Suicide is to be fed upon.

In Biathanatos, John Donne cites as example of self-sacrifice the female pelican who feeds her young with her own blood. Donne draws attention to the parallel with Jesus Christ. The blood evidence of the pelican turns out to be the red color of her breast mistaken for blood.

Vampire bats practice blood feeding. It points to an ethic of reciprocity. Brosnon and de Waal write: “To survive, [vampire bats] cannot go longer than three days without a blood meal, and adults miss a meal about once every 10 days. These females exchange blood meals with conspecifics who have failed to feed for one or more nights in a row.”

The practice entails a high risk, edging toward one’s own death in order to preserve another. The practice centers on mother and offspring, and expands from there.

Drink this, my blood of the covenant, says Jesus Christ. Jesus is not a pelican. Jesus is a vampire bat.

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Donne, Biathantos, 17.
Brosnan and De Waal, “A Proximate Perspective on Reciprocal Altruism,” Human Nature 13, no. 1 (2002): 134-5.