[ p. ix ]
It was Dionysius Exiguus, the abbot of a Roman monastery in the sixth century, who established in Western Christendom the fashion of reckoning history no longer as of old from the foundation of the city of Rome (ab urbe condita) in 753 B.C. but from the birth of our Lord. Unfortunately in fixing December 25 of our year 1 as the date of that supreme event he erred regarding both the year and the day.
1. The Year.—On the testimony of St. Matthew, when our Lord was born at Bethlehem, Herod the Great was still reigning over Judaea; and since Herod died on April 1, 4 B.C. (Mt. ii. 1), it follows that His birth was prior to that date. According to St. Luke He was born while the first imperial census (Lk. ii. 1,2 R.V.), instituted by Augustus, was in progress, and from Egyptian census-papers of various dates recently unearthed at Oxyrhynchus [1] it appears that the census was taken every fourteen years, and the first fell in 8 B.C. Hence it would follow that this was the year of our Lord’s birth; but here a difficulty emerges inasmuch as St. Luke expressly states that when that first imperial census was taken, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was governor of the Province of Syria; and since it was in 6 A.D. that Quirinius [ p. x ] assumed the governorship of Syria, [2] it was not during the first imperial census that our Lord was born but during the second. The explanation is furnished by u mutilated inscription which was discovered at Tivoli in 1764 and which records that Quirinius Syrian governorship of 6 A.D. was his second tenure of that office and that the special task for which he was then appointed was the reduction of the kingdom of Judsea to provincial status on the deposition of Archelaus. [3] It was during his previous governorship that the first census was taken.
But here a fresh difficulty emerges, inasmuch as the first census fell in 8 B.C. and in that year not Quirinius, as St. Luke affirms, but C. Sentius Satuminus was governor of Syria. It appears, however,_ that Quirinius’ first Syrian governorship was a military command, and he held it as legatus Augusti pro praetore in association with the civil governor. This was no unusual arrangement in view of military exigencies, and the task which required the service of Quirinius was the suppression of the fierce tribe of the Homadenses on the Cilician frontier. It was his success in this difficult campaign that gained him the honour of a Triumph ; [4] and according to the Tivoli inscription it was between his Triumph and his second Syrian governorship that he held the proconsulate of Asia. There is no record of the date of his proconsulate, but since he was consul in 12 B.C. and the normal interval between consulship and proconsulate was under Augustus five or six years, evidently he was Proconsul [ p. xi ] of Asia in the year 5-4 B.C. in succession to Asinius Gallus. The date of his military governorship of Syria might thus be the year 6-5 B.C. during the civil governorship of P. Quinctilius Varus (6-4 B.C.).
It would be in that year that the imperial census, due in the year 8, was taken ; and there was a reason for its delay. Judaea was then still a kingdom, and Herod, though a vassal of Rome, retained sovereign authority within his petty dominion. It was often difficult for him to please his suzerain without offending his Jewish subjects, always so jealous of their national and religious usages, and at that juncture his relations with Augustus were sorely strained. It was in the year 7 B.C. that the latter, as Josephus records, [5] sent him a stern letter, threatening to regard him no longer “as a friend but as a subject,” and probably the occasion of the quarrel was in part the king’s reluctance to institute the census lest it should excite an insurrection (Ac. v. 37), as actually happened when the second census was taken in 6 A.D.
The evidence thus far points to 5 B.C. as the year of our Lord’s birth; and it is corroborated by two evangelic testimonies. (1) St. Luke states (Lk. iii. 1,23) that the Baptist began his prophetic ministry during Pontius Pilate’s governorship of Judaea (25-35 A.D.) in the fifteenth year, not of the reign, but of the “governorship” of Tiberius, that is, the fifteenth year after his assumption by Augustus toward the close of 11 A.D. as his colleague “with equal authority in all the provinces and armies.” [6] The fifteenth year of the governorship of Tiberius began toward the close of [ p. xii ] 25 A.D., and it was in that year that John began his ministry. Our Lord was baptised early in 26 A.D., soon after the beginning of John’s ministry and some time before the ensuing Passover in the month of March; and since He was then “about thirty years of age,” He was born in the year 5 B.C. (2) It agrees herewith that at this the first Passover in the course of His public ministry Herod’s Temple had been forty-six years a-building (Cf. Jo. ii. 20) ; and since it was in the year 20 B.C. that the building was begun, that was the Passover of 26 A.D. It may be added that on the evidence of the Gospel narratives His ministry lasted three full years, and He was crucified, according to Tertullian, during the consulship of L. RubeUius Geminus and C. Fufius Geminus, that is, in 29 A.D. [7]
2. The Month. —It was certainly in the summer time that He was born, since the shepherds were out on the wilderness of Judaea (Lk. ii. 8) with their flocks and the season for pasturing in the open extended from the Passover till October. Nor is more precise evidence lacking. Zechariah, the Baptist’s father (Lk. i. 5), belonged to the Course of Abijah, the eighth of the twenty-four priestly relays that ministered each in rotation for a week, reckoned from Sabbath to Sabbath (I Chr. xxiv. 1-19); and at that period the eighth Course’s “days of ministration” fell about the third week of May. It was then that Zechariah obtained (Cf. Lk. i. 24,26,36) the promise of a son, and Elisabeth conceived after his return home in the beginning of June. It was in the ensuing November that Mary conceived; and so it would be [ p. xiii ] in August that she “brought forth her first-born Son.”
