[126] Annal., iii. 48, as interpreted by A. W. Zumpt in a Latin dissertation: De Syria Romanorum provincia ab Caesare Augusto ad T. Vespasianum, in Comment. Epigraph., Berol. 1854, vol. ii. 88-125, and approved by Mommsen in Res gesstae divi Augusti, 121-124. Zumpt has developed his views more fully in Das Geburtsjahr Christi, 1869, pp. 1-90. Ussher, Sanclemente, Ideler (II. 397), and Browne (p. 46) had understood Tacitus in the same way.
[127] First published at Florence, 1765, then by Sanclemente (De vulg. aerae Emendat. Rom. 1793), and more correctly by Bergmann and Mommsen: De inscriptione Latina, ad P. Sulpicium Quirinium referenda, Berol. 1851. Mommsen discussed it again in an appendix to Res gestae Augusti, Berol. 1865, pp. 111-126. The inscription is defective, and reads: "... Pro. Consul. Asiam. Provinciam. Op[tinuit legatus]. Divi. Augusti[i]terum i.e., again, a second time]. Syriam. Et. Ph[oenicem administravit, or, obtinuit]. The name is obliterated. Zumpt refers it to C. Sentius Saturninus (who preceded Quirinius, but is not known to have been twice governor of Syria), Bergmann, Mommsen, and Merivale to Quirinius (as was done by Sanclemente in 1793, and by Ideler, 1826). Nevertheless Mommsen denies any favorable bearing of the discovery on the solution of the difficulty in Luke, while Zumpt defends the substantial accuracy of the evangelist.
[128] Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 11, 1; Tacitus, Hist., v. 9: "post mortem Herodis ... Simo quidam regium nomen invaserat; is a Quintilio Vare obtinento Syriam punitus," etc.
[129] Three censuses, held a.u. 726, 748, and 767, are mentioned on the monument of Ancyra; one in Italy, 757, by Dion Cassius; others in Gaul are assigned to 727, 741, 767; Tertullian, who was a learned lawyer, speaks of one in Judaea under Sentius Saturninus, a.u. 749; and this would be the one which must be meant by Luke. See Gruter, Huschke, Zumpt, Plumptre, l. c.
[130] Suetonius, Aug. 28, 101; Tacitus, Annal., i. 11; Dio Cassius, lii. 30; Ivi. 33. The breviarium contained, according to Tacitus: "opes publicae quantum civium sociorumque in armis [which would include Herod], quot classes, regna, provinciae, tributa aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones. Quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus, addideratque consilium coërcendi intra terminos imperii, incertum metu anper invidiam"
[131] Joseph. Ant. xvi. 9, § 4. Comp. Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I.249.
[132] Such a decree has been often inferred from the passages of Suetonius and Tacitus just quoted. The silence of Josephus is not very difficult to explain, for he does not profess to give a history of the empire, is nearly silent on the period from a.u. 750-760, and is not as impartial a historian as Luke, nor worthy of more credit. Cassiodorus (Variarum, iii. 52) and Suidas (s. v., apographe) expressly assert the fact of a general census, and add several particulars which are not derived from Luke; e.g. Suidas says that Augustus elected twenty commissioners of high character and sent them to all parts of the empire to collect statistics of population as well as of property, and to return a portion to the national treasury. Hence Huschke, Wieseler, Zumpt, Plumptre, and McClellan accept their testimony as historically correct (while Schürer derives it simply from Luke, without being able to account for these particulars). Wieseler quotes also John Malala, the historian of Antioch, as saying, probablyon earlier authorities, that "Augustus, in the 39th year and 10th month of his reign [i.e. B.C. 5 or 6] issued a decree for a general registration throughout the empire." Julius Caesar had begun a measurement of the whole empire, and Augustus completed it.
[133] Not to be confounded with L. Volusius Saturninus, who is known, from coins, to have been governor of Syria a.u. 758 (a.d. 4).
[134] Adv. Marc. iv. 19: "Sed et census constat actos sub Augusto tunc in Judaea per Sentium Saturninum, apud quos genus ejus inquirere potuissent."
[135] Zumpt, the classical scholar and archaeologist, concludes (p. 223) that there is nothing in Luke's account which does not receive, from modern research,"full historical probability" ("volle historische Wahrscheinlichkeit"); while Schürer, the theologian, still doubts (Matt. 28:17). Dr. Woolsey (s. v."Cyrenius," in "Smith's Bible Dict.," Hackett and Abbot's ed., p. 526), decides that "something is gained." In the art. "Taxing" he says that a registration of Judaea made under the direction of the president of Syria by Jewish officers would not greatly differ from a similar registration made by Herod, and need not have alarmed the Jews if carefully managed.
