posdible that there is a reference to our Lord's demeanour at the miracle of feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes.
Alford suggests thai the marks of the nails in our Lord's hands may have been first noticed as He was breaking bread.
That it could not be the Lord's Supper appears clear to my own mind for the following reasons. — Firstly, it was impossible that the two disciples could recognize anything in our Lord's manner of breaking the bread to remind them of the Lord's Supper, because they were not present at the institution of it. Kone but the apostles were present at the institution, and the two disciples were evidently not apostles. — Secondly, it is mere gratuitous assumption to say that the Lord's Supper is meant, when we find no words of consecration used, and no mention of wine. Even the Eoman Catholics must allow that without con- secration and the presence of wine, there is no sacrament. They will hardly dare to say that the two disciples at Emmaus were laymen. — Thirdly, the words of our Lord at the time of the first institution of the Lord's Supper, that He would no more " drink the fruit of the vine" with His disciples, make it highly improb- able that the sacrament can be here referred to.
The quotations of the Fathers given by the Bomish writers in defence of this opinion about the Lord's Supper are most meagre and unsatisfactory. At best they only prove, as Jan- senius remarks, that some of the Fathers thought the transac- tion at Enmiaus figurative of the Lord's supper.
The plain truth is that both here and elsewhere the carnal mind of man catches at the least pretext for making everything in religion material and sensual, and strains every possible ex- pression into a material sense. All texts about eating, and drink- ing, and a cup, and bread, must needs signi^ the Lord's Supper ! AU texts about washing, and wat^r, and purifying, and the like, must needs mean baptism ! Against such interpretations of Scripture we must always be on our guard.
Lightfoot remarks, " It is strange that any should interpret this breaking of bread of the holy eucharist, when Christ Him- self had determined to disappear in the very distribution of the bread, and so interrupt the supper. And where indeed doth it appear that any of them tastea a bit ? The supper was ended belbre it began." — " The Eabbins say, if three eat together, they are bound to say grace."
^\.-^Their eyes...opened...Jcn€w him.'] The manner of this sudden revelation of Christ we cannot explain. The whole transaction is so miraculous that we can only take the words as we find them, and must not waste time in attempting to define what is beyond our comprehension.
[Vanished otU of their sight ^ This and other expressions