12.

Some of them, moreover--[when they predicted that] as a weak and inglorious man, and as one who knew what it was to bear infirmity, ¹ and sitting upon the foal of an ass, ² He should come to Jerusalem; and that He should give His back to stripes, ³ and His cheeks to palms [which struck Him]; and that He should be led as a sheep to the slaughter; ⁴ and that He should have vinegar and gall given Him to drink; ⁵ and that He should be forsaken by His friends and those nearest to Him; ⁶ and that He should stretch forth His hands the whole day long; ⁷ and that He should be mocked and maligned by those who looked upon Him; ⁸ and that His garments should be parted, and lots cast upon His raiment; ⁹ and that He should be brought down to the dust of death ¹⁰ with all [the other] things of a like nature--prophesied His coming in the character of a man as He entered Jerusalem, in which by His passion and crucifixion He endured all the things which have been mentioned. Others, again, when they said, "The holy Lord remembered His own dead ones who slept in the dust, and came down to them to raise them up, that He might save them," ¹¹ furnished us with the reason on account of which He suffered all these things. Those, moreover, who said, "In that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall go down at noon, and there shall be darkness over the earth in the clear day; and I will turn your feast days into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation," ¹² plainly announced that obscuration of the sun which at the time of His crucifixion took place from the sixth hour onwards, and that after this event, those days which were their festivals according to the law, and their songs, should be changed into grief and lamentation when they were handed over to the Gentiles. Jeremiah, too, makes this point still clearer, when he thus speaks concerning Jerusalem: "She that hath born [seven] languisheth; her soul hath become weary; her sun hath gone down while it was yet noon; she hath been confounded, and suffered reproach: the remainder of them will I give to the sword in the sight of their enemies." ¹³