pancy respecting the successive administrations of Cumanus and of Felix, which exists between the accounts of Josephus and those of Tacitus; because, however great this discrepancy may be, it is unquestionable that a Jewish historian is more entitled to credit, in relation to the affairs of Judæa, than a Roman: nor is this the only instance where Tacitus may be convicted either of a want of correct information, or a culpable haste and inaccuracy, with reference to Judæa in particular. But as to Josephus-in this portion of his history he must have written in some degree from personal observation; for he was thirteen or fourteen years old in the tenth of Claudius; and if we may believe his own account of himself, was so forward in intellectual proficiency, that even at that age the doctors of the Law used to consult him on difficult questions.

The discrepancy after all is not an insuperable one. Tacitus attests that Quadratus was Prefect of Syria not only before or in the eleventh of Claudius, but after it; and that in the twelfth Felix was governor of Judæa, and had been Pridem inpositus * d. The coins of Quadratus, still extant, begin only from U. C. 808. e at which time it is certain he had been long in office. I should conjecture that he was appointed in the ninth

* When Felix is spoken of as pridem Judæa inpositus, soon after the beginning of U. C. 805, it must imply that he had been appointed a year or two before; not later perhaps than U. C. 803.

But Tacitus betrays his inaccuracy on these points, where he talks of the Galilæans being subject to Cumanus, and the

Samaritans to Felix, as if they were the complex of the nation. For, on this principle, who was procurator of Judæa as such?

He does the same, Historiæ, v. 9, where he confounds Drusilla, the daughter of Herod Agrippa, with Drusilla, a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra: unless, indeed, Felix was married at the same time to both.

c Vita, 2. d Annales, xii. 45. 54. xiv. 26.

e Eckhel, iii. 280.

of Claudius, U. C. 802; and that he had not long been come into the province when the Jewish and Samaritan deputies, in consequence of the dispute of the two nations, had their audience of him at Tyre. His His predecessor, Cassius Longinus, had succeeded to Vibius Marsus after the death of Herod Agrippa, U. C. 796: and one of his coins proves him to have been in office U.C. 798. at least. Hence he might well be superseded in U. C. 802. Nor is this supposition inconsistent with the testimony of Tacitus ; who makes Cassius still president of Syria, when Meherdates was sent from Rome to be placed on the throne of Parthia, U.C. 802: and Cassius to be the person who conducted him to the banks of the Euphrates. It appears from the account that this service was performed by the midsummer of that year; so that it was possible for Cassius to be superseded in the ensuing autumn.

Now it is not improbable that, when Cumanus was appointed in the eighth of Claudius, U. C. 801, (the very year before Claudius, a few days after December the 29th, celebrated his marriage with Agrippina ↳, whom the influence of Pallas had raised to that dignity above her rivals ;) or early in the next year, Felix also was sent out in some coordinate capacity; and that the high priest, Jonathan, who is said to have personally solicited his appointment to the procuratorship after Cumanus, U. C. 803, first became acquainted with him in Judæa; and not at Rome.

Be this however as it may, the two historians are agreed upon the main facts; that the Galilæans had gone to war with the Samaritans; that Roman soldiers

f Eckhel, iii. 280. g Annales, xii. 11, 12. It appears from this account, that Meherdates must have been sent from Rome early, U. C. 802: have been conducted by Cassius to the Euphrates, about midsummer, the same year; and have entered Armenia in the autumn of that, or in the winter quarter of the next year. h Tacitus, Annales, xii. 5. 8. Suetonius, Claudius, 28, 29.

had been killed; that Quadratus was presiding governor of Syria; that he had authority to try the Jewish procurator himself; that Felix was or might be present at the trial of Cumanus; and that all these things might happen about the ninth of Claudius: while Josephus in particular will shew that the agitation in the province could not have been finally quelled; and that partly by the punishment of the most turbulent among the Jews, and partly by that of the Roman tribune Celer; before the tenth i.

Suetonius, by placing the appointment of Felix over Judæa after the adoption of Nero, is so far in favour of Josephusk; for it is the practice of this biographer, though he does not relate the whole of any life in historical order, yet to relate such portions of it as he classes together, in the order in which they followed each other. Nero was adopted by Claudius, according to Tacitus, U. C. 803. ineunte1; according to Suetonius, in the eleventh year of his age; which eleventh year was completed December the fifteenth, U. C. 801. This would fix the time of his adoption to U. C. 802. ineunte, when he had entered on his twelfth year, at the latest; so that on this point Tacitus is at variance with Suetonius; and yet that Suetonius is more in the right may be proved from Tacitus him

self.

m

At the time of this adoption Nero was committed to the tuition of Seneca mm; and to this tuition he had been committed fourteen years in the eighth of Nero"; that is, between October 13, U.C.814, and October 13, U. C. 815. This might be the case, if the first year of the tuition was U. C. 801. exeunte, or 802. ineunte;

but not if it was U. C. 803.*

Nero then must have

been adopted in the ninth of Claudius at the latest; and consequently Felix, who was appointed to Judæa after his adoption, might be appointed in the tenth; but could not be before it.

The second of the points of time, which we originally proposed to consider, is not less critical than the first: on the contrary, after what has been already established, it will be found perhaps to be more so.

When St. Paul upon leaving Athens was arrived, for the first time, at Corinth; he met there with Aquila and Priscilla, who were recently come from Italy, because Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome o. I have shewn elsewhere P that, in almost every instance of a journey from Italy to Asia, Corinth was the regular thoroughfare: and if Aquila was a native of Pontus, it is probable that he was returning to Asia; a conjecture, which is so far confirmed by the subsequent course of events, that it appears he left Corinth at the same time with St. Paul, and afterwards settled at Ephesus 9. Nor had he long been arrived at Corinth when St. Paul also came thither; nor consequently had the decree of Claudius, by which the Jews were expelled from Rome or Italy, been long in force.

Now a great number of Jews, most of them libertini generis; that is, the descendants of such as, having originally been brought to Rome in the capacity of slaves, had recovered their freedom; were living there in the time of Augustus and of Tiberius, and even

* Tacitus, it is true, speaks of Seneca's being appointed preceptor to Nero at the time of the marriage of Agrippina and Claudius, which was the begin

ning of U. C. 802. It would be fourteen years current from this time, any time after the beginning of U. C. 815.

o Acts xviii. 1, 2. P Dissertation ii. vol. i. 109. q Acts xviii. 18, 19. 24. 26.

before that; in the quarter called Trans Tiberim ": eight thousand concurred in the petition against Archelaus, which was sent from the mother country, U. C. 751; four thousand were transported to Sardinia, U. C. 772 t; and at the beginning of the reign of Claudius their numbers were become so considerable, that it was not thought safe or practicable to expel them the city, though they were forbidden to assemble together u*. This being the case, it becomes presumptively an argument that they would not be expressly driven from Rome at any subsequent period, except for some great and urgent reason; and that they were so expelled some time in the reign of Claudius is attested in general by Suetonius, as well as by St. Luke; though he may have mistaken the cause, or assigned it only in part, when he ascribes it to their constant disturbances, inpulsore Chresto; for Christianity, as we have seen w, had certainly reached Rome early in the reign of Claudius; and even in the time of Lactantius, Chrestus was still a common mistake of pronunciation for Christust.