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must have comprehended in their narrative two years and a few months. And though, speaking in a general way, a year may be extended to a few months more than a year, it cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean some months more than two years. If, as I suppose, the imprisonment of John happened within a fortnight after the first passover, the ancient writers saying a year intervened between that event and the next passover, is easily accounted for; the term year being a whole number, and within a few days of

the truth.

Your Lordship says, that "the progress of the human mind is generally slow, and its first attempts feeble on every nice subject." But this, my Lord, is the case only in matters of reasoning, and would have applied here, if, without any previous tradition, or information concerning the subject, the four Gospels had been put into men's hands, and they had been left to investigate the chronology of them as well as they could.

But this was far from being the case with the Gospel history. When the evangelical writings appeared, the history of Christ was previously well known, so that the idea of the duration of his ministry would not be derived from those books. The received opinion, whatever it was, had taken its rise long before. How this opinion should have been so very different, as your Lordship supposes, from the truth, must be accounted for on some other principle than "the slowness of the human mind in its investigations."

"

I do not see to what purpose your Lordship produces the authority of Grotius and others, in favour of the hypothesis of one year having taken its rise from the interpretation of the passage in Isaiah, (lxi. 2,) in which mention is made of "the acceptable year of the Lord." Your Lordship's own opinion would weigh much more with me than theirs, because you have given more attention to the subject than they appear to have done. But it is natural probability and not authority, that is of any weight here; and this, I think, is clearly in favour of the interpretation having been occasioned by the opinion, and not the opinion by the interpretation. Nor could Valentinus, with any face, have proposed such an interpretation of that prophecy, when he did not previously know that it was supported by the fact, or was supposed to be so. His venturing on such an interpretation is, therefore, a proof of the current opinion being in favour of it.

Reply, p. 10. (P.)

You acknowledge, that the primitive Christian writers. must have thought that our Lord's ministry was comprised within one year, unless they computed the years of Tiberius in a manner different from St. Luke."* For it cannot be denied that they all reckoned his years from the death of Augustus. But can your Lordship think it probable, either that Luke should use a manner of computation different from that of all other chronologers and historians whatever, or that the primitive Christians, conversant as they were with the evangelical writings, should use the same language with Luke, in what they knew to be a quite different sense; calling that the 15th of Tiberius, which they were satisfied would have been the 18th with Luke, and at the same time affix it to the same event? This I think in the highest degree improbable, and the authority of Le Clerc, Lardner, Pilkington, Macknight, Pearce, &c., with which you urge me, weighs nothing with me in favour of it.

Because some of the Christian fathers reckoned the year in which Augustus died, to him, and others to Tiberius, you say, "I may as justly require authority for this computation of Tiberius's reign from the first of January, and not from the 19th of August, as you demand an instance of reckoning his years from his becoming colleague in the empire, and not from the death of his predecessor." †

But, certainly, the difference of three years is a much more considerable thing than of three months, and therefore may be more easily traced. In fact, however, your Lordship does not deny but that all historians and chronologers, without exception, date the years of Tiberius from the death of Augustus.

SECTION II.

Of the Conduct of Luke in giving a Date to the Preaching of John the Baptist, ‡ &c.

I HAVE said that the conduct of Luke, in giving a very circumstantial date to the beginning of our Lord's ministry, and leading his readers to conclude, from the course of his narrative, that his death took place in the year following, is hardly consistent with the supposition of three years having intervened between them. Such a mode of writing is, I say, unnatural.

But you say, that it is not singular; for "Sallust has

*

Reply, p. 19. (P.)

+ Ibid. p. 21. (P.)

Ibid. pp. 30-37.

dated the beginning of the Catilinarian conspiracy about the calends of June, in the consulships of Lucius Cæsar, and Caius Figulus; and he has given no date to that more remarkable event, the battle in which Catiline fell. It should follow, therefore, by your way of arguing, that the conspiracy was quashed the year after it broke out.-Yet the fact is, that this memorable defeat did not happen under the succeeding consulships of Cicero and Antonius; but in the beginning of the year when Silanus and Muræna were consuls."*

Now this appears to me to be a very imperfect parallel. All that can be said with respect to Sallust is, that, being intent on relating a connected series of interesting events, he neglected to mention the termination of one particular year, and carried his reader to the beginning of the next only, without any notice of it. But can your Lordship think that he would have done so, if the war had continued three years? Or was it indeed possible, that any contemporary historian should have related transactions of that continuance without leaving some traces of their having extended to more than one year, which is the case with Luke? I therefore think that his conduct is a very considerable argument in favour of my hypothesis, and against that of your Lordship, notwithstanding this instance of Sallust.

