19. and iv. 1. that is, between the proper historical commencement of his Gospel, and the beginning of the account of this journey, through Samaria, into Galilee, we have a narrative of matters intermediate to the two extremes, of the baptism, fasting, and temptation, (where the former Evangelists left off their accounts,) on the one hand, and of the imprisonment of the Baptist, followed by the return of Jesus into Galilee, (at which they resume them,) on the other. It follows, therefore, that whatever be the length of time included between these two points in the Gospel of St. John, for that length of time, whether greater or less, there is an interruption of the continuity of the other Gospels; which interruption this portion of St. John's does manifestly contribute to supply. The question, then, which we have still to consider, is, how far it contributes to supply it; or whether the historical matter furnished by St. John is an exact measure of the historical matter omitted by the rest; and the affirmative of this question will be sufficiently proved if it can be shewn that St. John has begun, where they had broken off, and has left off, where they had begun again; and has given a connected detail of particulars between. To examine, therefore, each of these points in their order; and first the two extremes.

The second journey into Galilee, recorded by St. John, is either the same, or not the same, with that return, recorded by the other Evangelists, which they make to precede the beginning of our Lord's ministry there. If it is the same, one part of our assertion is established; for, from that time forward, St. John suspends, and they continue, the course of the subsequent history, down to the arrival of the second Passover. If it is not the same, then this second journey into Galilee must have been followed by a second journey out of it; and this second journey out of it, by a third journey into it, at least; the two former, both prior to the imprisonment of John, but posterior to Jesus' residence in Judæa previously specified; (of none of which things is there the least hint in the Gospel history;) and the last only, coincident with that return into Galilee, pos

terior to the imprisonment of John, which was the beginning of our Lord's ministry there. The improbability of this hypothesis is too great to require its refutation; and, though it were true, yet, instead of diminishing, it would only enlarge, the hiatus in the former accounts; nor do I know of any harmonist who maintains it. The second journey of St. John, then, into Galilee, may be implicitly considered the last journey, at least into Galilee, from any other quarter, before the formal commencement of our Saviour's ministry there; in which case, the coincidence between his Gospel, and the Gospels of the other three, at one of the extreme points in particular, becomes indisputable and this coincidence at one, and the second, extreme, when once made out, may justly be urged, as a presumptive argument for the same kind of coincidence at the other, and the first.

It has been already shewn that the earliest historical fact, recorded by St. John, is one of the most memorable, and, yet, probably one of the latest, events, in the ministry of the Baptist-his solemn reply to the solemn interrogation from the Jewish Sanhedrim. It has been shewn also, that the time of this event could not have preceded the forty days' fasting, and the temptation; though it might have coincided with the expiration of the latter. It may be said, however, that, provided it followed sometime, it might have followed any time, after them; and, consequently, that it cannot be concluded with certainty, how far the account of this event in St. John joins on directly to the account of the fast, and of the temptation, in the rest: which I am ready to admit. But it may be rendered presumptively certain that there could have been no great interval between them; and it has been shewn that there might have been none; the one might have happened on the very day when the other was over.

Jesus came to Bethabara, or wherever else it was that John was baptizing, πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, on purpose to be baptized; and as soon as that was done, he was led away, at once, to the wilderness, to undergo his fasting, succeeded

by his temptation. Whatever be supposed the locality of this wilderness, the appointed scene of each of these events, it must have been some wilderness, to arrive at which would carry him either to the east, or to the south, of Bethabaraand, consequently, away from Galilee, not towards it. The Talmudic writers acknowledge no more than two deserts as such-one of which would be the scene of the fasting and the temptation-the desert of Judah, which lay to the south, and the desert of Sihon and Og, which lay to the east, of Galileed. There was no desert to the north, except, perhaps, the great desert of Syria-to which it would be absurd to suppose our Saviour was carried.

