429. To find the day of the month answering to any day of the week, or the day of the week answering to any day of the month; for any year past or to come: Having found the Dominical Letter for the given year, enter [Table VI], with the Dominical Letter at the head; and under it, all the days in that column to the right hand are Sundays, in the divisions of the months; the next column to the right are Mondays; the next, Tuesdays; and so on to the last column under G, from which go back to the column under A, and thence proceed towards the right hand as before. Thus, in the year 1757, the Dominical Letter New Style is B, in [Table V], then in [Table VI] all the days under B are Sundays in that year, viz. the 2d, 9th, 16th, 23d, and 30th of January and October; the 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th of February, March and November; the 3d, 10th, and 17th, of April and July, together with the 31st of July: and so on to the foot of the column. Then, of course, all the days under C on Mondays, namely the 3d, 10th, &c. of January and October; and so of all the rest in that column. If the day of the week answering to any day of the month be required, it is easily had from the same Table by the Letter that stands at the top of the column in which the given day of the month is found. Thus, the Letter that stands over the 28th of May is A; and in the year 585 before Christ the Dominical Letter was found to be FE § [428]; which being a leap-year, and E taking place from the 24th of February to the end of that year, shews by the Table that the 25th of May was on a Sunday; and therefore the 28th must have been on a Wednesday: for when E stands for Sunday, F must stand for Monday, G for Tuesday, A for Wednesday, B for Thursday, C for Friday, and D for Saturday. Hence, as it appears that the famous Eclipse of the Sun foretold by Thales, by which a peace was brought about between the Medes and Lydians, happened on the 28th of May, in the 585th year before Christ, it certainly fell on a Wednesday.
Julian Period.
430. From the multiplication of the Solar Cycle of 28 years into the Lunar Cycle of 19 years, arises the great Julian Period consisting of 7980 years; which had its beginning 764 years before the supposed year of the creation (when all the three Cycles began together) and is not yet compleated, and therefore it comprehends all other Cycles, Periods and Æras. There is but one year in the whole Period which has the same numbers for the three Cycles of which it is made up: and therefore, if historians had remarked in their writings the Cycles of each year, there had been no dispute about the time of any action recorded by them.
To find the year of this Period.
And the Cycles of that year.
431. The Dionysian or vulgar Æra of Christ’s birth was about the end of the year of the Julian Period 4713; and consequently the first year of his age, according to that account, was the 4714th year of the said Period. Therefore, if to the current year of Christ we add 4713, the Sum will be the year of the Julian Period. So the year 1757 will be found to be the 6470th year of that Period. Or, to find the year of the Julian Period answering to any given year before the first year of Christ, subtract the number of that given year from 4714, and the remainder will be the year of the Julian Period. Thus, the year 585 before the first year of Christ (which was the 584th before his birth) was the 4129th year of the said Period. Lastly, to find the Cycles of the Sun, Moon, and Indiction for any given year of this Period, divide the given year by 28, 19, and 15; the three remainders will be the Cycles sought, and the Quotients the numbers of Cycles run since the beginning of the Period. So in the above 4714th year of the Julian Period the Cycle of the Sun was 10, the Cycle of the Moon 2, and the Cycle of Indiction 4; the Solar Cycle having run through 168 courses, the Lunar 248, and the Indiction 314.
The true Æra of Christ’s birth.
432. The vulgar Æra of Christ’s birth was never settled till the year 527; when Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman Abbot, fixed it to the end of the 4713th year of the Julian Period; which was certainly four years too late. For, our Saviour was undoubtedly born before the Death of Herod the Great, who sought to kill him as soon as he heard of his birth. And, according to the testimony of Josephus (B. xvii. c. 8.) there was an eclipse of the Moon in the time of Herod’s last illness: which very eclipse our Astronomical Tables shew to have been in the year of the Julian Period 4710, March 13th, 3 hours 21 minutes after mid-night, at Jerusalem. Now, as our Saviour must have been born some months before Herod’s death, since in the interval he was carried into Ægypt; the latest time in which we can possibly fix the true Æra of his birth is about the end of the 4709th year of the Julian Period. And this is four years before the vulgar Æra thereof.
The time of his crucifixion.
In the former edition of this book, I endeavoured to ascertain the time of Christ’s death; by shewing in what year, about the reputed time of the Passion, there was a Passover Full Moon on a Friday: on which day of the week, and at the time of the Passover, it is evident from Mark xv. 42. that our Saviour was crucified. And in computing the times of all the Passover Full Moons from the 20th to the 40th year of Christ, after the Jewish manner, which was to add 14 days to the time when the New Moon next before the Passover was first visible at Jerusalem, in order to have their day of the Passover Full Moon, I found that the only Passover Full Moon which fell on a Friday, in all that time, was in the year of the Julian Period 4746, on the third day of April: which year was the 33d year of Christ’s age, reckoning from the vulgar Æra of his birth, but the 37th counting from the true Æra thereof: and was also the last year of the 402d Olympiad[[88]], in which very year Phlegon an Heathen writer tells us, there was the most extraordinary Eclipse of the Sun that ever was known, and that it was night at the sixth hour of the day. Which agrees exactly with the time that the darkness at the crucifixion began, according to the three Evangelists who mention it[[89]]: and therefore must have been the very same darkness, but mistaken by Phlegon for a natural Eclipse of the Sun; which was impossible on two accounts, 1. because it was at the time of Full Moon; and 2. because whoever takes the pains to calculate, will find that there could be no regular and total Eclipse of the Sun that year in any part of Judea, nor any where between Jerusalem and Egypt: so that this darkness must have been quite out of the common course of nature.
From the co-incidence of these characters, I made no doubt of having ascertained the true year and day of our Saviour’s death. But having very lately read what some eminent authors have wrote on the same subject, of which I was really ignorant before; and heard the opinions of other candid and ingenious enquirers after truth (which every honest man will follow wherever it leads him) and who think they have strong reasons for believing that the time of Christ’s death was not in the year of the Julian Period 4746, but in the year 4743; I find difficulties on both sides, not easily got over: and shall therefore state the case both ways as fairly as I can; leaving the reader to take which side of the Question he pleases.