82.
CHRONOLOGY,
“acceptable year of the Lord ” (iv. 19 = Isaiah Ixi. 2) : see, too, above, 3 (a) ad fin. (c) Evidenceof St John's Gospel (ii. 13, “ the Passover of the Jews was near,” and 23, “ He was in Jerusalem at the Passover at the feast”;v. 1, “after these things was a feast [or, ‘ the feast ’ ] of the Jews ”; vi. 4, “ and the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near”; vii. 2, “and the feast of the Jews, the Tabernacles, was near”; x. 22, “at that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem”; xi. 55, “and the Passover of the Jews was near ” : besides iv. 35, “ say ye not that there is yet a period of four months and harvest cometh? behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields that they are white to harvest ”). This catena of time - references is of course unique in the Gospels as a basis for a chronology of the ministry; and it is not reasonable to doubt (with Loisy, loc. cit., who suggests that the aim was to produce an artificial correspondence of a three and a half years’ ministry with the half-week of Daniel; but many and diverse as are the early interpretations of Daniel’s seventy weeks, no one before Eusebius thought of connecting the half-week with the ministry), that the evangelist intended these notices as definite historical data, possibly for the correction of the looser synoptic narratives and of the erroneous impressions to which they had given rise. Unfortunatelyj difficulties, either (i.) of reading, or (ii.) of interpretation, or (iii.) of arrangement, have been raised with regard to nearly all of them; and these difficulties must be briefly noticed here. (i.) Readings (a) v. 1, kopr-f) A B D, Origen, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Paschal Chronicle; i] eoprrj NCLA 1-118, 33, the Egyptian versions, Eusebius, Cyril-Alex. (Irenseus?). The balance of internal evidence—copyists being more likely to accentuate than to diminish the precision of a note of time—inclines, like the balance of external evidence, against the article. (/3) vi. 4, t6 Trd<rxa is read by all known MSS. and versions; but it has been argued by Hort (in Westcott’s and Hort’s New Testament in Greek, appendix, pp. 77-81) that four ancient authorities omitted the words, and that their omission simplifies the whole chronology, since “the feast” which was “near” in vi. 4 would then be identical with the feast of Tabernacles mentioned in vii. 2, and all the time-notices of the Gospel could be arranged to fall within the space of a single year, between the Passover of ii. 13 and the Passover of xi. 55. But of the four authorities alleged, Irenseus (II. xxii. 3 [xxxiii. 1]) and the Alogi {ap. Epiphanius, Hcer. li. 22) were giving catalogues of Passovers “ observed ” by Christ (at Jerusalem), and therefore naturally omitted a mere chronological reference like vi. 4 : Cyril of Alexandria, in so far as his evidence is adverse to the words, appears to be incorporating a passage from the Commentary of Origen, not extant in loc.; and the only writer who perhaps really did omit the words—with the view, no doubt, of reconciling the witness of the fourth Gospel with the then widely-spread tradition of the single-year ministry—is Origen himself. (ii.) Interpretation (a) iv. 35: which is to be taken literally, the “four months to harvest” (about January), or the “fields white to harvest ” (about May)? It does not seem possible to rule out either interpretation; the choice between them will follow from the view taken of the general chronological arrangement of the Gospel. (/3) v. i: if “the feast” is read, a choice remains between Passover and Tabernacles (the definite article would not be very definite after all); if the more probable ‘ ‘ a feast,” the greater feasts are presumably excluded, but a choice remains between, at any rate, Pentecost (May), Trumpets (September), Dedication (December), and Purim (February). Here again the decision will follow on the general chronological arrangement which may be adopted. (iii. ) Arrangement.—So far the amount of possible latitude left is not so great as to obscure the main outline of the chronology. For a first (ii. 13, 20), second (vi. 4), and third (xi. 55) Passover are established, with two indeterminate notices (iv. 35, v. 1) between the first and second, and two determinate notices (vii. 2 Tabernacles in October, x. 22 Dedication in December) between the second and third. But of late years an increasing desire has been manifested, especially in Germany and America, to manipulate the fourth Gospel on grounds of internal evidence, at first only in the way of particular transpositions of more or less attractiveness, but latterly also by schemes of thoroughgoing rearrangement. The former class of proposals will however, as a
