in any year, it would be more particularly so in years when the Passover fell out late, and almost an entire month in advance of the summer compared with other times. In this year the Passover was celebrated on the fifth of April, only eleven days earlier than its latest time. Besides which, Josephus, in a passage which has been quoted elsewhere, informed us that in some situations, if not throughout all Judæa, the fig-tree produced a succession of fruit for ten months in the year; which ten months must have extended from March to December inclusive. Ripe figs might, consequently, be looked for in convenient places, and upon trees, whose appearance shewed them to be particularly healthy and vigorous, even at the end of March or the beginning of April: and it is to such early fruits as these that the allusions occur at Isaiah xxviii. 4, Micah vii. 1, Nahum iii. 12, and Hoshea ix. 10. Even now, according to the report of modern travellers, the early ripe figs, throughout the Levant, come into season in the month of June. Diodorus Siculus attested a similar fact concerning the sycamine, a species of mulberry, or something between the mulberry and the fig, in Egypt, the climate of which country was not more favourable for the production of such an effect, than that of Judæa; and yet this fruit was supplied so abundantly and so constantly, that the poor are said to have supported themselves upon it all the year round *.

* Diodorus, i. 34. Solinus, in his Polyhistor, describes this tree as follows: De arboribus, quas sola fert Ægyptus, præcipua est ficus Ægyptia, foliis moro comparanda; poma non ramis tantum gestitans, sed et caudice: usque adeo fœcunditati suæ an

gusta est. uno anno septies fructum sufficit: unde pomum si decerpseris, alterum sine mora protuberat. Polyhistor,cap.xxxii. §. 34. Cf. Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum, i. 23. iv. 2Pliny, H. N. xiii. 14. Strabo, xii. 3. §. 15. 81, 82, gives a simi

g Dissertation xxiii. vol. ii. 269.

It is very possible then that a tree, which from the advanced state of its foliage shewed that it was peculiarly strong and luxuriant, might be found to yield some of this early ripe fruit. Our Lord visited it more as a tentative experiment-if haply he might find ought upon it-than with the certain assurance that he should. Nor does this imply any defect of knowledge upon his part; for he was aware what the event would be: but the action being designed as symbolical, his going up to the tree in the apparent hope of meeting with fruit upon it, in the first place, and his pronouncing a curse upon its barrenness, as if in consequence of some disappointment, in the next, rendered it the more solemn, significant, and impressive *.

While St. Matthew and St. Mark, in their accounts of this transaction, agree together substantially, the latter, as usual, in the mention of circumstances is somewhat the more particular of the two. But this distinction must be understood with reference solely to the circumstances of the act: as to what followed, or is related subsequently, there is some difference which requires to be explained. The malediction pronounced on the tree, according to St. Matthew, took effect instantly— ἐξηράνθη παραχρῆμα ἡ συκῆ: the words could scarcely have been delivered before the tree had begun to be sensibly affected. Now both he and St. Mark expressly attest that the transaction occurred in the presence of the Twelve. Jesus was walking with them, when he

lar account of the productions of the plain of Themiscyra on the Pontus; where grapes, pears, apples, and every sort of fruit resembling the nut, were to be found in abundance at all seasons in the year.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Opera, 176.1. 10: Catechesis xiii. 9: Tís

οὐκ οἶδεν ὅτι ἐν καιρῷ χειμῶνος συκῆ οὐ καρποφορεῖ, ἀλλὰ φύλλα περίκειται μόνον; ὅπερ πάντες ᾔδεισαν, τοῦτο Ἰησοῦς ἆρα οὐκ ᾔδει; ἀλλ ̓ εἰδὼς ἤρχετο ὡς ζητήσων· οὐκ ἀγνοῶν ὅτι οὐχ εὑρίσκει, ἀλλὰ τὸν τύπον τῆς κατάρας μέχρι τῶν φύλλων μόνον ποιούμενος.

