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THE THIiEE WITNESSES, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE THREEFOLD CORD; 
 
 BEING THE TESTIMONY 
 
 OF THE NATURAL MEASURES OF TIME, 
 OF THE PRIMITIVE CIVIL CALENDAR, 
 
 AND 
 
 OF ANTEDILUVIAN AND POSTDILUVIAN TRADITION, 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS OF FACT IN SACRED 
 OR PROFANE ANTIQUITY. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWAED GRESWELL, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 At the mouth of Two Witnesses, or at the mouth of Three Witnesses, 
 
 shall the matter be established. — Dedteronomt xix. 15. 
 A Threefold Cord is not quickly broken. — Ecclesiastes iv. 12. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 PARKER, OXFORD. 
 
 DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO., CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 MDCCCLXII. 
 
OXFOED: 
 
 PRINTED BY JAMES WEIGHT, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
ADVEBTISEMENT. 
 
 The reader of the following- pages is at liberty, if he pleases, 
 to know no more of the historical Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
 tament than the fact of the existence of such books, either in 
 their own language, or in the authorized English version of 
 the originals ; nor any thing more of the actual system of 
 time and events, which constitutes the proper chronology and 
 proper history of Scripture, than what may be learnt from an 
 attentive study of each of these books by itself, and a careful 
 comparison of one of them with another. 
 
 Even after this liberal concession to the spirit of scepticism, 
 which is so rife at the present day, and so ready to take ex- 
 ceptions to every presumption of the character of these l)ooks 
 beforehand, which can be called in question without a pal- 
 pable absurdity ; it is still possible to shew that there are ra- 
 tional and satisfactoiy grounds of belief in the simple histo- 
 rical truth of those books, especially the oldest of them, not 
 derived from themselves; and that the Providence of God has 
 not left the accounts of his own Scriptures, not even the ear- 
 liest and the most liable a priori to be made the subject of 
 doubt and controversy^, destitute of confirmation from corro- 
 Ijorative testimony of three kinds, each of them external to 
 Scriptui-e, each of the highest order, and all together, where- 
 soever they are applicable in their totality, in point of au- 
 thority second only to insjjiration and infallibility itself. 
 
 The object proposed by the following pages is therefore 
 first and principally to give publicity to this argument of the 
 Credibility of the Ancient Scriptures; and thereby to draw 
 the attention not only of the friends, but also of the enemies, 
 
 a 2 
 
iv ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 of Revelation, to a species of evidence of its truth, which 
 cannot be described as less than demonstrative, and yet has 
 never hitherto been produced or appealed to in its behalf. 
 Secondly, and as a possible consequence of this, to make 
 more g-enerally known also the larger and longer work of the 
 same Author, which, without professing to aim at any such 
 result of its inquiries, and simply in the prosecution of its own 
 proper subject, has nevertheless, in the hands of the Divine 
 Providence, been made the instrument in bringing this evi- 
 dence to light. 
 
 The reader therefore must not be suprised to find perpetual 
 references in " The Three Witnesses and the Threefold Cord" 
 of Mr. Greswell, to his " Fasti Tetnporis CatJioUci" and " Ori- 
 gines Kalendarice" also. And though these may often appear 
 obscure, and sometimes even unintelligible, to one who has no 
 previous knowledge of the work itself, this inconvenience, it 
 is hoped, will turn out to be only temporary; and meanwhile, 
 for the sake of an end, which could not otherwise be attained, 
 (a moderate-sized and cheap publication like the present,) will 
 be excused. 
 
Works by the same Author, referred to in ^' the Three 
 JVitnesscs and the Threefold Cord.'* 
 
 FASTI TEMPORIS CATHOLICI AND ORIGINES KALEN- 
 darise, (History of the Primitive Calendar, Part I : Origines Kalendarife 
 /Egyptiacse, Sinic.T, IndiccP, or History of the Primitive Calendar among 
 the Egyptians, the Chinese, and the Hindus.) In four volumes, 8vo. 
 Oxford, at the University Press, 1852. 
 
 GENERAL TABLES of the Fasti Catholici, or Fasti Temporis Per- 
 petui, from A. M. i B. C. 4004, to A. M. 6004 A. D. 2000. i Volume, 4to. 
 Oxford, at the University Press, 1852.* 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES, AND INTRODUCTION TO THE 
 
 Tables, of the Fasti Catholici, both the General and the Supplementary. 
 I volume 8vo. Oxford, at the University Press, 1852. 
 
 ORIGINES KALENDARIiE ITALICiE. (History of the Primitive 
 Calendar, Part II.) Nundinal Calendars of Ancient Italy, Nundinal Calen- 
 dar of Romulus, Calendar of Numa Pompilius, Calendar of the Decem- 
 virs, Irregular Roman Calendar, and Julian Correction. Tables of the 
 Roman Calendar from U. C. 4 of Varro B. C. 750 to U. C. 1108 A. D. 
 355. In four volumes 8vo. Oxford, at the University Press, 1854. 
 
 ORIGINES KALENDARL-E HELLENICS; or the History of the 
 Primitive Calendar among the Greeks, before and after the legislation of 
 Solon; (Part III.) In six volumes Svo. Oxford, at the University 
 Press, 1862. 
 
 DISSERTATIONS UPON THE PRINCIPLES AND AR- 
 
 rangement of an Harmony of the Gospels. Second Edition. In four 
 volumes Svo. Oxford, at the University Press, 1837. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA AD HARMONIAM EVANGELICAM, sive de 
 primariis nonnullis, ad Chronologiam Evangelicam spectantibus, Disscr- 
 tationes quatuor. Accedunt Kalendarii Anni Sacri, ab anno A. Cli. N. 
 151 1 usque ad A. D. 94, in annis expansis Tabulte lxxxv : Neomenia- 
 rum Anni Sacri Tabulae Synopticse vi : Characterum Mensium Anni Sacri 
 Tabula Generalis i. Oxonii, e Typographeo Academico. mdcccxl. 
 
 * N. 11. These Tables, thougli published along with the First Part, arc equally 
 necessary to every succeeding Part. One copy however is competent to servo 
 for the wholf work. 
 
HARMON lA EVANGELICA, sive Quatuor Evangelia atque Actus 
 Apostolorum Graece, pro temporis et rerum serie in Partes Sex distribiui. 
 Editio tertia. i vol. 8vo. Oxonii, eTypographeo Academico, mdcccxl. 
 
 Editio quarta. Oxonii, e Typographeo Academico. mdcccxlv. 
 Editio quinta. Oxonii, e Typographeo Academico. mdccclv, 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF THE PARABLES, AND OF OTHER 
 Parts of the Gospels. Five volumes in six. 8vo. Oxford, Printed by 
 S. CoUingwood, Printer to the University, for J. G. and F. Rivington, &c. 
 1834. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 JOANNIS MILTONI FABUL^E, SAMSON AGONISTES ET 
 
 Comus Graece. Interpretatus est Edvardus Greswell, S.T.B. Coll. C.C. 
 apud Oxon. Socius. Oxonii, excudebat S. CoUingwood, Academiae Typo- 
 graphus ; veneunt apud J. H. Parker, &c. mdcccxxxii. 
 
 PRELIMINARY ADDRESS OF THE ORIGINES KALEN- 
 
 dariae Italicfe, lately published at the Oxford University Press, with some 
 further observations. Oxford, John Henry Parker, &c. 1854. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the principal questions of fact relating to the Mosaic account of the 
 Creation, and to early Scripture history. 
 
 Sect. I. On the epoch de facto, or actual beginning, of the succession of 
 things going on at present, called the course of Nature or the 
 course of Time. Testimony of the three Witnesses . . page i 
 
 II. Whether the epoch of the proper measures of time of the existing 
 
 system of things, thus determined, was the absolute beginning of 
 those measures or not. Testimony of the three fVitnesses page 8 
 
 III. General inference from the preceding premises; and further con- 
 
 firmation of the same conchisions l)y the succession of ^ons, 
 according to the doctrine of Scripture, and by the discoveries of 
 Geology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 1 6 
 
 IV. On the antiquity of Man, and of social existence, whether greater 
 
 or less than the date of the Mosaic Creation. Testimony of the 
 three Witnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . page 2 1 
 
 V. On the unity of origin of the Human race in all parts of the Earth. 
 
 Testimony of the three Witnesses . . . . . . page 26 
 
 VI. On the Mosaic Hexaemeron, whether a succession of days of the 
 
 ordinary length, or a succession of periods of indefinite extent. 
 Testimony of the three Witnesses . . . . . . page 32 
 
 VII. On the admissibility or non-admissibility of an interval of indefi- 
 
 nite length in any part of the first chapter of Genesis. Testimony 
 of the three Witnesses . . . . . . . . . . page 41 
 
 VIII. On the ceconomy of the first three days of the Hexaemeron, in 
 having had light before the appearance of the sun. Testimony 
 of the Witnesses . . . , . . . . . , . . page 52 
 
 IX. On the Deluge of Scripture, and the diflficulties connected with it; 
 
 and on the confirmation of the fact, in its proper order of time, 
 by the testimony of the three Witnesses . . . . page 55 
 
 X. On the jEra of Scripture, and the Calendar of Scripture, from the 
 
 Creation to the Eisodus, and from the Eisodus to the Gospel 
 ^ra . . . . . . , . . . . . . . page 79 
 
 XI. On the ceconomy of Human Redemption; and the light reflected 
 
 upon its progressive consummation by the true chronology of 
 mundane and human time . . . . . . . . page 89 
 
 XII. On the two Miracles of Scripture, the standing still of the sun 
 
 in the time of Joshua, and the going back of the sun in the time 
 nf Hezekiah. Testimony of the three H7^7?e.'5se,« .. page 98 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Pseudo-Chronology of Mundane or Human time, that is, the 
 
 account of either distinct from, and contrary to, that 
 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 Sect. I. On the Pseudo- Chronology of this kind, which calls itself Scrip- 
 tural ; the Chronology of the Septuagint, the Chronology of the 
 Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Chronology oi Josephus. page 139 
 
 II. On the Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane antiquity ; and first, of that 
 
 of the Egyptians, and of the princijjal questions of fact, to the 
 issue of which the truth or the falsehood of this in particular is 
 reducible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 141 
 
 i. On the antiquity of the Principal objects of worship among 
 the Egyptians ; the Osiris and the Isis of ancient Egypt. 
 
 page 143 
 
 ii. On the antiquity of the Principal Sacred Animals of the 
 Egyptians ; the Mneuis of On or Heliojmlis, the Apis of 
 Memphis, and the Goat of Mendes . . . . page 146 
 
 III. On the Monumental and the Dynastic history of the Egyptians, its 
 
 factitious character from the first, and its probable author or 
 authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 160 
 
 IV. On the true Chronology of Mundane and Human time, discoverable 
 
 among the ancient Egyptians .. .. .. .. page 172 
 
 V. On the Pseudo-History and Pseudo- Chronology of profane antiquity, 
 
 distinct from that of the Egyptians . . . . . . page 184 
 
 VI. On the bearing of the investigations of the Fasti Catholici and the 
 
 Origines Kalendarite upon the study of the earliest Profane Anti- 
 quity ; and on tlie principle of the reliance which may be placed 
 upon the results to which they have led . . . . page 189 
 
 VII. Illustration of the tests or criteria of truth or falsehood in ancient 
 
 historical tradition, peculiar to the Fasti and the Origines, by 
 their application and use in Four remarkable cases . . page 194 
 
 VIII. On the antiquity of the Alphabet, and of the use of Letters j and 
 on the light reflected upon that question by the discoveries of 
 the Fasti and the Origines . . . . . . . . page 202 
 
 IX. On the services rendered by the Origines Kalendarice Hellenicee to 
 
 the study of Grecian antiquity . . . . . , . . page 213 
 
 X. On the services rendered by the Origines KalendaricB Italics to the 
 
 study of Italian or Roman antiquity . . . . . . page 221 
 
 XI. On the services rendered by the Fasti and Origines to Astronomy 
 
 in particular . . . . . . . . . . . . page 226 
 
 APPENDIX, Notes and Explanations page 241 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 51. 1. 18. for "is simjily absurd" read " it is simply absurd' 
 93. Appendix, note R. read note S. 
 I40. 1. 31. 1648, rcrtc/ 1668. 
 
THE THREE WITNESSES, 
 AND THE THREEFOLD CORD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the principal questions of fact relating to the Mosaic ac- 
 count of the Creation, and to early Scripture History. 
 
 Section I. — On the epoch de facto, or actual beginning, of 
 the succession of things going on at present., called the course 
 of Nature or the course of Time. Testimony of the three 
 Witnesses. 
 
 i. The mean Natural measures of Time. — The mean Na- 
 tural measures of Time are three in number », mean Xocti- 
 diurnal, mean Menstrual, and mean Annual. Of these, i. 
 Mean Noctidiurnal is the revolution of the earth about its 
 centre, commonly called the Diurnal Rotation; or the revo- 
 lution of a given meridian from the mean sun to the mean 
 sun again perpetually'': and the natural measure of this 
 revolution is the period of 24 hours of mean solar time, 
 reckoned from some one of the epochs of the mean Nocti- 
 diurnal Cycle, sunset or sunrise, midnight or noon*^. 
 
 ii. Mean natural Menstrual Time is the natural Mean Lu- 
 nation ; and the natural Mean Lunation is the revolution of 
 the moon from any state of the Phasis to the same again, — 
 as for example, from the conjunction to the conjunction, or 
 from the opposition to the opposition. And the natural mea- 
 sure of Mean Menstrual Time is the length of this revolution 
 in mean solar time and its aliquot parts, as determined de 
 facto, for any assumed epoch, by observation, and for any 
 other, before or after, periodically corrected f^. 
 
 iii. Mean natural Annual Time, as entering, and always 
 
 •■ Fu3ti Catholici, i. i6. 19. 47. 58. 71. •> [bid. i. 47 sqq. 51 s(|(|. 
 
 c Ibid. i. 54, 55. '' Ibid. -iS. 62 : ii. 25 : iv. 672. 
 
2 The /Arce "Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 having entered, the course of things which is going on at 
 present, is of three kinds, mean Annual Tropical, mean An- 
 nual Sidereal, and mean Annual Anomalistic^. Of these, 
 i. Mean Annual Tropical is the revolution of the earth in its 
 orbit from the mean equinoctial point, (the intersection of 
 the plane of the ecliptic and the plane of the equator,) to the 
 mean equinoctial point again ; and the natural measure of 
 mean Annual Tropical Time is the length of the mean Tro- 
 pical year in mean solar days and nights, and their aliquot 
 parts, ii. Mean Annual Sidereal Time is the revolution of 
 the earth from a given point in its orbit to the same again ; 
 or the revolution of the mean sun from a state of conjunction 
 M^ith a given fixed star to the same again : and the natural 
 measure of mean Annual Sidereal Time is the length of this 
 revolution in mean solar days and nights, and their aliquot 
 parts, iii. Mean Annual Anomalistic Time is the revolution 
 of the earth, or of the mean sun, from one of the extremities 
 of the axis major of the solar orbit, the apogee or the perigee, 
 the aphelion or the perihelion, to the same again; and the 
 natural measure of mean Annual Anomalistic Time is the 
 length of this revolution in mean solar days and nights, and 
 their aliquot parts f. 
 
 Such being the actual existing distinctions in that com- 
 plex system of things, which we call the course of nature or 
 the course of time, as it is going on before our eyes at pre- 
 sent; the matters of fact, established in the Fasti Catholici 
 and the Origines Kalendarise, to which I would beg to direct 
 the attention of the reader first of all, are these: — i. That 
 mean noctidiurnal and annual time, traced back from the 
 present day according to their proper law, and under their 
 proper Julian style, respectively — (noctidiurnal in the form 
 of hebdomadal, from a given feria prima, annual tropical 
 from a given mean vernal equinox, annual sidereal from a 
 given conjunction of the mean sun with the stars Beta and 
 Zeta Tauri, annual anomalistic from a given conjunction of 
 the mean sun with the apogee of the solar orbit — and all for 
 one and the same meridian, that of the ancient Jerusalem — ) 
 are found to meet together in one year of the JEra Before 
 
 * Appendix, note A. f Fasti Catli. i. 71. ii. 130. iii. 250. 258. iv. 509- 
 
 513 Addenda. Introduction to the Tables, 202. 
 
s. 1. Actual epoch of the present system of time. 3 
 
 Christ, 4004, and in one month of that year, the month of 
 April, and in one week of that month, April 25 to May 2, 
 and on one day of that week, the first day or feria prima, 
 and under the proper Julian style of that day and that fcria, 
 April 25 at midnights. 
 
 ii. That mean natural menstrual time, being similarly 
 traced back from the present day and from the mean con- 
 junction for the same meridian to the mean conjunction per- 
 petually, to this same year, and to this same week in that 
 year, April 25 — May 2 B. C. 4004 ; the last mean conjunc- 
 tion in the retrograde order from the present day to this 
 week, and the first in the forward order from this week 
 to the present day, is found to be determined to the fifth 
 day and fifth feria of this week, under the proper Julian 
 style of that day, April 29 at midnight. And, with respect 
 to all the mean natural measures of time, which enter the 
 existing system of things, thus traced back in conjunction, 
 but each according to its own law, from the present day to 
 this year, J3. C. 4004, and to this month and this week in 
 that year, April 25 — May 2, for one and the same meridian, 
 the ultimate state of the case is found to be this, — That while 
 mean noctidiurnal, and mean annual in each of its three 
 kinds, were meeting together, and ready to set out together, 
 on one day and one feria of this week, and that the first day 
 and first /(?Ha of this week, and under the proper Julian style 
 of that day and that/'cTic, April 25 at midnight, mean men- 
 strual time was falling in with the rest, and ready to set out 
 with the rest, in its proper place and order in the decursus 
 of all in conjunction, on the fifth day and fifth feria of this 
 week, and under the proper Julian style of this fifth day and 
 fifth feria, April 29 at midnight, regularly derived from that 
 of the first, April 25 at midnight '». 
 
 ii. Primitive Civil Calendar. — The primitive civil calendar 
 being of two kinds, the primitive solar calendar, and the pri- 
 mitive lunar — with respect to the former, it has been the 
 sole object and purpose of the Fasti Catholici and Origines 
 Kalendariae from the first, to establish the following propo- 
 
 n Fasti ('. ii. i.^o. iii. 258. iv. 50.^ sqcj. : Origines Kak-iilaria; Hclli'iiicii', Pro- 
 legomena, i. s(|q. Ixvi. cxviii. 34(1. dii. sqq. ^ Fasti C. iv. Appendix, cli. v. 
 Introduction, 40 : Origines Kalendariae Italiciv, Preliminary Address, xe. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 sitious, viz. that the civil year, in the sense of the solar year, 
 was originally every where the same, and every where the 
 equable solar year of 3G5 days ; and that this equable solar 
 year itself was every where the same which is exhibited in 
 the Tables of the Fasti (Division E) perpetually, and every 
 where derived alike from one and the same epoch, the first 
 of the primitive Thoth, Mva. cyclica 1, the 25th of the Julian 
 April, B. 0. 4004, reckoned in each instance, according to 
 the Julian rule, from midnight'. 
 
 With respect to the latter, it has been shewn •« that the 
 equable solar year had its proper lunar cycle, associated with 
 it by the constitution of nature from the first, and, as the 
 recognised measure of civil time in the sense of lunar, as- 
 sociated with it in use and application among mankind also 
 from the first, and in some instances, like that of the Egypt- 
 ians, retained in use and observance, unchanged and unmo- 
 dified, down to an historical epoch '. And it has also been 
 shewn that, while the original solar epoch of this primitive 
 Civil calendar was the 8th of the primitive Thoth, the Lunar 
 epoch was the Luna quarta, dated from the change, the Luna 
 tertia, dated from the phasis ; and the Julian style of both 
 also, reckoned from midnight, was May 2, B. C. 4004. If 
 the Luna 4'' of this primitive Lunar calendar was dated 
 May 2 at midnight, the Luna 1* must have been dated 
 April 29 at midnight. So that on this point the testimony 
 of the primitive civil calendar and that of the natural mea- 
 sures of time would be exactly to the same eflPect. And all 
 being traced back, according to their respective laws, for one 
 and the same meridian, to this one year, B. C. 4004, ^ra 
 eye. 1, and to this one week in that year, April 25 to May 2, 
 Thoth 1 — Thoth 8, at midnight, while natural noctidiurnal, 
 and natural annual of every kind, and primitive civil nocti- 
 diurnal, and primitive civil annual in the sense of equable 
 solar, would all be found taking their rise on the first day 
 of this week, in the proper Julian style of that first day, 
 April 25 at midnight, and in the proper equable style of the 
 
 ) 
 
 i Fasti Cath. i. 542 sqq. : Introduction, 44 sqq. : Origg. Kal. Ital. Prelim. 
 Add. iv. sqq. : Origg. Kal. Hell. clvi. jqq. Note B, Appendix. 
 
 ^ Fasti, i. 97: iv. 368 sqq. : Origg. Kal. Ital. Prelim. Add. xciii. sqq. 
 1 Fasti, iv. 383. 384. 
 
8. I. Actual epoch of the present system of time. 5 
 
 same day, Thoth 1 at midnight, natural menstrual or lu- 
 nar time, and primitive civil menstrual or lunar, would be 
 found taking their rise on the fifth day and fifth feria of 
 the same week, in the proper Julian style of that day, as 
 derived from that of the first, April 29 at midnight, and in 
 the proper equable style, as derived from that of the first, 
 Thoth 5 at midnight. 
 
 iii. Testimony of Primitive Tradition. — The testimony of 
 Primitive Tradition, on this point of the actual beginning 
 of the present system of things, may be inferred from the 
 follouing facts— the proper proofs of which having been as- 
 signed as circumstantially as the nature of the case admitted 
 in the Fasti and Origines, — may be only generally and sum- 
 marily recapitulated at present. 
 
 As i. The concurrence of the nations of antiquity almost 
 every where to designate the season of spring as the natural 
 beginning of their proper system of things — the ultimate 
 foundation of which must have been a primitive and au- 
 thentic tradition that the present world came into being in 
 the spring — as it must have done, if it was actually created 
 at the vernal equinox B.C. 4004'". 
 
 ii. The graduation of the sphere every Avhere from 0° 0' 0", 
 or the first point of Aries — which, from the nature of the case 
 must have been either simply in accordance with a tradi- 
 tionary and historical rule, founded originally on a matter of 
 fact, that of the actual commencement of the existing mo- 
 tions, of which the sphere is the representation, at the vernal 
 equinox or 0^ 0' 0'' of the sphere itself, or capricious and 
 arbitrary ; without any assignable reason at least, to de- 
 signate this point as the epoch of the sphere, more than any 
 other on its surface". 
 
 iii. The relation of the sphere of Mazzaroth at the epoch 
 of the first l*hoenix cycle, B. C. 1847, to tlie Mazzaroth 
 sphere o of B.C. 4004; and the identity of the Tauron of 
 Mazzaroth, April 25 B.C. 1817, with the Krion of Mazzaroth, 
 April 25 B.C. 4004 P. 
 
 m Fasti, ii. 67 sqq. : cf. Orifie;. Ital. Prelim. Add. Ixxxi. " Fasti, ii. 
 
 70. 80. and n.: iii. 2.S0 : Prfliiii. Add. Ixxxi. " Ai)peiidix, ni)te C. 
 
 P Fasti, iii. 250. 25S sqq. 30.V 36S. 370: Introduction, 240, 2^ : ()rii;g. Ital. 
 Prelim. Add. Ixxxi. Ixxxii. 
 
6 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 iv. The traditionary date of the Natale Mundi, April 25 
 B.C. 4004, itself; attested i. By the Chinese doctrine of the 
 beginning of the movement of the earth on the confines of 
 the two lunar mansions Mao and Pi, April 20, and 21 q. 
 ii. By the institutions of antiquity, expressly commemorative 
 of the beginning of things, or intended in honour of the 
 Cosmogonic Powers, and attached to this date of the Natale 
 Mundi, or to some one approximating closely to an identity 
 with it. As i. The Lyksean solemnity of the ancient Arca- 
 dians, attached to April 25'". ii. The Panionia of the an- 
 cient lonians, attached to April 24 «. iii. The Delia of clas- 
 sical antiquity, attached to Ai)ril 25 t. iv. The Palilia of the 
 ancient Italians, attached to April 24^. v. The Lupercalia 
 of the ancient Etrurians, attached to April 24 x. 
 
 Such are the facts, and such are the testimonies by which 
 they are substantiated, which it is necessary to lay before 
 the reader, preliminary to any decision on such a question 
 as this, of the actual beginning of that complex system of 
 things, still in existence and still going on, which we call the 
 course of nature, or the course of time, and the origination 
 of which we have been taught by the Bible to refer to the 
 epoch of the Mosaic creation. 
 
 It appears from them all, that no further back from the 
 present day than 5865 years, in the very year, which, it has 
 often been shewn, is designated by the chronology of the 
 Hebrew Bible as the year of the Mosaic creation itself, B. C. 
 4004 — we find all the measures of time, both the natural 
 and the civil, which have entered this system from the first, 
 and are still making part of it, meeting together, and ready 
 to set out together, in one week of that year, April 25 at 
 midnight — May 2 at midnight, exactly in that subjection to 
 the conditions of origination in which thoy must have met 
 together, and must have set out together, in the very week 
 of the Mosaic creation, if they ever met, and ever set out, in 
 any such week at all — natural noctidiurnal and hebdomadal, 
 and natural annual in each of its kinds, and primitive 
 civil annual in the sense of solar, all on the feriu prima 
 
 1 Fasti, ii. 94 n. : iii. 352, r Origg. Kal. Htll. iv. 567 S(|q. » Ibid, 
 
 iii. 365-386. t Ibid. vi. 86-120. *' Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 104. 289 sqq. 
 
 388 : ii. 608 : Fasti, ii. 102. " Origg. Ital. ii. 455 459 : Origg. Hell. iv. 627. 
 
s. I. Actual epoch of the present system of time. 7 
 
 of this week, April 25 at niidniglit, for the same meridian, 
 and natural lunar, and primitive civil lunar, on the feria 
 quinta of this week, April 29 at midnight, for the same 
 meridian. 
 
 If then this coincidence, as holding good of this one year, 
 B. 0. 4004, and of this one week in that year, April 25 — 
 May 2, is nevertheless to be considered too recent to de- 
 signate this one year as the true year of the Mosaic creation, 
 and this week as the true week of the Mosaic Hexaemeron 
 itself; the question is, In what year before this, and in 
 what week of that year, is the same coincidence again to be 
 sought for, and again to bo found ? 
 
 In any year later than B.C. 4001' no one would think of 
 looking for it at present. And as to any year before B. C. 
 4001', whatsoever that may be supposed to be, and whereso- 
 ever discoverable, its actual cliaracters must still be those 
 which Scripture itself has stamped on the true year of the 
 Mosaic creation, and on the true week of the Mosaic Hexae- 
 meron ; and the various measures of time which have always 
 entered and still do enter the existing system of things, 
 wheresoever this new epoch of their origination may be 
 discoverable, must still have taken their rise at that time 
 also, under the very same conditions and the very same cir- 
 cumstances, both absolutely in themselves and relatively to 
 each other, which we have just been explaining. The dis- 
 covery of this epoch then, if any thing distinct from this 
 year. B. 0. 4004, and this week in this year, April 25 — 
 May 2, is simply the question of the proper period of Resti- 
 tution of one and all of the actual measures of time, which 
 always have entered, and still do enter, the existing system 
 of things, from a given state or condition of their being, 
 both absolutely in themselves, and relatively to one another, 
 to the same again. 
 
 And with respect to such a question as that, though chro- 
 nologcrs or astronomers only are competent fully to appre- 
 ciate its bearing on the point which is under our con- 
 sideration, yet ordinary common sense alone may be com- 
 petent to understand that while an actual coincidence, such 
 as I described above, even at no greater a distance of time 
 from the present day than B. C 1004, might be very con- 
 
8 The Mree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 ceivable, either for the first time, by the express appoint- 
 ment of the Orderer and Disposer of the entire course and 
 succession of things which is going on at present, or for a 
 second, or a third time, or any number of times, as the 
 natural and necessarj^ effect of the revolution of all and sin- 
 gular the parts of such a system of things, in conjunction, 
 and each according to its own law, for a sufficient length of 
 time previously — yet to go back from B.C. 4001 to the begin- 
 ning of such a revolution, for the first time, much more for 
 the second or the third, — to find this annus magnus of all 
 and singular these diff'erent component parts of the existing 
 system of things, considered merely as the course of time — 
 would almost exceed the power of calculation, and certainly 
 in the present limited state of our faculties would far exceed 
 the power of human comprehension. There is no alternative 
 therefore, except either to acquiesce in this year B. C. 4004, 
 and in this week of that year, April 25 — May 2, however 
 near, comparatively speaking, to our own time, which unites, 
 de facto, the threads of all these different lines of time, 
 subject to every prescribed and every required condition of 
 origination, both in themselves and relatively to each other, 
 as the true year and tiie true week of the Mosaic creation 
 itself, or to come to the conclusion that any such thing as 
 the historical epoch of this Creation is beyond the possibility 
 of discovery ; and the existing system of things, which we 
 call the course of nature or the course of time, going on, as it 
 is at present, in a certain way l)efore our eyes, so far as we 
 are competent to discover or comprehend to the contrary, 
 might never have had any beginning at all, — might have 
 gone on in the same way from all eternity 7. 
 
 Section IT. — Whether the epoch of the proper measures of 
 time of the existing system of things^ thus determined, was 
 the absolute beginning of those measures or not. Testimony 
 of the three Witnesses, 
 
 This question will be decided in the negative, if it can be 
 shewn that, notwithstanding the coincidence and compre- 
 hension of all these measures within the limits of this one 
 week, April 25 — May 2, B.C. 4004, any one of them, or 
 
 y Appendix, note D. 
 
s. 2. Actual epoch whether the Absolute. 9 
 
 any thing indispensable to tlmt one, goes back even a single 
 year beyond this epoch of April 25, B. C. 4004. 
 
 i. Mean Natural Measures of time. — i. Mean Noctidiurnal 
 time, traced back, whether by itself or in the form of mean 
 Hebdomadal, according to its proper law from the present 
 day to B. C 4004, as we have seen, will not stop short of 
 April 25, the feria pi'ima, that year. And if it passes regu- 
 larly up to this point of time, April 25, the feria prima at 
 midnight, B. C. 4004, there would be nothing in the nature 
 of this measure of time itself to prevent its passing beyond 
 it. But whether it did so or not, could be known only from 
 testimony. And though testimony to this effect, viz. that 
 the proper hebdomadal cycle of the existing system of things 
 is older de facto than the Mosaic creation, may not be 
 vpanting in Scripture ^, it is not necessary for the proof of 
 the point with which we are concerned at present ; and 
 therefore 1 shall not produce it, nor make any observations 
 upon it. 
 
 ii. Mean natural annual time, tropical, sidereal, and ano- 
 malistic, traced back in like manner, for the proper meri- 
 dian, from any assignable epoch, each according to its proper 
 law respectively, will not stop short of April 25 at midnight, 
 B. C. 4004 ; and any of these too, if it passed backwards uj) 
 to that epoch, in its own nature would be capable of passing 
 beyond it ; though whether it did so or not, must be deter- 
 mined, in this instance also, either by testimony ab extra, or 
 by necessary considerations of some other kind. 
 
 iii. Mean natural lunar time, traced back in like manner 
 from conjunction to conjunction for the proper meridian, 
 will not stop short of the conjunction of April 29 at midnight 
 B.C. 4004. And this being the fifth day of the Hexaemeron 
 of Scripture, assumed to have borne date April 25 at mid- 
 night the same year, and the visible appearance of the 
 moon in that week being determined by the testimony of 
 Scripture itself to the fourth day ^, the inference from these 
 two facts is obvious, viz. that the first visible moon of the 
 Hexaemeron was the last phasis of the old moon, not, the first 
 of the new. In other words, the moon, which first became 
 visible along with the sun, on the fourth day of the Hexae- 
 
 z Fasti, ii. 371 n. a Ibid. ii. 14. 
 
10 The /Aree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 meron, was 29 days old at least. And the bearing of this 
 inference on the present question is obvious also, viz. that, 
 though the epoch of the mean lunar time of the existing 
 system of things, reckoned from the first conjunction, de 
 facto was April 29 at midnight B. C. 400 i, for the proper 
 meridian, the mean lunar time of the system itself must have 
 gone 29 days at least beyond that epoch. 
 
 ii. Primitive Civil time. Primitive Civil time, traced back, 
 in the form of equable solar, in any quarter of the world, 
 from any epoch in its decursus later than B. C. 4004, will not 
 stop short of the first of the Primitive Thoth, ^ra cyclica 1 , 
 the 25th of iVpril B. C. 4004 ^. But as civil time of any de- 
 nomination, and under all circumstances, is necessarily human 
 and social time, whether Primitive civil time in this form of 
 equable solar will pass beyond this epoch of Thoth 1, April 
 25, B, C. 4004, depends on the further question. Whether 
 human and social existence also, with which it was connected 
 from the first, will pass beyond the same epoch or not. 
 
 It has however been shewn in various parts of the Fasti 
 and Origines that, as the natural form of the civil time of 
 the existing system of things, both noctidiurnal and annual, 
 is mean tropical, treated pro tempore as mean Julian, and the 
 natural positive or conventional type of mean natural nocti- 
 diurnal and annual time is mean Julian periodically equated 
 to mean tropical ; so there is nothing in the nature of things 
 to prevent our carrying back the mean natural noctidiurnal 
 and annual time of the existing system of things from the 
 present day to the very beginning, in a series of Types, such 
 as are exhibited in the Tables of the Fasti, standing in an 
 equal relation both to mean annual tropical time, treated pro 
 tempore as mean Julian, and to mean Julian, periodically 
 equated to mean tropicaP". And this being done accordingly, 
 and mean natural noctidiurnal and annual time being carried 
 back in this form of proleptical Julian, in one and the same 
 cycle of leap-year, and one and the same cycle of 28 years, 
 from the present day to B. C. 4004, an anomaly in the suc- 
 cession, of great importance to the question under considera- 
 tion at present, begins to appear just as we get up to this 
 
 '' Cf. Fasti, i. 473 scjq. f [utroiUiction to the Tables. 29 S(j(|. (h'igg. 
 
 Kal. Hell. Prolegomena, xxxiv! sqq. 
 
s. 2. Actual epoch whether the Absolute. 11 
 
 point ; viz. that, though the cycle of 28 years, reckoned 
 from March ] at midnight perpetually, will not pass beyond 
 this terra of March 1 at midnight B. C. 4004, the cycle of 
 leap-year, similarly reckoned, will not stop short of March 1 
 at midnight B. C. 4005, and therefore the epoch of origina- 
 tion of the former must differ from that of the latter by one 
 year at least «i. 
 
 We are made aware of this distinction by a nice and cri- 
 tical discovery, the particulars and process of which were ex- 
 plained in the Introduction to the Tables of the Fasti '^. And 
 proleptical Julian time, as the conventional type of actual 
 uatural annual time, measured by the same cycle of leap-year 
 perpetually, and that the proper cycle of the existing system 
 of things, thus passing one year at least beyond this epoch of 
 March 1 at raidn. B. C. 4004, the inference from that fact is 
 obvious ; viz. That natural annual time also, constantly re- 
 presented by proleptical Julian, must pass one year at least 
 beyond this epoch of March 1 at midn. B. 0. 4004. The 
 first mean natural type, which enters our Tables, must have 
 taken its rise, as much as the first mean Julian, according to 
 the proper Julian rule, on March 1 at midn. B. C. 4005. If 
 80, the mean natural noctidiurnal and annual time of the 
 present system of things must go back one year at least, be- 
 yond the epoch of the INIosaic Hexaemeron, April 25 at midn. 
 B. C. 4004. 
 
 But this is not all, which we have to say on this point. 
 The actual phenomenon, brought to light by this method of 
 the Reditus retro with all the natural measures of time, and 
 in particular with the mean natural, in the very same steps in 
 which tliey came down, is not that, which we have hitherto 
 supposed, of their meeting together at last, for the proper 
 meridian, on April 25, B. C. 4004, at midnight exactly, but 
 on April 25 at h. Om. 21-6 sec. past the point of midnight 
 the same year ^. And though this may appear at first sight 
 a trifling distinction, it i.s in reality truly significant and truly 
 important on this question. Whether any of the natural mea- 
 sures of time of the present system of things, and in parti- 
 cular the natural tropical and the proleptical Julian, instead 
 
 'I Fasti, ii. 3;. 45-i>S. ' Pjv!;. 170-19.^. ' Fasti, iv. 50.V 50f;. 522, 52^. 
 
12 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord, ch i. 
 
 of stopping short at this epoch of March 1 or April 25 at 
 midnight, B. 0. 4004, may not, or rather must not, pass be- 
 yond it. 
 
 It is capable of being proved from the necessary relations 
 of mean annual tropical time of the standard of the Fasti 
 (which, as we have shewn elsewhere s, is the true mean 
 natural standard of the existing system of things), and mean 
 annual Julian inter se, that if there was such a difference de 
 facto between them, April 25 B. C. 4001, that mean Julian 
 was entering the system at that time at midnight, and mean 
 tropical was doing so at h. m. 21-6 sec. past midnight, 
 mean annual tropical time of our standard and mean annual 
 Julian could have set out together from the epoch of midnight 
 only 129 years at least before B. C. 4004 ; and to find the 
 true year, anterior to B. C. 4004, when both must have been 
 setting out on the same Julian day at the point of midnight 
 ^exactly, we must go back to B. C. 4133 at least. And it is 
 further capable of demonstrative proof, that if they were not 
 settiug out in conjunction, under such circumstances, even 
 then for ihe first time, we must go back 516,000 years beyond 
 B. C. 4133 itself at least, to arrive at the time when they 
 could have been setting out at the point of midnight last 
 before ''. 
 
 iii. Primitive Tradition, i. It has been seen that, accord- 
 ing to the scripture account of the ceconomy of the Hexae- 
 merou, the first phasis of the actual moon of tlie present 
 system of things was the last phasis of the moon of the 
 Hexaemeron itself; and therefore that the actual lunar time 
 of the present system, reckoned from conjunction to conjunc- 
 tion perpetually, must have gone back one mean lunar con- 
 junction at least beyond the fiftli day of the Hexaemeron. 
 Now that is confirmed i. By the Egyptian tradition, which 
 dated the Fe'reTts k6<j}xov on the 29th Luna, not on the first, 
 ii. By the Chaldean tradition, which dated it on the 28th, 
 only accidentally different from the 29th. iii. By the Per- 
 sian tradition, which reckoned the first day of the Hexaeme- 
 ron, the Natale Mundi itself, the 25th Luna ; as it must 
 liave been, if the fifth day was the first'. 
 
 S Chapter ii. Section xi. h Fasti, ii. 33-35- iv. 522, 523. 550-557. 
 
 ' Fasti, iv. 309-371. 
 
s. 2. Actual epoch ivhether the Absolute. 13 
 
 ii. It has just been seen that the true Julian time of the 
 present system of things, carried backwards perpetually from 
 the present day in the true cycle of leap-year of the system, 
 must pass one year at least beyond the epocli of April 25 or 
 March 1 at midnight B.C. 400 1; i.e. to April 25 at midn. 
 or March 1 at raidu. B.C. 4005 at least. And March 1 at 
 midn. B.C. 4005, as the epoch of the first actual cycle of 
 leap-year of the system, according to the proper Julian rule, 
 it is -evident would be only accidentally different from any 
 other epoch of the cycle, positively assumed, six or seven 
 months earlier ; as for instance July 22 B. C. 4006. 
 
 And with respect to such an assumption, as matter of fact, 
 it has been shewn'-^ that the first discovery of the Julian prin- 
 ciple of the reckoning of annual time, or the first application 
 of that principle in practice, was made by the ancient Egyp- 
 tians ; and that they had iivo principal types of tlie Julian 
 reckoning, one of them much older than the other, which I 
 have called the Phoenix type, because it came into being in 
 the same year as the Phoenix cycle^, tlie one Nov. 18 B. C. 
 1848, the'other April 8 B.C. 1847. 
 
 Now the epoch of this type, Nov. 18 B.C. 1848, reduced 
 to the Julian cycle of the present day, having fallen in the 
 second year of this cycle, not in the first, (B. C. 1819,) much 
 less in tlie fourth, (B.C. 1850,) it is manifest that the reckon- 
 ing of tliis type, though strictly a Julian one of its kind, 
 could not have been that of the true proleptical Julian time 
 of the system from the first. Whether the Egyptians insti- 
 tuted this type in an ignorance as yet of that fact, or delibe- 
 rately, and with a knowledge of it beforehand, I cannot 
 undertake to say. In either case, the matter of fact after- 
 wards discoverable w ill be the same ; viz. that 500 years after 
 the institution of this type, along with the rise of the national 
 fable of Osiris and Isis, and the institution of the national 
 solemnity of the Isia, and of the reckoning of the first So- 
 thiacul period, B.C. 1350m, another type of the Julian reck- 
 oning of annual time came into being among the Kgyptians 
 also, with a proper cycle of leap-year altogether different from 
 that of the Phoenix type, and (with no further difference 
 
 i* Fasti, iv. 171-18.^ ' Appendix, note E. '" Ibid. ni)te F. 
 
14 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 than the accidental distinction above alluded to") altogether 
 the same with the cycle of leap-year of the Julian time of the 
 present day, and through that with the cycle of the pro- 
 leptical Julian time of the system from the first. And it is 
 an obvious inference from this fact that, even if the ancient 
 Egyptians were not yet aware of the true cycle of leap-year 
 of the Julian time of their proper world, when they insti- 
 tuted their Phoenix type, they must have become aware of it 
 before they instituted this second type, which, as having 
 come into being along with the Sothiacal period, in contra- 
 distinction to the former, I have called the Sothiacal type. 
 
 Now the epoch of the Sothiacal Period, and that of this 
 Sothiacal type of the Julian reckoning which came into being 
 along with it, having been July 22 B. 0. 1350, and the rise 
 of the national fable of Osiris and Isis also having been co- 
 incident with both ; it is very important to this question of 
 the proper epoch of the Julian time of the present system 
 of things, as known or not known traditionally to the ante- 
 diluvian and postdiluvian world, that the attention of the 
 reader should be directed to some of the most peculiar and 
 most esoteric of the doctrines of the Egyptians with respect 
 to this Period and to the accompanying national fable — viz. 
 That the positive epoch of the Period was the first manifesta- 
 tion of the star Sirius, rising in the morning twilight — that 
 the stated date of this phenomenon every year for the lati- 
 tude of On or Heliopolis in Egypt, was July 20 — that the 
 name of this star, which the Greeks called Sirius, but the 
 Egyptians Sothis, was only another name for Isis — that the 
 manifestation of Sothis every year was only the manifestation 
 of Isis in the form of that star every year also — that tlie 
 TTfjMTLaTr] avaroXr], the very first manifestation of that kind of 
 all", whensoever it occurred, was consequently the very first 
 manifestation of Isis, and by parity of reason the birth of 
 Isis — that the meaning of Sothis, the Egyptian name of Si- 
 rius, was that 6 kvo)v in Greek, the conceiving star, the star 
 of conception — that consequently the very first manifestation 
 of Isis in the form and under the name of this star was the 
 manifestation of Isis in the act of conceiving, or as having 
 
 " Page 13. " (.'f. Fasti, iii. 198. 
 
s. 2. Actual epoch whether the Absolute. 15 
 
 already conceived, something — that, as to what this some- 
 thing was, according to the doctrine of the Egyptians, Isis 
 was the mother of the S,un^ the mother of the Heavens, the 
 mother of the Universe, and consequently what she w as first 
 manifested as conceiving, or having conceived, according to 
 this doctrine, must have been the material world — that the 
 recognised interval, between conception and parturition, in 
 such mystical cases as these, wherein the laws of the human 
 nature and those of the divine were blended together, and 
 operated alike to the desired effect, according to the Egyp- 
 tians also, was the greatest of which human nature in parti- 
 cular seemed to admit, 280 days. And having been made 
 aware of this peculiar doctrine and belief of the Egyptians, 
 let the reader go back from the historical epoch of the first 
 manifestation of Isis-Sothis, as that of the first Sothiacal 
 Period also, July .20 B.C. 1350, to July 20 B.C. 4006, as the 
 assumed date of the TrpcortoTTj avaroki], the very first mani- 
 festation of that kind ; and then reckon 280 days from July 
 20 B. C. 4006, and he will find himself brought to April 25 
 B. C. 4005, the date of the birth of that at last which Isis- 
 Sothis had first been represented conceiving, July 20 B. C. 
 4006, and the date also of the true Natale Mundi of the pre- 
 sent system of things, merely transferred from the second 
 year of its proper cycle of leap-year, B. C. 4004, to its first, 
 B.C. 4005 p. 
 
 If the cycle of leap-year, which is in use at the present day, 
 is the true cycle of the Julian time of the existing system of 
 things, it is due, humanly speaking, to an accidental coinci- 
 dence ; viz. that Julius Caesar, from whose correction of the 
 Roman calendar we derive the Julian reckoning of the pre- 
 sent day, before he could carry his projected correction into 
 effect, was obliged to spend eight or nine months in Egypt, 
 and in the course of that residence it was that he became ac- 
 quainted with the Sothiacal type of the Julian reckoning, 
 and its proper cycle of leap-year, both of them afterwards em- 
 bodied in his own correction 'i. I have called that an acci- 
 dental coincidence ; for so it might appear to a superficial 
 view of the mode in which it was brought about : though in 
 
 I* Cf. Fasti, iii. 29-36. Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 1 29-1. ',4. 
 < Cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. iii. 522 tqcj. 
 
16 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord, ch, i. 
 
 reality it was only one in a series of remarkable dispensations 
 of Providence, (and not the last even of those,) exemplified in 
 the history of the Roman calendar from the time of Romulus 
 and Numa Pompilius to that of Julius Caesar, all preparatory 
 to, and all actually issuing out at last in, this consummation 
 of the adoption of the true reckoning of mundane time on 
 the Julian principle from the first, as the reckoning of the 
 civil calendar on the Julian principle also, even at the pre- 
 sent day ■*. 
 
 Section III. — General inference from the preceding 'premises; 
 and further confirmation of the same conclusions by the suc- 
 cession of iEons, according to the doctrine of Scripture, 
 and by the discoveries of Geology. 
 
 From such facts then as these, it must necessarily be in- 
 ferred that, though the Mosaic Hexaemeron, thus determined 
 to April 25 — May 2 B. C. 4004, may be, or rather must be, 
 the actual epoch of that constitution of things which we call 
 the course of nature, or that of time, as both are going on at 
 present, it cannot have been the absolute epoch and origin of 
 all and singular of its component parts. The mean lunar 
 time of the system must pass one month at least beyond the 
 Mosaic Hexaemeron: the mean or actual Julian time of the 
 system must pass one year at least beyond it : the mean 
 natural annual time of the system, in conjunction with the 
 mean Julian perpetually, must pass 516,133 years at least 
 beyond it. And if the mean tropical, along with its proper 
 Julian type, thus passes beyond it, the mean sidereal and the 
 mean anomalistic time of the system, along with their re- 
 spective Julian types also, may well be assumed to pass 
 beyond it too. And this inference, respecting the absolute 
 primary epoch and origin of all the constituent parts or ele- 
 ments of the course and succession of things, as going on at 
 present, so obviously deducible from such premises as these 
 by themselves, may be further confirmed by the testimony 
 of Scripture to the scope and comprehension of its own 
 chronology. 
 
 This subject, of the chronology of Scripture in its widest 
 
 ^ Fasti, ii. 36-45. 
 
s. 3. Succession of JKons and Geology. 17 
 
 extent, will be found to have been treated of in one of the 
 Dissertations of the Fasti'*; and with all the minuteness and 
 circumstantiality which the proof of the truth on that point, 
 from the materials supplied by Scripture itself, appeared to 
 require. If we go over the same ground again here, it must 
 be only in a general and summary manner. 
 
 It has been shewn then in this Dissertation, i. That the 
 retrospect, taken by Scripture, of the succession of Duration 
 measured by Time*, anterior to the Christian dispensation, 
 anterior to the Mosaic, anterior to the Hexaemeron, all alike, 
 extends de facto to the very first act of creation, the produc- 
 tion of the very first world, and to its proper epoch in time, 
 whatsoever that was. 
 
 ii. That, assuming this epoch of the first act of creation as 
 its point of departure, the inspired chronology of Scripture 
 reckons the duration of created existences, as measured or 
 measurable by time perpetually, in a succession of Periods, 
 all of which in common it calls by tlie name of Atdii-e? or 
 ^ons, and therefore supposes to have been possest of the 
 nature of an aluiv or Mon in common ; that is, of that length 
 or degree of the measure of duration by time, whatsoever it 
 is, to which its own idiom restricts this name of an ^on. 
 
 iii. That it authorizes us to infer that there has been a 
 series of such ^Eons, greater or less in number, before the 
 Mosaic cosmogony, and that there will be a similar series of 
 iiEons, destined to go on for ever, after the ^losaic creation, 
 and every thing included in it, or connected with it, shall 
 have served its time, and fulfilled its purpose, and conse- 
 quently come to an end. 
 
 iv. That it gives us reason to conclude that the al(iiv, which 
 stands in the same relation to both these series, (as some one 
 must necessarily do,) next to the last in the series of aeons 
 past, and next to the first in the series of neons to come, is 
 that which came into existence with the ^losaic cosmogony 
 itself, the atw/', which has been in decursu ever since the first 
 day of the Mosaic Hexaemeron. and is not yet at an end ; 
 the ato)i' eveo-Tcbs, properly so called, the aeon which we mean 
 wlien we speak of the present world v, in the sense of the 
 
 • Vol. ii. 2'.8-3Si. Dissert, xii. « Cf. Fasti, i. 2 4 ^m 
 
 ' Fasti, ii. 79-. 299. 
 
 C 
 
18 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. c. i. 
 
 course of nature, or the course of time, as both are going on 
 at present, and have been within all human memory. 
 
 V. And lastly, having thus given us reason to conclude 
 that the auov kpecrrois, the ffion which bears date from the 
 Mosaic creation, is but one of a general succession of the 
 same kind, before and after itself, diflering from all before it, 
 and from all after it, not in its nature, as an atcoi', but in its 
 order of time and place, in a general succession of such aeons, 
 it authorizes us also, from the length or measure of this in- 
 dividual EBon, so far as it is discoverable through the intima- 
 tions of Scripture itself, to infer the probable length and 
 measure of every aeon, before or after this. That is, if there 
 is reason to conclude from the data supplied by Scripture 
 that the duration of the Mosaic atoiv, the aliiiv ei'eo-ra)9, is 
 destined to be neither more nor less than 7000 years, with- 
 out pretending or presuming to be wise beyond what is 
 written, we may argue from the analogy of the case of this 
 one at'coy that the proper length of every other before or after 
 it has been or will be probably 7000 years likewise, a week 
 of millennia, in all these cases alike, analogous to the week 
 of days, in the measurement of human time in the sense of 
 that of our own world, and, as we have the assurance of 
 Scripture'^, to the Divine apprehension altogether the same 
 as the week of days to the human. 
 
 And yet this is not all which may be said on this subject. 
 There is reason to conclude, if not from the express testi- 
 mony of Scripture, yet virtually with its sanction, and on 
 the strength of many grave and serious considerations, which 
 human reason itself, arguing merely from the facts of the 
 past, is competent to suggest >, that our own earth in parti- 
 cular, instead of being the youngest of the material works of 
 the Deity, (as it must be, if no older than the epoch of the 
 Mosaic creation,) is very probably the oldest. That this was 
 probably created first of all, and amidst the possible infinity 
 of similar material productions, all alike the creations of the 
 same God, but each in an order, and at a time, peculiar to 
 itself, the rights of the firstborn, so to say, the vpcoToroKia of 
 creation itself, the prerogatives attached to that relation, if 
 
 » 2 Pet. iii. 8. y Fasti, Ji. 365 h. 
 
s. 3. Succession of Mow^ and Geology. 19 
 
 any sucli tliere are, belong de jure and de facto to our own 
 earth. And not only so, but that tlic natural measure of the 
 existence of our own earth, from the moment of its creation 
 to the present time, the first, the simplest, and the most in- 
 variable of the measures of duration by time, the instrumental 
 means of which is the diurnal rotation of our own earth, the 
 cycle of day and night, is, by appointment of the Creator 
 himself, the positive measure of the duration of every other 
 created existence of later date; and what is more, is the 
 positive standard even of the unoriginated existence and the 
 eternal duration of the Creator of all things himself, when he 
 deigns to compare the continued existence of any even the 
 oldest and most enduring of his creatures, with that of his 
 own essence ; the standard of measure to which even the 
 Ancient of Days himself, in such a comparison and contrast, 
 condescends to appeal '-. 
 
 And here, we are naturally reminded, by the course and 
 tenor of our observations themselves, of the very decisive 
 confirmation of such conclusions as these, respecting the 
 antiquity of our own planet, which we have thus deduced 
 from the chronology of Scripture, by the discoveries of Ge- 
 ology*. I have said enough to convince the reader, that 
 with respect to the past history of our earth, no inconsist- 
 ency, no opposition, no contradiction, was ever to have been 
 apprehended, between the testimony of Scripture and these 
 discoveries — simply because Scripture goes no further back 
 in the history of our planet than the Mosaic Hexaemeron, 
 and B. C. 4004 — the field of geological discovery lies entirely 
 beyond this epoch in its history of B. C. 4004. It was 
 equally impossible a priori that the conclusions of geology 
 respecting the antiquity of our earth should ever be at vari- 
 ance with its true place and time in the order of created ex- 
 istence, according to the chronology of Scripture — or that 
 the largest inference of this kind which the scientific ge- 
 ologist might feel himself compelled to draw from the phe- 
 nomena brought to light by his own researches into the 
 composition and structure of our globe, could possibly ex- 
 ceed, or, to speak more truly, could even approach, within 
 
 ' ('t'. Gen. viii. ^^ : Is. xliii. 13 : Dan. vii. g. 13. •22. 
 » Cf. Fasti, ii. 341. 
 
 ' C 2 
 
20 The /Ar<?e Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 appreciable limits, to the age which Scripture itself of its 
 own accord would assign it. 
 
 The ante-Mosaic duration of the earth indeed is one thing, 
 and its history, during that period, is another. The simple 
 fact of its existence for a length of time, anterior to the 
 Mosaic tcra, which for aught ive know to the contrary may 
 have come within any conceivable distance of eternity itself, 
 is plainly to be collected from Scripture : the history of that 
 existence, which must have run parallel to it perpetually, has 
 not been written out in Scripture, or only in what belongs 
 to a single page of the whole, and that too merely as a 
 fragmentary and isolated passage, detached from its con- 
 text, and alluded to rather than explained. Geology also 
 brings phenomena to light which reveal somewhat of this 
 ante-Mosaic history of the earth, and in reference too to this 
 one chapter of its contents ; and it is in its mode of reading 
 and construing, or filling up, these fragmentary passages in 
 the past history of its proper subject, more than in its specu- 
 lations about its antiquity, that modern science is in danger 
 of being set at variance with Scripture. 
 
 Geology will come into collision with Scripture, if it treats 
 the phenomena, brought to light by its own researches, how- 
 soever analogous to what may be seen going on, in and upon 
 the earth, at present, as any criteria of its proper state or 
 constitution from the first — if, while compelled by the evi- 
 dence of the fact to acknowledge an opposition and conflict 
 of the effects produced, it fails to recognise an opposition 
 and conflict of the principles which produced them — if it sees 
 a distinction of agencies all through the past history of the 
 earth, amounting to absolute antipathy and antagonism, yet 
 does not perceive a difi"erence of agents, equall}' opposed to 
 each other — if it refers order and disorder, conservation and 
 destruction, life and death, in the treatment of the same 
 passive subject, to the same active agent —if it attempts to 
 connect extinct forms and varieties of life, discoverable in 
 this ante-Mosaic period of the history of the earth, by any 
 process of natural succession, M'ith living forms and varieties 
 of the same kind at present. On such points as these, ge- 
 ology and physical science, while attempting to illustrate 
 the past history of the earth from such data as their own 
 
s. 4. Antiquitt/ o/'Man and Social existence. 21 
 
 investigations have brought to light, have come into collision 
 with Scripture ; and until they arc content to study these 
 fragtnents of its antecedent history with the help of the light 
 reflected upon them by the revelations of Scripture, they 
 must continue to come into conflict with Scripture ^. 
 
 Section IV. — On the antiquity of Man. and of social exist- 
 ence, whether greater or less than the date of the Mosaic 
 Creation. Testimony of the three Witnesses, 
 i. The natural measures of time, at the assumed epoch of 
 the Mosaic Creation, having all been disposed in a certain 
 relation to each other, and all set out from that epoch, and 
 in that state of relation inter se, each according to its proper 
 law ; then, the nature of that law and the mode of its opera- 
 tion in each instance ever after being known, the relations 
 discoverable among them at any subsequent epoch of the 
 decursus of all in common, the changes or modifications of 
 the conditions of origination, introduced by the constant 
 operation of their own laws, at any given point of time after- 
 wards, must supply a test and criterion of the antiquity of 
 the system, in which they were all originally combined in 
 such a state ]K'r se, and in such relations inter se, which 
 could be nothing less than as infallible as it was perpetual. 
 
 For example, if the mean tropical time and the mean Julian 
 time of the present system of things were known or could be 
 assumed to have set out at par, for any given meridian, on 
 April 25, and the annual increment of mean Julian time on 
 mean tropical in mean longitude from the first to have been 
 27"- 499 556 8 c^ then if it was discoverable from observa- 
 tion, or in any other way, that the actual mean longitude of 
 April 25, A. D. 1801, for the same meridian, was 44"^ 20' 
 7"-428, or any thing only slightly diff'crcnt from that — what 
 would that be but an infallible indication that mean tropical 
 time and mean Julian, as combined perpetually in the present 
 system of things, could not have been going on more than 5801' 
 years ? for 27"- 499 556 8 x 5804 = 44° 20' 7" 427 072 7 ^ 
 
 In like manner, mean tropical time and mean sidereal 
 being known or assumed to have set out at par, for a given 
 
 '' Appendix, note G. f Intnuluction, p. xviii. Table x. 
 
 '' Cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. Prelim. Address, cvii. 
 
22 The three Witnesses, and the thi'eefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 meridian, from the conjunction of the sun in 0° 0' 0" of the 
 sphere, with the arc of the sphere connecting the two stars 
 Beta and Zeta Tauri, and the annual rate of the precession 
 of the fixed stars in mean longitude, being assumed at 
 50"-0G9 541, from the firsts then, if it was discoverable in 
 any way that the mean longitude of this arc of connection, 
 A. D. 1801, was 80° 43' 34"-583, or any thing but slightly 
 different f, what would that be but a demonstrative proof 
 that mean annual tropical time, measured by the returns of 
 the mean sun to 0° 0' 0" of the sphere, and mean sidereal, 
 measured by the returns of the mean sun to the arc of con- 
 junction in question, A. D. 1801, could not have been going 
 on more than 5804 years? for 50"069 541 x 5804 = 80° 43' 
 34"-582 831. 
 
 In like manner, if the mean longitude of the solar apogee, 
 for a certain meridian, B. C. 4004, at the mean vernal equi- 
 nox was 0° 0' 0", and the annual increment of the mean 
 longitude of the apogee was to be assumed at 61"-729 541 s, 
 then, if it was discoverable that the mean longitude of the 
 apogee, at the mean vernal equinox, A. D. 1801, for the 
 same meridian, was 99° 31' 18"- 255 964 1^, what would that 
 be but an infallible proof that mean tropical time and mean 
 anomalistic, as combined together in the present system of 
 things, must have been going on in conjunction, 5804 years, at 
 the mean vernal equinox A. D. 1801 ? for 61"-729 541 x 5804 
 = 99° 31' 18" -255 964. 
 
 In like manner, mean lunar time and mean Julian being 
 supposed to have set out together April 29 at midnight, for 
 the meridian of Jerusalem, B. C. 4004, and in such a pro- 
 portion to each other that mean lunar time was liable to lose 
 one period of 24 Jiours on mean Julian every 304 years ; 
 then if it was discoverable that mean lunar and mean Julian 
 time were meeting togetlier, and setting out in conjunction, 
 on April 10 at midnight, for the same meridian. A. D. 1773, 
 what would that be but a demonstrative proof that mean 
 lunar and mean Julian time must have been going on to- 
 gether 301 X 19 or 5776 years, April 10 at midnight. A. D. 
 1773, and that the system which had combined them both 
 
 e Ij^troduction, page x. Table iii. Pt. i. f Fasti, iii. 26,^. 
 
 t; Introduction, 202. '' Ibid. 203. 
 
s. 4- Antiquity o/'Man and Social existence. 23 
 
 originally in this proportion to each other, and was still 
 combining them, was 5776 years old April 10 at midnight, 
 A. D. 17731'? 
 
 In this manner, supposing the number and kinds of the 
 mean natural measures of time, which enter the present 
 system of things to be known, and the proper law of each, 
 and the point of departure of each in the decursus of all in 
 common, and the original relations of each to the rest, at 
 that point of departure — to be known — (and there is nothing 
 of that kind, assumed in this argument to have held good in 
 each of these instances, April 25 B.C. 4001', which modern 
 astronomy is not competent to put to the test, and to verify 
 or to disprove, by its own calculations — -) then the very 
 changes in the relations of origination, discoverable among 
 them at any point of the subsequent decursus of all in com- 
 mon, would supply a constant argument of tiie age of the 
 system and scheme of things, which had combined them all, 
 and in those relations, from the first ; and an argument 
 which would never cease to bo applicable, would never grow 
 old, would never lose its force, while the same system and 
 scheme of things continued. 
 
 But with respect to the question of the antiquity of such 
 a system, howsoever determined, as any test or criterion of 
 that of Man also ; it must be admitted that, so far as our 
 own reason can discover, there is no necessary connection 
 between the origin of such a course and succession of things 
 as that which we call the course of nature, and the origin of 
 society, — except as the effect of appointment, — except on the 
 supposition that even this natural course and succession of 
 things was not projected and ordered by its proper Author 
 for its own sake, but for the sake of something else, intended 
 from the first to make a part of it, though not necessarily 
 connected with it. — and that something Man. On that sup- 
 position, the argument of the antiquity of Man from the 
 age of this system would be sound and good. The origin of 
 such a s^'stera must have been the beginning of social exist- 
 ence also. Both must have come into being together, both 
 must have gone on together, and one must be as old as the 
 other perpetually — and if the antiquity of the system, under 
 
 '' Appi'iidix, note H. 
 
21 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 the circumstances of the case, could not go farther back than 
 the Mosaic Creation, neither could that of Man. 
 
 ii. Testimony of the Primitive Calendar. — With regard 
 however to the bearing of the testimony of the Primitive 
 Calendar on the present question ; it is very important to 
 observe that, whereas the natural measures of time could 
 have had no connection with human and social existence, 
 but what must have been j^ositive in its origin, civil time, on 
 the contrary, in the very supposition of its own existence 
 presupposes that of society. Natural time is simply mun- 
 dane time, and simply the measure of mundane existence, 
 which may include that of man, or may not ; civil time is 
 essentially human and social time, time in connection with 
 human history, time in subservience to the wants and uses 
 of Man The origin of natural time is that of a world ; the 
 origin of civil is tliat of society. Human time therefore 
 must be as old as civil every where; and the antiquity of 
 man must be as great every where as the use of the artificial 
 and positive measures of time which are meant by the ca- 
 lendar'. And as even these measures themselves must be 
 founded ultimately on the natural — (the civil day on the 
 natural day, the civil month on the natural month, and the 
 civil year on the natural year'' — ) it was to be expected a 
 priori that, in a complex and scheme like .this of the course 
 of nature, in which human existence was destined from the 
 first to make so prominent a part, the civil measures of time 
 would be found to go as far back as the natural, and the 
 origin of human time to have been simultaneous with that of 
 mundane '. 
 
 iii. Primitive tradition. — With respect to the testimony of 
 tradition — it must be confessed that the prima facie evidence 
 of the opinions and belief of the nations of antiquity, especi- 
 ally those of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Chinese, and 
 the Hindoo.*!, on this question of the relation of the age of 
 man to that of his proper system of mundane time, still dis- 
 coverable, is diametrically opposed to any genuine and au- 
 thentic tradition on this {)oint which could have been handed 
 down from the first — and that each of these nations, and 
 
 ' Fasti, i. 39. 543. 1* Ibid. i. 38. 
 
 ' Fasti, i. 38. 78-92 : Introduction, 1 21-131. 
 
s. 4- AntiqKity of^lun and Social existence. 25 
 
 many more besides, howsoever much they might differ in 
 their respective accounts of the origin of their proper world, 
 and of its earliest history, in other particulars, all alike agreed 
 in assigning it an antiquity infinitely greater than that of the 
 Mosaic Cosmogony. 
 
 But though the fact of such claims to an origin and an 
 antiquity of this kind, as advanced by the principal nations 
 of the old world, cannot be denied, the mere statement of 
 such professions is sufficient to expose their fabulous cha- 
 racter. It is enough to observe of them all, that they are 
 late in making their appearance, even in these instances. It 
 is not difficult to assign the motives in which, notwithstand- 
 ing the previous existence among these nations themselves of 
 a more truthful tradition on the same points, they might 
 have originated— especially if we take into account the au- 
 thority and influence of the ancient Egyjitians, and the fact 
 that the first example of this falsification both of postdiluvian 
 tradition in general, and of their own history in particular, 
 to serve an interested purpose, w'as set by the ancient Egypt- 
 ians. ^Vith the knowledge of this fact beforehand, we re- 
 quire nothing but the natural tendency of imitation or rivalry 
 to account for the same falsification, with the same object in 
 view, an}' where else. 
 
 And yet one glimpse at least of the genuine tradition of 
 primitive antiquity, on this point of the simultaneous origin 
 of the human race along with that of the natural course of 
 things, has come down to posterity. A tradition is met 
 with among the ancient Arcadians, as early in their history 
 as IJ. ('. 12G0 at least, that their own city of Lycosura and 
 they themselves both came into existence on the first of the 
 days which had light derived from the sun. in contradistinc- 
 tion to those which had light indeed but not derived from 
 the sun"'. And what is that but a plain description of the 
 fourth (lay of the Mosaic Ilexaemeron ? only two days in 
 anticipation of the true date of the origin of man, according 
 to Scripture itself. 
 
 m Ori^K- Kal. Hell. iv. 577. -.H^.s,!-,^. 
 
26 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 Section V. — On the unity of origin of the Human race in all 
 parts of the Earth. Testimony of the three Witnesses. 
 
 i. Testimony of the Natural measures of Time. — On this 
 question of the unity of the origin of the human species, at 
 present, and at all former times, in all quarters of the earth, 
 the natural measures of time, though the same in their 
 origin, the same in their relations inter se and to every thing 
 else, the same in their laws, and the same in their decursus, 
 (with no difference at least except that of meridians,) every 
 where, can supply no argument essentially or a priori dis- 
 tinct from that which might be derivable from the civil 
 measures of time every where also, considered as originally 
 founded upon, and ultimately resolvable into, the natural. 
 
 ii. Testimony of primitive tradition. — With respect to the 
 testimony of tradition on this point, — a common relationship 
 of the inhabitants of the earth at all times and every where, 
 such as must be implied in an acknowledged community of 
 descent in all of them alike from the same first parents, it 
 must be admitted does not appear to have been recognised 
 by any of the nations of antiquity except the Jews; and even 
 among the Jews this fact, though not unknown in theory, 
 seems to have had as little influence in practice, as if nothing 
 had ever been known about it. 
 
 And yet almost every nation in ancient times professed to 
 derive its origin from some one founder ; and that is virtu- 
 ally an argument that, what was thus assumed in subsequent 
 instances of each in particular, must once have been known 
 or believed of all in general. Many too, and those especially 
 who claimed the highest antiquity, pretended to derive their 
 descent from some founder who owed his existence himself 
 to no human parents, but came into being out of the ground, 
 out of the trees, or out of the sea ; and many examples of 
 such a profession and belief are enumerated in a remarkable 
 fragment, supposed to be one of Pindar's, which has lately 
 been recovered". And this is a still nearer approach to the 
 acknowledgment of the great Scriptural truth, Avhich only 
 could have been handed down at first by a genuine tradition, 
 
 " Origg. Kal. Ilcll. ii. ,:; i 7 . iv. 664 n. 
 
s, 5. Unity of Origin of the llumau Race. 27 
 
 that even the first pair of mankind derived their origin from 
 the ground. 
 
 But to come to the particular testimony of primitive tra- 
 dition on this one point — i. I have had occasion to inquire 
 into, and by a circumstantial induction of particular proofs 
 to substantiate, the fact of a custom of primitive antiquity 
 every where — That of the celebration of marriages, as a rule 
 of public and private life, all in the course of the year, at one 
 time, and that one time the first month of the primitive ca- 
 lendar". And the fact of this custom being admitted, (as it 
 must be, on the strength of its own evidence in so many in- 
 stances,) it is impossible to account for the concurrence of 
 all nations in so remarkable an usage of public and domestic 
 life, from so early a period in their history down to so late an 
 one, except on one supposition ; viz. that it was originally 
 known and remembered every where that marriage itself had 
 been instituted by the Creator of man and his proper world, 
 and the first marriage, (to which all the existing races and 
 distinctions of men were still known and believed to have 
 owed their being,) had been celebrated, in this first month 
 of the first primitive year itself. 
 
 ii. I have adverted to the factP, (and I hope to have a 
 future opportunity of laying the proof of the fact before the 
 reader,) that in the oldest mysteries among the Greeks, (and 
 as we may add, the most mysterious,) those of Samothrace, 
 the name of the first man, the name of the ■7rp(i)Tdi>dp(i>Tios, 
 Adam, was preserved and perpetuated even lower down than 
 the Christian fera. I hope too to have a similar opportunity 
 of shewing that the first circumstantial particular in the 
 history of the human race after the Fall, the murder of Abel 
 by Cain his brother, was handed down and perpetuated also. 
 
 iii. It has been shewn ^ that the sum and substance of the 
 history of the other of the tivo lines of descent from Adam, 
 the line of Cain in contradistinction to that of Seth, down to 
 the Flood, has been embodied and come down to posterity in 
 the Khodian fable of tiie Telchines ; and that the Scriptural 
 history of both these lines, for the latter part of the period 
 between the Creation and the Flood, has been perpetuated in 
 
 " Orig};. Kal. Hell. vi. 57i-(M9. P Ihid. iv. _^67 ii. 
 
 n li)i(l. V. 269-280. 
 
28 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 like manner in the Egyptian fable of the Nr^o-cs 'ArAai^rts, 
 recorded in the Timaus and the Critias of Plato ^ 
 
 iv. I have had occasion also to shew that the Kecrops of 
 Attic tradition in particular, and the Deucalion of Hellenic 
 tradition in general, as the links of connection between the 
 antediluvian and the postdiluvian world of the Greeks, and 
 the patriarch Noah, were the sarae^ 
 
 V. It has also been shewn* that the Heliadae of Rhodian 
 mythology, the seven sons of Helius and Rhodus, (the two 
 principles in the Cosmogonic Duad of Rhodes,) the founders 
 of the postdiluvian race of the possessors of the island, and 
 the seven sons of Japheth, among whom Scripture includes 
 the ancestors of the Greeks, were very probably the same. 
 
 vi. It has also been shewn^ that the division of the whole 
 earth, according to the Egyptians, into 72 regions, was pro- 
 bably founded on the division of the children of Noah, by 
 whom the whole earth was known and believed to have been 
 ultimately peopled, according to the apparent testimony of 
 Sci'ipture itself, and certainly to postdiluvian tradition, into 
 72 Families >'. 
 
 iii. Testimony of the Primitive Calendar. — On this ques- 
 tion however of the oneness of origin of the human race, at 
 all times, and in all quarters of the earth, the most important 
 and most decisive testimony, next to that of Scripture, to 
 which we could appeal, is that of the Primitive Calendar. 
 
 To adduce this testimony in detail, and to substantiate it, 
 as often as may be necessary, by the proper proofs of its 
 truth, is the professed object of the Fasti Temporis Catholici 
 and of the Origines Kalendarise, from the first The propo- 
 sitions maintained in this work, as I have often had occasion 
 to explain, are three at least. 
 
 i. That the measures of time of our own system of things, 
 both the .Natural and the Civil, took their rise in the He{)ta- 
 emeron of Scripture, between April 25 at midn. and May 2 
 at midn. B. C. 4004. 
 
 ii. That the first form of the civil vear amons: mankind 
 
 ' Origg. Kill. Hell. iv. 10+-1 r f. ' Ibid. iv. 125, 126. v. 744. ' Ibid. v. 
 
 ■280-284 n. " Fasti, ii. 556. " Cf. my E.xposition of the Parables, 
 
 Vol. V. Part ii. 1 44-15 r : Dissertation"! on the Principles and Arrangcnii'nt of 
 an Harmon}' of the Go.-peU, ii. 9.^ n. 
 
s. 5. Unity of Origin of the Human Race. 29 
 
 was every where that of the equable solar year, of 365 days 
 and nights ; and this equable solar year was every where 
 that which is represented and exhibited in the Tables of the 
 Fasti from the first. 
 
 iii. That every form of the civil year different from this, 
 which is still in existence, or was so formerly, in any part of 
 the world, was derived from it, and, being traced historically 
 back to its origin, is found to have been identical with it. 
 
 The process of proof however, by which only three sucii 
 propositions as these admitted of being demonstrated, from 
 the nature of the case, being that of the Inductive Syllo- 
 gism ; I have been compelled to confine myself to a limited 
 portion of this proof at a time. And three parts of the argu- 
 ment having thus been successively treated of in detail, the 
 particulars of the Induction, as far as it has yet proceeded, 
 may be summarily stated as follows. 
 
 i. The history of this one Primitive Type of the civil calen- 
 dar among the ancient Egyptians, Ciiinese, and Hindoos, (and 
 especially among the ancient Egyptians.) has been investi- 
 gated and substantiated in the first Part, the Fasti Temporis 
 Catholici, pi'operly so called, from B. C. 4004 to more than 
 a thousand years lower than the Christian sera. 
 
 ii. The history of the same primitive calendar, among the 
 inhabitants of ancient Italy, from the first Nundinal correc- 
 tion, directly derived from it, B.C. 1340, to the Julian cor- 
 rection B. C. 16 and A. D. 225, has been traced and substan- 
 tiated in the second Part, the Origines Kalcndariie Italica?. 
 
 iii. The history of the same primitive calendar, and of its 
 various corrections or modifications, among the ancient 
 Greeks, before and after the legislation of Solon, (from B. C. 
 1342 to the second or third century of the Christian £era,) 
 has been traced and substantiated in the third Part, the 
 Origines Kalcndarite Helleuico. 
 
 The premises of the Induction, which have still to be ad- 
 duced in order to the confirmation of our General Inference 
 from them by as many more proofs of the fact in particular 
 instances, as 1 propose to comprehend in the fourth and last 
 Part, may probably be found to be supplied by the history 
 of the following calendars : The Phrygian Correction of Mi- 
 das — The Samothraciau Corrections — The Correction of Dar- 
 
30 The Mree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 danus — The Thracian Correction of Orpheus — The Lydian 
 Correction — The Cyprian Corrections, (the Calendar of Pa- 
 phus, the Calendar of Amathus, the Calendar of Salamis,) — 
 The Syrian Corrections, (the Calendar of ByWus, the Calen- 
 dar of Ileliopolis, the Calendar of Sidon, the Calendar of 
 Tyre, the Calendar of Gnza, the Calendar of Ascalon, the 
 Calendar of Syria Proper, the Calendar of Emesus, the Ca- 
 lendar of Damascus, the Calendar of Area Cfesarea, the Ca- 
 lendar of Batnre, the Calendar of Amida, the Calendar of 
 Hieropolis, the Calendar of Palmyra, the Calendar of Seleucia 
 on the Tigris,) — The Assyrian Correction of Semiramis — 
 The Median Correction — The Babylonian Correction — The 
 Bactrian Correction of Zoroaster — The Persian Correction 
 of Gjeraschid, (including the Correction of Yezdejerd, and 
 that of the Sultan Gelalo'ddin,) — The Armenian Correction — 
 The Cappadocian Correction — The Punic or Carthaginian 
 Calendar — The Nuraidian Calendar — The Arabian Correc- 
 tions, (including the Calendar of Hejra,) — The Bithynian 
 Correction — The Calendars and Corrections of the North of 
 Europe, (the ancient British, Gallic, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, 
 Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, the ancient British Pas- 
 chal Cycle,) — The ancient Ethiopic and modern Abyssinian 
 Calendar — The Calendars of Spanish America, (the Toltec, 
 the Aztec, &c.) 
 
 It will thus appear, as the result of the most general and 
 comprehensive review of the history of civil time every where, 
 which could be instituted at present, that whatsoever the 
 difference of country or climate, whatsoever the difference of 
 complexion or colour, whatsoever the difference of speech or 
 language, whatsoever the distinctions of civilization and re- 
 finement, of manners and customs, of moral or intellectual 
 characters or qualifications, in different quarters, and among 
 different nations, on the Globe at present, one and the same 
 measure of time for social purposes, one and the same Calen- 
 dar at least, and that Calendar altogether the same with the 
 equable solar Calendar of the Fasti, either always was, and 
 still is, in existence among mankind every where both in 
 Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and America ; or if it has 
 ceased to exist itself, has been the source of every other, 
 which has been substituted for it in particular instances, and 
 
s. 5- Unit If q/' Ori(/i II of t/ie llum?in Race. 31 
 
 is at this day in existence in the same countries and among 
 the same nationsy. It appears too, as the result of the same 
 survey, that, as no calendar of this kind, as ultimately re- 
 solvable into the prototype of all in common, represented in 
 the Fasti perpetually, traced back to its origin, can stop 
 short of the epoch of that, — the Mosaic Hexaemeron, — so 
 none can pass beyond it, unless that does too ; and there- 
 fore, as matter of fact, the proper epoch of civil time among 
 all nations under the sun, traced back to its original sources, 
 can neither fall short of, nor yet pass beyond, the first day 
 of the Mosaic Hexaemeron. 
 
 Such is the state of the case into which, upon this parti- 
 cular question of the unity or the diversity of the origin of 
 mankind, as reducible to any such test as this of the parti- 
 cular form of civil time which must have been in use among 
 them perpetually, we are first of all bound to inquire ; and 
 the fact being admitted, (as it must be, on the strength 
 of its own evidence,) the explanation of the fact is as easy as 
 the certainty of the fact is unquestionable, if we admit the 
 simple Scriptural account of the derivation of all the inhabit- 
 ants of the earth, (whether past or present,) from one pair, 
 who came into being along with this primitive measure of 
 Civil time itself, who used it themselves for all the purposes 
 of social life, whose children received it from them, and used 
 it also after them, and in the course of time carried it with 
 them into all parts of the earth. On the other hand, if we 
 reject this account of the simultaneous origin of human 
 society, and of this primitive civil calendar, in one particular 
 quarter of the earth — from which it was diffused by the dif- 
 fusion of society itself over the rest of the earth ; the fact 
 of the actual existence of a form of the civil calendar, not 
 merely analogous to, but absolutely identical with, this, in all 
 parts of the earth, and among all nations, and at all times, 
 as far as its history can be traced at present, will not be 
 more certain, than the cxplanatioti of the fact, upon any 
 rational and probable principle, will be difficult, not to say 
 impossible. For the calendar every where discoverable being 
 still the very same which took its rise on the first of the pri- 
 
 >■ Cf. Fasti, i. 542 s(((|., 6Sj s(|i|. Introduction to the Tables, &c. 44, 45. 
 
33 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i . 
 
 mitive Thoth, iEra cyelica 1, April 25, B. C. 4004; if it was 
 not inherited every where by those who are using it every 
 where still, from the same first parents, what will follow 
 from that hypothesis, but that, instead of one pair of man- 
 kind, who came into existence along with this calendar, at 
 the time in question, in one locality of the surface of the 
 earth, as many distinct pairs as there are distinctions of 
 races and nations at present must have come into existence 
 at once, in as many distinct regions and countries, yet 
 each at the same point of time, along with the same civil 
 calendar, — the epoch of the Mosaic Creation? 
 
 Closely allied to this argument of the unity of origin of all 
 mankind from the unity of the calendar of all mankind, is 
 that which may be derived from the unitj^ of the rule of the 
 Noctidiurnal cycle also, — originally at least. It has been 
 shewn in the Fasti z, by a minute induction of the particular 
 proofs of the fact, beginning with the rule of Scripture, that 
 the primitive rule every where was to reckon the Noctidiurnal 
 cycle from sunset to sunset. And it has also been shewn a^, 
 that while a traditionary origin of such a rule in both Hemi- 
 spheres, as inherited by the descendants of the same first 
 parents every where in the shape of a positive institution, 
 is competent to account for and explain the use of such 
 a rule in both at once — nothing else can be. A simultaneous 
 origin of such a rule in both Hemispheres at once, would 
 have been impossible, because in the nature of things the 
 point of evening in one must have been that of morning in 
 the other b. 
 
 Section VI. — On the Mosaic Hexaemeron, whether a suc- 
 cession of days of the ordinary length, or a succession of 
 periods of indefinite extent. Testimony of the three Wit- 
 nesses, 
 i. Testimony of the measures of time, both the natural and 
 
 the civil. 
 
 It may be safely assumed that no controversy could ever 
 
 have been raised on this question in particular, had it always 
 
 been known to Christian divines and chronologers, that in 
 
 y Fasti, i. 143-218 a Ibid. 221.230 •' Ibid. 227. 
 
s. 6. Moauic Ilcptaemeron, ivhetJter an ordiiiarij AVcek. 33 
 
 one year of the /Era before Christ, and that one, designated 
 by the chronology of Scripture itself as the first year of 
 mundane time, B. C. 100 !•, and in one week of this year, 
 April 25 — May 2, all the measures of time, both the na- 
 tural and the civil, which enter de facto into the course of 
 things, as it is going on at present and always has done, were 
 meeting together and ready to set out together, each in its 
 place and order as a constituent part of the system, and each 
 according to its proper law, just as all and singular of them, 
 according to the plain and obvious construction of the testi- 
 mony of Scripture, must have done in the week of the 
 Hexaemeron — noetidiurnal time in the simple cycle of day 
 and night, the simple period of 21 hours, — hebdomadal time 
 in the cycle of seven such periods, civil annual time in the 
 cycle of 365, — natural annual ti'opical time from the point of 
 the mean vernal equinox, natural annual sidereal from the 
 intersection of the ecliptic and the arc of conjunction of 
 Beta and Zcta Tauri, natural annual anomalistic from the 
 apogee of the axis major of the solar orbit — all for the same 
 meridian, all at the ])oint of midnight, all on the first day of 
 the week, and all under their proper Julian style, derived 
 from that of this day, April 25 — And lastly, mean lunar 
 time, as reckoned from the line of conjunction of the centre 
 of the sun, and the centre of the moon, and the centre of the 
 earth, from the point of midnight for the same meridian, not 
 indeed on the first day of the same week as the rest, but on 
 the day designated by Scripture itself as that of the origin of 
 mundane lunar lime, the fifth day of the same week, of which 
 the rest met on the first, ami under the proper Julian style 
 of this day, Ai)nl 29, regularly derived from tiiat of the first, 
 April 25. 
 
 These facts must be denied, and not only denied but dis- 
 proved, if the inference from them, that April 2() at midu. 
 must have been the second day, and May 1 at midu. must 
 have been the seventh, of the proper noetidiurnal, the proper 
 hebdomadal, the proper annual time, (both the natural and 
 the civil,) of that system of all in common of which April 25 
 was the first, — or that April 30 at midn. must have been the 
 second day, and May 1 at midn. the third, of the proper 
 
34 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. t. 
 
 lunar time of that system, of which April 29 was the first — 
 can be denied also. 
 
 It makes no difference to a regular succession of any kind 
 whether it is traced from a given point of its decursus back- 
 wards, or from a given point of its decursus forwards. With 
 respect to the beginning or the ending of the succession, or 
 to the order of the parts between, the result is the same in 
 either case. But the natural course of time is forwards per- 
 petually ; and the representation of mundane time in all its 
 elements, in the Tables of the Fasti, is conformed to this 
 natural law of the succession itself. I will beg leave therefore 
 briefly to trace all and each of the parts of this great complex 
 and scheme of things, from the week of its origination, ac- 
 cording to Scripture and according to the Tables of the Fasti, 
 down to the present day. 
 
 JBeginning then with this week, as both the week of the 
 Mosaic Heptaemeron, and as made up of seven ordinary days, 
 and with the first day of this week under the proper Julian 
 style of Api"il 25 at midnight B. C. 4004, i. the mean nocti- 
 diurnal time of the system, measured (with one exception 
 only, hereafter to be noticed) by the period of 24 hours per- 
 petually, and the mean hebdomadal time, measured (with the 
 same exception only) by seven such periods of 24 hours, or 
 one period of 168 hours, perpetually, is brought down in the 
 Tables of the Fasti for 6004 years; and, as so brought down, 
 may be compared, at any point of its decursus meanwhile, 
 with the actual course of the same two things going on at the 
 time, known from testimony, or (as the test and touchstone 
 of the truth of the whole from first to last,) with the actual 
 course of both, going on before our eyes at present — with the 
 actual noctidiurnal, the actual hebdomadal, cycle of our own 
 day, — and it will be found to be nowhere contradicted, either 
 by testimony in times past, or by the evidence of our senses 
 at present '^. 
 
 ii. The mean annual tropical time of the system is traced 
 in the Tables from the first mean vernal equinox, for the 
 proper meridian, to the 6004th ; and at any intermediate 
 
 c Fasti, i. 384-541. cf. Oria;.e;. Kal. Hell. Prolegomena, lix-lxvi. 
 
s. 6. Mosaic Heptaemeron, whether an ordinary Week. 35 
 
 point between these extremes calculation is competent to 
 test these eqninoxes of the Tables by the same phenomena^ 
 for the same meridian, at the same points of time, as deter- 
 minable from the best modern tables — for instance, those of 
 Delambre. Yet it will never be found in any instance of this 
 kind that the mean equinoctial time of the Fasti and that of 
 the tables of Delambre differ moi-e than in proportion to the 
 difference of the standard of mean annual tropical time as- 
 sumed in each respectively, and to the cumulative amount of 
 that difference from \\. C. 1001 to the epochs in question '^ 
 
 iii. The mean annual sidereal time of the system is exhi- 
 bited in the Tables, in a compendious form, from the first 
 conjunction of the sun, for the proper meridian, with Beta 
 and Zeta Tauri. April 25 at niidn. B. C. lOOt, to the G049th, 
 June 2 A. 1). 20 15, or the 6105th, June 2 A. D. 2101 S and 
 it is in the pow'cr of modern astronomy to test these sidereal 
 ingresses also at any assumed epoch between these extremes; 
 but it will not discover any difference between its own calcu- 
 lations and the indications of our Tables, beyond the limits 
 just pointed out in the parallel case of the mean equinoctial 
 time of the Fasti, and that of the modern Tables. 
 
 iv. The mean annual anomalistic time of the system in- 
 deed has not been exhibited in the Tables, cither in annis 
 evpansis, like the mean annual tropical, or in periods of a 
 certain kind, like mean annual sidereal ; but that its epoch 
 lias been I'ightly, or at least (considering the imperfection of 
 even the modern formulae in this instance, carried back so 
 far) allowably, assumed as 0" 0' 0" B. C. 4004, has been 
 shewn f; and that the phenomena of the actual course and 
 succession of mean anomalistic time at the present day are 
 entirely in accordance with this assumption of its having set 
 out originally April 25 B.C. 4004, at 0° 0' 0", has also been 
 shewn s. 
 
 V. The mean menstrual time of the system is traced in the 
 Tables, in the Period of 301 years, from the first mean Innar 
 conjunction, for the proper meridian, April 29 at midn. B.C. 
 4004, to the 71,441st, April 10 at midn. A. D. 1773. And 
 
 ■^ Fasti, iv. 506-519. cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. Preliminary Add. cvii-rxi. 
 •■ Orifig. Kal. Hell. i. Proleg. c.xlvi-cxlviii. f Fasti, ii. 130. Origg. Kal. 
 
 Ital. Pri'limiiiary .\tld. rxi. I'xii. k Fasti, iv. 509. Introd. 207, 204. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 among these 71,440 mean lunar months it is impossible to 
 designate any one, either in time past or at present, the date 
 of which according to the Tables will be found to differ from 
 the actual date, whether as known from testimony, or as de- 
 termined b}' calculation, heretofore, or as assignable from 
 observation of the heavens at present, except as the mean 
 date of such a phenomenon is liable at all times to differ from 
 the true, or as even the mean date, cyclically reckoned, is 
 liable at stated times to differ from the natural date of the 
 same kind t, 
 
 vi. The equable Cyclical time of the system is exhibited 
 in the Tables ' from the first day of the Primitive Thoth, 
 iEra Cyc. 1, April 25 B. C. 4004 at midn. to the first of the 
 Primitive Thoth. iEra Cyc. 6008, May] A.D. 2000 at midn. 
 a period of 6007 equable years, 6003 natural or Julian. I 
 say the equable Cyclical, because another form of equable 
 time, the equable Nabonassarian, is incorporated in the 
 Tables also'. But the true reckoning of mundane time in 
 terms of equable is kept in terms of equable Cyclical. And 
 of this in particular it may be observed that, among all the 
 constituent parts of the great complex of mundane time from 
 the first, of none is the proper reckoning more easily or more 
 certainly traceable, either forwards or backwards, and in the 
 decursus of none have so many points been fixed by testi- 
 mouy ab extra. Every calendar of antiquity, the origin of 
 which has been, or may be, historically determined in this 
 very work of the Fasti and Origines, has served or will serve 
 a purpose of that kind : and one such epoch in the downward 
 course of this species of time in particular once determined, 
 nothing is easier than to ascend from that, both in the noc- 
 tidiurnal and in the hebdomadal style of equable annual time, 
 to the week of the Hexaemeron itself. It is but a process of 
 counting, as I have elsewhere observed ''. For as no year of 
 this kind ever contained more or fewer than 365 actual cycles 
 of day and night, nor consequently more or fewer than 52 
 cycles of seven such daj^s and nights complete, and one day 
 
 •^ Cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. Preliminary Add. xc-xciii. Introduction to the Tables, 
 pag. liv. Table xxii. Part xix. ' Fasti, i. 610-67.^. Origg. Kal. Ital. Preli- 
 
 minary Addres?;, xliv-1. Kal. Hell. Proleg. chi-dxix. '* Preliminary Address, 
 
 xc. cf. Introduction to the Tables, 132-137. 
 
s. 6. Mosaic Ileptaemeron, whether an ordhianj Week. 37 
 
 and night over and above of a 53rd, it is manifest that 
 equable annual time in coming downwards must advance one 
 term in the order of hebdomadal, and in going back must 
 recede one term in the order of hebdomadal, perpetually. 
 Notliing then is more easy than from a given hebdomadal 
 date in any subsequent year of this denomination to ascend 
 to the very first hebdomadal date in the first equable year 
 itself— and that will never be found to be anything but the 
 feria prima, the proper hebdomadal character of Thoth 1, 
 ^ra Cyc. 1 April 25 B. C. 1001, reckoned according to the 
 Julian rule from midnight'. 
 
 viithly and lastly, along with and parallel to each of these 
 other constituent parts of the system of mundane time, the 
 Tal)les exhibit the proper Julian time also, in the proper cycle 
 of leap-year, and in the proper solar cycle, or cycle of 28 
 years, of the system, through the Julian period sometimes of 
 112, sometimes of 1 10, and in two instances of 56 years, in 
 length — first, as the Proleptical Julian time, the necessary, 
 but still the conventional and positive, representative of the 
 natural annual, treated pro tempore as Julian, from B. C. 
 4001' to A. I). 225 ; secondly, both as the actual Julian time 
 of the system per se, in the form of simple Julian, and as 
 still the conventional representative of the natural annual, in 
 the form of Gregorian Julian, from A. D. 225 to the end of 
 the Tables. And though this is confessedly the most intri- 
 cate part of the system of the Tables, the explanations which 
 have Ijeen given of it'" are competent, I hope, to render it in- 
 telligible ; and once understood, it will be seen to be founded 
 in the reason of things. Taken with these explanations, the 
 Julian time of the existing system may be traced, in that of 
 the Tables, either forwards, from the epoch of origination, 
 April 25 at midn. B.C. 1001, to the present day, or back- 
 wards, from the present day to the epoch of origination, with 
 as much facility and as much certainty as the equable time 
 itself, fulfilling too all the while an use and purpose, rela- 
 tively to the rest, which none could fulfil but itself; that, 
 viz. of serving as the standard of reference of all the rest — 
 that of supplying the dyle or nomenclature of all the rest — 
 
 ' Preliniiiiiiry Ailil. lxxxvii-.\c. Iiilnxlintion, i.^'-i.^j. '" Origg. Kal. 
 
 Hill. i. i-lviii : Ixviii-clv. 
 
38 The three Witnesses^ and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 that of keeping the accotint of mundane time in the reckon- 
 ing of each of the rest, in a language borrowed from itself, 
 but common alike to all, and intelligible alike of all, the 
 rest. 
 
 ii. Testimony of Primitive Tradition. — With respect to the 
 testimony of tradition, and its bearing on this question of the 
 true nature and construction of the Mosaic Heptaemeron, 
 the phenomenon, to which I would first of all direct the 
 attention of the reader, is this; that, in tracing the succes- 
 sion of primitive equable solar, and primitive equable lunar, 
 time in conjunction from our assumed epoch of origination of 
 both down to the latest times, we discover a remarkable dis- 
 tinction ; viz. that the recognised epoch of equable solar time 
 from the first must have been not the first but the 8th of 
 Thoth, and the recognised epoch of equable lunar time 
 from the first must have been not the Luna la but the 
 Luna 4a, dated from the change, the Luna 3a, dated from the 
 phasis". 
 
