ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN JOHN AND THE SYNOPTISTS.

The severest test to which writers, concerned like those of the New Testament with a common series of events, can be subjected, is a careful comparison of their statements one with another. Contradictions between them are certain to be found, unless all are thoroughly informed in regard to all particulars and unfailingly accurate in detailing them. So difficult is it to avoid such contradictions, that when they occur in reference to minor details they are not considered inconsistent with the degree of authenticity which belongs to first-class writers. When, however, the contradictions between two or more writers are numerous, and when they affect the more important events of which they speak, this is demonstrative proof that one or more of them is unreliable. On the other hand, when a number of such writers are proved to have written independently of one another, and are found to be free from contradictions, the facts which they state in common possess the highest degree of credibility. If, in addition to this, there are found numerous incidental agreements between them, the evidence of authenticity is the most conclusive known to human testimony.

Strong as this kind of evidence is when it assumes the form last mentioned, it is nevertheless more frequently and effectively employed in exposing the claims of inauthentic documents than in establishing the claims of those that are authentic. For this reason it has always been the choice weapon of the enemies of the New Testament. So many and so serious are the charges of contradiction which have been preferred against the various writers of this book, that we think it proper to consider these before we take up the evidence from this source which is in their favor. As regards the evidence set forth in the preceding chapters of this Part, there is no serious controversy between believers and unbelievers; but that which we are about to consider has been, and still is, very warmly contested, and it demands very careful attention. It is not practicable in this volume, nor is it needful for the purpose of settling the question, that we consider all the specifications which are made under this head It is only necessary to consider those on which unbelief chiefly relies; for by these the controversy is to be settled.

The alleged contradictions may be classified as follows:

I. Those between the Gospel of John and the other three, called the Synoptic Gospels;

II. Those between the several Synoptic Gospels;

III. Those between Acts of Apostles and other Books.

Before we take up these allegations for special consideration, it is necessary that we state very clearly what is meant by a contradiction. Two statements are contradictory not when they differ, but when they can not both be true. If, on any rational hypothesis, we may suppose them both to be true, we can not rightfully pronounce them contradictory. We are not bound to show the truth of the given hypothesis; but only that it may be true. If it is all possible, then it is possible that no contradiction exists; if it is probable, then it is probable that no contradiction exists; and the degree of the latter probability is measured by that of the former. This being true, it follows that an omission by one writer of a fact which in a full account would have been mentioned, and is mentioned by another, is not a contradiction. It shows that the writer who makes the omission does not give a full account; but throws no suspicion on the anther by whom the fact is mentioned.1 It follows, also, that when there is an appearance of contradiction between two writers, common justice requires that before we pronounce one or both of them false we should exhaust our ingenuity in searching for some probable supposition on the ground of which they may both be true. The better the general reputation of the writers, the more imperative is this obligation, lest we condemn as false those who are entitled to respectful consideration. With these rules of common justice to guide us, we now take up for separate examination the three classes of alleged contradictious which we have named.

I. In Part II. we have already considered two 01 the alleged inconsistencies between John and the Synoptic Gospels (pages 148-151), and we stated that all the others were based on false assumptions. We are now to see whether this statement can be made good. In testing it we shall omit for the present all that pertains to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, reserving these for separate consideration.

There are two very prominent events mentioned in John's Gospel which are discredited because they are not mentioned by any other writer. These are the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. They are discredited, not merely because they are omitted by other writers, but because it is alleged that they are so much more convincing than the wonders mentioned by the Synoptists, that the latter would certainly have used them if they had heard of them and believed them.2 It is a sufficient answer to this to remark that the other writers adopted plans for their narratives which involved the omission from them of the visits to Jerusalem with which those two miracles are connected, and which limited their accounts of the miracles of Jesus almost exclusively to those wrought in Galilee. The mention of these two would have required a reconstruction of their plan6. Furthermore, one of the reasons for which they adopted such plans may have been that these two miracles were so well known by those whom they looked to as their first readers that they thought it well to omit these and record others less familiar. Certainly the miracles wrought in Jerusalem and made subjects of public discussion there, were more familiar to the first converts of the Apostles than those wrought in the remote districts of Galilee. As the omission, then, can be accounted for by the great notoriety of these two miracles, as well as by the plans of the writers, it certainly affords no ground for suspicion that they were not known at all.

