He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me.' After the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped, saying, 'This cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.'"1 Never since that memorable evening has the Church ceased to observe the commandment of her Lord; ever since that day, from age to age, has this blessed and holy Sacrament been a memorial of the death of Christ, and a strengthening and refreshing of the soul by the body and blood, as the body is refreshed and strengthened by the bread and wine.2 11 Cor. xi. 23-25. 2 The "transubstantiation" and "sacramental" controversies which have raged for centuries round the Feast of Communion and Christian love are as heart-saddening as they are strange and needless. They would never have arisen if it had been sufficiently observed that it was a characteristic of Christ's teaching to adopt the language of picture and of emotion. But to turn metaphor into fact, poetry into prose, rhetoric into logic, parable into systematic theology, is at once fatal and absurd. It was to warn us against such error that Jesus said so emphatically, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John vi. 63). CHAPTER LVI. THE LAST DISCOURSE. "So the All-Great were the All-Loving too; R. BROWNING, Epistle of Karshish. No sooner had Judas left the room, than, as though they had been relieved of some ghastly incubus, the spirits of the little company revived. The presence of that haunted soul lay with a weight of horror on the heart of his Master, and no sooner had he departed than the sadness of the feast seems to have been sensibly relieved. The solemn exultation which dilated the soul of their Lord that joy like the sense of a boundless sunlight behind the earth-born mists-communicated itself to the spirits of His followers. The dull clouds caught the sunset colouring. In sweet and tender communion, perhaps two hours glided away at that quiet banquet. Now it was that, conscious of the impending separation, and fixed unalterably in His sublime resolve, He opened His heart to the little band of those who loved Him, and spoke among them those farewell discourses preserved for us by St. John alone, so "rarely mixed of sadness and joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds." "Now," He said, as though with a sigh of relief, "now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." The hour of that glorification-the glorification which was to be won through the path of humility and agony -was at hand. The time which remained for Him to be with them was short; as He had said to the Jews, so now He said to them, that whither He was going they could not come. And in telling them this, for the first and last time, He calls them "little children." In that company were Peter and John, men whose words and deeds should thenceforth influence the whole world of man until the end-men who should become the patron saints of nations-in whose honour cathedrals should be built, and from whom cities should be named; but their greatness was but a dim faint reflection from His risen glory, and a gleam caught from that spirit which He would send. Apart from Him they were nothing, and less than nothing-ignorant Galilæan fishermen, unknown and unheard of beyond their native villagehaving no intellect and no knowledge save that He had thus regarded them as His "little children." And though they could not follow Him whither He went, yet He did not say to them, as He had said to the Jews,1 that they should seek Him and not find Him. Nay, more, He gave them a new commandment, by which, walking in His steps, and being known by all men as His disciples, they should find Him soon. That new commandment was that they should love one another. In one sense, indeed, it was not new.2 Even in the law of Moses (Lev. xix. 18), not only had there been room for the precept, "Thou shalt 1 John vii. 34; viii. 21. 2 And it is observable that the word used is kawós, recens, not veds, novus. THE NEW COMMANDMENT. 295 love thy neighbour as thyself," but that precept had been regarded by wise Jewish teachers as cardinal and inclusive as "the royal law according to the Scripture,' as "the message from the beginning." And yet, as St. John points out in his Epistle, though in one sense old, it was, in another, wholly new-new in the new prominence given to it-new in the new motives by which it was enforced-new because of the new example by which it was recommended-new from the new influence which it was henceforth destined to exercise. It was Love, as the test and condition of discipleship, Love as greater than even Faith and Hope, Love as the fulfilling of the Law.2 At this point St. Peter interposed a question. Before Jesus entered on a new topic, he wished for an explanation of something which he had not understood. Why was there this farewell aspect about the Lord's discourse? "Lord, whither goest thou?" "Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards." Peter now understood that death was meant, but why could he not also die? was he not as ready as Thomas to say, "Let us also go that we may die with Him ?”3 "Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." Why? Our Lord might have answered, Because the 'James ii. 8; 1 John iii. 11. 2 "For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear-believe the aged friend- 3 John xi. 16. heart is deceitful above all things; because thy want of deep humility deceives thee; because it is hidden, even from thyself, how much there still is of cowardice and self-seeking in thy motives. But He would not deal thus with the noble-hearted but weak and impetuous Apostle, whose love was perfectly sincere, though it did not stand the test. He spares him all reproach; only very gently He repeats the question, "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice!" Already it was night; ere the dawn of that fatal morning shuddered in the eastern sky-before the cock-crow, uttered in the deep darkness, prophesied that the dawn was near-Jesus would have begun to lay down His life for Peter and for all who sin; but already by that time Peter, unmindful even of this warning, should have thrice repudiated his Lord and Saviour, thrice have rejected as a calumny and an insult the mere imputation that he even knew Him. All that Jesus could do to save him from the agony of this moral humiliation by admonition, by tenderness, by prayer to His Heavenly Father-He had done. He had prayed for him that his faith might not finally fail.1 Satan indeed had obtained permission to sift them all as wheat, and, in spite of all his self-confidence, in spite of all his protested devotion, in spite of all his imaginary sincerity, he should be but as the chaff. It is remarkable that in the parallel passage of St. Luke occurs the only instance recorded in the Gospel of our Lord having addressed Simon by that name of Peter which He had Himself bestowed. It is as though He meant to 1 Luke xxii. 32, ἐκλείπῃ. 2 Luke xxii. 31, ¿¿ņτhσaтo vμâs. Cf. Amos ix. 9. |