 The fact of this distinction is established by the decursus 
 of Primitive civil solar and lunar time from this epoch of 
 origination, the Heptaemeron of Scripture, in the cycle of 
 25 years, combining both perpetually, down to the rise of the 
 first of the cycles of the same kind, which are more properly 
 to be called the Apis cycles, because they are connected his- 
 torically with the worship of the Apis among the Egyptians. 
 The first cycle of this latter kind is found to have taken its 
 rise in the ninth lunar year of the cxxiind cycle of the former 
 kind, and in the fourth month of that year, and on the regular 
 epoch of the fourth month in the ninth year of that cycle, 
 the 11th of Thoth, as regularly derived also from the regular 
 epoch of the first month in the first year of the same cycle, 
 Thoth 8. The inference from this fact is obvious; viz. That, 
 if the regular solar date of the fourth month in the ninth 
 year of this Primitive succession of the cycle of 25 years was 
 Thoth ] 1, the regular solar date of the^r^^ month in the^r*^ 
 year must have been Thoth 8". 
 
 And this discovery of the true solar date of the succession 
 of equable solar and equable lunar time, in the cycle of 25 
 
 " Fasti, iii. 354 n : iv. 368 sr)f|. Preliminary Adrlres?, xciii .\cviii. " t<ce 
 
 Fasti, iv. 384. 
 
8.6. Mosaic We^^i^QvaQvou, ivhether <ia ordinary \\e{ik. 39 
 
 yeiirs, from tlie first, thus made tVon the ascertained relation 
 of the first of the historical cycles of the same kind, the first 
 of the Apis cycles, to the corresponding cycle of the original 
 succession for the time being, is further confirmed, i. By one 
 of the styles of the Egyptian Thoth, in after-times, and one 
 of the most remarkable, and in the opinion of the Egypto- 
 logers, as they call themselves, of the present day, the most 
 difficult to be explained of all; that, viz. of the Lord of Esh- 
 monn, the Lord of Eight, the Lord of the Octave. The 
 meaninir of this title, as every one must allow, becomes ob- 
 viously easy of explanation, as soon as it is understood that 
 this Thoth himself of after-times was the impersonation of 
 the calendar, the presiding and informing principle of the 
 calendar personified, and that the calendar itself from the 
 first bore date on the 8th of the month P. We shall meet, I 
 hope, in a future calendar with another instance of the ap- 
 plication of the same title for the same or a similar reason, 
 to the same kind of Principle there too. 
 
 ii. By a similar discovery among the ancient Greeks, from 
 which it appears that, among them too, from as far back as 
 B.C. 1200, 1222, or 1117, equable solar time must have 
 been reckoned to bear date from the 7th or the 8th of the 
 month more properly than from the first 'i. 
 
 And with regard to the similar distinction in the epoch of 
 Primitive equable lunar time, — That the Primitive reckoning 
 of the civil lunar month must have borne date from some 
 lunar term later than the conjunction at least, may be in- 
 ferred, ist. from the oldest word in the Hebrew language for 
 the civil lunar month itself, which is iree ; and from the 
 proper meaning of this word in its own language, that of the 
 natural lunar month, as so called from the moon already 
 illuminated more or less, already in possession of two or three 
 days light at least, ii. From the oldest term for the civil 
 lunar month in the Greek also, which is fnh not y.r}v ; and 
 from the sense of /.leis too in that language, analogons to that 
 of tree in Hebrew •". 
 
 And that the particular phasis, supposed to have been thus 
 
 I' Fasti, iv. },•](>. 1 Kal. Hell. iv. 677 n : v. 376. ■]oG n. ' l-asti, 
 
 i. ()0 » : 259: ii. 213 »i. IVflimiiiary Addrt-ss, xivii. .\c\iii. ()ri(;|i;. Kal. Ilcll. 
 iv. xbd. 
 
40 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 cliaracte)istic of the primitive or primary Lunar montli, must 
 have been that of the Luna 4', may be inferred, ist. from 
 the traditionary reverence of that Lunar term in particular 
 among the Egyptians, as known from testimony, and older 
 than their Apis calendar itself-. 2ndly, from the recognition 
 among tliemjUevertheless^of three other lunar terms, esteemed 
 sacred as well as the Luna \^, though in an inferior degree 
 to that, the Luna P, the Luna 2^^. and the Luna 3« '. For 
 the epochal term of the entire decursus of equable lunar time 
 in the Primitive calendar, especially among the Egyptians, 
 having been the Luna 4** ; these tliree terms, the Luna I", 
 the Luna 2^, and the Luna 3'\ in relation to that must have 
 been so many ante-epochal terms, each of them in its proper 
 order of time and place necessary even to this epochal term 
 itself, and each of them consequently deriving from that 
 necessity a share in the sacredness of character of that 
 epochal term itself 
 
 Now these facts also being admitted, every unprejudiced 
 person must see that of all the explanations of them which 
 might be imagined, none is so natural, so obvious, so likely 
 a priori to be the true one, as this, viz. That it must have 
 been known to the antediluvian world from the first, and 
 must have been for some time at least remembered in the 
 postdiluvian, that the work of creation at the beginning of 
 things had been spread de facto over six days ; and that, 
 though equable noctidiurnal and annual solar time had come 
 into existence on the fa^st of these days, and equable nocti- 
 diurnal and lunar time on the fifth, Human time, as bearing 
 date from the Creation of Man, had done so only on the 
 sirth. And this having been the last day de facto of the 
 work of Creation, and the next day that of the institution 
 of the sabbath, and hebdomadal time having come to be 
 mixed, by virtue of that institution, with noctidiurnal, men- 
 strual, and annual, only on the very day after the earliest 
 possible date of the origin of human existence, it could not 
 have appeared consistent with the reason of things to begin 
 the reckoning of hebdomadal time, as the proper measure 
 from this time forward of human existence, in the cycle of 
 
 s Fasti, ii. 523 : Kal. Hell. iii. 541. ' Fi-sli, iii. .;54 n.: iv. .^6y sqq. 
 
s. 7. Whether any iiulefiuitc Period in Gen. i. 41 
 
 (lay and night, from an earlier term than the J'eria prima of 
 the first actual week, Thoth 8, reckoned from the first day 
 of the week of Creation, Thoth 1. Such is probabl}^ the 
 true account of the fixation of the epoch of the equable solar 
 calendar of the beginning to the 8th of Thoth instead of the 
 1st, which bestowed on the Impersonation of this Calendar in 
 after-times his characteristic title of the Lord of eight or the 
 eighth. And this fixation of the solar epoch of the primitive 
 calendar to the 8th of the solar month would necessarily 
 involve that of the lunar cpocli of the same calendar to the 
 1th of the lunar mouth, dated from the change, Thoth 5, or 
 to the 3rd, dated from the phasis, Thoth 6; in either case to 
 the same solar term, Thoth 8. 
 
 Section VII. — On the admissibility or non-admissibility of an 
 internal of indefinite length in any part of the first chapter 
 q/* Genesis. Testimony of the three Witnesses. 
 
 The next question, which appears to present itself for con- 
 sideration, at this stage of our inquiries, is this ; of the ad- 
 missibilit}' or inadmissibility of an indefinite interval in any 
 part of the Mosaic Cosmogony. 
 
 And on this question too, if we must confine ourselves 
 strictly to the testimony of matters of fact, and to such tes- 
 timony of that kind as we have hitherto been adducing and 
 explaining, the conclusions just established, respecting the 
 true nature and construction of the Mosaic Heptacimeron in 
 particular, must render it demonstratively certain that there 
 can be no room for an interval of this kind in the Hepta- 
 eraeron itself; i. c. from Gen. i. 3. where the first day of this 
 week must be supposed to begin, to Gen. ii. 3, where the 
 seventh may be assumed to end. 
 
 It follows that, if such an hypothesis is admissible in any 
 part of this first chapter, it must be between i. 1 and 2, or 
 between i. 2 and 3. And as to these two alternatives — To 
 assume the interposition of an indefinite interval between 
 i. 2, which describes the condition of the earth up to the eve 
 of the Heptaemeron itself, and i. 3, which begins the account 
 of the proper work of the first day of that week, would be to 
 sup[)osc this state of the earth, (the state, which Scripture 
 itself calls that of Tour and Rour -the state of No >\'oHi.n 
 
42 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 in contradistinctiou to that of a World, superinduced upon 
 it by the six-day work of Creation itself,) a state of inde- 
 finite length— continuing indeed in one direction no longer 
 than the eve of the Hexaenieron, yet going back in the 
 opposite direction to an indefinite extent — an hypothesis of 
 the previous state of its being which might be admitted to 
 be possible, but could not, in any point of view, be consi- 
 dered probable. 
 
 It follows then that, if such an interval is admissible any 
 where in the details of this chapter, it must be between the 
 first and second verses, Gen. i. 1 and 2. But as to the fact 
 of such an interval even there ; it must be left to every one 
 to decide on the question of its probability or its improba- 
 bility, its truth or its falsehood, to the best of his judgment, 
 for himself I freely confess that, when discussing this very 
 question, in the Fasti Catholici "■', it did not appear to me at 
 that time that there was any necessity for the hypothesis of 
 an undefined interval in any part of the Mosaic account of 
 the cosmogony. Further consideration however has modi- 
 fied my former convictions on this point, and induced me to 
 come to the conclusion that there probably is, after all, an 
 interval of indefinite extent, passed over in silence, but not 
 the less real on that account, between these two verses : and 
 I shall now proceed briefly to state the reasons on which this 
 change of opinion is founded. 
 
 i. If the reference to "the beginning," in the first words 
 of the chapter, is to be restricted to " the beginning" in the 
 sense of the Jirst coming into existence of that system and 
 complex of things, the details of which follow in the sequel 
 of the chapter ; then there is no account in the Cosmogony 
 of Scripture itself of that Avhich on every principle must be 
 considered "the beginning," most properly so called — the 
 first production of the vkr) or matter of things, and especially 
 the vkt] or substance of every created world, the materials of 
 which, as Scripture itself teaches-"^, were formed first of all 
 out of nothing. No one could maintain that the Cosmogony 
 which follows, as soon as it descends into particulars, is the 
 account of such a formation of a worUi, e£ ovk Svtcov, and not 
 (K -npov-napyiovrfav. No one could deny that, according to this 
 
 V Fasti, ii. 337. >> F;isti, ii. 322. 
 
s. 7. Whether any indefinite Period in Gen. i. 48 
 
 accuunt, the material mass of the earth was previously in 
 beiiij^, before the work of ///i^ Cosmogony had yet begun; 
 nor that both the matter and mass of the sun, and the mat- 
 ter and mass of the moon, had a real existence respectively, 
 whether a visible one or not, prior to the fourth day of this 
 Cosmogony, specially restricted to them as the work of this 
 fourth day might be. It may therefore be confidently af- 
 firmed, that if the first words of this cosmogony, " In the 
 beginning," do not go back to the very first act of creative 
 energy, it contains no account of that which, to our appre- 
 hension, as enlightened and informed on this point by Scrip- 
 ture itself, must always appear to be most properly, " the 
 beginning" — the very first act in the process of creation, the 
 production of the matter of the universe, before the formation 
 of any thing out of the materials so produced. 
 
 ii. If this simi)le historical statement, " In the beginning 
 God created the heavens and the earth," premised as it is 
 even to the account of our own Cosmogony, does in reality 
 go back to the very beginning of all Creation, to the very 
 first energy of creative Omnipotence, — it is sufficiently 
 general and comprehensive to take in, not only the original 
 production of the materials of our own world, but that of 
 the matter of the whole visible universe besides ; and that 
 too, whether brought into being simultaneously, as the effect 
 of a simultaneous energy, operating in innumerable instances 
 through the infinity of space at once, or as successively pro- 
 duced in any order which might be considered probable ; and 
 it is sufficiently precise and definite to be understood as 
 affirming in all these instances this one great truth, that, 
 irmumerable as these worlds might be in themselves, and 
 differently as they might be constituted one in comparison 
 of another, the matter or vKr] of all of them alike was produced 
 by their common Creator out of nothing. 
 
 iii. And though it must necessarily follow from this con- 
 struction, and this reference, of the words in question, that 
 the history of our own earth, thus supposed to have begun so 
 long before, is taken up and continued in the next verse only 
 on the eve of the Mosaic Ilcxaemeron itself, yet thus to join 
 together distinct, but notwithstanding consecutive, events in 
 the history of the same subject, — thus to affirm consequcn- 
 
44 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Curd. CH. i. 
 
 tiality ol" the particulars of such au history without affirming 
 contiuuity, — is one of the idioms of inspired history in contra- 
 distinction to uninspired — founded, no doubt, at bottom on 
 the most characteristic ditt'erence between them, viz. that, to 
 inspired history, though not to uninspired, the present and 
 the future in one and the same series of cause and effect, of 
 antecedent and consequent, are virtually the same, and the 
 most distant links in a chain of this kind are as close to each 
 other as tiie nearest. 
 
 In illustration of this idiom, it may suffice at present to 
 refer to one or two instances of it, which occur in Scripture, 
 the same in principle with that which 1 am supposing in this 
 particular case, though incomparably inferior to it in degree. 
 As for example, i. Dan. ix 25, 26. "^^ Know therefore and 
 understand that .... unto the Messiah the Prince (Leader) 
 shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks .... and 
 after (the) threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut 
 off." Here, prima facie, it appears to be predicted that the 
 cutting off of Messiah (the Leader) would be directly conti- 
 nuous on the end of the 69 weeks ; and yet it is plainly im- 
 plied by the rest of the prophecy, and it is clearly demon- 
 strated by the testimony of the event, that, between this first 
 appearance of ^Messiah in this capacity of Leader, and this 
 cutting off of the same Messiah the Leader by his death, an 
 half-week, a period of three years and six months at least, 
 devoted to his personal ministry and to that of his prede- 
 cessor the Baptist, was to intervene >'. 
 
 ii. What is still more to the point in the present iustuuce, 
 j)an v. 30, 31. "In that night Avas Belshazzar, the king of 
 the Chaldeans, slain ; and Darius the Mede took the king- 
 dom." Here the prima facie meaning seems to be, that 
 Darius succeeded to the kingdom the very night in which 
 Belshazzar was slain ; and there is probably scarcely a com- 
 mentator on the book of Daniel, ancient or modern, who has 
 not put that construction upon it. And yet it is capable of 
 proof, both from Dan. x. 13, xi. 1, and from the Canon of 
 Kings, and from the true order and names of the kings of 
 Babylon from Nebuchacbiezzar downwards, that between 
 
 y Cf. my Dibscrtaliuiis on tliu I'liiifiiik:-, iS:<'. of an Ilairiiniiy, vol. iv. ,^72- 
 381 sqq. 
 
s. 7. Ulietlicr any indefinito Pcr'toil in CUn. I. 15 
 
 thoso two ovcnts thei'C was in reality an interval of 21 years. 
 But with the knowledge of the idiom of inspired history, 
 whieh I am attempting to illustrate, it is sufficient to account 
 for the juxtaposition of the later with the earlier event of this 
 kind, that they were in reality consecutive, though not con- 
 tinuous; that the later really happened at the very same 
 time of the year, and almost under the very same circum- 
 stances, as the earlier^. 
 
 The state of the case then at this period of the history of 
 our earth, and of every thing connected with it, denoted by 
 Gen. i. 2, just on the eve of the Mosaic Ilexaemeron, is this; 
 viz. That, even at that moment the earth itself was in beingr, 
 revolving round its own centre, and revolving round the sun; 
 and its satellite the moon was in being also, revolving round 
 the earth ; and the suu, the centre of attraction to both, was 
 in being too. And even on the eve of the Mosaic He.xai'- 
 meron, every thing was going on in these several respects, as 
 it has gone on from the first day of the Hexaemeron to this 
 day, only in the Dark. The earth was destitute of light, 
 destitute of an atmosphere, destitute of life; covered with 
 water, and shi'ouded on all sides in darkness''. 
 
 And this being the actual state of the case just on the 
 eve of the Mosaic Creation, the question wl.ich naturally 
 occurs at this stage of the argument, is, How long before the 
 beginning of the Mosaic Hexaemeron must this state and 
 condition of things be supposed to have been continuing? In 
 answer to which, I observe, 1st, It has been demonstrated, 
 and may now be assumed as an incontrovertible matter of 
 fact, that the proper cycle of leap-year of the present system 
 of things, traced back from any epoch of that cjxle at the 
 present day, whether March 1 at midnight or April 25 at 
 midnight, will pass one year at least (whether it will neces- 
 sarily pass more than one or not) beyond the epoch of the 
 Mosaic Ilexaemeron itself. 
 
 ii. It will be seen by and by, that the last three years of 
 this first proper cycle of the leap-year of the system were de 
 facto the measure of the duration of the state of Paradise, 
 the state of innocence, beginning with the Creation of Alan, 
 
 *■ .Vpiieiulix. Hole I. a Fiisti, ii. 55 si|t|. 
 
46 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 and ending with the Fall ; and therefore, we may presume, 
 were always intended to be so. It will also be seen that 
 these last three years of the cycle, though necessarily the 
 first three years of mundane existence, and the first three 
 years of human existence, (as both dated from the Hexae- 
 meron,) are nevertheless not reckoned in Scripture to the 
 account of the Life of the first man ; which is therein dated 
 not from the day of liis Creation, but from the day of his 
 Fall. 
 
 iii. From these distinctions, as matters of fact, it is an 
 obvious inference, that this first cycle of the leap-year of the 
 system must have been something sui generis, a cycle of 
 that kind, which, for some reason or other, must stand mid- 
 way between the decursus of Julian time, as measured or 
 measurable perpetually by such a cycle before itself, and the 
 decursus of Julian time, as similarly measured or measurable 
 after itself; yet be equally isolated relatively to both. And 
 this peculiarity of its nature and position perhaps could not 
 be better expressed than by calling this first proper cycle of 
 the true Julian time of the existing system of things, the last 
 of a succession of that kind in the continued decursus of an 
 ajra, when the law of existence even of such a creature as 
 Man was not yet the law of Mortality — the law of a finite 
 existence, whether greater or less in itself, between the be- 
 ginning of being by Birth, and the termination of being by 
 Death ; and calling the second such cycle the first of a 
 succession of the same kind in the decursus of an jera, when 
 the law of human existence was now the law of Mortality, 
 the law of a finite interval, called Life, between the moment 
 of birth and the moment of death ; and therefore necessarily 
 dated from the Fall of Man'\ 
 
 iv. The actual system of things then, which came into 
 being at the epoch of the Mosaic creation, and has continued 
 in being ever since, having taken its rise in the second year 
 of \\\e first cycle of leap-year of the system, and on April 
 25 in this year, the state of things immediateh' prior to it, 
 which Scripture calls Tohu and Bohu, must have come to an 
 end on the same day : and it is an obvious inference from 
 this coincidence, that, if the state of Tohu and Bohu came to 
 
 '' Fiisti, ii. 2.',6-2-;o. 267 v. 
 
s. 7. Whi'tlicr anil indefinite Period in Gen. i. 17 
 
 an end just on the eve of the second year of this cycle, it 
 must have begun just at tlie ingress of the fn^st; and if the 
 second year began on April 25, the first must have begun on 
 April 25 or 2 !• also. 
 
 V. The Noctidiurnal, the Hebdomadal, the Natural annual, 
 and the Julian annual, time of the system, which enter the 
 Tables of the Fasti de facto in the second year of this cycle 
 B.C. 4004, Dom.Lett. C, at Oh. Om. 21-6 sec. from midnight, 
 for the proper meridian, April 25, the feria prima, set back, 
 in the same relations to each other, to the first year of this 
 cycle, B. C. 1005, Dom, Lett. D, must have been found en- 
 tering the Tables at IS h. 11 m. 31-2 sec. from midnight, for 
 the same meridian, April 24 the fena sexta, by the Julian 
 rule, April 24 the feria fn^ptlma inennte, by the primitive 
 rule. 
 
 vi. And such being the state of the case at the ingress of 
 this first proper cycle of leap-year of the proper Julian time 
 of the present system of things, that just at this time, April 
 24 at 18 h, 11 m. 31-2 sec. from midnight on the feria septima 
 ineiinte, according to the primitive rule, the earth was arrived, 
 or on the point of arriving, at the mean vernal equinox for 
 the meridian of the ancient Jerusalem ; let the place of the 
 moon, at the same time and for the same meridian, be next 
 inquired into. And this problem having been solved with 
 all the exactness of which modern astronomy is capable, (for 
 questions of this kind at least, which go so far back from the 
 present day,) the result is found to be as fellows'^. 
 
 B. C. 4005. ii. 111. s. 
 
 Mean full moon, April 24 17 i 40 ni.t. Greenwich. 
 
 April 24 19 22 27 m.t. Jerusalem. 
 
 True full moon, April 24 19 59 2']' 4^6 m.t. Greenwich. 
 April 24 22 20 I4"456 m.t. Jerusalem. 
 
 That is, the moon also was at the full, for the meridian of 
 Jerusalem, on this day, April 24 B. 0. 4005, about 1 h. and 
 40 ra. before the point of midnight. And that having been 
 the case, the time of the year being that of the vernal equi- 
 nox, aTid the length of the night equal to that of the day, 
 and the siuj being on the lower meridian and the moon ou 
 
 f Fasti, iv. 640-642. 
 
48 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch, i. 
 
 the upper, almost at the same moment, it cannot be consi- 
 dered improbable that as the actual state of things this year, 
 B.C. 4005, and on this day, April 21, the /ma septiina of 
 the hebdomadal cycle by the primitive rule ineunte, at 18 h. 
 from midnight, the sun was setting in the west, and the 
 moon was rising in the east, at the very same time, or 
 nearly so. 
 
 vii. And this year, B. C. 4005, dated from April 21, hav- 
 ing been the first year of the proper cycle of leap-year of the 
 present system, and the year of Tohu and Bohu, as it has 
 been shewn, having begun and ended with this year; it fol- 
 lows that, whatsoever the state of things in and upon the 
 earth, denoted by Tohu and Bohu, while it lasted, it must 
 have begun on this day, April 21 B. C. 1005, and at this time 
 of this day, 18 hours from midniglit. And one of the cha- 
 racters of this state, defined by Scripture itself, being the 
 absence of light, and another, similarly defined, being the 
 predominance of the element of water, — it is a necessary in- 
 ference from both these facts, that this state of Tohu and 
 Bohu, dated from April 24 at 18 h. B.C. 4005, must have 
 been ushered in first by an instantaneous extinction of the 
 light of the sun just descending below the horizon in the 
 west, and simultaneously with it, because a necessary conse- 
 quence of it, of that of the moon just ascending above the 
 horizon in the east ; and secondly, with a predominance of 
 the watery element, equally instantaneous, in whatsoever 
 manner brought about, whether by the instant precipitation 
 of the atmosphere, with all the vapours before held in solu- 
 tion in it, or the instant bringing up of the sea on the dry 
 land, — or by both at once. 
 
 viii. And here it is necessary to refer the reader to the 
 explanation of 2 Pet. iii. 3-7, given in the first Part of this 
 work 'J, and of the allusion, which occurs there, to an Earth, 
 and an Heaven or Heavens, analogous to those of the present 
 world, which had once existed, and had ceased to exist, 
 before those of the present world, and to the instrumental 
 means of their destruction, the element of water — and, 
 through the analogy of this destruction of a former world, 
 altogether the same in general witli the present, by AVater, 
 
 •^ Fasli. ii. .545. 
 
s. 7. Whetkei' any indefinite Period in Oen. i. 49 
 
 to the inference, deiivable from that fact, of the certainty of 
 tlic future destruction of the pi-csent world also, as predicted 
 by the word of God, in due time, by Fire. 
 
 It would Ijc a great misapprehension of the true drift and 
 meaning of these allusions, as I shewed, to understand them 
 simply of the Deluge of Noah, — which was indeed the de- 
 struction of every kind of life upon the earth, but in no sense 
 a destruction of the earth itself, a dissolution of tiie material 
 texture of the earth, — much less a destruction of the heavens 
 also, even in the idiomatic sense of that term in Scripture, 
 whereby it is restricted to the atmosphere which surrounds 
 the earth. This atmosphere was not dissolved by the deluge 
 of Noah ; but tiie earth, as the subject of the deluge of Tohu 
 and Bohu, could have had no atmosphere, or must have lost 
 its atmosphere. It recovered its atmosphere only on the 
 second day of the same Hexaemerou, which in its totality 
 undid the work of that deluge in its totality also. 
 
 But if this allusion to a prior destruction of the same kind 
 of earth and the same kind of heavens, as the present, and 
 through the instrumentality of water, is not to be referred to 
 the deluge of Noah, to what can it be referrible, in the his- 
 tory of the earth, earlier than the deluge of Noah, (and 
 known, or capable of being known, even to the very scoffers 
 and doubters addressed in this part of the Epistle,) except 
 the deluge of Tohu and Bohu? or to what intervention ab 
 extra, as the proper cause of such an effect on such a sub- 
 ject, but that which, just at the ingress of this year, as we 
 have seen reason to conclude, stepped in, and reduced the 
 earth, perhaps in an instant of time, to that state in which it 
 was found still existing on the eve of the Mosaic llexaemeron 
 itself.' 
 
 ix. This state of things in the Ante-Mosaic iEra of the 
 Earth's existence, which Scripture designates as that of Tohu 
 and Bohu, {without form, and void,) profane antiquity in 
 general and classical antiquity in particular express by the 
 name of Chaos ; understanding by that name the vkr] of 
 material existences in an elementary state — the matter of a 
 world, in a state of dissolution, and indiscriminately uiixed 
 together. And it may be added to the other proofs of the 
 truth of the Scriptural account of the origin of the present 
 
 B 
 
50 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 world, out of a state of which the two principal characteristics 
 were the privation of light and the predominance of the ele- 
 ment of water upon its surface every vvliere, that, according 
 to primitive tradition also, as embodied in every Cosmogony 
 of profane antiquity, the characters of the primordial state of 
 things, older than any world, yet the matrix or cradle of 
 every world, were these two more particularly, Darkness and 
 the Deep ^ 
 
 X. Lastly, if the light both of the sun and of the moon was 
 suppressed, and the breath of life itself was withdrawn by the 
 dissolution of the atmosphere, just at the ingress of this year 
 of Toliu and Bohu ; it is a necessary interence from that fact 
 that life of every kind, whether upon or in the earth itself, 
 must have been extinguished at the same moment. And it 
 will follow from this fact too that whatsoever, and how many 
 soever, the forms and modes of animated material existence 
 before in being up to the ingress of this year, none of thera 
 could have continued in being through that year. It will 
 follow from this fact also that no kind or variety of animated 
 nature, which is now in being on the face of the earth, 
 can possibly date its existence from an earlier epoch than 
 the Mosaic Creation. And it follows from both these facts 
 that it must be equally impossible to trace any kind of life, 
 older than the Mosaic Creation, by natural descent lower 
 down than this epoch of Tohu and Bohu, or any kind of life, 
 younger than the Mosaic Creation, by natural ascent further 
 back than the epoch of the Mosaic Creation. 
 
 And this must be fatal to the newly broached hypothesis 
 of the derivation of all the varieties of animal and sentient 
 life with which naturalists are acquainted at present, from 
 certain imaginary archetypal forms, (possibly the work of 
 some creator ab extra to themselves,) endued with an in- 
 stinct which this hypothesis calls that of Natural Selec- 
 tion ; impelling each inferior order of such beings to aspire 
 at, and to work out, its own perfection, in the way of what it 
 also calls the Migration of Species ; as if on a graduated 
 scale, from an inferior to an higher perpetually. This theory 
 supposes an instinct of that kind, and tending in this direc- 
 tion perpetually, whereby to account for the gradual deve- 
 
 c Origs?- Kal. Holl. iv. 415. 
 
s. 7. ir/iefhrr ami iiulefinite Period in Gen. i. 7A 
 
 lopment of the most perfect, out of the most rude and 
 elementary and imperfect, of the same kind of beings in 
 general ; but it does not dispense with the ordinary process 
 of natural propagation also, as necessarily going along with 
 this of the selection and migration of species. If so — grant- 
 ing even that such an hypothesis per se were as probable 
 a priori as it is improbable — granting that it was as capable 
 of being confirmed by phenomena and the evidence of the 
 fact, as it is incapable — granting that the genera and species 
 of extinct life, brought to light by geology, and those which 
 are in existence on the earth at present, were the same — 
 granting the hypothesis also the utmost length of time, for 
 the development and completion of its process of selection 
 and migration, which it might demand — still, as a means of 
 connecting life yet in existence in or upon our globe, with 
 life which once existed in or upon it, by any process of 
 selection and migration, in the way of uninterrupted natural 
 propagation and descent also, is simply absurd, simply ridi- 
 culous, because absolutely and totally impossible. The year 
 of Tohu and Bohii has eflectually barred this hypothesis ; 
 and interposed a chasm between all life before, and all life 
 after, its own proper limits, which no hardihood of conjec- 
 ture, or freedom of assumption, will ever bridge over and 
 pass. Trace this process of selection and migration from 
 the very first day of the Material Creation down to the very 
 first day of that year, as you may, it must necessarily stop 
 short there. The threads of life on the other side of that 
 year can never be connected, in the same living tissues, with 
 the threads of life on this side of it. All ante-Mosaic life 
 must end with the ingress of the year of Tohu and Bohu, 
 and all post-Mosaic life must begin only with the Hexae- 
 meron ; and neither can have any thing in common with the 
 other, except that possibly, (though, in my opinion, even 
 that is by no means certain,) both might be the work of the 
 same Creator ^ . 
 
 f Apjiciulix, note K. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 The ^Aree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 Section VIII. — On the ceconomy of the first three days of the 
 Hexaemeron, in having had light before the appearance of 
 the sun. Testimony of the Witnesses, 
 
 That, acccording to the prima facie construction of the 
 Mosaic account of the Hexaemeron, there was something 
 peculiar to the first three days of that week, in contradis- 
 tinction to the last three, is universally admitted. We must 
 begin therefore with endeavouring to ascertain in what that 
 peculiarity consisted. 
 
 Now, i. that it did not consist in the length of these first 
 three days, or in the rule of the reckoning of these first three, 
 as any thing different from the length of the last three, or 
 the rule of the reckoning of the last three, is clear from the 
 fact that one and the same measure of duration, that of a 
 vv)(dr]fx€pov properly so called, and one and the same rule of 
 reckoning that vv^dw^pov, from evening to morning — and 
 from morning to evening — is applied by the Scriptural ac- 
 count itself to both alike. 
 
 And, ii. though this primitive rule of the noctidiurnal 
 cycle itself was originally founded on the fact, (known to us 
 at present from Scripture, and known to the antediluvian 
 and the postdiluvian world from tradition,) that the ante- 
 mundane state of things was one of darkness, and the first 
 noctidiurnal cycle came into being out of the darkness of 
 Chaos itself; yet that the peculiarity of thh first cycle, and 
 of the tivo next to it, did not consist in the proportion of the 
 parts of each, one to the other, as not equally divided be- 
 tween light and dark, or dark and light, appears from the 
 fact that the proper work of the first of these days, the very 
 first act of Creation itself, was the production of light for the 
 use of this day, and as a means of distinguishing the evening 
 of this day from the morning of this day, and vice versa. 
 
 In what then did it consist ? We may answer First, with 
 certainty. In having had light, yet before any sensible mani- 
 festation of the sun ; consequently not derived from the sun. 
 Secondly, with much probability. In having had this light 
 kindled in the first of these instances, at the middle point of 
 the equinoctial day, 6 a. m., and extinguished again at the 
 
s. 8. First three days of the Hexaemerou. 53 
 
 end. 6 p. M., and rekindled and reextinguished on the second 
 and tliird, at the same two times respectively, by the act of 
 the Deity himself. Thirdly — there being as yet no atmo- 
 sphere, on the first of these days, to refract the rays of this 
 light, so kindled by the Deity himself — if it had emanated 
 from the horizon alone — in the fact that the light of this 
 first day, and (from the analogy of the case of the second 
 and the third day, in other respects, to that of this first day,) 
 the light of the second and the third day, thus made to ap- 
 pear at a stated time in each instance inde])endently of the 
 sun, in order that it might fall on every part of one and the 
 same hemisphere of the earth at once, was probably radiated 
 from the zenith as well as the horizon at once ?. 
 
 And such, to the best of my judgment, having been the 
 kind and degree of the anomaly peculiar to the first three 
 days of the Hexaemeron, though from the nature and cir- 
 cumstances of the case, neither the natural nor the civil 
 meaures of time were calculated to reflect it in their own 
 decursus, or to convey any sensible proof of it to posterity, 
 yet it was one of those things, as every one must allow, 
 which, if known to Primitive Tradition, was as likely to be 
 kept in mind and handed down historically, as any thing in 
 this whole cjcconomy of the week of Creation besides, which 
 could be mentioned. 
 
 Accordingly, account for the mode or channel of its trans- 
 mission as we may, a very striking confirmation of this one 
 circumstance of the Mosaic Cosmogony, the osconomy of the 
 first three days in contradistinction to that of the last three, 
 in those respects which have just been pointed out, is dis- 
 coverable among the Creeks, in an institution of Hellenic 
 antiquity, the AvKaia of the ancient Arcadians, of which I 
 have given an account in the third Part of my work*'. 
 
 It has there been shewn, i. that the name of this institu- 
 tion, TO. AvKaia, on etymological principles, is derivable only 
 from XvKT], and the proper sense of kvKi) in Greek, whether 
 that of twilight in our language or not, yet under all circum- 
 stances is that of light not derived (not sensibly at least de- 
 rived) from the sun ; and consequently that to. AvKata, to. rf/v 
 
 » Cf. Fasti, ii. 2-10. '' Origg. Kal. HcU. iv. 567-6.^1. 
 
54 The Mjre Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. en i. 
 
 AvKt^s Upa, was " The feast of liglit, not derived from the 
 sun'." 
 
 ii. That an instance of the actual observance of this solem- 
 nity according to its proper rule, by the Arcadians^ to whom 
 it was peculiar, B. C. 1-01, is recorded in the Anabasis of 
 Xenophon ; from which we learn first, the length of time for 
 which it lasted, three days; secondly, through the chrono- 
 logy of the Anabasis ^, the Julian dates of these three days 
 B. C.401, April 21, 2.2, and 23 ; thirdly, through these three 
 Julian terms, the three lunar terms, corresponding to them, 
 in the Arcadian calendar of the time being. Fourthly and 
 lastly, (the observance having been an annual one.) from the 
 proper lunar and proper Julian dates of the ceremony in a 
 given year, and a given month of that year, of the proper 
 cycle of the calendar, thus ascertained, we are enabled to 
 ascend to the same three lunar dates, and their corresponding 
 Julian dates, in the same month in the first year of the 
 cycle. And the institution itself having been much older 
 among the Arcadians than their proper Lunar Correction, 
 when Ave have got to the Julian dates of this more ancient 
 solemnity in the first year of the Correction, and in the pro- 
 per month of that year, we have recovered its proper Julian 
 dates from the first '. 
 
 Now the Julian dates, so obtained at last, turn out to be 
 these three, April 25, April 26, and April 27 — the very three 
 Julian dates of the first three days of the Mosaic Hexaeme- 
 rou, April 25, April 26, and April 27 also. And these three 
 days, under these three Julian denominations respectively, 
 having been the three in that week, which had light not de- 
 rived from tlie sun, and those three Julian terms also having 
 been the stated Julian dates of the three ferise of the Lyka?an 
 institution, (i. e. of the feast of light, not derived from the 
 SI/11,) what can be inferred from this coincidence except that, 
 among the Aicadiaus, down to the institution of this festival, 
 tradition must have perpetuated the fact, which we know at 
 present only from Scripture, that the first three days of 
 Mundane time, though not peculiar in having had light ex- 
 
 ' Origg. Kail. HvU. iv. 572-58:. ^ Ibul. ii. 21^-164. :20. 
 
 I Ibid. iv. 5f'7-572 5S^, 5,8.;. 580, ;8i. 
 
s. y. Deluge of Scripture. 55 
 
 clusively, were so, in having had light not derived from the 
 Sim; and that this solemnity was purposely instituted as a 
 meraorial of that fact ? 
 
 This one of the traditions of the ancient Arcadians, relat- 
 ing to the origin of light, is confirmed and illustrated by 
 another, relating to their own origin, and that of their city 
 of Lycosura ; of which also 1 have given an account"' — 
 viz. That both came into existence on the first of the days 
 which had light in the natural way— light derived from the 
 sun — and along with the sun itself; i. e. on the fourth of the 
 days of the Hexaemeron. And this too is illustrated by an- 
 other, founded at bottom upon it, that the Arcadians were 
 older than the moon, though not older than the sun. For 
 so they must have been, if they came into existence along 
 with the nun, four days before the recognised epoch of lunar 
 time, the luna quurta ". 
 
 These traditions derive much autiiority from their anti- 
 quity ; being older among the Arcadians themselves than 
 their own Lyksea, though the date of that too was B. C. 1260. 
 Nor does it detract from their weight that they are probably 
 to be traced to the land of Canaan, and were brought into 
 Greece by a colony of Arkites, escaping from the extermiua- 
 tion of the inhabitants of the nortii of Canaan, in the time 
 of Barak, (about B. C. 1330^) — who there became the nation 
 of the Arcadians. Not that even in Greece they appear to 
 have been peculiar to the Arcadians. The name at least of 
 the oldest settlement on Mount Parnassus, (older than Del- 
 phi,) Au/ccripetaP, and the name of the Natalitial month of 
 Mundane time in the calendar of Thessaly, AwKeoj'i, were 
 very probably founded on the same or similar traditions in 
 those quarters also. 
 
 Section IX. — On the Ueluge of Scripture, and the difficulties 
 connected with it ; and on the confirmation of the fact, 
 in its pro}>er order of time, bij the testimony of the three 
 Witnesses. 
 The difficulty, whicii lies in the way of an unhesitating 
 
 reception of the Scriptural account of the Deluge, is probably 
 
 "> OrigR. Kail. 11.11. iv.577. CI', supra, 25. " IbUl. iv. 582. 585. 
 
 " Iliid. 6o.i, 604. I' Ibiil. V. 67.V 'I ibid. ii. 4S0. 
 
56 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. en. i . 
 
 to be traced to two principal objections, the most likely of all 
 to occur on reading this account. One, fi'om the supposed 
 universality of the deluge, and its consequent extension to all 
 parts of the earth, — implying a proportional increase in the 
 human species, and a corresponding diffusion of mankind, 
 over all parts of the earth, in the (comparatively speaking) 
 short interval between the Creation and the Flood, — the 
 other, the derivation not only of mankind, but of every kind 
 of living animal besides, birds and beasts, insects and rep- 
 tiles, (of every one in short but fishes, and the other inhabit- 
 ants of the deep,) in all parts of the earth at present, from 
 the individual representatives of each, preserved in the ark. 
 Other stumblingblocks there may be, opposed to an implicit 
 belief in this great Scriptural fact. But there are none, in 
 my opinion, so naturally liable to occur even to minds not of 
 a sceptical turn, as these two. If these two can be removed, 
 every other prejudice which is likely to interfere with the 
 full and entire effect of the testimony of Scripture itself, — so 
 plainly given historically to this one great fact — or with that 
 of the corroborative testimony of the three Witnesses, which 
 comes in here to attest the truth of the history of Scripture 
 in this one of its particulars, more directly perhaps and more 
 unequivocally than any where else, will be in a great measure 
 removed also. Let us therefore briefly consider these two 
 objections ; beginning with the first mentioned, That of the 
 universality of the Deluge, and the consequent universality 
 of the subjects of such a visitation, in every part of the 
 world, — the former affirmed, the latter implied, in the Scrip- 
 tural account of the event. 
 
 i. The foundation of this difficulty is the implicit assurap- 
 T|B^that the antediluvian world in its external form and 
 appearance, its superficial divisions and distinctions, its con- 
 tinents and its seas, its islands and its lakes, and the like, was 
 only the prototype of the postdiluvian; and that the post- 
 diluvian world, constituted as it is in these respects, is only 
 a reflection and counterpart of the antediluvian. But is that 
 assumption agreeable to the matter of fact? To come to 
 some decision on that question, we must proceed as follows : 
 i. The total or complex of the visible universe, in the idiom 
 and style of Scripture, (as the very first verse of Genesis is 
 
s. y. Deluga of Scripture. 57 
 
 competent to prove,) in order to render it intelligible to the 
 human comprehension, is summed up and expressed in the 
 general designation of the Heavens and the Earth — in which, 
 from the necessit}' of the case, the heavens must stand for 
 every part of the visible universe, (the sun, the moon, the 
 planets, and the stars,) which is not the earth, and the earth 
 for every thing which is not the heavens. 
 
 ii. The earth, in this sense, and this relation, is a congeries 
 of particles of matter of various kinds, the most comprehen- 
 sive division of which, on a superficial and merely sensible 
 survey of its composition, is into so/Id and non-solid, i. e. 
 fluid; and the name of the earth, as applied to the whole of 
 its material mass in the complex, must be applicable to it at 
 first sight, as made up of these two divisions of its substance 
 in particular, more than of any thing else. 
 
 iii. The idiom of Scripture, when speaking of the earth 
 and of its component parts collectively, is agreeable to this 
 distinction. The term which it uses for that purpose is !^lt^ 
 or Arets, and the first instance of its use in Scripture is Gen. 
 i. 1 and 2 itself; and its sense as so used there, by the con- 
 text and by the necessity of the case, is restricted to the 
 meaning of which I am speaking — that of a material mass, of 
 some definite form and shape, made up of elements partly 
 solid and partly fluid, but as yet not separated, nor distin- 
 guishable, asunder. 
 
 iv. And the earth, as a material body so constituted, being 
 thus proposed under the name of .-1 rets, not only before the 
 work of the Hexaemeron had been begun, but also through 
 the first and second day of the Hexaemeron itself; it is very 
 observable that the first work of the third day was the sepa- 
 ration of the two component parts of this material body — 
 such as they must have appeared until now — the fluid as 
 such, and the solid as such, one from the other : and the 
 separation having been effected by the retreat of the fluid, 
 before distrjj^yited over the whole of the surface of the solid 
 part, from^l^rtain part of that solid part, in contradis- 
 tinction to the rest, the name, which Scripture gives for the 
 first time to the part of the solid still covered by the fluid, is 
 D''^^"' or seas, and the name which it gives to the part of the 
 solid no longer covered by the fluid, first and properly is that 
 
58 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. cii. i. 
 
 of ntr'2"^n, He-ibeshe, "the dry land" — secondarily, it is 
 that of arets, still ; i. e. the name of the whole, as a solid 
 and a fluid mass indiscriminately, before, transferred by 
 synecdoche to the principal part of the solid now separated 
 from tiie fluid "". 
 
 V. The command, which produced this change in the ex- 
 ternal appearance of the earth on this one day, having been 
 this ; " Let the waters under the heaven be gathered unto 
 one place, and let the dry land appear/' — and the efiect, 
 which followed upon it, being described accordingly ; the 
 natural inference from the prescribed course, and the de- 
 clared efl"ect, of this oeconomy is, that if the waters under the 
 heaven, so commanded to be gathered unto one place, were 
 the waters, before encompassing the earth, and covering its 
 surface every where, as encircled by the atmosphere also, 
 here called the heaven — then these waters, so commanded to 
 be gathered unto one place, having obeyed this command 
 accordingly, must actually have been gathered unto one 
 place : and it must be a necessary inference also from that 
 fact that, howsoever large the resulting collection of the 
 watery element into one place, and howsoever ample and ca- 
 pacious the receptacle provided for it, the former must still 
 have constituted only one mass of watery particles, and the 
 latter only one bed, as the appointed reservoir of them all s. 
 
 And this conclusion is very materially confirmed by the 
 names directly after given, and by the mouth of the Creator 
 himself, to the two parts of the Terraqueous Globe, now^ 
 apparently for the first time distinguished asunder, " And 
 God called the dry la7ul Earth {arets), and the gathering 
 together of the waters called he seas." For though the 
 word, here translated seas, is certainly plural in the original, 
 the gathering together of the waters, which as so gathered 
 together were called seas, is spoken of in the singular. It 
 is not many gatherings together of so many diftereut parts 
 of the watery element into so many dirterent places, which 
 were thus called seas ; but one gathering together of the 
 whole of this element into one place, which was now for the 
 first time called seas. 
 
 And as to the word in the original, which is here rendered 
 
 f ft'. Ps. xlv. ;. » Cf. Ps. .\x.\iii. 7. 
 
s. y. Deluge of Scripture. 59 
 
 hy seas, the word for water in Hebrew, in the singular, is 
 ^^72, or mi, and the word for sea is CD"^> or im — and these are 
 evidently so I'ehitcd that, on grammatical or etymological 
 principles, no one could hesitate to conclude that one of 
 them, merely by inverting the letters common to both. 
 might have been, and probably was, derived from the other. 
 And on this supposition — forasmuch as the element of water 
 must have been prior in the order of being to any collection 
 of itself into one mass called a sea, it must appear much more 
 consistent to derive i/n from mi, than mi from im. In that 
 case the principle or rationale of the name of the clement of 
 water, thus modified, and transferred to the idea of a sea, 
 Avill be simply the fact that, between the idea of a sea and 
 that of the element of water, the dift'erence is one of degree 
 not of kind. A sea is a congeries of tlie element of water: 
 and no such congeries could have been called by the name 
 of its elementary and individual parts, in its most intense 
 signification, more justly than that which was now so de- 
 signated, and apparently for the first time, on the third day 
 of the Ilexaemeron •^. 
 
 vi. It follows from these conclusions that, from and after 
 the work of this third day, there could have been no visible 
 distinction in the external appearance of the earth, as a 
 body composed partly of solid partly of fluid materials, ex- 
 cept that of a terraqueous globe, divided into tw o great sec- 
 tions, one, that of the solid part of its substance as far as it 
 was exposed to view, the other, that of the fluid. If so. one 
 great and characteristic diflerence between the antediluvian 
 and the postdiluvian world must clearly have been t/iis ; 
 That, whereas the postdiluvian world, so far as its superficial 
 and external appearance is concerned, always has been and 
 still is divided into four main lands called continents, and 
 four principal collections of the watery element at least, 
 called oceans, besides innumerable islands and rivers and 
 lakes, the antediluvian world, from the Creation to the De- 
 luge, could have been distinguishable externally only into 
 one main land or continent, and into one great receptacle of 
 the watery element, called an ocean or sea. 
 
 vii. Moreover, as the [jostdiluvian world is constiluLcil at 
 
 ' Ajuiciulix, iiolu L. 
 
60 The three \\\ixie^^es^ and the threefold Cor A. ch. i. 
 
 present, and has been ever since the deluge, it was usual 
 with the geographers of antiquity, and it has scarcely yet 
 ceased to be the usage of modern, to divide its surface into 
 that part, or those parts, which, as subjected to no immo- 
 derate degrees either of heat or of cold, appeared to have 
 been adapted by nature itself to the wants and necessities 
 of animal and social existence, and into those other parts, 
 which, from the excess of heat or of cold to which they were 
 liable, appeared to have been disqualified, or only very im- 
 perfectly qualified, for life and society. And this habitable 
 part of the earth, as constituted and discriminated at present, 
 the Greek geographers called the olKovixivq. 
 
 Now the use which I make of the fact of this distinction 
 between the habitable and the uninhabitable parts of the earth 
 at present is to observe. That a similar distinction in the 
 earth before the Flood is recognised in Scripture, and that 
 what the Greek geographers called the oiKovixevrj of the post- 
 diluvian world, Scriptural geography calls the Thebel of the 
 antediluvian, from the Creation to the Flood. But I also 
 observe that, between the ohovyiivr] of the postdiluvian and 
 the Thebel of the antediluvian, there is this great difference ; 
 viz. That whereas the olKovixivr] of ancient geography was but 
 a quota pars of the whole terra firma of the postdiluvian 
 world, the Thebel of Scripture was the whole of the terra 
 firma, the dry land, or the mainland, of the world before the 
 Flood. The whole of the earth, as a terraqueous globe, whe- 
 ther before or after the deluge, being divided into two great 
 Hemispheres, north and south of the equator respectively ; 
 the southern Hemisphere, both before and after the deluge, 
 is entirely ignored in Scripture — before, as covered all over 
 with water, — as no part of the dr}^ land from the Ci'eation to 
 the Deluge at least — after, whether part of the dry land or 
 not, and whetlier habitable or inhabited or not, yet as in 
 nowise concerned with the proper history of Scripture itself. 
 The Thebel of Scripture, the oIkovix^vt) of Scripture, conse- 
 quently both before and after the Flood is entirely confined 
 to the northern Hemisphere ; and the point, which has to be 
 established concerning it at present, is t/iis — That whatsoever 
 the exteiit of the Thebel or oiKovfxivy] of Scripture, in compa- 
 rison of tiiat of the entire surface of the terra Jirma or dry 
 
s. 9- Deluge of Scripture. 61 
 
 land, since the Flood, it was coextensive with this terra firma 
 or dry land itself, before the Flood. 
 
 Now that the Thebel of the antediluvian world must have 
 been coextensive with the dry land, may be inferred, i. from 
 the etymon and meaning of this name itself v, which, being 
 derived, according to the best Hebrew scholars, from a verb 
 in its own language denoting to be fertile, or productive, car- 
 ries with it virtute termini the idea of the fertile and pro- 
 ductive, and consequently the habitable part of the earth, 
 under all circumstances, ii. From the characteristic distinc- 
 tion of the whole of the Mosaic creation, just as it was left 
 by the Creator on the last day of the Hexaemeron — that all 
 was good, was verij good — good in itself, good for all the uses 
 and purposes unto which it had been designated from the 
 first. If so, either there could have been no Thebel of this 
 £era, in contradistinction to the Arets, — no part of the Dry 
 Land more fertile and productive, more habitable, than an- 
 other, or, if there was one, from the necessity of the case, the 
 Thebel and the Dry Land of such an earth and such an sera 
 of its existence must iiave been convertible terms, and one 
 just as extensive as the other. 
 
 And with respect to the actual magnitude of this primitive 
 Thebel or olKov\iivr], whatsoever it was^ yet, as designed ori- 
 ginally by its Creator for one use and purpose only, that of 
 the proper habitation of man, during the state of Paradise, 
 or at the utmost between the Creation and the Flood, it is 
 to be presumed that its limits would not be indefinitely large, 
 but critically accommodated to those of the foreseen increase 
 and diffusion of mankind between the same epochs also. 
 Nor, if we may only assume (and on the authority of Scrip- 
 ture too) that one of the localities certainly comprehended 
 in this antediluvian Thebel was the Garden of Eden or Para- 
 dise, and that one of the rivers of the postdiluvian world, 
 traced up to its source, was a river of Paradise, and that 
 three of the localities of the Palestine of after-times, mount 
 Lebanon on the north, Jerusalem in the south, and Tyre in 
 the west, were localities of Paradise also, would it be difficult 
 perhaps to divine the extent of the antediluvian Thebel itself. 
 It might be conjectured at least with great probability, even 
 ' Apj>t'mlix, note M. 
 
02 The i/tree Witnesses, and the threefold (,'ord. ch. i. 
 
 from the superficial state and character of the circumjacent 
 regions at present, that the sandy deserts of Libya, Arabia, 
 and Syria of after-times probably made a part of it^ and that 
 the whole of the Mediterranean sea, and part of the conti- 
 nent of Asia, were comprehended in it also. 
 
 X. That the Thebel of the antediluvian world at least, even 
 as coextensive with the Ibeshe, or dry land, must have been 
 from the first comparatively of limited magnitude, may be 
 inferred from another remarkable character, peculiar to this 
 world, viz. That while it lasted, it had no rain, and the phy- 
 sical necessities of such of its inhabitants as could not subsist 
 without water — its animals and its plants — were supplied not 
 by rains, but by dews or mists. If such was the actual con- 
 stitution of external nature, during this sera, it is a necessary 
 inference from it, that a much greater amount of evaporation, 
 and consequently a much greater expanse and surface of the 
 watery element constantly exposed to the sun, must have 
 been requisite while it lasted, than is so at present, when the 
 same wants of animal or vegetable nature are chiefly supplied 
 by rains. Nor perhaps, were such a problem as this, By 
 what amount of the surface of water constantly exposed to 
 evaporation, greater than at present, might the same physical 
 needs of the animal and the vegetable kingdoms of nature 
 be supplied even at present, independently of rain, to be pro- 
 posed to the chymist or geologist, would it be difficult for 
 him to solve it in a general way. It must be evident how- 
 ever even to common sense, that, if four oceans at least, be- 
 sides inland lakes and rivers innumerable, are not more than 
 sufficient to keep up the constant supply of water, for plants 
 and animals of every kind, and in every part of the habitable 
 or inhabited world, constituted as it is at present, in the form 
 of rains as well as of dews ; one ocean, as great as all the four, 
 might not have been more than enough to supply the same 
 wants for the animal and the vegetable inhabitants even of 
 an earth not a fourth part perhaps so large as that which 
 exists at present, in the form of dews alone. 
 
 And with respect to the fact of the peculiarity in question, 
 that the antediluvian world, while it lasted, in some manner 
 or other was so constituted as to be independent of rain, it is 
 expressly asserted of the heif'tnning of this world, and just 
 
s. 9- ])e\uge of Scripture. 63 
 
 Ijelbro the completion of the work of the Ilexaemeron, by 
 Gen. ii. 1—6 itself. Again, if it be literally true as it is re- 
 lated of the first pair of mankind. Gen. ii. 25 ; " And they 
 were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not 
 ashamed;" (and that it is literally true is proved by Gen. 
 iii. 7. of the very first effect of the Fall, three years later;) 
 it must follow from that fact that, as formed at first, they 
 had no need of clothing; and it must follow from that fact, 
 tliat they had no need of protection from rain ; for to have 
 been exposed to the liability of rain, and to have been desti- 
 tute of clothing, would have been incompatible with each 
 other. It will follow from the same fact, that the tempera- 
 ture of the external air, while this state of things lasted, 
 must have been such as to dispense with the necessity of 
 clothing ; and not at some times only, but uniformly, and at 
 all times : and it would be a consequence of that fact too 
 that a much greater quantity of vapour must have been at 
 all times held in solution in the atmosphere ; and even 
 though it might never rain, that much more of this vapour 
 might be condensed and precipitated in the form of dew. 
 
 And that this peculiarity of the physical constitution of 
 the antediluvian w orld, thus apparently intimated of its very 
 beginning, was still continuing, still unchanged, up to the 
 very eve of its consummation, may be probably inferred from 
 Gen. vii. 11, 12 — in which the beginning of the Flood, as 
 brought about by the instrumentality of rain from the air, as 
 well as of water from the sea, is designated by the phrase of 
 the opening of the windows of heaven, and from Gen. viii. 2, 
 M'here the cessation of this part of the agency, which brought 
 about the deluge, is described in like manner by the stopping 
 of these windows again. For what could be meant by the 
 openinrj o^ these urindoiv.s for the first time with the setting in 
 of the Flood, but the precipitation of the waters above the 
 firmament", in contradistinction to the waters under the 
 firmament, the waters of the atmosphere properly so called, 
 for the first time since the Creation, in torrents of rain I 
 But it is most reasonably to be inferred from Gen. ix. 12-17; 
 the appointment of the Rainbow, as the sign and seal of the 
 covenant, which it pleased the Deity to make with the sur- 
 
 ^ Gen. i. 6, 7. 
 
64 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 vivors of the deluge, just descending from the ark, for the 
 future stability of that new world, on the possession of which, 
 in order to replenish and people it again, like that which had 
 just been destroyed, they were about to enter. For surely 
 this was no old and familiar phenomenon, seen repeatedly 
 between the Creation and the Flood, and destitute as yet of 
 any such meaning as this, but a new phenomenon, destined 
 to be seen thousands of times in the interval between the 
 descent from the ark and the end of the world, but always 
 with a recognised meaning of this kind, as the visible token 
 of the covenant between God and all Flesh — descended from 
 the inmates of the ark — the witness and seal of the pro- 
 mise y, on which only man, and all the inferior orders of 
 beings in his proper world at present, both have had, and 
 still have, to rely for its continued immunity from any se- 
 cond visitation, like that of the deluge, until it shall have 
 served its time at least, and fulfilled every purpose contem- 
 plated by its creation from the first. 
 
 xi. Lastly, these conclusions respecting the constitution of 
 the antediluvian world, as a terraqueous globe indeed, but 
 divisible only into one main land or continent, and one main 
 sea or ocean, are confirmed by primitive tradition. 
 
 i. It has been shewn in my Origines Kalendarite Helle- 
 nicje^-, that the N?](tos 'Ar \avTis of the Timseus and the Critias 
 of Plato, the idea and knowledge of which were derived by 
 both from Egypt, was neither more nor less than the tradi- 
 tionary impersonation of this antediluvian world, (still pre- 
 served among the Egyptians down to the time of Solon, if 
 not of Plato) — an island, like this Ntjo-os, or a continent sur- 
 rounded by the sea on all sides — and agreeing with this island, 
 to a certain extent, even in its locality, the Atlantic ocean, 
 and in the part of it close to the Mediterranean sea, which 
 itself, as I observed above% was probably a principal part of 
 the antediluvian Thebel, if not of the antediluvian Paradise 
 itself. 
 
 ii. It has been shewn '^ that the "Q-yvy or "ilyvyos of Hel- 
 lenic tradition was simply this ocean of the antediluvian 
 world, so called from its encompassing and embracing the 
 
 y Cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 37. Isaiah liv. 9. '. Vol. iv. 104- 1 11. » Pag. 62. 
 
 ^ Orig. Kal. Hell. v. 137. vi. ^-.z. 
 
s. 9- Y>c\ug(t of Scripture. 05 
 
 terra firma of that lera on all sides— treated as & person. The 
 proper meaning of o}vy in Hebrew is that of a cincture, a 
 girdle., a zone; any thing which goes round or encloses some- 
 thing. Out of this, Hellenic tradition made "Hyvy or "Q.yvyos, 
 as the eponym of this circumfluous ocean of the antediluvian 
 world, and called the Flood of Scripture, effected througli 
 the instrumentality of this ocean, the Flood of Ogygus. 
 
 iii. It has been shewn ^ that this peculiarity of the consti- 
 tution of the world before the Flood is the true explanation 
 of the mistake and misapprehension of that of the postdilu- 
 vian world, into which tJie oldest geographers among the 
 Greeks and the other nations of antiquity appear to have 
 fallen in common; that of assuming that the earth of their 
 own world was surrounded by an ocean on all sides too. 
 This fact was true of the earth before the Flood ; and having 
 been handed down by tradition into the postdiluvian world, 
 it naturally led to the mistake in question — until it was cor- 
 rected by observation and experience of the matter of fact 
 itself. Nothing was more likely to be assumed at first than 
 that the postdiluvian world in its external constitution was 
 nothing dift'erent from the antediluvian ; and that being as- 
 sumed, if the former had been surrounded by an ocean on 
 all sides, the latter must have been so too. 
 
 We may now pass to the second question, proposed for 
 preliminary consideration — The difficulty connected with the 
 supposed perpetuation of all the species and varieties of ani- 
 mal life, existing at present, through the individuals pre- 
 served in the ark. 
 
 This question is virtually that of the scope and comprehen- 
 sion in general, and the specific kinds and distinctions in par- 
 ticular, of the Zoology of the antediluvian world — and this, 
 in its first and most proper relation, is the question of the 
 zoology of the Hexaemeron — and that is neither more nor 
 less than the question of the kinds and varieties of animal 
 life, the genera and sjiecies, as first brought into being on two 
 of the days of the Hexaemeron in particular, the fifth and 
 the sixth. 
 
 And with respect to these, it appears from Gen. i. 18. 21 : ii. 
 19. that, (if we pass over the proper inhabitants of the waters, 
 ' •^^"gg. Kal. Hell. iv. io8 ?i. vi. 352. 
 
 r 
 
66 The Mree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. cii. i, 
 
 with which we are not concerned in the present inquiry,) 
 the proper creations of the fifth day consisted of none but 
 "what are called f]iy or P]2D P]"iy Aoiiph, and Aouph-can- 
 ouph — after their kinds; and, over and above the creation of 
 man, those of the sixth day, it appears from Gen. i. 24. 26. 
 28. 30, were simply these three in general : HT^m or Behe- 
 meh, after his kind, nHl}Jl HTf or Heith-heshedeh, after 
 his kind, and tD?3") or Reraesh, after his kind. 
 
 It does not appear from Gen. i. 24—26, that more kinds 
 and varieties of animal life in general were brought into ex- 
 istence on these tivo days, than these /bi<r, Aouph, Behemeh, 
 Heith-heshedeh, and Remesh. It does not appear from 
 Gen. ii. 19, 20, that more than the individual representatives 
 of these four kinds of animal life in general were brought to 
 Adam by their Creator on the sixth day, to receive their 
 names from him. And these being assumed to have consti- 
 tuted all de facto which began to be thus coexistent with the 
 beginning of the antediluvian world ; it does not appear, 
 from the subsequent history of this world, that more or 
 fewer than these in general were still coexistent with it at 
 the end. It does not appear from Gen. vi. 7, that more or 
 fewer than these were recognised by the Creator himself as 
 still coexistent on the earth with man, and destined to be in- 
 volved in the same destruction with man, when the futurity 
 of the flood was first announced. It does not appear from 
 Gen. vi. 19, 20 : vii. 2, 3. 8, 9. 21. 23 : viii. 17-19 : ix. 10 (cf. 
 1 Kings iv. 33), that more or fewer of the individual repre- 
 sentatives of the existing kinds and varieties of animal life 
 than those of these four, (so brought into being at first, and 
 so kept in being until now,) Aouph, Behemeh, Heith-he- 
 shedeh, and Remesh — resorted to Noah, just on the eve of 
 the deluge, to be received into the ark, or issued again from 
 the ark, when the deluge was over. 
 
 If then we proceed to inquire into the particular meaning 
 of each of these terms, — the kinds and distinctions of animal 
 life, denoted by each of them respectively, — we shall see 
 every reason to conclude both from the etymology of the 
 terms themselves, and from the idiom of Scripture in the use 
 of them, and from other considerations'^, that the proper 
 
 c' ApjieiKlix. note N. 
 
s. 9- T)e\uge of Scjipture. 67 
 
 meaning of Aouph, or Aouph-canouph, in Hebrew, in all 
 these instances, is that of opvi'i or opveov in Greek, avis in 
 Latin, bird in English ; the proper meaning of Behemeh in 
 all these instances is that of domestic animals, or animals 
 capable of being domesticated ; the proper meaning of Ileith- 
 heshedeh, in contradistinction to Behemeh, is that of wild 
 animals as opposed to tame — animals natnrally loild and in- 
 capable of being domesticated, but not dangerous nor injuri- 
 ous to man ; the proper meaning of Remesh is that of the 
 smaller animals in contradistinction to the larger ; animals 
 which have four feet, as well as the Ifu'ger quadrupeds, but 
 whose proper motion, in contradistinction to that of qua- 
 drupeds in general, may be described as that of creeping, 
 rather than loalkiny or stridinr/. 
 
 If this is a correct representation of the meaning of each 
 of these four terms, then it will follow from that of the first 
 that, unless aouph in Hebrew, any more than opvcov or opvis 
 in Greek, or avis in Latin, or bird in English, virtute termini 
 could be capable of denoting insects, or every other descrip- 
 tion of winged creatures distinct from birds in general, the 
 zoology of the antediluvian world must have been totally 
 destitute of one of the largest constituent parts, and the 
 most difficult of all to preserve in its integrity through the 
 year of the deluge, of that of the postdiluvian — its Insects. 
 Not one specimen of this class could have made part of the 
 animal life of the antediluvian world from the Creation to 
 the Flood; and for no one individual species of this class, 
 which existed before the Deluge and did not exist at present, 
 were any such de facto discoverable, would Scripture be 
 responsible. 
 
 In like manner, from the explanation of the meaning of 
 the fourth term, it must follow that neither could another 
 considerable, yet very minute, part of the animal life of the 
 postdiluvian world have entered into that of the antediluvian, 
 the class of crawling, in opposition to creeping, things — of 
 creatures which trail, or drag themselves along on their 
 bellies, in contradistinction to those which walk, or go on 
 feet, however slowlj^ — such as worms, &c. — the serpent only, 
 for a special reason, having perhaps been an exception to the 
 
 V z 
 
68 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i . 
 
 rest of this class '". So that neither for the preservation of 
 any individual specimen of life of this kind at present, 
 through the year of the Deluge, would Scripture be answer- 
 able. 
 
 And with respect to the two other terms, Behemeh and 
 Heith-heshedeh, if the kinds of animals, denoted by them, 
 have been rightly explained either of domestic animals, or if 
 wild, yet not inimical or dangerous to man, it will follow 
 that the zoology of the antediluvian world from the Creation 
 to the Deluge must have wanted another large class of the 
 animal life of the postdiluvian, that of carnivorous animals — 
 that of beasts or birds of prey. 
 
 That animals of this description indeed, whether beasts 
 or birds, could not possibly have found a place in such an 
 (Economy or state of things as that of Paradise, and before 
 the Fall, (especially if we reflect on the length of time for 
 which that state actually lasted,) it requires no argument to 
 prove. The very idea of animals, formed on purpose to prey 
 upon each other, and endowed by their Creator with an 
 organism and instincts adapted to that destination, is alien 
 and repugnant to the idea of a state of innocence and guile- 
 lessness, a state of peace and harmony, a state of goodness 
 and happiness, not to say a state of immortality, like that of 
 Paradise, while it lasted. And it would only aggravate the 
 absurdity of the contrary supposition to assume that they 
 might have been created with such an organism, as if for 
 such a destination, from the first, yet have been mii'aculously 
 witliheld from applying these natural organs to their natural 
 use, or have had those instincts, which would have impelled 
 them to do so, preternaturally restrained or modified in some 
 manner or other, while the state of universal innocence and 
 universal peace was still continuing. We are taught indeed 
 in Scripture ^ to expect such a manifestation of the Divine 
 Power and Goodness, as this of controlling or changing the 
 natural dispositions and instincts even of the most ferocious 
 animals, under the Millenniary Dispensation — and so far 
 under an oeconomy, analogous to that of the state of Para- 
 
 e Appendix, note O. 
 f See my Exposition of the Parables, &c., i. 441-444. 
 
s. 9- Delude of Scripture. G9 
 
 dise or of the Beginning. But this, as every one must allow, 
 is a totally difterent thing from what we are supposing at 
 present ; the intentional creation of animals, from the first — 
 with such and such organisms, as if for such and such an use 
 and purpose— yet without the instincts which would have 
 impelled them to such an use of those organs — or merely in 
 order both to restrain the instincts which would have im- 
 pelled them to that use, and to render superfluous the organs 
 which must have been adapted to their use, while the Fall of 
 man, and its consequences to the existing state of things, 
 though foreknown to the Deity, humanly speaking, was still 
 a distant and still even a contingent event. 
 
 And if animals of this description in particular could have 
 made no part of the zoology of the antediluvian world 
 between the Creation and the Fall, there is no reason to 
 suppose them created all at once even after the Fall, and as a 
 consequence of that event. It is in the highest degree incon- 
 sistent to suppose that, for the long interval between the Fall 
 and the Deluge, free license could have been given by the com- 
 mon Creator to the inferior animals to prey upon each other, 
 and even upon men, and yet permission to make use of ani- 
 mals for food, not yet have been conceded to men themselves. 
 It is clear too, from Scripture itself, that whatsoever the 
 consequences of the Fall to the moral nature of our first 
 Parents, its eflect on the physical conditions of their existence 
 at first extended no further than possibly a change in the air 
 and temperature (though that is by no means a certain 
 points) entailing the protection of clothing — the superinduced 
 barrenness of the ground instead of its spontaneous pro- 
 ductiveness, until then — the appearance of thorns and thistles, 
 where they had never been seen before — the particular doom 
 of the Man, to contend from that time forward with such 
 obstacles as these, in order to his own subsistence, to earn 
 his bread with the toil of his hands, and with the sweat of 
 his brow : — the particular doom of the Woman, from this 
 time forward to be subject to the Man, instead of continuing 
 on a footing of equality with him, the particular pangs of 
 childbirth, and the more frequent repetition of personal 
 suffering of that kind through a multiplied conception of 
 
 ' Appendix, note P. 
 
70 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 children. But every description of physical evil, with which 
 man ultimately had to contend, and as a consequence of the 
 Fall, was not inflicted upon him at once. Even the execution 
 of the sentence, "• In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
 die," in Avhich instant death as the punishment of the first 
 act of transgression appeared to be plainly denounced, in its 
 literal sense was suspended a thousand years. 
 
 In a Avord, that no species of animal could have been 
 created along with man, and destined at first to live in the 
 same world as man, except those whose nature, dispositions, 
 and organisms were adapted to such an end and design of 
 their being, appears from Gen. i. 30, which particularizes 
 the proper food of each, as provided and prescribed by 
 their Creator himself, from the moment of their coming into 
 existence ; '' And to every beast of the earth, and to every 
 fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the 
 earth, wherein there is life, / have given every green herb for 
 meat^\" And as none but graminivorous animals, on this 
 principle, could be supposed to have been created before the 
 Fall, so that, even after the Fall, none but animals of the 
 same description could still have been living in common with 
 men, down to the eve of the Deluge itself, appears from Gen. 
 vi. 21, which prescribes the kind of food which Noah was to 
 lay up in the ark, for his own subsistence, and for that of the 
 rest of its inmates, during the year of the Flood. "And take 
 unto thee of all food that is eaten ; and thou shalt gather it 
 to thee : and it shall be for food for thee and for them." 
 Animal food, we may take it for granted, could not have 
 been included in the scope of the terms of this prescription; 
 yet on Avliat other kind of food could carnivorous animals, 
 M'ithout a miracle, have been fed ? 
 
 It is no objection, that the distinction of clean and un- 
 clean even among the animals of the antediluvian world, is 
 recognised. Gen. vii. 2, before the Flood ; for that was no 
 distinction of the natures of animals themselves, as savage or 
 tame, but simply of their uses, especially in respect of sacri- 
 fice. And in this sense and relation, it probably went back 
 in its origin to the very date of the Fall, and to a positive 
 appointment, immediately after it'; the reasons of which 
 
 h C'f. Ps. civ. 14. ' Fasti, ii. 160 s([(\. 
 
s. 9- Deluge of Scripture. 71 
 
 even then were much the same at bottom with those of the 
 simihir distinctions, laid down so long after for the Levitical 
 oeconomy ^. 
 
 As the result then of these explanations it must now 
 appear, i. That the Deluge of Scripture might have been 
 universal over theThebel of the world of that epoch, and the 
 subjects of the destruction of life, thereby produced upon the 
 surface of this Thebel, universal also, and yet neither the 
 Thebel itself in point of extent, nor the number and variety 
 of its inhabitants, though diffused over all parts of it, whether 
 men or animals, might have been any thing inordinately 
 great. And ii. though even to imagine difficulties, and 
 much more impossibilities, wherever Omnipotence directed 
 by Omniscience was the supposed agent of the resulting 
 effect, would be simply absurd ; yet, if humanly speaking to 
 our apprehensions it might not be easy to comprehend how 
 the command, given to the waters on the third day, to eva- 
 cuate the surface of the earth, and to retire within certain 
 prescribed bounds, could have been executed in one day by the 
 simultaneous retirement of the fluid matter, in both hemi- 
 spheres, and from four continents, and innumerable islands, 
 some of them almost as large as continents — yet even to our 
 apprehensions, when the limited extent and bouudaries of the 
 antediluvian Thebel or Dry land as such are once under- 
 stood, all appearance of difficulty vanishes, and nothing would 
 seem to be easier to Omnipotence than thus to lay bare so 
 small a part, comparatively speaking, of the entire surface 
 of the earth, even in one day. And with the vivid description 
 of the process, left on record in the civth Psalm, we might 
 almost fancy we saw it going on ourselves, and could follow 
 the waters, with our bodily eyes, hastening to give effect to 
 the command as soon as received, rolling up the hills, in 
 their way, with as much speed and fiicility as down to the 
 valleys beneath, the sooner to reach their appointed place : 
 " Thou coveredst the earth with the deep as with a garment ; 
 the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they 
 fled ; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They 
 go up by the mountains ; they go down by the valleys, 
 
 ^ Leviticus xi. 2-8 scjii x.\. 25. DiuUron. xiv. .^-JO. 
 
72 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. t. 
 
 unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou 
 hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they turn 
 not again to cover the earth." 
 
 iii. It might be thought a difficulty (and in fact it has been 
 — the very difficulty which gave occasion to Burnetts Theory 
 of the Earth) with the earth, constituted as it is at present, 
 and divisible into four continents, and innumerable islands, 
 supposed to be nevertheless only the counterpart of the 
 antediluvian world in the same respects, not only to conceive 
 the bringing up of the waters of the sea on all these conti- 
 nents and all these islands at once, but even to conceive a 
 sufficient supply of the watery element, as diffused over the 
 rest of the surface of the globe, merely to cover and sub- 
 merge the dry land everywhere, — much more to be heaped 
 fifteen cubits aud upwards above the tops of the highest 
 mountains which are to be found on the earth at present. 
 These difficulties, and all such as these — (no difficulties as 
 they would be, under any circumstances, to Omnipotence — ) 
 yet even to a mere human apprehension of their magnitude 
 shrink into their proper dimensions, and are seen at once to 
 be purely imaginary, when all that was required even of 
 Omnipotence was to bring up the ocean of the antedi- 
 luvian world, on the Thebel of the same world, either on all 
 sides at once, or in one particular direction at first, and 
 gradually over the rest ; and to lay under water not only the 
 surface, but even the mountains, of that antediluvian con- 
 tinent itself; the height of which, for anything we know 
 to the contrary, might have been very different from that of 
 the mountains of the world at present. 
 
 iv. It must now also appear that, with such a zoology as the 
 antediluvian, comprehending as yet none but graminivorous 
 animals, whether birds, or beasts, or reptiles ', and these too 
 limited to such as are either naturally domestic, and every- 
 where found living in subjection to man, or if wild are 
 harmless and inoffensive in their instincts at least, nothing 
 would be easier, even to our own apprehensions, than the 
 perpetuation of every existing species of this kind, which 
 characterized the zoology of the world before the Flood, into 
 
 1 Appendix, Note Q. 
 
s. 9. J)eluge of Scripture. 73 
 
 that of the world after the Flood, through the individual 
 types and representatives of each, kept alive for the year of 
 the deluge in the ark. Nor is it any serious, much less in- 
 superable difficulty, that on these suppositions, a great part, 
 and perhaps even the largest part, of the Zoology of the 
 Postdiluvian world must consist oi additions made to that of 
 the antediluvian ; i. e. of new creations, of the productions of 
 new exertions of the same Creative power, to replenish the 
 habitable parts of the earth after the Flood, which had been 
 put forth at the beginning of things for the same purpose, in 
 behalf of the Thebei before the Flood. Scripture indeed is 
 silent, with respect to the fact of any such new creations. 
 But if Scripture itself has furnished the data from which 
 even this fact must necessarily be inferred, its silence is 
 equivalent to its testimony. The true Natale Mundi of the 
 existing state of things is the day of the descent from the 
 ark ; and if a new world, so to say, in comparison of the 
 antediluvian, actually came into being on or against that day 
 too, it is no wonder, it should have been found prepared and 
 fitted up with every thing necessary to its proper use and 
 destination, especially with so material a part of the Koafxos 
 or furniture of every world, as its proper animal and proper 
 vegetable life. It is not to be supposed for a moment that, 
 when the work of the Hexaemeron w.as over, the Creator, by 
 the institution of the rest of the Sabbath for the observance 
 of man, ])recluded himself from any future Exercise of the 
 same power, and wisdom, and goodness, in the same way. 
 We have our Lord's assurance"' that, notwithstanding this 
 interposition of the Sabbatic rest in the beginning, the 
 Father had continued to work in some manner or other down 
 to liis own time ; and the author to the Hebrews has taught 
 us" that the true laft^aTicrixo^, of which the Patriarchal and 
 the Levitical was but the shadow, is still to come, and 
 destined to close and consummate only the whole series of 
 the workings of God, as the Maker and Preserver, the Ordcrer 
 and Disposer, of everything and everywhere, and at all times, 
 from first to last. 
 
 Hoth these objections to the credibility of the Scriptural 
 
 '" .lolin V. 17. >> lli'liiTws i\ . ;-io. 
 
74 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 account of the Deluge a jyrioi'i, having thus been removed, 
 we may pass to that account itself, and to the confirmation 
 and illustration of its principal circumstances^ by the testi- 
 mony of our three Witnesses, the Natural measures of time, 
 the Primitive Calendar, and Primitive Tradition. 
 
 And 1st, with respect to the year of the event. It is very 
 observable that, as the only data for the determination of the 
 age of the antediluvian world at this time of its destruction 
 are the details of the several Ptedogonia?, in Gen. v, 3. sqq. 
 and the age of Noah, Gen. vii. 11. in the year of the Flood, 
 so it makes no difference to the result, whether those details 
 are reckoned in the Mv^ Mundana, from A. M. 1 B. C. 4004, 
 the date of the Creation, or in the iEra Cyclica, from k. M. 
 4 B.C. 4001, the date of the Fall — allowance only, in this 
 latter case, being made for the inherent difference between 
 annual equable, and annual natural or Julian, time under all 
 circumstances, and for the idiom of Scripture, in one or two 
 of these instances, in the probable reckoning of current years 
 as complete". The resulting year of the Deluge is the same 
 in either case, in the ^ra Mundana 1657, in the zEra Cyclica 
 1658, in the ^ra Vulgaris B.C. 2348; and that B.C. 2348, 
 thus determinable from the chronology of Scripture itself as 
 the year of the Deluge, was known to have been so, among 
 the Egyptians, 500 years after the event, has been shewn in 
 the Fasti CatholiciP, and that it was still known among the 
 Greeks to have been so, even 1507 years after the event, has 
 been rendered, if not absolutely certain, yet highly probable, 
 in the Origines Kal. Hellenicse ^i. 
 
 ii. With respect to the month of the event, and the day of 
 the month, the Scriptural date of this month and this day in 
 the calendar of the time being was the 3 7th of the second 
 month, the 17th of the primitive Phaophi ; and if the day of 
 the month of the deluge of Scripture went down to posterity 
 correctly represented, it must have been as the 17th of the 
 month. And here too it is to be observed that much later 
 indeed than the deluge of Scripture, yet very early in Greek 
 history itself, we meet with the tradition of an event, handed 
 down among the Greeks, the nature and circumstances of 
 
 '1 Ct'. Fasti, ii. 2.,6-2<;o. P iii. 245. 249. 302. 'i v. 748 n. 
 
s. 9 Deluge of Sa'ijjture. 75 
 
 which resembled those of the Deluge of Scripture, though ou 
 a much smaller scale ; that of the liberation of the waters of 
 the great Plain of Thessaly, before an inland sea, accom- 
 panied with an inundation of the neighbouring regions, espe- 
 cially in the west and south : and the date of this too, we 
 have it in our power to determine to the 17th of the primitive 
 month •■. If so, this partial deluge, affecting the countries 
 adjacent to Thessaly, which Hellenic tradition called the 
 Flood of Deucalion, was liable a priori to be confounded with 
 the deluge of Scripture, the Flood of Ogygus ; and it is cer- 
 tain that in the later Hellenic Tradition it was so confounded, 
 liut it would be a mistake to attribute this confusion merely to 
 the similarity of the two events. Tlie true link of connection 
 between them was as much the apparent identity of the day 
 of tlie event in each instance, as that of the events them- 
 selves. 
 
 iii. With respect to the Julian and the hebdomadal date of 
 the event. The equable date of the deluge, the 17th of the 
 second month, ^Era Cyc. 1658, is shewn by the General 
 Tables of the Fasti, May 5, B.C. 2348 «; and the true Do- 
 minical letter that year having been D, May 5, reckoned 
 from midnight, was the feria tertia. It follows that, if the 
 waters of the antediluvian sea were brought up on the ante- 
 diluvian Thebel on this day, they were again brought over 
 it, on the same day of the week (and very probably at the 
 same time of the day 6 a. m.') on which they had been sepa- 
 rated from it in the week of the Ilexaemeron, To minds of 
 a certain turn, this coincidence may seem to imply nothing; 
 but to those whicli are habitually disposed to refer every 
 thing even in the most ordinary occurrences of life, much 
 more in the several steps of so solemn and serious an oeco- 
 nomy as that of the Deluge, to the disposal and ordering of 
 Providence, it will appear a truly significant circumstance 
 that the same feria of the hebdomadal cycle should have 
 been selected for the undoing of the work of the third day 
 of the Ilexaemeron, which had been chosen for the doing of 
 it. I have rendered it probable that the proper work of 
 each day of the week of creation bore date at 6 a. M.t, and 
 
 ■■ Ibid. ;i(; sf|r|. 74^1. " Cf. Fa-^ti, ii 168. ' Ibid. ii. 8. idy. 
 
76 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 traditionary testimony is extant ^ that the Deluge of Scrip- 
 ture itself began in the day as such — was reckoned at least 
 from the day as such, and not from the night. 
 
 Again, though the actual calendar date of the flood in 
 this form of the 17th of the second month for the time being 
 has not been handed down in terms, a tradition of very great 
 antiquity, that the day of the deluge was the day of the full 
 moon at least, is met with among the Greeks x. And that 
 is easy to be tested by calculating the full moon of May, 
 B. C. 2348 — which being done, the mean full moon, for the 
 meridian of Jerusalem, is found to have actually fallen out 
 May 5 that year, as nearly as possible eight hours later 
 than 6 a.m.y, (and consequently on the 17th of the second 
 month, reckoned from midnight,) and the true about ten 
 hours later. 
 
 iv. It appears from the Scriptural account of the circum- 
 stances of the year, passed in the ark, that on the first of the 
 tenth month, (just nine months after the beginning of the 
 year of the Flood,) the tops of the mountains were first 
 seen ^. A tradition is extant among the Greeks, concerning 
 the flood of Ogygus, that, after nine months continuous 
 darkness, light first broke on the world again in the tenth 
 month, and the island of Delos was the first object in external 
 nature, which became visible *. 
 
 v. In the same Scriptural account of these circumstances, 
 three intervals of seven days each are recognised between 
 the different sendings out of the raven and the dove respec- 
 tively — which have all the appearance of weeks, strictly so 
 called. And that is proved to have been the case by the 
 reduction of the true equable time of that year to the true 
 Julian and the true hebdomadal also''; — while, as to the 
 fact of these sendings out themselves, and whatever there 
 was to distinguish them asunder, or to render any one of 
 them more remarkable than the rest — the resort of animals 
 of every kind, (both birds and beasts, both wild and tame,) 
 two and two, to the ark, before the flood set in, is attested 
 by Hellenic tradition in connection with the flood of Deuca- 
 
 " <-)rigg. Kal. Hell. iv. no. " Ibid. v. is,!;. y Fa.*ti, ii. 173 : iv. 
 
 642-644. ' Ibid. ii. 170. '^ Origg. Kal. Hell. vi. 107 >i. ^ Fasti, 
 
 ii. 169-173. cf. Origg Kal. Hell. Prolegomena, Ix. 
 
s. 9. Deluge of Scripture. 77 
 
 lion'', and the use made of the dove in particular, and the 
 fact of the olive-leaf brought back by it on the third occa- 
 sion, are confirmed by the traditionary respect ever after 
 paid to that bird, and the estimation of the olive as the sym- 
 bol of peace, every where in the postdiluvian world ^. 
 
 vi. The drying of the earth not having been complete 
 before the 27th of the second month in the second year of 
 the sojourn in the ark, the command to descend from the 
 ark could not have been given to Noah before this day ; and 
 if it was not given on this day, it could not have been given 
 earlier than the next, the 28th of the same month. Now 
 that it could not have been given on this day, may be in- 
 ferred from the fact that Phaophi 27, iEra eye. 1659, May 
 14-15, at 18 h. B. C. 2317, Dom. Lett. C. was a sabbath. 
 But there is no reason why it should not have been given on 
 the next day, Phaophi 28, May 16, the feria prima of the 
 next hebdomadal cycle, and very probably at 6 a.m. that day. 
 If so, the Natale Mundi of the postdiluvian state of things, 
 dated from this descent, must have been as truly May 16 at 
 6 A. M. the/eria prima, B.C. 2347, as that of the antediluvian, 
 April 25 at 6 a. m. the /ma j^rima, B. C. 4004. 
 
 And here the Primitive Calendar and Primitive Tradition 
 both step in, to confirm this conclusion in a very striking 
 manner. 
 
 I have given an account in my Origines Kal. Hellenicse® 
 of the oldest, and in every respect the most singular and cha- 
 racteristic, of the institutions of the ancient Athenians, their 
 Athensea, more commonly called Panathensea, traditionally 
 attributed among them to the first and oldest of their kings, 
 Erechtheus or Erichthonius, whether that was his most pro- 
 per name from the first, or not. I have shewn that this 
 founder of the Athcnsca was the leader of a colony to Athens 
 from Sais in Egypt, and that the date of his coming and of 
 his institution was B. C. 1342. I have shewn that the four 
 distinctive parts of his institution, the Athenaic Ship, the 
 Athenaic Pcplum, the Athenaic Canephori, and the Athenaic 
 Thallophori, were all founded on the Scriptural history of the 
 
 ' Luciati, iii. 458. Dc Dea Syria, 12. cf. I'lutarcli, I)c Solkrtia Anim. xiii. 
 d Fasti, ii. 184; Origg. Kal. HelJ. iv. 115: vi. 94-101. c jv. 79-138. 
 
78 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. c. t . 
 
 Deluge and the Ark ; and that the final end of the whole 
 solemnity was to commemorate the fact of the preservation 
 of one family of the human race^ amidst the general destruc- 
 tion of the rest by the waters of a Deluge, through the in- 
 strumentality of the Ark : and I have confirmed this ex- 
 planation of the object of the solemnity by the original date 
 of its institution, according to the appointment of its own 
 Founder, Maj^ 16, B. C. 1342, the very day of the descent 
 from the Ark, and of the Natale Mundi of the Postdiluvian 
 world, May 16, B. C. 2347. 
 
 vii. Hellenic tradition supplies yet other confirmations of 
 the Scriptural account of the antediluvian and the postdi- 
 luvian world respectively, and of the relation in which they 
 stand to each other, according to that account. 
 
 As i. — in the Pelasgi of its own earliest history — who 
 never had a real existence as the actual possessors of any 
 part of Greece, or in fact of any other country, later than 
 the Deluge ; and yet, as their name itself would imply, (The 
 men of the sea. The men beyond the sea,) were still tradi- 
 tionally recognised as the former inhabitants of the world of 
 the Greeks, or of such and such parts of it, whose relation 
 to them in that capacity was confined to the period beyond the 
 flood, ii. In the name of Theboe, given to so many of its 
 oldest cities, in the sense of so many Arks f, — so many me- 
 morials through their name itself of the Deluge, and of the 
 preservation of the existing race of mankind from the general 
 destruction, through the Ark. iii. In the Kecrops of Attic 
 tradition, Kecrops 6 St^urj? — the connecting link of the ante- 
 diluvian and the postdiluvian world, and equally related to 
 bothg. iv. In the Deucalion, first of Thessalian tradition in 
 particular, and then of Hellenic in general ; a type of the 
 patriarch Noah, and, as I have shewn •>, very probably deriv- 
 ing his name itself from one of the most striking, and the 
 most likel}^ to be longest remembered, of the incidents in the 
 Scriptural history of Noah. v. In the Auius, probably first 
 of Phoenician tradition, and then of Delian ; another type of 
 the patriarch Noah also, and both in his name, (meaning the 
 
 f Fasti, iv. 244-249: Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 100. 
 « Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 125, 126. li Ibid. v. 744. 
 
s. lo. TKra of Scriptvre, and Calendar of Scripttn'e. 79 
 
 Man of tlic sli'tj)) and in his reputed daugliters the OlvoTpo-noi 
 — and in the reasons of that name — reflecting in the facts of 
 his supposed personal history those of the Scriptural account 
 of Noah also '. 
 
 Section X. — On the Mv& of Scripture, and the Calendar of 
 
 Scriptiu'c, from the Creation to the Eisodus, and from the 
 
 Eisodus to the Gospel -^ra. 
 
 The facts which have heen established necessarily lead to 
 the inference that the proper ^ra of Scripture, from the 
 Creation downwards to the Deluge, must have been the ^ra 
 Cyclica, the reckoning of the age of the world and of human 
 existence by the equable year of 3G5 days and nights perpe- 
 tually ; and that consequently the proper Calendar of Scrip- 
 ture, for the same interval of time, must have been the ca- 
 lendar adapted to that reckoning, the Primitive Equable 
 Calendar, consisting of twelve months, (each of them 30 days 
 and nights in length,) and of five days, over and above the 
 last of these months, completing the year, and making up a 
 small and imperfect month by themselves'^. 
 
 And along with this peculiar reckoning of civil annual 
 time, that of the reckoning of civil noctidiurnal also in the 
 form of hebdomadal having come into being from the first ; 
 no one can fail to recognise in such a coincidence the pecu- 
 liar adaptation of the annual reckoning of civil time to the 
 noctidiurnal in the form of hebdomad<il from the first — the 
 liead of an annual reckonings like that of the equable solar 
 year, necessarily advancing one term or feria in that of noc- 
 tidiurnal as measured perpetually by the hebdomadal cycle, 
 every year; and annual time in this form, and noctidiurnal 
 in that of hebdomadal, returning to the relations of origina- 
 tion inter se every eighth year perpetually'. 
 
 The epoch of origination then of this primitive annual 
 cycle, and that of the accompanying hebdomadal cycle, being 
 assumed accordingly — the former the first day of ^ra Cy- 
 clica 1 — the Primitive Thotli 1, ^Era Cyc. 1 — the latter the 
 feria prima of the first hebdomadal cycle, and both April 25, 
 
 ' Origg. Kal. Iloll. V. ioi-ior». ^ Fasti, i. 610-617. 621,622 : cf. Ap- 
 
 pendix, B. ' C'f. Introduction to the Tables, &c. 130, 131-132-137 
 
 Origg. Kal. Ital. Preliminary Address, Ixxxix. 
 
80 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. r. 
 
 according to the Julian rule, at midnight, B. C. 4004 — we 
 are able to trace both these cycles in conjunction, through 
 the intermediate Scripture history and chronology, from this 
 common point of departure down to the last day of the old 
 world, the 17th of the primitive Phaophi, ^ra Cyc. 1658, 
 May 5 B. C. 2348, the feria tertia at midnight ; and both in 
 conjunction through the year of the Flood to the day of the 
 descent from the ark, the first day of the new world, Phao- 
 phi 28, ^ra Cyc. 1659, May 16, B. C. 2347, the feria prima 
 at midnight. And from this second epoch of origination of 
 both in common, we can follow both through the Scriptural 
 account of the postdiluvian course of things, down to the eve 
 of the Exodus from Egypt. 
 
 The year of the Exodus from Egypt having necessarily 
 been forty years, whether in the ^Era Cyclica or in the ^Era 
 Vulgaris, before that of the Eisodus into Canaan, and this 
 latter year, as we hope to see hereafter, being infallibly de- 
 termined by a character and criterion of its own to yEra Cy- 
 clica 2487, B. C. 1520, that of the Exodus, 40 years before, 
 is necessarily determined to ^Era Cyclica 2447, B. C. 1 560. 
 
 At this point of time however, (i. e. just on the eve of the 
 Exodus,) it pleased the Deity to make a change in the calen- 
 dar as before in use among the people of Israel, as much as 
 among the rest of mankind, for their observance from that 
 time forward in particular — while it was left to go on among 
 the Egyptians their contemporaries, and every where else, 
 just the same as before. The question therefore naturally 
 occurs here, What was the nature of this change ; what was 
 the object proposed by it, and to what extent did it go? In 
 answer to which it may be observed, that it clearly appears 
 from the history of the new calendar itself, that whatsoever 
 else was proposed by this correction, its first and direct effect 
 was not to substitute a totally different kind of the reckon- 
 ing of civil annual time for that which was before in use, but 
 merely to change the beginning of the reckoning before in 
 use, — to substitute a new beginning of the same kind of 
 reckoning which was before in use, instead of that which 
 must otherwise have been its beginning still. The annual 
 reckoning of civil time up to the date of this correction was 
 the Equable one, according to the Primitive rule from the 
 
s. lo. yEra of Scripture, and Calendar of Scrljdvre. SI 
 
 first ; and it continued to be the Equable one, after this cor- 
 rection, only from a diiferent new year's day"^. 
 
 The next question is, consequently, What was this new 
 epoch of the primitive reckoning of civil annual time, now 
 prescribed, for the use of the Israelites in particular? and by 
 what means is it to be determined at present? And in an- 
 swer to this question also, it may be observed, There are 
 many arguments and considerations, from which a correct idea 
 may be formed of this epoch, even at present ; by means of 
 which at least the extreme limits of the first month of the 
 new calendar, which came into being among the Israelites, 
 may even now be very probably assigned. 
 
 As, i. The name of tins month, as now given it for the first 
 time, yet with a special reference to the place which it was 
 designed to fill in the calendar ; the name of Abib. For the 
 proper meaning of this name in the Hebrew being that of 
 the month of " Green ears,^^ the mensis spicarum viridun- 
 tium — the month of the ears of corn, still green, but ap- 
 proaching to maturity, and the ears of corn in question being 
 intended of barley, not of wheat ; the limits prescribed for 
 such a month by its name itself must have been the same 
 which nature also always did prescribe, and still continues to 
 prescribe, to the time of the year when barley-harvest, for 
 the climate of Egypt or that of Palestine, though not yet 
 fully ripe, should be fast approaching to maturity : and that, 
 as I have often had occasion to shew", is a stated season of 
 the natural year, neither much earlier nor much later than 
 the mean or the true vernal equinox. At this period there- 
 fore of mundane time, B. C. 1560, when the mean vernal 
 equinox was falling on April 6, and the true on April 5, judg- 
 ing from this criterion of the name of the first month of the 
 new calendar alone, we might venture to say its actual date 
 must be found somewhere neither much earlier nor niuclj 
 later than April 5 or 6. 
 
 ii. The rule, for the observance of the Passover ever after 
 the Passover of the Exodus, prescribed at the same time, and 
 
 " Cf. Fasti, ii. 14.8. 206-210. " Cf. Dissertations on the Princiiilcs ami 
 
 Arrangement of an Harmony, i. 314-33;; : Prolegomena ad Ilannuniani, cap. i. 
 22-26. 2S : Fa.sti Cafh. ii. 221, 222 /». : OHifg. Kai. Hal. iv. 3.',y u. .',50 >i. Hell. 
 iii. 462. 507 )i. 
 
 a 
 
82 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 interpreted by the observance and practice of the Jewish 
 church ever after also ; not merely in the same month, and on 
 the same day of the month, as this of the Exodus, but at the 
 same season of the year as this perpetually : which the usage 
 of the Jewish church shews to have been understood and 
 applied from the first as not only restricting the celebration of 
 the Passover to a certain day of the first month, but the first 
 raoiith itself to a certain distance before or after the point of 
 the mean or the true vernal equinox perpetually — which the 
 learned of modern times, who have often had occasion to 
 consider, and to come to some determination on, this ques- 
 tion of the Paschal rule of the Jewish Church, understand by 
 the limits of the Mensis Novorum. or the Termini Paschales, 
 (the Paschal 14ths,) of the Jewish church. 
 
