SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM CHAPTER 1 THE QUESTION AT ISSUE NEITHER Mark nor John mentions where Jesus was born. Mark 1:9 says: “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John in the Jordan”. In John 1:45 Philip speaks of him as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”; and in Acts 10:38 Peter mentions “Jesus of Nazareth”.

These expressions obviously do not imply that Mark, or John, or the author of Acts considered Nazareth to be the place of Jesus’ birth. They merely show that Nazareth was universally considered to be the abode of his parents, the place which had been his home, coming from which he had appeared before the world. Similarly the expression, “son of Joseph,” used by Philip in John 1:45, cannot be taken as indicating John’s own opinion, but merely as showing the current belief.

Again, John 7:40,41, quotes the opinions expressed in Jerusalem about Jesus: some of the multitude said: “This is of a truth the prophet”: others said: “This is the Christ”: but some said: “What, does the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David and from Bethlehem?”

These are the popular sayings, and it is obvious that they are arranged to form a climax; but the last, which is really the strongest recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, gains all the more emphasis because it has the form of an objection to him. He was the Prophet: He was the Christ: He fulfilled all the prophecies about the coming of the Christ. The irony, which makes the objectors unconsciously bear such emphatic witness in his favor, might have been expected to be clear and impressive to every rational mind. But there is no blindness so complete as that of the historical critic with a bad theory to maintain; and the critics of this class actually quote this passage as a proof that John did not believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Would they be consistent, and maintain also that John did not believe him to be of the seed of David, though that was indubitably the accepted doctrine of the early Church, as is attested by Paul, Romans 1:3, 2 Timothy 2:8, as well as by the Synoptics?

But the two points mentioned by the objectors must go together. They who quote 7:41 as a proof that John did not know the second point must infer also that John did not know the first. Every Christian reader of John’s Gospel would recognize the irony involved in the first point, for he knew the doctrine set forth by Paul and the Synoptics. He would therefore necessarily recognize that the second point was also ironical.

Accordingly, every scholar who judges literature on literary grounds will recognize that the writer of the fourth Gospel assumes such perfect familiarity in his readers with the story of the birth in Bethlehem, that not merely must he be ranked among the witnesses to it, but he must have written at a time when this belief was a part of recognized Christian teaching; and it is probable that this will be urged by some scholars as a proof that the fourth Gospel springs from a much later period, after the story as given by Matthew and Luke had had time to become a fundamental part of Church doctrine.

But a remarkable feature in the Gospels, at least of Matthew, Luke and John, is that they assume in their readers such a background of knowledge about the life of the Savior. They are written for the use of persons who were already Christians, and who already had the life of Jesus in their minds as the foundation of their faith. None of the Gospels is intended to be a formal biography: their completeness is moral and spiritual and not historical:” they are, in reality, Gospels. But the facts of the life of Jesus were fundamental in the Gospel, and from that point of view each Gospel had to present a record of facts, actions and words sufficient to bear the structure of faith which had to rest upon it. But John, in particular, assumes that his readers know the facts recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, and his work is an unintelligible phenomenon in literature unless this is recognized.

Now Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Matthew 2:6 points out that this place of birth was the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Ruler of Israel was to be born there. Yet they are also fully aware that Jesus was considered by the world to be a native of Nazareth, and that he had been brought up from infancy in that city. Matthew 2:23 again sees in the up-bringing at Nazareth the fulfillment of another prophecy.

How, then, do they account for the general oblivion of the real place of birth?

Matthew begins with the birth of Jesus. He tells nothing about any previous connection of his parents with Nazareth; but says that they retired to Nazareth while the Child was still an infant, being in fear of the reigning King of Judea. If Luke’s History had not been preserved, it would have been unhesitatingly concluded on the authority of Matthew that the parents of Jesus had never lived at Nazareth until after the birth of the Child. And though Matthew does not explicitly assert that, yet it is hard to think that he could have expressed himself as he has done, if he had known that the parents had their original home in Nazareth.

Luke goes farther back, in accordance with his profession to have studied all things from their origin. He mentions that both Joseph and Mary resided at Nazareth. He tells that they made frequent visits to Jerusalem, and that the mother had relatives there or in the neighborhood; and he explains what was the cause that led them to make a brief visit to Bethlehem at such a moment that Jesus was born there.

Luke does not indeed say explicitly in so many words that the visit was intended to be a mere temporary one; and this has led some commentators to suggest that there may have been an intent on the part of the parents to change their residence to Bethlehem. But the cause stated in 2:4, 5, implies a mere temporary visit; and the language of 2:39 shows that after the brief visit they returned to their own city, Nazareth, and implies that this had always been their intention.

The occasion of this short visit to Bethlehem is thus described by Luke. In accordance with the orders of the Roman Emperor, Augustus, there was made an enrollment, or numbering, of the population of Herod’s kingdom; and this was made according to households and tribal descent and local tribal connection, so that those Hebrews who were not residing in the proper city of their tribe and family were obliged to go to their city in order to be enrolled there.

Further, it seems to be implied that the wife, as well as the head of the house, had to go to the proper city (or for some reason felt it a duty to go), so that the household as a whole might be numbered in the tribal and family center.

Joseph, then, with Mary, his wife, went to his proper city, Bethlehem, to be numbered there among his own people, “because he was of the house and family of David”.

It has been maintained by many scholars in modern times that the census is either a fiction or a blunder; that the circumstances connected with it, which Luke relates, are contrary to history; and, in short, that the story is unhistorical and impossible, not in one way merely, but in several. It is asserted as unquestionable that the sole germ out of which the story has developed is the fact, recorded by Josephus, that about A.D. 6-7 there was made a census and valuation of Palestine, the first and the only one which the Romans held in that country; and that Luke has transferred this census, with the officer, Quirinius, who made it, to a different period about nine or twelve years earlier, when it was for various reasons impossible that any census could have occurred.

It has been urged with triumphant certainty as established on incontrovertible evidence that the whole story of chapter 2, with all its pathetic and romantic incidents, is a mere fiction, destitute of even as much historical foundation as most historical novels possess. It is asserted as a demonstrated truth that the story contradicts the established facts of contemporary history; and that any one who accepts the ordinary canons of historical reasoning must relegate the whole talc of the birth of Christ to the realm of imaginative fiction. Nor is it only the extreme school of critics that reject the talc as an invention. Many of those scholars who thoroughly accept the trust-worthiness of the Gospel narrative as a whole abandon the attempt to defend this incident, and either pass by on the other side, or frankly admit that it is at least in part erroneous, a mixture of Dichtung und Wahrheit .

Against the trustworthiness of this narrative the following are the main lines of argument: — 1. It is declared to be a demonstrated fact that Augustus never ordered any general “Enrollment,” or census, to be made of the whole Roman world.

Gardthausen, the latest historian of Augustus, speaks most emphatically on this point. He goes even so far as to declare that it is inconsistent with Augustus’s aims to attribute to him any such intention: he quotes the words of Luke, and then adds that, for the emperor’s plans, a general census of the empire was neither necessary nor suitable. The eminent German scholar here displays a familiarity with Augustus’s intentions and the limits of his aims, which is quite unjustified by the scanty evidence accessible to us. Such assumption of the right to pronounce negative judgments is not the spirit in which the history of Augustus ought to be written, and such a wild statement as this shows a momentary loss of the historic instinct, which enables a writer to distinguish between legitimate inference and loose imagination. It is one of the places in Gardthausen’s work where a regret rises strong in every reader’s mind that Mommsen has never found opportunity to write the history of that period.

In truth, the distinguished historian of Augustus was not justified in asserting more than that no evidence was known to him corroborating Luke’s statement as to Augustus’s intentions. It will be my aim to show that evidence was in existence, apparently unknown to Gardthausen, which affords some confirmation of Luke’s assertion; and establishes it, when Luke’s words are properly translated, on a basis of high historical probability. 2. Even if Augustus had ordered a census to be made of the whole empire, it is maintained that such a census would not have extended to Palestine, which was an independent kingdom and not subject to the orders of Augustus.

There is a mixture of truth and error in this line of argument. It will be our aim to demonstrate that, while the application of the Roman census by Roman officials to Herod’s kingdom could not be accepted as credible, yet Luke does not speak of any such application. The argument is founded on a false interpretation. Luke nowhere asserts or implies that the census was made by a Roman official. He states that the birth of Jesus occurred in the days of Herod the King of Judea, and in the country over which that king ruled: compare 1:5 and 2:4. He merely mentions the Roman officer, Quirinius, for purposes of dating according to the ancient style, employed generally before eras and numbering of years had come into literary use, just as he mentions various kings and priests in <420301> 3:1,2 for the same purpose. He assumes that his readers would appreciate the fact that the census in the territory of King Herod was conducted under the immediate orders of the king himself.

Further, Luke certainly understands that Herod’s kingdom was a part of the Roman world, and that Herod was bound to obey orders issued by Augustus in respect of numbering the population of the Roman world.

We shall have to show — what no one except a theological critic with a theory to maintain would dream of denying — that Herod’s kingdom was a part of the Roman world; that it was not independent, but ought rather to be styled a “dependent state”; and that any tendency on the part of such dependent kings to disregard their duty of submission to the general principles of Roman policy was sharply repressed by the emperors. 3. Even if a census had been held in Palestine, it is asserted that there would have been no necessity for Joseph and Mary to go up from Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem, inasmuch as a Roman census would be made according to the existing political and social facts, and would not require that persons should be enrolled according to their place of birth or origin. The Roman method necessarily was to count the population according to their actual residence. It is, however, an essential point in Luke’s story, that it should explain how the son of a resident in Nazareth came to be born in Bethlehem, and thus fulfilled the prophecy that the Messiah was to be born in that city. Hence it is contended that Luke’s fiction is doubly erroneous, for even if it were true it would not lead to that journey, which is the critical point in the history.

There can be no doubt that in the Roman census the existing facts were recorded, and that any disturbance of the existing distribution of population would defeat the purpose and impair the value of the census.

Therefore, if the census which Luke had in mind were one carried out purely after the Roman method, it would not furnish the explanation which is the prime reason for mentioning the census. That must be freely conceded.

But, far from asserting that this census was carried out strictly after the Roman method, Luke explains at the outset that it was made on a different principle, not merely by households (as the Roman method required), but also at the same time according to descent and stock, that is by tribes.

It will be our aim to show why this modification of the Roman method was necessary for Herod in his peculiar position: he disguised the Roman and foreign character by the additional requirement that the census should be tribal and thus less alien to the national feeling. 4. It is maintained that no census was ever held in Judea until A.D. 6-7, on the ground that that “great census” ( Acts 5:37) is described by Josephus as something novel and unheard of, rousing popular indignation and rebellion on that account.

We freely concede that the attempts which have been made to find in Josephus any allusion to an earlier census held under Herod have failed.

They have been directed on the wrong lines they have been made with a view to discover signs of such a knowledge of the finances of Palestine as would imply a formal Roman census and valuation made under Herod.

We also fully acknowledge that the earliest census and valuation of property made after the Roman fashion in Palestine took place, as Josephus says, in A.D. 7. It is a necessary part of our case that a totally new departure was made in that year; and that the novel, unheard-of, and anti-national proceeding roused indignation and rebellion. In all that Josephus is thoroughly right. But the census of Herod was tribal and Hebraic, not anti-national. It was wholly and utterly unconnected with any scheme of Roman taxation; and it was conducted by Herod on strictly tribal methods. It roused little indignation and no rebellion; and therefore gave no reason for Josephus to notice it.

It is plain too how great an extent these four arguments against the “Enrollment” hang together, and depend on a false character ascribed to the operation. When Luke’s narrative is looked at from the proper point of view by the true historical and sympathetic judgment, with the intention, not of picking all possible faults, but of understanding in the best light the testimony which he gives, we shall see that his evidence explains satisfactorily a peculiarly obscure episode in Roman provincial history.

And we shall find that in one more case the progress of discovery in Egypt has set in a new light the problems that seemed insoluble to our predecessors, and made perfectly clear what was obscure to them.

In addition to these four closely connected arguments, another of a different character is advanced. 5. It is affirmed that Quirinius never governed Syria during the life of Herod, for Herod died in 4 B.C. and Quirinius was governor of Syria later than 3 B.C. and probably in 2 or 1 B.C. Therefore a census taken in the time of Quirinius could not be associated with the birth of a child “in the days of Herod, King of Judea”.

The conclusion of Mommsen, of Borghesi, and of de Rossi, that Quirinius governed Syria twice, has been generally accepted by modern scholars.

Quirinius went to govern Syria for the second time in A.D. 6. The proof that his first governorship of Syria fell as late as the year 2 or 1 B.C. is incomplete, depending on an estimate of probabilities; and it is founded on the assumption that a statement made by Suetonius is inaccurate. We shall try to show that the decided balance of probabilities is in favor of his having held command in Syria before Herod died. In the present defective state of the evidence, one cannot go further than a probable statement.

The propositions which we seek to defend are only probable. The evidence is too scanty to demonstrate any of them in such a perfectly conclusive fashion that the most prejudiced minds must be convinced. But how many of the “facts” of ancient history are demonstrated beyond all reach of cavil and dissension? Every one who has studied the foundations of ancient history knows that most of our knowledge is founded on a balance of evidence, often a very delicate balance; and, if there were any strong motive to make it worth while fighting the case, almost any detail in ancient history can be called in question. What I am concerned to maintain is that all our positions are the most probable issue of the scanty evidence, and that some of them rest on testimony, outside of Luke’s writings, which in ordinary historical criticism is reckoned sufficient justification, while the others are in themselves quite natural, and there is practically no evidence against them, so that Luke’s authority should be reckoned as sufficient to establish them.

The possible views with regard to the present question seem to reduce themselves to three: — 1. The story of the birth of Christ, as given by Luke, is so suspicious and encumbered with so many difficulties that it is as a whole incredible. 2. The story is true. 3. The main part of the story is true, but the reference to Quirinius is wrong, and the incident occurred ten to fourteen years before his census. It is possible to cut out the verse about Quirinius, which is a mere date added by Luke, and leave the story otherwise complete; but all the rest hangs together, and if one detail be false, everything is affected.

As to the third alternative, besides the general considerations already urged, see to what a dilemma it reduces its supporters! They acknowledge that the date is added in error by Luke. The rest they hold to be true, because Luke learned it from some other authority not so inaccurate as himself. After discrediting Luke, they proceed to accept everything that is most difficult to believe in his History. But, when the channel through which the story reaches us is unworthy of belief, everything that comes through the channel is discredited; the story has in truth not a leg to stand upon except Luke’s personal authority as a safe and trustworthy judge of truth and weigher of evidence. Those who first discredit Luke’s personal authority, and then attach credibility to his story, are far less reasonable and critical than they who accept the whole.

Obviously, the truth of the story in Luke 1,2, can never be demonstrated.

There will always remain a large step to be taken on faith. A marvelous event is described in it. They only will accept it who, for other reasons, have come to the conclusion that there is no adequate and rational explanation of the coming of Christianity into the world, except through the direct and “miraculous” intervention of Divine power.

But it is highly important to show that the circumstances with which Luke connects this marvelous event are true, and that, in things which can be tested, he does not fall below the standard of accuracy demanded from the ordinary historians.

Again, those who hold Luke’s statement about the enrollment to be a mere blunder ought to give some explanation of the way in which the blunder originated. It is generally stated as an explanation that Luke was dependent on Josephus for the facts of general history which he mentions; and that, as he found in Josephus an account of “the Great Enrollment” made by Quirinius in A.D. 6-8, he erroneously connected this enrollment with the birth of Christ.

In discussing this suggested explanation, I shall lay no stress on the steadily growing consensus of opinion that all attempts to prove the dependence of Luke on Josephus have failed, and that Luke’s work was composed before Josephus’s work on Jewish Antiquities was published; for it is possible to maintain that the error was made through confusion and misunderstanding of some other historian’s statement. Luke, who was not born when the events in question occurred, was dependent on some earlier authority or other for his knowledge of the Roman circumstances which he mentions; and the possibility of error arising must be admitted.

But it is necessary to realize clearly how much is involved in the assumption that such an error was made. It is implied not merely that Luke misplaced that important event — fundamental in the Roman organization of Palestine — “the great census”; but also that he distorted the character of that census, which was, beyond all doubt, conducted on the Roman system without the slightest regard to tribal connection, and that he used this distortion of the census to explain why a family belonging to Nazareth came to be present in Bethlehem. Such a series of blunders of a very gross type cannot have been mere slips or mistakes due to ignorance. They bear on their face the character of deliberate invention.

They have been concocted for a purpose, viz ., to lend verisimilitude to the tale that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But a tale which is buttressed by such shameful falsifications loses all claim on our belief. And what can we say about a historian who concocts such a series of inventions? What condemnation could be too strong for his shameful conduct? What words too sharp to characterize his imposture?

