Was Christ Born
at Bethlehem?
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED
WAS CHRIST BORN AT
Bethlehem? A Study on
the Credibility of St. Luke. By W. M.
Ramsay, M.A., D.C.L. & & *$*
THIRD EDITION
LONDON: HODDER AND
STOUGHTON * * 27
PATERNOSTER ROW 1905
iQ
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY UNCLE
ANDREW MITCHELL
M206449 *
PREFACE
UNDERSTANDING that a certain criticism im-
plied a sort of challenge to apply my theory
of Luke's character as a historian to the
Gospel, I took what is generally acknow-
ledged to be the most doubtful passage, from
the historian's view, in the New Testament,
Luke ii. 1-4. Many would not even call
it doubtful. Strauss (in his New Life of
Jesus) and Renan dismiss it in a short
footnote as unworthy even of mention in
the text.
This passage, interpreted according to the
view which I have maintained that Luke
was a great historian, and that he appreci-
ated the force of the Greek superlative (in
spite of the contradiction of Professor Blass
and others) gave the result that Luke was
acquainted with a system of Periodic En-
rolments in Syria, and probably in the East
viil PREFACE
generally. I looked for evidence of such
a system ; and it was offered by recent
discoveries in Egypt. The confirmation
afforded to Luke was explained in the
Expositor , April and June, 1897.
Realising better in subsequent thought
the bearings of the Egyptian discovery, I
have enlarged these two articles into an
argument against the view that Luke sinks,
in the accessories of his narrative, below the
standard exacted from ordinary historians.
At the risk of repeating views already
stated in previous works, the second chapter
attempts to put clearly the present state of
the question as regards the two books of
Luke, without expecting others to be
familiar with my views already published.
The names of those scholars whose views
I contend against are hardly ever mentioned.
The scholars of the " destructive " school
seem to prefer not to be mentioned, when
one differs from them. I have learned much
from them ; I was once guided by them ; I
believe that the right understanding of the
PREFACE
New Testament has been very greatly ad-
vanced by their laudable determination to
probe and to understand everything, as is
stated on p. 33 ; but I think their con-
clusions are to a great extent erroneous.
It might, however, be considered disin-
genuous if I concealed that the weighty
authority of Gardthausen, the historian of
Augustus, is dead against me, p. 102.
My best thanks are due to Professor
Paterson, who has discussed many points
and cleared up my views in many ways ;
to Mr. B. P. Grenfell, who read the first
proof of chapter vii., and enabled me to
strengthen it ; and, at last, to Mr. F. G.
Kenyon ; to Mr. A. C. Hunt ; to Mr.
Vernon Bartlett ; and to Mr. A. Souter.
The language of the book has profited
much by my wife's care in revision.
It would be impossible and only weari-
some to the reader if it were possible to
trace the origin of every thought expressed
in the following pages. Where I was con-
scious, at the moment of writing, that I was
b
x PREFACE
using an idea suggested by another, I have
said so ; but as regards the New Testament,
one learns in the course of years so much
from so many sources that one knows not
who is the teacher in each detail.
The relation between the almost identical
solutions of the Quirinius difficulty, pro-
posed nearly simultaneously by M. R. S.
Bour and myself, is explained in chapter xi.
W. M. RAMSAY.
POSTSCRIPT. I hear, Oct. 2, that Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt
have found a household-enrolment paper a little older than A.D. 50.
The date is lost, but the same officials are mentioned in it as in
a document of the 6th year of [Tiberius], where the names of
Claudius and Caligula are impossible. Hence the paper belongs
to the census of A.D. 20, and proves conclusively my theory as to
the origin of the Periodic Enrolments from Augustus. Much of
the argument in ch. vii., printed when the Periodic Enrolments
were traced with certainty only as far back as A.D. 92, is now
confirmed so completely, that part of it is hardly necessary.
CONTENTS
PART I. IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. LUKE'S HISTORY: WHAT IT PROFESSES
TO BE 3
II. PLAN AND UNITY OF LUKE'S HISTORY . 22
III. THE ATTITUDE OF LUKE TO THE ROMAN
EMPIRE 49
IV. IMPORTANCE IN LUKE'S HISTORY OF THE
STORY OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST . 73
PART II. SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
CHAPTER V. THE QUESTION AT ISSUE .... 95
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER VI. LUKE'S ACCOUNT OF THE ENROLMENT . 117
VII. ENROLMENT BY HOUSEHOLDS IN EGYPT . 131
VIII. THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT OF THE YEAR
8 B.C 149
IX. THE ENROLMENT OF PALESTINE BY HEROD
THE KING 174
X. CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST . 197
XI. QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA . 227
PART III.
CHAPTER XII. SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS. , . 251
APPENDIX.
SPECIMENS OF THE DOCUMENTS 271
PART I.
IMPORTANCE OP THE PROBLEM
CHAPTER I.
LUKE'S HISTORY : WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE.
AMONG the writings which are collected in the
New Testament, there is included a History of the
life of Christ and of the first steps in the diffusion
of his teaching through the Roman world, com-
posed in two books. These two books have been
separated from one another as if they were different
works, and are ordinarily called " The Gospel
according to St. Luke " and " The Acts of the
Apostles ". It is, however, certain from their
language, and it is admitted by every scholar, that
the two books were composed by a single author
as parts of a single historical work on a uniform
plan. After a period of independent existence,
this History in two books was incorporated in the
Canon, and its unity was broken up : the first
(3)
4 LUKE'S HISTORY
book was placed among the group of four Gospels,
and the second was left apart.
Professor Blass has pointed out a trace of this
original independent existence in the famous manu-
script which was presented by the Reformer Beza
to the University of Cambridge. In that manu-
script the name of John is spelt in two different
ways, the form Joanes being almost invariably used
in Luke and Acts, and Joannes in the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark and John.* That slight difference
in orthography leads us back to the time of some
old copyist, who used as his authority a manu-
script of the History of St. Luke, in which the
spelling Joanes was employed, and different manu-
scripts of the other Gospels containing the spelling
Joannes. Probably the spelling Joanes was that
employed by the original author ; and it is adopted
in Westcott and Hort's edition throughout the
New Testament, except in Acts iv. 6 and Rev.
xxii. 8.
This historical work in two books is attributed
by tradition to St. Luke, the companion and pupil
of St. Paul. We are not here concerned with that
* Exceptions one in Luke, two each in Matthew, Mark and
Acts, seven in John.
WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE 5
tradition. Since all scholars are agreed that the same
author wrote both books, we shall use the tra-
ditional name to indicate him merely for the sake
of brevity, as it is necessary to have some name by
which to designate the author ; but we shall found
no argument upon the authorship. Like Professor
Blass, I see no reason to doubt the tradition ; but
those who do not accept the tradition may treat
the name Luke in these pages as a mere sign to
indicate the author, whoever he may be.
The point with which we are here specially con-
cerned is the trustworthiness of this author as a
historian. Many facts are recorded by him alone,
and it is a serious question whether or not they
can be accepted on his sole authority.
This is a subject on which there prevails a good
deal of misapprehension and even confusion of
thought. There are many who seem to think
that they show fairness of mind by admitting that
Luke has erred in this point or in that, while they
still cling to their belief in other things, which he,
and he alone, records, on the ground that in those
cases there is no clear evidence against him. But
it must be said that this way of reasoning is really
mistaken and unjustifiable : it refuses to make the
LUKE'S HISTORY
inference that necessarily follows from the first
admission.
While human nature is fallible, and any man
may make a slip in some unimportant detail, it is
absolutely necessary to demand inexorably from a
real historian accuracy in the essential and critical
facts. We may pardon an occasional instance of
bias or prejudice ; for who is wholly free from it?
But we cannot pardon any positive blunder in the
really important points. If a historian is convicted
of error in such a vital point, he ceases to
be trustworthy on his own account ; and every
statement that he makes must gain credit from
testimony external to him, or from general reasons
and arguments, before we accept it. Especially
must this be the case with the ancient historians,
who as a rule hide their authorities and leave us in
the dark as to the reasons and evidence that guided
them to formulate their statements. There may
be there always are many facts which the
poorest chronicler records correctly ; but we
accept each of these, not because of the recorder's
accurate and sound judgment in selecting his facts,
but because of other reasons external to him. If
there is in such a historian any statement that is
WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE 7
neither supported nor contradicted by external
evidence, it remains uncertain and is treated as
possibly true, but it shares in the suspicion roused
by the one serious blunder.
If we claim and I have elsewhere in the
most emphatic terms claimed a high rank for
Luke as regards trustworthiness, we must look
fairly and squarely at the serious errors that are
charged against him. If the case is proved against
him in any of these, we must fairly admit the
inevitable inference. If, on the other hand, we
hold that the case is not proved, it is quite justifi-
able and reasonable, in a period of history so
obscure as the first century, to plead, as many
have done, that, while we cannot in the present
dearth of information solve the difficulty com-
pletely, we are obliged, in accordance with our
perception of the high quality of the author's work
as a whole, to accept his statement in certain cases
where he is entirely uncorroborated. These must
for the present rank among the difficulties of
Luke. There are difficulties in every important
Greek author, and each difficulty is the scholar's
opportunity.
But it must be the aim of those who believe
8 LUKE'S HISTORY
in the high character of Luke's History, to dis-
cover new evidence which shall remove these
difficulties and justify the controverted statements.
The progress of discovery has recently placed in
our hands the solution of one most serious diffi-
culty and the justification of one much controverted
statement ; and the following pages are written
with the intention of showing what is the bearing
of this discovery on the general question as to the
historical credibility of Luke.
The whole spirit and tone of modern commen-
taries on Luke's writings depend on the view
which the commentators take on this question. In
some cases the commentator holds that no historical
statement made by Luke is to be believed, unless
it can be proved from authorities independent of
him. The commentary on Luke then degenerates
into a guerilla warfare against him ; the march of
the narrative is interrupted at every step by a
series of attacks in detail. Hardly any attempt is
made to estimate as a whole, or to determine
what is the most favourable interpretation that can
be placed on any sentence in the work. There is
a manifest predilection in favour of the interpreta-
tion which is discordant with external facts or
WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE
with other statements in Luke. If it is possible to
read into a sentence a meaning which contradicts
another passage in the same author, that is at once
assumed to be the one intended by him ; and his
incapacity and untrustworthiness are illustrated in
the commentary.
But no work of literature could stand being
treated after this fashion. Imagine the greatest
of pagan authors commented on in such a way ;
any slip of expression exaggerated or distorted ;
sentences strained into contradiction with other
passages of the same or other authors ; the com-
mentary directed to magnify every fault, real
or imaginary, but remaining silent about every
excellence. There have occasionally been such
commentaries written about great classical authors ;
and they have always been condemned by the
general consent of scholars. Even where the bias
of the commentator was due to a not altogether
unhealthy revolt against general over-estimate of
the author under discussion, the world of scholar-
ship has always recognised that the criticism which
looks only for faults is useless, misleading, unpro-
gressive, and that it defeats itself, when it tries to
cure an evil by a much greater evil. Scholarship
10 LUKE'S HISTORY
and learning sacrifice their vitality, and lose all that
justifies their existence, when they cease to be fair
and condescend to a policy of " malignity ".
In this discussion it is obviously necessary to
conduct the investigation as one of pure history,
to apply to it the same canons of criticism and
interpretation that are employed in the study of
the other ancient historians, and to regard as our
subject, not " the Gospel according to St. Luke,"
but the History composed by Luke. The former
name is apt to suggest prepossession and prejudice :
the latter is purely critical and dispassionate.
In estimating the character and qualities of an
author we must look first of all to his opportunities.
Had he good means of reaching the truth, or was
his attempt to attain thorough knowledge of the
facts made in the face of great difficulties ? An
historian ought to give us a statement of his own
claims to be received as trustworthy, or an estimate
of the character of the evidence which he had at
his disposal.
Luke has not failed to put clearly before his
readers what character he claims for his history.
