on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, frequently finds fault with me ; but neither of them has brought into play the chrono logical mainsprings of the Gospels.
The Gospel chronology has been studiously treated of, in our day, by Campegius Vitringa,1 Peter Allix,2 Count Camillus de Sylvestris,3 Nicasius,4 J. J. Hottinger,5 C. G. Hoffman,6 Leonard Off'erhaus,7 etc. These all differ widely from each other, but if you compare them together, and abridge them into one, you will find, that, whatever truth is contained in any of them, confirms, at times against their will, the ternarian hypo thesis (that, namely, which supposes three Passovers, and three only) : nor can they, who pretend four, not to say more Pass overs, avoid doing violence to those chronological data so em phatically laid down by the Evangelists themselves. The quaternarian hypothesis, (that, namely, which supposes four Passovers), doubles, or even trebles, with manifest inconvenience, the long series of passages from the fourth to the thirteenth chapters of St Matthew (repeated in the parallel passages of St
1 Campegius Vitringa, a learned Protestant divine, born in Friesland 1659, died 1722. became successively Professor of Oriental Languages, Divinity and Sacred History, at Franckaer — (I. B.)
2 Peter Allix, a learned French divine, born at Alen^on 1641, was suc cessively minister of the Protestant Church at Rouen, and at Charenton. At the revocation of the edict of Nantes, he retired to England, where he became Canon of Windsor, and Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral. He died in 1717.— (I. B.)
3 Count Camillus de Sylvestris, a learned writer, was born at Padua in 1645, studied at Rovigo, and became honorary member of most of the Universities of Italy. He died in 1719. — (I. B.)
4 The writer apparently intended is Claud Nicaise, born at Dijon in 1623, and died at Velay in 1701. He took orders in the Roman Church, and be came a learned Philologist and Archaeologist. — (I. B.)
5 John James Hottinger, eldest son of the celebrated John Henry Hottin ger, was born at Zurich in the sixteenth century, published various works in 1706, 1708, 1720, etc., and died in 1735.— (I. B.)
6 See f.n. 4, page 39.— (I. B.)
7 Leonard Offerhaus, a celebrated scholar, was born at Ham, in West phalia, in 1699. In 1720, he gave the first earnest of his future cele brity in a disputation on the public and private life of our Lord. He died at Groningen in 1779, after having filled for more than half a century the chair of eloquence and history there with distinction. — (I. B.)