day of St. Paul's first examination before Felix, there was exactly a twelve days' intervalP; the accuracy of which calculation may be proved as follows. First, the day of the arrival; secondly, the day of the interview with James; thirdly, the day of St. Paul's entering into the temple with the Nazarites; fourthly, the day when he was seized in the temple, some one of the seven days of purification; fifthly, the day when he was examined before the council; sixthly, the day which preceded the night of his mission to Cæsarea; seventhly, the day of his arrival at Cæsarea; eighthly, the day when he was put on his first audience before Felix 9. Cæsarea was six hundred stades, or about sixty of our miles, distant from Jerusalem, and St. Paul would arrive there the day after he set out; for he reached Antipatris that very night, and Antipatris was more than midway between Cæsarea and Jerusalems. He was put on his first audience on either the fourth or the fifth day after his arrival, and the only point, upon which there can be any uncertainty, is as to which of the seven days' purification of the Nazarites he was apprehended upon in the temple.

The calculation above given will shew that this was either the second or the third of the number. Those twelve days, however, as calculated above, were dated from the day of St. Paul's coming to Jerusalem; but, perhaps, they should be dated from the day after this, the day of his entering in to James; which day after, if I am not mistaken, is to be pronounced the day of Pentecost itself. For St. Paul tells Felix, that, in consequence of his long experience of the usages of the Jews, he could easily comprehend it was but twelve days' time, since he had come up to Jerusalem to worship'; which yet, with all that experience, Felix could not have comprehended, unless he had previously been aware that the day of Pentecost (which brought Jews from all parts up to worship) had fallen not more than twelve days before.

P Acts xxiv. 11. 9 xxi. 17. 18. 26. 27. xxii. 30.
Σχίν. 1.
Jos. Ant. Jud. xiii. xi. 2. xv. ix. 6. B. i.
buthnot on Ancient Weights and Measures.

xxiii. 11. 12. 32.

iii. 5. Vide Ar

Rel. Pal. ii. 444.

On this principle, the day of St. Paul's first audience would be about the twenty-first of May. The day of Pentecost was certainly then past, or the Jewish rulers would not otherwise have come down to Cæsarea from Jerusalem. It is of importance to establish this point; for Paul was again examined by Felix some days after this first occasion, in the company of Drusilla his wife; which would thus fall about the end of May or beginning of June; and it is from this last examination that we are to date the beginning and continuance of his two years' imprisonment at Cæsarea". These two years, therefore, would expire about the end of May or the beginning of June, A. U. 811; and this time of the year in particular, especially while the edict of Claudius, or the rule of Tiberius, before alluded to, were in force, was the most likely of all for the arrival of a new governor, and, consequently, the departure of an old. From the middle of April to the beginning of June would be six or seven weeks' interval; the ordinary interval necessary to travel in summer from Judæa to Rome, or from Rome to Judæa. And as Pentecost A. U. 809. fell upon May 9. so A. U. 811. it fell upon May 17. or at the latest upon May 18.

From the time of the arrival of Festus, to the time when he decided upon allowing of the appeal of Paul to Cæsar, there are express notices of more than seventeen days at least w; which will bring us to past the middle of June. After this also, there was still some interval before the arrival of Agrippa at Cæsarea; and a still longer interval for the time of his staying there, before his request to hear Paul; and last of all, his audience of Paul accordingly, the day after that request. Even after this audience there was yet some interval or other before Paul, with the other prisoners, was actually delivered to Julius, in order to set out to Italy. On all these accounts it seems impossible to place his final departure for Rome, before the beginning or the middle of August, A. U. 811; which would, consewxxv. 1. 6-12. 17.

" xxiv. 24. 27. xxxv. 13. 14. 23.

▾ Vol. i. Diss. vii. 282.
y xxvii. 1.

quently, be towards the close of the fourth of Nero; and this conclusion, I think, may be confirmed as follows.

When they were arrived at Myra in Lycia, they found there a ship of Alexandria, sailing to Italy, in which they embarked 2. Now this ship was laden with corna, the last thing with which they parted; and, consequently, it was corn of that year's harvest. The harvest, in Egypt, was commonly over before the annual rise of the Nile, that is, the summer solstice. Reliqua pars, says Plinyb on this subject, non nisi cum falce arva visit, paulo ante kalendas Aprilis. Peragitur autem messis mense Maio. The cornships, therefore, with the produce of the year's harvest, would usually set out for Italy in the month of June or July, and arrive in August or September. There is a lively description, in one of Seneca's Epistles, of the effect produced by the appearance of the first of these ships, called tabellariæ, or packets.