Another event mentioned by John, not so suspicious, and not miraculous, is treated in the same way. It is the arraignment of Jesus before Annas, who is said to have sent him to Caiaphas (John xviii. 13, 24), and, as alleged, the location of Peter's denial in the court of Annas.3 As to the former, its mere omission from the other narratives is no evidence against its reality; it is only an additional piece of information furnished by John which is perfectly harmonious with that furnished by the other writers. As to the latter, it is not true that John represents the denial as taking place before Annas. A careful reading of the passage will show that John describes DO proceedings at all in the "court of Annas." He says, at verse 13, that the officers led Jesus to Annas first, and that the latter was father-in-law to "Caiaphas, who was high priest that year." He distinctly calls Caiaphas the high priest, and does not give that title to Annas. He next represents himself as being known to the high priest, meaning Caiaphas, and as being emboldened by that circumstance both to enter the court and to ask the portress to admit Peter. He was then in the court of Caiaphas, and it appears to have been in that very court that the officers had led Jesus to Annas. Annas, being father-in-law to Caiaphas, may very naturally have been found in the court of the latter that morning, especially as Caiaphas had some business on hand in which his father-in-law was as deeply interested as himself. Furthermore, the very next step in the proceedings mentioned by John, the interrogation of Jesus about his disciples and his teaching, was conducted by "the high priest," the title which John applies exclusively to Caiaphas. To show that by "the high priest" all through this account he meant Caiaphas, he says "Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest" There is, then, not the slightest discrepancy between the writers; and the only difference between them is that John introduces the comparatively unimportant circumstance that when Jesus was led into the palace of Caiaphas he was presented before Annas first. This was done by the officers for the very natural purpose of showing respect to the one who was their rightful high priest, but who had been unlawfully deprived of his office by military power.

While an attempt has been made to thus discredit these three incidents in John's narrative on account of their absence from the other Gospels, on the other hand some facts recorded in the latter have been discredited because not mentioned by John. The most conspicuous of these, which must stand as representatives of all, are the Temptation of Jesus (Strauss, ii. Ill, 112); his Transfiguration (Sup. Rel., ii. 461); his Agony in the Garden (Strauss, ii. 333); the darkness attending the Crucifixion (Sup. Rel., iii. 422-424); the other miracles connected with the Crucifixion mentioned by Matthew alone (ib., 425); and the expulsion of demons by Jesus (ib., ii. 461; Strauss, ii. 191). In order to see how groundless is this objection, we have only to consider the peculiar plan of John's Gospel.

First we notice its peculiarity as respects chronology. While John's is the only Gospel that is chronological throughout, the incidents which it records are confined to a very small number of days, with wide gaps between them. Its first group of events, extending to the eleventh verse of the second chapter, occurred in the space of four days. The next group, extending to iii. 21, occupied a few days in Capernaum without incident, and a Passover week in Jerusalem. During the next twelve months, if the feast mentioned in v. 1 is a passover, there is nothing recorded except his baptizing in Judea (iii. 22), his journey to Galilee (iv. 3-43), with two days in Sychar, and one day, a sabbath, in Jerusalem (v. 10). We next find a perfect blank of twelve months (v. 1--vi. 4), and this is followed by the incidents of two consecutive days in Galilee (vi. 5, 22). Next there is another total blank of six months, followed by three days at the feast of tabernacles, ending on a sabbath (vi. 4, comp. vii. 2, 14, 37; viii. 59; ix. 14). Then there is still another blank of three months followed by one day at the feast of dedication (x. 22, 39). In the next three months, from the feast of dedication to the passover, nothing is recorded except the retirement of Jesus beyond the Jordan (x. 40-42); the four days connected with the raising of Lazarus (xi. 6, 17); and the retirement to Ephraim (xi. 54). See x. 22--xi. 55, xii. 1. Glancing back over these figures and summing them up, we find that the whole number of days occupied with recorded incidents up to the last week of the life of Jesus is only twenty-five. This result must prove a surprise to every reader of the Gospel who has not taken pains to make the count. Who would have supposed that in giving an account of a career which ran through more than three years, with the whole of which the writer was familiar, he would limit himself to the incidents of less than thirty days, and these so selected as to leave gaps between them varying from a few days to three months, and even to whole years? Yet this is what we find. Now, to argue from a narrative thus constructed, that incidents recorded by the other writers are discredited by his silence in regard to them, is to argue without the slightest regard to facts; it is to array nothing against something.  

