Like Baptism, the sacrament of the "Supper," the partaking of the
sacred host and wine (in place of which among certain sects water is
also found), has its precedent in the most ancient fire-worship. When
the sacred fire had been kindled upon the altar, the faithful were
accustomed, as the Rigveda shows, to sit down in order to partake of
the sacred cake prepared from meal and butter, the symbol of all solid
food, and of the Soma cup, the symbol of all liquid nourishment. It
was thought that Agni dwelt invisible within these substances: in
the meal as though in the concentrated heat of the sun, in the Soma,
since the drink in its fiery nature and invigorating power disclosed
the nature of the God of Fire and Life. Participation therein opened to
the faithful communion with Agni. Thereby they were incorporated with
the God. They felt themselves transformed into him, raised above the
actuality of every day, and as members of a common body, as though of
one heart and one soul, inflamed by the same feeling of interdependence
and brotherhood. Then some such hymn as follows would mount towards
heaven from their breasts overflowing with thankfulness:--
"Oh great Agni, true-minded
Thou dost indeed unite all.
Enkindled on the place of worship
Bring us all that is good.
Unitedly come, unitedly speak,
And let your hearts be one,
Just as the old Gods
For their part are of one mind.
Like are their designs, like their assembly,
Like their disposition, united their thoughts.
So pray I also to you with like prayer,
And sacrifice unto you with like sacrifice.
The like design you have indeed,
And your hearts are united.
Let your thoughts be in unison,
That you may be happily joined together." [223]
While the faithful by partaking of the sacred cake and the fiery
Soma cup united themselves with the God and were filled with his
"spirit," the sacrificial gifts which had been brought to him burnt
upon the altars. These consisted likewise of Soma and Sacred Cake,
and caused the sacred banquet to be of such a kind that it was
partaken of by Agni and men together. The God was at and present
in the banquet dedicated to him. He consumed the gifts, transformed
them into flame, and in sweet-smelling smoke bore them with him up
to heaven. Here they were partaken of by the other divine beings and
finally by the Father of Heaven himself. Thus Agni became not merely
an agent at the sacrifice, a mystic sacrificial priest, but, since the
sacrificial gifts simply contained him in material form, a sacrificer,
who offered his own body in sacrifice. [224] While man sacrificed God,
God at the same time sacrificed himself. Indeed, this sacrifice was
one in which God was not only the subject but also the object, both
sacrificer and sacrificed. "It was a common mode of thinking among the
Indians," says Max Müller, "to look upon the fire on the altar as at
the same time subject and object of the sacrifice. The fire burnt the
offering and was accordingly the priest as it were. The fire bore the
offering to the Gods and was accordingly a mediator between God and
men. But the fire also represented something divine. It was a God,
and if honour was paid to this God, the fire was at once subject and
object of the sacrifice. Out of this arose the first idea, that Agni
sacrificed to himself, that is, that he brought his own offering to
himself, then, that he brought himself as a victim--out of which the
later legends grew." [225] The sacrifice of the God is a sacrificing of
the God. The genitive in this sentence is in one case to be understood
in an objective, in the other in a subjective sense. In other words,
the sacrifice which man offers to the God is a sacrifice which the
God brings, and this sacrifice of the God is at the same time one in
which the God offers himself as victim.
In the Rigveda Agni, as God of Priests and Sacrifices, also bears
the name of Viçvakarman, i.e., "Consummator of All." Hymn x., 81 also
describes him as the creator of the world, who called the world into
existence, and in so doing gave his own body in sacrifice. Hence,
then, the world, according to x. 82, represents nothing existing
exterior to him, but the very manifestation of Viçvakarman, in which
at the creation he as it were appeared. On the other hand, Purusha,
the first man, is represented as he out of whose body the world was
formed. [226] But Purusha is, as we have seen, the prototype of the
Mandaic and apocalyptic "son of man." Herein lies the confirmation
of the fact that the "son of man" is none other than Agni, the most
human of the Vedic Gods. In the Mazda religion the first mortals were
called Meshia and Meshiane, the ancestors of fallen mankind, who expect
their redemption at the hands of another Meshia. This meaning of the
word Messiah was not strange to the Jews too, when they placed the
latter as the "new Adam" in the middle of the ages. Adam, however,
also means man. [227] The Messiah accordingly, as the new Adam,
was for them too only a renewal of the first man in a loftier and
better form. This idea, that mankind needed to be renewed by another
typical representative of itself, goes back in the last resort to
India, where, after the dismemberment of Purusha, a man arose in
the person of Manu or Manus. He was to be the just king, the first
lawgiver and establisher of civilisation, descending after his death
to rule as judge in the under-world (cf. the Cretan Minos). But Manu,
whose name again meant no more than man or human being (Manusha),
passed as son of Agni. Indeed, he was even completely identified
with him, since life, spirit, and fire to the mind of primitive man
are interchangeable ideas, although it is spirit and intelligence
