Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre

(New York: Image, 2016), 258

Notes


Contents


Foreword by Scott Hahn

  • Love transforms suffering into sacrifice.

Chapter 1: The Mystery of the Last Supper

Summary: Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews, so we need to understand him as such.

  • "If you really want to know who Jesus was and what he was saying and doing, then you need to interpret his words and deeds in their historical context. And that means becoming familiar with not just ancient Christianity but also with ancient Judaism." (8)
  • "Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew...For anyone interested in exploring the humanity of Jesus, a focus on his Jewish identity is absolutely necessary...Virtually all of his teachings were directed to a Jewish audience in a Jewish setting." (11-12)
  • Goal of the book: Explain how a first-century Jew could go from believing that drinking any blood was an abomination, to believing that drinking the blood of Jesus was necessary. (17-18).

Chapter 2: What Were the Jewish People Waiting For

Summary: The Jews were waiting for much more than a military Messiah: they were waiting for the restoration of Israel in a new exodus.
- The Jews were waiting for the Messiah to bring a new exodus, consisting of: (24)
1. The New Moses, whose actions would parallel the actions of the first Moses (cf. "a prophet like me" in Dt-18)
2. The New Covenant: the exodus was a covenant sealed in blood and finalized with a banquet
3. The New Temple
4. The New Promised Land
- Jesus ministry is brimming with signs of the long-awaited new exodus, i.e. "his exodus" in Lk-09

Chapter 3: The New Passover

Summary: If there was going to be a new exodus, there would need to be a new passover as well.

  • Ex-12 is a passover liturgy: (50)
    • Choose an unblemished male lamb
    • Sacrifice the lamb (every man acts as a priest over his own household cf. Ex-12)
    • Spread the blood of the lamb: deliverance from death through the blood of the lamb
    • Eat the flesh of the lamb (the passover sacrifice is not complete until the flesh is eaten)
    • Keep the Passover as a "Day of Remembrance"
  • "Judaism at the time of Jesus was much more like Catholicism (priests, leading worship centered on sacrifice), whereas rabbinic Judaism after the Temple's destruction was much more like Protestantism (Scripture teachers, leading worship without blood sacrifice)." (62-63)
  • The lambs at the temple were crucified (63)
  • "Passover in every generation is a way of sharing in the original act of redemption: they actively participated in it." (65-66)
  • Jesus' passover's parallels to the original passover: in Jerusalem, at night, explaining the meaning of the bread (cf. Ex-12-27), singing of a hymn. (70)
  • Jesus is saying in the Last Supper: "I am the new Passover lamb of the new exodus. This is the Passover of the Messiah, and I am the new sacrifice." (72)
  • "If Jesus saw himself as the new lamb, then it makes sense that he would speak of his blood being poured out and command the disciples to eat his flesh." (74)

Chapter 4: The Manna of the Messiah ★★★

Summary: The Jews believed the manna preexisted the fall, was supernatural, and that the Messiah would bring back the miracle of the manna. An explication of the Bread of Life Discource

  • Manna in the desert was miraculous bread from heaven (81), the panis angelicus or "bread of angels" (83, cf. Wis-16), which was preserved by placing it in the tabernacle, and had a distinctive flavor like honey as a foretaste of the promised land (84, cf. Ex-03).
  • The Jews believed the manna preexisted the fall, was supernatural, and that the Messiah would bring back the miracle of the manna. (86)
  • "In the days of Messiah, the righteous would see miracles every day, because they would eat the manna every day." (91)
  • "Give us this day our supernatural (epiousion) bread." (93-97)
  • "The whole context of Jesus' bread of life discourse is centered on the Jewish hopes for the coming of a new Moses and the return of the manna from heaven" (98). "He used the Jewish hope for new bread from heaven, and identified the Eucharist with the manna of the Messiah" (102).
  • "If Jesus had wanted his Jewish disciples to regard the Eucharist as ordinary food and drink, he would certainly never have identified it as the new manna from heaven." (104)
  • "If we want to know how to interpret Jesus' words in their historical context, we need to look at how he was understood by his first disciples...They took him literally...Jesus would brook no compromise on the mystery of his body and blood. It was a litmus test of discipleship." (104-107)
  • "You really cannot understand Jesus' claims about the Eucharist without first grasping his claims about his divine identity...It is only through the mystery of Jesus' divine identity and divine power that he will be able to give his disciples his body and blood under the form of 'real food' and 'real drink'." (110-111)
  • Jn-06 and Jn-06 must be read together: he is speaking about eating the living flesh of his resurrected body. (111)

Chapter 5: The Bread of the Presence

Summary: The Bread of the Presence was a living, visible sign of God's love for his people, offering them a glimpse of the face of God. At the Last Supper, Jesus institutes the new Bread of his own Presence.

