The Last Supper

Christ gathers his followers for supper one last time. The food has special symbolic significance: Jesus himself defines the bread at his body and the wine as his blood.

The Last Supper

The Last Supper is Jesus' last meal with his disciples at Jerusalem. On the day of the Jewish Passover, Jesus orders his disciples to organize its celebration, and in the evening he sits down to supper with the twelve. During the meal, he says: "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me." This grieves the apostles, who begin asking him who the traitor might be, and Jesus replies that he will be betrayed by the one who dipped his morsel of bread in the bowl with him. Judas realizes that his master's words refer to him. While they are eating, Jesus breaks the bread and blesses it, calling it his body and offering it to all se present. Then he takes the cup, gives thanks, and passes it to his disciples so that they all might drink, calling it his blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. He then declares that he will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until the day when he will be reunited with his disciples and will be able to talk to them in his father's kingdom (Matt. 26:17-29). In Mark's Gospel (14:12-26) and that of Luke (22:7-23), the narrative is substantially the same, though there are differences: in those versions, the place chosen for the Last Supper is revealed to the apostles in the city by a man carrying a jar of water. In John's Gospel (13:21-30), it is Christ himself who takes a piece of bread from the dish and gives it to Judas to show that he is the traitor; when he urges Judas to

quickly what he is going to do, Judas leaves the table. The episode represents the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist by Christ himself.

Sources

Matthew 26:17-29; Mark 14:11-26; Luke 22:7-23; John 13:21-30

Iconography

The Last Supper is widespread in Western art and one of its oldest subjects. It already appears in paleo-Christian art and is fully developed in 6th-centnry Byzantine mosaics, becoming codified in a form that was to be subject to many interpretations but few modifications over the centuries

A Master of the Housebook, The Last Supper, ca. 1480. Berlin, Gemaldegalerie.

·         Instead of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, we see here the lamb, the traditional sacrificial victim and an allusion to the sacrifice of Christ

·         The knife that Judas is replacing in its sheath tells us that his betrayal has already taken place.