The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 86

meal on the evening of the 14th, but would have precluded th~ir participation in the chagigah ; that tbe various scenes of bearing the cross and of the Crucifixion were not impossible for Jews to have carried through on the day of holy convocatiL1n, because they mi~ht consider that the apprehension and crucifixion of Jesus was a kind of Divina service (eh. xvi. 2); and, lastly, that the references to the 1r<J.pa.'1'1C<V1J are all limited to the period of preparation of the ordinary solemnity of sabbath observance, and meant nothing more than the Frhlay before a sabbath, that it was a specially "greo.t" day because the sabbath fell in the Passover "·eek. By thus dealing with every reference to the imminence of the Paosover in the Fourth Gospel, they have endeavoured to make the two account.s entirely coincident. (2) Oo the other hand, Bleek, Gresswell, Godet, B. Weiss, Meyer, W eslcoU and Mansell (in the' Speaker's Commentary'), Plummer, Farrar, and Watkins have as strenuously endea,-oured to strengthen all the statements in the Fourth Gospel, urging thus that the synoptists themselves enumerate numerous circumstances which show thnt, o.s Jews, they could not have really meant to imply that the transactions of the night of the agony and the Crucifixion day could have been possible on a holy day of convocaUon; that Simon the Cyrenian would not have been coming iuto Jerusalem, nor have been allowed to bear the cross on that <lay; that neither the women nor Joseph would have bought or brought spices to the sepulchre, nor would priests have rolled a stone to the door of the tomb; that the entire proceedings in the. court and at Calvary were incompatible with the restrictions of the sabbath and great days of festil al; that Philo expressly excludes legal processes, 1iuca.(,w, as allowable on this day of holy convocation(' De Migratione Ab.,' i. 150); that all the supposed violations by Jesus of the sabbath would have been insig- nificant by the side of so flagrant a series of deviations from sacred and traditionary rule (Weiss, iii. 275); that even the synoptic narrative (Matt. xxvi. 5; Mark xiv. 2) shows that the intention of the chief priests was to destroy Jesus, "not on the feast day," therefore either before or after it,-a similar intention was formed by Herod A,,orippa with reference to the intended execution of St. Peter (Ads xii. 4); that the term "preparation" is not restricted to the meaning of "Friday," but in this particular connection receives a special application,-it is called the preparation of the Passover, used obviously in its broadest sense (cf. eh. ii. 23; Luke xxii. 1; Josephus, 'Ant.,' xvili. 2. 2) ; finally, that the Acts of the Apostles speak of the day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day reckoned from "the morrow after the sabbath of the Passover" (cf. Lev. xxiii. 15 ; Deut. xvi 9), so that the Easter morning and the Day of Pentecost must have fallen on the same day of the week. But in the year of our Lord's death there is no doubt that the Easter morning was a first day of the week, and this circumstance, com- bined with the universal tradition of the Church, shows that the Pentecost was also commemorated on a Sunday. Consequently, in the year when our Lord died, it becomes evident that, according to Lulci1 own narrative, the Paschal lamb was slain on the evening of the Cruci:6..x.ion. This mode of vindicating the apparent superiority of John's narrative has been adopted by some, who boldly aver that the synoptists each severally made a serious wistake in saying or implJing that the Jews kept their .Passover on the nig~~ pre- ceding the agony, rather than on the evening after the Passion, and that the trad1t1on .of the synoptic narrative was corrected by St. John, one of the apostles, who had special r=ons for accuracy with reference to this chronological detail. There is, however, no reason to conclude that the first three evangelists made any mistake as to the fact that our Lord did celebrate the Passover with his disciples, blending it with a second feast, or calling special attention to one momentous element of tl,at Passover feast, and therein instituting the "Lord's Supper," and moreover that he did so on "the night in which he was betrayed." In order to establish harmony on this hypothesis with the statements of the Fourth Gospel, we must suppose, with Gresswell, Godet, Westcott, and others, that there we.s a distinct indication in the synoptists of an anticipation of a whole day, so far as Jesus and his disciples were concerned, in the celebration of the feast itself. Thus the tone of the message sent to the certain individual (Mva) with whom our Lord had made his arrangements for the furnishing and preparing of the large upper chamber, is one of haste and surprise: "My hour is come. I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples." In other words, " l'o-morrow it will be too late. Make ready at once t<H/,a,11,"  TFrn GOSPEL ACJCOHDING TO H'r. ,JOHN. llCV