8 Dec. B.c. 5. 24 July, B.C. 5. 7 Jan. в.c. 5. 23 Aug. B.C. 6. Of these, the first agrees best with the note of our Lord's age at His baptism in A.D. 28, comes nearest to the dates usually assigned by the early christian writers, is derived from a date of Zacharias's vision which is attended with a strong probability, and moreover is perfectly in accordance with the order of events related in the history.

§37. For it is evident that the visit of the Magi did not occur between the Nativity and the Presentation in the Temple, which took place at the end of forty days from the Nativity. It also seems to be a necessary inference from the combined narratives of S. Matthew and S. Luke, that between the Presentation and the arrival of the Magi at Bethlehem was an interval of not many days. S. Luke's statement, that the Holy Family returned from Jerusalem to Nazareth, is best reconciled with S. Matthew's narrative by supposing that from the Temple they returned to Bethlehem (eight miles from Jerusalem), only with the intention of departing thence to Nazareth, and that, soon after their arrival, the Magi presented themselves. But if 8 Dec. B.C. 5 be the approximate date of the Nativity, then 17 Jan. B.C. 4 is the approximate date of the Presentation, whence to the death of Herod (suppose 31 Mar.) are about 74 days, and to the Passover (10 April), 84 days. And the type, "out of Egypt have I called my son," seems to suggest a probability that the exode of the True Israel from Egypt occurred at the Passover.

The droypapn, or census, mentioned by S. Luke, if the true date of its execution in Syria could be ascertained, would greatly aid us in this part of our enquiry. But here again we have reason to deplore the hiatus which occurs in the very part of Dion Cassius's History in which the details of this occurrence might be expected. I reserve for an Appendix to this section the discussion of the facts connected with that census, and content myself at present with the remark, that the conjectural date at which we have arrived, 8 Dec. B. c. 5, agrees very well with all that is ascertained on that subject.

APPENDIX I.

ON THE DATES ASSIGNED TO THE NATIVITY BY THE EARLY

CHRISTIAN WRITERS.

§ 38. S. JUSTIN MARTYR, Apol. p. 83. § 46. πрò éτŵr ἑκατὸν πεντήκοντα γεγενῆσθαι τὸν Χριστὸν λέγειν ἡμᾶς, ἐπὶ Kupnviov. The statement, being given in round numbers, is

of course vague. It is sufficient to remark, that as the first Apology, according to the Chronicon of M. Aurelius Cassiodorus, was presented in the year of the consuls Gratus and Seleucus, i.e. as corrected by the other Fasti, Coss. Claro et Severo, A. D. 146 (Des Vignoles, Diss. in S. Hippolyt. Opp. Fabric. ii. 197. Greswell, Diss. i. 431), if this be also the date of the second Apology, then 150 years complete lead up to B. c. 5.

$39. S. Irenæus, Hær. iii. 25. Natus est Dominus noster eirca xli. annum Augusti imperii. If the epoch of Augustus's reign here intended be the triumvirate u. c. 711, then the 41st year begins u. c. 751. B. C. 3: but if the epoch be the death of Julius Cæsar u. c. 710, the 41st year will coincide with B. c. 4. (Greswell, p. 433).

$40. Tertullian ado. Jud. c. viii. p. 98. Opp. ed. 1677, assigns 56 years to the reign of Augustus, of which he places 41 before and 15 after the Nativity. This gives the date B.c. 3. But in another passage Tertullian makes our Lord about 33 years old at the crucifixion: p. 215, where the printed text has annos halens quasi xxx. quum pateretur: but S. Jerome, Comm. in Dan. ix. quotes it annos habens quasi xxxiii. Now in the same passage, as everywhere else, Tertullian assigns the Passion to the 15th year of Tiberius, i. e. Mar. A. D. 29. Whence if we accept S. Jerome's reading, Tertullian dated the Nativity between Mar. B. c. 5. and Mar. B. c. 4.

§ 41. S. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1. p. 147. § 145, says: "Some who have curiously investigated the time of the Nativity of our Saviour, give not only the year, but the very day, namely, the 25th Pachon of the 28th year of Augustus.”

In this statement the epoch of Augustus is the Alexandrine, bearing date from the 1st Thoth = 29th August v. c. 724. Therefore the 28th year of Augustus begins u. c. 751 B. c. 3; and thus the Nativity is brought down to the date 20 May (= 25 Pachon). B. c. 2. In the preceding words this writer gives his own date of the Nativity thus: γίνονται οὖν ἀφ' οὗ ὁ Κύριος ἐγενήθη ἕως κομόδου τελευτῆς τὰ πάντα ἔτη ἑκατὸν ἐννενήκοντα τεσσάρα μὴν εἰς ἡμέραι ιγ'. If the numbers are correctly given, which may be doubted (for the text is very corrupt, and the statement does not agree with the details of 144), then, since Commodus died 31 Dec. u.c. 945, Clement's date should be u. c. 751 November = B. C. 3.

