These last words had hardly been uttered before a wondrous event took place in the Temple. The veil, the beautiful veil, inwrought with figures of Cherubim, which separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy, was suddenly _rent in twain from the top to the bottom_[585] (Mtt. xxvii. 51; Mk. xv. 38; Lk. xxiii. 45), and at the same moment the earth trembled with the convulsion of an earthquake, and the rocks were rent, laying open many of the sepulchres with which they were perforated on all sides of the city[586] (Mtt. xxvii. 52). These marvellous incidents made a deep impression, not only on the centurion and his soldiers who had been stationed to watch the cross, but on the multitudes who had been spectators of all that had occurred, and the women and kinsmen of the Holy Sufferer who _stood gazing afar off_ (Mtt. xxvii. 55; Mk. xv. 40). The people beating their breasts in deep but unavailing sorrow (Lk. xxiii. 48) began to pour back with fearful forebodings into the city, while the Roman officer, who though he had often looked upon death and its victims in various forms, had never witnessed such a death as this[587], under the influence of deep emotion testified that He, who had been condemned as a blasphemer, was indeed a _righteous man_ (Lk. xxiii. 47), nay more, that He was in truth the _Son of God_[588] (Mtt. xxvii. 54; Mk. xv. 39). CHAPTER IX. _THE BURIAL AND RESURRECTION._ A.D. 30. THE day was now far advanced. Unconscious that the true Paschal Lamb, the antitype of all previous sacrifices, had offered up Himself upon the altar of His Cross for the sins of the whole world, numerous bands of householders were gathering towards the Temple to slay their victims and make ready for the Feast[589]. The morrow _being a high day_, at once the Sabbath and the solemn fifteenth of Nisan[590] (Jn. xix. 31), the Jewish rulers would be more than usually anxious that the bodies of the Saviour and the two malefactors should not remain upon the cross, profaning the sanctity of their great national festival, and violating one of the strict injunctions of their law[591].