hatsoff

DISCLAIMER: This thread has absolutely nothing to do with the Jesus myth hypothesis. I am not a Jesus myth proponent, nor am I tempted at all by the notion.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way...

I just read Sallust's Catiline Conspiracy, and since I'm a Christian history enthusiast, the following passage caught my attention:

There were some, at the time, who said that Catiline, having ended his speech, and wishing to bind his accomplices in guilt by an oath, handed round among them, in goblets, the blood of a human body mixed with wine; and that when all, after an imprecation, had tasted of it, as is usual in sacred rites, he disclosed his design; and they asserted that he did this, in order that they might be the more closely attached to one another, by being mutually conscious of such an atrocity. But some thought that this report, and many others, were invented by persons who supposed that the odium against Cicero, which afterward arose, might be lessened by imputing an enormity of guilt to the conspirators who had suffered death. The evidence which I have obtained, in support of this charge, is not at all in proportion to its magnitude.

(emphasis added)


What if anything can we make of this offhanded comment by Sallust? Do we have any other ancient references to Eucharist-like rituals in paganism?

And of course there's the million-dollar question: Do we have reason to suspect the wine/blood theme in paganism, assuming Sallust was correct in reporting it, influenced the establishment and/or development (?) of the Eucharist in Christianity?

DCHindley

Excellent post!

I am not so sure it explains the origin of the eucharist (eating bread and wine to commemorate the sect's founder, or more likely his kingdom teaching, which I think had to do with hopes for a super-fruitful Jewish kingdom/empire expected in the indefinite future), but such sacred rites, which likely come from mystery religions, may explain how they came to be transferred to Jesus and the significance of his death to Christians.

DCH

No Robots

The symbolic eating of the Messiah is a fundamental component of the Jewish Passover:

In the course of the Jewish Passover eve service, then, whether at the conclusion of the supper (the practice which has carried the day) or at its commencement (as according to some Talmudic practice at least), a piece of unleavened bread is taken as the Messiah by the company. The traditional designation of this fragment is Aphiquoman.--"He That Cometh" / David Daube, p. 4.

spamandham

I read somewhere recently (now I've forgotten where), that the idea of being washed in the blood of a lamb - language used in the NT - has origins in a known contemporary rite of actually being washed by lamb's blood as a lamb is sacrificed above a crowd, and the blood allowed to drip down on them.

John Kesler

See this previous thread regarding the possible Jewish origins of the Eucharist.