Blood is the Life: The Eucharistic Blood and Vampires

“For the Blood is the Life” is a statement that occurs not just in vampire literature; it is not just spoken by Renfield figures, but it is spoken by Biblical figures as well (Leviticus 17:14). It is really true. What are we without the blood coursing through our veins? Could we live for long without it? But of course it is more than the physical object coursing through our veins. The object carries weight as a symbol as well. For the vampire it is its drink of preference for remaining life-like, and it is what it offers its victims to begin their transition into undead, eternal, soulless creatures. For Christians it is also represents more than the physical; it carries with it the offer of a souled eternal life.

Dracula, Bram Stoker’s creation, told Mina when he forced her to drink his blood in the pivotal scene in his novel, “And you, my best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin; my bountiful wine press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper” (Dr. Seward’s Diary ch XX1).

For Christians, the real physical object also represents more than the physical; it carries with it the offer of a souled eternal life in heaven with their God. It represents the ingestion of the eternal character of Christ obtained by the consumption of the physical representation of the Eucharist (the Communion wafer as body, and the wine as blood): “ ²⁶And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. ²⁷And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; ²⁸For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”(Matthew 26.26-28) in which Jesus promises the his faithful that forgiveness of sins is inherent in his body and blood, and later tells then that the only way to enter heaven is through full acceptance of him; if they accept him, they will be his eternal companion.

The difference here is in part a facet of free-will. The faithful are given a choice as to whether they will drink the salvational blood; whereas the victims of Stoker’s vampires (as well as many others) are given no choice. They simply are forced to drink, and thus to become a vampire. But of course, there are many victims who choose to exchange blood with the vampire in order to become eternal beings themselves, but eternal physical beings – eternal in the physical body they were born within -- dependent upon the continual ingestion of the blood of the fully functionally living to survive.

There is also the question of what happens to the victim’s soul when they drink vampire blood. For the Christian, it is a conscious choice and they know that they are participating in the Communion Eucharist which will join their souls to that of Christ’s soul. It seems that the soul and will are interconnected. And the blood is the vehicle to transit the soul to wherever it is going via the choice made by which blood (symbology) is chosen.

Oddly enough, it is the human victim’s blood that provides salvation for the vampire, keeping it alive until its next feeding enables it to remain alive. One of my students speculated that perhaps it is the salvation carried in the blood of the Christian that enables the vampire to remain “alive.” But that begs the question: are only Christians vampire victims? Does the Christian have to continually imbibe Eucharistic blood in order to have a ready supply? For the vampire the blood isn’t a once saved always saved…(and we aren’t even going into the once saved always saved problem for Christians who accept Christ and backslide).

So blood does more that run oxygen through the body, it acts as the front-man for an idea, a power that is more than physical; it represents the symbols of free-will (choice), and through free-will the choice of eternal destination; heavenly salvation or eternal soulless physical salvation.