Chapter II (3)

Here again the harmonists are at once ready to incorporate the different scenes with each other, and render them mutually consistent. According to them, Jesus, on the question of each disciple whether he were the traitor, first declared aloud that one of his companions at table would betray him (Matthew); hereupon John asked in a whisper which of them he meant, and Jesus also in a whisper made the answer, he to whom he should give the sop (John); then Judas, likewise in a whisper, asked whether it were he, and Jesus in the same manner replied in the affirmative (Matthew); lastly, after an admonition from Jesus to be speedy, the betrayer left the company (John). [1807] But that the question and answer interchanged between Jesus and Judas were spoken in a whisper, Matthew, who alone communicates them, gives no intimation, nor is this easily conceivable without presupposing the improbable circumstance, that Judas reclined on the one side of Jesus, as John did on the other: if, however, the colloquy were uttered aloud, the disciples could not, as John narrates, have so strangely misunderstood the words, what thou doest, do quickly,—and the supposition of a stammering question on the side of Judas, and a low-toned answer from Jesus, cannot be seriously held a satisfactory explanation. [1808] Nor is it probable that Jesus, after having already made the declaration: he who dippeth with me in the dish will betray me, would for the more precise indication of the traitor have also given him a sop; it is rather to be supposed that these are but two different modes of reporting the same particular. But when once this is admitted, as it is by Paulus and Olshausen, so much is already renounced either in relation to the one narrative or the other, that it is inconsistent to resort to forced suppositions, in order to overcome the difficulty involved in the explicit answer which Matthew makes Jesus give to the traitor; and it should rather be allowed that we have before us two divergent accounts, of which the one was not so framed that its deficiencies might be supplied by the other.

Having, with Sieffert and Fritzsche, attained this degree of insight, the only remaining question is: to which of the two narratives must we give the preference as the original? Sieffert has answered this question very decidedly in favour of John; not merely, as he maintains, because he shares in the prejudice which attributes to that Evangelist the character of an eye-witness; but also because his narrative is in this part, by its intrinsic evidence of truthfulness, and the vividness of its scenes, advantageously distinguished from that of Matthew, which presents no indications of an autoptical origin. For example, while John is able to describe with the utmost minuteness the manner in which Jesus indicated his betrayer: the narrative of the first gospel is such as to induce the conjecture that its author had only received the general information, that Jesus had personally indicated his betrayer. [1809] It certainly cannot be denied, that the direct answer which Jesus gives to Judas in Matthew (v. 25) has entirely the appearance of having been framed, without much fertility of imagination, to accord with the above general information; and in so far it must be regarded as inferior to the more indirect, and therefore more probable mode of indicating the traitor, in John. But in relation to another feature, the result of the comparison is different. In the two first Evangelists Jesus says: he who has dipped or who dippeth with me, ὁ ἐμβάψας or ἐμβαπτόμενος μετ’ ἐμοῦ: in John, he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it, ᾧ ἐγὼ βάψας τὸ ψωμίον ἐπιδώσω; a difference in which the greater preciseness of the indication, and consequently the inferior probability, is on the side of the fourth gospel. In Luke, Jesus designates the traitor merely as one of those who are sitting at meat with him; and as regards the expression ὁ ἐμβάψας κ.τ.λ. in Matthew and Mark, the interpretation given of it by Kuinöl and Henneberg, [1810] who suppose it to mean one of the party at table, leaving it uncertain which, is not so mistaken as Olshausen represents it to be. For, first, to the question of the several disciples, is it I? Jesus might see fit to return an evasive answer; and secondly, the above answer, as Kuinöl has correctly remarked, stands in the relation of an appropriate climax to the previous declaration: one of you shall betray me (v. 21), since it presents that aggravating circumstance of the betrayal, fellowship at table. Even if the authors of the two first gospels understood the expression in question to imply, that Judas in particular dipped his hand in the dish with Jesus, and hence supposed this second declaration to have indicated him personally: still the parallel passage in Luke, and the words εἶς ἐκ τῶν δώδεκα, one of the twelve, which in Mark precede ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος, show that originally the second expression was merely an amplification of the former, though from the wish to have a thoroughly unequivocal designation of the betrayer on the part of Jesus, it was early interpreted in the other more special sense. When, however, a legendary exaggeration of the preciseness of the indication is once admitted, the manner in which the fourth gospel describes that indication must be included in the series of progressive representations, and according to Sieffert, it must have been the original from which all the rest proceeded. But if we beforehand renounce the affirmative reply to Judas, σὺ εἶπας, thou hast said, in Matthew, the mode of designation in John is the most definite of all; for the intimation: one of my companions at table, is comparatively indefinite, and even the expression: he who dippeth with me in the dish, is a less direct sign of the traitor, than if Jesus had himself dipped the morsel and presented it to him. Now is it in the spirit of the ancient legend, if Jesus really gave the more precise designation, to lose its hold of this, and substitute one less precise, so as to diminish the miracle of the foreknowledge exhibited by Jesus? Assuredly not; but rather the very reverse holds true. Hence we conclude that Matthew, together with the unhistorically precise, has yet at the same time preserved the historically less precise; whereas John has entirely lost the latter and has retained only the former.

