Chapter XXII: Section II: Confirmation of the Great Epochs

The epochs of the Nativity and Epiphany of Christ, determined in the preceding Section, receive very strong confirmation from the histories and chronicons of ancient writers both sacred and profane, from the writings of the early Fathers, and from the prophetic arrangement of “the Times and the Seasons” by the Great Θεος, or Supreme “Disposer” of all human events. It is plain, however, that a multiplicity of views both of the Hebrew and the Septuagint chronology may be taken, according as more or fewer of the errors, which we have pointed out in the computation of the different ages of the world, are either adopted or rejected. Dr. Hales, in his “Analysis,” vol. i. pp. 3–7, gives a list of more than a _hundred and twenty_ different dates of the birth of Christ, under the title of “Epochs of the Creation;” and he adds that the list might be swelled to the number of _three hundred_! In such a multitude of discordant dates we might, at first sight, despair of ever arriving at the truth; but let us remember that error is a hydra-headed monster, which in chronology as well as in more sacred subjects, can only be successfully destroyed by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

It is easy to see the source of the differences of opinion among the learned, in regard to the point under consideration. Instead of taking the sacred Scriptures as their guide, men have chosen rather to follow their own fancies; and, because discrepancies were found to exist in the ancient texts, they have with one consent agreed to abandon the light of internal evidence, and to take refuge in the obscure glimmerings of heathen tradition or the doubtful testimony of Jewish writers and Christian fathers. Hence, we have all varieties of dates, from the bold conjecture of Alphonsus, king of Castile, who supposed that the Mundane Cycle of 7000 years had nearly expired at the birth of Christ, to the traditionary epoch of the Chronicle of Axum in Abyssinia, which, according to Bruce, places that event in the year of the world 5500; and, from the Alexandrian or Constantinopolitan era, which, according to the computation of the Greeks, places it in A. M. 5508, to the Jewish epoch of the “Seder Olam Rabba,” which according to Ganz, dates it in A.M. 3751.

The following Table of the extent of the different ages of the world according to the three texts, will serve the double purpose of showing the leading varieties in the computation of the date of the Nativity from Creation, and of bringing before our readers, at a single glance, a condensed view of the result of our investigations in the preceding pages. As the Samaritan text comprehends only the chronology of the first two ages, the extent of the remaining four ages is borrowed from the Hebrew.

TABLE XVII.
AGES OF THE WORLD. HEBREW. SEPTUAGINT. SAMARITAN.
Years. Years. Years.
1. Antediluvian age 1656 2262 1307
2. Postdiluvian age 427 1147 1017
3. Patriarchal age 430 431 430
4. Critarchal age 480 612 480
5. Monarchal age 424 439 424
6. Hierarchal age 583 585 583
———— ———— ————
Birth of Christ A.M. 4000 5476 4241
Error in the Sixth age 2 0 2
Error in the Vulgar date 2 2 2
———— ———— ————
Extent of the Six ages 4004 5478 4245

In the preceding Table we have reckoned the date of the Birth of Christ in current years, and included the year of Abraham’s sojourning in Egypt in the Patriarchal age of the Septuagint computation.—See page 66 of this Dissertation.