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 'STRATION OF GOSPEL ORDER AND CONSISTENCY FOR 
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 ERNATIVES, UNTENABLE IN GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY 
 AND ALL THE SO-CALLED DISCREPANCIES 
 
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 ' * ef A 
 
 BV 
 
 DAVID MILNE, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 ' A READABLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY' (j HN MURRAY) ETC, 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 2v, . LONDON 
 
 excuse'^nVMARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED 
 kingdom, but^^RCH AND GLASGOW ; JOHN MENZIES & CO. 
 Rom. ix. St. Pau\ ABERDEEN : A. & R. MILNE 
 Seed, and Esau they_ 
 purposed before His DIKTV^.TW, V -~*VJ 
 CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE UNTO ni*^^ 
 had offended (Iren. v. 16; 17). It BeV
 
 tar V 
 
 The following notice of this work ('The Yearl^ 1 . 
 of the Life of Christ ') is from ' The Expositg| " 
 (T. iV T. Clark, Edinburgh) : 
 
 ' The title of this little work is well chc 
 another attempt to write the Life of Christ, 
 that has been done, and done once for all, 
 themselves, Mr. Milne endeavours to point oulthl 
 ment of the events. He shows that with eacn\s<T 
 distinct era in Christ's ministry began and endec 
 each year is again subdivided into four minor 
 four great feasts the Passover, Pentecost, Tlberna 
 and Dedication. This arrangement, so simple and telling, 
 is admirably suited for teaching purposes ; and one s first 
 suspicion, that it is too mechanical, proves unfounded. On 
 the contrary, it is quite natural and convincing. 
 
 ' But can the events of our Lord's life be exhibited in so 
 simple and harmonious an arrangement? Mr. Milne beh 
 that they can. He is perfectly familiar with the '* so-called 
 discrepancies." He. gathers them into classes ; and the mere- 
 classification of them at once proves many to be " so-called," 
 and nothing more. The points at issue are in every in- 
 stance clearly set forth, so that it is in the power of t he- 
 reader to judge fairly of the difficulty and the possibility 
 of their, complete harmony. This part of the work i 
 useful as it is timely. 
 
 ' A minute examination of the little book convinces 
 that it is admirably suited for teaching the facts of tl 
 Gospel history. In style it is exact and straightforwa^' 
 The scholar will find it well worth his attention : to 
 student it will be of exceeding value.' 
 
 The following are extracts from letters to the Author : 
 From Prof. ROBERT FLINT, D.D., LL.I)., Edinburgh 
 University : ' " The Years and Eras of the Life of Christ " 
 is obviously the result of a great amount of patient thought 
 and scholarly inquiry, and cannot fail to be suggestive and 
 instructive to those who read it.' 
 
 From the Right Rev. MANDKLL CREIGHTON, 
 LL.D., Lord Bishop of Peterborough: 'Your 
 Christ " contains a great deal of valuable informal 
 is founded upon sound knowledge and much
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OFTHE FIRST TWO CENTURIES, 
 
 ITS CONNECTION WITH PREVIOUS DISPENSATIONS 
 AND WITH MODERN IDEAS. 
 
 London : SPOTTISWOODE & CO. Price 6s. nett, post free. 
 
 THE SOUND-MINDED MAN, said Irenseus, will exercise himself daily in things 
 which God hath subjected to man's knowledge, but will not think transcend en tally 
 (Iren. ii. 27, 1 ; v. 20, 2 ; Rom. xii. 3, Gk.) In his time the leaven of a falsely- 
 called knowledge (gnosis) was working ; he was one who ' restrained ' its develop- 
 ment, requiring, like Clement of Alexandria, not ' mere bare ' but intelligent faith. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH teaches that there is over all one God and Father, 
 bearing (portans] creation and the Word ; that the Word, borne (portatum) of the 
 Father, is through all things the manifestation of God's indiscernible subsistence 
 (Iren. v. 18, I, 2 ; iv. 6, 3), the characteristic expression of His underlying hypostasis 
 (Heb. i. 3), the Face of God (irpoffairov 0eoO, persona Dei, Tert. ); that the Word 
 became flesh, visible, tangible and passible, truly suffered for men, and rose from the 
 dead (Iren. iii. 16- 18). But as we cannot know the generation of the Son, or express 
 it by human analogies (Iren. ii. 13 ; ii. 28, C), the distinction must remain a mystery. 
 The Spirit, again, is God communicated, God in deified men (Iren. iv. I, I ; iii. 6, i; 
 19, I), uniting them into one so-called ' Person of the peoples ' (Just. D. 42). God has 
 ever been working (John v. 17) by His two Hands, the Word and Spirit (Iren. iv. 20, I ; 
 v. 6, i ). But by this Triad the Early Fathers did not mean three manifestations 
 (Sabellianism), or three distinct subsistences, as if there were three Gods (Jerome, 
 Ep. xv. ) As to God's being the author of evil, we must be men before we become 
 gods ; we must first learn more certainly what good is, by some experience of evil 
 and its consequences ; but if any miss perfection, they themselves are the causes 
 of this; God's working and skill are not deficient (Iren. iv. 39). Our knowledge 
 of causation does not in such matters transcend the data of our consciousness of 
 ourselves as causes (Iren. ii. 28, 7). 
 
 ' It is by THE CONNECTION OF THE DISPENSATIONS that the conflict of dogmas 
 must be removed and the truth explained ' (Clem. S. vii. 16). Biblical predesti- 
 nation with its foreknowledge refers to this connection, and is not metaphysical or 
 fatalistic. Previous to Christ's manifestation, both Jews and Gentiles were being 
 prepared for it (Rom. ix. 23 ; Clem. S. i. 5 ; ii. 9; vi. 6), and those 'who had heard 
 of the Father and had learned were given to Christ' (cf. John vi. 37, 65, with vi. 45, 
 R.V.). Those among the Jews, who in the counsel of God were predestined to 
 sonship, were those 'who fore-hoped in Christ,' or such as cherished the Messianic 
 hope before its object appeared (cf. Eph. i. 4, 5, 6, with i. ii, 12) ; and to this end 
 the old law guided (Gal. iii. 23-25). Similarly, among the Gentiles there were men 
 ' afore-prepared unto glory,' God -fearers foreknown to God, in the sense of God's not 
 knowing workers of iniquity (Origen), worthies fore-owned, fore-recognised as His ; 
 and such were fore-ordained to be perfected in the image of God's Son (Rom. viii. 
 29, 30). If others were marred in God's hands, and then made into other vessels 
 to carry out God's will by their evil apostacy (Clem. Strom, i. 17), they had no 
 excuse in asking , ' Who hath resisted His will ? ' Pharaoh was raised up to the 
 kingdom, but not created for such vile work ; and throughout the first part of 
 Rom. ix. St. Paul speaks of the one Promised Seed, of Jacob the type of this one 
 Seed, and Esau the type of the condemned natural seed, and of God's election of Christ, 
 purposed before His birth (cf. Rom. ix. 11-13, w ^h Gal. iii. 16 ; iv. 24). 
 
 CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE UNTO DEATH pleased or propitiated the Father Whom we 
 had offended (Iren. v. 16 ; 17). It behoved Christ to be made like us (Heb. ii. 17) ; 
 and as He could not share the curse of sinfulness, entailed by the breach of the
 
 first law (Rom. v.), or become like us, sinful in habit and disposition, He took the 
 place of the serpent on the tree, He bore the likeness of sinfulness or of flesh holden 
 of sin (</"" in peccato detinebatur, Iren. v. 14, 2) when His body was nailed to the 
 tree. For the object of man's first idolatrous concupiscence was a tree (den. iii. 6) ; 
 and sinfulness consists in being joined to one's idols (Hos. iv. 17), in being held or 
 enslaved by things improperly yielded to (Rom. vi. 16; 2 Pet. ii. 19). Christ 'died 
 in that wherein He was held ' (Rom. vii. 6, Gk. ), showing that we too must re-act 
 this 'saving drama' (Clem. Exh. x. end), putting sin in our members to death. If 
 men are freed from the law of merits through Christ, they are still under the laws of 
 things, and reap the consequences of what they sow (Iren. v. 27, 28). 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL NATURE is bestowed ethically ; the Gnostics represented it as 
 deposited and developed in some men apart from the trial implied in virtue or from 
 praiseworthy stewardship. This is to represent God as a distributer of it physically 
 (Iren. i. 6, end; Clem. ii. 3, &c. ). But God is the Saviour of all men ( I Tim. iv. 10; 
 .S. vii. 2), and also their Judge, a Trier of those on whom He sends His goodness 
 (Iren. iii. 25), giving scope for virtue and sealing on each a nature in accordance 
 with the things each chooses (S. ii. 20; iv. 23). In the genesis of the New Nature, 
 the Early Fathers, like Christ (John iii. 5) and St. Paul (Tit. iii. 5), distinguished 
 between the ' Water and the Spirit,' between ' the washing of regeneration and the 
 renewal of the Holy Spirit.' The 'coming of the teaching ' is the true ' baptism of 
 the word' (/W. i. 6), constituting even children hallowed (i Cor. vii. 14), or 
 regenerated (Iren. ii. 22, 4), though not yet renewed ethically. The Spirit uses the 
 word (water) as means, for ' knowledge is quick in transforming men for the better ' 
 (S. vii. 10). The other great means is ' well-doing,' which perfects faith, for the 
 habit of it becomes nature (S. viii. 7 ; vi. 15). God's judgments are results; for- 
 giveness of sins (justification) conies first as enlightenment by faith (Iren. iv. 27, 2 ; 
 i y - 3 3) 5 but ' pardon is established according to healing ' (S. ii. 1 5 ; iv. 24 ; P. i. 7; 
 Matt, xviii. 32). If men apostatise from God's light and ways, they fall into 
 darkness or the fire of false doctrine and consequent calamities ; by separating 
 themselves from God, men lose all good things eternally, including continuance 
 for ever (Iren. ii. 34, 3; v. 27), for without the Spirit men are mere flesh and 
 blood (v. 9, 4; 12, 3). We must work out our salvation, for God works in us 
 suasively, not compulsively (iv. 39; v. i). In freedom, men's sphere is grander, the 
 trial greater, and the consequences real not typical (iv. 13; 16, 5; 27; 28). 
 
 THE BROAD OUTLINES OF HISTORY. 
 
 An artistically Coloured Chart (40 in. x 30 in. ) well mounted (price $s. nctt) ; and 
 an Explanatory Booklet (price is. netl). Post free. / f <* /-/.-i 
 
 OPINIONS OF EMINENT HISTORIANS/Sf(| 
 
 ' Very good as an historical outline, and may be useful to throw what has been 
 read into order, or as a syllabus for teaching.' BISHOP STUBBS. 
 
 'Clear and satisfactory.' BISHOP MANDELL CREIGHTON. 
 
 ' Contains some ingenious and suggestive groupings the result of much thought. ' 
 JAMES BRYCE, M.P., Prof, of Civil Law, Oxford, Author of ' Holy Roman Empire.' 
 
 'Very attractive, and I think very useful.' BISHOP HAROLD BROWNE. 
 
 ' A good means of impressing the main outlines of -chronology on the memory. ' 
 PROF. A. H. SAYCE, Oxford. 
 
 A lucid conspectus and arrangement of important events.' BP. DURNFORD. 
 
 ' An interesting work, and likely to be useful for educational purposes. I will 
 not fail to recommend it.' DEAN MERIVALE. 
 
 'Well fitted to be useful; the mediaeval part particularly good.' PROF. FLINT. 
 
 The Work is also affirmed of 'by the Headmasters of Eton, Fettes College, the 
 Edinburgh Academy, &c. 
 
 London : SIMPKIN & CO. LTD. Edinburgh : JAMES THIN.
 
 t . 
 
 w 
 
 THE YEARS AND ERAS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST 
 
 A DEMONSTRATION OF GOSPEL ORDER AND CONSISTENCY FOR 
 SYSTEMATIC TEACHING, WITH TWO SYNOPSES, SHOWING OTHER 
 
 M 
 
 ALTERNATIVES, UNTENABLE IN GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY 
 AND ALL THE SO-CALLED DISCREPANCIES 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID MILNE, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'A READABLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY* (JOHN MURRAY) ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED 
 
 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW : JOHN MENZIES & CO. 
 
 ABERDEEN : A. & R. MILNE 
 
 1892 
 
 A 2
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION. Characteristics of the Gospel Histories . . 5 
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY AND CONNECTED EVENTS 8 
 
 Synoptical Table 15 
 
 THE FOUR YEARS OR PASSOVER SEASONS of Christ's 
 
 ministry 17 
 
 THE FIRST YEAR'S MINISTRY. -Significant manifestations 
 
 without other recorded teaching 1 8 
 
 Synoptical Table , . ^ . . . 21 
 
 1 . The old elements vivified. 
 
 2. Nnu birth to see the kingdom of God. 
 
 3. Jesus baptises the people mediately. 
 
 4. The fulfilment of Messianic prophecy. 
 
 THE SECOND YEAR'S MINISTRY. The kingdom, its nature, 
 
 its laws, its apostles, miracles of healing, parables, and wisdom . 22 
 
 Synoptical Table 28 
 
 1. The new mind of God's kingdom. 
 
 2. The Lord of the Sabbath rest and His sermon. 
 
 3. The parabolic teaching of Christ. 
 
 4. The -wisdom of the Master-Scribe. 
 
 THE THIRD YEAR'S MINISTRY. Veiled mediated teaching ; 
 
 provision for the multitudes in the desert . . . . .31 
 
 Synoptical Table 37 
 
 1. The mission of the Apostles. 
 
 2. The bread of life in the desert and the leaven of doctrine. 
 
 3. Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 
 4. Jesus at the Feast of Dedication. 
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR'S MINISTRY and subsequent appear- 
 ances. The days of ascension ....... 39 
 
 Synoptical Table 47 
 
 1. Christ's ascent to suffer. The stone of foundation. 
 
 2. Institution of the Church. James first president. 
 
 3. Subsequent appearances to Paul. 
 
 4. Subsequent appearance to John. 
 
 Dispensational Developments and Aspects of the Word . .55 
 ALTERNATIVES IN GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY .... 60 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SO-CALLED GOSPEL DISCREPANCIES 63
 
 THE YEARS AND ERAS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE MAIN PECULIARITY of the following summary of the events 
 of the Gospel History is the arrangement or classification of them. 
 It will be shown, first, that at the natural l beginning of each solar 
 year of the ministry of Jesus Christ a new era of it began, and 
 that the close or consummation of each era is marked ; secondly, 
 that each year is subdivided into four minor eras, ending with the 
 four seasons or Jewish festivals, the Passover (Easter), Pentecost 
 (Whitsunday), the Feast of Tabernacles about the beginning of 
 October (the Jewish Tisri), and the Feast of Dedication, which 
 began on the 25th of Kisleu (December) and ended on the 2nd 
 of Thebet (January). It will be made evident that Jesus Christ 
 attended these festivals successively in the successive years of 
 His ministry the Passover in the first year, Pentecost in the 
 second, and the Feast of Tabernacles in the third ; that the 
 fourth year commences with His departure from the Feast of 
 Dedication (and with the Transfiguration) ; that each year bears 
 the character of the feast which He attended in it ; and that an 
 analogous development is discernible in the four minor eras of 
 each year. The Jewish year and its festivals figured largely in 
 the Old Testament economy ; and the developments thereby 
 indicated reappear in the Gospel History. The didactic advan- 
 tage of such a simple and natural grouping of the events, running 
 through the entire public ministry of Jesus Christ, is obvious. 
 Instead of appearing as a confusion of isolated incidents, very few 
 of which are assigned in the mind to their proper connection, the 
 
 1 Caesar's original intention probably was to begin the year with the 
 shortest day ; but as Jan. I B.C. 45 was the day of the new moon, he began it 
 after the shortest days. 
 
 2086347
 
 6 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 whole becomes a methodic study. Not only does classification 
 lead the way to explanation ; but that which is learned methodically, 
 with a view to system, is far more interesting, far more easily 
 learned, and takes a much firmer hold on the mind, than incidents 
 allowed to be unarranged and undigested in the mind. 
 
 THE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES which distinguish the four 
 Gospels, whether we take them from Irenaeus or from an exponent 
 of modern research, bear a striking analogy to the four stages of 
 Gospel development. St. Mark's Gospel gives us a rapid but 
 vivid and graphic ' outline of a considerable part of our Lord's 
 history, forming the historical framework of the three Synoptic 
 Gospels ; ' it wants the ' expanded and attractive narratives ' of 
 the other Evangelists and ' all the longer discourses except that 
 about the Second Advent ; ' it does not contain the Lord's Prayer, 
 and has only four Parables. It gives a bird's or an eagle's eye view 
 of thesubject, running concisely over it (o-tWo/xovKai irapurp^ovcra.v\ 
 as Irenaeus describes it (iii. n, 8), and begins by connecting itself 
 with the dispensation by Isaiah and other Hebrew Prophets, which 
 preceded. St. Matthew, again, abounds in discourses of 'great 
 literary power, theological interest, and spiritual value.' The 
 Sermon on the Mount, which is its ' chief glory,' consists entirely 
 of plain preceptive teaching, but the parable of the Unmerciful 
 Servant and Christ's identification of Himself with His needy and 
 destitute servants ' have done even more to humanise the age in 
 which we live.' His Gospel presents Him as a King adored by 
 the Magi ; but His Kingdom is within men ; Jesus is throughout 
 the Man, meek and lowly-minded (Iren. iii. n, 8), giving rest to 
 those who learn of Him (Matt. xi. 29). St. Luke's object, as 
 stated in his preface, was to give to those already catechetically 
 instructed the certainty of fuller or more perfect knowledge 
 (Iva cTriyvaJs TT)V Gur^aAeiav). It was also the desire of St. Paul, 
 whom St. Luke accompanied, that the Christians should attain 
 this more perfect knowledge (eViyvcxm) of the mystery of God 
 (Col. ii. 2). St. Luke's Gospel abounds 'in fascinating narra- 
 tives, parables, and parabolic stories.' The peculiar section of it 
 (ix. si-xviii. 14) is rich in parabolic teaching of its own; 'its 
 crowning glory is the Parable of the Prodigal Son,' because of 
 whose finding the fatted calf was killed (Iren. iii. 2. 8). This 
 sacrificial aspect of the Gospel, characterising ' the Pauline teaching 
 so prominent in it,' appears also in the priestly details of the first 
 chapters. As the Gospel of the Gentiles, it exhibits a 'cosmo- 
 politan spirit.' St. John's Gospel begins with a declaration that 
 the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us ; it exhibits 
 Jesus Christ as the Son of God, one with the Father (x. 30, 36),
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. J 
 
 as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, ' in everything a conqueror, 
 especially reigning from the cross (xvi. 33). Even in its miracles 
 it teems with teaching full of spiritual power and sublimity.' l 
 
 THE ORDER OF THE THREE LAST EVANGELISTS (Mark, Luke, 
 
 and John) is proved to be in full chronological consistency, and 
 is followed in this summary without any material deviation. It 
 will be shown that St. Luke 2 does not transpose Christ's visit to 
 Nazareth or the call of the four fishermen, but that he is 
 relating different incidents, which fit into different places of the 
 history ; that the true chronological position of the Mission of the, 
 Seventy has been misunderstood by not attending to a very 
 simple rule of historical narration ; and that in consequence of 
 this misunderstanding there is a want of harmony among the 
 harmonists. It is now generally admitted that St. Matthew's 
 order is not exactly chronological, but sometimes modified for 
 didactic purposes. Thus he groups together the miracles, post- 
 poning the healing of Peter's wife's mother and anticipating the 
 cure of the two demoniacs of Gerasa or Gadara. 
 
 1 The words marked in this paragraph as quotations are cited from a 
 small book on the Composition of the Gospels by the Rev. A. Wright, M.A. 
 (Macmillan, 1890). Mr. Wright compares the law of progress in Revelation, 
 * or the development proved by a comparison of Mark with Matthew and 
 Luke, and these again with John's personal recollections, to the change from 
 childhood through youth to manhood.' Perhaps this is too strong a state- 
 ment ; and we certainly need not follow Mr. Wright in his conjecture that 
 the first three stages were successive developments, proceeding from a common 
 centre, Mark representing the first cycle, Matthew the first and second cycles, 
 and Luke the first, second, and third cycles. Their similarities may be 
 accounted for by the long intimate intercourse between Peter, who had Mark 
 for his interpreter, Matthew, and Luke, or Luke's authorities. According to 
 the late Bishop Lightfoot, the best-founded knowledge of the composition of 
 the Gospels will be obtained by a careful study of Irenoeus and his con- 
 temporaries, and of the grounds they had for attributing the Gospels to those 
 whose names they bear. Irenseus and the early Christians believed that the 
 four aspects of the Gospel have a world -wide significance, and are due to 
 divine pre-arrangement. They identified these aspects with the four Faces 
 of the Cherubim the Eagle, the Man, the Ox, and the Lion. St. John 
 mentions these Faces in the reverse order (Rev. iv. 7) ; and this is accounted 
 for at the end of this treatise. In the dispensation by Moses there are also 
 indications of a four-fold progress, similar to that of Gospel developments. 
 
 2 St. Luke professes to write ' in order ' (Luke i. 3) ; but many 
 harmonists think that he means doctrinal, not chronological order. McClellan 
 draws up a detailed conspectus exhibiting St. Luke's Gospel in the form of 
 a long doctrinal discourse, with main headings, minor divisions and sub- 
 divisions (Four Gospels, pp. 425-438). He criticises the previous attempts 
 of Ebrard, Oosterzee, and Westcott, and finds their connections, analo- 
 gies, and titles fanciful or unsatisfactory. His own will scarcely commend 
 itself.
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY AND CONNECTED 
 
 EVENTS. 
 
