Further evidence for the existence of
table - fellowship with «tax collectors and sinners» as a feature of the ministry of Jesus is the role played by
communal meals in earliest Christianity (E. Lohmeyer, Lord of the Temple [ET by Stewart Todd of Kultus und Evangelism (1942); Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961], pp. 79ff, discusses the central role of
table - fellowship in the ministry of Jesus, but he is particularly concerned with the development towards the Last
Supper, which he sees as historical, rather than with the relationship between this
table - fellowship and the cross, on the one hand, and the
communal meals of early Christianity on the other.)