which are expressed under the name of Manu (Man = to measure, to
examine). [228] We thus also obtain a new reason for the fact that the
divine Redeemer is a human being. We also understand not only why the
"first-born son of God" was, according to the ideas of the whole of
Nearer Asiatic syncretism, the principle of the creation of the world,
but also why the redemption which he brought man could be for this
reason looked upon as a divine self-sacrifice. [229]
The sacrifice of the God on the part of mankind is a sacrifice of the
God himself--it is only by this means that the community between God
and man was completed. The God offers sacrifice for man, while man
offers sacrifice for God. Indeed, more than this, he offers himself
for mankind, he gives his own body that man may reap the fruit of
his sacrifice. The divine "son" offers himself as a victim. Sent
down by the "father" upon the earth in the form of light and warmth,
he enters men as the "quickening and life-giving spirit" under the
appearance of bread and wine. He consumes himself in the fire and
unites man with the father above, in that by his disposal of his
own personality he removes the separation and difference between
them. Thus Agni extinguishes the hostility between God and man, thus
he consumes their sins in the glow of his fiery nature, spiritualising
and illuminating them inwardly. Through the invigorating power of
the "fire-water" he raises men above the actuality of every day
to the source of their existence and by his own sacrifice obtains
for them a life of blessedness in heaven. In the sacrifice, too,
God and man are identified. Therein God descends to man and man is
raised to God. That is the common thought which had already found
expression in the Rigveda, which later formed the special "mystery"
of the secret cults and religious unions of Nearer Asia, which lay
at the root of the sacrament of "the Supper," which guaranteed to man
the certainty of a blessed life in the beyond, and reconciled him to
the thought of bodily death. [230] Agni is accordingly nothing else
than the bodily warmth in individuals, and as such the subject of
their motions and thoughts, the principle of life, their soul. When
the body grows cold in death the warmth of life leaves it, the eyes
of the dead go up to the sun, his breath into the wind; his soul,
however, ascends towards heaven where the "fathers" dwell, into the
kingdom of everlasting light and life. [231] Indeed, so great is the
power of Agni, the divine physician and saviour of the soul, [232]
that he, as the God of all creative power, can, by merely laying on
his hands, even call the dead back to life. [233]
Even in the Old Testament we meet with the idea of a sacramental
meal. This is pointed to in Genesis xiv. 18 sqq., when Melchisedek,
the prince of peace ("King of Salem"), the priest of "God Most
High," prepares for Abraham a meal of bread and wine, and at it
imparts to him the blessing of the Lord God. For Melchisedek, the
ruler of Salem, the city of peace, "the King of Justice," as he is
called in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is even in this book plainly
described as an ancient God: "without father, without mother, without
genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made
like unto the Son of God, he abideth a priest continually." [234]
So also the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of holy feasts, consisting of
cake and wine, of nightly sacrifices of burnt-offerings and liquids,
which were offered to the Queen of Heaven (i.e., the Moon) and other
Divinities. [235] Isaiah, too, is indignant against those who prepare
a drinking-feast for God and make liquid offerings to Meni. [236]
Now Meni is none other than Men, the Moon-God of Asia Minor, and
as such is identical with Selene-Mene, the Goddess of the Moon in
the Orphic hymns. Like her he is a being of a dual sex, at once
Queen and King of Heaven. Consequently a liquid sacrifice appears
to have been offered by all the people of Nearer Asia in honour of
the Moon. As Moon-God (Deus Lunus) and as related to Meni, in whose
worship a sacramental meal also plays the chief part, Agni appears in
the Vedas under the name of Manu, Manus, or Soma. He too is a being
of dual sex. Of this we are again reminded when Philo, the Rabbinic
speculation of the Kabbala, as well as the Gnostics ascribe to the
first man (Adam Kadmon) two faces and the form of a man and woman,
until God separated the two sexes from one another. [237] According
to this we should probably look upon the fire-worship in Asia Minor
also as the foundation of the sacramental meal.
Obviously we have to do with a meal of this kind in the bringing in
of the so-called shew-bread. Every Sabbath twelve cakes were laid by
the priests "upon the pure table before the Lord," "and it shall be
for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, for
it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord, by a perpetual
statute." [238]
It appears, then, that this meal, presided over by the High Priest as
representative of Aaron, was partaken of by twelve other priests, and
Robertson rightly sees herein the Jewish prototype of the Christian
Supper and of the number of apostles--the Twelve--present at it. But
the High Priest Aaron is a personification of the Jewish Ark of the
Covenant, that is, of the visible expression of the Covenant between
God and man, one of the chief prototypes of the Messiah. And if the
self-offering of the Messiah, as we have seen above (p. 78), has its
precedent in the self-offering of Aaron, so also the great solemnity
of the Aaronic sacrificial meal would not be wanting in the story of
the Christian Redeemer.
