Other points suggested in the course of the work will excite much interest and discussion. Entirely new theories are put forward in regard to the age of Ezra and the Feast of Purim, and to the possible presence of St. Peter in Rome in the ninth year after the Crucifixion. But the conclusions most calculated to provoke attention and controversy are those connected with the life of Christ. Reasons are given for accepting the statement of Irenaeus and regarding Jesus as in his forty-ninth year when he died. His birth is placed fourteen years be fore the Christian Era, and the wisdom which astonished the doctors at Jerusalem in a boy of twelve years of age is traced back to the schools of Alexandria.