Chronology of the ot

The OT con- tains data from which a chronology may be com- piled from the creation of the world to the destruction of Jerus. by the Chaldajans. Foi convenience, thi.s chronology may be considered under several periods. i. Fro.m the Creation to the Flood. — The data for this period, which are found in the genea- logical table of Gn 5 and the notice of the year of the Kl(X)d in Gn 7', are given dilferently in the Heb text, the Sam., and the LXX.

These ditlerences are exhibited in the following table : — Age of each when next was born or event occurred. Heb. Sam. i.ri Adam 130 130 230 Seth 105 105 205 Knosh 90 90 190 Kenan . , ... 70 70 170 Mabalalel 65 66 165 Jarcd 1C2 62 162 Enoch . , , 05 95 165 Methuselah . • • • 187 97 167 Lamecb . • . , 182 63 188 Noah rears horn Creation to the Flood 600 000 900 1956 1307 1 2242 Thus we have three different lengths assigned for tlie period from the creation of man to the Flood.

The numbers of the Heb. text have gene- rally been regarded as the original, although recently those of the Sam. have been defended by Dilliuaun and Budde. The LXX text, however, was accepted by the Hel. Jews and the early Christian Church, and has found defenders among certain Eng. scholars (Hales, Jackson, Poole, Rawlinson, and others), who have looked upon it with favour as furnishing a chronology more in sujcord with the antiquity of man than that of the Heb. text.

But these numbers, whichever table may be regarded as the original, cannot, in any case, be accepted as historical, and hence for a real chronology of the early ages of man they are valueless. To accept them as genuine records is to assume from the creation of man a degree of civilisation high enough to firovide a settled calendar, and a regular registration of births and deaths, and the preservation of such records from the creation of man to the time of the composition of Gn.

All that is known of primitive antiiiuity is against such a supposition. The art of writing was not then known ; and however tenacious may have been the memory of man, it is doubtful whether language then po.sse8.sed the requisite terminology for the expression of such lapses of time. Man also has been upon the enrth for a far longer period than that given even by the LXX chronology. The conjectural character of the table of (^n 5 may be also recognised from the varia- tions of the three texts.

Such liberties would prob- ably not have been taken with tigurcs supposed to rest upon authentic historical documents. The sacred writer chose the form of a genealogical table to represent tlie early period of the world's history. The number of the patriarchs, ten, is a common one in the lists of the prehistoric rulers or heroes of many peoples. It appears at once to be a sug- gestion from the ten lingers.

The length assigned for the period from the Creation to the Flood is more dilticult of explanation. Accepting that of the Heb. text, the most probable exjilanation ia seen in connecting the KioO years with the subse- quent data given for the period between the Flood 398 CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. and the Exodus, which together make 2666, or two-thirds of 4000 years.

Four thousand years, according to a Jewish tradition, were to elapse from the creation of the world to the coming of the Mes-iiiah. Two-thirds of that period, then, would have passed at the Exodus, or the giving of the law and founding of the Jewish Theocracy at Mount Sinai. ii. From thk Flood to the Exodus.— For the period from the Flood to the birth of Abraham, we have a genealogical table in Gn ll'»-2« similar to that of Gn 5, and likewise given differently in the tiiree ancient texts.

In this instance, however, the Sam. and LXX VSS are almost identical, both giving a much longer period than the Heb. text. The LXX also has an extra name, Cainan, wanting in both the Heb. and Sam. texts, giving 1.30 addi- tional years ; and the years of Nahor at the birth of Terah in the LXX are 179, while in the Sam. 79. The variations are shown in the following table : — Bhem . Arpacbahid. Oainan . Bbelah . Eber . Peleg . Reu . Serug . , Nahor . Terah . Abnbaia Tn.

of Bhem's life b«L the Flood From Flood to birth of Abrahun Age of each when next wu bora or event occurred. Heb. Bun. I.XX 100 100 100 86 136 136 130 80 ISO 130 S4 134 134 80 130 130 82 182 132 SO 130 130 29 79 179 70 70 70 890 1040 1270 •100 100 100 290 040 1170 of the length of the sojourn of the children o! Israel in Egypt (Ex. 12">). In this last passage the LXX and Sam.

texts make the sojourning of the children of Israel to include also the sojourning of the patriarchs in the land of Canaan. From these data we present the following table with a summary of the preceding tables, with also the reference to the age of Abraham at his call from Haran (Gen. 12*) :— Of these three texts the Heb. is undoubtedly the original. The LXX and Sam. show an endeav- our to gain more time by systematically heighten- ing the birth year of the patriarchs.

The extra name of the LXX probably arose from a desire to make the number of the patriarchs ten (perhaps they were so originally), and thus bring the table more into conformity with that of Gn 5. The LXX text has been preferred by Hales, Jackson, Poole, and others as providing a more adequate time than the Heb. text for the growth of the nations of antiquity. But the LXX period is too short. It places the Flood at about .3000 B.C.

But Egyptian remains point to a civilisation whose beginnings were not later than 5000 years B.C., and ▼ery likely millenniums earlier (Maspero says 8000 or 10,000 years B.C.), and Assyr. discoveries have revealed an historic period extending to as early a date. This table came evidently from the same source aa that of Gn 5, and is of the same artificial character, except that in some of the patriarchal names are reminiscences of peoples and places.

The data for the period from the birth of Abra- ham to the Exodus are given in the notice of the age of Abraham at the birth of Isaac (Gn 21'), and of Isaac at the birth of Jacob (Gn 2.5'-"), and of Jacob at his descent into Egypt (Gn 47'), and • More exactly, according to the statement of Gn 11*^ that Arpachshad waa born ' two years after the Flood,' the years of Bhem's life before the Flood are 98 years.

But the ' two years after the Flood * Is probably a (floss inserted by eome one who, overlooking the round and systematic character of the data of the lives of the patriarchs, desired to make the birth of ArpAch- Khad correspond exactly to the deta/led statemente of the duration of the Hood (On 7« 813. 14). Age of Abraham on leaving Baran . Age of Abraham at the birth of Isaac Age of Isaac at the birth of Jacob . Age of Jacob at the descent into Egypt .

Years of the patriarchal sojourn in Canaan Years of the patriarchal sojourn in Egypt Years of the sojourn in Egypt according toLXX From the birth of Abraham to the Exodoi From the Flood to birth of Abraham From the Creation to the Flood From the Creation to the Exodus . , How nearly these numbers represent the actual duration of the beginnings of the people of Israel, and of their sojourn in E^pt, cannot now be determined.

They are evidently from the same original source as the previous tables, and there is no reason to suppose that authentic historical records underlie them. Some early hist, reminiscences, however, may be preserved in them. The number 400 for the years of the oppression in Egypt appears in Gn 15', which belongs to one of the earliest sources of the Hexateuch. I'he Period of the Sojourn in Eqijpt.

— The descent of the children of Israel into tigypt, according to the story of Joseph, took place when a Sem. foreigner might be received at the Egyp. court with favour, and his people readily granted posses- sions in the land. The reign of the Hyksos or Shepherd-kings meets this condition, and the descent of the children of Israel at that time is both an ancient tradition and the view generally accepted by biblical scholars.

The period of the Hyksos rule, owing to the obscurity and uncer- tainty of Egyp. chronology, cannot be very detinitely determined. It lasted several centuries, and terminated not later than 1530 B.C.t A famine is recorded as occurring during the reign of Aphophis or Apepi, one of the last of the Hyksos rulers ; and this monarch may have been the Pharaoh of Joseph. He is so mentioned by George Syncellus, a historian of the 9th cent. A.D.

; and the supposition is received with favour by Sayce, Brugsch, Kittel, and others. It is, however, only a supposition. The Pharaoh of the oppression, under whom the children of Israel built the treasure cities Pithom and Raamses (Ex 1"), was Bamses ii. This fact, long conjectured, has been definitely settled by Naville's identification of Pithom, and discovery that it was built by Ramses II.

The Exodus has usually been assigned (by Brugsch, Ehers, Rawlinson, Sayce, and others) to the reign of Menephtah (Merenptah) or Seti 11.. the im- mediate successors of Ramses ll. Since, however, both of these kings were no mean sovereigns, and apparently controlled both Pal. and tli»* Sin. Peninsula, it may be better (with Kittel Maspero, Wiedemann, and others) to assign • According to the documentary hj-potheais of the composi- tion of the Pent, or Hex.

they belong to the priestly docuijunt now generally regarded as the latA-st portion of the Pentat«Hi'-ii. t This is the date given by Ed. Meyer aa the lates^t pos.siMe, and is thus accepted by Wei. lei and Erman. Other dates given for the close of this period or the beginning of the New Kinpirs are Wiedemann, MM; Brugsch, 1708 ; Mariette, 1703; BawUnsnn 1640: LciKius. IMl. CHEONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST.

