Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (836 page)

Thus to dispute farther on this point is a fruitless labour: it is a more interesting question, whether Jesus merely intended this peculiarly significant distribution of bread and wine as a parting demonstration of attachment to his disciples, or whether he designed that it should be celebrated by his disciples in memory of him after his departure. if we had only the account of the two first Evangelists, — this is admitted even by orthodox theologians,* — there would be no solid ground for the latter supposition; but the words,
Do this in rememberance of me,
which are added by Paul and Luke, appear decisive of the fact that Jesus purposed the founding of a commemorative meal, which, according to Paul, the Christians were to celebrate,
until he should come
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. Concerning this very addition, however, it has been of late conjectured that it may not have been originally uttered by Jesus, but that in the celebration of the Lord’s supper in the primitive church, the presiding member of the community, in distributing the elements, may have exhorted the rest to continue the repetition of this meal in remembrance of Christ, and that from this primitive Christian ritual the above words were added to the address of Jesus.† This conjecture should not be opposed by an exaggerated estimate of the authority of the Apostle Paul, such as that of Olshausen, who infers from the words,
I have received of the Lord,
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that he here delivers an immediate revelation from Christ, nay, that Christ himself speaks through him : since, as even Süskind

^*
Süskind, in the treatise: Hat Jesus das Abendmahl abs einen mnemonischen Ritus angeordnet? in his Magazin 11, s. 1 ff.

^†
Paulus, exeg. Handb, 3, b, s. 527.has admitted, and as Schulz has recently shown in the most convincing manner,* the phrase
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cannot signify an immediate reception, but only a mediate transmission from the individual specified. If, however, Paul had not that addition from Jesus himself, still Süskind thinks himself able to prove that it must have been communicated, or at least confirmed, by an apostle, and is of opinion, in the manner of his school, that by a series of abstract distinctions, he can define certain boundary lines which must in this case prevent the intrusion of an unhistorical tradition. But the severe attention to evidence which characterizes our own day, ought not to be expected from an infant religious society, between the distant portions of which there was not yet any organized connexion, or for the most part any other than oral communication. On the other hand, however, we must not be induced to regard the words
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as a later addition to the address of Jesus, on false grounds, such as, that it would have been repugnant to the humility of Jesus to found a rite in remembrance of himself;† nor must we rate too highly the silence of the two first Evangelists, in opposition to the testimony of Paul.

Perhaps this point may be decided by means of another more general question, namely, what led Jesus to make this peculiarly significant distribution of bread and wine among his disciples? Orthodox theologians seek to remove as far as possible from the person of Jesus, as divine, all progress, and especially a gradual or sudden origination of plans and resolutions not previously present in his mind: hence, according to them, there lay in Jesus from the beginning, together with the foreknowledge of his destiny, and his entire plan, the design to institute this supper, as a commemorative rite to be observed by his church; and this opinion may at least appeal for support, to the allusions implying that he already contemplated the institution a year beforehand, attributed to Jesus in the sixth chapter of the fourth gospel.

This is certainly an insecure support, for, as a previous enquiry has shown, those allusions, totally unintelligible before the institution of the Supper, cannot have proceeded from Jesus, but only from the Evangelist.‡ Further, as, viewing the subject generally, it appeared to annul the reality of the human nature in Jesus, to suppose that all lay foreseen and prepared in him from the first, or at least from the commencement of his mature age; Rationalism has maintained, on the contrary, that the idea of the symbolical act and words in question did not arise in Jesus until the last evening. According to this view, at the sight of the broken bread and the outpoured wine, Jesus had a foreboding of his near and violent death; he saw in the former an image of his body which was to be put to death, and in the latter of his blood which was to be shed; and this

^*
Ueber das Abendmahl, s. 217 ff.

^†
Kaiser, bibl. Theol.
2,
a, s. 39; Stephani, das h. Abendmahl, s. 61.

^‡
Vol. II. § 81.

^§
Paulus, ut sup. s. 519 ff.; Kaiser, ut sup. s. 37 ff
.
momentary impression was communicated by him to his disciples.§ But such a tragical impression could only be felt by Jesus if he contemplated his death as a near event. That he did so with a greater distinctness at the last meal, is thought to be proved by the assurance which, according to all the synoptists, he gave to his disciples, that he would no more drink of the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom of his Father; whence, as there is no ground for supposing a vow of abstinence on his part, he must have foreseen that his end would arrive within the next few days. If, however, we observe how in Luke this assurance in relation to the wine is preceded by the declaration of Jesus, that he will no more eat the passover until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, it appears probable that originally the
fruit of the vine
also was understood not as wine in general, but as specially the beverage of the passover; of which a trace may perhaps be discovered in the expression of Matthew and Mark — this
fruit of the vine,
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Meals in the messianic kingdom were, in accordance with the ideas of the age, often spoken of by Jesus, and he may have expected that in that kingdom the Passover would be observed with peculiar solemnity. When therefore he declares that he will no more partake of this meal in the present
age,
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but only in the future; first, this does not apply to eating and drinking in general, and hence does not mean that his sojourn in this pre-messianic world was to have an end within the next few days, but only within the space of a year; nor, secondly, does it necessarily involve the idea that this change was to be introduced by his death, for he might even yet expect that the kingdom of the Messiah would commence during his life.