He has given us, in the prefatory paragraph of his
Gospel, a clear statement of the intention with
WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE 11
which he wrote his history, and of the qualifica-
tions which give him the right to be accepted as
an authority. He was not an eye-witness of the
remarkable events which he is proceeding to
record, but was one of the second generation to
whom the information had been communicated by
those " who were from the beginning eye-witnesses
and ministers of the word ". The simplest inter-
pretation of his words is that he claims to have
received much of his information from the mouths
of eye-witnesses ; and, on careful study of the
preface as a whole, it seems impossible to avoid the
conclusion that he deliberately makes this claim.
Any other interpretation, though it might be
placed on one clause by itself, is negatived by the
drift of the paragraph as a whole.
Thus Luke claims to have had access to autho-
rities of the first rank, persons who had seen and
heard and acted in the events which he records.
He makes no distinction as to parts of his narrative.
He claims the very highest authority for it as a whole.
In the second place, Luke claims to have studied
and comprehended every event in its origin and
development,* i.e., to have investigated the pre-
12 LUKE'S HISTORY
liminary circumstances, the genesis and growth of
what he writes about. Exactness and definiteness
of detail in his narrative these are implied in the
word a/c/ot|3wc : investigation and personal study-
implied in the word TrapriKoXovOiiKOTt : tracing of
events from their causes and origin implied in
avwQtv : such are the qualities which Luke declares
to be his justification for writing a narrative, when
many other narratives already were in existence ;
and he says emphatically that this applies to all
that he narrates.
The expression used clearly implies that Luke
began to write his narrative, because he was already
in possession of the knowledge gained by study
and investigation ; as he begins, he is in the position
of one who already has acquired the information
needed for his purpose. This is implied in the
perfect Tra/or/KoXovflij/cori. The rendering in the
Authorised and the Revised Version does not bring
this out quite clearly : from the English words
" it seemed good to me also, having traced the
course of all things accurately from the first,* to
write unto thee in order " one might infer that
the study and tracing of the course of events was
* Better " from their origin ".
WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE 13
resolved upon with the view of writing the history.
But in the Greek that meaning would require the
aorist participle. With the perfect participle the
meaning must be " as I already possess the know-
ledge, it seemed good to me, like the others, to
write a formal narrative for your use ".
On this point, I am glad to find myself in
agreement with Professor Sanday, who refuses to as-
sume that Luke " began with the intention of
writing a history, and accumulated materials
deliberately in view of this intention all through
his career ". We cannot assume that, for the
author, by implication, denies it. But we may
safely assume that he had both the intelligent
curiosity of an educated* Greek, and the eager
desire for knowledge about the facts of the
Saviour's life, natural in a believer who rested his
faith and his hopes on the life and death of Christ.
Possibly some one may say that it is assuming
too much when I speak of the author as an
" educated " Greek. But any one who knows
Greek can gather that from the preface alone. No
one who had not real education and feeling for
style could have written that sentence, so well-
* Expositor, Feb., 1896, p. 90.
14 LUKE'S HISTORY
balanced, expressed in such delicately chosen terms,
so concise, and so full of meaning.
In the third place, Luke declares his intention
to give a comprehensive narrative of the events in
order from first to last.* This does not neces-
sarily imply a chronological order but a rational
order, making things comprehensible, omitting
nothing that is essential for full and proper under-
standing. In a narrative so arranged it stands to
reason that, in general, the order will be chrono-
logical, though of course the order of logical ex-
position sometimes overrides simple chronological
sequence (see chapter x.). Further, it is involved
in the idea of a well-arranged History that the
scale on which each event is narrated should be
according to its importance in the general plan.
Finally the account which Luke gives is, as he
emphatically declares, trustworthy and certain. f
His expression indubitably implies that he was
not entirely satisfied with the existing narratives.
He does not, it is true, say that explicitly ; he
utters no word of criticism on his predecessors,
and he declares that they got their information
from eye-witnesses. But his expression distinctly
., the roof) through the imfluvium" ex-
pressing the same meaning in a fuller way.
In a review in the Theologische Litter aturxeit-
ung, 1897, p. 534, Dr. Johannes Weiss says :
" When Mark writes ' they uncovered the roof,
and when they had broken it up, they let down
the bed,' but Luke on the other hand says ' they
let him down through the tiles,' the former thinks
of the Palestinian style of building, while the
latter thinks of the roof of the Grasco-Roman
house ". This expresses practically the same view
which has been advocated in the preceding pages,
but the word Graeco-Roman seems to require
modification. Luke writes with a view to the
Roman house alone ; and his language would not
suit the Greek style of house.
Luke must have adapted his expression to suit
either a circle of readers, or more probably the
single reader, Theophilus, for whose instruction
he composed his History ; and, in giving to his
narrative the form seen in v. 20, he evidently felt
that Theophilus was used to the Roman and not
the Greek house architecture. Taking this in
conjunction with the use made of the Market of
Appius and the Three Taverns, we find a distinct
TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD 65
probability that Theophilus was a citizen of
Rome.
Moreover, Theophilus is addressed by an epi-
thet,* which, under the empire, was peculiarly
appropriated to Romans of high rank, and which
became during the second century a technical title
indicating equestrian (as distinguished from sena-
torial) rank. Examples are numerous in the Im-
perial Greek inscriptions ; and those who have
made themselves familiar with the usages of
Roman and provincial life under the empire, will
recognise the high probability that Luke uses this
adjective in i. 4, as in every other place,t to
indicate the official (probably equestrian) rank
of the person to whom he applies it.
Luke, then, was adapting the form of his nar-
rative either to a single Roman or to a Roman
circle of readers. The frequency and emphasis
with which he mentions matters that are specific-
ally Roman must impress every reader.
In regard to Roman officials of high rank, the
favourable judgment which they always pass on
Christ and on his followers is so marked a feature
* Kpdriffros. See note, p. 71.
t Acts xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3, xxvi. 25. See Note at end of this chapter.
5
66 LUKE'S ATTITUDE
of Luke's work, that it must have been prominent
before his mind.
Luke mentions formally the charge which the
Jews vainly made, that Jesus had been guilty of
disloyalty and treason against the Roman emperor,
xxiii. 2. John mentions it very informally.*
Matthew and Mark are silent about the nature of
the charge. Luke records the thrice repeated
judgment of Pilate acquitting Jesus of all fault
before the Roman law ; John mentions the ac-
quittal once in similar terms ; Matthew represents
Pilate as disclaiming all responsibility for his
death, but not as formally pronouncing him in-
nocent of all fault.
In Luke's Second Book this feature is still more
marked. The Imperial officers stand between
Paul and the Jews to save him from them. The
Proconsul of Cyprus was almost converted to
Christianity. The Proconsul of Achaia dismissed
the Jews' case against him as groundless before the
law. Festus, the Procurator of Palestine, found
in Paul nothing worthy of death : he had diffi-
culty in discovering any definite charge against
* xviii. 30 : "If this man were not an evildoer, we should not
have delivered him up unto thee ".
TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD 67
him, which he could report in sending him up to
the supreme court of the empire. Even Felix,
another Procurator, one of the worst of Roman
officials, was affected by Paul's teaching, and to
some extent protected him, and did not condemn
him, though to please the Jews he left him in
prison.
Among inferior Roman officials, Claudius Lysias,
Julius, Cornelius, even the jailer in the colony of
Philippi, were friendly to the Christians, or actually
joined them. In the few cases in which the
magistrates of a Roman colony took action against
Paul, their action is shown to have been in error
(as at Philippi), or is passed over in silence and
the blame is laid on the jealousy and hatred of
the Jews (as at Pisidian Antioch and Lystra).
The praetors of Philippi scourged Paul, but they
apologised, and confessed they had been in the
wrong. The magistrates of the Greek cities, like
Iconium, Thessalonica and Athens, were far more
severe against Paul than those of Roman colonies.*
Even the publicans, those hated instruments of
a taxation after the anti-Jewish and Romanising
* The subject of this paragraph is more fully treated in St.
Paul the Traveller, p. 304 ff.
68 LUKE'S ATTITUDE
style, are far more kindly treated by Luke than by
Matthew or Mark. Compare, for example, the
" publicans and sinners " in the house of Levi or
Matthew. Both Mark and Matthew designate the
company by this name ; but Luke calls them
" publicans and others," and confines the more
opprobrious phrase to the mouth of the scribes.*
Luke alone sets the publican and the Pharisee over
against one another as good and bad types, xviii.
10. It is true that several sayings of Christ in
favour of publicans are given also by Matthew and
Mark ; they were too characteristic to be omitted ;
but Luke has more of them.
It is not unconnected with this character in his
work that Luke records with special interest the
acts and words of Christ implying that the Gospel
was as open to the Gentiles as to the Jews.
Similar examples are found in all the Gospels,
because no one who gave a fair account of the
teaching of Christ could omit them ; but in Luke
they are more numerous and more emphatic.t
It has been, however, pointed out, as a proof
* Matt. ix. 10 ; Mark ii. 15 ; Luke v. 29 (cp. vii. 34).
t Alford quotes iv. 25-27, ix. 52-56, x. 38, xv. 11 ff., xvii. 16-18,
xviii. 10 ff., xix. 5, 9.
TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD 69
that such examples cannot be relied on, that Luke
omits entirely the story of the Saviour's visit
to Phoenicia, including the case of the Syrophce-
nician woman whose great faith was commended.
But in that story occurs the saying, " I was not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel," Matt. xv. 24 ; and in view of such sayings
as Luke and Luke alone records in iv. 25-27,*
the historian might doubt whether the incident
was not likely to give a mistaken impression
of the Saviour's mission. As to the passing
in silence over a visit to Phoenicia, it is pointed
out below,f that Luke deliberately refrains from
describing the journeys and movements of Christ.
It is, therefore, plain on the face of Luke's
History, that he has taken pains to connect his
narrative with the general history of the empire,
and that he has noted with special care the relations
between the new religion and the Roman state or
its officials. Elsewhere I have tried to show that
Luke thought of his work, from one point of
view, as "an appeal to the truth of history against
the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning
* See xxiv. 47 (paralleled by Matt, xxviii. 19, and Mark xvi. 15).
tSeep. 211 ff.
70 LUKE'S ATTITUDE
emperor ; a temperate and solemn record by one
who had played a great part in them of the real
facts regarding the formation of the Church, its
steady and unswerving loyalty in the past, its firm
resolve to accept the existing Imperial government,
its friendly reception by many Romans, and its
triumphant vindication in the first great trial
at Rome. The book was the work of one who
had been trained by Paul to look forward to
Christianity becoming the religion of the empire
and of the world, who regarded Christianity as
destined not to destroy but to recreate the
empire." *
In such circumstances it is obvious that the
historian was bound to be specially careful that his
references to matters of Roman history, and especi-
ally his first reference the subject of this study
were accurate. But the accusation which we have
to meet is that it grossly misrepresented the
character of Roman procedure, and was inac-
curate in fact. If the accusation is right, any
Roman citizen who possessed even a small know-
ledge of the facts of administration must have
seen the gross inaccuracy at a glance. How, then,
* St. Paul the Traveller, p. 309 f.
TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD 71
does it happen that, while the circumstances of the
birth of Christ were closely scrutinised by the
opponents of Christianity and subjected to much
misrepresentation and many charges of falsification,
no one in Roman times seems ever to have dis-
covered the inaccuracies which many modern in-
quirers imagine to themselves ?
NOTE I. Professor Blass in his welcome book, Philology
of the Gospels, 1898, p. 19, declares that the epithet jcpartoro?,
in Luke's language, had no such force as we find in
it, but was merely "the ordinary one in epistolary and
oratorical style, when the person addressed was in a some-
what exalted position ". As examples, he quotes Paul's
address to Felix and Festus, who were both Roman officials
of equestrian rank ! These are two of the many instances
on which the proof rests that the title was peculiarly
appropriated at that period to Romans of rank. The same
scholar refers, further, to the examples quoted by Otto in
his edition of the Epistle to Diognetus, p. 79 ff. (53 ff.). I cannot
consult this book, but Otto considers that Diognetus was the
philosopher, the friend and teacher of Marcus Aurelius, and
the emperor might well raise his teacher to equestrian
rank, as Septimius Severus raised Antipater, the teacher of
his sons, to the much higher dignity of the consulship ; and, if
Otto's identification be accepted, we may regard the epithet
as a proof that Diognetus was honoured by his imperial pupil.