399 the Exodus to the period of roj'al weakness and peneral anarchy following their reigns at the close of the lOlli dynasty (not later, according to Meyer, than 1180 B.C.; according to Kawlinson and otbera, about a cent, earlier). M'Curdy {Hist., Proph., and the Hon.) places the Exodus in the 20th dynasty, in the latter part of the reign of Ramses in., or immediately after his reign. He does not think the E''yp. control in the Sin. Pen- insula or in Pal.

to have been suliiciently relaxed at an earlier period for either the Exodus or the conquest of Pal. to have been possible. He gives the dat« about 1200 B.C. The children of Israel, however, during the reign of Ramses III. (1180- 1148) may have been wandering in the desert and taking possession of the country E. of the Jordan. This would allow about 50 years from their dejiar- ture from Egypt to their entrance into W. Pal., corresponding roughly with the biblical 40 years.

This much at least seems certain, that Pal. was for many centuries an Egyp. province, and that the conquests under Joshua cannot well have begun until the close of the 19th dynasty, and probably the close of the reign of Ramses III. The view of some writers (F. C. Cook, Conder, Kohler, Sharpe, and others), who have a-ssigned the Exodus to earlier periods, is refuted by Naville's discovery of Pithom, built by Ramses II.; by the Tel el- Amama tablets, which show that Pal. was thoroughly an Egyp.

province during the 18th dynasty ; and by the fact of the control exercised by Set! I. and Ramses ll. over Pal. within the 19th dynasty.* iiL From the Exodus to the Founding of the Temple. — The founding of Solomon's temple is said in 1 K 6' to have taken place in the 480th year after the Exodus (according to the LXX, in the i40th year). Such an exact statement, if historical, requires that an accurate system of reckoning time was employed by the children of Israel during all those years.

A provision for this has been seen in the yearly Heb. festivals, and especially in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. If this, however, was the case, it is strange that we do not find traces of such a mode of reckoning in the OT. While there are allusions to the recurrence of feasts as indicating a year's time, there is nothing to indicate festivals or Sabbatical or Jubilee years as being regarded as the units or t«rmini of any calendar.

The only method apparent is by the years of the monarch of the land. Before the royal period we have no evidence of any system of reckoning dates, and it is probable that during the period from the Exodus to the founding of the temple. Sabbatical years and years of Jubilee were not observed. The number 480 appears, like the numbers of the Pent., to be conjectural, arising from the supposition that from the Exodus to the founding of the temple there were 12 genera- tions of 40 years each.

This period, however, is too long. The interval from the Exodus to the founding of the temple is probably nearer 300 than 500 years. The Exodus we have seen can in no case be placed earlier than after the reign of Ramses II., and the building of the temple oc- curred not later tlian the middle of the 10th cent. B.C. Reliable chron. data for comput- ing the exact length of this period we may well believe were not preserved.

1 he disorganised con- dition of affairs during the period of the judges, when there was no central authority, is against the supposition of the use of a settled calendar and the otiicial registration of events. The chron. • Sine* the above article wm In type, the new Inicriptlon of king Merenntah mentioning- the i>fop!>_' < ; Igmol hoa been dis- covered.

Tills may call for a revision of the opinion expressed above in regard to the date of the lixoilus, and may require i\M aMigrnmeDt to ftu earlier period. See EoviT, Exobcs (Route). data of the Book of Judges appear also tc be somewhat artificial. They are as follows : — Israel sen'es Cushan-risbathaim (as) . 8 years. Deliverance by Othniel : the land reata (3U) , 40 „ Israel serves E^lon (31*) 18 „ Deliverance by Ehud : the land reata {^) .

80 ^ Oppresiiion by Jabin (43) 20 „ Deliverance by Deborah ; the land restfl (6S1) . 40 ^ Oppression by Midian (ftl) . . 7 « Deliverance by Gideon : the land rest* (828) , 40 „ Abimelech rei^'ns over Israel (9-2') . , 8 „ Tola judges Israel (1U-) 23 „ Jair jud(;es Israel (1»') 22 „ Oppression bv Amnion (108) , , , . 18 „ Jephthah judges Israel (120 . . 6 „ Ibzan judges Israel il'^J) 7 „ Elon judges Israel (12") 10 „ Abdon judges Israel (IS") . .

8 „ Oppression by the Philistines (131) , , . 40 „ Samson Judges Israel (15^ Id") . , . 20 „ Total . . 410 yean. To these years must be added — The sojourn in the WildemeM . 40 year^ The conquest under Joshua , . x „ The judgeship of Eli (1 S 418) . . 40 „ The judgeship of Samuel .... '20 „ The reign of Saul y t. The reign of David (1 K 2") . . 40 „ Of the reign of Salomon (1 E 61) . 4 „ Total . 144-(-x-hy ytat.

According to these figures the entire period la over 550 years, and the repeated occurrence of 40 or its multiple shows that some of the numbers are round, and probably conjectural. Some of tlie judgeships recorded in the Book of Judges may have been local and contemporaneous with others. In that case no chronology can be computed from these statements.

In all likelihood, however, the numbers were desired to represent 480 years, — the years of oppression, like those of a usurper, as is customary in Oriental reckonings, being not counted, their interval being included in the years of rest belonging to a lawful ruler. Arranged on this principle we have the following result : — Moses 40 yean. Joshua and the Elder* . .

x „ Othniel «0 „ Ehud 80 „ Barak <0 „ Gideon <0 „ Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibi&n, Elon, and Abdon 76 „ Samson 20 „ Eli 40 „ Samuel 20 „ Saul y .1 David «0 „ Solomon „ «40-(-x-l-yyeai«. If 30 yeara (cf. Job. 24") are given to Joshua and the elders, and 10 years to Saul, we have exactly 480 years, t iv. From the Founding of the Temple to THE Fall of Jerusalem.

— This era is marked by an advance in culture among the Hebrews, and in the office of royal recorders or scribes provision seems to have oeen made for the regular regis- tration of important events. These events were probably dated by the years of reigning monarchs. At least we find this system in 1 and 2 K, Jer, and Ezk. A provision, however, for the keep- ing of exact chron.

records does not neces- sarily imply their preservation, and the Books of Kings, our biblical source for the chronology of this period, were not written until its close, several • The awignment of 20 yeara to Samuel Is an Inference from 1 S T'. Thi' piriod of Israel't desire for the Lord is regarded as represeniui;: Saniuel's Judgeship, and ceasing when the people desir^-d ami ciiose a kini^. t The iiliove scheme is Nrtldeke's. Moore (Judgea, p. xll f.)

omits Siiut as being to a Judwan writer an illegitimate sovereign and assigns, after LXX, 2U years to Eli, and conjecture* 40 ytan each for Joehua and SamueL 400 CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TriST. centuries after the earlier events narrated. The writer of tliese books, it is true, refers constantly to ' the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah,' and ' to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel,' as sources of his information.

But it is not known whether he had access to ori^'inal royal records or only to two historical works based in some way upon them. Probably the latter, be- cause (1) it IS unlikely that the State records of the N. kingdom were preserved and brought to Jems.

; (2) the references are not to the chronicles or annals themselves, but to the buuk of the chronicles ; and (3) it is difficult to account for the statements of the writer in reference to dates of accession and lengths of reigns, if he had access to original records. 1 and 2 K give a complete list of the mon- archs of Judah and Israel, and the length of their reigns in years from Solomon to the fall of Samaria and of Jerusalem.

The commencement of eachreign is dated by the year of the reign of the contem- poraneous King in the other kingdom. This mode of cross-reckoning is e^'idently that of the biblical writer, for it is scarcely possible that in either kingdom the year of the king of the other king- dom should be used to fix the date of its own king. An examination of the synchronisms leads to a similar conclusion. From the construction of the Heb.

sentence in many instances the synchronisms appear to be an addition to a statement of the sunple duration of a reign, and they seem in some instances to reveal an attempt at an adjustment of two unequal series of numbers. Rehoboam and Jeroboam came to the throne at the same time, also Athaliah and Jehu. The sums of the years of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah between these two dates should be the same.

That of Israel, however, as is seen in the following table, exceeds that of Judah by 3 years. (Thf 7 days of the reign of Zimri are omitted, for that week naturally was reckoned as belonging either to the reign of Elah or Omri. ) : — Rehoboam . 17 . 82 Abijam . . 3 Nadab . 2 Asa . . 41 Baasha. . 24 Jehoshaphat . £5 Elah . 2 Joram . • . 8 Omri . 12 . 1 Ahab . 22 Ahaziah . 2 Joram .

12 95 I 98 Since thelengthsof the reigns are expressed in even years, and since actual reigns must have embraced fractions of a year, it is apparent that these years are calendar years. The question now arises whether the calendar year in which a king died was reckoned as his own last year and the 1st year of his successor, or whether the Ist year of his successor began with the following new year.

The former method of pre-datinq introduces the confusion of a calendar year being reckoned as belonging to two reigns ; and yet it is in accordance with the Heb. usage, which reckoned fractions of time as full units. For example, the siege of Samaria, which began in the 4th and ended in the 6th year of Hczekiah, is said to have lasted 3 years (2 K IS"'-). There is also the familiar exaniple of ' the 3 days ' of Christ's being in the grave.

