Miscellanies 1.21.146

The followers of Basilides celebrate the day of his baptism too, spending the preceding night in readings. They say that it was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the fifteenth of the month Tybi, or, as some say, the eleventh of the same month. And those of them who are exact about his passion put it, some in the sixteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the twenty-fifth of Phamenoth, others on the twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi; others say that the Savior suffered on the nineteenth of Pharmuthi. Some of them indeed say that he was born on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi. We must also add to the chronology the days, I mean, which Daniel hints at, from the desolation of Jerusalem, the seven years and eleven months of Vespasian. For the two years are added to the seventeen months and eight days of Otho, Galba, and Vitellius, and so it comes to three years and six months, which is half of the week, as Daniel the prophet said. For he said that two thousand three hundred days would pass from the time the abomination was set up by Nero in the holy city until its destruction. So the following passage shows: “How long will the vision stand, the sacrifice taken away and the sin of desolation given, and the power and the sanctuary be trampled? And he said to him, Until evening and morning, two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary will be cleansed.” These two thousand three hundred days make six years and four months, half of which Nero held as emperor, and it was half a week; and the other half Vespasian with Otho, Galba, and Vitellius. That is why Daniel says, “Blessed is he who comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” For until these days there was war, and after them it ceased.