METHOD OF HISTORICAL ENQUIRY. 9 whole, may be treated with a due regard to its entire harmony, has been practically proved by the immortal work of Gibbon. What great historical mass was ever made up of more distinct elements-each with its own epochs more strongly marked, andwith fewer epochs common to the whole series-than the story of the breaking up of the Western Empire into the medieval states? Who has not looked forward-with a despair as to the method almost equalled by his interest in the subject-upon the long story of the splendours of the Antonines and the vices and follies of their successors, the bewildering revolutions, the wars upon the frontier, the torrent of barbarian invasion,—and the still greater changes which gave the world a new religion? Who can have hoped to grasp the progress of all these varied incidents in the East and in the West, and to retain a view of the scenes on which they were enacted, from the Tigris to the Hebrides, and from the Wall of China to the Libyan Desert? And who that has opened the first volume with such misgivings, has not closed the last of the first part with a satisfaction akin to that derived from some great mosaic picture, whose perfect unity makes him almost forget how many myriads of fragments have gone to make it up? Imperial Rome has almost insensibly vanished from the scene, and Italy has become a Gothic kingdom, surrounded by the monarchies of Europe in the first stage of their formation. The Queen of the East has arisen, as if by enchantment, from the waters of the Bosporus, and her splendour has again been overcast. Christianity has triumphed, but the triumph has been abused by her ministers. The West is ripe for Feudalism; and the East seems to await the doom of her idolatries from the sword of Mahomet. The work of art is perfect; the life of a generous enthusiasm is alone wanting:"Vir clarissimus, sed quoad res divinas utinam felicior!" NOTE ON SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY. Independently of scientific evidence, and of the traditions and monuments of Egypt, Chaldæa, and other nations, the following are our data for determining the chronological relations of primeval history to the Christian era. 1. From the Creation to the Deluge, the generations of the patriarchs form our only guide. These, however, are given differently in different copies of the Scriptures; the sum being, in the LXX. 606 years longer, and in the Samaritan Pentateuch 349 years shorter, than in the received Hebrew text. The ancient chronologers give further variations. 2. From the Deluge to the death of Joseph, and thence to the Exodus, the patriarchal years are again our chief guide; but other data are obtained from various statements respecting the interval from the call of Abraham to the giving of the Law and the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt.* The main point in dispute here is, whether 430 years was the whole period from the call of Abraham to the Exodus, or only the time of the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt. 3. From the Exodus to the building of Solomon's Temple, the interval is positively stated in the received Hebrew text, as 480 years.+ But the reading is disputed; it is alleged to be inconsistent with the 450 years assigned by St. Paul to the Judges; and the longer period is made out by adding together the numbers given in the Book of Judges. Some chronologers, on the other hand, compute from the many genealogies which we have for this period. 4. From the Building of the Temple to its Destruction and the Captivity of Zedekiah, we have the annals of the kings of Israel and Judah. Here the difficulties are so slight, that the principal chronologers only differ by 15 years in nearly 500. 5. THE EPOCH OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE is fixed by a concurrence of proofs, from sacred and profane history, with only a variation of one, or at the most two years, between B.C. 588 and 586. Clinton's date is June, B.c. 587. From this epoch we obtain for the building of Solomon's Temple the date of about B.C. 1012.§ From this point the reckoning backwards is of course affected by the differences already noticed. Out of these have arisen three leading systems of chronology. 1. The Rabbinical, a system handed down traditionally by the Jewish doctors, places the Creation 244 years later than our received chronology, in B.C. 3750, and the Exodus in B.C. 1314. This leaves from the Exodus to the building of the Temple an interval of only 300 years, a term calculated chiefly from the genealogies, and only reconciled with the numbers given in the Book of Judges by the most arbitrary alterations. Genealogies, however, are no safe basis for chronology, especially when, as can be proved in many cases, links are omitted in their statement. "When we come to examine them closely, we find that many are broken without being in consequence technically defective as Hebrew genealogies. * Genesis xv. 13; Exodus xii. 41; Acts vii. 6; Galatians iii. 17 NOTE ON SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY. 11 A modern pedigree thus broken would be defective, but the principle of these genealogies must have been different. A notable instance is that of the genealogy of our Saviour given by St. Matthew. In this genealogy Joram is immediately followed by Ozias, as if his son-Ahaziah, Juash, and Amaziah being omitted.