 PALESTINE had, for some time before the commencement of 
 the Christian era, become a dependency of Rome. Its real 
 independence had come to an end when the rival claims of the 
 two Asmonean or Maccabean princes, the warlike Aristobulus- 
 amd the weak Hyrcanus, had been decided by Pompey in favour 
 of Hyrcanus, supported as he was by Herod's cunning father, the 
 Idumean Antipater. Pompey took Jerusalem on the Day of 
 Atonement (about October i), in the year of Rome (A.U.C.) 69 i r 
 or B.C. 63,' the famous year of Cicero's consulship (Jos. 'Ant.' xiv. 
 4, 3). After twenty-two years, during which the ambitious Anti- 
 pater had appointed his sons, Phasael to be governor of Jerusalem, 
 and Herod, a stern and vigorous prince, to be governor of Galilee, 
 the Parthians invaded Syria and Asia Minor. By their means, 
 Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, got possession of Jerusalem. 
 This was shortly after Pentecost. Herod, escaping in time from 
 Jerusalem, visited Arabia and Egypt, but made haste to get to 
 Rome in spite of very stormy weather (^ei/toivos). Here he 
 arrived shortly after the reconciliation of Antony and Augustus 
 by the treaty of Brundisium. By Antony's help Herod obtained 
 a decree of the Senate, appointing him king of Judea and de- 
 claring Antigonus to be an enemy of Rome. This was towards 
 the close of the year A.U.C. 7t4. 2 Herod stayed only seven 
 days at Rome. Antigonus, who had begun to reign shortly after 
 Pentecost A.U.C. 711, reigned for three years and three months 
 ('Ant.' xx. 10) ; Herod and the Roman general Sosius then took 
 Jerusalem again on the Day of Atonement A.U.C. 717 (Jos. 'Ant/ 
 xiv. 1 6, 4) ; and soon after, at the instigation of Herod, his 
 Maccabean rival Antigonus was put to death. Herod's accession 
 followed in A.U.C. 717, for the battle of Actium, fought in Sept. 
 
 1 The year i of the Christian era corresponds with the year of Rome 754. 
 Hence B.C. 63 corresponds with A.U.C. 754-63, or 691 ; but A.D. 63 with 
 A.U.C. 753 + 63, or 816. 
 
 * Josephus (Ant. xiv. 14, 5) says that Herod was appointed king in the 
 consulship of C. Asinius Pollio and Cn. Domitius Calyinus (ii.), and in the 
 l84th Olympiad; but as this Olympiad ended at midsummer 714 A.U.C.,. 
 Josephus must have mixed the Roman way of reckoning years with the 
 Greek ; and thus reckoned the whole of A.u.c. 714 as belonging to the 
 l84th Olympiad. But by no reckoning can the year A.U.C. 715 be included in 
 the i84th Olympiad ; and Caspari (p. 20), in attempting to do so, has by 
 mistake substituted the years of the i85th for those of the i84th Olympiad.
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY. 9 
 
 A.U.c. 723 or B.C. 31, was in the seventh year after it (Jos. { Ant.' 
 xv. 5, 2). By his victory, Augustus became sole Emperor. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF CHRIST preceded the death of Herod by at 
 least some months, and we can approximately determine the date 
 of Herod's death. Josephus tells us ('Ant.'xvii. 8, i ; 'Wars,' i. 33, 
 8) that Herod reigned thirty-seven years after his nomination by 
 the Romans and thirty-four years after he got rid of Antigonus ; 
 but the difficulty is to decide how Josephus reckoned such num- 
 bers. The Jewish year began with the first of Nisan (April), and 
 the odd months of a king's reign before his first Nisan were 
 reckoned his first year ; the months following this Nisan were 
 reckoned his second year ; and if there were any months, or even 
 days, after the king's last Nisan i, they were also counted as a 
 year. This mode of reckoning was not confined to kings' reigns 
 or to years. 1 It must have been in this way that Josephus 
 reckoned twenty-seven years between the capture of Jerusalem 
 by Pompey, A.U.C. 691, and its capture by Herod and Sosius, 
 A.U.C. 717. Both captures took place on the Day of Atonement, 
 so that there were exactly twenty-six years between them ; but in 
 all probability Josephus reckoned the odd months from the first 
 capture to Nisan i as one year, and the odd months from Nisan i 
 to the second capture as another (the twenty-seventh) year. 
 Again, Josephus reckons 107 years from Herod's accession in 
 A.U.C. 717 to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 
 August A.U.C. 823, although there were really not 106 complete 
 years. Reckoning in this way, we should conclude that Herod 
 died sometime between Nisan i, A.U.C. 750, and Nisan i, A.U.C. 751. 
 We know also from Josephus ('Ant.'xvii. 6, 4 ; 9, 3 ; 'Wars,'ii. i, 3) 
 that Herod died not long after an eclipse of the moon, and shortly 
 before the Passover. There was a partial eclipse of the moon in 
 A.U.C. 750, on the night between March 12 and i3, 2 and this 
 
 1 In exactly the same way Jesus Christ is said eight times in the Gospels 
 and once in St. Paul's Epistles to rise or have risen from the dead on the 
 third day, it being the invariable custom to call the next day but one the third 
 day, reckoning the hours preceding sunset as the first day. Not only so, but 
 Christ is said to have risen after three days (Matt, xxvii. 63, explained in 
 next verse; Mark viii. 31 ; cp. Gen. xlii. 17, 18 ; 2 Chron. x. 5, 12) ; and 
 when Jesus Christ Himself referred to the interment of Jonah for three days 
 and three nights in the whale's belly, He predicted that He would be the same 
 time in the grave. There may have been, as Lightfoot suggested, a Hebrew 
 (onah) or Aramaic equivalent of the one Greek word nychthemeron, a night 
 and a day ; but, whether or not, Jesus only followed a common way of 
 speaking, and in so doing adopted the words in Jonah. 
 
 2 There were also two total eclipses of the moon in A.U.C. 749 one in 
 March, and the other in September ; no eclipse in A.U.C. 751 and 752, but 
 a total eclipse on January 10, A.U.C. 753.
 
 10 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 corresponds best with other data. If we allow three weeks for the 
 intervening events during Herod's illness, and suppose that he 
 died in the first week of April, there would only be the objection 
 that Josephus thus counted a few days in the beginning of Nisan 
 as a whole year. The Talmudists certainly reckoned kings' 
 reigns in this way. The alternative is to suppose that the inter- 
 vening events the king's visit to the warm baths of Callirrhoe, &C. 
 were extended over several months, that he died about August 
 or September, A.U.C. 750, and that the Passover referred to was 
 that of A.U.C. 751. Herod was succeeded in Judea, Samaria, and 
 Idumea by his son Archelaus, in Perea and Galilee by his son 
 Herod Antipas, and in the northern parts of ancient Bashan by 
 Philip the Tetrarch. Archelaus was banished to Vienne in 
 A.U c. 759 (Dion Cassius), which is doubtfully called by Josephus 
 both the ninth (' Wars,' ii. 7, 3) and the tenth year ('Ant.'xvii. 13, 2) 
 of his government ; and his provinces were then governed by a 
 Roman procurator, who resided mostly at Csesarea. Philip the 
 Tetrarch died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, that is, in the 
 78/th year of Rome, after he had been tetrarch for thirty-seven years 
 (' Ant.' xviii. 4, 6). The inference from these data is that Herod 
 died about the beginning of April A u.c. 750 ; and reckoning 
 back three months for the intervening events, we have every 
 reason to believe that Jesus Christ was born about or shortly 
 before the commencement of A.U.C. 750 that is, four years 
 before the era assigned by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. 
 THE DAY OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY is approximately determined. 
 The tradition both of the Eastern and Western Churches has 
 uniformly handed down January 6, the Feast of Epiphany (Mani- 
 festation), as the day of Christ's baptism ; and there is evidence 
 that the anniversary of His birth was kept on the same day with 
 it. Epiphanius tells us expressly that the Egyptians celebrated 
 our Lord's birth on the nth of their month Tybi, which corre- 
 sponds to January 6 (Wieseler, ' E. T.,' p. 115, note 3). The in- 
 convenience of celebrating the birth and baptism on the same 
 day, the one at Bethlehem and the other at the Jordan, was one 
 reason for altering the anniversary of Christ's birth to December 25. 
 Chrysostom, writing in A.D. 387 concerning the day of the Nativity, 
 gives us to understand that until ten years previous to his writing 
 that is, up to A.D. 377 the Eastern Churches had observed 
 the anniversary of Christ's nativity on the same day as they com- 
 memorated His baptism namely, on January 6 ; but that, in 
 deference to the superior means of knowing which the Romans 
 had in the census lists, &c., they had already come to keep a 
 separate anniversary for Christ's birth namely December 25 (see
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY. II 
 
 McClcllan's 'Four Gospels,' p. 407). There is no reason to 
 depart from the general tradition of the Church that Jesus was 
 baptised on January 6 ; and St. Luke tells us that He was then 
 about thirty years old. The objection that at the season of 
 Christmas, or January 6, the shepherds of Bethlehem would not be 
 at night in the open air (uypavXovvre?) admits of explanation. 
 First, the shepherds were not ordinary shepherds, but keepers or 
 purveyors of animals for the Temple sacrifices. They had a 
 place near Bethlehem, called Migdal Eder, 'the Tower of the 
 Flock ; ' and there was a belief that the advent of the Messiah 
 would be proclaimed from it (Edersheim's ' Life of Christ,' vol. i. 
 p. 1 86). Secondly, there is no reason to disbelieve that their 
 flocks would be in the fields at this season. The Jewish Mishnah 
 speaks of them as being in the field thirty days before the Pass- 
 over ; and the rainfall in February is greater than at Christmas, 
 which in Palestine is sometimes one of the loveliest periods in the 
 year (Andrews, new edit. pp. 15-18 ; Edersheim, i. p. 87). Besides 
 this, when the spring rains cease in April, the whole country soon 
 becomes dry and barren, so that, according to the traveller 
 Barclay (' City of the Great King,' p. 423), the nomad Arabs have 
 in June to move northward with their flocks. Another argument 
 is based on what we know of the course of Abijah, to which 
 Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, belonged. It was the 
 eighth of twenty-four courses, each of which ministered in turn 
 for one week. Now we learn from the Talmud that on the day 
 of the destruction of the Temple, the gth or loth of Ab (August) 
 A.U.C. 823, the first course, that of Jehoiarib, had just entered 
 upon their ministry. Reckoning backwards, it has been cal- 
 culated (e.g. by Wieseler, Greswell, Browne, Caspari, &c.) that the 
 course of Abijah was in office during the first week of October 
 A.U.C. 748. This, therefore, was the time of the angel's appear- 
 ance to Zacharias ; and the inference from this in connection 
 with Luke i. 26 and 36 is that the ecclesiastical date of the An- 
 nunciation to Mary that is Lady Day, or March 25 is approxi- 
 mately correct, and, therefore, that Jesus Christ was born on or 
 about December 25 A.U.C. 749. l 
 
 THE DECREE OF C^SAR AUGUSTUS that there should be a 
 general census or enrolment, as the word (apographe) is translated 
 in the Revised Version of Luke ii. i, 2, is quite in harmony with 
 what we know of Augustus from other than Biblical sources. 
 
 J December 25 A.U.C. 749, is the date of Christ's birth assigned by Petavius, 
 Usher, Browne (Ordo Seculontm\ Andrews, McClellan, Edersheim, Lichten- 
 stein, and the Christian Church, while Bengel, Wieseler, Greswell, Thomson, 
 and Ellicott prefer an early date in A.U.C. 750.
 
 12 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Tacitus tells us that he wrote 'out with his own hand a summary of 
 statistics of the whole empire ' ('Annals,' 2, 1 1 ; Suet. 'Aug.' 28). 
 The enrolment or registration was with a view to taxation, and 
 seems to have been first of persons (Luke ii. 2) and, secondly, of 
 persons and property (Acts v. 37 ; Jos. 'Ant.' xvii. 13, 5). The 
 poll-tax, called census (icrjv<ros) in the New Testament (Matt. xvii. 
 25 ; Mark xii. 14), was a Roman denarius (or attic drachma), 
 valued by the revisers at %\d. (Matt, xviii. 28), but put for a day's 
 wages (Matt. xx. 9). We know both from St. Luke (Acts v. 37) 
 and from Josephus ('Ant.' xviii. i, i) that this registration was 
 exceedingly distasteful to the Jews, and provoked insurrection. 
 St. Luke tells us that 'it was first made when Cyrenius was 
 governor of Syria ; ' but the word (cye'vcro) translated ' made ' has 
 also the sense of ' accomplished,' ' effected,' or ' carried out,' in 
 St. Luke's writings (Acts xi. 28). Josephus tells us that Cyrenius 
 was appointed governor (legate) of Syria after the banishment of 
 Archelaus, that is, nine or ten years after Christ's birth, to settle 
 the affairs of Archelaus and take an account of the people's 
 effects. But Dr. A. W. Zumpt, of Berlin, has made it highly 
 probable that Cyrenius (P. Sulpicius Quirinius) also succeeded 
 Quintilius Varus as the governor of Syria about the middle of 
 A.U.C. 750, and held the office then for three years and a half. 
 He may even have previously held some subordinate office as 
 procurator or fiscal president, like Pilate and Felix, who were also 
 called governors, and in this capacity he may have carried out the 
 first registration or census ; but it is not unlikely that so un- 
 popular a measure was delayed, perhaps by the troubles connected 
 with Herod's last illness and death, and that it was not ' carried 
 into effect ' till the first or even the second government of 
 Cyrenius as legate. It was, no doubt, to make it less distasteful 
 that the Jews were first registered according to their ideas of 
 kindred and country. 
 
 THE VISIT OF THE MAGI, or Wise Men of the East, was 
 occasioned by the appearance of a remarkable star in the East, 
 which they witnessed about two years previous to their visit 
 (Matt. ii. 1 6). Now it is astronomically certain that there was 
 a brilliant conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in 
 A.U.C. 747, that this conjunction, which was in the constellation 
 Pisces, occurred three times during this year, and in next spring 
 with Mars, and must have been very conspicuous in the East. 
 There was also a Jewish tradition that such a conjunction occurred 
 in the constellation Pisces before the birth of Moses ; and, accord- 
 ingly, the Jewish commentator Abarbanel, writing in the fifteenth 
 century, and before Kepler calculated this conjunction, laid it
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY. 13 
 
 down that such a conjunction in Pisces would herald the advent 
 of the Messiah (Wieseler, p. 59). Kepler saw similar conjunctions 
 of these planets in Dec. 1603, and spring 1604. Next autumn 
 a brilliant star appeared near them. Other evanescent stars 
 have, however, been seen by Tycho Brahe and others to come 
 into view and slowly to disappear, as if into distant space ; and 
 we do not know how much about the star of Bethlehem was 
 miraculous. We do not, therefore, have sufficient data to decide 
 what this star was. According to Justin Martyr (' Dial.' 78), the 
 voice from Ramah, spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet (Jer. xxxi. 
 15 ; Matt. ii. 17, 18), was this visit of the Magi ; for he says that, 
 even in his time there was a place in Arabia called Ramah (cp. 
 Gen. x. 7). The lamentation and weeping did not constitute the 
 voice, but followed it ; and Rachel is represented as weeping for 
 her children, because she was buried at or near Bethlehem. 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE CHILD JESUS FROM EGYPT followed 
 the death of Herod. As Herod died shortly before the Passover, 
 the child Jesus may have been called out of Egypt about the time 
 of the Passover, as Israel, the type of God's Son, was called out 
 of Egypt at the time of the Passover (Hosea xi. i ; Matt. ii. 15). 
 The family returned to Nazareth. The name which the Jews 
 would give to Jesus would therefore be Nozri that is, Nazarene 
 and this word sums up their idea of the divinely appointed Branch, 
 called Nezer by Isaiah (xi. i), and Zemach by Jeremiah (xxiii. 5; 
 xxxiii. 15) and Zechariah (iii. 8). Their liturgy spoke of the 
 Branch of David speedily to ' shoot forth,' and blessed Jehovah, 
 who causes to ' branch forth' the horn of salvation (isth Eulogy). 
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE the boy Jesus attended the Passover 
 with His parents. ' Only on two days of the Passover,' says Dr. 
 Edersheim (i. 246), ' was personal attendance necessary.' On the 
 first day the Paschal lamb was eaten at night, and, after day came, 
 the festive sacrifices of the feast (Chag) or festivity (Chagigah), 
 were offered and eaten. The second day was a high day, because 
 on it the people assembled in holy convocation before the Lord 
 in the Temple, and an omer of the flour of the first reaped barley 
 was waved before the Lord. After this 'there was nothing of 
 special interest to detain the pilgrims,' and Joseph and Mary 
 probably availed themselves of the permission to go home. But 
 during the rest of the Passover week ' it was usual for the mem- 
 bers of the Temple Sanhedrim to come out upon the terrace of 
 the Temple and to teach' (p. 247). Among these doctors the 
 parents of Jesus found Him ' both hearing them and asking them 
 questions,' and astonishing them by His understanding and dis- 
 cernment. Of these doctors the bulk of the Rabbinist or Pharisaic
 
 14 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 section belonged to the school of Hillel (like Gamaliel) ; their 
 ideal kingdom was that of a divinely-instituted rule of the Rabbis; 
 they were inclined to keep aloof from the ignorant people who 
 knew not the law (John vii. 49). The school of Shammai, again, 
 was intensely national or Zealot. Their maxim, M\ Camochah 
 .Saalim yehovah (Who is like thee among the gods, Jehovah?) 
 made with its initials the word Maccabee, and showed them to be 
 opposed to all lordship except that of Jehovah. The Boethians, 
 whom we may identify with the Herodians, united moderate 
 Pharisaic principles with political attachment to the reigning 
 family. They were named from Boethus, an Alexandrian priest, 
 whose son Joazar Herod on his death-bed had made high priest. 
 Joazar, however, had taken the popular part against Archelaus, 
 and, with a view to conciliate the Romans, had persuaded the 
 Jews to submit to the taxing of Cyrenius. But, in spite of this 
 assistance, Cyrenius, legate of the province of Syria, in which 
 Judea was now incorporated, distrusted Joazar, and appointed 
 Annas, or Ananus, high priest in his place. Afterwards the office 
 was mostly held by Annas himself, or members of his family, and 
 after Christ's death Annas continued to be the chief director in 
 the counsels of the Sanhedrim. Annas and his family were 
 Sadducees, serving the Roman government as its instruments, and 
 allowing the Pharisees to carry out their strict religious formali- 
 ties, although they disbelieved in much of them ; they were 
 somewhat sceptical, but, like Caiaphas, guided by expediency 
 (John xviii. 14). Coponius, the first Roman procurator of Judea, 
 now held office under Cyrenius, legate of Syria. 
 
 FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER THIS PASSOVER JeSUS lived at 
 
 Nazareth, continuing subject to His parents, working at Joseph's 
 occupation as a carpenter (Mark vi. 3), and growing in wisdom 
 and in favour with God and man. 
 
 JOHN THE BAPTIST BEGAN HIS MINISTRY in the fifteenth 
 year of the hegemony or rule of Tiberius Caesar (Luke iii. i). 
 St. Luke, however, must have reckoned this rule to commence 
 with the appointment of Tiberius in January 765, A.U.C., to 
 administer the provinces as the colleague of Augustus, and as 
 having equal authority (a</uum jus] with him. Augustus died on 
 March 19, A.U.C. 767, or A.D. 14. Pontius Pilate had entered 
 upon his office shortly before John's ministry began, for Pilate 
 was ten full years governor of Judea, and left very shortly before 
 the death of Tiberius, which took place on March 16, A.U.C. 790, 
 or A.D. 37 (Jos. 'Ant.' xviii. 4, 2). Pilate, therefore, entered on his 
 office in the early summer of A.U.C. 779, and John must have 
 entered on his office about October i, A.U.C. 779, at the com- 
 mencement of what Wieseler shows to have been a Sabbatical
 
 THE EARLY GOSPEL HISTORY. 15 
 
 year ; that is, if John appeared about October i, some months had 
 intervened after Pilate's arrival, and some months again inter- 
 vened 'before the baptism of Jesus. John was the last of the 
 prophets (Matt. xi. 13), and came to close the dispensation by them. 
 When the Jews asked why he baptised, seeing he was neither Elijah, 
 nor the Messiah, nor that prophet, they probably had in their 
 minds the words of Ezekiel (xxxvi. 25-27) : 'I also will sprinkle 
 clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ... a new heart 
 will I give you,' &c. Though John did not claim this consum- 
 mation for his baptism, yet his baptism was the highest level to 
 which the previous dispensational elements attained ; it was 
 related to them as the perfect cleansing spoken of by Ezekiel was 
 to the initiatory stages of Christianity, and there may therefore be 
 some significance in the season when John commenced his 
 ministry, when compared with what occurred afterwards at this 
 season. The scene of John's labours was the neighbourhood of 
 the Jordan, and the wilderness of Judea. Now this might be 
 somewhere not far north from the mouth of the Jordan ; or it 
 might be in Judea beyond Jordan, as St. Matthew calls it 
 (Matt. xix. i) that is, in Northern Perea or Bashan. There was 
 also a wilderness of Judea in the far south, but this was not the 
 wilderness of John's baptism, as it was not beside the Jordan. 
 
 Synoptical Table of Early Gospel History. 
 
 Christ's Birth and Mission heralded 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 St. Matthew begins his Gospel with i. 
 the Hebrew Book of Generation, 1 or 1-17 
 pedigree of Jesus Christ as the son. and 
 heir of David and Abraham. 
 
 St. Mark connects the beginning of u i. i 
 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the end 
 of Hebrew line of prophets in John the 
 Baptist's mission. 
 
 St. Luke states in his preface that i. 1-4 
 
 his history was written for the fuller in- iii. 
 
 struction of catechumens, and extends 23-38 \ 
 
 Christ's genealogy 2 to Adam. 
 
 1 To make up St. Matthew's second list of fourteen generations reckon 
 Jechonias I. as Jehoiakim, and Jechonias II. as Jehoiachin. The three 
 names have all the same meaning in Hebrew, namely, ' whom God hath 
 established.' Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, descendants of Athaliah, are omitted. 
 
 2 The genitive relation translated ' son of in St. Luke's genealogy admits 
 of other meanings, as ' father,' 'brother,' &c, and might mean 'reputed son
 
 16 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 St. John begins his Gospel by setting i. 
 
 forth Jesus Christ as God's Word, by 1-14 
 
 whom all things were made, who became 
 man to reveal the Father. 
 
 The birth of John " was announced i. 
 
 beforehand by an angel to Zacharias, and 5~ 2 5 
 
 the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary, i. 
 
 whose hymn is called the Magnificat. 26-56 
 
 Joseph was informed in a dream that i. 
 Christ's birth was of the Holy Spirit. 18-25 
 
 On the birth of John, Zacharias blessed i. 
 
 the Lord in the hymn called Benedictus. 57~8o 
 
 Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem ii. 
 
 about December 25, A.U.C. 749, B.C. 4. 1-7 
 
 An epiphany (manifestation of God's ii. 
 
 glory), with angels singing Gloria in 8-20 
 
 Excelsis, proclaimed this to shepherds, 
 keeping animals for Temple sacrifices. 
 
 On the eighth day, the child was cir- ii. 
 
 cumcised ; and, forty days after His 21-40 
 
 birth, He was presented in the Temple, 
 when Simeon declared His mission. 
 
