Paul Invented the Eucharist?

  • Thread starter Thread starter thephilosopher6
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

thephilosopher6

Guest
I have been studying the Eucharist for some time, its history and its meaning, and I have delved some what into contemporary New Testament scholarship on this issue. I have found many scholars who believe the Eucharist being thought of as the “body and blood” of Christ mainly go back to Paul. They generally accept that the Last Supper did happen, and that later Christians developed its meaning more and more. I’ll site this article from the Huff Post in order to give just a simple summary on what many scholars seem to believe now:
Where would Paul have gotten such a detailed description of what Jesus had said on the night he was betrayed? The common assumption has been that this core tradition, so central to the original Jesus movement, had circulated orally for decades in the various Christian communities. Paul could have received it directly from Peter or James, on his first visit to Jerusalem around A.D. 40, or learned it from the Christian congregation in Antioch, where, according to the book of Acts, he first established himself (Acts 11:25).

What Paul plainly says is easy to overlook: “For I received from the Lord what I handed on to you.” His language is clear and unequivocal. He is not saying, “I received it from one of the apostles, and thus indirectly it came from the Lord,” or “I learned it in Antioch, but they had gotten it by tradition from the Lord.” Paul uses precisely the same language to defend the revelation of his Gospel and how it came to him. He says he did not receive it from any man, nor was he taught it, but swears with an oath, “I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12).
Click to expand...
and…
What Jesus said at his Last Supper with his disciples we have no way of knowing but there is evidence he thought of that meal as a “Messianic banquet” to be eaten in anticipation of the their table fellowship in the future kingdom of God.

… (Luke 22:28) …

This saying of Jesus is from the Q source, which scholars consider to be the earliest collection of the sayings of Jesus, not from Paul. Notice in Luke it is connected to the Last Supper.

Luke relies on his source Mark his Lord’s Supper account, including the Pauline tradition of the words of institution about eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus. But surprisingly, Luke knows another alternative source with no such language! He ends up placing them both into his narrative, juxtaposed one after the other:
Click to expand...
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4449548

I’d encourage you to all read the full article for more. This article is mainly just a summary of the general scholarly position on the development of the Eucharist. What does CAF think of this? I’d like to see some actual discussion instead of just waving this off as anti-faith.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
This article is mainly just a summary of the general scholarly position on the development of the Eucharist.
Click to expand...
Given this background I think we can conclude that it is inconceivable that Jesus would have had his followers drink a cup of wine, even symbolically, as a representation of his blood, or break bread to represent his body, sacrificed for their sins.

James Tabor’s argument leads up to his conclusion that it is “inconceivable” that Jesus should have said what the Gospels and Paul report him as saying. However, I don’t think he has proved that at all. He is imagining a conflict between two different accounts of the institution of the Eucharist, Paul’s account and that of the three synoptic Gospels.

The Eucharistic Words of Jesus by Joachim Jeremias.―This book is now fifty years old (in English, the original German editions are a few years older) but, as far as I know, it remains to this day the fullest treatment of the subject. There are five accounts (including John 6:51) of the words spoken over the bread and the wine, and Jeremias examines the way in which they all fit together. There is no split between the account in 1 Cor and that in the Gospels. There are discrepancies between all of them, but it isn’t Paul vs. the rest. Tabor has “discovered” something that isn’t there.

https://www.amazon.com/EUCHARISTIC-...=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514033235&sr=1-3
 
Last edited:
I don’t like the Huffington Post, therefore, would not regard whatever they print highly.
I would rely more on the Gospel of John than insinuating Paul “invented” the Eucharist.
I believe the Eucharist was “instituted” at the Last Supper and was not invented by anyone.
 
Well, I’m not basing this off of the Huff Post, I was just citing this article because the author touches on some points that many scholars agree about.

I suggest Bruce Chilton, he’s a contemporary scholar, specializing in early Judaism and Christianity. He writes that originally the Eucharist was established by Jesus as an alternative sacrifice to that at the Temple, and that some Christian communities began to speak of it in terms of it being Christ’s body and blood, identifying it with his sacrifice. Paul is the first to do this it seems, receiving it directly “from the Lord.”
 
Last edited:
http://www.stjames-church.com/book6c3.html

Thereupon Christ our Lord took into his venerable hands the bread, which lay upon the plate, and interiorly asked the permission and co-operation of the eternal Father, that now and ever afterwards in virtue of the words about to be uttered by Him, and later to be repeated in his holy Church, He should really and truly become present in the host, Himself to yield obedience to these sacred words. While making this petition He raised his eyes toward heaven with an expression of such sublime majesty, that He inspired the Apostles, the angels and his Virgin Mother with new and deepest reverence. Then He pronounced the words of consecration over the bread, changing its substance into the substance of his true body and immediately thereupon He uttered the words of consecration also over the wine, changing it into his true blood. As an answer to the these words of consecration was heard the voice of the eternal Father, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight, and shall take my delight to the end of the world; and He shall be with men during all the time of their banishment.” In like manner was this confirmed by the Holy Ghost. The most sacred humanity of Christ, in the Person of the Word, gave tokens of profoundest veneration to the Divinity contained in the Sacrament of his body and blood. The Virgin Mother, in her retreat prostrated Herself on the ground and adored her Son in the blessed Sacrament with incomparable reverence. Then also the angels of her guard, all the angels of heaven, and among them likewise the souls of Enoch and Elias, in their own name and in the name of the Patriarchs and Prophets of the old law, fell down in adoration of their Lord in the holy Sacrament.

