the decision of the Council of Nice, continued to observe Easter on the 14th of the moon, after the manner of the ancient churches in the East, grounding their reasons, as Epiphanius tells us (H. 70, n. ix., x.), upon the fact that it was the ancient custom confirmed by the Apostolical Constitutions, and affirming that the bishops of Nice had made an innovation by their decision in compliance with the wishes of the Emperor Constantine. Others in Cappadocia, who were subsequently honoured with the nickname of Quartadecimians (those who observed Easter on the 14th day of the month, as the apostles did and the early church), kept their Pasch, as Epiphanius informs us (Epiphan. Hær. 50, Quart. n. 11), on the 16th of the Kalends of April, i.e., March 17th (other copies read the 8th of the kalends of April, i.e., March 25th), grounding their doing so upon certain information contained in the Acta Pilati, respecting the day of our Lord's crucifixion.

Now, this admission of such an unexceptionable witness as Epiphanius, who was pleased to consider those who adhered to ancient custom, apostolic example, and common sense for their observance of Easter, in the light of heretics, as the title of his book, "Panarium, against Heresies," intimates, is the strongest proof that we can have respecting the real day of the crucifixion, from the testimony of the church of Christ in Cappadocia, notwithstanding they were esteemed heretical by those who were in reality the heretics themselves, and were nicknamed Quartadecimians, just as the apostate Church of Rome in later days endeavoured to ridicule the true disciples of Christ under the honoured titles of Paulicians, Waldenses, Lollards, Cathari, and Protestants, that glorious catena of witnesses "of whom the world was not worthy." Here we have a church following ancient custom, and grounding its authority for so doing upon

the Council of Nice respecting the observance of Easter, and which were made at the instigation of the head of the state. The conduct of Audius in thus following the precepts and examples of the apostles brought on him abundance of ill treatment, as was naturally to be expected, and as it has done in every similar case since, for our Lord forewarned his true disciples that they were to expect such treatment, when denouncing, in the strongest language that ever fell from the lips of the "meek and lowly " Jesus, the conduct of the rulers of the state Jewish Church. Audius patiently endured this ill treatment for some time, until he was compelled to separate from the church which contained the germ of the apostasy, and which subsequently was developed into the awful idolatries and heresies of the Church of Rome. This is Epiphanius's account of Audius, and Theodoret's account is not very different. (See Lardner's Credibility of G. H., c. lxxx.)

the most unexceptionable written documents that could be produced in the world, viz., the Acta Pilati,* or state records of the governor of Judea, who delivered Jesus into the hands of the Jews, affirming that the 16th of the Kalends of April, or March 17th, was the same on the year of the crucifixion as the 14th day of the month or the Passover day (I think the way to reconcile the different readings in the Acta Pilati, some having the 16th of the Kalends and others the 8th, is to suppose that as the Passover lasted eight days, and the word Passover was sometimes used to express the whole of that time, confusion may have arisen from a transcriber having inserted the date of the last day of the festival instead of the first), and as we have seen that in the disputed years concerning the crucifixion, the 14th day of the moon, or Passover day, fell on March 17th in only one of them, viz., that of A.D. 29, it necessarily follows that must have been the year in which the Messiah was cut off.

The Romans preserved an account of the memorable events which happened in the city in their Acta Senatûs, and in their Acta Diurna Populi. So it was customary for the governors of dependent provinces to preserve the acts of their respective governments, and send them to Rome for the Emperor's use. Hence Pilate kept an account of Jewish affairs during his governorship, which were called Acta Pilati. And thus Justin Martyr in his First Apology, presented to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate, about A.D. 140, having mentioned the crucifixion, with some of its attendant circumstances, refers especially to those Acta Pilati as being then in existence, saying, " And that these things were so done you may know from the Acts made in the time of Pontius Pilate." (Apol. Prima. pp. 65, 72, Ed. Ben.) So Tertullian, in his Apology about sixty years later, speaking of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ into heaven, says, "Of all these things relating to Christ, Pilate himself, in his conscience already a Christian, sent an account to Tiberius, then Emperor." (Apol, c 21.) And Eusebius, who flourished in the fourth century when the Churches of Christ in Cappadocia were excommunicated as Quartadecimians, alludes to these same Acta Pilati in his history saying, “Our Saviour's resurrection being much talked of throughout Palestine, Pilate informed the emperor, as likewise of his miracles of which he had heard; and that being raised up after he had been put to death, he was already believed by many to be a God." (Euseb. Ecc. Hist. 1. ii., 2.) For a fuller account of the Acta Pilati and the value of their authority, when referred to by the above-mentioned Christian Fathers, see Lardner's Testimonies of Ancient Heathens. "Of the Acts of Pilate and his Letter to Tiberius, c. ii."

CHAPTER IX.

THE TIME OF THE FIRST ADVENT.

The week-day of the crucifixion-Was it on Thursday or Friday?-Reasons for preferring the former-Christ in the grave "three days and three nights"-"Christ our Passover" sacrificed on the fourteenth day of Nisan -The "high day" of the crucifixion explained by the martyrdom of Polycarp- The preparation of the Passover "-Order of events during Passion week-The crucifixion, according to Polycrates, on the day in which the Jews put away leaven-Summary-Conclusion that the Messiah was "cut off" according to the prophecy of Daniel on Thursday, the fourteenth of Nisan, the sixteenth of the Kalends of April, A.U. c. 781, in the fifteenth year of the sole reign of Tiberius, during the Consulship of the Gemini, answering to March 17th, A.D. 29-Note on Canon Browne's Ordo Sæclorum.