 Also Wise Men, guided by a star, came ii. 
 from the East to worship Him as King ; 1-12 
 but Herod, hearing from them of His ii. 
 birth, killed all the babes in Bethlehem. 13-18 
 
 Joseph and Mary, after fleeing to ii. 
 Egypt, brought the child to Nazareth. 19-23 
 
 At the age of twelve, the boy Jesus ii. 
 
 went to the Passover with His parents. 41-50 
 
 During nearly eighteen years Jesus vi. ii. 
 
 worked as a carpenter, growing in wisdom. 3 51,52 
 
 About Midsummer or October, A.D. 26, iii. i. iii. 
 John the Baptist began his public ministry. 1-12 2-8 1-18 
 
 (Luke iii. 23), or ' son-in-law.' Thus, if Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli, 
 we have in St. Luke the genealogy of the mother of Jesus. So Salathiel, or 
 Shealtiel, was the son of Jehoiachin (Matt. i. 12) and probably son-in-law of 
 Neri (Luke iii. 27). If we adopt the Revised Text of Luke iii. 23, and read 
 ttv vl6s, &>s fvofii^tro 'ld>ff^i<f>, TOV 'H\), perhaps we should rather translate, 
 being the son, as Joseph was reputed, of Heli,' that is, being the grandson of 
 Heli, as Joseph was reputed to be his son (see Andrews).
 
 THE FOUR YEARS OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 
 
 THERE WERE FOUR PASSOVER SEASONS during the public 
 ministry of Jesus Christ. This was early pointed out by Irenseus 
 (ii. 32, 3), who in reckoning them made also the important state- 
 ment that, during the last of them, Jesus ' both ate the Passover 
 and suffered on the following day.' The points at issue with those 
 who would reckon three instead of four such seasons or years 
 may be briefly indicated. All the three Synoptists (Matthew, 
 Mark, and Luke) relate the plucking of the ears of corn by the 
 disciples and place it at some interval of time, more or less, before 
 that Passover, near the time of which the Five Thousand were 
 fed. Now, if the Passover referred to was that of the same year 
 in which the ears were plucked, the ministry of Jesus Christ 
 would cover one year less than it would cover if the feeding of 
 the Five Thousand was at the Passover of the following year. 
 But ripe ears of corn could not be had, even in the early spots of 
 Palestine, before the beginning of Nisan (April) ; and the Passover 
 was sacrificed on the i4th of Nisan. If therefore the Passover 
 when the Five Thousand were fed was that of the same year 
 when the ears were plucked, then we should have to crowd into the , 
 space of something like ten days, or at most a fortnight, all the 
 intervening events mentioned by St. Mark and St. Luke the 
 Great Sermon, several great miracles, perhaps two circuits, Boat 
 Parables, the visit to Gergesa (Gerasa), the Mission and return of 
 the apostles, &C. 1 We have the alternative of following the order 
 of St. Matthew, who places the Sermon on the Mount, the visit to 
 Gerasa, and the Mission of the Apostles before the plucking of the 
 ears of corn. But, as has been said, St. Matthew's order seems to be 
 modified by didactic considerations ; and when the order of two 
 Evangelists (Mark and Luke) coincides, it must be considered to 
 be chronological, for two writers following independent lines of 
 didactic order would probably not so agree with one another. 
 This consideration also sets aside the conclusions of some others, 
 who, rather than admit this year or Passover season, regard the 
 order of details in all the three Synoptists as not chronological 
 but determined by didactic combinations, although they admit 
 
 1 Wieseler, in his Synopsis of the Four Gospels (pp. 164, 285), attempts to 
 do this ! In this way he limits the mission of the apostles to one day ! 
 
 B
 
 1 8 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 certain chronological limits within which the incidents occurred. 1 
 But this supposition is needless, for why should not the ministry 
 of Jesus Christ extend to four years, especially if the second- 
 first day, mentioned by St. Luke (vi. i) as being the Sabbath on 
 which the ears of corn were plucked, was the second day of the 
 Passover required and trie first day of counting the weeks to 
 Pentecost ? 
 
 THE FIRST YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 
 
 A.D. 27. 
 Significant Manifestations without other Recorded Teaching. 
 
 This year (A.D. 27) begins with the baptism of Jesus by John 
 on or about January 6, and ends, as we shall show, with Christ's 
 declaring Himself at Nazareth to be the fulfilment of Messianic 
 prophecy, before His settlement at Capernaum. Whatever other 
 things Jesus may have this year taught, the Gospels only record 
 certain significant manifestations of Himself and announcements 
 of the coming Spirit and true worship, without explanations or 
 specific moral directions. The character of the first year's minis- 
 try was shown at the Passover which Jesus attended this year. At 
 the Passover He predicted His own death and resurrection, thus 
 giving a sign of a New Temple ; and of these two fundamental 
 facts the Pauline theology is an exposition. The discourse with 
 Nicodemus is merely a declaration of the coming of the Holy 
 Spirit consequent on the lifting up of the Son of Man ; and the 
 baptising through the disciples was an outward and visible sign of 
 what was to be fulfilled in the progress of Christianity. 
 
 Ax His BAPTISM Jesus was 'about thirty years of age, begin- 
 ning' (Luke iii. 23), that is, entering upon the canonical age of the 
 priesthood (Num. iv. 3, 23) and the age when the typical King 
 David began to reign (2 Sam. v. 4). Every priest was consecrated 
 to his office by baptism and by anointing with oil (Lev. viii. 6, 12). 
 Now this consecration was fulfilled in the case of Jesus by the 
 baptism of John and by the descent upon Him of the Holy 
 Spirit, typified by the oil of consecration. 
 
 AT HlS FIRST POST-UAPTI8MAL PASSOVER, JeSUS cleansed 
 
 the Temple courts ; and, in answer to the question of the Jews, 
 'What sign showest thou, seeing that thou doest these things?' 
 Jesus referred to His own death and resurrection, and indicated 
 that He would thereby supersede the Temple service and raise up 
 a new and cleansed Temple. But the Jews thought that He 
 
 1 Caspar! (Introduction, p. 152) and Edersheim (Life of Christ, vol. ii. 
 pp. 51-55), by omitting this Passover season, come to this conclusion.
 
 THE FIRST YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 19 
 
 spoke of rebuilding Herod's Temple, which, with its courts, had 
 been already forty-six years in building. l 
 
 THE DISCOURSE WITH NICODEMUS took place after the mira- 
 cles which Jesus did at the Passover had become well known 
 (John ii. 23 ; iii. 2). The visit, therefore, could not have taken 
 place till the end of the Passover ; and it may have occurred some 
 weeks later, not improbably at the following Pentecost. The 
 Passover was the season of Christ's death and resurrection ; and 
 accordingly it was at the Passover that Christ first prominently 
 announced these events. So Pentecost was the season when the 
 disciples were directed to await the promised Spirit ; and as the 
 day was thus of importance, it is not improbable that Christ first 
 prominently announced to Nicodemus on the day of Pentecost 
 the coming of this Spirit. The Spirit came at Pentecost with the 
 sound of a rushing mighty wind ; and so, in the conversation with 
 Nicodemus, Jesus compares the coming of the Spirit to the wind. 
 It is sufficient, however, to assign this conversation generally to 
 the period between the Passover and Pentecost, or to the time of 
 the Pentecostal harvest. 
 
 THE BAPTISING BY JESUS MEDIATELY through His disciples 
 took place in some country district of Judea, and 'after these 
 things,' that is, after the discourse with Nicodemus. This bap- 
 tising was peculiar work, and being begun would probably continue 
 some time. As the discourse with Nicodemus connects itself in 
 its substance with the feast of Pentecost, so by this putting His 
 disciples ' before His face ' to baptise in His name, we are re- 
 minded of what Jesus afterwards said at the Feast of Tabernacles 
 (John vii. 38, 39), namely, that those who believed in Him would 
 receive from Him living water, and dispense it to others. This 
 idea of veiled and mediated teaching was indicated by Isaiah 
 (xl. 10 ; Ixii. n) when he speaks of the coming of the Lord and 
 His putting 'His work (recompense) before His face.' The 
 baptism of the Word (AoytKos^Sa7rTio-/xos), as Clement of Alexandria 
 calls it (' Psed.' i. 6), was a covert (parabolic) way of presenting 
 
 1 Herod began to build the Temple in the i8th year of his reign (Jos. 
 Ant. xv. n, l). Reckoning from A.u.c. 717, we should have the proper date 
 of Christ's first post-baptismal Passover, for 717 + 17 + 46 = 780 A.u.c. We 
 have here a confirmation of the date of Christ's birth, A.u.c. 750: but un- 
 fortunately another account is given in Josephus, Wars, i. 21, i, where 
 Herod is said to have rebuilt the Temple in his I5th year. Caspari reckons 
 the 1 5th year from the death of Antigonus, and the iSth year from Herod's 
 nomination by the Romans : and, as this method gives too early a date for the 
 other data, he concludes that somewhere Josephus miscounted two years. It 
 is more likely that some blundering scribe changed the number (Wieseler, 
 p. 52, note). 
 
 B 2,
 
 20 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Himself, as Israel (God's Son) appeared under a covering (of 
 booths) at the Feast of Tabernacles. 'All men came to Him ' to 
 be so baptised (John iii. 26). Accordingly we are warranted in 
 connecting this baptising by Jesus through His disciples with the 
 mediated provision He made for the multitudes in His third year's 
 ministry and with the Feast of Tabernacles, as in all probability 
 Jesus and His disciples were baptising about the season of this 
 feast, in the beginning of October. 
 
 THE JOURNEY OF JESUS THROUGH SAMARIA to Galilee, and 
 His interview with the woman at the well of Sychar, took place 
 four months before the harvest. When the people of Sychar 
 were coming out of their city to Him, Jesus pointed them out to 
 His disciples as the beginning of the harvest of the world which 
 they were to reap. 'Say ye not,' said He to them, ' it is yet four 
 months and then cometh the harvest? Behold . . . the fields 
 are white to harvest already ' (John iv. 35). Now this was not a 
 proverbial expression, for, first, no such proverb is anywhere men- 
 tioned or alluded to ; and, secondly, if it had been a proverbial 
 expression, it would have been, ' Are there not four months after 
 seed-time, and then cometh the harvest ? ' ; and, thirdly, in Pales- 
 tine, there are six months between the seed-time and the harvest. 
 Dr. Edersheim (vol. i. 419, 420) supposes that Jesus pointed to 
 the fields literally ripe for harvest, and admonished His disciples 
 at the same time that it was a mistake to say in their hearts that 
 the Messianic kingdom or spiritual harvest of the world was still 
 months distant ; that sowing and harvesting in the spiritual world 
 are often commingled. But He bade them not disconnect 
 Christian sowing from reaping the old preparation, as at the close 
 of the next year He showed the ideal Scribe's things new and old. 
 The Jewish harvest legally began on the second day of the Pass- 
 over, after the first omer (translated sheaf] of the barley, cut down 
 in a sheltered valley leading down to the tropical Ghor, had been 
 threshed, ground, and presented in the Temple. To make the 
 Passover correspond with the beginning of harvest and rectify 
 the calendar, an additional Adar (March), called Veadar, was 
 added every third year. Reckoning back four months from the 
 Passover, we conclude that Jesus passed through Samaria before 
 the middle of December. 1 There remained at least two weeks of 
 the year, during which Jesus visited Cana and began to teach in 
 the synagogues of Galilee. 
 
 Wieseler, Robinson, Ellicott, Meyer, Hengstenberg, Godet, Andrews, 
 and others understand that Jesus went through Samaria four months before the 
 harvest. McClellan, who places this journey at the end of May, supposes 
 that the first circuit in Galilee occupied nine or ten months of the time till the 
 plucking of the ears of corn ! So GreswelL
 
 THE FIRST YEAR OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. 21 
 
 THE YEAR is FITTINGLY CLOSED by the manifestation of 
 Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth as the fulfilment of prophecy. 
 The words of grace which He spoke, after declaring Himself to 
 be this fulfilment, are not recorded ; but it will be observed that 
 when He visited Nazareth at the close of the second year, what 
 astonished the Nazarenes was His wisdom. His manifestation 
 and words of grace are the foundation upon which wisdom builds. 
 The work which Jesus Christ fulfilled in laying this foundation 
 could not be relaid, or done away, or even altered (i Cor. iii. iJ, 
 cp. Iren. i. 10, 2 ; iii. 12, 6). The Church was built upon this 
 foundation stone, and this 'was the fulfilment of prophecy, as 
 Jesus Himself said to the Pharisees : ' Have you never read in 
 the Scriptures, the stone which the builders rejected, the same 
 was made the head of the corner?' (Matt. xxi. 16). If this does 
 not refer to Jesus Christ, we may well ask with Him, ' What then 
 does this Scripture mean ? ' (Luke xx. 17). 
 
 Synoptical Table of the First Year. 
 
 i. The Old Elements Vivified. -AT^ATITI TU 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 On January 6, Jesus was baptised, iii. i. iii. 
 when the Spirit descended on Him, and 13-17 9-11 21, 22 
 a Voice proclaimed Him God's Son. 1 
 
 He is next presented as enduring temp- iv. i. iv. 
 tation forty days in the desert. i-n 12,13 I ~ I 3 
 
 On his return to John's company, John i. 
 
 pointed Him out as the Lamb of God. 29-5 1 
 
 At a marriage at Cana, Jesus mani- ii. 
 
 fested His glory by turning water (the 1-12 
 
 Word in the old vessels) into wine. 
 
 At the Passover Jesus cleansed the ii. 
 
 Temple and, as a warrant, indicated its !3- 2 5 
 
 being raised up in His resurrection. 
 
 2. The Birth by Water and the Spirit. 
 
 After the Passover or about Pentecost iii. 
 
 Jesus declared to Nicodemus the need 1-21 
 
 1 The first word of the voice at Christ's baptism is differently given. St. 
 Matthew's form begins, 'This is my Beloved Son' (iii. 17) ; but in St. Mark 
 (i. ii) and St. Luke we read, ' Thou art my Beloved Son.' Now the Aramaic 
 or Hebrew original admits of a form combining both these, beginning Attah 
 hu, literally, ' Thou this ' or ' Thou art he,' so that the voice was, ' Thou art 
 he (this), my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' The idiom occurs 
 in Isaiah xli. 4, where Jehovah says, Ani hu, ' I this,' or ' I am he.'
 
 22 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 of a new birth, to see the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 3. Jesus Baptises the People mediately. 
 
 About the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus iii. 
 
 was baptising in Judea through His 22-36 
 
 disciples and all men came to Him. 1 
 
 4. Messianic Prophecy Fulfilled. 
 
 In December He declared Himself in iv. 
 
 Samaria to be Messiah, the Dispenser of 1-42 
 
 living Water, and showed the harvest. 
 
 Soon after He healed the nobleman's iv. 
 
 son of Capernaum with a word of power,- 43~54 
 
 and showed Himself in the Synagogue iv. i. iv. 
 of Nazareth as the fulfilment of pro- 12 14 14-30 
 phecy, but, being rejected by His country- iv. iv. 
 
 men, He went to settle at Capernaum. 13-17 31 
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 
 
 A.D. 28. 
 
 The Kingdom, its Laws, Apostles, Miracles of Healing, and 
 Wisdom. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT AT CAPERNAUM must have been about the 
 beginning of Christ's second year's ministry. In December He 
 came to Galilee, and His visits to Cana and some of the Syna- 
 gogues of Galilee, including Nazareth, would, in all probability, 
 occupy the rest of this year. With His settlement in a then 
 populous centre He began a new era of His ministry by preaching, 
 and He preached repentance, or a new mind, as the word (/Acra- 
 voia) etymologically means, and the Gospel of the Kingdom of 
 God, which, as He afterwards said, is within men. Formerly, 
 He had had disciples ; He now called men to be trained as 
 missionary agents. The year is characterised as a year of plain, 
 preceptive, and illustrative teaching. It was thus the Pentecostal 
 year of Christ's ministry, and Pentecost was the feast He 
 attended. 
 
 1 Two reasons are indicated why Jesus left Judea ; one was the imprison- 
 ment of John (Matt. iv. 12), and the other was the jealousy of the Pharisees 
 (John iv. 1-3). The one was not inconsistent with the other. 
 
 - It was perhaps to this miracle that the Nazarenes referred when they 
 challenged Jesus to do at Nazareth what they had heard of His doing at 
 Capernaum,
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 23 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE SABBATH began, in all proba- 
 bility, about the time of the Passover of the second year, for the 
 Passover was at the first beginning of harvest, at the time of the 
 year when there would be ears of corn for the disciples to pluck 
 and eat. Luke (vi. i) tells us that they did so ' on the Sabbath the 
 second-first ' (tv 2a/3/3aTo> SeuTepoTrpwra)), which might mean on 
 the second-first Sabbath according to some reckoning of Sabbaths, 
 or on a Sabbath, being the second-first day, according to some 
 reckoning of days. The expression is applicable to the second 
 day of the Passover, which was the first day of counting (sephiraJi)> 
 that is, in reckoning Pentecost, which was the fiftieth day or 
 seven complete weeks after this day of counting. The second 
 day of the Passover was, therefore, the second-the-first day of 
 counting to Pentecost, and if it happened this year to be a Sab- 
 bath, it was ' Sabbath second-first ' on which the ears of corn were 
 plucked. Again, in counting the seven weeks after the second 
 day of the Passover to Pentecost, the Jews probably counted the 
 Sabbaths exactly as the Catholic Churches count the Sundays 
 after Easter. There is some ground, therefore, for explaining 
 ' Sabbath second-first ' as being the first Sabbath after the second 
 day of the Passover. This explanation only puts the plucking 
 of the ears of corn a few days later. 
 
 In defending the action of His disciples on the Sabbath, Jesus 
 first referred to David's eating the shewbread and also giving it to 
 his followers, 1 and then called Himself also ' Lord of the Sabbath.' 
 
 1 Ahimelech was the high priest in whose days or in whose presence 
 (as the Greek preposition eVi might be translated) David ate the shewbread. 
 According to St. Mark (ii. 26), however, David ate the shewbread in the 
 days of Abiathar the high priest, or, as the Revised Version reads, (a) chief 
 priest. In 2 Sam. xx. 25, and most other passages of the Old Testament, 
 Abiathar is described as the son of Ahimelech, and as high priest with Zadok 
 after David came to be king ; but in 2 Sam. viii. 17, I Chron. xviii. 16, and 
 I Chron. xxiv. 3, 6, 31, the names are transposed, Abiathar being represented 
 as the father and Ahimelech as the son. It is shown by the pedigree of 
 Josephus that many of his priestly ancestors bore the name of Matthias in 
 succession (Life, I, 2). Annas or Ananus had a son also called Annas, and 
 also high priest (Jos. Ant. xx. 9, i). It was also not uncommon for persons 
 mentioned in the Old Testament to have two names, especially if they were 
 priests. Five instances occur in I Mace. ii. 1-5. In this way the father of 
 that Zacharias who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary (2 Chron. 
 xxiv. 20; Matt, xxiii. 35) may have borne both the names Berechiah ('whom 
 God blessed') and Jehoiada ('whom God knew'). The title translated high 
 priest is also ambiguous, meaning both the high priest and a chief priest. 
 Thus, though Joseph Caiaphas was the high priest in the time of Christ, yet 
 his father-in-law, Annas, was a chief priest, and, in fact, the chief or leading 
 priest (Luke iii. 2 ; Actsiv. 6 ; cp. Wars, Jos. iv. 3, 7). It seems unnecessary to 
 suppose that he acted as zagan or substitute tor the high priest, though he may 
 have done so.
 
 24 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 This does not merely mean that He had power to alter it ; there 
 is also a reference to the significance of the Sabbath namely, 
 to that rest (literally Sabbatism) of God, which remained in 
 David's time to the people of God, and upon which, according to 
 the writer to the Hebrews, they who had believed on Christ were 
 entering (Heb. iv. i-n). The Sabbath foreshadowed good things 
 to come, but the body foreshadowed was Christ (Col. ii. 16, 17) ; 
 and, in the very same sense, Jesus a little later in this year said, 
 ' Come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will 
 give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me ; for I 
 am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your 
 souls ' (Matt. xi. 28-30). The word here used for rest is a Greek 
 word (dvuTrawis), which in the Septuagint replaces Shabbath (pi.) 
 (Lev. xxv. 5), and Shabbaton (Ex. xvi. 23, &c.) ; and the allusion 
 to the Sabbath thus appears in the invitation of those who labour 
 and are heavy laden. The nature of the rest or Sabbatism of God 
 appears first in the institution of the Sabbath. The word Shabath 
 means properly to ' sit down ' (Gesenius) and then to ' rest ; ' and 
 when God is said to have finished His work, the Hebrew word 
 (killah\ translated 'finish,' has the double sense of our English 
 word, meaning both to 'leave off' and also to 'complete' (cp. 
 Gen. ii. i and Gen. vi. 16). God finished or completed His work 
 on the seventh day by descending (sitting down) upon it and 
 resting upon it or communicating Himself to His rational 
 creatures, as the Spirit of God also ' brooded over ' the waters at 
 the beginning. Another proof that this is the meaning of the 
 Sabbatism or rest of God is derived from the fulfilment of the 
 Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and ' sat upon ' 
 each of the Apostles (Acts ii. i, 2). This feast was also called 
 the Feast of Weeks, or, as the Hebrew has it, the Feast of 
 Sabbaths ; and, as we shall see, this was the feast which Jesus 
 this year attended, and which characterises the year. According 
 to St. Peter, ' the Spirit of God resteth upon those who in the 
 name of Christ endure reproach and trials ' (i Pet. iv. 14), and 
 this Spirit resting upon them is called by St. Paul ' the power of 
 Christ resting upon them ' (2 Cor. xii. 9). Now as it is by coming 
 to Jesus Christ, by taking on His yoke and learning of Him, that 
 the rest promised by Jesus is attained, it was proper that this 
 declaration of Himself as the Lord of this Sabbatismal rest 
 should be made at the Passover (the foundation feast) and in the 
 year characterised by plain directions and lessons, the year when, 
 as we shall now see, He attended the Feast of Sabbaths (Weeks). 
 THE UNNAMED FEAST, mentioned in John v., was probably 
 Pentecost. All would admit that the miracle done at it, and the
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 25 
 
 discourse following the miracle, relate to the Sabbath question, 
 and that this connection gives some ground for presuming that it 
 was either Pentecost or the Passover. The alternative reading, 
 { the feast of the Jews,' instead of ' a feast of the Jews,' would 
 favour the idea that it was the Passover, or the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, which was often called 'the Feast' (Edersheim, ii. 149). 
 But the following reasons make it probable that it was Pentecost. 1 
 First, if the second-first day, or second day of the Passover, and 
 first of counting to Pentecost, was a Sabbath, then the following day 
 of Pentecost was also a Sabbath ; and this agrees with the fact 
 that the unnamed feast was a Sabbath. Secondly, there is a great 
 probability that the feast in question was one of the three great 
 feasts of the Jews. Every Jew in Palestine was expected to be 
 at one at least of these feasts every year ; and, if he lived near 
 Jerusalem, he was expected to be at all three. But if this feast 
 was not one of these three, then there would be no record of the 
 presence of Jesus at any one of them during this second year, 
 which, as we have seen, cannot be omitted. But if John had 
 meant that Jesus was present at the Passover, or the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, he would probably have named the feast, whereas Pente- 
 cost had scarcely any proper name of its own, being called the 
 Fiftieth day (Pentecoste) after the Passover. It was, indeed, called 
 the Feast of Weeks, or Sabbaths ; but either this expressed its 
 being seven weeks after the Passover, or it indicated some special 
 connection with God's rest, in which case there would be a pro- 
 priety in healing the impotent man at it. Thirdly, John 
 apparently represents Jesus as present during His first year's 
 ministry at the Passover, during His second at Pentecost, and 
 during His third at the Feast of Tabernacles (McClellan's ' Four 
 Gospels,' pp. 460, 546, n. 6). Fourthly, when Jesus delivered the 
 Sermon on the Mount, He was followed by such crowds from 
 Idumea, Perea, Phoenicia, &c., as would be present at Jerusalem 
 during the beautiful season of Pentecost. Fifthly, the expression, 
 'the hour is coming and now is' (John v. 25), seems to indicate 
 the season when the Holy Spirit came that is, Pentecost (Acts ii. 
 i, 2). The feast was limited to one day ; and its distinguishing 
 rite was the offering of the two first loaves of wheaten bread, made 
 
 1 Chrysostorn, Cyril, Tatian, Calvin, Bengal, Lewin, Friedlieb, Townsend, 
 McClellan, Skene, and Vaihinger in Herzog's Encyclopaedia, think that this 
 unnamed feast was Pentecost ; Irenaeus and many others have thought it was 
 the Passover, which concluded in Pentecost (Jos. Ant. iii. 10, 6). Others, 
 including those who would not count this year, represent the unknown feast 
 as the Feast of Purim in March, or some feast towards the close of the 
 preceding year.
 
