Jesus, in these words:-"He must grow, and, as Tacitus informs us, was succeeded by Quintilius Varus; and Publius Sulpicius Quirinus, or Quirinius, of whom it would seem St. Luke means to speak, did not succeed Quintilius Varus until about ten years after Herod's death, when Archelaüs, King of Judea, was banished by Augustus, as Josephus tells us in his Jewish Antiquities. Yet St. Leo says, that in his time there were persons at Rome who said that the feast was venerable, not so much on account of the birth of Jesus as of the return, and, as they expressed it, the new birth of the sun. St. Epiphanius assures It is true that Tertullian, and St. Justin us, it was fully established that Jesus was before him, referred the pagans and the born on the 6th of January; but St. Cle- heretics of their time to the public archives ment of Alexandria, much more ancient containing the registers of this pretended and more learned than he, fixes the birth numbering; but Tertullian likewise reon the 18th of November, of the twenty-ferred to the public archives for the aceighth year of Augustus. This is de-count of the darkness at noon-day, at the duced, according to the Jesuit Petau's time of the passion of Jesus, as will be remark on St. Epiphanius, from these seen in the article ECLIPSE; where we words of St. Clement:-"The whole have remarked the want of exactness in time from the birth of Jesus Christ to the these two fathers, and in similar authodeath of Commodus, was a hundred and rities, in our observations on a statue ninety-four years, one month, and thirteen which St. Justin (who assures us that he days." Now, Commodus died, accord-saw it at Rome) says, was dedicated to ing to Petau, on the last of December, in Simon the magician, but which was in the year 192 of our era; therefore, ac- reality dedicated to a god of the ancient cording to St. Clement, Jesus was born Sabines. one month and thirteen days before the last of December; consequently, on the 18th of November, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Augustus. Concerning which, it must be observed, that St. Clement dates the reign of Augustus only from the death of Antony and the capture of Alexandria, because it was not until then that Augustus was left sole master of the empire. Thus we are no more assured of the year of this birth, than we are of the month or the day. Though St. Luke declares," that he had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," he clearly shows that he did not know the exact age of Jesus, when he says that, when baptised, he "began to be about thirty years old." Indeed, this evangelist makes Jesus born in the year of the numbering which, according to him, was made by Cyrenus or Cyrenius, governor of Syria; while, according to Tertullian, it was made by Sentius Saturninus. But Saturninus had quitted the province in the last year of Herod, These uncertainties, however, will excite no astonishment, when it is recollected that Jesus was unknown to his disciples until he had received baptism from John. It is expressly "beginning with the baptism of Jesus," that Peter will have the successor of Judas testify concerning Jesus; and, according to the same Acts, Peter thereby understands the whole time that Jesus had lived with them. CHRONOLOGY. THE world has long disputed about ancient chronology; but, has there ever been any Every considerable people must necessarily possess and preserve authentic, wellattested registers. But how few people were acquainted with the art of writing! and, among the small number of men who cultivated this very rare art, are any to be found who took the trouble to mark two dates with exactness? We have, indeed, in very recent times, the astronomical observations of the Chinese and the Chaldeans. They only go back about two thousand years, more or less, beyond our era. But, when the early annals of a nation confine themselves simply to communicating the information that there was an eclipse in the reign of a certain prince, we learn, certainly, that such a prince existed, but not what he performed. Moreover, the Chinese reckon the year in which an emperor dies as still constituting a part of his reign, until the reign of it; even though he should die the first day of the year, his successor dates the year following his death with the name of his predecessor. It is not possible to show more respect for ancestors; nor is it possible to compute time in a manner more injudicious in comparison with modern nations. We may add, that the Chinese do not commence their sexagenary cycle, into which they have introduced arrangement, till the reign of the Emperor Iao, two thousand three hundred and fifty-seven years before our vulgar era. Profound obscurity hangs over the whole period of time which precedes that epoch. Men are generally contented with an approximation-with the "pretty nearly" in every case. For example, before the invention of watches, people could learn the time of day or night only pretty nearly. In building, the stones were pretty nearly hewn to a certain shape, the timber pretty nearly squared, and the limbs of the statue pretty nearly chipped to a proper finish; a man was only pretty nearly acquainted with his nearest neighbours; and, notwithstanding the perfection we have ourselves attained, such is the state of things at present throughout the greater part of the world. Let us not then be astonished that there is nowhere to be found a correct ancient chronology. That which we have of the Chinese is of considerable value, when compared with the chronological labours of other nations. We have none of the Indians nor of the { Persians, and scarcely any of the ancient Egyptians. All our systems formed on the history of these people, are as contradictory as our systems of metaphysics. The Greek Olympiads do not commence till seven hundred and twenty-eight years before our era of reckoning. Until we arrive at them, we perceive only a few torches to lighten the darkness, such as the era of Nabonassar, the war between Lacedemon and Messene: even those epochs themselves are subjects of dispute. Livy took care not to state in what year Romulus began his pretended reign. The