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TRACTATE 117 OnJohn 19.17-22 HEN PILATE in his judgment seat judged and condemned him, about the sixth hour they took the Lord Jesus Christ and led him out.I "And carrying a cross for himself, he went out to that place which is called Calvary, in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him." What is it, therefore, that the Evangelist Mark says, "Now it was the third hour and they crucified him,,,2 except that at the third hour the Lord was crucified by the tongues of the Jews, at the sixth hour by the hands of the soldiers? That we may understand that the fifth hour was already past and something of the sixth hour begun when Pilate sat down in the judgment seat (which was said byJohn to be about the sixth hour), and when he was led and fastened on the wooden cross together with the two robbers and those things were done beside the cross that are related as having been done, the entire sixth hour would be completed. And from this hour to the ninth, the authority of the three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, attests that the sun was obscured and darkness occurred.3 But because the Jews tried to transfer the crime of Christ's killing from themselves to the Romans, that is, to Pilate and his soldiers, for this reason Mark, refraining from mentioning the hour at which Christ was crucified by the soldiers, which had already begun at the sixth hour, rather recalled and intentionally put the third hour, the hour at which one understands that they would have cried out before Pilate, "Crucify, crucify,,,4 so that not only those men are found to have crucified Jesus, that is, the soldiers who hung him on the wooden cross at the sixth hour, but also the Jews who at the third hour cried out that he be crucified. 1. Cf.Jn 19.13-16. 2. Mk 15.25. 3· Cf. Mt 27·45; Mk 15·33; Lk 23·44-45· 4. Cf.Jn 19.6; see Mk 15.13-14. 33 34 ST. AUGUSTINE 2. There is also another solution to this question, that it not be taken here as the sixth hour of the day. For John does not say, "Now it was the sixth hour of the day," or "about the sixth hour," but he says, "Now it was the parasceve of the Pasch about the sixth hour."5 Now parasceve in Latin is preparation; but theJews quite willingly use this Greek word in observances of this sort, even those who speak Latin rather than Greek. Therefore it was the Preparation of the Pasch. Moreover, as the Apostle says, "Christ, our Pasch, was sacrificed."6 Now if we compute the preparation of this Pasch from the ninth hour of the night-for the chief priests seem to have pronounced at that time as their judgment the sacrificing of the Lord, saying , "He is guilty of death,"7 when the case was still being heard in the house of the high priest; from this point, consequently , one can properly take it that there had begun the preparation of the true Pasch, of which the Pasch of the Jews was a shadow, that is, the sacrificing of Christ, from when it was pronounced as their judgment by the priests that he was to be sacrificed-certainly from that hour of the night, which is conjectured to have been at this time the ninth, right up to the third hour of the day at which the Evangelist Mark attests that Christ was crucified, there are six hours, three nighttime ones and three daytime ones. Consequently in this parasceve of the Pasch, that is, the preparation of the sacrifice of Christ, which had begun from the ninth hour of the night, was now in progress about the sixth hour, that is, with the fifth hour past, the sixth hour had already begun to run its course when Pilate ascended the judgment seat; for it was still this very same preparation, which had begun from the ninth hour of the night, up until the sacrifice of Christ that was being prepared occurred, and this occurred according to Mark at the third hour, not of the preparation, but of the day; and it was likewise the sixth [hour], not of the day, but of the preparation , with the sixth hour computed, of course, from the ninth hour ofthe night to the third ofthe day...

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