THEOLOGIGSL LECTURES BY BENJAMIN TUCKER TAMER, D. D., Author of " Apology for African Methodism" " Origin of the Negro," "Is the Negro CursedV Outlines of History," etc., etc. INTRODUCTION BY BISHOP JAMES A. HANDY, D. D. Chronology—Three Lectures. Poetic Features of the Symbolism of the Old Tes¬ tament.—Three Lectures. The Harmony of the Gospels.—Three Lectures. The Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ.—Three Lectures. NASHVILLE, TENN.: Publishing House A. M. E. Church Sunday School Union. 1894. DEDICATORY. TO SARAH ELIZABETH TANNER, Whose love as Wife, Constancy as Mother, Fidelity as Friend, and, above all, Whose Piety toward God, Devotion to His Church and Broad Charity to the World, Have been the Inspiration of his Life, The Author joyfully dedicates this Volume. INTRODUCTION. Few words are needed to introduce this volume of lectures. The author has aimed to be both simple and instructive, and has succeeded to a most admir¬ able degree. The science of chronology, calendrical and epochal, is dwelt upon at length, giving the casual reader a most interesting view of this important subject. Biblical poetry and symbolism, receive what is possibly the most extended treatment by the hands of any man of the Afro-American race. Avoiding frag¬ mentary statements, the lecturer has gone into details with a charming fullness. In the treatment he has given the harmony of the Gospels, the writer may be said to have attained the beauty of the rainbow in the happy blending of the great facts in the life of the Saviour. Taken as presented, nought remains but for some able mind to simply enlarge and bring therefrom a single Gospel which will constitute the life of Him who " went about doing good." In view of what he has so eloquently said, all nature seems to be vocal with the melody of the story of the Cross and radiant with the glory of the Divine benevolence as therein set forth. It is as Pope has said : Hark, the music soft and clear, Gently steals upon the ear. The Life and Ministry of Jesus—the spotless life, the life free from fault, as the Roman Governor himself (v) vi Introduction. attested—the life eternal, is here set forth with a rich¬ ness that charms and makes glad. His Ministry— Creative, Providential, Vicarious and Intercessary, is presented with simplicity and at the same time with much beauty. A feature of the lectures, worthy of ex¬ ceptional notice, is the Race feature. The Bishop's views of the great facts which come under notice, are the views of a member of the Hamitic branch of the common race; and upon more than one occasion, at¬ tention is called to the fact that Japheth has painted everything to suit himself, and often to the detriment of that which is fair and honest. It will be impossible to read what the lecturer has said on this head, and not wish, like Leigh Hunt's Ben Adhem, that his tribe may increase. And now, dear reader, in presenting these lectures to the public, we can not imagine the author to have any desire or wish to promote sectarian views. On the contrary, it is only to lead to a closer and a more prayerful study of the Inspired Word. Let, therefore, all those who are studying the Scriptures—especially those called to teach, and who are required to receive "the words at his mouth"—let all such not only read this volume, but study it, assured as I am that the writer has invested the subjects treated with sufficient interest as to make the perusal a pleasant task. -James Handy. Washington City, D. C. CHRONOLOGY. LECTURE I. BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY. Two big words, we can almost hear a goodly portion of the readers say. It is well enough to remind such of them as have in mind the ministerial career,* that they will be constantly meeting in the course of their varied reading, not only with intricate problems, but with big words; and words quite as hard for untrained lips—lips accustomed to the careless brogue of the lower walks of life—to pronounce, as they are esteemed big: such for instance as those above, especially the last. To the end that the younger of the class in whose interest especially this has been written may be fore¬ armed, we forewarn; and give a few samples of the big words with which they will sooner or later be con¬ fronted : Soteriology, a treatise on Salvation ; Genealogy, a his- * The Sixth General Rule for gaining knowledge, as given by Isaac Watts, is one altogether worthy of remembrance. " Be not so weak," he says, " as to imagine that a life of learning (such as is the ministry) is a life of laziness and ease. Dare not give up your¬ self to any of the learned professions, unless you are resolved to labor hard at study, and can make it your delight and the joy of your life, according to the motto of our late Lord Chancellor King, Labor ipse voluptas (Labor itself is pleasure). " Improvement of the Mind," p. 24. 4 Theological Lectures. tory or treatise on families; Theology, a treatise on God ; Teleology, a treatise on final causes ; Demonology, a treatise on demons ; Eschatology, a treatise concern¬ ing the last things, such as death, the condition of man after death, the end of this world period, resur¬ rection, final judgment, and the final destiny of the good and the wicked. Hermeneutics, the art of interpret¬ ing Scripture; Doxology, an ascription of praise; Archaeology, a discussion on old things; nor least nor last, Chronology. An additional thought here presents itself, and may as well be urged, to-wit: The necessity of training the tongue. The pedestrian uses his legs, and on an ad¬ venture he sees to it that they are well trained. The mechanic uses his arms, and he is quite as thoughtful of them as the pedestrian is of his legs. The artist uses his eyes, and of them the saine may be said. And the musician uses his ears. The preacher, however, uses his tongue; and it behooves him to see to it, that as those just mentioned give due attention to the mem¬ bers they especially employ, so is it for him to defer to and train the member of his calling—the tongue. Ah, the difference between a tongue trained on the score of beauty of utterance, and of effectiveness, as well; and the one that has been allowed to run loose! No more can they be compared, than can the harsh and almost meaningless gutterals of the Digger Indian or the South African man of the bush, to that of the speech of the refined. To this fact, ministers especially should pay heed. To this work should they especially address themselves. They of all men are called to talk, more, really, than is the statesman or the pro- Chronology. 5 fessed orator. Talk is their mission, their work ; they most constantly of all are sounding out the mighty feelings of their heart and the mightier truths of their head. Let them see to it, then, that the sounds they make be musical and attractive and, therefore, effect¬ ive. Whittle down your tongues, young men, if you would win your suit—if you would send the word home with power; and so be instrumental in convert¬ ing souls. Smooth them off. Make them capable of an utterance as clear and as distinct as the whistling winds. Then will such words as " Biblical Chro¬ nology," lose size and intricacy, and take on an air of beauty and meaning. To speak racially, it is our own Hallie Quinn Brown that says : " Mouth gymnastics are necessary in order to secure the best results from the jaw, lips, tongue and palate. The tongue plays a most important part in speaking and in singing. The untrained tongue rolls spasmodically in the mouth, a helpless mass of flesh ; whereas if brought under per¬ fect control by correct exercises, defects may be over¬ come and instead of squeezed and unnatural tones, the tongue may be a powerful lever, in producing the clear, full, resonant tone so necessary to the successful speaker and singer. I know of no better legacy to leave the young men and women of our race, to whom God has so largely given splendid physiques and supe¬ rior natural voices, than this : Educate youe mouths." Biblical Chronology : Both of these words are from the Greek, ftiftfaov, a Book, by way of eminence, The Book. XpovoXoyia, time a discourse. Literally, rather philologically, a discourse or treatise on time. 6 Theological Lectures. In its English dress, the word is variously defined. That its scope may the better be understood, we pre¬ sent a number of these definitions. Says Worcester : " Chronology is the science which treats of the various divisions of time, and the order and succession of events." Says Webster : The science which treats of meas¬ uring or computing time by regular divisions or periods, and which assigns to events or transactions their proper dates." Says the Century : " The science of time; (a) the method of measuring or computing time by regular divisions or periods, according to the revolutions of the sun or moon ; (b) a special system by which such measurement is effected; (e) the 'science of ascertain¬ ing the true historical order of past events and their exact dates ; (d) a particular statement of the supposed proper order of certain past events; as the Chronology of the Greeks." The definitions given by the leading encyclopaedias are more extended. The Britannica says: " It is the science which treats of time. Its object is to arrange and exhibit the various events which have occurred in the history of the world in the order of their succession, and to as¬ certain the interval of time between them." Says the American: " It is the science of establish¬ ing historical dates by arranging events in the order of their succession, and determining the interval be¬ tween each and some fixed period in time." McClintock and Strong say: "It is the science Chronology. 