I put the question to any reasonable person: Is it consistent with human nature that a writer who claims to be earnestly setting forth the simple facts should begin with so impudent a series of fabrications? Can any reasonable judge believe that the author who wrote the rest of the two books could be guilty of such deliberate deception?

Another explanation may perhaps be offered, viz ., that Luke did not himself invent the connection between the birth of Jesus and this fraudulent census, but that he incautiously adopted a series of errors which had either grown in popular tradition or been invented by some older writer.

In the first place, we reply, oriental tradition does not take this character: it does not invent such a circumstantial historical setting, whose aim is to work an incident into a place in Roman Imperial history. The census would obviously have been introduced here, not by popular fancy, but by the calculated invention of a person trying to give plausibility to a fiction.

Secondly, Luke’s work has all the appearance of being the first attempt to show the place which early Christian history occupied in the general history of the empire: the author is evidently taking the Gospel from his earlier authorities, and on the ground of his own historical inquiries stating its place in Roman history, a subject in which his Jewish authorities took no interest: probably, therefore, he is not dependent on older Christian writers for his statements about the census This is, I think, generally admitted.

Thirdly, Luke devotes much care to the relations of early Christianity to the Roman state; it was easy for him to acquire correct knowledge as to the Roman census; and, if he allowed a statement on that subject to find a place in his book, he makes himself responsible for it in the fullest sense.

CHAPTER - LUKE’S ACCOUNT OF THE ENROLLMENT LUKE wrote for readers belonging to the civilized Graeco-Roman world; and he conceived the History which he presented to his readers as occupying a place in the general history of the Roman world. He often speaks of “the world”; but to him “the world” was strictly the Roman world, and any order issued by Augustus affected the whole world, as he says in <420201> 2:1. Accordingly, at important stages in the action, he inserts a few brief notes, just sufficient to show the position of his subject in the general history of the empire.

The most important of these notes is contained in the following words, <420201> 2:1-4, which we give according to the Revised Version:

Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, made when Quirinius was governing Syria.

And all went to enroll themselves, every one to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David — to enroll himself with Mary his wife.

It might seem hardly necessary to state that in this passage of Luke the term “world,” oijkoume>nh , must be understood as the “Roman world, and not the entire earth with all its inhabited lands. But some modern scholars actually charge it as an error that this passage makes an order of Augustus effective throughout the whole earth, whereas the order would have no force except in the Roman empire. Accordingly we must point out that in several places Luke uses the same term “world” when he obviously is speaking only of the Roman empire. To the citizens of the empire all the rest of the earth often passed out of mind; and when they spoke of the world their view was restricted to the Roman world. So, for example, Demetrius, the silversmith of Ephesus, spoke about the State-Goddess Diana, “whom all Asia and the world worshippeth,” i .e ., to worship whom the whole province Asia and the Roman empire send their representatives and their crowds of visitors. Again, Paul and Silas were accused before the magistrates of Thessalonica because they had “turned the world upside down”; the accusers were not thinking of the disturbance of order among the outer barbarians, but only in many parts of the Roman empire. Similarly, any ordinary rational interpretation will recognize that Luke 2:1 speaks of the order of Augustus as issued for the whole Roman empire.

What was the extent of “the world” or “the Roman world,” of which Luke speaks?

It included, of course, Italy and the organized Roman provinces. But, further, Luke evidently considered that it included the dependent kingdoms, such as Judea, for he describes this order as being carried out in the kingdom of Herod. That such was his point of view seems not to be appreciated by the scholars who ridicule the whole episode; and hence they think that he contradicts himself, when he speaks as if this order extended to the kingdom of Herod.

The question then arises whether it is justifiable to regard these dependent kingdoms, Judea and others, as forming part of the Roman world.

This question Strabo, writing about A.D. 19, answers emphatically in the affirmative. In the last chapter of his Geography he gives a description of the Roman empire as it was when he was writing about A.D. 19. He describes it as extending over the entire coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and he expressly includes in it the western part of the African coast (Mauretania) which was ruled by King Ptolemy, who had just recently succeeded his father Juba II. Some parts of this empire are, he says, governed by kings, while part is in the form of provinces. There are also subject to the Romans certain dynasts, and chiefs, and priests: and these live according to certain national laws. He distinguishes this whole empire, containing these various territories and governments and provinces, from the non-Roman and barbarian world. He declares that in the part of the empire which is directly under the authority and power of the emperor there are not merely Roman governors of three grades sent from Rome by himself, but also kings, and dynasts, and native officials of lower degree.

Strabo uses several expressions which show how completely he considered these kingdoms to be part of the Roman world. He defines the entire complex of territories as “the possessions of the Romans,” ta< tou>twn ; he speaks of sumpa>shv cw>rav th~v uJpo< JRwmai>oiv ; and he describes how the Romans. obtained them, prosekth>santo .

Moreover, it is impossible to suppose that Augustus, when he defeated Mark Antony, abandoned the suzerainty which the latter had certainly exercised over many lands, and gave away to independent kings what had once belonged to Rome. The eastern parts of Asia Minor had been treated by Antony as subject to his own absolute authority. When he pleased, he set up a king over part of them; when he chose, he degraded the king. But whoever was the king, Antony claimed from him contributions and military service; and they all sent or led their troops to swell the army of their supreme lord at Actium. It would be irrational to suppose that Augustus, who claimed to be the champion of Rome against Antony, abandoned great territories which Antony had held to be under Rome.

We cannot, therefore, doubt that Strabo expresses the view held by Augustus and by all Rome, that the territory ruled by these dependent kings was part of the Roman empire. They were subject kings, and not free from the suzerainty of Rome.

Appian describes the subject kings whom Antony appointed, including Herod, as paying tribute. We cannot doubt that the same was the case under Augustus. The empire did not abandon its claim to gain something from these kings; and Augustus would not gain less than Antony had gained. On the other hand, it seems to have been left to the discretion of the native rulers to govern and to collect revenue according to native customs and laws. Strabo, in his final chapter; distinguishes between the provinces, to which governors and collectors of taxes were sent from Rome, and the countries subject to Rome, but governed by native princes according to native laws.

Further, Strabo on p. 671 describes the intention of the Romans in setting up these subject kings. He is speaking of Cilicia Tracheia, but he expresses the Roman theory as it was applied generally. Some of the subject countries were specially difficult to govern, either on account of the unruly character of the inhabitants, or because the natural features of the land lent themselves readily to brigandage and piracy. As these countries must be either administered by Roman governors or ruled by kings, it was considered that kings would more efficiently control their restless subjects, being permanently on the spot and having soldiers always at command.

But the history of the following century shows how, step by step and district by district, these countries were incorporated in the adjacent Roman provinces, as a certain degree of discipline and civilization was imparted to the population by the kings, who built cities and introduced the Graeco-Roman customs and education.

It appears, therefore, that when Luke counts the kingdom of Herod part of “the Roman World,” his point of view agrees with the ideas expressed by Strabo and held generally in the empire.

The decree of Augustus which Luke mentions is commonly interpreted as ordering that a single census should be held of the whole Roman world.

This is not a correct interpretation of Luke’s words. He uses the present tense (ajpogra>fesqai pa~san thnhn ), and he means that Augustus ordered enrollments to be regularly taken, according to the strict and proper usage of the present tense. What Augustus did was to lay down the principle of systematic “enrollment” in the Roman world, not to arrange for the taking of one single census.

It deserves notice that Malalas, who took the false sense from Luke and describes Augustus as ordering that a single enrollment should be made, unconsciously changes the expression and uses the aorist where Luke uses the present tense. Similarly, when Luke tells that Joseph went up for enrollment on one definite occasion, he uses the aorist (ajne>bh and ajpogra>yasqai ).

Thereafter the text of Luke proceeds naturally: “This was the first enrollment, while Quirinius was administering Syria; and all persons proceeded to go for enrollment each to his own city”. Here the presential tenses (ajpogra>fesqai and ejporeu>onto ) are necessitated by the sense: all persons, individually and severally, repaired to their proper cities for their respective enrollment. In the series of enrollments, which were inaugurated by the orders of Augustus, the first was the one with which the story is concerned; and Joseph, like the rest, went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David.

From this passage, then, it appears that Luke’s conception of the procedure in the Roman empire was as follows: Augustus ordered a systematic numbering to be made in the empire. This system of numbering went on for a time, or more probably permanently, and hence the “first” of the series is here defined as the occasion on which the story turns. We may assume unhesitatingly that, if any such system was inaugurated, it would be periodic, recurring regularly either once a year or after a definite term of years.

It is not stated or implied by Luke that the system was actually put into force universally. The principle of universal enrollments for the empire was laid down by Augustus; but universal application of the principle is not mentioned That point was a matter of indifference to Luke. What he implies, indubitably, is that the system was put into force in Syria, for it would be quite irrational that he should speak as he does, unless declare that Luke refers to a hitherto unsuspected fact in the methods of Imperial administration.

But, if our interpretation of Luke’s words is correct, we must frankly admit that his credit as a historian is staked on this issue: there was a periodical numbering or enrollment in the Syrian province, and Christ was born actually during the time when the first enrollment of the series was being made in Palestine.

We observe that Luke knew about more than one “enrollment” or census (to use the strict Roman term). In 2:2 he speaks of a certain census as “the first”; in Acts 5:37 he mentions the census,” i .e ., the great census, meaning the epoch-making census taken about A.D. 7, when Judea had just been incorporated in the Roman empire as part of the province of Syria.

According to the proper and accepted canons of interpretation in ancient literature, he must be understood in these expressions to distinguish between the first census and the great census. In an ordinary Greek writer the distinction would be unhesitatingly drawn. Why should some scholars assume that Luke thought there had been one single census, as to the date of which he was in a the system had been in force for a time, at least, throughout the Syrian lands. Further, it is not easy to admit that Luke could have used these words, unless the system had come into permanent use.

We conclude, then, that if Luke’s authority is trustworthy, there must have prevailed during the first century a system of numbering the population at periodic intervals in the Syrian province, and probably elsewhere in the Eastern lands, or even in the whole empire.

If one had ventured ten years ago to draw this conclusion from the words of Luke, it would have been regarded as a reductio ad absurdum of his statement. The idea that such a system could have existed in the East, without leaving any perceptible signs of its existence in recorded history, would have been treated with ridicule as the dream of a fanatical devotee, who could believe anything and invent anything in support of the testimony of Luke. But now such revelations of order and method in the Roman Imperial Government, unmentioned and unheeded by historians, have resulted from epigraphic and archaeological investigation, that it is no longer so hazardous to state of utter confusion, when he uses language which in the simple and natural interpretation indicates two different census? A scholar should never start by assuming that the author whom he is interpreting is wrong; but to say that Luke in these two passages refers to one and the same census, is to fasten an error upon him at the outset, by disregarding the distinction indicated in his words.

Clement of Alexandria evidently understood the words of Luke in the same way as we have interpreted them. He speaks of the occasion when first they ordered Enrollments to be made. It is hardly possible to avoid inferring from these words of Clement that he knew of some system of enrollments, either in the empire as a whole, or at least in the province of Syria. His use of the plural and of the word “first” force this inference upon us.

Further, we shall find in chapter 7 that Clement, as residing in Egypt, was familiar with the Egyptian system of periodic enrollments. He could hardly avoid writing with this system in his mind, and his words imply beyond a doubt that he thought of some system of enrollments in Palestine. I do not see how any fair and unprejudiced critic can fail to conclude that Clement, rightly or wrongly, believed that the same system of periodic enrollments was maintained in Egypt and in Syria.

Again, Clement expressly says that the system of enrollments in Syria began with the one at which the birth of Christ occurred. Luke in all probability was his sole ultimate authority for connecting the birth of Christ with the first enrollment, he, no doubt, saw the statement also in other authorities, but they in their turn probably got it, whether immediately or ultimately, from Luke. But it is not so certain that Clement had no other authority than Luke for his belief that the system began in the reign of Augustus. He knew the system from his own experience in Egypt. It had recurred there regularly throughout his own life, and long before his time. It must have been a matter of common knowledge in his time what was the origin of the system. We are, I think, fully justified in quoting Clement as believing that the system of enrollments which he saw round him in Egypt, and which he thought or knew to be also practiced in Syria, began from Augustus and was made according to the, orders of Augustus.

A suggestion has been made that the Indictional Periods of fifteen years, which formed so important a feature in the administration of the later Roman empire, began to run from the census of Quirinius. On this theory the first census was taken in the year 3 B.C. as the beginning of the first Indictional Period. But it can be shown positively that the Indictional System did not prevail under the early empire. The Indictions are an invention of the fourth century; and not merely are those periods unknown in earlier time, but a contradictory system existed. Moreover, it is not easy to bring the evidence as to the duration of Herod’s reign into consistence with the theory that he lived till 3 B.C.

Our whole theory is based on the determination of the periodical enrollment system in the early empire; and for this fortunate discovery we are indebted to the wonderful progress of research in Egypt during the last few years.

CHAPTER - ENROLLMENT BY HOUSEHOLDS IN EGYPT RECENTLY, three different scholars announced about the same time, and independently of one another, the discovery that periodical enrollments were made in Egypt under the Roman empire, and that the period was not of fifteen years, as in the later system of indictions, but of fourteen years.

The same Greek term is used in the Egyptian documents and in Luke to indicate the census: they were called “Enrollments,” Apographai .

Mr. Kenyon of the British Museum had slightly the priority in briefly declaring that these “Enrollments” obeyed a cycle of fourteen years; but Dr. Wilcken followed him within a month or two with an elaborate paper, and shortly afterwards Dr. Viereck with another, discussing their period, nature and purpose. The three papers are the authority for what is here stated on the subject.

The facts relating to the “Enrollments” in Egypt are deduced from the actual census papers, many of which have been found (usually in a more or less fragmentary condition). The census was always taken after the end of the year to which it belongs; thus, for example, a census paper dated in the end of the year A.D. 90-91 contains a statement of the facts required for the enrollment of 89-90, and so on. The purpose evidently was to include in each enrollment all children born before the end of the first year of the census period, which we shall henceforth call the periodic year. All dates in these documents are given according to the Egyptian way of reckoning; and the Egyptian year, which began on the twenty-ninth day of August, was at the basis of the whole census system in Egypt. It is proved that enrollments were made for the years ending in the summer of A.D. 90, 104, 118, 132 and so on till 230. An enrollment also took place under Vespasian, but its date is not fixed by the evidence. There can, however, be no doubt that Dr. Viereck is right in placing it for the year 75- 76. Though the Egyptian year was employed, the census was carried out by Roman officials, and formed part of the Imperial system of administration.

It was the habit of the Romans in the East to adapt their arrangements to the custom of the country. They did not force the natives to adopt the Roman system of arranging the year and the months, but rather modified their practice to suit the native year, using an Asian year in the Province Asia, an Egyptian year in the Province Egypt, and so on. As the beginning and end of the years varied greatly in different Eastern provinces — all, however, being now solar years, like the Roman — we shall throughout these pages speak of the Roman year; and the reader will understand that in each province it has to be translated into the native year there employed. Censorinus mentions, as was to be expected, that the years of the Imperial system — anni Augustorum — were counted from the first of January: they differed in this from the years of any individual emperor’s reign, which during the first century were usually reckoned from the day on which the reign began, though during the second century the habit of reckoning them from the first of January became general.

Accordingly, instead of mentioning the enrollment for the Egyptian year falling in A.D. 89-90, we shall call it the enrollment for the Roman year A.D. 90. The periodic years, then, are as follows: B.C.. 23, B.C. 9, A.D. 6, 20, 34, 48, 62, 76, 90, 104, 118, 132, 146, 160, 174, 188, 202, 216, 230, 244, 258, 272, 286, 300, 314, 328.

In every case, of course, the actual enumeration began after the periodic year was ended, though the enumeration is called in the documents the enrollment of the past (periodic) year. Usually the enrollment paper is dated late in the following year; people were allowed to make their declaration at any time during the following year, and as human nature will have it, most people delayed until the year was approaching its end.

It appears, therefore, that already under Vespasian a system of periodical enrollments was the rule of Roman administration in Egypt. The existing documents establish its existence from A.D. 76 to 230; but the failure of documents attesting its previous or subsequent existence affords no evidence that it began under Vespasian or ended under Alexander Severus.

The preservation of papyri is so accidental and precarious, that imperfection and lacunae are the rule in every department which they touch upon. We must be grateful for the light they throw on any subject, but it would be absurd to reason, because no fragment of papyrus has been found to attest a fact, that therefore the fact did not occur. The argument a silentio , always a dangerous one, is especially dangerous where papyrusfragments are concerned.

On this point Mr. Grenfell writes: “I should admit that the argument a silentio cannot yet be used as regards the first century after Christ. About the second and third centuries it is, however, worth something, and also, I think, about the Ptolemaic period.” The silence of the papyri about the period before A.D. 76 therefore constitutes no argument that the periodic enrollments began in that year.

At the last moment Mr. Grenfell, in a letter dated 12th Sept., 1898, brings to my knowledge, and the courtesy of the discoverer permits me to mention, that Mr. Kenyon has found, and is on the point of publishing in the forthcoming volume of the Catalogue of British Museum Papyri , a document which mentions the enrollment for the eighth year of Nero, A.D. 61-62. Mr. Kenyon thinks that it implies also still earlier enrollments.

This important discovery will be regarded as a strong confirmation of the theory set forth in the following pages, and printed before I heard of the new evidence. The only argument that could be brought forward against the theory lay in the silence of the papyri; and already that silence is broken for part of the period. [Enrollment of A.D. 20, see Preface] The question, then, must be put — at what time and through whose organizing initiative is the Roman series of enrollments likely to have been begun? The answer to that question is not doubtful. We may appeal with confidence to the students of Roman history, and put the question in this way. We find that under Vespasian a system of periodical enrollments formed a fundamental part of the government of Egypt: these enrollments gave a basis on which a statistical account of the population according to households and place of residence at the beginning of each period could be drawn up. Whom should we expect to have introduced the system?

In the first place every one who has studied the history of Roman provincial administration would reply that Augustus was, in all probability, the originator of this Roman system in Egypt. Any important part of Egyptian administration which was in existence under Vespasian is probably as old as the organization of the country by Augustus. It is well known with what peculiar and jealous and minute care: he regarded that country. No Roman of senatorial or equestrian rank was per-mitten. even to visit it without special leave from the Emperor. It was considered as the granary of Rome; and it was regulated in the most careful way so that its harvests should be reserved for Roman needs, and its resources should be always calculable and certain, as far as care and forethought could make them so.

It is unnecessary to do more than briefly refer to those facts touching the policy and intentions of Augustus which have been skillfully collected and marshaled by a long succession of writers on this subject — his general survey of the whole empire: the rationes imperii , “a sort of balance sheet published periodically”: the libellus or breviarium totius imperii , a compendium of useful statistics about the kingdoms, the provinces, the allies, etc .

These show how carefully and methodically Augustus organized his splendid machinery of government on the basis of accurate, minute and complete knowledge of everything that concerned the subject peoples, and make it probable that the system of periodic enrollments, which alone rendered a complete statistical account of those peoples possible, originated from him, and formed part of his plan of Imperial administration.

In the second place, the system of periodic enrollments is likely to be as old as Augustus, because it probably rested on a pre-Roman foundation.

Every year’s discoveries strengthen the proof that the organization of Egypt was brought to a very high degree of perfection long before the Romans entered the country, and increase the probability that the germ or even the complete form of almost every detail of administration was found by Augustus already in existence in Egypt, and was merely adapted by him to Roman needs.

Mr. Grenfell notes that the silence of the Ptolemaic papyri about Household-Enrollment — constitutes an argument against its being an institution of the Ptolemaic period; whereas valuation papers of the class (described later in this chapter) are found not infrequently under the Ptolemies. There must, however, have been in that period some kind of numbering (as Wilcken thinks). Papyri are found c . B.C. 3000, “a kind of census list of a household,” naming the head of the house, resident female relatives, slaves, and young male children. Two Apographai of unusual character. occur, resembling the Household-Enrollment papers more than the Valuation papers, and dated B.C. 19 and 18, before the Periodic Household-Enrollment system was organized.

The probability remains that Augustus originated a new system in Egypt of Periodic Enrollment-by-Households, developing some previously existing system of numbering the population.

In the third place, as we saw in the preceding chapter, Clement of Alexandria believed that the system of enrollments originated from Augustus; and he expresses the general opinion held in Egypt at the end of the second century.

In the fourth place, chronological reasons suggest that the enrollments come down from the organization of Augustus, because the cycle leads us back to the year B.C. 23, from which dates the Imperial rule of Augustus in the most formal and complete sense. The Roman emperors, beginning from Augustus, reckoned the years of their reign according to their tenure of the tribunicia potestas , which constituted them “Champions of the Commons”; Augustus received the tribunician power on 27th June, B.C. 23; and the number of years in his Imperial title is reckoned invariably in all later inscriptions from that date. The Coincidence that the Enrollment- Cycle was arranged according to the official years of Augustus’s reign, is conclusive in favor of the view that Augustus inaugurated the system of periodical enrollments.

This coincidence, also, shows with almost complete certainty that the Fourteen-Years’-Cycle was not devised in Egypt, or for Egypt alone. Mr.

Grenfell points out to me that in Egypt the reign of Augustus was invariably reckoned from the taking of Alexandria, the first year being considered to begin on 29th August, B.C. 30; and there is not a trace of any other reckoning of his reign in the country. Had the Enrollment-Cycle been an Egyptian matter simply, it is in the last degree improbable that it would have been arranged according to the years of the tribunician power.

On the other hand, that was the natural system in general Imperial matters.

It was the only method of reckoning which was known universally throughout the empire: it was employed in every official statement of the Emperor’s title: it was sometimes used even in dating private inscriptions. The use of this epoch, further, proves in all probability that the Enrollment was, as Luke says, actually held first for the year B.C. 9. It could not be devised until after the reign began, for the epoch was unknown until the epoch-making event had occurred; and, after it had occurred, no time remained to arrange all the details for an Imperial enrollment for the current year. Hence we find a different style of enrollment paper used in Egypt in the years B.C. 19 and 18.

We see also why the Egyptian year 24-23, and not 23-22, was taken as that correspondent to the Roman year 23. Augustus’s reign began during the Egyptian year 24-23, two months before the end of that year on 29th August. Thus the reign of Augustus began officially in the Egyptian year B.C. 24-23. On the other hand, in any country where the year began in the spring, the official year 1 of Augustus would be the year B.C. 23-22; and the year 15, which was the first periodic year, would be B.C. 9-8.

These reasons justify the reasonable confidence that Augustus arranged a system of periodical “enrollments” in Egypt. As the system is fixed according to the year B.C. 23, in which the fully formed constitutional Principate was organized and the reign of Augustus in the official reckoning began, the arrangement of this system must have taken place later than that year. The system of enrollments must therefore be distinguished from the operation called by Marquardt the provincial census, which began to be taken in Gaul in B.C. 27.

The latter operation was intended to form the basis on which the taxation of the provinces of the empire should be regulated. It was repeated from time to time throughout the period of the empire, and was an essential part of the orderly working of the Imperial administration. That taxation should be proportionate to wealth was a Roman principle, and without frequent revaluation of property it was impossible to secure a fair apportionment of taxation. Augustus fully recognized the vast importance of making correct valuation of property in the provinces, as securing both fair taxation and a more lucrative revenue for the State.

Such enumeration and valuation of property was confined, as a rule, to Roman provinces, and was often made as soon as any new province was incorporated in the empire. Such, for example, was the case in Palestine when Quirinius, in his second Syrian governorship, made that country part of the empire. The novel proceedings on that occasion, and the strict inquisition into value of property, brought vividly home to the Jews that they were now wholly reduced to servitude under a foreign power, and led to much disorder and rebellion. The name census was used by the Romans to denote this characteristic institution. In modern usage the term census denotes the periodic numbering of the people, without valuation of property. In this study we use the terms “valuation” or “rating” and “enrollment”.

But the system of periodic enrollments in Egypt is quite different from the system of rating and valuation. The latter system also existed in Egypt; many census papers are preserved among the papyri, and Wilcken gives several examples of them on pp. 231-240 of the article which we have quoted above. These valuations seem to have been made annually; and it is often stated in the papers that the census is taken according to the orders of the governor of the province. They contain an enumeration and precise definition of all property in land, houses, and live stock belonging to the enumerator, often also a statement whether the property is free from debt or mortgage, and often an estimate of the money value, of the whole. Where there is no estimate of value, it is understood that the value is unchanged from previous valuations and can be found in the older official registers.

The same verb ajpogra>fomai is used in both kinds of papyri, and both operations seem to have been termed Apographai . But the periodic enrollment papers are distinguished by other criteria besides the want of statistics about property and money value; they are dated according to the year of the reigning emperor, and contain no reference to the orders of the governor; they state accurately and exactly which periodic enrollment they are intended for; and they always use the phrase “Enrollment-by- Household”, ajpografh< kat j oijki>an. These periodic enrollments according to the Four-teen-Years’-Cycle were therefore closely connected with the existing households, and served as basis for an enumeration of the total population. This operation obviously corresponds much more closely than the other kind of Egyptian census to the “enrollment” alluded to by Luke; and we shall therefore always allude to it as the enrollment system, or, more accurately, enrollment-byhousehold.

The enrollment papers were filled up and sent in to the proper official by the heads of households. In the enrollment paper, the householder specified the house, or part of a house, which belonged to him; he declared that he was formally enrolling himself and his family for the house-tohouse enrollment of the past year, twenty-eight of the Emperor Commodus, or whatever else the case was. But, if the owner did not live in the house himself, he enrolled only the tenants; if he kept lodgers, he enrolled himself, his family and the lodgers. He gave a complete enumeration of all the individuals who lived in the house, children, relatives, etc . In one case, twenty-seven persons are enumerated in one paper by a householder. No statement of income or of the money value of the house is given in the enrollment papers.

Thus, according to our theory, the nature of the case led the Romans to adopt a double system, which presents a remarkable analogy to our modern methods. We have an enumeration of the people every ten years, the census: the Romans numbered the people every fourteen years. We have an annual making up of the valuation roll, and an annual system of income tax returns. The Romans, likewise, found it expedient to require annual valuation of property; but they did not require any estimate of annual income, for they, like the United States, arranged their taxes, not according to income, but according to property.

The intention of this system of enrollment by households has been investigated by Wilcken. It furnished a complete enumeration of the population of Egypt; both provincials and resident Romans had to fill up their enrollment papers and send them in to the proper official. The papers not merely furnished the total numbers of the population; they were also useful in allotting the various burdens of public service, and especially they facilitated the conscription; and finally they gave information which aided in levying the poll-tax, determining the classes of persons who were free from the tax, and the date at which each male became of age to pay it (fourteen), or reached the age of exemption (sixty). According to Marquardt, 2., p. 199, a poll-tax was levied by the Romans only in countries where it had been customary from ancient times, or where there was for the time no survey of property available to furnish a standard for a more rational kind of tax. He is disposed to consider the tributum capitis in the province of Syria as not a poll-tax, but a tax on those engaged in an industrial occupation; but Wilcken seems clearly right in regarding the Syrian tax as a poll-tax, exactly similar to the Egyptian poll-tax.

Thus the Egyptian documents, and the inferences founded on them by comparison with other evidence, have revealed two most important and hitherto unsuspected facts. (1) In some parts at least of the empire the enrollment and numbering of the population according to their households was a distinct and separate process from the census and valuation, which previously was considered to be the only properly Roman kind of census. (2) The enrollment by households took place periodically, according to a cycle arranged according to the years of the reign of Augustus in Imperial, but not in Egyptian, reckoning. Probably this system was introduced later than 18 B.C.

NOTE Papyrus Br. Mus. CCLX. is a poll-tax register of A.D. 72-3, based on the Household-Enrollment of 61-2; and references to older poll-tax registers are made, which imply previous Enrollments. In fact the register is part of an existing system of some standing. [The Household-Enrollment of A.D. 20 has just been discovered: see Preface].

CHAPTER - THE SYRIAN ENROLLMENT IN 8 B.C.

IN the preceding chapter we have seen that, in all probability, Augustus inaugurated a series of enrollments in Egypt. Now, according to Luke, Augustus laid down the principle that “enrollments” should be made over the whole Roman world; and this assertion stands on a very different level of probability from that which it occupied before the Egyptian discovery.

If Luke be wrong, his error has been to extend over the whole Roman world a practice which Augustus established in Egypt. Every one must see that such an extension is not likely to have been made without some justification by the author of Acts, whoever he was. If there is anything certain about him it is that he had neither connection with Egypt nor interest in it, and that he was entirely uninfluenced by Alexandrian thought or Egyptian ideas; he even omits from his Gospel the incident of the flight into Egypt, which a writer connected with Egypt would be most unlikely to do. Such an author is not likely to have known about institutions peculiar to Egypt; and, if he thinks that the system of periodical enrollments, which existed in Egypt, was also found in other parts of the Roman world, there is a strong presumption that such was the case at least in those parts of the world which were best known to him. The reasons stated above, chapters 6 and 7, confirm this presumption.

Other considerations, also, prove that some attempt was made in Syria, whether systematically or sporadically, to number the population Such enumerations can be traced back to the reign of Augustus and to the government of Syria by Quirinius.

An inscription, which was long the subject of keen controversy and was condemned by Mommsen and many others as a forgery, was recently found to be genuine, when half of the long-lost stone on which it was engraved was rediscovered in Venice. In that inscription, which records the career of Q Aemilius Secundus, a Roman officer, who served under Quirinius when governor of Syria, it is mentioned that by the orders of Quirinius he made the “census” of the population of Apameia, enumerating 117,000 citizens. The emphasis laid on the number suggests (though it does not demonstrate) that the numbering of the total population was the chief object of the Apamean “census”; in that case it would correspond to the periodic enrollment by households in Egypt rather than to the annual valuation.

The inscription leaves it uncertain whether the Apamean numbering occurred in the first or second administration of Syria by Quirinius. He is called legatus Caesaris Syriae , without iterum , but there was no need for expressing in the inscription that he had held the government of Syria on two separate occasions. Our opponents, who hold that there was only one census under Quirinius, are justified in maintaining that this inscription refers to a numbering of the population of Syria, made by Quirinius in A.D. 7 concurrently with his census and valuation in Palestine. We, on our side, are, for a different reason, bound to maintain that Quirinius ordered this enrollment of Apameia (and of all the other states of Syria) to be made in A.D. 7, as will appear in chapters 9 and 11.

Again, Suidas mentions that Augustus numbered the population of the territory that belonged to the Romans, and it was found to be 4,101,017 men (a]ndrev ). It is obvious that Suidas did not simply invent this number, but had access to some other authority besides Luke (whom he quotes in one of the two places where he refers to this enumeration of the Roman world). The question is how far any confidence can be placed in that other authority. Had he real knowledge at his command?

The number seems so small as to be absurd. Josephus gives the population of Egypt, Alexandria excepted, as 7,500,000. Adding 500,00 as the population of Alexandria, we have the total Egyptian population, 8,000,000. But, according to Suidas, the population of the entire Roman world would not be much more than 21,000,000. Probably the populous countries of Syria and Asia Minor alone contained more than 21,000,000 inhabitants, though we must remember that no slaves were counted in the enrollments.

The most probable supposition is that Suidas is giving an inaccurate account of the total of Roman citizens. A numbering of Roman citizens was three times made by Augustus — 28 B.C., 8 B.C. and 14 A.D. — and the total was in each case between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000. The liability of numbers to corruption is exemplified in the result of Augustus’s first census. The Latin text of the Monumentum Ancyranum , expressed in Augustus’s own words, gives the total as 4,063,000, but the Greek translation gives 4,603,000, while Eusebius has it as 4,164,000. In the third census, Eusebius probably gave the correct total; but Jerome in his Latin version and the Armenian translator have both gone wrong in rendering Eusebius’s words. Suidas, finding this total in Eusebius, took it as representing the total population of the empire, instead of the sum of cives Romant , an error which was easily made after the time of Caracalla, when all free citizens of the empire were cives Romani . Further, like Jerome, he misunderstood the numbers in Eusebius. Syncellus gives the total in still another form.

Thus Suidas, when we trace him back, is found to have been using a distinct and good authority, but to be misunderstanding and misrepresenting it. He throws no light on Luke’s statement.

Further, there is a certain amount of positive evidence that “Enrollments” according to the Fourteen-Years’-Cycle were made in Syria and elsewhere.

According to Luke, the first enrollment was made a few years B.C. in the unknown year of Christ’s birth, which is variously fixed, and must have been somewhere between 8 and 3 B.C.. On the system that obtained in Egypt, the year 9 B.C. would be the beginning of the second period; and the scanty evidence that exists about the general survey of the empire, shows that any enrollment according to the Cycle is not likely to have been made until the beginning of the second period. We find, then, that the year 8 B.C. was the one in which the first “enrollment” would naturally begin to be made, if a Cycle was observed; for this enrollment was intended, as has been stated already, to include all children born in 9 B.C.

Now Tertullian declares that an “enrollment” was made by Sentius Saturninus, who was governor of Syria from about 9 to 7 B.C. It is obvious that Tertullian did not make this assertion on Luke’s authority, nor with the intention of bolstering up Luke. On the contrary, it has always been a serious problem how his statement can be reconciled with Luke’s words.

It can hardly be doubted that Tertullian was aware of the discrepancy between his own words and those of Luke; but he remains true to his own principle that “this world’s things must be tested by its own documents”. He had the authority of Roman documents that Sentius Saturninus was the governor in question; and he prefers to follow “this world’s documents”. The discrepancy with Luke would not trouble him; his belief was too robust-to be affected by trifles of that kind; but whether or not he understood how the apparent discrepancy arose, he at any rate followed his Roman authority in this detail.

Tertullian’s procedure was probably this: he knew that an enrollment period fell in 9 B.C. which was the first enrollment; and Roman authorities, either official documents or historians, showed him that Sentius Saturninus was governor of Syria at that time. The only other alternative seems to be that he investigated Roman documents, and found evidence that a census of Syria had been held by Saturninus. In the former case he was aware of the Fourteen-Years’-Cycle; in the latter case he knew of a census of Syria about 9-7 B.C. and in either case he is an important yet independent witness in favor of Luke, so far as concerns the reality of a Syrian enrollment about 9-7 B.C.

We must observe that it was possible for any one living in the first or second or third century to discover for himself the facts about any of these early enrollments, if he were willing to take a little trouble and show a little care. Accurate observation, registration and preservation of all facts formed the basis of Roman Imperial administration. We know from Pliny that the facts obtained at every census were so carefully preserved that in 48 A.D. Claudius could verify from the records of earlier numberings the statement, which a citizen of a small Italian town made about his age; and there can be no doubt that similar careful preservation was the rule everywhere, as is proved in Egypt. Abundant material existed on which, the historian who was willing to take trouble could base an accurate narrative of facts. With an author of ordinary ability and care, serious error could hardly arise except from intention to mislead; though, of course, a slip in some unimportant detail may be made by any man, however careful, and probably none are free from them, not even Mommsen himself, whose grasp of detail is so marvelous.

The discrepancy between Tertullian, who seems to connect the birth of Christ with the enrollment of Saturninus, and Luke, who connects that event with the enrollment of Quirinius, will engage our attention in chapter 11. For the moment our purpose is to show that the Egyptian enrollment periods were observed in Syria and elsewhere. But the existence of such a discrepancy is the conclusive proof that Tertullian had good evidence to trust to. He would never have contradicted Luke as regards the name, unless he had obtained the fact on undeniable authority.

In the same year 8 B.C.., in which “enrollments” seem to have been made in Syria and in Egypt, Augustus, as he mentions in his official review of his own life, made a census and found that the total number of Roman citizens in the whole empire was 4,233,000. A similar numbering of Roman citizens had been made by him in 28 B.C.

The fact that Augustus’s first two enumerations show an interval of twenty years forms no argument against our theory of a Fourteen-Years’- Cycle. The first enumeration was made before the plan was initiated, and the second, the initiation of the plan, was fixed according to the epoch of 23 B.C.

At any rate, 8 B.C. was a marked year in the administration of the city of Rome. In that year, Augustus gave Rome a new municipal organization, dividing it into regions and quarters; and in a certain class of Roman city inscriptions, it is reckoned as the year 1 of an epoch which remained in use for a time. It was not an Imperial epoch; it was merely used in dating some documents connected with the new Roman municipal system, and the year I did not agree with the first of the Four-teen-Years’-Cycle, but was taken at, the: first year in which the new municipal system was actually in existence.

The next periodic year was 6 A.D. and the enrollment would, therefore, naturally be taken in the following year, 7 A.D. Quirinius was governor of Syria for the second time in 6 and the following years; and he held “the great census” and valuation of Palestine, as Josephus records. Judea was now incorporated in the empire, administered by a Procurator , and connected with the Province Syria; and a complete set of statistics of the new territory was required as the basis of the Roman organization. “The great enrollment” might, it is true, be plausibly explained as due merely to the necessities of administration in a newly incorporated part of the empire. But it is, at least, an interesting coincidence that it should tally with the beginning of a new Cycle. Moreover, it is practically almost certain that Quirinius made a numbering of the population of Syria in A.D. as we have gathered from the inscription of Aemilius Secundus, previously qouted . The natural inference from the known facts is that two operations, one corresponding to the Egyptian periodic enrollment and one corresponding to the Egyptian annual census and valuation, occurred in Palestine in 7 A.D.; and that the periodic enrollment at least, if not the other also, was made throughout the province of Syria.

The Cycle beginning 6 A.D. seems not to have been observed by Augustus himself in Rome. It is well known that, as he grew old and feeble, his administration became more lax. Possibly, as Luke declares, he intended in 9 B.C. to begin a series of “enrollments” for the empire; but, if he had that intention, the idea was too great for the time and was not fully carried into effect. The administrative machinery of the empire was not as yet sufficiently perfect and smooth-working to be able to carry into regular execution such a great idea; and Augustus postponed the next numbering of Roman citizens, until Tiberius was associated with him in the government, when 4,937,000 Roman citizens were numbered, 14 A.D.

Dion Cassius indeed mentions that in 4 A.D. Augustus made a partial census; but that would be two years too early; and, as Mommsen and others have shown, Dion Cassius’s account of the various numberings made by Augustus is wrong in almost every case, and his assertion about a census in 4 A.D. cannot be credited on his sole authority. Mommsen, therefore, rejects it as an error of Dion’s. The next periodic year fell in 20 A.D.; but no evidence survives to show that it was observed in any part of the Roman empire. Perhaps after the numbering of Roman citizens in 14, it was considered unnecessary by Tiberius to hold another in 20; and our authorities hardly ever mention any numberings except of cives Romani .

The following census period began with 34 A.D.; and it would appear that the numbering was held in the Province Syria in 35, as was usual. This we gather indirectly from the fact that an attempt was made by King Archelaos to enforce a census after the Roman style in his kingdom of Cilicia Tracheia. Now this kingdom was always considered as a dependency of the Province Syria; and, when any Roman interference in its affairs was needed, the Syrian governor marched an army into the Tracheiotis. Archelaos’s attempt, therefore, implies that the census of Syria was taken in 35, and was observed also in the dependent kingdom of Tracheiotis. It may be regarded as obviously true that Archelaos acted under Roman orders, for the imposition of a Roman custom on the free Cilicians, as if they had been inhabitants of a Roman province, was a curtailment of his rights, which he was not likely to initiate of his own accord, and which a monarch would not allow except under compulsion.

But nations which were not thoroughly Romanised strongly objected to the census as a mark of subjection to the foreigner and as a serious step forward in the process of Romanising their country. King Archelaos was considered by his subjects to be weakly helping to impose on them the Roman yoke with his own hand. Disturbances broke out among the Kietai, the leading people of Cilicia Tracheia; and, after the power of King Archelaos had proved insufficient to quell their, rebellion, the presence of Roman troops was required; and finally, in 36 A.D. Vitellius, the governor of Syria, sent an army to his aid.

As in “the great enrollment” of Palestine in 7 A.D., there was made in Cilicia in 35 A.D. both a numbering of the population and a valuation of their property. A simple numbering of the people might not be felt so grievous, but a valuation of property seemed to be the beginning of incorporation in a province.

Some scholars understand that the census among the Kietai was held because they had been subjected to the Roman authority and incorporated in the province. But Tacitus distinctly states that they were subject to Archelaos, and continued to hold out against his troops. His language is quite explicit, and could be misinterpreted only through prejudice.

Moreover, if the Kietai had been incorporated in the province, that would show even more conclusively that an enrollment of the province was made in 34-5 A.D.

The next periodic year fell in 48; and Tacitus mentions that the Emperor Claudius held a census of the Roman citizens in that year, and numbered 6,944,000. He was personally engaged as censor in the operations at Ostia in the middle of October, 48 A.D. The individual householders recorded their age in these numberings, just as they did in the Egyptian enrollments, for Pliny mentions that a citizen of Bononia stated his age as 150; Claudius thereupon ordered that his record in previous census should be examined, and his statements were found to be consistent. This fact, mentioned incidentally by Pliny, proves that several census had previously been taken, and suggests that there was a system and a definite plan in the enumerations. No one who considers the method of the Romans and the orderly character of all their work, will regard it as probable that the taking of these general numberings was left purely to the caprice of the emperor. Some plan and order must have been aimed at, though the weakness or caprice of the emperors might occasionally disturb the order. The existence of some underlying plan is inexorably demanded; and if the plan which existed in Egypt was not common to the whole empire, one asks what was the plan elsewhere, and why the empire followed separate plans in different regions.

Claudius evidently made his numbering a few months too early, before the periodic year was ended.

The succeeding census period, beginning in 62 A.D. is not known to have been observed in any part of the Roman world except Egypt (where Mr.

Kenyon’s new discovery has revealed it); and the Subsequent one, 76 A.D. was anticipated in Italy by two years, for Vespasian and Titus held the censorship in 73 and 74, and made all enumeration of Roman citizens.

These facts, most of them only slight in themselves, establish in conjunction a strong case that the periods of the Egyptian enrollments were frequently coincident with the holding of census in some other parts of the empire; and thus the presumption is strengthened that the Egyptian Fourteen-Years’-Cycle has its root in a principle of wider application.

This brings us very near to Luke’s statement that Augustus laid down a general principle of taking census of the whole Roman world. The supposition that his statement is true has now ceased to be out of keeping with extra-scriptural evidence. On the contrary, Luke’s statement supplies the missing principle which holds together and explains and makes consistent all the rest of the evidence. When Luke’s evidence is held correct, the other recorded facts fall into line with it, and are seen to be the working of one general principle. Though weakness sometimes failed to carry out the principle, and though in other cases the time was anticipated a little, yet the recorded facts show a clear tendency to conform to the Cycle.

In a number of cases nothing except the census of Roman citizens is recorded. Almost all Romans, with characteristic Roman pride, regarded a census of the subject population as beneath the dignity of historical record. Augustus himself, in that famous record of his achievements, which is commonly known as the Monumentum Ancyranum , mentions only his census of Roman citizens. Distinct evidence exists that the first and second periodic enrollments were carried out in Syria; but the Emperor thought them unworthy of notice in his review of his services to the State.

Similarly it is only by indirect inference, through the accident that a rebellion was provoked, that we learn of the fourth enrollment in Syria.

The Romans of that period did not agree with our estimate of what was most important in their history; and we must be very chary of drawing negative inferences merely from their silence. Evidence about the details of the Augustan system of provincial administration had almost completely perished, until inscriptions began to reveal a few isolated facts.

Hence the silence of Augustus about the scheme of an Imperial census affords no argument against his having projected such a scheme. In his review of his career, Augustus says nothing about the reorganization of the. provincial administration (which, to our judgment, is almost the most important fact in his career); he mentions nothing about the provinces except the colonies which he founded in Pisidia, Gallia, etc ., and the colonies are mentioned simply because they were settlements of Roman citizens. He therefore could not, ill accordance with his own plan, mention the scheme of numbering the subject population; he only speaks of the numbering of the Romans. Moreover, the principle of periodic enrollments appears not to have been, perhaps, carried out completely, and could not claim a place in the list of the emperor’s achievements.

The most important fact is that we have clear evidence, quite independent of Luke, that the first, second and fourth periodic enrollments were observed ill the Province Syria. The evidence for the first is Christian, and is therefore commonly set aside, except when the “critical” — or rather uncritical — theologian desires to bring out that these Christians don’t even agree with one another: then he quotes Tertullian.

The evidence for the second. periodic enrollment in Syria lies in the chance preservation of an inscription, ill which a Roman officer recorded his service at Apameia; but this evidence was long discredited as a forgery, made in modern times by some person who wanted’ to illustrate Luke, and pretended to have copied the inscription from a stone. The demolition of a house in Venice revealed the stone, and justified the inscription.

The evidence for the fourth periodic inscription is, found in Tacitus. Had the authority been a mere Christian, his words would have been ridiculed and disregarded.

But three occurrences are sufficient to show what was the law of recurrence. If the other evidence is enough to suggest that some system was recognized in Syria, then the three dates show that the Fourteen- Years’-Cycle was the system which was followed there.

Further, we observe that in all three cases it is only by a mere accident that we learn about the occurrence of a census — a casual reference in Terullian’s disputation against a heretic: the chance preservation of an inscription in Venice: the fact that a disturbance in a dependent kingdom was too serious for the king’s strength, and required the intervention of the Roman arms, and thus rose to the level of dignity required for mention in Tacitus’s Annals . The ordinary class of inscriptions on stone does not mention events of this kind, except through an occasional chance, as, e .g ., that some private: individual was specially concerned with the taking of a census (like Aeimilius Secundus). But we cannot expect many such chances, as have preserved the memory of the three enrollments in Syria.

In Syria there existed the same reasons which are considered by Wilcken to have required the periodic enrollment by households in Egypt. In both countries there existed a poll-tax (which was not a general Roman institution): conscription and imposition of various burdens in the State service were common to all parts of the empire: hence the periodic enrollments would enable the machinery of government to work with much greater ease and certainty in Syria.

Any rational and scholarly criticism must accept the conclusion: There was a system of periodic enrollment in the Province Syria, according to a Fourteen-Years’-Cycle (in the modern expression — Fifteen-Years’-Cycle in the Roman form), and the first enrollment was made in the year 8 B.C. (strictly the Syrian year beginning in the spring of 8 B.C.).

The fact that there exists no evidence of such frequent taking of census in Syria, as we suppose, constitutes no disproof of our theory. The evidence has perished. Twenty years ago no one dreamed to what a degree of minuteness and perfection the registration of inhabitants, property and values in Egypt was carried by the Romans. The evidence seemed to have perished. Now the graves and rubbish-heaps of Egypt have begun to give up their evidence; and our knowledge of Roman provincial administration has entered on a new stage. But elsewhere we cannot hope for such discoveries as in Egypt, for other climates are too moist to allow paper to survive. But the analogy of Egyptian administration is a strong argument as regards Syria; and, if Augustus instituted periodic enrollments in Egypt, the evidence of Luke, implying that he ordered a similar system in the whole empire, and that the system was carried into effect in Syria, has every probability in its favor and will be accepted by every candid historian.

We have the evidence of Justin Martyr a native of Syria, writing about 150 A.D., that the tabulated information gathered from the periodic enrollments of the province was preserved, and might be consulted by any who doubted the evidence of Luke. Writing to the emperor, the Caesars, the senate, and the people of Rome, he tells them that they can learn the facts regarding the birth of Christ from the registers made under Quirinius.

It is obvious that Justin had not himself consulted the registers. He merely knew that they existed and might be consulted. The facts he takes from Luke, and challenges all to disprove them by appeal to the registers.

Similarly Tertullian appeals to the letter of Marcus Aurelius, in which he had informed the senate of the important service rendered by Christian soldiers in the German war. He had not seen the letter himself, but he knew that all such documents addressed to the senate were preserved, and challenged his readers to consult the letter for themselves.

It would be quite fair to quote Tertullian as evidence (if any evidence were needed) that such Imperial letters were preserved in official records; and similarly it is quite fair to quote Justin as evidence that the registers of the Syrian enrollments were preserved and might be consulted by those who wished.

Mr. Kenyon writes that natives of Egypt refer to previous enrollments as evidence of relationship, etc . Josephus, Vit ., 1., apparently is quoting similar enrollment-registers, when he speaks of the evidence for his family history.

Justin himself had no desire or need to consult the registers in order to be convinced. It was quite enough for him that Luke recorded the facts; and he asked no further evidence. As to questions of date and officials he felt no interest. Perhaps he may have interpreted Luke’s words as referring to Quirinius’s second government of Syria in 6-7 A.D.; but he styles him procurator of Palestine, which does not suit that or any office held by him, for the procuratorship was an equestrian position, while Quirinius was of senatorial rank. But it tended to convince the Romans that the Gospels as a whole were true, if these little details were found to be correctly stated; and therefore he challenges his readers to verify them for themselves.

CHAPTER - KING HEROD’S ENROLLMENT THE first enrollment in Syria was made in the year 8-7 B.C., but a consideration of the situation in Syria and Palestine about that time will show that the enrollment in Herod’s kingdom was probably delayed for some time later.

Herod occupied a delicate and difficult position on the throne of Judea. On the one hand he had to comply with what was required of him by the Imperial policy; he was governing for the Romans a part of the empire, and he was bound to spread western customs and language and civilization among his subjects, and fit them for their position in the Roman world.

Above all, the prime requirement was that he must maintain peace and order; the Romans knew well that no civilizing process could go on, so long as disorder and disturbance and insecurity existed in the country.

Herod’s duty was to keep the peace and naturalize the Graeco-Roman civilization in Palestine.

On the other hand, he must soothe the feelings and accommodate himself to the prejudices of the jealous and suspicious people whom he governed.

He could not hope to keep the peace among them, unless he humored their prejudices. They hated and despised Roman ideas, and they were intensely attached to their own customs. Their customs had all a religious foundation, and they could not comply with foreign requirements without doing violence to their deep-rooted pride of religion and their lofty contempt for the pagans by whom they were surrounded. Everything Roman was to them a heathen abomination; and, if Herod seemed to them to be forcing on them anything Roman, insurrection was almost certain to follow. But it was absolutely necessary to prevent insurrection, which was likely to make Augustus quite as angry with him as with the insurgents.

On the whole, Herod had been successful in his ambiguous position. He built many fortresses and many cities of the Graeco-Roman type, with temples of the Graeco-Roman gods, beginning with the god incarnate, the emperor himself, whose refusal to accept Divine honors was not very much regarded in the eastern lands. That was the approved method of spreading the Graeco-Roman civilization. The “city” was originally a Greek creation, and every city tended towards the cosmopolitan type of the Roman empire. Education, luxury, commerce, imitation of western manners, dislike for the national and “barbarian” manners, use of the Greek language, were encouraged in the crowded and feverish line of cities; and the national piety and the national exclusiveness found it more difficult to maintain themselves in their old strength.

But Jerusalem was left still Hebrew in spite of the theater and amphitheater and fortress called Antonia, which Herod built. There was really a double life in the ancient city, and Herod put on the appearance of fostering both. If he adorned the city with splendid buildings after the Greek fashion, he also was careful to rebuild the Jewish Temple with far greater magnificence than of old. He would show himself a true king of the Jews. He pretended to conform to the Jewish Law, and did so in some matters of form and ceremony. He refused to permit his sister Salome’s marriage with the Arabian Syllaeus, unless the latter conformed to the Jewish law.

Herod never entered the holy place, as Pompey did. He allowed the religious ritual free play. He never attempted to prevent any of the priestly ceremonial. He never assumed to himself ally of the priestly functions. When the temple was being built, only the priests were used in constructing the sanctuary, so that the holy place might never be profaned by any other than a priest’s foot or hand. He avoided heathen emblems and devices on his coins and on the buildings of Jerusalem. He: permitted the Sanhedrin to continue during his reign, and to exercise a shadow of its ancient power doubtless only in religious matters, and subject, doubtless, to constraint from the ever-present thought of what would be the result to themselves, if they did anything that Herod disliked.

Thus Herod kept up the appearance of maintaining national feeling, of defending the Jewish cause against all foreigners, and of respecting national ideas and prejudices. He governed his action on the natural and obvious principle. He did not attempt to force the Jews to do anything that was distinctly and-national and and-Jewish; he maintained their religious ceremonial, and refrained from obtruding on them personally anything that was offensive to them. The theaters and other pagan abominations were for the accursed heathen; but the Jews could do as they pleased about such unholy things. They tolerated Herod, and he did not outrage them. But, in spite of all his care to comply with the Roman requirements, towards the end of his life Herod fell into disgrace with Augustus. He had made war on the Arabians; and Syllaeus, the Arabian minister, who was in Rome, obtained the ear and the confidence of Augustus, and persuaded him that Herod had made war on his own authority without Roman permission. Augustus was very angry, and wrote to Herod that, whereas hitherto he had treated the Jewish king as a friend, he would henceforth treat him as a subject. The time when this letter was written is, uncertain. Schuerer is inclined to date it in 8 B.C., probably rightly. Lewin, Fasti Sacri , p. 109, places it in B.C.

These emphatic words, coming from an emperor whose words were always well weighed and weighty, soon bore fruit in action, as we may be certain. Nothing is related by Josephus as to the exact form that the Roman action took; but he tells very emphatically how much Herod was embarrassed by the loss of Augustus’s favor. In one point, Luke comes to our aid. He shows that Herod was ordered to consider that the recent orders for an enrollment in the Province Syria applied also to his kingdom and must be obeyed.

A probable conjecture places at this point the oath of fidelity to the Emperor, which the whole Jewish people was ordered to take, and which 6000 Pharisees refused. It is natural that, when the king was degraded to the rank of a subject, his people should be constrained to take the oath of allegiance to Caesar, in place of the oath to Herod which they had formerly taken. It was the practice under the empire that all subjects, both Romans and provincials, should swear allegiance and fidelity to the Emperor. In later time, under Trajan, the oath was taken every year on the anniversary of the Emperor’s accession, but it is uncertain when this custom was introduced. The words which Josephus uses would seem to imply that the oath to Caesar was taken and refused only once; and the occasion is implied to have been towards the end of Herod’s life.

The two acts, the oath and the enrollment, obviously form part of the new policy of Augustus towards Herod, though we need not go so far as to suppose that the two were one (as some scholars have done), and that the oath was taken as part of the ceremony of enrollment.

Incidentally, we may notice as a masterpiece of irrationality and uncritical prejudice, the reflection which Strauss makes about the oath of allegiance to Augustus imposed on the Jews. “That this oath, far from being a humiliating measure for Herod, coincided with his interest, is proved by the zeal with-which he punished the Pharisees who refused to take it.” Naturally, Herod had to punish the refusal as an act of treason. If he did not do so, any one of his enemies could ruin him by reporting the fact to Augustus. Moreover, there were so many Roman officials in Syria that the omission to punish the recalcitrants could not be kept from their knowledge, and every official was in duty bound to report the omission to his superiors or to the Emperor. The punishment, however, was very mild: a fine was inflicted on the whole 6000 recalcitrants, and was paid by the wife of Herod’s brother Pheroras. Subsequently, the ringleaders were put to death; but that was not on account of their refusing the oath, but because they were disobedient and disrespectful to Herod himself on a later occasion.

Herod was, naturally, unwilling to accept this mark of servitude and degradation in rank without making an effort to avoid it. He would, doubtless, request time; and he would have little or no difficulty in obtaining leave from the Roman governor, Saturninus, to postpone the numbering, until he had sent an embassy to Rome. Herod had formerly had great influence with Augustus; he might become powerful again; and the Roman officials had no reason to refuse compliance with such a reasonable request for temporary delay. Herod could represent with perfect truth that the imposition of a Roman census in Palestine would offend the prejudices of the Jews, and endanger the peace of the kingdom. Moreover, the crafty king knew well how to make his requests acceptable to Roman officers, who were almost invariably accessible to bribery.

Further, according to Josephus, Herod’s case was a good and strong one, and Syllaeus was a false accuser. After Saturninus had come to Syria as governor, in succession to Titius (probably in the summer of 9 B.C. ), long negotiations went on in his presence between Herod and Syllaeus; an arrangement was made between them; it was afterwards broken by Syllaeus; Herod again complained to Saturninus, and was authorized to make war on the Arabians.

Incidentally, we notice that both the accusation that Herod had made war without Roman sanction, and the defense that he had been authorized by the governor of Syria, show how far he was from being an independent king.

It is, therefore, natural and probable that a postponement of the enrollment should have been granted to Herod; and, although our authorities merely say that an embassy was sent, and give no information as to the exact message, yet we may fairly assume that it was intended both to soothe the anger of Augustus and to beg for exemption from the enrollment, on the ground that this was likely to rouse the religious feeling of the Jews and cause disturbance and insurrection.

The embassy was sent to Rome, but it was not received in audience, and it returned without effecting anything. Augustus, of course, knew in a general way what instructions had been given to it, and he did not think that Herod had been sufficiently humiliated. Perhaps Herod’s case was not quite so good as Josephus represents it, and there was something to be said on the Arabian side of which we are not informed. Augustus must assuredly have received the reports of Saturninus the governor, and of Volumnius his own procurator; but he still continued stern and unforgiving to Herod.

In these circumstances the delay granted to Herod in regard to the enrollment was not extended, and, as we may suppose, he was called upon to obey the emperor’s orders. He sent a second embassy to Augustus, which was, in all probability, commissioned not, as before, to request exemption from the enrollment, but to announce his submission and to promise unconditional compliance. This embassy was much more favorably received, and returned from Rome successful; but Herod was evidently by no means completely pardoned or restored fully to favor.

When once Augustus’s anger had been roused at the Jewish monarch’s assumption of too great freedom, it was far from easy to appease it entirely, and impossible to eradicate the effect produced on his mind.

The succession to Herod’s kingdom was subject to the sanction of Augustus He could not punish his own sons without formally accusing them before a council of his relatives and the Roman officers of the province. He had to send embassy after embassy to Rome to obtain the sanction of Augustus for his intended acts. He could not punish his guilty son Antipater without getting special leave from Augustus. In fact his kingdom was treated ostentatiously as an outlying part of the province, in which nothing of any consequence could go on without the Roman sanction.

Luke’s statement that the enrollment was applied to Palestine is therefore in perfect accord with the situation as revealed by Josephus during the last years of the life of Herod. The question that remains is: In what year was the enrollment made in Palestine?

The year which was generally observed in the southern part of the Province Syria and perhaps followed by Josephus in his history, began in the spring. In Syria, therefore, the periodic year was probably 9-8 B.C. and the actual numbering would take place in the year 8-7 B.C.

The recital of events which has just been given will prove that the numbering in Palestine could not have occurred so early as the year 8-7, ending 17th April, 7 B.C. A consideration of the character of the enrollment will bring us to a more precise result.

Herod was naturally eager to avoid giving to the enrollment an entirely foreign and non-national character Such a character both accentuated his own humiliation and was more liable to rouse the ever-wakeful pride and jealousy of his Jewish subjects. Obviously, the best way to soothe the Jewish sentiment was to give the enrollment a tribal character and to number the tribes of Israel, as had been done by purely national Governments.

The Roman officials would not be likely to object to this form of enrollment. Provided Herod obeyed the orders of Augustus that an enrollment must be made, it would be entirely in accordance with the spirit in which these subject kingdoms were treated, that the manner of making the enrollment should be left to the discretion of the responsible authority, viz ., the king. Moreover, the marvelous success of Roman provincial administration was due to the skill and tact with which the officials accommodated themselves to the prejudices of the subject population; and this was clearly a case in, which Jewish susceptibilities might be taken into account as regards the manner of numbering. The people was well known to be stubborn and unyielding in its religious ideas; and, with rare exceptions, Rome humored its religious prejudices.

In his work on the relations between the Imperial law and the National law, Dr. Mitteis has shown how much the Roman law was affected in the Eastern provinces by national law and custom. In those countries Rome was brought in contact with an old civilization and a settled system of Greek law; and it did not seek to force on them its own law, as it did on the barbarous countries of the West. Similarly, the Roman governor of Syria was not likely to dictate the precise fashion in which the numbering of Palestine must be carried out.

Moreover, we have already seen that the prime consideration in the Imperial system of administering the provinces was to avoid disturbance and sedition. Augustus and the later emperors emphatically inculcated this principle on their lieutenants in the provinces. Herod could with perfect justice show that tribal numbering was the form which would tend most to peace and order in his kingdom.

Herod’s method in governing his kingdom was, as we have seen, to humor the Jews, and to accept the distinction which they proudly drew between themselves and the heathen. Must we not, then, suppose that he would employ the same method in his enrollment? Owing to the care with which the Jews preserved their family records and pedigrees, all true Jews would know what was their family and their proper city according to the ancient tribal system, even though they might have been forced by circumstances to change their abode. This seems to have suggested the mode of enrollment which Luke describes a mode which would mark off by a broad clear line the true Jews from the mongrel population of Palestine. All who claimed to be Jews were to repair to the proper city of their tribe and family. The rest of the population, who were probably much more numerous, would be counted according to their ordinary place of residence.

My friend, Professor Paterson, to whom I am indebted throughout these pages, points out that Augustus would specially desire an enrollment of Palestine in order to have some clear idea what was the military strength of the country. It was a troublesome district to rule. Disturbances were always apprehended. There was obvious advantage in knowing what was the exact strength of the possible rebels.

Moreover, the non-Jewish population was peaceable and well-affected to Rome. The enrollment would obviously be much more useful, if in distinguished accurately the rebellious from the peaceful element in the population. The tribal enrollment furnished the means of gaining this information. It might safely be concluded that all those who were content to be counted as non-tribal would be loyal subjects of Rome. The imposition of the oath of allegiance to Augustus would also furnish a test, and the number of those who refused the oath was kept. Josephus says there were more than 6000. He implies, not that this was an estimate of the strength of the Pharisaic faction, but that those who actually refused to take the oath were counted; and he says that they were regarded as dangerous and likely to rouse war and disturbance. According to Luke the tribal enrollment was made by ordering every head of a household to repair for the numbering to the proper city from which his family had sprung. Such a method would have been entirely inapplicable in a large country. But, as the traveler rides across the length of Palestine, it is vividly brought home to him that this was an easy and short method in that land. The Romans, who required that citizens should travel to Rome from the remotest part of Italy when they wished to register their vote, would see nothing to object to, if Herod consulted them as to his proposed scheme.

In the national character which Herod gave to his enrollment, probably, lies the reason why Mary as well as Joseph went up to Bethlehem — a detail which would be so inexplicable if the enrollment had been modeled after a Roman census. To go personally to the enrollment was regarded as substantiating a claim to true Hebrew origin and family. All they that went to their proper city were true Hebrews; and, as Luke says, “all (i .e ., all true Hebrews in Palestine) went to enroll themselves, every one to his own city”.

It is important to notice the force of the word “all” here. This is one of many passages in Luke’s History where the precise sense that should be attributed to the word “all” or the word “they” may be, or has been, a subject of controversy, and can be determined only from the whole train of thought in the historian’s mind. He that misconceives the general thought underlying the whole passage inevitably misinterprets “they” or “all” For example, who are “they” in Acts 13:3? On the way in which that question is answered hinges a controversy as to Church government. Who are “all” in Acts 18:17? On the answer depends the whole sense of the incident; but an answer is difficult, and depends on the general conception in the reader’s mind. Some say “all the Jews beat a Christian”: others say “all the Greeks beat a Jew”. Similarly, who are “us” in Luke 1:1?

Professor Blass has recently answered that in his own way. Many would give a different reply.

Accordingly, to understand “all” in Luke 2:3, one must put oneself at the narrator’s point of view. As we have seen, he conveys the impression throughout the two chapters that he is giving the story of Mary herself.

To her “all” are the Jews: she thinks only of her own people: the non- Jewish population of Palestine is not embraced in her view.

But, when such a plan of tribal numbering was adopted, the time of year had to be carefully considered. In the first place the winter months had to be avoided, during which traveling was often difficult, and in which unfavorable weather might cause great hardship and even prevent the plan from being carried out. As the day had to be fixed a long time beforehand, it must have been fixed in the season when good weather could be calculated on. In winter, weather might be good or it might be bad, and at the best it would be cold and trying.

That a day was fixed by the authorities, and that it was not left to the discretion of the people to go when they pleased (as in Egypt people seem to have been permitted to send in their enrollment papers at any time they pleased within the year), seems to follow from the fact that Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the very time when the birth of the child was approaching. Moreover, the advantages of the plan in ease and speed would have been sacrificed, unless a day had been fixed for the numbering.

Further, it was urgently necessary that the time which was fixed should not interfere with agricultural operations — that it should not come between the earliest date for the first harvest and the latest date for finishing the threshing, and getting in the grain and the fine cut straw from the threshing floors. The harvest varied considerably in different parts of the country, and reaping extended over about seven weeks, beginning from the middle of April.

Taking these circumstances into consideration, we may say with considerable confidence that August to October is the period within which the numbering would be fixed. It is no objection to this view that tradition places the birth of Jesus at Christmas. It is well known that the tradition is not early, that it varies in different periods and in different sections of the Church, and that the earliest belief was different.

Lewin, in Fasti Sacri , p. 115, selects 1st August as the day and month.

Without laying any stress on the reasoning from the priestly periods by which he reaches this precise and exact conclusion, we must attach great weight to the argument which he founds on the fact that the shepherds were watching their flocks in the open country by night. In Asia Minor, at least, the pasturing of the flocks by night takes place only during the hot season and not in the winter. The sheep will not eat under the hot sun: they stand idly in a dense crowd in any place where the semblance of shade can be found during the day, and during the night they scatter and feed. In cold weather they seek food during the day.

On this characteristic of the sheep is founded the rule, said to be observed in Palestine, that the flocks were sent out after the Passover and brought in about October before the “former rain”.

Within that period, April to October, the day fixed for the numbering must fall; and during that period April to July was required for the reaping and garnering of the year’s crop.

It seems unnecessary to do more than refer to the idle objection that has been made: How were the shepherds numbered? There must always be some people for whom the numbering is inconvenient, whatever be the time at which it is fixed; and we need not trouble to inquire what was the method adopted to meet the special case of the shepherds. That inquiry belongs to the sphere of the archaeological student, who studies the minutiae of the census system; but the historian, in his more general view, must omit such details. No critic, who retains his sober reason and does not yield to mere prejudice, would find any difficulty in it.

After all, not a great deal of journeying to and fro would be required for the enrollment. The remnant that could trace their origin to the Ten Tribes must have been very small. The majority of the strictly Jewish population was probably resident at that time in the southern part of Palestine, though there was also a large minority scattered over all the cities of the central and northern districts. A considerable number of people would have to make journeys of one to four days to their own city, and the same back again; but nothing approaching to a general transference of population would be necessitated.

For Herod’s enrollment, then, there is open only the late summer of 7 or B.C. Unless we have omitted some important factor (which is, of course, far from improbable, considering how scanty the evidence is), the enrollment can hardly be brought down so late as 5 B.C. and we have seen that 8 B.C. is excluded by other considerations.

Between the years 7 and 6 it is difficult to choose, so long as we confine ourselves to the evidence outside of Luke, for that evidence is insufficient to found a judgment upon, owing to the uncertainty of all the dates connected with the question. It may be that the embassy which was dismissed unheard by Augustus, returned so late that the necessary preparations and notice could not be made in time for the autumn of 7 B.C. and it is certain that Herod was by no means eager to hurry the numbering.

But these are mere vague presumptions.

Luke, however, gives additional information about the Savior’s life, which affords reasonable confidence that 6 B.C. was the year of Christ’s birth.

NOTE That a difference should be made in the treatment of Jews and non-Jews in Palestine, is quite in accordance with Roman usage. For example, after the rebellion under Hadrian, the Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem.

CHAPTER - CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST LUKE 3:23 tells that Jesus appeared before the world as the teacher, when he was about thirty years of age. Now it is a characteristic usage in Greek to employ this vague expression, when there is no intention to imply doubt as to the age: it lies in the genius of the language to avoid positiveness in assertion, and to prefer less definite and pronounced and harsh forms of statement. It is unnecessary to think that Luke was really doubtful what was the age of Jesus, whether twenty-eight or thirty-two.

His elaborately careful and precise dating, <420301> 3:1, 2, may be taken as an indication that he had good and accurate information on the subject; that he “had investigated all the circumstances accurately in their origin”. But, like a true Greek, he says “about thirty,” where the less sensitive barbarian of our northern island would use a rudely positive and definite number. The only doubt that remains is whether Luke means in his thirtieth year, or when he was thirty years old; and this doubt is resolved by the other facts recorded by Luke, as we shall see. Jesus was thirty years old, when he began his public career.

The precise statement is doubtless derived from the same authority as the whole of the first two chapters (and perhaps also 4:16-30); and the only reason for recording it is that it was given exactly by a first-rate authority, and therefore helped Luke’s readers “to know the certainty concerning the things wherein they had been instructed”. An authority, who was really good on such a point, would know the exact age, and Luke expressly declares his intention of setting down only such facts as he had accurately and certainly on trustworthy authority. Where his knowledge was only vague, he usually refrains from making any statement.

If the birth of Jesus occurred in B.C. 6, he became thirty years of age in the second half of A.D. 25, and his appearance as a teacher took place within the year that followed. If his birth occurred in B.C. 7, the date of his appearance must be placed one year earlier, but we shall find reason to reject that supposition.

Some time, but apparently quite a short time, before Jesus came forward as a teacher, John the Baptist began to preach that the Messiah was at hand; and Jesus was among the crowds who flocked to him to receive baptism. Now, as Luke mentions, “the word of God came to John” in the fifteenth year of the authority of Tiberius Caesar. The date is given very precisely and definitely; but, unfortunately, it is by no means easy to say what year is meant by it.

It is often found that, where an ancient writer aims at making his statement most precise and exact, his words lend themselves to several interpretations. What did Luke understand by the authority of Tiberius?

In the inscriptions of that emperor’s lifetime, the years of his reign are estimated according to the number of times that he had received tribunician power. On that system his fifteenth year began on 27th June, A.D. 13.

Obviously Luke cannot intend that year.

Again, according to Velleius, the admirer and friend and faithful follower of Tiberius, associated with him in nine years of warfare, authority equal to that of Augustus in all the provinces and armies of the empire was granted to Tiberius by the senate and people, on the proposal of Augustus himself, before he returned to Rome to celebrate his triumph over the peoples of Pannonia and Dalmatia. Now this triumph was celebrated on 16th January, A.D. 12, therefore the decree of equal power must have been passed before the end of A.D. 11. Further, the language of Velleius suggests that the decree was issued not long before Tiberius returned, and it was so closely connected with his return that Suetonius seems to place it after he reached Rome. But Velleius’s authority must be ranked superior in regard to such a point.

There can be no doubt that this was the event which Tacitus had ill mind when he said that Tiberius had been created Collega Imperii during the lifetime of Augustus (Annals , 1., 3).

It follows that the first year during which Tiberius held power as colleague of Augustus with equal power in all provinces of the empire coincided with the end of A.D. 11 and the greater part of A.D. 12, and the fifteenth year with A.D. 25-6. If Luke counted the years of Tiberius according to that system, all his statements as to time in these early chapters are found to be consistent and accurate. The first enrollment must have taken place in autumn B.C. 6.

Jesus was thirty years old in autumn B.C. 25. In the later months of that year, when the fifteenth year of the Hegemonia of Tiberius in the provinces had just recently begun (according to the official usage ), John appeared announcing the coming of Christ; and very shortly thereafter Jesus came and was baptized by John in the river Jordan. A month or two thereafter occurred the Passover on 21st March, A.D. 26 (Lewin, Fasti Sacri , p. 173).

The only reason for doubting whether Luke could have counted the years of Tiberius on that system, is that it is never employed elsewhere in reckoning the reign of that emperor. When his tribunician years are not stated, his reign is always elsewhere counted from the death of his predecessor, Augustus; and it is beyond dispute that he was not in any proper and strict sense emperor until that time. But it seems not impossible that his Hegemonia in the provinces might be counted from A.D. 11, when his authority began in them. Similarly, we saw that in Egypt the reign of Augustus was reckoned, not from any date when he became emperor in a strict and proper sense, but from B.C. 30, when his authority began in that country.

Further, Luke, the whole spirit of whose History stamps it as belonging to the Flavian period, knew that the reign of Titus was counted from the day when he was made the colleague of his father, Vespasian; and thus he may have been led to apply to the time of Tiberius the principle which was in current and official use while he was writing. Now the only dates that are permissible for the crucifixion are A.D. 29, and 33. Different authorities vary between these three years. But, as it is not possible to allow that more than four Passovers occurred during the public career of Jesus, we are bound to the view that his career extended from the time preceding the Passover of 26 till the Passover of 29. The strength of the tradition that places the crucifixion in 29 has been admirably stated by Mr. C. H. Turner in his article on the “Chronology of the New Testament”. But is this consistent with Luke’s narrative? Does he permit the supposition that four Passovers occurred within the period of Jesus’ teaching?

Luke does not refer to any Passover during that whole period except the last. He was not interested in the relation of Jesus to the Jewish feasts, and hardly alludes to the subject after the Passover that occurred in the Savior’s twelfth year. Hence we cannot expect from him much direct evidence bearing on the Passovers during the teaching of Jesus.

Moreover, Luke had little of the sense for chronology, the value of which in clearly understanding or describing any series of incidents had not been appreciated so early as the first century. Chronology, too, was much more difficult when no era had come into general use, when dates were commonly stated by the names of annual magistrates, or the years of sovereigns, and when in Asia scores of different eras for dating had just begun to come into use side by side with one another, so that, even when one does find a date by a numbered year, it is often a difficult problem to determine what era is used.

Want of chronological sense or interest may seem a serious defect in a historian. But we are too apt to forget that Luke was not writing for us, and that he was not even writing for posterity. He wrote for the benefit of his own contemporaries. His work stands in the closest relation to the time. That which seemed most important for the requirements of the Church at the time was what Luke most desired to record with absolute accuracy and trustworthiness. Abstract scientific interest in the chronology of the Gospel did not exist among his readers. What they were concerned with was its truth; and that was gathered from the Savior’s teaching, from his statements about himself, and from the facts of his Birth, Death and Resurrection. These were the points on which Luke’s attention was concentrated in his first book.

Some authorities are disposed to think that Luke believed the whole period of the teaching of Jesus to have been comprised within the period of a little more than a year, lasting from shortly before one Passover till the Passover of the following year. A widely-spread opinion in the second and third centuries assigned that duration to the Savior’s ministry, but I can discover nothing to show that Luke shared it. The opinion, probably, was the result of two causes. In the first place, the notes of time in the Gospels are very slight and difficult to fit together. In the second place, the saying about “the acceptable year of the Lord” was easily misunderstood.

The memory of the earliest authorities, as a rule, was entirely filled with the words and teaching of the Savior. Chronological order was little thought of; and we should probably find that most of the writings alluded to by Luke 1. I took the form of collections of sayings and parables. The only events, probably, that were vividly remembered in their historical aspect and apart from the doctrine connected with them, were the series of actions comprised within the last few days of the Savior’s life. The sequence of these events was indelibly stamped on the memory of all. But the rest of the tradition was a reproduction of past lessons and impressive sayings. These were connected with certain localities; some were associated with certain actions of the Savior or of those who were in his company. But his numerous journeys great and small were not remembered in their sequence. In this state of information, Luke evidently forbore the attempt to describe exactly the movements of Jesus during the greater part of the teaching.

In the beginning, indeed, he describes the sequence of Jesus’ first journeys.

He tells how Jesus was baptized by John in Jordan, 3:21; and he dates at that point the beginning of his teaching, 3:23. Then he tells of the journey into the wilderness, i .e ., the country south from Jerusalem, and mentions that Jesus was actually in Jerusalem, <420401> 4:1-13. Thereafter Jesus returned to Galilee and taught there for some time, 4:14, 15, after which he returned to Nazareth for a brief visit, 4:16-30. Being rejected and threatened with death at Nazareth, he came down to Capernaum, 4:31.

The narrative during this stage touches that of the other Gospels at occasional points; and one paragraph, <420401> 4:1-13, is perhaps founded on the same ultimate authority as Matthew 4:1-11 (though with a difference in order). No indication of the lapse of time is given; but some considerable period is likely to have elapsed even in the events implied in 4:15 alone.

But at this point, 4:31, begins a new section of the narrative. The indications of movement for a considerable period are of the vaguest kind. 4:42, He went into a desert place. 5:16, He withdrew himself in the deserts. 5:27, He went forth. <420601> 6:1, He was going through the cornfields, probably in May or June when the wheat was ripe but not cut. 6:12, He went out into the mountain to pray. 6:17, He came down with them. <420701> 7:1, He entered into Capernaum. 7:1, He went soon afterwards to a city called Nain (an episode peculiar to Luke). His return from Nain is never mentioned, but 7:18 ff. probably belongs to the coasts of the Sea of Galilee. <420801> 8:1, He soon afterwards went about through cities and villages. 8:22, He entered into a boat (on the Sea of Galilee). 8:26, He arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is over against Galilee. 8:38, He entered into a boat and returned. 9:10, He withdrew apart to a city called Bethsaida. 9:28, He went up about eight days after into the mountain to pray. 9:37, On the next day when they were come down from the mountain, a great multitude met him (and here Mark’s reference to the green grass, 6:39, and John’s to the abundant grass, 6:10, show that the time was spring).

In this part of the narrative, the lapse of time is hardly alluded to: only the brief and vague indications just quoted are given. The marks of locality, apart from those implied in the indications of movement, are also very vague and elusive. 4:44, He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee. <420501> 5:1, He was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. 5:12, He was in one of the cities.

This section of the narrative, 4:31-9:50, is as a whole (though with some considerable exceptions) closely parallel to Mark and Matthew.

Great part of the section is evidently founded on an authority common to them (though we expressly avoid stating any opinion as to the nature of the connection between the three).

It is plain that though Luke, with his usual indifference to the chronological aspect of history, does not properly mark the lapse of time, yet this section must extend over some considerable period. “Preaching in the synagogues of Galilee” is the sort of phrase by which Luke sums up a considerable period; and the different movements, mentioned or implied, vague as they are, together with the intervals between them, demand time.

From 9:51 begins another new section describing the movement to Jerusalem preparatory to the culmination of Christ’s teaching there. In 10:38, as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village (viz ., Bethany); and in <421101> 11:1, he was praying in a certain place. In this and the following chapters there continues the same vagueness. Luke only makes it clear that the most advanced stage in the ministry has begun, and that Jesus is moving gradually towards the south and is affecting the southern half of Palestine. In 13:22, he went on his way through towns and villages teaching and journeying on unto Jerusalem. In 17:11, as they were on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 18:31, We go up to Jerusalem. 18:35, He drew nigh unto Jericho. <421901> 19:1, He entered and was passing through Jericho. 19:11, He was nigh to Jerusalem. 19:28 f., He went on before, going up to Jerusalem (by the steep road from Jericho), and he drew nigh to Bethany.

Then comes the entry into Jerusalem, where the rest of the narrative has its scene.

With very slight exceptions, the section 9:51-19:28 is quite peculiar to Luke, and has hardly any points of contact with any of the other Gospels.

But the same vagueness of place and time continues.

It is, however, clearly unnecessary and improbable that this section represents, or was considered by Luke to represent, the events of one single continuous approximately straight journey. The multitudes, the towns and villages, the frequent repetition of the idea of progress towards Jerusalem, imply a gradual advance of the circle of the teaching towards the south and towards the center of Jewish religion and the completion of his mission.

If, as I believe to be probably the case, Luke knew what was the “certain village” of Martha and Mary, 10:38, but for some reason (about which we need not speculate) avoided naming it, our view would be raised to complete certainty, that in this section the historian is describing a general movement southwards, accompanied and complicated by many short journeys to and fro, up and down, “through towns and villages teaching”.

If he is at Bethany in 10., and at Jericho in 18, and in Samaria in 17, zigzag wanderings are clearly implied. But, as many may prefer to consider that 10:38 has been put in false local and chronological order by Luke through his ignorance that the “certain village” was Bethany, we need not press an argument that is not actually required for our purpose. Even without it the view which we are stating as to Luke’s intention in this section seems certain.

It is obvious, then, that Luke divides the teaching of Jesus, previous to the final scenes in Jerusalem, into three stages. The first and preliminary stage — in the wilderness of Judah, in Galilee and in Nazareth — is very briefly recorded The second — spent in Galilee or the north continuously — is described at much greater length: Jesus had now become a famous teacher, and attracted many hearers and followers. The third — the extension of the sphere of influence over central Palestine as Far as Jerusalem — is described still more fully. There is no attempt or intention to describe the movements of Jesus exactly in the second and third stages.

Further, the second stage evidently lasted a Full year, For after it has begun some time, we find ourselves in the month of May or June, and at the end we are again in spring (as we know From Mark but not from Luke).

The probability, then, is that roughly the three stages correspond to the three years; and the memory of the witnesses retained very little that was accurate and definite (except some important changes of scene and journeys) during the preliminary stage, A.D. 26, more about the second, A.D. 27, and still more about the third, A.D. 28.

The first Passover, A.D. 26 ( John 2:13), falls about Luke 4:13, and the year ends about 4:31. At the feast of this year, the Jews spoke about the 46th year of the building of the Temple ( John 2:20); and the 46th year had begun shortly before they spoke. The second Passover, A.D. 27 (John 5,1), falls about Luke 5. Then follows the month of May, 6:1.

The spring of A.D. 28 and the third Passover ( John 6:4) must be placed in Luke 9. The summer of this year, however, was still spent in Galilee, according to John 7:1; but it is not inconsistent with this statement that the third stage of Luke had already begun. The characteristic of that stage was that Jesus had now set his face firmly to go to Jerusalem, 9:51; but during it, he was still passing through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, 17:11. The period in Luke’s estimation is rather one of firm and definite resolution than of bodily movement continuously towards Jerusalem. The visit to the country east of Jordan ( Mark 10:1, Matthew 19:1) certainly belongs to this stage.

That there was a strong tradition to the effect that the Savior suffered at the age of thirty-three seems to follow from the agreement of Hippolytus and Eusebius and Phlegon. The latter, as is allowed by Mr.

Turner, was indebted to very early Christian authorities for his information. It is true that both Eusebius and Phlegon place the crucifixion in A.D. 33, but this arises from their both depending on the original Christian calculation which ultimately gave rise to the modern era of the birth of Christ. This was wrongly calculated as early as the second century; and, starting from that initial error, the chronologists had to place the beginning of the teaching in thirty and the crucifixion in thirty-three.

It is a strong confirmation of our result that it agrees with two so ancient traditions, which are quite unconnected with one another and evidently seemed to most of the ancients to be inconsistent with each other.

Starting from a very different point of view from that of Mr. Turner, and working on utterly diverse lines, we have reached nearly the same conclusion that he reached. The only differences of importance are two: — 1. I find myself obliged, on the principles of interpretation which I have followed consistently throughout, to attach a distinctly higher value than he does to Luke’s statement as to the age of Jesus when he began to teach. 2. Mr. Turner is inclined to think that Luke compressed the teaching into one year; and he holds that the teaching in reality lasted only for two years, interpreting John 5:1 as referring to some unnamed minor feast. This view cannot be disproved, but it seems to have nothing to recommend it, and it introduces quite unnecessary discord between the different Gospels. The chronological marks in the Gospels are so slight that almost anything can be made out of them, if one is bent on doing so. Hence there was in ancient time an immense variety of opinion on this point. But in four independent accounts of one series of events, a reasonable criticism will prefer the interpretation in which all the various conditions are reconciled.

At the last moment, after this chapter is in type, Professor Paterson reminds me that the result which we have attained agrees with the celebrated calculation of Kepler, who fixed on the year B.C. 6, because in March of that year there occurred a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, which would present a most brilliant appearance in the sky, and would naturally attract the attention of observers interested in the phenomena of the heavens, as were the Wise Men of the East.

I have no knowledge what is the value of Kepler’s reckoning. Mr. Turner, who knows much more about the matter, speaks only of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which occurred in, May, October and December, B.C. 7; and I presume that he would have mentioned the triple conjunction (on which Kepler laid such stress), if he had accepted the calculation, even though it does not suit the date 7-6, to which he inclines. The coincidence, however, seems worthy of mention, but it is not presented as an argument.

But, while we lay no stress upon it as an argument, the subject is so interesting, and presents so many curious coincidences, that a few paragraphs may profitably be devoted to it.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces, according to a Jewish belief of some antiquity, is the sign of the Messiah’s coming. If there existed some belief that the coming of a King of the Jews was to be heralded thus, the occurrence of the phenomenon would necessarily arrest the attention of the astrology-loving priests in the East. Kepler’s theory was, that just as the conjunction in 1604 of Jupiter and Saturn, culminated in 1605 in the conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, and was followed by the appearance of a new and brilliant star, which disappeared again after about eighteen months, so in B.C. 7 and 6, the exactly singular conjunctions were followed by the appearance of a new star after the triple conjunction, and that this was the star of Matthew 2:2.

Now the visit of the Magi obviously did not occur until more than forty days after the birth of Jesus, and may probably be placed during the winter of B.C. 6-5. Kepler’s theory involves that they appeared before Herod at this time, and informed him of the reason of their coming. Herod thereupon consulted the Jewish priests, and heard from them that the King was to be born in Bethlehem. He also questioned the Magi privately, and learned the exact facts with regard to the appearance of the star, and doubtless also with regard to the whole phenomenon in the heavens. He would learn from the Magi that the fateful conjunction first occurred in May of the year B.C. 7. Then he sent the Magi away to Bethlehem, and awaited news of their discovery. When they did not return, he ordered all children under two years of age in Bethlehem to be killed. The King might have been born at any time after the first conjunction occurred; and that was at least eighteen months ago. Therefore, in order to make sure, the order included every child under two.

Now about this time, as Josephus mentions, Herod was troubled by a prophecy that the power was about to pass away from him and from his family; and the Pharisees, from favor to the wife of Pheroras (who promised to pay their fine), predicted that the succession would come to her and her children. Obviously, the second part of the prophecy was pure invention, due to partisanship; but the first part was almost certainly connected with the Jews’ deep-seated belief in the coming of a new King, the Messiah. Lewin (whose arrangement of the events in the last three years of Herod’s life seems very good) places this event in B.C. 6; Schuerer dates it in 7. One or the other must be right. Herod put to death the ringleaders of the Pharisees, with two of his own personal attendants, and also all those of his own household that had associated themselves with the prediction of the Pharisees.

There occurred therefore a number of deaths among the family and attendants of Herod in connection with the belief in the coming of a new King.

Now Macrobius, a pagan writer about A.D. 400, says that when the news was brought to Augustus that Herod, King of the Jews, had ordered children under two years of age in Syria to be slain, and that among them was a son of Herod’s, the Emperor remarked, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son”. It is not probable that Macrobius was indebted to a Christian writer for this story; and, therefore, probably the story of the Massacre of the Infants was recorded in some pagan source. The execution of the conspirators in Herod’s household perhaps occurred about the same time; but among them there is not likely to have been a son of Herod’s.

Only a few months before, however, Herod had put to death two of his sons, and the remark of Augustus may have been prompted by hearing successively of so many barbarities, the execution of two sons, of a number of infants, and of several of his own family and personal attendants.

While all these statements furnish only vague presumptions, yet they certainly tend to show that much was going on of a remarkable character about B.C. 7-6, and they fit in well with both Luke and Matthew. If the narratives of these two writers are true, they throw much light on Josephus and Macrobius, and receive illustration and confirmation from them.

But that which is most certain is that our non-Christian authorities are most meager and fragmentary. It is the extreme of uncritical and unscholarly procedure to condemn the Christian authorities because they tell some things which are not mentioned in any non-Christian source.

NOTE The fifteenth year of Tiberius. There are various ways of counting the years of an emperor’s reign; and doubt often exists which way is intended, when a date is given.

Luke might reckon the years of an emperor as beginning always from the anniversary of the day on which power was conferred on him. That mode of reckoning seems to have been always used by the emperors of the first century. In that case the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s rule in the provinces began near the end of A.D. 25, on the anniversary of the day when he originally received collegiate authority in the provinces. But that method was rarely, if ever, used by the general public or by historians in the East.

There was, however, a different method which was usually employed by many historians and chronologists, and was officially used by the emperors of the second and third centuries. The first year of the emperor was estimated to run from the day on which he assumed power to the conclusion of the current year; then the second year of the emperor began on the first day of the following current year.

If that reckoning was followed by Luke, we should have to inquire what system of years he followed, whether he counted the years as beginning on the Roman system from 1st January, or on the most usual Greek system in the Aegean lands from 23rd September, or on a common Syrian system from 18th April . On these three systems the fifteenth year of Tiberius might begin either 1st January, B.C. 25, or 23rd September, 25, or 18th April, 25.

But according to every system it will be found that the first Passover of Jesus’ teaching was the Passover of A.D. 26: the only difference which they make to the reckoning is that John’s preaching might be made to begin a little earlier on some than on other systems.

NOTE It is unfortunate that, in his admirable article on the “Chronology of the New Testament,” Mr. C. H. Turner sometimes disregards the principle admitted by most of the recent chronologists — that when any event was taken as an era, the years were not reckoned beginning from that day, but the year 1 was reckoned as the current year within which the event occurred, as for example in the Asian year beginning 23rd September, the year 1 of the Actian era was the year ending 22nd September, B.C. 31, although the battle of Actium was fought as late as 2nd September, 31 (so that the year 1 of this era came to an end three weeks after it began). This principle has been proved repeatedly in the last few years, and many difficulties, formerly found in reckoning ancient dates, disappear as soon as it is applied. Mr. Turner follows the old method, that the year 1 runs for twelve months from the epoch-making event (e .g ., that the first year of Herod’s reign lasted for 365 days from the day of his accession, and so on). Thus he is beset by the difficulties that result from it: e .g ., he declares that Josephus contradicts himself when he says that Antigonus died “on the day of the Great Fast in the consulship of Agrippa and Gallus (B.C. 37), twenty-seven years to a day since the entry of Pompey into Jerusalem in the consulship of Antonius and Cicero (B.C. 63)”. Josephus, indeed, has admitted not a few faults and slips into his historical works; but it is surely going too far to say that the two reckonings given in this sentence contradict one another. There is no contradiction, if one counts like Josephus. According to Mr. Turner’s reckoning, the lapse of twentyseven years after (circa ) 30th September, 63, brings us to 30th September, 36, but it brought Josephus only to 30th September, 37; and his two statements (made side by side in his text) agree exactly.

According to Niese in Hermes , 1893, p. 208 ff., Josephus in reckoning the years under the Roman emperors employed a solar year of the Julian type, but reckoned according to a Ty1ian (and perhaps common Syrian) method so that the year began from I Xanthicus, 18th April. Josephus also, as Niese holds, in order to avoid making the last year of one emperor coincide with the first year of his successor, reckoned the final year of each emperor as continuing, to the end of the current year, and made the first year of his successor begin only on 18th April following his accession.

This was necessary if the years of the emperors were to be used in a continuous chronological system. In this way, the year 1 of Tiberius began on 18th April, A.D. 15, and the year 22 continued to run till 17th April, A.D. 37 (though the reign really lasted from 19th August, A.D. 14, to 16th March, A.D. 37, i .e ., twenty-two years, six months, twenty-eight days).

Similarly, the year 1 of Nero began only on 18th April, A.D. 55, full six months after he really began to reign.

Mr, Turner points out that Eusebius followed a similar (but not identical) method, counting the years of every emperor from the September after his succession.

Orosius either employed a reckoning of this character or was misled by some authority who did so; and hence he makes the tenth year of Claudius include an event that happened in 51, and we must suppose that he means the fourth year of Claudius to be A.D. 45, and the ninth, A.D. 50 (see St . Paul the Traveller , pp. 68, 254, where I did not perceive what was the explanation of Orosius’s statements and called them errors).

But it is clear that Josephus did not employ this kind of reckoning for the Jewish rulers before Christ. It is more probable that he used either the Jewish sacred year beginning 1st Nisan (usually some time in March)or the Roman year beginning 1st January. For our purposes it will make no difference which system we follow (though there are, of course, many cases in which it might make the difference of a year); and as it will be simpler to use the Roman and modern reckoning from 1st January, we shall show the dates on that system. 1. Herod’s reign de jure began from a decree of the Senate passed in the consulship of Domitius and Pollio B.C. 40, during the 184th Olympiad which ended at midsummer in that year. Year 1 of Herod’s reign de jure ended on 31st December B.C.. 40: year 37 of Herod’s reign de jure ended on 31st December, B.C. 4. (If the decree was passed at a Senate meeting of 1st January or 1st February, and the Jewish reckoning from 1st Nisan be followed, the years of Herod’s reign would all be carried back one year, so that the year would end on 18th April, B. C 4; but it is improbable that the decree was passed at these first two Senate meetings.) Herod died in the thirtyseventh year of his reign de jure , i .e ., in the year B.C. 4, immediately before the Passover, and perhaps (as Lewin reckons) on 1st April. 2. Pompey entered Jerusalem on the Great Fast about the end of September, B.C. 63. In reckoning from this event, year 1 is the year ending 31st December, B.C. 63; year 27 is the year ending 31st December, B.C. 37; Herod succeeded as de facto king on the same fast day, twenty-seven years after Pompey entered Jerusalem, i .e ., about the end of September, B.C. 37, in which year the consuls were Agrippa and Gallus. Year 1 of Herod’s reign de facto ended 31st December, B.C.37; year 18 of Herod’s reign de facto ended 31st December, B.C. 29: year 34 of Herod’s reign de facto ended 31st December, B.C. 4.

Herod died in the year 34 of his reign de facto , i .e ., in the year B.C. 4. This agrees exactly with the previous result.

Now the Temple began to be built in the eighteenth year of Herod, i .e ., B.C. 20. In reckoning from this event ( John 2:20), the Jews would presumably count according to their own system of sacred years beginning 1st Nisan. There is therefore a doubt what was the first year of the building of the Temple. If the building began in January-March, B.C. 20, the first year would end at 1st Nisan 20, and would begin from 1st Nisan, B.C. 21; but if the building began in April or later, the first year would end at 1st Nisan in B.C. 19. We take the latter as more probable. Then the year 1 of the building of the Temple begins on 1st Nisan, B.C. 20; year 46 of the building of the Temple begins on 1st Nisan, A.D. 26.

The Jews disputing with Jesus at the Passover in the middle of Nisan A.D. 26 would therefore on their system of reckoning call it the 46th year. “Forty and six years has this temple been in course of building (and is still building).” It is apparent how many uncertainties are caused in ancient chronology, through the variety of systems of reckoning the year, and other variations in different cities. We have not indicated nearly all such causes of doubt.

For example, as M. Clermont Ganneau says, the Seleucid era was reckoned from 1st October, B.C. 312, but the era of Damascus was reckoned from 23rd March of the same year.

NOTE A different explanation of Luke’s chronology may be approved by some, and it therefore deserves a place here. I am not aware that it has been advocated; but in all probability it has found some supporters, like every other possible view on this subject.

It is founded on the theory — which some think highly probable — that Luke considered the teaching of Jesus to have extended only over a little more than twelve months, beginning shortly before the Passover in one year and ending with the Passover of the following year. On that theory one might interpret the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s reign in the usual way, from his assumption of power after the death of Augustus, 19th August, A.D. 14. If, as many historians did, Luke reckoned the first year of Tiberius to end on 31st December, A.D. 14, and the fifteenth year to begin 1st January, A.D. 28, the baptism of Jesus would have to be placed early in that year, and the crucifixion at the Passover of 29. If, on the other hand, he reckoned the first year of Tiberius from 19th August, A.D.14, to 18th August, A.D. 15, then the baptism of Jesus would have to be placed early in 29, and the crucifixion in A.D. 30; but we have already set aside this supposition as less probable.

According to this method of explanation it would be necessary to suppose that in 3:23 Luke depended on an excellent authority, who knew both the correct age when Jesus began his teaching and the fact that the teaching lasted three years and a few months; but in <420301> 3:1-2 he depended on his own reckoning, founded on his false impression that the teaching lasted only one year and a few months. The fact would remain clear and certain that the crucifixion took place in A.D. 29, and the teaching really began in the early spring of 26 (exactly as we have placed them).

There seems to us to be no necessity for supposing this partial error on Luke’s part.

CHAPTER - QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA WE come now to the last serious difficulty in Luke’s account of the “First Enrollment”. He says that it occurred while Quirinius was administering Syria.

The famous administration of Syria by Quirinius lasted from about A.D. to 9; and during that time occurred the” Great Enrollment” and valuation of property in Palestine. Obviously the incidents described by Luke are irreconcilable with that date.

There was found near Tibur (Tivoli) in A.D.1764 a fragment of marble with part of an inscription, which is now preserved in the Lateran Museum of Christian Antiquities, as one of the important monuments bearing on the history of Christianity. The inscription records the career and honors of a Roman official who lived in the reign of Augustus, and survived that emperor. He conquered a nation; he was rewarded with two Supplicationes and the Ornamenta Triumphalia , i .e ., he gorgeous dress of a triumphing general, with ivory scepter and chariot, etc .; he governed Asia as proconsul; and he twice governed Syria as legatus of the divine Augustus.

Though the name has perished, yet these indications are sufficient to show with practical certainty (as all the highest authorities are agreed — Mommsen, Borghesi, de Rossi, Henzen, Dessau, and others), that the officer who achieved this splendid career was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius.

His government of Syria, A.D.6-9, was therefore his second tenure of that office. He had administered Syria at some previous time. Is not this earlier administration the occasion to which Luke refers?

Here again, however, we are confronted with a serious difficulty. The supreme authority on the subject, Mommsen, considers that the most probable date for Quirinius’s first government of Syria is about B.C. 3-1; but the question is involved in serious doubts, which Mommsen fully acknowledges. That time is doubly inconsistent with Luke: Herod was dead before it, and it is inconsistent with the whole argument of the preceding pages that the enrollment should have been postponed so long after the periodic year B.C. 9.

Again, Luke does not specify exactly what was the Roman office which Quirinius held at the time when this first enrollment was made. The Greek word which he uses hJgemoneu>ontov th~v Suri>av Kurhni>ou occurs elsewhere in his History, indicating the office of procurator ( Luke 3:1; so hJgemw>n , Acts 23:24,26,33; Acts 24 1, 10; Acts 26:30) and the noun connected with it is even used ( Luke 3:1) to indicate the supreme authority exercised by the reigning Emperor in a province.

Hence the word, as employed by Luke, might be applied to any Roman official holding a leading and authoritative position in the province of Syria. It might quite naturally denote some special mission of a high and authoritative nature; and many excellent authorities have argued that Quirinius was dispatched to Syria on some such mission, and that Luke, in assigning the date, mentions him in preference to the regular governor.

We find, then, that uncertainty reigns both as to the date of Quirinius’s first governorship, and as to whether Luke called him governor or intended to indicate that he held a special mission in Syria.

Let us now scrutinize closely the evidence bearing on the career of Quirinius. We shall find that, as in so many other cases, a firm grasp of the clue that Luke offers us will guide us safely through a peculiarly entangled problem, and will illuminate a most obscure page of history. The difficulties of the case are due to the contempt in which Luke’s testimony has been held by the historians and one school of theologians, and the timorous and faltering belief of others.

The only certain dates in the life of Quirinius are his consulship in B.C. 12, his second government of Syria beginning in A.D. 6, his prosecution of his former wife, Domitia Lepida, in A.D. 20, and his death and public funeral in A.D. 21. It is certain that during the eighteen years’ interval between his consulship, B.C. 12, and his second Syrian administration, A.D. 6, the following important events in his career occurred. 1. He held office in Syria, and carried on war with the Homonadenses, a tribe in the inner mountainous district lying between Phrygia, Cilicia and Lycaonia: he gained in this war successes which were judged so important that two solemn acts of thanksgiving to the gods (supplicationes ) in Rome were decreed, and the decorations of a triumphing general were awarded to him. The two supplicationes were probably awarded for victories in two successive years, for a supplicatio was the compliment awarded for a successful campaign, and it is hardly probable that two such compliments would be paid to a general in one year for a single war against one tribe.

