far more likely that there should be an interval of six months allowed for cultivating the soil between the termination of every seventh year of the Sabbatical years in March, and the commencement of the year of jubilee in September, than if the former terminated at the time the latter commenced, and the land allowed to lie fallow for two whole consecutive years.

Moreover, the account alluded to above, as given by Josephus, of Herod's capture of Jerusalem during the era of the consulship of Agrippa and Gallus, which commenced on the first of January, B.C. 37, proves that the city was taken early in the year, for, some time during the year, Gallus abdicated the consulship, and T. Statilius Taurus succeeded him; so that had Herod and Sosius triumphed towards the close of the year, Josephus would have written that it happened during the consulship of Agrippa and Taurus, instead of, as he does, under Agrippa and Gallus. And as he further notices that some time after Herod had taken possession of his throne and severely persecuted his enemies, that "the Sabbatical year was still going on," we have the most decisive evidence that the Jews must have commenced their observance of it in the spring, or first month of the year, and not, as some imagine, in the autumn, when the year of jubilee began.

The result of this investigation, respecting the time when the Jews dated their Sabbatical years, is as follows:—

From March B.C. 37 to March B.C. 36, the Sabbatical year no

ticed by Josephus.

29, the next Sabbatical year.

22

Seeing, then, that the last Sabbatical year which the Jews had an opportunity of observing in the land of their fathers previous to their overthrow by Titus would have extended from March, 69, to March, 70, in accordance with the tradition that their destruction occurred during a Sabbatical year, it follows (as we have seen from Josephus that it happened on the 8th of Elul, or Gorpiæus, answering to our August and September, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian), it must have been in the autumn of A.D. 69, during the continuation of the Sabbatical year, and could not have been during that of A.D. 70, before which the Sabbatical year had terminated.

The conclusion, then, of this argument for fixing the date of the crucifixion, perfectly coincides with what has been previously advanced on other grounds; for if the true date of the destruction of Jerusalem be A.D. 69, and the power of capital punishment was taken from the Jews, according to the unanimous testimony of the Jewish writers, forty years previous to the destruction of their temple, and that their Sanhedrim removed at the same time from their ancient place of assembly, the Room Gazith, or Stone Chamber, or, as St. John terms it, "the Pavement, and in the Hebrew tongue Gabbatha," where they were sitting at the time of our Lord's trial, it necessarily follows that their last session in that chamber at the time when their Passover was kept must have been that of A.D. 29, and consequently the one at which the condemnation of the Holy One took place, and in which, according to the prophecy of Daniel, the Messiah was

cut off.

66

The interval of forty years between the crucifixion and the siege of Jerusalem is confirmed by a story which Leightfoot quotes from Rabbi Nathan. When Rabbi Simeon, the president of the council, was killed during the siege, Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, the vice-president, escaped with his life by feigning death, and causing his scholars, R. Joshua and R. Eleazar, to carry him forth upon a bier, as a dead corpse might not rest in Jerusalem all night; and so he escaped, and was brought to Cæsar. This Rabban Jochanan, forty years ago, when the Temple-doors flew open of their own accord, foresaw its ruin in that presage; and accordingly applied that saying of the prophet Zechariah, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.'" (Aboth. c. 4.) As there is an evident allusion here to the events which occurred in the Temple at the time of the crucifixion, A.D. 29, forty years later would fix the date of the siege A.D. 69.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TIME OF THE FIRST ADVENT.

Historic evidence for the date of the crucifixion from Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Lactantius, St. Augustin-The opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus -The era of the consuls-The fifteenth of Tiberius fixed according to Tacitus-Note on Dr. Jervis' Chronological Introduction to the History of the Church.

HAVING thus seen what is to be gathered in the Word respecting the time when the Messiah was to be cut off, I propose to produce another sort of evidence on the same subject, and which, as will be seen, fully confirms all that has been inferred from Scripture concerning the date of that important event.

In considering the historic evidence of this subject, we must recollect that we are confined to the testimony of early Christian writers with regard to the time of the crucifixion; for Tacitus, the only heathen historian of the first century, as we believe, who records the event, gives no date, but incidentally mentions the fact as having occurred in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius,* and during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. But in bringing forward the testimony of the Christian fathers, we shall have occasion to adduce this same heathen historian as a contemporary writer, for the purpose of enabling us to decide the actual year to which they unanimously ascribe the crucifixion of the Saviour of the world.

1. Tertullian in the second century is, probably, the earliest authority who mentions the time when the crucifixion occurred. His words are, "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Christ suffered, whose sufferings were completed within the time of the seventy hebdomads under Tiberius Cæsar, Rubellius

*The words of Tacitus are:-" Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis pænis affecit, quos, per flagitia invisos, Vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat." (Annal. 1. xv., 42.)

