bread dipped, which was the sign that it was he; preparations were made
for the washing of the feet; Peter strove against his feet being
washed; then came the institution of the Holy Eucharist: Judas
communicated, and afterwards left the apartment; the oils were
consecrated, and instructions given concerning them; Peter and the
other Apostles received ordination; our Lord made his final discourse;
Peter protested that he would never abandon him; and then the Supper
concluded. By adopting this order, it appears, at first, as though it
were in contradiction to the passages of St. Matthew (31:29), and of
St. Mark (14:26), in which the words: I will drink no more of the fruit
of the vine, etc., come after the consecration, but in St. Luke, they
come before. On the contrary, all that concerns the traitor Judas comes
here, as in St. Matthew and St. Mark, before the consecration; whereas
in St. Luke, it does not come till afterwards. St. John, who does not
relate the history of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, gives us
to understand that Judas went out immediately after Jesus had given him
the bread; but it appears most probable, from the accounts of the other
Evangelists, that Judas received the Holy Communion under both forms,
and several of the fathers--St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, and St.
Leo the Great--as well as the tradition of the Catholic Church, tell us
expressly that such was the case. Besides, were the order in which St.
John presents events taken literally, he would contradict, not only St.
Matthew and St. Mark, but himself, for it must follow, from verse 10,
chap. 13, that Judas also had his feet washed. Now, the washing of the
feet took place after the eating of the Paschal lamb, and it was
necessarily whilst it was being eaten that Jesus presented the bread to
the traitor. It is plain that the Evangelists here, as in several other
parts of their writings, gave their attention to the sacred narrative
as a whole, and did not consider themselves bound to relate every
detail in precisely the same order, which fully explains the apparent