Of the year, month, and day of the Passover [it has been] treated hitherto: the hour remains, which in the Old Testament is variously set forth. For Exod. 12 v. 6 says “at evening” in Greek and Latin — but in Hebrew, “between the two evenings” [bein ha-arbayim]. In the same place (v. 18), in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, twice, “at evening.” Lev. 23 v. 5, in Latin “at evening,” in Hebrew “between the two evenings,” and in Greek similarly ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ἑσπερινῶν [ana meson tōn hesperinōn, “between the evenings”]. Deut. 16 v. 4, “at evening,” and so [in] Greek and Hebrew. But (v. 6) “at evening, at the setting of the sun—”
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—in Hebrew, “in the evening, while the sun sets”; in Greek, ἑσπέρας πρὸς δυσμὰς ἡλίου [hesperas pros dysmas hēliou, “at evening, toward the setting of the sun”]. But the Chaldaean [paraphrast], where [it] is simply in Hebrew “in the evening,” puts [Aramaic] “in the season”; where [it is] “between the two evenings,” [he puts] elsewhere “according to the setting of the sun.” But in this [place], Joshua ch. 5, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as [in] Deut. 16 v. 4, “at evening.” From these [it] appears [that] the name “evening” is taken in Scripture in a twofold way: 1. generally, for the later part of the day; then, [2.] specifically, for certain parts of this later part. For what somewhere is generally said “at evening,” this elsewhere is more distinctly expressed [as] “between the two evenings” — so that [it] is clear, first, [that there] are two evenings; secondly, [that] between these some time is interposed; thirdly, [that] both this interposed time and its termini (namely, the two evenings) are generally called “evening.” Here, therefore, [it] must be asked what that interposed time is, and what its termini [are]. And straightway six opinions occur.
The first: [that] that time [is] the space interposed between the evening of the preceding night and the other evening of the following night — namely, the night, one, [together] with a day; or τὸ νυχθήμερον [to nychthēmeron, “the night-and-day” (24 hours)]. So [it is] in Maldonatus (on Matt. 26), [held by] certain [scholars]. The second: [that it] is the whole [time] between the evening of the 14th day and the morning of the 15th day, the night interposed. For one terminus is that evening of the 14th, the other the following morning — which sometimes also seems to be called by the name “evening” (Matt. 28): “In the evening of the Sabbath, when [it] dawns toward the first [day] of the Sabbath [week].” And to this Lipomanus inclines (in the catena on Exodus). The third: [that it] is the whole afternoon time, from midday until the setting of the sun. For, because at the sixth hour of the day the sun straightway begins to incline, [it] rightly seems to be called “evening” — just as [there] is no doubt about the setting of the sun. So R. Nathan (in the Mechilta), R. Simeon ben Iohai [Yochai] (in the Zohar), Radak [David Kimḥi], and among our [writers] Lyranus [Lyra] (on Exod. ch. 12), Abulensis (same place), Jansenius (Concord, ch. 129). The fourth: [that it] is the afternoon time — not whole, but its part, namely from the ninth hour up to the eleventh hour. And of this opinion the author is Josephus (bk. 6 of the War, ch. 4), to whom [they] most willingly subscribe: Cajetan (Exod. 12), Masius (on this place of Joshua), Ribera (bk. 5, ch. 3), Marcellus Francolinus (in the book On the time of the Canonical hours, ch. 20), Jansenius (Concord, ch. 43), Scaliger (bk. 6, fol. 532 & 533). The fifth: [that it] is that time of light which, after the setting of the sun, remains on the horizon for a while, until darkness occupies all [things]; and [it] is wont to be called “the vespertine twilight” [vespertinum crepusculum]. For [at] the setting of the sun — or, as [it] is named from the beginning of this opposition, בוא השמש [bo ha-shemesh, “the coming/setting of the sun”] — [there] is a certain “evening,” and likewise the obscuring of light and the succession of darkness. So R. Abenezra [Ibn Ezra] comments (on Exod. 12); and in the same place Oleaster, and Jacobus Stapulensis [Lefèvre] (on John 18); Hieronymus Vielmus (On the work of the six days, lecture 11); Maldonatus (on Matt. 26, v. 2, q. 2, and v. 20). The sixth: [that it] is the time between the sun sitting on the western horizon (which [they] say is called נטיית השמש [netiyat ha-shemesh, “the inclining of the sun”]) and the sun’s absence from our sight, which by them is called שקיעת השמש [sheqiʿat ha-shemesh, “the sinking of the sun”]. So the moderns in Scaliger (bk. 6, fol. 532) — the Jews, and [those] who wrote from 400 years ago hence.
