Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/345

 S. Clemens Alex, on New Testament Chronology. 335 we measure back 62^ weeks of days = 434 4- 32, these will bring us to 6 January a.d. 28. But again, from any given 16 Tybi (vague) to 25 Phamenoth of the following year, are precisely (365 + 69 =) 434 days, or sixty-two weeks. If then the date 11 Tybi (fixt), which I suppose to have been the original date, was obtained by measuring back sixty-two weeks and half a week from the hour of our Lord's death on the Passover- day of the year 15 Tiberius, i. e. from cir. 3 p. m. of 18 Mar. a.d. 29, the other date, preferred, as it seems, by most of the Basilidians, viz. 16 Tybi, would be obtained by measuring back sixty-two iveeks from the Passover-day of 16 Tiberius ; which day being assumed in the first instance as 25 Phamenoth (vague), the epoch would be "the sixteenth day of Tybi of the fifteenth year of Tiberius" (a.d. 28). A computation of this kind was quite in the spirit of the age in which, and the people (the Jewish Christians of Syria and Egypt) with whom, I suppose it to have originated. Perhaps also the supposition is favoured by the circumstance that Clement goes on to speak of Daniel's prophetic periods as fulfilled in the "last times" of Jerusalem. The text is corrupt, but not irremediably so. "En 8e taaxtiva rfi )(povoypa.<$>ia irpocrcnrohoTeov, ras fjpepas Xeyoo as alvirreTai AavirjX anb (cVi) ttjs eprjpcocrccos 'lepovaaXrjp ra Ovecrnacriavov err) prjvas Ta J^P 8vo %Tt] irpocra.p.(3a.VTai rois "Odoovos Ka ra(3a /cat OvitcWiov pr](r i rjpepais r) . koi ovroo yiverai %tt rpla Kai prjves e, o tan " r6 rjpiav rfjs e/3So- pddos" Kaduis elprjKe Aavir] 6 7rpo<piJTr)s. After 'lepova-aKfjp place a full stop and the mark of a lacuna, which might be supplied, e. g. thus: evpio-Kopep ovv pera ttjv Karaa-Tpo<p^v 'lepova-aXrjp to. OveoTr. k.t.X. For prjvas C we must also restore pfivas ia, for the reign of Vespa- sian numbers 9y. 11m. 22d. (whence in 144, by an obvious mis- take, it is given as lly. 11m. 22d.),and Clement's meaning is, that after the fall of Jerusalem there remain of Vespasian 7y. 11m., the first 2 years [and 22 days] together with the 17 m. 8d. of the three short reigns together making 3y. 6 m. As the reign of Vespasian bears date from 1 July a.d. 69, and ends 23 June a.d. 79, Clement's date for the fall of Jerusalem is 23 July a.d. 71, and the 3y. 6 m. begin 23 Jan. a.d. 68. This is not indeed the true epoch of Otho (=3 Apr. a.d. 68), but the intention is obvious: viz. the 7 m. 6d. of Otho by this arrangement are made to reach to the 29th Aug.= 1 Thoth a.d. 68, from which he dates the reigns, partly conjoint, of Galba and Vitellius (given in 144 as