Europe's inner demons

Once more Tertullian offers valuable glimpses into the mentalities of Christians and pagans alike. He notes that many priests were careful that no crumb of the bread or drop of the wine should fall to the ground, lest the body of Christ should thereby be exposed to harassment.⁽²⁷⁾ Such crude interpretations of the Eucharist were bound to reinforce the rumours of cannibalism; and Tertullian recognizes that they did so. In warning against mixed marriages he asks, “What (pagan husband) will without suspicion let (his Christian wife) go to the Lord’s supper, which people speak so badly of?” And if the wife takes the Eucharist in her own home, “will the husband not want to know what you are enjoying, secretly, above all other food? And when he learns that it is bread, will he not think that it is the kind of bread which is the subject of rumour?”⁽²⁸⁾ Indeed, to many pagans the Eucharist must have seemed not merely cannibalism but, quite specifically, a “Thyestean feast”. Christian missionaries must often have used the version of Jesus’ words given in the Gospel of John: “Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.”⁽²⁹⁾ In Greek, the mysterious phrase “Son of man” could easily be understood as “child”. It is significant that in Minucius Felix the child-victim is coated in dough, i.e. is disguised as bread.

But what of the accusation of promiscuous and incestuous orgies? The usual explanation is that the pagans confused the main body of Christians with certain Gnostics who really did indulge in such practices. Yet when one examines the evidence in detail, it tends to disintegrate. The earliest source, Justin Martyr, merely says that he does not know whether various Gnostic sects indulged in the nocturnal orgies of which Christians were accused.⁽³⁰⁾ Irenaeus, writing after the persecution at Lyons had already taken place, merely says of one particular Gnostic sect — the Carpocratians — that, being indifferent to good and evil, they were promiscuous, and thereby brought discredit upon the Christians, with whom they were confused.^{(31) ***} Clement of Alexandria, writing around 200, is the first to attribute to these Carpocratians erotic orgies such as had long been attributed to the Christians;⁽³²⁾ while Eusebius, writing more than two centuries later, does little more than repeat these earlier sources. But whatever this obscure Gnostic sect may or may not have believed or practised, it can hardly account for the constant and widespread accusations against the main body of Christians.^†

It would seem that here too we are dealing with a real Christian custom, misinterpreted under the influence of a traditional stereotype. The custom was the Agape, or love-feast.⁽³³⁾ In the first two centuries of Christianity it was customary for a private person to invite baptized Christians to his house for a communal meal. The meal was an affirmation of Christian fellowship: the poor were invited, charity was dispensed. It was also a religious rite; and at least down to the middle of the second century it commonly included a celebration of the Eucharist. The imaginary orgy described by Minucius Felix is like a caricature of a real Agape, which has been summarized as follows: “Towards evening the ceremony begins. On the arrival of the bishop, the deacon brings the lamp and lights it. . The common meal follows, at the conclusion of which every one rises from his seat. The youthful participants of both sexes recite prayers and psalms as a preparation for the climax of the ceremony”—which is the Eucharist.⁽³⁴⁾

It is true that the Agape sometimes became an occasion for excessive feasting and drinking, inspired by joyous expectation of the Second Coming of Christ. But in imagining and portraying it as an unbridled erotic orgy the pagan Romans were fitting it into a pre-existent stereotype — in this case the stereotype of the Bacchanalia. The “affair of the Bacchanalia” occurred in 186 B.C. and is described in details in Livy’s history.⁽³⁵⁾ Originally, we are told, the Bacchanalia were celebrated by a small association of women, in broad daylight. But imported from Greece to Etruria and thence to Rome, the cult grew and changed until it involved large-scale nocturnal orgies. According to Livy,