Secondly, as to the resort of the people, which our Lord, on lifting up his eyes, is said to have beheld", there is no reason whatever why this resort should not be understood either of the multitude, already collected, as following him up into the mountain, or of the accession of numbers, which, in addition to those already on the spot, would be momentarily arriving from other parts.

IV. Though Jesus had left Capernaum that very morning, yet the business of teaching the people, and performing miracles on such as needed it, might evidently be over by the ninth hour of the day: the period of oía рwïα-in opposition to sunset, the period of via deiλn. At this time the day might strictly be said to have begun to decline, and Luke ix. 12. would be critically in unison with Matt. xiv. 15. Mark vi. 35: the usual supper-hour, too, or at least the season of the evening's repast, among the Jews, would not be far off.

V. The multitude, then, having been miraculously feda business, which, if we consider their numbers, might easily occupy the time from the ninth hour to sunset, at least-Jesus dismisses his disciples at a period of the day which John vi. 16. might describe accordingly; with a charge to return to Bethsaida in Galilee; the site of which was in the region of Gennesaret, between Capernaum, and the southern extremity of the lake. The time of their departure, then, would not be earlier than the second ofía, or deín óía-as not merely St. John, but St. Matthew and St. Mark also, clearly imply that it was. Meanwhile our Lord himself withdrew to the mountain; and either persuaded the assembled people to retire, or would be speedily concealed from their observation by the shades of night.

VI. When the disciples in the vessel had got about thirty stades, or three miles, on their course, about two thirds of the distance across the lake, (the slowness of their progress in so many hours being critically accounted for by the opposition of the wind, the direction of which must have been

south-west, a natural circumstance at this time of the year, when the prevailing wind was always the southern,) Jesus appeared to them about the fourth watch of the nightPeter descended to meet him on the sea-and he was afterwards received into the ship. The fourth watch would begin at the ninth hour of the night, or our three in the morning and as our Lord was visible at a distance, before he came near enough to be recognized—but at first only indistinctly-perhaps the time of his appearance was just the dawn of day, or between four and five in the morning. For, as to the supposition that he might have been visible by moonlight-in the first place, the weather being rough and boisterous, the moon would have been obscured by clouds. In the second, if the time of the month was what I have supposed, about a fortnight before the Passover, the end of Veadar, or the beginning of Nisan, there could have been no moon at all; and the very turbulence of the weather argues this, rather than the contrary.

VII. As the disciples, when they were originally dismissed, had been sent away to Bethsaida, not to Capernaum—and, as, on taking Jesus into the ship, they were miraculously transported at once to the quarter where they wished to go, they would land, before sunrise in the morning, not at Capernaum, but somewhere in the district of Gennesaret, more to the south, as St. Mark and St. Matthewz do both imply. St. John's expression-xovTO TÉρav —eis Kaπeρvaoúμa—it is clear, even from the sequel of his own account, means no more than that they were proceeding to the other side in the direction of Capernaum-or that Capernaum was ultimately the quarter where they wished to arrive both which facts were literally true. For, though they might land at Bethsaida first, yet, from the spot where they did land, our Lord finally proceeded to Capernaum.

VIII. Having landed, then, after day-break, he would find the people of the country on the alert-by these he might soon be recognized-and, upon the recognition, and 2 Matt. xiv. 34. Mark vi. 53.

x Mark vi. 45.

a John vi. 17.

y John vi. 21.

