Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions by T. W. Doane

THE EUCHARIST OR LORD'S SUPPER. We are informed by the _Matthew_ narrator that when Jesus was eating his last supper with the disciples, "He took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, _this is my body_. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it, _for this is my blood_ of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."[305:1] According to Christian belief, Jesus _instituted_ this "_Sacrament_"[305:2]--as it is called--and it was observed by the primitive Christians, as he had enjoined them; but we shall find that this breaking of bread, and drinking of wine,--_supposed to be the body and blood of a god_[305:3]--is simply another piece of Paganism imbibed by the Christians. The _Eucharist_ was instituted many hundreds of years before the time assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus. Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, and one of the most illustrious of her statesmen, born in the year 106 B. C., mentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. "How can a man be so stupid," says he, "as to imagine that which he eats to be a God?" There had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first establishment of the _mysteries_ among the Pagans, and the Eucharistia is one of the oldest rites of antiquity. The adherents of the Grand Lama in Thibet and Tartary offer to their god a sacrament of _bread and wine_.[305:4] P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his "History of India:" "Their Grand Lama celebrates a species of sacrifice with _bread_ and _wine_, in which, after taking a small quantity himself, he distributes the rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony."[306:1] In certain rites both in the _Indian_ and the _Parsee_ religions, the devotees drink the juice of the Soma, or _Haoma_ plant. They consider it a _god_ as well as a plant, just as the wine of the Christian sacrament is considered both the juice of the grape, and the blood of the Redeemer.[306:2] Says Mr. Baring-Gould: "Among the ancient Hindoos, _Soma_ was a chief deity; he is called 'the Giver of Life and of health,' the 'Protector,' he who is 'the Guide to Immortality.' He became incarnate among men, was taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar. But he rose in flame to heaven, to be the 'Benefactor of the World,' and the 'Mediator between God and Man.' Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man, (who partook of this god), has an assurance of immortality, for by that _sacrament_ he obtains union with his divinity."[306:3] The ancient _Egyptians_--as we have seen--annually celebrated the _Resurrection_ of their God and Saviour _Osiris_, at which time they commemorated his death by the _Eucharist_, eating the sacred cake, or wafer, _after it had been consecrated by the priest, and become veritable flesh of his flesh_.[306:4] The bread, after sacerdotal rites, became mystically the body of _Osiris_, and, in such a manner, _they ate their god_.[306:5] Bread and wine were brought to the temples by the worshipers, as offerings.[306:6] The _Therapeutes_ or _Essenes_, whom we believe to be of Buddhist origin, and who lived in large numbers in Egypt, also had the ceremony of the sacrament among them.[306:7] Most of them, however, being temperate, substituted water for wine, while others drank a mixture of water and wine. Pythagoras, the celebrated Grecian philosopher, who was born about the year 570 B. C., performed this ceremony of the _sacrament_.[306:8] He is supposed to have visited Egypt, and there availed himself of all such mysterious lore as the priests could be induced to impart. He and his followers practiced asceticism, and peculiarities of diet and clothing, similar to the Essenes, which has led some scholars to believe that he instituted the order, but this is evidently not the case. The Kenite "King of Righteousness," _Melchizedek_, "a priest of the Most High God," brought out BREAD _and_ WINE as a _sign_ or _symbol_ of worship; as _the mystic elements of Divine presence_. In the visible symbol of _bread and wine_ they worshiped _the invisible presence of the Creator of heaven and earth_.[307:1] To account for this, Christian divines have been much puzzled. The Rev. Dr. Milner says, in speaking of this passage: "It was in offering up a sacrifice of bread and wine, instead of slaughtered animals, that Melchizedek's sacrifice differed from the generality of those in the old law, and that he _prefigured_ the sacrifice which Christ was to _institute_ in the new law from the same elements. No other sense than this can be elicited from the Scripture as to this matter; and accordingly the holy fathers unanimously adhere to this meaning."[307:2] This style of reasoning is in accord with the TYPE theory concerning the Virgin-born, Crucified and Resurrected Saviours, but it is not altogether satisfactory. If it had been said that the religion of Melchizedek, and the religion of the Persians, were the _same_, there would be no difficulty in explaining the passage. Not only were bread and wine brought forth by Melchizedek when he blessed Abraham, but it was offered to God and eaten before him by Jethro and the elders of Israel, and some, at least, of the _mourning_ Israelites broke bread and drank "the cup of consolation," in remembrance of the departed, "to comfort them for the dead."[307:3] It is in the ancient religion of Persia--the religion of Mithra, the Mediator, the Redeemer and Saviour--that we find the nearest resemblance to the sacrament of the Christians, and from which it was evidently borrowed. Those who were initiated into the mysteries of Mithra, or became _members_, took the sacrament of bread and wine.