their hauen Pyreus by the Lacedemonians and their associates Of this had gone a Prophesie long before in many mens mouthes which himself with his owne eares many times had heard that it should endure thrise nine yeares which is confirmed by Diodorus Siculus very plainely affirming that war to haue lasted 27. yeares in two places first in his twelfth booke treating of the beginning of that war and after in his thirteenth booke speaking of the last yeare thereof which hee saith was the last of the 93. Olympiad as in deede it was for 27. yeares added to the first of the 87. Olympiad wherein it began make an end of it in the fourth of the 93. After Thucidides followed Xenophon who from the one and twentie yeare of that warre where Thucidides left continued in writing the course of that Historie to the ende a man liuing in those dayes carefull of the truth and skilfull in Historie commended euen by Beroaldus himselfe though otherwise an aduersarie of the true ancient Chronologie and Historie of those times In the fifth Chapter of his fourth book Xenophon saith Beroaldus writeth that the gouernment of Athens was committed to a few in that Olympick yeare wherein Crocinus the Thessalian won the race but which Olympiad it was in number hee declareth not Which if he who then liued and prepared himselfe for seruice had done hee had rid vs of much trouble Let vs see therefore what help is giuen by this excellent writer to ease vs herein In his first booke of Greeke affaires this first hee setteth downe verie flatlie that the yeare wherein Enarchippus at Sparta and Enctemo at Athens were Maiors was the first of the 43. Olympiad wherein Eubotas the Cyrenian won the race and a new game of yoaked horses called Synoris was first ordayned at that time won by Enagoras of Elis where lest anie might think Xenophon to haue bin deceiued we haue for further warrant the testimonie of Pausanias in the first booke of Eliacx The running saith hee of two horses of ripe age called Synoris was instituted in the 93. Olympiad wherin Euagoras the Elian got the victorie Nowe this being made plaine by Xenophon that Enarchippus was gouernour of Sparta in the first yeare of the 93. Olympiad if it can bee further shewed by him in what yere of the Peloponnesian warre the same Enarchippus ruled at Sparta we shall easilie perceiue by euident direction from this worthie Author to what yeare of euery Olympiad the beginning midst ending and euery particular yeare of that war appertaineth To shew this we haue a Catalogue of all the chiefe Spartan Magistrates which bare Office in euery yeare of that warre called Ephori set downe by Xenophon in order by their names in the second booke of his Greeke Historie in these words The first saith Xenophon was Aenesias vnder whome the warre began in the 15. yeare of the 30. yeares league made after the taking of Eubaea After him succeeded these Borasidas Isanor Sostratidas Exarchus Agesistratus Agenidas Onomacles Zeuxippus Pityas Pleistolas Cleiomachus Ilarchus Leon Chaeridas Patesiades Cleosthenes Lycarius Exeratus Onomantius Alexippidas Misgolaidas Isias Aracus Enarchippus Pantacles Piteas Archytas Endius In whose time Lysander hauing done the exploits before rehearsed sayled home By this Catalogue of the Lacedemonian Maiors it is manifest that Xenophon for account of time in this warre agreeth most exactly with Thucidides The war began in the nine months end of Aenesias the first Ephorus and ended at the pulling downe the walles of Pyreus 27. yeares after which reach to the nine months end of the 28. Ephorus so that from the beginning of the second Ephorus neere three months after the beginning of the warre to the end of the 28. Ephorus nere three months after the end of that war are likewise iust 27. yeares perfectly and fully compleat And is it not euen so by Xenophon doth not hee declare the throwing downe the walles in the hauen Pyraeus to haue happened toward the end of Archytas his gouernment at Sparta And are there not full and euen 27. yeares from the beginning of Brasidas the second Ephorus to the end of Architas who by Xenophons number in that Catalogue was the 28 Is there any beetle so blind which cannot perceiue this exact agreement betwixt Xenophon and Thucidides for the account of those yeares The Peloponnesian warre as may be gathethered by Thucidides begun with the spring about the first of Aprill toward the end of Aenesias his yere Brasidas succeeding him begun his yeare about the beginning of the next sommer beeing the first of that warre The second sommer fell to the third Ephorus and so in order with the rest The eleuenth Ephorus by Xenophons beadroule was Pleistolas for the tenth sommer which is verified also by Thucidides in his fift booke speaking of a league made betwixt the Athenians and the Lacedemonians in the end of Pleistolas his Maioraltie at Sparta before the sommer of the eleuenth yeare The 21. Ephorus recited by Xenophon for the 20. sommer is Alexippidas The trueth whereof is witnessed and confirmed by Thucidides likewise in his eight booke wherein hee telleth that in the twentieth yere of the Peloponnesian warre a peace was concluded betweene Tissaphernes Lieutenant of Asia and the Lacedemonians in the plaine of Meander Alexippidas then being Ephorus of Sparta The next after Alexippidas for the 21. yeare there named is Misgolaidas for the 22. Isias for the 23. Aracus Then after them followeth Enarchippus the fiue and twentieth Ephorus for the 24. yeres sommer This Enarchippus being first placed in the beginning of the 93. Olympiad and after by his Catalogue found in the 24. yeare of the Peloponnesian war leaueth this cleere by Xenophons meaning that the 24. yeare of that war beginning with sommer was the first of the 93. Olympiad The three Ephori after Enarchippus succeeding in the other three yeares of that Olympiad set downe by Xenophon in order not onely in his table but euen in the context of his Historie for three seuerall yeares are these Pantacles Pyteas Archytas in whose time the Athenians beeing conquered by Lysander were driuen to yeeld The next yeare after was the first of a new Olimpiad so acknowledged most truely and verie orderly by Xenophon himselfe in his second booke where hauing declared the thinges done vnder Archytas In the yeare following saith hee was that Olympiad wherin Crocinus the Thessalian won the race Endius then bearing office at Sparta and Pythodorus ruling at Athens Now if anye aske which Olympiad this was in number that most manifestlie appeareth by the former namely expressed to haue beene the 93 so that it needed not againe for the next expresly to say that it was the 94. which had bin nothing els but recocta crambe according to the prouerb Colworts sodden againe Furthermore Xenophon not far frō the begining of the 2. book writeth that the nauie of the Lacedemoniās was deliuered to Lysander Whē 25. yeres of the war
I call it in regard of all that which for declaration of other matters might bee sayd herein which were the worke of a huge volume and great toyle These writers then for many partes of Scripture are diligently to be sought into and not as some rash braines imagine to bee cast away as vnprofitable in the Lordes schoole house but especially for Daniell aboue all In other places they may seeme profitable but heere they are necessary euen by Hieroms iudgement who in a preface to his commentaries on this booke affirmeth the manifold Histories of Greeke and Latine Authors to bee necessary for the vnderstanding of Daniels Prophesies These helpes therefore I minde to vse for vnfolding the 4. last verses of the 9. Chapter of Daniell containing an entire prophesie of the estate of the holy City after the Iewes returne from the building thereof vnto the vtter destruction of the same by Vespasian the Emperor of Rome and therein of the comming of Iesus Christ the Lord of life aboue 500. yeres before Which is a most certaine argument of Diuine wisedome in Daniell from heauen and a proofe of that which Balthasar had heard that the spirit of the holy Gods was in him whereby also he foreshewed many yeares before the destruction of the Babylonian Empire by the Medes and Persians the Persians ouerthrow by Alexander and the great troubles which long after that time the Iewes suffered vnder Antiochus Epiphanes All this skill came from God for the knowledge and foretelling of thinges to come is that which God onely hath left in his owne power and challengeth to himselfe in the Prophet Esay I make knowne those things saith God which haue not yet hapned The Heathen Poet Sophocles could see this thus writing in the Tragedie of Aiax the whip bearer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many things saith hee may bee knowne of men when they see them come to passe but of thinges to come yet vnseene there is no prophet I am not ignorant that Porphyrius a Tyrian Philosopher a wicked and vngodly Iew of the kindred and sect of the Sadduces an Infidell an enemie of Christ a hater of God and his word who wrote fifteene bookes against the Christians to weaken and extenuate the trueth and authoritie of Daniels Prophesie deuised this shift to say that the Iewes long afore Daniels time seeing these thinges done committed them to writing vnder Daniels name thereby to win credit to their bookes This fine deuise of Porphyrie is nothing else but a vaine cauill For it is well knowne that the comming of Christ is spoken of by Daniell in diuers places which can not bee saide to haue beene written by the Iewes who first had seene the comming of Christ seeing that they neyther at that time when hee came acknowledged him and euer since haue beene so farre from beleeuing in him that vsually to this day they euen curse his memorie Porphyrius herein hath beene answered at large by the learned Fathers Methodius Eusebius Caesariensis and Apolinarius withstanding his blasphemie And Hierome for learning as noble as any in one short sentence most wittily and pithilie turneth all his reasoning against Daniell for Daniell against himselfe Porphirii impugnatio testimonium veritatis est Tanta enim in hoc Propheta dictorum fides inuenta est vt propterea incredulis hominibus videatur non futura dixisse sed praeterita narrasse Porphyrie his impugning of Daniell saith Hierome is a testimonie of his trueth because the sayings of this Prophet haue beene found so certaine and of so great credit that therefore vnbeleeuers haue iudged him rather to tell things past thē to speak of things to come But if there were nothing else at all to be saide yet euen this one prophesie of Daniell which I haue in hande touching the desolation of Ierusalem the trueth and certaintie whereof was at the length verified by the euent it selfe at such time as Titus destroyed the Temple and Citty were enough to stoppe the aduersaries mouthes Yea though all the Infidell Porphyries in the world with all their cunning shifting stand together they shall neuer be able to auoid the force of this prophesie but that it must needes argue a diuine spirit in Daniell For they cannot here say that the Iewes after they had seene the Temple destroyed by the Romanes forged a prophesie thereof in Daniell his name Because euen Christ himselfe in the 24. of Matthew alleadgeth this prophesie of Daniel concerning the desolation of the holy Citie in the flourishing time thereof about 37. yeares before it was fulfilled Whereby it is euident that this prophesie was commonly knowne read in the Church of God among the Iewes as written by Daniell long before the euent had shewed the trueth thereof So Daniell yet standeth a diuine prophet of the Lord inspired with heauenly knowledge of thinges to come from aboue and seeing that in one thing truely foretold this is prooued of him there is no cause at all to doubt of the rest This is a sure foundatiō of diuinitie a sound stay of religion a strong prop of faith to be reposed in the vndoubted trueth of GOD his word a mightie vpholder of the prouidence of God against all the Atheistes and Epicures of the world Which Josephus verie well perceiuing and in the end of his 10. booke of antiquities disputing against this kind of men fetcheth his reason from the sure truth of Daniels Prophesies The errour saith hee of the Epicureans hereby is reprooued which take Gods prouidēce in gouerning things out of this life beleeuing the world to be carried by his owne force without a guide or ouerseer Wherefore considering Daniels prophesies I cannot but condemne the foolishnes of those men which deny that God hath any care of mens affaires For how could it come to passe that the euent should answere his prophecies if all thinges in the world were done by chance Caluin also in the first book of his institutions Doth not Daniell saith he so prophesie of thinges to come by the space of 600. yeares as though he wrote an Historie of things alreadie done and commonly knowne Good men by the diligent meditation hereof shall bee abundantly furnished to quiet the barking of the vngodly for this euidence is clearer then that it can be subiect to any cauils This was the iudgement of Iosephus Caluin against Atheists and prophane Epicures to their shame and ouerthrow taken from the certaintie of Daniels foreshewing things to come Euen this one prophecie of Daniels weekes is a verie hammer to beate them downe to the ground and a wier scourge as it were to teare them all in peeces And therefore of all true Christians to be had in great reuerence and the vnderstanding therof to bee desired as pearles and diligently sought for as hid treasure To the finding out hereof two thinges are most requisite the one is a iust account of the times the other a true interpretation of the wordes in the
changelinges Pererius reprooueth Annius his childish ignorance follie rashnesse arrogancie and the writinges themselues he termeth false erroneous fained lies deceits with this conclusion in the end Valeat igitur in perpetuū valeat haec Anniana Chronologia quae toties a viris doctis profligata iugulata est iaceat in posterum sempiterna hominum obliuione sepulta nec sit post hac qui eam exhumare ad fidem aliquam atque authoritatem quasi ad vitam reuocare audeat Sat sit adhuc eam cum non erat bene nota imposuisse multis nunc detectis atque in apertum prolatis fucatis eius mendaciis fallaciis si quem circumuenerit ac deceperit nimis profecto stupidū vecordemeum fore necesse est That is Let this Chronologie therfore of Annius farewell yea for euer let it farewell and that which hath often bin cast down and the throte thereof cut let it hereafter lie buried in euerlasting forgetfulnesse neither let any take it out of the graue and call it backe againe into credite authority as it were to life Let this be sufficient that it hath alreadie deceaued many whilest it was not thoroughlie known but now the coloured lyes and deceits thereof being detected and brought to light If hereafter any be deceaued thereby he must needes bee too too blockish and witlesse This is Pererius his censure no otherwise in my iudgement then such forgerie and falsehood hath deserued whereof take this as a manifest argument Iosephus in the tenth booke of his Antiquities the 11. Chapter writeth that Megasthenes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in the fourth book of his Indian affaires making mention of Nabugodonosor went about to prooue him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to haue passed Hercules in prowesse and greatnes of acts which place Peter Comestor in his Scholastical Historie vpon Daniel vsing to proue Nabugodonoserum fortitudine actuum magnitudine Herculem transcendisse that Nabugodonosor went beyond Hercules in valour and great acts citeth Megasthenes for it in his booke of Iudgements reading Iudiciorum by some corruption in the translation of Iosephus crept in for Indicorum Hereupon Annius transforming first Megasthenes into Metasthenes and then Indica that is Indian affaires into Iudicia which signifieth iudgements made this the title of his forged stuffe Metasthenes his booke of the iudgement of times This I hope is enough if any thing can bee enough to keepe men which haue eyes from taking hurt at this blocke An other much like vnto it hath bin the conceited fancie of Mathew Beroald in the thirde booke of his Chronologie the eight Chapter setting downe the Persian Kinges in this order The first Cyrus the next Assuerus Artaxerxes the third Darius Assirius the fourth Artaxerxes Pius the fift Xerxes And then after him the other sixe in order as they haue beene declared and named by other Of these eleuen Kinges how many yeares particularlie euerie one raigned it is vncertaine saith Beroaldus but generally the whole time of all was 130. yeares beginning with Cyrus in the 3. yeare of the 80. Olympiad the 295 of Rome This is Beroaldus his opinion for the kings and time of that Empire much like that of Annius In maner it is more honest beeing not fathered on other in matter as absurde and ridiculous if not more making more kinges and fewer yeares thrusting in such as neuer were knowne and fayning names which neuer were heard of For where was Assuerus Artaxerxes Darius Assirius and Artaxerxes Pius euer spoken of by any Author of credit diuine or prophane Who euer besides himself once dreamed of an Artaxerxes Pius to be Father to Xerxes Or that Xerxes made warre against Greece before his Fathers death Aeschilus a learned Poet who florished euen in those verie times in his Tragedie called Persa might soone haue taught him a better lesson raysing his father Darius long before dead out of his graue to tell newes Doeth not such stuffe as this deserue the tearmes of monsters dregs dreames lyes toyes as well as that opinion of Annius which euen Beroaldus himselfe reprooueth Is it not worthy of such a farewel as that wherewith Pererius biddeth Annius his Chronologie adew These be the opinions which in the course of Chronologie haue to diuers learned men been occasions of error The vanity whereof shall yet better appeare by that which followeth beeing layde vnto them For as diuers sorts of cloath compared together and held to the light are quickly by the eye discerned the course from the fine So the approoued true historie of ancient time beeing laied to these latter conceits will leaue an easie view for reason and the eye-sight as it were of the minde to iudge which is best First for the kinges of Persia who they were that raigned therein The name of the first to be Cyrus is agreed of all The second was Cambyses heire thereunto as wel by birth as his fathers will The next lawfull king after him was Darius whose father Histaspis as Seuerus Sulpitius in his second booke of the holy Historie writeth was cosen German to Cyrus The fourth king succeeding to the imperiall Crowne of Persia was Xerxes the sonne of the same Darius Then the other sixe in order of whom amongst writers that I know of there is no controuersie at all The first foure kinges here named in that order succeeding one another haue beene so recorded by those names vnto vs of most ancient Poets and noble Historiographers which eyther liued in the dayes of the said kinges or els came very neare vnto them and so haue bin deliuered from hand to hand and from age to age to this day continued by a long successiō of the most skilfull men for learning that euer haue beene whether rightly or no let reason scan First the dominion of the Persians was large and wide and contained manie countries A great part of India all Medea Parthia Babilonia Chaldea Hyrcania Armenia Arabia Mesopotamia Phaenicia all the land of Israell and Iuda all Egypt and much of Lybia all Syria and the lesse Asia wherein also they had their imperiall seate at Sardes a Cittie of Lydia the kinges of Persia oftentimes making their abode therein And continuallie theyr deputies in their absence most of the Kinges blood or alliance Besides Cyprus and manie other Ilands To be short it reached from Persia all a long so neare Greece and Europe that there was no land left to part them but the Sea called Aegeum And that in some place so narrow as a bridge hath beene made ouer it from brinke to brinke not a mile long with continual recourse and traffique betweene them These were the places of this Monarchie of all other for wisedome and prowesse most famous The times therof by the singuler knowledge vertues of excellent mē were no lesse noble The seauen wise men of Greece so renowmed Thales of Miletus Solon the Athenian Chilon the Lacedaemonian Pittacus of Mytilene Bias
were past and gone which must needes be in the 29. yeare Immediatlie after hee addeth that in that yere Cyrus killed two of his kinsemen for not holding their handes within a muffe when they met him as was vsed to be done to kings in token of honour and loyall dutie for their greater securitie that they might bee void of all suspition feare of harme And then followeth that the next yeare after which must needes bee the 27. and last Archytas was Ephorus of Sparta Thus from Xenophon wee learne that which Beroaldus wished the 24. and 27. yeres of the Peloponnesian warre yoaked the one with the first the other with the last of the 93. Olympiad which for sound knowledge of the Persian times to discerne them a right is very material and a sure bulwarke for defence of my former Chronologie Whereby was proued that Cyrus begun in the first of the 55. Olympiad towarde the end from which time to the fourth of the 93 nere ended are 155. yeares That is to say 30 of Cyrus 8 of Cambyses 36 of his successor of Xerxes 21. of Artaxerxes 40. with that of Xerxes and Sogdianus included 20. of Darius Nothus whose raigne ended almost together with the Peloponnesian warre as before hath beene declared by the testimonie of Diodorus Siculus and appeareth by Thucidides making his thirteenth the twentieth of the warre Erastosthenes an auncient writer in the time of Ptolomeus Euergetes a man to vse Plinie his terme cunning in the subtiltie of all learning and approued of all so Plinie testifieth of him in his second booke set forth certaine rules of Chronologie which Dionisius Halicarnasseus for the truth thereof exact reckoning greatly commendeth in his first book of Roman antiquities These rules haue beene preserued vnto this age by the carefull diligence of the ancient learned father Clemens Alexandrinus 1. Strom. From the first Olympiad to Xerxes passing into Greece he accounted 297. yeares thence to the beginning of the Peloponnesian warre 48. and after to the end and dissolution of the Athenians common wealth 27. all these gathered together are 372. from the first Olympiad so saieth Eratosthenes agreeing with Xenophons reckoning to Archytas his Maioraltie at Sparta ended with that warre and the fourth of the 93. Olympiad For 93. Olympiads are fourescore thirteene times foure yeres that is the number of Eratosthenes 372. From which summe 54. Olympiads contayning 216. before that wherein Cyrus begun being taken awaie with almost one yeare more from the beginning of it to Cyrus there remaineth for the Persian Monarchie to the end of the Peloponnesian warre 155. yeares before spoken of Diodorus Siculus was a man of wonderfull paines and exceedingly precise in exact computation He spent thirtie yeares in making his Historie from Sicilie his natiue countrie hee trauailed into Egypt and the greatest part of Asia and Europe to search the trueth of those thinges which hee wrote A diligent reader of all the auncient writers before him from Herodotus and other before and after succeding in order whom hee hath followed in the matters which he telleth And therefore not vnfitly the title of his worke is called not a Historie but a Librarie Iustinus Martyr called him the most famous Historiographer of the Grecians Eusebius commendeth him by the name of a notable man in great request among the learned But Henry Stephen aboue all other praiseth him exceedingly giuing him that place degree amongst the learned Historiographers which the sunne hath amongst the starres in regard of exact defining those thinges which he writeth of by ordered times This writer therefore confirming all those thinges before spoken of touching the kings of Persia and the time of their raigne may be in steed of many so as in him alone we may see the iudgement not onely of Herodotus Thucidides Xenophon but also of Callisthenes Duris Timaeus Philiscus Theopompus Ephorus and other by him diligentlie read perused and cyted which at this day are not any where found It were infinite to bring all that might bee said out of Authors for the verefying of this Chronologie tedious to be read toylesome to be written Therefore passing ouer many testimonies of diuers writers I will now come to the Roman Storie to see if it likewise by agreement of time may auaile any thing to fortifie those limits and bounds which haue beene set for the Persian kings The Romanes in continuance of time became Lordes of Greece where the Olympicke sports were celebrated And therefore it could not otherwise bee but that they knew well enough how the yeares of their Citie were answerable to the Olympick reckoning of the Grecians Polybius of Megalopolis a Cittie in Arcadia neere as auncient as Eratosthenes by Cicero accounted amongst the best authors for worthinesse credit commended by Iosephus by Velleius Paterculus honoured with this testimonie that he was a man excelling in wit had in great estimation and followed by Liuie and other in the third booke of his historie affirmeth that the first Consuls of Rome were 28. yeares before the passage of Xerxes into Greece which was in the end of the last yeare of the 74. Olympiad as appeareth by that which before hath bin declared Hereof it followeth that the first of the 68. Olympiad beeing the 14. of Darius Histaspis was that wherin the new gouernment of that Cittie by Consuls was established Whereas before it had bin gouerned by kings for the space of 244. yeares from the first building thereof vnto this time adding 28. yeares or seauen Olympiads more We come toward the end of the last yeare of the 74. Olympiad being the 272. of Rome wherin Xerxes passed into Greece as Polybius testifieth the next yeare after was the first of the 75. wherein Xerxes with his great armie was ouercome as before hath bin prooued The truth hereof is verified by A. Gellius in the last chapter of his seuenteenth book where he writeth that Xerxes was ouercome by Themistocles at Salamis foure yeres before the consulship of Menenius Agrippa and Horatius Puluillus wherein a great kinred of noble Romans called Fabij to the number of 306. hauing taken vpon them at their owne charge to fight against a certaine people were slaine by the subtiltie of their enemies circumuented at the riuer Cremera for this is declared by the Romane histories to haue fallen out in the 277 yeare of Rome and the 33. from the banishment of the kings Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his fift booke of Romane antiquities reckoneth sixteene yeares betwixt Brutus one of the first Consuls death in the end of his yeare and the Marathon fight referring the battaile at Marathon to the seuenteenth yeare after Brutus his buriall and the eighteenth after the kings driuen out of the Citie wherein Gegainus Macerinus and Minutius Augurinus were Consuls In his 7. Booke Which by constant agreement of almost all authors hee sayeth was in the second yeare of the 72. Olympiad So he maketh the 31.
