batur tonsor, vel tonsura regis; eo quod universa vastaverit, et nihil penitus reliquerit herbæ virentis in

terra.

The country being thus dried up, there was consequently no green pasture to be found for cattle; which, in defect thereof, were supported on hay, and straw or stubble. So Jerome, in Isai. xxv: Hoc juxta ritum loquitur Palæstinæ et multarum Orientis provinciarum: quæ ob pratorum et fœni penuriam, paleas præparant esui animantium1: and Philo Judæus, De Josepho: τετάρτου δὲ, τοῦ καὶ τοῖς θρέμμασι χιλὸν τεταμιεῦσθαι, τῶν ἀχύρων καὶ ἀθέρων ἐκ τῆς τοῦ καρποῦ καθάρ σεως διακρινομένων . Cf. also Gen. xxiv. 25. 32: the time of which transaction was obviously the middle of

summer.

m

The following passages from Maimonides, De rebus altari interdictis ", will sufficiently prove that it was well understood in Judæa, up to what time the cattle might be fed upon green food; and when it became necessary to support them upon dry.

Ex oculis bestiæ distillans aqua tum denique cognoscebatur esse perpetua, cum ab Kalendis mensis Adar ad Idus Nisan herbis viridibus bestia, et siccis ab Kalendis Elul ad Idus Tisri pasta, non convaluisset.

Tribus igitur mensibus quotidie bestia ex herbis viridibus et siccis, suo quibusque tempore, edebat ad magnitudinem fici, aut eo plus, idque ante primum pastum, post potum. &c.

Ut si ex præscripto virides herbas mense Adar toto, et dimidio mense Nisan comederit, reliquoque dimidio mense Nisan, et toto mense lier siccas herbas, tribus videlicet continuis mensibus: si ex herbis comederit

1 Operum iii. 215. ad calcem. §. 13. 14. 15.

m Operum ii. 57.1. 39.

n Cap. ii.

VOL. III.

D d

nam quæ ex præscripto herbas suo tempore comedisset, nec sanata fuerit, hæc sane vitio laborabat perpetuo *.

These quotations distinctly prove that, generally speaking, green pasture was no longer to be had after the fifteenth of Nisan, which in a rectified year would correspond very nearly to the fifteenth of April, on the one hand; nor before the first of Adar, which on the same principle would answer to the first of March, on the other. This is enough to shew with what rapidity, after the termination of the vernal rains, the country was usually dried up. It is accordingly very observable that at the time of the next miracle of feeding; though it happened on the same locality as the former, and though the people were made to sit down on the ground then as well as before; yet there is no mention made of grass. That second miracle took place when the season was considerably more advanced; and when the verdure of the fields had been long scorched up. The absence, then, of such an allusion upon the latter occasion, is just as natural and characteristic a circumstance, as its presence upon the former.

Whether the effect of the autumnal rains was to cause the grass to spring again, and to restore the face of the ground, does not so clearly appear; though the

According to Mr. Harmer, (vol. ii. Chap. x. Observ. xxxvi. 466-469.) at Aleppo the cattle are now turned out to feed at the time when the people repair to the gardens; that is, in April and May. The Jewish rabbis say the time when this was done in Judæa was about the Passover. The Arabs, according to D'Arvieux, turn out their horses to grass in March.

Dr. Shaw and all other modern travellers report that hay is never, or very seldom, made in the East. The cattle are fed on cut straw. See Mr. Harmer, i. Chap. iii. Observation viii. p.176. note. Cf. 423. Chap. v. Observation iii. The same thing appears not only from Genesis xxiv. 25. 32. but from Judges xix. 19. which also was evidently in the

summer season.

negative is most probable*. But even to admit that it was so; still we may argue as follows: Did the miracle in question take place not longer after the commencement of the autumnal rains, than would suffice to revive the country; or not longer after the termination of the vernal, than while the natural freshness and luxuriancy of the fields continued unimpaired? If we adopt the latter supposition, then the interval of time between the miracle in question and the proceedings in Passion week, becomes one year at least. If we adopt the former, then, unless it can be shewn that the miracle happened in the autumnal quarter, which immediately preceded the proceedings in Passion week, this interval becomes five or six months more.

