Eucharist
The Eucharist is a sacrament (for the Catholic church, not for Protestants) whereby the bread and wine, during Holy Mass, are truly transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We have this episode from four sources-Paul 1 Corinthians 11:23, Mark 14:22, Lk. 22:17, Mt. 26:26. The first to mention it is, surprisingly, Paul, who hardly ever talks about the life of Jesus. His words already have a liturgical intonation, a symptom of the early church's elaboration of the formula, even though Paul claims to have received them directly from the Lord. The synoptic evangelists substantially echo Paul's words.
The rite of the Eucharist is a cast of two well-known OT quotations, the episode of Melchizedek - who offers bread and wine and then blesses Abraham who returns after his victorious military campaign to free his nephew Lot in the war of 4 kings against 5 kings - and a saying from Proverbs 9:4-5: “To those who are bereft of sense he says, 5 ”Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have prepared!”
There was also an identical ritual in the Qumran community (who may have been the Essenes), as recorded in the community's Rule dating from the second century B.C.E. (VI:4-6).
Jesus' invitation to eat his body and drink his blood is problematic in the light of the well-known Old Testament prohibition: impure was blood, human and animal, that was lost for any reason: thus were impure, for a certain number of days, women who had given birth and women during their periods; slaughtered animals had to be completely bled, etc. Blood could not be eaten: it in fact represented life, being alive. Jewish life was characterized by the horror of idolatry, blood and pork.
It is not very credible that Jesus actually said what the Gospels attribute to him: it is more likely that the Hellenistic drafters of the Gospels interpreted the recollections and oral tradition of the supper based on testamentary precedents and perhaps on the Qumran ritual.
