217 ON JESUS’ LAST WEEK(S) then suffered on the great day of Unleavened Bread. They argue that Matthew supports what they say, but their view runs against the law and introduces a contradiction within the Gospels.” He adds: “The true Passover of the Lord is when the son of God replaced the lamb” (PG 90.80). Both the ignoramuses and Apollinarius could admittedly have extracted opposite arguments from Matt as we know it, for according to Matt 26,19-20 the disciples did prepare the lamb, but it is not said that it was eaten during the Last Supper. However, Luke 22,15 would have provided a definite proof that they did eat it. So Apollinarius, who follows here the Johannine chronology, never con- sidered Luke. He may have known of the canonical Matt, but even this is somewhat doubtful, for elsewhere he quotes a passage written by Papias of Hierapolis 21 — probably one of his teachers —, in which the account of Judas’ death cannot be reconciled with the NT stories (Matt 27,3-5; Acts 1,18). Thus, another form of the Matthean Passion was known at Hierapolis in the IInd century. Its authority was chal- lenged by a newer canonical Matt, and probably much more by Luke. The same Chronicon has a fragment by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 CE) which leads to the same conclusion: On that day of the 13th [the disciples] ask him: “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover (see Matt 26,17). So on that day they used to make the sanctification of the Unleavened Bread and the preparation of the feast. Our Lord suffered on the following day, which was the Passover offered by the Jews [...]. On the 14th, the princes of the priests brought him before Pilate, but they did not enter the praetorium so that they might not be defiled and could eat the Passover in the evening (see John 18,28). About the exactness of the day, all the Scriptures and Gospels agree. The calendrical reference is clear and Clement knows something of the canonical Gospels, but the wording implies that he wants to settle a dispute, probably the same as the one that arose in Hierapolis. His solution is that the disciples prepared the lamb for the following day, with the result that Jesus did not actually eat it. This is not strictly impossible if one relies upon Matt only. Of course, such an explanation makes no sense from a Jewish point of view. About other matters, Eusebius tells us (Hist. eccl. 4.26.4) that Clement used a lost work written by Melito of Sardis, a Quartodeciman who lived at the See E. NORELLI, Papia di Hierapolis. Esposizione dei oracoli del Si- 21 gnore. I fragmenti (Milano 2005) 336-350.