CHAPTER I. ON THE PASSOVER. THE EUCHARIST ILLUSTRATED BY THE SACRAMENT CELEBRATED JUST BEFORE ITS INSTITUTION. 'As they were eating, Jesus took bread.'-Matt. xxvi. 26. In order to understand the new Rite, ordained by our blessed Lord, it is well to know the chief particulars of the Sacrament which He had been just before celebrating with His disciples. The most essential of these particulars are written in Exodus xii.: and the ceremonies gradually added to them are stated at length by Lightfoot; and also by Samuel Bochart, from whom Witsius, in his Economy of the Covenants,' compendiously relates them. 6 The name Passover is derived from God's passing over Israel, when He saw the blood of the Lamb upon their houses:1 and it is applied to the lamb then slain;2 and also to the sacrifices and peace offerings of the 'herd' offered during the following seven days of the feast; and also to the entire feast itself.4 But most frequently in Scripture the name is given either to the fourteenth day of the first month, which introduced the feast,5 or to the lamb, which was to be slain on that day between the evenings '—that is, between noon and sunset the slaying being performed by the whole congregation; who were all so far permitted to 1 Exod. xii. 13. 2 Exod. xii. 21. 4 Luke xxii. 1. 5 Lev. xxiii. 5. 3 Deut. xvi. 2. assist in the sacrifice, though the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar, which was the principal sacrificial act, was reserved for the priest only. On the same fourteenth day they put away leaven from their houses, and continued to eat unleavened bread for seven days, under pain of being cut off from Israel:1 the reason of this latter ordinance being that they left Egypt in haste, so that there was not time to prepare leaven; and one reason for continuing the regulation for a week might be, that God designed to distinguish the seventh feast day by a second miraculous deliverance of His people, and destruction of their enemies, like to the former : and probably this last day was made thenceforward to Israel the origin of their future Sabbaths, in which they were to remember, not only as before, God's creation of the world, but also His redemption of themselves from bondage on the twenty-first, as on the fourteenth, of this month Abib, or Nisan.2 With respect to the day of beginning the feast at the time of the Crucifixion, a difficulty has arisen from two passages in the New Testament, which at first sight seem to intimate that Jesus ate the Passover on a different day from the Jews in general: for we know that His disciples prepared the Passover on Thursday in Passion-week, while we are told by St. John that the day of the Crucifixion, or Friday, was the preparation for the Passover,' and that, on this latter day, the Jews went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.'3 The rule, however, for killing the lamb on the fourteenth day was absolute; and Jesus was never accused then, nor His religion afterwards, by the Jews for its supposed violation. The two statements of St. John also admit this 1 Exod. xii. 15, 18, 19. 2 Deut. v. 15. 6 very simple solution, that the sacrifices and peace offerings of the fifteenth and other days of the feast, made of the herd,' were, as well as the lamb sacrificed on the fourteenth day, called in Scripture the Passover:'1 and, accordingly, Hezekiah and his princes are said to give the congregation, in order to keep a solemn Passover, 2,000 bullocks,' and 17,000 sheep; and Josiah gave to the people, for the Passover offerings,' not only 30,000 lambs and kids to make provision for the fourteenth day, but 3,000 bullocks also for the sacrifices and peace offerings to be eaten on the subsequent days of the feast; and particularly on the fifteenth day of the month, which was called 'the feast of unleavened bread,' and was a day to be kept as a Sabbath. And thus the difficulty disappears, without supposing, as some have done, either that our Lord anticipated the time of the Jewish Passover, or that the Jews mentioned by John postponed their Passover in opposition to a most inviolable law of their religion. If, indeed, our Lord and the Jews had really thus differed, the only explanation would be, that the Sanhedrim decreed that on that year the Passover should be kept one day too late; owing to the erring testimony of the appointed witnesses, whose duty it was to report to the senate their observations of the moon in the month Abib. There were some ceremonies peculiar to the first Passover preparatory to their flight from Egypt, which were not permanent parts of the divine institution: such as to strike the blood upon the side posts and upper door post of their houses; and to eat the lamb with loins girded and staff in hand; and not to go out of their houses till the morning: but other rules were immutable: such as, that the lamb should be slain on the fourteenth day of the first month; and that not a bone of it should be 1 Deut. xvi. 2. 2 2 Chron. xxx. 24; xxxv. 7. Lev. xxiii. 6, 7, broken; and that it should be eaten with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs; and that either none of it should remain until the morning, or that the remainders should be burnt: the reason for this latter regulation possibly being to prevent the religious worship of the material substance of the Sacrament, or of God supposed to be in, with, or under it, by a people who, by their worship of Jehovah through or in the golden calf within a few months after their deliverance,2 and subsequently by their worship of the brazen serpent, a visible means of divine mercy like the Paschal lamb, exemplified that natural inclination of man to idolatry, which could never be at once satisfied and corrected but by the Incarnation of the Son of God. It was also an unchangeable rule, that at the Passover the heads of families should explain to their children the meaning of this service: and in addition to the explanation commanded and given about the beginning of the feast, it was their usage to repeat, and enlarge upon, the confession of the man offering the basket of first-fruits.* The place also of slaying the lamb was to be always that which God would choose; and this after the reign of Solomon was to be in the court of the Temple, and near the altar of Sacrifices. Beside these divine regulations, which were immutable, other ceremonies and traditions were gradually introduced by the Jewish Church, and were observed generally in our Lord's time. Thus it was usual for each guest to drink at the Passover four cups of wine; and over the first cup, which commenced the feast, the master, or principal person of the company, said, 'Blessed be thou, O Lord, who hast created the fruit of the vine.' Then a loaf or cake of unleavened bread was distributed 1 Exod. xii. 6, 8-10, 15. 4 Deut. xxvi. 5-11. 2 Exod. xxxii. 4-6. Exod. xii. 27. • Lightfoot. amongst the company, the master saying, 'This is "the bread of affliction," which our fathers ate in the land of affliction '—a phrase taken from Deut. xvi. 3-and of this bread they ate not less than an olive. Then an equal portion of the lamb was eaten, accompanied with bitter herbs,' to remind them of their lives bitter with hard bondage' in Egypt;1 and then appears to have been given the catechetical instruction prescribed by the Law. 2 A thick sauce also, called charoseth, was introduced, to remind them of the clay from which their fathers were compelled to make bricks; and into this sauce Christ appears to have dipped the sop which he gave to Judas. Then, after a second cup of wine, and a further partaking of the lamb and the bread, the supper was concluded: and then was introduced the third cup, called 'the cup of blessing,' over which the master regularly blessed, or gave thanks, after meat to God: and it was over this third cup of blessing,' after supper, that Jesus gave thanks, and made the cup a part of the new Sacrament.3 The fourth or final cup was called the cup of the Hallel ;' because they finished over it the saying or singing of the Hallel, which consisted of six Psalms, from the 113th to the 118th both inclusive, part of which they repeated in the middle of the banquet, and part they reserved to the end : and the concluding part of this Hallel was not improbably the Hymn' which Jesus and the Apostles sang after the Paschal feast, before they went out into the mount of Olives.5 Such was the Ritual of the Passover when it was eaten by Jesus and the Twelve. I say twelve because, though it has been doubted whether Judas was present at our 1 Exod. i. 14. 2 Exod. xii. 25, 26. 3 Matt. xxvi. 27, 28; Luke xxii. 20; 1 Cor. x. 16. |