ph2ter

Excellent explanation was given by Walter Burkert in his famous book 'Homo necans (or via: amazon.co.uk)' (partially paraphrased and partially cited):
"First agricultural societies the newly discovered sources of food - barley, wheat and grape vine were started to treat the same way as they were treating the animals in the old rite of sacrificial killing in hunter-gatherer societies. The ritual schema was so powerfull and firm that without previously performing some horror form of death, ceremonial banquet could not start and could not be assumed to be properly carried out. The harvest was celebrated as a hunt and as a sacrificial ceremony. In the subterranean repositories as almost sacred was held the wheat. The old agression toward animals started to treat the farmer's tools as weapons. The aim of plough, sickle and mortar was to limb, to cut up, to tear. The reaping of ears symbolically replaced castration, milling and grinding the wheat and pressing the grape vine replaced the tearing and cuting the hunted or sacrificied animal, ploughing and seeding looked like preparatory fasting. The eating had to be preceded by cuting and breaking as slaughter precedes the process of eating the meat. Distribution presuposes division, and that process of division was over-stressed: taking, praying and breaking. In the Anatolian-Hittite culture the breaking of the bread was the most usual sacrificing ceremony. Also in the old Greek wedding the groom cuts the sesame cake and distributes it.
We may presume that some ears of wheat and a mortar and pestle were among the objects to be found in the covered and uncovered baskets in the Eleusinian mysteries. The initiate had to grind the wheat, at least symbolically, in order to help in producing the next kykeon. This may seem rather banal by the light of day, but this too is an act of destruction — necessary nonetheless for nourishment. The sexual associations of stamping and grinding are obvious. Here again the basic human themes of aggression, the need for food and sexuality are addressed.
The rite performed by the priest as the highest mystery of Christianity is very similar to that which can be traced back far into Anatolian-Hittite culture — that is, the breaking of the bread."

The oldest Christian account of breaking the bread is recorded by Paul in 1 Corinthians
For I -- I received from the Lord that which also I did deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread, 24 and having given thanks, he brake, and said, 'Take ye, eat ye, this is my body, that for you is being broken; this do ye -- to the remembrance of me.' 25 In like manner also the cup after the supping, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; this do ye, as often as ye may drink it -- to the remembrance of me;' 26 for as often as ye may eat this bread, and this cup may drink, the death of the Lord ye do shew forth -- till he may come;...

Here the body of Christ is explicitly identified with the broken bread and also his blood with the vine.
The Didache version is not so explicit. The connection with the body and the blood of Christ is not expressed. The formula mentioned in the Didache „Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever..“ evokes scattering the bones of Tammuz by the wind according to an Arabic writer of the tenth century, who in describing the rites and sacrifices observed at the different seasons of the year by the heathen Syrians of Harran says that 'in the middle of the month Tammuz is the festival of the weeping women, and this is the Tammuz festival, which is celebrated in honour of the god Tammuz. The women bewail him, because his lord slew him so cruelly, ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered them to the wind. The women (during this festival) eat nothing which has been ground in a mill, but limit their diet to steeped wheat, sweet vetches, dates, raisins, and the like’. (Frazer)

The parts of broken bread are here equivalent to the scattered broken body parts of Tammuz. The gathering of that parts means the rebirth of Tammuz. The same picture appears in the myth of Osiris who was killed by his brother, chopped up into pieces and scattered throughout Egypt. The goddess Isis collected and reassembled his parts and brought him back to life. These mourning ceremonies were observed even in Jerusalem, to the horror of the Israelite prophet Ezekiel.


The Jewish festival which possess the mythological motive of breaking the bread and also the breaking of the sacrificial body into pieces is Purim. The word 'pur' is mentioned for the first time in the Bible in the book of Esther (3,7). According to the book the word means 'a lot'. It really could be a Persian (or maybe Acadian) word, possibly from Persian equivalent of Vedic purti='portion' (Haupt), but in Hebrew, the meaning could be 'to break, to destroy, to break into crumbs' (Erbt -parar).

Triangular shaped sweet pastries filled with prunes, poppy-seeds or jelly (hamantashen) are synonymous with Purim. It is a custom to eat different kinds of seeds in honor of Esther's dietary discipline. Delicacies are baked in the shape of human (or donkey) ears and dipped in honey. They are also called oznei Haman, "Haman's ears," a custom which according to Immanuel of Rome (Italian-Jewish scholar - 14. century) dates back to the legend that the Jews cut off Haman's ears after he was hanged.

