Criticisms like these seem trivial at the best. And it must be remembered, on the other hand, tliat those who deny that there is any outward connexion between the Passover and the Lord's Supper have to meet difficulties of the most pressing kind, and above all the difficulty of ac- counting for the unanimous testimonj^ of the Synoptics on this very point. What are we to make of this testimonj', and especially of the testimony of Mk., presumably the most original of all ? It is suggestive that Spitta solves the difficulty by pronouncing the wliole paragraph in whicli Mk. affirms the Paschal cliaracter of the Supper (14>-->^), to be an interpolation that stands in no organic connexion with the rest of the narra- tive (op. cit. p. 228). But even if there were any grounds of textual criticism for regarding the statements of the first three Gospels as later inter- polations, we should still have to explain how it came to pass that at a very early date in the history of the Apostolic Church a false tradition not only sprang up but became dominant, according to which the Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples
took the form of a Passover meal. Sjntta admits that in St. Paul's view of the Sacrament the con- nexion with the Passover meal is evident (op. cit. p. 265 ; cf. Box, o/>. cit. p. 365). How, tlien, are we to explain this entire transformation of what, according to this theory, was the original tradition — a transformation so early that it must have been completed before Paul became a Christian and received from the first Apostles the story of what took place in the L^pper Room on that night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed ? It is hard to see how, ^\ithin a few years of Christ's death, and at the headquarters of tlie primitive Cliurch, there could have grown ui) a tradition as to a simple matter of fact that was an entii-e falsification of what the Eleven knew to be the truth.
We regard it, then, as practically certain that the Last Supjjer took the form of a Passover meal. And since it was held on the evening before the general Jewish observance, it must have been an anticipated Passover (cf. Sanday, Hastings' DB ii. p. 634 ; Zbckler, PRE^ ix. pp. 32, 42). It is some- times affirmed that this view will not bear the slightest examination (Box, op. cit. p. 360 ; cf. Gwilliam, art. La.st Supper, p. ^^). It is assumed, e.g., that it would have been impossible for our Lord and His disciples to procure the sacrifice of a lamb before the following day. But Chwolson, an expert in Jewisli antiquities, anticipates these and similar objections, and shows how precarious the grounds are on which they rest (Dcts Ictzte Passamahl Christi, p. 37 ff. ). And he further makes the interesting suggestion that a verj^ slight textual error at this point in a supposed Aramaic source would account for the apparent identification by the three Synoptics (Mt 26", Mk W-, Lk 22') of the occasion of the Last Supper with the regular night of the Jewish Passover (ib. p. II).
2. The spiritual connexions. — In order to estab- lish these, two things are necessary. First, we must understand what the Passover meal meant to Jesus and His disciples ; next, we must trace the links between the Paschal supper in the Upper Room and the Christian sacrament that sprang out of it.
(1) What cfid the Passover mean to Jesus and the Twelve ? For evidently it is with the Passover of our Lord's time that we have primarily to do. It is not uncommon to meet witli doctrinal con- structions of the Lord's Supper (e.g. Gore, Body of Christ, p. 12 ft'. ; Illingworth, Divine Immanence, p. 126 ti.) in which a leading role is assigned to ideas drawn fi'om the modern study of Comparative Religion as to the significance of the ancient rite of the blood-covenant (see Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, p. 203 ^.), or as to a sacrificial ' eating of the god ' on the occasion of a harvest festival (see W. R. Smith, RS p. 461 ; Frazer, Golden Bough-, ii. ch. 2). But it seems safe to conclude that archfeological considerations such as these were not uppermost in the mind of Jesus when He said to His disciples, ' With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I sutler' (Lk 22^^), and that what He and they alike were thinking of was the Passover of Jewish history and tradition. Nothihg could be furtlier from the minds of a jdIous Jewish company at the dawn of the Christian era than the notion that God wouhl partake of human food, or that they could enter into communion witli the Highest by drinking the blood of a slain animal, or even by drinking wine considered as a substitute for blood (cf. Ac 15-«- -»). What, then, did the eat- ing of the Passover primarily mean for Jesus and His disciples ?
(n) In the first place, it was the memorial of a great historical deliverance — that redemi^tion of Israel from her bondage in Egypt which was also her birth-hour as a nation (Ex \'2^'^--^^-).—(b) But
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further, the Passover Avas a covenant -meal based on the fact of the covenant made by sacrifice at Sinai (Ex 24^'*). It is certainly impossible to find within the circle of ideas suggested by the narra- tive of the first Passover in Egypt a full explana- tion of the words of Jesus at the institution of the Lord's Supper. One of the special merits of recent critical investigations into the nature of the s'acra- ment is tliat they have brought fully into view the connexion between our Lord's words about the New Covenant (Mt 26^^ ||) and the story of the covenant at Sinai, taken along with the great prophetic anticipations (Jer 32^», Ezk M-^ 37^^ Is 55=*) of what the author of Hebrews calls ' a better covenant established upon better promises' (He 8*). It does not follow, however, as some have thought, that the covenant idea excludes that of the Passover, much less that the combination of them was altogether impossible (so Schultzen, Das Abend- viahl im NT, p. 40). On the contrary, the narra- tive of the first Passover in Egypt appears to anticipate that of the covenant made at Sinai, while apart from the former the latter would liave no lustorical explanation. In any case, in the time of our Lord, the Jewish Passover was an annual covenanting feast at which the nation's covenant fellowship with Jehovah was solemnly renewed. The narrative of Ex 24^"^ makes it clear that the original covenant rested on the fact of a covenant-sacrifice, and there seems little reason to question tiiat in its essence this sacriHce was of a piacular nature (cf. A. B. Davidson in Hastings' DB i. p. 512). The annual renewal of the covenant at the Feast of Passover evidently rested in like manner on the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, and that this sacrihce also was conceived of as having a propitiatory effect it is hardly possible to doubt. — (c) Once more, the Passover was a joyful social meal, the meal of Jeivish brotherhood, in which tlie participants, as members of the Divine covenant, gave expression to their covenant fellowship with one anotlier as well as with Israel's God.