as the other Evangelists testify, began shortly afterwards to press him to do for them as he had ever been accustomed to do*. The jealousy with which the common people would naturally watch over such a privilege, the violence which had been probably committed by Pilate not long before, the notoriety, and perhaps the popularity of Barabbas, in whose favour they desired its exercise, are presumptive reasons why they would not be slow to insist upon the recognition of their right. But they could not have demanded it before the feast was begun, though they might not delay to demand it as soon as it was. When, therefore, were they so likely to demand it as on the first day of the feast itself? If so, the day of our Lord's crucifixion, when they did demand it, was the day when the feast began; that is, the fourteenth of Nisan; for the feast could begin on no day but that.

On the same day, about the third hour, as the soldiers were conducting Jesus to Calvary, and either as they were coming out of the Prætorium of Pilate, or leaving the gate of the city, they fell in with Simon of Cyrene entering Jerusalem à' aypoû: whom they compelled to assist in carrying his cross. This mention of a Jew, a native of Cyrene in Africa, and consequently a Jew of the Dispersion; a stranger from a distant region, yet coming to Jerusalem, at this critical juncture, from abroad; appears to me designed to intimate the

* And this circumstance, we may observe by the way, is a proof that Pilate had been some years in office before our Saviour was thus tried before him. It is fatal, therefore, to any such hypothesis as that of Mr. Mann;

which makes our Saviour's ministry last only one year, and places its termination in the thir

teenth of Tiberius Cæsar. At the Passover in the thirteenth of Tiberius Cæsar, Pilate, as I have proved elsewhere, (vide Dissertation ix. vol. i.) had been only six months in office; and had witnessed at the utmost but two solemnities, the feast of Tabernacles and the Encænia, before that very Passover itself.

arrival of such a Jew, to keep the Passover the same day. For according to Maimonides, Decima et quarta die mensis Nisan, ad solis ortum, si quis abesset ab urbe Hierosolyma milliaria quindecim, aut eo plus, id sane longum iter erat: qui vero minus spatii abesset, nequaquam longo itinere remotus erat, quippe qui poterat Hierosolymam advenire paulo post meridiem, tametsi placide pedibus iret. It would not, therefore, be too late for such an one to keep the Passover that same day.

Fourthly, if our arrangement of the preceding days of the week be correct, the course of particulars closed with the evening of Wednesday, and with the prophecy on the mount. At the end of that prophecy the following words were subjoined¤; And it came to pass when Jesus had made an end of all these sayings, that he said to his disciples, Ye know that after two days the Passover taketh place, and the Son of Man is delivered up to be crucified. Now two days from the evening of Wednesday cannot possibly denote a less time than the day but one after; that is, the Friday followingh. Unless, then, it can be shewn that we were wrong in supposing these words to have been spoken on the Wednesday; that is, in supposing the day of our Lord's procession to the temple to have been the Monday; the argument, deducible from the authority of this passage, that the Passover would take place on the Friday, and consequently that the Friday was the fourteenth of Nisan, amounts to a demonstration.

It cannot be questioned that the Passover spoken of is the stated and regular ceremony, so called and I think it is just as certain that the delivering up to be crucified, also spoken of, is that last and final act in

f De Sacrificio Paschali, v. 9. Vide also Mishna ii. 168. 2. g Matt. xxvi. 1. 2. h Cf. Origen, Operum iii. 891. A-E. or Comm. in Matt. Series 75.

the trial of our Lord, when Pilate made him over to the hands of his executioners. This act both St. Matthew and St. Mark, with an exact accordance to the words of the prediction, express alike by Tapédwκev iva σTavρweh. The betrayal by Judas, though the first step in the whole proceeding, was no delivering up to be crucified; nor is ever spoken of as such, but merely as a delivering up into the hands of sinners: it was not even, at least in the expectation of the betrayer himself, a delivering up to be put to death at all; otherwise he would not have been surprised at the event, nor have repented when he saw that Jesus was condemned.

When we consider, therefore, that our Lord couples these two things, the taking place of the Passover and his own delivering up to be crucified, as simultaneous ; then if either was to happen at the distance of two days afterwards, so we may presume was the other likewise. Now it is certain that this was the case with one of them, his being delivered up. Conversely also, if either was to happen on the Friday, two days after, the prediction of either, two days before, must have been pronounced on the Wednesday. The matter of fact shews that our Lord's crucifixion was to happen on Friday; his own prediction that the Passover was to happen two days from the Wednesday: both together shew that each was to happen at the same time with the other.

Fifthly, the strictness with which, at this period of their history, and indeed at every period before, when the Law possessed its due force, the Jews observed the sabbath, must be among the strongest presumptive disproofs, amounting to a moral impossibility, that any one of the numerous particulars, connected with the

h Ch. xxvii. 26. xv. 15.

apprehension, the examination, the judgment, and the execution of our Lord, could take place on that day. It is well known that for a time they would not defend their lives on the sabbath day, nor afterwards, except in case of an attack. On more than one occasion the capture of Jerusalem was mainly due to this single cause; and the folly of the Jews, in that respect, as it was considered by the Gentiles, appeared most unaccountable, and exposed them to constant sarcasm and reproach *. Both the arrival and the expiration of the sabbatic rest were formally notified to the people by the sound of a trumpet; that they might know

