tion of an extra day and night, at the end of the fourth year, and before the fifth. Yet to the application of this assumption in practice, erroneous as it was in principle, it was previously necessary that the cardinal points in the natural and tropical year (which points are the winter solstice, the vernal equinox, the summer solstice, and the autumnal equinox) should have been accurately determined : otherwise there could be no proper date or beginning at which, and from which, both the natural and the artificial systems of time, which were thenceforward to be adjusted to each other, would begin and proceed in common. These points were determined by Sosigenes, the most eminent mathematician of his dayb; and being so determined, the winter solstice was made to coincide in the newly regulated year with December 25; the vernal equinox with March 25; the summer solstice with June 24; and the autumnal equinox with September 24. Had these dates all been rightly determined, it is manifest that the cardinal points of the tropical year would actually have coincided with the corresponding points of the civil; and the original adjustment of the one to the other, which was necessary to their subsequent agreement, would so far have been complete. It has been proved, however, by modern calculations, that Sosigenes committed an error in the fixing of his cardinal points: that the real date of the winter solstice, for instance, in the first Julian year as such, was December 23, not December 25; the real date of the vernal equinox was March 22 or 23, not March 25; and so proportionally in the other cases also. Nor was this an improbable contingency, or what he must not have suspected himself: for we are told that he re b Pliny, H. N. xviii. 57. 59. 66. §.1. 67. §. 3. 68. §.1. 74. peated his calculations thrice, (trinis commentationibus,) and yet was not satisfied with the results after all. It follows then, that the original adjustment of the Julian or civil year to the tropical or natural was not perfect or complete; the former, in its most cardinal points of all, the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, was two days in advance of the latter; and, consequently, a given date in the former, even from its earliest institution, was no exact measure of a corresponding date in the latter. April 5, for instance, in the first Julian year, and much more in any subsequent one, did not express April 5 in the tropical. April 5 in the Julian was properly April 3 in the tropical; and April 5 in the tropical was April 7 in the Julian. This original error in the Julian year has never been rectified since; and exists now as much as at its first institution. The reformation of the calendar (which means the readjustment of the Julian year to its pristine standard) by Gregory the Thirteenth, A.D. 1582, had no object in view except the restoration of that year to the state in which it was left by the council of Nice, A.D.325; and having attained that purpose, to provide against any deviations from it for the future. Between A. D. 325, and A. D. 1582, the excess of the civil above the natural year, at the rate of 130 years per diem, amounted to nine days complete, and almost a tenth. Gregory compensated for this excess by ordering that the fifth of October should be called the fifteenth; and consequently the eleventh of March the twenty-first by which means the vernal equinox was again made to fall on March 21, to which it had been fixed by the council of Nice. But if there was any original defect in the civil year, independent of this, and anterior even to the council of Nice itself; it is clear that this defect was not affected by the correction in question. Now the date of the vernal equinox, March 21, as fixed by the council of Nice, was almost as much in advance of the true date of this equinox, A. D. 325, as the date of the vernal equinox, March 25. B. C. 45, in the first Julian year as such. It was in fact only a necessary consequence of the assumed date of that equinox, March 24, B. C. 4, when the true date was March 22. For if, B. C. 65, the vernal equinox was supposed to begin to fall on March 24. then, if we reckon forwards at the rate of 130 years to a day, A. D. 325 exactly, it would begin to fall on March 21; whereas the true date of its falling even then was March 20, or 19. The Gregorian reformation, or what is called the new style in opposition to the old, came immediately into vogue in catholic countries; and it is the style according to which the dates of the eclipses, in the table so often_quoted, are all calculated *. Nor did this new style, even from the first, differ from the old, in any thing but the order of the days of the month; (a given day of the month, old style, being necessarily ten days behind the corresponding day, new style;) and also of the days of the week; a given day of the month, new style, being necessarily on a day of the week three days earlier than the same day would have been, old style. It follows, therefore, that even in the tables above quoted, though the dates of the months are the Julian, and the Julian as rectified by the Gregorian correction, yet they retain of necessity the ori *For example, mention occurs, Pliny, H. N. ii. 72, of an eclipse of the sun, U. C. 812. A. D. 59. Pridie Calendas Maias, inter septimam et octavam diei horam, for the meridian of Campania; which the Table shews on April 30, for the meridian of Paris. ginal error of the Julian reckoning-which is that of anticipating by two days the corresponding day of the month in the tropical year. Hence, in the calculation of the paschal full moon, U. C. 750. B. C. 4, as obtained from the eclipse on March 13; which eclipse is determined to that day both in the original calculations of Kepler and Petavius, and in the subsequent calculation of Pingrè*; the date of that full moon, April 11, was virtually April 9; the date of the fourteenth of Nisan, answering to that, was April 8; and the date of the tenth of Nisan was April 4. The true date therefore of our Saviour's nativity, if it was the tenth of Nisan, U. C. 750. B. C. 4, might be nominally April 5 or 6; but it would be really April 3 or 4. It would be April 5 or 6. in the Julian or civil, as adjusted to the tropical year: it would be April 3 or 4. as referred to that year itself. It will follow, therefore, that the true date of the nativity, B. C. 4, might still be the true date of the vernal equinox, B. C. 1560. A question however yet remains. I have assumed that, in the year of the nativity, the Julian April 5 (which must now be considered as equivalent to the true April 3) fell upon the seventh day of the week: and it may justly be considered a desideratum to the * The same eclipse was calculated for me by the kindness of Mr. Henry Jenkyns, of Isleworth, Middlesex; whose re sults, as adapted to the meridian of Jerusalem, stand as follows: Julian period, 47 10. U. C. 750. B. C. 4. Beginning of the eclipse.. 1 Middle....... Ecliptic opposition h. m. 49 in the morning. 4 14 passover would be celebrated April 10. completeness of our proof, that we should be able to demonstrate, with such probable certainty as the subject admits of, that April 3, B. C. 1560, fell on the seventh day also. And, if we are only at liberty to conjecture that the year of the Exodus coincided with B. C. 1560, and the tenth of Nisan in that year with April 3; this, I think, may be proved. First, if we compare Numbers xxxiii. 1-8. with Exodus xii. 37. xiii. 20. xiv. 2. 9. 13. 19. 20, 21. 24. 27. it will be considered certain that, as the people left Egypt on the fifteenth of Nisan, and journeyed that day from Rameses to Succoth; so they journeyed on the next day from Succoth to Etham, and on the third day* from Etham to Pi-hahiroth; opposite to the quarter where it was designed by Providence that they should cross the Red sea. Moreover it will appear that, in turning from Etham to Pi-hahiroth, they deviated from the line of their course until then; and in some measure retraced their steps: which renders it less surprising that the same day, before the evening, they were overtaken by the host of the Egyptians. On the same night after they were overtaken, the sea was made to go back by a strong east wind; the pillar of fire, which until then had preceded the course of the Israelites, turned and came into their rear; before the night was passed they were commanded to enter the sea; in the morningwatch God began to trouble the host of the Egyptians; and when the morning returned (the people being now safely landed on the Arabian shore) the sea was restored to its strength, and the deliverance of the Israelites was complete. The departure from Rameses then took place on the morning of the fifteenth of *Josephus likewise supposes them to arrive at Pi-hahiroth on VOL. III. the third day. Ant. Jud. ii. XV. I. Hh |