Wars of the Jews have repeated this assertion if Herod had actually been 25 years of age? I think not.

Josephus states that Domitian was sent as Commander to Gaul at the age of eighteen, but does not in his case add that he was very young.

Indeed I think it argues much in favour of Josephus' foresight or prophetical knowledge, that he was so particular in regard to the respective ages of Herod and Augustus Cæsar.

Those who find fault with him because he has not given an account of Christ and the primitive Christians as they could have wished for, do not consider the political motives that might induce him to silence upon this head; they ought to remember that Josephus felt himself placed under the immediate and especial patronage of the Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, who were Pagans, and consequently opposed to Christ and Christians, particularly Domitian, who acted very cruelly towards them; but seeing that some of Josephus' writings have been lost, who can tell but he might in these have given his testimony in favour of Christianity.

Regarding those writings of his, which have been handed down to us, I think it very probable that when Christianity gained an ascendancy over Paganism, that Josephus' transcribers may have inserted in them such testimonies of Christ as Josephus himself, on account of the danger he would thereby be exposed to, had not courage to offer. Or he might have perceived that if he had given any account of Christ or Christians, his writings would have been destroyed.— Be this as it may, one thing to us is certain, he says nothing against Christ or Christians, a strong

presumption, in my opinion, as some have already remarked, that he was, like Nicodemus, a secret. disciple.

As it is proved that the reign of Augustus Cæsar, after Anthony's death, was about 30 years, and Herod's reign, after Anthony's death, was about 25 years, a proof arises from the same source that Christ was born during the Presidency of Cyrenius in Syria, and this agrees with what is recorded by St. Luke, and "Christ did appear in the second Temple, agreeably to the Prophecy of Haggai." Josephus says, the Jews would not suffer the second Temple to be pulled down until the other was nearly completed, and which was built round about and beyond the foundations of the second Temple to a very great extent, and as preparations for this building commenced about the sixteenth year of Herod's reign, then these preparations must have been from about eleven to thirteen years before the birth of Christ; and when the child Jesus was presented, it must have been in the second Temple, and at the time the third Temple was erecting round about the second; and when the ten or eleven years or more, that preparations and building the foundations previous to the birth of Christ is added to the thirty-six years of Christ, before his death there is produced forty-six years, which precisely corresponds with the statement made by the Jews to Christ, respecting the time of the building of the Temple, as in the Gospel by John, ii. 19, 20.·

These calculations show that instead of Christ being born after the death of Herod, he was born about ten

years before that event; it becomes then a matter of some importance to ascertain if possible who it was that so far misled the first Christian chronologists in this matter, or it is plain they copied from the chronologies written by the first enemies of Christianity, without, I believe, their having any suspicion of error or fraud having been committed. My own opinion is, that these corruptions were generally made from the time of Ptolemy of Egypt, about A. D., 140, and including the time of Porphyry, who lived about A. D., 270. He wrote against Christianity, and also wrote a chronology. It was during the life time of Ptolemy of Egypt, that Andrianus and Antonius reigned, two great enemies to Christianity, and it was in their reigns that the Sybilean books were prohibited from being read, because they were supposed to favour the Christians; if then the Sybilean books became so much the object of dislike to the enemies of Christianity, merely because they were supposed to favour Christianity; how much more would the prophetical numbers of the Bible become the object of their malignant attacks, which so plainly testified of the exact time or year of the Messiah's birth, and was pointed out to a former senate of Rome, which made them deliberate whether or not they should destroy every male child born during that year. To this very dislike which they bore to every writing or history which favoured Christianity, we may, I think, safely attribute the destruction of so many ancient histories, along with the Sybilean books; and this dislike we may also assign as a reason for the change that took place in their calcu

lations or chronologies of time, during the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and which made them lengthen* time at the beginning of the Grecian empire, with a view, no doubt, of throwing discredit on the dates in the Gospels and prophetical numbers given by Daniel, and thus producing an incongruity between the prediction and the period of its accomplishment.

History informs us, of some eminent persons who believed in Christ after they had examined the prophecies concerning him, and I doubt not, it was to counteract such a tendency that time was changed; indeed these prophecies themselves foretold that time would be changed by the fourth Great Power or Beast, Daniel vii, 25, “He shall speak great swelling words against the Most High, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given into his hands until a time, and times, and the dividing of time."

For the purpose of examination, I shall transcribe from Ptolemy's chronology a list of the different reigns, from the second year of Cyrus to Ptolemy's own life time.

* It appears that the Jews instead of lengthening time from Cyrus till the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, went to the other extreme, by shortening time to a great extent, and I have no doubt but they did this in their chronological tables, in order to throw discredit on the prophetical numbers that showed the time of Christ on earth.

K

From Ptolemy's chronology the number of years which elapsed from the second of Cyrus to the close of Augustus Cæsar's reign, was 557 years. Now, I have already shown from the Gospel by St. Luke, that Christ was born about sixteen or sixteen years and a half previous to the death of Augustus Cæsar. Subtract then 16 years from 557, and there will remain 541 years, which is the time that elapsed from the