That Phlegon was here drawing again on Chriatian sources, whether the canonical Gospels or not, appears not to have been mispocted by Origen or Eusebius, but in face of the mention of the *6th hour' cannot admit of doubt. It does not, however, follow that he borrowed the year also from them ; for an annalist, if he has not found a precise date in his authorities, b bound to invent one. If he ascribed the portents of the Crucifixion to the 202nd Olympiad simply, a.d. 21>-33, he would not stand in manifest contradiction to the other early evidence. But if he really fixed them partii.-ularly to the 4th year, a.d. 33, he ia the only witness before Eusebius' time to do so ; and in that case the most probable h^'polbusis is that he knew from his Chrijttian authontics no more (and from Ihe Gospels as the^ stand he could hardly have learned more) than that the Cruci- fixion fell in the latter part of Tiberius' reign, and fixed on A.D. 83 because he may have already found reason to select that year tor the Bithynian earthquake.
Eusebius, however, fuund Phlegon's date harmonize admir- ably with his own theory of the kngth of the Ministry, and so hii ChTonirie assigns the Baptist's mission (after Lk 30 to Tiberius 1&, the mission of Christ to Tiberius 10, and the Passion to Tiberius 19 (A.D. 33). f The latter item in guaranteed both by Byncellus, Int^ iV ritr TiStp-tv 0xffi>.i'x(, and by the Armenian ; Jerome, no doubt because he allotted to the Ministry onlv two to three yearv, and not like Eusebius three to four, substitutes Tiberius 18.
0. Far more important is the tradition— found, it !■ true, In
• Ht 27*8 = Mk 16»3 simply rxir^ iyiur*; but in Lk 2.1*4 the tme text appears to add r»v itxitu iMXuratrct with hBCL, both Egyptian venlons, Origen '/j (rather •/,) and Cyril of Jeru- ■alem */,.
t On Eusebius' reckoning^ of Imperial years see imm**diately below.
no extant authority aa ancient as Phlegon, but found in so many authorities that the common source must ascend to a remote antiquity— which fixes the Cmcitixion in the consulship of the two Gemini, or in the 16th or the 10th year of Tiberius, or in the year 340 of the Greeks.
L. Rubellius Oeminus and C. Ftiflus (or Rufius, or Rufus, or Fusius) Ge minus were the consuls of a.d. 29. The Seleucid era (era of Alexander, era of the Greeks) commences Sept. B.o. 312, so that its 340th year runs from Sept. a.d. 28 to Sept. A.D. 29. But this same spring of a.d. 29 can be reckoned, according to different methods of calculation, as belonging either to the 16th or 16th year of Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus in Aug. a.d. 14, so that, on the strict reckoning, tlie passover falling in his 15th year will be that of a.d. 'Z"^. But the imperial year might sometimes be adjusted to the calendar year — to which corresponded the consul's tenure of ofiice, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 — by beginning a second imperial year on the first New Year's day of each reign : compare the practice of Trajan and his successors in commencing a 2nd year of tribunicia potestas on the annual inauguration day of new tribunes next after their accession (Lightfoot, Jgnatiitx^, ii. 398). In this case the 16th year would be exactly equi- valent to A.D. *23, the 16th to a.d. 29. Or again, the example of the chronographers suggests that the converse might be done and the fractional year simply omitted, each emperor's first year beginning on some fixed day : thus, for instance, it will be shown (see below in part li. of this article, Tmk Ai'OsroLic AOB, under Felix and Kestus, p. 418) that Eusebius appears to commence each emperor's 1st year in the .Sept. follow- ing his accession. Either year then is compatible — but the 16lh mure normally — with the spring of A.D. 29, under the consul- ship of the Gemini.*
(i.) Clement of Alexandria, ' With the Ifith year of Tiberius and 15th of Augustus, so are completed the 30 years to the Passion ; and from the Passion to the destruction of Jerusalem are 42 years 3 months,' Strom, i. 147 (Potter, i. 407). (ii.) Origen, perhaps copying Clement, *If you examine the chronology of the Passion and of the fall of Jerusalem . . . from Tiberius 15 to the razing of the temple, 42 years are completed,* Horn, in Uierem. xiv. 13 (c. a.d. 245; Delarue, iii. 217), and compare c. Cels. iv. 22. (iii.)TertulUan, 'In the 15th year of (Tiberius') reign Christ suffered * ; * the Passion . . . under Tiberius Casar in the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Rufius [al. Fufius] Geminus,' ado. Jud. 8 (but the authorship is doubtful), (iv.) Hippolytus, in his early 4th book on Daniel (ed. Bratke, p. 19), gives two irreconcilable dat^, Tiberius 18 [ = a.d. 31, 32] and the consulship of ' Rufus and Rubellio,' the former doubtless his own combination of a thr*:e years* ^linistry (for he also says that Christ suffered in his 33rd year, luc. cit.) with St. Luke's 15 Tiberius, the latter already traditional ; and this year, 29 A.D., alone reappears in his other works. His Chronicle (Chronica Minora, ed. ^^lommsen, I. i. p. 131) reckons 206 years from the Passion to the 13th of Alexander Severus, a.d, 234-2^5 ; his Paschal Cycle marks the 32nd year as that of the Passion, and since it was a recurring cycle of 112 years beginning in a.d. 222, the 32nd year will be equivalent to a.d. 253, or 141, or 29. (v.) Juhus Africanus, as represented in the Greek of Eusebius' Di'jnonstratio Evanjrlicn and Eclojce Prophcticce, and in that of Syncellus— Routh. /iV;.,S'af;.ii. pp. 301.302,304— wrote Tiberius 16, as represented in the Lat. of Jerome, Corrnn. in Dan. ix. (Vallarsi, v. 663), Tiberius 15; but since all authorities agree in the equation to 01. 202. 2 [ = a.d. 30, 31], it is practically certain that the 16th is correct, (vi.) Pseudo-Cvprian, Computus de Patcha, 20 (a.d. 243: Hartel, iii. 207) places the Passion of Christ in the 3l8t year of his age, and 16th of Tiberius Cassar^s reign, (vii.) Lactantius, Div. iit£t. iv. x. 18, 'In the 6th of Tiberius, that is, the consulship of the two Gemini ' ; Mort. vers. 2, 'in the consulshii* of the two Gemini.' (viii.) The Aogar legend as given in Eusebius, HE i. 13, dates the Resurrection and the preaching of Thaddaeus in the 3-luth year (i.e. of the Greeks: a.d. 28-29]. (i.x.) Of one other authority, the apocr. Gospel narrative entitled ' Acts of Pilat*?,' tlie value turns en- tirely on the date of its composition, and on the true reading of its chronology of the Crucifixion ; and both these points call (or fuller discussion.