secure liberty to serve Christ the Lord. And even when he was severely chastened and afflicted by bodily infirmity, in the midst of his thanksgivings to God, it was a constant pleasure to him to speak upon our adherence to the monastic rules which he had learned and taught; and it pleased him to linger upon the remembrance of the ecclesiastical observances which he had noticed in various cities, but chiefly at Rome, and in the holy places which he recollected having visited in his youth. And thus supported and exercised by the long study of virtue, and purged by the lengthened martyrdom of a year of infirmity, after having received one hundredfold the gifts of grace during this present life, he passed to that which is eternal.

§ 5. And therefore, brethren, it is necessary that we, like good children, and worthy of such a father, be careful to follow his example and precept in all things, and that none of the snares of the spirit or flesh seduce us from walking in the steps of such a guide; but that we, who have left the affections of the flesh and an earthly inheritance,-who, out of love for the conversation of angels, have scorned to marry wives and to beget children after the flesh,-advancing in the virtues of the spirit, may be permitted to receive an hundredfold in the society of the saints in this life, and in the world to come to obtain the life which is eternal. And this by the grace of our Redeemer, who liveth and reigneth with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. AMEN.

THE CHRONICLE

OF

THE VENERABLE PRESBYTER BEDA,

THE ANGLO-SAXON;

OR,

CONCERNING THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD.

IN a former' part of this work, we briefly, in drawing a comparison between them and the week of the creation, glanced at the six ages of this world, and the seventh, or, as some maintain, the eighth, of a life of rest in heaven; and now again, in comparing them with a man's life, called in Greek by philosophers a microcosm, that is, a world in minature, we propose to dwell upon the same subject somewhat more at large.

The first age of this world, then, extends from Adam to Noe, and embraces, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, 1656, according to the Septuagint, 2242 years, and according to both versions ten generations. This age was put an end to by the universal deluge, just as the first age of man's life is wont to be sunk and lost in the waters of oblivion; for how few of us are there who can recollect our own infancy!

The second age, extending from Noe to Abraham, embraces, according to the authority of the Hebrew, ten generations, and 292 years; whereas the Septuagint version gives a longer period, and includes 1072 years, and eleven generations. This age may be called the childhood of God's people; and, accordingly, in it, language, that is, the Hebrew language, was invented. For in emerging from infancy, so named from infants not possessing the power of speech, into childhood, men first are capable of uttering significant sounds.

The third age extends from Abraham to David, and embraces, according to both authorities, fourteen generations, and 942 years. This may be termed the youth of God's people, because with this age man begins to possess the powers of generation: and, therefore, Matthew, the evangelist, commences his genealogy from Abraham, who, when his name was changed, was made the father of nations.

The fourth age extends from David to the carrying away into captivity to Babylon, and embraces, according to the Hebrew,

1 Namely in chapter x. of his book "De Temporum Ratione,” (ed. Giles, vi. 166,) from which the present treatise is an excerpt.

Scripture, 473, according to the Septuagint translation twelve more years, and, according to both versions, seventeen generations, which, for a mystery's sake, the evangelist Matthew numbers as fourteen. In this, which may be called the age of the world's youth, kings began to reign over God's people. For this is the period of man's life in which he becomes fit for performing the function of government.

The fifth period resembles that of old age, and extends from the carrying away into Babylon, to the incarnation of our Lord the Saviour, through fourteen generations, and 589 years. In this the Hebrew people, as though borne down by the weight of old age, is broken by a rapid succession of evils.

The sixth age, in which we now live, is bounded by no fixed limits of generations, or of years; but, like decrepit old age, must meet its termination in the dissolution of the whole world; and, lastly, every one who has, by a happy death, triumphantly passed through the numberless cares and toils of these ages, is already received into the seventh age of an unbroken sabbath, and waits for the eighth age of the joyful resurrection, in which he may reign for ever with the Lord.

THE FIRST AGE.1

IN the first age of the world, and on the first day of it, God made the light, which He called day. On the second day He suspended the firmament of heaven in the midst of the waters, which, with the earth, and the heaven above, and the powers that are therein, to glorify their Maker, had been created before the commencement of these six days. On the third day, He gathered the waters, which before had covered the whole face of the earth, into their place, and commanded the dry land to appear. On the fourth day, (which, as we conjecture from the equinox, is the 12th of the kalends of April) [21st March], He placed the stars in the firmament of heaven. On the fifth day, He created the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air. On the sixth day, (which I believe to be the 10th of the kalends of April) [23d March], He created the beasts of the field, and man himself, Adam, from whose side, as he slept, He produced Eve, the mother of all living.

