The Westcott/Hort Nine
Luke 22:19b-20Text
22:17. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves,
22:18. for I say to you, that not henceforth shall I drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.
22:19. And having taken bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you; this do in remembrance of me.
22:20. And the cup also, after they had eaten, saying, This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, shed for you.
22:21. But behold; the hand of my betrayer is with me on the table. . .
Commentary
The passage has usually been interpreted as providing a precedent for the Last Supper or Eucharist observance in the later Church. Whether the meal here described was the Passover, or was eaten on the eve of the Passover, has been extensively argued; see for example Fitzmyer 2/1386-1394. We may note that the Lukan text without the disputed passage, in both its cup and bread details, need only refer to Jesus's approaching death: the implied prediction that Jesus's body, like the bread, will soon be "broken" leads directly to a reference to his betrayer, who will set the death process in motion. This need not invoke, or attempt to establish, other precedents. That the event did soon lead to systematic observances and remembrances in the early Church is not to be doubted. The question is how far along that line of development this particular passage may have been.
Manson p240: "In verses 19-20, however, procedure graduates from the Passover order into something which later becomes the Eucharist observance of the Christian society. . . The injunction which accompanies, 'Do this in memory of me,' is absent from Mark and Matthew, but agrees with the statement in 1 Cor 11:24-25 (see below). The Greek tense conveys an understanding that the memorial is to be repeated."
Manson p241: "[scholars] consider that verses 19b-20 are a later addition inserted to remedy the defects of a narrative which, by placing the cup before the bread and by leaving both insufficiently explained, conflicted with existing usage and failed to satisfy the Church. In confirmation of this, it should be mentioned that verses 19b-20 are almost a verbatim reproduction of 1 Cor 11:24-25, and hence may have been borrowed from that source."
On the ritual order of elements, we may also note Creed 265 ap 22:15-20 (Creed retains 22:19b-20 in his text): "According to St Paul, Jesus blessed the cup 'after supper,' and this probably corresponded to the usage with which Paul was familiar in gatherings of the Church. But that it was not universal is shewn by the Didache, where the blessing of the cup precedes the blessing of the bread (cf also 1 Cor 10:15-16). Luke may therefore have been conscious that in changing the order he had support in some current usage."
Metzger Commentary 148f gives a long analysis of Lk 22:17-20, and in favor of the Western (shorter) reading adds that the disputed passage contains "several linguistic features that are non-Lukan." This did not convince a majority of the Committee, who "explained the origin of the shorter form as due to some scribal accident." This is not a very well-focused hypothesis. What sort of scribal accident?
The addition of 22:19b-20 may be seen as changing the order of Eucharistic elements to agree with that known to Paul. Its presence creates a problem in that the cup is offered twice. That repetition alone, even without the existence of another text which lacks the "second cup" passage, would call attention to the possibility of an interpolation. For the model of a second as well as a first cup at the Passover meal, as reconstructed by Jeremias, which might legitimize the two cups in the longer Lukan narrative, see Fitzmyer 2/1390. We note in response that whatever may have been the case with the Passover meal in the time of Jesus, the Lord's Supper in the time of Paul apparently did not feature two offerings of the cup, so that from the probably relevant Pauline point of view, the problem remains. Jeremias' reconstruction actually includes three cups, if not four. Such subsequent cups do not figure in the Lukan account, nor do most of the rest of Jeremias's details. Ritual writers love to elaborate rules and prescriptions, but the resulting descriptions may not always apply to particular occasions.
Conclusion
Manson gives an entirely convincing scenario for the insertion of the disputed passage. It should thus be omitted as a later ritual normalization, to bring the Lukan description in line with the practice known to Paul. The Western text is here more likely to be original. The credentials of the Didache as a witness to some early Christian practices, even some pre-Pauline practices, are investigated elsewhere. We here note only that the Didache, by common consent, is verbally close to Matthew, and that, as we will presently demonstrate, Matthew as a whole seems to precede Luke in the basic Gospel sequence. In content, this part of the Didache may thus stem from a point near to Matthew and earlier than Luke, though not as early as Mark.
In analyzing the Didache, scholars sometimes fail to recognize this Luke passage as an interpolation, and their arguments become complicated accordingly. Philology is a waste of time unless its results are cumulative.
25 May 2006 / Contact The Project / Exit to Biblica Page
