the name of that upon which the ancients sacrificed their victims. The
word _sacrament_ has a meaning, as used by Pliny already cited, which
carries us back to the solemn oath of the Agapaeists. The word _mass_
carries us back still further, and identifies the present mass with that
of the Pagans.... Formerly the consecrated bread was called _host_,
which word signifies a _victim_ offered _as sacrifice_, anciently
_human_ very often.... Jerome and other Fathers called the communion
bread--_little body_, and the communion table--_mystical table_; the
latter, in allusion to the heathen and early Christian mysteries, and
the former, in reference to the children sacrificed at the Agapae. The
great doctrine of transubstantiation directly points to the abominable
practice of eating human flesh at the Agapae.... Upon the whole, it is
impossible, from the mass of evidence already adduced, to avoid the
conclusion that the early Christians, in their Agapae, were really
guilty of the execrable vices with which they were so often charged, and
for which they were sentenced to death. This once admitted, a reasonable
and adequate cause can be assigned for the severe persecutions of the
Christians by the Roman Government--a Government which applied precisely
the same laws and modes of persecution and punishment to them as to the
votaries of the Bacchanalian and Eleusinian mysteries, well known to
have been accustomed to offer human sacrifices, and indulge in the most
obscene lasciviousness in their secret assemblies; and a Government
which tolerated all kinds of religions, except those which encouraged
practices dangerous to human life, or pernicious to the morals of
subjects. Nor can the facts already advanced fail to show clearly that
the Christian Agapae were of Pagan origin--were identically the same as
those Pagan feasts which existed simultaneously with them" (Ibid, notes,
pp. 227, 231).

There can be no doubt that the Christians suffered for these crimes