PREPARATION FOR THE PASSOVER. 479 CHAPTER IX. THE FIFTH DAY IN PASSION-WEEK-' MAKE READY THE PASSOVER!' a CHAP. (St. Matt. xxvi. 17-19; St. Mark xiv. 12-16; St. Luke xxii. 7-13; St. John xiii. 1.) WHEN the traitor returned from Jerusalem on the Wednesday afternoon, the Passover, in the popular and canonical, though not in the Biblical sense, was close at hand. It began on the 14th Nisan, that is, from the appearance of the first three stars on Wednesday evening [the evening of what had been the 13th], and ended with the first three stars on Thursday evening [the evening of what had been the 14th day of Nisan]. As this is an exceedingly important point, it is well here to quote the precise language of the Jerusalem Talmud: "What is the Pascha?1 On the 14th [Nisan].' And so ⚫ Jer. Pes. Josephus describes the Feast as one of eight days, evidently reckon-line before ing its beginning on the 14th, and its close at the end of the 21st Nisan. The absence of the traitor so close upon the Feast would, therefore, be the less noticed by the others. Necessary preparations might have to be made, even though they were to be guests in some house they knew not which. These would, of course, devolve on Judas. Besides, from previous conversations, they may also have judged that the man of Kerioth' would fain escape what the Lord had all that day been telling them about, and which was now filling their minds and hearts. b Everyone in Israel was thinking about the Feast. For the previous month it had been the subject of discussion in the Academies, and, for the last two Sabbaths at least, that of discourse in the Synagogues. Everyone was going to Jerusalem, or had those near and dear to them there, or at least watched the festive processions to the Metropolis of Judaism. It was a gathering of universal Israel, that of the memorial of the birth-night of the nation, and of its Exodus, when friends from afar would meet, and new friends be The question is put in connection with Pes. i. 8. 2 See the Jerusalem Gemara (Jer. Pes. 27 b, towards the end). But the detailed 27 d, b Ant. ii. 15. 1 BOOK V made; when offerings long due would be brought, and purification long needed be obtained-and all worship in that grand and glorious Temple, with its gorgeous ritual. National and religious feelings were alike stirred in what reached far back to the first, and pointed far forward to the final Deliverance. On that day a Jew might well glory in being a Jew. But we must not dwell on such thoughts, nor attempt a general description of the Feast. Rather shall we try to follow closely the footsteps of Christ and His disciples, and see or know only what on that day they saw and did. For ecclesiastical purposes Bethphage and Bethany seem to have been included in Jerusalem. But Jesus must keep the Feast in the City itself, although, if His purpose had not been interrupted, He would have spent the night outside its walls. The first preparations for the Feast would commence shortly after the return of the traitor. For, on the evening [of the 13th] commenced the 14th of Nisan, when a solemn search was made with lighted candle throughout each house for any leaven that might be hidden, or have fallen aside by accident. Such was put by in a safe place, and afterwards destroyed with the rest. In Galilee it was the usage to abstain wholly from work; in Judæa the day was divided, and actual work ceased only at noon, though nothing new was taken in hand even in the morning. This division of the day for festive purposes was a Rabbinic addition; and, by way of a hedge around it, an hour before midday was fixed after which nothing leavened might be eaten. The more strict abstained from it even an hour earlier (at ten o'clock), lest the eleventh hour might insensibly run into the forbidden midday. But there could be little real danger of this, since, by way of public notification, two desecrated thankoffering cakes were laid on a bench in the Temple, the removal of one of which indicated that the time for eating what was leavened had passed; the removal of the other, that the time for destroying all leaven had come.2 It was probably after the early meal, and when the eating of leaven had ceased, that Jesus began preparations for the Paschal Supper. St. John, who, in view of the details in the other Gospels, summarises, and, in some sense, almost passes over, the outward. events, so that their narration may not divert attention from those 1 Comp. St. Matt. xxvi. 30, 36; St. Mark xiv. 26, 32; St. Luke xxii. 39; St. John xviii. 1. 2 The Jerusalem Talmud gives the most minute details of the places in which search is to be made. One Rabbi proposed that the search should be repeated at three different times! If it had been omitted on the evening of the 13th, it would be made on the forenoon of the 14th Nisan. 2 THE NIGHT OF THE PASCHAL SUPPER. a 481 CHAP. IX xxii. 7 all-important teachings which he alone records, simply tells by way of preface and explanation-alike of the Last Supper' and of what followed that Jesus, 'knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father' . . . having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.' But St. Luke's account of what actually happened, being in some points the most explicit, requires to be carefully studied, and that without thought of any possible consequences in regard to the harmony of the Gospels. It is almost impossible to imagine anything more evident, than that he wishes us to understand that Jesus was about to celebrate the ordinary Jewish Paschal Supper. And the Day of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover must be sacrificed.' The designation is exactly that of the commence- St. Luke ment of the Pascha, which, as we have seen, was the 14th Nisan, and the description that of the slaying of the Paschal Lamb. What follows is in exact accordance with it: And He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and make ready for us the Pascha, that we may eat it.' Then occur these three notices in the same account: And 6 they made ready the Pascha;' and when the hour was come, He ver. 13 reclined [as usual at the Paschal Supper], and the Apostles with Him;' and, finally, these words of His: With desire I have ver. 14 desired to eat this Pascha with you.' And with this fully agrees the language of the other two Synoptists, St. Matt. xxvi. 17-20, and St. Mark xiv. 12-17.3 No ingenuity can explain away these facts. The suggestion, that in that year the Sanhedrin had postponed the Paschal Supper from Thursday evening (the 14th-15th Nisan) to Friday evening (15-16th Nisan), so as to avoid the Sabbath following on the first day of the feast-and that the Paschal Lamb was therefore in that year eaten on Friday, the evening of the day on which Jesus was crucified, is an assumption void of all support in history b These phrases occur frequently in Jewish writings for dying: the hour has come to depart out of this world.' Thus, in Targum on Cant. i. 7, when the hour had come that Moses should depart out of the world;' Shem. R. 33, what hour the time came for our father Jacob that he should depart out of the world.' The words may also be rendered 'to the uttermost.' But it seems more natural to understand the 'having loved' as referring to all Christ's previous sayings and doings-as it were, the summing up the whole past, like St. Matt. xxvi. 1: 'when Jesus had finished all these sayings'-and the other clause (He loved VOL. II. them to the end') as referring to the 3 It deserves notice, that the latest Jew- I I d ver. 15 BOOK V St. John xviii. 