He celebrated, therefore, a sacred cultus-meal [pg 172] the meaning of which was clear to him alone. He did not count it necessary to explain to them the meaning of the ceremony. The memory, however, of that mysterious supper on the lonely seashore lived on vividly in the tradition and grew to the account of the miraculous feeding. Wherein did the solemnity of this distribution consist for Jesus? The gathering at the feast is of an eschatological character. The people that gathered about him by the seaside were awaiting with him the dawn of the Kingdom. In replacing now the customary full meal with a sacred ceremonial meal, at which he distributed food with thanksgiving to God, he acted at the prompting of his messianic consciousness. _As one who knew himself to be the Messiah, and would be manifested to them as such at the imminent dawn of the Kingdom, he distributes, to those whom he expects soon to join him at the messianic banquet, sacred food, as though he would give them therewith an earnest of their participation in that future solemnity._ The time for earthly meals is passed: hence he celebrates with them a foretaste of the messianic banquet. They, however, understood it not, for they could not guess that he who distributed to them such consecrated eucharistic [pg 173] food was conscious of being the Messiah and acted as such. In this connection there falls a light upon the nature of the Last Supper at Jerusalem. There the Disciples represented the community of believers in the Kingdom. In the course of that last meal Jesus distributed to them with a word of thanksgiving food and drink. But now they know what he assumes to be: he had disclosed to them the secret of his messiahship. From this they are able to divine in his distribution the reference to the messianic banquet. He himself gave this significance to his action in the fact that he concluded the ceremony with a hint of their proximate reunion when he should drink the wine new with them in his Father’s Kingdom! The supper by the seaside and the supper at Jerusalem therefore correspond completely, except that in the latter Jesus signified to his Disciples the nature of the ceremony and at the same time expresses the thought of the Passion in the two parables [“My body— my blood”]. The cultus-meal was the same: a foretaste of the messianic banquet in the circle of the fellowship of the believers in the Kingdom. _Now for the first time one is able to understand how the nature [pg 174] of the Last Supper can be independent of the two parables._ 3. The Week at Bethsaida.