of Pisistratus himselfe and 18. after of his children And so is Herodotus to be vnderstoode giuing them 36. in all onely differing from Aristotle in a yeare Whereby it may be thought that Pisistratus raigned some few moneths more aboue 17. yeares so his reckoning comes short by almost twentie yeares Againe there was another Pisistratus the sonne of Hippias and Grand childe to the elder Pisistratus before spoken of who in the yeare of his Maioraltie dedicated in the market place at Athens the Altar of the twelue Gods as Thucidides writeth of him in his sixt booke And this in my iudgement is the man to whome that Historie in Aelianus may be fitly applied and stand very well with that which Iustin hath concerning Themistocles fighting at Marathon Yea but Plinie in his 34. booke writeth that the Athenians the same yeare wherein the kings of Rome were driuen out being the fourth of the 67. Olympiad set vp the images of Harmodius and Aristogiton who had killed Hipparchus the tyrant farre wide from that which Dionysius telleth in his sixt booke that Hipparchus was ruler at Athens in the 71. Olympiad What say you to that Nothing but that Beroaldus being belike ashamed of his follie in bringing such an argument calleth it in againe as it were by answering that it was another Hipparchus which Dionysius speaketh of Another argument he taketh from Dionysius Halicarnassaeus in his fift booke making the warre at Marathon later by sixteene yeares then the death of Brutus thereby referring the yeare to the fourth of the 71. Olympiad which by Cicero seemeth cast to the 73. wherein Coriolanus a Senator of Rome made warre against it Here we haue nothing but vntrueth vpon vntrueth fit groundes for such a rotten building for sixteene yeares after that of the first Consuls which was by Dionysius the first of the 68. Olympiad in the end whereof Brutus was slaine reach not to the fourth of the 71. but to the second of the 72. Olympiad wherein the same Dionysius in plaine words placeth that warre As for that of Coriolanus against Rome it happened in deed in the first of the 73. Olympiad onely three yeares after the other And therefore Cicero in his Brutus affirming not that this of Coriolanus was at the same time with that other of the Persians but almost at that time speaketh a trueth dissenting nothing at all from Dionysius It followeth in Beroaldus the same Dionysius in his ninth booke Diodorus Siculus agreeing vnto him saith that Xerxes went to warre against Greece in the 75. Olympiad when Callias gouerned Athens that is twelue yeares after the Marathon fight being past to that of Xerxes at Salamis Glossa corrumpit textum the glosse here marreth the text with a manifest vntrueth for neither Dionysius nor Diodorus maketh aboue eleauen yeares distance betwixt those battailes the one placed in the second of the 72. Olympiad the other in the first of the 75 almost in the beginning thereof Now let any man count the distance betweene on his fingers ends and see if he can finde twelue yeares But to omit this and come to the purpose Gelo was at the time of Xerxes his warre by Pausanias and Herodotus tyrant of Syracusae And Gelo tyrant of Syracusae by Plutarch in the life of Lysias the Orator in the second of the 82. Olympiad So the war of Xerxes must by this reckoning come backe neere 30. yeares after the 75. Olympick sport Plutarchs words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is in English thus much Lysias an exceeding rich man was the sonne of Cephales grand childe of Lysanias the sonne of Cephales his father Cephales was a Syracusian borne and flitted to Athens for loue partly of the citie and partly of Pericles the sonne of Xanthippus who perswaded him thereto being his friend and host or as some say for that hee was driuen from Syracusae at such time as it was subiect to the tyrannie of Gelo. He meaneth that Lysias was borne Being borne at Athens vnder Philocles the next ruler after Phrasicles hee was first brought vp with the noblest children of the Athenians about the second yeare of the 83. Olympiad Afterward being fifteene yeares olde he went to Thuriae a citie of Italie Praxiteles then being Maior of Athens as followeth there in Plutarch Philocles was Maior at Athens in the second yeare of the 80. Olympiad as Diodorus declareth Then was Lysias borne and being about eyght yeres olde in the second yeare of the 82. Olympiad he was brought vp with other noble mens children in Athens and therein continued till the yere of Praxiteles his gouernement which was the first of the 84. Olympiad as we reade in the same Diodorus and the fifteenth of Lysias his birth Where can Beroaldus now finde in this place of Plutarch that Gelo was tyrant of Syracusae in the second yeare of the 82. Olympiad What meant he so cōfidently to burst forth into this cōplaint Tam incerta sunt apud aut hores rerum istarum tempora So vncertaine are the times of these matters what reason had hee for it For hee that vnderstandeth Greeke and compareth Plutarchs owne words with that which Beroaldus gathereth by them will bee ashamed I beleeue of such an interpreter being so blinded with conceited affection that hee seeth not what is written and careth not what he saith Plutarch doth notablie in this place confirme the receiued ancient Chronologie of the Greekes so farre he is by any disagreement from weakening their credite Let vs now examine one or two other places of Beroaldus concerning the time of Xerxes fighting in Greece In the eyght chapter of his third booke Pausanias sayth Beroaldus telleth in his Arcadikes that Xerxes then passed into Greece when Gelo gouerned at Syracuse which is likewise witnessed by Herodotus in his seuenth booke But that same Pausanias in his Eliaca affirmeth that Gelo held the gouernment of that citie in the second yeare of the 72. Olympiad Except it be a strange thing that one king should continew his raigne by the space of twelue yeares This argument of Beroaldus is not worth a rush to proue disagreement betweene ancient writers referring Gelo his tiranie some to the second of the 72. Olympiad other to the first of the 75. when Xerxes passed into Europe for the beginning of his dominion was about the second of the 72. Olympiad as Dionisius Halicarnassaeus declareth in the seauenth booke of his Roman Antiquities And the end thereof in the 75. Olympiad the thirde yeare thereof as Diodorus witnesseth in the eleauenth booke of his Historicall librarie So both might stand together well enough Beroaldus hath yet more matter from Pausanias in his Eliaca who referreth the ouerthrow of Mardonius at Plateae the next yeare after Xerxes inuaded Greece to the 75. Olympiad whereas Diodorus Siculus saith that Xerxes in that Olympiad inuaded Greece both can not bee true The worde Olympias pertaineth sometime to the game itselfe celebrated euerie first yeare of
that reason which he bringeth for it that is by the custome of the Hebrewes be approued Their moneths I graunt were in some sort taken by the course of the Moone But the continuance of their yeres was euer directed by the Sunne and that as well before the captiuitie of Babylon as after as may by good arguments out of holie Scripture be proued They were commaunded to celebrate their feast of vnleauened bread yearely from the 14. day of the first moneth to the 21. thereof answerable to our Aprill in part This was according to the course of the Moone And withall to keepe it yearely in that season of the yeare wherein their barlie haruest begun as is euidently to bee seene in the 23. chapter of Leuit. the 10. verse When yee bee come into the lande which I giue vnto you and reape the haruest thereof then ye shall bring a sheafe of the first fruites of your haruest vnto the Priest Which could not bee but by the course of the Sunne Likewise seuen weekes after that feast ended was appoynted the celebration of Whitsontide at the end of their haruest which for that cause is named the Haruest feast and the feast of first fruits whereof an offering was brought to the Lord Exod. 23.16 Lastly their feast of Tabernacles euery yeare was kept in the 15. day of the 7. moneth and withall in the ende of the yeare after their vintage in Autumne when all their grapes and other fruites of that season were gathered Exod. 23.16 Deut. 16. vers 13. It could not possiblie be that the end of their haruest should be euery yere 7. weekes after Easter and the end of their vintage called the end of the yeare alwayes from time to time in the 15. day of the 7. moneth but by the yeare of the Sunne whose course being finished brought it to passe Now that it seme not strange which I haue brought concerning the Iewes haruest beginning in Aprill and ending seuen weekes after toward the ende of Maye or not long after the beginning of Iune because in our countries it is much latter about August we are to knowe that Iewrie being a hotter countrie as nearer to the equinoctiall line and the sommer tropick then ours by 20. degrees hath the haruest by reason thereof much sooner then with vs is accustomed euen in their first month and the spring of the yeare The Isralites went ouer Iorden the 10. day of the first month being the time of haruest foure daies before their passe-ouer The disciples of Christ in the 6. of Luke the first verse Ios 3.15 and 4.19 and 5.10 a little after Easter walking through the corne plucked the eares of corne and rubbed them in their handes and did eate them VVhich argued the ripenesse of corne at that season Plinie in his 18. booke and 18. chapter speaking of the Egiptians which are neere vnto Iudea telleth that they goe into their fieldes with the sicle a little before Aprill and finish their haruest in May. These feastes then euery yeare falling to the time of haruest bring manifest proofe for the yeare of the Hebrewes that it was ordained by the course of the Sunne The time of the children of Israels eating Manna in scripture is accompted 40. yeares in the end of the 16. chapter of Exodus reckoned from their departure out of Egypt Nombres the 33. chapter the 38. vers Which number from the same season of the yeare to the same by the yeares of the sunne is most exact For they came forth of Egipt the 15. day of the first month in the beginning of barly haruest And the very same day of the same month in barly haruest their Manna ceased Ios 5.12 In the 25. chapter of Leuiticus the Isralites are commaunded to sow their feeld and cut their vineyardes and gather the fruites thereof 6. yeares and to let the 7. rest as a sabbath yeare to the Lord. And 7. of those sabbaths are accompted 49. yeares at the end whereof in the 10. day of the 7. month began the Iubelie These yeares most manifestly were yeares of the sunne Otherwise all the fruites of those yeares could not haue been gathered in haruest and vintage as God appointed For 49. yeares of the moone would verie neere haue cut off one and a halfe the last expiring in winter before anie corne or other fruite were redie to be gathered therein Daniell himselfe toward the beginning of this chapter made mention of the 70. yeares of captiuitie VVhere no one that euer I heard of vnderstood other yeares then of the sunne It were a strange thing if in one chapter first speaking of 70. yeares and after of 70. weekes of yeares he should vnderstand diuers sortes of yeares one of the sunne and an other of the moone Augustine in his 15. booke de ciuitate Dei the 14. chapter disputing against the opinion of some who were perswaded that the yeares of the ancient fathers which liued in the first age were not of the Sunne vseth these wordes Tantus tunc dies fuit quantus nunc est Tantus tunc mēsis quantus nūc est quem luna caepta finita conclusit Tantus annus quantus nunc est quem 12. menses lunares additis propter cursum solis 5. diebus quadrante consummant The daye was as great then sayth Augustine as it is now The moneth as great then as now contained within the compasse of the Moones course from the beginning to the end The yeare was then as great as now perfected by twelue moneths of the Moone with fiue dayes and a quarter added Twelue moneths of the Moone with fiue dayes and a quatter more make vp the Sunnes yeare the same which wee now vse at this day For euery moneth in old time by Augustines iudgement contained iust thirtie dayes as is to bee seene in his fourth booke De Trinitate the fourth chapter where he writeth thus Si 12. menses integri considerentur quos triceni dies complent talem quippe mensem veteres obseruauerunt quem circuitus lunaris ostendit That is if the twelue moneths whole bee considered which containe thirtie dayes a peece Such was the moneth by men of olde time obserued euē that which the course of the moone shewed This is manifest by the historie of Noes floud in the seuen and eight chapters of Genesis where we are taught that the floud begun the seuenteenth day of the second moneth and the Arke rested on a mountaine of Ararat in the seuenteenth day of the seuenth moneth Which space there by Gods holy spirit is counted 150. dayes which reckoning giueth to euery moneth thirtie daies a peece neither more nor lesse I might bring other testimonies to confirme this custome of the Hebrewes yere ordered by the compasse of the Sunnes mouing if it were needfull but I hope that which hath been sayd alreadie is sufficient to improoue the first shift of Africanus and other deuised by 490. short
the lawfull custome of sacrificing appoynting priests of the common people and countrie clownes a thing forbidden by Gods lawe They held the Temple and holie places keeping themselues therein as a castle of defence and at the length partly by the sedition within and partly sharpe warre without it came to passe that the priests in time of their sacrificing were slaine by darts and stones hurled from the rebels and in the ende for want of men there was no daily oblation any more offered This Iosephus declareth in the 2. booke the 17. chapter the 4. booke the 5. chapter the 5. booke the 9. chapter the 6. booke the first and fourth chapters the seuenth booke the fourth chapter of the Iewes warre Wherfore not without cause in my iudgement may those words of Daniel touching the sacrifices ceasing in the middest of the last weeke bee referred vnto these times of this warre wherein by meanes thereof the sacrifices of the Lords house were hindered so many wayes some were quite abolished and others done either not by those to whom they pertained or not so safely and freely as they ought Yea I see not how any at all many dayes could bee offered by reason of the seditious hurlie burlies in the citie and the warre without the sacrificers themselues oftentimes being slaine or wounded in the middest of their offering Master Iunius though hee thinke Christ Iesus to bee the agent and worker of these abolished sacrifices yet for all that partly he referreth the working thereof to the time of Ierusalems besieging Impijs sacrificium munus abolebit ex facto quia premente obsidione vrbis destituentur commoditatibus sacrificiorum He shall abolish sayth Iunius speaking of Christ sacrifice and offering in regard of the wicked by deede because that the besieging of the citie pressing them they shall bee bereaued of the profits of sacrifices This exposition is not strayned it is plaine without any wresting turning adding or taking away the course of Heauen and holy Scripture and prophane storie all make one account they all agree in the same reckoning if it bee not new all is well For this is well sayde of an Hebrew writer and worth the bearing in minde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Better is the grape gleaning of the auncient then the gathering of the later Neither is it lightly to be regarded which Iosephus in his second booke against Apion affirmeth that length of time is a most sure proofe For my owne part I reuerence antiquities gray heares as much as any other who beareth but this indifferencie to thinke that good reason is aboue all For without it I would not haue her contradicted Wherefore least this opinion of newnesse discredite my iudgement I am to let the reader vnderstand that though it be not so rife as other yet it is more ancient then peraduenture may be thought Tertullian was one of the Latine Fathers most auncient and very neere the Apostles flourishing in the raigne of Seuerus the Emperor about 200. yeares after Christes birth and not past one hundered after the death of Iohn the Euangelist Who in a booke of his written against the Iewes expounding this prophecie of Daniels weekes beginneth the reckoning thereof from a Darius which raigned nineteene yeares after whome these foure succeeded one after another to the ende of the Persian Monarchie First Artaxerxes then Ochus after him Arses and last of all another Darius who was ouercome by Alexander Whereby it is manifest that he meaneth the same Darius that I doe for the beginning of this 490. yeares Onely herein he was deceiued that he supposed this Darius to be the same which is mentioned in the ninth of Daniel and raigned ouer the Medes when this message was brought vnto him by the Angell Gabriell And for the ende thereof hee bringeth it to the first yeare of Vespasian making this conclusion of all his account Ita in diem expugnationis suae Iudaei impleuerunt hebdomadas 70. praedictas in Daniele So the Iews saith Tertullian at the daye of their subdewing fulfilled the 70. weekes foretolde by Daniel Thus for the Persian king vnder whom Daniels weekes begun there is no great difference betweene Tertullian and me and for the time wherein they ended none at all After Tertullian Seuerus Sulpitius of the same standing with Augustine Epiphanius Chrysostome a writer for skil in the Persian storie deseruing great commendation and to the true vnderstanding of Ezra and Nehemias Daniels weekes bringeth such light as is not in any ancient writer that euer I read to be found the like This Father in the second booke of his holy history speaking of Cyrus saith that hee gaue the Iewes leaue in the beginning of his raigne to build the Temple wherein they went a little forward till such time as they were hindered by their enemies nere a hundred yeres after in the raigne of Artaxerxes who forbad them to meddle any more in that worke which by that meanes ceased till the second yeare of Darius The same Author after Cyrus hauing spoken of Cambyses Darius Hystaspis and Xerxes placeth next him that Artaxerxes Qui templi aedificationē inhibuit which forbad the building of the Temple and then hauing set another Xerxes with his brother Sogdianus betweene commeth to that Darius vnder whom the temple was restored and the building thereof perfected in the sixt yeare of his raigne From which time to the destruction of the Citie by Vespasian he numbreth 483. yeares His words be these Caeterum â restitutione templi vsque in euersionem quae sub Vespasiano Consule Augusto per Titum Caesarem consummata est anni 483. Praedictum id olim est a Daniele qui ab instauratione templi ad euersionem eius 69. hebdomadas futuras pronunciauerat But from the restoring of the Temple saith Seuerus to the ouerthrow of it which by Titus Caesar was finished vnder Vespasian then beeing imperiall Consull were 483. yeares That was by Daniel long agoe foretold who had before declared that from the restoring of the Temple to the ouerthrow of it should bee 69. weekes whereas hee saith that Daniel foretold 69. weekes to bee from the restoring of the Temple to the destruction thereof it is true beeing vnderstood from the commandement going out concerning that restoring to the time wherein the desolation of the Citie the ouerthrow of the Iewes common wealth begun for Daniel in plaine words foreshewed that after 69. weeks counted from that commandement Messias should be cut off the Citie and Temple destroyed leauing the last week of the seuenty for the accomplishing thereof wherein by certaine degrees by little and little it was wrought by the Romans The ruine begun vnder Albinus his gouernment strait after the 69. weekes as before hath beene prooued by one or two euident testimonies of Iosephus It continued and increased more and more vnder Florus till at the length Titus vnder his father Vespasian made a finall end and vtter vndooing of all
to go Or if it were so great a matter and a worke of so long time could so Godly and so zealous a priest be so negligent in the Lordes businesse that hauing a yeares warning to gather a little companie together hee should forget the Leuites which of al other were most necessarie in regard of Gods seruice in the temple of Ierusalem For when al were come together no Leuit was found among them the chiefest of all in a whole yeares space were neuer thought vpon till he was in some forwardnesse on his way then on a sudden hee sent to seeke for them Read the 8. chapter of Esdras the 15. verse and see how that which is there told can beare any such coniecture But to let that passe it is not a yeares matter that can serue Ioseph Scaligers turne to helpe out his deuise and to bring this geare about For by the iudgement almost of all the best writers by the space of this twelue hundred yeares our blessed Sauiour suffered toward the end of the last yeare of the 202. Olympiad at which time was obserued euen by prophane Authors the strange eclipse of the Sunne which happened at the passion of Christ Phlegon by the iudgement of Eusebius an excellent accounter of Olympiads in his foureteenth book writeth thus In the fourth yeare of the 202. Olympiad was an exceeding great eclipse of the Sunne aboue all other that euer happened before The day at the 6. houre that is high noone was so turned into darke night that the starres were seene in heauen and an Earthquake ouerthrew many houses in Nice a citie of Bythinia This Eusebius testifieth of Phlegon and it agreeth notably to the testimonie of the Euangelists touching the Sunnes darkening from the 6. houre to the 9. when Christ was crucified Thence therefore numbring backward 434. yeares from the 202. Olympiad almost at an end we come to the second yeare of the 94 Olympiad drawing to an ende at which time euen by Scaligers own opinion the third yeare of Artaxerxes Memor begun By this meanes not one as Scaliger sayth but foure full yeares at the least that is the third fourth fift and sixt yeares of Artaxerxes should haue been betweene the decree and the going of Esdras to Ierusalem I know that Scaliger putteth off the time of Christs passion a yeare further then other But if that were granted him yet should the decree goe ful three yeares before Esdras his comming to Ierusalem A thing vncredible and beyond all sence of reason that leaue should be giuen Esdras to goe to the house of God and a solemne decree by the kings authority published for it and he linger and protract the time of his going three yeares after Besides euen the Prophets owne words are altogether against this interpretation of Scaliger and will no wayes suffer it For first hauing expounded the generall summe of 70. weekes for the state of Ierusalem he deuideth them so into three parts as that the first should bee to the building of the walles and citie finished and then 62. for the continuing thereof so builded and after all them one more Who hauing the reason of a man in him can gather any other thing by Daniels words but that those 62. weekes spoken of should immediatly follow after the first seuen and goe next before the last one Which being so needes must they begin after the 32. of Artaxerxes and end seuen yeares before the vtter ruine of Ierusalem brought vpon it by Titus Moreouer it is to be obserued that after the first seuen set for the restoring and building of the citie he sayth that the citie should be builded 62. weekes streete and wall and that after not some other but euen these very same 62. weekes before spoken of should Messias bee cut off and the citie made desolate For the demonstratiue article in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this force to referre vs to a knowne thing spoken of which is likewise vsuall in the Greeke tongue What thē can Scaliger make of this that Christ should be killed after those 62. weekes wherein the citie of Ierusalem continued builded street and wall For it is well knowne that Ierusalem continued so builded streete and wall aboue thirtie yeares after the passion of Christ before it begun to bee made desolate and in all that time greatly flourished This interpretation therefore of Scaliger hath no successe for probabilitie Another thing in Scaliger troubled me more then this by reason of the excellencie of the man not making any doubt of his account Hebdomades incipientes ab edicto instaurandi templi desinunt in initio abominationis hoc est circa initia belli Iudaici quo primum caedes in vrbe patrari coeptae ac templum pollui quod tempus incurrit in finem vndecimi initium duodecimi anni Neronis The weekes saith Scaliger beginning from the decree to restore the temple doe end in the beginning of the abomination that is about the beginnings of the Iewes warre when slaughters first begun to be committed in the citie and the Temple to bee polluted which time met with the end of the eleuenth and beginning of the twelfth yeare of Nero. This saying of Scaliger made mee maruell till such time as I made some doubt of his reckoning and called it into question For if the 70. weekes of Daniel were as hee sayth ended in the beginning of Nero his twelfth yeare my account cannot possiblie stand drawing them on further to the vtter destruction of the holie citie by Titus which happened foure yeares after This therefore is to be examined Darius Nothus died a little before the end of the 93. Olympiad This is agreed betweene vs that frō the decree to his death had passed seuenteene yeares it is likewise agreed For Scaliger numbring the first seuen weekes sayth that after the second yeare of Darius seuenteene yeares are left to the beginning of Artaxerxes Memor whereunto 32. being added the summe is 49. yeres being the distance from the decree to the streetes ordered By this meanes the decree being made 17. yeares before the death of Darius and that by his owne iudgement must needes fall toward the end of the third yeare of the 89. Olympiad from which time to the first yeare of the 212. Olympiad almost expired when Titus destroyed the suburbs of the citie and battered the walles with his iron rammes about the 22. day of Aprill as Paulus Eberus writeth in his Iewish storie about a fortnight after which time in the beginning of May one of their wals was broken and part of the citie entred and won were full 490. yeares and not 494. as Scaligers deceitfull account would make it Scaliger therefore rather prepared a way for others to come to the trueth then came himselfe vnto it and gaue some light to other to see the right meaning of Daniels prophesie which himselfe neuer perfectly saw By his helpe Junius sawe somewhat more and came neerer vnto it