 This standard of reference indeed, the mean or the true 
 vernal equinox, being necessarily a variable one, if not in 
 itself, yet in terms of any fixed calendar, like the Julian, at 
 least ; the limits of the Me7isis Novorum, and of the Termini 
 Paschales, so referred perpetually, were liable to vary also, 
 but only in proportion to the same liability of the standard 
 of reference itself. They fell back on any fixed term, along 
 with the vernal equinox ; but always preserved the same re- 
 lation to the verno-equinoctial term itself: so much so, that 
 the rule of the Jewish church, in this respect, being known 
 de facto from testimony, or in any other way, at a given time 
 lower down in the history of the Paschal observance, it is easy 
 to ascend mutatis mutandis merely from the actual rule of 
 any later time, to the analogous rule of every former time, 
 and even to the rule of the Exodus itself ». It is thus, that 
 the limits of the Mensis Novorum, and the Termini Pas- 
 chales, or Paschal 14ths, dependent upon them, once defined 
 for the Gospel Mm, have been carried back, according to 
 one and the same analogy, and one and the same rule, from 
 the Gospel ^Era, to the very head of the calendar, proposed 
 as tlie Sacred or Liturgic Calendar of the Jewish Church, 
 and confirmed by proper evidence of the truth of that fact, in 
 my Prolegomena ad Harmoniam Evangelicam. And the 
 
 o Cf. Dissertations, &c. i. 329. Pri)legomena, 27-35- Origg. Kal. Ital. iv. 
 339 « : 350 » : Hell. iii. 462. 
 
8. 10. Mra of Script ui't, and Calendar of Scripture. 83 
 
 epoch, de facto, of this calendar, B.C. 1511, having been only 
 49 years later tlian the lOxodus, the earliest and the latest 
 limits of the Meusis Novorum, March 17 and April 15 re- 
 spectively, and the earliest and tlie latest dates of the Ter- 
 mini Paschales, March 80 and April 28 respectively, pre- 
 scribed by the necessity of the case for the epoch of 13. C. 
 1511, must have been equally suitable for that of B. C. 15G0. 
 On this principle, the actual date of the first Meusis Novo- 
 rum, the first Abib, it might reasonably be assumed a priori, 
 must be found somewhere between March 17 and April 15, 
 and the actual date of the first Paschal 11th somewhere be- 
 tween March 30 and April 28 B. C. 1560. 
 
 iii. Notwithstanding this express appointment of one pro- 
 per beginning of the year of the Israelites from this time 
 forward, attached to the first of Abib, the evidence of an- 
 other, recognised by the institutions of the Law itself, and 
 attached to the first of the seventh month, reckoned from Abib 
 as the first, is still discoverable even after this time. No ex- 
 planation of this seeming inconsistency can be proposed so 
 probable as this. That, though the preexisting reckoning of 
 civil annual time, for certain special uses and purposes, was 
 changed just on the eve of the Exodus, the old reckoning, 
 for any uses and purposes but those, was left free to go on as 
 before. And this being assumed as the true explanation of 
 the phenomenon, it is necessarily to be inferred from the 
 phenomenon itself that the old beginning of the year, and the 
 new, prescribed just before the Exodus, were six months 
 asunder. In the later calendar of the Jews the Abib of the 
 Exodus was called Nisan, and the seventh month from Nisan 
 Avas called Tisri ; and in that calendar too, while the sacred 
 or Liturgic year began in Nisan, the civil began in Tisri, and 
 while the seat of Nisan in the natural year was at or about 
 the vernal equinox perpetually, that of Tisri was at or about 
 the autumnal i'. 
 
 These distinctions of later times were founded ultimately 
 on corresponding distinctions which were holding good more 
 or less completely even at the time of the Exodus itself; and 
 on the strength of these distinctions of later times alone, we 
 
 P C'f. Prolegomena, y.^, 74. Dissertation, i. 329: iv. 67,68. Ori(;K- Kal. 
 Hell. iii. 464. 
 
 G i 
 
8t The three Witnesses, caul the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 might venture to infer that if, at the date of the Exodus, the 
 new beginning of the year was attached to the season of the 
 vernal equinox, the old beginning must have been falling at 
 or about the autumnal. 
 
 Now this is confirmed by the actual date of the Primitive 
 calendar, brought down from Thoth 1 ^ra Cyc. 1, April 25 
 B. C. 4004 at midnight, to Thoth 1 ^ra Cyc. 2446, Sept. 10 
 B. C. 1561 at midn. in the year before the Exodus. The 
 scheme of this calendar, for the first seven months, would 
 stand as follows : 
 
 Primitive Calendar, jEra Ci/clica 2446 B. C. 1561-1560. 
 
 Month. Miflii. B.C. Montli. Widn. B.C. 
 
 i 'J'hoih I Sept. 10 1561 iv Choeac i Dec. 9 1561 
 ii Phaophi i Oct. 10 v Tybi i Jan. 8 1560 
 
 iii Athyr i Nov. 9 vi Mecheiri Feb. 7 — 
 
 vii Phamenoth i March 9 B. C. 1560. 
 
 And this seventh month being that in which both the 
 mean and the true vernal equinox, April 6 and April 5, were 
 falling at this time, the several criteria of the Abib of the 
 Exodus, M'hich we have just been considering, would conspire 
 to fix it somewhere between the extreme limits of this seventh 
 month, March 9 and April 8 : and that they would not con- 
 spire to direct us amiss, will appear by and by from the proof 
 of the fact that the actual date of the first Abib was March 
 27 B.C. 1560, the 19th of the viith month of the Primitive 
 calendar, ^ra Cyc. 2446. 
 
 As to the nature of the calendar thus prescribed for the use 
 of the Israelites ; it was nothing in general different from what 
 it had been before. It was the primitive reckoning of civil 
 annual time, merely adapted to a new epoch, Abib or Nisan 1, 
 yEra Cyc. 2116, March 27 B. C. 1560. It is to be observed 
 however, that as the old primitive solar calendar had its na- 
 tural lunar cycle, so had this new one ; and the epoch of this 
 proper lunar reckoning of the new equable solar reckoning 
 was the date of the first new moon later than the change of 
 the style ; which, as oiir Lunar Tables shew, and as it may be 
 proved by calculation), was April 9, B. C. 1560, the 14th of 
 
 1 Cf. Prolegomena ad Harm. j). }, : and A])i)endix, note R. 
 
s. lo. JEiVii of Sn'ipturi', and (Ji\\cndiir 0/ Srf/jj/i(rc'. H") 
 
 Abib, reckoned from March 27. And this 1 Ith of the Abib 
 of the Exodus having been also the date of the Passover of 
 the Exodus, we are thereby made aware of another observ- 
 able coincidence, viz. that though the date of the first Pass- 
 over was not the 11th of the lunar month, like that of every 
 later one, it was the 14th of the solar, and the first of the 
 lunar, of the time being. It is worthy of notice also, that 
 March 17 being supposed the earliest date of the Mensis 
 Novorum of this epoch, March 27, the date of the first Abib, 
 was just ten days later than March 17 ; and March 30 being 
 assumed as the earliest Paschal term, April 9, the actual 
 date of the first Passover, was ten days later than March 30. 
 Fi'om this time forward, the dates, discoverable in the 
 history of contemporary events, between the Exodus and the 
 Eisodus, are to be explained and verified sometimes by the 
 proper solar reckoning of this new calendar, and sometimes 
 by the proper lunar jn'o re nata. But they will always be 
 explained and authenticated by one or the other. The 
 calendar itself however continuing all this time solar and 
 equable, it could not fail to happen that in the course of the 
 39 years from the Exodus, B. C. 15G0, to the year before the 
 Eisodus, B.C. 1521, it must be found to have dropped ten 
 days, from March 27 at midnight to March 17 at midnight. 
 The scheme of the calendar for that year will consequently 
 stand as follows : 
 
 Calendar of the Exodus, B. C. 1321 — 1520. 
 vEra cyclica 2485 — 2486. 
 
 i Abib March 17 li.('. 1521 vii Tisri Sept.13 B.C. 1521 
 
 ii Jar A|)ril 16 viii Marcliesvan Oct. 13 
 
 iii Sivan May 16 i.v Chisleu Nov. 12 
 
 iv Thamuz June 15 x Tebeth Dec. 12 
 
 V Ab July 15 xi Sebat Jan. 11 B.C. 1520 
 
 vi Elul August 14 xii Adar Feb. 10 
 
 Kpagomenae March 12. 
 
 And it appears from this scheme, that the proceedings 
 recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, beginning on the first 
 of the 11th month, must have begun on January 11 B.C. 
 1520; and the Dominical Letter having been D, January 11 
 
86 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 must have been the feria prima. The death of Moses, after 
 all these events, having fallen out, according to the tradition 
 of the Jews, on the first of the next month, Adar 1, must 
 have happened on February 10, the feria tertia. And with 
 this datum, and that of his age at his death, we are enabled 
 to infer the date of his birth, March 10 Ji. C. lG40z. The 
 passage of the Jordan, after all these things, on the tenth 
 day of the first month, it is evident must have borne date 
 March 26, i\\e feria quinta. 
 
 And having brought down the history of this Calendar of 
 the Exodus to the eve of the Eisodus, all that we need to 
 observe further upon it at present is, that, from this epoch of 
 March 17 B. C. 1520. to the division of the lands in the 
 seventh year after, R. C. 1514, at least, it was also the 
 calendar of the Eisodus ; but this division of the country, 
 and this settlement of the Tribes in their respective inherit- 
 ances, having been only the preliminary process of the inau- 
 guration of a fixed state of things, under which the Israelites 
 from that time forward were destined to live, it is to be pre- 
 sumed that the erection of the Tabernacle also, on some 
 determinate locality, and the commencement of the regular 
 course of the Levitical service, would bear date from the 
 same epoch, or from some other, as soon after, as the 
 division of the lands and the settlement of 'the Tribes would 
 permit. 
 
 Now if the regular order of the Levitical oeconomj' was to 
 bear date from this point of time, and if the three principal 
 feasts, the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, from this 
 time forward were to be kept perpetually to their respective 
 seasons in the natural year, — the Passover, to that of Barley- 
 harvest and the Vernal Equinox, Pentecost, to that of Wheat- 
 harvest, half way between the Vernal Equinox and the Sum- 
 mer Solstice, and Tabernacles to that of Ingathering, and 
 the Autumnal Equinox, — and if such stated observances as 
 the new moon of every month, and the feast of Trumpets or 
 the new moon of the seventh month in particular, from this 
 time forward were to make a regular part of the ritual, — 
 then, a fixed calendar, either solar or lunar, in contradis- 
 
 •■ (f. Fa.iti, ii. 210-217. 
 
s. lo. A\rti of Scri])tiire, and Calendar of Scripture. 87 
 
 tinction to a moveable one, from this time forward would 
 become indispensable. The calendar however, which would 
 be wanted in this instance, from the nature of the case, 
 being not only a fixed one. (within certain limits at least,) 
 but both a lunar and solar one at once, — if the primitive 
 solar and lunar cycle, as liable to recede perpetually through 
 all the seasons of the natural, and all the months of the 
 Julian year, was not competent to answer the purpose pro- 
 posed by it, — it is evident there would be no alternative but 
 that of adopting some one of the proper lunar cycles of the 
 solar, in the sense of the Julian, year in its stead. 
 
 Now there are only three lunar cycles of this kind, the Oc- 
 taeteric, the ITckkaidecacteric, and the Metonic. And lunar 
 time in both the former being liable to advance three terms 
 in the order of solar in the sense of Julian, every sixteen years, 
 it is manifest that for the use of the Tabernacle, and for the 
 Levitical service, and by parity of reason, as the National 
 Calendar also, from this time forward, the necessity of the 
 case must have prescribed the Metonic cycle. And this is 
 confirmed by the matter of fact, discoverable from this time 
 forward also ; viz. That the National, as well as the Ritual 
 and Liturgic, Calendar of the Jews, from the time of the 
 settlement of the tribes, and the erection of the Tabernacle 
 at Shiloh, (where it was first permanently set up,) was regu- 
 lated by the Metonic cycle of 19 years, subject to the cor- 
 rection required by it in the period of 304- years ^. 
 
 I have given the necessary account of the structure and 
 details and administration of this calendar, in my Prolego- 
 mena ad Harmoniam Evangelicam '. It is sufficient at pre- 
 sent to observe upon it that its proper epoch of origination 
 having been April 8 the Feria 7» at midnight, B.C. loll, it 
 was only three years later than the beginning of the division 
 of the lands, B.C. 151 1 ; and this epoch itself having been 
 derived from the lunar cycle of the equable year before in 
 use, the lunar time even of this Metonic calendar might be 
 said to have merely taken up and continued that of the cor- 
 rection of the Exodus, April 9, B. C. 1560. The calendar of 
 Scripture however, from this time forward, having been 
 
 " ( f Fasti, i. 70. 
 t Caiiut i. 1-84. ct'. Intnxliidiiin to the TabU's of f lie Fa^^ti. 79-96. 
 
88 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch, i. 
 
 changed from the equable solar and lunar one of primitive 
 antiquity into the solar and lunar one of the Julian reckon- 
 iug in the form of the Metonic cycle, the A^^jVh of Scripture 
 also, from this time forward, must have undergone a change 
 from the ^Era ^Equabilis or Cyclica to the ^Era Mundana or 
 Vulgaris. 
 
 The importance of this calendar, and the services which it 
 is competent to render to the chronology of Scripture — 
 through the Book of Judges, and the Books of Kings and 
 Chronicles — (i e. in threading the mazes of what has hitherto 
 been considered the most intricate and inexplicable part of 
 its details.) cannot be overrated ; and may possibly some 
 time be made to appear by circumstantial proofs of the fact. 
 At present, I shall say no more about it than this ; That if 
 the calendar of my Prolegomena is proposed as the actual 
 calendar which the Jews must have had among them from 
 the time of their settlement in the promised land, and must 
 have used perpetually while they were still in possession of 
 their own country, it rests its claims to be received, as well 
 as proposed, in that capacity on the following grounds : — 
 
 i. Because every date, which is given in terms in Scripture, 
 or is inferentially deducible from it, is verified by this calen- 
 dar in its proper order of time^. 
 
 ii. Because the succession of the courses of the priests, 
 from Sabbath to Sabbath, from B. C. 1004, the date of the 
 dedication of the first temple, to B. C. 588, the year of its 
 destruction; and from B. C. 536, the date of the return from 
 captivity and of the restoration of the Levitical service, down 
 to A. D. 70, the year of the destruction of the second temple, 
 is verified by this calendar perpetually '''. 
 
 iii. Because it is strikingly confirmed by the coincidences 
 pointed out in the Fasti Catholici B.C. 973 y and B. C.594z. 
 
 iv. Because it is the calendar recognised in the two Books 
 of Maccabees ''. 
 
 V. Because it is the Jewish or Sacred Calendar of the 
 Gospel ajra, from B. C. 5 to the end of tiie Acts of the 
 Apostles^. 
 
 V Cf. Proleg. cap. i. 49-56. x Ibid. ii. 85-124. cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. iv. 
 
 294-305. >■ Fasti, ii. 537-542. ;' Ibid. ii. 550. » Proleg. 
 
 56, 57. Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. 474-480. •> Origg. Kal. Ital. iv. 284-308. 
 
 Proleg. iv. 171-284. Jlarmonia Evangulica, cditio torlia, ct sequentcs. 
 
s. II. (Econovnj 0/ Human Redemption. 81) 
 
 \ i. JJecausc it is the calendar of Josephus all through the 
 Antiquities, and the History of the War, with merely the 
 Macedonian names of the months, instead of the Jewish ^. 
 
 vii. Because it was still the calendar of the Jews down to 
 tlic end of the war witii Adrian, A. D, 135 'l — and because 
 there is reason to believe that even the modern Jewish calen- 
 dar is ultimately derivable from it<'. 
 
 Slctiox XI. — On the wconomy 0/ Human Redemption; and 
 
 the liyht reflected upon its progressive consummation by the 
 
 true chronology of mundane and human time. 
 
 Upon this mysterious subject of the Incarnation and Suf- 
 fering, the Humiliation and Passion, of the second Person in 
 the ever blessed Trinity, it is the doctrine of Scripture, and in 
 particular that of the New Testament, that, as the appointed 
 means of restoring a fallen world to its original place in the 
 favour of its Creator, and among the rest of the works of his 
 power and goodness, it was part of a plan and scheme of 
 things, the origination of which went back into the depths of 
 eternity, far beyond the beginning of duration as measured 
 or measurable by the existence of any created being ; yet, 
 until its revelation in its proper season, and in the fulness 
 of time, it was a mystery or secret, conceived indeed in the 
 Divine Mind, and consummated as well as planned in the 
 Divine Counsels from the first, but concealed from, and un- 
 known to, every intelligence but the Divinity itself. 
 
 And this representation is both illustrated and confirmed 
 by the Scriptural doctrine also, which I had occasion to ex- 
 j)lain supra ^, of the succession of ^ons, prior, and incalcu- 
 lably i)nor, to the awv et-earcos, which, from the day of the 
 creation of man, has measured the duration of human exist- 
 ence, yet posterior, and immeasurably posterior, to the first 
 conception of this wonderful scheme, in which, long before 
 the earliest of these ^Eons, (could the human eye look back 
 so far,) the figure of the Son of God would still be discern- 
 ible, standing forth in mingled Humility and Exaltation, as 
 the Lamb slain and sacrificed 77^0 tQ)v amv^v, — -npo KaTaftoXijs 
 
 KOiTflUV K. 
 
 »^ ()r\i;)^- Kill. Hell. iii. 449-5:0. ■' Diss. iv. qS. Ainiuiul. Diss, xviii. 
 
 OrJKK- Kal. Ital. iv. 302. '• ( f. I'rolig. 7 1-84. ' Page 16 sqc|. 
 
 B C'f. Fasti, ii. ,^01. 
 
90 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 The progressive development of a mystery like this, run- 
 ning parallel to the decursus of aeons, from the time when 
 the first of the number, prior to our own, began its course, 
 even had it been circumstantially revealed in Scripture, 
 would doubtless have been found too much for the grasp of 
 the human comprehension ; and a course and succession of 
 things such as this, which had its beginning so far back in 
 eternity and its consummation so late in time, presented in 
 its totality to such limited faculties as ours, from the very 
 magnitude of the scheme, could have left only a vague and 
 indefinite idea of its real greatness, and its essential claims 
 to our wonder and admiration. Let us confine ourselves 
 therefore at present to so much of the proper oeconomy of 
 this scheme, as is discoverable, through the proper chrono- 
 logy of our own system of things ; and while it is competent 
 to illustrate, in a very striking manner, the preconceived and 
 preordained methods and arrangements of all its preceding 
 stages, through the analogy of those of this last of all — is 
 calculated to do so intelligibly to ourselves. 
 
 With this view then I begin with observing that no sooner 
 do we go back to the beginning of our own system of time, 
 and no sooner have we been made aware of the true ^ra by 
 which the chronology of this system must have been reckoned 
 from the first, than we find ourselves obliged to infer from 
 that fact itself that the lives and deaths of the antediluvian 
 Patriarchs, recorded in Gen. v, could not have borne date from 
 the first year of the Mosaic creation, A. M. 1, but at the 
 earliest only from A. M. 4 '\ And this discovery necessarily 
 leads to another, that the life of the first of the number, that 
 of Adam in particular, could not have been reckoned from 
 the day of his Creation, but, at the earliest, only from some 
 day three years later. And what explanation could be given 
 of a distinction like that, except that the life of Adam, as the 
 first of a scries of lives communis generis, summarily recorded 
 in this chapter, must have been reckoned by the same rule 
 as all the rest ? i. e. from the day when he too became liable 
 to death like the rest of these patriarchs, and the length or 
 duration of life in his case, as much as in that of any of the 
 
 '1 C'f. Fasti, ii. 236-250. 242. 
 
s. II. (Economy q/'llumau Redemption. 91 
 
 rest, could now be reckoned only as the natural interval be- 
 tween the beginning and the end of a mortal existence'. 
 
 If so, and the actual life of the first man is thus reckoned 
 in Scripture only from tiie time when he too became subject 
 to the common law of a mortal existence, and yet is dated 
 in Scripture itself de facto from A.M. 4; then, the true date 
 of his creation, when he was not yet subjected to this law 
 of mortality, being still A.M. 1, and the recognised date of 
 the change in his nature, whereby he became subject to this 
 law, being still A.M. 4, and the change itself, whensoever it 
 took etiect, having been simply the consequence of the first 
 act of transgression ; it will follow that between the Creation 
 of man and the Fall of man, there must have been an in- 
 terval of three yeais, A.M. 1 — A.M. 4 ; and these three years 
 must have been the proper duration of the state of innocence 
 — the state of Paradise — and of the ^ra of immortality, even 
 as the measure of an human existence — so long as that too 
 was commensurable with the duration of our own system of 
 things. 
 
 It is another observable circumstance of the first three 
 years, A. M. 1 — 4, which thus measured the duration of the 
 Mrs. of immortality in terms even of that of the present 
 system of things, that they made up the last three years of 
 the first proper cycle of leap-year of the system itself" ; that 
 these three years in the decursus of the Julian time of the 
 system were bounded on one side by the year o{ No-World, 
 the year of Tohu and Boliu. the year immediately anterior to 
 the Mosaic Cosmogony ' — as the first year of this first cycle 
 — and on the other by the first year of the cycle next in 
 order to this, carrying on the proper Julian time of the sys- 
 tem according to the same law as before, but taking its rise 
 in the first year of an iEra, the law of which, in contradis- 
 tinction to that of the same succession until then, has been 
 that of the existing course of things, dated from the day of 
 the Fall, the law of mortality '". 
 
 It is further remarkable of the history of these three 
 years, that, though it clearly appears from the account of 
 
 ' Fasti, ii. 24.^-247. ^ Sujira imfj;c ii sqij. ' S^upra pag. 45 !>f|<i. 
 
 Fasti, ii. 265-267. 
 
92 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 things US soon as these three 3'ears were drawing to an end, 
 that both before these three years and all through them, 
 there was a Tempter, both able and willing to tempt any 
 ])roper subject of his temptations, if he had been left free 
 to follow the bent of his own nature and inclinations, he is 
 not seen to have exerted his power to tempt until these 
 three years were either ended, or coming to an end — from 
 which fact, it seems to be only a natural inference that, for 
 these three years of the existence of the first state of things, 
 — the state of innocence, the state of Paradise, — even this 
 Tempter was not permitted to indulge his will, and to exert 
 his power, to tempt. 
 
 With this fact then, thus ascertained, of the three years' 
 duration of the state of things at the beginning — the state 
 of Paradise — let us contrast the three years' duration of the 
 personal ministry in the fulness of time of the Sou of God 
 in the form of the Son of Man", — That tJiis three years^ 
 duration of the state of Paradise was the proper term of 
 probation of the first Adam, and that three years"* duration 
 of the personal ministry of the Son of God in the form of 
 the Son of Man, was the proper term of probation of the 
 second Adam — and that the final end and effect of these last 
 three years was the recovery to man of all which had been 
 lost to him in the first three °. It will not appear an un- 
 reasonable inference from such premises as these, that the 
 duration of the state of Paradise, (of the a:ra of immortality 
 itself as still commensurable with the existence of the pre- 
 sent world.) was accommodated from the first to the foreseen 
 and preordained limits of the Personal appearance and Per- 
 sonal ministry of the second Adam, the Son of God and the 
 Son of Man; in his proper character, and proper order of time, 
 as the Redeemer of mankind. 
 
 Let us next proceed to inquire W'hat is discoverable of the 
 Birth and the Death, in the fulness of time, of this long 
 contemplated Redeemer. 
 
 With respect to the latter, it has never been doubted, 
 from the beginning of the Christian ^ra to the present day, 
 
 " Fasti, ii. 261 : Dissertations on (lie I'rinciiiles and Arrangement of an Har- 
 mony. Cf. in particular, Appendix, Supplement to Diss. xv. : and Aiijicndix, 
 Diss. .\ix. Vol. iv. 259 sqq. " Fasti, ii. 262-264. 
 
a. II. (EfowoTwy 0/ Human Redemption. 93 
 
 that the true date of the Death and Passion of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, in its proper year, was the 14th of the Jewish 
 Nisan in that year. With respect to the former, notwith- 
 standing the prejudice in favour of a different day, which 
 has long had exclusive possession of the Christian world, 1 
 may venture to say that, for the first one hundred and fifty 
 or two hundred years at least of the Gospel JEra, it was 
 never doubted in the Church that the true date of the Jiirth 
 of our Lord in the true year of the Nativity was the 10th of 
 Nisan ; and the proofs of this assertion, which have been 
 brought to light in my Dissertations V, in my Prolegomena 
 ad llarmoniamii, and in these Fasti and Origines"", fully 
 justify me in making it. 
 
 These two data then, viz. that our Lord was born on the 
 10th of Nisan in the true year of the Nativity, and suffered 
 on the 14th of Nisan in the true year of the Passion, being 
 assumed accordingly, the next question is, What was the 
 true year of the Nativity V and what was the true year of the 
 Passion ? In answer to which I may venture in like man- 
 ner to say the true year of the Nativity, as T have myself 
 demonstrated^, was li. C. 1; and the true year of the Pas- 
 sion, 33 years afterwards, as I have also demonstrated, was 
 A. D. 30. 
 
 The next thing to be observed is that the true day of the 
 Nativity, in terms of the Jewish calendar of the time being, 
 having been the 10th of Nisan R. C. 4, and the true date of 
 the Passion in the same respect having been the 14th of 
 Nisan A. D. 30; both the 10th of Nisan B.C. 4, and the 
 14th A. D. 30, as the calendar of my Prolegomena, for each 
 of these years respectively, shews, fell on the same day of 
 the Julian reckoning of the time being, April 5, It follows 
 from this coincidence that the 7-eal date of the Nativity and 
 the real date of the Passion, (which must have been this 
 Julian date of the time being,) were the same. And that 
 being the case ; if this true date of the Nativity B. C. 4, 
 
 P i. 381-549, &f. 'I Cap. ii. S5-124: iii. 125 170. ' Origg. 
 
 Kal. Ital. iv. 219-230. 308-342. 348-352 : Fasti, ii. 1586-590: Origg. Kal. Hell, 
 iii. 552-554. s Dissoi-tations, i. 466-549 : ii. 1-147. 351-3S1 : iii. 585 - 
 
 642: iv. 1-65. 1 1 7-414: Prolegomena atl Harm. ii. 85-124 : iii. 175-157: iv. 
 171-221 : Fasti, i. 530-541 : ii. 5S6-590 : Origg. Kal. Hi-ll. iii. 552-554. <t'. 
 .\|)|>eiulix, note H. 
 
94 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 coincided with the 10th of Nisan that year, and this true 
 date of the Passion A. D. 30, coincided with the 14th of Ni- 
 san in that year, what is to be inferred from those coin- 
 cidences, except that, for some reason or other, it was just 
 as necessary the future Redeemer should be born on this 
 day B. C. 4, when it was coinciding with Nisan 10, as that 
 he should suffer on this day A. D. 30, when it was coinciding 
 with Nisan 14? And what reason, common to both occa- 
 sions, could there be except that as born both on this day 
 and on the 10th of Nisan, he might answer to the Paschal 
 T>ambs, as designated and set apart for the Paschal sacrifices, 
 on the 10th of Nisan, — and as suffering both on this day 
 and on the 14th of Nisan, he might answer to the Paschal 
 sacrifices of that day themselves ? It confirms these con- 
 clusions that, as the 14th of Nisan in the true year of the 
 Passion must have fallen on the feria sewta of the Hebdo- 
 madal cycle, so, A. D. 30 Dom. Lett. F, did April 5. And 
 though the 10th of Nisan, in the year of the Nativity, it 
 might be supposed a priori must have been free to fall on 
 any feria of the Hebdomadal cycle, yet, from the recorded 
 circumstances of the event, it may be collected that the 
 article of our Saviour's birth must have been determined de 
 facto to the beginning of its proper /en«, reckoned according 
 to the primitive and still the Jewish rule, from sunset t. 
 And if we may assume that its actual feria was the feria 
 prima ineunte, B. C. 4 Dom. Lett. E, April 5, the actual Ju- 
 lian date of the birth, was both the 10th of Nisan and the /ma 
 prima ineunte too. 
 
 Such then having been the case with Nisan 10 and April 5 
 B. C. 4, let us go back to the first Nisan or Abib 10, B. C. 
 1560, when the first Paschal lambs were commanded to be 
 taken up and set apart for the first Paschal sacrifice destined 
 to be celebrated on the eve of the Exodus. The first of 
 Nisan B. C. 4, reckoned from sunset, was March 27 ; and 
 the first of Abib B.C. 1560, as we have assumed^, reckoned 
 from sunset, was March 26. On this principle, there could 
 have been no difference between Nisan 10 B. C 4 ineunte 
 and Abib or Nisan 10 B. 0. 1560 exeunte ". Both ahke 
 
 * Dissertations, i. 402 : Prolegomena, iv. § x. 180. ^' Page 84. 
 
 X CI". Prolegomena, iv. 181. 
 
s. II. CEcono77ii/ of Unman Redemption. 95 
 
 must have been the Julian April 5. It adds to the coinci- 
 dence, that as April 5 B. C. !■ Dom. Lett. E was the feria 
 septima, reckoned by the Julian rule, and the feria prima, 
 reckoned by the Primitive or Jewish, so was April o B. C. 
 15(50 Dora. Lett. E also. 
 
 It may however be objected to this coincidence that, 
 though we have assumed, we have not yet proved, that the 
 true Julian date of the first Nisan, (the A bib of the Exodus,) 
 was March 27. This must be admitted ; and yet that the 
 tenth of Nisan or Abib, in the true j'ear of the Exodus, B. C. 
 1560, was actually the feria septima of the Hebdomadal 
 cycle, is one of its characters which may be demonstrated of 
 it, independently of any assumption of ours, from the actual 
 character of the 15th or 22nd of the Jar of the Exodus, (the 
 month next to the Abib,) made known by the testimony of 
 Scripture itself in connection with the dispensation of Manna. 
 For if the 15th or the 22nd of the Jar of the Exodus was de 
 facto the feria septima, so must the 10th of the Abib or 
 Nisan, just 35 days before the 15th, or just 42 days before 
 the 22nd, have been also. 
 
 But with respect to this assumption itself, it may be shewn 
 from the testimony of Scripture that, beginning with the day 
 of the correction of the calendar, the 112th day in the course 
 and succession of subsequent events is determinable to the 
 day of the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai, at the end of 
 the first period of 40 days, passed there ; and consequently to 
 the day of the erection of the Golden Calf. It is discover- 
 able also from data of a different kind, of which an account 
 will be given by and by, that, the stated date of one of the 
 principal national festivals of the Egyptians of this ?era and 
 this epoch, that of the Natales Mneuidis, and the Panegyry 
 of the waters, in the first year of the Mneuis cycle, was July 
 16; and the year of the Exodus, as I hope also to shew by 
 and by, having coincided with the first year of a Mneuis 
 cycle, and the calf itself, set up on this occasion, having been 
 simply an image of the ^Incuis, nothing could be more pro- 
 bable a priori^ than that the day of the erection of this idol, 
 in the first year of the Mneuis cycle, and in honour of the 
 Mneuis, and the stated date of the Natales Mneuidis, and of 
 the Panegyry of the waters, must have been coinciding ; and 
 
96 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. t, 
 
 if so, all must have fallen this year on July 16. If so, the 
 Julian date of the 112th day from the correction of the calen- 
 dar, the day of the first descent of Moses from Mount Sinai, 
 must have been July 16. Reckon then 111 days back from 
 July 16 that year, and you come to March 27 ; or vice versa, 
 reckon 111 days on from March 27 and you come to 
 July 16. 
 
 Let us next go back from B. C 1560 to B. C. 4001 A. M. 
 4, the end of the state of innocence, and of the sera of im- 
 mortality, (as reckoned in the time of our own world, com- 
 mensurable with it,) and the beginning of the sera of mortality 
 as the actual law of human existence from the day of the 
 Fall to the present day. 
 
 This being done accordingly, the first observation which 
 may be made on the state of the case at this point of time is, 
 that did we suppose the Jewish calendar of our Saviour's 
 time, B. C. 4, or one like it, to have come into being A. M. 4 
 B. C. 4001, and the new moon of March B. C. 4001, and the 
 new moon of March B. C. 4, both to be calculated for the 
 same meridian, that of the ancient Jerusalem, and compared 
 together, we should find a surprising similarity between 
 them. 
 
 i. New moon of March B. C. 4001 >'. 
 
 li. m. s. 
 
 Mean N. moon March 27 i o 8 m. t. 
 True N. moon March 27 6 55 58'7 m. t. 
 
 ii. New moon of March B. C. 4 ^. 
 li. m. s. 
 Mean N. moon March 27 9 54 49 m. t. 
 True N. moon March 27 5 54 9-5 m. t, 
 
 the former only 1 h. 1 m. 49-2 sec. of mean time later than 
 the latter. It follows, that the first of this moon B. C. 4001 
 being called the first of JVisan, as much as the first of the same 
 moon, B. C. 4, there could absolutely have been no difference 
 between Nisan 10 B. C. 4001, and^isan 10 B. C. 4. Each 
 must have answered to the same Julian term, April 5, and 
 each as completely as the other. 
 
 ' Fasti, iv. 6^4. ' Fasti, iv. 6^0. 
 
 kA 
 
s. II. CJ^'ro//o/y/^ &/ Human Redemption. 97 
 
 Now it appears to have been handed down in the Church 
 by tradition » that, as the date of the Passion, which undid 
 the effects of the Fall, was the /ma seata, so the date of the 
 Fall, which entailed the necessity of that remedy, was the 
 feria se.vta also ; and if we may assume that April 5 B. C. 
 1001 was the date of the Fall, as much as April 5 A.D. 3() the 
 date of the Passion, it is just as certain that April 5 JJ. C. 
 4001 Dora. Lett. G F was the /ma sexta, as that April 5 A.l). 
 30 Dom. Lett. F, was so too. 
 
 Suppose then this day, April 5, A. M. 4, B. C. 4001, to have 
 been tlie date of the Fall — the date of the first act of Trans- 
 gression, which put an end to the state of innocence, and to 
 the -^ra of immortality as the measure of human existence 
 also — on that principle, it must have been the date of the 
 judgment of all the parties concerned in that first act of 
 transgression ; and if it was the day of this judgment, it must 
 also have been that of the promise of the future Seed. If so, 
 we cannot fail to be struck by the coincidences thus brought 
 to light; viz. that the very first promise of a Redeemer should 
 have designated him even then, through the Lunar date of 
 the day on which it was delivered, as the Lamb of the Exodus 
 B. C. 1560, and the Lamb of the Nativity B.C. 4, and through 
 the solar or Julian date of the same day, as the Lamb of the 
 Passion A. D. 30. 
 
 Lastly, it is still to be observed, in reference to this sub- 
 ject, that as we come down with Scriptural history and the 
 primitive calendar, from this date of the Fall, B. C. 4001, 
 to that of the Exodus, B. C. 1560, other remarkable coinci- 
 dences, distinctive of this day, April 5, above all others, and 
 closely connected with the scheme and oeconomy of Human 
 Redemption, are very probably, if not certainly, discover- 
 able. 
 
 As, i. There is reason to conclude that this day, April 5, 
 A. M. 82, Thoth 1, ^ra Cyc. 83— at that time also the /ma 
 sexta — was the date of the first sacrifice offered in Faith^ 
 (i. e. with a clear and distinct apprehension on the part of 
 the offerer of the relation of sacrifice, as a positive appoint- 
 
 > Fasti, ii. 258, 359. 
 ' H 
 
98 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 ment, to the great vicarious sacrifice of the Atonement) — the 
 sacrifice of Abel, Gen. iv. 3-5 ^. 
 
 ii. There is reason in like manner to believe that this day, 
 April 5, A.M. 2016, BO. 1989, was the date of the fifth 
 Manifestation of the Deity to Abraham, Gen. xv. 1-21, and 
 of the Promise nuide to liim at that time — the most solemn 
 of all on record f". 
 
 iii. There is still more reason to believe that the date of 
 the birth of Isaac, (the principal type of the promised seed, 
 under the Patriarchal and the Mosaic dispensations f^,) was 
 specially determined to this day, April 5, B. C. 1966 — at that 
 time also both the feria septima by the Julian rule, and the 
 feria prima by the Primitive, like April 5, B.C. 4«. And 
 there is equally reason to believe that this day, April 5, 33 
 years after, B. C. 1933, was the date of the sacrifice of Isaac, 
 in the same capacity of the type of the promised seed — and 
 on the feria se.vta at that time, as much as that of our 
 Saviour, in the year of the Passion, A. D. 30 f. 
 
 Section XI I. — On the two Miracles of Scripture, the standing 
 still of the sun in the time of Joshua, and the going back of 
 the sun in the time of Hezekiah. Testimony of the three 
 Witnesses. 
 
 A great deal has been said by sceptical reasoners about 
 the laws of nature, and the course of nature ; and in order 
 to get rid of the miraculous evidence by which the truth of 
 the Mosaic or the Christian Dispensation is confirmed, it 
 suits their purpose to represent these laws, once laid down, 
 as so unchangeable, and this course, as a determinate series 
 of antecedents and consequents, once originated, as so inva- 
 riable, that a suspension or change of the laws or the order 
 of such a succession would be impossible — something which 
 could never happen — and consequently which no testimony 
 could render credible. 
 
 With respect to this reasoning and these assumptions in 
 general — it does not enter into the plan of this present work 
 to deal with any question, which it proposes to discuss, ex- 
 
 b Fasti, ii, 156-163. > Ibid. 195. '' Ibid. 185 sqq. <" Ibid. ii. 202. 
 
 'Ibid. 202 sqq. cf. 257. 
 
s. 12. TItt two ^Miracles, uffectiiiy iht- Sun. 99 
 
 cept simply as one of fact. Granting therefore that a change 
 or suspension of the hiws of nature, or of the course of nature, 
 is not an ordinary phenomenon, yet whether those laws and 
 that course are absolutely immutable, we may justly contend, 
 will be decided in the negative, if it can be made to appear 
 that one instance at least of a change, a suspension, a varia- 
 tion of this kind, and one not the least remarkable a priori 
 of all which might be imagined, has occurred de facto in time 
 past, the effect of which is still existing, and still confirmed 
 by the evidence of the fact, at the present day. 
 
 Among these supposed unchanged and unchangeable laws 
 of nature, there is probably none which the sceptic, if chal- 
 lenged to specify that one of the number which answered 
 most completely to his description of them, would be more 
 likely to select than the law of the Diurnal Rotation — the 
 constitution of Nature which carries a given line of points, 
 all lying in the plain of the same great circle passing through 
 the poles and tlie centre of the earth, from a given object in 
 space called the mean sun to this object again, after a cer- 
 tain interval of duration, measured by the period of 24 hours 
 of mean solar time perpetually, and called in common lan- 
 guage a Day and a Night. 
 
 This law, and the constant operation and effect of this law, 
 among all the laws or constitutions of nature themselves, and 
 their proper effects, might be the one principal type of uni- 
 formity, fixedness, invariability, not only in the opinion of 
 the most competent among mankind to judge of such things, 
 as men of science and astronomers in particular, but even in 
 the opinion of Inspiration itself — which, when it would refer 
 us to something the most immutable of its kind, appeals to 
 this — " If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my co- 
 venant of the night, and that there should not be day and 
 night in their season — "." The proper measure of this cycle, 
 the period of 24 hours of mean solar time perpetually, reck- 
 oned from the absolute instant when our planet first received 
 from its Maker the impulse of circumrotation, as 1 observed 
 supra*', has probably served from that moment to the pre- 
 
 B Jeremiah, xxjtiii. 10-25. cf. Job x. 5. xxvi. lo : Psalm Ixxiv. 16. btxxix. 29. 
 h Page 19. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. t. 
 
 sent, not only as the natural measure of its own existence, 
 but as the positive measure of the existence of every other 
 material world distinct from itself — if every other at least 
 has been later than this in the order and time of its coming 
 into being. Nay more, as I have also observed s, it has 
 been purposely chosen as the measure even of the uncreated 
 and underived existence of the Creator of all these worlds 
 themselves, relatively to that of the oldest and most enduring 
 of these creatures of his in general. 
 
 If then even this one of the primary and elementary laws 
 of the material universe, the most comprehensive of all, and 
 the most invariable of all, to go no further back in its history 
 than the Eisodus into the land of Canaan, between that 
 epoch and the present day, has not once only but tivice been 
 made the subject of a specific anomaly, followed by a corre- 
 sponding effect — a permanent effect too, not a temporary 
 one, as real at the present day, and destined to be as real at 
 any future day which we can conceive of at present, as the 
 very day on which it happened — if such an anomaly, and on 
 such a subject, and with such an effect and consequence, as 
 this, is upon record in Scripture, and is attested by the mea- 
 sures of time themselves, and by their relations inter se, be- 
 fore and after its occurrence — and is substantiated and au- 
 thenticated l)y the tradition and testimony of integral divi- 
 sions of mankind in all quarters of the world — the proof of 
 our proposition, That one instance at least of the change 
 or suspension of the laws of the material universe, one ease 
 of the interruption of the course of nature, one miracle in 
 short, (and that one not the least improbable a priori of its 
 kind,) the evidence of which is still as real, and as significant, 
 as ever, has truly occurred, will be abundantly made out; 
 and the honest and simple-minded inquirer into the grounds 
 and reasons of the assent which he is bound to give to every 
 thing which he reads of in Scripture, satisfied on such assur- 
 ances as these, of tlie fact of one miracle at least, and that 
 one miracle such a miracle as this, may rest secure in the 
 implicit belief of every other, recorded in the Bible — none 
 of them more extraordinary, nor more incredible a priori 
 than this, 
 
 ff Page 1 8. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 101 
 
 It will readily be understood that, when I speak of any 
 such miraculous affection of one of the primary laws of 
 nature, as this of the Diurnal llotation, I mean the standing 
 still of the sun in the time of Joshua, and the going back of 
 the sun in the time of Hezekiali. Each of these extraordi- 
 nary occurences, as they stand on record in Scripture, was 
 circumstantially considered in the first and second parts of 
 these Fasti and Origines h ; with reference too to their sub- 
 stantiation by each of the sources and kinds of proof — tlie 
 use and application of which, over and above the testimony 
 of Scripture, to such questions as these 1 am endeavouring 
 to illustrate at present — the natural measures of time, the 
 primitive calendar, and national tradition. In our reference 
 then to these subjects again, it must be our business merely 
 to recapitulate these several proofs, — as distinctly indeed, but 
 as briefly, as possible. 
 
 To begin then with the Testimony of Scripture ; and i. to 
 the standing still of the sun in the time of Joshua. 
 
 i. Assuming that the year of the event itself was the year 
 of the Eisodus, and the year of the Eisodus was B. C. 1520, 
 it has been shewn', or it may be shewn, that the day of the 
 event, inferentially discoverable from the Scripture account — 
 later than the pas.sage of the Jordan, on the tenth of the 
 first month, March 2(5 — later than the circumcision of the 
 people at Gilgal — later than the first Passover, kept in the 
 land of Canaan, which, from the necessity of the case in this 
 instance must have been that of the second month, on or 
 about April 29 — later than the seven days compassing of 
 Jericho — later than the capture of Jericho — later than the 
 destruction of Ai — later than the recitation of the Law — 
 (the 6th of the third month, May 20 or 21)— later than the 
 covenant with the Gibeonites — later than the march to 
 Gibcon — later than all these incidents and more besides, — 
 could not possibly have been earlier in its proper order of 
 time than some day towards the end of the mouth of May. 
 
 ii. It has been shewn 's from the particulars recorded in 
 Scripture, before and after the battle of Gibeon, especially 
 from the fact of the march to Gibeon from Gilgal by night, 
 
 '' Fasti (atli. i. ^37-38.^ ; iv. 5J4-6:2. Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. .mS 530, 
 " Fasti, i. 251-276. ^ i. 261-2^)3. 
 
102 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 before the battle, and that of the six days' operations, (includ- 
 ing the battle on the first day,) continuously related after 
 the battle, but no more — that Joshua must have received the 
 message of the Gibeonites on the Sabbath^ and must have 
 marched to their assistance, as soon as the Sabbath was over, 
 on the evening of the first day of the week — and the six days' 
 operations, the account of which follows without interrup- 
 tion, from the day of the battle to the sixth day after inclu- 
 sive, must have been those of these six days, from the end of 
 the Sabbath of the preceding week, to the eve of the Sab- 
 bath, next in order to it. 
 
 iii. It has also been shewn ', that as moonlight would obvi- 
 ously have been requisite, (or at least obviously must have 
 been desirable,) for a march like this from Gilgal to Gibeon 
 by night, so. if the march was actually made - as we have 
 concluded it must have been — towards the end of May, B. C. 
 15.20, the moon was at the full in that month in that year, 
 on the 30th of May — about 3.30 p. m. It has been shewn 
 too that May 30, the day of the full moon, this year B. C. 
 1520, Dom. Lett. D, was the feria septima or Sabbath ; and 
 if the march from Gilgal to Gibeon was actually made on the 
 evening of this day, after the expiration of the Sabbath, be- 
 tween May 30 at 18 h. and May 31 at 18 h. it was actually 
 made on the feria prima, according to the primitive rule. 
 
 iv. The distance from Gilgal to Gibeon having been fifteen 
 Roman miles at least, it has been shewn "^ that, to make such 
 a march by night, with an army so numerous as that which 
 went up with Joshua on this occasion, expecting to encounter 
 an enemy as soon as they arrived at Gibeon, and therefore 
 proceeding in good or<^ler and leisurely all the way — even 
 with the benefit of moonlight — would require nine or ten 
 hours of noctidiurnal time at least ; and therefore, even if 
 begun within an hour of the expiration of the sabbatic rest, 
 May 30, could not have been completed much before the end 
 of the eleventh hour of the night, May 31 — which, for the 
 climate of Judaea, and the latitude of Jerusalem, that year 
 and that day, would be between 3 a. m. and 4 a. m.— an hour 
 and an half, or an hour and a quarter, before sunrise, and 
 
 ' P'asti, i. 259 : iv. 557. "' Ibid. 25i-2-;(;. 266, 267 : iv. 5SS. 597, 
 
S. 1 2. 
 
 The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 103 
 
 couscqueutly just about the break of day — the ruost likely 
 time to have been selected under any circumstances, for 
 coming on an enemy in the morning, and by surprise. 
 
 V. The battle under the walls of Gibeon being assumed to 
 have begun, May 31, about this time; when it was over, as 
 a contest in the field, and nothing remained, in order to 
 complete the success of the day, except the pursuit, and the 
 destruction of the fugitives ; it has been shewn that, as the 
 command to the sun, followed by the miracle of this day, ap- 
 peared to have been given by Joshua just at this time — ^just as 
 the contest for victory was over, and the pursuit of the routed 
 enemy was about to begin — so the motive to the command, 
 (which Scripture itself attributes to the impulse of Joshua's 
 own will,) was probably that which under such circumstances 
 was a priori to have been expected, viz. a desire, on the part 
 of Joshua, to lengthen the morning of the day just setting 
 in with tlie beginning of the pursuit — i. e. to lengthen the 
 period of the day, in such a climate as that of Judaea, and in 
 such a month as the month of May, and on a day so near to 
 midsummer itself, B.C. 1520, as May 31 -the most favour- 
 able for pursuit, for the very purpose of this pursuit — which 
 he foresaw would last through tlie greater part of the day. 
 And if the Deity was pleased to give effect even to such a 
 command, and as so originated in the impulse of the w ill of a 
 man, it was, as .Scripture itself accounts for it, because God 
 fought for Israel, and did that for Joshua by his Almighty 
 Power, which Joshua, had he been able, under such circum- 
 stances, would have done for himself". 
 
 vii. The con)niaud to the sun then having been given, just 
 as the morning of the day was about to begin, and the morn- 
 ing, properly so called, being necessarily dated with sunrise; 
 the command, on this supposition, must have been given 
 about sunrise — which, at this time of the year, B. C. 1520, 
 and for the latitude of Jerusalem, would be as nearly as pos- 
 sible 5 A. y\. mean time. And that, if Johsua came upon the 
 enemy an hour and an half, or even less, before sunrise, and 
 none of them, as he was assured " before he set out on his 
 march against them from Gilgal, was destined to stand before 
 him — we should thus allow sufficient time for the discomli- 
 
 " F«!<ti, i. 279 :8i. " x. S. 
 
104 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 ture and rout of the besieging army — requires no proof. 
 But, that the command to the sun was given, and the effect 
 which followed upon it, did take place, as the morning of the 
 day was setting in, may be inferred from various considera- 
 tions — i. From the specific description of the addition made 
 to the length of the darj on this occasion, which Scripture it- 
 self limits to that of v^perfect day — and the true definition and 
 meaning of a perfect day in the idiom of Scripture — i. e. an 
 equinoctial day — a day neither more nor less than the half 
 of the period of 24 hours, neither more nor less than 12 
 hours of mean solar time in length, ii. From the final end 
 of the anomaly of this day itself; viz. not to confound, for 
 this time and this occasion, the stated succession and distinc- 
 tion of morning and evening in the reckoning of the parts of 
 the noctidiurnal cycle in general, (such as had always been 
 the case from the first until then,) but simply to lengthen 
 out the morning of this particular cycle, to add 12 hours of 
 mean solar time to the morning half of this one i'v\6i]iJ.€pov, 
 still reckoned, according to the primitive rule, from May 30 
 at 18 hours to May 31 at 18 hours. For which piirpose, it 
 is evident, no period of this vvx^wepov could have been so 
 appropriate a priori, as the moment of sunrise itself — the 
 proper beginning of the morning half of the Noctidiurnal 
 cycle, at all times of the year ahke P. iii. From the extent 
 of the distance from Gibeon, over which the pursuit of this 
 day as such is seen to have carried Joshua and his followers, 
 between the time of this command to the sun, followed by 
 its standing still, and the time when it began to move again ; 
 i. e. in one direction as far as Makkedah and Azekah, six- 
 teen Roman miles from Gibeon at least, in another as far as 
 Bethhoron, ten Roman miles from Gibeonq ; neither of which, 
 and especially the former, could have been traversed by an 
 army in much less than 12 hoars' time — so that if the sun 
 began to be motionless while they were still under the walls 
 of Gibeon, and began to move again when they were now at 
 Makkedah and Azekah, it must have stood still 12 hours. 
 
 ii. With the Testimony of Scripture to the going back of 
 the sun, in the time of Hezekiah. 
 
 i. It has been shewn "" that, if an anomaly, like that of 
 
 P Appendix, note T. 'i Fasti, i. 267-276. r Ibid, 276-283. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 105 
 
 which I have just given an account, affecting the decursus of 
 the simplest and most elementary of the natural measures of 
 time, by the addition of 12 hours to its ordinary length, for 
 any sufficient reason had once been permitted, that fact alone 
 would be competent to raise tlie expectation a yjriori that an- 
 other anomaly, of the same kind and to the same extent, 
 would be found to have been some time or other again per- 
 mitted, if for no other reason, yet for this, of restoring the 
 proportion of the mean and the actual noctidiurnal cycle, 
 one to the other, to the same absolute or relative equality, 
 after the occurrence of the first of these anomalies, as 
 before. 
 
 It has been shewn accordingly ^ that the first idea of this 
 second miracle did not originate with Ilezekiah, as that of 
 the first may be said to have done with Joshua — that the 
 miracle was proposed to him by the Deity himself, as one of 
 two alternatives, between which he was expected to make his 
 choice — and therefore that, while serving one purpose with 
 respect to Ilezekiah, as the sign and seal of the promise of 
 his recovery, and of the addition to the length of his life, it 
 might still have answered another also, contemplated by the 
 Author of the miracle himself, in restoring the relations of 
 mean and actual noctidiurnal time to their proper proportion 
 inter se from the first. 
 
 If this however was the true moving cause of the second 
 miracle — i. e. if it is ultimately to be resolved into the occur- 
 rence of a similar anomaly once before — it was to be expected 
 a priori, that, as the peculiar oeconomy of the former miracle 
 had consisted in tlie addition of 12 hours of mean time, for 
 the proper meridian, to the morning half of the noctidiurnal 
 cycle, that of this second would bo found to consist in the 
 addition of 12 iiours of mean time for the same meridian, to 
 the proper evening half. 
 
 ii. This conclusion, it has been shewn t from the circum- 
 stantial consideration of the particulars of the second miracle, 
 is confirmed Ijy the facts of the case. For ist, the Mualoth, 
 steps or degrees of the sun, steps or degrees of the dial, in 
 
 » Fasti, Inc. (it. ' Ibi«l. i. jS.^_:yi. 
 
106 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 the recession of the shadow over ten of which the essence of 
 the miracle was to consist, having been, as it was shewn*, 
 intended of so many hours of diurnal Kairic time, analogous 
 to the spaces traversed by the shadow of the g4ioraon on the 
 plane of the sundial in each respectively, it was necessarily to 
 be inferred from this fact that the season of the miracle, now 
 about to take place, i-elatively to the natural year, must have 
 been that, when ten hours of Kairic time, for the climate of 
 Judaja, were more or less the same with twelve of mean. 
 And though it must be admitted^ that, for this climate in 
 particular, that could never be strictly the case, not even at 
 the summer solstice itself, this difficult}^, in the present in- 
 stance, was easy to be obviated — by understanding the pro- 
 posed measure of the Recession, agreeably to the idiom of 
 Scripture — (whereby a round number is sometimes put for 
 that number and something more^ — ) though not of anything 
 less than ten of these maaloth of the dial, yet possibly of 
 something, even a third part, of one morO. 
 
 ii. With respect to the year of this second miracle, the 
 testimony of Scripture itself, it was shewn ^, determined it to 
 the middle year of the reign of Hezekiah ; and the true 
 chronology of the reign of Hezekiah, as bearing date from 
 the month of Tebeth or December B.C. 725, determined the 
 middle of his reign (29 years in all) — 14^ from the begin- 
 ning and 14^ before the end — to the end of the month of Jar 
 or May, B. C 710. 
 
 iii. And hence, it was easy to approximate to the day of 
 the miracle, both in the calendar of the time being, and in 
 the Julian — first generally, as some day of the second month 
 in the Sacred calendar, B. C. 710, Period iii, Cycle xii. 4 ^, 
 May 2 — June 1— that year; secondly, and more particularly, 
 i. From the character of the day, specified by the Scriptural 
 account itself — the third, before some day of stated resort to 
 the Temple — (three days before it, according to the idiom of 
 Scripture, inclusive of both extremes, two, exclusive of the 
 fir^t — ) which, for the month of Jar, could have been only the 
 new moon ol" that month, or one of the Sabbaths ; and if, 
 
 t I''ast.i, i. 283-291. ^ Ibiil. i. 2.^6. >■ A))in'iuU\, note V. 
 
 y Fasti, i. 204-297. '" Ibid. i. 2*^9. " ProU'Comcna. page xliii. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affectiny the Sun. 107 
 
 under the circumstances of the case, it could not have been 
 the former, it must have been the latter, iii. From the great 
 a priori probability that, if the miracle about to be wrought 
 on this day was simply the counterpart, the continuation or 
 complement, of that which had been wrought in the time of 
 Joshua, among the other points of resemblance in their re- 
 spective circumstances, one would be found to be this; viz. 
 That the actual <lay of the former and the actual day of the 
 latter, as both referrible to the same calendar like the Pro- 
 leptic.d Julian, were the same; and consequently, that if the 
 Julian date of the day of the first miracle in its proper year 
 was May 31, that of this second one in its proper year would 
 be found to have been May -31 also. 
 
 iv. This very reasonable presumption of what the true 
 Julian date of the day of the second miracle was likely to be, 
 was confirmed by the meeting together of all the characters 
 of the actual dav, previously collected from the testimonj' 
 of Scripture, or from the reason of things, in this one Julian 
 day. May 31, B. (*. 710^. i. In the date of sunrise, for the 
 latitude of Jerusalem, this day; true sunrise May 31, at 5 b. 
 6ra. 252666 sec. apparent time, apparent sunrise. May 31, 
 at 5 h. !• m. 13-2666 ; and in the length of the diurnal hour 
 in Kairic time, thence deducible, 1 h. 9 m. 17'789sec., ten 
 of which were only 27 minutes 2 sec. less than 12 hours of 
 mean time —and in the precise time consequently of the 
 miracle, a third part of one of these Maaloth past the 
 point of the xiith hour in apparent time, yet May 31, at 
 18 h. or 6 P.M. mean time for the meridian of Jerusalem'^. 
 ii. In the calendar date of this day, Alay 31, for the time 
 being, Jar 30, Per. iii. xii. 4, and the Hebdomadal character 
 both of Jar 30 and of May 31, B.C. 710, Dom. Lett. G, as 
 the feria (juinta — the third day*', according to the idiom of 
 Scripture, before the next sabbath, Sivan 2, June 2, but only 
 the day before tlie next new moon, Sivan 1, Juno 1, which 
 could not have been reckoned, even in Scripture, the third 
 day from that of the miracle''. 
 
 V. The date of the first miracle then having been May 31, 
 at o A.M. mean time for the meridian of .lerusalera, B.C. 1520, 
 
 b Fa.sti, i. 291. '■ Ibid. i. 295 : iv. 59S, if,.;. 'I Ibid. i. 2HH. 
 
108 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 and that of the second, May 31, at 6 p. m. mean time for the 
 same meridian — with respect to the oeconomy of the mi- 
 racle on each occasion — it has been shewn ^ that the modus 
 operandi of the miracle in the first instance was the suspen- 
 sion indeed of the law of the Diurnal Rotation, but not the 
 substitution of any other for the time in its stead, — and so 
 far it was a simple uncomplicated process of its kind. The 
 mode of the miracle in the second instance was. First, the 
 stoppage of the Diurnal Rotation from west to east. Se- 
 condly, the substitution for it of a contrary motion from east 
 to west, and as a consequence of that, the replacement of all 
 meridians under the sun, 180 degrees from west to east. 
 Thirdly, as soon as this effect had been produced, the stop- 
 page of this motion from east to west too, and the restora- 
 tion of the Diurnal Rotation from west to east, according to 
 its own law, as before. Fourthly and lastly, all this, in the 
 case of the second miracle, instantaneously done — an in- 
 stantaneous stopping — an instantaneous reversion — an in- 
 stantaneous restoration — of the Diurnal Rotation — with no 
 appreciable interval between the beginning and the end of 
 the process — with nothing to attest it to the senses or to the 
 reason of the contemporaries of it in Judaea, but the appear- 
 ance of the sun, just before, in a certain position relatively 
 to the horizon in the west, and its appearance, all in a mo- 
 ment afterwards, 180 degrees removed from that position in 
 the east*. 
 
 How much must have been involved even in the simple, 
 but instantaneous, suspension of the motion of the earth 
 round its own axis, on the first occasion, of which neverthe- 
 less nothing either in the earth, or on the earth, was con- 
 scious at the time, I leave it to the physical astronomer to 
 say?^. How much more of the same kind, of which notwith- 
 standing no living or sentient thing in or upon the earth was 
 made aware by the effect produced, must have been included 
 in the second, common sense alone, without any knowledge 
 of physical astronomy, or any profound acquaintance M'ith 
 the constitution of the material universe, with a little reflec- 
 tion, is competent to form something like an idea. It is 
 
 p F"a!;ti, i. .^oi, .io: : iv. ^iSS s(|(|. ' Ibid. i. lyj-.^o:. 
 
 * Ap|ieii(lix, note X. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, ajfectjnr/ the Sun. 109 
 
 evident therefore that, as a demonstrative proof of the abso- 
 lute subjection of the laws of matter to the Will of the 
 Creator of that matter, and the Author of those laws — that 
 they are what they are, only as the expressions and energies 
 of that AVill — that they continue what they are only so long 
 as that Will still chooses they shall— and that they operate 
 as they operate only in the way and to the extent in which 
 and to which that Will prescribes and empowers them per- 
 petually — the second miracle is unum instar omnium, and 
 supplies an unanswerable argument of the possibility of 
 every other miracle, recorded in Scripture, as simply the effect 
 of the same Will and the same Power, which produced these 
 two miracles, and more especially the second — yet affecting 
 the laws of matter, the course of nature, the constitution of 
 the universe, on a scale and to an extent incomparably less 
 even to our apprehensions than either of these anomalies, and 
 especially the second. 
 
 Let us pass next to the testimonj^ of the Primitive Ca- 
 lendar — and to the impress or mark of its own reality which 
 either of those miraculous occurrences may have left on the 
 civil reckoning of its own time. 
 
 i. A very curious and interesting monument of antiquity 
 is still extant among the remains of Johannes Lydus, or.Tohn 
 of Pliiladclphia, in Proconsular Asia, who flourished in the 
 reigns of the three Roman emperors Anastasius, Justin, and 
 Justinian, — which he himself entitles the Calendar of a cer- 
 tain Claudius, and professes to have translated out of its own 
 language, whatsoever that was, into Greek ^. 
 
 With respect to the author of this Calendar— though no- 
 thing is known of him at present beyond what may be in- 
 ferred from this translation of his work b}' Lydus, I have 
 shewn that, from his style in Lydus, RA.ai;8tcs 6 Qovctko's, 
 not Kkavhios QovaKos, his proper denomination must have 
 been Claudius the Tuscan, not Claudius Tuscus, and there- 
 fore he must have been a native of the ancient Tuscia or 
 Etruria '. 
 
 With respect to the materials of his Calendar, according 
 to his own account of them, reported by Lydus, they were 
 
 I" Orig)(. Kal. Italicfe, ii. 460 5.^0. ' Ibul. ii. 460. 463-561. 
 
110 The Mret^ Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 the (lata recorded in the temples of the Etrurians — and that 
 would be consistent witli the nationality of the compiler of 
 the Calendar himself, if he too Avas an Etruscan. And it 
 may be collected even from the compilation itself, that its 
 author must have been more interested in the records of the 
 ancient Etrurians, than in the antiquities of any other of the 
 nations of ancient Italy — because, of the Five Types of the 
 Nundinal Correction, peculiar to these nations in general, 
 none are noticed in this compilation, under their proper dis- 
 tinctive characters, except the two, (the fourth and the fifth,) 
 which were confined to the ancient Etrurians l'. 
 
 With regard to the antiquity of the compilation, to say 
 nothing of the date of the translation of it, which, as 1 have 
 exj)lained, was made some time in the reign of Anastasius, 
 Justin, or Justinian, (A. D, 491 — 565,) it resolves itself into 
 two questions, That of the age of Claudius and the date of 
 his Calendar itself, and That of the date of his materials, the 
 antiquity of the records from which he compiled it. With 
 respect to the first of these questions, it has been shewn ^ 
 from the internal evidence of the calendar itself, that it 
 must have been put together by its author A. D. 51 — 52. 
 It is adapted at least to A.D. 51 — 52. With regard to the 
 second, it has been shewn'" that, among the entries dis- 
 coverable in the Calendar, one is the epoch of the lunar 
 Ecliptic cycle, called the Saros or Exeligmus, peculiar to 
 the Etruscans — borrowed indeed from the Chaklaic Saros 
 of the same kind, but attached among them to Sept. 25 
 B. C. 619. Another is the epoch of this Chaldee cycle 
 of the same kind itself, August 11 E. C. 794. It is an ob- 
 vious inference from the first of these entries, that the data 
 of a compilation which included that, must have gone back 
 to B C. 619, and from the second, that they could not have 
 stopped short of B. C. 794. It has been shewn too" that it 
 recognises also the Hebdomadal cycle under the planetary 
 names of its ferise ; and that is a proof that some of its data 
 must have been as old as B. C. 798 at least. It recognises 
 likewise tlie fable of the Phcenix ", and the change in the 
 
 k Origg. Kal. Ita!. ii. 530. ' Ibid. 490-497. et 465-479. 
 
 ni Ibid. ii. 480. " Ibid. ii. 490-^92. 492-508. 
 
s. I :. TJiP two Miruoles, affcct'inrf the Sun. Ill 
 
 Period of the Phrenix cycle, first mafic in Egypt in li. C. 798 
 also. IJut the clearest and most decisive proof of the scope 
 and comprehension of the whole compilation, and the abso- 
 lute antiquity of its materials, is the cycle of what it calls the 
 'AcTTpor KfWTiTov", n cvclc of twclvc tcmis, answering to a dis- 
 tinction of twelve days, founded on the essential relations of 
 equable cyclical and equable Nabonussarian time, before a 
 certain period, and necessarily generated in the decursus of 
 both together through twelve such periods as those of my 
 Fasti P : from which it may be certainly inferred that, though 
 the actual date of the calendar, as compiled by Claudius, 
 was A. D. 51 — 52, the absolute scope and comprehension of 
 the collection, in the decursus of equable time of botli kinds, 
 was neither more nor less than the interval from Thoth 1 , 
 ^ra eye. 2574, August 10 H. C. 1433 to Thoth 1 Nab. 800, 
 August 10 A.T). 51 <i. 
 
 ii. These observations having been premised, 1 observe 
 that in this calendar, and under the head of Pi-idie nonas 
 Augusti, an entry O'-curs to this effect ^ : 
 
 'Ei' Tw bL-qixep(o TovTco 6 ijkios fJ-iav fxolpav Kpard — 
 
 the literal meaning of which is, " In this double day the sun 
 occupies one degree." And from this it is an obvious infer- 
 6nce that this day, Pridie nonas Augusti, for some reason or 
 other, must have been recognised as a double day — as one 
 day equivalent to tiro, as one day as long as two — and yet 
 though a double day of this kind, as one in which the sun 
 occupied only the ordinary space of one day — the sun moved 
 only at the rate, and to the extent, of his motion in one day. 
 And it ha.s been shewn f that such must have been the phe- 
 nomenon sensibly at least exhibited by the effect of the 
 miracle in the time of Joshua ; that of one day made as long 
 apparently as two days, in which notwithstanding the sun 
 moved over no more of its regular course in the heavens, than 
 it ordinarily did in one day. Consequently, that a character 
 like this could have gone down to posterity, attached to no 
 day in the calendar of the time being, but that of the first 
 miracle. And it has been shewn '^ that, even if the day of the 
 
 o Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 509-517. p f'f. ()rigg. Kal. Hell. i. Prolegomena, clxi. 
 Q Origg. Kal. It.il. ii. 509-517. r Ibid. ii. 51S. 9 Ibi«l. ii. 523. 
 
112 Tke three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i, 
 
 miracle did go down to posterity in the calendar of the time 
 being, so characterized, yet when the equable calendar, to 
 which it was consigned at first, passed into the Julian, (as it 
 did every where, sooner or later,) the character of the equable 
 date of this day Avould be transferred to the Julian, which 
 was corresponding to it at the time, and the traditionary 
 character of the day of the miracle, before attached to its 
 equable date perpetuall\% from this time forward would be 
 attached to the Julian, corresponding to it, in its stead. 
 
 Let us then proceed to inquire into this equable date 
 of the first miracle 
 
 Scheme of the Equable Calendar, 
 Mxa cyclica 2486, B. C. 1521 — 1520. 
 
 
 
 Midii 
 
 B.C. 
 
 
 
 Midn. B.C. 
 
 
 Thoth I 
 
 Aug. 31 
 
 1521 
 
 vi 
 
 Mecheir i 
 
 Jan. 28 1520 
 
 ii 
 
 Phaophi I 
 
 Sept. 30 
 
 
 vii 
 
 Phamenoth i 
 
 Feb. 27 
 
 iii 
 
 Choeac i 
 
 Oct. 30 
 
 
 viii 
 
 Pharmuthi i 
 
 March 29 
 
 iv 
 
 Athyr i 
 
 Nov. 29 
 
 
 ix 
 
 Pachon i 
 
 April 28 
 
 V 
 
 Tybi I 
 
 Dec. 29 
 
 X 
 
 
 X 
 
 Paiini i 
 
 May 28 
 
 
 Paiini 
 
 4> 
 
 May 31. 
 
 
 From which it appears that, if May 31 B. C. 1520 was the 
 true Julian date of the first miracle, Paiini 4 (the 4th of the 
 10th month) of the same sera must have been the true 
 equable date. 
 
 Let us next inquire into the true Julian meaning of this 
 Roman date in the Calendar of Claudius, Pridie nonas Au- 
 gusti. Pridie nonas Augusti in the Roman style indeed 
 never denoted any thing but August 4 Roman. August 4 
 Roman however did not always denote August 4 Julian. 
 And in fact it has been shewn ' that the date of this compi- 
 lation of Claudius' having been A. D. 51 — 52, both for those 
 two years, and for some years before and after them, the 
 proportion of the Roman Kalends of the time being to the 
 Julian was such, that January 1 Roman denoted January 2 
 Julian, and every other term in the Calendar for the time 
 being denoted a corresponding Julian term, one number 
 higher in the proper Julian notation. On this principle the 
 
 t Origg. Kal. Ital. iv. 142 sqi]. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, ajftctiny the Sun. 113 
 
 true Julian style of Priilie nonas Augusti in this calendar of 
 Claudius was August 5, not August 4, A. D. 51. 
 
 The proper Julian term therefore which succeeded some 
 time or other among the Etrurians to the traditionary cha- 
 racter of the equable date of the first miracle, Paiiui \, must 
 have been August 5 ; and the time when this Julian term 
 acquired that character must have been some time when 
 Paiini 4 in the equable style was falling on August 5 in the 
 Julian. And the last instance of any such coincidence as 
 that between the virtual epoch of the compilation of Claudius, 
 B. C. 1 131, and its actual one, A. D. 51--52, having been 
 B. C. 280 — 282 ; though we have no proof from testimony of 
 an actual correction of the equable calendar among the 
 Etrurians at this time, yet neither have we any to the con- 
 trary. And we know too little of their history either at 
 this or at any former period, to make the mere absence of 
 positive testimony to the fact of such a correction any in- 
 superable objection to its probability, much less to its 
 possibility. 
 
 But this is not all. Another entry is discoverable in this 
 calendar, attached to the Kalends of April : 
 
 KaXeVdair ^ AnpiXiais . . . /cat 6 yjXios fxiav wpocTTldTjai fio'tpav^' — 
 
 the prima facie meaning of which is, that, on this day, the 
 Kalends of April, the sun, for some reason or other, doubled 
 the usual extent of its diurnal movement — the sun moved 
 through two degrees, instead of one. This character of the 
 day therefore is apparently the very reverse of that which we 
 have just been considering. Before, the sun was supposed 
 to move only through the space of one day's motion in a day 
 as long as two. Here it is supposed to move through the 
 space of two days' motion in one day only. 
 
 And yet, as it has been shewn ^, even this mode of de. 
 scribing the phenomena of the second miracle, when the sun 
 was seen to repeat exactly the same movement in space — 
 through the next twelve hours after the miracle — which it 
 had previously described once in the last twelve before it, 
 was one under which it was very likely a priori to go down 
 
 "■' f^rigg- Kal. Ital. ii.51'?. " Ibid. 519. 
 
114 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 to posterity. And that being assumed, it is a natural infer- 
 ence from it^ that this character, attached to the Kalends of 
 Aprilis in this calendar of Claudius, does as probably mark 
 and designate the Julian representative of the equable date 
 of the second miracle, among the Etrurians, as the former, 
 attached to Pridie nonas Augusti, did the Julian style of the 
 equable date of the first. Let us therefore inquire into this 
 equable date of the second miracle. 
 
 Mra Cyclica 3297, Nab. 38, B.C. 710. 
 
 Midi). B.C. Midi). 
 
 i Thoth I Feb. 17 710 iii Athyr i April 18 
 ii Phaophi i March 19 iv Choeac i May 18 
 
 iv Choeac 14, May 31 at midn. 
 Hence, if May 31 B. C. 710 was truly the Julian date of the 
 second miracle, the 14th of the fourth month of the Primi- 
 tive equable calendar, the 14th of the Primitive Choeac, must 
 have been just as truly the equable date of the time being. 
 And the Kalends of April Roman in this instance also de- 
 noting April 2 Julian, nothing is necessary, to explain the 
 occurrence of this Julian term April 2, in a Julian calendar 
 like this of Claudius, compiled A. D. 51—52, with such a 
 character attached to it, except to suppose that this was the 
 Julian term, which was representing Choeac 14th, the tra- 
 ditionary date of the second miracle in the equable style, 
 when the equable calendar itself passed into the Julian. 
 And if we go back in search of the last coincidence of this 
 kind before A. D. 51-52, we find it in My?l Cyclica 3538, 
 Nab. 279, B.C. 470; and I have produced proof >' that, at 
 or about this time, an actual correction of the equable calen- 
 dar, among the Etrurians, by some form or other of the 
 Julian, a priori could not be considered an improbable con- 
 tingency. 
 
 iii. But neither is this all. The calendar of Columella is 
 a compilation of the same kind in general as that of Clau- 
 dius ; and I have had occasion to give a particular account of 
 that too^. y\nd though it appears from this that there are 
 
 y Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 642. cf. 534 sqq. ' Ibid. ii. 465. cf. iv. 1^3 sqq. : 
 
 also, Ori^g. Kal. Uoll. i. 450. 464. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 115 
 
 many minute and circumstantial coincidences between these 
 two compilations, and their respective authors must have 
 been contemporaries, yet, as the sources or data of either, ac- 
 cording to its own testimony, were totally different from 
 those of the other, (Chaudiun', the records in the ten)ples of 
 the Etrurians, Columella's, the Greek Parapegmata, especi- 
 ally that of Meton and Kudoxus,) neither of them could have 
 been derived from the other. 
 
 Now in this calendar also an entry occurs, attached to the 
 Kalends of Alay " — 
 
 Hoc biduo sol unam dicitur tenere particulam — 
 
 t\\G prima facie construction of which too is, that while this 
 day, the Kalends of May, in some sense or other was a 
 double day, the sun, in the space of this double day, for some 
 reason or other, moved over no more than one degree, no 
 more than one day^s motion. And it has been shewn* that 
 this too would be one of the external or sensible character- 
 istics of the day of the second miracle ; and perhaps the 
 most likely of all to descend to posterity, because the most 
 agreeable to the truth of all ; viz. that though the day of the 
 miracle was rendered thereby really as long as two, yet the 
 space actually described by the sun on that day was only the 
 proper space of one day ; the fact being that, as the sun was 
 set back 12 hours, just at the end of this day's motion, the 
 proper space of that one day had to be described over 
 again, but nothing more, in the same time at least, in addi- 
 tion to it. 
 
 Now the date of this calendar also having been A.D. 48- 
 49 '', and the proportion of the Roman to the Julian Kalends 
 at that time, and for some years before and after, having been 
 that of the first to the second of the month of the same de- 
 nomination, the Kalends of May Roman at this time must 
 have answered to May 2 Julian. And the sources of this 
 compilation having been the data supplied by the Greek 
 Parapegmata, and especially those of the calendar of Metou, 
 nothing could be more probable a /priori than the assumption 
 that this entry in particular must have been transfen-ed to 
 the calendar of Columella, from that of Meton; nor yet, that, 
 
 » Origg. Kail. Ital. ii. 516-5.^0. •• Ibid. iv. 14.{ 3(|(|. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 if it was to be traced to something of the same kind in the 
 calendar of Meton, it was to be traced from the calendar of 
 Meton itself ultimately to the older correction and calendar 
 of Solon. Assuming therefore that the traditionary date of 
 the second miracle in the equable style was Choeac 14 among 
 the ancient Greeks as much as among the ancient Etrurians, 
 let us inquire first of all into the Julian date of ChcEac 14 in 
 the year of the correction of Solon. 
 
 Scheme of the first four months in the Equable Calendar, jEra Cyc. 3415, 
 
 B. C. 592. 
 
 Midn. Midn. 
 
 i Thoth I Jan. 19 iii Athyr i March 20 
 
 ii Phaophi i Feb. 18 iv Choeac i April 19 
 
 iv Choeac 14 May 2. 
 
 It thus appears that the actual Julian style of Choeac 14 at 
 this time was May 2. 
 
 Let us next inquire into the relation of this Julian term 
 May 2 B. C. 592 to the correction of Solon. 
 
 Octaeteric Correction of Solon, Per. i. Cyc. i. 1. B.C. 592. 
 
 Midn. Midn. 
 
 i Gamelion 29 Jan. 19 iii Elaphebolion 29 March 19 
 
 ii Anthesterion 30 Feb. 17 iv Munychion 30 April 17 
 
 iv Munychion 16 May 2. 
 
 It thus appears that the traditionary equable date of the 
 second miracle in the first year of the correction of Solon, 
 and in the style of his correction, must have been Munychion 
 16. In this form, and under that name, might it have been 
 transferred from the calendar of Solon to that of Meton B. C. 
 432, and from the calendar of Meton to that of Columella, 
 A. D. 48-49, even if it was not taken by Columella directly 
 from the calendar of Solon itself. And yet that was evi- 
 dently possible ; insomuch as A. D. 49, the date of his own 
 compilation, and Cycle Ixxxi. 1. of the correction of Solon, 
 supposed to have continued unchanged down to this time, 
 were the same, and the stated Attic and Julian date of the 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 117 
 
 miracle in the correction of Solon, Cycle Ixxxi. 1, A. D. 49, 
 and Cycle i. 1, B. C. 592, must have been the same, Mnny- 
 chion 16, May 2, in both alike. 
 
 iv. But even this is not the whole of the testimony, dis- 
 coverable even at present, which the primitive calendar is 
 competent to render to the fact of this second miracle. It 
 has been shewn c^ that one of the eclipses of the sun, re- 
 corded among the Chinese, in the Tchuntsieou of Confucius, 
 described in that compilation as an ecliptic conjunction in 
 the seventh month of a calendar, which it styles the Royal 
 Calendar, but characterised also by the particular coinci- 
 dence of its having fallen out on the 29th /en'a of the Sexa- 
 gesimal cycle, (the Chinese name of which was Gintchin,) 
 was in reality the solar and lunar conjunction of the day of 
 the second miracle, Choeac 14, ^Era Cyc. 3297, Nab. 38 — 
 May 31, B.C. 710 — which actually fell that year on the /<?n'a 
 Gintchin of the sixty days' cycle of the Chinese. And 
 though this conjunction of May 31, B. C. 710, certainly was 
 not ecliptic, there Mas one in the month of March, last be- 
 fore it, which was so''. And this conjunction itself having 
 been distinguished by so remarkable an affection of the sun, 
 as that of this day, iNIay 31, (especially for the meridian of 
 Pekin in China,) of which something more will be said by 
 and by, it was liable a priori to be represented among the 
 Chinese in the course of time as a conjunction, characterised 
 by an extraordinary eclipse of the sun. And in fact, as I 
 have also shewn *-\ such a misrepresentation as this of the 
 actual phenomenon of this day, May 31, B. C. 710, is the 
 true explanation of the famous eclipse of Hi and Ho, which 
 makes such a figure in Chinese astronomy, and has given so 
 much trouble to modern chronologcrs, in their hitherto un- 
 availing and bootless attempts to find and to verify it*^. 
 
 iii. I shall now pass to the attestation, if not the confirma- 
 tion, of the same two great Scriptural facts by testimony ab 
 extra ; and i. IJy that of tradition. 
 
 i. The fact of both miracles is attested in this manner, as 
 I have shewn g, by the Egyptian tradition, recorded by Hero- 
 
 •■ Fasti, i. J^>5-.U2- •' \h\A. ^7:. i" Ibid. 377 : iv. (117. 
 
 f Cf. Ibid. i. .^8.^ V. ' ^' Ibid. i. 327. 
 
118 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 dotus ; That within such and such limits of time, the sun 
 had been known twice to have risen where it was accustomed 
 to set, and twice to have set where it was accustomed to rise. 
 For this was simply the external or apparent phenomenon 
 which characterised these two days, May 31 B.C. 1520, and 
 May 31 B. C. 710, respectively, with no more of misrepresen- 
 tation of the real state of the case on each occasion than was 
 easy to be accounted for, by the interval between the date 
 even of the second miracle and the time of Herodotus, and 
 by the tendency of tradition itself to assimilate two such 
 anomalies in the usual phenomena of the rising and the set- 
 ting of the sun, as these. 
 
 ii. The fact of the second miracle is attested by the tradi- 
 tion of the Troglodytes, bordering on Egypt, recorded by 
 Solinus ^, that the sun had once risen where it Mas wont 
 to set — for that too was simply the phenomenon of the se- 
 cond miracle, or what might easily come to be represented 
 by tradition, as that phenomenon — May 31 B. C. 710. 
 
 iii. The fact of the second miracle also is attested by the 
 tradition, among the Greeks, referred to in Plato', of a re- 
 cession of the stars, on a large scale, from west to east, 
 some time or other known or supposed to have happened. 
 For that was simply the apparent phenomenon of May 31 
 B. C, 710 itself, without exaggeration or misrepresentation 
 of any kind — if at least the heavens were reversed at that 
 time, 180 degrees from west to cast. 
 
 iv. This fact of the second miracle, again, is attested even 
 by the going back of the sun, in the tragic drama of the 
 Greeks — connected as it is even there with the banquet of 
 Thyestes. The banquet of Thyestes, as I have shewn ^, was 
 a pure and simple fiction of the later Greek poets ; but the 
 going back of the sun as the supi)osed effect of that ban- 
 quet, if the second miracle really happened, even though con- 
 nected with this banquet, is not to be treated as a fable too 
 — on that account. The only question which should arise 
 uiuler such circumstances is, How it might have happened 
 that a real phenomenon of this extraordinary kind, and a 
 fictitious banquet, however cvtraordinary too, might have 
 
 h Fasti, i. 3,?,^, ^.u- ' Ihid. .^4.^ n. •< Ibid. 334. 
 
s. 12. The tivo Miracles, affecting the Sun. 119 
 
 come to be arbitrarily conuectcd ? and by whom first, and 
 when? I have shewn that though the fable of the banquet 
 was known to i^schylus, the oldest of the Greek tragedians, 
 the going back of the sun, as a concomitant circumstance of 
 it, was not ; and that, in fact, the first of the Greek dra- 
 matists, who joined both together, for any thing which is 
 known to the contrary at present, was Euripides. And that 
 in so joining them together even Euripides was merely con- 
 necting an older historical tradition with a dramatic fiction 
 of comparatively recent d.ite — for the purpose of stage effect 
 — may be fairly inferred from the date which he himself 
 assigns it, even as so connected — that of the heliacal rising 
 of the Pleiads ' ; which in the Parapegmata of his time dif- 
 fered only accidentally from the traditionary date of the 
 miracle itself. The former date in the calendar of Meton 
 was iNIay () — the latter, as we have seen, was May 2. 
 
 ii. Hy the change of the rule of the noctidiurnal cycle in 
 various quarters — as the effect of the second miracle. 
 
 With respect however to the nature of such an argument 
 of the truth of either of the miracles as this, it must be ol)- 
 served first of all, that the original rule of the noctidiurnal 
 cycle every where having been to reckon it from sunset to 
 sunset"", and the cycle itself being every where divided be- 
 tween an evening half, and a morning half, nominally in 
 Kairic time equal to each other at all seasons of the year — 
 and such being still the case at the time of the first miracle, 
 B.C. 1520 — it does not apj^ear that the occurrence even of 
 such an anomaly, as that on the first occasion, was calculated 
 a priori to disturb the preexisting rule of the cycle in the 
 least degree ; insomuch as it made no sensible difference in 
 the epochs of its two halves respectively, but left every thing 
 apparently just in the same state, and in the same relation 
 inter se, as before. 
 
 But with regard to the second, B. C. 710, the first and 
 most obvious eft'ect of the anomaly, then and there produced, 
 must have been to confound the preexisting distinction of 
 the parts of the Noctidiurnal cycle, by turning the evening 
 half, for every meridian ISO degrees east of that of Jeru- 
 salem, more or less completely into the morning half, and 
 
 ' Fasti, i. .^41-34.?. '" 11)1(1. i4;^-jrS. 
 
120 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 the morniug lialf, for every meridian 180 degrees west of it, 
 more or less completely into the evening half. And that 
 was very likely both a prioi'i in itself, and for special reasons, 
 applicable in particular instances, though not in all — to lead 
 to some permanent change in the rule of the noctidiurnal 
 reckoning, as before in use ". 
 
 The absolute instant of the miracle of this day. May 31, 
 B.C. 710, must have Ijeen the same for all parts of the sur- 
 face of the earth, both east and west of Jerusalem ; but the 
 local time of the phenomenon in particular instances would 
 vary for different meridians and different latitudes : and that 
 would give rise to an almost endless variet}' in the circum- 
 stances and phenomena of the miraculous anomaly itself, all 
 round the globe in either direction. If the true time, as I have 
 contended, in the succession of noctidiurnal time, as measured 
 from the first by the pei'iod of 24 hours of mean solar time, 
 reckoned from 6 p. m. to 6 p.m. perpetually — was 6 p. m. in 
 the decursus of this period exactly — that would be 6 p. m. in 
 the local time also only of the primary meridian*' — i. e. if, 
 (as I have also contended, and as it is proved by this miracle 
 itself,) the primary meridian was that of Jerusalem, only in 
 the local time of Jerusalem, and of any other locality on the 
 surface of the earth, which had the same meridian as Jeru- 
 salem. In the local time of every other meridian, east or 
 west of that, it would be later or earlier than 6 p. m. mean 
 time, in proportion to the difference of meridians or longi- 
 tudes ; four minutes mean time later for every degree of lon- 
 gitude east of Jerusalem, four minutes earlier for every de- 
 gree west of it. 
 
 It is easy to see then that, owing to this difference of me- 
 ridians alone, the reckoning of the noctidiurnal cycle, for 
 every meridian but one. previously going on. from evening to 
 evening in the local time of -each, was liable a priori, by the 
 occurrence of such an anomaly as this of the second miracle, 
 to be disturbed in a variety of ways. And as a consequence 
 of this, it could scarcely fail but that, in some of these in- 
 stances, a new rule of the reckoning would be found to have 
 been substituted from this time forward for the old one — 
 
 n Fasti, i. .^44: iv. ^qj. o Cf. Origg. Kal. Ital. Prcliminarv Address, 
 
 page cxiii-cxvii. : Fasti, ii. 58-6;. 
 
s. 12. The tivo Miracles, affecting the Sun. 121 
 
 though probably as near to the analogy of the old rule, as 
 the circumstances of the case would permit. 
 
 The principal exceptions to the primitive rule of the nocti- 
 diurnal reckoning, the evidence of which met us when we 
 were collecting the proofs of the rule in the Fasti, were 
 these /o//;',- the Babylonian rule, the Pei'sian rule, the Chinese 
 rule, and the Roman or Julian rule P. Let us briefly review 
 each of these at present, in order to see how far it admits 
 of being explained and accounted for by the phenomena of 
 the second miracle. 
 
 i. The noctidiurnal cycle among the Babylonians, it ap- 
 peared q, was reckoned from sunrise or morning. Now the 
 meridian of Babylon having been 36 m. 35 s. east of that of 
 Jerusalem, the instant of the miracle in Jerusalem time, 
 May 31, at 18 h. mean time, in that of Babylon was May 
 31, at 18 h, 3G m. 35 s. mean time : and it has been shewn ', 
 that the article of the miracle for this meridian and this 
 latitude having been 56 ra. 336 sec. apparent time, in the 
 xiith hour of the current diurnal time, that of the restitution 
 of the sun was 35 m. 38-8 sec. in the second hour. So that 
 for this latitude the miracle having anticipated the end of 
 the twelfth hour of the day only by 13 m. 21 sec. — and the 
 evening half of the cycle having thereby become the morn- 
 ing half, — when we add to this coincidence the fact that ever 
 since B. C. 1106, (the epoch of the Babylonian correction, as 
 I hope to shew in the fourth Part of this work,) sidereal 
 time had become so intermingled in the observatories of the 
 Chaldees with mean solar time^, that the account of both 
 must necessarily be kept together, we may well conclude 
 that the wise men and star-gazers of Babylon, B.C. 710, 
 would think that, in consequence of the recent anomaly, 
 they had no alternative except that of carrying on the reck- 
 oning of the noctidiurnal cycle, from this time forward, not 
 from the old epoch of evening, but from this new one of 
 morning, just substituted for it by the anomaly itself. 
 
 ii. "^rhe Persian rule also, it appeared in like manner ^ was 
 to reckon the cycle from sunrise, or morning. And this 
 is still the rule of the Parsees at the present day. Now the 
 
 V Fa-iti, i. 202-218. 1 Ibid. 204. r Ibid. i. .551 : iv. Ci04, 605. 
 
 s Cf. Fasli, iv. 94-99. ' Fasti, i. 206. 
 
122 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 meridian of the ancient Persepolis too having been 1 h. 12 m. 
 35 sec. cast of that of Jerusalem, it has been shewn v, that 
 the instant of the miracle at Jerusalem, May 31, at 18 h. 
 mean time, for that of Persepolis must have been May 31, at 
 19 h. 12 m. 35 sec. mean time — and the article of the mi- 
 racle in the local time of Persepolis having been at 29 ra. 
 47 sec. in the first hour of night, that of the restitution of 
 the sun was 3 m. 0-8 sec. before the end of the second hour 
 of day. The correction of Gjemschid, (B. C. 702, as I hope 
 to shew in the fourth Part,) could not yet have taken place 
 in Persia, by B.C 710 — but an older correction, from which 
 even this was derived, had taken place in Bactria 200 years 
 and upwards before ; and the distinction of Principles, and 
 the doctrine of Izeds, and of their relation to the months, 
 and to the days of the months, introduced by the Bactrian 
 reformer, the elder Zoroaster, along with his correction, were 
 probably nothing new to the Persians even in B. C. 702. If 
 so, the course of menstrual and noctidiurual time being now 
 as much connected in Persia with the services of religion, 
 and the influences of the Izeds, as in Chaldsea w^ith the in- 
 fluences of the stars — the Persians were as likely as the Chal- 
 deans to think that, when the evening half of the nocti- 
 diurual cycle had just been turned into the morning half, 
 they too had no alternative except that of continuing the 
 proper reckoning of the evening half, already begun, with 
 its proper services also, from the proper epoch of the morn- 
 ing half. 
 
 iii. With respect to the Chinese rule — it was found to 
 stand distinguished from every other, in reckoning the cycle 
 neither from evening, nor from morning, nor from noon, nor 
 from midnight — one or other of which was the recognised 
 epoch of the reckoning in almost every other instance -'^' — but 
 from a certain point of time before the instant of midnight. 
 That is, the period of 24 hours, the proper measure of the 
 noctidiurnal cycle perpetually, being divided by the Chinese 
 into 100 equal parts, called Ke, each of them consequently 
 equal to 1 !■ 4 m. of mean or apparent time, it is the rule 
 of the cycle among them at present, to reckon it from 
 14-4 m. or one Ke, past the 23d hour from midnight — or as it 
 
 V Fasti, i. 349: iv. 6o.^ ^ Ibid. i. \^0,. 
 
s. 12. The two iMiracles, affect'uiy the Sun. 123 
 
 would be expressed in our style, at 11 h. 14 m. 21 see. p m. 
 or 15 m. 30 sec. before the point of midnight)'. And this, as 
 every one must allow, is a very singular rule — which no one 
 could have expected a priori to meet with among any of the 
 nations of antiquity, and in particular among the Chinese. 
 Let us see then whether it cannot be accounted for by the 
 miracle of B.C. 710, and by the peculiar circumstances under 
 which it must have happened in China. 
 
 First, it appears from the testimony of Gaubil, and others 
 of the Jesuits who resided so long in China'', that the prin- 
 cipal seat of learning and science in China for this a^ra was 
 Cai-fong-fou, the metropolis of the province of Honau ; and 
 the longitude of Cai-fong-fou, as determined by the same 
 authorities, relatively to that of Pekin, appears to have been 
 such that if the meridian of Pekin was 5 h. 25 m. 9 sec, east 
 of that of Jerusalem, that of Cai-fong-fou might very pro- 
 bably be assumed at 9 m. 48 sec. less than that of Pekin. 
 And this being assumed accordingly, it has been seen'* that, 
 while the article of the miracle for the meridian of Jerusalem 
 was May 31, 18 h. mean time or May 31. 18 h. 9 m. 3302 
 apparent time, for that of Cai-fong-fou, it must have been 
 May 31, 23 h. 2 1 ni. 52 9 sec. apparent time, \\ m. 24-8 sec. 
 past the sixth hour of night, consequently only 08 sec. more 
 than one Ke of 11 m. 24 sec. in length. This coincidence 
 can scarcely leave it doubtful that the peculiar rule of the 
 noctidiurnal reckoning among the Chinese, (into the origin 
 of which we arc inquiring,) must have been due to the mira- 
 culous anomaly of this very occasion — the nature of the 
 event itself having been such as very probably to determine 
 the Chinese to make the instant of its occurrence the epoch 
 of a fresh rule of the cycle from that time forward — the 
 better to con)pare (as they might pi-ojiose) any similar recur- 
 rence of such a phenomenon with that of this day. 
 