Meanwhile, to deny every presentiment of his end on the part of Jesus in these last days of his life, is on the one hand, not warranted by our previous examination, and on the other, would compel us to doubt the Institution of the ritual Supper by Jesus which we can hardly do in opposition to the testimony of Paul. It is moreover easily conceivable, that the continually increasing involvement of his relation to the Jewish hierarchy, might at length bring to Jesus the conviction that his death was inevitable, and that in a moment of emotion he might even fix the next passover as the term which he should not survive. Thus each of the supposed cases appears possible: either that, owing to a thought suggested by the impressiveness of the moment, at the last passover which he celebrated with his disciples, he made bread and wine the symbols of his body which was to be slain and his blood which was to be shed; or that for some time previously he had embraced the design of bequeathing such a commemorative meal to his adherents, in which case he may very probably have uttered the words preserved by Paul and Luke. But before this intimation of the death of Jesus had been duly appropriated by the disciples, and received into their conviction, they were overtaken by the actual catastrophe, for which, therefore, they might be regarded as wholly unprepared.

PART III

CHAPTER III.

RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION

AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

§
125. AGONY OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN.

According to the synoptical narratives, Jesus, immediately after the conclusion of the meal and the singing of the
Hallel,
it being his habit during this feast time to spend the night out of Jerusalem (Matt. xxi. 17 ; Luke xxii. 39), went to the Mount of Olives, into a
garden
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(in John,
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) called Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 30, 36 parall.). John, who gives the additional particular that the garden lay over the brook Kedron, does not represent him as departing thither until after a long series of valedictory discourses (xiv. — xvii.), of which we shall hereafter have to speak again. While John makes the arrest of Jesus follow immediately on the arrival of Jesus in the garden, the synoptists insert between the two that scene which is usually designated the agony of Jesus.

Their accounts of this scene are not in unison. According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus takes with him his three most confidential disciples, Peter and the sons of Zebedee, leaving the rest behind, is seized with fearfulness and trembling, tells the
three disciples that he is sorrowful even unto death, and admonishing them to remain wakeful in the mean time, removes to a distance from them also, that he may offer a prayer for himself, in which, with his face bent to the earth, he entreats that the cup of suffering may pass from him, but still resigns all to the will of his Father. When he returns to the disciples, he finds them sleeping, again admonishes them to watchfulness, then removes from them a second time, and repeats the former prayer, alter which he once more finds his disciples asleep. For the third time he retires to repeat the prayer, and returning, for the third time finds the disciples sleeping, but now awakes them, in order to meet the coming betrayer. Of the
number three, which thus doubly figures in the narrative of the two first Evangelists, Luke says nothing; according to him, Jesus retires from all the disciples, after admonishing them to watch, for the distance of about a stone’s cast, and prays kneeling, once only, but nearly in the same words as in the other gospels, then returns to the disciples and awakes them, because Judas is approaching with the multitude. But, on the other hand, Luke in his single scene of prayer, has two circumstances which are foreign to the other narrators, namely, that while Jesus was yet praying, and immediately before the most violent mental struggle, an angel appeared to strengthen him, and that during the
agony
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which ensued, the sweat of Jesus
was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.

From the earliest times this scene in Gethsemane has been a stumbling-block, because Jesus therein appears to betray a weakness and fear of death which might be considered unworthy of him. Celsus and Julian, doubtless having in their minds the great examples of a dying Socrates and other heathen sages, expressed contempt for the fear of death exhibited by Jesus.* Vanini boldly extolled his own demeanour in the face of execution as superior to that of Jesus
^†
and in the
Evangelium Nicodemi,
Satan concludes from this scene that Christ is a mere man.‡ The supposition resorted to in this apocryphal book, that the trouble of Jesus was only assumed in order to encourage the devil to enter into a contest with him,§ is but a confession of inability to reconcile a real truth of that kind with the ideal of Jesus. Hence appeal has been made to the distinction between the two natures in Christ; the sorrowfulness and the prayer for the removal of the cup having been ascribed to the human nature, the resignation to the will of the Father, to the divine.|| As however, in the first place, this appeared to introduce an inadmissible division in the nature of Jesus; and in the second place, even a fear experienced by his human nature in the prospect of approaching bodily sufferings appeared unworthy of him: his consternation was represented as being of a spiritual and sympathetic character — .as arising from the wickedness of Judas, the danger which threatened his disciples, and the fate which was impending over his nation.
^¶
The effort to free the sorrow of Jesus from all reference to

^*
Orig. c. Cels. ii. 24 :
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etc. Julian, in a Fragment of Theodore of Mopsuestia. ap. Münter, Fragm. Patr. græc. Fasc. 1, p
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. Jesus, says he, also presents such petitions as a wretched mortal would offer, when unable to bear a calamity with serenity; and although divine, he is strengthened by an angel.

^†
Gramond. hist. Gall. ab. exc. Henr. IV. L. iii. p. 211:
Lucilius Vanini — dum in patibulum trahitur — Christo illudit in haec eadem verba: illi in extremis prae timore imbellis sudor: ego imperterritus morior.

^‡
Evang. Nicod. c. xx. ap. Thilo, 1, s. 702 ff.
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