Bread and wine

In his last supper with his disciples, Jesus took bread and offered it to his disciples as his body and gave them wine from a cup as his blood. The Apostle Paul calls this a proclamation of the Lord's death (1 Cor. 11:26) and taught that when Christians partake of this it is a "communion" in the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16-17). Little is certainly known of how the earliest Christians enacted this observance, although patterns seem to have varied widely. There is, for example, no indication in the New Testament that the administration of this meal was associated with any fixed offices. The concept of sacrifice was early associated with this rite. Irenaeus speaks of Christians offering bread and wine, but does not speak of an offering of Christ to the Father. Cyprian in the third century thinks of this rite as including an offering of the body and blood of Christ as sacrificial gifts to the Father. Christians also early regarded this rite as primarily a eucharist, a giving of thanks. This is evident, for example, in the Didache. In the earliest centuries some teachers, including Clement of Alexandria and Origen, were inclined toward a symbolic view of Christ's presence in the elements of bread and wine. Others, including Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr, thought of Christ's presence in more physical terms. As early as the time of Tertullian in the third century, Christians referred to this rite as a "sacrament."