 The meridian of Pekin being 5 h. 25 m. 9 sec. east of that 
 of Jerusalem, it has been shewn'' that the instant of the mi- 
 racle for that meridian must have been May 31, at 23 h. 
 31 m. 10-8 sec. apparent time, or 22 m. 75 sec. in the sixth 
 Iiour of night. And this having been 7 m. 13*5 sec. more 
 
 > Vi\>\\, i. 3:3-.^/''; iv. (\\^. 7 Il)i(l. i. .^73-377: iv. (n^. 
 
 a Ibid. iv. 6i;. i' Fl>i<i. i. ^rfi:" iv. f>i6. 
 
124 The ///ree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 advanced than one Ke of 14 m. 24 sec. would have been, it 
 is manifest that tlie phenomena of the miracle for this lati- 
 tude and this meridian could not have been so well calcu- 
 lated to account for the peculiarity of the Chinese rule of 
 the noctidiurnal reckoning ever after, as the same things for 
 those of Cai-fong-fou. But they would be very well adapted 
 a priori to explain and account for the Chinese tradition 
 relative to the eclipse of Hi and Ho, to which I adverted 
 supra*^; and to prove that this too is ultimately to be resolved 
 into the miracle of this day. For, supposing Pekin to have 
 been the Imperial city of this rera in Chinese history, the 
 instant of the miracle there having been at 22 ra. 75 sec. in 
 the sixth hour of the night, that of the restitution of the sun 
 must have been at 47 m. 14'1 sec. in the sixth hour of the 
 day'^, only 12 m. 46 sec. before the point of noon. And this 
 having been the case, we may easily conceive what must have 
 been the surprise and consternation of the Court, and of the 
 rest of the inhabitants of the Imperial city, roused from their 
 first sleep, at the deadest and darkest point of the night, to 
 find themselves, without any warning beforehand, or reason 
 to expect such an anomaly, in the midst of the full blaze of 
 noon^. 
 
 iv. With regard to the Roman rule, or the difference be- 
 tween the Julian rule of the Noctidiurnal reckoning and the 
 Primitive, let us now see whether that too may not be ac- 
 counted for by the peculiarity of the phenomena of the 
 miracle at Rome. 
 
 The meridian of Rome being 1 h. 30 m. 58 sec. west of 
 that of Jerusalem, the instant of the miracle at Rome, it has 
 been shewnf, must have been May 31, 16 h. 38 m. 35-4 sec. 
 apparent time, at 58 m. 217 sec. past the tenth hour of the 
 current diurnal time ; and the article of the restitution of 
 the sun must have been May 31 at 4 h. 38 m. 35-4 sec. ap- 
 parent time ; only 57-3 sec. before the article of sunrise, for 
 the latitude of Rome, the same day, May 31, at 4 h. 39 m. 
 32-7 sec. apparent time. The effect, consequently, of the 
 miraculous anomaly of this day at Rome was to replace the 
 centre of the sun almost critically in the very position, rcla- 
 
 p Page 117. '' Fasti, iv. 6i6, 617. ^ Cf. Fasti, i. .^77. iv. f^i-;. 
 
 f Fasti, i. 354-361. iv. Tii 1. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 125 
 
 tively to the sensible horizon, which it had occupied at sun- 
 rise the same day, 12 hours before. If so, it is very conceiv- 
 able that the occurrence of such an anomaly there and then — 
 attributable as it must appear at Rome, as well as every 
 where else out of Judiea, to some natural cause — some fatal 
 necessity — which might be expected in due course of time to 
 produce the same effect again — might lead to a change in 
 the preexisting rule of the Noctidiurnal cycle, at Rome in 
 particular. Numa Pompilius was reigning there at this time, 
 and the miracle fell out in the fourth year of his reign, dated 
 from B.C. 713s. It migiit appear to those of the people of 
 the time, who reasoned upon the phenomenon at all, that, if 
 the natural cycle of day and night, from whatever cause, was 
 thus liable to oscillate from evening to morning, and from 
 morning to evening again, the epoch of the civil cycle of the 
 same kind, the least likely to be disturbed by such periodical 
 changes in that of the natural, would be that of midnight or 
 that of noon. Of these two; some of Numa^s contemporaries 
 might prefer that of noon''; and he himself that of midnight. 
 And thus we should see reason to attribute even the rule of 
 the cycle which we ourselves are observing at the present 
 day, to the miracle of the time of Hezekiah, and to its par- 
 ticular phenomena and effects at Rome. 
 
 And yet, as I contended', it is far from improbable that 
 this change of the rule, thus made even at Rome, was de- 
 signed at first only for the services of religion. The earliest 
 institution of a religious kind, historically attributed to 
 Numa, to the rule of the cycle in which, as midnight, express 
 testimony is extant at present, is that of the Lemuria^; and 
 that having been professedly intended for the peace of the 
 dead, it is very observable that both this, and another insti- 
 tution of Xuma's also, similarly designed, and in its place in 
 the calendar, and in the peculiar rule of its celebration, closely 
 connected with this, when traced up to their true moving 
 cause, and referred to their true final end, appear to have 
 arisen out of the miracle of this day, and out of the acci- 
 dental association even of that with another event, of recent 
 occurrence at Rome, and very likely a priori, in the appre- 
 
 P Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 191-197. '' Ibid. i. 360. iv. Tii:. ' Ibid. ii. .^60. 
 
 iv. 613. i. 210 sqci. •' Fasti, i. 354 sqq. ; Urigg. Kal. Ital. i. 303 sqq. 
 
126 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 hension and modes of thinking of the people of the time, to 
 be connected with it^. 
 
 Tliis event was the death of llomulus ; and the circum- 
 stances of connection between that death and this miracle 
 were the following. The year of the death was B. C. 715, 
 that of the miracle was B. C. 710, only five years later. The 
 lunar date of the death of Romulus was the new moon of 
 May B. C. 715, that of the miracle was the new moon of May 
 B. C. 710. The Julian date of the former was May 26, that 
 of the latter was May 31, only five days later. The death of 
 Romulus, it was well known to Numa Pompilius, had been 
 the effect of treason and violence "^ ; yet his death was still 
 an unexpiated act of violence, so late after it as B. C. 710. 
 When therefore the sun, which had been in conjunction with 
 the moon at the time of the death of Romulus, in the same 
 month of May, and within five days, on the same day of the 
 month, B.C. 715, when approaching to the conjunction again 
 on this day, May 31 B.C. 710, was seen to start back, as it 
 were, and to recede over the entire space of the visible hea- 
 vens, from the western horizon to the eastern, what was 
 more likely than that such a phenomenon would be construed 
 at Rome into a palpable mark of the displeasure of the gods, 
 and especially of the sun, at the still unexpiated death of 
 Romulus ? And hence the institution of the Lemuria, ex- 
 pressly intended for the appeasing of the manes of the dead 
 in general, with their very peculiar rule — and hence also the 
 institution of the Sexagenarii de Ponte, expressly intended for 
 the satisfaction of Romulus in particular — and taking up and 
 carrying on the rule of the Lemuria, in this first instance, 
 over two days more — a vicarious sacrifice to the Manes of 
 Romulus, through the images or likenesses at least, though 
 not in the persons, of those who were most responsible for 
 his death, his 6/u,7j\iKes or equals in years ". And these o\J]- 
 AtKes of his, contemporaries of the institution, having by 
 their own age at the time given its name to the ceremony, 
 we learn from that coincidence a fact of much importance to 
 the personal history of Romulus ; viz. that he too, if he had 
 
 1 Fasti, i. 355. Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 303 sqq. 3 1 1 sqq. «> Cf. Origg. 
 
 Kal. Ital. i. 331. ° Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 3H-326. 
 
s. 12. Tilt two Miracles, affectiny the Sun. 127 
 
 been living B. C. 710, would have been sixty years of age, 
 and therefore must have been born B C. 7G9. 
 
 V. To conclude then with an instance of the probable effect 
 of the second miracle in the new world, as well as the old ; 
 among the Aztecs or Toltccs of Spanish America". 
 
 The most peculiar and characteristic of the opinions or 
 doctrines of these nations, when the Spaniards first came 
 among them, was found to be that of a succession of ages, 
 each of them terminated by the extinction of its proper sun; 
 and the most peculiar and characteristic of their institutions 
 and customs was that of the secular fire ; tlic origin of which 
 must be traced up to the above belief, as may probably 
 appear more clearly from the fourth Part of the present 
 Work. 
 
 Now the meridian of Anahuac or Mexico having been 8h. 
 57 m. 7 sec. west of that of Jerusalem, it has been seenP that, 
 for this latitude and this meridian, the instant of the miracle 
 must have been May 31 at 28 m. 434 sec, in the fourth hour 
 of current diurnal time, and the instant of the restitution of 
 the sun must have been 50 m. 39 7 sec. in the third hour of 
 night. And the former having been only 2 h. 47 m. 35 3 sec. 
 before the point of noon, and the latter only 2h. 47 m. 
 35-3 sec. before the point of midnight, and the oeconomy of 
 the miracle having been the same every where, viz. the in- 
 stantaneous reversion of the heavens 180 degrees from west 
 to east, the phenomenon at Mexico would be that of an ap- 
 parent instantaneous extinction of the light of the sun at 
 noonday. And this fact would be a sufficient foundation, in 
 the course of time, for the peculiar doctrine of the succession 
 of ages, discriminated asunder by the extinction of suns, and 
 for the cognate institution of the secular fire P. And as the 
 Aztecs, when the Spaniards came among them, were using a 
 division of the noctidiurnal cycle into eiylit parts, each of them 
 three hours in length ; even that might have been founded 
 on the coincidence just pointed out, viz. that the actual in- 
 stant of the miracle, for the meridian of Anahuac, was only 
 28 m. 434 sec. later than the end of the third hour of the 
 day 'I. 
 
 o Fasti, i. 361. l> Ibid. i. j,Ut,. '1 Ibid. \\. 610. 
 
128 The //iree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 There are yet other confirmations of the miracle of this day, 
 May 31 J3. C. 710, supplied by tradition, though not so 
 striking as these; to which I refer the reader ''. That it at- 
 tracted attention at the time, (as it could not fail to do,) in 
 quarters distinct from Judsea, appears from the embassy of 
 Merodach-Baladau, the contemporary king of Babylon, men- 
 tioned in Scripture^, the object of which was to inquire about 
 " the wonder that was done in the land,^^ as much as to con- 
 gratulate Hezekiah on his recovery from his sickness. 
 
 iv. Testimony of the Natural JNleasures of Time. 
 
 The testimony of the natural measures of time, on such 
 a question as that which we are considering at present, is the 
 proof of the effect which the occurrence of the two miracles 
 has produced de facto on the decursus of these measures, 
 whether in themselves, or with respect to any thing else to 
 which they may have been referrible from the first, before 
 and after that occurrence respectively. To enter however 
 into the particulars of that proof here, to go into all the 
 necessary explanations, and to point out the rationale of the 
 process in each instance, would take up too much time ; and 
 would require Tables. It is sufficient to remind the reader 
 that this has been done with all the minuteness and circum- 
 stantiality which the nature of the case demanded, in my 
 General Work, and especially in the Prolegomena to the 
 third Part*. 
 
 The natural measures however being only these three, of 
 the noctidiurnal, the menstrual, and the annual — and Julian 
 annual, in contradistinction to natural, being only another 
 form of noctidiurnal ; it is to be observed that the addition of 
 12 hours to a given noctidiurnal cycle, though necessarily 
 implying a similar addition to the length of a given Julian 
 year, by no means implies the same thing of the correspond- 
 ing natural} ear. Nor indeed, whatever reason there may be 
 to conclude that the proper Julian annual time of the existing 
 sj'stem of things must have been twice affected in a certain 
 way, is there any to suppose that the natural annual was in 
 the least degree affected in the same way. It was to be ex- ^ 
 pected therefore a priori that in whatsoever manner the 
 
 ' Fasti, i. 373 n. 325, 32671. » 2 Clivon. xxxii. 31. t Origg. 
 
 Kal. Hell. i. olxx-cxciv. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, ujlj'i'ct'nig the Sun. 129 
 
 miraculous anomaly might be reflected in the proper Julian 
 and proper hebdomadal style of the noctidiurnal succession, 
 it would be differently reflected in the proper .Julian and 
 proper hebdomadal style of the annual, in the sense of the 
 natunil ; and if, under the circumstances of the case, the 
 stress of the anomaly even in the former must fall, not on the 
 succession of the period of 24 hours in its proper hebdomadal 
 style, but on the Julian style of the succession, in the latter, 
 this state of the case must be reversed, and the stress of the 
 anomaly must fall, not on the Julian style of the succession of 
 the period of 21 hours in the annual, but on the hebdomadal: 
 that is, some one actual Julian term must have become the 
 proper Julian style of two hebdomadal ferine in the one case, 
 and some one actual hebdomadal feria the proper hebdoma- 
 dal style of two Julian terms in the other. 
 
 These observations having been premised, and the natural 
 measures of time, as befoi'e stated, being reduced to these 
 three, the noctidiurnal, the menstrual, and the .annual, the 
 menstrual being reserved for consideration by itself, and the 
 effect of the two miracles, though produced at trvlce, yet, for 
 the purpose of the present argument, being assumed to have 
 been produced at once, and the epoch of this joint effect of 
 both to have been B. C. G72 ; the general or the particidar 
 operation of the miraculous anomaly in question, on the 
 different component parts of the existing system of time, 
 evidenced by their state per se, and by their relations infer se, 
 even at present, as explained more at large, and demon- 
 strated iu my general work ^ , may be summarily stated as 
 follows : 
 
 i. The specific effect of the miraculous anomaly on the 
 decursus of the period of 2i hours, as the measure of the 
 noctidiurnal cycle of the system perpetually, has l)een this, 
 That two periods of 21 hours have gone to one noctidiurnal 
 cycle; and the specific effect of the same anomaly on the 
 same period, as the measure of the hebdomadal cycle of the 
 system perpetually, has been this, That eight periods of 2 1 
 hours, eight feria' so measured, instead of seven, have gone 
 to one hebdomadal cycle. 
 
 ^' Origg. Kal. IIi-ll. i I'l-itlfgoiiieim, cl.w. stm. 
 K 
 
130 The three VVitnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 ii. The specific efl'ect of the same anomaly ou the proper 
 style of the period of 24 hours, as eiiteriug into aud mea- 
 suring the iioctidiurual and the hebdomadal time of the 
 system under some Julian denomination or other perpe- 
 tually, has been this, That seven Julian terms, March 28 — 
 April 3, have been rendered the Julian representatives of 
 eight hebdomadal ones, the Feria 1—8: and the specific 
 eflect of the same anomaly on the proper style of the period 
 of 2 t hours, as entering the noctidiurual aud hebdomadal 
 time of the natural annual time of the system, under some 
 Julian designation or other, has beeu tliis, That eight Julian 
 terms, March 26 to April 2, have been rendered the proper 
 Julian representatives of seven hebdomadal ferice^ the Feria 
 1 — 7''. And the consequence of these things has been that, 
 from B. C. 672 down to the present day, the proper hebdo- 
 madal style of the simply Julian time of the system has 
 come to be one term higher in the order of ferice, and the 
 proper hebdomadal style of the natural annual, has come to 
 be one term lower in the order of fericB, than either would 
 have been at the present day, if neither of the miracles had 
 happened. Every simply Julian term, since B. 0. 672, has 
 represented aud is still representing an hebdomadal feria 
 greater by unity, and every natural term or Gregorian-Julian 
 term has represented aud is still representing an hebdomadal 
 feria less by unity, than it would otherwise have done, or 
 would now be doing. 
 
 iii. The specific eflect of the miraculous anomaly on the 
 natural annual and the Julian annual time of the system 
 inter se, as exhibited in the Tables of the Fasti before and 
 after this epoch of B. C 672, has been this, To necessitate 
 the change of the Julian type of the natural annual on two 
 occasions half a period, or 56 years, at least, earlier than 
 otherwise would have been required : i. e. to necessitate the 
 use of 49 types of Julian time as the conventional representa- 
 tive of natural, from April 25 A.M. 1. B.C. 4004 to March 9 
 A.M. 6049 A. D. 2045, instead of 48. 
 
 iv. The specific efl'ect of the same anomaly ou the equable 
 annual time of the system has been this; The distinction of 
 kinds in this form of the annual time of the system, into 
 
 ^ Cf. Origg. Kal. Hell. i. Proli-goim-na, clxxviii. clxxvi. 
 
s. 12. Tlie two Miracles, nffectiny the Sun. 131 
 
 equable cyclical and equable Nabonassarian, remaining the 
 same — the reference of each to the Julian annual, (that of 
 equable cyclical to positive or Gregorian-Julian, and that of 
 equable Nabonassarian to the sim|)ly Julian form of this 
 Gregorian.) remaining the same — the absolute epoch of both, 
 April 25 at midnight 15. C. 4004 remaining the same — the 
 epochal distance of origination between them, 2() terms in 
 the regular order of the equable notation remaining the 
 same — the impossibility of reducing this epochal difference 
 to 0, or a relation of equality, in less than 20 changes of the 
 Julian type of the time of the system, and 20 corresponding 
 changes of the equable type, remaining the same — the effect 
 of the anomaly on the equable annual and noctiditirnal time 
 of the system, I say, has been litis; To abridge the lengtli of 
 these types in two instances by 56 years, and thereby to 
 bring about the equalization of the Nabonassarian to tlie 
 cyclical time of the system B. C. 728, instead of J], C. 072. 
 And both forms of the equable time of the system having 
 set out together in a state of equality or identity, from this 
 epoch of B. C. 728, and having gone on together each in sub- 
 jection to its proper law, down to A. D. 225, when both 
 became amenable alike to the rules of the simply Julian 
 calendar of the present day, another specific effect of the 
 anomaly on the relation of these two kinds of the annual and 
 the noctidiurnal time of the system inter se has been this ; To 
 leave them A. D. 225, permanently fixed relatively to each 
 other, in such a manner, that Thoth 1 cyclical from that day 
 to this has been perpetually the equivalent of Thoth 9 Nabo- 
 nassarian, and vice versa; though otherwise Thoth 1 eye. 
 from A. D. 225 downwards would have been fouiul an- 
 swering perpetually to Thoth 8 Nab. and Thoth 8 Nab. to 
 Thoth 1 cyc.y 
 
 V. With regard to the question reserved for a distinct 
 consideration ^, that of the specific effect, (if any there was,) 
 of both the miracles or of either of them, on the monstrual, 
 in the sense of the lunar, time of the system, we may observe 
 first of all, that whereas there were two new moons in the 
 month of May B. (\ 710, but one on the 1st, the otlit'i- on 
 
 >■ Oritji;. Kal. Ilill. i. I'lolit;. clxxvii. ' Pagt- i 2y. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. t. 
 
 the 31st, the latter alone was that with which we are con- 
 cerned at present. And this being calculated from our own 
 Tables, for the meridian of Jerusalem, is found to come out 
 as follows a : 
 
 B. C. 710. h. m. s. 
 
 Mean new moon, May 31, 7 17 4013 mean time. 
 True new moon, May 31, i 33 47. 3 meantime. 
 
 It may therefore reasonably be inferred that, if the sun's ap- 
 parent place at 6 p. m. mean time for the meridian of Jeru- 
 salem this day was set back 180 degrees, that of the moon, 
 (though an invisible object at the time,) must have been set 
 back to the same extent also. But whether the moon in 
 particular was the subject of any further anomaly — espe- 
 cially whether the natural length of the lunation just begin- 
 ning was any ways affected by this reversal of the heavens — 
 is a question of fact which may best be determined by the 
 testimony of actual lunar dates, older than the date of this 
 miracle ; if any such there are, handed down from observa- 
 tion at the time, and capable of being tested by calculation 
 at the present day. 
 
 Now three data at least of this kind are extant, that of 
 the full moon, March 19 B. C. 721, that of the full moon, 
 March 8 B. C. 720, and that of the full moon, Sept. 1 B. C. 
 720 also — all observed at the time at the ancient Babylon, 
 and recorded in terms in the Magna Compositio of Ptolemy^. 
 And these too have often been calculated by modern astro- 
 nomers, p.nd they have generally been verified within 30 or 
 40 minutes of the recorded times at the utmost — and the 
 more the modern tables have been improved, the nearer the 
 results of these calculations have come to an absolute agree- 
 ment with testimony in these instances. All the ecliptic full 
 moons of the Magna Compositio, in fact, have been calcu- 
 lated from my own tables, and with the formulae for the 
 secular corrections both according to Damoiseau, and ac- 
 cording to Mr. Adams c — and with the latter, in these three 
 instances, (to say nothing at present of any more,) the re- 
 sults have come remarkably close to the dates of Ptolemy — 
 as the following scheme will shew : — 
 
 a Fasti, iv. 564, .s^'5- '' l^id. ii. 411. <" Fasti, iii. 514: iv. 670, 
 
 671. Introduction, 2 2 1. 223. 225. Advertisement, pag. iii, iv. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affectiny the Sun. 133 
 
 i. Ecliptic Full Moon, March, B.C. '] 21'^. 
 
 I'TOLEMY. DAMOISEAU. MR. ADAM.S. 
 
 h. 111. Ii. 111. s. h. 111. s. 
 
 Mar. ly. 21 30. Mar. 19, 21 o 36-46. Mar. 19, 21 41 49 m. t. 
 
 ii. Ecliptic Full Moon, March, B. C. 720 <=. 
 
 I'TOLEMY. DAMOISEAU. MR. ADAMS. 
 
 ll. 111. 1). 111. s. ll. III. »• 
 
 Mar. 9, o o. Mar. 8, 23 18 59. Mar. 8, 23 56 41, 
 
 iii. Ecliptic Full Moon, September, B. C. 720'. 
 
 I'TOLEMY. DAMOISEAU. MR. ADA.MS. 
 
 h. in. ll. ni. 8. ll. 111. s. 
 
 Sept. I, 20 30. Sept. I, 19 54 49-1. Sept. i, 20 24 57. 
 
 It was not possible that calculations, carried back in the 
 usual manner from the present day beyond the epoch of 
 May 31, B.C. 710, and the lunar conjunction of that day, to 
 the dates of full moons, like these of B. C. 721 and 720, 
 should find themselves so entirely in harmony with contem- 
 jiorary observation, if any one natural lunation, between 
 tiie latest of these years and the present day, had been 
 either longer or shorter than the natural standard of the 
 mean or the actual lunar month s. 
 
 JSo such anomaly therefore, as an affection of the moon's 
 real motion would have been, having ensued on the miracle 
 of May 31, B. C. 710, let us proceed to inquire whether 
 something of the same kind might not, nevertheless, have 
 been the consequence of the miracle of May 31, B. C. 1520. 
 
 It is certainly an observable distinction in the circum- 
 stances of the two miracles, each in its proper place and 
 time respectively, that the moon is set forth by Scripture 
 itself, as the subject of the former, as much as the sun, but 
 
 <* Fasti, ii. 41 I. IntrodiiitioH, .Vdv. iv. 281 . ■■ Ihid. ii. 41 1 . Adv. iv. 284. 
 
 ' Fasti, 411, Introduction, iv. 286. K (f. Fasti, iv. 554 s(i(|. 
 
134 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord, ch. i. 
 
 not as the subject of the latter. And yet, though we have 
 the express testimony of Scripture that the moon was impli- 
 cated in the first miracle as well as the sun, we have no 
 testimou}' of that kind, direct or indirect, that the moon was 
 concerned in it, or affected by it, any more than the sun, 
 i e. to any greater extent than the sun Let us then pro- 
 ceed to consider first of all the words actually addressed by 
 Joshua to the sun. 
 
 Now, with respect to these, it is very observable that^ 
 though they are rendered iu the authorised version by 
 " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, moon, in the 
 valley of Ajalon f and though tliey have always been treated 
 by both the friends and the enemies of Revelation, as if 
 they stood in the original. " Sun. stand thou still," &e. the 
 literal terms of the address in the Hebrew are, " Sun, be 
 thou dumb upon Gibeon, and thou. Moon, in the valley of 
 Ajalon." The verb, which is rendered by ' stand still,' in the 
 original is Dll or Doum — and Doum in the Hebrew, both in 
 sound and in meaning, is just the same as Be dumb in English. 
 
 Now, a command to be dumb, which must have meant first 
 and properly be silent, addressed to any object, must have 
 presupposed that this object was previously speaking some 
 language — was not naturally dumb, but endued with a 
 faculty of speech, of some kind, or in some sense, or other. 
 What language then could such an object in external nature, 
 as the sun, be supposed to have been speaking, when it re- 
 ceived this command to cease to speak it, to become dumb, 
 so far as the utterance of that language was concerned, for a 
 season at least, if not for ever? I answer, the language of 
 time — that language, of which the expressions or utterances 
 were those steps or degrees of the shadow on the dial, 
 alluded to in the account of the second mii'acle, correspond- 
 ing to similar steps of progression in the actual motion of 
 the sun, first from the horizon in the east to the meridian, 
 and then from the meridian to the horizon in the west — 
 making up, in their totality, at all seasons of the year, the 
 twelve hours of Kairic diurnal time, and yet in their indi- 
 viduality discriminating one of these hours from another, at 
 all seasons also. 
 
 The meaning therefore of the command, addressed to the 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affectiny the Sun. 135 
 
 sun, yet couclied in such terms as these, must have been thist, 
 That the sun should cease to speak this language of time — 
 i.e. give any indication as usual — furnish any means as usual 
 of judging, of the lapse or distinctions of diurnal time, 
 through his own sensible or apparent change of [)lace in the 
 heavens, at least, for a certain prescribed interval of time ; 
 and as necessarily implied in such a command — that it 
 should continue motionless in the heavens, for tlie same 
 length of time, just as it \yas, and where it was, when it re- 
 ceived this command. Such, 1 say, is the rationale of the 
 language used on this occasion. It requires only to be 
 stated, to satisfy any unprejudiced person that a more ap- 
 propriate form of words could not have been selected ; and 
 it is greatly to be desired that, what more than any thing 
 else made it so, "Be dumb,^' instead of •' Stand still/' had 
 been retained in the authorised version ''. 
 
 Now, as the apparent motion of the moon also from east 
 to west is the same kind of indication of the lapse of 
 Kairic time by night, as that of the sun by day, and conse- 
 quently the moon might be said to speak a language of this 
 kind almost as much as the sun ; it is no wonder that, if the 
 moon too was a visible object in the heavens just at the time 
 when Joshua pronounced these words, the moon also should 
 be found to have been included in the command to be silent, 
 as far as this language was concerned — Sun be thou dumb 
 upon Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon. And 
 such having been the command addressed in terms to 
 both, the effect expected to follow upon it must have been 
 the same in the case of both, viz. the stoppage or suspension 
 of the motion of both, from east to west — for the prcscril)("d 
 interval of time in question — and this stoppage of an appa- 
 rent motion in the case of both, which both of them derived 
 oidy from the actual motion of the earth round its own axis 
 in the opposite direction from west to east, in the very sup- 
 position of such an effect, and in the mode of operation, by 
 wliich only it could be brought about, must necessarily 
 have implied and involved the stoppage of the motion of 
 the earth round its own centre, for the same length of time 
 also. 
 
 '> .\i>|i(n(lix, .\o(c V 
 
136 The three Wituesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 It is here, however, to be observed that, besides this appa- 
 rent motion from east to west, derived from the real motion 
 of the earth from west to east, the sun in particular has no 
 other, known to astronomy at present, which could possibly 
 be supposed to have been included in the scope of such a 
 command as this ; but the moon, in addition to this motion, 
 and so derived, which it has in common with the sun, has 
 another peculiar to itself, its motion of translation in space, 
 along the ecliptic, from west to east, derived from its projec- 
 tion by its Creator round its own primary, at the same time, 
 it must be presumed, when this primary itself received its 
 own impulse of rotation round the sun — and this motion is such 
 that at a mean rate it carries the moon over 13° 10' 35""027 
 of the ecliptic, every 24 hours of mean solar time, and 
 over 6° 35' 17"-5135 every twelve'. It may therefore be 
 made a question whether this real motion of the moon from 
 Avest to east round the earth, as much as its apparent motion 
 from east to west round the heavens, was included in the 
 scope of the command, as addressed to the moon, as well as 
 to the sun, or not. 
 
 And this question at first sight it might not be easy to 
 decide. I myself was long of opinion that the moon's real 
 motion of translation in space must have been suspended, on 
 this first occasion, as well as its apparent motion ^ ; but 
 further reflection has at length satisfied me that this suppo- 
 sition, besides involving insuperable difficulties of another 
 kind, would imply a greater degree of the exertion of the 
 Divine power, in the miracle of this day, than the circum- 
 stances of the case would justify — that Joshua could not 
 reasonably be supposed to have intended more, or expected 
 more, as the result of his command, as addressed to the 
 moon, than as addressed to the sun — i. e. more than the sus- 
 pension of the apparent motion of each from east to west, for 
 a certain length of time — and that all the conditions and all 
 the requirements of the case would be strictly and plenarily 
 answered, if the sun was a visible object in a certain part of 
 the heavens, opposite to Gibeon, and the moon was a visible 
 
 ' Introduction to the Tables, xi. Favt ii. page xix. "^ Cf. Origa;. Kal. 
 
 Hell. i. cxciv. Prolegomena ad Harmoniam, 5. Fasti, iv. 554. 
 
s. 12. The two Miracles, affecting the Sun. 137 
 
 object in ;i certain other part of the heavens, in tlie valley of 
 Ajaion, when the words were addressed to both ; and the 
 sun was still a visible object in the same quarter, opposite 
 to Gibeon, and the moon in the same quarter, in the valley 
 of Ajaion, at the end of the time prescribed, as well as at the 
 beginning. To the proof of this fact therefore I shall now 
 ))roceed. 
 
 For this purpose, let us begin with calculating the time of 
 sunrise for the latitude of Jerusalem, which will serve equally 
 well for that of Gibeon, on the morning of the miracle, May 
 31, B. C. 1520. 
 
 Now sunrise, calculated as it has been in the Fasti Catho- 
 lici, for this latitude, and in this year, and on this day, is 
 found to have been as follows '— 
 
 ll. III. s. 
 
 True sunrise, May 31 5 10 8-7 apparent time. 
 Equation of time — 11 24-1 
 
 True sunrise, May 31 4 58 44-6 mean time. 
 
 And this comes so near to May 31, 5 h. m. s. of mean 
 time exactly, that it may well be supposed the actual time of 
 sunrise this day, for this latitude and meridian, was May 31, 
 at 5 h. from midnight exactly. And that being assumed, 
 then, if 5 a.m. m. t. for the meridian of Jerusalem was also, 
 as I have contended"", the actual date of the miracle of this 
 day, it requires no argument to prove that the sun must 
 have been a visible object, at that very time also, just rising 
 above the sensible horizon in the east. 
 
 Let us next calculate the full moon of May, last before 
 the day of the miracle, for the same meridian — and that too 
 having been already done in the Fasti", the result may be 
 summarily stated as follows : 
 
 B.C. 1520, for the meridian of Jerusalem. 
 
 ll. III. .K. 
 
 Mean full moon. May 30 23 52 59 m. t. 
 True full moon, May 30 15 26 5897 m. t. 
 
 So that this moon, at 5 .v. .m. m. t. the next morning. May 
 31, must have been 13 h. 33 m. past the full, and conse 
 
 ' i. 267 : iv. 5S.V. nQj. ni Supra, 120. " iv- .^.^7-.^'''0- 
 
138 Tlie three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. i. 
 
 quently could not have failed to be still a visible object in 
 tlie west just as the sun was beginning to be so in the east, 
 on the morning of this (\x\\\ 
 
 And this is confirmed by the locality assigned to each re- 
 spectively, at the same time and on the same occasion, by 
 Scripture itself — that of the sun over against Gibeon, and 
 tluit of the moon in the valley of Ajalon ; for Gibeon and 
 Ajalon, according to the best accounts of the geography of 
 the ancient Palestine, were east and west of each other", 
 and Eljib the modern Gibeon, and Yalon the modern Ajalon, 
 are so still P. It is confirmed also by my own calculation of 
 the sun's azimuth on the morning of this day, May 31 B. C. 
 1520, 22^ 4G' 13" east from north, and the moon's, about 30° 
 4()' 13" west of south 'i. 
 
 Such then having been the state of tlie case, with respect 
 to the common visibility of the sun and the moon, at the 
 precise time of the miracle of this day, 5 a. !\i. m. t., let us 
 next proceed to consider what would be the state of the case 
 with respect to the visibility of the moon in particular, left 
 free to its natural motion of translation in space, while its 
 apparent motion round the heavens was suspended, at the 
 end of the next 12 hours. And this being simply a question 
 of the time when the moon would set on the morning of this 
 day. May 31, B.C. 1520, for the latitude of Jerusalem or 
 Gibeon, we calculate first the sun's true place at sunrise 
 5 a.m. May 31, and find it (SL.) = 54° 17' 16"-1 ■•. From 
 which it follows that, as 54° 17' 16"-1 of the ecliptic was 
 rising at 5 a. m. with the sun, the opposite point 54° 17' 16"1 
 + 180°, or 234° 17' 16" must have been setting precisely at 
 the same time. 
 
 We calculate next the moon's true place in the ecliptic, 
 (the moon's true longitude.) ML. for the same day, and 
 the same time the same day^, and find it about 242°: and 
 this being 7° 42' 44" at least cast of the setting point at the 
 same moment, 234° 17' 16", it is manifest that the moon, at 
 sunrise this day, must have wanted 7° 42' 44" x 4, or 30 m. 
 57 sec. of the time of setting. And if its motion from east 
 to west was now suspended, and its motion from west to east 
 
 " I'asti, iv. 5S9. 11 Ibid. 51; i ti . q Ibid. 589. 
 
 '■ Fasti, iv. .sS.S. 59;. " Ibid. 569. 
 
s. I. Pseu(\oC\n'ono\o'^\(iii j/rofessiii(/ to be ^^cri]JturaL 139 
 
 \vas left free still, at the end of the next twelve hours it 
 would be 7° 42' 41-" + G° 35' 17", or 14° 18' 1', at least uiore 
 advauccd to the east than the setting point 234° 17' IG" ; 
 and even when the earth began to revolve again would be a 
 visible object in the valley of Ajalon, for the best part of an 
 hour before it would set. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Pseudo-Chronology of Mundane or Human time, that 
 is, the account of either distinct from and contrartj to that of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 Section I. — On the Pseudo-Chronology of this kind, which 
 calls itself Scriptural ; the Chronology of the Septuagint, 
 the Chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the 
 Chronology o/ Josephus. 
 
 From the facts established in the preceding chapter, it is a 
 necessary inference that the only chronology of mundane 
 and human time, which is or can be attested perpetually by 
 the three kinds of evidence which we have hitherto been 
 considering — The natural measures of time, The primitive 
 civil calendar, and antediluvian and postdiluvian tradition in 
 its most genuine form, must be that of the Hebrew Bible ; 
 and consequently that no chronology, even calling itself 
 Scriptural, different from this, can possibly be true. 
 
 Such chronologies however, pretending to be tiiat of 
 Scripture, and claiming, as if in their own right, the au- 
 thority of Revelation, yet totally distinct from and opposed 
 to, that of the Hebrew Hible, do exist, though they are only 
 three in number — That of the Septuagint version of the 
 Hebrew text of the Old Testament, that of the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch, and that of the Antiquities of Josephus, which 
 profess to have been based on that of the Hebrew Scri{)turcs 
 of their own time, however much they may differ from that 
 of the Hebrew text at present. 
 
 Hetwccn these antagonistic systems of mundane and 
 luunan time, all alike calling tiicmselvcs the Sciiptui-al. and 
 
110 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 the true, in the sense of that of the Hebrew Scriptures of the 
 present day, the difference lies principally in the length of 
 the interval from the Creation to the Flood on the one hand, 
 and from the Flood to the Exodus on the other. This 
 interval, in the first of these cases, according to the Hebrew 
 Verity, was 1656 years : according to the Septuagint, 2242, 
 according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, 1307, according to 
 Jose[)hus, 2256 or 2656 s. 
 
 To enter on a particular examination or confutation of 
 each of these rival systems, so far as each of them differs 
 from the Hebrew Scriptures, is superfluous for our purpose at 
 present — the nature of the test of truth or falsehood in 
 these respects, which we are illustrating and applying, both 
 enabling and justifying us, in summarily disposing of all of 
 them. For, if the true characters of the year of the Flood, 
 for instance, could not possibly hold good of any year but 
 A.M. 1657 B. C. 2348, for an indefinite length of time before 
 or after, it is self-evident, that even if these so called Scriptural 
 chronologies of any other kind agreed with that of the He- 
 brew Bible, in their year of the Creation, they must differ 
 as widely from the truth, as from the Hebrew Bible, in their 
 year of the Flood. And again, if the true characters of the 
 year of the Creation, as I have shewn ', could not possibly 
 hold good of any year but B. C. 4004, even if these so called 
 Scripture chronologies agreed with the onh^ true chronology 
 of that kind in their year of the Flood, they must differ as 
 widely from the truth itself as from this in their year of the 
 Creation. 
 
 The interval again in the second of these cases, according 
 to the Hebrew Verity, was 788 years, (B. C. 2348—1560), 
 according to the Septuagint 1648, according to the Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch 1438, according to Josephus 1489 ^^ And 
 in deciding between these different data also we have 
 nothing to do at present except with the same simj)le test of 
 truth or falsehood as before. The true year of the descent 
 from the ark, the true Natale Mundi of the Postdiluvian 
 state of things, being determined by infallil)lc characters of 
 its own to Ji. C. 2347, and the true year of the Exodus, in 
 
 ^ AiijiLiidix, note Z. t Suina 6 sqq. ^ Appendix, liott- Z. 
 
s, 2. Pseudo-Clironologies of Profane Antuftti/t/. Ill 
 
 like maiinei', by similar characters to B. C. 15G0, even if 
 these other .systems of so called Scriptural Chronology agreed 
 with that of the Hebrew Verity in the year of the descent 
 from the ark, the first year of their Postdiluvian time, they 
 must differ as widely from the truth as from the Hebrew 
 Bible in tlieir year of the Exodus ; or if they agreed with the 
 true chronology of Postdiluvian time in the year of the 
 Exodus from Kgypt, they could not possibly agree with it in 
 the year of the descent from the ark. 
 
 In a word, every system and scheme of jNIundane and 
 Human time from the Mosaic Creation to the Exodus from 
 Egypt, whatsoever its professions or its claims in its own 
 behalf, yet being tried by this touchstone perpetually, and 
 reduced to those tests which have been brought to light, and 
 applied to the chronology of the Hebrew Bible, in the preced- 
 ing cha])ter, none, it is evident, which is not the same with 
 this, can possibly be true. 
 
 Section II. — On the Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane anti- 
 quity ; and first, of that of the Egyptians, and of the prin- 
 cipal questions of fact to the issue of which the truth or the 
 falsehood of this in particular is reducible. 
 With regard to any other systems of !Muudane or Human 
 time, which do not profess to be Scriptural, and yet are still 
 more opposed to the only true Scriptural system of this kind, 
 than those which do, they are of course the Pseudo-histories 
 and Pseudo-chronologies of the world, and its inhabitants, 
 discoverable any where, external to and independent of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures. And though there is no system of that 
 kind, in which Profane antiquity in general can be shewn to 
 have agreed, even in contradiction to that of the Hebrew 
 Verity — particular systems and schemes of this kind, among 
 the nations of antiquity, were almost innumerable — every 
 people of former times, which had any literature, and any 
 tradition of the past, at all, having had one of its own — all 
 alike opposed to the Scriptural — yet each different from the 
 rest, and each as incapable of being reconciled with the rest 
 as with that of Scripture; which may very reasonably be 
 considered a common mark of the fictitious character of all 
 of them alike. 
 
142 The ///ree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. en. ii. 
 
 The principal systems of this kind however, (those at least 
 which have always exerted and are still exerting the greatest 
 influence to the prejudice of the truth,) arc these five, That 
 of the Egyptians — that of the Chinese — that of the Hindoos 
 — that of the Bab^'lonians or Chaldeans — and that of the 
 Assyrians. Of these, the Pseudo-history and Pseudo-chro- 
 nology of the Babylonians or of the Assyrians, may possibly 
 come under consideration in a future Part of my Origines. 
 That of the Chinese and that of the Hindoos, and more espe- 
 cially that of the Egyptians, have already occupied a consi- 
 derable share of attention in the first Part. Among these 
 five too, the Egyptian in reality is that which is most autiior- 
 itative and most influential either to create or to confirm the 
 unhappy sceptical bias of the present day ; and to make men 
 doubt of the truth of Scripture history and Scripture chro- 
 nology, as opposed to this in particular, in spite of them- 
 selves. And in fact, when the history of these systems of 
 Pseudo- mundane history and chronology in all parts of the 
 ancient world comes to be narrowly investigated, and one 
 scheme of this kind to be compared with another, that of the 
 ancient Egyptians turns out to have been the first of its 
 proper class ; the very first which was contrived by men to 
 serve an interested purpose of their own : and, as might na- 
 turally have been expected under such circumstances, it was 
 the example thus set by the Egyptians, which, on the prin- 
 ciple of imitation or rivalry, ultimately led to the same falsi- 
 fication of history and chronology for similar purposes of 
 their own, among the rest of the nations of antiquity. I3y 
 way of specimen therefore of the use and application of that 
 peculiar test of truth or falsehood in the history or chrono- 
 logy of the past, which is supplied by the inquiries of the 
 Fasti and Origines into such subjects as the history of opin- 
 ions, on points of universal importance and interest — (the 
 origin of the world, the origin of society, the origin of the 
 gods — ) or the history of institutions and ceremonies, for the 
 national observance, which took their rise out of such opin- 
 ions — and more especially the history of tiie corrections of 
 the common calendar of all mankind in particular instances, 
 expressly for ti)e sake of these institutions and these o])serv- 
 ances — -I cannot do better than brieflv advert to some of the 
 
s. 2. Psciulo-Clironologies of Profane /l/iti(/uifi/. 1 lo 
 
 luaiiy (|iicstioiis of l";ict on which tiiis pseudo-histon' aiul 
 pseudo-ciironology of the Egyptians in particular^ accor(ling 
 to its own pi'ofcssions, and the conclusions established in the 
 Fasti and Origincs. are diametrically o[)poscd to each other, 
 and therefore cannot possibly both be true. 
 
 i. On the antiquity of the Principal objects of worship among 
 the Egyptians; the Osiria and the his of ancient I'^gvpt. 
 
 First then let me begin with testing the truth of the state- 
 ments and professions of the Egyptians, cither founded on, 
 or confirmed, as it is supposed, and substantiated by this 
 history and this chronology, respecting the only two objects 
 of worship among them, in the recognition of which the 
 whole nation agreed alike" — the Osiiiis and the Isis of an- 
 cient lOgypt — and the age assigned to these in particulai- — 
 older incomparably than the oldest of their human Dynasties, 
 and the first of their human kings — older even than the 
 oldest of their divinex. 
 
 In opposition and contradiction to all this, it has been 
 shewn in the Fasti Catholici, i. That the real antiquity of the 
 Osiris and the Isis of the Egyptians could not have been 
 greater than that of the fable of the Cosmogonic Egg — as 
 was necessarily to be inferred, first, from the first and true 
 name of Osiris even among the Egyptians, Suiri — in Greek, 
 ^vipis or''Ta'ipis — and the true meaning of that name, the 
 Son of the Egg^; secondly, from the positive testimony of 
 the Stele in the Arabian Nysa, in which Osiris was actually 
 set forth as this Son of the Egg=^ Thirdly, from the Ge- 
 mini of the sphere, (Osiris and Isis themselves,) and the 
 symbols of that sign, the two ends of this cosmogonic egg, 
 from one of which Osiris originally came forth, and from the 
 other Isis''. 
 
 ii. That the real antiquity of Osiris and Isis could not 
 have been older than the first Sothiacal period, known to 
 history among the Egyptians, the date of which commonly 
 recognised at present is B. C. 1322, and the true was B. C. 
 1350 <=, For, as the proper epoch of this period, whether one 
 
 * Fasti, iii. 7S. y Ibid. 74. cf. Huiislmi, Standiiif; of Kl;vI><^, '• .i^'2 S(iq. 114. 
 
 423. ' Fasti, iii. 165 s(|(|. '» ll)i(l. 174. '' Il)iil. iii. .37.?, .U-4' 
 
 '■ Fasti, iii. 71. 110. 
 
144 T/te three Witnesses, atid f he tIi7'eefoId Cord. cii. ii. 
 
 of its kind, or more, among the Egyptians was never any 
 thing but that of the heliacal rising of Sirius, and the 
 Egyptian name of Sirius was never any thing but that of 
 Sothis'l, that one of the members in this duad of divine 
 principles, the first and oldest of their kind according to the 
 profession and belief of the Egyptians, (and by parity of 
 reason, the other also, as they always went both together,) 
 could not have been older than the first heliacal rising of 
 Sirius or Sothis, nor consequently than the first Sothiacal 
 period — is proved first by the name of Isis, identical with 
 that of this star, Isis-Sothis^'. Secondly, by the inscription 
 at Nysa, in which tlie rising and appearance of Sothis every 
 year was identified with that of the rising and appearance of 
 Isis, in and through that of this star every year also'. 
 Thirdly, by the meaning of tliis name of Sothis, the star 
 of conception g, as illustrated by the fable, explained supra '', 
 and by the translation of the first historical rising of Isis in 
 this form and under this name of the conceiving star, from 
 July 20, B. C. 1350, to the very first rising which could have 
 taken place under the same circumstances, within the period 
 of time embraced by the duration of their own proper system 
 of things, July 20, B. C. 4006 — in order that she might be 
 manifested both then, as appearing for the first time, and 
 yet even then, as conceiving that, which, as the mother of the 
 universe, as the parent of the existing system and scheme of 
 things, she was to be supposed to have brought forth 280 
 days afterwards, April 25, B. C. 4005. 
 
 iii. That the real antiquity of Osiris and Isis could not 
 have been greater than that of the Isia, which came into 
 being along with them also, and as their proper and charac- 
 teristic solemnity from the first ; nor, (as it was shewn, by a 
 variety of circumstantial proofs') the antiquity of this insti- 
 tution, as attached to its proper date Athyr 17, from the 
 first, older than the time when Athyr 17 in the primitive 
 Calendar was falling on October G in the proleptical Julian 
 calendar, and October G on the earliest seed-time for the 
 climate of Egypt, the mean autumnal equinox : nor these 
 
 •i Fasti, iii. 29. e Ibid. 31. no. f Ibid. :^r. in. e Ibid. 31. 
 
 1> Pa^e 14. ' Fasti, iii. 81-90. 109. 1 18-140. 160-165. 
 
s. 2. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiqtnty. 145 
 
 coincidences in general, earlier or later, within any assign- 
 able historical limits, than ^ra Cyclica 2()57, B.C. 1350 k. 
 
 iv. And these conclusions were further confirmed ' by the 
 testimony of a remarkable fact, or rather a series of remark- 
 able facts comimmis yeneris, — that of the appearance of the 
 same kind of fable as this Egyptian one of Osiris and I sis, 
 the same kind of conceptions as these, only under different 
 names — the same kind of institutions as that of the Isia, 
 with similar rites and ceremonies — attached to the same date 
 in the calendar for the time being, the ITth of the third 
 month, (the 17th of the primitive Athyr,) — as we may pos- 
 sibly see hereafter, within 12, or 20, or 28 years of the insti- 
 tution of the Isia, and as we have already seen in the first 
 and the third Parts of this work, within 40 years among the 
 Greeks "', and within 4L among the Hindoos " ; and, as we 
 may also hope to see hereafter, among others of the nations 
 of antiquity, attached to this same equable term Athyr 17, 
 in the descending order of such a term in the Julian reckon- 
 ing, all round the primitive calendar. Nothing of this kind 
 is discoverable any where, before B. C. 1350; and if so much, 
 in its first conception evidently borrowed from the Egyptian 
 Isia, and in its first expression evidently conformed to the 
 Egyptian Isia, is discoverable immediately after, and so long 
 after, B.C. 1350 — in quarters too so ditl'erent, and most of 
 them so remote, from Egypt — who can hesitate to conclude 
 that the jjriimwi mobi/e, the first cause of this movement, 
 thus propagated in the course of time through the rest of 
 the ancient world, must have been something which took its 
 rise in Rgypt B. C. 1350? and if so, the introduction of the 
 national fable of Osiris and Isis, and the institution of the 
 national solemnity of the Isia. 
 
 This conclusion then respecting the true date of the na- 
 tional fable and institution of the Isia. and the consequent real 
 antiquity of the Egyptian Osiris and Isis among the I'^gyp- 
 tians themselves, obtained from such premises as these, is 
 decisive of the truth or the falsehood of the monumental, or 
 the dynastic, history and chronology of the ]!lgy[)tians — if, 
 
 k Fasti, iii. i.u-'40- 'f- '+o- '9''^- ' "'•'^ '"■ ■'-• 
 
 '" Origg. Kai. Ih-ll. iv. if>C>-,^,',^. " Fasti, i\ . .^i yo. 
 
146 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 even according to its own professions, however far back it 
 might go in itself — it still fell incomparably short of the 
 antiquity of Osiris and Isis. It is superfluous after this, to 
 insist on particular inconsistencies which might be pointed 
 out between this history and the actual course of things — 
 such as the occurrence of names, the elements of which would 
 recognise these of Isis or Osiris, before they were yet in be- 
 ing — or acts historically related, which presuppose the ex- 
 istence of Isis or Osiris — yet older than B. C. 1350. All 
 these absurdities might be expected a priori to characterise 
 a purely factitious system of history, invented long after 
 B. C. 1350 — and purposely set back to any distance before it 
 which suited the views of its own authors — but it is impos- 
 sible that any such inconsistencies could have appeared in a 
 real history, whether contemporary with the events related 
 by it, or written after them. No real history of that kind 
 could ever have recognised — could ever have alluded to — 
 could ever even have known of, Osiris and Isis, before \\. C. 
 1350 at least. 
 
 ii. On the antiquity of the Principal Sacred Animals of the 
 Egyptians ; the Mneuis of On or Heliojjolis, the Apis of 
 Memphis, and the Goat of Mendes. 
 
 It so happens (providentially for the discovery of the true 
 character of the dynastic history of the Egyptians, but 
 most unfortunately for its own pretensions) that almost 
 at the very beginning of its decursus, it has ventured on 
 one circumstantial statement, viz. That the Mneuis, the 
 Apis, and the Mendes or Goat, of their animal worship, were 
 simultaneously proposed as divine, and simultaneously recog- 
 nised as objects of worship among them, under one of the 
 kings (Kaiechos") of the second dynasty, only 263 -f 38 or 
 301 yeai's after the supposed beginning of this dynastic 
 chronology itself, B. C. 316-f 3555, or B. C. 3901 P— that is, 
 as early as B. C. 3600. On this principle the Mneuis of 
 Heliopolis, the Apis of Memphis, and the Goat of jNIendes, 
 were all coexistent in Egypt, and all as old as, B. C. 3600. 
 And this statement has been received by the Egyptologers 
 
 " Bunsen, Standing of Egypt, i. 77. 224. 612. l' Ibid. i. 86. 
 
s. 2. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquity. 1 17 
 
 of the present day, as they style themselves, on the authority 
 of the dynastic history, as implicitly perhaps and undoubt- 
 ingly as any : and yet on each of these points, as a question 
 of fact, I am ready to join issue with this history and this 
 chronology, and on each I hope to convict it of a deliberate 
 falsification of the truth. 
 
 i. Then, with respect to tlie true age of the Mneuis. I 
 begin with observing i. that, though the Bull of Heliopolis 
 according to testimony must have been blacky mention 
 occurs repeatedly on the Monuments of a bull of Thebes or 
 Diospolis, the characteristic colour of which was white *■. 
 This being the case, I observe in the next place that though 
 of these two sacred bulls the only one real of its kind was 
 the black bull of Heliopolis, and this white bull of Thebes is 
 unknown to history, or testimony, any where except on the 
 Monuments and Sculptures, yet, as the first idea even of a 
 fictitious representation of this kind at Thebes must have 
 been derived from the reality of the same kind at Heliopolis 
 — there is no reason a priori why the proper cycle of this 
 white bull, if recoverable from the Monuments, should not 
 be supposed to have been taken from that of the black bull, 
 nor why from the facts of the one we should not be per- 
 mitted to argue those of the other. But if not, then, as 
 repeated allusions to the period of this cycle of the white 
 bull arc found on the Monuments, which represent it as a 
 TptuKovTaeT-qph, or cycle of thirty years % we may infer from 
 that fact that the cycle of the black bull was one of thirty 
 years also. 
 
 ii. I observe, in the next place, that a period of thirty years 
 is noticed in one instance lower down, in the Ptolemaic xra 
 of Egyptian history itself, when contemporary testimony 
 may be implicitly trusted ; the epoch of which is determin- 
 able to the date of the birthday of the reigning king, Pto- 
 lemy Epiphanes, Mcsorc 30, Nab. 538, /lOra Cyc. 3797, 
 October 9, at midnight, B.C. 210'. With this datum, sini- 
 ply assuming that the cycle itself — like many others among 
 the Egyptians both at this time and long before it — was a 
 
 <i Fasti, iv. i^f). 170. I Ibid. 224. ^ Ibid. J 25. 
 
 ' Ibid. iv. 152-156 sqq. 
 
 1. '2 
 
148 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. en. ii. 
 
 Julian one of its kind, the proper Julian date of which was 
 always the same in the same years of the proper Julian cycle 
 of leap-year — we should be enabled to go back at once from 
 the recorded Julian date of this one cycle, October 9 at mid- 
 night, B. C. 210, to the same Julian term, October 9 at 
 midnight, B.C. 1681, ^ra Cyc. 2326, when the first of the 
 Egyptian Thoth was falling last before on this given Julian 
 date. 
 
 iii. Thus much then being hypothetically assumed — viz. 
 that the period of thirty years, for some reason or other, was 
 actually instituted when Thoth 1 JF.m Cyc. 2326 was falling 
 on October 9 B. C. 1681 — the first confirmation of the hypo- 
 thesis is the probable motive to such an institution, and at 
 such a time, M'hich may be derived from the epoch itself, and 
 its relation to that of a still earlier institution of the Egyp- 
 tians — the Phoenix period and cycle, 166 years older than 
 B.C. 1681. The epoch of this latter was the date of the 
 mean vernal equinox, for the meridian of Heliopolis, of the 
 time being, April 8 B. C. 1847— and if the epoch of the for- 
 mer was October 9 B. C. 1681, it is observable that October 8 
 at 18 hours, or October 9 at midnight, might have been as- 
 sumed as the Julian date of the mean autumnal equinox, for 
 the meridian of Heliopolis also, B. C. 1681 — almost as much 
 as April 8 B. C. 1847, of the vernal^. And this may 
 suggest with great probability the true motive to the insti- 
 tution, at this time ; viz. to do the same honour to the sun 
 of the autumnal equinox, by the institution of this period 
 of thirty years, attached to October 9 B.C. 1681 — as had 
 already been done to the sun of the vernal, by the institution 
 of the Phoenix period, attached to April 8 B. C. 1847*. 
 
 The next confirmation of the hypothesis is that, if we may 
 suppose the period now first instituted, and in lionour of the 
 sun, to have been accompanied also, as it appears to have 
 been, by the first institution of an animal type of the period, 
 as the representative of its relation to the sun, neither the 
 ])eriod, nor the animal type of the period, could have been 
 older at On or Heliopolis than the Descent into Egypt 
 (B.C. 1778), before which there is no proof in Scripture, 
 
 ^' Fasti, iv. 165. '^ Ibid. iii. 238. 240. 
 
s. 2. Pseuclo-Chionologies of Profane Antujuiiy. 1 19 
 
 much less any where else, of the existence of animal worship 
 as yet in Egypt : yet both must have been older than the 
 birth of Moses, B.C. IGlOy, by which time it had certaiuly 
 been introduced " . 
 
 iv. A Julian cycle of thirty years, and an animal type of 
 the cycle, in the form of the black bull, or Mneuis, of Heli- 
 opolis, being thus supposed to have come into being together 
 13. C. 1681 ; though the epoch of the cycle itself might have 
 been this Julian term October 9 at midnight— yet, to judge 
 from the analogy of the Apis cycle of later date, the birth- 
 day of the type of the cycle might have been a very different 
 day ; or though the natural existence of the type of the cycle 
 should be supposed to have borne date from the first day of 
 the cycle, the Natural Birthday and the Mystical Birthday, 
 in this case, as in that of tiic Apis cycle of later times, might 
 have been very different things : and the natural birthday in 
 this relation being treated as equivalent simply to the cou- 
 rcptiott, preparatory to the mystical birth, if the former Mas 
 dated October 9, the latter, according to the assumptions of 
 the Egyptians in such peculiar cases as these 'S might be 
 dated :280 days later, July IG. 
 
 Now, with respect to this date of July 16 — moition occurs 
 repeatedly on the Monuments of an ancient ceremony an)ong 
 the hvgyptians, which from its very nature must have been 
 the most interesting to them, and the most important in 
 itself, of any in their whole year, and in alluding to whicli 
 even the ^Monuments may be considered simply historical. 
 For this was the Panegyry of the Waters — the annual com- 
 memoration of the rise of the Nile, on which the very exist- 
 ence of the Egyptians was dependent. Nor could any thing 
 be more prol)able a priori than that it should have been cele- 
 brated by them in some appropriate manner almost from 
 their very beginning as a nation''. 
 
 Tliis annual phenoujonon however, and in particular that 
 period in the rise of the Nile when, its bed being now full, it 
 was ready to overflow, having been connected also by long 
 observation with another phenomenon — that of the appear- 
 ance of Sirius or Sothis for the first time every year, in the 
 
 y Fasti, ii. 2IO-2 1 7. z Ajun'iulix, note AA. 
 
 ' Cf. Mipra, p. t5. cf. Fasti, ii. .si.^: iv. it»,^. '• tf. Fiisti, iii. :, and/'.; iv. 1^17. 
 
150 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii, 
 
 dawn of the morning, just about this period in the inunda- 
 tion — and the first appearance of a given star, under the same 
 circumstances, necessarily varying for different latitudes, in 
 the proportion of one day later in time for every 1° 5' of 
 difference in latitude '^i it is very observable that, between 
 the lowest parallel in Egypt, (that of Syene,) in the south, 
 24" 5' 23" N, and the highest, (that of Alexandria, and the 
 months of the Nile.) in the north, cir. 31° 12' 53" — these 
 differences amounted to 7 or 8 degrees in space, equivalent 
 to six or seven days in time. So that, if the stated date of 
 the first appearance of Sirius for the highest of these lati- 
 tudes was July 21 or 22, for the lowest it must have been 
 July 15 or 16^. And it is an obvious inference from these 
 facts that, if the ancient Egyptians had an annual ceremony, 
 called the Pauegyry of the Waters, which commemorated the 
 same blessing for the whole of the nation, — as ushered in by 
 the same phenomenon for each of its par.allels and each of 
 its principal cities, (the first appearance of Sirius in the 
 morning twilight)- — from the nature of the case, it must 
 have been spread over a period of six or seven days ; and if 
 it began to be applicable to the lowest parallel as early as 
 July 15 or 16, and to the highest not before July 21 or 22, 
 it must be kept for the seven days, either between July 15 
 and 21, or between July 16 and 22. 
 
 Now the proper Julian epoch of the Mneuis cycle being 
 assumed Oct. 9 B.C. 1681, in the first year of the proper 
 Julian cycle of leap-year, it must be October 9 in every year 
 of the cycle alike f. Reckon on then 280 days from Oct. 9 
 in every year of the Julian cycle of leap-year but the fourth, 
 and you come to July 16 : and reckon 280 days from Oct. 9 
 in the fourth year of the cycle, and you come to July 15. 
 On this principle, if 280 days from Oct. 9 was the stated 
 date of the Natales Mneuidis, in every year of the cycle, and 
 Juh' 15 or 16 was the stated date of the Panegyry of the 
 Waters also, the Natales Mneuidis and the Panegyry of the 
 Waters must always have fallen out together ; and therefore 
 the date of the one must have been purposely accommodated 
 to that of the other. 
 
 <■ Fasti, iii. TiQ n. '' Ibid. iv. i6R. cf. 353. 
 
 e Cf. A)iiiendi.\, note BB. 
 
s. 2. Vseudo-Chrono\o^\cs of P/o/ane Antifjuity. 151 
 
 V. On this principle, in the year before the Exodus, the 
 stated date of the Natales Mneuidis, 280 days from Oct. 9 
 ]J. C. 1562, would be July 15 B. C. 1561 ; and consequently 
 the date of the Panegyry of the Waters would he July 15 
 also, and the duration of the Pancgyry on this occasion 
 would be the seven days from July 15 to July 21. And this 
 conclusion derives much confirmation from the nature and 
 duration of the first of the Plagues, this very year; the sub- 
 ject of which was the Nile in particular, and never a priori 
 more likely to have been so, than just on the eve of the 
 inundation — when its bed would be full to repletion, and 
 nothing would be necessary in order to its covering the 
 country far and wide, except to let it out. For this duration 
 itself was a term of seven days "^ ; just as we have concluded 
 that the Panegyry of the Waters every year must have been 
 also. In like manner, 2S0 days from Oct. 9 B, C, 1561 bring 
 you to July 16 B. C 1560, as the date of the Natales Mneui- 
 dis in the year of the Exodus; and that it was actually such 
 this year has been proved supra s from the testimony of 
 Scripture itself — if at least the date of the erection of the 
 golden calf (an image of the Mneuis itself) this very year 
 has been rightly determined to July 16''. 
 
 vi. It being assumed then on the strength of these coin- 
 cidences, that the date of the first Mneuis cycle was Oc- 
 tober 9 B. C, 1681, and the length of the cycle a period of 30 
 Julian years perpetually; the date of the second would be 
 October 9 B. C. 1651, that of the third October 9 B. C. 1621, 
 that of the fourth October 9 B, C, 1591, and that of the fifth 
 October 9 B. C, 1561. And this having been the year of the 
 Plagues, from July 15 B, C. 1561, that of the first, to April 9 
 B. C. 1560, that of the last, it is here to be observed that, as 
 tiie plague of the first born, at midnight on this day, was 
 expressly directed against the first born of cattle, as well as 
 those of men ^, it would necessarily include among its victims 
 the new born representative of this fifth Mneuis cycle, the 
 epoch of which was only six months earlier, October 9 B. C. 
 1561. And the unexpected extinction of the living type of 
 
 ' E.vod. vii. 19-25. I* I'ag. 95. '' Cf. Fasti, iv. irii-ifiji. ' Appeii- 
 
 rli,\, note ('(.'. •* E.xod. xi. 5 : .\ii. 1 2. 39 ; xiii. 15. Numb, xxxiii. 4. Ps. 
 
 cxxxv. 8 : cxxxvi. 10. Cf. Jushua, xxiv. 14. Ezik. xx. 7, 8. 
 
152 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 the cycle in the very first year of its decursus would compel 
 the Egyptians, if the reckoning of such cycles was still to 
 continue, to begin a fresh reckoning from a new epoch — 
 which, it is evident, could be only the second year of the old 
 one. The same thing happened again, many centuries later, 
 in the time of the Apis cycle The living type of this cycle 
 also having lieen cut oft' by the act of Oambyses in the very 
 first year of its decursus ; the i'^gyptians of that time too, 
 having no other alternative left them but that of abandoning 
 the reckoning of such cycles from this time forward alto- 
 gether, or of carrying it on as before from the second year of 
 tlie old reckoning, adopted the latter ; and what they are 
 seen to have done at that time, the Egyptians of this day may 
 very well be supposed to have done, under the very same 
 circumstances, at this. 
 
 vii. And that the cycle of 30 years did go on among the 
 Egyptians, in connexion with the worship of the Mneuis, 
 after the Exodus as much as before, only from this new 
 epoch of B.C. 1560. instead of B.C. 1561, is placed out of 
 question — i. By the date of the cycle, alluded to supra ', as 
 attested by contemporary history in the reign of Ptolemy 
 Epiphanes, that of October 9 B. C. 210, just 1350 years, 
 (45 cycles of 30 years,) from October 9 B. C. 1560, but not 
 from October 9 B. C. 1561. ii. By what has been demon- 
 stratively proved in the Origines Kalendaria3 Hellenicse"' of 
 the Minotaur or Minos-Bull, and the octaeteric correction, 
 of Minos in Crete, B.C. 1260— that this Minos-Bull was 
 simply the Mneuis-Bull of the Egyptians, introduced by 
 Minos into Crete, and associated there with a cycle of eight 
 years, as it had always been in Egypt with one of 30 years, 
 but so that the first of these eight years cycles in Crete took 
 up and continued the last of the 30 years cycles in Egypt 
 until then ; yet from this epoch of B. C. 1560, not from that 
 of B. C. 156i. For from October 9, B. C. 1560, supposed to 
 have been the date of the first of a series of this kind in 
 Egypt, to September 23 B. C. 1260, the first of a series of 
 the other kind in Crete, there were just ten cycles of 30 years 
 (300 years) complete. 
 
 ' Pa^t' 147. m iv. 469-48:. 
 
s. 2. VsQudo-Chronolo'jfxcs of Pj'ofane Antiquity. 153 
 
 ii. Thus much on the true age or antiquity of the Mneuis 
 of lleliopolis. Let us now pass to that of the Apis of 
 Merapliis. 
 
 On this question we may begin with observing i. that, ac- 
 cording to some of the Egyptians, the Apis was tlie son of 
 the Mneuis ; and consequently could not possibly have been 
 as old as the Mneuis ". But thougli this account of its origin 
 may have been founded on the fact that the first idea of the 
 Apis was very probably suggested by the prior existence of 
 the Mneuis, still, without insisting on this objection, we may 
 go on to observe, ii. that, as it is acknowledged on all 
 hands ^ that the Apis from the moment of its coming into 
 being had a special relation to Osiris, and in fact was a sup- 
 posed incarnation of Osiris P, it could not possibly have been 
 older in Egypt than Osiris, nor therefore than B. C. 1350. 
 iii. It is still more unquestionable that the Apis must have 
 had a special connection with its own cycle — that the Apis 
 was the living representative of the cycle called after it, from 
 the first. And that having been the case, the question of 
 the age or antiquity of the Apis among tlie Egyptians is 
 simply that of the antiquity of the Apis cycle among them 
 also. 
 
 And on this question, I begin with admitting that, even in 
 this special and restricted relation, the Apis cycle was still 
 the lunar and solar cycle of 25 equable years, and that the 
 natural lunar cycle of the equable solar year, associated with 
 it too in the primitive calendar fi'om the first, was th'it cycle 
 also. I am consequently ready to admit that even the Apis 
 cycle properly so called might have been associated with the 
 l)rimitive solar calendar of the beginning itself, if a living 
 type of the cycle had been associated with it also from the 
 first. But of such an association there is no proof, neither 
 in Egypt nor any where else, before an historical point of 
 time, some thousands of years later than the beginning of 
 the decursus of equable solar and equable lunar time in this 
 form of tlie 25 years cycle. And it would have been well if 
 chrouologers had agreed to call this natural lunar cycle of 
 
 " Fasti, ii. .(^4 : iv. 149 iii.: iv. i-;o. " Bunsfii, .Staiulinii nf Eiryj>t, i. 4.;o. 
 
 P Fasti, ii. 501 sfiq. 533. 
 
151 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. cii. ii. 
 
 the equable solar year, as still unassociated with an animal 
 type of itself, l)y the name of the Eicosipenteteris, and to 
 restrict that of the Apis cycle to this period of 25 equable 
 years, as associated with, and represented by, the Apis. 
 What we at least have to investigate and ascertain at present 
 is, not the age or antiquity of the primitive lunar and solar 
 cycle of 25 years, but that of the Apis cycle. 
 
 ii. And even for this purpose, I pi'oceed to observe, two 
 data only (both of them as it happens supplied by testi- 
 mony) in strictness would be necessary — one, the natural 
 prejudice of the Egyptians in favour of one particular lunar 
 epoch, the lunar 4' or lunar 3% the other, the first year of 
 any one Apis cycle. The former would help us to the pro- 
 bable lunar date of the Apis cycle from the first; the latter 
 would fix a cardinal point in the decursus of the cycle, either 
 backwards or forwards. The former of these is known from 
 the testimony of Pliny the Elders, and is confirmed by the 
 true explanation of the preference itself, brought to light by 
 our inquiries f supra. The latter we learn from Herodotus' 
 account of the ^thiopic expedition of Cambyses^. 
 
 And these two data, thus supplied by difterent autho- 
 rities, independently of each other, work together towards 
 the desired discovery as follows : The year of the expedition, 
 as I have shewn *, having been either B. C. 524 or B. C. 523, 
 the traditionary epoch of lunar time among the Egyptians, 
 applied to the former, gives the epoch of the first year of the 
 current Apis cycle Thoth 20; applied to the latter, gives it 
 Thoth 11^: between which we cannot hesitate to fix on 
 Thoth 11 B.C. 523, as the true epoch of such a cycle. 
 
 And though it must be admitted that even Thoth 11 this 
 year, Nab. 225, must have fallen on the Luna 5^, not on the 
 liuna 4=1 or 3=^ ; yet as even that was the case at this time, 
 simply as a consequence of its having fallen some time or 
 other before this, on the Luna 4^, and the Luna 3' — to find 
 that time we go back, ist. 200 equable years, eight Apis 
 cycles, from Thoth 11, Nab. 225, B. C. 523, to Thoth 11, 
 Nab. 25, B. C. 723 — and there we get to the epoch, when 
 Thoth 11 was first beginning, in the first year of the cycle, 
 
 1 Fasti, ii. 52.^. Origg. Kal. Hdl. iii. ^p. •■ Page .^9. 
 
 s Fasti, ii. 519. » Ibid. 51.1-522. ^ Ibid. 520-522. 
 
s. 2. I^seudo-Chroiiologies of Profane Antiquity. 155 
 
 to fall on the Luna 5^. ii. We go back next 125 equable 
 years, five Apis cycles, from Thoth 11 of this epoch, to 
 Thoth 11, ^ra Cyc. 3159, B.C. 848, and there we get to 
 tlio time when Thotli 11 first began to fall on the Luna 4^ 
 iii. We go back another 125 equable years, five cycles, from 
 this epoch also, to Thoth 11, iEra Cyc. 3034, B. C. 973, and 
 there we get to the time when this same equable solar term 
 was first beginning to fall on the Luna 3^ ^. 
 
 And at this stage of the Reditus retro with the historical 
 Apis Cycle, let us compare the decursus of the Primitive 
 Eicosipenteteris, brought down to this same point of timo^ 
 yEra Cyc. 3034, B. C. 973, from /Era Cyc. 1, B. C. 4004. I 
 have drawn out the scheme of this decursus, in my Fasti y. 
 It will be seen from it that this year, /Era Cyc. 3034, B. C. 
 973, was the ninth year of the cxxiind cycle, from the first ; 
 the solar epoch of which was still the same as it had been all 
 along, Paiini 17, and the lunar, at this time too, was only one 
 term lower than what it had been at first ; the Luna 3=' at 
 this time, as it was the Luna 4^ at that. And Pauni 17, the 
 Luna 3a, being the regular date of the first month in this 
 year of the cycle, ^ra Cyc. 3034, Thoth 11, the Luna 3'S 
 May 1, B. C, 973, would be that of the fourth month. 
 
 Now if, for any conceivable reason, the Egyptians of this 
 time were thinking of instituting a new reckoning of the 
 cycle of 25 years, intended indeed to be derived from the old 
 one of the time being, but ever after to go on by itself, in 
 conjunction with something which had not accompanied it 
 before — viz. a living animal representative of the cycle in the 
 person of the Apis — there is no reason, discoverable at pre- 
 sent, why they might not take the first year of this new suc- 
 cession from the ninth year of the old, and the first day of 
 the first mouth in this new reckoning of the cycle, from tiie 
 first of the fourth in the corresponding year of the old. That 
 would depend on circumstances, over which they themselves 
 niiii,ht have had no control. This assumption however is the 
 only thing necessary to connect the decursus of the Primitive 
 Eicosipenteteris, traced uninterruptedly downwards, accord- 
 ing to its pro|)c'r law, from Thoth S, rEra Cyc. 1, May 2, 
 
 N f'f. Fasti, ii. n 23-528. >• iv. ^ftS-.^Sfi. 
 
15f) The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 B. 0. I'OOl', (the Luna i^ of that epoch dated from the 
 change, the Luna 3* dated from the phasis.) with the course 
 and succession of the Apis cycle, traced back from Thoth 11, 
 ^:ra Cyc. 3483, Nab. 225, Jan. 11, B. C. 523, (the Luna 5* 
 of that epoch dated from the change, the Luna 4* dated from 
 the phasis.) to Thoth 11, ^:ra Cyc. 3034, May 1, B.C. 973. 
 
 And as to the reasons which might possibly have influenced 
 them to think of a fresh institution of this kind, at this time 
 in particular, one might have been the correction required 
 at this time, by the mean lunar standard of the Primitive 
 cycle itself, which, by B. C. 973, had come to be one second 
 of mean solar time at least in excess of the trnth^. Another, 
 and a more influential one, might be the return of solar and 
 lunar time, as combined in this cycle perpetually, in the 
 ninth year of the cxxiind cycle, as nearly as possible to the 
 relations of origination. The original solar date had been 
 Thoth 8, the original lunar one, the Luna 4^, ^Era Cyc. 1 — 
 both, j\Lay 2 Julian, B. C. 4004. The solar epoch of the 
 fourth month of this year of the cxxiind cycle, regularly de- 
 rived from the original one, was Thoth 11, the Lunar, simi- 
 larly derived, was the Luna 3'^, ^ra Cyc. 3034, Both were 
 the Julian May 1 of this time, B. C. 973, as both had been 
 the Julian May 2, B. C. 4004 a. 
 
 A third, and very probably the principal, reason might 
 have been a political one, arising out of some revolution in 
 Egypt itself — some change of dynasty there, from the old 
 Pharaonic succession, to a totally different Hne b, the com- 
 mencement of which it might have been proposed to inaugu- 
 rate, by the foundation of a city, destined to be the capital 
 of all Egypt, and by the consecration of this new city to 
 Osiris, through the supposed incarnation of Osiris, in the 
 person of the Apis, as the future guardian, patron, or tutelary 
 genius of this new capital of Egypt ; and consequently with 
 a corres[)onding reckoning of the cycle of 25 years, as the 
 measure of the life of the Apis in this his relation to Osiris. 
 For that these must have been the circumstances under 
 which the city of Memphis came into being originally, will be 
 seen I hope l)y and by ^. * 
 
 z Fasti, iv. 386- .^95. a Ibid. 395 sqq. '• Ibid. iv. 445. 
 
 <■ Fasti, ii. 53^ : iv. 443 sqq. 
 
s. 2. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquity. l-IT 
 
 iii. The epoch however of this first Type of the historical 
 Apis cycle, having; been fixed, for whatsoever reason, de facto 
 to Thoth IL .Era Cyclica 3031, May 1, B. C. 973 '', I have 
 traced it downwards from this epoch of origination, according 
 to its proper law and proper rule of administration, and have 
 confirmed it at the various periods of its decursus by the 
 necessary proofs from the matter of fact; as, i. By the testi- 
 mony of Scripture, and the Scriptural date of the idolatrous 
 feast of Jeroboam, taken from the very first Natales Apidis 
 in Egypt — those of this year of the epoch, B. C. OT^^'. 
 ii. By the date of the viiith cycle of this Type, ]}. C. 798, 
 recovered from the zodiac of Denderah f. iii. By the Natales 
 Apidis of the xiiith cycle, B.C. G73, just before the beginning 
 of the reign of Psammitichuss. iv. By the contemporary 
 testimony of Ezekiel viii. 1-18. to the proper reckoning of 
 the xvith cycle, B. C. 594-593 •». v. By the cycle of the time 
 of Cambyses, xix. 1. B. C. 523, alluded to supra^, vi. By 
 other arguments and considerations ''\ 
 
 iv. The first Type of the Apis cycle having thus been 
 traced and verified as low down as the ingress of cycle xix. 1, 
 and the first Natales Apidis of this cycle' ; the death of the 
 Apis itself in this first year, so soon after, as I have already 
 observed "', compelled the Egyptians to begin a new reckon- 
 ing, and consequently to institute a new Type, of the cycle 
 in the second year of the old cycle. x\nd the regular solar 
 date of that year in this type having been Epagomene 5, (as 
 that of the first year was Thoth 11,) the recognised epoch of 
 this second reckoning and second type of the historical Apis 
 cycle tuins out to have been Epagomene 5, Nab. 225, Dec. 
 31, B.C. 523". And this type too has been traced by me, 
 from this time forward, and verified by the necessary proofs, 
 i. Both by particular ones of their kind, cycle ix. 1. Ji. C. 
 323°, and cycle ix. 18. B.C. 3()G \> ; and, ii. By general proofs, 
 cycle XX. 1 B.C. 498 <i, cycle xxiv. 1. B.C. 398'', cycle xxvi. 
 li. C. 348^ 
 
 •• Cf. Fusti, ii. 5^3. '' lliid. ii. 528 sqq. f Ibitl. iv. 301. 305 «(|(|. 
 
 329. 8 Ibid. ii. 544. 1> Ibid. ii. 550 sqq. i Face 154. if. 
 
 Fasti, ii. 559. ^ Cf. Fasti, iv. 262-.^48. 368-403. ' Fasti, ii. 559. 
 
 .S64. m Pago 152. ■' Fasti, ii. ^M. <> Ibid. i' Hiid. li. 
 
 567. OrigR. Kal. Hi-11, iii. 5^0-545. <i Il)iil. ii. i^Cnj. '' Ibid. ii. 
 
 571. >* Ibid. ii. 572. 
 
158 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii, 
 
 V. And this second type also having been prematurely 
 brought to an end, not indeed by any violence from without, 
 but by the act of the Egyptians themselves*, in order that a 
 new reckoning of their own national cycle might begin and 
 proceed pari passu with the Macedo-Egyptian correction of 
 the sixth type of the old TTellenic Octaeteris, just coming 
 into being in Egypt, at the same time, under the auspices of 
 the first of the Macedonian kings, Ptolemy Soter or Lagi — 
 a third type is found to have taken its rise on Mesore 30, 
 Cycle ix. 18 of the preexisting type, iS^ab. 442 — the Julian 
 date of which, and that of the Macedo-Egyptian Dius 1, Pe- 
 riod i Cycle i. 1 of its proper calendar, were absolutely the 
 same. iS^ov. 2, B.C. 306 v. 
 
 And this third type too has been traced from this epoch, 
 and verified by a great variety of proofs ; as, i. By the testi- 
 mony of Theon, the commentator on Ptolemy": ii. By that 
 of the Rosetta stoney, B. C. 196 : iii. By the institution of 
 the Sarapea, Pachon 2, Cycle ii. 1, B. C. 281 ^ : iv. By Cycle 
 xii. 1, Nab. 717-718^: v. By the date of the Nativity, Cycle 
 xiii. 2, Nab. 743, 744^ : vi. By Cycle xiv. 1, Nab. 767, A. D. 
 20 J; vii. By the date of the Passion, taken from this type, 
 A. D. 30^ : viii. By the Marnior Tripolitanum, and the Jewish 
 feast of Tabernacles at Berenike, A.D. 25^: ix. By the date 
 of the feast of Tabernacles in Egypt, A.D. 38g: x. By the 
 date of the Nativity, A.D. 127, taken from this type^: xi. 
 By the correction of the Thesmophorian dates among the 
 Athenians, A. D. 127' : xii. By the Natales Apidis, Cycle xvi. 
 1 of this type, A.D. 70-71'^: xiii. By the xviiith Cycle, in 
 the time of Adrian, A. D. 120'. 
 
 vi. In addition to these three types, the succession of 
 which, one after another, is capable of being thus traced his- 
 torically from B. C. 973 to A. D. 120, where contemporary 
 testimony to the existence and actual use of the last of them 
 first begins to fail us ; should that failure be supposed attri- 
 
 ' Fasti, i. 604-607. ii. 573-581 : Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. 540 sqq. " Fasti, 
 
 ii. 573 : Oi'igg. Kal. Hell. iii. 540. '^ O^'g- ^^^al. Hell. iii. 555. >' Ibid, 
 
 iii. 545 : Fasti, ii. 581. z Ibiil. iv. 404 sqq. 1' Fasti, ii. 585. <^ Ibid. 5X6. 
 
 tl Ibid", ii. 587. e Jbid. ii. 589. ef. Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. h^—^bA- ' fasti, 
 
 ii. 5S8: Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. 584-5S9. rf. Prolegomena ad Ilannon. iii. i5'2-i67. 
 K Fasti, ii. 589 Prolegomena, iii. 167 : Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. 554. •• Fasti, ii. 
 
 590 : Origg. Kal. Hell. iii. 554 : Prolegomena ad Harmo)). iii. 145. ' Fasti, 
 
 ii. 590: Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 274 sqq. ^ Fasti, ii. 593. 1 Ibid. ii. 596. 
 
s. 2. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquity. 159 
 
 butable, as it probably is, partlj^ if not principally, to the 
 increasing spread of Christianity in Egypt as well as every 
 where else — ^yet it is to be remarked, as a curious coincidence, 
 that no sooner had Julian the Apostate succeeded to the 
 throne of Constantine, and the old paganism felt itself em- 
 boldened to lift up its head once more, and to shew its face 
 openly in its old haunts, than we discover the proof of an 
 attempt to revive the worship of the Apis, and to begin a fresh 
 reckoning of its proper cycle, in the very first year of the 
 reign of Julian™ — which, if the attempt had succeeded, would 
 probably have been found bearing date Mesore 25, Cycle 
 xxvii. 18 of the third type, xXab 1109, May 11, A. D. 36.2. 
 ]}ut the death of Julian the next year no doubt extinguished 
 the hopes of the projectors of this scheme ; and from this 
 time forward both the Apis and the Apis cycle, so far as 1 
 know, disappear from the page of history for ever. 
 
 iii. With respect to the deification of the (joat of Mendes ; 
 we have not the means of putting the tradition of the dy- 
 nastic history on that point to the same crucial test as on 
 each of the other two; but only because, of the particular 
 history of this one of the sacred animals of the Egyptians, 
 nothing- is discoverable at present in any other quarter, be- 
 yond the mere fact of its existence among the Egyptians, 
 and of the class of animals to which it belonged. I have 
 shewn however" that the first idea of the Arcadian Pan (the 
 Hermo-Pan or jl^gipan of classical mythology), which came 
 into being among the Arcadians along with their proper octa- 
 eteric correction, Dec. 26, B. C. 193, was probably derived 
 from that of the Egyptian Chemmis, whose animal type or 
 symljol was this Goat of Mendes. And both these ideas 
 being ultimately resolvable into that of the ^gipan or Ca- 
 pricorn of the sphere", it is far from improbable that, even 
 among the I'-gyptians, the goat was not conceived or pro- 
 posed in this relation of the type of the sun at the winter 
 solstice, before the time when the first of Thotli was falling 
 at the winter solstice, and even on the winter-solstitial day 
 itself. And that, by a singular coincidence, was the epoch 
 of the Arcadian lunar correction itself, Dec. 26, B. C. 493. 
 
 '" See Fasti, ii. 599 s(i(|. " Oritjp. Kal llcll. i\ . 619. 
 
 " Fasti, iii. i,t)2 and iiott:. 
 
160 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. n. 
 
 It is observable however that while these three animals, 
 the Bull of lleliopolis, the Apis of Memphis, and the Goat of 
 Mendes, were recognised as if in existence and esteemed sacred 
 thus early in the dynastic history, nothing appears to have 
 been said of the Ram of Thebes, No-Amraon or Diospolis, 
 though that was as remarkable an animal, belonging to the 
 class of sacred among the Egyptians, and stood in as par- 
 ticular a relation to the sun, as any besides. I have no doubt 
 this silence was intentional — and I think I have probabh' 
 assigned the true explanation of itP in the fact that the deifi- 
 cation of this animal in particular, as the symbol of the sun 
 of the vernal equinox, though made as early as B. C. 889 — 
 and made at Thebes, and probably intended to be confined 
 to Thebes and the Thebaid — was accompanied also with an 
 innovation of another kind, of which the priests of lower 
 Kgypt — and those of Memphis in particular — did not, and 
 could not approve ; that, viz. of the substitution of the Ju- 
 lian solar year and the jMctonic lunar cycle, instead of the 
 Primitive equable solar and lunar reckoning. There were 
 other grounds of discord between the two principal divisions 
 of the sacerdotal caste, in Egypt, (and of much older stand- 
 ing too.) at this time ; but this alone was reason sufficient 
 why the priests of Lower Egypt — to whom the author of the 
 dynastic history, as we may see by and by, belonged — shoxild 
 studiously ignore the very existence of the Ram of Thebes. 
 And I have little doubt, it is from the time of this innovation 
 also, that we are to date the introduction of that particular 
 clause into the coronation oath of the kings — which made a 
 stated part of the ceremony of the h-dpovLaubs or installation, 
 as regularl}' celebrated at Memphis M — whereby the}' bound 
 themselves never to introduce the intercalary day, (that is, the 
 principle of the Julian reckoning,) into the old equable year. 
 
 Section III. — On the Monumental a)td the Dynastic histori/ 
 of the Effij/itians, its factitious character from the Jirst, and 
 its probable author or authors. 
 
 The veracity of the Dynastic history of the Egyptians is so 
 completely and unequivocally committed on no one point, as 
 
 P I'asti, iv. 2 1.^, iiciq. i.^o-:;,;. 'i F:i>ti, ii. ,^!S^. 
 
s. 3- 'Pseudo-Chrouo\o^ies of Profane Antiquify. Kil 
 
 on that of the origin and the antiquity of Memphis — and this 
 too is a simple question of fact, on which I do not hesitate to 
 join issue with it. 
 
 According to this History, Menes, the founder of the Dy- 
 nasties, was the founder of ^Memphis also ; and Memphis 
 consequently was as old as the first of the Dynasties, which, 
 according to their own chronology went back as far as B. C. 
 3901 — only 103 years short of the' Mosaic creation itself 
 
 i. In objection to this account of its antiquity generally, it 
 might be demanded, If Memphis was thus incomparably the 
 oldest city in Egypt — and yet the greatest of all, and the 
 capital of the country, from the first — by what accident it 
 could have happened that its very existence should be un- 
 known, even to Greek mythology, before the rise of the fable 
 of lo and Epaphus "" ; and unknow n to Girreek history even so 
 late as the time of Homer, B.C. 910 s; and unknown to, or 
 at least unnoticed by. Scripture history, though among the 
 Jews so near to Egypt, before the time of Hoshea or Isaiah, 
 one or two centuries later even than that of Homer*? 
 
 ii. In objection to the same representation specifically, it 
 may be observed, i. That even as recognised in history — as 
 known to its contemporaries or to posterity — even as a real 
 city, the greatest in Egypt of the time being, the residence 
 of the kings, and the metropolis of the country — still Mem- 
 phis is never alluded to except by the name of Memphis ; 
 and we may take it for granted never had any name but 
 that of Memphis. It came into existence under this name, 
 and as long as it continued in existence, it never ceased to 
 retain this name. ii. That as an actual city, and under this 
 name of Memphis, it was never known either in Egypt or 
 out of Egypt, except as standing in a peculiar relation to the 
 Apis, and through the Apis to Osiris — i. e. as the city of the 
 Apis, and through the Apis, the city of Osiris. That the 
 Apis, in short, and Memphis, were connected from the first, 
 and in the same kind of relation to each other, as the Mneuis 
 and On or Ilcliopolisv. iii. That this traditionary account 
 of the relation of the Apis and Memphis to each other from 
 
 I Cf. Fasti, iv. 453 sqq. s Ibid. 442. Origg. Kal. lIcU. vi. 289-500. 
 
 ' Fasti, iv. 453 n. " Ibid. 438 sqq. 
 
162 The Mree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 the first is confirmed by the name of Memphis itself, from 
 the first also — That Memphis, the name best known to his- 
 tory both at present and in all former times, is simply the 
 Greek form of the native Egyptian name, which occurs on 
 coins in that of MeiJ^is also ^ — That this native Egyptian 
 name was ]Menofri, out of which the Greeks made MeV^iy 
 and Mf'/u<^ti% J^nd Scripture, Nof y — and of the truth and 
 reality of which, as the vernacular name of Memphis from 
 the first, I have myself pointed out a singular confirmation 
 in that of the Italian Minerva, derived from it ^ — That this 
 native Egyptian name of Me-nof-ri, resolved into its com- 
 ponent parts, is explained to mean, "The abode of good »" — 
 or, as some of the learned in the language of the Monuments 
 and Sculptures ^ at the present day contend it should be ren- 
 dered, " The abode of the good one,'^ " The abode of the 
 beneficent one" — a name which could not have been given it 
 except as the abode of Osiris. 
 
 It follows from these facts that, unless Memphis was older 
 than its own name, and older than every relation to some- 
 thing else implied in its own name, it could not have been 
 older than the time when it first became the abode of Osiris 
 in the person of the Apis, nor consequently than the rise of 
 the Apis cycle, B.C. 973. And this leads us at once to the 
 inference that, if this city was really founded by one of the 
 kings of Egypt, it must have been by that one in particular 
 who was reigning when the fable of the incarnation of Osiris 
 in the person of the Apis, and the cycle which measured the 
 existence of the Apis in that relation to him, both came into 
 being together. And if the date of this fable, with its ac- 
 companying institutions and circumstances, was B. C. 974 
 and 973^ — and the king who was reigning in Egypt both in 
 the reign of Solomon, before B. 0. 974, and in that of Re- 
 hoboam, four or five years after at least, according to the 
 testimony of Scripture was Shishak — Shishak, and Shishak 
 only, as having been contemporary with the rise of the fable 
 of Osiris and the Apis, and the institution of the Apis cycle, 
 must have been the founder of Memphis. And that fact, as 
 
 X Bunsen, Standing of Egypt, ii.53. >' Fasti, iv. 453 n. cf. Jeremiah, 
 
 ii. 16: xlvi. 19. z Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 143 W.-145. » Fasti, iv. 
 
 439,440. *■ 3Iarietti, for instance. •" Fasti, ii. 528 sqq. 
 
s. 3- Pseudo-Chronologies ofProfane Antiquity. 163 
 
 I have shewn <*, supplies the best explanation of his motive to 
 the invasion of Judwa, in the fifth year of Kehoboam, B. C. 
 970, and consequently four or five years after the beginning 
 of the foundation ; viz. a desire to get possession of the 
 means of finishing an undertaking of sueh magnitude as the 
 building of "Memphis, by seizing, and carrying away to 
 Egypt, the treasures of Solomon. 
 
 iv. From these facts then, and others of like kind, ad- 
 duced and substantiated in the Fasti and Origines, no one, 
 I think, can hesitate to draw the inference, That before B. C. 
 973, both the Apis and the Memphis of the Egyptians must 
 have been simply nonentities — before B.C. 1350, the Osiris and 
 the Isis of the Egyptians must have been simply nonentities 
 — before B. C. 1G81, the Mneuis of the Egyptians must have 
 been simply a nonentity — while, as to the Dynasties of the 
 ancient Egyptians, at no period of their supposed decursus, 
 could they have been any thing but mere and simple non- 
 entities. 
 
 And the historical existence of the pretended founder of 
 these imaginary Dynasties, (himself the first in the whole 
 series of the kings of whose reigns they were supposed to con- 
 sist) being thus necessarily liable to be called in question ; it 
 becomes an obvious conjecture that, after all, this conception 
 and this name of the Mcnes of the Dynasties were simply the 
 idea and name of the first and oldest of the sacred animals 
 of the Egyptians, in this fictitious history treated as a person, 
 and represented as the first and oldest king and legislator of 
 the Egyptians '^. Certain at least it is that the proper name 
 of this oldest of their sacred animals in the ancient Egyptian 
 was MN or MNE ^ And from the latter of these MNE, with 
 no change in it but that of the addition of a proper termi- 
 nation, it is certain the Greek language might easily get 
 MNETI2 or MNETMS; or by simply reading it backward, 
 MEN for MNE, and with or without the addition in question, 
 might get both NUIN and MHNH2. It is certain too that 
 under one or other of these appellations, MHN or MHNHS, 
 MNETI2 or MNETMi:, must this pretended first king or 
 first legislator of the Egyptians have first become known to 
 
 '' Fasti, iv. 443 sqq. ^" C'f. Diodorus, i. 94. ' Fasti, iv. 170. Origg. 
 
 Kal. Hell. iv. 473. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ir. 
 
 the Greeks ; for they call him by no other but one of these. 
 Herodotus calls him MHNs, Diodorus MNETHSh. 
 
 V. And with respect to the Dynastic history in general, if 
 its most fundatnental assumptions are thus demonstratively 
 proved to have had nothing to rest upon, we have no alterna- 
 tive but to conclude that the whole superstructure of pre- 
 tended history, based on such assumptions, can have as little 
 claim to the name and authority of real, as the foundation 
 on which it is built. And though it would make no differ- 
 ence to this conclusion respecting the true character of a 
 system which must stand or fall in its totality, and is flatly 
 contradicted by real history at its very outset, whether, at 
 this distance of time, we could explain the motives out of 
 which it arose, or conjecture the author to whom it was to 
 be attributed, it so happens that in the present instance 
 there is not much difficulty in doing either of these things. 
 
 And first with respect to the author — there are two rea- 
 sons which incline me to be of opinion that, if this whole 
 system of ancient history and chronology, which goes by the 
 name of the Egyptian Dynasties, is a pure and simple fabri- 
 cation from first to last, and therefore, as it must be pre- 
 sumed, the work of some Egyptian in general, that native 
 Egyptian was probably Manetho the Sebennyte' in particular. 
 One is, the character of the man himself, which stands 
 branded in contemporary history by complicity with another 
 scheme of fraud and imposture, not indeed on so great a 
 scale as this, yet a fit prelude even to this ; and a more de- 
 cisive proof of the want of principle and of the disregard of 
 truth and honesty in an accomplice of such a scheme, even 
 than this : the scheme concerted B.C. 281, between theGreek 
 and the Egyptian priests in Egypt, of which I had occasion 
 to give an account in the history of the Sarapea's for palm- 
 ing the Pluto of the Greeks on the native Egyptians as their 
 own Osiris of the Amenthes, and for introducing the worship 
 of Sarapis as that of an old and familiar divinity under a new 
 name, merely to humour the caprice or superstition of the 
 second Ptolemy. 
 
