passages, they may be determined in a great measure from the internal evidence of the works themselves; so far at least as to demonstrate that the first four are prior in point of time to the two last. The Homilies on St. Luke are quoted in the Commentaries on St. John : and the Commentaries upon St. John in those on St. Matthewh. The Commentaries on the books of the Old Testament are frequently mentioned in the work against Celsus i.

Eusebius informs us that Origen was seventeen when his father suffered martyrdom under Severus, in the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 202*: and was eighteen when he was appointed to the head of the catechetical school at Alexandriak: that he emigrated from Alexandria to Cæsarea, about the tenth of Alexander Severus, A. D. 231: that five books of his Commentaries on St. John had been written before that time; and that the remainder, seventeen in number, were written after it; the last, about the time of Maximin's persecution, A. D. 235-2381; that he was upwards of sixty in the third of Philip, when he composed his work against Celsus, and his Commentary upon St. Matthew; and that he died at sixty-nine or seventy, sometime in the persecution under Gallus, A. D. 252-254m.

Severus' persecution of Christianity seems to be fixed to this year by the testimony of Spartian also; Vita, 17. compared with 16; U. C. 955. A. D. 202: though in the life of Antoninus Caracallus, 1. he speaks

of some persecution, when Antoninus was seven years old: which would be A. D. 194 or 195. See Dio, lxxviii. 5, 6. 14: Herodian, iv. 26. Spartian, Antoninus, 6. 9. A. D. 194 or 195. would be the first or second of Severus.

g xxxii. 2. Operum iv. 404. D. h Operum iii. 748. C. D. tom. xvi. 19, 20. Cf. 893. B. Comm. in Matt. Series, 77. and Operum iv. 192. A. in Joh. tom. x. 18. i Operum i. 530. C. lib. iv. 37: 670. E. vi. 49: 672. C. vi. 51: 678. F. vi. 60: 701. E. F. vii. 11. &c. E. H. vi. 2. 3. 201. Č. 203. B-204. B. 1 E. H. vi. 21. 24. 26. 28. m Ibid. vi. 35, 36. and vii. 1. Cf. Hieronymus, De Viris Ecclesiasticis, liv. Operum iv. pars 2a. 115. Syncellus, 682. 8. 707. 10 Photius, Codex 118. page 92. Suidas, 'Opryévns. The year of his death must have been A. D. 254, if he was sixty-nine complete at his death, and seventeen A. D. 202.

The precise time of the work against Celsus may very probably be collected from certain passages therein: first, where the author is speaking of the paucity of martyrs-though only in comparison of the much greater numbers who always survived these attacks on the church "-and from what he says of the continued increase of Christianity, without hindrance or molestation, at the time when he was writing, it seems a necessary inference that no such thing as the persecution under Decius, or under Gallus and Volusianus, had as yet taken place, and therefore that he was not writing later than A. D. 249. Secondly, from what he says of the existence of political commotions and troubles, at the time when he was writing, it is equally necessary to infer that he was writing at the close of the reign of the two Philippi, which is known to have been distinguished by such disturbances 9; and therefore not later than A. D. 248, or A. D. 249.

This is sufficient to prove that the work against Celsus, and consequently the Commentaries on St. Matthew, which furnish the evidence of the change in Origen's opinion of the duration of our Saviour's ministry, are the latest of his productions which have come down to us; and were written in the maturity of his judgment, and not many years before his death. The former, besides being a perfect work, which has been transmitted to us in its original state, is deservedly to be considered the most masterly of his numerous compositions; and as the index of his deliberate sentiments, ought on every account to be preferred to the

rest.

When, therefore, he observes in it, ò dè 'loúdas Tapà τῷ Ἰησοῦ οὐδὲ τρία διέτριψεν ἔτη, he cannot affirmn less

n Lib. iii. 8. Operum i. 452. D. 456. C. q Zosimus, Historiæ, i.

o Lib. vii. 26. 712. F.

p Lib. iii. 15.

than that Judas was with Jesus more than two, though perhaps not quite three years: and this may mean, not that the ministry of our Lord did not last three years, but that Judas, like the rest of the apostles, was not called to be a disciple and to company with Jesus, until part of its first year was over. From the other passage, however, Deduc ergo prædicationis Domini fere annos tres, I should conclude he thought its duration was not quite three years; though not much less

than that.

HIPPOLYTUS-On the authority of the Chronicon, ascribed to Hippolytus Portuensis, in the passage cited from it, as Alexander died Ol. 114. 1. B. C. 324, the Nativity is placed apparently B. C. 4. U. C. 750. But the author of the Chronicon speaks inaccurately; and the true date of the Nativity, as adopted by him, was U. C. 752. B. C. 2.

