XL Bomam, — ^This, under the Republic, consisted, so iar as the present purpose is concerned, of an enrol- ment of persona and property by tribes and households. Every paterfomilias was required to appear before the esasora, and g^ve his own name and his ikther's ; if msiried, that of his wife, and the number and ages of hii children ; after this, an account and valuation of Us property, on which a tax was then imposed. By the lists thus obtained every man's posltfon in the ttste was regulated. After these duties had been pec- iwmed, a Ituimmy at solemn purification of the people, foUowed, but not always fanmediately (Smith, Did. of Gait. Amtiq. a. t. Census. See Dionys. iv, 15, 22; <^eero,<b i>^.ii{,8; ainton, /Vise. i7eff. iii, p. 457, o. 10). The oeoBUB was taken, more or less regularly, in tils provinces, under the republic, by provincial cen- Mn,and the tribute regulated at their discretkm (Cic- ao, Var. H, lib. ii, 58, 5^ but no complete census was made before the time of Augustus, who carried out three general inspections of this kind, via. (1.) B.C. 28; (2.) aC. 8; (8.) A.D. 14; and a partUl one, A.D. ^ The reason of the partial extent of this last was that he feared distmbanoes out of Italy, and also that he might not appear as an exactor. Of the returns mad^ Augustus himself kept an accurate account (^ftfiariimX like a private man of his property (Dion CMs.liv,85; lv,13; Suetonius, iliiy. 27, 101 ; Tacitus, Am. 1,11; Tab.Ancgr. ap. Emesti, TViot ii, 188). A Bpedsl assessment of GaiU, under commissioners sent ^ the purpose, ia mentioned in the time of Tibeiiua I
(Taciti4fMi.i,81; ii,6; Livy,i^.l84,186). In the New Test two enrolments of this kind, executed un- der the Roman government, are mentioned by Luke (droypafri, * ' taxing* ').— Smith, s. v. See Tax.
1. In Acts V, 87, a census is referred to as at the time a well-known event, during whkh a certain Ju- daa of GalUee raised an insurrection. This import of the term there employed is sustained by Josephus (AnL xviii, 1, 1 ; 2, 1), who says that it was an assessment of property (diroTifaiet^ rSfv ohaiifv or xpflt*^'''^'^^ which the proconsul Qnirinus (KvfnfvtoCj Cyrenius) carried out on behalf of the emperor Augustus after the banishment of king Archelaus (A.D. 6), in which Sa- maria, Judsa, and Idumssa were Joined with the prov- ince of Syria under direct Roman rule. The Latin name for such a valuation, which was occasionally in- stituted in all the provinces of the Roman empire, is the well-known one oentut; by it new lists (dtroypa" fai, tabnltB eeimfnm, Polyb. ii, 23, 9) were made out, of persons, property, and business, and upon this basis the tax was imposed. See Assbssmbiit. The matter was naturally odious generally to the subjects, espe- cially to the Jews [see PctbucaiO, not only on ac- count of their religious prejudices [see ZsuyrEs], but also the violent and extortionate manner in which Oriental taxation is always enforoed. See Tbibutb. The word diroypafri is used almost invariably by Greek writers of the Roman period for cemtut, although an enrolment for taxation is more properly called dfrori' fuprtc, a sense, however, not inapplicable (even in the Attic dialect) to diroypa<^ and diroypd^a^ai (see Wachsmuth, £rett9i. il((ert&. ii, 71, 288, 280). SeeJu-
DAS (THB QaULMAH),
2. In Luke ii, 1, there is mentioned an enrolment or diroypaffi as having taken plaoe in the year of Christ's bfa^ by order of Augustus, and, as the words seem to express, under the superintendence of Quirinus or Cy- renius, president of Syria, extending over the entire land (iraaa oUovfikvi^. This seems, according to the date indicated, to have been diffBrent ftom the census above mentioned, as is indeed implied in the language "this the first tax-list was made while Qnirinus was governor" (oiJny iy dxoypa^ii irputTfi lykvtro lyyc/io- vtvovroQ Kvpriviov). But this passage contains great historical difficulty as well as importance (boo Busch- ke, Ueber den tur ZtU der Gtbwri CkrisU gekakenen C^RStcf, Breslau, 1840 ; Wieeeler, Synopte, p. 82 sq. ; Kirmss, in the Jenaer IM.'ZeUMng, 18^ No. 100 sq.). The principal discrepancies alleged with regard to the tax itself have been adduced by Strauss (Lebm Jem, i, $ 28) and De Wette (Cammemi. zu Luc. fai loc.): 1. Palestine was not yet directly Roman, or immediately liable to such a centut (comp. Joseph. Aai. xvii, 13, 5; xviii, 1, 1 ; Appian, (So. v, 75); an diroypa^ at this time, therefore, as being neither available for the pur- poses of the emperor, nor adapted to the relations of the Jewish vassal-kings towards him, would have been the more likely to have created a popular or govern- mental disturbance than the later one above reforred to. 2. At all events, no historical mention of- so un- usual a proceeding occurs either in Josephus or the Roman writers of the period. 8. Yet some notice of tlus event is the fiiore to be expected, inasmuch as the diroypaffi in question covered the whole emigre, the restriction of its terms (" the whole earth*' or land) to Palestine being altogether arbitrary. 4. In a Roman **oensus" the subjects were assessed at their actual residences ; a journey to the fomily seat could only be requisite on the supposition of a Jewish genealogical registry. 5. As wives were in no case required to re- pair to the assessors, Mary must have undertaken un- necessarily a journey to Bethlehem, and a stay there was harassing in her condition. Some of these ol^jec- tions were canvassed by Paulus (in his Comment, in loc.) ; Tholuck (GUnAwiirdigk. d. evang. Geech. p. 188 sq.), Huschke (td sup.), and others have pretty effect- ually answered them alL They may mostly be obvi-