"There are numerous discussions on the chronology of the week of the
Passion.... The greatest difficulty consists in conciliating the Synoptics with
St John. The Didascalia does not think of this conciliation, for it seems to
ignore the Gospel of St John, but nevertheless it furnishes a solution. (On
Sunday Jesus announces that in two days it will be the Passover, and that the
Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.) On Monday the chief priests
assemble, and decide to seize Jesus and to keep the Passover on Tuesday. On
this Monday Jesus was in the house of Simon the Leper. As Friday is to count
for two days, that really takes place, as St John says, six days before the Passover
or the Saturday. For the evening of Friday, when the Passover was usually
celebrated, was the commencement of Saturday. Thus the Synoptists and St John
speak, the first of the day on which the Passover was celebrated that year, and the
second of the day on which it ought to have been celebrated. All are then right ;
it was enough that we should understand them. Next, our Lord celebrates the
Passover on Tuesday ; He is arrested on the night following Tuesday, that is to
say, on Wednesday ; He passes Wednesday in the house of Caiphas, Thursday in
the house of Pilate; He is crucified on Friday. At His death darkness covers the
earth, which makes two days of Friday, and allows it to be said that our Lord
appeared to be dead during three nights, namely, the supplementary night
consisting of the darkness which followed His death, the night from Friday to
Saturday, and the night from Saturday to Sunday. This explanation, if it had
been imagined in our day, would be worthless, but as it has been written at the
latest in the third century, it may rest upon a tradition still more ancient, and
ought not to be rejected without examination."