"Emerson, Ralph W. - Uncollected Prose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

permitted himself to be anointed, declaring that it was for his
interment. He washed the feet of his disciples. These are admitted
to be symbolical actions and expressions. Here, in like manner, he
calls the bread his body, and bids the disciples eat. He had used
the same expression repeatedly before. The reason why St. John does
not repeat his words on this occasion, seems to be that he had
reported a similar discourse of Jesus to the people of Capernaum more
at length already (John VI. 27). He there tells the Jews, "Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no
life in you." And when the Jews on that occasion complained that they
did not comprehend what he meant, he added for their better
understanding, and as if for our understanding, that we might not
think his body was to be actually eaten, that he only meant, _we
should live by his commandment_. He closed his discourse with these
explanatory expressions: "The flesh profiteth nothing; the _words_
that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life."

Whilst I am upon this topic, I cannot help remarking that it is
not a little singular that we should have preserved this rite and
insisted upon perpetuating one symbolical act of Christ whilst we
have totally neglected all others -- particularly one other which had
at least an equal claim to our observance. Jesus washed the feet of
his disciples and told them that, as he had washed their feet, they
ought to wash one another's feet; for he had given them an example,
that they should do as he had done to them. I ask any person who
believes the Supper to have been designed by Jesus to be commemorated
forever, to go and read the account of it in the other Gospels, and
then compare with it the account of this transaction in St. John, and
tell me if this be not much more explicitly authorized than the
Supper. It only differs in this, that we have found the Supper used
in New England and the washing of the feet not. But if we had found
it an established rite in our churches, on grounds of mere authority,
it would have been impossible to have argued against it. That rite
is used by the Church of Rome, and by the Sandemanians. It has been
very properly dropped by other Christians. Why? For two reasons:
(1) because it was a local custom, and unsuitable in western
countries; and (2) because it was typical, and all understand that
humility is the thing signified. But the Passover was local too, and
does not concern us, and its bread and wine were typical, and do not
help us to understand the redemption which they signified.

These views of the original account of the Lord's Supper lead
me to esteem it an occasion full of solemn and prophetic interest,
but never intended by Jesus to be the foundation of a perpetual
institution.

It appears however in Christian history that the disciples had
very early taken advantage of these impressive words of Christ to
hold religious meetings, where they broke bread and drank wine as
symbols.