But, second, the absurdity of this mode of reasoning appears yet more glaring when we observe the peculiar character of John's selections and omissions. He selects for insertion what the Synoptists have omitted, and makes his gaps where they have spoken, in such a manner as to demonstrate a fixed intention to do so. All three of the Synoptists advance from their respective starting points to the temptation of Jesus; but he, without mentioning that event, or anything that preceded it, begins his narrative immediately after it. Next after the temptation they all unite in following Jesus into Galilee; but he fills a gap left by them, with the reappearance of Jesus at the Jordan; his visit with five disciples gained there to Cana and Capernaum; his attendance at the next passover; and his baptizing in Judea while John was at Enon (i. 19--iv. 3). Moreover, instead of merely mentioning the fact that Jesus went into Galilee, as the Synoptists do, he describes the journey in his fourth chapter. On reaching Galilee, they remain there, each filling the larger part of his whole narrative with incidents which transpired there, while John gives just one miracle wrought there which is omitted by them (iv. 46-54), and then returns immediately to Jerusalem, to describe a visit to that city which they omit (v. 1-47). Leaving then a whole year blank, a year rich with incidents in the other narratives, he returns to Galilee, and mentions the first miracle which he has in common with them, the feeding of the five thousand; but he mentions it only for the purpose of introducing a long conversation which grew out of it next day, and which they all three omit (vi. 1-4; 22-71). The remainder of their Galilean record he omits entirely, but he touches the thread of their story at the point where Jesus finally departs from Galilee, and gives a conversation omitted by them in which Jesus discusses with his brothers the propriety of his going up to the feast of tabernacles just at hand (vii. 1-10, comp. Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1; Luke ix. 51). Skipping now all the incidents recorded by them between the passages last cited and the public entry into Jerusalem, John records incidents which they omit in that interval, the visit to the feast of tabernacles, to that of dedication, the journey beyond the Jordan, the return to Bethany to raise Lazarus, and the retirement to Ephraim, thus again filling large gaps left by the other writers while making many in his own. Finally, on reaching Jerusalem and touching their thread a second time in the feast at Bethany and the public entry, he continues throughout the closing scenes in Jerusalem to skip what they record, and to fill gaps left by them, except that he mentions in common with them the paschal supper, the betrayal, the trial, the crucifixion and the burial. In his treatment, how ever, of these common incidents, he deals almost exclusively in details not given by the Synoptists.

We think it impossible to fairly consider this remarkable feature of John's Gospel without concluding either that its author was familiar with the other Gospels, and wrote with the purpose of avoiding a repetition of their accounts, or that he was supernaturally guided to write as he did. Should we see on the freshly fallen snow three tracks along the highway made by pedestrians, sometimes close together, then far apart, then crossing one another, occasionally identical for a few steps, and then parting; and should we also observe the track of a fourth pedestrian, usually wide apart from the others, and winding about as if to avoid them, sometimes making a long leap to cross over without touching them, and when from necessity it does touch them, touching tot; to heel or heel to toe, who could make us believe that the fourth man did not see the tracks of the other three as he made his own? Even should it be proved that he made the walk in a dark night, we would be constrained to believe that he carried a lantern in his hand. Not less manifest is it that the author of our fourth Gospel must have known the other three Gospels, or that he was guided by supernatural intelligence. How idle, then, and how preposterous it is to argue that incidents found in the other Gospels which he omits are rendered doubtful by the omission.

Let it not be inferred from what we have now said of John's Gospel that we regard it as a fragmentary document, or as a mere supplement to the other narratives. While it deals with fragments of the life of Jesus, it is not alone in this, for all the others do the same; and while it furnishes information in almost every sentence not supplied by the others, and is to this extent supplementary, it fails at last, according to its own confession, to give a tithe of the incidents in that life which are omitted by them. See the statement with which it closes (xxi. 25). Instead of being either fragmentary or supplemental as its chief characteristic, it contains a unique and well sustained portraiture of Christ, distinctly conceived at the outset, and consistently filled out to the close; and the marvel is that it could be drawn while so carefully avoiding the colors employed by the other painters, and taking its lights and shades from so small a number of the days in the life which it portrays.

A third class of alleged discrepancies between John and the Synoptists consists in the omission of details by one or the other while the principal event is mentioned in common. A few examples must stand for all.