But this last supposition never can be shewn to hold good on the contrary, it is plainly refuted by the gospel narrative itself. The same evangelist, St. John, who mentions most distinctly the characteristic circumstance of the grass, tells us, vii. 1, that after this miracle Jesus walked in Galilee; and then, attended a feast of Tabernacles, vii. 2: and after that, x. 22, a feast of Dedication : which things could not have happened in any such order, if the miracle had come to pass between the feast of Tabernacles and the feast of Dedication, in the autumnal quarter before the last Passover; as it must have done, if it happened after the commencement of the autumnal, and not the vernal rains in question. The autumnal rains never set in before the feast of Tabernacles, but always after it.

After this one objection, it is needless to state any further arguments against the same supposition; though

* The Jewish writers (Mr. H. ut supra) state accordingly that on the falling of the first rains

the herds were brought home. This would be before the end of October at the latest.

many might be derived from the order and succession of the particulars recorded by the other evangelists. We have restricted ourselves also from noticing any indications of time, at present, except the natural ones: or St. John would enable us to decide upon the question at once, by referring to vi. 4. of his Gospel; which tells us that, when the miracle was performed, the Passover was nigh at hand. No reader of the Old or New Testament requires to be informed, that the Passover was a spring feast; not a summer, or an autumnal one.

It is more to the purpose to observe that, according to Jerome, the appearance of things in Judæa, between the feast of Tabernacles and that of Dedication, and much more at any later period, until the recurrence of the vernal equinox, would not agree to the circumstances of the picture drawn in the Gospels: Octavus apud Hebræos mensis, qui apud illos Maresvan, apud Ægyptios Athir, apud nos November dicitur, hyemis exordium est: in quo . . . omnis terra virore nudatur, et mortalium corpora contrahuntur. And again P: Mensis autem undecimus, qui appellatur Sabat.... est in acerrimo tempore hyemis, qui ab Egyptiis Mechir, a Macedonibus Пepírios, a Romanis Februarius appellatur. The inclemency of the weather in the month of November or December, would be a serious objection to the supposition of Jesus' having been, at that time, in the open air by night; and attended by such multitudes. At the feast of Encænia, when St. John tells us it was winter, he was walking in Solomon's porch, under cover. The feast of Encænia began on the 25th of the ninth month Casleu, answering in a rectified year to December: and there is an instance in the book of Ezra, when, on the twentieth of that month, the peo

• Opera, iii. 1707. ad calcem : in Zach. i.

p Ibid. 1709. ad culcem. q X. 22.

ple were unable to remain out of doors, because of the cold and the rain r *.

To resume, therefore, the prosecution of our subject. If the reader were to look a little further, he would find at Matt. xii. 1. Mark ii. 23. Luke vi. 1. an account, that on some occasion, when Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields of corn, the latter, being an hungered, began to pluck the ears, and to eat them, as they went along; rubbing out the grain with their hands. He would find it mentioned also that this incident happened on a sabbath, to which St. Luke gives the peculiar name of σάββατον δευτερό Tрштоν. The explanation of this mode of speaking may require both learning and pains: but it requires neither learning nor pains, to be enabled to comprehend that if the disciples were plucking and eating the standing corn, the standing corn was fit to be plucked and eaten; and consequently that harvest, if not yet come, was near at hand.

πρωτον.

As, however, there are two principal sorts of grain, barley and wheat-which in Judæa do not arrive at maturity together; it may at first sight be doubtful which of the two kinds of harvest is here meant. But whosoever is aware that, by the original appointment of the law, the first fruits of barley harvest were every year to be consecrated at the Passover, and those of wheat harvest at the feast of Pentecost, will naturally conclude, that barley harvest every year would be ripe about the Passover, and wheat harvest about Pen

* The truth is, according to the report of modern observations, that the severity of winter for the meridian of Judæa may be reckoned to begin about Dec. 12, and to last until Ja

nuary 20: during which time the rains are extremely violent, there is both frost and snow, and the coldness of the weather, especially at night, is peculiarly bitter and pinching.

I X. 9.13.