 26 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 with leaven (Lev. xxiii. 17), and, along with two lambs of the first 
 year, waved before the Lord. 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT was in all probability delivered 
 immediately after the Feast of Pentecost ; it corresponds to the 
 Sinaitic Law, or the Ten Commandments, which, according to the 
 Jewish tradition, were also given at this season. St. Matthew 
 places this Sermon before certain miracles and events which 
 really preceded it. In his plan of grouping it has been suggested 
 that he followed the order of the Old Testament history, first 
 giving the Genesis part of the Gospel ; then the Exodus of the 
 Child Jesus from Egypt ; then the account of Christ's forty days' 
 fast after the manner of Moses ; and then, immediately after this, 
 the plain precepts of Christianity, promulgated at the Mountain, 
 as the plain precepts of Judaism were promulgated at Mount 
 Sinai. Even according to St. Matthew (vii. 28, R.V.), parts of 
 the Sermon on the Mount were delivered in the hearing of ' the 
 multitudes ' (o^Xot, wrongly translated ' people ' in A. V.), that is, 
 ' on the level place ' where they were, below the summit of the 
 mountain. These parts, as recorded by St. Luke, apply to all 
 men. To the introductory Beatitudes St. Luke's account adds woes. 
 Then we have in it the law of charity or kindness to all men, the 
 golden rule, the danger of blind guidance, the necessity for a 
 tolerant, forgiving, and good spirit, and the folly of calling Jesus 
 Lord without doing what He says. The other parts may have 
 been spoken more apart, as they seem more applicable to teachers ; 
 and St. Luke, though he does not give them in the Sermon, 
 recapitulates most of them in his peculiar section towards the 
 close of Christ's ministry. In these the disciples are called the 
 salt of the earth and the light of the world, and exhorted to let 
 their good works appear. It was not to set aside the divine 
 commandments that Jesus professed to come, but to enable men 
 to keep them more perfectly in thought and word as well as in 
 outward conduct, and therefore He required that the righteous- 
 ness of the disciples should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees. The Sinaitic commandments, 'Thou shalt not 
 kill, &c.' must be fulfilled in the thoughts and intents of the heart. 
 In their alms, and prayers, and fastings, they were to avoid hypo- 
 critical pretences, and as a specimen of prayer we have the Lord's 
 Prayer. They were not to have their principal interest in the 
 things of this life, so as to hide or misrepresent the truth (the 
 light), because of Mammon worship, or because of undue anxieties 
 about such things as food or clothing, but to enter in by the 
 narrow gate of the straitened way that leadcth to life. Finally, 
 though he who both does God's commandments and teaches
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 2/ 
 
 others shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, yet to many 
 who prophesy in Christ's name and who yet work iniquity, He 
 will profess that He never knew them. We can well believe, 
 therefore, that these latter parts, bearing on the duties and dangers 
 of religious teachers, would be spoken by Christ apart on the 
 Mountain, and recapitulated towards the close of His ministry. 
 
 THE FIRST SERIES OF PARABLES, called the ' Boat Parables,' 
 begins with the Parable of the Sower. This is considered to 
 indicate that the seed was then being sown or about to be sown, 
 and this would be about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, in 
 the beginning of October or shortly after. The preceptive teach- 
 ing which characterises the year is appropriately completed by 
 these parables, because they embody the plain directions of such 
 discourses as the Sermon on the Mount in figures borrowed from 
 ordinary life, and requiring an exercise of thought. Milk, or 
 elementary teaching, is for children ; men of riper growth need 
 stronger food, which requires more elaborate digestion. Mysteries 
 also serve as a discipline for the multitudes, to still that sea ; 
 and, in speaking the Parables, Jesus 'sat upon the sea.' The 
 seven or eight parables, given all together by St. Matthew in 
 chap, xiii., were probably not all spoken on the same day. St. 
 Luke gives only the Parable of the Sower in this connection, and 
 places those of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven in his recapitu- 
 latory section (xiii. 18-21). The explanation of the first parable 
 was given privately to Christ's disciples (Mark iv. 33, R.V.), and, 
 in addition, He spoke to them three parables concerning the Hid 
 Treasure, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Sweep-net. These 
 three parables are given only by St. Matthew (xiii. 44-52), and 
 from his words (v. 53) and Mark vi. i we infer that, some time after 
 completing the series, Jesus visited Nazareth a second time. 1 
 
 THE LESSON WHICH JESUS APPENDS to the last of these 
 parables, that of the Sweep-net, indicates the perfection of that 
 teaching which characterises this year. ' Every (learned) Scribe,' 
 He said, ' who has been trained for or indoctrinated (/xa^-ev^ets) 
 in the kingdom of heaven is like a Man, the Master of a House, 
 who brings forth from His treasures things new and old ' (Matt, 
 xiii. 52). It is for such a learned teacher to work up the para- 
 bolic and mysterious, together with and by means of what is plain 
 and incontrovertible, so as to present the old faith in the new 
 form of a full-grown science ; he builds upon the old basis a 
 superstructural system, but he does not destroy or undermine the 
 old basis on which he is building. Fittingly, Jesus Christ presents. 
 
 1 So Wieseler, Tischendorf, Meyer, Stier, Robinson, Townsend, Ellicott, 
 Godet, Andrews, Keil, Edersheim, Greswell, Patritius,Lewin,Thorason,EwaUL
 
 28 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Himself at the close of this second year again in the Synagogue 
 of Nazareth, speaking words of marvellous wisdom and having 
 marvellous powers. These form the consummation of the second 
 year which begins with the preaching of a kingdom coming within 
 men's minds, which next sets forth Jesus Christ as Lord and Giver 
 of Sabbatic rest, then gives directive precepts to be followed and 
 lessons to be learned in order to enter into this rest, then parables 
 suitable to a riper age, and lastly shows the wisdom and powers 
 of the Master of the House, who Himself said that nothing is 
 hidden (in parabolic mysteries) but that it might be made manifest 
 (Mark iv. 22, R.V.). 
 
 Synoptical Table of the Second Year. 
 i. The new mind of God's Kingdom. ^ MaA Luke John 
 
 About the beginning of January Jesus iv. i. 
 began at Capernaum to preach repent- 13-17 14, 15 
 ance (change of mind), and called the iv. i. 
 four fishermen (Simon, Andrew, James 18-22 16-20 
 and John) to be fishers of men. 
 
 In the Synagogue He rebuked, silenced, i. iv. 
 
 and cast out an unclean spirit. 1 21-28 31-37 
 
 He then healed Peter's wife's mother viii. i. iv. 
 of a great fever, and others diseased. 14-17 29-34 38-41 
 
 In beginning a circuit in Galilee, He iv. i. iv. 42 
 gave a miraculous draught of fishes. 23-25 35-39 -v. n 
 
 A leper, being healed, so noised the viii. i. v. 
 matter about, that Jesus had to withdraw. 2-4 40-45 12-16 
 
 Returning to Capernaum, after some ix. ii. v. 
 months' circuit, He healed the paralytic. 1-8 1-12 17-26 
 
 Matthew, the publican, was now called ; ix. ii. v. 
 but the feast in his house was later. 2 9-17 13-22 27-39 
 
 1 Our English versions of the New Testament speak of men ' being possessed 
 with devils' or 'possessed with a devil;' but the original Greek word is 
 demonised (Sa.tfj.ovi^6ft.(foi). St. James speaks of a wisdom that is demoniacal 
 or demon-like (Sai/toviwJTjj). The New Testament writers also speak of 
 men being 'in an unclean spirit' (Mark i. 23), or having devils or demons 
 (Luke viii. 27) ; of demons being cast out or coming out of men, and St. Luke 
 speaks of Satan entering into Judas Iscariot (Luke xxii. 3). \Ve still speak of 
 men being bedevilled, or bewitched, or possessed, or not being themselves. 
 It is hard to say what is the efficient cause of such an abnormal state ; and, as 
 Irenaeus says (ii. 28, 7), ' the cause itself of the nature of transgressors neither 
 hath any Scripture related, nor apostle said, nor hath the Lord taught ; and 
 consequently we must leave this knowledge to God, lest we frame an impious 
 antitheistic hypothesis. 1 
 
 * In Hebrew and Hellenistic narration, and does not always imply
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 29 
 
 2. The Sabbath rest and the Sermon. Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 On the second day of THE PASSOVER, xii. ii. vi. 
 a Sabbath, or on the first Sabbath after 1-8 23-28 1-5 
 it, the disciples plucked ears of corn. 
 
 This, and the healing of the man with xii. iii. vi. 
 the withered hand on another Sabbath, 9-14 1-6 6-n 
 and of the impotent man at Bethesda, at v. 
 
 Pentecost, provoked the Pharisees. i~47 
 
 AFTER PENTECOST, multitudes followed xii. iii. 
 Jesus to a Mount near the sea of Galilee. 15-21 7-12 
 
 Here He appointed the Twelve v. i iii. vi. 
 Apostles, and delivered the great Sermon, -vii. 13-19 12-49 
 
 He then healed the servant of the viii. vii. 
 
 centurion, who approached Him by means 5-13 i-io 
 
 of the elders of the Jews. 1 
 
 immediate or even chronological sequence. The feast which Matthew made 
 for Jesus appears not to have been at the time of his call, but when Jairus 
 came the second time to tell Jesus that his daughter was dead. St. Matthew's 
 connectives indicate that it was then (ix. 14), upon this feast that Jesus dis- 
 coursed on the impropriety of patching an old garment with new cloth, and 
 that ' while he spake these things unto them ' Jairus came. But Jairus had 
 come shortly before, when Jesus was by the seaside, to say that his 
 daughter was dying (Mark v. 21, 23 ; Luke viii. 40, 42); and, as in the case 
 of Lazarus, Jesus seems to have waited till the girl was dead. Jairus then 
 came a second time to Jesus as He discoursed in Matthew's house. St. Luke 
 also (v. 27-39) gives the discourse about patching an old garment and in 
 connection with this feast. It may be here observed that St. Luke's word (<rx'C" 
 or erxiVei) translated in the Authorised Version ' maketh a rent," is in the 
 Revised Version translated ' he will rend (the new '), so as to introduce 
 another reason. But, even if we accept the Revised translation, one reason 
 does not exclude the other. Both reasons may well have been assigned. 
 
 1 In the Greek of Matthew's account (viii. 5) the compound verb 
 (irpofftpxonai) with the dative is translated ' come to,' but in the Septuagint, 
 or ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is the basis of much 
 of the New Testament diction, this compound (irpo<r(pxonai) not unseldom 
 replaces two Hebrew verbs, nagash and karabh, both meaning ' to draw 
 near' or 'approach.' It replaces nagash in Gen. xxix. 10 ; xliii. 19; 
 Lev. xxi. 21 ; Deut. xxi. 5 ; and karabh in Num. ix. 6 ; Deut. i. 22 ; 
 Lev. xxi. 16. Instead of this Greek word, we have sometimes the Greek 
 iyyiQeiv (Cremer). Now as Matthew wrote his Gospel originally in Hebrew, 
 the question comes to be, what Hebrew verb in his original was translated 
 by this Greek compound (irpoffepxopMt). In the two modern Hebrew versions 
 of the New Testament, Delitzsch's and Salkinson-Ginsburg's, nagash is put for 
 it in Matt. viii. 5. In all probability, therefore, nagash or karabh was the verb 
 which the Greek translator of Matthew's Hebrew or Aramaic had before 
 him. He was no doubt well acquainted with the Septuagint language, but 
 even in ordinary language the Greek compound had the sense opposite to 
 airpxM ai , to go away. If, therefore, Matthew's original word was nagask, 
 all that he says is that the centurion ' approached ' Jesus, He does not, like
 
 3O THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 And raised the widow's son at Nain vii. 
 
 the first resurrection miracle of Jesus. 11-17 
 
 John the Baptist, hearing of these xi. vii. 
 
 things, sent to inquire if Jesus were the 2, 3 18-20 
 Messiah, and was shown healing miracles. 
 
 Jesus then compared unsophisticated xi. vii. 
 
 learners to babes, promising rest to such. 4-30 2I ~35 
 
 A woman, whose sins had been par- vii. 
 
 doned, anointed Jesus' feet, as He sat at 36-50 
 meat in Simon the Pharisee's house. 
 
 Connected with these events was the viii. 
 
 second circuit in Galilee. 1-3 
 
 3. The Parabolic Teaching of Christ. 
 
 The Pharisees denounced the healing xii. iii. cp. xi. 
 of a demonised deaf and dumb man and 22-37 2 -3 14-26 
 other miracles of Jesus as due to a league 
 with Beelzebub. 
 
 His friends and relatives also begin- xii. iii. 21, viii. 
 ning to doubt His sanity, came more 46-50 31-35 19-21 
 than once seeking Him in the crowd. 
 
 About the Feast of Tabernacles, or xiii. iv. viii. 
 seed-time, Jesus spoke the Boat Parables: i, 2 i, 2 4 
 
 The Sower, the Wheat and the Dar- xiii. iv. viii. 
 nels (Tares), the Mustard Seed and the 3-35 3-34 5-18 
 Leaven; afterwards, apart to His disciples, xiii. cp. xiii. 
 
 those of the Hid Treasure, the Pearl and 36-50 18-21 
 
 the Net, with explanations. 
 
 Crossing the Sea of Galilee, He stilled viii. iv. viii. 
 the storm; and, on landing at Gerasa, 23-27 35-41 22-35 
 
 St. Luke, tell us how. The direct form of address, given by St. Matthew, 
 does not prove that the centurion was in the presence of Jesus ; for St. Luke 
 gives the centurion's message also in the first person: 'Neither thought 
 I myself worthy to come unto Thee' (Luke vii. 7). Here Matthew's 
 compound is not used, but the simple uncompounded words (iep6s tr 
 t\6f7i>), which mean to come literally to one, to come into one's presence, 
 and are replaced in the two Hebrew versions by the common Hebrew verb 
 to go or come (hi? ekycha, or I'? rpaiicycha). 'When again, at the close, 
 St. Matthew represents Jesus as saying to the centurion, ' Go thy way,' it is to 
 be observed first, that the expression is valedictory, and means something like 
 ' Go on thy way,' for when Blind Bartimreus was so addressed, he followed 
 Jesus in the way (Mark x. 52). Secondly, it is not certain from St. Luke's 
 account that Jesus did not after all call at the centurion's house, which ' he was 
 not far from ' (Luk'e vii. 6), or that the messages did not end in an interview,
 
 THE SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 31 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 He healed two demoniacs, allowing 1 the viii. v. viii. 
 demons to go into a herd of swine. 28-34 1-20 26-39 
 
 Returning to Capernaum, He was en- ix. v. viii. 
 tertained by Matthew, healed the woman 18-26 21-43 4~56 
 having an issue of blood, raised Jairus' ix. vi. 
 daughter, healed two blind men and a 27-38 6 
 dumb demoniac. 
 
 4. The wisdom of the Master-Scribe. 
 
 In completing this series of parables, xiii. 
 Jesus compared the well-qualified teacher 51, 52 
 to a Man, the Master of a House, bring- 
 ing forth things new and old. 
 
 Coming to Nazareth, during a third xiii. vi. 
 circuit, He taught in the Synagogue with 53-58 1-6 
 astonishing wisdom and power. 
 
 THE THIRD YEAR'S MINISTRY. 
 
 A,D. 29. 
 
 Veiled Mediated teaching: provision for the multitudes in the desert. 
 
 This was the year in which Jesus attended the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, and this feast was the commemoration of the Israelites' 
 life in the wilderness or desert. Before they entered upon their 
 inheritance or land of promise, they passed through a training of 
 enduring hardships. First, it was in the desert that Jesus at the 
 Passover and at Pentecost fed the thousands, so that the analogy 
 of the food He gave them to the manna of the desert presented 
 itself to the Jews. On other occasions throughout the year, as 
 when He withdrew from those who would have made Him king, 
 and from those who asked a sign from heaven, when again He 
 sought concealment in Syro- Phoenicia (Mark vii. 24), when He 
 healed the blind man of Bethsaida privately, in the silence of the 
 Gospels about His presence and doings both before and after the 
 Feast of Tabernacles, in His withdrawal during it, in His retiring 
 after the Feast of Dedication back again to the place where John 
 first baptised (John x. 40), the same course of retiring from open 
 manifestation, and of leading His followers into the wilderness, 
 appears prominently. Secondly, the idea of a delegated ministry in 
 dealing with the multitudes characterises the period. In dealing 
 
 1 The Greek word (7riTpe'ira>) means no more than that Jesus suffered the 
 demons to go, did not hinder them. One demoniac was the chief actor.
 
 32 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 with untrained and gross-minded men, Jesus Himself warned His 
 agents not to cast pearls before swine ; and St. Paul charges 
 Titus (ii. 15) to let no man despise him. In explaining to such 
 men the transparently clear truths hidden in mysteries, it is 
 possible to provoke their ridicule, and perhaps cause them to lose 
 the superficial knowledge they have, although to minds above 
 their level or better prepared ' no subject could be more admi- 
 rable or inspiring' (Clem. Alex. *S.' i. 12, v. 8-10). To prepare 
 the people the Apostles were like the Seventy ' sent to be before 
 His face to every city and place where He Himself was about to 
 come ' (Luke x. i) ; for when He had ended His charge to them 
 He departed to teach and to preach in their cities (Matt. xi. i). 
 Their mission was thus to prepare the way for that fuller en 
 lightenment which was proper to their Master's direct teaching. 
 The third year must have commenced with their mission, for 
 they returned shortly before the Passover in April (Nisan), when 
 Jesus withdrew with them to the desert place belonging to Beth- 
 saida Julias, and there fed the Five Thousand (cp. Mark vi. 
 30, 31 with John vi. 4). The terms of their commission, their 
 statements on their return, and Christ's corresponding circuit 
 (Matt xi. i), indicate that they must have been absent several 
 weeks (Andrews), about two months (Archbishop Thomson), less 
 (Greswell), or more. It follows that they were sent out about the 
 commencement of the third year's ministry in January. The 
 connection of the history is, therefore, as follows. After a circuit 
 of teaching in all the cities and villages (Matt. ix. 35 ; Mark vi. 7), 
 including Nazareth, Jesus seeing how 'the multitudes were 
 worried (distressed) and tossed (to and fro or aside), as sheep not 
 having a shepherd, was moved with compassion for them.' ' The 
 harvest is truly plentiful,' He said to the disciples, bidding them 
 pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth labourers into 
 His harvest (Matt. ix. 36-38). The Mission of the Apostles 
 followed. When, after their return, He withdrew into the desert 
 or wilderness, He, like Moses, led the multitudes after Him into 
 the desert, and there fed them with suitable food. The idea of a 
 delegated or mediated ministry again appears in the employment 
 of the disciples to convey the food to the multitudes in both 
 miracles ; and the same idea is also indicated at the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, when, in allusion to the water-pouring, Jesus invited 
 the thirsty to come to Him and drink, and declared that the 
 recipient would become a means of conveying the water to others 
 (John vii. 38). Thirdly, Jesus this year extended His own sphere 
 of work, visiting Syro-Phcenicia, probably the Lebanon district, 
 Bashan, and Perea ; the year's ministry was more cosmopolitan.
 
 THE THIRD YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 33 
 
 Fourthly, the Feast of Tabernacles, which Jesus this year attended, 
 besides celebrating the desert life of Israel, was characterised by 
 extraordinary sacrifices of bullocks. It was a feast of strong 
 meat, fit for men's digestion. So also the loaves and fishes, on 
 which the multitudes were fed, were solid meat, not elementary 
 milk (cp. i Cor. iii. 2 ; Heb. v. 14) ; and Jesus bade His disciples 
 take heed what leaven they mingled with this bread. Unless He 
 had given them to understand that He meant doctrine, critics 
 might have said that leaven means only leaven, and that doctrine 
 means doctrine, but we must allow Jesus to explain Himself. 
 The same characteristics run through all Christ's utterances 
 during this year. Instead of such teaching as the Sermon on the 
 Mount, we have only deep or enigmatic utterances, requiring full- 
 grown digestion. As men's minds advance to maturity, there is a 
 training by means of ' the deep things of God,' if men study them 
 soberly ; and there is no royal (or easy) road to learning them. 
 
 AFTER THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND, Jesus dis- 
 coursed at Capernaum on the Bread of Life and on eating with 
 unwashen hands. He then withdrew to the borders of Syro- 
 Phcenicia, and, according to the Revised Version, returned by 
 Sidon, which included the Lebanon district. 
 
