of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Commodus are given in detail, while the whole is put at 222 years 1*, the details amount only to 220.

In another instance, from Romulus, or the foundation of Rome, to the death of Commodus, it is reckoned 953 years, six months m; a statement which cannot be true in any sense, unless we suppose Clement to have written originally 943 years, six months. For his date of the foundation of Rome is the Catonian, B. C. 752, not the Varronian, B.C. 754: as appears from his reckoning 24 years between the first Olympiad; (for which he follows the received date, B. C. 776;) and the era of that foundation. U. C. 943, as referred to B. C. 752, answers to U. C. 945, referred to B. C. 754. But even in this case the death of Commodus is placed six months or more too late. For he died on the last day of U. C. 943, according to Cato, and of U. C. 945, according to Varro; not U. C. 944, in the one case, or U. C. 946, in the other as Clement, however, seems uniformly to reckon.

The fractions of years, in particular, which enter into some of his dates, are to be received with distrust as in almost every instance they manifestly labour under some corruption or other. For example, from Adam to Commodus, it is reckoned 5784 years, two months, twelve days. If so, the creation of the world is placed October 19. A. M. 1. But that Clement would undertake to define the day of its creation is very improbable and if he did, why he should fix on this day in particular, or any thereabouts, would be just as inexplicable. Later Egyptian chronologists

might have done so; as their opinions inclined them to fix the era of creation synchronously with the Thoth of the Egyptian year-about August 29.

With regard to the fraction of time in the present instance-from the date of the Passion to the death of Commodus it is made up of the composition of two numbers, both of them corrupt: one, that of 42 years, three months, between the Passion in the fifteenth of Tiberius, U. C. 782, and the destruction of Jerusalem, U. C. 823; the other, 128 years, ten months, and three days, between the destruction of Jerusalem, U. C. 823, and the death of Commodus, Dec. 31. U. C. 945. There is an error of one year at least in the former date, and of six years at least in the latter. That Clement knew U. C. 823 to be the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, appears from his reckoning it 77 years, between the second of Vespasian, when it was destroyed, and the tenth of Antoninus Pius P. From U. C. 823, 77 years bring us to U. C. 900, the tenth of Pius. On this principle, deducting the seven years of excess in question, Clement must have reckoned it 163 years from U. C. 782 to U. C. 945; and if he placed the Nativity in the spring, U. C. 752, he might reckon it from thence, to the death of Commodus, 193 years, ten months, and a certain number of days, or 194 current years or he might reckon it 194 years, within one month, and thirteen days; which, if he supposed our Saviour to have been born about the same time of the year when he was baptized, would probably be near the truth.

It is surprising that this father should so plainly place the Passion of Christ in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and yet suppose forty-two years, from that time to the destruction of Jerusalem, U. C. 823. In

P Operum i. 409. 1. 14. Stromatum i. 21.

8

this statement, however, he is followed by Origen, and by Jerome: εἰ δὲ θέλεις, ἄκουε· ἀπὸ πέντε καὶ δεκάτου ἔτους Τιβερίου Καίσαρος ἐπὶ τὴν κατασκαφὴν τοῦ ναοῦ τεσσαράκοντα καὶ δύο πεπλήρωται ἔτη 9. Prius enim Evangelium Salvatoris in toto orbe prædicatum est: et post quadraginta duos annos Dominicæ passionis capta Jerusalem, templumque succensum est -Nec grande fuit tempus in medio. nam post quadraginta et duos annos Dominicæ crucis circumdata est ab exercitu Jerusalem Itaque impetravit, quod petierat: multaque statim de Judæis millia crediderunt, et usque ad quadragesimum secundum annum datum est tempus pœnitentiæ t. This mistake is so much the more inexcusable in Jerome, because his date for the Passion is two years later, the seventeenth of Tiberius, U. C. 784: and Origen, in another instance, quoting the Chronica of Phlegon, computes the interval more correctly, Circa quadragesimum annum a quinto decimo anno Tiberii Cæsaris". Chrysostom also reckons the interval at forty years and upwards: though his date for the Passion is one year later than Jerome's. So little solicitous do these writers seem to have been, about verifying their dates, before they allowed them to remain on record.

