Note 209.2 — Chapter XII · Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.
Reading edition
It is clear, however, that the Babylonian, like the Hellene, desired at times to enter into communion with the departed family-ghost; for in Mesopotamia, as in Hellas, we have clear trace of “parentalia,” communion-meals to which the ancestral spirits were invited to feast with the family. In the Babylonian phrase this was called “breaking bread with” the dead:209.2 the parallel facts in Hellas are familiar to students.