Holy Thursday (Last Supper)

THE EVENTS OF HOLY THURSDAY (LAST SUPPER)

The Last Supper

Nothing is said in the Gospel about the events of the daylight hours. There is every reason to think that Jesus passed it in the company of his intimate friends and his family; his mother must have been there for on the day after we find her at the foot of the cross. The decisive events take place during the evening and all four Evangelists report them with a wealth of detail and in striking similarity. Even St. John, who ordinarily does not dwell upon things which the synoptics have recorded, seems driven by an urge to put down everything he knows, and everything he can remember. Thus we are able to follow Jesus almost hour by hour upon the road which was to be his Passion.

The Passover was the greatest of the Jewish feasts and to understand its meaning and to follow the ritual we must turn to Exodus xii in which its institution by Moses is recorded. During the enslavement in Egypt, Jehovah had smitten the oppressors with the "tenth plague," in which all the first-born sons of the Egyptians were to be killed. In order that the Angel of Death should spare the Jewish households, the Chosen People were told to mark a sign in the blood of a lamb upon the lintel of their doorways. "Their meat that night must be roasted over the fire, their bread unleavened; wild herbs must be all their seasoning. . . . And this is to be the manner of your eating it; your loins must be girt, your feet ready shod, and every man's staff in his hand; all must be done in haste. It is the night of the Pasch, the Lord's passing by. . . . You are to observe this day . . . generation after generation; a rite never to be abrogated." For seven days the Jews must eat unleavened bread and keep the whole week consecrated to the Lord.

The Jewish tradition observed these rites faithfully and the Talmud had, in a lengthy commentary, the Pesahim, amplified the details: the lamb must be whole, with no bone broken, it must be cooked on an open fire on a spit from wood of the pomegranate; the exact number of cups which might be drunk during the sacred repast and the exact proportions, a third of wine and two of water, which each should contain; the bitter herbs were particularized and minute directions were given for the sauce in which they were steeped. Was this the meal which Jesus and his disciples ate on the Thursday night?

"On the first of the days of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where wilt thou have us make ready for thee to eat the paschal meal?" (Matt. 26:17-19; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7-8.)

The exact date of Last Supper, and its consequent significance, was very much debated in the early Church. Eusebius wrote a commentary on it and it even gave birth to a heresy. We have seen that the great feast day must have been the fifteenth day of Nisan. The Passover lamb was eaten on the evening of that day. The synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke), however, suggest that the Last Supper which Jesus took with his disciples was the Passover feast, but St. John says plainly that the day of the paschal meal (not the day Jesus ate the meal) was the day on which he died. According to the synoptics, the Thursday of the Last Supper was the fourteenth day of Nisan and Jesus died on Friday the fifteenth. According to the Fourth Gospel, the Supper took place on the thirteenth and the Crucifixion on the fourteenth. If we conclude, from the reading of St. John, that the Last Supper was not the Passover feast, it seems we are going against considerable evidence to the contrary from the synoptics (for example Mark 14:12; Mathew 26:17; Luke 22:7; Mark14:17; Mathew 26:20; Luke 22:14-15). Should we then conclude that it was? St. John himself states that the Pharisees ate the Passover after the death of Jesus (18:28).

From various indications in the synoptics it seems clear that the day when Jesus died was not a holy day when normal activities were proscribed, or Simon the Cyrenean would not have been "coming in from the country" nor could a condemned person be crucified and buried.