[It] must be known, first, [that] in the most ancient times of Moses, and thereafter for quite a while, [there] were not the “hours” of the day, as [there] were afterward, and [as there are] today—
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—[as there are today]. For the day, which the light makes, was divided into nearly three parts — morning, midday, and evening (as [in] Psalm 54 [55] v. 17) — which among Homer are called ἠὼς ἢ δείλη ἢ μέσον ἦμαρ [ēōs ē deilē ē meson ēmar, “dawn, or afternoon, or midday”], as [in] Ruth ch. 2 (quaest. 24) [it] is again touched. And “hour” then signified the opportune time of each thing — or, as the Latins also called [it], “tempestas” [season] — as also in the Scriptures (Rom. 13:11; Luke 14:17; Apoc. 14:7 & 15; John 2:4). For thus “the hour of food” was said, and in the Tablets of the laws, “the last tempestas.” But indeed, in the time of CHRIST the Lord, [there] was already the use of hours, as today. For “one hour” [is] Matt. 20:12, Mar. 14:37, Apoc. 18:10, 17, 19; “third” Matt. 20:3, Mar. 15:25, Acts 2:15, ch. 23:23, John 23[?]; and “hour three” Acts 5 v. 7; “sixth” Matt. 20:5, ch. 27:45, Mar. 15:33, Luke 23:44, John 4:6, ch. 19 v. 14, Acts 10; “seventh” John 4:52; “ninth” Matt. 20:5, ch. 27:45–46, Mar. 15:33–34, Luke 23:44, Acts 3:1, ch. 10; “tenth” John 1:39; “eleventh” Matt. 20:19; “the last hour” 1 John 2:18; “the twelfth hour of the day” John 11:9. When, therefore, the hour of the Passover is asked, [it] is enough to answer [that] anciently [it] was “evening”; but for the later times [one] ought to show that hour more minutely, and to show what hour answered to the parts of that evening. For also St. Luke, concerning the last Passover of CHRIST the Lord, said (ch. 22:14): ὅτε ἐγένετο ἡ ὥρα, ἀνέπεσεν [hote egeneto hē hōra, anepesen, “when the hour came, he reclined”], which St. Matthew (26:20) and St. Mark (14:17) had said more generally, ὀψίας γενομένης ἀνέκειτο [opsias genomenēs anekeito, “when evening had come, he reclined”]. [It] must be known, besides, [that] those two actions in the Paschal lamb must be distinguished — the immolation and the eating. Finally, [it] seems to me thus:
First, [that] the hour of the immolation, as to [its] beginning, was the ninth hour of the day — which to us [is] today the third afternoon [hour]. First, because Josephus so expressly hands [it] down, and after him so many not-to-be-despised writers, as [was] seen in the fourth opinion. Secondly: [that] was the ordinary hour of the vespertine sacrifice, which even today is called Minchah by the Jews. And although the prayers which [they] suppose [said] for it, and from which [they] name [it], these Jews of ours are wont to say [is] later at Constantinople, yet elsewhere too in the East [it is] earlier, and near the third hour. Thirdly: because Deut. 16 v. 6 says not “at the setting of the sun” — which the Rabbis call biat ha-shemesh — but “around the setting of the sun,” ke-viat ha-shemesh: namely, as πρὸς [pros] the setting of the sun, or, as we rendered above (as the Seventy [did]), πρὸς δυσμὰς ἡλίου [pros dysmas hēliou, “toward the setting of the sun”]. Scaliger, in the cited place, adds a fourth reason: that the parasceue [preparation] begins properly from the ninth hour. But I rejected [this] (quaest. 