(2) Others, especially among the Greeks, admit that our Lord did eat the Paschal Supper on this occasion, but hold that He did so on the night following the 13th of Nisan, thus anticipating by a day the ordinary time for celebrating it.
But this view, too, seems to us very improbable; for the language of the Synoptic Evangelists appears to us to prove conclusively that our Lord did not anticipate the legal time for eating the Pasch, which, as we know from Exod. xii. 6, 8, and from tradition, was the night following the 14th of Nisan. Thus St. Mark, in the passage already quoted, says: “Now, on the first day of the unleavened bread, when they sacrificed (ἔθυον, the Imperf. denoting what was customary) the pasch, the disciples say to [pg 229] Him: Whither wilt thou that we go, and prepare for thee to eat the pasch?” (Mark xiv. 12). And St. Luke: “And the day of the unleavened bread came, on which it was necessary (ἔδει) that the pasch should be killed” (Luke xxii. 7). These texts, we believe, prove that our Lord celebrated His last supper on the night following the 14th of Nisan, the night on which the Jews were bound by their Law to eat the Pasch. Hence we unhesitatingly reject any view which supposes Him to have anticipated the legal time for the Paschal Supper.
(3) Others, as Harduin, Bisping, &c., hold that the 13th of Nisan with the Judeans was the 14th with the Galileans, who therefore kept the Pasch a day earlier than the Judeans; and that our Lord, being a Galilean, did the same. This opinion, too, would enable us to readily reconcile the Evangelists; but unfortunately the assumption as to a difference of computation between the Judeans and Galileans is a mere conjecture, and has no evidence to support it.
(4) Others, as Petav., Mald., Kuin., Coleridge,[85] Cornely, &c., hold that our Lord and the Apostles eat the Paschal Supper on the night of the 14th of Nisan, while the Jews that year eat it on the night of the 15th. Maldonatus holds that it was customary with the Jews from the time of the Babylonian captivity, whenever the first day of the Pasch fell on a Friday, to transfer it to Saturday, in order that two solemn feasts might not occur on successive days. According to this view, our Lord corresponded with the requirements of the Jewish Law; the Jews, on the other hand, followed the custom which had been introduced after the Babylonian captivity. In this view, too, it is easy to reconcile St. John's statement with those of the other Evangelists. He speaks of the night of the Last Supper, in reference to the feast as celebrated that year by the Judeans, and so places it before the feast; they, on the other hand, speak of it in reference to the strict Law, and place it on the first day of Azymes, or rather on the night following the first day of Azymes.[86]
The great names of many who have held this opinion, lend to it considerable probability, and if the custom which is alleged in its favour were [pg 230] proved to have existed in the time of Christ, we would at once adopt it. But it is seriously disputed whether such a custom did exist at that time. It is true, indeed, that among the modern Jews, when the Paschal feast should begin on Friday, they always defer it till the Sabbath; and the Talmud is referred to by Comely (vol. iii., § 73, 1) as saying that the same has been the Jewish practice ever since the Babylonian captivity. Others, however, contend that the custom is not as old as the time of Christ, and that in His time the first day of the Pasch was kept on a Friday whenever it happened to fall on that day. Aben-Ezra (on Levit. xxiii. 4) says: “Tam ex Mischna quam ex Talmude probatur Pascha in secundam, quartam, et sextam feriam quandoque incidisse.” Since, then, the hypothesis on which this opinion rests seems doubtful, the opinion itself appears to us less satisfactory than that which follows.
(5) Lastly, there is the old, and always the most common opinion, that our Lord did eat the Pasch at His last supper; that He eat it on the night of the 14th of Nisan; and that the Jews eat it on that same night. So St. Jer., St. Aug., St. Anselm, Suarez, Tolet., A Lap., Benedict XIV., Patriz., M'Carthy, Corluy, Didon. This opinion is certainly in accordance with the obvious meaning of the Synoptic Evangelists; and the objections against it, which are chiefly drawn from the Gospel of St. John,[87] can all be answered satisfactorily, as we shall show when discussing the passages on which they are founded.
We hold, then, that Christ and the Jews eat the Pasch on the night following the 14th of Nisan, when, according to the Jewish method of counting their days, the 15th had already commenced; and that Christ was put to death on the 15th, the first and most solemn day of the Paschal week.
And now, returning to the text of St. John, we are confronted at the very commencement of this chapter by an objection to our view, in the words: “Before the festival day of the pasch.” If Christ celebrated the Last Supper on the night after the 14th of Nisan, how does St. John speak of the time of this supper as “before the festival day of the pasch”? To this difficulty various answers have been given. (1) Some have replied that St. John means by “day” the natural day, or time of light; and then it is plain that [pg 231] a supper celebrated on the night following the 14th was before the festival day of the 15th. This explanation is unsatisfactory, for in the original St. John does not merely say “Before the festal day,” but “Before the festal period” (πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς; comp., e.g., vii. [2], [14], [37]).
(2) Others say that the words πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς are equivalent to ἐν τῷ προεορτίῳ; “quod ita praecedit festum, ut tamen sit pars festi” are the words of Bochart, with whom Stier agrees. See Smith's B. D., Art. “Passover.”
(3) Others prefer to believe that as St. John wrote sixty years after the Last Supper, after he had spent many years in Asia Minor, and become accustomed to Greek habits of thought and expression, he speaks according to the Greek method of reckoning the day. The Greeks, like ourselves, reckoned their days from midnight to midnight; and St. John, speaking of the supper as taking place before the midnight that followed the 14th of Nisan, might well refer it to a time previous to the festival.[88]