hood, and late in the duration of the contest; when he might also have been in Egypt, and that in or about the fifteenth of his reign.

There are coins of Gaza extant, of the time of Hadrian, which imply that something occurred, U. C. 883, to induce the inhabitants of that city to adopt a new era, in conjunction with their ancient one, which bore date from U. C. 693. It was conjectured by Norisius that this new era was adopted by them, to commemorate some visit of Hadrian's to their city in U. C. 883: and the conjecture is certainly a possible one. There is, however, an anomaly about this era; viz. that it bears date from a different time of the year from the old. Annus v. of this era synchronises with annus CXCIV. and cxcv. of the old. Neither does it proceed further than the fifth year, answering to U. C. 887, or U. C. 888, in the eighteenth or nineteenth of Hadrian. Cf. Eckhel, iii. 452, 453.

The cause of the adoption of the era is, therefore, obscure though it may still refer to some presence of Hadrian's in those parts between U. C. 883, and U. C. 888: in which case the time embraced by it coincided with what was probably the most arduous and critical period in the Jewish struggle: and it closed with the end of the contest, the year before the adoption of Verus; at which time we had reason to conclude from Hadrian's letter to Servianus, that he was personally in Egypt.

A sentence has been preserved by Eusebius from the apology of Quadratus abovementioned, which asserts that many of those who had been the subjects of miracles, wrought by our Saviour, had lived to his time; so as we may presume to have been seen by him. If there is any difficulty upon this point, it is not greater as concerns the fifteenth, than as concerns the eighth of Hadrian. Between A. D. 30, and A. D. 131, there

were certainly more years than the life of one person can be supposed to have occupied. But there is no reason whatever to imagine that the continued existence of many of the almost innumerable subjects of our Lord's miracles, and the personal knowledge of a man advanced in life, like Quadratus, might not meet half way; about A. D. 80. St. John the apostle was alive twenty years or more after this time. Cf. Eusebius, E. H. iii. 37. 109. A. iv. 3. 23. 143. D. v. 17. 183. D.*

* The anecdote recorded by Socrates, (Ecclesiastica Historia, i. 10. Cf. Suidas also, voce 'Akéσlos,) respecting the conversation between the emperor Constantine and Acesius, a Novatian bishop a conversation which passed at the council of Nicewas repeated to the historian by one who had been present at the council, and an eyewitness of what had passed there: one Auxanon, as it appears, a Novatian presbyter; see E. H. i.13.41. D. and ii. 38. 142. D. 143. A. Now the council was held A. D. 325, and Socrates could not have been writing much before A. D. 439, the seventeenth consulate of Theodosius the younger, down to which he brings his history, Thus we see that only one life was necessary as a link of connection for a period of more

than one hundred years, between the historian Socrates, and the proceedings of the council of Nice. Cf. the same historian, iii. 19. 192. A. B. It makes no difference to this conclusion, that Socrates, according to his own account, (i. 13. 41, D.) when Auxanon related these particulars to him, was a very young man; and Auxanon himself koμd výжOs, when present at the council along with Acesius. Both were of an age to take notice of what passed, or to remember what was told them. Evagrius also, E. H. iii. 32. 362. B. compared with xxxiii. 363. A. supplies another instance of old persons, still living in his time, and able to remember and give an account of what had happened eighty years before.

APPENDIX.

DISSERTATION XIX.

On the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, and the second part of the Chronology of the Acts of the Apostles.

Vide Dissertation xv. vol. ii. page 19. line 3-page 62. last line.

IT

may not, perhaps, be considered sufficient that we should have shewn the first twelve chapters of the Acts, with respect to the times and the periods which they embrace, to require to be distributed in a certain manner; the proof of which position in subserviency to the general purposes of a Gospel Harmony was fully stated in Dissertation xv; unless it is further demonstrated that the sequel and residue of the history admit of such a distribution. For the sake, therefore, of establishing this fact, I shall devote the present Dissertation to the discussion of the remainder of the Acts, from the thirteenth chapter inclusively, to the close; in the course of which I shall necessarily have occasion to treat of the chronology of the Epistles of St. Paul.