Galen * addresses Kpauore Bao-o-e, also a Roman of rank. Lon-
ginus addresses Postumius Terentianus, Plutarch speaks of
Fundanus, and Artemidorus of Cassius Maximus by the same
epithet, in all cases undoubtedly employing it in the technical
* De libr. suis (Kuhn, vol. xix.).
72 LUKE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD
imperial sense. Epaphroditus, to whom Josephus dedicated
his Jewish Antiquities and Life, is a more doubtful case ; but
the dedication implies that he was a man of influence in
Rome, and though obviously a freedman (on account of his
name), he probably had been honoured with equestrian rank
by his imperial patron. The Aphrodisius whom Galen ad-
dresses as Kpario-Tf and ^iXrare, in his Prognost. (Kuhn, vol.
xix.), is also uncertain ; Galen, however, lived amid high
society in Rome,
I have always conceded that Greeks were not invariably
accurate in using Latin titles and technical terms, such as
optimus (translated /cpartoros) ; but the above examples show
how often the technical and accurate sense is found in Greek.
But Professor Blass has his mind so fixed on Greek literature,
of which he is one of the first exponents in Europe, that he
sometimes omits to notice Roman facts.
The usage in Theophrastus, of course, lies apart from our
subject and belongs to an earlier period of society. Even
Horace's optimus, used of Octavius and Quinctius, is pre-
imperial, though both men were persons of rank in Rome,
and therefore conform to our rule.
NOTE II. In the Ada of Paul and Thekla Paul was preach-
ing in the house of Onesiphorus eV /ie'cro> rfjs eKK\r)f(r6at ira
124 LUKE'S ACCOUNT
taken, according to the strict and proper usage of
the present tense. What Augustus did was to lay
down the principle of systematic "enrolment" 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 enrolment should be made,
unconsciously changes the expression and uses the
aorist * where Luke uses the present tense. Simi-
larly, when Luke tells that Joseph went up for
enrolment on one definite occasion, he uses the
aorist.f
Thereafter the text of Luke proceeds naturally :
" This was the first enrolment, while Quirinius was
administering Syria ; and all persons proceeded to
go for enrolment each to his own city ". Here
the presential tenses J are necessitated by the
sense : all persons, individually and severally,
repaired to their proper cities for their respective
enrolment. In the series of enrolments, which
were inaugurated by the orders of Augustus, the
o.iroypa.tyriva.1 iraffav T)\V uir* avrbv
i, Malalas, p. 226.
t Aye/Si? and a.iroype). 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.
Josephust gives the population of Egypt, Alex-
andria excepted, as 7,500,000. Adding 500,000
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.
* Suidas, s.vv. ' AiroypaQ)) and
^Bell. Jud., ii., 16, 4.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 153
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 enrolments.
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 popula-
tion of the empire, instead of the sum of cives
Romam^ an error which was easily made after the
time of Caracalla, when all free citizens of the
empire were cives Romani. Further, like Jerome,
154 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
he misunderstood the numbers in Eusebius. Syn-
cellus 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 " Enrolments " according to the
Fourteen- Year s'-Cycle were made in Syria and
elsewhere. According to Luke, the first enrol-
ment 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 enrolment
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 " enrolment " would naturally begin to be
made, if a Cycle was observed ; for this enrolment
was intended, as has been stated already, to include
all children born in 9 B.C. Now Tertullian declares
that an " enrolment " was made by Sentius Satur-
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 155
ninus, 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 ".f 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 enrolment period fell in 9 B.C., which
was the first enrolment ; and Roman authorities,
* See p. 247 f.
t De sitis enim instrnmentis sacularia probari necesst est (de
Cor. 7).
156 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
either official documents or historians, showed him
that Sentius Saturn inus 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 inde-
pendent witness in favour of Luke, so far as
concerns the reality of a Syrian enrolment 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 enrolments, 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 adminis-
tration. 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
* Nat. Hist., vii., 48 (159). See below, p. 163.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 157
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 mis-
lead ; 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
marvellous.
The discrepancy between Tertullian, who seems
to connect the birth of Christ with the enrolment
of Saturninus, and Luke, who connects that event
with the enrolment of Quirinius, will engage our
attention in chapter xi. For the moment our
purpose is to show that the Egyptian enrolment
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 " enrolments'*
158 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
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 argu-
ment 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 organisation,
dividing it into regions and quarters ; and in a
certain class of Roman city inscriptions, it is
reckoned as the year i of an epoch which remained
in use for a time. It was not an Imperial epoch ;
it was merely used in dating some documents con-
nected 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 as the first year
in which the new municipal system was actually in
existence.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 159
The next periodic year was 6 A.D., and the en-
rolment 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 valua-
tion of Palestine, as Josephus records. Judaea
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
organisation. " The great enrolment " might, it
is true, be plausibly explained as due merely to
the necessities of administration in a newly incorpo-
rated 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 7 A.D.,
as we have gathered from the inscription of
.flSmilius Secundus, quoted on p. 151. The
natural inference from the known facts is
that two operations, one corresponding to the
Egyptian periodic enrolment and one corre-
sponding to the Egyptian annual census and
valuation, occurred in Palestine in 7 A.D. ; and
160 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
that the periodic enrolment 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 " enrolments " 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
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 161
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 con-
sidered unnecessary by Tiberius to hold another in
20 ; and our authorities hardly ever mention any
number ings 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 ; f
and, when any Roman interference in its affairs
was needed, the Syrian governor marched an army
into the Tracheiotis. Archelaos's attempt, there-
fore, implies that the census of Syria was taken in
35, and was observed also in the dependent king-
dom of Tracheiotis. It may be regarded as
* Mommsen, Monum. Ancyran., ed. ii., p. 87.
t Strictly the province was termed Syria et Cilicia et Phcenice.
11
162 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
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 the 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 enrolment " 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
* Tacitus, Annals, vi., 41, and Wilhelm, Arch. Epigr. Mittheilun-
gen, 1894, p. 1 ff.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 163
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 incorpora-
tion 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 ex-
plicit, and could be misinterpreted only through
prejudice. Moreover, if the Kietai had been in-
corporated in the province, that would show even
more conclusively that an enrolment 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 enrolments, for Pliny mentions that
a citizen of Bononia stated his age as 150; Clau-
dius thereupon ordered that his record in previous
164 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
census should be examined, and his statements were
found to be consistent.* This fact, mentioned inci-
dentally 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.
* Tacitus, Annals, xi., 25, 31 ; Suetonius, Claud., 16 ; Pliny,
Nat. Hw*.,vii.,48(159).
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 165
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 an enumera-
tion of Roman citizens.
These facts, most of them only slight in them-
selves, establish in conjunction a strong case that
the periods of the Egyptian enrolments were fre-
quently 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 evi-
dence is held correct, the other recorded facts fall
* Beginning April 73 (according to Chambalu, de magistrat.
Flaviorum, quoted by Goyau, Chronologic de VEmp. Rom., s. a.)
their office lasted eighteen months. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. t vii., 49
(162).
166 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
into line with it, and are seen to be the working
of one general principle. Though weakness some-
times 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 con-
form 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 enrolments were carried out in Syria ; but
the Emperor thought them unworthy ot notice in
his review of his services to the State. Similarly
it is only by indirect inference, through the acci-
dent that a rebellion was provoked, that we learn
of the rourth enrolment 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
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 167
details of the Augustan system of provincial ad-
ministration 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
re-organisation of the provincial administration
(which, to our judgment, is almost the most im-
portant 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, in
accordance with his own plan, mention the scheme
of numbering the subject population ; he only
speaks of the numbering of the Romans. More-
over, the principle of periodic enrolments 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 enrolments were ob-
served in the Province Syria. The evidence for
168 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
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'* even agree with one another :
then he quotes Tertullian.
The evidence for the second periodic enrolment
in Syria lies in the chance preservation of an in-
scription, in 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 in-
scription.
The evidence for the fourth periodic inscription
is found in Tacitus. Had the authority been a
mere Christian, his words would have been ridi-
culed 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 re-
cognised in Syria, then the three dates show that
the Fourteen- Years'-Cycle was the system which
was followed there.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 169
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 Ter-
tullian'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 inscrip-
tions on stone does not mention events of this
kind, except through an occasional chance, as, e.g.,
that some private individual was specially con-
cerned with the taking of a census (like ^Emilius
Secundus). But we cannot expect many such
chances, as have preserved the memory of the three
enrolments in Syria.
In Syria there existed the same reasons which
are considered by Wilcken to have required the
periodic enrolment 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 :
* See p. 147.
170 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
hence the periodic enrolments 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
enrolment in the Province Syria, according to a
Fourteen-Years'-Cycle (in the modern expression-
Fifteen- Years'-Cycle in the Roman form), and the
first enrolment 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 evi-
dence has perished. Twenty years ago no one
dreamed to what a degree of minuteness and per-
fection 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
* See pp. 133, 142.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 171
of Egyptian administration is a strong argument
as regards Syria , and, if Augustus instituted
periodic enrolments 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 favour 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
enrolments of the province was preserved, and
might be consulted by any who doubted the
evidence of Luke Writing to the emperor, the
Cassars, 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.
* Apolog. y i., 34. Felix, governor of Egypt, is mentioned in it,
and he governed Egypt about 150.
172 THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C.
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 enrol-
ments were preserved and might be consulted by
those who wished
Mr. Kenyon writes that natives of Egypt refer
to previous enrolments as evidence of relationship,
etc. Josephus, Vit., i., apparently is quoting
similar enrolment-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
* Apolog., 5.
THE SYRIAN ENROLMENT IN 8 B.C. 173
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.
174 KING HEROD S ENROLMENT
CHAPTER IX.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT.
THE first enrolment 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 enrolment in Herod's kingdom was
probably delayed for some time later.
Herod occupied a delicate and difficult position
on the throne of Judaea. 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 civilisation
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 civilising
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 naturalise
the Graeco-Roman civilisation in Palestine.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 175
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 humoured 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 insur-
rection, 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 Grseco-Roman type, with
temples or the Graeco-Roman gods, beginning
with the god incarnate, the emperor himself, whose
refusal to accept Divine honours was not very
much regarded in the eastern lands That was the
176 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
approved method of spreading the Graeco-Roman
civilisation. The " city " was originally a Greek
creation, and every city tended towards the
cosmopolitan type of the Roman empire. Edu-
cation, luxury, commerce, imitation of western
manners, dislike for the national and "barbarian"
manners, use of the Greek language, were encour-
aged in the crowded and feverish life 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 theatre and amphitheatre 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 or 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 con-
formed to the Jewish law.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 177
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 any of
the priestly functions. When the temple was
being built, only the priests were used in construct-
ing 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 con-
tinue 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 re-
sult to themselves, if they did anything that Herod
disliked.
Thus Herod kept up the appearance of main-
taining 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 anti-national and anti-Jewish ;
he maintained their religious ceremonial, and
12
178 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
refrained from obtruding on them personally
anything that was offensive to them. The theatres
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 Syllasus, 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.f
The time when this letter was written is un-
certain. Schuerer is inclined to date it in 8 B.C.,
probably rightly. Lewin, Fasti Sacri, p. 109,
places it in 7 B.C.
These emphatic words, coming from an em-
* Dr. Schuerer well describes the ambiguous policy of Herod,
Gesch. d. Jud. Volkes, etc., ii., p. 327 f.
t iroAoi xpvf**" 05 uvry iAy, vvv vTrrjKoif x/>^(reTcu, Josephus, Ant.
Jud. t xvi., 9, 3 ( 290).
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 179
peror 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 favour. In
one point, Luke comes to our aid. He shows
that Herod was ordered to consider that the recent
orders for an enrolment 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 sub-
jects, 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
* Schuerer, I. c., i., p. 329; Josephus, xv., 10, 4.
