P. M. Barnard.
QUIRINIUS.— Lk 22 AV, ' And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria' is better rendered in RV, ' This was the first en- rolment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.' From art. CENSUS it will be seen that this statement probably means that this was the first occasion of tan enrolment of this nature, an en- rolment of population by households as distinct from a rating-enrolment in reference to property, and that it took place during the governorship of Quirinius in Syria. Here, however, there seems to emerge a great discrepancy between St. Luke's account and what is known from secular history. It is certain that Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was the administrator of Syria from A.D. 6 to 9, and that in that period he took the rating-census men- tioned in Ac 5^' (Jos. Ant. XVII. xiii. 5, XVIII. i. 1). But the birth of Jesus took place before the death of Herod the Great (Mt 2), and that was in B.C. 4. The narratives of the two Evangelists seem to be at hopeless variance on a most important point. How are they to be reconciled ?
One way of cutting the knot readily occurs. We might suppose that the clause Lk 2^ was not in the original narrative, but was a marginal date inserted by an early copyist, who made a mistake as to the census intended; but the MSS afford no warrant for this suggestion. Now, assuming the text to be as St. Luke wrote it, we can have no dou bt that he did so quite deliberately, for he was most care-
ful to give an accurate account (see Lk V'*), and he himself has chronicled the census of a.d. 6 to 9 in Ac 5-". This would lead us a jiriori to reckon that as in his view at least there was no dis- crepancy, there must be some explanation that does not lie on the surface. Ur. Lardner's method of solving the difficulty is to interpret the verse thus : ' This was the first census of Cyrenius, who (afterwards) was governor of Syria,' St. Luke taking pains to distinguish, according to this view, be- tween the two enrolments, and giving the informa- tion that Quirinius was the man who at a later time became governor of Syria. Thus Herodian says that ' to Marcus the emperor were born several daughters and two sons ' ; yet we know that some of them at least were born before he became emperor. Dr. Lardner's interpretation, however, does violence to the construction of the text, and is at best a forced expedient to avoid a difficulty. Fortunately, later scholarship is able to dispense with it. Zumpt ( Commentatio de Syria Momanorum jirovincia ab Cesare Augusto ad Titum Vespasi- annni) has shown that Quirinius seems to have been governor of Syria on two occasions ; and this clue has been followed irp by independent studies of Ramsay ( Was Christ bom at Bethlehem ?). A frag- ment of an inscribed stone found at Tivoli in 1764 tells of the doings of a Roman official in the time of Augustus. The name has perished, but from the facts recorded antiquarians of note agree in believing that he was Quirinius. Now this stone distinctly mentions that he was twice Icgatus of Syria. [The actual word legatus is wanting in the fragment preserved, but some such word is re- quired by the context]. Still the problem is not solved by this discovery, though secular as well as sacred history must share the difficulty : for it happens that we know who were governors of that jirovince for the whole period prior to Herod's death in B.C. 4. In B.C. 9 Sentius Saturninus suc- ceeded Marcus Titius, and Josephus [Ant. xvil. V. 2) says : ' Now Quintilius Varus was at this time at Jerusalem, being sent to succeed Saturninus as president of Syria ' ; and this statement is verified by coins of Antioch-in-Syria bearing his name with date. As we know that Augustus had a rule that no governor of a province should hold that office for less than three or more than five years, the whole period from B.C. 12 to 4 is covered, and there is no room to place the governorship of Quirinius at the time required. He cannot have been governor before B.C. 12, for he was then consul at Rome ; and even if it were of any service, we cannot place him later, for he became tutor of Cains Coesar and governor of Asia ; so that there is a difficulty in fixing his earlier period of holding office in Syria, if, indeed, he was twice governor. Farrar has sug- gested th.at, the above-mentioned rule of Augustus notwithstanding, Varus was displaced ' because his close friendship with Archelaus, who resembled him in character, might have done mischief ' ; but of this there is no evidence, and the conjecture is but a make-shift. A better solution of the problem is to reckon that the governorship of which St. Luke speaks may have been of a ditt'erent char- acter from that held by Saturninus and Varus. Quirinius was a man who had shown himself very capable in military aftairs. Now at this period there were troubles with various tribes in Syria and its frontiers. Tacitus {Ann. iii. 48) tells us that Quirinius waged successful war against the Homonadenses in Cilicia (which belonged to Syria) at a time prior at least to A.D. 2, when he became rector to Cains Ca?sar. There is therefore, to say the least, no unlikelihood that while Varus, who had no military renown, was left as the ordinary governor to administer the internal afiairs of the province, Quirinius was appointed an extraordinary