St. John now passes on to the history of the events of the night before our Lord’s death, omitting a number of incidents of Holy Week, which had been already recorded by the Synoptic Evangelists. Thus, he does not mention the weeping over Jerusalem (Luke xix. 39‐44); the cursing of the barren fig‐tree (Matt. xxi. 18, 19, Mark xi. 12‐14); or the cleansing of the temple (Matt. xxi. 12, 14; Mark xi. 15; Luke xix. 45, 46). There can be little doubt that it was his intention to supplement the Synoptic Gospels, for not only does he omit many things that they record, but he records very much that they omit. 1. Ante diem festum paschae, 1. Before the festival day of sciens Iesus quia venit hora the pasch, Jesus knowing that eius ut transeat ex hoc mundo his hour was come, that he ad Patrem: cum dilexisset suos should pass out of this world qui erant in mundo, in finem to the Father: having loved dilexit eos. his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end. 1. *Before the festival day of the pasch.* We are here met by a serious difficulty when we compare with these words of St. John the accounts of the Synoptic Evangelists; for, while they represent the supper, referred to by St. John in verse 2, as having taken place on the evening of the first day of Azymes, St. John here seems to place it prior to that Feast. If we had only the Synoptic Gospels, we should, without any hesitation, come to the conclusion—(_a_) that our Lord and His Apostles ate the Paschal Supper on the night before He died; and (_b_) that the Jews that year eat it on the same night. For St. Matthew tells us: “And on the first day of the Azymes, the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the pasch? But Jesus said: Go ye into the city to a certain man, and say to him: The Master saith, my time is near at hand; with thee I make the pasch with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus appointed to them, and they prepared the pasch. But when it was evening he sat down with his twelve disciples” (Matt. xxvi. 17‐20). Similarly, St. Mark (xiv. 12‐17) and St. Luke (xxii. 7‐14) seem to take for granted that the ordinary time for celebrating the Paschal Supper was come, for St. Mark says: “Now on the first day of the unleavened bread, _when they sacrificed the pasch_, the disciples say to him,” &c.; and St. Luke: “And the day of the unleavened bread came, on which _it was necessary_ that the pasch should be killed.” St. John, on the other hand, in the verse before us, in which he introduces his account of the events of this last night of Christ’s mortal life, speaks of the time as; “_Before_ the festival day of the pasch.” Moreover, in subsequent passages(82) of our Gospel, to which we shall direct attention as they occur, St. John uses language which, at first sight, at least, would seem to show that the Jews did not eat the Pasch on the night of Christ’s last