All which shews that these
days were fixed in the first _Christian_ Calendars by Mathematicians at
pleasure, without any ground in tradition; and that the _Christians_
afterwards took up with what they found in the Calendars.
Neither was there any certain tradition about the years of _Christ_. For
the _Christians_ who first began to enquire into these things, as _Clemens
Alexandrinus_, _Origen_, _Tertullian_, _Julius Africanus_, _Lactantius_,
_Jerome_, St. _Austin_, _Sulpicius Severus_, _Prosper_, and as many as
place the death of _Christ_ in the 15th or 16th year of _Tiberius_, make
_Christ_ to have preached but one year, or at most but two. At length
_Eusebius_ discovered four successive Passovers in the Gospel of _John_,
and thereupon set on foot an opinion that he preacht three years and an
half; and so died in the 19th year of _Tiberius_. Others afterwards,
finding the opinion that he died in the Equinox _Mar._ 25, more consonant
to the times of the _Jewish_ Passover, in the 17th and 20th years, have
placed his death in one of those two years. Neither is there any greater
certainty in the opinions about the time of his birth. The first
_Christians_ placed his baptism near the beginning of the 15th year of
_Tiberius_; and thence reckoning thirty years backwards, placed his birth
in the 43d _Julian_ year, the 42d of _Augustus_ and 28th of the _Actiac_
victory. This was the opinion which obtained in the first ages, till
_Dionysius Exiguus_, placing the baptism of _Christ_ in the 16th year of
_Tiberius_, and misinterpreting the text of _Luke_, iii.
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