Early Church and cannibals?

[Jim_Baur]

Were the people of the early Church called cannibals because of the Eucharist?

Thanks!

 

[Mintaka]

No, Christians were called cannibals because a garbled version of Eucharistic theology was circulated around the Roman world.

This classic urban legend (later becoming a slur on Jewish people in the Middle Ages) said that Christians met together for their “agape” meals only to dim the lights and eat a baby with their bare hands and drink its blood. Then the evil Christians would put out the lights entirely and have sex with random people in the dark. (They were also wicked magicians who controlled demons and disrupted temple ceremonies and decent normal magic by using the name of Chrestus, the executed criminal, to master all other magical names.) This behavior brought down the gods’ curse on humanity and caused famines and plagues. Therefore, if anything disastrous happens, decent people should kill Christians or denounce them to the government.

St. Justin Martyr’s First Apologia is written entirely with the idea of disproving this urban legend by speaking frankly about what really went on at a typical Mass, in terms that a Roman could understand.

 

[NotWorthy]

There may be a well-founded (even if it was incorrect) reason for the accusation that Christians ate babies. When a Roman noble had a baby in his household that was unwanted, even if it was the child of a servant, that Roman would have the baby placed out in the wilderness to die of exposure. It is said that the Christians would go and retrieve those babies and take care of them.

To some of the spiteful Romans, this was all that was needed to generate this new lie.

 

[Jim_Baur]

Noteworthy, thanks!

 

[steve53]

Were the people of the early Church called cannibals because of the Eucharist?

Thanks!

Of course.

Taking a step back, the Eucharist is a unique sort of ceremony to say the least, and cannibalism was the indictment used against the Christians then and for decades early on. The disappearance of Jesus’ body after his crucifixion didn’t help matters, either. The High Priesthood probably spread the rumor that the Christians had ate it themselves!

So Jesus didn’t do the sect any favors by introducing the ceremony. He lost a lot of his followers initially because of it, according to John. But, without the ceremony, would Christianity have survived?