el, in
the tribe of Ephraim.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 57, and following; Mark xv. 42, and
following; Luke xxiii. 50, and following; John xix. 38, and
following.]

[Footnote 5: Dig. XLVIII. xxiv., _De cadaveribus puntorum_.]

Another secret friend, Nicodemus,[1] whom we have already seen
employing his influence more than once in favor of Jesus, came forward
at this moment. He arrived, bearing ample provision of the materials
necessary for embalming. Joseph and Nicodemus interred Jesus according
to the Jewish custom--that is to say, they wrapped him in a sheet with
myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women were present,[2] and no doubt
accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.

[Footnote 1: John xix. 39, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 61; Mark xv. 47; Luke xxiii. 55.]

It was late, and all this was done in great haste. The place had not
yet been chosen where the body would be finally deposited. The
carrying of the body, moreover, might have been delayed to a late
hour, and have involved a violation of the Sabbath--now the disciples
still conscientiously observed the prescriptions of the Jewish law. A
temporary interment was determined upon.[1] There was at hand, in the
garden, a tomb recently dug out in the rock, which had never been
used. It belonged, probably, to one of the believers.[2] The funeral
caves, when they were destined for a single body, were composed of a
small room, at the bottom of which the place for the body was marked
by a trough or couch let into the wall, and surmounted by an arch.[3]
As these caves were dug out of the sides of sloping rocks, they were
entered by the floor; the door was shut by a stone very difficult to
move. Jesus was deposited in the cave, and the stone was rolled to the
door, as it was intended to return in order to give him a more
complete burial. But the next day being a solemn Sabbath, the labor
was postponed till the day following.[4]

[Footnote 1: John xix. 41, 42.]

[Footnote 2: One tradition (Matt. xxvii. 60) designates Joseph of
Arimathea himself as owner of the cave.]

[Footnote 3: The cave which, at the period of Constantine, was
considered as the tomb of Christ, was of this shape, as may be
gathered from the description of Arculphus (in Mabillon, _Acta SS.
Ord. S. Bened._, sec. iii., pars ii., p. 504), and from the vague
traditions which still exist at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy on
the state of the rock now concealed by the little ch