them a people not accepted of God because they had beene ouercome by the enemie and put to their tribute This was the reckoning which Tullie made of them who by diuine knowledge of God his worde were the onelie wise people in the world Deut 4. whereby it appeareth that in his eyes the prophane learning of men was deemed more excellent then the wisedome of God Amongst his sciences no place was left for diuinitie The knowledge of God his word was too base for that companie Much better was the doome of the ancient Fathers of the primitiue Church by the light of God his spirit who vsed all other artes and learning as helps and handmaids to the vnderstanding of diuine scripture beeing Ladie and Mistris of all to the which all humane wisedome oweth dutie and seruice Augustine a rare instrument for the benefite of GOD his Church came notably furnished with much other reading to the studie of diuinity His skill therein he prooued not onely by writing of the liberall sciences but also alleadging of Poets and other Authors and fitting their sayinges to the phrase of holy scripture to make it more plaine wherof one commeth now to my mind in his bookes of speeches taken out of a secular Author as hee termeth him Et scuta Latentia condunt They hide the priuie or secret lying shieldes meaning such as not before but after the hyding lay secret and hid This hee maketh serue for the vnderstanding of a like speech in the 25. chapter of Genesis in the Greeke bible of Esay and Iacob whose birth a little before was mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the young men grew They were new borne babes farre from that ripenes of yeares to bee called young men and therefore the action of growing in this place goeth before the young mens age to signifie that being little children At the length after much growing vp in age they became young men In his second booke De doctrina Christiana hee declareth at large that humane sciences and the learning of the gentiles and prophane histories are very helpfull and profitable to the vnderstanding of holy scripture The learned father Hierom also in many places bringeth much light great seruice from diuerse and sundry prophane writers to the vnderstanding of God his woorde In his commentaries on Esay the thirteenth chapter declaring the true meaning of the prophets woordes there vttered concerning the desolation of Babylon which other leauing the truth of historie expounded allegorically hath these woordes Audiuimus Medos audiuimus Babylonem inclytam in superbia Chaldaeorum nolumus intelligere quod fuit quaerimus audire quod non fuit Et haec dicimus non quòd tropologicam intelligentiam condemnemus sed quòd spiritualis interpretatio sequi debeat ordinem historiae Quod plaerique ignorantes lymphatico in scripturis vagantur errore We haue heard saith he of the Medes wee haue heard of Babylon the glorious city of the Chaldeans we will not vnderstand that which hath bin but we seeke to heare that which hath not beene Neither say I this to condemne tropologicall vnderstanding but that spirituall interpretation ought to follow order of historie which the most parte being ignorante of by mad wandring doe range about in the scriptures The same father being by some blamed as too much addict to the study of Secular knowledge in an epistle of his to on Magnus a Roman Orator taketh vpon him the defence and commendation thereof by the examples of the best and most excellent christian fathers before him I must needes therefore greatly commend the wisedome of our forefathers in ordering our vniuersities VVhere young schollers are first trained vp in the studies of humanity before they enter into God his schoole that by that meanes comming furnished and ready stored with many helpes from their former learning they may find a more easie waye and speedy course in that most graue race of diuine knowledge which is yet behinde for them to runne And surely so it is and euery one shall finde the experience hereof in himselfe It is not to be spoken how much and how cleare light the diligent study and reading of Latin and Greeke writers yeeld to the knowledge of holy scripture Which by some few examples I will let the reader vnderstand The Eleans in time of pestilence brought vpon them by exceding great abundance of flies call vpon their God Myiagrus which being by sacrifice once appeased all those flies forthwith perish This Pline reporteth in his tenth booke the eight and twentith chapter Whereunto for confirmation may be added that which is recorded by Pausanias in the first booke of his Eliaca that Hercules sacrificing in Olympia was mightily troubled with a huge multitude of flies till such time as he had done sacrifice to Iupiter apomytos by whose power all those flies were soone after dispersed And hereof he sayth that the Eleans vse to sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to Iupiter Apomytos which driueth away flies Sotinus also in his Polyhistor the second chapter maketh mention of Hercules his chappell in the beefe market at Rome into the which after sacrifice and prayer made to the God Myiagrus hee entred by diuine power without flies All these testimonies serue to vnderstand the reason of the name Baalzebub in scripture giuen to the God of Ecron in the first chapter of the second booke of the Kings signifying the god of flies or the flies Iupiter If it be true that Augustine affirmeth in his questions vppon the booke of iudges that Baal is Iupiter so called as should seeme by those reportes of Plinie Pausanias and Solinus of the power which was attributed vnto him in driuing away flies whereof hee is termed Myiagrus that is a chaser of flies and Apomyius as it were a defender or preseruer from flies Horatius in his last Satyre telleth of one Rufus Nasidienus who had inuited to a great supper Mecaenas a chiefe Lord in the Emperour Augustus Caesars Court with many other noble men of Rome that whenas in the middest of supper the daintiest dishes being now set vpon the borde the hangings aloft by chance suddenly brake and daubed that honorable company with cobwebs and powdred the costly meates and wines with filth and filled all full of choaking dust Posito capite vt si filius immaturus obisset flere Holding downe his head he wept bitterly as it had been for the vntimely death of a deare sonne So then the casting downe of Cain his countenance in the fourth of Genesis argued sorrow And the virgins of Ierusalem at the destruction of their citie hanging downe their heads to the ground in the Lamentations of Ieremy the second chapter thereby declared their conceaued griefe The prophet Dauid at such time as he fled from his sonne Absolon and likewise all the men that were with him euery one couered his head and wept Haman also being made an instrument to honour Mardochaeus whome hee hated to the
death for sorow hasted home with his head couered whereby some haue vnderstood nothing else but dust and ashes laied thereon which is a cerimonie indeed of sorow but not meant in those places The custome in those times was not onely to lay dust on the heade in token of griefe but also to enclose and shut vp as it were the head and face with some cloth or vaile from mens eyes As manie examples out of the Heathen Authors may easily shew Vlysses as Homer declareth hauing heard one Demodicus sing of the glorious worthy acts of the Grecians at Troy couered his head and face with a cloath and wept The souldiers of Aiax in Sophocles hearing of the wofull case of their Captaine for griefe of Vlysses prefermēt before him being bestraught of minde couered their heads with vailes Demaratus a King of Sparta by the subtill practising of his enemies was deposed of his kingdome as not of the Royall blood who after bearing Office in the Citie and opprobriously in way of scorne and derision beeing asked what it was to bee first a King and then an Officer tooke it to the heart and with these wordes vttered that that question should bee the cause either of much ioy or much woe to the Lacedaemonians couered his head and got him home This is recorded by Herodotus in Erato Xenophon in his Symposiō telleth of a certaine iester called Phillip who at a seast where Socrates with other graue cōpany was present assaying once or twice by his ridiculous iestes to mooue them to laughter but all in vaine mufled vp himselfe for sorrow and left his supper Demosthenes the famous Orator of Athens as Plutarch writeth in his life in a certaine Oration of his before the people beeing hissed at hied him home in great heauines with his head couered In his 4. booke It is recorded by Q. Curtius of Darius King of Persia that hearing of his wiues death Capite velato diu fleuit He wept a great while hauing his head couered That the couer was a cloath hiding the face as well as the heade appeareth immediatlye after in these wordes Manantibus adhuc lachrimis vesteque ab ore reiecta the teares yet trickling downe the cloth being cast away from his mouth he lift vp his handes to heauen Sisigambis that Kinges mother was a spectacle of rare miserie Shee lost her Father and foure score brethren all in one day most cruelly killed by Artaxerxes Ochus Her owne childe a mightie King the last Monarch of Persia shee saw twice ouercome by Alexander in the end traiterously slaine by his owne seruants the kingdome of Persia a ouerthrowne her selfe Captiue yet all these crosses she bare in some tollerable manner so long as Alexander liued who honoured her exceedingly as his owne mother But after his death bereaued of all comfort shee tare her haire cast her bodie on the grounde refused succour and wrapping vp her heade with a vaile euer after abstained from meat light till welcome death made an end of her woes Thus Dauid and Hamans couered heades by so manie examples of such as for extreame sorrow or shame of themselues not abiding mens sight muffled their faces are cleared of doubt And herby the vnderstanding of another place in the 53. Chapter of Esay not a little helped where our blessed Sauiour is compared to one hiding his face For this as hath beene prooued beeing an argument of an heart oppressed with griefe is effectuall and notable to declare that which immediatly before was spokē of Christ despised and refused of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefe whereunto the next wordes are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to interpret it aright and as it were hiding the face from vs. This here I may not pretermit that this ceremonie of the couered head is vsed sometimes in scripture and other where in another sence As in the 7. Chapter of Ester where wee reade of Hamans head couered by other against his will to signifie that now in the kings wrath hee was appointed to death For this likewise was an ancient custome vsed of diuers Nations to muffell vp the heads of men condemned to die or guiltie of some grieuous crime deseruing death Polixena king Priamus his daughter by the sentence of Agamemnon and other Princes of Greece adiudged to die was ledde to the slaughter of Vlisses with a vaile ouer her head As we read in the tragedie of Euripides called Hecuba Philotas the sonne of Parmenio one of the chiefe Princes of Alexander the great foūd guiltie of high treason against the king was brought before him to his answer Capite velato hauing his head couered saith Q. Curtius in his 6. booke Festus Pompeius in the word Nuptias saith that the Law commanded his head to bee couered who had killed his Parente Lastlye Cicero in his Oration for C. Rabirius bringeth the verie sentence of iudgement it selfe or verses as he termeth them vsed of Tarquinius superbus the last and most cruell king of Roome Caput obnubito arbori infaelici suspendito Couer his head hang him vp on a wofull tree Let me by thy patience gentle Reader proceed to one argument more in this kind and so an end That which is told by the Euangelist of Saint Iohn Baptist eating Locusts seemed incredible to some greatly doubting of that kind of meat and therefore supposing the place to haue been corrupted by the writers fault by some slip setting downe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though his meat had not bin locusts but choake peares Thus in their owne conceit they were wiser than God by ignorance of trueth witnessed in diuers prophane Authors Galen vpon Hipocrates his Aphorismes the 2. book the 18. Chapter is one declaring there the force which locustes being eaten haue to nourish Plinie in the 28 chap. of his 11. book saith that among the Parthians they were counted a pleasant meate Strabo in his 16. booke of Geographie maketh mention of a certaine people which liued of them Bellonius in the 2. booke of his obseruations the 88. chapter testifieth from the report of some Authors that in Africa they were eaten as dainties not for Phisicke but euen for nourishment Thereby proouing it a thing not vncredible that Iohn Baptist should eat locusts But Diodorus Siculus most fullie of all other declareth this in his 4. booke where hee telleth of certain Aethiopians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is locust eaters who neyther eat fish nor cattel but onely locusts continually which at the spring time of the yeare they get in great abundance and salt them vp to preserue them for meate Thus I haue giuen as it were a taste by this little out of Plinie Pausanias Solinus Horatius Homer Sophocles Herodotus Euripudes Xenophon Plutarch Quintus Curtius Festus Pompeius Cicero Galen Strabo how great seruice Heathen writers doe to the word of God for opening the true meaning thereof A taste
originall tongue If wee faile in either of these there is no hope to knowne what Daniell meant by his weekes For neither good interpretation alone is enough without exact chronologie nor this without the other serueth much to purpose The sundring of these two things which must needes stand together hath beene the cause of such turning and tossing this excellent peece of Scripture in so many mens heades so many waies therefore in these two thinges especially shall be the imployment of my paines if happily thereby this noble text of Scripture may receaue some light to the clearer perceauing thereof Marcus Varro a learned Roman as Censorinus telleth in his booke De die natali measured all time by three spaces whereof one was from the beginning of men to the first flud for the ignorance of the things which happened therein called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vnknown The second from that floud to the first Olympiad for many fables and tales therein reported tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fabulous The third last from the first Olympiad to his age containing more certaine truth of historie therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 historicall This was Varro his iudgement commended by Cicero also in his first booke of Academicall questions where speaking to Varro hee vseth these words Thou haste opened the age of thy countrey and ordering of times Vnto Varro herein agreed Iulius Affricanus in his third booke of Chronicles As Eusebius witnesseth in his tenth book De praeparatione Euangelica vntill the time of the Olimpiads saith Affricanus there is no sure knowledge in the Greeke Historie all thinges beeing confusedly written without agreement betweene themselues But the Olimpicke times haue beene exactly handled of the Grecians by reasō of regestring their acts and records therein of no longer time then euery foure yeares space Censorinus after him speaking of the time from the first Olimpiad In this space saith he was neuer any great dissentiō or controuersie among writers for computation of time except in some sixe or seauen yeares at the most And euen this little that was Varro himselfe by his great skill and diligent paines at the length discussed and founde out the truth and shewed cleare light by which the certaine number not of yeares onely but euen of daies might be perceaued The Grecians saith Chitraeus in his Chronicle haue no certaine computation of times and order of yeares before the Olimpiads This was the iudgement of the best learned in all times in all countries for all kinde of skill concerning the certaine accoūt of time by Olimpiads vsed of the Grecians receaued of the Romanes followed and commended of Christians euen the flower of thē the most ancient Fathers Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius Hierome Orosius and other for knowledge of Gods worde most famous and renowned continued kept from age to age not contradicted with reason of anie Except peraduenture some to shew the finenesse of their wit by Sophistrie might cauill against it For the better vnderstanding of that which hath bin and shall hereafter be said of Olympiads it shal not be amisse here to shew what is meant thereby Olympia was a certaine place of Greece where games of running wrestling leaping such like were instituted by Hercules in honor of Iupiter Olympius wherof the place was called Olympia and the games Olympiads Olimpiac games the sports of Olympia which after Hercules for a long time beeing discontinued were at the length renewed againe by Iphitus King of that countrie about seauen hundred seauentie and fiue yeares before the birth of our Sauiour Christ Beeing so reuiued they were from that time forward continued by the space of a thousand yeres and more after euery foure yeares in sommer about the month of Iuly solemnized This foure yeares space was called Olympias By these Olympiads the Grecians numbred their yeares counting from that time wherein they were begun againe by Iphitus As appeareth by Velleius Paterculus Solinus Phlegon Pausanius Censorinus who all referre the beginning thereof to Iphitus neyther for this matter that I know of amongst writers is there any doubt at all Beyond Iphitus I cannot warrant any certaine account of yeeres among the heathen greatly meruailing at the folly of those men who busie themselues in searching for sure knowledge by ordered times many ages before A Christian Prince not long agoe standing much vpon his parentage by this kinde of men was seduced A trifling Courtier perceiuing his humor made him beleeue that his petigree in ancient race of royall blood might be fetched from Noa his Arke wherewith being greatly delighted forthwith he laid all busines aside and gaue himselfe wholly to the searche of this thing so earnestly that hee suffered none to interrupt him whosoeuer no not Embassadors themselues which were sent to him about most waightie affaires Many meruailed heereat but none durst speake their mind till at the length his Cooke whō he vsed sometime in stead of a foole told him that the thing which hee went about was nothing for his honor for now saith he I worship your Maiestie as a God but if we goe once to Noas Arke wee must there your selfe and I both be a kinne This saying of his foolish Cooke cast him in a dumpe and stayed the heat of his earnest studdy and brought him to a better mind from his vaine error in deceiueable times farre beyond the compasse of truth which as before hath bin shewed was limited from the first Olimpiad downeward within these limits of time by the testimonie of Varro Affricanus Censorinus the Iudgements of manie other learned men in all ages being certaine and void of error is the reach of Daniels weekes yea to come nearer home by 200 yeares and more within that part thereof which by the learning wisedome and knowledge of excellent men hath beene made most famous that is to say from the Persian Monarchie in the first yeare of Cyrus to the second of Vespasian Emperour of Roome wherein the Cittie of Ierusalem was destroyed and the Iewes common wealth ouerthrowne within the lists and compasse whereof the fulfilling of this Prophesie is contained euen Beroaldus himselfe though an aduersarie of the receaued Grecians Chronologie in his 2. booke and 2. chapter where hee saith that before the times of Cyrus the Greek Histories haue no certainty seemeth to acknowledge some truth of Historie afterward whereof he giueth this reason because in Cyrus his age were the 7. sages of Greece liuing together one of them beeing Colon the Athenian acquainted with Croesus King of Lydia who fought against Cyrus This whole space from the beginning of Cyrus his raigne to the destruction of the holy Cittie by Titus containeth 629. yeares from the Olimpiad wherein Cyrus began to the same season of that yeare wherein Ierusalem Temple and Citie was set on fire For the Persian kings raigned by the space of 230. yeares From the death of the last King of Persia to the birth of Christ