1. It is alleged that the first three Evangelists represent the multitude that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with hosannas as having come with him, while John represents them as being from the city itself, and as being moved to do so by the raising of Lazarus. The truth of this matter is that the three Synoptists omit to say whence the multitude came (Matt. xxi. 1-11; Mark xi. 1-10; Luke xix. 29-40). John alone gives us this information, and while he intimates, without saying it, that they went out from the city, he explicitly says that they were "a great multitude that had come to the feast" (Jno. xii. 12-18). Some of them had doubtless come with Jesus; for there was a multitude with him when he left Jericho (Matt. xx. 29; Mark x. 46; Luke xix. 1-4); and it is highly probable that mo6t of these followed him to Jerusalem; but the Synoptists do not affirm this, much less do they affirm that all the multitude who welcomed him thus came with him. There is here, then, no difference except that John says plainly who composed the multitude, and what chiefly moved them to act as they did, while the other Evangelists omit these details.

2. It is alleged that in the account of the arrest of Jesus the Synoptists, by representing Judas as pointing out Jesus to the guard by a kiss, are contradicted by John, who represents Jesus as being well known to the guards, and as coming forward to address them while Judas was still standing with them. Here the appearance of inconsistency grows entirely out of omissions, as is clearly seen by the fact that if the details are put together as parts of one story they are harmonious. Supposing all to be true, Judas did draw near to Jesus to kiss him, when Jesus said to him, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" (Luke xxii. 47,48). He did kiss him, and Jesus said to him, "Friend, do that for which thou art come." Jesus then stepped forward toward the officers, and demanded, "Whom seek ye?" They answered, "Jesus of Nazareth." Judas had by this time stepped back and was standing with them. Jesus says, "I am he;" and when he said this they "went backward and fell to the ground." He again demands of them whom they are seeking; receives the same response; tells them; "If ye seek me, let these go their way." Peter smites one of them and is rebuked for it; the wounded ear is healed; and then the officers, having recovered their courage, rush forward and seize him. (Jno. xviii. 4-12; Luke xxii. 50, 51). These are the statements of the several writers, and the fact that they weave together and form a consistent story shows that there is no inconsistency between them. Only when isolated details of a transaction derived from different sources are all true, are they likely, when thus brought together, to prove consistent with one another.

Before dismissing this incident, it may be worth the space to observe that while Luke and John make the sword-stroke of Peter come before the arrest of Jesus, Matthew and Mark mention it next after the arrest, and this has been treated as another contradiction. By turning to the passage in Matthew and Mark the reader can readily see that neither of them makes a note of sequence to indicate that he is following the order of time; so that this difference, like the others of the class, grows out of an omission to state precisely when the stroke was made.

3. It is alleged that John is contradicted by Mark and Luke in respect to the removal of the body of Jesus from the cross. John states that the Jews requested Pilate to have the legs of the bodies broken, and the bodies taken away; while Mark says that Joseph asked Pilate for the body of Jesus; that Pilate wondered if he were already dead; inquired of the centurion if it were so; and then granted the body to Joseph. It is argued that this hesitation on Pilate's part is impossible if he had already ordered the bones to be broken and the bodies to be removed (Strauss, ii. 394; Sup. Rel., iii. 436). The impossibility is not apparent. The affirmation of it is based on the assumption that when Pilate gave the order to break the legs of the bodies and remove them, he knew that Jesus was dead; but the text does not so affirm, neither is such knowledge implied in the order. The breaking of the legs was evidently intended to extinguish what life might yet remain in the bodies, and the order for it rather implies that none of them was supposed to be yet dead. When, therefore, Joseph came in, and asked for the dead body of Jesus, there is no ground of surprise that Pilate inquired whether he was dead, before granting the request. His hesitation evidently grew out of the fact that it was a friend of Jesus who preferred the request, and it was important to keep that body out of such hands until its life was certainly extinct. It is only the circumstance that Mark omits the request of the Jews for the removal of the bodies which furnishes apparent room for this fallacious argument. The proximity of the place of crucifixion to the palace of Pilate made it quite possible for Joseph's interposition to take place between the death of Jesus and the time at which the soldiers would have taken the body from the cross, especially if the centurion had chosen to leave that task to him after learning that he had applied for the privilege.