 The other reason is, that no such system of Egyptian his- 
 
 B ii. 99. h i. 94. i Cf. Bunspii, i. ^f). k Fasti, iv. 422, 423. 
 
s. 3- l^seudo-Chronologies 0/ Profane Antiquiti/. 10.5 
 
 tory as this of the Dynasties, in its totality, appears to have 
 been known to tlic ancients, except as the work of Manetho; 
 and none such, whether entire or in part, whether in the 
 remains of Josephus, or of Africanus, or of Eusebius, or of 
 Syncellus, exists at present, except as the work, or part of 
 the work, of Manetlio. If a system and complex of so called 
 ancient Egyptian history, like this of the Dynasties, the in- 
 ternal evidence of which convicts it so clearly of having been 
 the work of some impostor, never existed heretofore, nor is 
 still known to exist, except under the name of Manetho, and 
 Manetho himself is known to have been capable of the con- 
 ception and execution even of such a forgery as this, I am 
 persuaded we shall do his memory no great injustice at the 
 present day if we attribute it chiefly to him. 
 
 I say however chiefly ; because it may still admit of a 
 question, whether even Manetho is really answerable for the 
 first idea of a Pseudo-history and a Pseudo-chronology like 
 this ; whether every thing contained in the compilation 
 which went by the name of the Dynasties of Manetho was 
 first invented by him — and whether some of his materials at 
 least might not have been previously in existence, and ready 
 to his hand, before he set about this scheme of embodying 
 every thing which bore on such a subject, in one complete and 
 comprehensive system of his own. So-called lines and series 
 of early Egyptian kings, as they are supposed, are discover- 
 able (in the hieroglyphical character) on the Monuments and 
 Sculptures also : those especially which must have been most 
 closely connected with the ancient Thebes, and the Thebaid ' ; 
 and these too the learned in Egyptian antiquities, and in the 
 language of the hieroglyphics, pretend to identify with corre- 
 sponding parts of the Dynasties of Manetho. And though 
 there is probably no more of reality in the Monumental his- 
 tory of the Sculptures than in the Dynasties of Manetho, yet 
 the invention of the hieroglyphic, as the vehicle of such an 
 history in particular, B.C. 889'", was much older than 
 Manetho ; and it is far from improbable that the use to 
 which it had been put from the first, with an interested ob- 
 ject in view, first suggested to Manetho his own scheme of a 
 
 ' Bunsen, Standiiif; of Kgypt, i. 35-37. 45. 48. (if. 97.) 50, 51. 117, 118: ii. 
 37. 113. '" (;f. Fasti, iv. 222: iii. 168. 
 
166 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch, ii. 
 
 much more comprehensive system of" the same kind, and 
 supplied him even with many of the materials which he must 
 otherwise have invented for liimself. 
 
 And this brings us to the second question, which we pro- 
 posed to consider, the probable end and design of this facti- 
 tious system of Egyptian history and chronology in general, 
 and the motive in which it originated. With respect to 
 which I observe that, if the first idea of the Dynasties is 
 thus to be traced up to the hieroglyphical history of the 
 Monuments and Sculptures, I cannot help thinking that, 
 unreasonable as it must appear to call upon any one at the 
 present day to explain all the acts of human fraud or folly, 
 done in time past, yet in this particular case of a fabrication 
 of history to serve a particular purpose, and whether on a 
 greater or a larger scale, supposed to have taken its origin 
 among the priests of Upper Egypt, I have already assigned a 
 matter of fact, abundantly competent to account for it, in 
 the rise of Memphis, B. C. 973, under the auspices of Shi- 
 shak, the reigning king, and with the cooperation of the 
 priests of Lower Egypt, and even with the pretended appro- 
 bation and sanction of Osiris himself, as the future capital of 
 all Egypt, and in the scale of grandeur and magnificence on 
 which it was coming into being, worthy to be so — and in 
 the jealousy which that fact alone was calculated to excite 
 in the priests of Upper Egypt, and especially of Thebes, 
 which \mtil then was the principal city, and in point of 
 size, and wealth, and population, as well as of influence and 
 importance, was without peer or rival in all Egypt, and the 
 acknowledged metropolis of the whole country. 
 
 There might have been other reasons of a political kind, 
 for which the acts of Shishak in particular might have been 
 off'ensive to the priests of Thebes ; especially if his accession 
 to the throne at this time had been the efiect of a revolu- 
 tion, which had deposed the old Pharaonic line of kings, and 
 had installed an usurper in its stead. And certain it is that 
 Shishak is the first of the kings of Egypt, of whom mention 
 is made in Scripture history under a proper name, and no 
 longer under that of Pharaoh, or " the king"." But it is 
 
 " Fasti, iv. 446. 
 
s. 3- Vsewdo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquity. 107 
 
 enough to know that through this project of founding, and 
 raising to the dignity of the capital of all Egypt, a new and 
 unheard of city in the heart of the Delta, the ancient rights 
 and privileges, the long established and long acknowledged 
 preeminence, of Thebes was seriously endangered. We 
 should understand little of human nature did we suppose 
 that the pride, thej vanity, the self-interest and self-love, of 
 the ruling caste in Upper Egypt, under such circumstances, 
 would not take the alarm, and impel them to do something 
 possibly even as extravagant, and to our own apprehensions 
 at present ^as unaccountable, as what they apjjear to have 
 actually done, viz. invent the hieroglyphic character, and 
 cover their temples, their public buildings of all kinds, and 
 even their rocks and caves, and sepulchral vaults, far and 
 wide, with those mysterious symbols. It is at least a matter 
 of fact, and a remarkable one too, that the Monuments and 
 Sculptures, properly so called, and every thing upon them, 
 which when decyphered is found to relate to ancient Egyp- 
 tian history, have been discovered chiefly, if not exclusively, 
 in Upper Egypt, and amidst the dependencies of ancient 
 Egyptian Thebes — and little or nothing of the same kind 
 has been found in the Delta. This is a strong ground of 
 presumption that the whole of this monumental history, in 
 its original conception, was a contrivance of the sacerdotal 
 caste in Upper Egypt to answer an end and object of their 
 own — in which the priests of Lower Egypt, especially those 
 of On and Memphis, knowing it to be directed against 
 themselves, as much as in behalf of the priests of Thebes, 
 and the Thebaid — could not concur with them, at least at 
 first. This is explained, if its true motive and its sole object 
 originally was to keep up the claims to priority of place and 
 estimation, of Thebes, against those of any rival — to exag- 
 gerate its antiquity — its power, and its preeminence — from 
 the first— above those of any city in Egypt besides. 
 
 The earliest settlement in Egypt, according to Scripture ", 
 was Zoan or Tanis : the next might have been On or Helio- 
 polis — though we do not know for certain th.'it it was so P. 
 If On however was in existence before the Descent into 
 
 " Fasti, iv. 44S /). i> Wh\. 448 v. 
 
1(58 Tht three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. h. 
 
 Egypt, and Thebes in Egypt was probably founded in the 
 time of Joseph, and by Joseph himself "^i, it was certainly 
 younger than On Yet notwithstanding that, through its 
 name of Thebes, meaning the "city of the ark*"," it would 
 never Maut a foundation for a plausible cUiim of its own to 
 the highest antiquity of any city in the country — and little 
 short of the descent from the ark, and the second Natale 
 Mundi itself. 
 
 And this leads me to observe that even when advancing a 
 claim of this kind, and professing to find the proofs of it in 
 their hieroglyphical history and chronology, tlie priests of 
 Tliebes seem to have had something in view^ which was mo- 
 derate and reasonable, in comparison of the similar claims 
 afterwards put forward by Manetho in behalf of Memphis. 
 Their highest ambition does not appear to have aimed at 
 more than the attachment of the beginning of the history 
 of their own city in particular to that of society itself in 
 Egypt in general. There is reason to believe, as I have 
 shewn s, that they professed to have kept an account of 44 
 cycles of the period of the white bull of Thebes, 1320 years, 
 but no more — and these, if reckoned back from B. C. 889, 
 the date of their Julian and their Metonic correction, and 
 very probably of the whole of their hieroglyphical system, 
 would reach to B.C. 2209 — within 38 years of the Scriptural 
 date of the Dispersion, B. C. 2247, but no more. 
 
 Now, it is self-evident that it must have taken some time 
 to bring the first settlers in Egypt, from Mesopotamia to 
 that country. It is evident too that, to get to Egypt by 
 land, they would have to pass through Canaan ; and it may 
 be collected from Scripture ^ that the nearest part of Canaan 
 to Egypt, (where Hebron was situated,) must have been 
 occupied seven years at least before the nearest part of 
 Egypt to Canaan, (where Zoan or Tanis was situated,) could 
 have been. To mention no other possible causes of delay 
 in the first settlement in Egypt in particular, the annual 
 phenomenon of the rise of the Nile, until its nature and its 
 laws had come to be understood, would make the first 
 
 n Fasti, iv. 242-250. r lbi,l. iv. 24.^ sqq. : Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. loo. 
 
 *< Fasti, iv. 225-227. ' Numbers, xiii. 22. 
 
S.J. Vseudo-ChronologieB of Profane Antupiifi/. 109 
 
 comers, still fresh from the ark, and under an awful recol- 
 lection of the deluge, shy of advancing into the interior of a 
 country, so liable to he visited every year with something in 
 appearance so like a second deluge. 
 
 The phonetic hieroglyphic, as first invented and intended, 
 having been, in my ojjinion ^. simply an alphabet of another 
 kind substituted for an alphabet of the common kind, (sim- 
 ply in fact the enchorial alphabet in cypher.) and having 
 been first contrived and applied by the priests of Upper 
 Egypt as a means of conveying to posterity their pretended 
 esoteric history and chronology ; it is no wonder that the 
 priests of Lower Egypt, aware both of its factitious origin, 
 and of its intention, should have carefully at first eschewed 
 the use of it themselves. The time indeed did come when 
 they too adopted it, and as the same kind of recognised 
 channel of their earliest history ; but not before the ca- 
 lamities brought on their country in general, first by Esar- 
 haddon, next by Nebuchadnezzar, and lastly by Cambyses, 
 (the instruments of the Deity in the infliction of his judg- 
 ments on Egypt.) had taught all classes of men among them 
 that it was no time to be disputing among themselves about 
 the point of honour, and vying with each other for an ima- 
 ginary distinction, when the existence of the nation itself 
 was at stake ; and if the ancient renown and prestige of 
 Egypt were still to be maintained in the eyes of strangers, 
 all parties must concur in tlie use of the same means for 
 the same end, whatsoever miglit be best calculated to pro- 
 mote it. 
 
 The paucity of sculptures at least, discovered in Lower 
 Egypt, compared with the number and variety of those 
 which have been found in the Thebaid, is something remark- 
 able. Nor do they appear to have been very abundant in 
 that quarter, when the Greeks first became acquainted with 
 it — any more than at present. The allusions in Herodotus 
 to the hieroglyphical figures or characters, observed there by 
 himself, are very few-''. But the strongest confirmation of my 
 assertion that such characters and sculptures for a long time 
 were treated in tlie Delta as e.xotic, is the fact that nothing 
 of that kind appears to have made i)art of the Pyramids, at 
 ^' Fasti, iv. i6S &c\([. ^ ii. 124. i.^fi. 148. 15.V 
 
170 The /Aree Witnesses, mid the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 least at first. No hieroglyphics, as old as the oldest of the 
 Pj'raraids, have yet been discovered either without or within 
 them. Stones indeed have been used in the building of 
 some of them, which had hieroglyphics upon them before 
 they were so applied y, but nothing is known of the age of 
 these in particular. Repositories too have been found in 
 them, with inscriptions in the hieroglyphic upon them, 
 implying that these repositories were sarcophaguses or sepul- 
 chres, containing the bodies of the builders of these Pyraqiids 
 themselves. But to suppose a structure like the Great Py- 
 ramid of Gizeh, for example, intended simply as a colossal 
 sepulclire, if not confuted by its own improbability, would be 
 so by the internal evidence of its own end and purpose, fur- 
 nished by the building itself — particularly by the innermost 
 chamber — the architectural beauty, proportions, and execu- 
 tion of this chamber, the careful provision made for its ven- 
 tilation, the exquisite cistern of porphyry contained in it, the 
 communication between this chamber and the Nilc^, and its 
 other remarkable peculiarities. To suppose a chamber like 
 that never to have had any destination, nor any use. from the 
 first, except as a sepulchral vault — enclosing a dead body and 
 a tomb — would be simply absurd ; but not so to conceive it 
 planned and laid out, as the innermost shrine and sanctuary 
 of a temple, for the sake of which all the rest of the same 
 structure was built — to explain it in short, and understand it, 
 of the mystical dakafxo^, dedicated to the union of the two 
 great principles of the Cosmogonic Dnad of the Egyptians, 
 Osiris and Isis, and to the tirst effect of their union in the 
 development of the first and simplest form of life, that of the 
 vegetable kingdom, in and through the element of water, and 
 especially that of the Nile. The artistic finish and execution, 
 the pains and labour, bestowed on such a chamber, would be 
 only in harmony with its character and design, its destination 
 and use, from the first. 
 
 On this principle however the first idea of the Pyramids 
 themselves could not have been earlier than that of the Osiris 
 and Isis of the National Fable, B. C 1350. And it is far 
 from improbable that the very first realisation of such an 
 
 y Bunscn, ii. 381, 382. " Appendix, note DD. 
 
8.3- Pseudo-Chronologies o/ Pro/awe ^w^i^wi/y. 171 
 
 idea in effect, as I have contended «, was the two Pyramids, 
 erected in the centre of the Lake of Moeris '', but not before 
 B. C. 1350. On this principle too, we may probably explain 
 the form of the pyramid itself, or why a building of that 
 shape in particular should have been selected as the fittest to 
 enclose such an innermost sanctuary, such a mystical 6d\a- 
 fjLOs, of the two Cosmogonic powers, as we are supposing. 
 
 This mystical union of the Cosmogonic principles in the 
 development of vegetable life being effected in every instance 
 through the element of water, and some one or other of the 
 seeds of plants; the seed made choice of for the example and 
 illustration of this process and its effect, above all others, was 
 that of barley or wheat. And what is a grain of barley in its 
 natural state, but a double pyramid ? Divide a corn of barley 
 crossways into two equal parts, and you will have two pyra- 
 mids in miniature —one for each of the two Cosmogonic 
 powers, in this view of their first relation to each other, and 
 first union with each other. The Pyramids of Egypt — those 
 colossal and stupendous structures — are only exaggerated 
 expressions of this simple idea of the divided barleycorn ; and 
 even the great Pyramid of Gizeh must own to a prototype in 
 nature, older than itself, yet the same iu shape and outline, if 
 not in bulk, with itself; and that simply this half of a barley- 
 corn. Nor is it more extraordinary a priori, that the 
 Egyptians should have borrowed the idea of this mystical 
 6aKa\xos^ in the inmost core of the greatest of their pyramids, 
 as the proper seat of the principle of vegetable life in general, 
 from the idea of the same principle of life and activity in 
 the heart of the barleycorn in particular, than that they 
 should have taken the first idea of the aophs of Osiris, and of 
 the KaOap^fi eis ttiu aopov, which makes so conspicuous a 
 figure in the fable of Osiris and Typhonf, from the cuticle or 
 skin of the grain of wheat or barley also, which, while it is 
 entire, confines the principle of life, and prevents its acting 
 according to its natural tendencies. 
 
 The Pyramids too, on these suppositions, could not have 
 been older than 1>. C. 1850, and proljably must have been 
 some centuries later ; for ideas like these could not have 
 
 » Fasti, iii. n;;, 19S. •> C'f. lleiod. li. lot. 149. ■' Fasti, iii. i!S6-i89. 
 
172 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 been conceived and realized simultaneously with the in- 
 vention of the Fable of the Isia, though it is very possible 
 they might ultimately have grown up out of it. As to their 
 actual age — though doubtless all are not of the same anti- 
 quity — no testimony is extant, entitled to any deference, 
 which would make even the oldest of them a thousand years 
 older than the Christian yEra. And as I have hinted in the 
 Fasti Catholici •', it is far from improbable that the principal 
 pyramid was projected, and begun to be built, at the same 
 time as Memphis, near which it is situated ; and very possibly 
 in the reign of Shishak too, and with the treasures brought 
 away from Jerusalem by him. 
 
 Section IV. — On the true Chronology o/ Mundane and Hu- 
 man Time, discoverable among the ancient Egyptians. 
 
 Such then being the history, and such the chronology, 
 consigned to the Monuments under the hieroglyphical cha- 
 racter, or circumstantially drawn out in the three books of 
 the Dynasties of Manetho, so ostentatiously too paraded be- 
 fore the eyes of the strangers who came among the Egypt- 
 ians, and so confidently appealed to as a standing proof of 
 the antiquity of their name and nation — and such being the 
 bias and tendency of scepticism at the present day, to rest 
 and to insist upon this, as a real and matter of fact confuta- 
 tion of the Scriptural account of Mundane and Human exist- 
 ence; it is. in every point of view, a Providential circum- 
 stance that, even among these Egyptians themselves, another 
 system of chronology is discoverable, as different from this, 
 as this is from that of Scripture ; and good reason why, in- 
 somuch as this other scheme of Egyptian chronology and 
 that of Scripture are absolutely the same. 
 
 If then it be demanded, Where is this chronology to be 
 found? or. How has it happened that so little should have 
 been known of it hitherto? I answer — It is the chronology 
 embodied in the Cycles of the ancient Egyptians — the chro- 
 nology whicli we enucleate from the history, the analysis, 
 and the explanation, of their principal cycles, the Mneuis 
 cycle, the Aris cycle, and especially the Phcenix cycle — and, 
 
 ^ iv. 4+7. 
 
s. 4. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Anfu/ui/i/. 1 73 
 
 if nothing has hitherto been known of this chronology, it is 
 because nothing, or next to nothing, has hitherto been known 
 of these cycles. Add to which, that this chronology itself, 
 unlike that of which wo have just been treating, was not one 
 which the Egyptians were likely to have proclaimed to all 
 the world. There was nothing in it calculated to flatter their 
 national pride, to keep up the prestige of their pretended 
 antiquity and greatness from the first, in comparison of that 
 of all their contemporaries elsewhere : it would simply, if 
 known, have put them on a level with the rest of the world. 
 It was something therefore which they carefulh^ kept to 
 themselves — the most esoteric part of their traditionary 
 knowledge of the past — the greatest of all their secrets, con- 
 fined to the schools and colleges of the priests, and disclosed 
 even there only to the most trustworthy of their disciples. 
 
 The account, which has been given of the Mneuis cycle, is 
 demonstrative that, from the proper epoch of this cycle, A.M. 
 232 i, B.C. 1681, downwards, the Egyptians must have had 
 as correct a reckoning of Mundane time in the regular de- 
 cursus of that cycle, as that of Scripture itself; and that the 
 true year of the Exodus from Egypt, B. C. 1561—1560, is as 
 capable of being ascertained from this cycle as from Scripture 
 itself. The account of the Apis cycle, in like manner, proves 
 that in the reckoning of the cycle of 25 years from its histo- 
 rical epoch, Thoth 11, /Era Cyc. 3034., May 1, B. C. 973, as 
 taking up and continuing the cxxiid cycle of that kind from 
 the first in the ninth year, and the fonrth month of the 7nnth 
 year, of its decursus, they had as true a chronology of the 
 JEra, Mundana in primitive solar and primitive lunar time as 
 that of our own Fasti, or, in other words, as that of Scrip- 
 ture itself. 
 
 But that one of their cycles which does most to bring out 
 in the clearest light, and in the most striking manner, the 
 true and correct idea of their own system of things, and of 
 the past history of their own world, which must have been 
 possessed by the Egyptians, until they themselves came deli- 
 berately to ignore it, and to substitute a false and factitious 
 counterfeit, of tiieir own devising, in its stead, is their Phce- 
 Nix cycle. 
 
 The history of this cycle was the principal subject of the 
 
174 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii, 
 
 first Part of this work, to which I have so frequently had 
 occasion to refer, under the name of the Fasti. It was in 
 fact, if not the exclusive subject of that Part, yet the most 
 important, the most prominent, the most circumstantially 
 treated of, of the whole of its proper argument. The reader 
 therefore, who is desirous of knowing the entire history of 
 this cycle, as far as my own inquiries have succeeded in 
 bringing it to light, and the proofs by which it is substan- 
 tiated throughout, must necessarily be referred to my Fasti. 
 All that can reasonably be expected from me at present, in 
 recurring to the same subject here, is to go over the ground 
 again as summarily, but as intelligibly, as the nature of the 
 case may permit ; stating the results of my former inquiries, 
 on every point of real importance to a complete knowledge 
 of the history, the rule, the administration of the cycle, and, 
 in a general way, the steps of the process also by which I 
 arrived at them. 
 
 i. Then, to begin with the question of the epoch of the 
 cycle ; and first, in terms of the year. It has been shewn ^, 
 i. That three appearances, or supposed appearances, of the 
 Phoenix itself having been all which even the Egyptians 
 themselves professed to have on record historically, and the 
 Phoenix never having been supposed to be seen at all, except 
 at the end of one of its proper cycles and the beginning of 
 another ; we were justified in inferring from this admission 
 that the number of distinct Phoenix cycles also, of which the 
 Egyptians had kept an actual account, could not have been 
 more than three, ii. That as the third of these appearances 
 professed to be connected historically with the reign of the 
 third Ptolemy, (Ptolemy Euergetes I.) the historical limits of 
 this one appearance in particular must be restricted to that 
 of his reign also, B. C. 247-222 f — and as restricted to that 
 in general, very probably, as there was also reason to con- 
 clude f, to the 21st year of his reign, B. C. 227 in particular. 
 
 iii. Assuming consequently this year of the reign of 
 Ptolemy Euergetes I., B. C 227, as the supposed historical 
 date of the last of these recorded appearances of the Phoenix, 
 and consequently of the fourth Phcenix cycle, and the period 
 
 "■ Fasti, iii. 224 sqq. 230 sqq. ' Ibid. iii. 131. 234. 
 
 g Ibid. iii. 2^?. 222. 
 
s. 4- Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquily. 175 
 
 of tl»c cycle, as thus historically connected iu a particular 
 instance with this epoch, as that of Soliuus, 540 years, we 
 get the epoch of the first, (1(520 years before B. C. 227) 
 B. C. 18475. 
 
 iv. Assuming the period of the cycle, according to another 
 of the measures of its length, handed down from antiquity, 
 that of Mauilius, at 509 years '', and the epoch of the period 
 of tliis kind, current in his time, according to his own testi- 
 mony, reported by Pliny '>, B. C. 321, and the period itself, 
 the fourth, as before, in the decursus of such cycles from the 
 first, we get the epoch of the first, (509 x 3 or 1527 years be- 
 fore B. C. 321,) B. C. 1848. 
 
 V. Assuming the interval between the epoch of the Tables 
 of Ptolemy, (A. D. 1.'58,) and the date of two sidereal obser- 
 vations attributed to the Egyptian Hermes, according to 
 Abraham Zachut, (1985 years') to have been really intended 
 of the interval between the epoch of the Tables of Ptolemy 
 and that of the first Phoenix cycle, we get the epoch of that 
 first cycle, 1985 years before A. D. 138, B.C. 1847. 
 
 vi. These difterent dates of the epoch, though obtained in 
 such different ways and from such difterent data, being never- 
 theless so nearly identical — one of them, it was evident, con- 
 firmed another ; and the coincidence of each of tliese modes 
 of proceeding in the same result at last, could leave little or 
 no doubt of its truth. I say the same result ; for that was 
 strictly the case, in the epoch obtained from the first and the 
 third, B. C. 1847. And though the epoch obtained from the 
 second dift'ered apparently from this, tliat diflcrence was 
 limited to one year, B.C. 1848 instead of B.C. 1847. And 
 even that would be explained, if the Phoenix cycle had in 
 reality, from the first, a double epoch ; one taken from the 
 first of the Primitive Thoth for the time being, a certain day 
 B. C. 1848, and the other from the date of the mean vernal 
 equinox, B. C. 1847. 
 
 vii. And that this was actually the case, and that this is 
 consequently the true explanation of this seeming difference, 
 was made to appear by the history of the discovery and the 
 application of the principle of the Julian reckoning, by the 
 
 ^ Fasti, iii. 22.^-:,56. ' Ibid. iii. 24: : iv. Adilciida, 660. 
 
176 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 ancient Egyptians also i^ ; and of the two principal types of 
 this reckoning, whicli they had among them, one of which 
 took its rise on the first of the civil Thoth, /Era Cyc. 2159, 
 Nov. 18, B.C. 1848, and consequently on the epoch of the 
 first Phoenix cycle according to Manilius — the other, along 
 with the first Sothiacal period, Thoth 1, My2l Cyclica 2657, 
 July 22, B. C. 1350 1. And this distinction was further con- 
 firmed on the one hand, by tlie division of the natural year 
 in terms of the civil, among the Egyptians, into three sea- 
 sons of four months each, (the season of Vegetation or Gar- 
 dening, the season of Housing or Reaping, and the season of 
 the Waters "\) founded on the actual relations of the natural 
 and the civil year inter se, Nov. 18 B. C. 1848, and strictly 
 applicable at that time — and on the other, by a similar divi- 
 sion of the civil year, among the Egyptians also, into three 
 pei'iods of 120 days, four mouths of the equable standard, 
 each, in length, founded on the relations of the Sothiacal 
 type, as coming into being July 22 B.C. 1350, to the Phoenix 
 type, of so much older date, Nov. 18 B.C. 1848. For this 
 was such that from the first of a given month in the former 
 to the first of the month of the same name and the same 
 place in its proper calendar, in the latter, in the same year 
 of the Julian cycle of leap-year, all round the calendar in 
 both types, the interval was just 120 days". 
 
 ii. With respect to the epoch of the Phoenix cycle in terms 
 of the Day. It has been shewn ", that the traditionary cha- 
 racter of the epoch, in terms of the natural year, having been 
 that of the mean vernal equinox for the proper meridian, 
 and the traditionary lunar character having been the Luna 
 septima P, both these characters met in the Julian April 8 
 B. C. 1847. And that tlds must have been the actual Julian 
 date of the first Phoenix cycle, has been further confirmed, 
 i. By the rule of the Mysteries of Minos in Crete, and the 
 stated interval of 24 days between their proper date in the 
 correction of Minos, at the epoch, Sept. 23 B. C. 1260, and 
 their date in a corresponding Octaeteric cycle, brought down 
 from this epoch of the first Phoenix cycle, April 8 B. C. 
 
 ^ Fasti, iv. 1 71-183. ' Cf. supra, page i3sqq. m Cf. Bunsen, 
 
 "i- ?>^-> 39-4.S- Herod, ii. 92. » Cf. Fasti, iv. 175. o Fasti, iii. 
 
 238. P iii. 339-349 71. 509-524. 
 
s. 4- V'!iem\o-Chrouo]og\cii of Profane Antiquitif. 177 
 
 1847, to that of the correction of Minos — August 30 'i. 
 ii. By the Lunar character of the epoch of the second cycle, 
 the Luna 15^, as necessarily deducible from the Lunar cha- 
 racter of that of the first, the Luna 7^ ; and the coincidence 
 of the former character with the Julian April 8 B. C. 134'7, as 
 much as that of the latter with the same term, April 8, B. C. 
 1847^ iii. By the history of the sphere of antiquity, or 
 that modification of the sphere of the beginning of things 
 itself, which came into existence along with the first Phoe- 
 nix cycle ; and by that of the two other types of tliis sphere, 
 which came into being along with the two other Phoenix 
 cycles, later than the first. 
 
 And of all the confirmations of our account of the Phoenix 
 cycle of the Egyptians to which we could appeal at present, 
 this is the most complete and the most decisive ; for even 
 this cycle itself, in its first conception and first intention. 
 was nothing more or less than a combination of two spheres, 
 just at the epoch of this cycle; one, an abstract idea of its 
 kind, fixed and invariable, and consequently not liable to be 
 affected by Precession, the other, the sphere of nature, neces- 
 sarily subject to Precession, and consequently shifting and 
 variable — the former of which 1 have called the Sphere of 
 Mazzaroth^, the latter the Tropical or Natural. So that, 
 from this time forward, the history of the Phoenix cycle was 
 in reality that of the sphere, and tlie history of the sphere 
 was as truly that of the Phoenix cycle. And as no more 
 than three appearances of the Phoenix professed to be known 
 of historically, from which I argued that no more than three 
 Phoenix cycles could have been known of historically also ; 
 so, it is very observable, have no more than three types 
 of the sphere been handed down, as known of de facto, 
 from all antiquity, yet each with a character of its own, 
 derived from the varying relations of a moveable to an im- 
 moveable exemplar of its kind, (such as I suppose to have 
 been originally combined at the epoch of the first Phoenix 
 cycle,) at equal periods in the subsequent decursus of both 
 together *. Of each of these then in its turn. 
 
 i. The traditionary character of the first and oldest of 
 
 1 Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 487-49 r. r Fasti, iii. 530. Origg. Kal. Hell. v. 
 
 160: vi. 6.^2 sf|f|. » Fasti, iii. ^.so. • iii. 287. 
 
178 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 these spheres was that of the sphere laid down in guintis- 
 decimis partibus'^ : and that was simply the description of the 
 original combination of the moveable with the immoveable 
 sphere, at the epoch H. 0. 1817, when the first degree of the 
 Tropical, reckoned from April 7 at m. n. to April 8 at m. n., 
 the date of the mean vernal equinox for the meridian of He- 
 liopolis, was actually falling in the 15th degree of the sphere 
 of Mazzaroth, reckoned from March 24 at m. n. to March 25 
 at m. n.^ 
 
 ii. The traditionary character of the second type of the 
 sphere of antiquity was that of the sphere laid down in duo- 
 decimis partibusY: and that was simply the description of 
 the relation of the moveable and the immoveable spheres 
 inter se, at the epoch of the second Phoenix cycle, B. 0. 
 1317, when the first degree of the Tropical, reckoned from 
 April 4 at m. n. to April 5 at m. n., the mean vernal equinox 
 for the meridian of Heliopolis, was actually falling in the 
 12th degree of the sphere of Mazzaroth, reckoned, as before, 
 from March 24 at m. n. to March 25 at m.n. 
 
 iii. The traditionary character of the third type of the 
 sphere of antiquity was that of the sphere laid down i?i octa- 
 vis 2'xirtibus'^ : and that too was simply the description of the 
 relation of the two spheres to each other at the epoch of the 
 third Phoenix cycle, B. C. 848, assumed for B. C. 847, when 
 the first degree of the Tropical, March 31 at m. n. to April 1 
 at m. n., the date of the mean vernal equinox, as before, was 
 falling in the eighth degree of the sphere of Mazzaroth, reck- 
 oned from March 24 at m. n. to March 25 at m. n., as before 
 also. 
 
 These different relations of the two principal terms in this 
 combination, the sphere of Nature and the sphere of Mazza- 
 roth, and the difterent epochs in the decursus of both toge- 
 ther, at which they were actually holding good, have been 
 illustrated and confirmed by other corroborative coinci- 
 dences. 
 
 As, i. The relations of the epochs of origination, (i. e. at 
 the first combination of the two spheres themselves,) inter se, 
 first, by the Genitura Mundi, or the supposed position of the 
 
 V Fasti, iii. 284-287. * iii. 280-299. 299-^24. V iii. 287. 349-361. 
 
 ^ iii. 287. 420 s(i([. 
 
s. 4- Vseu(\o-Chror\o\og\es of Profane Antifjuity. 179 
 
 sun, the moon, ftnd tlie planets, ench in the xvth degree of 
 their respective Houses, characteristic of this Genitura, yet 
 founded on the actual relations of the two spheres to each 
 other, at the mean vernal equinox, B. C. 1817**. Secondly, 
 By the traditionary horoscope of this Genitura — Aries on the 
 meridian at noon, the first point of Cancer rising, and the 
 first point of Capricorn setting, at the same moment of time; 
 characters these, actually those of the state of the case on 
 this very day, April 8, at mean noon, for the meridian of 
 Heliopoiis, H. C. 1847^. 
 
 ii. Those of the epochs of the second and third of the same 
 combinations, first, By the fable of the Dragon and the 
 Sparti or sown men of Cadmus, explained in the third Part 
 of my Origines <= ; and by a supposed modification of the 
 sphere of the first type, laid down in quartisdecimis parti- 
 bus, and assumed as the sphere of Cadmus, B.C. 1427. Se- 
 condly, By the Etruscan spliere, laid down in tmdecimis par- 
 tibus, B. C. 143 1^'. Thirdly, by the Chaldee sphere, or astro- 
 logical sphere of antiquity, laid down in decimis partibus^ 
 B. C. 1106^'. Nor is it any difficulty that, though the proper 
 epoch of the third Phoenix cycle would have been B. C. 847, 
 that of the second revision or third combination of the 
 spheres, de facto, (but for particular reasons,) assumed by 
 the Egyptians, was B.C. 818''. 
 
 iii. By the history of the Lunar Mansions, wliich came into 
 being along with the first type of the sphere, at the epoch 
 of the first Piioenix cycle, and were revised and laid down 
 afresh, along with each fresh type of the sphere, at the epoch 
 of successive cycles. As, first — the Julian date of the first 
 type of these mansions having been that of the first Phosnix 
 cycle, April 8, perpetually — it has been shewn < that, as the 
 lunar character of the mansions, handed down by testimony 
 from the first, was the Luna septima, so the lunar character 
 of April 8, B. C. 1847, for the meridian of Heliopoiis, was the 
 Lu?ia septima also^. Secondly, the Julian date of the epoch 
 of the mansions being supposed to have remained the same 
 
 •■' Fasti, iii. 447 sqq. ii. 75. •> iii. 451-459 •■ Origg. Kal. Hell. v. 
 
 144 sqf|. d Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 492 sqq. ^ Fasti, ii. 76. iii. 4^)4 sqq. 
 
 f iii. 420. 531. K iii 328 sqq. 55 1 S(|q. •< iii. .^28-.^48 and « 502.520 iv. 
 
 Appendix, 67 1 n. 
 
180 IVie three Witnesses, and f.he threefold Cord. en. ii. 
 
 in every type, the true lunar character of this epochal date 
 in the first instance having been the Luna septima, that of 
 the same epochal date in the second instance must have been 
 the Luna quint ade cima'^ ; and that the proper lunar character 
 of the second Phopnix cycle, April 8, B. C. 1347, was the 
 Luna lo'S is proved by testimony discoverable even among 
 the Greeks '«. Thirdly, the proper lunar time of the man- 
 sions, regularly brought down from April 2, the Luna 1^ or 
 April 8, the Luna ?», B. C. 1817, the epoch of the first type 
 of the sphere, to B. 0. 848, that of the third, as anticipated 
 by one year, has been connected, at that particular period of 
 its decursus, with the proper lunar time of the Apis cycle, 
 brought down, in the period of 125 equable years, from its 
 epoch of origination, Thoth 11, JEra, Cyc. 3034, May 1, B. C. 
 973, to this period, and its proper epoch at this, Thoth 11, 
 -^ra Cyc. 3159, April 1, B.C. 848 — and a reason has thereby 
 been assigned for the anticipation itself ^. 
 
 iv. By the history of the Zodiac, in contradistinction to 
 the Ecliptic — and by that of the Zodiacal figures, in contra- 
 distinction to the Signs. 
 
 It has been shewn m that the first combination of the two 
 spheres, and along with it the first idea of the division of the 
 ecliptic into a certain number of equal spaces (28), like 
 those of the lunar mansions, at this epoch of B. C. 1847, led 
 in its consequences to the conception of the Zodiac in con- 
 tradistinction to the Ecliptic — to the imposition of Zodiacal 
 names on the Signs — and ultimateh^ to the introduction of 
 the Zodiacal figures, as the representatives of the Signs, into 
 the sphere itself — That this was not done at random, but 
 after a certain order, the most natural and probable, under 
 the circumstances of the case, which could a pi'iori have 
 been expected — and spread altogether over an interval of 
 1000 years, from the epoch of the first Pha?nix Period, B. C 
 1847, to that of the third, B. C. 847 or 848— That the first 
 type of the sphere consequently had simply the ecliptic and 
 the signs ; the second had the signs under the zodiacal 
 names, but not the zodiacal figures ; the third had the signs 
 
 Fasti, iii. 530. '' Origier. Kal. Hell. v. 160. ' Fasti, iii. 531 sqq. 
 
 •" iii. .^24-419. 
 
s. 4. Pseudo-Chronologies of Profane Antiquity. IHI 
 
 both under tlie zodiacal names and with the zodiacal figures. 
 And these names too have been explained"; and in more 
 than one instance have been shewn to have been critically 
 adapted to the place of the sign so called, in the natural 
 year. And in like manner, it has been shewn », that, though 
 each type of the sphere had its proper type of the Mansions 
 also, names were first given to the mansions only of the 
 third type. And these names too have been explained, 
 and in repeated instances shewn to have attested, by their 
 meaning itself, the relations of the mansions, under their 
 proper Julian dates in this third type, to their places in the 
 natural year, at the same period ; especially the name of the 
 cubit mansion, under its proper Julian date of this epoch, 
 June 17, and the tradition still connected in Egypt with this 
 Julian term in particular, as late as the time of Prosper 
 Alpinus at least P. 
 
 V. By the subsequent history of the sphere, after the se- 
 cond revision, 13. C. 848, as that wliich passed from the 
 Egyptians, in the state in which it was left by this revision, 
 to the rest of the ancient world, and as that which has de- 
 scended to posterity, retaining at this very day, mutatis 
 mutandis merely, the impress stamped upon it B.C. 818 'i. 
 And more particularly by the history of its passage, along 
 with the signs, the zodiac, the zodiacal names, and the man- 
 sions of this third and last type, to the Hindus, B.C. 699"", 
 and to the Chinese, B. C. 657 ^ 
 
 vi. By the history of the doctrine of the alternate Preces- 
 sion of the cardinal points of the sphere, (both the sphere of 
 Mazzaroth, and the Tropical sphere.) to a certain extent in 
 consecjucntia, and the alternate Recession, to the same ex- 
 tent in antecedentia^ ; a doctrine originally broached in 
 Chaldaia, (and probably in B.C. 1106,) and adopted by the 
 Egyptians in B. C. 798, as the law of the relation of the two 
 spheres to each other from that time forward perpetually — 
 entailing consequently a change in the Phoenix Period from 
 one of 500 years to one of 6 10. An history, confirmed by 
 the examples of spheres of later date, in repeated instances, 
 
 " Kiisti, iii. 361 -4i(^. (. 11)1(1. .^30.551 s(|ij. i' Ibid. 572-580. 
 
 1 Ibid. 165-268. 4:0-435. r Ibid. iv."47-9o. s |bid. "iv. I'^o. 
 
 ^ Ibid. iii. 43Q_44r,. oVim;. Kal. Ifal. iv. 56^66: Hdl. vi. 63S s(|(|. 
 
183 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 acoommodated to this doctrine : as, i. tlio sphere of Thales, 
 B. C. 60.2V: ii. the sphere of Eudoxus, ]i. C. (587 and B.C. 
 398 '^r iii. the sphere of Hcsiod, B.C. 570-5G9y: iv. the 
 sphere of Sosigenes, aud of the Julian correction, B.C. 45 ^. 
 
 Such being in brief ray account of the Phoenix cycle — its 
 original constitution — its subsequent administration accord- 
 ing to its proper law as long as that was still observed — the 
 abandonment of this law and this rule of administration at 
 last, and witli it, the corruption of the traditionary astronomy 
 of the postdiluvian world, iulierited from the antediluvian — 
 (an astronomy too as true to nature as that which was now 
 substituted for it in Egypt was false — ) let us pass to the use 
 and application, proposed by this whole account, as supply- 
 ing the proofs of the true chronology of their own world, 
 which must have been possessed by the ancient Egyptians 
 up to the date of the institution of this cycle. And here I 
 begin with observing, i. that the ascertained epoch of this in- 
 stitution, B. C. 1847, reduced to its place in the true ^Era 
 Mundana as the same with that of the Hebrew Bible, before 
 and after the Deluge, was just 500 years later than the year 
 of the Descent from the ark, and the second Natale Mundi, 
 B. C. .2347. Secondly, that the proper Period of the Phoenix 
 cycle from the first was 500 years also ^. Thirdly, that being 
 the case, on the principle of the reditus retro, of which every 
 cyclical reckoning in its own nature is capable, it would have 
 made no difference to the decursus of the cycle itself, whe- 
 ther it had come into existence at the mean vernal equinox 
 B. C. 1847 or at the mean vernal equinox B. C. 2347. 
 
 ii. I observe in the next place, i. that though the fable, 
 relating to the Bird called the Phoenix, no doubt was asso- 
 ciated with the Cycle and Period so called too, from the first ; 
 this Phoenix Bird, as the living and sentient type of the 
 Period, was a very diflerent thing from the Phoenix Period ; 
 and the idea and conception of the former must have had a 
 very different origin from that of the latter, ii. That for the 
 origin of the idea of the Phoenix Period, just at this epoch of 
 B. C. 1847, nothing is necessary in the way of explanation, 
 
 ^' Hell. vi. 630-646. " Fasti, iv. 1 14-130. 131-143. OriRg. Kal. Hell, 
 
 ii. 657 : i. 614 Sf|f|. >' Ibid. i. 275 sqq. z Origg. Kal. Ital. iv. 56-66. 
 
 Hell. vi. 638 sqq. » Fasti, iii, 219-224. 
 
s. 4- Pseudo- Chronologies 0/ Pro/owe ^n/?//«/7?/. 183 
 
 but the actual relations inter se of the various kinds of time 
 incorporated in the Period, Tropical, Lunar, and Julian, ob- 
 taining de facto at that very time, and the end proposed by 
 the institution of the Cycle itself^the fixation of those rela- 
 tions, either absolutely or relatively, just in the same way, 
 throuL'h successive Periods. liut how shall we account for 
 the origin of the idea of the Phoenix Bird just at the same 
 time also, except from the accidental coincidence that, while 
 the epoch of the institution of the Phoenix Period de facto 
 was B. C. 1847, virtually it was B. C. 2347, the very first 
 year of the postdiluvian world ? The virtual, if not the 
 actual, epoch of the Phoenix Cycle and Phcenix Period being 
 thus the very first year of the new world, just coming into 
 being out of the destruction of the old, yet resembling the 
 old in every essential respect, and taking up and continuing 
 the same succession of things called the course of nature, 
 after the flood as before ; wiiat is wanted, but that coinci- 
 dence, to connect the Phoenix Bird with the Phoenix Cycle, 
 both at first and ever after, yet in the particular way sup- 
 posed by the Fable, of its coming into being at the begin- 
 ning of every fresh Period out of the destruction and death 
 of its predecessor, at the end of the one just before ^ ? 
 
 iii. T proceed to remark on the same subject further, 
 i. That though the Krion of the sphere of Mazzaroth, March 
 24 to April 24, and the Aries of the Tropical sphere, was 
 the epochal sign de facto at every combination of the two 
 spheres, from B.C. 1847 to B.C. 818; proofs are discover- 
 able, and have been adduced <=, that the true Krion or Aries 
 of the beginning, the true Xatalitial sign of the existing 
 system of things, (the Verno-equinoctial sign of B. C. 4004.) 
 was known to have been the Tauron of Mazzaroth, xVpril 25 
 ^May 25. ii. That, according to the annual rate of the 
 precession in mean longitude, assumed in the Tables of my 
 Fasti, 50"-0G9, in 2157 years it would amount to 30° degrees, 
 or one entire sign complete ; and consequently, if the two 
 stars, Beta and Zeta Tauri, A. M. 1, B.C. 400I, were stand- 
 ing in 0' 0", and 2r Arietis was standing in 330 •, A. M. 
 2158, B.C. 1817, the former must l)e standing in 30^ 0' 0", 
 
 '■ Fasti, iii. 245. Origg. Kill. Ital. I'rclini. AiUirt'ss, c. 
 •■ Fasti, iii. 253 scm. Prelim. Aildn-ss, Ixx.xii. 
 
184 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 and the latter in 0° 0' 0" ^. iii. That, in adapting, the 
 asterism of the Kani to the sign of the Ram, and that of the 
 Bull to the sign of the Hull, whensoever that was done be- 
 tween these epochs of B.C. 1847 and B.C. 848, the Egyp- 
 tians laid down 2r Arietis and Beta and Zeta Tauri just 
 30 degrees asunder, the former in 0' 0' 0", and the latter in 
 30° 0' 0" — and what is very observable, the latter in the very 
 first degree of the sign of the Bull, one on the top of one 
 horn, the other on that of the other e. 
 
 From such coincidences as these, which are much too 
 critical to be accounted for by chance, we are justified in 
 arguing that whosoever they were, who first conceived the 
 idea of the combination of the moveable and the immoveable 
 sphere, at the epoch of the first Phoenix C3'cle, they must 
 have had as distinct an apprehension of the true relations of 
 Tropical, Sidereal, and Julian time^ A. M. 1, B. C. 4004, as 
 A.M. 2158, B.C. 1847; and therefore must have had as 
 exact a chronology of their own world from the beginning- 
 down to the institution of the Phoenix Cycle, as from that 
 epoch down to any later period, for which nothing would be 
 necessary but the decursns of this Cycle itself. 
 
 This point then having been cleared up, and my assertion 
 that the Egyptians were once in possession of as true a Chro- 
 nology of the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, as we 
 ourselves at the present day, having thereby been made good, 
 before I take my leave of this subject, let me say a few words 
 on the Pseudo-Histories and Pseudo-Chronologies of other 
 nations of antiquity, as well as that of the Egyptians. 
 
 Section V. — On the Pseudo-History and Pseudo-Chronology 
 of Profane Antiquity, distinct from that of the E(/yptiaiis. 
 
 It is just as probable a iiriori that a true chronology of 
 Mundane and Human History must have been possessed by 
 all mankind, as by any particular people, at first. In fact, 
 if the Scriptural account of the origin of all nations first from 
 Adam, and then from the three sons of Noah, is true, it is 
 scarcely conceivable that any kind or degree of knowledge 
 could have been the birthright of any of them, which was 
 
 fl Fasti, iii. 2(19-274. 4.^2-43;;. 
 ^ Fasti, iii. 25.S. 265 : Introduction to the Tables, 240, 24I. 
 
8.5- Vsexi(\o-CAirono\oQ\es of Profane A ntiquitT/. 185 
 
 not shared at first, and for a longer or a shorter time after- 
 wards retained in its integrity, by the rest. 
 
 In the case indeed of those other nations, individually dis- 
 tinct from the Egyptians, who are known to have set up ex- 
 travagant claims to an antiquity of their own, or in behalf of 
 their proper system of things — we have it not in our power 
 to confront these pretensions, at present, with any more ra- 
 tional systems of the same kind, and more consistent with 
 what we know from Scripture to have been the truth — dis- 
 coverable among them, from any more trustworthy but more 
 recondite; sources of information, as among the Egyptians ; 
 but that truer and more rational ideas even on such points 
 as these did once exist very generally in the ancient world, 
 after the Deluge as much as before, may be argued from 
 various considerntions, some of them briefly noticed supra*'. 
 
 As i. The general concurrence of the postdiluvian world 
 to date the proper origin of the measures of time of their 
 own system of things at that one season of the natural year, 
 at which in fact they did actually take their rise, viz. that of 
 the vernal equinox s. ii. The knowledge and recollection of 
 the true NataJe Mu)idi of the antediluvian world, so long 
 and so correctly retained among them S, even after the Flood, 
 as well as that of their own world in particular ^, which from 
 the nature of the case could bear date only from the year 
 after the Flood, and the Descent from the ark. iii. The evi- 
 dent desire and anxiety of the reformers of the calendar, in 
 the postdiluvian world, in repeated instances to attach the 
 epoch of their civil time to the epoch of natural from the 
 first, through such remarkable terms as April 25 or 2 I, the 
 traditionary date of the Natale Mundi of the beginning, or 
 March 2 !•, 25. or 2(5, the epoch of the sphere of Mazzaroth, 
 so closely connected with it'. 
 
 And besides these, we can appeal in particular instances 
 to well attested matters of fact, as demonstrative proofs of 
 the still continued retention of a true and legitimate tradi- 
 tion of the real auticpiity of their own world, and of its past 
 history and chronology, in quarters distinct from Egypt, or 
 Judaia. in \vl)ich no traces of it are discoverable at present ; 
 
 ' Pa:i- 5. "j: Fasli, ii. 70 Miq. i' SiipiH. p. 77. 7S. 
 
 ' Fasti, iii. .5I.^ 
 
186 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 having long been overlaid or obliterated by very diflferent 
 assumptions and theories of later date. 
 
 As i. Among the Hindus, according to Mr. Bentle}' '^, 
 there was an Mr?i of Creation, older far than the invention 
 and adoption of their monstrous system of the Kalpa, (which 
 in his opinion is not older than A. D. 538') — the epoch of 
 which was remarkably in accordance with the Scriptural 
 date of the Deluge — and would therefore imply that by this 
 ^Era of Creation, they meant that of the new world, after 
 the destruction of the old by the Flood, ii. The Arabians, 
 as 1 had occasion to shew '", have handed down a tradition, 
 received indeed from the Egyptians, but accepted also by 
 themselves, that, at the epoch of the Deluge, the star Re- 
 gulus, or Cor Leonis, was standing on or about the summer 
 solstitial colure ; and such was its actual position in mean 
 longitude B.C. 2348. iii. It has been shewn" that, at Ba- 
 bylon, the Chaldees must have been aware of the true date 
 of the Dispersion, as late as B. C. 1106. And what is more, 
 there is reason to believe" that, so late even as the epoch of 
 the sera of Nabonassar, B. C. 747, they were aware of a fact 
 which was strictly holding good at that time, viz. the return- 
 ing of equable time, there and then, to the same relation to 
 Julian or Natural, in which it had stood to them at the Dis- 
 persion, iv. It has been shewn too, in the Origines Kal. 
 ItalicsePj that the return of equable time, B.C. 980, within 
 one or two days, to the traditionary date of the Natale 
 Mundi, April 25 or 24, in Italy, was the probable motive to 
 the institution of the first of the two Etruscan types of the 
 Nundinal correction, tliat of Vulsinii, and along with it, that 
 of a remarkable ceremony, peculiar to ancient Italy, the 
 Clavifighan, or Driviny of a Nail, with much solemnity, 
 every five equable, every six nundinal, years, as the means 
 of keeping the account of mundane time, from that time 
 forwards, in terms both of equable and nundinal time, per- 
 petually. V. It has been shewn in the Origines Kal. Hel- 
 lenicieH, that the return of equable time, B.C. 841, to the 
 same relation to Julian as at the epoch of the Deluge, B. 0. 
 
 t« Fasti, ii. 29. 1 Hindu Astronomy, 8: scjq. m Introduction 
 
 to the Tables, 200. " Fasti, iii. 478 n. " ii. 77. l> ii. 445. 458. 
 
 '' ^' 747-7-19- 
 
s. 5- PseuAo-CUronologies of Profane Antiquity. 187 
 
 2318, did not escape contemporary observation even among 
 tlie Greeks; but led to the fixation of what were called the 
 Mtapai i]iJL€pai„ (the traditionary days of tlie flood.) through 
 the 17th of the primitive month of the time being, and with 
 no other error in that assumption, except that of the 17th 
 of the last month, instead of the 17th of the second, to their 
 proper Julian date, as recoverable from their place in the 
 Correction of Solon, B C. 592, March 1. 
 
 The falsification of the true history and true chronology, 
 like that of the true religion also^ of the Postdiluvian 
 w orld, there is every reason to believe began with the ancient 
 Egyptians; but a beginning having thus been made, and an 
 example in this respect set, by so influential a people as the 
 Egyptians, nothing is necessary, in order to account for the 
 same phenomenon in any other instance, beyond the force of 
 this first example; and the authority of this precedent. 
 Among the Egyptians the first idea of this false history and 
 chronology must have been self-originated ; among the rest 
 of the world it is probably to be resolved into the principle 
 of imitation or rivalry, — the desire to do what those whom 
 they looked up to as their masters and teachers were seen to 
 have done, or the ambition of not being outdone in the 
 affectation of antiquity of origin, and of intellectual and 
 moral superiority from the first, which thus seemed to be 
 necessary to put them on a level with their masters and 
 teachers themselves. And the means, which it was very 
 well known, or with good reason suspected, that the Egypt- 
 ians had adopted, as the best suited for this purpose of exag- 
 gerating their own antiquity or preeminence from the first, 
 having been the invention of the phonetic hieroglyphic, other 
 nations, in the same spirit of emulation or of rivalry, set 
 their wits to work to contrive a mysterious language of their 
 own, which should serve the same purpose of recording and 
 perpetuating, and yet concealing from all but tlie initiated 
 few, their own esoteric history and chronology. Hence in all 
 probability the first conception of the arrow-headed or 
 cuneiform character of the Babylonians, Assyrians, or Per- 
 sians, which the learned are so eagerly intent on making out 
 
 ' Fasti, iii. 116. 1 :6. 
 
188 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 at present ; and probably too the still undeciphered and un- 
 intelliaible character of the ancient Umbria or Etruria. 
 
 But the most remarkable of all those consequences, which 
 are ultimately perhaps to be traced to what the Egyptians 
 were known or suspected to have done in the same way so 
 long before, in my opinion, is the Sanskrit language. I do 
 not scruple to declare my conviction, in spite of all the ridi- 
 cule with which it will probably be received in certain 
 quarters, that the first idea even of the Sanskrit language is 
 to be traced buck to the example of the invention of a lan- 
 guage for a particular purpose, first set by the Egyptians ; 
 and that even the Sanskrit of ancient or of modern India, as 
 much as the Hieroglyphic of the I'^gyptians, or the Cunei- 
 form of the Assyrians, belongs to the same category of a 
 purely factitious and artificial, instead of a real and genuine, 
 specimen of the use of words as the vehicle of ideas and 
 thoughts of every kind — differing only from its congeners, 
 first, in being probably much younger than either of them, 
 or any thing else of the same kind which might have once 
 existed elsewhere ; secondly, in its nature and composition, 
 as made up of elements or materials, not invented for the 
 purpose, but supplied by languages previously existing and in 
 use — the native or veniacular languages of India, called the 
 Prakrit, on the one hand, and the Greek, and the Latin, and 
 the other European languages, on the other — and thirdly, 
 very probably in the use and purpose for which it was in- 
 tended ; that is, not as the vehicle simply of the history or 
 the chronology of India, whether true or false in itself, hut 
 as a dominant and privileged language, destined to become 
 in due time (as in fact it has become) the only authorized 
 vehicle, the only repository, of all the history, all the philo- 
 sophy, all the theology, all the science, all the poetry, in a 
 word, all the literature, of its own country, both before and 
 after its invention ^ 
 
 ' Appendix, Note EE. 
 
s. 6. Method of Investiyation in the Fasti and Origines. 1K9 
 
 Section VI. — 0/? the heariny of the investigations of the 
 Fasti Catholici and the Origines KaleiularicC npon the study 
 of the earliest Profane Antiquity ; and on the principle of the 
 reliance which may he placed upon the results to which they 
 have led. 
 
 The most common objection of the modern school of" his- 
 torical scepticism to tiie accounts of the ancients, (those 
 especially which go furthest back in the annals of a parti- 
 cular people,) is, that there is no proof, known of at present, 
 that such accounts were derived from contemporary sources 
 of information, — from the testimony of eye-witnesses or ear- 
 witnesseSj fixed at the time, and preserved in its integrity 
 ever after, in some permanent record. 
 
 If this objection means only that, for any thing known to 
 the contrary, these ancient accounts must have been trans- 
 mitted to posterity traditionally, and not in writing ; without 
 denying the possible truth of this assumption, still we may 
 contend that even tradition, traced up to its sources, must 
 originally have been founded on contemporary observation. 
 Granting too that history, handed down by oral tradition 
 alone, must always have been liable to corruption, and the 
 more so the further it receded from the centre of origination, 
 still we may justly maintain that even the corruption of his- 
 torical truth is not necessarily the destruction of its essence, 
 but at the utmost only an unwarranted addition to, or sub- 
 traction from, some of its accidents and circumstances ; and 
 that the proper duty of a rational and sober criticism, sitting 
 in judgment on the traditions of the past, is not to reject 
 such accounts in toio, because of the ol)jectionable character 
 of some of their particulars, but assuming that all history, 
 unwritten as much as written, uniformly handed down, must 
 have been founded in some matter of fact or other, to deal 
 with the traditions submitted to its cognizance, as the 
 chymist would do witli the precious metal submitted to his 
 analysis in the ore ; i.e. separate, if possible, the golden grains 
 of truth and fact, from the adscititious matter which has 
 gathered around them in the course of their transmission 
 from mouth to mouth. It may justly be contended that, 
 altiiough an historical account of any kind, however truly 
 consigned to tradition from contemporary oljservation at 
 
190 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. it. 
 
 first, yet handed down ever after by oral testimony alone, 
 without any change in its circumstances, would be an unex- 
 ampled phenomenon ; the fact of an uniform, a consistent, 
 and an undoubting tradition, handed down among a whole 
 nation from age to age with the same unvarying belief in its 
 truth, would be a yet more extraordinary phenomenon, and 
 in its origin still more inexplicable. 
 
 "^rhe natural tendency' of the human mind is to defer to 
 testimony of every kind as true. If we have any predispo- 
 sition, independent of, and prior to, the habits acquired from 
 observation and experience, and founded in the very neces- 
 sities of social existence, it is that of a prejudice in favour of 
 the truth of every thing which comes recommended by testi- 
 mony. The innate bias of our minds is not to doubt of the 
 good faith of testimony, but to believe in it too easily and 
 implicitly. A man must do violence to his first impressions, 
 and to his spontaneous instincts and impulses, not to be in- 
 clined to defer to testimony merely on its own account. We 
 all feel instinctively that for the knowledge of every thing 
 passing, which lies beyond the limited sphere of our own 
 senses, we must rely upon others ; and we have all common 
 grounds of confidence, in the common sense, the common 
 honesty, and the common regard for truth, which are pro- 
 perties and qualities of human nature every where — to 
 justify this reliance on each other. Every man in his own 
 time is thus perpetually dependent on his contemporaries, 
 for all that he can know of the present, beyond the reach of 
 his own eyes and ears ; and every later generation of men is 
 still more dependent on an earlier, for all that it knows or 
 can know of the past ; and whether that knowledge, so de- 
 rived, is obtained through oral and traditionary, or through 
 written and historical, testimonj^ is after all only an acci- 
 dental distinction, and makes no real difference to the abso- 
 lute dependence of all the knowledge and all the certainty 
 which later times can have of the past, on the good faith and 
 credibility of former. 
 
 Written testimony itself, so far as regards the grounds of 
 the deference due to it, rests much on the same foundation 
 as traditionary. Both must be received, if at all, on autho- 
 rity. Written testimony has no recommendation a priori 
 
s. 6. Method of Investiyation in the Fasti and Origines. 191 
 
 over traditionary, in respect of the ultimate foundation of 
 both, contemporary observation, except the accidental ad- 
 vantage which it seems to possess, of having been fixed at 
 the time, according to actual observation, and secured by 
 the very mode of its transmission ever after from the risk 
 of change either in its substance or in its accidents. And 
 yet even written history is not exempt from the possibility 
 of corruption, in the coiu-se of its descent downwards; and 
 even as the record of contemporary observation, how much 
 must tliere be in all history, not written under the guidance 
 of inspiration, which must have rested at first on testimony 
 ah extra to its author, on the reliance which one man must 
 after all place on another, for the knowledge of every thing 
 beyond the sphere of his own observation ! 
 
 With respect to those traditions of profane antiquity, which 
 the modern school of historical criticism so summarily dis- 
 poses of, it is as unreasonable as it is arrogant in any even 
 the most sagacious of modern critics to pretend to know 
 more of the true grounds of credibility on which such tradi- 
 tions might have rested, than the wisest and best informed 
 of former times — or even than any of the ancients, all of 
 whom, whether competent judges of truth or falsehood in 
 history on other grounds, or not, lived so much nearer at 
 least to the origin of such traditions, and possibly even to 
 the still continued existence of sensible proofs of their truth. 
 The right mode of dealing with these ancient traditions at 
 the present day is not to pronounce them incredible a priori, 
 by an ipse di.rit of our own, but to confront them, if pos- 
 sible, with a contrary tradition, equally ancient and equally 
 well authenticated as an actual tradition of its kind, within 
 the same sphere of circulation as these, yet repugnant to 
 these. Quod semper, ubiqiie, et ab omnibus, is as good a test 
 and criterion of truth or falsehood in history as in theology, 
 and it is the same spirit of heresy which leads to the rejec- 
 tion of a fact in ancient history, authenticated by an uniform 
 tradition, as to the denial of a dogma in religion, attested by 
 an uniform belief. 
 
 It is peculiar however to the historical inquiries of the 
 Fasti and the Origines, that they have to do with the events 
 of general history among any nation, and at any time whe- 
 
192 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 ther more or less remote, only through ana of the circum- 
 stances of all events, and that one the most precise and defi- 
 nite of all — their time ; and even with their time through its 
 connection with some form or other of the measures of time. 
 And in this relation the proper expression of their time is 
 their date. And to this one of the circumstantial criteria of 
 all events, at the time of their happening, (as capable a priori 
 as any of being handed down by tradition,) it must always, 
 from the nature of the case, be peculiar, to be either totally 
 true or totally false. There is no such affection of a circum- 
 stantial criterion of passing events, like this, as that of its 
 being partly true and partly false. Nothing can be added 
 to, nothing can be subtracted from, the date of a passing 
 event, which will not in either case be equally destructive of 
 the truth of the relation between them. Every date there- 
 fore, handed down traditionally as one of the proper circum- 
 stances of a passing event, in that connection with it must 
 be either totally true or totally false, and must be received 
 or rejected in its totality accordingly. 
 
 It is another felicity of our inquiries also that they have 
 to do even with this one traditional circumstance and crite- 
 rion of passing or past events, only as derived directly or in- 
 directly, primarily or ultimately, from the natural measures 
 of time, or from the primitive civil calendar. It requires no 
 argument to prove that the testimony of the natural measures 
 of time, wheresoever it comes in, and can be appealed to, 
 to authenticate passing events, is contemporary testimony ; 
 and not only so at the time, but as recoverable even at the 
 present day, in the same relation, by calculation. It is 
 equally unnecessary to prove that the testimony of the civil 
 calendar also, (especially that of all mankind from the first, 
 or that of the particular calendars of individual nations, de- 
 rived from this at different points of time in its descent 
 downwards,) is contemporary testimony — that a calendar, the 
 nature of which, the constitution and laws of which, and the 
 epoch of which are all known, so long as it continues to pro- 
 ceed from that epoch, and to be administered according to 
 those laws, is to all intents and purposes, at every period of 
 its decursus, through the dates of passing events supplied by 
 it, a perpetual source of contemporary testimony. 
 
s. 6. Method of Investigation in the Fasti and Origincs. 193 
 
 Thus among the notes and criteria of passing events, sup- 
 plied by the natural measures of time, \^ e have it in our power 
 to appeal sometimes to the cycle of the seasons, the equinoc- 
 tial or solstitial ingresses — both the mean and the true — 
 peculiar to Natural Tropical time : sometimes to the risings 
 or settings of the stars, the conjunctions of the sun with such 
 and such stars — peculiar to Natural Sidereal time — some- 
 times to new or full moons, solar or lunar eclipses, lunar 
 dichotomies, whether the first or the second of their kind — ■ 
 peculiar to Natural Menstrual or Lunar time. Among those 
 which are derived from the Noctidiurnal cycle, wc can appeal 
 to some one or other of the measures of that cycle in terms of 
 itself, which have run parallel to the course and succession 
 of history also from the first, or from some known period in 
 its decursus ; the Hebdomadal, for instance, of the former 
 kind, both the Patriarchal, from B. C. 4004 to 13.0.1500, 
 and the Patriarchal and the Levitical, from B.C. 1500 to 
 B. C. 798, and the Patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Pla- 
 netary, from B. C. 798 to the present dayt. The Nundinal 
 of the latter kind, among the ancient Italians in general, 
 from B. C. 1340 to B. C. 750, and among the Italians in 
 general and the Romans in particular, from B. C. 750 to 
 A. D. 355. The Sexagesimal, among the Chinese, from B.C. 
 742 or 057 to the present day ^'. The 13 days' cycle or 
 Tonalli among the Toltecs and Aztecs of the new world, 
 from A. D. 700 at least. 
 
 And among the same kind of criteria supplied by civil 
 annual time, as the representative of natural, we can appeal, 
 as often as there is occasion, to those which are peculiar to 
 Julian, both Gregorian- Julian, the proper representative of 
 natural annual time in the form of Julian from the first, and 
 simple Julian, as borrowing its epoch of origination, at a 
 given time, from the proper Gregorian term of the same jera, 
 but subjecting it ever after to the law of the administration 
 of simple Julian time. And among those which are peculiar 
 to Equable Annual as perpetually refcrrible to Juhan, we 
 can ajjpcal pro re nata, either to Equable Cyclical, constantly 
 referrible to Gregorian- Julian, or to Equable Nabonassarian, 
 
 t Fasti, iii. 4S9. Origg. Kal. Hi 11. PrDletjomena, lix-lvviii. ^ Fasti, i. 
 
 501. 530. 
 
 O 
 
194 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 as deriving its epoch, at a given time, from Equable Cyclical, 
 but subjecting this terra, and every other dependent upon 
 it, ever aftei*, to the proper law of the relations of equable 
 annual time to simply Julian. 
 
 Section VII. — Illustration of the tests or criteria of truth or 
 falsehood in ancient historical tradition, peculiar to the 
 Fasti and the Origines, by their application and use in Four 
 remarkable cases. 
 
 I cannot do better perhaps, in illustration of these different 
 tests and criteria of truth or falsehood in ancient history, 
 which are employed in my Fasti and Origines perpetually, 
 and of the unexpected and striking confirmation thereby 
 supplied even of such historical traditions as those which 
 modern scepticism treats without scruple as simply legends 
 and myths, than appeal to fouk actual examples of this kind, 
 which are as unhesitatingly set down at present to the score 
 of fable as they were formerly to that of reality — i. The tra- 
 ditional account among the Greeks of the capture of Troy, 
 ii. The traditional account among the Romans of the founda- 
 tion of Rome. iii. The traditional account among the Ro- 
 mans of the conception of Romulus, iv. The traditional 
 account among the Romans of the death of Romulus. 
 
 i. The tradition of Hellenic antiquity with respect to the 
 capture of Troy, and the circumstances under which it took 
 place. ^ 
 
 Three criteria or characters of the date of the capture 
 must have been handed down among the Greeks by tradi- 
 tion ; as three are discoverable in the remains of classical an- 
 tiquity even at present ^. i. The twelfth of the equable solar 
 month of the time being ; and that month the fifth, the pri- 
 mitive Greek Thargelion. ii. The lunar dichotomy ; and 
 that the first of its kind in every month, the Luna octava. 
 iii. The cosmical setting of the Pleiads — which means the 
 setting of the Pleiads, on the morning of the day of the cap- 
 ture, as the sun was rising. A fourth is discoverable among 
 the Romans, not derived from Hellenic tradition, but from 
 their own Trojan ancestors, in the October equus of the 
 
 X Origg. Kal. Hell. vi. 50I-524 aqq. 
 
s. 7. Method of Investigation in the Fasti and Origines. 195 
 
 Roman calendar ; and so far, with respect to the month, (the 
 month of October, the month of the cosmical setting of the 
 J*Ieiads at this icra in the history of the world, for every 
 latitude,) reducible to the same category as the third of the 
 Grecian — and with respect to the day of the month, the 
 ides of October, reducible to the same category as the second 
 of the Grecian ; the ides of the month having been the seat 
 of the Lnnn octava, the first lunar dichotomy, all round the 
 calendar of Numay. 
 
 From these diflferent criteria then of the date of the event, 
 lianded down by tradition, it must be inferred that, if the 
 capture of Troy was a real event in its proper order of time, 
 and these were the characters which it derived from its actual 
 circumstances, the true year of the event must have been 
 some year, and some day in the proleptical Julian month of 
 October in that year, in which the 12th of the primitive 
 Thargelion, the 8th of the Lunar month, and the cosmical 
 setting of the Pleiads, for the latitude of the ancient Troy, 
 met together. 
 
 Now with respect to the year, we may assume that, if there 
 was ever such a year in early Greek chronology at all, it 
 must have been either that which the two most sagacious and 
 best informed, as well as most diligent, of the chronologers 
 of antiquity, among the Greeks, Eratosthenes and Apollodo- 
 rus, assigned it, B. C 1183 or 1181', or one very near it^. 
 
 With respect to the month and the day of the month — 
 i. A given equable date cannot fall on a given Julian date 
 for more than four years in succession ; and. if it has once 
 ceased to fall on a given Julian date, it cannot begin to fall 
 on it again, in less than 1161 equable years, ii. A given 
 equal)le solar term having once fallen on a given lunar term, 
 it cannot fall on it again in less than 25 equable solar years ; 
 and having once fallen on a given lunar and a given Julian 
 term both at once, it cannot fall on both together again, in 
 less than 1161x25 or 36,525 equable solar years. And if 
 this Julian term is also the supposed date of a sidereal phe- 
 nomenon of a given kind, equable solar, equable lunar, and 
 sidereal time, having once met on that Julian terra and once 
 
 y Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 27,\--'.i.i. ' Origcr. Kal. Hell. vi. 529. 
 
196 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 ceased to do so, could not meet on it again, except after a 
 period of enormous length ». It is evident therefore that the 
 actual year and month and day of an event, which was truly 
 distinguished at the time by such characters as these, must 
 lie within very narrow limits indeed. 
 
 It has been shewn accordingly in the Origines Kalendarise 
 Hellenicfc'', that they did all meet together in one year, B.C. 
 1181, (only two years later than the date of Eratosthenes, 
 and only three later than that of Apollodorus,) and in one 
 month of that year, the month of October, and on one day 
 of that month, the 19th — That October 19, reckoned accord- 
 ing to the Julian rule from midnight, 13. C. 1181, was the 
 12th of the primitive Greek Thargelion, similarly reckoned, 
 ^ra Cyc. 2826— That October 12 having been the actual 
 date of the new moon of that month in that year, October 19 
 was the actual date of the Luna 8^ — and the date of sunrise 
 October 19, B. C. 1181, for the latitude of Troy, having been 
 6 h. 21 m. 2 sec. apparent time, and the Pleiads having set, 
 for the same latitude, on the same day, at 61i. 16 m. 384 sec. 
 apparent time, October 19 was the Julian date of the cosrai- 
 cal setting of the Pleiads also. 
 
 ii. The traditionary account among the Romans of the 
 foundation of Rome. 
 
 The most circumstantial particular of this event, handed 
 down by tradition, was the lunar character of the event ; 
 that Rome was founded on the day of a lunar and solar con- 
 junction, and, what is more, an ecliptic conjunction^. To 
 put this tradition to the test, two data, it is evident, are ne- 
 cessary ; i. the true year of the Foundation — ii. the true day 
 in that year. 
 
 i. With respect to the year of the Foundation, we might, 
 if we pleased, assign it at once from the testimony of Poly- 
 bius, resting on what must have appeared to him a compe- 
 tent autliority, though singular of its kind, the -nCva^ of the 
 people of Anchise in Italy, B. C, 750^^. But, according to 
 the mode of arriving at the truth on such question's of fact as 
 this, which ive profess to adopt in our Fasti and Origines, 
 and which I am proposing to illustrate at present, we should 
 
 a Cf. Fasti, iii. 44 n. •■ vi. 548. « Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 107. 
 
 •1 Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 53. 
 
s.y. Method of Investigation in the Fasti a«c?Origines, 197 
 
 be bouud to get at it through the history of the Nundinal 
 corrections of ancient Italy, of which that of Romulus, coeval 
 with the Foundation, was the last, yet regularly derived from 
 those which had preceded it. 
 
 i. Then, this succession of the types of the Nundinal cor- 
 rection has been traced^", in the proper Nundinal period of 
 120 equable years, from the first of the number, the Um- 
 brian, July 19, B. C. 1340, to the fifth in the general succes- 
 sion, the second of the Etruscan types in particular, March 
 25, B. C. 8G0, when a change was made in the period, from 
 120 years to 110, destined from that time forward to be the 
 measure of the Etruscan sa^culum also f. 
 
 ii. It has also been shewn s, that the Nundinal correction 
 of Romulus, intended for the use of his own city, and coming 
 into being along with it, was simply the calendar of this 
 second Etruscan type, as it was standing at the end of its 
 first secular Period, Feb. 4, B. C. 750 — unchanged except in 
 the names and the lengths of its months. 
 
 It followed from these premises that the true year of the 
 Foundation must have been the first year of the second 
 Etruscan sa'culum, B.C. 750: and that was confirmed by 
 the doctrine peculiar to this period in connection with the 
 destinies of cities ; and also by the discovery of a decursus 
 of Roman s;pcula, from this epoch of the Foundation, run- 
 ning parallel to tiie Etruscan, but bearing date with the 
 second of the Etruscan as the first of the Roman h. 
 
 ii. With respect to the day of the Foundation. The Roman 
 date of this day in the style of the calendar from Nunia 
 downwards never was any thing but that of the xi Kalendas 
 Maias'; but the meaning of the xi Kal. Maias, it is to be 
 observed, both in the calendar of Numa, and in every state 
 of the calendar later than Numa's, before the Julian cor- 
 rection, was April 20, not April 21 : and xi Kal. JNIaias, or 
 April 20, in the calendar of Numa, was the 80th day in every 
 year of the cycle of that calendar also, from the kalends of 
 Januarius, as the first. And that being the case, forasmuch 
 as the calendar date of the P^oundation in the correction of 
 Numa must have been derived to it from the calendar of 
 
 * Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 341-558. ' Ibid. 594. k \\m\. i. 1^5-158. 
 
 '■ Ibid. ii. 594 5(^9. 604. 617. ' Ibid. \. /,. 
 
198 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 Romulus ; if it was the 80th day in the calendar of Nuraa, it 
 must have heeu the 80th day in the calendar of Romulus, 
 And that being assumed, it follows that if the 80th day in 
 the calendar of Romulus, B. C. 750, was the 80th day from 
 Feb. 4, it must have been April 21; and if the 80th day at 
 that time was the day of the Foundation, April 24, B. C. 750, 
 must have been the day of the Foundation. And this too 
 was confirmed by the relation of the day of the Foundation 
 to the Palilia, or feast-day of Pales, traditionally handed 
 down from the first ; and by the relation of the feast-day of 
 Pales to the Natale Mundi ; and by the relation of the Natale 
 Mundi to this Juban term of April 24 k. 
 
 iii. The year of the Foundation then being now known, 
 and the day of the Foundation in that year being also known, 
 we are in a condition to test the truth of this date, and that 
 of the tradition relating to it, by its agreement or its dis- 
 agreement with the character handed down of it, the ecliptic 
 conjunction on that day. This has been done in the Origi- 
 nes Kalendarise Italicae. It appears from actual calculation 
 that there was an eclipse of the sun, for the latitude of the 
 ancient Rome, on the morning of April 24, B. C. 750, the 
 middle of which was about an hour after sunrise ; and con- 
 sequently just at the time when the ceremonies of the 
 Foundation were most likely to be going on '. So that a 
 truer and more genuine character of the event than this, 
 That Rome was founded in the midst of a solar eclipse, could 
 not have descended to posterity. 
 
 iii. Traditionary account among the Romans of the Con- 
 ception of Romulus. 
 
 Roman tradition has been constant and uniform to this 
 one point in the personal history of the founder of Rome, 
 that his conception took place in the midst of a solar eclipse'". 
 The data required for the verification of this tradition also 
 are not necessarily more than two^ i. the year of the birth of 
 Romulus, ii. the day of the birth of Romulus. 
 
 i. With respect to the year of the birth, — it might be ob- 
 tained from the year of the Foundation, now known, B. C. 
 750, and from the age of Romulus, at the Foundation, handed 
 
 ^ Oriiiji. Kal. Ital. i. 102-105. 108, ioq. :~,^^. • Ibid. 111-117. 
 
 '" I hid. 3:6. 
 
s. 7. Method of lavestigaiion in the Fasti and Origines. 199 
 
 down also, 18 or 19"'; for if he was 19 complete B.C. 750, 
 he must have been born H. C. 769. But I prefer to ol)tain it 
 from those matters of fact, at the knowledge of which we 
 arrived through the history of the second miracle", as its 
 effects or conseciuences of a permanent kind at Rome — more 
 especially that of the institution of the Se.iugenuni de Fonte ; 
 the explanation of which necessarily led to the inference that, 
 if Romulus had still been living May 31, B.C. 710, he too 
 must have been 59 years old complete — from which it fol- 
 lowed that he must have been horn on or before May 31, 
 B. C. 769. 
 
 ii. With respect to the day of the birth this year, we 
 arrive at the discovery of the truth through the history of 
 the (-iuirinalia of the Calendar of Numa". For i. These 
 Quirinalia, it appeared, were instituted by Numa, in honour 
 of Romulus, yet after his death, ii. As so intended and so 
 instituted, they were attached not to the day of the death, 
 but to the day of the birth^ of Romulus, iii. The stated 
 date of the Quirinalia in the Calendar of Numa, xiii Kal. 
 Januarias, under the circumstances of the case, must have 
 fallen in the first instance on Feb. 5 P. If so, the birthday 
 of Romulus, still fresh in the recollection of the Romans in 
 the first year of Numa Pompilius, must have been Feb. 5, 
 B. C. 769. And this was confirmed by the traditionary cir- 
 cumstances of his birth, in other respects, in general ; espe- 
 cially that of the season of the year, the early spring, and 
 the state of the Tyber, at the time, overflowing its banks 4. 
 
 The birth of Romulus then having been thus determined 
 to Feb. 5, B. C. 769, we are in a condition, with the help of 
 one more datum, to test the truth or the falsehood of the 
 tradition relating to the conception. Nothing is now wanted 
 for that purpose except the natural standard of the interval 
 between birth and conception, or conception and birth, in 
 the case of the human subject. And though the actual in- 
 terval of this kind may not be the same in every instance ; 
 there is a general and approximate estimate of it, consistent 
 with experience and observation every where — which might 
 be assumed a priori in any given instance, as the most likely 
 
 ""• Origg Kal. Itul. i. 326. " Sujtra. \2f\ 127. o Origg. Kal. Ital 
 
 i. 329 ^^<|(^. V Ibid. i. 329-332. <l Ibid. i. 327, 3sS. 
 
200 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 to be confirmed by the event — the interval of 275 or 276 
 days^ And as the question in the present instance con- 
 cerns not only the birth of Romulus, but that of Remus also, 
 of these two measures of the interval in question, we should 
 be justified in assuming the longer, that of 27G days, as the 
 more likely to be the true. 
 
 Reckon then 276 days back from Feb. 5, in the Julian 
 calendar, 13. C. 769, and you come to May 5, B. C. 770 ; or 
 reckon 270 days forwards from May 5, B. C. 770, and you 
 get to Feb. 5, B.C. 769 — and in eitlier of these cases, if 
 Feb. 5, B.C. 769, was the true day of the birth of Romulus and 
 Remus, May 5, B.C. 770, it might very probably be assumed, 
 must have been that of their conception. 
 
 Calculate then, in the last place, the new moon of May, 
 B. C. 770, for the meridian of Rome, and you find as 
 follows s — 
 
 B. C. 770. h. III. s. 
 
 Mean New moon May 5 o 43 39 m. t. Rome. 
 True New moon May 5 10 50 28 m. t. — 
 
 And the longitude of the sun at the same time having been 
 only 1 i' 18" less than that of the node, there must have 
 been one of the greatest eclipses on this day, one hour be- 
 fore noon for the meridian of Alba, which in the nature of 
 things was capable of happening, xis then, the fact of the 
 conception of Romulus and Remus in the midst of a solar 
 eclipse was always handed down among the Romans, so now 
 we see that in this state of the case, May 5, B. C. 770, 276 
 days before Feb. 5, B. C. 769, there was good foundation for 
 the origin of such a tradition. The most prejudiced sceptic 
 of the modern school must allow that tradition in this in- 
 stance is strikingly confirmed by the laws of nature them- 
 selves. 
 
 iv. Traditionary account among the Romans of the death 
 of Romulus. 
 
 Roman tradition, in like manner, was uniform and con- 
 stant in the account, which it handed down, of the close of 
 the life of Romulus : that he disappeared in the midst of a 
 
 ' Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 334. Cf. Prolegomena ad Harmoniam Evangelicam, cap. 
 ii. pag. 120. * Ibid. i. 335. 
 
s. 7. Method of Investigation in the Fasti and Origines. 201 
 
 solar eclipse — that he was last seen alive just as an eclipse 
 of the sun was setting in, and never again, alive or dead, 
 after it was over. In other words, the day of his death, 
 (which posterity called liis translation to heaven,) was the 
 day of a solar eclipse '. 
 
 The data required for the verification of this tradition also 
 are only two : i. The jjear of the death of Horaulus ; ii. The 
 dai/ of his death in that year. We collect the 7jear of his 
 death from his age, traditionally handed down too, at his 
 death ^', 54 or 55, i. e. 54 complete, and from the year of his 
 birth, already determined, Ji. C. 769. For if he was born 
 Feb. 5, ]}. C. 709, he must have been 54 complete, Feb. 5, 
 J3. C. 715. We know the daij of his death from the tradi- 
 tional style of that day, in the calendars of later date, the 
 Nonte Qainctiles, the Nona Caprotince, the Nome Jidi(e ; im- 
 plying that its original style in the calendar of the time 
 being, the Nundinal calendar, was the seventh of the fifth 
 month, the seventh of the Quinctilis of llomulus, the 127th 
 day from the first of his Martins, in every year of his Calen- 
 dar alike t. 
 
 These two data then being assumed, i. That the year of 
 the death of Romulus was B. C. 715 ; ii. That the day of his 
 death that year was the 127th in the Nundinal Calendar of 
 the time being — the epoch of the calendar being known, 
 Feb. 4, B. C. 750 — and its nature and laws being known — 
 first, we trace it from Martius 1, in the first year of the a^ra 
 of this correction, Feb. 4, B. C. 750, to Martius 1, in the 
 43rd, Jan. 20, B. C. 715. Secondly, we reckon 12G days 
 from Martius 1 this year, and we get to Quinctilis 7 in the 
 same ; and we reckon 126 days from Jan. 20, B. C. 715, and 
 we get to May 26 the same year. Jan. 20 then, B. C. 715, 
 being the Julian date of Martius 1, in the 43rd year of the 
 Nundinal jcra of Romulus, May 26 must have been the Ju- 
 lian date of Quinctilis 7 the same year. 
 
 Calculate therefore as before the new moon of May, B. C. 
 715, for the meridian of Romcy. 
 
 B. C. 715. h. m. 8. 
 
 Mean New moon May 26 8 48 33 in. t. 
 True New moon May 26 17 22 59 m. t. 
 
 * Origg. Kal. Ital. i. iiS. ^' Il>i(l. i. .^33. x Ibid. i. 12c. I2j. V IbiH. i. 125. 
 
202 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 And the sun"'s true distance from the node, at this time 
 also, having been about 5° 40' 9" — there must have been on 
 this occasion too a very great eclipse of the sun. If so, it 
 must have been that which Roman tradition uniformly con- 
 nected with the disappearance of the Founder of Rome. It 
 is observable also that, as all the other traditionary circum- 
 stances of the event conspire to determine it to the evening 
 of its proper day ^-j so this eclipse likewise was at its maxi- 
 mum about sunset the same day. The sun set May 26, 
 B.C. 715, for the latitude of Rome, about 19 h. 7 m. 21 sec. 
 mean time, from midnight — the eclipse was at its middle 
 about 1 h. 44 m. before. 
 
 Section VIII. — On the antiquity of the Alphabet, and of the 
 use of Letters ; and on the light reflected upon that question 
 by the discoveries of the Fasti and the Origiues. 
 The confirmation of Traditional History by the natural 
 measures of time, and by the civil calendar of the time being, 
 in four such instances as those which have just been con- 
 sidered, is well calculated to open a question of great moment 
 and equal interest ; viz. Whether the knowledge of the past, 
 however remote, among the several generations of later times, 
 did not ultimately rest on some more substantial and per- 
 manent foundation than that of oral testimony? And this 
 question would soon be decided in the affirmative, might it 
 only be assumed, on certain or highly probable grounds of 
 belief, that, howsoever far back it might be necessary to go, 
 to arrive at the fountain-head of traditional history, the pos- 
 session of the Alphabet, the knowledge of Letters, the art 
 and use of Writing, among mankind, went still further 
 back. If the means of fixing the circumstances of passing 
 events always existed among men, it is gratuitous and un- 
 reasonable to assume that no use was ever made of them ; 
 that nothing, for a long time, went down from generation to 
 generation, but oral traditions of the past ; that written con- 
 temporary records in short may not have been after all the 
 ultimate authority for much, if not the whole, of the un- 
 written tradition of subsequent primitive antiquity itself. 
 
 '^- Origg. Kill. Ital. i. 126. » Ibid. i. 125, 126. 
 
s. 8. Antifjuity of the W^hahet. 203 
 
 And with respect to this question, of the possession or 
 non-possession of the alphabet by mankind, from the first, as 
 a simple question of fact ; the first and most indispensable of 
 the necessities of social existence was, no doubt, the faculty 
 of speech, and the possession and use of an articulate lan- 
 guage, by means of which the members of such a society 
 might at all times converse together by word of mouth. 
 The next, and scarcely a less indispensable one, must have 
 been the means of communicating with each other at a dis- 
 tance — the means of conversing with their posterity as well 
 as with their contemporaries — the means of recording pass- 
 ing events for the information of future ages, and future 
 generations. Each of these most indispensable of the condi- 
 tions of that social state, which the Creator himself appointed 
 for his own rational creatures in particular from the first, was 
 equally well known to him beforehand ; and each of them 
 was as likely a priori to be provided for by him as the other. 
 And if he did himself give mankind the faculty of speech and 
 the use of a J^aiKjuuye from the first, on the strength of that 
 fact alone it might be assumed that he must also have 
 given them an Alphabet and the knowledge of Letters from 
 the first. 
 
 It has often been argued that, if the invention of Language 
 had been left to mankind themselves, though endowed by 
 their Maker with the organs of speech, and with the capa- 
 bility of using them, neither one man, nor any number of 
 men, could have succeeded in the attempt. And if the first 
 invention of a language under such circumstances would have 
 been an impossibility, how much more the invention of an 
 Alphabet, the language of language itself! how much more 
 impossible the discovery by men for themselves, the distinc- 
 tion asunder, and the classification, of those simple sounds, 
 the primary elements of all articulate utterance, and the 
 same at bottom for all languages alike ! What remains then 
 but to conclude, (and to accept the conclusion with thankful- 
 ness,) that, as the first spoken language was certainly the 
 immediate gift of the same Creator, who made the first pair 
 of mankind, so the first alphabet must have been his gift 
 too? I have always persuaded myself that, if we would 
 think most worthily as of the power and greatness so of the 
 
201 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 wisdom and goodness of the common Creator of all things, 
 and yet most becomingly as of the place and dignity so of 
 the qualifications and perfections of that one of his creatures, 
 who was appointed to be his own representative among the 
 rest, we should be l)ound to assume on the strength of the 
 reasonableness and consistency of the assumption itself, 
 a priori to all proof of the fact, that the mind of a creature, 
 like Adam, formed in the image and after the likeness of his 
 Creator himself, must have reflected, in its proper measure 
 and degree, the knowledge and wisdom, and the other per- 
 fections, of the Divine intellect itself; and must have found 
 itself stored from the very first with every description of 
 knowledge, which was best adapted to the conditions of his 
 being — as designed for the equal and associate of beings like 
 himself, but as the head and superior of all the inferior crea- 
 tures of his own world — and yet compatible with the original 
 innocence and purity of his moral nature. And though it 
 might not be every kind or degree of the intellectual furni- 
 ture of the human mind at present, which would appear to 
 have been suitable for the still unsullied and heaven-attem- 
 pered air of Paradise, no one could say that the possession of 
 the alphabet, and the knowledge of letters, would not have 
 been as compatible with the laws of Man's moral nature even 
 in Paradise, as the possession and use of language. 
 
 And as to the preservation, and the transmission to pos- 
 terity, of such a primitive Alphabet, if it really existed from 
 the first, there is no reason why natural means should not be 
 considered sufficient for that pm-pose, from the Creation to 
 the Deluge — and from the Deluge to any conceivable extent 
 downwards. Even the confusion of Babel, however much it 
 might affect the unity of language, from the nature of the 
 case could have no such eftect on the unity of the Alphabet. 
 The simple elementary sounds, of wdiich the Alphabet is the 
 digest and compendium, run through all languages alike, 
 and fire limited everywhere to the number of the letters of the 
 alphabet. Articulate speech, language properly so called — 
 these primary elements of all language in the shape of the 
 various combinations of which they are capable ^ — may be 
 
 '■ Apiunilix, note FF. 
 
s. 8. Antiquity of the Alphabet. 205 
 
 diversified and multiplied to any extent. A primitive alpha- 
 bet therefore, if any such actually existed, along with a pri- 
 mitive language, might be expected a priori to have survived 
 even such a shock to the unity and integrity of a primitive 
 language, as the confusion of Babel itself; and, if notwith- 
 standing the dissolution of that unity, thus miraculously 
 brought about, a community of origin is still discoverable in 
 postdiluvian languages, how much more to be expected 
 would it be, that a community of origin and even an 
 unity of essence should still be discoverable in postdiluvian 
 Alphabets ! 
 
 And yet, from the nature of the case, to admit even the 
 probal)ility of such a discovery — the principle of unity thus 
 perceptible, it might be expected a priori also, would be 
 found not in the simple sounds of which the alphabet is com- 
 posed everywhere, but in the artificial distinctions and cha- 
 racters, of which even those sounds themselves were capable 
 of becoming the subjects in different instances. These 
 simple sounds, in themselves, are the primary elements of all 
 articulate utterance, and in every form and shape — older 
 than speech or language — older than the alphabet itself, 
 everywhere ; those external distinctions and characters are 
 the names, the order, the numerical value, the figures, and 
 the like, of the letters of the alphabet themselves, all artificial 
 and positive in their origin, and liable consequently a priori 
 to be determined in a variety of Avays. All at least which 
 can be assumed a priori of the connection between language 
 and the alphabet from the first, is that, if there was a primi- 
 tive language as well as a primitive alphabet, these charac- 
 teristic distinctions of the component parts of this primitive 
 alpliabet would probably be borrowed from that primitive 
 language ; and if this primitive alphabet, with such charac- 
 teristic distinctions of its own from the first, survived the 
 primitive language, these proper notes and characters of all 
 alphabets, through those of some one or other of the postdi- 
 luvian alphabets, may still serve as a clue to the discovery of 
 the primitive language. 
 
 Now the comparison of the oldest alphabets formerly in 
 use or still in use, inter se, with respect to such distinctions 
 as these of the signs, the names, the order, the phonetic or 
 
206 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 numerical value, of the letters in each, leads to an inference 
 of this kind ; that, if more or less of a common type in 
 these respects runs through them all, it is that of the old 
 Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet, with its charac- 
 teristic distinctions, must have been the prototype of all, 
 more especially of all the oldest of their kind. And if this 
 conclusion too leads to another inference, (as it naturally 
 does,) that the Hebrew language, on this principle, must 
 have been the primitive language, without going any further 
 at present into the consideration of that question, I will 
 merely observe, in confirmation of the presumption thus 
 suggested, that, if every terra which occurs in the first 
 chapter of Genesis, as the name of something imposed on its 
 proper subject, for the first time, by the Creator himself — 
 loum for day, Lileb for night, Ibesheh or Arets, for dry land 
 or earth, Im for sea, Shemesh for heaven, was taken from 
 the Hebrew ; and if every proper name which occurs in the 
 history of the Old Testament down to the confusion of lan- 
 guages itself, with an explanation of its meaning, Adam, and 
 Eve, and Cain, and Seth, and Noah, and Babel, as the ex- 
 planation in each instance shews, is Hebrew also ; the con- 
 clusion from these facts seems to be inevitable — That, if the 
 language which supplied these names and etymons was that 
 of the antediluvian state of things, that language must have 
 been the Hebrew. 
 
 The strongest proof, however, of this fact is Gen. iv. 26, 
 which, understood and translated as it is, in the authorised 
 English version — Then began men to call on the name of the 
 Lord — has given, and must continue to give, so much trouble 
 to commentators — as if it could reasonably be supposed that 
 men began to acknowledge their relation to their own 
 Creator by prayer, or by other acts of worship, only at the 
 birth of Enos, the grandson of Adam through Seth. But 
 the words of the original should be rendered, "Then was it 
 begun to invoke by the name of Jeliovah^' — and their 
 meaning in that case will be simply that, from and after 
 the birth of Enos, in the third generation from Adam, bore 
 date also the introduction and use of that name, which had 
 long been the recognised style and title of the Supreme 
 Being, as the one proper object of prayer and praise, before 
 
s. 8. A ntiqidty of the A\[iha.het. 207 
 
 the book of Genesis itself was written, the name of Jehovah c. 
 And tlie first solemn adoption of this most expressive and 
 significant name for the object of all the offices of religion, 
 especially those of prayer, being here described as the 
 common act of the Antediluvian world of that epoch, it is 
 almost superfluous to observe that the language which fur- 
 uisiied this name must have been the common language of 
 that epoch : and if the Hebrew, and the Hebrew only, could 
 Lave supplied that name, the Hebrew, and the Hebrew only, 
 could have been the Antediluvian language. 
 
 if these considerations then have had any effect in predis- 
 posing the reader for the admission of the fact that the pos- 
 session and the use of tlie letters of the alphabet may 
 possibly have descended along with human society from the 
 first, he will be better prepared to receive and appreciate the 
 evidence of the fact itself, if any thing of that kind is dis- 
 coverable, which, beginning from a time when there can be 
 no doubt of its truth, is capable of being traced further and 
 further back, until it ascends almost up^to the beginning of 
 things. Let us then see what grounds there may be for a 
 general induction to this effect, from proofs of the fact in 
 particular instances, more and more ancient of their kind, 
 the further the investigation is continued. 
 
