The Eucharist

This food is called among us the Eucharist. No one is permitted to share in it except a person who believes that the things we teach are true, who has been washed with the washing for the forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives in the way Christ handed down.

For we do not receive these as common bread or common drink. Rather, just as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh through the Logos of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food over which thanksgiving has been offered through a prayer of the word that comes from him—and from which our blood and flesh are nourished through bodily change—is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.

For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, handed down that Jesus commanded them in this way: he took bread, gave thanks, and said, “Do this in remembrance of me; this is my body.” Likewise he took the cup, gave thanks, and said, “This is my blood,” and gave it to them alone.

The evil demons, in imitation, handed down that the same thing should be done in the mysteries of Mithras. For you either know or can learn that bread and a cup of water are placed in the rites of the person being initiated, together with certain formulas.