocent repast.

At Troas, we have the connecting link between the evening communion of the Church of Corinth and the morning celebration which has been for many centuries the universal practice of the Church.

Paul preached to them.—This fact has a liturgical interest, showing that then, as in the more developed services of the second and third centuries, the sermon and the lessons from Scripture which it implied preceded what we now know as the Celebration.

Ready to depart the next day.—It may perhaps seem strange to some, taking the view maintained in the previous Note, that the Apostle and his companions should thus intend to travel on a day to which we have transferred so many of the restrictions of the Jewish Sabbath.

But it must be remembered:

1. That there is no evidence that St. Paul thought of them as so transferred, but rather the contrary (Galatians 4:10; Colossians 2:16).
2. That the ship in which his friends had taken their passage was not likely to alter its day of starting to meet their scruples, even if those scruples had existed.