Οὐδ ̓

*Yet in the time of Josephus, such was the effect produced by the dispersion of the Jews, and such their success in gaining over proselytes, that the observance of the sabbath, even among the Gentiles, was universal. ἔστιν οὐ πόλις Ελλήνων οὐδητισοῦν, οὐδὲ βάρβαρος, οὐδὲ ἐν ἔθνος, ἔνθα μὴ τὸ τῆς ἑβδομάδος, ἣν ἀργοῦμεν ἡμεῖς, τὸ ἔθος οὐ διαπεφοίτηκε). Cf. Philo ii. 137. 38. De Mose ii: rís γὰρ τὴν ἱερὰν ἐκείνην ἑβδόμην οὐκ ἐκτετίμηκεν, κ, τ. λ. Seneca, also, (apud Augustinum, De Civitate Dei, vi. 11. Operum vii. 160. F. G:) Cum interim usque eo sceleratissimæ gentis consuetudo convaluit, ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit: victi victoribus leges dederunt. Hence these allusions to the sabbath in Tibullus and Ovid: Aut ego sum causatus aves, aut omina dira, | Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse diem; Tibullus, i. iii. 17. Nec te prætereat Veneri ploratus

Adonis; | Cultaque Judæo septima sacra Syro: Ovid, De arte Amandi, i. 75. Quaque die redeunt, rebus minus apta gerendis,

Culta Palæstino septima festa Syro: Ibid. 415. Nec pluvias vites; nec te peregrina morentur | Sabbata; nec damnis Allia nota suis: Remedia Amoris, 219.

Vide also Horace, Sermonum i. ix. 69. Persius, v. 179, 180. If we may believe Seneca, even that peculiar article of Jewish strictness, the not lighting a fire on the sabbath day, was come into vogue at Rome: Accendere aliquem lucernam sabbathis prohibeamus. Epistolæ, 95. §. 47. In like manner, Meleager of Gadara, a neighbour of the Jews, and well acquainted with their usages; εἰ δέ σε σαβ. βατικός κατέχει πόθος, οὐ μέγα θαῦμα· [ ἔστι καὶ ἐν ψυχροῖς σάβ βασι θερμὸς Ἔρως. Anthologia, i. 25. lxxxiii.

1 Macc. ii. 32-41. ix. 43. 44. Ant. Jud. xii. vi. 2. Bell. i. vii. 3. ii. xvi. 4. p. 484. lb. xxi. 8. iv. ii. 3. Ant. xiii. i. 3. Ib. xii. 4. xiv. iv. 2. xviii. ix. 2. 6. Vita, 32. Ant. Jud. xii. i. 1. Contra Apionem, i. 22. 1193. Juvenal, vi. 158, 159. xiv. 96-106. Plutarch, Operum vi. 646, 647. De Superstitione. Dio Cass. xxxvii. 16. Contra Apionem, ii. 39.

when to suspend and when to resume their ordinary employments m. The catalogue of works regarded as servile, and forbidden to be performed on the sabbath, would amount to fifty or sixty; and the spirit of the prohibition in almost every instance would justify us in adding many more to the account ". Philo, De migratione Abrahami, enumerates several, such as, πυρεναύζειν, ἢ γεωπονεῖν, ἢ ἀχθοφορεῖν, ἢ ἐγκαλεῖν, ἢ δικάζειν, ἢ παρακαταθήκας ἀπαιτεῖν, ἢ δάνεια ἀναπράττειν, ἢ τὰ ἄλλα ποιεῖν, ὅσα κἂν τοῖς μὴ ἑορτώδεσι καιροῖς ἐφεῖται. In like manner Origen; οἱ ἐκ περιτομῆς . . . οἴονται ἐπὶ τοῦ σχήματος, οὗ ἂν καταληφθῇ τις ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ σαββάτου, μένειν μέχρις ἑσπέρας 4. And again, διόπερ εἰς ἀπεραντολογίαν οἱ τῶν Ἰουδαίων διδάσκαλοι ἐληλύθασι, φάσκοντες βάσταγμα μὲν εἶναι τὸ τοιόνδε ὑπόδημα, οὐ μὴν καὶ τὸ τοιόνδε· καὶ τὸ ἥλους ἔχον σανδάλιον, οὐ μὴν καὶ τὸ ἀνήλωτον· καὶ τὸ ούτωσὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ὤμου φερόμενον, οὐ μὴν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν δύο ὤμων *.

The people, who could consider such forbearances as these to be points of conscience upon the sabbath, were not likely to be parties in that profanation of its sanctity, which every circumstance in our Lord's passion must otherwise have produced. Now if our Lord kept his Passover at the usual time, on the night after the fourteenth of Nisan, he was apprehended, tried, and crucified, on the fifteenth : and the fifteenth, being the first

* Bardesanes Syrus: ἀλλὰ καὶ δι' ἡμερῶν ἑπτὰ πάντες ὅπου ἂν ὦσιν, ἀργοῦσιν ἐκ παντὸς ἔργου, καὶ οὔτε ὁδεύουσιν, οὔτε πυρὶ χρῶνται, οὔτε ἀναγκάζει ἡ γένεσις Ἰουδαῖον οὐ

κτίσαι οἶκον, οὐ καταλῦσαι, οὐκ ἐργάσασθαι, οὐ πωλῆσαι, οὐκ ἀγοράσαι, ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ σαββάτου. Eusebius, Evangelica Præparatio, vi. 10. 279. C.

m Bell. iv. ix. 12. n Vide Mishna, ii. 29, 2, &c. Maimonides, De Noxiis imprudenter admissis, vi. 8. Annott. o Exod. xxxν. 3. P Operum i. 450.

1. 34-37. Compare also ii. 168. 1. 29. De Mose, iii : 282. 1. 45. De Septenario et Festis Diebus. 9 Operum i. 176. De Principiis, lib. iv. 17. Vide also Mishna, ii. 23, &c. and Hieronymus, Epistola ad Algasiam, iv. Pars i. 267. ad principium.