The sentence in Saint Luke may be construed thus: "This was the first assessment (or enrolment) of Cyrenius, governor of Syria*;" the words " governor of Syria❞ being used after the name of Cyrenius as his addition or title. And this title belonging to him at the time of writing the account, was naturally enough subjoined to his name, though acquired after the transaction which the account describes. A modern writer, who was not very exact in the choice of his expressions, in relating the affairs of the East Indies, might easily say, that such a thing was done by Governor Hastings; though, in truth, the thing had been done by him before his advancement to the station from which he received the name of governor. And this, as we contend, is precisely the inaccuracy which has produced the difficulty in Saint Luke. * If the word which we render" first" be rendered “before," which it has been strongly contended that the Greek idiom allows of, the whole difficulty vanishes; for then the passage would be," Now this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor of Syria;" which corresponds with the chronology. But I rather choose to argue, that, however the word "first" be rendered, to give it a meaning at all, it militates with the objection. In this I think there can be no mistake. At any rate, it appears from the form of the expression, that he had two taxings or enrolments in contemplation. And if Cyrenius had been sent upon this business into Judea, before he became governor of Syria (against which supposition there is no proof, but rather external evidence of an enrolment going on about this time under some person or other*), then the census on all hands acknowledged to have been made by him in the beginning of his government, would form a second, so as to occasion the other to be called the first. II. Another chronological objection arises upon a date assigned in the beginning of the third chapter of Saint Luket. "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of * Josephus (Antiq. xvii. c. 2. sect. 6.) has this remarkable passage: "When therefore the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Cæsar, and the interests of the king.” This transaction corresponds in the course of the history with the time of Christ's birth. What is called a census, and which we render taxing, was delivering upon oath an account of their property. This might be accompanied with an oath of fidelity, or might be mistaken by Josephus for it. + Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 768. Tiberius Cæsar,-Jesus began to be about thirty years of age: for, supposing Jesus to have been born, as Saint Matthew, and Saint Luke also himself, relate, in the time of Herod, he must, according to the dates given in Josephus and by the Roman historians, have been at least thirty-one years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. If he was born, as Saint Matthew's narrative intimates, one or two years before Herod's death, he would have been thirtytwo or thirty-three years old at that time. This is the difficulty: the solution turns upon an alteration in the construction of the Greek. Saint Luke's words in the original are allowed, by the general opinion of learned men, to signify, not " that Jesus began to be about thirty years of age," but "that he was about thirty years of age when he began his ministry." This construction being admitted, the adverb "about" gives us all the latitude we want, and more, especially when applied, as it is in the present instance, to a decimal number: for such numbers, even without this qualifying addition, are often used in a laxer sense than is here contended for*. III. Acts v. 36. "For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to nought." Josephus has preserved the account of an impostor of the name of Theudas, who created some disturbances, and was slain; but according to the date assigned to this man's appearance (in which, however, it is very possible that Josephus may have been mistaken), it must have been, at the * Livy, speaking of the peace which the conduct of Romulus had procured to the state, during the whole reign of his successor (Numa), has these words‡:-" Ab illo enim profectis viribusdatis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem haberet:" yet afterwards in the same chapter," Romulus," he says, "septem et triginta regnavit annos. Numa tres et quadraginta." + Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh's translation), vol. i. p. 61. Liv. Hist. c. i. sect. 16. least, seven years after Gamaliel's speech, of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection*, that there might be two impostors of this name: and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the same thing appears to have happened in other instances of the same kind. It is proved from Josephus, that there were not fewer than four persons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten years, who were all leaders of insurrections and it is likewise recorded by this historian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great (which agrees very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time, "before these days"), there were innumerable disturbances in Judea. Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that one of the three Judases above-mentioned was Gamaliel's Theudast; and that with a less variation of the name than we actually find in * Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 922. |