CENSUS
275
the lamp-stand, where all comers may sec it, and see by it?
CENSUS.— This English word does not occur in the NT, tlie Greek term dTraypacjyr) being rendered taxing in AV and enrolment in RV both in Lk 2= and in Ac 5^'. In the former case, with which we are mainly concerned, 'enrolment' is certainly the better word ; for the purpose of the enumera- tion was anparently not fiscal. That mentioned by Gamaliel, however, was a valuation as well as an enumeration, and it was called ' the taxing' with some reason. It was also better known than the other ; pa?- excellence it was ' the census ' because a great tumult arose under .Judas of Galilee in con- nexion with it, which made the occasion famous. That which took place at the time stated by St. Luke was so little known by the period when his Gospel was written, that he thinks it needful to insert a note about its date, lest it should be mis- taken for the other. 'This was the first enrol- ment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.' This note, however, has been itself a matter of great perplexity, because the date thus indicated does not apparently tally with the ascertained facts of secular history. Foi- tli^' discussion of this in- tricate question spc .-ulivl-s BiRTU OF CHRIST, DATE.S, and Quiuixir,-;.
The nature of the census of Lk 2''^ is a topic of some interest, on which light has been shed by Ramsay in Was Christ born at Ucfkle/iem? {1898). It seems to have been an enrolment by house- holds, such as Kenyon (Classinil Review, March 1893), Wilcken, and Viereek have shown was the practice in Egypt. Augustus had a great belief in the proper and systematic enumeration of his subjects, and the reckoning of them by households was a method which was carefully followed every fourteen years in Egypt. Many of the actual census papers have been found in that land in recent times, tlie earliest as yet discovered re- ferring to the year 20 AD. (Kamsay, ojk cit.. Pre- face, p. X note). This was quite dill'erent from the fiscal statistics compiled annually under the direction of the provincial governors of the Roman Empire, papers dealing with m liicli have also been found. The household enrolments took place in cycles of fourteen years, and were dated according to the emperor in whose leign they were carrifMl out. No mention was made in them of tlie value of property and stock, as in the annual returns, and the only financial ]mii),>si. they sowed was to determine who were lialii>- '■ >• il -' ''i ;i,x e.xacted from all subjects betwci 11 ! ' i iirteen and
sixty. This poll-tax w:i li (mjwos) re- ferred to by the Pharisees in liic .im ,,uun to Christ as to the lawfulness of jjaynieut (.\It 22'' ; see art. Tribute) It would seem that in Syria women as well as men were retjuired to pay this tax (Rams.ay, M>. cit. 147 note) ; and if that was the case also m Palestine, this fact may possibly expl.-iin why, on the first occasion when the enrolinent tlmt. wa's the basis of the poll-tax was made, Mary ai(oiu|janied Joseph to Lethlehem despite her critical con- dition.
The discovery of the household-enrolment papers in Egypt throws light on the statement of Lk 2' 'there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.' 'All the world ' (iraanv ttjv olKovniv-qv) was formerly supposed by some scholars, such as Kitto (Cyel. of Bib. Lit., art. ' Cyrenius'), to mean merely the whole land of Palestine, so as to escape the difficulty that secular history, so far as then known, was silent as to any general census. The meaning of the phrase cannot bo so restricted. It means certainly the whole of
the Roman Empire, which in the days of Augustus meant for all practical purposes 'the inhabited earth.' Not only was Rome itself included, with all the provinces, whether in Italy or elsewhere, but also those lands which, though having kings of their own, were really under the Roman .suzerainty. Such was tliat portion of Syria under the dominion of Herod the Great.
The silence of history as to such an enumeration as was now to be made is no proof that it did not take place ; for of other enumerations to which casual allusion is made by historians, Augustus himself in his record of his achievements makes no mention, except in so far as Roman citizens were con- cerned. The counting of alien subjects was probably not deemed of sufficient importance to be chronicled. Moreover, the household enrolments which have been traced back in Egypt by extant papers to A.D. 20 suggest at least that there may have been earlier ones in A.D. 6 and B.C. 8, whicli brings us back to the approximate period to which St. Luke refers. It may here be observed that the Evan^ gelist does not actually say (Lk 2'), and very likely does not mean, that the intention of Augustus was that one single enumeration should be made of the whole Roman world. The tense of airoypaipeadai. rather signifies that a census of this nature on the household-enrolment principle was to be the practice, this being the first occasion of its being ordered ; which precisely tallies with the following verse when rightly rendered, 'This was the first enrolment made at the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria. ' A fuller discussion of this latter statement is reserved for the article Quirinius.