ORDO SJECLORUM. TREATISE CHRONOLOGY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES: AND THE INDICATIONS THEREIN CONTAINED OF A DIYINE PLAN OF TIMES AND SEASONS: TOGETHER WITH AN APPENDIX, ' CONTAINING I. A COMPENDIUM OF THE PRINCIPAL INSTITUTES OF CHRONOLOGY. II. AN EXAMINATION OF Mb. GRESWELL'S SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY AND HYPOTHESIS RELATIVE TO THE JULIAN CALENDAR. III. DISSERTATIONS ON THE ANCIENT CHRONOGRAPHIES OF ASIA AND EGYPT. IV. OUTLINES OF A CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. \ V. AN ESSAY ON THE DESIGN AND STRUCTURE OF PROPHECY. By HENRY BROWNE, M.A., PRINCIPAL OF THE DIOCESAN COLLEGE, CHICHESTER: CANON OF WALTHAM IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP, OF CHICHESTER. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.XLIV. W£v73 THE CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Apology for the present undertaking. 2—6. Survey of materials for the construction of Scripture Chronology. 7, 8. Schemes of Ussher and Petavius : their basis. 9. Mr. Clmton's scheme described. 10. How the present differs from it. 11—14. Singular facts involved in this scheme: cannot be ascribed to human artifice. 15. General probability, from analogy of nature, that such facts are part of a Divine Plan. Scripture intimates the existence of such a Plan. 16. Its reality, how evidenced. 17—22. Importance of these results. Apologetic use. Modem scepticism. Uses to faith. Caution p. 1—24. PART I. HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY. Chapter I. ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. P. 25—94. Section I. On the Time of Christ's Nativity. P. 25 — 52. § 23. Elements of the question. 24 — 28. Time of Herod's death ascertained from Josephus. 29 — 31. Confirmatory arguments. 32 — 37. The Sacerdotal Cycle described and applied to the determination of this question p. 25 36. Appendix I. On the Dates assigned to the Nativity by the early Christian Writers. § 38—47 p. 37—39. Appendix II. On the 'Avoypaept), or Census, at the time of the Nativity. § 48, 49. S. Luke vindicated. 50. Text not corrupt. 51 — 53. Grammar of the passage : Bp. Middleton's interpretation, Mr. Greswell's. How the passage must be rendered. 54 — 58. The dwoypaat least, 573 years. 3. The reading of the text, 1 Kings vi. 3, is itself un certain. The Hebrew and Chaldee read 480, the LXX. 440. ! Josephus takes no notice of the Hebrew number : he gives, as •the length of the interval on various occasions, 592, 612, ,and 632 years. § 9. As a specimen, and I think the best, of the computa- 8 INTRODUCTION. [$ l0" tions in which the text 1 Kings vi. 1. is rejected as corrupt, we will give. Mr. Clinton's, from the admirable Essay on Scripture Chronology appended to his great work, the Fasti Hellenici. Years. Months. Years in the wilderness 40 Death of Moses to the first Servitude [con j ectural 27] Years of the Judges and servitudes.. 390 Years of Eli 40 Ark in captivity 7 months, and at Kirjath-jearim 20 years .. 20 7 To the election of Saul, [^conjectural - 12J Years of Saul, Acts xiii 40 569 7 Year of David's accession deduced from the ascending reck oning b-c- 1°56 Year of the Exode, (about). b.c. 1625 Mr. Clinton, therefore, distributes St Paul's period of 450 years into 20 years of the Ark at Kirjath-jearim. 40 ... of Eli. 390 ... of the Judges, from the first servitude. 450 years. * and supposes that the three terms of St Paul's enumeration are not continuous : namely, that between the two first lies a chasm which he estimates at about 27 years, and between the two last another of about 12 years. $ 10. The scheme which I purpose to establish in these pages differs from that of Mr. Clinton, in the part here described, to an amount of 39 years, which is the sum of the two conjetr- tural terms. I suppose the three terms in St Paul's enumera^ tion to be continuous, and consequently that the measure of the period from the Exode to David is 530 years. I take this to be the most obvious sense of the passage in Acts xiii.; the sense in which every one would have understood it, but for a sup posed difficulty in adjusting the detail of numbers in the history to that measure. In this sense some of the ancients understood the passage, e.g. perhaps S. Clement of Alexandria,' and certainly S. Cyprian, or whoever else, unquestionably a contemporary, was the author of the Computus Paschalis, appended to Bp. Fell's .§ 11.] INTRODUCTION. 9 edition of S. Cyprian*s works. As for the supposed difficulty, it disappears, as I shall shew in the proper place,' upon a just view of the connexion between the Book of Judges and the First Book of Samuel. That connexion I take to be as fol lows : — the 40 years' of the Philistine oppression (Judges xiii. 1) are made up of the 20 years of Samson (Judges xv. 20), and the 20 years of the ark's continuance, after its capture .and -restoration, at Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. vii. 2). These 40 years therefore, and the 390 years of the Judges end to gether, at the day of the great deliverance at Mizpeh, which is the epoch of " Samuel the Prophet." Now the date of the accession of David, according to Mr. Clinton, hereafter to be verified by us, is the year b.c 1056. It follows that the date of the Exode should be 1056 + 530 = 1586 b.c, and of the 'day of Mizpeh 1056 + 40 =1096 b. c $ 11. This then was the scheme which lay before me, as -deduced from the outline of St. Paul taken in its obvious sense. It seemed to me to explain all that was difficult in this portion of the Chronology : and originally this was all that I sought ; •for I had no intention of pursuing the enquiry any further. It chanced, however, that some figures on my paper caught iny eye: it struck me that the periods of Old Testament ¦history, as thus arranged, had in them a rather remarkable parallelism, which perhaps might not be altogether accidental, *and was at least worth the trouble of a slight investigation. In the issue, what was at first little more than a feeling of -curiosity, grew into a high degree of interest, when it ap peared, namely, that the parallelism extended much further than what first took my eye. I will state the facts in the order in which I discerned them. (1.) From the Exode to Samuel, St. Paul numbers 4.90 years, and from thence to David, 40 more. But the time of 'the kings, from the accession of David to the beginning of the 70 years of the Babylonian exile, amounts to just 450 years ; that is, if Mr. Clinton, and other chronologists, have -rightly identified the fourth year of Jehoiakim with the year 'b.c 606, and the first of David with 1056 b.c Here then is the parallelism which first presented itself to my notice : 10 INTRODUCTION. IS1*- 40 years in the wilderness : delivery of the Law'* 450 ... of Judges, beginning with Joshua. 490 =70x7 years. 40 years from Samuel the first of the Prophets. 450 ... of Kings, beginning with David. 490 = 70x7. 70 years of Captivity: the seventh part of the preceding period: the time during which "the land keeps her sabbaths." At the close of these seventy years, the Prophet Daniel received a revelation concerning a period of seventy times seven years, which was yet to elapse before the coming of Messiah the Prince. We need not stop at present to consider the actual adjustment of this prophetical period ; it is sufficient simply to notice the fact that such a period is revealed as part of the Divine Plan, in connexion, as the preceding parallelism would seem to imply, with a system of periods of the same numerical form. (2.) This remarkable parallelism becomes still more in teresting when we notice this further arrangement: $ 12. The date of the Exode resulting from the applica tion of St. Paul's outline to the known date of David's acces sion, is the year b. c. 1586. The entire length, in years, of the Mosaic Dispensation, from the Exode to the conflagration of the Second Temple (August a. d. 70), is therefore 1655 years and some months. Now the sum of the antediluvian genealor gies in the Hebrew text is 1656, or rather 1655 years; for it appears from Gen. vii. 11. viii. 13, that the flood began in the 600th year current of Noah's life '. Hence it seems that the times of the antediluvian world are exactly symmetrical with those of the Mosaic Dispensation. § IS. (3.) Nor does the parallelism stop here : but the intermediate period, viz. from the Flood to the Exode, is bisected, or very nearly so, at the time of the promise made to Abraham. For the sum of the years noted in Gen. xi. from the Flood to the death qf Terah is 427: and it is rw maa w raoa anno t t " " - : • sexcentesinio, pr. anno (extremo) sex- centorum annorum, Gesen. Lex. s. v. rap- T T § IS- J INTRODUCTION. IT Very emphatically noted that a period of 430 years, exactly complete, ended at the Exode, in the very day of it. " Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years; and it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Exod. xii. 40, 51. That these years are reckoned, not from the descent of Jacob into Egypt, but from the promise made to Abraham, is not to be doubted by any one who believes in the divine authority of St. Paul's Epistles. For thus he speaks: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made... And this I say: the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul." Gal. iii. 16, 17. Now upon turning to the history of Abraham we find one occasion, of a peculiarly solemn nature, above all others befitting to be the epoch from which this term of years should be reckoned. On the day of the Exode, says Moses, " on that selfsame day," 430 years of sojourning came to an end. He evidently assumes that the terminus a quo of the reckoning is known to his readers : it has been, therefore, previously defined ; and on what occasion if not on the following ? " After these things" [viz. after the rescue of Lot, and that memorable and most mysterious transaction which thereon ensued, the blessing pf the patriarch by Melchizedek the priest of the Most High God] "after these things the word of the Lord came untq Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great, reward.. ..And Abram said, Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed... and behold the word of the Lord came unto him... and He brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And He. said unto him, So shall thy seed be, And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness. And He said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it ?" Then, after the instructions concern ing the sacrifice, and the mention of the deep sleep and horror of great darkness which fell upon Abram, it follows : " And He said unto him, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger 12 -INTRODUCTION. [§ !¦*• in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict ' (or, humble) therti 400 years, and also that nation whom they shall serve, will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance? Here is the Promise : and the fulfilment is expressed with an evident reference to the terms of the prediction, in the passage above quoted, with this difference only, that in the. promise the term of years was predicted generally, in a round number of centuries. — Now it is not recorded in what year of Abraham's life this memorable occur rence took place. Certain it is, however, that the incidents noted in Gen. xii. — xiv. must have occupied more than one year. I assume — and this is ihe only conjectural element in the scheme here proposed — that they occupied two years, viz. from the death of Terah and departure of Abraham from Charran. Then the reckoning exhibits this parallelism: Years. The time of Noah in the ark 1 To the birth of Arphaxad 2 To the death of Terah 425 To the Promise, Gen. xv J 2 Sum , 430 From the Promise, Gen. xv. to the Exode.. 430 And here it is worth while to notice, what has been re marked by Josephus {Ant. n. 15. 2.) and other writers, that the term of 430 years is exactly bisected at the time of the descent of Jacob into Egypt. Hence it follows, that Years. From the Creation to the" Flood, being 1 655 C From the Flood to the Promise 430 The sum is 2085—6, which is parallel to the following : — From the Promise to the Exode 430 From the Exode to the end of the Mosaic dis pensation :... 1655—6 Sum 2085—6. \ 14. Such are the curious and interesting facts which come to view immediately upon the adoption of St. Paul's chronological statement. Taken in its obvious sense and § 14-] INTRODUCTION. J3 applied to that part of the chronology which is certainly known* it brings forth the outlines of a plan, or, in scripture language, "Economy" of Times and Seasons. Here is a threefold symme try or parallelism of the parts, the whole of which disappears as soon as we put upon the Apostle's words any other than their most obvious meaning. I cannot persuade myself that a set of independent results of this kind can be merely fortuitous : the more one considers the matter, the more clearly expres sive it seems to be of design and contrivance somewhere. But the supposition of human artifice is precluded by the very na ture of the materials out of which the scheme is constructed. The scheme is latent; brought to light only by a combination of several distinct processes, each of which is indispensable to its disclosure. First, we must know the sum of the several dis connected series of times enumerated in the Old Testament from the Creation to the first year of Cyrus : and this was not accurately calculated by the Jews either before or after Christ. Secondly, we must determine from profane history the precise year b. c of the restoration under Cyrus : this also was un known to the Jews. And thirdly, when both these are known, still no authoritative, wholly unconjectural, scheme can be con structed, unless we be furnished with an authentic measure which shall precisely connect the discontinuous members of the historical enumeration. This measure is supplied by a few words which chanced, if one may so speak, to fall from the lips of an inspired Apostle, seemingly without a purpose, but on a very solemn occasion. The notion of human contrivance being excluded, is it presumptuous to surmise that this is the Lord's doing, a portion of His ways who doeth all in number, weight; and measure, foreordaining to the sons* of men the predestined times, that they might seek the Lord ? For my own part, when these facts lay distinctly before me, I considered again the various intimations we have in Holy Scripture of the existence of a defi nite plan, or Economy of Times and Seasons : I seemed to discern a peculiar significance in the particular plan of which, as it appeared to me, I had caught the outlines ; and thus having gained a very strong impression of its reality, I was prepared to expect that upon a closer survey of the Chronology, I should find the great crises of the Theocracy, especially, in relation to the coming of Christ in the flesh, visibly, as it were, emerging 14 INTRODUCTION. [§ 15- each at its appointed season " in the fulness of time." Accord ingly I set myself to investigate afresh the chronology of both Testaments ; and not until I had obtained the legitimate deter minations by strict reasoning upon the elements of each ques tion, did I look for any sacred or mystical relations which might subsist between the various portions of time thus ascer tained. The result far exceeded my expectations. Especially in respect of the time of our Lord's sojourn in the flesh it was unspeakably interesting to find, first, that my principal conclusions tallied with the most venerable and consistent tra ditions of the ancient Church, and then, that they involved '" economies" of a singularly impressive character. ; The results of these investigations, are about to be placed before the reader. If he will travel with me through the se veral periods of Sacred History, beginning at the New Testa ment and rising to the earliest times, he will find that I have strictly worked out each portion of the Chronology ; that no thing rests upon bare conjecture or loose evidence ; that the scheme was not preconceived and the evidence warped and wrenched in order to fit it ; in short, that the reasoning employed for the discovery of the cardinal dates is strictly chronological. The facts of chronology being thus ascertained, I then, and no sooner, invite him to consider the mystical facts or " economies" which in the concluding chapters are deduced by simple calcula tion from the facts of investigation. Before, however, we enter upon the proposed enquiry, I think it right to premise a few considerations relative to the general probability, the uses and bearings, of the class of facts which I am concerned to disclose and prove. $ 15. If we were investigating any class of the phenomena of the physical world, in astronomy, suppose, or chemistry, or the morphology of vegetation or crystallization, and in the course of our enquiries were to detect some numerical law, or series of numerical relations, we should, generally speaking, acknow ledge the law or the relations to be real, and the effect of design, even in cases where they do not admit of being exactly verified as matter of fact, or cannot, at present, be proved to be intrin sically involved in the whole theory of the particular subject. For example : when Kepler, subjecting to calculation what was in his day known or be}ieved concerning the times and distances §"•] INTRODUCTION. 15 of the planets, announced as an empirical fact, that "the squares of the periodic times are as the cubes of the distances," no competent person entertained a doubt of the reality of the relation, although "for a long time no necessary connexion was discerned between the periodic times and the distances, until at last it was shown to be a consequence of the law of gravity1." To take another example : no one questions the reality of the chemical law of definite proportions, although no manipulations, no analysis, however subtle, can bring the fact palpably and visibly before the senses of the operator in each particular instance. Or, lastly, to use another instance which is perhaps the most of all to the purpose : when Bode, the Prussian astronomer, noted that the planetary distances seem to form a certain regular geometrical series, the reality ©f the numerical law was generally admitted, although the series does in fact but rudely represent the actual distances as ob served at any one instant, or their mean as obtained from a multitude of observations : nay, what is more — although at the time of the discovery it seemed that one term of the series was missing2. The fact is still unexplained, perhaps because it is an ultimate fact, preceded by no law but the will of Him 1 Brinkley, Elements of Astronomy, §'114. , 2 " At present we know of no secon dary cause that could have any influence in regulating the respective distances of the planets from the sun ; yet there ap- pears a relation between the distances that cannot be considered as accidental. This was first observed by Professor Bode of Berlin.. .Comparing these with the actual mean distances we cannot but remark the near agreement, and can scarcely hesitate to pronounce that these mean distances were assigned according to a law, although we are entirely igno rant of the exact law and of the reason for that law." , Brinkley, El. of As tronomy § 115. The relation here spoken of is as follows : If Mercury's distance from the Sun be called 4, and Venus's 4 + 3, which is very nearly the proportion, then 4+2x 3 will be the Earth's distance, 4 + 22x3 that of Mars, 4 + 2"x3 Ju. piter's, 4+25x3 Saturn's, and 4+26x3 that of Uranus. Upon the discovery of the small planets, their mean distance was found to be nearly 4 + 23 x 3. " Kep ler had observed a progression, but did not assign its law. He remarked also that one term seemed to be missing. Bode assigned the particular law, and noticed the apparently missing term. The existence of a planet between Mars and Jupiter was accordingly suspected^ and at last, to the astonishment of as tronomers, four little bodies, looking more like fragments of a planet than planets, were discovered at a distance from the Sun so near to that which had been suspected, that their mean distance fills up its place in the series as well as that of any other planet;" Cyclop, of Useful Knowledge Society, Art. Solar System. Jupiter's Satellites and Saturn's seem to be ranged round their primaries by similar laws. 16 INTRODUCTION. [§ 15T Who set the stars In their courses. It is not, indeed, indifferent- at what distances from the centre the bodies of a planetary: system should have their orbits : distance and mass being the; measures of the attraction which is exerted by each body on all the rest, the actual distances must needs be conditional to the stability of a system in which the mass of the several bodies is supposed first given. If the stability was designed, the arbi- trium of the Divine Plan lay between a particular set of masses and a particular set of distances. Now whereas it has never yet been discovered that the masses of the planets follow any law of progression, the distances do observe a very marked and simple law : whence it would seem that the law of the distances is conditional to the dimensions of the masses, not conversely : in other words, one is led to conceive • that the : Creator was. pleased to mark out first the distances, and then to assign to- each orbit that mass which should secure the stability of the. system: as in the plan of an architect, the dimensions are first given, and afterwards the masses of his materials are ad justed thereto. It may be then, that the law in question ia an ultimate fact, prescribed by no anterior exigency, but or dained by His sovereign will Who " doeth all things in number,. weight, and measure." That the Eternal should have foreordained the times, that is to say, the precise astronomical instants, of His acts in the moral government of the world is, apart from Scripture, nowise incredible. With man, the season and time for the execution of a preconceived design is, in most cases, contingent upon the course of events over which we have but a limited control. But with God " the fulness of time " is not another name for ripeness of opportunity or occasion. His acts, indeed, of mercy or judgment are contingent upon the procedure of moral agencies in His creatures, but these agencies also are wholly under His control. When therefore, He has purposed that He will destroy all flesh with a flood of waters, or that He will bring vengeance upon a guilty nation, it is easy and natural to conceive (from our human point of view) that the precise instant of physical time was first predetermined, and then in reference. to this goal, the masses and forces, so to speak, of moral agen cies, human and divine, were so adjusted as to produce the fore known purpose of God at its foreordained season, § 15.] INTRODUCTION. 1^ Again, if there be a Plan for the moral government of the world, in which are marked out determinate periods during which mankind or nations or individuals shall undergo their probation, and if there be any appearances or indications that these periods, or certain of them in the course of past time, involve numerical relations of a regular kind, there can be no reason for rejecting all consideration of such appearances or indications ; but rather the contrary, inasmuch as many facts in the physical constitution of the world, facts which we have reason to regard as ultimate or arbitrary, exhibit the clearest traces of a predilection, if one may so speak, for numerical laws of arrangement. But on turning to the revelation of God's counsels which He has been pleased to deliver in Holy Scripture, we find, in the first place, very clear intimations that " the fulness of time" is defined not merely by moral fitnesses, but by a foreordained circuit of astronomical periods. In the next place, we do find those appearances or indications of which I spoke just now, namely of regular numerical relations involved in the times and seasons of His dealings with mankind. There, the moral re lations of the phenomena are clearly marked out to our view : Moses and Joshua, Samuel and David, are unquestionably set forth as so many analogies to Christ. As little can we be under any mistake, or led by a caprice of fancy, in tracing an analogy between the general destruction of the world by a flood out of which one family was saved in the ark, and that awful catastrophe in which the . chosen nation was overwhelmed, and those only escaped who had found refuge in the ark of Christ's Church. Now these moral parallels seem to be accompanied with certain regular numerical parallelisms of the times belong ing to these persons and events. It may be granted that the historical chronology of the Scriptures is somewhat ambiguous : so. were the facts of the planetary system more or less dubious and questionable before Kepler's time, and the constituent pro portions of the ingredients in chemical compounds before the discovery of Dalton. We adopt, as they did, the estimate, in doubtful cases, which seems the best attested: hereupon we find, as they found, that there rises into view a series of numerical relations which have so little appearance of being indifferent or fortuitous that we feel constrained to believe them to be true, 2 IS INTRODUCTION. Hi* i.e. real and designed. This evidence countervails the vagueness or ambiguity of the results of investigation. It was possible that we erred in our interpretation of S. Paul's statement in Acts xiii., or of the words of Moses in Exodus xii., or in our preference of the Hebrew text of the genealogies to tbe Alexandrine or the Samaritan : but the probability of an error in either case be comes indefinitely diminished upon the disclosure of the facts which have been mentioned. Or else, let it be shown that any other construction of the chronology exhibits the like marks of design. Again — when the Prussian Astronomer perceived that in his series of planetary distances there was one term to which no known fact corresponded, he inferred that in the correspond ing region of space there was once a planet, or would hereafter be found one; astronomers accordingly directing their gaze* to that region, found the' term which at first seemed to have been missing. In like manner, the parallelism in the Scripture system of times and seasons seems to fail at one point^-by a minute deviation indeed; for if the Call of Abraham be the cardinal point concerned, the failure amounts but to two or three years of defect — but when our attention is drawn to this point we perceive that the Promise, i. e. some signal one, and not necessarily the Call, constitutes that cardinal point ; we see fur ther which of the Promises must needs be intended ; and though the exact time of that particular promise is not recorded, we may well be allowed to infer it by way of corollary, seeing that the time thus inferred cannot, under the circumstances of the case, be more than eight years too early, nor more than one year too late1. § 16. It will be found in the sequel that the scheme which has been described is but the framework of a system of economical or mystical relations, which, while they are far more recondite, are much more interesting and impressive than these which lie upon the surface. It will be found, for instance, that the chronological and historical evidence leads to certain dates of the Saviour's Nativity and Passion, and that the points of time thus ascertained stand in most exact, significant, and 1 for it occurred before" the coircep- tion of Ishmael, i. c before the 85th year of Abraham, and certainly not earlier than the ?6th year. I have assigned it to the 77th. ¦$!?•] ' INTRODUCTION, 19 diversified relations to the cardinal points of the scheme as above deduced. Assuming all this to be proved, we may com ment upon it as follows. — -We are perpetually admonished in Scripture, that the times and seasons of men and nations are foreordained of God; and in the inspired history of His Church it has pleased Him to reveal His overruling Providence. It may' be, that the divine chronology of that history shall be attested, when discovered, by the disclosure of relations pecu liarly indicative of design. If then, upon the application of a certain revealed measure or outline, a singular relation between the parts shall come to light; if, after this, other independent relations between other parts shall appear to be involVed in the same scheme; if there shall again and again be discovered a coincidence or consilience of these relations — that is to say, if a particular epoch, being critically determined, and then being found to be marked by a certain significant relation* shall be unexpectedly found to be marked by another relation of a different kind; if these relations be characterized by a signifi cance which Holy Scripture has elsewhere intimated; if the supposition of human artifice be excluded by the nature of the case ; and, lastly, if the mathematical probabilities against the mere fortuitousness of all these phenomena be inconceivably great; — what stronger attestation to the reality of the Whole scheme Can be required or even conceived? $ 17. That the real chronology of the Holy Scripture should be firmly established, cannot be a matter of little importance. The necessity of a well-defined chronology is admitted with respect to all other history, aud surely it will not be disputed in reference to the Bible. Besides, it is of manifest importance to vindicate the Scriptures from the charge of vagueness or inconsistency. It is of importance to shew, if we can, that the Scriptures contain all the elements which are requisite for the construction of the chronological scheme. And lastly, it is im portant to rescue the Bible from the tamperings of antiquarian theorists, who would overrule its statements by schemes of Egyptian or other profane chronology. But the system which is here presented to the reader lays' claim to an importance which reaches far beyond all the ordinary interests of historical accu racy and completeness-"— an importance in reference to the truth 2 — 2 20 INTRODUCTION. [$ 18. and reality of the Holy Scriptures themselves. For if the great crises of the Church's history in the Old and New Testament be indeed connected by a law of times and seasons, this connexion is a fresh proof or manifestation of the divine reality of both systems. For assuming the historical truth of both Jewish and Christian Scriptures, we shew how they are knit together, as in moral respects, so likewise by a plan of times and seasons, which no human contrivance could have elaborated. Thus considered, the Chronology of the Scriptures becomes a fresh topic in the Apology for Revealed Religion. $ 18. That there exists among us at this day a vast amount of scepticism, openly avowed or working in secret and unconsciously, no one doubts who has attentively watched the procedure of our popular literature. And this scepticism, in its most perilous forjris, is no longer of that gross and revolting kind over which our fathers achieved a comparatively easy victory. The "Evidences" of the last century will prove very inadequate weapons against the new infidelity which sprung up in the schools of Germany, and has been long silently invading our shores. The processes which in Germany are framed into spe culative systems, with us are manifested with less of completeness and consistency, yet as really and practically. I am therefore not travelling far from those bearings of the question which di rectly concern ourselves, in selecting two distinct systems of con tinental scepticism as the highest exponents of the sorts of un belief which are vaguely afloat among ourselves. There exist among us the elements, at least, of the " historical scepticism," which, even when it professes a belief in the divine origin of the Mosaic and Christian systems, regards their historical documents as matter of the same kind with the earlier profane history^ out of which the truth of facts is to be reconstructed by the critical processes of the schools of Niebuhr and Miiller; it being assumed that both the Old and New Testament contain more of legend and popular traditions than of true pragmatic history. And have we not among us the germs, at least, of the very different "mythical systems" of Schleiermacher and Strauss, in which objective facts are treated as the mere vehicles or disguises of the subjective idea ; whether true or false it matters not, since the truth resides., either, as Schleiermacher teaches, in the § 19.], INTRODUCTION. 21 religious sentiment which they excite and express, or, as Strauss maintains, in the philosophical doctrine to which they are eminently capable of being attached? J 19. Hence it has become necessary once more to assert and defend, against assaults more subtle as well as more vigorous than those of former ages, the genuine historical reality of the persons and actions recorded in the Old and New Testament* And in the discharge of this necessary duty, the very Chro* nology, if I mistake not, is capable of rendering important service. We point to the curious and significant, yet recondite, facts of the times and seasons, as evidence of design and of over ruling Providence : facts, of such a nature, that, if they were explicitly set forth in any other ancient history, they would be at once ascribed to human design and artifice. For example : it has been remarked concerning the early Roman history, " According to the Chronology of Fabius, the history from the founding to the taking of the city divides itself into two portions : 240 years under the kings, and 120 after them ; or, to express it differently, into three periods, each containing ten times twelve years ; twelve being the number of the birds in the augury of Romulus. This scheme was the bed of Procrustes, to which whatever was known or believed about the early times was fitted." To which is added in a note, "As the life of Moses is divided into three periods of 40 years each." (Nie buhr, Vol. i. p. 214. Eng, tr.) Here it is obviously implied that this distribution of the years of Moses is artificial. Much more then must not the threefold period of seventy times seven years, and the exact symmetry of the antediluvian and Mosaic periods, and again of the ante-Abrahamic and post- Abrahamic periods be imputed to artifice ? All this could not be the result of human artifice, for it lies involved and hidden in the materials of chronology which have to be fetched partly from the Old, partly from the New Testament, partly from the records of Babylon and Greece and Rome. But, if it be not artificial, it is not contrived ? and by Whom ? — Again : <{ If the tradition about ¦ both [Romulus aiid Numa] is in its innermost essence fiction, the fixing the pretended dtiration of their reigns can be explain ed only by ascribing it either to wanton caprice or to numerical speculations : and although to us the former may seem more pro bable, there is far stronger ground for conjecturing the latter 22 introduction. [y }9- among the ancients in early times; above all, where the annals were in the hands of a learned priesthood. This character marks the chronology of Asia? (p. 208.) In this view of the matter, the years assigned to the patriarchs before the Flood, if they be not the truth of facts, must be ascribed either to arbitrary caprice,; or to numerical speculations. In favour of the latter supposi tion, one might point to the 365 years of Enoch (the .reputed founder of astrological science) as formed upon the numeral of the tropical year ; and again to the 777 years of the life of Lamech. But on either supposition, by what fatality does it; come to pass that the sum of the, years before the Flood is pre cisely commensurate with the duration of tbe Mosaic system ? If indeed that duration were openly, recorded upon the face of the history, the sceptic might allege that the antediluvian gene-, alogies were curtailed down to that measure from the true original number, preserved in the LXX., by learned Jews who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem. Even then, there would remain this most curious circumstance requiring to be explained, that the mere subtraction of complete centuries, with out meddling with the tens and units, should effect this pur pose1. But apart from this objection, the truth is, that the 1655-^- years which lie between the Exode and the destruction of the Temple, are by no means legibly written upon the faae of the history. The true duration, assigned by us, would never have become known but for a seemingly accidental and even superfluous allusion to chronological matters in a discourse. which was delivered in a synagogue of Pisidia twenty or thirty; years before the catastrophe. It presupposes, moreover, an exact knowledge of the length of time intermediate between Cyrus and the destruction of the second Temple ; a knowledge which the Jews before and after that event did not possess.. It presupposes, lastly, not a mere summation of the years of the, Kings, but a critical rectification of their amount ; with which, again, the Jews did not concern themselves. The supposition of human artifice, it is clear, cannot be sustained for a mo ment.— But our scheme will be found to involve numerous other relations of the most precise kind, and even more signifi cant and far more latent than any which have been described. . '-See Chap. vii. § 300 fl-. § 20.] introduction. 23 If it be mere accident — for it can be no "child's play or jugT gler's tricks" — that they subsist there, I know not, for my part, what words will emphatically enough express the strangeness of such a caprice of chance. It will not avau to allege that we have, after all, only found what at, the outset we determined to find, for that we have unconsciously or of design warped and bent our materials to fit into our preconceived scheme. The whole plan of the following dissertations affords a sufficient answer to any such objection. If it be said, that supposing the several dates fairly brought out, still the interest and importance of the re lations involved in them exist only in the childish fancy which could find pleasure in such reveries, I would request the objector, first, to make an experiment whether such, so many, so diversi: fied, and so often coincident relations, subsist in any scheme of Scripture Chronology which does not rest upon the apostolic statement in Acts xiii. but which may be alleged to be equally well founded in express statements of Scripture. And, in the next place, I would beg him to estimate the mathematical pro babilities of the question at issue. 5 20. So far, concerning the bearing of these facts upon the system of historical scepticism. As to the mythical sys tem, and that kind of unbelief of, which it is the highest exponent, it will be sufficient for my purpose to advert to the opinion which Schleiermacher has expressed concerning the history of the nativities contained in S. Luke's Gospel. That narrative,. he contends, is a kind of mythical poem, com-, posed by some devout Christian Jew : it is not for a moment to be regarded as an historical narrative of real occurrences. Now it will be found in the first chapter of this work, that the narrative in question, combined with the alleged con tradictory narrative in S. Matthew, supplies the principal element for the calculation of the precise time of our Lord's Birth. The precise time of the. Passion is determined, in a subsequent section, upon totally independent grounds. These two dates, thus found, are afterwards shown to stand in numerous most precise and significant relations to the entire scheme, and" to many of its' critical epochs. All these must be proved to be futile and nugatory, before we can again listen to a hint of Jewish or Christian, mythi. But moreover, we shall proceed to shew, that the narrative does indeed 24 introduction. [$ 21. contain an allegory ; but an allegory such as no human inge nuity would or could have devised, inasmuch as the allegory and the substrate of fact are knit together by relations which do not appear until they are drawn forth by a combination of remotely scattered elements, which must be fetched from the Old Testament and from the New, from profane history, from Jewish and Christian tradition, and from the laws of the lunar motions. § 21. These things considered, the apologetical uses of the facts about to be stated, will, I trust, be deemed neither unreal nor unimportant. To speak of higher uses — they may serve to shed a clearer light on many portions of the Sacred History; but above all, they may help to impress upon our minds a lively sense of reality in our contemplation of the whole procedure of the elder Theocracy, and of awful expectation in our view of the times and seasons which are yet running their course. We see here how true it is that "our times are in His hands ;" " He hath limited (for us also as for His ancient Israel) a certain time, saying, as in David, To-day if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts." | 22. One further remark I cannot forbear to offer, by way of caution, at the outset of the proposed enquiry. I earnestly disclaim and protest against all attempts at calcu lating the times which are yet future. Notwithstanding the deference due to a few venerated names, I am bound to de clare my conviction that all such attempts are alike futile and presumptuous. The hypothesis in particular which makes the periods assigned by Daniel and S. John, of 1260 and 2300 days, to be that number of years, is a mere fiction, proved to have been invented at first by heretics, and since adopted chiefly as a weapon of controversy. That those periods, in the only sense with which we are concerned, are periods of days, will, I think, be convincingly shown in the course of the present enquiry : of which, accordingly, it will be one and not the least important use, that it helps to demolish a vicious system of prophetical interpretation. CHAPTER I. ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. The construction of the Old Testament Chronology, being independent of that of the New Testament, might therefore have held the first place in the present enquiry. But since the investigation is to be pursued in the ascending order of time, it seems but convenient that we should begin at the close of the entire tract of time which we are to explore. This we will do, and for this end will divide the whole into portions bounded by events, the dates of which are cardinal to the ge neral scheme. And although the ultimate object which I have in view would be attained, i. e. the Economy described in the Introduction, and those other indications of providential design which remain to be disclosed, would be verified, by ascertaining simply the dates of those events with which they are connected, yet, as I propose to myself the further object of determining the historical and literary Chronology of the Scriptures in detail, I shall include in each Chapter or Section the process of this special investigation. For example : the Chronology of the Acts of the Apostles is of little moment to the ultimate object of this work, except as it influences the question of the year in which our Lord suffered : but, for the special object proposed, I shall examine it in detail^ and together therewith the chronology of the lives and writings of the Apostles. And the like course will be pursued in the investigation of the other portions of time, which are included between the epochs which are cardinal to the entire scheme. Thus the seven chapters following, inde pendently of all reference to Economies of Times and Seasons, will form a substantive body of Scripture Chronology. SECTION I. ON THE TIME OP CHRIST S NATIVITY. § 23. The direct historical elements of the question to be discussed in this section are as follows : 1 . The Nativity must precede the death of Herod : the precise date of Herod's death must therefore, if possible, be ascertained. 2. The date assigned to, the Nativity must be such that the age of our Saviour at His Baptism, in the 15th year of Tiberius, shall not be much more or less than thirty years; for S. Luke says He was waei TptaKovra erwv dp^o/mevos " about thirty years old when He began (His public ministry)." This note of time being so general, expressed in a round number of decads with the qualifying phrase " about," it seems futile to urge it very strictly: it is obvious that any age be tween (suppose) twenty-eight and thirty-two will satisfy the description. The principal element then is the first-mentioned. We may not be able, indeed, to ascertain by how long a time the Birth of our Lord preceded Herod's death, but certainly it cannot be placed later. Some chronologists have inferred from the words of S. Matthew (ii. 16) that the Nativity must be, placed two years, or in the second year, before the order for the, massacre of the infants: but this is overstrained. The Stertji ¦^pottos is reckoned from the first observation of the star, which does not necessarily coincide with the time of, the Nativity. Besides, it is evident from S. Luke ii. 39, compared with S. Matthew's narrative, that the Holy Family did not make so long a stay as two years, or even one, in Bethlehem after the Purification. $ 24. Herod was made king of Palestine by a decree of the Senate, Coss. Cn. Domitio Calvino, C. Asinio Pollione § 23 — 26.] time op Christ's nativity. 27 (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 14, 5.) i.e. u.c. 714 b.c. 40. But he did not obtain quiet possession till three years later, when, aided by the Roman legions, he wrested the actual sovreignty from the hands of Antigonus, Coss. Agrippa, Caninio Gallo,, i.e. u.c. 717 b.c 37. (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 16. 4.)1 In that year, namely, on the day of the Fast (10 Tisri = 4 Oct.) he took Jerusalem by siege. This then is the actual epoch of the reign of Herod. But it is the almost invariable practice of Jewish writers to, date the years of their kings from the first (Jewish) day or 1 Nisan of the year in which the actual epoch occurred., Therefore the years of Herod bear date from 1 Nisan b. c. 37. § 25. Now Josephus (Ant. xvii. 8. 1) states that Herod reigned 37 years from the date of his appointment by the decree of the senate, and 34 years from the death of Antigonus. If the years were complete, they would end 4th October, b. c. 3 ; if current, then the statement is satisfied by any date between. 1 Nisan b. c, 4 and 1 Nisan b. c. 3. For, since the 1st year of Herod bears date from 1 Nisan b. c. 37, therefore his 34th from 1 Nisan b.c 4. Thus far, then, the year is open to doubt.. And it is much to be regretted that Josephus nowhere defines; the year of Herod's death by the names of the Consuls. It also unfortunately happens that this portion of Dion Cassius (in whose writings we possess the only connected history of the term of six or seven years during which the Nativity must have occurred,) has come down to us in a mutilated state. For there is no reason to doubt that this historian related the death of Herod and the partition of his kingdom under its proper year. Still a careful combination of notes of time which Josephus has preserved will enable us to determine the neces sary date with great precision. § 26. For the death-year of Herod is defined by the mention, in Josephus, of an eclipse of the Moon (Ant. xvii. 6, 4, fin.). By . calculation, it is certain that this eclipse occurred in the night between the 12th and 13th March b. c. 4. For in the year b. c. 4 no other eclipse was visible at Jerusalem, and in the year b. c. 3 no eclipse at all was visible. This eclipse then, as falling, necessarily, at the full Infra. Chap. m. Sect. iii. 28 CHRONOLOGY OP THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. 1. of the moon, preceded the Passover of b. c. 4 by just one lunation. * But it is further evident from Josephus that the death of Herod occurred just- before a passover. This must have been the passover either of b.c. 4 or of fl;c. 3. On the one supposition, the eclipse preceded the passover in question by a period of one lunar month, on the other by a period of thirteen months. In order to settle this point, we must attentively- Consider the course of events related by Josephus. § 27. The eclipse took place in the very night after Herod's' execution of certain sophists or zealots, who had thrown dawn a golden eagle which he had placed over the eastern gate of the Temple. (Ant. xvii. 6. 4. fin.) From that time Herod's disease increased in violence. Seeking relief, he . crossed the Jordan, on a visit to the hot-springs of Callirrhoe, where!, as a last resource, his physicians ordered him to be bathed in hot oil. The experiment had nearly proved fatal, and from that time Herod despaired of life. He immediately returned to Jericho. There he received, by the return of his ambassa dors whom he had sent ' to Rome, the imperial rescript which authorized him to put his son Antipater to death. "For a- short space," says Josephus, "he revived; but very soon he relapsed, and, weary of his life, attempted to lay violent* hands upon himself. Antipater, in his prison, hearing the shriek which was raised upon this alarm, and hoping that it betokened his father's death, endeavoured to bribe the gaoler to set him at liberty. The gaoler went straightway to- Herod with information of Antipater's design, and the tyrant, in consequence, gave peremptory orders, on the spot, for the execution of his son. This was done: and on tlie fifth day after the execution Herod breathed his last." (Ant, xvii. 6. 5 — 7. 