covenant, & thenceforward the Rulers of the people dwelt
at Ierusalem & the rest of the people cast lots to dwell one in
ten at Ierusalem & the rest in the cities of Iudah. And in
the second year of their coming, in the second month (w^ch
was six years before the death of Cyrus) they laid the
foundation of the Temple, but the adversaries of Iudah
troubled them in building & hired counsellours against them
\all the days of Cyrus,/ & longer, even untill the reign of Darius king of Persia.
But in the second year of his reign by the prophesying of Haggai
& Zechary they returned to the work & by the help of a new Decree
from Darius, finished it on the third day of the month Adar in the
sixt year of his reign & kept the Dedication w^th joy & the Passover
& feast of unleavened bread.

Now this Darius was not Darius Nothus but Darius Hystaspis
as I gather by considering that the second year of this Darius was
the seventith of the indignation against Ierusalem & the cities of
Iudah, w^ch indignation commenced with the invasion of Ierusalem
& the cities of Iudea by Nebuchadnezzar in the ninth year of
Zedekiah (Zech. I. 12. Ier. xxxiv. 1, 7, 22, & xxxix. 1) and that the fourth
year of this Darius was the seventith from the burning of the
Temple in the eleventh year of Zedekiah (Zech. vii. 5. & Ier. LII. 12)
both w^ch are \exactly/ true of Darius Hystaspis; and that in the second year
of this Darius there were men living who had seen the first
Temple (Haggai II. 3) whereas the second year of Darius Nothus
was 166 years after the desolation of the Temple & City. And
further, if the finishing of the Temple be deferred to the sixt
year of Darius Nothus, Ieshua & Zerubbabel must have
been the one High Priest, the other Captain of the people,
an hundred & eighteen years together, besides their ages before;
w^ch is surely too long. For in the first year of Cyrus the
chief Priests were Serajah, Ieremiah, Ezra, Amariah, Malluc,
Shechaniah, Rehum, Meremoth, Iddo, Ginetho, Abijah, Miamin,
Maadiah, Bilgah, Shemajah, Iojarib, Iedaiah, Sallu, Amock,
Hilkiah, Iedaiah. These were Priests in the days of Ieshua,
& the eldest sons of them all were Priests in th (Merajah y^e
son of Serajah, Hananiah the son of Ieremiah, Meshullam
the son of Ezra, &c) were chief Priests in the days of Ieho-
jakim the son of Ieshua (Nehem. xii) & therefore the High-
Priesthood of Ieshua was but of an ordinary length.

[I have now stated the history of the Iews in the reign of Cyrus
Cambyses & Darius Hystaspis: it remains that I state their history
in the reigns of Xerxes & Art [illeg] |a|xerxes Longimanus. For I place the
history of Ezra & Nehemiah in the reign of this Artaxerxes & not
in that of Artaxerxes Mnemon. For during all the Persian Monarchy
untill the last Darius mentioned in scripture, whom I take to be Darius
Nothus, there were but six High Priests in continual succession of
father & son, namely Ieshua, Iojakim, Eliasib, Iojada, Iohanen,
Iadua, & the seventh was High Priest was Onias the son of Iaddua, &