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sabbath, the Pharisees could not have taken exceptions at their conduct; had not that sabbath fallen after the sixteenth of Nisan in general, they could not have been eating corn upon it at all: that it fell on the day after that sixteenth in particular might be due to the circumstances of the case. But if this was the case, and it was necessary to describe the relation of the day to the sixteenth in particular, this circumstance of its falling might give rise to the denomination in question.

Nor would it be any objection that the miracle, related John v. 1-16. which I have supposed to have been performed at this Passover, was yet performed on the sabbath. That miracle might have been performed on the fifteenth of Nisan, and even on the twenty-first, and yet would have been performed on the sabbath. It is my opinion, however, that it was performed on the tenth: which, when Nisan 14. coincided with March 29. must have coincided with March 25. And when March 29. was Wednesday, March 25. was Saturday.

Those who are curious to see the explanations of the same term, proposed by the ancient commentators, may consult Epiphanius, or Chrysostoms. Suidas also has preserved one of the number, which approaches so near to the interpretation of Scaliger, that it might almost have suggested ith. Σάββατον δὲ δευτερόπρωτον, ἐπειδὴ δεύτερον μὲν ἦν τοῦ Πάσχα· πρῶτον δὲ τῶν ̓Αζύμων. However much these opinions may differ from each other, yet they all concur in placing the time of this sabbath about a Passover. The material fact itself proves thus much, if no more: the disciples could not have plucked ripe corn, if ripe corn had not been to be found; but ripe corn could not have been found except at barley-harvest, or at wheat-harvest; that is, at the Passover, or at Pentecost. Respecting the ripeness of the corn, that is, barley, at the first of these periods, Josephus furnishes a case in point. Nor would any one,

Epiph. Oper. i. 158. 159. Chrys. Oper. ii. 262.
Ant. Jud. xiv. ii. 2. B. iv. vii. 2.

Η Σάββατον.

at either of them, have presumed to eat of this corn, unless it had been previously consecrated to their use by the usual offering of the first-fruitsk; for, says Josephus, xaì tóte 201πὸν δημοσίᾳ ἔξεστι πᾶσι καὶ ἰδίᾳ θερίζειν', but not before. The feast of Pentecost I consider to be quite out of the question: it must, therefore, have been the Passover.

Nor is it any objection that ripe corn is mentioned here, and yet we have endeavoured to prove elsewherem that this time would be the middle of a year of rest. The corn in question was such as, even in a year of this kind, might have been produced of itself; for something invariably sprang up from the relics of the last year's harvest; which was eminently, too, the right of the public, or of any one but the owners of the soil in particular". And this would be the best reason (if any reason, beyond the general permission applicable to such cases, already conceded by the Law, is considered to be necessary) which could be assigned for the disciples of our Lord eating freely of it, as they went along.

Moreover, by what is called, in the Rabbinical writers P, the seventh of the constitutions of Joshua, or, in other words, by what had been from time immemorial the custom of the land, it will appear that, except during a Sabbatic year as such, when every field necessarily lay fallow, travelling through corn fields for convenience sake never would have been allowed, until after reaping-time, and up to seedtime; much less through standing corn, or fields as yet uncut. Maimonides observes, Non constituebatur annus intercalaris anno Sabbatico; cum enim illæ, quæ e terris incultis sponte sua nascerentur, fruges publici juris essent, si annus augeretur solido mense, non liceret reperire unde Deo libaretur ille qui præscribitur a lege manipulus, atque panes illi duo: which, if correct, proves all we have been contending for, both that there were spontaneous produc

Ler. xxiii. 14. Josh. v. 11. Diss. vii. Appendix.

1 Ant. Jud. iii. x. 5. m Vol. ii. n Exod. xxiii. 10. 11. Lev. xxv. 5. 6. 。 Deut. P Maim. De Primitiis Ania De rat. Interc. iv. 15.

xxiii. 24. 25. Jos. Ant. Jud. iv. viii. 21. mantium. iii. 6. Annott. Rel. Pal. i. 261.

tions of the soil, even in a Sabbatic year-that these were the public property-that these, whether of barley or of wheat, required still to be consecrated, in such a year, as well as in any other, before they could be touched.

If, then, our Saviour was now at Jerusalem, attending on the Paschal feast, and not yet preparing to return into Galilee-and if he was merely walking a sabbath-day's journey during the Paschal week-still by the next sabbath-day he might be again in Galilee. The Paschal feast would expire on the twenty-first of Nisan, which, if the seventeenth coincided with Saturday, would fall on the Wednesday: nor would it be impossible that in two days' time afterwards Jesus might be returned to Galilee. The next event', therefore, which also happened on a sabbath, might have happened on the following sabbath, and certainly on the next but one; and this conjecture is further confirmed by the consideration of the place where it happened. For Mark iii. 1. compared with i. 21. and the use of the article, in the mention of this synagogue anλs, by all the Evangelists, (which use shews it to be the synagogue most commonly frequented by our Lord of any, or the single synagogue of some place which had no other synagogue but that,) and especially the reference to the lake, so directly after3, to which he is supposed to have retired from wheresoever he was, prove, almost to a demonstration, that this place could have been only Capernaum, and the synagogue of Capernaum. At the time of the miracle now performed, he must, consequently, have been got back to Capernaum; though he might only just have been so. I shall pause, therefore, here, to make a few observations.

In the account of the miracle which ensued, the supplementary character of the two last Evangelists, in relation to the first, is strikingly illustrated. St. Mark supplies matter not to be found in St. Matthew, and St. Luke not only does the same, but, if I am not much mistaken, something else which may be thus explained.

Matt. xii. 9-14. Mark iii. 1-6. Luke vi. 6—11.

S Mark iii. 7.

It appears from St. Matthew that the observers of our Lord, whom St. Luke shews to have been some of the Scribes and Pharisees, suspecting his intention of healing the man, anticipated him by a question-Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-day? to which, however, he made no answer at the time, except by ordering the man to stand forth. When the man had so done, then, according to St. Luke, he addressed them in the following words—I will ask you a certain thing-in which, and in those which follow, there is a reference, first, to the question which they had just put to him-and, secondly, to the animus with which they had put it: and their purpose, as implied by this animus in respect of himself, is made the ground of the vindication of his own, with respect to the man-both being understood in reference to the sabbath-day. He himself was designing to do good, they to do evil-he to preserve a life, they to destroy one-both, upon the sabbath-day. The passage, then, ought to be rendered in conformity to a well known ellipsis in Greek construction, of which numerous examples may be produced from these Evangelists themselves: I will ask you a certain thing. Is it more lawful to do good on the sabbath-day, or to do evil? Is it more lawful to save a life, or to destroy one?

The answer to this question was the answer to their own; and this question is addressed to the consciences of the parties. They made him no reply: there ensued, consequently, a pause during which he might look round upon them in anger, mixed with concern for the obduracy of their hearts, according to St. Mark; and then subjoin the words, which close the account in St. Matthew, and have nothing to answer to them in St. Mark or in St. Luke; or he might do the reverse: for either arrangement may hold good. Yet in this answer, according to St. Matthew, there is a critical coincidence with the preceding account by St. Mark or by St. Luke, which justifies our position of it. The question of his adversaries had been, Is it lawful to heal

Luke xv. 7. xviii. 14. Matt. xviii. 8. 9. Mark ix. 43. 45. 47.

(JegaπEÚ) on the sabbath-day? our Lord's reply is, It is lawful to do well (xaλs osv) on the sabbath-day. Whence this change in terms? because his own expressions, ayatoποιῆσαι, and κακοποιῆσαι, which are tantamount to καλῶς ποιεἶν, and κακῶς ποιεῖν, had been only just pronounced, and were still uppermost in his memory. To return, then, from this digression.

The effect of the miracle, as we have had occasion to observe elsewhere", was a specific design of the Pharisees, in which the Herodians also joined, against our Saviour's life. The mention of this party, if they were, as their name implies, either the followers, or the partizans, of Herod the Tetrarch, seems to intimate that he was now in the dominions of Herod, and, consequently, it was necessary, or politic, that the Pharisees, in order to give effect to their own designs, should interest in their behalf a sect who were peculiarly his creatures. For the opinions, however, of the ancients concerning this sect, we may refer to the authorities in the margin v.

In consequence of this conspiracy, which, notwithstanding its secresy, was known, by his preternatural discernment of the thoughts, to our Saviour, St. Matthew, exemplifying the fulfilment of prophecy w in the meek and inoffensive demeanour of the Christ, relates that he withdrew from thence, followed by the multitudes, and healing them all: St. Mark is more explicit, and shews that he retired in the direction of the lake, and that the place of his abode, during his absence, was the vicinity of the lake *.

To this absence, then, I think we may assign the duration of a partial circuit, now begun, but confined to the neighbourhood of the lake, which yet might occupy the time until the arrival of the next feast of Pentecost, May 19. a period, at the utmost, of only five weeks, or a month. For, first, the cause of his departure from Capernaum was such as to warrant the expectation that he would be some time away; and St. Matthew's application of the prophecy ▾ Epiph. Oper. i. 45. Chrys. ii. 442. Theophyl. * iii. 7-12.

a Diss. viii. Part i. Comm. in Marc. 204.

w Isaiah xlii. 1—4.

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