Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (830 page)

^*
See especially Tholuck and Olshausen, in loc.; Kern, Hauptthatsachen, Tüb. Zeitschr.
1836, 3, s. 5 ff.

^†
Diss. de vera notione coene Domini, annexed to Cudworth, syst. intel1., p. 22, not. 1.not the passover, can have been intended. But first, we do not know whether entrance into a Gentile house was a defilement for the day merely; secondly, if such were the case, the Jews, by a defilement contracted in the morning, would still have disqualified themselves from participating in the preparatory proceedings, which fell on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan; as, for example, the slaying of the lamb in the outer court of the temple. Lastly, in order to interpret the passage xix. 14 in consistency with their own view, the harmonists understand the
preparaIian of the passover,
p
a
r
a
s
k
e
u
h
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o
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,
to mean the day of preparation for the sabbath in the Easter week; a violence of interpretation which at least finds no countenance in xix. 31, where the
p
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r
a
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k
e
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h
is said to be the preparation for the sabbath, since from this passage it only appears, that the Evangelist conceived the first day of the passover as occurring that year on the sabbath.*

These difficulties, which resist the reference of the narrative in John to a real paschal meal, appeared to be obviated by a presupposition derived from Lev. xxiii.
5;
Num. ix. 3; and a passage in Josephus ;
^†
namely, that the paschal lamb was eaten, not on the evening from the 14th to the 15th, but on that from the 13th to the 14th of Nisan, so that between the paschal meal and the first feast day, the 15th of Nisan, there fell a working day, the 14th. On this supposition, it would be correct that the day following the last paschal meal taken by Jesus, should be called, as in John xix. 14,
the preparation of the passover,
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, because it was actually a day of preparation for the feast day; it would also be correct that the following sabbath should be called
m
e
g
a
l
h
(xix. 31), since it would coincide with the first day of the feast.‡ But the greatest difficulty, which lies in John xviii.
28,
remains unsolved; for on this plan the words,
that they might eat the passover,
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, must, since the paschal meal would be already past, be understood of the unleavened bread, which was eaten also during the succeeding feast days: an interpretation which is contrary to all the usages of language. If to this it be added, that the supposition of a working day falling between the passover and the first feast day, has no foundation in the Pentateuch and Josephus, that it is decidedly opposed to later custom, and is in itself extremely improbable; this expedient cannot but be relinquished.§

Perceiving the impossibility of effecting the reconciliation of the synoptists with John by this simple method, other expositors have resorted to a more artificial expedient. The appearance of the Evangelists having placed the last meal of Jesus on different days, is alleged to have its truth in the fact, that either the Jews or Jesus

^*
See these counter observations particularly in Lücke and de Wette, in loc.; in Sieffert über den Ursprung, s. 127 ff., and Winer, bibl. Realwörterb. 2, s. 238 ff.

^†
Antiq. II. xiv. 16.

^‡
Fritzsche, vom Osterlamm; more recently, Rauch, in the theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1832, 3, s. 537
f.