We cannot go into all the interpretations in order to force the two versions to a mathematical coincidence, though it may be remarked that St. John, writing long afterward in a Greek community, might well have reckoned his days, as we do, from midnight while the Jews would reckon theirs from sunset. Thus the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan, although legally the fifteenth day of the month, might be popularly regarded as the fourteenth. We have still to explain why Jesus and the Pharisees should not have celebrated the feast on the same day, but there is some evidence from rabbinical sources that the Jews differed among themselves in this matter of fixing the date and that the Galileans, in particular, observed the feast on the evening of the thirteenth. When the feast fell upon a Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, it seems to have been the custom, especially among the Sadducees, to transfer the feast to the Saturday in the same way as the Talmud directs in the case of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, should it fall upon the eve of the Sabbath. We cannot go into these interminable discussions so popular with the exegetes; it is enough to say that most modern authorities accept the chronology of St. John, which comes to this, according to the present-day calendar: the Last Supper, when Jesus attended the Passover feast, took place on the evening of Thursday, April 6; the death of Jesus occurred on April 7, the legal day of the Jewish Passover.

In reply to their question, Jesus told two of the disciples, Peter and John, to make the preparations. He said: "Go into the city, find such a man, and tell him, The Master says, My time is near; I and My disciples must keep the paschal feast at thy house." "And he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared; it is there you are to make ready for us." (Matt. 26:18-16; Mark 14:13-15; Luke 22:7-12.) We do not know who this man was, but doubtless some faithful disciple would put his house at Jesus' disposal. The sign by which Peter and John were to recognize him—a man "carrying a jar of water"—Mark 14:13; Luke 22:10—would not strike them as inadequate, for it should be remembered that in the East the women always drew the water and a man carrying a pitcher would be somewhat conspicuous.

The disciples went into the town, probably by the gate near the well of Sloe, found the man and carried out their Master's instruction. "A large upper room" suggests a formal celebration; certainly Jesus would wish to impart solemnity to this occasion, the inner meaning of which he knew so well. He does not appear to have gone to so much trouble at other Passover celebrations; at least, there is no mention of them.

The Christian, so familiar with innumerable representations of the Last Supper in art, finds it difficult to disassociate this Jewish religious feast from the sacrament which it was to institute. For this reason, we are inclined to prefer some of the lesser known representations to the more illustrious, not excluding the famous da Vinci, the best known of all. In some of the minor sculpture of the twelfth century, notably in a tympanum of Charlieu and on a mutilated lintel at St. Gilles-de-Gard, we have a more direct and less romanticized presentation, with a far stronger impact of spiritual significance.

Most Oriental houses today have a large upper room, sometimes lit by a square lantern hanging from the ceiling, which is reserved for guests, especially those who may be staying for several days. Rugs and divans are provided so that they may settle themselves at their ease. The location of the room where the Last Supper was held has naturally occupied Christian archaeologists. One very old tradition locates it in the upper town, beyond the Tyropeon Bridge, near the southeastern corner of the ramparts. The whole quarter was destroyed in the siege of 70 AD and we cannot say how accurate was the recollection which, in the third century, caused a small chapel to be built on the spot. During the following century, it was included in the vast Basilica of Holy Zion. This church was burnt by the Persians in 614 and again by the Saracens in 960 and i1011. It was finally rebuilt by Godfrey de Bouillon during the Crusades. In the fourteenth century Sancha, wife of Robert of Anjou, the French King of Naples, obtained the right to maintain this holy place from the Sultan of Egypt and put it in charge of the Franciscans, to whom we owe the present-day monument, a large vaulted chamber supported by heavy columns of porphyry with rather ungainly capitals carved with grapes and wheat-ears.

But it is no longer Christian soil. The place where "the mother of all churches once stood," to quote the chronicler William of Tyre, is now a mosque, because the Mohammedans subsequently affirmed, though absolutely without proof, that the same spot was the burial place of David, who as Nebi Daoud is venerated in Islam. And so, at the end of a long quiet garden, its walls covered with trailing vines, where tall red cypresses lift their heads to the sun, an old Arab in a turban admits the Christian pilgrim to the place where perhaps Christ said: "This is My Body! This is My Blood!"

At sunset, on this day about half past five, the feast would have begun. The guests would be reclining around the table. The old custom of eating the Passover with the tunic worn as though ready for a journey seems to have fallen into disuse by the time of Christ. They would thank God for the wine and for the day, then the Passover dinner began. The chapter of the Talmud called the Pesahim was composed about 150, and probably the usage in Jesus' day was very much the same as those given in it.