of Priene Cleobulus of Lindia or Caria and Periander the Corinthian all much of one standing about the time of Cyrus Besides them Pherecides the Syrian and Pythagoras both for deepe knowledge wondered at Zenophanes Anaximander Heraclitus Anaximines Philosophers Aeschilus Anacreō Pindarus Simonides Poets Theagines Hecataeus Dionisius Herodotus Storie writers Partlie in the dayes of Cambyses and Darius partly in the time of Xerxes Then Socrates Thucidides Euripides Sophocles Democritus Hippocrates vnder Artaxerxes and his sonne Darius Nochus about the times of the Peloponesian war Plato and Xenophon were Socrates his schollers who continued towards the end of the Persiā Monarchie with Isocrates whose schollers were Theopompus and Ephorus both historiographers so contrarie one to another by their masters censure that the one needed a spur to set him on the other a bridle to hold him in Aristotle and Demosthenes saw the end Many of these were borne dwelling in those places which were vnder the Persian gouernment and payed tribute vnto them In these places and times so furnished and bewtified with these worthy ornaments marke the wayes and meanes whereby the kings of Persian made their names known preserued their memorie By proclamation whereof we haue an example in the first of Esra Thus sayeth Cyrus king of Persia and so forth By letters to and fro wherof are to be seene in the same book and Thucidides and other making mention by name who sent them and to whom By immunities priuiledges as in the seuenth of Esra By ambassage whereof manie examples are reade in Herodotus Cambyses sent to the Aethiopian king and Darius to the Grecians By leagues and couenants of peace as we read in Thucidides By coynes as the peeces of gold coyned by Darius Histaspis thereof called Darikes By erected monumentes The same king going to war against Scithia erected at Bosphorus two pillers with two inscriptions one in Greeke the other in the Assyrian language thereon engraued declaring the Nations which went with him And at the riuer Toarus in Thracia an other with this inscription HITHER CAME DARIVS THE SONNE OF HYSTASPES KING OF THE PERSIANS LEADING HIS ARMIE AGAINST THE SCYTHIANS as Herodotus declareth in Melpomine By Cities and Riuers called of their names Cyropolis of Cyrus Cambysene of Cambyses Xerxene of Xerxes Cyrus a riuer in Scythia Cambyses an other In Volaterranus Pomponius Mela Plinie Strabo by their pictures Mandrocles painted Darius sitting in a thorne after the manner of the Medes and conueying ouer his Armie which he dedicated to the Temple of Iuno with mention of Darius his name By their Images and those remayning many ages after Plutarch in Alexanders life telleth that Alexander seeing the Image of Xerxes throwen downe by the company pressing into the kinges Pallace of Persia stayed at it and spake vnto it as it had beene aliue Lastly by their Tombes testifying their names to the worlde after their death being a thing desired of al euen of meane account and willinglie yeelded of kinde posteritie that the memorie of their name may endure and not die with themselues Strabo in the fifteenth booke of his Geographie from Aristobulus and Onesicritus recordeth that the toombe of Cyrus was found by Alexander so many yeares after his death preserued with an inscription testifying who he was And that Darius also had the like memoriall The names then of the Persian kings could not possibly bee hid by so many meanes being made knowne in flourishing times and learned ages and places of knowledge and withall their Courtes frequented with many noble Grecians for vertue and birth Hippias and Demaratus whereof the one had been king of Sparta the other tyrant of Athens Metiochus the eldest sonne of Miltiades Democedes a famous Phisition of Croton in Italie who healed king Darius and his wife Atossa of grieuous paines and diuers other which were too long to rehearse to omit many braue soldiers of Greece seruing them in their warres Now let the Reader vse his skill for choice of the names and number of the kinges betwixt Cyrus and Xerxes Whether with Beroaldus he wil haue these three Assuerus Artaxerxes Darius Assyrius and Artaxerxes Pius in so many ages neuer knowne or read of in any author of reckoning or only these two Cambyses and Darius Histaspis from Theagines of Rhegium and Hecateus of Miletus storie writers the one vnder Cambyses the other vnder Darius deliuered vnto vs by continual succession from age to age by the space of two thousand yeares and more by the carefull diligence of the best historiographers that euer haue bin in the world without any disagreement or controuersie amongst them Thus much for the kings now concerning their yeares That the beginning of Cyrus was the first yeare of the 55. Olympiad is agreed of all the first yeare of Cyrus sayeth Codomon in his chronicles of all writers is applied to the first of the 55. Olympiad Ioseph Scaliger prooueth it by two testimonies in his fift booke de emendatione temporum How manie ancient and learned writers so euer saith Scaliger haue accounted times euery one of them hath cast the first of Cyrus to the first of the 55. Olympiad Diodorus Siculus Thallus Castor Polybius Phlegon as the most auncient and learned Author Tatianus writeth Africanus also in Eusebius testifieth the same in these wordes After the 70. yeres of captiuitie Cyrus raigned ouer the Persians that yeare wherin the 55. Olympiad was celebrated as may appeare by the Libraries of Diodorus and the Histories of Thallus and Castor and besides of Polybius and Phlegon yea of other also who regarded Olympiads for the time is agreed vpon of all This therefore for the beginning of the Persian Monarchie beeing so generally testified may suffice If any here doe aske in what part of that yeare Cyrus began to raigne it is gathered from the same Africanus probablie in the third booke of his Chronicles where as Eusebius testifieth of him in his tenth booke de praeparat Euang. hee reckoned from the first Olympiad to Cyrus 217. yeres Which is not otherwise true except Cyrus begin toward the end of that yeare Againe in the fift booke of his Chronicles making the fourth yeare of the 83. Olympiad the fifteenth of the Persian Monarchie as we read in the same Eusebius his eight booke de demonstrat Euang. he leaueth the beginning of Cyrus to the first yeare of the 55. Olympiad nere the end thereof as euery one may easily perceiue The beginning thus made manifest wee are now further to search the end of that Empire Which beeing once likewise founde maketh knowne the continuance thereof Alexander the great was the man which ouerthrew that Empire whose death by the testimonies of Diodorus Siculus in the seuenteenth book of his Historicall Liberarie Arrhianus in his seuenth booke and Eusebius in his Chronicles is set in the hundred and fourteenth Olympiad What say I Diodorus Arrhiamus Eusebius when as all whosoeuer wrote of those times agree herein by Gerardus
who of all the rest had the hardest hap in his imperiall state receiued by wrong continued in toyle ended in woe after sixe yeares which by Eusebius Isidorus Hierom and others was the time of his raigne The whole number and generall summe of all from first to last is two hundred and thirtie yeares so by this reckoning of euerye seuerall kings raigne is found nine or ten monethes in the whole aboue the Olympick account from the end of the first yeare of the 55. Olympiad These months must bee taken partly from the one and twentieth of Xerxes beeing not fullie expired as appeareth by Diodorus Siculus giuing him not ful one twentie yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more than twentie And partlye from Arses whome Bagous a faithles Eunuche poysoned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is nowe raigning the third yeare saith Diodorus about the beginning of his seuenteenth book thereby signifying that it was not fully compleat and partly also from the sixt of the last Darius which was not whollie perfectly finished For Artaxerxes Mnemon begun his raigne in the end of the Peloponnesian warre or a little after in the month of Aprill as may bee gathered by Diodorus Siculus in the end of his thirteenth booke compared with Thucidides Thucidides saith it begun in the beginning of the spring two months before the yeares end which time by Codoman and others skill fell to the first of Aprill It lasted saith Thucidides seuen and twentie yeares and some few dayes more Darius died after the peace made betweene the Athenians and the Lacedemonians saith Diodorus Siculus meaning that peace which made an end of the warre Giuing therefore him three and fortie and Ochus three and twentie and Arses three all perfect they must end about that season in the first yeare of the hundred and eleuenth Olympiad Arses I graunt reached to that yeare yet not to that moneth of Aprill by a good while For Philip king of Macedonia was slaine by Pausanias in that hundred and eleuenth Olympiad the first yeare thereof witnesses Arrhiames and Diodorus and that in winter about the foure and twentie of Ianuarie as Chitraeus affirmeth in his Chronologie But Arses was poysoned and Darius had succeeded him while Philip was yet a liue and had purposed to haue made warre against him as Diodorus writeth Hereby it is euident that neither Arses his three yeares nor Codomans sixe yeares could be fully ended seeing that he was slaine in summer about the beginning of the third yeare of the hundred and twelfth Olympiad as appeareth by Arrhiames Thus are found from the beginning of the fiue and fiftieth Olympiad to the death of the last Monarch of Persia two hundred and thirtie yeares And from Cyrus thither two hundred and nine and twentie yeares and more by gesse about two or three moneths And lastly from Cyrus to Darius now the second time by Alexander vanquished in which conquest many make an ende of the Persian Empire two hundred and eyght and twentie yeares and a halfe These times of the Persian Monarchie being I know not by what mishap brought into question and great controuersie among the learned and withall of great importance for the vnderstanding of God his word haue neede to bee strengthened with all force that may bee And therefore I will yet make further search for stayes and props as it were to vpholde them Eusebius in his tenth booke de Preparatione Euangelica saith that the second yeare of Darius Hystaspis was the first of the threescore and fift Olympiad so found iust by the former reckoning The warre of Xerxes that Darius his sonne and Nephew to Cyrus of all other was the most famous Who led against Greece the greatest armie that euer was heard of before or after of twentie hundred thousand fighting souldiers for the huge multitude thereof drinking running riuers drie and as Cicero saith walking vpon the Seas and sayling on the land because that hee digged through great mountaines to make the seas meete for his nauie to passe And in other places of the sea made bridges to goe ouer a foote Leonides a valiant king of Sparta to the wonder of all ages following onely with foure thousand men encountred resisted and fought with that powerfull hoste at the straights of Thermopylae Xerxes at the first sent fifteene thousand then twentie thousand and last of all fiftie thousand against them At euery time making choyce of better men then before First begun the Medes bearing hatefull mindes against the Grecians with desire of reuenge for the slaughter of their kinsemen a little before at Marathon Next after them fought the Persian souldiers themselues in whom the Persian king of all other nations vnder him reposed most confidence Yea of these Persians were chosen the most valiant men amongst them all called the immortals because their number neuer decayed Last of all was a choyce companie of the chiefest men of all the whole hoast for stoutenes valour and courage picked out from the rest And they also stirred vp by great promises of rich rewards All these fighting against that handfull of the Grecians had like successe a great number was slaine many wounded the rest put to flight Xerxes maugred thus stayed by a few from passing further into Greece was at his wits ende till such time as one of that countrey had informed him of another way by which some of the armie came vpon the backe of Leonides and so inclosed him on both sides which Leonides hauing intelligence of by a secret friend a little before sent all the rest of his companie home sauing fiue hundred These he encouraged and the more to enable them for battell exhorted them to dine before with resolued mindes to take their supper among the dead Which done and night come they inuaded the Persian campe came to the kings Pauilion slew all that were in it wandred to and fro seeking the king who a little before had got himselfe away and killing on both sides as they went The Persians in the darke not discerning the matter were greatly amazed ran out of their tents they wist not whether fearing nothing so much as this that the whole power of Greece had set vpon them In this hurlie burlie they slew one another till the day light bewrayed the trueth when Leonides with his souldiers fought still At the length wearied with ouercomming and oppressed on euery side with mayne force of that powerfull number they dyed in the middest of their enemies with glorie hauing slaine to the number of twentie thousand The battailes wherein Xerxes had this welcome into Greece many olde writers with great agreement refer to the beginning of the seuentie and fiue Olympiad Diodorus in his eleuenth booke writeth that Xerxes warred against Greece in the first yeare of the seuentie and fiue Olympiad Callias then being Maior of Athens Dyonisius Halicarnassaeus in the beginning of his ninth booke agreeth hereunto naming that very yeare of the same Olympiad and the
a skilfull and learned Astronomer as Ptolomie in the third booke of his Almagest declareth in the 316. yeare of Nabonasar the 21. daye of the Aegyptian moneth Phamenoth answerable by our computation to the 28. day of Iune Apsendes then ruling at Athens obserued the Astronomicall poynte of summers beginning called Solstitium which in this our age is about the eleuenth of that moneth the Sunne then entring into the tropicke of Cancer So great alteration in the space of 2020. yeares is bred betwixt our time and theirs for want of exact appoynting and right ordering of the leape yeare From that time to the end of the 50. yeare of Calippus his first period Hipparchus an excellent Mathematician a man whome nature made partaker of her secrets as Plinie writeth of him gathered a perfect summe of 152. yeares That this period of Calippus began with the third yeare of the 112. Olympiad it is agreed by cleere consent of many writers For about that time Darius was slaine and thereby this period of Calippus began together with Alexanders Monarchie now by the death of Darius established in his hands without clayme of any In memorie whereof this period was ordayned and the account of yeares after taken from that head The 50. yeares then of this period being taken from the former summe there remaynes 102. yeares from the end of Apsendes his gouernement to the death of the last king of Persia which by the recorde of auncient writers is so acknowledged and verified placing Apsendes in the last of the 86. Olympiad which was the 32. yeare of Artaxerxes the long handed and the slaughter of Darius in the third of the 112. These 102. with 127. and some odde moneths from Cyrus to the 32. of that Artaxerxes included containe the receaued time of the Persian kings 229. yeares with some few moneths more to the beginning of Alexanders Monarchie at the last Persian kings death Which euen that most famous eclipse of the very next yeare before wherewith Alexanders souldiers were scared eleuen dayes before his last battaile against Darius putteth out of doubt For from that in the seuenth of Cambyses before spoken of to this Astronomical comming by exact calculation findeth 192. yeares and 66. dayes Which with the time following from the last eclipse to Darius his death and the yeares of Cambyses and Cyrus before the first Eclips make vp that full reckoning Thus the glorious seruant of all the worlde the Sunne which among other seruices to the vse and behoofe of men whereof he tooke his name in the holy tongue to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a minister or seruant according to that in the fourth of Esdras God commanded the Sunne the Moone and Starres that they should serue man hath this for one appointed vnto him to be for times and yeares and dayes Euen this Chronologer I say of all other without exception most true and sure witnesseth for Herodotus Thucidides Xenophon Eratosthenes Polybius Diodorus and other writers of auncient time if they bee not for credit sufficient of themselues that their Chronologie of the Persian yeares is good the mouth of Heauen which cannot lie hath approued it The trueth for this poynt being thus opened it now remayneth to see what may be brought against it and to remoue some doubtes as it were mists from the readers eyes Dionysius Halicarnassaeus in the preface to his first booke of antiquities affirmeth that the Persians continued not aboue 200. yeares in their soueraigntie It is true being accounted from the death of Cyrus who by the space of thirtie yeares was occupied in winning that Empire and being once wonne they kept it neere 200. yeares after Ioseph Scaliger a man of rare giftes a great light of this age one whome the Churche of GOD for his paines is much beholding to in his fift booke de emendatione temporum speaking of Xerxes his passage into Greece is so vncertaine and wauering in this poynt that it is hard to finde in what iudgement he rested For first hee maketh it a thing vndoubted that Xerxes passed into Europe in the ende of the fourth yeare of the 47. Olympiad and in the beginning of the 75. fought at Thermopylae then a little after hee thinketh that passage of Xerxes to haue happened the yeare before that is to saye in the end of the third yeare of the 47. Olympiad being moued thereunto by the authoritie of Herodotus and Thucidides The one euen Herodotus in Polymnia making mention of an eclipse of the Sunne at such time as Xerxes marched forward with his hoast from Sardes toward Europe in the spring time of the yeare which by Scaligers calculation fell to the third yeare of the 74. Olympiad and so Xerxes his battailes in Greece to the fourth yeare of it The other that is Thucidides in his first booke writing that the Persians once againe inuaded Greece in the tenth yeare after the Marothon field which being fought in the second yeare of the 72. Olympiad the tenth after it is the fourth of the 74. Againe contrarie to both these sentences he yet alleageth another from Eratosthenes Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch three worthy men for skil who referred Xerxes his passage into Greece to the first yeare of the 75. Olympiad and this he approueth most of al in the chapter of the first Consuls Thus Ioseph Scaliger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is dissoluing one doubt by another as one saieth leaueth his reader in the briers which I will assaye to helpe him out of either all or some if happely I can First therefore concerning Herodotus it is euident and playne by his testimonie that Xerxes fought his battailes in Greece in the first yeare of the 75. Olympiad because he maketh account of 80. yeares from the first of Cyrus thether and if this bee not enough the same Author in playne wordes declareth that the games of Olympia were celebrated about that very time wherein Leonides resisted his huge hoast and stopped their passage First in Polymnia speaking of this matter he sayeth that the time of the Olympiad fell out together with that busines Againe in Vrania he confirmeth it telling that as Xerxes marched forward from Thermopylae certaine Grecians came vnto him offering their seruice who being asked what the Grecians then were about answered that they kept and beheld the Olympian games the winners whereof receiued an Oliue crowne which one Tigranes a noble Lord of Persia hearing presently burst forth into this speech What worthie men are wee brought to fight against which striue not for money but vertue and prowesse This then by Herodotus his owne mouth being thus made cleere that the yeare of Xerxes fighting in Greece was an Olympicke yeare it could not possibly be in Herodotus iudgement as Scaliger would haue it the fourth yeare of the 74. Olympiad Moreouer Herodotus writeth in Vrania that Callias was then Maior of Athens when Xerxes tooke that Citie and burned it which yeare of Callias his
haue beene Therefore Plutarchs doubt for any thing that I can see had no reason at all but seemeth to sauour of an vsuall custome of the Academicall sect which was alwaies readie furnished to dispute on eyther side pro or contra eyther for the truth or against it For this is most certaine that hee followeth that reckoning by Olympiads himselfe in many places as giuing credit thereunto and making no doubt thereof In his treatise of the ten Orators he saith that Andocides was borne in the 78. Olympiad when Theogenides was gouernour of Athens And that Callias was gouernour in the 92. Olympiad and that Isocrates was borne vnder Lysimachus in the 86. Olymp. 22. yeares after Lysias whose birth he setteth in the second of the 80. Olympiad in the yeare of Philocles all which reckonings agree very perfectly to the ancient Olympick account and the Histories of Thucidides Xenophon and Diodorus Siculus Plinie in the fourth Chapter of his 36. booke hath these wordes Marmore scalpendo primi omnium inclaruerunt Dipoenus Scyllis geniti in Creta insula etiamnum Medis imperitantibus Priusquam Cyrus in Persis regnare inciperet hoc est Olympiade circiter quinquagesima The first of all other for grauing of marble were famous Dipoenus Scyllis born in the Iland of Creta whilst yet the Medes bare rule before Cyrus began to raigne in Persia that is about the 50. Olympiad Hereof Matthew Beroald in the second Chapter of his booke of Chronologie gathereth that Cyrus began in the 50. Olympiad by Plinies testimonie herein dissenting from other who placed his beginning in the 55 but whosoeuer commeth with an euen minde to the truth may easilie perceiue another meaning in Plinie that the words hoc est Olympiade circiter 50 ought not to be referred to that which is said of Cyrus priusquam regnare inciperet before he began to raigne but the former part of the sentence giuing vs this to vnderstand the time wherin Dipoenus Scyllis were famous engrauers in Marble to haue beene about the 50. Olympiad in the dayes of the Medes Soueraigntie before Cyrus had got it away from them to the Persians Thus no dissention at all betweene Plinie and other but great agreement is found Much other such like stuffe is brought of Beroaldus from diuers authors by cold coniectures not any sure knowledge all for the most part in that kind as maketh either against himselfe or nothing for him Pericles being a yong man was of some of the aged sort in Athens thought to fauor Pisistratus the tirant in countinance speech as Plutarch telleth in his life which could not bee as Beroaldus supposed except the old men who had knowne Pisistratus had at that time beene a hundred yeres old A thing in his iudgement vnlike to bee true It is not so vnlike as strange that a man of his learning and reading should iudge so of it seeing that we read of many examples of men of those yeares Valerius Corninus who was Consull of Rome six times liued full out a hundred yeares and likewise Metellus Pontifex Solinus in his Polihistor telleth that Masinissa begot his Sonne Methymnus at 86. yeres age In the time of Claudius Caesar one T. Fullonius of Bononia was found to be 150. yeres of age which in Lydia was a common thing as by Mutianus is reported Terentia the wife of Cicero liued 107. Clodia 115. Many other by Plinie are recorded in his seuenth booke the 48 49 50 Chapters in diuers countries betweene a hundred and a hundred and 50. yeares olde But of all other one Xenophilus liuing 105. yeares without anie disease or hurt of his bodie was wondred at That Gorgias Leontinus a famous Oratour much about that time with Pericles liued 109. yeares wee haue the testimonie of Appolodorus his Chronicles in Diogenes Laertius within one yere acknowledged also by Plinie Euen in this our age at home in our own countrie it is no strange thing to find examples of such as liued out that time which Beroaldus accounted so incredible that he could not perswade himselfe of it to be true but his incredulitie is no proofe to weaken the credit of credible writers But I will not strike with him for this to graunt it a thing vncredible let vs examine his reckoning Pericles died in the third yeare of the 87. Olimpiad not the 88. as Beroaldus saith before his death he had beene one of the chiefe gouernours of the Athenian common wealth fortie yeares This Cicero teacheth in his third booke de oratore so the beginning of his authoritie falleth to the three yeares not of the 78. as Beroaldus would but the 77. Olympiad About that time some olde men gaue this iudgement of him that he was like Pisistratus and might not that be done but of such as were then a 100 yeres old surely yes for Pisistratus died not past threescore yeares before whereof 22. had passed from the Marathon battaile and 20. more from the expelling of Hippias out of Athens declared by Thucidides and 18. before from the beginning of Hippias who succeded Pisistratus Yet some more besides these must bee added to the old mens age to haue knowledge of Pisistratus in his life time to deale liberally let that time be twentie yeres before the death of Pisistratus so their age is left foure score yeres very vsuall at this day in diuers lusty men although I would haue this obserued which Plutarch writeth that iudgement to haue bin giuen of Pericles when hee was a young man whereby some aduantage yet might farther be taken if it were a matter worth the standing vpō Aelianus in his third book the 21. chapter saith Beroaldus telleth of Themistocles that being a childe and as hee came from Schoole meeting Pisistratus the tyrant was willed by his ouerseer attending vpon him to goe out of the way which he refused to doe and asked if there were not roome enough for him besides Whereunto is repugnant that which Iustin telleth in his second booke that Themistocles was a young man at the Marathon war when he must needes be at the least 66. yeares olde if Aelianus say true for the sonnes of Pisistratus after their fathers death raigned 36. yeares witnessed by Herodotus in his fift booke then after were twentie more to the Marathon fight and before Themistocles could in such an answer shew so stoute a minde against the tirant it is like he was ten yeares of age Beroaldus here also in his account is deceiued mistaking Herodotus who in Terpsichore indeede affirmeth that the Pisistratan stocke raigned 36. yeares yet not meaning thereby as Beroaldus would faine haue it that Pisistratus his children raigned so long after their fathers death but that the whole time of father and sonne was in all so much This appeareth by Aristotle an author for credit very sufficicient in the fift booke of his politickes the twelft chapter making the whole raigne of the Pisistratan stocke 35. yeares that is 17.