during his subsequent progress through the highly populous region of Gennesaret, back to Capernaum, (a progress which could scarcely fail to pass through cities, and villages, as well as the open country, by the way,) those things might ensue which are described accordingly b. Nor would it follow from this supposition, that the time taken up by the progress, before it arrived at Capernaum, needed to be more than one day. The note of time, then, in St. John's Gospel, Ty inαúpiov, admits just as well of being understood of the day before the meeting in the synagogue at Capernaum, as of the day after the miracle of the feeding at Bethsaida. The day of this meeting, it has been seen elsewhered, was probably the sabbath-day, and such a sabbathday as coincided with the seventh of April: for the Thursday before was probably the day of the feeding, and both coincided with the fifth of April-our assumed date for the true day of the nativity of Christ. With the discourse, mysterious, figurative, and interesting, as it is, which ensued in the synagogue on this meeting, the particulars of our Lord's second year are obviously to be brought to a close. And now, at the termination of this discourse, the first distinct allusion, anywhere on record, to the future treachery of Judas, is found to occure; and so exactly a year before its completion, that it is found to be now predicted on Saturday the seventh of April, as it will be found hereafter to be consummated on Friday the fifth of April.

b Matt. xiv. 35. 36. Mark vi. 54—56. Diss. x. 350. 351. e John vi. 70. 71.

e vi. 22.

d Vol. i.

DISSERTATION VIII.

PART IV.

General prospective survey of our Lord's ministry in Galilee.

As the history of the preceding transactions shewed the

Passover not to have been far distant, so the account of the question, which follows next in ordera, shews it to be arrived, and past; for the mention of Scribes and Pharisees, Mark vii. 1. from Jerusalem, as such, is in my opinion an implicit testimony both that the feast was over, and that it had not been attended by our Lord in person. We cannot suppose, therefore, that the ensuing circumstances transpired earlier than some few days after the twenty-first of the Jewish Nisan, which answered in the third year of our Saviour's ministry to April 23. though they might transpire in a short time after it. That the place where they happened was Capernaum, at which also the account of St. John, when it closed, obviously left our Lord, seems scarcely to admit of a question: and these points being all presumptively certain, I shall observe, upon this Passover, that it was the only feast of its kind, which Jesus did not personally attend in Jerusalem. I have already shewn, indeed, that he was under no absolute necessity of attending all the feasts in their order; of which we cannot have a better proof than the fact that, out of the four great solemnities which recurred in each of the years of his ministry, by far the chief part were not attended by him. I have shewn also that, of those which he did attend, he attended none so regularly as the Passover; and of the four Passovers in the course of his ministry he attended every one but this: and, in addition to the prudential reason which might have occasioned his absence from this, there was, perhaps, anotherin the peculiarity of the time, when the Passover itself fell If the Passover was celebrated this year on the sixa Matt. xv. 1-20. Mark vii. 1-23.

out.

teenth of April, the year was intercalated, and the Passover fell as late as it possibly could. The fourteenth of Nisan coincided, in this year, with the Julian April 16. and the tenth of Nisan with the Julian April 12. neither of which days had any connection with our assumed date of the nativity, the Julian April 5. This was not the case with the other years of his ministry, especially the first and the last; the times, on which those two days then fell out, are remarkable for this connection. It was not equally the case even with the Passover in his second year, when the fourteenth of Nisan coincided with March 29. and the tenth with March 25-for the 25th of March, though not the day of our Saviour's birth, was yet the date of the vernal equinox; and the tenth of Nisan would coincide with that. But to return from this digression.

As to the method of reconciling the accounts of St. Matthew and St. Mark, which certainly stand in some need of adjustment, it will be the subject of a Dissertation hereafter: and I shall observe at present only that, no where in his Gospel does the latter in particular write so plainly like an original and independent authority, not as the mere copyist of the former; and that the probable reason, why St. Luke omits all mention of the transaction in question here, is because something very similar to it occurred, and is related by him to have occurred, hereafter.

The question now put, and its answer, were followed by our Saviour's departure from Capernaum into the parts of Tyre and Sidon; consequently beyond the precincts of either Galilee; and more immediately in the vicinity of the Tetrarchy of Philip. This quarter though he might often have approached in the course of his circuits heretofore, there is no proof that he had ever yet visited, or resided in, personally; and, consequently, he could be known there, perhaps, only by report. His motive in visiting it even now, we learn directly from St. Mark d, was concealment; though, such was his reputation, and such the attention

b xi. 37. to the end.

e Matt. xv. 21.

Mark vii. 24.

d vii. 24.