2

From these considerations, in the absence of more convincing proof, the opinion of the blessed Theophilus, which he enunciated in his disputation on Easter with the bishops of Palestine, and many of those of other countries, is worthy of credit, namely, that the crucifixion of our Lord took place on the same tenth day of the kalends of April [23d March]. For it was fitting that on one and

1 It has been considered expedient to retain only the general outline of this and the following Ages up to the Sixth, and to omit the particulars which follow in the original.

2 He was bishop of Cæsarea, in Palestine, and flourished about A.D. 192. See Cave, Hist. Lit. i. 87. He is mentioned by Eusebius, H. E. v. 23. There is a further notice of him in the present treatise, A.d. 194.

the same day, not only of the week, but also of the month, the second Adam, falling asleep in a death which was destined to give us life, should, by the heavenly sacraments produced from his side, sanctify to Himself the church as a bride, for the salvation of man; for on this day it was that He himself had created the first Adam, the father of mankind, and, by a rib taken from his side, built up for him a woman, by whose cooperation the human race might be propagated.

THE SECOND AGE.

In the second age of the world, and on the first day of it, namely, on the 27th of the second month, Noah came out of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. To the mention of which event the blessed apostle Peter [1 Pet. iii. 21] in his epistle forthwith subjoins the following apt remark: "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God:" thereby teaching, that in the water of the deluge, baptism was figured; as also, in the ark and those whom it contained, the church and its saints, and in the number of eight souls, the mystery of our Lord's resurrection, in the faith of whom we are baptized.

THE THIRD AGE.

THE third age of the world commences with the nativity of the patriarch Abraham, who, when he was seventy-five years old, left his country, and came by the command of God to the land of Chanaan; receiving the double promise, that from his seed should be born a Saviour, in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and that he himself should become a great nation; of which promises, the one is spiritual, the other temporal. In this period Ninus and Semiramis reigned over Assyria.

THE FOURTH AGE.

THE fourth age of the world opens not only with the rise of the Jewish kingdom, but also with the renewal of the promise formerly given to the patriarchs, and marks the commencement of the reign of Christ; the Lord swearing, "That of the fruit of his body, would He set upon his throne." [Ps. cxxxii. 11.]

THE FIFTH AGE.

THE fifth age commences with the carrying away of the Jews into captivity: the period of their expatriation lasting, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, seventy years.

THE SIXTH AGE.

IN the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus, the twentyseventh from the death of Cleopatra and Antony, and the reduction of Egypt to a Roman province, the third of the 194th Olympiad, the 752d from the building of Rome, and in that year in which the firm arm of the emperor, having suppressed wars and tumults throughout the world, consolidated a real and lasting peace, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sanctified the sixth age of this world by his advent. In the forty-seventh year of the reign of the emperor Augustus, Herod was attacked by dropsy; and his whole body being swarming with worms, he died in wretched, but not unmerited torments, and his son Archelaus, by the appointment of Augustus, reigned in his stead for nine years, up to the death of that emperor; for then it was that the Jews, impatient of a cruelty which had become intolerable to them, preferred a charge against him before the imperial throne, and obtained his banishment to Vienne, a city of Gaul; while, with the object of diminishing the power of the Jews, and curbing their spirit of insubordination, his four brothers, Herod, Antipater, Lysias, and Philippus, (of whom Philippus and Herod, who was before called Antipas, had been appointed during the lifetime of Archelaus), were created Tetrarchs in his place.

A.D. 38. Tiberius, the stepson of Augustus, that is to say, the son of his wife Livia by a former husband, reigned twenty-three years. In the twelfth year of his reign, Pilate was appointed by him procurator of Judæa, and, under this emperor, Herod the Tetrarch, who held the reins of government over the Jews twentyfour years, founded in honour of Tiberius and his mother Livia, Tiberias and Libias.

A.D. 30. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, when, according to the Hebrews, as Eusebius signifies in his Chronicle, (for he notes that the sixteenth year of Tiberius was, according to the Hebrews, the commencement of the eighty-first jubilee,) 4,000 years from the beginning of the world had been completed, our Lord, after the baptism which John preached, announced the kingdom of heaven to the world; nor will any one, who has read the former part of this treatise, see any difficulty in our calculation, which places the date nineteen years earlier. Be this as it may, according to the same Chronicles, which Eusebius himself considered that he had compiled from both versions, there are 5,228 years.

A.D. 33. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, our Lord redeemed the world by his passion, and the apostles, then about to preach the gospel through the regions of Judea, ordained James, the brother of our Lord, bishop of Jerusalem; they ordained also seven deacons, and, Stephen having been stoned to death, the church was dispersed through Judea and Samaria. Agrippa, surnamed Herod, the son of Aristobulus, the son of Herod the king, set out to Rome to accuse Herod the tetrarch, and being