Matthew 26:26

As they were eating - Either an ordinary supper, or the paschal lamb, as some think. See the observations at the end of this chapter.

Jesus took bread - Of what kind? Unleavened bread, certainly, because there was no other kind to be had in all Judea at this time; for this was the first day of unleavened bread, ( Matthew 26:17 ;), i.e. the 14th of the month Nisan, when the Jews, according to the command of God, ( Exodus 12:15-20 ; Exodus 23:15 ; Exodus 34:25 ;), were to purge away all leaven from their houses; for he who sacrificed the passover, having leaven in his dwelling, was considered to be such a transgressor of the Divine law as could no longer be tolerated among the people of God; and therefore was to be cut off from the congregation of Israel. Leo of Modena, who has written a very sensible treatise on the customs of the Jews, observes, "That so strictly do some of the Jews observe the precept concerning the removal of all leaven from their houses, during the celebration of the paschal solemnity, that they either provide vessels entirely new for baking, or else have a set for the purpose, which are dedicated solely to the service of the passover, and never brought out on any other occasion."

To this divinely instituted custom of removing all leaven previously to the paschal solemnity, St. Paul evidently alludes, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 . Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the Unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Now, if any respect should be paid to the primitive institution, in the celebration of this Divine ordinance, then, unleavened, unyeasted bread should be used. In every sign, or type, the thing signifying or pointing out that which is beyond itself should either have certain properties, or be accompanied with certain circumstances, as expressive as possible of the thing signified. Bread, simply considered in itself, may be an emblem apt enough of the body of our Lord Jesus, which was given for us; but the design of God was evidently that it should not only point out this, but also the disposition required in those who should celebrate both the antetype and the type; and this the apostle explains to be sincerity and truth, the reverse of malice and wickedness. The very taste of the bread was instructive: it pointed out to every communicant, that he who came to the table of God with malice or ill-will against any soul of man, or with wickedness, a profligate or sinful life, might expect to eat and drink judgment to himself, as not discerning that the Lord's body was sacrificed for this very purpose, that all sin might be destroyed; and that sincerity, ειλικρινεια , such purity as the clearest light can discern no stain in, might be diffused through the whole soul; and that truth, the law of righteousness and true holiness, might regulate and guide all the actions of life. Had the bread used on these occasions been of the common kind, it would have been perfectly unfit, or improper, to have communicated these uncommon significations; and, as it was seldom used, its rare occurrence would make the emblematical representation more deeply impressive; and the sign, and the thing signified, have their due correspondence and influence.

These circumstances considered, will it not appear that the use of common bread in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is highly improper? He who can say, "This is a matter of no importance," may say with equal propriety, the bread itself is of no importance; and another may say, the wine is of no importance; and a third may say, "neither the bread nor wine is any thing, but as they lead to spiritual references; and, the spiritual reference being once understood, the signs are useless." Thus we may, through affected spirituality, refine away the whole ordinance of God; and, with the letter and form of religion, abolish religion itself. Many have already acted in this way, not only to their loss, but to their ruin, by showing how profoundly wise they are above what is written. Let those, therefore, who consider that man shall live by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God, and who are conscientiously solicitous that each Divine institution be not only preserved, but observed in all its original integrity, attend to this circumstance. The Lutheran Church makes use of unleavened bread to the present day.

And blessed it - Both St. Matthew and St. Mark use the word ευλογησας , blessed, instead of ευχαριϚησας , gave thanks, which is the word used by St. Luke and St. Paul. But instead of ευλογησας , blessed, ευχαριϚησας , gave thanks, is the reading of ten MSS. in uncial characters, of the Dublin Codex rescriptus, published by Dr. Barrett, and of more than one hundred others, of the greatest respectability. This is the reading also of the Syriac and Arabic, and is confirmed by several of the primitive fathers. The terms, in this case, are nearly of the same import, as both blessing and giving thanks were used on these occasions. But what was it that our Lord blessed? Not the bread, though many think the contrary, being deceived by the word It, which is improperly supplied in our version. In all the four places referred to above, whether the word blessed or gave thanks is used, it refers not to the bread, but to God, the dispenser of every good. Our Lord here conforms himself to that constant Jewish custom, viz. of acknowledging God as the author of every good and perfect gift, by giving thanks on taking the bread and taking the cup at their ordinary meals. For every Jew was forbidden to eat, drink, or use any of God's creatures without rendering him thanks; and he who acted contrary to this command was considered as a person who was guilty of sacrilege.

From this custom we have derived the decent and laudable one of saying grace ( gratas thanks) before and after meat. The Jewish form of blessing, probably that which our Lord used on this occasion, none of my readers will be displeased to find here, though it has been mentioned once before. On taking the bread they say: -

הארץ מן לחם המוצא העולם מלך אלהינו אתה ברוך

Baruch atta Elohinoo , Melech , haolam , ha motse Lechem min haarets .

