PARASCEVE. - Day of preparation for the Sabbath. The Greek term Παρασκευή literally means "preparation." The Vulgate simply transcribes the term as p., without translating it.
The four Evangelists use p. to denote the day set aside by the Hebrews for the preparation of food and of whatever else was necessary for the celebration of the Sabbath. P. therefore corresponds to feria VI of the week, that is, Friday.
Mark 15:42 says that when Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate to request the body of the crucified Jesus, it was p. (preparation), that is, the pre-Sabbath, the day preceding the Sabbath. In this sense the term is understood in Jud. 8:6 and by Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XVI, 6, 2); Luke in the critical text (23:54) says "it was the day of p. and the Sabbath was beginning" (literally "was lighting up," that is, the lamps were being lit at sunset, which for the Hebrews was the beginning of the new day).
Matt. 27:62 says that "on the day after the p. (that is, on the Sabbath) the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate." In all these passages p. certainly means "Friday."
A doubt may arise about the meaning of the term in John 19:14: "It was the p. of the Passover (v.)." Here it could mean the eve of the paschal solemnity, but also from John it clearly emerges that that day was a Friday (19:31, cf. 19:42).
Also in Ex. 16:5, on the sixth day of the week (Friday), whatever was needed for the Sabbath had to be prepared, gathering a double portion of manna (ibid. 16:22).
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