I thought this was a pretty interesting post on the historical dimension of the Real Presence doctrine. Beyond the evidence of the doctrine in the writings of the earliest Church Fathers, in my view the best evidence that the doctrine existed from the beginning comes from the charges of cannibalism and child sacrifice that were levelled at the early church. Those Christians had the same reason for abjuring ritualistic cannibalism which exists today; cannibalism is repellent. There must have been an extremely compelling reason for the early Christians to have adopted a practice that had no textual or sociological basis in their culture, a practice which was as routinely condemned in the Roman world as it is today. Moreover, if the early Christians had taken the same desanguinated, symbolicy and occasional approach to Communion that one sees in most Protestant churches, it hardly seems likely that the abominations, which Tacitus referred to as the reason for Roman popular hatred of Christians, wouldn't have had the same traction. And, Pliny probably wouldn't have to report to Trajan that when Christians reassembled to partake of food, the food was "of an ordinary and innocent kind."

Today, our society generally accepts without thinking what is happening - or being remembered - in the tradition or rite of Communion. [Incidentally, the best literary evidence of that fact is found in Stranger in a Strange Land, where after Duke expresses disguest with Valentine Michael Smith's acceptance of Martian cannibalism, Jubal Harshaw ironically inquires whether Duke was a practicing Christian or just attended services.]

Even today, when people think about what is actually occuring in Communion, they can become disturbed. I had a post on an Episcopalian Bishop who argued against the bloody understanding that pervades traditional teachings on the Eucharist. Let's face it, cannibalism has never been a major selling point for the Christian faith. I suspect some portion of the rationalism of symbolic approach to the Eucharist stems from the understandable repulsion against cannibalism. But if that feeling exists today, what was it like when that repulsion could literally get one thrown to the wolves. So, modern biblical scholarship notwithstanding, the early Christians must have thought they had a pretty good reason to face that danger.