A harmony or synoptical arrangement of the Gospels

Front matter

0>

JIT* Cq»~

HARMONY

Contents

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATIONS.

Page

Diss. I. On the Duration of our Saviour's Ministry.

Part I. The Preaching of John the Baptist- and the Ministry of Christ to his First Miracle 13

II. From the First Passover, inclusively, to the Approach of

— — III. Transactions connected with the Feast of Tabernacles .. 39

IV. Christ's Public Preaching in Galilee — in the interval

BETWEEN THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES AND THAT OF DEDI- CATION — until the Mission of the Twelve 49

Identity of the Discourse in the vith chapter of Luke, with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 64

On the Diversity in the Narratives of the Cure of the Centurion's Servant 66

Circumstances of the Cure of the Paralytic 74

V. Transactions of Christ after sending forth the Apostles,

shortly before the Feast of Dedication, till all of them had collected to him after the death of the baptist... 89

VI. From the Return of the Twelve — following the Death of

John the Baptist, and succeeded by the Miracle of the Five Thousand — to our Lord's Departure from Galilee... 133

VII. Our Lord's Final Journey from Galilee, through the Per^ea,

to his Arrival at Bethany shortly before the Passover . 167 On the Diversities in the Narratives respecting the Cure of the Blind Men near Jericho 188

VIII. From our Lord's Arrival at Bethany, till the Day on which

HE ATE THE PASSOVER 191

On the Time when the Jews ate the Passover in the week of our

Lord's Crucifixion 225

Events of the 14th of Nisan ; that is, from Sunset on Thursday to Sunset on Friday 226

IX. The Last Day of the Saviour's Mortal Life 227

Order of the Occurrences in the Garden of Gethsemane 247

Summary of the Occurrences in the Palace of Caiaphas 250

Succession of Events preceding the Condemnation of Christ 261

On the Denials of Peter 272

X. From the Burial of our Lord in the Tomb of Joseph, to

his Ascension into Heaven 275

Succession of Events on the Morning of the Resurrection 276

Scheme of the Visits to the Sepulchre • , 285

St. Luke's Narrative, in the Acts, of Christ's Ascension 295

Appendix

CHRONOLOGY OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY.

Page Introductory Observations. On the Year of our Lord's Baptism — Time of the Death of Herod— The Fifteenth Year of Tiberius— The Decree of

Augustus • (i)

Calendar of our Lord's Ministry ....•• Cvii)

Tabular View of the Contents of the Gospels, from the Baptism of our Lord till his Arrival at Bethany, Six Days before the Passover ; designed to show in what degree the arrangement in each Gospel has been maintained ........... (x)

Analysis of the Part of Luke's Gospel which respects the Ministry of Christ in Galilee (xiii)

Analysis of Luke's Gnomology (xvi)

Observations respecting the Greek Text and the Translation of the foregoing Harmony, including some Corrections and Emendations ; together with additional Remarks on the position of certain Sections in the Harmony (xix)

Through deferring it for a place which does not prove suited to my purpose, I have omitted to advert to two facts which have been singularly interesting to me ; — that in 1831 the Rev. Dr. Palfrey, now Professor of Biblical Literature in the University of Cambridge, New England, published a Harmony of the Gospels founded on my arrangement, with a valuable Preface ; and that the Rev. Henry Ware, Professor of Pastoral Theology in the Divinity College of that University, has made that arrangement the foundation of his interesting and instructive Life of the Saviour, which has been reprinted in this Country. I beg these, my much-respected friends— with the latter of whom alone I have had the advantage of personal intimacy — to accept my best desires for their usefulness in their very important stations for Christian service.

DISSERTATION I

ON THE DURATION OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MINISTRY.

Sect. I. Various Opinions respecting it.

By the Ministry of Christ is understood the period between his Baptism

( and his Crucifixion. It may sometimes be convenient to designate the

opinion that it included two Passovers only, the bipaschal system ; that

it included three only, the tripaschal ; and that it included four, the

quadripaschal.

