By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — Most people would be surprised to hear that the charge of drinking blood was a common accusation made against the nascent Christian religion in the first three centuries of its existence. Yes, this historical fact is true and recorded in the annals of ancient history. The Roman historian Tacitus (56 –117 CE) hated the Christians so much, he believed Christians drank blood and killed babies.
Rumors like these abounded largely because of a remarkable passage in the book of John, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Paul the Apostle is credited as instituting the ritual of the Eucharist. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians (c 54-55), Paul gives the earliest recorded description of Jesus’ Last Supper:
The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes (1 Cor. 11:22-25).
Some of the Early Church followers may have felt confused whether Jesus actually gave his flesh and blood literally to his students to partake of during his Last Supper.[1] Romans, much like some of the early disciples, did not appreciate the language of metaphor and simile, so they considered the Eucharist as a magical ritual. The Romans Emperors took the Eucharist liturgy literally and assumed that the early Church preached and practiced cannibalism!
In addition, since people heard Christians calling each other, “brother” and “sister,” they also assumed the Christians practiced incest as well. These beliefs persisted well into the second century and it could explain why the Romans persecuted the Early Church with a vitriolic delight, believing they were ridding the world of a dangerous new cult.
The Roman historian Tacitus (56-117 C.E.) recalls:
- Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.[2]
Trajan (53 –117), also continued Nero’s policy of persecuting Christians. Justin Martyr (103–165 CE),[3] and Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 CE) defended themselves from the charges of cannibalism, which continued to persist into the 4th and 5th centuries as well. However, each of them admitted that sects (presumably Gnostic) behaved promiscuously and did so in the name of Christianity. The Christian historian Eusebius wrote about how Christian slaves confessed under the threat of torture that their Christian masters behaved promiscuously and practiced cannibalism.
When the historian Pliny interrogated a number of Christians about the charge of cannibalism, the Christians insisted their Eucharist was a harmless ritual. Unfortunately, these mistaken beliefs did not stop the masses from their pogroms against the Christians living in their communities.[4]
The Roman revulsion toward the Christians occurred for many reasons. They thought Jesus was a magician, one who was executed for treason. Ergo, Christians were guilty by association. In addition, their Gospel taught that there was only one God, and like the Jews before them, they rejected the belief that the Emperor was a deity. Romans regarded the Christians (and the Jews) as “atheists.” They also preached that someday, God would destroy all the hierarchies that defined their society. Since the Christians belonged to a cultist organization, their enemies presumed they did all sorts of forbidden activities, e.g., cannibalism, drinking blood—practices of which magicians were commonly accused. From the Roman perspective, the Christians’ Eucharist was not much different from the cannibalistic rites associated with Osiris, Dionysus and Attis, each of whom were dismembered in sacrifice for rebirth.
Blood libels persisted in the 5th century as well. Once Christianity became the official Roman religion, Christians started accusing Christian Gnostics of practicing cannibalism! Another Early Church father, Epiphanius (439-496), accused a group of Christian Gnostics that he called, the Borborites (literally, “the filthy ones” from borboros, meaning ‘mud,’ which was used to symbolize the group’s moral depravity), of smearing their hands in menstrual blood and semen, and extracting the fetuses from pregnant women, which they consumed as part of their enactment of the Eucharist. The real name of this group is believed to have been Phibionites, who happened to be a group of Gnostic Christians that really knew how to party.
Prior to Epiphanius’ conversion, he recalls his own sexual encounter with this sect. His description of this libertine Gnostic sect is in some ways, a forerunner to the 1960s philosophy of “free love,” that was the characteristic of the “Hippy” generation:
- Their women, they share in common; and when anyone arrives who might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by which they make themselves known to each other . . . when they have so assured themselves, they address themselves immediately to the feast, serving up a lavish bounty of meats and wines, even though they may be poor. And when they have thus banqueted. . .they proceed to the work of mutual incitement. Husbands separate from wives, and a man will say to his own spouse: “Arise and celebrate the “love feast” with thy brother.” And the wretches mingle with each other, and although I am verily mortified to tell of the infamies they perpetrate, I shall not hesitate . . .[5]
It is unknown whether all these rumors were true or hearsay, but some historians think that they did have a basis in fact. The Borborites had a ritual where the woman and the man receive the male sperm in their hands, raise their eyes toward Heaven, offer their semen to God and consumed it.[6]
- Is the Eucharist a Form of Sacred Cannibalism?
Some scholars think the Last Supper, as defined and understood by Paul, represented a spiritualized example of sacred cannibalism.[7] Although Tiny Tim once popularized, “You are what you eat,” sacred cannibalism takes a different approach, “You are whom you eat,” i.e., the cannibal believes that he will incorporate the life essence and soul of that individual he is digesting. In a pre-conscious manner, primal peoples wished to assimilate the attributes of the god or hero, whose life experiences a mythic rebirth in the individual/community participating in the ritual. This process is also seen in primal societies, whenever the tribe partakes of the totem animal in a sacred meal. By ingesting the totem animal, the tribe believed the act of consumption created a bond between the tribal member and the spirit of the totem creature. From a Christian perspective, the blood of Christ creates an astral link between him and his disciples, one which would keep them connected even though Christ would no longer be physically dwelling among them, but in a manner of speaking he would be reborn through them.[7]
Catholics have long understood this passage to mean that Christ is both substantially and supernaturally present in the Eucharist ritual, thus the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. For Catholics and other Christians, the ritual symbolizes something more than just metaphor. Regardless how one interprets the historical and apologetic literature concerning this subject, Paul’s introduction of the Eucharist became one of the most important rituals that severed Christianity from its Judaic roots. With Paul’s theological and mystical understanding of Christ, Christianity became a new religion.
It is a pity that the Catholic and Protestant Church forgot about how others have accused their ancestors, much like they had alleged against the Jews, witches, and Cathars of their time. From this perspective, Western civilization has a long way to go along its evolutionary path.
Gandhi was once asked, “What do you think about Western civilization?” Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea . . .”
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Notes:
[1] “I take no pleasure in corruptible food … O want the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ …and for drink, I want his blood (Ignatius, Romans 7:3). “The heretics refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, (Ignatius, Smyrn. 6:2) . ‘Let everyone take care that no unbeliever eats of the Eucharist . . . for it is the Body of Christ” (Trad. 1p. 37).
[2] Tacitus, Annals, 15:44 translated by Church and Brodribb.
[3] Apol. 11.12.5.
[4] William Melmath, Pliny, Letters, Loeb, (London: William Heinermann, 1935), 401-407.
[5] Panarion, 26.4.1
[6] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.1.14; 5.1.26; 5.1.52.
[7] Haym Maccoby, Paul and Hellenism (London: SCM, 1991), 127.
[8] Peter Bergman ed., “Cannibals and Queers” Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-Representation in American Literature (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 142.
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Rabbi Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Sholom. He may be contacted at michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com