Hence, in order to return from this wilderness, even upon his way to Galilee, he would have to come back to Bethabara, or in that direction in general, by which he had before proceeded from it. The other Evangelists, having brought him from Galilee to Bethabara, before the baptism and temptation, either leave him still in Bethabara after them, or, at least, do not make him return all at once into Galilee: for, according to them, even after the baptism and temptation, when John was still at large, there must have been some time during which Jesus was absent from Galilee, or they would not suppose him to return thither first after John's imprisonment only. The narrative of St. John, in particular, as it certainly takes up their's, posterior to the baptism and temptation in general, so manifestly finds our Saviour either still at Bethabara, or but recently returned unto it. If, then, he had quitted this neighbourhood, before the point of time where their accounts expired, he must yet have come thither again, at, or before, the point of time where St. John's account begins. The probability, indeed, is that he was only just returned, when the testimony recorded John i. 29. was delivered by John; and that this was the first opportunity, since the baptism of Jesus, which he had had for delivering any such testimony at all. On the second day, after this time, Jesus himself was preparing

Rel. Pal. i. 376. vide also 1 Macc. v. 24. Ant. Jud. xii. viii. 3.

to return into Galilee; and in three days after, he was actually in Cana of Galilee; and as he had come from Nazareth, the place of his previous residence, in order to be baptized, so, if he would arrive at Cana, he must pass through, or by, Nazareth again, upon his return. Nor did he come to Bethabara, as the course of events subsequently proves, to commence his ministry, but to be baptized, and, perhaps, to undergo the spiritual trial and probation, consequent upon his baptism, as a preparation for it. These ends being accomplished, he would naturally return into Galilee; and continue there, until the time should arrive, when it would be necessary for him to appear in Judæa, where first he designed to commence his ministry. The very purpose of a two days' residence at Bethabara, as it was, might be the express desire of affording John the necessary opportunity of reinforcing his former general, by a renewed particular, testimony to himself-such as is afterwards referred to John iii. 26. by the followers of the Baptist; and, perhaps, for the sake of some of the chief of his future disciples, the foundation of whose faith in Jesus seems now to have been laid.

We may consider it, therefore, sufficiently probable that the point where St. John's Gospel begins is, on the whole, directly contiguous to the point where the other Gospels break off; and, consequently, that the coincidence between them, at the first of the extremes, is as critical and complete as that at the second: in which case, the remaining question, or what concerns the intermediate detail of particulars, admits of so easy a decision, that we may be satisfied with referring to the bare inspection of the narrative; and proceed to the consideration of another-much more difficult, as well as more important—the question, what is the precise interval of time, comprehended by these details, from the one of the above extremes to the other.

The notes of time, interspersed in the body of the narrative, for the period in question, being collected together, and stated in their order, will stand as follows.

I. The intervening Passover, John ii. 13. being regarded

as a fixed point, up to which we must trace the series of particulars before, and from which we are to deduce them afterwards-first, from the time of the conference with the Sanhedrim, to the time when our Lord was preparing to return into Galilee, was one day.

II. From the time when he was preparing to return into Galilee, to the beginning of the wedding feast at Cana, were three days.

III. From the beginning of this feast, according to the usage of the Jews, to its conclusion, there might be as many as seven days, but there could not be more.

IV. After the feast at Cana, the time taken up by the residence of our Lord in Capernaum, which St. John states at not many days, we may estimate at seven successive days.

These calculations being laid together, the whole interval between the time of the conference with the Sanhedrim, and the time of the departure from Capernaum, to attend the Passover, John ii. 13. will amount to eighteen days. From Capernaum to Jerusalem would be a journey of not more, at the utmost, than three days' time f—and we may assume that our Lord would arrive in Jerusalem, neither after the fourteenth of Nisan, the day of the Passover itself, nor, probably, before the tenth, the day when the Paschal Lamb was appointed originally to be taken up, and the day on which we have conjectured that he himself had been born, and the day when, as it will be shewn hereafter, he presented himself in the temple of God, before the fourteenth of Nisan in the last year of his ministry, as the true Paschal Lamb―then ready to be offered up. The entire interval, then, between the time of the conference with the Sanhedrim, and the arrival in Jerusalem, by the tenth of Nisan, before the first Passover, may be computed at twenty-one days—and that, probably, rather above than under the truth. To this we must add the forty days' fast -subsequent to the baptism, and before the temptation—

• Gen. xxix. 27. Judg. xiv. 12. Tobit. xi. 19. f Jos. Vit. 52. Rel. Pal. i. 331.