First Happy Passover everyone! [It starts this Friday]. It’s well known that in the synoptic gospels, although not in John, the Last Supper is a Passover meal. That’s a topic worth discussing, but to start with I want to introduce a different issue. Namely, where did the idea come from that Jesus instituted Holy Communion at the Last Supper? I’m not sure my insight is original, but I noticed a few years ago that in I Cor 11 Paul says
‘I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”’
Seems to me this teaching of Paul, which he got through spiritual communication with Jesus, is the real source of the idea of Holy Communion being instituted by Jesus as the Last Supper. If so it is probably a reflection of Paul’s theology rather than a historical tradition passed on by an eyewitness.
Robert said
Larry Hurtado has argued convincingly ** you do not have permission to see this link ** that παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου in 1 Cor 11,23 more likely refers to receiving a tradition that Paul identifies with only ultimately originating with Jesus and should not be confused with Paul relating a more direct revelation from Jesus as he does elsewhere with differing language (eg, Gal 1,1 οὐκ ἀπ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι’ ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and Gal 1,12 οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτό, ⸀οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ).
I’m not convinced. To me it seems to be splitting hairs. I’m not fluent in Greek though, so I’d be interested why you see this is convincing. Also, Hurtado ignores 1 Cor. 7.25, where Paul says “Now about virgins: I have no command from/of the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.” Here the Greek is simply ἐπιταγ κύριος with no preposition. But the close proximity of the two ideas [I have no commandment from/of the Lord vs. I received of/from the Lord what I also passed on to you] seems to argue for Paul’s direct apostolic authority [received directly from Jesus in his view] as opposed to a more general church tradition.
Of course if you had a tenured academic specialist in the subject available for questions you could ask their opinion.
A helluva revelation, huh? That relies on the parsing of an ancient language. I suppose it must occur to everyone the least bit skeptical at some point to ask, if you were a God who wished to deliver a revelation freely available to everyone on which your eternal fate depends, why would you use text?
fefferdan
Where did the idea come from that Jesus instituted Holy Communion at the Last Supper?
Seems to me this teaching of Paul, which he got through spiritual communication with Jesus, is the real source of the idea of Holy Communion being instituted by Jesus as the Last Supper.
If so it is probably a reflection of Paul’s theology rather than a historical tradition passed on by an eyewitness.
Steefen
The real source is Paul got it through spiritual communication with Jesus. How reliable is that? First establish the integrity of “spiritual communication with Jesus.” Who else had a spiritual communication with Jesus?
Second, tell us more about a theology that is reflected in drinking blood and eating body. Does that go back to some tribe that thought if they cannibalized their enemy, they would get the strength of their enemy?
Thanks Robert.
I am reconsidering. For me it’s not easy to think of Paul as having such an accepting attitude toward earlier witnesses that he’d go so far as to accept their traditions as being “of/from the Lord” regardless the nuances of the preposition in question. I can’t think of other examples where he did this, but I can definitely think of examples where Paul goes out of his way to insist that the teachings of other apostles are inferior to his, on the very grounds I suggested; namely a revelation from Jesus. Paul claimed that his gospel was revealed to him by Christ and not taught to him by other apostles. This doesn’t prove that his teaching about the Last Supper didn’t come to him from others, but it does raise the possibility.
Do you picture the Corinthians already practicing a kind of primitive Communion liturgy that Paul merely amplified, or that he conveyed a tradition they were unaware of? Either way, it’s interesting that Paul refers to having conveyed the “body and blood” theology previously, and that he felt the need to remind them of it in order to get them to behave in a more civilized manner.
Anyway, I appreciate discussing this with you. I was unaware of the views of Conzelmann and Joseph Fitzmyer. About a concordance, doesn’t anyone with an internet connection have one these days? I haven’t used a physical concordance in a while.
Steefen said
fefferdan
Where did the idea come from that Jesus instituted Holy Communion at the Last Supper?
Seems to me this teaching of Paul, which he got through spiritual communication with Jesus, is the real source of the idea of Holy Communion being instituted by Jesus as the Last Supper.
