A.D. 69, when the daily sacrifice had ceased to be offered,* the city was taken, and the abomination of the Roman standard set over the eastern gate of the Temple, the once favoured city of Zion having remained, according to the prophecy, desolate ever since. Further, Josephus (J.B.l. iv., ix., 12) speaks "of Simon getting possession of Jerusalem in the third year of the war, in the month Xanthicus (Nisan)." And by a comparison of this with what he relates 1. iv., x., 1., and 1. v., iii., 1., it is clear that he is speaking of Simon obtaining possession of Jerusalem the year before Titus took it. Hence the chronology of the war according to Josephus would stand thus : A.D. 66, the 12th of Nero the 1st year of the war. 67, the 13th of Nero the 2nd year of the war. 68, the last of Nero's and the first of Vespasian's, the 3rd year of the war, when Simon got possession of Jerusalem. 69, the 2nd of Vespasian's the 4th and last, when Titus destroyed the city. 3. A passage from the Roman historian Tacitus, incidentally confirms this date of A.D. 69 for the destruction of Jerusalem. After describing the battle of Cremona, between the armies of Vitellius and Vespasian, which occurred the year preceding the consulship of Vespasian and Titus, and the overthrow of the Jews, as Tacitus' history teaches us, he goes on to say, "This was the end of Cremona, 286 years from the building of it. The foundation of it was laid in the consulates of Tiberius Sempronius and Publius Cornelius, at the time when Hannibal was designing for Italy," &c. (Tac. Hist. 1. iii., 6.) As the consulship of Sempronius and Cornelius, the commencement of the second *Josephus, in his account of the war, says :-" On that very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus (Tamuz), the sacrifice, called the daily sacrifice, had failed; and had not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it." (Bell. Jud. l. vi., ii., 1.) This was two months before the city was taken, which event happened on the eighth of Gorpiæus, or the month Elul, as it was termed by the Jews, answering to our August and September. Whiston, the translator of Josephus, has a note on this place. He says:"The seventeenth of Panemus, A.D. 70, was a remarkable day indeed, when, according to Daniel's prediction 606 years before, the Romans, in half a week, caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease (Dan. ix, 27); for, from the month of February A.D. 66, about which time Vespasian entered on this war, to this very time, was just three and a half years." We suppose that Whiston should have written A.D. 69 in place of A.D. 70, for from February A.D. 66 to Panemus (July) A.D. 70 would be four and a half years. G Punic war, and Hannibal's march from Carthage Nova towards Italy, all occurred in the year B.C. 218,* by adding the 286 years, which Tacitus says intervened between those events and the battle of Cremona, we arrive at A.D. 68, and not A.D. 69, the date generally ascribed to that fight; and as we learn from Tacitus, that Titus was appointed by his Father Vespasian, to reduce Judea (which he did in the course of five months), in the following year (Hist. 1. v., 1.), it is evident from this mode of reckoning that the date of the destruction of Jerusalem must be determined as having occurred some time during the autumn of A.D. 69. 4. The true date of the battle of Cremona affords further help for determining the date of the fall of Jerusalem, as it is quite clear from Tacitus and Dion Cassius, that the engagement between the armies of Vespasian and Vitellius, at Cremona, took place during the autumn of the year previous to the fall of Jerusalem. This may be determined by the lunar eclipse which occurred during the fight,which has been commonly considered to be that of October 18th, A.D.69, and which would naturally fix the destruction of Jerusalem in the succeeding year, A.D. 70. But there are grounds for proving it must be dated a year earlier, from the account which the historian gives of this battle: e.g., Tacitus says, "It begun about the third hour of the night (9 p.m.), and that the combat lasted the whole night; various, doubtful, and bloody. The night was far spent, and the future of the battle hung in the balance, when the moon appeared, and gave the armies an imperfect sight of each other, but by a false light.” (Hist. 1. iii., 6.) Dion Cassius recording the same event, relates that "the confusion and astonishment of Vitellius' army were extremely increased by an eclipse of the moon, which not only appeared obscure, but red, bloody, and stained with the most fatal colours. When the moon came out of her obscurity, the combatants were sometimes seen standing on their feet, sometimes leaning upon their lances, one side proclaiming Vespasian, the other Vitellius. About sunrise, the party of Vespasian, invoking his name, according to their custom, the party of Vitellius betook themselves to flight." (Xiphilin's Dion Cassius, Ch. the Reign of the Emp. Vitell.) From a comparison of these two authorities, it is clear that the battle of Cremona commenced about 9 p.m., continued See Chronological Tables of Roman History by Dr. Smith, editor of Greek and Roman Antiquities. during the whole night, and that its termination in the morning was caused by an eclipse of the moon, which occasioned a panic amongst the soldiers of the army of Vitellius. Now the astronomical tables record a total eclipse of the moon as having happened at half-past six a.m., on the morning of October 29th, A.D. 68, whereas the lunar eclipse of the following year is put down as a partial one, and having taken place at ten p.m., on the night of October 11th, A.D. 69. (See L'Art. de Verifier les Dates.) Seeing that the former of these eclipses alone answers the conditions of the eclipse mentioned by the historians, it necessarily follows that the battle of Cremona was fought during the night of October 28th-29th, A.D. 68, and that the fall of Jerusalem must be dated on the following year, A.D. 69. 