64. The Gentiles invented the calumny about the early Christians eating the flesh of infants and drinking human blood. Such calumny was occasioned by the prevailing practice of religious secrecy. The faithful kept secret the Real Presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharistic meal which they ate, but the Gentiles got some vague rumor of this Mystery and used this as a basis for inventing and spreading this falsehood against the Christians. This is shown by Schelestratus in his Dissertat. de Disciplina Arcani, artic. unic., chap. 4, sect. 17.

Equally renowned is the answer the ancient Apologists gave to the Gentiles on behalf of the Christians without disclosing the secret. They asserted that it was quite impossible that the disciples of Christ should eat human flesh and drink human blood since, as was well known, they even abstained from the blood of animals and from the flesh of strangled animals. Tertullian uses this proof in his Apologetici, chap. 9. This answer, however, proves clearly that in the first centuries Christians distinguished between foods for some reason and abstained from blood and the meat of strangled animals. This is wisely noted by both Nicholas le Nourry, vol. 2, Apparatus in Biblioth. Patr., diss. 4 on Tertullian, chap. 12, art. 2, and by Pamelius, in dictum cap. 9 Tertulliani, no. 138.

Those Christians did not think that the Mosaic Law was still binding in this matter. They knew that the apostolic prohibition regarding abstinence from blood and the meat of strangled animals had been removed. They did not consider these foods prohibited in any way, yet they abstained from them on the grounds that it was fitting to observe the custom handed down by the fathers. Natalis Alexander writes that "the custom of abstaining from blood and the meat of strangled animals was so religiously observed in those churches because they had received this custom from their fathers, not because they considered that these foods were absolutely prohibited" (Hist. Ecdesiast. Saecul. 1, diss. 10).