363 ON JESUS’ LAST SUPPER mentioned in Matt 15 is in a longer form: “The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days”; the addition is witnessed by the Western Text and Luke 5,35. The plural form alludes to Wednesday and Friday. The parallel passage in Mark 2,20 has a singular “in that day”, which suggests a reduction of the fasting to Friday only. Epiphanius of Salamis (315-403), though sometimes confusing, but often helpful, because of his uncritical way of putting sources together, gives various traditions. He knows the Didascalia and in the same way says that Jesus was arrested on the Wednesday and crucified on the Friday without noticing that this contradicts the Gospels (Panarion 51:26 ; De fide § 22). In another fragment 34, he indicates the performance of a customary rite in the Passion week, on Thursday at the 9th hour 35, “as a memorial of the breaking of the bread”. This could be close to the chronology of the Synoptics, but he insists that Jesus was not arrested the following night. At some point the authority of the canonical Gospel elicited some changes in these traditions. Patriarch Peter of Alexandria (300-311) speaks of two fasting days, and explains that Wednesday commemorates the plotting of the Jews with Judas (PG 18.508b). The Apostolic Constitutions says, too, that the fast on Wednesday recalls Judas’ betrayal (5:15 and 7:23). In 5:14 the author was forced to say that Jesus held two suppers: on Tuesday, when he foretold Judas’ betrayal, and on Thursday, when he ate the Passover lamb and instituted the Eucharist. Other scraps of tradition go the same way. The Gospels eventually prevailed, but earlier traditions can be traced over quite a long period. From all this material, A. Jaubert concludes that the views of John and the Synoptics cannot be merged, for they use different calendars. The former follows the lunar calendar of the Temple, the “fatherland” of Jesus (John 4,44), the latter the solar calendar. So the last Passover meal was held on Tuesday evening, uncon- See K. HOLL, “Ein Bruchstück aus einem bisher unbekannten Brief des 34 Epiphanius ”, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte (Tübingen 1928) II, 204-224. He quotes a work of bishop Victorin (died in 303), which mentions Jesus’ arrest on the Wednesday. The earliest official mention of the Maundy Thursday celebration was in 35 the 3rd Council of Carthage (397 CE), see J.D. MANSI, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Graz 1960) III, 885.