Hence the progress of events may be thus defined, tentatively as regards details but with reasonable certainty as regards the broad outline :—
| 5 B.C. | Birth of John the Baptist | March. |
| Birth of our Lord | August. | |
| Flight to Egypt | October. | |
| 4 B.C. | Return to Nazareth | October. |
| 7 A.D. | His first Passover | April 9. |
| 26 A.D. | His Baptism | January. |
| Wedding at Cana | early March. |
First Year of His Ministry
| Passover | March 21. | |
| At Bethabara | April and early May. | |
| Arrest of the Baptist | early in May. | |
| At Sychar | close of May. | |
| Settlement at Capernaum | beginning of June | |
| Inland mission | close of June till late summer. | |
| 27 A.D. | In the cornfield | March. |
Second Year of His Ministry
| Passover | April 9. | |
| Ordination of the Twelve | May. | |
| Mission in southern Galilee: | May till early spring. | |
| Mary the Magdalene, | ||
| visit to Nazareth, | ||
| commission of the Twelve, | ||
| at Nain, | ||
| deputation from the Baptist, | [ p. xiv ] | |
| 28 A.D. | the Baptist’s execution | January. |
| Retreat to Bethsaida Julias: | February, | |
| feeding the five thousand, | ||
| walking on the water. |
Third Year of His Ministry
| (Passover | March 29.) | |
| In Phoenicia | April-June. | |
| In Decapolis | June. | |
| Retreat to Caesarea Philippi: | close of June mid-August. | |
| Peter’s confession, | ||
| first announcement of Passion, | ||
| the Transfiguration, | ||
| healing of epileptic child, | ||
| second announcement of Passion. | ||
| Back in Capernaum | till near close of August. | |
| Revisiting inland Galilee | till mid September. | |
| Passage through Samaria | September 23. | |
| At Jericho | September 24. | |
| At Bethany | September 25. | |
| Arrival at Jerusalem | September 26. | |
| Ministry at Jerusalem | till close of December. | |
| 19 A.D. | At Bethabara | probably till close of February. |
| Raising of Lazarus | close of February. | |
| At Ephraim | till April 10. | |
| At Jericho | over Sabbath, April 11. | |
| Supper at Bethany | Sunday evening, April 12. |
[ p. xv ]
The Passion-Week
| Triumphal Entry | Monday morning, April 13. | |
| Last Supper | evening of Thursday, April 16. | |
| Crucifixion | Friday, April 17. | |
| Resurrection | Sunday morning, April 19. | |
| Ascension | Thursday, May 29. |
He was the Prince of Glory
In the land of cloudless day ;
But His eyes were wet with dimming tears.
And there He would not stay.
For He had heard the story
Of sorrow upon the earth,
And its voice of woe was in His ears
Amid the angels’ mirth.
So down He came in pity
And with mortals made abode ;
And where’er He found an open door.
He brought the peace of God.
In hamlet, field, and city
He vanquished disease and sin,
And He told glad tidings to the poor.
If they but let Him in.
And in His ancient pity
The immortal Son of God
Still walks on the earth and takes His stand
Where grief hath its abode.
In hamlet, field, and city
There are still disease and sin ;
And there still is healing in His hand
For all who let Him in.
Cf. Grenfell and Hunt’s discussion in Oxyrh. Pap. II. pp. 207 ff. ↩︎
Cf. Joseph. Ant. XVIII. ii. I. ↩︎
Cf. Schürer, Hist, of the Jewish People, I. 1. p. 354; Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem ?, pp. 227 ff., 273. ↩︎
Cf. Tac. Ann. III. 48; Strabo, 569. ↩︎
Ant. XVI. ix. 1-3. ↩︎
Cf. Tac. Ann. I. 3; Suet. Tib. xxi. ↩︎
1 Tert. Adv. Jud. 8; Tac. Ann. V. 1. ↩︎