5. Another incidental evidence in favour of this date may be adduced from the words of the historian, respecting the day on which the city was taken. Josephus says, "Jerusalem was taken in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the 8th day of the month Gorpiæus (Elul)." (B. J. L. vi., x.) Dion Cassius records that "Titus took the city of Jerusalem upon a Saturday which the Jews observe still with great devotion." (Xiphilin, Reign of the Emp. Vesp.) Now it may be ascertained by the astronomical tables that in the year A.D. 69, the 8th of Gorpiæus (Elul) fell on a Saturday: e.g., The new moon of Nisan of that year took place on Saturday, March 11th, and-consequently the 15th of Nisan, or first day of the feast of the Passover,* would have fallen on Saturday, March 18th, the weekly Sabbath feast; and as it was an invariable rule amongst the Jews not to allow the feast of the Passover to fall on the same day as the weekly Sabbath feast, but to retrograde it when necessary, we must calculate accordingly here. Hence the 1st of Nisan or Xanthicus (for Josephus generally uses the Syro-Macedonian names of the months) began that year on March 10th, and as the Dominical letter for that year is A, and the Sundays of March the 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th, it necessarily fell on a Friday; and allowing for the length of the months being alternately of thirty and twenty-nine days, we arrive at the following conclusion : * Josephus says, " In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the 14th day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries, we keep the Passover; the feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the 15th day of the month." (Antiq. l. iii., x., 5.) on Friday, March 10, o.s., a.d. 69. the day of the month and of the week, according to Josephus and Dion Cassius, on which the city of Jerusalem was taken. I think, therefore, we are warranted in assuming that Saturday, the 8th of Elul, or Gorpiæus, answering to our August 12, A.D. 69, is the true date for fixing the fall of Jerusalem. 6. A further evidence which we shall adduce in favour of this date is to this effect. There are coins extant, which were struck on the capture of Jerusalem, of Titus, marked with a trophy and triumphal chariot, and also of Vespasian; some with a Latin inscription "Judea Capta, s. c.," others with a Greek inscription, which would read thus in English:-"Vespasian, Emperor and Cæsar, Judea taken in the year 21 of Agrippa." (Usher's Annals, page 905.) This was Agrippa the younger, before whom Paul appeared, and who succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, Herod Agrippa, as Josephus (Antiq: 1. xx., v., 2) informs us, "in the eighth year of the reign of Claudius Cæsar." It is then very easy to see that the chronology of his reign would stand thus : Claudius Cæsar succeeded Caligula, January 24th, A.D. 41. The eighth year of his reign would consequently be A.D. 48, when Agrippa succeeded his father Herod Agrippa. HenceThe 1st year of Agrippa, jun. would be A.D. 48-9. The 11th 58-9. The 17th The 21st 64-5. 68-9. In which year, as the coin of Vespasian declares, Jerusalem was taken. 7. The last evidence which we shall adduce in favour of A.D. 69 is the following. Time has handed down to us a well-attested tradition that the year in which Jerusalem was taken by Titus and the Roman army was a Sabbatical year, and there are the strongest grounds for believing that this happened A.D. 69. The last Sabbatical year of which, we believe, any mention is made by Josephus, previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, occurred B.C. 37, when that city was captured by Herod and Sosius, the Roman General, "during the consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus, in the 185th Olympiad, on the 3rd month, during the solemnity of the fast (Antiq. 1. xiv., xvi., 4); i.e., on the 22nd of the 3rd month of Sivan, when the Jews kept a feast in memory of the prohibition by Jeroboam, son of Nebat, to the ten revolted tribes, forbidding them to carry their first-fruits to Jerusalem." (1 Kings xii. 27.) After describing the horrors which ensued upon Herod's capture of the city, the historian remarks, "Nor was there any end of the miseries he brought upon them; and this distress was in part occasioned by the covetousness of the prince, who was still in want of more, and in part by the Sabbatical year which was still going on, and which forced the country to lie still uncultivated, since we are forbidden to sow our land in that year." (Antiq. xv., i., 1.) It is important, however, in order to prove our point quite clearly, to consider at what time of the year the Sabbatical year commenced. Calmet in his Dictionary of the Bible says, "Some have been of opinion that it began on the first month of the sacred year, i.e., Nisan, or in the spring; others think it began at the first month of the civil year, or Tizri, September." That the former opinion is the correct one we may gather from what Scripture says on the subject. It is written: "The Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, when ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyards, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the Lord.” (Levit. xxv. 1-4.) Seeing that the children of Israel after their forty years' wanderings in the wilderness, "came up out of Jordan on the 10th day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month, at even, in the plains of Jericho" (Josh. iv. 19; v. 10), the interval between the Exodus and the Eisodus being thus exactly forty years, we may reasonably conclude that they began to count their Sabbatical years from the time that they entered the promised land, according to the command of God, i.e., during the first month of the sacred year, answering somewhat to our month of March; and as they were commanded equally to let the land rest from sowing on the year of jubilee, which was every fiftieth year, and which was to begin on the 10th day of the seventh month," about the time of September (Levit. xxv. 8-11), it seems |