10, on Judith ch. 8). Now [there are] two [things] in which the same Scaliger, expanding this same reasoning, slips; [these] I point out. One is [that] [he] falsely cites one place of Josephus, and altogether perverts [it]. For [he] makes him [Josephus] speak thus (fol. 532): [Greek] “…at the ninth hour of the day.” But where has Josephus ever written this? Nowhere certainly, except bk. 6 of the Captivity, ch. 31 [45], where nevertheless [he], with too-bold a hand, converted “night” into “day.” For [it] is not read καθ’ ἡμέρας ἐνάτην [kath’ hēmeras enatēn, “at the ninth [hour] of the day”], but κατὰ νυκτὸς ἐνάτην [kata nyktos enatēn, “of the night”], as [in] the same bk. 6, ch. 12. Nor can Scaliger, by any critical artifice, say [it] is indeed so read, but that “day” is to be read for “night.” For Josephus narrates a portent which happened by night — namely, [that] the altar and the Jerusalem Temple [were] surrounded by so great a light, around the ninth hour of the night, that [it seemed a] clear day—
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—[a clear day] would seem. “ὡς,” says Josephus, “δοκεῖν ἡμέραν εἶναι λαμπράν” [hōs dokein hēmeran einai lampran, “so that [it] seemed to be a bright day”]. And I wonder [that] he [Scaliger] did not at least somewhat more fittingly adapt his corruption to Josephus’s elegance, so that [he] would write “at the ninth hour of the day.” The other is [that it] would not be sufficiently consistent for him. For [Scaliger] wants [it that], after the ninth hour of the day, the lamb [was] slain, flayed, disemboweled, dressed, roasted, and prepared, and again — “after the ninth [hour] prepared,” he says, “and the cooked foods, which by the Jews are called mezon shel [the meal-dishes],” and yet afterward [it] is whole [complete] in it — as [is proved] from the Rabbis’ canon which I brought forward toward the end of quaest. 9 (on Judith ch. 8), and which, after Hilkhot Chol ha-Moed, the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol repeats and treats (fol. 59): [it] would prove [that], on the day before the Sabbaths and feasts, from the ninth hour [it] was not lawful to do work. Either, therefore, that canon was already then [in force], and [it] was not lawful at that time to roast and prepare the lamb; or that was lawful, and that canon was not yet ratified.
II. Josephus indicates the end of the immolation of the lamb, in the same place, [to have] been the eleventh hour. But [there] are [those] who take that hour [as] beginning; Scaliger (fol. 532) [takes it] as exact and completed. To whom I rather assent, first, because those namings of the hours are properly conferred now on their past termini; secondly, because a solid whole hour would [thus] be given to the immolation — from the ninth hour, namely, up to the end of the tenth. For the ninth hour, exactly [completed], began the tenth hour; and this elapsed, then straightway the eleventh comes on. But [it] deceives the Reader, Beza, when [he] writes [that], in Matt. ch. 26, the hour is named by Josephus the “twelfth.” From the words of each [author] the truth will appear. So then Beza [writes]: “The last part of the 14th day is named by the Hebrews the space between the two evenings, beginning — as Josephus witnesses (bk. 6 of the Jewish War) — from the 9th hour up to the 12th; that is, up to the setting of the sun, which began the following day.” But Josephus [says]: Ἐνστάσης ἑορτῆς (πάσχα καλεῖται), καθ’ ἣν θύουσι μὲν ἀπὸ ἐνάτης ὥρας μέχρι ἑνδεκάτης [Enstasēs heortēs (pascha kaleitai), kath’ hēn thyousi men apo enatēs hōras mechri hendekatēs, “the feast being present (it is called Pascha), on which [they] sacrifice from the ninth hour up to the eleventh”] — “Do you hear? μέχρι ἑνδεκάτης [mechri hendekatēs] — up to the eleventh.” So [it] is in the ancient version of Rufinus too. A similar lapse of the same Beza is on the same page a little after, in citing the same Josephus and bk. [6], ch. 20. But that pertains to the days of unleavened bread, of which below.
