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Joh_18:28. Εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον ] into the praetorium, where the procurator dwelt, whether it was the palace of Herod (so usually), or, more probably, a building in the tower of Antonia (so Ewald). Comp. on Mat_27:27 : Mar_15:16.
πρωΐ ] i.e. in the fourth watch of the night (see on Mat_14:25), therefore toward daybreak. Pilate might expect them so early, since he had in fact ordered the σπεῖρα , Joh_18:3, on duty.
αὐτοί ] They themselves did not go in, but caused Jesus only to be brought in by the soldiers, Joh_18:3.
ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν , ἀλλʼ ἵνα φάγ . τὸ πάσχα ] On the emphatic repetition of the ἵνα , comp. Rev_9:5; Xen. Mem. i. 2. 48. The entrance into the pagan house, not purified from the corrupt leaven, would have made them levitically impure ( μιαίνω , the solemn word of profanation, Plat. Legg. ix. p. 868 A; Tim. p. 69 D; Soph. Ant. 1031, LXX. in Schleusner, III. p. 559), and have thereby prevented them from eating the Passover on the legal day (they would have been bound, according to the analogy of Num_9:6 ff., to defer it till the 14th of the following month). Since φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα throughout the N. T. (Mat_26:17; Mar_14:12; Mar_14:14; Luk_22:11; Luk_22:15; comp. ἑτοιμάζειν τὸ πάσχα , Mat_26:19; Mar_14:16; Luk_22:8; θύειν τὸ πάσχα , 1Co_5:7; Luk_22:7; Mar_14:12; see also Exo_12:21; 2Ch_35:13) denotes nothing else than to eat the paschal meal, as àÈëÇì äÇôÌÆñç , 2Ch_30:18, comp. 3 Esr. Joh_1:6; Joh_1:12, Joh_7:12, it is thus clear that on the day, in the early part of which Jesus was brought to the procurator, the paschal lamb had not yet been eaten, but was to be eaten, and that consequently Jesus was crucified on the day before the feast. This result of the Johannean account is undoubtedly confirmed by Joh_13:1, according to which πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς gives the authoritative standard for the whole history of the passion, and that in such wise that the Jewish Passover feast was necessarily still future, when Jesus held His last meal with the disciples, with which latter, then, the seizure, condemnation, and execution stood in unbroken connection; further, by Joh_13:29, according to which the Johannean last supper cannot have been the paschal meal; finally, by Joh_19:14; Joh_19:31 (see on those passages), as, moreover, the view that the murdered Jesus was the antitype of the slaughtered paschal lamb (Joh_19:36), is appropriate only to that day as the day of His death, on which the paschal lamb was slaughtered, i.e. on the 14th Nisan.[218] Since, however, as according to the Synoptics, so also according to John (Joh_19:31), Jesus died on the Friday, after He had, on the evening preceding, held His last meal, John 13, there results the variation that, according to the Synoptics, the feast begins on Thursday evening, and Jesus holds the actual Jewish paschal meal, but is crucified on the first feast-day (Friday); in opposition to which, according to John, the feast begins on Friday evening, the last supper of Jesus (Thursday evening) is an ordinary meal (see Winer, Progr.: δεῖπνον , de quo Joh. xiii., etc., Leips. 1847), and His death follows on the day before the feast (Friday). According to the Synoptics, the Friday of the death of Jesus was thus the 15th Nisan; but according to John, the 14th Nisan. We can scarcely conceive a more indubitable result of exegesis, recognised also by Lücke, ed. 2 and 3, Neander, Krabbe, Theile, Sieffert, Usteri, Ideler, Bleek, De Wette, Brückner, Ebrard, Krit. d. Evang. Gesch., ed. 2 (not in Olshausen, Leidensgesch., p. 43 f.), Ewald, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Hase, Weisse, Rückert, Abendm. p. 28 ff., Steitz, J. Müller, Koessing (Catholic), de suprema Chr. coena, 1858, p. 57 ff., Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 417, Pressensé, Keim, and several others. Nevertheless, harmonistic attempts have been made as far as possible to prove the agreement, either of the Synoptics with John (so mostly the older harmonists, see Weitzel, Passahfeier, p. 305 f.; recently, especially Movers in the Zeitschrift f. Phil. u. Kathol. Theol., 1833, vii. p. 58 ff., viii. p. 62 ff., Maier, Aechth. d. Ev. Joh., 1854, p. 429 ff., Weitzel, Isenberg, d. Todestag des Herrn, 1868, p. 31 ff., and several others), or of John with the Synoptics (so most later harmonists).