<P> There are three references in Acts to "the breaking of bread" by early Christians at Jerusalem and by St Paul on his visit to Troas . The letters of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles make it clear that early Christianity believed that this institution included a mandate to continue the celebration as an anticipation in this life of the joys of the banquet that was to come in the Kingdom of God . The term "Agape" or "Love - feast" appears in the Jude 12: "These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves". </P> <P> Scholars of the Jesus Seminar generally regard the gospel accounts of the Last Supper as cult legend, that is, a story that accounts for some ritual practice in the Jesus movement . </P> <P> In the three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, Christian practices and beliefs regarding the Eucharist took definitive shape as central to Christian worship . At first, they spread through word of mouth, but within a generation Christians had begun writing about Jesus and about Christian practice, the Eucharist included . The theology of the Eucharist and its role as a sacrament developed during this period . </P> <P> Basing himself on the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr writing around 150 AD, K.W. Noakes deduces the following liturgical structure was in use at that time: </P>

When did the eucharist become an official sacrament