7 which measures time by the succession of events that occur in the heavens or on the earth." Lastly, says the old Dobson Encyclopaedia : " Chro¬ nology treats of time and the method of measuring its parts and adopting these when distinguished by proper marks and characters to past transactions, for the illustration of history." IJow fully the plain trend of the root warrants each and all these definitions, any may see. Two phases of the subject present themselves : the calendric phase and the phase that might be termed epochal, for the reason that in the chronology of all nations some re¬ markable epoch is fixed upon, from which they begin their computations. For instance, the-Romans calcu¬ lated or reckoned from the year of the foundation of their city; the Greeks from the year wherein was in¬ stituted the Olympic games; the Mohammedans from the. year of the flight of Mohammed. We Christians reckon from the birth of Christ. The phase that will first receive special or extended attention will be the calendric phase, or the natural division of time; and the artificial as well. A word, possibly, in explanation of such a course, might not be out of place. A broad intelligence in him who essays to play the role of teacher, is all necessary—and the broader, the better. The prin¬ ciple expressed by the world in the saying: " Aim, my child, at the sun," is the true principle for any thing like advanced intellectual development—the de¬ velopment which we as a race so sorely need. He who would understand the chronology of computing and adjusting dates, ought to be widely informed as to the 8 Theological Lecture*, calendars of the nations; and here as above, the more widely the better. We have deemed it well to make this statement, to prepare the reader's mind for a few dry facts relating, only in a general way, to our subject proper. And yet, it is to be said, the more such facts we possess, the better will we be prepared to receive and appreciate what is to be said directly upon our theme, for all truth is related. As might be expected the world had grown, if not gray, certainly mature and settled, when its people first took to the consideration of time, in its connec¬ tion with events. It is the settled man, and not the thoughtless boy who takes to events; especially as these relate t© the seasons. Nor is the reason farfetched. The boy-life has no events to mark; and not until the manly age has come is this the case. Even as the early world, which is but another name for the youthful tribes and nations of the earth, had not aught to mark, until it, too, obtained the manly age of its career; and in ways many had made events not only possible and probable, but real and significant —events that worthily connected themselves with the seasons of the earth or the sun and the moon and the stars of heaven. As evidence of what has just been said, it is to be noted that centuries upon centuries this side of what is known as the Historic Period had come and gone, before the.chronological idea was hit upon. The most ancient of all the secular poets of the Japhetic world, Homer,* appears to have been entirely unacquainted *The prevailing opinion of the world is that Homer was born in Smyrna, a thousand years, more or less before Christ, say when Chronology, 9 with the thought; for nothing like a formal calendar is in either the Iliad or the Odyssey ; nor indeed in any portion of his writings. And what is true of Homer is equally true of the most ancient of the Japhetic histo¬ rians, such as Herodotus* and Thucydides.f In no line of any of the nine books of the former, nor in the extended history of the Peloponessian War of the lat¬ ter, is any "regular date for events recorded." By one able to judge, they are described as "stories without dates." Referring to this phase of our common subject, W. L. R. Cates says: "It seems now surprising that vague counting by generations should so long have prevailed and satisfied the wants of enquiring men, and that so simple, precise and seemingly obvious a plan as counting by year, the largest natural division of time did not occur to any investigator before Eratos¬ thenes.'1 Previous to this, the same writer had said: u Eratosthenes who in the latter half of the second century, B. C., was keeper of the famous Alexandrian David or Solomon reigned; that he resided for a long time in Chios, and was buried in Ios, now known as Nio, an island in the Myrtoan Sea. Many of the works once attributed to him are lost. Those which remain are the two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, about thirty Hymns, a mock epic {the Battle of the Frogs and the Truce), and some pieces of a few lines each (the so called Epigrams). ^Herodotus was a Greek. He was born of Lyxes and Dryo in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor about 484 B. C., and is thought to have died in Thurii, Italy, about 420 B. C. Htfis styled the " Father of History." tThucydides, also a Greek. His father's name was Olorus. He was born at Athens about 471, B. C., and died about 400, B. C Distinguished both as a warrior and historian. 10 Theological Lectures. Library,* not only made himself a great name by his important work on geography, but by his treatise, en¬ titled, Chronography, one of the first attempts to estab¬ lish an exact scheme of general chronology, earned for himself the title of' Father of Chronology.'" A word in regard to the man who is here declared to be the first to wake up the people of the earth to a rational consid¬ eration of the events of the past as these were related to its times and seasons. Singularly enough and per¬ tinent to the present occasion and the people most likely to read, Eratosthenes was, if not of pure African or Hamitic blood, certainly he was of Hamitic extrac¬ tion. In common parlance, he was a colored man—not of the Cushite branch, however, of the Hamitic family ; but of the branch of Mizraim. He was a man in whose veins the blood of Ham, certainly, and of Japheth, pos¬ sibly, flowed. Although he lived in Alexandria, he was born in Cyrene, North Africa, B. C. 276, the same city, by the way, where was born and lived, that other colored man, Simon, supposed by Meyer, so sure was he that he was a Negro, to have been a slave, who- helped the Crucified to bear his own cross.f *A collection of books made by the Ptolemies of Egypt, about 300 B. C., and probably the largest ever made prior to the inven¬ tion of printing. By the additions made to it by other princes, the number enrolled is set down at 700,000. In ordering its destruc¬ tion in A. D. 640, the Caliph Omar said : " If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Book of God (the Koran), they are useless,, •and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious,, and ought to be destroyed." t"I am hardly capable of appreciating to the full such grand intrepidity—due of course to the fact that the stock from which I am sprung did not attain that royal kink in its blood ages ago. Chronology. 11 Continuing the same line of approach to our sub¬ ject proper, before entering directly upon it, let us for the present speak not exactly of the regular develop¬ ment of this all-important science, but of the Chro¬ nologies or calendars of the world, other than that that is Biblical or Jewish. Passing over this, then, for the moment, as well as to eras or chronologies as were used by the Romans and the Greeks—indeed pass¬ ing over eras, many and various, we come to, possi¬ bly, the most ancient of all professed systems of Chro¬ nology of the calendar phase, as it bears directly upon the division of time, that of the Chinese. To Antoine Gaubil, (1689-1759), Johann Adam von Schall (1591- 1699), Nicolas Freret (1688-1749,) and W. L. R. Cates, the peoples of the Occident or West are chiefly in¬ debted for what is known of the Chronology or calen¬ dar of this far off Eastern realm. What is doubtless a summation of what all these learned upon the matter, is given by the last men¬ tioned, Prof. Cates, in his article in the Britannica. My tribe has to own kinship with a very tame and unsanguinary individual who, a long time ago when blue blood was a distilling in the stirring, busy world outside, had nc more heroic daring thing to do than help a pale, sorrow-marked man as he was toiling up a certain hill "at Jerusalem, bearing his own cross, whereon he was soon to be ignominiously nailed. This Cyrenian fellow was used to bearing burdens and he didn't mind giving a lift over a hard place, now and then, with no idea of doing any thing grand or memorable, or as even so much as his name would be known there¬ by. And then, too, by a rather strange coincidence, this unwar- like and insignificant Cyrenian of ours had his home in a country (the fatherland of all the family), which had afforded kindly shelter to that same mysterious stranger." '* * —Miss A. J. Cooper, in " A Voice from the South." p. 197. 