Before his retirement, Frederick Klawiter served for many years as a Professor of Religion at Augustana University (in Sioux Falls, South Dakota), and he is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Those who have closely followed Ignatian studies may recollect the rudiments of Klawiter's argumentation embodied in his journal article titled “The Eucharist and Sacramental Realism in the Thought of St. Ignatius of Antioch” (Studia Liturgica, 2007).
Klawiter's own Lutheran tradition holds to a form of “real presence” in which the body and blood of Christ are “in, with, and under” the Eucharistic elements. Many scholars, including William Schoedel (an influential Lutheran commentator) have spoken of early “sacramental realism” within the Ignatian letters (cf. Smyrnaeans 7.1; Romans 7.3; and Ephesians 20.2). Klawiter turns the tables by contending that “sacramental realism” appears in neither the Ignatian correspondence (chapter 2) nor in the Gospel of John 6:51–58 (chapter 3). Rather, Ignatius's descriptions reflect the Eucharistic pouring of a sacrificial wine libation, symbolizing the pouring of Jesus's blood in his sacrificial death (5). Moreover, this sacrificial libation was already ensconced as a ritual act within the Eucharistic/agape meal practices of many early strata of Christianity, especially in Syria and Anatolia (2). Such sacrificial libations also took place at early martyr shrines in cemeteries (57).
Drinking from the libation cup signified the agape unity of recipients with the crucified and risen Jesus and with one another. But it also reminded partakers of the possibility of martyrdom if required by faithfulness to their own Christian profession. Klawiter contends that Ignatius's Eucharistic perspectives were driven by his own impending martyrdom rather than a proto-systematic sacramental theology. His descriptions of the bread and wine pointed to the reality of his looming execution, even as the Apostle Paul had understood his seemingly imminent death in terms of a sacrificial libation (63, 139; cf. Philippians 2:17). As corroborative evidence, Klawiter summons the portrayal of the blood of martyrs as a heavenly libation within the Apocalypse (66–67; cf. Revelation 6:9–10) and the depiction of Jesus's own passion as a “cup” within the Gospel accounts (68; cf. Matthew 20:22–23; 26:39–42; Mark 10:38–39; 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 18:11). Through the Eucharistic celebration, early Christians sought empowerment and encouragement in facing the perceived threat of suffering and martyrdom.
Moreover, “the flesh of Jesus Christ” reflected the imagery of the church as the body of Christ, and the Ignatian emphasis upon the “one flesh” reflected the desire for ecclesial unity, experienced through Eucharistic celebrations under episcopal authority. For Klawiter, the focus of Eucharistic identity was not between Christ and the elements but between Christ (the head) and the church (as members of his body) (25). Therefore, the eucharistia as a meal did not focus upon food and drink per se, but upon the communal sharing of these elements as attached to an agape meal (30). Klawiter appeals to the “body” and “temple” language applied to the church within 1 Corinthians and Ephesians (20–22). A conspicuous oversight of Klawiter's general emphasis upon this intersection of martyrdom and the Eucharist, as accompanied by a reconstructed sacrificial libation and focus upon ecclesial “body” language, is his near neglect of the role that docetic opposition played in influencing Ignatius's argumentation and Eucharistic vocabulary. Ignatius's ant-docetic stance significantly motivated his underscoring of the “flesh” of Christ within the ecclesial celebration of the Eucharist.
Klawiter's volume “breaks new ground” (135) and should not be ignored – not only because he challenges standard interpretations of Ignatian scholarship, but also because his research potentially sheds light on various facets of early Christianity further afield, crossing disciplinary lines of history, theology, and liturgy. For example, Klawiter draws new attention to the early practice of sacrificial libation performed within Eucharistic celebrations at the graves of Christian martyrs. This practice was rooted in the ancient funerary custom of refrigerium, “an experience of fellowship around food/drink and rejoicing in which the deceased person could share” (101). Relatives and friends of a departed loved one gathered at the tomb to remember and give thanks by partaking of a fellowship meal, and the deceased were “nourished” and “refreshed” by the food and drink. The cultural tradition of refrigerium entailed five visits within the first 40 days following burial and about four visits per year thereafter, including the “birthday” of the deceased. In early Christian adaptation, similar rites became a means of remembering deceased friends, relatives, martyrs, and saints. Klawiter finds evidence of the Christian adaptation of refrigerium in the visions of Perpetua and Saturus (120–126).
Klawiter's research may answer a pivotal conundrum found within the Martyrdom of Polycarp. The work describes interning Polycarp's remains in “a suitable place,” with the intention of gathering there in joyful observance of his commemorative “birthday” (Mart. Pol. 18.2–3). Professor Candida Moss has maintained that the content and tenor of this particular passage necessarily place the composition of the Martyrdom of Polycarp outside the parameters of the second century. Although not his stated intention, Klawiter's research mitigates Moss's charge of an anachronistic veneration of the martyrs. The variegated evidence he has collected manifests that the transition from pagan refrigeria to a Christianized “refreshment” at the burial sites of martyrs was probably a natural step of early development (132, 140, 144–145). He contends that such celebrations would have involved praying, hymn-singing, pouring libations, and sharing a fellowship meal (102, 130). Klawiter himself dates the death of Polycarp to 157 CE (99 n.1) and the redacted composition of the Martyrdom of Polycarp to perhaps the mid-170s CE (130). In a lengthy appendix, he proposes 125 CE as the date of composition for the Ignatian correspondence itself (149–168).
