[Footnote 1: Horace, Epistles, I. xvi. 48; Juvenal, xiv. 77; Lucan., vii. 544; Plautus, Miles glor., II. iv. 19; Artemidorus, Onir., ii. 53; Pliny, xxxvi. 24; Plutarch, Life of Cleomenes, 39; Petronius, Sat., cxi.-cxii.]
[Footnote 2: Mishnah, Sanhedrim, vi. 5.]
[Footnote 3: Probably identical with the ancient Rama of Samuel, in the tribe of Ephraim.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 57, and following; Mark xv. 42, and following; Luke xxiii. 50, and following; John xix. 38, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Dig. XLVIII. xxiv., De cadaveribus puntorum.]
Another secret friend, Nicodemus,[1] whom we have already seen employing his influence more than once in favor of Jesus, came forward at this moment. He arrived, bearing ample provision of the materials necessary for embalming. Joseph and Nicodemus interred Jesus according to the Jewish custom—that is to say, they wrapped him in a sheet with myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women were present,[2] and no doubt accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.
[Footnote 1: John xix. 39, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 61; Mark xv. 47; Luke xxiii. 55.]
It was late, and all this was done in great haste. The place had not yet been chosen where the body would be finally deposited. The carrying of the body, moreover, might have been delayed to a late hour, and have involved a violation of the Sabbath—now the disciples still conscientiously observed the prescriptions of the Jewish law. A temporary interment was determined upon.[1] There was at hand, in the garden, a tomb recently dug out in the rock, which had never been used. It belonged, probably, to one of the believers.[2] The funeral caves, when they were destined for a single body, were composed of a small room, at the bottom of which the place for the body was marked by a trough or couch let into the wall, and surmounted by an arch.[3] As these caves were dug out of the sides of sloping rocks, they were entered by the floor; the door was shut by a stone very difficult to move. Jesus was deposited in the cave, and the stone was rolled to the door, as it was intended to return in order to give him a more complete burial. But the next day being a solemn Sabbath, the labor was postponed till the day following.[4]
[Footnote 1: John xix. 41, 42.]