on the 25th of March. Another circumstance to which it is
often necessary to pay attention in the comparison of dates, is the
alteration of style which took place on the adoption of the Gregorian
Calendar (see CALENDAR).

_Era of the Creation of the World_.--As the Greek and Roman methods of
computing time were connected with certain pagan rites and observances
which the Christians held in abhorrence, the latter began at an early
period to imitate the Jews in reckoning their years from the supposed
period of the creation of the world. Various computations were made at
different times, from Biblical sources, as to the age of the world; and
Des Vignoles, in the preface to his _Chronology of Sacred History_,
asserts that he collected upwards of two hundred different calculations,
the shortest of which reckons only 3483 years between the creation of
the world and the commencement of the vulgar era and the longest 6984.
The so-called era of the creation of the world is therefore a purely
conventional and arbitrary epoch; practically, it means the year 4004
B.C.,--this being the date which, under the sanction of Archbishop
Usher's opinion, won its way, among its hundreds of competitors, into
general acceptance.

_Jewish Year and Eras_.--Before the departure of the Israelites from
Egypt their year commenced at the autumnal equinox; but in order to
solemnize the memory of their deliverance, the month of _Nisan_ or
_Abib_, in which that event took place, and which falls about the time
of the vernal equinox, was afterwards regarded as the beginning of the
ecclesiastical or legal year. In civil affairs, and in the regulation of
the jubilees and sabbatical years, the Jews still adhere to the ancient
year, which begins with the month Tisri, about the time of the autumnal
equinox.

After their dispersion the Jews were constrained to have recourse to the
astronomical rules and cycles of the more enlightened heathen, in order
that their religious festivals might be observed on the same days in all
the countries through which they were scattered. For this purpose they
adopted a cycle of eighty-four years, which is mentioned by several of
the ancient fathers of the church, and which the early Christians
borrowed from them for the regulation of Easter. This cycle seems to be
neither more nor less than the Calippic period of seventy-six years,
with the addition of a Greek octaeteris, or period of eight years, in
order to disguise its tr