216 ÉTIENNE NODET — Arrest that night by soldiers and Jewish officers, led by Judas. — Sunday : Pilate releases Jesus, who then returns to the usual place. — Monday (“the following day” in John 12,12): crowds of pilgrims arrive and greet Jesus as “King of Israel”, the very development that Judas and the Jewish rulers wanted to avoid. — Tuesday evening: Jesus’ Passover in Jerusalem, which includes the following day. — Wednesday or Thursday: second arrest of Jesus, maybe Thursday evening, following the Johannine chronology. — Friday afternoon: crucifixion at the time of the slaughtering of the lambs (just before the start of the feast, the worst time). Of course, such a hypothesis misses the most important point: if the events were scattered over one week (or more, as Josephus would suggest), we have to explain why the actual Gospel narratives con- centrate everything within the final 24 hours. Or, to put it another way, what can we say about the literary formation of these pieces, especially in the case of the Synoptics? The following section collects some testimonies indicating that, in the IInd century (before Irenaeus), the final form and authority of the canonical Gospels emerged slowly. As for the Passion stories, it has been suggested that they were free developments of the central faith tenets of the early church (death and Resurrection, e.g., Mark 10,32-34), reported in a kind of aggadic way within a certain frame. The suggestion of a frame may be useful, but the idea of free devel- opment is unsatisfactory, because what appears is a forced concen- tration of many pieces of literary material, narrative as well as ritual. 4. Hesitations in the IInd Century Besides the calendrical confusions, there are other accounts which are related to the Passion narratives, but in a way which shows some redactional activity. A collection of ancient traditions, entitled Chronicon paschale, includes a fragment by bishop Apollinarius of Hierapolis, who around 165 CE fumed against the ignoramuses who caused quarrels by saying; “On the 14th the Lord ate the lamb with his disciples and