[6053] St. Luke.
[6054] I cannot conceive any sufficient ground, why Keim should deny the historical character of this trait. Surely, on Keim's own principles, the circumstance, that only St. Luke records it, would not warrant this inference. On the other hand, it may be characterised as perhaps one of the most natural incidents in the narrative.
[6055] I can only account for it by the prejudices of party feeling, that one of such fine and sympathetic tact as Keim should so strangely have missed this, and imputed, especially to St. John, a desire of obscuring the element of weakness and forsakenness (u. s. p. 401).
[6056] See vol. i. pp. 62, 63, 119.
[6057] Certainly not from the field.' The original, it is now generally admitted, does not mean this, and, as Wieseler aptly remarks (Beitr. p. 267) a person would scarcely return from labour in the field at nine o'clock in the morning (St. Mark xv. 25).
[6058] This is shown in Tosaph. to Chag. 17 b, and admitted by all Rabbinic writers. (See Hoffmann, Abh. u.d. Pentat. Ges. p. 66.)
[6059] St. Mark xv. 21.
[6060] Acts xiii. 1; Rom. xvi. 13.
[6061] xv. 22.
[6062] phrousin.
[6063] St. Luke xxiii. 27-31.
[6064] kptonto ka thrnoun atn. Gerhard remarks: ut kptesthai sive plangere est manuum (Bengel: pertinet ad gestus), ita threnen est oris et oculorum (Bengel: ad, fletum et vocem flebilem).'
[6065] as St. Luke also records.
[6066] Hos. ix. 14.
[6067] War vi. 3. 4.
[6068] Hos. x. 8.
[6069] Rev. vi. 10.
[6070] But Nebe denies the use of ladders, and, in general, tries to prove by numerous quotations that the whole Cross was first erected, and then the Sufferer lifted up to it, and, only after that, the nails fastened into His Arms and Feet. Strange though it may seem, the question cannot be absolutely decided.
[6071] Mass Sem. ii. 9; Bemid. R. 10.
[6072] Sanh. 43 a.
[6073] The two alleged discrepancies, between St. Matthew and St. Mark, though, even if they did exist, scarcely worth mention, may be thus explained: 1. If St. Matthew wrote vinegar' (although the best MSS. read wine'), he, no doubt, so translated literally the word Chomets ({hebrew}) which, though literally, vinegar,' refers to an inferior kind of wine which was often mixed (comp. Pes. 42 b). 2. If our Greek text of St. Matthew speaks of wormwood' (as in the LXX.) - not gall' - and St. Mark of myrrh, we must remember, that both may have been regarded as stupefying, perhaps both used, and that possibly the mistake may have arisen from the similarity of words and their writing - Lebhonah, myrrh,' Laanah, wormwood' - when {hebrew} may have passed into {hebrew} - the {hebrew} into {hebrew}.
[6074] Sepp, vol. vi. p. 336, recalls the execution of Savonarola between Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico, and the taunt of his enemies: Now, brother!'
[6075] Professor Westcott beautifully remarks: These three languages gathered up the result of the religious, the social, the intellectual preparation for Christ, and in each witness was given to His office.
[6076] See next page, note 1.
[6077] The better reading there is, basiles tn 'Ioudaon otos.
[6078] H.E. v. 1.
[6079] Probably it would read Jeshu han-Notsri malka dihudaey ({hebrew} - or else {hebrew} - {hebrew}). Both have four words and, in all, twenty letters. The Latin inscription (St. Matthew) would be, Hic est Jesus Rex Judæorum - five words and twenty-two letters. It will be seen how each would fill a line of about the same length. The notice of the three languages in St. Luke is spurious. We retain the textus receptus of St. John xix. 19, as in any case it seems most unlikely that Pilate would have placed the Latin in the middle and not at the top. The Aramæan would stand last.
[6080] St. John xix. 21, 22.
[6081] Comp. here the account of St. Matt. (xxvii. 39-43) and of the other Synoptists.