BOOK V made; when offerings long due would be brought, and purification long needed be obtained—and all worship in that grand and glorious Temple, with its gorgeous ritual. National and religious feelings were alike stirred in what reached far back to the first, and pointed far forward to the final Deliverance. On that day a Jew might well glory in being a Jew. But we must not dwell on such thoughts, nor attempt a general description of the Feast. Rather shall we try to follow closely the footsteps of Christ and His disciples, and see or know only what on that day they saw and did. For ecclesiastical purposes Bethphage and Bethany seem to have been included in Jerusalem. But Jesus must keep the Feast in the City itself, although, if His purpose had not been interrupted, He would have spent the night outside its walls. The first preparations for the Feast would commence shortly after the return of the traitor. For, on the evening [of the 13th] commenced the 14th of Nisan, when a solemn search was made with lighted candle throughout each house for any leaven that might be hidden, or have fallen aside by accident. Such was put by in a safe place, and afterwards destroyed with the rest. In Galilee it was the usage to abstain wholly from work; in Judæa the day was divided, and actual work ceased only at noon, though nothing new was taken in hand even in the morning. This division of the day for festive purposes was a Rabbinic addition; and, by way of a hedge around it, an hour before midday was fixed after which nothing leavened might be eaten. The more strict abstained from it even an hour earlier (at ten o'clock), lest the eleventh hour might insensibly run into the forbidden midday. But there could be little real danger of this, since, by way of public notification, two desecrated thankoffering cakes were laid on a bench in the Temple, the removal of one of which indicated that the time for eating what was leavened had passed; the removal of the other, that the time for destroying all leaven had come.2 It was probably after the early meal, and when the eating of leaven had ceased, that Jesus began preparations for the Paschal Supper. St. John, who, in view of the details in the other Gospels, summarises, and, in some sense, almost passes over, the outward events, so that their narration may not divert attention from those 1 Comp. St. Matt. xxvi. 30, 36; St. Mark xiv. 26, 32; St. Luke xxii. 39; St. John xviii. 1. The Jerusalem Talmud gives the most minute details of the places in which search is to be made. One Rabbi proposed that the search should be repeated at three different times! If it had been omitted on the evening of the 13th, it would be made on the forenoon of the 14th Nisan. THE NIGHT OF THE PASCHAL SUPPER. a 481 СНАР. IX xxii. 7 all-important teachings which he alone records, simply tells by way of preface and explanation-alike of the Last Supper' and of what followed that Jesus, 'knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father1... having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.'2 But St. Luke's account of what actually happened, being in some points the most explicit, requires to be carefully studied, and that without thought of any possible consequences in regard to the harmony of the Gospels. It is almost impossible to imagine anything more evident, than that he wishes us to understand that Jesus was about to celebrate the ordinary Jewish Paschal Supper. 'And the Day of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover must be sacrificed.' The designation is exactly that of the commence- St. Luke ment of the Pascha, which, as we have seen, was the 14th Nisan, and the description that of the slaying of the Paschal Lamb. What follows is in exact accordance with it: And He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and make ready for us the Pascha, that we may eat it.' Then occur these three notices in the same account: And 6 they made ready the Pascha;' and when the hour was come, He ver. 13 reclined [as usual at the Paschal Supper], and the Apostles with Him;' and, finally, these words of His: With desire I have ver. 14 desired to eat this Pascha with you.' And with this fully agrees the language of the other two Synoptists, St. Matt. xxvi. 17-20, and St. Mark xiv. 12-17.3 No ingenuity can explain away these facts. The suggestion, that in that year the Sanhedrin had postponed the Paschal Supper from Thursday evening (the 14th-15th Nisan) to Friday evening (15-16th Nisan), so as to avoid the Sabbath following on the first day of the feast-and that the Paschal Lamb was therefore in that year eaten on Friday, the evening of the day on which Jesus was crucified, is an assumption void of all support in history d 6 them to the end') as referring to the 3 It deserves notice, that the latest Jew- I I d ver. 15 BOOK V a St. John xviii. 28 b St. John xviii. 28 e Sebach. v. 8 d St. Luke xxii. 8 or Jewish tradition. Equally untenable is it, that Christ had held the Paschal Supper a day in advance of that observed by the rest of the Jewish world-a supposition not only inconsistent with the plain language of the Synoptists, but impossible, since the Paschal Lamb could not have been offered in the Temple, and, therefore, no Paschal Supper held, out of the regular time. But, perhaps, the strangest attempt to reconcile the statement of the Synoptists with what is supposed inconsistent with it in the narration of St. John is, that while the rest of Jerusalem, including Christ and His Apostles, partook of the Paschal Supper, the chief priests had been interrupted in, or rather prevented from it by their proceedings against Jesus-that, in fact, they had not touched it when they feared to enter Pilate's Judgment-Hall; and that, after that, they went back to eat it, 'turning the Supper into a breakfast.'2 Among the various objections to this extraordinary hypothesis, this one will be sufficient, that such would have been absolutely contrary to one of the plainest rubrical directions, which has it: The Pascha is not eaten but during the night, nor yet later than the middle of the night.” b It was, therefore, with the view of preparing the ordinary Paschal Supper that the Lord now commissioned Peter and John. For the first time we see them here joined together by the Lord, these two, who henceforth were to be so closely connected: he of deepest feeling with him of quickest action. And their question, where He would have the Paschal Meal prepared, gives us a momentary glimpse of the mutual relation between the Master and His Disciples; how He was still the Master, even in their most intimate converse, and would only tell them what to do just when it needed to be done; and how they presumed not to ask beforehand (far less to propose, or to interfere), but had simple confidence and absolute submission as regarded all things. The direction which the Lord gave, while once more evidencing to them, as it does to us, the Divine foreknowledge of Christ, had also its deep human meaning. Evidently, neither the house where the Passover was to be kept, nor its owner,3 was to be named within hearing of Judas. That last Meal, with its Institution of the Holy Supper, was not to be interrupted, nor their last retreat betrayed, till all had been said and done, even to the last prayer of Agony in Gethsemane. We can scarcely err in seeing in It has of late, however, found an advocate even in the learned Bishop Haneberg. 