It is not unreasonable, then, to hold that the solitary datrtm preserved by Epiphanius does add a slight a<lditional weight to the probability that the Cruciflxiou should be placed ou Friday March 18, a.d. 29.
Conclusion. — To sura up briefly : the separate results of live lines of enquiry harmonize with one another beyond expectation, so that each in turn supplies frebh security to the rest. The Nativity in B.C. 7-6 ; the aj;e of our Lord at the Baptism 30 years more or less ; the Baptism in A.D, 2(5 (26-27) ; the duration of the Ministry between two and three years ; the Crucitixion in A.D. 29 : these live strands, weak no doubt in isolation, become, when woven together, the stron;:^ and stable support of a consistent chronology of tlie Life of Christ,
Literature. — For all the preliminarj- chronological matter which underlies subjects such as that of this article, Ideler, Uandbuch der matfteinatinchen und technischen Chronologic, 2 vols. 1825, is still standard. Of books more especially devoted to the chronology of the life of Christ special mention should perhaps be made of Wieseler, Chrmiol. St/nopa. der Eoang. (Eng. tr. by Venables), and Caspari, Chronol. u. geog. Einlett. (E.T. by Evans). The writer of the present article — some points of which had been adumbrated in previous studies oi hia own. Patristic ejndejice and the (josj>el Chronology in the Church Quarterly Review for Jan. 1S92. pp. 390-415, and A Paschal Uoinily printed in the Works of St. Chrysostom, in Studia Bihlica, ii. pp. 130-149, Oxford, 1890— has learnt much, and derived many references in certain parts of his work, from three writers (though with their general conclusions he in each case disagrees): H. Browne, Ordo Stvclonim, London, 1844 , Hort on .Jn O*, in Westcott and Uort's Greek Testament, 1>-S1, App pp. 77-81; and R. A. Lipsius, Die Pilattts-Acten, Kiel, 1886.
II. THE APOSTOLIC AGE.
The Apostolic A^e may be detined, for the pur- po.ses of this article, as the period I^'in*,' between the Crucitixion [a.d. 29, less probably A.D. 30] anil the destruction of tlie teimde. (Jutside these limits lie, no doubt, .several of the NT wriih^gs^ for the chronology of whicli see the articles on them ; l)ut NT history may htly be said to close with the great catastroplie of A.D. 70.
Tliese first 40 years of Christian history are roughly conterminous with the labours of St. l*eter and St. Paul, and the principal documents con- cerned are, on the one hand, tlicir Kpistles, on the other, the Acts, one half of which book is in efVcct devoted to each of the two great apostles. But the wriLmgs in question do not bear on the face of them any continuous system of notes of time ; and the chronology must be based, in the first instance, on such synchronisms as are given, principally in Acts, with Jewish or Roman history, namely —
(1) The reign of Aretas of Damascus (*2Co 11^,
cf. Ac Q'-^).
(2) The reign and death of Herod Agrippa i.
(Ac l2'-=»).
(3) The famine under Claudius (Ac 1 1-"**' 12^).
(4) The proconsulship of Sergius I'anlus in
Cyprus (Ac 13').
(5) The cx|iulsion of the Jews from Konic
under Claudius (Ac 18*).
(6) The proconsulship of Gallio in Acliaia
(Ac 18*"^).
• The only exceptions to which Dr. Salmon might api>eal are om late as the 4th cent.: (i.) tlie tiuartodecinians and Capi'Jidocians, said by Epiphanius, IJ(cr. 1. 1, always to observe March 25 aa their *«#■;(;* > (''■) ^^^^ Montanists of Asia Minor, said by pseudo- Chrvsostom to observe the 14th, not of a lunar but of the 'vVsintic' solar month beginning on March 24, to that tneir ▼«rx« fell always on April 0.
416 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST.
CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TESL
mar- Felix (Ac
(7) The reign of Herod Agrippa li., and
riage of his sister Drusilla to Feli 24^25'»-26").
(8) The procuratorships of Felix and Festus
(Ac 21» 23-'' 24i»-^).
(9) The Days of Unleavened Bread (Ac 20'-'). (10) The persecution under Nero.
Two preliminary notes may be offered here.
o. Imperial Chronology.— Augnstua died Ang. 19, A.D. 14 ; Tiberius died March 16, a.d. 37 ; Gaius Calipila died Jan. 24, i.D. 41; Claudius died Oct. IS, a.d. 54; Nero died June 9,
*■()' AtUharUut for the Period outside NT Writers.— Ttiese are principally three : tor Jewish affairs, Joscphua ; (or Roman, Tacitus and Suetonius: and as they are occasionally incon- sistent with one another, it is important to define their position and opportunities as historians, (i.) Tacitus, born not lat-.-r and probably not much earlier than A.D. 64, published hio latest work, the AmiaU, or history of the empire from the death of AuCTistus to the death of Nero, at the end of Trajan s reign, c A D 116 ; but the work as now preser\'ed is imperfect, being deficient for the ten yearn a.d. 37-17, besides two shorter iaciiJUE in A D 30 and 66-68. The materials at his command for all at least that passed in Rome were ample, though his anti-impenal tendencies may colour his version of the facts m relation not only to the emperors, but to their ministers or favourites, (ii ) Suetonius, the junior of Tacitus by some 20 years, wrote his Lives of the Ccesart (from Julius to Domitian) under Hadnan, probably about A.D. 120. As private secretary to that emperor, he may have bad access to additional personal details about the earUer sovereigns, such as distinguish his anecdotal biographies from the more ambitious and more orderly history of Tacitus, (iii ) JosephuB, the historian of Judaism, was more strictly a contemporary of the infancy of the Christian Church than Suetonius or even Tacitus. Born in A.D. 37-38 and brought up in Jerus., be left that city for three years' stay among the Esscnes, a.d. 53-56, and left Pal. on a mission to Rome in A.D. 63-64. His share in the Jewish revolt— for he commanded in Galilee, and was taken prisoner at Jotapata— did not prevent him from espousing at once the Roman cause,or attaching himself tothp fortunesot Vespasian and Titus. Thus his works on the Jewish War (written before a.d. 79) and on the Anii'piitifs (completed in Uomitian's 13th year, a.d. 93-94) arc dominated by the distinct punwse of presenting himself and his countr>Tiien m as favourable a light as possible to the Romans. On the ot/icr hand, a writer in Rome enjoying impenal patronage, who »an spent in Pal. most of the years with whose events this article is concerned, was unusually well placed for ascertaining the facts, and, except where his ' tendency ' has to be discounted, his testimony cannot be dismissed off-hand even when con- fronted with that of Tacitus.