180 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
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 re-
fused only once ;* and the occasion is implied to
have been towards the end of Herod's life.
The two acts, the oath and the enrolment, ob-
viously 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 enrolment.
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." f 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
* Travrbs yovv rov 'lovSaiicov fifftaidtxTavTos 5t* 8pKwv
Koto-apt . . . o?5e . . . OVK &fj.o(ra.v. Josephus, Ant. Jud. , xvii., 2, 4.
The aorists imply a single occasion, not a regularly repeated
custom.
^ Life of Jesus, i., p. 203.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 181
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 be-
cause they were disobedient and disrespectful to
Herod himself on a later occasion. See p. 218.
Herod was, naturally, unwilling to accept this
mark of servitude and degradation in rank without
making an effort to avoid it. He would, doubt-
less, 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
182 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
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 accept-
able 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 Syllasus ; an
arrangement was made between them ; it wfcs
afterwards broken by Syllseus ; Herod again com-
plained to Saturninus, and was authorised to make
war on the Arabians.
Incidentally, we notice that both the accusation
that Herod had made war without Roman sanction,
and the defence that he had been authorised by the
governor of Syria, show how far he was from being
an independent king.
It is, therefore, natural and probable that a
* Some date his arrival as late as 8 B.C. This would make the
delay in the enrolment of Judaea all the more natural. He was
succeeded by Quinctilius Varus in 7 ; see p. 247.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 183
postponement of the enrolment 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 enrolment, 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 Satur-
ninus the governor, and of Volumnius his own
procurator ; but he still continued stern and un-
forgiving to Herod.
In these circumstances the delay granted to
Herod in regard to the enrolment was not ex-
tended, and, as we may suppose, he was called
184 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
upon to obey the emperor's orders. He sent a
second embassy to Augustus, which was, in all pro-
bability, commissioned not, as before, to request
exemption from the enrolment, but to announce
his submission and to promise unconditional com-
pliance. This embassy was much more favourably
received, and returned from Rome successful ; but
Herod was evidently by no means completely par-
doned or restored fully to favour. 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. t 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
* Ant. yttd., xvii., 3, 2 ( 53) ; 8, 2 ( 195).
+ TWV KOT& r}]v tirapxiw iiyepAvuv, Bell. Jnd., i., 27, 1,
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 185
an outlying part of the province, in which no-
thing of any consequence could go on without the
Roman sanction.
Luke's statement that the enrolment 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 enrolment 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 number-
ing 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
1 7th April, 7 B.C. A consideration of the character
of the enrolment will bring us to a more precise
result.
Herod was naturally eager to avoid giving to
the enrolment an entirely foreign and non-national
* See Niese in Hermes, xxviii., 1893, p. 212 ff. ; also below, Notes
on p. 222 ff.
186 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
character. Such a character both accentuated his
own humiliation and was more liable to rouse the
ever-wakeful pride and jealousy of his Jewish sub-
jects. Obviously, the best way to soothe the Jewish
sentiment was to give the enrolment a tribal charac-
ter 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 enrolment. Provided
Herod obeyed the orders of Augustus that an
enrolment 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 enrolment should be left to the discretion or
the responsible authority, viz., the king. More-
over, the marvellous 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 humoured its re-
ligious prejudices.
V
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 187
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 civilisation 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 administer-
ing 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 humour the Jews, and to accept
the distinction which they proudly drew between
themselves and the heathen. Must we not, then,
* Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, Leipzig, 1891.
188 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
suppose that he would employ the same method in
his enrolment ? 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 enrol-
ment 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 numer-
ous, 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 enrolment 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 advan-
tage in knowing what was the exact strength of
the possible rebels.
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 189
Moreover, the non-Jewish population was peace-
able and well-affected to Rome. The enrolment
would obviously be much more useful, if it
distinguished accurately the rebellious from the
peaceful element in the population. The tribal
enrolment 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.f
According to Luke the tribal enrolment 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
* See above, p. 179 f.
t K TOV irpovirrov is rb tro\e/j.f7v re Kal ftXairreiv firrjpfjifvoi, Ant.
Jud., xvii., 2, 4 (41).
190 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
have been entirely inapplicable in a large country.
But, as the traveller 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 enrolment, probably, lies the reason why Mary
as well as Joseph went up to Bethlehem a detail
which would be so inexplicable if the enrolment
had been modelled after a Roman census. To go
personally to the enrolment was regarded as sub-
stantiating 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 enrol them-
selves, 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 contro-
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 191
versy, 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 xiii. 3 ?
On the way in which that question is answered
hinges a controversy as to Church government.
Who are " all " in Acts xviii. 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 i. i ? Professor Blass has recently answered
that in his own way. Many would give a
different reply.
Accordingly, to understand " all " in Luke ii. 3,
one must put oneself at the narrator's point of
view. As we have seen, he conveys the impres-
sion 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.
192 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
But, when such a plan of tribal numbering was
adopted, the time of year had to be carefully con-
sidered. In the first place the winter months had
to be avoided, during which travelling was often
difficult, and in which unfavourable 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 enrolment
papers at any time they pleased within the year),
seems to follow from the fact that Joseph and
Mary travelled 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 agri-
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 193
cultural 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 ex-
tended 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 ist 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
* See Mr. J. W. Paterson's excellent article on " Agriculture " in
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. On the use of the fine chopped
Btraw in the economy of the farm, see Contemporary Review,
August, 1897, p. 237.
13
194 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
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 incon-
venient, 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
KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT 195
shepherds. That inquiry belongs to the sphere of
the archaeological student, who studies the minutia
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 enrolment. 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 enrolment, then, there is open
only the late summer of 7 or 6 B.C. Unless we
have omitted some important factor (which is, of
course, far from improbable, considering how
scanty the evidence is), the enrolment can hardly
196 KING HEROD'S ENROLMENT
be brought down so late as 5 B.C. ; and we have
seen that 8 B.C. is excluded by other considera-
tions.
Between the years 7 and 6 it is difficult to choose,
so long as we confine ourselves to the evidence out-
side 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 Saviour'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.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST 197
CHAPTER X.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST.
LUKE iii. 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 positive-
ness in assertion, and to prefer less definite and
pronounced and harsh forms ot statement.* It is
unnecessary to think that Luke was really doubt-
ful what was the age of Jesus, whether twenty-
eight or thirty-two. His elaborately careful and
precise dating, iii. i, 2, may be taken as an indica-
tion 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 definite form is strictly correct : Jesus was thirty
years and a few months, more or less.
198 CHRONOLOGY OF
-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 iv. 1 6-30) ; 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 trust-
worthy authority. Where his knowledge was
only vague, he usually refrains from making any
statement : see p. 206.
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 oc-
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 199
curred 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
Cassar. 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 inter-
pretations^ What did Luke understand by the
authority of Tiberius ? In the inscriptions of that
emperor's lifetime, the years of his reign are esti-
mated according to the number of times that he
had received tribunician power. On that system
* Hegemonia, yye/j.ot'ia, is the word ; on its sense, see pp. 229, 247.
t Mommsen quotes a remarkable case in the Monumenturn
Ancyranmn where Augustus's desire to be precise and certain has
exposed his statement of a number to be interpreted in three
different ways by different writers ; see above, p. 153.
200 CHRONOLOGY OF
his fifteenth year began on 2yth 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
1 6th January, A.D. 12,* therefore the decree of
equal power must have been passed before the end
of A.D. ii. 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 in mind when he said that
Tiberius had been created Collega Imperil during
the lifetime of Augustus (Annals, i., 3).
* Prosopographia Imp. Rom., ii., p. 183 ; Mommsen, Staatsrecht,
ii.,p. 1159.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 201
It follows that the first year during which
Tiberius held power as colleague of Augustus with
equal power in all provinces of the empire co-
incided with the end of A.D. 1 1 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 enrolment must have taken
place in autumn B.C. 6. Jesus was thirty years
old in autumn A.D. 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
baptised by John in the river Jordan. A month
or two thereafter occurred the Passover on 2ist
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
* See Note, p. 221 ff.
202 CHRONOLOGY OF
tribunician years are not stated, his reign is always
elsewhere counted from the death of his prede-
cessor, 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. n, when his authority began in them.
Similarly, we saw on p. 140 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 His-
tory 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, 30 and 33. Different
authorities vary between these three years. But,
as it is not possible to allow that more than
* See Mr. Turner in Dr. Hastings' Diet, of Bible, i., p. 406.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 203
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 Saviour'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 under-
standing 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
* In Dr. Hastings' Diet, of Bible.
204 CHRONOLOGY OF
commonly stated by the names of annual magis-
trates, 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 contem-
poraries. 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 Saviour'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 con-
centrated in his first book.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 205
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 follow-
ing year. A widely-spread opinion in the second
and third centuries assigned that duration to the
Saviour'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 teach-
ing of the Saviour. Chronological order was little
thought of; and we should probably find that
most of the writings alluded to by Luke i. 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 Saviour's life. The sequence of these
206 CHRONOLOGY OF
events was indelibly stamped on the memory of
all.* But the rest of the tradition was a repro-
duction of past lessons and impressive sayings.
These were connected with certain localities ;
some were associated with certain actions of the
Saviour 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 baptised by John in Jordan, iii. 2 1 ; and
he dates at that point the beginning of his teach-
ing, iii. 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,
iv. 1-13. Thereafter Jesus returned to Galilee
and taught there for some time, iv. 14, 15, after
which he returned to Nazareth for a brief visit,
iv. 16-30. Being rejected and threatened with
death at Nazareth, he came down to Capernaum,
iv. 31.
* Vet compare John xii. I, Mark xiv. 1 : see p. 91.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 207
The narrative during this stage touches that of
the other Gospels at occasional points ; and one
paragraph, iv. 1-13, is perhaps founded on the
same ultimate authority as Matthew iv. i-n
(though with a difference in order). No indica-
tion of the lapse of time is given ; but some con-
siderable period is likely to have elapsed even in
the events implied in iv. 15 alone.
But at this point, iv. 31, begins a new section
of the narrative. The indications of movement
for a considerable period are of the vaguest kind,
iv. 42, He went into a desert place, v. 16, He
withdrew himself in the deserts, v. 27, He went
forth, vi. i, He was going through the corn-
fields, probably in May or June when the wheat
was ripe but not cut. vi. 12, He went out into
the mountain to pray. vi. 17, He came down
with them. vii. i, He entered into Capernaum,
vii. i, He went soon afterwards to a city called
Nain (an episode peculiar to Luke). His return
from Nain is never mentioned, but vii. 1 8 ff. pro-
bably belongs to the coasts of the Sea of Galilee,
viii. i , He soon afterwards went about through cities
and villages, viii. 22, He entered into a boat (on
the Sea of Galilee), viii. 26, He arrived at the
208 CHRONOLOGY OF
country of the Gerasenes, which is over against
Galilee, viii. 38, He entered into a boat and
returned, ix. 10, He withdrew apart to a city
called Bethsaida. ix. 28, He went up about eight
days after into the mountain to pray. ix. 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, vi. 39,
and John's to the abundant grass, vi. 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 indica-
tions of movement, are also very vague and elusive,
iv. 44, He was preaching in the synagogues of
Galilee, v. i, He was standing by the Lake of
Gennesaret. v. 12, He was in one of the cities.
This section of the narrative, iv. 31 ix. 50, is
as a whole (though with some considerable excep-
tions) closely parallel to Mark and Matthew.
Great part of the section is evidently founded on
an authority common to them (though we ex-
pressly avoid stating any opinion as to the nature
of the connexion between the three).
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 209
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 consider-
able period ; and the different movements, men-
tioned or implied, vague as they are, together with
the intervals between them, demand time.
From ix. 5 1 begins another new section describ-
ing the movement to Jerusalem preparatory to the
culmination of Christ's teaching there. In x. 38,
as they went on their way, he entered into a
certain village (viz., Bethany) ; and in xi. i, he
was praying in a certain place. In this and the
following chapters there continues the same vague-
ness. 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
xiii. 22, he went on his way through towns and
villages teaching and journeying on unto Jerusalem.
