i. Pilgrimages.
It is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, as compared with the common matter of the Synoptics, that it alone represents our Lord as making a number of pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the express purpose of attending the Jewish feasts. The Synoptic narrative mentions only a single Passover at the very end of our Lord’s public ministry, which led to His arrest and death. St. John mentions three Passovers as falling in the course of the ministry: one soon after it may be said to have begun, one in the middle, and one at the end. Beside this there is an unnamed feast in v. 1; there is a Feast of Tabernacles which our Lord attends in vii. 2, 10; and the Feast of Dedication is expressly mentioned in x. 22.
It is somewhat surprising that Dr. Drummond, who takes in general so favourable a view of the Fourth Gospel, should seem to be in doubt as to these visits and these feasts, and should sum up rather against them[[46]]. I must not stay now to go fully into the question of their historical character, which will come before us again. But, speaking broadly, I may point to the improbability that a pious Jew, within the Holy Land and not a member of the Dispersion, would neglect to attend the feasts for so long a time and in the course of a religious mission addressed directly to his countrymen. I must needs think it wholly improbable. And apart from this improbability, we should have to account for the determined hostility of the authorities at Jerusalem, which had manifested itself before the last Passover, and which came to a head in proposals of betrayal so soon after its victim had set foot in Jerusalem.
However this may be—and I reserve the fuller discussion for the present—in any case it must be allowed that the narrative of the Fourth Gospel is in the strictest accordance with the religious customs of the time to which it relates, and not in accordance with those at the time when the Gospel was written. We must at least set down this fact as markedly to its credit.