All the Apostles and disciples, who, with the exception of the traitor, believed in this holy Sacrament, adored it with great humility and reverence according to each one’s disposition. The great high priest Christ raised up his own consecrated body and blood in order that all who were present at this first Mass might adore it in a special manner, as they also did. During this elevation his most pure Mother, saint John, Enoch and Elias, were favored with an especial insight into the mystery of his presence in the sacred species. They understood more profoundly, how, in the species of the bread, was contained his body and in those of the wine, his blood; how in both, on account of the inseparable union of his soul with his body and blood, was present the living and true Christ; how with the Person of the Word, was also therein united the Person of the Father and of the Holy Ghost; and how therefore, on account of the inseparable existence and union of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the holy Eucharist contained the perfect humanity of the Lord with the three divine Persons of the Godhead. All this was understood most profoundly by the heavenly Lady and by the others according to their degree.
 
What Paul is saying he received and hands down is the mystery of the Real Presence not so much an account of what happened when Jesus instituted it. He doesn’t teach that his primary mission as being a minister of the Sacrament (not that he didn’t)since that wasn’t his primary mission from Christ. He was a minister of the mysteries of Christ.

He wrote his letters before the Gospels but the Sacraments were ministered before then. I would think that the breaking of bread always included the words of consecration we are familiar with .St. Paul may have used the words used to describe the institution of the Eucharistic that were part of the Concecration he had witnessed.
Then, having received the Eucharist, and being chosen by Him who he received in the Eucharist, to minister the mysteries of Him who he received, experienced in himself the fullness and mystery of the Real Presence.

I propose that it was in that way did Paul recieve from the Lord, the reality and the mystery of the Eucharist. After having received it from those whose mission it was to obey the command to break bread did Paul mean, in 1 Corinthians, that what he is handing down came from the Lord Himself.
 
Last edited:
thephilosopher6 said:
What does CAF think of this? I’d like to see some actual discussion instead of just waving this off as anti-faith.
Click to expand...
From what I can tell, very little of what used to be CAF exists anymore. I think you are asking what current members of this forum think about this theory.

Personally I have always been curious what happened to Paul when he was “caught up into the third heaven”. Jesus may have made him present at the Last supper mystically, and he may have received the pattern for the Eucharist directly, but I also believe he received it through the Christian communities he frequented.

It is a far worse accusation that is made against Paul that he invented Christianity.

We also cannot fail to recognize that a great deal of the Church’s understanding of Eucharist is contained in the Gospel of John, which may have been written up to 50 years after Paul wrote his letters.
 
To quote a certain someone who is now the president,
“Wrong.”

did you know that the paschal lamb was essentially crucified?
 
Kei said:
did you know that the paschal lamb was essentially crucified?
Click to expand...
The pascal lamb was not crucified. It was slaughtered according to strict Mosaic Law and the blood drained.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the Last Supper was not the context of the Eucharist. But Paul was not physically present at the time, so how did he come to hold his concept of the Eucharist?
 
do you know how it was served in the time of Jesus’ walking the Earth?
Justin Martyr describes it as like a crucifix.
 
Last edited:
The Church was already practicing the breaking of bread in Acts. And even if Paul had a clear vision of God’s will given to him on the matter, so what? That only confirms what the Church already knew. And in the end its all about the Church. What she did, how she practiced the faith, what her people wrote, what she decided, at times, is a legacy of God’s revelation to her.
 
Kei said:
do you know how it was served in the time of Jesus’ walking the Earth?

Justin Martyr describes it as like a crucifix.
Click to expand...
It was a re-enactment of the Last supper, and that is how Justin Martyr describes it. I don’t know where you are getting the crucifix thing.

Justin Martyr describes the same liturgy we use today.
 
I would never use Huffington Post for any information on Catholicism.

Jim
 
scholarly types receive accolades and honor by presenting new ideas and points of view. this has been happening throughout history. but as to biblical scholarship, the students of literary analysis have been especially strident since the early twentieth century. i would suggest no matter how persuasive their arguments might be, they are still the scholarly conclusions of non-magisterial authorities. consequently, i give them little credence if they in any way try to contradict or change the long held traditions of the magisterium.

on the other hand, there has been much discussion recently about the words in the Our Father that say “lead us not in to temptation”. since these words were, most likely spoken in aramaic, possibly written in hebrew and translated into greek in the first century AD, it is possible that they do not reflect our Lord’s words exactly.

my take, just place your faith in Jesus and the authority He gave to st. peter and the other apostles. you may find speculation about details interesting and entertaining and there is nothing wrong with that so long as you give your final assent to the magisterium and its teachings.
 
Jesus appeared directly to st. paul at least once on the road to damascus, many other times as well. st. paul makes it clear that his understanding of the Gospel was given to him directly by Jesus. it is not hard to imagine that Jesus did not make the method and meaning of the Eucharist clear to st. paul.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
This article is mainly just a summary of the general scholarly position on the development of the Eucharist… I’d like to see some actual discussion instead of just waving this off as anti-faith.
Click to expand...
It is hardly scholarly. The anti-Christian author simply assumes that the Gospels are false.
 
how was passover a reenactment of something that had not yet occurred? It prefigured it, indeed the Last Supper was during passover.
I am saying how the lamb was served.
 
Kei said:
how was passover a reenactment of something that had not yet occurred? It prefigured it, indeed the Last Supper was during passover.

I am saying how the lamb was served.
Click to expand...
The Passover is an anamnesis of the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus used the context of the Passover to enact the Eucharist. He, Himself, became the lamb that was sacrificed. The lamb was eaten - all of it, which is a type of the Eucharist to come.
 
yes, and the lamb (as in the literal lamb) was served on two intersecting pieces of wood as though it were crucified
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top