perfectly agrees with these two circumstances,) that "the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh," vi. v. 4. Hence, then, the “ "coming and going" through Capernaum was so unusually great; and hence, if Jesus and his disciples rested in the desert "a while," the crowd, which was pressing towards Jerusalem from every part of the country, would have subsided, and drawn off to the capital.

The confusion which prevailed throughout the Holy Land at this great festival we may easily imagine, when we read in Josephus,* that, for the satisfaction of Nero, his officer Cestius, on one occasion, endeavored to reckon up the number of those who shared in the national rite at Jerusalem. By counting the victims sacrificed, and allowing a company of ten to each victim, he found that nearly two millions six hundred thousand souls were present; and it may be observed, that this method of calculation would not include the many persons who must have been disqualified from actually partaking of the sacrifice, by the places of their birth and the various causes of uncleanness.

I cannot forbear remarking another incident in the transaction we are now considering; in

* Bel. Jud. vi. 9. § 3.

itself a trifle, but not, perhaps, on that account, less fit for corroborating the history. We read in St. John, that when Jesus had reached this desert place, he "lifted up his eyes, and saw a great multitude come unto him, and he said unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" vi. 5. Why should this question have been directed to Philip in particular? If we had the Gospel of St. John, and not the other gospels, we should see no peculiar propriety in this choice, and should probably assign it to accident. If we had the other gospels, and not that of St. John, we should not be put upon the inquiry, for they make no mention of the question having been addressed expressly to Philip. But, by comparing St. Luke with St. John, we discover the reason at once. By St. Luke, and by him alone, we are informed, that the desert place where the miracle was wrought "was belonging to Bethsaida." (ix. 10.) By St. John we are informed, (though not in the passage where he relates the miracle, which is worthy of remark, but in another chapter altogether independent of it, ch. i. 44,) that "Philip was of Bethsaida." To whom, then, could the question have been directed so properly as to him, who, being

of the immediate neighborhood, was the most likely to know where bread was to be bought? Here again, then, I maintain, we have strong indications of veracity in the case of a miracle itself; and I leave it to others, who may have ingenuity and inclination for the task, to weed out the falsehood of the miracle from the manifest reality of the circumstances which attend it, to separate fiction from fact, which is in the very closest combination with it, whilst, for my own part, I am content to give God thanks for having afforded such evidence of these wonderful works, as makes it an easy task, not to see, and yet to believe.

XIV.

MARK, XV. 21.—"And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross."

CLEMENT of Alexandria, who lived about the end of the second century, declares that Mark wrote this Gospel on St. Peter's authority, at Rome. Jerome, who lived in the fourth century, says, that Mark, the disciple and inter

4

preter of St. Peter, being requested by his brethren at Rome, wrote a short Gospel. (See Michaelis, v. iii. p. 208, 9.

Now this circumstance may account for his designating Simon as the father of Rufus at least; for we find that a disciple of that name, and of considerable note, was resident at Rome, when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans. "Salute Rufus," says he, "chosen in the Lord," xvi. 13. Thus, by mentioning a man living upon the spot where he was writing, and amongst the people whom he addressed, Mark was giving a reference for the truth of his narrative, which must have been accessible and satisfactory to all; since Rufus could not have failed knowing the particulars of the crucifixion, (the great event to which the Christians looked,) when his father had been so intimately concerned in it, as to have been the reluctant bearer of the cross.

Of course, the force of this argument depends on the identity of the Rufus of St. Mark and the Rufus of St. Paul, which I have no means of proving ;* but, admitting it to be probable that they were the same persons, (which, I think, may be admitted; for St. Paul, we see, expressly speaks of a distinguished

* See Michaelis, v. iii. p. 213.

disciple of the name of Rufus, at Rome; and St. Mark, writing for the Romans, mentions Rufus, the son of Simon, as well known to them,) admitting this, the coincidence is striking, and serves to account for what otherwise seems a piece of purely gratuitous and needless information offered by St. Mark to his readers, namely, that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus; a fact omitted by the other Evangelists, and apparently turned to no advantage by himself.

XV.

MARK, XV. 25.-"And it was the third hour, and they crucified him." 33.-"And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land till the ninth hour."

It has been observed to me by an intelligent friend, who has turned his attention to the internal evidence of the Gospels, that it will be found, on examination, that the scoffs and insults which were levelled at our Saviour on the cross, were all during the first three hours of the crucifixion; and that a manifest change