4. PREPARATION OF THE LAST SUPPER: A. Chronology of the PassionThe date of Christ's death must fulfill 3 conditions: 1. It must fall on a Friday; 2. It must fall within the timeof Pilate's rule (26-36). 3. It must fall at the time of the full moon of Nisan, either the 14th or the 15th.The only years fulfilling these conditions are 29, 30 and 33. Probably the year 33 may be excluded as beingtoo late because this would make Jesus at least 35 years old at the time of his baptism, and this would not fitin well with Lk. At the time of the first Passover of the public life, the temple would have been underconstruction for 49 or 50 years, the contrary to Jn 2:20. If we eliminate the 3rd of April, 33, the choiceremains between the 18th of March, 29 (782), and the 7th of April, of the year 30 (783).In favor of the year 29 tradition is cited: (a) Many Fathers1, in order to date the Passion, name the consuls ofthe year 29: L. Rubellius Geminus and C. Fufius Geminus, or the two Gemini. (b) Despite the indications ofLk, they place the passion in the 15th or 16th year of Tiberius, which, according to various methods ofcomputation, would correspond to the year 292. (c) The fasti consulares of the year 354 fix the Passion in theyear 782 of Rome (AD 29); the Legend of Abgar (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1,13) places it in the Greek year 340,i.e., from September, AD 28, to September, AD 29. (d) Several Fathers say that the destruction of Jerusalemoccurred 40 years (Chrysostom) or 42 years (Origen, Clement of Alexandria) after the passion, i.e. AD 29.Against the year 29, it is objected that the Passover would in that case fall before the spring equinox. But thisis no real objection. A serious difficulty is that in AD 29, the conjunction of the sun and moon occurred at3:15 a.m. on the meridian of Jerusalem. Patrizi supposes that if the moon was seen on that evening beforesunset, the new moon would have occurred on the 4th of March, and the 18th of March would have been the15th day of the moon...