The opinion which has been prevalent ever since the time of Eusebius, is, that the Ministry of Christ included four Passovers, or between three and four years; but this, to use the words of Mr. Benson, li was totally unknown to the Christian Fathers of the first three centuries." * Upon this hypothesis is founded the very valuable Harmony of Archbishop Newcome, which was itself much framed upon that of Le Clerc ; together with Dr. Doddridge's, (though Doddridge obviously received it with hesitation,) Mr. Greswell's, and various others. f The excellent Diatessaron by Professor White, which \ was drawn up by aid of Newcome's Harmony, and others in Latin and 1 English derived from White's, are of course arranged on the quadripaschal system.

Whiston and Macknight framed their respective Harmonies upon the supposition that the Ministry of Christ included ^/zue Passovers. Scaliger, Sir Isaac Newton, Stillingfleet, and others, adopted the same opinion:

* See p. 254 of "The Chronology of our Saviour's Life, or, An Inquiry into the true time of the Birth, Baptism, and Crucifixion, of Jesus Christ; by the ~Rev. C. Benson, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge : "—a work well deserving the attentive perusal of the critical student.

f Newcome's Harmony, and Mr. Greswell's, are in Greek : an English Harmony has been founded on each of them.

b

X ON THE DURATION OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MINISTRY.

but the tendency of the critical scripturalists of the present day, is to shorten, not extend, the period assigned by the prevalent hypothesis.*

Bengelius constructed his Harmony upon the principle that our Lord was crucified at the third Passover after his Baptism ; and that consequently the Ministry of Christ included between tivo and three years. On this (the tripaschal) hypothesis, is founded the Harmony of the Four Gospels f by Samuel Lieberkuhn, A. M., first published in German, and afterwards in English ; and also the Life of Christ framed on the arrangement of the Rev. Newcome Cappe, by his late excellent widow. This opinion was entertained by Dr. Lardner, and Dr. Benson; and it has recently been advocated, with great ability and research, by the Rev. C. Benson, in the work already cited. It was also held by several intelligent writers in the third and fourth centuries ; and, if the Gospel of John were our only means of judgment, this opinion, though not without serious difficulties, as will be shown hereafter, would be that in which the scripturalist — discarding the common opinion as founded on " late and scanty" tradition, and " obscure and inconclusive reasoning" — would ultimately rest. — (See Benson, p. 258.)

The prevalent opinion, during the first three centuries, was — whatever its foundation — that the Ministry of Christ lasted not more than a year and a few months. Influenced by this consideration, and by the examination of the first three Gospels, Dr. Bentley adopted the bipaschal system. From him it was communicated to Dr. Hare ; and by him to Mr. Mann, afterwards Master of the Charter House, who defended it " with much learning and sagacity," in his work on the True Years of the Birth and Death of Christ, first published in English in 1733, and afterwards in Latin in 1742. J Upon this principle, Mann constructed a Chronological Arrangement of the Gospel History; and Dr. Priestley formed a Harmony upon it, which he published in Greek and in English, prefixing a Letter on the subject,

* Dr. Burton, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in his Lectures on the Ecclesiastical History of the First Century (1831), is inclined to adopt the opinion " that our Saviour's Ministry occupied part of three years ; i. e. one whole year and part of two others." With this explanation, his view appears to accord with the MpascJial opinion, as there could be only two Passovers in one whole year and part of two others, — unless indeed he meant Julian, instead of Jewish years. If my interpretation of Professor Burton's view is correct, we have three learned clergymen taking each a different opinion : Mr. Greswell being for four Passovers, Mr. Benson for three, and Dr. Burton for two.

f This work, being a single narrative constructed from the four Gospels, would more properly be termed a Monotessaron, or Biaiessaron.

% See Biographica Britannica, Vol. I. 2d Ed. p. 345, quoted in Newcome's First Reply, p. 1 19.

VAKIOUS OPINIONS RESPECTING IT. XI

addressed to Dr. Newcome, then Bishop of Waterford, together with Observations in defence and illustration of his arrangement. Dr. Newcome replied in 1780, and Dr. Priestley soon published a Second Letter, to which he prefixed the former one. In 1781, Dr. Newcome published his reply to Dr. Priestley's Second Letter; and Dr. Priestley addressed to him a Third Letter, which closed this controversy — a controversy marked by that urbanity and candour which the love of truth, united with the Christian temper, cannot but produce. The Bishop's Reply to Dr. Priestley's Second Letter, is peculiarly valuable, as it respects the "Testimony of the Christian Fathers", for the judiciousness of his views, and for the information which it contains.

