for the legs are forthwith broken and of coarse, immediately after, the bodies in pursuance of the same order would have been taken away. As soon as the Evangelist has secured his purpose of showing how the Scriptures were fulfilled by means of this episode, he takes up the story as though it had not been interrupted, and proceeds v. 38: "After these things" [------], that is to say after the legs of the malefactors had been broken and the side of Jesus pierced, Joseph besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave leave. But, if v. 31f. be historical, the body must already have been taken away. All the Synoptics agree with the fourth Gospel in stating that Joseph of Arimathaea begged for and obtained the body of Jesus from Pilate.(1) The second and third Synoptics describe him as belonging to the Council, but the first Gospel merely calls him "a rich man," whilst the fourth omits both of these descriptions. They all call him a disciple of Jesus--secretly for fear of the Jews, the fourth Gospel characteristically adds--although the term that he was "waiting for the Kingdom of God," used by the second and third Gospels, is somewhat vague. The fourth Gospel, however, introduces a second personage in the shape of Nicodemus, "who at the first came to him by night,"(2) and who, it will be remembered, had previously been described as "a ruler of the Jews."(3) The Synoptics do not once mention such a person, either in the narrative of the Passion or in the earlier chapters, and there are more than doubts as to his historical character.(4) The accounts of the Entombment given by the three 1 According to Luke xxiii. 53, Joseph actually "took down" the body. {437} Synoptists, or at least by the second and third, distinctly exclude the narrative of the fourth Gospel, both as regards Nicodemus and the part he is represented as taking. The contradictions which commence here between the account of the fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, in fact, are of the most glaring and important nature, and demand marked attention. The fourth Gospel states that, having obtained permission from Pilate, Joseph came and took the body of Jesus away. "And there came also Nicodemus,... bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. They took, therefore, the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre wherein was never man yet laid. There, therefore, on account of the preparation of the Jews [------], they laid Jesus, for the sepulchre was at hand" [------].(1)