the longer computation, probably because he perceived the difficulty attendant upon the other in respect of Methu

"From the Flood to Abraham's entrance into the promised land are therefore ten generations, 1015 years; from Adam twenty generations, 3277 years1."

326. The Samaritan text of the genealogies is manifestly derived from an earlier text of the Septuagint; as indeed the labours of modern critics have left it no longer doubtful that the entire text of the Samaritan Pentateuch was fabricated from the Alexandrine Greek version. In the antediluvian period, the first five generations were left untouched, and the other generations were reduced to uniformity by striking

Origen's departure from the LXX has been already mentioned: here I would notice a remarkable passage of his writings on Genesis, in which he is commenting upon the Greek text. Sel. in Genes. (ad vi. 9.) Περιέχει ἐν τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν ὅτι “ ἔζησε Λάμεχ ἔτη ἑκατὸν καὶ ὀγδοήκοντα καὶ ὀκτῶ, καὶ ἐγέννησε Νώε, Καὶ ἔζησε Λ. μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ν., ἔτη πεντακόσια καὶ ἑξήκοντα καὶ πέντε. Καὶ ἐγένοντο πᾶσαι αἱ ἡμέραι Λ. ἔτη ἑπτακόσια καὶ πεντήκοντα τρία, καὶ ἀπέθανε. Καὶ ἦν Ν. ἐτῶν πεντακοσίων καὶ ἐγέννησε τρεῖς υἱούς.” Καὶ εὑρίσκομεν ἐν τούτῳ διαφωνίαν ἑξήκοντα πέντε ἐτῶν τοῦ Νε. ̓Αλλ' ἐνταῦθα ἡ γραφὴ λέγει ὅτι τῷ

Θεῷ εὐηρέστησε Ν., καθώς γέγραπται καὶ περὶ τοῦ ̓Ενώχ. Κᾀκεῖνος γὰρ ὅτε εὐηρέστησε τῷ Θεῷ τότε μετέθηκεν αὐτ τόν. Ομοίως οὖν καὶ τοῦ Ν. τὰ πρὸ τῆς εὐαρεστήσεως ἑξήκοντα καὶ πέντε ἔτη οὐκ ἐλογίσατο αὐτῷ ἡ θεία γραφή. "Ωσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ̓Αβραὰμ οὐκ ἐλογίσθη εἰς ζωὴν τὰ ἑξήκοντα ἔτη τὰ πρὸ τῆς θεογνωσίας αὐτοῦ· (supra, p. 320. note.) καὶ τοῦ Ενώχ ἔτη τριάκοντα· καὶ τοῦ Σαούλ ἔτη εἴκοσι, καὶ τοῦ Εζεκίου ἔτη δέκα καὶ ἑπτά· ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τοῦ Μαθουσάλα εύρίσκεται διαφωνία ἐτῶν δεκαπέντε. What these statements about Noah and Enoch can mean, I am at a loss to understand.

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off the centuries. Now, if the tens and units of Methuselah and Lamech were to remain, the sum would have been 1656-400 1256, so that if Lamech lived 777 years, and Methuselah 969, the one would have outlived the Deluge 95, the other 200 years! For the birth of Lamech would lie 682, and that of Methuselah 682 + 87 769 years before the Flood. Nay, the birth of Jared would lie only 769 +65 +62 896 before the Flood, so that to give him 962 years, would be to bring his decease 66 years after the Flood. These absurdities it was necessary to obviate; accordingly at Jared the residues and sums of life begin to be altered, and it is contrived that Jared, Methuselah and Lamech, should each terminate their life in the year of the Flood. And first; since Lamech in the LXX had 753 years of life, by striking off a century, and giving him a generation of 53 years, his decease was brought to the year of the Flood, 600 + 53 = 653. Hence, still following the LXX, Methuselah having a generation of 67 years would be born 720 years before the Flood; accordingly his life became 720, and residue 653. Lastly, the birth of Jared now lay 720 + 65 + 62 = 847 years before the Flood; accordingly his life was reduced from 962 to 847, his residue therefore from 800 to 785.

Thus was this genealogy framed out of the shorter text of the Septuagint. In the post-diluvian period, this was followed uniformly, viz. in the addition of 6 centuries to the generations, and half a century to the generations of Nahor, making 942 years in all. In the residues, however, the Samaritan recensors reverted, for the most part, to the Hebrew text, perhaps because they perceived that the Alexandrine text obliterated the fact of a sudden contraction in the term of human life at Peleg. Hence with the Hebrew, they give Arphaxad and Salah a life of 438 and 433 years respectively, therefore residues of 303 years each: the life of Eber must part with 60 years, as in the LXX, for the sake of a gradual declension, hence the residue is 270: Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor, have their lives as in the Hebrew, only their residues must be diminished by 3 centuries and a half, which were added to their generations. Only Terah remains; and here the Samaritans, assuming that Abraham was born when Terah was 70 years old, and rightly perceiving that the

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Call of Abraham coincides with the death of Terah, reduced the 205 years to 70+ 75 145. Thus the procedure of the Samaritan text-makers is sufficiently explained, and no room is left for the supposition of artifices such as I have exposed in both texts of the LXX. Nor indeed have I been

able to detect any such.

PART II.

MYSTICAL CHRONOLOGY,

OR,

DIVINE ECONOMY OF TIMES AND SEASONS.

Η πολυποίκιλος σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ κατὰ πρόθεσιν τῶν αἰώνων ἣν ἐποίησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν.

Ephes. iii. 10, 11.

Διαστήματα μυστικὰ ἑβδομάσι τελειούμενα.

S. Clem. Alex.

Quod non frustra factum esse credendum est ab Illo, qui est ante tempora, et per quem facta sunt tempora, et qui venit in plenitudine temporum.

S. Hieronym.

"THE thing intended here is...to observe that every circumstance of God's moral government may be adjusted beforehand with a view to the whole of it. Thus, for example, the determined length of time...in which virtue is to remain in a state of warfare and discipline, and in which wickedness is to have its progress; the times appointed for the execution of justice...may have such respects to other circumstances as to make up altogether a whole, connected and related in all its parts; a scheme or system, which is as properly one as the natural world is, and of the same kind."

BISHOP BUTLER.