III. Did Christ celebrate this Feast? Ii was tirst suggested by Kepler that tin- ioprrj tSiv 'lovSaiup of John v, 1 was the feast of Purim. The notion has been confidently espoused by Petavius, Outram, Lamy, Hug. Tholuck, l.iicke. < Ushausen. Stier, Wieseler, Winer, ami Anger (who, according to Winer, has proved the point beyond contradiction), and is favored by Alford and Ellicott. The question is a difficult one. Ii seems i- tx generally allowed that the opinion of Chrysostom, Cyril, and most of the father-, which was taken up by Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, and Bengel, that the feast was Pentecost, and that of Cocceius, thai it was Tabernacles (which is countenanced by the reading of one inferior MS.), are precluded by the general course of the nar- rative, ami especially by John iv, 35 (assuming that t lie words of our Lord which are there given were spok- en in seed-time) compared with v. 1. The interval in- '. a comparison of these texts could scarcely have extended beyond Nisan. The choice is thus left between l'urim and the Passover.
Tin- principal objections to l'urim are. (a) thai it was not necessary to go up to Jerusalem to keep the festi- val; (6) thai il is not very likely thai our Lord would
have made a poinl ol paying especial honor to a festi- val which appear- in have had imt a very small relig- ious element in it, and which seems rather to have I. ecu i he mean- of keeping alive a feeling of national revenge and haired. Ii i> alleged, on the other hand, that our Lord'- attending the feasl would he in harmony with Iii- deep sympathy with the I.. Inc.;- of the Jewish
' people, which went further than hi- merely "fulfilling all righteousness" in carrying out the precept- of the Mosaic law. Ii i- further urged that the narrative of John is hoi made out by supposing that the incident
at the i 1 of Bethesda occurred al the festival which
was characterized by showing kindness to the poor, and that our Lord was induced, by the enmity of the Jews then evinced, not to remain at Jerusalem till the Passover, mentioned John \i. 1 Stiet .
The identity of the Passovet with the feasl in ques- tion has been maintained by Irenaais. L.u-i hiu.-. and
It loret, ami. in modern times, by Luther,
(.rutins. Hengstenberg, Gresswell, Wander. Tholucl:, Robinson, and the majority of commentators. The principal difficulties in the way are, (a) the omission of t lie article, involving the improbability thai the greal festival of the year should be spoken of as "a
feasl of the .lew- :" (6) thai a- I ■ur 1. "id did
to the Passover mentioned John vi, I, he must have absented himself from Jerusalem for a year and a half. thai is. till the feasl of Tabernacles (John vii, 2). Against these points ii l- contended thai the applica- tion of totiTi) without the article to the Passover is countenanced by Matt, xxvii. 15; Luke xxiii. 17 (o mp. John xvih. 39 i : indeed.it makes hut little difference in Hellenistic Greek whether the article is present or ahsetii with a noun thus in regimen with a following genitive; thai ii is assigned as a reason for his staying away from Jerusalem for a longer period than usual, thai " the .lews sought to kill him" (John \ ii. 1 : r\'. v, 18); thai this long period satisfactorily account- for the surprise expressed by his brethren (John vii. 3); and thai, as it was evidently his CUStOI \ i-il Jeru- salem once a year, he went up to the feast of Taher- I nacles (vii, 2) instead of going to the Passi still more conclusive argument in favor of the Passover is the use of the peculiar epithet SevrtpoirptnToc, in Luke
vi, 1, for the Sabbath following, which can mean ther
than that occurring after the Paschal week. Moreover, the fact of the ripe bul unharvested barley at that time leads to the same conclusion. See Pjvssovkr.
The arguments on one side are best sit forth by Stier and Olshausen on John v. 1. I>y Keplei Chronica, Frankfort, 1615), and by Anger i Dt Temp, in Act, A post. i,21); also, in Hug's Jntrod. (pt. ii, § 64), and in Locke's Comment. on St.. John's Gospel (see the Engr lish translation ofLilcke's Dissertation in the appendix to Tittmann's Meletematn Sacia, or a Comma St. John's Gospel, in Bib. Cabinet, vol. xlv) ; those on the other -ide. by Hengstenberg (Christology vol. ii, -on the Seventy Weeks of Daniel," p. 108 111. Engl. irausl.. Washington, 1839); Robinson, Ilarn on the "Second Passover;" and Neandcr, Lift ofChrist, i lid. See also Lic.htfooi. Kuini'.l. and Tholuck, on John v, 1, and Gresswell, Diss. viii. vol. ii ; Ellicott Lect. Id."..
IV. Literature. — See Carpzov, App. Crit. iii, 11; Re- land, Ant. iv, 9; Schickart. l'urim sivt Bacchanalia Judaorum (Crit. Sac iii, col. 1184) ; Buxtorf, S xxix. The Misbnical treatise MegiUa contain- direc- tions respecting the mode in which the scroll should ho written out and in which ii should he read, with other matters, not much to the point in hand, connected w ith the service of the synagogue. See also Stauben, La Vit Juive en Alsact ; Mills. British Jeics,p. If inield. Betrachten O^B bs (Erlang. 1807 : Bible Educator, iii. 26. See Esthi r.