Few subjects connected with the Fourth Gospel are more difficult and more complicated than this question of the date (i. e. the day of the month) of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. As the texts stand there is a real difference between the dates assigned to these events in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel. There is agreement as to the day of the week. In any case the Last Supper was eaten on the evening of Thursday, and our Lord suffered on the afternoon of Friday. But according to the Synoptics this Thursday would be Nisan 14, though on the Jewish reckoning (which counted the days from sunset to sunset) the Last Supper would fall on the beginning of Nisan 15. The Supper itself would be the regular passover, and the Crucifixion will have taken place after the passover. According to St. John we are expressly told that the Last Supper was held ‘_before_ the passover’ (xiii. 1), on what we should call the evening of Nisan 13, and the Jews the beginning of Nisan 14; and our Lord will have suffered on the afternoon of the following day, that still belonged to Nisan 14, and His death will have taken place at the time devoted to the slaughter of the Paschal lambs (3-5 p.m.). It is said that this date is chosen for typological reasons, to identify Christ as the true Paschal Lamb. If that is so, the Evangelist has at least not said a word to emphasize the point, and to appreciate its significance we have to go to St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 7, ‘For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ’). But the argument may just as well be inverted, and St. Paul may be taken as corroborating the statement in the Fourth Gospel. It is indeed, as I cannot but think in this as in other cases, more probable that the fact gave rise to the idea, than that the idea came first and was afterwards translated into fact. There does not, therefore, seem to be any real presumption against the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel. Probably, if the truth were known, the presumption so far as it went would be rather in its favour, from the early date and excellent character of the evidence supplied by St. Paul. But when we come to compare the two narratives in detail, the favourable presumption is increased by the fact that, whereas the Fourth Gospel is throughout entirely consistent with itself, the Synoptics are by no means so consistent.