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CHAP. IX.

PAGE 208. Diss. li. What is the meaning of Paul's ex"pression," You see how large a letter I have written unto 'you with my own hand," Gal. vi. 11.'

This question has been considered by many interpreters, and other learned men. I likewise have had occasion to speak to it. And I think, I have said what is sufficient to show, that our English version is very right.

OBSERVATIONS

UPON DR. MACKNIGHT'S

HARMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS:

AS FAR AS RELATES TO THE HISTORY OF OUR
SAVIOUR'S RESURRECTION.

IN A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR.

REVEREND SIR,

1 INTEND to send you some observations upon your Harmony of the Four Gospels, relating to the history of our Saviour's resurrection. They will regard these several sections of your work, sect. 149-156. If my thoughts are somewhat different from yours, I do not know that you have any good reason to be offended. You have made a "New Harmony of the Gospels," after many others, and very different from them in many respects. Another therefore may have a right after you, and may think himself obliged to represent the sense of the evangelists as it appears to him. See Vol. vi. chap. xii. sect. 3.

My observations will relate to the several following articles. 1. The burial of our Saviour. 2. The request of the chief priests and pharisees, to Pilate the governor, to afford them a guard for the security of the sepulchre. 3. A visit to the sepulchre, which you suppose to have been intended and attempted by the women from Galilee, but not performed by them. 4. The preparing the spices by those women to anoint the body of the Lord Jesus. 5. Their journey to the sepulchre, and the appearances of our Lord to them, and others, after his resurrection.

I. Of the burial of our Saviour,' which is related by all the evangelists, but by St. John more particularly than by any of the rest. Matt. xxvii. 57-61; Mark xv. 42-47; Luke xxiii. 50-56; John xix. 38-42.

But here I do not stay, not intending to make any remarks upon this beside what may offer occasionally, in considering the other articles.

II. The request of the chief priests and pharisees to Pilate the governor, to afford them a guard for the security ' of the sepulchre.' Which is related by St. Matthew only, ch. xxvii. 62—66.

His words are these. "Now the next day that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again; command therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead. So the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch. Go your way, and make it as sure as you can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch."

την παρασκευην,

Upon this you say, p. 618, 6 Τη δε επαύριον, ήτις εστι μετα Tηy Tаpаσkevŋy," the next day that followed the preparation," that is, after the sun was set. For the Jewish day 'began then. They took this measure therefore, not "on 'the morrow," in our sense of the word, but in the evening, ' after sun-setting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sun-rising, would have been preposterous, as 'the disciples might have stolen the body away during the 'preceding night.'

This you say, contrary, as I suppose, to all interpreters and commentators whatever. Says Whitby: "Now the 'next day that followed the preparation," viz. the sabbath

day in the morning.' And in like manner other interpreters. But the thing is so plain, as scarcely to need any paraphrase or explication, and therefore is seldom found in commentators. But that the meaning of the original word is" the next day," according to our usual manner of speaking, is manifest from many texts, where it is found. So Acts xxv. 22, 23, “Then Agrippa said unto Festus; I would also hear the man myself. To-morrow, avptov, said he, thou shalt bear him. On the morrow, TMŋ εν επαύριον, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing; with the chief captains, and principal men of the city, at Festus's commandment Paul was brought forth." I presume, that by "to-morrow, [or] on the morrow," is not meant the dark evening, or night, after sun-setting, but " the next day," when it was light, the only proper season for such an assembly, and the important design of it.

66

Acts iv. 5, And it came to pass, that on the morrow, eyeveto de etti tηy avpiov, their elders, and rulers, and scribes, -were gathered together." The context shows, that hereby is not meant the night-season, after sun-setting, but the next day when it would be light. For it is said at ver. 3, "And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold until the next day, Els any aupiov. For it was now even-tide."

Acts x. 23, 24, "Then called he them in, and lodged them. And on the morrow, Tn de enavρiov, Peter went away with them, and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And on the morrow, Tη de ezavρiov, they entered into Cesarea." I do not see how the word can be here understood of any thing, but the morning of the next day, after the rising of the sun. Nor do I think, that it ever was understood otherwise. See also ver. 9, and chap. xx. 7, xxii. 30, and other like places, which may easily be found by yourself, or any other, that wants farther satisfaction.

