dity attributed to Judas, and which I have alluded to above, in another sense, is, that Jesus would not have entrusted with the funds of the society, and kept in his post, a man whom he must have known to be greedy up to the point of dishonesty. And Neander does not hesitate to affirm that the fourth evangelist, in imputing the remark of Judas, at the time of the repast of Bethany, to his cupidity, has given to this remark a false interpretation, dictated by the after conduct of Judas, and even that the imputation which he makes against him of having robbed the society is an invention of his own. But we may ask, by way of objection, if, in the light in which Neander views this subject, we are really justified in accusing the apostle John, the supposed writer of the fourth gospel, of a calumny so destitute of foundation? for it would be one according to the hypothesis of Neander. In the light in which we regard the subject, it would at least be more natural to consider that Jesus knew of the love of Judas for money, but up to the last, not being acquainted with his dishonesty, he did not consider him unworthy of the position which he held. Neander remarks, in conclusion, that if Judas could have been induced through love of money to betray Jesus, he must have long lost all real faith in him; this is self-evident, and whatever opinion we may entertain of the affair, this is a supposition by which we must always begin our investigations; but the extinction of his faith could only have induced backsliding-he might have gone "back" (John vi. 66). There must have been another motive to induce him to commit treason-a special motive-which might as readily have been the love of gain as the intentions which are attributed to him by Neander and others.

I do not maintain that the love of gain, as a direct inducement, is of itself sufficient to explain the act of Judas: what I assert is, that the gospels do not indicate, or even hint at, any other motive; consequently any hypothesis of this nature must be destitute of evidence.

§ CXVII.

Arrangements for the Feast of the Passover.

On the first day of unleavened bread, in the evening of which the paschal lamb was to be slain, consequently the day preceding the feast, properly so called, which nevertheless commenced the same evening, that is to say, on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, it is related that Jesus, on the question being put to him by the disciples, according to the two first evangelists, who asked if they should not celebrate the Passover, sent (perhaps from Bethany) a message to Jerusalem, in order to hire an apartment for the time of the feast, and to make other arrangements (Matt. xxvi. 17, et seq. and parallel passages). Matthew does not say which nor how many disciples were sent; according to Mark, two were dispatched, and according to Luke, these were Peter and John. The three narrators are not altogether in complete accordance as to the instructions given by Jesus to these disciples. According to all three, he sent them to a man of whom it was only necessary to ask, in the name of the "Master," for an apartment convenient for the celebration of the Passover, in order to obtain one fully at liberty; but on the one hand, this apartment is described by the second and third evangelists in more detail than by the first; according to them, it was a large upper chamber, furnished, and ready for the reception of company. On the other hand, they relate the way in which they were to discover the proprietor in a different manner to what Matthew does. According to Matthew, Jesus only commanded them to go "to such a man," but the others relate that the messengers, as soon as they entered the town, were to meet a man bearing a pitcher of water, whom they were to follow home, and to negotiate for the apartment with the proprietor of the house.

In this narrative there are a multitude of difficulties, which Gabler has united in a special disquisition. In

the first place, it has been considered singular that Jesus should not have thought till the last day of ordering the repast, and that even then, according to the two first evangelists, it should have been necessary for his disciples to have put him in mind of the circumstance; for with the immense multitude which congregated at Jerusalem at the time of the Fassover (2,700,000, according to Josephus), the apartments at liberty in the town were necessarily soon occupied, and the greater proportion of strangers were obliged to encamp in tents without the walls. This is another reason for being astonished that the messengers of Jesus should nevertheless have found the desired chamber vacant, and that the proprietor, as if he had foreseen the demand of Jesus, should have reserved it for him, and should beforehand have prepared it for the repast. And Jesus reckons upon it with so much confidence that his first message to the proprietor, was not, if he could provide him with an apartment in which to celebrate the feast, but, without any further inquiry whatever, where the apartment which would suit him was; or that, according to Matthew, he should consider it necessary only to say that he would celebrate the feast in his house. To which it may be added that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus knew which was the chamber that was at liberty, and in what part of the house it was situated. But what is above all things strange, is the manner in which the two evangelists relate that the disciples discovered the house in question. Matthew says the directions were to "go into the city to such a man," as if Jesus had named the person whom they were to go and find, though the evangelist did not or could not at the time remember the name; but the two other evangelists say that Jesus pointed out to the disciples the house to which they were to go by means of a water-carrier whom they were to meet with. Now, how could Jesus of Bethany, or of any other place, be beforehand acquainted with this fortuitous circumstance, unless it had been previously agreed upon, that at this particular moment a

servant of the house in question should be there with a pitcher of water, waiting for the messengers of Jesus? All this has appeared to rationalist interpreters to indicate an arrangement before hand agreed upon, and they have thought with the aid of this supposition to raise all the difficulties. The disciples who were sent at so late a period, say they, could not have found an apartment at liberty, if this apartment had not been previously retained by Jesus; and he could not have sent the message he did to the proprietor, unless he had already come to an understanding with him. It was only such previous arrangement, they continue, which could explain the exact knowledge which Jesus had of the house, and in the last place show (which was the point of the discussion from which we set out), how Jesus could certainly have known that the disciples would meet with a water-carrier belonging to the establishment; it was, it is true, employing an artifice to designate the house, and this artifice Jesus could have avoided by simply giving the name of the proprietor, but he had recourse to it in order not to make known beforehand to the traitor the place in which the repast would be held, who otherwise perhaps might have surprised and interrupted him before the time.

But this is not the impression which the evangelical narrative conveys; there is no question there either of agreement or of previous hiring; the phrase of Mark and Luke, "they found as he had said unto them," seems to indicate that Jesus was able to predict all things as they really would happen at an after period; there is nothing indicative of misgiving or doubt; on the contrary, every thing seems to point to a miraculous prescience. In examining this affair more narrowly, we find a double miracle, as in the case of the ass on which Jesus made his public entrance into Jesalem; on the one hand all is prepared for his requirements, and no one is able to resist the power of his name; on the other hand he is able to extend his regard to distant events and to foresee the most fortuitous accidents. We have reason to be astonished that

on this occasion even Olshausen himself should seek to escape from the manifest and irresistible necessity of understanding all this supernaturally, and that he should endeavour to escape from it by arguments which would overthrow the greater portion of the narratives of miracles, and which in general are only to be found in the mouths of rationalists. There is nothing, says he, which can furnish the slightest argument to an impartial interpreter to justify him in regarding it as miraculous. We might almost imagine we were reading the commentaries of Paulus. If the writers, continues Olshausen, had wished to relate a miracle, they ought expressly to have remarked that there had been no previous understanding between the parties. This is in the same spirit in which the rationalists demand, in order that a cure should be acknowledged as miraculous, that the employment of natural means should have been formally denied by the narrators. In fine, Olshausen asserts that no motive can be discovered for this miracle; that, in particular, at this time, it was not necessary to strengthen the faith of the disciples; an effect which this less important miracle could not have produced after the greater miracles which had preceded it. These are arguments which preclude the possibility of our considering as supernatural, amongst others, the altogether similar narrative of the prophetic description of the ass, at the time of the triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, a description in which Olshausen, nevertheless, pretends to discover a miracle.

And, in effect, the present narrative has such striking analogies with the narrative of the finding of the ass on which Jesus was to make his public entrance into Jerusalem, that the same opinion must be held of the historical reality of each of them. In the one case as in the other there is something wanting on the part of Jesus, and God is so ready to satisfy his necessities, that Jesus knows beforehand, most exactly, how this necessity will be satisfied; in the one case it is an apartment which he requires, as in the other an ass; in the one case as in the other, he sends two disciples to