17. And, in fact, an attempt has lately been made in this direction, which, if successful, must set our biblical chronology adrift from its old bear ings. It is contended by Mr. Bosanquet (Re adjustment of Sacrd and Profane Chronology, 1853) that a lower date than 606-604 B.C. for the acces sion of Nebuchadnezzar is imperatively demanded by the historical connection of that event with the famous Eclipse of Thales ;' which, according to Herodotus i. 74, 103, occurring during a pitched battle between the Medes and Lydians, was the occasion of a peace, cemented by marriages, be tween Cyaxares and Halyattes, after which, as Herodotus seems to imply, the former turned his arms against Assyria, and, in conjunction with Labynetus (the Nabopolassar of Berosus and the Canon), took and destroyed Nineveh. The dates as signed by the ancients to that eclipse lie between 01. 48 and 50. Kepler, Scaliger, and Sir Isaac Newton made it B.C. 585 ; Baily (Philos. Trans., 1811) and Oltmanns (Schr. der Berlin. Akad. 1512-13) found it 3oth Sept. 610 B.C., which date was ac cepted by Ideler, Saint-Martin, and most subse quent writers. More recently it has been announced by Mr. Airy (Philos. .1Ifag,., 1853) and Mr. Hind (Atherrezen, Aug. 1857), as the result of calcula tion with Hansen's improved tables, that in the eclipse of 610 the moon's shadow traversed no part of Asia Minor, and that the only suitable one is that of 28th May 535 B.C., which would be total in Ionia, Lydia, Lycia, Pamphylia, and part of Cilicia. It has, indeed, been contended by Mr. Adams, that the tables need a further correction, the effect of which (as Mr. Airy remarked, Athen eum, Oct. 1859) would be such as to rendcr the eclipse of 585 inapplicable to the recorded circum stances : but it appears that the Astronomer-Royal no longer entertains any doubts on this point, having quite recently (see Athen., Sept. 1861) ex pressed his unaltered conviction, that the tables of Hansen give the date of the great solar eclipse, which terminated the Lydian war, as the most re liable records of antiquity placed it, in the year 585 B.c.' And, indeed, however the astronomical ques tion may ultimately be decided, it would appear, from all that is known of the life of Thales, that he could hardly have predicted an eclipse in Ionia so early as 610 B.C. (Roth, Gesell. unserer abendkindis chen Philosoishie,ii. 93). But that the ' Eclipse of Thales' occurred at the conjuncture indicated by Herodotus, rests only on his testimony, and in this he might easily be mistaken. Either he may have confounded with the eclipse predicted by Thales an earlier one occurring during the war of Cyaxares and Halyattes—possibly that of 610, for no locality is mentioned, and there is nothing to forbid our seeking the battle-field in some suitable situation (e. g., with M. v. Niebuhr, p. 508, in At ropatene, or with v. Gumpach, Zeitr. der Bab. u. Assyr., p. 94, in Armenia) ; or, he may have as signed to that earlier war what really took place during a later war of the Medes and Lydians under Astyages and Halyattes. And the latter supposi tion is not without support of ancient authors. Cicero (de Divinat. i. so), from some lost authority, places the eclipse, without date or mention of the war, under Astyages. Pliny (II. 9), giving the date 01. 48.4 = B.c. 585, says, also without mention of the war, that the eclipse occurred in the reign of Halyattes (this lasted, in the usual chro nology, from 62o to 563 B.c.) Solinus (c. 15, 16) assigns 01. 49.1 as date of eclipse and battle, but (c. 20) he speaks of the war as between Halyattes and Astyages. From Eudemus, a much earlier author, Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 14, sec. 65) gives the date of the eclipse `about 01. 50,' with the addition, that it was the time of the war between Cyaxares and Halyattes—in which Eude mus, if more than the date be his, merely repeats Herodotus ; but the addition is as likely to be Clement's own. The Eclipse of Thales, therefore, is by no means so cardinal an event as has been assumed ; and to uphold the loose statement of Herodotus, in connection with the earlier date 610 B.C., is as precarious a proceeding as is the attempt to urge it with the lower, and, in all probability, authentic date, 585 B. C. , to the subversion of the received chronology. Mr. Bosanquet, however, holds that from the testimony of this eclipse there is no escape ; and supporting by this the arguments above described (sec. 13-16), together with others fetched from new combinations, does not hesitate to interpose 25 years of Scythian rule in Babylon' between Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, thereby