Scandit gradatim denuo
Jubar priores lineas.

Prudentius, Cathemerinon xi. 1:
Jan. as some codices have it:
others.

Hymnus ad viii. Kal.

Natalis Domini, as

Prudentius was born A. D. 348, and published these poems at fifty-seven: A.D. 404.

The Apostolical Constitutions, v. 13, fix the Nativity to the 25th of the ninth month, and the Epiphany to the 6th of the tenth. Augustin: Deinde natus est Christus cum jam inciperent crescere dies: natus est Johannes quando cœperunt minui dies; that is, on Dec. 25 and June 24, respectively.

The latter writer considered our Lord's ministry to have lasted only one year; which follows both from his placing the Passion Coss. Geminis, and from this passage in his Epistlesh: A nativitate autem Domini hodie computantur anni ferme quadringenti viginti, a resurrectione autem vel adscensione ejus anni plus minus cccxc. This places the Ascension thirty years after the Nativity; and no more.

Εκατοστῇ ἐννενηκοστῇ τετάρτῃ Ὀλυμπιάδι, Ῥωμαίων Αὐγούστου Καίσαρος βασιλεύοντος, γεγέννηται κατὰ σάρκα ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. Cyrillus contra Julianum, lib. i. 14. A.

Olympiad 194 answers to B. C. 4-A. D. 1. U. C. 750-U.C. 754, and which of these years is meant must be doubtful.

The ToMiTela of Metrophanes and Alexander, apud Photium, Bibliotheca, Codex 256. p. 469. l. 17, places the persecution of Diocletian in the nineteenth of his reign, and anno Christi 305. This supposes the Na

f Operum i. 79. g Operum iii. Pars iia. 402. B. in Johannem Tractatus xiv. 5. Cf. v. 1152. E. Sermo 287. 4. h Operum ii. 748. E. F. Epistolæ,

199. 20. Cf. iii. 36. B. De Doctrina Christiana, ii. 42.

tivity to be two years before the vulgar era; viz. U.C. 752, or B. C. 2.

Τὸ δέ γε ἡμέτερον γένος, τὸ τῶν Χριστιανῶν λέγω, πρὸ τετρακοσίων μὲν ἐτῶν τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔσχεν—Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus, kaтà ciuapuévns, apud Photii Bibliothecam, Codex 223. p. 218. 1. 23.

Cassiodorus in Chronicis places the birth of Christ Augusti xli. Coss. Lentulo et Messala; both which dates, as he reckons the reign of Augustus at 56 years, coincide with U. C. 751.

The Martyrium Pauli Apostoli, prefixed to ŒEcumenius in Novum Testamentum, dates his martyrdom, at Rome, éri Népwvos, on the fifth of the Syro-Macedonian Panemus, or Egyptian Epiphi, and the 29th of the Roman June, in the thirty-sixth year Toû owτnρíov ταθους, and the sixty-ninth year τῆς τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ παρουσίας : three hundred and thirty years before the date of the Martyrium itself, which is specified as the fourth consulate of Arcadius, and the third of Honorius, in the ninth year of the Roman Indiction.

According to the Fasti, the consulate in question was A. D. 396: and A. D. 396 was also the ninth year current of the Roman Indiction. On this principle, St. Paul's martyrdom must be dated, A.D. 396 minus 330, that is, A. D. 66, U.C. 819: our Saviour's Passion, A. D. 66 minus 36, A. D. 30. U. C. 783: and our Saviour's birth, U. C. 819 minus 69, U. C. 750, B.C. 4: dates, which, from whatever quarter obtained, yet according to the conclusions which we have laboured to establish in other parts of the present work, must be admitted to be remarkably correct.

It is proper, however, to observe, that the Paschal Chronicon, i. 566, has a remark on the year of the same consulate, which makes 335 years complete from

the martyrdom of Peter and Paul to the date in question. But the martyrdom of St. Peter as well as of St. Paul is alluded to there; and of the other synchronisms, specified above, nothing is said.

I may be allowed, perhaps, to embrace this opportunity of quoting from the Evangelium Infantiæ, in the Codex Apocryphus, i. 169, a date which also places the Nativity U. C. 750. Caput ii. it is said, Anno autem trecentesimo nono æræ Alexandri edixit Augustus, ut describeretur unusquisque in patria sua. It then proceeds to speak of the Holy Family's repairing to Bethlehem, in obedience to this decree, and of Christ's being born there. The æra Alexandri there referred to, is the æra Seleucidarum: which bears date U. C. 442, B. C. 312. The 309th year of that æra would consequently begin to bear date U. C. 750, B. C. 4. It is observable that the same apocryphal work (see capp. ii. and iii.) placed the Nativity in the evening or night time.

