the origines of the royal family of David. Then follow the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which belong to the period of the desolation. Next to these comes Ecclesiastes, composed in the days of the new colony, by a contemporary of Malachi. In the position assigned to this book, we have the testimony of the compilers, that Solomon was not the author. Next come the Books which are occupied with both history and prophecy, relating to the state of things after the captivity; first of all the Book of Esther, which is occupied with events, that occurred in the reign of Xerxes;-then Daniel, on account of his predicting in chap. ix. the restoration of the city under Artaxerxes, a prophecy, which would have the greater prominence in the estimation of the compilers of the Canon, from the fact that they were eyewitnesses of the fulfilment ;-then Ezra and Nehemiah, who give a historical account of the mercy, shown by God to his people in the reign of Artaxerxes (strictly speaking, Daniel ought to have been placed between Ezra and Nehemiah, but it was thought unadvisable to obscure the connection, which exists between these two books, by a local separation) ;-lastly, the Chronicles, the closing book of the Canon, Paraleipomena. The fact that this latest work is placed last in the Canon, is a proof, that the other books do not owe their position to mere accident. The arrangement of the subject matter is closely connected with the chronological order. This may be seen in the position assigned to the Books of Ruth and Daniel. It is also apparent from the fact, that Ecclesiastes stands before Esther. With the exception of the Book of Ruth, which forms a kind of parenthesis, we have none but poetical books from the Psalms to the Preacher. The Preacher could not properly be separated from the other kindred writings. The author has been led into this investigation by a remark made by Auberlen in his "der Prophet Daniel und die Offenbarung Johannis," p. 131.

TERMINATION OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

The extreme point to which this prophecy extends, namely, the period, which was to commence with the complete forgive

ness of sins, the bringing in of eternal righteousness, &c., falls precisely at the close of the seventy weeks. But it is a mistake, to make this the basis of chronological calculations; for the simple reason, that it is not marked by any distinct and clearly defined event. Such an event, however, we do find at the end of the sixty-ninth week, namely, Christ's public appearance, and his anointing with the gifts of the Spirit; and we are the more inclined to take this as the basis of our calculation, just because of the very remarkable fact, that the chronological data, connected with this event, are as carefully recorded in the history of the fulfilment, as they are here in the prophecy itself, and more carefully than in the case of his birth, his resurrection, his ascension, or any other event connected with his life.

We read in Luke iii. 1, "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, the word of God came unto John." According to this, the public appearance of John the Baptist and of Christ occurred in the year of Rome 782. Attempts have, indeed, been made,-partly, for the purpose of upholding the authority of several of the church-fathers, whose notices differ from the statement given here, and partly, to shake the solid historical foundation of the sacred narrative,-to rob this account of its credibility. But they have not been successful. For whilst Paulus and Kühnöl, for example, affirm that it is uncertain, which mode of reckoning has been adopted in this statement, as to the year of the reign of Tiberias; Ideler (Chronologie i. p. 418), and Wieseler (chron. Syn. p. 172), have proved that the reckoning, adopted in history, invariably dates from the death of Augustus, when his actual government commenced. And when the two former critics argue that Luke merely mentions the year, in which John made his first public appearance, and not that in which Christ appeared; they overlook the fact, that this precise announcement of the time of John's appearance, followed, as it immediately is, by the appearance of Christ, without any fresh allusion to chronology, is in itself a proof that they both occurred in the same year.1 We are also

1 Bengel has very forcibly observed:-"Certainly it was not the object of Luke to mark exactly the entrance of the Forerunner, and to touch only incidentally upon the beginning that was made by our Lord Himself, but what he chiefly cared for recording was the latter. However the joining of John

led to conclude that both John and Christ made their public appearance in the same year, from the expression in Luke (ver. 23): καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τρίακοντα ἀρχόμενος. Π we render this "Jesus also himself," it follows that when John entered upon his office he also was (apxóμevos) about thirty years old, and, consequently, that as John was only six months older than Christ, he entered upon his public ministry just six months before him. If we adopt the rendering "and Jesus himself," the words would then imply that the historical data, connected with the account of John's appearance, were equally applicable to that of Christ, and that the only new matter, to be introduced here, was the notice of Christ's age. This notice again equally applies to John, seeing that it was not an accidental circumstance, that Christ first appeared at the end of his thirtieth year, but a compliance with the legal injunctions of the Old Testament. There is no force in the objection offered to the conclusion to which we have come, namely, that the year of Christ's appearance coincided with that of John's, on the ground of ver. 21, when taken in connection with Matt. iii. 5. had been ten times as large as it really was, at such a time as this, when all minds were raised to the highest pitch of expectation, and religious intercourse was so constant and lively, through the medium of the capital, half-a-year would amply suffice to attract the attention of the whole land.