4. Perhaps the most remarkable of the class of alleged discrepancies now under consideration is that respecting the several accounts of the embalming of the body of Jesus. It is stated by the author of "Supernatural Religion" in the following words: "According to the first Gospel, there is no embalmment at all; according to the second and third Gospels, the embalmment is undertaken by the women, and not by Joseph and Nicodemus, but is never carried out; according to the fourth Gospel, the embalmment is completed on Friday evening by Joseph and Nicodemus, and not by the women. According to the first Gospel, the burial is completed on Friday evening; according to the second and third, it is only provisional; and according to the fourth, the embalmment is final, but it is doubtful whether the entombment is final or provisional; several critics consider it to have been only provisional. In Mark, the women buy the spices when the sabbath was past; in Luke, before it has begun; and in Matthew and John they do not buy them at all. In the first and fourth Gospels the women come after the Sabbath to behold the sepulcher, and in the second and third they bring apices to complete the burial (iii. 439)." If we accept without qualification this series of statements we should conclude that the Gospels are involved in the utmost confusion and contradiction on this point; but that the apparent contradictions are only cases of omission by one writer of details mentioned by another, can be made to appear by merely quoting this passage again with the addition of such words as will point out the real state of the case. To be a truthful representation, it should read as follows: In the first Gospel, the embalmment is not mentioned; in the second and third Gospels, the embalmment undertaken by the women, but not carried out because they found the tomb empty, is mentioned, but that by Joseph and Nicodemus is omitted; according to the fourth Gospel, the embalmment is completed so far as Joseph and Nicodemus were concerned, but that by the women is not mentioned. According to the first Gospel, the burial is completed on Friday evening; according to the second and third, it is also completed, though the embalmment is not; according to the fourth, the embalmment is final so far as was intended by Joseph and Nicodemus; there is no hint that the entombment is temporary, and the only critics who think it was are unbelievers like the author of Supernatural Religion. In Mark, the women buy not "the spices," but spices, when the sabbath is past; in Luke, they buy some before it has begun; and in Matthew and John, the purchase of spices by the women is omitted. In the first and fourth Gospels, the women come after the sabbath to behold the sepulcher, not "merely to behold it," and in the second and third, they come bringing spices to complete, not "the burial," but the embalming. Thus all of the points of alleged discrepancy in this portion of the history are only cases of omission, which can not without the grossest injustice be charged as contradictions.

In regard to the embalmment of the body, it may be well to remark, before leaving the subject, that it was not the process which bore this name in Egypt. It was not intended as a means of preserving the flesh; and it could have no other design than to provide an absorbent for the humors and gases that would exude from the body in the process of decomposition. The greater the quantity of the drugs employed, the more complete the absorption; and this accounts both for the hundred pounds weight provided by Nicodemus, and for the two purchases made by the women, one on Friday evening, and the other on Sunday morning.

As a fourth class of the discrepancies in question, we mention a few that do not depend on omissions, but have more the appearance of contradictions.

1. Mark represents the crucifixion as taking place at the third hour, or the hour, according to Jewish count, from eight to nine a. m. (xv. 25); while John represents Pilate's final sentence against Jesus as being pronounced at the sixth hour (xix. 14.) If the two writers use the same method of reckoning the hours of the day, there is here a contradiction in point of time; for the sentence that Jesus should be crucified is placed by John three hours later than the crucifixion itself is placed by Mark. An attempt has been made by some acute scholars to show that the modern usage among western nations, of counting the hours from midnight, had already been introduced into the Province of Asia, where John wrote, and that he follows this usage not only here, but in other passages of his Gospel where hours of the day are mentioned (i. 39; iv. 6, 52); but we are constrained to regard this attempt as a failure, notwithstanding its defense by some of the most eminent scholars of the present day.4 As the text now stands, we think there is a contradiction. But the discussion should not end here. Knowing, as all scholars now do, that errors of transcription crept into the Greek text at a period antecedent to all of our extant manuscripts and versions, and that numerals were especially liable to alteration from this source, it is an obvious dictate of justice, before pronouncing against an author on such a point, to consider the probability of a clerical corruption. If John wrote here "the sixth hour," he seems to have committed an error; for he contradicts not Mark alone, but Matthew and Luke as well, seeing that though the latter do not say at what hour Jesus was crucified, they do say that the darkness which came over the earth while he was on the cross commenced at the sixth hour, the very hour at which, according to this reading of John, Pilate pronounced the sentence of crucifixion. It is impossible that John was thus mistaken; and if some one of a later age, assuming to be John, is the real writer of this Gospel, it is in the highest degree improbable that he wantonly contradicted all of the other Evangelists on a point like this. We think that these considerations render it morally certain that there is here an error of transcription, the Greek numeral for "sixth" having accidentally supplanted the one written by John.

