038A - What are the LOVE FEASTS mentioned only once at Jude 1:12?


Love Feasts?

The feasts of charity, the αγαπαι or love feasts, of which the apostle speaks, were in use in the primitive Church till the middle of the fourth century, when, by the council of Laodicea, they were prohibited to be held in the Churches; and, having been abused, fell into disuse. 



In later days they have been revived, in all the purity and simplicity of the primitive institution, among the Moravians or Unitas Fratrum, and the people called Methodists. 

The KJV says "feasts of charity" in Jude 1:12. Among the ancients, the richer members of the Church made an occasional general feast, at which all the members attended, and the poor and the rich ate together. The fatherless, the widows, and the strangers were invited to these feasts, and their eating together was a proof of their love to each other; whence such entertainments were called love feasts.

The love feasts were at first celebrated before the Lord's Supper; in process of time they appear to have been celebrated after it. But they were never considered as the Lord's Supper, nor any substitute for it.