ble of both. If the history of the East, here proposed to be made, should follow the same method, and equally give us an account of the progress of their learning, as well as of their arms, it would render the work the more acceptable to the learned world.

Thus far have I endeavoured to answer your letter, as well as my shattered head would give me leave to dictate it. It will very much please me, if it prove to your satisfaction; for I am, Sir, your most faithful humble servant, H. PRIDEAUX;

PREFACE.

THE calamitous distemper of the stone, and the un fortunate management I fell under, after being cut for it, having driven me out of the pulpit, in wholly disabling me for that duty of my profession, that I might not be altogether useless, I undertook this work, hoping, that the clearing of the sacred history by the pro fane, the connecting of the Old Testament with the New, by an account of the times intervening, and the explaining of the prophecies that were fulfilled in them, might be of great use to many. What is now published is only the first part of my design. If God gives life, the other will soon after follow; but if it should please him, who is the Disposer of all things, that it happen otherwise, yet this History, being brought down to the times when the canon of the Hebrew scriptures was finished, it may of itself be reckoned a complete work: for it may serve as an epilogue to the Old Testament, in the same manner as what after is to follow, will be a prologue to the New.

Chronology and geography being necessary helps to history, and good chronological tables being most useful for the one, as good maps are for the other; I have taken full care of the former, not only by adding such tables in the conclusion of the work, as may answer this end, but also by digesting the whole into the form of annals under the years before Christ, and the years of the kings that then reigned over Judea; both which are added in the margin at the beginning of every year, in which the actions happened that are related. And as to the latter, since Dr. Wells, Cellarius, and Reland have sufficiently provided for it, both by good maps of the countries this history relates to, and also by accurate descriptions of them, I need do no more than refer the reader to what they have already done in this matter. What Dr. Wells hath done herein, being written in English, will best

serve the English reader; but they that are also skilled in the Latin tongue may moreover consult the other

two.

years,

In the annals, I have made use of no other era, but that of the years before Christ, reckoning it backward from the vulgar era of Christ's incarnation, and not from the true time of it. For learned men are not all agreed in the fixing of the true time of Christ's incarnation, some placing it two years, and some four before the vulgar era. But where the vulgar era begins, all know that use it; and therefore the reckoning of the years before Christ backward from thence, makes it a fixed and certain era. The difference that is between the true year of our Saviour's incarnation, and that of the vulgar era of it, proceeded from hence, that it was not till the five hundred and twenty-seventh year of that era, that it was first brought into use. *Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth, and then a Roman abbot, was the first author of it; and Beda, our countryman, taking it from him, used it in all his writings; and the recommendation which he gave it thereby, hath made it of common use among Christians ever since, especially in these western parts. Had all Christians calculated their time by it from the beginning of the church of Christ (as it could be wished they had,) there could then have been no mistake in it. But it being five hundred and twenty-seven years after Christ's incarnation, before this era of it was ever used, no wonder, that after so great a distance of time, a mistake was made in the fixing of the first year of it.

The era from the creation of the world is of very common use in chronology; but this I have rejected, because of the uncertainty of it, most chronologers following different opinions herein, some reckoning the time of the creation sooner, and some later, and scarce any two agreeing in the same year for it.

The Julian period is indeed a certain measure of time, but its certainty depends upon a reckoning backward, in the same manner as that of the era before

See Scaliger, Calvisius, and other chronologers, in those parts of their works, where they write of the vulgar era of Christ. And see also Du Pin's History of Ecclesiastical writers, cent. 6. p. 42. and Dr. Cave's Historia Literaria, p. 405.

Christ. For it being a period of seven thousand nine hundred and eighty Julian years, made out of the three cycles of the sun, moon, and indiction, multiplied into each other; and the first year of it being that in which all these three cycles of the sun, begin together, this first year can be no otherwise fixed, than by computing backward from the present numbers of those cycles through all the different combinations of them, till we come to that year, in which the first year of every one of them meet together; which carries up the reckoning several hundred years before the creation, and fixeth the beginning of the period in an imaginary point of time before time was. And therefore, although from that beginning it computes downward, yet the whole of its certainty is by a backward reckoning from the present years of those cycles: for, according as they are, all must be reckoned upward even to the beginning of the period. So that, although in appearance it reckons downward, yet in reality it is only a backward computation, to tell us how many years since any thing was done from the present year. For in the numbers of the three cycles of the present year, it hath a real and fixed foundation for an upward reckoning, and so in any other year, in which the said numbers are known; whereas it hath none at all for a downward reckoning, but what is in the imagination only. And therefore, this being the true and real use of the Julian period, the era before Christ for the times I treat of, serves all the purposes of chronology altogether as well, if not much better. For, adding the years before Christ, to those since Christ, according to the vulgar era, it immediately tells us, how many years since any action before the time of Christ was done, and the Julian period can do no more; and indeed it cannot do thus much but by reduction, whereas it is done the other way directly, immediately, and at first sight. However, in the tables I have put the Julian period, and have reduced to it not only the years before Christ, but also the years of the princes reigning in Judea, and the neighbouring countries, and all things else that are treated of in this History; and hereby the Synchronisms, or coincident times and transactions of other nations may easily be known.