[Sidenote: _The difficulties of_ Daniels _70 Weeks_.]
Thus also although there be a certain truth therein, yet is there no easie doubt concerning the seventy weeks, or seventy times seven years of _Daniel_; whether they have reference unto the nativity or passion of our Saviour, and especially from whence, or what point of time they are to be computed. For thus is it delivered by the Angel _Gabriel_: Seventy weeks are determined upon the people; and again in the following verse: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the Commandment to restore and to build _Ierusalem_ unto the Messias the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks, the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troublesome times; and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off. Now the going out of the Commandment to build the City, being the point from whence to compute, there is no slender controversie when to begin. For there are no less than four several Edicts to this effect, the one in the first year of _Cyrus_, the other in the second of _Darius_, the third and fourth in the seventh, and in the twentieth of _Artaxerxes Longimanus_; although as _Petavius_ accounteth, it best accordeth unto the twenty year of _Artaxerxes_, from whence _Nehemiah_ deriveth his Commission. [SN: _Of our Bless. Saviours age at his Passion._] Now that computes are made uncertainly with reference unto Christ, it is no wonder, since I perceive the time of his Nativity is in controversie, and no less his age at his Passion. For _Clemens_ and _Tertullian_ conceive he suffered at thirty; but _Irenæus_ a Father neerer his time, is further off in his account, that is, between forty and fifty.
_Longomontanus_ a late Astronomer, endeavours to discover this secret from Astronomical grounds, that is, the Apogeum of the Sun; conceiving the Excentricity invariable, and the Apogeum yearly to move one scruple, two seconds, fifty thirds, etc. Wherefore if in the time of _Hipparchus_, that is, in the year of the _Iulian_ period 4557 it was in the fifth degree of _Gemini_, and in the daies of _Tycho Brahe_, that is in the year of our Lord 1588, or of the world 5554, the same was removed unto the fift degree of _Cancer_; by the proportion of its motion, it was at the Creation first in the beginning of _Aries_, and the Perigeum or nearest point in _Libra_. But this conceit how ingenious or subtile soever, is not of satisfaction; it being not determinable, or yet agreed in what time precisely the Apogeum absolveth one degree, as _Petavius_ [SN: De Doctrina temporum 1.4.] hath also delivered.