Note 2 — Chapter XV · The Pauline Dehumanization of Jesus.

The Eucharist itself was probably Paul’s own adaptation of a Mithraic rite to Christian purposes. There is no reason to suppose that there was anything sanctimonious in the wine supper which Jesus took with his friends at the time of the Passover, and Paul’s testimony concerning the way it had been observed is against any over with you?”2 Had it been other than a pleasant Epiphanius from the Gospel according to the Hebrews show that he desired to draw his friends away from the sacrificial feature of the festival: “Where wilt thou that we prepare for the passover to eat?” ... “Have I desired with desire to eat this flesh, the passover with you?”3 Had it been other than a pleasant wine supper it could not in so short a time have become the jovial festival which Paul describes (1 Cor. xi. 20), nor, in order to reform it, would he have needed the pretence that he had received from Christ the special revelation of details of the Supper which he gives, and which the Gospels have followed. Having substituted a human for an animal sacrifice (“our passover also hath been sacrificed, Christ,” 1 Cor. v. 7), he restores precisely that sacrificial feature to which Jesus had objected; and in harmony with this goes on to show that human lives have been sacrificed to the majestic real presence (1 Cor. xi. 30). He had learned, perhaps by “pagan” experiences, what power such a sacrament might put into the priestly hand.4