To support the bipaschal system, Mr. Mann and Dr. Priestley, besides transposing the vith and vth chapters of St. John's Gospel, deemed it necessary to maintain that to Traaya, the passover, in John vi. 4, was not in the original Gospel. Bishop Pearce, in his Commentary, from considering the position of the vith chapter, between the vth relating he thinks to the Pentecost, and the viith relating to the Tabernacles, argues that the whole verse is spurious.

It cannot but be regarded as a serious objection against these conjectural emendations, that the whole verse, as we have it in the received text, is found in all known Manuscripts containing the passage, and in all existing Versions ; and that there is no direct evidence to support the opinion that the early Christian Writers were without the words to ira<y\a in their copies of the Gospel. In the present advanced period of textual criticism, such an emendation could scarcely have been proposed by the eminent persons above-mentioned.

The arguments in favour of the omission of to Traa\a, the passover, in John vi. 4, are, 1. That none of the early Fathers could have held the opinion that our Lord's Ministry did not include more than two Passovers, if they had had those words in their copies of St. John's Gospel ; and that their copies were much more ancient than any at present existino- • and, 2. That Irenaeus, who advocated the strange theory that our Lord's Ministry lasted twenty years, does not appeal to this verse in support of it — anxious as he naturally was to discover indications of the occurrence of Passovers. Newcome and Benson combat this second argument by showing that Irenasus " only proposed to mention how often, at the season of the Passover, our Lord, after his Baptism, went up to Jerusalem." With respect to the former, there are two views of the matter : either, that the early Writers did not notice the supposed inconsistency between the mention of a Passover in John vi. 4, and their own opinion; or, that they regarded the approaching Passover, there spoken of, as that at which our Lord was crucified.

Xll ON THE DURATION OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MINISTRY.

Dr. Newcome supplies the same supposition in relation to Irenasus, Indeed those who dwelt principally on the Gospel of Luke for their chronology, could scarcely avoid the conclusion that the Passover mentioned in John vi. 4, as approaching when the miracle of the Five Thousand was wrought, was the last Passover, since that Evangelist records the miracle in the same portion of his Gospel (ch. ix) in which he says (ver. 51) that the time was come for Jesus to be received up. The supposition that the Fathers in question entertained this opinion, (even if the opinion itself could be shown to be critically untenable,) is greatly to be preferred to the position that the words to ira(j\a are spurious, if not the whole verse, though found in every known authority of every class.

Resting on the prevalence, during the first three centuries, of the belief that our Lord's Ministry did not extend beyond about one year, in connexion with the fact that there is no record of transactions at more than two Festivals that were certainly Passovers, Gerard Joiix Vossius came to the conclusion, as highly probable, that the Passover referred to in John vi. 4, was that at which our Lord w r as crucified. To this conclusion the Author of the present work had come by his own examination, and had attained a a strong conviction of its solid foundation, before he had become aware that the opinion had been entertained by any other.* The grounds of this conviction will be given, in some detail, in a subsequent part of this Dissertation ; but it may be stated here to be at least a presumption in its favour, that, without any alteration in the text, it accords with what some of the most learned chronologists — Scaliger, in particular, though he himself rejected it — have pronounced to be the most ancient opinion respecting the Duration of our Lord's Ministry. f

* The Author's mind had been so much impressed with the representations of Mann and Priestley, who claimed G. J. Vossius as an advocate for the omission of to -a^xa, that Newcome's rectification of the error (into which even Marsh has fallen) was unnoticed by him when he first attended to the subject in 18C0 ; and from that time, for twenty years probably, he had no opportunity of recurring to Newcome's Reply to Priestley, nor for a much longer period to Vossius's own work. This last he now possesses, through the kindness of his Friend and former Pupil the Rev. B. Mardon, M. A. of London, whose pursuits have led him to enter with much earnestness and success into the critical study of the Scriptures.

f After citing various early Authors in favour of it, Mr. Mann (p. 154) says " the great Scaliger acknowledges Vetustissima est Opinio (Can. Isog. p. 309) : And Petavius, Neque paucorum ncque plcbeiorum Seriptorum fait hece sententia, sed doclrind et autoritate prestantium, et sane vctustissitnorum."

OPINIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS. XII I

Sect. II. View of the Opinions of the Early Christian Writers.

The opinions of the early Christian Writers have been examined, with great earnestness, both by those who hare advocated, and by those who have opposed, the short duration of our Lord's Ministry. The question is not to be decided by those opinions ; but whatever weight is to be assigned to them, it certainly is in favour of the bipaschal system. It is not required by the purpose of this Dissertation, to enter, in detail, into the examination of the evidence respecting them ; but the following appears to be a just representation of the state of the case.*

1. There could have been no authorized steady tradition, handed down from the apostolic times, that the Ministry of Christ extended through more

; than three years ; otherwise the early Fathers could not have rested, as, with

■ the exception of Irenaeus, they obviously did rest, in the opinion that it lasted less, or a little more, than a year. On the other hand, as is argued

i by Benson, the Valentinians and Clemens Alexandrinus could not have 1 rested their opinion, as they did,f on the prophetic declaration respecting- 1 " the acceptable year of the Lord," if there had been any distinct authorized 1 tradition to that effect,

2. Several of the early Writers, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Lactantius, ' &c, speak of our Lord's death as taking place in the 15th year of Tiberius,

when the two Gemini were Consuls, that is in the year 29. These are ! rightly regarded as holding the short duration of our 1 ord's ministry, for, ' since St. Luke gives the same date to the commencement of the preaching of ! the Baptist, they must have regarded the whole as occurring within one year.

How they reconciled the opinion with the Gospel of John, does not appear.

— Those who dwelt on the Gospel of Luke, alone, or even in connexion with 1 the two preceding Gospels, would naturally fall into this opinion, because

that Evangelist has assigned one date only, and records no festival before : the Passover at which our Lord was crucified. Nevertheless, as the 15th

year of Tiberius began August the 19th, in the year 28, and as our Lord

* The Author of this work has, with little exception, been uuable to examine the

■ original authorities ; but the critical student may see the subject amply discussed in the Correspondence between Newcome and Priestley, Marsh's Notes on Michaelis, (Vol. III. p. 56 — 67,) Benson's Chronology of our Saviour's Life, p. 241 — 292, and Greswell's Dissertations upon the Principles and Arrangement of a Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. I. p. 421—442.

f Mr. Greswell (p. 422) opposes this view ; but his argument does not appear satisfactory. He afterwards (p. 441) quotes a passage from Chrysostom, in which that eloquent Father assigns as a reason for our Lord's preaching for three years, that "the Iriad is every where honoured " — 7ravTaxov yap rifita 1) rpiac;.

XIV ON THE DURATION OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MINISTRY.

was crucified at the Passover, even the Gospel of Luke alone would scarcely allow the considerate to assign so short a period, as the interval between those events, for the whole of the ministry both of the Baptist and of our Lord. And, indeed, Clemens Alexandrinus states that some who accurately weighed matters, referred the death of Christ to the 16th year of Tiberius. Those who took into account the Gospel of John, could not do otherwise than place the Crucifixion in the 16th year of Tiberius, viz. in the year 30. But whether they placed the death of Christ in the 15th or the 16th year, they must have regarded his Ministry as not including more than two Passovers.*

3. There was a class vvho adopted the opinion that the Ministry of Christ lasted only about a year, as already intimated, under the influence of the words of prophecy by Isaiah, repeated by our Lord himself. The Valentinians, and Clemens Alexandrinus, rested their opinion on this basis, as decisive. The ancient Christians of this class may or may not have taken the Gospel of John into account. The Alogi, who rejected that Gospel, could have no difficulty : those who received and examined it, must have regarded the approaching Passover in John vi. 4, as that at which our Lord was crucified — an opinion which, though it supposes the vith chapter to be out of chronological order, perfectly agrees with the narratives of the other three Gospels.