1. Bell. Jud. 1. fin.) Immediately after- the funeral and the seven days' mourn ing, Archelauss who by his father's last will, made within i " In the night between 12-13 Mar. v. c. 760. B. c. 4, was a partial eclipse of the moon, which I have accurately calcu lated. According to t)elambre's solar and Mayer and Mason's lunar tables it began at Jerusalem (2h 13m. East of Paris,) at l1' 88n>, and ended' 4h 12'" a. ill. true time.... In the year u.o. 730 no other lunar eclipse was visible at Jerusa. lem, and in v, c. 751 , to which year some chronologists refer the death of Herod, there was no lunar eclipse whatever." Ideler, Handbuch der Mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, ii. 392. § 27, 28.] TIME OP CHRIST S NATIVITY. 29 five days of his death, was nominated king of Judaea, went up to Jerusalem (Ant. u. s. §4. B. J. ii. 1. 1.) and just then, at the conclusion of the public mourning (B. J. ii. 2. 3.) was the passover. All this while, Archelaus was in urgent haste to go to Rome, to obtain the ratification of his father's last will: on which errand he set sail immediately after the festival. From these details it follows incontestably that the death of Herod preceded the passover by not more than seven or eight days. $ 28. The question, then, is;, whether the detail of events from the eclipse to the death of Herod, can be supposed to have occupied only the space of 22 or 23 days. Eminent chronologists have felt that this supposition is attended with .considerable difficulty2. Yet, really, I do not see where the difficulty lies. Callirrhoe is scarcely three days' journey from Jerusalem even for an' invalid. There is nothing to forbid our supposing that the experiment of the oil-bath was tried almost immediately on the king's arrival : and, certainly, after this trial, Herod returned without delay to Jericho. The ambassadors may have arrived, for ought that appears to the contrary, within a day or two after the return to Jericho, and the execution of Antipater may have occurred on the very day on which Herod received the imperial rescript. All this, it seems to me, is nowise improbable. And, as we have seen, the choice lies between this supposition and the supposition of an interval of thirteen months. But the latter is quite inconceivable. For it is certain that the trial of 2 " To obviate this difficulty, Sancle- mente (iii. 11.) assumes that the execu- ' tion of the zealots took place some two months before Herod's death, and that the darkness spoken of consisted in some accidental obscuration of the moon's light. But the word e£e\nre in Josephus is the vocabulum proprium of eclipses. Freret, who justly insists upon the eclipse, speaks of the intercalation of an extraordinary Nisan, in consequence of which the pass- over was deferred to the 10th May. Us sher goes so far as to remove the death of Herod to the end of November, alleging that in a Jewish tract, rnyfi J"vJQ Megileth thanith ("book of fasting") under the month Kisleu occurs the notice : the 7th, a fast-day, because on it D"7T"11!"T Hurudes, an enemy of the wise, died ; for it is a joy before God, when the wicked depart." Ideler, u.s. ii. 392. Ideler's own solution of the diffi culty is "that Josephus on this, as on many other occasions, relates events more .in their pragmatical than in their chro nological order, and notes the punish ment immediately after the crime, in stead of separating the two parts of the story by an interval of several months, during which the other matters took place which are subsequently related by him." SO cheonoLogy' OP VU& gosPel history. [cri. I. s. i. Antipater', which was the occasion of the embassy to Rome and cff the imperial -rescript, occurred before the eclipse. It is equally certain that the execution of Antipater preceded the passover of Herod's death by only a few days. If this was the passover of B.c. 3, then, from the trial of Antipater and the embassy to Rome to the execution of Antipater (which Jdsephils expressly states to have followed soon after the arrival of the rescript^) was a period of a full year. The voy age to Rome and back again would not occupy more than four or fiVe mdriths at the utmost : thus we should have to suppose, contrary to all probability, that Augustus delayed his reply to Herod's urgent representations more than half a year at least. But, if any doubt remains as to the validity of this deduc tion, the question will be set at rest, I think, by the argu ment Which I now proceed to state. | 29. Archelaus Was deposed and banished in the year u.c. 759. Cdss. Aemi Lepido, L. Arruntio. (Dion, Cass, lv.) But Archelaus had reigned full nine years. This becomes evident on comparing Jos. Ant. xvii. 13. 3. With B.J. ii. f. 8, where, relating this event, he mentions a remarkable dream of Arche laus, which a certain Essene had expounded as denoting the term of years during which he should feign : namely, in his dream, Archelaus saw nine ears of corn, which were devoured by oxen. This is the account in the " Wars :" but in the "Antiquities" (written after the "Wars") the number of ears of corn and years of government is given as ten. The two accounts are easily reconciled on the supposition that the reign of Arche laus lasted nine years complete, and had reached its tenth when he was deposed '. A term of nine years reckoned from any date of u.c. 759 leads up to the same date of u.c. 750, b.c 4. Where as, if the death of Herod occurred about the passover of B.C. 3, u.c. 751, nine years of Archelaus were not complete till u.d 760, and, consequently, the variation above noticed could not have taken place. I 30. Again : Herod Philip, Josephus expr/essly says (B. J. xviii. 4. 6.), died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, i. e. between Aug. a.d. 33, and Aug. a.d. 34j having ruled 37 years. But a term of 37 years, complete, from any date between these ex- 1 And, indeed, his tenth year is mentioned by JosephuSj Vit. i. /3a; eicarov evvevri- kovto. Teo-adpa /nt]v eh y.uepai ty. If the numbers are cor rectly given, which may be doubted (for the text is very corrupt, and the statement does not agree with the details of § 144), then, since Commodus died 31 Dec. u.c. 945, Clement's date should be u. c 751 November = b. c. 3. § 42. The Paschal Cycle of S. Hippolytus Portuensis (Opp. ed. Fabric, t. n. p. 36. ff.) assigns the year of our Saviour's birth, or rather the passover connected with it, to the second year of the first EKKaiSeKaeTrjph of his cycle of 112 years, the epoch of which is the year a. d. 222 l- But 222 a. d. - 2 x 1 12 gives the year b. c 3. for an dp^rj of the cycle, therefore b. c 2 for S. Hippolytus's date of the Nativity. As the same docu ment assigns the Passion to the 16th year of the second sedecen- nity, i. e. to the year a. d. 29, it is evident that Hippolytus assigned that particular year to the Nativity as supposing that our Lord was only thirty years old when He was crucified. And in fact this is what the author of the Chronicon ascribed to S. Hippolytus states in these words : A gene(ra,tione autem Xti) post xxx annos cum (passus est Dominus), Pascha celebra- tus, (ipse enim) erat justum Pascha. In the Computus Paschalis ascribed to S. Cyprian, the subject of which is a Paschal Cycle exactly like that of S. Hippolytus, and having for its epoch the year 243 a.d. the writer assigns the Passion to the 16th year of Tiberius, cum esset annorum xxxi. As the 16th of Tiberius (passover) coincides with a.d. 30, this writer's date of the Nativity is B.C. 2. $ 43. Julius Africanus takes precisely the same view : namely, he assigns the Passion to the year a.m. 5531, which he identifies with the 16th of Tiberius (a.d. 30), and the 1 See in the Appendix, Inst. Chron. "Paschal Cycles." APP.i. §42 47. J EARLY DATES OF THE NATIVITY. 39 Nativity to the year 5500. See the Table constructed from his Chronology in Routh. Bell. Sac. ii. 362. § 44. Apollinarius Laod. in S. Jerome on Dan. ix. places the Crucifixion two years after the beginning of our Lord's ministry, in the 15th of Tiberius, and supposes our Lord to be thirty years of age at the commencement. Hence his date is either b. c. 3 or b. c 2. § 45. Sulpicius Severus, Sac. Hist. ii. 39. (Greswell, p. 439.) : Sub Herode, anno imperii ejus xxxiii. Christus natus est, Sabino et Bufo Coss., viii. Kal. Jan. The 1st year of Herod = 1 Nisan 37-36 b.c, therefore the 33d = 1 Nisan 5—4 b.c Sulpicius's date therefore is 25 Dec. b.c 5. And with this very nearly agrees the consular year, for Sabinus and Rufus became consuls 1 Jan. b. c. 4. This author, it should be observed, assigns the Passion to the consulate of the two Gemini, Mar. a.d. 29. His view almost completely agrees with that which is here advocated. § 46. It is evident that most of the dates here assigned were based by their authors on the assumption that the note of time afforded by S. Luke iii. 23, wael TpiaKovTa erwv, must be taken strictly. We shall see hereafter that the earliest writers with almost one consent assign the Passion to the year 29 a.d., some to SO a. d. Hence measuring back 30 or 31 years they arrived- at the date b. c. 3 or 2. § 47. Epiphanius is a late writer, but as he records older opinions, his testimony may be added to the foregoing. " The everlasting Word was born (or conceived ?) about the 40th of Augustus, 12 Kal. Jul. or Jun., I cannot tell which, Coss. Sulpicio Camerino Buteone Pompeio, i. e. u.c 750. b.c 4. His own month-date of the Nativity is 6 January. Hasr. ii. t. i. 22. (Greswell. u. s.) APPENDIX II. on the 'Airoypatpri, or census, at the time of THE NATIVITY. $ 48. S. Luke ii. 2. avTt] r\ d-n-oyoatpij irpwrri eyeveTo yye.uovevovTos 'Evplas Kvprjv'iov. (In some good MSS. and many patristic readings the article before diroypatpr} is omitted.) The historical difficulty connected with these words consists in the well-known fact that there was an apographe of Judasa made by order of Augustus, conducted by Quirinus, prwses of Syria, but that this took place in the tenth year after the death of Herod, namely, in consequence of the deposal of Archelaus. Joseph. Ant. xviii. init. Yet S. Luke seems to assert that Quirinus was prasses of Syria, and that the diroypatpri took place just at the time of our Lord's birth. § 49. It is quite incredible that a writer in the situation of S. Luke should have fallen into an anachronism of this magnitude. To those with whom he conversed, no fact of history could be better known than the fact that the apographe of Judcea, conducted by Quirinus when president of Syria, tools: place in consequence of the deposal of Archelaus, and that it did not extend to Galilee, but was confined within the limits of the ethnarchy of Archelaus. And, indeed, we have positive evidence that S.Luke was well advised of the facts of the case. For, in the Acts v. 37, he reports a speech of Gamaliel, in which these words occur: "After him arose' Judas the Galilean: ev Tats rjfiepais tj}s airoypadiris?'' § 50. Of the various solutions of the difficulty which have been proposed, the least entitled to consideration is that which rejects the words »Jy. ~2vp. Kvp. from the text, as being a marginal gloss left in some leading MS. by a transcriber or annotator. It must indeed have beeii a leading MS., for the words in question appear in every MS., version, and patristic citation that has been yet collated. It is utterly incredible that so ignorant a blunder, as the hypothesis suggests, could APP. ii. § 48 51.] CENSUS OF QUIRINUS. 41' ever have found universal currency in the most learned ages of the early Church. This solution, therefore, may be fairly ex ploded as soon as it is named. It does not deserve serious refutation. § 51. Before we proceed to consider the other solutions, we shall do well to establish clearly the strict sense of the words according to the rules of grammar. And the rather, because not a few commentators have been betrayed into ex traordinary perversions of the grammatical sense. (l.) In virtue of a law of the Greek article, which is founded in the nature of the thing, and is invariably observed by the writers of the N. T., the construction cannot be " This first apographe." That construction requires either avrr/ r\ irptoTt] airoypatpr), or avTt] rj air. r\ TcpotTr\. (See Bp. Mid- dleton, ad I.) (2.) Neither can it be (if dir. have the art.) "this was the first apographe," for this requires avrri ey. r\ irp. dir. or, avTrj ey. r\ dw. r\ irp. The Gr. Concordance of the N. T. under the word ovtos, avrri &c. will shew, that when the demonstrative is the subject, and the predicate has the article, the copula is placed between the subject and the predicate, e. g. avTt) eariv vfiwv r\ &pa : avrri earw r\ ayairr). And the rea son is obvious. For, if the copula followed, an ambiguity would result, because the demonstrative in concord with a substantive is always followed by the article, as outos o dvijp, " this man." That is, a sentence beginning thus, avrr) j? ayairri eariv would lead the hearer to suppose there must be something to follow eo-Tiv : " this love is (something) :" his ear would be disappoint ed if the sentence terminated at ecrrtv. (3.) But if we omit the article, the construction must be : "this was (ey.) the first apographe:" avrri (subj.) air. irp. (pred.) eyevero (cop.): like ouro? s. firji'-'eKTos p. eejTiv c, or avTT] S. irpwrtj-evToXi] p. earw c. ; for, avrri diroypatpri, in the sense " this apographe," is not Greek : that sense would require abm) t] atroypa(prj. Hence, if we read dir. with the article, the construction can be only avTrj jy diroypatpr/ s. ir pdiTri-eyeveTo p.: if without the article, only avrri s. air. irp. eyevero p. (4.) But, in the next place, eyevero is never simply equivalent to the copula of existence, nv, but means " became," 42 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. 1. or " was made," as here in E. V. Therefore the sense is not : "This apographe was the first" (17. air.), or "This was the first apographe" (dir. without art.), but, on the first supposition, either, "This apographe was the first (that was) made," or " This apographe was first made," according to the sense we give to irpwrri: on the second, "This became the first apographe," which is equivalent to " This was the first that was made." (5.) Next then as to the word irpeorr;. Our E. V and Bp. Middleton render it adverbially, "was first made, first took effect," i.e. "did not take effect until C. was governor of Syria." Of irpwros thus used I have not been able to detect a single clear example : that is to say, an example of a construction in which irpwros eyevero is equivalent to ov irporepov eyevero irplv i] — or rore irpwrov eyevero ore.— Besides, I cannot think the term eyevero forcible enough to suggest the sense proposed. A classical writer would have expressed that sense somewhat in this way avrri ri air. rore irpwrov reXoy ea^ev ore. If S. Luke deemed it necessary to supply this piece of information, would he have expressed him self so obscurely and allusively ? I think not : this is not his manner of conveying information. He would in that case have expressed himself in this way : " This apographe was begun in those days, but was completed, or, took effect, at a later period, when Cyrenius," &c. Moreover, there is an historical objection to this view of S. Luke's meaning. The well-known apographe of Quirinus, as it comprehended only the ethnarchy of Archelaus, did not extend to Nazareth. Consequently the apographe which took Joseph to Bethlehem was not — was no portion of, had no connexion with — that apographe which Quirinus afterwards conducted in Judaa. A measure which comprehended iraaav r^v oiKov/xevrjv, that is, at least all Palestine, could not be said to have taken full effect in a partial measure which extended no further than Judasa. On these grounds I conclude that the explanation proposed by Bp. Middleton cannot be accepted. § 52. Others propose to render the passage thus : " This apographe took place first, i.e. before that — Cyrenius was governor of Syria." And this interpretation, no doubt, gets rid of the difficulty. But the construction is, to say the least of it, APP. ii. § 52 54.] CENSUS OF QUIRINUS. 43 very harsh. It is true, irpwros seems to be thus used in John i. 30 and xv. 18. But in both passages there is a significance for which there is no place in our passage. " He is become in advance of me, because He was my first — or, at the head of me," 'e/xirpocrdev /jlov yeyovev on irpwros ixov r)v-: " It (the world) hath hated Me as your First — as the Leader at the head of you all in the race of persecution." The passage quoted from ./Elian H.A. viii. 12, oi irpwroi y-ov rdvra dvi-xyevo-avres, means simply, " my predecessors who first in vestigated these matters." Mr. Greswell, Diss. i. p. 523, alleges numerous other passages : but not one of them is strictly to the purpose. These interpreters tell us that trpwrri here is equiva lent to irporepov. Why should it be so, when there is no preg nancy or emphasis to require the substitution of the superlative for the comparative? And suppose it were : the construction irpo repov Kvprjv'cov riye/uovevovros in the sense "before C. was go vernor," is harsh in the extreme, and I believe unexampled. There is indeed a passage of the LXX. Jer. xxix. 2, which seems to exhibit a similar construction of the word varepov. But a very little reflection will shew that the cases are quite dissimilar. The words are, direareiXev eiricrroXriv varepov efceXdovros 'ieyov'iov. Here the construction is not the same as varepov rj e%eX9elv 'Je^. though the sense is: but simply, "he sent the epistle afterwards, when Jeconiah was gone out." Agreeably to which, the words, r/ air. irporepov eyevero, Kvprjviou riyefiovevovro's would mean, " the apographe took place earlier, when Q. was governor :" just the contrary to the sense which is required. § 53. These things considered, the passage can be rendered only thus: (l.) with the article: "This apographe was the first that was made or took place, Q. being r/yeikwv of Syria at the time :" (2.) without it : " This was the first apographe that was made &c :" which comes to the same thing. It asserts therefore that Q. was concerned in this apographe as he was in the later one, and it distinguishes this apographe from the later one by the addition of the word " first." § 54. To this statement of a fact it is objected : (1.) that Josephus mentions no apographe in the reign of Herod : (2.) that Quirinus was not Prseses Syriae until the time of the deposal 44 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. I. of Archelaus. The difficulty in both respects disappears upon a right view of the history. The word diroypatp^ does not necessarily mean a census such as was taken in Judsea when it was reduced into the form of a Roman province : it often denotes a mere " descriptio," a numbering of the people. It is certain that no census of the former kind was held in Judaea in Palestine before the deposal of Archelaus : but it does not follow that no measures were taken for a numbering of the people. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that Augustus did, about this time, institute such an apographe of the whole empire. Suidas (s. v. diroypafprj.) relates, from some lost source of intelligence, that Augustus issued a commission of twenty men for this very purpose. And the statement agrees with the mention in Tacitus Ann. i. 11, of a certain libellus which Augustus had written with his own hand,: in which were set down the opes publico? . . . quantum civium sociorumque in armis, quot classes, regna, provincial, tributa aut vectigalia. Suetonius, also, Aug. 101, mentions this abstract under the name Breviarium totius imperii, and describes as its principal contents, quantum militum sub signis ubique esset. It is an obvious supposition that the materials for this libellus were obtained by some such general measure (ooyfia diroyp. irdaav rtjv oiKovfievriv) as S. Luke records, and Suidas's authorities described more in detail Palestine, it is true, was not a provincia, but Augustus's register, we see, enumerated the resources of the regna and socii as well, and especially their several military contingents. And the king dom of Herod in particular was so strictly a dependency of Rome, that along with the oath of allegiance to Herod, the Jewish soldiers were required to swear fealty to Caesar.. Moreover, at this particular conjuncture there were rea sons why Augustus might wish to ascertain by an exact enumeration the resources of Herod's kingdom; there was danger of a fresh war with the Parthians ; and with a view to this especially it may be that Augustus desired these statistical returns of the whole population of Palestine. The time to which this apographe must be assigned was very suitable for the measure of a general census throughout thp empire, It was a time of profound peace. From the year, u.c. 746 = b.c. 8, when Tiberius returned in triumph from APP. ii. § 55, 56.^ CENSUS OF QUIRINUS. '45 Germany, to the year u.c. 752 = b.c 2, when the war broke out with the Parthians, the Temple of Janus was closed. The measure seems to have begun at Rome. The Monumentum Ancyranum in its second Table gives the dates of Augustus's three censuses held at Rome, the first b. c. 28, the second b. c. 8, the third a. d. 14. It is probable therefore, on historical grounds, if not certain, that at the time intimated by S. Luke there "did go out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the empire should be registered :" and there is reason to believe, from the circum stances of the case, that Herod's kingdom was included in the measure. The silence of Josephus avails nothing to the con trary. The measure had no direct bearing upon Jewish poli tics, nor was it attended with any consequences of sufficient note to be recorded in a portion of his history which is occupied with concerns of the gravest moment to Herod and his Jewish subjects. $ 55. Neither must the silence of other historians be objected. For the fact is, that our sources of information relative to the four or five years preceding the Christian sera are lamentably defective. In this very portion of Dion Cassius there occurs an hiatus of several years. But, in truth, one testimony has been preserved, which though of a late date, may very likely rest upon earlier authorities. John Malala, the historian of Antioch (ix. 292), informs us that "Augustus, in the 39th year and 10th month of his reign, issued an edict for a general registration throughout the empire" (diroypatprjvai). If Malala, or his original authority, reckons from the death of Julius Cassar, this 39th year began 15 Mar. b.c 6 : — if from the first consulship of Augustus, it began 19 Aug. b.c 5, u.c 74.9. The tenth month, in the Antiochene calendar, is July. • Either way, the date comes very near indeed to our date of the -Nativity. § 56. The other objection — that Quirinus was not prasses ' of Syria at the time — is disposed of by the consideration that riye^wv is a term of considerable latitude. Thus S. Luke calls Pilate ^yeixwv, though he was but procurator of Judaea under orders of the Praeses Syriae. Accordingly, though at the time of our Lord's birth the president of Syria was P. Quintilius Varus, Quirinus, who afterwards enjoyed that dignity, may 46 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [CH. I. S. I. nevertheless have held some office in the province which entitled him to be called ^yefxwv rrj? 'Evpias. Suppose him one of the twenty commissioners mentioned by Suidas, and at the head of the commission for Syria and the East : in this there is no thing at all improbable. It is likely that Quirinus was in the East at the time of the census. He was consul u.c. 742. b.c 12, and soon afterwards (Tacit. Ann. iii. 48.) triumphed over the Homonadenses of Cilicia, datusque rector Caio Cwsari Ar- meniam obtinenti Tiberium quoque Bhodi agentem coluerat: this in b.c 1. Thus between b.c 12, and b.c 1, we find this man twice present in the East. If then it be true that a general census of the empire was taken in one of the eight or ten years preceding the beginning of our asra, which there is no reason whatever to doubt, and true also that the census, in a modified form, took effect in the kingdom of Herod, likewise under directions of the constituted authorities in Syria, which S. Luke's statement plainly declares, why should we hesitate about the further statement which refers the administration of Syria (namely, in respect of the census) to Quirinus, a person so likely, from what is known of his history, to have been delegated commissioner for that part of the East ? | 57- The commissioner, whoever he was, would issue his orders through the Praeses Syria;, which praeses was Q. Sentius Saturninus from the year u.c 744, b.c 10, to u.c. 748, b.c 6, at latest1, when he was succeeded by P. Quintilius Varus, who continued in office until after Herod's death. Varus then was the regular president at the time which we have assigned as the date of the Nativity, December b.c 5, and it is interesting to find that he was actually present in Judaea at the time, when (according to our view of the facts) the business of the census would probably require the presence in that country, and at Herod's court, of the ordinary president acting under directions of the extraordinary commissioner. For we learn from Jose phus that Varus sat with Herod in judgment on Antipater, (Ant. xvii. 5, 2. 7. B. J. i. 31, 5. 32, 5.) viz. in the autumn of ' This is proved by Antiochene coins, one of which bears the effigy and name of Varus with the year-number xxv, viz. of the Aira Actiaca, which in the Antiochene reckoning dated its 25th year from the autumn of n.c. 7. Varus there fore had succeeded Saturninus in the summer of b.c. 6, perhaps earlier, cer. tainly not later. app. ii. § 57, 58.] CENSUS OF QUIRINUS. 47 b.c 5, six months, or thereabout, before Herod's death. It is remarkable, however, that Tertullian assigns the conduct of the census to Saturninus : Census constat actos sub Augusto in Judcea per Sentium Saturninum ; (adv. Marcion. iv. 19.) This may very likely have been the case, namely, that the census of Syria began under the presidency of Saturninus. If such was the fact, Tertullian might learn it from authentic records, and would be only so far mistaken as he supposed the census of Judcea to have been likewise taken by Saturninus. And, in deed, there is one interpretation of Malala's statement, above quoted, which would place the commencement of the Syrian census just towards the end of Saturninus's presidency ; namely, if the 10th month of the 39th of Augustus be understood to mean the 10th Antiochene month of the 39 th year dated from the death of Julius Caesar, i. e. July b. c 6. There is no necessity, then, either to reject TertuUian's statement altogether, or, to infer from it that the census of Judaea was completed several months before December b.c 5. Census actos sub Au gusto per Sentium Saturninum, Tertullian may have read in authentic annals, in Judcea may fairly be ascribed to the Fa ther's own very natural inference as to the evangelic history. And further: as Justin Martyr's text of S. Luke gave the name Quirinus, and there is no reason to suppose that Tertul lian read "Saturninus" in his text, we have here a fresh testi mony, probably derived from contemporary annals, to the fact of a census begun about b. c. 6, and may also infer that Tertullian found no difficulty in the mention of Quirinus by the evangelist. § 58. I conclude then (1.) that the only sense which the grammatical construction of S. Luke's words and the circum stances of the case will tolerate, is that which has been pro posed : " This census was the first that was made, or, This was the first census that was made, Quirinus being riyep.wv of Syria at the time:" or more clearly, "This census was Quirinus's first, not to be confounded with that which, as every one is aware, took place at a later period under the same person." And (2.) that there is very good reason to believe, indepen dently of S. Luke, that a general census did take place at the time mentioned. And (3.) that it is nowise improbable that Quirinus was entrusted with extraordinary powers in Syria for the taking of the census. 48 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. j_CH. I. S. 1. NOTE. Since these pages were written, I have been favoured, through the kind ness of a friend, with the argument, on this subject, of the learned Abbot Sanclemente. As the treatise de Mra Vidgari is but little known and rarely accessible in this country, I gladly enrich my pages with those por tions of the argument which were new to me. I must, however, apprise the reader that Sanclemente assigns the Census and the Nativity to the year b.c. 7. The following inscriptions are adduced by this writer in attestation of the fact, of which S. Luke informs us, that the first Census in Judaea, as well as the later one, was held under Quirinus. ....GEM . QVA REDACTA . IN PO ...VGVSTI . POPULIQVE ROMANI SENAT... SVPPLICATIONES . BINAS OB RES . PROSP .. IPSI ORNAMENTA T RI VMPH PROCONSVL ASIAM . PROVINCIAM OM... DIVI . AVGVSTI ITERVM . SVRIAM ET . PH IL Q. AEMILIVS . Q. F. PAL . SECVNDVS CASTRIS DIVI AVG. P. SVLPITIO . QVIRINO . LEG. CAESARIS . SVRIAE . HONORI BVS . DECORATVS . PRAEFECT . COHORT AVG. I. PRAEFECT COHORT . II. CLASSICAE . IDEM IVSSV . QVIRINI . CENSVM . FEC. APAMENAE . CIVITATIS . MIL LIVM . HOM CIVIVM . CXVII. IDEM IVSSV QVIRINI . ADVERSVS . ITVREOS . IN . LIBANO MONTE . CASTELLVM . EORVM . CEPIT . ET . ANTE . MILITIAM PRAEFECIT . FABRVM . DELATVS . A. DVOBVS COS . AD . AE RARIVM . ET . IN . COLONIA QVAESTOR AEDILIS . II. DVVMVIR . II. PONTIFEX . IBI . POSITI . SVNT . Q. AEM. Q. F. PAL. SECVNDVS . F. ET . AEMIL1A CHIA . LIB. H. M. AMPLVS . H. N. S. The first is but a fragment, but enough of it remains, says Sancle- mentf , to prove that Quirinus is meant. Of the presidents of Syria under Augustus two only obtained the ornaments of a triumph, namely, Satur- APP. h.J CENSUS OF QUIRINUS. 49 ninus and Quirinus, and of these only the latter, on the grounds alleged in the inscription. Saturninus then cannot be tho person spoken of. Above all, there is nothing to shew that he was Augustus's legate in Syria and Phoenicia a second time, as the person was of whom the inscrip tion speaks. — In like manner, Sanclemente argues that no other of the presidents of Syria in the time of Augustus, neither M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, nor Varro, nor M. Vipsanius Agrippa, nor M. T. Cicero, nor M. Titius, 'can be meant. — I confess that this argument is not satisfac tory to my mind : I think M. Vipsanius Agrippa, who was twice legate in Syria between cir. b. c. 23 and 12, is more likely to be the subject of the in scription than Quirinus. Moreover, the two offices held at different times by Quirinus were so distinct, viz. the office of commissioner for the census, and that of legate or president, that they would hardly be placed under the same category, as here in the word iterum. The latter was in no correct sense the iteration of the former. From the second inscription, which I perceive is given by Muratori, i. 670, Sanclemente argues thus. What we here read of the honours ob tained by Q. iEmilius Palicanus in the camp of Augustus under the legature of Quirinus, and again, of his campaign against the Iturseans in Mount Lebanon, belongs to the prcefectura ordinaria of Quirinus, as regular legatus Augusti or Presses Provincial in Syria, i.e. after a.d. 6. But the words at 1. 8 — 11, Idem jussu Quirini censum fecit Apamence civitatis, cannot be referred to that occasion. For there was no census taken at that time in any part of Syria : the census of Judcea was special, "being the regular form for the reduction of Judsea into the state of a province and the confiscation of Archelaus's property. The measure extended only to the ethnarchy of Archelaus, and had nothing to do with even Galilee or Persa, the tetrarchies of Herod's other sons,— certainly therefore could no wise implicate Apamea, one of the four principal cities of Syria, which had long been a province of the empire. In short, the census of Apamea can only be understood as part of the census of the whole empire. This in scription therefore does clearly imply that the general census in Syria was conducted jussu Quirini, or, as St Luke expresses it, tlyefiouevouTo^ "2vpietaycTv to irdo-ya, standing by itself, is ever used of any other feast than that of the paschal lamb. § 65.] TIME OP THE PASSION. lamb, which supper was to be held between sunset and mid night of the night following the 14th Nisan — i.e. in the first six hours of the vv^Bmepov called loth Nisan. It follows that the 1 5th Nisan was not arrived on the morning of Friday when the Jews stood with our Lord before the praetorium. 2. S. John says of the same day, xix. 14. rjv r5e irapaaicevtj tov irao-^a : a phrase which, agreeably with its invariable usage, can only mean the day immediately preceding the celebration of the paschal supper, the day ending at sunset of 14 Nisan, the HDBn liy or passover-eve2, in short the day on which the paschal lamb was to be sacrificed. 3. He further remarks that the Saturday following was an high day, rjv neyaXt] r\ rjuepa eKeivov rod aaj3(3drov. This Saturday was either the 16th or the 15th Nisan. If it was the 16th, it was in no preeminent sense fxeydXti wepa, being only a common sabbath in passover-week : the 15th, on what ever day of the week it fell, was a higher day, being the sabbath extraordinary, the first day of unleavened bread. The execution of criminals on that day was a greater desecration of the sab bath than the suffering the bodies to remain on the crosses on the ordinary weekly sabbath. But if the Saturday was the 15th, it was preeminently a great day, not only as being the extraordi nary sabbath, but by its concurrence with the weekly sabbath3. — Lightfoot, indeed (Hor. Heb. in Joh. xviii. 28), and Bynaius {de Morte Jesu Christi) maintain upon a different ground that our passage cannot relate to the pas chal lamb, but only to what was called the Chagiga, a particularly joyful sacrifice which was held before sunset of the 15th Nisan. For, the defilement contracted by entering into a heathen house be longed to the UV t'^Q i. e. to that kind of uncleanness which lasted only till sun set, and then ceased of itself by bathing and washing. If then (argues Bynasus) a Jew entering the praetorium was defiled only till sunset, there was no ground to fear not being able to eat the passover, for this was to be eaten after sunset: their apprehension can be explained only by supposing that 7 b'ereb pesach talauhu I'jishu, " on passover-eve they crucified Jesus." This may not be a tradition, but at all events it shews how therabbis of that age understood the matter. s The context shews that to GafifiaTov here means the ordinary weekly sabbath : "that the bodies might not remain upon the 58 CHRONOLOGY OP THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. ii. These statements prove unanswerably that, according to S. John, the Friday of the Crucifixion was not the 15th and was the 14th day of Nisan1. fi 66. But then on the other hand the three first gospels declare that " on the first day of unleavened bread," (S. Matt. xxvi. 17- Mark xiv. 12. -rif irpwrr\ twv dfyixwv2: Luke xxii. 7. rj/xepa rwv dXvfxwv,) the disciples asked, Where shall we pre pare for thee to eat the pascha ? were sent to a certain house holder to prepare it, did accordingly prepare it (^ro'tfxaaav to 7rdo"xa, Matthew, Mark, Luke,) and that our Lord at even ate a supper there with his disciples, which supper in S. Luke xxin 15, is called tovto to irda-ya. From all which it is con cluded that in the view of the three earlier evangelists the Last Supper was the ordinary pascha, and therefore occurred in the first six hours of the 15th Nisan, consequently that the Cruci fixion itself occurred on the 15th. If this be so, the fourth gospel is at variance with the other three on a matter of fact of no slight importance : for it is vain to attempt to prove that in the view of S. John the day of the Passion was the 15th. But let us examine this supposed contradictory statement of the three first gospels. In the first place, it is scarcely the cross, ev tw o-ajS^aTw, rjv ydp p.e- ydXti ij rtpepa eKelvov tov o-a(3(3d- to v," which is not the same as if it were rjv ydp jUeyctXij ijpepa e/ceii/o to -> ^ i \ < » / - -. i avvtpoa. eirifiaprvpei oe Kai r\ avaaraaii, rr\ yovv Tpirr\ aveart) rj/uepa, rjris r\v irpwrrj tcdi/ epoojuaowv tov oepia/xov, ev ri Kal ro opayfia evo/u.o9ere7ro irpoaeveyKetv toh \epea. S. Hippolyt. Portuensis (fr. ap. Chron. pasch. p. 6.) oj Kaipip eiraayev o Xptaros ovk ecpaye ro Kara vo/mov iraaya' ovToi yap t]v rd iraaya, ro irpoKeKtjpvynevov Kai to reXeiov- fxevov rrj wpiap-evri ij/uepa . . . . O iraXai irpoeiirwv on ovkbti aivei...T0VT0V ju e t a o- Ti] era s.. .'EXea- X,apov diroSeiKVUtriv ...TdvSe iravcra 'iovSalwv, though it is found, I believe, in all the MSS. and versions, could not have been found in the text of the two first centuries. Had it been there, S. Clement, Tertullian and 86 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. 11. others, with these words before their eyes, could never have retained and handed down the positive statement that between the Baptism and the Passion only one year, *. e. two passovers, intervened. Later writers, as Apollinarius and Eusebius and Chrysostom, found the words in their text, and felt themselves bound thereby to depart from the more ancient tradition. § 90. (2.) It is certain that S. Irenaeus did not read them in his copy : he is greatly concerned to make out a list of three passovers, and this he does by making the festival John v. 1. a passover; the festival in John vi. 4. he does not reckon as such. (3.) And certain it is too, that Origen was not aware of the existence of these two words. Unfortunately,^ indeed,^ that part of his commentary which relates to the text in question is lost. But in the comment on iv. 35, " Say ye not there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ?" he enables us to draw this inference with almost absolute certainty. He is contending that the Lord spake those words not at a time when it actually wanted four months to harvest : for, in that case, " the time must have been winter ; but it was just after a passover, John ii. 13; for that the Lord did not tarry long at ^Enon baptising, follows from iv. 43, 45. And after thiswas a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, v. i. 'Edv Se avrri (1. avrri or avrri) V eoprrj roiv iraaya r)v, ov irpoa- Kelrai rd oi/ojaa avrrjs' arevoywpel re rd aKoXovOov rrjs \aropias, Kal fiaXiara eirel fier dX'iya eiri(peperai, on r/v 6771/5 ri eoprrj rwv 'lovSalwv n aKr/voirrjy'ia. %. e. " If this (John v. 1.) was the feast of the passover, its name is not given [as it surely would have been if the passover was meant], and the order of the history becomes embarrassed, especiaUy as a little further on it comes to be said, ' The feast of the Jews was near, namely the Scenopegia.' " How could Origen have written thus if he had seen to irdaya at vi. 4 ? Origen, the father (as we say) of Biblical Criticism, to be guilty of such an oversight ! no one who is at all acquainted with the writings of this learned, accurate and acute-minded man, and especially with his Commentaries on S. John, will imagine this to be possible. But are we then to suppose that John vi. 4. was wholly wanting in Origen's text, and that the passage cited is vii. 2 ? or, that instead of rjv Se 6771)? to it. j eoprrj rwv 'lovSalwv, he read, § 90, 91.] TIME OF THE PASSION. 87 Se iouoci rjv Oe 6771/5 »7 eoprrj rwv lovcaiwv, r/ aKVjVoirriyia'. or lastly, that he read simply, rjv oe 6771/s r) eoprrj rwv 'lovSalwv, and that rj aKrjvoirriyia is added by himself as his own expla nation ? The second or third of these suppositions seems to me more likely than the first, for the passage vii. 2. can hardly be said to come per dXlya after v. i. With respect to the last supposition, it is to be observed that r) eoprri, standing by itself always denotes the feast of Tabernacles1. It is manifest from the passage above referred to, which is too long to be quoted at length in this place, that Origen understood by eoprt'i in chap. v. 1. the Pentecost: and this seems to have been the established interpretation in the Greek church : so Cyrill. Alex., Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius2 understand it. — I am at a loss to conceive what circumstantial evidence upon a critical question could be stronger than this. Accident has deprived us of Origen's comment on the passage vi. 4, and of the positive evidence which that comment must have supplied on the one side or the other. But then we know in general, that Origen held the ministry of our Lord to have occupied not more than a year and some months, which is incompatible with the received text of John vi. 4. — and further, we have a long argument upon a collateral point in which the words to irdaya in that passage are entirely ignored by this early and most critical writer. § 91. To the testimony of Irenaeus and Origen, I con fidently add that of another learned doctor of the Alexandrine church. S. Cyril, who has written an elaborate commentary on the Gospel of S. John, as entirely ignores the words in question as either Irenaeus or Origen. This will be manifest to any one who will attentively read that Father's comment on John vi. 1. (lib. iii. c. 4. p. 268. Ed. Par. 1638.) He observes that wherever our Lord's departures from Jerusalem are men tioned a mystery is signified, viz. the withdrawal of his grace ' " The only festival which in the Tal- mudical language is ever called simply Jf5 ehag, 'the feast,' is the Scenope- gia." — Liicke Comm. in S. John. t. ii. p. 8. 2 Scaliger, Grotius, and Lightfoot make it the second passover. Kepler and Petavius, the feast of Purim, a month earlier. Bengel holds with the ancients, that it was Pentecost. Liicke, who sums up and criticises the different views, leaves it doubtful whether it was Passover or Purim. 88 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. 11- from the Jews and translation of it to the Gentiles. " After these things, &c : *. e. after the matters related in chap, v., the healing of the impotent man on the Sabbath-day, the Lord's expostulation with the Jews, their malice, their plotting to put Him to death— After these things done and said, the Lord departs from Jerusalem as of necessity, and since the Jews' passover was near, He even crossed the lake of Tiberias. Now since we have said that the cause which chiefly urged Him to withdraw, and to a place so distant from Jerusalem, was the proximity of the passover, I think it right to shew that Jesus did exceedingly well in declining to be found in Jerusalem at that particular conjuncture. For the Law of Moses ordered the Jews from all the region round about to go up to Jeru salem, [to keep the passover, one would expect from the preced ing context : but no !] — there to keep that typical feast, the Scenopegia. And here the spiritual man wiU understand the gathering together in Christ of all the saints, when, even from the whole world, after the resurrection of the dead, they will come together into the city which is above, the heavenly Jeru salem, there to offer thanks for the true Scenopegia, i. e. for the compacting together and perpetuity of our bodies, when corruption is dissolved and death fallen into death. But with respect to the historical meaning of what is here said, the number of them that went up to Jerusalem [to this feast] was immense, and it is to be supposed that the Pharisees were weU able to influence the multitude, if they would raise a clamour against any man as a transgressor of the law... This the Lord weU knew, and therefore withdrew Himself with the disciples beyond the sea of Tiberias. He shunned the Jews because they sought to kill Him, as the evangelist declares (John vii. 1.) But perhaps some one will say, ' I grant that He no longer walked in Judaea that He might not undergo death before His hour, but that He avoided the feast also I do not yet per ceive :' \i. e. that you were right in alleging that ' what chiefly urged Him to withdraw was the proximity of the feast"1]. Observe then, that His brethren came to Him in Galilee saying, Depart hence, &c. ; to whom He answers, " Go ye up to this feast; I go not up yet to this feast for my time is not yet fuUy come." It is manifest therefore, that the Saviour departed from Jerusalem, not of His own accord, but to avoid per- §91.] TIME OF THE PASSION. 89 secution1." — Here is plain proof that S. Cyril did not read rd irdaya in his copy of S. John. These words are twice inserted, indeed, in Cyril's text, but by a later hand fetching them from the received text of John vi. 4. The interpolator did not heed that by this supposed correction he made his author write nonsense: "He avoided Jerusalem because the Passover was near ; for vast numbers would be then gathered together at Jerusalem, for the law required aU the Jews to go up to the feast of Tabernacles.'''' Nothing can be plainer than that for iraaya in both places (eireiirep r]v 6771)$- rd ir. and did to 6771!? elvas to it.) we must replace r] aKr]voirriyla'/>. It follows too from the latter part of the preceding extract that S. Cyril makes the Scenopegia of vi. 4. the same feast with that of vii. 2. for he alleges the latter passage in proof of what he had said, that the Lord's chief inducement to with draw (vi. 1.) was the proximity of the feast described at vi. 4. Nor does anything occur in the remainder of the commentary on this and the following chapter, to shew that the writer had any doubt or misgiving on this point. He does not hint that there existed a different reading of the passage : to him the eoprrj is the aKrivoirriy'ia : he assumes it as notorious and needing no discussion. Surely this must imply that he read in vi. 4. as in vii. 2. r)v Se 6771)9 *1 eoprrj rwv 'lovSalwv, r] aKrivoirriy'ia. This, then, is a most important testimony : for it must be considered that the copies which would be used by 1 MeTa Toivvv Tavra Ta ireirpaypeva Te Kai eiprjpeva diraviaTaTai twv 'lepo- (ToXvpmv ais e£ dvdyKijs o Ki5/hos, Kai eireiTrep r\v iyyvs to irdaxa (1. »7 ovo?- voTrrjyia) twv 'lovSaiiov, ojs oXiyov ev tois eepe^ijs evpriaopev Kai avTjjv Sie- irXevae tt\v TifiepidSos QdXacnrav. 'E- TreiSrj Se to ti pdXivTa KaTaa-oj37J(rav avrov Kai peTaxvipeXv dvaireireiKos ets krepovs re olxetrOai toVous Kai touov- tov Tri% 'lepovtraXi'ip dTre&xoivLarpevovs eKelvo Sij pdXioTa virdpxeiv a'jOTtws et- pi'lKapev to eyytis elvat to Ud(rxa (!¦ TtjV (TKtivoTrriyiav) twv 'lovSaiuiv, SeiK- vvvat irpeireiv inroXapPdvct) /caX&Js Sr] Xiav to ev tois 'J.epofXoXvpol'S evpltTKetrdai KaT eKetvo Kaipov irapaiTijtrapevov tov 'lyaovv. QiiKovv i/o/ios 6 Sid M. duo -jraa-rjs ttJs irepioLKiSos dvaTpexeiv eh 'lepoaroXvpa eKeXevev, e/cet ti)v iv Tview T-rji } t. '1. is, I believe, unexampled1, and for this plain reason, because the passover is not uthe feast of the Jews" Kar' e^oyrjv: the preeminence implied in that expression be longs to the feast of Tabernacles. And, I think, the variations above noted may all be referred to a feeling of the impropriety of the text as it now stands : thus some MSS. and the Peschito read rd irdaya rrjs eoprrjs r.'l. "the passover-day of the feast (of Azyma), other versions r] eoprr) rov ir. r. 'J. "the pass- over-feast of the Jews." § 93. Now the passage before cited from S. Irenaeus sug gests a critical probabUity with respect to the inducement which led to the interpolation of the words rd irdaya . Irenaeus, in his eagerness to refute the particular tenet which the Valen- tinians sought to connect with the chronology, made out a list of three passovers, with the help of an assumption, which Origen has condemned on good and sufficient grounds, and which does not seem to have been adopted by other interpreters until a later time, when it was sought to make out a period of 3 1 years for our Lord's ministry. I suppose then, that the interpolation was made with a view to that particular con- 1 The only passage at all resembling it in the N.T., Joh. ii. 23. iv ™ vda-xa iv Ti? 'eopTrj, (where Lachmann ought not to have bracketted iv) means " during the passover, while the feast was proceed ing :" so Meyer ad 1. w'dhrend der Pas- sahzeit anf dem Feste (in der Festfeier begriffen). § 92 95.} TIME OF THE PASSION. 91 troversy which Irenaeus, it was felt, had not sufficiently settled : i. e. it might be urged against the Gnostics that our Lord's ministry certainly occupied two years at least, inasmuch as ri eoprri rwv 'lovSalwv vi. 4, must needs be to irdaya ; hence these words, inserted first as a marginal gloss, might ultimately find their way into the text. § 94. If it be asked, Why was this notice of the proximity of the feast (of Tabernacles) inserted by S. John? one answer at least, is obvious : the whole of S. John's narrative is grouped round the Jewish festivals. This is the plan on which his gospel is framed. Therefore, when he proceeds to narrate the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, he deems it ne cessary, it may be, to call attention to the fact that this miracle, like that of the water turned into wine, and that of the raising of Lazarus, occurred not long before a festival and a visit to Jerusalem2. And this leads to a further argument : (5.) If we examine the order of the festivals noted by S. John, omitting the words rd irdaya, we shall see that these festivals form just one complete cycle. Namely, to irdaya, ii. 13. Passover. eoprr} rwv 'lovSalwv, v. 1. Pentecost. i eoprr)^ t&v 'lovSalwv, ^ vi. 4. ^ \Tabernacles. r) eoprrj rwv lovoaiwv rj aKrjvotrrjyia, Vll. 2. J rd eyKalvia, x. 22. Dedication. rd irdaya. Passover of the Crucifixion. Lastly : if we accept this view, it becomes comparatively easy to construct a Harmony of the four Gospels : — we can also fill up the whole time, with the events recorded ; we are not obliged to leave intervals of several months in the time of our Lord's Ministry unaccounted for. This part of my subject will be best considered in a separate chapter, when we shall have placed the results of this discussion beyond all dis pute by arguments which cannot be noticed in this place. § 95. To sum up this portion of the argument: — It being proved that the year of the Passion could be no other 3 Or it may be, that the mention of I explain the fact of the great multitudes the feast being near at hand, is meant to | which were then gathered together. 