ing. If we reckon back three mean lunations from this time, we obtain a mean full moon, March 27, 2. 15. ciple of the canon itself seems to be a tacit admission of this: for we cannot suppose it would begin with referring-and ever after continue to refer-its reigns to a nominal ȧpxǹ, if it had always been possible, especially with the most ancient, and consequently with the first of the number, to ascertain the true. Now each reign, even the most recent, might all be referred to a nominal date, though all, and particularly the most ancient, could not be to their true. Hence, if the necessity of the case had obliged the canon to begin with the use of a nominal apy, regard to uniformity merely might require it to persevere in it afterwards. During so remote a period as the first two or three hundred years of Nabonassar, it does not seem possible for the canon to have been constructed on any other principle; but we find the same rule applied to the reigns of the successors of Alexander and of Augustus, the very day of whose beginnings, and not merely the years, were known, or admitted of being determined. It is most probable that this was done for the sake of uniformity; that so the construction of the canon, and the mode of its technical application, might be the same from first to last. The days of Ptolemy, thne, for the most ancient periods of the canon, may be after all conjectural; or only so far certain, as to determine the year in which such and such a reign truly began: but not the pre cise part of it. And with respect even to this determination, it might not always be so exact, but that the following case might sometimes happen; viz. that if the demise of one king actually took place towards the end of a certain year of Nabonassar, the Thoth of his successor might still be fixed to the beginning of the next. In such a case as this, where the end of one reign and the beginning of another happened as it were between two Nabonassarian years, Ptolemy might not always know where to fix the end of the one, and where the beginning of the other. Now this is what seems to have occurred in the succession of Darius and Xerxes. For the same reasons, neither are the eclipses which Ptolemy mentions from time to time, as falling out in such and such years of Nabonassar, and such and such years of the reigning king, any necessary argument that he has fixed the beginnings of those reigns aright. The eclipses might happen in the specified years of Nabonassar; but that would be no proof that they happened in such and such years of the reigns. For Ptolemy himself accommodates these years to those; and if he had made a mistake in their first adjustment, that mistake would be retained in their subsequent synchronisms in consequence of which an astronomical fact, referred to a particular year of Nabonassar, might be true of that, but not always of the current year of the king, supposed in the afternoon and if the next day coincided with Nisan 15, then Tisri 15 coincided with September 21, Chisleu 24 with November 28, and Elul 24 with August 31. Seed-time was arrived or past Chisleu 24, in the second of Darius; and it might well be so, November 28, B. C. 521. It will follow from this conclusion, that the month Adar in the sixth of Darius, when the second temple was finished, coincided with Adar, B. C. 516. There was an eclipse in that year, on March 3, at 9. 30. in the morning; by the help of which it may be proved that the Paschal full moon coincided with April 2. If so Nisan 15 was April 2; and therefore Adar 3 was February 19. Now February 19, B. C. 516, would fall on the same day of the week as February 14, B.C. 16: and February 14, B. C. 16, was Thursday. The temple, therefore, was finished on a Thursday. In like manner August 31, B. C. 521, fell on the same day of the week as August 26, B. C. 21: and that day fell on a Tuesday. The temple, therefore, was begun on a Tuesday. Chisleu 24, or November 28, the date of the prophecy of Haggai, on the same principle was a Sunday*. to be coincident with it. Yet the lunar eclipse in the 225th Mr. Nabon. and the seventh of Cambyses, July 16, B. C. 523, (Mathematica Compositio, v. 14,) would truly happen in the seventh of Cambyses, though we dated his first from B. C. 529, medio: and the similar eclipse, Ær. Nabon. 257, April 25, B.C. 491, (Ibid. iv. 8,) would truly happen in the thirty-first of Darius, though dated from the autumnal quarter of B. C. 522: and even the eclipse, supposed to have happened in his twentieth, November 19, B. C. 502, (Ibid. iv. 8,) would be either in his twentieth, or at the utmost at the very beginning of his twenty-first. * There is a further argument in favour of the hypothesis that the beginning of the sabbatic cycles, as such, was B. C. 1513, and the first sabbatic year was B. C. 1507—1506, which, being of a more doubtful nature, I v Cf. Fasti Hellenici, cap. 18. 