In xvii. n, as they were on the way to Jerusalem,
he was passing through the midst of Samaria and
Galilee, xviii. 31, We go up to Jerusalem, xviii.
210 CHRONOLOGY OF
35. lie drew nigh unto Jericho, xix. i, He
entered and was passing through Jericho, xix. 1 1,
He was nigh to Jerusalem, xix. 281., 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 ix. 51
xix. 2 8 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 con-
tinues.
It is, however, clearly unnecessary and impro-
bable 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 re-
petition of the idea of progress towards Jerusalem,
imply a gradual advance of the circle of the teach-
ing towards the south and towards the centre 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, x. 38, but for some reason (about
which we need not speculate) avoided naming it,
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 211
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 teach-
ing ". If he is at Bethany in x., and at Jericho
in xviii., and in Samaria in xvii., zigzag wanderings
are clearly implied. But, as many may prefer to
consider that x. 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 teach-
ing of Jesus, previous to the final scenes in Jeru-
salem, 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
212 CHRONOLOGY OF
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 J une, 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 im-
portant 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 ii. 13), falls
about Luke iv. 13, and the year ends about iv. 31.
At the feast of this year, the Jews spoke about the
46th year of the building of the Temple (John ii.
20) ; and the 46th year had begun shortly before
they spoke.*
The second Passover, A.D. 27 (John v. i), falls
* See Note on p. 224 f,
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 213
about Luke v. (see p. 215). Then follows the
month of May, vi. i.
The spring of A.D. 28 and the third Passover
(John vi. 4) must be placed in Luke ix. The
summer of this year, however, was still spent in
Galilee, according to John vii. i ; but it is not
inconsistent with this statement that the third
stage of Luke had already begun. The character-
istic of that stage was that Jesus had now set his
face firmly to go to Jerusalem, ix. 51 ; but during
it, he was still passing through the midst of
Samaria and Galilee, xvii. 1 1 . 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 x. i, Matt. xix. i) certainly
belongs to this stage.
That there was a strong tradition to the effect
that the Saviour suffered at the age of thirty-three
seems to follow from the agreement of Hippo-
lytus * 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
* On Hippolytus see Mr. Turner's remarks, /. c., p. 413, col. 2.
214 CHRONOLOGY OF
crucifixion in A.D. 33, but this arises from their
both depending on the original Christian calcula-
tion which ultimately gave rise to the modern era
of the birth of Christ. This was wrongly calcu-
lated 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 ot view
from that of Mr. Turner, and working on utterly
diverse lines, we have reached nearly the same con-
clusion 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
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 215
holds that the teaching in reality lasted only for
two years, interpreting John v. i 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 con-
ditions 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 appear-
ance 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.
* Reading " a feast " instead of " the feast " (topr^ for j} eopr-fi).
216 CHRONOLOGY OF
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 ky no stress upon it as an argu-
ment, 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-
* Mr. Turner says : " The statement of a mediaeval Jew, R.
Abarbanel, that the conjunction of these two planets in Pisces is
to be a sign of Messiah's coming, may perhaps have been derived
ultimately from ancient traditions known to the Chaldaeans ".
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 217
loving priests in the East. Kepler's theory was,
that just as the conjunction in 1604 of Jupiter and
Saturn, culminated in 1605 m the conjunction of
Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, and was followed by the
appearance of a new and brilliant star, which dis-
appeared 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 Matt. ii. 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 ceremony in Jerusalem, Luke ii. 22, could not have taken
place after the visit of the Magi, for the flight into Egypt must
have followed immediately on the visit.
218 CHRONOLOGY OF
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 favour to the
wife of Pheroras (who promised to pay their finef),
predicted that the succession would come to her
and her children. Obviously, the second part of
the prophecy was pure invention, due to partisan-
ship ; but the first part was almost certainly con-
nected 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
* Ant. Jud., xvii., 2, 4 t See p. 181.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 219
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 con-
nexion 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 chil-
dren 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 ;f 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
* Augustus must have uttered the witticism in Greek : tbe pun
(vv $i v!6v) is lost in Latin or English : see Macrobius, Sat. t ii., 4.
t (1) The pagans of that time were strongly prejudiced against
Christians and not likely to quote them. (2) A Christian author
would have spoken about Palestine, not about Syria.
220 CHRONOLOGY OF
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 meagre 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.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 221
NOTE I. 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 ist January,
or on the most usual Greek system in the ^Egean lands from
23rd September, or on a common Syrian system from iSthApril.*
On these three systems the fifteenth year of Tiberius might
begin either ist January, B.C. 25, or 23rd September, 25, or i8th
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 II. It is unfortunate that, in his admirable article
on the " Chronology of the New Testament," Mr. C. H. Turner
* Sec Note, p. 222,
222 CHRONOLOGY OF
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 i was reckoned as the current year within which the
event occurred, as for example in the Asian year beginning
33rd September, the year i 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 i 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 i 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 con-
sulship 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. Accord-
ing to Mr. Turner's reckoning, the lapse of twenty-seven years
after (circa} 3Oth September, 63, brings us to 3oth September,
36, but it brought Josephus only to 3oth 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
Tyrian (and perhaps common Syrian) method so that the year
began from i Xanthicus, i8th April. Josephus also, as Niese
* See p. 224 f.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 223
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 i8th April following his accession. This was neces-
sary if the years of the emperors were to be used in a con-
tinuous chronological system. In this way, the year i of
Tiberius began on i8th April, A.D. 15, and the year 22 con-
tinued to run till iyth April, A.D. 37 (though the reign really
lasted from igth August, A.D. 14, to i6th March, A.D. 37, i.e.,
twenty-two years, six months, twenty-eight days). Similarly,
the year i of Nero began only on i8th 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
ist Nisan (usually some time in March) or the Roman year
beginning ist 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 ist January, we shall show the dates on that
system.
i. Herod's reign de jure began from a decree of the Senate
passed in the consulship of Domitius and Pollio B.C. 40, during
224 CHRONOLOGY OF
the i84th Olympiad which ended at midsummer in that year.
Year i of Herod's reign de jure ended on 3ist December,
B.C. 40 : year 37 of Herod's reign de jure ended on 3ist
December, B.C. 4.
(If the decree was passed at a Senate meeting of ist
January or ist February, and the Jewish reckoning from ist
Nisan be followed, the years of Herod's reign would all be
carried back one year, so that the year 37 would end on i8th
April, B.C. 4 ; but it is improbable that the decree was passed
at these first two Senate meetings.) Herod died in the thirty-
seventh year of his reign de jure, i.e., in the year B.C. 4,
immediately before the Passover, and perhaps (as Lewin
reckons) on ist April.
2. Pompey entered Jerusalem on the Great Fast about the
end of September, B.C. 63. In reckoning from this event, year
i is the year ending 3ist December, B.C. 63 ; year 27 is the
year ending 3ist 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 i of Herod's reign de facto ended 3ist December, B.C.
37 ; year 18 of Herod's reign de facto ended 3ist December,
B.C. 29 ; year 34 of Herod's reign de facto ended 3ist 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 ii.
20), the Jews would presumably count according to their own
system of sacred years beginning ist Nisan. There is there-
fore 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 ist Nisan 20, and would begin from
ist Nisan, B.C. 21 ; but if the building began in April or later,
the first year would end at ist Nisan in B.C. 19. We take the
latter as more probable. Then the year i of the building of
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 225
the Temple begins on ist Nisan, B.C. 20 ; year 46 of the building
of the Temple begins on ist 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
ist October, B.C. 312, but the era of Damascus was reckoned
from 23rd March of the same year.
NOTE III. 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 Au-
gustus, igth August, A.D. 14. If, as many historians did, Luke
reckoned the first year of Tiberius to end on 3ist December,
A.D. 14, and the fifteenth year to begin ist 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 igth
August, A.D. 14, to i8th 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.
* See Mr. Turner on his p. 405.
15
226 CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST
According to this method of explanation it would be
necessary to suppose that in iii. 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 iii. 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.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 227
CHAPTER XL
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA.
WE come now to the last serious difficulty in
Luke's account of the " First Enrolment ". He
says that it occurred while Quirinius was adminis-
tering Syria.
The famous administration of Syria by Quirinius
lasted from about A.D. 6 to 9 ; and during that
time occurred the " Great Enrolment " and valua-
tion 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 in-
scription, 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 honours of a Roman official who lived in the
* Acts v. 37 ; Josephus, Ant. Jud., xvii., 13 ; xviii., 1, 1.
228 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
reign of Augustus, and survived that emperor. He
conquered a nation ; he was rewarded with two
Sufplicationes and the Ornamenta THumphatia, i.e.,
the gorgeous dress of a triumphing general, with
ivory sceptre 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 indi-
cations are sufficient to show with practical certainty
(as all the highest authorities are agreed Momm-
sen, Borghesi, de Rossi, Henzen, Dessau, and
others), that the officer who achieved this splendid
career was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. His govern-
ment 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 ad-
ministration the occasion to which Luke refers ?
Here again, however, we are confronted with
a serious difficulty. The supreme authority en
the subject, Mommsen, considers that the most
probable date for Quirinius's first government of
Syria is about 6.0.3-1 ; but the question is involved
in serious doubts, which Mommsen fully acknow-
ledges. That time is doubly inconsistent with
Luke : Herod was dead before it, and it is incon-
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 229
sistent with the whole argument of the preceding
pages that the enrolment should have been post-
poned 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 enrolment was made. The Greek
word which he uses*occurs elsewhere in his History,
indicating the office of procurator ; t and the noun
connected with it is even usedj to indicate the
supreme authority exercised by the reigning Em-
peror in a province. See p. 245.
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 mis-
sion of a high and authoritative nature ; and many
excellent authorities have argued that Quirinius
was despatched 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
* f)ye/j.ovevovTos TTJS 2upias Kvprjviov.
tLuke iii. 1; so rjyfpfo, Acts xxiii. 24, 26, 33; xxiv. 1, 10;
xxvi. 30.
t Luke iii. 1. See p. 199,
230 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
as to whether Luke called him governor or in-
tended to indicate that he held a special mission
in Syria.
Let us now scrutinise closely the evidence bear-
ing 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 govern-
ment 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 im-
portant events in his career occurred.
i. He held office in Syria, and carried on war
with the Homonadenses, a tribe in the inner
mountainous district lying between Phrygia,
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 231
Cilicia and Lycaonia : he gained in this war
successes which were judged so important that two
solemn acts of thanksgiving to the gods (supplica-
tiones) in Rome were decreed, and the decorations
of a triumphing general were awarded to him. The
two supplicationes were probably awarded for vic-
tories 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 opera-
tions. 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 ad-
ministration of Syria. This was usually an annua]
232 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
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. i A.D. i.*
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 there-
fore open for Quirinius's tenure of the proconsul-
ship 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 author-
ity 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
* Lentulus was in office in Asia on 10th May, B.C. 1, and there-
fore, as Mommsen says, governed during the year 2-1 (Res Gesta
D. Aug., p. 170). But, as Waddington sees (Pastes d'Asie, p. 101),
Lentulus seems to have been still in office on 12th August, and
therefore probably ruled Asia also in the year 1 B.C. 1 A.D.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 233
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 gover-
nor 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 Cassar, 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 com-
pany with Gaius until the latter, coming back
towards Italy wounded and ill, died on the Lycian
coast on 2ist February, A.D. 4.
Zumpt, however, argued that Quirinius was
sent to Armenia with Gaius Cassar in B.C. i ; 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
234 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
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 honourable 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. Sue-
tonius is a good authority. Can we not justify him
to some extent ?