Blessed be thou, our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread out of the earth!

Likewise, on taking the cup, they say: -

הגף פרי בורא העולם מלך אלהינו ברוך

Baruch Elohinoo , Melech , haolam , Bore perey haggephen .

Blessed be our God, the King of the universe, the Creator of the fruit it of the vine!

The Mohammedans copy their example, constantly saying before and after meat: -

Bismillahi arahmani arraheemi .

In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate.

No blessing, therefore, of the elements is here intended; they were already blessed, in being sent as a gift of mercy from the bountiful Lord; but God the sender is blessed, because of the liberal provision he has made for his worthless creatures. Blessing and touching the bread are merely Popish ceremonies, unauthorized either by Scripture or the practice of the pure Church of God; necessary of course to those who pretend to transmute, by a kind of spiritual incantation, the bread and wine into the real body and blood of Jesus Christ; a measure the grossest in folly, and most stupid in nonsense, to which God in judgment ever abandoned the fallen spirit of man.

And brake it - We often read in the Scriptures of breaking bread, but never of cutting it. The Jewish people had nothing similar to our high-raised loaf: their bread was made broad and thin, and was consequently very brittle, and, to divide it, there was no need of a knife.

The breaking of the bread I consider essential to the proper performance of this solemn and significant ceremony: because this act was designed by our Lord to shadow forth the wounding, piercing, and breaking of his body upon the cross; and, as all this was essentially necessary to the making a full atonement for the sin of the world, so it is of vast importance that this apparently little circumstance, the breaking of the bread, should be carefully attended to, that the godly communicant may have every necessary assistance to enable him to discern the Lord's body, while engaged in this most important and Divine of all God's ordinances. But who does not see that one small cube of fermented, i.e. leavened bread, previously divided from the mass with a knife, and separated by the fingers of the minister, can never answer the end of the institution, either as to the matter of the bread, or the mode of dividing it? Man is naturally a dull and heedless creature, especially in spiritual things, and has need of the utmost assistance of his senses, in union with those expressive rites and ceremonies which the Holy Scripture, not tradition, has sanctioned, in order to enable him to arrive at spiritual things, through the medium of earthly similitudes.

And gave it to the disciples - Not only the breaking, but also the Distribution, of the bread are necessary parts of this rite. In the Romish Church, the bread is not broken nor delivered to the people, that They may take and eat; but the consecrated wafer is put upon their tongue by the priest; and it is generally understood by the communicants, that they should not masticate, but swallow it whole.

"That the breaking of this bread to be distributed," says Dr. Whitby, "is a necessary part of this rite is evident, first, by the continual mention of it by St. Paul and all the evangelists, when they speak of the institution of this sacrament, which shows it to be a necessary part of it. 2dly, Christ says, Take, eat, this is my body, Broken for you, 1 Corinthians 11:24 . But when the elements are not broken, it can be no more said, This is my body broken for you, than where the elements are not given. 3dly, Our Lord said, Do this in remembrance of me: i.e. 'Eat this bread, broken in remembrance of my body broken on the cross:' now, where no body broken is distributed, there, nothing can be eaten in memorial of his broken body. Lastly, The apostle, by saying, The bread which we Break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? sufficiently informs us that the eating of his broken body is necessary to that end, 1 Corinthians 10:10 . Hence it was that this rite, of distributing bread broken, continued for a thousand years, and was, as Humbertus testifies, observed in the Roman Church in the eleventh century." Whitby in loco. At present, the opposite is as boldly practised as if the real Scriptural rite had never been observed in the Church of Christ.

This is my body - Here it must be observed that Christ had nothing in his hands, at this time, but part of that unleavened bread which he and his disciples had been eating at supper, and therefore he could mean no more than this, viz. that the bread which he was now breaking represented his body, which, in the course of a few hours, was to be crucified for them. Common sense, unsophisticated with superstition and erroneous creeds, - and reason, unawed by the secular sword of sovereign authority, could not possibly take any other meaning than this plain, consistent, and rational one, out of these words. "But," says a false and absurd creed, "Jesus meant, when he said, Hoc Est Corpus Meum, This is my body, and Hic Est Calix Sanguinis Mei, This is the chalice of my blood, that the bread and wine were substantially changed into his body, including flesh, blood, bones, yea, the whole Christ, in his immaculate humanity and adorable divinity!" And, for denying this, what rivers of righteous blood have been shed by state persecutions and by religious wars! Well it may be asked, "Can any man of sense believe, that, when Christ took up that bread and broke it, it was his own body which he held in his own hands, and which himself broke to pieces, and which he and his disciples ate?" He who can believe such a congeries of absurdities, cannot be said to be a volunteer in faith; for it is evident, the man can neither have faith nor reason, as to this subject.