12 Theological Lectures. Among many other things, he says : " From the time of the Emperor Yaou of 2,000 years B. C., (he was co- temporary with Abram) the Chinese had two different years—a civil year which was regulated by the moon, and an astronomical year which was solar. The civil year consisted in general of twelve months or luna¬ tions, but occasionally a thirteenth was added, in or¬ der to preserve its correspondence with the solar year. Even at that early period the solar or astronomical year consisted of 365^ days, like our Julian year ; and it was arranged in the same way, a day being intercal¬ ated every fourth year. ** The Chinese divided the day into 100 Ice, each he into 100 minutes, and each minute into 100 seconds. This practice continued to prevail till the seventeenth century, A. D., when * * * * they adopted the European method of dividing the day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. The civil day com¬ mences at midnight and ends at the midnight fol¬ lowing." * * * * * " For chronological purposes," he continues, " the Chinese, in common with some other nations of the East, employ cycles of sixty "—concerning the which we take occasion to say, that it is of this period the late Poet Laureate, of England, and of the entire proud Aryan race, so unwittingly blundered in his famed Locksley Hall poem, where with such pride of race and land he complacently sings : " Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : Better fifty years of Europe, than a cycle of Cathay." "By means of these cycles,'' to resume the story of our authority, "they reckon their days, moons and Chronology. 13. years. The days are distributed in the calendar into cycles of sixty, in the same manner as ours are dis¬ tributed into weeks or cycles of seven. Each day of the cycle has a particular name, and as it is a usual practice, in mentioning dates, to give the name of the day along with that of the moon and the year, this ar¬ rangement affords great facilities in unifying the epochs of Chinese Chronology. The order of the day in the cycle is never interrupted by any intercalation that may be necessary for adjusting the months or years. The moons of the civil year are also distin¬ guished by their place in the cycle of sixty; and as the intercalary moons are not mentioned, for the rea¬ son that during one of these lunations the sun enters into no new sign, there are only twelve regular moons in a year, so that the cycle is renewed every five years. Thus the first moon of the year 1873, being the first of a new cycle, the first moon of every sixth year, reck¬ oned backwards or forwards from that date, as 1868, 1863, etc., or 1877, 1882, etc., will also commence a new lunar cycle of sixty moons. In regard to the years, the arrangement is exactly the same. Each has a distinct number or name which marks its place in the cycle, and as this is generally given in referring to dates, along with the other chronological characters of the year, the ambiguity which arises from following a fluctuating or uncertain epoch is entirely obviated. The present cycle began in the year 1864 of our era." The year 1893 is, therefore, the twenty-ninth of the current cycle. Next to the Chronology of China and closely akin to it, is what is known as Indian Chronology, or the 14 Theological Lectures. method of dividing and reckoning time followed by the various nations and peoples of India. Concern¬ ing it, we read: " The Hindoos have a solar year which is generally followed in the transaction of pub¬ lic business, especially since the introduction of Euro¬ pean power; and they have a lunar year, which regu¬ lates their religious festivals, and which they follow in their domestic arrangements. Their solar year or rather sidereal year— is measured by the time in which the sun returns to the same star, and is consequently longer than our astronomical year. * * * It is reckoned by the Hindoos at 365 days, 6 hours, 12 min¬ utes and 30 seconds, and consequently exceeds a Gregorian year by one day in sixty years. * * * * The longest month may contain 31 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, and the shortest only 29 days, 8 hours and 21 minutes. The civil months depend solely on the moon; though they derive their names from the solar signs of the zodiac. * * * In some provinces of India, as in Bengal, the civil month commences with the day after the new moon ; but in the upper or northern provinces, it begins as we have stated with the day after the full moon. From the manner in which they are reckoned, it is evident that the Hindoo months, both solar and lunar, neither consist of an entire number of days, nor are regulated by any cycle, but depend solely on the motion of the sun and moon. The time of their com¬ mencement is different on every different meridian, and a Hindoo has no means of knowing beforehand on what day any month begins except by consulting his almanac. The civil day in all parts of India be¬ gins at sunrise." Chronology. 15 Lastly, we give as introductory to our subject proper and in the interest of a common enlightenment, what is said of one more branch of this broad subject of Chronology, to-wit: Mahommedan Chronology or calen¬ dar. So closely akin is it. in a certain sense, to our own, that our excerpt need not be long. Says our author: " The era in use among the Turks, Arabs, and other Mahommedan nations, is that of the Hegira or Hegra, the flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina, 622 A. D. Its commencement, however, does not, as is some¬ times stated, coincide with the very day of the flight, but precedes it by sixty-eight days. The prophet after leaving Mecca, to escape the pursuit of his enemies, the Koreishites, hid himself with his friend Abubekr in a cave near Mecca, and there lay for three days. The departure from the cave and setting out on the way to Medina, is assigned to the ninth day of the third month, Rabia I.—corresponding to the 22d of September, of the year 622 A. D. The era begins from the first day of the month of Moharram preceding the flight, or first day of that Arabian year, which coin¬ cides with Friday, July 16, 622 A. D. It is necessary to remember that by astronomers and by some histo. rians the era is assigned to the preceding day, July 15, It is stated by Dr. Herbelot that the Hegira was insti¬ tuted by Omar, the second Caliph, in imitation of the Christian era of the martyrs. * * * * The years of the Hegira are purely lunar and always consist of twelve lunar months, commencing with approximate new moons, without any intercalation to keep them to the same season with respect to the sun, so that they retrograde through all the seasons in about thirty-two 16 Theological Lectures. and a half years. They are also portioned into cycles of thirty years, nineteen of which are common years of 354 days each, and the other 11 are intercalary years y that is, they have an additional day appended to the last month. The mean length of the year, is, therefore, 354 11-30 days, or 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, or the time of a mean lunation, and this differs from the as¬ tronomical mean lunation by only 28 seconds. This small error will only amount to a day in 2,400 years." Concluding the remarks of this our introductory lecture, we say: Our theme is not the Chronology found in Wan Wang's Book of Changes; nor in Con¬ fucius' Book of History, to which we have alluded above; it is not the Chronology of the Indian Rig Veda—nor that of the Mohammedan Al-Koran. On the contrary, let the bare mention of these upon the present occasion suffice, while we proceed to speak in detail, of time and the events connected therewith, as they are found in the Book of Books, the Bible—and yet, to him who would rise to anything like notable leadership, all the facts we have given ought to be at command. Not that he is expected to have them in his head; but, he must know where to get them. In these days, a man's library becomes a part of his head; and the facts therein contained, must be as really his as are the facts of personal memory. Does he wish to know anything, he must know exactly the book, the chapter, the page, where it is to be found. Without the possession, then, of a library a man's knowledge is of necessity, comparatively limited. With one at command, and with the knowledge of using it, broad action is within reach of any and all. LECTURE II. BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY. In our lecture introductory we called attention to other than Biblical or Jewish Chronologies of the cal¬ endar phase, to-wit: those of China, India, and of the vast Mohammedan world. We come now more directly to the Chronology of the Bible—not especially the whole Bible, as we now have it, composed as it is of the Old Testament and the New; but the Bible as the Jews possessed it; that is, the Old Testament.