g Exod. xii. 6, 18. 17 8 Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread is the only Evangelist who mentions the sum. De Wette and others have supposed that the accurate mention of the thirty pieces of silver has arisen from the prophecy of Zechariah (xi. 12), which St. Matthew clearly has in view. The others have simply "money." It is just possible that the thirty pieces may have been merely earnest-money but a difficulty attends the supposition; if so, Judas would have been entitled to the whole on our Lord being delivered up to the Sanhedrim (for this was all he undertook to do); whereas we find (ch. xxvii. 3) that, after our Lord's condemnation, Judas brought only the thirty pieces back, and nothing more. See note there. : 17-19.] PREPARATION FOR CELEBRATING THE PASSOVER. Mark xiv. 1216. Luke xxii. 7-13. The whole narrative which follows is extremely difficult to arrange and account for chronologically. Our Evangelist is the least circumstantial, and, as will I think appear, the least exact in detail of the three. St. Mark partially fills up the outline;-but the account of St. Luke is the most detailed, and I believe the most exact. It is to be noticed that the narrative which St. Paul gives, 1 Cor. xi. 23-25, of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and which he states he 'received from the Lord,' coincides almost verbatim with that given by St. Luke. But while we say this, it must not be forgotten that over all three narratives extends the great difficulty of explaining the first day of unleavened bread (Matt., Mark), or "the day of unleavened bread" (Luke), and of reconciling the impression undeniably conveyed by them, that the Lord and his disciples ate the usual Passover, with the narrative of St. John, which not only does not sanction, but I believe absolutely excludes such a supposition. I shall give, in as short a compass as I can, the various solutions which have been attempted, and the objections to them; fairly confessing that none of them satisfy me, and that at present I have none of my own. I will (1) state the grounds of the difficulty itself. The day alluded to in all four histories as that of the supper, which is unquestionably one and identical, is Thursday, the 13th of Nisan. Now the day of the Passover being slain and eaten was the 14th of Nisan (Exod. xii. 6, 18: Lev. xxiii. 5: Numb. ix. 3; xxviii. 16: Ezek. xlv. 21), between the evenings (so literally in Heb.), which was interpreted by the generality of the Jews to mean the interval between the first westering of the sun (3 p.m.) and his setting,-but by the Karaites and Samaritans that between sunset and darkness:-in either case, however, the day was the same. The feast of unleavened bread began at the very time of eating the Passover (Exod. xii. 18), so that the first day of the feast of unleavened bread was the 15th (Numb. xxviii. 17). All this agrees with the narrative of St. John, where (xiii. 1) the last supper takes place before the feast of the Passover-where the disciples think (ib. ver. 29) that Judas had been directed to buy the things which they had need of against the feast-where the Jews (xviii. 28) would not enter into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover (see note on John xviii. 28)-where at the exhibition of our Lord by Pilate (on the Friday at noon) it was (xix. 14) the preparation of the Passover-and where it could be said (xix. 31) for that Sabbath day was an high day,being, as it was, a double Sabbath,-the coincidence of the first day of unleavened bread, which was sabbatically hallowed (Exod. xii. 16), with an actual sabbath. But as plainly, it does not agree with the view of the three other Evangelists, who not only relate the meal on the evening of the 13th of Nisan to have been a Passover, but manifestly regard it as the ordinary legal time of eating it: "on the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover" (Mark xiv. 12), " when the Passover must be killed" (Luke xxii. 7), and in our Gospel by implication, in the use of the Passover, &c., without any qualifying remark. The solutions which have been proposed are the following: (1) that the Passover which our Lord and his disciples ate, was not the ordinary, but an anticipatory one, seeing that He himself was about to be sacrificed as the true Passover at the legal time. To this it may be objected, that such an anticipation would have been wholly unprecedented and irregular, in a matter most strictly laid down by the law: and that in the three Gospels there is no allusion to it, but rather every thing (see above) to render it improbable. (2) That our Lord and his disciples ate the Passover, but at the time observed by a certain portion of the Jews, while He himself was sacrificed at the time generally observed. This solution is objectionable, as wanting any historical testimony whereon to ground it, being in fact a pure assumption. Besides, it is clearly inconsistent with Mark xiv. 12: Luke the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? 