troversy which Irenæus, it was felt, had not sufficiently settled: i.e. it might be urged against the Gnostics that our Lord's ministry certainly occupied two years at least, inasmuch as ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν ̓Ιουδαίων vi. 4, must needs be τὸ πάσχα; hence these words, inserted first as a marginal gloss, might ultimately find their way into the text.

§ 94. If it be asked, Why was this notice of the proximity of the feast (of Tabernacles) inserted by S. John? one answer at least, is obvious: the whole of S. John's narrative is grouped round the Jewish festivals. This is the plan on which his gospel is framed. Therefore, when he proceeds to narrate the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, he deems it necessary, it may be, to call attention to the fact that this miracle, like that of the water turned into wine, and that of the raising of Lazarus, occurred not long before a festival and a visit to Jerusalem2.

And this leads to a further argument:

(5.) If we examine the order of the festivals noted by S. John, omitting the words To Táoxa, we shall see that these festivals form just one complete cycle. Namely,

Pentecost.

ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ν. 1.

ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, vi. 4.

ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν ̓Ιουδαίων ἡ σκηνοπηγία, vii. 2. τὰ ἐγκαίνια, Χ. 29. Dedication.

To Táσxa. Passover of the Crucifixion.

Lastly if we accept this view, it becomes comparatively easy to construct a Harmony of the four Gospels-we can also fill up the whole time, with the events recorded; we are not obliged to leave intervals of several months in the time of our Lord's Ministry unaccounted for. This part of my subject will be best considered in a separate chapter, when we shall have placed the results of this discussion beyond all dispute by arguments which cannot be noticed in this place.

95. To sum up this portion of the argument:-It being proved that the year of the Passion could be no other

Or it may be, that the mention of the feast being near at hand, is meant to

explain the fact of the great multitudes which were then gathered together.

than the year 29 B.C., which is the year designated by the oldest tradition, and proved, that the first Passover was that of the year 28, it follows that the Lord's ministry lasted little more than one year;;—which the ancients assert, or assume to have been the case. And this conclusion is not, as the later Fathers maintain, inconsistent with the notes of time contained in S. John's Gospel: for the note on which all depends is shown to be an interpolation by external as well as internal evidence.

And now the question proposed for discussion at the head of this section, is divested of much, if not all, of the difficulty which semed to beset it. We need not hesitate to adopt, in a modified form, the explanation given by Sanclemente, namely, that the heading of S. Luke's third chapter contains the date, not of the mission of S. John the Baptist, but of the year of our Lord's Ministry, especially in reference to the great events with which it closed. As one half at least of the year belonged to the 15th of Tiberius, and nearly the whole of it if S. Luke followed the Jewish usage, and entirely the whole if he simply identified the imperial with the consular year beginning 1 January, he designates the year accordingly, as the 15th of Tiberius. It is not clear to me whether we ought to omit de (as in some copies), and besides place a full stop before 'EyéreTo. But, even if we do not, the sense is the same as if it had been more punctiliously expressed in this fashion, "In the 15th of Tiberius, &c....the word of the Lord having come to John the Baptist, &c....Jesus himself was baptized. But Herod shut up John in prison, and from that time Jesus began to preach, &c.'"

1 Sanclemente (as I learn from Ideler, Handbuch ii. 419) explains the difficulty thus "The note of time, Luke iii. 1. relates not to the Call of John the Baptist, but (as Tertullian, Clement, Lactantius, and Julius Africanus must have understood it) to Christ's sufferings and death. S. Luke, like the two first evangelists, gives the history only of the last year of Christ, from the time of the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist, (comp. Euseb. H. E. iii. 24.) What he premises is merely a summary

account concerning John, from the beginning of his ministry to his execution, the latter is properly the terminus a quo with which he begins his narrative, and to which that note of time must be referred. What Sanclemente advances, in proof of this view, concerning the several chronological characters assigned by S. Luke, and especially the highpriesthood of Caiaphas, I must omit for the sake of brevity." Sanclemente does not assign the baptism of our Saviour to A. D. 28. and he recognizes at least three

NOTE.

SINCE the completion of the present work, I have met with Mann's Essay "de veris annis D. N. Jesu Christi natali et emortuali,” (London 1752.) I was aware that this learned writer had contended for the ancient opinion concerning the duration of our Lord's Ministry, but I had no knowledge of the particular line of argument taken by him. His results are: that our Lord was born in the course of the year B. c. 7, baptized A. d. 25, crucified Friday 22nd March, A. D. 26. The following is an outline of the course of his argument:

The annus natalis, is thus deduced:-Herod died B. c. 4. and the birth of Christ preceded that event by two or three years. The grounds of this assertion are: (1.) the arrival of the Magi; which cannot be placed immediately before or soon after the Purification: (2.) the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth after the Purification, and thence again to Bethlehem before the arrival of the Magi; for this he takes to be the only possible way of reconciling S. Luke with S. Matthew: (3.) the ancient tradition, that Jesus was two years in Egypt, coupled with the prophecy Isai. vii. 16: (4.) the time of the census, which he makes to be u.c. 747. B.C.7: (5.) the general peace throughout the Roman Empire in that year, signified in the Angelic hymn, Peace on earth.

