EXPOSITION. loco.I rulers, who, among many other locali- CHAPTER Ill. ties, renam~d the La.ke of Galilee, where Vera. 1-22.-TBE BAPTISM OIi' Joim. so many of the scenes narrated in our story Ver. 1.-Now in the fifteenth year of the took place, "the Sea. of Tiberius." The reign of Tiberius C!Esar. St. Luke's Goepel city of Tiberius, on the shores of this inland i.e framed after the model of approved hill- sea., was named after the emperor. Pontill8 toriee. He commenced with an elaborate Pilate being governor of J'udma. Hi.s proper rhetorical preface, most carefully worded, title was i-r!Tp01ro,, procurator. In J utl&la stating, in a few well-ohosen sentences, the this civil functionary was also military com- reasons which had induced him to under- mander. This double office gave the pro- take the work. He then (eh. i. 5-ii. 52) cure.tor of J ud1Ea a higher rank e.nJ title; skilfully wove into the text of hie narrative his official snperior was the Roman Governor one or more original documents; these he of Syria. Pile.te became procurator in translated, pres.. rving, with great art, ae A.D. 26, and held the appointment for ten closely as possible, the spirit, and often- years. Herod being tetrarch of Galilee. times the very words, of his original autho- Thill Herod is usually known as" Anti pas" rity. Now, in this chapter he comes to a (properly, Antipater). He WBB a son of period more generally known. Here he has Herod the Great, and reigned for mure the.n a vast number of sources for his story, forty years; he we.a eventually deposed by written and oral ; these he shapes into a the Roman authorities a.nd banished to regular history, beginning, as was the ordi- Gaul. Ga.Wee at this period wa.s the most no.ry custom with works of this description, flourishing and densely populated portion with the names of the chief rulers of the of the land of promise. Roughly spea.k:ing, countries in which the events, which he it occupied all the centre of Pa.Jestine, the proposed to relate, took place. He first rich plo.i.n of EeJraelon (Jezreel) a.nd the speaks genemlly of the great Roman Empire surrounding districts. His brother Philip under whose shadow the Holy Land at the.t tetraroh of ltll?'flla and of the region of time cowered. Then he proceeds to describe Trachonitis. Herod Philip, another of the more fully the political divisions of Pales- great Herod's sons, is well spoken of as a tine; and, lastly, he writes of the great fair and judicious ruler. Ciesarea Philippi Jewish eoolesiastica.l governors of the doy. wo.a built by him. His tc-trarchate included Tiberius was the stepson of the Emperor the ancient Bashan and the Hauran, and Augustus, whom he succeeded. It was the country lying round the base of Hermon. about this time that this monaroh retired to Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene. This the ielo,nd of Caprem, where his life wus district lay to the eadt of the mountain disfigured with the grossest crimes. The range of Anti-Libanus, the river Barad& government of his ministers, who ruled flowing th1:ough it. 11\.,solutcly in his uome, has become a by- Ver. 2.-A.nnas and Caia.phas being the word for evil and tyrannico.l governweut. high priests. The older authorities read, The influonce of the Roman emperors at "in the high priesthood of Annus and C,i.ia- this time in Ptilestine appeo.rs from the phas." 'l'he mention of two high priests o.ttempte at odula.tion on the part of the arhles from the fact of the legitimate high
1 Upon tho growth in wisdom of our Lord, see Moorhouse's 'Hulsean Lectures,' passim. • Ct: Woolsey's' Religiou of the Present and the Future,' Scribner's eclit., pp. 9-23, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT. LURE. [OH. m. 1-88,