* Mr. Furneaux takes the latter sense in his admirable edition
of Tacitus, Annals, iii., 23, and so apparently does Nipperdey also ;
and it must be acknowledged that Suetonius's expression suits
that. Sense and the historical facts, however, show it to be
impossible.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 235
Domitia Lepida had been betrothed to Augus-
tus's elder grandson, Lucius Cassar, and on his
premature death was married to Quirinius. Now
Lucius died on 2oth 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 honoured
with this grand marriage and the post of guardian
to the future emperor, Gaius Caesar. But such
honours as this imply that his career in preceding
years had been very distinguished. Thus we
236 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
become still more firmly convinced that his pro-
consulate in Asia was past as well as his govern-
ment 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 Homo-
nadenses 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 ad-
joining 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,
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 237
and the system of military roads was being con-
structed ; * and this operation was probably co-
incident 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 Momm-
sen to place the first Syrian government of Qui-
rinius 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,f 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,
* See my Church in the Roman Empire, p. 32 ; C. I. L., iii., No
6974.
t See Note, p. 247. J Probably about 1st April, B.C. 4,
vu., 5,2.
238 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
whether favourable or unfavourable to Luke, ex-
cept 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 adminis-
tration of the province was left to Saturninus or to
Varus (according to the period when we place the
mission of Quirinius). This extraordinary com-
mand 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 Pro-
vince, 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 Im-
perial practice. Such a theory is not permissible,
unless it is defended by analogous cases and by
natural probability. The theory was first sug-
gested to my mind by the analogous case of the
African administration, which from the time of
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 239
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,f 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 J styles Vespasian dux y 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 Mu-
cianus. Quirinius was a special Lieutenant of
Augustus, who conducted the war against the
Homonadenses, while Varus administered the or-
dinary affairs of Syria. The duties of Quirinius
might be described by calling him dux in Latin,
* Legatus Aiigusti pro prcztore.
f See Note on p. 248. J Hist., i., 10.
240 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
and the Greek equivalent is necessarily and cor-
rectly rjyc/iwy, as Luke has it.
Again, Corbulo commanded the armies of
Syria in the war against Parthia and Armenia,
while Ummidius Quadratus* and Cestius Callus
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 pre-
serves 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 Quiri-
nius 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
* He was unfit for the war, Mommsen, Rom. Gesch., v., 382 f.
Corbulo governed Syria for a time after Quadratus ; but the
burden apparently was too great, and Gallus was appointed.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 241
DM Augusti 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 pos-
sible space to insert a distinct government of
Syria between his successes against the Homona-
denses and his second governorship. The inscrip-
tion 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 enrolment 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 (see pp. 237, 247).*
The conclusion of the whole argument is this.
About B.C. 8-5, Augustus made a great effort
to pacify the dangerous and troublesome moun-
taineers of Taurus, to prevent the continual
plundering which they practised on the peaceable
* M. Bour also finds an allusion to the universal enrolment in
a phrase of the Momimentum Ancyranum where the restored text
was omnium prov[_inciarum censwn egi or statum ordlnavt] ; but he
has not remarked that the recovered Greek translation proves
the sense and words to have been omnium prov[inciarum Populi
Romani] . . , fines auxi.
16
242 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
provinces to which they were neighbours, 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 organisation was in process of being
carried out among the western and northern
mountaineers by Cornutus Aquila, governor of
Galatia. A military road-system was built among
them, and a series of garrison-cities (Colonies) was
founded, Olbasa, Comama, Cremna, Parlais and
Lystra. These fortresses were connected by the
Imperial roads * with the governing centre of
* fiaffi\iKal (55o/, Church in Rom. Etnp., p. 32; Lanckoronski,
Stiidte Pamphyliens, ii., p. 203.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 243
Southern Galatia, the great Colonia Cassareia
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 con-
quered 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 per-
ceived 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,
* Strabo, p. 569. His account certainly suggests both that the
revenge was not delayed so late as Mommsen's view implies, and
that a good deal of time was needed to carry out all the operations
involved, the foundation of new cities, the transference of popula-
tion, etc.
244 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
to administer the military resources of the pro-
vince, 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 ex-
perienced officer was needed. Thus, Quirinius
conducted the war pretty certainly in B.C. 6, per-
haps in 7 and 6, perhaps in 6 and 5.
The first periodic enrolment of Syria was made
under Saturninus in B.C. 8-7. The enrolment 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 enrol-
ment in Syria was made under Saturninus, inferred
too hastily that the enrolment in Palestine was
made under that governor. With full conscious-
ness 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 enrolment of Palestine
was made while Quirinius was acting as leader
' in Syria.
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 245
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 Pro-
consuls). 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 frcetore, 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
246 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
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 suscepti-
bilities of modern scholars, and the extreme dearth
of knowledge about the period, which was to exist
1 800 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 nine-
teenth 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 enrolment and the later enrolment of A.D. 7,
which was held by Quirinius in Syria and in Pales-
tine? We answer that he does distinguish,
accurately and clearly. He tells that this was
the first enrolment of the series, but the moderns
are determined to misunderstand him. They in-
sist that Luke confused the use of comparative
QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA 247
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 I. Quinctilius Varus, governor of Syria. The exact
date is shown by the coins of Antioch, which bear the numbers
Ke, KS, <', 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 i. Hence, in countries where the
Greek year common in the ^Egean lands, beginning at the
autumn equinox, was employed, the year i 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 ist January, B.C. 5 ; similarly coins of
the year 29 (ending on that system in autumn B.C. 3) men-
tioned the thirteenth consulship of Augustus, which did not
begin until ist 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 i8th April, may have been employed
also in Antioch. But whatever the exact day of New Year
248 QUIRINIUS THE GOVERNOR OF SYRIA
was, the following table shows the system of Actian years in
Antioch :
Actian year i ended in spring (perhaps i7th April), B.C. 30
>i 25 M )? n > )> > O
>J > */ " " M M 4
H > 29 !> JJ M )| M }) |) 2
Varus, therefore, came to Syria at such a time that coins
marked 25 were struck after his arrival, i.e., he arrived pro-
bably soon after midsummer of that year, i.e., July to Septem-
ber, B.C. 7. He remained in Syria until at least the midsummer
of B.C. 4, some months after the death of Herod.
NOTE II. The theory has also been advanced that Quiri-
nius was one of a number of commissioners, appointed by
Augustus to hold the enrolment 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 Ltgatus Augusti; and therefore he might
rightly be said by Luke rjyefiovfveiv rfjs Zvptas. 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 favour 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
Signer O. Marucchi in the Italian review Bessarione.
* V 'Inscription de Quirinins et le Recensement de St. Luc, Rome,
1897 : a treatise crowned by the Pontifcia Accademia di Archeologia.
This skilful argument was presented to the Academy in Dec.,
1896, and published in the late summer or autumn of 1897. It
refers in a concluding note to my papers on the same subject
in Expositor, April and June, 1897.
PART III.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 251
CHAPTER XII.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS.
A BRIEF reference to some of the other difficulties,
which have been found in Luke's references to
matters of contemporary history, will form a fitting
conclusion to this study.
In some cases all that is wanted to solve the
difficulty is proper understanding of Luke's words.
That, for example, is the case with Acts xi. 28,
where the statement, that in the days of Claudius
there was famine over all the world, has been
misinterpreted to imply that harvests failed and a
famine ensued in every part of the whole world at
exactly the same time, which would be an obvious
exaggeration, and therefore not entirely trustworthy :
it would be quite in the rhetorical style of Tacitus
or Juvenal, not in the simple and true manner of
Luke.
But, as all the commentators have pointed
out, Suetonius, Dion Cassius, Tacitus and Euse-
252 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
bius mention scarcity occurring at different times
in widely scattered parts of the Roman world
during that reign ; and an inscription has been
interpreted (though not with certainty) as referring
to a famine in Asia Minor some years before A.D.
56.* At no period in Roman history are so many
allusions to widespread famine found as under
Claudius. Luke refers to what must then have
been an accepted belief, that at some time or other
during the reign of Claudius every part of the
Roman world suffered from famine.
A much more difficult case occurs in Acts v. 36-
37, where Gamaliel in addressing the Sanhedrin
says : " Before these days rose up Theudas, giving
himself out to be somebody, to whom a number
of men, about 400, joined themselves, who was
slain, and all, as many as obeyed him, were dis-
persed and came to nought. And after this man
rose up Judas the Galilean in the days of < the en-
rolment' and caused people to revolt under his
leadership : he also perished ; and all, as many
as obeyed him, were scattered abroad."
Now Josephus describes " a certain magician,
named Theudas, who, while Fadus was Procurator
* St. Paul the Traveller, p. 48 f.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 253
of Judaea, persuaded most of the people * to take up
their property and follow him to the river Jordan ;
for he told them he was a prophet, and he
said that he would divide the river by his com-
mand and afford them easy passage through it ;
and he deceived many by telling them this. Fadus,
however, did not permit them to profit by their
folly, but sent a squadron of cavalry against them,
which falling unexpectedly upon them, slew many
of them and captured many alive. And they took
Theudas himself alive and cut off his head and
brought it to Jerusalem " (Ant. Jud., xx., 5, i).
In the following paragraph Josephus describes
what happened under the government of Tiberius
Alexander, the successor of Fadus ; and, among
other things, he tells that " the sons of Judas the
Galilean were slain, viz., that Judas who caused the
people to re-volt from the Romans when duirinius was
making the valuation of Judasa". See p. 254 note.
It is pointed out that in two successive para-
graphs Josephus speaks first of Theudas and then
of Judas, dating the latter under Quirinius ; and
that in two successive verses Luke speaks first of
Theudas and then of Judas, dating the latter at
&\\ov : see p. 258 note.
254 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
the great enrolment (i.e., under Quirinius). From
this the inference is drawn that Luke, reading
hurriedly and carelessly the passage of Josephus,
falsely inferred that Theudas, who is mentioned
first, was the elder ; and they point to the analogy
between the two accounts of Judas,* as evidence
that Luke borrowed from Josephus.
Finally, since Josephus's Theudas rose and fell
several years after Gamaliel is supposed to have
delivered his speech, they infer that Luke had no
authority for the words which he puts into Ga-
maliel's mouth, but freely invented the whole
according to a common practice among ancient
historians. Luke, as they say, constructed a suit-
able speech for Gamaliel out of his own scrappy
and inaccurate reading, and thus made Gamaliel
describe an event that had not yet occurred, sup-
posing it to have taken place before A.D. 6.
Without doubt, if this theory is correct, we
must throw up our whole case as hopeless. The
blunder attributed to Luke is so ingeniously many-
sided as to destroy his credit in various directions.
* lv rats rjfjLfpais TTJS airoypa^s Kal aWtTTTjo-e \abv oirtVa) avrov in
Luke, and rbv \abv dirb 'Pcw/taW airoffTrjO-avTOS Kvpiviov TTJS 'lovSalas
rifj.7)Tevos/Tos in Josephus.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 255
It shows that he invented his speeches without
authority ; that he was incapable of reading two
short paragraphs of Greek without misunder-
standing them ; that, even when he had a good
authority before him, he could not report his
information without introducing a portentous
blunder ; that he was so ignorant of Judasan
history as to think that an event which Josephus
dates under Fadus could be, in the first place, older
than Gamaliel's speech (delivered soon after A.D.
29 or 30), and, in the second place, older than the
great enrolment. The most wretched old chroni-
cler, in the worst and most ignorant Byzantine
time, has not succeeded in doing anything so bad
as that. To find a parallel instance of ignorance
and stupidity, where knowledge is professed and
must be expected, one must come down to modern
times and look in the papers of rejected candidates
in a " pass " examination, who have vainly tried,
with the minimum of care and work, to delude
the examiner into the belief that they know enough
to be permitted to scrape through the test.
But is not this too gross a blunder ? Is it cre-
dible that a person who was so shockingly ignorant
and inaccurate should aspire to be a historian?
256 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
The aspirations of men are usually founded on the
conscious possession of some qualifications for
success. Luke evidently aimed and probably
was the first to aim at connecting the story of
the development of Christianity with the course of
general Imperial history. Surely he would not have
aimed at doing so, unless he possessed a certain
moderate knowledge of that history. In his pre-
face he declares that his motive for writing his
work was that he was in possession of such ex-
ceptionally excellent information, gained from first-
rate authorities. But only the grossest incapacity
and ignorance combined could have enabled him
to succeed in attaining so colossal a blunder.
