The Eucharist—A Sacrificial Formula Preserved

044

In the previous article Bruce Chilton presents some convincing ideas regarding the eucharistic words Jesus uttered at the Last Supper: “This is my body [the bread]; this is my blood [the wine]” (with slight variations in Mark 14:22–24; Matthew 26:26–28; Luke 22:19–20; and 1 Corinthians 11:24–25). The traditional interpretation is that Jesus is referring to his own body and his own blood. Instead, Chilton interprets these words in terms of the Temple sacrifice: Jesus has objected to the vulgarization of the traditional Temple sacrifice consisting of the body and blood of an animal. And so Jesus offers a substitute for the Temple sacrifice—bread and wine. This—the bread—is my substitute for the body; and this—the wine—is my substitute for the blood.

I would like to provide additional evidence for Chilton’s interpretation. When Jesus utters these words—“This is my body; this is my blood”—he is using a presentation formula like those used at the Temple for traditional sacrifices. He is actually saying, “This—the bread—is my [substitute sacrifice for the standard sacrifice of] body [meat or flesh of the animal at the Temple];” this—the wine is my [substitute sacrifice for the standard sacrifice] of blood [of the animal at the Temple].”

“Body” and “blood” were the standard components of an animal sacrifice at the Temple. Sacrificial slaughter of an animal, normally a lamb, separated “body and blood.” The blood was poured 046at the altar, and the animal’s body was handled in accordance with sacrificial law. Usually, the body was partly burnt on the altar (for the deity) and partly consumed (shared between the priests and the sacrificer).

More than 50 years ago, the great New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias translated Jesus’ eucharistic words from the Greek of the New Testament into the original Aramaic in which Jesus presumably spoke them.¹ The words we translate “body” and “blood” regularly denote in Aramaic the two main components of an animal sacrifice in the Bible. They would more properly be translated: “This is my sacrificial flesh (den bisri); this is my sacrificial blood (den ‘idmi).” Jeremias was on the right track, but he failed to see the implications for the traditional, but erroneous, interpretation of the eucharistic words.

I believe these words were probably based on a presentation formula used by someone presenting a sacrifice. After the animal was slaughtered, the person in whose behalf the sacrifice was being made spoke words to designate the sacrifice as his. (I assume that only men had access to the altar, that is, the place where the slaughtered animal was presented to God.)

In an earlier time, the person offering the sacrifice slaughtered the animal himself (compare Leviticus 3:2). He also immolated the animal himself, perhaps with the assistance of Temple personnel. A priest would perform these acts only if the person offering the sacrifice was in a state of impurity (see 2 Chronicles 30:17).

By the first century, all this had changed. By Jesus’ time, the only sacrifice that was actually slaughtered and immolated by the person offering the sacrifice was the Passover sacrifice.² As each man killed his own lamb, a priest caught the blood in a silver or golden bowl.^a Otherwise, however, these sacrificial acts were performed by the priests or other Temple personnel on behalf of the person offering the sacrifice. The person who brought the offering had very little to do with the actual sacrificing. People who made a private sacrifice seem to have been reduced to little more than paying sponsors: They would pay for a sacrificial animal that was then handed over to Temple personnel. Sponsors would probably wait for some time until they received certain parts of the slaughtered animal. The actual sacrificing—the slaughter, collection of blood, the ritual disposal of blood and fat, sometimes even the laying on of hands, happened out of the sponsor’s view. Not allowed to enter the Court of the Priests (where animals were slaughtered and where the altar was located), the sponsor stood in the narrow “Court of the Israelites” and simply watched. Although this may have made sense to the priests, it was not necessarily popular with the people wishing to offer sacrifices.

Among those who objected to this impersonal, clericalized manner of sacrifice was the great Jewish sage Hillel, who was a near-contemporary of Jesus. According to Hillel, offerings should not simply be given to the priests for slaughtering. Rather, the owners should lay hands on their animal’s head prior to giving it to the officiating priest.³ Apparently this ritual gesture, prescribed by the law, indicated both the ownership of the lamb and served as a gesture of offering.

Like Hillel, Jesus can be imagined to have been one of those who promoted more lay participation in the Temple ritual. The Temple routine of Jesus’ day, for all its practicality and efficiency, could be given a quite unpleasant interpretation. The priests, one might say, dealt with all sacrificers as if they were impure. For according to Biblical tradition, a person who was ritually unclean could not offer his own sacrifice—the priest performed the sacrifice instead (2 Chronicles 30:17). For Jesus, God’s people were a pure (Mark 7:14–23) and should have more involvement with the sacrificial procedure, than the contemporary Temple establishment granted them. Obviously, Jesus failed in his endeavor to introduce a reform in the sacrificial procedure. The so-called “cleansing of the Temple” (Mark 11:15–17; Matthew 21:12–13; Luke 19:45–46) no doubt echoes both the attempt and the failure.