§ 42. The Paschal Cycle of S. Hippolytus Portuensis (Opp. ed. Fabric. t. I. p. 36. ff.) assigns the year of our Saviour's birth, or rather the passover connected with it, to the second year of the first ekkaidekαeтηpis of his cycle of 112 years, the epoch of which is the year A. D. 222 1. But 222 A. D. 2 × 112 gives the year B. c. 3. for an apxn of the cycle, therefore B. C. 2 for S. Hippolytus's date of the Nativity. As the same document assigns the Passion to the 16th year of the second sedecennity, i. e. to the year A. D. 29, it is evident that Hippolytus assigned that particular year to the Nativity as supposing that our Lord was only thirty years old when He was crucified. And in fact this is what the author of the Chronicon ascribed to S. Hippolytus states in these words: A gene(ratione autem Xti) post xxx annos cum (passus est Dominus), Pascha celebratus, (ipse enim) erat justum Pascha.

In the Computus Paschalis ascribed to S. Cyprian, the subject of which is a Paschal Cycle exactly like that of S. Hippolytus, and having for its epoch the year 243 A. D. the writer assigns the Passion to the 16th year of Tiberius, cum esset annorum xxxi. As the 16th of Tiberius (passover) coincides with A. D. 30, this writer's date of the Nativity is

B. c. 2.

§ 43. Julius Africanus takes precisely the same view: namely, he assigns the Passion to the year A. M. 5531, which he identifies with the 16th of Tiberius (A. D. 30), and the

Nativity to the year 5500. See the Table constructed from his Chronology in Routh. Rell. Sac. ii. 362.

§ 44. Apollinarius Laod. in S. Jerome on Dan. ix. places the Crucifixion two years after the beginning of our Lord's ministry, in the 15th of Tiberius, and supposes our Lord to be thirty years of age at the commencement. Hence his date

is either B. c. 3 or B. c. 2.

$45. Sulpicius Severus, Sac. Hist. ii. 39. (Greswell, p. 439.): Sub Herode, anno imperii ejus xxxiii. Christus natus est, Sabino et Rufo Coss., viii. Kal. Jan. The 1st year of Herod = 1 Nisan 37-36 B. C., therefore the 33d = 1 Nisan 5-4 B.C. Sulpicius's date therefore is 25 Dec. B.C. 5. And with this very nearly agrees the consular year, for Sabinus and Rufus became consuls 1 Jan. B. c. 4. This author, it should be observed, assigns the Passion to the consulate of the two Gemini, Mar. A.D. 29. His view almost completely agrees with that which is here advocated.

§ 46. It is evident that most of the dates here assigned were based by their authors on the assumption that the note of time afforded by S. Luke iii. 23, wσei тpiákovтa éτŵv, must be taken strictly. We shall see hereafter that the earliest writers with almost one consent assign the Passion to the year 29 A.D., some to 30 A. D. Hence measuring back 30 or 31 years they arrived at the date B. c. 3 or 2.

$47. Epiphanius is a late writer, but as he records older opinions, his testimony may be added to the foregoing. "The everlasting Word was born (or conceived?) about the 40th of Augustus, 12 Kal. Jul. or Jun., I cannot tell which, Coss. Sulpicio Camerino Buteone Pompeio, i. e. v.c. 750. b.c. 4. His own month-date of the Nativity is 6 January. Hær. ii. t. 1. 22. (Greswell. u. s.)

APPENDIX II.

ON THE Απογραφή, oR CENSUS, AT THE TIME OF

THE NATIVITY.

§ 48. S. Luke ii. 2. αὕτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἠγεμονεύοντος Συρίας Κυρηνίου. (In some good MSS. and many patristic readings the article before drоypapn is omitted.)

The historical difficulty connected with these words consists in the well-known fact that there was an apographe of Judæa made by order of Augustus, conducted by Quirinus, præses of Syria, but that this took place in the tenth year after the death of Herod, namely, in consequence of the deposal of Archelaus. Joseph. Ant. xviii. init. Yet S. Luke seems to assert that Quirinus was præses of Syria, and that the aroуpan took place just at the time of our Lord's birth.

§ 49. It is quite incredible that a writer in the situation

of S. Luke should have fallen into an anachronism of this magnitude. To those with whom he conversed, no fact of history could be better known than the fact that the apographe of Judæa, conducted by Quirinus when president of Syria, took place in consequence of the deposal of Archelaus, and that it did not extend to Galilee, but was confined within the limits of the ethnarchy of Archelaus. And, indeed, we have positive evidence that S. Luke was well advised of the facts of the case. For, in the Acts v. 37, he reports a speech of Gamaliel, in which these words occur: "After him arose Judas the Galilean: ἐν ταῖς ἡμεραῖς τῆς ἀπογραφής.

$ 50. Of the various solutions of the difficulty which have been proposed, the least entitled to consideration is that which rejects the words y. Zup. Kup. from the text, as being a marginal gloss left in some leading MS. by a transcriber or annotator. It must indeed have been a leading MS., for the words in question appear in every MS., version, and patristic citation that has been yet collated. It is utterly incredible that so ignorant a blunder, as the hypothesis suggests, could