Besides, it must be evident, on a moment’s consideration, that it cannot be expected that I should make the cycles, which I shall shew existed, agree with any of them. I do not pretend to do it, though it is possible that, in some instances, I may. My object is merely to shew that the Neros did exist, and was the foundation of a system, not that it fitted to any of the systems of chronology—systems which not only disagree with one another, but almost every one of which is totally inconsistent with itself, as M. Volney, in his researches, has clearly proved.
The extraordinary exaggerations in numbers of years, and in other matters, have been noticed by the Author of the Cambridge Key to the Chronology of the Hindoos, of both the Hindoos and Jews, and he endeavours to shew that they are written in a species of cipher, and how the former ought to be reduced. These statements, taken by the priests in a literal sense, have caused many persons to doubt the whole history, but they no more prove that the Jewish history is in the great leading articles false, than the lengthened cycles of the Indians, before the year 3100, prove that they had no history, or that they did not exist.
7. I will now shew that the Mosaic system is exactly the same as that of the Brahmins and the Western nations; I will unfold one part of the esoretic religion. But first I shall avail myself of the statement of several facts of the highest importance, which cannot be disputed, made by Col. Wilford in the Asiatic Researches.[1]
In consequence of certain prodigies which were reported to have been seen at Rome, about the year 119 before Christ, the sacred College of Hetruria was consulted, which declared that the eighth revolution of the world was nearly at an end, and that another, either for the better or the worse, was about to take place.[2]
Juvenal, who lived in the first century, declared that he was living in the ninth revolution,[3] or sæculum. This shews that the cycle above alluded to had ended in Juvenal’s time, and that a new one had begun: and this ninth revolution consisted evidently of a revolution of more than 100 or 120 years—of several centuries at least.
“Nona ætas agitur, pejoraque sæcula ferri temporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa Nomen, et à nullo posuit natura metailo.” On this passage Isaac Vossius says, Octo illas ætates credit appellatas à cœli regionibus, quas octo faciebant Pythagorei: nonam vero, de qua hic, à tellure denominatam opinatur: in libello de Sibyle. Orac. Oxoniæ, nuper edito, Cap. v.
This statement of Juvenal’s, which no author has ever yet pretended to understand, will now explain itself, and it completes and proves the truth of my whole system. It is of the greatest importance to my theory, as it is evidence, which cannot be disputed, of the fact on which the whole depends. Virgil lived before Christ, Juvenal after him. This is quite enough for my purpose, as we shall soon see.
About sixty years before Christ the Roman empire had been alarmed by prodigies, and also by ancient prophecies, announcing that an emanation of the Deity was going to be born about that time, and that a renovation of the world was to take place.
Previous to this, in the year 63 B. C., the city had been alarmed by a prophecy of one Figulus, that a king or master to the Romans was about to be born, in consequence of which the Senate passed a decree, that no father should bring up a male child born that year: but those among the Senators, whose wives were pregnant, got the decree suppressed.[4] These prophecies were applied to Augustus, who was born 63 years before Christ according to some persons, but 56 according to several writers in the East, such as the author of the Lebtarikh and others. “Hence
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