After realizing the impossibility of reforming the sacrificial procedure Jesus came to oppose private sacrifice at the Temple. He thought of it as procedurally deficient and hence ineffective and invalid. However, he did not give up the practice of sacrifice altogether. 047Offering the body and blood of an animal apparently represented for Jesus a sacred bridge between the human and the divine. In its place, he began to practice a new ritual that developed into the Christian eucharist. He simply continued his already established tradition of joyous meals shared with large crowds—with “publicans and sinners,” with his wealthy sponsors and with the narrower circle of his disciples. He introduced into these meals a new ritual that used sacrificial language. Jesus declared a simple gesture performed with bread and wine a new sacrifice. Bread apply would stand for the sacrificial body of the slaughtered animal and wine for the blood thrown at the foot of the altar. The declarative formulas, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” designate the bread and wine as unbloody substitutes for private sacrifice. Not the eating and drinking, but the presenting (expressed in the formula of presentation) constitutes the new sacrifice. Thus Jesus took the core of sacrificial worship away from the Temple to practice it in a new and symbolic way.

Two biblical passages suggest that presentation formulae were recited when sacrifices were offered in ancient times. In Exodus 24:8, Moses, when applying sacrificial blood not to the altar, but to the people present, declares, “Behold this is the blood of the 048covenant that Yahweh has made with you.” Priests may have pronounced a similar formula when throwing blood at the altar and when throwing parts of the animal into the fire burning on the altar.

Deuteronomy 26:5–10 records an entire text that to be recited not by the priest, but by every man who brings the first fruits of his harvest to the altar the Lord. This certainly suggests that the presentation of a sacrifice was not an entirely silent affair.^b

A presentation formula makes even more sense if the sacrifice was no longer performed by the person offering it. The formal presentation would make obvious whose sacrifice was being offered. Thus the 049emphasis would be on the possessive pronoun: “This is my body, my blood,” and it must be spoken by the person owning the animal.

We know that one gesture, placed at the very beginning of the procedure, also served to make explicit who owned the sacrificial animal. Before handing an animal over to the Temple personnel responsible for the immolation, the sacrificer identified his animal by laying his hands on the head of the animal. This gesture is prescribed by law (Leviticus 3:2).

What the actual words of the presentation formula were in Jesus’ time, we cannot know. It is unlikely they used “This is my body, this is my blood,” because laypeople had little to do with the actual sacrificial procedure at that time. If there was any formal presentation of the sacrificial “body” and blood to the deity, the priest in charge would presumably have said: “This is so-and-so’s body” and “This is so-and-so’s blood,”, thus identifying the sponsor of the sacrifice. But these words make eminent sense as a presentation formula for Jesus’ substitute sacrifice. Jewish meals, according to the Talmud, were opened with a blessing over bread and were concluded with a blessing over wine:⁴ If Jesus followed this tradition he presumably added his sacrificial presentation to each blessing as well.

The eucharistic words of Jesus—“This is my body; this is my blood”—should be understood in this sacrificial context. Whenever Christians pronounce the sacred formula. “This is my body; this is my blood” over bread and wine, they not only repeat Jesus’ words, but they also echo an ancient formula used in Jewish sacrificial worship. Today animal sacrifices are no longer offered to God. Yet in Christian worship, these sacred words are still spoken.

For further details, see Bernhard Lang, “The Roots of the Eucharist in Jesus Praxis” in Seminar Papers, Society of Biblical literature, Annual Meeting 1992 (Scholars Press), pp. 467–472.

In the previous article Bruce Chilton presents some convincing ideas regarding the eucharistic words Jesus uttered at the Last Supper: “This is my body [the bread]; this is my blood [the wine]” (with slight variations in Mark 14:22–24; Matthew 26:26–28; Luke 22:19–20; and 1 Corinthians 11:24–25). The traditional interpretation is that Jesus is referring to his own body and his own blood. Instead, Chilton interprets these words in terms of the Temple sacrifice: Jesus has objected to the vulgarization of the traditional Temple sacrifice consisting of the body and blood of an animal. And so Jesus offers a substitute […]