traditions upon the question we are now agitating, and they fix the birth of Christ respectively to the spring or the autumn of the year. Which then are we to prefer, for they are both contemporary? There could be no doubt in my mind as to the propriety of bowing to the authority of Clemens himself, were it not for one circumstance. The season of the year at which Clemens fixes the birth of Jesus will, if adopted, throw us into a difficulty which has before been stated, that of making the flight into Egypt take place in the very middle of winter. In this point of view it is more objectionable even than the 25th of December. Upon this account I had rather fix my choice upon the month of April or of May,' which so far as I can see are free from every positive objection, and will afterwards appear to have still further claims upon our attention. As the ultimate conclusion therefore of this very long discussion, we arrive at J. P. 4709 as the year, and April or May as the month in which the blessed Saviour of the world was most probably born. In other words he may have 2 We know in fact that a general assessment was afterwards made in Judea in spring by Cyrenius after the banishment of Archelaus, J. P. 4720.-" Et sane illa Egyptiorum opinio non facilè respuenda, partim ob antiquitatem ejus, partim quia gens in annorum doctrinâ esset exercitata, taliumque curiosa.? Vossius de Nat. Christi, p. 80. been born about two years before the death of Herod which took place in the beginning of J. P. 4711, and to confirm this conclusion we have the testimony of Epiphanius in the third century. Epiphanius relates it, apparently as the general opinion of the primitive Christians, that Joseph and Mary remained in Egypt somewhat less than two years. Now as we have endeavoured to shew that they went into Egypt only about forty days after the birth of Jesus, continued there not quite two years, and most certainly returned from thence upon the death of Herod, it necessarily follows that Jesus was born about two years before the death of Herod. 'Iwon', says Epiphanius, (Hær. 51, cap. ix. vol. I. p. 431,) ἀποδιδράσκει ἅμα τῷ παιδὶ καὶ τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ εἰς "Αιγυπτον, καὶ ἄλλα δύο ἔτη ποιεῖ ἐκεῖσε. It is the expression άλλα δύο ἔτη, "other two years,” which proves them not to have been complete years; for he is comparing these years with those two imperfect years, which, in his erroneous opinion, intervened between the birth of Christ, and the arrival of the Magi. Therefore they also were imperfect years. CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING THE PROBABLE DATE OF THE NATIVITY. SECTION I. To what Taxing St. Luke, ch. ii. v. 1 & 2, We have already determined the probable period of our Saviour's birth, and fixed it to the spring of J. P. 4709, that is, about two years before the death of Herod. A third question, which we proposed for discussion, still remains to be considered, and it is this;-whether this probable date corresponds with the other chronological marks which are to be found in the New Testament. St. Luke is the only one of the sacred historians who has deemed it necessary to furnish his reader with any statement of those chronological marks which might determine the period of the principal transactions of our Saviour's life; and his second and third chapters are interspersed with such a profusion of these dates as to a casual observer would seem calculated to set the question at rest for ever. It is otherwise, there is scarcely one of these designations of time which has not afforded to the adversaries of the Gospel a ground of cavil, and to its defenders a task of difficulty. The present chapter will be occupied in the examination of the only date and the only difficulty deducible from these recorded marks of time in the Gospel of St. Luke, which regards the probable period of our Saviour's birth, when considered as unconnected with his baptism. Εγένετο δὲ ἐν ταις ἡμέραις εκείναις, ἐξῆλθε δόγμα παρὰ Καίσαρος Αὐγούστου ἀπογράφεσθαι πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην. Αὕτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγε μονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." a Such is the authorized English translation of The proper translation of Luke ii. 2. is "This first taxing took place, Cyrenius being governor of Syria;" and so it has uniformly the first and second verses of the second chapter of St. Luke; and it then proceeds to state, that during this taxing our Saviour was born. Now this is an absolute contradiction not only to that date which we have assigned for the nativity of Jesus, but to that of every other writer, and equally to the vulgar era itself. The vulgar era begins J. P. 4713, but Cyrenius was not sent into Syria as governor until J. P. 4720, seven years at least after the commencement of the vulgar era, and eleven years after the birth of Jesus, J. P. 4709. A contradiction therefore there certainly is, and where are we to look for a solution? There are but four causes to which it can be attributed. 1st, An error in the translation. 2d, A corruption in the reading of the passage. 3d, The uniformly been understood by the Christian Fathers, and in the more ancient versions, the Syriac, &c. That the writers in those early ages should have gone on from one to another in ignorance of the difficulty which is now universally admitted to exist, and that those acute adversaries of the Gospel, Celsus and Julian, should never have discovered the inconsistency, might astonish us more, were we not acquainted with the egregious errors which in former days were frequently committed by all sorts of writers upón subjects of Chronology and History. The absurdities of Tacitus when speaking of the Jews are too well known to require a repetition, and Justin Martyr, "regnasse ait Herodem in Judea, quando Ptolomæus Philadelphus libros legis vertendos curavit: qui tantus est sive prochronismus sive metachronismus ut oculis meis, cum illa lego vix credam." |