Reviewed by: The Cross and the Eucharist in Early Christianity: A Theological and Liturgical Investigation by Daniel Cardó Michael Heintz Daniel Cardó The Cross and the Eucharist in Early Christianity: A Theological and Liturgical Investigation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. xii + 202 pages. Clothbound. $99.00. This is a thoughtful and important book, both in the method it employs and in the fruits of its research. Fr. Daniel Cardó, professor at St John Vianney Seminary in Denver, sets out his aim early, which is “to investigate, through the reading of Patristic and Roman liturgical primary sources, the ways in which, in theology and liturgical [End Page 346] practice, the cross was present in the celebration of the Eucharist during the foundational and influential period between the fourth and eighth centuries” (11). This is a careful and (helpfully) narrow study, historically (limited roughly to the period between the First and Second Nicene Councils), and in terms of sources (patristic texts and specifically Roman liturgical books). Yet unlike many “ritual studies,” which are generally reductionist, this work avoids that unhappy trap because the author is theologically informed and sensitive to the nexus and interplay of the various elements (Scripture, liturgy, asceticism, dogma) which are constitutive of theology and which are unhelpfully compartmentalized or explained away in too many publications. Cardó’s assessment of the evidence is not limited to texts; he even makes use of art and architecture to illustrate his point (e.g., 109). Further, and here is where his readership should be widest, he sees the fruits of this research as potentially helpful in discerning some contemporary questions (more anon). The book is structured in three parts, the first two of roughly equal length. The first treats the relationship between cross and Eucharist in the patristic period, including both Western and Eastern sources. The author organizes his examination of these sources around five themes: (a) the clear correspondence between the Paschal Mystery (in particular the cross) and the Eucharist; (b) the cross as origin of the Eucharist; (c) the identity between the flesh and blood of the Crucified and the Eucharistic elements; (d) the cross as sacrifice; and (e) the cross as both gesture and object in the celebration of the Eucharist. It is the last two which are perhaps the most original and instructive. Cardó, walking the reader carefully through both Western and Eastern sources, demonstrates the universal patristic conviction that it is the sacrifice of the cross which is constitutive of the Church’s Eucharist, an unbloody sacrifice which renders real and effective the saving sacrifice of Christ crucified; thus, the Eucharist—act and elements—is much more than mere symbolic act or pious (but eviscerated) “remembering”: rather, it is under-girded by a robust understanding of the power of anamnesis. Further, Cardó also highlights the cross as gesture (the signing over the elements to be offered) and as object (the representational presence of the cross at the altar) as witnessed by the Fathers, East and West. [End Page 347] In the second part, Cardó turns to the Roman liturgical sources, and in this part he focuses on three Roman sacramentaries (the so-called Leonine, Gelasian, and Gregorian), the Roman Canon, and the Roman Ordines; methodologically (and manageably) his examination is limited to the Roman Rite. In a particularly beautiful discussion (74–104), Cardó unpacks the rich theological content of the sacramentaries relative to his study. In his examination of the Ordines, Cardó pays particular attention to the “signing” with the cross (faciens crucem, consignare, signare) during the celebration of the Mass (118–124), and then turns his attention to the liturgy of Good Friday (and the centrality of the cross) as witnessed by the Ordines. The fruit of his research is a thoughtful engagement with three contemporary questions, in light of what he had discovered in the first two parts of his work: the relationship between the Eucharist as sacrifice and as meal; the sign of the cross and the epiclesis in the Roman Canon; and the history and importance of the altar cross. As for an opposed relation (in the twentieth century at least) between the Eucharist as sacrifice and as meal, Cardó suggests that historically...