Eucharist and Lord's Supper

EUCHARIST AND LORD'S SUPPER 57
couch', and the talk continues, gradually becoming a monologue, for a long
time.
It is growing late; it was already well after sunset when Judas went out. l
It is time to end this meeting with the 'Thanksgiving', the invariable long
benediction said after all meals. But to-night because it is a chaburah
supper, this is to be said over the 'cup of blessing' standing ready mixed
upon the table. 2 Water was customarily mixed with wine for drinking in
any case, and unmixed wine was reckoned more suitable for washing in
than drinking. 3 In the case of the cup of blessing this addition of water was
so much the custom that rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (c. A.D. 90) reckoned
it a positive rule that the Thanksgiving could not be said over it until it
had been mixed, though the majority would not be so absolute. 4
On this occasion all is normal. 'After supper He took the cup' (I Cor. xi.
25)-it needed no more description for S. Paul than does 'the cup' at the
end of supper at most places in the Mishnah, though elsewhere he gives it
its rabbinic name, 'the cup of blessing'.5 'And gave thanks and gave it to
them' (Mark xiv. 23; covered by S. Paul with the words, 'Likewise also the
cup'). Again the words of His 'Thanksgiving' are not recorded for us. Why
should they be? They were as familiar to every jew as the Lord's prayer is
to us. 'Let us give thanks', He began. And when they had intoned their
responses, 'Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord our God', He chanted, 'eternal
King, Who feedest the whole world with Thy goodness .. .', and so to the
end of the sonorous phrases they all knew by heart. 'And', after the Thanksgiving,
'He gave it them and they all drank of it' (Mark xiv. 23) exactly as
usual, exactly as every other chabUrah drank of the cup of blessing at the
end of its meeting for supper. And then, while the cup is passing from one
to another in silence, He makes another startling incidental remark: 'This
cup is the New Covenant in My Blood. Do this, whenever you drink it,
for the re-calling of Me' (I Cor. xi. 25).
I do not want to labour the point, but once more 'Do this' is not and
cannot in any circumstances be interpreted as a command simply to bless
and partake of the cup of blessing at the end of their chabUrah meals in
future, in the sense of ordering them to repeat something they would
otherwise never have done. Nor could S. Paul possibly have supposed that
it was, since every chabUrah in Israel normally did it every week. Once
again it is the attaching of a new meaning to something which they will
1 John xiii. 30.
2 Berakoth, Mishnah, viii. 2. 'The school of Shammai say: Men wash their hands
and afterwards mix the cup. And the school of Hillel say: Men mix the cup and
afterwards wash their hands'-an instance of the precision with which all the
details of the chabUrah supper were regulated. (Shammai and Hillel lived c. 10 B.C.)
A considerable interval could elapse between the actual end of supper (marked by
the hand-washing) and the final 'Thanksgiving'; cf. ibid. viii. 3 on 'Tidying the
room'; and viii. 8 on what to do if the Thanksgiving gets forgotten altogether.
3 Ibid. Tos., iv. 3 (p. 45). • Ibid. Mish., vii. 8 (p. 64).
6 I Cor. x. 16.