I do not expect, as you seem to think, that Luke should have written like "a regular annalist," + giving express dates to the events of every year; but I should expect that, having dated the beginning of his history with much greater precision than Sallust has done, he would not afterwards have related events of three years and a half, without giving some intimation, directly or indirectly, of his history having extended beyond one year. If it had had that extent, I think it would hardly have been possible for him, without very particular design, not to have left sufficient traces of it.

Besides, it should be considered, that the Roman historian had no other object but that of telling his story in the most pleasing and interesting manner, and therefore would more naturally pass by a date, if it interrupted the course of his narrative; as it would have done very remarkably in this particular case, when what he had related as having passed in the city, had so close a connexion with what was passing in the field,

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SECTION III.

Of the Ignorance of Herod, and of other Jews, concerning Jesus, at the Time of the Death of John the Baptist. *

YOUR Lordship candidly allows, that "the difficulty" of accounting "for Herod's ignorance" concerning Jesus till after the death of John the Baptist "is greater" on your hypothesis than on mine, I supposing him not to have heard of Jesus till after a very few weeks, and your Lordship not till after two years; but you say, "The defect of your argument is, that any conceivable method of accounting for Herod's ignorance may be the true one." +

I think, however, that this case is so very particularly circumstanced, that there is hardly any conceivable method of accounting for it, and therefore that it nearly amounts to a demonstration of my hypothesis.

Your Lordship, finding that Herod could not be absent from his dominions, in this interval, on his expedition against Aretas, or at Rome, for any political purpose, as you first conjectured, now says, "A journey to Rome which was not undertaken for a political purpose may have been unnoticed by the Jewish historian." But can this be probable, when Josephus expressly says, that it was with difficulty that he was prevailed upon by his wife to go to Rome for the most important political purpose, having conceived a great aversion to that court? And we have no account of any prince of those times going such a journey for mere pleasure.

Besides, having quarrelled with Aretas by divorcing his daughter, and expecting a war on that account, it is not very probable that he would then think of a journey of pleasure, which would necessarily detain him so long from his own dominions. Princes seldom travel with expedition, and much less could they do so in those times. A year and four months, which your Lordship allows to the imprisonment of John, would, I should think, have hardly been sufficient for the purpose.

You also say that, "though Herod was not actually engaged in an expedition against Aretas," he might be "occupied on the eastern side of Jordan, in preparing for one;' observing, that this river "seems to have been passable in

• Reply, pp. 38-43.

↑ Ibid. pp. 39, 40. (P.)

Ibid. p. 40. (P.)

a very few places." But certainly this river, † which is not so big as the Thames, cannot be impassable by boats in any place, and only one constant place of passage was quite sufficient for this purpose, which was not the passage of an army, but only the conveyance of a piece of news. Your Lordship will also consider that Peraa is the very country, or contiguous to it, in which you suppose our Saviour to have made some considerable stay, so as to have made more disciples there than John did, before his journey to Galilee. Jesus, therefore, might have been heard of in that country, though no account should have been transmitted concerning him from Galilee. Besides, since this expedition against Aretas did not take place till after the death of John the Baptist, and probably that of our Saviour too, the preparation which you suppose he was then making for it must have been a considerable time before-hand, and therefore could hardly engage much of his attention.

You observe, that "Herod might have neglected reports about a worker of miracles, from the commonness of such pretensions in those days." Now so far was it, as it appears to me, from such pretensions being common in those days, that I do not find the least trace of any such thing. From the time of Malachi there had not been a prophet, or even a pretender to the gift of prophecy, among the Jews; and John the Baptist, though a prophet, worked no miracle. Judas the Gaulonite, § who set up the standard of liberty, did not, however, pretend to any miraculous power, and even near the siege of Jerusalem those impostors who deluded the people to their destruction, did it by promises only of what they would do, and did not pretend to exhibit, or to have exhibited, any real miracle. Your Lordship allows, that there had been a cessation of miraculous powers near five hundred years. ||

In the time of Herod, therefore, pretensions to miracles must have excited the greatest possible attention; and this would be more so in a nation whose ancestors had been accustomed to them, and from whom they had been withdrawn for so many years, than in any other nation in the world, or in any other circumstances of the same nation. This I consider as a great mark of the wisdom of God in preparing for

* Reply, pp. 41, 42. (P.)

+ Which Maundrel found to be “about twenty yards over." Travels, p. 83. ↑ Reply, p. 39. (P.)

§ See Josephus's Antiq. B. xviii. Ch. i. Sect. i. vi., War, B. ii. Ch. viii. Sect. i. Reply, p. 106. (P.)

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