[219] Attempts of the first kind break down at once before this consideration, that in the Synoptics the last meal is the regular[220] and legal one of the 14th Nisan, with the Passover lamb, slaughtered of necessity on the selfsame day between the two evenings in the forecourt (comp. Lightfoot, p. 470 f., 651), but not a paschal meal anticipated by Jesus contrary to the law (abrogating, in fact, the legal appointment, see Weitzel), as Grotius, Hammond, Clericus, and several others thought, also Kahnis, Abendm. p. 14, Krafft, p. 130, Godet, p. 629 ff., who appeals specially again to Mat_26:17-18, Märcker, Uebereinst. d. Matth. und Joh. p. 20 ff., who thinks the non-legal character of the meal is passed over in silence by the Synoptics. Those attempts, however, according to which John’s account is made to be the same as that of the Synoptics (Bynaeus, de morte J. Ch. III. p. 13 ff., Lightfoot, p. 1121 ff., Reland, Bengel, and several others; latterly, especially Tholuck, Guericke, Olshausen, B. Crusius, Hengstenberg in loc., and in the Evang. K.-Zeit. 1838, Nr. 98 ff., Wieseler, Synopse, p. 333 ff., and in Herzog’s Encyklop. XXI. p. 550 ff., Luthardt, Wichelhaus, Hofmann in the Zeitschr. f. Prot. u. Kirche, 1853, p. 260 ff., Lichtenstein and Friedlieb, Gesch. d. Lebens J. Chr. p. 140 ff., Lange, Riggenbach, von Gumpach, Röpe, d. Mahl. d. Fusswaschens, Hamb. 1856, Ebrard on Olshausen, Baeumlein, Langen, Letzte Lebenstage Jesu, 1864, p. 136), are rendered void by the correct explanation of Joh_13:1; Joh_13:29, Joh_19:14; Joh_19:31, and, in respect of the present passage, by the following observations: (a) τὸ πάσχα cannot be understood of the sacrificial food of the feast to the exclusion of the lamb, particularly not of the Chagiga ( çÂâÄéâÈä the freewill passover offerings, consisting of small cattle and oxen, according to Deu_16:2, on which sacrificial meals were held; see Lightfoot), as is here assumed by the current harmonists,[221] since rather by φαγεῖν is the Passover lamb constantly designated (comp. generally Gesenius, Thes. II. p. 1115), also in Josephus and in the Talmud ( àëì äôñç ), and consequently no reader could attach any other meaning to it;[222] in Deu_16:2-3, however, ôñç does not mean “as a passover” (Hengstenberg, comp. Schultz on Deut. p. 471), but likewise nothing else than agnus paschalis, from which, then, öàÉï åÌáÈ÷ø are distinguished as other sacrifices and sacrificial animals (comp. Joh_18:6-7), whereby with òìéå , Joh_18:3, we are referred back to the whole of the eating at the feast. 2Ch_35:7-9 also (comp. rather Joh_18:11; Joh_18:13) contributes as little to prove the assumed reference of πάσχα to the Passover sacrifices generally, as Exo_12:48 for the view that to eat the Passover signifies the celebration of the feast in general; since, certainly, in the passage in question, the general ΠΟΙῆΣΑΙ ΤῸ Π . (prepare) is by no means equivalent to the special ἔδεται ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ .[223] (b) The objection, that entering the Gentile house would only have produced pollution for the same day ( èÄáÌåÌì éåÉí ),[224] which might have been removed by washing before evening, and therefore before the beginning of the new day, and that consequently the Jews would have still been able to eat the Passover lamb, which was to be first partaken of in the evening (see especially Hengstenberg, Wieseler, and Wichelhaus, following Bynaeus and Lightfoot), cannot be proved from Maimonides (Pesach. iii. 1, vi. 1), must rather, in view of the great sacredness of the Passover feast (comp. Joh_11:55), be regarded as quite unsupported by the present passage (at all events in reference to the time of Jesus), irrespective also of this, that such a pollution would have been a hindrance to the personal slaughtering of the lamb, and certainly was, most of all, avoided precisely by the hierarchs, 2Ch_30:17-18. (c) On the whole of the inadmissible plea, which has been raised from the history of the Easter controversies against this, that John places the death of Jesus on the 14th Nisan, see Introd. § 2. (d) It has even been asserted, in order to make the account of John apply to the synoptic determination of time, that the time of the Passover meal was not the evening of the 14th Nisan at all, but the evening of the 13th Nisan (consequently the beginning of the 14th); so, after Frisch, recently Rauch in the Stud. u. Krit. 1832, p. 537 ff., according