4. When considering those questions which depend upon the express comparison of the four Gospels, or at least upon a full acquaintance with them, it is proper to bear in mind that, during the first century at least after they were written, the possession of all four would be very rare ; and that the facility of comparison, in manuscripts not divided into chapters and verses, would be vastly less than it is at present. As the knowledge of St. John's Gospel extended, in connexion with the other three, it seems to have wrought some change in the opinion of the Fathers ; for several, during- the third and following centuries, regarded the Ministry of Christ as including three Passovers. Among these were the Author of the Harmony attributed to Tatian,t Jerome, Cyril, Fpiphanius, and Apollinarius.} As the first of these

* Tertullian placed it in the 15th of Tiberius : but, in one passage, he is supposed to have declared that our Lord was revealed in the twelfth year of Tiberius. There is, however, much reason to believe that the discrepancy arises from some transcriber writing X \ I instead of XV, the next mistaking XV so written for XII. So Dr. Priestley conjectures, with much probability, in his Second Letter, p. 36.

\ Tatian himself is said to have followed the then prevalent opinion of two Passovers only.

+ To these Mr. Benson (p. 281) would add Origen :— founding his decision principally on a passage of that able and judicious Father's Reply to Celsus, where he

OPINIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS. XV

, supposed the feast in the vth chapter of John, (when our Lord healed the

, infirm man at the Pool of Bethesda,) to be the Pentecost, he must have

taken the Passover mentioned in John vi. 4, to precede the Crucifixion-

| Passover : but it appears nearly certain that those of the early Christian

s Writers who considered our Lord's Ministry as including more than two

, Passovers, still regarded the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke as relating

, the events of one year only, between the imprisonment of the Baptist and

the last Passover. (See Marsh's Notes on Michaelis, Vol. TIL pp. 57 and

64.) If they were consistent, therefore, they must have considered the words

of John, in ch. vi. 4, as referring to the last Passover ; and this reference

accords better than the opinion of Mr. Benson and others who adopt the

tripaschal hypothesis, with the narrative in the first three Gospels, and with

the fact that these have no record of any Passover except the last.*

5. Eusebius (who wrote in the early part of the 4th century) was the first who represented the Ministry of Christ as including four Passovers. The considerations which led him to this opinion, he has himself stated. They (were, in the first place, an unsound conclusion, from untenable premises, I respecting the succession of the Jewish high-priests; and, in the second .place, an interpretation of the half -week in the prophecy of Daniel, ch. ix. 27, | which interpretation is, to say the least, attended with too much uncertainty to rest such an inference upon. (See Benson, p. 256 — 258.) Bishop Marsh informs us, in his Notes on Michaelis (p. 65), that even the opinion of Epiphanius, that our Lord's Ministry lasted somewhat more than two years, was not generally received at the end of the 4th century ; and that Augustin, whose name alone was of great authority, still retained the ancient opinion,

speaks of Judas as not having been three years with Christ, ovds rpia errj. There is no doubt that in his earlier writings Origen held the bipaschal doctrine, distinctly declaring that our Lord preached about a year and a few months. In the Latin translation of his work upon St. Matthew, however, (Benson, p. 280,) he is represented as making the preaching of Christ almost three years. If this be correct, it may explain the above cited expression respecting Judas ; but of itself this is insufficient, since Origen might have considered the Ministry of Christ as including one whole year and part of two others : Aristotle attended F^lato, he says, twenty years ; but Judas was with Christ not even three years.

* Mr. Benson (p. 287) quotes a passage from Epiphanius, from which it appears that he placed the Feast of Tabernacles (John vii. &c.) in the first year after Christ's i Baptism : now if he, with others, regarded the three first Gospels as recording the transactions of one year, and that the year before the Crucifixion, then it follows that this Father regarded the vith chapter of John as recording what occurred in the second year, and, of course, out of its chronological order. — Through some oversight, Mr. Benson renders rov fiev irpoyrov eviavrov, " the first feast" (instead of year) : but his inference, which entirely differs from the above, is not affected by the error.

XVI ON THE DURATION OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MINISTRY.

viz. that it included two Passovers only. The hypothesis of Eusebius, however, (as the same eminent critic states,) prevailed at last over all other opinions. " During the middle ages, no further inquiries appear to have " been made on this subject ; and even after the Reformation, all the " Harmonists of the 16th and 17th centuries have taken for granted that " Christ's Ministry lasted between three and four years.* But Bengel, in his " Harmony of the Gospels published at Tubingen in 1736, reduced it to two " years. And a short time before this Harmony was published, Mr. Mann " revived the ancient opinion that it lasted one year, which he has defended •' with great learning and ingenuity."