For, even if Judea

HARMONY BETWEEN THE PROPHECY AND ITS FULFILMENT WITH REGARD TO THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE COMMENCEMENT AND TERMINATION OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

According to the prophecy, the point of commencement, namely the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, was removed from the closing event, viz., the public appearance of Christ, by a period of 69 weeks of years, or 483 years. Now, if we turn to history,

with Him is appropriate and seasonable, that he may not be supposed to have preceded Jesus by a longer interval." (English translation, vol. ii. p. 45.)

it must strike the most prejudiced mind as a very remarkable fact, that, of all the current chronological calculations, in relation to this period of time, there is not a single one, whose results differ more than ten years from the statements of the prophecy. But, on a closer examination of these calculations, we find that the one, which has the greatest probabilities in its favour, fully establishes the agreement of prophecy and history, even to a single year.

In order to arrive at this result, there is no necessity to thread our way through a labyrinth of chronological researches. Chronological authorities are all agreed in this, that Xerxes. began to reign in the year 485 B.C., and that the death of Artaxerxes occurred in the year 423. The only point in which they differ has respect to the commencement of Artaxerxes' reign. Our task, therefore, will be accomplished, if we can prove that he began to reign in the year 474 B.C. For, in this case, the twentieth year of Artaxerxes would be the year 455 B.C. according to the ordinary reckoning, or 299 from the foundation of Rome. Add to this 483 years, and we are brought to the year 782 U.c.

We should probably have been spared the trouble of this enquiry altogether, had not the error of an acute writer, and the want of independence on the part of those who succeeded him, involved the question in obscurity. According to Thucydides, Artaxerxes began to reign a short time before the flight of Themistocles into Asia. Dodwell was led astray by certain specious arguments, and set down the year 465 B.C. as the date of both these events (Annall. Thuc.). The thorough refutation of these arguments by Vitringa was, strange to say, entirely overlooked by both linguists and historians, and apparently even by such writers as Wesseling and others, of Holland itself. The view expressed by Dodwell was adopted by Corsini in his Fastis Atticis, and currently received. Even Clinton (fasti Hellenici lat. vert. Krüger Leipz. 1830), strongly as he expresses his conviction, that Dodwell has thrown the whole chronology of this period into confusion (compare e. g. p. 248, 53), could not shake off his influence in the most important points; although in several particulars he has successfully opposed him. Hence, he has only increased the confusion; for he has neither given us the

actual chronology, nor left us the events in the chronological order, in which they were so skilfully arranged by Dodwell. The credit of having once more discovered the right road is due to Krüger, who, after an interval of more than a hundred years, by an entirely independent enquiry, arrived at the same result as Vitringa, and to a great extent adopted the very same line of argument. In his admirable article, über den Cimonischen Frieden (in the Archiv. für Philologie und Pädagogik von Seebode i. 2 p. 205 sqq., with which his hist. philol. Studien Berlin 36 should be compared), he places the death of Xerxes in the year 474 or 473, and the flight of Themistocles a year later.

Let us, first of all, examine the arguments which appear to favour the conclusion that the reign of Artaxerxes commenced in the year 465. (1.) "The flight of Themistocles must have taken place several years after the supremacy in Greece had passed from the hands of Athens to those of Sparta; for the transfer was made at the siege of Byzantium, where the treacherous proceedings of Pausanias first commenced. The flight of Themistocles was occasioned by the charge brought against him, in consequence of some papers that were discovered after the death of Pausanias. Now Isocrates says, in the Panathenaikos, that the supremacy of the Lacedaemonians lasted ten years. And dating from the time of Xerxes' expedition, the transfer must have taken place in the year 470." We may spare ourselves the trouble, which Vitringa has taken, to invalidate this supposed testimony of Isocrates; for all modern scholars, and to some extent independently, have come to the conclusion, that Isocrates is speaking of a ten years' supremacy, not previous to, but after that of the Athenians (see Coray zu Pan. c. 19; Dahlmann, Forschungen i., p. 45; Krüger Abhandl. p. 221; Clinton p. 250 sqq.; Kleinert Dorp. Beiträge ii., p. 136). (2.) From Aelian 1. 9, c. 5, Corsini concludes that Themistocles was still in Athens in the year 472 (fasti. Att. iii. p. 180). It is stated there, that Themistocles thrust back Hiero, when he came to the Olympian games, on the ground that no one, who had failed to share in the greatest danger, had any right to participate in the pleasure (the tale is also told by Plutarch). Now, as Hiero began to reign in the third year of