Crossword-Solution: EUCHARISTS 10 letters, 3 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 15

TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system--the system, that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of a tribe (say a CLAN) after some ANIMAL--or sometimes--also after some plant or tree or Nature-element, like fire or rain or thunder; but at best the subject is a difficult one for us moderns to understand.

And this custom, as the reader will perceive, became the origin of the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions.

Meanwhile as instances of early Eucharists we may mention the following cases, remembering always that as the blood is regarded as the Life, the drinking or partaking of, or sprinkling with, blood is always an acknowledgment of the common life; and that the juice of the grape being regarded as the blood of the Vine, wine in the later ceremonials quite easily and naturally takes the place of the blood in the early sacrifices.

The herd-animals (cows, sheep, and so forth) do not have Eucharists, simply because they are sensible enough to feed along the same pastures without quarrelling over the richest tufts of grass.

With his baptisms and eucharists, and his twelve disciples, and his birth in a cave, and so forth, he seemed to the early Fathers an invention of the devil and a most dangerous mockery on Christianity--and all the more so because his worship was becoming so exceedingly popular.