It seems to me somewhat strange, that you should misunderstand a phrase, which has in so many places, invariably, the same meaning, and has always been so understood. If the evangelist had intended the time mentioned by you, he would have expressed it, in some one of the phrases, not unusual in the gospels. He would have said: "And when the evening was now come, [or] when the sun was now set," of which examples may be seen, Matt. xiv. 23; oyas δε γενομένης, John vi. 16; ώς δε όψια εγενετο. Mark i. 32 ; οψίας δε γενομενης, οτε εδν ὁ ηλιος. Luke iv. 40; δύνοντος δε το ηλιο.

And why do you affix this unheard-of meaning to the

VOL. X.

2 A

word in Matt. xxvii. 62? Let us attend. To have delayed it to sun-rising would have been preposterous, as the dis⚫ciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night.' But, Sir, such reasonings are of no avail against the clear and express assertion of the evangelist, that the priests and pharisees did not go to Pilate, till the next day, or the morrow after our Saviour's crucifixion and burial.

And there are obvious reasons for such delay. The day, in which our Lord was crucified, had been a day of full employment and great perplexity to Pilate. And the Jewish priests and pharisees might not judge it convenient to disturb him in the evening of it. Possibly this thought of a guard, to watch the sepulchre, came not into the minds of any of them that evening. Whenever the thought arose in the minds of one, or two, or some few of them, it would require time to propose it to others, and gather them together, to go with the request to Pilate. And the morning of the next day was soon enough. For they could none of them suspect the disciples to be so horribly profane and desperate, as to attempt to remove a dead body on the sabbath! They therefore made provision against the night that followed after the sabbath. Which was all that could be reckoned needful in the opinion of the most suspicious. Indeed, it is not easily supposable, that any of those Jews did really suspect the disciples of a design to steal the body. But they were willing to cast upon them the scandal of such a supposition, the more to bring them under popular resentment. But the contrivance turned out to their

own disadvantage.

I seem to myself to have now made good the common interpretation of this text. I have advanced nothing new. On the next day, after the crucifixion of Jesus, and probably in the morning of that day, some of the priests and pharisees went to Pilate, requesting a guard at the sepulchre, and he granted their request.

This paragraph of St. Matthew is so plain and easy, that I have found few notes upon it in commentators: scarcely any, excepting to show, that by " the day that followed the day of the preparation," is to be understood the Jewish sabbath. However Grotius has a note, that may be proper to be observed. It is to this purpose: The council could

Non potuit eo die synedrium haberi. Sed privato consilio sacerdotum principes quidam et senatores aliqui, pharisaïcæ factionis, Pilatum conveniunt, tanquam acturi de negotio ad summam rempublicam pertinente. Nec difficulter ab eo impetrârunt rem, in quâ ille nihil situm existimabat. Gr. in Matt.

xxvii. 62.

'not sit on that day. But after a private consultation some of the priests and senators of the sect of the pharisees went ' to Pilate, as if they had somewhat to say to him of the ⚫ utmost importance. Nor had they much difficulty to obtain what they requested.'

6

III. I now proceed to the next article of my inquiry, concerning a visit to the sepulchre, which you suppose to have been intended, and attempted by some of the women from Galilee, but not performed by them.'

This is a visit or journey to the sepulchre, which I do not see in other commentators. Nor can I discern it in the gospels, after all that you have said in favour of it. A part of the title or contents of your 149th section, p. 619, is this: 'Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, go out to see the sepulchre; but are terrified by an earthquake.' P. 620, Matt. xxviii. 1," In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulchre," 'Oewpηoal, to see, if the stone was still at the door, because by that they could know, whether the body was within. For from John xiv. 42, it would appear, that the friends of 'Jesus intended to carry him somewhere else-The women knowing this, had reason to think, that Joseph would remove the body, as soon as the sabbath was ended. Accordingly, having bought the spices, they judged it proper to send two of their number, to see if Jesus was still in the sepulchre; and, if he was not, to inquire of the gardener where he was laid; that when the spices were prepared, they might go directly to the place, and embalm ' him.'

6

All fiction, surely! Nor do I, as before said, find this in any commentators, with whom I am acquainted. However, let us see what this ingenious author says to support it.

6

P. 620, 621, This journey to the sepulchre, by the two Marys, is generally supposed to have been undertaken in 'the morning, according to our sense of the word, that is to say, some time after midnight. But this opinion, though universally received, may be justly called in question. For 'first of all, what reason can be assigned for the women "not going to see the sepulchre, as soon as the Jewish sabbath was ended, that is, on Saturday, immediately after 'sun-setting, when they had more than an hour's twilight 6 to carry them thither?'

To which I answer, that they could not go then, because the spices were not yet prepared. For I shall show pre