came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight.

40." Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

41. "Now in the place, where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden, a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

42. "There laid they Jesus, therefore, because of the Jews preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.”

John proceeds in his own manner to relate what his predecessors have related before him, and to add circumstances, which, as an eyewitness, came within his knowledge, and tend to make the history clearer.

38. "And after this."] We must not understand this to be an exact register, by quarters of hours, and by minutes, of what occurred subsequent to the breaking of the bones of the two thieves, and the piercing of Jesus, for it might then have been too late to go to Pilate, as the bodies were immediately afterwards taken down, but to be confined solely to the actual history after the death of Jesus. When Joseph saw that Jesus was actually dead, he went to Pilate, and begged the body.

39. A commentary entirely in the manner of John. The other evangelists either knew no

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thing of Nicodemus, who is not here a principal person, but who comes to bring spices, and do honour to his burial, or they intentionally suppress the name to prevent any personal inconvenience. The same applies to Lazarus, whose life might have been endangered, if the enemies of Jesus knew that such a proof of the resurrection was in their immediate neighbourhood. The name of Peter also, as having cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, is probably suppressed from the same cause. last supposition is to me the most probable. Nicodemus may have been from fear, a private disciple of Jesus, for although his name is honourably mentioned in the Talmud, he never appears in the Acts of the Apostles as the public defender of Christianity, nor does he even venture as far as Gamaliel, Acts v. 34, 39. Whether he was right does not affect my argument; but the fact is so, and it would have been, perhaps, indiscreet to have dragged him by name from his privacy. But, after his death, and after the destruction of Jerusalem, John might mention his name without scruple, especially as he wrote at Ephesus, and in the Greek language. The Talmud, in mentioning the name of Nicodemus with respect says merely, that Bonai, (the

Jewish name of Nicodemus) was considered to be a disciple of Jesus. Nicodemus showed himself a friend of Jesus as other good men were to Stephen, and provided for his burial; (Acts viii. 2,) the burial was always reckoned amongst the Jews a good work. (Tobit i. 17—19, ii. 4–8, iv. 17, xii. 12, 13.) But afterwards, when the persecutions became more violent against the Christians, he appears to have been passive, and, probably, did not attend the meetings of the Sanhedrim, for we should otherwise have met with his name in the Acts of the Apostles.

39." Aloes"] Not the Aloes of the shops, but the Indian, the tree of which emits a very pleasant fragrance.

"Hundred pounds' weight"] We do not know what the libra or pound is in the original. It has been generally translated "pounds," and then doubts have been raised upon the word, and upon the quantity. Some have supposed such a quantity to have been unnecessary. But this is not my doubt! I question whether

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pounds" is the right translation; it is worth while to examine it, as it occurs only here and at John xii. 3. One commentator generally follows the labours of his predecessor, and weights and measures do not enter the minds

of those whose study it is to explain words. The translation arises probably from the Vulgate, which retains the Latin word "libra," as well, as in the Latin versions made before Jerome. But this is not the case with the very old versions; nor with the old Syriac, the Philoxenian, and the two Arabic versions. We might almost imagine the Greek word " litra" to have been copied into the Latin, and by an easy transition the Latin word "libra" to have been adopted as a necessary result. I can scarcely fancy it to have been a pound; it is used solely by John, and in speaking of weights and measures at Jerusalem, we should suppose he meant the weights and measures in use amongst the Jews, as the appropriate Hebrew word occurs in the Talmud. I conclude them, therefore, to be Jewish weights. The Jews had no pounds, but shekels, minas, and talents; and we are not accustomed to sell spices by pounds, but by drams and ounces; and, besides, in the Talmud it is not a pound, but the twenty-fourth part of a pound. Buxtorf has the place in his Lexicon. But how came the Jews to have the Roman libra? We can conceive the B to be changed into a T more easily in copying than in speaking. But Julius Pollux will show us it

is originally a Sicilian word; it is not likely, therefore, to have been borrowed from the Latin, or to have been synonimous with it; for we know that the Sicilians did not borrow their geometrical knowledge or their technical words from the Romans, who learnt in their island the existence of such a science as mathematics. I do not contend, but I think it probable, that the word is oriental, and that it comes from the Syriac and the Talmud, for there were formerly great Phoenician and Carthaginian colonies in Sicily; Phoenician was the language in use, and some old Sicilian coins, now extant, are Phoenician. The Sicilian name of a weight (for the Phoenicians were merchants, who naturally weigh their goods, and spread the name of their weights and measures,) might well, therefore, be Phoenician, and Phoenician is nothing more than Hebrew. If we then put away the word "pound" out of our consideration, and presume it to have been inserted from clerical error or insufficient knowledge, we may inquire what the Greek word "litra" means. Although "litra,' according to Buxtorf, is equally applicable to weights and measures, yet, as this relates to weights only, I shall confine myself to them. If the name is Sicilian, we must look to Sicily