amplify their expression and say, “It is very early in the morning.” But what does it matter, provided only that, whichever method of explanation be preferred, we understand that what is meant by Mark, when he uses the terms “early in the morning,”1488 is just the same as is intended by Luke when he adopts the phrase, “in the morning;”1489 and that the whole ex- pression employed by the former—namely, “very early in the morning”1490—amounts to the same as that which we find in Luke—namely, “very early in the dawn,”1491—and as that 210 which is chosen by John when he says, “early, when it was yet dark”?1492 Moreover, when Mark speaks of the “rising of the sun,” he just means that by its rising the sun was now be- ginning to bring the light in upon the sky. But the question now is this: how can Matthew be in harmony with these three when he says neither “in the early morning” nor “early in the morning,” but “in the evening of the Sabbath, when it was beginning to dawn toward the first day of the week”? This is a matter which must be carefully investigated. 1493 Now, under that first part of the night, which is [here called] the evening, Matthew intended to refer to this particular night, at the close of which the women came to the sepulchre. And we understand his reason for so referring to the said night to have been this: that by the time of the evening it was lawful for them to bring the spices, because the Sabbath was then indeed over. Consequently, as they were hindered by the Sabbath from doing so previously, he has given a designation of the night, taken from the time at which it began to be a lawful thing for them to do what they did at any period of the same night which pleased them. Thus, therefore, the phrase “in the evening of the Sabbath” is used, as if what was said had been “in the night of the Sabbath,” or in other words, in the night which follows the day of the Sabbath. The express words which he employs thus indicate this with sufficient clearness. For his terms are these: “Now, in the evening of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn toward the first day of the week;” and that could not be the case if what we had to understand to be denoted by the mention of the “evening” was simply the first short space of the night, or in other words, only the beginning of the night. For what can be said “to begin to dawn toward the first day of the week” is not explicitly the beginning [of the night], but the night itself, as it commences to be brought to its close by the advance of the light. For the terminus of the first part of the night is just the beginning of the second part, but the terminus of the whole night is the light. Hence we could not speak of the evening as dawning toward the 1488 Mane. 1489 Diluculo. 1490 Valde mane. 1491 Valde diluculo. 1492 Mane cum adhuc tenebræ essent. 1493 [The difficulty arises from taking vespere in its technical sense, as referring to the previous evening. As already intimated (see note on § 63), the Greek does not necessarily imply this.—R.] 473 Of the Absence of All Discrepancies in the Narratives Constructed by the…