68 



The sentiments of the different authors, who have distin- 

 guished themselves in this celebrated controversy, may be con- 

 veniently ranged in three general classes : — • 



1. Those, who led by their several h3fpotheses to lengthen 

 the interval considerably, have endeavoured to give a new 

 and forced interpretation to the passage, conformably to their 

 «wn views of the subject, while they acknowledge its authenti- 

 city. 2. Those, who contend that the numbers, assigned in the 

 text, have been falsified by the copyists, and, as they at present 

 stand, are totally irreconcileable to the chronology of the sa- 

 cred history from the exod. And 3. Those, who support the 

 fidelity of the interval according to the text, and allow abso- 

 lutely, but four hundred and eighty years, from the exod to the 

 foundation of the temple. It is for the last class, I declare my- 

 self^ but,upon what different grounds will be seen in the sequel. 



1st. The learned Pere Petau, better known by his scholastic 

 appellation of Petavius, whose various works and more parti- 

 cularly his " Vranulogia" and his " Doctrina Temporum," bear 

 equal testimony to his judgment, his erudition, and his sa- 

 gacity,* having made every retrenchment which his S3'stem 

 and his calculus, would safely permit, found notwithstanding, 

 that the interval between the exod and the foundation of the 

 temple, still remained 520 years or forty years of excess, 



above 



• If, indeed, our applause should not be qualified by a reprehension of the uncandid 

 severity, with which lie magnifies the inaccuracies, or misconceptions, of his predecessor, 

 the great Scalijicr. 



