The formidable storm of literature concerning the narratives of the Last Supper shows no sign of abating any of its force, and the following reflections are submitted in the none too confident hope that perhaps even at this stage in the discussion the problem can be looked at from an unconventional angle. The Lucan account with its notorious difficulties of text and interpretation, the one being inextricably bound up with the other, has been the Waterloo of many investigators. Both the shorter and the longer texts present the student with their individual mass of problems. Since Hort the arguments against the originality of the longer text have had so wide an influence, especially perhaps on Englishspeaking writers, that if these thorny questions could be settled by taking a vote, it is possible that even now the shorter text would have it. Unfortunately the weight of argument is rather more evenly divided. Only so can we understand how it is possible for a scholar like Joachim Jeremias entirely to change his mind on the fundamental issue. It may very well be, of course, that the position adopted in the first edition of Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu can still be regarded as unrefuted even by its author. (Who knows if the next edition may not revert to it?) But it cannot be denied that Jeremias' statement of the case in favor of the longer text in the second edition is powerfully argued.