This is part of a series on Roman Catholicism and the eucharist. See this index.

The 40-part series on the eucharist focused primarily on the liturgy itself. But there is some question as to whether or not the Eucharist involves leavened or unleavened bread. The Orthodox assert that it is leavened, while the Protestants, Anabaptists, and Roman Catholics typically use unleavened bread. We’re going to look into this.

Speaking of unleavened bread, this is especially relevant to another topic we have discussed: “Gunner Q and the Mark of the Beast” (part 1; part 2) which identifies the mark and image of the beast of Revelation. There we noted that the idolatrous mark received on the forehead or hand can only be identified in scripture as received by the worship of the unleavened bread of Passover.^[1] The other two options—the redemption of the firstborn^[2] and the teaching God’s word to our children^[3]—do not fit the signs.

The fact that Roman Catholic’s Eucharist (as opposed to the Orthodox’s) uses unleavened bread of its Eucharist (Mass Sacrifice) is what identifies it and no other as the image of the beast .

Since these two topics—the Image of the Beast and The Eucharist—intersect in the nature of the bread itself, it is important to discuss. In particular, if the Beast of Revelation is Papal Roman Catholicism—which arose in the late fourth century—how can it be that unleavened bread was not practiced until later centuries?

Eastern Orthodox convert Craig Truglia has a three part series on “Is the Eucharist Made of Leavened Bread According to the Bible?” In Part 1, he lays out the claim that leavened bread was used almost exclusively in the eucharist until at least the sixth century. Others suggest the 9th century as the true beginning of unleavened bread in the Western Roman rite, just prior to the East/West split in 1054. In Part 2, he analyzes the grammatical evidence of the Hebrew and Greek that the words for “bread” (including those used to describe the Last Supper) overwhelmingly refer to leavened bread. In Part 3, he answers a few objections.

Roman Catholicism arose in the late fourth century, when the Eucharistic liturgy began to change. But it wasn’t until the 9th century that the Roman Catholic Eucharist fully embraced unleavened bread. Eucharistic adoration, the worship of the bread, was not official until 1226, after the East/West schism.

So, assuming that Truglia is correct, the Eastern Orthodox church does not worship unleavened bread and never has. Regardless of whether or not it has ever worshiped leavened bread, there is only one entity that can fulfill the prophesy of scripture in the identity of the beast of Revelation—Papal Roman Catholicism—and the image of the beast—the unleavened bread.

But what if Truglia is wrong about the use of unleavened bread? In reading through his work, I found his grammatical argument to be especially strong, but not definitive. It left the grammatical possibility, however remote, open to the idea that the Last Supper included unleavened bread. Is there any reason to question Truglia’s claim on scriptural grounds?

There are actually two reasons.

First, as mentioned above, the identification of Roman Catholicism with the Beast of Revelation relies on the worship of unleavened bread. Since the Roman Catholic Church arose in the late 4th century, we would initially expect to see the use of unleavened bread by that time at least, if not earlier.

The problem, of course, is it took many centuries from Cyril’s heresy in 350AD until the Roman rite became firmly entrenched. Roman Catholics began by sacrificing the bread as the symbol of the body of Christ. It took some time until this was a sacrifice of the literal body of Christ, and even longer until Eucharistic Adoration was formalized. So even though none of developments were biblical, the final identification of the Beast and his Image was not necessarily immediately apparent, as a matter of history.

The slow replacement of the leavened bread with unleavened bread appears to have coincided with the same centuries in which the liturgy of the eucharist itself changed. But Truglia’s analysis was very light on the historical evidence. His best argument was grammatical, and however unlikely, it allowed for the possibility of the alternate conclusion.

When we look at the prophesies found in Revelation, we find contextual evidence that the Last Supper was unleavened bread. This is a weak, inferential argument, but it is context nonetheless. Truglia couldn’t think of any contextual reason why the Last Supper should be exception, but he hadn’t considered the prophetic context of scripture, and so concluded that there was no context in which Jesus might have used unleavened bread.

Second, the eucharist itself is the context that Truglia is missing. The fact that it was the eucharist tells us that the Last Supper probably involved unleavened bread. This is a much stronger argument than the weak inferential argument above. Let’s lay it out.

During the first 300 years of the church, the early writers were unanimous that the eucharist was the thanksgiving offering. But why was it called the eucharist? Why was it called thanksgiving in the first century. What would make anyone in the church think that the Last Supper had anything at all to do with the giving of thanks?

The answer is found in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospel:

Many Christians pray before meals, yet they don’t make a big deal about it. What’s so special about this prayer that Jesus made? Well, nothing at all.

While the Old Testament Law mandated giving thanks after eating…

…both Jesus and the Pharisees prayed before eating. You can find examples in Matthew 14:19-21, Matthew 15:34-37, Matthew 26:26-29, and Luke 24:30-31. Former Pharisee Paul adopted the same practice (Acts 27:35). None of these other prayers are called “the eucharist” by the early church, despite them being functionally identical to the ones Jesus made at the Last Supper. What gives?

Every iteration of the church has viewed the eucharist—of the Last Supper specifically—as a sacrifice. While there are major differences over the centuries over what is offered as a sacrifice in the various liturgies, all the different eucharists are nonetheless sacrifices. Yet, nowhere in the NT is praying before a meal explicitly stated as a thanksgiving sacrifice. Thanksgiving, yes, but not a sacrifice. The tradition of praying before eating has no direct causal link to Jesus dying on a cross (i.e. the Paschal sacrifice), as the tradition of praying before eating has no direct causal link to the Passover at all (let alone the meal specifically).

