Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 20:8

"And there were many lights in the upper chamber where we were gathered together." — Acts 20:8 (ASV)

And there were many lights in the upper chamber.—We learn from Acts 20:9 that it was on the third floor of the house. In the high narrow streets of Eastern towns the upper story is often chosen for social or devotional purposes, partly as more removed from the noise of the street, partly as giving access to the roof of the house.

Such a room in a good-sized house might well hold two or three hundred people. It is a fair inference also that the vividness and minuteness of the account indicate that we have the narrative of an eyewitness.

The lamps or torches (see Notes on Matthew 5:15; Matthew 25:3; John 5:35) are probably mentioned partly to account for the sleep of Eutychus due to the heat and stuffiness of the room, and partly, perhaps, as an indirect answer to the calumny loudly asserted afterwards (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 8), and probably even then whispered, that at Christian meetings the lamps were extinguished and free rein was given to deeds of shameless license.

There is no ground for assuming that the lamps at this early period had any distinctive ritual or symbolic character. However, it would be a natural expression of respect for two or more lamps to be placed in front of the Apostle, or other presiding elder, during such a meeting, on either side of the loaf that was to be broken and the cup that was to be blessed.

The position of the celebrant (to use a later but convenient term) may have been recumbent on the triclinium, or couch, as in the original institution of the Supper—a posture common at that time for both Greeks and Romans. However, this would clearly be an inconvenient posture for distribution to a large assembly. The special mention of the Lord’s table in 1 Corinthians 10:21 therefore suggests that there was a separate high table (to borrow the familiar language of a college or Inn of Court). At such a table, the celebrant and other ministers would sit with their backs to the wall and their faces to the people. From that table, they distributed the bread and wine, doing so in one of several ways: by taking it themselves to those who sat in the main part of the room, by sending it via deacons or other ministers, or by giving it to the congregation as they approached the table in groups.

The later practice of the Church, and the absence of any indication in patristic writings of an abrupt change, makes this latter method of distribution the more probable alternative.

The table, so placed, served as a transitional stage between the triclinium and the altar of the later basilica.

It may be noted that the primitive arrangement, in which the priest faces the congregation and stands behind the altar, was at first retained in most basilicas. This arrangement survives to the present day in some Roman churches of that type—as, for example, in the church of San Clemente.

This arrangement, therefore, and not any eastward or southward position, may claim to be, as has been well said, “at once the most primitive, the most Catholic, the most Protestant” of Eucharistic usages.