18 And xxii. 7, cited above. A similar objection lies against (3) the notion that our Lord ate the Passover at the strictly legal, the Jews at an inaccurate and illegal time. (4) Our Lord ate only a commemorative Passover, such as the Jews now celebrate, and not a sacrificial Passover (Grotius). But this is refuted by the absence of any mention of a commemorative Passover before the destruction of Jerusalem; besides its inconsistency with the above-cited passages. (5) Our Lord did not eat the Passover at all. But this is plainly not a solution of the difficulty, but a setting aside of one of the differing accounts: for the three Gospels manifestly give the impression that He did eat it. (6) The solution offered by Chrysostom, on our ver. 58, is at least ingenious. The Council, he says, did not eat their Passover at the proper time, but "on another day, and broke the law, because of their eagerness about this execution. they chose even to neglect the Passover, that they might fulfil their murderous desire." This had been suggested before in a scholium of Eusebius. But St. John's habit of noticing and explaining all such exceptional circumstances, makes it very improbable. I may state, as some solutions have been sent me by correspondents, that I have seen nothing besides the above, which justifies any extended notice. I will conclude this note by offering a few hints which, though not pointing to any particular solution, ought I think to enter into the consideration of the question. (a) That, on the evening of the 13th (i. e. the beginning of the 14th) of Nisan, the Lord ate a meal with his disciples, at which the announcement that one of them should betray Him was made: after which He went into the garden of Gethsemane, and was betrayed (Matt., Mark, Luke, John):-(b) That, in some sense or other, this meal was regarded as the eating of the Passover (Matt., Mark, Luke). (The same may be inferred even from John; for some of the disciples must have gone into the prætorium, and have heard the conversation between our Lord and Pilate [John xviii. 33-38]: and as they were equally bound with the other Jews to eat the Passover, would equally with them have been incapacitated from so doing by having incurred defilement, had they not eaten theirs previously. It would appear too, from Joseph of Arimathæa going to Pilate during the preparation [Mark xv. 42, 43], that he also had eaten his passover.) (c) That it was not the ordinary passover of the Jews: for (Exod. xii. 22) when that was eaten, none might go out of the house until morning; whereas, not only did Judas go out during the meal (John xiii. 29), but our Lord and the disciples went out when the meal was finished. Also when Judas went out, it was understood that he was gone to buy, which could not have been the case, had it been the night of eating the Passover, which in all years was sabbatically hallowed. (d) St. John, who omits all mention of the Paschal nature of this meal, also omits all mention of the distribution of the symbolic bread and wine. The latter act was, strictly speaking, anticipatory: the Body was not yet broken, nor the Blood shed (but see note on ver. 26, end). Is it possible that the words in Luke xxii. 15, 16 may have been meant by our Lord as an express declaration of the anticipatory nature of that Passover meal likewise? May they mean, I have been most anxious to eat this Paschal meal with you to-night (before I suffer), for I shall not eat it to-morrow,-I shall not eat of it any more with you?' May a hint to the same effect be intended in my time is at hand' (ver. 18), as accounting for the time of making ready-may the present tense itself (I will keep is literally I keep) have the same reference? I may remark that the whole of the narrative of St. John, as compared with the others, satisfies me that he can never have seen their accounts. It is inconceivable, that one writing for the purpose avowed in John xx. 31, could have found the three accounts as we have them, and have made no more allusion to the discrepancy than the faint (and to all appearance undesigned) ones in ib. ch. xii. 1; xiii. 1, 29; xviii. 28. 17. the first day of... unleavened bread] If this night had been the ordinary time of sacrificing the Passover, the day preceding would not indeed have been strictly the first day of unleavened bread; but there is reason to suppose that it was accounted so. The putting away leaven from the houses was part of the work of the day, and the eating of the unleavened bread actually commenced in the evening. Thus Josephus mentions eight days as constituting the feast,-including this day in it. Where wilt thou] The making ready' would include the following particulars; the preparation of the guestchamber itself (which however in this case was already done, see Mark xiv. 15 and h PSA. xli. 9. he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. 19 And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. 20 Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. 21 And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. 22 And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? 23 And he answered and said, 1 He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. 21 The Son of man note); the lamb already kept up from the 10th (Exod. xii. 3) had to be slain in the fore-court of the temple (2 Chron. xxxv. 5); the unleavened bread, bitter herbs, &c., prepared ;-and the room arranged. This report does not represent the whole that passed it was the Lord who sent the two disciples; and in reply this enquiry was made (Luke). : 18.] The person spoken of was unknown even by name, as appears from Mark and Luke, where he is to be found by the turning in of a man with a pitcher of water. The Lord spoke not from any previous arrangement, as some have thought, but in virtue of His knowledge, and command of circumstances. Compare the command ch. xxi. 2 f., and that in ch. xvii. 27. In the words to such a man here must be involved the additional circumstance mentioned by St. Mark and St. Luke, but perhaps unknown to our narrator: see note on Luke xxii. 10, where the fullest account is found. The term the Master, common to the three accounts, does not imply that the man was a disciple of our Lord. It was the common practice during the feast for persons to receive strangers into their houses gratuitously, for the purpose of eating the Passover: and in this description of Himself in addressing a stranger, our Lord has a deep meaning, as (perhaps, but see note) in the Lord in ch. xxi. 3,-'Our Master and thine says.' It is His form of " 'pressing' for the service of the King of this earth, the things that are therein. My time is not the time of the feast, but my own time, i. e. for suffering: see John vii. 8, and often. There is no reason for supposing from this expression that the man addressed was aware of its meaning. The bearers of the message were; and the words, to the receiver of it, bore with them a weighty reason of their own, which, with such a title as the Master prefixed, he was bound to respect. For these words we are indebted to St. Matthew's narrative. 