The notices of time, or such other indications as might serve to ascertain the chronology of the Acts, are interspersed in the body of the history; and are withal of so peculiar a nature, as to render it much easier and much safer, to begin by tracing the course of events from a certain fixed point backwards, than from any point forwards. Two such points, each of them coming within the compass of the time which remains to be investigated, are capable of being determined;

and as they may be ascertained independently of one another, and yet will be found to coincide in one result, no inconvenience is likely to arise from our beginning with the consideration of the latest first.

When St. Paul, on the occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem recorded in the Acts, was brought before the Jewish sanhedrima, Ananias presided at the sanhedrim, in quality of high priest; and yet St. Paul did not know him to be the high priest; or rather, he did not know that there was at that time any high priest. The true meaning of his reply-ovk dew, ådeλφοὶ, ὅτι ἔστιν ἀρχιερεύς—upon which we may ground this inference, has been obscured by the inaccuracy of the authorized version; I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest. We need not object to the rendering of the historical present, ori eσTi, by was, for that is more agreeable to the genius of our language, as the other is to the idiom of the Greek", than the contrary would be: the objection lies only to the rendering, oti čotiv apxiepeús―standing absolutely as it does, and yet being supposed to stand for the name of the high priest officially—as if it had been expressed, őтɩ éσtìv ó ápχιερεὺς, or as if the whole had stood, οὐκ ᾔδειν, ἀδελφοὶ, τοῦτον ὅτι ἐστὶν ὁ ἀρχιερεύς.

The person who had just reproved St. Paul, speaking under his own impression, had very naturally said: τὸν ἀρχιερέα τοῦ Θεοῦ λοιδορεῖς ; and St. Paul, if he had meant to be understood of any particular person as high priest, would have expressed himself with equal propriety. There is an instance, very much akin to each of these passages, at Acts xix. 2. St. Paul inquired of the disciples at Ephesus, εἰ πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐλάβετε πιστεύο σavτes; where, as he did not mean the Holy Ghost absolutely, but some one or other of the gifts or the graces b Vide Acts ix. 26. 38. xii. 9.

a Acts xxiii. I—5.

of the Holy Ghost; he could not so properly have used the article as omitted it: Have ye received an holy ghost-that is, any gift or xápioua of the Holy Ghost-in consequence of your having believed? To this the disciples replied, ἀλλ' οὐδὲ, εἰ πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἔστιν, ἠκούσαμεν. Kоúσаμеv. No, so far from that; we have not even heard that there was an holy ghost: we did not know that there was any such gift to be received.

On the same principle the reply of St. Paul, oùk „deiv, ἀδελφοὶ, ὅτι ἔστιν ἀρχιερεὺς, which is so far exactly analogous to that, ought to be rendered in a similar manner; I did not know, brethren, that there was an high priest. The correctness of this version, I think, is unimpeachable; and while that is the case, no words can more plainly declare at what juncture of circumstances the speaker must have come to Jerusalem, or have been standing before the council; viz. at a time when there was no regular high priest, but when some one was either altogether usurping the office, or at the utmost, was only pro tempore acting instead of the regular high priest. This some one in either case was doubtless Ananias; and the history of Ananias is as follows.

appointed to the priestnominated Ananias the This was also the year

Herod of Chalcis, either in the year before or in the very year of his death; that is, either before or in the eighth of Claudius; removed Joseph the son of Camudus, or Cami, whom he had hood a few years before, and son of Nebedæus in his stead". in which Cumanus succeeded to Tiberius Alexander. After that, some time between the eighth of Claudius as before, and the end of his twelfth, Ananias was sent to Rome by Quadratus, the governor of Syria ; and he was sent upon a charge of high treason. From d Ibid. i. 3. e Ibid. vi. 2. vii. 1. Bell. ii. xii. 5, 6.

c Ant. Jud. xx. v. 2.