92 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. I. S. ii.] than the year 29 b.c, which is the year designated by the oldest tradition, — and proved, that the first Passover was that of the year 28, it follows that the Lord's ministry lasted little more than one year; — which the ancients assert, or assume to have been the case. And this conclusion is not, as the later Fathers maintain, inconsistent with the notes of time contained in S. John's Gospel : for the note on which all depends is shown to be an interpolation by external as well as internal evi dence. And now the question proposed for discussion at the head of this section, is divested of much, if not all, of the difficulty which semed to beset it. We need not hesitate to adopt, in a modified form, the explanation given by Sanclemente, namely, that the heading of S. Luke's third chapter contains the date, not of the mission of S. John the Baptist, but of the year of our Lord's Ministry, especially in reference to the great events with which it closed. As one half at least of the year belonged to the 15th of Tiberius, and nearly the whole of it if S. Luke followed the Jewish usage, and entirely the whole if he sim ply identified the imperial with the consular year beginning 1 January, he designates the year accordingly, as the 15th of Tiberius. It is not clear to me whether we ought to omit Se (as in some copies), and besides place a fuU stop before Eyevero. But, even if we do not, the sense is the same as if it had been more punctiliously expressed in this fashion, " In the 15th of Tiberius, &c — the word of the Lord having come to John the Baptist, &c — Jesus himself was baptized. But Herod shut up John in prison, and from that time Jesus began to preach, &c.'" 1 Sanclemente (as I learn from Ideler, Handbuch ii. 419) explains the difficulty thus : — " The note of time, Luke iii. 1. relates not to the Call of John the Bap tist, but (as Tertullian, Clement, Lac- tantius, and Julius Africanus must have understood it) to Christ's sufferings and death. S. Luke, like the two first evan gelists, gives the history only of the last year of Christ, from the time of the im prisonment and execution of John the Baptist, (comp. Euseb. H. E. iii. 24.) What he premises is merely a summary account concerning John, from the be ginning of his ministry to his execution, the latter is properly the terminus a quo with which he begins his narrative, and to which that note of time must be referred. What Sanclemente advances, in proof of this view, concerning the se veral chronological characters assigned by S. Luke, and especially the highpriest- hood of Caiaphas, I must omit for the sake of brevity." Sanclemente does not assign the baptism of our Saviour to a.d. 28. and he recognizes at least three TIME OF THE PASSION. 93 NOTE. Since the completion of the present work, I have met with Mann's Essay " de veris annis D. N. Jesu Christi natali et emortuali," (London 1752.) I was aware that this learned writer had contended for the ancient opinion concerning the duration of our Lord's Ministry, but I had no know ledge of the particular line of argument taken by him. His results are: that our Lord was born in the course of the year b. c. 7, baptized a. d. 25, erucifi ed Friday 22nd March, a. d. 26. The following is an outline of the course of his argument : The annus natalis, is thus deduced: — Herod died b.c. 4. and the birth of Christ preceded that event by two or three years. The grounds of this assertion are : (1.) the arrival of the Magi; which cannot be placed immediately before or soon after the Purification: (2.) the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth after the Purification, and thence again to Beth lehem before the arrival of the Magi; for this he takes to be the only possible way of reconciling S. Luke with S. Matthew: (3.) the ancient tradition, that Jesus was two years in Egypt, coupled with the prophecy Isai. vii. 16: (4.) the time of the census, which he makes to be u.c. 747. b.c. 7: (5.) the general peace throughout the Roman Empire in that year, signified in the Angelic hymn, Peace on earth. The annus emortualis is defined (1.) by Daniel's Prophecy : Mr. Mann places the Passion at the end of the 7 + 62 weeks = 483 years, which years he reckons from 458 b. c. Nisan: (2.) by the Lord's age at his Baptism, which preceded the Passion by not more than a year or 15 months: if He was born in the spring of b. c. 7, and baptized late in a. d. 24, or early in a. d, 25, His age would be less than 31 years : (3.) by the dates in Luke iii. which (a priori) must needs mean the year of the Lord's Preaching and Passion: (4.) Christ preached but one year; this is to be proved (i.) by the saying, "the acceptable year of the Lord;" (ii.) by the ancient tradition of the Church; (iii.) by the testimony of the three first gospels, which mention but two passovers ; (iv.) with which S. John agrees ; for c. vi. has been trans posed out of its place, which slwuld be before c v., and the feast intended was the Pentecost: (5.) Christ cleansed the temple but once; namely, just before His Passion; the 46 years therefore of the building of Herod's temple expired at the time of the Passion. (6.) The 14 Nisan coincided with Friday only in a. d. 26 and *. d. 33. [He is mistaken in the latter date, and has overlooked the earlier possible date of the Passover in a.d. 29.] (7.) The council of Cssarea a.d. 195 and S. Clem. Alex, testify the date 22nd March. (See $ 80.) Of course, Mr. Mann takes the 15th of Tiberius to be reckoned from his participation in the empire, in the life of Augustus. passovers, that of John vi. 4. being one. Hence, I suppose, few will be inclined to accept his explanation of Luke iii. I. But there would be nothing paradoxical about it, if, together with the ancient date of the Passion, he had affirmed the an cient belief concerning the duration of our Lord's Ministry. 94 CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. [cH. 1. S. ii.] It appears then that Mr. Mann's processes and results differ materially from those which have been given in the present work. Especially, I would beg the reader to notice, that in this argument the duration of our Lord's Ministry supposed to be proved, is made one of the elements in the cal culation of the year of the Passion ; in mine, it comes in as a corollary from the determination of the year, which rests on other grounds. The like difference obtains also in the place which we severally assign to Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks : Mr. Mann would deduce the date of the Passion from the Prophecy; we have as yet taken no notice of the Pror phecy, reserving it for a separate consideration when it will be shown how it is to be explained in connexion with our dates. Scripture chro nologists are somehow especially prone to the error of attempting to prove a matter by considerations which, at most, agree with, or attest, or illus trate the matter, when proved, but of themselves prove it not. — I would further request the reader to notice the violent hypothesis to which the writer has recourse in respect of the arrangement of S. John's Gospel. Besides omitting to irdaya (vi. 4), which he does on general grounds merely, without noticing the critical argument which we have raised in § 90 ff., he contends for the transposition of the two chapters v. and vi. — It is not surprising, then, if the scheme advocated by this writer obtained no acceptance among the learned, inasmuch as he based it on insufficient grounds, and identified it with matters intrinsically improbable. One error lay in the writer's way of stating the proof, another in the specific result which identifies the year of the Passion with the year a. d. 26 ; which is contradicted by the concurrent testimony of all antiquity. — I add, that I am not acquainted with Priestley's more recent essay on the same side of the question, and that, so far as I am aware, the critical argument in § 90 ff. has not been touched by preceding chronologists or critics. CHAPTER II. CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. Agreeably to the proposed plan and method of the present enquiry, I shall first examine how far the chronological cha racters contained in the Acts of the Apostles are determinative for the date of our Lord's Passion. I do not here assume as proved, that the year was a.d. 29., and so make that the start ing point for the construction of the Chronology of the Acts ; but in the reverse order, I undertake to shew that the earlier part of the Acts, in connexion with S. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, affords proof that the history contained in the Acts begins not later than a.d. 30, and indeed more probably, at a.d. 29. This result then, is to be regarded as confirmatory and corroborative of the evidence aUeged in the preceding section. And, if the reader is solicitous, in the first instance, only about the constructive elements of the scheme as a whole, with a view to the proof of the cardinal dates around which the " Economy of Times and Seasons1' revolves, he may from that point (§ 104) pass on to the next step of the proof, namely, that which concerns the verification of the date of the Babylonian Captivity, i. e. to the First Section of the Third Chapter of this Work. The remainder of the present chapter will be occupied with the determination and construction, in detail, of the Chronology of that part of the Apostolic History which is contained in, or connected with, the Acts of the Apostles and the other canonical scriptures of the New Tes tament. SECTION I. ON THE CHRONOLOGY OP THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. § 97. The first twelve chapters of the Acts of the Apostles exhibit but one note of time which wiU be found strictly determinative for the chronology : that, namely, which belongs to the death of Herod Agrippa. This king began to reign in the very beginning of the reign of Caius, March, a.d. 37, and reigned seven years; four, as tetrarch under Caius, three, as king under Claudius, Ant. xix. 8, 2. At the time of his death rplrov eros avrifi fiaaiXevovri rrjs oXrjs 'lovSatas eireirXripwro, i.e. the third year was complete from the time of the grant made by Claudius, xix. 5, 1. (irpoa9rjKrjv Se avrw iroieirai irdaav rrjv viro Wpwoov paaiXev9e"iaav bs r)v irairiros avrov, 'lovSalav Kal ^.ajuapeiav). Now the third year of Claudius himself was complete in January, a.d. 44. And, since Agrippa was tetrarch and king but seven years in all ', and of these, four under Caius, it follows that his decease occurred in the early part of a.d. 44. Now in the Acts c. xii., just between the notice of an arrival of S. Paul at Jerusalem and that of his departure, the historian interposes the mention of Agrippa's visit to Jerusalem, the martyrdom of S. James, and imprisonment of S. Peter, Agrip pa's departure to Caesarea, and his death there : whence it is an obvious inference, that S. Paul's visit to Jerusalem coincided with the time of Agrippa's visit and of his death. S. Luke adds, that S. Peter was under arrest during " the days of un leavened bread," xii. 3 : hence it scarcely admits of a doubt, that S. Paul's visit to Jerusalem took place in the year 44 at the passover. 1 B.J. ii. 11. 6. Agrippa dies pepa- I ynvdpevos. The three years of his te- o-iXevKtos piv Irri rpia irponpov Se twv trarchate are reckoned here from his ar- Terpapxiuv Tpia-lv eTepoit ereaiv depii- I rival in Palestine, a.d. 38. Supra $ 31. J 97 99-] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 97 § 98. But S. Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians, men tions two visits, and in such a way as to leave no room for the supposition of any other within the term of years there assigned. The first visit, he says, was ixerd err] rpla, namely, from his conversion, or else from his return to Damascus from the wilderness, i. 18. The second was Sid SeKareaadpwv 6toji; : but whether these fourteen years are measured from the first visit (which of course is the most natural supposition), or from the same epoch as the three years, remains to be determined. Now in the Acts the two first visits of S. Paul are placed, the one immediately after his escape from Damascus (where, or in its neighbourhood, he had spent the time after his conversion which is described as rjixepai 'iKaval, ix. 23) : the other, when he went up with Barnabas as the bearer of the collections which were made in prospect of the dearth foretold by Agabus, xi. 30. The second of these is the visit which is placed in connexion with the death of Herod Agrippa. The other visits on record are : — (3.) that which was occasioned by the disputes at Antioch which gave rise to the Council at Jerusalem, Acts xv: and, (4.) the visit related Acts xviii. fin. when S. Paul having saUed from Corinth and arrived at Caesarea went up thence and saluted the church at Jerusalem We need not pursue the enumeration any further. Of these, the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, must have been the visit Sid SeKareaadpwv erwv in Gal. ii. : unless indeed S. Luke has omitted to mention one of the Apostle's visits ; a supposition which we wiU consider presently. fi 99. I think it certain that the second of the two visits mentioned in Gal. i. ii. is the same with that recorded in Acts xii. i.e.- at the passover a.d. 44. For these rea sons: (1.) The descriptions in Gal. ii. Acts xi. xii. fully agree. S. Paul says, "I went up by, or, on account of revelation." And in Acts.xi. a revelation is mentioned in v. 27. "Agabus signified by the Spirit the coming dearth," and in consequence of this revelation S. Paul went up to Jerusalem. Besides, as this visit was followed by the revelation which ordered SS. Paul and Barnabas to be sent to the Gentiles, it may be that the Apostle had received a private revelation to the same effect anterior to that visit. 7 98 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. 1. Again : he says, " I communicated unto them that Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately, to them which were of reputation, &c." In the Acts, the public preaching to the Gentiles commenced at Antioch, and was the occasion of Barnabas being sent thither from Jerusalem. " Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul ; and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people, &c. :" S. Paul, therefore, had begun before the year 44 to preach to the Gentiles. Of this "communication," nothing is said in the Acts; but then the narrative is very concise. All that is said of this visit is, that the contributions were sent to Jerusalem "by the hands of Barnabas and Saul;" "and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry." — And again: S. Paul says, "When they saw that the Gospel of the Un- circumcision was committed unto me they gave to us the right hands of fellowship that we should go unto the heathen only they would that we should remember the poor, 6 Kal eairovSaaa avrd tovto iroifjaai. In the Acts, the very purpose of his visit, the bearing alms to Jerusalem, was a proof of his airovSrj in this matter — In short, the difference between the two accounts, Gal. ii. and Acts xi. xii., consists solely in the additional circumstances. (2.) If these two accounts do not refer to the same visit, then the visit in Gal. ii. was either that of Acts xv. on occa sion of the Council, or some other. But it could not be the visit in Acts xv., for that of Gal. ii. was private, that of Acts xv. public: in that the acknowledgment of S. Paul's ministry to the GentUes was coupled with one condition only, "that he should remember the poor;" in this, with several, namely, the decrees of the council. In short, the discrepancy between the two accounts (as Paley has remarked) is such that they can hardly be referred to the same fact. Besides, it is evident upon an attentive examination of the scope of Gal. i. ii. that the second visit there mentioned could not be the visit which gave rise to the Council, and that it was prior to that event. S. Paul sets out with declaring himself an Apostle "not by man," the preacher of a Gospel "not of man." In proof of his assertion he recites his own history § 99-] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 99 from the time of his conversion, declaring that prior to the com mencement of his ministry among the Gentiles he had no com munication, of any moment to the formation of his body of doctrine, with the other Apostles. At the first visit, he went up laroprjaai Ylerpov, " to have a personal interview with Peter," and saw no other Apostle but James : at the second, he went up in consequence of a revelation, not to receive instructions, but for another purpose ; and he availed himself of this opportunity to lay before the leading men of the church at Jerusalem, privately, the Gospel which he had already begun to preach to the Gentiles. The occasion of this private communication was the circulation of Judaistic notions by false brethren, ii. 4. This is not mentioned, it is true, in the Acts in connexion with the visit in a.d. 44. c. xi. xii., but in the nature of the case it was likely, and almost certain, to happen, as soon as the Gospel began to be preached to and received by Gentiles, which we know to have been the case befbre a.d. 44. Besides, as S. Paul is relating aU the communications which he ever had with the Apostles at Jerusalem, it is certain he would not omit the visit in a.d. 44: but he does omit it if the visit in Gal. ii. be that of Acts xv. Besides, the whole matter in dispute between the Judaizers and the Gentile churches was definitively settled in the decrees of the Council : after which, it is incredible that Peter on his coming to Antioch should have dissembled in the manner related in Gal. ii On these accounts, it seems indis putable that the visit Sid SeKareaadpwv erwv cannot be the visit on occasion of the council. Now if the visit Gal. ii. be not that of Acts xv., it must be either the visit of Acts xi. xii. or some other which S. Luke has omitted to mention. But the only time, after the visit in 44 a. d., at which S. Paul could have gone up to Jerusalem, is the ypdvos ovk dXlyos during which the two Apostles abode at Antioch after the first circuit, Acts xiv. 28. If such a visit did take place at that time, how are we to account for S. Luke's silence concerning it ? And besides, as has been already urged, the scope of S. Paul's argument in the Epistle obliges us to suppose that, down to the time of which he there speaks, he had held no other communication with the Apostles at Jeru salem than what is there related. But if the visit Gal. ii. 1. be a later visit than that in Acts xii. *. e. if it be a third visit, 7_2 100 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. 11. S. 1. then he has omitted to mention this second one : that is, he had other communications with the Apostles than he has here recited. On these grounds, then, I identify the visit Sid SeKarea adpwv krwv in Gal. ii. with the visit which coincided with the death of Herod Agrippa, i.e. Passover a. d. 44 ' § 100. Now a.d. 44 being 14 years, complete or cur rent, from some event, the date of that event, whatever it be, is either a. d. 30 or 31 : it follows that the event from which the 14 years are reckoned cannot be the first visit mentioned in Gal. i. ; for since that was nerd err] rpid, i. e. at least two years complete, from S. Paul's conversion, the epoch of the 2 + 13 years, or date of the conversion, will be the passover of a. d. 29 ; which is the earliest possible date of the Cruci fixion ; consequently there is no time left for the series of events which occurred between the Crucifixion and the conversion of S. Paul. There remains therefore no resource8, but to abandon the prima facie sense of the words, and to infer that both terms, the 3 years and the 14, are reckoned from the same epoch, viz. from the conversion of S. Paul: which event is hereby placed to the year 30 or 31, according as the 14 years are reckoned complete or current. — This is the proof of my assertion (§ 74) that the Chronology of the Acts determines the Passion to a year not later than a. d. 30. And as the expres sions nerd errj rpla and Si erwv SeKareaadpwv, understood of complete time, give the year 30 as the epoch,, it follows that, in respect of the chronology of the Acts, the year 29 is more probable than the year 30. ' S. Irenaeus Hmr. iii. 13. seems to as sume that the visit Gal. ii. is that of Acts xv. Deinde post annos xiv. &c. Si quis igitur diligenter ex Act. Apost. scrutelur tempus de quo scriptum est (Act. xv.) ascendisse Hierosolymam propter pree- dictam queestionem, inveniet eos qui preedicti sunt a Paulo annos concur- rentes ( Gal. ii. 1 . ) Tertullian adv. Mar cion. i. 20. argues that (Gal. ii. 1.) the second journey (Acts xii.) is meant. 2 Unless, indeed, we suppose (with Ulrich, in the Theolog. Studien u. Kri tiken. 1836.) that S. Paul wrote Si' ctwv Tearv, AIA A' ETON, whence the reading Al IA' ETON might easily be generated. And in fact the Paschal Chronicle, p. 436. ed. Niebuhr. notices an opinion according to which this second visit occurred four years after S. Paul's conversion, which supposes the reading reacrdpiav in Gal. ii. 1. It does not ap pear, however, that this opinion rested on the authority of MSS. : perhaps it was only a critical conjecture. All extant MSS., fathers, and versions, give Sexa- Tea-ardpuiv. § 100, 101.] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 101 $ 101. Our date, then, of the Pentecostal Effusion is May a. d. 29. No great length of time is requisite for the subsequent events down to the martyrdom of S. Stephen. The incidents in Acts iii. iv. may have occurred within a few weeks, or even days, after Pentecost3, and indeed this is most likely, since the de scription of the faith and charity and " first love" of the church of Jerusalem foUows at the end of this narrative, iv. 32 35. Nor is there anything to forbid the supposition that Gamaliel's advice was given soon after the same incident. The interval of quietude, during which the seven deacons were appointed, which continued until the martyrdom of S. Stephen, need not be supposed to have lasted many months : we get a more than sufficient interval, if we say that the martyrdom occurred at or before the passover of a. d. 30. The occasion of S. Ste phen's arrest was the controversy with certain rwv e«r rrjs awa- ywyrjs rrjs Xeyofievr/s Aifieprlvwv Kal Kvpr/valwv Kal 'AXe^av- Spewv Kal rwv dird KiXtKias, vi. 9. i. e. with certain of the foreign Jews of Rome, Africa and Cilicia4 : the presence of these men at Jerusalem implies that a festival was going on at the time. As the movement was evidently tumultuary, no inference can be drawn from it with respect to the absence of the procurator : it seems idle to argue, that, as the Sanhedrim at this time had no power to pass sentence of death, they would not have dared to exercise it, if there had been a resident pro curator at the time, and consequently that this incident must 3 The mention of Annas b dpxiepebs Kai Ka'id ¦ l S ' * V ' < ' ' v rrjv eoprrjv, oeiaas o D.ovixavos p-tj vewrepov ri irapa rovrwv ir poairearj, stationed a cohort in arms at the por ticoes of the Temple. A gross insult offered by one of the soldiers provoked the Jews to an assault; and the whole legion was marched upon them, &c." It naturally occurs to ask J 106, 107-] ACTS of the apostles. 109 why these precautions were taken at this particular time? What reason had Cumanus to fear a commotion at this pass- over ? His two predecessors, Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius Alex ander, Josephus informs us, fjLt]Sev irapaKivovvres rwv nrarplwv edwv ev elptjvr) rd e9vos SietjXtKa TldXXavros dSeX(f>dv rwv Kara rrjv 'lovSaiaV irpoarrjaofxevov irpayfiarwv. Trjs Se dpyfjs SwSeKarov eros1 r)Stj ireirXripwKws, Swpeirat rdv 'Ayp'iirirav rrj iXiirirov re- rpapyla Aafiwv Se rrjv Swpedv irapd rod Kalaapos 'Ayplir- iras eKSlSwai irpos ydfxov'A^l^w.../XpovaiX\av rrjv dSeXfprjv AiaXvoi'Tcu oe TJ7 A/Jourji'\X»7 7rrjos tov''AQi£ov oi yd/mot /ner' ov iroXvv ypdvov roiavrrjs e/unreaovans alrlas. KaO' ov Kaipdv rrjs 'lovSalas eirerpoirevae iXiirirov yevo/xevrjv reTpapylav...avrds Se SioiKtjaas rrjv tiyefiovlav ereai ly, /mrjalv rj Kal tj/ji. k. TeXeux^. It is evident, then, that the appointment of Felix took place not later than the expiration of the 12th year of Claudius, i.e. not later than Jan. a.d. 53, yet not long before it, for both in the ^ 108 110.] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Ill Antiquities and in the Wars, this incident is closely connected with the advancement of Agrippa, which occurred when Clau dius had just completed his 12th year. It appears further, from the first of the two passages, that S. Paul's appearance before Felix, at a time when Drusilla was married to him, cannot be placed in the very beginning of the government of FeUx, for DrusUla's marriage with Azizus was subsequent to the advancement of Agrippa, *. e. after Jan. a.d. 53. Of course then, with a proper allowance of time for Agrippa's taking possession of his new government, for Drusilla's first marriage, and her seduction by Felix, we cannot imagine her already wedded to Felix within a week or two of the Pentecost of a.d. 53. xxiv. 1. 24. Thus the earliest possible date that can be assigned to S. Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, is the Pentecost of a.d. 54. § 110. What then may be the latest possible date? It is not recorded by Josephus or other historians how long a time Felix was procurator of Judaea, nor yet, which would answer our purpose as well, how long his successor Festus held that office. But, Ant. xx. 8. 9, we are informed that on the ap pointment of Festus, the leading Jews of Caesarea went to Rome with complaints against Felix^ " and assuredly he would have suffered for his wrongs committed against the Jews et fxr) iroXXa avrov o ISepwv rw aSeXrjXii£ k. r. X. xxiv. 27: the Sierla may be measured from some epoch concerning Felix only, not the Apostle : and, indeed, the historical connexion of the narrative makes it probable that such was the writer's meaning. It needed not two whole years to satisfy Felix that his covetous purpose was not likely to be gratified by his prisoner (v. 26) : and if the Apostle, together with his companions, among whom was S. Luke, had really been detained that length of time, should we not have had a different kind of notice, at least a fuUer mention of the circumstances ? Let any unprejudiced reader consider whether the narrative xxiv. 23 — 27, implies this length of time. Besides, the eager ness of the Jews would surely have been damped, if so long a pause had intervened ; yet in the foUowing chapter we find the high priest and chief men of the Jews making it one of their first concerns, when Festus had been .but three days .in his government, to influence him against S. Paul, in a matter scribed as vix annos xvii. egressus. If Britannicus was but two years younger than Nero, he was nearly fifteen at that time ; yet further on, a whole year later, Ann. xiii. 15, Tacitus himself makes Britannicus not yet fourteen years com plete. For biennio Ann. xii. 25, we may perhaps read quadriennio ; the numeral iv. might easily be corrupted into ii. § 111, 112.] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 113 which one should rather think would have slipped from their minds, especially considering what far greater grievances and animosities must have arisen in the space of two years under the government of a Felix. $ 112. On these grounds, then, and in virtue of the preceding combinations, I understand the " two years" of xxiv. 27, to denote the term during which Felix was procurator of Judwa. The grammatical construction admits this sense as well as, if not better than, the other1 : and the circumstances of the narrative demand it. The only objection, and that ap parently a weighty one, lies in the statement of S. Paul, xxiv. 10, eK iroXXwv 6T0Ji/ bvra ae Kpirrjv Ttji e9vei tovtw eiri- ardixevos. How could this be, if Felix was in his government but two years in all I The difficulty, however, is not confined to the statement in the Acts ; it affects, as much and even more, the representation of Tacitus, who, writing of the year of the consulate of Faustus SuUa and Salvius Otho (= a.d. 52) says of Felix : At non f rater ejus (sc. Pallantis) pari modera- tione.agebat, jam pridem Judaeae impositus et cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus tanta potentia subnixo. It was late in 52 or early in 53, that Felix received his appointment. In what sense, then, can it be true, that he was in 52 "jam pridem Judaeae impositus ?" Yet Tacitus proceeds circumstantially to relate what follows : Sane prwbuerant Judwi speciem motus orta seditione . . . Interim Felix intempestivis remediis delicta accende- bat, aemulo ad deterrima Ventidio Cumano, cui pars provinciw habebatur, ita divisis ut huic Galilworum natio, Felici Samaritae parebant... A rsissetque bello Provmcia, ni Quadratus Syriw rector subvenisset. Nee diu adversus Judwos, qui in necem militum proruperant, dubitatum, quin capite pasnas lueremt. Cu manus et Felix cunctationem afferebant, quia Claudius, caussis rebettionis auditis, jus statuendi (sc. Quadrato) etiam de pro- curatoribus (sc. Cumano et Felice) dederat. Sed Quadratus Felicem inter judices ostentavit receptum in tribunal, quo studia accusmtium deterrerentur ; damnatusque fiagitiorum quw duo de- liquerant Cumanus, et quies provinciw reddita. Commentators, 1 For, SieTias Si irAtipajfleio-ijs eXaPev is equivalent to Sieriav Se 1rX.il/30ia-as eXaPev, and it strikes me that the writer 8 would not have expressed himself thus, if he had meant only perd Se Svo irn or perd Ste-ri] xpovov. 114 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. i. indeed, allege that Tacitus was completely mistaken, since Felix did not set foot in Palestine until after, and in consequence of, the deposal of Cumanus. But how is so circumstantial a mis statement to be accounted for ? It was easy for Tacitus to mis take the real state of the case in supposing that Felix wa,s pro curator of Samaria and Cumanus of Galilee ; but it is extremely improbable, that the affair in which Quadratus, Cumanus, and Felix, are represented as actors, should be entirely unfounded in respect of Felix. At the least, one is obliged to infer, not withstanding the silence of Josephus, that Felix held some sort of office in Palestine during the procuratorship of Cumanus. § 113. Now with this, compare what Suetonius says, Claud. 28. Libertorum prwcipue suspexit Posiden...nec minus Felicem quem cohortibus et alis1 provinciseque Judaeae prwposuit. Which I take to mean, that Felix served Claudius in Judaea, 1 Under the Caesars the term alee de notes the troops of cavalry raised from the allies, and attached to the legions in place of the thirty turmae which of old were levied from among the equites. See the proof of this statement (against Salmasius de Re Mil.) in Schelii Nott. in Hygin. de Castram. ap. Graev. Ant. Rom. t. x. 1080 ff. and abundant illus trations in Gruter's Corpus Inscript. pas sim. The order of promotion in Clau dius's time is described by Sueton. Claud. 25. Equestres militias ita ordinavit ut post cohortem, alam ; post alam, tribu- nalum legionis daret: i.e. the Roman equites served first as prefects of foreign cohorts, then of alse, and so rose to be tribunes of legions. Graev. in I. Under Augustus, the pra>fectus alee would seem to rank above the tribunus legionis, Suet. Aug. 38, and Casaubon. in I. (though the meaning of that passage may be, that Augustus, in his anxiety to accustom the senatorial youth to military service, ap pointed them not only tribunes of legions, but even to the inferior offices, the eques tres militia, viz. the prefecture of cohorts and alae.) Now Suetonius may possibly mean to say, that Felix was promoted to various praefectures of cohorts and alae and subsequently to a province, that of Judaea. Comp. Vii. Plin. ascribed to Suetonius, where it is related of the elder Pliny, equestribus militiis Industrie func tus, procurationes quoque splendidissi- mas atque continuas summa integritate administravit : and Plin. Ep. vii. 25. (Terentius) equestribus militiis atque etiam procuratione prov. N"arb. integer- rime functus. See also Gruter. Corp. Insc. Lat. passim. But the words of Suetonius in the text not only will bear, but even (if I am not mistaken) suggest the sense I have put upon them, vim. in virtue of their grammatical collocation : quem cohortibus-et-alis provinciaegwe Judaeae praeposuit. For when the attri butive (adj . or genitive) belonging alike to each of two nouns is placed after them, the Latin idiom, I think, requires que. Compare the following expressions taken at random from Suetonius and Tacitus. Senatus populusque Rom Scriptores senatoresque corundem temporum con- jugem liberosque ejus. — prnditores nuper hostesque ejus diem locumque foede ris. — taciturnitatempudoremquequorun- dam — exultatianes succlamationesque populi — circa conventus mercatusque Gneciee. — angustiis flexurisque vico- rum — expugnationem direptionemque oppidi.— The principle is obvious : the § 113. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 115 first, in command of the provincial or social troops in that country, and then, as procurator. In the former capacity, in which he would act under, or coordinately with, the procurator (Cumanus), he was, I take it, what Josephus calls 'nrirdpyris- When ViteUius sent Pilate to take his trial at Rome a. d. 36, he appointed MarceUus eirifxeXrirrjs ad interim. Ant. xviii. 4. 2. One of the first acts of Caius, a. d. 37, on investing Agrippa with the tetrarchy of his father Philip, was to send out Maryllus as 'nrirdpyris eirl rrjs 'lovSalas- Why he is termed 'nrirdpyiis, and not eirifie- XtjTrjs or 67riTpo'7ros, does not appear, nor does any further mention of this officer occur in the history of those times. Maryllus exercised, doubtless, the functions of procurator, yet not eo nomine, but as commander of the cavalry, i. e. prwfectus alarum. Claudius, in the beginning of his reign, made Judaea once more a kingdom under Agrippa ; on whose death, a. d. 44, it again became a province and received as e7riTjodxoc, Cuspius Fadus. Yet during those three years of Agrippa's reign, I should suppose there was still an imperial officer in Judaea bearing the title hipparch, or prwfectus alarum, and subsequently, that the same office, in its mUitary functions, was kept up, i. e. that together with the procurator there was a commander of the cohortes et alw. The ala, or social squadron, which was enclitic conjunction, as the most compen dious, serves to refer both terms, as parts of a whole, to the limiting term which is about to follow. Sometimes this rule is observed even at the expense of the strict logical meaning of the case, e.g. where the genitive is objective to the first and subjective to the second, as Suet. Claud. 42. Nee minori cura Grceca studia se- quutus est, amorem prastanliamque lin gua pradicans. Hence the rule would seem to be, that a genitive following two nouns coupled by "que" must belong to both of them : (except, of course, when the first member has a genitive of its own ; as tormenta queestionum pcenasque parrieidarum — Thus Suet. Claud. 41. instead of in libris ac diurnis titulisque operum, which besides is unmeaning, we must read in libris actorum diurnorum [Suetonius perhaps wrote Act. Diubn.] titulisque operum.) When the two nouns are coupled by any other conjunc tion, the context, or the nature of the case, must determine whether the genitive belongs to one or both. But when the genitive belongs only to the latter of the two, the conjunction must not be que: e.g. tutum loco ac prassidio militum; machinamenta et astus oppugnationum, where prasidioque, astusque, would be wrong. The only exception is, when no ambiguity can arise, e.g. ipsi conjuges- que ipsorum, Liv. I have devoted thus much space to the proof of this gram matical rule, as I do not find that it has been noticed by commentators and gram marians. It is true, Judcece here may be the dative: if so, the sentence is ill-con structed, because ambiguous. Sed de his 8—2 116 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. 1. kept in Judaea was composed principally of Caesareans and Sebastenes, Ant. xx. 8. 7. whence xx. 6. 1. it is called 2e/3ao- rrjvwv eiXr,1. Comp. B.J. ii. 12. 5. When Cuspius Fadus was sent out as procurator, Claudius purposed " to remove the ala of the Cesareans and Sebastenes and the five cohorts into Pontus, as a punishment for the gross disrespect with which they had treated the memory of Agrippa" [this seems to imply that they were troops in the imperial pay, serving under an im perial officer] : " and to supply their place out of the Roman legions which were stationed in Syria. This order however, was not executed ; for they sent an embassy and found means to pacify Caesar, &c." Ant. xix: ult. These were the troops, I suppose, as commander of which Maryllus took his title of hip- parch, these the cohortes et alw which Felix commanded under Cumanus. Josephus, it is true, does not mention Fehx in this capacity, but he does mention the fact that Cumanus proceeded to his assault upon the Galileans dvaXafiwv rtju rwv 2e/3ao-- rrjvwv e'lXrjv Kal ire¥wv reaaapa raypxara. Tacitus con nects Felix with Cumanus as an accomplice in that transac tion, but by a venial mistake makes him procurator of Samaria, probably because he found him in command of troops of which a large proportion were of Sebaste, the capital of Samaria. Suetonius alone, if I do not mistake his meaning, represents the matter in its true circumstances. But indeed neither is Josephus altogether silent concerning an earlier connexion of Fehx with the province of Judaea. For he relates Ant. xx. 8. 5 that Felix was sent out as procurator of Judaea in con sequence, partly, of a request made to that effect by Jonathan the high priest : namely, as it appears from the preceding context, at the time when this Jonathan had been sent by Quadratus together with the leaders in the movement, both Jews and Samaritans, to be tried at the emperor's tribunal. How Jonathan came to think of Felix in particular as a fit person for the vacant procuratorship, is explained, if we will accept Tacitus's account of the matter as substantially correct. 1 This must not be confounded with the aireXpa 2e/3ao-Tij, Act. xxvii. 1. which doubtless was the same as the Sir. 'I-ra- Xlkt] to which Cornelius belonged. Of the five cohorts stationed at Caesarea, four, perhaps, were provincial troops, one composed of Italians or Romans, and dis tinguished from them by the military name orr. Cohors Augusta ; air. 'Ito\. is the popular name by which it would be spoken of in Palestine. § 114-] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 117 Felix then had truly been g/c iroXXwv erwv Kpirrjs toj e9vei, although his actual procuratorship lasted but two years in aU, as reckoned from his arrival in Judaea in that capacity to the arrival of his successor. Nor is it difficult to account for so early a vacation of his office. His brother PaUas, /ndXiara Sr) rore Sid Tifxrjs wv, may have caUed him to Rome for higher preferment2. $ 114. Now we have seen that Felix was appointed to the procuratorship at the close of a. d. 52, or the beginning of a. d. 53. He would not arrive in Judaea before the summer of the latter year ; his two years of residence would expire at the same time of a.d. 55. At the Pentecost of that year, ac cordingly, I place S. Paul's arrest at Jerusalem. And with this agree the other notes of time. The high priest Jonathan (son of Ananus) was assassinated by sicarii at the instigation of Felix, Ant. xx. 8. 5, seemingly at a fes tival : I should suppose, at the passover of this very year a.d. 55. The high priesthood was bestowed on Ismael son of Phabi, by Agrippa, towards the close of Felix's procuratorship. Ant. xx. 8. 8. During the vacancy the office may have been exercised by Ananias, and S. Paul might naturaUy, as one but lately arrived at Jerusalem, not be aware of the fact, further than that there was at the time no high priest actually appointed3. 2 See a further discussion of the ques tion relating to the times of Felix and his successors in the Note appended to this section. 3 This Ananias, son of Nebedaeus, suc ceeded Joseph son of Camydus by ap pointment of Herod king of Chalcis, during the procuratorship of Tiberius Alexander, cir. a.d. 47 or 48. Ant. xx. 5. 2. In consequence of the affair be tween the Jews and the Samaritans in the procuratorship of Cumanus, he was sent prisoner to Rome by the president of Syria, Ummidius Quadratus, to take his trial before Claudius, ib. 6. 2. The cause was speedily heard and decided in favour of the Jews. That he was de posed is nowhere expressed in the An tiquities, yet at xx. 8. 5. Jonathan, at tlie time of his assassination, is described as high priest ; and, at § 8 following, Agrippa gives the high priesthood to Ismael son of Phabei : this, towards the close of Felix's administration. In the Wars, ii. 12. 5, Jonathan, son of Ana nus, is called the high priest at the time of the Samaritan quarrel (irapovTes Si Kai oi yviapipoi twv 'lovSaicav, Kai o ap- Xiepebs 'Icovddris i/tos Avdvov) ; and he was sent to Rome with Ananias (Svo Se eTepovs twv SwaTtaraTtav Kai tovs dp- Xiepels 'luovddriv Kai 'Avaviav ... dve-irep- \\rev eiri Kaio-apa) : on which occasion, doubtless, it was, that Jonathan request ed of Caesar that Felix might be sent out as governor in place of Cumanus, who was deposed. (Ant. xx. 8. 5.) Putting these two accounts together, 1 infer that, at the time of the Samaritan affair, Jona than was high priest as successor to Ana nias, by appointment of Quadratus, and that he held the office until his death. As 118 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. i. The same remark applies also to the mention of the Egyptian impostor. For this person made himself notorious after, not before, Nero's accession. (Ant. xx. 8. 6. Kara rovrov As immediate predecessor of Jonathan, and as a man in other respects highly distinguished, it was natural that Ananias should assume the functions of the office ad interim, on the demise of the see by the death of Jonathan. And this seems the best explanation of S. Paul's igno rance, ovk riSeiv oti dpxiepevs ieTTiv '. which certainly cannot mean (as some interpret), "I did not bethink me, or, re collect :" the words may mean, " I was not aware that there is at present any high priest: " but this is not likely, for one could hardly suppose that the office would be suffered to remain actually va cant ad interim, and whoever occupied it would be for the time high priest, though not formally appointed. The apostle might know, too, that Ananias was pro tempore in office, but perhaps he was not acquainted with his person. "I knew not that he is high priest" is grammati cally correct, and tallies with the facts. It should be remarked, that Ananias was still possessed of high influence after this time, though never re-appointed. On the arrival of Albinus, xx. 9. 2. 6 Se dpxiepevs 'Avavial Kad' eKaarTijv ripepav iiri peya irpoeKOTTe So%ijs Kai t^s irapd twv toXitwv eiivoias re Kai Tipijs !)£- iovto Xapirptos. rjv ydp XPVparojv leo- pieTTlKO-i' Kad' qpepav ovv tov 'AXpivov Kai t6v dpxiepia Seopois idepdlrevev : where he is still called 6 dpxiepevs though another was in office : so again at the time of his murder, in the beginning of the war, B. J. ii. 17. 9. But it is not therefore likely that he is so called in the Acts, solely in respect of his having been once high priest ; for throughout the nar rative he appears as the principal actor. (Comp. xxiv. 1.) Winer, Biblisches Realworterbuch s.v. Ananias, thinks it more likely that he was actual high priest both before and after his deporta tion, i. e. from his appointment by Herod of Chalcis to the appointment of Ismael son of Phabei. But, as I before remark ed, Josephus shews, in the Wars, that Jonathan was certainly in office after Ananias and before Ismael. It may be said indeed that the title b dpxiepebs, B.J. ii. 12. 5, 6. Ant. xx. 8. 5, is given here only in respect of his having once held the office : (he succeeded Caiaphas by appointment of Vitellius xviii. 4. 3. by whom, however, he was speedily de posed, ib. 5. 3. a.d. 37. passover.) But this is unlikely ; for in B.J. ii. 12. 5. he is styled absolutely 6 dpxiepebs, and ib. 6. (tous dpxiepeis 'loivddtjv Kai 'Avaviav) he is preeminent above Ananias, which he was in no respect, if not he, but Ana nias, was actual high priest at the time ; for Ananias was a far more distinguished man, in personal respects, than Jonathan. From Acts xxii. 5. us Kai b dpxiepeiis paprvpei pot, it might be inferred that the high priest from whom Paul received his commission was still in office; and this would very well suit Jonathan, if the journey to Damascus belonged to the year 36, when this man was in fact high priest : for then S. Paul might be under stood to appeal to the personal knowledge of the high priest before whom he stood, by whom, when fonrterly in office, he was commissioned. But the conversion of S. Paul, I have endeavoured to shew, lies six years before the first appointment of Jonathan ; and the context, Acts xxii. xxiv. implies that Paul was now plead ing before Ananias. Of course, how ever, it is not necessary to suppose that the apostle appeals to the personal know ledge of the high priest before whom he stood, or who was then in office, nor even (as Meyer explains it) of some former high priest who was still living : he might mean only to say, that the recorded acts, or the iiriaToXai and sign manual of the high priest and sanhedrim of those days would attest the fact to any who would make enquiry. § 115, 116.] ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 119 tov Kaipov comp. ib. 4. T irpwrw rrjs Nepwvos dpyfjs '¦ comp. B. J. ii. 13. 5.) That the event was recent is plainly implied in the words of Lysias, irpo rovrwv rwv rjpiepwv, Acts xxi. 381. § 115. Thus far I have endeavoured to deduce, combine, and construct, the evidence furnished by the Acts and contem porary history. Our result is this: — that S. Paul's arrest took place at the Pentecost of the first year of Nero : whence it follows that he was brought to Rome in the spring of the second year of Nero, inasmuch as the Sierla, Acts xxiv. fin. relates not to S. Paul's imprisonment, but to the term of Felix's residence in Judaea as procurator. And now the reader may compare with this result the statement of Eusebius (in Chron.) who assigns S. PauVs arrival at Rome to the second year of Nero: and of S. Jerome, who says that " S. Paul came to Rome in the 25th year after the Crucifixion, i. e. in the second year of Nero, at the time when Festus succeeded to Felix as procurator of Judaea." § 116. We have therefore a period of precisely eleven years, extending from Acts xii. 3 = passover of a. d. 44 to Acts xxi. 6 = passover of a. d. 55 : which must be so distri buted that Acts xviii. 2. shall coincide with the earlier half of a.d. 49. In the former of these portions, the notes of time are alto gether vague, such as r) Nepwi'i kcituoV/iios.) By this detestable apostate he is in troduced to the infamous Poppaea, successfully exerts liimself with her for the release of his friends, is besides honoured by her with great gifts and so returns home: where, as was to be expected, we find him advocating the cause of the Romans — until self-interest preponderated on the other side. This I take to be a much likelier account of his motives and conduct than that which supposes him full of a generous and disinterested zeal in the cause of his friends. Hence I see no difficulty in construing this note of time in accordance with that noticed in the text, although I admit that the priests were sent to Rome by Felix, and that Josephus visited Rome in the course of a.d. 62 — 63. I perceive, however, that Mr. Greswell, iv. 234, suggests that the mission "is ascribed by a lapse of memory to Felix instead of Festus." This is an unnecessary, as well as a violent expedient : besides, Mr. G. is inclined to identify this incident with that mentioned in Ant. xx. 8. 11 ; which is wholly improbable. These priests were sent as prisoners to take their trial, those as delegates at their own request. To speak now of this latter incident, which falls in the time of Festus, and so may afford a note of time in connexion with this procurator:— the history of this government occupies two sections in Ant. xx. 8., viz. 10 and 11. He rid the province, in great measure, of the banditti who infested it (comp. B. J. ii. 14. 