Alter thus renouncing what is narrated of a personal designation of the traitor by Jesus, as composed post eventum, there yet remains to us the general precognition and prediction on the part of Jesus, that one of his disciples and companions at table would betray him. But even this is attended with difficulties. That Jesus received any external notification of treason brooding against him in the circle of his confidential friends, there is no indication in the gospels: he appears to have gathered this feature of his destiny also out of the scriptures alone. He repeatedly declares that by his approaching betrayal the scripture will be fulfilled (John xiii. 18, xvii. 12; comp. Matt. xxvi. 24 parall.), and in the fourth gospel (xiii. 18), he cites as this scripture, γραφὴ, the words: He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me, ὁ τρώγων μετ’ ἐμοῦ τὸν ἄρτον ἐπῆρεν ἐπ ἐμὲ τὴν πτέρναν αὑτοῦ, from Ps. xli. 10. This passage in the Psalms refers either to the well-known perfidious friends of David, Ahithophel and Mephibosheth, or, if the Psalm be not the composition of David, to some unknown individuals who stood in a similar relation to the poet. [1811] There is so little trace of a messianic significance, that even Tholuck and Olshausen acknowledge the above to be the original sense. But according to the latter, in the fate of David was imaged that of the Messiah; according to the former, David himself, under a divine impulse often used expressions concerning himself, which contained special allusions to the fate of Jesus. When, however, Tholuck adds: David himself, under the influence of inspiration, did not always comprehend this more profound sense of his expressions; what is this but a confession that by the interpretation of such passages as relating to Christ there is given to them another sense than that in which their author originally intended them? Now that Jesus deduced from this passage of the 41st Psalm, that it would be his lot to be betrayed by a friend, in the way of natural reflection, is the more inconceivable, because there is no indication to be discovered that this Psalm was interpreted messianically among the Jews: while that such an interpretation was a result of the divine knowledge in Jesus is impossible, because it is a false interpretation. It is rather to be supposed, that the passage in question was applied to the treachery of Judas only after the issue. It is necessary to figure to ourselves the consternation which the death of the Messiah must have produced in the minds of his first adherents, and the solicitous industry with which they endeavoured to comprehend this catastrophe; and to remember that to a mind of Jewish culture, to comprehend a fact or doctrine was not to reconcile it with consciousness and reason, but to bring it into harmony with scripture. In seeking such a result, the primitive Christians found predicted in the oracles of the Old Testament, not only the death of the Messiah, but also his falling by means of the perfidy of one of his friends, and even the subsequent fate and end of this traitor (Matt. xxvii. 9 f.; Acts i. 20); and as the most striking Old Testament authority for the betrayal, there presented itself the above passage from Ps. xli., where the author complains of maltreatment from one of his most intimate friends. These vouchers from the Old Testament might be introduced by the writers of the evangelical history either as reflections from themselves or others by way of appendix to their narrative of the result, as is done by the authors of the first gospel and the Acts, where they relate the end of Judas: or, what would be more impressive, they might put them into the mouth of Jesus himself before the issue, as is done by the author of the fourth gospel in the present instance. The Psalmist had meant by אֹכֵל לַחְמִי one who generally was accustomed to eat bread with him: but this expression might easily come to be regarded as the designation of one in the act of eating bread with the subject of the prophecy: and hence it seemed appropriate to choose as the scene for the delivery of the prediction, a meal of Jesus with his disciples, and for the sake of proximity to the end of Jesus to make this meal the last. For the rest, the precise words of the psalm were not adhered to, for instead of ὁ τρώγων μετ’ ἐμοῦ τὸν ἄρτον, he who eateth bread with me, was substituted either the synonymous phrase μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζῃς, with me on the table, as in Luke; or, in accordance with the representation of the synoptists that this last was a paschal meal, an allusion to the particular sauce used on that occasion: ὁ ἐμβαπτόμενος μετ ἐμοῦ εἰς τὸ τρυβλίον, he who dippeth with me in the dish, as in Mark and Matthew. This, at first entirely synonymous with the expression ὁ τρώγων κ.τ.λ., as a designation of some one of his companions at table, was soon, from the desire for a personal designation, misconstrued to mean that Judas accidentally dipped his hand into the dish at the same moment with Jesus, and at length the morsel dipped into the dish by Judas at the same time with Jesus, was by the fourth Evangelist converted into the sop presented by Jesus to his betrayer.