The theory seems to me incredible, irrational,
and psychologically impossible. It is irreconcilable
with the known facts and the character of Luke's
History ; and I am confident that if it had been
stated about any writer who was not a Christian,
it would have been universally treated with the
contempt that it merits. It is the sort of fancy
that brands its originator and its believer as either
lacking the critical faculty or blinded by prejudice.
Moreover, the theory is founded on an acci-
dental peculiarity of order in the text of Josephus,
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 257
and presupposes that Luke was indebted entirely
to one passage of Josephus for his knowledge of
Theudas and Judas. He could hardly have read
any additional authority without acquiring some
more correct idea as to the time when Theudas
lived.
It is not here the place to discuss the question
whether Luke had read Josephus. As Dr. San-
day* says, the assumption that he used the
Jewish Antiquities " rests on little more than the
fact that both writers relate or allude to the same
events, though the differences between them are
really more marked than the resemblances ". He
adds that " Schuerer f sums up the controversy by
saying that either St. Luke had taken no notice of
Josephus at all, which he thinks the simpler and
more probable supposition, or at once forgot
everything that he had read ". The latter opinion
is that of a scholar who believes Luke to have
written after Josephus. We hold Luke to have
written before him.
In truth there is between Luke and Josephus
* Bampton Lectures, 1893, p. 278.
t Lucas und Josephus in Zeitschr. f. krit. Theologie, 1876, p. 574
ff. Josephus's great work on the Jewish Antiquities was written
about A.D. 93-94.
17
258 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
the minimum of resemblance and the maximum of
discrepancy possible between two authorities writing
about the same period, and both (as we believe)
enjoying access to excellent authorities.
Moreover, it is clear, on the recognised prin-
ciples of critical study, that Luke used some other
authority and was not indebted to Josephus alone ;
for he mentions the exact number of persons who
followed Theudas, viz., 400, whereas Josephus
would lead one to believe that Theudas had a very
much larger following.* Thus Luke had other
means of learning the date of Theudas. It may
be answered that Luke invented the number, and
designedly or through incapacity varied from the
account that Josephus gives. To that no reply
need be given : they who say so will be ready
to declare that Luke, who could read Josephus
and suppose the procurator Fadus to be older
than the great enrolment, was equally capable of
reading any number of additional authorities with-
out profiting by them !
We cannot, it is true, tell who was the Theudas
to whom Gamaliel refers. The period is very
obscure ; Josephus is practically our only authority,
^ov . . . ftrr0at are his words,
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 259
He does not allude, or profess to allude, to every
little disturbance on the banks of the Jordan.
There is no real difficulty in believing that more
than one impostor may have borne or taken the
name Theudas ; that one Theudas, amid the
troubles that followed the death of Herod the
Great (a period about which we have no informa-
tion except that there were great troubles, calling
for the presence of a Roman army from the Province
Syria), or at some earlier time, pretended to be
somebody, and found 400 followers ; and that
another Theudas, about A.D. 44-46, called him-
self a prophet, and led after him a great part
of the Jewish people.
The result is, at present, disappointing. We
have to leave the difficulty unsolved. We must
hope for the discovery of further evidence. Mean-
time, no one who finds Luke to be a trustworthy
historian in the rest of his History will see any
difficulty in this passage.
But there is good cause to look forward con-
fidently to the progress of discovery. The ad-
vance in knowledge, due to the increased activity
in searching, has been immense during recent
years. The whole essay, which has been here set
260 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
before the public, is founded on one discovery ;
and after it was in print, it has been confirmed by
a new find.*
We may suitably conclude the essay with
another discovery, slight in itself, but significant
of the general trend of advancing knowledge. f
The reference in Acts x. i to an Italic Cohort (of
which Cornelius was a centurion) has caused some
difficulty and discussion in recent years. Some
excellent scholars have entertained the suspicion
that this detail is an anachronism, caused by the
intrusion of circumstances that were true at a later
time into this early period. It is established by
an inscription that an Italic Cohort was stationed
in Syria at a considerably later time ; and the
theory is that Luke, knowing that such a Cohort
was there at the time when he wrote, either in-
correctly added this detail to the story which he
learned about Cornelius, or in some other way
manipulated or invented the story. What reason
he had for so treating the story, and how precisely
he treated it, the theory does not state. It simply
* See p. 135 f. and Preface, p. x.
tThe following paragraphs are shortened and modified (but
without altering the opinions stated) from an article in the
Expositor, September, 1896.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 261
casts discredit in a vague way on the story, accus-
ing it of containing a false detail.*
Among non-theologians, Professor Mommsen
pronounces no judgment, but avoids making any
positive suggestion about the Cohort, in his illumi-
native paper in the Siteungsberichte of the Berlin
Academy, 1895, p. 503/1* Marquardt, in the work
from which all study must always begin in these
subjects, Romische Staatsverwaltung, ii., p. 467,
note 5, accepts the words of Acts as an ordinary
authority, quoting them along with other references
to an Italic Cohort. A recent discovery confirms
the position taken by Marquardt, and will probably
be held by most scholars as a sufficient proof that,
in our present state of knowledge, the suspicion
that has been entertained about the reference is
contrary to the balance of evidence.
Dr. Bormann J publishes an inscription found
recently at Carnuntum, one of the great military
stations in Pannonia, on the south bank of the
Danube, a little below Vienna. It is the epitaph
* Steht . . . unter dent Verdacht, Verhdltnisse einer spdteren
Zeit in cine fruhere zuruck vcrlegt zu haben.
t Mit Sicherheit vermogen wir wcder diesc cohors Augusta (Acts
xxvii. 1) noch die vireipa 'lra\iK-fi . . . zu identificiren.
\Archdol. Epigr. Mittheil. aus Ocsterrcich, 1895, p. 218.
262 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
of a young soldier, Proculus, a subordinate officer
(optio) in the second Italic Cohort, who died at
Carnuntum while engaged on detached service
from the Syrian army (as an officer in a corps of
archers from Syria, temporarily sent on special
service and encamped at Carnuntum).* Proculus
was born at Philadelphia (doubtless the city of that
name beyond Jordan, the old Rabbath-Ammon),
and his father bore the Syrian name Rabilus.
As to the date of this epitaph, Bormann and
Domaszewski, two of the highest authorities, have
come independently to the same conclusion. The
epitaph was found with a group of others, stamped
by criteria derived both from nomenclature, and
from inscriptional and alphabetical character, as
belonging to the period of the early emperors.
This group belongs to an older cemetery, which
was in use before A.D. 73, when a new camp near
Carnuntum was built for the soldiers stationed
there. Further, the service on which these Syrian
soldiers had come to Carnuntum can be dated with
the highest probability.
In A.D. 69, Syrian detachments to the number
* Ex vexil. sagit. exer. Syriaci, where; Bormann's completion of
the abbreviations seems beyond question ex vcxillariis sagittariis
exercitus Syriaci.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 263
of 13,000 men swelled the army which Mucianus,
governor of Syria, led westwards to support Ves-
pasian in his struggle against Vitellius. But before
Mucianus arrived on the scene, the armies of Pan-
nonia and Moesia had declared for Vespasian,
marched into Italy, and finished the contest. Their
departure had left the northern frontier undefended
against the barbarians, Dacians, Germans, etc.,
beyond the Danube. As Tacitus mentions, the
Dacians showed signs of invading Moesia, and
Mucianus despatched the Sixth Legion * to guard
against them on the Lower Danube. Tacitus does
not say anything about the Upper Danube ; but
there also the danger was so obvious, that an ex-
perienced governor like Mucianus could hardly
fail to send a guard thither also ; for the words
of Tacitus (Hist., Hi., 46) show that he was fully
alive to the danger all along the northern frontier.
In this way we may conclude that part of the de-
tachments came to Carnuntum ; and there Proculus
died, perhaps in A.D. 70. The Syrian armies were
evidently soon sent back to the East, where the
Sixth Legion is shortly afterwards mentioned as
* This Legion, called Ferrata, was enrolled by Augustus and
stationed in Syria. It formed part of Mucianus's army in A.D. 69 ;
and it remained in Judaea at least as late as the third century.
264 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
engaged in operations in the northern parts of
Syria in 73.
There was therefore an Italic Cohort stationed
in Syria in A.D. 69. It was recruited from
Syria,* and therefore, according to the principle
laid down by Mommsen, it belonged to the
eastern Roman armies. It is therefore in every
way probable that an Italic Cohort was stationed in
the Province Syria, as Dr. Bormann has observed,
about A.D. 40, when Cornelius is mentioned as
" a centurion of the Cohort called Italic," resident
in Caesareia (the Roman governmental centre of
Palestine).
This discovery, it is true, does not prove con-
clusively that the Italic Cohort, which had been
stationed in Syria before A.D. 69, was there as early
as about A.D. 40. It is not beyond the range of
possibility that the Cohort might have been sent to
Syria between 40 and 69. Movements of troops
from province to province were not rare, and the
Italic Cohort might have been moved in that
interval. But, in general, the movements were
caused by military requirements which can be
* Proculus was in his seventh year of service when he died, and
had probably enlisted in A.D. 64 (when he was nineteen years old).
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 265
ascertained. As Marquardt says of Syria, " the
same Legions remained for centuries in the pro-
vince," and they were divided between many
different stations, not massed in single centres : for
example, detachments of the Third Legion called
Gallica, can be traced in Sidon, Beirut, Aera in the
district Auranitis, and Phasna in Trachonitis. The
whole burden of proof, therefore, rests with those
who maintain that a Cohort which was in Syria
before 69 was not there in 40. There is a
strong probability that Luke is right when he
alludes to that Cohort as part of the Syrian
garrison about A.D. 40.
A series of arguments have been advanced to
buttress this assumption that Luke when he spoke
of an Italic Cohort in Syria about 40 was guilty
of an anachronism.
It is pointed out, in the first place, that between
A.D. 41 and 44, during which period Judasa was
formed into a dependent kingdom ruled by Herod
Agrippa, a Roman Cohort would not be stationed
in Caesareia. If this were certain, it would merely
confirm the view taken by many scholars that the
incident of Cornelius occurred earlier than 41.
But as a matter of fact we know far too little of
266 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
the relations between the rule of Agrippa and
the provincial administration to be sure that a
centurion would not be resident in Cassareia during
his short reign. There is nothing more obscure
than the precise terms on which the numerous
dependent kingdoms in Asia Minor and Syria
were administered. It is practically certain that
these subject kingdoms were tributary from the
first, even when they had never before been subject
to Rome ; and even Herod the Great's action was
controlled by Rome in many important respects,
and his subjects took an oath to be faithful to the
Romans.* But the Judaean kingdom of Agrippa,
as it existed in A.D. 41-44, had long been actually
part of a Roman province ; and there is great
probability that it might retain certain relations
with the provincial government, and that officers
of the provincial soldiery might be kept resident
in the capital, Caesareia, to maintain these relations.
There is much that might be said on this point ;
but it is not necessary for our main purpose.
Moreover, the whole subject is so obscure that a
scholar who aims simply at understanding the
subject will at present refrain from any dogmatic
* See pp. 178 f., 184.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 267
statement about it, and will certainly be very slow
to condemn an ancient author for inaccuracy,
because he does not confirm the modern scholar's
hasty conjecture. All that need be said is that at
present we find the argument so devoid of force
that it hardly even affords any presumption in
favour of a date for the incident of Cornelius
earlier than A.D. 41.
In the next place it has been argued that even
between A.D. 6 and 41, when Judaea was part of
the Province Syria, and when Roman auxiliary
troops were stationed both at Caesareia and at
Jerusalem, an Italic Cohort cannot have been
stationed at Caesareia. This assertion is based on
a series of conjectures as to the Roman forces
stationed in Judaea during these years. It is
fortunately unnecessary for me to discuss these
conjectures : I need only point out (i) that they
are in direct contradiction to the principles
previously laid down by Mommsen, the supreme
authority on the subject ; * (2) that Mommsen has
now considered them and judged them to be " erro-
neous in every respect ".f
*See Mommsen in Hermes, xix., p. 217.
t In jeder
895, p. 501m
t In jeder Hinsicht verfehlt t Momsen in Berlin. Akad. Sitz 1 .
