first day of the week unless under the term “evening” we should understand the night itself to be meant, which, as a whole, is brought to its close by the light. It is also a familiar method of speech in divine Scripture to express the whole under the part; and thus, under the word “evening” here, the evangelist has denoted the whole night, which finds its extreme point in the dawn.1494 For it was in the dawn that those women came to the sepulchre; and in this way they really came on the night, which is here indicated by the term “evening.” For, as I have said, the night as a whole is denoted by that word; consequently, at whatever period of that night they might have come, they certainly did come in the said night. And, accordingly, if they came at the latest point in that night, it is still unquestionably the case that they did come in the said night. But it could not be said to be on “the evening, when it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,” unless the night as a whole can be under- stood under that expression. Accordingly, the women who came in the night referred to, came in the evening specified. And if they came at any period, even the latest during that night, they surely came in the night itself. 66. For the space of three days, which elapsed between the Lord’s death and resurrection, cannot be correctly understood except in the light of that form of expression according to which the part is dealt with as the whole.1495 For He said Himself, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”1496 Now, in whichever way we reckon the times, whether from the point when He yielded up the ghost, or from the date of his burial, the sum does not come out clearly, unless we take the intermediate day, that is to say, the Sabbath, as a complete day—in other words, a full day along with its night,—and, on the other hand, understand those days between which that one intervenes—that is to say, the day of the preparation and the first day of the week, which we designate the Lord’s day—to be dealt with on the principle of the part standing for the whole. For of what avail is it that some, hard pressed by these difficulties, and not knowing the very large part which the mode of expression referred to—namely, that which takes the part as the whole—plays in the matter of solving the problems presented in the Holy Scriptures, have struck out the idea of reck- oning as a distinct night those three hours, namely, from the sixth hour to the ninth, during which the sun was darkened, and as a distinct day the other three hours, during which the sun was restored again to the lands, that is to say, from the ninth hour on to its setting? For the night connected with the coming Sabbath follows, and if we compute it along with its day, there will then be two days and two nights. But, further, after the Sabbath there comes 1494 Diluculo. 1495 A sentence is sometimes added here in the editions, namely, Hinc magna redditur ratio verbi Domini = hence a large account is given of the Lord’s word. It is omitted in the mss. 1496 Matt. xii. 40. 474 Of the Absence of All Discrepancies in the Narratives Constructed by the…