The latter method of post-dating was the usual one of the Assyrians. With them the general practice was to count the regnal years from the new year's day after the accession, and to call the perioil between the accession and the 1st new year s day ' the beginning of the reign ' ; while the year from the new year's day was called ' the 1st year,' and the followint; ones were numbered successively from it.

Which of these methods was systemati- cally used by the Hebrews cannot now be decisively determined. Possibly, neither of them consistently or entirely. The Talm. testities apparently to the method of pre-dating (Wieseler, Vhron. Synopsis, &il), and this has often been assumed as the eb. method. Jer. and Ezk., however, post-dated, and many scholars (Diilmann, Stade, ^^ ellhausen, and others) believe this to have been the Heb. method.

The \vriter or compiler of 1 and 2 K, as will be seen from the following table of syn- chronisms, used both methods : — Rehobown . 1 17 In ISth of Jeroboam Jl K IW), Abljam ... 1 In 20th o( Jerobown (1 K U»),Am . . a) 3 1 t 1 Jeroboam. 17 18 19 20 21 22. 1. Nadab is Znd of Aw a K 16^). 1. 2. Baasha in 3rd of Aia (1 K 162S-SS). 24. 1. Elah in 2eth of An 0 K 16S). 2. Zimri in 27tb of An a K 191"). I Omri in 27th of An a K 191"). 12. 1. Ahab in 88Ui ol An a K 16»).

t « 5 S te t7 tl 88 BS In 4th of Ahab OK JJU), Jehoibapbat (I) <1 17 18 In Bth of Jonun (2 K 8W), Jehomrn . . 1. 22 4. 2S In 12th of Jonun (2 K 8*0. Ahaziah . . 8. 1 21 1. Ahariah In ITth of Jehoahaphat(lK2251). 1. 22. 2. Joram in 18th of Jehoahaphat (2 K gl). 6 8 It The method of post-dating is here applied to the reigns of the S. kingdom until the reigns of Jehoram and Ahaziah, the former of whom ib made co-regent with his father for four years.

Asa and Jehoshaphat come to the throne in the years preceding their 1st years, while Abijam comes m his 1st year. Thus we have two methods of post-dating. The reigns of the N. kingdom are all pre-dated, and Ahaziah is made co-regent with Ahab for one year. Thus the total length of the reigns is shortened, and the interval from Solomon to Athaliah becomes 90 years. In 1 K IG^ Omri is said to have begun to reign in the 31st year of Asa, and in 2 K 1" Joram in the 2nd of Jehoram.

Both of these state- ments are in general harmony with a scheme ol post-dating the kings both of Israel and Judah. This fact, with the apparently systematic shortening of the intervals expressed by the reigns of the N. kingdom and then of the S. kingdom, to make them agree, suggests the possibility of the lengths of the reigns not being entirely derived from accurate his- torical sources, and yet representing a chronological scheme which the author did not feel free to modify.

Samaria fell, according to 2 K IS'", in ' the tith year of Hezekiah, which was the 9th of Hoshea, king of Israel.' The durations of the reigns of the Kings of Judah and Israel from tire accessions of Athaliah and Jehu to this year, then, should be the same. The figures recorded in 2 K, how- ever, give quite a diflerent result — Athaliah . «y ears. Jehu , 28 yean. Jootih . 40 Jehoabaz . 17 „ Ainaziah . 29 Joaiih . 19 „ . 62 Jerolwam . 41 „ Jotham . 16 Z.^ch.iriah 9 month!. Ahiiz . 19 Shallum .

1 .. Beiekiata e " Menahcm Pekahiah Pckah . , 10 year. 20 II 165 Hoahea . 9 „ 14Syn.7moc I CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHEONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. 401 Thus the years of the reigns of the southern kingdom exceed thoao of the northern kingdom by over 21 years. The following table gives the biblical synchron- isms of this period.

(The various statements have been adjusted to each other by allowing the variable factor of a co-regency, and reckoning the Ist year either from the commencement of the co-regency or of the sole reign) : — Athallth .... Is 7th o( Jtha (I K Ul) JoMta . Id Znd of Jebouh (I K 141), 1)S8 39 40 (1) e po)u> In tnh of Jrabom (2 K WX Almiimh (24) 29 26 t8 In tnd of P«kh (t E ISO), Jotbam .

U17UiofP«k>l>(2KIffl), m 9 (8)16 9(17) 11 ho) U(20) In Srd of Bothtm (t K 181), HezeUab U(l) 16(1) 16 (2) In «th of Huekith (2 K ia>°), Buiuuru tokeD . 6 IJeho. 7 28 1 Jehoahai In 23rd of Joub (2 K 131). 16 (1) Jehoasb in 37th of Joub (2 K 1310X 16(2) 17(8) 4(1) 6(2) 7(4) 16 (13) Jeroboun In IStta of " (2K140X L Ztcharub In 88th of Azariab (2 K 169) S. Sballum in 39th of Azariab (2 K ISis). Menahem in 39tb Of Azariab (2 K 1617). Pekahlab In SOth of Aiarlah (2 K 162a).

Pekab in 62nd of Anriah (SKiesT). 1 Hoahea In SOtk of Jotbam and 12tb of Abaz(2 K 1630 171). I 4 6 9 Samaria taken In 9th of Hoshea (2 K 17« 181»). The following tables (a) (6) (c) give dates for the accession of the kings of Judah, and (rf) (e) (/) of the kings of Israel — (a) according to 1 and 2 Ch, in which the durations of the reigns are the game as those mentioned in 1 and 2 K, and are given without reference to the corresponding reigns of the N.

kingdom, so that their sum would be naturally taken as the duration of the 8. kingdom ; (6) according to the tables of syn- chronisms given above ; (c) according to a determi- nation from the Assyr. inscriptions. An asterisk indicates a co-regency ; but see the following psra- ^aphs. (d) corresponds to (a), and is adjusted to It by pre-dating the reigns of Nadab, Llah, and Aliaziah, and lengthening that of Jeroboam II. to 51 years, and I'ekah's to 3U. (e) and (/) correspond to (b) and (c).

The explanation of (c) and (/) is given in the following paragraphs, [a] and (rf) correspond essentially to Ussher's system of (lates given in the margin of the AV. (Jf these Uibles only if)) and (e) reprcHent approximately the course of history. The others are given merely for (he sake of comparison. • Acoording to this table the number of yeare from the aooeaaiona of Atbaliah and Jehu to tlie (all of Samaria is 129.

Thij table, with the one aVjove of synchroiiiMms, however, hue not been given to preocnt tlie covirse of history, but to (five a blrd'»-eyc view of the chronological 8tatcment« of 1 and 2 K. VOL. I. — 26 (») (6) («) David (40) 1069 1009 1017 Solomon (40) . • , 1019 969 977 Temple founded • • • 1016 966 978 Rehoboain (17) . • • . 9S9 939 937 Abijam (3) .... 962 922 920 Asa (41) 959 919 917 Jehoshaphat (26) ... 918 878 876 Jehoram (s) . . 893 •857 851 Ahaziah (1) . .

885 850 843 Athaliah (0) . , . 884 849 842 Joash (40) 878 843 836 Amaziah (29) .... 838 •806 796 Azariab (U/.Tiah) (62) 809 •801 /•789 1 767 Jotham (16) .... 757 749 /•76S 1 737 Ahaz(16) 741 •741 735 Hezekiab(29) .... 725 •727 /•726 \ 716 722 Fall of Samaria .... 719 722 Invasion of Sennacherib , . 711 .. 701 Mana8seb(66) .... 696 / 697 \ 686 Amon (2) 641 ^ 641 Josiah (31) .... 639 ,_ 639 Jehoahaz (3 montha) . 608 ,, 608 Jehoiakim 608 ^ 608 Jeboiachin (3 montha) .

697 ,, 697 Zedekiah (11) .... 697 ,, 697 Destruction of Jerusalem . 686 .- 686 (d) (•) (/) Jeroboam (22) . • • • 989 939 937 Nadab (2) 967 918 916 Baasha(24) .... 9fl« 917 914 Elab(2) «42 894 (900 \890 Zlmri (7 daya) .... 941 893 /899 \8S9 Omri(12) 941 893 )b99 (889 Ahab(22) 919 882 875 Ahaziah (2) .... 897 •862 853 Joram (12) .... 896 861 862 Jehu (lis) 884 849 842 Jehualiaz (16) .... 856 821 816 Joash (17) 840 •807 798 Jeroboam n. (4l) , . 823 •804 782 Zachariah (0 montba) .

