conflicts (ii. 1-17).  If so, the plucking of the grain actually occurred some weeks after the feeding of the five thousand, and probably after the controversy about tradition (vii. 1-23), with which, according to Mark, Jesus’ activity in Galilee practically closed.  It is not clear, however, what principle of association drew forward to the early group the Sabbath conflict, and left in its place the controversy about tradition.  It is thus possible that the incident of the cornfields belongs also to the early nucleus of the group; and in this case the longer ministry, including four Passovers, must be accepted.  The decision of the question is not of vital importance, but it affects the determination of the sequence of events in Jesus’ life.  Whatever the explanation of the remark of Papias, the more the gospels are studied the more does Mark’s order of events commend itself in general as representing the probable fact.  Many students have inferred the three year ministry from the Gospel of John alone, identifying the unnamed feast in John v. 1 with a Passover.  But John’s allusion to that feast is so indefinite that the length of Jesus’ ministry must be determined quite independently of it.

48.  So long a ministry as three years presents some difficulties, for all that is told us in the four gospels would cover but a small fraction of this time.  John’s statement (xx. 30) that he omitted many things from Jesus’ life in making his book is evidently true of all the evangelists, and long gaps, such as are evident in the fourth gospel, must be assumed in the other three.  Recalling the character of the gospels as pictures of Jesus rather than narratives of his life, we may easily acknowledge the incompleteness of our record of the three years of ministry, and wonder the more at the vividness of impression produced with such economy of material.  This meagreness of material is not decisive for the shorter rather than the longer ministry, for it is evident that to effect such a change in conviction and feeling as Jesus wrought in the minds of the ardent Galileans who were his disciples, required time.  Three years are better suited to effect this change than two.

49.  Closely related to the question of the length of Jesus’ ministry is another:  Can definite dates be given for the chief events in his life?  For the year of the opening of his public activity the gospels furnish two independent testimonies:  the remark of the Jews on the occasion of Jesus’ first visit to Jerusalem, “Forty and six years was this temple in building” (John ii. 20), and Luke’s careful dating of the appearance of John the Baptist, “in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (iii. 1, 2).  John ii. 20 leads to the conclusion that the first Passover fell in the spring of A.D. 26 or 27, since we learn from Josephus (Ant. xv. 11. 1) that Herod began to rebuild the temple in the eighteenth year of his reign, which closed in the spring of B.C. 19.  Luke iii. 1 gives a