ABSTRACT
The central mystery of the Catholic Church, as it was most fully elaborated in the High Middle Ages, was that its god was born to be eaten. Christ was himself both bread and meat. In the Gospel of John, Christ says:
I am the living bread, that came downe from heaven. If any man eate of this bread, he shal live for ever: and the bread which I wil give, is my flesh for the life of the world … Unles you eate the flesh of the Sonne of man, and drinke his bloud, you shal not haue life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my bloud, hath life everlasting: and I wil raise him up in the last day. For my flesh, is meate in deede: and my bloud is drinke in deede. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my bloud, abideth in me, and I in him. 2
