John 19:14

the preparation i.e. the day before the Passover, the -eve," See Appendix A.

and about the sixth hour The best MSS. have -it was" for -and;" it was about the sixth hour. In two abrupt sentences S. John calls special attention to the day and hour; now it was the eve of the Passover: it was about the sixth hour. It is difficult to believe that he can be utterly mistaken about both. The question of the day is discussed elsewhere (Appendix A); the question as to the hour remains.

We have seen already (John 1:39; John 4:6; John 4:52; John 11:9), that whatever view we may take of the balanceof probability in each case, there is nothing thus far which is conclusively in favour of the antecedently improbable view, that S. John reckons the hours of the day as we do, from midnight to noon and noon to midnight.

The modern method is sometimes spoken of as the Romanmethod. This is misleading, as it seems to imply that the Romans counted their hours as we do. If this were so, it would not surprise us so much to find that S. John, living away from Palestine and in the capital of a Roman province, had adopted the Roman reckoning. But the Romans and Greeks, as well as the Jews, counted their hours froth sunrise. Martial, who goes through the day hour by hour (iv. viii.), places the Roman method beyond a doubt. The difference between the Romans and the Jews was not as to the mode of counting the hours, but as to the limits of each individual day. The Jews placed the boundary at sunset, the Romans (as we do) at midnight. (Comp. Pliny Nat. Hist.ii. lxxvii.) The -this day" of Pilate's wife (Matthew 27:19) proves nothing; it would fit either the Roman or the Jewish method; and some suppose her to have been a proselyte. In this particular S. John doesseem to have adopted the Roman method; for (John 20:19) he speaks of the evening of Easter Day as -the sameday at evening" (comp. Luke 24:29; Luke 24:33). This must be admitted as against the explanation that -yesterday" in John 4:54 was spoken before midnight and refers to the time before sunset: but the servants may have met their master after midnight.

But there is some evidence of a custom of reckoning the hours from midnight in Asia Minor. Polycarp was martyred -at the eighth hour" (Mart. Pol.xxi.), Pionius at -the tenth hour" (Acta Mart.p. 137); both at Smyrna. Such exhibitions commonly took place in the morning (Philo, ii. 529); so that 8.0 and 10.0 a.m. are more probable than 2.0 and 4.0 p.m.

McClellan adds another argument. "The phraseology of our present passage is unique in the Gospels. The houris mentioned in conjunction with the day. To cite the words of St Augustine, but with the correct rendering of Paraskeuê, -S. John does not say, It was about the sixth hour of the day, nor merely, It was about the sixth hour, but It was theFriday of the Passover; it was about theSixth hour." Hence in the straightforward sense of the words, the sixth hour that he means is the sixth hour of the Friday; and so it is rendered in the Thebaic Version. But Fridayin S. John is the name of the whole Roman civil day, and the Roman civil daysare reckoned from midnight." New Test. i. p. 742.

This solution may therefore be adopted, not as certain, but as less unsatisfactory than the conjecture of a false reading either here or in Mark 15:25, or the various forced interpretations which have been given of S. John's words. If, however, the mode of reckoning in both Gospels be the same, the preference in point of accuracy must be given to the Evangelist who stood by the cross.

Behold your King.] Like the title on the cross and unlike the "Ecce Homo," these words are spoken in bitter irony. This man in His mock insignia is a fit sovereign for the miserable Jews. Perhaps Pilate would also taunt them with their own glorification of Him on Palm Sunday.