Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Lecture 10: Early Christianity—Food Rituals and Asceticism

propose breaking away completely and forming an entirely new

religion. He never claimed to be divine, either. He was called “son

of man,” which is basically another name for “messiah.” Explaining

that he was the son of God was the work of his disciples. He was a

Jewish reformer, preaching to Jews. Only later, with Paul, was the

religion even opened up for gentiles to join.

Dietary Changes after Jesus

 Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem with his 12 disciples and causes

a row in the temple by chasing out the moneylenders. He gets in

all sorts of trouble, and he happens to be there during a holy week.

The head priest Caiaphas

doesn’t want any trouble with

the authorities, so he bribes

one of Jesus’s followers,

Judas Iscariot, to point out

which one is Jesus so they can

arrest him.

 That night, the whole crew is

celebrating Passover. Jesus

stops in the middle of the

Seder and says to his disciples

that the bread they are eating

could be his body, and the

wine could be his blood, so

when he is gone, remember

him when they eat and drink.

This event turns out to be the

central ritual or sacrament of

the new religion—the communion, or Eucharist (the Greek word

for it). In all the early churches, they began to perform this ritual

of eating and drinking, but it wasn’t entirely clear yet what was

happening during it.

 Meanwhile, the disciples are all drunk, lying around in a garden.

Judas betrays Jesus, and Jesus won’t answer the high priest’s

Judas, one of Jesus’s disciples,

betrayed Jesus.

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