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Dividend Two Directory 05
Page 10
There is good ground for maintaining that Easter and its accessory celebrations mark with tolerable accuracy the anniversaries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, because we know that the events themselves took place at the period of the Jewish Passover; but no such precision of date can be adduced as regards Christmas. Dr. Geikie[1] says: "The _season_ at which Christ was born is inferred from the fact that He was six months younger than John, respecting the date of whose birth we have the help of knowing the time of the annunciation during his father's ministrations in Jerusalem. Still, the whole subject is very uncertain. Ewald appears to fix the date of the birth as five years earlier than our era. Petavius and Usher fix it as on the 25th of December, five years before our era; Bengel, on the 25th of December, four years before our era; Anger and Winer, four years before our era, in the spring; Scaliger, three years before our era, in October; St. Jerome, three years before our era, on December 25th; Eusebius, two years before our era, on January 6th; and Ideler, seven years before our era, in December." Milton, following the immemorial tradition of the Church, says that-- "It was the winter wild."
The _AEdileship_ was originally a Plebeian office, instituted at the same time as the Tribuneship of the Plebs.[39] To the two Plebeian AEdiles two Curule AEdiles were added in B.C. 365. The four AEdiles in common had the charge of the public buildings,[40] the care of the cleansing and draining of the city, and the superintendence of the police. They had also the regulation of the public festivals; and the celebration of the Ludi Magni, or Great Games, was their especial function. Originally they received a sum of money from the state to defray the expenses of these games, but the grant was withdrawn about the time of the First Punic War; a measure attended with important consequences, since the higher magistracies were thus confined to the wealthy, who alone could defray the charges of these costly entertainments. After the Macedonian and Syrian wars, the Curule AEdiles often incurred a prodigious expense, with the view of pleasing the people, and securing their votes in future elections.
The same year, 1513, Ponce de Leon, an old Spanish soldier in the wars with the Moors, a companion of Columbus in his second voyage, and till now governor of Porto Rico, began exploration to the northward. Leaving Porto Rico with three ships, he landed on the coast of an unknown country, where he thought to find not only infinite gold but also the much-talked-about fountain of perpetual youth. His landing occurred on Easter Sunday, or Pascua Florida, March 27, 1513, and so he named the country Florida. The place was a few miles north of the present town of St. Augustine. Exploring the coast around the southern extremity of the peninsula, he sailed among a group of islands, which he designated the Tortugas. Returning to Porto Rico, he was appointed governor of the new country. He made a second voyage, was attacked by the natives and mortally wounded, and returned to Cuba to die.
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