Appendix 1


Did The Lord Institute His "Supper" On The Paschal Night?



The question, whether or not the Savior instituted His Supper during the
meal of the Paschal night, although not strictly belonging to the subject
treated in this volume, is too important, and too nearly connected with it,
to be cursorily passed over. The balance of learned opinion, especially in
England, has of late inclined against this view. The point has been so
often and so learnedly discussed that I do not presume proposing to myself
more than the task of explaining my reasons for the belief that the Lord
instituted His "Supper" on the very night of the Paschal Feast, and
that consequently His crucifixion took place on the first day of
Unleavened  Bread, the 15th of Nisan.



From the writers on the other side, it may here be convenient to select Dr.
Farrar, as alike the latest and one of the ablest expositors of the
contrary position. His arguments are stated in a special Excursus appended
to his Life of Christ.  At the outset it is admitted on both sides,
"that our Lord was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday;" and,
further, that our Lord could not have held a sort of anticipatory Paschal
Supper in advance of all the other Jews, a Paschal Supper being only
possible on the evening of the 14th Nisan, with which, according to Jewish
reckoning, the 15th Nisan began. Hence it follows that the Last Supper
which Christ celebrated with His disciples must have either been the
Paschal:Feast, or an ordinary supper, at which He afterwards instituted His
own special ordinance. Now, the conclusions at which Dr. Farrar arrives are
thus summed up by him"Â  "That Jesus ate His last supper with the
disciples on the evening of Thursday, Nisan 13, i.e. at the time when,
according to Jewish reckoning, the 14th of Nisan began; that this supper
was not, and was not intended to be, the actual Paschal meal, which neither
was nor could be legally eaten till the following evening; but by a
perfectly natural identification, and one which would have been regarded as
unimportant, the Last Supper, which was a quasi-Passover, a new and
Christian Passover, and one in which, as in its antitype, memories of joy
and sorrow were strangely blended, got to be identified, even in the memory
of the Synoptists, with the Jewish Passover, and that St. john silently but
deliberately corrected this

erroneous impression, which, even in his time, had come to be generally
prevalent." Before entering into the discussion, I must confess myself
unable to agree with the a priori reasoning by which Dr. Farrar accounts
for the supposed mistake of the Synoptists. Passing over the expression,
that "the Last Supper was a quasi-Passover," which does not convey to
me a sufficiently definite meaning, I should rather have expected that, in
order to realize the obvious "antitype," the tendency of the Synoptists
would have been to place the death of Christ on the evening of the 14th
Nisan, when the Paschal lamb was actually slain, rather than on the 15th
Nisan, twenty-four hours after that sacrifice had taken place. In other
words, the typical predilections of the Synoptists would, I imagine, have
led them to identify the death of Christ with the slaying of the lamb; and
it seems, a priori, difficult to believe that, if Christ really died at
that time, and His last supper was on the previous evening "-that of the
13th Nisan, "they

should have fallen into the mistake of identifying that supper, not with
His death, but with the Paschal meal. I repeat: a priori, if error there
was, I should have rather expected it in the opposite direction. Indeed,
the main dogmatic strength of the argument on the other side lies in the
consideration that the anti-type (Christ) should have died at the same time
as the type (the Paschal lamb). Dr. Farrar himself feels the force of this,
and one of his strongest arguments against the view that the Last Supper
took place at the Paschal meal is: "The sense of inherent and symbolical
fitness in the dispensation which ordained that Christ should be slain on
the day and at the hour appointed for the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb."
Of all persons, would not the Synoptists have been alive: to this
consideration? And, if so, is it likely that they would have fallen into
the mistake with which they are charged? Would not all their tendencies
have lain in the opposite direction?



But to pass to the argument itself. For the sake of clearness it will here
be convenient to treat the question under three aspects: "How does the
supposition that the Last Supper did not take place on the Paschal night
agree with the general bearing of the whole history? What, fairly speaking,
is the inference from the Synoptical Gospels? Lastly, does the account of
St. John, in this matter, contradict those of the Synoptists, or is it
harmonious indeed with theirs, but incomplete?



How Does The Supposition That The Last Supper Did Not Take Place On The
Paschal Night Agree With The General Bearing Of The Whole History?



1. The language of the first three Evangelists, taken in its natural sense,
seems dearly irreconcilable with this view. Even Dr. Farrar admits: "If
we construe the language for the Evangelists in its plain, straightforward,
simple sense, and without reference to any preconceived theories, or
supposed necessities for harmonizing the different narratives, we should be
led to conclude from the Synoptists that the Last Supper was the ordinary
Paschal meal." On this point further remarks will be made in the sequel.



2. The account of the meal as given, not only by the Synoptists but also by
St. John, so far as he describes it, seems to me utterly inconsistent with
the idea of an ordinary supper. It is not merely one trait or another which
here influences us, but the general impression produced by the whole. The
preparations for the meal; the allusions to it; in short, so to speak, the
whole raise mise, en scene is not that of a common supper. Only the
necessities of a preconceived theory would lead one to such a conclusion.
On the other hand, all is just what might have been expected, if the
Evangelists had meant to describe the Paschal meal.



3. Though I do not regard such considerations as decisive, there are, to my
mind, difficulties in the way of adopting the view that Jesus died while
the Paschal lamb was being slain, far greater than those which can attach
to the other theory. On the supposition of Dr. Farrar, the crucifixion took
place on the 14th Nisan, "between the evenings" of which the Paschal
lamb was slain. Being a Friday, the ordinary evening service would have
commenced at 1:30 P.M., and the evening sacrifice offered, say, at 1:30,
after which the services connected with the Paschal lamb would immediately
begin. Now it seems to me almost inconceivable, that under such
circumstances, and on so busy an afternoon, there should have been, at the
time when they must have been most engaged, around the cross that multitude
of reviling Jews, "likewise also the chief priests, mocking Him, with the
scribes," which all the four Evangelists record. (Matthew 27:39, 41; Mark
15:29, 31; Luke 23:35; John 21:20) Even more difficult does it seem to me
to believe, that after the Paschal lamb had been slain, and while the
preparations for the Paschal Supper were going on, as St. John reports,
(John 20:39-39) an "honorable councillor," like Joseph of Arimathaea,
and a Sanhedrist, like Nicodemus, should have gone to beg of Pilate the
body of Jesus, or been able to busy themselves with His burial. I proceed
now to the second question: