xviii. 28; and had this not existed, the others probably would never have been relied upon as affording ground for an attempt to overthrow the credibility and authority of one Gospel or of three. The other considerations above presented have still less force. (e) John xiii. 27-43.-(See p. 364, e.) When Jesus said to Judas, "That thou doest, do quickly," some of the disciples thought he meant to say, "Buy what we have need of, eis ogrv, for the festival." Here no discrepancy with the other evangelists could ever have been alleged, except by referring oprn to the paschal meal, which it never signifies. The disciples thought Judas was to buy the things necessary for the festival on the fifteenth and following days. If now our Lord's words were spoken on the evening preceding and introducing the fifteenth of Nisan, they were appropriate: for it was already quite late to make purchases for the following day. But if they were uttered on the evening preceding and introducing the fourteenth of Nisan, they were not thus appropriate; for then no haste was necessary, since a whole day was yet to intervene before the festival. This passage, therefore, so far as it bears at all upon the question, instead of contravening the testimony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, goes rather to support it. There remains the objection, that a public judicial act, like that by which Jesus was condemned and executed, was unlawful upon the Sabbath and on all great festival days.t This consideration has at first view some weight, and has been often and strenuously urged, yet it is counterbalanced by several circumstances which very greatly weaken its force. The execution itself took place under Roman authority, and therefore does not here come into account. And as to the action of the Sanhedrim, even admitting that the prohibitory precepts cited above from the Talmud were already extant and binding in the times of the New Testament,-a position in itself very doubtful, yet the chief priests and Pharisees and Scribes, who composed the Sanhedrim, are everywhere denounced by our Lord as hypocrites, "who say, and do not; who bind heavy burdens upon others, but themselves touch them not with one of their fingers."-(Matt. xxiii. 1, sq.) Such men, in their rage against Jesus, would hardly have been restrained even by their own precepts. They professed likewise, and perhaps some of them believed, that they were doing God service, and regarded the condemnation of Jesus as a work of religious duty, paramount to the obligations of any festival; yet, in fact, the first and holy day of the festival did not demand the same strict observance that was due to the Sabbath. † See above, p. 364, f. * See above, p. 366, a. On this day they might prepare food, which might not be done upon the Sabbath.-(Exod. xii. 16; comp. Exod. xxxv. 2, 3, xvi. 22, sq.) On this day, too, the morning after the paschal supper, the Jews might return home from Jerusalem whatever the distance, an extent of travel not permitted on the weekly Sabbath.-(Deut. xvi. 6, 7.) Further, in the time of our Lord, the practice of the Jews at least, if not their precepts, would seem to have interposed no obstacle to such a judicial transaction. We learn from John x. 22, 31, that on the festival of dedication, as Jesus was teaching in the temple, "the Jews took up stones to stone him." On the day after the crucifixion, which, as all agree, was the Sabbath, and a "great day," the Sanhedrim applied to Pilate for a watch, and themselves caused the sepulchre to be sealed and the watch to be set. (Matt. xxvii. 62, sq.) A stronger instance still is recorded in John vii. 32, 37, 44, 45. It there appears that on the last GREAT DAY of the festival of Tabernacles, the Sanhedrim having sent out officers to seize Jesus, 66 some of them would have taken him, but no man laid hands on him;" so that the officers returned without him to the Sanhedrim, and were in consequence censured by that body. The circumstances show conclusively, that on this last great day of that festival the Sanhedrim were in session and waiting for Jesus to be brought before them as a prisoner. Nor was it merely a casual or packed meeting, but one regularly convened, for Nicodemus was present with them.