Romans, who well knew the uncertainty of that epoch, would have ridiculed him had he undertaken to decide it. It is proved, that the duration of two hundred and forty years ascribed to the seven first kings of Rome, is a very false calculation. The four first centuries of Rome are absolutely destitute of chronology. If four centuries of the most memorable empire the world ever saw, comprise only an undigested mass of events, mixed up with fables, and almost without a date, what must be the case with small nations, shut up in an obscure corner of the earth, who have never made any figure in the world, notwithstanding all their attempts to compensate, by prodigy and imposture, for their deficiency in real power and cultivation? of the Vanity of Systems, particularly in Chronology. The Abbé Condillac performed a most important service to the human mind, when he displayed the false points of all systems. If we may ever hope that we shall one day find the road to truth, it can only be after we have detected all those which lead to error. It is at least a consolation to be at rest, to be no longer seeking, when we perceive that so many philosophers have sought in vain. Chronology is a collection of bladders of wind. All who thought to pass over CHURCH. it as solid ground have been immersed. We have, at the present time, twentyfour systems, not one of which is Summary of the History of the Christian true The Babylonians said, "We reckon four hundred and seventy-three thousand years of astronomical observations." A Parisian, addressing him, says, " Your account is correct; your years consisted each of a solar day; they amount to twelve hundred and ninety-seven of ours, from the time of Atlas, the great astronomer, King of Africa, to the arrival of Alexander at Babylon." Church. WE shall not extend our views into the depths of theology. God preserve us from such presumption. Humble faith alone is enough for us. We never assume any other part than that of mere historians. In the years which immediately followed Jesus Christ, who was at once God and man, there existed among the Hebrews nine religious schools or societies, -Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenians, JuBut, whatever our Parisian may say, daites, Therapeutæ, Recabites, Herodians, no people in the world have ever con- the disciples of John, and the disciples of founded a day with a year; and the Jesus, named the "brethren," — the people of Babylon still less than any other. "Galileans,"-the "believers," who did This Parisian stranger should have con- not assume the name of Christians till tented himself with merely observing to about the sixteenth year of our era, at the Chaldeans, “You are exaggerators, } Antioch; being directed to its adoption and our ancestors were ignorant. Na- by God himself, in ways unknown to tions are exposed to too many revolutions; men. to permit their keeping a series of four thousand seven hundred and thirty-six centuries of astronomical calculations. And, with respect to Atlas, King of the Moors, no one knows at what time he lived. Pythagoras might pretend to have been a cock, just as reasonably as you may boast of such a series of observations." The Pharisees believed in the metempsychosis. The Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul, and the existence of spirits, yet believed in the Pentateuch. Pliny, the naturalist, (relying, evidently, on the authority of Flavius Josephus,) calls the Essenians "gens æterna in qua nemo nascitur;"- a perpetual family, in which no one is ever born;" because the Essenians very rarely married. The description has been since applied to our The great point of ridicule in all fantastic chronologies is, the arrangement of all the great events of a man's life in pre-monks. cise order of time, without ascertaining that the man himself ever existed. It is difficult to decide whether the Essenians or the Judaites are spoken or Langlet repeats after others, in his chro- by Josephus iu the following passage :-nological compilation of universal history, "They despise the evils of the world; that precisely in the time of Abraham, their constancy enables them to triumph and six years after the death of Sarah, >ver torments; in an honourable cause, who was little known to the Greeks, Ju- they prefer death to life. They have piter, at the age of sixty-two, began to undergone fire and sword, and submitted reign in Thessaly; that his reign lasted to having their very bones crushed, rather sixty years; that he married his sister than utter a syllable against their legisJuno; that he was obliged to cede thelator, or eat forbidden food." maritime coasts to his brother Neptune; and that the Titans made war against him. But was there ever a Jupiter? It never ecurred to him that with this question he should have begun. It would seem, from the words of Josephus, that the above portrait applies to the Judaites, and not to the Essenians "Judas was the author of a new sect, completely different from the other three." CHURCH that is, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and "We have not heard even that there is a However that may be, these Judaites were known before the disciples of Christ began to possess consideration and consequence in the world. Some weak people have supposed them to be heretics, who adored Judas Iscariot. The Therapeute were a society different from the Essenians and the Judaites. They resembled the Gymnosophists and Brahmins of India. "They possess," says Philo, "a principle of divine love, which excites in them an enthusiasm like that of the Bacchantes and the Corybantes, and which forms them to that state of contemplation to which they aspire. This sect originated in Alexandria, which was entirely filled with Jews, and prevailed greatly throughout Egypt." this rising society was Paul, who had He who contributed most to strengthen himself persecuted it with the greatest violence. He was born at Tarsus in Ci{licia, and was educated under one of the most celebrated professors among the The Jews pretend that he quarrelled with Pharisees-Gamaliel, a disciple of Hillel. Gamaliel, who refused to let him have his daughter in marriage. Some traces