Hahn begins chapter 5 reminding the reader that for the
early Church the New Testament was the sacrifice of the Eucharist, not a
collection of books. The books that were
then collected into what would eventually be called the “New Testament” were
not composed until a number of decades after the great events of
Pentecost. As those twenty-seven books
eventually were written and collected, it was within the Eucharistic liturgy
that “they were canonized” because they were precisely liturgical books (40-41).
Hahn goes on to show, through those books that “were
canonized” in the liturgy, that the events of the Last Supper reveal that what
Jesus endured on the cross was sacrificial.
As Hahn states: “It became the offering of an unblemished Paschal victim
– the self-offering of a high priest who gave himself as a victim for the
redemption of others – the offering of a New Covenant (42).” And where did Jesus speak about the New
Covenant? It is in the upper room with
his apostles during the Passover meal.
This reality is shown in 1 Corinthians most especially. First, in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul compares the
bread and cup with not only Jewish sacrifices, but also Pagan ones. Secondly, there is the fact that “the only
significant narrative overlap between the Gospels and the letters attributed to
Saint Paul is the institution narrative (43)."
Paul relates this narrative as, not originating with himself, but
through tradition (1 Cor. 11:23). The
Eucharist was the New Testament (and remains so) before the canonized books
ever were.
The final section of this chapter begins with this sentence
from Hahn, which is probably the most important thus far: “The New Testament as
a document presumes and depends upon the New Testament sacrifice and the New Testament
meal (45).”
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