6. Upon a review of the evidence afforded by the early Christian Writers, the Author of this work, though originally led to adopt his present opinion as to the duration of our Lord's Ministry by what he still regards as the decided preponderance of that evidence in its favour, is less than ever disposed to lay any considerable stress upon it. " I am content " says the excellent and judicious Newcome, " to differ from the ancients, provided I asree with the Gospels" : in that sentiment the Author heartily accords ; and as, at last, the appeal must be made to the facts of the Gospels, it might be as well to leave every thing out of view but what we derive from, or can support by, the statements of the Evangelists themselves. — See also Benson, p. 243.

Sect. III. General Considerations respecting the direct Scriptural Evidence on the Subject.

1. No one of the Evangelists has specified the time between the Baptism and the Death of Christ; and, from the nature of the case, the decision of the question is left to be made on considerations which are alike open to the learned and to the unlearned.

2. Nothing can be derived from the first three Gospels, either separately or conjointly, which authorizes to conclude, that after the Baptism of our Lord, there were more than one Passover before that at which he was crucified. Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak only of one Passover, viz. the last : nevertheless, since the Walk through the Cornfields (see Harm. p. 32) must have occurred in the part of the year after a Passover, and since the Crucifixion could not therefore have occurred at the Passover in the 15th year of Tiberius, it follows that there must have been two Passovers in the

* Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris in the 14th and 15th century, published a Monotessaron, in which he is said to have followed Augustin. See Marsh's Notes, p. 40.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE. XVII

Ministry of Christ after his Baptism. Hence those of the Ancients who placed the Crucifixion in the 15th year of Tiberius, i.e. at the Passover in A. D. 29, must have been in error ; and those showed more exactness who placed it in the 16th, i. e. in A. D. 30.

3. By means of St. John's Gospel we are able to say with certainty, that there were at least two Passovers in our Lord's Ministry ; for that Evangelist records his transactions at a Passover which occurred shortly after his First Miracle, at Cana, and before the Imprisonment of John.

4. After comparing- John iv. 1, with ch. iii. 24, (see Harm. pp. 25, 26,) there can be no doubt that we are to place all the events recorded in at least the first four chapters of that Gospel, before the Imprisonment of the Baptist, and consequently between the 11th and 12th verses of the ivth chapter of Matthew.

5. Considering the silence of the first three Evangelists as to the remarkable circumstances in that portion of St. John's Gospel, especially of what occurred at the Passover, it must be regarded as their main object to record the Public Preaching of Christ after the Imprisonment of John; and in reference to Matthew and Mark in particular, to record the occurrences in Galilee from that event to the period of his finally leaving it.

6. The three great national Festivals were the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Tabernacles. The Passover took place at that full moon which occurred at the vernal equinox, or first after it, or to the extent perhaps of two or three days before it : the Pentecost occurred seven weeks after the Passover: the Tabernacles on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish year; — the year commencing at the new moon before the Passover. Besides these, there was another considerable Festival, the Feast of Dedication, held near

j, the end of the ninth month, in commemoration of the purification of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus : but this was in no way obligatory ; and as it usually occurred in December, it is not likely that it would be frequented by the inhabitants of Galilee. Compare Matt. xxiv. 20.

The Passover, the Pentecost, and the Tabernacles, were of divine appointment. The Passover, or Feast of Unleavened Bread, was designed to commemorate the preservation of the Israelites from the destruction which overwhelmed the first-born of the Egyptians ; and at this the first-fruits of the barley-harvest were offered. At the Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, the first-fruits of the wheat-harvest were offered ; and it became, by the event, the commemoration of the giving of the Law* The Tabernacles occurred in that part of the year, when the produce of the fields and vineyards had been gathered in": it was appointed in commemoration of the Israelites' abode in the Desert, and the divine protection during it ; but with it was connected a thanksgiving for the blessings of the year ; and some of the ceremonies in the later times appear to have had a peculiar reference to the expectation of thq