The First Eucharist

[conran333]

---

Concerning the question and answer given in the “Quick Question” section of the latest Catholic Answer Magazine, the question was whether the First Eucharist was leavened or unleavened bread. It seems that the answer would be unleavened since Christ was celebrating the pasch with His apostles, also known as the feast of the unleavened bread or the Azymes (without yeast) as in Mark 14:1 and Luke 22:1. This was the commemoration of the Jewish Passover, where the eating of unleavened bread represented the hurried exit of the Jews from Egypt.

 

[FrDavid96]

Correct.

However, according to John, it was the meal before the Passover, the time of “Preparation” in which case it was leavened bread.

The different Gospel accounts contradict each other when it comes to which day the Last Supper occurred.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Correct.

However, according to John, it was the meal before the Passover, the time of “Preparation” in which case it was leavened bread.

The different Gospel accounts contradict each other when it comes to which day the Last Supper occurred.

I don’t like the language of contradiction. There are two main explanations I know of, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first is that there were different calendars in use in Judaism at the time according to which the Passover was celebrated on different days by different groups, so Jesus and his disciples may have been using a different calendar than that of the priests and the synoptic gospels reflect this while John, likely being of a priestly family and wanting to make a theological point of Jesus being the paschal lamb, goes by the calendar the priests used. The second is simply that in the first century the word for Passover was sometimes used in a broader sense for all the events surrounding Passover.

 

[Publisher]

The “Day of Preparation” and the “Passover” are not the same day no matter which calendar one uses…they are distinct days…not the same day just different references to the same day with a different calendar.

The synoptic authors had a different focus…the writer of John wished to present something different…so they used different days to portray what they wished to convey…bottom line…John used a differnt day than the writers of the syoptics.

Only if one REQUIRES the days to be the same…which the NT author’s obviously did not…there really isn’t an issue…but they are different days…not the same day just different ways of calculating using different calendars…that is just way too convoluted to even make any sense.