20-25.] JESUS, CELEBRATING THE PASSOVER, ANNOUNCES HIS BETRAYER. Mark xiv. 17-21. John xiii. 21 ff. Our Lord and the Twelve were a full Paschal company; ten persons was the Here ordinary and minimum number. come in (1) the expression of our Lord's desire to eat this Passover before His suffering, Luke xxii. 15, 16; (2) the division of the first cup, ib. vv. 17, 18; (3) the washing of the disciples' feet, John xiii. 1-20 (? see note, John xiii. 22). I mention these, not that I have any desire to reduce the four accounts to a harmonized narrative, for that I believe to be impossible, and the attempt wholly unprofitable; but because they are additional circumstances, placed by their narrators at this period of the feast. I shall similarly notice all such additional matter, but without any idea of harmonizing the apparent discrepancies of the four (as appears to me) entirely distinct and independent reports. 21.] This announcement is common to Matt., Mark, and John. In the part of the events of the supper which relates to Judas, St. Luke is deficient, giving no further report of them than vv. 21-23. The whole minute detail is given by St. John, who bore a considerable part in it. 22.] In the accounts of St. Luke and St. John, this enquiry is made "among themselves looking one on another." The real enquiry from the Lord was made by John himself, owing to a sign from Peter. This part of John's narrative stands in the highest position for accuracy of detail, and the facts related in it are evidently the ground of the other 23.] These first words represent the answer of our Lord to John's question (John xiii. 26). The latter (ver. 24 were not said now, but (Luke, vv. 21, 22) formed part of the previous announcement in our ver. 21. 25.] I cannot accounts. 25 Then Judas, which goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. betrayed him, answered and said, a Master, is it I? said unto him, Thou hast said. 26 And as they were I render, Rabbi. understand these words (which are peculiar to our Gospel) otherwise than as an imperfect report of what really happened, viz. that the Lord dipped the sop, and gave it to Judas, thereby answering the general doubt, in which the traitor had impudently presumed to feign a share. If the question Is it I before, represented looked on one another doubting, and was our narrator's impression of what was in reality not a spoken but a signified question, - why now also should not this question and answer represent that Judas took part in that doubt, and was, not by word of mouth, but by a decisive sign, of which our author was not aware, declared to be the traitor? Both cannot have happened ;-for John xiii. 28) no one knew (not even John, see note there) why Judas went out; whereas if he had been openly (and it is out of the question to suppose a private communication between our Lord and him) declared to be the traitor, reason enough would have been furnished for his immediately leaving the chamber. (Still, consult the note on Luke, vv. 24-30, where I have left room for modifying this view.) I am aware that this explanation will give offence to those who believe that every part of each account may be tessellated into one consistent and complete whole. Stier handles the above supposition very roughly, and speaks of its upholders in no measured terms. Valuable as are the researches of this Commentator into the inner sense of the Lord's words, and ready as I am to acknowledge continual obligation to him, I cannot but think that in the whole interpretation of this part of the Gospel-history, he and his school have fallen into the error of a too minute and letter-serving exposition. In their anxiety to retain every portion of every account in its strict literal sense, they are obliged to commit many inconsistencies. A striking instance of this is also furnished in Mr. Birk's Horæ Evangelicæ, p. 411: where in treating of this difficulty he says, "If we suppose St. Matthew to express the substantial meaning of our Lord's reply, rather than its precise words, the two accounts are easily reconciled. The question of Judas might concur with St. John's private enquiry, and the He 3. xxvi. 22, k ch. xviii. 7. John xvii. 12. same sign which revealed the traitor to the beloved disciple, would be an affirmative reply to himself, equivalent to the words in the Gospel-Thou hast said."" Very true, and nearly what I have maintained above: but the literal harmonizers seem to be quite blind to the fact, that this principle of interpretation, which they use when it suits them, is the very one against which they so vehemently protest when others use it, and for the use of which they call them such hard names. On Thou hast said, see below, ver 64, note. 26-29.] INSTITUTION OF The Lord's SUPPER. Mark xiv. 22-25. Luke xxii. 19, 20. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25. We may remark on this important point of our narrative, (1) That it was demonstrably our Lord's intention to found an ordinance for those who should believe on Him; (2) that this ordinance had some analogy with that which He and the Apostles were then celebrating. The first of these assertions depends on the express word of the Apostle Paul; who in giving directions for the due celebration of the rite of the Lord's Supper, states in relation to it that he had received from the Lord the account of its institution, which he then gives. He who can set this aside, must set aside with it all apostolic testimony whatever. The second is shewn by the fact, that what now took place was during the celebration of the Passover: that the same Paul states that Christ our Passover is sacri ficed for us; thus identifying the Body broken, and Blood shed, of which the bread and wine here are symbolic, with the Paschal feast. (3) That the key to the right understanding of what took place must be found in our Lord's discourse after the feeding of the five thousand in John vi., since He there, and there only besides at this place, speaks of His flesh and blood, in the connexion found here. (4) It is impossible to assign to this event its precise place in the meal. St. Luke inserts it before the announcement of the treason of Judas: St. Matt. and St. Mark after it. It is doubtful whether the accounts found in the Talmud and elsewhere of the ceremonies in the Paschal feast are to be depended on :-they are ex 11 Cor. xi. 23, eating, 'Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and m1 Cor. x. 16. gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; m this is my 24, 25. ceedingly complicated. Thus much seems clear, that our Lord blessed and passed round two cups, one before, the other after the supper, and that He distributed the unleavened cake during the meal. More than this is conjecture. The dipping of the hand in the dish, and dipping and giving the sop, may also possibly correspond to parts of the Jewish ceremonial. 26.] as they were eating, during the meal, as distinguished from the distribution of the cup, which was after it. The definite article is before bread in the original, but no especial stress must be laid on it; it would be the bread which lay before Him: see below. The bread would be unleavened, as the day was (see Exod. xii. 8). blessed it, and gave thanks, amount to the same in practice. The looking up to heaven, and giving thanks was a virtual blessing' of the meal or the bread. It was customary in the Paschal meal for the Master, in breaking the bread, to give thanks for the fruit of the earth. But our Lord did more than this: He gave thanks, as Grotius observes, not only for the old creation, but for the new also, for the redemption of mankind, regarded as now accomplished. From this giving of thanks for, and blessing, the offering, the Holy Communion has been from the earliest times also called eucharist (eucharistia, giving of thanks). : brake it] It was a round cake of unleavened bread, which the Lord broke and divided: signifying thereby both the breaking of His body on the Cross, and the participation in the benefits of his death by all His. Hence the act of communion was known by the name the breaking of bread, Acts ii. 42. See 1 Cor. x. 16, also Isa. lviii. 7: Lam. iv. 4. Take, eat] Our Gospel alone has both words. "Eat" is spurious in Mark: both words, in 1 Cor. xi. 24. Here, they are undoubted and seem to shew us (see note on Luke, ver. 17) that the Lord did not Himself partake of the bread or wine. It is thought by some however that He did: e. g. Chrysostom, He Himself drank His own Blood." But the analogy of the whole, as well as these words, and "Drink ye all of it" below, leads us to a different conclusion. Our Lord's non-participation is however no rule for the administrator of the rite in after times. Although in one sense he represents Christ, blessing, breaking, and distributing; in another, he is one of the disciples, ex amining himself, confessing, partaking. Throughout all Church ministrations this double capacity must be borne in mind. Olshausen maintains the opposite view, and holds that the ministrant cannot unite in himself the two characters. But setting the inner verity of the matter for a moment aside, how, if so, should an unassisted minister ever communicate? this is my body] this, which I now offer to you, this bread. The form of expression is important, not being this bread, or this wine, but this, in both cases, or this cup, not the bread or wine itself, but the thing in each case ;-precluding all idea of a substantial change. is] On this much-controverted word itself no stress is to be laid. In the original tongue in which probably our Lord spoke, it would not be expressed: and as it now stands, it is merely the logical copula between the subject, this, and the predicate, my Body. The connexion of these two will require deeper consideration. First we may observe, as above of the subject, so here of the predicate, that it is not My flesh" (although that very expres sion is didactically used in its general sense in John vi. 51, as applying to the bread), but My Body. The body is made up of flesh and blood; and although analogically the bread may represent one and the wine the other, the assertion here is not to be analogically taken merely this which I give you, (is) my Body. Under this is the mystery of my Body: the assertion has a literal, and has also a spiritual or symbolic meaning. And it is the literal meaning which gives to the spiritual and symbolic meaning its fitness and fulness. In the literal meaning then, this (is) my Body, we have BREAD, 'the staff of life,' identified with THE BODY OF THE LORD: not that particular bread with that particular flesh which at that moment constituted the Body before them, nor any particular bread with the present Body of the Lord in heaven: but this, the food of man, with my body. This is strikingly set forth in John vi. 51. Now the mystery of the Lord's Body is, that in and by it is all created being upheld: in Him all things consist, Col. i. 17; in Him was life, John i. 4. And thus generally, and in the widest sense, is the Body of the Lord the sustenance and upholding of all living. Our very bodies are dependent upon his, and unless by his Body standing pure and accepted before the Father could not exist nor be nourished. So that to all |