of this anecdote are to be found in the sequel to the Acts of St. Thecla. These Acts relate that he had a large forehead, a bald head, united eyebrows, an aquiline nose, a short and clumsy figure, and crooked legs. Lucian, in his dialogue similar portrait of him. It has been "Philopatres," seems to give a very The Recabites still continued as a sect. {for at that time the title was not given to doubted whether he was a Roman citizen, They vowed never to drink wine, and it any Jew; they had been expelled from is, possibly, from their example, that Ma-Rome by Tiberius; and Tarsus did not homet forbade that liquor to his followers. { The Herodians regarded Herod, the first of that name, as a Messiah, a messenger from God, who had rebuilt the temple. It is clear that the Jews at Rome celebrated a festival in honour of him, in the reign of Nero, as appears from the lines of Persius-" Herodis venere dies," &c. (Sat. v. 180.) "King Herod's feast, when each Judean vile, Trims up his lamp with tallow or with oil." The disciples of John the Baptist had spread themselves a little in Egypt, but principally in Syria, Arabia, and towards the Persian Gulph. They are recognised, at the present day, under the name of the Christians of St. John. There were some also in Asia Minor. It is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (chap. xix.), that Paul met with many of them at Ephesus. "Have you received," he asked them, the holy spirit?" They answered him, become a Roman colony till nearly a hundred years afterwards, under Caracalla ; (book iii.), and Grotius in his Commenas Cellarius remarks in his Geography tary on the Acts, to whom alone we need refer. 1 an example in it of humanity and poverty, God, who came down upon earth to be gave to his church the most feeble infancy, and conducted it in a state of huhimself chosen to be born. All the first miliation similar to that in which he had believers were obscure persons. They all laboured with their hands. The apostle St. Paul himself acknowledges that he gained his livelihood by making Dorcas, a sempstress, who made clothe. tents. St. Peter raised from the dead for the "brethren." The assembly of believers met at Joppa, at the house of a tanner called Simon, as appears from the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He addressed to Faustus these words (Acts, xxv.), "I have neither offended against the Jewish law, nor against the temple." The believers spread themselves secretly n Greece; and some of them went from Greece to Rome, among the Jews, who were permitted by the Romans to have a synagogue. They did not, at first, separate themselves from the Jews. They practised circumcision; and, as we have elsewhere remarked, the first fifteen obsure bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised, or at least were all of the Jewish" nation. The apostles announced Jesus Christ as a just man wickedly persecuted, a prophet of God, a son of God, sent to the Jews for the reformation of manners. "Circumcision," says the apostle Paul, is good, if you observe the law; but if you violate the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. If an uncircumcised person keep the law, he will be as if circumcised. The true Jew is one that is so inwardly." When this apostle speaks of Jesus Christ in his epistles, he does not reveal the ineffable mystery of his consubstanti And, in the eighth chapter-" We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs of Christ ;" and in the sixteenth chapter-"To God, who is the only wise, be honour and glory, through Jesus Christ.... You are Jesus Christ's, and Jesus Christ is God's." (1 Cor. chap. iii.) When the apostle Paul took with him Timothy, who was the son of a heathen father, he circumcised him himself, in the small city of Lystra. But Titus, his other disciple, could not be induced to submit to circumcision. The brethren, or the disciples of Jesus, continued united with the Jews until the time when St. Paulality with God. "We are delivered by experienced a persecution at Jerusalem, him," says he (Romans, chap. v.)," from on account of his having introduced the wrath of God. The gift of God hath strangers into the temple. He was ac- been shed upon us by the grace bestowed cused by the Jews of endeavouring to on one man, who is Jesus Christ.... destroy the law of Moses by that of Jesus Death reigned through the sin of one Christ. It was with a view to his clear-man; the just shall reign in life by one ing himself from this accusation, that the man, who is Jesus Christ." apostle St. James proposed to the apostle Paul, that he should shave his head, and go and purify himself in the temple, with four Jews, who had made a vow of being shaved. "Take them with you," says James to him (chap. xxi., Acts of the Apostles), purify yourself with them, and let the whole world know that what has been reported concerning you is false, and that you continue to obey the law of Moses." Thus, then, Paul, who had been at first the most summary persecutor of Some difficulty has been found in exthe holy society established by Jesus-plaining the following part of the epistle Paul, who afterwards endeavoured to go- of the Philippians-"Do nothing through vern that rising society-Paul the Chris- vain glory. Let each humbly think others tian, judaises, "that the world may know better than himself. Be of the same mind that he is calumniated when he is charged with Jesus Christ, who, being in the likewith no longer following the law ofness of God, assumed not to equal himself Moses." to God." This passage appears exceedSt. Paul was equally charged with im-ingly well investigated and elucidated in piety and heresy, and the persecution a letter, still extant, of the churches of gainst him lasted a long time; but it is Vienna and Lyons, written in the year perfectly clear, from the nature of the 117, and which is a valuable monument charges, that he had travelled to Jerusalem, of antiquity. In this letter, the modesty in order to fulfil the rites of Judaism. of some believers is praised. "They did And, in 1 Cor. xv. 27-" Everything is made subject to him, undoubtedly ex cepting God, who made all things subject to him." |