the foure as where Solinus telleth that the 207. Olympias was in the publike acts recorded to be in the 801. yeare of Rome wherein Pompeius Gallus Q. Veranius were Consuls and Eratosthenes in Clemens Alexandrinus accounteth from the first Olympiad to the passage of Xerxes into Greece 297. yeares Xenophon also in his Historie of the Greeke affaires writeth that the next yeare after Dionysius had got the kingdome of Syracusae happened that Olympias wherein Pythodorus was Maior at Athens In all these places Olympias is taken for one yeare onely and that the first of the foure in which sence Diodorus vsed it where hee saith that Xerxes inuaded Greece in the 75. Olympiad Now because that from one Olympias to another were foure yeares complete the word is also vsuallie taken for that whole space of foure yeares betwixt one and another not much vnlike that which we read in blessed Lukes gospell of the proude Pharisie boasting of his fasting twice in a sabboth taking one day of the weeke for all the weeke from the beginning to the end So it is vsed of Solinus writing that Rome was builded in the first yeare of the seauenth Olympiad and when the seauenth Olympiad began and Iosephus in the last chapter of his fourteenth booke of Antiquities saith that Herode tooke Ierusalem in the 185. Olympiad hee meaneth the whole foure yeares space of that Olympiad for that was done in the last yeare thereof In this sence that saying of Pausanias is true concerning Mardonius his ouerthrow at Plateae in the 75 Olympiad and so no discord proued As for Polybius from whom hee gathereth the warre of Xerxes to haue been in the third yeare of the 74. Olympiad there is no such matter Beroaldus was deceiued in his reckoning I haue brought the place of Polybius before and declared his meaning Oebotas a man of Achaea wonne the race in the sixt Olympiad who for so glorious a victorie receiuing not that honour of his countriemen which he looked for at their hands and in his owne iudgement had deserued conceaued such discontentment thereat that hee euen cursed them praying that neuer any of the Achaeans more might win any Olympicke game againe which so fell out for a long time till at the length by the councell of Apollo his Oracle they had in honour of Oebotas erected a piller for an eternall monument of his vertue with an inscription testifying the same which was performed vnto him in the 80. Olympiad as Pausanias telleth in his Achaica and Eliaca who for that cause meruaileth at the report of some Grecians who saide that Oebotas fought against Mardonius in the 75. Olympiad and thinketh it vncredible as hee might well enough that a man hauing wonne the race in the sixt Olympiad should bee a fighting Souldier neere two hundred and fourescore yeares after What is here now in Pausanias to be seene which in his owne perswasion doth not confirme the trueth of the Olympicke Chronologie rather then make against it any way For the great credite which he put therein nothing doubting of the true reckoning of so many yeares betweene bred that meruailing in him and made him think that Oebotas which fought against Mardonius in the 75. Olympiad to haue been some other of that name rather then the ancient race winner in the sixt Olympiad It was true that by some they were supposed one and the same but by such as Pausanias iudged fooles for their labour Their folly stirred him neuer a whit from the true receiued account of Olympicke yeares Of the certaintie whereof what a setled and grounded perswasion he had may appeare by this that in diuers places he maketh mention of Olympicke recordes and registers which himselfe saw and read wherein he testifieth the memorie of the Olympiads to haue been preserued by the Eleans in whose countrie those games were kept and that with such care and diligence that from the first in Iphitus his time to the Emperor Nero not one of them all was missing this hee witnesseth in his Phocica much auayling to the credite of that account Another obiection in Beroaldus is concerning the time of the Peloponnesian warre of which saith he both beginning and end is vncertaine by the dissention of authors betweene themselues Plinie referreth the time of it to the fourth of the 81. Olympiad and A. Gellius to the first of the 89. and Diodorus Siculus to the third of the 87. So saith Beroaldus If truelie there is great ods between them Plinies words in the thirtie booke and first chapter are these Plenumque miraculi hoc pariter vtrasque artes effloruisse medicinam dico magicenque eadem aetate illam Hipocrate hanc Democrito illustrantibus circa Peloponnesiacum Graeciae bellum quod gestum est a 300. vrbis nostrae anno This also saith Plinie is much to bee meruailed at that both the arts flourished together I meane Phisicke and Magick in the same age Hippocrates teaching the one and Democritus the other about the Peloponnesian warre in Greece which was made since the 300. yeare of the Cittie That warre began about the 32. yeare of Rome and therefore Plinie saying that it was after the 300. saith that which is true not purposing there to set downe by a straight and exact account the verie iust yere wherein it began but to gesse much about the time by an euen readie number keeping within the compasse of truth In A. Gellius the 21. chapter of his seauenteenth booke wee reade Bellum inde in terra Graeciae maximū Peloponnensiacum quod Thucidides memoriae mandauit caeptum est circa annum fere post conditam Romans trecentesimum vigesimum nonum That is Afterwarde the great war of the Peloponnesians in the land of Greece which Thucidides committed to memorie began here about the 329. yeares after the building of Rome What is the cause of this difference betwixt Gellius and other Surely not any fault of the authors iudgement but onely a slippe of the writers pen putting vigesimum nonum in stead of decimum nonum 29. for 19. as may bee prooued by two reasons First because immediatlie after those wordes Gellius together with the beginning of that warre yoketh the yeare wherein A. Posthumius was Dictator of Rome who killed his own son for that with great courage he went somewhat further in fighting against the enemie thā his father had appointed This yeare of A. Posthumius his Dictatorship by Liuie is the 323. of Rome but by A. Gellius some other setting the building of that Cittie in the second yeare of the seauenth Olympiad and the first Consuls in the 242. of Rome it is the 320. running together with the first yeare of the Peloponnesian war for the greatest part of it though not wholly because the war began somewhat before in the 319. Another reason may bee taken from that which followeth a little after in the same chapter concerning the time of the new gouernment of the Athenian common wealth
he remooueth it two yeares off placing one whole yeare betwixt them as I doe yet differing herein that he placeth Pantacles in the 21. yere which was his error as more plainly by God his assistance shall appeare hereafter But the testimonie of Diodorus Siculus an auncient Historiographer is much more notable who in his thirteenth booke referreth these acts which heere in Xenophon begin after the 22. yeare of the warre to the 23. of the same two yeares before the Magistracie of Pantacles which by Diodorus is set downe in the 25. yere thereof which without all question is most vndoubtedly true and shewed by Xenophons table of the Spartan gouernours euidently and plainely as euery one whose sight is not dimme with a cauelling affection and wilfull wrangling may very clearely see it If any thing in the writing of Xenophons historie by corruptiō of numbers be amisse as for my part I thinke there is none at all if hee bee well vnderstood yet for one thing amisse another which is true must not bee forsaken Let that which is right be so still and not cast away for that which is wrong Xenophons table is sure and hath the consent of excellent Authors to approue it Thucidides from the Marathon war which by the learned is set in the second sommer of the 72. Olympiad to the end of the Peloponnesian warre maketh account of 87. yeares that is to say 10. to Xerxes inuading Greece and 50. thence to the Peloponnesian war with 27. more to the end thereof which from the second of 72. fill vp Xenophons number of 93. Olympiads In the last whereof by Xenophon were gouernours of Athens first Enctemo then Antigones next Callias the fourth and last Alexias Let vs here a little examine how Dionysius Halicarnassaeus in the seauenth booke of his Roman Antiquities agreeth to these there hee writeth that Callias ruled at Athens in the third yeare of that 93. Olympiad which is so by Xenophon Moreouer that the next before Callias for the second yere of that Olympiad was Antigenes found true in the like manner by Xenophon and lastlie from the second yere of the 72 Olympiad wherein the Marathon battell was fought to that yeare of Callias he gathereth 85. yeares which with that yeare of Callias the other following of Alexias make vp exactly the iust reckoning of Thucidides his 87. Diodorus Siculus for Xenophons meaning may take all doubt away end the controuersie who agreeing with Xenophon in the number as well of Olympiads as yeares of the Peloponnesian warre referreth the 24. of that war to the first of the 93. Olympiad as Xenophon doeth and in all the other yeares thereof writeth accordingly wherefore the opinion of Beroaldus concerning the corruption of Xenophons numbers I hold as true as his interpretation of 22. yeares for the next after 22. beeing past Now touching the second place of Xenophon making the warre of longer continuance then Thucidides doeth it no way hindereth the agreement of the Chronologie of those times if his wordes be well waied in the second booke of his Greeke Historie where after hee had declared in the last yeare of that warre the glorious victorie of Lysander against the Athenians at Gotes floud and the besiege of that City by sea and by land whereby they were driuen to yeeld and giue vp their shippes to the Lacedemonians and to throw downe their long wals in the hauen Pyreus hee addeth that the next yeare after happened that Olympiad wherein Crocinas the Thessalian won the race and Endius in Sparta Pythodorus in Athens were chiefe officers In which the fame of the Athenian common wealth was changed and the gouernment of the Cittie committed to thirtie who by their cruell tyrranie in the space of eight months killed more than before by warre had died in ten yeares This being done saith Xenophon Lysander sayled to Samus and tooke it and restored the old inhabitants and driue out the new after returned home to Lacedemonia with a great bootie in the end of summer 28. yeares and sixe months of that warre being then expired In which time were 29. Magistrates called Ephori The first of them being Aenesias vnder whō the war began the last Endius in whose time Lysander sayled home Here Xenophon fetcheth the beginning of that warre further than Thucidides euen from the beginning of the first Ephorus and for the end most apparantly goeth likewise beyond him to Lysanders winning of Samus setting order in it in the yeare of the 29. Ephorus yea further yet hee stretcheth it euen to Lysanders comming home vnto which time reckoning from the beginning of Aenesias wee finde 28. yeares and a halfe Againe Beroaldus obiecteth dissention of Authors touching the beginning of Dionysius his tyrranie some referring it to the third of the 93. Olympiad some to the fourth A waightie reason sure for a little difference of one yeare in Xenophon from other in one thing to ouerthrow the credit of all ancient writers in an other by vniuersall consent established agreed vpon and yet this little difference may bee rather in shew then indeede seeing it is a thing well knowne and confessed that diuers writers begin their yeares diuerslie some halfe a yeare some verie nere three quarters before other as Gerardus Mercator prooueth in his Chronologie but howsoeuer it were graunted that here in one yeare there were flatte contradiction betweene them yet it is a ridiculous toy by one yeres difference to cut off a hundred from the Persian Monarchie I but A. Gellius hath yet a contrarie opinion to both the former laying the gouernment of Dionysius on the 346. yere of Rome which was the second of that Olympiad In Gellius we reade not 346. but 347. so that if the 346. of Rome be the second of the 93. Olympiad then the 347. is the third thereof and therefore good agreement between the Storie writer of Halicarnassus and him The Attick nights were belike too dark for Beroaldus his eyes to see what the enditer layed vp in that place whereunto I haue giuen light before to perceiue his minde It followeth in Beroaldus It is reported of Euripides and Sophocles that they both died in one yeare that is the fourth of the 92. Olympiad whereof may be gathered the 30. tyrants set ouer Athens by Lysander and the ende of the Peloponnesian warre to haue beene in the first of the 93. because the death of Sophocles is knowne to haue happened about that time By whome is this reported It were to bee wished that he had beene named Manie I am sure they cannot be and I thinke no one ancient Author at all can be found who plainely hath said it so as it may appeare to haue proceeded of iudgement in him and againe if any can bee founde who of iudgement set them both together so high yet that might bee well enough without misplacing the thirtie tyrants from the first of the 94. Olympiad to the first of the 93.
Let vs goe on to the rest Solinus telleth that Pythagoras came into Italie in the time of the first Consuls Gellius in the time of Tarquinius superbus which might bee the yeare before Dionysius saith that hee taught in Italie after the 50. Olympiad which dissenteth neyther from that former saying of Solinus nor the other of Gellius because the times by them named were both after the 50. Olympiad Diogenes Laertius writeth that hee flourished in the 60. Olympiad All this touching the time of Pythagoras wherein he liued taught may stand well enough without disagreement Plinie putteth him backe from the time named by Solinus an hundred yeares and more And Beroaldus bringeth him as many or more forward euen to the Peloponnesian warre by his opinion begun about the 94. Olympiad which beeing so needes must Cyrus also bee pulled forwarde in some proportion from the 55. Olympiad to the 80. Betweene these two extreamities of opinion concerning the age of Pythagoras the one of Plinie the other of Beroaldus in my iudgement medium tenuêre beati the merry meane is best as we see especially beeing approoued by a farre greater number of the learned But let vs examine his proofe that Pythagoras was so late His first reason is brought from the authoritie of Eusebius who in his tenth book De praeparatione Euangelica writeth that Xenophons and Pythagoras were in the same times with Anaxagoras who came within the compasse of the Peloponnesian war If an old man may liue at the same time with a young man this is no good proofe to bring Pythagoras to the Peloponnesian warre because Eusebius sayde that Anaxagoras in whose time Pythagoras liued was in it Let Eusebius bee his owne interpreter in his Chronicles where hee putteth the matter out of doubt setting the death of Pythagoras threescore and foure yeres at the least before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war yet withall making Anaxagorus who saw that war to flourish in his dayes Another reason of his much like to the former is this Pythagoras with diuers of his acquaintance beeing in the house of Milo certaine enemies in desire of reuenge vppon some conceiued griefe burned it ouer their heads where Lysis Archytas two of Pythagoras his schollers at that time escaped This Lysis after became teacher of Epaminondas the valiant Theban Captaine who fighting at Mantine in the second yeare of the 104. Olympiad aboue 40. yeres after the Peloponnesian war was slaine And what of all this I know his conclusion that this being so late an age wherein Epaminondas died whose master was Lysis one of Pythagoras his schollers It must needes be that Pythagoras himselfe reached to the time of the Peloponnesian warre somewhat nere to Epaminondas and when was that warre the end of it if we may beleeue Beroaldus was about the 100. Olympiad and by that meanes Pythagoras must bee brought to the 94. at the least wherein it began not much aboue 40. yeares before the raigne of king Phillip of Macedonia the Father of Alexander the great If I should stand to number all the absurdities which would follow of this position according to that which Aristotle saith that one absurde thing graunted many other follow vppon it it were a tedious thing to write or read except peraduenture that beeing so ridiculous in themselues the moouing of laughter might some way ease the readers toyle But leauing this I will declare that the distance of time made by auncient writers betweene Pythagoras his teaching and Epaminondas his learning of Lysis can no way hinder but that Pythagoras may stand well enough still in that place where they haue set him His death by Eusebius is put in the last yere of the 70. Olympiad At which time Lysis his scholler might bee 16. yeares of age and liue fourescore and eight yeares after till hee was 104. yeares old in the beginning of the 93. Olympiad When Epaminondas might be of the age of sixteene yeares instructed before of Lysis in his old age What one thing is there heere incredible or not vsuall in those times Gorgias Leontinus much about the same times with Lysis liued a hundred and nine yeares which before hath beene shewed with diuers other like examples and Aemilius Probus in the life of Epaminondas testifieth of him that beeing a yong man hee was instructed in Philosophie by Lysis in the time of his graue and seuere old age Philosophiae praeceptorem habuit Lysim Tarentinum Pythagoreum cui quidem sic fuit deditus vt adolescens tristem seuerum senem omnibus aequalibus suis in familiaritate anteposuerit saith Aemilius Thus Beroaldus his sharpe assault against the Chronologicall forte of the Grecians account hath not so preuailed to batter it but that it can defend it selfe against the enemie Let vs now see with what successe hee hath oppugned the Latine Storie against this hee fighteth with two weapons one taken from the Roman Decemuirs the other borrowed of the Frenchmen at their sacking of Rome in the 302. yeare of Rome wherein L. Menenius P. Sestius were Consuls towardes the ende of their COnsulship certaine Commissioners called Decemuiri were chosen by the people to the gouernment of the Citie and the making of Lawes against the next yere now approching beeing the 303. of the Citie Hereof is that difference and dissention of some Authors betweene themselues alleadged by Beroaldus some referring the Decemuirs to the 302. yeare of Rome respecting the time wherein they were elected as Solinus and Liuie some to the 303. because that was the yeare wherein they first executed that new authoritie beeing appointed and chosen vnto it in the end of the former yeare As Dionysius Halicarnassaeus in his eleuenth booke declareth Besides Varro Onuphrius As for A. Gellius and some other naming the 300. yeare of Rome for the Decemuirs the cause thereof is manifest that some make the time of the kings of Rome not 244. but onely 241. yeres and those began from the second of the seauenth Olympiad not the first that is from the end of the building of Rome when Romulus tooke vpon him to be king By their opinion there are two yeres fewer than other account of so that their 300. is the 302. of other whereof I haue spoken before by reason of some like examples in Gellius who followed that reckoning so there is no difference betweene these indeed but onely in shew and diuers respects These ten Commissioners held that authority by the space of two whole yeres In the latter whereof being the 304. of the Citie Virginia a beautifull maide of Rome was slaine by her own Father with a butchers knife taken from his stall in the open streete rather then that shee should satisfie the filthie lust of Appius Claudius one of the ten who by great violence and open wrong went about it Cicero in his second booke de finibus writeth that this happened in the threescore yeare after the beginning of the first Consuls
is testified by olde marble monuments digged out of the ground and as Solinus writeth was confirmed euen by the publike acts registers of Rome wherein the 207. Olympiad was recorded to be in the 801. yeare of Rome when Pompeius Gallus and Q. Veranius were Cousuls this Beroaldus himselfe acknowledgeth and bringeth reason for it By this account then the third of the 194. Olympiad wherein the birth of Christ is put should be the 751. of Rome let vs now examaine whether this be so or no. The yeare after Caesars death wherein Hersius and Pansa were Consuls Augustus began his raigne as Eusebius in his Chronicles Ioseph Scaliger in his fift book De emendatione temporum declare was the 710. of Rome so witnessed not onely by Solinus in his Polyhistor but euen the very ancient Marble monuments also wherein was engrauen his record at the 710 yeare of the Citie In Pansae occisi locum factus est C. Iulius C.F.C.N. Caesar Qui posteà imperator Caesar Augustus appellatus est That is in the place of Pansa being slaine Caius Iulius Caesar the sonne of Caius the grandchild of Caius was made Consull who after was called the Emperour Caesar Augustus In the 42. yeare of Augustus his raigne the first thereof beeing that 710. of Rome was our Sauiour borne This wee are taught by Eusebius not onely in his Chronicles but also very plainly in the second chapter of the first booke of his Ecclesiasticall historie It is verified also by Epiphanius and Onuphrius 51. Haeresi setting the time of Christ his birth in the thirteenth Consulship of Augustus with M. Plantius Silanus which was iust the 42. yeare from the beginning of that wherein Hersius and Pansa were Consuls and Augustus began his raigne as the Roman histories with great agreement declare adding then these 42. of Augustus to 709. more past before to the building of Rome wee haue that which by examination we sought that is the birth of Christ in the 751. yeare of Rome agreeably to the Olympicke reckoning from which 423. before Darius his death being deducted there remaines 328. yeres from the Persian Monarchie to Iesus Christ with some fiue or sixe months more betwixt the sommer season wherein Darius died and the time of winter wherein Christ was borne An other proofe we haue from learned writers in Clemens Alexandrinus 1. Strom. accounting 294. yeares from the death of Alexander to the victorie of Augustus Caesar against Antonius when he slew himselfe and Augustus nowe the fourth time was Consull which wordes by them are there added for distinctions sake to make it knowne what victorie they spake of For when as now a long time Augustus and Antonius had together gouerned the Roman Empire at the length falling at variance they made open warre one against another and fought betweene them by sea that famous battail at Actium a promontorie of Epirus nere Greece the second day of September from fiue of the clocke in the morning to seauen at night wherein Antonius with his glorious wife Cleopatra Queene of Aegypt was discomfited and fled This was done in the 722 yeare of Rome and the second of the 187. Olympiad and the time of Augustus Caesars third Consulship with Valerius Messala Coruinus The next yeare after Caesar nowe the fourth time beeing Consull with M. Licinius Crassus went against Antonius and Cleopatra into Aegypt where with happy successe he won from him a Citie of Egypt nere Lybia called Paraetonium and againe a little after ouercame him at Pharus and once againe euen in that fight wherein hee put great confidence of his goodly horses he was put to a shamefull foyle His onely refuge now left whereby hee hoped to stand was his nauie which when Antonius the first day of August betimes in the morning was now preparing to battell all fel away from him to Caesar whereat Antonius conceauing deadly griefe hasted to his Pallace and a little after seeing Caesar comming flat against him the citie troubled slew himselfe Cleopatra also not obtaining so much fauour of Augustus as she eyther looked for or desired opened her left arme to the byting of a poysonfull Serpent and so ended her life Augustus his enemies now being slain got Alexandria and the rest of Egypt with no great adoe and thenceforth had the whole gouernment of all the Roman Soueraigntie before the end of the same month which thereof was named Augustus beeing before that time called Sextilis of the number beeing the sixt from March Augustus Caesar saith Xiphilinus called the moneth Sextilis by the newe name of Augustus because hee was first made Consull got many victories therein But in Macrobius more plainely and especially amongst other causes of that moneth so to be termed in the honor of Augustus this is one set downe that therein Egypt was first subdued to the Romans These be the victories then which those ancient Chronologists in Clemens Alexandrinus make the end of 294. yeres from the death of Alexander respecting their beginning with the moneth of August and somewhat before For Alexander died towardes the end of Iulie in the verie entrie of the 114. Olympiad So that to and fro the same season of the yeare the distance being reckoned was iust so much that is to say 294. yeares which is likewise verified by an eye witnesse of those times whereof hee writeth and flourishing in them that is Dionysius Halicarnassaeus who in the Preface to his Roman antiquities telleth not by hearesay but of knowledge that he came into Italy when Augustus Caesar had made an ende of ciuill warres about the middest of the 187. Olympiad The time which he meaneth was that before declared of Augustus Caesars conquest ouer Antonius in Egypt in the moneth of August not farre from the beginning of the third yere of that Olimpiad which he nameth being indeed as hee saith neere the middest of that foure yeares Olympick space vnto which accounting from the first yere of the 114. wherein Alexander died we finde that number of the former Authors in Clemens euen 294. yeres The truth hereof is yet further confirmed by Ptolomie for exact accoūt of times exceeding skilfull who in the third book of his Almagest maketh the distance betweene the death of Alexander and the Monarchie of Augustus 294. Egyptian yeares The account whereof began with the beginning of their first moneth called Toth as Censorinus declareth in his booke de die natali and Ioseph Scaliger in diuers places which at that time fell about the twelfth day of our Nouember So long after the sommer season wherein Alexander died the Egyptians began their account of yeares after his death These 294. Egyptian yeres from the twelfth of Nouember expire not in the twelfth of Nouember againe but in the 29. day of August before and reach iust as farre as the same number of Roman yeares doth being begun from the 29. day of August before going The cause whereof is this that the Egyptian