2. The Synoptic Gospels represent the women who were witnesses to the crucifixion as standing "afar off," while John says they were standing "by the cross of Jesus." This is held to be a contradiction, and so it would be if the several writers were speaking of the same moment of time; but if they are speaking of different moments of time, the contradiction disappears. That they do speak of different moments appears in the text. The remark about the women in all three of the Synoptics occurs at the close of the description, and it has reference to the closing scenes. If the women had arrived on the ground only a few minutes before the death of Jesus, all that they say would be strictly true. John, on the other hand, speaks of the beginning, or near the beginning, as appears from a little reflection. When Jesus said to his mother, "Woman, behold thy son;" and to the disciple, "Behold thy mother no one could have known to whom he spoke unless he accompanied his words by some sign to point the persons out. The natural sign would have been a movement of the hand toward the persons addressed; but his hands were pinioned to the cross, and this was impossible. The only sign left to him was the direction of his eye, and the inclination of his head as he addressed the one and the other. But this could not have been after the darkness set in, and consequently this incident must be located within the first three hours, and while the group of friends were near enough to the cross to distinguish the direction of his eve. Now, was there anything in the circumstances to make them retire to a greater distance as the dreadful hours passed on? We have but to place ourselves in the midst of the scene, and enter as best we can into the feelings of this group, in order to see that there was. The angry and blasphemous taunts of the raging mob around the cross, growing more defiant as it appeared more certain that the sufferer would not come down, made it painful and dangerous for friends to stand near by, and naturally caused them to shrink farther away from the awful spectacle. It is a most true and natural representation, then, that they were standing "afar off" when the agony ended.5

3. In nothing are unbelievers more confident than in the assertion that there is a contradiction between John and the Synoptists in regard to the night of the last supper. Mark and Luke are explicit in stating that the day previous to the supper was the day in which the paschal lamb was sacrificed (Mark xiv. 12; Luke xxii. 7). In common with Matthew (xxvi 17), Mark calls it "the first day of unleavened bread," by which they can only mean consistently the day in which, according to the law, the leaven must be put out of the houses preparatory to eating unleavened bread the next seven days (Ex. xii. 15, 18). All three unite also in representing the paschal supper as being eaten, and the Lord's supper as being instituted, on the following night, the night, according to the law just cited, after the fourteenth day of the first month. It is claimed that, in contradiction to this, John represents the supper which Jesus ate as being eaten before the passover (xiii. 1); while the fact that the remark of Jesus to Judas at the supper, "That thou doest, do quickly," was construed by the disciples as an order to buy something for the feast (xiii. 29), and the refusal of the Jews on the next morning to go into Pilate's praetorium, because it would prevent them from eating the passover (xviii. 28), are held as proof that the passover was yet in the future even on the day of the crucifixion. It is said that "we have here a contradiction as entire as a contradiction ever was, and in which one side must be wrong."6 This allegation we are now to test.

We begin by observing that the Synoptists not only unite, as we have just remarked, in styling the day previous to the last supper "the day of unleavened bread," but they also unite in styling the day of the crucifixion "the preparation." Matthew does so by styling the day following "the day after the preparation" (xxvii. 62). Luke calls it "the day of the preparation" (xxiii. 54); while Mark, appending an explanation, calls it "the day of preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath" (xv. 42). Undoubtedly they all use the term in the sense here defined by Mark, meaning by it the day of preparation for the sabbath; and by the sabbath they mean, not the first day of the feast, as some have supposed, but the weekly sabbath of the passover week. Of this we may be sure from the fact that neither the first day nor the last day of the feast, though each was a day of holy convocation and of rest from servile labor, is ever in the Scripture called a sabbath.7 If it be asked why this sabbath was preceded by a preparation day, we answer that, like the limitation of a sabbath day's journey to seven furlongs, it was a custom of the Jews unauthorized by the law. That such a custom did exist, we have further evidence from Josephus. He copies a decree of Augustus Caesar intended for the protection of the Jews, in which occurs the provision, "that they be not obliged to go before any judge on the sabbath day, nor on the day of the preparation to it, after the ninth hour" (Ant. xvi. 6, 2). There is a parallel to this custom in the preparation day observed by some of the modern sects for their observance of the Lord's supper. Now John, instead of contradicting the Synoptists on this point, uses the same phraseology with the same meaning. He too calls the day of the crucifixion "the preparation," and "the preparation of the passover;" and he indicates that he means the preparation for the sabbath, and not for the feast, by saying: "The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies might not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away" (xix. 14, 31). Thus far, then, there is perfect agreement between John and the other writers.

