of the life of Anthony by Plutarch, I cannot, therefore, say whether this corruption has been made by himself or his transcribers, or by his translators; but if it could be ascertained that in any of the ancient copies of Plutarch's life of Anthony, the age of Cleopatra is stated to be forty-nine instead of thirty-nine, and that she reigned 22 years, and after that time 14 years, in conjunction with Anthony, then it would be right to acquit Plutarch of the charge of corrupting dates, and it would then appear that the corruptions had been made after the time Plutarch wrote. Since writing the above, I have made an examination of the most ancient copies of Plutarch's Lives which I could find in the Manchester Library.Amongst these I discovered-in the notes given by Jac. Reiske, and taken notice of also by Henricus Stephanus that an ancient copy has been met with, which has « Συνάρξασα δε Αντωνίω πλείω των δεκατεσσάρων.” She reigned moreover with Antonius till the time of the fourteen. The translation of which, without any undue straining of the Greek text, reads thus: She reigned, moreover, with Anthony the time of fourteen years. Reiske also states that such a mode of rendering it is likewise to be found in some of the German copies. From the above discovery I relinquish the charge against Plutarch, of having corrupted the true time, and am now convinced that these corruptions must have been made between his day and that of Porphyry's time. Those books of Tacitus and Plutarch, which might have furnished us with dates respecting the life of Augustus, very likely have been destroyed. Such a fate, I have no doubt, has also happened to all those books during the first three centuries, which had the most remote tendency to favour the cause of Christianity, by dates or other circumstances. The persecution against its abettors during the greater part of that period was violent in the extreme, seeing the very marbles which ought to have given correct dates, have been found defaced, as is mentioned in the second volume of Clinton's Fasti Hellenici; and to add still more to the darkening of past events, the Christian Emperors in their turn and in their zeal, destroyed in like manner most of the books which contained anything opposed to the Christian religion, among which were those of Porphyry, so that fragments only of his writings have come down to us. pro It has pleased God, notwithstanding the fiery trial to which Christianity was subjected during the first centuries, to preserve a great part of the writings of the first teachers of Christianity, and as much of fane history as to prove the correctness of the prophetical numbers, and the dates given in the New Testament, and also to prove that time has been unduly lengthened in profane histories and chronologies by Pagan authors, and shortened by Jewish authors, and also changed in the reign of Augustus Cæsar; and when I take into consideration all connecting circumstances, I hesitate not to state that this fraud has been committed by some of the first enemies of Christianity, for the express purpose of giving the lie to the dates in the Bible concerning the time of Christ on earth. By reading carefully the life of Anthony by Plutarch any person may be convinced from incidents that are there mentioned, that about 27 years must have elapsed between the death of Julius Cæsar and the death of Anthony and Cleopatra, because Plutarch first mentions Anthony's debaucheries at Rome about the time of Pompey's death, his marriage with Fulvia, and the children he had by her; and her death happened before the second triumvirate ended, when she went to meet him on returning from some of his expeditions. Then is mentioned his marriage with Octavia, Augustus Cæsar's sister, by whom he had three children, and after this he had three children by Cleopatra ; and from the exhibition he made of the two male children he had by Cleopatra, before his defeat by Augustus, it is evident they were some years old. Plutarch describes a part of the exhibition thus: "At the same time the children made their appearance, Alexander in a Median dress, with the turban and tiara, and Ptolemy in the long robe and slippers, with a bonnet encircled by a diadem: the latter was dressed like the successors of Alexander, the former like the Median and Armenian Kings. When the children saluted their parents, the one was attended by Armenian, the other by Macedonian guards." From the dress and action of these children, I think I am warranted to infer that they must have been about nine years of age; and there is an ancient author who states that Cleopatra's son by Julius Cæsar was about twenty-nine or thirty years of age at her death, when he was destroyed by order of Augustus Cæsar, which also shows, that the time that elapsed from the death of Julius Cæsar to the death of Cleopatra and Anthony, was about 27 years. It is clear that all the ancient authors who gave dates, showing that 27 years was the true time from Julius Cæsar's death to the death of Cleopatra and Anthony have been corrupted, except where the dates have escaped the notice of the corrupters, or where the dates have been given in a strictly positive sense; then they have endeavoured to explain them by charging the author with error, as for example-Herod's age 15 when he was made governor of Galilee, has been explained into 25 years, and Josephus charged with error; and this has been done in order to make Herod's age comport with the corrupted time of 14 years, which all Christian Chronologists have been misled to give of this period, by their giving too implicit credit to the accounts stated by the enemies of Christianity, especially by Porphyry. I now subjoin the total number of years from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ, which has been treated of in the preceding pages agreeably to the Hebrew text. From the creation of Adam to the Deluge, 1656 yrs. mon's reign or building of the Temple,. 520,, From thence to the beginning of the cap tivity, about the tenth year of Jehoiakim 418,, ' of Christ, agreeably to the prophetical Deduct for incomplete periods...... 509 3970 1 3969 A few months may be wanting in some of the above periods of time, to complete the number 3970. To meet any such contingencies, I consider it right to subtract one year from 3970, making it 3969 years from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ. The following proofs I give that I have correctly calculated the term that elapsed from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ, to be a period of 3969 years. The first proof I give is in agreement with thy own method of calculation, excepting that I adopt the number three as well as that of the number seven, because I consider that the number three should have the pre-eminence over all other numbers in such a calculation, as follows-Seeing that God the everblessed Creator of all things has, in his transcendent love and humility to our race, been pleased to reveal himself to the world in the threefold relationship of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, with whom alone is all perfection, and, "When the fulness of time was come, sent forth his Son ;" and what meaning are we to draw from the expression fulness of time? Is it not generally understood as signifying that period of time that God fixed upon, in which Christ was to appear in the world; and also, do we not understand fulness as signifying that which possesseth length, breadth, and thickness. When the threefold relationship of the Divine Being is considered in regard to the salvation of man, what is it that is hereby implied but that God in Christ, with the accompanying influence of his Holy Spirit is reconciling the world to himself, and M |