that Babylon could not have been taken later than the beginning of May.

Having thus ascertained that Babylon must have been taken between December and May, we may safely pronounce it to have been taken (if it were taken on a festival of Bel) either at the vernal equinox or on May-day, that is to say on the night preceding May-day; because the other festivals do not fall within the limited period. With respect to arranging the 70 years, it is immaterial which of these we suppose to be the epoch of the capture of Babylon: but the latter seems to me the most probable: both because, since the principal festival of Bel was then observed, and since the festival on which Babylon was taken was clearly one of peculiar magnificence, the presumption is, that the festival in question was the chief festival, and therefore the festival of May-eve; and because likewise, on this supposition, the triumph of Jehovah over the false deity would be more conspicuous and striking. At the beginning of May, before an alteration was produced through all the signs of the zodiac by the gradual precession of the equinoxes, the sun entered into Taurus: and, at that time, the great annual festival of Bel, or the solar deity worshipped in conjunction with the arkite patriarch, was universally celebrated. The custom prevailed, over a vast extent of country, from India in the east even to Bri

tain in the west*. By the Hindoos it has been im memorially observed. It appears again in the Druidical practice of kindling fires on May-eve at the top of the ancient Carns in honour of the sun, and in the designating of those sacred fires by the name of Bealtine of the fires of Bel. And vestiges of it may be detected in the kindred denomination of Beltin, applied even yet to May-day in the Gaelic dialect of the Scottish highlands. The same day was no less hallowed in Ireland: and the old idolatrous custom of lighting fires on May-eve in honour of Bel, of passing through them by way of purification, and of bearing in solemn procession two balls representing the sun and the moon, is still devoutly kept up in that country. The vernal season, in short, when the sun formerly entered into the bull, the zodiacal symbol of the great patriarch, and when all nature was reviving from the death of winter, was the special time of celebrating the helioarkite mysteries of Bel, both by the Brahmins of

* A religion fundamentally the same was established over a belt about forty degrees broad across the old continent, in a south-east and north-west direction, from the eastern shores of the Malayan peninsula to the western extremity of the British isles. See Wilford on the sacred isles of the west. Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 264.

India, the astronomical priests of Chaldea, and the Druids of Britain *.

Supposing

*Maurice's Ancient Hist. of Hindostan. Vol. i. p. 205, 230, 244, 258, 259—Maurice's Ind. Antiq. Vol. vi. p. 40, 41, 89— 94-Toland's Hist. of the Druids. p. 67, 71-Borlase's Hist. of Cornwall. b. ii. c. 20-Davies's Mythology of the British Druids. p. 121, 133, 238, 241, 333, 369—Collect. de reb. Hibern. Vol. ii. p. 66. Vol. iii. p. 286, 502. From this last work I extract the following curious particulars, which sufficiently shew that on May-day was celebrated the chief festival of Bel.

"The Irish call the month of May Bel-tine or fire of Belus,

and the first day of May la Bel-tine or the fire of Belus's day "Mr. Martin, in his history of the western isles of Scotland, "which were peopled by the ancient Irish, observes, that they "had a deity named Belus or Belinus, which seems to have "been the Assyrian god Bel; and probably from this pagan "deity comes the Scots term of Beltin, the first day of May, 66. "having its first rise from the custom practised by the Druids "in these isles of extinguishing all the fires in the parish until "the tythes were paid, and upon payment of them the fires' "were kindled in each family, and never till then-The Irish "still preserve this custom, for the fire is to this day lighted in' "the milking yards: the men, women, and children, for the <s same reason pass through or leap over the sacred fires; and "the cattle are driven through the flames of the burning straw "on the first of May. In some parts, as the counties of Wa"terford and Kilkenny, the brides, married since the last "May-day, are compelled to furnish the young people with a "ball covered with gold-lace, and another covered with silvers lace, finely adorned with silver tassils. These balls, the "symbols

the

Supposing Babylon to have fallen on May-eve in year A. C. 538, an opinion which very well cor responds with the arrangement of Abp. Usher*,

66

"symbols of the sun and moon, are suspended in a hoop orna"mented with flowers, which hoop represents the circular path "of Belus or the sun and in this manner they walk in pro"cession from house to house-The month of May was indeed "the most proper season of the year to acknowledge the bene "ficent favours of Belus or the sun; because in May that "great planet begins to beautify the face of the earth, to nou"rish its decayed plants and vegetables, and to put life and "warmth into its animal beings-Hence it was, without doubt, "that almost every pagan nation adored this beautiful planet as the parent of nature, under different names and appella "tions; a religion, which took its rise in Chaldèa, and was AL soon carried into Egypt, and from thence to Greece. It "spread itself also to the most distant parts of the world; and "infected, not only the eastern and western Scythians and "Tartars, but the Mexicans too, for the Spaniards found it “there—The ancient practice of adoring the sun, by the sym"bol of fire, was first introduced into the world by Nimrod→ "This idolatrous mode of worship soon overspread the earth. "The Canaanites or Phenicians observed it in the same manner with the pagan Irish. We read it in the 4th book of Kings, that they served Baal, and religiously passed their 66 sons and daughters through his fire, in which they were imi "tated by the idolatrous Israelites."

66

The custom of dancing round a May-pole is a relic of one part of the rites of Bel, however ignorant the dancers may be of the nature of their festivity. But enough has been said on the subject.

* See Usser. Annal, in A. A. C. 538.

the

the two years of Darius, reckoned from that time, will bring us to the spring of the year A. C. 536: that is to say, still agreeably to the arrangement of Usher*, the first year of Cyrus must have commenced in this same spring, probably about April or perhaps March. And, almost immediately after his accession to sole empire, his decree in favour of the Jews must have been enacted: for, as I have already observed, we cannot allow a shorter space than four months for their journey home; and we find them celebrating their first feast of tabernacles in the seventh month Tisri, or in the September of this year.

Now we have previously seen, that 70 years, reckoned from the middle of the month Tisri in the year A. C. 606, when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judèa, will bring us to the middle of the month Tisri in the year A. C. 536: and we now find, that, exactly in the middle of this month in this year, the Jews after their arrival in their own land were celebrating the feast of tabernacles in their capital city. At this time therefore I conceive the seventy years of the predicted desolation of the land to have expired for, as that desolation commenced with Nebuchadnezzar's devastating invasion of the land, so the point of its termination is solemnly and natu

See Usser. Annal. in A. A. C. 536.

rally