lowering the epoch of the latter from 604 to 579 B.C. The effect of this is to bring the destruction of the Temple to 56o ; Sennacherib's 3d and Hezekiah's 14th year to 689 ; and the 4th of Solomon to 989 or 990 B.C. Of course this involves the necessity of ex tensive changes in the history and chronology of the lower portion of the 6th century B.C. Thus Cyrus is made into two persons of the name ; the first, beginning to reign in Persia, 559 B. C. , suc ceeded by Cambyses as viceroy 535 (which is made the 1st year of Evil-merodach), and as king, 529 B. C. , together with a second Cyrus as joint-king of Media in 13 Cambyses = 523 B.C. The length of reign of this Cyrus II. is not assigned ; he disap pears from Mr. B.'s table, together with Cambyscs, who, with Smerdis between, is followed at 516 by Darius Hystaspis as king, which Darius had be come viceroy in Babylon and Media in 52r B.C. It should be remarked that this re-adjustment ' of the chronology is proposed with a view to a fulfilment of Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Chronol. of the Times of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 1848)—namely, the predicted seventy years of desolation reach from the destruction of the temple, 560, to 490 B.c. ; the date of Daniel's prophecy in the first Babylonian year of Darius Hystaspis, then 62 years old' (Dan. vi. 1), is made 493 B. C. , whence to the birth of Christ, which the author places (wrongly) in 3 B.C., are the seventy times seven years fore told : also this year 493 is itself the goal of an earlier period of 490 years, reckoned from 983 B. C. , Mr. B.'s date of the dedication of Solomon's Temple. So extensive a refashionment of the history will hardly be accepted on the strength of the alleged proofs, unless, perhaps, by those who regard the pro phecy of Daniel as itself furnishing an element of the chronological question. This view was boldly follow ed out, in ignorance or scorn of all Gentile chronolo gy, by the framers of the Jewish Mundane Era. As suming that a period of 490 years must reach from the destruction of the first Temple to that of the second, which latter they set at A.D. 69 (a year too early), they obtained for 19 Nebuchadnezzar = I Zedekiah, the year 422 B.C. (which, in profane chronology, lies in the reign of Darius Nothus). On the like grounds Lightfoot does not hesitate to place the first year of Cyrus 490 years before the Passion, for which his date is 33 A. D. From this year [458 B. C.] to the death of Christ, are 490 years ; and there is no cause, because of doubtful records among the heathen, to make a doubt of the fixed ness of the time, which an angel of the Lord had recorded with so much exactness.'—(Harmony of the O. T., Works, vol. i., p. 312.) A late noble
writer (Duke of Manchester, Daniel and his Times, 1845), with the like end in view, identifies the Darius of Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah, and of Dan. viii. I (made different from him of vi. with Darius Nothus ; and, in order to this result, sets himself to shew that the founder of the Persian monarchy, whom the Greeks call Cyrus, is in fact Nebuchadnezzarl. (the Nabopolassar of the Canon), for the ' Persians' and the Chalcleans ' are the same people : his son Cambyses is the Nebuchad nezzar of the Bible, destroyer of the Temple : Bel shazzar is the last king of the Cyrus dynasty at Babylon : his conqueror, ' Darius the Mede,' Dan. vi. 1, is Darius Hystaspis : and the biblical Koresh, the restorer of the Jews (and Cyrus of Xenophon„ altogether different from him of Herodotus and Ctesias), is a satrap, or feudatory of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Strange to say, this wild speculation, with its portentous conglomeration of testimonies, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, genuine and spurious (conspicuous among these the Philo ' and Megasthenes ' of the impudent forger A nnius of Viterbo), has not only been gravely listened to by scholars of Germany, but has found among them zealous advocacy and furtherance. Ebrard in the Med. Studios :I. Kritiken, 1347 ; Metzke Cyrus der Griinder des Pers. Belches war nicht der B,Ireier der jitden sondern der Zerstorer jeru salenzs, 1849.
It should, however, be remarked, that the iden tification of Ezra's Darius with D. Nothus has commended itself (still with a view to Daniel's prophecy) to more than one eminent writer. Proposed by Scaliger, it is advocated by the late Dr. Mill in his Treatise on the Descent and Parent age of Saviour, 1S42, p. 153, and the reasons given deserve consideration. See the Art. DARIUS.
Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament. —The Book of Tobit contains an outline of Assyrian history (from the deportation of the Ten Tribes to the Fall of Nineveh), to which the moral fic tion is attached (Ordo Sad. p. 555, note ; v. Nie buhr Gesch. Assurs. p. too, note ; comp. Fritzsche dos Bitch Tobi 1853, p. 14, ff. ; Ewald, Gesch. des V. Isr. 4, p. 233, ff.) To treat it as a narrative of facts, and apply it to purposes of chronological proof, as some, even recent, writers have done, (e.g., v. Gumpach, Eabyl. Zeitr. p. 138), is quite to mistake its character. — As regards the book of Judith, it is surprising that any one conversant with history and criticism should fail to see that this is not a record of facts, but a religious, quasi prophetical allegory (Ordo p. 556, note ; Fritzsche, dos B. p. 123, ff. ; Ewald, Gesch. des V. Israel 4, p. 541. See also Winer, Real. IV B. s. v. ; Movers hi the Bonn. Zeitschr. fur kathol. Theolagie, 1835, p. 47 ; Vaihinger s. v. in Her zog's Real-Encycloh. 7, p. 135, ff.) M. v. Nie buhr, acknowledging this (u. s. p. 212-285), never theless finds in its dates, according to the Lat. version, a background of historical truth with reference to the times of Nebuchadnezzar. V. Gumpach u. s. 161, ff., maintains its historical character, and applies it to his own purposes with extraordinary confidence. See also Scholz, Einl. in die heil. 1845.—In the books of ./Ilac cabees the years are regularly counted, under the name rn s Bow-Ow/as 'EXkijvcov, meaning the Era of the Seleucidie, beginning in the autumn of 312 B.C. ; only, in the First Book the epoch is made i Nisan of that year, while in the Second Book it is i Tisri of the following year (311 B.C., eighteen months later). This, which has been sufficiently proved by earlier writers (see Ideler, Hdb. der Chronol. i. 53z, ff.; Ordo Sad. sec. 44o-42), is contested on inadequate grounds by v. Gumpach, Zwei Chronol. Abhandl. 1854.
18. New Testament Chmnology. The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles have (with one exception, Luke iii. i) no express dates: in the absence of these, combinations, more or less probable, are all that the chronologist has to go by.
For the Nativity, the citerior limit is furnished by the death of Herod (Matt. ii. i, 19 ; Luke i. 5), the year of which event, as it is nowhere named by Josephus or any other extant historian, has to be determined by various circumstances. These are—the mention of an eclipse of the moon not long before it (Antiy. xvii. 6. 4,fin.), which, by cal culation, can only have been that of 12-13 Mar. B. C. 4 ; the length of Herod's reign, together with the recorded date of its commencement (Antig. xvii. S. 1; comp. xiv. 14. 5 and 16. 4) ; and of that of his sons—Archelaus (Antiq. xvii. 13. 3 ; comp. Bell. yud. ii. 7. 3), the consular year of whose deposal is given by Dion Cass. lv. ; Herod Philip (Bell. yud. xviii. 4. 6, length of reign and year of death) ; for Herod Antipas, Josephus (Antiq. xviii. 7. 2) gives date of deposal, but not length of reign; this, however, is known from coins (Eckhel, Dort. Num. iii. 4S9) to have reached its 43d year. All these indications point to B.C. 4, not long before the Passover, as the time of Herod's death. Those who would impugn this conclusion urge other, dis crepant, statements in Josephus ; or call in question either the fact of the eclipse or its calculated date ; or contend that the death of Herod could not have taken place so soon after it. The inducement is, that our Lord's age may not exceed 30 years at the time of his baptism, i. e., at the earliest in the 15th year of Tiberius, for if this note of time is to be taken strictly, the earliest date for the Nativity should be the year 3 B.C. The year supposed known, it is attempted to approximate to the day by calculating the order of the sacerdotal cycle, and finding at what time in the given year `the course of Abijah' (Luke i. 5) entered upon office. The starting-point for the reckoning is furnished by a Jewish tradition (liiishna, iii. 298. 3), and it is assumed that the conception of John the Baptist ensued at the expiration of Zechariah's weelc of service, and the Annunciation five months later (Luke i. 23-26, 36; but in the church calendars six months). —Here, it should be observed, that we have no reason to suppose the ancients to have been in possession of the true date, either year or day. Having ascertained, as they supposed, the year and day of the Baptism, they counted back 3o years to the Nativity (see a paper by the present writer, S. Clemens Alex. on N. T. Chronology in the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, 1854, vol. i., p. 327, ff.) Also, it would be well that all such con siderations as the `fitness of things' prescribing a particular year, or day of the year, for this or any other event of sacred history, should be banished from chronological investigations. Let the date be first clearly proved before attention is called to any supposed natural fitness, sacred significance, or alleged fulfilment of prophecy. These must not be allowed to rank among the primary elements of a question of chronology. At most they may recom mend one of two or more conclusions between which the chronological arguments are evenly balanced, or may countervail any slight uncertainty attaching to the proof; but even this, for the most part, only to the inquirer himself : whatever con viction they may convey to his mind will rarely reach the minds of others.