fourteenth yeare of Augustus in the moneth of August yet the yeares of his Monarchie after the manner of the Romans began to bee reckoned from Ianuarie following in the beginning of the next yeare being his fifteenth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augustus the king of the Romanes attayning the fifteenth yeare of his raigne got Egypt and the rest of the world saith Eusebius in his eyght booke de demonstratione Euangelij And in his Chronicles likewise hee beginneth the Monarchie of Augustus from the same his fifteenth yeare For foureteene yeares then past being added to 28. following the number is 42. The same beginning of Augustus his Monarchie from that yeere is confirmed by Paulus Orosius in the sixt booke of his Historie against the Gentiles Where hauing declared in the nineteenth chapter of that booke that Antonius and Cleopatra now forsaken of their nauie which in the beginning of August had turned to Caesar for griefe slew themselues And that Caesar after passed from thence into Syria by land and then into Asia and at length by Greece into Italie in the next chapter immediatly he addeth that Augustus Caesar in the yeare following wherein himselfe now the fift time and L. Apuleius were Consuls the sixt daye of Ianuarie entred into Rome with three triumphes Atque ex eo die summa rerum ac potestatem penes vnum caepit esse mansit quod Graeci Monarchiam vocant And from that daye saith Orosius the soueraigntie and cheefe power called of the Grecians a Monarchie begun to be in one mans hand and so remained Ioseph Scaliger I can but maruaile at in his sixt book de emendatione temporum affirming that Christ our Lorde was borne in the seuen and twentie yeare after the victorie at Actium which is short of the time by mee set for his birth in the 42. of Augustus by two yeares and more For the yeare of Christs birth was the 30. at the least after the Actiac victorie 29. full yeares beeing past and almost foure moneths Now touching the moneth and daye of our Sauiours birth I see no cause why we ought to referre that constant opinion of ancient Fathers that it was the 25. of December receaued of Augustine Orosius Chrysostom and other from them continued nowe by many ages to this daye except direct proofe can be brought to the contrarie Which Beroaldus after his wonted manner goeth about in the second chapter of his fourth booke of Chronicles affirming in plaine words that our Lorde Iesus Christ was borne in the middest of the moneth September when the daye and night is of one length His reason to proue that assertion of his is in this manner Christ preached three yeares and a halfe before his death this is prooued by the words of Daniel in his ninth chapter Hee shal confirme the couenant to many one weeke and halfe that weeke shall abolish sacrifice and offering which saith Beroaldus is to be vnderstoode of Christ preaching three yeares and a halfe from his baptizing to his death Now that his baptisme begun together with the 30. yeere of his age is testified by Luke in his third chapter the 23. verse where Christ is sayd to haue entred the 30. yeere of his age when he was baptized The end of the last halfe yeere wherein Christ dyed being the 14. day of the Iewes Nisan and of our March Leaue as well the begining thereof as consequently the birth of Christ to the 14. of September In deede if those his interpretations of Daniel and Luke in these places were both of them certaine and cleare as he sayeth they are his proof were good but if either of them faile his reason is not worth a strawe And so farre they are from being both certaine that neither of them both is sure Scaliger maketh it an vndoubted thing that they are otherwise to bee vnderstood referring the wordes of Daniell to the beseging and warre against Ierusalem by the Romanes and making the time of Christes preaching not three yeeres and a halfe but full foure Beda and Ignatius made it onely three yeeres after his baptisme And Apollinaris with diuers other eyther on or two at the most And as for the wordes of Luke a precise exact beginning of the thirtie yeere of Christes age can not be gathered of them Seeing hee vseth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing a doubtfull and imperfect number wherevnto somewhat more or lesse may be added or taken away and signifying that Christ begunne to bee about thirtie yeeres of age at the time of his baptisme As in our English bible it is well translated and so vnderstood by Epiphanius and Iustinus Martir and Augustine with some other of the ancient fathers Wherfore this his best reason is too weake to pull backe the receaued time of Christes birth from the 25. day of December to the 14. of September An other argument of his is taken from the custome of the Greeke and the Egyptian churches beginning their yeare from September Whence also the indictions haue their begining This saith Beroaldus they did because they knew that Christ was borne in the middest of September And how proueth he that Beroaldus for sooth sayth so The mans bare yea was enough belike to perswade the simple and vnskilfull Other reason he bringeth none at all either from authoritie or otherwise Neither in deed do I see how he could possibly bring any For it is a thing held without controuersie that the cause of the yeres beginning in the midst of September was the memorie not of Christes birth but of the glorious conquest of Alexander against Darius at Gaugamela retained long after euen in the Greeke church Which Scaliger out of Epiphanius declareth in his second booke De emendatione temporum the chapter of Calippus his period beginning in Autumne and also in his fift booke the chapter of the councell of Nice which by Socrates was set downe to haue bene in the 636. yeere of Alexander But what shall we need goe further then to Beroaldus himselfe for confirmation hereof who euen in the verie next Chapter before going had prooued by the Greeke Canons the first Tome of councels printed at Paris that the Greeke church counted their yeres from Alexander If the Greeke church counted frō Alexander and that accompt of Alexanders yeeres begun in the Equinoctiū of Autumne as Scaliger teacheth about mid September how can the cause and custome of this reckoning be referred to Christs natiuitie as for the Egyptians the first month of their yeere called Thoth before they were subdewed by Augustus went through all the monthes and seasons of the yere some times in Februarie after in Ianuarie and so in order to Februarie againe But after Antonius and Cleopatra were ouerthrowen and Egipt made one of the Roman prouinces won by Augustus Caesar in the month of August the first of their Thoth was not the 14. of September nor any part of it but the 29. of August and that in
is true yet making it the 72. of Christs birth he therein erreth and is at strife with himselfe for how can this possibly stand that the second sommer of the 212. Olympiad should be the 72. yere from the third winter of the 194 Olympiad wherein Christ was borne H. Bunting in his Chronologie did hit the marke right affirming that Ierusalem was destroyed in the 71. yeare of Christ the 822. of Rome Vespasian the second time and his Son Titus being Consull the second yere of the 212 Olympiad The day wherein the Temple was set on fire by Iosephus is obserued euen the 10. of August Conflagrante nouissimo templo numerabantur a nauitate Christi 70. anni cum diebus 221. From the natiuitie of Christ to the burning of the last Temple were 70. yeres and 200. and one and twentie dayes saith Laurence Codoman in his Chronicles of holy scripture which is most certainely true and confirmed of him againe in the fourth booke of his chronologie toward the end of the 29. chapter where notwithstanding he also hath his errour in numbring 105. yeres to that time from the beginning of Herods raigne at his taking of Ierusalem beeing at the least 106. full yeares with three weekes ouer For Ierusalem was taken of him about the beginning of the fourth yeare of the 185. Olympiad Wherein M. Agrippa and Canidius Gallus were Consuls the seauenteenth day of the Iewes fourth month called Tamuz answering in parte to our Iune and partlie to Iulie as appeareth by Iosephus in the end of his fourteenth book of antiquities compared with Ben Gorion his fourth booke the 23. chapter The Temple by Titus his souldiers was fired the ninth day of their next moneth called Ab as we read in the end of his seder olam rabba and the eight day of the next moneth following the Citie it selfe was set on fire by them Vnto which time Iosephus from Herods beginning before mentioned counteth 107. yeares in his 20. booke of Antiquities the eight chapter beeing no more but 106. yeres with seauen weekes more Therefore according to the vsuall custome of Historiographers he reckoneth a part of the last yeare for the whole and his meaning is that the burning of the citie hapned in the 107. yere after Herods beginning to raigne and that the distance betwixt the one and the other was 107. yeres running on so as the last of them was not yet compleat By that which hitherto hath beene prooued it appeareth that from the beginning of the Persian Monarchie and the first yeare of Cyrus to the end of the Iewes common wealth in the second of Vespasian were 628. yeares so much time more as had past partly before the second yeare of the 55. Olympiad to the beginning of Cyrus and partlie after the end of the first yeare of the 112. Olympiad to the eight of September following wherein the holie City of God Ierusalem was set on fire that if account be made from the entrie of that 55. Olympiad to the time wherein the Citie was burned the whole space is euen 629. yeres with some two monethes more or there abouts Thus I end my reckoning of the times within the compasse whereof Daniels weeks haue runne out their course which is the first help requisite to the vnderstanding of Daniels meaning The second now followeth that is a true interpretation of his wordes for though the fulfilling of those weekes is contained within the reach of those 629. yeares and odde monethes before spoken of yet in what time thereof they began or ended that is a controuersie to the discussing whereof this second help may happely bring some light THE NINTH CHAPTER OF DANIEL THE 24. verse Vers 24. Seuentie weekes are determined vpon thy people and vpon thy holy Citie to sinish wickednesse and to ende sinne and to make reconciliation for iniquitie and to bring righteousnesse euerlasting and to seale vp vision and Prophet and to annoynt the holy of holies Vers 25. Know then and vnderstand from the going forth of the worde to builde againe Ierusalem vnto Messias the Gouernour shall be seuen weekes and threescore and two weekes it shall be builded againe streete and wall and in troublesome times Vers 26. And after those threescore and two weeks shal Messias be cut off and he shal haue no being and the citie sanctuarie shall the people of the come gouernour destroy the end thereof shall be with a flood and vnto the ende of the warre shall be a precise iudgement of desolations Vers 27. And he shall make a sure couenant to many one weeke halfe that weeke he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease and for the ouerspreading of abominations shall be desolation which to vtter and precise destruction shall be powred vpon the desolate FOr the plainer vnderstanding and proofe of this interpretation I haue thought good to set downe cerraine annotations thereon where need shall require In the 24. verse weekes The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a weeke or as wee also terme it a sennet or seuenet which better fitteth the Hebrew hauing that force as likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke and septimana in Latine all so called of the number of seauen but it is to bee obserued that the Hebrew word here vsed signifieth sometime the space of seauen dayes as here in this prophesie the tenth chapter and second verse where Daniel saith that hee mourned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three weeks or seuenets of dayes and in the sixteenth of Deuteronomie the ninth verse where commandement is giuen from Easter to Whitsontide to number seuen weeks or seuenets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And sometime it containeth seuen yeres as in the 29. chapter the 27 verse of Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fulfill her seuenet and then shee also shall bee giuen vnto thee for the seruice which thou shalt serue me yet seuen yeares more The Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in approued Authors is in like manner vsed not onelie for seauen dayes but also euen for seuen yeares space and namely in the end of the seauenth booke of Aristotles politikes where mention is made of such as deuided ages by seuenets of yeares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 M. Varro also in his first booke of Images writing se iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse That hee had now entred into the 12. sennet of yeares expresseth it more plainely and fullie In this signification I take the worde in this place vnderstanding by 70. seuenets 490. yeares hauing proofe thereof from holy Scripture and prophane writer As for those which stretch the worde further to a seuenet of tents or Iubilies or hundreds of yeeres as some haue done their opinion hath neither warrant from God his word nor any likelihood of trewth Are determined The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly to cut and by a metaphor from thence borowed to determine as hereafter I shal haue occasion to declare
The Reader is here to know that in the Hebrew we haue word for word Seuentie weekes is determened A verbe singular being ioyned with a nowne plurall by an vsuall custome of the holy tongue when a thing spoken in generall is to bee applied to euerie part As in the twelft chapter of Iob the seuenth verse Aske the beastes and it shall teach thee that is euerie one of them shall teach thee And in the Prouerbes of Salomon the third chapter the 18. verse in their originall tongue They which holde wisdome is made blessed that is to saye they are made blessed euery one of them So here the same kinde of speech being vsed 70. weekes is determined importeth thus much that euerie one of those weekes particularlie from the first to the last shall bee precisely and absolutely complet Which force contained in these wordes I might not omitte In English thus it may be expressed Seuentie weekes euery one are determined vpon thy people Thy people that is thy countreymen the Iewes for this is a common speech often vsed in the hebrew tongue to call that people mine of which I am one As in the first chapter of Ruth the 15. verse the Moabites are called the people of Orpha a woman of Moab Thy sister is gone backe to her people So in the 10. verse of that chapter the Iewes are called Naomies people We will returne to thy people with thee And the same Ieremies people in the lamentations the 3. chapter and 14. verse where he complaineth that he was a laughing stocke to all his people Here then in like manner by Daniels people are vnderstoode the Iewes whereof he was And vpon thy holy citie The holy citie is Ierusalem mentioned in the nexte verse so called because it was the place consecrate to the holy worship of God Esa the 52. chapter 1. verse put on thy bewtifull garmentes O Ierusalem holy citie And in the 4. chapter of Math. the 5. verse the diuell caried him to the holy citie and set him vpon a pinacle of the temple But why is it called Daniels citie was it because God had forsaken it as though it were now to be called any others rather then Gods citie So the learned father Hierom thought but herein deceaued For being a holy citie it must nedes bee also Gods citie It was rather called Daniels citie ether of his birth or bringing vp therein As in the ninth chapter of Mathew Capernaum is called Christs citie because he dwelt in it And Rama in the first book of Samuel the first chapter is called the citie of Elcana and the citie of Samuel in the 28. chap. of that booke And Rogelim the citie of Barzillai in the second of Samuel the 19. the 38. verse Let me die sayeth he in my owne citie By this which I haue sayde of Daniels people and Daniels citie it may appeare howe wide Hierom shot from the marke with some other of the ancient fathers interpreting it as though God had forsaken both and giuen them ouer as well the Iewes as Ierusalem To end sinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being as the Masorites terme it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keri of these wordes that is the true reading thereof signifieth properly to consume finish or end sinne And therefore Hieroms interpretation Vt finem accipiat peccatum that sin may haue an end is good Neither doe I se how that other of sealing vp sinnes can heere be warranted This abolishing and finishing of sinne was wrought and fulfilled by our blessed Lord and redeemer Christ Iesus He was that vnspotted lambe of God which tooke away the sinnes of the world the first of Iohn the 29. verse In the end of the world he once appeared to put away sinne by the sacrifice of himselfe Hee was once offered to take away the sinnes of many Heb. 9.26.28 He washed vs from our sinnes in his blood In the first of the Reuelation the 3. ver He deliuered vs from sinne By him the bodie of sinne is destroied we are dead to sinne that it should not haue dominion ouer vs. See the 6. chapter to the Romans 6.11.14.18 verses Hee condemned sinne in the flesh Whosoeuer is borne of God can not sin Christ therefore fulfilled this heere spoken of by Daniell that is to say Rom 8.3 1. Ioh. 3.9 made an end of sinne two wayes first in iustifying vs from sinnes past and quitting vs from the guilte thereof And secondly in sanctifying vs from sinnes to come so as though wee afterward sinne yet wee cannot be seruantes vnto it Neither of them was or could bee performed by the lawe For the lawe causeth wrath Rom. 4. Heb. 10.1 Heb. 10.4.11 It could neuer sanctifie the commers thereunto The sacrifices thereof could not take awaye sinnes Iesus Christ onely was the fulfiller hereof according to the saying of Ezechiel the prophet in his 36. chapter the 35. verse I will powre cleane water vpon you and clense you from all your filthynesse A new harte also will I giue you and a new spirit will I put within you and J will take away the stonie hart out of your body and I will giue you a harte of flesh And I will cause you to walke in my statutes and ye shall keep my iudgements and doe them And to make reconciliation for iniquitie by appeasing and pacifiyng God his wrath against sinne Which was the effect of Christ his death offering vp him selfe an acceptable sacrifice to God for the sinnes of the world â—om 5.10 â—om 5.1 By his death we are reconciled to God VVe haue peace toward God through Christ To bring euerlasting righteousnesse The declaration hereof we haue in the epistle to the Hebrewes from the 12. ver of the 10. chap. vnto the end of the 18. verse of the same There wee are taught that by the sacrifice of Christ Iesus once offered remission of sinnes is obtained for euer so as after there can be no other propitiatorie oblation for them Here therefore the euerlasting righteousnes of Christ is opposed to the righteousnesse of the law to the obtaining whereof dayly sacrifices were offered But Christ hauing once made reconciliation for our sinnes by his blood therby purchased vnto vs euerlasting saluation and righteousnesse which in the 9. chapter and 12. ver of that Epistle is called euerlasting redemption The priesthood of christ is euerlasting Heb. 7.24 Heb. 9.11 Heb. 8.2 9.11.12 And of good thinges to come euerlasting His sacrifice once for all euerlasting And the sanctuarie into which he entred euerlasting And lastly the saluation redemption and righteousnesse which he purchased for vs is euerlasting So there is great difference betwene the Leuiticall priestes and Christ and betweene their oblations and his sacrifice Of this effect in bringing righteousnesse he hath this name to be called the Lorde our righteousnesse in the 23. chapter of the prophet Ieremie the reason whereof is giuen by the blessed Apostle in the first
the first of Ester the ninteenth verse If it seeme good to the king let a royall word goe forth from him that is Let a commandement by the kings authoritie be published In the second chapter of this Prophet the twelfth verse The decree went forth the wise men were slaine In the second booke of the Machabies the sixt chapter and eight verse Thorough the counsell of Ptolomie there went out a commandement into the next cities of the heathen against the Iewes to put such to death as were not conformable to the manners of the Gentiles In the second chapter of Luke the first verse there went out a decree from Augustus Caesar that all the world should be taxed To build againe Ierusalem In Hebrew to returne build Ierusalem Of this a little after toward the end of this verse Vnto Messias the Gouernour The worde Messias in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke and with vs annoynted So these three in signification are all one Messias Christ Annoynted The Hebrew word in the holy Scripture attributed sometime specially to the persō of Christ Iesus our Lord as in the first of Iohn the 42. ver we haue found the Messias And in the second Psalme the second verse The Rulers tooke counsell together against the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and against his Messias or Christ that is against Christ Iesus our Lorde as the place is expounded in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles Sometime more generally to any annoynted Priest as in the fourth chapter and fift verse of Leuit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Annoynted Priest shall take off the bullockes blood or to the annoynted Prophets Touch not mine annoynted doe my Prophets no harme Psa 105.15 Or lastlie to the kings and chiefe gouernours of the people Thus Saul in the first of Samuel the 24. chapter and 7. verse and Dauid in the 2. of Samuel the 19. chapter and 22. verse is called the annoynted of the Lord. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying any Ruler or Gouernour is vsed sometime of kinges as in the first of Samuel the tenth chapter the second verse where Saul is called the Gouernour of the Lords inheritance and in the second of Samuel the seauenth chapter Dauid is called the ruler of Gods people and Ezechias in the second booke of the Kings the 20. chapter and fifth verse In all those places this worde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is vsed Sometime it is giuen to other inferiour rulers or gouernours as in the 2. of Chronicles the 11. chapter and 11. verse Hee repayred the strong holdes and set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Gouernours therin and in the 19. chapter and last verse of the same booke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zebadias the Ruler of the house of Iuda shall be for the kings affaires and in the 11. chapter of this Prophet Daniel the 22 verse the Prince and chiefe gouernour of the Jewes is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So there is no let by the force and signification of the word but that it may bee well referred to the chiefe ruler of the Iewes common wealth in Ierusalem after the building thereof Seauen weekes It is great pittie that this message of the holy Angell contayning a most excellent Prophesie from Gods owne mouth should be so peruerted and depraued as it hath beene by those which picke out this sence as though hee said there should be from the out-going of the commaundement to Messias 69. weekes in all A strange interpretation such I dare boldly say it as by the Hebrew text can neuer bee vpheld That interpretation which I haue made leauing a stay or rest at seuen weekes as the halfe sentence being past and continuing the 62. weekes with the other part of the sentence following to the end of the verse and not referred to the former as part of one whole number with them by the Hebrew text is most sure and vndoubted and iustifiable against all the world contayning that which God himselfe in his owne wordes hath vttered neyther more nor lesse but the verie same which Gods Angell deliuered to Daniel by word and Daniel to the Church by writing in the holie tongue and this once againe it is From the going forth of the word to build againe Ierusalem vnto Messias the gouernour shall be seauen weekes and threescore and two weekes it shall be builded againe street and wall and in trouble some times Marke the wordes consider their order and weigh well the rests As I finde in the Hebrew so I haue Englished that is the truth of interpretation be it vnderstood as it may It shall be builded againe Word for word in the original tongue is written It shall returne and be builded which learned Hierome verie learned lie translated thus Iterum aedificabitur It shall bee builded againe This is a familiar phrase in the Hebrew peoples mouth For proofe whereof take a view of these places First of that in Malachie the first chapter and fourth verse We will returne build the desolate places It is as much to say as we wil build them againe also in the 26. chapter 18. verse of Genesis Isaak returned and digged the wels of water which beeing digged in the dayes of Abraham the Philistians after his death had stopped The meaning is therfore that he digged them againe rightly vnderstood by the Greeke interpreters called the 70. thus trāslating it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He digged againe Hierome agreeing thereunto rursus fodit In the sixt chapter of Zacharie the first verse I returned and lifted vp my eyes and saw which Tremellius verie wel translated thus Rursus attollens occulos meos vidi Againe lifting vp my eyes I saw That therefore which some interpreters here haue imagined concerning the returne of the people from the captiuitie of Babilon is to vse the old prouerbe nothing to Bacchus an interpretation farre from Daniels purpose The like reason is of that before written in this verse to returne and build Ierusalem being in sence the same which there I haue translated and Hierome long before me to build againe Ierusalem Moreouer it shall be builded importeth as much as if hee had said it shall continue builded or beeing once builded it shall so remaine by the space of 434. yeares before the desolation thereof come as Saadias and Gershoms sonne expounded the meaning of the word The 26. verse Shall Messias be cut off The signification of the worde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is much more large then to slay as by the most part of interpreters it is here taken and reacheth to any cutting off eyther by death or banishment or any other kinde of abolishing whereby a thing before in vse afterward ceaseth Ioel. 1.8 The new wine is cut off from your mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amos 1.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will cut off the inhabitant of
Bikeathauen him that holdeth the Scepter out of Betheden and the people of Aram shall goe into captiuitie vnto Kir saith the Lord. And hee shall haue no beeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there shall not bee vnto him that is hee shall not be He shall haue no beeing he shall be extinct and gone Much like hereunto is that in the 42. of Genesis the 36. verse Simeon is not Ioseph is not where the meaning is that neither of them was remaining aliue or had any being Ieremie 31. Rachel mourned for her children because they were not Genesis 5.24 Enoch was not because the Lord tooke him away That is hee had no longer being among the liuing a speach vsed in prophane authours Homer 2. Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is For the sons of valiant Oeneus were not any lōger neither was he himself yet And more plainly in the Tragedie of Euripides called Hecuba where she bewailing the death of her son Polydorus I vnderstand now saith she the dreame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I saw touching thee my child not being anie longer in the light of heauen Therefore the Hebrew scholiast Solomon Iarchi thinking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to be alone with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in other places of all other interpreters iudged best and the same which my selfe approoued before euer I read it in him or any other As likewise master Fox in a sermon of his entituled De Oliua Euangelica vnderstandeth it so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith hee is an Hebrew phrase whereby is signified mans life taken away and therefore he giueth this interpretation thereof Et vita priuabitur Hee shall be depriued of life His iudgement touching the force of the worde to bee all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall not be is all one with mine and that of Rabbi Solomon yet as I vnderstand the word of cutting off somewhat more largelie of thinges abolished otherwise then by death So this not beeing may bee referred to the gouernment ceasing and extinguished of the gouernour taken away though not dead Of the come Gouernour A come gouernour I call Presidem aduenam a deputie stranger called here in the originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ruler which is come for in the times before the destruction of Ierusalem by the Romans there were two rulers of the Citie one of their owne people a Iew by profession or birth after their manner annointed to the gouernment of the common wealth amongst them here named in the verse afore going 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the annointed Prince the other a stranger appointed Deputy by the Roman Emperour called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ruler not borne in the country or one of the same Nation but a stranger come from another place In which sence the same worde seemeth sometime otherwhere to be vsed In the 42. of Genesis the fift verse The sonnes of Israell came to buy foode 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the commers meaning other strangers which were come to Egypt In the second booke of Chronicles the 30. chapter and 25. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strangers which were come frō the Isralites are opposed to the inhabitants of Iudea Also in the fift of Nehemias the 17. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commers of the gentiles are set against such as were Iewes borne With a floud Vespasians hoste the mightie power of the Roman enemies with great force inuaded and went through the whole land of Israell and Iuda and as it were ouerflowing waters ouerwhelmed all A metaphor taken from flouds as in the 11. of this prophesie the 40 verse The king of the north shall come against him with Chariots and Horsemen ouerflow and passe through Vnto the end of the warre shall bee a precise iudgement of desolations In the time and continuance of that warre partly by the forraine enemies partly by the ciuill dissentions within the citie a great desolation of Ierusalem Iuda was made many of the Iewes for the intollerable miserie of those times leauing their Citie and flying as far as their legges could beare them from their owne natiue countrie into strange landes which likewise happened in the former destruction of that land and Citie by Nabugodonosor and the Chaldeans Ierem. 42.14 We will goe into Egypt that wee may see no more war nor heare the sound of the Trumpet nor haue hunger of bread and there wil we dwell This is it which the same Prophet bewaileth in his Lamentations the first chapter and third verse Iudah went away because of affliction and great seruitude Besides these which fled many were slaine a great number perished by famine All the places about the Temple were burnt vp and the Citie was made a Wildernesse and a solitarie floore as Iosephus writeth who knew it so well as no man liuing better The same Author testifieth that the land which before had beene beautified with goodlie trees and pleasant gardens and orchards became so desolate that none which had seene Iudea before with the faire buildings therein at the sight of such a wofull change thereof could haue contained himselfe from weeping and lamenting For all the beautifull ornaments had beene destroyed by warre so that if any which had knowne the place before comming then againe vnto it on a suddaine could not haue knowne it but would haue asked where Ierusalem was though present in it This wee read in Iosephus his seuenth booke of the Iewes war the first chapter and the sixt book the first chapter some other places therfore the speaking of desolations in the plurall number here wanteth not his force to note the multitude thereof They were manifold comming fast one vpon an other first in one place then in another till all was wasted The 27. verse One weeke This seemeth to pertaine not only to the couenant confirming next before in this verse mentioned but also to all the thinges spoken of in the former verse touching Messias to be cut off and the enemies wasting of the Citie by continuall war to the vtter desolation and ruine thereof All these thinges came to passe in the last weeke of the 70. Halfe of that weeke That is of that last weeke mentioned in the next wordes afore going and not a new halfe of an other weeke besides the 70. For this cause the demonstratiue Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ha is set before the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie no other but the same weeke spoken of before according to the Hebrewes custome and manner of speaking obserued also and retained in the Greeke tongue as the learned knowe A like example wee had in the beginning of the next verse afore going in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hauing the same Article and referring vs to those same 62. weekes before spoken of and no other Touching this couenant sacrifices abolished I will by God
