But by tnis time the opposite \'iew, which first emerges m the 3rd cent. — in the West, Ps. -Cyprian, Computus de pascha (K.D. 243: HartersCy/>rtan, iii. 248), § 9 manducavit pascha, % 21 passus est luna XV; in the East, Origen on Mt 26'' (Delarue, iii. 895), lesus celebravit more ludaico pasclui corpor- aliter . . . quoniam . . . /actus est sub lege — was beginning to be the prevalent one. So certainly Ambrose, ad epp. ./Emilice (c. A.D. 386 : ed. Bened. ii. 880), Chrysostom (e.g. Horn, in Mt. Ixxxii, ed. Field, ii. 461, the passover superseded by the Eucharist, t6 KecpaXa^ov tQiv eopruiy airruiv KaTaXvH i^' eripay airroit furaTidfis Tpdirt^ay), Proterius of Alex- andria, ad Papam Leonem (A.D. 444, printed at ep. cxxxiii. in the Ballerini Leo) xiv luna mensis primi . . . pasclia tnanducans . . . sequenti die XV luna crucifigituT ; and probably Theojihilus of Alexandria, ad Theodosium Imp. iv. (A.D. 386 : Gal- landi, vii. 615) ; for though the Greek has rj Tto-- capeaKaidtnaTal^ the Latin decimaquinta tallies with Ambrose and Proterius, who both appear to l-e borrowing from Theopliilus.
This later view appears to be derived from the use of irdcrxf in the Synoptic Gospels : Origen, its most influential supporter, is directly commenting on the text of St. Matthew. On the other hand, none of the earlier witnesses for the 14th, save ApoUinaris, the champion of the Johannine Churches of Asia Minor, appeal to St. John's Gospel ; rather they represent an independent mid
* In favour of the genuineness of chs. 1-8 of this treatise se« Fuller Diet. Chritt. Biogr. iv. 827>> ; Hamack Gach. der aitchr Litteratur, L 671 : agamst, Burkitt Old Latin and Jtaia, pp
CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST.
CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 413
decisive coniirmation of it by the living voice of primitive tradition.
2. The civil year may be identified either by the consuls or by the regnal years of the emperor ; less frequently by reckoning from some one of the special eras in use in the East, such a» the Olympiada or the era of Alexander (otho/wiae called of the Greeks), B.C. 312.
«. The earliest authority who appears to have fixed the Crucl- flxioD by iiuplicatioD to a dellnite year is the pa^'an annalist Phle^on, whose 'chronological collection on the ulympiiuls' ranged from Ol. I. 1 (b.o. 776) down to the times of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138. A general account of the work is given by the patriarch rhotius {cod. 97), though even he failed to get beyond che lUth book, or about B.C. 170. Pholiu:! suuiuiarizes the la:>t chapter which he read, as a sample of the style and contents of the whole, concluding that 'the reader geta rej^ularly bored with the liste of names and of victors in the Olympic contests, and with the excessive and unseasonable details about prodigies and propheciea, which crowd out all real history.' Probably it wu this interest in the marvellous which led Phle^on to men- tion the predictions of Jesus Christ, though his knowle^it^e was so vague that, if Urigen's phrase is rightly understood, he con- tused the personaUtica ^or perhaps oniy the miracles) of Christ and of St. Peter (c CeU. li. 14, nyx^^'t ■> *'*'if '*/' nir^«4< »< wtfi
What gives him his interest for the present purpose is that he recorded under 01. 202. i (a.d. 32-33) the darkness which accompanit-d the Crjciflxion ; though, since the evidence is at second or even at third hand, it is dilflcult to disentangle his actual words, (i.) The reference in the middle of a fragment quoted by Syncellus from the Chronicon of Juhus Africanus(Kr. 60 ; Routh, Ret. Sac. ii. 297, 477) is, as Routh bos seen, probably an interpolation due to Syncellus' confused recollections of Eusebius. (it) The earliest genuine allusions are two in Origen : c. CeU. ii. S3, Phlegon recorded in the 13lh or 14th book of his ChronicUs the echpse under Tiberius and the great earthquakes of that time: Comm. in ML 134 (Delanie, iii. 922), heathen opponents urge that an eclipse, such as the Gospels mention,* cannot possibly take place at full moon,— Phlegon recorded. Indeed, an echpse under Tiberius, but not an eclipse at full moon, (iii) But though he did not mention the full moon in •o many words, an Anonymtu in Cramer's Catena in Mt. p. 237 — followed by pseudo-Origen in Mt. (see Routh, op. cit. 479)— does Ojisert tliat he relat^ the echpse as a marvel, vxpx- liim y^yoTot, and the Christian writer naturally understood by thu 'paradox' the coincidence with the full moon, (iv.) A further restoration of Phlegon is possible from tho Chronicle 3f Eusebiu:* as represented in the Armenian version, in Jerome's lAtin version, and in the quotations of ticorge Syncellus. 'In the same year as the Crucifixion (i.e. Tiberius 19; see below) the following notice occurs in pagan historians : "the sun was eclipsed ; an earthquake occurred in Ililhynia, and most of Nicoja fell to the ground " : still more precisely Phlegon, tho celebrated chronologer of the Olympiads, registers in nis 13th book, under Ol. 202. 4 [a.d. 32-33], "an eclip'je of the sun more striking than any previously on record, for it became night at the sixth hour of the day, so that stars were visible m the heavens ; and a great earthquake in Bithynia overthrew most of NiciBa,"' Obviously, these two quotations are not inde- pendent of one another; the first and more general looks like a summary by some intermediate writer of the same passage from Phlegon which Eusebius then transcribes direct and in full.