to which our φαγεῖν τ . πάσχα was understood of the eating of the ἌΖΥΜΑ . But the evening of the 14th (consequently the beginning of the 15th) stands so unassailably firm on the foundation of the law, according to Jewish tradition, and according to Josephus (see De Wette in the Stud. u. Krit. 1834, 4; Lücke, II. p. 727 ff.), that the above attempt is simply to be noted as a piece of history, as also that of Schneckenburger (Beitr. p. 4 ff.), which is based on the error that Joh_19:14 is the παρασκευή for the Feast of Sheaves. (e) Had John conceived the last Supper to be the Passover meal, there would certainly not have been wanting in the farewell discourses significant references to the Passover;[225] they are, however, entirely wanting, and, moreover, the general designation of the Supper itself, δείπνου γινομένου , Joh_12:2 (comp. Joh_12:2), agrees therewith, to remove from the mind of the unprejudiced reader the thought of the festival meal.
Is, however, the difference between John and the Synoptics incapable of being adjusted, the question then arises, On which side historical accuracy lies? Those who dispute the authenticity of the Gospel could not be in doubt on this point But it is otherwise from the standpoint of this authenticity, and that not of mediate authenticity at second hand (assuming which, Weizsäcker gives the preference to the synoptic account), but of that which is immediate and apostolical. If, that is to say, in the case of irreconcilable departures from the synoptic tradition, the first rank is in general, à priori, to be conceded to John, as the sole direct witness, whose writing has been preserved unaltered; if, further, the representation also by the Apostle Paul of Christ as the Passover Lamb applies only to the Johannean determination of the day of His death (see on 1Co_5:7); and if, along with this, Paul’s account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper does not run counter (in answer to Keim) to this Johannean determination; if, further, even the statement of the Judaism, which was outside the church, that Jesus was executed vespera paschatis ( òøá äôñç ), i.e. on the 14th Nisan, supports the account of John (see Sanhedr. 6. 2 f., 43. 1, in Lightfoot, ad Act. i. 3), where the fabulous element in the Talmudic quotation of the circumstances attending the execution does not affect the simple date of time; if the conducting of a criminal trial[226] and execution on the first feast-day, even after the most recent attempts to show their admissibility (see especially Wieseler, p. 361 ff.), is at least highly improbable (see Bleek, p. 139 ff.; Ewald, Alterth. p. 415), and is opposed by Act_12:25 ff., and in the case before us would be regarded as an exception from the rule,[227] in fact, imprudent and irreconcilable with the great danger which was well known to the Sanhedrin (Mat_26:5); if, generally, the 15th Nisan, with its Sabbatic character, and as the legal day of the festive gathering in the temple, is altogether unsuitable to all the undertakings, processions, and parades which were set on foot by the hierarchs and by the people on the day of Jesus’ death, as well as to the taking down from the cross and the burial; if, on the other hand, the custom of setting at liberty a prisoner (Joh_18:39) most naturally corresponds to the idea, and therewith to the day of the paschal lamb, to the idea and to the day of forgiveness; if, finally, even in the Synoptics themselves, traces still exist of the true historical relation, according to which the day of Jesus’ death must have been no first day of the feast, but a day of traffic and labour (Mat_26:59-60; Mar_15:21; Mar_15:42; Mar_15:46; Luk_23:26; Luk_23:54; Luk_23:56), as, moreover, the opinion of the Sanhedrin, Mat_26:5, Mar_14:1 : μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ ! corresponds to the Johannean account, and to the haste with which, according to the latter, the affair was despatched, actually still before the feast,—then all these moments are just so many reasons, the collective weight of which is decisive in favour of John,[228] without the further necessity of making an uncertain appeal to the present calendar of the feast, according to which the 15th Nisan may not fall on a Friday (see against his application to that period, Wieseler, p. 437 f.), and to the prohibition, Exo_12:22, against quitting house and town after the Passover meal (see on Mat_26:30, and Wetstein on Mar_14:26).