his help in that which followeth declare what I thinke Shall be desolation So I interpret the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 substantiuelie as the Greeke and Latine interpreters here and the 31. verse of the 11. chapter haue taken it though otherwise it seemeth to haue the forme of a Participle Wee haue like examples in the fift chapter of this booke and twelft verse where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth an exposition and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a loosing or dissoluing so that this need not seeme strange Vtter and precise destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is in proprietie of signification some difference betweene these two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a perfect desolation of that which is vtterlie wholie destroyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is referred to the resolute and precise determination of that vtter destruction to come When it is precisely and certainly decreed all hope of recalling the same being quite cut off One respecteth the greatnes the other the certaintie of God his vengeance to come Esa 10.22 The Lord in the middest of the land shall make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vtter desolation and precise waste past all calling backe Hauing thus made first a true account and reckoning of the times wherein the fulfilling of Daniels prophecie is contained by the helpe of prophane writers testifying the certaine truth thereof and secondly a true interpretation of Daniels wordes according to the originall tongue It now remaineth by applying the one to the other to search and examine where the beginning and end of those 70. weekes may be found The greatest part of those who haue laboured for the vnderstanding of this Prophesie haue vnderstood the Messias here spoken of to be Iesus Christ and first seauen weekes then 62. that is 69. in all to bee the distance betwixt the commandement and him referring the end of those yeares eyther to his birth or his baptisme or his death and the beginning eyther to Cyrus who first gaue leaue for the returne of the people and the building of the temple or to Darius Hystaspis who confirmed the same by a new decree in the second yeare of his raigne as they take it mentioned in the sixt of Esdras or lastlie to Artaxerxes the long handed supposing him to be the Artaxerxes mentioned in the seauenth of Esdras and the second of Nehemias who in the twentie yeare of his raigne gaue a new commandement for the building of the walles of the Citie and sent Nehemias about it Though some reckō from his seuenth yeare wherein Esdras was sent to Ierusalem by the Kinges authoritie with great priuiledges graunted Touching their opinion which bring the time of their yeares from Cyrus to Christ it is with good reason confuted by Iulius Affricanus in the fift booke of his Chronicles because that from Cyrus to Christ are many yeares aboue that time that the compasse of Daniels weeks can reach to which may be likewise obiected against Darius Histaspis his second yeare from which to Christs birth are aboue 500. yeares But all this reasoning of Africanus toucheth Beroaldus no whit at all bringing Cyrus downe from the 55. Olympiad to the 80. within the reach of these weeks and so Darius Hystaspis in proportion if euer there were anie such Darius among the Persian kings For Beroaldus reckoning them al by their names hath no one of this name amongst thē to bee found but other in his stead I know not who such as were neuer heard of before If these fancies had beene broched before the dayes of Africanus his answere I beleeue would haue beene as is vsed amongst the learned contra negantes principia against such as denie principles and grounds not with words but eyther with silence or hissing as Aristo Pyrrho were serued for making no difference betwixt riches and pouertie Either of these answeres is good enough for him who going against the streame of al antiquity learning neither acknowledgeth any Cyrus before the 80. Olympiad nor any king of Persia by the name of Xerxes in proper person as king to haue inuaded Greece so for mee it shall rest The true time of Cyrus his age and the Persian Monarchie which the Reader may safely leane to is alreadie declared The last opinion is of such as referre the beginning of the 490. yeres of Daniels Prophesie to Artaxerxes the longhanded some reckning them from his seaūenth yeare to the death and passion of Christ Iesus as Functius and some other The seuenth of that Artaxerxes was the second yeare of the 80. Olympiad and our Sauiour suffered in the last of the 202. The distance betweene is 490. yeares so that in regard of the time and space of yeares this opinion would in some sort agree if other things were answerable but this is certaine that Esdras was in that seauenth yeare of Artaxerxes sent to Ierusalem by the kings authoritie with letters and many priueledges graunted vnto him and great summes of monie for offerings and vses of the Temple yet no decree made for the building of the Citie eyther Temple which had bin finished before or walles which were made vp after by Nehemias by speciall commandement Moreouer if the decree to build the Citie had beene then published in the seauenth yeare of Artaxerxes we must from thence to Messias onelie account seauen yeares and sixtie two as the Angell in plaine wordes declareth which expire seauen yeeres before the death of Christ Lastlie this opinion disagreeth from the Historie of Ezra where we read of an other Artaxerxes before this vnder whom Ezra came to Ierusalem which had forbidden the Iewes to proceed in the building of God his Temple therefore this could not bee the long handed Artaxerxes before whome there was no king of Persia called by that name Which reason likewise serueth to improue the next opinion here following for manie goe somewhat lower to the 20. yere of the same Artaxerxes wherin a newe decree went out for the building of the walles of Ierusalem as we reade in the second chapter of Nehemias This twentieth yeare of Artaxerxes was for the most part of it answerable to the 4. of the 83. Olympiad and the commandement giuen in the first moneth in the beginning of the spring as wee reade in the second of Nehemias From which time to the death and passion of our Sauiour in the spring time of the last yeare of the 202. Olympiad were 477. yeares full and no more So there wants of Daniels number thirteene yeares To supply this want two waies haue bin deuised One by Iulius Africanus Beda Rupertus Comestor Pererius and other who thought the yeares of the Moone to bee vnderstood in this place Which opinion as of all other most fitlie agreeing to the true interpretation of this place Pererius on the 9. of Daniel embraceth and bringeth reason for it because it is sayd in the Latin translation 70. Hebdomadae abbreuiatae sunt that is 70. weekes are shortened
Quo significatur annos earū hebdomadarū non esse ad longitudinem annorum solarium exigendos sed ad breuitatem lunarium coarctandos Whereby is signified that the yeares of those weekes are not to be driuen out to the length of the Sunne yeares but to bee drawne into the shortnes of the Moone yeares sayth Pererius I would it were the worst that might be said of this reason to call it absurd friuolous foolish It is all that and more euen derogatorie from God and his word which by this meanes is defaced and thrust out of doores and caused to giue place to the follie and error of a sillie man For the ground of it is a decree from the Councell of Trent establishing the authoritie of the olde Latin vulgar translation as the very authenticall word of God not to bee reiected or refused of any vpon any pretence whatsoeuer Hereof the Papists in their expositions alleadge that translation preferring it before the originall text it selfe receiued from heauen And hereof it is that Pererius in his exposition on this place standeth so much vpon the word abbreuiatae shortened vrging it greatly for proof of his short Moone yeares It is a proofe indeede from the bad interpretation of a man not warrantable from the mouth of GOD whose word in this place is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the holie tongue signifieth properly to cut In that sence it is often vsed by the Hebrew writers thereof calling a peece of a thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Camius in the second part of his Miclol and Elias in his Tishbi testifie where he declareth the true signification thereof by the Dutch and Italian tongues Wherein the words to those Hebrew answerable are in Dutch ein schint or ein stuck in Italian Pez or talio signifying any piece of a thing cut off It is so also expounded by the Greeke interpreter who here to expresse the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to cut The meaning is that so many yeares were determined and decreed by a speech borrowed from things cut out because that in determining and decreeing things the reason of mans minde sundring trueth from falshood good from bad doth by iudgement as it were cut out that which is conuenient and fit to bee done Whereunto a like example in the same word is read in the Chaldie paraphrasis of Ester the 4. chapter 5. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in English is thus much And Ester called for Daniel whose name was Hathac by the word of whose mouth the matters pertayning to the kingdome were cut out that is determined and appoynted And in other wordes of the same signification wee haue like examples In the second chapter of Ester the first verse King Assuerus remembred Vashti 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that which was cut out vpon her that is decreed and by iudgemēt determined to come vpon her Also in the first booke of the Kings the 20. chapter and 40. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So is thy iudgement thy selfe hath cut it out that is thou hast by thy owne sentence determined it A phrase in Latin Authors vsuall enough as when Cicero in his 4. plea against Verres sayth Res ad eum defertur istiúsque mere deciditur The matter is referred to him and cut off after his manner that is determined Theodoretus in his exposition of this place taketh the Greeke word in the same sence they are cut that is appoynted and decreed Hereby it is cleere that Pererius his reason being taken from mans interpretation and not Gods worde can bee no good ground for the Moone yeares to stand vpon Let the Pope and twise so many Bishops more in their Councell set it vp as sure as they can God his word is more powerfull then they to pull it downe Furthermore though this were graunted vnto him that the Latin edition by the Councels decree hath diuine authoritie and therefore force sufficient to proue the yeres of the moone to be vnderstood in this place by the word abbreuiatae shortened yet for all that such was the mans blindnes euen those his short yeares are yet too short to fill vp the want before spoken of and to reach to the passion of Christ For 490. yeares of the Moone make but 475. of the Sunne which expire two full yeares at the least before Christ dyed I am not ignorant that Pererius would help out this matter by a distinction of inclusiuè and exclusiuè computation Jnclusiuè hee termeth when the first and last are included in the number Exclusiuè when they are left out and thinketh that the whole number in all should bee 490. Moone yeares or 477. of the Sunne with the first and last included and without them two onely 488. of the Moone and 475. of the Sunne betweene to be reckoned This is a ridiculous shift For the Prophet doth not namely speake of 490. yeares or 477. that is gathered by interpreters and not without some controuersie among them but of 70. weekes So that if the extreames first and last were to bee excluded they should bee weekes rather then yeares Indeede if the Prophet had sayd that there were 490. or 477. yeares from the yeare of the commandement to the yeare of Christs death it might peraduenture haue made some cause of wrāgling about this whether the first and last yeares should be excluded or no. But heere is no such matter The extreames here expressed are the commaundement to build Ierusalem for one and the other as it is vnderstood the death of Christ Now then if the Prophet say that from one of these extreames to the other are 490. or 477. yeares exclusiuely two dayes onely must bee excluded rather then two yeares For the commandement was giuen in a daye and the death of Christ happened in a daye It were strange to make each of them of one whole yeares continuance and farre from that exact reckoning which Daniel maketh of his 70. weekes first seuen then sixtie and two and last of all one Therfore Julius Africanus who as the chiefe author of these Moone yeares is alleadged by Pererius neuer once dreamed of any such exclusiue computation I must acknowledge that he taketh indeede this place to bee vnderstood of 490. Moone yeares which kinde of yeares the Hebrewes vsed as he saith But he could not stretch them any further then to the 16. yeare of Tiberius the Emperour of Rome which is short by two whole yeares of the time set by Pererius for the passion of our Lord in the 18. yeare of Tiberius And as they are short of his passion so they goe further then his baptisme For which cause that opinion of Africanus can no waye stande making an ende of Daniels weekes neither in the birth nor the baptisme nor the death of Iesus Christ Neither can that conceit of Africanus touching the Moone yeares hereto be vnderstood by
Moone yeres to cut short the time of Daniels prophesie by 13. yeares that is two whole weekes of the 70. within a yeare Seeing that they can neither serue to fill vp the distance from Artaxerxes his 20. yeare to the suffering of Christ for which they are brought nor yet the custome of the Hebrewes reckoning in holie Scripture will beare them The other shift is as bad and sillie as that if not more For some who could not abide that forced wresting of Moone yeares where there is no likelihood of such to be ment went another way to worke making two beginnings and thence two twentieth yeres of Artaxerxes his raigne One beginning was immediatly after the death of his father Xerxes in the 4. yeare of the 78. Olympiad The other nine yeares before in the 4. of the 76. Olympiad wherein he was appoynted king by his father yet liuing nine yeares before his death from which the 20. is the 3. of the 81. Olympiad for the beginning of Daniels weekes sayth Gerardus Mercator Wherein notwithstāding he was greatly deceiued by what error I know not For reckoning from the third of the 81. Olympiad to the last of the 202. wherein Christ dyed wee shall finde no more but 486. yeares at the most And therefore I see not by what reason he sayth that the 70. weekes contayning 490. yeares beginning at that twentieth of Artaxerxes expired in the death of Christ Temporarius therefore making two beginnings and two 20. yeares of Artaxerxes as he doth accounteth from the first twentieth 483. yeares to Christ his baptisme which was aboue three yeares before his passion and so endeth the death of Christ three yeares and more before the end of Daniels weekes But what reason had Mercator and Temporarius to thinke that Artaxerxes begun to raigne whilest his father was yet aliue so long before his death This is a matter worth the examination being the ground of a great errour The reason which they bring is in this manner Themistocles the Athenian in the second yere of the 77. Olympiad being expelled out of Athens by his vnthankfull countrie men and citizens notwithstanding the great and wonderfull deliuerance of all Greece from the power of Xerxes king of Persia by his wisedome and prowesse especially wrought fled to the same Xerxes as Ephorus Deino Cleitarchus Heraclides Diodorus Siculus and other storie writers declare Againe that Artaxerxes the sonne of Xerxes raigned in Persia at such time as Themistocles fled to the king thereof for succour it is testified by an ancient author of credit euen Thucidides himselfe in his first booke of the Pelopōnesian warre writing that Themistocles flying by sea to Ephesus after going higher into Asia with a certain Persian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is sent letters to king Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes who a little before begun to raigne If Themistocles flying came to Xerxes king of Persia and sent letters to Artaxerxes his sonne then raigning also in Persia it must needes be that Artaxerxes had been made king a good while before his fathers death for that happened about sixe or seuen yeares after the banishment of Themistocles This is the force of their argument I haue heard it reported of one Doctor Medcalfe who sometime was master of Saint Iohns Colledge in Cambridge a man of no great learning himselfe but for care and earnest endeuour euery way to aduance learning giuing place to none Whereby it maye bee thought that that famous Colledge hath by his meanes the better prospered and flourished euer since with so great a companie of excellent Diuines and skilfull men in other knowledge I haue I say heard it reported of him that hauing on a certain day at supper with him some of the chiefe Seniors of the Colledge hee sent for two Sophisters to dispute before them The one tooke vpon him to proue that his fellowes blacke gowne was greene requiring this only first to be granted vnto him that if there were any greene gowne in that chamber it was on his backe Which was not thought vnreasonable because it was euident that there was none else had any This then being once granted he framed the rest of his proofe in this maner That saith he poynting to a greene carpet on the table there is a greene in this chamber all our eyes witnesse and that there is gowne in it your owne vpper garment on your backes proueth whereof it followeth that here amōgst vs in this chamber there is a greene gowne Doctor Medcalfe hearing this was greatly delighted and affirmed in good sadnesse that it was a good reason withall asked the iudgement of the Seniors there present who smiling commended the schollers wit Such a sophistication is here brought by ioyning things together which ought to bee sundred For neither they which tell of Themistocles flying to Xerxes once euer dreamed of Artaxerxes raigning at the same time nor Thucidides speaking of his cōming to Artaxerxes had this in his mind to think that Xerxes should bee then aliue which I will prooue by good witnesse For Plutarch in the life of Themistocles writeth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thucidides saith Plutarch and Charon Lampsacenus tell that after Xerxes was dead Themistocles came to his sonne Aemilius Probus confirmeth it in these wordes Scio plaerósque ita scripsisse Themistoclem Xerxe regnante in Asiam transiisse sed ego potissimū Thucididi credo quòd aetate proximus crat I know saith Probus that many writers report Themistocles to haue passed into Asia whilest Xerxes was yet aliue but I rather beleeue Thucidides who was neere those times Lastly Lawrence Codoman in the second booke of his Chronologie is as plaine for it as may be That sayth he which Thucidides testifieth in his first booke that Themistocles fled to Artaxerxes of late hauing begun to raigne must bee vnderstoode of the Monarchie of Artaxerxes begun after his fathers death There was some difference betweene them I grant in regard of the persons to whom and the time when Themistocles came some thinking it to bee done when Xerxes was king before the raigne of his sonne Other when Artaxerxes raigned after the death of his father But all agreed in this that at such time as Themistocles fled out of Greece there was not two but only one king of Persia which is most certainly true Let the record of all histories bee sought for the whole time of the Persian Monarchie from the beginning to the ende it shall neuer bee found that the father and his sonne raigned together Herodotus indeed in Polymnia not far from the beginning telleth of a custome and lawe of the Persians that their king going to warre first appoynted an heire who was to succeede him in the Empire And that Xerxes was so appoynted by his father Darius hauing prepared all things readie for his voyage agaynst Aegypt to be next king after him Yet he neuer raigned till his father was dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when
word is more agreeable to both It is vsed somtimes of our Sauiour Christ and sometimes more generally takē as before is shewed for any annoynted Priest Prophet Prince or chiefe Gouernour of the common wealth and this is the signification which in my iudgement best fitteth this place And of Christian interpreters Eusebius is the man which hath either taught me it or guided me to it or confirmed mee in it who in his eight booke de demonstratione Euangelica hauing brought the expositiō of Africanus vnderstanding here Christ Iesus by the name of Messias or Christ addeth these wordes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is I say that the Gouernour Christ here spoken of in this text of scripture by an other signification or acception is no other but a succession of high Priests which after this prophesie and the Iewes returne from Babilon gouerned the people which the scripture vsuallie calleth Christs or annoynteds In this number hee reckoneth Iudas Machabaeus and his brethren and their posteritie who exercised a kingly gouernment ouer the Iewes and a little after expounding these words in the 26. verse Christ shall be cut off who saith he is this Christ but the gouernour which by succession of the Priests kindred ruled the people This Christ therfore endured all the time wherin these weekes were to bee fulfilled but so soone as they once were ended according to this prophesie the chiefe ruler of the people of that succeeding kindred was cut off saith Eusebius This is a notable saying of Eusebius to declare the true meaning of the worde Messias which may direct vs to vnderstand this most excellent prophesie aright Theodoretus herein agreeth vnto him I take it somewhat more largely then Eusebius and Theodoretus doeth not of the Machabies onely but of other chiefe rulers and kings of the Iewes common wealth within the compasse of these weekes as the Hebrew scholiasts Saadias Aben Ezra Iarchi and some other expounde it Not one Hebrew writer that euer I read vndestood their Messias by this worde but a succession of annoynted eyther Priestes or Gouernours The decree to build Ierusalē I take to be that which was made by Darius for the building of the temple which was the chiefest parte of the citie In the second yeare of that Darius and the 6. month the first day toward the end of our August they were commaunded in the Lordes name by his prophet Aggie to build the holy temple of Ierusalem as wee read in the first chapter and first verse of the prophet After they had begun to build the gouernours of the countries beyond Euphrates came vnto them to know by whose authoritie they tooke that worke vpon them Ezra chap. 5. and 6. who answered that Cyrus had giuen them leaue to doe it long before in the first yeare of his raigne Of this answere they certified king Darius By whose commaundement search was made first in the recordes at Babylon after at Ecbataua the chiefe citie of Medes where a record touching that matter was found Herevpon Darius made a new decree for building thereof and sent it to the gouernours of his countries beyond Euphrates charging them to permitte and helpe forward the building thereof All these thinges were not done in a little time from the prophets sending by God about that matter to the time wherein Darius sent his decree It asked some time to beginne the worke after the prophets warning And then for the gouernours in other prouinces to be certified And after themselues to come and examine the matter At what time it is sayd that they found the worke in good forwardnesse the beames being layde in the walles Ezra the 5 chapter 8. verse and after to certifie Darius and then to search the recordes and that in those farre places of Babylon and Ecbataua And lastly to send forth the new decree So farre as we may gesse this time might be about some 8. or 9. monthes and bring vs to the month of Aprill or Maie in the 3. yeare of Darius And who was this Darius In my iudgement no other but the surnamed Nothus who was sonne to Artaxerxes Longimanus This Artaxerxes as Thucidides then liuing testifieth died in the 7. yeare of the Peloponnesian warre in winter which was the 4. of the 88. Olympiad After him Xerxes and Sogdianus raigned 1. yeare And after them this Darius whose 3. yeare at that season wherein the decree to build the temple went out falleth toward the end of the 3. yeare of the 89. Olymp. For the publishing of that decree to Messias that is the first gouernour of the new builded citie are accompted here by Daniel 7. weekes contayning 49. yeares VVhereof 17. pertained to Darius after the decree for he raigned 19. in all The other 32. were of Artaxerxes Mnemon his successor In whose 20. yeare Nehemias was sent to build the walles of Ierusalem and 12. yeares after the building of the walles being finished and the Messias or gouernour appointed and the common wealth euery way set in order hee returned to Artaxerxes in the 32. yeare of his raigne The proofe hereof is cleere by scripture In the 5. chapter of Nehemias the 14. verse From the time sayth Nehemias that the king commaunded me to be gouernour in the land of Iudea from the 20. to the 32. yeare of king Artaxerxes that is 12. yeares I and my brethren haue not eaten the bread of the gouernour For the gouernours before mee had beene chargeable to the people and so forth Also in the 13. chapter of the same booke the sixt verse All this while saith he was not I at Ierusalem for in the 32. yeare of Artaxerxes king of Babell I returned to the king Ioseph Scaliger in his sixt booke de emendatione temporum giueth his voice with this exposition affirming that Darius Nothus was the king vnder whome the decree was made to build the Citie and that from it to the streetes and walles of Ierusalem finished were nine fortie yeares After which time Nehemias directis platais vrbis vicis exaedificatis atque omnibus rebus compositis reuersus est in Persidem anno Artaxerxis altero tricesimo Nehemias saith Scaliger so soone as the streets of the citie were directed and the lanes builded all thinges set in order returned into Persia in the two and thirtieth yeare of Artaxerxes It is here to be obserued that the Prophet speaketh of the Messias and the building vp of the Citie as beginning both at one time For hauing foretold that there should bee to Messias seauen weekes it followeth immediatly after how long the Citie was to continue The reason whereof is this that there could not be conueniently any Princely gouernment of the common wealth before the building of the Citie wherein the Princes Court and Pallace should be which Pallace for the Prince was builded by Nehemias also as appeareth in the second of Nehemias verse eight Hereof it is that Sanballat in a letter