We next consider the three statements of John which are held to be contradictory to the other writers. First, his statement that those who led Jesus to Pilate entered not into the praetorium," that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover" (xviii. 28). It is only by forgetting a provision of the law which no Jew could ever forget that this remark can be understood of eating the paschal supper. This provision is that a person unclean from any other source than a dead body or leprosy could be cleansed by sunset the same day, by washing his clothes and bathing his flesh, and remaining unclean until the evening. (Lev. xv. 1-24; xvi. 26, 28; xvii. 15, 16). In reality, entering the house of a Gentile did not render one unclean according to the law; it was only tradition which made it so; and it could not deprive one of eating the paschal supper on the following night, because the prescribed process of purification was completed before sunset. Unquestionably, then, the eating here referred to by John was some other than that of the paschal lamb, and it was to occur before sunset that day.8 What eating is really meant we may not be able to discover; but this can not alter the fact that it was not the eating of the paschal lamb. If the remark had reference to the priests, and this may be its reference, seeing that John uses the indefinite "they" and the chief priests were certainly the persons who dealt with Pilate (28, 35), the law itself furnishes a probable explanation. It provides that on this first day of the feast the priests should offer ten burnt offerings, each accompanied by its proper meal offering, amounting in all to an ephah and a half, or about a bushel and a half of fine flour made up into bread, all of which was to be eaten by the priests. In addition to this, one he goat was offered as a sin offering, all of the flesh of which must also be eaten (Num. xxviii. 1623). It is probable that it became customary to call this consumption of holy food, which was peculiar to the passover feast, "eating the passover." It would be easily distinguished from eating the paschal lamb, by observing the day of the feast to which reference is made. If this is not the eating referred to in the passage before us, we are left to the only alternative, that it was some eating invented by the Pharisees, and called eating the passover. This passage then, furnishes no ground at all for a charge of difference between John and the Synoptists.

Second, John's statement that when Jesus said to Judas at the supper, "That thou doest, do quickly." the disciples thought that he meant" Buy what things we have need of for the feast" (xiii. 26-29). It is held that by "the feast" is meant the paschal supper; and that therefore when the supper described by John was eaten the paschal supper was yet in the future. The correctness of this inference depends on the question whether the word feast can be properly referred to anything else than the paschal supper. When we remember that the passover feast lasted seven days, and that Jesus and his twelve disciples were in the city on expense for that length of time, it must appear very arbitrary to confine the term feast, and the wants of twelve during this feast, to a single meal; yet such is the arbitrary assumption which lies at the basis of this objection. But this is not all. Judas went out at a late hour of the night, but not as late as midnight. If this had been any other night of the week than one preceding a day of rest, they could scarcely have thought that Judas went out to buy supplies for the company, seeing that he could easily wait till morning. But if the following day was a holy day, as was the first day of the feast, though not a sabbath, it might be difficult to make the purchases after the day set in,9 and thus there would be a reason for going out at night. This consideration affords no mean evidence that the supper described by John was, as the Synoptists represent it, the paschal supper, for this supper preceded the first day of the feast in which there must be a holy convocation and no servile work. Here, then, instead of a contradiction, we find in John's language concerning the feast perfect agreement with the Synoptists, and, in addition to this, independent evidence that he fixes the supper on the same night with them.