2 So Archdeacon Watkins (in Excursus F, in Bp. Ellicott's 'Commentary on the N. T.,' Gospel of St. John). St. Matthew calls him 'such an one (Tdv deiva). The details are furnished by St. Mark and St. Luke, and must be gathered from those Gospels. THE PLACE OF THE LAST SUPPER. 483 CHAP. IX On 1 Sam. x. 3 this combination of foreknowledge with prudence the expression of the Divine and the Human: the two Natures in One Person.' The sign which Jesus gave the two Apostles reminds us of that by which Samuel of old had conveyed assurance and direction to Saul. their entrance into Jerusalem they would meet a man-manifestly a servant-carrying a pitcher of water. Without accosting, they were to follow him, and, when they reached the house, to deliver to its owner this message: The Master saith, My time is at hand-with thee [i.e. in thy house: the emphasis is on this] I hold 2 the Passover with My disciples. Where is My 3 hostelry [or 'hall'], where St. MatI shall eat the Passover with My disciples?'e thew e St. Mark d St. Mark xiv. 14; St. Luke xxii. 11 ii. 7 Two things here deserve marked attention. The disciples were and St. Luke not bidden ask for the chief or 'Upper Chamber,' but for what we have rendered, for want of better, by hostelry,' or 'hall'—κaтáλνμa -the place in the house where, as in an open Khân, the beasts of burden were unloaded, shoes and staff, or dusty garment and burdens put down-if an apartment, at least a common one, certainly not the best. Except in this place, the word only occurs as the designation of the 'inn' or 'hostelry' (кaтáλvμa) in Bethlehem, where the Virgin-Mother brought forth her first-born Son, and laid Him in a manger. He Who was born in a hostelry'-Katalyma-was St. Luke content to ask for His last Meal in a Katalyma. Only, and this we mark secondly, it must be His' own: My Katalyma.' It was a common practice, that more than one company partook of the Paschal Supper in the same apartment.5 In the multitude of those Per. vii. 13 who would sit down to the Paschal Supper this was unavoidable, for all partook of it, including women and children, only excepting those « Pes. viii. 1 who were Levitically unclean. And, though each company might not consist of less than ten, it was not to be larger than that each should be able to partake of at least a small portion of the Paschal Lamb 1—and we know how small lambs are in the East. But, while Pes. viii. 3 He only asked for His last Meal in the Katalyma, some hall opening on the open court, Christ would have it His own-to Himself, to eat the Passover alone with His Apostles. Not even a company of disciples-such as the owner of the house unquestionably was-nor We combine the words from the three Synoptists. * Literally, I do. So in St. Luke and also according to the better reading in St. Mark. The word occurs seven times in the LXX. and twice in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. xiv. 25; 1 Macc. iii. 45). But out of these nine passages only in one, 1 Sam. ix. 22, The Mishnah explains certain regula- BOOK V a 1 Cor. xi. 23 Megill. 26 a yet, be it marked, even the Virgin-Mother, might be present; witness what passed, hear what He said, or be at the first Institution of His Holy Supper. To us at least this also recalls the words of St. Paul: 'I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you.' There can be no reasonable doubt that, as already hinted, the owner of the house was a disciple, although at festive seasons unbounded hospitality was extended to strangers generally, and no man in Jerusalem considered his house as strictly his own, far less b Yoma 12a; would let it out for hire. But no mere stranger would, in answer to so mysterious a message, have given up, without further questioning, his best room. Had he known Peter and John; or recognised Him Who sent the message by the announcement that it was 'The Master;' or by the words to which His Teaching had attached such meaning that His time had come; or even by the peculiar emphasis of His command: With thee' I hold the Pascha with My disciples?' It matters little which it was-and, in fact, the impression on the mind almost is, that the owner of the house had not, indeed, expected, but held himself ready for such a call. It was the last request of the dying Master-and could he have refused it? But he would do more than immediately and unquestioningly comply. The Master would only ask for the hall': as He was born in a Katalyma, so He would have been content to eat there His last Meal-at the same time meal, feast, sacrifice, and institution. But the unnamed disciple would assign to Him, not the Hall, but the best and chiefest, 'the upper chamber,' or Alijah, at the same time the most honourable and the most retired place, where from the outside stairs entrance and departure might be had without passing through the house. And the upper room was large,' furnished and ready." From Jewish authorities we know, that the average dining-apartment was computed at fifteen feet square; the expression furnished,' no doubt, refers to the arrangement of couches all round the Table, except at its end, since it was a canon, that the very poorest must partake of that Supper in a reclining attitude, to indicate rest, safety, and liberty; while the term 'ready' seems to point to the ready provision of all that was required for the Feast. In that case, all that the disciples would have to make ready' would be the Paschal Lamb,' and perhaps that first Chagigah, or festive Sacrifice, which, if the Paschal Lamb itself would not suffice for Supper, was added to it. And here it must be remembered, that it was of religion © St. Mark d Baba B. vi. 4 1 Comp. similarly, for example, St. Mark v. 41; x. 18. The Talmud puts it that slaves were wont to take their meals standing, and that this reclining best indicated how Israel had passed from bondage into liberty. |