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The Pascha in the Eucharist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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1 Othmar Perler, ed., Méliton de Sardes, Sur la pâque (Sources chrétiennes 123 [1966]) 159, takes the etymology to have resulted from, I take it to have caused, the typology of Jesus as the pascha. Perler notes that the iteration inherent in the present tense, in contrast with the aorist, allowed πάσχειν to assume the sense ‘celebrate the pascha, the sufferings of Jesus’.
2 Some of the sayings of Jesus however would be marked in Aramaic by a paronomasia that has been lost through translation into Greek: finding the one sheep, the shepherd rejoiceth (Matt 18.12–13, Luke 15.3–5, condensed): Black, Matthew, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954) 141, 211Google Scholar. Such a combining of meaning with sound was traditional: a good name is better than precious ointment (Eccles 7.1).
3 This assumes that afterwards a less daring mind brought the verse to its present form. Changes for the worse or for the better must be legion. Job 12.21–4 has an interpolation in the middle, as we can see from Psalms 107.40.
4 On the origin of 
– other than ‘pass over’ (Exod 12.11–13) – see Segal, J. B., The Hebrew Passover (London: Oxford University, 1963).Google Scholar
5 After the death of Jesus, though, some of the disciples kept the days of unleavened bread (Acts 20.6) without – for so we infer from silence – commemorating him as the pascha.
6 Communion upon the two holy things is in fact the original meaning of the phrase ‘the communion of saints’ in the creed: Elert, Werner, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries, trans. Nagel, N. E. (St Louis: Concordia, 1966) 9.Google Scholar
7 Paul may have thought, just not mentioned, that the supper was a paschal feast. Still, his allusions to Oedipus of Corinth (1 Cor 5.1) and Epimenides of Crete (Titus 1.12) suggest that he told what he knew. So his silence, though not enough to show, does tend to confirm, that the dating is less deeply embedded than the idea of Jesus as the pascha, the lamb or the bread.
8 Strack, Hermann L. and Billerbeck, Paul, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922–4)Google Scholar 2.812–53, esp. 852. The two-calendar arguments of A. Jaubert do not similarly give equal favour to the two gospel accounts: see her afterword ‘Jésus et le Calendrier’, NTS 7 (1960) 1–30, esp. 29–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Figurative usage is what we should have expected. Since, from the eighteenth year of Josiah, sacrifices were made in Jerusalem, at the Temple, and nowhere else (Deut 16.5–6, 2 Kings 23.23), the feast elsewhere could be kept in name only. On the entirety of the matter see Jeremias, Joachim, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (trans. , F. H. and Cave, C. H.; London: SCM, 1969) esp. 101Google Scholar, n. 4. After the year 70 the enjoined ceremonies were no longer possible, but the traditional language could be used.
How well the two emblems combine with each other may be judged from the προσκομιδή of the Eastern rite: a loaf, called a lamb, is pierced, and from it run blood and water, which are drunk, as the wine was drunk at the supper.
10 Philo, , Questions and Answers (trans. Ralph, Marcus, Loeb, ed.; London: Heinemann, 1929) 1.20.Google Scholar
11 No less divisive than the matter of dating, nor of less moment, nor of less relevance to the pascha as lamb and bread, is the dispute whether the crucifixion alone, or the last supper as well, was a sacrifice (with the attendant question whether the reenactment of the supper is a sacrifice). One answer is: it was a single sacrifice, the crucifixion being the immolation, the supper the oblation: McHugh, J. F., ‘The Sacrifice of the Mass at the Council of Trent’, Sacrifice and Redemption (ed. Sykes, S. W.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991), 157–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 179.
12 With some changes, I follow Bernard, J. H. in his ICC ed. of John (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928) 2.457.Google Scholar
13 The LXX refers to unleavened bread: (a) usually with ἄζυμα alone, the neuter plural of the adjective; (b) rarely (Exod 29.2) with both adjective and noun; (c) never with the noun ἃρτος alone. It would be contrary to the commandment if daily ἂρτος were eaten when ἄζυμα ought to be. For this reason too the dating of the supper should be thought an addition to the story.
14 Ed. R. V. G. Tasker (London: Oxford University, 1964). Luke would not have used the accusative ἐμήν nor omitted the ἐστίν.
15 Isaac would seem the type par excellence, rather than Jonah, and Moses rather than the brazen serpent (John 3.14); but most typology is patristic, not scriptural.
16 Rom 5.13 is the cardinal verse; but the matter is greatly clarified by W. D. Davies, ‘Paul and the Law’, in Paul and Paulinism, Barrett festschrift (London: SPCK, 1982) 8.
17 On the continuity among (a) the satisfying of hunger and thirst in church, (b) the supper of Jesus with his disciples, and (c) the communion of the unworthy, see Mayer, Bernhard, ‘Tut dies zu meinem Gedächtnis!’ Freude am Gottesdienst (Plöger Festschrift; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983) 189–99.Google Scholar
18 Only Cranmer has followed him. The Roman liturgy (unless I am mistaken) has nothing comparable.
19 These conclusions, (I) and (II), but not the hypothesis following, were argued towards in my Inconsistencies (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983) 13–24 and 25–36Google Scholar. The latter of them has, in the main, been reached by Maccoby, Hyam, Paul and Hellenism (London: SCM, 1991), 90–128Google Scholar, who argues that not merely the ‘in remembrance’ is owing to Paul, but the entirety of the communion ritual. I agree on the ‘in remembrance’ but no further. The supper fulfils a prophetic verse, after the manner of the gospel tradition, and out of keeping with the manner of Paul. Maccoby does not speak about the rioters and Judas, or about unworthy communion as betrayal anew.