4. Another mode of getting over the difficulty is ancHoned by the names of Calvin, Valesius, Wet- tein. Hales, and others. First, clianging a&Tri into ihrrf, they obtain the sense: *'In those da^ there irent fbrth a decree firom Augustus that the whole land thoold be enrolled; but the enrobnenl iUelfyrAB first xiade -when Cyrenius was governor of S3rria.^ The supposition here is, that the census was commenced under Satuminus, but was not completed till two years after, under Quirinus. Dr. Robinson (Addit. to CcU- metj in '* Cyrenius**) objects to this view the entire ab- sence of any liistorical basis for it. But he must at the time liave been unmindful of Hales, who, in his Chranologjf (iii, 48-58), has worked out this explana- tion with more than his usual care and success. Hales reminds us tliat a little before the birth of Christ, Herod had marched an army into Arabia to redress certain wrongs which he had received ; and this pro- ceeding had been so misrepresented to Augustus that he wrote a very harsh letter to Herod, the substance of which was, that " having hitherto treated him as a friend, he would now treat him as a subject." And when Herod sent an embassy to clear himself, the em- peror repeatedly refused to hear them, and so Herod was forced to submit to all the it^riet Qwapavofiiac) offered to him (Joseph. AtU. xvi, 9). Now it may be collected that the chief of these injuries was the per- formance of his threat of treating him as a subject by the degradation of his kingdom to a Roman province. For soon after Josephus incidentally mentions that *' the whole nation of the Jews took an oath of fidelity to Cssar and the king jointly, except 6000 of the Phar- isees, who, through their hostUity to the regal govern- ment, refused to take it." The date of this transac- tion b determined by its having been shortly before the death of Pheroras, and coincides with the time of this decree of enrolment and of the birth of Christ. The oath which Josephus mentions would be adminis- tered at the same time, according to the usage of the Roman census, in which a return of persons, ages, and properties was required to be made upon oath, under penalty of confiscation of goods, as we learn tnm Ul- pian. That Cyrenius, a Roman senator and procura- tor, was employed to make this enrolment, we learn not only ftom Luke, but by the joint testimony of Jus- tin Martyr, Julian the Apostate, and Ensebius ; and it was made while Satuminus was president of Syria (to whom it was attributed by Tertullian), in the thir- ty-third year of Herod* s reign, corresponding to the date of Christ*8 birth. Cyrenius, who is described by Taeitos as " an active soldier and rigid commissioner,** was well qualified for an employment so odious to Herod and Ids subjects, and probably came to execute the decree with an armed force. The enrolment of the inhabitants, '^each in his own city,** was in con- formity with the wary policy of the Roman jurispru- dence, to prevent insurrections and to expedite the business ; and if this precaution was judged prudent
even In Italy, much more must it have appeared nec- essary in turbulent provinces like Judsa and Galilee. At the present juncture, however, it appears that the census proceeded no farther than the first act, name- ly, the enrolment of persons in the Roman register. For Herod sent his trusty minister, Nicolas of Damas- cus, to Rome, who, by his address and presents, found means to mollify and undeceive the emperor, so that he proceeded no farther in the design which he had entertained. The census was consequently at this time suspended ; but it was afterwards carried into ef- fect upon the dleposal and banishment of Archelaus, and the settlement of Judssa as a Roman province. On this occasion the trusty Cyrenius was sent again, as president of Syria, with an armed fbrce, to confis- cate the property of Archelaus, and to complete the census for the purposes of taxation. This taxation was a poll-tax of two drachms a head upon nuiles fh>m fourteen, and females from twelve to sixty-five years of age — equal to about fifteen pence of our money. This was the ** tribute money** mentioned in Matt, xvii, 24-27. The payment of it became very obnox- ious to the Jews, and the imposition of it occasioned the insurrection under Judas of Galilee, which Luke himself describes as having occurred ** in the days of the taxing'* (Acts v, 87).' By this statement, connect- ed with the slight emendation of the text already in- dicated. Hales considers that **the Evangelist is crit- ically reconciled with the varying accounts of Jose- phus, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian ; and a historical difficulty satisfiictorily solved, which has hitherto set criticism at defiance.** This is perhaps saying too much, but the explanation is undoubtedly one of the best that has yet been given (Lardner*s CredibiUty^ i, 248-329; Wetstein, KuinOl, and Campbell, on Luke ii, 2, etc.).— Kitto, s. v.
6. The preceding explanations all render irpian/, *' first,** as an adverb^ but it is clearly not susceptible of such a construction, being an adjective regularly qualifying dvoypa^^ evidently for the purpose of distinguishing the present *' taxing** from a subse- quent one under the same authority, namely, that mentioned in the Acts. The writer of an elaborate article in the Journal of Sacred Literature (October, 1851) indeed urges that Luke ought to have said r) ivoypa^ rf vpwrrij and adduces many citations to show the adverbial force of irpt^roc ; but these are in- appropriate, for they would rather require the render- ing ** this was the fiirst taxing that took place,** etc., a sense equally difficult; and Luke's design does not appear to be to contrast so strongly the two taxings, since they were in a measure one, this the beginning, the other the completion. We are disposed, therefore, to adopt a modification of this last preceding explana- tion, and find the distinction between these two dates in the verb iykviroj rendering it ** efiected'* or com- pkted, the enrolment having only been bejun in the present case. This will combine all the historical no- tices above dted, and obviate all the objections that have been raised to the explanations of this difficult text hitherto proposed. (See Strong*s Harmony and ExpotUion of the GoepeU, Append, i, p. 20.) There is the greater propriety in this solution, inasmuch as Luke himself not only elsewhere alludes to the later enforcement of the tax-roll in question, but in this very passage under discussion he clearly implies it by the use of irpdirq^ firtt ; the rendering of which as an adverb (** first occurred**) makes the word itself either altogether nugatory or positively inapposite, since no later census of the kind is recorded than that referred to in the Acts. There can be no good philological reason assigned for adding this diFtinctive term, ex- cept to throw greater stress upon lykvtroj which other- wise would not naturally bear so strong a sense as the vtcuUony under the direction of Qoirinus, of what had already been inaugurated (irpurrrt) under difiisrent auspices (see Alford, Gr, Test, in loc.). The paren-