If so it is probably a reflection of Paul’s theology rather than a historical tradition passed on by an eyewitness.Steefen
The real source is Paul got it through spiritual communication with Jesus. How reliable is that? First establish the integrity of “spiritual communication with Jesus.” Who else had a spiritual communication with Jesus?Second, tell us more about a theology that is reflected in drinking blood and eating body. Does that go back to some tribe that thought if they cannibalized their enemy, they would get the strength of their enemy?
Steefen
I’m not concerned about the spiritual integrity of Paul’s supposed spiritual communications. It’s a question of whether he himself believed this teaching to have come to him from Jesus, or whether he got it from other people, perhaps eye witnesses. I’m skeptical about the historicity of the Last Supper accounts in the gospels, so I wonder if perhaps Paul was the one who instituted the tradition.
The sacred-cannibalistic antecedents of Holy Communion are not clear to me. But the sybmbolic version was apparently practiced in Mithraism and perhaps other contemorary religious movements at the time. On the other hand there is no evidence of this practice in Judaism. That’s one of the main reason I have trouble singing the historical Jesus instituting this tradition.
Well, this is more convincing. It shows that I had ignored the instance in 1 Cor 15 where Paul indeed cited earlier church tradition as authoritative. Thank you again. Accepting the passage you cited as authentic [and I see no reason to deny it], this would indicate at least one other important thing: that it wasn’t Paul who came up with the idea that Jesus died for our sins, as supposedly predicted by scripture. This would be an important fact in opposition to those who allege that Paul was the founder of Christianity. It by no means proves that Jesus was the founder, but it does show that one of Paul’s central doctrines pre-existed his writing of it. The more I learn, the more I don’t know, apparently. I am enjoying the dialog.
fefferdan said
Thanks Robert.I am reconsidering. For me it’s not easy to think of Paul as having such an accepting attitude toward earlier witnesses that he’d go so far as to accept their traditions as being “of/from the Lord” regardless the nuances of the preposition in question. I can’t think of other examples where he did this, but I can definitely think of examples where Paul goes out of his way to insist that the teachings of other apostles are inferior to his, on the very grounds I suggested; namely a revelation from Jesus. Paul claimed that his gospel was revealed to him by Christ and not taught to him by other apostles. This doesn’t prove that his teaching about the Last Supper didn’t come to him from others, but it does raise the possibility.
Do you picture the Corinthians already practicing a kind of primitive Communion liturgy that Paul merely amplified, or that he conveyed a tradition they were unaware of? Either way, it’s interesting that Paul refers to having conveyed the “body and blood” theology previously, and that he felt the need to remind them of it in order to get them to behave in a more civilized manner.
Anyway, I appreciate discussing this with you. I was unaware of the views of Conzelmann and Joseph Fitzmyer. About a concordance, doesn’t anyone with an internet connection have one these days? I haven’t used a physical concordance in a while.
You say Paul was not in the habit of accepting traditions from Jesus’ disicples; in fact, he thought the teachings of other apostles were inferior to his “vision”.
Then you ask if the Corinthians were already practicing a kind of primitive Communication liturgy.
There was a Christian community in Rome before Paul got there. Who founded the Corinthian Christian community? Second, what pagan god and/or goddesses were the Corinthians worshiping prior to their Christian community?
You say he had them drinking the blood of Jesus and eating the body of Jesus so they could behave in a more civilized manner. What is less civilized than cannibalism or a ritual with cannibal overtones–human sacrifice to atone for sins–somebody else’s sacrifice to atone for your sins–no personal accountability.
fefferdan
Did Paul institute the Last Supper tradition? — the title of your thread.
Steefen
I read it as Did Paul institute the Last Supper tradition or did Jesus institute the Last Supper tradition?
fefferdan
I’m not concerned about the spiritual integrity of Paul’s supposed spiritual communications.
Steefen
Did Paul institute the Last Supper tradition in the good faith that Jesus did appear to him on the way to Damascus?
If his instituting the Last Supper tradition happened with integrity that is a better test subject to test. If the test subject is legitimate or phony not mattering to you is faulty reasoning. The equivalent is: You’re asking me to test the quality of the butter but you are not giving me butter. That’s nonsense and a set up for an erroneous rationale. Your standards are not high enough: garbage in, garbage out.
