17.

28.

Dan.

the cruel policy of Tiberius: the rest of the empire A. D. was tolerably quiet. Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius, pacified the rebel armies, refused the empire, beat the proud Arminius, pushed his conquests as far as the 16. Elbe; and having attracted, together with the love of 19. those people, the jealousy of his uncle, that barbarian so. occasioned his death, either by grief or poison. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, St. John Baptist appears: Jesus Christ receives baptism from that divine harbinger the eternal father acknowledges his wellbeloved son by a voice from heaven: the Holy Ghost descends upon the Saviour, under the harmless figure of a dove the whole trinity manifest itself. There begins, with the seventieth week of Daniel, the preach- ix. 27. ing of Jesus Christ. This last week was the most important, and the most noted. Daniel had distinguished it from the rest, as the week, wherein the covenant was to be confirmed, and in the middle of which the old sacrifices were to lose their efficacy. We may call it the week of mysteries. In it Jesus Christ establishes his mission and doctrine, by numberless miracles, and afterwards by his death. This happened in the fourth year of his ministry, which was also the fourth year of the last week of Daniel; and after this manner is that great week found exactly intersected by the suffering of our Saviour.

Thus the computation of the weeks is easy to be made, or rather is done already. We have only to add to 453 years, which will be found from the 300th year of Rome, and 20th of Artaxerxes, to the beginning of the vulgar era, the 30 years of that era which we see come down to the 15th year of Tiberius, and the baptism of our Lord; these two sums will make 483 years of the seven years which yet remain to complete 490, the fourth, which makes the middle. one, is that in which Jesus Christ died and all that Daniel prophesied, is visibly contained within the term prescribed. There would even have been no necessity for so much exactness, nor does any thing oblige

:

..D.us to take in so strict a sense the middle marked by Daniel. The most difficult would be contented with finding it in any point between the two extremes. This I take notice of, that those, who may think they have reason to place a little higher, or a little lower, the beginning of Artaxerxes's reign, or, the death of our Lord, may not straiten themselves in their calculation, and that those who would attempt to embarrass a thing clear, by the quibbles of chronology, may lay aside their fruitless subtlety.

Matth. xxvii.

45.

Phleg

13.

Hist.

till.

Fig. 2.

The darkness which covered the whole face of the earth at noon day, and at the moment of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, is taken for an ordinary eclipse by heathen 0- writers who have mentioned that memorable event. lymp. Thal. But the primitive Christians, who spoke of it to the 3 Ter- Romans as a prodigy, recorded not only by their own Apol. authors, but even by the public registers, have shown, 21.0-that neither at the time of the full moon, when Jesus cont. Christ died, nor in the whole year, in which that eclipse & Tr. was observed, could any one have happened, that was Matth. not supernatural. We have the very words of Phlegon, Hadrian's Freedman, quoted at a time, when his ron in book was in every body's hands; as well as the Syriac Jul. histories of Thallus, who followed him; and the fourth Ibid. year of the 202d Olympiad, marked in Phlegon's annals, is that of the death of our Lord.

Cels.

$5. in

Euseb.

& Hie

Coron.

Afric.

To complete the mysteries, Jesus Christ rises from the grave the third day; he appears to his disciples; he ascends into heaven in their presence; he sends them the holy ghost; the church is formed; persecution commences; St. Stephen is stoned; St. Paul is 40. converted. A little after Tiberius dies. Caligula his grand nephew, his son by adoption, and bis sucessor, astonishes the world with his cruel and brutal folly: he claims adoration, and commands his statue to be set up in the temple of Jerusalem. Chereas rids the world of this monster. Claudius reigns notwithstanding his stupidity. He is dishonoured by Messalina his wife, whom he demands back, after causing her to be

XV. 6.

Acts

54.

&c.

67.

