(6) By speaking of ‘my blood of the covenant,’ or ‘the new covenant in my blood,’ Christ seems to have connected this new feast with those sacri- ficial feasts in which the worshippers, by partak- ing of the sacrifice, partook of the blessing which the sacrifice was to win. This was an idea with which the disciples were quite familiar. That there was any idea of a death-feast, or of an adoption-feast, is nruch less probable. We know little about death-feasts among the Jews. And although some Semitic peoples had rites in which the partaking of the tribal animal was supposed to put the blood of the tribe into the partaker’s veins (W. R. Smith, RS pp. 317, 318), yet there is no trace of this idea in the Lord’s Supper. It is by baptism that aliens are admitted to the Chris- tian family.
IV. HisroRY OF THE CHRISTIAN RivTEeE.—This can be conveniently treated under four heads: (a) the Institution, (δ) the Recipients, (c) the Minister, (d) the Rite.
(a) The Jnstitution, according to the universal testimony of Scripture and of tradition, dates from the act and command of Christ at ‘ the last supper,’ —the last meal of which He partook before His death. Anattempt has been made to show that He must have instituted the Eucharist earlier in His ministry : (1) because ‘St. John in his sixth chapter represents our Lord as using Eucharistic language which would have been absolutely without mean- ing, if the Eucharist had not been already in common use’; and (2) because ‘the two disciples journeying to Emmaus recognized our Lord in the Breaking of Bread (Lk 24*-*), They had not been present at the Last Supper. The rite, if it was really then instituted for the first time, would
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146 LORD’S SUPPER
have had no significance for them’ (Wright, Synopsis, p. xiii).
This is very unconvincing. (1) It was Christ’s way, even with the disciples, to utter about future events words which they did not, and in some eases could not, understand at the time, but which they did understand when the events had taken place. He knew that the discourse on the Bread of Life would acquire fresh and fuller mean- ing when the rite which He intended to found was instituted. But it isan exaggeration to say that it was ‘absolutely without meaning’ and an ‘insoluble enigma’ until the Eucharist was insti- tuted. Had it no meaning for the large majority of the audience, who, upon any hypothesis, did not know, and never would know, anything of the Eucharistic rite? (2) The two disciples at Emmaus ey have been present when Christ broke bread and gave thanks at ordinary meals, or at the feeding of the 4000 and of the 5000. It was something in His way of doing this at Emmaus that enabled them to recognize tana at the supper there, which was probably not a Eucharist. We may safely follow the clear and strong evidence of the Synoptists and of St. Paul, that the Eucharist was instituted at the last supper. St. Paul’s refer- ence to it, τὸ Κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, which is older than any of the Gospels, could hardly have been made in this form, if the Lord’s Supper, on the night of His betrayal, had not been the time when it cremated. See vol. ii. p. 636.
f the institution we have four accounts ; and it will be worth while to place them side by side in two pairs, to facilitate an estimate of their sub- stantial agreement.* Brandt’s assault on their trastworthiness has been answered by Schultzen, Las Abendmahl im NT, 1895, p. 67 ff. They are neither intrinsically incredible, nor inconsistent with other statements in the Gospels, nor con-
tradicted by early evidence outside the NT.
LORD’S SUPPER
μον [τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδό- μενον" τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. καὶ τὸ ποτήριον ὡσαύτως μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι, λέγων Τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἣ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυννόμενον.
εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. ὡσαύτως καὶ τὸ ποτήριον μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι, λέγων Τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ αἵματι" τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, ὁσάκις ἐὰν πίνητε, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν.
Mt 265-9,
ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν λα- βὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἄρτον καὶ εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ δοὺς τοῖς μαθηταῖς εἶπεν, Λάβετε φάγετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου. καὶ λαβὼν ποτήριον καὶ εὐχα- ριστήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς λέγων, Πίετε ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυννόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν" λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ πίω ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γεν ἤ- ματοςτῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν καινὸν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου.
Τῆς 221-0
καὶ δεξάμενος ποτήριον εὐχαριστήσας εἶπεν Λά- βετε τοῦτο καὶ διαμερίσατε εἰς ἑαυτούς: λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ πίω ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ γενήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως οὗ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἔλθῃ. καὶ λαβὼν ἄρτον εὐχα- οριστήσας ἔκλασεν κα ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς λέγων Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά
Mk 1422-35,
καὶ ἐσθιόντων αὐτῶν λα- βὼν ἄρτον εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς καὶ εἶπεν Λάβετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου. καὶ λαβὼν ποτήριον εὐχαρισ- τήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἔπιον ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ αἷμὰ μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ ἐκχυννόμενον ὑπὲρ ποὰλ- λῶν" ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐκέτι οὐ μὴ πίω ἐκ τοῦ γενήματοςτῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω καινὸν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ.