THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

(Vol. i. Book II. ch. iii. and other passages).

APPENDIX VII ON THE DATE OF THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD

So much, that is generally accessible, has of late been written on this subject, and such accord exists on the general question, that only the briefest statement seems requisite in this place, the space at our command being necessarily reserved forsubjects which have either not been treated of by previous writers, or in a manner or form that seemed to make a fresh investigation desirable.

At the outset it must be admitted, that absolute certainty is impossible as to the exact date of Christ's Nativity, the precise year even, and still more the monthand the day. But in regard to the year, we possess such data as to invest it with such probability, as almost to amount to certainty.

1. The first and most certain date is that of the death of Herod the Great. Our Lord was born before the death of Herod, and, as we judge from the Gospel-history, very shortly before that event. Now the year of Herod's death has been ascertained with, we may say, absolute certainty, as shortly before the Passover of the year 750 A.U.C., which corresponds to about the 12th of April ofthe year 4 before Christ, according to our common reckoning, More particularly, shortly before the death of Herod there was a lunar eclipse (Jos. Ant. xvii. 6. 4), which, it is astronomically ascertained, occurred on the night from the 12th to the 13th of March of the year 4 before Christ. Thus the death of Herod must have taken place between the 12th of March and the 12th of April, or, say, about the end of March (comp. Ant. xvii. 8. 1). Again, the Gospel-history necessitates an interval of, at the least, seven or eight weeks before that date for the birth of Christ (we have to insert the purification of the Virgin, at the earliest, six weeks after the Birth, The Visit of the Magi, and the murder of the children at Bethlehem, and, at any rate, some days more before the death of Herod). Thus theBirth of Christ could not have possibly occurred after the beginning of February 4 B.C., and most likely several weeks earlier. This brings us close to the ecclesiastical date, the 25th of December, in confirmation of which we refer to what has been stated in vol. i. p. 187, see especially note 3. At any rate, the often repeated, but very superficial objection, as to the impossibility of shepherds tending flocks in the open at that season, must now be dismissed as utterly untenable, not only for the reasons stated in vol. i. p. 187, but even for this, that if the question is to be decided on the ground of rain-fall, the probabilities are in favour of December as compared with February, later than which it is impossible to place the birth of Christ.

2. No certain inference can, of course, be drawn from the appearance of 'the star' that guided the Magi. _hat, and on what grounds, our investigations have pointed to a confirmation of the date of the Nativity, as given above, has been fully explained in vol. i. ch. vi... (see specially p. 213).

3. On the taxing of Quirinius, see vol. i. pp. 181, 182.

4. The next historical datum furnished by the Gospels is that of the beginning of St. John the Baptist's ministry, which, according to St. Luke, was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and when Jesus was 'about thirty years old' (St. Luke iii. 23). The accord of this with our reckoning of the date of the Nativity has been shown in vol. i. p. 264.