The Christian Response to the Pagan Claim That They "Ate Actual Flesh" and "Drank Actual Blood"

Note: Last Updated 9/9/2024.

Note: Click here for a list of the abbreviations used in the bibliographical citations.

Outline:

1. The Origin of the Pagan Accusation that Christians “Ate Actual Flesh.”

1.1. The Unanimous Christian Response to the Pagan Claim that they “Ate Actual Flesh.”

2. Endnotes (Alternate Translations and Additional Testimony).

1. The Origin of the Pagan Accusation that Christians “Ate Actual Flesh.” Return to Outline.

Irenæus, Bishop of Lyon [Lugdunum] (c. 130-202 A.D.): 

For when the Greeks, having arrested the slaves of Christian catechumens, then used force against them, in order to learn from them some secret thing [practised] among Christians, these slaves, having nothing to say that would meet the wishes of their tormentors, except that they had heard from their masters that the divine communion was the body and blood of Christ, and imagining that it was actually flesh and blood, gave their inquisitors answer to that effect. 

(Irenæus, Fragments, 13; PG, 7:1236; trans. ANF, 1:570.) See also: ccel.org.

1.1. The Unanimous Christian Response to the Pagan Claim that they “Ate Actual Flesh.” Return to Outline.

Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.): 

For what sensual or intemperate man, or who that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments… For having put some to death on account of the accusations falsely brought against us, they also dragged to the torture our domestics, either children or weak women, and by dreadful torments forced them to admit those fabulous actions which they themselves openly perpetrate; about which we are the less concerned, because none of these actions are really ours… 

(Justin Martyr, The Second Apology, 12; trans. ANF, 1:192.) See also: ccel.org. [1.]

Tatian the Assyrian (c. 120-180 A.D.): 

It is not we who eat human flesh—they among you who assert such a thing have been suborned as false witnesses… 

(Tatian the Assyrian, Address to the Greeks, 25; trans. ANF, 2:76.) See also: ccel.org.

Theophilus, Patriarch of Antioch (c. ?-183/5 A.D.): 

…wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us…alleging…what is most impious and barbarous of all, that we eat human flesh. 

(Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, 3.4; trans. ANF, 2:112.) See also: ccel.org. [2.]

Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133-190 A.D.): 

…for men to partake of the flesh of men is a thing most hateful and abominable, and more detestable than any other unlawful and unnatural food or act…

(Athenagoras of Athens, On the Resurrection of the Dead, 8; trans. ANF, 2:153.) See also: ccel.org. [3.]

Minucius Felix (fl. c. 150-270 A.D.): 

To us it is not lawful either to see or to hear of homicide; and so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food. 

(Minucius Felix, The Octavius, 30; trans. ANF, 4:192.) See also: ccel.org.

2. Endnotes (Alternate Translations and Additional Testimony). Return to Outline.

[1.] Cf. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.):

“Is there any other matter, my friends, in which we are blamed, than this, that we live not after the law, and are not circumcised in the flesh as your forefathers were, and do not observe sabbaths as you do? Are our lives and customs also slandered among you? And I ask this: have you also believed concerning us, that we eat men; and that after the feast, having extinguished the lights, we engage in promiscuous concubinage? Or do you condemn us in this alone, that we adhere to such tenets, and believe in an opinion, untrue, as you think?”

(Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 10; trans. ANF, 1:199.) See also: ccel.org.

Cf. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.):

And whether they perpetrate those fabulous and shameful deeds—the upsetting of the lamp, and promiscuous intercourse, and eating human flesh—we know not; but we do know that they are neither persecuted nor put to death by you, at least on account of their opinions. 

(Justin Martyr, The First Apology, 26; trans. ANF, 1:172.) See also: ccel.org. Return to Article.

[2.] Cf. Theophilus, Patriarch of Antioch (c. ?-183/5 A.D.): 

Consider, therefore, whether those who teach such things can possibly live indifferently, and be commingled in unlawful intercourse, or, most impious of all, eat human flesh, especially when we are forbidden so much as to witness shows of gladiators, lest we become partakers and abettors of murders. 

(Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, 3.15; trans. ANF, 2:115.) See also: ccel.org. Return to Article.

[3.] Cf. Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133-190 A.D.): 

Three things are alleged against us: atheism, Thyestean feasts, Œdipodean intercourse. But if these charges are true, spare no class: proceed at once against our crimes; destroy us root and branch, with our wives and children, if any Christian is found to live like the brutes. And yet even the brutes do not touch the flesh of their own kind… 

(Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians, 3; trans. ANF, 2:130.) See also: ccel.org.

Cf. Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133-190 A.D.):

For we cannot eat human flesh till we have killed some one. The former charge, therefore, being false, if any one should ask them in regard to the second, whether they have seen what they assert, not one of them would be so barefaced as to say that he had. …For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or cannibalism?

(Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians, 35; trans. ANF, 2:147.) See also: ccel.org.

Cf. Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133-190 A.D.):

But they have further also made up stories against us of impious feasts and forbidden intercourse between the sexes, both that they may appear to themselves to have rational grounds of hatred, and because they think either by fear to lead us away from our way of life, or to render the rulers harsh and inexorable by the magnitude of the charges they bring.

(Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians, 31; trans. ANF, 2:145.) See also: ccel.org.

Cf. B. P. Pratten:

“Thyestian feasts” (p. 130, supra); a charge which the Christian Fathers perpetually repel. Of course the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper lent colour to this charge; but it could not have been repelled, had they believed the material body and blood of the “man Christ Jesus,” present in this sacrament. See cap. iii., note.

(B. P. Pratten, ANF, 2:145, fn. 5.) See also: ccel.org. Return to Article.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria