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of his soul from his body our Lord did not wait for the natural progress of dissolution, but exerted his Divine power, in anticipation of the effect: the reason of which was the necessity of so timing his death, that in all the circumstances, which took place afterwards, the Scriptures might be fulfilled, as they had been fulfilled before; that he might be taken down from the cross and committed to the grave before sunset-without which, and if he was to rise again on the Sunday, he could not, even according to the Jewish computation of time, have been previously three days and three nights in the earth; that, when the soldiers came to accelerate the deaths of the parties crucified, they might find him dead already, and so offer no violence to his body, but what instead of infringing, was rather the fulfilment of prophecy: A bone of him shall not be broken-and, They shall look upon me whom they have pierced Y. Such is the observation of Origen upon the timeliness of his death Z: Kai Táxα διὰ τοῦτο προλαβὼν ἐξελήλυθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα αὐτὸ τηρήσῃ, καὶ μὴ καταχθῇ τὰ σκέλη, ὡς τὰ τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ σταυ ρωθέντων λῃστῶν *. Crucifixion though a painful was still a lingering death; to which assertion the facts referred to in the margin will supply cases in point †a.

* Cf. Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangel. iii. vi. 108. D: Cyprian, De Idolorum Vanitate, 16: Lactantius, Divin. Institt. iv. 26. 394: Theophylact, i. 160. C. in Matt. xxvii.

† Carcere dicuntur clausi sperare salutem: | Atque aliquis pendens in cruce vota facit. Ovid, De Ponto, i. vi. 37.

x Cf. Exod. xii. 46. Ps. xxxiv. 20. Celsum, ii. 16. Operum i. 403. B. 194. Suetonius, Galba, 9.

Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, iv. 35 : ̓Αλέξανδρος ὁ φιλόσοφος ἔδοξε τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ κατακεκρίσθαι· καὶ παραιτησάμενος, μόλις ἀπολελύσθαι ἀπ ̓ αὐτοῦ τοῦ σταυροῦ. True, this is meant of a dream; but it is a dream supposed to be a representation of what might have happened.

Justin, xxii. 7: Adeo ut de

y Zech. xii. 10.

z Contra a Vita Josephi, 75. Herodotus, Polymnia,

V. Simultaneously with the expiration of Christ, the vail of the tabernacle, according to the first three Evangelists, is rent in twain, (so simultaneously, that it might be mentioned, as it is by St. Luke, even before the mention of the expiration itself,) the earthquake ensues the rocks are rent-the graves are opened— and the bodies of many holy men are resuscitated *though their entering into Jerusalem, and appearing alive unto many, do not take place until after the resurrection of our Lord himself, who was the proper first-fruits of such as slept: all which circumstances, though they may be implicitly alluded to in St. Luke, are specified distinctly by St. Matthew only: the confession of the centurion, in relating which both the others agree with St.Luke, is extorted from him—and the people who had come to the spectacle return, according to St. Luke, with minds changed, and beating their breasts, as under the consciousness of some great sin.

summa cruce, veluti de tribunali, in Pœnorum scelera concionaretur. Photius, Codex 94: Iamblichi Dramaticum, 74. line1 2: in this novel, the hero of the story is attached to the cross, yet taken down alive again. Quoniam ergo majorem sustinent cruciatum, qui non percutiuntur post fixionem, sed vivunt cum plurimo cruciatu, aliquando autem et tota nocte, et adhuc post eam, tota die &c.: Origen, iii. 928. C: Comm. in Matt. Series, 140— Miraculum enim erat, quoniam post tres horas receptus est, qui forte biduum victurus erat in cruce, secundum consuetudinem eorum, qui suspenduntur quidem, non autem percutiuntur: Ibid. D. Anthologia, iii.

51. Lucilii cvii: μακροτέρῳ σταυρῷ σταυρούμενον ἄλλον ἑαυτοῦ ¦ ὁ φθονερός Διοφῶν ἐγγὺς ἰδὼν ἐτάκη.

* Perhaps this opening of the graves, and resuscitation of the bodies which slept, being mentioned by St. Matthew alone, are to be reckoned among the number of his anticipations, and are introduced here solely from their connexion with the death and resurrection of our Saviour; and more particularly because of the similarity of the circumstances, under which both the death and the resurrection took place. There was an earthquake at the time of this last event, as well as that of the former, and accompanied with similar effects.

VI. The chief priests or the Sanhedrim, ignorant perhaps as yet of the death of Jesus, (though that is by no means a necessary supposition,) and desirous to hasten it, as well as that of the thieves, prevail upon Pilate to order their legs to be broken, that so they might expire and be taken down for interment before the sabbath should arrive. Josephus will shew that, agreeably to the Divine mandate, this would have been done, under similar circumstances, before sunset even upon a common day; and much more before sunset on the eve of an high day*. The soldiers were sent accordingly, and broke the legs of the thieves; but finding that Jesus was already dead, one of them, doubtless from a wanton impulse, pierced his side only; which act was followed by a discharge of blood and water, too great and too extraordinary to be accounted for upon any natural principle; and therefore strictly miraculous. For these particulars we are indebted solely to St. John, who was consequently still an eyewitness of all which passed †.

VII. About the same time, but after the soldiers had been sent on their errand, and before the death of the thieves, accelerated as it was by this additional

* Yet it is probable that this particular usage of the Jewish law was not always respected by the Romans, in the infliction of their punishment of crucifixion ; and that in order to its being enforced in the present instance, a special application to Pilate would be necessary, on the part of the persons of the greatest weight and influence among the Jews at the time. Generally speaking, it was part of the punishment of crucifixion that the

b Bell. Jud. iv. 5. 2.

body should be left exposed to rot on the cross. See Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, ii. 51. Also iv. 51: διὰ τὸ πολλοὺς τρέφειν οἰωνούς. Hence Horace, Non pasces in cruce corvos. Epistolarum i. xvi. 48.

+ St. John might have returned to the spot, so as to be present at the remainder of these transactions, as soon as the miraculous darkness was over, whether the Virgin did so or

not.

Deut. xxi. 22, 23.

violence, Joseph of Arimathæa, the rich man with whom the Messiah was to make his grave in his death, intercedes with Pilate for leave to remove the body of Jesus; and Pilate, having first ascertained from the centurion the fact of his death however unusually sudden, gives him leave. Then, in conjunction with Nicodemus, who had provided grave-clothes * and spices, according to the custom of the Jews, more especially in the funeral solemnities of persons of consequence, he takes down the body from the cross, and hastily wrapping it up in the linen clothes along with the spices, because the Parasceue was begun, and the sabbath was fast approaching, as hastily commits it to the nearest grave, which was his own, and in a garden of his own; where certain of our Lord's female disciples, who had come up with him from Galilee, and had hitherto been about his cross, also saw it deposited. These particulars are more or less fully recorded by each of the Evangelists; and as I shall have occasion to refer to them again hereafter, I touch upon them only summarily at present. The time which they would take up may be defined in general as comprehended between the ninth hour of the day and sunset-after the one but before the other-and perhaps equidistant from both. And here the events of the fourth division, and with that of the fourteenth of

* Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, i. 14. observes, éñeì κaì oi áñоеvýσκοντες ἐσχισμένοις ἐνειλοῦνται ῥάκεσιν, ὡς καὶ τὰ βρέφη, καὶ χαμαὶ τίθενται: whence it appears that the custom of wrapping the bodies of the dead in grave-clothes, ὀθόνια or ἐντάφια, was common in his time both to the Jews and

the Gentiles. The same writer informs us, Oneirocritica, ii. 3. that the clothes so used for that purpose, and in which the bodies of the dead were carried to be buried, were alway devκà, or white; as those in which the living mourned for them were always black.

c Isaiah liii. 9.

Nisan, would properly expire. I shall still prolong

this Dissertation, however, so far as to consider the next period in the Gospel history; which will extend from sunset on the fourteenth to sunset on the fifteenth of the same month, throughout the whole of the Jewish sabbath; and from thence to the morning of the sixteenth, when our Saviour rose again from the dead.

It contains only one fact, concerning which there can be little difficulty; insomuch as it is recorded by St. Matthew alone, xxvii. 62—the end: following undoubtedly after the burial, but preceding the resurrection, of Christ, and by him expressly assigned to the èπaúριov, the day after the Preparation; that is, to the sabbath; the fifteenth of Nisan itself. This fact was the application of the Sanhedrim to Pilate for permission to set a guard over the door of the sepulchre; and the appointment of that guard accordingly. The times of those two incidents might possibly be different: the application might be made in the course of the sabbath, or just when the sabbath was about to expirebut the setting of the guard we may conclude for various reasons could not be until after that.

First, because it is not probable that the Sanhedrim themselves would take such a step during the continuance of the sabbath; for that would have been to break the sabbath. Secondly, in the day-time on the the sabbath, and for so public a place as Calvary, there would be no occasion to set a guard over the grave at all. Thirdly, they had not applied for the same permission, nor therefore thought it necessary to appoint such a guard, on the eve of the sabbath; they must, consequently, have supposed that the grave would be sufficiently protected, during the sabbath, by the sanctity of the sabbath itself. Fourthly, the proposed end of setting a guard would be answered by stationing it

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