gned to wipe out all memory of previous
estrangement." With this subject I shall deal more specially in chapter
vii below. Meanwhile as instances of early Eucharists we may mention the
following cases, remembering always that as the blood is regarded as the
Life, the drinking or partaking of, or sprinkling with, blood is always
an acknowledgment of the common life; and that the juice of the grape
being regarded as the blood of the Vine, wine in the later ceremonials
quite easily and naturally takes the place of the blood in the early
sacrifices.

(1) Religion of the Semites, p. 302.

Thus P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first
Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his History of India:
"Their Grand Lama celebrates a species of sacrifice with BREAD and WINE,
in which, after taking a small quantity himself, he distributes the
rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony." (1) "The old Egyptians
celebrated the resurrection of Osiris by a sacrament, eating the sacred
cake or wafer after it had been consecrated by the priest, and thereby
becoming veritable flesh of his flesh." (2) As is well known, the eating
of bread or dough sacramentally (sometimes mixed with blood or seed)
as an emblem of community of life with the divinity, is an extremely
ancient practice or ritual. Dr. Frazer (3) says of the Aztecs,
that "twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great god
Huitzilopochtli was made of dough, then broken in pieces and solemnly
eaten by his worshipers." And Lord Kingsborough in his Mexican
Antiquities (vol. vi, p. 220) gives a record of a "most Holy Supper"
in which these people ate the flesh of their god. It was a cake made of
certain seeds, "and having made it, they blessed it in their manner, and
broke it into pieces, which the high priest put into certain very clean
vessels, and took a thorn of maguey which resembles a very thick needle,
with which he took up with the utmost reverence single morsels, which
he put into the mouth of each individual in the manner of a communion."
Acostas (4) confirms this and similar accounts. The Peruvians partook of
a sacrament consisting of a pudding of coarsely ground maize, of which
a portion had been smeared on the idol. The priest sprinkled it with the
blood of the victim before distributing it to the people. Priest and
people then all took their shares in turn, "with great care that no
particle should be allowed to fall to the