1 Mac. vi. 16. The death of Antiochus Epiphanes is dated "in the 149th year" of the kingdom of the Greeks; but 2 Mac. xi. 22-33, a letter of Antiochus Eupator, his son, who succeeded him," after his father was translated to the gods," is dated a year earlier, " in the 148th year, and on the 15th day of the month Xanthicus."

Again: 1 Mac. vi. 20.—“ in the 150th year," Judas besieged the garrison in "the tower," or citadel, who fled for refuge to Eupator, when the latter invaded Judea, but afterwards made peace with the Jews; but 2 Mac. xiii. 1. refers these transactions to" the 149th year."

Lastly, 1 Mac. vii. 1. represents Demetrius Soter, the son of Seleucus Philopator, as departing from Rome, where he had been a hostage, invading and putting Antiochus Eupator and Lysias to death, "in the 151st year;" but 2 Mac. xiv. 1, 2. refers this transaction to the 150th year. Compare 2 Mac. xiii. 1. and 2 Mac. xiv. 4.

The author of the first book of the Maccabees dated the commencement of the year from the first month, Nisan, or Xanthicus, in Spring; the author of the second, who was a different person, and of inferior estimation, dated it half a year later, from the seventh month, Tisri, or Autumn. Hence the letter of Antiochus Eupator to the Jews, dated the 15th of Xanthicus, was in the 148th year complete, or 149 current, according to the former, but only in the 148th current, according to the latter; and this solution satisfactorily reconciles the apparent dissonances between both.

The following Table of the reigns of Seleucus and his successors, until the voluntary annexation of the kingdom to Armenia by the Syrians, will be found equally useful in the study of Sacred and Profane History, during that turbulent and intricate period. It is chiefly collected from Dr. Gillies' History of the World, from Alexander to Augustus, 1807.

ERA OF THE HEJIRA, or FLIGHT OF MAHOMET.

This celebrated Era of Mahomet's flight from Mecca to Medina, commenced July 16, A.D. 622, the second day of the new Moon, when she became visible. See Abulfeda's Life of Mahomet, p. 53.

Sur.

The use of the Lunar year was appointed by Mahomet, rejecting intercalations. He alludes thereto in the Koran. X. verse 5. "GOD has given light to the Sun, and brightness to the Moon: He has regulated her phases; they serve mankind to divide the time, [by weeks, and months] and to count the years*"

A complete Lunation, or Synodical month, consisting of 291 days, the Arabs composed their months of 29 and 30 days alternately, thus:

* See Savary's French Translation of the Koran; which is much more faithful and elegant than Sale's English Translation.

This Lunar year of 354 days, falling short eleven days of the common Julian, or Calendar year of 365 days, is moveable, or 365

runs through all the seasons in = 33 years. So that a

11

cycle of 33 Lunar years gains an entire year upon the Calendar; containing only 32 Julian years. And three cycles gaining three years, we may reckon a hundred Lunar years equal to 97 Solar.

Beveridge in his Chronology, Lib. 1. Cap. 17., has given accurate rules for reducing the years, months, days, and feriæ or week-days, of the current years of the Hejira, to Calendar time, by the help of which was constructed a large and useful table in Playfair's Chronology, p. 305., which is here republished, in an improved form; marking the several cycles, in which the preceding and following years of the Hejira, at the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, are both found to begin in the same Julian, or Calendar year, between the limits of the first month, January, and the last, December. The first Cycle of the Hejira is broken, containing only 19 years; for it began 14 years earlier: since, 14+19=33 years. The Asterisks (*) mark the Intercalary years of the Arabs, in which they adjust their Lunar year to the Solar, by inserting a month.