 THE FEEDING OF THE FOUR THOUSAND took place probably 
 about the time of Pentecost in ' the Mountain,' and in Grecianised 
 Decapolis. At Pentecost there would be crowds passing through 
 that district to and from Jerusalem ; and if we suppose that the 
 miracle occurred at any other season, farther on in summer, it 
 would be difficult to account for their presence. The mention 
 made by Jesus of leaven in connection with the Bread, also indi- 
 cates that the miracle took place about Pentecost, for it was 
 specially directed that the two wheaten loaves of the Pentecostal 
 offering were to be baked with leaven (Lev. xxiii. 17). Jesus 
 Himself gave His disciples to understand that by leaven He 
 meant doctrine or teaching, admonishing them to beware of the 
 old leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. xvi. n, 12). 
 Pentecost, we know, was fulfilled in the coming of the Holy 
 Spirit the Spirit of a sound, well-regulated, and sober mind ; v 
 
 1 Compare Rom. xii. 3, on the Greek fj.ii virepfypovfiv Trap' & 8s? <f>poveiy, 
 aXXa (ppove'if els -rb truxppovfiv, 'not to think transcendentally beyond the 
 proper sphere of man's thinking, but to think so as to be soberly thoughtful.' St. 
 Paul cautioned his converts against the wild speculations of his age ( I Cor. iii. 
 20), which afterwards in the shape of the Gnostic heresies troubled the Church. 
 They were iounded on mere fancies about God's physical infinity, the cause of 
 evil, the distribution of natures physically to men, &c. We must still beware 
 of such transcendental leaven, as well as of the leaven of the Pharisees and the 
 Sadducees.
 
 34 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 and this wisdom from above is needed to interpret rightly the 
 hidden mystery of Christ (i Cor. ii. 7). No other foundation 
 can be laid but Jesus Christ ; but men must take heed not to 
 build perishable materials or such rubbish as stubble upon this 
 foundation ( i Cor. iii. 10-13), not to misconstrue 'the enigma' 
 (i Cor. xiii. 12). The offering at the Passover was mere flour, 
 but the offering at Pentecost was flour baked, so to speak, into a 
 solid system, by means of leaven, which represents doctrine, 
 characterised by 'imperishableness, gravity, sound irreprehensible 
 discourse ' (Tit. ii. 8), and sobermindedness. 
 
 AFTER SENDING THE MULTITUDES AWAY, Jesus crossed by 
 boat to the western side. Here the Pharisees and the Sadducees, 
 now acting in conjunction, asked of Him a sign from heaven. 
 He referred to the history of Jonah the prophet, and immediately 
 recrossed to the eastern side of the Galilean Lake, moving north- 
 ward till He came to Bethsaida Julias, where He healed a blind 
 man privately. In this neighbourhood, that is, in Bashan and 
 Galilee (cp. John vii. 9), He probably moved about till the 
 Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th of Tisri, in the beginning of 
 October. 
 
 AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES (Tisri i5~22=October 12-19) 
 Jesus went up to Jerusalem (John vii. 2-10). This feast corre- 
 sponded with the conclusion of the whole harvest, when the figs 
 were gathered and the vintage ended. It celebrated the tent life 
 which the Israelites had led in the wilderness, the people now 
 dwelling in booths (tabernacles) made on the roofs of their 
 houses out of the branches of olive, palm, myrtle, and other fat 
 (fabotJi) trees, while they carried in one hand a palm or h'dabh, 
 made of a palm, a myrtle, and a willow branch tied together, and, 
 in their other hand, an athrog or paradise apple a sort of 
 citron, as the fruit of goodly trees (Lev. xxiii. 40, R.V.). A leafy 
 canopy of willows was also made round the altar. On each of the 
 seven days water was brought from the pool of Siloam, and poured 
 out, along with the wine of the libation, into two silver basins at 
 the top of the altar slope. After this water-pouring, the Great 
 Hallel (Ps. cxiii.-cxviii.) was chanted, with responses and flute 
 music, closing with a procession round the altar. Thirteen 
 bullocks were sacrificed on the first day, twelve on the second, 
 and so on seventy in all. At night the Temple was brilliantly 
 illuminated, and there was great rejoicing in it. On the seventh 
 day the procession was made seven times round the altar, and 
 then the booths were dismantled. On the eighth day there was 
 a holy convocation or assembly without any of the special 
 services of the previous week. Christ's attendance at this feast
 
 THE THIRD YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 35 
 
 was not with a view to manifest Himself openly (John vii. 4-18). 
 He went up to it in secret. He did appear teaching in the 
 Temple about the midst of the feast, but not on the first two 
 days, which were the most sacred part. His doctrine, He said, 
 was His Father's not His own ; He spake not ' of (from) Him- 
 self,' nor was the Holy Spirit to speak 'of Himself (John xvi. 13). 
 Truth is truth. In reference to the water-pouring, He invited the 
 thirsty to come to Him and drink, and declared that those who 
 believed in Him would become sources whence living water would 
 flow, and that those who kept His word would not taste of death 
 for ever. In reference to the Temple illumination, He called 
 Himself the Light of the world, and spoke of the darkness which 
 the rejection of this light involved, as being itself a judgment. 
 The judgment, He said, was not by His express interference, but 
 according to truth (John viii. 16). When His words, 'Before 
 Abraham was, I am,' brought Him into peril of being stoned 
 (John viii. 58, 59), He concealed Himself, but in then dis- 
 appearing (Trapaywvtranslated/im/;^^), He gave sight to the man 
 born blind, who confessed his healer to be the Son of God, while 
 the self-conceited Pharisees shut their eyes to the plainest miracu- 
 lous evidence, and were so made blind (John ix. 39). When 
 Jesus afterwards spoke to them about His sheep, the Door, and 
 the Good Shepherd, we have another indication of concealment, 
 for John tells us (x. 6) that ' they knew not what the things were 
 which He spake to them.' We conclude that Christ's visit to the 
 Feast of Tabernacles was in keeping with the veiled presentation 
 of the Divine Word, which characterises the third year's ministry, 
 serving both to stimulate the minds of more advanced seekers 
 after truth and to discipline the multitudes. This character was 
 typified in the covering of booths, under which Israel, God's Son, 
 lived for seven days at this Feast. 
 
 THE INTERVAL between the Feast of Tabernacles in October 
 and the Feast of Dedication (Kisleu 25-Tebeth 2 = Decem- 
 ber 20-27) was m a ^ probability spent by Jesus in retired seclu- 
 sion. 1 Although some harmonists as Lichtenstein and Andrews 
 imagine that the Transfiguration took place in this interval, and 
 others as Ellicott and Tischendorf place the Mission of the 
 Seventy in it ; yet there is good reason for believing that these 
 events followed the Feast of Dedication, and introduced the fourth 
 year's ministry. There is abundance of time for them after both 
 the feasts. At all events, nothing is known for certain about 
 the doings of Jesus during this interval. As Jesus, after the 
 
 1 Greswell, Wieseler, Robinson, Stroud, Lewin, Kitto, and McClellan 
 put nothing into this interval between the feasts. 
 
 C 2
 
 36 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Feast of Dedication, went back again (TTOA.IV) to the place where 
 John first baptised, it might be inferred with some probability 
 that He was there during the interval between the feasts. This 
 place was in all probability some part of Bashan, the wilderness 
 of Judea beyond Jordan. But wherever this interval of retire- 
 ment from public life was spent, Jesus reappeared at the Feast 
 of Dedication, openly declaring Himself to be the Son of God and 
 one with the Father. 
 
 THE FEAST OF DEDICATION, at which Jesus reappeared, was 
 instituted by Judas Maccabaeus in B.C. 164, to purify and rededi- 
 cate the Temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes 
 (i Mace. iv. 52-59). It was a joyous and even hilarious festivity, 
 resembling the Feast of Tabernacles in lasting eight days, in 
 the chanting of the Hallel, and originally (2 Mace. x. 7) but not 
 latterly, in the practice of carrying palm branches. Not only the 
 Temple, but every house in Jerusalem was brilliantly lighted up ; 
 and hence the feast is called the Feast of Lights. Being then 
 asked by the Jews to tell them plainly whether He were the 
 Christ, He said that He had already told them, but that they 
 had not believed, not being of His sheep ; that His sheep heard 
 His voice and followed Him, and in so doing obtained eternal 
 life. He added, ' I and my Father are one ' (thing). The Jews then 
 took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy, but He justified His 
 words by a quotation from Psalm Ixxxii. 6, to the effect that the 
 Scripture, which cannot be broken, gave the name of Gods to 
 those to whom the Word of God came. He also appealed to His 
 miracles. When the Jews still sought to arrest Him, He went 
 forth out of their hand, and withdrew to the place where John 
 first baptised. This we shall presently see was either on the way 
 to Caesarea Philippi, or perhaps it was a district of Bashan in 
 which Cresarea Philippi was, the ' parts ' or ' villages ' under Philip 
 (Matt. xvi. 13 ; Mark viii. 27). On the way thither He asked 
 His disciples, ' Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ? ' 
 and then, ' Who do ye say that I am ? ' Peter replied, ' Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.' l Jesus, in approving 
 Peter's answer, declared that He would build His church upon this 
 stone of confession connected, as we shall see, with Peter, and 
 that the gates of Hades (death) would not prevail against it. 
 The Son of God became Man that those c who heard His voice 
 and followed Him might have eternal life,' that they might 
 partake of the divine nature of sonship, 'being purified and 
 
 1 The full question and the full answer are given by St. Matthew, as in 
 the Authorised Version. Jesus had often called Himself the Son of Man.
 
 THE THIRD YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 37 
 
 raised into the life of God ' (Irenaeus v. 9, 2), and that they might 
 thus be one in God (John xvii. n, 21, 22, 23). The psalm which 
 Jesus quoted, speaks of God as ' standing in the congregation of 
 God,' and as judging among the Gods. It calls Gods those who, 
 attending with all diligence to God's Word, receive this baptism 
 of the Word (Clem. Alex. ' Psed.' i. 6), or ingrafting into Christ 
 (Iren. v. 10), and participate in the Spirit dispensed through the 
 Word, who keep this ingrafting by means of conduct conducive 
 to the growth of the new nature. Men thus become blended with 
 the Word, into which they are grafted, and with the Spirit given 
 (Iren. v. 6), so as to receive the divine sonship or become sons 
 of God (iv. 38, 4). The 'congregation of God,' according to 
 Irenaeus, is the Church (Iren. iii. 6, i). Christians form the 
 Temple of God, and in them God dwells (i Cor. iii. 16 ; vi. 19); 
 but let them not, as individuals, defile the Temple of their own 
 bodies, or, as a Church, apostatise from the love of truth, for then 
 the psalm says that, though they have been called Gods, they 
 ' shall yet die like men.' They must beware lest they follow the 
 type of those Israelites in the wilderness with whom God was not 
 well-pleased, and who, though redeemed from Egypt, were yet 
 destroyed in the wilderness (i Cor. x. i-u). 
 
 Synoptical Table of the Third Year. 
 
 T. The Mission of the Apostles. Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 About the beginning of January the x. vi. ix. 
 apostles were sent out on their healing and 1-42 6-13 1-6 
 teaching mission. ; ' and Jesus Himself xi. i 
 followed them. 
 
 Shortly before the Passover, the apostles xiv. vi. ix. vi. 
 returned ; and John's disciples came after 1-12 14-31 7-10 1-4 
 Herod had murdered John while cele- 
 brating the day of his birth or accession. 
 
 1 It was no part of the commission of the apostles, says Dean Burgon, to 
 'raise the dead.' The Revisers left the clause because they found it in the 
 corrupt, though ancient, manuscripts fc$, B, C, D, and in the Latin versions. 
 Not more manuscripts than one in twenty contain it. P. E. Pusey found it 
 in no Syriac Version ; and it is omitted by Eusebius, Basil, Chrysostom, 
 Jerome, and Juvencus (Revision Revised, p. 108). The apostles were en- 
 joined not to take ' staves ' with them that is, rods (frd/SSovs) for tenting 
 purposes. Even if we accept the very questionable reading in Matt. x. 10, 
 R.V., and Luke ix. 3, R.V., and read with the Revisers ' nor staff,' instead 
 of ' nor staves,' as in the Authorised and Bishop Wordsworth's texts, we 
 must still understand that Jesus forbade any rod or ' stick ' for tenting pur- 
 poses. It is unnatural to suppose that Jesus would forbid them to take the 
 usual traveller's staff, which Mark expressly tells us (vi. 8) He permitted. 
 There is the same ambiguity in our word 'stick.'
 
 38 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 2. The Bread of Life in the Desert, 
 
 and the Leaven of Doctrine. Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 ABOUT THE PASSOVER Jesus fed the xiv. vi. ix. vi. 
 
 five thousand in a desert near Bethsaida. 13-21 32-44 11-17 5-15 
 
 After sending the disciples away, He xiv. vi. vi. 
 
 followed the ship, walking on the sea. 22-36 45-56 16-21 
 
 At Capernaum He discoursed to the vi. 
 
 returned crowds on the Bread of Life. 22-71 
 
 Answering a charge of eating with un- xv. vii. 
 
 washed hands, He showed what defiles. 1-20 1-23 
 
 After this He went to the Syro-Phce- xv. vii. 
 
 nician borders seeking concealment, and 21-28 24-30 
 healed a Canaanitish woman's daughter. 
 
 Returning probably by the Lebanon xv. 
 
 district, He healed a deaf-mute apart 29-31 
 and others brought by the multitudes. 
 
 ABOUT PENTECOST Jesus fed the four xv. viii. 
 
 thousand in Grecianised Decapolis. 32-39 1-9 
 
 Crossing in a boat to Dalmanutha, He xvi. viii. 
 
 gave the Pharisees the sign of Jonah. 1-4 10-13 
 
 Recrossing, He warned the disciples xvi. viii. 
 
 against the leaven of the Pharisees. 5~ 12 14-21 
 
 Coming to Bethsaida Julias, He restored viii. 
 
 sight to a blind man at two stages. 22-26 
 
 3. At the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 
 After some months spent in this vii. 
 
 Bashan district and in Galilee, Jesus i 
 
 went up to THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES vii. 
 
 secretly, not courting notoriety. 2-13 
 
 He then discoursed in the Temple, vii. 
 
 promising living water and indicating J 4~53 
 
 the judgment attending a life after the viii. 
 flesh and the rejection of light. Attempts 
 to arrest and stone Him failed. 
 
 In withdrawing into concealment, He ix. 
 
 gave sight to the man born blind ; and, x. 
 
 contrasting Himself with the hirelings, 1-21 
 called Himself the Good Shepherd. 
 
 4. At the Feast of Dedication. 
 
 An interval of seclusion followed, x. 
 
 during which He was probably beyond 22 
 
 Jordan, but nothing is known about Him.
 
 THE THIRD YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 39 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 At the close of the year, Jesus reap- x. 
 
 peared in the Temple at the Feast of 23-38 
 
 Dedication, and being asked if He were 
 
 the Christ, called Himself the Son of 
 
 God, one with the Father. 
 
 Being in danger of arrest He withdrew x. 
 
 to the place where John first baptised. 39-42. 
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR'S MINISTRY. 
 
 A.D. 30. 
 The fulfilment of the days of Ascension. 
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY may be reckoned 
 from His departure from the Feast of Dedication, which lasted 
 eight days, and ended this year on December 27, or on the and 
 of Thebet (the Jewish January). This marks the beginning of 
 the fourth year independently of the date assigned to the Trans- 
 figuration, but the available evidence leads us to place the Trans- 
 figuration immediately after the Feast of Dedication, and to re- 
 present it as the fitting precursor to Christ's sufferings and the 
 glory into which He entered through them. It is admitted, for 
 instance, by Andrews, that, so far as the accounts in St. Matthew 
 and St. Mark go, the Transfiguration may have occurred at any 
 time between the miracle at Bethsaida Julias, subsequent to the 
 feeding of the Four Thousand, and the next March or the payment 
 of the Temple Tribute, claimed from every Israelite a month 
 before the Passover. It is quite needless to bring in the supposition 
 that these Temple dues were the arrears of the previous year, and 
 paid by Jesus in September, before He went to the Feast of 
 Tabernacles (Greswell). The reason for thus putting back the 
 payment by Jesus of these Temple dues seems to be the mis- 
 taken idea that St. Luke places the Mission of the Seventy after 
 the payment of them. St. Luke certainly places this Mission, as 
 we shall see, after the reasoning about pre-eminence, but not 
 necessarily after Christ's rebuke at Capernaum, some time subse- 
 quent to the reasoning. There is abundance of time for the 
 Mission of the Seventy after the reasoning about pre-eminence, if 
 we date the Transfiguration about the beginning of the year, and 
 the reasoning, by the way, shortly after it. The first reason * 
 for so dating the Transfiguration is that the conversation of Jesus 
 
 1 MacClellan's reasons are here given. Bengel and Stier (in preface to 
 Mark and Luke) place the Transfiguration and the Mission of the Seventy 
 after the departure of Jesus from the Feast of Dedication. The arrange- 
 ment here is similar. See also Baumgarten's Geschichte Jesu.
 
 4O THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 with Moses and Elias referred to the Exodus (imperfectly trans- 
 lated 'decease' or 'departure') which Jesus was to 'fulfil' at 
 Jerusalem (Luke ix. 31) ; and, as this certainly referred to the 
 Passover, there is reason to believe that the next great feast 
 after the conversation was the Passover, and not the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, or even that of Dedication. Again, immediately 
 after his account of the Transfiguration, St. Luke begins his 
 account of Christ's going up to suffer, 'when the days of His 
 ascension were being fulfilled' (Luke ix. 51) ; and Jesus Himself 
 said that His time to go up (to suffer) was not come at the previous 
 Feast of Tabernacles (John vii. 6), but connects the Transfigura- 
 tion with predictions of His sufferings both before and after it. 
 A third argument is that there was a third Epiphany or mani- 
 festation of God's glory at the Transfiguration ; and if, as we 
 believe, the Transfiguration took place about the beginning of the 
 fourth year, all three Epiphanies or Inaugurations occurred at the 
 same season. 1 
 
 THE PLACE BEYOND JORDAN, to which Jesus went away back 
 again (-n-dXiv), and where He abode after the Feast of Dedication, 
 was, perhaps, a district. It was the place where John was first 
 baptising. Now John is said to have come to all the country 
 adjoining (Trept^wpos) the Jordan (Luke iii. 3 ; cp. Matt. iii. 5), 
 and to have preached first in the desert of Judea (Matt. iii. i). 
 To determine where this desert was, it is to be remembered that 
 in Matt xix. i, Jesus is said to have left Galilee and come into the 
 confines of ' Judea beyond Jordan,' that is, into Gaulonitis (mod. 
 Jolan) and Batanea, called also Basanitis, which seems to be the 
 old name Bashan in a Greek form. Now Josephus (' Wars,' iii. 3, 5) 
 assigns these provinces to Judea. St. John again represents John 
 the Baptist as first appearing in Bethany beyond Jordan. Now 
 this word Bethany appears to be the same as Batanea, or 
 Basanitis, or Bashan, for we find it reappearing in various 
 names of the districts of Bashan in modern times. The east of 
 Bashan still retains the name of El-Bethaniyeh. El-Batiheh is a 
 
 1 ' The Early Christian expositors represented the Transfiguration as the 
 foreshadowing of the fulfilment of the promise, when Christ comes to take to 
 Himself His great power and reign in majesty' (Trench). This representation 
 exactly corresponds with that here given, where it introduces the fourth or 
 culminating year of Christ's ministry, as His birth and lint year's ministry 
 were also introduced by Epiphanies. The scope of the narrative is not against 
 this. Andrews has no such reason for placing (in his new edition) the Trans- 
 figuration immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles. In the interval before 
 the Feast of Dedication he also places the payment of the Temple dues, the 
 Mission of the Seventy, and other events recorded in Luke i.x. 5i-xiii. 35. 
 He places Martha's supper on the way to the Feast of Dedication, but it fits 
 into the system here given if it occurred at the raising of Lazarus.
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 41 
 
 strip of fertile and well-watered country on the east of the 
 Jordan, where it enters the Sea of Galilee ; and in the northern 
 part of this strip travellers found ruins of a place called Tell- 
 Anihje, which, by substituting Beth for the Arabic Tell, becomes 
 Bethanihye (see Caspari, pp. 92, 93). This might justify 
 Lightfoot's idea that Bethany was between Lake Merom and the 
 Sea of Galilee, especially as John was probably not far from 
 Bethsaida (John i. 28, 44). The name seems to occur again in 
 El-Bothin, the modern name of a district of Decapolis, round the 
 Grecianised Pella (the Batneh of the Talmud, Caspari, p. 104), 
 where there was much water. The ancient Bashan probably 
 extended from the Jabbok (Jarmuk ?) to Hermon ; and we may 
 safely conclude that Bethany beyond Jordan, or the place where 
 John first baptised, was some place or district not far from the 
 Jordan, and north of the Jabbok. It may be another form of 
 Beth-oniyeh, that is, a house of shipping, or a house of passage 
 (Bethabara), or ford. But'whether it derived its name from this 
 or from Bashan, it was on the way from Jerusalem to Caesarea 
 Philippi (the modern Banias), which was in the northern part of 
 Bashan, at the base of Mount Hermon, and not far from the 
 sources of the Jordan. 
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION took place when Jesus had come into 
 the parts (Matt. xvi. 13) or villages (Mark viii. 27) of Caesarea 
 Philippi. 1 These parts or districts may have been the parts of 
 Bashan of which Csesarea Philippi was the capital, the Tetrarchy 
 of Philip. When Jesus left the Feast of Dedication, He went 
 back again (WAiv) to the place where John first baptised, that is, 
 to some district beyond Jordan, either in Philip's territories, the 
 capital of which was Caesarea Philippi, or on the way to it. It 
 was on some mountain in this district, probably on one of the 
 spurs of the lofty Hermon, that Jesus was transfigured. After the 
 Transfiguration Jesus abode some time in Galilee (Mark xvii. 
 22) ; they ' passed along ' (irapeTropevovro) through it (Mark ix. 30), 
 by which expression we may understand ' a border-journey by 
 the course of the Jordan ' (McClellan, p. 578a). 
 
 THE LAST JOURNEY to suffer at Jerusalem has for its starting 
 point the Mount of Transfiguration, not Capernaum. The way 
 
 1 According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus ascended the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration six days after Peter's confession. He probably did so at sunset, 
 after six entire days, and was transfigured at early dawn (Andrews). Next 
 day He descended, and thus the whole period from the confession to the 
 Transfiguration was about a week, or, as St. Luke calls it, eight days. 
 Josephus also speaks of a week as eight days. David, he says, ' ordained 
 that each course of the priests should minister to God eight days from Sabbath 
 to Sabbath ' (Ant. vii. 14, 7). People still speak in this way.
 
