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sabbath, falling upon the Easter feast, when só many hundred thousand Jews were collected at Jerusalem, not merely from the Roman, but from the Parthian dominions, and from the extreme East, seemed to form an exception in their favour, and to justify their application for the removal of a sight, so publicly offensive to the adherents of the Mosaic law. They, therefore, acted upon it, and Pilate acceded to their prayer. This may, indeed, have been the case at other Easter festivals, for upon great occasions, executions of any celebrity were ordinarily postponed, in order to make the greater impression, and the governor was in general then at Jerusalem, although he usually resided at Cæsarea. I have no means of knowing who the Jews were, who made this request to Pilate; whether the Sanhedrim, who are sometimes designated by John, "the Jews," or whether they were foreign Jews, who were shocked at the spectacle. If the first, the application must have been early, when Pilate condemned Jesus, and in this case we must translate it "they had besought," (npornoav,)—if the last, the application must have been, in all probability, late before sun-set, and subsequent to Joseph of Arimathea requesting the body of Jesus, after

he had expired. What I am here saying, I shall explain more fully hereafter, when I come to treat upon ostensible contradictions, between John and Mark, and which, as far as I can trace, has not been noticed by the enemies of Christianity.

"Because it was the preparation,”]—namely, Friday. These words, and not as is generally done, those only which follow, should be put into a parènthesis. John uses them to make intelligible to his readers what he says, "that the bodies should not remain upon the cross, upon the sabbath-day." By this he informs us, that it was upon the day answering to our Friday, when Christ was crucified and died. I here feel myself called upon to explain more minutely the meaning of the word “ preparation," (πapaσkevǹ,) as it occurs in Mat. xxvii. 62. Mark xv. 42, where it is explained, as being the day before the sabbath, (πpoσaßßarov,) Luke xxiii. 54. John xix. 19-42., and here in this 31st verse of the same chapter, the importance of the word, as well as our German translation by Luther seems to require it. I would venture to say, that one half of those who read it, conceive it to be the holy evening before the feast of the passover; and it is thus that many,

even learned men, have reasoned, saying, the sabbath was so great, because the first Easterday, which was a sabbatical festival, fell upon the weekly sabbath, and it has been used even in some instances, as an argument against the truth of the resurrection. The passages, the most illustrative of this word, are to be met with in Wetstein, Walch, and Dufresne. It is worth while to condense and to submit to the reader the sentiments of these writers. The Jews, not those who lived before the Babylonish captivity, (for amongst these last we find no traces of it,) but those who conformed to the subsequent tenets of the Pharisees, strictly observed the Friday afternoon from three o'clock, as a preparation for the sabbath, or as an holy evening, according to our notions of time. The supper (for fasting is not a sabbatical festival, when friends are invited and this day was one of rejoicing,) was a subject of consequence, as they began to abstain from work, with a view to sanctify the day of rest, ordained by God. Hence they named both in Hebrew, and in Chaldee, the whole Friday, "the evening," in the same way as we, in German, name the day before the Sunday, "the Sun-evening." The name, thus, came into the Arabic, and

probably into the Syrian, because the Jewish religion, previous to, and for some time subsequent to the Christian æra, was very powerful, and the prevailing religion upon the throne in many parts of Syria, in Petræa, and in Arabia Felix. Both the Syriac versions adopt this signification of the word, for wherever" preparation" is to be translated in the New Testament, the Syriac uniformly renders it "Friday.” The Jews, who spoke Greek and Latin, used the word, which in both those languages is translated by "preparation," always as signifying "Friday." The oldest and the mostimportant passage is to be met with in an edict of Augustus, and shows us that the word was already in his time used in this sense, both in Greek and Latin, whenever it related to Jewish affairs. Josephus has inserted the whole edict. in his Antiquities, b. 16, sec. 6, 3, from which the following passage is an extract. the Jews were not to be summoned before the tribunals, upon the sabbath, nor upon the preparation, preceding it from the ninth hour, (i. e. from three o'clock in the afternoon,) when the Jews withdrew themselves from worldly affairs."

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Another passage from Irenæus, who lived in the second century, is, of course, not so valu

able in respect of antiquity, but equally so in respect of precision of language; it is in his first book against Heresy, (ch. 14, sec. 6.) "Moses therefore says, that man was created on the. sixth day, which, deeply considered, is—that the second man appeared on the sixth day, which is the preparation," (or Friday,) "for the regeneration of the first man." A passage of Dioscorides is still more important-it is quoted by Wetstein, but I cannot lay my hands upon it, as he does not mention the edition. "The Syrians say," (speaking of a certain decoction, with which I am unacquainted, as the chief word is wanting,) "that given on the second, and the fourth, and the preparation," (namely, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,) "it cures fever," and he adds, "I hold this to be a great secret, for experience convinces me of its correctness." Walch ascertained a similar meaning in some of the fathers of the Church, and gives an additional light to a passage in Origen in his eighth book, against Celsus. Origen, who had previously maintained the doctrine, that "to observe his duty was to him a festal solemnity, and that consequently every day was a festival," obviates an objection, which had been made against the feasts and ceremonies of the Christians.

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