A new analysis of chronology

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—its creator, Dionysius, mistakenly placed it in the preceding year, U.C. 753. Nevertheless, it is still to be kept as a long-established era, starting from a known fixed point, both forward and backward, and providing the most convenient standard of comparison for all others.

Petavius, vol. 2, p. 215.

"That common era which we hold must be preserved, as it contains the memory of past things and is established by long use; and no matter where it is derived from, it does not affect the truth of the facts."
original Latin: "Vulgaris illa quam tenemus æra conservanda est, quæ præteritarum rerum memoriam usu jam inveterata continet; et undecunque ducatur nihil ad veritatis fidem interest."

III. Epochs of the DELUGE.

Of these several opinions, selected from a great number, the extremes differ by no less than 1,142 years. Indeed, the variations of this important era, from which the history of the current race of mankind properly begins, are more confusing and harmful than those of the Creation itself.

Usher's date, attached to our English Bible, has been abandoned by the most capable chronologers of the present time, because it cannot be reconciled with the rise of the early empires of Assyria, Egypt, India, and China, all of which suggest earlier dates for the Deluge. Therefore, the authors of that great and elaborate work, the Ancient Universal History,

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adopted, in preference to it, the date of the Deluge provided by the Samaritan Hebrew text. Their example has been followed by Captain Wilford in his Remarks on the Hindu Chronology, published in the Asiatic Researches.

IV. Epochs of the Exodus original: Exode of the ISRAELITES from Egypt.

The gradual increase of this date from the lowest and earliest (the Jewish) to the highest is remarkable. It shows that later chronologers found the dates of their predecessors insufficient to fit the timeline of ancient history.

V. Epochs of the Reign of SESOSTRIS.

Here the extremes differ from each other by nearly 600 years!