Whether _Daniel_ used the _Chaldaick_ or _Jewish_ year, is not very material; the difference being but six hours in a year, and 4 months in 480 years. But I take his months to be _Jewish_: first, because _Daniel_ was a _Jew_, and the _Jews_ even by the names of the _Chaldean_ months understood the months of their own year: secondly, because this Prophecy is grounded on _Jeremiah_'s concerning the 70 years captivity, and therefore must be understood of the same sort of years with the seventy; and those are _Jewish_, since that Prophecy was given in _Judea_ before the captivity: and lastly, because _Daniel_ reckons by weeks of years, which is a way of reckoning peculiar to the _Jewish_ years. For as their days ran by sevens, and the last day of every seven was a sabbath; so their years ran by sevens, and the last year of every seven was a sabbatical year, and seven such weeks of years made a _Jubilee_. * * * * * CHAP. XI. _Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of _Christ__. The times of the Birth and Passion of _Christ_, with such like niceties, being not material to religion, were little regarded by the _Christians_ of the first age. They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin _Mary_, on the 25th of _March_, which when _Julius Caesar_ corrected the Calendar was the vernal Equinox; the feast of _John_ Baptist on the 24th of _June_, which was the summer Solstice; the feast of St. _Michael_ on _Sept._ 29, which was the autumnal Equinox; and the birth of _Christ_ on the winter Solstice, _Decemb._ 25, with the feasts of St. _Stephen_, St. _John_ and the _Innocents_, as near it as they could place them. And because the Solstice in time removed from the 25th of _December_ to the 24th, the 23d, the 22d, and so on backwards, hence some in the following centuries placed the birth of _Christ_ on _Decemb._ 23, and at length on _Decemb._ 20: and for the same reason they seem to have set the feast of St. _Thomas_ on _Decemb._ 21, and that of St. _Matthew_ on _Sept._ 21. So also at the entrance of the Sun into all the signs in the _Julian_ Calendar, they placed the days of other Saints; as the conversion of _Paul_ on _Jan._ 25, when the Sun entred [Aquarius]; St. _Matthias_ on _Feb._ 25, when he entred [Pisces]; St. _Mark_ on _Apr._ 25, when he entred [Taurus]; _Corpus Christi_ on _May_ 26, when he entred [Gemini]; St. _James_ on _July_ 25, when he entred [Cancer]; St. _Bartholomew_ on _Aug._ 24, when he entred [Virgo]; _Simon_ and _Jude_ on _Octob._ 28, when he entred [Scorpio]: and if there were any other remarkable days in the _Julian_ Calendar, they placed the Saints upon them, as St. _Barnabas_ on _June_ 11, where _Ovid_ seems to place the feast of _Vesta_ and _Fortuna_, and the goddess _Matuta_; and St. _Philip_ and _James_ on the first of _May_, a day dedicated both to the _Bona Dea_, or _Magna Mater_, and to the goddess