The antiquity of this apocryphal production may entitle its testimony to some degree of weight, upon a mere matter of fact, like the above. There is reason to believe that the Greek original, from which the Arabic version was made, and through that, the Evangelium Infantiæ, such as we have it translated in Fabricius' Codex Apocryphus, was known to Irenæus. See the Prolegomena of Fabricius: i. 128, and sqq.

ST. JOHN-If there is reason to suppose that the evangelist St. John was either of the same age with our Saviour, or not much younger than he, when he was called to be a disciple; the time of the birth of St. John, if that can be probably determined, will so far be an argument for the time of the birth of our Saviour.

That this apostle survived until the beginning of the reign of Trajan, is affirmed by a number of ancient and competent witnesses.

Irenæus twice asserts that St. John continued at Ephesus or in Asia, μέχρι τῶν Τραϊανοῦ χρονῶν *i: and once that he saw the Apocalypse, πρὸς τῷ τέλει τῆς Δου ·μεTIAVOû àρxîsk. Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, repeats the former statement after Irenæus, ad annum Trajani 1; but Jerome, in Chronico, ad annum Trajani iii: and both he and Jerome place the banishment of St. John, and the date of his Apocalypse, in the thirteenth or fourteenth of Domitian. Clemens Alexandrinus certainly bore a similar testimony; and by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History he is said to have defined the precise year of Trajan, in his tractate, Quisnam dives salvetur? where however it does not occur; nor does Eusebius repeat it after him. There is still extant, in the works of Clement, a remarkable story concerning St. John, the authenticity of which I see no reason to question; and which Clement ushers in with the following words: ἄκουσον μῦθον, οὐ μῦθον ἀλλὰ ὄντα λόγον, περὶ Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἀποστόλου παραδεδομένον καὶ μνήμῃ πεφυλαγμένον. It is easy to collect from this narrative, that the fact re

* Julius Pollux, Chronicon, 204, has a statement to this effect: ἕως ἑβδόμου ἔτους Τραϊανοῦ περιὴν ὁ μακάριος Ιωάννης: which is so connected with what immediately precedes in the context, as to seem to make part with that of a quotation from Irenæus. It is doubtful, how

ever, whether Irenæus affirmed this particular fact. Certainly it does not occur in his extant remains. The Paschal Chronicon, as we shall see by and by, has the same date for the death of St. John and probably both that and Pollux took it from a common authority.

:

k Lib. v. xxx. 449. l. 20.

i Lib. ii. xxxix. 161. 1. 26: iii. iii. 205. l. 1. Cf. Eusebius, iii. 18. 88. D. 1 E. H. iii. 23.91. D. Cf. Syncellus, i. 653. l. 6. for both these testimonies. m Operum ii. 958. Quis dives salvetur? xlii. Cf. Eusebius, iii. 23. 91. &c. and Chrysostom, i. 30. E. 31. A. Ad Theodorum Lapsum, i. 16.

corded could not have happened until some years at least, after St. John's return from banishment; (and that is supposed to be after the death of the tyrant Domitian;) and that St. John was then a very old

man*.

Tertullian has not mentioned the time of St. John's return from banishment, or of his death; though he is the most ancient authority who asserts the fact of his being thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, before he was banished": a statement also made by Jerome, but whether from Tertullian, does not appear o †.

Origen simply attests that St. John was condemned by the Roman emperor to banishment at Patmos, and saw the Apocalypse while he was there".

The Acta of Timothy, the first bishop of Ephesus, of which Photius has preserved an abstract, place the martyrdom of Timothy towards the end of the reign of Domitian; the recall of St. John from banishment, under Nerva; and his death at Ephesus, in the reign of Trajan. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, bears abundant testimony to this latter fact; and that St. John

* His great age is likewise implied in the characteristic anecdote, related of him by Jerome, iv. Pars i. 314. ad medium, in Gal. vi.: Beatus Johannes Evangelista,' quum Ephesi moraretur usque ad ultimam senectutem; et vix inter discipulorum manus ad Ecclesiam deferretur, nec posset in plura vocem verba contexere, nihil aliud per singulas solebat proferre collectas, nisi

hoc, Filioli, diligite alterutrum.

† Yet, Operum v. 16. Apologeticus, 5. the recall of St. John is placed by Tertullian virtually under the reign of Domitian. After speaking of Nero's persecution as the first of all-he continues, Tentaverat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate, sed qua et homo, facile cœptum repressit, restitutis etiam quos relegaverat.

n Operum ii. 46. De Præscriptionibus Hæreticorum, 36.

o Operum iv.

Pars i. 92. ad calcem in Matt. xx. Cf. however Pars ii1. Adversus Jovinianum i. 169. ad principium, which quotes Tertullian for the fact. A. In Matt. tom. xvi. 6. q Codex 254. p. 468.

P Operum iii. 720.