And we do not any where read that MoJes ever made a Correction of it. The adding the five Days to the Year under Affis, before-mentioned, happened after the Children of Ifrael came out of Egypt; and so Mofes might be learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians, and yet not instructed in this Point, which was a Difcovery made after his leaving them. Twelve Months were a Year in the Times of David and Solomon, as appears by the Course of Houshold Officers (a) appointed by the one, and of Captains (b) by the other; and we no where in the Books of the Old Testament find any mention of an intercalary Month; and Scaliger is positive, that there was no such Month used in the Times of Mofes, or of the Judges, or of the Kings (c). And that each Month had thirty Days, and no more, is evident from Mofes's Computation of the Duration of the Flood. The Flood began, he tells us (d), on the seventeenth Day of the second Month; pre (a) 1 Kings iv. 5. (b) 1 Chron. xxvii. (c) Lib. de Emend. Temp. in capite de Anno priscorum Hebræorum Abrahameo. (d) Gen. vii. 11. a vailed vailed without any sensible Abatement for 150 Days (a), and then lodged the Ark on Mount Ararat, on (b) the seventeenth Day of the seventh Month; so that we fee, from the seventeenth of the second Month, to the seventeenth of the seventh [i. e. for five whole Months] he allows one hundred and fifty Days, which is just thirty Days to each Month, for five times thirty Days are an hundred and fifty. This therefore was the ancient Jewish Year; and I imagine this Year was in use amongst them, without Emendation, at least to a much later Period than that to which I am to bring down this Work. Dean Prideaux (c) treats pretty largely of the ancient Jewish Year, from Selden, and from the Talmud and Maimonides, but the Year he speaks of seems not to have been used until after the Captivity (d). From what has been said it must be evident, that the Chronologers do, in the general, mistake, in supposing the ancient Year commensurate with the pre (a) Ver. 24. (6) Chap. viii. Ver. 3, 4. (c) Preface to the First Volume of his Connection. (d) See Scaliger in loc. fupr. citat. fent sent Julian. The 1656 Years, which preceded the Flood, came short of so many Julian Years, by above twenty-three Years. And in like manner after the Flood, all Nations, 'till the Era of Nabonoffar, which begins exactly where my History is to end, computing by a Year of 360 Days, except the Egyptians only (and they altered the old Computation but a Century or two before) and the Difference between this ancient Year, and the Julian, being five Days in each Year, besides the Day in every LeapYear; it is very clear, that the Space of Time between the Flood, and the Death of Sardanapalus, supposed to contain about 1600 ancient Years, will fall short of so many Julian Years by five Days and about a fourth Part of a Day in every Year, which amounts to one or two and twenty Years in the whole Time: But I would only hint this here; the Uses that may be made of it shall be observed in their proper Places. There are many Chronological Difficulties which the Reader will meet with, of another Nature; but as I have endeavoured to adjust them in the Places they belong to, it would be needless to repeat here what will be found at large in the ensuing Pages. I thall, very probably, be thought to have taken great Liberty in the Accounts I have given of the most ancient Prophane History, particularly in that which is Antediluvian, and which I have reduced to an Agreement with the History of Mofes. It will be faid, take it all together, as it lies in the Authors from whom we have it, and it has no such Harmony with the Sacred Writer; and to make an Harmony by taking Part of what is represented, and such Part only as you please, every thing, or any thing, may be made to agree in this manner, but such an Agreement will not be much regarded by the unbiass'd. To this I anfwer: The Heathen Accounts which we have of these early Ages, were taken from the Records of either Thyoth the Egyptian, or Sanchoniathon of Berytus; and whatever the Original Memoirs of these Men were, we are sure their Accounts were, some time after their Decease, corrupted with Fable and mystical Philosophy. Philo of Biblos in one Place (a) seems to think, that Taautus himself wrote his Sacra, and his Theology, in a Way above the Understanding of the common People, in order to create Reverence and Respect to the Subjects he treated of, and that Surmubelus and Theuro, some Ages after, endeavoured to explain his Works, by stripping them of the Allegory, and giving their true Meaning; but I cannot think a Writer so ancient as Athothes wrote in Fable or Allegory; the first Memoirs or Histories were without doubt short and plain, and Men afterwards embellished them with false Learning, and in time endeavoured to correct that, and arrive at the True. All therefore that I can collect from this Passage of Philo Biblius, is this, that Thyoth's Memoirs did not continue such as he left them, Surmubelus and Theuro in some time altered them, and I fear, whoever they were, they altered them for the worse; for such were the Alterations which succeeding Generations made in the Records of their Ancestors, as ap |