Note 61 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

Modern criticism is therefore constrained to admit, that on one side or the other there is an error; and, setting aside the current prejudices in favour of the fourth gospel, it was really an important reason which appeared to necessitate the imputation of this error to the synoptists. The ancient Fragment attributed to Apollinaris, mentioned above, objects to the opinion that Jesus suffered on the great day of unleavened bread, τῇ μεγάλῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν ἀζύμων ἔπαθεν, that this would have been contrary to the law ἀσύμφωνος τῷ νόμῳ; and in recent times also it has been observed, that the day following the last meal of Jesus is treated on all sides so entirely as a working day, that it cannot be supposed the first day of the passover, nor, consequently, the meal of the previous evening, the paschal meal. Jesus does not solemnize the day, for he goes out of the city, an act which was forbidden on the night of the passover; nor do his friends, for they begin the preparations for his burial, and only leave them unfinished on account of the arrival of the next day, the sabbath; still less do the members of the Sanhedrim keep it sacred, for they not only send their servants out of the city to arrest Jesus, but also personally undertake judicial proceedings, a trial, sentence, and accusation before the Procurator; in general, there appears, throughout, only the fear of desecrating the following day, which commenced on the evening of the crucifixion, and nowhere any solicitude about the current one: clear signs that the synoptical representation of the meal as a paschal one, is a later error, since in the remaining narrative of the synoptists themselves, there is evidence, not easy to be mistaken, of the real fact, that Jesus was crucified before the passover.61 These observations are certainly of weight. It is true that the first, relative to the conduct of Jesus, might perhaps be invalidated by the contradiction existing between the Jewish decisions as to the law cited;62 while the last and strongest may be opposed by the fact, that trying and giving sentence on the sabbaths and feast days was not only permitted among the Jews, but there was even a larger place for the administration of justice on such days, on account of the greater concourse of people; so, also, according to the New Testament itself, the Jews sent out officers to seize Jesus on the great day ἡμέρα μεγάλη of the Feast of Tabernacles (John vii. 44 f.), and at the Feast of Dedication they were about to stone him (John x. 31), while Herod caused Peter to be imprisoned during the days of unleavened bread; though indeed he intended to defer the public sentencing and execution until after the passover (Acts xii. 2 f.). In proof that the crucifixion of Jesus might take place on the feast of the passover, it is urged that the execution was performed by Roman soldiers; and that moreover, even according to Jewish custom, it was usual to reserve the execution of important criminals for a feast time, in order to make an impression on a greater multitude.63 But only thus much is to be proved: that during the feast time, and thus during the passover, on the five intermediate and less solemn days, criminals were tried and executed,—not that this was admissible also on the first and last days of the passover, which ranked as sabbaths;64 and thus we read in the Talmud that Jesus was crucified on the ‏ערב פסה‎, i.e. the evening before the passover.65 It would be another thing if, as Dr. Baur strives to prove, the execution of criminals, as a sanguinary expiation for the people, belonged to the essential significance of the passover, as a feast of expiation, and hence the custom, noticed by the Evangelists, of liberating a prisoner at the feast had been only the reverse side to the execution of another, presenting the same relation as that between the two goats and the two sparrows in the Jewish offerings of atonement and purification.66