Moreover, taking into consideration the difficult character of the country where the war occurred, the distance from Syria, the strength of the tribe which had successfully defied the armies of King Amyntas, and the stubborn resistance likely to be offered at point after point and town after town in their large territory, it is quite natural that two campaigns might be required for the whole operations. It is, however, not wholly impossible that two specially brilliant victories may have been gained in one year over the tribe, and that each was thought worthy of a supplicatio . 2. Quirinius governed Asia after his first administration of Syria. This was usually an annual office, and the probability therefore is that in his case also it lasted only one year. The exact date is uncertain. We know with great probability that Asinius Gallus governed Asia in B.C. 6-5.

Cn. Lentulus Augur governed Asia in B.C. 2-1, also B.C. 1-A.D. 1 M. Plautius Silvanus governed Asia in A.D. 1-2.

Marcius Censorinus governed Asia in A.D. 2-3.

Further, Quirinius was probably in Armenia in A.D. 3, as tutor of Gaius Caesar. There are therefore open for Quirinius’s tenure of the proconsulship of Asia only the years B.C. 5-4, or 4-3, or 3-2, or A.D. 4-5, or 5-6.

Again, as M. Waddington, the supreme authority on the subject, points out, the normal interval between the consulship and the proconsulate of Asia during Augustus’s reign was five or six years. The only long interval known in that period is twelve years, viz ., in the case of Cn. Lentulus Augur, who was consul B.C. 14 and proconsul of Asia B.C. 2. It is therefore not probable that Quirinius’s proconsulate was postponed over such a long interval as sixteen years (B.C. 12 to A.D. 4). We therefore conclude that he was probably governor of Asia some years between B.C. 5 and 2, and at latest B.C. 3-2. Now, his Syrian administration was earlier, and therefore B.C. 4-3 is the latest that he can have spent in Syria.

Thus already we find ourselves led to a different opinion from Mommsen’s theory. 3. When Lollius, the tutor of Augustus’s young grandson Gaius Caesar, who was charged with the arrangement of the Armenian difficulties, died in A.D. 2, Quirinius was selected as his successor, obviously on the ground of his great experience in Eastern service. Thereafter he must have spent A.D. 3 in Armenia, and probably remained in company with Gaius until the latter, coming back towards Italy wounded and ill, died on the Lycian coast on 21st February, A.D. 4.

Zumpt, however, argued that Quirinius was sent to Armenia with Gaius Caesar in B.C. 1; and that afterwards Lollius took his place. We follow Mommsen; but it is obvious how difficult and slippery the whole career of Quirinius is, and how slow we should be to condemn Luke for an error in regard to him. 4. Quirinius married Domitia Lepida at some unknown date. He afterwards divorced her, and accused her of attempting to poison him in A.D. 20.

Suetonius mentions, as a fact which roused general sympathy for Domitia, that the accusation was brought in the twentieth year after. We ask, “After what?” Common-sense shows Mommsen and others to be right in understanding “the twentieth year after the marriage”; we therefore reject the other interpretation “the twentieth year after the divorce”. Mommsen supposes that the marriage was contracted in A.D. 4, when Quirinius returned from his honorable duties in Armenia, and that Suetonius makes a great exaggeration when he speaks of the twentieth year. But in such an obscure subject it is surely best to follow the few authorities whom we have, unless they are proved to be inconsistent with known facts. Suetonius is a good authority. Can we not justify him to some extent?

Domitia Lepida had been betrothed to Augustus’s elder grandson, Lucius Caesar, and on his premature death was married to Quirinius. Now Lucius died on 20th August, A.D. 2. But the Romans of that period showed the minimum of delicacy in respect of marriages. As soon as the betrothed husband of a wealthy and noble heiress died, the place was open to reward some of Augustus’s trusted servants; and no long delay is likely to have occurred in giving her a substitute for Lucius. It is probable that she was married to Quirinius in the autumn of A.D. 2, and thus the accusation was brought against her in the nineteenth year (according to Roman methods of counting) from her marriage. In round numbers the populace would talk of “the twentieth year,” and thus Suetonius’s expression is justified; he professes to be reporting the common talk about the trial.

We conclude, then, that Quirinius was in Rome in the autumn of A.D. 2; and was then honored with this grand marriage and the post of guardian to the future emperor, Gaius Caesar. But such honors as this imply that his career in preceding years had been very distinguished. Thus we become still more firmly convinced that his pro-consulate in Asia was past as well as his government of Syria, and that these positions, with the experience in Oriental affairs acquired in them, marked out Quirinius as the proper person to guide the inexperienced Gaius Caesar, and to set right the muddle which had been produced by the headstrong and ill-regulated conduct of Lollius, the previous guardian of the young prince.

These lines of reasoning make it most probable that the two years during which Quirinius was administering Syria and conquering the Homonadenses cannot have been later than B.C. 5-3, and may have been earlier.

The same result follows from the consideration that the punishment of the Homonadenses is not likely to have been postponed so late as the years B.C. 3-2. The presence of a tribe of barbarians, hostile and victorious, on the frontier of the Roman provinces Galatia and Pamphylia, and adjoining the dependent kingdom of Cilicia Tracheia governed by Archelaos, must have been a source of constant danger. We know that about B.C. 6 the pacification of the mountainous Pisidian districts in the south of the Galatic province was proceeding, and the system of military roads was being constructed; and this operation was probably coincident with or even subsequent to the war against the Homonadenses.

But here we find ourselves face to face with the difficulty which has determined Professor Mommsen to place the first Syrian government of Quirinius in B.C. 3-1. Quinctilius Varus governed Syria for at least three years, 7-4 B.C.: this is rendered quite certain by dated coins of Syrian Antioch struck in his name, and by the statement of Tacitus that he was governing Syria during the disturbances that followed on the death of Herod. Sentius Saturninus certainly governed Syria 9-7 B.C., and Josephus says that he was succeeded by Quinctilius Varus. There seems therefore no room for Quirinius’s administration of Syria until we come down as late as B.C. 3; yet we have already seen that other lines of argument prompt us to place his Syrian government earlier than that year.

In this difficulty I see no outlet in any direction, whether favorable or unfavorable to Luke, except in the supposition that the foreign relations of Syria, with the command of its armies, were entrusted for a time to Quirinius, with a view to his conducting the difficult and responsible war against the Homonadenses, while the internal administration of the province was left to Saturninus or to Varus (according to the period when we place the mission of Quirinius). This extraordinary command of Quirinius lasted for at least two years, and had come to an end before the death of Herod in B.C. 4, for we know on the authority of Tacitus that the disturbances arising in Palestine on that event were put down by Varus; and this trouble, as belonging to the foreign relations of the Province, would on our hypothesis have been dealt with by Quirinius, if he had been still in office.

The question will be put, and must be answered, whether such a temporary division of duties in the Province is in accordance with the Roman Imperial practice. Such a theory is not permissible, unless it is defended by analogous cases and by natural probability. The theory was first suggested to my mind by the analogous case of the African administration, which from the time of Caligula onwards was divided in such a way, that the military power, and with it the foreign policy of the Province, was controlled by a Lieutenant of Augustus, while the internal affairs of the Province were left to the ordinary governor, a Proconsul.

Almost simultaneously with my papers on the subject there appeared a memoir by Monsieur R. S. Bour, in which he quotes some other analogies to justify this view. He points out that Vespasian conducted the war in Palestine, while Mucianus was governor of Syria, from which Palestine was dependent. Tacitus styles Vespasian dux , which is not a strictly official title, but exactly describes his actual duty. He was a Lieutenant of the reigning Emperor Nero, holding precisely the same title and technical rank as Mucianus. We suppose that Quirinius stood in exactly the same relation to Varus as Vespasian in regard to Mucianus.

Quirinius was a special Lieutenant of Augustus, who conducted the war against the Homonadenses, while Varus administered the ordinary affairs of Syria. The duties of Quirinius might be described by calling him dux in Latin, and the Greek equivalent is necessarily and correctly hJgemw>n , as Luke has it.

Again, Corbulo commanded the armies of Syria in the war against Parthia and Armenia, while Ummidius Quadratus and Cestius Gallus were governors of Syria. Josephus speaks of Gallus, but never mentions the name of Corbulo. We suppose that Quirinius stood in the same relative position as Corbulo, and Josephus preserves the same silence about both.

The chief difference between the view which M. Bour holds and the theory which we advocate is that he distinguishes this position which Quirinius held in B.C. 7-6 from the first governorship of Syria, which, like Mommsen, he places after B.C. 4. This makes the unnecessary complication that Quirinius first commanded the Syrian armies, then after two or three years governed Syria, and then once more governed Syria. But M. Bour does not observe that even on the first occasion Quirinius was legatus Augusti ; and it appears quite correct to say that in A.D. 6-9 he as legatus Divi Alugusti iterum Syria obtinuit , even if he had not been again governor of Syria after B.C. 7-6.

Moreover, in the inscription recording the career of (probably) Quirinius, there is no possible space to insert a distinct government of Syria between his successes against the Homonadenses and his second governorship. The inscription clearly implies that the Homonadenses were conquered in his first Syrian administration.

It is a matter of secondary importance that M. Bour supposes Saturninus to have ruled Syria while the enrollment of Palestine was going on, and yet acknowledges that this occurred in B.C. 7 or 6. As we have seen, Varus came to govern Syria in the summer of B.C. 7. The conclusion of the whole argument is this.

About B.C. 8-5, Augustus made a great effort to pacify the dangerous and troublesome mountaineers of Taurus, to prevent the continual plundering Which they practiced on the peaceable provinces to which they were neighbors, Asia, Galatia and Syria-Cilicia, and to avenge the death of the Roman tributary King of Galatia, Amyntas, in B.C. 25. On the one hand the governor of Galatia, on the other hand the governor of Syria, were both required in this work. Part of the mountaineers’ country was nominally part of the Province Galatia, having been formerly in the kingdom of Amyntas (which had been transformed into the Province Galatia). But Galatia did not contain an army; and the administration of Syria-Cilicia had always to intervene, when Roman troops were needed during that period on the eastern Roman frontiers.

In B.C. 6 the first great step and foundation of the Roman organization was in process of being carried out among the western and northern mountaineers by Cornutus Aquila, governor of Galatia. A military roadsystem was built among them, and a series of garrison-cities (Coloniae ) was founded, Olbasa, Comama, Cremna, Parlais and Lystra. These fortresses were connected by the Imperial roads with the governing center of Southern Galatia, the great Colonia Caesarea Antiocheia in Southern Phrygia adjoining Pisidia.

About the same time the military operations from the side of Syria were carried out. Josephus tells so much about Saturninus, as to make it clear that he was not engaged in an arduous and difficult war far away in the Taurus mountains, south from Iconium and Lystra. Either the war was later than his time, or it was conducted by a distinct official. As to the official’s name there is no doubt. Strabo tells us that it was Quirinius who conquered the Homonadenses and revenged the death of Amyntas.

The period is, on the whole, likely to coincide with the connected operations of Cornutus Aquila on the north-western side.

Accordingly, the probability is that in B.C. 7, when Varus came to govern Syria, Augustus perceived that the internal affairs of the province would require all the energy of the regular governor, and sent at the same time a special officer with the usual title, Lieutenant of Augustus, to administer the military resources of the province, and specially to conduct the war against the Homonadenses and any other foreign relations that demanded military intervention. Moreover, Varus had no experience in war; and an experienced officer was needed. Thus, Quirinius conducted the war pretty certainly in B.C. 6, perhaps in 7 and 6, perhaps in 6 and 5.

The first periodic enrollment of Syria was made under Saturninus in B.C. 8- 7. The enrollment of Palestine was delayed by the causes described until the late summer or autumn of B.C. 6. At that time, Varus was controlling the internal affairs of Syria, while Quirinius was commanding its armies and directing its foreign policy.

Tertullian, finding that the first periodic enrollment in Syria was made under Saturninus, inferred too hastily that the enrollment in Palestine was made under that governor. With full consciousness and intention, he corrects Luke’s statement, and declares that Christ was born during the census taken by Sentius Saturninus. Luke, more accurately, says that the enrollment of Palestine was made while Quirinius was acting as leader (hJgemw>n ) in Syria.

The question will perhaps be put whether Luke could rightly describe the authority of Quirinius by the words “holding the Hegemonia of Syria”.

The preceding exposition leaves no doubt on this point. The usage of Luke shows that he regards Hegemonia in the provinces as the attribute both of the Emperor and of the officers to whom the Emperor delegates his power.

Now that is quite true in point of fact. The Emperor primarily held the supreme authority in Syria (which was one of the Imperatorial provinces, as distinguished from those which were administered by the Senate through the agency of its officers, entitled Proconsuls). But the Emperor could not himself be present in Syria or in Palestine, hence he delegated to substitutes, or Lieutenants, the exercise of his authority in the various provinces which were under his own direct power. These substitutes, when of senatorial rank, bore the title Legatus Augusti pro praetore , and when of equestrian rank the title Procurator cum jure gladii ; but both Legati and Procuratores are called by Luke Hegemones , as exercising the Hegemonia that belongs to the Emperor.

Now Quirinius was exercising this delegated Hegemonia over the armies of the Province Syria, and it seems quite in keeping with Luke’s brief pregnant style to say that he held the Hegemonia of Syria.

But why did Luke not name Varus, the ordinary governor, in place of dating by the extraordinary officer? If he had had regard to the susceptibilities of modern scholars, and the extreme dearth of knowledge about the period, which was to exist 1800 years after he wrote, he would certainly have named Varus. But he was writing for readers who could as easily find out about Quirinius as about Varus, and he had no regard for us of the nineteenth century. Quirinius ruled for a shorter time than Varus, and he controlled the foreign relations of the province, hence he furnished the best means of dating.

But why did Luke not distinguish clearly between this enrollment and the later enrollment of A.D. 7, which was held by Quirinius in Syria and in Palestine? We answer that he does distinguish, accurately and clearly. He tells that this was the first enrollment of the series, but the moderns are determined to misunderstand him. They insist that Luke confused the use of comparative and superlative in Greek, and that we cannot take the full force of the word “first” as “first of many”. They go on to put many other stumbling-blocks in the way, but none of these cause any difficulty if we hold fast to the fundamental principle that Luke was a great historian who wrote good Greek of the first century kind.

NOTE Quinctilius Varus, governor of Syria. The exact date is shown by the coins of Antioch, which bear the numbers ke, kv>, kz > of the Actian era, accompanied by the name of Varus. Now the battle of Actium was fought on 2nd September, 31. When such an event was taken as an era, the years were not (as was formerly assumed by many authorities) made to begin from the anniversary of the event. The years went on as before; but the current year in which the event occurred was reckoned the year 1. Hence, in countries where the Greek year common in the Aegean lands, beginning at the autumn equinox, was employed, the year 1 of the Actian era was B.C. 32-31 (beginning 24th September, 32).

But that system could not be the one which was employed in reckoning the Actian years at Antioch, for the year 26 in that case would end in the autumn of B.C. 6. Now, coins of the Actian year 26 mention the twelfth consulship of Augustus, which did not begin till 1st January, B.C. 5; similarly coins of the year 29 (ending on that system in autumn B.C. 3) mentioned the thirteenth consulship of Augustus, which did not begin until 1st January, B.C. 2.

The Actian years in Antioch were therefore reckoned by a system in which the years began before 2nd September. It is probable that the year which was sometimes used in Syria, beginning on 18th April, may have been employed also in Antioch. But whatever the exact day of New Year was, the following table shows the system of Actian years in Antioch: — A ct ia n ye ar 1 e nd ed i n sp ri ng ( pe rh ap s 17 th A pr il ), B. C . A ct ia n ye ar 2 5 en de d in s pr in g (p er ha ps 1 7t h Ap ri l) , B. C . A ct ia n ye ar 2 7 en de d in s pr in g (p er ha ps 1 7t h Ap ri l) , B. C . A ct ia n ye ar 2 9 en de d in s pr in g (p er ha ps 1 7t h Ap ri l) , B. C . Varus, therefore, came to Syria at such a time that coins marked 25 were struck after his arrival, i .e ., he arrived probably soon after midsummer of that year, i .e ., July to September, B.C. 7. He remained in Syria until at least the midsummer of B.C. 4, some months after the death of Herod.

NOTE The theory has also been advanced that Quirinius was one of a number of commissioners, appointed by Augustus to hold the enrollment throughout the Roman world, Quirinius being the commissioner for Syria and Palestine. In this capacity, also, Quirinius would be a delegate exercising the Emperor’s authority, Legattts Augusti ; and therefore he might rightly be said by Luke hJgemoneu>ein th~v Suri>av This theory is possible; it offends against no principle of Roman procedure or of language. It may be the truth. But, on the whole, it seems to have less in its favor than the one which has been advocated in the text. M.R.S. Bour judges of it exactly as I have done. It was advocated in the summer of 1897 by Signor O.