Clement's opinion of the length of our Saviour's

q Origen, Operum iii. 217. A. in Jerem. Homilia xiv. 13. Also Contra Celsum, iv. 22. Operum i. 515. E. r Hieronymus, Operum iii. 61. ad medium, in Isaiæ vi. s Ib. iii. 1656. ad calcem, In Sophon. i. t lb. iv. pars i. 177. ad medium, Hedibiæ. u Operum iii. 859. C. Comm. in Matt. Series secundum Veterem Interpretationem, 40. x Operum vii. 680. B. in Matthæum Homilia lxix. 1. and iii. 95. C. Cur in Pentecoste Acta App. legantur, 9. The Hypomnesticon of Joseph, v. cxxiii. 255. places the destruction of the temple by Vespasian and Titus, thirty-eight years after the Ascension: which, if the Ascension were dated in the eighteenth of Tiberius, U. C. 785, would be correct. The Chronicon of Julius Pollux, like Chrysostom, makes the interval in question forty years (see page 200.) though this too, like Chrysostom, places the Passion in the eighteenth of Tiberius, P. 172. 180. These statements were probably taken from Eusebius, who likewise supposes forty years complete between the Passion and the destruction of Jerusalem, E. H. iii. 7. 82. A: though he too dates the Passion in the eighteenth of Tiberius see i. 9, 10. 13. The interval of forty years between the Passion and the destruction of Jerusalem is true of no date of the Passion, but the sixteenth of Tiberius, U. C. 783.

ministry, as not exceeding one year, appears sufficiently from the extracts given, Dissertation xiii. vol. i. 439. 455. It seems, likewise, from the fragment e Libro de Paschate, Operum ii. 1017. 1. 15. that he considered the Passover at which our Saviour suffered, to be the first which he celebrated after the commencement of his ministry; and this also implies a ministry previously, of not more than one year in duration.

TERTULLIAN-I am not aware of any passages in the works of Tertullian, from which it might be collected at what time of the year he thought our Saviour was born; except this one, which may be produced from the Liber adversus Judæos, caput 8; and from this too it is to be inferred only by implication.

He supposes Augustus (p. 297.) to have survived the Nativity fifteen years; and he places the Passion (p. 299.) in the fifteenth of Tiberius, when Christ was quasi triginta annorum. As he says nothing of fractions of years, either he speaks very inaccurately, or he must date the reign of Augustus from U. C. 711. ineunte, and that of Tiberius from U. C. 767. ineunte: in which case the Nativity might be placed in the forty-first of the former exeunte, spring, U. C. 752, and the Passion, in the fifteenth of the latter exeunte, U. C. 782, when our Lord might be supposed to be just thirty complete.

He reckons further in diem Nativitatis Christi (p. 297.), from the first of Darius (p. 295.), sixty-two prophetical weeks and an half, or four hundred and thirty-seven years and six months; as, again, in another instance (p. 298, 299.), from the Passion in the fifteenth of Tiberius, to the end of the reign of Vespasian, he reckons seven weeks and an half-or fiftytwo years and six months. These calculations may

not be exact; but I think we may infer from them that he placed the Nativity in the spring; as well as the Passion. These two periods of sixty-two weeks and an half, and of seven weeks and an half, are intended to make up seventy weeks in all; or four hundred and ninety years: and the first of them ending with the Nativity, and the second beginning with the Passion, it is reasonable to suppose they were intended to be as continuous as the nature of the case would permit; and (with the exception of the thirty years from the Nativity to the Passion interposed) to end and to proceed alike. The interposition of these thirty years is no objection; for Tertullian's idea of the prophecy is that the sixty-two weeks were purposely detached from the seven (p. 295. 297, 298.); in order that the birth, and life, and Passion of Christ might come between them. In other respects, he must have considered its two periods continuous; and therefore, as they are supposed to end in the autumn of one year, they must be supposed to have begun with the autumn of another: from which time, 437 years, six months, the first of the periods, in diem Nativitatis Christi, must necessarily terminate in the spring.

ORIGEN-With respect to Origen; the testimony of Pamphilus, and the evidence of many passages in his own works imply, as we observed on the former occasion, that he once believed the length of our Saviour's ministry not to have exceeded one year and a few months. Other passages, however, will shew that he changed this opinion subsequently; and as it cannot be uninteresting to the reader to observe the gradual alteration in the sentiments of such a mind as Origen's, produced by further inquiry and meditation, I shall exhibit the passages of both kinds in their order.