[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 21, and following; Mark xiv. 18, and following; Luke xx. 21, and following; John xiii. 21, and following, xxi. 20.] Meanwhile, the good and upright soul of Peter was in torture. He made a sign to John to endeavor to ascertain of whom the Master spoke. John, who could converse with Jesus without being heard, asked him the meaning of this enigma. Jesus having only suspicions, did not wish to pronounce any name; he only told John to observe to whom he was going to offer a sop. At the same time he soaked the bread and offered it to Judas. John and Peter alone had cognizance of the fact. Jesus addressed to Judas words which contained a bitter reproach, but which were not understood by those present; and he left the company. They thought that Jesus was simply giving him orders for the morrow's feast.[1] [Footnote 1: John xiii. 21, and following, which shows the improbabilities of the narrative of the synoptics.] At the time, this repast struck no one; and apart from the apprehensions which the Master confided to his disciples, who only half understood them, nothing extraordinary took place. But after the death of Jesus, they attached to this evening a singularly solemn meaning, and the imagination of believers spread a coloring of sweet mysticism over it. The last hours of a cherished friend are those we best remember. By an inevitable illusion, we attribute to the conversations we have then had with him a meaning which death alone gives to them; we concentrate into a few hours the memories of many years. The greater part of the disciples saw their Master no more after the supper of which we have just spoken. It was the farewell banquet. In this repast, as in many others, Jesus practised his mysterious rite of the breaking of bread. As it was early believed that the repast in question took place on the day of the Passover, and was the Paschal feast, the idea naturally arose that the Eucharistic institution was established at this supreme moment. Starting from the hypothesis that Jesus knew beforehand the precise moment of his death, the disciples were led to suppose that he reserved a number of important acts for his last hours. As, moreover, one of the fundamental ideas of the first Christians was that the death of Jesus had been a sacrifice, replacing all those of the ancient Law, the "Last Supper," which was supposed to have taken place, once for all, on the eve of the Passion, became the supreme sacrifice--the act which constituted the new alliance--the sign of the blood shed for the salvation of all.[1] The bread and wine, placed in connection with death itself, were thus the image of the new testament that Jesus had sealed with his sufferings--the commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ until his advent.[2] [Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 20.] [Footnote 2: 1 _Cor._ xi. 26.]