“... What does Paul mean when he warns against ‘‘Israel according to the flesh,” and connects this with a warning against idolatry in the Christian communion meal? Valentinian teachers offer various interpretations of the meal and of its elements. One interprets the bread as a symbol of “his body,” the ecclesia'** (cf. 6:17: “we, being many, are one bread, and one body’’). In the Marcosian sacrament, the wine symbolizes grace,’?” as the mingling of water and wine suggests the transformation of the human into the divine. The writer of the Gospel of Philip offers another interpretation: “his flesh is his logos, and his blood the holy spirit.’’'?* Valentinian teachers agree, however, that those who refer the bread and wine to Jesus’ sacrificial passion and death interpret the elements only psychically. The writer of the Gospel of Philip suggests ironically that “their God is a man-eater. Because of this they kill the man for him. Before they killed the man they were killing the animals. Those for whom they killed them are no gods.”’'?° Would not participation in such a psychic ‘‘sacrifice of the altar’ (10:18) involve the pneumatic in eating ‘'food offered to idols” (10:19), that is, to the demiurge and the cosmic archons? ...”