1.) At this conjuncture, Karri roCrov rov Kaipdv, Agrippa erected a building near the Temple, and commanding a view of its inner courts, so that the priests were overlooked while in discharge of their duties. The Jews taking offence at this, reared a high wall which inter cepted the view not only from Agrippa's dining-room, but from the western porch in which the Roman troops were stationed in time of the festivals. Agrippa, and especially Festus, were indignant, and insisted that the wall should be taken down. The Jews requested and obtained permission to refer the matter to Caasar, and accordingly sent ten leading men and Ismael the high priest and Helkias the treasurer. And Nero having heard their matter, not only pardoned what had been done, but permitted them to leave the wall standing, rrj yvvaiKi Tloirirrfia, 6coae/3^ ydp $v, vieip tSv 'lovlaiiav BeijOeio-p yapiZpp.evo<;. It is added, that Poppsea dismissed the ten, but detained Helkias and Ismael as hostages in attendance upon herself. Now if the phrase "Nero's wife" be not a mere emphemistic anticipation (which doubtless it may be, for we know from Tacitus that Poppaea could do what she would with Nero not less as his harlot, than when she became his wife), this mission must be referred to some time after the summer of 124 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. a.d. 62, and Festus would be still procurator in a.d. 62. For the death of Festus, in his government, is evidently placed after the conclusion of this dispute, Ant. xx. 9. 1. And indeed it may be shown that Poppaea was barely married before Festus's death ; for his successor Albinus, sent out when the intelligence of the procurator's decease had reached Nero, was certainly in his government in October, a.d. 62. This point is thus proved: — Jesus son of Ananus, the prophet of "woe to Jerusalem!" con tinued his denunciations through a period of 7 years and 5 months until his death, during the siege. B. J. vi. 5. 3. Mereover, he began to utter his fearful outcry at a feast of Tabernacles when Albinus was in office, irpo Teererdpwv erav rov iroXe'/iov. Now Josephus ordinarily dates the begin ning of the war from the spring of a.d. 66. — its true, i.e. more decided, commencement lies in October of that year. Both notes accord : for the Scenopegia of a.d. 62, lies 3£ years before the one, and just 4 years before the other epoch : and from the same festival to the beginning of the siege are 7 years, 6 months. There can be no doubt then, that Albinus was in office during that feast, i.e. in Oct. a.d. 62. This point proved, it follows that Poppaea was not married at the time in question; i.e. that the depu tation lies before June, a.d. 62. For this is the order of events : Agrippa, hearing that Ismael was to be detained at Rome, gives the high priesthood to Simon Kabi: Festus dies; Agrippa deposes Simon and makes Ananus his successor; Ananus takes advantage of the interim between the death of the procurator and the arrival of his successor, to inflict capital punish ment on certain offenders; the Pharisees (Ananus being a Sadducee) are indignant, and send to Albinus, then at Alexandria on the way to his government, a complaint against this illegal act; Albinus sends a threatening letter to Ananus, whom Agrippa, for this, deposes after he had been high priest three months. It is impossible to crowd all these incidents into the interval between the marriage of Poppaea and the arrival of Albinus, which interval is itself at most three months. It follows, then, that the exercise of Poppaea's influence on behalf of Ismael and his col leagues preceded the arrival of Albinus by a space of time sufficient, at least, to include the following items: 1. A voyage from Rome (ravra oj'c eVu'cWo, xx. 8. 11. fin.), 2. the term of high priesthood of Joseph Kabi, 3. the three months of Ananus. It is not likely that the second of these items occupied less than half-a-year, and it might occupy twice or thrice that length of time. Hence it is uncertain by what exact space the eleva tion of Joseph, and consequently, the hearing of the deputation at Rome preceded Oct. a.d. 62. In other words, the time of Festus's death and of the appointment of Albinus is so far open to dispute1. It is possible, then 1 Since Josephus visited Rome when he had completed his 26th year, i. e. A. D. 63, Poppaea was at that time certainly married : and his visit lies at least a year after that of the deputies. Perhaps it was in consequence of the report which they brought home of Poppaea's friendly disposition towards the Jews, that Jose phus conceived the design of going to Rome for the purpose of ingratiating ACTS 01' THE APOSTLES. 125 and for ought that appears, not unlikely, that Albinus arrived in the province in a.d. 61., for there is no reason to suppose that the feast of Tabernacles at which Jesus son of Ananus was brought before him, was the first festival that had occurred since his arrival. And indeed if the cele brated clause concerning James in Ant. xx. 9. 1. koi irapayayojv ek avro \jrov doeXcpov 'I»ja or ypdtpeo, by an "enallage of tenses," as the grammarians and critics of a former generation used to speak, but where one or other of those tenses might have been used with equal propriety. Of this we have clear instances in ix. 15. of this epistle, ovk eypa}j/a TavTa, refer ring to vv. 4-14. Philem. v. 19. eym TJav- Xos eypa\pa -n? iprj xeiPh ^T^ diroTifrm, referring to v. 18. so ib. 21. Gal. vi. 11. Rom. xv. 15. 1 Pet. v. 12. 1 Joh. ii. 21 . 26. v. 13. So in our passage eypatya may refer to the verses immediately preceding, 1-8. Not adverting to this very common use of the aorist, some critics have imagined that the thrice repeated eypa\jra in 1 Joh. ii. 13, 14. refers to an earlier writing of the apostle; to a lost epistle (Michaelis, 9 Anmerk. in 1.) or to his gospel (Lange) : others again have confounded it with ypdepui, thus obliterating the evidently- studied emphasis of the passage : in fact, eypa^fa refers to the preceding context i. 5 — ii. 11 , as ypdcpm does to the subse quent context ii. 15 — iii. 22. (See Liicke's ingenious and beautiful exposition of this passage). — But, it is objected, ev t;j eiriir- ToXri is " strangely superfluous" (Meyer in 1. ) if the reference be to the verses im mediately preceding. Not at all, if the apostle meant to intimate that the precept was delivered in this very epistle. If it had been " I wrote to you to separate from among you him that hath done this thing," the addition might have been su perfluous : for no one would fail to per ceive that he was carrying on the subject on which he had begun to touch. On the other hand, if it had been, "I wrote to you not to keep company, &c." the readers might have asked, When ? in some former, or in the present letter? What precedes is an injunction concern ing an individual case : after a brief di gression, he resumes the subject ; and as the thought which he was about to ex press shaped itself in his mind in the form of a general rule, he might very na turally and not at all unnecessarily knit the general rule about to be enunciated to the specific direction just before given, by premising iv Ty iiriaToXij : q. d. Ye see by this present letter — in that I have enjoined you to separate the evil-doer from among you— that I enjoin you to have 130 CHRONOLOGY OP THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. 11. The allusions to the paschal solemnity, v. 7, 8, imply that it was written about the time of the passover, but rather before than after it. — Apollos had been at Corinth, iii. 4, but was returned to Ephesus, xvi. 1 2. — Timothy was absent on a mission into Greece and was to be expected at Corinth.j Now when S. Paul arrived at Ephesus, Apollos was at Corinth, xix. 1 : i. e. in the beginning of a.d. 52. This epistle then was certainly not written before the second year of the residence at Ephe sus, (a.d. 53.) And it follows from the mention of Timothy that it was written in the third year (a.d. 54.) : for Acts xix. 22. ff. "Paul" (towards the close of his residence) "purposed when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem : so he sent into Macedonia Timothy and Erastus, but himself abode in Asia for a season." — We may therefore rea sonably assign as the date of this epistle, the passover-time of a.d. 54 \ (4.) THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. $ 124. At the writing of this epistle, the Apostle had left Ephesus, i. 8, and had arrived in Macedonia by way of Troas, ii. 12, 13; vii. 5; viii. 1; ix. 2. Titus, whom he had sent before (perhaps as the bearer of the first epistle) and expected to meet at Troas, joined him in Macedonia, and brought intelligence of the wholsome effect produced by the former epistle. He writes to prepare the Corinth ians for a second visit2 (xiii. 10), which took place that, have no company with fornicators. — The sense by this addition would become equi valent to this : Taura eypatya, pij deXeov u/tas orvvavap. iropvois This passage therefore is inconclusive : it may refer, no doubt, to an earlier communication, but it admits^o far as the words go, of being referred to the very letter which the Apos tle was then writing. 1 The subscription in the Vulgate text, iypdepr} dird ^iXiiriruiv, was probably derived from xvi. 5, MaKeSoviav ydp Sicpxopat. Cod. B. has iypdr) died 'E^ietrou. 2 Erasmus, Baronius, Mill, and many others of the elder commentators, infer from passages of this epistle that S. Paul had been already twice at Corinth before it was written: and this is the view of all the recent and contemporary German writers whom I have consulted. Paley, in his Horee Paulina (2 Cor. N° xi.), treats this view as if it rested only on one passage (xiii. 1), and as if it re quired the epistle to be placed after the second of the two visits recorded fl24.J WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLES. 131 winter, Acts xx. 1, 2. Hence the time of this epistle in the Acts. But the commentators allege other passages, and place the second Visit between the two mentioned by S. Luke. ( Thus Baronius, Michaelis, Anger, in his essay on the Chronology of the Acts, make the second visit a re turn to Corinth after an absence during the term of 18 months, mentioned Acts xviii. 11. Others, as Olshausen, Ruck- ert, Meyer, refer it to the two years' resi dence at Ephesus, Acts xix. 10. Lastly, Neander, Pfla. u. Leit. i. 329. makes it a passing visit, iv irapoSto, 1 Cor. xvi. 7, during the tour of visitations, Acts xviii. 23, which he thinks must have extended from Phrygia along the coast of the Me diterranean, and included a voyage into Greece.) The argument for this view may be stated thus : (1.) 2 Cor. xii. 13. 14, the apostle ob viously means, that as he had already twice resided at Corinth without burthen- ing the church, so neither will he bur then them now in this intended third sojourn : aiiTos iyea ov KaTevdpKtjtra vptav ...iSov TpWov tovto eToipoi-s exvi iXdeiv •jrpos ijp.as Kai ob KaTavapKi'jarco : where, if the meaning be, that he now for the third time announces his intention, we must supply, " and this time I will do as I say,'' which does not fit well into the context. (2.) ii;' 1. to pi) nrdXiv iv Xvirri -jrpos vpas iXBelv, implies that he had once al ready come to them in sorrow, i. c. in the exercise of a painful severity : for irdXiv, by its position, belongs to the entire clause ev Xuirjj iXdeTv. — So xii. 21. pi] irdXlv iXdovTOs pov Taieeiveoorei pe b 8ec(s pov, irdXiv is superfluous (for v. 20. we had pri irws iXdeiv without the ad verb) if it belong only to iXOovTos, and not to the whole clause : " lest a second time at my coming God humble me." But the first visit, described Acts xviii., was not sorrowful and humiliating ; these circumstances, therefore, bespeak a se cond visit which was so. (3.) Hence xiii. 1, though it admits, per se, of a different interpretation, may and should be understood thus, " I am now about to pay you a third visit," — " and then I will sit in judgment, hear evidence, and decide according to the testimony of two or three witnesses. I have told you before, and do tell you be fore, as I did when present the second time (at my second visit), so at this time in my absence. ..that if I come again I will not spare." Thus Meyer interprets, weakly enough. But Neander thus : " and as in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be establish ed, so what I now threaten for the second and third time shall be fulfilled. I have forewarned you [viz. during my second visit], and I forewarn you the second time (to SevTepov) as if I were present (aie wapav), although I am absent now (vvv, this last warning opposed to the former when he was present), that if I come again I will not spare (will not be so lenient as on the second visit)." But, to begin with the last of these passages : surely the several numerical statements, the TpWov tovto, Svo Kai Tpiwv papTvpwv, and to SevTepov, must all have the same reference. And so they have, if we interpret the passage in con nexion with the facts of the case. Name ly, the apostle thrice sent word, twice before this epistle was sent, that he was coming. First, he sent word from Ephe sus before the first epistle was sent, that he would take Corinth in his way to Ma cedonia, 2 Cor. i. 15-17, (where, by the bye, SevTepav x°-PiV shews conclusively that this would have been the second visit). How this first announcement was sent I need not stop to enquire, it is enough that it reached Corinth before the first epistle. Next, he saw good to change his original purpose, and an nounced by his first epistle that now (dpTi) he purposed not to take them in passing, but to terminate his tour by a longer sojourn at Corinth, 1 Cor. xvi. 5-7. Comp. iv. 17-19. And now for the third n a timi 132 CHRONOLOGY OP THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. ii. manifestly lies between the Pentecost and the winter of the time he announces by his second epistle from Macedonia that he will do as he had said in the former epistle. The empha sis of the enumeration here (xiii. 1), and xii. 14, is explained by the insinuation of his adversaries that he would not come, 1 Cor. iv. 17-19. This then is what he says : " I now announce to you for the third time, I am coming : in the mouth of two witnesses and of three shall every word be established : this third announce ment shall make all sure. I have fore warned and do forewarn you that if I come again, I will not spare : I have forewarned you [twice already, first when I first sent word that I was coming;] the second time in my former epistle when I addressed you, «!s irapuv, as though I had been present, and now being absent, I repeat the warning for the third time." But why does he thus describe the second warning ? plainly with reference to what he had said in the first epistle s "Some are puffed up, as though I would not come, but I will come speedily... shall I come with a rod, &c. : It is commonly reported that there is fornication among you.. ..and are ye puffed up, and have not rather mourned that the guilty person be removed from among you ? iy to pev yap dirtov ™ tno- paTi irapeov Se TtS irvevpaTi r)Srj KeKpixa '02 IIAPQN t&v ovtios k. t.\." 1 Cor. v. 3. This is completely paral lel to, and explanatory of, our passage, which thus interpreted has emphasis and rhetorical concinnity. The gram matical construction is, irpoelpwea Kai irpoXeyu, tos irapeov [irpoQXeyov] to Sev Tepov, Kai direov [irpoXeyto] vvv : the irpoeipyKa includes the first and second announcements, of which however he spe cifies only the second, andbecause that se cond came by letter at a time when he had promised to be with them in person, and his adversaries had put an evil construc tion upon his continued absence, there fore he now hints at what he had before said, viz. that his former injunction by letter had all the force of his personal presence : hence the antithesis here be tween -n-aptiiv and dirtiv, to which he re verts again at v. 10, TavTa direov ypdefyta 'tva irapeov pij it. t. X. As for the first argument, it is suffici ent, now, to observe that Tpirov tovto refers to the whole clause following, ex. exto iXQeev ir. v. Kai ov KaTavapKii&w : q.d. I have been with you once and did not burthen you, I am ready to come again and will not burthen you, and this I announce now for the third time : I said so in my first announcement, I said it in my former epistle, (ix. 15. fK). I now say it again." And for the second; we need not, with Theodoret, restrict the irdXiv in ii. 1. to iXdeiv alone, for of course it belongs to the whole clause ; nor, with Chrysos tom, interpret the former " sorrowful coming" to mean (absolutely) the former epistle ; the meaning is, I was at first, i. e. at my first message, minded to come to you direct from Ephesus, which would have been a sorrowful visit ; but I have determined not to do so again : the wdXev does not imply that he had come iv Xvttti, but that he must have come in grief if his first intention had taken effect. In the remaining passage irdXiv obviously belongs to iXQovTos, and is no more su perfluous there than els to irdXiv in xiii. 2. following after epxopai without the ad verb in v. 1. Since the hypothesis of three visits rests upon these passages, and has against it the silence of S. Luke and the obvious import of 2 Cor. i. 15, it is now suffici ently disproved. In j. previous note, it was argued that 1 Cor. v. 9, does- not necessarily imply a former epistle. In connexion with the present discus sion, I think it not unlikely that in point of fact iv Tp iiria-ToXrj does refer to a brief written communication in which the apostle announced the intention de- § 125.] WRITINGS OP THE APOSTLES. 133 year in which S. Paul left Ephesus, in our chronology a. d. 541. $ 125. Hence the vision or ecstasy mentioned, 2 Cor. xii. 2, according to the usual interpretation of that passage, i. e. if it speak of " a man in Christ, who, fourteen years ago, was caught up into heaven, &c." must be referred to a. d. 40, or 41, one of the years during which we have no explicit infor mation about S. Paul. But it seems to me, that this is neither the necessary, nor the true meaning of that passage. I render it thus2 : " / knew a person in Christ fourteen years ago ;" *'. e. a person who had been fourteen years in Christ, and then was caught up, &c. : that is, I refer the words irpo erwv SeKareaad pwv not to apirayevra, but to av9pwirov ev Xpiarw SC. bvra, or yev6,uevov. Then the expression dv9p. ev Xp. is emphatic, as much as to say, "no novice, to be puffed up, but an old disciple, one who had been in Christ many years." S. Paul, it seems to me, is here reciting the cardinal events of his history, those on which his apostleship to the Gentiles hinged, in much the same way as he does in Gal. i. ii. There he mentions, under that point of view, two visits to Jerusalem, the first after his escape from Damascus, the second St erwv SeKarrea- adpwv. Both occasions, we know from his own statement were rendered memorable to him by visions or revelations: scribed in 2 Cor. i. 15. fr". and gave them a brief hint concerning their duty, prj crv- vavapiyvvaOe iropvois. 1 From the expression viii. 10 ; ix. 2. dirb irepvtri, it has been inferred that S. Paul wrote after the beginning of a new year, therefore after 1 Tisri : for dirb nrepvcri does not mean " a year ago," but " last year" (im vorigen Jahre, Meyer) : "since ye have already made a begin ning, last year, not only to do (tlie thing, i.e. to make a collection for the saints), but to do it willingly:" and if he wrote this at any time before 1 Tisri (a.d. 54.) he speaks of a time anterior to 1 Tisri 53, seven or eight months before the First Epistle to the Corinthians. I do not per ceive the cogency of this argument : for the collection, although the first mention of it occurs at 1 Cor. xvi. 1. (passover, a.d. 54), may have been begun many months before. It is, however, in itself probable, that our epistle was written several months after the departure from Ephesus. 2 So, I perceive, Grotius explains it : hominem talem qui per annos 14 jam Christo serviat. The commentators who take the other interpretation, account for the mention of the time by considerations which seem far-fetched : e.g. S. Chry sostom, that S. Paul had held his peace about this memorable grace fourteen years, and would still have continued si lent, but that the adversaries constrained him " to glory." Bengel: that speaking of himself in the third person as of a stranger, he naturally mentions the time : nam longo tempore alius a se quisque factus videtur. 134 CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY. [cH. II. S. il. on the former occasion, the Lord appeared to him in the Temple, saying, "I wUl send thee far hence to the Gentiles" Acts xxii. 21 ; on the second, he went up kut diroKaXvyj/iv. Gal. ii. 1, 2. Here in 2 Cor. xi. he is speaking of "visions and revelations of the Lord :" he has just before spoken of his escape from Damascus, which is the first of the two conjunc tures on which he lays such stress in his argument with the Galatians : and immediately after, he speaks of a specific re velation in connexion with a note of time precisely similar to that by which he characterizes the second of those conjunc tures in the other epistle. Hence it seems probable, prima facie, that the time denoted by the phrase, irpo SeKar. er. in 2 Cor. xii. may be the same as that denoted by the phrase St er. SeKar. in Gal. ii. ; that the rapture or ecstasy of the man who had been in Christ fourteen years, refers to the same great event in S. Paul's history as is referred to in Gal. ii. 1 : " then, after 14 years, [viz. after his conversion] I went up to Je rusalem — Kar aTTOKetAi^ii'." And this inference is confirmed, to my mind, by an attentive consideration of the scope of the whole passage and its context. — Ei Kavyda9ai Sel rd rrjs da9evelas fiov Kavyrjaofxai, xi. 30. This is not the conclusion of the preceding recital, in which he has been comparing himself with his antagonists, generally, v. 21; as a Jew, 22; as a laborious minister of Christ, 23-29; for these particulars belong to the declaration of his roXnav, v. 21, which is the antithesis to da9evela. He says, I have as strong grounds of boldness as any man can have : but I waive these, and whereas these men who are so highly emboldened by a sense of their prerogatives disdain me as "weak," (koto aripilav Ae'ya) ws on rja9evrjica/xev 21.) i. e. as one who is conscious of a want of the like authority and prerogatives, I will boast of the things which pertain to my " weakness." This verse then, is introductory to what follows, i. e. to a recital rwv rrjs da9evelas, of the occasions, grounds or circumstances of that position and attitude of S. Paul in the church, which his opponents called da9eveia, especially how it came to pass, that he waived those prerogatives : comp. Phil. iii. 3-8. After solemn protestation of his veracity, he begins the recital calmly, as if he were about to deliver a detailed account of his commission to the apostolate of the Gentiles. That commission, we know, was first given in a vision which he had § 125.] WRITINGS OP THE APOSTLES. 135 at Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, immediately after his escape from Damascus. Accordingly, he relates the circumstances of his escape, as if he were about to give the whole history of his commission with the like circumstantiality of detail: e.g. in the words of Acts xxii. 17. "And when I was come to Jerusalem, as I was praying in the temple, I fell into an ecstasy and saw the Lord, who said to me, &c." But, whether carried away by the vehemence of his feelings, or per haps reflecting that they to whom he was writing, knew these passages of his personal history already, he presently breaks off from the tenor and tone of detailed narration, — breaks off, be it observed, at the very point where the next thing to be narrated was a vision and revelation, — and falls back into the tone of argument and remonstrance. Kavyda9ai Bel, ov av/ufpepov fiev, eXevao/mai Se Kal els dirraalas Kal airoKaXv^/eis Kvplov : q. d. You doubtless know what befel me in Jerusalem after that escape from Damascus : you cannot be ignorant of the memorable communications which thenceforth, on two distinct occasions, were made to me in the spirit by the Lord ? You compel me to glory, inexpedient though it be, and I must remind you of those visions and revelations, and apprise you how they were concerned in my " weakness" (as ye speak). You are aware then that there was once a man, who, when he had been fourteen years in Christ, was rapt out of the bodily consciousness even into the third heaven — a man, who in like manner was rapt into paradise, and heard unspeakable words 2 Ye know the matter of these communications, how that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and the grace therein given unto me that / should preach to the Gentiles, and the conse quence thereof to me, that those things which were gain to me I accounted loss, renouncing all former grounds of ' strength,' so making myself "weak"? — Such, it seems to me, is the general drift of the discourse, in respect of the antithesis between the rok/xdv and vfipis of the false teachers and the raireivdrr/s and so-called daQeveia of S. Paul. Apart from this, it might be more generally expressed in this way: he is stating the grounds of that assertion, x. 6. el' tis eavnp ireiroi9ev Xpiarov elvai, tovto irdXiv XoyiXea9w e

7, either because it was her proper name, or dird rrjs irepl rrjv dpertjv iXavdptjoTrais, Kai Soils oiKTjTijpiov atiTto Kappavlav, i^eirep^f/ev eK t^s Ba- ftvXaivias. TSafiovvriSos pev oZv t6 Xoiirbv tov xpovov Stayevopevos :iv eKeivri Ttj X"V>? KaTeerTpe\\ie tov fliov. (Both pas sages are quoted by Mr. Clinton, F. H. Vol. n. App. p. 304). This account is at variance not only with the Scriptures but with Xenophon, Cyrop. vii. 5. 1 32, who, like Daniel, makes the last king of Babylon to have perished in the siege. The account given by Berosus and Abydenus is a mere falsification of the facts, prompted by national vanity. On this subject I cannot do better than transcribe Mr. Clinton's critical remark. "Abydenus and Berosus could only compile from books. The value of the materials which would be in their hands we shall not estimate very highly, when we consider the character of those materials. In the great monarchies of Asia, Oriental history has seldom been faithfully delivered by the Orientals themselves. In the ancient times, before the Greek kingdoms of Asia diffused knowledge and information, it is not likely that history would be undertaken by private individuals. The habits of the people, and the form of their govern ments, precluded all free inquiry and any impartial investigation of the truth . The written history of past transactions would be contained in the archives of the state ; and these royal records drawn up under the direction of the reigning despot, would deliver just such a representation of facts as the government of the day thought fit to give; just so much of the truth as it suited their purpose to communicate." As a case in point, Mr. Clinton compares Ctesias's account of Assyrian history which was derived from the royal ar chives, with the truth of facts' as ascer tained from Herodotus and the Scrip tures. (Fast. Hell. ii. App. p. 307.) 5 178 180.] TIMES OP THE CAPTIVITY. 177 $ 178. To the same purport is the tradition recorded by iEschylus within sixty years of the times of which we. are writing, from which we may at least learn what was the current belief of well-informed Athenians in his age. XlrjoeK yctp y\v o -n-pajTO? nyefxeov o-tdoitov' aXXoi o" eKetvov -iraiV too' epyov ijvvcre, (bpeves ydp avTov 8vp.ov ola.KOna'i) "the ten* month, fifth day." LXX. cv Tio Se- 13 KaTto eTei, ivTio SuiSeKaTto pnvi. The true reading is, doubtless, " eleventh." Then the tidings reached Ezekiel five months after the catastrophe. 194 FROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. |_CH. III. S. 1. Sect. iv. Chap, xxxvii. 1—14. The resurrection of the dry bones of Israel. Sect. v. ibid. 15—28. The reunion of Ephraim and Ju dah under one king. Sect. vi. Chap, xxxviii. xxxix. The judgment of Gog (the last Antichrist?) Sect. vu. Chap, xl— xlviii. The vision of the new Temple and of the land of promise in the kingdom of Messiah.— This section is headed with a date, " in the 25th year of our cap tivity, in the beginning of the year, in the 10th day of the month, in the 14th year after that the city was smitten:" the time thus indicated is b.c. 574, 29th March. CHRONOLOGY OF DANIEL. § 184. The Book of Daniel falls into two parts, the first of which, chap, i — vi., consists of historical matter, arranged in chronological order : the second, chap, vii — xii., of four visions, likewise chronologically arranged. The first part extends from 606 to 537 b.c, the second from 555 to 534. Part I. Chap. i. 1. The 3rd year of Jehoiakim ended 1 Nisan b.c 606. It seems then, that the siege of Jerusalem began in this third year, i. e. before 1 Nisan b.c 606. Chap. ii. 1. See above $ 170 : the year is 603 b.c Chap. iii. The erection of the colossus of gold is placed by the LXX and Theodotion in the 18th year of Nebuchad nezzar : probably, because the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar accord ing to the Canon is 587 b.c, the year after the destruction of Jerusalem. As a conjecture, this is not unlikely. Chap. iv. is without a date : but the narrative clearly implies that Nebuchadnezzar's madness feU at the close of his reign. And with this agree the accounts of Berosus and Abydenus. The former (ap. Joseph, c. Apion.) says, No- fBovyoSovdaopos p-ev ovv /xerd rd dp%aa9ai rod irpoeipr]fxevov relyovs, ejuireawv els appwarlav, fierriXXd^aro rov jilov fie- j3aaiXevKws 'errj riaaapaKovra rpla. The latter (ap. Euseb. Prasp. Ev. ix. 41. and Chron. Armen. i. 59.), strangely con fusing together the historical fact recorded by Daniel and $ 184.] TIMES OF THE CAPTIVITY. 195 the insight into futurity which Nebuchadnezzar acquired from the communications of the Hebrew Seer, relates how, at the close of his conquests, Nebuchadnezzar, having ascended to the roof of his palace (dvajids rd jiaaiXrj'ia, comp. v. 29), under the influence of some unknown god, fell into an ecstasy, and prophesied concerning the Persian who should become master of Babylon, aided by the Mede in whom the Assyrians (i. e. Babylonians) now put their confidence. "And oh that ere that day come, he (the Mede) were driven to wander in the wilderness where are no cities, no track of the foot of man, where wild beasts feed, and birds roam, a lonely wanderer in rocks and dens : and may I, or ever I see this, meet with a better fate. — Having thus prophesied, immediately he disap peared." It is plain that in this prophetical imprecation which he puts into the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar, he ascribes to the Mede the frenzy which befel Nebuchadnezzar himself. The reign of Nebuchadnezzar lasted in all 43 years, and ended in one of the first three months of b.c 561 ($ 161). But he was in Egypt in or after b.c. 572. (§ 183.) Ezek. xxix. 17. The interval is at most eleven years, and this chapter of Daniel includes eight. Hence, for the date of Nebuchad nezzar's dream, we get about the year 570 b.c ; of his mad ness, 569 ; of Lis recovery, 562 b.c Chap. v. The date of the capture of Babylon lies after 24 December 539 (in the Canon) : if the festival during which Babylon was taken was the Sacea, held in the month Lous the date is July or August 538. Chap. vi. On Darius the Mede, see § 173 — 179. The time is 538-7. Part II. In chap. ii. the mystery of the four antichristian empires was revealed by Daniel in the interpretation of Ne buchadnezzar's dream. In chap. iii. the colossus on the plain of Dura symbolized that image : the three holy children ex hibit "the faith and patience of the saints" throughout the ages of the Church's endurance. In chap. iv. the madness of Nebuchadnezzar, " till seven times passed over him," has the same symbolical reference : which may also be traced in chap. v. vi. Thus the two parts of this book are closely connected, in virtue of their common reference to the same 13—2 196 FROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [cH. III. S. 1. great drama of Divine Providence. In the first, we have historical facts, deeply symbolical, designed for the encourage ment of the saints in all generations of their warfare; in the second part, that revelation of the future, of which an outline only was given in the former chapters, is filled up in detail. Chap. vii. The Vision of the Four Beasts, denoting the four powers of Antichrist. The time of the vision lies in the first year of Belshazzar or Nabonned, which began between 28 Dec. 556 and the same day of 555. Chap. viii. The Vision of the Ram and He-goat, relating proximately to the rise of the Grecian empire and its ter mination in the Syrian Antichrist, but blending with this the crisis of the B,oman judgment and of the last Antichrist. — Its date is 553—2 b.c Chap. ix. Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The first year of Darius began 538 b.c : the time of this vision lies therefore between that year and 536 b.c — Babylon was now taken: the long-promised Cyrus (Isai. xliv. 28.) was come ; the "seventy years" of desolation were welnigh spent. It had seemed as though the earlier seers had identified the deliver ance from Babel with Messiah's advent. Yet even in the previous revelations accorded to Daniel it was clearly implied that yet a long space of time must first run its course. From the perplexity which these thoughts might occasion, the Seer is now relieved by a further revelation, in which is set forth, in terms mysterious and hard to be understood before the event, the fact that a period of " seventy-times seven " was yet to be accomplished before Messiah's coming. Chap, x — xii. Vision of the "Scripture of Truth," de scribing in minute, detail the course of the Second, or Grecian Empire, which was the subject of the second vision, clrnp. viii. Here also, the Syrian crisis is blended with that of the fourth empire. The time of the vision is minutely described : it was the 24th of Nisan, in the 3rd year of Cyrus. Now there is no need whatever to suppose that the 3rd year of Cyrus bears date here as in the Canon. The occasion of Daniel's mourn ing and fasting, which began on the 3rd of Nisan, and ended on the 24th (9 — 30 April), it is not difficult to conjecture. He had expected, it may be, that the return of the chosen $ 184.] TIMES OF THE CAPTIVITY. 197 nation from captivity would be attended with more signa,! marks of the Divine favour than had in fact appeared. For when Cyrus issued the decree, great numbers of the captivity voluntarily remained in Babylon, shewing themselves careless of the predicted mercies. He was himself detained there, either by his advanced age, or by circumstances of which we are not informed. And this was doubtless a grief to the aged Seer, to which perhaps the Angel refers in those words of consolation : " thou shalt stand in thy lot in the end of the days." Even of those who did return, the greater part were deficient in faith and resolution, so that the building of God's House was delayed, eventually for nearly 20 years. The prospect was every way disappointing and disheartening. The sacerdotal families were mixed with strangers, the oracle of Urim and Thummim was wanting, and was never restored. (Ezra ii. 63. Neh. vii. 65.) As yet no prophet was raised up. The daily sacrifice was offered up in the midst of dangers, in the sight of scoffing and malignant adversaries. In the second year (535), the foundations of the Temple were laid ; but the work proceeded no further : " for the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them from building, and hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia." Ezra iv. 4. And we may observe, that the tidings of their machinations and of their result would be known to Daniel not long before the time which is noted in the beginning of this vision. Thus saddened and disappointed, he mourned and fasted. It was in the month Nisan, at the time of the passover. That great solemnity could not be duly celebrated out of Jerusalem, nor without a temple ; and therefore it is that the celebration of the first passover after the dedi cation of the new temple is so circumstantially described : Ezra vi. 19. Thus, the season of this great festival-memorial of the first Exode was turned for Daniel into a time of mourning. It is not without a purpose that the time of the vision is named: it reminds one of the joyful solemnity which ought at that time to have been proceeding. And here I venture to suggest, that the period of 3 weeks, or 21 days, during which Daniel mourned, and the Angel was withstood by the Prince of Persia, x. 13, may be a type of the period during 198 PROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [cH. III. S. 1. Which the powers of Persia stood opposed to the work of the Lord at Jerusalem. For the Temple was finished and the first passover celebrated, as we shall presently see, in the year 513, just twenty-one years after the date of the vision. CHRONOLOGY OF EZRA, ESTHER, AND NEHEMIAH, AND OF THE CONTEMPORARY PROPHETS. § 185. In the year 536 b.c Cyrus issued his decree for the return of the Jews, whosoever were willing, to Je rusalem. By the seventh month of the year, which began 24 September, "the children of Israel were in their cities, and the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem." The 24th September was a Monday: on the following sabbath, 29 Sept., the ritual of the daily service was established afresh. (§ 33, 34.) The daily sacrifice be gan 1 Tisri = 24 Sept. Ezra iii. 8. "In the second year of their coining unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month began Zerubbabel, &c. to set forward the work of the House of the Lord." The year is 535 b.c The building was frustrated all the days of Cyrus king of Persia. Ezra iv. 5. By the Canon, the first year of Cambyses bears date from Dec. 530 : i. e. the reign began 529 b.c Cyrus died 9 years after the conquest of Babylon, according to the Canon : with which Herodotus agrees, for he reckons 44 years to the ac cession of Xerxes, i. e. 485 b.c Cyrus had reigned in Persia 29 years, Herod, i. 214. Cambyses is called Ahasuerus, iv. 6. His reign, together with that of the impostor Smerdis the May os, who succeeded him, and reigned, according to He rodotus and Manetho, seven months, lasted 8 years, which the Canon assigns to Cambyses alone. Smerdis in Ezra iv. 7. is called Artaxerxes. $ 186. By the Canon, the reign of Darius bears date from Dec. 522, therefore began in 521 b.c With this the other accounts agree. Darius, it is well known (see Mr. Clin ton F.H. ii. 247. Phil. Mus. i. 387.), died 485 b.c. He had reigned 36 years (Herod, vii. 4. Manetho, and the Canon); his first year therefore began 521 b.c. Hence some chronologists make the 2nd of Darius (Ezra v. 24; vi. 1. Haggai. i. 1. J. 185, 186.] TIMES OF THE PERSIAN KINGS. 199 Zech. i. 1) = 520—519 b.c But it is almost certain that this cannot be the year intended. For it appears from Herodotus, that Darius did not at once obtain quiet possession of Babylon. That city revolted, and the siege, the preparations for which must have taken some time, lasted 20 months. Possibly there fore the Scripture epoch of the 1st of Darius may lie two years (or more) later than his epoch in the Canon. It was in the 2nd of Darius that "he made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls where the treasures were laid up at Babylon f Ezra vi. 1. Before this, Haggai and Zechariah began to prophesy, v. 1, the former in the 6th month of the 2nd year of Darius, i. 1 ; the latter in the 8th month. The foundation of the Temple was laid in the 9th month, 24th day, Haggai ii. 18, seemingly before the arrival of the rescript from Darius. At all events, the rescript seems to have been issued — and therefore the search among the rolls at Babylon must have been made — in the second year current of Darius. It is true, in Zech. vii. 1 ff. we find certain ambassadors of Darius present at Jerusalem in the 4th year of that king, and these may be supposed to have been the bearers of the rescript : and had we no other notes of time for our guidance, we might assume this latter date for the decree of Darius. But it seems to follow from Zech. i. 12, comp. vii. 5, that in the 2nd of Darius a certain period oi seventy years, reached its close: not the seventy years of Jeremiah, beginning at 606 b.c, but a period of the same extent measured from some other epoch. And this epoch could be no other than the burning of the Temple, in the 5th month of 588 b.c For the whole term is characterized in Zech. vii. 5, by the yearly observance of certain fasts ; " Ye fasted and mourned in the 5th and 7th months, even these seventy years? Both fasts related to events which occurred in the year 588, and not earlier, namely, the burning of the Temple in the 5th month and the murder of Gedaliah in the 7th, Jer. xii. 1. These 70 years, then, of Zechariah, bear date from the year of the burning of the Temple, or 588 b.c, and end 518 b.c And this view of the case illustrates the history. A period of 70 years had been foretold by Jeremiah, and expired in the 1st year of Cyrus b.c. 536. Then a beginning was made in the rebuilding of the Temple and of Jerusalem. But the 200 PROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [cH. III. S. 1. work was hindered yet several years. At last, in the second of Darius, without an order from that king, Zerubbabel and the elders, under the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, recommenced the work. Why at that time in particular? Because then the threatened 70 years of indignation had as suredly run their course. They seemed to have ended in the 1st of Cyrus, but the event had shewn that there was stUl a residue of the penal sabbatism. Hence it was natural that the reflecting believers should date the sabbatism, in one sense, from the epoch of the consummation of the judgment upon Jerusalem in the burning of the city and Temple: and, now that 70 years were completed, the faithful said, "The time is come ;" and though the people gainsaid, " The time is not come, the time that the Lord's House should be built," (Haggai i. 2) yet '¦'¦then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied, and then rose up Zerubbabel and Joshua and began to build the House of God." (Ezra v. 1) : began, without order or permission or revokement of the existing prohibitions, because, like Daniel, " they knew from the books" that the predestined term of indignation must certainly have expired. Accordingly, Haggai began to prophesy in the sixth month, the first day of the month, within 3 weeks after the anniver sary of the day of the destruction of the Temple. $ 187. Hence I believe, that on the 9th day of the 5th month in the 2nd year of Darius according to the Scripture reckoning, a period of 70 years from the day of the destruc tion of the Temple reached its close : that is, that this date in the 2nd of Darius coincides with the same date of the year 588-70 = 518 b.c And with this result agrees the statement already quoted from Herodotus. The rolls at Ba bylon were not accessible till full two years after the actual accession of Darius, for Babylon was besieged all the second (actual) year of that king. He began to reign at some time between 1 Jan. 521 and 1 Jan. 520 : he did not become master of Babylon, at the earliest, till about the corresponding date of 519, therefore 518 coincides in part with the 2nd of Darius reckoned from the conquest of Babylon, an event which to the Jews, by reason of their connexion with that city, where considerable numbers of the exiles still resided, would naturally constitute the epoch of the new reign. § 187 189-] TIMES OF THE PERSIAN KINGS. 201 § 188. As the 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th months of the Jewish year lie in the second year of Darius, it follows that the month-epoch of Darius lies between the 11th and 6th months; doubtless therefore it is 1 Nisan, viz. of the year 519 b. c Hence Haggai i. 1. 2 Darius, 6th month, 1st day = 4 August: on this day Haggai began to prophesy. On the 24th of the month = 27 Aug. Joshua and Zerubbabel began to take mea sures for the carrying on of the work. On the 21st of the 7th month = 23 Sept., Haggai prophesied a second time, ii. 1. On the 24th of the 9th month, ii. 10, i. e. 24 November, the foundations of the Temple were laid. Zechariah began to prophesy in the 8th month, which began 30 September. Chap. i. 7- 11th month, 24th day = 22 Jan. 517. — Chap. vii. 1. 4th year, 9th month, 4th day = 12 Nov.. 516. On the 3rd Adar in the 6th year of Darius = 16 February 513, the building of the second Temple was complete. CHRONOLOGV OF THE BOOK OF ESTHER. $ 189. It is almost universally admitted that the Aha- suerus ('Hhashwerosh = Khshershe of the cuneiform inscrip tions) is the Xerxes of Grecian history — Of this prince, the book of Esther mentions the 3rd, 7th and 12th years. His years bear date from the month Nisan, iii. 7. ff. By the Canon, 1 Xerxes began Dec. 486 b.c. i. e. in the course of 485, which is also the year deduced from Grecian history. If then the years of Xerxes are reckoned from 1 Nisan preceding the death of Darius, i. e. 485 b. c, the 3rd year begins 1 Nisan 483, and the 7th, 1 Nisan 479 b.c, there fore the month Tebeth ii. 16. (Dec. 479— Jan. 478) which is the year after the battle of Salamis (480 Autumn) and retreat of Xerxes from Greece. All this is perfectly con sistent with the history. In this view of the case, the great feast in chap. i. may have been connected with the preparations for the invasion of Greece. Perhaps, however, the reign of Xerxes may be dated from an earlier epoch. Xerxes was certainly raised to the throne before the death of Darius : for so Herodotus relates, vii. 2-4. 202 PROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [ell. III. S.I. that Darius, two years before his death direSc^e fiaaiXrja l\ep- ar\ai Sep^ea. In this view, the reign began Nisan 487 b. c, and the great feast (Esther i. 1) in the 3rd year = 485 b.c, will be .connected with the commencement of Xerxes s un divided sovereignty, and all the events down to the elevation of Esther in the 7th year (Dec. 481 or Jan. 480), wiU lie before the commencement of the invasion of Greece : which is, unquestionably, the most probable view of the facts. Then 1 Xerxes = 487 b. c. 3 =485 7 = 481 : Tebet = 19 Dec. - 19 Jan. 12 = 476 : 13 Nisan = 7 Apr. 13 Adar = 25 Feb. 475 b. c. ON THE EPOCH OF THE REIGN OF ARTAXERXES LONGI MANUS. $ 190. An exact determination of the Jewish epoch of this reign, is of great importance to the interpretation of Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. By the Canon, the nominal epoch is December 465. Yet it is certain that this is too late. For Ctesias, who collected the materials of his Per sian history during a residence of several years at the Persian court, within 20 years of the death of that monarch, gives him a Teign of 42 years. Now Artaxerxes died (this is certain from history, Thucyd. iv. 50,) in b.c 424 : his reign therefore must have begun in 466 b.c The Canon dates the reign of Darius II. from November 424, but this estimate includes the two short reigns of Xerxes II. and Sogdianus which amounted according to Ctesias to 8 or 9 months. (Manetho says 9, and so Diodorus's authorities.) In like manner the Canon takes no notice of the short reign of the usurper Artabanus (which Manetho gives as 7 months), but throws it into the reign of Xerxes I. And hence perhaps it is that the Canon places the 1st of Artaxerxes so late as Nov. 465. It was not easy, perhaps for its framers, to determine the exact historical truths amid the confusion occa sioned by the usurpation, nor was it their object to determine their dates with critical accuracy where their historical docu ments were confused : their purpose was gained if they could obtain an uninterrupted continuity of years reckoned from a given epoch, but they were not solicitous to determine whether y 190 192. J TIMES OF THE PERSIAN KINGS. 203 the united reigns of Xerxes and Artabanus amounted more nearly to 21 or to 20 years. Between the 1 Thoth of Xerxes and 1 Thoth of Darius II., their historical documents gave a clear interval of 62 years, and it mattered little to them whether the point of division were placed at 467 or 466, or at 465. § 191. But it is not only from the testimony of Ctesias, combined with the known year-date of the death of Artaxerxes, that we obtain the year 466 b.c as the first of his reign. We learn from Thucydides, i. 137, that Themistocles on his arrival in Asia found Artaxerxes newly seated on the throne, vewarl fiaaiXeuovra : and in the history of his flight we find him pass ing by Naxos at the time when the fleet of Athens was yet blockading that island. The year of the conquest of Naxos, according to Mr. Clinton, was b.c 466, which statement is adopted by Bishop Thirl wall, who says, " in the year of the con quest of Naxos b.c 466, the same in which Themistocles took refuge in Asia," Hist, of Greece, Vol. iii. p. 5. It is true, other accounts make Themistocles the suppliant of Xerxes (Ephorus, Dinon, Clitarchus, Heraclides, see Plut. Themist. c. 27). Charon of Lampsacus agrees with Thucydides, and this is the account which all the best historians prefer. 