The great names of many who have held this opinion, lend to it considerable probability, and if the custom which is alleged in its favour were proved to have existed in the time of Christ, we would at once adopt it. But it is seriously disputed whether such a custom did exist at that time. It is true, indeed, that among the modern Jews, when the Paschal feast should begin on Friday, they always defer it till the Sabbath; and the Talmud is referred to by Comely (vol. iii., § 73, 1) as saying that the same has been the Jewish practice ever since the Babylonian captivity. Others, however, contend that the custom is not as old as the time of Christ, and that in His time the first day of the Pasch was kept on a Friday whenever it happened to fall on that day. Aben‐Ezra (on Levit. xxiii. 4) says: “Tam ex Mischna quam ex Talmude probatur Pascha in secundam, quartam, et _sextam_ feriam quandoque incidisse.” Since, then, the hypothesis on which this opinion rests seems doubtful, the opinion itself appears to us less satisfactory than that which follows. (5) Lastly, there is the old, and always the most common opinion, that our Lord did eat the Pasch at His last supper; that He eat it on the night of the 14th of Nisan; and that the Jews eat it on that same night. So St. Jer., St. Aug., St. Anselm, Suarez, Tolet., A Lap., Benedict XIV., Patriz., M’Carthy, Corluy, Didon. This opinion is certainly in accordance with the obvious meaning of the Synoptic Evangelists; and the objections against it, which are chiefly drawn from the Gospel of St. John,(87) can all be answered satisfactorily, as we shall show when discussing the passages on which they are founded. We hold, then, that Christ and the Jews eat the Pasch on the night following the 14th of Nisan, when, according to the Jewish method of counting their days, the 15th had already commenced; and that Christ was put to death on the 15th, the first and most solemn day of the Paschal week. And now, returning to the text of St. John, we are confronted at the very commencement of this chapter by an objection to our view, in the words: “Before the festival day of the pasch.” If Christ celebrated the Last Supper on the night after the 14th of Nisan, how does St. John speak of the time of this supper as “before the festival day of the pasch”? To this difficulty various answers have been given. (1) Some have replied that St. John means by “day” the natural day, or time of light; and then it is plain that a supper celebrated on the night following the 14th was before the festival _day_ of the 15th. This explanation is unsatisfactory, for in the original St. John does not merely say “Before the festal day,” but “Before the festal period” (πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς; comp., _e.g._, vii. 2, 14, 37). (2) Others say that the words πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς are equivalent to ἐν τῷ προεορτίῳ; “quod ita praecedit festum, ut tamen sit pars festi” are the words of Bochart, with whom Stier agrees. See Smith’s _B. D._, Art. “Passover.”