of the seven days Tv aliμov, as well as the twentyfirst, which was the last, by express appointment was an extraordinary sabbath; possessing, if possible, whensoever it might fall, greater holiness, and certainly not less, than the ordinary. Even the Mishna makes no other difference between the two kinds of sabbath than this; viz. that the people might dress provisions on the one, not on the other. Non est differentia inter diem festum et diem sabbathi nisi in edulibus tantum".

Those, therefore, who should contend that the extraordinary or special sabbaths possessed a less degree of estimation than the ordinary, would obviously beg the question; and contend for that which they could never prove and those who should maintain that, for the sake of effecting their purpose against our Saviour, the Sanhedrim determined to waive even the sanctity of the sabbath itself, would be guilty of the same precarious assumption; gratuitously charging Scribes and Pharisees with a piece of profaneness of which even Scribes and Pharisees at this time were incapable.

Or though this should be conceded with respect to our Lord, why, at the same juncture and on the same occasion, it may yet be demanded, were two common malefactors, in whose case there was clearly nothing more than ordinary, put to death along with him? What urgent necessity or special reason made these, as well as our Saviour, to be executed on a sabbath? It appears to me that the crucifixion of the two thieves along with Christ, besides its subserviency to the fulfilment of prophecy, which was the final end proposed by Providence in permitting it; proves that the feast was just at hand, but not yet come. They had not been executed before it, and they could not be executed during it the case of St. Peter, in the twelfth chapter rii. 297. 2. 389. 5.

of the Acts, is a clear proof that, while the great legal solemnities were going on, no criminal nor prisoner, for whatever offence, or howsoever obnoxious to the people themselves, was wont to be put to death. These malefactors were, in all probability, companions and accomplices of Barabbas, who also is called a λyor's, and whose execution had certainly been suspended, for some reason or other, long enough to give the people an opportunity of demanding, in the exercise of their usual privilege, that he should be set at liberty. Their crucifixion might always have been intended for this day; or the necessity of putting Jesus to death on this day furnished an occasion for carrying into effect their sentence also, at the same time and place with his.

The piety of some of our Lord's disciples would not allow them to prepare the spices for his embalment on the sabbath would the same motive have allowed Nicodemus and Joseph to take down his body from the cross-to handle it-to lift it up-to carry it about-to embalm it as well as the time would permit -to deposit it in the sepulchre-to roll away, and to roll to, the stone at the mouth of the cave-all which were opera servilia, and unquestionably forbidden on the sabbath? The Jews of the time had obtained a concession from the Roman government, extending the sanctity of the sabbath to the three hours of the Parasceue before it s, so far at least as not to be compelled to attend to any civil business from the beginning of that time to the first hour of the ensuing week*. It was a regard to the holiness of the sabbath,

* The continuance of the same kind of observance of the

the

Parasceve itself, among
Jews of his day, is attested by

s Ant. Jud. xvi. vi. 2.

which made the Sanhedrim request of Pilate that the deaths of the crucified parties might be accelerated; a request which, it is obvious, must have coincided as nearly as possible with the ninth hour, or the beginning of the Parasceue itself: and that this was no unusual custom, on the eve of great solemnities, is attested by Philo, adversus Flaccunt: ἤδη τινὰς οἶδα τῶν ἀνεσκολοπισμένων, μελλούσης ἐνίστασθαι τοιαύτης ἐκεχειρίας, καθαιρεθέντας, καὶ τοῖς συγγενέσιν ἐπὶ τῷ ταφῆς ἀξιωθῆναι, καὶ τυχεῖν τῶν νενομισμένων, ἀποδοθέντας. It is not likely then, that they would have suffered those persons to be executed on the sabbath, whose bodies they would not allow to continue hanging upon the cross on the sabbath. Nor do I think that the Divine Providence would permit our Saviour to be crucified on the sabbath, though it might ordain that he should expire and be buried critically before the sabbath; that so his body might rest in the grave during the sabbath.

Sixthly, the sabbath which followed the day of the crucifixion, and which there is no doubt was the ordinary seventh day of the week, is called a great day": The day of that sabbath was a great day: for which peculiar greatness, distinct from the sanctity of the ordinary sabbath, there is no mode of accounting satisfactorily, but one: an extraordinary and an ordinary

Chrysostom, Operum iii. 161. A. B. In illud, Si esurierit, &c. 3: οὐκ αἰσχύνῃ Ιουδαίους, οὐδὲ ἐρυθριᾷς, οἱ μετὰ τοσαύτης ἀκριβείας τὸ σάββατον φυλάττουσι, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας αὐτῆς πάσης ἐργασίας ἀφίστανται; κἂν ἴδωσι τὸν ἥλιον πρὸς δυσμὰς ἐπειγόμενον ἐν τῇ τῆς παρασκευῆς ἡμέρᾳ, καὶ συμβόλαια διακόπτουσι καὶ πράσεις διατέμνουσι.

• Operum ii. 529. 1. 17-20.

κἂν πριάμενός τις παρ' αὐτῶν πρὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας, ἐν ἑσπέρᾳ τὴν τιμὴν ἔλθῃ κομίζων, οὐκ ἀνέχονται λαβεῖν. κ., τ. λ. The same thing appears by implication in the Gospel of Nicodemus, cap. xv. (Auctarium Codicis Apocryphi, page 91.) where Joseph of Arimathea alludes to his imprisonment on the Parasceue, περὶ ὥραν δεκάτην.

u John xix. 31.

sabbath, the fifteenth of Nisan and the seventh day of the week, coincided together; and being each of them a sabbath, produced by this coincidence a double sabbath, a sabbath of double sanctity, solemnized by peculiar offerings, both those of the ordinary sabbath, in themselves twice as costly as the offerings on any other day of the week w, and those appointed for the first of the days of unleavened bread; on the morrow after which too, the first-fruits of barley-harvest were to be consecrated in the wave-sheaf, and the computation of the fifty days until the next feast, the feast of Pentecost, was also to begin. This was enough to render that sabbath-day an high day. Any other explanation of this highness, especially that which supposes that the ordinary sabbath, whensoever it fell out, during a festal week was necessarily an high day; unless that day was either the fifteenth or the twenty-first of Nisan in the seven days of the Azyma, or the fifteenth or the twenty-second of Tisri in the octave of the Scenopegia; would be precarious, and destitute of support from the requisite matter of fact.

But seventhly, the strongest argument that, if our Saviour celebrated any Passover upon this occasion, he celebrated it out of course, is deducible from the necessity of fulfilling, in two most important respects, the legal equity; which could not otherwise be fulfilled. And this argument, though in my opinion it is sufficient of itself to decide the present controversy, commentators, both those who maintain and those who impugn the supposition at issue, have by a strange fatality attended to the least of any.

The entire system of types, and with the system of types the whole doctrine of the correspondency between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations

v Numbers xxviii. 19-23. VOL. III.

w Ibid. 3-10. Ant. Jud. iii. x. I.

M

respectively, must fall to the ground, if the sacrifice of the Jewish Passover is not acknowledged to have been designed for a type and an emblem of the sacrifice of the death of Christ. There could be no such thing as a type in the ancient dispensation, if this in particular was none; there could be no rite, ceremony, or institution, in the Mosaic or Levitical economy, which bore any the least relation to Christ as the end of the Law, if this in particular bore none. No Evangelist-no Apostle-no orthodox Christian divine, either in ancient or in modern times-ever yet doubted of the truth of this relation; and St. Paul individually has asserted it in plain terms*: Καὶ γὰρ ΤΟ ΠΑΣΧΑ ἡμῶν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐτύθη ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ *.

Now if the sacrifice of the Jewish Passover was thus typical of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, then the circumstances of time and place become of paramount importance to the sacrifice of the death of Christ, because they were of paramount importance to the sacrifice of the Jewish Passover. This sacrifice was limited from the first, in point of time, to one day in the whole year, the fourteenth of Abib or Nisan; and in point of place, to that particular quarter, out of all possible situations, which God should select to fix his name there which quarter, before the building of the temple, might be variable, and according to Maimonides, was either Gilgal, or Shiloh, or Nob, or Gibeah, or Jerusalem; in all which places the tabernacle was successively erected: but after the building of the temple became permanently fixed to Jerusalem a.

*

Τηρεῖν ἄζυμα, καὶ ποιεῖν τὸ πάσχα οὐ δυνάμεθα φασίν· ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν γὰρ ἅπαξ ἐτύθη Χριστός· εἶτα

ἐκώλυσεν ἐσθίειν ἄζυμα : Julianus, apud Cyrillum, 354. A. lib. x.

z De 1 Sam. i. 3. vii. 2. xxi. 1. 1 Chron. xvi. 39. xxi. 29.

x 1 Cor. v. 7. y Deut. xii. 5-14. xvi. 2. 5, 6. Josh. ix. 27. Edificio Templi, i. 2. a Cf. Josh. v. 10. xviii. 1. xxii. 19. 2 Sam. vi. 3. 12. 1 Kings iii.4. xi. 32.