supper, but on the following night, after He was crucified. Hence the difficulty of reconciling St. John’s account with that of the Synoptic Evangelists. A vast amount of learning has been expended upon this question, and a great deal has been written upon it. We shall indicate as briefly as possible the different opinions, and state what seems to us most probable. (1) Some, as St. Clement of Alexandria, Calmet, &c., have held that our Lord did not eat the Pasch at all in the last year of His life. They argue from texts in St. John, which prove, they say, that the time for eating the Pasch had not come until after Christ was put to death. They take the “first day of the Azymes,” in the Synoptic Gospels, to mean the 13th day of Nisan; and hold that it, and not the 14th, was so called because the Jews removed all leaven from their houses a day before the Feast. In this view they have no difficulty in reconciling St. John’s account with that of the other Evangelists; for the Synoptic Evangelists are then made to represent the Last Supper as having taken place on the 13th of Nisan. That being so, it is at once concluded that there cannot be question of the Paschal Supper, but of an ordinary supper, and St. John, in agreement with the Synoptists, states that the supper in question was held “before the festival day of the pasch.” This opinion, however, we regard as wholly improbable and untenable in the face of the statements of the Synoptic Evangelists, for these statements are such as to leave no reasonable doubt that our Lord and His Apostles did eat the Paschal Supper the night before He died. Thus, they tell us that the disciples were sent by our Lord to prepare the Pasch, that they prepared it, and that when the time for eating it was come, Christ sat down with the Twelve.(83) Moreover, St. Luke tells us that after they sat down, Christ said: “With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer” (Luke xxii. 15)—words which clearly imply that on the occasion of that last supper the Pasch was eaten by Christ and the Apostles. Hence the opinion we are now considering, which would reconcile the Evangelists by holding that our Lord, on the night before He died, did not partake of the Paschal Supper, but only of an ordinary supper, is, as we have already said, wholly improbable; and, indeed, the book of a certain Florentine named Vecchietti, published at the close of the sixteenth century, and maintaining this view, was condemned by the Holy Office and its author imprisoned.(84) (2) Others, especially among the Greeks, admit that our Lord did eat the Paschal Supper on this occasion, but hold that He did so on the night following the 13th of Nisan, thus anticipating by a day the ordinary time for celebrating it.