The unleavened bread was dipped in a red sauce called haroseth. Two cups of wine were solemnly drunk, with sips of salt water in between, in memory of the tears shed in Egypt. Psalm 113, which tells the story of the Exodus and the division of the waters of the Red Sea, was then chanted. Then the lamb was eaten with the "wild herbs," those sharply-flavored aromatics, marjoram, bay, thyme and basil, which are still eaten with mutton in Turkey and Greece. Two more ritual cups of wine were drunk, the last being called "the cup of benediction" because to it was sung the Hallel, the famous song of thanksgiving, made up of four Psalms (113-116) : "Not to us, Lord, not to us the glory; let thy name alone be honored; thine the merciful, thine the faithful. . . . Our God is a God that dwells in heaven. . . . The heathen have silver idols and golden, gods which the hands of man have fashioned. . . . Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, let all the nations of the world do him honor. Abundant has his mercy been towards us; the Lord remains faithful to his word for ever." Psalm 17 contains an allusion to the Messias which the Apostles must have chanted with special fervor: "Blessed be the living Lord who is my refuge."

The Passover was a joyful feast, "as delectable as the olive," says the Talmud and the chant of the Hallel lifted the roofs. A Gnostic text of the second century, known as the Acts of John, shows us the disciples joining hands in a circle round Jesus, dancing in solemn rhythm as they sang the psalms to the glory of God. "Cantare volo, saltate cuncti" said St. Augustine. But in the heart of Jesus a deep sorrow pervaded the joy. "I have longed and longed to share this paschal meal with you before my passion; I tell you, I shall not eat it again, till it finds its fulfillment in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:15-16).

This Last Supper was to be his supreme instruction to the faithful and he began it with a significant gesture.

"And now, rising from supper, He laid His garments aside, took a towel, and put it about Him; and then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the feet of His disciples, wiping them with the towel that girded Him. So, when He came to Simon Peter, Peter asked Him, 'Lord, is it for thee to wash my feet?' Jesus answered him, 'It is not for thee to know, now, what I am doing; but thou wilt understand it afterwards.' Peter said to Him, 'I will never let Thee wash my feet!' and Jesus answered him, 'If I do not wash thee, it means thou hast no companionship with Me!' 'Then, Lord,' said Peter, 'wash my hands and my head too, not only my feet'" (John 13:4-9 ) .

Once again Peter's ardent, impetuous character, so very much of a piece through the Gospel record, is sketched in a few brief sentences. "Do you understand what it is I have done to you?" asked Jesus. "You hail me as the Master, and the Lord; and you are right, it is what I am. Why then, if I have washed your feet, I who am the Master and the Lord, you in your turn ought to wash each other's feet; I have been setting you an example, which will teach you in your turn to do what I have done for you" (John xiii, 12-15). One of the most moving parts of the Catholic Office for Holy Week is when, on Maundy Thursday, the officiating prelate—the Pope himself in the Sistine Chapel—kneels to wash the feet of the twelve poor men who symbolize the Apostles.

Jesus tried, by this dramatic gesture, finally to break the shell of pride and envy, the matrix of the human creature, which stifles even the best of us. When the Passover solemnities were finished, the meal proceeded more informally with the guests reclining upon the litters which the Greeks had brought into general usage. There would naturally be competition for the place next to Jesus and inevitably a dispute arose as to who was most entitled to it, who was the chief of the Twelve. Again Jesus had to call them to order. "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them. . . . With you it is not to be so; no difference is to be made, among you, between the greatest and the youngest of all, between him who commands and him who serves. . . . You are the men who have kept to my side in my hours of trial: and, as my Father has allotted a kingdom to me, so I allot to you a place to eat and drink at my table in my kingdom; you shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Luke 22:24-30; Mark 10:35-45; Matthew 20:20-28.)