III. The hour of the eating of the lamb is set down by Scaliger [as] the twelfth hour of the day; but more truly [it] was the first [hour] after the setting of the sun. That opinion of his is taken from these his words (bk. 6, fol. 532): “Twofold is ὀψία [opsia] or ἑσπέρα [hespera, “evening”]: one, namely ὀψία, is the time of the vespertine oblation; the other [is] the setting of the sun, namely the beginning of the following civil day. This interval [is] Moses’s ben ha-arbaiim [bein ha-arbayim], ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν δύο ἑσπερῶν [ana meson tōn dyo hesperōn, “between the two evenings”], within which time the Paschal lamb was to be slain and eaten.” And afterward again: “To eat the lamb after the setting of the sun is to be ignorant of the law.” But on the contrary [it] is to be turned back against him: “To eat the lamb before the setting of the sun is to be ignorant both of the law and of many other [things].” The law indeed, because [it] commands only (in the places cited at the beginning) that at evening the immolation be made — as [was] already expounded — and then (Exod. ch. 12 v. 18) the unleavened [breads] are commanded to be eaten on the same 14th day at evening, since indeed the eating of the unleavened [breads] began together with the eating of the paschal lamb (as [is clear] from the same ch. v. 8, [and] Deut. 16 v. 3). [That] which is said of the evening of these [unleavened breads] is to be understood also of the evening of the eating of the lamb. But their evening began after the setting of the sun on the 14th day, as will be taught below. Therefore—
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Therefore. Again, Exod. 12 v. 8 we read: “And they shall eat the flesh that night, roasted with fire.” But before the setting of the sun, is [it] night? Other [proofs] indeed [there] are several. 1. CHRIST the Lord, after the sun had set, ate the lamb. That, therefore, [was] the lawful hour, as I already argued above elsewhere concerning the day. But the antecedent is proved, because both St. Matthew (ch. 26 v. 20) and St. Mark (ch. 14 v. 17) say [that] ὀψίας γενομένης [opsias genomenēs, “when evening had come”] he reclined. And this the Evangelists commonly signify by the name τῆς ὀψίας [tēs opsias] — the vespertine time after the setting of the sun. For what St. Matthew (ch. 8 v. 16) had said simply “of evening,” St. Mark expounded (ch. 1 v. 32) “when the sun had set.” Most clearly, Matthew 20 vv. 6 & 8: after [some] workers had been called into the vineyard at the eleventh hour of the day, and had labored in it only up to that hour — so that [it] was the 12th hour of the day, and the sun had set — the householder is said to have rendered the wages to the workers ὀψίας γενομένης. So Matthew 16 v. 2, when from the color of the sky the serenity of the following day is foretold, [it] is ὀψία [opsia, “evening”]; and yet either [with] the sun already setting, or — and indeed most greatly — after [it], those foretellings are made. Matthew 27 v. 57: only after the setting of the sun, ὀψίας γενομένης, Joseph of Arimathea sought the body of Jesus from Pilate; and yet [it] was ὀψία. Thus [one] may weigh Mar. 4 v. 35, ch. 6 v. 47, ch. 15 v. 42, John 20 v. 19. Once, or perhaps twice, [it] signifies “the late daytime,” which is before the setting of the sun; but so that the Evangelist St. Matthew himself has clearly indicated [it] (ch. 14 v. 15), when [it] is conferred with the subjoined v. 23; and to the same [effect] look Mar. 11 v. 11, John 6 v. 16. 2. Today still, the Jews give the beginning of the paschal supper only in the evening, after the sun has set — which [they] then draw out, with various prayers, psalms, rites, and trifles, almost into the middle of the night, as will be said below. 3. When after the setting of the sun the Passover is kept, [it] is indeed then the evening of the 14th day; but now much more, by the Hebrew reckoning, can that supper be said to look to [belong to] the 15th. And so the 15th day is the first day of unleavened bread, as will be said below. 4. How could [it] be done that in one hour — which alone remained before the setting of the sun (namely, from the eleventh to the 12th) — the lamb could be both cooked and eaten? But I truly reckon [that], during the whole time of the slaughtering, [for] those whose lambs had been slaughtered by the priests, [it] was lawful to conduct their cooking; yet this last hour of the day, properly destined for this thing, [was] on account of those whose lambs had been slain in the last part of the sixth hour — so that these too, the sun setting, would be prepared for the eating. For if the slaughtering [were] at the 12th hour, [there] would not be lacking some slower [ones], whose lamb would still be raw and unprepared at the last tempestas [hour]. 5. While Scripture forbids [that] anything of the residue from the lamb be [left] into the morning time, [it] seems tacitly to concede [that it is] lawful to eat [it] at any preceding hour of the night. 6. [As to] what the Chaldaean says — “between the two suns” — some indeed expound [it] “between the rising and the setting sun”; but then [that] the lamb would have to be immolated and eaten not by night but by day. And therefore [it is] rather [that one] may understand the Targum [as] “between the sun now inclining, and the sun now altogether hidden with its own light.” And in nearly the same manner say the other Rabbis (ch. 5 [of] Pirke Avoth), in a certain enigmatic sentence: “Ten things were created be-erev shabbat bein ha-shemashot” [on the eve of the sabbath, at twilight / “between the suns”]. Finally, the heretic Beza, cited before (on Matt. 26) — whom—
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—Scaliger, [being] now on heretical soil only [with him], not unwillingly favors with tongue and mind — I know not whether [one] can take this opinion from him. For lastly [Beza] says: “The last hour of the 14th day [printed ‘XVI’], in the feast of unleavened bread,” he says, “was given to the roasting of the lamb, and to the rest of the preparation of that supper” — which supper, “by God’s command,” took up the setting (that is, the end) of the 14th, and thence, from the twilight, began the 15th day. Do you hear? “By God’s command”! Either, therefore, let [him] despise Beza, or himself; or rather, let [him] embrace both, and the truth itself.
