However, avers the Rev. Dr. Horne,(365) | The true date of the birth of Christ g four
years before the common mra, or A. n.” This date we should not be unwilling to accept
but for the Rev. Dr. Jarvis (366) - 8 The date being taken of December 25, by reckoning
back thirty years from his baptism, we come to his birth, a . J. r. 4707, six years before the
common sera.” It would not be decorous in us to hold fast to such dogmatic extension by a
Churchman who sacrilegiously derides a m i t r e - " Abp. Newcombe could say, ‘ Jesus was
born, says Lardner, between the middle of August and the middle of November, A. u . o,
748 or 749. (Cred. I. 796, 9, 3ded.) We will take the mean time, October 1.’! ! ! ” The
notes of admiration are the Rev. Dr. Jarvis’s.
We have preferred quoting the latest authorities; but it need not be observed to the
learned that this discussion has been revived periodically during the last ten centuries with
no better result, than when agitated previously between the unbelieving Rabbis and the
all-believing Fathers. Mx. gr-, John of Spain (367) sums up : g
* “ That there has been sought in what,season of the year, in w h a t month, and on what
d ay“ S a v io u r was born: some place this birth at the winter solstice; others, pt the.
equinox of autumn or at the equinox of spring.”
And again, Bossuet, one of the most enlightened men of his age, winds up his Chronological
investigations as follows : —
“ Birth of Jesus son of Joseph and M a r y .- I t is not agreed as to the precise year when
he came into th^ worid, but it is agreed that his true birth precedes by some years our vulgar
era? Without d ilu tin g further ufon the year of the birth of our Lord, it sufficesJhat we
know it happened in the year 4000 of the world. [ . J (oho;. , ' (
If we inquire, the age of Jesus at his death, Bossuet tells us, that— “ According to
Matthew, he was 33 years old ; to Pagan legend, 21 ; to Luke, 39 ; to Bossuet,. 40,
“ Common Christians,” as the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock désignâtes them (ubi supra), may
start back in amazement at these results upon the year of the Saviorsi birth which the firs
slashes of an archæologic scalpel have now laid bare. Mystified by childlike or fraudulen
authorities, they may or may not be grateful fdr the truth ; but their conscientiousness wfi
hereafter whisper to their minds that it is safest, perhaps, to b e c o m e more charitable towards
men of science ; whose unwearied struggles to arrive at 1 chronology are superinduced by
acquaintance with these facts. In the meanwhile, readers of Strauss and HenneR know
why the settlement of the year of Jesus’s nativity is ope of those things not to be lpobcd
for ; because, as Scaliger w ro te -, “ to determine,the day of Christ’s birth belongs to God
alone, not to man.” l l f iw ' _ I H H hmR
To “ uncommon Christians,” whose effrontery has led them to accuse Egyptologist
dissensions as to the epoch of the first Pharaoh, Menes, (by :no .thorough.hmrelegist dogmatically
fixed) we have merely to advise their prior determination of the year of Christs
nativity, before they henceforward venture into Egyptian polemics wherein they themselves
are the only parties liable to “ get hurt. ^ . , i
In a recent hieroglyphical work, to which allusion will be briefly made in its .natura
department, the Royal Astronomer, Professor Airy, (369) through profound -nathemateal
calculations, obtains a celestial conjunction which he designates “ 2005 b 0. ;
“ b o ” implies before Christ. Now, as no human being can determine the year of. ChnsU
advent; andinasmuch as the foregoing table exhibits a difference of opinion oscillato
between ten years at least ; we would respectfully solicit the astronomical era M B S
the learned Professor founds his minute coincidence. Is it upon the “ star of the east (
seen by the Magi ? Or.does he take the unknown moment of time S B to be zero ? Among
archaeologists, to say “ .B.C.,” merely implies before an epoch conjectural for one or more
(366) Jrdrod. to the Ont. Study and Knowledge o f the Bely Scriptures; 8th ed., London, 1839 ; Hi. pp. 52T, 535.
(366) Ohrondl. Introd. to the B id. of the Chwch ; Lofadon od, 1844 ; Preface, p. vH„ and pp. 636, 663.
I I iby s '
ma* smuATTH«* Vip. dp. Jpjtus: 1839; i. PP. 254-292.
years ; but, without some more mathematical indication of the astronomical date of the
birth of Jesus, those Egyptian calculations made at the Royal Observatory must be pregnant
with error ; and, at present;, seem as valueless to chronological science, as are the hieroglyphic
malinterpretations that originated such a waste of official labor and of nationally-
important time.