There are other parts also of this scene in John, which, instead of having a natural character, as Sieffert maintains, must rather be pronounced artificial. The manner in which Peter has to use the intervention of the disciple leaning on Jesus’ bosom, in order to obtain from the latter a more definite intimation concerning the betrayer, besides being foreign to the synoptists, belongs to that unhistorical colouring which, as we have above shown, the fourth gospel gives to the relation of the two apostles. Moreover, to disguise an indication of Judas in the evil character of the traitor, beneath an action of friendliness, as that of giving him the sop, must retain something untruthful and revolting, whatever may be imagined of objects which Jesus might have in view, such as the touching of the traitor with compunction even at that hour. Lastly, the address, What thou doest, do quickly, after all that can be done to soften it, [1812] is still harsh,—a kind of braving of the impending catastrophe; and rather than resort to any refinements in order to justify these words as spoken by Jesus, I prefer agreeing with the author of the Probabilia, who sees in them the effort of the fourth Evangelist to improve on the ordinary representation, according to which Jesus foreknew the betrayal and refrained from preventing it, by making him even challenge the traitor to expedite his undertaking. [1813]

Besides the betrayal, Jesus is said to have predicted the denial by Peter, and to have fixed the precise time of its occurrence, declaring that before the cock should crow (Mark says twice) on the following morning, Peter would deny him thrice (Matt. xxvi. 33 ff. parall.): which prediction, according to the gospels, was exactly accomplished. It is here observed on the side of Rationalism, that the extension of the prophetic gift to the cognizance of such merely accessory circumstances as the crowing of cocks, must excite astonishment; as also that Jesus, instead of warning, predicts the result as inevitable: [1814] a feature which calls to mind the Fate of the Greek tragedy, in which a man, in spite of his endeavour to avoid what the oracle has predicted of him, nevertheless fulfils its inexorable decree. Paulus will not admit either οὐ φωνήσει σήμερον ἀλέκτωρ, or ἀπαρνεῖσθαι, or τρὶς, to have been spoken in their strict verbal signification, but gives to the entire speech of Jesus only this indecisive and problematical sense: so easily to be shaken is the imagined firmness of this disciple, that between the present moment and the early morning, events may arise which would cause him more than once to stumble and be unfaithful to his master. But this is not the right mode of removing the difficulty of the evangelical narrative. The words attributed to Jesus so closely agree with the subsequent event, that the idea of a merely fortuitous coincidence is not to be here entertained. Occurring as they do in a tissue of prophecies post eventum, we must rather suppose that after Peter had really denied Jesus more than once during that night, the announcement of such a result was put into the mouth of Jesus, with the common marking of time by the crowing of the cock, [1815] and the reduction of the instances of denial to three. That this determination of time and number was permanent in the evangelical tradition (except that Mark, doubtless arbitrarily, for the sake of balancing the thrice denying by another number, speaks of the twice crowing of the cock), appears to be explained without any great difficulty by the familiarity of the expressions early chosen, and the ease with which they could be retained in the memory.