771 703 741 Sballum (1 month) . . 770 763 741 Menahem (10) .... 770 762 741 Pekahiah (2) . . 760 7i-)2 737 Pekah (2(]) .... 768 7.'0 736 Uoshca (9) .... 728 730 734 FaU of Samaria 719 722 722 Our examination of the biblical statements shows from the variety of the modes of reckoning, and from the apparent inconsistencies of the synchron- isms (unless an ever variable factor in co-regencies is assumed), that we must look to another source for determining the true chronology of this period.

Such a source, in a limited degree, has been found in the Assyr. inscriptions. These inscriptions are dated by the Assyr. calendar or canon. In this canon, which exists in several copies, all of which closely agree, covering the period from about 900 B.C. to al)Out (550 B.C., each year bears the name of an otHcer called an eponym. From the mention of a total eclipse, which occurred in 703 B.C., is determined the date of all the remaining years.

The following persons and events of biblicalhistory are mentioned in the Assyr. inscriptions, and dated by the Assyr. canon {COTu. p. 167 ff.) :— Ahab (at the battle of Karkar) ... 864 Jehu (the payment of tribute) . . 812 Azariiih (war with Tiplath-pilesor) . 742-740 Monaliem (payment of tribute) . , 738 Pekah (rotuiuered by Tij:!ath-pilea«r) , . 734 Atmz (payment of tribute) .... 734 HoHhea (successor of Pekah) . , 7S4 Fall of Samaria (near the close of tile year) .

722 Invasion of Sennacherib .... 701 Uanasseb 681-608 According to the Assyr. sources, Tiglatli pilewr III. (745-72K) conducted a canipiiign(742-7:iS)against Syria, llamuth, and I'alesUne. At the head o' a coalition against him (742-740) is mentioned 402 CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF OLD TEST. Azariah, kin^ of Jadah. Menahem is also men- tioned as paying tribute in 738.

During the years 737-735 Tiglath-pileser was campaigning in the East, but in 734 lie returned to suppress another coalition in the West, when he conquered Pekah, and appointed Hoshea king of Samaria in his stead. According to the biblical account, Menahem and Azariah were contemporaries, and Menahem paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser (called Pul in 2 K 15") ; and after the brief reign of Pekahiah the son of Menahem, in the last year of Azariah, Pekah came to the throne.

Pekah, with Rezin king of Damascus, in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, made war on Judah, evidently to coerce Judah to form an alliance against Assyria. During the reign of Pekah the N. kingdom suffered great loss of territory and inhabitants by Assyr. invasion, and Pekah was followed by Hosliea. These two accounts, the biblical and Assyrian, har- monize, and it only remains for us to fix the dates. In 737 Pekahiah is king, perhaps having come to the throne in the previous year.

His reign is brief, and in 736 or 735 he is slain by Pekah. In 737 or 736 Azariah dies, and Jotham, who for some 14 years may be thought of as having been co-regent, nis father being a leper, becomes sole kin^. In 735 Ahaz succeeds Jotham ; in 734 Pekah is slain, and Hoshea becomes king. Samaria falls in the winter of 722-721. Thus in this period the biblical chrono- logical statements must be considerably modified. The result is given in tables (c) and (/).

A difficulty is also presented in 2 K 18"- ", which date the fall of Samaria in the 6th year of Hezekiah, and the invasion of Sennacherib in the 14th ; but the former event occurred in 722, and the latter in 701. According to the former reckoning, Hezekiah came to the throne in 728 or 727 ; and according to the latter, in 715 or 714. If we adopt the latter reckoning, the reign of Ahaz must be lengthened to some 20 years, and that of Manasseh or of Hezekiah shortened some 10 years.

A co- regency of Hezekiah with Ahaz has been sugj^'ested as the solution, or that the date of an invasion of Sargon in 711 may have been given for that of Sennacherib. According to this latter solution, however, Hezekiah would have come to the throne in 725 or 724. The presence of Ahab at the battle of Karkar brings nis reign down to 854 at least. At this battle, according to the Assyr. inscription, Ahab appears as an ally of the king of Damascus.

According to 1 K 20^ Ahab formed such an alliance, which lasted three years (1 K 22'). In the third year of the alliance the truce was broken, and Ahab was slain at Ramoth-gilead (1 K 22';'"-). Assuming the alliance to have been made in 855, the close of Ahab's reign, then, may be placed in 853. See Ahab.

In the period before Ahab a change in the biblical length of the reign of Omri has been thought by some scholars necessary from the state- ment of Mesha on the Moabite Stone, where he says : ' And Omri took possession of the land of Mfihedeba, and it (Israel) dwelt therein during his days, and half his son's days, forty years.' If ' his son' is Ahab, then Omri's reign must be lengthened at the expense of Baasha's.

In favour of this is the importance and lasting impression of Omri's reign (Mic 6"). The 'land of the house of Omri' in • Another explanation of the events of this period Is, that the king present as a Syrian ally at the battle of Karkar was not Ahab but Ahaziah or Joram, the Assyr. scribe having unwittingly given the name of the father (or that of the son, being ignorant of the tatter's accession.

The argument for this view is that Israel would not have assisted the Syrians except as a vassal, and that such rassalage Immediately followed the battle of Ramoth-gUead. Ahkb'a death, theo, probably would twve occurred ui 866. Assyr. inscriptions is a standing designation for the N. kingdom. If, however, 'his son' means Omri'i grandson Joram, then no great change is needed.

This is more probable, agreeing with 2 K 1' 3', which place the revolt of Moab (unlikely to hare happened under the powerful king Ahab) in the reign of Joram. If we knew from Egyp. history the precise date of Shishak's reign and invasion of Palestine, we could fix definitely the reign of Rehoboam (' In the 5th year of Rehoboam, Shishak came up against Jerusalem,' 1 K 14^). As far as Egyp. history gives any light on this point, it con- firms the date given in (c).

For the period between the death of Ahab and that of Azariah (Uzziah) it is necessary to shorten several reigns. The disturbed condition of affairs at the death of Jeroboam II. — a destructive rivalry of factions is indicated in the prophetical writings — suggests the shortening of Menahem's reign to three years to allow the others of Israel to stand. Internal evidence favours allowing the reigns of Athaliah and Joash to remain unchanged.

The sole reigns of Azariah (Uzziah) and Jotham, then, may be shortened by makin" them co-regents for a number of years with their fathers. The periods given for the reigns of Amon, Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jenoiachin, and Zedekiah are undoubtedly correct. The following table gives the dates and synchronisms of their reigns : — Amon' 8 accession 641 Joeiah s >, 1st year 6:i9 638 " 13th „ 626 1st year of Jere- miah's ministry (Jer 12). w 18th „ eui Discovery of the Book of the Uvr (2 K 22^8).

(2K23Si)Jeho, ahaz 3 mos. reign and nit „ 608 Battle of Meffiddo Jehoiakim's (2K232»). accesuioD JeboiAUm's 1st 607 4tb 604 Jeremlah'8 2Srd and Nebuchad- rezzar's Ist (Jer ttLI), (2 K 24848) Je-' hoiachin'8 8 mo 8. reicTD and Z e cl e- kiah'i acces- ■iOD * 11th 697 8th of NebuchaJ- rezzar (2 K 2412). ZedeklAh'B Ist year .Wfl " 10th „ 687 IStta of Nebuchad- rezzar (Jer 321). 19th of Nebuchad- „ 11th „ 586 rezzar and des- truction of Jeru- salem (2 K 25S).

These dates are determined by Nebuchadrezzar's 1st year, which, according to Ptolemy's Canon, is 6(J4. The reigns given in the table above are post- dated. This arrangement is the one generally accepted. Some, however, have preferred to pre- date them. Then Jerusalem falls m 587 or 588. In favour of this are Jer 52^- ', which place seemingly the captivity of Jehoiachin and destruction oi Jerusalem in the 8th and 18th years ot Nebuchad- rezzar.

The battle of Carchemish (Jer 46-) is dated in the 4th year of Jehoiakim. According to Tiele and others, this took place in 605, the year of Nebuchadrezzar's accession. This pre dates tne 4th year of Jehoiakim. From the facts presented, it is evident that only • The Canon of Ptolemy Is a chron. compilation by the cele- brated Alexandrian scholar Ptolemy of the 2nd cent. A.D., with astronomical notes, commencing B.C. 747 with the reigns of the Bab. kings.

As far as it has been tested, it has proved «d accurate and reliable document. See AB8TRL&. p. 170'' CHKO^'OLOGY OF OLD TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 403 a few dates in Israel's history can be fixed with absolute certainty. The time of most events can only be given definitely within a spaie of two or three years. There generally remains that amount of uncL'itainty, hence few tables of dates furnished by OT chronologists exactly agree.

In view of the corrections which mnst be made in the OT chron. statements from the founding of Solomon's temple to the destruction of Jems., and in view of the apparent endeavour of the writer of 1 and 2 K to preserve and harmonize in his syn- chronisms the recorded lengths of the reigns of kings, the question may arise whetlier in this period as well as the former ones the chronological data may not be partially conjectural or artilicial, complete historicad data for both the S. and N.

king- dom not having been preserved. This is the view of \V. R. Smith, Stade, Wellhausen, and others. In its favour is the fact that from the founding of Solomon's temple to that of Zerubbabel, according to the biblical numbers, there are 480 years, and the duration of the N. kingdom (omitting the 2 years of Elah or reducing Baasha's to 22) is 240 years. The combinations seen in the length of the reigns suggest also, it is said, artificiality. Solomon . RehobooiD AbiJ&iu . Asa. JehonhaphAt .

