armies, under the command of Titus their prince, who came upon Jerusalem as a torrent, with their idolatrous images, which were an abomination to the Jews, and under which they marched against them, invaded their land, and besieged their holy city, and by a calamitous war, brought such utter destruction upon both, that the Jews have never been able to recover themselves, even to this day. Now, both by the undoubted canon of Ptolemy, and the famous ara of Nabonassar, the beginning of the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, (who is called Ahasuerus in the book of Esther,) is pinned down to the 4256th year of the Julian period, in which year he gave Ezra the above-mentioned ample commission: from which, count 490 years to the death of CHRIST, and it will carry the same to the 4746th year of the Julian period. Our Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath and it is plain from St. Mark, ch. xv. ver. 42, and St. Luke, ch. xxiii. ver. 54, that CHRIST was crucified on a Friday, seeing the crucifixion was on the day next before the Jewish Sabbath.-And according to St. John, ch. xviii. ver. 28, on the day that the Passover was to be eaten, at least by many of the Jews. The Jews reckoned their months by the Moon, and their years by the apparent revolution of the Sun and they ate the Passover on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, which was the first month of their year, reckoning from the first appearance of the new Moon, which at that time of the year might be on the evening of the day next after the change, if the sky was clear. So that their 14th day of the month answers to our fifteenth day of the Moon, on which she is full.-Consequently, the Passover was always kept on the day of full Moon. And the full Moon at which it was kept, was that one which happened next after the vernal equinox. --For Josephus expressly says (Antiq. B. iii. ch. 10.) "The Passover was kept on the 14th day of the "month of Nisan, according to the Moon, when the "Sun was in Aries."--And the Sun always enters Aries at the instant of the vernal equinox; which, in our Saviour's time, fell on the 22d day of March. The dispute among chronologers about the year of CHRIST's death is limited to four or five years at most.-But, as we have shewn that he was crucified on the day of a Pascal full Moon, and on a Friday, all that we have to do, in order to ascertain the year of his death, is only to compute in which of those years there was a Passover full Moon on a Friday.-For, the full Moons anticipate eleven days every year (12 lunar months being so much short of a solar year), and therefore, once in every three years at least, the Jews were obliged to set their Passover a whole month forwarder than it fell by the course of the Moon, on the year next before, in order to keep it at the full Moon next after the equinox; therefore there could not be two Passovers on the same nominal day of the week within the compass of a few neighbouring years. And I find by calculation, the only Passover full Moon that fell on a Friday, for several years before or after the disputed year of the crucifixion, was on the 3d day of April, in the 4746th year of the Julian period, which was the 490th year after Ezra received the above-mentioned commission from Artaxerxes Longimanus, according to Ptolemy's canon, and the year in which the MESSIAH was to be cut off, according to the prophecy, reckoning from the going forth of that commission or commandment: and this 490th year was the 33d year of our SAVIOUR's age, reckoning from the vulgar æra of his birth; but the 37th, reckoning from the true æra thereof. And, when we reflect on what the Jews told him, some time before his death (John viii. 57.) "thou "art not yet fifty years old," we must confess that it should seem much likelier to have been said to a person near forty than to one but just turned of thirty. And we may easily suppose that St. Luke expressed himself only in round numbers, when he said that Christ was baptized about the 30th year of his age, when he began his public ministry; as our SAVIOUR himself did, when he said he should lie three days and three nights in the grave. The 4746th year of the Julian period, which we have astronomically proved to be the year of the crucifixion, was the 4th year of the 202d Olympiad; in which year, Phlegon, a heathen writer, tells us, there was the most extraordinary eclipse of the Sur that ever was seen. But I find by calculation, that there could be no total eclipse of the Sun at Jerusalem, in a natural way, in that year. So that what Phlegon here calls an eclipse of the Sun seems to have been the great darkness for three hours at the time of our SAVIOUR'S crucifixion, as mentioned by the Evangelists: a darkness altogether supernatural, as the Moon was then in the side of the heavens opposite to the Sun; and therefore could not possibly darken the Sun to any part of the Earth. 