# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S138
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

138 Dr. Seyffarth's Corrections, etc.

were called the houses of the planets, and, as the twelve gods, shared in the ducatus of the presiding planets, presiding in particular over the months. The attributes of the gods served to give sensible form to the nature of the gods. Since the twelve gods originally belonged to the ducatus of the Cabiri, several retained the names of their old presiding deities, whereby ambiguities arose; yet wherever it mattered to prevent misunderstandings, distinctions were added — parents, homeland, and the like were mentioned. — Finally, the book concludes with a description and explanation of 8 Egyptian and 20 Greek and Roman mythological-astronomical monuments, by which the results set forth in the book are demonstrated and confirmed.

Most of the results just presented, following the guidance of the book, seem to us to stand irrefutably; and as regards the relationship of the LXX to the Hebrew text, the reasons adduced by the author are convincing to us, and we are therefore inclined to accept the two proposed corrections concerning Methuselah and in the 1st Book of Kings. It has been very gratifying to us that the arguments brought forward from secular history against sacred history are shown to be untenable. But concerning one result we entertain reservations: that the Lord is supposed to have been crucified on a Thursday. This cannot be proved by the darkness observed by Dionysius the Areopagite at the time of the crucifixion, for it was total only south of the equator, but not in Palestine. Yet even granting that the crucifixion had taken place on Thursday, March 19, the three-hour solar eclipse that prevailed during it — certainly total — was either miraculously wrought by God, or (since by natural means it would be total only south of the equator) miraculously extended. But speaking for the crucifixion having taken place not on Thursday but on Friday is the account of Holy Scripture and the unanimous tradition of the Church. That Thursday, March 19, was the 14th of Nisan (beginning Wednesday evening) — on this the author is in agreement with us. The legal time for the eating of the Passover was therefore Thursday evening. Now, according to the account of the Synoptics, the Lord quite unquestionably ate the legal Passover with his disciples on Thursday evening at the legal time, and, once it was thereby abrogated through its fulfillment, instituted the Holy Supper. But this legal celebration of the Passover becomes impossible on the assumption that the Lord had already been crucified on the Thursday, and one is forced to resort to the untenable assumption that the Lord's Passover meal was an anticipated one. That the account of the Evangelist John stands in contradiction with that of the Synoptics, the author will surely, along with us, reject. We are indeed aware that attempts have been made to interpret the Synoptics in light of the Gospel of John so as to conclude that the crucifixion took place on Thursday, the 14th of Nisan. Yet this interpretation seems to us unworkable, because John 19:31 teaches quite plainly that the crucifixion took place on Friday. It