To us, however, the forms “ b . o.” and “ a. d. ” are merely conventional. No astronomical
certitude is implied by their use. This year, which is the LXXVIIth of the independence
of these United States, may be, for aught we know, “ A. B. 1850 ” or “ a . d. 1860 ;”
although vulgarly termed “ the year 1853.” When we use the customary era, chronologically,
it simply means one thousand. eight hundred and fifty-three' years backwards from the
present day ; and “ B. c .” signifies whatever number of years the necessities of illustration
compel us to place before the 1853d year thus specified. We leave Astronomy to astronomers.
With this proviso constantly present, the reader will understand that the only ancient
chronological era, positively fixed, is the Wabopassarian — “ February 26, b . o. 747.” All
other dates in ancient history are to this subordinate ; although, for ordinary purposes,
save when phenomena in the heavens can be historically connected with human events
passing on the earth, “ b . c.” is both usual and adequate to the requirements of archaeological
science ; still more of ethnological, wherein precision of specific eras is less imperative.
Our object, in this Essay (III),-is to lay before the reader a general view of the relative
positions which Egypt, China, Assyria, Judcea, and India, now occupy, in the eye of the
monumental chronologist, on the tableau of different human origins. Like every other
science that of chronolbgy is progressive: in the oases of Egyptian, and Assyrian time-
registry essentially so ? for, at the present year, 1853, the former study is immature, the
latter scarcely commenced. That of China must he accepted upon the faith (which there
is hot the slightest reason to impugn) of what Chinese historians who, having no theological
motives for unfair curtailment or for preposterous extension, have rebuilt from the arehæ-
ology of their own country. J There is but one nation of the five of which the utmost limit
can, nowadays, be absolutely determined, and that is the Judæan; whose chronicles, in
lieu of the first place still claimed for them by ignorance, now occupy, among archæologists,
a fourth place in universal history. For Greece, Rome, and more recent populations,
according to the criteria of their own annals, we refer the reader to well-known histories. '
It will be remembered that, in “ Types of Mankind,” chronology is only one element out
of many ; and that we here profess merely to preçent the results of those chronological
laborers who are now reputed to be the most scientific, and consequently the most accurate.
CHRO NO LO G Y — E G Y P T IA N .
„ " Un certain public, ce public qui tour à tour admet sans preuve ce qui est absurde et reiette
06 95) e,st certain, satisfait dans les deux cas, parce qu’il se donne le plaisir dé trancher
™ /é p a rg n a n t la peine de les examiner; ce public qui croit aux Osages auand ils
viennent de Saint Malo, mais qui ne croit pas aux Chinois, quand ils viennent de Pékin ■ï «It
fermement convaincu de l’existence de Pharamond, et n’est pas bien sûr que le latin et M ien and
puissent être de la même fanülle que le sanscrit; ce public gobe-mouehe S d i l l û t S ,
esprit fort quand il faut croire, hochait et hoche encore la tête au nom ae C » .™ ™ t douter,
pins commode et plus court de nier sa découverte, que d’ouvrir sa grammaire* (371) tr°uvant
“ Quant aux hommes éminens qui ont conquis une belle place dans la c a r r i è r e do*
tiennes, il ne pont être question ici d’analyser leurs livrés- H suffi?mie Pen . - i ? “« Udes 6P ^
ont marché franchement dans la voie ouverte par Champôllion et m l la - ien/i5ue
mière illustration aux Young, aux Champôllion, aux Humboldt’aux SalvnHnî S ï w fmSï6*
et dont la réalité a été proclamée sans rëtinencepar
aujourdhui pour adeptes fervens et convaincus, des hommes tels d u e MM T p tln ! 0 i i compte
Mérimée, Prisse, E. Burnouf, Lepsius, Bunsen, m S & ë r l B a r i , ; Î # r S L ; ,?îpÔre’Bl0t’
[Abeken, Birch, Bockh, Bonomi, Brugscli, Brunet de Presle De Saulcv Dp f t J I lV w L?ei??.ris: ~
Kenrick, Lanci, Lenormant, Desueur? Mariette. ^meks,
Raoul-Rocbette, Sharpe, Ungarelli, Wilkinson,] &c.—Ondonnait du système de C & Plckermf» hàmpollion.” (3 7 2 ) connaît maintenant les amis et les ennemis
hal'ffi tt° rt; Uttl® SpriDg °f pure water which first bubbled from the Rosetta Stone
^ , n twenty-three years, now swoln into a mighty flood ; overwhelming all opposition!
è a h Æ Ô â * « " * « « Æ Moodes, Aug. 1846; pp. 3 9 0 ,3 9 1 ;-
— j f ‘ ' Promenade en Amérique ; Rev. des B. Mondes, June, 1863, ppi 1225, 1226.
' ) Bk Saoxcy: De VÉtude des Biéroglyphes ; Rev. d. B. Mondes, June, 1846; p. 983.