lived less than 600 years, because that it is not till after the revolution of six ages, that the great year is accomplished.’
“This great year, which is accomplished after six ages, whereof not any other author makes mention, can only be a period of lunisolar years, like to that which the Jews always used, and to that which the Indians do still make use of. Wherefore we have thought necessary to examine what this great year must be, according to the Indian rules.
“By the rules of the first section it is found, then, that in 600 years there are 7200 solar months; 7421 lunar months, and 12228. Here this little fraction must be neglected; because that the lunisolar years do end with the lunar months, being composed of entire lunar months.
“It is found by the rules of Section II., that 7421 lunar months do comprehend 219,146 days, 11 hours, 57 minutes, 52 seconds: if, therefore, we compose this period of whole days, it must consist of 219,146 days.
“600 Gregorian years are alternatively of 219,145 days, and 219,146 days: they agree then to half a day with a solilunar period of 600 years, calculated according to the Indian rules.
“The second lunisolar period composed of ages, is that of 2300 years, which being joined to one of 600, makes a more exact period of 2900 years: and two periods of 2300 years, joined to a period of 600 years, do make a lunisolar period of 5200 years, which is the interval of the time which is reckoned, according to Eusebius’s chronology, from the creation of the world to the vulgar Epocha of the years of Jesus Christ.
“These lunisolar periods, and the two epochas of the Indians, which we have examined, do point unto us, as with the finger, the admirable epocha of the years of Jesus Christ, which is removed from the first of these two Indian Epochas, a period of 600 years, wanting a period of 19 years, and which precedes the second by a period of 600 years, and two of 19 years. Thus the year of Jesus Christ (which is that of his incarnation and birth, according to the tradition of the church, and as Father Grandamy justifies it in his Christian chronology, and Father Ricciolus in his reformed astronomy) is also an astronomical Epocha, in which, according to the modern tables, the middle conjunction of the moon with the sun happened the 24th of March, according to the Julian form re-established a little after by Augustus, at one o’clock and a half in the morning, at the meridian of Jerusalem, the very day of the middle Equinox, a wednesday, which is the day of the creation of these two planets.
“The day following, March 25th, which, according to the ancient tradition of the church, reported by St. Augustine,[1] was the day of our Lord’s incarnation, was likewise the day of the first phasis of the moon; and, consequently, it was the first day of the month, according to the usage of the Hebrews, and the first day of the sacred year, which, by the divine institution, must begin with the first month of the spring, and the first day of a great year, the natural epocha of which is the concourse of the middle equinox, and of the middle conjunction of the Moon with the Sun.
“This concourse terminates, therefore, the lunisolar periods of the preceding ages, and was an epocha from whence began a new order of ages, according to the oracle of the Sibyl, related by Virgil in these words (Eclog. iv.):
Jam nova progenies Cœlo dimittitur alto.
This oracle seems to answer the prophecy of Isaiah, Parvulus natus est nobis; (ch. ix. 6 and 7;) where this new-born is called God and father of future ages; Deus fortis, pater futuri sæculi.
“The interpreters do remark in this prophecy, as a thing mysterious, the extraordinary situation
- ↑ De Trin. Lib. iv. Cap. v.