Just as little claim to be regarded as a real prophecy has the announcement of Jesus to the rest of his disciples that they will all of them be offended because of him in the coming night, that they will forsake him and disperse (Matt. xxvi. 31 parall., comp. John xvi. 32); especially as the Evangelists themselves, in the words: For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad, point out to us the Old Testament passage (Zech. xiii. 7), which, first sought out by the adherents of Jesus for the satisfaction of their own difficulties as to the death of their master, and the melancholy consequences which immediately ensued, was soon put into the mouth of Jesus as a prophecy of these consequences.

§ 124.

THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.

It was at the last meal, according to the synoptists, with whom the Apostle Paul also agrees (1 Cor. xi. 23 ff.), that Jesus gave to the unleavened bread and the wine which, agreeably to the custom of the paschal feast, [1816] he, as head of the family, had to distribute among his disciples, a relation to his speedily approaching death. During the repast, we are told, he took bread, and after giving thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples with the declaration: This is my body, τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου, to which Paul and Luke add: which is given or broken for you, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον or κλώμενον; in like manner, according to Paul and Luke after supper, he presented to them a cup of wine with the words: This is my blood of the new testament, τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ αἷμά μου, τὸ τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, or, according to Paul and Luke: the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many, or for you, καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν or ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, ἐκχυνόμενον, to which Matthew adds: for the remission of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, and Paul, what he and Luke previously give in reference to the bread: Do this, τοῦτο ποιεῖτε (Paul, with the wine, as oft as ye drink it, ὁσάκις ἂν πίνητε), in remembrance of me, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν.

The controversy between the different confessions as to the meaning of these words,—whether they signify a transmutation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, or a presence of the body and blood of Christ with and beneath those elements, or lastly, the symbolizing of the body and blood of Christ by bread and wine,—may be pronounced obsolete, and ought not to be any longer pursued, at least exegetically, because it is founded on a misplaced distinction. It is only when transmitted to a modern age, and to the occidental mind, in which the forms of thought are more abstract, that what the ancient oriental understood by the words, τοῦτό ἐστι, divides itself into the above variety of possible significations; and if we would obtain a correct conception of the idea which originally suggested the expression, we must cease to discriminate thus. To explain the words in question as implying a transmutation of the substance, is to go too far, and to be too definite; to understand them of an existence cum et sub specie, etc., is too much of a refinement; while to translate them: this signifies, is too limited and meagre an interpretation. To the writers of our gospels, the bread in the commemorative supper was the body of Christ: but had they been asked, whether the bread were transmuted, they would have denied it; had they been spoken to of a partaking of the body with and under the form of bread, they would not have understood it; had it been inferred that consequently the bread merely signified the body, they would not have been satisfied.

Thus to dispute farther on this point is a fruitless labour: it is a more interesting question, whether Jesus merely intended this peculiarly significant distribution of bread and wine as a parting demonstration of attachment to his disciples, or whether he designed that it should be celebrated by his disciples in memory of him after his departure. If we had only the account of the two first Evangelists,—this is admitted even by orthodox theologians, [1817]—there would be no solid ground for the latter supposition; but the words, Do this in remembrance of me, which are added by Paul and Luke, appear decisive of the fact that Jesus purposed the founding of a commemorative meal, which, according to Paul, the Christians were to celebrate, until he should come, ἄχρις οὖ ἂν ἔλθῃ. Concerning this very addition, however, it has been of late conjectured that it may not have been originally uttered by Jesus, but that in the celebration of the Lord’s supper in the primitive church, the presiding member of the community, in distributing the elements, may have exhorted the rest to continue the repetition of this meal in remembrance of Christ, and that from this primitive Christian ritual the above words were added to the address of Jesus. [1818] This conjecture should not be opposed by an exaggerated estimate of the authority of the Apostle Paul, such as that of Olshausen, who infers from the words, I have received of the Lord, παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, that he here delivers an immediate revelation from Christ, nay, that Christ himself speaks through him: since, as even Süskind has admitted, and as Schulz has recently shown in the most convincing manner, [1819] the phrase παραλαμβάνειν ἀπό τινος cannot signify an immediate reception, but only a mediate transmission from the individual specified. If, however, Paul had not that addition from Jesus himself, still Süskind thinks himself able to prove that it must have been communicated, or at least confirmed, by an apostle, and is of opinion, in the manner of his school, that by a series of abstract distinctions, he can define certain boundary lines which must in this case prevent the intrusion of an unhistorical tradition. But the severe attention to evidence which characterizes our own day, ought not to be expected from an infant religious society, between the distant portions of which there was not yet any organized connexion, or for the most part any other than oral communication. On the other hand, however, we must not be induced to regard the words τοῦτο ποιεῖτε κ.τ.λ. as a later addition to the address of Jesus, on false grounds, such as, that it would have been repugnant to the humility of Jesus to found a rite in remembrance of himself; [1820] nor must we rate too highly the silence of the two first Evangelists, in opposition to the testimony of Paul.

