HistoricalChristian.Faith

Does "Drink ye all of it" (Matthew 26:27) bind every communicant to the cup, or only the apostles then present?

Type: interpretive argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: contested — the both-kinds reading has the better of the bare exegesis (the note of universality attaches uniquely to the cup; the "eat"/"drink" imperatives address the same hearers; Paul hands the cup to a whole congregation), and the Catholic side effectively concedes the plain sense and defends on other ground; but the strong claim that the command is a divine precept whose breach defrauds or damns the laity overstates what "drink ye all" alone establishes, and is met by concomitance and the church's regulative authority · the both-kinds reading advanced by Martin Luther, the Augsburg Confession, and (before them) the Utraquist Jakoubek of Stříbro; the apostles-only reading advanced by the Councils of Constance and Trent and by Thomas Aquinas.

Related arguments: the dominical command — see also Does "except ye … drink his blood" (John 6:53) make the cup necessary for the laity? · Is communion under both kinds necessary for salvation?

The interpretation to weigh

At the institution of the Supper Christ says of the cup, "Drink ye all of it" (Matthew 26:27); Mark reports its execution, "they all drank of it" (Mark 14:23); and Paul recites the same institution to a whole church and applies the cup to every participant, "as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death … let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup" (1 Corinthians 11:26–28). The both-kinds reading takes this as a dominical command binding every communicant to the cup, so that withholding it from the laity contradicts Christ. The rival reading answers that the whole institution — "Take, eat" no less than "Drink ye all" — was spoken to the Twelve alone, whom the church holds Christ then constituted priests; on that view "all" means all the apostles then present, and the words bind celebrants (who do receive both kinds), not the laity, who lack nothing since the whole Christ is present under either species. This page weighs whether the command reaches the laity as a binding precept.

The case that the command binds all communicants

The note of universality is fastened to the cup, not the bread. This is the sharpest philological point, pressed by Luther: over the bread Christ says only "Take, eat," but over the cup "Drink ye all of it," and Mark's narration keeps the asymmetry — "Mark likewise does not say, 'They all ate from it,' but, 'They all drank from it.' Both Matthew and Mark attach the note of universality to the cup, not to the bread, as though the Spirit saw this schism coming, by which some would be forbidden to partake of the cup, which Christ desired should be common to all."¹ Of all the words of institution, the one place an explicit "all" appears is exactly the place later custom would restrict.

The parallel with "eat" the other side cannot restrict. "Take, eat" and "Drink ye all of it" are addressed to the identical hearers in the identical breath. If "drink" was spoken to the apostles-as-priests and so binds only celebrants, then so was "eat" — yet no one holds that the laity are excused from the bread. The Catholic side binds the laity to the one imperative while reading the other, grammatically parallel, as reserved; the both-kinds reading simply declines the split and takes both as addressed to every communicant.²

Paul applies the cup to a whole congregation. The decisive corroboration is 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul repeats the institution to a mixed church — not to apostles — and directs the cup to all: "as often as ye … drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death," and "let a man examine himself, and so let him … drink of that cup" (11:26–28). The self-examination and the drinking are laid on every participant alike, exactly the opposite of a reservation to a celebrating class. The Augsburg Confession makes this the anticipatory answer to the priest-only gloss: the cup "has the commandment of the Lord in Matt. 26:27, 'Drink ye all of it,' where Christ has manifestly commanded concerning the cup that all should drink. And lest any man should craftily say that this refers only to priests, Paul in 1 Cor. 11 recites an example from which it appears that the whole congregation did use both kinds."³

The case that "all" means the apostles then present

Only the Twelve were at the table. The whole institution was spoken to a defined company — "he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him" (Luke 22:14) — so a second-person command, "drink ye all," addresses those present, the apostles, not a church that was not there. On the Catholic reading Christ at that same Supper "constituted [them] priests of the New Testament," so the command that all should drink is a command to all the celebrants, which the church has always kept: every priest who consecrates receives both kinds. This is the very audience-question that drives the ministerial-priesthood dispute over "do this in remembrance of me," and it is weighed there in full (see Was "Do this in remembrance of me" a commission to the apostles alone?).⁴