* In Ezra's genealogy + there is a similar omission, which in so famous a line can scarcely be attributed to the carelessness of a copyist. There are also examples of a man being called the son of a remote ancestor in a statement of a genealogical form. ‡ We cannot therefore venture to use the Hebrew genealogical lists to compute intervals of time, except where we can prove each descent to be immediate. But even if we can do this, we have still to be sure that we can determine the average length of each generation."§ The violent efforts of the Rabbis to bring their shorter period into harmony with the book of Judges have indeed been ingeniously converted from an objection into an argument by the recent German school, who follow their scheme, because it seems to them the most consistent with Egyptian chronology. These efforts to overcome difficulties of detail prove, it is said, that they had good reasons for clinging to the total. But surely their traditional total cannot be allowed to stand in opposition both to the 480 years of the Book of Kings and the 450 years named by St. Paul. Whatever may be the difficulty of reconciling these two numbers, they clearly point to a period much longer than that allowed by the Rabbis. The confirmation of the Rabbinical system by the Egyptian chronology involves somewhat of an argument in a circle. It rests mainly on the identification of the Pharaoh of the Exodus with Menephtha, the son of Rameses the Great, of the Nineteenth Dynasty, whose reign is computed from B.C. 1328 to B.C. 1309. But the only independent authority for this identification is an account of the Exodus, repeated from Manetho by Josephus, who justly regards it as of little authority. ¶ 2. The Short or Received Chronology is that which has been generally followed in the West since the time of Jerome, and has been adopted in the margin of the authorized English version, according to the system of its ablest advocate, Archbishop Ussher. Its leading data are, first, the adoption of the numbers of the Hebrew text for the patriarchal genealogies; secondly, the reckoning of the 430 years from the call of Abraham to the Exodus; and, lastly, the adhering to the 480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of the Temple. As we are only giving a general account of these different systems, and not attempting their full discussion, we cannot now explain how the last datum is reconciled with the 450 years assigned by St. Paul to the Judges, or with the numbers obtained from their annals. It is enough to say that the * Matthew i. 8. "That this is not an accidental omission of a copyist is evident from the specification of the number of generations from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonish Captivity, and thence to Christ, in each case fourteen generations. Probably these missing names were purposely left out to make the number for the interval equal to that of the other intervals, such an omission being obvious, and not liable to cause error." + Ezra vii. 1-5. + Genesis xxix. 5, compared with xxviii. 2, 5; 1 Chronicles xxvi. 24; 1 Kings xix. 16, compared with 2 Kings ix. 2, 14. $ Poole, art. Chronology, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. We shall have occasion to return to this point under the history of the Jews in Egypt, Book II. chap. viii. difficulties are not insuperable, and that the system of Ussher may fairly hold the place assigned to it, till some other be established on stronger evidence than has yet been made out. The great chronologer Petavius is in substantial agreement with Ussher; but, for reasons which cannot now be stated, he places the Exodus and the call of Abraham each 40 years earlier, the Deluge and the Creation each 20 years later, than Ussher. 3. The Long Chronology has been, in recent times, the most formidable competitor of the short system. Its leading advocates are Hales, Jackson, and Des Vignolles. With some minor differences, they agree in adopting the Septuagint numbers for the ages of the patriarchs, and the long interval from the Exodus to the building of the Temple. Their arguments for the former view are very ably answered by Clinton, who adopts the short period from the Creation to the call of Abraham, and the 430 years on to the Exodus, but reckons 612 years from thence to the foundation of the Temple. Since he wrote, however, the state of the question has been materially affected by the study of Egyptian and Chaldæan history. In both cases, and on independent grounds, an antiquity is now claimed for the commencement of the annals of these nations inconsistent with the received date of the Deluge in B.C. 2348. The era of Menes, the first king of Egypt, is placed about B.c. 2717, and that of the third Chaldæan dynasty of Berosus (the first which has any claim to be historical) about B.C. 2234. The weight of this argument of course depends on the value we may assign to the numbers of Manetho and Berosus, and to the astronomical calculations which are supposed to confirm them; questions to be considered as we proceed. It is on such grounds, as well as from the numbers in the Book of Judges, that Mr. Poole adheres to the long system of chronology. THE FOLLOWING TABLE EXHIBITS THE PRINCIPAL DATES AS GIVEN BY THE LEADING MODERN CHRONOLOGERS. |