Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    722/800 (page 666)
    However, avers the Rev. Dr. Horne,(365) “The true date of the birth of Christ is four years before the common cera, or a. d.” This date we should not be unwilling to accept but for the Rev. Dr. Jarvis (366) — “ The date being taken of December 25, by reckoning back thirty years from his baptism, we come to his birth, a. j. p. 4707, six years before the common sera.” It would not be decorous in us to hold fast to such dogmatic extension by a Churchman who sacrilegiously derides a viitre — “ Abp. Newcombe could say, ‘Jesus was born, says Lardner, between the middle of August and the middle of November, a. u. c. 748 or 749. (Cred. I. 796, 9, 3d ed.) We will take the mean time, October 1.’! !! ” The notes of admiration are the Rev. Dr. Jarvis’s. We have preferred quoting the latest authorities; but it need not be observed to the learned that this discussion has been revived periodically during the last ten centuries with no better result, than when agitated previously between the unbelieving Rabbis and the all-believing Fathers. Ex. gr., John of Spain (367) sums up: — “ That there has been sought in what season of the year, in what month, and on what day our Saviour was born: some place this birth at the winter solstice; others, at the equinox of autumn or at the equinox of spring.” And again, Bossuet, one of the most enlightened men of his age, winds up his chrono- logical investigations as follows : — “ Birth of Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary. — It is not agreed as to the precise year when he came into the world, but it is agreed that his true birth precedes by some years our vulgar era. Without disputing further upon the year of the birth of our Lord, it suffices that we know it happened in the year 4000 of the world.” [! ] (368). If we inquire the age of Jesus at his death, Bossuet tells us, that—“According to Matthew, he was 33 years old; to Pagan legend, 21; to Luke, 39; to Bossuet, 40,” “Common Christians,” as the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock designates them (ubi supra), may start back in amazement at these results upon the year of the Savior’s birth, which the first slashes of an archteologic scalpel have now laid bare. Mystified by childlike or fraudulent authorities, they may or may not be grateful for the truth; but their conscientiousness will hereafter whisper to their minds that it is safest, perhaps, to become more charitable towards men of science; whose unwearied struggles to arrive at a chronology are superinduced by acquaintance with these facts. In the meanwhile, readers of Strauss and Ilennell know why the settlement of the year of Jesus’s nativity is one of those things not to be looked for; because, as Scaliger wrote — “to determine the day of Christ’s birth belongs to God alone, not to man.” To “uncommon Christians,” whose effrontery has led them to accuse Egyptologists of dissensions as to the epoch of the first Pharaoh, Menes, (by no thorough hierologist dog- matically fixed) we have merely to advise their prior determination of the year of Christ’s nativity, before they henceforward venture into Egyptian polemics wherein they themselves are the only parties liable to “ get hurt.” In a recent hieroglyphical work, to which allusion will be briefly made in its natural department, the Royal Astronomer, Professor Airy, (369) through profound mathematical calculations, obtains a celestial conjunction which he designates “ 2005 b. c. ; April 8th.” “b. c.” implies before Christ. Now, as no human being can determine the year of Christ’s advent; and inasmuch as the foregoing table exhibits a difference of opinion oscillating between ten years at least; we would respectfully solicit the astronomical era upon which the learned Professor founds his minute coincidence. Is it upon the “ star of the east ”(370) seen by the Magi ? Or docs he take the unknown moment of time “ c.” to be zero ? Among archaeologists, to say “b. c.,” merely implies before an epoch conjectural for one or more m 65) Introd. to the Crit. Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; 8th ed., London, 1839; iii. pp. 527, 635. (366) Chronot. Introd. to the Hist, of the Church; London ed., 1844; Preface, p. vii., and pp. 535, 563. (367) Quad. Istor. del. Lit. Arm.; Venezia, 1829. (368) Bossuet : Discours sur I'Hist. Univ.; and Art de virif. les Dates, par les B6n6dictins de Saint-Maur. (369) Horai JEgyptiacte; London, 1851; pp. 216 217. (370) Matthew; ii. 1, 9,10; omitted by Mark ; called an “angel” in Luke ii. 9-15; and unmontioned by John. Vide Strauss: Vie de Jesus; 1839; i. pp. 254-292.