The night had fallen: they had lit the little clay lamps in the candelabras. It was the night of Judas.

We wonder what he was thinking, there among the others who knew nothing whatever of his doings. He was probably infuriated by those words which he understood only too well—"they shall be last who were first"--and consumed with anxiety to finish what he had begun. Twice Jesus had made allusions which he alone understood. While he was washing the disciples' feet he said: "You are not all clean." A few minutes later he referred to a scripture which should be fulfilled: "The man who shared my bread has lifted his heel to trip me up" (John 13:11-18). Later, during the meal, he spoke even more plainly: "Believe me, one of you is to betray me." The disciples were appalled and looked at each other, each asking: "Lord, is it I?" He did not reply directly, but gave what was perhaps a final warning. "The Son of Man goes on his way, as the scripture foretells of him; but woe upon that man by whom the Son of Man is to be betrayed; better for that man if he had never been born." Then Judas, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps in bravado, asked in his turn, "Is it I?" There was perhaps a slight gesture of reply only visible to the questioner, or that murmured familiar response, common among the Jews, the answer Moses gave to Pharao (Exodus10:29): "Thy own lips have said it!" (Matthew 26:20-25).

In the triclinium, as we can see at Pompeii, the guests reclined on three divans arranged round the table, leaving the fourth side free for the service. The center place at the bottom was the seat of honor; that to the right of it was called "the bosom of the father" because, since the guests reclined on the left elbow, the slightest move from the person in that place brought him toward the breast of the giver of the feast. This place was occupied by John, the beloved disciple. Peter was probably on Jesus's left. Judas was probably at the head of one of the other groups; as one of the stewards he would need to go in and out without inconveniencing anybody.

With growing alarm, the disciples looked at one another. John—he never names himself in his Gospel, but the identification is unmistakable —was leaning against his Master's breast, and, prompted by Peter, asked: "Lord, who is it?" Jesus answered: "It is the man to whom I give this piece of bread which I am dipping in the dish." And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot (John13:23-26). In St. Matthew's version, Jesus chooses a different method to point out the traitor. “The man who has put his hand into the dish with me will betray me” (21:23). Both versions refer to customs still observed at table in the East. Among the Arabs in Syria and Trans-Jordan, to put one's hand in the dish is a sort of rite and if, involuntarily, a guest lays hold of a morsel coveted by somebody else, he casts the evil eye on the other. When two men of equal rank eat dates from the same bowl, it must be covered by a veil. Many a traveler in the East has experienced the somewhat disconcerting honor of having some revolting morsel, such as a greasy kidney, handed across the table to him by the host.

We wonder whether this gesture was a last attempt on the part of Jesus to bring back the wretched Judas to his side. But there are times when the spirit is so full of violence and resentment that a friendly gesture, instead of soothing, plunges the tortured soul more deeply into its furnace of hate. "The morsel once given, Satan entered into him; and Jesus said to him, Be quick on thy errand. None of those who sat there could understand the drift of what he said; some of them thought, since Judas kept the common purse, that Jesus was saying to him, ‘Go and buy what we need for the feast!’, or bidding him give some alms to the poor. He, as soon as he received the morsel, had gone out; and now it was night" (John 13:27-30).

It was night, the immediate evocation of the eye witness who saw the door open upon the terrace and the traitor hastening in the darkness toward his doom. No conscious artist could have written with greater literary effect; and, beyond its lightning visualization of the scene, the mind calls up a vision of that more impenetrable darkness into which this man, caught up in a monstrous destiny yet impelled by his own choke, is plunged forever, because he confirmed the rejection of Christ.