The question how the correct relation of time in the synoptic tradition could be altered by a day, withdraws itself from any solution that is demonstrable from history. Most naturally, however, the institution of the Lord’s Supper suggests the point of connection, both by the references, which Jesus Himself in His discourses connected therewith gave to the Supper in its bearing on the Passover meal, by the idea of which He was moved (Luk_22:15), as also by the view of the Supper as the antitypical Passover meal, which view must necessarily have been developed from the apostolic apprehension of Christ as the Paschal Lamb (Joh_19:36; 1Co_5:7), so far as He in the Supper had given Himself to be partaken of, Himself the perfected Passover Lamb, which He, simply by His death, was on the point of becoming. Thus the day of institution of the Supper became, in the anti-typical mode of regarding it, an ideal 14th Nisan, and in the tradition, in virtue of the reflective operation of the idea upon it, gradually became an actual one, and consequently the παρασκευή , which was firmly established as the day of death, became, instead of the preparation of the Passover (14th Nisan), as John has again fixed it, the preparation of the Sabbath,[229] this Sabbath, however, regarded, not as the first day of the feast, as in John, consequently not as the 15th Nisan, but as the second day of the feast (16th Nisan).
Further, the deviation of John from the Synoptics is the less to be employed as a reason for doubting the genuineness of the former, the more improbable it is in itself that a later inventor, who nevertheless sought apostolic authority, would have run the risk of entering into conflict with the prevailing tradition in so extremely important a determination, and, in subservience to the idea of Christ as the perfected Passover Lamb (see especially Baur, p. 272 ff., and in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 267 f.; Hilgenfeld, Pascha streit d. alten K. p. 221 ff.; Schenkel, p. 362 f.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 132; Scholten, p. 282 ff.), to date back by a day the execution of Christ. Were the Johannean history, in so far substantially unhistorical, a production resulting from the idea of the Passover lamb, then certainly this idea would itself stand forth with far more of purpose and expression than it does (especially, for instance, in the farewell discourses), and would have been indicated, not merely on the occasion of the wound in the side, Joh_19:36, in the light of a single token; in that case one might believe oneself justified, with Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 130, in laying to the charge of the writer of the Gospel that he had, in conformity with certain presuppositions, put together the sequence of events for himself partly in an accidental and partly in an arbitrary manner.
[218] Tertullian, adv. Jud_1:8 : “Passio perfecta est die azymorum, quo agnum occiderent ad vesperam a Mose fuerat praeceptum.”
[219] Chrysostom gives a choice between the two attempts at reconciliation. Either John means by τὸ πάσχα : τὴν ἑορτὴν τὴν πᾶσαν ; or, Christ anticipated the celebration on the day before the Passover of the Jews, τηρῶν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σφαγὴν τῇ παρασκευῇ , on which the O. T. paschal meal was solemnized. In this way Chrysostom already writes the programme for the whole of the later investigations on this point down to the present day. For the history of the controversy, see in Wichelhaus, Kommentar über d. Leidensgesch. p. 191 ff.
[220] The view which became current at the time of the Reformation and afterwards among the older theologians, especially through Casaubon’s and Scaliger’s influence, that the Jews had postponed the Passover for a day, was entirely baseless, but found all the more ready acceptance because there remained thereby time in full accordance with the law for the observance of the paschal meal on the part of Jesus. According to this view, which has again been recently supported by Philippi (Glaubensl. I. p. 266 f., ed. 2), the Jews, in order not to be bound for two days running to the strictness of the Sabbath observance, transferred the first feast-day, which at that time fell on the Friday, to the Sabbath; whereas Christ abode faithfully by the legal term; the synoptical account goes by this legal determination, but the Johannean by the former arbitrary one. From ἔδει , Luk_22:7, no inference whatever can be drawn in favour of this harmonistic expedient, which is without any historical support. Serno (d. Tag. d. letzten Passahmahls, Berl. 1859) has sought, in a peculiar way, to confirm the correctness of both accounts by the doubling of the feast-days during the diaspora. According to this, it may have come about that for the Galileans in Jerusalem that was already the first day of the Passover, which for the Jerusalemites was but the day before the feast. In this way the twofold representation was stamped on the page of history. Against this it is at once decisive that the Galileans did not belong to the diaspora. See, moreover, Weiss, in the Lit. Bl. d. altg. K. Z. 1860, Nr. 42; Wieseler and Reuter’s Repert. 1860, p. 132 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. XI. p. 253 f. On the above doubling of the feast-days, see Ideler, Handbuch d. Chronol. I. p. 513 ff. According to Isenberg, l.c., “many thousand strangers,” in order not to break in upon the Sabbath with the preparation for the Passover meal, held this meal already on the 13th Nisan. So also did Jesus, in order to institute the Lord’s Supper as the fulfilment of the Passover feast, and to die as the Antitype of the Passover lamb. The above presupposition, however, is unhistorical. A paschal lamb on the 13th Nisan is to the Jewish consciousness an impossibility.
