Speaking Things not Understood,
By Editor
We have been repeatedly impressed with the want of acquaintance with the things of which they speak, which is manifested in the conversation and writings of those who contend for specific points of time. As a case in point, we conversed lately with one who is justly reckoned by the timeists as one of, if not their most intelligent and respectable preacher, who was contending for the commencement of the seventy weeks B. C. 446, when said, We. Commencing the 70 weeks so late as that, where do you reckon the epoch of the crucifixion? We. Have you authority of any kind for assigning so late a date for that event? He. Dr. Jarvis gives that as the date of the crucifixion. We. Does he? You are mistaken; for he gives A. D. 28 as the date of that event! He. Dr. Jarvis states that Christ was in his thirty-seventh year when he was crucified. We. Did you understand me to inquire what was the age of Christ at his crucifixion? If so, you did not apprehend my question, which was, not the year of his age, but the year of our vulgar era in which it occurred. Does Dr. Jarvis afford you any authority for placing it in A. D. 37? He. If he says he was crucified in the 37th year of his age, is not that authority? We. You don't mean that you are aware of no difference between the year of his age, and the year of our era in which Christ suffered? He. I know that you make a distinction that is not very perceptible to the common people. We. The difference has been plainly shown in the Herald too often for any intelligent reader to be left confused on that point. [“Yes,” said a third person present, whom we had never before seen, but who we understand is limitedly known by the sobriquet of the “learned blacksmith;” “and every time you write on it, you leave it darker than it was before.” “That,” said we, “depends on the intelligence of those who read.” Resuming, we continued as before the interruption.] You will not say that you are not aware of the justice of that distinction? He. “A. D.” means the year of our Lord; and if it don't mean the year of his age, then you give a different meaning to it than the common one. We. No; I attach to it the common meaning and that only. No chronologist uses it differently, nor does any person who understands its import. Our common A. D. is called the “Vulgar Era,” because reckoned, not from the actual birth of Christ, but from the place in the Julian Period where his birth was at first incorrectly placed—at the end of A. J. P. 4713. And when any chronologist, or any intelligent person, speaks of an event in any given year A. D., he reckons not from the actual birth of the Saviour, but from the commencement of our common era. The question is whether Dr. Jarvis gives you any authority for giving A. D. 37 as the date of the crucifixion? And he does not; for he places it in A. D. 28. Therefore are you justified in giving him as authority for A. D. 37 to those who, hearing you from the pulpit, take it for granted that you are profoundly familiar with the whole question? He. I don't tell them that Dr. Jarvis places the crucifixion in A. D. 37; but I quote his words, that Christ was crucified in his 37th year. We. But is it just to your hearers to quote that from Dr. Jarvis, for the purpose of proving to them that A. D. 37 was the year of the crucifixion, without also informing them that the Doctor places that event nine years before the date to which you assign it? Have you any right to quote him respecting the Saviour's age, without also showing to the uninformed the difference which the Doctor makes between the birth of Christ and the Vulgar Era? placing it six years before the commencement of that era. You are aware, I suppose, that he gives B. C. 6, as the date of Christ's birth? He. I know that he says something about six years; but does he say B. C. 6? Does not B. C. mean before Christ's birth? We. It means before the Vulgar Era of his birth. B. C. ends with the year 4713 of the Julian Period; and A. D. begins with 4714. Dr. Jarvis reckons the birth of Christ six years before that epoch. And therefore when you quote him for the age of Christ at his crucifixion, does not justice demand that you show where he places Christ's birth, that it may be apparent where he dates his death? He. It would be proper to explain that. We. But you are also mistaken when you quote him as to the age of Christ. For as Dr. Jarvis places Christ's birth B. C. 6, and his death in A. D. 28 he makes the latter in his 34th and not in his 37th year. He. I am very confident that he says 37, for I copied it from his work, and I have the page among my papers. We. Will you show the place of this statement in his writings? For here are all his chronological works, (laying them before him.) This he was unable to do; and we showed him, p. 475 of the 1st vol. of “Church of the Redeemed,” when speaking of the passover at which Christ suffered, that Dr. Jarvis says: “The Passover, in the thirty-fourth year of our Lord's life, began on Thursday, the 25th of March,” &c. Then said We. Thus you have no authority whatever, from Dr. Jarvis, either for placing the crucifixion in A. D. 37, or for giving that as his age when crucified! Have you any other authority for placing the crucifixion in A. D. 37? He. Yes, there was a passover full moon on Friday in that year, the same as in A. D. 33. We. So has there been a Paschal full moon on Friday in many other years, without affording any evidence that the crucifixion was in either of those years. The dispute respecting that event does not extend beyond the years A. D. 28 to A. D. 34. The event must be found within that disputed period; for no writer, ancient or modern, places it this side of A. D. 34. He. Do not some of the ancient writers place it in A. D. 40? We. Some ancient writers surmised that the Saviour might be 40 or 50 years of age; but none of them placed his crucifixion in their chronological reckonings, this side of the year that synchronizes with our A. D. 35. And it was impossible for them to, for in A. D. 36 Caligula succeeded Tiberius in the empire; and it was in the reign of Tiberius that the crucifixion occurred. Therefore a paschal full moon on Friday in A. D. 37, would be no evidence of the crucifixion in that year—lacking as it would other elements necessary to its demonstration. But in this case as in the other, you are mistaken; for no Paschal full moon occurred on Friday in that year, as any one can see who is able to calculate the time of its fall. And therefore that could not be the year of the crucifixion. He. Well, I rest more on the 20th of Artaxerxes for the commencement of the 70 weeks, and that I am satisfied was in B. C. 446. We. You cannot commence the 70 weeks so late as that, unless the date of the crucifixion will harmonize with it in its appropriate place in the last week. Commencing there, the last week does not begin till several years after the crucifixion must have taken place, which fact alone makes it impossible for the 70 weeks to have commenced at so late a date. Besides, no chronologist who reckons them from the 20th of Artaxerxes, places that year in B. C. 446, or later than the year 4260 of the Julian Period, which corresponds with our B. C. 454. Usher, and all who reckon from the 20th, place the crucifixion in A. D. 33, and end the 70 weeks in A. D. 37—where you end the 69! Thus you inconsistently refuse to follow any of those you quote as authority. Yet the manner in which you refer to them would convey the idea to your hearers that they sustain you in the commencement of the 70 weeks. And thus your hearers are deceived by your not showing wherein you depart from the teachings of those you quote.—Ad. Herald.