Nor, in the list of the six passovers of A.D. 28-33 there was one year, a.d. 29, in which the new moon of Nisan is placed as late as April 2, 8 p.m., and the 14th as late as April 15-18; but the argument of the last two paragraphs shows that the previous lunation, if its new moon fell in the early hours of March 4 and its 14th on March 17-19, has an equal or superior claim to he con- sidered the month of Nisan. The 14th in this case, if it fell on March 18, would actually he a Friday ; and March 18 is really the most probable of the alternatives. It is true that calciuation from the phasis of the new moon after sunset would make Nisan 1 = March 6, Nisan 14= March 19. But the caution has already been given that simple obser- vation must have been superseded before A.D. 29 by calendar rules ; and one of these rules, which may well go back to our Lord's time, was that Adar never consisted of more than 29 days ; Nisan therefore commenced a day sooner in relation to the new moon than if it had followed a month of 30 days, so that in this year Nisan 1 would rather be March 5. Suppose, further, that the equinox was calculated one day earlier than by Hippolytus, two days earlier than by Anatolius, and Nisan 14 = March 18, A.Ek 29, satisfies the equinoctial limit also.
Three years then, A.D. 29, 30, 33, satisfy the Gospel evidence for the date of the Crucifixion : and the choice between them must now be made by recourse to other authorities.
b. Tradition outside the Gospels.
1. The Jewish Date. — Though the evidence ob- tained from these supplementary sources deals, as a rule, with Roman or other civil computations, the question as between Nisan 14 and 15 is definitely answered by a continuous chain of tradition from the let cent, to the 4th.
St. Paul wrote his First Epistle to the Corinth- ians about passover-time (5* fiiore ioprdj^uifiev, cf. 16*), and paschal symbolism underlies his allusions both to the Crucifixion, 5' (KKaSaptu-e rijv TraXaidv ^VfiTjr , , . Kal y^p rb iraaxo. ijfjiwv irvdrj Xpttrr^y, and to the Resurrection, IS'" vwl Si XpurrAs iyitytprai {k weKpuip avapx^ tuv KfKot^n^pAvojv, On Nisan 14 and 16, then, the days of the sacrifice of the passover and of the offering of the first-fruits, St. Paul's Churches appear to have kept the memorials of the Crucifixion and of the Resurrection. In the next century the Quartodecimans, as their name implies, observed Nisan 14, not 15 : the theory of the Tiibingen school, that what these Johannine Churches observed on the 14th was not the Cruci- fixion but the Last Supper, is too preposterous to call for refutation. Definite testimony for the 14th, from lost writings of three ' holy Fathers of the Church,' is quoted in the Paschal Chronicle (A.D. 641 : ed. Ducange, pp. 6, 7). (i.) Claudius ApoUinaris of Hierapolis, c. A.D. 180, in his irep! ToC ricrxa Xtryot accused of ignorance those who connected the 14th, not with the true Lord's pass- over, the great Sacrifice, but with the Last Supper,* ajid put the Crucifixion on the 15th, on the sup-
' strictly, of course, the Last Supper and the Cniciflxion were on the same Jewish day ; hut early Christian usage soon began to use, even for these days of the lunar month, not the Jewish reckoning from sunset to sunset, but the ordinary reckoning from midnight to midnight. Apollin&ris distingiii^bes the two days just in the same way as Clement puts the washing of the feet on the 13th, the Passion on the 14th.
posed authority of St. Matthew's Gospel : a view, he says, which is out of harmony with the law, — apparently because the paschal lamb is an OT type of Christ, — and sets the Gospels at variance with one another, obviously because St. John wag admitted to give the quartodeciman date, (ii.) Clement of Alexandria, in a work bearing the same title, contrasted the years before the Min- istry, when Christ ate the Jewish passover, with the year of his preaching, when he did not eat it, but suffered on the 14th, being himself the paschal Lamb of God, and rose on the third day [the 16th], on which the Law commanded the priest to offer the sheaf of first-fruits, (iii.) Hip- polytus of Portus, in his De pascha and ^ dv. omnet luereses [to be distinguished from the now recov- ered longer treatise, Refutatio omnium ?ueresium], asserted that Christ ate a supper before the pass- over, but not the legal passover : oStos yap ijv ri Hiaxa tA xpoKtKtipvyiUvov Kal TtXeioiiUfOn t^ uiptafUvTi Vfiipif.
Of other early writers Irenaens (IV. x. I) is hardly clear ; but Tertullian {adv. Jud. 8)* seems to imply Nisan 14. Africanus is quite unambiguous, trpd 5i TT}$ fuai toO xdffxa tA irepl rdv IZurT^pa avvi^Tj {Chronicon, fr. 50 ap. Routh, Eel. Sac. ii. 297). Even as late as the end of the 4th cent, three writers, all specialists on chronology, can still be cited on the same side : Epiphanius, Hcer. 1. 2, Wei yip rdi^ Xpterrdi' iv TeffffapetTKatSeKdTTj ij^Up^ dieaSai; Ps.-Chrysostora (A.D. 387: ed. Bened. viii. App. p. 281), the Crucifixion fulfils the Mosaic ordinance that the lamb should be sacrificed be- tween the evenings on the 14th ; Julius Hilarianus (A.D. 397 : de die pascha et mensis xv, ap. (Jallandi, viii. 748), the sacrifice of a lamb from the flock is replaced by the sacrifice of the Lord Christ himself on luna xiv. Add to these Anon, in Cramer's Catena in Mt. p. 237, and Orosius, Hist. vii. 4. 15, the darkness took place iv tj i5' TnUpq TTis (rjXiJcTjs, quartam decima7n ea die lunnm, as well as the Paschal Chronicle itself and the svvToii.ot Si.-fnn'"-^, an Egyptian system incorporated Lq it (ed. Ducange, pp. 221, 225).