(6.) What Josephus says of Abila and the tetrarchy in the reigns of Caligula and Claudius (i. e. about twen- ty years after the time mentioned in Luke's Gospel) is, that the former emperor promised the " tetrarchj' of Lv- sanias" to Agrippa {A nt. xviii, 6, 10), and that the latter actually gave to him "Abila of Lysanias" and the terri- tory near Lebanon {Ant. xix, 5, 1 ; comp.ll'ar, ii, 12,8).
Amid the obscurity which surrounds this name, sev- eral conjectures have been indulged in, which we will here notice.
1. According to Eusebius (whom others have follow- ed, such as Bode and Adrichomius; see Corn, a Lapid. in Luc. iii, 1), Lysanias was a son of Herod the Great. This opinion (the untenableness of which is shown by Valesius, on Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. i, 9, and by Scaliger, Animadcer. on Euseb. Citron, p. 178) has no other foun- dation than the fact that the evangelist mentions Lysa- nias with Herod Antipas and Philip.
2. To the older commentators, such as Casaubon (On Baroniu^, Ann. xxxi, Num. 4), Scaliger {loc. cit.), and others (see Corn, a Lap. and Grotius, ad loc), this dif- ference of dates presented no difficulty. Allowing his- torical credit to Luke (on which subject see Dr. MiU, Pantheistic Princip. pt. ii, p. 16 sq.), no less than to Jose- phus, they at once concluded that two different princes of the same name, and possibly of the same family, were referred to by the two writers. (See also Kuinol, On Lvke in, \; Krebsius, 06«e?T. p. 110-113 ; and Robinson. £ibliotfi.Sacr.\;Hl).
3. This reasonable solution, however, was unsatisfac-
tory to the restless critics of Germany. Strauss and others (whose names are mentioned by Bleek, Synopt. Erhl. i, 156, and INIeyer, Komment. ii, 289) charge the evangelist with "a gross chronological error;" a charge which they found on the assumption that the Lysanias of Chalcis mentioned by .Josephus is identical with the Lj-'sanias of Abilene, whom Luke mentions. This as- sumption is supported by a hypothesis which is incapa- ble of proof, namely, that Abilene, being contiguous to Chalcis, was united to the latter under the rule of Lysa- nias, the son of Ptolemy. It must, however, be borne in mind that .Josephus nowhere speaks of Abilene in connection with this Lysanias ; nor, indeed, does he men- tion it at all until many years after the notice by Luke. He calls Antony's victim simply ruler of Chalcis. More- over, it is of importance to observe that the tetrarchical division of Palestine and neighboring districts was not made until after the death of Herod the Great; so that, in his haste to inculpate the evangelist, Strauss, in ef- fect, attributes to the historian, whom he invidiously opposes to Luke as a better authority, an amount of in- accurate statement which, if true, would destroy all re- liance on his history ; for we have already seen that Jo- sephus more than once speaks of a " tetrarchy of Lysa- nias, " whereas there were no " tetrarchies" until some thirty years after the death of Ptolemy's son Lysanias. It is, therefore, a juster criticism to conclude (against Strauss, and with the earlier commentators) that in such passages as we have quoted above, wherein the histori- an speaks of "Abila of Lysanias" and "the tetrarchy of Lysanias," that a later Lysanias is certainly meant ; and that Josephus is not only accurate himself, but a voucher also for the veracity of Luke. But there is yet stronger evidence to be found in Josephus of the unten- ableness of Strauss's objection and theory. In his Jetu- ish War (ii, 12,8) the historian tells us that the empe- ror Claudius " removed Agrippa [the second] from Chal- cis [the kingdom, be it remembered, of Strauss's Lysa- nias] to a greater kingdom, giving him in addition the kingdom of Lysanias^' (ik St rijg XaXKiSog 'Aypimrav tig /.iii^ova f3acn\eiav /xtrariSriim . . . TrpoffiS'iyics Si Ti]v Ti Avaaviov fiaaiktiav'). Ebrard exposes the ab- surdity of Strauss's argument by drawing from these words of Josephus the following conclusion — inevitable, indeed, on the terms of Strauss — that Agrippa was de- prived of Chalcis, receiving in exchange a larger king- dom, and also Chalcis ! (See Ebrard's Gosjjel Hist. [Clark], p. 145, 146 ) The effect of this red'actio ad ab- surdum is well put by Dr. Lee {Lispiration [1st ed.], p. 394, note], " Hence, therefore, Josephus does make men- tion of a later Lysanias [on the denial of which Strauss has founded his assault on Luke], and, by doing so, fully corroborates the fact of the evangelist's intimate ac- quaintance with the tangled details of Jewish history in his day." Many eminent writers have expressly ac- cepted Ebrard's conclusion, including Meyer (loc. cit.} and Bleek (loc. cit.). Patritius concludes an elaljorate examination of the entire case with the discover}- that " the later Lysanias, whom Luke mentions, was known to Josephus also, and that, so far from ain- difficulty ac- cruing out of Josephus to the evangelist's chronology, as alleged by objectors to his veracitj', the historian's statements rather confirm and strengthen it" (Be Evan- geliis, iii, 42, 25). It is interesting, also, to remark that, if the sacred writer gains illustration from the Jewish historian in this matter, he also repays him the favor, by helping to clear up what would otherwise be unin- telligible in his statements ; for instance, when Jose- phus (Ant. xvii, 17, 4) mentions " Batansea, with Tra- chonitis and Auranitis, and a certain part of what was called ' the house of Zenotlorus,' as paying a certain tribute to Philip" (rrin' tivi ntpti oIkov tov ZijroOMpov Xtyofi'cvov); and when it is remembered that " the house of^Zenodorus" included other territory- besides Abilene (comp. Ant. xv, 10, 3, with War, i, 20, 4), we cannot but admit the force of the opinion advanced by Grotius (as quoted by Dr. Hudson, On the Antiq. xvii, 11, 4), that