-(ver. 50.) And, finally, according to Matt. xxvi. 3-5, the Sanhedrim, when afterwards consulting to take Jesus and put him to death, decided not to do it on the festival; why? because it would be unlawful? Not at all; but simply "lest there should be an uproar among the people." Through the treachery of Judas, they were enabled to execute their long cherished purpose without danger of a tumult, and the occasion was too opportune not to be gladly seized upon, even on a great festival day. These considerations seem to me to sweep away the whole force of this objection, on which Scaliger and Casaubon, as also Beza and Calov, laid great stress, and which Lücke has again brought forward and urged with no little parade. Some other minor considerations, formerly advanced by those who hold that Jesus was crucified before the passover, are examined and refuted by earlier writers, particularly by Bochart.* As, however, these are no longer brought forward by the more recent advocates of that view, it is not necessary to dwell upon them here. Such, then, is a general review of the passages and arguments, on the strength of which the alleged discrepancy be* See Bochart, Hieroz. lib. ii. c. 50, p. 569, sq. NO. V. 2 B tween John and the other evangelists, in respect to this passover, has usually been maintained. After repeated and calm consideration, there rests upon my own mind a clear conviction that there is nothing in the language of John, nor in the attendant circumstances, which, upon fair interpretation, requires or permits us to believe that the beloved disciple either intended to correct, or has in fact corrected or contradicted, the explicit and unquestionable testimony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. VIII. Early Historical Testimony. On the other hand, some circumstances in the early history of the Christian church seem to favour the idea that, among the primitive teachers, those who were most familiar with the writings and views of the Apostle John held to the belief that our Lord did celebrate the regular passover with his disciples on the evening before his crucifixion. The question which we have been discussing seems to have first arisen in connection with the great passover controversy of the second and following centuries. In those churches which had been mostly gathered from Jewish converts, as in Asia Minor, it would seem to have been a rule to lay aside only so much of Jewish observances as was matter of necessity. They, therefore, continued to keep the passover on the evening after the fourteenth of Nisan simultaneously with the Jews, and made this the central point of their celebration of our Lord's passion and resurrection, on whatever day of the week it might occur. But in the churches formed mostly from Gentile converts, like those of the West, a contrary rule apparently prevailed, and they retained only so much of Jewish observances as was absolutely essential. They therefore kept no passover, but celebrated annually the resurrection of our Lord on a Sunday, and observed the preceding Friday as a day of penitence and fasting. This diversity of Christian practice seems to have been first brought into friendly discussion, when Polycarp of Smyrna, the disciple of John, paid a visit to Anicetus, bishop of Rome, in A.D. 162. Polycarp testified that he had once celebrated the regular Jewish passover with the Apostle John; while Anicetus appealed to the fact, that his predecessors had introduced nothing of the kind. * Later, about A.D. 170, the subject again came up in Asia Minor. Melito of Sardis wrote apparently in favour of the Jewish-Christian usage; and Apollinaris of Hierapolis in Phrygia, against it. † Yet no interruption of fellowship took place between the churches of the East and See Euseb. H. E. v. 24. Euseb. H. E. iv. 26. West; and Christians from Asia Minor found in Rome a fraternal reception and were welcomed to the communion. But under the Roman bishop Victor, the controversy broke out anew in A.D. 190, between the Romish church on the one side, with which the churches of Alexandria, Tyre, Cesarea, and Jerusalem took part, and the churches of Asia Minor on the other side, of which Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, was now the leader. Among several other points in the controversy, the main inquiry now was, Whether the yearly passover was to be retained, and the Jewish law followed in respect to the time? The opponents, or at least Apollinaris, Clement of Alexandria, and Hippolytus, according to the fragments preserved in the Chronicon Paschale,* affirmed that "the last meal of Jesus with his disciples was not the passover, since, according to John's Gospel, Christ partook of it on the thirteenth of Nisan; while on the following day, which was the appointed time for the Jewish passover, he offered up himself as the true sacrifice for mankind, of which the passover was the type." The title or argument of the tract of Apollinaris was: Οτι ἐν ᾧ καιρῷ ὁ κύριος ἔπαθεν, οὐκ ἔφαγεν τὸ τύπικον πάσχα. On the other side, Polycrates