Second, when I ask, “tell us more about a theology that is reflected in drinking blood and eating body. Does that go back to some tribe that thought if they cannibalized their enemy, they would get the strength of their enemy,” you reply the Corinthians may have been practicing a primitive form of Communion. Then, after saying Paul did not honor the traditions of the disciples, you accept the possibility that Cephas got to the Corinthians first and Paul is just emphasizing the Communion tradition of Cephas.
You bring up Mithraism but you will have to try to give us scholarly evidence that Mithraism moved into Corinth from Persia. That may be easy to do, but I am familiar with the Mithraism moving into military circles of Rome during the Flavian emperors as opposed to it moving into civilian populations. Can you provide the civilian acceptance of Mithraism, in Corinth, in Ephesus, in Rome, in Palestine where military veterans settled?
Robert – thank you for directing me here, this is great stuff.
Two questions:
– Is it likely that Paul received the Last Supper tradition from, or at least ran it direct or indirectly by, Cephas? The episodes of the 15 day interlude, the vetting of the gospel message, and the Antioch kerfuffle around fellowship meals all are suggestive that there was ample opportunity for Cephas and communal/communion meals and Paul to intermingle and for the remembrance liturgy to be in focus.
– Is there good work you’d recommend about the derivation of the traditions themselves (eating body, drinking blood) given it would seem to clash with both Jesus’s thinking (per Synoptics especially Mark) and Judaic dietary prohibitions? That oddity (especially the clash with dietary prohibitions) however seems to point up a criterion of dissimilarity argument…
Thanks a ton
Robert said
It’s possible. But it’s also possible Paul may have already known the practice wherever he spent his first couple of years as a believer (Damascus?), before he visited Cephas. That’s assuming that Paul did inherit this as a traditional practice and did not invent it in imitation of some kind of rite of a Hellenistic mystery cult, which is, I think, an outdated hypothesis, ‘though no doubt still popular dogma on the Internet.
Thank you. Totally fair and agree that Paul’s original receipt of the tradition could predate the 15 day interlude. Would it have been possible he received it post the Antioch dust up with Cephas? Apologies if that’s pedestrian, but I cannot recall the scholarly consensus on the dating of 1 Cor in relation to Galatians. Even if possible, it would seem quite unlikely Paul would be receiving such an important *historical datum* (I say, personally not thinking it actually happened, or at the very least not in anything resembling the Pauline retelling) about the Last Supper post having shared the 15 days, cross referenced his gospel with the pillars, and yelled at Cephas for withdrawing from the gentile tables during the communal (liturgical?) meal. If something so insider-knowledge didn’t come up in any of those scenarios, it seems hard to think Paul would be ok “receiving” it.
Allow me to come at the bigger picture topic from another tack: Would Paul have kept it as a received tradition if Peter had said to him at some point that the event didn’t take place (or in that way)? My thought would lean heavily no, but I suppose without direct evidence one could debate it. And then, if known to Paul prior to meeting Cephas, would the Last Supper liturgy not have come up in any of the 15 days, the pillars gospel confirmation, nor the *communal meal* situation that led to the Antioch incident? I suppose the safest, most conservative epistemological stance would be to say without direct evidence, we don’t know. However, reflecting on normal human interactions, especially about discussions around fervently held religious positions, even in a cross-lingual milieu, it just seems prima facie unlikely it wouldn’t have come up.
Does this hang together? It may not be obvious since I’ve expressed some opinions above, but they are provisional, armchair and ready to be changed with better argument/evidence. Thanks for the help – I’m very appreciative.
Robert said
I don’t think there was a sense that they were literally drinking actual blood. It would have been a very powerful symbol by which they were participating in the very life-force of Jesus, who they saw as resurrected and now seated at the right-hand of God. You might look into Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, which is written for a general audiences. I haven’t read his stuff, and he may be a bit of a Catholic fundamentalist in his orientation, but I assume he will at least point toward some important works in his bibliography.
Thank you for the recommendation as well as the thoughts. Agree on the belief of actual ingestion of blood (neither transubstantiation nor otherwise) – my question, I guess better clarified, would be that since it is straight up a taboo, why would such a durable tradition have grown up around a taboo? Your life force comment is very well taken. However, the symbolic consumption of it just clangs in my mind. Light heartedly, it would be like staking a major tradition in shellfish.
Thanks a ton in advance for the insights!
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