define it accurately in thought or speech: such persons loosely indicated the temporal sequence of three

great events, the Crucifixion, the beginning and the end of the darkness, by assigning them to the three

great successive divisions of the day--the only divisions which they were in the habit of noticing or

mentioning--the third, sixth, and ninth hours. Ordinary witnesses in that age would have been nonplused, if

they had been closely questioned whether full three hours had elapsed between the Crucifixion and the

beginning of the darkness, and would have regarded such minuteness as unnecessary pedantry, for they

had never been trained by the circumstances of life to accuracy of thought or language in regard to the

lapse of time. Witnesses of that class are the authority for the account which is preserved in t he three

Synoptic Gospels. We observe that throughout the Gospels of Mark and Luke only the three great divisions

of the day--the third, sixth and ninth hours --are mentioned. Matthew once mentions the eleventh hour

(20:9); but there his expression does not show superior accuracy in observation, for he is merely using a

proverbial expression to indicate that the allotted season had almost elapsed. A very precise record of time

is contained in the Bezan Text of Acts 19:9; "from the fifth to the tenth hour"; b ut this is found only in two

MSS, and is out of keeping with Luke's ordinary looseness in respect of time and chronology; and it must

therefore be regarded as an addition made by a second century editor, who either had access to a correct

source of information, or explained the text in accordance with the regular customs of Graeco-Roman

The other statement, which is contained in the Fourth Gospel, records the memory of an exceptional man,

who through a certain idiosyncrasy was observant and carefu l in regard to the lapse of time, who in other

cases noted and recorded accurate divisions of time like the seventh hour and the tenth hour (John 1:39,

4:16, 4:52). This man, present at the trial of Jesus, had observed the passage of time, which was unnoticed

by others. The others would have been astonished if any one had pointed out that noon had almost come

before the trial was finished. He alone marked the sun and estimated the time, with the same accuracy as

made him see and remember that the two disicples came to the house of Jesus about the tenth hour, that

Jesus sat on the well about the sixth hour, that the fever was said to have left the child about the seventh

hour. All those little details, entirely unimportant in themselves, were remembered by a man naturally

observant of time, and recorded for not other reason than that he had been present and had seen or heard.

It is a common error to leave too much out of count the change that has been produced on popular thought

and accuracy of conception and expression by the habitual observation of the lapse of time according to

hours and minutes. The ancients had no means of observing precisely the progress of time. They could as a

rule only make a rough guess as to the hour. There was not even a name for any shorter division of time

than the hour. There were no watches, and only in the rarest and most exceptional cases were there any

public and generally accessible instruments for noting and making visible the lapse of time during the day.

The sun-dial was necessarily an inconvenient recorder, not easy to observe. Consequently looseness in

regard to the passage of time is deep-seated in ancient thought and literature, especially Greek. The Romans,

with their superior endowment for practical facts and ordinary statistics, were more careful, and the effect

can be traced in their literature. The lapse of time hour by hour was often noted publicly in great Roman

households by the sound of a trumpet or some other device, though the public still regarded this as a rather

overstrained refinement--for why should one be anxious to know how fast one's life was ebbing away? Such

was the usual point of view, as is evident in Petronius. Occasionally individuals in the Greek-speaking

provinces of the East were more accurate in the observation of time, either owing to their natural

temperament, or because they were more receptive of the Roman habit of accuracy. On the other hand, the

progress of invention has made almost every one in modern times as careful and accurate about time as

even the exceptionally accurate in ancient times, because we are all trained from infancy to note the time by

minutes, and we suffer loss or inconvenience occasionally from an error in observation. The use of the

trumpeter after the Roman fashion to proclaim the lapse of time is said to have been kept up until recently in

the old imperial city of Goslar, where, in accordance with the more minute accuracy characteristic of modern

thought and custom, he sounded every quarter of an hour.

But it does not follow that, because the ancients were not accustomed to note the progress of the hours,

therefore they were less habituated to use the art of writing. It is a mere popular fallacy, entirely unworthy of