The Gospel of St. John

by Joseph MacRory

Chapter XIII.

1-20. On the night before (according to the Jewish method of reckoning their days, on the first night of) the great festal week of the Pasch, Jesus celebrates the Paschal Supper with His disciples in Jerusalem, washes their feet, exhorts them to imitate His example of humility and charity, and hints at the sin of Judas.

21-30. He reveals the traitor, who then leaves the supper-room.

31-39. He foretells the near approach of His own death and glorification; gives the new commandment of Christian charity, and predicts the triple denial by Peter.

With this chapter the second part of the narrative of our Gospel commences. See [Introd. IV].

St. John now passes on to the history of the events of the night before our Lord's death, omitting a number of incidents of Holy Week, which had been already recorded by the Synoptic Evangelists. Thus, he does not mention the weeping over Jerusalem (Luke xix. 39-44); the cursing of the barren fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 18, 19, Mark xi. 12-14); or the cleansing of the temple (Matt. xxi. 12, 14; Mark xi. 15; Luke xix. 45, 46). There can be little doubt that it was his intention to supplement the Synoptic Gospels, for not only does he omit many things that they record, but he records very much that they omit.

1. Ante diem festum paschae, sciens Iesus quia venit hora eius ut transeat ex hoc mundo ad Patrem: cum dilexisset suos qui erant in mundo, in finem dilexit eos.

1. Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

1. Before the festival day of the pasch. We are here met by a serious difficulty when we compare with these words of St. John the accounts of the Synoptic Evangelists; for, while they represent the supper, referred to by St. John in verse 2, as having taken place on the evening of the first day of Azymes, St. John here seems to place it prior to that Feast. If we had only the Synoptic Gospels, we should, without any hesitation, come to the conclusion—(a) that our Lord and His Apostles ate the Paschal Supper on the night [pg 227] before He died; and (b) that the Jews that year eat it on the same night. For St. Matthew tells us: “And on the first day of the Azymes, the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the pasch? But Jesus said: Go ye into the city to a certain man, and say to him: The Master saith, my time is near at hand; with thee I make the pasch with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus appointed to them, and they prepared the pasch. But when it was evening he sat down with his twelve disciples” (Matt. xxvi. 17-20). Similarly, St. Mark (xiv. 12-17) and St. Luke (xxii. 7-14) seem to take for granted that the ordinary time for celebrating the Paschal Supper was come, for St. Mark says: “Now on the first day of the unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the pasch, the disciples say to him,” &c.; and St. Luke: “And the day of the unleavened bread came, on which it was necessary that the pasch should be killed.” St. John, on the other hand, in the verse before us, in which he introduces his account of the events of this last night of Christ's mortal life, speaks of the time as; “Before the festival day of the pasch.” Moreover, in subsequent passages[82] of our Gospel, to which we shall direct attention as they occur, St. John uses language which, at first sight, at least, would seem to show that the Jews did not eat the Pasch on the night of Christ's last supper, but on the following night, after He was crucified. Hence the difficulty of reconciling St. John's account with that of the Synoptic Evangelists. A vast amount of learning has been expended upon this question, and a great deal has been written upon it. We shall indicate as briefly as possible the different opinions, and state what seems to us most probable.

(1) Some, as St. Clement of Alexandria, Calmet, &c., have held that our Lord did not eat the Pasch at all in the last year of His life. They argue from texts in St. John, which prove, they say, that the time for eating the Pasch had not come until after Christ was put to death. They take the “first day of the Azymes,” in the Synoptic Gospels, to mean the 13th day of Nisan; and hold that it, and not the 14th, was so called because the Jews removed all leaven from their houses a day before the Feast. [pg 228] In this view they have no difficulty in reconciling St. John's account with that of the other Evangelists; for the Synoptic Evangelists are then made to represent the Last Supper as having taken place on the 13th of Nisan. That being so, it is at once concluded that there cannot be question of the Paschal Supper, but of an ordinary supper, and St. John, in agreement with the Synoptists, states that the supper in question was held “before the festival day of the pasch.”

This opinion, however, we regard as wholly improbable and untenable in the face of the statements of the Synoptic Evangelists, for these statements are such as to leave no reasonable doubt that our Lord and His Apostles did eat the Paschal Supper the night before He died. Thus, they tell us that the disciples were sent by our Lord to prepare the Pasch, that they prepared it, and that when the time for eating it was come, Christ sat down with the Twelve.[83] Moreover, St. Luke tells us that after they sat down, Christ said: “With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer” (Luke xxii. 15)—words which clearly imply that on the occasion of that last supper the Pasch was eaten by Christ and the Apostles. Hence the opinion we are now considering, which would reconcile the Evangelists by holding that our Lord, on the night before He died, did not partake of the Paschal Supper, but only of an ordinary supper, is, as we have already said, wholly improbable; and, indeed, the book of a certain Florentine named Vecchietti, published at the close of the sixteenth century, and maintaining this view, was condemned by the Holy Office and its author imprisoned.[84]