2. The chiefs of the twelve tribes, and probably the chiefs or heads of other families. These were called "elders."

3. Learned men by profession. They are termed, in the Bible, scribes. Amongst them there were many Pharisees. If we are now to distinguish the high council, or synod, according to its classes, we should say with the evangelists, "the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes." It will be immediately perceived that the third class of members are not all named, and he who has read the Acts of the Apostles with any attention, (ch. iv. 1, 2. v. 34-39. xxiii. 6, 7, 8,) will easily see, that the Sadducean high priests could not have had much inclination to convey the intelligence of the reported resurrection of a dead man to Pharisees, who would, probably, have defended it from a principle of party. The words, however, do not convey any thing of the kind, and, indeed, such an assembly of the whole Sanhedrim, would have been so completely ineffectual, that the idea is not to be entertained. In fact, this would have created a great sensation, when the object of the chief priests was to secure the utmost tranquillity and secresy. The transaction must have been known to so many, that humanly

speaking, perfect silence was not to be expected; nay, even in the Sanhedrim, there was a certain member known to be attached to Jesus, Nicodemus, for instance, to whom Hannas and Caiaphas would not have communicated the intelligence, which the keepers gave, and whom they could not, without considerable offence, have excluded, if they had convened the whole council. I conceive the case to have been, that Hannas and Caiaphas held a private meeting at one of their own houses, to which some elders, but only the most confidential, were invited, and consulted, what was to be done. The article, (Twv πреoßvreрwr,)" with the elders," does not say expressly that all the elders were present: but even the article, as it is in the Greek, is not from Matthew, but his translator, and it might have been with "elders."

12. A question has here been raised, how could Matthew have known this, when the soldiers said, what the chief priests had previously enjoined them. The answer is easy. If we suppose the gospel of Matthew to have been written early, it must have been written within at least eight years after the event, and all the soldiers could for eight years have scarcely continued in the same story under the

impression of money alone; their comrades, either in a moment of ridicule at their incredible fit of sleeping, or even in confidence, or in a state of elevation from liquor, must have heard the truth, so that the mystery was gradually known, and Matthew and the disciples of Christ became acquainted with it. It has been observed, even by the enemies of Christianity, that the soldiers, if they had been pressed upon the subject, would hardly have kept the real truth from their own countrymen. The probability is, they would have related the marvellous history to their friends, upon the principle, that the more extraordinary the history, the more difficult the concealment.

Large money."] Literally, sufficiently numerous shekels of silver, and probably as many shekels of silver as they required. The Greek word in the plural signifies " shekels," but in the Cambridge manuscript it is in the singular," silver," and silver is money.

13. The words are not so to be understood, as if the soldiers had themselves seen the disciples steal the dead body, for such a fiction, although it has been alleged by some writers, would be too contradictory, but that they were all asleep; the first who wakes, sees the grave

open; he awakes the others, they find the grave empty; the dead body must have been stolen in the interval, and none, but the adherents of Jesus, could have stolen it; but even it remains a very improbable narration, that several soldiers, at the least four, should have been sentries from three to six, that they should all have fallen asleep, and so soundly too, that the disciples should have been able to roll away the great stone from the grave, and carry away the dead body, without being perceived; this is not probable.

14. Pilate was to be easily softened down with money, and he was, besides, desirous of gratifying the chief priests, because he was afraid his exactions in Judea might be a subject of complaint at Rome.

15. "And this saying is commonly reported amongst the Jews until this day."] It it satisfactory to us, to know the real objections, which the Jews of those days made to the resurrection of Jesus, and as Matthew wrote in Palestine, we may be tolerably well assured, what was the real objection, and the current rumour of Jerusalem. If this saying, “that the disciples of Jesus had stolen his body, whilst the keepers slept," had not been current

in Jerusalem, Matthew would not have had the confidence to have written it, and to have exposed himself both to Jews and Christians, as an evident liar, since every reader would immediately have said, that, of such a report, they had not heard one syllable. But if this was, in point of fact, the town talk of Jerusalem, and the objection of the enemies of Christianity, two propositions became essentially confirmed by the admission of its adversaries.

1st. The sepulchre was, up to the third day, under a guard of Roman soldiers, and

2nd. The same sepulchre was at the commencement of the third day found open, empty, and without a dead body.

Justin Martyr in his correspondence accuses the Jews of having sent people into all parts of the world to propagate the story of the stolen body. But this does not appear probable to me, as the other evangelists, who wrote out of Palestine, do not find it necessary to mention the report. It could not have been so at Rome, Alexandria, or Ephesus, Acts xxviii. 21, 22. Justin Martyr, in historical facts, is not the most authentic writer, whom