 42 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 led through Capernaum. On the way thither, a reasoning arose 
 among the disciples who should be greatest in the kingdom 
 of heaven ; but it was not till they came to Capernaum, and, 
 according to St. Matthew's order, not till the Temple tribute 
 had been paid, that Jesus inquired of them what the subject 
 of their reasoning had been, 1 and rebuked their ambitious 
 spirit, at the same time warning them against intolerance. The 
 Temple tribute was a half-shekel, equal to two Roman denarii, or 
 two drachmas, each drachma being nominally about -]}-,d. or 8.^. 
 (R.V.) of our money, but in reality a good day's wages. This 
 heavy tax was religiously paid by every Jew, whether in Palestine 
 or abroad. In Palestine the collection began on the ist of Adar, 
 and on the i5th of Adar (about March 9), the official 'money- 
 changers ' or collectors who supplied shekels for ordinary coins, 
 set up their booths or tables in each country town and demanded 
 the tribute. After the 25th pledges were taken from those who 
 had not paid it. The i5th of Adar was exactly a month before the 
 Passover. Now there is every reason to believe that the Temple 
 tribute for Jesus and Peter (a stater) was paid about the beginning 
 of March. Those who suppose that it was paid by Jesus in the 
 previous September as the arrears of the previous year, have pro- 
 bably been led to this supposition by a mistake as to St. Luke's 
 order. On first reading his account it might appear that he 
 places the refusal of the Samaritans to receive Jesus, the account 
 of the aspirants, and the Mission and the return of the Seventy 
 disciples after Christ's rebuke at Capernaum, which followed the 
 payment of the Temple tribute. But in the three weeks that 
 intervened between the payment of the Temple dues about the 
 1 5th of Adar (March 9) and Christ's arrival at Bethany, six days 
 before the Passover, there is not time for the numerous visits to 
 cities and places for which the Mission of the Seventy was pre- 
 paratory (Luke x. i), and also for Christ's visit to Bethany, when 
 Lazarus was raised, the sojourn at Ephraim, and the final journey 
 from Ephraim, probably through Perea. It is therefore important 
 to notice that, although St. Luke certainly places the refusal of 
 the Samaritans to receive Jesus, the coming of the aspirants, and 
 the Mission of the Seventy after the reasoning which arose about 
 pie-eminence, he does not necessarily mean that these events 
 followed Christ's rebuke at Capernaum. Immediately after his 
 account of the Transfiguration, the cure of the epileptic boy, and 
 Christ's predictions of His death, St. Luke tells us of the reason- 
 ing of the disciples about pre-eminence. It probably began soon 
 
 1 They at first made no answer (Mark ix. 33), and afterwards referred the 
 question in dispute to Jesus (Matt, xviii. i).
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 43 
 
 after the Transfiguration, and in connection with the privilege 
 given to Peter, James, and John, as witnesses of that event. It 
 was, in all likelihood, not one dispute, but an unsettled question, 
 coming up again and again when the disciples were not in the 
 immediate presence of Jesus. St. Luke says nothing about their 
 coming to Capernaum, and after having mentioned the reasoning, 
 he naturally connects the rebuke of Jesus with it, although that 
 rebuke did not take place till some weeks after the reasoning 
 began, and, if St. Matthew's order be followed, not till the 
 Temple dues were paid. Any historian, after beginning such a 
 short piece of history, consisting of two parts separated by an 
 interval of time, will naturally and properly join the two parts 
 together. St. Mark also joins them together ; but his method is 
 to begin the account of the rebuke and then go back for an 
 explanation (Mark ix. 33, 34). Another parallel instance of a 
 similar connecting of two parts of an event, though separated by 
 an interval of time, occurs in the subsequent healing of Blind 
 Bartimaeus. It was at the entrance of Jericho that, according to 
 St. Luke (xviii. 35), the noise of the crowd accompanying Jesus 
 first attracted the attention of Bartimaeus as he sat begging. But 
 as he was inquiring the company would be going away, and he 
 would probably have to be told more about Jesus before he made 
 so urgent an appeal for aid. Accordingly, we are told by St. 
 Matthew (xx. 29), and St. Mark (x. 46), that Blind Bartimteus was 
 healed as Jesus went out of Jericho. Bartimaeus, hearing about 
 the extraordinary works of Jesus, and knowing that He was going 
 to the feast, waited by the side of the way leading to Jerusalem 
 till Jesus left the house of Zacchasus and went out of Jericho. 
 He is not now represented by these two Evangelists as begging 
 or inquiring what the noise of the crowd meant. If historians, 
 did not connect such parts of a narrative together, their narratives 
 would appear like disconnected annals and lose effect. We con- 
 clude that, although St. Luke mentions Christ's rebuke of am- 
 bition and intolerance immediately after His account of the 
 reasoning about pre-eminence, yet that this rebuke followed some 
 events which he next mentions namely, the refusal of the 
 Samaritans to allow Christ to go towards Jerusalem, the coming, 
 of the aspirants, the Mission of the Seventy, and perhaps the 
 interview with the young lawyer. These events, therefore, took 
 place in the two months which intervened between the Trans- 
 figuration and the payment of the Temple dues on the i5th of 
 Adar (about March 9).' The Mission of the Seventy at the 
 
 1 When St. Luke says that the Mission of the Seventy took place ' after 
 these things' (Luke x. i), it is impossible to take this statement in any other
 
 44 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 beginning of the fourth year was ' to be before the face ' of Jesus, 
 as He visited the different cities and places (Luke x. i), and thus 
 corresponded with the Mission of the Apostles at the beginning 
 of the third year. The analogy also appears in the woes pro- 
 nounced against impenitent cities at the time of both Missions. 
 
 DURING THE THREE WEEKS which followed the payment of 
 the Temple dues and preceded the Passion week, Jesus went to 
 Bethany .and raised Lazarus from the dead. This corresponds 
 with St. Luke's account of Martha's entertainment (Luke x. 38). 
 The Ephraim at which He tarried or abode after this was, in all 
 probability, a place in the north of Judea, on the borders of 
 Samaria, about 20 Roman miles (according to Jerome) from 
 Jerusalem, mentioned along with Bethel in 2 Chron. xiii. 19, and 
 by Josephus (' Wars,' iv. 9, 9). In order to join the company of 
 Galileans going to the Passover Jesus probably went northwards 
 through the midst of Samaria and then eastward through the 
 borderland or adjoining part of Galilee (Andrews), crossing into 
 Perea by the ford at Bethshean ; and there is every reason to 
 believe that St. Luke speaks of this journey (Luke xvii. u), as he 
 puts Samaria before Galilee. 1 The Samaritans would not hinder 
 Jesus from going away from Jerusalem. 
 
 ~ THE ACCOUNTS OF THE PASSION WEEK require that a few 
 expressions susceptible of a double meaning should be defined. 
 Jesus arrived in Bethany six days before the Passover (John xii. i). 
 (i) As Jesus would not travel on the Jewish Sabbath, the question 
 has arisen whether He arrived on the Friday afternoon, which is 
 exactly six days before the following Thursday afternoon, when 
 
 sense than that of chronological sequence. McCiellan is not justified in say- 
 ing (p. 450) that this only means after the Mission of the Apostles, and not 
 after the numerous events which St. Luke places between the two Missions. 
 But we are justified in omitting from ' these things ' the rebuke of Jesus at 
 Capernaum, seeing that St. Luke merely attached this to his account of the 
 disputed question of pre-eminence, as Mark also connects the two parts of the 
 incident, telling us that they occurred at different times. Instead of putting 
 the Mission of the Seventy before the payment of the Temple tribute, 
 Greswell and others, who abide by St. Luke's chronology, put back this pay- 
 ment by Jesus into the preceding year, and represent it as the payment of the 
 previous year's arrears. This gives time for Christ's apparently numerous 
 visits after this Mission, but the supposition of arrears is unnatural, and also 
 unlikely. As the Transfiguration is placed by St. Luke before this Mission, 
 the same difficulty has probably led so many harmonists to assign too early a 
 date also to the Transfiguration. 
 
 ' The Greek expression translated ' through the midst of Samaria and 
 Galilee ' is by some translated ' through the borderland of (between) Samaria 
 and Galilee,' and this translation would be advisable, if it were not probable 
 that Jesus made this journey ' with His face ' away from Jerusalem.
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 45 
 
 the Paschal lambs were sacrificed, or whether He spent the 
 Sabbath in the house of Zacchaeus, arriving in Bethany on our 
 Sunday, and making His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, not on 
 Palm Sunday, but on the following Monday. This last supposi- 
 tion would imply that the Paschal lambs were killed on Friday, 
 and those who hold it think that Jesus Christ did not eat the 
 Paschal lamb at all, but suffered at the time when it was being 
 sacrificed. Against this theory we have already quoted the high 
 authority of Irenseus (ii. 21, 3) ; and though this arrangement of 
 events is followed by a few learned men, 1 the other is much pre- 
 ferable, or at all events generally received. (2) The Thursday on 
 which the Paschal lambs were killed is called the first day of 
 Unleavened Bread (Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Mark xvi. 12 ; Luke xxii. 7), 
 because all the old leaven was on that day carefully put out of the 
 houses. In counting this day as the first day of the Feast, 
 Josephus sometimes calls the Passover a Feast of eight days 
 ('Ant.'ii. 15, i). The Paschal lamb was eaten on the evening 
 after the sun had gone down ; and (3) the morning that followed 
 with the rest of the daytime was called the Feast (chag) or Fes- 
 tivity (chagigafi)"* in the Pentateuch (Lev. xxiii. 5, 6 ; Num. xxviii. 
 16, 17 ; cp. Deut. xvi. 2, 7), and by Josephus ('Ant.' iii. 10, 5). 
 
 1 According to our reckoning, Jesus entered on His public ministry in 
 January, A.u.c. 780, and His last Passover, being in the fourth year after this, 
 was in A.u.c. 783. It began at sunset between Nisan 14 and Nisan 15 at full 
 moon. Now the question is, whether the Friday on which Jesus was crucified 
 was Nisan 14, when the Paschal lambs were killed, or Nisan 15, the 
 Chagigah. This question resolves itself into another namely, whether the 
 month Nisan began on Thursday or Friday at sunset. Dr. Salmon has calcu- 
 lated that the moon was in conjunction with the sun about 8 o'clock on the 
 Wednesday preceding; and, if we assume this to be accurate, the question 
 comes to be whether the new moon could have been seen on the following 
 Thursday. The new moon would set about 7 o'clock or shortly after ; and 
 this gives only twenty-three hours of an interval. Skilled observers were on 
 the watch; and instances are given by Caspari (pp. 14, 15) and Andrews, 
 (new ed. p. 41), which prove that the moon has been seen by Kepler, 
 Americus, and the Jews less than twenty hours after conjunction. If the moon 
 was not visible on the evening after the 29th day of the month, the month was, 
 without more observation, declared to be one of thirty days and a new month 
 begun. According to Dr. Salmon's calculations, the only other year about 
 this time when the new moon could have been first seen on Thursday evening 
 was the year A.u.c. 787 ; and this would go to prove the common era of 
 Christ's birth. 
 
 2 The Feast (of the Passover) sometimes means all the Passover and some- 
 times the Chagigah, or festal day which followed the eating of the Paschal 
 lamb. When John says (xiii. i) that before the Feast Jesus knew that He 
 would suffer death at the Feast, and that knowing this, immediately before or 
 about the time of the eating of the lamb, He gave His disciples a last proof of 
 His love by washing their feet, John may either mean the Chagigah or the
 
 46 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 This Chagigah was part of the Passover (2 Chron. xxxv. 6-14 ; 
 Deut. xvi. 2-17) ; it was this Passover, or part of the Passover, 
 that the Jews wished to eat, and therefore did not enter the 
 Roman Praetorium (John xviii. 28). The trials of Jesus before 
 Herod and Pilate ended (4) about the sixth hour (John xix. 14). 
 This must have been according to the civil reckoning of the 
 Romans, which John elsewhere follows (John iv. 6, 52 ; cp. Gen. 
 xxiv. ii), and we may reasonably suppose that John means some 
 time between 6 and 7 A.M. Now the formal trial before the 
 Jewish council took place ' as soon as it was day ' that is, as 
 soon as the watchman on the Temple top proclaimed the first 
 streaks of dawn (Edersheim, vol. i. p. 244), and at this season of 
 the year dawn might be there discernible about 4.50 A.M. Nearly 
 two hours would thus be allowed for the trials, and perhaps the 
 scourging ; and this is sufficient. 1 (5) The 'Preparation of the 
 Passover ' spoken of in John xix. 14, and ' the Preparation ' spoken 
 of elsewhere (John xix. 31, 42 ; Luke xxiii. 54, &c.) was not the 
 first day of Unleavened Bread, but the Passover Friday the 
 Friday of the Passover week ; for St. Luke says distinctly that it 
 was the Preparation, and the Sabbath ' drew on ' (eVe'^ojo-Ke, Luke 
 xxiii. 54), and Josephus (' Ant.' xvi. 6, 2) uses the word ' Prepara- 
 tion ' in the sense of Friday. 2 (6) The expression ' drew on,' which 
 
 whole Passover. When Judas went out during the Paschal supper (John xiii. 
 29), some of the apostles thought that he was sent to buy something for the 
 Feast ; and this may mean something required at once for the Supper, or 
 something for the Chagigah after the morning came. 
 
 1 Another suggestion may be ventured. In the Alexandrine Codex, 
 
 now in the British Museum, the passage reads WPAHIOCEKTH. 
 
 The word HN is written H, because in the Codex it stands at the end of the 
 line. Xo\v, if the original words in St. John's autograph were these, and if 
 we suppose that the stroke above H was the accent, or breathing, or put in 
 as if to end H was, the words might be read &pa jus KTTJ, that is, the daytime 
 was the sixth morning (of the week). The words would, therefore, contain an 
 explanation of the Friday Preparation, which was the sixth day of the week, 
 the days being called first, second, third, &c. (Iren. v. 23, 2). It is quite 
 common in the New Testament to have a word occurring only once, and 
 this word <$o>s occurs in an adjectival form in the Septuagint ^ &ufhcjj (pv\<udi, 
 the morning watch. There were two mornings in the Hebrew way of 
 speaking. The first ' dawn of day,' would be the Greek 6p6pos, and the 
 second morning called taker, the time before 9 A.M. (see Smith's Diet, of the 
 Bible, under day) would rather in Greek be fas. If this were the proper 
 reading, St. John merely asserted that Pilate pronounced sentence in the 
 morning between sunrise and the forenoon (ab. 9 A.M.) of the sixth day. 
 The Greek text of the passage is in other respects dubious, some MSS. in- 
 serting 8 and others putting <J><rl for $. 
 
 2 The chief reason for the Preparation before the weekly Sabbaths was 
 because it was not allowed to prepare food on them ; whereas on feasts
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 47 
 
 has just been quoted, means generally any time from the previous 
 eve till dawn of day. In Matt, xxviii. i the same Greek word is 
 translated 'as it began to dawn' (towards the first day of the week). 
 The word might be translated ' on the eve ' of the first day of the 
 week, that is in ' the late evening ' (o^e) of or after the Sabbath. 
 This would imply that the two Marys visited the sepulchre on 
 Saturday after sunset, when they had completed their purchase of 
 spices (Mark xvi. i). But they certainly came very early next 
 morning ; and if St. Matthew speaks of this, what follows shows 
 how in Hebraistic Greek and does not necessarily imply sequence. 
 We should have to translate ' And behold, there had been a great 
 earthquake.' Hebrew has no pluperfect. (7) The high (great) 
 day during which Jesus was in the grave was the second day of 
 Passover, called ' high ' or ' great ' because it was the day when 
 the first of the harvest was waved before the Lord, and because it 
 was a day of solemn convocation in the Temple courts. 
 
 Synoptical Table of the Fourth Year. 
 
 The days of Christ's last ascent till Passion Week. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 On the way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus xvi. viii. ix. 
 was confessed by Peter to be God's Son ; 13-20 27-30 18-21 
 but Peter could not understand how xvi. viii. ix. 
 God's Son was to be killed and raised 21-28 31-38 22-27 
 again. 
 
 Early in January, A.D. 30, Jesus was xvii. ix. ix. 
 transfigured, probably on Mount Hermon. 1-13- 1-13 28-36 
 (This is my beloved Son, mine elect, &c.) 
 
 On descending the mountain, He xvii. ix. ix. 
 healed the deaf-mute epileptic boy, and 14-23 14-32 37-45 
 foretold His death and resurrection. 
 
 A reasoning arose among the disciples ix. ix. 
 
 which of them should be greatest. 34 46 
 
 St. Luke's peculiar section begins with ix. 
 
 Christ's setting His face to go to Jeru- 51 
 
 salem, 'as the days of His ascension 
 were being fulfilled.' 
 
 The Samaritans, in answer to Christ's ix. 
 
 messengers, refused Him a passage. 5 2-56 
 
 Some aspirants were admonished what cp. viii. ix. 
 
 they must turn their backs upon. 19-22 57~62 
 
 reckoned as Sabbaths only servile work was forbidden. This accounts for 
 the word Preparation becoming a definite synonym for Friday, while the 
 previous days of the week were called first, second, third, &c.
 
 48 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 The Mission of the Seventy, like that x. 
 
 of the Apostles, was early in the year. 1-24 
 
 In answer to a young lawyer's ques- x. 
 
 tion, ' Who is my neighbour ?' the Parable 25-37 
 of the Good Samaritan was spoken. 
 
 Jesus now reached Capernaum, where xvii. ix. 
 
 He paid the Temple dues about March 9, 24-27 33 
 
 reproved the ambition of the disciples, xviii. ix. ix. 
 
 setting before them a little child, 1-14 33-50 47-50 
 
 and enjoined a forgiving spirit by the xviii. 
 
 Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. J5-35 
 
 He now left Capernaum, possibly xix. x. x. 
 
 passing through between Samaria and i, 2 i 38 
 
 Galilee ; and, reaching Perea, heard of xi. 
 
 the illness of Lazarus, to raise whom He 1-53 
 went to Bethany. 
 
 Here He was entertained by Martha x. 
 
 who served ; Mary chose the better part. 38-42 
 
 After this He retired to Ephraim, and xi. 
 
 abode there, probably more than a week. 54~57 
 
 St. Luke's peculiar section contains re- 
 capitulatory parts and the following : 
 
 The Parables of the Importunate Friend xi. 
 
 and the Strong Man Armed. 1-26 
 
 Who are the blessed ? One greater xi. 
 
 than Solomon and greater than Jonah. 27-32 
 
 The light of the body must be open, xi. 
 
 and not obscurantist or malignant. 33-36 
 
 Woes on the Pharisees and lawyers. xi. 37- 
 
 Beware of hypocrisy. Whom to fear. xii. 12 
 
 Beware of covetousness. The Rich xii. 
 
 Fool. Watch, for ye know not the hour. J 3-5 
 
 The tower in Siloam. The Cumbering xiii. 
 
 Fig Tree. Woman healed on Sabbath. 1-17 
 
 Are there few that be saved ? Answer xiii. 
 
 to Herod : ' Go and tell that fox.' 22-35 
 
 On Sabbath Jesus dined with a ruler xiv. 
 
 of the Pharisees, healed the dropsy, re- 1-6 
 
 proved guests who chose the chief places, xiv. 
 
 and described true hospitality. 7-14 
 
 He then spoke the Parable of the xiv. 
 
 Great Supper, and addressed the multi- I 5~35 
 tude about counting the cost.
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 49 
 
 The Parables of the Lost Sheep, the 
 Lost Piece of Money, and the Prodigal 
 Son, justified His receiving sinners. 
 
 On the right use of Riches. The Un- 
 just Steward, who made wise provision. 
 
 On the wrong use of Riches. Lazarus 
 and Dives are described in Hades, that 
 is, before the judgment. 
 
 On forgiving others, and deeming our- 
 selves to be unprofitable servants. 
 
 Leaving Ephraim He passed through 
 Samaria and the Galilean border to join 
 the company of Galilean " pilgrims. He 
 then healed ten lepers, showed how 
 the kingdom of God cometh not with 
 observation, here or there, and spoke 
 the Parables of the Unjust Judge, the 
 Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 Crossing into Perea, He discoursed on 
 Moses' law of divorce ; bade them bring 
 little children to Him, for the truth is 
 committed to such ; showed the rich 
 young ruler how hard it was to cease 
 from covetousness ; 1 told what those 
 leaving all to follow Him would have ; 
 and spoke the Parable of the Labourers. 
 
 He then clearly foretold His passion, 
 and answered the request of James and 
 John, made through their mother. 
 
 Entering Jericho, He was heard pass- 
 ing by Bartimasus and lodged with 
 Zacchseus, in whose house He spake the 
 Parable of the Pounds. On leaving He 
 was addressed by Bartimseus, 2 who, with 
 a companion, received sight. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 xv. 
 1-32 
 
 
 XVI. 
 
 
 1-18 
 
 
 xvi. 
 
 
 19-21 
 
 
 xvii. 
 
 
 I-IO 
 
 
 xvii. 
 
 
 ii 
 
 
 xvii. 
 
 
 12-19 
 
 
 xvii. 
 
 
 20-37 
 
 
 xviii. 
 
 
 1-14 
 
 xix. 
 
 x. xviii. 
 
 I-I2 
 
 1-12 15-17 
 
 xix. 
 
 x. xviii. 
 
 I 3r I 5 
 
 13-16 18-27 
 
 xix. 
 
 x. xviii. 
 
 16-26 
 
 17-27 28-30 
 
 xix. 27 
 
 x. xviii. 
 
 xx. 1 6 
 
 28-31 31-34 
 
 XX. 
 
 x. 
 
 17-28 
 
 3 2 -45 
 
 
 xviii. 
 
 
 35-37 
 
 
 xix. 
 
 
 1-28 
 
 XX. 
 
 x. - xviii. 
 
 29-34 46-52 38-43 
 
 1 The Revisers have adopted a very questionable reading in Matt. xix. 17, 
 on the authority of the manuscripts X, B, D, L, I, and in spite of all the 
 other manuscripts. But even if we follow this reading, Christ's full answer 
 might have combined this reading with that given by St. Mark and St. Luke : 
 ' Why askest thou me concerning that which is good ? or why callest thou me 
 good ? There is none good but one, that is God.' 
 
