RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Census
leader was Judas of Galilee (q.v.) shows that in that form it was new to the region. This census, as the mention of Judas of Galilee implies, is referred to in the words of Acts v. 37, " in the days of the enrolment."
More difficult of solution is the other New Testament passage, in which mention is made of a census decreed from Rome (Luke ii. 2). It is here distinctly stated that this census, commanded by Ceesar Augustus for the whole Roman Empire, was the first which took place in Palestine (as decreed by Augustus) when Quirinius was governor of Syria; and that by it Joseph was obligated to go with Mary to Bethlehem, his place of enrolment, where the birth of Jesus came to pass. 5. Luke ii. 2 From the starting-point of Acts v. 37, in Error, it were most plausible to bring the Jesus not birth of Christ, according to Luke ii., Born Under down to the time of the census of the Quirinius. year 6 a.d. This is antagonized by the chronology of Luke iii. 23, also by the fact that both Matthew and Luke presuppose the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in the year 4 B.C. of the Dionysian era (see Herod and His Family); that is, the birth of Christ would have occurred in the last preceding years. But in those years Quirinius could not have been governor of Syria,, because Sentius Saturninus was governor in the years 8-6 B.C. (Josephus, Ant., XVI. ix. 1), and from 6 B.C. until after Herod's death the governor was Quintilius Varus (Josephus, Ant., XVII. v. 2, x. 1). It has been therefore proposed on exegetical grounds to set aside the synchronism between the governorship of Quirinius and the birth of Jesus. But these attempts are impossible artifices. It has also been affirmed on the strength of the later governorship of Quirinius in the year 6 a.d., that he served an earlier preceding term (T. Mommsen, Res gestce divi Augusti, Berlin, 1865). But the evidences of this are quite uncertain. And since in no case can an earlier term of Quirinius as governor coincide with the reign of Herod the Great, it would not elucidate Luke ii. 2. If it be assumed that the census of the year of Christ's birth was begun by Saturninus, continued by Varus, and completed by Quirinius (Zumpt), against this in Luke ii. 2, the governorship of Quirinius is evidently intended to indicate the time when the event recorded there took place; and a census by a Roman officer in Judea before the annexation of that country is improbable. Accordingly Zahn assumes that only one Roman census took place in Palestine, namely, under Quirinius, which is meant both in Luke ii. and in Acts v.; save that this occurred not in the year 6 a.d., but in the year 4 B.C., several months after the death of Herod. But the particularity of the data in Josephus contradicts this hypothesis, which at all events does not clear the Gospel of Luke of error. On this account it is to be assumed that the governorship of Quirinius, Luke ii. 2, has been erroneously transposed from the census of the year 6 to the year of Christ's birth.
Still again, the report in Luke ii. of a general Roman imperial census is not historically warrantable
according to the literal text. Disregarding later
untrustworthy accounts, there are no literary or
epigraphi c traces of an imperial census
6. No Gen- in the time of Augustus, and such an eral Census event could not have occurred with-
Under out leaving some traces. And from Augustus, the monument of Ancyra it is evident that Augustus did not hold a census of Roman citizens in the period from 8 B.C. to 14 a.d. Only in the emperor's financial reform projects with reference to the whole empire, and in the assessments held by him in many parts of the empire, appears a certain nucleus of truth for that statement in Luke ii.
If then in the light of Luke ii. the governorship of Quirinius and the Roman imperial census can not be verified, this report is not to be rejected as unhistorical in all other respects. That Herod at that time received orders from Augustus to undertake a census in his country is not an impossibility. Highly as Herod was esteemed even by the emperor, he nevertheless remained the emperor's subject. This is manifest from the words of Augustus, that he would henceforth.
7. Solution, treat him not as his friend but as his a Census subject (Josephus, Ant., XVI. ix. 3); by Herod, as likewise from his rating in the number of the Syrian procurators {Ant.,
XV. x. 3). Consequently, since the Jews of Palestine from Pompey's time forth had been obliged to pay tribute in various forms to the Romans, Herod was also bound to the payment of tribute promptly after his appointment as king (Appian, Bella civilia, v. 75). It is, therefore, arbitrary to doubt (Schurer) that he also paid such dues continually (cf. Wieseler, TSK, 1875, pp. 541 sqq.). Nevertheless he was not deprived of the right of imposing and increasing taxes in his own name (cf. Josephus, Ant, XV. x. 4; XVII. ii. 1, xi. 2). It is accordingly to be assumed that he had to furnish tribute to a prescribed amount at Rome the collection of which was generally left to him out of Jewish revenues. Where, however, the Roman interest required it, the emperor, as a matter of course, could intervene for raising the necessary taxes to make up the tribute. This is apparent from a similar case, wherein Augustus commanded Archelaus to remit one-fourth of the Samaritans' taxes (Josephus, Ant., XVII. xi. 4). It is then conceivable that he commanded Herod to regulate the taxes necessary for the Roman tribute by means of a census by virtue of the forms already in vogue. For that Augustus did not at that time order a specifically Roman census in Palestine, but adhered to the Jewish practises, is borne out by other analogies in Roman procedure (Tacitus, Annates, iv. 72), by the operations of the Roman census of the year 6 a.d., and by indications afforded by the Gospel of Luke, according to which the census in question was decreed conformably to Jewish tribal enrolments. [For reply to above see Quirinius.] F. Sieffert.
Bibliography: The older literature on II. is given in TSK, 185° PP 663 sqq. P. E. Huschke, Ueber den zur Zeil der Gelurfclist^ehaltenen Census Breelau, 1840; idem Ueber den Census und die Steuerverfassung der . . Kmsfzeil ib. 1847; C. Wieseler, Chronologische Synapse aer
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