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:

From Julius Caesar, therefore, to the death of Commodus, are two hundred and thirty-six years, six months. And the whole from Romulus, who founded...

A certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that...

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

Accordingly, in fifteen years of Tiberius and fifteen years of Augustus; so were completed the thirty years till the time He suffered. And from the...

IT came to pass, when Jesus had risen from the dead, that he passed eleven years discoursing with his disciples, and instructing them only up to the...

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 ...

Augustus, forty-three years; Tiberius, twenty-two years; Caius, four years; Claudius, fourteen years; Nero, fourteen years; Galba, one year; Vespasian...

If I would now amend it, thou wottest well, by very reason of thy words written before, it may not be after the course of nature, nor of common grace,...

These two thousand three hundred days, then, make six years four months, during the half of which Nero held sway, and it was half a week; and for a...

Of others, counting from Inachus and Moses to the death of Commodus, some say there were three thousand one hundred and forty-two years; and others,...

The seventh and eighth septenniads see him now In mind and speech mature, till fifty years; And in the ninth he still has vigour left, But strength...

The decreasing Years and increasing Corrup- tion of Mankind (xxiii. -).

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 ...

Further, others say that He was born on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi.

¶These relatively few sayings of Jesus have not a place apart, but run in an uneven distribution through the four Gospels (a few in other Books); and...

Time was for twelve thousand years; and it says in revelation, that three thousand years was the duration of the spiritual state, where the creatures...

Early Christian Writings is copyright © Peter Kirby < E-Mail Follow @mrpeterkirby MLA Style Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories."

Early Christian Writings is copyright © Peter Kirby < E-Mail Follow @mrpeterkirby MLA Style Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories."

Early Christian Writings is copyright © Peter Kirby < E-Mail Follow @mrpeterkirby MLA Style Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories."

Early Christian Writings is copyright © Peter Kirby < E-Mail Follow @mrpeterkirby MLA Style Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories."