For in eating every one takes first his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 11:21 Go To 1 Corinthians 11
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper. (1.) S. Augustine ( Ephesians 118) understands this to mean that they took their supper before they came to the Eucharist, and that ver33orders them to wait for one another at the supper before the Eucharist; because at the Eucharist itself or after it there was no need of waiting, since it was not celebrated till all had assembled, when the poor would receive it mingled indiscriminately with the rich.
We must remark that, at the time of S. Paul, in imitation of Christ, who, after the common meal on the Passover lamb, instituted the Eucharist, the Christians instituted before the Eucharist a meal common to all, rich and poor alike, in token of their mutual Christian charity. This custom lasted in some Churches for several centuries. As late as the time of Sozomen, as he relates (Hist.lib. vii. c29), it was the custom in many towns and villages of Egypt, first to take a meal in common, and then, following Christ"s example, celebrate and partake of the Holy Eucharist. The Third Council of Carthage (can29) points to the same custom as prevailing in several other Churches. The Apostle does not here censure this custom wherever or whenever it was allowed, but only the abuse of it by those who got drunk in this supper, and allowed others who were poor to go hungry. Hence he says, "0ne is hungry and another is drunken;" and again he says, that a man will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord who eats unworthily, i.e, in the mortal sin of drunkenness and contempt of the poor. He therefore, in ver33 , bids them wait for one another when they eat the Lord"s Supper. He speaks, therefore, of the assembly which took place before, not after the Eucharist.
2. Others, however, think that "the supper taken before" is the agape after the Eucharist. In the primitive Church, in imitation of Christ, the richer members were in the habit of spreading a feast for rich and poor alike after the Holy Communion, in token of love, whence it was called the "agape;" but as charity grew cold and the number of the faithful increased, the practice became abused; for the rich would spread their own table sumptuously, even getting intoxicated, and would sit apart by themselves, the poor being excluded or not expected, far less invited, as ver33implies, and it is this that the Apostle here censures. Cf. Chrysostom (Hom. xxiii. Moral.), Tertullian (Apol29), and Baronius in loco. It was for this reason that the Council of Laodicea (can28) abolished the agape.
But the former explanation seems the better for the reasons given above; for the agape in S. Paul"s time was held, not after but before the Eucharist; although shortly after these early days, when the Church laid down that, out of reverence, the Eucharist should be received fasting only, the agape was kept after the Eucharist, as will be seen by reference to the passages of Tertullian and Chrysostom, quoted above, and to S. Augustine ( Ephesians 118). By parity of reasoning this passage of S. Paul can be applied to those of the rich who celebrated the agape after the Eucharist; for he censures drunkenness and pride in the agape, whether before or after the Eucharist. Wherefore some Protestants are wrong in twisting this verse into an argument against private Masses, in which the priest alone communicates, merely because no one else wishes to communicate; for others are not excluded, nay, the Church wishes (Council of Trent, sess. xxii. can6,8) those who hear Mass to communicate. For the Apostle is not referring to this, nor is he speaking of the Eucharist at all, but of the common meal called the agape, as I have shown.