But, so that all [the things] which have been said may be so much the firmer, [it] will be worth the labor to invalidate the other five opinions posited at the beginning. And the first straightway falls of its own accord, when we advert [that] no particle of the lamb ever had to be left over until the morning, as [was] said above (quaest. 23). How, therefore, could a solid natural day be given to the immolating and eating of the lamb? Then, the prior evening would fall either into the 13th day — and thus on the 13th day at evening the lamb would be immolated, which [was] rejected above (quaest. 28) — or into the 14th, as [it] truly falls; and so, on the 15th day, the lamb could still be slaughtered and eaten. The second opinion is to be spat out, even for this reason: [that it] would call the morning “evening” — that is, the first [would be] the last, the beginning the end. For “the evening of the Sabbath” is the exit [end] of the sixth feria; and that evening is now drawn into the light [dawn] of the later Sabbath, and to it, by the Jewish reckoning of which above, [that evening] is ascribed. The third [opinion] indeed seems probable enough, yet less than that [it] should altogether be adopted; because, just as we would not rightly call the end of a day [its] “beginning,” so neither would we rightly call the middle [its] “end.” But midday is the half of the day — as the Latin, Greek, and German name proclaims — [whereas] “evening” truly is the terminus of the same day. Midday, likewise, has the highest and clearest light, celebrated even in proverbs — whence also, in Hebrew, [it is called] tsohorayim. But evening imports light [that is] now more inclined, more obscure, and (if so to speak) dying. Some force, therefore, seems [there to be], if we assign the law concerning the lamb “to be immolated and eaten at evening” precisely to midday. [It is] another [matter] when, one or another hour [later], the sun has now cooled off and rushed downward. The fifth [opinion] is doubly absurd. First: because [it] gives too little time for so many actions among so many myriads of men. For how could the lambs, at the temple, be led, slaughtered, flayed, purged, washed, carried home, roasted, and eaten in that little particle of light which is from the setting of the sun until the darkness? For even if that light were of two or three hours, [these things] could scarcely all be done among so great a people. But truly, in the vernal Equinox, in a city whose pole-altitude is 32 degrees, that time can never be even of two hours. Abenezra [Ibn Ezra] himself hands down [that it] was a “sesquihour” [1½ hours]; but how little [is] this for so great occupations? Second: because in that sesquihour that Rabbi is deceived — as is easily understood from our Clavius’s Gnomonics (bk. 1, proposition 35), and from Peter of Sala’s [Salaciensis] booklet On twilights — unless perhaps [he] spoke a little more vulgarly [loosely], which I would not with difficulty admit into [my] mind. The sixth truly is ridiculous. For between the sun’s sitting on our horizon and its withdrawal from our sight, if we speak accurately, [there is] a time—
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—by which [it] is lawful to conduct any of those actions [is so short that it] is altogether nothing, and rather to be called a point of time than a time. But if the Rabbis would have [it that], by a “fatter” [broader] manner of sheqiʿah [sinking], [there] is a deeper descent of the sun, [they] will depart in nothing from the earlier [third] opinion; and therefore, together with the same [opinion] dismissed, let [them] depart.