Let it be observed, if any thing farther is necessary on this point, that the paschal lamb, is called the passover, because it represented the destroying angel's passing over the children of Israel, while he slew the firstborn of the Egyptians; and our Lord and his disciples call this lamb the passover, several times in this chapter; by which it is demonstrably evident, that they could mean no more than that the lamb sacrificed on this occasion was a memorial of, and Represented, the means used for the preservation of the Israelites from the blast of the destroying angel.

Besides, our Lord did not say, hoc est corpus meum , (this is my body), as he did not speak in the Latin tongue; though as much stress has been laid upon this quotation from the Vulgate as if the original of the three evangelists had been written in the Latin language. Had he spoken in Latin, following the idiom of the Vulgate, he would have said, Panis hic corpus meum signficat , or, Symbolum est corporis mei : - hoc poculum sanguinem meum representat , or, symbolum est sanguinis mei : - this bread signifies my body; this cup represents my blood. But let it be observed that, in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Chaldeo-Syriac languages, as used in the Bible, there is no term which expresses to mean, signify, denote, though both the Greek and Latin abound with them: hence the Hebrews use a figure, and say, it is, for, it signifies. So Genesis 41:26 , Genesis 41:27 . The seven kine Are (i.e. represent) seven years. This Is (represents) the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Daniel 7:24 . The ten horns Are (i.e. signify) ten kings. They drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock Was (represented) Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 . And following this Hebrew idiom, though the work is written in Greek, we find in Revelation 1:20 , The seven stars Are (represent) the angels of the seven Churches: and the seven candlesticks Are (represent) the seven Churches. The same form of speech is used in a variety of places in the New Testament, where this sense must necessarily be given to the word. Matthew 13:38 , Matthew 13:39 . The field IS (represents) the world: the good seed Are (represent or signify) the children of the kingdom: the tares Are (signify) the children of the wicked one. The enemy Is (signifies) the devil: the harvest Is (represents) the end of the world: the reapers Are (i.e. signify) the angels. Luke 8:9 . What might this parable Be? Τις ΕΙΗ η παραβολη αυτη : - What does this parable Signify? John 7:36 . Τις ΕΣΤΙΝ αυτος ο λογος : What is the Signification of this saying? John 10:6 . They understood not what things they Were, τινα ΗΝ , what was the Signification of the things he had spoken to them. Acts 10:17 . Τι αν ΕΙΗ οραμα , what this vision Might Be; properly rendered by our translators, what this vision should Mean. Galatians 4:24 . For these Are the two covenants, αυται γαρ ΕΙΣΙΝ αι δυο διαθηκαι , these Signify the two covenants. Luke 15:26 . He asked, τι ΕΙΗ ταυτα , what these things Meant. See also Luke 18:36 . After such unequivocal testimony from the Sacred writings, can any person doubt that, This bread is my body, has any other meaning than, This bread Represents my body?

The Latins use the verb, sum , in all its forms, with a similar latitude of meaning. So, Esse oneri ferendo , he is Able to bear the burthen: bene Esse , to Live sumptuously: male Esse , to Live miserably: recte Esse , to Enjoy good health: Est mihi fistula , I Possess a flute: EST hodie in rebus , he now Enjoys a plentiful fortune: Est mihi namque domi pater , I Have a father at home, etc.: Esse solvendo , to be Able to pay: Fuimus Troes, Fuit Ilium ; the Trojans are Extinct, Troy is No More.

In Greek also, and Hebrew, it often signifies to live, to die, to be killed. Ουκ ΕΙΜΙ , I am Dead, or a dead man. Matthew 2:18 ; : Rachel weeping for her children, οτι ουκ ΕΙΣΙ , because they Were Murdered. Genesis 42:36 ; : Joseph is not, איננו יוסף Yoseph einennu , Ιωσηφ ουκ ΕΣΤΙΝ , Sept., Joseph is Devoured by a Wild Beast. Romans 4:17 ; : Calling the things that Are not, as if they were Alive. So Plutarch in Laconicis: "This shield thy father always preserved; preserve thou it, or may thou not Be," Η μη ΕΣΟ , may thou Perish. ΟΥΚ ΟΝΤΕΣ νομοι , Abrogated laws. ΕΙΜΙ εν εμοι , I Possess a sound understanding. Εις πατερα υμιν ΕΣΟΜΑΙ , I will Perform the Part of a father to you. ΕΙΜΙ της πολεως της δε , I Am an Inhabitant of that city. 1 Timothy 1:7 ; : Desiring to Be teachers of the law, θελοντες ΕΙΝΑΙ νομοδιδασκαλοι, desiring to be Reputed teachers of the law, i.e. Able divines. Τα ΟΝΤΑ , the things that Are, i.e. Noble and Honorable men: τα μη ΟΝΤΑ , the things that are not, viz. the Vulgar, or those of Ignoble Birth.

Tertullian seems to have had a correct notion of those words of our Lord,

Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis, corpus illum suum fecit, Hoc Est Corpus Meum dicendo, id est, Figura corporis mei .

Advers. Marc. l. v. c. 40.