(2) According to popular conception, Jesus was crucified during the thirty-third year of His life and in the third year of His ministry following His baptism. About A.D. 180, St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, one of the most eminent of the ante-Nicene theologians, wrote Against Heresies, an attack on the doctrines of the Gnostics. In this work Irenæus declared upon the authority of the Apostles themselves that Jesus lived to old age. To quote: "They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that which is written, 'to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,' maintain that He preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month. [In speaking thus], they are forgetful of their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had His disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptised, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: 'Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old,' when He came to receive baptism); and, (according to these men,) He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onward to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which Our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, (affirming) that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the'(validity of) the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemæus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?"

(4) And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concern- ing the tree of knowledge : "On the day that ye eat thereof ye will die." For this reason he did not complete the years of this day ; for he died during it.

(6) And command thou the children of Israel that they observe the years according to this reckoning — three hundred and sixty-four days, and (these) will constitute a complete year, and they will not disturb its time from its days and from its feasts ; for everything will fall out in them according to their testimony, and they will not leave out any day nor disturb any feasts.

(4) It should further be noted that Irenæus prepared this statement to contradict another apparently current in his time to the effect that the ministry of Jesus lasted but one year. Of all the early Fathers, Irenæus, writing within eighty years after the death of St. John the Evangelist, should have had reasonably accurate information. If the disciples themselves related that Jesus lived to advanced age in the body, why has the mysterious number 33 been arbitrarily chosen to symbolize the duration of His life? Were the incidents in the life of Jesus purposely altered so that His actions would fit more closely into the pattern established by the numerous Savior-Gods who preceded Him? That these analogies were recognized and used as a leverage in converting the Greeks and Romans is evident from a perusal of the writings of Justin Martyr, another second-century authority. In his Apology, Justin addresses the pagans thus:

(23) Critias: and Hephaestus, and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization as set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed:

(2) As this was six thousand years series of millennium reigns of Cancer, Leo, and Virgo had elapsed, because it was six thousand years when the millennium reign came to Libra, the adversary rushed in, and Gâyômard lived thirty years in tribulation. After the thirty years Mâshya and Mashyôî grew up; it was fifty years while they were not wife and husband, and they were ninety-three years together as wife and husband till the time when Hôshyang came. 4. Hôshyang was forty years, Takhmôrup thirty years, Yim till his glory departed six hundred and sixteen years and six months, and after that he was a hundred years in concealment. 5. Then the millennium reign came to Scorpio, and Dahâk ruled a thousand years. 6. After the millennium reign came to Sagittarius, Frêdûn reigned five hundred years; in the same five hundred years of Frêdûn were the twelve years of Aîrîk; Mânûskîhar was a hundred and twenty years, and in the same reign of Mânûskîhar, when he was in the mountain fastness (dûshkhvâr-gar), were the twelve years of Frâsîyâv; Zôb the Tûhmâspian was five years. 7. Kaî-Kabâd was fifteen years; Kaî-Kâûs, till he went to the sky, seventy-five years, and seventy-five years after that, altogether a hundred and fifty years; Kai-Khûsrôv sixty years; Kaî-Lôrâsp a hundred and twenty years; Kaî-Vistâsp, till the coming of the religion, thirty years, altogether a hundred and twenty years. 8. Vohûman son of Spend-dâd a hundred and twelve years; Hûmâî, who was daughter of Vohûman, thirty years; Dârâî son of Kîhar-i-âzâd, that is, of the daughter of Vohûman, twelve years; Dârâî son of Dârâî fourteen years; Alexander the Rûman fourteen years. 9. The Askânians bore the title in an uninterrupted (a-arûbâk) sovereignty two hundred and eighty-four years, Ardashîr son of Pâpak and the number of the Sâsânians four hundred and sixty years, and then it went to the Arabs.

(1) On matters of religion it says in revelation thus: 'The creatures of the world were created by me complete in three hundred and sixty-five days,' that is, the six periods of the Gâhanbârs which are completed in a year.

(6) And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of creation till the days of Noah — twenty-six jubilees and five weeks of years : and Noah and his sons observed it for seven jubilees and one week of years, till the day of Noah's death, and from the day of Noah's death his sons did away with (it) until the days of Abraham, and they ate blood.

(23) And he lived tnree jubilees and four weeks of years, one hundred and seventy-five years, and completed the days of his life, being old and full of days. The decreasing Years and increasing Corrup- tion of Mankind (xxiii. -).

(10) Nine hundred and fifty years he completed in his life, nineteen jubilees and two > weeks and five years.

(8) And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age.

(3) He ordained the year and into sections he divided it

(47) And in the seventh week, in the seventh 2303 am year, in the forty-seventh jubilee, thy father went forth from the land of Canaan, and thou wast born in the fourth week, in the sixth year thereof, in the 2330 am forty-eighth jubilee ; this was the time of tribulation on the children of Israel.

(23) Concerning this season of celebration, an anonymous Master of Arts of Balliol College, Oxford, in his scholarly treatise, Mankind Their Origin and Destiny, says: "The Romans also had their solar festival, and their games of the circus in honor of the birth of the god of day. It took place the eighth day before the kalends of January--that is, on December 25. Servius, in his commentary on verse 720 of the seventh book of the Æneid, in which Virgil speaks of the new sun, says that, properly speaking, the sun is new on the 8th of the Kalends of January-that is, December 25. In the time of Leo I. (Leo, Serm. xxi., De Nativ. Dom. p. 148), some of the Fathers of the Church said that 'what rendered the festival (of Christmas) venerable was less the birth of Jesus Christ than the return, and, as they expressed it, the new birth of the sun.' It was on the same day that the birth of the Invincible Sun (Natalis solis invicti), was celebrated at Rome, as can be seen in the Roman calendars, published in the reign of Constantine and of Julian (Hymn to the Sun, p. 155). This epithet 'Invictus' is the same as the Persians gave to this same god, whom they worshipped by the name of Mithra, and whom they caused to be born in a grotto (Justin. Dial. cum Trips. p. 305), just as he is represented as being born in a stable, under the name of Christ, by the Christians."

(38) ¶At Jerusalem it was the feast of the dedication. It was winter. Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.

(46) And Joseph died 2242 a.m. m the forty-sixth jubilee, in the sixth week, in the second year, and they buried him in the land of Egypt, and all his brethren died after him.

(26) But that I have said, that he was forty Days in the Paradise, the second Adam's (Christ'Temptation testifies so much to me; as also the Temptation of Israel at Mount Sinai by Moses [staying twice] on the Mount, both which lasted forty Days, which you may read in Moses; and you may read concerning the Temptation of Christ; and you will find Wonders.

(45) And Israel lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and all the days which he lived were three jubilees, one hundred and forty-seven years, and he died in the fourth year of the fifth week of the forty-fifth jubilee. 2188 a.m.

(6) And all the days of the commandment will be two and fifty weeks of days, and (these will make) the entire year complete.

(19) And all the days of the life of Sarah were one hundred and twenty-seven years, that is, two jubilees and four weeks and one year : these are the days of the years of the life of Sarah.