[6149] About the ninth hour.' I cannot bring myself here to discuss the supposed analogous quotations of Ps. xxii. 1 in Rabbinic writings. The comparison is equally inapt and irreverent.
[6150] St. John xix. 28.
[6151] The words last quoted can, of course, and have by most writers been connected with the thirst of Christ, as the fulfilment of Ps. lxix. 21. But the structure of the sentence leads rather to the punctuation adopted in the text, while I have the greatest difficulty in applying Ps. lxix. 21 in the manner proposed, and still more grave objection to the idea that Christ uttered the words in order to fulfil the Psalm, although the word that' must, as previously shown (p. 503), not be taken in the sense of in order that.' There is, of course, a tertium quid, and the Evangelist may be supposed to have expressed only his own sense that the Scripture was fulfilled, when he saw the thirst of the Saviour quenched in the vinegar' of the soldiers. But in that case we should expect the words that the Scripture might be fulfilled,' placed after the I thirst.'
[6152] St. Luke xxiii. 49.
[6153] Whether or not he heard the words of the cry.
[6154] Comp. Tristram Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 457.
[6155] St. Matt. xxvii. 48, 49; St. Mark xv. 36.
[6156] St. John.
[6157] St. Luke.
[6158] St. Mark xv. 39.
[6159] En pessima, non tu Pervenis ad Christum, sed Christus pervenit ad te, Cui licuit sine morte mori. Sedulius.
[6160] So according to the better reading.
[6161] Comp. the use of the verb paratthemi in such passages as St. Luke xii. 48; Acts xiv. 23; xx. 32; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 2.
[6162] 1 Pet. iii. 18, 19.
[6163] Hist. v. 13.
[6164] Jew. War vi. 5. 3.
[6165] Jer. Yoma 43 c; Yoma 39 b.
[6166] So in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, from which St. Jerome quotes (in Matt. xxvii. 51, and in a letter to Hedibia) to the effect, that the huge lintel of the Temple was broken and splintered, and fell. St. Jerome connects the rending of the Veil with this, and it would seem an obvious inference to connect again this breaking of the lintel with an earthquake.
[6167] A story is told in Jewish tradition (Gitt, 56 b, about the middle; Ber. R. 10; Vayyik. R. 22, and in other places) to the effect that, among other vilenesses, Titus the wicked' had penetrated into the Sanctuary, and cut through the Veil of the Most Holy Place with his sword, when blood dropped down. I mention the legend to express my emphatic protest against the manner in which Dr. Joel (Blicke in d. Religionsgesch. i. pp. 7, 8, treating of the passage in the Midr. on Lam. ii. 17) has made use of it. He represents it, as if the Veil had been rent (Zerreissen des Vorhanges bei d. Tempelzerstörung) - not cut through by Titus, and on the basis of this misrepresentation has the boldness to set a legend about Titus side by side with the Evangelic account of the rending of the Temple-Veil! I write thus strongly because I am sorry to say that this is by no means the only instance in which Jewish writers adapt their quotations to controversial purposes. Joel refers to Dr. Sachs, Beitr. i. p. 29, but that learned writer draws no such inference from the passage in question.
[6168] Yoma v. 1.
[6169] Yoma 51 b.
[6170] Hilkh. Beth ha-Bech, iv. 2, ed. Amst. vol. iii. p. 149 b.
[6171] Yoma 54 a Kethub. 106 a; Sheqal. viii. 5.
[6172] May this phenomenon account for the early conversion of so many priests recorded in Acts vi. 7?
[6173] I dare not express myself dogmatically on the precise import of St. Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. Does it mean that they were actually clothed with the Resurrection-body, or with the body which they had formerly borne, or that many saints from out Hades appeared to those who loved them, and with them had waited for the Kingdom, in the forms which they had known? We know too little of the connection between the other world and this, and the mode in which the departed may communicate with those here, to venture on any decided statement, especially as we take into account the unique circumstances of the occasion.