[136] Antiqu. xv. 11, 1: "And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign (oktokaidekaton tes Herodon basileias eniautou) ... undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring it to perfection, and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him."
[137] Bell. Jud. I. 21, pentekaidekato etei tes basileias auton de ton naos epeskeuase
[138] Adv. Jud. c. 8: "Huius [Tiberii] quinto decimo anno imperii passus est Christus, annos habens quasi triginta, cum pateretur .... Quae passio huius exterminii intra tempora LXX hebdomadarum perfecta est sub Tiberio Caesare, Consulibus Rubellio Gemino Et Fufio Gemino, mense Martio, temporibus paschae, die VIII Kalendarum Aprilium, die prima azymorum, quo agnum occiderunt ad vesperam, sicuti a Moyse fuerat praeceptum." Lactantius(De Mort. Persec. 2; De Vera Sap. 10) and Augustine make the same statement (De Civit. Dei, I xviii. c. 54: "Mortuus est Christus duobus Geminis Consulibus, octavo Kalendas Aprilis "). Zumpt assigns much weight to this tradition, pp. 268 sqq.
[139] As in Switzerland the herds are driven to the mountain pastures in May and brought home in August or September.
[140] The latest learned advocate of the traditional date is John Brown McClellan, who tries to prove that Christ was born Dec. 25, a.u. 749 (B.C. 5). See his New Test., etc. vol. I. 390 sqq.
[141] Adv. Haer. II. c. 22, § 4-6.
[142] This shows conclusively how uncertain patristic traditions are as to mere facts.
[143] John 8:57. Irenaeus reasons that the Jews made the nearest approach to the real age, either from mere observation or from knowledge of the public records, and thus concludes: "Christ did not therefore preach only for one year, nor did he suffer in the twelfth month of the year; for the period included between the thirtieth and the fiftieth year can never be regarded as one year, unless indeed, among their aeons [he speaks of the Gnostics] there be such long years assigned to those who sit in their ranks with Bythos in thePleroma."
[144] Comp. Matt. 4:12; 23:37; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14; 10:38; 13:34.
[145] John 2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1. The Passover mentioned 6:4 Christ did not attend, because the Jews sought to kill him (7:1; comp. 5:18).
[146] John 5:1 if we read the article e before heorte ton Ioudion. See below.
[147] Isa. 61:2; comp. Luke 4:14.
[148] Exod. 12:5.
[149] Keim, I. 130.
[150] Henry Browne who, in his Ordo Saeclorum (pp.80 sqq.), likewise defends the one year's ministry, in part by astronomical calculations, is constrained to eliminate without any MSS. authority to `pascha from John 6:4, and to make the heorte there mentioned to be the same as that in 7:2, so that John would give the feasts of one year only, in regular chronological order, namely, the Passover 2:13 in March, the Pentecost 5:1 in May, the Feast of Tabernacles 6:4; 7:2 in September, the Feast of Dedication 10:22 in December, the Passover of the Crucifixion in March.
[151] The definite article before "feast, (he heorte ) which is supported by the Sinaitic MS. and adopted by Tischendorf (ed. viii.), favors the view that the feast was the Passover,the great feast of the Jews. The reading without the article, which has the weight of the more critical Vatican Ms, and is preferred by Lachmann, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and by the Revision of the E. V., favors the view that it was Pentecost, or Purim, or some other subordinate feast. (On the grammatical question comp. Thayer's Winer, p. 125, and Moulton's Winer, p. 155.) In all other passages John gives the name of the feast (to pascha John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55; he skenopegia 7:2; ta enkainia 10:22). It is objected that Jesus would not be likely to attend the patriotic and secular feast of Purim, which was not a temple feast and required no journey to Jerusalem, while he omitted the next Passover (John 6:4) which was of divine appointment and much more solemn; but the objection is not conclusive, since he attended other minor festivals (John 7:2; 10:22) merely for the purpose of doing good.
[152] Luke 13:6-9.Bengel, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, Weizäcker, Alford Wordsworth, Andrews, McClellan.
[153] By Eusebius (H. E., I. 10), Theodoret (in Dan. ix.), Robinson, Andrew, , McClellan, Gardiner, and many others. On the other hand Jerome, Wieseler, and Tischendorf hold the tripaschal theory. Jerome says (on Isaiah 29, in Migne's ed. of the Opera, IV. 330): "Scriptum est in Evangelio secundum Joannem, per tria Pascha Dominum venisse in Jerusalem, quae duos annos efficiunt."