), p. 501
268 SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
But, further, even supposing that these con-
jectures were strong enough to support the
conclusion that the Italic Cohort was not stationed
in Cassareia, we know far too little to justify the
inference that a centurion of that Cohort could not
be on duty there, detached from his Cohort on
special service. The entire subject of detach-
ment-service is most obscure ; and we are very far
from being able to say with certainty that the
presence of an auxiliary centurion * in Cassareia is
impossible, unless the Cohort in which he was an
officer was stationed there.
Since the question of the Roman troops in
Palestine is so full of difficulties, that it is hardly
possible to make any assertion in the matter, what
judgment should be pronounced on the light-
heartedness which suspects Luke of inaccuracy, be-
cause he does not conform to the conjectures which
some distinguished German professor sets forth ?
It is a matter of interest to observe how slow some
very learned New Testament scholars are to
appreciate the principle, which is regarded as
fundamental by the historical and antiquarian
* Auxiliary centurions, being of lower rank than legionary,
were not employed as frumentarii (like Julius in Acts xxvii.) ; but
there were other ways of detached service.
SOME ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS 269
students, that no conjecture which is not founded
on clear evidence has any right even to be pro-
pounded, if it contradicts the direct statement of
an ancient authority. Much less ought the ancient
authority to be discredited because he disagrees
with a loose and disputed modern conjecture.
The episode of Cornelius in Acts is characterised
by that vagueness and want of direct, incisive
statement of details, which Luke shows in handling
the early history of the Church in Palestine. He
was not at home in the province of Syria, and the
Jewish people in particular he neither understood
nor liked. If the narrative of Cornelius showed
the same mastery of facts and surroundings as
is apparent in Philippi or Ephesus or Cyprus or
Athens, we should find it far more instructive than
it is as to the way in which an officer of the Roman
army of occupation lived. Was he resident in a
private house ? How was he in such close rela-
tions with the Jews throughout Palestine ? Many
questions suggest themselves, pressing for an
answer, which I cannot give. But the tendency of
discovery distinctly is, in this as in other cases, to
confirm the trustworthiness of the general situa-
tion.
APPENDIX
SPECIMENS OP THE DOCUMENTS
APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS 273
THE INSCRIPTION OF QUIRINIUS
(LAPIS TIBURTINUS).
GEM QVA REDACTA INPOI
AVGVSTI POPVLIQVE ROMANI SENATV
SVPPLICATIONES BINAS OB RES PROSP
IPSI ORNAMENTA T R I V M P I
PRO CONSVL ASIAM PROVINCIAM - OP
DIVI AVGVSTI ITERVM SYRIAM ET PH
The following restoration is often doubtful :
P. Sulpicius P.P. duirinius cos., datus rector Gaio
Caesari Divi Augusti nepoti
Pr., pro consule Crefam et Cyrenas provinciam
optinens Marmaridas et Garamantas subegit
Legatus pro -praetor e Divi Augusti Syriacas legio-
nes optinens bellum gessit cum gente Homonad-
ensium quae interfecerat Amyntam Galatarum
r^gem, qua redacta in potestatem Imp. Caesaris
Augusti Populique Romani, Senator dis immortalibus
supplicationes binas ob res prospm* ab eo gestas, et
ipsi ornamenta triumphalia decrevit
Proconsul Asiam provinciam optinutt, legatus pr. pr.
Divi Augusti iterum Syriam et Phoenicen provinciam
optinens regnum Archelai in provinciae formam redegit.
18
274 APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS
THE INSCRIPTION OF AEMILIUS SECUNDUS
(LAPIS VENETUS).
Q AEMILIVS Q F
PAL SECVNDVS in
CASTRIS-DIVI-AVG-S*&
P * SVLPIcIO ' QVIRINIO ' LEg aug.
e CaESARIS ' SYRIAE ' HONORI
BVS ' DECORATVS * PRaEFECT
COHORT ' AVG I ' PRaEFECT
COHORT ' II ' CLASSICAE ' | IDEM
IVSSV ' QVIRINI ' CENSVM ' Eel
10 APAMENAE * CIVITATIS ' MIL
LIVM ' HOMIN ' CIVIVM * CXVII
*
IDEM MISSV QVIRINI ADVERSVS
ITVRAEOS IN LIBANO ' MONTE
CASTELLVM ' EORVM * CEPI ET ANTE
IB M!LITIEM PRAEFECT FABRVM
DELATVS A ' DVOBVS * COS AD ' AE
RARIVM ET ' IN * COLONIA *
QVAESTOR ' AEDIL ' II ' DVVMVIR II
PON TIFEXS
20 IBI POSITI ' SVNT ' Q ' AEMILI VS'Q'F ' PAL
SECVNDVS'F'ET'AEMILIA'CHlA'LIB
H * M ' AMPLIVS'H'N'S*
APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS 275
THE ITALIC COHORT INSCRIPTION
(LAPIS CARNUNTENSIS).
PROCVLVS
RABILI F COL
PHILADEL MIL-
OPTIO COH II
ITALIC C R F
TINI EX VEXIL SA
GIT EXER SYRIACI
STIP VII VIXIT AN
XXVI
APVLEIVS FRATE
F- C-
Proculus Rabili f(ilius)
Col(lina) Philadelphia)
mil(es) optio coh(ortis) II
Italic(ae) c(ivium) R(oma-
norum centuria) F[aus]tini,
ex vexil(lariis ?) sagit(ta-
riis ?) exer(citus) Syriaci
stip(endiorum) VII ; vixit
an(nos) XXVI. Apuleius
frate(r) f(aciundum) c(ura-
vit).
276 APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS
RATING PAPER: '
a ' Airvyyioq \vapuriOQ
'A7roypa(f)O/j.ai
Kara TO EKTtOtv irpfjarayfjia
rriv V7rapyvaav sic JJLOI oiKiav
Kai av\ri* lc tv TIOI EXXfTPtbU ei> TOTTWI 'I/ntv-
^C p-w ot/c/ac 7r(/^t^)/ca e;rl
wpog vorov oi/cm
irpog fioppav
Ka\ 6Soc ai^a pkaov, irpOQ X/j3a
JUOV /Cttl
Trpoc aTrr/Xtwn?^ Ho/cave IlcrcTrr . v . O.
Tavrr/y ovv rt^iw/xai (jpayjjiuv) $' ( 4000).
Kai aXX^ OIKICLV, ev y GITOTTOIOIHSIV,
KCLI auXi], slc wi/ ptTpa
Mtr/oa 7r(rixc) /ca CTT
OC floppav EiaCTiroc TOU 'Apiavioc; Kai o^oc
a^a jjitaov, irpo^ \if3a ^e^epyijpiog
Tla^parov, irpog a7r?Xiwrji/ 17* 7rpoyeypainivri* lc
oiKia Kai oSoc a/a fjikaov. Tavrrjv ovv
' (= 2000)
a.
APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS 277
RATING PAPER: 'Airoypa^ (A.D. 59-60).
iu) [/cat .... ]ta
(tjv) 7roX(t)]
Ila . . e^t[ . . . ] Harjaiog TOV Muo(c)
iSoc;. Kara ra VTTO rov Kpariffrov
AfVJCiov 'lovXtou Ou
7rpOGTtTa.yiJ.tva
r^ ^crrw(rai/ rj/ufpav ra
pot OVTCL KaOapa CITTO Tf O(f)i\^ /cat
/cat TTO.VTOQ
^)/J,Yfi TTUTplKOV
Tpirov ptpog ot/ctac /cat avXrig, /ca! i//aAoi/
TOTTOVC fliKtov Svo ^iioovC*
aa irapa MEOTO/JJOIOC rov
TWI (fVft) Ntpawoe KXauStou KatVa^ooc A.D. 58/59.
/cai y rp /CW/UTJI oiKiav, fjv riyo
irapa
rwt c (tra) NtpvvoQ KXauStov Kato? A.D. 59/60.
SfjSaorou F|Ojua^tKou AvroKparopoQ.
On S' ai^ OTTO TO[VT]W^ o(/co>o/A//(Ta>
* \ r -| / /
rj /cai 7T|OO(Ta"yo|joJa(TttH, TTporepov
278 APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS
HOUSEHOLD ENROLMENT PAPER OF THE
CENSUS OF A.D. 187-8: 'AiroaT KO.T oiidav.
O> /cat 'If|0a[/a]
f3a) ypfapjuiaTtT) 'Ap(Ti
wapa "[aiwvog Harpiovog
TOV /cat ITaraAou Arj/uriTpiov
/caro//c[ou]
juoi ?r
fJCTOT /U|0oc oi/ctac /ca at-
Opiov Kai auXfic* ^ y /caroi/cw,
/cat a7ro"y/o(a^)Ojuai) e^uauroi/ /cat ro[vc]
f^tovg t^ r?]^ rov SitXrj-
AuOorog /ci? (trouc) Avpri\iov A.D. 187/8.
V Kvp'iov [/car* ol/c(t'ai')]
. Kai ci^ut 'IcrtW [o ?T|Oo]-
c) /caroifc(oc,')
/ca
fSa K:aroi/c(oi')
Oi') a7royy|o(a/i/ita'77/) r^ npOT^tpa) CLTTO-
rov aur(ou) a/i^)o
Avpri\iov Kou/toSou '
row KVpiov Mtcro(pri) 7r[ay(o/ii'wi') ?]
[28.] Aug. A.D. 189.
APPENDIX: DOCUMENTS 279
HOUSEHOLD ENROLMENT PAPER OF THE
CENSUS OF A.D. 187-8: 'ATroa /car' OLKLO.V.
y [/cat 'lpa/c]t j3a(iiX(t/ca>) yp(a/u/n-
arci) 'A/o<7i(yoirou) 'Hj
'HpwSou f/ H/ow[i'oc row] '
a[7ro] r?ic jur^rpOTroXewc
Sou Ta[/uia>^' UTraJp^ei juot CTT* a/j.6$ov
a\\[wv T]OTTWV SZKCITOV || [ju/oo]c QIKICLQ, tv y
:(<), [/caf a7roy]/o(a^)O/uai) t/uavrov Kai roue epovf; etc
r?5y T[OU 8i]A(r?Xu0oroc) /c) \J* (i.e. trove) Auprj\iov \
Kat') i/ [/cat ri)i/] ywai/ca )uou ovcrai'
/cat aSfXf)?]^ Ei/ojV 1 ?" L i^S /cat
yp^t]o/ L /c0 /cat
/cat 2a|oa7rt | [a L r /ca
/cat ra rov
t^ou TSK\VCL ''Hpuva prirpos Ei\jp~\rivr) /o
TT]V L A /cat 'ATTiwi^a prjTpoc; TTIQ I [air]Jic c/oya
L /cS /cat 'H/oaKXE/^r?^ ^|0icjo^ou^ L tO Kal Qaiaapiov
OVGCLV rov ''Hptovoc; \ [-yu^at/cja L t^ /cat
Ovyartpa ^vpai> L a* /cat a>ot/cove'
rov | [ ....... J priTpog Gai(Ta/otov
L ^uS /cat rr)i/ rovrov yvi'at/ca ov /caJ
*?^ L y/3 /cat e a^orfp^v vlbv Ka^a 'Hpa/cXet'S[ov rjov ''Hptovoq [^urjrjoojc
AiSu/tr?c \aoyp(a(f)ov^tvov) kpyart]v L /eg /cat r^
rovrov ofiio^TraTpiov) /cat o/uo/iriLr/oto^J a^fX^?]!/ | [. . .
..... ]rfi> L Ky TTCLVTCLQ TovQ [. . . .Jttovc avvcnro-
IJLOI ry ro[v tS L MO/OKOV | Av/o]?Xiov
a7roy|o(a^) trri rov TrpoKeifJLtvov a/Li^o^otf
. . || [/c# L] AvprjX'iov KofAfujSo-* 'Ai>roj[i>iVov KatVa/ooc
rov Kvpiov ..... J . (= A.D. 188/189).
LD 21-100m-7,'39(402s)
40618
M206449
65-1*1
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