218 



and national misfortune. We have seen before, that Josephiis 

 acknowledged an interval to be delivered in the text, and 

 that consequently, " the interpolation was 7iot made a little 

 before the time of Eusebius ;" but what will the learned 

 author say, when he hears that the bishop of Caesarea. 

 Eusebius himself, the author of the monstrous heresy of sup- 

 porting the authenticity of the text, had for a long time con- 

 sented to neglect the authority of the contested verse, and 

 to understand it as his predecessors had done, not as repre- 

 senting the true and correct interval, but as recording the 

 period flattering to the national pride, and willingly remem- 

 bered by itsvanit}'. Eusebius reckoned 600 3'ears, including 

 the servitudes and anarchies, as tlie true interval from the 

 exod, (Syncellus ut supra p. 175 ) and this even while he ac- 

 knowledged the existence and authenticity of text, under the 

 limitations of his interpretation : nay more, in his Prsep. 

 Evan. (Lib. x. c. 14.) he accounts all the Judges and the 

 Servitudes as exclusivel}' consecutive; and even makes the 

 20 years of Sampson commence after the conclusion* of the 



Philistine 



• I know that it has been atteinpled by some, to alledge thi^ as a retraction of his first 

 principles, in adhering to the fidelity of the text; because, say [they, " his Praep. Evan, 

 was written after his chronology," (Vide Vig. &c.) but it is not; for it is plain by the 

 passage of Syncellus to which I have referred, that he was equally aware of the objections 

 to the verse at the time he wrote his chronological work, and that it was the arguments 

 Syntellus afterwards quotes from liini, determined his opinion to abide by the strict 



interval 