Jehoram Ahaziah . Athali&b Jo«h Amazi&h . 4 . 4 OuT7 forward . 259 Brought forward Mfi Jothom . Ahaz Hezekiob . Hezckiah . Manasseb Amon Joaiah Jehoiakim Zedekiah . Captivity . Total 10) 1« >88 «) 23 \ 56 [-80 2 ) 81 J 11 S-es 11 ) 60 . 4S0 The combination of 4H-81 -(■38=40-^80-^40, it is said, cannot be mere chance. A system likewise, it is claimed, appears in the years of the first eight kings of Israel. Jeroboam 22i Omri Naflab . 2 ■a Ahab Baaiha (24) 22 AhazUh Elah t' Jorum "1 .

12-' Here are eight kings reigning 96 years, an aver- age of 12 for each. Three reign 12+10, three 12- 10, and two 12. From the inaccuracy of some of the biblical numlierB, and from the symmetry of their sum, it is not improbable that missing lengths of the reigns of some kings were supplied by conjecture, so as to make the duration of the N. kingdom 24(i years, and the interval between the founding of the two temtiles 4SU years.

Such an arrangement would be helpful to the memory and analogous to reckonings of the early periods of the world and of Israel, and such an arrangement also finds a counterpart in the genealogy of Jesus in Mt, where the generations are reduced to three series of 14 each. But, taking the biblical data as a whole for this period, they do not present sutlicient symmetry to be entirely or mainly artificial.

Krrors doubt- less crept into lists of reigns, and the lengths of »ome probably were not preserved, and hence were supplied by conjecture. V. C:iIRONOLOCiY OF THE POST-EXILIC PERIOD. —When Judah became a vassal, and her own kings ceased, the years of foreign rulers, as we have already seen at the beginning of the Captivity, were employed in dating events. The time of these rulers is fixed by the Canon of Ptolemy.

The following table gives the principal OT chroino- logical references of this period : — Nebuchadrezzar't 19tb 688 Fall of Jerusalem (2 K 258) Oyrus accession . 63!) Capture of Babylon bv Cynu „ Kt year . 63)i tkiict for the Return (Ezr !») 6:t7 Return under Zerubbabel 636 Founding of the Temple (Ea 3«) Danos accession . 6i;2 „ 2Qd year . 620 Hoptral and Zechariah pro- phesy (Uag 11, Zee U) „ 6th „ . 616 Temple finished (Ezr 6") Artaxerxes' accession . 4B.') „ 7tb year .

468 Ezra arrives at Jerusalem (Kzr?!') tOtb „ . 446 Nchcmiah's mission to Jerusa- lem (Keh 21) LiTBRATtiRa— For t!ie Chron. of the Hex. consult the Com- mentaries of Delitzsch, Dillmann, and other writers on that portion of the OT ; also Lenomiant, Brijinningi of Hutory, ch. vi. ; Budde, Die Bibliache Urijeschichte, ch. iii. ; Kittel, Uistory of the Hebrews, §§ 19, 25 ; (lor Chron. of Judces, § 30, 2); F. 0.

Konig, Beitrage zur Biblische Chronologie, in ZKn', 1883; Noldeke, Untersuchungen zur Kritik det A.T., pp. 173-198. For the regal period: Brandes, Abhandlungerx zur Getchichte dee Orients im Allerthum, 1874 ; Wellhausen, Die Zeitrechnung dea Buches der Kbnige, in JDTh, 1S75 ; 'Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah coraparL-d with the Monuments, in Church Quart, iiev., Jan. 1886 ; S. Sharpe, Ueb. Nation and Lit., pp. 381 ff., 38a ff.: G. Smith, Assi/r. Epon. Canon, chs. i. and vii.

; W. R. Smith, Joum. of Philology, X. p. 209 ff.; Kamphausen, Chron. der Uebrdischen Eimige, 1883 ; Schrader, COT ii. 161-176, supplemented by O. 0. Whitehnusc, pp. 320-324, 1888; Orr, 'Assvr. and Ileb. Chron.,' in Pres. Rev., Jan. 1889; Kittel, Hiit. of the Uebrs., § 63a, 1892; Wellhausen, Proleg. to Hist, of Israel, 285 f., 1883; Stade, GeschiehU da VoUcea Itraei, 88 B., 6680., 1887. E. L. Curtis. CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. I. THE GOSPELS.

The data for the chronology of the Life of Chiist group themselves round three points, the Nativity, the Baptism, and the Crucifixion, and the intervals between these, namely, the age of Christ at the Baptism, and the duration of the Ministry.

If some of them could be settled conclusively, the rest could be deduced at once : for instance, the date of Clirist's birth combined with his age when baptized would fix the date of the Baptism ; if the moments of the beginning and end of the Ministry are known, its length follows ; and so on.

But as it is, since for no one of these dates or intervals is there demonstrative proof, while jet about each of them conclusions more or less probable can be reached, it is imperative to investigate them separately, and to check the tentative results by comparison with one another. A. Tin: Date OF THE Nativity.— 1. The Year. — a. St.

Matthew tells us that Jesus Christ was born in the reign of Herod the Great, who at some period not more than two years afterwards ordered a massacre of all the infants at Bethlehem, and that the Holy Family lied to Egypt, where they remained for the rest of the kings lifetime (Mt oi. 13-18. IB). Thus Herod's death is the terminus ad quern for the Nativity. For the chronology of the eventfl of Jewish history of NT times, the primary authorities are the BJ and Ant.

of Joscphus (quoted throughout this article in the critical edition of B. Niese, Berlin. lS87-180ri). Josephus nowhere stAtes the exact year of Herod's death, but he gives the length of his reign from two more or less tixed starting-points, and the lenglli <if bis three successors' reigns to more or less fixed concluding points, (i.) Ilerfid when he died, not very long before the Passover, bad reigned 37 years • as king de jure slhce the Roman decree of the 184lh 01ynij)ia<i (middle of B.C.

44 to middle of B.c. 40], and eon. Bulship of Doniitius CalvinuB and Asinius Pollio [B.C. 40] ; Ant. XIV. xiv. 4, 6, XVII. viii. 1 ; BJ I. xxxiii. 8. Thus the ilecroe belongs to the first half of no. 40 : but as It Is uncertain even so whether the month was earlier or later than the month (March?) of Herod's death, it is uncertain also whether the 37th year had begun before March B.C. 4, or only before Slan-'h B.C. 3. (ii.)

He had reigned also 34 yearn as king de facto since the death of Antigonus ; and Antigonus died 'on the day of the great Fast (Sept. -Oct.] in the consulship of M. Agrippa and Canidiiu GalluB (B.o. 87], '27 years to a day since tlie entry of • That Is, aocordingr to the general rule of ancient calcula- tions,—to which attention Is hero called once for all,— not 37 years or something over, but 37 yeare or something less. 404 CHKONOLOGY OF NEW TEST, CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST.

Pompej into Jerusalem in the oonaulship of Antonius and Cicero ' (B.C. 63 less 27 = B.C. 36]. 0( these two discordant reckoning's for Antigonus' death, 34 yean from the first would put Herod's death in the beginning of b.0. 3, 34 from the second in the beginning of B.c. 2; and if the second may reasonably be set aside as due to the confusion of all chronology previous to the introduction of the Juhan calendar in B.C. 46, even b.c.

37 is inconsistent with the evidence of Dio, a later but equally well informed historian, who names the consuls of b.c. 38, Claudius and Norbanus, so that the 34 years would expire in e.o. 4 (Jos. Ant. XIV. iv. 3, xiv. xvi. 4, xvii. viii. 1 ; BJ i. xxxiii. 8 : Dio, xlix. 22). (iii.) Of Herod's successors, Archelaus, king of Jud»a, was banished in the consulship of Lepidua and Arruntius [a.d. 6], when in the ninth year of his reign according to BJ, the tenth according to Ant.

Aa his accession was near the beginning of t^e year, the former reckoning would throw it probably in B.C. 3 (possibly in B.o. 4), the latter probably in B.C. 4 (possibly B.C. 5). If the two may be reconciled by supposing that the banishment fell very early in a.d. 6, before the anniversary of the accession, and that Ant. reckons Archelaus' second and succeeding years from Jan. 1, both would point to B.C. 4 ; if otherwise, 4 n(.

as the later and fuller work is more likely to have corrected an earlier error than to have introduced a new one, BO that B.C. i is in any case the more probable date {BJ u. vii. 3; Ant. xvn. xiii. 2, 3, cf. Vita, 1; Dio, Iv. 25. 27). (iv.) Herod Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis, reigned 37 years, and died in the 20th year of Tiberius— that is, reckoning from Augustus* death in August a.d. 14, between August a.d. 33 and August a.d.

S4, which would leave Herod Philip's accession doubtful between B.O. S and 4 (Ant. xvni. iv. 6). (v.) Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, was issuing coins as late as his 44tb year ; and as his banishment by Gains Caligula (March a.d. 37-Jan. a.d. 41) can hardly have been later than a.d. 39— his rival and nephew, Herod Agrippa, left Palestine after him, and was apparently at Lyons with the emperor in the winter of a.d. 39-40 — his 2nd year would go back to B.C.

4, and his accession (since the Jewish princes apparently reckoned their years from Nisan 1) to the year preceding Nisan 1 b.c. 4 (Dio, Iv. 24 ; see further, Philo in Ftaaniin, 6, ed. Mangey, ii. 521 ; Jos. Ant. xviii. vi. 11, vii. 2 ; Madden, Coins of the Jews^ p. 122). Thus the year of Herod's death was probably b.o. 4, possibly B.O. S ; and one further note of time in Josephus may help to resolve the doubt.

An eclipse of the moon occurred at a moment when Herod, lying at Jericho in his last illness, had partially revived. He grew worse again, and was taken to the baths of Callirrhoe across the Dead Sea ; but when all remedies failed he was brought back to Jericho, and thither as a last caprice of tyranny he summoned to his bedside all the leading Jews of Palestine, intending a general massacre of them at the moment of his death.

Then the long expected authorization from Augustus of the execution of Antipater arrives and is at once acted on ; five days later the king succumbs himself. The funeral rites occupy a week, and soon afterwards the Passover is 'close at hand' (Ant. xvii. vi. 4-ix. 3). Now the only lunar eclipses visible in Palestine during b.c. &-3 were those of March 23, B.C. 6, Sept. 16, B.C. 6, and March 12-13, B.C. 4. But unless the events just catalogued can be spread over 12 or 13 months, from March 12, B.

C. 4, to March 31 (the oasoover of B.C. 3), which is very unlikely, the year b.c. 3 for Herod's death is excluded. If, on the other hand, one month seems as much too little for them as twelve are too much, the ecUpse may be that of September, b.c. 6, the king's death falling six months afterwards, about March, B.o. 4. The Nativity, however, must be placed, not only before this, but, as St.

Matthew's account seems to imply, some time before it ; for the age limit fixed for the massacre of the innocents, and the sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt, have both to be allowed for, even ii the one is to be qualified by Herod's determination to set a limit on the safe side, and the other by St. Luke's silence. The Birth of Christ may so far be placed one, two, or even three years before Herod's death, B.C. 7-6. With the longer interval from b.o.

7 would tally Kepler the astronomer's 8uj,'gestion, that the star of Mt 22 was a con- Junction o( thb planets Jupiter and Saturn, such as occurred in the constellation Pisces m May, October, and December of B.C. 7. The statement of a medlfflval Jew, R. Abarbanel, that the conjunction of these two planets in Pisces is to be a sign of Mt ssiuh's coming, may perhaps have been derived ultimately from ancient traditions known to the Chald;i!an8.

On the other hand, it is maintained that the conjunolion of B.o. 7 was never close enough for the planets to appear as a single star, though even this would hardly be conclusive against Kepler's view. But in any case chronological conclusions cannot be primarily rested on such a basis. b. St. Luke dates the Nativity by a general census ordered by Augustus and carried out in Syria by the legate "Vuirinius (2^ aiTij [^] diro- ypa<p^ irpibTT} iyivero iiyffiovtvovTOs ttjs ^vplas KvpTjvlov).

The bracketed article is to be omitted with B t) (and in efiect h) ; the clause is to be rendered. not * this was the first census [of those that were made] while Quirinius was governor of Svria,' but Hhis was taken as the first census [of tlie whole series down to the present] while Quirinius,' etc. : so Clement of Alexandria, 6rc irpHorov iKi'Keuaap diro- ypa<pas yev^adat. [iStrom, i. 2L 147, p. 407, ed. Potter).

A famous census did indeed take place, Quirinius being the governor sent to carry it out, ten years or more after the Nativity, when Judaia, on the deposition of Archelaus in a.d. 6, became a Roman province ; and it provoked the revolt of Judar the Gaulonite or Galilean {Ant. xvii. xiii. 5, xviii. i.

1 ; Ac 6-*7> But there is also reasun to believe that Quirinius must be thf name wanting on a mutilated inscription which describes somi otHcial who twice governed Syria under Augustus ; and in that case another census might be postulated for his other tenure to justify St. Luke, if it were not that even this other cannot possibly have coincided with the Nativity. The period from B.C. 10 or 9 till Herod's death is exhausted by the tenures of M. Titiua, C. Sentius Saturninus, and P.

QumtiUus Varus. Varus came as the immediate successor of Saturninus not later than the sunmier of B.c. 6 — tor coins of his are extant of the 25th year of the era of Actium (Sept. B.C. 31J, i.e. Sept. b.c. 7 to Sept. B.C. 6— and wu still in office at the time of Herod's death. Quirinius conse- quently had either left some years before the Nati\ity or did not arrive till after it (^Ant. xvi. viii. 6, ix. 1, xvu. v. 2, ix. 3 ; Mommsen, lies Gestce Divi Augusti^, p. 169 ff.) St.

Luke then is in error in the name of Quirinius ; it does not follow that he is in error in the fact of a census. * It must be remembered that the chronological data of Lk 2 and 3 were in all probabihty supplied by himself and not by his "sources'"; Gore, Dissertations, p. 20. The evangelist's acquaintance with Palestine was perhaps limited to the two years of St.

Paul's imprisonment at Cssarea ; and if his source made mention simply of a census, he may easily have been misled into identifying it with the great Roman census of a.d. 6-7, made the more famous by the revolt it occasioned. Nor is there any inherent improbability in the hypothesis of a census in Judiea somewhere within the years b.c. 8-5. Of another cUent prince, Archelaus of Cappadocia, Tacitus happens to relate that he took a census * after the Roman manner' under Tiberius ; Ann. vi. 41.

And if Herod did set himself to supply the information to hia suzerain (for the statistics of the resources of the empire, dependent states included, were a favourite study of Augustus), it may well be believed that he veiled his purpose under forms adapted to the susceptibilities of his Jewish subjects, and so, in avoiding the scandal caused by the later Roman census, avoided also the notice of history.

St, Lnke*s evidence, then, adds nothing trust- worthy for the chronology of the NatiWty beyond its synchronism with a census. c. But if St. Luke's census has no date, or rather a wron^ one, does early Christian tradition help to fix the Nativity more nearly?

Patristic writers, in nearly all cases where a date is given for the Nativity, appear to deduce it from the date of the Baptism or Ci-ucifixion ; though it may be noted in passing that the earlier Fathers are a good deal nearer the mark with the year B.C. 3-2 than Dionysius Exi^uus, the 6th cent, author of the present calculation of the Christian era (Iren. Hter. HI. xxi. 3, ed. Massuet ; Clem, Al. Strom. I. 21, p. 147; *Tert.' adv. Judceos, 8; Hippolytus in Dan. iv., ed. Bratke, p. 19, 1. 3).

There is, however, one casual statement of Ter- tullians which serves in remarkable fashion to bridge the gap left by the dissociation of Quirinius' name from the census of the Nativity. The Marcionites defended their Doketic views of Christ's humanity by appeal to his own question, Who are my mother and my brethren ? ' inter- preted as a denial of all human relationships ; the a.

ssertion of the Jews, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, became on their view a mere desire to 'tempt' Christ. Tertullian reminds them inter alia that Christ's family could ea-ily have been discovered from the (census known to have been taken under Augustus in Judsea by Sentius Saturninus : census constat actos sub Aiigusto nunc in Judcsa per Sent ium Sat urninum apud qiios genus eius inqtiirere pottiisse.nt (adv. Marcioneni, iv. 19).

Here, of course, if Tertullian had said Quirinius, he would have been merely re- peating St. Luke ; but he names instead Quirinius' penultimate predecessor, governor about u.C. 0-6. Whether or not Tertullian liimself means to connect this census with the Nativity is not quite clear i CHRONOLOGY OF XEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 405 the point is, that the name Satuminus, since it can hardly be a mere slip for St.

Luke's Quirinius, must have come from an independent authority, possibly the same as supplied another reference to Saturnmus in Tert. de pallio^ i. In general trust- worthiness, Tertullian is immeasurably inferior to St.

Luke ; but a Roman Ia\\'yer could command familiar access to many sources inaccessible to a physician from the provinces, and it is hardly rash to believe that in this one instance the former has by a happy chance preserved the evidence which at once conhrms and corrects the latter, — confirms the fa !t of a census, and correcte the name from Quirinius to Satuminua.

