ITS 



A. M. W. DOWNING. M.A., D.SC. F.R.S., ON 



(cb. xix, 13, etc.); nor must the ' ; six days " be reckoned as five, 

 else there will not be found room for all the days afterwards men- 

 tioned. Therefore He reached that village home on the 9th of 

 Xisan : and that must have been a Sabbath day, else He would have 

 had to travel either to Bethany or to Jericho on a Sabbath day, which 

 was contrary to a custom that He seems to have acknowledged 

 (Acts i. 12). He therefore entered Jerusalem on the 10th of Xisan 

 — the city in which He was to be sacrificed, on the very day that 

 the passover lamb was shut up in the pen of its doom ( Exodus xii, 

 3, 6) : and that was a Sunday, as indeed the tradition of the Church 

 holds it to be. On that day, as Mark tells us (ch. xi, 11), after 

 1 ; looking round about " upon the state of things in the Temple. He 

 returned to Bethany. On the next day, Xisan 11, a Monday, He 

 cleared the Temple of its traffickers, and, after answering objectors 

 withdrew : on the next, Xisan 12. a Tuesday, He told the parable 

 of the husbandmen, answered subtle questions and propounded one, 

 gave a chain of prophecy to His disciples, and then said, " After two 

 days is the feast of the passover " (Matthew xxvi. 2). That was, 

 therefore, the evening beginning Xisan 13, which, after midnight, 

 became a Wednesday; and on it we find recorded the feast and 

 anointing at Bethany, the bargain of the betrayer, and the command 

 to make ready a passover supper for Jesus and His disciples (w. 3, 6, 

 and 14 if.). To this they sat down on the evening that ushered 

 in the 14th of Xisan (v. 17). which after midnight became a 

 Thursday ; and on the afternoon of that Thursday the Lord suffered 

 death [yielding up His spirit shortly after the ninth hour, at the 

 very time when the passover sacrifice was by Divine decree usually 

 made (Exodus xii, 6 marg.)]. 



The Chairman said, I rise to propose a hearty vote of thanks to 

 Dr. Downing for his valuable lecture. 



On page 168 of the paper, I demur to the statement that the 

 date a.d. 29 is an impossible one for the Crucifixion from an 

 astronomical point of view. This question depends upon the 

 visibility of the new moon to the naked eye ou the evening of 

 March 4, A.D. 29, at Jerusalem. If it could have been seen, then 

 that year must have been a possible one for the Crucifixion.* 



* This subject has been discussed at some length recently, see Monthly 

 Xotices of the Royal Astronomical Society, May, 1910, on "The Smallest 