[221] Although the eating of the Chagigah was not necessarily restricted to the 15th Nisan, but might take place well enough on any of the following Passover feast-days; hence a religious obligation as regards the 15th Nisan by no means lay in the way of their entering the Gentile house, so that they might be able to eat the Chagigah. But the partaking of the paschal lamb was restricted to its definite day, the 14th Nisan.
[222] Paul also, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1866, p. 367 ff., and 1867, p. 535 ff., explains it of the eating of the Passover lamb, but thinks that they had not been able to accomplish the eating on the evening that preceded the πρωΐ , and now “at the first grey of morning” desired to make up for that which was omitted in the urgency of their haste. What an irregularity against the law (Lev_23:5, Deu_16:7; Saalschütz, M. R. p. 407 f.) and usage is thus imagined, without the slightest indication in the text! And the thought of such a completely exceptional early eating could not be entertained by the Jews, moreover, for this reason, that they must indeed stand by, and did stand by their delinquent, could not leave him as he was, and go thence, in order to eat the neglected Passover.—Aberle, in the Tüb. QuartalsChr. 1863, p. 537 ff., admits indeed the difference of John’s representation from that of the Synoptics, but thinks the Johannean day of death of Jesus appears through their account (in itself correct), and that they intentionally expressed themselves in an ambiguous manner (incorrect). See against Aberle, Hilgenfeld in his ZeitsChr. 1865, p. 94 ff.
[223] 2Ch_30:22, where the eating of the feast sacrifices generally ( äîåòã ) is spoken of, proves nothing whatever for the special expression: “eat the Passover,” rather is distinguished from it.
[224] Jdt_12:7-9 proves nothing in this respect for our passage (against Hengstenberg), where the evening bath of Judith falls at most (comp. Grotius) under the point of view of Mar_7:4, where there is no question of any eating of a holy, festal character.
[225] This circumstance is also decisive against the invention of an anticipated Passover. For precisely at a Passover feast of so exceptional a character the Passover ideas which furnished its motive would not have been kept at a distance by John, but would have been brought by him into the foreground.
[226] This difficulty drives Hilgenfeld (Paschastr. d. alten Kirche, p. 154, also in his ZeitsChr. 1863, p. 338 ff.), after the precedent of Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. I. p. 407 ff., to the desperate assumption that do actual criminal proceedings took place at all. Neither in Mat_26:3, nor Mat_26:57, and Mat_27:1, is an actual Synedrium intended, but only councils summoned by the high priest.
[227] Among the Greeks also, an execution on a feast day was regarded as a profanation and pollution, and was, if it exceptionally took place, as in the case of Phocion (Plutarch, Phoc. 37), a great scandal; see Hermann, Gottesd. Alterth. § 43.12.
[228] Here the appeal urged by Movers to Tr. Sanhedr. f. 63. 1, is by no means required, according to which the members of the Sanhedrin might not eat anything on the day on which they had pronounced a sentence of death. On this showing, they absolutely could not have had the design of eating the Chagigah.
[229] Moreover, the Passover meal, on the Friday evening, could by no means have been deranged by the dawning of the Sabbath. For the slaying and roasting of the lamb took place before the dawn of the Sabbath, and the pilgrims were wont to arrive early enough in Jerusalem (comp. Joh_11:55). The burning of the remains of the lamb was not, however, prevented by the Sabbath (Schoettgen, Hor. I. p. 121), and generally the rule held good: “Si quis unum praeceptum observat, ille ab observatione alterius praecepti liber est,” Sohar, Deut. princ. f. 107, c. 427. This also in answer to Isenberg, l.c. Besides, the paschal lamb was a sacrifice, the arrangements connected with which the Sabbath consequently did not prevent, even if the 14th Nisan itself was a Sabbath.