John 19:20

John 19:20. This title then read many of the Jews, for the place of the city where Jesus was crucified was nigh. The language in which this proximity of Golgotha to the city is spoken of is in a high degree remarkable: not ‘the place was nigh to the city,' but ‘the place of the city was nigh.' We are not to imagine that by these words the Evangelist means to say that the place of the crucifixion was within the city. He knew well, as every one knew , that it was ‘without the gate.' It is the power of the idea, not per verting the fact but leading to a special view of it, that meets us here, as so often elsewhere. The place outside the city, but really belonging to the city, is viewed only in this latter aspect, as ‘ the place of the city,' because a closer connection is thus established between the crime committed there and the guilty city of Jerusalem.

And it was written in Hebrew and Latin and Greek, the three great languages of the then known world.