313. and Pingrè's Table. Analysis, i. 182. w Cf. Dr. Hales' have not thought proper distinctly to adduce; but which I will take the liberty of mentioning here, as there may be persons with whom even this argument will have some weight. It is a tradition of the Jewish rabbis, that the commencement of the Legal sabbatic cycles coincided with the first year of a corresponding Mundane cycle, as deduced from the creation downwards; that is, that the first sabbatic year under the Law, and any subsequent one, would have been a sabbatic year, had such years been observed from the time of the creation itself. Upon the authority of this tradition I do not pretend to decide; but it derives some countenance from the institution of the sabbath, and from the doctrine of the sabbatic millennium. For the observance of a seventh year was analogous to the observance of a seventh day; and both, it might be expected, would proceed alike from the beginning of the mundane system and the duration of the world for seven thousand years, if any such term is prescribed to it, is equivalent to a period of one thousand sabbatic cycles. It may be proved, however, that even upon this principle, B. C. 1507-1506, would have been a sabbatic year. The cycle of sabbatic years began and ended with the autumnal equinox: but the world, as we have seen to be most probable, was brought into being at the vernal. It was created, therefore, at the middle of some year of the cycle; which half year, nevertheless, according to the well known rule of Jewish or scriptural computation, might be considered as equivalent to a whole year. Hence, if the mundane system began at the vernal equinox, B. C. 4004; the first year of the first cycle, as such, must be supposed to have expired at the autumnal, B. C. 4004, also: and the first seventh year, as such, at the autumnal, B. C. 3998. Subtract B. C. 1506, the close of the first Levitical sabbatic year from B. C. 3998: and the difference, 2492, is an exact multiple of seven. For 2492 356 x 7. Hence, had B.C. 3999-3998, been the first sabbatic year, B. C. 15071506. would have been the three hundred and fifty-seventh. APPENDIX. DISSERTATION XXIII. On the Population of Judæa in the Time of our Saviour. Vide Dissertation xxiii. vol. ii. page 292. line 23. BEFORE we proceed to speak of the population of Judæa in the time of our Saviour, it will not be amiss to take a survey of the numbers of its inhabitants, at different periods of its former history; so far as they can be collected from the facts on record in the Old Testament. The number of grown up male Israelites, who came out of Egypt at the Exodus, B. C. 1560, exclusive of strangers and Levites, is put in round numbers at 600,000; and was in reality, 603,550. At the time of the second numbering, B. C. 1520, they amounted, with the same exception, to 601,730. Each of these statements implies a gross total, in round numbers, of 2,400,000: to which if we add the number of the Levites, female as well as male, from a month old and upwards, as it may be collected from the data given on the second occasion, viz. twice 23,000 for both in conjunction-the total amount of the people of Israel, which took possession of the promised land, exclusive only of strangers, was not less than 2,446,000. At the time of the civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the tribes, the military population of the eleven tribes was 400,000, and that of the a Exod. xii. 37. xxxviii. 26. Numb. i. 46. ii. 32. xi. 21. xxvi. 51. c Numb. xxvi. 62. Cf. iii. 39. b Numb. tribe of Benjamin was 26,700. This was upon an average about 36,000 to each of the eleven tribes in general; and consequently in proportion to what is specified of the tribe of Benjamin in particular. The total population of the country being reckoned four times the amount of both, was about 1,704,000. * In the first year of Saul, B. C. 1094, the military population of Israel and Judah was not less than 330,000 *: nor consequently the total population less than 1,320,000. At the time of the expedition against the Amalekites, Saul's army amounted to 210,000 f: which, from the proportion of the quota of the tribe of Judah on this occasion to the quota furnished by it on the former one, viz. 10,000 in proportion to 30,000, I should infer was a third part of the whole military population of the kingdom. The whole population was consequently twelve times 210,000, or 2,520,000. And that this conclusion is not an improbable one, appears from the numbers of the military population of certain of the tribes, in the first of David, B. C. 1054, immediately after the death of Saul; more especially those of Ephraim, Manasseh, Zebulun, Dan, Asher, Reuben, and Gads. At the census in the time of David, B. C. 1018, ac * Judges vi. 35. vii. 3: in the first year of Gideon, B. C. 1290, the military quota from the four tribes, Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, all which fol lowed Gideon, was 32,000: and Judges xii. 6, in the first year of Jepththah, the numbers who perished of the Ephraimites, amounted to 42,000. d Judges xx. 1. 2. 7. 8-11. 17. xxi. 5. 8, 9. xx. 15. 35. 44-47, 48. xxi. 3. 6. 16, 17. 23. Suidas, voce Zaμår, giving an account (from some lost commentator, we may presume) of this war, estimates the numbers killed (on both sides, as we must suppose) at 87,000; which both the Book of Judges, and the o', and Josephus, make in all only 22,000 + 18,000 + 25,100, or 65,100. So some of the MSS. of Ambrose read, ii. 136. D. De Officiis Ministrorum, iii. 19. §. 116. e 1 Sam. xi. 7, 8. f 1 Sam. xv. 4. g 1 Chron. xii. 23-37. |