C." Extending beyond that date there
exists but "a traditional native chronology. Therefore .... what goes
before .... is but fabulous tradition."
The chronology of the Apostles and their existence has never been proved
historically. The history of the Papacy is confessedly "obscure."
Ennodius of Pavia (fifth century) was the first one to address the Roman
Bishop (Symmochus), who comes fifty-first in the Apostolic succession,
as "Pope." Thus, if we were to write the history of Christianity, and
indulge in remarks upon its chronology, we might say that since there
were no antecedent Popes, and since the Apostolic line began with
Symmochus (498 A.D.), all Christian records beginning with the Nativity
and up to the sixth century are therefore "fabulous traditions," and all
Christian chronology is "purely hypothetical."
3rd.--Two discrepant dates in Buddhist chronology are scornfully pointed
out by the Oxford Professor. If the landing of Vijaya, in Lanka--he
says--on the same day that Buddha reached Nirvana (died) is in
fulfilment of Buddha's prophecy, then "if Buddha was a true prophet, the
Ceylonese argue quite rightly that he must have died in the year of the
conquest, or 543 B.
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