396. As there are certain fixed points in the heavens from which astronomers begin their computations, so there are certain points of time from which historians begin to reckon; and these points, or roots of time, are called aras or epochs. The most remarkable aras are, those of the creation, the Greek Olympiads, the building of Rome, the ara of Nabonassar, the death of Alexander, the birth of CHRIST, the Arabian Hegira, and the Persian Yesdegird: all which, together with several others of less note, have their beginnings in the following table fixed to the years of the Julian period, to the age of the world at those times, and to the years before and after the year of CHRIST's birth. A Table of remarkable Eras and Events. 1. The Creation of the World 2. The Deluge, or Noah's Flood 3. The Assyrian Monarchy founded by Nimrod 4. The Birth of Abraham 5. The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Julian Y.ofthe! Before Period. World. Christ. 706 0/4007 236216562351 2537 18312176 2714 2008 1999 2816 21101897 6. The Beginning of the Kingdom of Athens by Cecrops 3157 2451 1556 7. Moses receives the Ten Commandments 8. The Entrance of the Israelites into Canaan 9. The Argonautic Expedition 10. The Destruction of Troy 11. The Beginning of King David's Reign 16. Sosarmus, the third 17. The Beginning of the Olympiads 18. Attica, the fourth King of the Medes 19. The Catonian Epocha of the Building of Rome 20. The Era of Nabonassar 21. The Destruction of Samaria by Salmaneser 22. The first Eclipse of the Moon on Record 23. Cardicea, the fifth King of the Medes 24. Phraortes, the sixth 25. Cyaxares, the seventh 26. The first Babylonish Captivity by Nebuchadnezzar 322225161491 3262 25561451 3420 27141293 3504 2798 1209 365029441063 3701 2995 1012 13829 3103 884 3838 3132 875 3865 31591 848 3915 3209 798 3938 3232 775 3945 3239 768 3961 3255 752 3967 3261 746 3992 3286 721 3993 3287 720 3996 3290 717 4058 3352 655 4080 3374 633 4107 3401 606 27. The long War ended between the Medes and Lydians 4111 3405 602 28. The second Babylonish Captivity, and Birth of Cyrus 41143408 599 29. The Destruction of Solomon's Temple 30. Nebuchadnezzar struck with Madness 31. Daniel's Vision of the four Monarchies 32. Cyrus begins to reign in the Persian Empire 33. The Battle of Marathon 34. Artaxerxes Longimanus begins to reign 35. The Beginning of Daniel's seventy Weeks of Years 4256 3550 457 36. The Beginning of the Peloponnesian War 37. Alexander's Victory at Arbela 39. The Captivity of 100,000 Jews by King Ptolemy 46. He corrects the Calendar 47. Is killed in the Senate-House 53. The Dyonisian or vulgar ÆRA of CHRIST'S Birth 4713 4007 54. The true year of his Crucifixion 4746 4040 33, 62. The Death of Mohammed the pretended Prophet 5343 4637 63. The Persian Yesdegird 64. The Sun, Moon, and all the Planets in Libra, 65. The Art of Printing discovered 630 5344 4638 631 5899 51931186, 6153 5447 1440 6230 5524 1517 uncertain In fixing the year of the creation to the 706th Age of year of the Julian Period, which was the 4007th the world year before the year of CHRIST's birth, I have followed Mr. Bedford in his Scripture-Chronology, printed A. D. 1730, and Mr. Kennedy, in a work of the same kind, printed A. D. 1762.-Mr. Bedford takes it only for granted that the world was created at the time of the autumnal equinox; but Mr. Kennedy affirms that the said 'equinox was at the noon of the fourth day of the creation-week, and that the moon was then 24 hours past her opposition to the Sun.-If Moses had told us the same things, we should have had sufficient data for fixing the ara of the creation; but as he has been silent on these points, we must consider the best accounts of chronologers as entirely hypothetical and uncertain. |