Here the Purim's special kind of bread is explicitly connected with the body parts of Haman like they are equivalent. The hamentasch are crumbling like Haman's body parts were cut.
On Purim day, typically toward evening, a festive meal called Se`udat Purim is held, often with wine as the prominent beverage; consequently, drunkenness is not uncommon at this meal. So there is also the wine as an immportant part. The Fast of Esther, observed before Purim, on the 13th of Adar, is an original part of the Purim celebration, referred to in Esther 9:31-32.

The complete sacrificing ritual consisting of preparatory rites and the main sacrifice of Haman here emerges. He is impaled or hanged on the pole. Josephus in his 'Jewish Antiquities' changed the word used in the Septuagint (khulon), which generally means tree, gallows, or pole, and calls the object instead a 'stauros', which his readers would have understood to mean a cross. So, in the 1st century the execution of Haman was understood to be almost identical to the crucifixion of Christ. The resemblance between the hanged Haman and the crucified Christ really struck the early Christians.

According to all that the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist is not a Christian invention.

Toto

If Josephus replaced [xylon] or tree with stauros, or cross, is there any reason to think that he referred to the crucifixion of Jesus, as opposed to the many crucifixions that he witnessed and described?

But these are interesting speculations.

radius

Liddell & Scott has stauros as "an upright pale, stake or pole"; xulon is "wood ready for use". Josephus seems to use xulon for the raw material (tree, timber), and stauros to indicate a stake for the purpose of execution. Revelation uses xulon to refer to the tree of life.

However, Acts uses xulon several times to refer to the means of Jesus' execution/sacrifice, echoing Galatians 3:13 (which in turn presumably copied the term from the LXX - Deuteronomy 21:22 and :23 ).

ph2ter

I don't think that he referred to the crucifixion of Jesus. I doubt that he even ever heard of Jesus. He was referring to the crucifixions that he witnessed. But also, it is possible that in his own time the effigies of Haman were crucified within the celebrations of Purim. In the later centuries that was really the case, but I could not claim that was also the case in Josephus' time. It could be.

Which is interesting is that Josephus uses the same Greek words which are used also in NT. That are 'stauros' and 'anastaurosai' for the intended execution of Mordecai:

"[Haman] also said that he was not pleased at seeing the Jew Mordecai in the court. Then Zarasa, his wife, told him to order a tree [xulon] sixty cubits high to be cut down, and in the morning ask the king for leave to crucify [anastaurosai] Mordecai; and he praised her plan and ordered his servants to make the gallows [xulon] ready and set it up in the court for the punishment of Mordecai. And so it was prepared. ... But Sabuchadas, one of the eunuchs, seeing the cross [stauron] that had been set up at Haman's house and prepared for Mordecai, inquired of one of the servants for whom they had made this ready, and, learning that it was for the queen's uncle, for the time being held his peace. ... At this Haman was overcome and unable to utter any further sound, and then came the eunuch Sabuchadas and accused Haman, saying that he had found a cross [stauron] at his house prepared for Mordecai. For this was what the servant had told him in answer to his inquiry, when he had come to Haman to summon him to the banquet. And the cross [stauron], he said, was sixty cubits in height. When the king heard this, he decided to inflict on Haman no other punishment than that which had been devised against Mordecai, and ordered him at once to be hanged [ekeinou] on that very same cross [stauron] till he was dead." (Josephus, "Jewish Antiquities," 11.246, 261, 266-268, in "Works," Marcus, R., transl., Heinemann: London, Vol VI, 1937, Reprinted, 1958, p. 443).

radius

I think these words are fairly generic and can refer to a variety of means of execution. Translators tend to use the means with which they and their audience are most familiar. The Book of Esther, on which Josephus draws, uses xulon, and is variously translated as hanging on a gallows (King James), gibbet (Douay-Rheims) or impaling on a pole (New Living Translation).

There was no crucifixion in ancient Jewish law and 'crucifixion' would not be an appropriate translation in Esther. Though the author of Acts does use the same word to refer to Jesus' crucifixion. However, Flavius Josephus and his readers will have conceived of tree-based execution in terms of the Roman practice of crucifixion. In the context of Roman civilisation, a word (stauron) that meant stake in Thucydides will have been most easily interpreted as a wooden structure used for crucifixion.

There is, however, nothing in the word stauron which is specific to crucifixion or a 'crux' with a crossbeam. When Paul uses stauron, therefore, it does not necessarily entail the practice of Roman crucifixion.