1. Question of Christic Origin

details, as given by the Evangelists, are to be accepted. According to him, Paul gave the tradition as be found it on his entrance into the Church, but how much of this is the original fact and how much comes from subsequent Christian practise is difficult to determine. Ruckert is inclined to believe that Jesus said nothing of a repetition of the observance, but that it was daily repeated from the beginning in the belief that this would be at least aCCeptable to him, sad that thus the idea of an express command grew up. According to Weiss, the apostles had no express command either for this repetition or for the performance of the baptismal rite, but car ried out what they understood to be the Master's intention, fording in both a bond of union for the disciples. Weizebcker asserts positively that the sacrament rests on a distinct command; and Bey echlag calls the institution the most certain of all the facts recorded of Jesus. Recently Jillicher and Spitta have vigorously denied it, while Harnack accepts it, though giving the rite another meaning than that expressed in the New Testament accounts.

2. Textual Basis for Denials

The denial of the institutional character of Christ's action is based on the variation of the accounts-the words "This do in remembrance of me" being found only in two places (Luke sxii. 19 and I Cor. xi. 25). This variation is the more re markable because in Codex D the text of the former passage omits altogether "which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me." The re searches of Bless in the Acts render it very doubt ful whether the text of Codex D can be accepted absolutely, and appear to for indicate that what seems a reminiscence of Paul may be a correction accepted by Luke himself rather than a later accretion. The relation of Luke to Paul, and the value of the letter's testimony to the view of the institution taken by apostolic Christianity, makes it improbable that a tradition existed which did not contain a trace of the intention of Christ to have it repeated. There is no analogy for the account of

Luke as found in D, and the text of D may perhaps best be regarded as defective, if it is not rather an ancient corruption. Nor can the point be pressed that Matthew and Mark fail to mention the injunction of repetition. In both of them (Matt. xxvi. 28;

Mark xiv. 24) the contents of the cup are designated

" my blood of the covenant"; and Christ could scarcely have given his "blood of the covenant" in such a way as to offer it alone to the disciples there present, to say nothing of the reinforcement of this thought by the "many" following. Thus the so counts would have to be deprived of the presum ably original form of Christ's words in order to sustain the hypothesis of an intention which did not include repetition. To this Paul's account would offer a further obstacle. When he says

(I Cor. xi. 23) "for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you," he uses apo in stead of Para to express the idea that he has re ceived this from the Church as from the Lord him self. The analogy of Acts ii. 42, 46 shows that this must have been at the time of his baptism, and the basis of his account is thus put twenty years further back than the date of I Corinthians, into the very earliest days of Christianity; it becomes an evidence that the Christian Church never had any thought but that the institution was meant for repetition. The only real difficulty may be found in the fact that the Gospel of John is entirely si-

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lent as to the institution. The hiatus which has been looked for in this Gospel, in order to find a place where this originally might have been, is discovered by Spitta just before chap. xv. Here he thinks the account once was, vi. 51-59 having been afterward put in by another hand to supply its place when it had dropped out. But there is no need for this ingenious hypothesis. It is indubitable that when this Gospel was written the Lord's Supper was everywhere celebrated in the Church. The purpose of the Gospel presupposes an acquaintance with the whole story (cf. chap. vi.).

The real ground for the denial of the institution as an ordinance for the Church lies elsewhere than in the discrepancy of the accounts. RUckert finds it in the danger of externalism inevitably accompanying a formal rite. Spitta declares impossible the relation of the Supper to the death of Christ, since such a relation could be understood only in connection with the general New-Testament view of the person and office of Christ, which he and others decisively reject. Harnack's position on the question shows that it is not absolutely necessary on this account to deny Christ's intention to institute a permanent observance. In any case, the institution would lose its real abiding value if the view of it contained in all the sours were not recognized. What this view is must next be considered.