28 b St. John xviii. 28 e Sebach. v. 8 d St. Luke xxii. 8 or Jewish tradition.' Equally untenable is it, that Christ had held the Paschal Supper a day in advance of that observed by the rest of the Jewish world-a supposition not only inconsistent with the plain language of the Synoptists, but impossible, since the Paschal Lamb could not have been offered in the Temple, and, therefore, no Paschal Supper held, out of the regular time. But, perhaps, the strangest attempt to reconcile the statement of the Synoptists with what is supposed inconsistent with it in the narration of St. John a is, that while the rest of Jerusalem, including Christ and His Apostles, partook of the Paschal Supper, the chief priests had been interrupted in, or rather prevented from it by their proceedings against Jesus-that, in fact, they had not touched it when they feared to enter Pilate's Judgment-Hall; and that, after that, they went back to eat it, 'turning the Supper into a breakfast.'2 Among the various objections to this extraordinary hypothesis, this one will be sufficient, that such would have been absolutely contrary to one of the plainest rubrical directions, which has it: The Pascha is not eaten but during the night, nor yet later than the middle of the night.'e It was, therefore, with the view of preparing the ordinary Paschal Supper that the Lord now commissioned Peter and John.d For the first time we see them here joined together by the Lord, these two, who henceforth were to be so closely connected: he of deepest feeling with him of quickest action. And their question, where He would have the Paschal Meal prepared, gives us a momentary glimpse of the mutual relation between the Master and His Disciples; how He was still the Master, even in their most intimate converse, and would only tell them what to do just when it needed to be done; and how they presumed not to ask beforehand (far less to propose, or to interfere), but had simple confidence and absolute submission as regarded all things. The direction which the Lord gave, while once more evidencing to them, as it does to us, the Divine foreknowledge of Christ, had also its deep human meaning. Evidently, neither the house where the Passover was to be kept, nor its owner,3 was to be named within hearing of Judas. That last Meal, with its Institution of the Holy Supper, was not to be interrupted, nor their last retreat betrayed, till all had been said and done, even to the last prayer of Agony in Gethsemane. We can scarcely err in seeing in It has of late, however, found an advocate even in the learned Bishop Haneberg. 2 So Archdeacon Watkins (in Excursus F, in Bp. Ellicott's 'Commentary on the N. T.,' Gospel of St. John). 3 St. Matthew calls him 'such an one' (Tov deiva). The details are furnished by St. Mark and St. Luke, and must be gathered from those Gospels. THE PLACE OF THE LAST SUPPER. 483 CHAP. IX On 1 Sam. x. 3 this combination of foreknowledge with prudence the expression of the Divine and the Human: the two Natures in One Person.' The sign which Jesus gave the two Apostles reminds us of that by which Samuel of old had conveyed assurance and direction to Saul. their entrance into Jerusalem they would meet a man-manifestly a servant-carrying a pitcher of water. Without accosting, they were to follow him, and, when they reached the house, to deliver to its owner this message: The Master saith, My time is at hand-with thee [i.e. in thy house: the emphasis is on this] I hold the Passover with My disciples.b Where is My hostelry [or 'hall'], where St. MatI shall eat the Passover with My disciples?'e 3 thew • St. Mark and St. Luke St. Mark Luke xxii. 11 xiv. 14; St. ii. 7 Two things here deserve marked attention. The disciples were not bidden ask for the chief or Upper Chamber,' but for what we have rendered, for want of better, by 'hostelry,' or 'hall'—κaтáλvμa -the place in the house where, as in an open Khân, the beasts of burden were unloaded, shoes and staff, or dusty garment and burdens put down-if an apartment, at least a common one, certainly not the best. Except in this place,d4 the word only occurs as the designation of the 'inn' or 'hostelry' (κaтáλνμа) in Bethlehem, where the Virgin-Mother brought forth her first-born Son, and laid Him in a manger. He Who was born in a hostelry'-Katalyma-was est. Luke content to ask for His last Meal in a Katalyma. Only, and this we mark secondly, it must be 'His' own: My Katalyma.' It was a common practice, that more than one company partook of the Paschal Supper in the same apartment.f5 In the multitude of those Pes. vii. 13 who would sit down to the Paschal Supper this was unavoidable, for all partook of it, including women and children," only excepting those 8 Pes. viii. 1 who were Levitically unclean. And, though each company might not consist of less than ten, it was not to be larger than that each should be able to partake of at least a small portion of the Paschal Lamb and we know how small lambs are in the East. But, while Pes. viii. 3 He only asked for His last Meal in the Katalyma, some hall opening on the open court, Christ would have it His own-to Himself, to eat the Passover alone with His Apostles. Not even a company of disciples-such as the owner of the house unquestionably was-nor We combine the words from the three Synoptists. Literally, I do. So in St. Luke and also according to the better reading in St. Mark. The word occurs seven times in the LXX. and twice in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. xiv. 25; 1 Macc. iii. 45). But out of these nine passages only in one, 1 Sam. ix. 22, 5 The Mishnah explains certain regula- |