 2 According to Bengel, Stier, Trench, Ellicott and MacClellan, Hartimaeus 
 heard the company of Jesus passing as they entered Jericho, but was not then 
 healed ; he then joined himself to another blind man and waited for Jesus as 
 
 D
 
 5O THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 Six days before the Passover, and xi. 55 
 
 therefore on Friday, He arrived in xii. i 
 
 Bethany. 1 
 
 Next day, at supper, He was anointed, xxvi. xiv. xii. 
 
 in Simon the Leper's house, by Mary. 6-13 3-9 2-8 
 
 CHRIST'S PASSION WEEK, RESURREC- 
 TION AND ASCENSION. 
 
 On Palm Sunday, the day for selecting xxi. xi. xix. xii. 
 the Paschal I^imb, Jesus entered Jeru- 1-17 i-n 29-4412-19 
 salem as the son of David and King. 2 
 
 On Monday He cursed the fig-tree, xxi. xi. xix. 
 cleansed the Temple, and healed the 18, 19 12-19 45~4& 
 blind and lame in it. 
 
 On Tuesday He spoke about the with- xxi. xi. 
 ered fig-tree and the children's hosannahs, 20-22 20-26 
 answered a question about His authority xxi. xi. xx. 
 by a counter question about John and by 23-46 27-33 : ~8 
 Parables of the Two Sons, the Wicked xxi. xii. xx. 
 Husbandmen, and the King's Marriage 1-14 1-12 9-19 
 Feast and the Wedding Garment. 
 
 He left Jericho next morning, when both were healed ; but St. Luke relates 
 both parts of the incident together, in order not to break the continuity of his 
 narrative. As Jesus said to Zacchreus, ' To-day I must abide in thy house,' 
 and as ' they murmured that He had gone to lodge (/caraAuo-ai) with a man 
 that was a sinner,' it follows that Jesus passed the night in the house of 
 Zacchreus. 
 
 1 The conjunction and does not always denote chronological or immediate 
 sequence. The Synoptists omitted all mention of Christ's visit to Bethany 
 before His Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and therefore they delay giving 
 us an account of the anointing till they have given the discourse on the 
 Mount of Olives. When Mark says that ' after two days was the Feast of the 
 Passover' (xiv. 10) he is giving the date of the conclusion of this discourse, 
 and of the active steps taken against Jesus. When St. Matthew and St. 
 Mark connect with this the account of the anointing by means of ami, the 
 Hebrew and Hellenistic style does not imply that this anointing followed the 
 discourse or the treachery of Judas, though it served to account for it. The 
 widow's answer to David was an instance : ' I am a widow woman of Tekoa 
 and my husband died.' The Hebrew wants the pluperfect, and when the 
 speaker's mind recurs to a previous event, it may be simply connected with 
 and e.g. Gen. ii. 19; xii. I. 
 
 2 The disciples brought the ass and the colt to Jesus and placed their garments 
 upon them ; and Jesus sat upon them (Matt. xxi. 7). It is not necessary to 
 interpret this as meaning that Jesus sat upon the garments. If He sat upon 
 the colt only (John xii. 14), He sat upon the animals. A man may be said 
 to sit upon the chairs of a room ; but this does not mean that he must needs 
 be seated upon all of them. We must allow to language its legitimate 
 range.
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 51 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 He next answered questions about xxii. xii. xx. 
 tribute to Caesar, about the resurrection 15-33 13-27 20-40 
 of the dead, and about the great com- xxii. xii. 
 mandment of the Law (Deut. v. 6, and 34-40 28-34 
 Lev. xix. 1 8). 
 
 He then asked His questioners how xxii. xii. xx. 
 David's son could be David's Lord(Ps. ex.); 41-46 35-37 41-44 
 denounced the hypocrisy, blind guidance xxiii. xii. xx. 
 and venom of Scribes and Pharisees ; 1-39 38-40 45-47 
 and, sitting down over against the treasury, xii. xxi. 
 
 praised the widow's mite. 41 -44 1-4. 
 
 Here he probably was told of Greeks xii. 
 
 seeking Him, and the voice came from 20-29 
 
 heaven. His discourse indicated that xii. 
 
 men would be judged by His word, ac- 3-5 
 
 cording as they kept or disregarded it. 
 
 Leaving the Temple He predicted its xxiv. xiii. xxi. 
 destruction, discoursed on the signs of 1-57 1-37 5-38 
 His coming, the end of the age, and the xxv. 
 judgment, speaking Parables of the Ten 1-46 
 Virgins, Talents, and Sheep and Goats. 
 
 On Wednesday the chief priests and xxvi. xiv. xxii. 
 Scribes bargained with Judas purposing 14-16 1,10,11 1-6 
 since the anointing to betray Jesus. 
 
 On Thursday Peter and John were xxvi. xxiv. xxii. 
 sent to make ready the Passover. In the 17-19 12-16 7-13 
 evening, after rebuking a contention xxvi. xiv. xxii. xiii. 
 about precedence, Jesus washed His 20 17 24 2-20 
 disciples' feet. (~)3 
 
 He then ate the Passover ; and xxvi. xiv. xxii. xiii. 
 during it pointed out the traitor Judas 21-25 18-21 14-23 21- 
 by a sop. 32 
 
 After this He instituted the Eucharist, xxvi. xiv. xxii. 
 the cup of blessing being the third in 26-29 22 ~ 2 5 X 9> 20 
 the old ritual. (i Cor. xi. 23-35). 
 
 He then announced His near separa- xxii. xiii. 
 
 tion, enjoined love and foretold Peter's 22-36 33-38 
 
 denials, promised the Spirit as another xiv. 
 
 Comforter, and enjoined abidance in His I- 3 T 
 
 teaching. l 
 
 1 His answer to Jude and previous words indicate the two great means of 
 grace the keeping or studying of His sayings, and the keeping of His 
 commandments or proper conduct. Man's character, according to the laws of 
 
 D 2
 
 52 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 The Hallel (Ps. cxv.-cxviii.) was then xxvi. xiv. xiv. 
 
 sung; and they left the supper room. 30 26 31 
 
 When arising to go or on the way to xv. 
 
 the Mount of Olives He concluded His xvi. 
 
 farewell discourse, spoke the intercessory xxvi. xiv. xxii. xviii. 
 prayer, and again predicted the apostles' 31-35 27-31 39 
 desertion. 
 
 The agony in Gethsemane, the angel's xxvi. xiv. xxii. 
 appearance, the sweat as of great drops 36-46 32-42 40-46 
 of blood followed ; then, after mid- xxvi. xiv. xxii. xviii. 
 night, the betrayal of Judas, the arrest 47-56 43-52 46-53 2-11 
 of Jesus, and the flight of the apostles. 
 
 Jesus was led a prisoner first before xvii 
 
 Annas, the leader of the Sanhedrim; and 12-14 
 
 then tried informally before Caiaphas, 1 xxvi. xiv. xxii. xviii. 
 in whose house before cock-crowing 57-75 53-72 54-65 15-27 
 Peter denied him thrice. 2 
 
 When dawn was announced from xxvii. xv. xxii. 
 
 i 41 66-71 
 
 growth, is affected both by what he knows or thinks about, and also by 
 what he practises. We have, it is true, nothing of our own to give to God, 
 nor does He Himself need anything from us. Works of merit are excluded, 
 but not works of means, for men's characters depend greatly on their actions. 
 Works of mercy bless the giver as well as the receiver. 
 
 1 The Sanhedrim would not be idle till daybreak. Jesus was probably 
 first examined by Annas ; but John does not tell us where. He was then in- 
 formally tried during night in the house of Caiaphas (Matthew and Mark) ; and 
 then formally tried when the legal time came at the first break of day (Luke). 
 
 2 Peter's denials may be thus harmonised. First, the maid who kept the 
 door of the porch leading into the hall or open court of the high priest's 
 house, saw Peter sitting and (sometimes) standing in the light of the fire, and 
 said to him, ' Thou also wert with Jesus of Nazareth ; art thou one of His 
 disciples ? ' He answered : ' I am not ; I know not him or what thou art 
 speaking about.' He then went into the porch and the cock crew. After 
 this, another maidservant saw him and said to them that stood by, ' This is 
 one of them.' Another man then said to him, 'Thou also art one of them.' 
 One or more of the bystanders asked him, ' Art thou also one of His disciples ? ' 
 On this he again denied with an oath, saying, ' Man, I am not ; I know not 
 the man.' About an hour afterwards a certain man, among other bystanders, 
 said to him, ' Of a truth thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and 
 thy speech agreeing thereto bewrayeth thee.' Also a kinsman of Malchus said 
 to him, ' Did I not see thee with Him in the garden ? ' Then began he to 
 curse and to swear, saying to one, ' Man, I know not what thou sayest,' and 
 to ihe bystanders, ' I know not the man of whom you speak.' And while he 
 yet spake the cock crew the second time. St. Mark speaks of the cock 
 crowing twice ; but St. Matthew merely says that before cock-crowing, that 
 is, before the fourth watch of the night, Peter was to deny his Master thrice.
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 53 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 the Temple top (ab. 4.50 A.M.), He was 
 tried formally by the Sanhedrim. 
 
 The Temple door being then opened, xxvii. Acts i. 
 
 Judas, in despair, cast the blood-money 3-10 18-19 
 
 into the sanctuary, and hanged himself. L 
 
 At early dawn (5 A.M.), Jesus was xxvii. xv. xxiii. xviii. 
 led before Pilate, who found Him in- 2, IT, 1-5 1-4 28-38 
 nocent ; but hearing He was of Galilee, 
 Pilate sent Him to Herod, who mockec 
 Him, and sent him back. 
 
 Pilate then sought to release Jesus xxviii. xv. xxiii. xviii. 
 according to a custom at the Feast ; but 15-25 6-14 13-23 39- 
 the Jews preferred Barabbas. 40 
 
 Pilate now sought to content the Jews xix. 
 
 by scourging Jesus (Behold the Man !), 1-5 
 
 but fearing to be reported to Tiberius, xxvii. xv. xxiii. xix. 
 delivered Him to be crucified. 26-33 I 5~ 22 2 4~3 2 6-16 
 
 At 9 A.M. Jesus was crucified, refus- xxvii. xv. xxiii. xix. 
 ing the drugged wine. 2 His first words 34-38 23-28 33, 34 17- 
 from the Cross were, ' Father, forgive 24 
 
 them, for they know not what they do.' 
 
 The priests, the people, the soldiers, xxvii. xv. xxiii. 
 and at least one of the two malefactors 39-44 29- 32 35-38 
 crucified with Him, railed at Him. 3 To 
 
 1 St. Peter, in speaking of the fall of Judas from the high place or estate 
 of apostleship, contrasted with it the place or estate which he ' got for 
 himself with the wages of iniquity (Acts i. 18). The Greek word (fKr-fiffaro) 
 means ' got ' or ' obtained ' (R. V.), and does not necessarily imply that Judas 
 himself purchased the Field of Blood (Aceldama), which perpetuated the 
 memory of his treachery. ' Falling down headlong, he burst in the midst, and 
 all his bowels gushed out.' The meaning clearly is that he burst in the midst 
 of his person ; the same word (/ueVos), translated ' in the midst,' occurs in 
 this sense in Luke xxiii. 45. The quotation from Jeremiah the prophet 
 (Matt, xxvii. 9, 10) is not among Jeremiah's written words, as now recorded ; 
 but the Jews had other traditions of the sayings of their great prophets, 
 besides those in our written Scriptures. The words are not exactly those of 
 Zechariah (xi. 12, 13), who adapted them to his own context. 
 
 2 It is quite immaterial whether we read wme in Matt, xxvii. 34, 
 vinegar. We know, from Mark xv. 24, that wine was first offered to Jesus 
 mingled with drugs to stupefy and allay pain. This Jesus refused. The word 
 translated vinegar (Gk. S|os, Heb. chomets, Lat. acetum, was often applied 
 to the poor wine of the country (cp. Fr. vin aigre). 
 
 3 St. Matthew does not mention this incident of the repentant thief, but 
 enumerates the thieves as among the classes who reviled Christ on the cross. 
 It is unnecessary to suppose that the repentant thief reviled Christ before 
 He repented, though he may have done so. St. Matthew is speaking of 
 classes of men.
 
 54 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 
 the repentant malefactor He said, 'To- xxiii. 
 
 day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' 39~43 
 
 To John, standing by, Jesus commended 
 
 His mother, and said, ' Behold thy xix. 
 
 mother,' ' Woman, behold thy son.' 2 5~ 2 7 
 
 The supernatural darkness began at xxvii. xv. xxiii. 
 noon, and lasted three hours (Eli, Eli). 45-47 33-35 44-49 
 
 Jesus then said, ' I thirst,' and, receiv- xxvii. xv. xix. 
 
 ing vinegar, cried, 'It is finished,' and 48-56 36-41 28-30 
 with the words, ' Father, into Thy hands 
 I commit my Spirit,' bowed His head 
 and died. The centurion and the women 
 
 looked on. To make sure He was dead, xix. 
 
 a soldier pierced His side, whence came 3 I- 37 
 
 blood and water. ' Before sunset, He was xxvii. xv. xxiii xix. 
 buried by Joseph and Nicodemus. 57~6i 42-47 50-55 38-^ 
 
 On the second day of the Passover, xxvii. xxiii. 42 ' 
 
 being this year Sabbath, Jesus was in the 62-66 56 
 
 grave, which was sealed, with a guard set 
 to prevent the removal of the body. 
 
 After Sabbath, on Sunday eve, the two xxviii. xvi. 
 Marys bought spices and perhaps visited i i 
 the sepulchre. 
 
 There was a great earthquake ; an xxviii. 
 angel descended and rolled the stone 2-4 
 from the tomb, when Jesus rose again. 
 
 The women, coming early to the sepul- xvi. xxiv. 
 
 chre to embalm Jesus, saw the stone re- 2-4 1-3 
 
 moved, and the grave empty. 
 
 Mary Magdalene either came first, or xvi. xx. 
 
 left the others to tell Peter and John, who 9-1 1 1-18 
 
 found it so. Returning she saw Jesus. 
 
 When she was away the other women xxviii. xvi. xxiv. 
 saw a vision of angels, and went to report; 5-10 5-8 4-1 2 
 returning they met Jesus. 
 
 Some of the terrified guards reported xxviii. 
 
 11-15 
 
 1 The Roman Centurion's words in full were : ' Truly this was a righteous 
 man, the (a) Son of God' (Luke xxiii. 47; Matt, xxviii. 54). There is a 
 latent significance (cp. I John v. 6) in the water and the blood, which flowed 
 from Christ's side. Water is often a type of the Word, and the blood of the 
 Sacrifice was the Life. God's two Hands, according to Irenseus, are the Word 
 and Spirit (iv. 20, I ; v. i, 3 ; v. 6, i).
 
 THE FOURTH YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 55 
 
 Matt. Mark Luke John 
 what had happened, but were bribed to 
 say Jesus was stolen. 
 
 Jesus next appeared to Cleopas and xvi. xxiv. 
 
 another disciple, perhaps Luke (?), going 12, 13 13-35 
 
 to Emmaus in the afternoon. 
 
 The same evening He was seen by i Cor. xvi. xxiv. xx. 
 Peter. He then appeared to the apostles, xv. 14 36-43 19- 
 declaring their mission, and breathing on 4, 5 23 
 
 them as future ministers of His grace. 
 
 A week later he again appeared to xx. 
 
 them when Thomas was present, and 24-31 
 
 convinced him (My Lord and my God). 
 
 After this He appeared to seven dis- xxi. 
 
 ciples as they were fishing at the Lake of 1-14 
 
 Galilee ; and, after a second miraculous xxi. 
 
 draught of fishes, Peter received a pas- I 5~ 2 5 
 
 toral charge. He was to die like Christ. 
 
 Jesus then appeared to five hundred xxviii. i Cor. 
 
 brethren, and probably in their presence 16-20 xv. 6 
 
 gave the apostles their commission. 
 
 He then appeared to James, the Lord's xxiv. i Cor. 
 
 brother ; and finally, forty days after the 44~53 x v. 7 
 
 resurrection, He appeared to the apostles xvi. Acts i. 
 
 at Jerusalem, led them out to Bethany, 19 3-11 
 
 and ascended to Heaven. 
 
 Christ's Appearances after His Ascension and 
 Dispensational Developments. 
 
 AFTER the Ascension of Jesus Christ at Bethany, He reappeared 
 to St. Paul and St. John to initiate developments afterwards to be 
 worked out in the history of mankind. His fourth year's ministry 
 and subsequent appearances, reckoned as its sequel, form four 
 eras or developments connected with the witness and teaching of 
 Peter, James, Paul, and John, respectively ; and these develop- 
 ments, being the fulfilment of the days of ascension, 1 are analogous 
 to the periods of the three preceding years. St. Peter presents 
 himself in his epistles as an eye-witness of the Transfiguration and 
 similar facts, which he assures his readers were not cunningly 
 devised fables. In view of the sufferings and example of Jesus 
 
 1 Forty days after Jesus Christ's birth, He was presented in the Temple ; 
 forty days after His baptism, He began His public ministry ; and forty days 
 after His resurrection, He appeared in His Church.
 
 56 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christ, of the confirmation of the Word of prophecy, and of 
 Messianic expectation to be fulfilled, St. Peter exhorts them to 
 give earnest heed to this Word, to desire its sincere milk, to arm 
 themselves with a mind to endure as Christ did, to give diligence 
 to have their faith perfected. His epistles are thus a sequel to 
 St. Mark's Gospel, of which St. Peter was indirectly the author, 
 for all agree that this Gospel presents a rapid survey of the facts 
 of Christ's life, an eagle's (or bird's-) eye view of it. St. Peter's 
 Epistles lead on to that of James the first Bishop of Jerusa- 
 lem. If this was the James to whom Christ appeared immediately 
 before His ascension (i Cor. xv. 7), we may regard this as a sort 
 of designation of him to this office. At Christ's last meeting with 
 His Apostles they asked Him about the kingdom He was to set 
 up. His reply indicated that the power of this kingdom was the 
 Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost, and that they were to be His 
 witnesses, that is, witnesses for His truth, for truth is the ruling 
 principle of His kingdom (cp. John xviii. 36-38). We have here 
 the first constitution of the Christian Church to be the guardian 
 and witness of the truth and the embodiment of the Spirit. It 
 was this kingdom of God's truth and the new mind implied in the 
 word (/neravoia) translated ' repentance,' that Jesus began to preach 
 at Capernaum at the commencement of His second year's ministry, 
 and the same feature occurs distinctly at the second era of each 
 year, from the Passover to Pentecost. So it was at the Passover 
 of the fourth year, at the commencement of the second stage of 
 that year, that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, publicly showing himself 
 as the Davidic King. In His trial before Pilate He represented 
 Himself as a King, but connected His kingdom with the truth to 
 which He was witnessing. After His passion, ' He spake the things 
 concerning the Kingdom of God.' On the Cross the title declared 
 Him to be King of the Jews. This aspect is that of Man reigning. 
 ' Behold the Man,' said Pilate to the Jews. Now the same aspect 
 is presented in the Epistle of James. His themes are the royal 
 law (ii. 8), the perfect Image of Man (i. 23, R.V. marg.), the 
 wisdom that is from above (iii. 17), pure and undefiled religion 
 (i. 27), and the judgment on those who lead unworthy lives. 
 St. James's Epistle is thus a fitting sequel to St. Matthew's Gospel, 
 which begins with the royal pedigree of Jesus Christ and the 
 Magi's adoration of Him as King of the Jews, presenting Him as 
 the meek and lowly-minded pattern of men (xi. 30), yet as a King 
 sitting on the Mount to give His law, and on the throne of His 
 glory to judge the nations (Matt. xxv. 31, 32). The third era of 
 Gospel development is connected with the appearances of Jesus 
 Christ to Paul. The first appearance to him was on the way to
 
 CHRIST'S SUBSEQUENT APPEARANCES. 57 
 
 Damascus. Again, in Arabia, the country of the Levitical legis- 
 lation, Paul received his instructions directly from Jesus Christ 
 (Gal. i. 11-17). The third heaven, into which Paul was caught 
 up, seems to connect itself with this third aspect. In the Temple 
 he again saw Jesus in vision and was commissioned to go to the 
 Gentiles (Acts xxii. 17-21) ; at Corinth (Acts xviii. 9), and on the 
 way to Rome (Acts xxiii. n) Paul had subsequent visions of 
 Jesus Christ. Now St. Paul in his epistles deals largely with the 
 sacrificial aspect of Christ (the ox-aspect of the Cherubim), and 
 with the deep things of God. As Peter said, there are in Paul's 
 epistles things hard to be understood or interpreted, which are a 
 savour of life to some but may become a savour of death to 
 perverters, if they interpret them in a sense contrary to the plain, 
 uncontrovertible, first principles of all true religious belief. They 
 present the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, a discipline 
 of enigmatic teaching analogous to that of the third year 
 of Christ's ministry, and to the parabolic or covert aspect of 
 the third stage of each year. The same aspect appears in 
 the Gospel of his companion Luke, especially in the opening 
 chapters and in the long parabolic section (ix. 51 -xviii. 14) 
 peculiar to him, which contains the most remarkable of all the 
 Parables. This Parable shows how the Fatted Calf was killed 
 because of the finding of the younger son (the Gentiles), while 
 ' the gifts and calling of God ' were secured to the elder (the Jews). 
 The last appearance, or series of appearances, of Jesus Christ was 
 to St. John in the Island of Patmos. The Epistles and Apocalyp- 
 tic visions, which he was directed to write, follow up his Gospel, 
 and complete the New Testament canon. John is called up into 
 the heavenly presence of Him who is over all. Around His 
 throne are twenty- four elders, seated also on thrones and clothed 
 in white garments. Besides other imagery of the prophet Ezekiel, 
 the four-faced Cherubim (Dispensational Aspects) appear in the 
 midst of the throne and encircling it. He that sits upon the 
 throne holds in His hand a roll written completely over ; but no 
 man is found worthy to open its seven seals, till the Lion of the 
 Tribe of Judah prevails to do so. When this is announced by one 
 of the elders, creation bursts forth in a new song of praise, declaring 
 the Lamb that was slain worthy to receive power. At the opening 
 of the first seal, One sitting on a white horse appears ' conquering 
 and to conquer.' As David said, He comes in majesty, riding 
 upon the Word or matter of ( l al d'var) truth, meekness, and 
 righteousness (Ps. xlv. 4). His approach is heralded by the first 
 of the Cherubim, the Lion-faced, in a voice of thunder. Now the 
 aspect which St. John (Boanerges) here represents, is that of con-
 
 58 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 quest of Jesus Christ subduing all things to Himself, whether in 
 the natural use of things, in the full understanding of the mystery 
 of God, or in raising men into the life and participation of God. 
 The earth is lighted up when created things are devoted to man's 
 service and God's glory ; the mystery of God is unveiled, for John 
 sees into the most holy place, where the ark of God is ; and man 
 himself is to be perfected as the Temple of God, who is love and 
 light and life. But in growing up to this perfected manhood, ' the 
 steps to God are not few ; ' and. in the working out of them, God 
 has ever been a Trier of those upon whom He sends His good- 
 ness (Irenaeus iii. 25 ; iv. 9). Thus the Book of Revelation is 
 full of figurative descriptions of God's judgments. Created 
 things, if misused, become a curse and a cause of contentious 
 hatred, figured by a blood-red horse ; perversions of truth turn 
 the lights of heaven to black darkness ; and, as the alternative of 
 divine life, Hades and pale death follow in the train. The coming 
 judgments are the parallels of the prizes. As men grow to 
 maturity and enter upon the freedom which is proper to full 
 growth, not to minors, they are more thoroughly tried (Iren. iv. 
 16, 5) ; but, if it be worthy, the working of liberty is 'greater and 
 more glorious ' (iv. 13, 2). 
 