For he twice reckons it 206 years from the Passion to the thirteenth of Alexander Severus; which thirteenth expired March 11, U. C. 988. Two hundred and six years before that go back to U. C. 782. And he twice reckons it thirty years from the Nativity to the Passion; which last being dated U. C. 782, the Nativity is dated U. C. 752. He reckons fifty-nine Olympiads, or 236 years, a Christo usque annum xiii Imperii Alexandri; and from B. C. 2, or U. C. 752, 236 years bring us to A. D. 235, U. C. 988. But it is unnecessary to multiply the proofs of this position. It is more important to observe that the author of the Chronicle places the Nativity at the time of the Jewish Passover; that is, in the spring: a conclusion obviously to be collected from such passages as these: Post Hezram, servatoris usque generationes Christi Pascha fit-A generatione autem Christi, post triginta

annos, cum passus est Dominus, Pascha celebratur: ipse enim erat justum Pascha.

The Chronicon in question is, as I think, with reason supposed to be a Latin version, or abstract of the Chronicon of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus Romanus*, and martyr, who was a contemporary of Alexander Severus; and the author of a chronological work which ended at the beginning of his reign".

If there were any doubt upon this point, it would contribute greatly to remove it, that the testimony of a genuine document, which is commonly ascribed to Hippolytus, may be shewn to agree with the Chronicle in both these respects; both that of placing the birth of Christ in the spring, U. C. 752, and that of dating the Passion in the spring, U. C. 782, just thirty years afterwards. The document in question is the Paschalium, or Paschal Calendar, which was found inscribed upon a marble, discovered A. D. 1551: the nature of which, after all that has been written about it, is pro

*Portus (Romanus) is described by Procopius, De Bello Gotthico, i. 26. about A. D. 537, as a city formerly of considerable consequence, and still of importance, situated over against Ostia, on the right bank of the Tyber, as Ostia was on the left; each at the mouth of the river, and each 126 stades from Rome.

Cf. also cap. 27. Hippolytus was most probably bishop of this place. At an earlier period, speaking of the siege of Rome by Alaric, A. D. 408-410. Sozomen (ix. 6. 807. D.) represents the Portus, as the rivetov of the Romans, where the necessaries

(emirýdeia) imported for the use of the city were first received and stored. Cf. cap. 8. 809. C. Philostorgius, in reference to the same occasion, xii. 3. 533. B. says of Alaric, ὁ δὲ θᾶττον καταλαμβάνει τὸν Πόρτον· μέγιστον δὲ οὗτος νεώριον ̔Ρώμης, λιμέσι τρισὶ περιγραφόμενος, καὶ εἰς πόλεως μικρᾶς παρατεινόμενος μέγεθος. ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ὁ δημόσιος ἅπας σίτος κατὰ παλαιὸν ἔθος ἐταμιεύετο. Such a place would probably have a bishop. Apolinarius, apud Scriptorum Deperditorum Vaticanam Collectionem, i. Comm. Varr. in Danielem, 173. F. calls Hippolytus, bishop of Rome.

r Eusebius, E. H. vi. 22. Hieronymus, De SS. Ecclesiasticis, 61. Operum iv. pars iia. 117.

bably too well known to the learned world to require any further description $.

It is sufficient to observe that this calendar consists of a double octaëteric cycle; and is so constructed as to shew the days of the month, and the days of the week, on which the paschal full moons would fall for a period of 16 x7 or 112 years, either backwards or forwards, as dated from their proper àpx, which is laid in the first year of Alexander Severus, A. D. 222-when the paschal full moon is said to have fallen upon the Ides of April, April 13, and April 13 on the seventh day of the week. The reason of this is, that in a cycle of sixteen years, though the full moons may be supposed, at the end of it, to recur on the same days of the month as before, they do not return to the same day of the week; but in each instance they fall out one day earlier than they did sixteen years before. In seven cycles, then, of sixteen years, that is in 112 years in all, they will come back to the same days of the week as at first; but not sooner.

On this principle, and so far as the accuracy of such a calendar can be depended upon-if we have ascertained the dates of sixteen paschal full moons in order, from any given year, any one of those dates may be supposed to hold good again at the distance of 112 years, or of any number of years which is an exact multiple of 112-either backwards or forwards. And such being the nature of the application of the cycle, we are furnished by it with a clue to the meaning of certain marginal references, which are found to be annexed to some of the full moons in the several columns of the cycle, but not to all.

It was the opinion of Scaliger that these were in

s Vide Hippolyti Opera, i. 38. et seqq.