432. The vulgar Æra of Christ’s birth was never settled till the year 527; when Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman Abbot, fixed it to the end of the 4713th year of the Julian Period; which was certainly four years too late. For, our Saviour was undoubtedly born before the Death of Herod the Great, who sought to kill him as soon as he heard of his birth. And, according to the testimony of Josephus (B. xvii. c. 8.) there was an eclipse of the Moon in the time of Herod’s last illness: which very eclipse our Astronomical Tables shew to have been in the year of the Julian Period 4710, March 13th, 3 hours 21 minutes after mid-night, at Jerusalem. Now, as our Saviour must have been born some months before Herod’s death, since in the interval he was carried into Ægypt; the latest time in which we can possibly fix the true Æra of his birth is about the end of the 4709th year of the Julian Period. And this is four years before the vulgar Æra thereof.

In the former edition of this book, I endeavoured to ascertain the time of Christ’s death; by shewing in what year, about the reputed time of the Passion, there was a Passover Full Moon on a Friday: on which day of the week, and at the time of the Passover, it is evident from Mark xv. 42. that our Saviour was crucified. And in computing the times of all the Passover Full Moons from the 20th to the 40th year of Christ, after the Jewish manner, which was to add 14 days to the time when the New Moon next before the Passover was first visible at Jerusalem, in order to have their day of the Passover Full Moon, I found that the only Passover Full Moon which fell on a Friday, in all that time, was in the year of the Julian Period 4746, on the third day of April: which year was the 33d year of Christ’s age, reckoning from the vulgar Æra of his birth, but the 37th counting from the true Æra thereof: and was also the last year of the 402d Olympiad^[88], in which very year Phlegon an Heathen writer tells us, there was the most extraordinary Eclipse of the Sun that ever was known, and that it was night at the sixth hour of the day. Which agrees exactly with the time that the darkness at the crucifixion began, according to the three Evangelists who mention it^[89]: and therefore must have been the very same darkness, but mistaken by Phlegon for a natural Eclipse of the Sun; which was impossible on two accounts, 1. because it was at the time of Full Moon; and 2. because whoever takes the pains to calculate, will find that there could be no regular and total Eclipse of the Sun that year in any part of Judea, nor any where between Jerusalem and Egypt: so that this darkness must have been quite out of the common course of nature.

From the co-incidence of these characters, I made no doubt of having ascertained the true year and day of our Saviour’s death. But having very lately read what some eminent authors have wrote on the same subject, of which I was really ignorant before; and heard the opinions of other candid and ingenious enquirers after truth (which every honest man will follow wherever it leads him) and who think they have strong reasons for believing that the time of Christ’s death was not in the year of the Julian Period 4746, but in the year 4743; I find difficulties on both sides, not easily got over: and shall therefore state the case both ways as fairly as I can; leaving the reader to take which side of the Question he pleases.

Both Dr. Prideaux and Sir Isaac Newton are of opinion that Daniel’s seventy weeks, consisting of 490 years (Dan. chap. ix. v. 23-26) began with the time when Ezra received his commission from Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem, which was in the seventh year of that King’s reign (Ezra ch. vii. v. 11-26) and ended with the death of Christ. For, by joining the accomplishment of that prophecy with the expiation of Sin, those weeks cannot well be supposed to end at any other time. And both these authors agree that this was Artaxerxes Longimanus, not Artaxerxes Mnemon. The Doctor thinks that the last of those annual weeks was equally divided between John’s ministry and Christ’s. And, as to the half week, mentioned by Daniel chap. ix. v. 27. Sir Isaac thinks it made no part of the above seventy; but only meant the three years and an half in which the Romans made war upon the Jews from spring in A.D. 67 to autumn in A.D. 70, when a final Period was put to their sacrifices and oblations by destroying their city and sanctuary, on which they were utterly dispersed. Now, both by the undoubted Canon of Ptolemy, and the famous Æra of Nabonassar, which is so well verified by Eclipses that it cannot deceive us, the beginning of these seventy weeks, or the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, is pinned down to the year of the Julian Period 4256: from which count 490 years to the death of Christ, and the same will fall in the above year of the Julian Period 4746: which would seem to ascertain the true year beyond dispute.

But as Josephus’s Eclipse of the Moon in a great measure fixes our Saviour’s birth to the end of the 4713th year of the Julian Period, and a Friday Passover Full Moon fixes the time of his death to the third of April in the 4746th year of that Period, the same as above by Daniel’s weeks, this supposes our Saviour to have been crucified in the 37th year of his age. And as St. Luke chap. iii. ver. 23. fixes the time of Christ’s baptism to the beginning of his 30th year, it would hence seem that his publick ministry, to which his baptism was the initiation, lasted seven years. But, as it would be very difficult to find account in all the Evangelists of more than four Passovers which he kept at Jerusalem during the time of his ministry, others think that he suffered in the vulgar 30th year of his age, which was really the 33d; namely in the year of the Julian Period 4743. And this opinion is farther strengthened by considering that our Saviour eat his last Paschal Supper on a Thursday evening, the day immediately before his crucifixion: and that as he subjected himself to the law, he would not break the law by keeping the Passover on the day before the law prescribed; neither would the Priests have suffered the Lamb to be killed for him before the fourteenth day of Nisan when it was killed for all the people, Exod. xii. ver. 6. And hence they infer that he kept this Passover at the same time with the rest of the Jews, in the vulgar 30th year of his age: at which time it is evident by calculation that there was a Passover Full Moon on Thursday April the 6th. But this is pressed with two difficulties. 1. It drops the last half of Daniel’s seventieth week, as of no moment in the prophecy; and 2. it sets aside the testimony of Phlegon, as if he had mistaken almost a whole Olympiad.

Others again endeavour to reconcile the whole difference, by supposing, that as Christ expressed himself only in round numbers concerning the time he was to lie in the grave, Matt. xii. 40. so might St. Luke possibly have done with regard to the year of his baptism: which would really seem to be the case when we consider, that the Jews told our Saviour, sometime before his death, Thou art not yet fifty years old, John vii. 57. which indeed was more likely to be said to a person near forty than to one but just turned of thirty. And as to his eating the above Passover on Thursday, which must have been on the Jewish Full Moon day, they think it may be easily accommodated to the 37th year of his age; since, as the Jews always began their day in the evening, their Friday of course began on the evening of our Thursday. And it is evident, as above-mentioned, that the only Jewish Friday Full Moon, at the time of their Passover, was in the vulgar 33d, but the real 37th year of Christ’s age; which was the 4746th year of the Julian Period, and the last year of the 202d Olympiad.