Perhaps this point may be decided by means of another more general question, namely, what led Jesus to make this peculiarly significant distribution of bread and wine among his disciples? Orthodox theologians seek to remove as far as possible from the person of Jesus, as divine, all progress, and especially a gradual or sudden origination of plans and resolutions not previously present in his mind: hence, according to them, there lay in Jesus from the beginning, together with the foreknowledge of his destiny, and his entire plan, the design to institute this supper, as a commemorative rite to be observed by his church; and this opinion may at least appeal for support, to the allusions implying that he already contemplated the institution a year beforehand, attributed to Jesus in the sixth chapter of the fourth gospel.

This is certainly an insecure support, for, as a previous enquiry has shown, those allusions, totally unintelligible before the institution of the Supper, cannot have proceeded from Jesus, but only from the Evangelist. [1821] Further, as, viewing the subject generally, it appeared to annul the reality of the human nature in Jesus, to suppose that all lay foreseen and prepared in him from the first, or at least from the commencement of his mature age; Rationalism has maintained, on the contrary, that the idea of the symbolical act and words in question did not arise in Jesus until the last evening. According to this view, at the sight of the broken bread and the outpoured wine, Jesus had a foreboding of his near and violent death; he saw in the former an image of his body which was to be put to death, and in the latter of his blood which was to be shed; and this momentary impression was communicated by him to his disciples. [1822] But such a tragical impression could only be felt by Jesus if he contemplated his death as a near event. That he did so with a greater distinctness at the last meal, is thought to be proved by the assurance which, according to all the synoptists, he gave to his disciples, that he would no more drink of the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom of his Father; whence, as there is no ground for supposing a vow of abstinence on his part, he must have foreseen that his end would arrive within the next few days. If, however, we observe how in Luke this assurance in relation to the wine is preceded by the declaration of Jesus, that he will no more eat the passover until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, it appears probable that originally the fruit of the vine also was understood not as wine in general, but as specially the beverage of the passover; of which a trace may perhaps be discovered in the expression of Matthew and Mark—this fruit of the vine, τουτου τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου. Meals in the messianic kingdom were, in accordance with the ideas of the age, often spoken of by Jesus, and he may have expected that in that kingdom the Passover would be observed with peculiar solemnity. When therefore he declares that he will no more partake of this meal in the present age, αἰὼν, but only in the future; first, this does not apply to eating and drinking in general, and hence does not mean that his sojourn in this pre-messianic world was to have an end within the next few days, but only within the space of a year; nor, secondly, does it necessarily involve the idea that this change was to be introduced by his death, for he might even yet expect that the kingdom of the Messiah would commence during his life.

Meanwhile, to deny every presentiment of his end on the part of Jesus in these last days of his life, is on the one hand, not warranted by our previous examination; and on the other, would compel us to doubt the institution of the ritual Supper by Jesus, which we can hardly do in opposition to the testimony of Paul. It is moreover easily conceivable, that the continually increasing involvement of his relation to the Jewish hierarchy, might at length bring to Jesus the conviction that his death was inevitable, and that in a moment of emotion he might even fix the next passover as the term which he should not survive. Thus each of the supposed cases appears possible: either that, owing to a thought suggested by the impressiveness of the moment, at the last passover which he celebrated with his disciples, he made bread and wine the symbols of his body which was to be slain and his blood which was to be shed; or that for some time previously he had embraced the design of bequeathing such a commemorative meal to his adherents, in which case he may very probably have uttered the words preserved by Paul and Luke. But before this intimation of the death of Jesus had been duly appropriated by the disciples, and received into their conviction, they were overtaken by the actual catastrophe, for which, therefore, they might be regarded as wholly unprepared.