* For the fuller and more intelligent comprehension of our subject, a word may well be said in regard to this people, and this Book. As to the Jews, it can be affirmed that there is no such people on the face of the earth; none such as it relates to blood and history. It is true that the great Napoleon said of them : "The evil done by the Jews does not come from individuals, but from the very con¬ stitution of the people." And also Johann Kaspar Lavater: " Physical degradation follows closely upon moral degradation. This is strongly remarked among the Jews, who of all races of men, are the most de¬ praved." It is true, the world well nigh joins in the remark: " The Jew's soft hands and curved fingers *The reason for such a course is that in New Testament times the Chronology of the Jews was really more Eoman than Jewish. 2 (17) 18 Theological Lecture*. grasp only the values that others have produced"* yet do we restate the opinion and in an appreciative sense, that there is no such people on the face of the earth. Descended from Abram almost four thousand years ago, the stream of their race life has suffered scarcely any contamination of blood—a thing that can be said of no other people at present on the earth. The blood of the proud Assyrian, and the prouder Egyptian, to make no mention of people of lesser note in the far distant past, has become mixed, even to stagnation. And what may we not say of the blood of the less ancient Roman and Greek, Celt and Saxon, Negro and Indian.f Not so the Jew. With here and there a trivial exception, his blood is as purely racial, if not as purely individual, as it was when flowing in the veins of his great ancestors} Abraham, Isaac; Jacob, the twelve Patriarchs. He is the one nation or people whose genealogical hold on the mighty past remains unbroken. As he was, he is ; and the indications are in keeping with the prophecy that says he will be, "until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," whatever that may really signify. Unique * American Jew. pp. 5-31-66. t" The people of Europe and America are greatly mixed in Talood. There are no pure races among them. More and more does scientific research find that varied strains of blood are in each of the great races, the Celtic, Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon and the like. The assumption of pure blood, whether on Beacon Hill) among the Pennsylvania Quakers, or by the titled aristocracy of the Old World, is a figment of fancy."—Methodist Review. (Sept., Oct., 1893.) "Turanian Blood in the Anglo-Saxon." JVI. V. B. Knox, D. D., President of Red River Valley University, Wahpeton N. Dak. Chronology. 19 in blood, he is equally unique in history. A slave yesterday, he is master to-day. Hated, yet respected. Despised, yet courted. Rich, yet accounted an off- scouring. Learned, yet burdened with ignorance. Liv¬ ing on the favor of kings, yet dictating their policies. Proscribed even unto death, yet all the time flourish¬ ing as the green bay tree or a green tree growing in its own soil, of which David his great ancestor wrote and Sang. And how like the man is the Book he wrote! As pure in what we might designate its blood, and as unique in its history, it stands the one Book, the like to which is not to be found among the books of earth. Free from all foreign intrusion, pure both in thought and recital, like the people from which it sprang, its flow through the ages has been undisturbed, despite the fact that it has coursed through marshes of igno¬ rance and error, sufficiently potent to have poisoned any production of less divine origin. And what a his¬ tory is there connected with it? Burnt, yet Phoenix¬ like does it revive. Scattered, yet it is gathered to¬ gether. Undervalued, yet its price is above rubies. Possessing a simplicity that adapts it to a child, yet it is the bone of contention among the intellectual giants of the world. Always refuted, yet always confirmed. Solitary and alone, yet is it the ally of centuries and civilizations. Bearing the double message of life and death, it is equally prized for both. That such a people and such a Book should have somewhat to say on the score of calendaristic Chro¬ nology, is altogether in keeping with what we might be led to expect. Nor are we in the least disappointed. 20 Theological Lectures. On the contrary we find both to be veritable leaders of the world in the science of Chronology.* Moses antedated Eratosthenes, quite fourteen hundred years; and yet in his wTriting he makes a statement that must ever serve as the foundation for any and all chronological data. We have already quoted Cotes, as expressing surprise that generations of inquiring men should so long have satisfied themselves by vague counting, "when so simple, precise and seemingly ob¬ vious a plan as counting by years " offered itself. It is precisely this last that Moses did. He would not have the world regulate its interests by vague count¬ ing. No one can say of the method he suggests what is said of the method of Eratosthenes : "His method of procedure, however, was usually conjectural; and guess-work, however careful, acute and plausible, is still guess-work and not testimony." Moses points to a method where irrefutable testimony holds sway, even the testimony of the heavenly bodies; as the necessity of all true Chronology requires. In his *" Of all historical compends, the books of Holy Scripture, con¬ sidered aside from the inspired message from God that they con¬ vey to man, stand pre-eminent among them all in these three par¬ ticulars ; and thus they furnish the trusty and most reliable rec¬ ords of the annals of the race that the world possesses. Not only are the most important events therein recorded, but biographical details are given about the action in these events, geographical statements of the places where those events occurred, and chrono¬ logical indication of the times when they transpired. The Bible looked at from a human point of view as a merely historical com¬ position, when tried by these tests, is absolutely perfect, and with¬ out a rival in the whole range of the world's literature."—Ht. Mev. James Theodore Holly, July, 1885, in A. M. E. Church Review. Chronology. 21 Book of Genesis (i: 14), we read: " And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to di¬ vide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." From this statement it is seen that Mr. Cotes is wrong when he says, that " counting by years, the longest natural division of time did not occur to any investigators be¬ fore Eratosthenes." This is really what did occur to Moses, for does he not substantially say in the quota¬ tion just given : "Let the lights in the firmament, by which natural division of time is made, serve for signs and for seasons." And what is this but meeting Mr. Cotes' rule. " These serve," says McDonald, and he, in referring to the heavenly bodies, is endorsed by the world both of science and religion, "these serve as marks or signs of important changes and occurrences in the kingdom of Providence." Whitelaw sums up the universal opinion, when he says : " Without the help of the sun, moon and stars Chronology would be impossible," And this is the plain inference of what Moses says. Such theologians, therefore, as Adam Clark, who put limitations to the scope of Moses' meaning, plainly do so upon their own responsibility. Says this scholar, referring to the words * * " let them be for signs and seasons,"—" for the times on which the sacred festivals should be held." Possibly so; but why limit their uses to these ? Why not have them determine other events, even those in the " kingdom of Providence," as Mr. McDonald has said. Surely no good reason can be given. On the contrary, whether Moses meant it or not, he points to a rule that is at the 22 Theological Lecture.s. foundation of all data; and therefore of all Chronology, whether calendric or datal, and among all people. Said that inimitable orator, Edward Everett: "But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men— each upon his own meridian, from the arctic pole, to the equator, from the equator to the antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and the glorious constellation far up in the everlasting belfries of the sky, chime twelve at midnight; twelve for the pale student over his flickering lamp ; twelve amid the flaming wonders of Orion's belt, if he crosses the me¬ ridian at that fated hour; twelve by the weary couch of languishing humanity; twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean ; twelve for the heaving tides of the ocean; twelve for the weary arm of labor; twelve for the toiling brain ; twelve for the watching, waking, broken heart; twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment and expires ; twelve for the comet whose period is measured by centuries; twelve for every substantial, for every imaginary thing which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which the speech or thought of man at the given meridian, refers to the lapse of time." In the Mosaic statement, as will be clearly seen, we have the foundation of most, if not all Biblical or Jew¬ ish Chronology, for it was the natural division of time they chiefly accepted; and to it they deferred in mak¬ ing note of events. In keeping with what has already been said, let the Jewish calendar first receive at¬ tention. The natural divisions of time are three: the day, the month and the year. As a natural division of time, the day is expressive of one revolution of the Chronology. 