Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (835 page)

There are other parts also of this scene in John, which, instead of having a natural character, as Sieffert maintains, must rather be pronounced artificial. The manner in which Peter has to use the

^*
See De Wette, in loc.intervention of the disciple leaning on Jesus’ bosom, in order to obtain from the latter a more definite intimation concerning the betrayer, besides being foreign to the synoptists, belongs to that unhistorical colouring which, as we have above shown, the fourth gospel gives to the relation of the two apostles. Moreover, to disguise an indication of Judas in the evil character of the traitor, beneath an action of friendliness, as that of giving him the sop, must retain something untruthful and revolting, whatever may be imagined of objects which Jesus might have in view, such as the touching of the traitor with compunction even at that hour. Lastly, the address,
What thou doest, do quickly,
after all that can be done to soften it,* is still harsh, — a kind of braving of the impending catastrophe; and rather than resort to any refinements in order to justify these words as spoken by Jesus, I prefer agreeing with the author of the Prohabilia, who sees in them the effort of the fourth Evangelist to improve on the ordinary representation, according to which Jesus foreknew the betrayal and refrained from preventing it, by making him even challenge the traitor to expedite his undertaking.†

Besides the betrayal, Jesus is said to have predicted the denial by Peter, and to have fixed the precise time of its occurrence, declaring that before the cock should crow (Mark says twice) on the following morning, Peter would deny him thrice (Matt. xxvi. 33 ff. parall.): which prediction, according to the gospels, was exactly accomplished. It is here observed on the side of Rationalism, that the extension of the prophetic gift to the cognizance of such merely accessory circumstances as the crowing of cocks, must excite astonishment; as also that Jesus, instead of warning, predicts the result as inevitable :
^‡
a feature which calls to mind the Fate of the Greek tragedy, in which a man, in spite of his endeavour to avoid what the oracle has predicted of him, nevertheless fulfils its inexorable decree. Paulus will not admit either
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, to have been spoken in their strict verbal signification, but gives to the entire speech of Jesus only this indecisive and problematical sense: so easily to be shaken is the imagined firmness of this disciple, that between the present moment and the early morning, events may arise which would cause him more than once to stumble and be unfaithful to his master. But this is not the right mode of removing the difficulty of the evangelical narrative. The words attributed to Jesus so closely agree with the subsequent event, that the idea of a merely fortuitous coincidence is not to be here entertained. Occurring as they do in a tissue of prophecies
post eventum,
we must rather suppose that after Peter had really denied Jesus more than once during that night, the announcement of such

^*
Vid. Lücke and Tholuck, in loc.

^†
P. 62
reliqui quidem narrant evangelistae servatorern scivisse proditionis consilium, nec impedivisse; ipsum vera excitasse Judam ad proditionem nemo eorum dicit, neque convenit hoc Jesu.

^‡
Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, b, s. 538. L. J. 1, b, s. 192. Hase, L. J., § 137.a result was put into the mouth of Jesus, with the common marking of time by the crowing of the cock,* and the reduction of the instances of denial to three. That this determination of time and number was permanent in the evangelical tradition (except that Mark, doubtless arbitrarily, for the sake of balancing the
thrice
denying by another number, speaks of the
twice
crowing of the cock), appears to be explained without any great difficulty by the familiarity of the expressions early chosen, and the ease with which they could be retained in the memory.

Just as little claim to be regarded as a real prophecy has the announcement of Jesus to the rest of his disciples that they will all of them be offended because of him in the coming night, that they will forsake him and disperse. (Matt. xxvi. 31
parall., comp. John xvi.
32);
especially as the Evangelists themselves, in the words:
For it is written, 1 will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad,
point out to us the Old Testament passage (Zech. xiii. 7), which, first sought out by the adherents of Jesus for the satisfaction of their own difficulties as to the death of their master, and the melancholy consequences which immediately ensued, was soon put into the mouth of Jesus as a prophecy of these consequences.

§ 124. THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.

It was at the last meal, according to the synoptists, with whom the Apostle Paul also agrees (i Cor. xi. 23 ff.), that Jesus gave to the unleavened bread and the wine which, agreeably to
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custom of the paschal feast,† he, as head of the family, had to distribute among his disciples, a relation to his speedily approaching death. During the repast, we are told, he took bread, and after giving thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples with the declaration:
This is my body,
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to which Paul and Luke add:
which is given
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broken for you,
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in like manner,according to Paul and Luke after supper, he presented to them a cup of wine with the words:
This is my blood of the new testament,
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or, according to Paul and Luke:
the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many,
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for you,
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to which Matthew adds:
for the remission of sins,
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and Paul, what he and Luke previously give in reference to the bread
: Do this,
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(Paul, with the wine,
as oft as ye drink it
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), in remembrance of me,
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The controversy between the different confessions as to the meaning of these words, — whether they signify a transmutation of bread

^*
Comp. Lightfoot and Paulus, in loc.

^†
Comp. on this subject especially, Lightfoot, horae, p. 474 ff., and Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, b, s. 511 ff
.
and wine into the body and blood of Christ, or a presence of the body and blood of Christ with and beneath those elements, or lastly, the symbolizing of the body and blood of Christ by bread and wine, — may be pronounced obsolete, and ought not to be any longer pursued, at least exegetically, because it is founded on a misplaced distinction. It is only when transmitted to a modern age, and to the occidental mind, in which the forms of thought are more abstract, that what the ancient oriental understood by the words,
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divides itself into the above variety of possible significations; and if we would obtain a correct conception of the idea which originally suggested the expression, we must cease to discriminate thus. To explain the words in question as implying a transmutation of the substance, is to go too far, and to be too definite; to understand them of an existence
cum et sub specie, etc.,
is too much of a refinement; while to translate them:
this signifies,
is too limited and meagre an interpretation. To the writers of our gospels, the bread in the commernorative supper
was
the body of Christ: but had they been asked, whether the bread were transmuted, they would have denied it; had they been spoken to of a partaking of the body with and under the form of bread, they would not have understood it; had it been inferred that consequently the bread merely signified the body, they would not have been satisfied.