 First, then, to begin with the ancient Italy. It may be 
 taken for granted on the strength of such facts as these, that 
 the possession of the alphabet, and the art of writing, must 
 have been older in Italy i. Than the laws of the Twelve 
 Tables, B. C. 41-9 d; ii. Than the Sibylline oracles, B. C. 
 531^: iii. Than the institution of the census, and the com- 
 mentaries of Servius Tullius, B. C. 552 * : iv. Than the date of 
 the second miracle, B. C. 710": v. Than the laws and consti- 
 tutions of Numa, the songs of the Salii, and the beginning 
 of the Annales Maximi. B. C 712 1^: vi. Than the iriva^ of 
 the people of Anchisc, B.C. 750': vii. Than the rise and 
 appearance of Tages, and the Tagetic books and doctrines, 
 B. C. 800 1<; viii. Than the date of the first miracle, B. C. 
 
 '' Appendix, note GG. <• Origt^. Kal. Ital. i. 397 410. f Ibitl. ii. 613. 
 
 ' Ibid. ii. 26J. 2H0. K Ibid. ii. 518. '■ Ibid. i. 27. lOG, 172 «. 
 
 i Ibid. i. 53. k Ibid. ii. 581. 
 
208 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. h. 
 
 1520, — among the M?conians of Asia first, and among the 
 Etrurians of Italy, their descendants next™. 
 
 Secondly, The knowledge and use of writing among the 
 ancient Greeks, in like manner, must have been older, i. Than 
 the Hymns of Homer, B. C. 504": ii. Than the Works and 
 Days of Ilesiod, B.C. 569°: iii. Than the Axons and Kyrbs 
 of Solon, B.C. 593 P: iv. Than the sphere of Thales, B. C. 
 002 1 : V. Than the poems of Archilochus, Sappho, and 
 Alkseus, circa B. C. 650 — 620'": vi. Than the Olympic Disc, 
 B. C. 880s: vii. Than the Laws of Lycurgus, B.C. 881': 
 viii. Than the poems of Homer, B. C. 910 and 909 v; ix. Than 
 the foundation of Halicarnassus, circa B. C. 1041 ^•. x. Than 
 the last year of the siege of Troy, B. C. 1181 y: xi. Than the 
 temple of Dionysos kv Aiixvais at Athens, circa B. C. 1206 =5 : 
 xii. Than the Titanomachia of Melampus^, and probably the 
 "^avlhes of Orpheus, B. C. 1230 : xiii. Than the time of Belle- 
 rophon, circa B. C. 1241 b; xiv. Than the Laws of Miuos in 
 Crete, B.C. 1260 c: xv. Than the neVpwjua of Naos at Phenese, 
 circa B. C. 1300 d; and the Laws of Triptolemus, and the 
 Thesmophorian 0eo-/xot, B.C. 1310 e; xvi. Than the founda- 
 tion of Argos, and the succession of Priestesses of lo, Isis, 
 or Hera, B. C. 1346 f: xvii. Than the -niva^ of Cadmus, B. C. 
 1347 s. 
 
 Thirdly, in like manner, to judge from the allusions which 
 occur in the Bible from the Eisodus upwards, the use of let- 
 ters, and consequently the possession of the alphabet, among 
 the people of Israel, or the Egyptians, or the contemporaries 
 of both, must have been older, i. Than the book of Jasher, 
 B. C. 1520 h : ii. Than the book of the Wars of the Lord, 
 B.C. 1522 i; iii. Than the book of Job, contemporary pro- 
 bably with the interval, between the Exodus and the Eiso- 
 dus, B. C. 1560-1520"^ : iv. Than the first numbering of the 
 people, B. C. 1560 ' : v. Than the record of the oath of Jeho- 
 
 "1 Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 518. 564 n. " Origg. Kal. Hell. i. 319. 
 
 o 1 Ibid. i. 196-318. P Ibid. i. 42 n. 1 Ibid. vi. 630. ' Ibid. i. 22S n. 
 
 s Ibid. V. -^Gi,. 568. ' Ibid. v. 563. '' Ibid. vi. 289-500. " Ibid. iii. 370. 
 y Iliad. H. 186. z Origg. Kal. Hell. v. 30, 31. » Ibid. iv. 536 n. 
 
 b Iliad Z. 168-170, cf. Orig. Kal. Hell. iv. 558. <^ Ibid. iv. 409-414. 
 
 ^ Ibid. iv. i.*^3. « Ibid. iv. 290. 294. f Ibid. i. 130: ii. 195: vi. 204. 
 
 K Ibid. V. 142-144. h Joshua x. 13, cf. 2 Sam. i. 18. ' Numbers .\xi. 14. 
 
 •< Job xiii. 26, 27 : xix. 23, 24 : xxxi. 35. • Numbers i. 2 sqq. : xxvi. 64. 
 
s. 8. Antiquity of the Alphabet. 209 
 
 vah-nissi, B.C. 15G0'": vi. than the seven years' of plenty in 
 Egypt, cir. B. C. 1787 ". 
 
 Thus far, of the possession and use of the alphabet and of 
 letters, araon<^ the ancient Italians, the ancient Greeks, the 
 ancient Idunurans, the ancient Egyptians, and the people of 
 Israel — as possible to be collected from the testimony of facts 
 recorded in the Bible, or discoverable in profane antiquity. 
 Let us now pass to the particular proofs of the same fact in 
 all parts of the ancient world in general, supplied by the 
 corrections of the calendar, and by the cycles of antiquity, 
 which the researches of the Fasti and the Origincs have 
 brought to light. 
 
 In the first place, though they have brought to light no 
 instance of the use of the first and simplest of the measures 
 of time, the Noctidiurnal cycle, by no greater a measure of 
 itself perpetually than one cycle of day and night at a time, 
 they have discovered many of the reckoning of this cycle by 
 a certain number of repetitions of itself; in particular, the 
 Hebdomadal, of Patriarchal and Levitical antiquity, a cycle 
 of seven such terms ; the Nundinal, of Italian antiquity, a 
 cycle of eight ; and the Sexagesimal, of Chinese antiquity, a 
 cycle of sixty. And of each of these, and especially of the 
 longest, it might very well be questioned, whether it could 
 have been uniformly observed, according to its proper rule, 
 (as it appears to have l)een de facto all along,) without some 
 written scheme and delineation of its order perpetually. If 
 not — then the use of the se.Kagesimal cycle in China will 
 argue the possession of the art of writing by the Chinese 
 from as far back as B.C. 742 at least"; that of the Nun- 
 dinal in Italy will imply the same thing among the Italians 
 as far back as B.C. 13J0P; and the use and observance of 
 the Hebdomadal will imply the existence and use of letters 
 among the Patriarchs from the beginning of things itself. 
 
 hi like manner it may admit of a question, whether the 
 reckoning of civil annual time in the form of the primitive 
 solar year of 3G5 days and nights, and neither more nor less 
 — or that of civil menstrual time in the form of the primitive 
 solar month of thirty days and nights, could have been kept 
 
 '" Kxoil. xvii. 14. " (iiii. xli. 49. " Fasti, i. ,67 e,oS. 52S : iv. 
 
 I .',0. liitroiliK'tiiin, 7',. I' Origjf. Kal. Ital ii. 370 »<)((. 
 
210 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 every where, as it is seen to have been, without any error, 
 either of excess or of defect, perpetually, if there was no 
 where any check to the possible error of observance in prac- 
 tice — any help to the memory — in the shape of a written ac- 
 count and order of the same things. 
 
 But secondly, to come to the cycles of antiquity, in which 
 Noctidiurnal time, and Menstrual in the sense of Lunar, and 
 Annual in the sense of Solar, were blended and combined 
 together in various ways — as, i. the primitive solar and lunar 
 cycle — consisting of 25 equable solar years, 309 lunar months, 
 and 9125 days and nights 4, perpetually. It must have been 
 impossible to keep such a reckoning from the ist cycle of 
 this kind, ^ra Cyc. 1, to the cxxiind, ^Era Cyc. 3026, 
 (3025 equable years,) as the Egyptians are seen to have 
 done'", without the use of tables, and consequently the use 
 of letters. 
 
 ii. The Phoenix cycle and Phoenix period s — in which 500 
 mean tropical years, 500 mean Julian, 6184 mean lunar 
 months, and 500 cycles of the lunar mansions, (each of them 
 consisting of an order of 28 terms,) wei'e combined in the 
 same proportion inter se perpetually. The mere statement 
 of such a case as this is sufficient to prove the fact for which 
 I am contending — that of the knowledge and use of letters 
 and the art of writing, among the ancient Egyptians, from 
 B.C. 1847 at least, as indispensably necessary, if for no other 
 purpose, yet for this, of keeping the Phoenix reckoning per- 
 petually. And that tables of this reckoning did exist among 
 them from the first is proved by the ■niva^ of Cadmus, and 
 tlic '\>oiviK€ia ypdixjjiaTa, brought by him into Greece, at the 
 epoch of the second Phoenix cycle, B. C. 1347*. 
 
 iii. Sim[)ly Julian corrections of the Primitive calendar, 
 and the proper cycle of leap-year of each. Indispensable as 
 an uniform rule of this cycle is to the very essence of the 
 simply Julian reckoning; it may bo doubted whether in any 
 given iiistance of such a reckoning its proper cycle of leap- 
 year could always be kept true to itself, with no safeguard 
 of the rule perpetually but memory — whether it could be, 
 even at present, without our almanacks. And yet the F.gypt- 
 
 1 Fasti, ii. 4'|0. "■ Supra, j). i.s.s s(|<|. s Fasti, iii. 4998(14. 532 sqq. 
 
 ^ Origf;. Kal Jlell. v. 1 12-144. 
 
s. iS. Antiquity of the Alphabet. 211 
 
 ians, as we have already explained^', had two Julian types, 
 one of which went as far back as B. C. 1818, and the other 
 as B. C. 1350, each with a proper cycle of leap-year of its 
 own, the relations of wiiicli inter xe, and to their proper 
 standard of reference, never varied ; aud of which tiie latter 
 is still true to its original relatious, and to the proper Julian 
 cycle of the same kind from the first, through its agreement 
 with that of the Julian or the Gregorian calendar of the pre- 
 sent day. 
 
 iv. Cyclico-Julian corrections of the Primitive calendar, 
 with a cycle of leap-year of 120 years, instead o^ four; a 
 still more numerous family of such corrections, and yet one, 
 which begins to be discoverable as early as the xivth century 
 before the Vulgar iEra, and is capable of being traced from 
 that point of time almost round the whole of the Primitive 
 calendar itself. It is scarcely conceivable that so long a 
 cycle, aud in so many distinct and independent instances, 
 could have been accurately reckoned every where, (as it ap- 
 pears to have been'',) without tables. 
 
 v. Octaeteric corrections of the Primitive calendar ; the 
 simplest form indeed of the combination of lunar aud solar, 
 in the sense of Julian, time — yet still in a period of 8 Julian 
 years, two cycles of the Julian leap-year, 99 lunar months, 
 and 2922 days and nights — a much longer and more intri- 
 cate one of its kind, than could have been trusted to memory 
 solely perpetually. Yet we discover one cycle of this kind 
 among the Greeks, which must have been regularly kept 
 from B.C. 1260 to B. 0. 468 y; and another, which we can 
 trace from B. C. 1222 to B. 0. 541 z ; and a third, which we 
 can trace from B. C. 1206 to B. C. 566 » — each in exact con- 
 formity to one and the same rule of administration from the 
 first. 
 
 vi. The 59 years' cycle ; both in the simple period of 59 
 solar or Julian years, 730 lunar months, 21,557 days aud 
 nights; and in its period of a.-noKaTacnaai'i — four of the 
 simple periods, 236 Julian years, 2920 lunar months, 86,229 
 days and nights. The mere description of such a cycle is 
 enough to convince any one that it could not possibly have 
 
 »■ Page i.^ ami i;5. ^ Iiitnuhution, ji. 20. y Origfi. Kal. Holl. iv. 548. 
 
 ' Ibid, vi ;i. " Ibid. iv. 4.V ^O- 
 
 p i2 
 
212 The Mree* Witnesses, imd the fhi'eef old Cord. ch. m. 
 
 been kept true to its own principles and assumptions" perpe- 
 tually, without tables ; and yet there was certainly one cycle 
 of this kind among the Greeks, which must have been so 
 kept from B. C. 1250 to B. C. 306 b. 
 
 vii. Nundinal corrections of the Primitive equable calen- 
 dar — in the period of 120 equable, 144 Nundinal, years. 1484 
 lunar months of the Nurulinal standard ^' — the very supposi- 
 tion of which is a sufficient ground of inference that to keep 
 such a reckoning perpetually must have required the con- 
 stant assistance of tables. Yet five types of this particular 
 kind of reckoning are discoverable in ancient Italy, each of 
 them alike derived from the Primitive calendar, each of them, 
 after the first, at intervals of 120 equable years asunder, 
 each of them borrowing its own distinctive characters from 
 those of the one before it, and all the last four, theirs from 
 those of the first — extending too from B. C. 1340 to B. C. 
 860, or, (if we include the correction of Romulus itself de- 
 rived from the fifth,) to B. C. 750. 
 
 viii. The correction of Numa Pompilius, a solar period of 
 24 Julian years, a Lunar one of 299 lunar months, a nocti- 
 diurnal one of 8766 days and nights, a Nundinal one of 1095 
 Nundinal cycles, and six Nundinal ferije over; which re- 
 turned to the relations of origination in all respects, only in 
 one greater period of four of these, 96 Julian years, 1196 
 lunar months, 35,064 days, 4383 Nundinal cycles <i. It is 
 impossible that such an account of civil time as this could 
 have been accurately kept, botii in the details and in the 
 wholes, perpetually, without a written exemplar continually 
 in the hands and before the eyes of the administrators of the 
 calendar at Rome. And in this instance we know from tes- 
 timony that such an exemplar actually existed. The Fasti 
 of Numa had been committed to writing from the first — only, 
 down to B.C. 304, (in which year they were first made public 
 to the whole of the body politic at Rome,) as confined to the 
 Pontifical college^. 
 
 ix. Lower than this correction we need be at no pains to 
 trace the keeping of civil time at Rome in written Fasti. 
 
 ^ Origg. Kal Hell. iv. 636. 666. 682 m. '■ Oiigg. Kal. Ital. ii. 3.^2 sqq. 
 
 d Ibid. i. 177-279. 269 : ii. 15: iv. x.\.sq(|. ^ Ihitl. i'. 58. 287. 
 
s, 8. Antiquiiij 0/ f he A\\)\\nhet. 213 
 
 No one can donbt that tlie Deceraviral correction had sucli 
 Fasti, from IJ. C. 449 to B. C. 209 ; and the Irregular calen- 
 dar from B.C. 209 to B.C. 46; and the Julian correction 
 from B. C. 4G to A. I). 225 <". I have myself brought to light 
 a remarkable proof of the facility with which the Pontifical 
 college could go back in the archives of the Fasti from a 
 given lower date to a much earlier one— as for example, from 
 B.C. 54 to B.C. 154?. 
 
 X. Metonic corrections — i. The oldest, that of the Sacred 
 calendar, 30 !■ Julian years, IG cycles of 19 years, 37G0 mean 
 Lunar months, 111,035 days and nights perpetually •'. Tables 
 must obviously have been necessary for such a reckoning as 
 that. It is absurd to suppose it could have been trusted 
 simply to memory — and writing, as we have seen, among 
 the Israelites, at least, was much older than the date of this 
 correction. J^. C. 1511. ii. Next to this, in point of time. 
 the Hindu correction, 247 Julian years, 13 cycles of 19 
 years, 30.j5 lunations, with one intercalary month of 28 or 
 29 days, at the end of every period, for a certain number of 
 such periods one after another, until the head of the calendar 
 had been advanced thereby from October 1 B. C 946 to 
 jNfarch 22 A. 1). 538' — which never could have been done, 
 regularly and exactly as it was done, without written schemes 
 and delineations of the process, both before it began, and as 
 long as it was going on. iii. Next to this, the Theban or 
 Diospolitan correction in Egypt, B. C. 889, the simply Ale- 
 tonic cycle of 19 Julian years, 235 Lunar months'^, regularly 
 administered, as we have seen •«, down to a late a^ra. There 
 is no more reason to suppose this could have been done all 
 that time with the Metonic calendar of Diospolis or Thebes, 
 without tables, any more than with the Metonic correction at 
 Athens, from B. C. 432 to A. I). 127. And the Metonic cor- 
 rection, we know was committed at Athens from the first 
 not to memory, but to a Farapegma'. 
 
 xi. The ecliptic cycle-^ of antitjuity — i. The simple period 
 of I'S ecpiable years, 15 days, and 7 or 8 hours, (6585 d. 7 or 
 
 ' Origi;. Kal. 1(;»1. iii. .52 scjcj. : iv. 1 sijq. B Ibid. iii. 168-iSi^. 
 
 ^ Infrfuluction ti> the Tahli's of till' Fiwfi, 79-«)f>. ProlPKomoiia ad Harmon, cap. 
 i. 9 8«|<|. ' Fiisti, ii. S^ : iv. ,^i -yo. •« Ibid. iv. 217-^42. ' OiixR. 
 
 Kal Hell, i 4.^S. . 
 
214 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 8h.) 223 lunar months, ii. This period tripled, and called 
 the Saros or Exeligmus — 51 equable years, 46 days, 
 (19,756 days,) 669 lunar months >". It is absurd to conceive 
 for a moment that either of these could have been used and 
 applied perpetually, without tables ; yet we know the fact 
 from testimony, (and I have myself verified testimony in that 
 respect,) that eclipses were observed and recorded among the 
 Egyptians in the former, from B. C. 848 to B, C. 324, and 
 among the Chaldees, in the latter, from B.C. 794, and among 
 the Etru7-ians in the latter also, from B. C. 019''. 
 
 xii. The Chaldean Sossus, Nerus, and Sarus, successive 
 periods, designed for the adjustment of mean sidereal to mean 
 solar time, and one talcing up another in the administr.ition 
 of the process — the first, the period of 60 years, in which the 
 anticipation of 365 mean solar, on 366 mean sidereal, days, 
 on the assumptions of the Chaldees, amounted to 21 minutes, 
 the 60th part of a day ; the second, the period of 600 years, 
 in which it amounted to four hours, or the sixth part of a 
 day; the third, the period of 3600 years, in which it amounted 
 to 24 hours, or one mean solar day. It is inconceivable that 
 a reckoning of so much nicety as this, and of two such dif- 
 ferent kinds of time simultaneously, could have been kept 
 correctly in both its parts without tables; and if not, these 
 three periods alone, which are confessedly of Chaklaic origin", 
 and were peculiar to the Chaldees, and intimately connected 
 with their astrological system from the first, ai-e demonstra- 
 tive of the use of letters among them in particular, from as 
 far back as the institution of that system at least, and the 
 date of the correction of the Primitive calendar, which ac- 
 companied it, B. C. 1106. 
 
 xiii. After this, it is superfluous to insist on the Planetary 
 cycle and Planetary houses, a cycle of seven terms circula- 
 ting in one of twelve perpetually ; or on the cycle of Planets 
 and cycle of Decania, a cycle of seven terms circulating in 
 one of thirty-six — characteristic also of the astrological sphere 
 of antiquity, whether among the P]gyptians, from B. C. 798, 
 or among the Chaldeans, from B. C- 1106 P. Neither could 
 these have been independent of tables — and tables, in all 
 
 '" Fasti, iv. <ji. " Origrg. Kal. Ital. ii. .^So. Hellcn. vi. 647-654. 
 
 " Fasti, iv. 94. P lliid. iii. 4S3-49S. 
 
s. 9, Origines Kalendarice ilellenicie.. 215 
 
 these cases, implying the use of letters, for numerical calcu- 
 lations as well as for writing — or numerical characters, as 
 well as the letters of the alphabet — we may sum up this 
 review of the proofs of the fact for which we are contending 
 — in the words of Pliny the Elder <) — ^Eternus litterarum 
 usus — as old at least as man himself, and the beginning of 
 social existence. Such proofs of the antiquity of letters 
 might give a colour of verisimilitude even to the statement of 
 Joseph us ^ of the erection of two Pillars, by the posterity 
 of Seth, conveying the discoveries of the Patriarchal aera to 
 their future descendants ; one of them proof against the 
 action of water, the other, against that of fire. 
 
 SEcriox IX — On the services rendered by the Origines Ka- 
 lendariji! Hellenicai to tJie study 0/ Grecian Antiquity. 
 
 The subject-matter of the third Part of the Fasti and Ori- 
 gines, as I explained % having naturally distributed itself into 
 two principal Divisions, one, the history of the Primitive 
 Calendar among the Greeks from tiie Legislation of Solon 
 downwards, the other, the same history from the Legislation 
 of Solon upwards — with respect to the first of these Divi- 
 sions, and the contents of the first three volumes of the 
 Origines Kalendarice Hellenicai, devoted exclusively to this 
 Division, curious, interesting, and numerous, as well as new, 
 as are the facts brought to light, and confirmed by the ne- 
 cessary proofs, in these first three volumes, yet as they go no 
 further back than B. C. 592, and come down as low as the 
 second or third century of tho Christian a?ra, they are all 
 comprehended within the limits of Greek history, properly 
 so called ; and consequently, for the sake of brevity, may be 
 left out of the scope of the present review of the services 
 rendered by the Origines Kalendariie Hellenics to the study 
 of Grecian Antiquity in particular. 
 
 And with respect even to the other Division of this Part, 
 and the contents of the last three volumes — great and unex- 
 pected as may be the light thereby reflected on that which 
 is justly considered the dark, the unexplored, the uncertain, 
 
 •1 II. N. vii. 57. |)ii^-. 27:. ' AnI. Jiul. i. ii, .v ' Advcitisoiiunt t" 
 
 ♦ lie Reader, p. vi. 
 
216 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. it. 
 
 and the controversial period of Grecian antiquity itself, it 
 may still be desirable, for the sake of brevity, to confine the 
 review which 1 propose to institute of the facts brought to 
 light, and of the conclusions established, by the method of 
 proceeding and the kinds of proof peculiar to this work, to 
 a few general heads ; such as i. The earliest history of the 
 ancient Greeks : ii. The Theogouia of the ancient Greeks : 
 iii. The Mythology of the ancient Greeks. 
 
 i. Then, with respect to the earliest history of ancient 
 Greece, 1 have verified the tradition relnting to the Lake of 
 Thessaly ; and through the traditionary date of the Thes- 
 salir.n Peloria, and the ascertained date of the Pythian Insti- 
 tution, and of the Natalis of the Pythian Apollo, and the 
 connection of both with Thessaly in particular from the first, 
 I have probably succeeded in recovering the actual date of 
 the convulsion of nature, which converted the Great Plain of 
 Thessaly from an inland sea into an habitable country — 
 viz. Mesore 17, of the primitive civil reckoning, ^Era Cyclica 
 2425, August 26 of the proleptical Julian reckoning, B. C. 
 1581 : which, by a singular coiacidence, turns out to be also 
 the first of the dates on the Parian Marble, corrected merely 
 by one year, as all its dates, traced upwards from a certain 
 time, required to be ^. And the same discovery enables us 
 very probably also to assign the motives, and the final end, 
 and the approximate date, of the institution of the Amphi- 
 ctyonic council ^. 
 
 ii. I have verified the tradition of Hellenic antiquity rela- 
 tive to the migrations of colonies from Egypt, at diflferent 
 times, to Greece ; by the discovery of one, under Cadmus, 
 to Boeotia, B. C. 1347 ; of another, under Danaus, to Argos, 
 ]^. C. 1346 ; of a third, under Erechtheus or Erichthonius, 
 to Attica, B. C. 1342 ; and I have assigned a sufficient ex- 
 planation of the beginning of those migratory movements in 
 Egypt — whether in the direction of Greece, or in any other 
 — just at tliis time, in the fact of the simultaneous beginning 
 of one of the greatest, and most laborious, and longest of the 
 national works of the ancient Egyptians themselves, the ex- 
 
 f Oriftf,'. Kali Hell. v. 7i9-7_:io. ^ ibid. i. 189: ii. 28. 30 »?. : v. 72S. 
 
 X Ibid. V. 7.?5 sqcj. 
 
s. 9. Origincs Kalendarice Hellenicse, 217 
 
 cavation of the lake of Mojris, first undertaken Ti. C. 1350, 
 three years at least before the first of these colonies to 
 Greece, and prosecuted without interruption for many years 
 afterwards >'. 
 
 iii. I have assigned the probable date of the foundation of 
 Boeotian Thebes —that of the KaS/itia at least — April 8, B.C. 
 13-1'7 ''■ ; and the probable date of that of tiie FloXis of Erecli- 
 theus, as well as of the entire series of early Attic kings, be- 
 ginning with Erechtheus as the first, in the date of his Athe- 
 mra, May 10, B.C. 1312 '. 
 
 iv. I have fixed an epoch in the personal history of Pelops, 
 later than tliat of his coming into Greece, through the date 
 of his CroniuTi institution, June 25, B.C. 1201''. 
 
 V. I have fixed an epoch in early Arcadian history, and in 
 the personal history of one of the reputed founders of tlie 
 Arcadian name and nation, through the date of the Lykiean 
 institution of Lycaon^, April 25, B. C. 1260. 
 
 vi. I have fixed an epoch in the earliest history of Crete, 
 and in the personal history of JNIinos, and in the history of 
 his reforms and legislations in Crete, through the date of his 
 Octaeteric correction, Sept. 23, B.C. 1260''. 
 
 vii. I have fixed an epoch in early Boeotian history in the 
 date of the fifty-nine years' cycle of Alalcomense, July 5, 
 B.C. 1250 e. 
 
 viii. I have probably recovered the date of the institution 
 of the Panionia, among the lonians of the Peloponnese, April 
 21, B.C. 1248 f. 
 
 ix. I have fixed one epoch in early Attic history in the 
 date of the death of Androgens, May 15, B.C. 1216, and an- 
 other, in the date of the first of the three d^aojxol, Sept. 23, 
 B. C. 12 1 1 K. 
 
 " X. I have fixed an epoch in the personal history of tlic 
 Hercules of Greek antiquity, in the date of his Olympian cor- 
 rection of the Cronia of Pelops, Jmie 25, B C. 1240 '». 
 
 xi. I have fixed three epochs in the personal history of 
 Theseus ; the first, in the date of liis Isthmian institution, 
 
 y OrigfT. Kal. Hfll. v. 128. 5H): iv. 42. cf. Fasti, iii. 192 sqq. ' Ibid. 
 
 V. iiS-rfi;. I Ibid. iv. 6i-i?8. ^ Ibid. v. 510-547. c Ibid, 
 
 iv. 567-591. '' Ibid. iv. 388-457. 458-547. ^ Ibid. iv. r)6o-68S. 
 
 ' Ibid. iii. ^7<. 1-' ll)i(l. \\ 500-507. •' Ibid. v. 547-5^10. 
 
218 The /Aree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 June 17, B.C. 1228; the second, in that of the third Aatr/xos, 
 Sept. 23, B. C. 1228 ; the third, in the date of his Panathe- 
 naic institution, July 20, B. C. 1206 '. And I have probably 
 fixed the Natales of the Athens of Theseus, in contradistinc- 
 tion to the rio'Ats of Erechtheus, in the date of the ^vvoiki- 
 (Tfxhs, July 8, B.C. 1206k. 
 
 xii. I have fixed the date of the first expedition against 
 Thebes, through that of the Nemean institution. May 17, 
 B. C 1222 ; and that of the second expedition, through the 
 date of the second Nemea, May 17, B.C. 1202". 
 
 xiii. I have probably fixed the date of the colony from 
 Argos to Rhodes, under Tlepolemus, and of the foundation 
 of the three cities, Lindus, Jalysus, and Camirus, on or 
 about July 27, B.C. 1206 m. 
 
 xiv. 1 have verified the tradition of Hellenic antiquity re- 
 lative to the War of Troy ; both in the date of the prepara- 
 tions, B. C. 1200, and in the date of the expedition, B. C. 
 1190, and in the date of the capture, B.C. 1181, and in the 
 date of the return, B. C. 1180^. 
 
 XV. I have recovered the probable date of the Delia of clas- 
 sical antiquity, April 25 B. C. 1181". 
 
 xvf. 1 have fixed an epoch in the early history of Rhodes, 
 in the date of the Haleia, August 25 B. C. 1181, and that of 
 the Tlepoleraeia, August 25 B. C. 1180 P. 
 
 xvii. I have fixed an epoch in early Bceotian history, that 
 of the return from Thessaly, and the recovery of Thebes, 
 through the date of the Parthenian institution, June 1, 
 B.C. 1117M. 
 
 xviii. I have fixed the year of the return of the Heraclidae, 
 B. C. 1097, through the date of the Carnean Ennead, August 
 19 B.C. 1096'"; and that of the final settlement of the 
 Spartans by the reduction of Amyclse, through the date of 
 the Hyakinthian or Amyclsean Ennead, July 17 B.C. 1072s. 
 
 ii. With respect to the Theogonia of the ancient Greeks, 
 i. I have traced the \)yKa[a or "Oy/ca of Boeotian antiquity up 
 to the Isis of the Egyptians, brought into Boeotia by Cadmus, 
 
 ' Origg. Kal. Hell. vi. 240-265 : iv. 43-60 : 507-526 : v. 266. •< Ibid, 
 
 iv. 60. 1 Ibid. vi. 157-175. ™ Ibid. v. 263-268. « Ibid. vi. 
 
 454-478 n. 501-567. " Ibid. vi. 86-120. r Ibid. v. 235-'26S. 
 
 '1 Ibid. V. 346-361. ^ Ibid. v. 3S1 406. s Jhid. v. 428-452. 
 
8. 9- Origines Kalendarice Hellenicae. i2 1 9 
 
 B.C. ISJ;/*; and the lo or Hera of Argive antiquity to the 
 Isis of Danaus, B.C. 1316^; and the Athena of Attic anti- 
 quity to the Neith of Sais, B. C. 134-2 ><; and the Demeter of 
 Eleusis to her prototype also in the Egyptian Isis, B. C. 
 1310 y; and the Athena of Alalcomenje to the Athena of 
 Krechtheus, and through that the Neith of Sais, B. C. 1250 ■'■ ; 
 and the Itonia of Thessaly (probably of equal antiquity with 
 the Athena of Alalcomen?e a) to the Egyptian Isis also. 
 
 ii. I liave ascertained the birthplace of the Cronos and the 
 Khea of the Greek Theogonia, the island of Crete ; and the 
 date of the first introduction there of the name and the wor- 
 ship of both, Sept. 23 B. C. 1300^. 
 
 iii. I have traced the first conception of the idea of the 
 gods and goddesses of the classical Olympus itself, to the 
 island of Crete also, and to the six Cosraogonic powers or 
 principles of Minos, B. C. 1260, Histia and Pluto, Deo and 
 Posidon, Hera and Zeus<^. 
 
 iv. I have probably assigned the date of the introduction 
 of the name and worship of the Posidon of classical antiquity 
 into the Peloponnese, through the date of the Panionian 
 institution, April 24 B. C. 1248 '». 
 
 V. I have assigned the date of the introduction of the 
 name and worship of the Olympic Zeus into the Pelopon- 
 nese, through the date of the Olympic institution of Hercules, 
 June 25 B.C. 1240 «. 
 
 vi. I have assigned the date of the introduction of the 
 name and worship of the Hellenic Dionysos, through that 
 of the Dionysian correction of Mclampus, Sept. 7 B. C 
 1230f. 
 
 vii. I have ascertained the date of the first conception, 
 and first introduction of the name and worship, of the Hel- 
 lenic Apollo, the Hellenic Artamis or Artemis, and the 
 Hellenic Lato, through that of the Pythian institution, Au- 
 gust 20 B.C. 1222f?. 
 
 viii. I have pointed out the mode, and probably the time, 
 of the adoption of the Athena of Erechtheus, the Athena of 
 
 t OripR. Kal. IIill. v i6r. * Iliid. v. 96: vi. ^04-208 n. ^ Ibid. iv. 5-21. 
 y Ibid. iv. 212-22S. /. Ibid. iv. 66.? 11. a Ibid. ii. 482-4S8. 
 
 >> Ibid. iv. .{54-388. 4.^6-441. c \hu\. iv. 414 4^7. '' Ibid. iii. ^,f^^-}fi^. 
 
 r Ibid. V. 547 560. f Ibid. V. ;H-io.i;. ' Ibid. v. 6?.<;-7i9. 
 
220 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ir. 
 
 the earlier Greek suitiqiiity, into the lamily of the Olj'mpic 
 gods, and in tlie relation of the daughter of Zeus, B. C. 
 12{)6f 
 
 ix. I have probably fixed the time of the introduction of 
 the name and worship of the Arcadian Pan, properly so 
 called, in the date of the Arcadian correction, Dec. 26 
 B. C. 493 ^'. 
 
 iii. With respect to the mythology of the ancient Greeks. 
 It did not come within the proper scope and comprehension 
 of any part of this present work to enter ex professo on the 
 explanation of the fables of antiquity : but such of those of 
 Greek mythology as fell in the way of this third Part, in the 
 prosecution of its proper argument, it has explained. And 
 among these will be found some of the most singular of the 
 number, and the least capable, at first sight, of am' rational 
 explanation. As i. The fable of the devouring of his children 
 b}' Cronos, all but Zeus, and their I'estoration by him to life 
 again'' ii. The fable of the Minotaur i. iii. The fable of the 
 War of the Gods and the Titans ^. iv. The fable of the 
 Dragon and the teeth of the Dragon, and of the Sparti, of 
 Cadmus; and through the analogy of that, the cognate fable 
 of the Dragon and the Sparti of ^Eetes, and the Golden 
 Fleece 1. v. The fable of Ino and ^Melikertes, Phrixus and 
 Helle™. vi. The fable of the Telchines, and that of the 
 Fleliad.T, of Rhodes", vii. The fable of the Pytho°. viii. The 
 fable of the cow of Cadmus p. ix. The fable of TityusM. 
 X. The Delian fable of Anius and the OlvoTp6-noi ••. 
 
 I.astly, to specify the services rendered by this Part of the 
 Origines to Greek literature in particular, as well as to Grecian 
 antiquity in general, i. it has recovered the calendar of the 
 Anabasis of Xenophon, with the help of which we are enabled 
 to trace the chronolog}' of the expedition from day to day, 
 almost from first to last ^ ii. It has recovered the calendar, 
 and with tlic calendar, the chronology, of the Argonautica of 
 Apollonius Khodius also', iii. It has recovered the calendar, 
 and through that the chronology, and tlie date of the com- 
 
 ' Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 135-14V 443, 44+: v. 266. \; Ibid. iv. 619. 
 
 h Ibid. iv. 421-441. • Ibid. iv. 469. ^ Ibid. iv. 527. ' Ibid. 
 
 V. 144-15.^. 167 sqq. Ill Ibid. vi. 249. " Ibid. v. 269-280. 2S0-2S4. 
 
 " Ibid. V. 634-672. I' Ibid. v. 154. <l Ibid v. 377. r Ibid. vi. 99-107. 
 
 s Ibid. ii. 21.1-264. * Ibid, v 284-333. 
 
s. lo. Origincs Kalendarice Italicae. 221 
 
 position, of the Posthomerica of Quintus Calaber, or Quintus 
 of Smyrna^'. But iv. The principal service of this kind, (as 
 all the admirers of classical literature will allow.) is the light 
 which this third Part will be found to have thrown on the 
 subjects of controversy relating to the Iliad and the Odyssey, 
 — the individual personality of the author of each, and the 
 date of the composition of each — by the proof of the fact that 
 the natural annual time, the natural lunar time, and the 
 annual civil time, recognised in these two poems throughout, 
 are critically the natural annual, and the natural lunar, time 
 of B. C. 910 and 1>. C. 909, and the annual civil time of the 
 corresponding years of the primitive y3^ra Cyc. 3097 and 
 3098 respectively, — and by the inference which necessarily 
 follows from those facts, that these two poems were either 
 written in these two years, (one of them in 13. C. 910, the 
 other in B. C. 909,) or, whensoever they were written, must 
 have been purposely adapted to thcm^. 
 
 Section X. — On the serinces rmdcred bi/ the Origines Kalen- 
 darite Italicee to the study o/" Italian or Roman Antiquity. 
 i. The Origines Kalendarije Italicse, (the second Part of 
 tlie Fasti and Origines in general,) have rendered the student 
 of Italian or Roman antiquity an essential service, by ascer- 
 taining the date of the first of the corrections of the primitive 
 equable calendar, peculiar to ancient Italy, the Umbrian 
 type of the Nundinal correction, July 19 B. C. 1310, and 
 thereby fixing the probable beginning of society or civiliza- 
 tion itself in Italy — with the arrival of the first body of 
 settlers in that country from abroad. And not the less so, 
 by having traced also the first idea of this peculiar cor- 
 rection, which I have called the Nundinal, through its 
 resemblance to the Phoenix period of the Egyptians, ulti- 
 mately to l^gypt; and thereby confirming the native tradition 
 of Italy itself, that the oldest of its inhabitants, the Umbrians, 
 came originally from ICgyptx. 
 
 ii. They have rendered him a similar service by tracing the 
 idea of the Nundinal correction, thus originated, from the 
 
 V Orig^. Kal. Hell. iii. 2G-j-2i)t. « Ibid. \i. 28(;-3r)i'. 400-500. 
 
 >' Oritjq. Kal. Ifal. ii. 341-370. ?,lo-y,},. 373-3»!^- 
 
222 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. cii. ir. 
 
 Umbrian type, with which it began, through four more, 
 each of them peculiar to and characteristic of a different 
 people of ancient Italy ; the first, of the ancient Sabini ; the 
 second, of the Prisci Latini ; the third and the fourth, of 
 the ancient Etrurians : and by means of the dates of these 
 subscqnent types respectively, enabling him to approximate 
 to the probable date of the rise of these national distinctions 
 in Italy themselves, and to judge of their comparative antiquity 
 — of that of the Nomen Sabinum, through the date of the 
 second type, as not younger in Italy than B. C. 1220 ; of that 
 of the PrisciLatini, through the date of the third, not younger 
 than B. 0. 1100 ; and of that of the Etrurians, through the 
 dates of the fourth and the fifth, not younger than B. 0. 980 
 or 860, in any case, and in reality, (under the special circum- 
 stances of the case,) not younger than B. 0. 1220 z. 
 
 iii. The Origines Kalendaria3 Italicse, along with the Hel- 
 lenics also, have brought to light a very probable proof of 
 the derivation of the Prisci Latini of Italy, (and thereby the 
 only true explanation of their peculiar name on any rational 
 principle,) as a colony from Latos in Crete — which migrated 
 to Italy, in consequence of the innovations of Minos, in B. 0. 
 1260 ^ 
 
 iv. They have ascertained also the date of the supposed 
 first appearance of the Etruscan Tayes, and of the rise 
 of the Tagetic doctrine and discipline, at tlie epoch of the 
 fifth type of the Nundinal correction in general, that of 
 the second of the Etruscan in particular, March 25, B. C. 
 860: and along with it that of the decursus of Sa)cula, in 
 the period of 110 equable years. And they have traced this 
 decursus from the first of the number, vEra Cyc. 3147, B. C. 
 860, to the end of the last, ^ra Cic. 4246, Nab. 987, A. D. 
 239 ^>. 
 
 V. They have demonstrated the derivation of the Nundinal 
 correction of Romulus from the second Etruscan type, at the 
 end of its first period of 110 years, /Era Cyc. 3257, B.C. 
 750 c. 
 
 vi. They have traced the succession of the Nundinal day, 
 
 " Origg. Kal. Ital. i. Prelim. Add. .\-.\v : ii. 388-558. " i. 374-377- cf. 
 
 Origg. Kal. Hell. iv. 563 n. •' Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 558. .S81-599. 604-636. 
 
 c Ibid. i. 102-133. 133-J51. 
 
s, lo. Origines Ktdendaria' Italics. 223 
 
 in the Nundinal cycle of 8 days perpetually, through these 
 five types of the Nundinal calendar in general (including 
 that of Romulus also), and the different forms of the Roman 
 calendar, from the correction of Xuma downwards, without 
 interruption or discrepancy of any kind, either inter se, or as 
 referrible to contemporary testimony, from the epoch of ori- 
 gination, July 19, B.C. 1310, the /eria 1'' of the Nundinal 
 cycle, the feri a 7* of the Hebdomadal cycle, down to Jan. 1, 
 
 A. D. S5~), the ferin 1* of the Nundinal and the feria 1^ 
 of the Hebdomadal cycle, known from testimony at that 
 time«i. 
 
 vii. They have verified the traditionary account of the 
 conception of Romulus'". They have verified the tradition- 
 ary date of the Foundation '. They have verified the tra- 
 ditionary account and traditionary date of the death of 
 Romulus S. 
 
 viii. They have fixed an epoch in the personal history of 
 Numa Pompilius, through the date of his correction of the 
 Primitive calendar, Feb. 17, B. (J. 712''. 
 
 IK. They have brought to light the fact of the revival of 
 the Nundinal calendar of Romulus, (yet without any change 
 in the calendar of Numa, previously in use,) by Servius Tul- 
 lius. along with the institution of tlie Census, and the Lustral 
 cycle, B. C. 552 ; and tliey have traced the Lustral cycle in 
 this Nundinal calendar, as well as in the Civil calendar of the 
 time being, from its first epoch, B. C. 552, to its second, 
 
 B. C. 304.; and from its second, B. C. 304, to its third, B. C. 
 80; and from its third, B.C. 80, to its transition into the 
 cycle of Indiction, A. D. 315 '. 
 
 X. They have fixed the date of the Rcgifugc, June 29, 
 B. C. 508, and the date of the first consulship, the next day ; 
 and consequently the interval taken up by the reigns of the 
 kings of Rome, from the Foundation, April 24, B. C. 750, 
 to the Regifuge and first consulate^ June 29 and 30, B. C. 
 508 k. 
 
 xi. They have recovered the Julian dates, (June 20-23,) 
 and traced the cycle, of the Ludi Saecularcs of the Romans, 
 
 '• C)rigg. Kill. Ital. ii. 341-710. <f. iv. pag. xxxii-cxv. «-' i. 326-338. 
 
 ' i. 102-117: ii. 604-613. P i. 11S-118. rf.303-326. ti i. 196-204 3(|(|. 
 
 ' ii. 262. 270. 2S4-289. 319 329. ^ ii. 133-143. 175. 2.S0. 
 
224 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 both those of the period of 110 years, and those of the period 
 of 100/. 
 
 xii. They have fixed the date of the capture of the city by 
 the Gauls, Aug. 2, B. C. 389 ■". 
 
 xiii. They have indicated the corrections required to adapt 
 the Fasti Consulares of Varro to the true succession of the 
 consulships, from the Rcgifuge downwards". 
 
 xiv. They have investigated and fixed the beginning of the 
 consular year, according to the rule of the ingress for the 
 tiine being, whether the Kalendse Januaria) (as at first), or 
 the Ides of December, or the Id(;s of Martins, or the Kalendie 
 Januarise again «. 
 
 XV. They have traced the decursus of Roman Kalends and 
 the cycle of the Nundinal day in conjunction, from the first 
 KalendiB Januarise in the correction of Numa, Feb. 17, B. C. 
 712, to the first Kalendse Januarise in the Deceraviral cor- 
 rection, Dec. 29, B. C. 449, verifying both by the necessary 
 proofs perpetually P. 
 
 xvi. They have authenticated the Roman tradition of the 
 mission of Decemvirs to Greece, by the relation of the De- 
 cemviral correction to the calendar of Solon for the time being, 
 and the final end of the correction, discoverable from itq. 
 
 xvii. They have traced and verified, as before^ the decursus 
 of Kalends and the cycle of the Nundinal day, from the first 
 Kalenda? Januariai in the Decemviral correction, Dec. 29, 
 B. C. 449, to the first Kalendse JanuariiB in the Kalendarium 
 Vagum, or Irregular calendar, Dec. 29, B. 0. 209 f. 
 
 xviii. They have assigned the moving cause of the aban- 
 donment of the regular cyclical rule of the administration of 
 the calendar, and of the substitution of an irregular adminis- 
 tration in its stead; and from the final end of the irregularity 
 itself, they have been enabled to divine and assign the rules, 
 by which only that end could be attained perpetually — and 
 consequently the rules of the irregular administration itself ^ 
 
 xix. They have traced this irregular administration, as sub- 
 ject to such rules, both in the cycle of the Kalends and in 
 that of the Nundinal day, from the first Kalendse Januaria) 
 
 1 Origg. Kal. Ital. ii. 643-669. <f 409. 418. "> ii. 144-156. n jj. 
 
 'S7~i74 " "■ '78' 207. 234. 243. P ii. i sqq. 51 sqq. '1 i. 420-433. 
 
 r ii. 29 sqq. 51 sqq. s i. 456-477. 
 
s. lo. Origines KalendaHa Italicie. 225 
 
 in the Kalendarium Vagum, Dec. 29, B. C. 209, to the first 
 Kalendse Januariae in the Julian correction, Dec. 30, B. C. 46 
 — verifying each by the necessary proofs, at almost every 
 point of the intermediate period *. 
 
 XX. They have traced the cycle of Kalends and the cycle 
 of the Nundinal day from the Kalendae Jannaria? in the first 
 year of the Julian correction, U. C. 709, Dec. 30, B. C. IG, 
 to the Kalendic Januariae in the 270th, U. C. 978, Jan. 1, 
 A. D. 225 ; and they have thereby established a fact, as yet 
 unknown to, and even unsuspected by, chronologcrs, that the 
 Julian correction itself, for the first 269 years of the Julian 
 fera, was scai'cely less irregularly administered than the Ka- 
 lendarium Vagura last before it — the motive to the irregu- 
 larity in this instance also having been the same as in that, 
 viz. the still continuing dread of the Nundinal incidence on 
 the Kalends of Januarius ^. 
 
 xxi. They have consequently, as the result of this whole 
 history of the Roman calendar from the first, established the 
 fact beyond the possibility of disproof, that the true date of 
 the Julian correction — as that of a Julian calendar, admini- 
 stered perpetually according to the true law of a simply Julian 
 reckoning, and that, in this case, the proper law of the Julian 
 reckoning of the present system of time from the first — was 
 not the historical date of the correction, the Kalendaj Janua- 
 riie, U.C. 709, (Dec. 30, B. C. 16,) but the Kalendre Janua- 
 ria), U. C. 978; when the actual Julian time of the correction, 
 in the 270th year of its decursus at Rome, and the proper 
 Julian time of the present system of things from the first, in 
 the first year of the xxxvth Julian period of the Tables of 
 the Fasti, both met together, in a state of absolute coinci- 
 dence and equality, in the same Julian term, Jan. 1, A. D. 
 225. And they have pointed out the remarkable concurrence 
 of circumstances, (too plainly indicative of a superintending 
 and controlling Providence, to be overlooked,) by which this 
 coincidence was brought about, not a moment sooner, nor 
 a moment later, than the time when it was necessary it 
 should be". 
 
 * Origg. Kal. Ital. i. 495. ^cx). 518. ii. 30. iii. i -.s;*^. ii. 51 sqq. ' Ibid, 
 
 ii. 39. 4S. .s'- 'V. 1-306. » Ibid. i. Preliminary Address, xxvi. sqq. ii. 706. 
 
 jv. 273 : Origg. Kal. Hell. i. Prolegompna, rvi. sqq. 
 
 Q 
 
226 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 Section XI. — On the services rendered by the Fasti and 
 Origines to Astronomy in particular. 
 
 i. If the principal work of astronomy, even in its most im- 
 proved and perfected state, according to Baillyv, is the deter- 
 mination of the true standard of mean annual, in the sense 
 of mean tropical, time, then the Fasti and Origines, without 
 professing to be the work of an astronomer, or an astrono- 
 mical work at all, and merely in the prosecution of their own 
 inquiries, may claim to have done more for the solution of 
 this problem, than has yet been done ; and among other dis- 
 coveries made b}' these researches, to have supplied for the 
 first time this greatest of all desiderata, according to Bailly, 
 even to the perfection of modern astronomy, the true standard 
 of the mean natural or tropical time of the existing system 
 of things. 
 
 This discovery is the necessary result of the account which 
 was given supra 2, of the constitution and the rule of ad- 
 ministration of the Phoenix Cycle and Phoenix Period of the 
 Egyptians. It appears from that account that 500 mean 
 tropical years and 500 mean Julian years were combined in 
 that cycle perpetually ; the former, of such a standard in 
 comparison of that of the latter, that the epoch of the mean 
 tropical time of the cycle fell back on the epoch of the mean 
 Julian, at the rate of 3 days 21 hours of mean solar time, 
 every cycle of the Period. To find this standard therefore 
 nothing is necessary except to diminish the sum of mean 
 solar time in 500 mean Julian years, (182,625 days,) by 
 3 days 21 hours, and to divide the remainder (182,621 days 
 3 hours) by 500. The quotient of this division is 
 
 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 504 sec, or 365-24 225 days. 
 This must consequently have been the standard of mean tro- 
 pical time combined in the Phrenix Period with the standard 
 of mean Julian, (365-25 days.) perpetually'': and the reader 
 cannot fail to observe it is neither more nor less than the 
 standard of the mean tropical time of the Tables of the Fasti, 
 the standard in which and by which the mean tropical time 
 of the Fasti is brought down in Division B, and the Solar 
 Cycle of the Tables, from the first. 
 
 >■ Fasti, i. 73. z Page 173 sqq. a Fasti, iii. 504. iv. 144. 
 
s, 1 1. Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 227 
 
 This standard therefore of mean annual tropical time must 
 have been familiar to the ancient Egyptians, when they con- 
 ceived the idea, and digested the scheme, and adjusted the 
 details, of their Phoenix Period, B.C. 1847: and yet there is 
 no reason to suppose they had only just discovered it, and 
 for themselves, there and then. There is no reason to believe 
 that either this, or any other, assumption of postdiluvian 
 astronomy, however true to nature, and however agreeable 
 to the opinions or conclusions of modern astronomy on the 
 same points, was self-originated ^\ There is no reason to 
 suppose that the earliest postdiluvian astronomy, in any of 
 its assumptions, however rightly made, rested on any thing 
 but an authority and a prescription derived to the postdilu- 
 vian from the antediluvian world <^. That it must have done 
 so in this particular instance is proved by the readiness with 
 which this standard itself, however true to nature, and how- 
 ever faithfully retained for more than a thousand years, yet, 
 within 50 years of the second revision of the Phoenix Cycle, 
 B. C. 848, was discarded by the Egyptians themselves, to 
 make way for an ideal and imaginary standard of the same 
 kind, founded on purely subjective and arbitrary assumptions. 
 For that never could have been done, if this true standard, 
 instead of having been received on authority, and handed 
 down from one generation of astronomers to another pre- 
 scriptively, had been origiuall}' discovered by observation, 
 and confirmed by observation ever after. It is demonstrated 
 also by the fact that the Mazzaroth sphere, and the Tropical 
 sphere, even as first combined de facto at the epoch of the 
 first Phoenix Cycle, B. C. 1847, were after all only the Maz- 
 zaroth sphere and the Tropical sphere of the beginning; and 
 the actual relations of mean tropical time and mean Julian 
 time inter se, B.C. 1847, were those of B. (J. 4004, 2157 years 
 before, simply as modified by time and precession mean- 
 while*^. 
 
 If so, this standard of mean tropical time, embodied de 
 facto in the first Phoenix Period, 13. 0. 1847, must have been 
 the traditionary standard of that kind received by the post- 
 diluvian from the antediluvian world. And as to its recogni- 
 
 b Fasti, iv. 145. c (f. Origg. Kal. lIcU. iv. 404 : Ori!,'^. Kal. Ital I're- 
 
 liininary Addri'ss, xxiii. xxiv. << I'ajc*' iS.',, supra. 
 
228 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 tion iu the antediluvian world itself, if it really went back 
 even in that to the beginning of mundane time, — if it was 
 neither received from any older tradition, nor yet even then 
 discovered by men for themselves — it must have been one 
 of those Koival ivvoiai, communicated to mankind by their 
 Creator, of which they found themselves in possession, with- 
 out any consciousness of having acquired them for them- 
 selves, from the very moment of their existence^. And what 
 original or archetypal idea of that kind could the Maker of 
 the universe, the Orderer of the solar system, the Author of 
 all its laws, and the Originator of all its movements, commu- 
 nicate to his rational creatures, if he communicated any, 
 except the true? 
 
 Now, though this particular standard of mean annual tro- 
 pical time has never yet been adopted in any of the modern 
 Tables, it is not unknown to modern astronomy ; and one 
 of the greatest of modern astronomers, La Place, has left his 
 deliberate opinion on record, that all modern astronomers, 
 for practical purposes, might agree in the recognition and 
 use of this '. And besides this opinion of one of the greatest 
 of modern authorities on such a question, there are many 
 properties of this standard in particular, which I myself 
 have often had occasion to advert to, and which are well 
 calculated to draw the sttention of astronomers and men of 
 science to a moi'e particular consideration of it, than they 
 have yet bestowed upon it. As i. The proportion of the 
 mean equinoctial time of this standard to the most carefully 
 determined by observation among those of the modern Ta- 
 bles — for instance, that of the Tables of Delambreg; which, 
 B. C. 4004, as I have shewn s, for the same meridian, that of 
 Jerusalem, at 0° 0' 0", was that of absolute equality and 
 identity ; and at the present day, for the same meridian, is 
 only accidentally different — only in proportion to the dif- 
 ference of standards, this of the Fasti and that of Delambre, 
 and the cumulative amount of that difference, between B. C. 
 4004 and any given epoch of the present day. ii. The 
 proportion of mean natural tropical time of this standard, 
 
 e Fasti, iv. 145. f Ibid. iv. 521 : Origg. Kal. Ital. Preliminary Address, 
 
 cxxii. cxxiii. K Fasti, iv. 303-523: Origg. Kal. Ital. Preliminary Address, 
 
 cvii. cxviii. cxxiii. 
 
s. II. Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 229 
 
 and mean natural sidereal time, inter se ; the equality of 
 36524 225 d. the mean tropical year of this standard, in mean 
 solar time, to 36624 225 d., the corresponding mean sidereal 
 year, in mean sidereal time''; and the equality of 25,885 
 mean tropical years of this standard to 25,884 mean sidereal 
 years', iii. The mean annual value of the arc of precession, 
 which makes the difference between mean natural tropical time 
 of this standard and mean natural sidereal, 50"*069 541 ^ ; 
 and the proportion of this in particular to the average value 
 of a number of determinations of the same kind, according 
 to modern astronomy, 50"-07 also '. 
 
 iv. Of all the arguments however which might be urged 
 in favour of this one standard of mean annual tropical time, 
 as designated by nature in that capacity from the first; that 
 on which I sliould be most disposed to insist, and that of 
 which the unscientific and popular reader is almost as com- 
 petent to judge as the man of science himself, is the singular 
 adaptation of tiiis standard of mean annual tropical time, 
 above all others, and that of mean annual Julian, inter se — pre- 
 disposing and qualifying both to go along with each other, in 
 one and the same system of things, like that of the course of 
 time, from the first, and mean natural annual time of this 
 standard in particular to be accompanied and represented by 
 mean Julian perpetually. 
 
 To make this appear, it is necessary simply to explain that 
 mean annual tropical time of this standard of 365 d. 5 h. 
 48 m. 504 sec. and mean Julian of the standard of 365 d. 
 6h. being assumed to have set out together at any epoch; 
 the former must fall back on the latter at the rate of 11 m. 
 96 sec. every year, and at that of 23 h. 59 ra. 384 sec. every 
 129 years — 21 6 sec. less than the entire period of 24 hours 
 of mean solar time in 129 years, and 21 6 sec. x !•, or 86-4 sec. 
 in 129 X Is or 51(5 years. It follows from this fact that, if 
 mean natural time of that standard and mean Julian set out 
 together at any conceivable epoch of the noctidiurnal cycle, 
 
 h Fasti, iv. 147, 148. Preliminary Address, cxxii. > Ibid. iv. 147, 14S. 
 
 556 n. : Introduction to tlic TulWos, 2.»2. 240. 25.^ s(|q. k Introdurtion, 
 
 242 sqq. ' Fasti, iii. 274 u. : Origj?. K;il. Ilcll. i. Prolfi,'onioiia, xxxiii. 
 
 n» Fasti, ii. .?.v Introduction, 30. cf. Orij;g. Kal. Ital. Preliminary .Address, cxix.: 
 Origg. Kal. Hell. i. Prolegonit-na, xx.xviii. 
 
230 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 (say the epoch of midnight), for any meridian (say the me- 
 ridian of the ancient Jernsalem), and in any year (say B. C. 
 400-1), at the end of 510 mean tropical and mean Julian 
 years, while mean Julian time must be found setting out 
 still at the point of midnight, as at first, mean tropical time 
 must be found doing so, ut 86-4 sec. short of the point of 
 midnight. 
 
 Now this defect of mean annual tropical time of this 
 standard on the epoch of origination, the point of midnight, 
 210 sec. every 129 years, 80 4 sec. every 510, would accu- 
 mulate to a day and a night, or one period of 24 hours of 
 mean solar time complete, only in 129 x 4000, or 510 x 1000 
 years, that is, 510,000 years ; 21 6 s. x 4000 or 80-4 s. x 1000, 
 both alike being = 80,400 sec. 24 hours of mean solar time". 
 It follows that mean tropical time of this standard, and mean 
 Julian, once set together at the epoch of midnight, for any 
 meridian, would be predisposed and qualified to go on to- 
 gether, subject to one and the same law of administration — 
 that of returning to the epoch of midnight, in the same year 
 of the cycle of four years, and in the same year of the cycle 
 of 28 years, within 24 hours of mean solar time at least — for 
 510,000 mean tropical years treated as mean Julian perpe- 
 tually ; and even at the end of that great Period — in order 
 to the rectification of this diff'erence at last, and the adapta- 
 tion of the same two kinds of time for the decursus of an- 
 other Period of the same kind also in conjunction, nothing 
 would be necessary except to retain the last Julian type of 
 the first period, as the first Julian type of the second °. 
 
 It is another necessary consequence of the relation of 
 mean tropical time of this standard to mean Julian, that if 
 the diflference between them in one year is 1 1 m. 9"0 sec, in 
 4000 years it must be 11 m. 9 sec. x 4000, or 31 days ex- 
 actly. And this being in the proportion of 3 d. 21 h. every 
 500 years, it is manifest that they who devised the Phoenix 
 Period, and assumed the recession of mean tropical time on 
 mean Julian at 3 d. 21 h. in one of those Periods, could not 
 have been iguoi'ant of the cumulative amount of that reces- 
 sion in 8 periods, or 1000 years. And that they were not 
 
 n Fasti, ii. 27-3,s : iv. 522. 52,^ o Ibid. ii. 35 : iv. 550. 
 
s. 11. Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 231 
 
 ignorant oi" it, but must have coutemplated it from the first, 
 appears not only from other proofs of the fact, (calcuhitcd 
 at least to raise a strong presumption of it P,) but also, and 
 more especially, from the great period of 96 Phoenix cycles, 
 48,000 years, (4000x12), 373 days (31x12), destined to 
 comprehend and to measure the entire recession of mean 
 tropical on mean Julian time all round the calendar of Maz- 
 zaroth ; which, as I have shewn 'i, there is reason to believe 
 the Egyptians must have had in view, at the very first com- 
 bination of the spheres, (the sphere of INIazzaroth and the 
 sphere of Nature,) B.C. 1817. 
 
 It follows too from these relations of mean natural tropical 
 time of this standard to mean Julian, that, if the authors of 
 the Gregorian correction, A.D. 1582, had adopted this stand- 
 ard of 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 50 4 or 365-2 1 225 d. as the standard 
 of the mean natural year, instead of that which they actually 
 adopted, 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. or 365 2425 d., they would have 
 escaped the excess of a day and a night, to which the mean 
 tropical time of the Gregorian correction, in comparison of 
 mean Julian, is liable every 4000 years. The equation of 
 mean Julian time to mean natural of the Gregorian standard 
 requires only the supi)ression of 30 leap-days every 4000 
 years ; and the Gregorian rule of the administration of the 
 civil calendar through that length of time provides for no 
 more'". 
 
 ii. Another important service which the Fasti and Origines 
 may very prol)ably claim to have rendered to astronomy is 
 the discovery of the Pkimarv Meridian. In explanation of 
 this, I observe, that the first absolute beginning — the actual 
 instant of the origination — of one and all of the measures of 
 time which enter the present system of things, as destined to 
 be subject from the first to the proper measure of one of 
 their number, (the Xoctidiurnal cycle,) viz. the period of 24 
 hours of mean solar time, at whatsoever epoch of the Xocti- 
 diurnal cycle it took cftect, must have been adapted to the 
 local peculiarities of some meridian or other — and that meri- 
 dian, of which such a coincidence was liolding good at the 
 
 P Ajipcndix, note HH. i P'asti, iii. .^o.v <f. Oiip;;;. Kul. Hell. vi. 6.^6. 
 
 r Fasti, ii. 32 : iv. 52 1. Origp. Kal. Itul. ricliininaiy A(1<1. txxi. ( Mint;- Kal. 
 Hi'll. Prolog, x.vxi.x 7J. 
 
232 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 time, would be designated by the coincidence itself as Pri- 
 mary in comparison of every other, of which the same coinci- 
 dence was not holding good at the time. And it would be a 
 standing distinction between the Primary meridian, and 
 every Secondary meridian, ever after; that, though every 
 Secondary one would have its proper period of 24 hours, as 
 the measure of its proper noctidiurnal time, and as reckoned 
 from the same epoch too in its proper noctidiurnal cycle, 
 none but the Primary one could have the same measure of 
 its proper noctidiurnal cycle, and from the same epoch of 
 that cycle, in the shape of the period of 24 hours, both in its 
 local time, and in absolute time from the first. And the de- 
 finition of the Primary meridian, under such circumstances, 
 brie% stated, would be as follows ; That, of which both ab- 
 solute time, and local time, reckoned from the same epoch of 
 the noctidiurnal cycle, and in the same period of 24 hours of 
 mean solar time perpetually, began and ended alike ^ 
 
 Now, without insisting on those moral reasons, or those 
 considerations a priori, which might conspire to designate 
 the meridian of the ancient Jerusalem, as the most likely of 
 all to have been constituted the Primary one in this sense f, 
 and to treat this question solely as one of fact, which must 
 be decided by testimony, it appears to me that we possess 
 the necessary testimony of this kind in the oeconomy of the 
 second miracle. It has been shewn that neither of these 
 miracles was directed to such an end or purpose as that of 
 permanently disturbing the original division of the nocti- 
 diurnal cycle into two parts, an evening and a morning — nor 
 the original proportion of these parts, as one of equality, 
 either absolute or relative. It has also been shewn that the 
 temporary disturbance of this proportion, in the first instance, 
 by the addition of 12 hours to the length of the morning 
 half, could be compensated only by the addition of 12 hours, 
 at some subsequent period, to the length of the evening half. 
 And, as the natural terminator of the reckoning of the noc- 
 tidiurnal cycle, in the period of 24 hours, from the first, ac- 
 cording to the primitive rule, was 6 p. m. of mean time per- 
 
 ^ Fasti, ii. 58-67 ; iv. 50,^ sc|(|. Introduction, 213. 215. Origg. Kal. Ital. 
 Preliminary Address, rxiii-rxix. ' Fasti, ii. dy,. Preliminary Address, cxvi. 
 
s. 1 1 . Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 233 
 
 petually, it follows from these premises that, if the addition 
 of 12 hours to the length of the cycle, on the second occa- 
 sion, was made de facto at 6 p. m. mean time, in the local 
 time of any particular meridian also, that meridian must 
 have been the Primary meridian. 
 
 Now that it was made de facto at 6 p. m. mean time for the 
 meridian of Jerusalem, has been shewn both from the other 
 circumstances of the case', and from the fact established of 
 the time of the addition for the meridian of Cai-fong-fou". 
 For if the instant of the addition at Cai-fong-fou was 
 11 24-529 P.M. apparent time, at Jerusalem it must have been 
 6 p. M. m. t. If so, the local time of Jerusalem, and absolute 
 time, measured by the period of 24 hours from 6 p. m. m. t. 
 perpetually, must have been the same ; and the meridian 
 of Jerusalem consequently must have been the Primary 
 meridian. 
 
 iii. Another important service which the Fasti and Origines 
 may perhaps appear to have rendered to astronomy, is this, 
 That, if they have not brought to light the actual standard of 
 mean lunar time, at the beginning of the present system of 
 things, they have made a discovery which approximates 
 closely to it. 
 
 The Primitive solar year, as I have often explained, had 
 its natural lunar cycle ; associated with it too not only by 
 the appointment of nature, but by the use and observance of 
 the civil calendar, from the first. And this natural lunar cycle 
 was so strictly adapted from the first to its natural solar 
 cycle, that it was not liable to fall back upon it at a greater 
 rate than one period of 24 hours, in 24 cycles of 25 years, 
 or 600 equable years. This period of 600 years, as the annus 
 magmis of antediluvian antiquity, has been handed down by 
 Josephus y. And that, while the Primitive equable year was 
 the only one yet in use, no period of 600 years could have 
 been known to the antediluvian world, but some one of COO 
 equable years, it requires no argument to prove — nor yet, 
 that any period of 600 years could have been familiarly 
 known of. or recognised, among them, as an annus 7na(/nus of 
 
 '■ Sii|ira. 101-104. » l^««»' I-- s'lM- ' F.isti, iv. 386. 
 
234 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 its kind, (a period of restitution, correction, or rectification, 
 of any two or more different kinds of time, combined with 
 each other in a cyclical reckoning of some kind,) but the 
 natural solar and the natural lunar cycle of the Primitive 
 equable year, follows also from the same reason of things. 
 
 For that this period of COO equable years did actually mea- 
 sure the defect of true mean lunar time on calendar lunar 
 time in the cycle of 25 equable years perpetually — at first — 
 by the period of 24 hours of mean solar time exactly, we can- 
 not desire a better proof than the fact that, even as brought 
 down in the Tables of the Fasti through ten periods of this 
 kind, from ^ra Cyc. 1 to JEra Cyc. 6001, the defect of 
 true mean lunar time on calendar lunar time in this same 
 cycle of ^25 years perpetually, at this very day is still little 
 more than in the proportion of one period of 24 hours for 
 every 24 cycles of 25 years, or 600 equable years. The 
 Luna prima of the first period of this kind being assumed 
 Mesore 14 of Nabon. Mm Cyc. 0-1, April 29 at midn. B. C. 
 4004, and the Luna prima of every subsequent period Me- 
 sore 14 of Nab. for the time being, we should get the Luna 
 prima of the xith period Mesore 14, Nab. 2741, jEra Cyc. 
 6000-6001, March 20 at midn. A. D. 1992. And the mean 
 new moon of March that year having been March 9, the 
 Luna prima, Mesore 14, Nab. 2741, March 21, the same 
 year, would be even then only twelve da^^s in excess of the 
 truth ''. 
 
 Now the sum of mean solar time in 600 equable years 
 being 219,000, and the number of mean lunar months in 
 24 cycles of 25 equable years being 7416, diminish the former 
 by unity, and divide the remainder, 218 999 days, by 7416; 
 the quotient will be the mean lunar standard of the lunar 
 and solar period of 600 equable years ^, 
 
 29 d. 12 h. 44 m. 4-660 194 sec. 
 Now though the mean lunar momenta are known to be liable 
 to a perpetual accelei'ation at one time, and a proportionable 
 retardation at another*^, the astronomers have furnished us 
 with formulie, by means of which the true mean standard of 
 
 y ApiitiuUx, note II. " Fasti, iv. 388. Appeiuli.v, note KK. 
 
 '> Fasti, ii. 25. iii. 502. iv. 388. 670-67,^ 
 
8. II. 
 
 Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 235 
 
 any former or any later epoch may be obtained, with ap- 
 proximate, if not with absolute, certainty, from that of any 
 epoch at the present day, (for instance, A. D. 1801,) as de- 
 termined by observation. We have therefore for the epoch 
 of 11. C. 1004, 
 
 d. Ii. m. a. 
 
 i. From the period of 6oo years 29 12 44 4-660 194 
 
 From the formula; of Mr. Challisc 29 12 44 4-535 3^'° 
 
 Difference 0124834 
 
 ii. From the period of 600 years 29 12 44 4660194 
 
 From the formulae of Mr. Adams <1 29 12 44 4-475 
 
 Difference o-lSs 
 
 And this difference in either case is so small, that no one 
 could undertake to say it was not to be'aCcounted for a priori 
 by the still existing imperfection of formnlse for so remote 
 an epoch as B. C. 4004-, quite as much as by the possibly in- 
 herent excess of the mean lunar standard of the period of 
 GOO years. 
 
 iv. Among the services rendered by the Fasti and Origines 
 to astronomy, and especially to the history of astronomy, 
 may justly be enumerated the discovery made by them for 
 the first time of such important and interesting facts in that 
 history, as that of the combination of the two spheres, the 
 sphere of nature and the sphere of Mazzaroth — the division 
 of the ecliptic into the lunar mansions — the ultimate deve- 
 lopement of the zodiac, with the zodiacal constellations, and 
 zodiacal figures, out of that division — the names and symbols 
 of the signs, and the reasons on which they were founded. 
 Nor can modern astronomy be indifferent to such facts in 
 the history of its own science in former times, as those of 
 the origin and progress of the corruption of the pure and un- 
 adulterated tradition derived to the postdiluvian astronomy 
 from the antediluvian, by such arbitrary and subjective as- 
 sumptions as those of the doctrine of the Genitura Mntidi, 
 and of the alternate Recension and Precession of the corre- 
 sponding points of the sphere — and the rate of each, one 
 degree in 80 years, and the period of the movement in either 
 
 «■ Fasti, iv. 389. ■• Ibid. 670. 6;.^ 
 
236 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord, ch. ii. 
 
 direction, 10 degrees, 800 years, in the Chaldee sphere, 8 de- 
 grees, 6 10 years, in the Egyptian ^. 
 
 Nor can it be uninterested in the history and explanations 
 of such celebrated periods as the Chaldaic Sossus, Nerus, and 
 Sa7'os — which also has been given in the Fasti^; implying by 
 their proper relation to each other, on the part of those who 
 first conceived the idea of such periods and iu such relations, 
 a clear apprehension of the distinction of mean solar and 
 mean sidereal time. Nor yet in the discovery to which it 
 leads of the origin of the sexagesimal division of the period 
 of 24 hours, and to what people of antiquity it must have 
 been dues, 
 
 Nor can the modern astronomer be indifferent to the his- 
 tory of a still more celebrated period of antiquity, peculiar 
 to his science, that of the ecliptic cycle, commonly called the 
 Sarus — out of what concurrence of circumstances the disco- 
 very of this period, in its simple form, came to be made, and 
 by w hom ; and when it began to be applied to its proper use 
 and purpose, the calculation of solar and lunar eclipses ; and 
 the epochal dates of either kind, assumed by it ; and how far 
 down from those epochs the series of each is capable of being 
 traced. Nor yet to the history of the modification of this 
 simple ecliptic period, more properly to be called the Sarus, 
 subsequently discoverable; first among the Chaldees, B.C. 
 794, and then among the Etrurians, B, C, 619ii. Nor yet to 
 the history of the 465 ecliptic Panselena of Eudoxus'; or to 
 the history and explanation of the sphere of Eudoxus'^; or to 
 that of the sphere of Thales' ; or to the discovery which we 
 are thereby enabled to make of the true time and date of the 
 memorable eclipse of Thales°^ — on all and each of which 
 points nothing is yet know^n, wjiich has anticipated the dis- 
 coveries and explanations contained iu the Fasti and Ori- 
 gines, 
 
 V. Perhaps however the most essential service which they 
 have rendered not to astronomy only, but to chronology in 
 
 <• Fasti, iii. 446. 461. 475 : Origg. Kal, Ital. iii. .^47 sqq, iv. 168. ' Fasti, 
 
 iv. 94 sqq. e Ibid. iv. 94. 9,s, h Ibid. 99. 103 : Oiigij. Kal. Ital. ii. 
 
 480-490. iv. 237 : Origg. Kal. Hell. vi. 647. i Fasti, iv. 1 14 sqq. : Hell. vi. 653. 
 •< Fasti, iv. 131. ' Urigg. Kal. Hell. vi. 630. m Ibid. vi. 654. 
 
s. 1 1. Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 237 
 
 general, will be found to reside in those explanations of the 
 true nature and the i)ropcr rule of administration of pro- 
 leptical Julian time (Julian time which can only be supposed 
 to have had an hypothetical existence), in contradistinction 
 to historical time of the same denomination — whatsoever its 
 epoch, whether B.C. 45 (that of the Julian correction), or 
 A. D. 225 — which have been given, and for the first time, in 
 the Fasti and Origines. 
 
 i. With respect to its nature. It has been clearly esta- 
 blished in this work, i. That Proleptical Julian time, as thus 
 explained, is simply the conventional representative of natural 
 annual time, treated, from the necessity of the case, })ro tem- 
 pore, as Julian : ii. That Julian annual time, thus substituted 
 pro tempore for natural annual, neither was, nor could have 
 been, from the first, any thing but Gregorian Julian": iii. 
 That even simple Julian time, supposed to have come into 
 actual existence at the very beginning of things, must still 
 have set out from the same Julian epoch as this Gregorian, 
 and must have accompanied it ever after as the proper Julian 
 form of this Gregorian": iv. That simply Julian time, coming 
 into being at any epoch in the subsequent decursus of this 
 Gregorian type of natural annual time perpetually, must 
 borrow its epoch of origination from the Gregorian of the 
 time in question, though only to subject it ever after to the 
 law of the simply Julian administration p; v. That the Julian 
 time of the Julian correction itself did not and could not 
 pass into the true Julian time of the present system of things 
 at last, except by conforming to this law, and borrowing its 
 own epoch, the kalends of January, U. C. 978, in the 270th 
 year of its decursus, from the proper Julian, in the sense of 
 Gregorian, epoch of the xxxvth type of the natural Julian 
 time of the Tables, Jan. 1, A. D. 225 — subjecting it ever 
 after to the law of the simply Julian administration of the 
 civil calendar'!. 
 
 And as a necessary consequence of these distinctions in 
 the true proleptical Julian time of the system, it has also 
 been shewn, i. That the equable time of the system, as ne- 
 
 " Origg. Kal. Hell. i. Prolegomena, xlviii. cliii. " Ibid, cliii. f Ibid, clxii. 
 
 n Oripe;. Kal. Mill. i. Froleg. civ. 
 
238 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 cessarily referrible to the Julian of the system perpetually, 
 was of two kinds also from the first, Cyclical-Equable, the 
 standard of which was the Gregorian - Julian time of the 
 system, and Nabonassarian-Equable, referrible to the simply 
 Julian form of that Gregorian perpetually, ii. That Cyclical- 
 Equable consequently from the necessity of the case was 
 liable to stand still at stated times, (those of the egress and 
 the ingress of our Julian Periods,) in terms of its proper 
 Julian time, eight years instead of four, before A. D. 225 as 
 much as after, while Nabonassarian-Equable must descend 
 one day in terms of its proper Julian time every four years 
 perpetually, whether before or after A. D. 225. iii. That 
 Nabonassarian-Equable, coming into existence at any parti- 
 cular time in the subsequent decursus of both, must borrow 
 its Julian epoch of origination from the corresponding Julian 
 date of the Cyclical-Equable of the same epoch, and therefore 
 a proper Gregorian date; though merely, in this case also, 
 to subject this equable epoch, and every other dependent 
 upon it, to the law of such terms in the decursus of equable 
 time in simply Julian time perpetually''. 
 
 ii. With regard to its administration while it was still pro- 
 leptical Julian time, simply the positive or conventional type 
 of natural annual time, treated pro tempore as Julian, in- 
 volving the question of the proper decursus of annual time, 
 so understood, in noctidiurnal and hebdomadal also, and in 
 the proper Julian style of each — though this is confessedly the 
 most difficult problem with which a retrospective chronology 
 at the present day can have to deals, yet this too, I hope, 
 has been satisfactorily cleared up and explained in the Prole- 
 gomena prefixed to the Origines Kalendariae Ilellenicie *. 
 
 This question has now been treated in every conceivable 
 way. i. It has been treated as one of the relation from the 
 first of mean annual Tropical time to mean annual Sidereal ; 
 and the law of the decursus of both in conjunction, in that 
 relation, has been shewn to be that of the descent of mean 
 annual tropical on mean annual sidereal, (which, under the 
 circumstances of the case, was the same thing as the descent 
 
 •■ ()rit{g. Kal. Ili-ll. i. Prolour. clvi-clxix. '^ Ibid. Preface, ]>ago ix. 
 
 ' Pa^e xxi sq(|. 
 
s. II. Services rendered by the Fasti to Astronomy. 239 
 
 of mean annual tropical time on itself,) two terms, cyclically 
 reckqncd, in the order of noctidiurnal or hebdomadal, and 
 two terms in the order of the Julian notation, from period to 
 period, down to A. D. 225 at least v. 
 
 ii. It has been treated as a question of the relation of mean 
 tropical time and mean sidereal alike to mean Julian ; and 
 the law of the dccursus of both, in that relation perpetually, 
 lias been found to be that of the law of recession in the 
 epoch of tropical time, and the law o( precession in the epoch 
 of sidereal, on the epoch of Julian, (remaining stationary and 
 the same with itself perpetually,) at the rate of one feria, 
 cyclically reckoned, in the oider of noctidiurnal or hebdo- 
 madal respectively, and of one term in the order of the 
 Jnlian notation respectively, from Period to Period''. 
 
 iii. Lastly, it has been argued y as simply a question of the 
 reckoning of noctidiurnal and hebdomadal time, as what it is 
 per se, and consequently reckoned agreeably to the law of 
 the noctidiurnal in the hebdomadal succession, from the same 
 epoch of the noctidiurnal cycle, or the same feria of the 
 hebdomadal perpetually — and as what it is as making part of 
 natural annual time, and reckoned agreeably to the law of 
 the decursus of noctidiurnal time in annual, from the head 
 or epoch of the natural year perpetually. And these two 
 conditions (that of the reckoning of noctidiurnal and hebdo- 
 niadal time per se, from a given epoch of the noctidiurnal 
 cycle on a given feria of the hebdomadal perpetually, and 
 that of the reckoning of noctidiurnal and hebdomadal time, 
 as entering into and making part of annual, from the head 
 of the natural year perpetually) being incompatible with 
 each other, except at the beginning and the end of our 
 Periods respectively, — it is manifest that, under the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, the rule of administration of both 
 in practice conjointly must be of the nature of a com- 
 promise, whereby noctidiurnal and hebdomadal time, as 
 making up the proper annual time of every period, for the 
 first half of its decursus in that relation, should be reckoned 
 from midnight on the feria of origination, and for the second 
 
 " Orii^i;. Kill Moll. I'loloij. xxi-xxxi : li-lviii. x Ibid. I'lolcs^. p. rxviii-clii. 
 
 y Iliid. r\] )i. 
 
240 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. ch. ii. 
 
 half from midnight on the feria next before that of origina- 
 tion. And this, it is manifest, must be the true explanation of 
 the phenomenon for which we have to account — the actual 
 descent of mean natural annual time, so long as this rule of 
 reckoning its proper noctidiurnal time was still the only one 
 which, under the circumstances of the case, could apply to it 
 and be in force — two terms instead of one, in the order of 
 hebdomadal, from period to period perpetually z. 
 
 z Appendix, note LL. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 Note A, page 2. The tlifferent kinds of annual time, which have made 
 part of the existins; system of things from the first, being assumed as 
 Five in number, two of them positive or civil, the other three natural 
 — (the two former, Kcjualjle solar and mean or actual Julian, the three 
 latter, mean 'lVo])ical, mean Sidereal, and mean Anomalistic — ) Equable 
 solar is the cycle of 365 days and nights ; mean Julian is the cycle of 365 
 days, 6 hours, (365-25 d.); actual Julian is the cycle of 365 days and nights 
 every three years in succession, and of 366 every fourth year : mean Tro- 
 pical, in the standard of the Fasti, is the cycle of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 
 minutes, 50-4 seconds, or 36524225 d. ; mean Sidereal is the cycle of 
 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 9567 454 798 331, or 365256 360 734 53"; 
 mean Anomalistic is the cycle of 365 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, 53-482 
 430465 seconds '^ 
 
 Of these three kinds of Natural annual time, the true measure of mean 
 natural annual time, in the sense of an entire revolution of the earth about 
 the sun, or from a given point in its orbit to the same again, perpetually, 
 is the mean sidereal year ^ ; in the sense of the revolution of the 
 seasons, or of the cycle of natural jjroduction, (and consequently of that in 
 which mankind always have had and still have the greatest interest,) it is 
 the mean tropical year. Mean anomalistic too is as much an integral 
 constituent part of the natural annual time of the existing system of 
 things as mean sidereal or mean tropical, and perhaps to the unity and 
 integrity of the system the most essential of all*'. 
 
 Mean annual tropical time is reckoned from the intersection of the plane 
 of the equator and the jjlane of the ecliptic, or o o'o" of the sphere, per- 
 petually. Mean annual Sidereal is reckoned from some fixed point in the 
 orbit of the earth or the sun to the same again, perpetually ; which point, 
 as the ei)och of the true mean sidereal time of the present system of things, 
 may be assumed to have been the intersection of the ecliptic, and an arc 
 of the sphere, connecting the two stars Beta and Zeta Tauri, at the mean 
 vernal eijuinox, li. ('. 4004 ; one of which (Beta) was standing at that time 
 about 4 N. of the ecliptic, and the other (Zeta) about 4 S. of the same^. 
 Mean annual anomalistic time, as I have already explained, is reckoned 
 
 " CI', (hitic.. Kill, llfll. i. Prnlcj;. cxxii. '• (f liilioiluctiim to tlic 'I'iiIjIcs, 
 
 r40-24.^ 202 ;o6. ■■ Origg. Kul. Hell. i. I'rolfg. xxi-.wvii. '' C'f. 
 
 Introduction, 202-206. 243. Fa^ti, iv. 509-512. 520 (<f. 669, 670), 556 «. 
 • Fasti, iii. 258-268. Introduction, 241, 242. 
 
242 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 from one arrival of the mean sun at the apogee or perigee of the solar orhit 
 to another, perpetually. 
 
 The length of the mean Sidereal year and that of the mean Anomalistic 
 of the Fasti, in the mean motion of the Tables, are obtained from that of 
 the mean TropicaK; and should it be objected to this latter that it appears 
 to have been arbitrarily assumed and without any previous proof of the 
 truth of the assumption, the answer to that objection will be found both 
 in the Fastis, and in the last section of chapter ii of the present work. 
 
 The annual difference of these four kinds of annual time, mean Julian, 
 
 mean Tropical, mean Sidereal, and mean Anomalistic, inter se, is as 
 
 follows li : 
 
 in, s. 
 
 i. Mean Julian and mean Tropical . . . . ii g-6 
 
 ii. Mean Sidereal and mean Julian . . . . 9 9.567 454 798 
 
 iii. Mean Anomalistic and mean Julian . . 13 53482430465 
 
 iv. Mean Sidereal and mean Tropical . . . . 20 19-167 454 798 
 
 V. Mean Anomalistic and mean Tropical . , 25 3-082430465 
 
 vi. Mean Anomalistic and mean Sidereal . . 4 43-914975666 
 
 Mean Tropical time, mean Sidereal, and mean Anomalistic being all 
 supposed to have set out from the same given point in space, or the same 
 given point of the sphere, the intersection of the arc of conjunction of the 
 two stars Beta and Zeta Tauri with the ecliptic, in 0° o' o", for the meri- 
 dian of the ancient Jerusalem, B.C. 4004; mean sidereal is the only one 
 of them which has returned to and set out from this epoch of origination, 
 every year, since. Mean Tropical has fallen back upon it every year at 
 the rate of 5o"-o69 54i in angular motion, 20 min. 19.167454798 sec. in 
 mean solar time, and mean Anomalistic has advanced upon it every year 
 at the rate of ii"-66 + 5o"-o69 541, or 6i"-729 54i in angular motion, 
 25 min. 3-082430645 in mean solar time'. 
 
 Mean Anomalistic time having thus taken its rise at 0° o' o" of the 
 sphere, for the proper meridian, B.C. 4004, and the line of the Apsides, 
 as it is called, (the line which connects the apogee and the perigee of the 
 solar orbit,) and the line of the Equinoxes, (the line which connects the 
 vernal and autumnal equinox,) having consequently at that time coincided ; 
 it is very important to observe that two of the most obvious conditions 
 which might be expected a priori to characterize and define the absolute 
 epoch of a mixed system of time, like the present, were holding good at 
 that time, which have never held good since ; one, that all these kinds of 
 time being intended to take their origin from the vernal equinox, it made 
 no difference at that time whether they were reckoned from the mean 
 vernal equinox, or from the time — because at this moment there was no 
 difference between the mean vernal equinox and the true itself; the other, 
 that all being destined to be measured from this time forward by the period 
 of 24 hours perjietually, it made no difference at this time whether this 
 ])eriod itself were reckoned in mean time, or in true, in the sense of appa- 
 
 f (;f. Introd. 202-206. 240-243. P iv. 144. h Cf. Introd. Ixxxii. 
 
 Tables xxxiv-xxxix. Also, p. 244. ' Cf. Introd. 242, 243, 244. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Notes and Explanations. 
 
 21-3 
 
 rent, because at this time mean lime and true, in the sense of apparent, 
 were the same''. 
 
 Note B, page 4. It was characteristic of the Primitive Civil Calendar 
 to have no names for its months, except those of order and number, the 
 first, the second, &c.i Proper names appear to have been given to the 
 months first by the Egyptians ; and, in my opinion, at the epoch of the 
 Sothiacal Period, IJ.C. 1350"!. 
 
 I borrowed these names for the use of the Equable Calendar of the 
 Fasti " ; and, for the sake of future reference in the present work also, it 
 may be desirable to subjoin them here too. 
 
 Equable solar Calendar of Primitive Antiquity, under the Egyptian 
 names of the Months. 
 
 Month 
 
 Lengtii. 
 
 Names. 
 
 
 30 days 
 
 Thoth 
 
 ii 
 
 30 •• 
 
 Phaophi 
 
 iii 
 
 30 ■• 
 
 Athyr 
 
 iv 
 
 30 .. 
 
 Chceac 
 
 V 
 
 30 •• 
 
 Tybi 
 
 vi 
 
 30 •• 
 180 
 
 Mecheir 
 
 Month. Length. Names. 
 
 vii 30 days Phamenoth 
 
 viii 
 
 30 ■ 
 
 Pharmuthi 
 
 ix 
 
 30 • 
 
 Pachon 
 
 X 
 
 30 • 
 
 Paiini 
 
 xi 
 
 30 • 
 
 Epiphi 
 
 xii 
 
 30 . 
 
 Mesore 
 
 360 
 
 Appendices, Epagomenae, Supplementary days 5 
 
 365 
 
 Note C, page 5. Mazzaroth is an Hebrew term, which occurs in that 
 form, Job xxxviii. 32, and in the form of Mazzaloth, 2 Kings xxiii. 5. 
 In each case the thing denoted by it is the ecliptic, in general, but as made 
 up of the twelve signs, in particular°. 
 
 For the explanation of the sphere of Maizaroth, see infra chap. ii. 
 sect. ivP. 
 
 Note D, page 8. When we consider that a given term in the mean 
 tropical year cannot fall on a given term in the mean Julian for more than 
 129 years together, and that when a given term in the former has once 
 ceased to fall on a given term in the latter, it must fall on every day in the 
 mean Julian year, reckoned backwards, before it can begin to fall on it 
 again ; we shall see that simply to bring back the same term in the mean 
 natural year to the same in the mean Julian must require a period of 
 365-25 X 129 years, or 47 1 17-25 years at least. 
 
 And when we consider further that, whatsoever the epoch of the Nocti- 
 diurnal cycle, (sunset, sunrise, midnight, or noon,) at which t/iis term in 
 the mean tropical year set out along with that term in ihc moan Julian, 
 
 •' Fasti, ii. i ^o-l ^7. Origt;. Kal. Itul. Pnlim. Add. cxi. cxiii. ' CT. l''a.sti, 
 
 1.5(^9. Urimu'.Kal.'Hell. i.84 sqq. '" Cf Fasti, iv. 18;. 184. " Cf. Iiitrod. 
 
 44-48. " Fasti, iii. 250 s(|(|. i' Cf. Iiitrnd. 194. 196. ['iiijo ii, Tatilo 1. 
 
 l< 2 
 
244 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 even at the end of 129 years it would not return to that epoch of the 
 noctidiurnal cycle, but to one, 21-6 sec. in anticipation of it; and further, 
 that this small defect of 21-6 sec. on the epoch in question would accumu- 
 late to an integral cycle of day and night measured by the period of 24 
 hours perpetually only in 4000 periods of 129 years, 516000 years, we 
 shall see that to bring back the same term in the mean tropical year to the 
 same term in the mean Julian, and to the same epoch of the noctidiurnal 
 cycle, both at once, would require a period of 365-25 x 129 x 516000, 
 or 24 312 501 000 years at least. 
 
 And further, when we consider that though this period of 129 x 4000, 
 or 516000 years would bring back the same term in the mean tropical 
 year to the corresponding one in the mean Julian, at the same epoch of 
 the noctidiurnal cycle, and in the same year of the cycle of leap-year, it 
 would not bring it back to the same/eri«, and the same epoch of that /ma, 
 of the Hebdomadal cycle, (or, what is the same thing, to the same year of 
 the cycle of 28 years,) it will be evident that to bring back the same term 
 in the mean tropical year to the corresponding one in the mean Julian, 
 and to the same epoch in the noctidiurnal cycle, and the same feria in the 
 hebdomadal, all at once, would require a period of 516 000 x 7, or 3 612 000 
 years, drawn into and compounded with a period of 365-25 x 129, that is, 
 a period of 170 187 507 000 years. 
 
 And these considerations may give the reader an idea of the magnitude 
 of the period which would be necessary even for the purpose of restoring 
 the relations of origination of none of the kinds of time which enter the 
 present system of things, but the mean tropical and the mean Julian, and 
 in no other respects but these, of the same epoch of the noctidiurnal cycle, 
 the same feria of the hebdomadal, the same nominal natural, and the 
 same nominal Julian style, in the same year of the cycle of leap-year, and" 
 in the same year of the solar cycle, or cycle of 28 years. 
 
 But this is not all. For if natural mean lunar time, as having entered 
 the same system of things from the first, is also to be taken into account, 
 and a period is consequently to be found which would bring back the 
 mean tropical time and the mean Julian and the mean lunar time of the 
 system, all at once, to the relations of origination, perpetually ; in the first 
 place, as no lunar and solar cycle is competent to restore mean lunar time 
 and mean solar in the sense of Julian to the same Julian date of both 
 perpetually but the cycle of 19 years; it is evident that this cycle would 
 be wanted for that purpose. Secondly, as even the cycle of 19 years 
 could not bring back the same mean lunar time to the same mean Julian 
 for more than 16 cycles of 19 years, 304 mean Julian years, the cycle of 
 19 years, in tlie shape of the period of 304 years, would be wanted also. 
 Thirdly, as true mean lunar time, having once ceased to fall on a given 
 Julian term in the first year of one of these cycles, and the fiist year of 
 one of these periods, could not fall on it again until it had fallen on every 
 term in the Julian year, reckoned backwards, in its turn; we should see 
 that even to restore the same lunar term to the same Julian, in the same 
 year of the Metonic cycle of 19 years, and in the same year of the period 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 245 
 
 of 304 yearn, as at first, would require a period of 365-25 x 304, or 1 1 1 036 
 years at least. 
 
 And, if we considered that though this period would hrinir back tlie 
 same lunar term to the same Julian in the same year of the cycle of 19 
 years, or of the period of 304 years, and to the same epoch of the nocti- 
 diurnal cycle, it would not do so to the same feria of the hebdomadal 
 cycle ; we should perceive that, in order to restore a yiven lunar and ayiven 
 solar term, in a given year of the cycle of 19 years and period of 304 years, 
 to the same ej)och of the noctidiurnal cycle and the same feria of the 
 hebdomadal, must require a period of 365-25 x 304 x 304 x 7, or 2128, 
 that is, 236 284 608 years. 
 
 And this being the case, it will follow that to find a period, which should 
 be comjietcnt to bring back the first day of the mean tropical time of the 
 present system, treated perpetually as mean Julian, to the yerm prima of 
 the hebdomadal cycle at midnight, in the Julian style of April 25 at mid- 
 night, and the first day of the mean lunar time of the sy&cem to the feria 
 quinta at midnight, in the Julian style of Ai)ril 29 at midnight, in the 
 second year of the cycle of leap-year, and the first year of the cycle of 28 
 years, and the first year of the period of 304 years, all at once perpetually, 
 would require a period made up of that of 365-25+ 129 x 3 612,000 years 
 drawn into that of 365-25 x 304 x 2128, or 170 187 507 000 x 236,284 608, 
 or 40 212 688 377 992 256000 years. 
 
 And yet not even a jieriod of such magnitude as this would suffice for 
 all the necessities of the case, if at least the mean sidereal time and the 
 mean anomalistic time of the system were to be taken into account, as well 
 as the mean tropical, the mean lunar, and the mean Julian. It is sui)er- 
 fluous however for our purpose that we should enter here on the solution 
 of this new problem. Something was done towards it in my general work, 
 to which I would beg to refer the reader 1. I have said enough to con- 
 vince him of the truth of my assertion that, taking all the circumstances 
 of the case into account, we have no alternative but that of accejjting the 
 origination of all the motions proper to the present system of things, just 
 where we find it, in strict conformity to every condition ])rescribed by the 
 Mosaic account of that origination itself, as if for the first time, viz. be- 
 tween April 25 at midn. and May 2 at midn., B.C. 4004, or give up all 
 inquiry after it as useless. 
 
 Note E, page 13. In explanation of lliis allusion to the Pho-nix t'yde 
 of the Egyptians, see infra ch. ii. sect. iv. pag. 173 s(j(i. 
 
 Note F, page 13. In explanation of this allusion also (to Osiris, Isis, 
 and the Isia,) see infra ch. ii. sect. ii. i. pag. 143 sqq. 
 
 Note(j, page 21. The researches of modern science into the constitution 
 of the earth, and the history of its inhabitants, during this ante-Mosaic 
 period of its existence, have brought to light two classes of phenmni-na, 
 "I Fasti, iv. 144 si|(|. 5:0-557. (f. 111.138-140. 
 
246 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 totally distinct from and opposed to each other — one of them, evidently 
 such as could be referrible only to some Principle of action which aimed 
 ex proposito at the good of its proper subject-matter, the other, one which 
 never could have had any end in view but the evil of every thing subject 
 to it; one of them a Principle of order and harmony, the other one of dis- 
 order and discord ; one of them conservative in its tendencies and opera- 
 tions perpetually, the other destructive ; one of them, in short, a Principle 
 of Life, on the largest scale, the other of Death, equally general and indis- 
 criminate within its proper sphere of action. To refer such different effects 
 as these to one and tlie same cause ab extra, would be as contrary to the 
 intimations of Scripture, and the liyht which it has thrown on the true 
 origin and source of each, as to the reason of things and to common 
 sense. 
 
 If the physical history of our own earth, for the whole of the period of 
 its existence, embraced by the discoveries of Geology, has been given, 
 however summarily and briefly, any where in Scripture, it is probably in 
 Romans viii. i8- — 22 : Aoyi^ofiai yap on oIk ci^ia ra iruQr^p.aTa tov vvv koi- 
 pov Tvpos TTiv pfWovaav 86^av ctTroKaXvcpdrji'ai, els fjpas' rj yap aTTOKapaBoKia 
 TTJs KTiafcos TTjv aTTOKokv^iv Tu>v v'lQiv TOV 06oO OTTf (cSe^^frat. Trj yap paraio- 
 TTjTi T] KTiais iinfrayq, {ovx (Kovaa, dX\a 8ia tov viroTa^avTa,) en eXnldt oti 
 Koi avTTi fi KTicris eXevdepaOrjcreTai otto tiJs SovKeias ttJs (fidopas els rrjv eXev- 
 depiav TTJs 86^rjs Totv TtKvcov tov Qeov' o'idapev yap oti nacra fj ktIctis avaTf- 
 va^et Ka\ cvftoSiWi a)(pi tov vvv. ov povov he, aXXa Ka\ avTol, k,t.X.: the 
 meaning of which may be represented in the words of the authorized ver- 
 sion, somewhat modified, as follows : " For I reckon that the sufferings 
 of the season which now is are not worth taking into account, in compari- 
 son of the glory about to be revealed in reference to us. For the longing 
 expectation of the creation is earnestly awaiting the revelation of the sons 
 of God. For the creation hath been subjected to the Principle of vanity, 
 (not willing to have been so, but because of him who hath subjected it,) 
 in hope that the creation itself shall be freed from the slavery of destruc- 
 tion into the freedom of glory of the children of God. For we know that 
 all the creation is groaning together and travailing together up to the time 
 that now is. And not only so, but we ourselves," &c. 
 
 From this description we learn that, for the whole of the interval in 
 question, the positive law of the relations of that, which is here called tj 
 KTia-is, (the creation, in the limited sense of our own world,) to any thing 
 superior to itself, and so far the normal state of its existence, has been that 
 of an absolute subjection, through the will and appointment of its own 
 Creator, to what is here called t] p,aTat.6Tr]s — and, (as necessarily implied in 
 such a subjection,) that of a slavery of destruction or destructiveness ; a 
 slavery, (the consequence of such a subjection,) both in its tendencies 
 from the first, and in its effects, ever after, destructive of the essence, 
 injurious to the being and wellbeing, of the subject itself. 
 
 The key to the right understanding of this remarkable passage, in my 
 opinion, is to be found only in the revelations of Scripture on another 
 mysterious topic, the relations of the invisible to the visible world ; and 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 217 
 
 more especially those of a part, and possibly a j>rincipal part, of the angels 
 in general, to this earth of ours in particular, before and after their defec- 
 tion from that state of submission and obedience to the will of their com- 
 mon Creator, and consequently of goodness and innocence, in which they 
 were originally created. 
 
 It may be collected from Scripture that the material world in general 
 was created for the spiritual in general ; and our own earth in particular for 
 this order or class of the angels in particular : and the proprietorship, so 
 to say, the ownership and jurisdiction of our earth having been once made 
 over to them by the ('reator i)oth of it and of them, when they were yet 
 in the enjoyment of their original goodness and innocence, it was not re- 
 sumed by its Creator, nor taken away from them all at once, even in con- 
 secpience of their defection itself; but for wise and adequate reasons, 
 (connected, no doubt, with the ceconomy of the scheme of Redemption,) 
 even after their fall from obedience, and the change in their moral nature 
 entaik'd thereby, it was still reserved to them, for a certain length of 
 time, as absolutely as before. 
 
 The Scripture sense of a/iaraioi/ (of that which is called in Hebrew bl'n, 
 or Hebel), and especially of to fidraiov, or ra fiaraia, kot e^oxr]i>, is that of 
 an hlol or Idols — that of any of the objects of the religious worship of the 
 Gentiles'" — that of any created being, however excellent in comjiarison of 
 other creatures like itself, yet setting up itself not only as independent of, 
 but as superior to, its own Creator, not only in opposition to, but instead 
 of, its own Creator — as the proper object of religious honour and reverence, 
 rel'gious faith and trust. 
 
 The abstract idea of this common iirlnciple of opposition to and rivalry 
 of the one great First Cause of all things, on the part of some one or other 
 of its own creatures, in my opinion, is that Principle of Vanity (17 naratoTrjt) 
 alluded to in this passage of the Epistle to the Romans. This Principle 
 of Vanity, in its widest and most comprehensive sense, is that of the Poly- 
 theism of the Gentile world, the Gods many and the Lords many, recog- 
 nised every where except among the Jews at first, and the Christians after- 
 wards^, in opposition to, and instead of, the one true (lOO and the one true 
 Lord — the individual distinctions and personalities of which might all be 
 summed up in the general notion of the common Pseiido-tfieisni and com- 
 mon Anti-theism of the (ientile world in its unconverted state. 
 
 The principle of unity however, which pervaded this system of the 
 ancient idolatry, being, after all, the concentration and impersonation of 
 this abstract idea of a common Antitheism in one living exemplar and 
 type of the whole, the Chief of the fallen angels himself, the Satan of 
 Scripture, deriving his name from his essential antipathy to the one true 
 God, subjection to the Princi|)le of vanity, as such, of whatsoever it might 
 be predicable, must ultimately be xmderstood of subjection to this one 
 great adversary of God. And it requires no argument to prove that what- 
 
 r C'f. l)c\it. xxxii. 21 ; I Kings xvi. 13, 26 ; 2 Kings xvii. 15 ; Jcr. ii. 5 ; viii. ig ; 
 X. .V 8. 15 ; xiv. 2; ; xvi. 19 : li. 18 : Acts xiv. 15. • Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6. 
 
248 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 soever the nature, and whatsoever the disposition, of such a Being before 
 his Fall, the fact of his fall itself must have made a very great difference, 
 if not to the physical, yet to the moral, perfections and attributes, even of 
 the greatest and best of the angels, possibly the one Archangel — the ap- 
 pointed link of connection and mediation between the unoriginated source 
 of hfe and good, and all the creations and dependencies of his bounty and 
 goodness ; and almost as much superior to all other created beings as he 
 was himself inferior to the Supreme Creator himself : and that consequently 
 subjection to the Principle of vanity kut f^oxrjv, in this sense of subjection 
 to the will and control of this Being — once so great and so good, and now 
 so changed by his defection itself — after his Fall, must be subjection to the 
 Principle of destructiveness. 
 
 From the date of this change then in the moral nature and disposition 
 of the angels, who before their defection stood to that jiart of the material 
 universe, which is to be understood of our own earth, and its proper system, 
 in the relation of masters and rulers, and, even after their defection, were 
 still permitted (for certain jjurposes, worthy of the wisdom and the benefi- 
 cence of the Supreme Source of Good himself), within certain prescribed 
 limits, and for a certain preordained time, to retain their jurisdiction over 
 it, (a doctrine clearly taught in Scripture,) it was to be ex])ected a priori 
 that two Principles or Powers of Causation should be found perpetually at 
 work, in and upon the subject of their action, our own earth, each as 
 actively and each as extensively as the other — one of them the Principle of 
 Disturbance, the other the Principle of Rectification — one of them the 
 Principle of Destruction, the other the Principle of Conservation — one of 
 them the Principle of Mischief, the other the Principle of Remedy — one of 
 them ever intent on the production of evil in every way and every form, 
 the other not less constantly employed in making evil itself the means of 
 good. 
 
 Now howsoever far back into the history of our planet, the researches 
 of Geology may extend, it must be clear, from the nature of its discoveries 
 themselves, that they still fall short, (and very possibly immeasural)ly 
 short,) of the date of this first transgression and first defection of the spi- 
 ritual and immaterial creatures of God ; and of the consequent change in the 
 moral nature of the angels, without any change in their jiower — impelling 
 them from that time forward as naturally to seek the evil of every thing, 
 with which they were ])reviously connected in the relation of superior and 
 inferior, as before, the good. Of the opposition and conflict of Principles, 
 such as I have described, from this time foruard. Geology has l)rought 
 j)roofs in abundance to light, in the physical history of our own earth ; but 
 it has never yet even suspected the opposition and dualism of the Prin- 
 ciples of causation also, to which they must have been due resj)ectively, 
 much less thought of distinguishing between them, and referring each to 
 its proper author and source. And in consequence of this oversight, in 
 reasoning upon the phenomena thus brought to light, Geologists, unwit- 
 tingly perhaps and unconsciously, have nevertheless fallen into the very 
 grave and sprious inistJike of ascribing to God the proper acts and func- 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 249 
 
 tions of his great adversary, and treating physical evil, pain and suffering, 
 of every kind, as if it was as compatible with the Divine nature and per- 
 fections, and as cajiable of being proposed on its own account as the end 
 and aim of the Divine plans and operations, as the contrary. 
 
 Note H, page 23. It may be objected to the above coincidences, that 
 they hold good in each of these cases only by mean motion, apd that, the 
 mean motion of my Tables. But with respect to the distinction of mean 
 and true motions in general, as I have more than once had occasion to 
 observe ', at the absolute epoch of all motion, there could have been no 
 difference between mean and true ; and both being assumed to have set 
 out from this epoch together, at no period of their subsequent decursus in 
 conjunction, could there be any material difference between the mean 
 motion, and the true, of the same kind respectively. 
 
 In illustration of this relation between the mean motions of the Tables 
 and the true, even aftiT this epoch of April 25, B.C. 4004 — let us compare, 
 i. the mean longitude of A])ril 25, old style, at mean midnight, for the 
 meridian of Greenwich, at any epoch of the present day, (for instance, 
 A. D. 1 801,) according to our own Tables, and according to Delambre's — 
 
 i. By the Tables we have the mean longitude 
 
 of April 25 at mean midnight A. D. 1801, , , „ 
 for the meridian in question" . . . . 44 25 53-448 
 
 ii. By Delambre's Tables .. ., .. 44 21 5-82 
 
 Difference 4 47-63 
 
 And this, as I have shewn ^, is simply the difference of the mean motion 
 of the Tables, and the mean motion of Delambre, in 5804 years, from 
 April 25, B. C. 4004, to April 25, A. D. 1801 : and that this difference, for 
 the same meridian, (that of Jerusalem,) was nothing, April 25, oh. om. 
 21-6 sec, B. C. 4004 — has also been shewn ^. 
 
 ii. Let us compare the mean and the true longitude of the inters- ction 
 of the arc of conjunction of Beta and Zeta Tauri, with the ecliptic, at 
 mean noon May 30, old style, A. D. 1801. 
 
 i. By the Tables, we have the mean longi- 
 tude of this point, at the e])och in , 
 question y .. .. .. .. . . 80 43 34-6 
 
 ii. By the calculation of Prof. Challis, we 
 
 have the true, at the same . . . . 81 21 59'8 
 
 Difference 38 25-2 
 
 iii. Let us compare the mean and the true longitude of the solar aj)ogee, 
 Jan. I mean noon, new style, for the meridian of Greenwich, A. D. 1801, 
 according to the Tables, and according to Bessel, rcsjjcctively ^ : 
 
 ' <(■. Fasti, ii. iiG. 1 55, 1^6. " Cf Oriiji,'. Kal. It.al. Prelim. Add. cix, ex. 
 
 V Ibid. <x. X Fasti, iv. 515. * Ibid. iii. 263, 264. ^ Introduc- 
 
 tion, 201, JO) 
 
250 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 i. According to Bessel, we have the true ^ 
 
 longitude .. .. ., .. .. 99 31 9-91 
 
 ii. According to the Tables, we have the 
 
 mean .. .. .. .. • • 99 3' 4-66 
 
 Difference in 5804 years 5-25. 
 
 Note I, page 45. Among other parallel instances of the same idiom 
 of inspired history might be reckoned the transition, Dan. xi. 36, from 
 Antiochus Epiphanes cir. B. C. 165, to the Antichrist of the end — and the 
 transition in the Prophecy on the Mount, Matt. xxiv. 29, Mark xiii. 24, 
 Luke xxi. 25, from the consummation of the judgments on Jerusalem to 
 the end of the world, and the second Advent of our Lord himself. We might 
 mention also the historical notice, at the close of the Gospel of St. Mark, 
 xvi. 19, 20, of the going forth of the apostles, as if in execution of the 
 command, Mark xvi. 15-18, to preach the Gospel in all the world, imme- 
 diately after the Ascension — though in reality the first going forth of 
 the apostles, on their evangelical mission to all the world, was at least 
 fifteen years later »■. We might mention also Luke ii. 39— where the re- 
 tirement of the Holy Family to Nazareth — though really after the return 
 from Egypt — is represented apj)arently as if continuous on the Presenta- 
 tion in the Temple, a year and upwards previously. In like manner, we 
 might mention Matt. xix. i, 2, and Mark x. i, in each of which the jjass- 
 age from Judaea into Perasa, an incident in the last circuit of our Saviour, 
 and probably not many days earlier than his arrival at Jerusalem, before 
 the last Passover, is represented as if it followed directly on the return to 
 Capernaum, Matt. xvii. 24, Mark ix. 33, six months at least before. 
 
 Note K, page 51. The interposition of this year of Tohu and Bohu, 
 between the Mosaic creation and any preexisting state of things on the 
 earth, is equally fatal to the hypothesis of a Prseadamite race of men as 
 connected in any way with those which exist at present on the same earth. 
 This hypothesis has often been broached ; and recently it has been sup- 
 posed to have derived unexpected confirmation from the discovery of 
 Flints, as they are called, (stones, rudely shaped for cutting, as if by the 
 human hand,) embedded in the drift, or gravel, of what might once have 
 been the beds of rivers, many feet below the surface of the ground at pre- 
 sent. It is too early indeed to assume that even these Flints are, after all, 
 any thing but natural productions of a certain kind, (Belemnites,) or that 
 the deposits in which they are found are really older than the Mosaic 
 creation. The ojiinions of Geologists themselves are still divided on each 
 of these points. But, granting the advocates of the Pr?eadamite theory as 
 much as we have conceded to those of the Migration of Species — granting 
 that these flints may have been (or, if they will, must have been) the work 
 of some kind of intelligence and power ah extra — granting even that 
 
 " See my Dissertations on tlic rrinci|)les and Arranicemt'nt of an Harmony, 
 vol. i. 144-153. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 251 
 
 they must have been the productions of the human hand — still, we may 
 deiiKind, Of what use are these concessions after all, in accounting for the 
 origin of the present race or races of human beings on the earth ? What 
 are these Prseadamite men to us, or we to them, while the gulf of Tohu and 
 IJohu always has been, and still is, fixed between us ? 
 
 Note L, page 59. With respect to one of these terms, im, the sea, 
 Gesenius shewed his good sense when he observed upon it, " That a 
 derivation of it was scarcely to be sought" — for it is one of those terms 
 which in any language can hardly have had an etymon older than them- 
 selves. And yet, very inconsistently, he went on to remark that possibly 
 notwithstanding it might have been derived from the idea of the boiliny or 
 focnniny of the sea, the words for which in the Hebrew resemble that of 
 im in orthography and sound. But to derive the name of the sea in any 
 language from the boiling or foaming of the sea, would be an varepov 
 TTpoTfpov — and in this instance, if the Hebrew for the boiling or foaming 
 of the sea resembles that for sea, the inference of common sense from that 
 fact would be just the reverse of that which Gesenius draws from it ; viz. 
 that the word for the boiling or foaming of the sea must have been bor- 
 rowed from the name of the sea ; not vice versa. 
 
 With regard to the word for ivater, it occurs de facto only in the plural, 
 mhn, literally waters ; and it is mlm all through the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis'^. Yet mim in the plural necessarily presupposes wit in the singular; 
 and Gesenius recognises mi as one of the elements in a proper name, 
 I Chron. iv. 2, Aehoumi, denoting Brother of water, i. e. a neighbour of 
 water, one who lived by water. He himself indeed is disposed to derive 
 even mi in the singular from an older form moua ; an example of which 
 occurs Job ix. 30. And Mo or Mod, it must be admitted, was the old 
 Egyptian for water, as is proved by the explanation of the name of Moses, 
 (in Greek MtoiJo-^f) Exod. ii. 10*; and in the Coptic it is still moo-ou. It 
 is more reasonable however to conclude that if the plural of the word in 
 the Hebrew was never any thing but mim, the singular never could have 
 been any thing but tni. And mi being the simple form of the word for 
 water, and im the simple form of the word for sea, and even a sea being 
 only a mass or aggregate of the particles or elements of water, what would 
 be more natural than to derive the word for sea from the word for water f 
 and what would be easier than to do so by merely reading mi backwards ? 
 
 Note M, page 61. Arets and Thebel. i. Arets. Gesenius considers 
 this term a radical one; and not only underived itself in the Hebrew, 
 but the root of many terms of kindred signification in other languages; 
 and among these it would seem as if he included the English earth, the 
 Greek tpa, and the Latin terra. Our own earth, in my opinion, is di- 
 rectly derived from the obsolete verb in our own language, to ear, i. e. 
 to ////, to plough — which occurs in the authorized version, Gen. xlv. 6, 
 
 •" I. ^). 7. I). 10. 20. 2 1. ' i'i. Fasti, li. .550 II. iv. 400. ■ 
 
252 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Exod. xxxiv. 21, Deuteron. xxi. 4, i Sam. viii. 12, Isaiah xxx. 24. Nor 
 would it be j)Ossible to get the Greek epa from the Hel)rew arets, except 
 by casting off the last two letters, and reading the remainder backwards. 
 It would be easy to derive the Greek ^rjpa (fj ^rjpa, in the sense of the 
 Hebrew He-ibesheh, the dry land) from it, by reading the entire word 
 backwards — tsera. The Latin terra too might be obtained from it, by 
 dropping the final s, and reading the remainder tera or terra, instead of 
 aret. 
 
 The senses which Gesenius assigns the term are, i. and properly, that 
 of the earth, in its most comiirehensive signification ; ii. in a more special 
 sense, i. the earth, in contradistinction to the heavens, in which sense the 
 earth and the heavens take in the whole of the material universe, ii. The 
 earth in the sense of land, continents, terra jirma, in contradistinction to 
 sea (Gen. i. 28). iii. hand, or country, patria ; sometimes Palestine in 
 particular — and in the plural, lands, countries, especially those of the Gen- 
 tiles, iv. Land; a piece of land. v. The ^roz^nf/ (Gen. xxxiii. 3; xxxvii, 
 10), in which sense the name of the earth stands for that of the surface of 
 the earth, vi. The earthy element, ingredient, or part, of any other sub- 
 stance, as for exanijjle the scorice or ore of metals, as in Ps. xii. 6, accord- 
 ing to Gesenius' version of that text, " Like silver jmrified in a workshop 
 from its earthy parts" — refined in a furnace, and therefore purified from 
 its earth or dross. 
 
 And though this is the last of the senses which he enumerates, and 
 consequently the most restricted, I should be disposed to think that this 
 signification of the elementary substance of any thing, comes nearest to the 
 proper sense of the term. It should be considered that. Gen. i. 10, this 
 name of arets was first given to that part of the earth which vvas first left 
 imcovered by the retirement of the waters ; and could have been intended 
 at that time only to discriminate the part so left bare, from that which 
 was still submerged as before. And what could have been the appearance 
 of this part, on the second day of the Hexaemeron, but that of a naked 
 superficies of solid matter, dry indeed, and no longer fiuid, but destitute 
 as yet of its proper clothing, (superinduced on it only on the third day,) 
 herbs and grasses, plants and trees? If so, the proper sense of arets in the 
 Hebrew must have been that of 17 ^r^pa in the Greek, terra arida, and 
 nothing more ; the simple substratum of that covering of its surface 
 every where, at present, which naturalists call the vegetable kingdom in 
 contradistinction to the animal. 
 
 And this view of its proper meaning gives perhaps a pecuhar signifi- 
 cancy to the use of the term. Gen. i. 2, for the proper subject of such an 
 aflfection as is there denoted by being " without form and void" — and 
 to the language of Jeremiah, iv. 23, " I beheld the earth, and lo! it was 
 without form and void" — as if relapsing into the state in which it was 
 before it became the subject of the Mosaic creation, a bare and naked 
 superficies of solid matter, destitute as yet of all the external signs and 
 tokens of a Koapos. 
 
 In the o the Hebrew arets is nine times rendered by olKovpevt], which is 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Eccplanations . 253 
 
 more properly the version of the Hebrew Thebel. In general however it 
 is rendered by yr}. 
 
 ii. Thebel. This word, which some Hebrew lexicographers treat as a 
 radical term, like arets, Gesenius derives from the conj. Hiphel of the verb 
 !?!!' ibel,— in its third signification, that of to briny forth, to produce. On 
 this principle, the first and most jjroper sense of the term should be that 
 of the fertile and productive part of the earth. The next would naturally 
 be that of the inhabited or inhabitable part of the earth, t; oiKovixtvt) in 
 Greek, l)y which the o' actuallj' render it 26 times. Gesenius indeed 
 blends both these meanings in the first sense which he assigns it, that of 
 i\\e fertile A\\(\ inhabited earth, that of the habitable g\ohe ; and in the second 
 which he assigns it, enlarges this meaning of the inhabited or inhabitable 
 part, to take in the whole of the world ; though in strictness, even in 
 such cases as these, the word being still this of the Thebel, it is only by 
 synecdoche that it can denote any thing more than the inhabited or the 
 inhabitable part of the earth. 
 
 Of the first and most proper sense, above alluded to, that of the fertile 
 and productive part of the earth, we could not possi!)ly appeal to a plainer 
 instance than Ps. 1. 12 : " If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : for the 
 Thebel (the world) is mine, and the fulness thereof" — i.e. all the variety 
 of vegetable or animal life, which, if found anywhere on the earth in general, 
 must be on the Thebel in particular. Or to Isaiah xxxiv. i : " Let the 
 Arets hear, . . . the Thebel, and all things that come forth of it" — the Thebel 
 in fact being the only productive part of the earth. Or Isaiah xxiv, 4 : 
 " The Arets mourneth, . . . the Thebel languisheth" — where the verb is one, 
 in the original, which is most applicable to the drooping and dying away 
 of vegetable productions, like those of the Thebel. Just as, on the other 
 hand, in illustration of its secondary sense of the inhabited or inhabitable 
 part of the earth, we might appeal to Nahum i. 5 : "The Arets is burned 
 uj) at his presence, yea, the Thebel, and all that dwell therein" — as if in- 
 habitants were to be found in no part of the Arets but the Thebel^. 
 
 The point however with which I am concerned at jjresent lieing that of 
 the use and application of this term to designate both a iiiiiitcd part of the 
 antediluvian world, and yet the fertile and j)roductive, the inhabited or in- 
 habitable, part of the same ; this point, I think, will be sufficiently esta- 
 blished, if it can be made to appear from the testimony of Scripture that 
 every state of the Arets as such has had its corresponding Thebel also; 
 and conse<|uently, that along with an antediluvian Arets, there must have 
 been an antediluvian Thebel. 
 
 And this, it appears to me, may be collected from Jeremiah x. 12, or li. 
 15 : " He hath made the Arets by his power, and he hath established the 
 nebel by his wisdom :" for these words clearly imply that along with the 
 foundation of an Arets by the power of God, the simultaneous constitu- 
 tion of a Thebel of that Arets, by the wisdom of (iod (the designation of a 
 peculiar part of it, endued with a i)eculiar power and capacity, for certain 
 
 '' C'f. I's. xxiv. I : xxxiii. K . l.\.\.\i.\. I i ; xcviii. 7. 
 
254 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 wise and beneficent purposes,) always went hand in hand. So again, from 
 I Sam. ii. 8: "The pillars of the Arets are the Lord's, and he hath set the 
 Thebel upon them :" for these words also imply that if the Arets was first 
 set upon pillars, which, as deriving their strength and sufficiency from the 
 Lord, must be immoveable, it was in order that the Thebel might be set 
 on the Arets, in the next place, and be only the more firmly secured and 
 established thereby •=, So again, Job xxxvii. ii, 12 : — in reference to the 
 clouds and their uses, as appointed and directed by the Divine counsels: — 
 "That they may do whatsoever he commandeth them, upon the face of 
 the Thebel- Aretseh :" where this compound word of Thebel- Aretseh seems 
 to have been purposely invented to convey this particular meaning, viz. 
 that with respect to such uses and purposes as those to which the clouds 
 are naturally instrumental, the Arets as such was not to be distinguished 
 from the Thebel. The intent and use of the clouds is to stimulate and aid 
 the natural fertility of the earth, on which they distil their contents. As 
 the recipient of the rain, and as benefited, or intended to be benefited, by 
 the rain, the Thebel pro tempore was the Arets, or the Arets pro tempore 
 was the Thebel. 
 
 Now though the above allusions were probably intended of the state of 
 the case in the postdiluvian world, yet that this particular constitution of 
 things, by virtue of which an Arets as such, and its proper Thebel as such, 
 under all circumstances, must be supposed to have accompanied each other, 
 would be just as true of the state of the case in the antediluvian world, 
 may be inferred from the first verse of the 90th Psalm, which both the 
 Jewish and the Christian Church have been unanimous in attributing to 
 the same author as the Book of Genesis : " Lord ! thou hast been our 
 dwellingplace in all generations. Before the mountains were brought 
 forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world (the Arets and the 
 Thebel), even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God ! " What is this 
 supposed first birth of the mountains, (the everlasting hills ^) or this first 
 formation of the Arets, but either the first production of the material uni- 
 verse, Gen.i. i., or the first production of our own world. Gen. i. 2? which 
 is the more probable supposition. On this principle however, seeing that 
 the first formation of an Arets, according to the course of things here de- 
 fined, of necessity entailed the first formation of a Thebel too, it would fol- 
 low that the first formation of the antediluvian Arets must have entailed 
 the first formation of an antediluvian Thebel also. 
 
 These conclusions may be finally confirmed by that remarkable passage 
 in the Book of Proverbs, wherein the Wisdom or Word of God, through 
 whom it pleased the Father, at the time foreordained by his own wise 
 counsels, to create the first world, and all subsequent ones alike, is intro- 
 duced speaking, ch. viii. 22 : " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of 
 his way, before his works of old. 23 : I was set up from everlasting, from 
 the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24 : W^hen there were no depths, I 
 was brought forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
 
 * Cf. Ps. xciii. I. I (Jen. xlix. 26. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 255 
 
 25 : Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought 
 forth. 2fi : While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor 
 the hi^fhest part (the top) of the dust of the Thehel. 27 : When he pre- 
 pared the heavens, I was there ; when he set a compass on the face of the 
 depth. 28 : When he established the clouds above, when he strengthened 
 the fountains of the deep. 29 : W^hen he gave to the sea his decree, 
 that the waters should not pass his commandment ; when he apjjointed the 
 foundations of the earth. 30: Then I was by him, a*- one brought up 
 aith him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. 31 : 
 Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, (the Thebel of his Arets,) and 
 my delights were with the sons of men." 
 
 Though the first part of this sublime description may go back beyond 
 Gen. i. i, even as suj)posed to extend to the very beginning of the mate- 
 rial creation, the latter part, from verse 25 to the end, can go back only to 
 Gen. i. 2, the beginning of our own world. The comparison of Psalm civ., 
 quoted supra &, with this passage, must be decisive that the same spirit 
 which dictated the former dictated the latter also, and both, in reference 
 to the oeconomy of our own creation in particular, among the many which 
 might have preceded it. 
 
 What then are we to infer from the language of verse 26, " While as 
 yet he had not made the Arets, .... nor the top of the dust of the 
 Thebel " — but that our own world also, when it came into being at the 
 epoch of the Mosaic creation, had a Thebel as well as an Arets, the 
 former of which too, to judge from the terms of this allusion, must have 
 been the highest part of this same Arets. And what from the language 
 of verses 30 and 31, "Then I was by him, .... rejoicing always before 
 him, rejoicing in the Thebel of his Arets, — and my delights were with the 
 children of men" — except that as this world of ours, from the date of the 
 Mosaic creation, must have had its Arets, so that Arets must have had its 
 Thebel. And this Thebel nmst have been the proper habitation of the 
 sons of men ; in which, during the still continuing state of innocence in 
 which they were created, (a state, be it remembered, of three years' dura- 
 tion,) it pleased their Creator himself, the Wisdom and \Vord of God, to 
 hold unreserved intercourse and communion with them. 
 
 Note N, page 66. Aouph, Behemeh, Heith-heshedeh, Remesh. i. Aouph. 
 This word is treated by Gesenius as a substantive, derived from a verb, 
 Aouph also, in the sense of to cover in general, but with wings and feathers 
 in particular, for which he quotes Isaiah, xxxi. 5. And hence he infers 
 that its primary sense must have been that of a winr/, and its secondary 
 one, that oi birds, fowls, collectively. 
 
 'I'hat it has however the sense of bird more frequently than that of any 
 thing else cannot be questioned. I cannot help thinking Gesenius would 
 have done better to treat the substantive in this instance as the root, and 
 the verb as the derivative. It appears to me an vartpov irpoTtpop to speak 
 
 p Page 7 1 . 
 
256 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 of the instincts or acts of birds as if tliey were prior to and independent of 
 birds themselves. In the nature of tilings there must have been birds, 
 endowed with wings and feathers, and disposed to make a certain use of 
 them in behalf of their young, before birds could have been seen any 
 where covering their young ones with their wings and feathers. It is 
 needless to add, that birds were brought into being, and called by their 
 Creator by this name of Aouph, as what they were at that time in them- 
 selves, not from what they were destined to be in reference to their 
 young. 
 
 I should infer, from the resemblance of the Hebrew verb Aouph to the 
 Greek ao) or ar)m, and from the mode in which the substantive term 
 Aouph is so frequently rendered in the o , to rreTfivov, (68 times,) that its 
 first and proper meaning must have been that of a creature, able to raise 
 and support itself in the air, — able to float and move about in the air, — 
 and of course endowed with an organism adapted to that purpose. And 
 this view of its first and i)roper meaning seems to me to be much con- 
 firmed by the peculiar idiom in the 21st verse of the chapter, of Aouph- 
 Canouph, predicated of the same subject, the particular productions of the 
 fourth day, in the shape of the inhabitants of the air at least ; for this may 
 be understood to imply that there might be Aouph without Canouphim, 
 creatures able to rise and float in the air, as much as birds, yet not en- 
 dowed like birds with wings or feathers. 
 
 It is certain however, in any case, that neither according to the idiom 
 of Scripture, nor the usus loquendi among the Jews, could Aouph denote 
 insect in Hebrew, any more than opvis in Greek, or avis in Latin, or 
 bird in English. There is no term in the Hebrew analogous to evrofiov 
 in Greek, or insecta in Latin ; none at least in the Hebrew of the Bible. 
 Leviticus xi. 20, 21. 23, and Deuteronomy xiv. 19, where the distinctions 
 of clean and unclean, among insects as much as among animals, are 
 laid down, — the phrase made use of to express them collectively is Sherets 
 he Aouph — and Sherets is explained by Gesenius^, to creep, to crawl, and 
 is rendered by the o once by e^epTra, once by Kivea, and five times by 
 epna. On this principle, Sherets he Aouph must have denoted such 
 creatures as, besides legs to creep or crawl with, had wings also to fly 
 with ; and such must be the proper idiom and style of Scripture for the 
 whole of the insect world. It may be objected indeed that birds too have 
 feet as well as wings. But it is to be observed, that the verb Sherets is 
 never applied to the proper motion of birds with their feet, or to that of 
 any creature, endowed with feet, which could be said to move itself on its 
 feet by striding or hopping. Its proper sense and application is to the 
 motions of such creatures as crawl rather than creep, like reptiles, or creep 
 rather than walk or stride, among animals. Sherets in short would denote 
 the larva? of all insects, and their characteristic motions ; Sherets he 
 Aouph, the same larvae endowed with wings and able to fly ; that is, the 
 insect. 
 
 I> Gen. vii. 21. Levit. xi. 29 41-43. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. '1^7 
 
 ii. Behemeh- This word, Behemeh in the sinf^ulur, Behimoulk in the 
 ])lural, accordinj? to (ieseiiius, is derived from an obsolete root Bein. to 
 shut, especially the mouth, and therefore to be mute, to l)e dumb. And as 
 so derived, it must be equally applicable to every kind of animal, as alike 
 distinf/uished by this want of the faculty of speech. 
 
 The o' have rendered it fifteen times by rerpciTrouf, a cpiadniped, and 
 twelve times by 6rn)iou, u wild animal, in Greek; but in a ^reat majority 
 of instances by /ct^vos. And, according to (Jesenius, besides the (generic 
 sense just explained, of every dumb creature, its specific senses in the 
 Hebrew are i. and chiefiy, that of ktt]vos in Greek, pecus in Latin, cattle 
 in English, — domestic animals of every kind. ii. That description of 
 domestic animals, which in our language are called beasts of burden, in 
 (ircek vno^vyia, and in Latin jumenta — horses, asses, oxen, camels, Hcc, 
 iii. lieasls of the field as such, wild animals in contradistinction to tame, 
 whatsoever their dis])ositions and habits in other respects. 
 
 It is in the first and the second of tliese senses only that the word is 
 used in the Mosaic account of the creation, and of the work of the sixth 
 day in particular. 
 
 iii. Heith-heshedeh. Heieh, according to Gesenius, is derived from the 
 verb in Hebrew which denotes to live, and properly to breathe. As so 
 derived, rirtute tennh}i, it must include in its com])rehension every thing 
 in which there is the !)reath of life — all animals at least, as living by 
 breathing. The o' render it fourteen times by C^ov, (which comes very 
 near its literal meaning,) sixty-two times by 6t]piov, once by kttjvos (Lev. 
 xi. 2) and once by ipntrov. Gen. i. 28. Under the generic sense of an 
 animal or animated creature, denoted by this term, Gesenius distinguishes 
 the specific sense i. Of beasts of all kinds, and water animals as much as 
 land. ii. Quadrupeds, as ojijiosed to bipeds, iii. Wild animals, as op- 
 posed to Behemoth or tame, including those which are beasts of prey, as 
 well as those which are not. 
 
 It is to be observed however, that in this particular sense of a wild 
 animal, which is also a beast of prey, the word is commonly accompanied 
 with an epithet expressive of its nature, as an evil beast ', a ravenous 
 l)east'', a no/so7«e beast ' ; from which, in my opinion, it is a legitimate 
 inference that even the Hebrew language itself at first had no word lor a 
 beast of jjrey as such, and therefore (if the Hebrew was the antediluvian 
 language, of which more hereafter) in the antediluvian world there could 
 not yet have been such a thing as a beast of prey : and consequently this 
 word, as used in the account of the Mosaic creation, and of the work of 
 the sixth day, could have been intended of none but sim|)ly uild animals 
 in contradistinction to tame, beasts of the field in opposition to beasts of 
 the homestead. It is no objection that in hiter allusions, as Hosea xiii. S, 
 Job xxxix. 15, the style of beasts of the field is applied also to beasts of 
 prey. For beasts of prey are beasts of the field too, just as much as 
 animals which are not beasts of prey, yet cannot be domesticated, nor 
 
 ' (jcii. xxxvii. 20. 33. Livit. .\xvi. 6. k Uuiah xxxv. ij. 
 
 ' F^zc'k. xiv. I ^. 2 1 : xxxiv. 22;. 
 
258 The ^Aree Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 brought up and live with man. 'J'he Ileith-heshedeh of the Mosaic 
 creation is an irreclaimable animal of this kind, but not one inimical or 
 dangerous to man. 
 
 iv. Remesh. — Remesh the verb is rendered in the o six times by epTrw, 
 and seven times by Kivtoi ; and remesh the substantive seventeen times by 
 fpTTfTov. According to Gesenius the verl) denoted both the motion of the 
 smaller animals, which have four feet or more, such as mice, lizards, 
 crabs, &c. (which would be properly expressed by creeping), and that of 
 such as have no feet, and are consequently obliged to trail themselves 
 along on the ground, as serpents, worms, &c. The substantive, as so 
 derived, denoted reptiles, properly so called — all living creatures whose 
 j)roper motion is by creeping or crawling. And besides these Gesenius 
 would include under it all such creatures as trail or drag themselves along 
 on the ground. And it must be admitted that, in subsequent instances 
 of the use of this term in Scripture, it did include animals of this descrip- 
 tion ; and also that Remes or Ermes in this sense, with the iEolic digam- 
 ma prefixed to it, may have been the original of the Latin vermis, and even 
 of the English worm. Yet it may be doubtful, (as we shall see by and by,) 
 whether, as making up, along with Behemoth and Heith-heshedeh, the 
 whole of the antediluvian zoology, and as classed with, and yet opposed 
 to them. Gen. i. 26. 28. 30 : vi. 7. 20 : vii. 14-23 — it is to be understood 
 of any description of animal, without feet. Gen. ix. 3 (cf. Ezek. xxxviii. 
 20), it is so used as to include all land animals : so that there must have 
 been something in common to these, and the other two, more si)ecific than 
 the nature of animals merely, something in common in their motions, and 
 in their organs of motion, res])ectively — as there would be between the 
 smaller animals of every kind, which had feet, and the larger. 
 
 Note O, page 68. From the first part of the sentence, pronounced on 
 the serpent. Gen. iii. 14, " Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed 
 above all cattle, (Behemoth,) and above every beast of the field," (Heith-he- 
 shedeh,) it seems to be a natural inference that up to the time of this 
 offence, it was to be classed, in some sense or other, with Behemoth, and 
 Heith-heshedeh, not with Remesh — and from the second ])art, " Upon thy 
 belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat, all the days of thy life" — it 
 seems to be still more naturally inferrible, that, up to this period of its 
 existence it must have had feet to walk upon — it could not have been 
 formed originally for no other kind of motion, than that of trailing along 
 the ground. If so, its feet must have been taken off by this very sen- 
 tence. The serpent must first have begun to go upon its belly, as it does 
 at present, only from the day of the Temptation and Fall of man. 
 
 Comparative anatomy Efppears to confirm this inference, by bringing to 
 light the rudiments of feet, as still a part of the organization of the ser- 
 pent. The rudiments of feet are still discoverable under the skin of the 
 serpent — and that seems to be a natural argument that it must have once 
 had feet. 
 
 It will follow furtlier from this inference, that, up to the time when a 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explnnations. 259 
 
 change was made in the organic structure and habits of hfe of this one of 
 the creatures of God, and as a specific punishment for a specific ofience, 
 there could have been no creature as yet ordained to the same mode of 
 life, and organised accordingly, by the Creator himself. There could 
 have been no creature which trailed, in opposition to those which went on 
 feet, up to the date of the Temptation and Fall, nor any after it, in the 
 antediluvian world at least, but the serpent. If so, this fact as I hinted 
 supra "\ is very important to the proper sense of the name of the third of the 
 classes or orders of the antediluvian zoology, Remesh, in contradistinction 
 to Behemoth and Heith-heshedeh. It must now appear it could have in- 
 cluded nothing which trailed, at first at least. It must have been re- 
 stricted, virtute termini, to such creatures as crept or crawled, even as 
 distinct from those which icalked or ran. 
 
 Note P, page 69. A change in the temperature of the air may or may 
 not have been a consequence of the Fall, and on that point every one is 
 free to have his own opinion. It cannot however be inferred simj)ly from 
 Gen. iii. 21, the i)rovision of clothing for the first human Pair, by their 
 Oeator, though immediately after the Fall: for that might have been done 
 in condescension merely to the consciousness of nakedness, and to the 
 sense of shame, awakened in them by the first act of transgression 
 itself". 
 
 Note Q, page 72. Of that class of the antediluvian zoology, which 
 Scri])ture has called Aouph, the only extant testimony to the existence of 
 any particular species before the F'lood, is Gen. viii. 7, 8-12. ni- Areb, 
 and n:v, lounek. The latter of these, it is generally agreed, must have 
 been the same bird which is designated by the same name in the later 
 books of Scripture, and in the English Bible, wherever it occurs, is ren- 
 dered Dove. We may take it for granted then that the well known bird, 
 so called in our language, is meant in this first allusion to it in Scripture ; 
 though as to its name, in the Hebrew, and its etymon, Gesenius declines 
 to give any opinion about it : and the Dove being a seminivorous or 
 granivorous bird even at present, it may well be presumed it must have 
 lived on vegetable food from the first. 
 
 As to the bird, mentioned along with it, as one of the inmates of the 
 ark also, and called Areb in the Hebrew, it is rendered in the English 
 Bible both here, and wheresoever else it occurs, as the name, or supposed 
 name, of a bird, by Raven ; and Gesenius also is of opinion that as the name 
 of a bird of some kind in the Hebrew, it must have been that of Corvus 
 in Latin, K6pa^ in Greek, or Raven in English — though he declines to 
 assign any etymon of this too. He admits however that the use of this 
 term in the Hebrew is not restricted to the Raven, but takes in kindred 
 species of birds, as the Crow in English, {Kopi>vr^ more properly tiian 
 Kopa^ in Greek, Cornix in Latin,) the Rook, the Daw°, &c. And from 
 
 "' Page 258. " Gen. iii. 7. 10, 11. 
 
 " Cf. Levit. xi. 75. Dciit. xiv. 14. 
 
 S "2. 
 
260 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 the supposed consecration of the bird called Kdpa^ in Greek, (whether the 
 Raven or the Crow,) to Ajjollo, among the gods of classical mythology in 
 particular p, and as his prophet or oracle too, it may be presumed that 
 this incident in the year of the Flood, relating to Noah and the Areh, must 
 have been handed down traditionally as something which passed between 
 him and the Kopo^ in (ireek, either the Raven or the Crow. 
 
 With res))ect then to the habits and diet of this class of birds at pre- 
 sent, though it must be admitted that they prefer animal food, and some 
 of them dead animal food, none of them has the peculiar organism of 
 birds of prey, the beak, and the talons. And as to their food itself, the 
 true description of this family of birds is that of omnivorous — eaters of 
 every thing which comes in their way. There is no antecedent improba- 
 bility therefore that, from the creation to the flood, even these subsisted 
 on a vegetable diet, and that the change in their instincts, which makes 
 them ])refer animal food at present, dates only from the fresh beginning 
 of things after the Deluge. 
 
 Note R, page 84. The calculations in the Prolegomena, here referred 
 to, as was there explained, were all set back 12 hours, under an idea of 
 the necessity of that correction, which I have since seen reason to aban- 
 don 1. These 12 hours being restored, the new moon of April B.C. 1560 
 comes out April 9 at 6 a.m., instead of April 8 f.t 6 p.m. 
 
 Note S, page 93. In addition to the other proofs of this date, col- 
 lected in my former works, the reader should by all means be made awara 
 of one more, brought to light by the history of the Lustral Cycle, the 
 Census, and the Censorship, of Roman antiquity ■", The powers of the 
 Censorship at the period of the Nativity were concentrated in the person 
 of Augustus ; and it has been shewn from the decursus of the Lustral 
 Cycle, down to this period in its history, that the order, which enjoined 
 the census of the empire, having been issued critically at the beginning 
 of the current cycle, the autumnal quarter of B. C. 5 — the time when it 
 would naturally be beginning to be executed in the provinces would be the 
 spring of the next year, B.C. 4. 
 
 Note T, page 104. I was once of opinion that if the final end of the 
 addition of 12 hours to the noctidiurnal cycle in this first instance was 
 simply to lengthen the morning half of the cycle ; no epoch could have 
 been so proper for it as the middle point of the period of 24 hours, reck- 
 oned from 6 P.M. mean time to 6 p. .m. mean time perpetually; which, of 
 course, would have been 6 a.m. mean time for the proper meridian, ex- 
 actly. But further reflection, and the difficulties (of another kind) in 
 which we should be involved by such an hypothesis, have satisfied me 
 
 P Cf. Pot'tae Min. i. llosiod. Fragm. xxix. Piiular, Pythia, iii. 44-54, and 
 Schol. in loc. and ad ver. 41. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 243-2^6. Hyginus, Poet. Astron. 
 ii. xl : Fabulse, ccii. 'I Cf. infra, chap. i. sort. .xii. p. i ,6 sc)(j. ^ Origg. 
 
 Kal. Ilal. ii. 291 , 292. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 2(>1 
 
 that this couhl not he assumed as a necessary condition of the case; and 
 tliat every end, contemi)lated hy the miracU-, as far as we can judf^e of it, 
 wouhl be answered, whether the diurnal rotation was suspended at the 
 mitldle point of the noctidiurnal cycle, reckoned from May 30 at 6 p.m. 
 mean time for the proper meridian, to May 31 at 6 p.m. mean time for 
 the same — or at the middle point of the same cycle, reckoned from sunset 
 May 30 to sunset May 31 — which, reckoned in Kairic time, would of 
 course he the moment of sunrise May 31 : and especially, if it so hap- 
 pened in this particular instance that the moment of sunrise, the beginning 
 of the morning half of the cycle, reckoned by Kairic time, was coinciding 
 as nearly as possible with an integral division of the period of 24 hours in 
 mean time, like 5 a.m. mean time. And that was actually the case. 
 Sunrise, May 31, B.C. 1520, for the latitude of Jerusalem, is found by 
 calcidation * — 
 
 li. in. N. 
 
 May 31 5 10 87 apparent time 
 Equation of time — 11 24-1 
 
 May 31 4 58 44-6 mean time. 
 
 Anil this might very probably be assumed May 31 at 5 a.m. mean time 
 exactly. 
 
 Now that the actual time of the miracle must have been the beginning 
 of the morning half of the noctidiurnal cycle, dated from the first appear- 
 ance of the sun, may be inferred from Josh. .x. 13, " So the sun stood 
 still in the midst of heaven, [the heavens, the two hemispheres, each of them 
 an heaven,) and hasted not to go down {to (jo on) for a whole day" (n 
 perfect day:) for this clearly implies that the sim, at this time, was on the 
 horizon, and consequently just rising. I argued before ^, and I still con- 
 tend, that CD''Dti;il >yn3 Beetsi hessimim, the phrase employed in this 
 instance, never could have been intended, never could have been used 
 with propriety, of any thing but the great circle, visible to the senses, 
 which divides the heavens every where into two equal parts — the hori- 
 zontal circle. The meridian circle, which the authorized version, (to judge 
 from its language,/// the midst of heaven,) seems to have thought intended 
 by this allusion, in the first place, is not a visible or sensible circle ; in 
 the next place, does not divide the heavens into two halves, but simply 
 bisects one of these halves, the upper hemisjihere ; and if it divides the 
 heavens themselves thereby, it is into quadrants, not into halves. If the 
 sun then, at this time, was in the midst of the heavens, (I)etween the upper 
 and the lower hemispheres,) i. e. on the line of bisection of the entire cir- 
 cumference of the heavens, — on the line of separation of the upper and 
 the lower hemispheres — it must have been critically on the horizon in the 
 east — and consequently, if that was the moment of the stopi)age of the 
 iliurnal rotation, the diurnal rotation must have been stopped critically at 
 suiuise in Kairic lime, and .■^ a.m. in mean time. 
 
 " Fasti, iv. -.SS. 597, fyS ' Ibid. i. 271. 
 
262 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 And here the situation of the ancient Gibeon would require to be taken 
 into account. The modern name of Gibeon is Eljib ; and I extracted 
 Dr. Robinson's account of the modern Eljib, in illustration of the site of 
 the ancient Gibeon, from the first edition of his Geography of Palestine, 
 on the former occasion ^'. It appeared from it that Gibeon stood in the 
 midst of a level plain, on an oblong, isolated ridge, the direction of which 
 was east and west, or rather, at one of its extremities, east by north, and 
 at the other, west by south. And this being the case, allowance being 
 made for the sun's azimuth at the time, as we shall see hereafter, it was 
 very possible that the rays of the sun, as first appearing on the morning 
 of this day. May 31, B.C. T.520, might be levelled directly on Gibeon — 
 and so explain the language of Joshua, " Sun be thou dumb upon 
 Gibeon." 
 
 It appears from the same account that the high road from the west 
 of Judaea to Jerusalem passes at present on the north side of the ridge 
 on which Eljib is situated ; and it appears from Eusebius and Jerome ^, 
 that it did so in their time too. It appears also from Jerome y, that a 
 traveller, coming by this road from Nicopolis to Jerusalem, could see 
 both Ajalon (the modern name of which is Yalon) and Gibeon on his 
 right. We may reasonably therefore suppose that it was by this high 
 road on the north, or some similar one, that the besieging army had 
 approached, and laid siege, to Gibeon; and by this also, that Joshua 
 would come upon them from Gilgal for the relief of the place. In this 
 plain therefore, on the north, the battle would most probably be fought 
 under the walls of Gibeon. And from the same locality, as soon as the 
 contest was over, and nothing remained but the pursuit, Joshua must 
 have addressed the sun, just rising at the time above the horizon in the 
 east, and the moon, just sinking at the same time into the horizon in 
 the west. 
 
 "With respect indeed to the precise time of the miracle on the first occa- 
 sion, it would have made no difference, for any thing which we can dis- 
 cover to the contrary, at what time on this day. May 31, B. C. 1520, the 
 Diurnal Rotation might have been stopped — provided it was only twelve 
 hours before the point of 6 p.m. mean time for the proper meridian. The 
 natural termination of the merm noctidiurnal cycle for the primary meri- 
 dian, according to the primitive rule, having been 6 p. m. mean time per- 
 petually ; no addition to the length of a given cycle, it was to be expected 
 a priori, would be made at any period in its decursus, reckoned from 
 which it would end later than 6 p. m. mean time. On the first occasion 
 the ceconomy of the miracle was such that the additional twelve hours 
 ended one hour of mean time before 6 p. m. m. t. On the second it was 
 such that, though the addition was made precisely at 6 p. m., the twelve 
 hours ended at 6 p.m. too, because the reversal of the heavens from 6 p.m. 
 m. t. to 6 A. M. m. t., on that occasion, was instantaneous. 
 
 V Fasti, iv. 59 r. Cf. Second Edition, i. 452 sqq. 
 X Robinson, i. 452, 453. )' Ibid. i. 456. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and E.vpla7iatiom. 263 
 
 Note V, page io6. Of this idiom of Scrii)ture in j)articular, or of the 
 Jews in general, in the case of an integral number and a fraction, small in 
 comparison of the integral number, whereby the whole number was put 
 for the whole and the fraction, and especially in merely general references 
 to both at once — see the examples collected in the Dissertations on the 
 Principles and Arrangement of an Harmony^; and, in fact, the whole of 
 the explanation of the Prophecy of the 70 weeks, there given* — that Pro- 
 phecy itself, (nominally one of 70 weeks, in reality one of 70A,) being the 
 best instance of the idiom in question, to which we could appeal. 
 
 Note X, page 108. Ferguson (Astronomy, edited by Brewster, 181 1, 
 vol. i. 6^. § 1x8.) has the following observation : 
 
 " If the earth turned round its axis in 84 m. 43 sec, the centrifugal 
 force would be equal to the power of gravity at the equator ; and all bodies 
 there would entirely lose their weight. If the earth revolved quicker, they 
 would all fly off, and leave it." But what is an increase of the actual rate 
 of the circumrotation from 24 hours to i h. 24 m. 43 sec. itself, in com- 
 parison of one at the rate of half an entire revolution in less than an in- 
 stant of time ? 
 
 'Hie question. What would be the consequence of a stoppage of the 
 diurnal rotation ? was once put by myself to one of the most eminent of 
 modern astronomers. The following is an extract from his reply to it. 
 
 " A suspension of the laws of motion, such as appears to be under your 
 consideration, is to us {the astronomers) entirely inconceivable. I do not 
 mean that we cannot form a metaphysical conception of such a thing; 
 but I mean that the consequences, without an infinity of miracles of dif- 
 ferent kinds, and some of a continued nature in regard of time, are so 
 numerous, and so destructive of the existing order of things, that any 
 other explanation of the Scripture difficulty is to be sought in i)reference. 
 For instance, the earth is suddenly stopped in its rotation — are the ani- 
 mals &c. stopped at the same time, or are they instantly projected (with 
 reference to the earth) with a velocity as great as that of a cannon ball? 
 Suppose the former — that requires only an addition to the instantaneous 
 miracle. But what is to sui)j)ly the place of the centrifugal force, now 
 destroyed ? The water from the equator would immediately rush to the 
 j)oles ; and if the interior of the earth be something like fiuid lava, (as we 
 have very strong reason to believe,) a burst of lava would crack the solid 
 crust at the equator, and would rush to the poles. These effects could be 
 prevented only by a continued miracle ; that is, by the suspension of the 
 laws of matter during a long time. . . . Mechanics is a continued sequence 
 of causes and effects, and one link in the chain cannot be broken without 
 deranging or destroying all the rest." 
 
 'i'he misapprehension involved in this reasoning is very apj)arent ; viz. 
 That the same Power which was adecpiate to the production of such an 
 effect as this, of the instant suspension of the diurnal rotation, either could 
 
 ' ii. 6 si|(i. "ii. 1-81. iv. 117-414. 
 
264 The three Witnesses^ and the threefold Cord. 
 
 not, or would not, prevent the consequences of that suspension. These 
 consequences might he regarded as possihle, coidd we conceive the possi- 
 hility also of such a thing as an instantaneous stoppage of the motion of 
 the earth about its axis, as an act of I)lind Power ah extra, and nothing 
 more. They are purely imaginary of the process and effects of an ano- 
 maly, however extraordinary, in which the agent was Infinite Power, 
 guided and directed hy Infinite Wisdom. Such objections as these ought 
 to shake no one's confidence in the fact of these miracles, the evidence of 
 which remains just the same, just as strong as ever. They prove only 
 that there was something in the o'conomy of both, and especially in that 
 of the second, over and above the apparent and sensiide effect, infinitely 
 more calculated to excite our wonder and astonishment than the sensible 
 effect itself. They should have no effect therefore upon us but that of 
 exalting our ideas of the Power, the Wisdom, the Foresight, the Goodness 
 of the great Creator and Preserver of all things ; and, in a special manner, 
 our conviction of the absolute dependence of all the laws of matter, and 
 laws of motion, and of the whole of that succession of antecedents and 
 consequents, which we call the course of nature — not only for its first 
 originat.on, but for its constant continuance in the same way, every mo- 
 ment of its duration, simply and solely on the will of God. 
 
 Note Y, page 135. It is far from imj)robable that, if the words in 
 question had been rendered literally, " Sun I be thou dumb upon Gibeon !" 
 we should never have heard of the ignorance or simplicity of Scripture ; 
 as if the sacred Penmen really believed the sun was capable of standing 
 still. The most captiously disposed sceptic could scarcely have fastened 
 such an inference on the actual terms of the address — " Sun, be thou 
 dumb," and not " Sun, stand thou still." 
 
 It is no objection that in verse 13, directly after, summing up the effect 
 of the words, the moon is said to luive stayed — since even there, just be- 
 fore, the sun, as coupled with the moon in the same result, is said not to 
 have stayed, but to have been duml) — implying that the staying, next sup- 
 posed, in the case of the moon, could have been nothing different from 
 this being dumb in the case of the sun. For the same reason, in the final 
 allusion to the miracle as })rincipally affecting the sun, in the sequel of 
 this same verse'', even the sun might now be said to have stood still, and 
 to have hasted not to f/o on for a perfect day ; for there could be no dan- 
 ger of mistaking this standing still or going on, now predicated of the 
 sun, for any thing different from that being dumb, or ceasing to be dumb, 
 predicated or imphed of it before. 
 
 With respect to any subsecjuent reference to the miracle of this day, and 
 the terms in which it may be found alluded to, nothing is discoverable in 
 the later books of Scripture, which woiM prima facie imply such a refer- 
 ence, except Is. xxviii. 21, and Ilabak. iii. 11. With regard to the former, 
 as the allusion to Gibeon is associated there with another display of the 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Ea^planations. 266 
 
 Divine Power in behalf of its own jjeople, the scene of which was Mount 
 Perazim — and that too of earlier date than this of (iibeon, it is clear, in 
 my opinion, that the occasion referred to. Is. xxviii. 21, was not the battle 
 at (iibeon, and the miracle of this day, May 31, B. C. 1520, but a later in- 
 cident, the scene of which was the valley of Gibeon also, recorded histo- 
 rically, I Chron. xiv. 16^, in the reign of David. 
 
 With regard to the latter, if it is rijiihtly rendered in the English Bible, 
 and rightly supposed to refer to this day, then the language of the refer- 
 ence would seem to be open to the cavil of which we are speaking — as if 
 on the authority of this passage, it was to be supposed the sun and the 
 moon were both alike endowed with a motion of their own, which on this 
 day and for this occasion was suspended. In my opinion, however, it is 
 a total misapprehension of the reference of this text, to suppose it to con- 
 tain any allusion to the miracle of the sun at all. The words should not 
 be rendered, " The sun and moon stood still in their habitation," but 
 "Sun-moon was the pillar of his habitation." There is nothing in the 
 original to answer to the and between sun and moon, nor to the in between 
 stood still and their habitation. The context of the passage is competent 
 to satisfy any one, who will consider it carefully, that what the prophet 
 was intending to describe in this sublime hymn, was chiefly the circum- 
 stances of the march of the people of God, when they set out from Mount 
 Sinai, in the second year after the Exodus, on their way to the borders of 
 (^anaan for the first time, preceded by the visible symbol of the presence 
 of the Deity, as their Leader, in the Pillar of the cloud '^ : and it is this 
 Pillar, and the phenomena connected with it, which are the subjects of the 
 allusion in verse 11 — That this Pillar — the visible token of the Presence of 
 the Leader and Guide of the Israelites in this march both by day and by 
 night — was to them both Shemesh and Iree — both sun and moon — both 
 a sun by day and a moon by night — or rather, a Shemesli-Iree, both a sun 
 and a moon at once, and either pro re natn. 
 
 The words therefore should have been rendered, " Sun-moon was the 
 Pillar of his habitation" — and should it be objected that, on that prin- 
 ciple, his habitation in the original should have been Zabelou, not Za- 
 beleh (ib^t not nb^)) we may answer that objection by referring to 
 verse 4 — "And there was the hiding of his j)ower;" which in the original 
 also is Azeh not Azou (Hii' not "Wj). And if it should also be objected 
 that to judge from the description which Scripture itself gives in other in- 
 stances of the phenomena of this Pillar, it exhibited the appearance of a 
 cloud by day, and that of fire only by night ^ — while we admit the truth 
 of that distinction in general, still, on the strength of the more particular 
 specification of the actual phenomena of its appearance, which is given 
 only in this hymn of Ilabakkuk's, and especially from verses 4 and 1 1 — 
 we may justly contend that the essential brightness of the Divine Presence 
 
 <: Cf. .\i. !•;. 2 i>am. v. 18-21-2:;. 1 C'lnoii. xiv. 9-12. '• Cf. Dcuteron. 
 
 xxxiii. 2. .ludges v. 4,5. Ps. Ixviii. 7,8. p Exod. xiii. 21, 22 : xiv. 20 : 
 
 xl. 34-.?8. Numb. ix. 15-23 : xii. 510: xiii. .^3-_^6 : xiv. 14. Joshua xxiv. 7. 
 Ps. Ixxviii. 1^ : cv. _^<)- Nihcmiah i\. 12. ig. 
 
266 The three Witnesses, mid the threefold Cord. 
 
 was not, and could not be, so entirely shrouded even by the cloud pur- 
 j)()sely assumed as its covering by day, but that coruscations of glory 
 were perpetually streaming out from it — " the brightness of which was as 
 the light^" (i.e. of the sun, or of day, itself) — and the appearance of 
 which, as streaming forth from the sides of this pillar, is compared to 
 horns — ^just as the Pillar itself, in verse 1 1 — as the visible symbol of the 
 Divine Presence marching at the head of its armies to war — is compared 
 to the bow and the spear of such a leader, and these coruscations, by 
 the light of which his armies followed in his train, to the flashing of the 
 arrows of that bow, or to the glittering of the blade of that spear. 
 
 Note Z, page 140. The following is a synopsis of these different sys- 
 tems of Scrijitural chronology, first from the Creation to the Deluge — 
 next from the Deluge to the Birth of Abraham — lower than which it is 
 ni)t necessary to trace them ; the interval from the Birth of Abraham to 
 the Exodus being much the same in them all. I take the numbers, in the 
 Septuagint, from Carpzovius' edition, the text of which is that of the Vati- 
 can MS. — with the various readings of the Alexandrine also. The par- 
 ticulars of the Samaritan chronology are taken from Dr. Blayney's edition 
 of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The numbers, which represent the chro- 
 nology of Josephus, are those which are read in Havercampius' edition. 
 Josephus' numbers, even in the same work, are frequently inconsistent 
 with each other. But there can be little doubt that, though he professes 
 to have followed the chronology of the Hebrew text of his own time, it 
 must have differed from that of the Hebrew at present, by little less than 
 a thousand years between the Creation and the Deluge, and as much as 
 700 years between the Deluge and the Birth of Abraham &. 
 
 Chronology of Scripture. 
 
 
 Gen. V. 
 
 i. Fronc 
 
 Hebr. 
 
 I the Creation to the 
 
 Deluge. 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 
 
 Sam. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Adam 
 
 3 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 230 
 
 230 
 
 Ant. i. ii. 3. 
 
 Seth 
 
 6 
 
 105 
 
 105 
 
 205 
 
 205 
 
 — iii- 3- 4. 
 
 Enos 
 
 9 
 
 90 
 
 90 
 
 190 
 
 190 
 
 — iii. 4. 
 
 Cainan 
 
 12 
 
 70 
 
 70 
 
 170 
 
 170 
 
 — — 
 
 Mahalaleel 
 
 15 
 
 65 
 
 65 
 
 165 
 
 165 
 
 — — 
 
 Jared 
 
 18 
 
 162 
 
 62 
 
 162 
 
 162 
 
 — — 
 
 Enoch 
 
 21 
 
 65 
 
 65 
 
 165 
 
 165 
 
 — — 
 
 Methuselah 
 
 25 
 
 187 
 
 67 
 
 167 or 187 187 
 
 — — 
 
 Lamech 
 
 28 
 
 182 
 
 ,53 
 
 188 
 
 182 
 
 — — 
 
 Noah 
 
 32* 
 
 600 
 
 600 
 
 600* 
 
 600 
 
 i. iii. 3. 
 
 
 
 1656 
 
 1307 
 
 2242 
 
 2256 or 2656. 
 
 f Uabak. ii 
 
 1.4. 
 
 « Cf. 
 
 Hales, A 
 
 nalysis of Ancient C'hrono 
 
 logy, i. 95 sqq. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 Notes and Explanations. 
 
 267 
 
 ii. From the Deluge to the Birth of Abraham. 
 
 
 <ieii. \i. 
 
 Hebr. 
 
 8ani . 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Josepli. 
 
 
 
 Shem 
 
 lO 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 Ant. i. 
 
 vi. 5, 
 
 Arphaxad 
 
 12 
 
 35 
 
 '35 
 
 135 
 
 135 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Cainan 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 130 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Salah 
 
 14 
 
 30 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Eher 
 
 16 
 
 34 
 
 134 
 
 134 
 
 134 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Peleg 
 
 18 
 
 30 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Reu 
 
 20 
 
 32 
 
 132 
 
 132 
 
 130 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Serug 
 
 22 
 
 30 
 
 130 
 
 130 
 
 132 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Nahor 
 
 24 
 
 29 
 
 . 79 
 
 179 
 
 120 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Terah 
 
 26 
 
 70 
 
 70 
 
 70 
 
 70 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 292 
 
 942 1 1 72 
 
 993 
 
 Note AA, page 149. With respect to the first introduction of animal 
 worship into Egypt, there is nothing in Scripture to give any colour of 
 probability to the supposition that it could have taken place up to the time 
 of tlie Descent, (circa B.C. 1778,) except Gen. xliii.32: "And they set 
 on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians 
 which did eat with him by themselves ; because the Egyptians might not 
 eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination unto the Egyp- 
 tians :" and Gen. xlvi. 34 : "That ye shall say. Thy servants' trade hath 
 been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our 
 fathers ; that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen : for every shepherd is 
 an abomination unto the Egyptians." These texts however imply nothing 
 of the estimation of animals, among the Egyptians, at this time ; only of 
 that of persons or of employments : the first, of that of people of another 
 nation ; the second, of that of the trade of shepherds, or tenders of cattle. 
 We may infer from them that something like the distinctions of caste had 
 already got footing among the Egyptians, but they authorize no inference 
 about their estimation of animals as sacred or profane, at this time also. 
 
 Two hundred and eighteen years however later than the Descent, when 
 Moses first appeared before Pharaoh in the execution of his commission, 
 animal worship must have been long introduced into Egypt. So may we 
 infer from his answer to Pharaoh, just after the plague of frogs, Exod. viii. 
 25, 26 : " Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." " It is not meet so 
 to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord 
 our God. Lo I shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before 
 their eyes, and will they not stone us ?" Read idol here for abomination ; 
 and it will then a])pear that animals, such as the Israehtes were most likely 
 to use for sacrifice, must already have come to be esteemed objects of wor- 
 ship in Egypt. The same inference maybe drawn from Exod. xii. 12. 
 an<l 39 : the declared purpose and eftect of the plague of the firstborn, the 
 
268 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 execation of judgment against all the gods of Egypt in general, yet in this 
 way of taking in among the rest of its victims the firstborn of cattle in 
 particular ^. 
 
 The institution of the Mneuis cycle, and the adoption of an animal type 
 of the cycle, sacred to the sun, was probably either the first beginning of 
 animal worship in Egypt, or that which ultimately led to it. 
 
 Note BB, page 150. 
 
 Mneuis Cycle, from the Epoch, Oct. 9 B. C. 1681, to the year before the 
 Exodus, B.C. 1 56 1. 
 
 •Julinn 
 ('yule. Midn. Leap-year. Cycle. Midii. Leaii-year. 
 
 i Oct. y B. C.i68[ i iii Oct. 9 6.0.1621 i 
 
 ii y 1651 3 iv 9 1591 3 
 
 V Oct. 9 B. C. 1561 I year of Julian leap-year. 
 
 "Note CC, page 151. 
 
 Natales Mneuidis and Panegyry of the Waters for one cycle of the 
 Julian heap-year. 
 
 NATALES. PANEGYRY. 
 
 Loap-year. Days. Le.ap year. 
 
 i B.C. 1681 Oct. 9 + 280 = July 16 B.C. 1680 ii 
 
 ii — 1680 — — — 16 — 1679 iii 
 
 iii — 1679 — — — 16 — 1678 iv 
 
 iv — 1678 — — — 15 — 1677 i 
 
 Note DD, page 170. 
 
 E.xtracts from " The Great Pyramid, or Why was it built ?'' By John 
 Taylor. London, Longman &c. 1859. 
 
 Ch. xi. § 91. page 103. From George Sandys' account of his visit to the 
 Great Pyramid in 16 10. 
 
 " At the top, we entered into a goodly chamber, {the king's chamber,) 
 20 foot wide and 40 in length; the roof of a marvellous height ;' and the 
 stones so great that eight floor it, eight roof it, eight flag the ends, and 
 sixteen the sides, all of well-wrought Thebaic marble. Athwart the room, 
 at the upper end, there standeth a tomb, uncovered, empty, and all of one 
 stone ; breast high, 7 feet in length, not 4 in breadth, and sounding like 
 
 a bell Against one end of the tomb, and close to the wall, there 
 
 openeth a pit, with a long and narrow mouth, which leadethinto an under 
 
 '■ f'f. Kxod. xxxii. 1 4. 8. 2.^, 24. Cf. Ijevilicus xvii. 7 ; xviii. J,. Dcutcioii. 
 ix. 16. 21 : xxix. 16-18. Joshua xxiv. 14. Ezelx. xx. 7, 8 : xxiii. .^ sqq. 
 
APPKNDix. Njtt's and Explanations. 209 
 
 chamber. In the walls on each side of the upper room, there are two 
 holes, one opposite to another, their ends not discernible, nor big enough 
 to be crept into ; sooty within, and made, as they say, by a flame of fire 
 which darted through it. This is all that this huge mass containeth within 
 his darksome entrails — all at least to be discovered." 
 
 Ibid. ch. xii. § 93. i)age iii. Description of the King's Chamber, by 
 John (ireaves, of C.C.C, 0.xfoi d, (Savillian Professor of Astronomy,) who 
 visited Egypt, A. D. 1637 : ch. ii. § 5. p. 6. 
 
 " This rich and spacious chamber, in which art may seem to have con- 
 tended with nature, the curious work being not inferior to the rich mate- 
 rials, stands, as it were, in the heart and centre of the Pyramid, equidis- 
 tant fri)m all the sides, and almost in the n)idst, between the basis and tlie 
 top. The floor, the sides, the roof, of it are all made of vast and exquisite 
 tables of Thebaic marble, which, if tiiey were not veiled and obscured by 
 the steam of ta])ers, would appear glistering and shining. From the top 
 of it descending to the bottom, there are but six ranges of stone; all which, 
 being respectively sized to an equal height, very gracefully in one and the 
 same altitude run round the room. The stones which cover this place 
 are of a strange and stupendous length, like so many huge beams lying 
 flat, and traversing the room, and withal supporting that infinite mass and 
 weight of the Pyramid above. Of these there are nine which cover the 
 roof; two of them are less by half in breadth than the rest; the one at the 
 east end, the other at the west. The length of this chamber on the south 
 side, most accurately taken at the joint or line where the first and second 
 row of stones meet, is 34 English feet, and 380 parts of the foot divided 
 into 1000. The breadth of the west side, at the joint or line where the 
 first and second row of stones meet, is 17 feet, and 190 jjarts of the foot 
 divided into 1000. The height is 19 feet and a half. 
 
 " Within this glorious room, (for so I may justly call it,) as within some 
 consecrated Oratory, stands the Monument of Cheops or Chemmis, of one 
 piece of marble, hollow within, and uncovered at the top, and sounding 
 
 like a bell This monument, in respect to the nature and quality of 
 
 the stone, is the same with which the whole room is lined, as by the break- 
 ing of a httle fragment of it I plainly discovered ; being a speckled kind 
 of marble, with black and white and red spots, as it were equally mixed, 
 which some writers call Thebaic marble. 
 
 "The figure of this tomb without is like an altar, or, more nearly to 
 express it, like two cubes, finely set together, and hollow within : it is 
 cut smooth and j)lain, without any sculpture or engraving, or any relevy 
 or imbossment. The exterior superficies of it contains in length 7 feet, 
 3w inches; in depth it is 3 feet, 3^ inches, and it is the same in breadth. 
 The hollow part within is in length, on the west side, 6 feet and 488 parts 
 of the English foot divided into 1000 parts ; in breadth, at the north end, 
 2 feet and 218 parts of the foot divided into 1000 parts. The depth is 
 2 feet and 860 of 1000 parts of the English foot 
 
 " It may justly be (|uestione(l how this Monument of Cheops could be 
 brought hither; seeing it is an impossibility that, by those narrow ])as- 
 
270 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 sages before described, it should have entered. Wherefore we must ima- 
 gine that by some machina it was raised and conveyed up without, before 
 this oratory or chamber was finished, and the roof closed. The position 
 of it is thus : It stands exactly in the meridian, north and south, and is, 
 as it were, equidistant from all sides of the chamber except the east, from 
 whence it is doubly remoter than from the west. Under it I found a 
 little hollow space to have been dug away, and a large stone in the pave- 
 ment removed at the angle next adjoining to it, which Sandys erroneously 
 imagines to be a passage into some other compartment ... 
 
 " The ingenious reader will excuse my curiosity, if, before I conclude 
 my description of this pyramid, I pretermit not any thing within, of how 
 light a consequence soever. This made me take notice of two inlets or 
 spaces in the south and north sides of this chamber, just 0])posite to one 
 another: that on the north side was in breadth 700 of 1000 parts of the 
 English foot, in dejjth 400 of 1000 parts, evenly cut, and running in a 
 straight line 6 feet and further into the thickness of the wall — that on the 
 south is larger, and somewhat round, not so long as the former, and by 
 the blackness within it, seems to have been a receptacle for the burning of 
 lamps." 
 
 Ch. ii. § 12. p. 14. Extract from the Jom'nal of Col. Vyse. 
 
 " I consider that the workmanship displayed in the King's Chamber, in 
 this pavement, and in the casing-stones, is perfectly unrivalled ; and that 
 there is no reason to doubt that the whole exterior of this vast structure 
 was covered over with the same excellent masonry." 
 
 The two inlets in the north and south sides of the chamber last alluded 
 to in Greaves' description, (as it was ascertained by the researches of Col. 
 Howard Vyse,) were air-channels, intended for the ventilation of the 
 chamber itself. 
 
 Ch. xii. § 94. p. 114. Extract from the Journal of Col. Vyse, May 12, 
 1837 : "Mr. Hill proceeded with his operations at the southern air-channel, 
 and about 7 feet from the surface of the pyramid he found within it a 
 large stone, which he was afraid would get fixed further down. He there- 
 fore removed it with the utmost caution. . . . Upon the removal of this 
 block, the channel was completely open ; an immediate rush of air took 
 place ; and we had the satisfaction of finding that the ventilation of the 
 King's Chamber was perfectly restored, and that the air within it was cool 
 and fresh. . . . The length of the southern air-channel is 174 feet 3 inches, 
 and that of the northern 233 feet. Had not the upper part of the latter 
 channel been forced, and that of the southern been filled up with the 
 abovementioned stone, both of them would in all probability have re- 
 mained open ; and the ventilation of this wonderful structure would have 
 
 continued as perfect as when it was first built It is . . satisfactorily 
 
 proved by these operations that they were intended to ventilate the King's 
 Chamber, and that they have no communication with any other apart- 
 ment. . . . And it is to be believed that the King's Chamber is the principal 
 apartment, and the security of the Sarcophagus ivithin it the great object 
 for which the Pyramid was erected." 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 271 
 
 On these accounts Mr. Taylor himself (Ch. ii. § 95. p. 117) proceeds to 
 observe — " What could be the reason that this Chamber, containing the 
 King's Monument, should have had so much pains bestowed on it ? and 
 that an apartment, with no other furniture in it than an empty porphyry 
 coffer, should have been ventilated as perfectly as if it were intended for 
 the abode of a human being ? ... It is not likely that the chamber was 
 designed for the reception of a dead body; for ventilation was in that 
 respect unnecessary. ... The only conclusion to which we can come is 
 that the coffer, called the King's Monument, was itself the object for 
 which all this care and foresight were taken. That this coffer was, for 
 some purpose or other, designed to be kept safe in its cell, incapable of 
 l)eing removed if it were discovered, and made as secure from injury in 
 the lajjse of ages as porphyry, in a well-ventilated room, might reasonably 
 be supjiosed to be, when the material of whicli it was formed was so ])er- 
 fectly homogeneous as to emit a sound, like a bell, on being struck." 
 
 In this conclusion I fully concur ; but I add, in explanation of the fact, 
 that this coffer was in reality the mystical Bcikafios of Osiris and Isis, and 
 so far the cradle of all derivative Life and Being. And hence its shajie, 
 that of the double cube, one for each of the Cosraogonic Duad — the cube 
 being the most perfect measure of capacity or content of all figures, and 
 Osiris and Isis being the concentrated essence of all secondary and deriva- 
 tive life whatsoever. Hence too its position, on the meridian line, north 
 and south ; because Osiris and Isis — even in their proper capacity, and 
 their proper relation to each other and to every thing else, as the two 
 great Principles of life and activity — were still represented in external na- 
 ture by the Sun and the Moon respectively ; whose most projier place in 
 the heavens is on the meridian also'. And hence very probably too the 
 name of this chamber, which seems to have been handed down in Kgypt 
 from time immemorial as that of the king''s chamber ; for such was the 
 style of the Sun, and therefore of Osiris as the same with the Sun, the 
 liing, the king kut f^oxrjv^. 
 
 Moreover, as the first effect of the union of the two Cosmogonic Powers 
 was the vegetable kingdom of Nature, and the mode or medium of such 
 an union, followed by such an effect, could be only in and through the ele- 
 ment of water •*, if I am right in supposing this coffer the mystical 6a\atxoi 
 of these Powers, this coffer itself at stated times would require to be filled 
 with water ; and therefore it was to be expected a priori, that there would 
 be some communication between it and the Nile''. Herodotus accord- 
 ingly speaks of a diapv^ or communication of this kind, between the 
 Nile and the Pyramid of Cheops, as well as between the Nile and the 
 supposed burial-place of its founder ' ; though he does not say that either 
 (,'heops or Chephren, the supposed builders of the first and second pyra- 
 mids respectively, were buried in them also. Pliny the Elder too attests 
 the existence of a well in the great pyramid in his time '", 86 cubits deep, 
 which was connected with the Nile. This well is still in existence, though 
 
 ' Fasti, iii. 93-100. •< Cf. Fusfi, 'ii. loc sq(|. 1 18 sqq. 128 »m\. 
 
 • ii. 124. 127. '" xxwi. 17. § 3. p. 679. 
 
272 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 dry at present. In Greaves' description of the pyramid (Mr. Taylor, 
 ch. xi. § 92. p. 106,^ it is alluded to as follows: "At the end of it, (a 
 narrow passage, leading into the second gallery, just before described,) on 
 the right hand, is the well mentioned by Pliny, the which is circular, and 
 not square, as the Arabian writers describe ; the diameter of it exceeds 
 three feet; the sides are lined with white marble; and the descent into it 
 is by fastening the hands and feet into little open spaces cut in the sides 
 within, opposite and answerable to one another in a ])erpendicular." 
 
 Page 118 Mr. T. observes, after Col. Vyse and Mr. Perring, "That as 
 the floor of the king's chamber was 138 feet 9 inches above the base of the 
 pyramid, so the base of the pyramid was 138 feet 9 inches above high 
 Nile." And the well, he proceeds to observe, p. 119, (from Mr. Long in 
 *' the British Museum,") being 20775 feet deep at present, and 62 feet 
 above the base of the pyramid, the bottom, on this principle, must lie 
 between the i)resent levels of high and low water in the Nile. By Mr. 
 Taylor's own calculation (p. 119), it descended ten feet below high water 
 mark. From which we may infer that, if the time when water was most 
 likely to be wanted for the stated services in the worship of the two Cos- 
 mogonic Powers, was that period of the inundation when the Nile was at 
 its highest and stagnant ", it m.ust always have been possible to fill this 
 well at such times from the Nile. 
 
 Ch, xxi. § 125. p. 202, Mr. T. observes, "One great peculiarity, which 
 distinguishes the earliest structures (of the Egyptians) from those of later 
 ages, is the absence of all hieroglyphics. A farther difference is found in 
 the shape of the Coffer or Sarcophagus. The chest or coffer in the great 
 pyramid is so shaped as to be in every part rectangular, from side to side, 
 and from end to end ; and the bottom is also cut at right angles with the 
 sides and end, and made perfectly level. This was the case also with the 
 coffers of the Second and Third Pyramids. None of the coffers had any 
 hieroglyphics carved on them. Sir Gardiner Wilkinson remarks, ' It has 
 always been a matter of surprise that no hieroglyphics are met with either 
 in the interior or on the exterior of the Pyramids, and that, above all, the 
 Sarcophagus should be destitute of those sacred characters, so generally 
 found on Egyptian monuments.' When we bear therefore (continues 
 Mr. T.) that a mummy board was found in the Third Pyramid (Vyse, ii. 
 p. 94), inscribed with hieroglyphics, which shew that it belonged to the 
 supposed founder of the Third Pyramid, we may reasonably infer that it 
 was not placed there at the time this pyramid was built." 
 
 The pyramids of all sizes, and of all ages, are reckoned to be about 
 sixty in number". They must have been built at very different times; 
 and many of them after the time when it had begun to be given out that 
 their supposed founders were buried in them, and that they had never 
 been intended for any thing but sepulchral vaults, enclosing the tombs 
 and bodies of these founders; many of them too, very probably, ex- 
 pressly to support and substantiate this profession. But with regard to 
 
 " Cf. Fasti, iii 20, cf. 584. " IJuiisen's Statulin"- of Egypt, ii. 87, S8. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 273 
 
 the three largest and oldest of the number, those which go by the name 
 of the Pyramid of Cheops, the Pyramid of Chephren, and the Pyramid of 
 Mykerinus, respectively, I should be entirely of oj/mion that the first two, 
 if not the third, are older than this profession, and older than the inven- 
 tion of the hieroglyphical character, and simply what I have sui)posed, 
 temples of the Cosmogonic Powers, Osiris and Isis. But after this pro- 
 fession had once begun to be given out as part and parcel of the fabulous 
 history of the Dynasties, and it became necessary to do something with 
 these first and oldest of the pyramids also, to bring them within the same 
 category of the tombs or sepulchres of the Dynastic kings, their pretended 
 founders, I should be entirely of opinion that the Egyptians, being re- 
 strained by their reverence for Osiris and Isis, to whom these pyramids 
 were originally dedicated, and by their regard to the use and purpose to 
 which they were originally put, from making any change in the interior 
 of these in particular, and yet considering it necessary to give it out that 
 these also had been intended from the first for the same purpose as the 
 rest — in order to prevent the discovery of the falsehood of this profession 
 by the actual inspection of their interior, came to the resolution of 
 shutting them up. And this, it appears, they actually did i', by obstructing 
 the regular entrances to them with granite portcullises, and blocks of 
 stone, dovetailed in the inside so effectually, that from that moment to 
 the day when they were forcibly broken open, no human eye had ever 
 penetrated into the interior of these apartments. And as this could have 
 been done only from the inside, in order to provide a means of egress for 
 the workmen who did it, it appears from the description of the great 
 pyramid i, they must actually have driven a perpendicular shaft right 
 through the solid masonry of the building. It is certain at least that 
 neither Herodotus, nor any others of the ancients who have left an account 
 of the pyramids, however competent they might be to speak from their 
 own observation of the exterior of these buildings, appear to ha\e seen 
 the interior. 
 
 In confirmation of the opinion advanced supra*", that the pyramid of 
 the Egyptians was after all only an exaggerated expression of the idea of 
 a grain of wheat or barley, we may appeal even to the name of the pyramid 
 in Greek, nvpafili. Tlvpafih in Greek would be regularly derived from 
 nvpafjiOi ; and the existence of nvpafiot some time or other in the Greek 
 language, as well as the meaning of the term in Greek, as synonymous 
 with nvpus, the common Greek term for wheat, are attested by nvpafios in 
 Hesychius, in the sense of xopms ; and by the adjective nvpiipivos, 
 derived from nvpnpos, in the sense of nvpivos, derived from nvpoi, which 
 occurs in Hesiod^; and by nvpapnvs, the Greek name of a cake, made of 
 wheat and honey, which occurs in Hesychius also, and in Athenfrus ^. 
 We should thus account too for the length of the first syllable in iTvpapi<i ; 
 for the V in nvpos is naturally long. 
 
 P Bunspn, ii. 149. 147 sqq. 1 ii. 158. rf. ii. 162, 163. 166-168. 
 
 r Page 171. "* Fragm ii. Pootie Minores tineci, i. ' Athena-us, xiv. 56. 
 
274 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Note EE, p. 188. I freely confess that I am a stranger to the Sanskrit 
 language — and I am ready to acknowledge that on such a question as 
 that of the origin of the language, the opinion of any one who knew 
 nothing of the language itself, a priori, might not appear entitled to much 
 consideration. There are however certain matters of fact, admitted, if I 
 am not mistaken, to hold good of tlie Sanskrit, and of no other language 
 besides, from which common sense, without any knowledge of the lan- 
 guage, is competent to draw the inference, naturally suggested by them, 
 viz. that the language to which they are peculiar, could not have grown 
 up and been formed in the same way as every other. 
 
 i. There is the name of this language. The name by which it is called at 
 present, and by which, for any thing which appears to be known to the con- 
 trary, it was always called, is that of the Sanskrit. Now with respect 
 to the names of languages {real languages, that is — languages which have 
 or have had a real existence,) it may be affirmed with equal truth and 
 confidence of all, that their proper distinctive appellations were derived or 
 are derived from the country in which or the people by whom they were 
 or are spoken. If the Sanskrit language then is or was a real one of its 
 kind, I demand, where is the Sanskrit country in which it grew up, or the 
 Sanskrit people by whom it was spoken ? If no such country and no such 
 people are known to Geography or to History, what must be thought of 
 the origin of a language the very name of which declares it never had a 
 country or a people of its own ? 
 
 ii. There is the meaning of this name. " The word Sanskrita," we are 
 informed by Sanskrit scholars^, " is a compound participle, signifying 
 altogether or completely made, done, or formed (Latin confectus), from the 
 inseparable preposition sam, altogether or together, (Latin col, com, con, 
 cor,) and krita, done. . .The word in its common acceptation denotes a 
 thing to have been comjwsed or formed by art, adorned, embellished, j^uri- 
 fied, highly cultivated or polished, and regularly inflected as a language." 
 The name then, it appears from its own testimony, was not taken from 
 the people who spoke the language, nor from the country in which it was 
 spoken, but from the assumed property of the language itself; that it was 
 complete and perfect of its kind — that it wanted nothing for its perfection 
 as a language. Here then we may demand. Is the name of the Sanskrit 
 language agreeable to the analogy of those of all real languages, whether 
 dead or living ? Can any instance be produced, to parallel this, of any 
 language still living, or known to have been formerly living and actual, 
 which took its name from some abstract quality of the language itself, and 
 not from the ])eople who spoke it, or the country in which it was spoken ? 
 If not, then it must be admitted that, in this respect too, the Sanskrit 
 stands alone, and is excluded by its name itself from the class of languages 
 which take their names from real national or geographical distinctions, and 
 
 " Grammar of the Sanskrita Language by Chark's Wilkins, LL. D., Preface, 
 page 3. 
 
APi'iNDix. Notes and Explunaiiuns. 275 
 
 not from abstract qualities of the languages themselves ; and tliat, in 
 fact, is exclusion from the family of real languages in general. 
 
 iii. There is the actual structure and composition of the language itself — 
 that the Sanskrita, as its name implies, is indeed a perfect lanrjuut/e, a. lan- 
 guage finished and complete — in which nothing is redundant, nothing is 
 defective, nothing is irregular. How far this is truly the case with it, 
 from my own knov/ledge, I am not competent to say. But we all know, 
 that, from the supposed connection of the Greek with the Sanskrit, it is 
 the usual practice of Greek etymologists, or lexicographers, or gram- 
 marians, at the present day, if they have any desideratum to suj)i)ly in the 
 Greek, any obsolete theme to find, any existing anomaly to explain, to 
 have recourse to the Sanskrit ; and generally speaking they dis^cover, or 
 suppose they discover, in that what they are in search of in the Greek. 
 If this be the case, and the Sanskrit exhibits no imperfections nor anoma- 
 lies of any kind, on what principle can it be reduced to the same category 
 as all other languages — formed, as it must have been, in a manner j)eculiar 
 to itself, as the result of the process of formation shews. Real and actual 
 languages grow up in the mouths of those who speak them. They are 
 the work of lime and circumstances. One generation contributes as much 
 to their formation as another, yet each independently of the rest. They 
 are consequently full of anomalies and inconsistencies ; and the same lan- 
 guage, and in the same country, of an earlier sera, is scarcely more intel- 
 ligible to its own j)eople of a later date, than a strange tongue itself. It is 
 the universal law of actual and spoken languages, to be constantly tending 
 either to their imjirovement or to their deterioration — but never to stand 
 still in any supposed state or degree of their natural j)erfection. Even if 
 there were natural causes, constantly in operation, competent to bring a 
 living and spoken language gradually up to this state of its natural perfec- 
 tion — there are none known to experience and observation, any where, 
 which could keep it in that state of perfection — as a living and spoken 
 language at least, perpetusdly. The Sanskrit dirters from all other lan- 
 guages both in having attained to its proper perfection, independently 
 of such natural causes, at first, and in having maintained itself in that 
 state of perfection, independently of such causes, ever since. 
 
 iv. The Sanskrit itself, it is agreed, is composed of elements which are 
 reducible to two comprehensive classes; one, those which it has in common 
 with the Greek, and the Latin, and the other European languages; the 
 other, such as it has in common with what, in contradislinctiou to iSaus- 
 krit, is called the Prakrit — the vernacular or native languages of India — 
 a very numerous class — of which Adrien Balhi, in his Atlas Ethnogra- 
 phique du Globe", enumerates 46 — Dr. Buchanan, in his Journey from 
 Madrasy, eight at least, under the heads of Andhra, Canarese, Karnataka, 
 Kerala, Malabar, Malayala, Tamul, and Telinga, respectively^. The fact 
 then of this distinction in the component parts of the Sanskrit being ud- 
 
 X A I'uris, 1826, folio. Page vi. Quatririne Tableau, LanRiies de rinde. 
 y Lone). 1807, 3 vols. 4to. ' See General Index, Languayes. 
 
276 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 mitted ; there is reason to believe, that these two parts bear a very re- 
 markable ])roportion to each other, too remarkable, if true, not to have 
 been the effect of design and contrivance ; viz. that of equality — that the 
 number of roots or etymons which the Sanskrit has in common with the 
 Prakrit, and the number which it has in common with the European 
 languages, are as nearly as possible the same. I cannot vouch for this fact 
 from my own knowledge ; but the authority from which I have collected 
 it will be found in the note below. I shall make no further remark upon 
 it myself than simply this, that, if true, it is well qualified both to excite 
 and to justify the gravest suspicion — that a language so equally composed 
 of such different materials, must have been artificial and factitious — the 
 work of some one, who had previously the same acquaintance both with 
 the native languages of India, and with the Greek and Latin, and the 
 other Euro])ean languages, and some time or other set himself about the 
 construction of a new language, made up of both, bvit on this very principle, 
 of each in an equal proportion to the other*. 
 
 * Extracts from the Parallele des Langues de I'Europe et de I'lnde of 
 F. G. Eichhoff, Paris, 1836. 
 
 Page 21. Langues Indiennes. — En tete de la famille Indienne et de 
 tout le systeme vient se placer le Sanscrit, I'idiome sacre des Brahmes, 
 la source commune de toutes les langues de I'Inde. Son nom, qui sig- 
 nifie concret, perfectionne, montre assez les phases qu'il a du subir avant 
 d'etre fixe par I'usage; et cependant ses monuments litteraires les plus 
 positifs le font remontre, sous sa forme actuelle, a plus de quinze siecles 
 avant notre ere. 
 
 Page 22. Le Sanscrit, a I'epoque meme de son extension, etait reserve 
 aux classes privilegiees ; le peuple et les femmes parlaient I'idiome vul- 
 gaire, qui, designe sous le nom de Pracrit, c'est-a-dire naturel, spontane, 
 contenait les memes ele'ments, mais sous une forme inculte et grossiere, 
 differente dans chaque localite. 
 
 This name of Pracrit, applied to the vernacular languages, in contra- 
 distinction to Sanscrit, meaning natural, spontaneous, in opposition to 
 artificial, polished, the work of art and labour, is very observable. The 
 Pracrit in that sense is just what the Sanscrit itself must have been, if it 
 had not been a factitious language. 
 
 After this, speaking of the laborious and exhaustive digest of Sanscrit 
 roots, made by the two Hindu grammarians, Casinathas and Vopadevas, 
 page 260, he observes, Ce precieux recueil. . . . contient environ seize cents 
 syllabes classees dans un ordre methodique, et representant chacune un 
 verbe simple, source d'une foule de de'rivations. 
 
 And page 261, speaking of what he had done, or proposed to do him- 
 self, he observes. En procedant avec une attention minutieuse a I'aide des 
 dictionnaires et des traites speciaux, nous avons cru reconnaitre que, 
 parmi les seize cents racines recueillies par les grammairiens Indiens, en- 
 viron un tiers se composait de repetitions uniquement produites par la 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Edplanatioiis. 277 
 
 diversite de conjugaison, un autre tiers de racincs tombees en desuetude 
 ou usitees seulement dans Tlnde, et que le dernier tierp, comprenant Ics 
 racines les plus fecondes et les plus genenilement rejjandues, constituait 
 la veritable base de la nomenclature Euro|-c'enne. C'est done ^ cette der- 
 niere partie, composee d'environ cinq cents monosyllabes, que nous avons 
 donne tons nos soins, &c. 
 
 It appears to be plainly implied in this last passage that, while the 
 really distinct and independent roots in the Sanskrit were about looo in 
 number, these themselves were divisible into two halves of about 500 
 each — one of them suj)j)lying the elementary forms of such terms as the 
 vSanskrit still has, or once had, in common with the vernacular languages 
 of India, the Prakrit ; the other, those of such as it had, or was supposed 
 to have, in common with the Greek and Latin, and the other European 
 languages. 
 
 Much to the same effect too is the account given of it in the Atlas Eth- 
 nographique of Adrien Balbi, referred to supra. 
 
 Page vi. Quatrieme Tableau, Langues de I'lnde, No. 40. Sanskrit, 
 que les Indiens appellent Sanskrita, c'est-a-dire />ar/fli7, achev^. Cette 
 langue parait avoir ete parlee anciennement dans la plus grande partie de 
 I'Inde ; elle ne Test plus, depuis bien des siecles, et y est actuellement 
 apprise par les Brahmanes et les Indiens les plus instruits, comme chez 
 nous on apprend le Grec et le Latin. C'est la langue religieuse, celle des 
 lois, et d'un grand nombre de livres ; les Brahmanes les plus savans s'en 
 servent encore dans leurs compositions de haute litterature. . . . 
 
 Le Sanskrit, que la plupart des philologues considere comme la souche 
 de la pretendue famille Indo-Germanique, a beaucoup d'analogie avec le 
 Slave, le Malais, et autres langues ; et une bien ])lus grande avec le Zend, 
 le Persan, le Grec, le Latin, et tons les idiomes Germaniques, surtout avec 
 le Meso-Gothique, et I'lslandais. . . . 
 
 Aussi antique que celle des Chinois, la htterature Sanskrite lui est in- 
 fcrieure en tout ce qui a rapport a I'histoire, a la geographie, et aux sciences 
 naturelles ; elle est, apres la litterature Chinoise, Arabe, et Persane, la plus 
 riche de I'Asie, se distinguant surtout par ses ouvrages de philosophic, de 
 morale, de grammaire, d'arithmetique, d'astronomie, et de pot'sie. . . . 
 
 No. 41. Langues Vivantes — que jdusieurs savans Indiens appellent 
 avec une denomination generate Pracrit. Plusieurs de ces langues pa- 
 raissent ctre derivees du Sanskrit; elles sont ])arlees dans I'Inde. dans 
 les re'gions limitrophes, et dans les iles adjacentes. Dans plusieurs de 
 ces idiomes, la moitie des mots sont Sanskrits purs ; le reste se comjjose 
 ou de mots, dont une partie appartient a des langues elrangeres connues, 
 surtout au Persan, et une partie a d'autres qu'on n'a pas encore pu re- 
 connaitre, ou de mots Sanskrits changes et corruinpus d'apres un systems 
 r^gulier de ])ermutation, en alti-rant plus ou moius certaines lettres. Les 
 Saraswata, nation Indienne (jui a disparu depuis long- temps, et qui vivail 
 le long du Siiraswati dans le Penjab, parlaient une langue particidiere d^- 
 rive'e du Sanskrit, et qu'on indiquait sous la denomination de Puacrit. 
 
 This testimony too is sufficiently clear to the jioint that half the real 
 
278 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 elements of the Sanskrit are common to the Prakrit, and the other half to 
 the languages which are not Prakrit, in the sense of vernacular at least. 
 The last observation, that the Prakrit itself was properly the language of a 
 former nation of the Punjab, on the borders of the Saraswati, is impor- 
 tant ; for the Punjab was probably the birthplace of the Sanskrit, (if it 
 was, after all, a factitious language), at a time when these Saraswata might 
 have been not only living and flourishing, but the principal people of that 
 part of India. 
 
 In a word, if there is any other language, which in such distinctive 
 particulars as these of being a dead language, spoken by no people nor in 
 any country of the world, at present, yet the language of religion, and 
 learning, and literature in general, within its own sphere of circulation, 
 (and that a very extensive one,) like the Sanskrit, and almost as polished 
 and perfect of its kind as the Sanskrit — it is the Pali, the language of 
 Buddhism all over the east, as Sanskrit is of Brahminism. But the pa- 
 rallel between the two languages goes no further. Of the Sanskrit we 
 can assign neither time nor place, neither when nor where, it was once a 
 living and spoken language — without begging the point in dispute. The 
 Pali, on the contrary, has an history. It can be traced to the country in 
 which, and the people among whom, Buddha and Buddhism themselves 
 both took their rise. The following is Adrien Balbi's account of it. 
 
 No. 41. Bali ou Pali, dit aussiMAGADHA. . .Cette langue, qu'on pent 
 considerer comrae sceur du Sanskrit, etait parlee anciennement dans le 
 Magadha ou Magudha (partie dix Bahar au sud du Gauge), regarde par 
 plusieurs savans Indiens comme le pays natal de Bouddha. Apres avoir 
 ete tres repandue dans ITnde avant la naissance de Jesus-Christ, elle s'est 
 eteinte . . depuis tres long-temps, quoiqu'il soit reste la langue lithurgique 
 et htteraire des iles de Ceylan, de Bali, de Madura . . Le Pali est aussi la 
 langue religieuse de tous les nombreux habitans des empires Chinois et 
 Japonais, qui professent le Lamisme et le Bouddhisme. Le Pali a la force, 
 la richesse et I'harmonie du Sanskrit. Sa litterature est tres riche, et on 
 pourrait la nqmmer Bouddhique, parce qu'elle contient les ouvrages au- 
 thentiques qui forment la doctrine des Lamistes et des Bouddhistes ; elle 
 est la source de la litterature des Birmans, des Pegouains, des Tonquinois, 
 des Cochin-Chinois, des Siamois, des Japonais, des Cingalais, et des Ti- 
 betains. Dans tous les pays peuples par des Lamistes, et des Bouddhistes, 
 les gens instruits apprennent celte langue, comme dans ITnde et en 
 Europe on apprend le Sanskrit et le Latin. 
 
 Again, speaking of the Magadha language. No. 76. Parlee dans le 
 Bahar meridional, &c. Le territoire oil Ton parle cette langue est celebre 
 dans la mythologie et I'histoire de ITnde, parce qu'il est la patrie de 
 Bouddah, et parce qu'il faisait partie de ce puissant royaume de Magadha, 
 qui embrassait anciennement toutes les provinces situees sur le Gauge. 
 Quelqiies savans orientalistes considerent le Magadha comme la souche du 
 Pali, d'autres le regardent mcme comme identique a cette derniere langue, 
 qui ne serait autre chose que le Magadha poli ct pcrfectionne |)ar les sa- 
 vans Bouddhistes. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 279 
 
 V. There is one question however, directly connected with this of the 
 claims of the Sanskrit to the character and estimation of a genuine lan- 
 guage, on which, without professing to know anything of it as a language, 
 I may consider myself competent to express an opinion, and even entitled 
 to s])eak with some authority. And that is, the question of the Anti- 
 quity of the oldest remains of the language at the present day. It seems 
 to be agreed that the best entitled to that character, among them., is the 
 Rich or Rig-veda ; and the first four Ashtakas or Books of the Rig-veda 
 itself having been translated by the late Professor Wilson, from the text of 
 the original as restored and edited by Mr. Max Miiller, and having been 
 published at the expense of the East India Company, these oldest and 
 hitherto most esoteric of the extant remains of Sanskrit literature have 
 been brought within the cognizance even of those who know nothing of 
 the Sanskrit itself, and may be judged of in these translations by English 
 readers, as much as in the originals by Sanskrit scholars. 
 
 The question indeed of the age of any of the extant remains of Sanskrit 
 literature, and that of the claims of the language itself to be considered as 
 once a living and spoken language of its kind, are not the same — but 
 every one must admit that they are intimately connected ; and every one 
 also must admit, that, when we consider the high degree of antiquity 
 which modern Sanskrit scholars do not scruple to claim in behalf of such 
 of its monuments at present as this of the Rich — if it can be shewn that 
 even this is not entitled to //«//" the antiquity so confidently challenged for 
 it, the proof of that fact will be well calculated to give additional strength 
 and probability to the suspicions, otherwise suggested, about the languuye 
 of these supposed most ancient compositions themselves — as very pos- 
 sibly, after all, an invention of comj)aratively recent date. 
 
 i. With respect to the First Book of the Rig-veda-Sanhita (Collection), 
 the English version of which appeared in i8.-,o, ami for which an antiquity 
 of twelve or thirteen, or fourteen or fifteen, centuries before the Christian 
 aera, appears to be claimed by the learned translator* — it was shewn in 
 
 And again. No. 41. Bali ou Pali En resumant tout ce que 
 
 Ton a public jusqu'a present sur cette langue, encore tres pen connue, il 
 nous semble qu'on pourrait bien y distinguer les dialects suivans, qui dif- 
 ferent pen du Sanskrit, et encore moins entre eux ; le Mayadha, qui est 
 la langue littcraire et religieuse de I'intcTieur de I'ile de Ceylan, ou 
 Langa ; le Pali ou Bali, proprement dit, qui est la langue lilteraire et reli- 
 gieuse des emjnres Birman et Annamitique, ainsi i^uq du royaume de 
 Siam, et la langue lithurgique de tons les Bouddhistes de I'empire du 
 Japan ; le Fun, qui est la langue religieuse de tons les nombreux Boud- 
 dhistes de la Chine propre, &c Le Kawi, qui etait la langue de la 
 
 littc'rature et de la religion d'une grande partie de Java, avant I'intro- 
 duction dc I'lslatnisme, et qui Test encore de Tile Bali, ct d'unc partie de 
 cclli" lie Madoura." 
 
 " I'n-facc, xlvii. xlviii. IVofare of scrnnd .\slitaka, jvifrc i. 
 
280 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 the Fasti Catholici ^, from the internal evidence of the work itself, that 
 though it must have been older than B. C. 699, and older than B.C. 710, 
 it could not have been older than the date of the Lunar correction of the 
 Hindu calendar, B.C. 946 — recognised by itself as in existence in its 
 own time : and, in fact, that its true age was most probably to be assumed 
 about B. C. 800. 
 
 ii. With regard to the second Ashtaka, the translation of which ap- 
 peared in 1854 — to judge of the age of this too from the same kind of in- 
 ternal evidence as that of the antiquity of the first, and, i. from the rule of 
 the >s'octidiurnal cycle, recognised in it — allusions, which at first sight 
 might require to be understood of the primitive rule of the cycle, do cer- 
 tainly occur in it ; as, for instance, page 73, ver, 7 : " Beautiful night and 
 morning — page 78, ver. 4 : Worship night and day — page 89, ver. 6 : 
 Both at evening and at dawn — page 190, ver. 4 : I approach you . . . with 
 reverence night and day." But by far the greatest number, which occur 
 in it, run in the style of rfay and night, morning and evening, not vice versa j 
 that is, of the rule of the cycle among the Hindus at the present day ; 
 a change of the primitive idiom in that respect, (once, no doubt, as com- 
 mon in India as every where else, and the only one recognised as yet in 
 the First Ashtaka,) the origin of which I have already traced up to the 
 second miracle of Scripture, B. C. 710. 
 
 Thus, page i, ver. 2 : Animated by our diversified praise, hasten morn- 
 ing and 7iight to attend to our first invocation — page 8, ver. 7 : The two- 
 fold day proceeds unseparated ; one (part) going forwards, one back- 
 wards ; one of these two alternating periods eifects the concealment of 
 things, &c. — page 10, ver. 2 : . . . The Dawn shines, the similitude of the 
 (mornings) that are passed, or that are to be, for ever, the first of those 
 that are to come ; cf. ver. 3. 5 — page 12, ver. 8 : The sister [Night) has 
 prepared a birthplace for the elder sister (Day), and having made it known 
 to her, departs ; cf. ver. 9 — page 39, ver. 6 : Our morning rite — page 40, 
 ver. 2 : Wakes at dawn, and celebrates pious rites — page 46, ver. 3 : 
 Lights up the dawn — page 49, ver. 3 : Radiant along \vith the sun — 
 page 52, ver. i: The most excellent dawn — page 55, ver. 2 : At the 
 awakening of the dawn — page 60, ver. 5 : Grant us by day and night — 
 page 89, ver. 10: The days with the nights have not attained your divi- 
 nity — page 100, ver. i : The spreading dawn — page 162, ver. 5 : Rays of the 
 ever-recurring mornings — page 173, ver. 2 : W^hich the sisters (Day and 
 Night) — j)age 174, ver. i : Both day and night — page 185, ver. i : W^hen 
 the morning dawn — page 187, ver. i : And the days (and nights) revolve 
 as if they had wheels — page 188, ver. 4 : Of the divine days (and nights) 
 — page 196, ver. 6 : Let the brilliant and beautiful Day and Night — 
 page 214, ver. 2: The mornings and evenings — page 218, ver. 6 : Day 
 and Night — l)age 286, ver. 5 : Mutually contemplating Day and Night ; 
 cf. page 307, ver. 4, 5 — page 330, ver. 6 : The adored Day and Night. 
 
 In all these instances, the precedence is given to day or morning, not to 
 night or evening, and evidently as matter of course, as an order long esta- 
 
 b iv. 60 n. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 281 
 
 blished, and well understood in the time of the speaker. They shew there- 
 fore the habitual association of these ideas in the Hindu mind of the ara 
 of this Ashtaka. If so, judging from this criterion only, we should be 
 justified in concluding that the author or authors of such allusions could 
 not have been older than B. C. 710, and in fact must have been a good 
 deal later. 
 
 ii. Though no allusion to the Mansions of the Hindu sphere was dis- 
 coverable in the first Ashtaka, one is discoverable in this second, page 31, 
 ver. I : Come to us, India, from afar . . . like the royal lord of the constel- 
 lations, (when going) to his setting. This lord of the constellations, it 
 appears from the scholia on the place, was the Moon, and the constella- 
 tions themselves were the lunar houses or mansions {Nakshatrdndm). 
 There is another reference to the constellations, page 151, ver. 11: Maruts 
 . . .manifest afar off, as the gods (are made manifest) by the constellations. 
 Though then allusions of this kind are not frequent in this Ashtaka, yet 
 as even one to the mansions by name is competent to prove that the 
 author of it must have been aware of their existence, we may argue even 
 from a solitary instance of this kind, that the work in which it appears 
 must have been younger at least than the first introduction of the Man- 
 sions along with the sphere, into India, from Egypt — B. C. 699 c. 
 
 iii. Allusions however occur in this second Ashtaka, from which we can 
 approximate still more nearly to the probable date of the work, or of parts 
 of it at least, some time between B. C. 452 and B. C. 348. 
 
 i. The author or authors of this Ashtaka seem to have been aware of 
 the three spheres, of which I gave an account supra ^, as all which were 
 known to the ancients, and, in fact, all which ever existed — two of them, 
 (that of B. C. 1847 and that of B. C. 1347, respectively,) older than that 
 which passed to the Hindus (B. C. 848 or 847). We may infer this from 
 the peculiar allusions which occur in Siikta (Hymn) xv and xvi of Anu- 
 vaka (Chapter) xxi of this second Ashtaka. 
 
 i. Ch. XV. I, page 93 : Earnestly I glorify the exploits of Vishnu, who 
 made the three worlds, who sustained the lofty aggregate site (of the 
 spheres), thrice traversing the whole .... 
 
 Ver. 2. Vishnu is therefore glorified . . . because that in his three paces 
 all worlds abide. 
 
 Ver. 3. May acceptable vigour attend Vishnu . . . who alone made by 
 three steps this spacious and durable aggregate (of the three worlds). 
 
 Ver. 4 : Whose three imperishable paces . . . dehght (mankind) . . . 
 who verily alone upholds the three elements, (or, as it is in the note, the 
 three jieriods of time, i. e. the three measures of duration of these three 
 spheres. ) 
 
 ii. Ch. xvi. (addressed to Indra as well as to Vishnu) i)age 97.4: 
 Therefore verily we celebrate the manhood of that lord (of all) . . .who tra- 
 versed the three regions with three wide steps, in different directions, for 
 the many-praised preservation of existence. 
 
 '' Fa?ti, iv. ^j'sfirj. <1 Papp 177 s«|r|. 
 
282 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Ver. 5 : Man, glorifying (Vishnu), tracks two steps of that heaven-be- 
 holding (deity), but he ajjprehends not the third ; nor can the soaring- 
 winged birds, (that is, Garuda, and other birds,) (pursue it). 
 
 Of these allusions to the three paces or steps of Vishnu, to the three 
 worlds or regions on earth, defined thereby, and to the three spheres simi- 
 larly defined in heaven, and the three elements, or rather, i)eriods of time, 
 connected with each, the scholiasts give no explanation, which can be con- 
 sidered satisfactory. The truth is, there is a reference in them all to the 
 three editions of the sphere, each of them in point of duration commensu- 
 rate with one cycle of the Phoenix period. Nor is anything necessary to 
 the understanding of them, but that we should regard these spheres both 
 in themselves, and in relation to everything else, from the same point of 
 view, from which the author of these allusions himself regarded them, viz. 
 That the three sjiheres were so many firmaments or heavens, each defined 
 by one of the paces of the sun, or Vishnu ; and every state of the heavens 
 supposing a corresponding state of the earth, the three worlds defined by 
 the same paces also, were three states of the earth below adjusted to those 
 of the heavens above, and the three elements or periods were the respective 
 measures of the duration of each of these spheres above, and of each of 
 these worlds below. 
 
 With this clue to its meaning, the language of these allusions, however 
 enigmatical at first sight, becomes intelligible. On this principle too, it is 
 easy to explain the distinction pointed out in verse 5 of the xvith Siikta, 
 " That man, glorifying Vishnu, could track two of these steps of his, but 
 could not apprehend the third, which even the soaring on wings, the birds, 
 and such birds too, as the bird of the sun itself, Garuda, could not pur- 
 sue to its end." Understand this too of the three spheres in question, and 
 there is no mystery in it. The two first, men were capable of comprehend- 
 ing, i. Because both of them were now historical, having long since an- 
 swered their purpose, and served their time. ii. Because both had been 
 subject to the same Jaw, the proper law of the Phoenix cycle, from the first, 
 both simple and uniform of its kind. The third was beyond human com- 
 prehension, i. Because it was not yet at an end, it was still fulfilling its 
 purpose, and serving its time, and how it would ultimately terminate, and 
 what would succeed to it, could be known beforehand only to Vishnu. 
 ii. Because this in particular was the proper subject of a different law, a 
 different measure of its duration, from either of the preceding — which is 
 imderstood, as soon as it is exi)lained that, between tlie date of the publi- 
 cation of the third type of the sphere, in Egypt, in B. C. 848, and its re- 
 ception among the Hindus, B.C. 699, the rule and administration of the 
 Phrenix cycle had undergone a change. The doctrine of the alternate 
 Recession and Precession of tlie cardinal points, and with it a new Period 
 of the Cycle, had been introduced into Kgyj't in B. C. 79S — and in this 
 state everything had passed from the Egyptians, and been received else- 
 where. And this is jjrobably the reason why not only men, but even the 
 bird of Vishnu itself, could not keep pace with this third step of his. For 
 this l)ird of Vishuti. the Indian Garuda, was the Egyptian Phwnix, translated 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 283 
 
 to India; and even the Egyptian Phoenix, which had come into existence 
 along with its own period of 500 years, and the first of these steps of 
 Vishnu, and had accompanied the second of these paces through a second 
 period of the same kind, might well he supposed at a loss to recognise its 
 projjer correlative in this new period of 640 years, or to keep pace with 
 this third step of Vishnu's, as the new measure of its own existence*. 
 
 From these allusions then it must he inferrible that, whosoever was the 
 author of them, he could have been no stranger to the Phoenix cycle and 
 period, nor to the three types of the sphere, of the epochs of B. C. 1847, 
 
 * Allusions, kindred to the i)receding, and referrible apparently to the 
 same things, occur in the first Ashtaka also, as the following quotations 
 will shew. 
 
 Vol. i. p. 53. V, 16 : May the gods preserve us from that portion of the 
 earth, whence Vishnu, aided by the seven metres, stepped. — lb. 17 : 
 Vishnu traversed this (world); three times he planted his foot, and the 
 whole (world) was collected in the dust of his (footsteps). — lb. 18: Vishnu 
 the j)reserver, the uninjurable, stepi)ed three steps, approaching thereby 
 righteous acts. — i. 96. 8 : Come Aswins, . . .rising above the three worlds, 
 you defend the sun in the sky. — lb. 12 : Borne in your car that traverses 
 the three worlds. — 98. 2 : (Of Savitri or the sun) Beholding the (several) 
 worlds. — Ibid. 6 : Three are the spheres, two are in the proximity of 
 Savitri, one leads men to the dwelling of Yama (i. e. the Ruler of the 
 Dead). — 99. 7 : Suparna (the solar ray). . .has illuminated the three re- 
 gions (cf. 100. 11). — P. 264. 8 : . . .Protector of men, thou art more than 
 able to sustain the three spheres, the three luminaries, and all this world 
 of being, cf. 265. 1. — P. 271. 5 : Gods who are present in three worlds, 
 who abide in the light of the sun. Cf. 288. 3. 
 
 There is no reason why these allusions also should not he supposed to 
 have had their ultimate foundation in something which their author, or 
 authors, had heard of the three spheres of the Egyptians, by B. C. 800, 
 48 years at least later than the publication of the third s])here, B. C. 848. 
 This sphere indeed was not formally received and adopted in India, before 
 the termination of the first period of 247 years, reckoned from E. C. 946 
 — that is, B. C. 699 — but that is no argument that nothing w;is known in 
 India either of this third type of the spheres, or of the first and second, 
 before B. C. 699 nlso. 
 
 Allusions still more akin to those in the second Ashtaka occur in the 
 third and fourth also ; which it will be sufl'icient to point out, without 
 entering upon any particular consideration of them ; the same explanation 
 which has been given of those in the second being apphcable also to these. 
 The reader who is curious to see them, will find them in the third Ash- 
 taka, vol. iii. 93. 14: roo. 2. 5. 8 : 204. 4: 212. siikta v. i : 218.5,6. (cf. 
 ii. 275. 8) : 222. 3 : 238. 3 : in the fourth Ashtaka, vol. iii. 3,-,,-,. 2 : 371. 4. 
 cf- 3'>7- 3 '111 calc: 394. 3. 4 : 399. 2 : 404. 9: 461. 23 : 470. 4 : 473. 19 : 
 484. 13 : 4S8. 2 : -,06. 12. 
 
284 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 1347, and 847, or 848 respectively; and also that, with such a knowledge 
 of them as this, he could have been writing only between B.C. 848 and 
 B. C. 348, the beginning and the ending of the third Phoenix cycle in par- 
 ticular. And this conclusion may be confirmed by another allusion, in 
 this xvith Sukta, which takes up that in the 5th verse, and concludes the 
 chapter. 
 
 Ver. 6: He (scil. Vishnu) causes by his gyrations ninety and four 
 periodical revolutions, like a circular wheel, vast of body, and evolving in 
 many forms. 
 
 This allusion has given much trouble to the commentators on the Vedas, 
 and they have been put to their shifts to make out these 94 revolutions of 
 Vishnu. They solved the problem, as it appears from the Professor's 
 note, by identifying Vishnu here with Time, (i. e. dropping his personal 
 relation to the Sun altogether,) and then finding, as they supposed, 94 
 different kinds of periods, in the essence of Time. 
 
 1 in the year. 
 
 2 in the solstices. 
 5 in the seasons. 
 
 12 in the months. 
 24 in the half months. 
 30 in the days. 
 8 in the watches. 
 12 in the signs of the zodiac. 
 
 94 in all. 
 
 It can scarcely be necessary to dwell on the exposure of such an arbi- 
 trary explanation as this. Let me pass at once to what I take to be 
 the true one. It has been seen that the author of these Suktas must 
 have been aware of the Phoenix cycle and period of the Egyptians. If 
 so, it may well be presumed he was aware also of that general scheme 
 and succession of those cycles which they appear to have contemplated 
 from the first, through the Great Period of 96 Phoenix cycles, 48,000 
 years, in which the recession of mean tropical time on mean Julian, in 
 such a combination of both together as that of the sphere of Nature 
 and the sphere of Mazzaroth, was destined to make an entire revolu- 
 tion of the heavens, and an entire revolution of the calendar, until it 
 came round to the same point at the end from which it set out at the be- 
 ginning '=. 
 
 This revolution however having begun with the first type of the sphere, 
 B. C. 1847, two of these periods of 500 years (two of the 96) had already 
 elapsed by B. C. 848 ; and when the sphere of that epoch passed to the 
 Hindus, 94 were all that still remained to be completed. These 94 cycles 
 of 500 years, still necessary to complete the great period of 96, are the 94 
 gyrations of Vishnu alluded to above. The exi)lanation requires only to 
 be stated, to command the assent of every unprejudiced person. The in- 
 
 f" Suj)ra, 230, 2.^ I. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 285 
 
 ference from it, of the date of the allusion to it, is the same at which we 
 have aheady arrived. The revolutions of this kind, already completed, in 
 the reason of things, must be excepted from those which Vishnu was still 
 causing or destined to cause ; and those being represented as two out of 
 the original number of 96, this allusion to the 94 still remaining must 
 have come some time between B. C. 848, the date of the third, and B. C. 
 348, that of the fourth. 
 
 But to proceed. It cannot indeed be taken for granted that the various 
 Hymns, which make up the Sunhitd or collection of the Riy-veda, were 
 all the work of the same author, or all written at the same time; no more 
 than it could be of the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. Nor though we 
 might have succeeded in determining the time of some one of these Hymns, 
 would that be necessarily any criterion of the age of the rest. Still, to 
 have fixed the date of any one, with certainty or probability, is a consi- 
 derable step towards the discovery of the age of the whole collection, 
 which, as the work of kindred minds, employed on kindred subjects, it 
 may be presumed, must have been conceived and composed much about 
 the same time. I shall therefore endeavour to shew that there are parts 
 of this second Ashtaka, which could not have been written before B. C. 
 452, and were very probably written in that year, must have been adapted 
 at least to that year; and there are others, which could not have been 
 written before B. C. 205, and in all probability were actually written in 
 that year. 
 
 i. Then, that parts of this Ashtaka could not have been written before 
 B. C. 452. In order to the proof of this fact, I begin with referring the 
 reader to the account given in the Fasti ^^ of the peculiar rule of the ad- 
 ministration of civil time, laid down and acted upon by those who had 
 the direction of the calendar in India, de facto from B. C. 699, virtually 
 from B. C. 946, (the date of the adoption of the lunar correction,) down 
 to A. D. 538 — when it attained at last to the object proposed by it from 
 the first, the attachment of the head of the calendar to March 22, the 
 Luna 7*, A. D. ,538, the nearest epoch at that time to the date of the 
 sphere of Mazzaroth, March 25, B. C. 946. It made part of the details 
 of this administration, to have a fresh beginning of the civil year, a fresh 
 type of the calendar, a fresh type of the Mansions, a fresh type of the 
 Sphere, every 247 years ; and there were six of these types in all, (con- 
 templated too and provided for from the first,) between the beginning of 
 this process, B. C. 946, and the end, A. D. 538. 
 
 Now in the viiith siikta of the xxiid Anuvaka of the second Ashtaka, 
 are three verses, 4, 5, 6. p. 127, 128, as follows. 
 
 Ver. 4. "Who has seen the primeval being, at the time of his being 
 born ? what is that endowed with substance, which the imsubstantial 
 sustains ? From earth are the breath and blood, but where is the soul ? 
 Who may repair to the sage, to ask this ? " 
 
 This verse is such as might express the feelings and sentiments of one, 
 who was contemplating and meditating upon such a scheme as this of the 
 
 d iv. 31-47- 
 
286 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 administration of civil time, which I have just described, extending so far 
 into the future, yet all calculated beforehand, and already laid down, 
 through these six types of tlic Sphere, and types of the Calendar, as the 
 fore-ordained course of time, and of the motions of the sun, for 247 x 6 
 or 1482 years to come. It serves therefore as a natural introduction to 
 the verses which follow, relating to these types themselves, still indeed 
 unrealized, yet as certainly known and delineated even then, as if they 
 were already passing or past. 
 
 Ver. 5. " Immature (in understanding), undiscerning in mind, I inquire 
 of these things which are hidden (even) from the gods; (what are) the 
 seven threads which the sages have spread to envelope the sun, in whom 
 all abide ? " 
 
 Ver. 6. " Ignorant, I inquire of the sages, who know (the truth); not 
 as one knowing (do I inquire), for the sake of (gaining) knowledge : 
 What is that one alone, who has upheld these six spheres in the form of 
 the unborn ?" 
 
 The scholia, as usual, give no real assistance in either of these cases. 
 But the questions in both these verses are substantially the same. Both 
 relate to this one, so long before contemjjlated and forecast, scheme of the 
 course of time, and of the motions and phenomena of the heavens. We 
 learn from Professor Wilson's note on ver. 5, that the word rendered 
 there by sun, might just as well have been rendered by time ; and in that 
 case the question will be, What are the seven tlireads which the sages have 
 spread to envelope (to encompass, to comprehend, to contain) that, in which 
 all other things are comprehended, time f and it will evidently point to 
 those seven types of the calendar, from the first, B. C. 946, to the seventh, 
 
 A. D. 538, intended to comprehend the whole course of time through 
 these 1482 years, and to connect by one continuous thread the time of 
 
 B. C. 946 with that of A. D. 538. And as the question in verse 5 will 
 thus inquire about the future types of the calendar, individually indeed 
 different from, but essentially the same with, the first of the kind of all, 
 so will that in verse 6 about the different types of the sphere, destined 
 to accompany these types of the calendar — What was that one arche- 
 typal, primary, absolute and invariable idea and form, pervading them 
 all, and making a reality of each, even before it was yet born? One who 
 could answer such inquiries as these in verses 5 and 6, respecting the 
 Time of all Time, and the Sphere of all Spheres, might be competent to 
 answer the question in verse 4, respecting the Being of all Beings, and the 
 Substance of all Substances. 
 
 It is a just inference then from these passages of the Sukta in question, 
 that the author of these allusions must have been well aware of the pe- 
 culiar rule of the administration of the Hindu calendar, and the Hindu 
 sphere, from B. C. 946 downwards. And this is confirmed by another 
 allusion which occurs in this Sukta. It made part of the rule in question, 
 in regard to the calendar, that every 247 years an extra month of 28 or 
 29 days should be intercalated, and the head of the calend^ir be advanced 
 one month. And the relation of the civil months to the natural solar 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 287 
 
 months in the Hindu calendar being such, from B. C. 946 downwards 
 also, that every month in the calendar and the corresponding sign of the 
 echjjtic began together, it is manifest that, under such circumstances, to 
 intercalate an extra month at stated times in the calendar, would be to 
 intercalate an extra sign at the same time in the sphere. 
 
 Now page 131, verse 13 of this Siikta, it is observed, "All things abide 
 in this five-spoked revolving wheel ....;" and ver. 15 : " Of those tliat 
 are born together, sages have called the seventh the single-l)orn : for six 
 are twins, two are moveable and born of the gods : their desirable (pro- 
 perties), placed severally in their proper abode, are various (also) in form, 
 and revolve for (the benefit of) that which is stationary." 
 
 It is here to be explained, that the sage, or the sages, so often alluded 
 to in these Siiklas, (as it may be inferred from the context,) are commonly 
 to be understood of those who first conceived and laid down that admin- 
 istration of the calendar and of the sphere which I have described, and (as 
 it will thereby be implied") long before the time of the authors of these 
 Siiktas. As to the class of beings, abiding in this all-comprehending 
 five-spoked wheel, thus su])posed to have been born in the shape of 
 twins, two and two together, and born of the gods, not of men, and move- 
 able, and various in their desirable properties, yet all revolving for the 
 benefit of that which itself was stationary — there cannot be much doubt 
 that it is to be understood of the signs of the eclijjtic, as of Divine origina- 
 tion, not of human ; as liable to be affected by Precession ; as revolving 
 round the earth, (itself immoveable and stationary,) and regulating the 
 cycle of its productions : which signs the Egyptian division of all things 
 into masculine and feminine ^ associated together as male and female 
 (cf. v. 16), and the astrological system of the Chaldees as twins in ])0wer 
 and influence ; and which Nature itself had united by two and two in the 
 scale of ascent and descent in the sphere at least — a character expressly 
 attributed to them in the 19th verse of this Sukta, p. 133: "Those 
 which (the sages) have termed descending, they have also termed ascend- 
 ing; and those which they have termed ascending, they have also termed 
 descending." 
 
 The allusion then in verse 15 being thus clearly determined, by that in 
 verse 19, to the signs of the ecliptic, as divisible into pairs ])erpetually, — 
 (though the scholia, with their usual infelicity, imderstand these six 
 twins of the six seasons of the Hindu year,) it is very observable that 
 besides these six thus born in couples, and born of the gods, a seventh 
 is supposed to have an existence of its own, single-born of its kind, (i. e. 
 without mate or jieer,) not of divine appointment, and consequently of 
 human, yet a sign of the ecliptic notwithstanding, like all the rest. Now 
 what could this be but that 13th sign, which, as I have explained, must 
 have come in at stated times in the Hindu sphere, to answer to the 13th 
 month, which came in at the same times in the Hindu calendar ? 
 
 This therefore may be added to the proofs of what I am contending 
 
 •■ Fasti, iii. loS ».-. iv. 66'^. 
 
288 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 for ; that, whosoever was the author of this Sukta, he could not have 
 been ignorant of the pecuHar administration of the calendar from as far 
 back as B. C. 946. And as to any intimations, discoverable in this Sukta, 
 from which it might be inferred at what period in this administration he 
 was probably living — the Siikta begins as follows : — 
 
 Page 125, ver. i : " I have beheld the Lord of Men with seven sons : of 
 which delightful and beneficent (deity) . . . there is an all-pervading mid- 
 dle brother, and a third brother, well fed with (oblations of) ghee. 
 
 ver. 2 : " They yoke the seven (horses) to the one-wheeled car ; 
 
 one horse, named seven, bears it along ; the three-axled wheel is unde- 
 caying .... 
 
 ver. 3 : " The seven who preside over this seven-wheeled chariot 
 
 (are) the seven horses who draw it ; seven sisters ride in it together ; and 
 in it are deposited the seven forms of utterance." 
 
 Here, it is observable, this Lord of Men, (the sun,) is described as one 
 of a series of brothers, three in number, one, next older than himself, 
 called the middle brother, and one, next older than this, called tlie third. 
 Now the six types of the sphere, as contem[)lated by the reformers of the 
 calendar from the first, might all be spoken of in this figurative relation 
 to each other of brothers, scions of the same stock — members of the same 
 family — the first and oldest, the sun of B. C. 946, the second, the sun of 
 B. C. 699, and the third, the sun of B. C. 452. And these being all 
 which the author of this allusion recognises as historical, it is a just infer- 
 ence, in my opinion, from that fact, that he must himself have been living 
 and writing in the time of this Third Type, B. C. 452 — B. C. 205. Con- 
 sequently though he miaht have been younger, he could not have been 
 older, than B. C. 452. 
 
 A little lower down, page 129, ver. 10 — we meet with another allusion — 
 "The one sole (sun), having three mothers and three fathers, stood on high." 
 The one sole sun, or rather, being, here in ver. 10, and the one alone, 
 alluded to in ver. 6, may well be supposed to have been meant of the same 
 thing; and the latter, as we have seen, being the common informing and 
 pervading principle of the six spheres, the former must have been the 
 common pervading and informing principle of the first three, concentrated 
 and summed up in the third, now current — figuratively described as the 
 son of three fathers and three mothers ; that is, of the three spheres, with 
 their respective assortment of male and female signs. Cf. ver. 16. 
 
 It is also to i)e observed that, as the jjeriod of 247 years, which mea- 
 sured the duration of each of these types of the calendar in its turn, was 
 a lunar and solar period of thirteen Metonic cycles, the epochal term of 
 the first type having been the Luna 7*, that of every other in its turn was 
 the Luna 7* also. And tl at circumstance of distinction is competent to 
 explain the allusion in the first verse of this Sukta (p. 125, 126) to the 
 seven sons of the Lord of Men (the sun, the presiding and informing 
 principle of all these types). It is also to be observed that, as the epochal 
 mean longitude of the mansions, in each of these types of the sjjhere, set- 
 ting out from o" o' o" in the first, went (m increasing in each succeeding 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 289 
 
 one by 3 20', the epochal longitude of the third, that of B. C. 452, would 
 be 6' 40' ; and the graduation of that type might naturally be said to have 
 begun in the 7th degree. And that is competent to explain the next allu- 
 sion in this Siikta (ver. 2). " They yoke the seven (horses) to the one- 
 wheeled car : one horse, named seven, bears it along" — that is, it sets out 
 in the seventh degree. And again, in ver. 3 : " The seven, who preside 
 over this seven- wheeled chariot, (are) the seven horses who draw it : seven 
 sisters ride in it together, and in it are deposited the seven forms of utter- 
 ance." To reconcile the imagery of this 3rd ver. with the figurative lan- 
 guage of ver. 2, which spoke of a one-wheeled, not a seven-wheeled, car, 
 and of one horse which drew it, not of seven, we must suppose this seven- 
 wheeled car to be meant of the seven types of the sphere, summed up in 
 this common idea of a chariot, applicable to all alike ; to each however as 
 drawn by an horse of its own, that is, setting out from its own projjer 
 epochal degree of mean longitude. The seven sisters, who ride in this 
 chapter, are the seven spheres themselves ; and the seven forms of utter- 
 ance deposited in it also, (though differently explained in the scholia.) are 
 the seven differences of epochs and longitudes in each of these spheres 
 respectively, both ititer se and relatively to every thing referrible to them. 
 
 It is also to be observed that, p. 130, ver. 12, the sun, both as Ptinshin, 
 (the sun of the northern hemisphere,) and as Arpita, (the sun of the 
 southern,) in either case, as the twelve-footed parent of the twelve months 
 or the twelve signs, is termed the Jive-footed ; and further on in the book, 
 (page 311, ver. 3,) Soma and Piishan, (the former the moon, the latter the 
 sun in Capricorn, cf. p. 56, ver. 1-4 : Rig-veda, iii. 496. 3 : 498. 3 : 499. 2,) 
 are apostrophised as follows : " Soma and Piishan, showerers (of benefits), 
 direct towards us the seven-wheeled car, the measure of the spheres, un- 
 distinguishable from the universe, ev^ery where existing, (guided) by five 
 reins, and to be harnessed by the mind." Here too the seven-wheeled 
 car is put forward as the idea of the seven types of the sphere in the ab- 
 stract. But the thing to be observed is that this car is now said to be 
 guided by five reins ; just as it was said to have five feet before. Now 
 either of these would be a very suitable metaphor for the epoch of one 
 sphere as laid down in i\\e fifth degree of another ; and that would be the 
 relation of the Trojiical sphere to the sphere of Mazzaroth, B. C 452 — 
 when the mean vernal equinox was actually falling on March 2S, five days 
 later than March 23 or 24, the epoch of the sphere of Mazzaroth. 
 
 ii. With regard to the proof of my second proposition ^, that there are 
 parts of this second Ashtaka which cannot have been older than B. C. 
 205 — it is supplied by two of the hymns in it, which Professor Wilson 
 pronounces the most remarkable of alls, the subject of which is the 
 Asuumedha, or " Sacrifice of the Horse" — page 112, Anuvaka xxii, Siikta 
 vi, and page 121, Anuvaka xxii, Siikta vii. 
 
 It is evident from these two hymns, (pag. 113. 2: 121. i. (cf. 300. 6.) 
 121, 122. 2 : 123, 124. 9.) that this horse is the horse of Inilra, the liurse 
 
 ' Supra, ^H5. B Iiitruduction, \ii. 
 
290 TJie three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 of the sphere, the horse of Sagittarius, and that what is celebrated in these 
 two hymns, is not so much the Sacrifice of this horse, as the Apotheosis ; 
 the translation of this horse of the sphere, as soon as its proper connection 
 with, and proper office in relation to, the sphere was over, to the gods 
 from whom it originally came. This appears very clearly from p. 112. i : 
 115. 7 : 119. 16. 18 : 120. 20, 21 : 123. 6, 7, 8 : 124, 125. 12, 13. 
 
 That we are right in this inference, and that the sacrifice of this horse 
 was simply his return to "the original source of his being, as soon as his 
 term of service for the uses and purposes of the sphere was over, may be 
 collected from ver. 19: "There is one immolator of the radiant horse, 
 which is Time; there are two (other immolators) that hold him fast." 
 This first and proper immolator, it seems, was Time — i. e. as soon as his 
 term of service in behalf of the sphere was at an end, he must necessarily 
 be immolated — i.e. released — but not before. The two others, which held 
 him fast, are some two which enforced his relation to the sphere, and kept 
 him to his service in that capacity as long as it lasted. And these two the 
 scholiast explains of the cycle of day and night ; but in my opinion it 
 would be more consistent to explain them of the two signs of the sphere, 
 which hem in, as it were, on either side, and confine Sagittarius to its 
 proper jilace in the sphere perpetually ; Scorpio, as the one next before it, 
 and Capricorn, as the one next after it : or of the two corrections of the 
 calendar and the sphere, B. C. 946 and B. C. 699, by which, first Libra, 
 and then Scorpio, became the leading sign respectively — which must pre- 
 cede that of B. C. 452, whereby Sagittarius became so. 
 
 And that this service of the horse was not confined to one sphere, appears 
 from 122. 3 : "Thou, horse, art Yama. . .thou art associated with Soma, 
 (i. e. the moon, as every sign of the Hindu sphere was, through the man- 
 sions, and the Lunar reckoning of the calendar). The sages have said there 
 are three bindings of thee in heaven,. . .three upon earth, and three in the 
 firmament." These three bindings of the horse in heaven, on earth, and in 
 the firmament, respectively, are so many addictions of the horse of the 
 sphere to the service of so many spheres, each of which had its own type 
 for the time being both in heaven, and in the firmament, and on earth; 
 and each of these addictions must be served out in its turn, before the sub- 
 ject of them could be finally liberated from the same kind of service any 
 longer. 
 
 Now all this is easily imderstood, if we bear in mind the jjeculiar rule 
 of the administration of the Hindu calendar from Oct. 1 B. C, 946 to 
 March 22 A. D. 538 — how the head of the calendar was advanced one 
 month of 28 or 29 days every 247 years — how there was consequently a 
 fresh type of the calendar, and a fresh type of the sphere, every 247 years — 
 how the first having borne date with Kartika in the calendar, and Libra 
 in the sphere, October i B. C. 946, the next bore date with Margasirsha 
 in the calendar, Scorpio in the sphere, October 29 B. C. 699 ^, the third 
 bore date with Pausha in the calendar, Sayiitarius in the sphere, Nov. 27 
 
 '' Fasti, iv. ^(t. 64 s(i(|. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and E.rplanafionn. 291 
 
 B. C. 452, and the fourth with Mayha in the calendar, Capricorn in the 
 sphere, Dec. 25 B. C. 205 — which, by a singular coincidence, was also at 
 that time the date of the winter solstice. It is an obvious inference from 
 these premises, that the service of the horse of the sphere to each of these 
 types in its turn, never could have been supposed to be over, until the 
 third type had served its time, as much as the other two — with Saf/ittarins, 
 the leading sign in the sphere, and Pausha, the principal month in the 
 calendar. 
 
 In these exj)lanations therefore we have everything, which could be re- 
 quired, to account for the first idea of these two hymns, devoted to such a 
 subject as that of the Apotheosis of the horse of the sjjhere in particular. 
 It must have been conceived just at that period in the administration of the 
 calendar, when Sagittarius was ceasing to be the principal sign in the 
 ecliptic, and Pausha the principal month in the calendar, and Capricorn 
 was beginning to be the former, and Mayha to be the latter; i.e. critically, 
 Dec. 25 B. C. 205— and it is very probable that it was suggested, at this 
 very time, by that coincidence itself.. 
 
 And this is confirmed by another remarkal)le coincidence, which may 
 be inferred from these hymns to have characterized the same time and 
 same occasion ; \\z. That along with this sacrifice of this horse of Indra, 
 the horse of Sarjittarius, the sacrifice of the Goat of Pushan, the Capricorn 
 of the sphere, was going on also. It appears from pag. 56. 1-4. of this 
 second Ashtaka, that the sun in Capricorn was called Pushan, and that 
 his emblem was the Goat ; and one of his synonymes, 56. 4, Ajaswa, is 
 explained by the scholiast, of " Him who was drawn by goats," or "had 
 goats for his horses :" cf. the third Ashtaka also, 496, 3, 4. 6 : 498. 3 : 
 499. 2. Now that the Goat, in this relation to Pushan, is supposed to be 
 associated in this sacrifice with the horse, aj)pears from 113.2,3: and 
 124. 12 : and the sacrifice in the case of the horse, as I have shewn, having 
 more of the nature of a consecration than of a sacrifice, on the principle of 
 analogy it must have meant something of the same kind in the case of the 
 Goat. And that too is explained, if the Goat, for the next 247 years, was 
 destined to be recognised as the leading sign in the sphere, and Maylia, 
 the corresponding month, as the principal month in the calendar. 
 
 These two hymns then appear to authorize the inference that there are 
 parts of this second Ashtaka of the Riy-veda which are probably neither 
 older nor younger than B. C. 205. It is very observable too, that as the 
 beginning of the civil year from this time forward would be fixed to the 
 winter solstice for 247 years at least, so references occur in this Ashtaka 
 more than once to the year itself, under the name of winter — for example, 
 212. II : Thou art Ila, of a lumdred winters — 276. 10: Vakun.\,. . grant 
 to us to behold a lumdred years,. . lives such as were enjoyed by (ancient) 
 sages — 290. 2 : May I live a iumdreil winters*. 
 
 * An allusion to the standard of human life, which represents it at one 
 hundred years, as I obseiveil in the Fasti, (iv. 62 ;/.) occurs in the first 
 
 U 2 
 
292 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Again, page iix. 13. the following occurs : Ribhus, reposing in the solar 
 orb, you inquire, Who awakens us, unapprehensible (sun), to this office (of 
 sending rain)? The sun replies, "The awakener is the \vind ; and the 
 year (being ended), you again to-day light up this (world)." The rainy 
 season was ushered in by the southern monsoon ; and as the year was now 
 beginning at the winter solstice, the light of the sun itself might now be 
 
 book of the Rich, pag. 230. 9 : " Since a hundred years were appointed 
 (for the life of man);" and for the aera of this compilation, which I believe 
 to have been cir. B.C. 800, that might be consistent with experience and 
 observation. The ancient Etruscans, only 60 years before, assumed it at 
 110 equable years. But if the antiquity of this first Ashtaka was truly such 
 as modern Sanskrit scholars would make it, 14 or 15 centuries at least before 
 the vulgar aera, why should not this standard have been assumed at 120 
 years by the author or authors of this Veda, as much as by the authors of 
 the Nundinal Correction, B.C. 1340? especially as the true standard of 
 human life, about that time, (as it may be inferred from the testimony of 
 Scripture,) and this assumed measure of the sceculum, were actually the 
 same. 
 
 The measure of human existence, thus assumed in this first and oldest 
 of the Vedas, at one hundred years, seems to have determined the same 
 thing in the opinion and idiom of the subsequent Vedas. Thus in the 
 third Ashtaka, vol. iii. 60, v. 10, in the Prayer which there occurs, "Opu- 
 lent Indra, . . . grant us to live an hundred years" — i. e., no doubt, for 
 the utmost extent of human life. The most observable circumstance 
 however is that a prayer of this kind, for the prolongation of existence to 
 its utmost possible extent, first expressed in this form of an hundred years, 
 in the oldest Veda itself, in two other instances of the same kind, (Fasti, 
 iv. 62 n.) ran in the form of an hundred Winters — and in the later Vedas, 
 especially in the fourth, runs still more regularly in the same form. Thus, 
 iii. 334. 15 : " By the efficacy whereof may we pass over a hundred win- 
 ters — 398. 7 : Enjoy hajjpiness for a hundred winters — 400. 6 : Enjoy 
 happiness for a hundred winters — 402. 2 : Enjoy happiness for a hundred 
 \vinters — 417. 15 : May we . . be happy for a hundred winters — 433. 10 : 
 May we . . be happy for a hundred winters — 478. 8 : Agni . . grant me a hun- 
 dred winters." This peculiar idiom, in speaking of years, is explained even 
 of the First Veda, by the fact that the head of the calendar in its time was 
 falling between October i and 29 — almost at the end of the autumnal quarter 
 — and still more so in the case of the later Vedas, if none of them was older 
 than B.C. 452 — when the head of the calendar began to fall on Nov. 27 — 
 and possibly even than B. C. 205, when it began to fall on Dec. 25. 
 
 That the calendar was lunar in the time of the third Ashtaka, see iii. 
 30, ver. I, the allusion to the month, and the half month, and iii. 75. i. the 
 allusion to the Titkis, or liniar days. The Veda is alluded to by name, 
 iii. 41. 17, in a prayer to Indra, Cast upon the enemy of the Veda thy 
 consuming weapon. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Ea^planations. 293 
 
 said to begin to be rekindled just as the year was ended. Cf. also 141. 
 44 — which speaks of shearing the ground (reaping the harvest also) at the 
 end of the year, cf. 163. 3: and that, for the climate of India, would be 
 the case just after the winter solstice, rather than just before *. 
 
 * There are frequent allusions in the Veda also to some nine months' or 
 ten months' rite ; which, in order to form a better idea of what was probably 
 intended by it, it is desirable to bring together. 
 
 Thus, i. in the first Ashtaka, (i. 167.4) — Powerful Indra, who art to be 
 glorified with an hymn by the seven priests, whether engaged for nine 
 months or for ten." The proper style of these priests, as we learn from 
 the scholia in loc, was that of the Angirasas, the descendants or the dis- 
 ciples of Angiras, of whom see the note, vol. i. page 3. 4 : 136. 3 : 187. 2 : 
 212. 4: 325, 326 — and the scholia in loc. — from which it will plainly ap- 
 pear that these Angirasas must have been the first institutors of the sacri- 
 fice of fire itself. Cf. i. 212. 4, and ii. 296. 12, and the note. 
 
 ii. In the third Ashtaka, iii. 65. 5 : " A friend, accompanied by the 
 faithful friends who had celebrated the nine months' rite, (and these too 
 are explained in the note of the Angirasas,) and tracking the cows upon 
 their knees, and in like manner, accompanied by those ten, who had ac- 
 complished the ten months' rite, Indra." 
 
 iii. iii. 215. 4 : " Divine Dawns, may your chariot . . be fre(|uent at this 
 day's (worship), wherewith . . (you shine) upon the seven-mouthed (troop 
 of the) Angirasas, (see i. 167. 4,) the observers of the nine or ten days' 
 rite." This recognises an alternate sacrifice every nine and every ten 
 days. 
 
 iv. iv. 277.12, in the fourth Ashtaka: "The observers of the nine 
 months' celebration, those of the ten months', pouring out libations, 
 worship Indra." 
 
 V. iv. 314, 7 : "At this sacrifice, the stone (i. e. with which the Soma 
 was bruised), (set in motion) by the hands (of the priests), makes a noise, 
 whereby the nine months' ministrants celebrate the ten months' worshij), 
 when Saraina (the bitch of Indra)," &c. Cf. ver. 6. 
 
 lb. 315. 11: "I oflTer to you (gods) for the sake of water, an all-bestow- 
 ing sacrifice, whereby the nine months' ministrants have com])leted the 
 ten months' rite." This is the first intimation which has yet occurred, 
 that the final end of this nine or ten months' ministration was for the 
 sake of the rain, in its season. 
 
 vi. iii. 427. 2 : " To him, (Indra) the seven sages (cf. Xo. i. supra), our 
 ancient progenitors, i)erforming the nine days' rite (cf. No. iii.) were of- 
 ferers of (sacrificial) food." Cf. the second Ashtaka, ii. 296. 12: " May 
 they (the Maruts or Winds — addressed in this Siikta,) who, the first 
 celebrators of the ten months' rite, accomplished this sacrifice, reanimate 
 us at the rising dawn." Also ii. 103. 4 : " i-et not the ten times kindled 
 fire consume me," &c. 
 
 From the figurative language of these allusions, in wlucli these sacrifices 
 
294 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 are represented as instituted in order to the recovery of some cows and 
 .their milk, which had been lost, it may he inferred that their real object 
 was to insure the recurrence of the blessing of rain in its proper season. 
 And from the circumstance of their being supposed to last, with that ob- 
 ject in view, sometimes for nine months, sometimes for ten, we may infer 
 they must have been intended for a climate in which for nine months in 
 the year, at least, rain was more or less of natural occurrence, and for the 
 other three, there was no rain, or none which could be taken into account. 
 And this sujiposed state of the case would suit the chmate of India, from the 
 beginning of April to the end of December, and from the beginning of 
 January to the end of March, respectively; see Dr. Buchanan, Journey 
 from Madras, i. 317 : ii. 433. 
 
 The.se sacrifices, we see, are represented in these allusions, as sometimes 
 for nine months, and sometimes for ten, with a different set of ministers" 
 for each. The calendar being supposed to be lunar, it would require at 
 stated times an intercalary month ; and ten months in such years would 
 be only equivalent to nine in common years. And the intercalary year of 
 the cycle might purposely be appointed to have a different order of 
 ministers from those of the common year. From the tenor of other allu- 
 sions to them it may he. inferred, that these sacrifices were performed by 
 the same number of ministering priests, seven, sometimes for nine days 
 together, and sometimes for ten ; and that too might be explained, if the 
 calendar was now lunar, and it was the rule with intercalary years in par- 
 ticular to have the usual sacrifice every nine days, by its proper order of 
 ministers, and an extra one every ten days, by another order. 
 
 It is observable however, that in the first allusion of this kind, in the 
 first Ashtaka, (No. i. supra,) the ministers, whether for nine months or 
 for ten, are described as seven, in either case; but in the first allusion in 
 the third Ashtaka, (No. ii.) the ministers in the former are represented as 
 seven, and those in the latter as ten. It may perhaps be inferred from 
 this distinction, that the rule in question was first introduced when the 
 calendar was Cyclico-Julian, and the intercalary month was liable to come 
 in only once in 1 20 years, — and that the rule was to perform the rite every 
 nine days by the ministry of seven priests, in each of the common years, 
 and to signalize the intercalary year by doing the same every ten days by 
 the ministry of ten. And this rule, though first adapted to the intercalary 
 rule of the Cyclico-Julian correction, B. C. 1306, might easily be accom- 
 modated to the Lunar Correction, B. C. 946. 
 
 It is also to be observed, that if the Bactrian Correction of B. C. 947 
 may be supposed to have had any influence on the Indian of B. C. 946, or 
 at least, if the fire worship of the Vedas may have bad any connection 
 with the fire worship of Bactria, introduced by Zoroaster, B. C. 947 — this 
 Bactrian correction bore date April 10 ; which, for the climate of India, 
 would be a very proper time for the beginning of a ceremony like that of 
 the ten times kindled fii-e, alluded to ii. 103. 4, destined to be renewed 
 every month, all through the rainy season, from the beginning of April to 
 the end of Deceinljer. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 295 
 
 I will not add to the length of these observations, by proceeding to in- 
 quire circumstantially into the chronology of the Third and the Fourth 
 Ashtukus, translated and published in 1857. The allusions which occur in 
 these indeed are only general, and very indeterminate, in comparison of 
 those which I have just been considering. It is agreed however, among 
 Sanskrit scholars themselves, that the third and fourth books of the Rig- 
 veda are of much later date than the first and second ; and the internal 
 evidence of these two, as far as it goes, to the best of my judgment, 
 confirms that conclusion in various ways. Let me revert then, before I 
 make an end of these remarks, to the original subject of our observations, 
 the probable origin of the Sanskrit language. 
 
 There can be very little doubt that, after the invasion of the Punjaub of 
 India by Alexander the Great, B. C. 327 and 326', and his conquests in 
 that quarter, and after the rise of the two Greek kingdoms in Upper Asia, 
 that of the Bactrian princes, and that of the SeleucidiP, the native princes 
 in general, or those of the Punjaub in particular, would be laid under the 
 necessity of keeping up political relations with the Greeks ; and therefore 
 that it must have become a principle of state with them — a regular part 
 of their policy — from B.C. 326 downwards, to have the most talented and 
 promising of their youth trained up in the knowledge of the Greek lan- 
 guage. And in the course of time, when not only the kingdoms of the 
 Diadochi, but almost the whole of the inhabited or inhabitable world to 
 the west of India, had succumbed to the ascendancy of Rome, and had 
 been formed into one great empire under Augustus and his successors, 
 the same motives of policy would incline the native governments of India 
 to cultivate relations of amity with the Roman empire, and to educate 
 some of their youth in a knowledge of the Roman language also. It is 
 upon record that a communication of this kind passed between the native 
 princes of India and the Roman government, both in the reign of Au- 
 gustus '' and in that of Antoninus Pius'. And as the Hindus, though 
 not ajjparently endowed with much originality of invention, have shewn 
 themselves, whenever they had the opportunity, remarkably quick of ap- 
 j)rehensioTi, and apt to improve upon an idea once suggested to them, it is 
 far from improbable that, among these more talented of their youth, thus 
 for reasons of state educated in the knowledge of the Greek and the 
 I«itin, and very j)ossil)ly of more of the European languages, and made as 
 thoroughly masters of these as of their own native tongue, some one, or 
 more, aware of what the Egyptians had done by the invention of their 
 Phonetic hieroglyphic, and of what the Babylonians had done by the 
 invention of their arrow-headed character, and possibly of what many 
 others of the nations of antiquity were also known to have done, in the 
 same spirit of emulation or of rivalry of the examj)le first set by the 
 
 ' OriL'i;. Kal. IKU. ill. i;,8-isS. k C'f. Stral.o xv. i. 1:50 a. Dio, liv. 9. 7. 
 
 .Siii'ton. Aug. xxi. 7. Florus, iv. 12, 62. Aurelius ^'i(•tl>r, ('lesaros, .\iip;ustii8. 
 Kpitomi', Augustus. Kutro]). vii. 5. and our Orisi;. Kal. Hell. ii. 118. ' Au- 
 
 ri'lius Victor, C'K.sarcs, Antoninus Pius. Kpilonuv l'(>ri)liyry, ajiud Euscb. Prsep. 
 Evangel. 
 
296 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Egyptians — might have been led to conceive the idea in which the Sans- 
 krit, if after all a factitious thing of its kind, must have originated ; that 
 viz. of l)lending the vernacular languages, or Prakrit of India, and the 
 Greek and Latin, and the other European languages, with which they had 
 been obliged, for reasons of state, to make themselves famihar, into one 
 language, the same with neither in its totality, yet in its elements composed 
 of both. 
 
 And it is very possible also that, even in conceiving an idea of this 
 kind, they had no deceptive purpose in view ; they did not intend to make 
 this new language the vehicle of a factitious system, whether of history or 
 of chronology ; but merely to contrive a language which, as far as they 
 could render it so, should be the only authorized channel of every thing 
 which was worth preserving, every thing which was worth teaching 
 and knowing, in India. It would enter into the plan of such a scheme 
 to translate every thing of this kind before in existence, from its 
 own language into this, and to destroy the originals. So that, when the 
 scheme should have been fully carried out, (as in fact in the course of time 
 it appears to have been,) the whole of the literature of India should be 
 confined to this one language. It would be part of the same project, and 
 of the policy and management, by which only it could be realised, to edu- 
 cate the privileged and dominant classes in India, the priests, the nobility, 
 the military, in the knowledge of this one language ; and to accustom them 
 to the use of this one on all the more solemn occasions, in preference to 
 the Prakrit or vernacular languages, every where. 
 
 Such a language, so conceived and so formed, might exhibit all the 
 phenomena which the Sanskrit does at present, in contradistinction to 
 any other, which is known to have been the growth of time and circum- 
 stances, and yet occasion no surprise. Its elements, derived as they were 
 partly from the vernacular languages of India, partly from the European 
 languages of the same aera, might be blended together in any proportion, 
 which suited the views of its authors, or the rules which they might choose 
 to prescribe to themselves, for the execution of their own work. It might 
 be free from all the anomalies, all the deficiencies, all the redundancies, of 
 languages formed in the natural way — if its authors chose to make it so. 
 It might have such a name given it, as that of the consummated, the 
 finished, the perfected — for this very reason that it had been purposely 
 made complete of its kind ; and it might have borne this name from the 
 first, and yet never have been spoken by a Sanskrit people, or in a Sans- 
 krit country *. 
 
 * The form of civil government in India having always been the regal, 
 and that country consequently having always been subject to kings or 
 queens ; it might very well be presumed a priori that if any one term was 
 more likely than another to have run unchanged through all the phases 
 of language in India, it must have been this, for so common and familiar 
 an idea as that of king or queen. Now it so happens that my own in- 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Erplanations. 297 
 
 It is not however to be supposed that a scheme hke this, though easy 
 perhaps of conception, could have been easy of execution. Supposing the 
 dirticiilty of the formation of such a language to have been successfully 
 overcome — yet to substitute this as the only recognized vehicle of all the 
 learning and literature of India, to install it at once, without a peer and 
 witliout a rival, in the schools, the colleges, the courts of law, and the 
 palaces, of the country every where — would be no very easy task. It is 
 far from improbable, in my opinion, that this new language of all the 
 learning, and science, and philosophy of India, and the religion of modern 
 India, went hand in hand together from the first — and that, if the truth 
 were known on this subject, the first idea of the Sanskrit arose out of the 
 struggle in India between the more modern Braminism and the older 
 Buddhism of that country — a struggle which, as Indian history itself, 
 through its own traditions, seems distinctly to intimate — was not finally 
 decided by the establishment of Braminism in its present dominant po- 
 sition, until long after the beginning of the Christian sera. 
 
 qiiiries in the Origines Kalendariae have brought to light the Indian 
 for King, B.C. 1230, in Deunus, the etymon of the Greek ^fvvvaos, or 
 ^i6w(Tos, (Origg. Kal. Hell. v. 80-90,) and I hope will bring to light, in 
 Hke manner, the Indian for Queen, B.C. 1138, in the Indian Aterga. I 
 would demand then, of Sanskrit scholars, if this language was the living 
 and spoken language of India, and in the acme of its perfection, at each 
 of these epochs, B.C. 1230, and B.C. 1138, how it has come to pass 
 that neither Deunus, in the sense of King, nor Aterga, in that of Queen, 
 occurs in the Sanskrit of the present day? but instead of the former, 
 Riijan, and instead of the latter, RCijnl ? the former so evidently the same 
 with the Latin Rex, Regis, and the latter with the Latin Reginn, that no 
 one could hesitate to say that if the Latin Rex was not derived from the 
 Sanskrit R'ljan, or the Latin Regina from the Sanskrit R<iJ7ii, the Sans- 
 krit term in each of these instances must have been taken from the corre- 
 sponding one in the Latin. 
 
 Deunus occurs in the Sanskrit at present in no form or shape. Aterga 
 may seem to have been retained in the form of Durga, or Durgha. But 
 Durgha is not the Sanskrit for Queen ; but the name of the Principle of 
 Nature personified. And Durgha, or Durga, in strictness is not the same 
 with Aterga, which never occurs except as Aterga, Aderga, or Derke, or 
 the like — never as Aturga, Adurga, or Durke. And even if retained in 
 the modern Sanskrit from the earlier Aterga, or Aderga, this word might 
 have been so, simply because in the form of Durga, or Durgha, it was so 
 easily resolvable into the two elements of which Sanskrit scholars at pre- 
 sent speak of its being composed, Dur, in the sense of the Greek Svj, and 
 ghn, or ga, to go — meaning both together, The difficult of apprnnch. The 
 difficult of access — that being the characteristic point of view in which the 
 framers of the language thought proper to regard the Universal Mother — 
 till' IViiu-iiile nf Nature personified ! 
 
298 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Note FF, page 204. Astle, on the Origin and Progress of Writing, 
 2nd edit., 1805, ch. ii. 20: According to Tacquet, here quoted, the pos- 
 sible combinations of the 24 letters of the alphabet, without any repetition, 
 would amount to 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000. According to Cla- 
 viuy, also quoted, they would be, 5,852,616,738,497,664,000. 
 
 Ch. ii. 17, 18. The number of plain elementary sounds, according to 
 Harris' Hermes, is about twenty; in our own language, according to 
 Sheridan, twenty-eight — according to Kenrick not more than sixteen. 
 According to Bp. Wilkins and Dr. Holder, the number of distinct sounds 
 is 32 or 33. 
 
 — p. 21. The Hebrew, Samaritan, and Syriac alphabets have 22 let- 
 ters; the Arabic has 28 (cf. p. 43); the Persian, Egyptian, and Coptic, 32; 
 the Russian 41; the Sanskrit 50 (cf. p. 41), (rather 52.) 
 
 — p. 3^-38. The Phoenician, the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Chal- 
 dee alphabets were all the same : and by far the greatest part of the al- 
 phabets any where now in use on the globe were derived from these. Astle 
 indeed (i). 50) considers the Phoenician the oldest, and the parent of the 
 Hebrew, the Samaritan, the Chaldee, the Punic, the Bastulan, the Greek, 
 the Roman (p. 77), and all the modern alphabets derived from the Roman : 
 cf. cap. iv. p. 51. and 64. 
 
 The Phoenician and the Hebrew having been originally the same, the 
 oldest alphabet and the antediluvian alphabet may be said to have been 
 either the one or the other, indifferently. 
 
 Note GG, page 207. Gen. iv. 26 : This verse is rendered in the o', Ou- 
 Tos ffXTTiafv fTTLKaXfiadai. to ovofia Kvpiov tov Qeov — which restricts its 
 application to the case of Enos, the son of Seth, whose birth was men- 
 tioned just before; and to his, apparently, in some such sense as this — 
 That Enos was the first of mankind who hoped (that is, ventured, as if 
 permitted) to call on himself the name of Jehovah; to call himself by the 
 name of Jehovah, as if dedicated to him — as if his servant, in some pecu- 
 liar manner. And this version of the o would seem to have determined 
 the marginal rendering of our English Bible ; " Then began men to call 
 themselves by the name of the Lord." 
 
 With regard to the words of the original — the language of Gen. xxi. 33I 
 is very analogous to that of Gen. iv. 26. Abraham is there said to have 
 planted a grove in Beersheba, and then, Ouikoura shem beshem leoueh. 
 There is little difference between Ouikoura shem beshem leoueh, Gen. 
 xxi. 33, and Lakoura beshem leoueh. Gen. iv. 26 : and if the former is 
 determined by the context to mean, And (Abraham) called upon God (i. e. 
 invoked God) by the name of Jehovah, the latter, on the same principle, 
 would require to be rendered, "Then began men to call upon (that is, to 
 invoke) God by the name of Jehovah :" as it is, if not by Aquila, Tore 
 VPX^I '■^'^ i^aXfiaBai tv ovofiari Kvpiov™ — yet by Jerome, Tunc initium 
 fuit invocandi nomen Domini". 
 
 ' Cf. also, xii. S. xiii. 4. xxvi. 25. n> MontfaiiLOii, lli'.\a)>la, i. 20. <icn. 
 
 iv. 26. " Ibid. Quaestinnes in Gems. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 299 
 
 I take lakoura in this text to have the sense of f'mKnXf'tadai, absolutely, 
 in Greek ; and the most correct version of the whole to be in (ireek as 
 follows : ToTf ^px^V ■'■^''^ f7riK(iKfiadai (v ovofxari Kvplov ; and in English, 
 " Then was it begun to invoke by the name of Jehovah." 'EniKoKt'iadai, so 
 used, has the sense of to call upon, to invoke, viz. God (as the proper ob- 
 ject of invocation and prayei) understood : an use, of which one clear in- 
 stance occurs in the New Testament, at Acts vii. 59 : Kal iXidofioXovu top 
 2Tf(f)(ivoi', fniKu\oviJ.fvov, invoking and culliny upon, as the context implies, 
 Jesus, and saying &c. : and many more in the Sejituagint version of the 
 Old Testament; as, Gen. xii. 8 : Job, v. i ; xxvii. 10 : Ps. iv. i ; cxiv. 2 : 
 Prov. xxi. 13 : i Kings, xviii. 24, 25. 26, 27, 28 : 2 Kings, v. 11 ; in which 
 ^EniKoKdadai iv vvonari Kvpiov is the version oi Lakoura beshem leouek — 
 and in the English also should have been rendered by " to call upon, to 
 invoke (God) by the name of Jehovah;" and not by " to call on the name 
 of Jehovah." 
 
 The historical fact then, asserted in this text, is this, viz. That at, or 
 about, the time of the birth of the patriarch Enos, i. e. at or about A.M. 
 239, iEra Cyc. 239, B. C. 3766°, men first began to call upon God, to 
 invoke and address God, in jjrayer, by the name of Jehovah. And what- 
 soever may be implied by this fact itself, the inference from it, with re- 
 sjject to the language which men must have been speaking at the time, 
 will be the same ; viz. that this language must have been that which sup- 
 plied the name of Jehovah : and if that must have been the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, the Hebrew must have been the language which men were speak- 
 ing at the time; and if so, the antediluvian language — the language which 
 men spoke from the Creation to the Deluge at least. 
 
 And as to the fact itself, or what must be understood by men's having 
 begun, just at this time, to invoke the Supreme Being by the name of 
 Jehovah — it ajipciu-s to me that it cannot admit of more than two con- 
 structions — either that the name of Jehovah, as the proper appellation of 
 the Supreme Being, though hitherto unknown and unrecognised in that 
 relation, was first recognised and first applied, at this time; or, though 
 possibly known before, was now only first adopted as that by which he 
 should thenceforward be addressed as the proper object of prayer and 
 thanksgiving. And of these two, it seems to me infinitely more probable 
 that, at this period of the history of mankind, men should be found agree- 
 ing to recognise the proper object of an old and familiar duty by a new 
 name, than an old and familiar name, and the subject denoted by it, as 
 the proper object of a new duty. For what what would be implied by 
 this latter su])position ? what but that, until the birth of Enos, 238 years 
 at least after the creation of man, their own Creator, though known to 
 men by a name of his own, had never yet been recognised by ihem as the 
 object of prayer or praise ! 
 
 It appears to be agreed among Hebrew scholars at present, that this 
 name of Jehovah is ultimately to be traced up to the substantive verb in 
 
 " Fiisti, ii. nS. 
 
300 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 Hebrew rvn, Hc'ieh, to be — so that its derivation from the Hebrew will be, 
 in any case, an incontrovertible point. When Moses, Exod. iii. 13, in- 
 quired after the name of the Being who was appearing to him there and 
 then in the flame of fire in the Bush — the answer (iii. 14) was, Ae'ieh assir 
 Ae'ieh — which the o render 'Eyw elm o "^v — Gesenius, I [ever) shall be 
 {the sume) that I am (to-dtnj) — our own version, the most closely to the 
 original and the most forcibly of all, I am that I am. But, in any case, 
 •as (Jesenius observes, the name, as derived from the verb to be, to what- 
 soever it was applicable, carried with it virtute termini the idea of the 
 Eternal and the Immutable, as inherent in that subject — the idea of that 
 which could never be other than it was. The most appropriate version of 
 such a name, and so derived, in our language, it appears to me, would be 
 the participle of our own verb to be, used absolutely and as a substantive, 
 The Being — '0*Qv kut e^o^^rjv — who Was, and Is, and Is to come — the 
 same To-day, Yesterday, and For ever. As soon as men came to reflect 
 on their own origin, and that of every thing else around them, and while 
 they were still fresh themselves from the hands of their own Creator; 
 they could not fail to see that, while every thing else, as the work of this 
 Creator, must own to a derived and dependent existence, this Creator him- 
 self must have been prior to and independent of all other existences, and 
 to their apprehension must be self-existent. And it might naturally ap- 
 pear even to their own reason that, if one word was better adapted than 
 another to express this essential and most characteristic distinction be- 
 tween the Creator and even the highest and noblest of his creatures, it 
 must be this, of the Jehovah in the Hebrew, t\\e*Q.v in the Greek, the 
 Being in English, the Self-existent — the common idea denoted by each of 
 these terms — in which every attribute and perfection of the Divine Nature 
 itself, and more especially those of Eternity, Omnipresence, Omni- 
 science, and Omnipotence, were virtually summed up in one. 
 
 Such appears to have been the Rationale or Process by which the human 
 mind was first led to the choice of this most appropriate name of the Great 
 Universal cause of all things, the Great First Source of life and being to 
 every thing distinct from itself. And all that Gen. iv. 26 does, to clear up 
 the history of the process, is to make us aware that this idea of the Su- 
 preme Being was first distinctly elaborated by the human understanding, 
 and first found an expression in this most significant of all the terms which 
 could have been adopted for it in any human language, at or about the time 
 of the birth of Enos, in the third generation from the C'reation. And though 
 this account of the origin of the name will imply that it could not have 
 been divinely revealed ; that will be no objection : for there will still be 
 nothing in the nature of the discovery of such a name at last, or in the 
 stejjs of the process by which only it could be attained to, to place it 
 beyond the reach of the human understanding in the natural exercise of 
 its own powers, or to take it out of the ordinary course of the human 
 thought or reflection, employed on itself or on other things. The diffi- 
 culty, if any, connected with this explanation of the origin of the name of 
 Jehovah, will be historical not metaphysical j not. How it was first con- 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 301 
 
 ceived, but When ? and Whether for the first time at or about the birth 
 of Enos, or before it ? 
 
 We read in Gen. iv. i as early in human history even as the birth of 
 Cain, (i. e. according to the opinion maintained in tlie Fasti CatholiciP, 
 during the continuance of the state of Paradise itself,) that this name of 
 Cain was given to this first son of Adam and Eve, because, by acquiring 
 this first male child, Eve his mother had gotten a man, atk leoueh — 
 whether, For Jehovah, as I contended p it should be rendered, or From 
 Jehovah, as it is rendered in the authorised version, will make no differ- 
 ence to the inference apparently deducibie from the language of the origi- 
 nal, in either case, as to the name of Jehovah itself — viz. That it must 
 have been familiar to Adam and Eve, even before the birth of Cain. 
 
 With respect to this difficulty, i. if we compare iv. 25, the language at- 
 tributed to Eve at the birth of Seth, with iv. i, this account of what she 
 must be supposed to have said at the birth of Cain, we may perhaps not 
 think it improbable that as she spoke of Seth, iv. 25, as the gift of Ale- 
 him, so she might have spoken of Cain, iv. i, as a gift for Alehim too. 
 ii. If we refer to the version of iv. i, in the o, we shall see reason to sus- 
 pect that the Hebrew text, in their time, read Alehim in this instance, and 
 not Jehovah ; for their own version of it is 'EKTrjadfxrjv av6paiTov 8ia rov 
 deoii, not bia rov Kvpiov. iii. When we consider that the account of what 
 Eve said, on this occasion of the birth of Cain, is simply historical, and 
 that, in the time of the author of the book of Genesis, the recognised style 
 of the Alehim of antediluvian antiqnity, in his jiersonal relation to man in 
 particular, had long been that of Jehovah ; we shall almost feel ourselves 
 justified in inferring that, though Eve might actually have said on this oc- 
 casion, " I have gotten a man for Alehim," the historian of what she said, 
 wTiting so long after, and under the habitual influence of a very different 
 association of ideas, knowing of what it was intended, might have repre- 
 sented it, differently indeed in the expression, but altogether the same in 
 the sense, " I have gotten a man for Jehovah." 
 
 The human origin at least of this mysterious name, (for so the Jewish 
 church of later times regarded it,) the first idea of its a|)plication and ap- 
 propriation to the Alehim of the beginning, as not derived from revelation, 
 as excogitated by men for themselves, is perhaps most strongly intimated 
 by the words of Jehovah himself to Moses, Exod. vi. 3 : Ouara at Abe- 
 rem, al Itseek, oual lacoub, halshedi ; oushemi leoueh la noudathi lem. 
 The most important word in this text is the Noudathi ; and to illustrate 
 the use and meaning of that verb here, we cannot ap])eal to a better in- 
 stance than Numb. xvi. 5, where Moses is represented saying to Korah 
 and his followers, " To-morrow, and Jehovah will know the one that is 
 his." The verb is ida here too; and the common meaning of ida in 
 Hebrew is to know. But to know, as used here, is evidently emphatic ; 
 and means something more than merely knowing — viz. so knowing as to 
 declare he knew, — knowing with a recognition, an approval, and a sanc- 
 
 I' Fasti, ii. i^^^. 
 
302 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord. 
 
 tion, of some overt and public kind <i. Exod. vi. 3, in this respect, is 
 analogous to Numb, xvi.5 : and though the verb is in the conjugation 
 Nij)hal, which is properly passive, yet agreeably to a well known Hebrew 
 idiom, in the use even of the passives of this kind ■■, the text may be ren- 
 dered, " And I was seen (revealed myself) to Abraham, to Isaac, and to 
 Jacob, by Al shedi (in and through my name and relation of God Al- 
 mighty), and my name of Jehovah I did not know for them — i. e. I did 
 not so know as to shew, that, by knowing it, I adopted it, I recognised 
 and approved, and sanctioned it, more than, or instead of, my name of 
 Al shedi." 
 
 It is necessary to draw this distinction between the simply knowing, and 
 the thereby implied ap])roving and sanctioning, of this name; because 
 there are almost innumerable passages between Gen, xii. i. when God 
 first revealed himself to Abraham, and Exod. vi. 3. which are demonstra- 
 tive that he must have been as well known to the three Patriarchs, Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob, by this name of Jehovah, as by any other of his 
 titles, Alehim, Al Alioun, Alshedi, or the like : and some texts there are in 
 which even he himself speaks to them of himself by the name of Jehovah^. 
 And yet none of these instances of the application of this name to the 
 Supreme Being, whether by others or by himself, of prior date to Exod. 
 vi. 3. is inconsistent with that text. They imply nothing but the simple 
 recognition of an indis])utable matter of fact ; that, as used by the Patri- 
 archs of their own Alehi:i!, it was still as the proper name of the Supreme 
 Being; as used by their Alehim of himself, it was used as the name of 
 that Being whom they supposed themselves to designate by it. And it 
 will still be true that the name by which he was pleased to reveal himself 
 to the Patriarchs, as their personal God, or under which he was recognized 
 by them, most regularly and most solemnly, before the Exodus, was this 
 of Al shedi, as the reader may see. Gen. xvii. 1 : xxviii. 3 : xxxv. 11 : xUii. 
 14 : xlviii. 3 : xhx. 25. as well as Exod. vi. 3. and Numbers xxiv. 4. 16. 
 And it is equally true that as spoken of by his worshippers, on occasions of 
 more than usual solemnity, he is designated by other titles, without this, 
 as that of Al Alioun, God most High*, or by others along with tliis, as 
 Jehovah, God of heaven, and God of earth ^, Jehovah, God of my lord 
 Abraham'', Jehovah, God everlastings. 
 
 From this account of the origin, and the use and application of the name 
 of Jehovah, both in the antediluvian and in the postdiluvian world, the 
 reader will not fail to appreciate at its true value the discovery of the 
 French physician Astruc, who, from tlie absence of the name of Jehovah in 
 the first chapter of Genesis, audits repeated occurrence in the subsecpient 
 chapters, first divined, as he imagined, the secret of the composition of this 
 book, as made up out of two kinds of documents, one, the work of an 
 author who knew of the Deity only by the name of Elohim, the other of 
 
 q Cf. Psalm i. fi. ■" Vide Masclcf, Grammatica Hebraioa, i. 102. Cap, 
 
 sextum, Conjugatio Nii)lial i. " Gen. xv. 7 : xviii. i^. 19 : (cf. xix. 1.^,) 
 
 xxii. 16: xxviii 13. t Gen xv. 18, 19, 20-22. v Gen. xxiv, 3. 7. 
 
 » xxiv. 12.27. ^ ^^'- ^^- 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanatiom. 303 
 
 one who kne.v of liiin only by the name oi Jehovah; and s-o first hronched 
 the hypothesis of an Elohistic Genesis and a Jehovistic Genesis re- 
 spectively. 
 
 This hypothesis, which appeared first in 1753, found much favour with 
 the sceptics of its own day, and of subsequent times ; but it is now given 
 up even by the Rationalists of Germany themselves : the distinction, on 
 which it was based, having been found in fact untenable — the name of 
 Jehovah occurring repeatedly in the supposed Klohistic parts of Genesis, 
 and the name of Elohim repeatedly in the supposed Jehovistic. How little 
 foundation however for any such division of the authorship of the book of 
 Genesis as that which was made by this theory, the presence or the ab- 
 sence of the name of Jehovah, in the different parts of the book, was cal- 
 culated to sujiply, the reader cannot fail to ])erceive, if I have succeeded in 
 provinjf that the true ei)och of the first introduction of this name was Gen. 
 iv. 26, and the first actual instance of its use and application was thu.s 
 noticed in its proper order of time by the author of the book himself. 
 For what, if the word occurs repeatedly before Gen. iv. 26, and in its 
 proper use and apj)hcation too z ? Is it conceivable that it could have 
 been employed in all these instances through ignorance or mistake, by 
 one, who shews at Gen. iv. 26. he was so well aware how and when it 
 actually came into being ? 
 
 It is observable that in all these cases, e.vcept that of iv. i. considered 
 supra, the use of the term is simply historical. It is the author of the nar- 
 rative, not some one siieaking at the time, who uses it. And what is the 
 legitimate inference from these repeated instances of its use historically, so 
 long before its time, except that, in the time of the author this term was so 
 commonly received and recognised in this particular use and application, 
 that none eKe could now with propriet}- be used for the same pvupose, 
 even from the first r 
 
 It may be objected however that this use of the name of Jehovah pro- 
 leptically in the rest of the history of the book of Genesis before iv. 26. 
 would have recjuired it to be used in the first chapter, as much as in the 
 second or third. The explanation of this seeming inconsistency involves 
 a very important distinction — such as was never likely to occur to the 
 mind of a sceptic, but, to the apprehension and judgment of the simple 
 minded and honest believer, the moment it is proposed, carries with it the 
 clearest jjroof of the unity of the authorship of the different parts of the 
 book of Genesis itself, and of the Spirit of truth, under the direction of 
 which every part of it must have been written. 
 
 The whole of this first chapter of Genesis is devoted to one subject, the 
 history of the creation — whether as beginning with the very first act of 
 that kind, Gen. i. 1. or with the particular account of the creation of our 
 own world, from Gen i. 3. to the end. Now, according to the doctrine of 
 Holy Scripture, Creation as such, and under all circumstances, was the 
 
 « Gen. ii. 4. 5. 7. 8. 9. 15. 18. 19. 21. 22 : iii. r 8. 9. 13. 14. 21. :2. 23 : iv. 
 I. 2. 3. 4 6. 9. 13. 15. 16. 
 
304 The three Witnesses, and the threefold Cord, 
 
 work of each and all of the Three Persons of the ever undivided 
 Trinity; and it was impossible that it could be otherwise represented 
 by one who was aware of the truth on that point, and describing the course 
 of things accordingly. With reason therefore is nothing found in this 
 first chapter, to designate and individualize the agency in this common 
 work of Creation, but the phrase Bara Elohim — implying in the plural 
 form of the Elohim a plurality of the agents indeed, but in the singular 
 form of the Bara, an unity of will and puqjose, as well as of power and 
 efTect, in each and all of the acts of creation itself. 
 
 But after this first chapter, and the first three verses of the second, 
 (which ought not to have been separated from it,) the history which fol- 
 lows, through the rest of the book of Genesis, and in fact through the 
 whole of the Old and the New Testament, is no longer that of the Crea- 
 tion, but that of the dealings of the Creator with his own creatures in 
 general, and with one class of them, his rational creatures, in particular. 
 It is the history of the dealings of the Creator with his human creatures ; 
 first, from the Creation to the Fall, and then from the Fall to their re- 
 covery, through the consummation of the scheme of their Redemption. 
 Now, with respect to this intercourse between the Creator and his rational 
 creatures, in the sense of human, it is the doctrine of Scripture also, that 
 it has never been carried on, from the first, except through one instru- 
 mentality, that of the mediation of the Second Person of the Trinity, and 
 in one way, that of direct communication with him, in his own Person, or 
 through those, whom he had himself commissioned to speak and to act in 
 his name. It is not necessary for the satisfaction of those, who have duly 
 attended to, and profited by, the testimony of the Christian Scriptures 
 themselves on this point, to prove that the God of the Old Testament — the 
 God of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden— the God of Abel and Seth 
 — the God of Enoch — the God of Noah — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob — the God of Moses and Aaron — the God of the Prophets — the 
 Angel Jehovah a — the Angel of the Covenant'' — the Archangel Michael •= 
 — the Mediator between God and Man'' — the Word of God ^ — was none 
 else than he who, in the fulness of time, took our nature upon him in the 
 person of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now this being the case, it was to be expected a priori that as soon as 
 the History in the Book of Genesis, in the course of its proper subject, 
 passed from the account of the Creation in general to that of the dealings 
 of the Creator with his human creatures in particular, the style of the 
 narrative, in sjjeaking even of the Creator himself, would begin to be 
 modified, and that a personal name, applicable to the individual relation 
 of this One of the Three Divine Persons in particular, to this one class of 
 
 a Gcu. xvi. 7-14 : xix, 13, 14. 16: xxi. 17, 18: xxii. 11. 15 : xxxi. 11-13 ■ 
 xlviii. 16. Exod. iii. 2. 4. Acts vii. 38. Exod. xiv. 19 : xxxii. 34 : xxxiii. 2. 
 Numb. xxii. 22-35. Joshua v. 14. 15. Judges ii. 1-5 : vi. 11-23. 27 : xiii. 3- 
 23. Hos. xii. 4, 5, C\. Zech. i. 12. vi. 4-8. '' ls;ii;ili Ixiii. 9. <' Dan. 
 
 x. 13. 21 : xii. 1. .J mil,' 9. Rev. xii. 7. •' (Jahit iii 19. '" .loliii i. 1. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 305 
 
 their creatures in common, would take the place of that of Elohim, appli- 
 cable to the relation of all the Three Divine Persons in common to the 
 creatures of them all in common. And though both Elohim and Jehovah 
 might seem a priori to be names equally ajjplicable per se to the Divine 
 nature, and therefore either of them as proper for a personal designation 
 of the Deity as the other — a distinction in the use of each respectively de 
 facto holds good in Scripture — which is very important on this question ; 
 viz. that while one of them is found to be predicated both of each of the 
 three, in the singular Eloah, and of all together, in the plural Elohiin, the 
 other, Jehovah, is never found predicated of all the three persons in the 
 plural, but always of each in particular <=. There is no plural of Jehovah, 
 in the idiom and usage of Scripture, as there is of Eloah. It is manifest 
 therefore that, while Elohim might be the personal designation of all the 
 Three Persons at once, Jehovah must be the proper style of each of them 
 in particular. And of this we cannot have a better proof than Gen. xix. 
 24 — where Jehovah, the Second Person, then on earth, is said to have 
 rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom, from Jehovah, the First Per- 
 son, in Heaven — or, Gen. xxii. 16, in the account of the sacrifice of Isaac, 
 where Jehovah-Melak, the Second Person, first mentioned xxii. 11, 12, is 
 represented calling to Abraham out of heaven, a second time, to announce 
 to him the oath of Jehovah, the First Person — " By myself have I 
 sworn, saith Jehovah" — Or, (to fetch an example of the same idiom from 
 the Christian Scriptures,) 2 Tim. i. 18, where St. Paul, speaking of the 
 good services rendered to himself by Onesiphorus, intercedes in his behalf, 
 that the Lord {Jehovah, the First Person) would grant him to find mercy 
 from the Lord {Jehovah, the Second Person) in that day," that is, the day 
 of judgment. 
 
 It is very observable accordingly that, beginning Gen. ii. 4, the style 
 of the narrative, in speaking of the Creator himself, undergoes a change 
 from Elohim in general, before used, to Jehovah-Elohim in particular ; 
 and once introduced. Gen. ii. 4, this continues to be the recognised mode 
 of speaking of him down to the end of chap. iii. — that is, all through the 
 still continuing state of Paradise. It is only with the beginning of chap, 
 iv. (i. e. the history of the course of things from and after the Fall,) that 
 this style of Jehovah-Elohim is dropped, and that of Jehovah alone is sub- 
 stituted for it. And it is an obvious inference from this distinction, that 
 while the proper personal style of the Creator in relation to, and in his in- 
 tercourse with, his human creatures, whether before or after the Fall, was 
 alike that of Jehovah, there was something in the nature of his relation to 
 them, and in his intercourse with them, before the Fall, ditt'erent from 
 what there was after the Fall, and no doubt in consequence of the Fall ; 
 the presence of which before the Fall was probably expressed by this ad- 
 dition of Elohim to his Personal designation of Jehovah, as proper for 
 that time, — and its absence after the Fall, by the withdrawal of this addi- 
 tion, in consequence of the Fall, as no longer ])roper after that. And 
 possibly the explanation of this distinction is found in what some Hebrew 
 c Cf. Numbers, vi. 24-26 : Deuteronomy, vi. 4. 
 X 
 
306 The Three Witnesses, and the Threefold Cord, 
 
 scholars have supposed the true meaning of this word Elohim itself ^ — as 
 predicable of the Deity only as the source of unmixed good, to every 
 thing to which he stood in the relation of Eloah, or Elohim. A Personal 
 Jehovah must have been Elohim also, in this sense, to all his creatures, 
 and especially to his rational human creatures, before the Fall ; but could 
 continue so no longer, in the same sense and to the same extent as before, 
 after the Fall, — until the effects of the* Fall, in disturbing the original 
 relations between the Creator and his rational and responsible creatures, 
 should have been done away. 
 
 Note HH, page 231. See the Fasti, iii. 228, 229. 303, 304 : and Ori- 
 gines KalendaricC Hellenicfe, iv. iii n., from which it may be inferred 
 that both the pretended appearances of the Phoenix, every 500 years, and 
 the reckoning of the Great Period of 48,000 years, were kept in the Period 
 of 4000 years, 8 Phoenix Cycles, and its multiples. 
 
 Note II, page 234. Scheme of the Succession of Mean Lunar Time, 
 in the Period of 600 equable years, from Period i, Mesore 14, ^-Era Cyc. 
 o-i, April 29, B. C. 4004, to Period xi, Mesore 14, J5ra Cyc. 6000-6001, 
 Nab. 2741-2742, March 21, A. D. 1993. 
 
 Period 
 
 JEra Cycliea. 
 
 
 Midnight. 
 Nab. aiesore. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 Midnight. 
 
 Luna 
 
 i. 
 
 — ! 
 
 
 14 
 
 4004 
 
 Apr. 29 
 
 ia 
 
 ii. 
 
 6co — 601 
 
 
 f4 
 
 3405 
 
 Nov. 30 
 
 iia 
 
 iii. 
 
 1200 — 1201 
 
 
 H 
 
 2805 
 
 July 3 
 
 iiia 
 iva 
 
 iv. 
 
 1800 — 1801 
 
 
 14 
 
 2205 
 
 Feb. 4 
 
 V. 
 
 2400 — 2401 
 
 
 '4 
 
 1606 
 
 Sept. 7 
 
 va 
 
 vi. 
 
 3000 — 3001 
 
 
 14 
 
 IC06 
 
 Apr. 10 
 
 via 
 
 vii. 
 
 3600 — 3601 
 
 Nab. 
 
 14 
 
 407 
 
 Nov. II 
 
 viia 
 
 viii. 
 
 4200 — 4201 
 
 941—9+2 
 
 '4 
 
 A. D. 
 
 194 
 
 June 1 4 
 
 viiia 
 
 i.\. 
 
 4800 — 4801 
 
 1541— 1542 
 
 14 
 
 794 
 
 Jan. 15 
 
 ixa 
 
 -\. 
 
 S 400— 5401 
 
 214I — 2142 
 
 14 
 
 •393 
 
 Aug. 18 
 
 xia 
 
 xi. 
 
 6000 — 600 1 
 
 2741—2742 
 
 '4 
 
 1993 
 
 Mar. 2 1 
 
 xiia j 
 
 Note KK, page 234. The result is the same, if we divide the sum of 
 mean solar time in 25 equable years, 9125 days, diminished by one hour, 
 9124 days, 23 hours, by the number of integral lunar months in one lunar 
 and solar cycle of 25 equable years, 309. The quotient in this case too is, 
 29 d. 12 h. 44 m. 4660 194 sec. 
 
 tl See my Exposition of the Parable.*, Vol. v. Part ii. 354 note. 
 
APPENDIX. Notes and Explanations. 307 
 
 Note LL. page 240. The phenomenon of which we have to give some 
 explanation, (that of the descent of annual time, in its proper Julian and 
 proper hebdomadal style, one term only in the former, and two terms in 
 the latter, every 112 or 140 years, before a certain time, apparently under 
 the very same circumstances under which it descends only one term in 
 each in the same length of time at present,) this phenomenon, I say, is 
 attested by the matter of fact, in coming down with annual and hebdomadal 
 time, under the proper Julian style of both, from the beginning of things 
 to the time in question, at every period of its decursus, at which an ap- 
 peal can be made to that kind of proof: and simply as a fact, so confirmed 
 by testimony perpetually, it was long known to me before the principle or 
 rationale of the phenomenon (from the knowledge of which a priori it 
 must always have been expected) was yet understood. 
 
 The distinctions however which are necessary to clear up this point are 
 so subtle and recondite, and withal so new and so much opposed to the 
 inveterate prejudices of chronologers, that it ought not to appear extraor- 
 dinary if even the author of the Fasti and the Origines himself, coming to 
 the investigation of this question for the first time, and not yet free from 
 the common misapprehensions on this subject, should not have succeeded 
 to the satisfaction of himself or of his readers, in his first attempts at the 
 solution of so intricate a problem. The discovery of the truth on so ab- 
 struse a point could be only the work of time ; and first ideas on such a 
 subject would constantly stand in need of that revision and correction which 
 could be administered only by further reflection, and a deeper insight into 
 the nature of the case. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the best advice which I can give the reader 
 who is desirous of thoroughly investigating this point, is to begin with our 
 latest Explanations. If any one, for instance, will be at the trouble of 
 mastering the Prolegomena of the Origines Kalendariae Hellenicae, (which 
 may be done with ordinary ])ains and study,) he will probably gain from 
 that a correct idea of the true principle of the explanation : and he may 
 then pass to the Preliminary Address of the Origines Kalendariae Italicae, 
 in which the same explanation is attempted on the principles of the Tech- 
 nical and Positive rule of the administration of Natural and Julian time, 
 from the first, in the system of the Tables. After that there will be little 
 obscurity in those parts of the Fasti Catholici, (Dissertations vi. and viii. of 
 vol. i.) where the solution of the same problem was first attempted, which 
 the better light and knowledge, and the more distinct ideas, already ac- 
 quired on the same subject, will not enable him to clear up for himself. 
 
■h 
 
 "^ 
 
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