The Last Supper

179:1.1When the apos­tles had been shown up­stairs by John Mark, they be­held a large and com­modi­ous cham­ber, which was com­pletely fur­nished for the sup­per, and ob­served that the bread, wine, wa­ter, and herbs were all in readi­ness on one end of the ta­ble. Ex­cept for the end on which rested the bread and wine, this long ta­ble was sur­rounded by thir­teen re­clin­ing couches, just such as would be pro­vided for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over in a well-to-do Jew­ish house­hold.

179:1.2As the twelve en­tered this up­per cham­ber, they no­ticed, just in­side the door, the pitch­ers of wa­ter, the basins, and tow­els for lav­ing their dusty feet; and since no ser­vant had been pro­vided to ren­der this ser­vice, the apos­tles be­gan to look at one an­other as soon as John Mark had left them, and each be­gan to think within him­self, Who shall wash our feet? And each like­wise thought that it would not be he who would thus seem to act as the ser­vant of the oth­ers.

179:1.3As they stood there, de­bat­ing in their hearts, they sur­veyed the seat­ing ar­range­ment of the ta­ble, tak­ing note of the higher di­van of the host with one couch on the right and eleven ar­ranged around the ta­ble on up to op­po­site this sec­ond seat of honor on the host’s right.

179:1.4They ex­pected the Mas­ter to ar­rive any mo­ment, but they were in a quandary as to whether they should seat them­selves or await his com­ing and de­pend on him to as­sign them their places. While they hes­i­tated, Ju­das stepped over to the seat of honor, at the left of the host, and sig­ni­fied that he in­tended there to re­cline as the pre­ferred guest. This act of Ju­das im­me­di­ately stirred up a heated dis­pute among the other apos­tles. Ju­das had no sooner seized the seat of honor than John Zeb­e­dee laid claim to the next pre­ferred seat, the one on the right of the host. Si­mon Pe­ter was so en­raged at this as­sump­tion of choice po­si­tions by Ju­das and John that, as the other an­gry apos­tles looked on, he marched clear around the ta­ble and took his place on the low­est couch, the end of the seat­ing or­der and just op­po­site to that cho­sen by John Zeb­e­dee. Since oth­ers had seized the high seats, Pe­ter thought to choose the low­est, and he did this, not merely in protest against the un­seemly pride of his breth­ren, but with the hope that Je­sus, when he should come and see him in the place of least honor, would call him up to a higher one, thus dis­plac­ing one who had pre­sumed to honor him­self.

179:1.5With the high­est and the low­est po­si­tions thus oc­cu­pied, the rest of the apos­tles chose places, some near Ju­das and some near Pe­ter, un­til all were lo­cated. They were seated about the U-shaped ta­ble on these re­clin­ing di­vans in the fol­low­ing or­der: on the right of the Mas­ter, John; on the left, Ju­das, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, Mat­thew, James Zeb­e­dee, An­drew, the Al­pheus twins, Philip, Na­than­iel, Thomas, and Si­mon Pe­ter.

179:1.6They are gath­ered to­gether to cel­e­brate, at least in spirit, an in­sti­tu­tion which an­te­dated even Moses and re­ferred to the times when their fa­thers were slaves in Egypt. This sup­per is their last ren­dezvous with Je­sus, and even in such a solemn set­ting, un­der the lead­er­ship of Ju­das the apos­tles are led once more to give way to their old predilec­tion for honor, pref­er­ence, and per­sonal ex­al­ta­tion.

179:1.7They were still en­gaged in voic­ing an­gry re­crim­i­na­tions when the Mas­ter ap­peared in the door­way, where he hes­i­tated a mo­ment as a look of dis­ap­point­ment slowly crept over his face. With­out com­ment he went to his place, and he did not dis­turb their seat­ing ar­range­ment.

179:1.8They were now ready to be­gin the sup­per, ex­cept that their feet were still un­washed, and they were in any­thing but a pleas­ant frame of mind. When the Mas­ter ar­rived, they were still en­gaged in mak­ing un­com­pli­men­tary re­marks about one an­other, to say noth­ing of the thoughts of some who had suf­fi­cient emo­tional con­trol to re­frain from pub­licly ex­press­ing their feel­ings.