Taxing is the rendering, in the A. V., of a Greek word, which occurs in two passages, jy aTrojpa(j)!] (Vulg. descriptio, Luke ii, 2; professio, Acts v, 37). The cog- nate verb cnroyf)ci<pf(T^ai in like manner is rendered by "to be taxed" in the .4. V., while the Vulg. employs "ut describeretur universus orlii.s" in Luke ii. Land "ut profiterentur singuli" in ver. 3. In Heb. xiii, 23 {TrpwTOToKiov f(7royfy|Oa/(/tf)'u»' iv ovpavotQ), where the idea is that of the registration of the first-born as citizens of the heavenlj' Jerusalem, the A. V. has sim- ply " written," the Vulg. "qui conscripti sunt."' Both the Latin words used in the two passages first cited above are found in classical writers with the meaning of a registration or formal return of population or prop- erty (Cicero, Verr. ii, 3, 47; De OJJ'. i, 7; Sueton. i'lOer. 30). The English word conveys to ns more distinctly the notion of a tax or tribute actually levied, but it ap- pears to have been used in the IGth century for the simple assessment of a subsidy upon the property of a given county (Bacon, Henry VII, p. 67), or the registra- tion of the people for the purpose of a poll-tax (Cam- den, I/ist. of Eliziibet/i). This may account for the choice of the word by Tyndale in lieu of " description" and "profession," which VVycliffe. following the Vulg., had given. Since then " taxing" has kept its ground in most English versions with the exception of " trib- ute" in the Geneva, and " enrolment" in the Rhemish of Acts V, 37. The word aiToypa(pi] by itself leaves the question undetermined whetlier the returns made were of population or property. Josephus, using the words ri a7roTifi7](nQ rCJv ovaiMV {Ant. xviii, 1, 1) as an equivalent, shows that ^Uhe taxing" of which Gama- liel speaks included both. That connected with the Nativity, the first step towards the complete statisti- cal returns, was probably limited to the former ((ires- well. Harmony, i, 542). In either case "census" would have seemed the most natural Latin equivalent; but in the Greek of the New Test., and therefore probably in the familiar Latin of the period, as afterwards iu the Vulg., that word slides off into the sense of the tribute actually paid (Matt, xxii, 17; xvii, 24). See Census.
Two distinct registrations, or taxings, are mentioned in the New Test., both of them by Luke. The first is said to have been the result of an edict of the emperor Augustus that "all the world (i. e. the Roman empire) should be taxed" (JiirnypcKpta^ai Tzaaav rt)v oiKuvjik- vr]!') (Luke ii, 1), and is connected by the evangelist with the name of Cyreiiius, or Quirinus. The second, and more important (»'/ anoypa(pi], Acts v, 37), is re- ferred to in the report of Gamaliel's speech, and is there distinctly associated, in point of time, with the revolt of Judas of (ialilee. The account of Josephus {Ant. xviii, 1,1; War, ii, 8, 1) brings together the t\yo names which Luke keeps distinct, with an interval of several years between them. Cyrenius comes as governor of Syria after the deposition of Archelaus, accompanied by Coponius as procurator of Judaea. He is sent to make an assessment of the value of property in Syria ( no intimation being given of its extension to the oiKoi'fth'7]'), and it is this which rouses Judas and his followers to their rebellion. The chronological ques- tions presented by these apparent discrepancies have been discussed, so far as they are connected with the name of the governor of Syria, under Cvreniu.s. An account of the tumults caused by the taxing will be found under JiH),\s ok G.\i.ilek.
There are, however, some other questions connected with the statement of Luke ii, 1-3, which call for some notice. The truth of the statement has been ques-
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doned by Strauss (Leben Jesu, i, 28) and De Wette (^Comment, ad loc.)j and others, who conclude, from va- rious objections, that this statement belongs to legend, not to history; that it was a contrivance, more or less ingenious, to account for the birth at Bethlehem (that being assumed in popular tradition as a preconceived necessity for the Jlessiah) of one whose kindred lived, and who himself had grown up at Nazareth ; that the whole narrative of the infancy of our Lord, in Luiie's Gospel, is to be looked upon as mythical. We summarize these objections, and under each we pre- sent, within brief limits, what appears to us a sufficient answer.
1. The foremost ground of objection is that neither Josephus nor any other contemporary writer mentions a census extending over the whole empire at this period (A.U.C. 750). An edict like this, causing a general movement from the cities where men resided to those in which, for some reason or other, they were to be registered, must, it is said, have been a conspicuous fact, such as no historian woidd pass over.
On the other hand, it must be remembered that our history of this portion of the reign of Augustus is de- fective. Tacitus begins his Annals with the emperor's death. Suetonius is gossiping, inaccurate, and ill-ar- ranged. Dion Cassius leaves a gap from A.U.C. 748 to 756, with hardly any incidents. Josephus does not profess to give a history of the empire. It might eas- ily be that a general census, cir. A.U.C. 749-750, should remain unrecorded by them. If the measure was one of frequent occurrence, it would be all the more likely to be passed over. The testimony of a writer like Luke, obviously educated and well informed, giving many casual indications of a study of chronological data (Luke i, 5 ; iii ; Acts xxiv, 27), and of acquaintance with the Herodian family (Luke viii, 3; xxiii. 8; Acts xii, 20; xiii, 1) and other official people (ch. xxiii-xxvi), recognising distinctly the later and more conspicuous a.iroypa(pi}, must be admitted as fair presumptive evi- dence, hardly to be set aside in the absence of any evi- dence to the contrary. How hazardous such an infer- ence from the silence of historians would be, we may judge from the fact that there was undoubtedly a ge- ometrical survey of the empire at some period in the reign of Augustus, of whicli none of the above writers take any notice (comp. the extracts from the Kei Agra- rise Scriptores in Greswell, Harnwny, i, 537). It has been argued further that the whole policy of Augustus rested on a perpetual communication to the central government of the statistics of all parts of the empire. The inscription on the monument of Ancyra (Gruter, Corpus Insciipt. i, 230) names three general censuses in A.U.C, 72(5, 746, 767 (comp. Sueton. Octai: c. 28; Greswell, f/(irin. i, 535). Dion Cass. (Iv, 13) mentions another in Italy in A.U.C. 757. Others in Gai^l are as- signed to A.U.C. 727, 741, 767. Strabo (vi, 4, 2), writing early in the reign of Tiberius, speaks of fiia twv kuB' ■tjficii; Tifit](iuov, as if they were common things. In A.U.C. 726, when Augustus offered to resign his power, he laid before the senate a "rationarium imperii" (Sue- ton. Octal', c. 28). After his death, in like manner, a "breviarium totius imperii'" was produced, containing full returns of the population, wealth, resources of all parts of the empire, a careful digest apparently of facts collected during the labors of many j'ears (ibid.c. 101; Dion Cass. Iv ; Tacitus, Ann. i, 11). It will hardly seem strange that one of the routine official steps in this process should only be mentioned by a writer who, like Luke, had a special reason for noticing it. A census, involving property -returns, and the direct taxation consequent on them, might excite attention. A mere CLTroyprKpi] would have little in it to disturb men's minds, or force itself upon a writer of history.