[307:4] M. Renan, speaking of _Mithraicism_, says: "It had its mysterious meetings: its chapels, which bore a strong resemblance to little churches. It forged a very lasting bond of brotherhood between its initiates: it had a _Eucharist_, a Supper so like the Christian Mysteries, that good Justin Martyr, the Apologist, can find only one explanation of the apparent identity, namely, that Satan, in order to deceive the human race, determined to imitate the Christian ceremonies, and so stole them."[307:5] The words of St. Justin, wherein he alludes to this ceremony, are as follows: "The apostles, in the commentaries written by themselves, which we call Gospels, have delivered down to us how that Jesus thus commanded them: He having taken bread, _after he had given thanks_,[308:1] said, Do this in commemoration of me; this is my body. And having taken a cup, and returned thanks, he said: This is my blood, and delivered it to them alone. Which thing indeed the evil spirits have taught to be done out of mimicry in the Mysteries and Initiatory rites of Mithra. "For you either know, or can know, that bread and a cup of water (or wine) are given out, with certain incantations, in the consecration of the person who is being initiated in the Mysteries of Mithra."[308:2] This food they called the Eucharist, of which no one was allowed to partake but the persons who believed that the things they taught were true, and who had been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sin.[308:3] Tertullian, who flourished from 193 to 220 A. D., also speaks of the Mithraic devotees celebrating the Eucharist.[308:4] The Eucharist of the Lord and Saviour, as the Magi called Mithra, the second person in their Trinity, or their Eucharistic sacrifice, was always made exactly and in every respect the same as that of the orthodox Christians, for both sometimes used water instead of wine, or a mixture of the two.[308:5] The Christian Fathers often liken their rites to those of the Therapeuts (Essenes) and worshipers of Mithra. Here is Justin Martyr's account of Christian initiation: "But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and assented to our teachings, bring him to the place where those who are called _brethren_ are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and the _illuminated_ person. Having ended our prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren _bread and a cup of wine mixed with water_. When the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those that are called by us _deacons_ give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water."[308:6] In the service of Edward the Sixth of England, water is directed to be mixed with the wine.[309:1] This is a union of the two; not a half measure, but a double one. If it be correct to take it with wine, then they were right; if with water, they still were right; as they took both, they could not be wrong. The _bread_, used in these Pagan Mysteries, was carried in _baskets_, which practice was also adopted by the Christians. St. Jerome, speaking of it, says: "Nothing can be richer than one who carries _the body of Christ_ (viz.: _the bread_) in a basket made of twigs."[309:2] The Persian Magi introduced the worship of Mithra into Rome, and his mysteries were solemnized in a _cave_. In the process of initiation there, candidates were also administered the sacrament of _bread and wine_, and were marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross.[309:3] The ancient _Greeks_ also had their "_Mysteries_," wherein they celebrated the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Rev. Robert Taylor, speaking of this, says: "The _Eleusinian_ Mysteries, or, Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, was the most august of all the Pagan ceremonies celebrated, more especially by the Athenians, every fifth year,[309:4] in honor of _Ceres_, the goddess of corn, who, in allegorical language, _had given us her flesh to eat_; as _Bacchus_, the god of wine, in like sense, _had given us his blood to drink_. . . . "From these ceremonies is derived the very name attached to our _Christian_ sacrament of the Lord's Supper,--'_those holy Mysteries_;'--and not one or two, but absolutely all and every one of the observances used in our Christian solemnity. Very many of our forms of expression in that solemnity are precisely the same as those that appertained to the Pagan rite."[309:5] Prodicus (a Greek sophist of the 5th century B. C.) says that, the ancients worshiped _bread_ as Demeter (_Ceres_) and _wine_ as Dionysos (_Bacchus_);[309:6] therefore, when they ate the bread, and drank the wine, after it had been consecrated, they were doing as the Romanists claim to do at the present day, _i. e._, _eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god_.[309:7] Mosheim, the celebrated ecclesiastical historian, acknowledges that: "The profound respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman _Mysteries_, and the extraordinary sanctity that was attributed to them, induced the Christians of the second century, to give _their_ religion a _mystic_ air, in order to put it upon an equal footing in point of dignity, with that of the Pagans. For this purpose they gave the name of _Mysteries_ to the institutions of the Gospels, and decorated particularly the 'Holy Sacrament' with that title; they used the very terms employed in the _Heathen Mysteries_, and adopted some of the rites and ceremonies of which those renowned mysteries consisted. This imitation began in the eastern provinces; but, after the time of Adrian, who first introduced the mysteries among the Latins, it was followed by the Christians who dwelt in the western part of the empire. A great part, therefore, of the service of the Church in this--the second--century, had a certain air of the Heathen Mysteries, and resembled them considerably in many particulars."[310:1] _Eleusinian Mysteries_ and _Christian Sacraments Compared_.