5 192. The years of Artaxerxes with which we are most concerned are, the 7th. in which Ezra came to Jerusalem, and the 20th in which Nehemiah obtained permission to rebuild the city. Ezra left Babylon on the 1st Nisan, in the 7th year of Ar taxerxes, and arrived at Jerusalem on the 5th day of the 5th month. As there are no other dates in Ezra, it does not ap pear from what month the years of this king bear date. But from Nehemiah i. 1, compared with ii. 1, it appears that Chisleu in the 20th year lies before Nisan of the same year. In Nehe miah's enumeration therefore, the years bear date from some epoch between Nisan and Chisleu, of course then, from 1 Tisri. B. c. Hence, the year of accession being 466 the 1st of Artaxerxes begins (1 Tisri) 466 7th 460 and Nisan and Ab of the 7th year lie in.... 459 Again, 20th of Artaxerxes begins (Tisri) 447 and Chisleu and Nisan of the 20th year lie in 447 and 446 b.c. respectively. The last date in Nehemiah is the 32nd of Arta? xerxes, which began 435 b.c Nehemiah xiii. 6. SECTION II. TIMES OF THE SYRO-GRECIAN KINGS, ESPECIALLY OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, AND OF THE MACCABEES. § 193. The interval between the close of the Canonical Scrip tures and the times described in the books of Maccabees is not of sufficient interest to be here examined in detail. But when we arrive at the times of the Maccabees, or more properly of the Second Empire, we are once more upon sacred ground, seeing that we possess an inspired outline of this period of the history, in that wonderful prophecy of Daniel which is called "the Scripture of Truth," chap. xi. xii. The historical accuracy of that outline was acknowledged of old by Porphyry, who com mented upon it, and urged that its very exactness proved it to have been written after the event. But the proof of the sceptical hypothesis is impracticable, for this, if for no other reason, viz. that there are circumstances of the prophetical de scription to which there is nothing correspondent in the facts of Syrian history, and which no forger of a pretended prediction would have admitted into his description. That sueh is the case does not surprise us who are aware that the seeming excess of the terms of such predictions above their fulfilment, results from the complex aim and structure of prophecy : but on the scep tical hypothesis it constitutes an inexplicable difficulty. For what Jewish forger of a prophecy would have vitiated the credi bility of his imposture by inserting such particulars in a history, the facts of which were notorious to those for whom he wrote ? The authenticity of Daniel's prophecy has been learnedly vindi cated from all the modern objections, by the pious and learned Hengstenberg, (Die Authentic des Daniel, 1831), and Havernick (Commentar uber das B. Daniel). And I hope the present Work will furnish manifold evidence of a different kind, to the Divine original of this wonderful portion of Holy Writ. At present, however, it concerns me only to remark that the In spired Narrative of Old Testament times does not terminate with Nehemiah. The next and most momentous crisis which was to befal the chosen people after the close of the Canon, was, by God's merciful providence, not only foretold in general terms, § 193 195.] TIMES OF THE GRECIAN KINGS. 205 but pourtrayed in the form of history, in every respect save those of tense, and names, and historical dates. " The Scripture of Truth" recited by the tongue of an Angel to the " man greatly beloved," has this peculiar distinction above all other prophecies : it is the only instance of a prediction cast into the genuine mould of historical narration. And the explanation of the phe nomenon may easily be conjectured. With Malachi, direct in spiration was to cease for many ages : therefore it pleased God to leave with the Church a history, beforehand, of that great crisis, which, above all others, foreshadows a time with which " the world that now is" wiU, we are assured, come to a close. My immediate concern, in this place, is to define the histo rical chronology1 of the times of which we have the anticipated history in the two last chapters of Daniel. I shall confine my remarks to such events as are noted in, or have a direct bearing upon, that prophecy. $ 194. The Second Empire took its rise from Alexander's conquest of Asia. Dan. viii. 21 ; xi. 3. Alexander ascended the throne of Macedon, Hecatombseon, B.c. 336 : crossed the Hellespont early in the spring of 334 : conquered at the Granicus in Thargelion of the same year : fought at Issus, Nov. 333 : took Tyre after a seven months' siege, July 332 : in the same year, took Gaza, and founded Alexandria in Egypt. In 331 he passed through Phoenicia to Thapsacus (July), and fought at Arbela, 1 Oct. In 330, July, Darius was slain. Here the direct connexion with Scripture prophecy may be supposed to cease. Alexander died in the year b.c 323: the day is known from the Journals (EcprjuepiSes) of Diodotus and Eumenes, (ap. Plutarch. Vit. 76) : it was the 28 Daesius, which Ideler (i. 407) identifies with the 11th June. § 195. We pass on to the time noted in Dan. xi. 6. " The king of the south" is Ptolemy Lagi, (323 — 285) : this king at first handled the Jews severely, he took Jerusalem by stratagem on a sabbath-day (Agatharchid. ap. Joseph. Ant. xii. 1) : Appian says he destroyed the waUs, Syr. c. 50. Afterwards, however, he became satisfied of the Jewish loyalty. The person who is said to be " one of his princes, and to be strong above - 1 acknowledge my obligations, once for all, to the Commentary of Havemick on Daniel xi. and to Mr. Clinton's Ap pendix on the Syrian and Egyptian Kings. 206 FROM the exile to the nativity. [ch. III. S. 11. him, and to have a great dominion," is Seleucus Nicator, who, originally one of Ptolemy's generals, and sent by him as viceroy to Babylon, effected his independence, made himself master of Syria, and founded the kingdom of the Seleucidse, b.c 312. He was slain in Jan. 280 b.c § 196. Dan. xi. 6. " In the end of years," &c. Here the prediction passes on to the third of the dynasty, Antiochus Theos (261 — 246). He married his half-sister Laodice : but Ptolemy Philadelphus, with whom he was at war, made peace with him on condition that he should repudiate her and her children in favour of Ptolemy's daughter Berenice. After Ptolemy's death, Antiochus rejected Berenice, and recalled Laodice, by whom, however, he was assassinated, and Berenice Ukewise with her chudren was put to death. ^ 197. " But out of a branch of her roots," &c, i\ 7, 8. This was Ptolemy Euergetes. brother of Berenice, and her avenger. He invaded Syria and carried off great plunder, recovered also from Persia the sacred spoil and images which Cambyses had taken. The power of Syria for a time was completely prostrate. The latter clause of r. 8 should, perhaps, be rendered (with Havernick), " he desists from the king of the North for (some) years." Ptolemaiu* cum Seleaco in annos decern pacem facit. Justin, xxvii. 2, 3. The peace was broken bv the Svrian king (Seleucus Calliniais), and the war was renewed. Euergetes how ever was obliged by domestic commotions to abandon hie con quests and return into Egypt. Sslruni.t Callinicus e. c. 246 — 22K. terminus 226—223. and Ptolemy Euergetes 247 — 222. The reign of Euergetes was of great importance to the Jews, whom he signally favoured, -Joseph, c. Apion. ii. -5 ; comp. Aut. xii. 4. He was also, as Strabo remarks xvii. p. "96, the last good king in this dynasty- Some have conjectured that this prophecy may have been shown by the priests to Ptolemy : a supposition which would account for the revolution which took place in his sentiments towards the Jews, and which is nowise improbable, but has the similar cases of Cyrus and Alexander in its favour. (Havernick it. s.) § 19S. " But his sons shall be stirred up," &e. c. 10. Seleucus Ceramms. eldest son of Seleucus Callinicus ascended the y- 196 199.] TIMES OF THE GRECIAN KINGS. 207 throne (Aug.) 226, and reigned about 3 years. He levied war against Egypt, but was cut off by assassination before he could accomplish his purpose. His brother Antiochus, surnamed tlie Great, succeeded him about Aug. 223. Of him it is said, v. 10, " One shall certainly come and overflow and pass through," i. e. invade Egypt. This was in the beginning of the summer of 218 b.c, when he engaged in war with Ptolemy Philopator for Coelesyria. (Clinton App. p. 315.). The last clause of the verse Havernick renders : "And he shall arm himself again, the second time, even to his fortress (shall he reach)." The first invasion, namely, ended in overtures of peace, which Antiochus pretended to accept. But in the spring of the following year, 217, he renewed the war, and came to the town of Raphia, a border-fortress of Ptolemy's dominions. Here, notwithstanding his immense forces, amounting to 62,000 foot, 6,000 horse, and 102 elephants, he was utterly routed, and with difficulty escaped with his life, v. 11. But though Ptolemy was thus successful, and "cast down many myriads," v. 12 (Polybius speaks of 10,300 slain, and 4,000 captives), yet he was "not strengthened by it." He did not pursue his advantage, but gave way "to his wonted indolence and evil habits of living." (Polyb.). Spoliasset regno Antiochum, si fortunam virtute juvisset. Contentus tamen recuperatione urbium quas amiserat — nodes in stupris, dies in conviviis consumsit, Justin, xxx. 1. (Havernick u.s.) Hence Antiochus was able to recover his losses. He pursued his con quests in the East with triumphant success, and on the death of Ptolemy Philopator in 205 b.c, conspired with Philip to dis member his kingdom (Clinton p. 316) : in 198 he defeated Scopas and the forces of Ptolemy Epiphanes, and reduced all Coelesyria. § 199. The reign of Antiochus includes an important crisis of Jewish history, which is described in v. 14. " In those times shall many stand up against the king of the south : also the robbers of thy people shaU exalt themselves to establish the vision, but they shall fall." Until this conjuncture, the Jews had remained faithful to the throne of Egypt, but now, seduced by the rising power of Antiochus, they treacherously deserted their aUegiance, and so fell under the power of Syria. And this pro cedure the prophecy censures in severe terms : these men are " sons of the violent, or lawless, of the people." Their not only 208 FROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [CH. Ill . S. 11. submitting to Antiochus, but providing his army with suste nance, and assisting in the expulsion of the Egyptian garrison from Mount Zion, (Ant. xii. 3. 3) are, as the Angel describes the matter, a working of the mystery of lawlessness, wherein they were unwittingly bringing about the fulfilment of the Scrip tures, and opening a way for the threatened judgment of which the Syrian Antichrist was to be the instrument'. § 200. Verses 15, 16, describe the further proceedings of Antiochus against Egypt. " The king of the north shall come and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities," viz. Sidon, into which Scopas with 10,000 men had cast himself: this in 198 b.c. Antiochus took Sidon and aU the other fortified cities as far as Gaza. It was in this year that the Jews revolted from Egypt to Syria. Verse 17. This difficult verse is thus weU explained by Havernick. " He wUl set his face to come into the strength, (i. e. to weaken the power) of his (the Egyptian) whole king dom, and covenants (reconciliation, or overtures) with him, (comp. v. 6. Hebr. and LXX.). And he will effect (his pur pose,) and he will betroth in marriage to him (the young Ptolemy Epiphanes) the daughter of women (his young daughter Cleopatra), corrupting her, but she shall not stand (abide) for him, nor be for him" (for his advantage in the end). The facts are as follows : — At the end of the Second Punic War, the Romans were invested with the guardianship of the infant king Ptolemy Epiphanes. Hence it became a matter of much anxiety with Antiochus to maintain his conquests against. this formidable power, especially as the Romans had required him by their ambassadors to desist from all attempts upon the possessions of Egypt. Antiochus had recourse to a policy which should alienate Egypt from its new alliance. He made it his aim to " come into the whole strength" of Egypt, to bring about its overthrow, by subverting the friendly relation which 1 Havernick justly remarks that the ethical view of this transaction which is taken in this prophecy, is one strong token of its genuineness and divine au thority. For such was not the light in which the transaction was regarded in times little later than the Maccabean. The LXX. seem unable to sympathise in, or to comprehend, the censure : — they alter the text, and make out quite a dif ferent sense. Josephus relates it without a word of disapprobation, but rather with a kind of satisfaction. § 200 202. J TIMES OF THE GRECIAN KINGS. 209 now subsisted between Egypt and Rome. Hence his overtures (W~W*)---9epairevwv r)Sr] rd fieipaKiov wa ev roj iroXe/j-w rw irpds Pwfxalovs arpefxr). Appian. Syr. c. 5. And he carried his point for the time, so far, namely, that Cleopatra was actu ally betrothed to Epiphanes, with Coelesyria as her dowry. In v. 18, "the isles" or "coasts" mean Rhodes, Samos, Colophon, Phocsea, and other islands which were taken by Antiochus. This drew upon him the vengeance of Rome. Scipio, in the battle of Magnesia, in the autumn of 190 b. c, "made his reproach, (i.e. his insolence) to cease," "besides turning, it upon him," i. e. putting him to utter shame, as he had boasted that he would put the Romans. Antiochus by his whole demeanour in this engagement brought himself into general contempt. Verse 19. " He shaU turn his face toward the fort or strongholds of his own land," &c. Antiochus, to repair his finances exhausted by the war and the ruinous peace with Rome, levied supplies from his subjects, under military terror, for he set garrisons throughout his land. Attempting to plun der the temple of Belus in Elymais, he was slain, with his followers, in a popular insurrection, about Oct. b.c 187. y- 201. Verse 20. Seleucus Philopator, son and successor of Antiochus M., is the "raiser of taxes" here spoken of. In the first nine years of his reign he paid to Rome an annual tribute of 1000 talents. Henee the unsparing exactions which he made upon his subjects, and his attempt even to despoil " the glory of his kingdom," i. e. the Temple at Jerusalem. The fact that he did attempt to strip the Temple, and that the attempt failed in some remarkable way, is attested by Polybius in Joseph. Ant. xii. 3. 3. In 2 Mace. iii. the story appears with miraculous circumstances. Are we to reject them only because they are miraculous ? This king lost his life, " neither in anger, nor in battle," but by a conspiracy, in which the principal aetor was the HeUo- dorus of the story just mentioned. Appian. Syr. c. 45. We are now arrived at the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the subject of the remainder of the chapter. § 202. The accession of this king is dated M. Sel. 137 in 1 Mace. i. 10, which means the year between Nisan 176 and Nisan 175 b.c The description of the manner of his accession, 14 210 FROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [cH. III. S. 11. (" To whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom, but he shall come in peaceably with flatteries,") does not cor respond to the circumstances of Antiochus, and certainly it is not that kind of description which would have been written after the event. Doubtless its true significance lies beyond the times of this persecutor. The same remark applies to v. 22, 23, 26, 27, and to several incidents in the following verses. § 203. Antiochus's first expedition into Egypt seems to have occurred in 171 b.c, for in 2 Mace. v. 1 we read of a second expedition in 170 b.c In the first, the generals of Ptolemy were defeated in an engagement between Pelusium and Mount Casius. S. Jerom. in I. Of the second, Porphyry says, after Suctorius, Porro Antiochus parcens puero et amicitias simulans ascendit Memphin, et ibi ex more Mgypti regnum acci- piens puerique rebus se providere dicens cum modico populo omnem JEgyptum subjugavit sibi. On his return he took Jerusalem, plundered the Temple, and ordered a general massacre, in which 80,000 are said to have perished. 2 Mace. v. A third expedition took place in 169 b.c, the particulars of which may be gathered from Livy, xliv. 19. y- 204. In 168, primo vere, Antiochus set out on his fourth expedition. Liv. xiv. 11, 12. The famous embassy of PopUlius, which put a bar to all further attempts against Egypt, left Rome in Nov. or Dec. 169, was detained several months at Delos, and set forward thence to Egypt after intelligence of the battle of Pydna, which was fought 22 June 168. Hence Antiochus's. departure from Egypt cannot be placed earlier than July or August of that year. Soon after his return, he gave orders for the persecution of the Jews. On the 25th Cisleu = 25 Nov., the Temple was desecrated. It lay desolate precisely 3 years, and was purified 25th Cisleu = 22 Nov. b.c 165. $ 205. Antiochus died rj/mepas irXelovs after the tidings of the Maccabean successes, and especially of the restoration of the Temple-worship, had reached him in Persia on his retreat from Elymais to Babylon. The year is JE. Sel. 149, i. e. Nisan 164 — Nisan 163 b.c He had reigned 12 years, but not com plete, Appian. Syr. 66. But his accession took place b.c 176-5, his death therefore in b.c. 164—3. This brief account of leading. dates, will furnish a clue to the chronology of the earlier chapters of the First and Second Books ^ 203 206.] TIMES OP THE GRECIAN KINGS. 211 of Maccabees. It wiU be seen in a subsequent chapter for what purpose I have given this summary. For the same purpose, I must add the following dates : — § 206. In the year 150 M. Sel. = Jewish year 163-2 b.c, Antiochus Eupator besieged Jerusalem. The siege lasted into a sabbatical year. It ended in a treaty by which Antiochus agreed to leave the Jews in the unmolested enjoyment of their religion. The documents are given 2 Mace. xi. Their dates, 24 Dioscorus, 25 Xanthicus, M, Sel. 148, will be found explained in the " Institutes of Chronology." The year is 162 b.c In the following Jewish year, (M. Sel. 151, b.c 162 - 1), Demetrius ascended the throne. Judas Maccabseus gained that signal victory over Nicanor, the general of the new king, with which the writer of the Second Book of Maccabees brings his narrative to a close. The day was 13 Adar, " being the day before the day of Mordecai," i.e. 5 March b.c 161. 1 Mace. vii. 48 ; 2 Mace. xv. 36 ; Joseph, xii. 10. 5. 14 — 2 APPENDIX. ON THE DATES OF THE CAPTURE OF THE TEMPLE BY POMPEY, AND AFTERWARD BY HEROD. § 207. Josephus notes it as a singular " fatality" that the Temple was taken on the same day, first by Pompey, and precisely 27 years later by Herod and Sosius, namely, rrj eoprrj rrjs vr/oreias, Ant. xiv. 16. 4. The latter event, he says, befel in the consulate of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus, i.e. b.c 37: therefore the former must be referred to b.c 64. Yet Ant. xiv. 4. 3. he refers it to the year of the consulate of Antony and Cicero, i. e. to the year b.c 63. — Again, Dion Cassius refers, or seems to refer, the capture by Herod to the consulate of Claudius and Norbanus, i. e. to the year 38 b. c. $ 208. To begin with the latter event. A solemnity designated simply as r] eoprr] rrjs vijareias can denote only the great Day of Atonement, or 10th Tisri, which in 37 b.c fell on the 4th Oct., and which in any year must lie somewhere between the middle of September and the middle of October. The established calendar-language of the Jews will not allow us to suppose any other fast than this to be intended. Therefore in respect of the years 38, 37 b.c, when the Julian calendar was settled, we cannot have recourse to the hypothesis of a day lying between two consular years, towards the end of one and the beginning of another, i. e. very late in December, or very early in January. If Dion says that the year was that of Claudius and Norbanus, either he or Josephus must be in error. It is not likely that Josephus should be mistaken about so important an event, especially as he derived the materials for this part of his history from the commentaries of Nicolaus the Damascene, Herod's freedman and confidential minister. On the other hand, we should hesitate to charge the mistake upon Dion, if he had noted this event in its regular place and under its proper year ; $207, 208.] capture op the temple, b.c 64 and 37. 213 for Dion's authority is that of the Roman contemporary annals. It will be found however, that Dion's relation occurs in a summary of Antony's proceedings in the East during several years, upon which he enters under the year 718 u.c. Coss. Gellio et Nerva, = b.c 36. In substance it is as follows. " Sosius, left in command of Cilicia and Syria by Antony, conquered Antigonus in a pitched battle. Antigonus fled to Jerusalem, and Sosius besieged him there. The city was again taken (i. e. as by Pompey) on the day of Saturn. An tony gave the kingdom to Herod, and put Antigonus to death : eirl fiev Srj rod re KXavSiov rod re Nopfiavov rov9' ovrws eyeverof — This may be a careless expression, implying, not that the siege occurred, but that Sosius was put in command, or defeated Antigonus in the field, in the year b.c. 38. Or, Dion may inadvertently in this summary relation have thrown into one year the events of two However, he proceeds thus : " In the following year nothing worthy of mention was done by the Romans in Syria, for Antony wasted the whole year in a journey to Italy and back, and Sosius kept himself quiet that he might not excite Antony's jealousy." Hence it appears that soon after the settlement of Jewish affairs by Antony, the latter went into Italy. But this journey was made, as Dion himself shews, at the close of the year 37 b. c Coss. Agrippa et Gallo, or at the beginning of 36 b.c Coss. Gellio et Nerva. xlviii. 54. If Jerusalem was taken in Oct. 38, what becomes of the whole year 37 b.c? Hence Dion cannot mean to say that the city was taken in the year 38. — Besides, it is admitted that the years of Herod's reign bear date from 37 b.c, but why from that year, if it was the year not of but after the extinction of the Asamonsean line by the execution of Antigonus? And again, if the year was 38 b. c, how could Josephus, in a mat ter of such moment, have been betrayed into the gross blunder of supposing an interval of 27 years between the two captures, since between 64 and 38 b.c are but 26? And lastly: Dion's remark, that the city was taken on the day of Saturn, by which we need not suppose him to mean (in his ignorance) the sabbath extraordinary of a solemnity, agrees very well with the year 37, dom. let. F. G^ in which the 10th Tisri = (by calculation) 4 Oct. Friday, included 18 hours of the 6th (Jewish) day and 6 hours of the sabbath, but does not agree 214 FROM the exile to the nativity. [ch. III. app. with the year 38, in which 10 Tisri = 16 Sept. fell on a Wed nesday. What Josephus says, xiv. 15.14., " Winter ended, Herod approached Jerusalem, and this was the 3rd year from his ap pointment by the Romans," agrees as well with the year 37 as with the year 38. For Herod's appointment was made in the summer of b.c 40 : the 3rd year therefore was yet current in the spring of b. c. 37, at the time when he advanced to the siege of Jerusalem. $ 209. This question being settled, we may proceed to the other, concerning the year of the capture of the city by Pompey. According to Josephus, the year should be 64 b.c, the day 4 Oct., for in this year also the 10th Tisri fell on that day of the (anticipated) Julian calendar. And here, also, Dion is perfectly right in saying that the city was taken on a Satur day, if Josephus is right in placing it to the year 64 b. c. and to the 10th Tisri. For in b.c 64 (dom. let. E.), the 4th Oct. was Saturday1- That Dion does not confound "the day of Saturn" with the sabbath extraordinary of the 10th Tisri, may be inferred from the details of the history, where it is stated that Pompey, throughout the siege, availed himself of the known dpyia of the Jews on the seventh day, to execute his operations, unmolested, on that day as it came round. $ 210. But if the year was 64 b.c, how came Josephus to assign it to the consulate of Cicero, which began on the nominal 1 Jan. of 63 b. c. ? The difficulty is set aside if it can be shown, that the nominal calends of January in Cicero's consulship may have fallen some time in the previous October of the anticipated Julian calendar. This is the view taken by the earlier chronologists generally. Thus Scaliger says, that the cal. Jan. of Cicero's consulship fell either on the 13th or the 23rd of October b.c 64, according as the preceding year was a common or an intercalated year. In support of this opinion, Cicero's poetical history of his consulship is ap pealed to : in the second book of which, and therefore in the earlier part of his consulship, he speaks of an eclipse of the moon, about the time of the feries Latinm, and when Mons Albanus was covered with snow (nivalis). 1 But in 68 n. c. the 10th Tisri fell 22 Sept., which was a Tuesday. $ 209 211.] CAPTURE OF THE TEMPLE, B.C. 64 AND 37. 215 Quod ferme dirum in tempus cecidere Latinee Cum claram speciem concreto lumine Luna Abdidit, et subito stellanti node perempta ests- This eclipse is supposed to have been the partial one of 7 Nov. 64 b.c There was another, a total eclipse, 12 May 63 b.c, but at that time of year the Mons Albanus would not be nivalis. § 211. De la Nauze, however, maintains against the elder chronologists, that cal. Jan. 691 u.c. coincided with (JuUan) 14 Mar. 63 b.c Mr. Clinton thinks the calendar-reckoning in that year was not much out. Both appeal to Cic. Cat. 2. 10. CatiUne and the conspirators laid their plans node quai consecuta est posterum diem Nonarum Novembr. i. e. in the night between 7-8 Nov. Cic. pro Sulla 18. On the 9th Nov. Cicero delivered this second oration against Catiline, in which, I. /., occurs the following passage : Veruntamen quid sibi isti miseri volunt ? num suas secum mulierculas sunt in castra ducturi? quemad- modum autem illis car ere poterunt, his prsesertim jam noctibus ? quo autem pacto illi Apenninum atque illas pruinas ac nives per- ferent ? Which, it is urged, but ill agrees with the supposition that the (nominal) 9th Nov. fell at the (Julian) 22iid-31st of August. — Yet it is not irreconcilable with that supposition, for the war might well be expected to last into the winter, as in fact it did. Cicero's meaning may be, that the summer was now far spent, the long nights coming on3, and that a campaign in the Apennines beginning so late in the year as the end of August was a formidable undertaking. According to Dion, xxxvii. 39, Catiline was defeated in the beginning of the next consular year, Coss. Silano et Licinio, therefore not long after 1 Nov. according to Scaliger, but according to Mr. Clinton in February, according to de la Nauze in the end of March or beginning of April. But Cicero, pro Sextw 5, says, Si M. Petreii non exceilens animo et amore reipub. virtus, non summa auctoritas apud milites...fuisset, datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus, neque unquam Catilina quum e pruina Apennini atque e nivibus illis emersisset, atque nestatem integram nactus 2 The fragment occurs de Divin. 1. 11. " Observe the particle jam: his prae- sertim jam noctibus : " especially of nights so long as the nights already are ;" or, "now that the nights are beginning to get longer and longer." 216 PROM THE EXILE TO THE NATIVITY. [cH. III. APP- Italice calles et pastorum stabula cepisset, sine multo sanguine ac sine totius Italice vastitate miserrima concidisset. I do not see that we are obliged to infer from this passage, that the decisive engagement took place either in the dead of winter or in the spring. What Cicero says in praise of Petreius seems to be this : that " at a time of year when a less active general would have shrunk from a campaign in the Apennines, or a less popular and commanding officer would not have been able to induce the soldiery to enter upon such a service, Petreius did not allow the prospect of the difficulties to damp his patriotic zeal : whereas, if, on account of the winter, he had hung back, if, consequently Catiline had been left undisturbed to make himself master of the passes of the country and the provisions of the farms, and to emerge from the Apennines in the spring with the whole summer before him, the war would have become a long and bloody one." Thus understood — and the words express no more than this — the passage accords with Scaliger's view quite as well as it does with Mr. Clinton's ; but it lies against that of de la Nauze, and it is surprising that Ideler should appeal to it in support of that view : for if the new year began so late as the middle of March, there would have been no room for such commendation. — Thus far then, there is nothing that can be called decisive against the opinion of the old chronologists. $ 212. Another element of the question is, the death of Mithridates. This event is noticed by Cicero in his oration for Muraena, which was delivered between v. id. Nov. and iv. id. Dec. in the year of his consulship. Now the intelligence of this event reached Pompey at Jericho just before he went up to the siege of Jerusalem, which siege, it is evident, did not last many weeks. If the date of the capture be that of Mr. Clinton, December b. c 63, it is, of course, quite possible that the same intelligence may have reached Rome by the end of November 63, and would therefore be quite fresh when Cicero pleaded for Mursena. But the words of Dion seem ra ther to imply that the war with Mithridates was extinct by the death of the king, by the time that Cicero entered upon his consulship : virarevaavros ore M.t9piSarr]s ovSev en Seivdv rovs Pwuaiovs elpyaaaro aWa Kal avros eavrov Sied)9etpev, eireyeiptjaev d KariXivas, &c. : "Cicero having become consul y- 212. ]: CAPTURE Of THB TEMPLE, B.C 64 AND 37. 217 (not virarevovros, being consul) at a time when, &c." They will agree, however, with the other view, and 'so leave it un certain whether the siege and capture of Jerusalem belong to the beginning or to the end of Cicero's consulship. Thus much, however, may be gathered from the order of events both in Dion and in the epitome of Livy, Lib. cii., that the capture of Jerusalem preceded the out-break of Catiline's conspiracy. The order in both is : 1. the death of Mithridates : 2. the capture of Jerusalem: 3. Catiline's conspiracy. But, if Jerusalem was taken in Dec. 63, the out-break of Catiline's conspiracy was earlier, not later. Again : Mr. Clinton gathers from Dion, xxxvii. 6, 7, that, between the spring of the consular year 690 b.c and the death of Mithridates, a whole year intervened. " b. c 64. In the spring of this year Pompey is in Syria : ev rip r]pi ev w Aovkios re Kataap Kai Ya'ios i>iyovXos virarevov...'Tiypavov rov YIou- irrfiov ev IZvplq uvra eiriKaXeaafievov : c. 7 — where he winters, T\unirrji() see p. 185, note,) from supposing the 39th year, 234 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXILE. [CH. 228. B.C. M. R. Judah. Israel. 955 23 4 Asa 1-2 Baasha. 944 34 15 ... 12-13 934 44 933 45 22-23 23-24 B. = 1 Elah. 932 46 27 ... 1-2 Elah = l Zimri. = 1 Omri, } Tibni > 931 47 28 ... 1-2 Omri and Tibni. 928 50 31 ... 4 5 , 1 Omri sole 927 51 32 ... 5-6 Omri (1-2). 926 52 33 ... 6 7 2-3 921 57 38 ... jl 1-12 (7 8) — 1 Ahab. 920 58 39 .. 1 2 918 60 41 ... 3 4 917 61 1 Jehoshaphat 4 5 916 62 2 5 6 915 63 3 6-7 War between Asa and Baasha. Zerah the Ethiopian invades Ju dah, and is miraculously discom fited. The great reformation in Asa's 15th year (3d month) fol lowed by ten years of rest and prosperity. Baasha in the 26th of Asa [and last year of his own reign] re commences open hostilities by fortifying Ramah. Asa, by a league with Ben-hadad, diverts him from his purpose. The Sy rians invade Israel and make conquests. Baasha dies, after a reign of 24 y. [current], and is succeeded by Elah, in 26 Asa, who reigns 2 y. [current] 1 K. xvi. 8. and in 27 Asa is slain by Zimri, who exterminates all the House of Baasha, but reigns only 7 days, xvi. 15. Omri and Tibni, rival kings, xvi. 21. till 31 Asa when Tibni dies, and Omri reigns over all Israel. Omri reigned 6 years in Tirzah, 1 K. xvi. 23. (932-926). Then founded Samaria, ib. Reigned 12 y. [current] in all, ib. Ahab succ. 38 Asa, v. 29. Asa diseased in his feet, 2 Ch. xvi . 12, and died after a reign of 41 y . 1 K. xv. 9. Jehoshaphat succ. 4 Ahab, xxii. 42. Jehoshaphat sends Levites to teach Judah the Law, 1 Ch. xvii. 7-9, moved perhaps by the apostasy of Israel to Baalism, which may have begun at this time, 1 Ki. year, v. 12, to be very near. — Movers finds a further difficulty in c. 7, where he thinks for " king of Syria," we must read "king of Israel," because the pas sage as it stands makes nonsense. By no means. " God would have overthrown the Syrians as he did the Ethiopians, if they had continued their league with Baasha and come to his assistance against Asa. But now, the Syrians were reserved to be a scourge to his family." Bp. Pa trick in I. $228.] THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. 231 B.C. jE.B. Judah. 902 76 16 Jehoshaphat 19-20 Ahab. 899 898 7980 19 20 22 A.-l Ahaziah. 1-2 Ahaziah. 897 81 21 2 A.-Uoram s. Ahab. xvi. 31-33. Elijah the Tishbite, 1 K. xvii. ff. At the end of 3 years the national worship is restored. Ben-hadad besieges Samaria and is defeated. Ahab spares him. 1 K. xx, (3 years before Ahab's last year, xxii. 1.) Naboth the Jezreelite, xxi. Ahab slain at Ramoth-Gilead, xxii, after a reign of 22 y. [com plete], xvi. 29. Ahaziah suc ceeds and reigns 2 y. [complete]. Jehoshaphat, reproved by Jehu s. of Hanani, again reforms Ju dah, 2 Ch. xix. Confederacy of Moab, Ammon and other tribes againstJehoshaphat. Miraculous overthrow, 2 Ch. xx. Elijah : fire from heaven, 2 K. i. Jo ram s. of Ahab, succ. Ascen sion of Elijah, 2 K. ii. Moab rebels, and is defeated, ib. iii ', by the conjoint forces of Israel, Ju dah, and Edom. The King of Moab raises the siege by sacri ficing the son of the king of E- dom, ib. (comp. Amos ii. 1.) 1 " It is scarcely to be doubted," says Gesenius, Commentar. uber Jesai, xv. p. 502, note, " that 2 Kings iii. and 2 Chron. xx. relate to the same incident." Then he points out the glaring discre pancies between the two accounts, with the view of making it appear that the narrative in the Chronicles is thoroughly unhistorical, a version of the story re lated in 2 Kings iii, conceived quite in the spirit of the priesthood, and designed for the glory of the pious king Jehp- shaphat. The discrepancies indeed are glaring enough, as well they may be, since the two occurrences are perfectly distinct. Besides, as Movers has ably shown, the reality of the story in 2 Chron. xx. is attested by Psal. xlviii, which cannot relate (as Gesenius and Ewald pretend) to the times of Hezekiah, and which does admirably accord in all its parts with the story as here related. (I regret that my space does not allow me to transcribe this part of Movers's argu ment.) Further, this miraculous victory is alluded to by the prophet Joel, iv. 1 ; for, where he speaks of all nations ga thered together "in the valley of Jeho shaphat," he undoubtedly alludes to this overthrow of Judah's enemies as a kind of type of that future scene which he predicts. " The Lord will gather toge ther the heathen to a great battle in the valley of Jehoshaphat {the scene of Je- hoshaphat's victory) as though they would destroy the Holy City : but the very name of this battle-field, Jehosha phat, "Jehovah judgeth!" is not only a memorial of that great and prosperous king, but an omen of the judgment of the Lord, &c." Ewald, Propheten, i. 80. Lastly, even in 2 Kings iii., there is a circumstance which requires explanation, and finds it in the story of 2 Chron. xx. The 236 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXILE. [CH. IV. B.C. .-K. R. Judah. Israel. 896 82 22 Jehoshaphat 1-2 Joram s. A. 893 85 25 4-5 892 86 1 Joram s. J. 5-6 The Moabites, deceived by the appear ance of the water, said, " This is blood, the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another; now therefore, Moab, to the spoil !" Was it so ordi nary an occurrence for confederate armies to fall to slaughter each other, that the Moabites should jump to this conclusion at once ? Surely there must have hap pened something of this kind to suggest the thought. And so it was. The Mo abites recollected what had happened to themselves and the Ammonites and Edomites but a few years before, when, being confederate against Jehoshaphat, "the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them ; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another." 2 Chron. xx. 23. It may be further remarked, that this story serves also to account for the circumstance that the king of Edom is confederate with Judah and Israel against Moab, in 2 Kings iii. He was glad of an opportunity of avenging the slaughter of " the inhabitants of mount Seir." 1 That such a letter should have been written by Elijah before his death, is no wise surprising if Elijah was indeed an inspired man of God. This circumstance, Elisha's miracles; 2 Kin. iv. v. Ben-hadad besieges Samaria : the famine, the plenty; vi.vii. Seven years of famine begins ; viii. Joram s. J. succ, son-in-law of Ahab, an idolater. In Israel, 7 years of famine continue, 2 Kin. viii. After which, Elisha is at Damascus, ib. Hazael murders Ben-hadad. In Judah, Joram, s. J. slays all his brethren, 2 C". xxi. 4. Edom and Libnah re volt, 2 K. viii. 20. He receives a writing from Elijah the pro phet1, 2 C. xxi. Philistines9 and Ethiopian Arabs take Jerusalem, and take captive Joram's wives noted only in the Chronicles, intimately accords with the account in the Book of Kings of the commission given to Elijah in that most solemn hour when he stood before God in Horeb : " Anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu to be king over Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in thy room," 1 Kings xix. 15. The crisis of judgment to which that commission point ed was now at hand, and the king of Judah, partaker and heir of Ahab's sin, was to share in the punishment. One year witnessed the horrible death of Jo ram son of Jehoshaphat by the hand of the Lord, and of his successor Ahaziah and Joram son of Ahab, by the hand of Jehu. Thus in the Book of Kings, the ministry of Elijah reaches its goal, after his ascension, in the judgment delegated to Hazael and Jehu : in the Book of Chronicles, containing the history of Ju dah only, the same ministry appears in connexion with the same crisis in the person of the apostate son of Jehosha phat. 2 This invasion is alluded to in Joel iv. 5. " And what are ye also to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia f ... who have taken my silver and gold, and have brought into your temples all my choicest treasures, and have sold the children of Judah and Je rusalem to the sons of Javan !" § 228. J THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. 237 B.C. M. R. Judah. 885 ,93 8J. = lAhaziah 12 J-l Jehu. -884 94 Usurpation, 6 y. 1-2 Jehn. and sons except Jehoahaz = Aha ziah. Joram of Judah dies of an horrible disease, ib. Jehu rebels against Joram s. of Ahab and kills him. Ahaziah, being on a visit to Joram at Jez reel, is slain by Jehu3. On the death of Ahaziah, Athaliah destroyed all the seed royal ex cept Joash, who was secreted by his aunt Jehosheba. Athaliah's usurpation lasted 6 years. Hazael oppresses Israel, x. 32. 3 In the Kings, Ahaziah endeavouring ¦to escape from Jezreel is pursued by Jehu, who gives order to "smite him also in the chariot. And they did so at the going up to Gur, which is by Ibleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there. " 2 Kings ix. 27. In the Chronicles, after the slaughter of Ahaxiah's brethren, we read, "and Jehu sought Ahaziah, and they caught him, for he was hid in Sama ria, and brought him to Jehu, and when they had slain him, they buried him," xxii. 7 — 9. The two accounts are not necessarily contradictory, since possibly the whole relation in the Chronicles may belong to the time after Ahaziah's flight to Megiddo : i.e. it may be that he was "wounded at Ibleam but not killed, and so fled to Megiddo; then Jehu, hearing that he was still alive and in conceal ment, made search for him, and he was found in Samaria, brought before Jehu, and killed. And this possible solution of the difficulty is rendered probable by the order of events in the Chronicles. For the search for Ahaziah is there placed after the slaughter of Ahaziah's kinsmen. " Ahaziah came to Jezreel to see Joram, and went out with Joram against Jehu," v. 7- So far both accounts agree. But the Chronicler omits what immediately followed, perhaps because it was mixed up with the recital about Joram, which he did not intend to relate. In the Kings, Jehu having finished his work in Jezreel, "arose and departed and came to Sa maria," ix. 12. In the way, he falls in with Ahaziah's kinsmen, and slays them, ib. 13. And this, the Chronicler does re late : " It came to pass, when Jehu found the princes of Judah and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, which ministered to Ahaziah, he slew them," xxii. 8. It is not said, where; but in the Kings we learnt that it was on the way to Samaria. And then it follows in the Chronicles, ¦v. 9, "And he sought Ahaziah, and they caught him, for he was hid in Sa maria, and they brought him to Jehu, &c." Here then, far from contradiction, we discover the fine and accurate coin cidence of independent accounts which complete each other. The only variance is, that the one account says only in general, that Ahaziah escaped, wound ed, to Megiddo and died there (in that part of the country), the other says no thing about the wound, and gives the particulars of that which the former had stated briefly in two words, J"1J2S1 T T - Dty. Nay, there is reason to believe that even the text of the Chronicles hints at the wound : for the LXX has Kal KaTeXafiov avTov iaTpevopevov ev Sapapeia, implying the reading W(T1 p-iotta Nsnnp, (™p- »• 6- LXX and Heb.) instead of NinfiD. 238 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXILE. [CH. IV. B.C.878 JE. H. Judah. 100 1 Joash 857 121 22 856 122 23 Israel. 7-8 Jehu. 28 J-l Jehoahaz. 1-2 Jehoahaz. 840 838 138 139 39 40 17 Je.-l Joash. 1-2 Joash 140 (41 J.) 1 Ama ziah. 2-3 825824 153154 810 168 1415 29 15 16 J-l Jeroboam. 14-16 Jeroboam. Joash began to reign 7 Jehu, 2 K. xii. 1. Jehu r. 28 y . 2 K. x . 36. Succeed ed by Jehoahaz in the 23d of Joash, 2 K. xiii. 1 K Joash repairs the Temple, xii. 4-16. Hazael and his son still oppress Israel, 2 K. xiii. Sy rians take Gath, and are diverted from Jerusalem by a present of the Temple-treasures, xii. 17. Joash does well all the days of Jehoiada, xii. 2 ; but after the death of Jehoiada he falls into apostasy, 2 C. xxiv. 15. Joash (of Israel) succ. in 39 Jo ash, 2 K. xiii. 10s. Martyrdom of Zechariah son of Jehoiada, 2 C. xxiv. 20. Syrians take and spoil Jerusalem, ib. 23. at the end of the year (i.e. after the death of Zechariah). Joash, left diseased on his bed, is slain by conspirators, ib. 25. 2 K. xii. 19. 21. Amaziah succ. 2 Joash, xiv. 1. Israel, brought to extremity by Syrian oppression in the r. of Jehoahaz, begins to recover. Elisha dying, promises Joash three victories over Syria. The miraculous re suscitation at Elisha's grave, 2 K. xiii. Amaziah hires mer cenaries from Israel for a war upon Edom, but dismisses them on a reproof from a prophet : the Israelites are incensed, 2 C. xxv. Amaziah is successful against Edom. He challenges Joash, is conquered, and Jerusalem is spoiled, ib. and 2 K. xiv. Joash d. Jeroboam succ. 15 Jo ash, 2 K. xiii. 23. Amaziah outlives Joash 15 y. 2 K. xiv. 17. r. 29 y. o. 1. 1 This statement deviates from our principle of adjustment only half a year, since the 1st of Jehoahaz on our prin ciple includes half of the 22nd and half of 23rd Joash. * In the Hebrew text the numeral is "37th;" but some copies of the LXX have the true reading, " 39th." § 228, 229.] THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. 239 B.C. JE.B,. 809 169 Judah. 1 Azariah) = Uzziah J Israel. 15-16 ... 783 195 27 Uzziah, see § 220 3. The revival of prosperity in Israel and Judah. Jeroboam recovers the whole territory of the 10 tribes, according to the prediction of Jo nah, 2 K. xiv. 25, and Uzziah the whole territory of Judah, 2 C. xxvi. 1-15. [Joel prophe sies in Judah, Hosea and Amos in Israel.] 41 Interregnum, or Anarchy, eleven years to 772 b.c. § 229. The fact that the long and prosperous reign of Jeroboam was followed by eleven years of anarchy, is not ex pressed in the history, but is necessarily implied in the Chrono logical data. If we were to assume, on the ground of the synchronism 1 Uzziah = 27 Jeremiah, that there was anarchy in Judah after the death of Amaziah, viz. 13 years, the time of anarchy in Israel will be increased from 11 years to 23. Namely : JS.R. Judah. Israel. [168 29 Amaziah Anarchy, 13 years. 14 — 15 Jeroboam. 181 1 Uzziah. 27—28 195 15 41 (Anarchy, 23 years.) 218 38 1 Zechariah, 2 K. xv. 8.] But there is nothing to indicate a time of anarchy in Judah : on the contrary it is said, 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, "then" — after the slaughter of Amaziah — "all the people of Judah took Uzziah, &c." The fact of an interregnum in Israel, well accords with the denunciations of Hosea and Amos against that kingdom. B.C. M.K. Judah. 772 206 38 Uzziah 771 207 39 Israel. Zechariah. Shallum, 1 Menahem Zechariah b. 38 Uzziah, r. 6 months, the last of the house of Jehu, slain by Shallum, 2 K. xv. 8, who began 39 Uzziah, i. I month, and was slain by He- 3 2 Kings xv. 1 . " In the 27th year of Jeroboam began Azariah to reign." The corruption of the text is not acci dental. Uzziah, it will be seen, succeeded in the 27th year before the end of the reign of Jeroboam. 240 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXILE. [ch. : 760 218 759 219 758 220 757 221 742 236 50 Uzziali 51 52 I Jotham 16 741 237 lAhaz 740 238 739 239 ' Israel. nahem, ib. 13-17. Pul, king of Assyria, invades Israel, ib. 19. In Judah, Uzziah, invading the priest's office is smitten with le prosy, 2 C. xxvii. 16. Isaiah begins to prophesy in the last year of Uzziah. 10 M. 1 Pekahjah. Pekahjah began 50 Uzziah, r. 2 1-2 y. slain by Pekah. 2 K. xv. 23-26. 2 P. 1 Pekah. Pekah b. 52 Uzziah, r. 20 y.ib. 27. 1-2 Pekah. Jotham b. 2 Pekah, ib.321. [Mi- 16-17 cafe prophesies concerning Sama ria and Jerusalem]. 17-18 Ahaz b. 17 Pekah, 2 K. xvi. 1. Rezin k. of Syria and Pekah of Israel form a confederacy against him, and invade Judah with in tent to besiege Jerusalem ; it did not come, however, to a siege, 2 K. xvi. 5. Isai. vii. 1-92. 18-19 Pekah. After this joint-campaign, Rezin 19-20 recovered Elath to Syria and ex pelled the Jews,2 K. xvi. 6, and in that or a subsequent expedi tion " smote Ahaz and carried a great multitude of captives to Damascus," 2 C. xxviii. 5. Pe kah likewise "smote him with a great slaughter, for he slew in Judah 120,000 in one day, which were all valiant men " " And the children of Israel carried a- way captive 200,000 women, sons and daughters:" upon the re monstrance of the prophet Oded, the captives were honourably re- 1 This statement, again, deviates half a year from our rule of adjustment. But the rule is confirmed by xv. 30, where the death of Pekah is assigned to the 20th year of Jotham, i. e. 20 Jotham = 20 Pekah ; hence 1 Jotham begins in 1 Pekah.2 2 Kings xvi. 5. " Then Rezin and Pekah came up to Jerusalem to war (IDrPD/ and they besieged Ahaz (not t t : • , besieged but i!"IN ?V "T^fhey pressed upon Ahaz, put him to straits, i. e. put him in fear) but were not able to over come him (not so, but DH>>n^ to fight, to bring it to a battle,") Isai. vii. 1. " Rezin and Pekah came up to Jerusa lem to fight against it Tthj nfcllbzb T V T T T : • : and was not able to fight against it" H\>y DHpnS which Gesenius renders, heranxog urn es ssu belagem aber es kam nicht zur Belagerung. § 229.] THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. 241 B.C. JE.K. Judah. Israel. 738 240 4 Ahaz 20 Pekah. (= 20 Jotham, 2 K. xv. 30). stored, ib. 6-153. Edom and the Philistines invade Judah at the same time, ib. 17-19. Ahaz sends to Assyria (T. Pileser) for help, ib. 16. 2 K. xvi. 7. T. Pil. invades Syria and takes Da mascus, ib. 9., also Israel, and takes Gilead, Galilee, all Naph- tali, &c. ib. xv. 29 : then Pekah is conspired against and slain by Hoshea, ib. 30. b This I take to be the true order of events, for I do not think, with Light- foot, that the events related in 2 Kings xvi. 5, and 2 Chron. xxviii. 5, belong to one and the same campaign. The for mer was a joint-expedition, the latter separate, ( " The Lord delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria, and they smote him, &c. ...And he was also de livered into the hand of the king of Israel who smote him, &c") This suc cessful expedition of the king of Syria is probably the same with that noted in 2 Kings xvi. 6, in which Elath, the for tified harbour on the Red Sea, was taken. Of the expedition of Pekah the book of Kings is wholly silent : yet it may be gathered even from this book that Pekah's warfare with Judah was not summed up in a single, and that a fruitless, expedi tion. For in xv. 37, on occasion of Jo tham's death it is remarked, " In those days the Lord began to send against Judah Rezin and Pekah :" that is, no sooner was that wise and powerful king dead, and his wicked and imbecile son Ahaz had succeeded to him, but these two kings formed a confederacy against Judah, and prepared to besiege Jerusa lem. Now that expedition came to no thing, but the mention of "beginning," ?nn, certainly implies a war of longer continuance than a single campaign. In Isaiah also it is intimated that though the threatened danger of a siege passed away, and though the confederate kings themselves were destined to a speedy over throw — (viz. before the child, then con- 16 ceived, should be of age to choose between good and evil, and to say my father and my mother, vii. 16; viii. 4, i.e.