Moreover, when the wind was favourable, the usual route for the Alexandrian corn-ships, bound to Italy, was not in the direction which this ship was taking, along the coast of Asia Minor, from east to west, but across the Mediterranean by Malta and Sicily, from south-east to north-west, which is straight in the direction from Alexandria in Egypt to Italy. But this could not be done, unless the Etesian monsoon had ceased to blow, and the southern winds, by which it was commonly succeeded, had set in in its stead. Before that, the ships which left Alexandria in Egypt, bound for Italy, according to the principles of the coasting navigation universally practised by antiquity, were compelled to pursue a very circuitous route, in order to take advantage of the Etesian winds. This seems to have been the case with the ship found at Myra, yet making a voyage, and that with corn, towards Italy.

That the Etesian winds in particular were blowing both when St. Paul left Sidon, and when he came in the direction of Cnidusd, is manifest from the relative position of

Cyprus to the one, and of Myra in Lycia to the other; but more especially from the fact that, when the ship left Cnidus, instead of pursuing its former course, it sailed under the coast of Crete, in the direction of Salmone, and that because the wind was contrary1; for this was to sail directly before the Etesian wind, viz. from north to south. That the northern monsoon, then, was still blowing seems unquestionable; but that it was about to be succeeded by the southern appears from the change of the wind, when the ship set out again from the Fair Havens in Crete towards Phoenice; for this was with a slight wind from the south".

Now the time when the Etesian winds commonly ceased to blow, or continued to blow only very irregularly, is well known to have been about the recurrence of the autumnal equinox, or the middle of the last week in September. It may be presumed, then, that it was not before this time when St. Paul arrived at Crete: and the presumption, I think, is confirmed by the allusion to the voteía, or tenth of the Jewish Tisri", as past some time, more or less, before they set out for Phoenice.

In the year of the city 811. or A. D. 58. when the fifteenth of Nisan coincided with March 28. the fifteenth of Tisri coincided with September 21. and, consequently, the tenth of Tisri fell on September 16. If we suppose that, before the ship arrived at Lasæa, St. Paul had been about a month on the road, and that the day of the fast occurred either before or soon after they came thither, the time of his departure from Cæsarea would be, as we conjectured, about the middle, or even the beginning, of August. It was the intention of the ship's crew not to have continued their route that year from Crete, but to have passed the winter in the island; and when they set out from Lasæa to Phoenice, it was only that they might change their present winter quarters, for others which were more convenient. This is a proof that, before they set out, the autumnal equinox, or September 24. was long past; the autumnal equinox

1 xxvii. 7.

m xxvii. 13.

n xxvii. 9.

being the time after which the sea was usually considered shut. They had already taken up winter quarters at Lasæa, and it was against the prophetical warning of St. Paul that they were about to exchange them for others: he would have had them remain where they were; the pilot and the master of the vessel thought there could be no danger, in removing only to Phonice.

. It seems presumptively certain, then, that they must have set out from Lasæa about the middle of our October, if not later; and as the storm which immediately surprized them lasted fourteen days or more, they would finally be wrecked on Malta about the beginning, if not near the middle, of our November. In the fourth month after this shipwreck, (for so I understand the note of time at verse 11. of chap. xxviii. Merà dè τgeïç μñvas àvýxônμev,) which was consequently some time in February or March, A. U. 812. they resumed their journey; and in something more than a fortnight afterwards, which might possibly be at the middle, or even the end, of March, St. Paul arrived in RomeP. His two years' residence there subsequently must be dated from this period: and, beginning with March A. U. 812. it would expire with March A. U. 814.

Upon the arrival of Julius in Rome, he delivered his prisoners to the officer whose duty it was to receive them, and who is called the σтрaτожdάρxns; a very appropriate denomination for the commander-in-chief of the prætorian cohorts, or the Imperial guard; which, since the time of Sejanus in the reign of Tiberius, instead of being distributed in different parts of the city, had been collected together and quartered in a σrpaτóñedo, or camp, by themselves 9. The commander of these forces, from A. U. 804. the eleventh of Claudius, to A. U. 815. the eighth of Nero, was Burrhus'; and this is one argument, among others, that the time of St. Paul's first imprisonment at Rome could not have begun later than the eighth of Nero; for, upon the decease of Burrhus, the command was divided beTac. Ann. iv. 2.

• xxvii. 27.

P xxviii. 12-15.

r xii.