I looked and found that the story in Mark and Matthew was as Scaurus had described it. But another detail astonished me. It was a phrase that followed the words, “While they were passing by early in the morning”—_i.e._ the morning after the curse had been pronounced—“they saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots.” Instead of writing that they were all amazed at the speed with which the curse had been fulfilled, Mark wrote, “And _Peter, remembering it_, says to him, ‘Rabbi, behold, the fig-tree that thou cursedst is withered up’.” Trying to put myself in the place of Peter, I asked, “What should I have done when I approached the spot? How could I fail to be on the alert to note the tree that my Master cursed yesterday? How could any of my companions fail? How was it possible that any of us could forget? How could I possibly talk about ‘_remembering_’ it? How, therefore, could a historian suppose it needful to insert that I, or any of us, ‘_remembered_’?” Turning to Matthew, I found that he got rid of “remembering,” and of “Peter” too, by making the miracle occur instantaneously, thus, “He said unto it [_i.e._ to the tree], ‘Let there be no fruit from thee henceforward for ever.’ And immediately the fig-tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, ‘How did the fig-tree immediately wither away’?” Scaurus explained the whole matter as follows: “Look at Ezekiel’s saying, ‘I the Lord have _dried up the green tree_,’ and its context. You will find that ‘_the green tree_’ is Tyre. Elsewhere Luke has a proverb about ‘the green tree and the dry,’ where ‘the dry’ refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. So here, the fig-tree, green but barren, is Jerusalem. Luke has given the parable correctly. The Lord of the vineyard, he says, comes to a fig-tree, _i.e._ Jerusalem, in the vineyard, that is, in Judah. He does not say that it is green, but we may imagine that. However, it has no fruit. ‘Let it be cut down,’ says the Lord. Well, I have shewn you that ‘Let it be _cut down_’ might mean, in Hebrew, ‘Let it be _barren_ so that none may eat fruit from it,’ or ‘Let it be _dried up_.’ As a historical fact, the fig-tree was _cut down_, or _dried up_, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. But that was not immediate. It was long after the resurrection. _When Jerusalem was destroyed_, the disciples _remembered_”—this explained my difficulty above mentioned—“that the Lord had pronounced this curse on Jerusalem. I could shew you, if space allowed, that the name ‘Peter’ (which would be in Hebrew ‘Simon’) might be confused (in Hebrew) with our Latin phrase ‘qui cum eo erant’ meaning ‘those that were with him,’ _i.e._ Christ’s disciples, and also that Mark’s phrase ‘passing by _early_’ may be an error for ‘passing along to _inspect_, _visit_, or _seek_ fruit.’ Having regard to the fact that Peter died a year or two before the city was destroyed, I am inclined to think that it was ‘the disciples,’ not