Note 72 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

The greatest difficulty here naturally arises from the divergency, that the institution of the Lord’s supper, unanimously recorded by the synoptists, is wanting in John, who in its stead relates a totally different act of Jesus, namely, the washing of the disciples’ feet. Certainly, by those who, in similar cases, throughout the whole previous course of the evangelical narrative, have found a sufficient resource in the supposition, that it was the object of John to supply the omissions of the earlier gospels, the present difficulty is surmounted as well, or as ill, as any other. John, it is said, saw that the institution of the Supper was already narrated in the three first Evangelists in a way which fully agreed with his own recollection; hence he held a repetition of it superfluous.72 But if, among the histories already recorded in the three first gospels, the fourth Evangelist really intended to reproduce only those in the representation of which he found something to rectify or supply: why does he give another edition of the history of the miraculous feeding, in which he makes no emendation of any consequence, and at the same time omit the institution of the Lord’s supper? For here the divergencies between the synoptists in the arrangement of the scene, and the turn given to the words of Jesus, and more especially the circumstance that they, according to his representation, erroneously, make that institution occur on the evening of the passover, must have appeared to him a reason for furnishing an authentic account. In consideration of this difficulty, the position that the author of the fourth gospel was acquainted with the synoptical writings, and designed to complete and rectify them, is now, indeed, abandoned; but it is still maintained that he was acquainted with the common oral tradition, and supposed it known to his readers also, and on this ground, it is alleged he passed over the institution of the Supper as a history generally known.73 But that it should be the object of an evangelical writing to narrate only the less known, omitting the known, is an idea which cannot be consistently entertained. Written records imply a mistrust of oral tradition; they are intended not merely as a supplement to this, but also as a means of fixing and preserving it, and hence the capital facts, being the most spoken of, and therefore the most exposed to misrepresentation, are precisely those which written records can the least properly omit. Such a fact is the founding of the Lord’s supper, and we find, from a comparison of the different New Testament accounts, that the expressions with which Jesus instituted it must have early received additions or mutilations; consequently, it is the last particular which John should have omitted. But, it is further said, the narrating of the institution of the Lord’s supper was of no importance to the object of the fourth gospel.74 How so? With regard to its general object, the convincing of its readers that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God (xx. 31), was it of no importance to communicate a scene in which he appears as the founder of a new covenant, καινὴ διαθήκη? and in relation to the special object of the passage in question, namely, the exhibiting of the love of Jesus as a love which endured unto the end (xiii. 1), would it have contributed nothing to mention how he offered his body and blood as meat and drink to his followers, and thus realized his words in John vi.? But, it is said, John here as elsewhere, only concerns himself with the more profound discourses of Jesus, for which reason he passes over the institution of the Supper, and begins his narrative with the discourse connected with the washing of the disciples’ feet.75 Nothing, however, but the most obdurate prejudice in favour of the fourth gospel, can make this discourse on humility appear more profound than what Jesus says of the partaking of his body and blood, when instituting the Lord’s supper.