put to death. He is next married to Agrippina, daugh- a. D. ter of Germanicus. The apostles hold the council of Acts Jerusalem, in which St. Peter speaks first, as he does every where else. The converted gentiles are there freed from the ceremonies of the law. The sentence is pronounced in the name of the Holy Ghost, and of the church. St. Paul and St. Barnabas carry the decree of the council to the churches, and teach the faith- xvi. 4, ful to submit to it. Such was the form of the first council. The stupid emperor disinherited Britannicus, and adopted Nero the son of Agrippina. She, in return, poisoned her too easy husband. But her son's government proved no less fatal to herself, than to all the rest of the empire. Corbulo gained all the ho- 58. nour of this reign by the victories he won over the 62 Parthians and Armenians. Nero commenced at once 63. the war against the Jews, and the persecution against 66. the Christians. He was the first emperor who perse- 68. cuted the church. He caused St. Peter and St. Paul to be put to death at Rome. But as he at the same time persecuted all mankind, they revolted against him on all sides. Understanding that the senate had condemned him, he laid violent hands on himself. Each army made an emperor: the dispute was decided hard by Rome, and in Rome itself, by dreadful engagements. Galba, Otho and Vittellius, all three perished in them the distressed empire found some rest under 70. Vespasian. But the Jews were reduced to the last extremity; Jerusalem was taken and burned. Titus, 70. son and successor of Vespasian, afforded the world a short-lived joy; and his days, which he counted lost, when they were not distinguished by some good action, hurried on too fast to an end. And now we behold Nero revive in the person of Domitian. The persecution broke out afresh. St. John having got safe out of the boiling oil, was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he penned his Apocalypse or Revelation. Á little after he wrote his gospel, at the age of 90, and joined the quality of an evangelist to that of

69.

93.

9.5.

A. D. an apostle and prophet. From this time the Christians were continually persecuted, as well under the good, as bad emperors. These persecution's were carried on, sometimes by command of the emperors, and by the particular spite of the magistrates; sometimes by an insurrection of the people; and sometimes by solemn decrees pronounced in the senate upon the rescripts of princes, or in their presence. Then the persecution was more universal and bloody; and thus the malice of unbelievers, ever inveterately bent to destroy the church, was excited from time to time to new acts of fury. It is from these renewed fits of violence that ecclesiastical historians reckon ten persecutions under ten emperors. Under so long sufferings, the Christians never made the smallest sedition. Of all the faithful, the bishops were always the most severely attacked of all the Christians, the church of Rome was persecuted with the greatest violence; and thirty popes sealed with their blood that gospel, which they 96. declared to the whole earth. Domitian is killed; the empire begins to enjoy some respite under Nerva. His great age does not permit him to retrieve the state 93. of affairs: but in order to render the public tranquillity permanent, he makes choice of Trajan for his successor. The empire quiet at home, and triumphant abroad, cannot forbear admiring so good a prince. And indeed it was a maxim with him, that his citizens ought to find him such as he would have wished to find 16 the emperor, had he been a private citizen. This 115. prince subdued the Daci, and Decebalus their king; extended his conquests in the East; gave a king to the Parthians, and made them dread the Roman power; happy he whom drunkenness and infamous. amours, vices so deplorable in a great prince, have never made to attempt any thing contrary to justice! To times so advantageous for the commonweal, succeeded those of Hadrian blended with good and evil. This prince maintained military discipline, lived himself in a soldiery way, and with much frugality, eased

97.

106.

116.

1

123.

127.

135,

139.

the provinces, made the arts to flourish, and Greece, a. D. who was the mother of them. The barbarians were 120. kept in awe by his arms and authority. He rebuilt 126. Jerusalem, to which he gave his name, and from 130. thence too it derives the name of Ælia; but he banish- 13 ed the Jews out of it, who were ever rebels to the empire. That stubborn race found in him a merciless avenger. He sullied by his cruelties, and monstrous loves, the lustre of so bright a reign. His infamous Antinous, of whom he made a god, throws shame upon his whole life. But the emperor seemed to make amends for his faults, and, in some degree, to retrieve his effaced glory, by adopting Antoninus 158 Pius, who also adopted Marcus Aurelius the sage and 161. philosopher. In these two princes appear two beautiful characters. The father, ever at peace, is always ready, upon occasion, to make war: the son, ever at war, is always ready to give peace, both to his enemies, and to the empire. His father Antoninus had taught him, that it was better to save one citizen than to defeat a thousand enemies. The Parthians and Marcomani 169, experienced the valour of Marcus Aurelius; the latter were Germans, to whom the emperor was giving the finishing stroke, when he died. By the virtue of the 180. two Antonines, that name became the darling of the Romans. The glory of so illustrious a name was not defaced, by all the effeminacy of Lucius Verus, brother to Marcus Aurelius, and his partner in the empire, nor yet by the brutalities of Commodus his son and successor. This last, unworthy of such a father forgot both his instructions and example.

162.

192

The senate and people abhorred him: his most assiduous minions, and his mistress put him to death. His suc- 195. cessor Pertinax, a vigorous asserter of military discipline, fell a sacrifice to the fury of the licentious soldiers who had, but a little before, forced the sovereign power upon him.

194.

198.

The empire exposed to auction, found a purchaser. 195. The lawyer Didius Julianus ventured upon this bold & bargain but it cost him his life. Severus Africanus