fell in with the tree; he went up to it in their sight; and he pronounced the sentence of its perpetual barrenness in their hearing. The effect also, which ensued, ensued before their eyes; they heard what had been said, according to St. Mark; and they saw what was done by it, according to St. Matthew. It is no wonder, then, that they should have been surprised when they witnessed the change in the tree; a change so suddenly produced; the effect of a few words, and those not actually commanding it, though possibly presupposing it. It was equally natural that they should have expressed this surprise; and as St. Matthew describes them to have done it, among themselves and their surprise being known to our Saviour, not merely as it was expressed but also as it was caused, that he should have founded such reflections upon it, either for their admonition in particular or for that of others in general, as were appropriate and pertinent to the occasion, was just as much to be expected.

The Apostles wondered at the visible effect, produced upon the tree; but more, perhaps, at the secret efficacy of the power which had produced it: and our Lord, according to his usual practice of deriving instruction from the occasion, and knowing that their admiration of this power was accompanied internally by the wish to possess it, tells them first, in reference to the object of their astonishment, that this was a slight effect, compared with what the same power, rightly applied, was capable of bringing to pass: secondly, in reference to the object of their wish, that this power to be rightly applied must be so through the medium of the implicit faith: thirdly, in reference to the virtue of this faith, it was such that whatsoever they might ask for in prayer, whether the

energies of miraculous power, or any other petition, if they believed they did obtain they should obtain: all which, if applied to the Apostles, was applicable only proleptically now, but might be so actually hereafter; and yet it is so obviously the result of the passing event, that it might well have ensued at the time. And in fact, if there is any truth in St. Matthew's account, it must have ensued at the time. For as he makes the sudden drying up of the tree the cause of the wonder of the Apostles, so he makes the wonder of the Apostles the direct effect of the drying up of the tree. Are we to suppose, then, that the tree was dried up now, but the wonder was not felt until the following morning? or as the tree was dried up on the spot, so that the wonder was felt and expressed upon the spot? The very language of his account implies as much. The figtree, says he, was instantly dried up; the disciples, continues he, when they saw it, exclaimed, How instantly is the fig-tree dried up! or, as it may also be rendered, How is the fig-tree instantly dried up? In either case, this drying up must have taken place, and been noticed accordingly on the spot.

These several particulars are not mentioned by St. Mark; whose present account goes no further than the sentence of barrenness pronounced upon the tree: yet the very circumstance that it stops short even there, prepares the reader for something more afterwards. It does not say the fig-tree immediately dried up; but it does say the disciples heard what was said. Now the effect did certainly follow upon the words at the time; and it was of little use to observe that the by-standers heard the words, if their having heard them was not intended to account for something which they said or did or that they heard them now, if it was not to explain something which they said or did at

another time. When therefore they were all returning by the same way on the following morning, they saw the tree, as the Evangelist tells us, dried up from the roots; and in consequence of that spectacle, one of them, Peter, was reminded of what he had heard the day before and the very terms in which he proceeded to address our Saviour are a proof that he was reverting to a past transaction: See, Master, the fig-tree, which thou cursedst, is dried up.

This account, then, has clearly the appearance of a renewed conversation on the same subject; and not the less so, because the motive to it was the same; viz. the change both at first, and in this second instance, perceptible in the tree. Yet the renewal of the conversation is ascribed to one of the disciples only; the original remark to all and with regard to the exciting cause, there is this difference upon each occasion, that St. Matthew simply says the tree enpávon, was dried up or withered; St. Mark, that it had been dried up or withered ex pilov. The former would still be true, if ἐκ ῥιζῶν. the tree sensibly began to droop, or exhibited a perceptible contrast with its flourishing state a moment before; but the latter presupposes the absolute extinction of vegetable life. The one might take place on the spot; for it would be only the prelude to the final effect the other, as the consummation itself, might not be complete until some time after. The former then might both be seen and commented upon at the time; the latter, not until the following morning. What further remarks, therefore, we may have to make upon the sequel of St. Mark's account, must be reserved for the next Dissertation, which will treat of the events of the ensuing day.

The incident respecting the fig-tree having thus transpired, on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem, be