wrote an epistle to Victor, preserved by Eusebius, in which he asserts that the Asiatics celebrated the true and genuine day, and appeals to the testimony and practice of apostles and others, viz., the Apostle Philip, who died at Hierapolis, the Apostle John, who taught in Asia Minor and died at Ephesus, the martyr Polycarp, and other bishops and teachers, of whom he says, "These all kept the day of the passover on the fourteenth, according to the Gospel; deviating in nothing, but following according to the rule of faith." Of his own seven relatives, who also had been bishops, Polycrates says, "And these my relatives always celebrated the day when the [Jewish] people put away the leaven." The result of the controversy at this time was, that Victor attempted to break off communion with the Asiatic churches. For this step he was strongly censured by Ignatius, bishop of Lyons, in a letter preserved by Eusebius; || and other bishops likewise raised their voices against the rash measure. Through their efforts peace was at length restored, and both parties remained undisturbed in their own modes of observance, until the great Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, where this question was finally decided in favour of the West. The few scattered churches, which afterwards continued to keep the passover according to the Jewish time, were accounted heretics, and are * Chron. Pasch, i. p. 13, ed. Dindorf. † Euseb. H. E. v. 24. Euseb. 1. c. Οὗτοι πάντες ἐτήρησαν τὴν ἡμέραν τῆς τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτης τοῦ πάσχα κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον μηδὲν παρεκβαίνοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸν κανόνα τῆς πίστεως ἀκολουθοῦντες. § Euseb. 1. c. Καὶ πάντοτε τὴν ἡμέραν ἤγαγον οἱ συγγενεῖς μου ὅταν ὁ λαὸς ἤρνυε τὴν ζύμην. Euseb. H. E. v. 24. known in history as Quatuordecimani, or "Fourteenth-day Men." 66 From the preceding narrative, it is manifest that the passages of John's Gospel which we have reviewed above, were already regarded and urged by Apollinaris and the Western churches, in the latter part of the second century, as conflicting with the testimony of the first three evangelists; that is, as implying that our Lord's last meal with his disciples was not the regular paschal supper. On the other hand, it is no less manifest from the language of Polycrates, that the teachers and churches of Asia Minor, among whom John had lived and taught, celebrated the passover on the evening after the fourteenth of Nisan, in agreement, as they held, with the example of John himself and κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, " according to the Gos pel." Now, whether the writer here meant a single gospel, or, as is more probable, the whole gospel history, he evidently alludes to that celebration of the passover which, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, our Lord held with his disciples; for nowhere else does the gospel history speak of the time or manner of keeping the passover. We are therefore entitled to draw from the language of Polycrates this inference, viz., that he and those before him in Asia Minor, who had been familiar with John and other apostles, had no belief that John's Gospel contained any thing respecting the passover at variance with the testimony of the other evangelists. rò That the contrary opinion should have sprung up and have been urged in the West, among churches composed mainly of Gentile Christians, is not surprising. It went to sustain their favourite view that the passover was no longer to be observed, and it also accorded generally with their feeling of opposition and hatred against the Jewish people. As a result of the lat ter feeling, which became more and more intense as time rolled on, it was held to be a shame for the Christian church to regulate itself after the pattern of the unbelieving Jews who had crucified the Lord, and this suggestion had weight in the Council of Nicea. Even the emperor did not disdain to urge it in his epistle to the churches : Μηδὲν ἔστω ἡμῖν κοινὸν μετὰ τοῦ ἐχθίστου Twv 'Ioudαíwv oxλou. † While, therefore, the Western churches had strong motives to adopt and press the argument to be derived thus speciously from John's Gospel, the Asiatic churches had no like motives for adhering to the testimony of the other evangelists. The belief and practice of these latter churches could have rested only on tradition-a tradition, too, derived from John himself and his immediate disciples and companions. See Neander K. G. I. ii., pp. 518-524; II. ii. pp. 643-645; Gieseler K. G. L. pp. 198, 235. + Euseb. de Vit. Constantini, iii. 18. |