Paul and Jesus

It is hard for us to imagine such a scene. It must have been something akin to the behavior reported at the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century, or perhaps at some of the early-nineteenth-century revivals in frontier America, with people shouting, running wildly, falling to the ground, and even barking or laughing uncontrollably.²⁷

Central to the early Pauline gathering was participation in eating the Lord’s Supper together. The point that Paul emphasizes most was that this was no ordinary meal and should be completely separate from common meals of social fellowship. What he teaches about the meal gives us an insight into why he insists that Jesus referred to the bread as his body and the cup of wine as his blood. Paul reminds the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16).

The cup of wine and the bread were not merely symbolic, reminding one of Jesus’ death: they were understood to be instrumental—allowing one who is united with Christ in the One Body to participate in Jesus’ death. Protestants and Roman Catholics have debated this point for centuries, with the Catholics insisting that the bread and wine, once consecrated, become, in a deeply mystical sense, the “real” body and blood of Christ. This idea reflects the teachings of Paul. Some Protestant scholars have resisted such a sacramental understanding of Paul’s mysticism, considering it magical and superstitious and thus incompatible with Paul’s deep spirituality.²⁸ There is a real peril here in trying to “modernize” Paul, who is hardly a post-Enlightenment rationalist. Paul’s world is thick with angels and demons and he believes he is locked in battle with cosmic forces. The fantastic and the miraculous are to be expected at every turn. His cosmos is that of Hellenistic Judaism, with levels of heavens, astral spirits, and a Hadean underworld.²⁹

We can assume that some special words of “consecration” were spoken over the bread and wine, perhaps using the Aramaic or Hebrew phrases ze hu guphi and ze hu dami (“this is my body,” “this is my blood”), with the Aramaic cry “Maranatha!” to summon the Spirit of Christ to be present at the meal. The meal was called a “memorial,” but the Greek word implies not just recalling a past event, but participating in something presently being reenacted by invoking the deity. By taking this bread and this wine into one’s own body, one is uniting with the body and blood of Christ. Paul explains that eating the Lord’s Supper is a terribly awesome act before which one must undergo deep self-examination so as to participate in a “worthy manner.” To do otherwise, without discerning the body of Christ, is to bring judgment upon oneself (1 Corinthians 11:27–32).

The early Christians influenced by Paul took up this view of the Lord’s Supper with enthusiasm. Ignatius, the early-second-century bishop of Antioch, calls the Eucharist the “medicine [pharmakon] of immortality, the antidote that we should not die but live through all eternity in Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 20). He roundly condemns other Christian groups who “do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ” (Smyrneans 7). He says to avoid such people and not even speak about them—indicating there was disagreement in the early second century between groups of Christians who follow Paul and those who maintain a tradition like that found in the Didache. A few decades later, the Christian apologist Justin, who lived in Rome, stated Paul’s perspective unequivocally:

For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His Word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. (Apology 1.66)

Irenaeus, a highly influential late-second-century bishop of Lyons, insisted that eating the body and blood of Christ ensured the future resurrection of the corruptible flesh: “Having received the Word of God, the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time” (Against Heresies 5.2.3).