[154] W. E. H. Lecky: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (1869) vol. II. p. 9. He adds: "Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regeneration."
[155] Mark 15:42; Matt. 27:62; Luke 23:54; John 19:14. Friday is called Preparation-day (paraskeue), because the meals for the Sabbath were prepared on the sixth day, as no fires were allowed to be kindled on the Sabbath (Ex. 16:5).
[156] Matt. 26:17, 20; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7, 15. Comp. John 18:9, 40.
[157] sybr?h vyb) could be taken to mean between the evening of the 14th and the evening of the 15th of Nisan, we should have twenty-four hours for the slaying and eating of the paschal lambs, and the whole difficulty between John and the Synoptists would disappear. We could easier conceive also the enormous number of 270,000 lambs which, according to the statement of Josephus, had to be sacrificed. But that interpretation is excluded by the fact that the same expression is used in the rules about the daily evening sacrifice (Ex. 29:39, 41; Num. 28:4).
[158] John 13:1; 13:29; 18:28 19:14.
[159] John 13:1 "before the feast of the Passover" does not mean a day before (which would have been so expressed, comp, 12:1), but a short time before, and refers to the commencement of the 15th of Nisan. The passage, 13:29: "Buy what things we have need of for the feast," causes no difficulty if we remember that Jesus sat down with his disciples before the regular hour of the Passover (13:1), so that there was time yet for the necessary purchases. The passage on the contrary affords a strong argument against the supposition that the supper described by John took place a full day before the Passover; for then there would have been no need of such haste for purchases as the apostles understood Christ to mean when he said to Judas."That thou doest, do quickly" (13:27). In John 18:28 it is said that the Jews went not into the Praetorium of the heathen Pilate "that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover; " but this was said early in the morning, at about 3 A. M., when the regular paschal meal was not yet finished in the city; others take the word Passover "here in an unusual sense so as to embrace the chagigah ( chgygh) or festive thank-offerings during the Passover week, especially on the fifteenth day of Nisan (comp. 2 Chr. 30:22); at all events it cannot apply to the paschal supper on the evening of the fifteenth of Nisan, for the defilement would have ceased after sunset, and could therefore have been no bar to eating the paschal supper (Lev. 15:1-18; 22:1-7). " The Preparation of the Passover,"he paraskeue tou pascha, John 19:14, is not the day preceding the Passover (Passover Eve), but, as clearly in 19:31 and 42, the preparation day of the Passover week, i.e. the Paschal Friday; paraskeue being the technical term for Friday as the preparation day for the Sabbath, the fore-Sabbath, prosabbaton, Mark 15:42 (comp. the German Sonnabend for Saturday, Sabbath-eve, etc.). For a fuller examination of the respective passages, see my edition of Lange on Matthew (pp. 454 sqq.), and on John (pp. 406, 415, 562, 569). Lightfoot, Wieseler, Lichtenstein, Hengstenberg, Ebrard (in the third ed. of his Kritik. 1868), Lange, Kirchner, Keil, Robinson, Andrews, Milligan, Plumptre and McClellan take the same view; while Lücke, Bleek, DeWette, Meyer, Ewald, Stier, Beyschlag, Greswell, Ellicott, Farrar, Mansel and Westcott maintain that Christ was crucified on the fourteenth of Nisan, and either assume a contradiction between John and the Synoptists (which in this case seems quite impossible), or transfer the paschal supper of Christ to the preceding day, contrary to law and custom. John himself clearly points to the fifteenth of Nisan as the day of the crucifixion, when he reports that the customary release of a prisoner " at the Passover"(en to pascha) was granted by Pilate on the day of crucifixion, John 18:39, 40. The critical and cautious Dr. Robinson says (Harmony, p. 222): " After repeated and calm consideration, there rests upon my own mind a clear conviction, that there is nothing in the language of John, or in the attendant circumstances, which upon fair interpretation requires or permits us to believe, that the beloved disciple either intended to correct, or has in fact corrected or contradicted, the explicit and unquestionable testimony of Matthew, Mark and Luke."Comp. also among the more recent discussions Mor. Kirchner: Die jüd. Passahfeier und Jesu letztes Mahl (Gotha, 1870); McClellan: N. Test. (1875), I. 473 sqq., 482 sqq.; Keil: Evang. des Matt. (Leipz. 1877), pp. 513 sqq.