Concomitance: no deprivation. Even granting the laity are meant to commune, the Catholic side denies that receiving the host alone withholds anything of Christ or of grace. Because the risen Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity are inseparable, Aquinas holds "the whole Christ is under each sacramental species," so one who receives one kind receives Christ entire; Trent defined accordingly that "they, who receive one species alone, are not defrauded of any grace necessary to salvation." On this view "Drink ye all of it" states the manner of the instituted rite, not a precept the omission of which forfeits the sacrament's fruit.⁵

The church may regulate the manner. Constance conceded that Christ instituted both kinds and that "this sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds in the early church," then ruled "notwithstanding this" that the later one-kind custom "should be held as a law"; Trent defined that the church "may ordain, or change" the dispensation of the sacraments "their substance being untouched." On this account the command settles what Christ instituted, while what the faithful are bound to receive is the church's to order — a distinction this page does not itself adjudicate (that is the separate authority-to-change argument).⁶

Adversarial assessment

What holds. On the bare text the both-kinds reading is the stronger. The "all" (pantes) genuinely attaches to the cup and to it alone; Mark's narration preserves the asymmetry; the "eat"/"drink" imperatives fall on the same hearers, so the priest-only gloss cannot restrict one without the other; and Paul, the one apostle who transmits the command in writing, hands the cup to an entire congregation with self-examination laid on every participant. Tellingly, the councils do not fight the exegesis: Constance grants the institution and the early-church practice under both kinds outright, and rests the case on the church's authority to change the custom, not on a reading of "all" that excludes the laity. That concession is itself evidence that the plain sense runs the both-kinds way.

What is overstated. The overreach is not in the scope of "all" but in the modal leap from command to precept of necessity. That Christ told those at the table to drink does not, of itself, establish that a communicant who receives one kind sins, is defrauded of grace, or is cut off — the strong Utraquist form (both kinds of divine necessity, reinforced from John 6:53) that Jakoubek pressed beyond Hus, and that Trent anathematized. Two distinct claims must be kept apart: (a) the instituted rite gives the cup to the laity, and Paul's church so administered it — barely disputed, and conceded even at Constance; and (b) therefore reception under one kind is a deprivation the church has no power to impose — which does not follow from the command alone. Concomitance answers (b) on its own ground: if the whole Christ is present under the host, nothing of grace is lost, whatever one concludes about the manner Christ instituted. The command establishes what the rite is; it does not by itself establish that the church sins in regulating who receives which species.

Where the dispute really turns. The exegetical round goes to the both-kinds reading; the doctrinal round turns on two premises this page hands off — whether the words were addressed to the apostles as priests (the same audience-question adjudicated for "do this," and there rated contested), and whether the church may alter a dominical practice "its substance untouched." Grant those, and "Drink ye all of it" reads as the manner of an instituted rite the church may prudently narrow; deny them, and it reads as a standing command the church has no authority to reverse. That is why the argument is genuinely two-sided: strong by the lights of the text, unsettled by the lights of the precept-and-authority questions on which it depends.

Assessment

Contested. As a reading of the words, the both-kinds interpretation is the better one and close to compelling: the note of universality sits on the cup, the parallel imperative over the bread cannot be restricted without restricting "eat" too, and Paul applies the cup to a whole congregation — a case the councils meet not by denying the exegesis but by conceding it and shifting to the church's authority to change the custom. But the load-bearing claim the Utraquist and Reformation side needs — that "Drink ye all of it" is a divine precept binding every communicant, so that one-kind reception defrauds or damns — outruns what a command to those at the table establishes on its own, and is answered on independent ground by concomitance (nothing of grace is lost under one species) and by the church's claimed power to regulate the manner of reception. The interpretation is therefore strong where it stays exegetical and overstated where it turns modal: a genuine dominical institution of the cup for the laity, but not, from these words alone, a precept whose breach is sacrilege. Hence contested — the two disciplines pull opposite ways and the outcome rides on the separate audience and authority questions, not on the scope of "all."

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