As is well known, Joshua too, the Jesus of the Old Testament, whom we
have learnt to recognise as an ancient Ephraimitic God of the Sun and
Fruitfulness, was accompanied in his passage of the Jordan by twelve
assistants, one from each tribe. And he is said after circumcising the
people to have celebrated the Paschal Feast on the other bank. [239]
Hence, taking into account what has been said above concerning Joshua,
we are probably justified in drawing the conclusion that his name was
permanently connected with the partaking of the Easter lamb. [240]
In any case the so-called "Supper" of Christianity did not only later
take its place as the central point of religious activity, but from
the beginning it held this central position in the cults of those
sects out of which Christianity was developed. It was the point of
crystallisation, the highest point, of the other ritualistic acts,
in a way the germ cell out of which in association with the idea
of the death and resurrection of the God Redeemer the Christian
outlook upon the world has grown. Just as in the Vedic Agni Cult the
sacrifice offered by men to their God was a self-sacrifice of this
God as well in a subjective as in an objective sense; just as the
participating in common of the sacrificial gifts served the purpose
of rendering the sacrifice in an inward sense their very own, and
thereby making them immediate participators in its efficacy, so, too,
the Christian partakes in the bread of the body of his God and in the
wine drinks his blood in order to become as it were himself God. The
Evangelists make the Supper coincide with the Feast of the Pasch,
because originally a man was immolated on this occasion; and he,
as the first-born and most valuable of sacrificial gifts, took the
place of the God who offered himself in sacrifice. [241]
The celebration of sacramental feasts was very widespread throughout
the whole of antiquity. They were among the most important acts
of worship in the Mystic religions, above all in connection with
the idea of the Saviour (Soter) and God of Sacrifices, who gave his
life for the world. Thus Mithras, the Persian Agni, is said to have
celebrated in a last meal with Helios and the other companions of
his toils the end of their common struggle. Those initiated into
the Mysteries of Mithras also celebrated this occurrence by common
feasts in which they strove to unite themselves in a mystic manner
with the God. Saos (Saon or Samon), the son of Zeus or Hermes,
the God of Healing, and a nymph, reminds us of the name of Mithras,
rejuvenated and risen again, of Saoshyant or Sosiosh. He is said to
have founded the Mysteries in Samothrace, and appears to be identical
with the mythical Sabus, who is supposed to have given his name to the
Sabines, to have founded Italian civilization, and to have invented
wine. [242] His name characterises him as the "sacrificer" (Scr.,
Savana, sacrifice); and he appears to be a Western form of Agni,
the God of Sacrifices and preparer of the Soma, since Dionysus also
bore the surname of Saos or Saotes and, as distributor of the wine, is
supposed to have shed his blood for the salvation of the world, to have
died and to have risen again, and thus has a prototype in the Vedic
Agni. With Saos are connected Iasios (Jasion), the son and beloved of
Demeter or Aphrodite (Maia), and of Zeus or the divine "artificer"
Hephaistos (Tvashtar). Just as Saos established the worship of the
Cabiri, Iasios is said to have established the worship of Demeter in
Samothrace. In this connection he is identified with Hermes-Cadmus,
the divine sacrificial priest (Kadmilos, i.e., Servant of God) of
the Samothracian religion (cf. Adam-Kadmon of the Kabbala and the
Gnostics, who is connected both with Agni-Manu and Jesus). According
to Usener his name is connected with the Greek "iasthein," to cure,
and consequently characterises its bearer as "saviour." But this is
also the real meaning of the name Jason, whose bearer, a form of the
patron of physicians, Asclepios (Helios), wanders about as a physician,
exorciser of demons and founder of holy rites, and was venerated as
God of Healing in the whole of Nearer Asia and Greece. [243] The myth
also connects him with the establishment of the worship of the twelve
Gods. [244]
Now, Iasios (Jason) is only a Greek form of the name Joshua
(Jesus). Just as Joshua crossed the Jordan with twelve assistants and
celebrated the Pasch (lamb) on the further bank, just as Jesus in
his capacity of divine physician and wonder-worker wanders through
Galilee (the district of Galil!) with twelve disciples, and goes to
Jerusalem at the Pasch in order to eat the Easter lamb there with
the Twelve, so does Jason set out with twelve companions in order to
fetch the golden fleece of the lamb from Colchis. [245] And just as
Jason, after overcoming innumerable dangers, successfully leads his
companions to their goal and back again to the homes they so longed
for, so does Joshua lead the people of Israel into the promised land
"where milk and honey flow," and so Jesus shows his followers the
way to their true home, the kingdom of heaven, the land of their
"fathers," whence the soul originally came and whither after the
completion of its journey through life it returns. It can scarcely
be doubted that in all of these cases we have to do with one and the
same myth--the myth of the Saving Sun and Rejoicer of the peoples,
as it was spread among all the peoples of antiquity, but especially
in Nearer Asia. We can scarcely doubt that the stories in question
originally referred to the annual journey of the sun through the
twelve signs of the Zodiac. Even the names (Iasios, Jason, Joshua,
Jesus; cf. also Vishnu Jesudu, see above) agree, and their common
root is contained also in the name Jao (Jahwe), from which Joshua is
derived. Jao or Jehu, however, was a mystical name of Dionysus among
the Greeks, and he, like Vishnu Jesudu (Krishna), Joshua, and Jesus,
roamed about in his capacity of travelling physician and redeemer
of the world. [246] Of all of these wandering Healers, Physicians,
and Deliverers it is true that they were honoured in the Mysteries
by sacramental meals and offered the faithful both the chalice of
corporal and spiritual healing and the "bread of life."