SUPPER
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SUPPER
worship. It must be admitted that these hallowed
spots and things have occasioned many legends; that
popular credulity was in some cases the principal
cause of their celebrity; that here and there instances
of fraud can he adduced; yet, for all that, the prin-
ciples which guide the worshipper, and his good in-
tentions, are not impaired by an undercurrent of
error as to facts. If superstition there be, it is only
material. Moreover, the Church is always careful to
remove any fraud or error inconsistent with true devo-
tion, although she is tolerant of "pious beliefs" which
have helped to further Christian piety, 'riui.^^, alleged
saints and relics are suppressed as soon as discoveicd,
but belief in the private revelations to which the feast
of Corpus Christi, the Rosary, the Sacred Heart an<l
many other devotions owe their origin is neither com-
manded nor prohibited ; here each man is his own judge.
(2) Turning now to vain observances in daily life, properly so called, we first meet with the superstitions observed in the administration of justice during many centuries of the Middle Ages, and known as ordeals or "judgments of God". Among the early Germans a man accused of a crime had to prove his innocence, noproof of his guilt being incumbent on his accu.sers. The oath of a free man, strengthened by the oaths of friends, sufficed to establish his innocence, but when the oath was refused or the required number of "compurgators" failed, the defendant, if he was a free man, had to fight his. accuser in single com- bat; bondmen and women had either to find a champion to fight for them or to undergo some other form of ordeal as fixed by law, arranged by the judge, or chosen by one of the parties. Besides the judicial combat the early German laws recognized as legiti- mate means to discriminate between guilt and inno- cence the casting or drawing of lots, trial by fire in several forms — holding one's hand in fire for a deter- mined length of time; passing between two piles of burning wood with no covering for the body except a shirt impregnated with wax; carrying with the naked hand a red-hot iron weighing from one to three pounds a distance of from nine to twelve paces; walking bare- foot over nine red-hot ploughshares disposed in a line nine steps long. At the root of these and many analogous practices (see Ordeals) lay the firm belief that God would work a miracle rather than allow the innocent to perish or the wicked to prevail. These "judgments of God" gave rise to new supersti- tions. Whether guilty or not, per.sons subjected to the trials would often put more confidence in charms, magic formulas, and ointments than in the intervention of Providence. The ordeals gradually gave way be- fore the rationalistic temper of modern times; trials by torture, which survi^■ed the ordeals, seem to ha\e been in.spired by the same idea, that God will protect the innocent and give them .superhuni.an endurance.
The power of the evil eye ijaxcinnlio) has been be- lieved in for a long time, and is still dreaded in many countries. The number thirteen continues to strike terror into the breasts of men who profess not to fear God. The apparent success which so often attends a superstition can mostly be accounted for by natural causes, although it would be rash to deny all super- natural intervention (e. g. in the phenomena of Spirit- ism). When the object is to ascertain, or to effect in a general way, one of two possible events, the law of probabilities gives an equal chance to success and failure, .-itid success does more to support than failure would do to destroy .superstition, for, on its side, there are arrayed the religious instinct, sympathy and apathy, confidence and distrust, encouragement and discouragement, self-suggestion and — perhaps strong- est of all — the healing power of nature.
St. Thomas, Summn, II-II. QQ. xcii-xcvi; St. Alphonacs LiouoBi. Theol. A/or., IV. i, etl. Le Noib (Lyons, 1873), contains ufwful notes: Ferraris, Prompta Biblioiheca, s. v. Superstiiio; SiMAR. Der Ahergtnuhr (M P<1.. 1891); TniEns, Trade ilea Stipn- MiMuna (2 vols., Furis, I(i7(t: 2 more vols., Paris, 1704) (a work ot
immense erudition, but put on the Index by decrees of 13 Feb.,
1702, and 10 May, 1757); Brand, Observations on Popular An-
tiquities (London, 1888) (a classic on English superstition);
GoPFEBT, Moralthcologie. I (2nd ed.. Paderborn, 1899). See also
bibliography under Divination; Necromancy; Ordeals;
Spiritism.
J. WiLHELM.
Supper, The Last, the meal held by Christ and His disciples on the eve of His Passion at which He instituted the Holy Eucharist.
Time. — The Evangelists and critics generally agree that the Last Supper was on a Thursday, that Christ suffered and died on Friday, and that He arose from the dead on Sunday. As to the day of the month there seems a difference between the record of the synoptic Gospels and that of St. John. In con.se- quence some critics have rejected the authenticity of either account or of both. Since Christians, accepting the inspiration of the .'Scriptures, cannot admit contrailictimis in the s:icrcil writers, various attempts have been made to reconcile the statements. Matt., xxvi, 17, says, "And on the first day of the Azymes"; Mark, xiv, 12, "Now on the fir.st day of the unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the pasch " ; Luke, xxii, 7, " And the day of the unleavened bread came, on which it was necessary that the pasch should be killed". From these passages it seems to follow that Jesus and his disciples conformed to the ordinary custom, that the Last Supper took place on the 14th of Nisan, and that the Crucifixion was on the 15th, the great festival of the Jews, This opinion, held by Tolet, Cornelius a Lapide, Patrizi, Corluy, Hengstenberg, Ohlshausen, and Tholuck, is confirmed by the custom of the early Eastern Church, which, looking to the day of the month, celebrated the commemoration of the Lord's Last Supper on the 14th of Nisan, without paying any attention to the day of the week. This was done in conformity with the teaching of St. John the Evangelist. But in his Gospel, St. John seems to indicate that Friday was the 14th of Nisan, for (xviii, 28) on the morning of this day the Jews "went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch". Various things were done on this Friday which could not be done on a feast, viz., Christ is ar- rested, tried, crucified; His body is taken down " (because it was the parasceve) that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day (for that was a great sabbath day)"; the shroud and ointments are bought, and so on.
The defenders of this oiiinion claim that there is only an apparent contradiction anfl that the dilTering statements may be reconciled. For the Jews cal- culated their festivals and Sabbaths from sunset to sunset: thus the Sabbath began after sunset on Friday and ended at sunset on Saturday. This style is employed by the synoptic Gospels, while St. John, writing about twenty-six years after the de- struction of Jerusalem, when Jewish laws and customs no longer prevailed, may well have used the Roman method of computing time: from midnight to mid- night. The word yasch does not exclusively apply to the paschal lamb on the eve of the feast, but is used in the Scriptures and in the Talmud in a wider sense for the entire festivity, including the chagigah; any legal defilement could have been removed by the evening ablutions; trials, and even executions and many servile works, though forbidden on the Sabbath, were not forbidden on feasts (Num., xxviii, 16; Deut., xvi, 23). The word /wni-sceMC may denote the preparation for any Sabbath and may be the common designation for any Friday, and its connex^ ion with pasch need not mean preparation for the Passover but Friday of the Passover seiison, and hence this Sabbath was a great Sabbath. More- over it seems quite ci^rtain that if St. .lohn intended to give a different d;ite from that given by the Synoptics and sanctioned by the custom of hia own