BIBLICAL
rule hardly affect the chronology of the Gospel; the latter will affect it vitally. The distinction here drawn may be illustrated from the earliest instance of the former and the latest of the latter. In 1871 Archdeacon J. P. Norris {Journal of Philology) wished to transpose chapters v. and vi.—ch. vi. was, like ch. xxi., a Galilean appendix, and was inserted by mistake at somewhat too late a point in the body of the Gospel—and to read “the feast ” in v. 1, identifying it with the Passover which was near in vi. 4 : in any case, whether “the feast” = Passover, or “ a feast” = Pentecost, were read in v. 1, the transposition would not affect the two years’ ministry. In 1900 Prof. B. W. Bacon {American Journal of Theology, p. 770) proposed a rearrangement of the whole Gospel, according to which the time-notices would occur in the following order : vi. 4, Passover is near; iv. 35, the fields white to harvest=May; v. 1, “a feast” = Pentecost; vii. 2, Tabernacles; x. 22, Dedication; xi. 55, Passover is near; xii. 1, Jesus at Bethany six days before Passover; ii. 13, Passover is near and Jesus goes up to Jerusalem (ii. 23, an interpolation) for the Passover of the Crucifixion; and the ministry would thus be reduced to a single year. Such a scheme does not lend itself to discussion here; but as far as evidence is at present obtainable, the conclusion that St John drew up his narrative on the basis of a two years’ rather than a one year’s ministry appears to be irrefragable. Hot only do the fourth and second Gospels thus agree in indications of a two years’ ministry, but the notes of the middle spring of the three (John vi. 4, Mark vi. 39) both belong to the feeding of the 5000, one of the few points of actual contact between the two Gospels. The question, however, may still be raised, whether these time-indications of the two Gospels are exhaustive, whether (that is) two years, and two years only, are to be allotted to the ministry. Irenseus (II. xxii. 3-6 [xxxiii. 1-4]), in favour of a ministry of not less than ten years, appeals (i.) to the tradition of Asia Minor; (ii.) to the record in St John that Christ, who was thirty years old at the time of His baptism, was addressed by the Jews as “ not yet [i.e. nearly] fifty years old ”: but both his arguments are probably derived from a single source, Papias’s interpretation of John viii. 57. With this exception, however, all ancient writers, whether they enumerated two or three or four Passovers in the Gospel history, believed that the enumeration was exhaustive; and their belief appears correctly to represent the mind of St John, whose notes of time were probably in intentional contrast to the looser synoptic accounts. Moreover, the wide currency in early times of the tradition of the singleyear ministry (Ptolemseus, ap. Iren. loc. cit.; Clementine Homilies, xvii. 19; Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 145, vi. 279; Julius Airicanus, ap. Ilouth, Bell. Sacr. ii. 240, 306; Hippolytus, Paschal Cycle and Chronicle-, Origen in Levit. Horn. ix. 5, de Principiis, iv. 5) becomes more difficult to account for the farther it is removed from the actual facts. 5. The date of the Crucifixion. (a) The Roman Governor.—Pontius Pilate was on his way back to Rome, after ten years of office, when Tiberius died on 16th March a.d. 37 (Josephus, Ant. XVIII. ii. 2, iv. 2). Luke xiii. 1, xxiii. 12, show that he was not a newcomer at the time of the Crucifixion. For the Crucifixion “ under Pontius Pilate ” the Passover of a.d. 28 is therefore the earliest possible and the Passover of a.d. 36 the latest. (fi) The Jewish High-Priest.—Caiaphas was appointed before Pilate’s arrival, and was deposed at a Passover apparently not later than that of the year of Herod Philip’s death, a.d. 34 {Ant. XVIII. ii. 2, iv. 3-v. 3). The Crucifixion at some previous Passover would then fall not later than a.d. 33. (c) The Day of the Week.—The Resurrection on “the first day of the week” (Sunday) was “on the third day” after the Crucifixion; and that “ the third day ” implies an interval of only two days hardly needed to be shown, but has been shown to demonstration in Field’s Notes on the Translation of the New Testament (on Matt. xvi. 21). The Crucifixion was therefore on a Friday in some year between a.d. 28 and 33 inclusive.