Toward the end of the supper a new rite, unknown to the Mosaic Law, was inaugurated by Jesus in words and gestures by which the tragedy so soon to come was explained. The synoptics report it with only very slight variations. "Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my body. Then he took a cup, and offered thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink, all of you, of this; for this is my blood, of the new testament, shed for many, to the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20)

No Christian can read these words without feeling the presence of Christ living. However they may be interpreted, as the Real Presence according to the Catholic Church or as a solemn commemoration, as is believed by the majority of the Protestant sects, they represent the highest level of the Christian mystery, one we all feel the need to contemplate and adore in silence. In them Christ shows himself plainly, not merely as the perfect Exemplar and the incomparable Teacher, but as the predestined Victim offered for the salvation of mankind.

Rationalist critics have, of course, made great play with comparisons from primitive religions in which eating the flesh of a sacred animal was supposed to confer divine qualities. Certain Asiatic rites also practiced the "drinking of blood." But comparisons of this kind are in fact very misleading, for they relate solely to the practice and ignore the intention. Union with God has always been man's noblest and highest aim; it is expressed in its most barbarous form by the "god-eating" of primitive people. But the Christian rite is altogether different. The words of Jesus, considered in their deepest sense, mean that in receiving the bread and the wine the faithful absorb the flesh and blood of Christ, however unworthy they may be; the transformation of the substance is in no way connected with the intention of him who receives it. Had Judas "partaken" (which he seems not to have done) he would also, even he, have received the body and blood of Christ.

In this sense it is not inadmissible that the mastication is in line with the most ancient traditions of humanity? But it is not a question of ingesting a substance presumed to be divine which by some magic operation confers virtue on the initiate; unity with God in the sacrament requires more: the intention, the purification and the will to love. The fact of the mastication remains, but the crude act is extended to a spiritual participation in God.

And now we come to a striking instance, that "tacit rather than manifest" accord among the four Gospels, to use Heraclitus's phrase. The actual institution of the rite is related only by the synoptics and we are at first astonished that St. John does not mention it. We conclude that it must have been because he did not wish to repeat his predecessors, but to supplement them. That may be true, yet he does report the Last Supper in detail up to that point, then he stops. But in chapter 6, in the relation of events which presumably took place in Galilee, he interpolates a long discourse on the Bread of Life which the others do not give at all. This doubtless explains his silence later on, and it establishes the relation between Christ's words at the Supper and the teaching which he had given before. The discourse reported by John amplifies the brief explanations given by St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke of the mysterious ceremony which Christ instituted at the Last Supper. It may be assumed that when he said, "This is my body," the Apostles must have recalled to mind that strange earlier discourse about the Bread of Life which they had found so difficult at the time.

"If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. And now, what is this bread which I am to give? It is My flesh, given for the life of the world." There is no question of any magical interpretation of those words; the moral and spiritual sense is strongly emphasized. Those who partake of the Bread of Life are those who listen to the Father and hear his words, those who believe in Jesus. Spiritual renewal is the essential preliminary to union with God, and the Apostles cannot have forgotten this condition, so often reiterated, when Jesus repeated his strange words once again: "My flesh is real food, My blood is real drink. He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, lives continually in Me, and I in him."

The doctrine of the Catholic Church is that the Sacrament of the Eucharist derives from the actions and the words of Christ at the Last Supper. It affirms that the body of Christ is present—not in the blood and in the wine, which is the Lutheran position—but under the appearance of the material species, the reality has been miraculously transformed into the substance of God himself. Transubstantiation resides in that. The presence of the body of Christ is not a local presence in the ordinary sense of the word, but it is as incontestable as the presence of the soul in the human body and is perhaps something analogous to it.

This, however, is the realm of theology. Historically, we know that the usage of this rite, as understood in the Catholic sense, is extremely ancient in the Christian Church. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, written in 57 AD, refers to it as a rite established in the early Christian communities, and the passage seems to confirm that it was interpreted in the fullest concrete and spiritual sense. "So it is the Lord's death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, until he comes. And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord's body and blood. A man must examine himself first, and then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord's body for what it is" (I Corinthians 11:26-29).