* If this correction be accepted, the census taken while Satuminus was Syrian legate cannot fall later than the time when Varus succeeded him, in or before the middle of B.C. 6. The order of events in St. Matthew will permit of an interval of two or three years between the Nativity and Herod's death ; and the data appear to be best harmonized by attributing the census of the Nativity to B.C. 7 or the beginning of B.C. 6. 2. The Month and Day of the Nativity.

— Of these J nothing is really known ; for the patristic evidence, interesting in itself, though too voluminous for discussion here, leads to no real results. It must Bulfice to say that the oldest traditional date for Christmas Day is, in the East, Jan. 6, in the West, Dec. 25. The earliest trace of the one is the observance of Jan. 6 as the festival, not of the birth of Christ but of his Baptism, by the Basilidian Gnostics of the time of Clement of Alexandria {Strom, i. 21.147, p.

408) ; and a Gnostic tradition is worth nothing at all. The other tirst appears in Hipp^lytus' newly-recovered Fourth Book on Daniel (p. 19, 1. 2> and was probably deduced by him irom March 25, a day which in his Chronicle marks not only the Crucifixion but the Conception, the ^^vfffts XpiffTov side by side with the irdOos. B. The Interval between the Nativity and THE Baptism. — St.

Luke relates that Jesus at the time of the Baptism was about 30 years of age, 3'^ atVrds ^Jy 'IrjaoOs dpx6fX€voi (hfffl irCoy TpidKOVTa. The word ipx<i^vos does not qualify the description of age, as supposed by the earliest known interpreters, Valentinians of the Ptolenuean school ap. Iren. II. xxii. 5, ad baptismum venit nundujn qui triginta annos fuppleverat, sed qui inripcret esse tarw/uayn triginta annorum ; and so, too, Epiphanius, lifer. li.

16, TpidKovra fxiv irufv dW ov ir\i}p7}V 5i6 \iyn *Apx^f^''os.

It rather means when just commenc- ing his ministry, an idiomatic use of dpx^cr^at paralleled in Lk 2Z^ dp^d^evos dird rijs TaXtXatas ; Ac 1^ dp^dfievoi dvb toO /SaTrWff^iaros '\wdvov ; Ac 10^ dp^dfxevos dwd r^s raXiXoiat fjLcrd rb ^avTiafia fl iK-fipv^cv 'IuKin;t, The chronolo(pcaI reference, in fact, U limited to the words mc-ti irw xfii»MfTm, into which iu turn ttie niuuntn^ has been read that our Lord waited till ho hud complL'tod the ao years of an authorized teacher.

Hut Jemnh ideoii do not seem to have attached ny auch importance to this particular a^e. The minimum limit for the Levitical service, even if orig-mally ao, —and a«alnBt Nu 4a-"(ilch.) 1 Ch 23i» are to be set Nu 43.47 (LXX)«*, which fpve 25,— had been reduced to 20 before the Mme of the Chronicler {\ Ch 'i^'-"- ^), who oMcribea the chantje to David. On the other nand, so far aa there was any olticial age (or teaching, it was not SO but 40 : see ttie trealiine Abwla Zara \n the Bab. Talm. fed.

Frankfort, 1715. fol. Ili/> : quoted by Schoctt^en, ad toe): Ad quodnam veto irtatis Tnovi^ntutn ex^tfctandum att anteqtiatn uir dvctiu alion docere posait f Kt-Hp. Ad ezactos annoB qxuidratjinta. Similarly, Ircniuus con- trails the prima indoU't iuvting of 30 years with the magutri ptr/wtam <Etatem, which appears to bo 40 (ii. xxli. 4. 6). The traces of an age standard of 30 for difTerent officei ol the Christian minibtr>- are due, of course, directly to thl» »ery ■tati'iuentin St.

Luke ; lo expressly the Council of Neo-Caiaarea, I 11. It U possible that the aame source U alluded to tn Jos. Vita, 1, written at Rome under l)oniitian, T>if fj.tt rvt -yittvf Thns there is no reason to press St. Luke's noie of time into meaning either 'wlien not yet 30 years ' or at the moment of attaining the teacher's age of 30 years.' The phrase is an elastic one, and will cover any age from 28 to 32. Keckoued from the Nativity of Christ in ii.c.

7-6, the probable limits for the date of tlie IJaptism would thus be A.D. 22-27, a result which mu.st now be tested hj its conformity with the direct evidence for this date. C. For the Baptism the Gospels supply a terminus ad quein in the synchronism of the passover men- tioned next after it witli the years ot the building of the temple (Jn 2-') ; and a terminus a quo in the synchronism of the beginning of the Baptist's ministry with the years of Tiberius (Lk 3). a.

Jo 2^ Tio-ripaLXAnTcc Kxi l( iTirfv atK9iou.y,0*t i vdce; curef, say the Jew-i in arg^ument with our Lord, mcanin;^, not that Herod's temple had taken 46 3-ears from its coiuniencenietit to ita coMipletion at some moment o( the past,— for the work was only just complete when the Jewish revolt broke out (Jos. Ant. xx. IX.

7), — but that at the time of speaking it 'had beenincourse of building ' 4fl years, the aorist being exactly paralleled in the phrase used of the temple of Ezra (Kzr 6'" «** toti Xut toC tun mx4>iefA-hthi xtt'i eCx irikig-Oft, 'from that time to this it has been in course of building, and has not been brought to completion '). Herod's temple was begun, according to BJ in his 15th, according to Arit. in his 18th year(iiJ 1. xxi. 1 ; Ant. xv. xi. 1); and as Jos.

in both books summarizes the length of Herod's reign by a double computation from the de jure kingship in b.u, 40, and the de /acto kingship in B.C. 37, an obvious solution of the discrepancy would be to count the IMh year from the later, the 18th from the earlier, of the two starting-points, both reckonings then converging on b.c. 23. But in fact Jos., when he gives a single date, invariably computes it from the de /acto kingship only. So in Ant.

— the book which on the hiijothesis just mentioned would employ tlie reckoning from b.o. 40 for the commencement of the temple — the battle of Actium (Sept. b.c. 31) is put in the 7th year of Herod ; Augustus' second visit to Syria, which was not earlier than B.C. 21 (for it was 10 years after the first, and that in turn was after Actium), Is dated in the I7th year ; and the completion of Cawarea is flxed in the 92nd OliTiipiad (B.C. 12-8), and in the 28th year (Ant. xv. v. 2, vi. 7, XVI. V.

1 ; BJ I. XX. 4). Seeing, then, that the divergence cannot be accounted for as a double reckoning, it must arise from the correction in Ant. of an error of BJ, so that Josephus' ulti- mate date is the 18th year from b.c. 37, or in other words b.o. 20-19. The passover of the first year will probably be that of B.C. 10, and toe passover of the 40th year that of a.d. 27. Thus the latest date for the Baptism is the early months of A.D. 27. b- Lk 31 it irij wturtxniiixMrm rvt ryifAsn'ou Tt$ip!

9v Ktttra.p»( . . iyfvir* f^uM dttu iTi "Imtttnf. Reckoned from Augustus' death, Aug. 19, a.d. 14, the 15th year of Tiberius would run from Aug. a.d. 28 to Aug. a.u. 29, so that the Baptism of Christ could scarcely fall before a.d. 29. Even if Tiberius' 2nd vear be dated from Jan. 1, a.d. 15, so that his 15th corresponas with A.D.

28, matters are hardly mended, for that year, too, would be irreconcilable with the results attained in the first two sections of this article, with the temple chronology just dis- cussed, and with tiie conclusions which will be established below from a comparison of the length of the Ministry with the date of the Crucifixion. It St. Luke really plm^cs the opening of the Baptist's preaching as late as a.d. 28^ he must, as in the case of Quirinius, have fallen into error.

Writing half a century after the events, and peihai)s himself sharing tiie view which hniitcd the public Ministry of Chri.st to a single year, he might have deduced the 15th year for the commencement of the Minintry from A.D. 29, the date assigned by very early tradition for its close. At the same time. It ts not quite so easy to luppose him deceived about the beginning of the Ministry aa aoout the census of the Nativity.

Not only were Uie ovcnte 30 years nearer his own time, but they were of so much more uublic a character, that they must liave been matter of knowledge in a far wider circle, aniong tlie Baptist's disciples— with whom St. Luke's writings seem io show a special acquaintance — as well as among the lollowers of tlie Christ. Is it certain, then, what is meant by the 15th year of Tiberius?

A modern reader is tempted to transfer to the lat cent, his own associations with bereditAry monarchy, where eacii ruler's rights and powi-ra come into existence at the moment of his predcressor's demise, neither sooner nor later. The lioman Empire of Augustus was scarcely in fact, certainly not in law, hereditary.

The pre- rogatives of the emperor were due theoretically to the varioua offices which he held; and in dating events, as on coins and inscriptions, he would recite the number, not of the yean* of his reign, but of his consulships, his imperatorshipp. and his yearn of tribunician power. Cli'arty, none of these otficial mctho<l8 were followed by St.

