Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/262

 Thus, observes Matthew, "was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet." Judas, having parted with his ill-gotten gain, committed suicide by hanging (Mt. xxvii. 3-10). So at least says Matthew; but Luke, making confusion worse confounded, represents Judas himself as purchasing the field "with the reward of iniquity;" after which he fell headlong, and bursting in the middle, his bowels gushed out (Acts i. 18, 19). Of this notorious fact, "known," according to the Acts of the Apostles, "to all the dwellers at Jerusalem," Matthew at least was wholly ignorant. But both versions equally originate in the defective Hebrew of the translators of Zechariah.

In all the synoptical Gospels, the celebration of the passover by Jesus and his disciples succeeds the secret arrangement of Judas with the high priests. He kept it in Jerusalem, in the house of a man whose name is not mentioned, but who must have been one of his adherents. The encounter with this man is represented in two of the three versions as something miraculous. On the first day of unleavened bread Jesus told two of his disciples (according to Mark), James and John (according to Luke), to go into Jerusalem, where they would meet a man bearing a pitcher of water. Him they were to follow, and wherever he went in, they were to say to the master of the house, "Where is the guest-chamber, where I may eat the passover with my disciples?" He would then show them a large furnished upper room, where they were to prepare it. Nothing but a perfectly natural version of all this appears in Matthew. There Jesus tells his disciples to go into the city to So-and-so (the name therefore having been given), and tell him that he wished to keep the passover at his house (Mk. xiv. 12-16; Mt. xxvi. 17-19; Lu. xxii. 7-13). Here again we see how easily a wondrous tale may originate in a very simple fact.

Supper was accordingly prepared in the man's house, and Jesus ate the passover there with his disciples. At this supper, according to all the Gospels, he mentioned the fact that one of them would betray him. Whether in so doing he actually named the traitor is uncertain. Mark's account is that when he had predicted that one would betray him, the disciples in sorrow inquired one by one, "Is it I?" and that Jesus told them it was the one who dipped with him in the dish. Luke leaves