 The fourfold division of the Gospel History is thus demon- 
 strated by manifold recurrences. It is discernible (i) in the years 
 of Jesus Christ's ministry, (2) in the divisions of the years, (3) in 
 the characteristics of the Four Gospels, and (4) in the develop- 
 ment of the New Testament Canon, being foreshadowed (5) in 
 the Mosaic Feasts and (6) successive legislations. 1 Another re- 
 markable confirmation of it appears in the order of the Cherubic 
 aspects, which St. John gives apparently inverted (Rev. iv. 7), but 
 which indicates an order of dispensational developments descend- 
 ing from the patriarchal or normal state, to re-ascend by inverted 
 but analogous stages, till Paradise is regained in what is called 
 the restitution of all things. ' At first,' says Irenaeus, ' the Word 
 
 1 First, we have the mission of Moses, beginning at the Burning Bush and 
 including the mighty works done by his agency in Egypt, till the Exodus, 
 when the Passover was instituted. Secondly, in the third month after they 
 came out of Egypt, the Israelites reached Sinai (Ex. xix. i). The Ten 
 Commandments were thus given about Pentecost ; and at first God added no 
 more (Deut. v. 22). But, thirdly, when the people by the idolatry of the 
 golden calf showed themselves gross-minded, prone to idolatry, and in need 
 of a sensuous and mediated discipline, they received for their good the elaborate 
 ritual or priest code. Lastly, on the first day of the eleventh month of the 
 fortieth year after leaving Egypt, and in the part of the Holy Land east of 
 Jordan, Moses began to declare or expound (bier) the law of Deuteronomy 
 <(Deut. i. 5) ; he recapitulates the past and indicates its fulfilment.
 
 DISPENSATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE WORD. 59 
 
 of God conversed with the patriarchs according to His divinity 
 and glory ' (Kara, TO QCIKOV KOL cv8oov, aspect of power) ; but 
 (secondly) He gave the priestly and liturgical dispensation (repre- 
 sented by the sacrificial ox) in the Law of Moses ' (Iren. iii. u, 8). 
 Thirdly, there was a new epoch marked by the Kingdom of 
 David, the Man after God's own heart, by the building of the 
 Temple, and by the wisdom of Solomon. Fourthly, there was 
 the dispensation, characterised by Hebrew prophecy, the Eagle 
 aspect. This last descending aspect was the first of an ascending 
 series leading back to the normal state. 1 Jesus Christ con- 
 nected His ministry with the great Hebrew prophets, being bap- 
 tised by John, the last of them ; and He began as 'a prophet 
 mighty in word and deed before God and all the people ' (Luke 
 xxiv. 19). The kingly aspect, as has been said, was publicly 
 entered on at His last Passover. The Christian Church, consti- 
 tuted at His Ascension and Pentecost, corresponded to Solomon's 
 Temple ; and the first Christian literature after the New Testa- 
 ment presents little else than a collection of plain earnest precep- 
 tive wisdom. But the Roman world became nominally Christian 
 a mixed, semi-pagan multitude entered both then and when the 
 Northern Barbarians overran the empire. Christianity adapted 
 itself as a discipline suitable for these childish, gross-minded, but 
 teachable peoples. This discipline combined a sensuous and 
 enigmatic symbolism with an ascetic or negative tendency, shun- 
 ning for a time the full legitimate use of things, till the multitudes 
 should grow to a maturer state and be able to discern between 
 the right use and the wrong. Neander 2 shows that the more 
 earnest Christians in the early times preferred to cast away much 
 that had been used by them when heathens in the service of sin, 
 but which was capable of a nobler use ; they passed through this 
 'great straitenment ' (cp. Rev. vii. 14 with Matt. vii. 14), lest there 
 should be any false accommodation with evil ; and, both in the 
 case of the individual and that of the general body, there was a 
 temporary development repressing for a time the positive element 
 of assimilation, by which alone Christianity could rule the world, 
 appropriating all that properly belongs to man. This stage was 
 analogous to the wilderness discipline under Moses, commemo- 
 rated by the Feast of Tabernacles. The Church fled into the 
 wilderness. But created things were to be emancipated in the 
 
 1 Seven dispensational ages are thus grouped round a central one. Similar 
 groupings occur in Rev. xiv. where six angels and their acts are grouped 
 round the Son of Man, and in chap. xvii. I to xxii. 5, the central figure being 
 in chap. xix. n (Kliefoth, Milligan). 
 
 2 Neander's Church History, vol. i. pp. 361, 362, 382, 383 ; Bohn.
 
 60 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 full growth of the sons of God. The institutions, social tone, 
 and ruling influences of the world come to be on the right side ; 
 and, in their dedication to God's service, the things of this life 
 put on a new face, the houses of the City of God being all lighted 
 up, as at the Feast of Dedication ; the patriarchal paradise of 
 Genesis is regained. The ' great power and glory ' of this 
 ' manifestation ' is no doubt connected with great agencies and 
 ministrations, directed by a knowledge of God's ways, or the laws 
 of things. But it is still possible to transgress these laws of God. 
 The moral refuse is cast outside the City ; men see it preyed upon 
 by the fire of unrest and the worm of corruption (Rev. xxi., xxii.). 
 
 ALTERNATIVES IN GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 When a science is in its infancy we have the mere details of observation 
 without the general principles by which these are combined into a system, 
 ' we know in part and we prophesy in part,' we have a piecemeal knowledge 
 and expository scraps. But when the principles underlying these details are 
 demonstrably established, the whole can be taught systematically, the observed 
 phenomena and the equally certain explanations or demonstrated principles 
 being commingled. This has been the case with astronomy since the days of 
 Galileo, Kepler, and Newton ; and it may yet be the case with the teaching 
 of Christianity. As a preliminary, we believe it has here been shown, with an 
 amount of probability which is practically demonstration, that a clear system 
 or methodic order underlies even the Gospel history ; but, in order to judge, 
 readers require to balance the other alternatives. 
 
 I. The first point at which a few harmonists diverge brings into question 
 the length of time which Jesus spent in Judea, baptising through His disciples, 
 and the length of time occupied by His first circuit in Galilee. His baptising 
 lasted till the end of John's baptising, for Jesus left Judea when He heard 
 of John's imprisonment. Now, if John began to baptise about Octolx.-r r, 
 A.D. 26, or a little earlier, we may reasonably presume that his ministry would 
 continue till December i, A.D. 27, a period of little more than fourteen 
 months ; and if Jesus began to baptise in May or June (A.D. 27), He surely 
 did not change His entire plan of operations in twenty-seven days, as Greswell 
 supposes, or in five weeks, as MacClellan supposes. Would His baptism 
 acquire in this short time so ' all-pervading an influence ' that 'all men came 
 to Him ' (John iv. 26) ? Or is it not more reasonable to assign five or six 
 months to this baptismal mode of making disciples? Again, if, as Greswell 
 and MacClellan suppose, it was about the beginning of June that Jesus left 
 Judea to settle in Galilee, how is the time to be filled up between this date 
 and the plucking of the ears of corn by the disciples, which could not be 
 before the beginning of the following April ? To fill up this long interval, 
 Greswell and MacClellan suppose that Christ's first circuit in Galilee, after 
 His settlement at Capernaum, lasted ten months. They justify this by the 
 statement that Jesus ' went about all Galilee preaching' (Matt. iv. 23, Mark i. 
 39). But this does not necessarily, or even naturally, mean that He visited 
 every one of the 204 cities and villages in Galilee (see Josephus' ' Life,' 54). 
 The probability is that the first circuit in Galilee lasted only during the first 
 two or three months of the year A.D. 28 ; and this probability harmonises with 
 the statement of Jesus, in passing through Samaria, that ' there are yet four
 
 ALTERNATIVES IN GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY. 6 1 
 
 months and then cometh the harvest. ' A proverb would not have been so 
 expressed and six months intervened between seed time and harvest in 
 Palestine. Men would still remember the Passover miracles (John iv. 45). 
 This probability, therefore, becomes practically demonstration. 
 
 II. Wieseler, followed by Ellicott and others, would omit a year and crowd 
 into the space of ten days or a fortnight all the events which occurred, accord- 
 ing to St. Mark and St. Luke, between the plucking of the ears of corn by 
 the disciples (not earlier than April, or Nisan i) and the Passover (Nisan 14), 
 when Jesus fed the Five Thousand (see p. 17). The reader will find these 
 events in two of our synopses (from the top of p. 2g to the top of p. 38) 
 extended, as in most harmonies, over an entire year ; and an inspection of 
 them proves Wieseler's alternative to be unreasonable. 
 
 III. If the reader agrees with Tatian, Chrysostom, Cyril, most of the 
 Fathers, Calvin, Bengel, MacClellan, Friedlieb, Townsend, and Lewin in 
 thinking that the feast spoken of in John v. was Pentecost, he will agree with 
 us in thinking that Christ's presence at the Feast of Pentecost was in keeping 
 with the entire second year's ministry. If, however, with Irenaeus, Grotius, 
 Lightfoot, Greswell, Robinson, Wordsworth, Archbishop Thomson, Andrews, 
 and Kitto, he judges this feast to have been the Passover, his arrangement 
 of the other events of the year will not thereby be altered. If it was on the 
 second day of the Passover, and first day of counting to Pentecost, that the 
 disciples plucked the ears of corn, he has only to suppose that they did so in 
 the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Nor would our general outline be affected, 
 if the feast in question was the Feast of Purim, a merrymaking held on the 
 I4th and isth of Adar (March) to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews 
 from the machinations of their enemy Haman. This opinion is supported 
 by Kepler, Meyer, Lange, Tholuck, Wieseler, Ellicott, Tischendorf, Winer, 
 and Farrar ; but as the Feast of Purim was not one prescribed by the law of 
 Moses, as it had very little of the religious element in it, and served rather 
 to foster the national antipathies of the Jews, it seems highly improbable that 
 an important chapter of Gospel history would be connected with it. 
 
 IV. The next alternative refers to the dates of the Transfiguration, the 
 payment of the Temple dues, and the Mission of the Seventy. Greswell and 
 Ellicott place the Transfiguration in the early summer of our third year 
 (May 27), and the payment of the Temple dues a fortnight before the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, and the Mission of the Seventy after this feast (Ellicott) or in the 
 next February (Greswell). Andrews now places all three events between the 
 Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication. After mentioning the pay- 
 ment of the Temple dues, St. Matthew relates Christ's rebuke of the disciples' 
 ambition as occurring ' in that hour ' ; and as St. Luke mentions the Mission 
 of the Seventy after his account of this rebuke, these harmonists seem to have 
 concluded that Christ did not pay the Temple dues at the regular time that 
 is, in the first two weeks of Adar, or March probably because they suppose 
 that there was not time for the Mission of the Seventy and the many visits 
 of Jesus, which the Seventy heralded, in the three (or four) weeks before the 
 Passover week. But as St. Luke would naturally finish at once his account 
 of the reasoning about pre-eminence and the rebuke of it, his words do not 
 imply that the Mission of the Seventy followed the rebuke at Capernaum, 
 although he does mean that it followed the rising of the reasoning. By sup- 
 posing that this Mission preceded the rebuke, we have abundance of time for it 
 in the first months of the fourth year, after the Transfiguration, which we 
 place at the commencement of this year. In this way, we are not obliged to 
 put back the payment of the Temple dues or to make the harsh supposition
 
 62 THE YEARS AND ERAS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 that Jesus got into arrears of debt for dues payable before the preceding Pass- 
 over, and had to be reminded of them. In this way, also, we do not, like 
 Greswell and others, interpose a long interval between the Transfiguration 
 scenes and the 'days of ascension,' when Jesus set His face steadfastly to go to 
 Jerusalem, or, like others, suppose that this final journey began at the Feast 
 of Tabernacles and was unnaturally long and circuitous. 
 
 V. An attempt has been made by the Rev. William Pound, in his ' Story 
 of the Gospels' (Rivington, 1869), to show that each Evangelist is strictly 
 exact in the chronological order of the events which he records, and that each 
 intends to indicate this by his notes of time and particles of transition. To 
 make this out, Mr. Pound supposes that Jesus carried on a fourfold system of 
 teaching at different stages in different districts ; and that not only were there 
 two great sermons, as Greswell also supposes, but that there were two healings 
 of a servant of the same Roman Centurion, two similar messages from John 
 the Baptist, two voyages from the same place to Gerasa or Gadara, with two 
 similar healings of demoniacs and two destructions of swine, two raisings 
 to life of a daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue, two Missions of the 
 Apostles, one to Judea and another to Galilee ! The particles (the Greek 
 Kai and 5e), by which St. Matthew introduces these accounts, were in his 
 original Hebrew the conjunction ve (English and) ; and, as has been said 
 (p. 28 n. 2, p. 50 n. i), and in Hebraistic Greek does not necessarily imply 
 chronological sequence. We have, however, distinguished the connectives 
 then (T($T), which implies sequence, and while He was speaking these things 
 (Matt. ix. 14, 1 8), which implies immediate sequence or accompaniment 
 (p. 29, note). The expression ' at that season* (iv (Ktivcp rf Kcupf, 
 Matt. xi. 25 ; xii. l) has a wide sense. It is to be noted that the rest promised 
 to the weary and heavy laden in the last verses of Matt. xi. is connected 
 ;';; sense with the question of the Sabbath rest (Matt, xii.) which the words 
 ' at that season ' introduce. The expression ' at that season ' certainly does 
 not necessarily mean that the plucking of the ears of corn followed the dis- 
 course which Matthew connects with the message of John, but only that 
 the events recorded in both chapters occurred in the same season. To define 
 time more exactly St. Luke employs the expressions '/// that very hour'' 
 (Luke ii. 38; vii. 21 ; x. 21 ; xii. 12 ; xx. 19; xxiv. 13) and ' in that very 
 day'' (xiii. 31 ; xxiii. 12 ; xxiv. 13) ; but when on one occasion (Luke xiii. i) 
 he says ' at that season,' he is connecting statements about the judgment. 
 The cautions to the disciples mentioned in Luke xvii. 1-4, and connected 
 with what precedes by and (not then), are similar in substance to what 
 St. Matthew's connectives at that hour and then (xviii. 1,21) would lead us 
 to suppose were spoken at Capernaum. But whether Christ repeated some of 
 His lessons, or Luke transposed some of them, it need not be supposed that 
 St. Luke disregards chronological sequence in relating such events as the 
 Mission of the Seventy. 
 
 VI. In this, as in most harmonies, Jesus is represented as having finally 
 arrived in Bethany on Friday afternoon, six exact days before the killing of 
 the 1'aschal lambs on Thursday afternoon, and as having eaten the Passover 
 on the night before He suffered. If our explanations of St. John's language be 
 accepted, the alternative, which supposes St. John to mean that Chri>t was 
 crucified when the Paschal lambs were being slain, will be set aside as a need- 
 less supposition of discrepancy. But, at all events, the arrangement of the 
 Passion week does not affect that of the previous years.
 
 63 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF ALL THE ALLEGED GOSPEL DIVER- 
 GENCIES OR HARMONISTIC DIFFICULTIES ACCORDING 
 TO THE NATURE OF THEIR EXPLANATION. 
 
 (a) Words are liable to ambiguity. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Jechonias in St. Matthew's genealogy . . . . . 15, . ' 
 
 2. Heli's Jacob and Neri's Shealtiel in St. Luke's genealogy . . 15, n. " 
 
 3. The first census was accomplished when Cyrenius was governor 12 
 
 4. Abiathar and Ahimelech ; Annas high priest .... 23, n. ' 
 
 5. The apostles might take a staff, but not rods for tenting . . 37, n. ' 
 
 6. Christ's last journey was through the midst of, or through the 
 
 borderland of Samaria and Galilee ..... 44, n. ' 
 
 7. Zacharias, the son of Barachias or Jehoiada . . . 23, n. * 
 
 8. The first day of Unleavened Bread . . . . -45 
 
 9. Jesus ate the Passover before the Feast called Chagigah . . 45 
 
 10. Judas got (not purchased for himself) an estate . . . 53, n. ' 
 
 11. Jeremiah prophesied (spoke) about the thirty pieces of silver . 53, . * 
 
 12. After Christ's trial, part of the Passover Feast remained . . 46 
 
 13. The sixth hour in John's Gospel is 6 P.M. and 6 A.M. . . 46 
 
 14. The Preparation of the Passover was its Friday . . .46 
 
 15. The word translated vinegar means also poor wine . . . 54, n. ' 
 
 1 6. The high day during which Christ was in the grave . . 47 
 
 (b) Language has its legitimate range. 
 
 1. Jehoram begat Uzziah, his great-great-grandson . . 15, n. ' 
 
 2. Malachi probably copied Isaiah's prophecy about John . . 6 
 
 3. Christ was three days in the grave, as the Jews spoke . . 9, n. ' 
 
 4. Jesus sat upon the ass and the colt, when he sat on the colt . 50, n. 2 
 
 5. The thieves were among the classes who reviled Jesus . . 53, ;/. 3 
 
 (c) Different evangelists select different details. 
 
 1. The voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus . . . 21, n. * 
 
 2. Two reasons assigned why Jesus left Judea . . . . 22, n. ' 
 
 3. Two reasons for not patching an old garment with new stuff . 28, n. 2 
 
 4. Part of the Great Sermon was spoken on a level place . . 26 
 
 5. The approach of the centurion whose servant was healed . . 29, . ' 
 
 6. St. Matthew says that the demoniac of Gadara or Gerasa and 
 
 Bartimoeus had each a companion . . . , 31, 49, n. z 
 
 7. Jairus came twice to Jesus . . . . . . . . 28, n. '* 
 
 8. The full answer to the Syrophenician woman combines the 
 
 words given in Matt. xv. 28 with those given in Mark vii. 29 
 
 9. St. Peter's full confession is given in Matt. xvi. 16 . . -36 
 
 10. The words from the cloud at the Transfiguration . 47 
 
 11. Why the disciples could not cure the epileptic boy is fully stated 
 
 in the received text of Matt. xvii. 20, see f 3 
 
 12. The behaviour of the apostles when questioned as to their 
 
 reasoning about pre-eminence ...... 42, ;/. ' 
 
 13. The full answer of Jesus to the Rich Young Ruler . . . 49, n. ' 
 
 14. Mary poured the ointment on the head and feet of Jesus . . 50 
 15- The words used in quoting Ps. cxviii. 22 . . . . . 21 
 
 16. Peter's denials were not necessarily each a simple sentence . 52, . 2 
 
 17. The words of the centurion after the Crucifixion . . . . 54, n. ' 
 
 1 8. The accounts of the Resurrection and the women's visits . . 54
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAC 
 
 64 THE YEARS AND ERAS 
 
 A 000 063 048 3 
 
 (d) Different events may be somewhat similar. 
 
 1. The four fishermen were probably called before the miraculous 
 
 draught of fishes, which wan a significant prelude to the 
 coming circuit, though the narratives might be combined . 28 
 
 2. The two visits to Nazareth must not be confounded, as they 
 
 fittingly closed the first and second years' ministry, as Christ's 
 appearance at the Feast of Dedication closed the third . . 21,27 
 
 3. There were probably two anointings of Jesus . . 30, 50 
 
 4. Some Parables are similar, and some discourses were recapitulated 
 
 (e) The order of the Gospels follows the ordinary rules. 
 
 1. St. Matthew's order, in grouping precepts, miracles, and 
 
 parables doctrinally, is sometimes not chronological . . 3 
 
 2. And does not always imply sequence ; e.g. the question 
 
 mentioned in Luke xxi. 7 was asked not at the gate of the 
 
 Temple but on the Mount of Olives . . . 28, n. '-', 50, n. ' 
 
 3. After mentioning the disciples' ambitious reasoning, St. Luke 
 
 gives at once Christ's reproval, though this followed some 
 
 time after at Capernaum . . . . . . . 50, ' 
 
 4. After mentioning the first inquiry of Bartimaeus at the entrance 
 
 to Jericho, St. Luke at once relates his cure, though it took 
 
 place when Jesus left Jericho ..... 43, 49, n. - 
 
 5. St. Matthew and St. Mark do not relate Christ's visit to 
 
 Bethany, six days before the Passover, and, therefore, do not 
 mention the anointing till afterwards . .... 50, ;/. ' 
 
 (f) Undue deference must not be given to the exceptional ancient 
 codices, the Vatican Codex (B) and the Sinaitic Codex (tf). 
 Their aberrations are attributed l>y Abbe Martin to the misuse 
 of Origttt's writings, and to quotations made often front 
 men:ory by the Fathers. Corrupt codices existed long before 
 them (us. v. 28). 
 
 1. In Mark i. 2 the reading 'prophets' is as well supported as 
 
 ' Esaias' ; but, if we adopt the latter, see b 2 
 
 2. In Matt. x. jo and Luke ix. 3 the reading 'staves' is as well 
 
 supported as staff' ; the rod (staff) here meant was, at all 
 events, for tenting purposes, see a 5 
 
 3. In deference to B and tf, and in spite of nearly all other 
 
 evidence, the Revisers have shortened the remarks of Jesus 
 about the casting out of the deaf and dumb spirit of the 
 epileptic boy ; but, if we adopt their readings, they may be 
 combined. See c II 
 
 4. On little better grounds, they have given a different answer 
 
 in Matthew's account of the Rich Ycung Ruler; but this 
 answer might readily be combined with the other. See c 13 
 
 5. On even less grounds, they have adopted a reading in Luke 
 
 xxiii. 45, which, if properly translated, would imply that there 
 was an eclipse of the sun at the Passover, held at full moon . 54