  • The three objects kept in the Holy of Holies are the Ark of the Covenant, the golden Lampstand, and the golden table of the Bread of the Presence.
  • The Bread of the Presence is most literally the Bread of the Face of God. It was first given to Israel immediately after the heavenly banquet that Moses and the elders participated in on Mount Sinai, so it is a memorial of the heavenly banquet. (121-122, cf. Ex-24)
  • The Bread of the Presence is a sign of the everlasting covenant between God and Israel, a perpetual offering to be continually present (Lv-24-4, cf. sanctuary lamp), and it was an unbloody, most holy sacrifice. (123-125)
  • The Bread of the Presence was most sacred, but only after it had been offered as a sacrifice to God in the Holy Place: beforehand it was laid on a marble table, but after it had been consecrated to God by the priest it was laid on the golden table. (128-129)
  • Three times a year, priests would remove the Bread of the Presence from the temple, hold it up for pilgrims, and proclaim Behold, God's love for you! "'Three times a year shall all your males see the face of the Lord, the Lord God of Israel' (Ex-34, Ex-23). In this line, the Hebrew word for the 'face' of God is panim, the same word used for the 'Bread of the Presence' or 'Bread of the Face' (Ex-25). In other words, by showing the pilgrims the Bread of the panim, the priests in the Temple were fulfilling the Law that commanded that they 'see the Face' of the Lord." (130-132)
  • David eats the bread because he is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek (1 Sm-21, Ps-110). Jesus and his disciples eating the grain on the sabbath (Mt-12) shows that:
    • His disciples are priests, since the priests work in the temple without breaking the sabbath. (Lv-24-8)
    • Jesus himself is the true temple (Mt-12)
  • The Last Supper was the institution of the new Bread and wine of the Presence, of Jesus' own presence. (143)

Chapter 6: The Fourth Cup and the Death of Jesus

Summary: Jesus did not finish the Last Supper in the Upper Room, but on the Cross. By means of the Last Supper, Jesus transformed the Cross into a Passover, and by means of the Cross, he transformed the Last supper into a sacrifice.

  • The Jewish Passover meal was organized around four cups of wine:
    • First Cup - cup of sanctification (kiddush): "Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine."
    • Second Cup - cup of proclamation (haggadah): the son asks the father to explain the passover
    • Third Cup - cup of blessing (berekah): beginning of the actual supper, with a blessing like "Blessed are you, Lord God, who bring forth bread from the earth" over the unleavened bread.
    • Fourth Cup - cup of praise (hallel): the Hallel Psalms (Psalms 115-118) are a script for the servant of God who would offer up a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
  • At the last supper, the cub Jesus identified as his blood was the third cup, the cup of blessing (159-160, cf. Lk-22, 1 Cor-11)
  • Jesus referred to the fourth cup, but refused to drink it at the last supper, then in the garden prayed let this cup pass from me, meaning the fourth cup (Mt-26-46).
  • Jesus identified his own body as the sacrifice of the new Passover and his own blood poured out for the forgiveness of sin, identifying himself as the new passover lamb, who will be dead by the end of the Passover. (164)
  • It is the Last Supper which makes Calvary sacrificial. Jesus extended his last Passover meal to include his own suffering and death and united the Last Supper to his death on the cross. By means of the Last Supper, Jesus transformed the Cross into a Passover, and by means of the Cross, he transformed the Last supper into a sacrifice. (168-170)

Chapter 7: The Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith

Summary: The Church reminds us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.

  • Origen: "He who considers that 'Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed' (1 Cor-05) knows that it is his duty to keep the feast by eating the flesh of the Word." (176)
  • "By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning." (CCC 1339)
  • "The Las Supper—and by extension the Christian Eucharist—are nothing less than the new Passover f Christ, the new Passover of the Messiah." (180)
  • The "thanksgiving" (eucharistia) of the feeding the five thousand in Jn-06 pointed toward the miraculous "thanksgiving" (eucharistia) of the Last supper. (183)
  • Augustine: "No one eats that Flesh unless he has first adorded it...and we sin by not adoring." (186)
  • "Taken literally (epi-ousios: 'super-substantial'), it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the 'medicine of immortality' without which we have not life in us." (187, cf. CCC 2837)
  • Ignatius of Antioch: ~The Letters of St Ignatius]
  • "Even when we forget, the Church remembers and it continues to proclaim the good news of the mystery of the Eucharist." (195)

Chapter 8: On the Road to Emmaus

Summary: Recognizing Jesus in the breaking of the bread at Emmaus reveals how Jesus is present to us now in the Eucharist.

  • The Eucharist is a participation in Jesus' bodily resurrection: "From his heavenly throne, he pours himself out upon the altars of the world, giving his crucified and risen body and blood to all." (197)
  • Emmaus: Jesus was made known to them only in the breaking of the bread, point to the way he would be present to them from then on. (201)

Topic: Eucharist

Source: Fr. Dailey

Created: 2022-11-20-Sun
Updated: 2026-08-30-Sun