Origin of the Eucharist and the possible intervention of other factors. One key consideration in this is the problem of the Jewish prohibition of drinking blood (see below). Professor Robert J. Daly, S.J., argues that Jesus did indeed institute the Eucharist, though it took generations and centuries of guidance from the Holy Spirit for the Eucharist to reach its current form. "What Jesus did at the Last Supper is obviously at least the generative moment of the institution of the Eucharist." But it was not the Eucharist as we know it. "The Eucharist that Christians now celebrate is what the Church, under the guidance
Origin of the Eucharist and beliefs regarding the Eucharist took definitive shape as central to Christian worship. At first, they spread through word of mouth, but within a generation Christians had begun writing about Jesus and about Christian practice, the Eucharist included. The theology of the Eucharist and its role as a sacrament developed during this period. Basing himself on the "First Apology" and the "Dialogue with Trypho" of Justin Martyr writing around 150 AD, K.W. Noakes deduces the following liturgical structure was in use at that time: This corresponds in general outline to the structure of the rite as used today and is