- within the space of two or three years from the time of the prophecy) — nevertheless Ju dah should first be devastated. " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts : It shall not stand, it shall not be: but the head of Syria is (and shall be) Damascus. ..And the head of Ephraim is (and shall be) Samaria... If ye believe not ye shall not be established" Vp y'DNfi i& DN 'ODN.H N*? Compare the words of Je-, hoshaphat in 2 Chron. xx. 20. i^DNI! «D!*rn vyrf>ti rrirpn, i^moT'J. traTe ev Kvpiuy Kal epirKTTevdi'ia-ea-Qe, build on the Lord and ye shall be built up. So here, perhaps with an allusion to that saying of the pious king, Isaiah says, " If ye will not have faith in God, He will not be faithful to you ; your Amen to His promise is the condition of His Amen. Neither this, nor any other, danger shall come to you from these two kings, if ye will believe." Then Ahaz is put to the proof, Ask thee a sign : he is found wanting — he says not Amen to the promise, \ttn*vi i.e. the copyist has dropt a line and sub stituted in*TlDvl "deposed him," for liTlDXvl "fettered him." The LXX. had the genuine reading in their copy, whence they make Kai efltjo-ev aiiTov $. N. ev Aej3\add ev yy Alpdt) tov pij /San-t- Xeueiv avTov &v '\epovva\rip. For that this clause is not interpolated from the text of Kings, appears from the Chaldee form AefiXaBd W^ID instead of thi"). § 235 — 237.] APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHETS WHO LIVED BEFORE THE EXILE. § 236. Jonah is mentioned, 2 Kings xiv. 25, as having foretold the deliverance of Israel and recovery of its former prosperity, which came to pass in the reign of Jeroboam the Second, b.c 824 — 783. Of Joel we learn only that he was the son of Pethuel. The time of his prophesying seems to lie not very long before that of Amos, whose prophecy begins with a text of Joel. Movers, p. 119 ff. and Ewald refer it to the reign of Joash, but on grounds which I think inconclusive. Amos prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam the Second, and in that part of it which was contemporary with the reign of Uzziah, that is, b. c. 808 — 783. He began to prophesy " two years before the earthquake :" this, as a remarkable event, is alluded to by Zechariah long afterwards, xiv. 5, but its time is not known. The close connexion between the close of Joel and the opening of Amos seems to indicate that the two prophets were not far separated in time. Hosea began in the same reigns, but continued to prophesy into the reign of Hezekiah i. 1 ; i. e. from before 783 b. c. till after 726 b.c Like Amos, he prophesied against the Ten Tribes ; he may have lived to see the fulfilment of his predictions. S 237. Isaiah was commissioned to the prophetical office in the death-year of Uzziah, vi. 1. His prophecies fall into two parts distinct in matter and manner : the first, extending from chap. i. to xxxix. consists of a series of oracles, arranged for the most part in the order of their delivery : the other, from chap. xl. to the end, is one continued prophetical discourse. Part I. i. Chap, i — v. Prophecies against Jerusalem, delivered in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham. This section is completed with the narrative of Isaiah's mission chap. vi. 250 FROM the schism to the exile. [ch. IV. ii. Chap, vii — xii. The Prophecy of Immanuel, delivered in the first year of Ahaz, on occasion of the confederacy of Rezin and Pekah against Jerusalem. iii. Chap. xiii. xiv. 27. Prophecies against Babylon and Assyria. iv. Chap. xiv. 28 — xxiii. Prophecies immediately relating to the Assyrian invasion. 1. xiv. 28 — 32. Against Philistia: delivered in the death-year of Ahaz, 726 b.c The Philistines in the reign of Ahaz had shaken off the subjection to which they were reduced by Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxviii. 18. Hezekiah in the early part of his reign reduced them again, 2 Kings xviii. 8; The two last verses relate to the devastation of Philistia by the Assyrians. 2. xv. xvi. Moab. This was to come into accomplish ment within three years, xvi. 14. It seems to relate to the invasion of Shalmaneser, 723—721. 3. xvii. Damascus and Ephraim: especially the latter: fulfilled 721. The last verses predict the destruction of the Assyrian when he should come against Judah. Chap, xviii. seems to form part of this prophecy ; i. e. to relate to Ethiopia, which under So or Sevechus had made alliance with the Ten Tribes against Assyria, and under Tirhakah came out against Sennacherib for the relief of Jerusalem. 4. xix. Egypt. This prophecy predicts the political con vulsions of Egypt, from the time of the Ethiopian dynasty, to the accession of Psammetichus To this oracle is added as an appendix chap, xx, delivered "in the year in which Tartan came to Ashdod, sent from Sargon king of Assyria, and he besieged it and took it." Sargon must have been the successor of Shalmaneser, between him and Sennacherib, therefore about 718 b. c. He is mentioned only in this place, but Berosus probably means him where he says, Postquam regnasset frater Senecheribi, &c, Eus. Chron. Armen. 42. Ashdod was the key to Egypt, and thitherward Assyria would naturally turn its arms immediately after the reduction of Syria, Ephraim, and Phoenicia. It seems from the prophecy, that the siege lasted three years. Afterwards it cost Psammetichus 29 years' siege to recover it to Egypt. y- 237. J CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHETS. 251 5. Chap. xxi. 1 — 10. "The burthen of the desert of the sea." The purport of this prophecy is evidently the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, v. 2, But why is it placed here in a cycle of prophecies relating to the times of the Assyrian invasion, 726 — 713? I venture to suggest an explanation, derived from the passage of Berosus above referred to. Postquam regnasset frater Senecheribi et deinde postquam Acises in Babylonios dominatus esset, et necdum triginta quidem diebus regnum tenuisset a Marodach Baladano occisus est, et Marodach B. per vim (regnum) tenuit sex men- sibus, eum vero interficiens regnabat quidam cui nomen Elibus. Verum tertio regni ejus anno Senecheribus rex Assyriorum exer- citum conflabat adversus Babylonios, prwlioque cum Us commisso vicit...In Babylonios ergo dominatus regem illis filium suum Asordanum constituit. By which I understand, that after the reign of Sargon, on the accession of Sennacherib, Babylon re belled, and was reduced, three years later, by Sennacherib himself. In respect then of this near event, Babylon did come within the cycle of the Assyrian judgment, and this may be blended in the prophetic vision with the later catastrophe. 6. The short oracle concerning Duma (an Arab tribe) v. 11, 12, and 7. that against Arabia, 13—17, seem to belong to the same period with the foregoing. 8. Chap. xxii. Vision of the siege of Jerusalem: this belongs to the same cycle, for those who first heard it would think of an Assyrian siege. The event shewed that Babylon was meant. In this entire cycle the interval between the fateful moment of Sennacherib's approach to the siege of Je rusalem, and the time of the Babylonian judgment, more than a century later, does not exist. It is a time of respite. 9. Chap, xxiii. Tyre. Tyre was blockaded by Shalma neser during five years, after the fall of Samaria, Menander ap. Joseph. Ant. ix. 2. But it was not taken, and after this it still flourished. The prophecy begins at the Assyrian invasion : then follows a long respite, till the Babylonian times. v. Chap, xxiv — xxvii. The desolation of Judah and Je rusalem ; after the judgment, Messiah's kingdom. vi. Chap, xxviii — xxxv. The same general subject ; with particular application to the prophet's own times (xxx. xxxi.). 252 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXILE. [CH. IV. The latter series was evidently delivered before the ca tastrophe of Samaria, for chap, xxviii. prophesies the desolation of the northern kingdom. Probably both the series v. and vi. start from the same point as iv., i. e. from the year of the death of Ahaz, and so lie before the reformation, in. the first year of Hezekiah. vii. The historical chapters, xxxvi — xxxix. : the mi raculous removal of the Assyrian judgment from Jerusalem. Hezekiah " sick unto death " is miraculously restored : a sym bol of the respite now granted to Jerusalem. In the conclud ing chapter, Babylon is pointed to as the instrument of the respited judgment. Part II. Chap, xl — end. Throughout this latter prophecy, separated from the former, as the difference of style would seem to intimate, perhaps by an interval of many years, the Prophet, in the spirit, takes his station in the times and amid the scene of the Exile, which in the former prophecy he had pourtrayed as perspectively blended with the Assyrian crisis. He ad dresses, not his contemporaries, but the generation of a century later, the unhappy nation in its exile. Occasionally, however, he reverts ; to the sins' of his own age. A tradition is preserved by the Rabbins and the eccle siastical writers, that Isaiah died a martyrs death, sawn asunder by Manasseh. And this seems to be acknowledged in the Epistle to the Hebrews, xi. 37, comp. 2 Kings xxi. 16. However this may be, the allusions to the writer's own times, which are met with in the second part — the complaints of gross idolatry, sacrifice of children, evil rulers — which do not accord either with, the times of the Exile, or with those of the pious Hezekiah, imply that these prophecies were delivered during the reign of Manasseh. If Isaiah began to prophesy about 760 b.c and was then 20 years old, he would be 83 years old at the accession of Manasseh, under whom we may suppose him to have lived yet six or seven years. , § 238. Micah prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah,1 and was therefore contemporary with Isaiah. 1 That Micah prophesied in the reign of Hezekiah is noted also in Jer. xxvi. 18, 19, which refers to Micah iii. 12. § 238, 239.J chronology of the prophets. 253 He seems to have delivered the book which bears his name, as a summary of his prophesying : for it is not composed, as Isaiah's, of a series of separate discourses or visions, but forms a connected whole. Chap. i. 5 — 8. Speaks of the desolation of Samaria as yet future. It is foretold also that " it shall reach to Judah," i. 9 ; that " the Assyrians shall come into the land," v. 5. I suppose therefore, that all these prophecies were collected before the year of Sennacherib's defeat : i. e. that the series as a whole, is parallel with the First Part of Isaiah The Babylo nian judgment is predicted iv. 10, but blended with the Assy rian, as in Isaiah. § 239. " The burden of Nineveh" was delivered by Nahum after the judgment executed by Assyria on the Ten Tribes, ii. 2; yet before the defeat of Sennacherib's host, i. 11 — 13. The subject of the prophecy is the overthrow and utter destruction of Nineveh. There is reason to believe, as will be shown in a subsequent chapter, that the death of Sen nacherib coincided with a revolution which greatly impaired the power of Assyria (Appendix, On Assyrian and Chaldean Chronology). The final overthrow occurred in the year 606 b.c, which is the epoch, in the eye of prophecy, of the Babylonian Empire. In ii. 6, the manner of the destruction is foretold. The capture of Nineveh was facilitated by an extraordinary flood of the river. (Diod. Sic. ii. 27. from Ctesias.) Both stages of the judgment on Assyria are blended in one, though separated by an interval of nearly a century. The time of Nahum lies between b.c 721—713. If the date of the destruction of No-Ammon, iii. 8, were known, it might enable us to fix the time of the vision more exactly. Zephaniah prophesied in the reign of Josiah i. 1, before the 1 8th year = 623 b. c. Comp. i. 4. with 2 Kings xxiii. 4. The prophecy of Habakkuk predicts the Chaldean invasion, i. 6, and the overthrow of Babylon, chap. ii. It lies therefore before b. c. 606, but contains no special note of time. CHAPTER V. FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM. § 240. The date of the Schism, b. c. 977, lies forty years after the accession of Solomon, 1 Kings xi. 42 ; these forty years may be complete or current, or perhaps they may be reckoned from the anointing of Solomon, which took place in the last year of the life of David. Hence it is uncertain whether the accession of Solomon shall be dated b.c. 1017, or b.c 1016. The same degree of uncertainty must attach to the accession of David, whose reign lasted 40 years and 6 months, 2 Sam. v. 5 : the year may be 1057 or 1056. As cending from this point, we find no intimation in the history of the length of Saul's reign ; none, of the length of time during which Samuel and his sons judged Israel between the day of Mizpeh (1 Sam. vii.) and the election of Saul. Before the day of Mizpeh lies a term of 20 years and 7 months, beginning at the Captivity of Shiloh, 1 Sam. vii. 1 : and before this, a term of 40 years, during which Eli judged Israel. Thus the history contained in the First Book of Samuel carries us 40y + 20y.7m before the day of Mizpeh, but by what length of time the latter epoch preceded the accession of David, b.c 1056 or 1057, we have, so far, no means of ascertaining. Consider it at present an unknown quantity (w). In the Book of Judges, we find a sum of just 390 years, in cluded between the first servitude and the end of the Phi listine oppression. Beyond this, *. e.. between the Eisode and the first servitude, we have another unknown quantity (y) ; for the length of the interval, which certainly was considerable, is nowhere denned. Hence the sum of the terms enumerated in the history, between the year of David's accession and the year of the Exodus is as + 60y. 7 m + 390y + y + 40y. But S. Paul (Acts xiii.) enumerates between David and the Exodus, the following terms, 40 + 450 + 40. Here it is remarkable that the middle term is equal to the sum of the $240. J FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. 255 60T + 390y of the historical series. If the statement is meant in that sense, *. e. if the 450y noted by S. Paul are composed of the 390 y noted in the Book of Judges, and of the 60y noted in the First Book of Samuel, then, since the term x is manifestly defined by the Apostle as 40 years, it will follow, that the term y is altogether omitted in his enumeration. Now I do not affirm that he must necessarily have meant to sketch a con tinuous outline of the times of Israel from Moses to David; we are not competent to determine a priori what a Man of God, speaking by the Holy Ghost, must have purposed to say. It is sufficient, if the words admit of, though they may not imperatively demand, that interpretation according to which the outline in question is complete and continuous. And such is the case here. He says: Kai to? reaaapaKov- raerrj ypovov erpo This is the reading of A. B.C. 15. 18, I sostom : Griesbach recommends, Lach- and others ; Copt. Armen. and S. Chry- | mann adopts it. 256 FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. [cii. V. ravra retains the reference which it had independently of the chronological additament : i. e. it means " after the overthrow of the seven nations," — " after the settlement under Joshua." In precisely the same manner, the last clause is an historical outline with a chronological measure superadded: KaKeldev rirrjaavro fiaaiXea Kal eSwKev avrois o Geo? rov 2aoiA vlov Keis, avSpa eve (pvXrjs Beviaiuelv, err/ reaaapaKOvra' Kai fieraarrjaas avrov rjyeipev rov AaveiS avrois et? paaiXea. The historical outline is complete in itself; it consists of three terms, 1. a time of training during 40 years in the wilder ness ; 2. the settlement in the promised land, followed by a time of judges, from the death of Joshua to Samuel ; 3. the time from Samuel to David, during which the nation asked and received a king. The first term began with a note of chronology, Kal ws reaaapaKovraerrj ypdvov : the other two are complete without any such note of time, but the Apostle saw good to superadd a chronological statement in continuation of that with which the first term began ; and this he does, as it were of after-thought, by inserting the terms to? ereaiv vv and err) reaa apasovra, each at the end of the historical term to which they belong. This seems to me a clear and intelligible view of the Apostle's meaning and intention : and this interpre tation is, to say the least, equally probable with any other, e.g. with that which represents the Apostle as wholly pretermitting the chronological measure of the interval between the Eisode and the time of the judges, and as deriving his 450 years from tho summation of the 390 years contained in the Book of Judges and the 60 years of 1 Samuel. Setting out then with this parity of probability, we have to consider two things. First: whether this arrangement be compatible with the de tails of the history, i. e. whether the course of events and order of times contained between Joshua i. and 1 Sam. vii. can be adjusted without violence to a scheme of 450 years ? Secondly v whether the results involved in this interpretation — the facts of cyclical parallelism noted in the Introduction, and many others which are yet to be described — are not more than sufficient to set the question at rest. Only the former question belongs to this place, and to this we now proceed. § 241. On looking into the history for an epoch which may correspond with the Apostle's ews lapovrjX tov 7rpo(pr]Tov'; $241,242.] FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. 257 one can scarcely doubt that it is to be found at that great crisis of the. history which I have designated " the day of Mizpeh." A solemn repentance of the whole nation, testified by a great convocation at Mizpeh, where "they drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord ;" their enemies the Philistines, gathering themselves together to overwhelm them on that day, as the Egyptians did at the Red Sea ; Samuel, another Moses, crying unto the Lord ; the extraor dinary sacrifice of the sucking lamb offered as a holocaust ; the Lord, in fulfilment. of Hannah's prophecy (ii. 10), "thundering with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and dis comfiting them ;" the utter defeat ; and finally, Samuel taking a stone and setting it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and call ing the name of it Eben-Ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us : — all this indicates a momentous crisis, the like of which had not occurred since the passage of Israel through the Red Sea. Moreover it is added, that on this day Samuel be- gan to judge Israel : v. 6. " And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh," v. 15. "And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life." $ 242. The history of the Judges ends with a period of 40 years of Philistine oppression, during which Samson judged 20 years : xiii. 1. xv. 20. But in the First Book of Samuel, we find the Philistines still in the height of their superiority. No new invasion is mentioned : the Book of Judges spoke of a dire overthrow which occurred at Samson's death; the Book of Samuel says nothing of this, and represents them as still mas ters. The Ark goes into captivity, and it is not until 20 years after its return that the power of the Philistines is broken. If these be separate periods, the Philistine servitude must have lasted 60 years at least, or else there were two servitudes sepa rated by an interval of, perhaps, 40 years. Of course this is possible. But now let us observe the numbers. Twenty years of Samson, Judg. xv. 20, and twenty years after the restora tion of the ark and before the prostration of the Philistine host at Mizpeh, 1 Sam. vii. 1, just make the forty years of servi tude, Judg. xiii. 1. In this view, the 40 years of Eli, as they end at the capture of the Ark, must have begun 20 years before the servitude. Also, the Ark was taken about the time: 17 258 FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. [CH. V. that Samson was in captivity: its restoration coincided, very nearly, with the time of Samson's death. This explains how it was that Israel, for the last twenty years of the forty, was com paratively unmolested. The Philistines were weakened by the dire overthrow " of all their lords" who perished with Samson ; they had previously learned by that which befel their Dagon from the presence of the Ark, that " none could stand against these mighty Gods." In this period of comparative quietude the work of reformation began under Samuel, and when at length the nation was ripe for mercy by penitence and prayer, God arose to thunder upon His enemies, and break them in pieces, and exalt the horn of His Anointed. $ 243. The connexion between Judges and Samuel is of this kind. The former having brought down the narrative to the beginning of the Philistine invasion, xiii. 1, there drops the national history out of sight to relate the personal adventures of Samson, through a term of twenty years. Here the history contained in this book comes to a close, for the remaining chapters form an appendix belonging to a much earlier period. The Book of Samuel, in its opening chapters, goes back to the origines of the new order of things now about to commence. It begins with the birth of the " Prophet like unto Moses," who, while " power and might," supernaturally aided in the person of Samson, did what it could for Israel's deliverance, was growing up in silence beside the altar of Shiloh, to be the instrument by which "the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts" would finish His salvation. § 244. This adjustment of the disconnected lines of the history, not only does no violence to general probability, but explains the difficulties which otherwise belong to this part of the sacred narrative1. After this, the whole train of 1 I have the satisfaction to find that I have been partly anticipated hi this view of the chronological connexion be tween Judges and 1 Sam. Hengstenberg, Authentic des Pentateuchs, ii. 23, thus reports, with approbation, the results of a dissertation by Keil in the Dorpat. Beitr. zu d. theol. Wissensch. ii. 303 ff. "The Philistine oppression lasted 40 years : but these 40 years extend beyond the events noted in the Book of Judges. For Samson, with whose death the Book of Judges comes to a close, was but to begin to deliver Israel, xiii. 6; comp. 1 Sam. iii. 3 : he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years, xv. 20. At his death, the power of the Philistines is still unbroken: his exploits were ra ther tokens that the God of Israel could deliver His people, prophetic intimations § 243 245.] FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. 259 events from the Exode to Samuel easily fits itself to the out line given by St. Paul. For since the interval is 450 years, of which 390 extend from the Mesopotamian servitude to the end of the 40 years of the Philistine servitude, that is, to the day of Mizpeh, there remains a period of 60 years for the interval between the Eisode and the first servitude. Now since this interval includes the time of the settlement under Joshua, of which between 6 and 7 years reach to chap. xiv. (comp. v. 7. 10. with Num. xiv.), and after this point " a long time," xxiii. 1, till the death of Joshua at the age of 110 years, xxiv. 29, and further, a space of time during which all the elders who out lived Joshua died off, ib. 31. Ju. ii. 10, it is plain that a term of 60 years is not too much. But neither is it too httle. For even if we suppose Joshua but 30 years old at the Exode, we shall have 80 years from thence to his death, and 20 more from his death to the first servitude. \ 245. Now, since the ascending reckoning has led us to the year b.c 1056 or 1057 as the year of David's accession, the day of Mizpeh lies in one of the years 1096, 1097, and the Ex odus in the year 1586 or 1587. The symmetry of the general scheme requires the years 1586, 1096, 1056, but independently of this consideration I shall presently be able to allege an his torical argument which attests the same thing. We may now examine the details, first, of the period from Samuel to Reho boam, and then, of the 490 years from the Exodus to Samuel. of a deliverance to come, than them selves the means of the deliverance. In the Book of Samuel we find our selves just where the Book of Judges left us. In c. iv. the Philistines are warring against Israel, whose distress is aggravated to the uttermost by the taking of the Ark into captivity. That the Phi listine oppression, to which this war be longs, is the same with that in the Book of Judges, admits not of a doubt. Else the first would be without its end, the latter without its beginning. Now the Philistine oppression in 1 Sam. lasted after that catastrophe 20 years : it termi nated in the great victory which the Loud granted to Israel when under the guidance of Samuel it truly turned to Him, 1 Sam. vii. 14. Hence, of the 40 years of Eli's high-priesthood, the last 20 fall in the Philistine servitude." So far this writer is in agreement with me : but when he proceeds to allot the 20 years of Samson to the latter half of the 40, I must altogether dissent from him. He overlooks, in fact, one principal ar gument for the general view, viz. the equation, 20 years of Samson + 20 years in 1 Sam. = 40 years. He was led to this erroneous application of the period by the wish Ito curtail the interval between the Exode and the 4th year of Solomon to the measure of 480 years, 1 Kings vi. 1. With the same intention, he makes the Ammonite and Philistine servitudes contemporary. 17—2 SECTION I. FROM THE DAY OF MIZPEH TO REHOBOAM. § 246. KaKeWev rirrjaavro fiaaiXea, Kal eSwKev avrois d Qeds rdv laoiiX v'idv Ket's, dvSpa e/c (bvXqs BewapeiV, errj t \ r * \ ,1 1 a *J> reaaapaKOvra, Kai neraarrjaas avrov r)yeipev rov isaveio avrois ei? fiaoiXea. It has been already explained that the chronological term is superadded to the historical sketch, to denote the time, not from the people's demand of a king, but from one crisis to the next, from Samuel to David. It is as though he had said, "And from that time they began again to, tempt, as did their fathers, by the space of forty years : and the consummation of their provocation was this, that they asked a king, &c." This obviates the objection, that if Saul reigned 40 years, then the day of Mizpeh must have preceded the ac cession of David by much more than that length of time, since Samuel judged Israel a long time before the people began. to demand a king, 1 Sam. vii. 15. viii. 1 ff. And certainly nothing in the history of Saul countenances the supposition of so long a reign as forty years. His third year is men tioned, xiii. 1, and directly after this, his rejection and the anointing of David ; from which time to the death of Saul, when David was 30 years old at most, 1 Sam. viii. 4, we get but a fraction of the term which is requisite to make out the supposed period of forty years. Josephus, it is true, gives Saul a reign of 40 years : he might easily mistake the meaning of the tradition : and certainly he has misrepresented it in one point, for he says that Saul reigned 18 years during the life of Samuel, and 22 after his death, Ant. vi. 14. 9. At this rate, David was but 8 years old at Samuel's death ; yet Samuel was living when David fled from Saul after his victory over Goliath and his marriage with Saul's daughter, 1 Sam. xix. 18. The modern Jewish chronology makes the reign seven years. All that can be determined from the history is as follows : § 247. When first Saul appears in the history he is described as a young man, 2 Sam. ix. 2. The term which is there used, § 246 248.] FROM SAMUEL TO THE SCHISM. 261 "flltS, according to Gesenius, always means juvenis matures cetatis sed ccelebs, and such is its meaning, doubtless, in Ruth iii. 10. Judg. xiv. 10. Isai. lxii. 5. Besides these passages it is found only here and 1 Sam. viii. 16. As the word is pro perly a passive participle, equivalent to electus or selectus, and as the unmarried young men are generally the flower of a nation, the accessary notion ccelebs is easily explained, and it may not be necessary to suppose that the word is inva riably used in that restricted sense. Hence this description of Saul does not necessarily afford a determination of the question : he may have been at this time single or married : all that can be inferred from the term is, that he was in the prime of life. Certainly, unless his election occurred within two or three years of the crisis at Mizpeh, he could not then be a bachelor. For his second, or perhaps even fourth, son Ishbosheth (the Ishui of 1 Sam. xiv. 49. Eshbaal of 1 Chron. viii. 33 ; ix. 39.) was 40 years old at his ac cession after Saul's death : not perhaps at Saul's death, but 5 years after it, 2 Sam. ii. 10, 11. That is to say, Ishbosheth was born 5 years after the victory of Mizpeh : and Jonathan, perhaps also the other two brothers, were older than he. Hence if the demand for a king was made five, ten, or fifteen years after the day of Mizpeh, Saul might still be called a bahhur, or " choice man," but a bachelor he was not, unless these two events came so near together as would make the notes of time in 1 Sam. vii — viii. 4. inexplicable. Between these two events the interval can scarcely have been less than 15 or 20 years. If it was 20 years, at the end of that period Saul may have been still a young man, of not much more than 30 years, and yet have a son (Jonathan) almost grown up to manhood. And that such was the fact, is almost a necessary inference from the history. For, in the 3rd year of Saul's reign, 1 Sam. xiii. 2, we find Jonathan already a man of war and a captain of the host. It is true, this third year is dated, not from Saul's election but from his reappointment, xi. 14. But nothing in the history warrants the supposition, that the interval be tween the election and the reappointment lasted more than a very short time, a year or two at most. § 248. Hence all that can be determined from these data the history may be summed up thus : — 262 FROM THE EXODE TO THE SCHISM. [cH. V. S. 1. l. Saul's election could not occur earlier than ten years (as an extreme supposition) after the victory at Mizpeh : i.e. not earlier than 1086 b.c 2. As Ishbosheth was born 1091 b. c. and therefore Jonathan in 1092 b.c at latest, and as Saul could not be less than 15 years old at the birth of his eldest son, therefore Saul was born 1107 b. c. at latest. But after the age of 50 (taking again an extreme supposition) Saul could no longer be called a TiTO, therefore the latest possible date of Saul's election is 1107-50 = 1057 b. c As this is the year before Saul's death, and as he unquestionably reigned four years at least, the extreme possible limit becomes 1060 b.c That is to say, Saul's election can by no possibility be placed earlier than 1086, nor later than 1060 b. c § 249. Here the statement respecting David's age is of some use. David was 30 years old, either at Saul's death, (1056 b. c, or seven years after, 2 Sam. v. 4, for it is doubtful which is meant. At all events David was 30 in 1049 b. c. at latest, therefore 20 in 1059 at latest. But when David was anointed by Samuel, and even when he encountered Goliath, he was yet a l>?3, na'ar, or "young man under 20 years of age," for that seems to be the constant meaning of the word. Therefore the latest possible date of the encounter with Goliath is 1060 b. c And as this occurred certainly after the 4th year of Saul, the latest possible date of Saul's ac cession becomes 1063 b.c In other words, Saul's actual reign lasted seven years at least. Again, Samuel was born in one of the years of Eli's high- priesthood, that is, in one of the 40 years preceding 1117 b. c. the year of the Ark's captivity, (20y. 7m. before 1096 b. c) He was yet a child when he was made the Lord's messenger to Eli, who at that time was " very old," ii. 22. This, and the general tenor of the narrative, would seem to imply that the message was given towards the close of Eli's life, not long before the captivity of the Ark. At most, Samuel may have been 20 years old at the time of the captivity. But he was "old" when he made his sons judges over Israel, viii. 1, whose ill government was the occasion of the demand for a king. If he was 20 in 1117, he was 70 in 1067. Hence this line of evidence leads to nearly the same result as the former. § 249, 250.] FROM SAMUEL TO THE SCHISM. 263 The sacerdotal succession, Eh, (Phinehas), Ahitub, Ahiah =Ahimelech, Abiathar, furnishes no exact limit to our question, for the age of Ahitub at the death of Phinehas is not known. We find Ahiah, the grandson of Phinehas, high-priest in the third year of Saul, and this he may have been in the course of nature, so early as 1080, for Ahitub may have been 30, and have had a son 10 years old at the death of Phinehas in 1117 b.c — Our deduction however, from the ages of Samuel and David, seems to warrant our assigning the beginning of Saul's reign to one of the years between 1070 and 1063 b.c. : the Jewish reckoning (of seven years' reign) is just possible, within the limits above determined, but not in itself improbable : for the anointing of David occurred very soon after the 3rd year of Saul, and after this, the course of events is evidently rapid.. § 250. 1096 b.c. 1091- 1086-1079. 1070-1063. 3rd of Saul. 4th ? before 1066-1059 B.C. Probably at Passover (or Pentecost), the day of the de liverance at Mizpeh. Samuel begins to judge Israel. Ishbosheth horn : Jonathan, older. David born in one of these years. In one of these years, Saul, previously anointed and elected, then rejected, is, after his victory over the- Ammonites (xi), solemnly re-elected. The time was about Pentecost, xii. 17. War against the Philistines, xiii — xv. Saul sent against Amalek: is proved, and being found wanting, is rejected. David is anointed by Samuel at Bethlehem : is sent for to he minstrel to Saul1 : xvi. (After David's return home) the Philistines come out to war at Shochoh : David slays Goliath, xvii. David at Saul's court, hated by Saul: he comes to Samuel: xviii, xix, finally quits the court of Saul, and goes to the priest Ahimelech at Nob: the same day to Achish at Gath, xx, xxi : thence to the cave at Adullam, where he gathers a company, xxii. 1, 22 : pursued by Saul, who slays Ahimelech and the priests; Abiathar escapes to David : D. defeats the Philistines at Keilah (about harvest) : flees to Ziph : thence to 1 At v. 18 he is described as " a mighty valiant man and a man of war :" i. e. one who had given proof of his prowess, and promised to be such. 2 If 1 Chron. xii. 15 belongs to this conjuncture, the time was the first month. 264 FROM THE EXODE TO THE SCHISM. [cH. V. S. 1. 1057 B.C. 1056, Spring. 1051 1049, Autumn. Engedi, xxiii: spares Saul's life, who takes an oath of him and departs, xxiv. Samuel dies. David with Nabal, at the time of sheep- shearing. Saul again pursuing David is a second time 1058, Winter. spared by him, and departs, xxv. David flees to Achish at Gath (16 months before the death of Saul). David at Ziklag all this year. The Philistines make war. Saul at Endor: is defeated on the following day, and slays himself. David reigns over Judah in Hebron, 7 years 6 months, 2 Sam. ii. 11. Abner makes Isbosheth, Saul's son, king over Israel: he reigns two years, ib. 10 ', then is assassinated, iv. 6. David anointed king of all the tribes, in Hebron : takes Jerusalem: smites the Philistines, v: brings the ark from Kirjath-jearim, vi. 1 Chron. xiii. David's victories, viii. 251. The time of the war with Ammon, and of David's sin with Bathsheba, may be defined thus :— (1) Mephibosheth, who was 5 years old in 1056 b.c, 2 Sam. iv. 4, had "a young son" before the Ammonite war, 2 Sam. ix. 12 ; which therefore must lie after 1046 b. c. (2) Solomon at his accession was old enough to be a father, (for Rehoboam was 41y old at the death of Solomon, who reigned 40 years, 1 Kings xiv". 21) ; yet still so young, that he speaks of himself as " a little child," 1 Kings iii. 7. Perhaps he was 15 or 16 years old, surely not more than 20. Hence the birth of Solomon lies not before 1036 b.c. (1016 +20) and not later than 1032 (1016 + 16). Both indications are consistent. The time of Absalom's rebellion must lie at least 9 years after the birth of Solomon. After Amnon's sin, Absalom waited two years before he took vengeance, xiii. 23 ; three years after this he spent in voluntary exile, ib. 38, and after his return, four years passed while he was stealing away the hearts of the people2. Hence the time of the rebellion lies 1 This seems the most obvious way of understanding the passage; it may be, however, that the two clauses following are parenthetical, and so the passage reads thus : " and reigned two years, (but the house of Judah followed David, and the time that David was king in Hebron pver the house of Judah was 7 years 6 months) and (then) Abner, &c. 2 For so we must read in 2 Sam. vii. 7, where the Hebrew has 40 : Josephus has preserved the true reading, four years. If 40 be the true reading, the number can only be referred to the last year of the reign of David : which is perhaps just possible, but not at all probable. §251,252.] FROM SAMUEL TO THE SCHISM. 265 after 1036-9 = 1027 b.c. i.e. in one of the last ten years of David's reign. After the rebellion, the history notes a period of about four] years : three years of the famine, xxi ; 9 months and 20 days of the numbering of the people, xxiv, 8. y 252. 1036-1032 b.c. In one of these years Solomon is born. after 1027 Absalom's rebellion. The famine, three years. The numbering of the people. David's preparation for the Temple, 1 Chron. xxii. 1018-7 Adonijah's rebellion. Solomon is anointed and pro claimed king. 1016 (Autumn) David dies. 1013, 1 Nisan. 4th year of Solomon begins. 2 Zif. (20 Apr.) Solomon began to build " in the month Zif, which is thc 2nd month," 2 Kings vi. 1, "in the 2nd day of the 2nd month, 2 Chron. iii. 2. 1006, 1 Nisan. 11th year of Solomon begins. Tabernacles. "At the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the 7th (14 October.) month," the Temple is dedicated: the feast lasted 14 days in all ; i. e. the feast of Tabernacles was followed by the feast of Dedication, 7 days more, 2 Kings viii. 2. 65, 66 : hence the Temple was finished, i. e. completed and dedicated on the 1st of the month Bui, which is the 8th month, vi. 38. SECTION II. FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES. § 253. Since Moses was 80 years old when he stood be fore Pharaoh, and 120 at his death, in the 12th month of the 40th year from the Exode, it follows that the communications with Pharaoh and the judgments in Egypt occupied but a short space of time : a few weeks at most. 1. The river turned into blood, vii. 17. 2. After seven days, v. 25, Plague of frogs, viii. 1. 3. Respite, v. 15. Plague of lice, 16. 4. Plague of flies, 21. 5. Murrain on the cattle, ix. 3. 6. Boil on man and beast, v. 8. 7. Hail, v. 18: "the barley was now in the ear, and the flax was boiled," 31. 8. Locusts, x. 4. 9. Darkness, three days, 22. 10. Smiting of the first-born, (night of 14-15 Nisan). Each plague seems to have ensued on the morrow after it was threatened; and the threat was made as soon as it was apparent that Pharaoh would not let the people go. § 254. By calculation, the 14th Nisan in b.c 1586 was Friday 10 April. That night, Israel went out of Egypt. From Rameses to Succoth, thence to Etham, thence to Pihahi- roth, where they crossed through the Red Sea l, then 3 days 1 The LXX, Gen. xlvi. 28, identify Rameses or Raamses with Heroopolis, the situation of which place (since the French expedition in Egypt) is well known ( Hengstenberg, die Biicher Mose's und Aegypten, p. 50 ff.) : i.e. about 45 Roman miles N.W. of Suez. The situa tion of Etham must be sought at the head of the gulph : this is evident (a- gainst Sicard and v. Raumer, Zug der Israeliten, p. 12) from its description, Ex. xiii. 20. Numb, xxxiii. 6, " which is at the edge of the wilderness." Its name also, according to Jablonsky, means terminus maris. Besides, the wilder ness into which the Israelites entered on crossing the sea is called the wil derness of Etham, Numb, xxxiii. 8. Arrived then at tbe head of the gulph, at the close of the second day's march, they had but to tum southward on the east side of the sea, and they were safe. But here they received command to do what must have seemed the extreme of infatuation — § 253 256.] FROM THE EXODE TO THE EISODE. 267 journey in the wilderness to Marah, thence to Elim where they encamped, and, it would seem, rested from their wandering. If each of the stages before the arrival at Pihahiroth occupied a day, the passage of the Red Sea should be assigned to the morning of Tuesday 14 April: the arrival at Marah to the evening of Thursday 16 April, and at Elim to Friday evening 17th April. § 255. They reach their station in the wilderness of Sin on the 15th of the 2nd month, which (in the Hebrew reckoning) began on the evening of Saturday 9th May. Here manna is given six days successively (xvi. 5.) until the morning of the seventh day from their arrival, the Sabbath, and the first Sabbath on record. With this agrees our calculation : manna fell on the morning of Sunday 10 May, and every morning till Saturday 16 May. § 256. The next date on record is that of the arrival at the wilderness of Sinai, " in the 3rd month, the same day," i. e. the new-moon of the month, Tuesday 26th May. Within a few days (on the 3rd day after Moses was called up into the mount, xix. 16,) the law was delivered. Now the Jews have always assumed the day of the delivery of the law to have been the first Pentecost, i. e. the 6th day of the 3rd month. This would be Sunday the 31st of May. After this ensues the period of 40 days during which Moses was in the mount: at the end of which he descends and breaks the tables of stone which were in his hands. The date is the 17th of the 4th month = Friday 10th July, or, possible, Saturday 11 July. (" Aaron made proclamation and to-morrow is a feast unto the Lord," xxxii. 5.) — The to turn southward on the west side of the gulph. This was expressly designed for the purpose of drawing Pharaoh after them, xiv. 2, 3 Pi-hahiroth is described as "between Migdol and the sea :" which is intended, as Hengstenberg remarks, not as a geographical definition, for Mig dol = Magdolum is but 12 miles from Pelusium, but to call attention to the danger which they incurred by this seem ingly foolish movement. Migdol was the frontier town, and doubtless strongly gar risoned. Thus they were shut in between the sea and the troops which would march down from Migdol The place of the passage is not to be sought at any point of the existing gulph, but higher up, in the ancient bed of the Red Sea ; which, at no very remote period, extended 90,000 paces with an average breadth of 18,000 - 22,000 paces, northward, nearly to the ruins of the Serapeum : Ritter, Erdkunde, 2, 232 ff. At the head of this ancient gulph was Etham; Pi-hahiroth some where on its Egyptian side. 268 .PROM THE EXODE TO THE SCHISM. [cH. V. S. 11. second period of 40 days would therefore expire 19 or 20 August. § 257. The next date is that of the setting up of the Tabernacle, on the 1st day of the new year: Exod. xl. 1 : Tuesday 16 March 1585. The consecration of Aaron and his sons lasted seven days after the descent of the Glory of the Lord, Exod. xl. 34. Lev. viii. 33. ix. 1. After this, Nadab and Abihu offering " strange fire" were slain, before the Passover ; comp. Lev. x. 4. Num. ix. 6, and Mr. Blunt's Veracity of the Five Books of Moses, p. 113 ff. § 258. Same year, 2nd month 1st day = Wednesday 14 April, the numbering of the people, Num. i. 1 : 14th day, the deutero-pascha appointed, ix. 1 : 20th day, " the Cloud was taken up, and the children of Israel took their journey out of the wilderness of Sinai," Num. x. 11 : this would be Monday 3 May, or perhaps Sunday 2 May. The Cloud was not again taken up until the arrival in the wilderness of Paran, x. 12. i.e. in Kadesh, xiii. 26, which was " eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir," Deut. i. 2. But there was a delay of some few days at Kibroth, xi. 32, and of seven days in Hazeroth, xii. 15 : so that, with the allowance for Sabbaths, the arrival at Kadesh cannot be placed much earlier than the end of May. After this we have the 40 days of the spies, xiii. 25, which will terminate towards the beginning of the 5th month (" it was the time of the first ripe grapes," xiii. 20). The Jewish tradition therefore cannot be far wrong in placing the anniversary of the sentence of wandering at the 10th of the 5th month. § 259. After this, with the exception of the history of Korah's rebellion, the history presents a blank for nearly 38 years. That Korah's sedition occurred toward the close of this term seems to be implied in Num. xx. 3, where the death of the rebels " before the Lord" is alluded to as something of recent occurrence. In the first month of the 40th year (16 March-14 April, b.c 1547) the host, after a long circuit, re turns to the wilderness of Zin and encamps in Kadesh, Num. xx. 1. Aaron dies on the 1st day of the 5th month, xxxiii. 38 ; xx. 28, 29, and the whole month was spent in mourning for him : the arrival in the valley of Zered (east of the Dead Sea) xxi. 12, took place 38 years after the departure from Kadesh, § 25.7- — 260.] FROM THE exode to the eisode.. 269 Deut. ii. 14 : perhaps in the 7th or 8th month. — On the 1st of the 11th month, Moses begins the Deuteronomy : i. 3. At the end of this month, or the beginning of the 12th, he dies and is mourned 30 days, xxxiv. 8. § 260. Here it may not be amiss to clear up the diffi culties with respect to the route of the Israelites described in the summary Num. xxxiii, and in Deuteronomy, compared with the direct history in Exodus and Numbers. For this arrange ment I am indebted to Hengstenberg, Authentie des Pentateuchs, ii. 427. ff. Deut. x. 6, 7. "And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth (wells) of the children (B'ney) of Jaakan to Mosera : there Aaron died, and there he was buried ; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead : and thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters1." Num. xx. 22. " And the children of Israel journeyed from- Kadesh and came unto mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying: Aaron shall be gathered unto his people &c , And they went up into mount Hor, and Aaron died there in the top of the mount." Num. xxxiii. 30. "And they departed from Hashmonah and encamped at Moseroth ;.. .from M.oseroth... in B'ney- Jaakan; ...from B. J. at Hor-Hagidgad [Gudgodah];... from H. H....in Jotbathah;... from J. at Ebronah ;.. .from Eb....at Ezion-gaber; ...from Ez....in the wilderness of Zin which is Kadesh ;.. from Kadesh... in mount Hor on the edge of the land of Edom. And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor, and died there." Now first, whereas in Deut. Aaron is said to have died in. Mosera, in Numbers on mount Hor, these accounts are reconciled, by supposing that Mosera was the name of a particular station in the vicinity of mount Hor. And the supposition is strength- 1 These two verses are interposed in the midst of a history of the giving of the Law at Sinai, only by way of shew ing how, where, and when the sentence pronounced against Aaron on occasion of his trespass in the matter of the golden calf, 39 years before, was fulfilled. In the following verses, "at that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, &c." Moses returns to his subject after the parenthe sis. " That time " = the time of Aaron's trespass, or, when Moses laid up the Ta bles in the ark, v. 5. 270 FROM THE EXODE TO THE SCHISM. [cH. V.. S. 11. ened by the faet, that Jaakan or Akan, Gen. xxxvi. 27. 1 Chr. i. 42, was a descendant of Seir ihe Horite : the territory named after his children (B^ney- Jaakan) may naturally, therefore, be sought in the vicinity of Mount Hor. But secondly, all these accounts will be completely recon ciled by supposing that the place which after and in consequence of the judgment in the matter of the spies was called Kadesh, because there the Lord sanctified Himself upon the children of Israel, lay in the territory of the B'ney- Jaakan, in the wilder ness of Zin or Paran. Now to this place the Israelites twice journeyed : the first time from Sinai in the second year: the second time, after nearly 38 years, in the 1st month of the 40th year. The list of stations in Num. xxxiii. is so framed as to name no station a second time. The first arrival at Kadesh is intended at«. 31. "they departed from Moseroth and pitched in Bney- Jaakan." Then was the sentence of wandering ; and at v . 3 2 begins the route towards the Red Sea: v. 32 — 36 contain the whole of the in formation respecting the journeys of these 37 or 38 years. At v. 36 begins the route on the return northwards from the Red Sea to Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin = B'ney-Jaakan, at the end of the 39 th year : but none of the stations, of which from ¦ Ezion-Gaber to Kadesh there must have been a good many, are mentioned : because, namely, the route had been previously related v. 32 — 35, and 30, 31. In like manner, between Kadesh and Punon only two stations are recounted in this list, though there must have been many more, for Punon, being on the south-east of the Dead Sea, was distant from Kadesh, on this route of the Israelites, by twice the distance from Kadesh to Ezion-gaber: the intermediate stations are omitted, chiefly because they had been recited before. It is only to be further remarked, that in the short narrative, Deut. x., Moses speaks of the route from Kadesh to Ezion-gaber in the 4:0th year: in Num. xxxiii. 