the diadem, it is a matter of no great importance to know, forasmuch as neither their acts were notable in the age wherein they lived, nor the length of their reigns any way helpful to the concordance of times foregoing or succeeding. The conquests recounted by 8 Xenophon, of Syria, Arabia, (or rather some part of it,) Hyrcania, Bactria, and perhaps of some other countries, may seem fruits of the victories obtained by Nebuchadnezzar the great (or by some of his ancestors) in the former part of his life, before he betook himself to ease, and to the sumptuous building of his great Babel, for the house of his kingdom, and for the honour of his majesty, where it may seem that he and his heirs kept a great state, and did very little. The idle behaviour of the Assyrian soldiers, in such skirmishes as afterwards they had with the Medes, doth argue no less. For whereas under Nebuchadnezzar they were so stout and industrious, that (to omit other proofs) they attempted and finished that hardy piece of work of winning the strong city of Tyre by joining it unto the continent, filling up the deep and broad channel of the sea, dividing it from the main with a mole or pier of earth, and other matter, the reparation whereof, when the sea had washed it away, was the very greatest of Alexander's works; in the times following they became timorous, that they durst not approach nearer to the enemy than their bows would carry, but were ready to turn their backs as soon as any, though inferior in numbers, adventuring within the distance offered to charge them.

Now as their actions, from the end of h Nebuchadnezzar's wars till the ruin of their empire, were not worthy to be recorded; so was the distinction of their times, and reign of their several kings, unworthy of the great labour that hath in vain been taken in that business. For when it is granted that the captivity of Juda, ending with that empire, lasted seventy years, we may as reasonably forbear to search into the particular continuance of two or three slothful kings, as we are contented to be ignorant of the ages of Xenoph. Cyropæd. 1. 1. h Xenoph. Cyropæd. 1. et 1.3.

the patriarchs and their children, living in the Egyptian servitude; resting satisfied in both with the general assured

sum.

Yet forasmuch as many have travailed in this business, upon desire (as I take it) to approve the beginning and end of the seventy years, not only by the reigns of other princes ruling elsewhere, but by the times of the Assyrians themselves; I will not refuse to take a little pains in collecting their opinions, and shewing what I think may best be held for likely, if the certain truth cannot be found.

The opinions are many, and greatly repugnant, both in recounting the kings themselves, and in setting down the years of their several reigns. The first (as I take it, the surest) is theirs, who merely follow the authority of the scriptures, without borrowing any help from others. These name only three kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, and Balthasar. Neither have they only the silence of Daniel, who names none other, to be their warrant, but the prophecy of Jeremy precisely, and in a manner purposely teaching the very same. For God, by the mouth of that prophet, shewing that he being absolute lord of all would dispose of all, according to his own will, and making it known that he had put some countries here named into the hands of the king of Babel, saith thus: And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come also: then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. These words expressing the continuance of the Chaldean empire, and number of the kings, will hardly be qualified with any distinction. But indeed I find no other necessity of qualification to be used herein, than such as may grow out of men's desire to reconcile the scriptures unto profane authors. And this desire were not unjust, if the consent of all histories were on the one side, and the letter of the holy text were single on the other side. But contrariwise, the authors which are cited in this case are so repugnant one to the other, and the proofs of their different reports are so slender and unsufficient, that the

i Jer. xxvii. 7.

succession of these princes, had it not been thus delivered in scriptures, but only set down by some author of equal credit with the rest, might very well have found and deserved as good belief as any of those things which they have delivered in this point. For some there are, who, following Josephus, derive that empire, as by descent from father to son, through five generations, beginning with Nabuchodonosor the great, and giving to him forty-three years; to Evilmerodach, eighteen; to Niglisar the son of Evilmerodach, forty; to Laborosoardach the son of Niglisar, nine months; and lastly, to Balthasar (whom Josephus intimates to be of the race of Nabuchodonosor, without naming his father) seventeen years. And this opinion (save that he forbears to reckon the years, and plainly calls Balthasar the son of Laborosoardach) St. Jerome doth follow, alleging Berosus, and Josephus as a sectator of Berosus, for his authors; though Berosus, as he is cited by Josephus, report the matter far otherwise. For he tells us, that Evilmerodach the son of Nabuchodonosor did reign but two years, being, for his wickedness and lust, slain by his sister's husband Niriglissoroor, who occupied the kingdom after him four years, and left it to his own son Laborosoardach, who being an ill-conditioned boy, was at the end of nine months slain by such as were about him, and the kingdom given to one Nabonidus, who held it by the election of the conspirators, and left it unto Cyrus after seventeen years. This relation ill agrees with that of Josephus, and both of them as bad with the scriptures, in number either of years or of generations; yet the particularities which they handle have procured unto them some authority, so that the names which they have inserted are taken as it were upon trust. There is a third opinion, which makes the three last kings brethren, and sons of Evilmerodach; and this may well enough agree with the scripture; though I had rather believe m Xenophon, who saith that the last king of Babylon was immediate successor to his father. But whereas the author of the scholastical history, who is founder of this opinion, placeth Jos. contr. Appion, l. 1. Xenoph. Cyr. 1. 4.