AFTER having considered at length the year in which the crucifixion took place, and finding from the evidence which has been adduced, that there are the strongest grounds for believing it to have occurred on the 14th of the month Nisan, A.D. 29, which would answer to our March 17th; and as that day, according to what has been shown before, fell on a Thursday, it will be necessary to offer some reasons for placing the crucifixion on that day of the week, in contradistinction to the day on which it is so generally assumed to have taken place, and which is universally known by the name of "Good Friday."

Perhaps it will be the best and fairest mode before entering upon these reasons to state the grounds why Friday has so long been observed as the anniversary of the crucifixion, which we believe may be safely reduced to two, and which, in brief, are as as follows. First, there is the tradition of the Western Church in its favour, as far back as the time of Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, about 111 years after the crucifixion, who states very positively that it occurred on Friday. His words are: "On Sunday we all assemble in common, since that is the first day on which God, having changed darkness and chaos, made the world, and on the same day our Saviour Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For on the day before Saturday they crucified him, and on the day after

Saturday, which is Sunday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples, and taught them the things which we enjoin you to observe." (Opera i. 271, Jenae, 1842.) However confused the statement in this passage respecting the creation when compared with Genesis i. may be, it is quite clear what the opinion of the Western Church was in Justin Martyr's time respecting the day of the crucifixion as having happened on the day before Saturday, i.e., on Friday. But it is to be remembered that more than a hundred years had elapsed since the crucifixion had taken place -a sufficient interval of time to authorize a doubt being entertained whether Justin Martyr may not have been mistaken in the day of the week as well as the Church of Rome, whose custom he is relating, and not that of the church universal. Moreover, when it is remembered that at that very time the Easter controversy arose, which has been so fully considered in the previous chapter, and Polycarp paid his famous visit to Rome to show his brother bishop, Anicetus, and the Western Church, that the churches of Asia, following the example of the Apostle John, with whom he had been personally acquainted, knew no such custom of keeping the anniversary of the crucifixion always on a Friday, but had ever been accustomed to observe it on the 14th day of the month Nisan, on whatever day of the week it fell, as the Jews had kept their Passover until the time when Jerusalem was destroyed, we are enabled to see that the testimony of Justin Martyr is not so conclusive as some have imagined it to be.

Secondly, it is said in many places in Scripture, both in our Saviour's prediction concerning his death and in the apostle's language after the resurrection, that Christ "rose from the dead the third day," e.g., Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19; Mark ix. 31, x. 34; Luke ix. 22, xviii. 33, xxiv. 7, 46; Acts x. 40; 1 Cor. XV. 4. Here it is argued that as it is universally admitted that our Lord rose from the dead "on the first day of the week," He must have died and been buried on Friday, or else He could not have risen on the third day,* as the Friday on which He is

*It may, however, be doubted, whether such an expression has always the signification in Scripture of meaning during the period named, in preference to its expiration e.g., in 1 Kings xxiii. 1 it is said, "And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, "Go, show thyself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth." Now we learn from our Lord's words in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke iv. 27), and also from the Epistle of James (v. 17), that the drought which brought on the famine in Israel lasted "three years and six months," hence it must

supposed to have been crucified must be reckoned as the first day, the Saturday in which He lay in the grave as the second day, and the Sunday on which He rose as the third. This argument is so fully and ably set forth by Bishop Pearson in his great work "On the Creed-Art. V.," that those who may wish to see all that can be said in favour of this view cannot do better than refer to the work itself; but as I cannot deem the arguments of the Bishop quite conclusive, for reasons which shall shortly be laid before the reader, I content myself with quoting the admission of this great divine that "the expression, the third day, being capable of some diversity of interpretation, it is not so easily concluded how long our Saviour was dead or buried before he revived or rose again. It is written expressly in St. Matthew that as 'Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so should the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.' (xii. 40.) From whence it seemeth to follow that Christ's body was, for the space of three whole days and three whole nights in the grave, and after that space of time arose from thence. And hence some have conceived that being, our Saviour rose on the morning of the first day of the week, therefore it must necessarily follow that he died and was buried on the fifth day of the week before, that is, on Thursday; otherwise it cannot be true that he was in the grave three nights."*

have terminated in the fourth year. The expression, therefore, of the sacred annalist of the rain being sent "in the third year," must be understood as referring to the expiration of that period, and not during its continuance; so we believe our Lord's expression of rising from the grave "on the third day" is to be understood.

As the opinion put forth in the course of this chapter that the crucifixion really occurred on Thursday, and not on Friday, may be objected to by some whose just reverence for antiquity makes them think it almost unlawful to doubt, or even to investigate what has received the assent of the Western Churches for so long a period, certainly ever since the second century, and possibly still earlier, I would beg my readers to remember, first, that it is no article of the creed to believe that our Lord suffered on Friday; secondly, that the amount of evidence from Scripture appears almost irresistible, as will be shown in this work, that the crucifixion must have taken place on Thursday: thirdly, that the Eastern Churches, which, on account of their locality as being nearer Jerusalem, were more likely to be correct than the Western Churches, commemorated the death of Lord in the first century, and subsequently, as the Jews kept the Passover, which was always on the 14th of the lunar month, and which fell on different days of the week, according to the year (the ancient British Church certainly observed Easter differently from the Church of Rome