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year from the 9th, we have six remainder, and adding it to 601, gives us 607, B. C., as the date of this siege. The siege was in the latter part of the year; Prideaux says in October; and its conclusion must have been a month or two later, or about December. Earlier in the year, Nebuchadnezzar had made a conquest of Egypt, had taken Carchemish, and subdued Syria and Phoenicia, and he here finishes his campaign, and returns home with the Jewish and other captives. Of these, Jeremiah says, "These nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass,

when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, saith the Lord."* Counting these seventy years, therefore, from the time of the beginning of this servitude, it is evident that it ended seventy years later than 607, B. C.; and also, that the king of Babylon was overthrown seventy years after this servitude began; hence, the conquest of Babylon, and the death of Belshazzar, was in 537, B. C.; and this, according to Ptolemy, was the first year of Cyrus, and, according to scripture, the first of Darius and of Cyrus conjointly. Why some chronologers should have placed the fall of Babylon in 538, B. C., one year before the seventy years were to be fulfilled, is very hard to divine; and is certainly an error, or else inspiration errs. The seventy years of the Jews began later in the year than that of other nations, and about December; and Prideaux states that their return must have begun in December; so that we may fully claim, that the going forth of the captivity, by virtue of the Cyrus decree, was in December of 537, B. C., just seventy years after it had left Jerusalem for Babylon. Prideaux thinks, that

* Jeremiah xxv.

the first year of Cyrus was his third year from the taking of Babylon, as Tully reckons it; that is, the first of his sole reign, after the death of Darius, the Mede; but Ptolemy's canon reckons his first year with his conquest of Belshazzar; the scriptures speak of the reign of both monarchs; but it is easy to see that their first year synchronizes with all the statements of scripture. We strongly suspect Prideaux's theory of the seventy weeks led him into this error; for it would bring the date of the Ezra decree too early for him by a year, unless he made the first year of Darius to be in 538, B. C., and the first of Cyrus, two years after it. But, as 538, B. C., could not be the first of Darius, if he makes the first of Cyrus to begin two years later than Darius, his theory brings him too late in time for its own good. Mr. Prideaux's view seems to us very unreasonable, as well as impossible to receive; for, according to his notion, the Jews would have been detained in Babylon two years longer than the Gentiles, and two years longer than their appointed time; and God had said that Cyrus should overthrow Babylon, "for Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect," (Isa.) and unless seventy years mean seventy-two years, we can not see how he can be correct; indeed, we know he must be erroneous.

Paragraph II.

DECREE OF ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS.

This was given to Ezra, and published in Jerusalem, in the month of July; and in the seventh year of Longimanus, and in the year 456, B. C.

Prideaux places this decree in the year 458, B. C., and differs from Usher. Indeed each chronologer of this epoch differs arbitrarily from his compeers, and all depart

arbitrarily from history, for the sake, as they say, of scripture chronology; but really to accommodate their several theories of the seventy weeks. Each fixes his theory, and then dates back his amount of years from the death of Christ, and wherever they end, there they place the date of the Ezra decree. A strange way indeed of showing the fulfillment of prophecy! Let history be true, though theories suffer! We can not and will not depart from history, and especially from Ptolemy, unless strongly biassed by opposing testimony; and it is singular that on the date of this decree, Prideaux and Usher both should have left the astronomic chronology of Ptolemy to follow a fancy.

According to Ptolemy, Cyrus reigned nine years from the conquest of Babylon; he was succeeded by Cambyses, who reigned seven years and five months, and he by Smerdis for seven months, and he by Darius for thirtysix years, and he by Xerxes for twenty-one years, and he by Longimanus, and in his seventh year the decree was given to Ezra for reforming Jerusalem. These amount to eighty-one years in all, and estimating, as reasonably we may, that the reign of Cyrus began about the middle of the year 437, B. C., and subtracting eighty-one years from it, we are brought down to 456, A. C.

Paragraph III.

YEAR OF THE CRUCIFIXION.

This was A. D. 29, and on the twenty-fifth of March. So it appears from the facts, Christ was born in the 5th year B. C., v. 2.; and was over thirty-three years of age, but not over thirty-four at his death; and by conseqence must have died A. D. 29; and the scriptures say the crucifixion was on the fourteenth of Nisan which answers,

in that year, to March twenty-fifth. To verify our position, we quote the authority and argument of Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian, and of the era of Constantine. He says, "it was about the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, according to the Evangelist, in the fourth year, that Pilate was procurator of Judea, when Herod, Lysanias and Phillip, as tetrarchs, held the government of the rest of Judea, when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was in his thirtieth year, that he came to the baptism of John, and then made the beginning of promulgating his gospel." The holy scriptures moreover relate that he passed the whole time of his public ministry under the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas; intimating, that during the years of their priesthood, the whole time of his ministry terminated. For, beginning with the pontificate of Annas, and continuing after that of Caiaphas, the whole of this interval does not give us four years. The rites indeed of the law having already been abolished since that period, with it, also, were annulled the privileges of the priesthood, viz: of continuing in it for life, and of hereditary descent. Under the Roman governors, however, different persons at dif ferent times were appointed as high priests, who did not continue in office more than a year.

Josephus, indeed, relates that there were four high priests in succession from Annas to Caiaphas. "Valerius Gratus having put a period to the priesthood of Annas, promoted Ishmael, the son of Baphi, to the office; and removing him also, not long after, he appointed Eleazer, the son of Annas, who had been high priest before, to the office. After the lapse of a year, removing him also, he transfers the priesthood to Simon, the son of Camithus. But he also did not continue to hold the honor longer than a year, when he was

succeeded by Josephus, surnamed Caiaphas.”—(Antiquities.) Hence, the whole time of our Saviour's ministry is proved not to embrace four entire years; there being four high priests for four years, from Annas to the appointment of Caiaphas, each of whom held the office a year respectively. Caiaphas, indeed, is justly shown by the gospel narrative to have been high priest in that year in which our Saviour's sufferings were finished, with which present observation the time of Christ's ministry is proved to agree.

Again; by reference to the scriptures it appears that Christ, after his baptism, at which he was thirty years of age, attended only four passovers, at the last of which he was the "Lamb that was slain;" so that he could not have been over thirty-four years of age. These four passovers are noticed at length in the indices of most family bibles. Secondly; that Christ was born four years before the common era, is agreed to by all writers. The proof of this is incontestable: for on the thirteenth of March, B. C. 4, there was an eclipse of the moon; and Herod was at that time suffering his last illness, and he died that year, so that his charge to destroy the innocents must have been of earlier date; which proves that Christ was born some months before this eclipse.-(Prideaux, Josephus, &c.) This point needed not to be proved, as few sane men will call it in question.

Again; Townsend, in his late profound work, the Chronological Bible, places the crucifixion in A. D. 29; as does Playfair also; and this is followed by the Comp. Comment., and is agreed to, latterly, by all men of chronological research. Gibbon says, there is no reason to doubt that Christ died under the consulship of the two

*

* Dec. and Fall, vol. i., 262; note 6.

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