^§
Comp. De Wette, theol. Studien und Krit. 1834, 4, s.. 939 f.;
Tholuck, Comm. z. Joh. s. 245 f.; Winer, ut sup.celebrated the passover on another than the usual day. The Jews, say some, in order to avoid the inconvenience arising from the circumstance, that in that year the first day of the passover fell on a Friday, so that two consecutive days must have been solemnized as a sabbath, deferred the paschal meal until the Friday evening, whence on the day of the crucifixion they had still to beware of defilement; Jesus, however, adhering strictly to the law, celebrated it at the prescribed time, on the Thursday evening: so that the synoptists are right when they describe the last meal of Jesus as an actual celebration of the passover; and John also is right when he represents the Jews as, the day after, still looking forward to the eating of the paschal lamb.
^*
In this case, Mark would be wrong in his statement, that on the day
when they killed the passover,
o
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c
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(v.
12), Jesus also caused it to be prepared; but the main point is, that though in certain cases the passover was celebrated in a later month, it was still on the 15th day; there is nowhere any trace of a transference to a later day of the same month. — It has therefore been a more favourite supposition that Jesus anticipated the usual time of eating the passover. From purely personal motives, some have thought, foreseeing that at the proper time of the paschal supper he should be already lying in the grave, or at least not sure of life until that period, he, like those Jews who were prevented from journeying to the feast, and like all the Jews of the present day, without a sacrificed lamb, and with mere substitutes for it, celebrated a
commemorative passover,
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c
a
m
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m
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e
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t
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k
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.
^†
But in the first place, Jesus would not then, as Luke says, have kept the passover on the day
on which the passover must be killed,
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; and secondly, in the merely commemorative celebration of the passover, though the prescribed locality (Jerusalem) is dispensed with, the regular time (the evening from the 14th to the 15th Nisan) is inviolably observed: whereas in the case of Jesus the reverse would hold, and he would have celebrated the passover at the usual place, but at an unusual time, which is without example. To shield the alleged transposition of the passover by Jesus from the charge of being unprecedented and arbitrary, it has been maintained that an entire party of his cotemporaries joined in celebrating the passover earlier than the great body of the nation. It is known that the Jewish sect of the Caraites or Scripturalists differed from the Rabbinites or Traditionalists especially in the determination of the new moon, maintaining that the practice of the latter in fixing the new moon according to astronomical calculation was an innovation, whereas they, true to the ancient, legal practice, determined it according to an empirical observation of the phase of the new luminary. Now in the time of Jesus, we are told, the Sadducees, from whom the Caraites are said to have sprung, determined the time of the new moon, and with it that of the festival of the passover, which was dependent upon it,

^*
Calvin, in Matth. xxvi. 17.

^†
Grotius, in Matth. xxvi. 18.differently from the Pharisees and Jesus, as the opponent of tradition and the friend of scripture, favoured their practice in this matter.* But not to insist that the connexion of the Caraites with the ancient Sadducees is a mere conjecture; it was a well-founded objection put forth by the Caraites, that the determination of the new moon by calculation did not arise until after the destruction of the temple by the Rornans; so that at the time of Jesus such a difference cannot have existed; nor is there besides any indication to be discovered that at that time the passover was celebrated on different days by different parties.† Supposing, however, that the above difference as to the determining of the new moon already prevailed in the time of Jesus, the settling of it according to the phase, which Jesus is supposed to have followed, would rather have resulted in a later than an earlier celebration of the passover; whence some have actually conjectured that more probably Jesus followed the astronomical calculation.
^‡

Besides what may thus be separately urged against every attempt at an amicable adjustment of the differences between the Evangelists, as to the time of the last supper; there is one circumstance which is decisive against all, and which only the most recent criticism has adequately exposed. With respect, namely, to this contradiction, the case is not so that among passages for the most part harmonious, there appear only one or two statements of an apparently inconsistent sense, of which it might be said that the author had here used an inaccurate expression, to be explained from tile remaining passages: but, that
all
the chronological statements of the synoptists tend to show that Jesus must have celebrated the passover,
all
those of John, on the contrary, that he cannot have celebrated it.§ Thus there stand opposed to each other two differing series of evangelical passages, which are manifestly based on two different views of the fact on the part of the narrators: hence, as Sieffert remarks, to persist in disputing the existence of a divergency between the Evangelists, can no longer be regarded as scientific exposition, but only as unscientitic arbitrariness and obstinacy.

Modern criticism is therefore constrained to admit, that on one side or the other there is an error; and, setting aside the current prejudices in favour of the fourth gospel, it was really an important reason which appeared to necessitate the imputation of this error to the synoptists. The ancient Fragment attributed to Apollinaris, mentioned above, objects to the opinion that Jesus
suffered on the great day of unleavened bread,
t
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h
m
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,
that this would have been
contrary to the law
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;
and in recent times also it has been observed, that the day following the last meal of Jesus is treated on all sides so entirely as a working day, that it cannot be supposed the first day of the passover, nor,