In about the year 30 CE, Jesus of Nazareth came up to Jerusalem for what he rightly guessed would be his last Passover. He arrived about a week before the festival, and during that week he made some of his most dramatic prophecies, and took direct action that enraged his conservative enemies. He condemned all the political parties of the Temple - the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes - and recalled the killing of earlier prophets. He prophesied the destruction of the Temple, and the end of the world. Moreover, he nearly started a riot by driving the moneychangers out of the Temple. After nearly a week of this, tempers in the city were running high. With just over twenty-four hours to go before the beginning of the sabbath-day of the Passover, Jesus and his close friends came together for a final meal. According to some versions, the room where supper was to be eaten was found by two disciples following a (seemingly random) man carrying a pitcher, and being led to a house where a table was set for dinner.
The meal was a simple one, of bread, soup, and wine. Jesus doesn't seem to have been the life and soul of the party. While the group were dining, he announced that one of them would betray him, and that another would deny him. All the apostles loudly denied this, but according to John's account, Judas Iscariot slipped out to meet the high priests before the end of dinner. Most accounts agree that during the meal, Jesus shared out the bread, and told his friends 'this is my body', and that when passing around the cup of wine afterwards, he said 'this is my blood'. The earliest account of this is in St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where Paul links this event to the Christian custom of a shared meal of bread and wine. Jesus also announced that the one who betrayed him would be someone who had dipped his bread in the soup. In John's gospel, Jesus directly indicates the betrayer by dipping the bread himself and giving it to Judas. Also in John's version is the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet.
That day would come to be known as the first Maundy Thursday. 'Maundy' is derived from the Latin 'mandatum', meaning 'commandment', and in John 13:34 we read of Jesus giving his followers 'A new commandment: love each other'. After the meal was over, they sang a hymn, and then Jesus crossed the brook Kedron to the garden of Gethsemane, a favoured retreat of his on his visits to Jerusalem. There he prayed to be spared the death which he had foreseen, but as he was leaving, Judas came and greeted him with a kiss, by which Jesus was identified to the Roman soldiers sent to arrest him for subversion and heresy. Simon Peter, who had protested so loudly when Jesus washed his feet, was the one who would deny all knowledge of Jesus that night.
Accounts of the Last Supper are found in Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-38, John 13:1-17:26, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. The meaning of Jesus' words and actions on that evening have been much debated by Christians and others down the years. The doctrine of transubstantiation asserts that Jesus' words over the bread and wine are to be taken literally; the doctrine of the real presence says that although no physical change is to be inferred, the elements present the reality of Jesus; and others believe that the bread and wine are just bread and wine. The Last Supper has been depicted in art many times, most famously by Leonardo da Vinci, in an image which has itself been spoofed and copied many times.