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that, unless he had purposely chosen to relate the other miracle also, he could have had no opportunity of recording that, except in conjunction with the second. But this his scrupulous regard for historical precision would not allow him to do; nor in fact was it likely that he would do it; for it would have been merely to repeat what St. Matthew had done previously, and to perpetuate the very anachronism, which, as it was, he desired to remove. There was something also in the case of the second blind man, different from that of the first; as the very description given of him—viòs Tuator, Bap-Tiuatos, & Tuplosis alone sufficient to Τιμαίου, τυφλός prove and this would be an additional reason for confining the account of the miracle to him.

It remains then that the details of the first miracle, as a part of the general narrative, could be given by St. Luke alone. St. Matthew's account, as to the number of the miracles, was complete; as to their order, was irregular: St. Mark's account, as to the order, was regular; as to the number, was incomplete. St. Luke's serves an equal purpose with respect to both; filling up the deficiency in St. Mark, and reducing to order the irregularity in St. Matthew. The two single miracles therefore of the later Evangelists are exactly equivalent to the one double miracle of the earlier; and the accounts of the two former, laid together, will be just coextensive with the account of the latter by itself. Nor is there any thing in them separately considered, to militate against such a construction of their relation to each other in common. Had St. Matthew affirmed that both his miracles were wrought after Jesus left Jericho, then indeed St. Luke's miracle could not have been one of those, though it might still have been

e Ch. x. 46. Cf. Theophylact, i. 229. D. In Marc. x.

a matter of fact. Had St. Luke asserted that the name and description of his blind man were Timæus, the son of Timæus, his authority would have been committed directly with St. Mark's. But as it is, each account in particular may be true; and all in common may be consistent with each other.

The nature of the case is enough to prove that it is by no means an improbable supposition, which merely assumes that two blind men, neither of whom had any means of subsistence except from the benevolence of private charity, might be found sitting and begging in the vicinity of a city like Jericho, in point of size only one third, or not much more, less than Jerusalem, and containing, probably, more than one hundred thousand inhabitants; and upon two such thoroughfares, as the road from the Jordan to Jericho and from Jericho to Jerusalem. But, even in this case, it is much more likely that they would be found apart than in conjunction. The procession of our Saviour would consequently pass by them at separate times; and there is no circumstance in the situation, behaviour, or treatment of the one, which was not a priori to be just as much expected of the other. The similarity then of the different accounts is no proof of the identity of the occasions to which they belong; for they could not have been otherwise than similar. It was this very similarity which brought them readily within the scope of St. Matthew's plan of conciseness in such details as these, and induced him to blend them both into one narrative. The particulars of the account, which he has thus given in reference to both, must have been individually applicable to either of them. Both must have been sitting by the road side, and must both have been begging, when Jesus passed by; both must have inquired d Epiphanius, Operum i. 702. C. Manichæi, lxxxii. E

VOL. III.

who was passing, and both must have been told that it was Jesus of Nazareth; both must have implored his mercy; both must have been rebuked by the people; both must have cried out the more; both must have been conducted to Christ; both must have been questioned alike; both must have returned the same answer; both must have been restored to sight by a word and a touch; and both must have followed him in the way. Each I say must have done all these things, according to St. Matthew, if either of them did: and St. Luke or St. Mark has merely related of one of them, what St. Matthew with equal truth had recorded of the two.

DISSERTATION XXXVIII.

On the time of the arrival at Bethany-and on the day of the procession to the Temple.

THE last division of the Gospel-history, dated from the arrival at Bethany before the fourth Passover, and extending to the day of the Ascension, abounds in difficulties, and in controverted or controvertible points. The time of the arrival at Bethany; the time of the supper and the unction, which there took place; the time of the procession to Jerusalem; the time of the cleansing of the temple; the time of the celebration of the last supper: all these, and many more which it is not necessary now to enumerate, are questions upon which the utmost difference of opinion, and a corresponding diversity of arrangement in the schemes of particular harmonists, are seen to exist.

Yet these difficulties, great as they are, we must now proceed to encounter. The course of our subject has brought us regularly down to the period when Jesus, having formally made an end of his ministry in Galilee and elsewhere, was about to complete it in Jerusalem also; and at the same time to accomplish the work of human redemption-the proper work which the Father had given him to execute; the final end of his coming into the world: which being over, the period of his leaving the world and of his returning again to the Father, with whom he was before he assumed flesh, could not be far distant.

In the due prosecution of this subject, I shall enter first upon the question of the time of the arrival at Bethany; the determination of which is absolutely ne

cessary to fix the beginning of Passion-week, and to facilitate the arrangement of succeeding events.

The narratives of the first three Evangelists, from the time when our Saviour passed through Jericho, to that of his actual entry into Jerusalem, exhibit no interruption in their continuity. In these narratives, then, there is no intimation of any intermediate stay at Bethany; much less of the date of the arrival there. Nor does this silence imply that no interval actually took place between the day of the arrival, and the day of the procession to the temple; no more than that the arrival itself did not take place upon some definite day in particular. It implies only that nothing took place between the arrival and the procession, which it might be necessary or expedient for the former Gospels to relate; it implies also that the interval in question was short and both these things, as we shall see by and by, were actually matters of fact.

The precise date of the arrival, and the exact measure of the interval between that event and the procession to Jerusalem, which had thus been omitted by each of the former Gospels, could be supplied only by the last. Accordingly, the supplementary relation of that Gospel, which has been so often exemplified already, is critically illustrated in this instance also; for the notice of time which is wanting in the first three Gospels is found at xii. l of the fourth: ὁ οὖν Ἰησοῦς, πρὸ ἓξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ Πάσχα, ἦλθεν εἰς Βηθανίαν. The date of the eis arrival at Bethany, and all the other consequences deducible from it, depend upon the right construction of this text.

Now with regard to such phrases as these, pò ʧ ἡμερῶν τοῦ Πάσχα, οι, μεθ' ἓξ ἡμέρας τοῦ Πάσχα, where the prepositions of time, πρὸ or μετὰ, are constructed with one substantive (denoting days, or weeks, or

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