d. A secure result being thus established from the Gospels for the length of the Ministry, want of space compels the omission of the section on the evidence of antiquity, — evidence the less essential that it is wholly secondary, being based on deductions, some correct, some incorrect, from the Scriptures themselves. Suffice it to say briefly, that among ante-Nicene writers, against the evidence for a single year of ihe Ptolemajan Valentinians, the Clementine Homilies (xvii. 19), Clem. Al. (Strom, i. 145, vi. 279), Julius Africanus (Routh, Rel. Sac. ii. pp. 240, 306), Hippolytus' later works (Paschal Cycle and Chronicle), and Origen's earlier (in Levit. Horn. ix. 5, de Princ. iv. 5), are to be set, for a two to three years' Ministry, Melito (Routh, Rel. Sac. i. p. 121), Heracleon (to judge from his interpreting Jn 4^ of winter), Tatian's Dintessaron, Hippolytus' Fourth Book on Daniel, and Origen (c. Celsam ii. 12, Comm. in Matt. xxiv. 15, and probably in the lost Comm. on Is. xxix. 1). No writer before Eusebius maintains a three to four years' Ministry.
E. The Date of the Crucifixion.— a. The Four Gospels. — 1. The dating by officialt: a, the governor ; p, the high priest.
a. All the Gospels besides the Acts and Pastoral Epistles name PUate (Pontius Pilate in Mt 27^, Ao 4", 1 Ti 6'*) as the governor before whom Christ was tried. His tenure of the procuratorship ia approximately fixed by Josephus, Ant. XVIII. ii. 2, iv. 2: (1) he came as successor to Valerius Gratus, whose eleven years, since they fell wholly under Tiberius, must have extended at least to A.D. 25 ; (2) he left after ten years of office, and was still on his way to Kome when Tiberius died, March A.D. 37, so that he can hardly have reached Palestine before a.d. 27 ; and as Lk IS^ 23" (not to speak of Lk 3') show that he was not quite newly come at the time of the Crucifixion, the possible passovers for the latter are reduced to nine, A.D. 28-36.
j3. As high priest Caiaphas is named by St. Matthew (26^- '"), and so emphatically by St. John (11** 18"- ■^) as to suggest that he is correcting the less technically accurate statement of St. Luke, who includes under the title both Caiaphas and his sometime previously deposed predecessor Annas (3' ivl apx^piui 'Avva ncoi Kaid0a ; but in Ac 4' Annas to the exclusion of Caiaphas, 'Avfat i dpxifpdi Koi Ka(d0as). Caiaphas was appointed under Valerius Gratus before Pilate's time. He was deposed by Vitellius, legate of Syria, on the occasion of a visit to Jerus. for the passover, the year of which can be established within certain limits, for (1) his successor Jonathan was deposed by the same Vitellius during anotlier visit for one of the festivals of A.D. 37 — probably Pentecost,* since the newsof Tiberius' death on March 16 arrived at the same time ; at latest, therefore, Caiaphas' deposition was at the passover of A.D. 36, and the Crucifixion at the passover of A.D. 35 ; (2) the death of Herod Philip in the 20th year of 'Tiberius, A.D. 33-34, is mentioned by Josephus a page or two after the account of Caiaphas removal, with the fairly precise indication totc, ' at that time,' so that, if this order of events is correct, the Passover of A.D. 34 is the terminus ad quern for Caiaphas, and that of A.D. 33 for the Crucifixion. See Josephus, Ant. XVIU. ii. 2, iv. 3-v. 3.
The Crucifixion under Pilate and Caiaphas can hardly then lie outside the years A.D. 28-33.
2. The dating by the calendar : a, the day of the week ; /3, the day of the (Jewish) month.
o. Since the Ilesurrection admittedly falls on the first day of the week, Sunday, the Crucifixion, wliicli was according to Jewish reckoning on the 'third day' before, took place on a Friday. No j)roof of this would be needed were it not that it has been strangely suggested (by Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels', appendix to ch. vi. p. 348) that the day of the Crucifixion was not Friday but Thursday, on the ground of the
Srediction that the Son of man was to be three ays and three nights in the heart of the earth, Mt 12*'. But against this view tradition and the NT are equally decisive: (1) The Wednesday and Friday fast is now traced back as far as the Didache, 8'. (2) The most common NT phrase for the day of the Resurrection in comparison with the Crucifixion is r^ rplr^ (Gospels eight times, besides 1 Co 15'), which in Gr. never did or could mean anj'thing but ' on the second day,' whet liei the day after to-morrow or the day before vester- day ; cf. Lk 13'», Ac 27'«- '». Ex lO'"-", 1 Mac 9«. Even the apparently stronger phrases iicriL rpeis ilfUpas (Mk 8^', Mt 27"-*') and Toeit iiiifpat icoi rpeij KixTas (Mt 12"), mean exactly the same thing ; cf. Gn 42"' '* <toi (Bero airroii tr (pvXaK^ ijfUpat rptis" ilirev
* If it had been the passover, Josephus would probably have mentioned the fact, as he does on the prenous occasion ol Caiaphas' deposition. If the passover of A.D. 37 fell on March 20-21 , I'ent^H^ost was about May S-9, seven to eight weeks after Til>eriuM" «ieatli.