Bread | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

BREAD. We learn from the Epic of Gilgamesh that bread was offered to the gods over five thousand years ago. Since that time, wherever grain has been cultivated, bread has held a place of honor in rituals. Bread is the staff of life and often, as in the Lord's Prayer, stands for food in general.

Raised bread was invented by the Egyptians, who made it the basis of their administrative system. Although the Israelites used bread in many of their religious rites and the Greeks honored a bread goddess, it was Jesus who exalted bread to the highest religious value when he said, "This is my body."

In early agricultural societies, the first fruits of the harvest were offered to the gods (cf. Lv. 23:15–22). For the harvest feast, Shavuʿot, the Feast of Weeks, the Israelites were instructed to bring two loaves of bread made of wheaten flour as an oblation to Yahveh. Because the festival occurred fifty days (seven weeks) after Passover, it came to be known by the Greek name Pentecost and commemorated the giving of the Law at Sinai.

Ḥag ha-Matsot, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was one of the three great agricultural festivals celebrated by the Israelites after they settled in Canaan. Originally a rite of thanksgiving at the beginning of the grain harvest, it was later linked to the nomadic pastoral feast of Passover as a historical commemoration of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. For seven days, only unleavened bread was eaten, as a sign of a new beginning (cf. 1 Cor. 5:6–8).

Somewhat similar to first fruits was the "bread of the presence" (shewbread), which the Israelites laid out before the Holy of Holies in the Temple (Lv. 24:5–9). Twelve cakes of pure wheaten flour, representing the twelve tribes of Israel and their unending covenant with Yahveh, were placed on a table in two lines. Each Sabbath they were replaced and then eaten by the priests. Because incense was burned while the loaves were being replaced, scholars have viewed the bread as either a sacrificial or a thanks offering.

From the seventh century BCE, the Greeks celebrated the mysteries of Demeter, the bread goddess of Eleusis, whose cult was the established religion of Athens. Demeter was also the intercessor in the realm of the dead. Her two roles were complementary, for grain must die in the earth before it regenerates. Little else is known about the Eleusinian mysteries because adherents took a vow of secrecy.

Bread was among the food offerings that the ancient Egyptians provided for their deceased. An incantation in the Book of Going Forth by Day was to be recited if an enemy challenged the deceased's right to bread. In the Book of Tobit (4:18), Tobias is told to "be generous with bread and wine on the graves of virtuous men."

The ritual use of bread may have originated as an offering of nourishment to the deity. But since the God of the Israelites refused all nourishment (Jgs. 13:16), the loaves became a symbol of communion between Yahveh and his people. In cultures where bread was the staple of life, it was natural that communion be symbolized by the sharing of bread, since eating together has always been a sign of fellowship.

Bread was elevated to a symbol of supreme importance when Jesus spoke of himself as the "bread of life" that would give eternal life to those who believed in him, quite unlike the manna that the followers of Moses fed upon in the desert (Jn. 6). In New Testament accounts of sharing bread at a meal, a recurrent series of words (took, gave thanks or blessed, broke, and gave) describes the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper when he instituted the Eucharist. By the ritual act of breaking bread (Acts 2:42, 20:7) and eating it, Christians would become one with Christ and his Father in heaven.

The bread that becomes the body of Christ has an interesting parallel among the Aztec, who made a doughlike paste from the crushed seeds of the prickly poppy and molded it into a figure of the god Huitzilopochtli. The ritual involved "god-eating": the bread body was broken into pieces and eaten.

Bread presented by the faithful for the Eucharist but not used for that purpose was called the eulogia. The bishop blessed it and had it distributed to catechumens and to absent members of the community. By the fourth century, Christians were sending the eulogia to one another as a symbol of their union. Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) pointed to another sign of the special unity that bound early Christians together when he spoke of the bread of exorcism that should be given to catechumens in place of eucharistic bread.

Bread as a symbol has also had negative aspects. The good wife does not eat the "bread of idleness" (Prv. 31:27). The ungodly "eat the bread of wickedness" (Prv. 4:17). The "bread of deceit" has a sweet taste but leaves the mouth full of gravel (Prv. 20:17). Yahveh, when angry with his people, sends the "bread of adversity" (Is. 30:20) or the "bread of tears" (Ps. 80:5). These expressions evolved from a recollection of God's curse on Adam, who was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow (Gn. 3:19).

Leaven.

Borgen, Peder. Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo. Leiden, 1965. A careful study of John's sixth chapter in relation to Jewish concepts about the "bread from heaven."

Jacob, Heinrich E. Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History. Garden City, N.Y., 1944. A popular history that should be used with caution.

Broshi, Magen. Bread, Wine, Walls, and Scrolls. New York, 2001.

Douglas, Mary. "The Eucharist: Its Continuity with the Bread Sacrifice of Leviticus." Modern Theology (April 15, 1999): 209–224.

Kelly, Tony. The Bread of God: Nurturing a Eucharistic Imagination. Linguori, Mo., 2001.

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