CHAPTER IX. Back
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THE PASCHAL SUPPER
THE trustworthiness of witnesses is tested, not by the amount of truth their
evidence contains, but by the absence of mistakes. A single glaring error may
serve to discredit testimony which seemed of the highest worth. This principle
applies with peculiar force in estimating the credibility of the Gospel
narratives, and it lends an importance that can scarcely be exaggerated to the
question which arises in this controversy, Was the betrayal in fact upon the
night of the Paschal Supper? If, as is so commonly maintained, one or all of the
Evangelists were in error in a matter of fact so definite and plain, it is idle
to pretend that their writings are in any sense whatever God-breathed.
[1]
The testimony of the first three Gospels is united, that the Last Supper
was eaten at the Jewish Passover. The attempt to prove that it was an
anticipatory celebration, without the paschal sacrifice, though made with the
best of motives, is utterly futile. "Now on the first day of unleavened bread"
(St. Matthew declares), [2]
"the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where wilt thou that we make ready
for Thee to eat the Passover?" It was the proposal not of the Lord, but of the
disciples, who, with the knowledge of the day and of the rites pertaining to it,
turned to the Master for instructions. With yet greater definiteness St. Mark
narrates that this took place on the first day of unleavened bread, when they
killed the Passover. (Mark 14:12) And the language of St. Luke is, if
possible, more unequivocal still:
But it is confidently asserted that the testimony of St. John is just as
clear and unambiguous that the: crucifixion took place upon the very day and, it
is; sometimes urged, at the very hour of the paschal sacrifice. Many an eminent
writer may be cited to support this view, and the controversy waged in its
defense is endless. But no plea for deference to great: names can be tolerated
for a moment when the point: at issue is the integrity of Holy Writ; and despite
the erudition that has been exhausted to prove that the Gospels are here at
hopeless variance, none who have: learned to prize them as a Divine revelation
will be surprised to find that the main difficulty depends; entirely on
prevailing ignorance respecting Jewish ordinances and the law of Moses.
These writers one and all. confound the Paschal Supper with the festival which
followed it, and to which it lent its name. The supper was a memorial. of the
redemption of the firstborn of Israel on the. night before the Exodus; the feast
was the anniversary of their actual deliverance from the house of bondage. The
supper was not a part of the: feast; it was morally the basis on which the feast
was founded, just as the Feast of Tabernacles was based on the great
sin-offering of the day of expiation which preceded it. But in the same way that
the Feast of Weeks came to be commonly designated Pentecost, the feast of
Unleavened Bread was popularly called the Passover. [3]
That title was common to the supper and the feast, and included both; but
the intelligent Jew would never confound the two; and if he spoke emphatically
of the feast of the Passover, he would thereby mark the festival to the
exclusion of the supper. [4]
No words can possibly express more clearly this distinction than those
afforded by the Pentateuch in the final promulgation of the Law: " In the
fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the Lord; and in the
fifteenth day of this month is the feast." [5]
Opening the thirteenth chapter of St. John in the light of this simple
explanation, every difficulty vanishes. The scene is laid at the Paschal Supper,
on the eve of the festival, "before the feast of the Passover;"
[6]
and after the narration or the washing of the disciples' feet, the
evangelist goes on to tell of the hurried departure of Judas, explaining that,
to some, the Lord's injunction to the traitor was understood to mean, "Buy what
we have need of against the feast." (John 13:29) The feast day was a
Sabbath, when trading was unlawful, and it would seem that the needed supply for
the festival was still procurable far on in the preceding night; for another of
the errors with which this controversy abounds is the assumption that the Jewish
day was invariably reckoned a nukthameron,
beginning in the evening. [7]
Such, doubtless, was the common rule, and notably in respect of the law
of ceremonial cleansing. This very fact, indeed, enables us without a doubt to
conclude that the Passover on account of which the Jews refused to defile
themselves by entering the judgment hall, was not the Paschal Supper, for
that supper was not eaten till after the hour at which such defilement would
have lapsed. In the language of the law, "When the sun is
down he shall be clean, and shall afterwards eat of the holy things." (Leviticus
12:7) Not so was it with the holy offerings of the feast day, which they
must needs eat before the hour at which their uncleanness would have ceased.
[8]
The only question, therefore, is whether partaking of the peace offerings
of the festival could properly be designated as "eating the Passover." The law
of Moses itself supplies the answer: "Thou shalt sacrifice the Passover unto the
Lord thy God of the flock and the herd…seven days shalt thou eat
unleavened bread therewith." (Deuteronomy 16:2, 3, and compare 2
Chronicles 35:7, 8.)
If then the words of St. John are intelligible only when thus interpreted, and
if when thus interpreted they are consistent with the testimony of the three
first Evangelists, no element is lacking to give certainty that the events of
the eighteenth chapter occurred upon the feast-day, Or if confirmation
still be needed, the closing verses of this very chapter give it, for according
to the custom cited, it was at the feast that the governor released a
prisoner to the people (John 18:39; Compare Matthew 27:15; Mark 15:6; and Luke
23:17). Fearing because of the populace to seize the Lord upon the feast-day,
(Matthew 26:5; Mark 14:1, 2) the Pharisees were eager to procure His betrayal on
the night of the Paschal Supper. And so it came to pass that the arraignment
before Pilate took place upon the festival, as all the Evangelists
declare.