to Nehemias ioyneth these two together the building of the walles and a king set ouer the Iewes It is reported saith Sanballat among the heathen that thou the Iewes thinke to rebell for which cause thou buildest the wall that thou mayest bee their king according to their wordes Thou hast also ordained Prophets to preach of thee in Ierusalem saying there is a king in Iuda These two thinges then begun together the Citie builded and the annoynted Gouernour thereof as also the end of both was at one time declared in the 26. verse After those 62. weekes shall Messias be cut off and the Citie and Temple shall the people of the come Gouernour destroy Thus whereas Daniel hath deuided his 70. weekes into three parts The first of them hath his true meaning by text and time approued from the decree to build Ierusalem to the same building finished and the established gouernment in it beeing the space of 49. yeares The second part containeth 62. weekes wherein Ierusalem so builded with the common wealth and state and princely gouernment thereof was to continue that is to say from the building of the Citie finished and the Prince or ruler appointed in the 32. of Artaxerxes Mnemon vnto such time as the ruine and fall of the same Citie began which was about the nine yeare of Nero For about that time Albinus the Roman Gouernour of Iudea Ierusalem by his great couetousnes and crueltie in most wofull manner oppressed the Iewes for bribes euen selling them to be spoyled and robbed of their goods at the will and pleasure of most lewd ruffins and bad persons As Josephus declareth in his second booke of the Iewes warre the thirteenth Chapter inferring thereof that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the seedes of Ierusalems captiuitie approching was from that time sowne meaning that those troubles vnder Albinus were the beginnings of the Iewes thraldome and vndoing as indeede they were which in the twentieth booke of antiquities the eight chapter hee declareth more plainely where hauing spoken of the great miserie of the Iewes which they suffered by the mercilesse crueltie of Albinus hee vseth these wordes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From that time forward saith Iosphus especially our Citie began to be sicke and all things going then more and more to decay The wofull calamities of Ierusalem euery day falling more and more to wracke after the gouernment of Albinus by a borrowed speech hee termeth sicknes In the beginning of that yeare at the feast of the Tabernacle it was that a certaine man of the common sort brought vp in the countrie called Iesus the sonne of Anani as a messenger by diuine motion from God to foreshew the vtter ruine and desolation of Ierusalem to come in that last weeke of the 70. which was yet behinde in the streetes of the Citie cryed day and night a voice from the East a voice from the West a voice from the foure windes a voice against Ierusalem and the Temple a voice against Bridegroomes and Brides a voice against all the people The Magistrates and Nobles of the Citie not abiding his outcries brought him before Albinus who caused him with scourges to bee torne to the bones when the sillie wretch neyther wept nor craued anie mercie but at euery stroke answered woe woe to Ierusalem In this manner crying hee continued seuen yeres more without anie hoarsnes or wearines neyther cursing them that hurt him nor thanking them that releeued him At the length going on the walles with this crie woe woe to the Citie and the Temple the people hee added these wordes woe also to my selfe and was presently slaine with a stone hurled by an Engine at him from the enemie beseeging the Citie Thus the second part of this Prophesie foreshewing how long the Iewes common wealth after the ordering thereof should continue before it began to decay contained 62. weekes that is 434. yeares for the 32. of Artaxerxes Mnemon was the fourth yeare of the 101. Olympiad towards the end wherof the building of Ierusalem was finished and the Iewes common wealth appointed and the first yere of the last weeke was the second yeare of the 210. Olympiad beginning toward the end of it in the spring time of the yeare The space included containeth the full number before declared The third last part is one weeke euen the last of all the 70. wherein after the former 62. weekes expired Messias that is the last Ruler was cut off and the gouernement of the Citie quite extinct for when their last king Agrippa in the twelfth yeare of Nero foure yeares before the destruction of the Citie went about to perswade the people to obey Florus the Roman deputie by whose tyrannie they had beene incomparably more vexed and oppressed then in the time of Albinus his predecessor The people were so stirred against him that they could not containe themselues any longer but threw stones at him and droue him out of the Citie as Iosephus declareth in the sixteene chapter of the second booke of the Iewes war If any here obiect that Caius Caesar the Emperour of Rome after the death of this Agrippas father made Iudea a prouince to bee gouerned by a Roman Deputie and bestowed on this Agrippa the kingdome of Chalcis which pertained to his vncle Herod I answer that this Herod had his kingly Pallace in Ierusalem and obtained of C. Caesar for himselfe his successors not onely the rule and power ouer the Temple and whole treasurie but also authority of chusing the high Priests and deposing them at his pleasure and the calling of the iudges together and other matters pertaining to the seruice of the Leuites and Priestes in Gods Temple All which his Soueraignty dyed in this last weeke about foure yeres before the destruction of the Citie yea before in the time of Albinus in the beginning of this last weeke anarchie and vnrulie disorder begun to rise and good gouernment to fall which Iosephus immediatly before the worde concerning the seedes of Ierusalems thraldome sowen in the second booke of the Iewes war the thirteenth chapter before by me cited seemeth in this short speech to signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tyrranie or vsurped gouernment was exercised by manie This beginning of misrule by little and little grew to further increase till at the length the king was driuen out and not long after al other magistracy of Ierusalem was likewise abolished all good gouernment ceased as Iosephus in plaine words declareth in the fourth booke and fift chapter of the Iewes warre that the citie was without a ruler to guide it And in the second chapter of the fift booke that all law of man was troden vnder foot and the law of God made a scorne and the lawes of nature it selfe disturbed All things were ordered by the will of lawlesse ruffians their pleasure stood for law A most pitifull disorder and tumultuous anarchie raigned amongst them by the wilfull malice of gracelesse rebels appoynting
then he yet so as he hath likewise done that for other which Scaliger did for him that is left somewhat behind to bee vnderstood of other which himselfe neuer attained Especially in the 26. verse where it is said that after those 62. weekes Messias shall be cut off Where Master Iunius vseth some wresting by turning the future tence into the preterperfect and leauing out some coniunctions and changing other thereby making the accusatiue case of the nominatiue reiecting the ancient interpretations Greeke and Latin without any cause These inconueniences they are of force driuen vnto who by the word Messias doe not with Eusebius and the Hebrew expositors vnderstand the anointed gouernours Some may here say vnto mee Is it not plaine by the 24. verse that Daniel in this prophesie speaketh of Iesus Christ the redeemer of the worlde of whose death so many singular and notable effects are declared therein of abolishing sinne of reconciling sinners vnto the fauour of God and bringing euerlasting righteousnesse and fulfilling whatsoeuer had been foretold by the former Prophets of him I answere to this that of all other places in the old Testament touching the comming of Christ whereof there is great store that verse of Daniel is most excellent and cleere yet withall I deny that by the name of Messias in the verses following Christ our Sauiour is vnderstood For neither the true account of yeares will suffer it nor the text of holie Scripture beare it But how then is it here sayd that 70. weekes were decreed for abolishing sinne and making attonement if Christ came not in the ende of those 70. weekes The meaning is that within the space of those 70. weekes Christ by his passion should worke that redemption and saluation from sinne and wrath to the world As Tertullian speaketh in his booke against the Iewes where writing of the passion of our Sauiour Iesus Christ he saith that it was perfected in the time of Tiberius Caesar Intra tempora septuaginta hebdomadarum within the times of the seuentie weekes I am not ignorant that by the Hebrew writers it is a thing acknowledged and granted that Christ came in the verie ende of those weekes For they held that their Messias should begin to raigne at the destruction of Ierusalem And therefore Rabbi Leui ben Gershom expounding those wordes of this text to bring euerlasting righteousnesse and to seale vp vision and prophet referreth the fulfilling thereof to the kingdome of Christ which hee calleth the fift kingdome because it was to succeede the other foure spoken of before in the second and seuenth chapters of this prophesie It was an olde tradition amongst the Hebrews of auncient time receiued from the schoole of Elias declared in their Talmud in the treatise Sanhedrim the eleuenth chapter and diuers other places that the world should endure sixe thousand yeres whereof two thousand should bee voyd without the lawe two thousand vnder the law and two thousand the time of Christ Whereby the iudgement appeareth concerning the comming of Christ that it should be at the desolation of the holie citie immediatly after the ceasing of the law For the law then ceased and all the ceremonies thereof ended when Ierusalem the seat of God his worship according to that lawe was destroyed by Titus and neither place nor people there left anie longer for the law-seruice of God Diuers such testimonies of the auncient Hebrewes are recorded by Philip of Morney Lord of Plessie in his book of the truth of Christian Religion the 29. and 30. chapters wherby he gathereth that it was a common opinion among them that the Messias should come about the destruction of the Temple R. Hama the sonne of Hauina in the same chapter of the Talmudicall treatise before alleadged sayd that the sonne of David should not come so long as any soueraigne authoritie were it neuer so small remained in Israel Also R. Mili alleadging Rabbi Eliezer the sonne of Simeon sayd that Christ should not come vntill there were a cleane riddance of all Iudges Magistrates in Israel And R. Moses Haddarsan vpon the 49. of Genesis gaue this iudgement of the Iewes Senate consisting of seuentie Elders or Iudges called Sanhedrim that they were not to cease before the comming of the Messias Let vs then examine when the authoritie of those Iudges and all gouernment ceased in Ierusalem that thereby wee may know the time of Christ his comming by the Hebrew writers opinion That honorable Lord of Plessie in his booke before mentioned hauing cited the testimonie of Philo in his booke of Times to proue that Herod slew al the Sanhedrim about the 30. yeare of his raigne affirmeth that to be the time wherein the soueraigntie and iurisdiction of Iuda did cease not for a few dayes or yeares but for a continual time How this may stand for trueth I cannot perceiue For to say nothing of that fained Philo an author forged in the shop of Annius his toying braine it is well knowne that the common-wealth of Ierusalem and Iewrie flourished with princely rule and other gouernment of Magistrates yea of the very Sanhedrim themselues aboue three score and ten yeares after that time euen to Ierusalems desolation Christ in the 30. yeare of Herod was yet vnborne who about the 33. yeare of his age in the sixteenth of Matthew foretold to his Disciples what he was to suffer of the Elders and chiefe Priests and Scribes All these were gouernours and rulers of the citie and by the name of Elders the best interpreters haue especially vnderstood those Sanhedrim hauing great reason for it For these Sanhedrim were nothing els but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 70. Elders of the great Consistorie or iudgemeat place in Ierusalem As by Elias Leuita they are described in his Tishbi The old Rabbins in their Talmud haue borowed from the Greeke tongue many words whereof this worde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanhedrim is one signifying a sitting of Iudges or Senatours together in councell or iudgement So it is taken in the 107. Psalme the 32. verse by the Chaldie interpreter where for these Hebrew wordes there vsed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let thē praise him in the sitting that is the assemblie of the Elders The Targum hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Let them praise him in the sitting together of the wise expressing the word of sitting by Sanhedrim as Synedrion in Greeke is taken Christ therefore in the fift of Matthew saying Whosoeuer calleth his brother Raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be bound ouer to a sessions or sitting meaneth the sitting in iudgement of the Sanhedrim applying his speech to the manner of the ciuill iudgements in Ierusalem Iosephus in his 20. booke of Antiquities the eight chapter telleth that when Festus the Romane gouernour was dead Ananus the high priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made the assemblie of the Iudges to sit by whom Iames the brother of Christ was adiudged to be stoned This happened
vnder the gouernour Albinus not long before the destruction of the citie Whereby may bee gathered that magistracie iudgement and gouernment yea the authoritie of the 70. Iudges called Sanhedrim continued long after Herods 30. yere and was not cut off till the desolation of Ierusalem brought it to an end For when the warres begun to worke the desolation thereof then king Agrippa by seditious rakehels was driuen out of it then were the Sanhedrim deposed at the rebels will and other base men set vp in their stead as Josephus telleth in the fift book of the Iewes warre the first chapter Then was the Priesthood and all good order made a mockerie The rebellious cutters did what they list no lawes to restraine them no magistracie to punish them no authoritie to bridle them They ruled al at their own pleasures themselues as they would good gouernment was turned into anarchie and disorder and Ierusalem became as Iosephus termeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a citie without a guide And this it is that Daniel sayth touching Messias to bee cut off in the last weeke of the seuentie meaning the rule and authoritie of the annointed gouernour as before I haue expounded the place Thus by the iudgement of the Hebrew writers in their auncient monuments the comming of Christ falleth to the fall of the Iewes common-wealth in the ouerthrow of Ierusalem when gouernment and authoritie ceased therein which long before had been foretold by the Patriarch Iacob in the 49. of Genesis in that old prophesie of his concerning the comming of Christ The scepter shall not depart from Iuda nor a law giuer from betweene his feete till Shiloh come and him shall the people gather themselues vnto For together with this diuine oracle of Daniel that other most ancient and excellent prophesie of Iacob hitherto not perfectly and cleerely according to the true meaning therof declared of any that I know of may receiue light Many haue sought the fulfilling of that prophesie in the first comming of Christ at his birth but without straying it could neuer yet be there found For the meaning of it was that in the tribe of Iuda should bee royall supremacie and gouernmēt of Magistrates for the good of the Iewes vpholding of their Common-wealth till the comming of Christ whose new spirituall raigne by the preaching of the Gospell should abolish their old earthly kingdome and outward policie So was the place vnderstood by the Hebrew Doctors aforenamed R. Hama R. Mili R. Eliezer The Chaldie paraphrasts both of them most excellently expound the place which themselues vnderstood not being like therein vnto Virgils Bees which make honey for other and not themselues First Onchelos interpreteth it in this manner A Magistrate exercising authoritie of the house of Iuda shall not depart nor a Scribe of his posteritie for euer till Christ come to whom the kingdome pertaineth and him shall the people obey The other called the interpreter of Ierusalem thus Kings of the house of Iuda shall not faile neither skilful law-teachers of his posteritie vnto the time wherein the king Christ shall come vnto whom the kingdome pertaineth and all the kingdomes of the earth shall be subdued vnto him If Christ came when authoritie was gone and authoritie went away at Ierusalems fall needes must one comming of Christ bee referred to the ouerthrow of that citie R. Moses of Tyroll Bioces looked for the comming of Christ towards the end of the second Temple being led thereunto partly by their owne reckoning vpon Daniel and partly by a text in the last chapter of the prophet Esay the seuenth verse where it is sayd Before her throwes came vpon her she was deliuered of a manchilde Some of the Rabbines sayd Messias was borne the very same day that the second temple was destroyed in supposing that scripture of Esay to be therein fulfilled In their book called Bereshith Rabba is read this parable As a certaine Iew was at plow an Arabian passing by hearing one of his oxen low bad him vnyoke because the destruction of the Temple was at hand And by and by hearing also the other low bad him vnyoke out of hād because the Messias was alreadie come R. Abon in another place telling the same What neede we saith he to learne it of the Arabians seeing the text it selfe declareth it Iosephus in the seuenth booke of the Iewes warre the twelfth chapter writeth that in the holie Scripture was found an olde prophesie that at the time of the ouerthrow of Ierusalem a king should come out of Iewrie who should raigne ouer all the world which he by flattering falshood interpreted of Vespasian This prophesie in those daies was bruted abroad in many mens mouthes euery where yea some write that it was engrauen in an open place of the castle at Ierusalem which as Iosephus writeth made the Iewes at that time so readie to rebell And this was the cause that so many fained themselues to be the Messias about that time of the destruction of the Temple Vnder Cuspius Fadus one Theudas a iugler made the people beleeue that he was a prophet would deuide the waters of Iordan that they should goe ouer drie as they had done long before miraculously in the time of Ioshua by the power of God And when Felix was the Romane gouernour of Iudea one comming out of Egypt fayning himselfe to bee a prophet perswaded the people if they would follow him to mount Oliuet they should see the walles of Ierusalem fall downe And afterward one Barcozba so called of his lying tooke vpon him to bee the Messias and seduced many but in the end performing not the deliuerance looked for at his hands he was knocked on the head for his lying and slaine All these tooke aduantage of the time being answerable to their intent and of the peoples disposition then looking for their promised Christ Moreouer there was yet another prophesie bruted amongst them that Doctor Hillels schollers should neuer faile till Christ were come The youngest of them was R. Iochaman the sonne of Zacheus who liued to see the destruction of the Temple and also the miracle of a great gate thereof a little before opening of it selfe which Iosephus speaketh of in his seuenth booke and twelfth chapter of the Iewes warre Whereat this R. Iochaman being amazed remembred this saying of the Prophet Zacharie in the beginning of his 11. chapter Open thy gates O Libanus and let fire consume thy cedars applying the place to the comming of Christ Furthermore they had amongst them these olde traditions touching the tokens of Christes comming When Christ the sonne of Dauid cōmeth sayth R. Iudas there shall be few wise men in Israell and the wisdome of the scribes shall stinke and the schooles of diuinitie shall become brothelhouses R. Nehorai sayd that good men in Israell should bee abhorred and mens countenaunces past shame at Christes comming And R. Nehemias sayd that wickkednesse should bee multiplied without measure
and nothing but vnto wardnesse and Epicurisme amongst them VVhat is this els but that ouerspreading of abominations which Daniell foretelleth should be in those times of the desolation of Ierusalem which is declared as large by Iosephus pointing out the abominable doings of the Iewes at that time committed against nature and all law of God and man The religious and holy places sayth Iosephus were defiled by the vncleane feete of wicked men The temple of God was held and kept as a tower of defence against the people by the seditious rebels the holy ground was sprinkled with the blood of wounded men contrarie to Gods lawe entering thereunto strangers and towne-borne prophane and holy were mingled together and the blood of diuers men being slayne made a poole in the courtes of the Lords house They abused the diuine vessels annointed themselues with the holy oyle drunke of the consecrate wine In euerie place of the citie was spoyling and robberie Burning with lust they forced women in most filthy and abominable manner for their pleasure liuing in Ierusalem as a stewes or brothelhouse At this their extreame wickednesse God was offended and abhorred his citie and detested his temple All this Josephus testifieth in diuers places And in the 2. chapter of his 5. booke of the Iewes warre All law of God and man sayth he was troden vnder foote and derided The holy oracles of the prophets were counted no better then common fables and tales And contemning of the decrees their forfathers touching vice and vertue by the euent they verified those thinges which long before had beene foretold of their countrie For an ould prophecie as Iosephus witnesseth went abrode that then the citie should bee taken and the temple burnt when sedition should arise amongst them and their own handes first defile God his sanctuarie Thus doe Iosephus Daniel refer the raigning and ouerflowing abhominations of the Iewes to the destruction of Ierusalem which the Hebrew Rabbines applied to the comming of Christ So that is prooued true which the Lorde of Plessie in his booke aforenamed affirmeth that it was a common opinion among the Iewes for their Messias to come about the destruction of the Temple which for any thing that I can see to the contrarie may in some sort not without reason bee yeelded vnto For two commings of Christ are declared in holy scripture The first in humilitie spoken of by Zacharie in his ninth Chapter Reioyce greatly Oh daughter of Sion bee glad O daughter of Ierusalem for loe thy king commeth vnto thee euen the righteous and Sauiour lowlie and simple ryding vpon an Asse and a coult the fole of an Asse The other in glorie wherein Christ came in his kingdome whereof we read in the sixteene chapter of Mathew the last verse Verilie I say vnto you there be some of them that stand heere which shall not taste of death till they haue seene the sonne of man come in his kingdome and before in the tenth chapter of the some Euangelist You shall not finish all the Cities of Israel till the sonne of man be come And in the twentie one chapter of Iohn If I will that hee tarrie till I come what is that to thee whereof this word went abroad that this Disciple should not die All these speeches our Sauiour Christ vttered being once come alreadie after his first comming wherefore that an other second comming of his therein is to be vnderstood is so cleare manifest that it need not bee stood vpon which in my iudgement can not to anie time more fitly agree then that wherein the citie of Ierusalem with the holie Temple of God therein was destroyed according to the opinion of the Hebrewes before declared Then Christ our Lord first begun to appeare a reuenging iudge against the wicked and stubborne Iewes in punishing them for their malice against him at his death and cruell persecution of his Church afterward as Eusebius declareth in the third booke of his ecclesiasticall historie the fift chapter Master Iunius in his annotations on this ninth Chapter of Daniel expounding those wordes From the going forth of the commandement to restore and build Ierusalem vnto Christ shall be seuen weekes and threescore two weekes referreth them to the comming of Christ and that comming of Christ to the last of Daniels weekes wherein the desolation of Ierusalem began yeelding this reason because then Christ declared himselfe a Lord by a most seuere iudgement against Ierusalem and the Iewes and by the benefit of the Gospell a Prince and head of the Church which raigneth in the house of Dauid for euer Master Caluin in his harmonie acknowledgeth that by the iudgement of some expositors that place in the tenth of Mathew was referred to the desolation of the holie Citie made by the Romans In the 24. chapter of Mathew when Christ vpon the Disciples praysing of the glorious building of the Temple had spoken of the destruction thereof to come wherein one stone should not bee left vpon another They asked him when those thinges should bee and what signe should bee of his comming and of the end of the world ioyning these three things together the desolation of the Temple the comming of Christ and the end of the world as it were all pertayning to one time and therefore for that which is asked in Mathew touching the signe of Christs comming and the end of the worlde in the other two Euangelistes Marke and Luke this only is demanded what signe should be of the destruction of Gods holie Temple in Ierusalem wherby may bee gathered that the Apostles of Christ held the opinion of the olde Hebrewes concerning the comming of Christ at the desolation of the Temple and therein a change of the world for after that the state of the old Church should be once ouerthrowne the ancient Hebrewes looked for a new worlde as it were by the new raigne of their Messias which in their writings they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the world to come vnderstanding therby the time of Christs kingdome This appeareth in the Chaldie paraphrasis of Ionathas the sonne of Vzziell in the first of kinges the fourth chapter and 32. verse where he calleth the daies of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world to come of Messias for the Authors of the Iewes law called Talmud treating of sacrifices in the chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the bullocke of the sinne offering contained the whole time of this life from Adam the first man to the last that euer shall bee borne in two worldes which in Hebrew they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first from the beginning of thinges created to the comming of Christ The second from that time to the resurrection of the dead This tradition of the Hebrewes made an end of the old world in the cōming of Christ The Disciples then asking what should bee the signe of Christs comming and the end of the world may seeme to haue