The Passover and the Type of Communion

It was the custom of those eating the Passover, and they were dining. And John has said nothing of a remembrance of the Passover, having made it by saying: 'Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them unto the end' (John 13:1) and the following. 'Before the feast of the Passover' he says, not in the feast of the Passover, so that we also received 'the first of the unleavened' (Mt 26:11) naturally, having understood it as before the unleavened.

It has been said that the good thing is not to have come to execution (Mt 26:24); for non-existence is a preferable state from a bad existence. When Judas went out, John made it manifest; for the servant of the Christ-killer would not have accepted the saving communion; even though the Lord brought him through all other things, but this no longer was permitted.

And for us the type is to expose the wicked regarding the holy communion, even if we bear them through all other things by forbearance; for it is clear that he would kill the Savior, 'he went out' (John 13:27) after being delivered to the devil; for 'after the morsel he entered,' he says, 'into him the Satan' (Mt 26:26), so as having taken him, he led him away as a traitor.

And speaking of many, he says that the blood is being poured out, concerning all, he says that through the one righteous many shall be established (Mt 26:28). This indeed also here shows that one suffers on behalf of many. And Apollinaris makes a type of the participation of the body and blood of that which is being performed in the Spirit for the believers, having imprinted it with the bread as the body and the wine as the blood.

Since the Spirit is the bread of the coming age, which is a food of life for the one approaching the age, and 'the bread which I will give' to you is 'my flesh for the life of the world' (John 6:51), and the blood is living in the body; and for this reason Moses said 'the life of all flesh' (Leviticus 17:11) regarding 'the blood' as being unified by blood. He clearly distinguished the type by the name of the truth, saying: 'this is my body'; and for this reason he named the types with the names of the truth, so that they would not be trivialized by what is seen, but would marvel at the power. Thus, eating and drinking showed the participation which would not have occurred without a body; for if the divine power had not been joined to a body and unified by blood, we would not have had communion through it to God.

Observe that Judas did not die from strangulation, but lived on after being driven to it before being suffocated. And the deeds of the apostles declare this, that 'having become rash he struck' (John 13:27) and the following. But this is more clearly recounted by Papia, the pious disciple of John the Apostle, saying: Judas fell upon a great example of impiety in this world; for having become so much a part of the flesh, such that he could not easily pass through the narrowness, it is said that his entrails were spilled out by the narrowness. Having become so much a part of the flesh that he could not pass easily even where the narrowness passes, he could not pass even just the size of the head; for they say the eyelids of the eyes were so swollen that he could not see the light at all, and his eyes could not even be seen by a medical lens; such depth they had from the external appearance. And his genitals, for all shame, were loathsome and greater...