removed, and we must be content to confess, that it arises from our ignorance of the proper mode of solution,-our ignorance either of the true reading, or the true interpretation of his text. SECTION II. To what Taxing St. Luke, ch. ii. v. 1 & 2, I HAVE endeavoured in the preceding section to prove from various considerations, that it is highly improbable that an honest and well-informed historian like St. Luke should have confounded the taxing under the government of Cyrenius, with the ȧroypapy which took place at our Saviour's birth;—that it is highly probable that Tertullian did not read or understand the second verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke in the same manner in which we now read and understand it ;—and that we are consequently authorized to infer that the difficulty which is now created by that verse did not then exist, though whether we are to attribute its present existence to a corruption in the reading, or to a mis-conception of the meaning of the passage, I do not presume to say. I am rather inclined to refer it to the former cause, and to suspect that the verse is in part at least, the interpolation of some later transcriber. I shall next endeavour to point out that aroypap to which St. Luke most probably did allude, and to shew that, by its correspondence in point of circumstances and time, it sufficiently confirmsconfirms as much as it could reasonably be expected to do the date we have by an induction of particulars already assigned for the nativity of Jesus. Suidas under the word aroypan relates, that Augustus sent out twenty men throughout the empire to make an assessment of persons and estates. But besides the error which he afterwards commits of supposing this to have been the first census, so little is known of the compiler of the Lexicon of Suidas, except that he lived and wrote after the 975th year of the Christian era, that no dependence is to be placed upon his testimony, except when confirmed by some more ancient and credible historian. In this case indeed a confirmation has been supposed to exist in a passage of Dio, who observes that Augustus éteμev äλλous ἄλλῃ τά τε τῶν ἰδιωτῶν καὶ τὰ τῶν πολέων κτήματα ἀπογραψαμένους. But this refers exclusively to a transaction connected with a tax upon Roman citizens alone, whereas the aroypapn of St. Luke compre a Lardner. Credib. vol. I. 521. See Casaubon Exercit, i. 31, by whom the argument is urged, and Lardner vol. I, 249-50, by whom it is refuted. hends all the inhabitants of Judea, whether Romans or not. The same objection holds with regard to identifying St. Luke's taxing with any of the three Roman censuses which Augustus is known to have completed in the 28th and 8th years before, and in the 14th year after, the Christian era. We may therefore confine our attention to those traces of άToyρapai during the reign of Herod and Augustus, which embraced in their operation, either all the subjects of the Roman empire, or at least all the land of Judea, a more limited signification of the expression πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, which is fully justified by another passage of St. Luke, in which it is evident from the arguments of Lardner, and the circumstances and context, that it cannot be explained without absurdity in a more extended sense. Now in the 17th book of the Antiquities of Josephus there exists a passage to the following effect," When the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Cæsar, and the interests of e Acts xi. 28. d Lardner, vol. I. 240-46, with the notes. The discussion affords one of the most favourable specimens of Lardner's prolix manner; but I wish he had embodied the notes in the text. They are quite as essential, and in their present situation only break the train of reasoning and distract the reader's attention. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 3, p. 585-6. the King, the Pharisees to the number of above six thousand refused to swear. The King having laid a fine upon them, the wife of Pheroras paid the money for them." Allix Lamy has alluded to this transaction. has insisted upon it, and Lardner,' by pursuing it through all its various ramifications, has created, rather than discovered, some fanciful points of resemblance between it and the taxing of St. Luke, which have a tendency to weaken an argument which is naturally calculated to convey light and strength to the narrative of the Evangelist. I shall select those marks of correspondence which appear to be well founded, and add such other observations as have occurred in the course of the examination. That the Cæsar mentioned by Josephus was Augustus, and Herod the King, needs no proof. This is the first circumstance of similitude between the oath of Josephus and the άoypapn of St. Luke, The second is, that the oath of Josephus, like the taxing of St. Luke, occurred in the latter part of Herod's reign; and the third, that both applied to all the inhabitants of Judea who were of the seed 'Lamy. App. Chron. Part I. cap. 10. p. 83. Allix. cap. 3. Lardner. Credib. lib. ii. cap. 1. K |