Geminus, and Rufius Geminus being consuls, in the month of March at the time of the Passover." (Tertul. Advers. Jud. viii.)

2. Africanus in the third century says, "And from that time to the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, when Christ suffered, they reckon sixty years." (Africanus, apud Hieron. Dan. ix.)

3. Lactantius at the beginning of the fourth century writes, "Who was under the empire of Tiberius; in the fifteenth year of whose reign, that is during the consulship of the two Gemini, the Jews affixed Christ to the cross.' (Lact. Inst. 1. iv., 10.) Elsewhere he affirms the same, "Towards the close of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, as we read the Scripture, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews, the two Gemini being consuls." (De Mort. Persecut. ii.)

4. Augustine in the fourth century says, "Christ died in the two Gemini's consulship, the 8th of the Kalends of April, i.e., March 25th, and rose again the third day, as the apostles saw him with their eyes and felt with their hands." (Aug. De Civ. Dei. L. xviii., 54.)

It will be seen from these quotations that the writers are unanimous* in ascribing the date of the crucifixion to the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar. The earliest of them, Tertullian, says it occurred in the month of March, at the time of

* The word "unanimous" must be used with a certain degree of limit, for Clemens Alexandrinus says "the sixteenth year," and not the fifteenth; but there is an explanation of this, showing that there is no difference amongst these fathers with regard to the year of the crucifixion, and of which the consular lists afford some test-the consuls at the time of the crucifixion, by a singular, and we think unexampled coincidence, bearing the same name. The words of Clement are, " Some, who accurately weigh matters, refer Jesus' passion to the sixteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar " (Cl. Alex. Strom. p. 340); on which Newcome, Bishop of Waterford, in his reply to Priestley on the Duration of our Lord's ministry, has observed :-"The way to explain the opinions of Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Lactantius, on the fifteenth is, that they speak of his reign from January 1st, whereas Clemens from the day of Augustus' death." It will be seen above that Tacitus uses the same mode of reckoning the years of Tiberius's reign as the fathers we have quoted; but the more exact test, as we have observed, is that of the consuls, and on this point there never has scarcely been, we believe, a second opinion; i.e., no writer, saving Epiphanius, who has mentioned the names of the consuls at the time of the crucifixion, has named any other than those of the Gemini. Ideler remarks, "Nowhere in the first five centuries do we find any other consular date of the death of Christ than the year of the two Gemini, except in the Greek writer Epiphanius." (ii. 415.)

the Passover; Augustine specifies the 25th of that month as the exact day on which the Lord suffered; and three out of the four specially mention that the event occurred in the year when two persons bearing the same sirname, the two Gemini, were consuls of Rome.

As these Christian fathers must have been well acquainted with Scripture, and nobody who knows their writings can doubt this, they must have been aware that the evangelist, St. Luke, in a passage which we have already considered at length, mentions the fifteenth year of Tiberius as the year for the commencement of John the Baptist's ministry, it is perfectly clear that they must have had a different reckoning for the commencement of Tiberius's reign,* as no one imagines that our Lord's ministry was crowded into the interval between the time when John the Baptist commenced his ministry, and the succeeding Passover, at which, by this reasoning, it is implied that Christ suffered.

We have seen that St. Luke reckoned according to the time when Tiberius was associated in the empire with Augustus, which was about three years previous to the death of the latter, and therefore the fifteenth year of the sole reign of Tiberius would be the same as the eighteenth of his associated or proconsular empire. As the fifteenth of Tiberius's proconsular empire extended from about September, A.D. 25, to the following September, A.D. 26, this eighteenth year, and the fifteenth of his sole empire, would extend from about the same time of year (for Augustus died August 19th), A.D. 28, to the following autumn of A.D. 29;

Although it would be impossible to crowd all the events connected with the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism of Christ, and the whole of his ministry, into so few months as intervened between the commencement of Tiberius's fifteenth year in the autumn of one year, and the Passover in the succeeding spring, which would be required by those, who argue that St. Luke means the fifteenth year of Tiberius's sole empire, when speaking of the time that "the Word of God came unto John in the wilderness," and the same year as the Christian fathers do when speaking of the crucifixion, yet there was an opinion held at one time that the ministry of Christ did not last longer than a year. Chemnitus, who recites various opinions of the ancient fathers, and who himself supposed Christ to have preached three years and a half, begins with saying, "Vulgaris opinio, etiam apud Vetustissimos, fuit, omnia illa dicta et facta, quo in Evangelicâ historiâ a baptismo Christi usque ad passionem ejus describuntur, unius tantam anni spatio comprehendenda esse." However, this opinion is so clearly refuted by the mention of three or four passovers, in the Gospel according to St. John, as having occurred during our Lord's ministry, that it need not be considered at any length.