In the catacombs of St. Calixtus, we can see a fish, the symbol of Christ, bearing two baskets of small round loaves and in the center of the bread, in transparent effect across the basket, a flask of red wine. This representation of the Eucharist is probably earlier than 139 AD.

Across the centuries the Church, reproducing in the sacrifice of the Mass the words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper, has offered the faithful the bread by which they "communicate" with the living God and to every priest at the moment when he raises the Host and the Chalice, pronouncing the liturgical formulae of consecration, descends something of that serene youthful majesty which looks down on us from the arch over the doorway of Rheims, the image of the Messias, knowing his death to be at hand, as he says to his disciples: "This is my body. This is my blood."

Last Teaching; Last Prayer

When the meal was over, the Jews were accustomed to linger and talk, not, as the Romans did, as an excuse to go on drinking, but solely for the pleasure of talking. St. Mark and St. Matthew do not give us anything of this last discourse, considering,'no doubt, that it repeated only what Jesus had said before, which they had already recorded. St. Luke gives us only a little, in very few verses (22:31-38). But St. John devotes a whole series of chapters to it (12:3–17:26) and it is so brilliantly recorded that here, more than anywhere else in his Gospel, do we get the feeling of a direct testimony, a supremely cherished recollection.

Just the same it is not improbable, from the lack of continuity and the strange words at the end of chapter 14, which seem to indicate some break in the discourse, that the Apostle went over his record more than once to make sure that he had set down everything he could remember about Jesus's last days on earth, and that chapters 15–16 may be an addition. It is also possible, since this farewell discourse holds the position of prominence in St. John's Gospel which the Sermon on the Mount occupies in the synoptics, that the Apostle may have included in it teaching given by Jesus on other occasions. But, however composed, all the elements combine in a harmony of luminous beauty and sweetness; the words, even if uttered previously, are the more moving because we can hear in them the note of his earthly farewell.

The subject of the discourse is familiar and oft repeated but in this particular hour, speaking to those nearest to him, Jesus found words of the most poignant tenderness. "It is only for a short time that I am with you, my children." To those who interrupted him with questions, Thomas, Philip and Jude, he replied patiently. The poor men showed plainly that they had little idea of the real meaning of the tragedy in which they were involved. To Peter, who, with his usual impetuosity and a certain presumption, asked: "Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I am ready to lay down my life for thy sake," Jesus answered, half sadly, half ironically: "Believe me, by cock-crow thou wilt thrice disown me."

Little by little, the tension grows. We feel the dramatic conflict between Jesus and these men, asking all too human questions, unable to lift their eyes from the ground, and demanding tangible signs. "Where art thou going?" "We do not know where thou art going; how are we to know the way there?"—while another even asked: "Lord, let us see the Father." And Jesus was already so far away from their level, almost drawn up into the region whence he came and whose mysteries he now sought for the last time to explain.

This last discourse is indeed a summary, in the most sublime words, of everything he had been teaching for more than two years. "I am the way; I am truth and life; nobody can come to the Father, except through me. . . . I am the true vine, and it is my Father who tends it. The branch that yields no fruit in me he cuts away; . . . If a man does not live on in me, he can only be like the branch that is cast off and withers away; such a branch is picked up and thrown into the fire, to burn there." He stresses the vital role of faith. "Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me . . . whatever request you make of the Father in my name, I will grant." And, above all, he enjoins them once again to show charity, love is the universal Law. And, though so particularly the Christian virtue, it would become so strong and so beautiful that the pagans themselves would acknowledge it: "I have a new commandment to give you that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you."

But behind the moving, comforting words is the shadow of a terrifying presentiment, sometimes of triumph and glory, sometimes of unparalleled suffering, and as awe-inspiring in the one guise as in the other. The men who listened to these words, if they failed to understand them could not have failed to respond in fear and disquiet. "Now the Son of Man has achieved his glory, and in his glory God is exalted. . . . I am going away. . . . If you really loved me, you would be glad to hear that I am on my way to my Father. . . . Do not let your heart be distressed. . . . It is only a little while now before the world is to see me no more. . . . I have no longer much time for converse with you; one is coming, who has power over the world, but no hold over me."

