Note 89 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

But in the first place there is this difference: while according to Matthew and Mark the discourse respecting the betrayer opens the scene, and in particular precedes the institution of the Lord’s supper (Matt. xxvi. 21 ff.; Mark xiv. 18 ff.); Luke represents Jesus as not speaking of the betrayer until after the commencement of the meal, and the institution of the commemorative rite (xxii. 21 ff.); and in John what relates to the betrayer goes forward during and after the washing of the disciples’ feet (xiii. 10–30). The intrinsically trivial question, which Evangelist is here right, is extremely important to theologians, because its decision involves the answer to another question, namely, whether the betrayer also partook of the ritual Supper. It neither appeared consistent with the idea of that supper as a feast of the most intimate love and union, that a virtual alien like Judas should participate in it, nor did it seem to accord with the love and compassion of the Lord, that he should have permitted an unworthy disciple by this participation to aggravate his guilt.89 So undesirable a view of the facts was believed to be avoided by following the arrangement of Matthew and Mark, and making the designation of the betrayer precede the institution of the Supper: for as it was known from John, that as soon as Judas saw himself detected and exposed, he withdrew from the company, it would thence appear that Jesus did not institute the Supper until after the retirement of the traitor.90 But this expedient is founded on nothing but an inadmissible incorporation of the narrative of John with that of the synoptists. For the withdrawal of Judas is mentioned only by the fourth Evangelist; and he alone needs the supposition of such a circumstance, because, according to him, Judas now first entered into his transactions with the enemies of Jesus, and thus, in order to come to terms with them, and obtain the requisite force, needed a somewhat longer time. In the synoptists there is no trace of the betrayer having left the company; on the contrary, everything in their narrative appears to imply that Judas, first on the general departure from the room in which the repast had been taken, instead of going directly to the garden, went to the chief priests, of whom he at once, the agreement having been made beforehand, received the necessary force for the arrest of Jesus. Thus whether Luke or Matthew be right in the arrangement of the scene, all the synoptists intimate that Judas did not leave the company before the general departure, and consequently that he partook of the ritual Supper.