So what reason do we have to associate Jesus’ prayer of thanksgiving with the sacrifice that the early church so very clearly offered? The reason is the Old Testament, where the giving of thanks and praise in prayer is a sacrifice.

You can read about it in Leviticus 7.^[4] And guess what is identified as the thanksgiving sacrifice? You got it: unleavened bread. And unlike the sin offerings, the thanksgiving sacrifice was primarily meant to be consumed. Furthermore, the freewill thanksgiving sacrifice was a specific sacrifice in Mosaic Law that was completely unrelated to the Paschal sacrifice: no Hebrew would confuse the two. Consider:

There is no ambiguity. Christ’s Paschal sacrifice “covered” sins and caused death to pass over us. But the thank offering in the Old Testament had nothing to do with sin at all. And neither did Jesus’ two thanksgiving prayers at the Last Supper. One cannot find a propitiatory sacrifice in Christ’s thanksgiving offering of unleavened bread. They are mutually exclusive, and it’s right in the name itself: being called eucharist means it was “a thanks offering that does not come due to sin.”

The reason that none of Jesus’ other thanksgiving prayers at other times were treated like the one’s at the Last Supper is because Jesus offered unleavened bread to his disciples. The fact that we even call it the eucharist and a sacrifice at all informs us that it was unleavened bread that was offered. That this occurred during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is all the additional context we need.

But there is a fatal flaw in this argument. Can you see what it is?

I’ll tell you: there is no reason at all to conclude that the eucharist has anything at all to do with the Last Supper. The entire reason we think the eucharist is related to the Last Supper (and the Lord’s Supper) is because the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe this to be the case. But if they are wrong about the origin of the eucharist, then there is no reason to conclude that Jesus must have used unleavened bread.

The eucharist in the early church was a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, which included a tithe of all manner of goods (including both leavened and unleavened bread). Notably, it wasn’t a sacrifice because Jesus used it in the Last Supper, it was a sacrifice because it was the fulfillment of the prophesy found in Malachi 1:11. In the first 300 years of the church, eleven fathers explicitly made the connection between the thanksgiving (eucharist) of the church and the sacrifice prophesied by Malachi. None associated Malachi’s prophesy with Christ’s sacrifice.

Even the Jewish writers during the early church period understood that the Messiah would end every sacrifice except for the thanksgiving:

The Messiah ending all sacrifice but the thanksgiving was completely clear from the Old Testament itself. None of the early church writers had any difficulty with this concept. Whether Malachi, David, or Jeremiah, all made this prophesy.

When Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, he told her that worship in spirit and truth had already come. We know from a number of patristic writers that this worship was the pure worship prophesied in Malachi 1:11. Thus, every time Jesus gave thanks for his meal, he was offering the eucharist to God. There was nothing especially notable about the eucharist at the Last Supper.

Critically, the early church would have practiced the eucharist even if Jesus had never established the Lord’s Supper as a commemoration of his death and resurrection. The Eucharist was not dependent on the Last Supper, rather, as we saw in “The Eucharist, Redux #2,” the Last Supper was dependent on the Eucharist, because the sacred bread and wine used in the Lord’s Supper were acquired from out of the tithe.

The early church called the whole service “the eucharist” because the eucharist (sacrificed unconsecrated bread and wine) was used in the Lord’s Supper (where it was further consecrated before being consumed).

So what about the unleavened bread? There are two options.

The first is that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic are correct that there was something special about Jesus’ eucharist at the Last Supper. If this is the correct option, then Jesus more than likely used unleavened bread to signify that it was a Mosaic thank offering of unleavened bread (to be eaten).

The second is that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic understanding of the eucharist as an integral part of the Last Supper is fundamentally incorrect. If this is the correct option, then Jesus was much more likely to have used leavened bread.

I do not envy the choice faced by an Eastern Orthodox like Truglia.

There is actually a third option: that the eucharist is any sacrifice offered as pure worship in spirit and truth and that Jesus also offered unleavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is my opinion that this is correct, but, alas, I have no way to prove this.

Regardless of which option you choose, it really does not have a strong effect on understanding scripture’s prophesies. Though I would have guessed that unleavened bread had been used in the late fourth century, when Roman Catholicism arose, this is just my personal expectation. Nothing in scripture demands that this be the case.

By the time bread worship (“eucharistic adoration”) became dogmatized in the Roman Catholic church, the East/West split had already occurred and the use of unleavened bread by Roman Catholics had been firmly established.

While Truglia has valiantly argued that the early church used leavened bread, there remains a good contextual argument to think that it used unleavened bread. But since I do not possess adequate historical proof one way or the other, this will remain a speculative inference.

Footnotes

^[1] Exodus 13:6-9

^[2] Exodus 13:12-16

^[3] Deuteronomy 6:6-8, 11:18

^[4] See also: Leviticus 22:29; Psalm 50:14-23; Psalm 107:21-22; Psalm 116:17; Amos 4:5; Jonah 2:9; Acts 2-6; 2 Corinthians 9:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-3; Philippians 4:17-19