Third, John's statement which is said to explicitly locate the last supper on a night preceding the first day of the Passover. His words are these: "Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him," etc. It is claimed that the words, "before the feast of the passover," modify the whole of the narration following, and that they consequently fix the time of the supper here mentioned before the feast of the passover. We can not see that this is true. On the contrary, the first sentence is complete in itself, although the connection of its clauses is a little obscure. The obscurity is at once removed if we arrange the clauses in the order of their dependence, as follows: "Now Jesus, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world before the passover, he loved them unto the end." The clause, "having loved his own," etc., is the only one that admits of modification by the words, "before the passover." The clause about knowing his hour was come points to the time of the feast; and the clause," he loved them to the end," points to the continuance of his love from the time of the feast onward. The whole sentence is prefatory to the narrative of the feet-washing and the tender discourse which follows, all of which was a remarkable exhibition of that love that continued to the end. An advance in the narration sets in with mention of the supper; but it was anticipated in the expression, "the feast of the passover," which was itself a supper. The words, "and during supper," beginning the sentence next after the mention of the feast of the passover, can refer only to the paschal supper. It is as if one should speak of the feast of Christmas, or of Thanksgiving, and should add, And during dinner so and so occurred; or as if, after mentioning a wedding, he should add, And during supper so and so occurred. No one could think, in these cases, of any other dinner than the Christmas or the Thanksgiving dinner; of any other supper than the wedding supper. So, in the present instance, no one would think of any other than the paschal supper, from the mere reading of the passage itself. The thought of another is read into the passage; it is not suggested by it. On the contrary, the passage represents the events following as occurring at the paschal supper, and the account is in perfect harmony, as respects time, with Synoptic accounts of the same supper.10 

1 "The omission by a contemporary author to notice a fact which we, from whatever reason, may consider of the greatest moment, is a case by no means unusual. The younger Pliny, although giving a circumstantial detail of so many physical facts, and describing the great eruption of Vesuvius, the earthquake, and the showers of ashes that issued from the volcanoes, makes no allusion whatever to the sudden overwhelming of two large and populous cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii." (Lee, Inspiration, 255).

2 Sup. Rel, ii. 461-464; Strauss, New Life, ii. 223; Francis Newman, Phases of Faith, 117.

3 Strauss, New Life, ii. 346, 347.

4 See Alford on John, xix. 14, and also Westcott, Com. on John, Speaker's Commentary.

5 The author of "Supernatural Religion" (iii. 419), in attempting to correct others on this point, fell upon the truth without recognizing its force. He says: "Olshausen, Lucke and others suggest that they subsequently came from a distance up to the cross, but the statement of the Synoptists is made at the close, and after this scene is supposed to have taken place. The opposite conjecture, that from standing close to the cross they removed to a distance, has little to recommend it." The conjecture of which he can say nothing worse than that it has little to recommend it, is the very one supported by adequate evidence, as we have shown above.

6 Strauss. New Life, ii. 307, 308; Baur, Ch. Hist., i. 174.

7 It is surprising that so careful a scholar as Westcott should be mistaken, here, and should make the following remark and citations: "This day, the first day of unleavened bread, was a sabbath, on which the sabbath law of rest was especially binding (Exod. xii. 16; Lev. xiii. 7)." It is not called a sabbath in either of the passages cited. The same author further says: "To those familiar by experience with Jewish usages, as all the Evangelists must have been, the whole narrative of the crucifixion, crowded with incidents of work, would set aside the notion that the day was the fifteenth." (Introduction to Gospels, 338). He overlooks the fact, as do all others who agree with him about the day, that the "incidents of work" alluded to were all wrought by the Gentile soldiers of Pilate, and not by the Jews.

8  When Westcott says (Int. to Gospels, 337), "Nothing but the determination to adapt these words to a theory could suggest the idea that eating the passover' applies to anything but the great paschal meal," we are tempted to reply, that nothing but ignorance of the law of purification could allow a man to think that it applies to the paschal meal at all. To the argument made above, as advanced by Wieseler, Ebrard replies: "to have entered the house of a Gentile would certainly have rendered a Jew unclean, so as to disqualify him for the slaughter of the lambs in the temple, which occurred towards the close of the afternoon." (Gospel History, 308). But the question is not about slaughtering the lambs; it is about eating them; and it was not necessary that the same persons should do both.

9 Westcott says (Int. 338): "On the fifteenth such purchases would have been equally illegal and impossible;" and Ebrard says (Gospel History, 399): "It was forbidden by the law either to work, or to buy, or to sell after that time;" that is, after sunset, the 14th. But these writers forget that the law was this: "In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you" (Exod. xii. 16). Now this exception concerning that which every man may eat carries with it all such buying and selling of food as could not well be avoided. Still, buying and selling of food must have been very limited under the strict interpretations of the Pharisees, and Judas might well take the precaution to buy during the previous night.

10 For opposite views of the time of the Last Supper, and the authorities on the subject, ancient and modern, see Ebrard, Gospel History, Sec. 92; Westcott's Introduction, .335-341; Alford's Commentary in loco.