23 earth upon its axis; the month, of one revolution of the moon around the earth; the year, of one revolu¬ tion of the earth around the sun. These are the domi¬ nating features of all Jewish or Biblical Chronology or calendar, as indicated by Moses in the quotation here¬ tofore given. The artificial divisions of time as rec¬ ognized by the Jews in the Bible, and which to a greater or less extent bear upon the question of their Chronology, are hours and watches, and weeks, the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee. Of these, we will treat in our next. For the present we treat of the di¬ visions of time that are natural. We speak of the day. The day as accepted by the Jews was the time that elapsed from one setting of the sun to another set¬ ting of the same, or as Moses puts it (Lev. xxiii: 32), "from even unto even.'' In thus having their day to be solar, they differed from most other ancient nations; especially those of the Japhetic branch, whose day was lunar, according to Pliny,* Tacitus,f Caesar,X etc. * Pliny, known as the elder and author of Historia Naturalis, was born in Verona, Italy, A. D. 23. " He deemed every moment lost which was not dedicated to study * * * and wherever he went, he was always accompanied by his amanuensis." He was suffocated at Stabiae A. D. 79 upon the occasion of the destruction of Pompei." tGains Cornelius Tacitus. Roman orator, statesman and histo¬ rian. Time and place of his birth and death not definitely known. "The brightness of his genius made him a favorite with such em¬ perors, qs Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. In the year of our era, 97, he was appointed to a position in the state known as consul suffectus. The time of Tacitus was not employed in trivial pur¬ suits. The orator might have been never forgotten if the historian had not flourished." XCaius Julius Caesar. Roman orator, statesman, general and historian. Born B. C. 100. Assassinated March 15, B. C. 44. "When •24 Theological Lecture*. Says Adam Clark, and with him all substantially agree, " The Jews divided the day into morning and even¬ ing. Till the sun passed the meridian all was morn¬ ing, or forenoon ; after that all was afternoon or even¬ ing." Is inquiry made as to the names of these days? We reply: They were designated numerally. That is: The Sabbath was made the datum, and the day known to us as Sunday, was to the Jew, known as One of the Sabbath or week; Monday was known as Two of the Sabbath or week; Tuesday was known as Three of the Sabbath ; Wednesday, as Four of the Sabbath; Thurs¬ day, as Five of the Sabbath ; Friday was .known as Eve of the Sabbath, and Saturday was the Sabbath. After the day as a natural division of time, we. have the month which is the time occupied in a single rev¬ olution of the moon. Of Biblical months we have twelve, with an additional thirteenth which is inter¬ calary, and is known as Ve Adar. As these months are given us they are as follows: The first is Abib or Nisan. After it comes Iyar or Zif, Sivan, Thamumz or Tamumz, Ab, Elul, Elhanun 01* Tisri, Bui, Chisleu or Cheslev, Tebeth, Shebat, Adar and, as has been men¬ tioned, the month intercalary, Ve Adar or Second Adar. A word in regard to each of these months : Ahib the first in the sacred year, and the seventh in the civil, is referred to by Moses in Exodus xii: 2, but is first directly mentioned by him in Exodus xiii: -4, " This day ye shall go forth in the month Abib." He he was in his first campaign in Spain, he was observed to gaze at a statue of Alexander, and even shed tears at the recollection that that hero had conquered the world at an age in which he himself had done nothing." Chronology. 25 had previously, however, referred to it as we have said (Exodus xii:3): "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you." The word itself signifies to fructify, or, more properly, an ear of grain. It had thirty days, and corresponds, say, to the last half of our March and the first half of our April. The second month in the sa¬ cred year and eighth in the civil, is Iyar or Zif or Ziv. As to the name Ayar, it does not appear in Scripture, that having possibly been its colloquial name as ap¬ pears from Josephus,* who says: " Solomon began to build the temple in the fourth year of his reign, on the second month which the Macedonians call Arte- misus, and the Hebrews lyar." Its Biblical name is Zif and, although previously referred to, it is first mentioned b}r name in I. King vi: 1 : " And it came to pass in the 480th year, after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel in the month Ziv, which is the second month," etc. The word signifies splendour, "especially of flowers," says, Gesenius,* * * " from the new moon of May to that of June (ac¬ cording to the Rabbins from the new moon of April to that of May) as though it were the month of flowers." This month has twenty-nine days and corresponds, following the opinion of the Rabbins, say, to the last half of our April and the first half of our May. Sivan is the third month of the sacred year and ninth of the civil. It signifies bloom and has thirty days and corresponds to our May and June. Jammuz or Thammuz, the fourth month of the sacred year, and *Ant. of Jews. Book viii: c. 3. 26 Theological Lectures. tenth of the civil, has twenty-nine days and corresponds to our June and July. The name itself is of uncertain origin and occurs but once in Scripture (Ezekiel viii: 14) ; and then not as one of the months of the Hebrew calendar. Ab, the fifth month of the sacred, year and the eleventh of the civil, probably signifies " the season of fruits Like the month Thammuz, the name does not appear in Scripture. Mention is there made of it, simply as the fifth month (Numb, xxxiii: 88; Jer. i: 8; Ezra vii: 9). Tt has thirty days, and corresponds to our July and August. The name Elul is also of un¬ certain signification. It is the sixth of the sacred year and the twelfth of the civil year. It has twenty-nine days and corresponds to our August and September. In Nehemiah we read (vi: 15) : " So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days." Of Ethanim or Tixri we read in 1 Kings viii: 12 ; "And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.n As here stated Ethanim or Tisri was the seventh month religiously and the first month civilly. Like the month Elul, it is of uncertain significations. It had thirty days, and corresponds to our September and October. The month Marehesvan or Bull, second civilly and eighth religiously, corresponds to our Oc¬ tober and November. The word means rain, having respect, it is thought, to the weather at that season of the year. It had twenty-nine days. The writer of the First Book of Kings refers to it as the month in which was completed the erection of the Temple. The month Chisleu or Chislec comes next. It is mentioned both Chronology. 27 by Zechariah (vii: 1) and Nehemiah (i: 1), as well as in the Maccabees (1 Mac. i:54). " Its etymology is altogether uncertain," says Gesenius; and yet he adds the words: " It may, however, be so called from the languor and torpidity of nature." In the sacred cal¬ endar it stands ninth; in the civil, third. It has thirty days, and corresponds to our November and December. Tebeth is next. Of this month wrote Jerome, " Dec- imus mens is, qui Hebraei appellator, Tebeth, et apud Aegyptios Tubi, (or Tobi) apud Romanos, Januarius (" the tenth month, which by the Hebrews is called Tebeth, and by the Egyptians Tubi or Tobi, is called by the Romans Januarius"). It has twenty-nine days and, as has just been indicated, it corresponds to our December and January. For our calendar, or chro¬ nological measure, is but that of the Romans. It is mentioned in Esther ii: 16. The eleventh month in the sacred year and fifth in the civil, is Shebat or Se- bat, mentioned in Zechariah i: 7. The word signifies a rod or tribe. It has thirty days, and corresponds to our January and February. Adar, mentioned in Ezra (vi. 15), is the last month in the regular calendar of the JewTish or Biblical sacred year, while it is the sixth of their civil year. The name itself signifies, large. It has twenty-nine days and corresponds to our February and March. Of the month, Ve Adar, or the Second Adar, it is to be said that it has no standing in the civil year, and in the sacred it stands as the thirteenth when the year consists of thirteen lunar months, or every second when the year consists, as it does every third year, of thirteen lunar months. It is intercalary, of course—that is, "• inserted in the calendar as an ex- 28 Theological Lectures. traordinary month in order to preserve the correspond¬ ence between the solar year by which the seasons are determined and the civil year." The third and longest natural division of time, is the year, the period or space of time measured by the revolution of the earth around the sun. The fact of a month Ve Adar, or Second Adar, at once makes us to know that the Biblical or Jewish year was lunar, or as stated by W. S. B. Woolhouse, it is luni-solar. As might be judged from what has already been said, the Jews had two years, sacred and civil. The first of these, the sacred, used especially by the prophets, was reckoned from the moon after the vernal equinox, or about the 21st of March ; the civil year used by those engaged in secular pursuits was reckoned from Sep¬ tember or October, that is in the month Tisri. A Hebrew sacred year is full of chronological inter¬ est ; much more so in the past than now, as says Stack- house, "The Jews of old had very exact calendars, wherein were set down their several Fasts and Festivals, and all those days wherein they celebrated the memory of any great event that had happened to their nation. But these are no longer extant. All they have that savors of any antiquity, is their Megillah Thaneth, or Volume of Affliction, which contains the daj^s of Fasting and Feasting, that were heretofore in use among them." We mention some of them. To begin with, it started out with the month Abib or Nisan, having reference to their departure from'Egypt. On the first day a feast was observed for the sad death of the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. On the tenth a similar feast for the death of Miriam. On the evening of the fourteenth Chronology. 