The annus emortualis is defined (1.) by Daniel's Prophecy: Mr. Mann places the Passion at the end of the 7 +62 weeks = 483 years, which years he reckons from 458 B. C. Nisan: (2.) by the Lord's age at his Baptism, which preceded the Passion by not more than a year or 15 months: if He was born in the spring of в. c. 7, and baptized late in a. D. 24, or early in a. D, 25, His age would be less than 31 years: (3.) by the dates in Luke iii. which (à priori) must needs mean the year of the Lord's Preaching and Passion: (4.) Christ preached but one year; this is to be proved (i.) by the saying, "the acceptable year of the Lord;" (ii.) by the ancient tradition of the Church; (iii.) by the testimony of the three first gospels, which mention but two passovers; (iv.) with which S. John agrees; for c. vi. has been transposed out of its place, which should be before c. v., and the feast intended was the Pentecost: (5.) Christ cleansed the temple but once; namely, just before His Passion; the 46 years therefore of the building of Herod's temple expired at the time of the Passion. (6.) The 14 Nisan coincided with Friday only in A. D. 26 and A. D. 33. [He is mistaken in the latter date, and has overlooked the earlier possible date of the Passover in A.D. 29.] (7.) The council of Cæsarea A. D. 195 and S. Clem. Alex. testify the date 22nd March. (See § 80.) Of course, Mr. Mann takes the 15th of Tiberius to be reckoned from his participation in the empire, in the life of Augustus.

passovers, that of John vi. 4. being one. Hence, I suppose, few will be inclined to accept his explanation of Luke iii. 1. But there would be nothing paradoxical

about it, if, together with the ancient date of the Passion, he had affirmed the ancient belief concerning the duration of our Lord's Ministry.

It appears then that Mr. Mann's processes and results differ materially from those which have been given in the present work. Especially, I would beg the reader to notice, that in this argument the duration of our Lord's Ministry supposed to be proved, is made one of the elements in the calculation of the year of the Passion; in mine, it comes in as a corollary from the determination of the year, which rests on other grounds. The like difference obtains also in the place which we severally assign to Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks: Mr. Mann would deduce the date of the Passion from the Prophecy; we have as yet taken no notice of the Prophecy, reserving it for a separate consideration when it will be shown how it is to be explained in connexion with our dates. Scripture chronologists are somehow especially prone to the error of attempting to prove a matter by considerations which, at most, agree with, or attest, or illustrate the matter, when proved, but of themselves prove it not.-I would further request the reader to notice the violent hypothesis to which the writer has recourse in respect of the arrangement of S. John's Gospel. Besides omitting тò náoxa (vi. 4), which he does on general grounds merely, without noticing the critical argument which we have raised in § 90 ff., he contends for the transposition of the two chapters v. and vi.— It is not surprising, then, if the scheme advocated by this writer obtained no acceptance among the learned, inasmuch as he based it on insufficient grounds, and identified it with matters intrinsically improbable. One error lay in the writer's way of stating the proof, another in the specific result which identifies the year of the Passion with the year A. D. 26; which is contradicted by the concurrent testimony of all antiquity. I add, that I am not acquainted with Priestley's more recent essay on the same side of the question, and that, so far as I am aware, the critical argument in § 90 ff. has not been touched by preceding chronologists or critics.

CHAPTER II.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE APOSTOLIC HISTORY.

AGREEABLY to the proposed plan and method of the present enquiry, I shall first examine how far the chronological characters contained in the Acts of the Apostles are determinative for the date of our Lord's Passion. I do not here assume as

proved, that the year was A.D. 29., and so make that the starting point for the construction of the Chronology of the Acts; but in the reverse order, I undertake to shew that the earlier part of the Acts, in connexion with S. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, affords proof that the history contained in the Acts begins not later than A.D. 30, and indeed more probably, at A.D. 29. This result then, is to be regarded as confirmatory and corroborative of the evidence alleged in the preceding section. And, if the reader is solicitous, in the first instance, only about the constructive elements of the scheme as a whole, with a view to the proof of the cardinal dates around which the "Economy of Times and Seasons" revolves, he may from that point (§ 104) pass on to the next step of the proof, namely, that which concerns the verification of the date of the Babylonian Captivity, i. e. to the First Section of the Third Chapter of this Work. The remainder of the present chapter will be occupied with the determination and construction, in detail, of the Chronology of that part of the Apostolic History which is contained in, or connected with, the Acts of the Apostles and the other canonical scriptures of the New Tes

tament.