But does not St. John expressly state that it was "the preparation of the
Passover," and must not this necessarily mean the fourteenth of Nisan? The plain
answer is, that not a single passage has been cited from writings either sacred
or profane in which that day is so described; whereas among the Jews "the
preparation" was the common name for the day before the Sabbath, and it is so
used by all the Evangelists. And bearing this in mind, let the reader compare
the fourteenth verse of the nineteenth chapter of St. John with the thirty-first
and forty-second verses of the same chapter, and he will have no difficulty in
rendering the words in question, "it was Passover Friday."
[9]
But yet another statement of St. John is quoted in this controversy. "That
Sabbath day was an high day," he declares, and therefore, it is urged, it
must have been the 15th of Nisan. The force of this "therefore" partly depends
upon overlooking the fact that all the great sacrifices to which the 15th of
Nisan largely owed its distinctive solemnity, were repeated daily throughout the
festival. (Numbers 28:19-24) [10]
On this account alone that Sabbath was "an high day." But besides, it was
specially distinguished as the day on which the firstfruits of the harvest were
offered in the temple; for in respect of this ordinance, as in most other points
of difference between the Karaite Jews, who held to the Scriptures as their only
guide, and the Rabbinical Jews, who followed the traditions of the elders, the
latter were entirely in the wrong.
The law enjoined that the sheaf of the firstfruits should be waved before the
Lord "on the morrow after the (paschal) Sabbath," (Leviticus 23:10, 11) and from
that day the seven weeks were reckoned which ended with the feast of Pentecost.
But as the book of Deuteronomy expressly ordains that the weeks should be
counted from the first day of the harvest, (Deuteronomy 16:9; and compare
Leviticus 23:15, 16) it is evident that the morrow after the Sabbath should not
be itself a Sabbath, but a working day. The true day for the ordinance,
therefore, was the day of the resurrection, "the first day of the week"
following the Passover, [11]
when, according to the intention of the law, the barley harvest should
begin, and the first sheaf gathered should be carried to the Holy Place and
solemnly waved before Jehovah. But with the Jews all this was lost in the empty
rite of offering in the temple a measure of meal prepared from corn which, in
violation of the law, had been garnered days before. This rite was invariably
celebrated on the 16th of Nisan; and thus synchronizing with the solemnities
both of the Paschal festival and of the Sabbath, that day could not fail to be
indeed "an high day." [12]
The argument in proof that the death of Christ was on the very day the
paschal lamb was killed, has gained a fictitious interest and value from the
seeming fitness of the synchronism this involves. But a closer investigation of
the subject, combined with a broader view of the Mosaic types, will dissipate
the force of this conclusion. The distinctive teaching of Calvinism is based on
giving an exclusive place to the great sin-offering of Leviticus, in which
substitution, in its most definite and narrowest sense, is essential. The
Passover, on the other hand, has ever been the most popular of types. But though
the other typical sacrifices are almost entirely ignored in the systems of our
leading schools of theology, they have no little prominence in Scripture. The
offerings which are placed first in the book of Leviticus have a large share in
the theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, — the new Testament "Leviticus,"
whereas the Passover is not even once referred to. [13]
Now these Leviticus offerings [14]
marked the feast-day, (Numbers 28:17-24) on which, according to
the Gospels, "the Messiah was cut off."
And other synchronisms are not wanting, still more striking and significant.
During all His ministry on earth, albeit it was spent in humiliation and
reproach, no hand was ever laid upon the Blessed One, save in importunate
supplication or in devout and loving service. But when at times His enemies
would fain have seized Him, a mysterious hour to come was spoken of, in which
their hate should be unhindered. "This is your hour, and the power of darkness,"
He exclaimed, as Judas and the impious companions in his guilt drew round Him in
the garden. (Luke 22:53) His hour, He called it, when He thought of His
mission upon earth: their hour, when in the fulfillment of that mission
He found Himself within their grasp.
The agonies inflicted on Him by men have taken hold on the mind of Christendom;
but beyond and above all these the mystery of the Passion is that He was
forsaken and accursed of God. [15]
In some sense, indeed, His sufferings from men were but a consequence of
this; therefore His reply to Pilate, "Thou couldst have no power at all against
Me, except it were given thee from above." If men seized and slew Him, it was
because God had delivered Him up. When that destined hour had struck, the mighty
Hand drew back which till then had shielded Him from outrage. His death
was not the beginning, but the close of His sufferings; in truth, it was the
hour of His triumph.
The midnight agony in Gethsemane was thus; the great antitype of that midnight
scene in Egypt: when the destroying angel flashed through the land. And as His
death was the fulfillment of His people's; deliverance, so it took place upon
the anniversary of "that selfsame day that the Lord did bring the children of
Israel out of the land of Egpyt by their armies." [16]
.