29 the paschal lamb was killed. On the fifteenth began the eight days remembrance of the Passover. On the twenty-sixth a fast for the death of Joshua. The second month began with a fast of three days for the excesses committed during the observance of the Passover. On the tenth, a fast for the death of Eli and for the capture of the ark. On the fourteenth began a sacred Passover to be observed by those who could not observe the first. On the twenty-eighth day a fast for the death of Samuel. On the sixth day of the third month, Sivan, began the Pentecost, called also the Feast of Weeks. The month Tammuz witnessed a fast on the fourteenth day, in memory of the tables of the law broken by Moses. The month of Ab, was introduced by a fast for the death of Aaron. What is known as Xylophoria took place on the twenty-first of the month. It was a feast in commemoration of the storing up of wood in the temple. Josephus refers to it. He says " * * * Now "the next day was the festival of Xyloph- ory; upon which the custom was for every one to bring wood for the altar, that there might never be a want of fuel for that fire which was unquenchable and always burning"—(Jas. War. II. 17-6). In the month Elul, the seventeenth day, a fast was observed for the death of the spies who brought an evil report of the land of promise. Tisri (September and October) was significantly a joyous month. Aside from the fact that with it began the civil year upon the same day began the Feast of Trumpets, while on the fifteenth ult began the Feast of Tabernacles. On the twenty- third, there was a national rejoicing for the law, and later in their history for the dedication of Solomon's 30 Theological Lectures. Temple. The month Bui (October and November), the fasting and the feasting balanced each other, there being two of each. The former happening on the sixth and seventh, in memory of the cruelty of Nebu¬ chadnezzar in putting out the eyes of their king Zede- kiah; the second for faults committed during the Feast of Tabernacles. The two feasts were of much later origin. The month Chisleu (November and De¬ cember) also was a month of feasts and of fasts. In Tebeth (December and January) there wrere three fasts and one feast. So, also, the same proceeding charac¬ terized the months Sebat and Adar. Among the fasts observed were those for the death of the elders who succeeded Joshua, for the war of the ten tribes against Benjamin, and for the death of Moses. Among the feasts was chiefly that of the Feast of Purim, Adar 15, of which record is made in Esther. The continual ref¬ erence to fasts and feasts, makes it pertinent that an insight be given as to the manner of their observance. In regard to Jewish Feasts, we cannot do better than to quote Canon Farrar.* His reference is to the Day of Atonement. " It was supposed," he says, *' that on New Year Day (Tishri 1) the Divine decrees are writ¬ ten down, and that on the Day of Atonement (Tishri 10) they are sealed, so that the decade is known by the name of ' Terrible Days ' and 'the Ten Penitential Days.' So awful wTas the Day of Atonement that we are told in a Jewish book of ritual that the very angels run to and fro in fear and trembling, saying, ' Lo, the Day of Judgment has come!' It wras not until that day that the full pardon was granted which repent- * Early Days of Christianity, p. 237. Chronology. 31 ance had insured. On that day the year of Jubilee was proclaimed. On that day alone the people came early to the synagogues and left them late. On that day alone, they said, Satan has no power to accuse, for Ha—Satan by numeration (Gematria) is 364, which means that on the one remaining day of the year he is forced to be silent. To die on the eve of that day was a good omen. It was supposed to be the day on which Adam had sinned and repented; on which Moses was circumcised; on which the latter tables had been given to Moses. It was supposed by some to secure pardon for most sins, even without repentance, and in¬ deed, according to Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, for all sins except apostasy. The Gentiles are said to have committed a fatal and suicidal error in destroying the altar, because it made atonement even for them, which was now impossible. Three books, it was said, are opened on New Year's Day—one for the perfectly wicked, one for the perfectly righteous, and one for the intermediate class. The first are sealed to death, and the second to life; the fate of the third is suspended till the Day of Atonement." As to the feasts, we chose what Edersheim says,* when speaking of the Feast of the Tabernacles : " It was the non-sacred part of the festive week, the half- holy days. Jerusalem wore quite another than its usual aspect; other, even, than when its streets were thronged by festive pilgrims during the Passover-week, or at Pentecost. For this was pre-eminently the Feast for foreign pilgrims, coming from the farthest distance, * Jesus the Messiah, p. 309. 32 Theological Lectures. whose Temple-contributions were then received and counted. As the Jerusalemite would look with proud self-consciousness, not unmingled with kindly patron¬ age, on the swarthy strangers, yet fellow-countrymen, or the eager-eyed Galilean curiously stares after them, the pilgrims would in turn gaze with mingled awe and wonderment on the novel scene." All day long the smoke of the burning, smoulder¬ ing sacrifices rose in slowly-widening column, and hung between the Mount of Olives and Zion ; the chant of Levites and the solemn responses of the Hallel wrere borne on the breeze, or the clear blast of the Priests' silver trumpets, seemed to waken the echoes far away. And then, at night, how all these vast Temple buildings stood out, illuminated by the great candelabra that burned in the Court of the Women, and by the glare of torches, when strange sounds of mystic hymns and dances came floating over the intervening darkness ! Truly, well might Israel designate the Feast of Tabernacles as "the Feast," and the Jewish historians describe it as "the holiest and greatest." And so in mingled joy and grief we see the ancient people of God pass the years of their sojourning. The patient, prayerful study of the fasts and feasts of the Jewish year, brought doubly near to us by reasons of their exact Chronology, cannot do other than keep burning upon our heart the fires of Christian devo¬ tion, types and shadows of a wondrous reality. We are enabled to rejoice in them with a joy unknown even to the Israelite himself. Well may we say with the author of Hebrews, u For Chronology. 33 the law having a shadow of good things to come," not the very image of the things, they can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer con¬ tinually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins, year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, " Sacrifices and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo ! I aui come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God !" 3 LECTURE III. BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY. Two more phases of the subject we have been con¬ sidering, and we shall have finished it. The first of these relates to what has been termed the artificial di¬ vision of time, as these are found in the Old Testa¬ ment, and really in the New; and of necessity are closely akin. Any thing, therefore, like a broad and intelligent treatment of Biblical Chronology requires that both should be noticed. These artificial divisions of time are hours, watches, weeks, the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee—and they are artificial for the reason that nature is not supposed to take any cognizance of them. We speak of the hour. As a space of time, the hour is universally recognized as artificial; and yet we are told that Hipparchus,* the accepted founder of mathemat¬ ical astronomy, in the one work of his that has come down to us, gives a list of forty-four stars scattered over *Hipparchus was born at Nicsea in Bithynia, in the second cen¬ tury B. C., and died about 125 B. C. From viewing a tree on a plain from different situations which changed its apparent position, he was led to the discovery of the parallax of the planets, or the dis. tance between their real or apparent position, reviewed from the centre and from the surface of the earth. Prof. E. A. Proctor says of him : " Astronomy * * * acquired a systematic form and almost a new existence from the genius of Hipparchus, perhaps the greatest of all ancient philosophers in the sciences which are not purely speculative."—Art. Astronomy. E. _B. Vol. II. p. 749. (34) Chronology. 35 the sky at intervals of right ascensions equal to exactly one hour, so that "one or more of them would be on the meridian at the commencement of evdry sidereal hour."* As to the word itself, it does not appear in Scripture until we come to the Book of Daniel, iv : 19. According to the Authorized Version, we read : " Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for one hour." The more correct Revised Version, how¬ ever, has it: " Theij Daniel, whose name was Belteshaz¬ zar, was astonied for awhile"—the original, meaning, as it relates to time, only a short space. As a matter of fact the ancient Hebrews knew noth¬ ing about our hour; the division of the day was, as we have seen, morning and evening, or morning, noon, and night. Not until they came under the sway of the Romans did they divide the day into the twelve equal hours after the manner of their conquerors, who had themselves received it from the Carthagenians; at least it is to be affirmed that its use in Rome was not known until after the Punic Wars. If we be closely interrogated as to the first originators of this division of time, laying no great stress of Hip- parchus' stars, we can do no better than quote the American. It says : " When the day was thus first divided is unknown. Herodotus states that the Greeks obtained the practice from the Babylonians. Wilker- son, however, says that 'there is no reason to believe that the day and night were divided each into twelve hours by the Egyptians some centuries before that idea could have been imparted to the Greeks from the Babylonians.'" *Ency. Brit. Vol. 23, p. 392. 36 Theological Lectures. In keeping, therefore, with all that has been said above, the direct mention of the technical hour is only to be found in the New Testament portion of the Bible. The pertinency of what has been said, as well as the close relation it bears to the subject discussed, is our excuse for inserting the following from Clark : " The day among the Jews (of the time of Christ) had twelve hours (John xi: 9). Their first hour was about six o'clock in the morning with us. Their sixth hour was our noon. Their ninth hour answered to our three o'clock in the afternoon. By this we may understand that the time in which Christ was crucified began at the third hour, that is at nine o'clock in the morning, the ordinary time for the daily morning sacrifice, and ended at the ninth hour, that is three o'clock in the afternoon, the time of evening sacrifice (Mark xv: 25, 33, 34, 37). Wherefore their ninth hour was their hour of prayer, when they used to go into the temple at the daily evening sacrifice (Acts iii: 1.); and this was the ordinary time for the passover. It is worthy of remark that God sets no particular hour for the kill¬ ing of the passover : any time between the two even¬ ings, i. e., between twelve o'clock in the day and the termination of twilight, was lawful. The daily sacri¬ fice (Exod. xxix : 38, 39) was killed at half past the eighth hour: that is, half an hour before three in the afternoon ; and it was offered up at half past the ninth hour, that is, half an hour after three. In the evening of the passover it was killed at half past the seventh hour, and offered at half past the eighth, that is, half an hour before three: and if the evening of the passover fell on the evening of the Sabbath, it was Chronology. 37 • 1 killed at half past the sixth hour and offered at half past the seventh, that is, half an hour before two in the afternoon. The reason of this was, they were first obliged to kill the daily sacrifice, and then to kill and roast the paschal lamb, and also to rest the evening before the passover. Agreeably to this, Maimonides says, " The killing of the passover is after mid-day, and if they kill it before it is not lawful; and they do not kill it until after the daily evening sacrifice, and burn¬ ing of incense, and after they have trimmed the lamps they begin to kill the paschal lambs until the end of the day. " By this time of the day God foreshowed the sufferings of Christ in the evening of times, or in the last days, Heb. i: 2; Peter i: 19, 20, and about the same time of the day when the paschal lamb ordinarily died, He died also, viz., at the ninth hour, Matthew xxvii: 46-50." Through with the hour which per¬ tained chiefly to the day, we come now to the arti¬ ficial division of time known as the watch, or the watches which pertained chiefly to the night. Indeed, it was known as night watches. Unlike the hour, this division of time was among the earliest methods em¬ ployed by the ancient Hebrews. Its first mention is possibly that found in the Book of Exodus (xiv : 24) : "And it came to pass in the morning watch that the Lord looked forth upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and discom- fitted the host of the Egyptians ;" but reference to it, is continuous by most, if not all, the Scripture writers. These watches of the night wrere three in number. The first watch began at the beginning of the evening and continued up to midnight; what was 38 Theological Lectures. known as the middle watch, then began and continued until the time of cock crowing; the third, or last watch then began and continued until sun rising- More latterly, however, and after their subjection to a, foreign yoke, in imitation of their Roman masters, the number of their night watches was increased to four, as we find in the New Testament. Referring to the words of Christ, as found in Mark (xiii: 35) : " Watch therefore : for ye know not when the Lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight or at cock crowing, or in the morning," Horne says, " Here the first watch was at even, and continued from six till nine; the second commenced at nine and ended at twelve, or midnight; the third watch, called by the Romans gallicinium, lasted from twelve to three; and the morning watch closed at six." Having finished with the hour and the watch, we come to the third artificial division of time, to-wit, the week. As to its artificiality, though conceded by the vast majority, yet from the fact that the moon changes about every seven days, there are not wanting those who would rank it as one of the natural divisions of time as in the case of the hour, which would certainly be the case wrere not these lunar changes so slight a& scarcely to be recognized. " The Hebrew week," we are told, "was a period of seven days, ending with the Sabbath ; therefore, it could not have been a division of the month which was lunar, without intercalation. But there was no such intercalation, since the Sabbath was to be every seventh day;, its name is used for week, and weeks are counted on without any additional day or days." What Horne here says, Chronology. 89 has received the substantial support of the vast majority of Biblical scholars. " Seven nights and days constitute a week; six of these were appropriated to labor and the ordinary purposes of lifey and the sev¬ enth, or Sabbath, was appointed by God to be observed as a day of rest, because that on it the Lord had rested from all his work which he had created and made (Gen. ii:3). This division of time was universally observed by the descendents of Noah ; and, being lost during the bondage in Egypt of Israelites, was revived and enacted by Moses agreeable to the divine com¬ mand."* *" Whether the institution of the Sabbath was from the begin¬ ning of the world, and one day in seven always observed by the Patriarchs before the promulgation of the law ; or whether the sane- tification of the seventh day is related only by way of anticipation, as an ordinance not to take place until the introduction of the JewifeB Eootaomy, is a matter of some debate among the learned, but I think with little or no reason ; for, when w© consider that, as soon as the sacred penman had said, God ended his work, and rested, he adds immediately, in the words of the same tense, he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; when we compare this passage in Genesis with the twentieth chapter of Exodus, wherein Moses speaks of God's blessing and sanctifying the Sabbath, not as an act then first done, but as what he had formerly done upon the crea¬ tion of the world; when we remember, that all the Patriarchs from Adam to Moses had set times for the solemn assemblies, and that these times were weekly, and of Divine institution ; that, upon the re¬ turn of these weekly Sabbaths, very probably it was, that Cain and Abel offered their respective sacrifices to God ; and that Noah, the only righteous person among the antediluvians, Abraham, the most faithful servant of God after the Flood, and Job, that perfect and upright man who feared God, and eschewed evil, are all sup¬ posed to have observed it; we cannot but think that the day whereon the work of creation was concluded, from the very begin- 40 Theological Lectures. As to the Sabbatical year, its occurrence was, when a week of years had passed away, or every seventh year. Concerning it we read: " The Hebrews and their land were to " keep Sabbath," the soil remaining untilled, the vine unpruned, the oliveyard undressed, while the self-produced crops were abandoned to the poor, to the stranger, and to the wild animals. Debtors were to be released (made to rest) from their debts> and domestic slaves of Hebrew blood from their servi¬ tude, unless they chose deliberately to remain in slav¬ ery (Exod. xxi : 1-11; Jer. xxxiv : 14). The law was to be publicly read (Deut. xxxi: 10-13); the leisure of the year would promote its study, religious progress, and education." * * * Of the year of Jubilee, we may say: It began at the close of the seventh Sabbatical year, or week of week-years, as it has been defined, winding up fifty years. " Its first three months coincided (less ten days) with the last three of the outgoing Sabbatical year, and it ended on the Da)- of Atonement of the year following. To the observances of the Sabbatical year (which might be called ordinary) were added (1), the restoration of all lands and houses in unwalled or Le- vites' houses, even in walled towns (Lev. xxv: 30-33), free of all debt or mortgage, to the heirs of the original allottees at the time of Joshua's settlement; (2), the release of all bondmen of Hebrew blood, and especially of those who had sold themselves and families (with ning of time, was every week, until men had corrupted their ways kept holy, as being the birthday of the world (as Philo de mundi opificio styles it), and the universal festival of mankind, Staekhouse History of Bible, p. 11. Chronology. 41 or without their land), or had been seized for debt, and become agricultural slaves or serfs (Lev. xxv: 39; 2 Kings iv : 1). The alienation of land, etc., was thus absolutely limited to a period of forty-nine years." Through with the times that are recognized as arti¬ ficial in the Bible, we come to conclude this our third paper, or lecture, by a reference to the Biblical Chron¬ ology, meant by far the majority of those who use the words. Of it, it is first to be said that it is not Chro¬ nology at all, in either the Biblical or Jewish sense— not if we mean thereby the Chronology employed by the writers of the Bible. Strictly speaking, in this sense there is no such thing as Chronology, for as we have seen, Chronology proper is comparatively of re¬ cent origin, and the ancient Hebrews, as McClintock says, like other ancient peoples, had " no well defined and universal era." Some writers used the departure out of Egypt as the date; others the accession of Kings • others from the beginning of the exile. Jeremiah dif¬ fers from Ezekiel, and reckons the captivity according to the years of Nebuchadnezzar. After the exile, the data usually employed by such writers as Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah. was that of the reign of the Persian conquerors. The phase of the subject we purpose presenting in these the concluding lines of our present lecture, is the Chronology of the Bible, as wise and learned men have been enabled to dig it out from the pages of the sacred Book—dig it out, and somehow harmonize it with the Chronology of other peoples, as well as with the requirements of science itself. We have four, say, five such principal Biblical Chronologies ; that of Peta- 42 Theological Lectures. vius, and Usher, and Hales, ,and Jackson, and Horne, passing over that of Bunsen, for the reason that it is more rationalistic than Biblical. A word in regard to each and the Biblical Chronology he presents: Dionysius Petavius, by nationality was a French¬ man, being born at Orleans, August 21,1583. His re¬ ligion was Roman Catholic; and by choice he was a Jesuit. His work, Rationale Temporum is an abridg¬ ment of universal history, from the earliest times down to A. D. 1622, arranged in chronological order. According to his calculation, Biblical and philological, the chronological summation reached is the following: Creation of Adam Flood Abram leaves Haran .. Exodus Foundation of Temple Destruction of Temple. B. C. 3983 2327 1656 1961 36 6 1531 430 1012 519 589 423 James Usher, or Ussher, was born in Dublin, Janu¬ ary 4, 1580. It is in his work, " Annals of the Old and New Testament," that his immense learning as a stu¬ dent of the Biblical appears to such advantage that he stands to-day the recognized chronologist of Christen¬ dom, especially the reformed portion of it. Accord¬ ing to his calculation, Biblical Chronology is as fol¬ lows : Creation of Adam Flood Abram leaves Haran... Exodus Foundation of Temple Destruction of Temple. B. C. 4004 2348 1656 1921 427 1491 430 1012 479 588 424 After Archbishop Usher, comes John Hales, often Chronology. 43 called the " ever memorable," complimentary to his vast learning. An Englishman, he was born in Bath, 1584, and died May 19, 1656. The following is his computation of Biblical dates : Creation of Adam Flood Abram leaves Haran... Exodus Foundation of Temple Destruction of Temple B. C. 5411 3155 2256 2078 1077 1648 430 1027 621 586 441 The next great chronologist of the Bible is John Jackson, an Englishman in blood. He was an Arianin profession. He was born at Lensey. Yorkshire, in 1686. It is in his book, " Chronological Antiquities, etc., for the space of five thousand years," that the fol¬ lowing table appears : Creation of Adam Flood Abram leaves Haran.... Exodus Foundation of Temple. Destruction of Temple. B. C. 5426 3170 2256 2023 1147 1593 430 1014 579 586 428 Concerning these, Strong says, " In the postdiluvian period Hales rejects the Second Cain an, and reckons Terah's age at Abram's birth 130 instead of 70; Jack¬ son accepts the Second Caiuan, and does not make any change in the second case; Usher and Petavius follow the Hebrew, but the former follows the generation of Terah, while the latter does not. * * * * For the time from the Exodus to the foundation of Solomon's Temple, Usher alone takes the four hundred and eighty years; the rest adopt longer periods, according to their explanation of the other numbers of this in- 44 Theological Lectures. terval. * * * The period of the Kings, from the foun¬ dation of Solomon's Temple, is very nearly the same in the computations of Jackson, Usher and Petavius; Hales lengthening, it by supposing an interregnum of eleven years after the death of Amaziah." An interesting table of Biblical Chronology is found in the extended works of Thomas Hartwell Home, so interesting, indeed, that we could not make up our minds to pass it. Horne was an Englishman and was born October 20, 1780. Educated at Christ's Hospital, he was aWesleyan by conviction and an Anglican for convenience. By his " Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scripture," he is known well nigh throughout Christendom. The table of chronological data therein given, is the one referred to, and is as fol¬ lows: The Exodus from Egypt The Delivery of the Law The Death of Moses, etc Saul appointed and made King The Accession of David The Reign of Solomon alone b. c. 1491 1490 1451 39 1085 366 1055 30 1014 41 The Dedication of the Temple Accession of Rehoboam, etc Kingdom of Israel terminated, etc..., Kingdom of Judah termimated, etc Second Temple Dedicated..., B. C. 1004 10 975 29 751 224 588 163 513 75 And now as we conclude these our thoughts of time and its waymarks of years and months and days ; as we cease to think of Chronology and the wide sweep it takes, we find no words more pertinent than those of Sir John Bowring—that Sir John who had mastered not Chronology. 45 only two hundred languages—forty of them almost perfectly, but had also mastered the language of heaven, in that he obeyed Paul when he says, * * " Let your conversation be in heaven." Wrote Sir John: " Every sun of splendid ray ; Every modn that shines serene , Every morn that welcomes day ; Every evening's twilight scene; Every hour which wisdom brings, Every incense at thy shrine, These and all life's holiest thingp, And its fairest, Lord, are thine." SYMBOLISM. LECTURE IV. SYMBOLISM IN GENERAL. In ecclesiastical nomenclature, the word symbol has a double signification. The first is doubtless that to which our subject belongs, to wit: " An abstract or compendium, a sign or representation of something moral, by the figures or properties of natural things." Another definition of this first use of the word, is: " Anything cognizable by the senses, that represents something moral or intellectual; an emblem, a type, a sign ; a token." The same authority as this last, says: " A symbol is a general term, embracing all the varieties of hieroglyphics, types, enigmas, emblems, etc." The second general signification of the word symbol is : "A title anciently given to the Apostles' Creed * * * One reason for the name derives it from a Greek word, signifying a throwing or casting together, and alleges that the Apostles each contributed an article to form the Creed, putting their joint opinion or counsel in an abridged shape." As we have said, however, the symbolism of our lecture is that first given. The word itself is from the Greek :