30, 31, of the route from Sinai to Kadesh, and 32 — 35, from Kadesh to Ezion-gaber, both in the 2nd year. § 260.] FROM THE EXODE TO THE EISODE. 271 1. Movie from Egypt to Sinai. Numbers xxxiii. Exodus. Rameses. ... xii. 37. Succoth. ib. Etham. xiii. 20. Pi-Hahiroth. xiv. 2. Three days in the wilderness of Three days in the wilderness of Sur, Etham. xv. 22. Marah. ib. 8. Elim. ib.9. Red Sea. Wilderness of Sin. xvi. 1. (2nd month, 15th day). Dophka. Alush. Rephidim. xvii. 1. Sinai. xix. 1. (3rd month). 2. Mowte from Sinai to B'ney- Jaakan (Kadesh). Numbers xxxiii. Kibroth Hattaavah. Hazeroth.Rithma, Rimon Parez, Libna, Rissa, \ Kehelatha, Mount Sapher, Hara-/ dah, Makheloth, Tahath, Tarah,> Mithcah, Hashmonah, MoserothA B'ney- Jaakan (afterwards, Kadesh). j Numbers x. ff. Deut. Departure from Sinai, 2nd year, 2nd month, 20th day, Numb. x. 11. Numb. x. 12. xi. 3.34. Deut. ix. 22. Numb. xi. 35. Into the wilderness of Paran, in which is Kadesh, Numb. xiii. 1. 27. On the way to Mount Seir, to Kadesh Barnea, Deut. i. 2. 19. 3. Route from Kadesh after the sentence of wandering. Numbers xxxiii. B'ney- Jaakan (2nd year, Autumn). Hor Hagidgad (Gudgodah). Jotbathah.Ebronah. Ezion-gaber (on the sinus Elanit- icus). And thence back again by many stations not enumerated be cause already mentioned on Route 2. B'ney-Jaakan. (40th year, 1st month). 272 FROM THE EXODE TO THE SCHISM. [CH. V. S. 11.. 4. Route from Kadesh to the Jordan, 40th year. Numbers xxxiii. (Northward from Ezion-gaber, on east of Edom). Zalmonah, Punon. B'ney-Jaakan = Kadesh. Mosera, by Mount Hor. Aaron dies.. Gudgodah. Jotbath...Deut. x. Southward to Ezion-gaber, Numb^ xiv. 25. Oboth.Ije-Abarim. Dibon-Gad, Almon-Diblathaim, Mountains of Abarim. Plains of Moab. Numb. xxi. 10. ib. Valley of Zered, xxi. 12 : cross Ar- non, ib. Beer, Mattanah, Nahaliel, Bamoth, Pisgah, Numb. xxi.. Plains of Moab. SECTION III. TIMES OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES. $261. It was on the 10th day of the first month that Israel passed through Jordan, Joshua iv. 19. The day was 13 or 14 April, 1546, precisely 40 tropical years from the day of the passage through the Red Sea. After the circumcision of the congregation, the Passover (which had not been kept since the 2nd year, 1585), was celebrated in its season, Sunday, 18 April; and on the following day, on which the first-fruits of harvest were dedicated, the manna ceased, and Israel ate of the old and new fruits of the land, v. 11. Immediately after the Passover, the siege of Jericho would begin : it was finished in seven days, chap. vi. The war with Ai would occupy but a few days, vii. viii. The convocation on Mount Ebal, in which Joshua read the whole law " before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them," viii. ;30 — 35, would probably take place at the Pentecost. $ 262. After this, the war of occupation begins: its his tory extends from chap. ix. to xi. " All the kings" of Palestine " gathered themselves together with one accord." Gibeon, how ever, by craft obtained a league. Then, five kings of the south form a confederacy against Gibeon, and are miraculously de feated, x. 1 — 14, taken and killed, ib. 16 — 27, and the host passes on victoriously from city to city of the south ; Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir — all share the same fate; of each it is .said, "Joshua, and all Israel with him, fought against it, and took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein ; he left none remaining." In these expeditions the Israelites became masters of the whole of the south. " So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly de stroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, 18 274 FROM THE SCHISM TO THE EXODUS. [cH. V. S. 111. and all the country of Goshen even unto Gibeon." No great length of time was occupied in this series of conquests, for it is added: " And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. And Joshua returned and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal." Comp. v. 15. There can be little doubt, then, that all this belongs to the first year, 1546 b. c $ 263. To the following year we must refer the northern expedition, xi. 1 — 14. The confederated kings of the north raised a vast army at the lake Merom,. and were there de livered into the hand of Joshua. Then he went from city to city, and " all the cities of these kings he went and smote with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them." In these two wars the subjugation of the land was com pleted. " So Joshua took all that land, the hills and the south country, and all the land of Goshen [all this, in the former expedition, x. 41, and now in this war he took] the valley and the plain and the highlands of Israel and the valley of the same: [so that the conquests now extended] even from the Mount Halak that goeth to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon, under Mount Hermon : and all their kings, he took, and smote them and slew them." But these northern conquests were not so soon completed as those of the south ; for, it is added, " A long time did Joshua make war upon all these kings, D\2T D>D\ v. 18. This war being brought to an end, it yet remained to dispossess the gigantic highlanders, the Anakim, of their strong-holds in the moun tains : against these, therefore, the war is now directed'. "At that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, Debir, Anab, and all the moun tains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities : there was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel : only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod!, there remained." And thus was the conquest of the land completed in five expeditions: — 1. Jerieho; 2. Ai; 3. The kings of the south; 4. Those of the north; 5. The Anakim in the southern and northern highlands. " S» Joshua took the whole land, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Isra'ei according to their divisions: by their tribes; and the land rested from war.'* So ended1 the wars of Joshuas § 263, 264.] TIMES OF JOSHUA AND THE ELDERS. 275 j) 264. Now the time of the expedition against the Ana kim is limited by an incidental notice which occurs after wards. In the history of the partition of lands, which begins at xiv. 1, when the lot of Judah is about to be described (xv. 1 — 12), it is premised that a certain portion was assigned to the house of Caleb. " Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal ; and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God, concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while Israel wandered in the •wilderness : and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced; if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance . . , And the land had rest from war.'1'' The time of this incident is the 47th year from the Exode, 1540 b.c And it must have preceded xi. 21, for there the Anakim are utterly exterminated from the land, from Hebron and Debir by name. Here Caleb speaks of them as being still in those parts; and in xv. 13 we have the story how " he drove out from Hebron the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak, and he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir." Hence it seems, that at the time when the northern con quests were completed, chap, xi,, and now the war was to be turned against the Anakim, Caleb and the house of Judah undertook the expulsion of these giants from the southern highlands, while Joshua expelled them from the highlands of Israel, xi. 21. Here then is no inconsistency. Nor is there any contradiction between x. 36 — 39,. where Hebron and Debir were described as taken and utterly destroyed, and this history of Caleb's expeditions, xv. 13 ff. On the contrary, the very 18—2 276 FROM THE EXODUS TO THE SCHISM. [cH. V. S. iii. wording of this history marks the consistency of both narra tives. " Caleb drove thence the sons of Anak, and he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir:" and in the parallel place of Judges i. 9 ; " The children of Israel went down to fight against the Canaanites which dwelt in the mountains . . . and Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron . . and from thence he went against the inhabitants of Debir. ," Both cities were taken and destroyed in the first year, that is, six years previously to Caleb's expedition; during which interval, while Israel was engaged in the northern wars, the remains of the three Anakite tribes, Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, had fortified themselves in their old localities: What is said at x. 40, " he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed," must not be urged literally: it describes the spirit of stern obedience which characterized the wars of Joshua; he made no compromise with the ac cursed, so that if any escaped, it was through no slackness or defect of obedience on his part : herein he set an example to the tribes, which, when they entered upon their inheritances, ¦they did not follow. § 265. The war for the extermination of the Anakim, of -which Caleb's expedition forms part, began b.c. 1540, the 47th or 210 years- The Lxx- Ex- xii. 40, introduce this interpretation unto the text itself: jj oe KaroiKtiais rwv viwv 'laparjX r\v KarwKt\aav ev yrj A'iyvirrov Kai ev yrj Xai/aai; avrol Kal ol irarepes avrwv errr vX . The 1 Yet Ant. ii. 9. 1. and B. J. ,. 9. 4. he inconsistently assigns 400 years to the oppression in Egypt. 296 FROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. [<3H. VI. Samaritan text in like manner enlarges upon the original : :unxD [pan iv» Yial2 " the sojourning of the children of Israel, [and of their fathers] which they sojourned in [the land of Canaan and in the land of] Egypt." It is well understood now, that the Samaritan text possesses no authority independent of the Septuagint, from which in fact it was constructed. It serves, however, to shew that the text of the LXX. was not interpolated here by a later hand. Thus much then is clear, that the Jews, however the fact is to be explained, understood the passage two thou sand years ago as they have understood it ever since. Christian writers, almost universally, have followed this interpretation: not because it is Jewish, nor on the authority of the LXX., but because S. Paul has expressly stated the same thing. Gal. iii. 17. Modern critics, however, have abandoned the old interpretation. Perizonius, Orig. Aeg. 20. Schottgen, Hor. Heb. p. 736, allege that the 430 years are reckoned from the close of the period during which the Promises were given : Bengel, Ordo Temp. p. 162, makes the terminus a quo the birth of Jacob. J. D. Michaelis (Programma quo Isr. 430 annos in Ae. commor. efficitur, Gottingen, 1777. reprinted in Pott and EJuperti's Sylloge Comment, t. ii.) assigns the whole 430 years to the residence in Egypt ; and this view is taken by all the mo dern German critics with whose writings I am acquainted, even by those of the orthodox school, as Hengstenberg, Havernick and Ranke, as also, I believe, by the generality of writers on Egyptian Chronology. It is alleged, that the statement of S. Paul avails only to shew how the matter was understood in his time, and that it can possess no authority in a question of this nature : that the words of the Hebrew text are clear and express against this interpretation: and lastly, that a period of little more than 200 years is not sufficient for the increase of some seventy souls into a population which numbered more than 600,000 males above the age of 20 years. For the first of these arguments — the assumption that S. Paul erred in common with the rabbins of his age in his interpretation of the words of Moses — I shall simply remark, that the present Work will have failed of its object if it does not deliver clear $ 282.] FBOM THE CALL TO THE EXODEi 297 proof that this and the like statements are none of them un meaning or erroneous. The second argument, which relates to the words of the text, is sufficiently met by the rendering of our E. V. " the children of Israel who sojourned in Egypt :" dl KarwKrjaav not r)v KaripKrjaav. The Hebrew relative 1WX may of course be understood in either way. I admit, however, that the words of the Hebrew text, prout sonant, do suggest the notion that the 2tth>2 in Egypt lasted 430 years : but then it is to be remembered that the sense of Scripture often lies below the surface : the true sense in this instance is given by a comparison of other particulars, presently to be noticed. Be sides, it is not certain that the LXX. and Samaritan text do not contain the true reading of the passage, as Kennicottand many other critics contend that it does. $ 282. The argument derived from population requires a more detailed consideration. It is assumed that the increase from a population of 70 males to one of some 1,200,000, in a term of little more than 200 years, is impossible in the nature of things. It happens however that facts of statistical science not only disprove the assumption, but under the given circum stances constitute an argument just the other way, that is, against the assumption of so long a period as 400 years. It is known that a given population may go on doubling its numbers in periods of 15 years, nay, under favourable circum stances, in periods of about 124/ years ; and this, even on the present scale of human life. Now of the Israelites in Egypt it is expressly remarked that " they grew and multiplied exceed ingly," Gen. xlvii. 27 ; " were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied and waxed exceedingly mighty (numerous), and the land was filled with them," Ex. i. 7 ; this down to eighty years before the Exode. (See also Deut. x. 22.) The oppression which then ensued may be supposed to have given a check to population, yet not in a considerable degree, for the abundant supply of the means of subsistence still continued (Num. xi. 5), and the decree for the destruction of. the male children was manifestly not long enforced. The circumstances^ therefore, in the main, were decidedly favourable, though regarded only under a human point of view and independently of a special Promise. Besides^ it is to be considered that in times when the average duration of man's life extended to 120 or 130 years, 298 PROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. [cH. VI. and the term of iraiSoyovia began as early as it does now, and lasted to the age of 80 or 90 at least, population must have increased far more rapidly than it does in the present state of mankind. Moreover, it is certain that polygamy prevailed to a very great extent (see the genealogies in 1 Chron.) To come to particulars : — in the census held at Mount Sinai a year after the departure from Egypt, there were found 603,550 males of the age of 20 and upwards, exclusive of the tribe of Levi. Now, under the existing conditions of human life, the number of males above 20 is to the number under that age about as 238 : 243 ; but it is hard to say what the proportion may have been in those times. On the one hand, the adult population would* be more numerous than now, in proportion to the more extended term of human life ; and on the other hand, the number of children and minors would be greater in the same proportion, in virtue of the more extended term of TraiSoyovla. But the, prevalence of polygamy would increase the number of children, to an amount which we have no means of calculating. That polygamy did prevail to a great extent is implied not only in the genealogies, but in this way. The Levites were ordained to be representatives of the first-born of the other tribes. Num. iii. 11. The latter, of all ages, were found to be 22,273, v. 43, and these were to be represented, man by man, by the Levites. Now the sum of the Levites is given as follows : v. 21 ff. Gershom 7,500 Kohath 8,600 Merari 6,200 22,300 more than enough, in point of number, for the specified purpose. Yet the sum is given as only 22,000 v. 39, short of the number of first-born in the other tribes by 273, and these 273 were to be redeemed by a sum of money, v. 46. Hence it seems a necessary inference that the odd 300 Levites were themselves first-born, and as such not available as substitutes for others. Now cer tainly the number 22,300 is not exact ; the census proceeded by hundreds (or fifties), omitting the tens and units, which, for the three families of the tribe of Levi, may have amounted to something like a hundred more. Suppose the sum was §282.] FROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. 299 near 22,400, then the proportion gives one first-born in 56; if it was 22,300, the proportion would be one in 74. The latter is perhaps too enormous to be accounted for in any way ; the other is within bounds, if polygamy prevailed to a great extent, but not otherwise. If we take the latter pro portion, it gives a population of 22,273 x 22,300 -e- 300, or 1,655,626 males, which is certainly excessive, for since 603,550 of these were adults, there would be 1,052,076 minors : now 39 years later, when all those adults had died off, there were found in a new census but 601,730 adult males, Num. xxvii. 51 : so that even if there were no births in all those years, there must have been an immense mortality among the juniors of the Exode. Whereas if we take the other proportion, it gives 22,273 x 22,400-400, or 1,244,780, which is not at all improbable. It seems then, that the adult male population being 603,550, the whole male population, on an extreme supposition, may have been 1,400,000, or, including the Levites, 1,422,300 ; but we will suppose it for argument's sake, 1,500,000. Now the patriarchs, with the exception of Benja min, were born between 46 and 39 years before the descent into Egypt (§291): say 255 years before the first census. Suppose the term of doubling to be 15 years, the population would be 17 times doubled in 255 years : 217 = 131,008, and 1,500,000 -s- 21"' gives about 11-j- as the basis of the population. Again : on the same supposition, since 210 years = 15 x 14,wehavel,500,000-f-2u (or 16,376) which gives about 914- as the basis: even this is not excessive, for it is to be considered that the population was de rived in part from the circumcised male servants belonging to the households of the patriarchs. If, however, the term of doubling be supposed 14 years, then, there being 15 such terms in 210 years, the basis of 1,500,000 would be that number divided by 215, or about 46. Now the patriarchs with their sons at the descent into Egypt may have been between 50 and 60 in number, for it is certain that of the 70 enumerated in Gen. xlvi. several, at least 14, were born in Egypt1 Taking therefore 1 The following circumstances shew that Moses did not intend to enumerate such only as were born before the migra tion: 1. Reuben, at the time of the second visit, had only two sons, xiii. 37, here he has four 2. Benjamin was " a lad," "a little One," when he stood before Joseph; Joseph calls him "my son ;" 300 FROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. [CH. VI. the extreme supposition, that the population in the first census numbered 1,500,000 males, and that the families of the twelve patriarchs at the descent into Egypt numbered but 50 males, it appears that the term of doubling lies between 14 and 15 years. Certainly then, the ancient chronology labours under no difficulty whatever in respect of the increase of population. On the contrary, the modern statement does. For if the Israelites were 430 years in Egypt, their numbers must in so long a time, have grown to an amount perhaps twice as great as we find recorded ; at least, if we are to believe what the Scriptures affirm, both in promise and in history, concerning the great and steady increase of the population in Egypt. I will only remark further, lest this discussion should have seemed unnecessarily minute, that it is always important, and in these days more than ever, to vindicate the historical verity of the Scriptures. There is more at stake here than the determi nation of a point of chronology: the modern criticism, by denying the authority of the apostolic statement in Gal. iii. 17. impeaches the ancient Catholic doctrine of inspiration. The truth of that statement is now vindicated: and in a manner which serves at the same time to attest the strict consistency of the Pentateuch. Tradition, mythus, and arbitrary fiction, are sure to betray themselves as soon as they meddle with matters of arithmetic. But the statistical arithmetic of Moses has now been proved to be thoroughly consistent with itself and with the order of nature. son ;" the catalogue gives him ten sons ! — 3. Pharez and Zarah were but just born at this time (infra § 287.); their two sons are inserted on the list as sub stitutes for Er and Onan, who " died in the land of Canaan."— 4. Immediately before the catalogue we read, "the children of Israel took their father and their little ones D3.JD, xlvi. 5. also xliii. 8; the catalogue mentions grandsons of Jacob who have children In Numb. xxvi. not one son is assigned to the sons of Jacob, except those mentioned in lien. xlvi. Is it credible that no sons were bom to them in Egypt? — When, there fore, it is said, " all the sons of the house of Jacob which came into Egypt are 70," v. 27, the meaning cannot be that all these were then born. The fact that Joseph's two sons, who were born in Egypt, a« reckoned among the 70, proves that the statement is not to be taken literally. ( We may remark that the loose expression here is parallel with that in Exod. xii. 40.) He means that Jacob after the descent into Egypt, mul tiplied, through the twelve patriarchs, into seventy families. The number was not accidental; it is the sacred number, the signature of the covenant These remarks are taken from Hengstenberg, Pentat. 2, 354— 359. §283,284.] EROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. 301 § 283. But further : we shall make the Scripture contradict itself if we date these 430 years from the descent into Egypt. The promise to Abraham was, that his seed should come out (i.e. of Egypt) in the fourth generation. And that this was ful filled, we see by the genealogies. Moses was the fourth from Levi ; Levi — Kohath — Amram — Moses. Now in this genealogy the years of the lives are given (which circumstance is proof that no descents are omitted). Levi lived 137y: Koath 133y: Amram 137y: Ex. vi. 16 ff. Levi was born when Jacob was about 87 years old, for he was Leah's third son, Gen. xxix. 34 ($291). Levi then was, at most, 43 years old at the descent into Egypt, and lived 94 years in Egypt. Hence the sum of the years of the whole lives of those patriarchs in Egypt, is 94 + 133 + 137; to which add 80, the age of Moses at the Exode, and the sum is 444, only 14 years more than the 430 of the supposed stay in Egypt : so that either Kohath and Amram, or Amram and Moses, on this supposition, must have been born within seven years, each, of his father's death. Of course this is incredible. And the difficulty is increased by the further statement in Exod. vi. 20, " Amram took unto him Jochebed his father's sister to wife :" for, that Jochebed is not here called Kohath's sister, in a wider sense of the term, is evident from Numb. xxvi. 59, " The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed the daughter of Levi, whom (her mother) bare unto Levi in Egypt." Thus, by the mother's side, Moses was but third from Levi. 1 Levi 2 Kohath 3 Amram m. Jochebed 4 Moses. § 284. The evidence furnished by this genealogy is abund antly confirmed by others : everywhere, in the fourth, fifth, or sixth. descent from the twehe patriarchs, we arrive at contemporaries of ies. Thus 1 Chron. ii. : 1 Judah From the birth of Pharez to the birth of 2 Pharez Caleb II. are 190 years, about 47 years to 3 Hezron each descent. On the other scheme, the 4 Caleb I. interval is 404 years, or 100 to each de- 5 Hur scent. 6 Uri and Cakb II. 7 Bezaleel 302 PROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. [CH. VI. I Judah Joseph 2 Pharez Manasseh 3 Hezron Machir 4 Seguh a daughter 5 Jair Segub 0 Jair Again, 1 Chron. ii. 21, vii. 14 ; Numb. xxvi. 30^-33. Hezron, at the age of 60, married Machir's daughter. Hence from Pharez to Jair are three descents, from Manasseh four. Now Jair was less than 20 at the Exode, Deut. iii. 14. The three descents, therefore, give an average of 65 — 70 years, but on the other scheme twice as much. Manasseh was born about eight years before the de scent into Egypt, 223 before the Exode, therefore the four descents give an average of 50 — 55 years. In the same line we have, 3 Machir 4 Gilead 5 Hepher 6 Zelophehad 7 Daughters of Zelophehad And 3 Hezron 4 Ram 5 Amminadab 6 Nalishon Elisheba, married to Aaron 7 Salma, &c. And in the line of Levi (1 Chron. vi. 37, 38 ; Exod. vi. 21, 54 ; Lev. x. 4.) 1 Levi 2 Kohath 3 Izhar Uzziel Amram 4 Korah Mishael Elzaphan Aaron Moses. § 285. We may further notice, that the genealogies in 1 Chron. generally place the final settlement in the promised land, at the sixth to the eighth descent from the patriarchs. The settlement is indicated by the transition from names of persons to names of places, or families. Thus, in the o-enealogy of Caleb, I Chr. ii. 50 ff. :_ ° 1 Judah 2 Pharez 3 Hezron 4 Caleb, m. Ephrath 5 Hur I 285.] FEOM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. 303 0 Caleb II1. (wife not named) 7 Shobal Salma Hareph father of father of father of 8 Kirjath-jearim Beth-lehem Beth-gader = Ithrites, Puhites, Netophathites, &c. &c. Ib. 48. 6 Caleb II. cone. Maachah 7 Shaaph Sheva father of father of 8 Madmannah Machbenah and Gibeah. Now we have seen that from 1 to 6 the average is 45 years : at the same rate, the settlement should be about 90 years later, i. e. about 50 years after the Exode : a close agreement with the Book of Joshua, in which the settlement is placed after the 47th year from the Exode. And here I may notice one among the many fine marks of consistency which appear in these genealogies. 1 Chron. ii. 42. ib. 50. iv. 21. 1 Judah id. Judah 2 Pharez id. Shelah 3 Hezron id. Laadah 4 Caleb I. id. m. Ephrath Mareshah 5 Sons ofMareshah Hur 6 HEBRON Caleb II. 1 This Caleb is constantly called "son of Jephunneh the Kenezite." The iden tity is proved by 1 Chron. ii. 49, where Achsa (Joshua, xv. 15 ; Judges i. 12.) is daughter of Caleb son of Hur. It is also implied in ii. 55, compared with iv. 9 ff. In the former passage we find " the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez," descended from Caleb, son of Hur, through Salma; in the latter Ja bez is abruptly introduced in a gene alogy of "Ashur, father of Tekoah," son of Hezron. At v. 9, therefore, or v. 8, there is a transition to the line of the Calebs. Then at v. 11, a Caleb is mentioned by name, and described as " the brother of Shuah," butin the LXX. " father of Achsa." At v. 13, "Kenaz" is introduced abruptly with this gene alogy; Kenaz, Othniel, and Seraiah, and from Seraiah, Joab, father of the valley of Charashim. But ii. 54, Joab is reckoned to the sons of Salma, son of Caleb, son of Hur. In the LXX. the introduction of Kenaz is not so abrupt : "And Caleb, father of Achsa, begat Bethrapha, and Tehinna, father of the city of Naash, brother of Eslom, the Kenezite. These are the men of Re chab." In what respect Caleb, son of Hur, is called son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, we must, I suppose, be content to be ignorant. 304 FROM THE CALL TO THE EXODE. [CH. VI. i. e. Caleb I., in marrying Ephraih, intermarried with the family of Mareshah, the representative of the elder line of Judah1 : the " sons of Mareshah" include Hur, the father of Caleb II., the founder of Hebron. § 286. Here, however, it is to be remarked that, while in all the other genealogies the contemporaries of Moses occupy the 4th, 5th, or 6th grade from the patriarchs, Joshua, whose pedigree occurs at 1 Chr. vii. 22 — 27, seems to be full nine generations removed from Ephraim, son of Joseph. Now this is indeed just possible, on a general view ; for, supposing him 40 years old at the Exode, there will be, according to our chronology, about 220 years from the birth of Ephraim to the birth of Joshua, which will give 20 years as the average of each descent. And it might. also be added, that this remarkable multiplication of the seed of Ephraim, accords with, and attests the fulfilment of, the benediction pronounced upon him by Jacob, Gen. xlviii. 19. A little consideration, however, will show that the fact is not as it seems to be. " And the sons of Ephraim ; Shuthelah, and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son, and Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take their cattle. And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his breth ren came to comfort him. And when he went in unto his wife, she conceived and bare a son, and called his name Beriah, because it went ill with his house. And his daughter's name was Sherah, who built Bethhoron the Nether and the Upper, and Uzzen-Sherah. And Rephah was his son, also Resheph, and Telah his son, and Tahan his son, Laadan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son, Nun his son, Joshua his son." Now, at first sight, it would seem as though the writers placed the birth of Beriah after the slaying of six or seven successive descendants of Ephraim, son, grandson, great- 1 The reading of the LXX. at iv. 21, curiously falls in with this view. " The sons of Selah, son of Judah ; Er, and Laadah, father of Maresha, Kai yevevcis o'ueeiwv 'F.ippaSajiaK tb oIkw 'E8eis, he reproves Terah's idolatry, breaks his idols, and departs with him out of Chaldsea : on their arrival at Haran, Terah dies." We must evidently read oS', 74 ; else there is an interval of 60 years between the departure from Ur and arrival at Haran. (This passage, therefore, is unsuitable to Mr. Greswell's purpose. Diss. iii. 439.) I may add, that in the vulgar Jewish chronology, this fabulous incident of the idols is referred to Abraham's 49th year. (Some curious solutions, by modern writers, of the sup posed difficulty in respect of Acts vii. are stated and discussed by Ussher, u,. s.) 1 A further argument to the same effect would result from the fact that Sarah was but ten years younger than Abraham, were it certain, (as indeed it seems highly probable) that Sarah is identical with Iscah, daughter of Haran, see Gen. xi. 28, 29. So Josephus, Ant. i. 7, and the rabbins understand it, and most of the Christian Fathers, S. August. de Civ. D. xvi. 12. 19. The authors of the Seder Olam Rabba meet this objec tion to their scheme with this monstrous absurdity : Quum ad annorum sex ata- tem Haran excrevisset, accepit uxorem : qua peperit ei annorum octo existenti, una anno Latum, altera Jescham qum et Sarah est I y« 298, 299.J THE HEEREW TEXT OP THE GENEALOGIES. 321 of 430 years, symmetrical with the 430 years from thence to the Exode: i.e. since we have made out 427 or 428 years, that the events related in Gen. xii — xiv. occupy a period of 2 years, or 3 at most: consequently, that Abraham's 78th year and the first year of the 430 begin together: whence it followed that the time of sojourning in Canaan after the Promise was 213 years (or 215 after the Call), and the time of sojourning in Egypt 217 years. I see no reason to depart from this arrangement ; but the reader may be apprised that, if he thinks a term of 2 years not enough for the occurrences of Gen. xii. and xiv., the cyclical symmetry may still hold good upon either of the following views of the facts: 1. The Promise, Gen. xv., may be placed as much later than the time of Gen. xii. as may seem necessary : — in this case the time of sojourning will be divided between Canaan and Egypt in a different proportion, e.g. if the Promise be assigned to the be ginning of Abraham's 81st year, the portions will be 210 and 220, and then the dates b. c. of the several events will have to be placed 3 years earlier; the birth of Isaac, 1996 b.c; of Jacob, 1936; of the descent into Egypt, 1806. Or, 2. It may be assumed that the 430 years are reckoned from the Call, and that the departure from Haran occurred 2 or 3 years after the death of Terah, thus making 430 years from the Flood to the Call, Gen. xii. But I have stated my opinion, and by that I abide. § 299. The 430 years of sojourning were complete to a day, " that self-same day" on which Abraham received the Pro mise, and saw the great Vision of the Exodus of his seed, even on that day the Vision was accomplished1." If this period was the counterpart of another of the same length preceding it, had 1 The following note was accidentally omitted in its proper place, at c. vi. § 288. The Rabbins assign this covenant to the night of 15 Nisan (afterwards passover- night). Pirke R. Elieser, c. 28. R.Je- huda dixit : Ilia nox qua Deus S. B. Abrahamo apparuit fuit nox Paschalis, qua eduxit eum foras, dicens, an nume- rare potes omnem exercitum c&lorum? Seder Olam Rabba, c, 5. Die xv. men- 21 sis Nisan locutus est Deus cum Abraha mo inter frusta. Tanchuma, fol. 23-4. Die xv. mensisNisanfeedusinterDeumet Abrahamum sancitum est inter sectiones animantium,q.d. Ex. xii. 41. Et fac tum est (YpD) in fine, jVD^ UIK VP terminus unus fuit omnibus his rebus. — Schottgen. de Messia, vi. 4. §3. t. ii. p. 560. 322 PROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. 1. this earlier one also its point of departure on " the self-same day V It had. For let us observe the notes of time, so minute and doubtless significant, with which Moses accompanies the history of that awful year. " On the 17th day of the 2nd month, the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." " The rain was upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights." " The waters increased upon the earth 150 days." " And God remembered Noah and all that were with him in the ark, and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged ; the fountains also of the deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained ; and the waters returned from off the earth continually, and after the end of the 150 days the waters were abated ; and the arlt rested in the 7th month,' on the 17th day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat." That the form of year intended in these dates was lunar, does not admit of a doubt. The Jews, and Semitic nations gene rally, knew no other ; certainly their year was of this form at the time when the book of Genesis was written and delivered to them, and of course they would refer these day-names to- their own calendar. But not the month-numbers; for a new enumeration in that respect was established at the Exode. Abib, or passover-month, was thenceforth to be the first month of the year. It follows that it was not till then accounted the first month ; and if so, the first month, as reckoned till then, can have been no other than the corresponding month of the other half of the year, the month of the autumnal equinox, of the early rain and seed-time, as Abib or Nisan is that of the vernal equinox, the latter rain and barley-harvest. That is, the ancient Hebrew year began before the Exode, with the month afterwards numbered 7th, and called Ethanim and Tisri, agree ably with the usage of the other nations of Western Asia from time immemorial, which continued among the Jews themselves in civil matters, and in the regulation of the sabbatical and jubilean cycle. Hence the seventh month in the year of the Flood was the month Abib. Its 17th day was the self -same day on which, m the fulness of time, God led His people safe through the waters of the sea. The Israelites assuredly would mark the coincidence: and one can scarce doubt that Moses points to J 300, 30] .] THE HEBREW TEXT OP THE GENEALOGIES. 323 this in the words above cited, viii. 1 — 4, where we are told how on this day, the last of the 150, God remembered Noah, caused His wind to blow and the waters to abate, and the ark to rest on Mount Ararat. This day, then, seems to be marked in the narrative itself as the partition of the two cycles ; the boundary between the times of the Old and New World. The judgment was consummated, the chosen seed of the New World rested in safety. § 300. But the period contained in the genealogies of the Old World reaches to the 600th year current, not complete, of the life of Noah (supra, p. 10 and note). We have, therefore, a period of 1655 years, ending at the 1st day of the year of the Flood: and the entire period is 1655 years 6 months and 16 days. That is to say, the series of the mundane sera bears date from the 1st day of Tisri, 1655 years before the 1st Tisri of the year of the Flood. I do not mean to say that the very day of the creation of Adam is hereby determined, but only that the years of Adam and of our race are dated from that point of time. We have now the equation between the two aeras, a.m. and b.c. The Exode is dated 15 Nisan, 1586b. c, consequently the date of the ark's resting on Mount Ararat is 17 Nisan, 1586 + 860 = 2446 b. c. And since the years b. c. bear date from 1 January, the 1 Tisri of the year of the Flood lies in 2447 b. c, and the 1 Tisri of the first year of Adam in 4102 b. c. ; i. e. 1 a. m. begins 1 Tisri 4102 b. c, and reaches to 1 Tisri 4101 b. c, whence 1 Tisri b. c. 1 is the beginning of 4102 a. m., and 1 a. d. begins 1 January 4102 a. m. Any date there fore between 1 Nisan and 1 Tisri of a given year b. c, will be referred to the sera a. m., by deducting the year b. c. from 4102 ; but if the date lie between 1 Tisri and 1 January, we must add 1 to the remainder. In like manner, any date between 1 Tisri and 1 January of a given year a. d., will be referred to the aera a. m., by addmg the year a. d. to 4102 ; but if the date lie between 1 Jan. and 1 Tisri, deduct 1 from the sum. Thus the day of the Exode, 10 April 1586, lies in a.m. 2516, and the dedication of Solomon's Temple, 15 Tisri 1006, in a.m. 3097; so the day of the Crucifixion, 18 March a. d. 29, lies in a. m. 4130, and the 1st Tisri a. d. 32, in a. m. 4134. § 301. Hence we have the following dates for the period before the Flood. 21—2 324 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. 1. A.M. B. C. 1. 4102-1. The first year of the Mundane Mm, and of the life of Adam. Whether the years of Adam are reckoned from his creation, or from the expulsion from Paradise, is left undecided. Cain and Abel. Birth of Seth. Birth of Enos. "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." Birth of Cainan. Birth of Mahalaleel. Birth of Jared. . Birth of Enoch. Birth of Methuselah. Birth of Lamech. Death of Adam, 930 y. Translation of Enoch, 365 y. . Death of Seth, 912 y. [Bisection of the period from Adam to the Promise.] Birth of Noah. Death of Enos, 905 y. Death of Cainan, 910 y. Death of Mahalaleel, 895 y. . Death of Jared, 962 y. The ark begins to be prepared (120 y.) Noah's eldest son is born (500 y.) Shem is born. Lamech dies, 777 y. Methuselah dies, in his 969th year. The Flood, in the 600th year of Noah, 99th of Shem. $ 302. The death of Abel must be supposed to have not long preceded the birth of Seth', since Eve regarded Seth as the substitute " for Abel, whom Cain slew." In that case there will be no difficulty in explaining Cain's exclamation, " every one who findeth me shall slay me." In 120 years after the Creation, the earth may have had a considerable population. It agrees with this view, that Cain after the birth of his son builds a city. The Cainite genealogy need not be supposed to extend to the Flood; perhaps it was intended only to trace the descent down to the time when the arts and modes of civilized life (so called) were invented and established in the line of Cain, i.e. to the time described in Gen. vi. 1-6, when "the earth was filled with violence." It seems that the song of Lamech, 131. 3972-1. 236. 3867-6. 326. 3777-6. 396. 3707-6. 461. 3642-1. 623. 3480-79. 688. 3415-4. 875. 3228-7. 931. 3172-1. 988. 3115-4. 1043. 3060-59. 1057. 3046-5. 1141. 2962-1. 1236. 2867-6. 1291. 2812-1. 1423. 2680-79. 1536. 2567-6. 1557. 2546-5. 1558. 2545-4. 1652. 2451-0. 1656. 2447. $"302,303. J THE HEBREW TEXT OF THE GENEALOGIES. 325 that heaven-defying expression of a Titanian arrogance, is left on record as a token of the insolent confidence which was in spired by the invention of the arts of deadly warfare. Adah and Zillah hear my voice, Give ear unto my speech ye wives of Lamech. I will slay the man because of my wound, The child because of my hurt. " Man and child, old and young, will I strike dead for the slightest hurt done unto me." Therefore, If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, Surely Lamech seven and seventy-fold. " I am safer with my weapons of war than Cain with the terror of God's curse." But we may well suppose that there lies some deeper mystery in this brief record of Cain and his seed. This, and that other dark history concerning the sons of God, I must leave untouched, and proceed with the proper subject of this chapter. $ 303. In the year of the Flood we have the following dates and numbers. vii. 3 — 10. A pause of 7 days. 12, 17. Rain 40 days. 24. The waters prevailed 150 days; "at the end of the 150 days the waters were abated." viii. 3. The sum is 197 days. Now it was on the 17th day of the 2nd month, that is, on the 47th day of the year, that Noah en tered the ark, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, v. 11 ; and on the 17th day of the 7th month the ark rested, viii. 4. The inter val reckoned in months of 30 days is 150 days. Hence it might seem that the pause of 7 days began on the 1 st day of the year, that the 40 days' rain followed, and after these, on the 17th of the 2nd month, Noah entered the ark, and the windows of heaven were opened, &c. But this would contradict the narrative, for the 40 days' rain evidently began on the day that Noah entered the ark. We must, therefore, arrange the times in this way : 326 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [CH. VII. S. i. 40 days, to the 10th of the 2nd month (a. m. 1656. u. c. 2447) 7 days suspense to the l7th day. The Flood begins. Noah enters the ark. i i 40 days rain. 110 days the waters prevail. 150 days, ending- at the 17th of the 7th month. (17 Nisan, a. m. 1656, b. c. 2446.) The year being lunar, the interval is in fact but 148 days, or it was on the 149th day current, that the ark rested : but this discrepancy is of no moment. viii. 5. The waters decreased till the 10th month, 1st day; 100 days from the ark's resting. v. 6. At the end of 40 days (10th day of 11th month, i.e., of the month afterwards called Afy the 5th month,) Noah opened the window and sent forth the raven and dove. v. 10. Seven days later, the dove was sent forth the second time ; and at the end of another week, the third and last time: 24th of 11th month. v. 13. On the 1st day of the new year, (a week after the departure of the dove,) the face of the ground was dry. v. 14. On the 27th of the 2nd month Noah issues from the ark, after a sojourn of a lunar year and 10 days, or a com plete solar year. § 304. " Shem was 100 years old and begat Arphaxad 2 years after the Flood," xi. 10. If these two years are measured from the beginning of the Flood, so that the birth of Arphaxad lies in the year 1658, one year after the egress from the ark, the Table then proceeds as follows : A. M. B. C. 1657. 2446-5. Noah issues from the Ark, 27th of 2nd month. (Oct.or Nov.) 1658. 2445-4. Birth of Arphaxad. 1693. 2410-09. Birth of Salah. 1723. 2380-79, Birth of Eber. 1757. 2346-5. Birth of Peleg. The earth divided in his days (239 y.). 1787. 2316-5; Birth of Reu. 1819. 2284-3. Birth of Serug. 1849. 2254-3. Birth of Nahor. 1878. 2225-4. Birth of Terah. 1948. 2165-4. (Terah's eldest son is born.) 1996. 2107-6. Death of Peleg (239 y.) 1997. 2106-5. Death of Nahor (148 y.) § 304, 305.] THE HEBREW TEXT OF THE GENEALOGIES. 327 2006. 2097-6. Death of Noah (950 y.) 2008. 2095-4. Birth of Abraham. 2026. 2077-6. Death of Reu (239 y.) 2049. 2054-3. Death of Serug (230 y.) 2083. 2020-19. Death of Terah: Abraham departs to Canaan. 2084. 2019-8. Abraham in Canaan— after, in Egypt. 2085. 2018-7. Separation of Lot. 2086. 2017-6. The war at Sodom. Lot rescued. The Promise, 15 Nisan, 2016, b.c. § 305. The brief notice concerning Peleg, " in his days was the earth divided," is interesting in several points of view. That division can be no other than the one which is related in Gen. xi. I am aware that some have taken a difierent view, supposing the confederacy and dispersion of the Babel-builders to have concerned only the godless posterity of Ham. This is a novelty which I only notice to object to it the ancient and universal consent of interpreters, Jews and Christians, who have taught, agreeably with the obvious import of the story, that all mankind were of one speech and language, and as yet formed one community, until the time of that impious attempt ; in which, however, it by no means follows that the godly seed of Noah and Shem took part. The earth was not divided until that time, and it was divided in the days of Peleg. The time, then, of the dispersion of nations lies somewhere in the 239 years of that Patriarch, or between 2346 and 2107 b.c Within this period, therefore, we are to seek the origin of nations and em pires. In a future stage of our inquiry it will be an interesting question how far the genuine records of ancient nations accord with this determination. But with respect to Peleg we may now remark a manifold significance of the name of this Pa triarch. It means " division," with an express reference to the division of the earth : but it seems to have a further signifi cance in these respects : — 1. Peleg is central between Noah and Abraham; Noah Peleg Abraham Shem Reu Arphaxad Serug Salah Nahor Heber Terah 2. At Peleg the term of human life is abruptly diminished the second time. Arphaxad, the first-born after the Flood, lived 328 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. i. not half the term of the antediluvian lives : at Peleg it is re duced from an average of about 450 years to 239. Hence Peleg, the 4th from Aphaxad, dies before all his ancestors, -and even 10 years before Noah: and the middle year of his life is also that of Arphaxad : also, if the life of. Eber be divided into 3 equal parts, the first ends at the central year of Peleg, the second at the death of Keu, and the whole life 4 years after the death of Abraham. The Kabbins and old commentators suppose, not unreasonably, that the name of Peleg's brother, Joktan (PP1), relates to this diminution of the term of man's life. We will suppose then, that the great event in reference to which Peleg has his name occurred about the middle of his life, i. e. about 220 years after the flood. Hereafter we shall have occasion to point out an interesting fact connected with this hypothesis : at present I have but to remark that the interval here supposed between the dispersion of nations and the Call of Abraham is amply sufficient for the growth of populous nations and the foundation of considerable empires. For in 100 years from the Flood, the population would have grown from 3 males to 400, if it doubled its numbers but once in 14 years. In the second century, since all the males who lived in the first century were still in the vigour of life, the term of doubling cannot have been more than half what it was in the former century. Hence at the end of this century the population might number 400 x 2H or about 205,000 males; and at the 220th year, it would number, at the same rate, more than 7 times as much, or a million and a half of males. These dispersed over the- world, and still living on an average 200 years each, are abund antly sufficient to have overspread the territory of the most ancient nations with a numerous and civilized population in the course of about 200 years from that time. For it is to be re membered that the antediluvian arts of civilization were of course preserved among the descendants of Noah. y- 306. The annexed Table exhibits at one view the con tents of the genealogies in Gen. v. xi., so as to shew at the same time the relative ages of the Patriarchs and the contemporary durations of their lives. § 306.] THE HEBREW TEXT OF THE GENEALOGIES. 329 CON i-< CO en r-i rH CM ¦* ^--© © N O CO CM CO OS r^ TH CM 1-4 r-l CO © <= -aNrH ION -H JO rH © CM t-h C"> HO a. ° o 25 CDrH CO jo 00 CO CO OS i-t 1-4 CM *—. ID rH rH >,' rH CO © © rH rH © I—I n© rH «5 rH © (M i-i « ?.' O O! 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CO .— ' CM ph nco rH 05 co ©rH©©©rH©HHN ^ocsonNO-*«3 : : •gcococoio^fcocM : : N© © © T-H © CM r^ ©©©rHrH^CCOM© Hiraraoi><;Hi>'#H : • • © rH CO CO CM o CM rH rH rH . . . co jo INN CM CO CO lotoodousncoH N^H^iomHioco : : CONCPW^^CSIrt - . •O CO IO rH rH© CM -^ CMrHrH©©CMCM©OrH© © © Hg ^EaXeK OUTW9 tiriKXijdevTa Sid to ev ypepais avTov pepia-dijvat Ttjw yrjv. $a- XfcK eTulv p\r eyevvrjae tov 'Payaii, Kal 6TriJt)aAiK e-rri'ly. Sui das also, s. v. *«\e'ic, mentions this pe- § 314, 315.] ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 345 $ 314. These facts clearly indicate design. And I sup pose that the original intention was to get a period of m x 215 from Adam to the Exode: e.g., 10 x 215 to the Flood, and 7 x 215 thence to the Exode. A vestige of such a scheme remains in the computation of Clement of Alexandria, who reckons from the Creation to the Flood 2148 years and 4 days, therefore to the birth of Arphaxad would be 2150 years ex actly3. It appears also in the numbers given in the (interpolated) text of Josephus : To the-FIood 2156 To b. Abraham 992 To the Call 75 Sum 3223 which wants only 2 years of being exactly 15 x 215, so that if this computist dated the 430 years two years later than the Call, the whole period would be, to the Promise 15 x 215, to the Call 17 x 215. Suppose then that such was the original intention : then to carry it into effect it was necessary to add 5 entire centuries to the first five generations, and to deduct, somewhere, 6 years; after the Flood, there were 650 years to be added, six centuries to the first six generations, and 50 years to Nahor. $ 315. We will now consider the scheme in which it was proposed to get 17 x 217 years from Adam to the Exode, the birth of Abraham, however, being assigned to the 71st of Terah. Now since the true text exhibited the following items, viz. riodof3000y, but erroneously constructs it of 2242y before, and 758 after the Flood. Eustathius, HexaHm. notices it thus : — Kal b virovoovpevos Ttiov erwv Tijs tov Kocpov Siapouris dpiQpos eis Svo Siypedq iesaiTaTa ' Tpetr-j(i\ia ydp eirl Ty Te\eUT>J avTOv Ttjs tov Kocrpov virdpfceais eVt] eire- paTeoQt]' yiveTai ovv dirb 'ASdp eirl ti]v t(Xcvt))v *ba\eK e-nj Tpi$-%L\ia ' eirl de tjjv tov J£.vpiov irapovuiav Kal dvdarTacriv eTt] nrevTaKKT^iKia Kal irevT^Kouia Tpid- KovTa ev. (Routh, nott. in 1.) See also Hesych. ap. Anastas. Script. Queest. 93. Cedreni Chron. Malaise Chron. in 1. 3 The same writer quotes a summary of chronology from Eupolemus, Strom, i. 21, § 141. He reckoned from Adam to the 5th of Demetrius = 12 Ptolemy (mean ing, of course, Pt. Lagi, whose 12th year is the epoch of the sera of the Seleuci- das,) a period of 5149 years, and from the Exode to the same goal, 2580y. The latter number is of course corrupt, for it would give for the date of the Exode 312 + 2580 = 2892 n. c. The true reading is doubtless 1280, which gives the date 1592 B. c, only 6 years too early. Now 5149 -1280 = 3869, which is (wanting lv) just 18 x 215. (It is curious that the corrupted number 2580 is just 12 x 215.) 346 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII, S. ii. To the Flood 1656 ». The Flood 1) To b. Abraham 292 J ^ To the Call 75 To the Exode 430 The sum being 2454, To enlarge this into 3689 years It was necessary to add 1235y. How was this number disposed of? Not capriciously, but by adding to the first of the true items a period of 586 = 2 x 293 years, or just twice the second item: 1656 + 586 = 2242: whereby the interval from the true year of the Flood to the birth of Abraham was just trebled. These 586 years were inserted by means of six centenary additions, and a deduction of 14 years from the generations of Methuselah and Lamech. There remained 649 years, which, overlooking the year of the Flood, gave six centuries to the six first Patriarchs after the Flood, and half a century to Nahor. And so this scheme was com plete. § 316. But the larger scheme was designed to give a period of 4000 years complete, from Adam to the Exode. On deducting 1656 years from 4000 there appears the remainder 2344, which is just twice 1172, which is just four times 293. And observe, that 1172 is the number which this scheme sub stitutes for the 293, or rather 292 years of the Hebrew ! So that, as the shorter scheme began by trebling the interval from the true year of the Flood to the birth of Abraham, this began by quadrupling the interval from its year of the Flood to the same event. Surely it will not be pretended that this is acci dental? In order to enlarge the 292 into 1172 years there were 880 years to be added, i. e. 230 more than in the shorter scheme : hence the additional century given to Nahor, and the new patriarch Cainan with his generation of 130 years. The other portion of 1172 years, after deducting 135 + 430 = 565 which were not to be meddled with, left 607 years to be added to the antediluvian genealogies, or 606, the other being the year of the Flood itself : six centuries to six Patriarchs, and 6 years added to Lamech's generation made this scheme complete. § 316 318.J ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 347 Hebrew. LXX. To the Flood 1656 +606 2262 The Flood 1 \ l To Terah 71 292 J +880 1172 = 4x293 TotheCall 135 135 To the Exode 430 430 2514 4000 § 317. But it has been already shewn, that the period from the birth of Arphaxad to the Exode is based upon the number 217. This is not absolutely true, but it is so within a single year: for the period in question is 1737 = 8 x 217 phis 1. That the two Hues of design so nearly tally must be regarded in the light of a fortunate accident : that there was design in respect of the period 217 years, as well as in the other respect, is evident, from the pains taken to have the death of Peleg exactly at the bisection of the 8 x 217 years. It is likely that the framers of the scheme originally contemplated no more than this, and got a period of 1736 years from the Flood to the Exode, with the birth of Arphaxad just 868 years from either : and that the other design, in relation to the 4000 years, and the term of 1172 or 4 x 293 years, supervening upon this, occasioned this slight derangement of the former, that from the birth of Arphaxad to the death of Peleg should be 868 years, and thence to the Exode the same period minus 1 year. The scheme, however, serves to explain the structure of the genealogies. In itself, it mattered not where the new generation (Cainan) was placed ; but in order to expand the given period 35 + 30 + 34 + 239, or 338 years into 868, it. was necessary to add 530 years ; accordingly, 3 centuries being already added to the 3 generations, and the life of Peleg length ened by a century, there remained 130 for the generation , of Cainan. $ 318. Now since the numbers in both texts of the LXX and in the Masoretic Hebrew are so intimately related, there must be artifice on one side or the other. Suppose the Hebrew numbers 1656 and 292 to be the originals, then the process by which the numbers of the LXX were generated out of these can be traced step by step. On the other hypothesis, i.e. if the original numbers were 2242, or 2262, and 942, or 1172, the rabbi must be supposed to have used an arithmetical operation 348 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S.. ii. just the converse of what has been described ; but why it could be necessary to take such pains, what object was to be gained by it, one is wholly at a loss to understand. This plain fact lies before us, that the Masoretic numbers stand to those of the LXX in the curious relations which have been described ; if they were fabricated by artifice, the artifice is as complex as it is purposeless. And the difficulty is aggravated by the fact that there are two texts of the LXX, and that the Hebrew is similarly related to both. § 319. In adverting now, to the text of the genealogies, which appears in Josephus, it is necessary to premise this re mark : that the writings of Josephus come to us not from the rabbinical Jews, who have handed down the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Scriptures, but from the hellenists. It is there fore antecedently improbable that any alteration would be introduced into the genuine text of Josephus, having the in tention of reconciling his chronology with the Hebrew, where it differed from this: but not at all improbable that altera tions would be introduced for the purpose of bringing him into agreement, in case of any difference, with the Septuagint. Now it is remarkable, that while his existing text of the gene alogies is a curious medley of the LXX and the Hebrew, Josephus, on two occasions, shews that he followed the Hebrew chronology. 1. In the 8th book of Antiquities, chap. 3. 1, he places the foundation of Solomon's Temple 592 years after the Exode ; 1020 after the Call of Abraham; 1440 after the Flood, and 3102 after the Creation. This gives the following scheme : (1) From the Call to the Exode, 1020 - 592 = 428y, agreeing within 2 years, with Ant. ii. 15. 2. where he makes this period 430y. (2) From the Flood to the Call, 1440 - 1020 = 420'. (3) From the Creation to the Flood, 3102 - 1440 = 1662, only 6 years more than the Hebrew enumeration. Perhaps he read 188y for the generation of Lamech. (4) From the Creation to the Call, 3102 - 1020 = 2082, almost exactly agreeing with the Hebrew tenet. Hence this summary clearly involves the Hebrew text of the genealogies ; and, besides, is derived from a scheme of chrono logy in which the Call of Abraham was (rightly) placed at the ¦death of Terah, i.e. 1656 + 292 + 135 = 2083 years after $319,320.] ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 349 the Creation. The only discrepancy is this, that the Flood is placed 6 years too late. 2. In the other passage, Ant. x. 8. 5, he places the de struction of Solomon's Temple 1062 years after the Exode, 1957 after the Flood, 3513 after the Creation1. Here we have : (1) From the Creation to the Flood, 3513 - 1957 = 1556 years, agreeing with the Hebrew in all but the hundreds, and these differing by one century. In fact, his computation was formed by including the 100 years of Shem in the post-diluvian genealogy, and dropping them from the antediluvian list. (2) From the Flood therefore to the Exode, we have 1857- 1062 = 795 years : which is manifestly composed from the Hebrew : viz. 290 from b. Arphaxad to Terah 70y. 75 y of Abraham at the Call. 430 to the Exode. 795 Here he follows a computation in which the birth of Abraham was placed, as in the vulgar Jewish and Samaritan chronology, at the 70th year of Terah.. If then, Josephus held the Alex andrine scheme, either these two passages have been corruptly accommodated to the Hebrew by some later hand, (by whom ? is not easily answered,) or he grossly contradicts himself.. And now we will see what he says, or is made to say, on this matter, § 320. We are told Ant. i. 1, 3. in the received text, that from Adam to the Deluge, was a period of 2656 years*. On reading this announcement, we of necessity either suspect a cor ruption, i.e. an interpolation of Sia before -^iXiiov, or else sup pose that Josephus meant to enlarge the antediluvian period by a thousand years, 400 years more than the LXX. But then follow the particulars, in which the generations and lives are re ported as follows, the residues being omitted : 1 In Ant. viii. 3. 1. all the MSS. give the same numbers without variation. In the second passage, the number 1957 ap pears in all the MSS. Gr. and Lat. and in Zonaras : but for the number 3513 two of Hudson's MSS. have 4513, and Bigot notes from his collations the number 4015. 2 Ita in Codd. omnibus tarn Gr. quam Lat. tarn MSS. quam editis. Nonnulli legunt inrijpxe Sh xiKiuiv e^aKoirimv Kai nevrr\K0VTa eg. Hudson in I. 350 PHOM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. ii. Generation. Lite. Adam 230 930 Seth 205 912 Enos. 190 905 Cainan 170 910 Mahalaleel 165 895 Jared 162 962 Enoch 65 ' 365 Methuselah 187 969 Lamech 182 777 Noah , 600 (950) He does not repeat the sum of these years, but says only, " these years added up make the above-mentioned sum." In truth, however, their sum is 2156. But the numbers here set down differ from the Hebrew only in 5 centenary additions, viz., in the 5 first generations. Reject these, and the sum is 1656. Surely this strongly confirms the surmise that the Sia is a cor rupt interpolation. This is far more likely than that the e^a/co- alwv should be an error or corruption in the place of eKaTov. And since our author on two other occasions has followed the Hebrew reckoning, I do not See how one can doubt that he followed the same reckoning here, where his original text is vitiated by an interpolation of five centuries in the details, and of a thousand years in the sum. The corrector, or rather corruptor, of the text, did his work by halves, or possibly he mistook the bear ing of the period announced as 1656 years ; that the thousands ought to be two, he did not doubt, the six in the hundreds place he left standing, perhaps fancying that his author included the 500 years of them after the Flood. So in the details, he began by adding the centuries which seemed wanting. All this he might do in perfect good faith, as being ignorant of the very existence of a reckoning so widely discrepant from the text of the Septuagint. Coming to the number 1656, he would think, Surely, here is a mistake, an error of transcription, for all the world knows that there was more than two thousand years before the Flood. And in the details, he would in like manner fancy that he was but restoring his author's text by replacing 1 'EKHToa-Toiv is absent from all the j necessary to replace it from the LXX, MSS. Greek and Latin. Bernard thought I and is followed by the editors. § 321. J ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 351 an additional century in each of the first five generations. That he neither replaced the century in the generation of Enoch, nor conformed the generation and life of Lamech to tho Alexandrine text, is accounted for by the same supposition : had he done either, the 2656 years would have been inexplic able. $ 321. In the period after the Floods Josephus begins by announcing, in agreement with the Hebrew text, and with his own reckoning on one of the two occasions before noticed, that " Abraham was born in the 292nd year3 after the Flood." Then follow the details in proof of the announcement. From the Flood to b. Arphaxad 12y (or 11) Arphaxad (1)35 Salah (1)30 Eber (1)34 Peleg (1)30 Reu (1)30 Serug (1)32 Nahor (1)20 Terah 70 [Sum 700+293 or 292] Strike out the centenary additions, and the sum (which is not expressed on this occasion either) is just what was announced. The explanation is obvious : the hellenist scribe did not meddle with the hundreds in the sum 292, possibly because he was mis led by a resemblance between the numeral signs in the centuries place ; but he thought he was discharging a duty by his author in replacing the hundreds in the seven generations. The error of placing the birth of Arphaxad in the twelfth, instead of the second year after the Flood, however it originated, is balanced by a subtraction of 9 years from the generation of Arphaxad. Perhaps, as the enumeration begins at the latter end, viz., " Abraham was born in the 292nd year, Sec, for Terah begat Abraham in his 70th year, and Terah was born in his 20th of Nahor, and Nahor, &c," an accidental omission of the number 9 in the generation of Nahor rendered it necessary, the sum 'AevTepoj erfi Kal evevnKoaTw I MSS. tarn Gracis quam Latinis. Hud- irpds diuKoaioLs. Ita in editis et \ son. 352 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [dl. VII. S. ii. being premised as 292, to replace the nine somewhere else, and this might be done by a later hand. The reader is probably aware that a scheme of chronology which did, and still does, enjoy a considerable degree of credit among ourselves, is based upon the chronology of the LXX as rectified by the help of Josephus. It was therefore worth while to shew on what precarious grounds the testimony of Josephus is enlisted in defence of the Alexandrine Chronology. Is it any longer a question whether the chronology of this Palestinian Jew exhibits any other than a forced and corrupt conformity with that of the Alexandrines ? One more remark : the number placed in the heading of the book, irepie^ei r] /3i'/3Xo9 y_povov eTwv 'yioX'y (3833) may possibly be derived from the sum of the following num bers : — Adam to the Flood 2656 To b. Abraham 992 Life of Isaac, i. 22. 1 185 3833 The computist overlooking the 100 years of Abraham between the Call and the birth of Isaac. But it rather seems to imply that in the post-diluvian genealogy the centenary addition in the generation of Nahor was inserted at a later period than the six first, so that the sum to the birth of Abraham was 892, differing from our shorter text of the LXX only in the omission of the half century prefixed to the original 29 of Nahor. That is to say, Josephus having written the numbers as in the Hebrew, the text would seem to have obtained its present form in this way : Terah 70 70 70 70 Nahor 29 29 129 120 Serug 32. 132 132 132 Reu 30 130 &.c. &c. Peleg 30 130 Eber 34 134 Salah 30 130 Arphaxad 35 135 Flood 2 2 12 292 892 992 992 y- 322.] ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 353 In conclusion, it is to be observed that Josephus, c. Apion. i. 8, reckons " almost 3000 years from the Creation to the death of Moses ;" and in the proem to his Antiquities affirms that "the sacred books of the Jews contain the history of 5000 years." The former notice may mean ouly this, that the death of Moses occurred during the 3rd millennium : (in the Hebrew chronology it lies at a. m. 2556.) In the other, the period must be supposed to end at Malachi, for he is speaking of the contents of the sacred booh; and the sum of the corrupted numbers does in fact give nearly that length of time from the Creation to the close of the Canon. Hence I suspect that Josephus in his proem wrote 4000 ; meaning, the period of time contained in the Canonical Scriptures. He reckoned, as we have seen, 3513 to the destruction of the first Temple, therefore about 3700 to the close of the Canon1. § 322. Demetrius, contemporary with Ptolemy Philopator, in an abstract of the early history quoted by Polyhistor (ap. Euseb. Prwp. Ev. ix.) gives the following numbers : From the Creation to the Flood 2264 To the Call of Abraham 1145 To the Descent into Egypt 215 3624 The first term really ends at the birth of Arphaxad, agreeably with the larger text of the LXX. The next can be explained only by supposing that he included the second Cainan, and gave Nahor a generation of 79 years. Viz. 940 from birth of Arphaxad to Terah 70, (shorter LXX.) 130 Cainan 75 to the Call 1145 This testimony, therefore, if genuine, bespeaks the antiquity of the interpolated Cainan. But perhaps the text of Polyhistor has been corrupted by a later hand. 1 Since these pages were written, lhave read the ingenious and elaborate Disser tation of Whiston, on this subject, pre fixed to his translation of Josephus. He maintains that Josephus reckoned 1655y 23 to the Flood and 892 from thence to the birth of Abraham. This notice may suf fice, for I do not find it necessary to retract any of the conclusions drawn in the text. 354 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. ii- § 323. We may notice, in conclusion, the early Christian texts of the genealogies and chronology. The earliest of these is that of S. Theophilus Antioch. ad. Autolyc. iii. 24, which is remarkable on several accounts. Adam 330 ' [After the Flood 2] Seth 205 Arphaxad 135 Enos 190 Salah 130 Cainan 170 Heber 134 Mahalaleel ... 165 Peleg 130 Jared 162 Reu 132 Enoch 165 Serug 130 Methuselah ... 1872 Nahor 75 Lamech 188 Terah 70 Noah 600 Abraham 100 2362 1038 From Adam to the birth of Isaac 2362 + 1038= 3400 To the birth of Jacob 60 To the descent into Egypt 130 To the Encode 430 Sum 4020 years. If, however, we give (with Galland's MSS.) 167 years to Me thuselah, the sum is just 4000 years. The old editions give the sum from Adam to Isaac (omitting the two years after the Flood) ^(pXp (3532), but Cod. Reg. has ,70-05"' (3276), Fell and Galland tyaor,' (3278). The first (3532) is derived from the text of the LXX ; viz. 2262 + 1170 + 100 = 3532, and was inserted arbitrarily by some scribe. It seems to me that Theophilus really gave Adam a generation of 330 years, and to Methuselah of 167 years, making the antediluvian period 2342 years. From Arphaxad to Isaac he certainly reckoned 1036 years, giving Nahor a generation of 75 instead of 79 years. Thus the period to the Flood was 2342, to the birth of Arphaxad 2344, to the birth of Abraham 3280 (or omitting the 2 years after the Flood) 3278, the result being the same as the sum of the shorter text of the LXX, 2242 + 942 + 100 = 3284, diminished by the 4 years subducted from the genera tion of Nahor. From the birth of Abraham to the Exode, Two MSS. of Galland have 230, which he adopts. 2 Galland, 167. J 323 325.] ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 355 Theophilus, by assigning the whole of the 430 years to the sojourn in Egypt, gets 720 years, so that the sum is just 4000 years. In other words, this scheme is fashioned out of the shorter text of the LXX by giving to Adam an additional century, and deducting 4 years from Nahor. And now observe the result : — this period of 4000 years is composed, as in the larger text of the LXX, of 1656 years, plus 2344 (= 8 + 293). The latter term is made to end at the birth of A rphaxad by adding a century to the number 2242 (viz. 2342 + 2) : the other, of 1656 years, is made to extend from ihe birth of Arphaxad to the Exode, by deducting 4 years from the number 940 (viz. 936 + 100 + 60 + 130 + 430 = 1656 years. § 324. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i. 21, § 140, has the following summary : From Adam to the Flood 2148 years and 4 days. From Shem to Abraham 1250 From Isaac to the KAqpooWia 616 From the Judges to Samuel, &c. The 1250 years may be explained either thus: Birth of Shem to birth of Arphaxad 100 Birth of Arphaxad to Terah 70 990 (as in Josephus) To birth of Abraham 60 To birth of Isaac 100 1250 or thus: Flood to Terah 70 1172 (as in LXX) TotheCall 75 To the Promise 3 1250 The latter seems the most probable, because the first item is expressly made to terminate at the Flood, not at the birth of Shem. The 616 years are composed of 215-6 years of sojourning in Canaan, and 400 years reckoned from the de scent into Egypt to the settlement in Canaan, in virtue of a peculiar interpretation of the passage in Genesis xv. § 325. The scheme of Julius Africanus has been in part already described. In the antediluvian period he followed 23—2 356 PROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. li the longer computation, probably because he perceived the difficulty attendant upon the other in respect of Methu selah. To the Flood 2262 Arphaxad 135 2397 Salah 130 2527 Eber 134 2661 Peleg 130 2791 Reu 132 2923 Serug 130 3053 Nahor 79 3132 Terah 70 3202 940 TotheCall 75 3277 1015 " From the Flood to Abraham's entrance into the promised land are therefore ten generations, 1015 years ; from Adam twenty generations, 3277 years1." $ 326. The Samaritan text of the genealogies is manifestly derived from an earlier text of the Septuagint ; as indeed the labours of modern critics have left it no longer doubtful that the entire text of the Samaritan Pentateuch was fabricated from the Alexandrine Greek version. In the antediluvian period, the first five generations were left untouched, and the other generations were reduced to uniformity by striking 1 Origen's departure from the LXX has been already mentioned : here I would notice a remarkable passage of his writ ings on Genesis, in which lie is comment ing upon the Greek text. Sel. in Ge nes, .(ad vi. 9.) Xlepiexei ev tois epirpo- udev oti " e^vere Adpe-% eTrj eKaTov Kal bySoriKOVTa Kal oktw, Kal eyevvijae Nwe. Kat eXlr}o,e A. peTaTO yevvijo-aiavTOV tov N., eTr) irevTaKOGia Kal e^rpeovTa Kal ireVTe. 'Kal eyevovTO iraarai al ijpepat A. erij eTTTa/coVia Kat ieeVTr\KOvia Tpla, Kal diredave. Kai ?Ti> N. eTvlv irevTaKO- ij. "Qcrirep Kai eirl tov 'Afipadp ovk eXoyiadt) eh £w,jv to eji/- KOVTa 6tij ra irpo tjJs 6eoyvoj7 TpiaKOVT a' Kal tov JEaouA Itij etKoo-t, Kat tou 'EJckiou >?t?) SeKa Kal ev- Ta' dXXd Kal irepl tov MadovcrdXa ev- pioKeTai Siaepmvla eTmv ScicairevTe. What these statements about Noah and Enoch can mean, I am at a loss to under stand. y\326.] ALEXANDRINE AND SAMARITAN TEXTS. 357- off the centuries. Now, if the tens and units of Methuselah and Lamech were to remain, the sum would have been 1656-400 = 1256, so that if Lamech lived 777 years, and Methuselah 969, the one would have outlived the Deluge 95, the other 200 years ! For the birth of Lamech would lie 682, and that of Methuselah 682 + 87 = 769 years before the Flood. Nay, the birth of Jared would lie only 769 + 65 + 62 = 896 before the Flood, so that to give him 962 years, would be to bring his decease 66 years after the Flood. These absurdities it was necessary to obviate; accordingly at Jared the residues and sums of life begin to be altered, and it is con trived that Jared, Methuselah and Lamech, should each termi nate their life in the year of the Flood. And first; since Lamech in the LXX had 753 years of life, by striking off a century, and giving him a generation of 53 years, his decease was brought to the year of the Flood, 600 + 53 = 653. Hence, still following the LXX, Methuselah having a genera tion of 67 years would be born 720 years before the Flood ; accordingly his life became 720, and residue 653. Lastly, the birth of Jared now lay 720 + 65 + 62 = 847 years before the Flood; accordingly his life was reduced from 962 to 847, his residue therefore from 800 to 785. Thus was this genealogy framed out of the shorter text of the Septuagint. In the post-diluvian period, this was followed uniformly, viz. in the addition of 6 centuries to the generations, and half a century to the generations of Nahor, making 942 years in all. In the residues, however, the Samaritan recensors reverted, for the most part, to the Hebrew text, perhaps because they perceived that the Alexandrine text obliterated the fact of a sudden contraction in the term of human life at Peleg. Hence with the Hebrew, they give Arphaxad and Salah a life of 438 and 433 years respectively, therefore residues of 303 years each: the life of Eber must part with 60 years, as in the LXX, for the sake of a gradual declension, hence the residue is 270 : Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor, have their lives as in the Hebrew, only their residues must be diminished by 3 centuries and a half, which were added to their generations. Only Terah remains ; and here the Samaritans, assuming that Abraham was born when Terah was 70 years old, and rightly perceiving that the 358 FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. [cH. VII. S. ii.] Call of Abraham coincides with the death of Terah, reduced the 205 years to 70 + 75 = 145. Thus the procedure of the Samaritan text-makers is sufficiently explained, and no room is left for the supposition of artifices such as I have exposed in both texts of the LXX. Nor indeed have I been able to detect any such. PART II. MYSTICAL CHRONOLOGY, OK, DIVINE ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS. H iro\viroiKi\o' ols epeXXov evxapioTelv etfraaKOv, Outos ovk eKpdX- Xei k.t.X Sid toi tovto. ..KaSdirep Mioo-^s peTeTeBri eh yrjv MaSidp...Ti)v t"£ eQvwv eKaXei avvaywyqv. Enarr. in Act. Apost. t. vii. Compare v. 35 with ii. 36. iv. 11, 12. § 330.J IMPORT OF THE GENERAL SCHEME. 373 "Jerome repeatedly observes, that the interval of 40 years, or the number 40 in general, seems to have been especially appropriated to the suspension, previous to the execution, of the penal dispensations of Providence, as the term of probation, as the measure of God's long-suffering, as the interval of warning and expectation allowed for repentance, and, in defect of that, after which the punishment of obstinate impenitence should begin." Greswell, Dissertations, i. 597. Origen had previously made the same remark, on Deut. xxv. 3. dei ye TeTripriKafiev KaKWTiKov ovTa tov TeaaapaKovTa apiO/xov. He cites as instances the fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Christ, and the 40 days rain in the Deluge. The passages referred to in S. Jerome are the following : Comm. in Jon. iii. 4. Quadragenarius numerus convenit pecca- toribus et jejunio et orationi et sacco et lacrymis et perseverantiw deprecandi. Comm. in Ezech. xxix. 11. Qui numerus semper afflictionis et pwnw est. (E. g. The fasts of Moses, &c. : the 40 years in the wilderness: the 40 years denoted by the 40 days of Ezekiel's lying on one side : the 40 decads of sojourning, Gen. xv. : the 40 days of rain in the Flood.) But the passage most to the purpose is the following: Comm. in Amos, ii. 10. Ipse Dominus fecit nos exire de sosculo, et per annos xl., qui numerus semper afflictionis et jejunii, luctus est et doloris, per tribulationes et angustias pervenire in terram sanctam, ut possideremus primum terram Amorrhwi . . . . et postea suscitaret defiliis nostris prophetas, omnes sanctos viros qui acceperunt spiritum prophetalemf See also Comm. in Ezech. xii. The Jews themselves have a very remarkable tradition which distinctly recognizes a period of forty years preceding the destruction of the second Temple. "Our rabbins," says Kimchi in Zech. xi. 3, "say, that forty years before the de struction of the Temple, the doors of the sanctuary flew open of their own accord. Rabban Johanan Ben Zakkai reproved them, and said, O sanctuary ! How long wilt thou terrify thy self? I know that thine end is to be left desolate, for Zechariah hath prophesied against thee long since, Open thy doors, O Lebanon." (Kimchi's Comm. on Zechariah, translated by Dr. McCaul, p. 119.) Josephus, too, relates this prodigy in his summary account of the portents which preceded the war, (B. J. vi. 5. 3,) but without mention of the time, except that it was 374 ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS. [CH. I. at a certain passover, apparently of the same year in which, at Pentecost, the voice was heard, which said, MeTa(3a'ivwfiev evTeddev. Perhaps the tradition confounds the rending of the veil, forty years before the war, and the spontaneous opening of the gate at a later period. However that may be, here is this critical period recognized by the Jews themselves1. 1 1 perceive with much satisfaction that the economy of periods measured by seventy times seven has been noticed in part by Lightfoot. " From the beginning of Samuel's rule to the beginning of the Captivity in Babel was 490 years, and from the end of that Captivity to the death of Christ, 490 years more, and the seventy years Captivity, 'the midst of years' be tween." The first period of 490 years he dates from the day of Mizpeh, as I have done, and makes that day the type of the beginning of the Gospel Dispensation. " Here was a strange and wondrous spirit of conversion poured upon the people at the beginning of the race of Prophets as there was at the end of it." "As the practice in the Acts was to repent and be baptized, so was it then with Israel; as that expression may most properly be interpreted 1 Sam. vi. 6, 'they drew water and poured it out before the Lord,' as wash ing or baptizing themselves from their idolatry." — Commentary on Acts iii. 24. See also " Chronicle of the Times" on 1 Sam. vi. Works, Vol. 1. p. 54. Lightfoot's scheme for the earlier part being based on the Hebrew text of 1 Kings vi. 4, as understood by the Jews and Ussher, he could not perceive the existence of a period of 490 years before these two. The reader will observe that in the latter part Lightfoot absurdly follows the Jewish reckoning, in making but 490 years from the 1st of Cyrus (b. c. 536) to a. d. 33. His reason for overthrowing the received chronology is expressed in the note on Dan. ix. p. 136. " So that from this year to the death of Christ are 490 years; and there is no cause because of doubtful records among the heathen (!) to make a doubt of the fixedness of this time, which an Angel of the Lord hath pointed out with so much exactness.'' See the entire scheme in the Prolegomena to the Harmony of the Four Evangelists, p. 383—390. I have not been able to discover whether the early Christian chronogra- phers had their attention drawn to this feature of the Old Testament chro nology. In some of the ancient schemes, however, this double period of 490 years was made out, or very nearly. S. Paul's outline gave the first ; but to bring out the second, required more exact criticism and summation than the ancients applied to the subject. Still, some of them do come very near to the truth. Thus Clement of Alexandria, and S. Cyprian in his Paschal Com putus (or whoever was the author of that essay) give 490 years as the period between the Exode and the epoch of the 40 years of Saul, and reckon 497 (Clem.) or 495 (Cyp.) from thence to the Captivity, i.e. to the begin ning of the Seventy Years. Africanus recognized both periods but separated them by wide intervals : viz. § 33] .J IMPORT OF THE GENERAL SCHEME. 375 y 331. It can scarcely be accidental that the period of 430 years so emphatically described in Exodus is just the period afterwards, in a different connexion, revealed to Ezekiel. On that subject I have more to say in a subsequent place. Here I would call attention to a remarkable circumstance which seems to connect this period in a peculiar way with the Abrahamic covenant. " Moses 40 years. Joshua 25 [I. 27]. Elders 30 = 97 Judges, from 1st Servitude to Eli 490 Eli and Samuel. 90 Hebrew Kings, from 1st of Saul 490 Captivity, beginning at 1 Zedekiah 70 Sum 1237 years." The excess is enormous : for not only are the three first items in truth part of the fourth, and the fifth item part of the sixth, but Africanus, by a singular oversight, identifies the end of the 70 years with the 1st year of the Persian reign of Cyrus = 559 b.c. Ol. 55. 1, so that his date of the Exode becomes 559 + 1237 = 1796 b.c. This extravagant scheme originated, I suppose, in his use of early profane chronology, viz. in his making the Flood of Ogyges, which he dates 1020 years before Ol. 1. 1. (= 1796 b. c.) contem porary with the Exodus of Israel. Syncellus comes much nearer to the truth : viz. he reckons from the First Servitude to the Captivity, 2 x 490 years (3908-4888. a.m. = 980.) S. Theophil. ad Autolyc.m. reckons 498 from the Exode to the accession of David, which is 32 years too little ; and 51 8£ from thence to the end of the seventy years Captivity, which is but a year and a half short of the truth. It is very remarkable that Origen reckoned 10 x 490 years from the Creation to the last times of Jerusalem : he gave this as the sense of Daniel's prophecy, reckoning to the birth of Christ 4830 years, or 69 weeks of 70 years each. The last week, of 70 years, is bisected at the death of Christ. In Matt. Comment. Series, 40. (ii. 277- ed. Lommatzsch.) In another place, Comm. in Matt. torn. xv. 34 (i. 398), expounding the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, and placing the first hour at Adam, third at Noah, sixth at Abraham, ninth at Moses, eleventh at the Incarnation of Christ, he remarks that the interval from the third to the sixth is equal to that from the sixth to the ninth, and similarly that the period from the first to the third corresponds with that from the ninth to the eleventh : i. e. that from Adam to Noah is the same length of time as from Moses to Christ, and from Noah to Abraham the same as from Abraham to Moses. This is very curious : it is almost precisely the scheme of the times which I am here describing: from which it differs only in placing the Incarnation, not the destruction of Jerusalem, as parallel with the days of Noah. Perhaps, how ever, 376 ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS. [cH. I. The Roman judgment on Judah and Jerusalem was con summated in two great catastrophes : — the Levitical Covenant was abolished, in the one, when the Temple was destroyed : in the other, precisely 65 years later (a.d. 135, Hadrian's war of extermination), the seed of Abraham was finally expatriated from the Land of Promise ; this, accordingly, may be regarded as the supremus dies of the Abrahamic Covenant. Ponder the scene which is here described as the issue of that war : " The whole of Judaea was a desert ; wolves and hyaenas went howling through the streets of the desolate cities. Those who escaped were scarcely more fortunate : they were reduced to slavery by thousands. There was a great fair held under the terebinth beneath which Abraham, it was believed, had pitched his tent: thither his miserable children were brought in droves, and sold a$ cheap as slaves. Others were carried away, and sold at Gaza ; others were transported into Egypt.'''' (Milman, History of the Jews.) In connexion with this impressive scene, let the reader consider this fact, involved in our date of the Exode. The time of the catastrophe was certainly the year 135. From the Pro mise (2106 b.c.) to this year are therefore just 2150 years, that is, five periods of 430 years precisely ; and from the Exodus four such periods'. But there are some further corollaries resulting from our date of the Promise. For the Covenant made on that day with Abraham attained its highest fulfilment in Solomon : now ever, Origen had no very precise notion of a numerical parallelism of periods: and certainly he could not mean to represent the interval from Noah to Abraham as longer (in the proportion of 3 to 2) than the period from Adam to Noah. It may be remarked, that some of the ancients seem to have been very nearly in possession of the true length of the Mosaic period : and it is curious that the mystical calculation of the name Mwuot/s (= 1648) was sup posed by some to give the exact length. Thus an unknown writer quoted from a MS. ined. by Cotelerius in Barnab. Ep. c. 16. io-Teov oti to Mwuo-ije ovop.a -^nepito/xevov e^ti apidfiov axm- Kcu evpiQn d Muo-aVicos i/o'/uo? KpaTijo-as totoUto etui. 1 Even the interval of 65 years, be tween the two instalments of the judg ment (a.d. 70 and 135), is significant in connexion with this very period of 430 years. This will be shown in a subse quent chapter. § 331. J IMPORT OF THE GENERAL SCHEME. 377 from our year of the Promise (201 6) to the first year of the son of David (1016) are precisely a thousand years. Again: the whole period from the Promise to the end of the Mosaic dispen sation (4 August, a.d. 70) is 2085y 4m. The bisection of this period (or 1042y 8m) lies at the close of 974 b.c, which is a very remarkable conjuncture of the history. For so we read : " They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Reho boam strong, three years : for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon. And it came to pass when Reho boam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened him self, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him. And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of Rehoboam Shi- shak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord... And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to She maiah, saying, They have humbled themselves ; therefore I will not destroy them... Nevertheless they shall be his servants, that they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.'' 2 Chron. xi. 17; xii. 1 ff. The third year of Rehoboam expired at the Passover of 974 b.c That year, the critical epoch of the troubles of Judah — the time when Egypt was again, for the first time since the Exode, a triumph ant enemy — is the central year of the entire Abrahamic dis pensation. Ex illo retro fluere ac sublapsa referri. It seems to me that the facts which have been described are sufficient to establish our interpretation of the apostolic state ment. I shall, therefore, drop all further questioning on that point, and proceed to describe the manifold economy of Times and Seasons which that measure brings to light. First, how ever, we have to examine that famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, and to determine its bearings on our scheme of chro nology. CHAPTER II. DANIEL'S PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS. § 332. We have now seen that the prophetical period of Seventy Sevens which was revealed to Daniel does not stand by itself, but forms part of a system of such periods. In the pro phecy itself, there is an evident connexion between the period of seventy years foretold by Jeremiah, which were then just about to expire, and the period of seventy sevens which was the subject of a fresh revelation. The fact of this connexion is, in itself, sufficient to satisfy us, who live after the event, that a fulfilment in years was, if not the only, at least the principal and imme diate fulfilment which was intended1. The prophecy was given " in the first year of Darius, son of Ahasuerus the Mede, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans," i. e., in the course of the sixty-ninth year of the seventy years captivity. (Supra, $ 184, p. 196.) Babylon was now taken by the Medes as the Prophets had foretold : and Daniel, understanding by the books, especially by the prophecy of Jeremiah, " that the Lord would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem," " set his face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications." The object of his prayer is described in these words : " Hear the prayer of thy servant, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate. Behold our desolations, and the 1 This connexion ought not to be overlooked in the argument against that scheme of prophetical interpreta tion which assumes that each day of the other prophetical periods (1260, 2300, &c.) stands of course for a year. The advocatesofthescheme in question appeal to the prophecy of the seventy weeks, as if it afforded a notable proof that, in the eye of prophecy, a day is of course, to be interpreted as a year. But in fact, this prophecy says not a word about days ; it speaks only of sevens. To which I add, that the word sevens, in the Hebrew, is in a different form from the word which means weeks of days. Whether sevens of days are meant, or sevens of months, of years, or any other period, must be gathered from the con text : and the context, in so far as 70 sevens are opposed to 70 years, implies the unit to be a year. § 332.] THE PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS. 379 city which is called by thy name. Defer not, for thine own sake, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name." And thus was his prayer answered : " While I was speaking and praying . for the Holy Mountain of my God, the man Gabriel, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplication came forth the word (*in N2T) and I am come to shew thee, for thou TT TT art greatly beloved: wherefore understand the word and con sider the vision. Sevens seventy are cut off (or, cut short) upon thy people and upon thy holy city. To finish the defection and to seal up sins2, And to cover (or, expiate) iniquity (perversity), And to cause-to-come righteousness of ages : And to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint (the) Holy of Holies. Thou shalt know therefore and understand : From the going forth of the word for the restoring and for the building of Jerusalem to (the) Anointed, (the) Prince [Messiah Nagid]. (Shall be) sevens seven, and sevens sixty-and-two : It shall be restored and built, (both) street and conduit3, even in the straitness of the times. [Or, The street shall be restored and built, And it is decreed, even in the straitness of the times.} And after the sevens sixty-and-two shall Messiah be cut off, and it is not his: ( i.e. the people. ) And the city and the sanctuary shall (the) people of the prince that is come to lay waste : And its end (shall be) in (or, like) the inundation : And even to the end of the war is (a) decree of desolations. And he will make-firm a covenant with the many one seven, (Or, One seven will make strong, &c. Or, (The) covenant shall prevail, do-great-things, with the many, one seven.) And the half (or, middle) of the seven will make-to-cease offering and drink-offering, 2 The K'ri here has DJ"1!T> as in viii. 23, for DJ"in; "to bring sins to the full." Ewald prefers this reading as more agreeable to the sense, and also as being more poetical than the repeti tion of -Orin in the same verse. 3 " VHn has undoubtedly the same meaning here, as in the Aramaic and Arabic, pool or water-conduit, the build ing of which is of so much importance to Jerusalem." Ewald. 380 ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS. [cH. II. And on the wing shall be abominations of desolation, And even unto extermination and judgment shall it rain down upon the desolated (or, desolator). § 333. The obscurity of this prophecy before the event must have been great indeed, since even now it is so difiicult to give, clear of ambiguity, the exact sense of several of its terms. How little it was understood before the event may be seen as matter of fact in the Septuagint — the old version, that is, and not the Greek of Theodotion, which has been substituted for it. The ambiguity, doubtless, was intentional. Assuredly, it was not agreeable to the Divine Will that the Old Testament Church should know, so long before, that a period of nearly five centu ries would elapse before the coming of the Messiah, and that His Advent would issue in the destruction of His " people, city, and sanctuary." That destruction was foreknown and decreed, but as the consequence of the nation's rejection' of Messiah. And here, as in all other prophecies ejusdem materiw, the true sense, which is the expression of the Divine Foreknowledge, lay hidden until the event disclosed it. The very purpose of proba tion required this concealment. This, however, is not the place for any sufficiently extensive discussion of the nature and objects of Prophecy. Our business is to shew how the event has brought out the true sense of this prediction. And since its wording is designedly ambiguous, it is useless to argue, a, priori, what must be the true sense. Only thus much appears upon a general survey of the prophecy, that after the sixty-two weeks "Messiah is cut off:11 that a period of seven weeks precedes this of sixty-two : that in the middle of the 70th week, i. e. 3 \ years after the 7 + 62, " sacri fice and offering are made to cease." $ 334. Now let us apply this scheme to the results of our chronological investigation. Messiah was " cut off" in the year a. d. 29, March 18. If from this date we measure back 34-+62x7+7x7 = 486-^- Julian years, we arrive at b. c. 459, 17th September. But 486-g- natural solar years, to end at 18 March a. d. 29, must begin 20 or 21 Sept. b. c. 459. In that year the 7th month began 11th Sept., whence the 20th Sept. was the 10th Tisri, or Day of Atonement. And, on turning to the history, we find this to be a date which precisely corresponds with the terms of the prophecy. Ezra vii. 1 ff. § 333 335.] THE PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS. 381 " Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra . went up from Babylon. And he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. And he came to Jerusalem in the 5th month, which was in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. For on the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the fifth day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments." After this follows the decree of Artaxerxes for the complete rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the Mosaic ritual and polity. § 335. That Ezra, more than either Zerubbabel or Nehe miah, was the restorer of Jerusalem, in the most important and effective sense of the word, cannot be doubted. He is to the Old Testament Church in its last period, what Moses was to the first, and Samuel to the second. With him began what may be called the Dispensation of the Scribes and Wise Men. A fitter epoch for this last period can nowhere be found than is afforded by the great crisis in which Ezra was the principal actor. The national humiliation and renewal of the covenant, cha. x. are the counterpart of the like event at the beginning of the sera of the Prophets. Nay, the very name of Ezra bears a significant relation to the Eben-Ezer, " Stone of Help," set up by Samuel as the boundary between the two first dispensations. 1 Sam. vii. 12. — "We were bondmen," says Ezra, "yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desola tions thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem? For the proof of the fact, so far as this obscure point of chronology can be proved, that the seventh month of the seventh year of Artaxerxes lies in b. c. 459, I refer the reader to an earlier section of this work (§ 192). The seventh month, in deed, is not mentioned in the history, but it is almost a matter of course that the month of the Feast of Trumpets, of the Day of Atonement, and of the Feast of Tabernacles, would form the epoch of Ezra's restoration of the Mosaic worship and polity. 382 ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS. [CH. II. Then, and not sooner, would all the people be assembled at Jerusalem. From this term, then, we are to reckon 7 + 62 + x periods of 7 years each. The first of these, or 49 years, will terminate 18th September (about), in the year 410: the second, at the same period of a.d. 25; the third, of course, at the Cruci fixion, 18th March, a.d. 29. § 336. And now, perhaps, we may be able to apprehend the purport of the partition of the whole period of 70 weeks into portions of 7 + 62 ¦+- 1. The 7 weeks or 49 years end at a time which coincides, on the one hand, with the complete restoration of Jerusalem1, as far as we have the means of judging ; and also with the cessa tion of prophecy, or " sealing up of vision and Prophet " in the person of Malachi8, the last Prophet of the Old Testament. The exact date of Malachi's prophecy is nowhere on record. Thus much, however, can be shewn to be probable, that it coincides, in time, with the latter part of the history of Nehe miah (xiii. 6 ff.) Both Malachi's prophecy and that part of the history of Nehemiah hinge upon the same state of things, which, indeed, is described in both almost in the same terms. Compare, for instance, what is said of the' sin of the priests in allying themselves with strange wives, in Mai. iii. 10, with Nehe miah xiii. 10 — 12. " Only it may be doubted whether the appearing of Malachi should be placed shortly before, or shortly after, or just at the same time with the reformation effected at the second visit of Nehemiah" (which occurred some considerable time after the 32nd of Artaxerxes). " The last supposition is 1 How truly that part of the pro phecy was fulfilled in the term specified the first 7x7 years, which foretold the building again of the street and wall, or, as Theodotion expresses it, oiKoSop-n- 6tj