He spoke even more plainly than this, he tried to bring home to them the lot that awaited them in the world. "They will persecute you just as they have persecuted me. . . . They will forbid you the synagogue; nay, the time is coming when anyone who puts you to death will claim that he is performing an act of worship to God." But the picture he painted was not altogether without consolation; from the darkness of the terrible prophecies burst forth a swelling, conquering light. "I will not leave you friendless. . . . Peace is my bequest to you, and the peace which I will give you is mine to give. . . . This is the greatest love a man can show, that he should lay down his life for his friends." More than consolation was given to the eleven anxious men who sat there listening; the most stupendous of all promises, the promise of the Resurrection: "After a little while, you will see me no longer; and again after a little while you will have sight of me . . ." And the promise of the Holy Spirit, who will make all things plain, who will fill their souls with light and will complete, in the order of knowledge, what has been gained through the power of love: "He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you."

The nucleus of the doctrine which was to be the subject of St. Paul's inexhaustible commentaries is to be found in these few words, which the beloved disciple, out of his treasured memories, was later to set down: that the Messias must die for the salvation of mankind, that his death was a revolutionary event which changed the world and inaugurated a new law; and that from that time, through the forgiveness of sin and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, salvation was made possible and man, through Christ, may reunite himself to God.

Having said all he could to his followers on earth, Jesus, more and more withdrawn into the supernatural, addressed himself directly to his Father in heaven. This "sacerdotal prayer" is certainly the supreme mystical passage of the entire Gospel, for in it the living God speaks to the unseen God directly and, as it were, face to face.

"Father, the time has come; give glory now to thy Son, that thy Son may give glory to thee. Thou hast put him in authority over all mankind, to bring eternal life to all those thou hast entrusted to him. Eternal life is knowing thee, who art the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou halt sent. . . . I have made thy name known to the men whom thou hast entrusted to me, chosen out of the world. . . . It is for these I pray. . . . I am remaining in the world no longer, but they remain in the world, while I am on my way to thee. Holy Father, keep them true to thy name, thy gift to me, that they may be one, as we are one. . . . that my joy may be theirs. . . . It is not only for them that I pray; I pray for those who are to find faith in me through their word; that they may all be one; that they too, may be one in us, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee. . . . This, Father, is my desire, that all those whom thou hast entrusted to me may be with me where I am, so as to see my glory, thy gift made to me, in that love which thou didst bestow upon me before the foundation of the world. . . . that the love thou hast bestowed upon me may dwell in them, and I, too, may dwell in them" (John 17).

There was no more. The time had come to leave that place and go to the Mount of Olives where they were expected to stay. He had just told them that a struggle was at hand when a sword would be more useful than a garment and as usual, taking his words in their most literal sense, they assured him that they were well armed: "Here are two swords." "That is enough," he said, and, as Cyril of Alexandria suggested, he must have smiled in pity as he said it, the ironical smile of the supernatural being who had plumbed the depths of sorrow and misunderstanding but who could draw from his sad knowledge not the bitterness or the savagery of the misanthrope, but the just comprehension of a greater love.

He went out. From its situation in the highest part of the town the house where the Last Supper was held must have given a complete view of the city. Close by was the High Priest's palace; to the left, Herod's, flanked by the gardens of Gard; and opposite, beyond the shadow of the Tyropeon, beyond Ophel and Sion at the foot of the Temple, arose the massive Tower of Antonia, the symbol of humiliation. Jesus, in a glance around, could count the three "stages" of his "trial." But Golgotha would not be visible; it lay behind the square block of the Tower of David. Over the sleeping town shone the bright moon of the month of Nisan, the full moon of the Passover, "blessed in that it hath delivered us." A burning brazier marked the watchtower of Phazael, and somewhere, in a hidden Temple police trap, Judas also kept watch.