* Jos. Ant. l. 10. c. 12.

between him that took Jerusalem and Evilmerodach another Nabuchodonosor; plain it is, that he hath, out of any history, sacred or profane, as little warrant to guide him as we have reason to follow him. Eusebius, Sulpitius Severus, and Theodoret, upon better ground, have supposed that Evilmerodach and Balthasar were brethren, and sons of the great Nabuchodonosor. This is built on the fifth chapter of Daniel, wherein Balthasar (for of Evilmerodach there is none that ever doubted) is often called Nabuchodonosor's son. And so common grew this explication, that St. Jerome called it the vulgar opinion. But the place of Jeremiah before cited proves that Balthasar was not the son indeed, but the grandchild of that great conqueror, though by the phrase very common in scriptures, and familiar in those eastern languages, he was called the son.

Annius's Metasthenes hits very rightly the seventy years of captivity, giving to Nabuchodonosor forty-five years, to Evilmerodach thirty years, and to the three sons of Evilmerodach, nephews of Nabuchodonosor, fourteen years; that is, to Reg-Asser, the eldest son, three years; to LabAsser Datch, the second son, six years; and to Balthasar, the third son, five.

To this account, agreeing with the scriptures both in the whole sum of years and in the number of generations, I have sometime subscribed, as not daring to reject an appearance of truth upon no greater reason than because the author was of Annius's edition. Yet could I not satisfy myself herein; both for that none of the ancient, and few such of the modern writers as deserve to be regarded, have consented with this Metasthenes; and for that in making Balthasar to succeed unto his brother in the kingdom, and not unto his father, he is wholly against Xenophon, whose history of the elder Cyrus in his Assyrian war I cannot slightly value in many respects, and especially because it is very agreeable to the scriptures in the taking of Babylon while the king was at his drunken feast.

Seeking therefore diligently into all circumstances that might give any light in this obscurity, I found manifest

proof, that the time allotted unto n Balthasar by Annius's Metasthenes was far short of the truth, which is enough to render all suspected that he hath said in distributing what part of the seventy years he pleased among the rest. For in the third year of Balthasar Daniel saw a vision, after which he was sick certain days, but when he rose up, he did the king's business: from which business that he did afterwards withdraw himself, and lived retired so long, that he was forgotten in the court, it appears plainly, both by the many words which the old queen used to set out his sufficiency, and by the king's asking of him, when he came into his presence, whether he were Daniel. Now to think that a man of such account and place as P Daniel had held could in two years have been worn out of remembrance, were in my judgment a very strange conceit, which rather than I would entertain, I can well be contented to think the whole story (thus related) a part of Annius's impostures.

Out of these reports of Josephus, Berosus, and others, many new opinions are framed, by conjectures of late writers. For the endurance of the captivity being seventy years, and these years extending unto the first of Cyrus, in which course of time Nebuchadnezzar, his son, and grandchild, must have reigned; it hath seemed needful to supply the years of these three descents, by inserting some whose reigns might fill up the whole continuance of the captivity, with which the time allotted by Berosus and others to Evilmerodach and Balthasar, joined unto the years following the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, (wherein Jerusalem was laid desolate,) are nothing even.

Therefore Mercator, and others following him, fashion the years of Evilmerodach in this sort: they say, that the eighteen years given to him by Josephus in the tenth of his Antiquities should be read and numbered twenty-eight years, and the two years that Berosus hath allowed to Evilmerodach should be written twenty-three: in the first number the figure of 1 is mistaken for the figure of 2; and in the latter there should have been added the figure of

B

■ Dan. viii. 1. and 27.

• Dan. v. 11, 12, 13.

P Dan. ii. 49.