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286 Was the thoroughly theologically correct Da Vinci im- plying that an unseen Elijah did come through the open windows, behind Jesus, and took away the cup that was his? Elijah, the painting thereby suggests, did return; the herald preceding the Anointed King of the House of Da- vid did arrive. And thus confirmed, when the arrested Jesus was brought before the Roman governor who asked him: “Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus said unto him: Thou sayest” (Mat- thew 27: 11). The sentence, to die on the cross, was inevi- table. When Jesus raised the cup of wine and made the required blessing, he said to his disciples, according to Mark 14: 24, “This is my blood of the new testament.” IF these were his exact words, he did not mean to say that they were to drink wine turned to blood—a grave transgression of one of the strictest prohibitions of Judaism from the earliest times, “for blood is the soul.” What he said (or meant to say) was that the wine in this cup, the Cup of Elijah, was a testament, a confir- mation of his bloodline. And Da Vinci depicted it convinc- THE END OF DAYS FIGURE 125