Luke, for Tiberius woe never consul more than five times, nor imperator more than eight, while his tribunician jMjwer, held permanently as one of the primary factors in tlie Imjierial cliarart»!r, was olready in ite 16th yea; at the time of Augustus' death. Nor wua tber* yet any 406 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHEONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. Btereotjped Ut«rar7 usage upon the point. St.

Luke's contem- poraries, U Romans, would probably have been employing the old system of dating by the consuls of each year ; if Orientals, they mij,'ht still be usmg the Olympiads (B.C. 776), the era of Alexander or the Greeks (B.C. 812), the era of Sulla (B.C. 85), or the era of Actium (B.a 31).

So when he himself elected to adopt the still novel reckoning by imperial years, he would find DO absolutely fixed tradition as to the moment from which to compute them ; and it has lately been pointed out (Kamsay, St. Paul the Trav. p. 387) that not very long before the prob- able date of the Uospel, Titus had been associated in the empire with his father Veepaaian by the simultaneous reception of the proconsular and tribunician power, together witn other insignia of imperial rank (July 1, A.

D. 71). The conditions of his own day, Kamsay thinks, may have led the evangelist to emphasize the similar elevation of Tiberius, on whom a special enactment had already in Augustus' lifetime conferred a position in the provinces co-ordinate with the elder emperor's, so that provincial custom may have taken that as the starting- point of his reign (Velleiua Paterculus, ii. 121 ; Suetonius, Tib, 21 ; compare Bury, StutUnW Roman Empire^ p. 54 ; Mommsen, Staat^echt, ii. ed. 3, p. 1159, n. 3).

As to the exact year of the law. authorities differ ; most of them connect it with the ^nt of the tribunician power for life In A.D. 13 ; but there is no necessity to sj-nchronize the two, and Mommsen, on the ground of the context in Velleius, puts it two years earlier, in a.0. 11. If this solution is possible — and it is not given here for more — the various data are brought into complete harmony. The mission of the Baptist in the 15th year of Tiberius, calculated from A.D. 11, wUl fall in A.

D. 25-26 ; the Baptism of Christ may be assigned to A.D. 26-27 ; and the first passover of the Ministry, being at the same time the passover of the 46th year of the temple building, will follow in the spring of A.D. 27. D. The interval between the Baptism and the Crucifixion, or Duration of the Ministry. — a. St.

Mark's Gospel, the closest representative of the common synoptic tradition, contains few pre- cise indications of time ; events are strung together by no more than the vague expressions ' straight- way,' 'after not many days,' 'after many days.' The general impression, however, which the iynoptlc narrative seems calculated to produce, »nd probably in primitive times did produce, is thai the period described was one of no consider- able length.

In the absence of other data, especial importance accrues to two episodes which contain in themselves or their surroundings evidence of the season of the year. Describing the feeding of the 5000, St. Mark adds to the common tradition the descriptive touch that the grass showed the fresh green of early spring (^irl t<;J x^'^PV X^I"'V Mk 6'» : cf. Mt W, Lk 9^).

And the plucking of the ears of com (Mk 2»'=Mt 12' = Lk 6M, the harvest being ripe but not yet cut, wUl fall, if the ears were barley, at earliest in April, and if wheat, at latest in June ; see R. Samuel, quoted by Wetstein on Jn 4*°. Here, then, a spring or early summer in Mk 2 is succeeded by early spring in en. 6, the lapse of one year intervening ; while a second year is postulated oy the events of chs.

6°'-10'", which include jour- neys to the districts of Phoenicia, of Upper Galilee, and of I'er.nea (7" 8" 10"), and shut out the possi- bility that the miracle of ch. 6 and the passover of the Crucifixion can belong to the same spring ; so that, at least if the order is even roughly chrono- logical, a two years' ministry would already underlie the record. And though our earliest authority, Papias, seems to deny just this characteristic to St.

Mark, sayin-' that, while the facts were all accurate, the order was not {aKpijiCJt lypa^pc ov fUvToi rditi, quoted in Eusebius, HE iii. 39), yet he probably does not mean by this more than the absence of a framework for the history such as St. Luke supplies by notices of movement towards Jerus., and St. John by notices of Jewish festivals.

In any case an investigation of the internal evi- dence borne by the Gospel itself, though neces- sarily cursory, and limited to a single section, will best show to what extent it may be allowed or denied to be chronological. From the opening of the Galilean ministry to Mk 1" the narrative nins continuously, the scene, the actors, the horizon being all Galilean, and GalUean only, as far as 3'.

At this point a change takes place, and the larger world of Palestine begins to play a part on the stage. The audience is drawn, not from Galilee only, but from Jerus., Judsea, Idumsea, Persea, and Phcenicia ; the opposi- tion is reinforced by scribes from the capital; the apostles are organized into a body for more system- atic evangelization {3'' '*■ ''^).

To this division, under which the first two chapters mark the inchoate stage of the Ministry, the character of the say- ings and doings recorded in them fairly corre- sponds.

Five miracles arouse the attention of the populace, and spread the fame of their author (13i_2i3), just as five episodes bring out teaching which provokes the criticism, and soon the hostility, of the scribes and Pharisees (2'-3") ; the cure of the paralytic with the forgiveness of his sins, where the miracle suggests the teaching, forming the transition from the first half of the section to the second.

This presentation of development and progress is an argument for the substantially chronological character of the record, so far at least that an episode of the opening section, such as that of the ears of com, would primd facie be dated in the actual order of events before an episode so much posterior to the great break in 3' as the feeding of the 5000. With much less hesitation it may be laid down that the miracle of ch.

6 cannot possibly be placed in the same spring as the Crucifixion ; so that these three d<ita, the late spring of one year, the early spring of another, and the passover time of a third, suggest the testimony of St. Mark's Gospel to at least a two years' Mmistry (but see below, p. 410").

On the other hand, it does not follow that the arrangement of events within each section is chronological ; rather, the evangelist would cer- tainly seem to have here deserted the principle of temporal order for the principle of grouping.

For instance, although his general scheme m l"-3' is borne out by the natural presumption that some miracles arresting public attention preceded in time the opposition offer^ to doctrine which miglit otherwise have passed unnoticed, yet it is hardly likely that all the miracles came first and all the teaching after.

That is to say, the proba- bility that the episode of the ears or com really preceded all events from 3' onward, doea -"ot carry with it an equal probability that it preceded also the events of 3'"', or followed those of l''-2*'. Even if the sections aa wholes are in chronological order, the events within each section are obviously massed in groups. b. St.

Luke's account of the Ministry divides itself in the main into two well-marked portions, of which the first (4"-9°'') is parallel to the common tradition of the otlier Synoptists, while the second (9°'-19'^) is almost entirely peculiar ; and with this division corresponds a (seemingly methodical) arrangement of notes of place which serves as a setting for the liistory.

In the first portion, representing the Galilean ministry of the common tradition, the localities named are, with one exception, and that more apparent than real, exclusively Galilean : 4'* Gali- lee, '" Nazareth, ^' Capernaum ; 5' Lake of Genne- saret ; 7' Capernaum, " Nain ; 8"- Mary is of Magdala, and Joanna is wife of Herod's steward ; '^- ^ Lake of Galilee, with its opposite shore. Mention is made, as in St. Mark, of the gathering of hearers from Judita, Jerus.

, Tyre and Sidon, and of the fame of Christ's miracles ' in all Judica and the country round' (5" 6" 7"); but nowhere is our Lord himself removed from Galilee save in the single statement in 4" that he was ' preaching CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 407 in the synagogues of Judiea ' : 'lovSaia^, k B C L Q R etc. ; I'aXiXalat, Textus liecejitus. Apolo''etic in- terest has detected here an * undesigned coinci- dence ' w-ith tlie Judiean ministry in St.

John ; but the truth is that in this and some other passages St. Luke is using 'Judaea' in the extended sense of ' Palestine,' a term unfamiliar to NT and to the Ist cent. A.D. generally. When St. Luke VTote, the Kom. province, though it then included all Palestine except Upper Galilee, was still known only as Juda?a (Schiirer, JIJP I. ii. 257).

Traces of this usage in his writings (side by side with the narrower sense in which Judaea was opposed to Samaria or Galilee) would be Ac 26''" 'Damascus, Jems., all the country of Juda;a and the Gentiles' ; Ac 10" ' throughout all Jud^a, begin- ning from Galilee,' and the similar phrase Lk 23' (cf. 6" 7"), in each of which cases 'all Juda-a' appears to mean Palestine.

The phrase may have been used in 4" as a sort of comprehensive intro- duction to the Ministry ; and though it does not, toCidcm verbis, coniine our Lord to Galilee, it does not necessarily take him beyond its borders. The definite indications of the first half of the record are unanimously Galilean. In sharp contrast with this, the section peculiar to St.

Luke opens with the statement about Christ that ' as the days of his assumption were coming to the full, he set his face firmly to go to Jeru- salem ' ; 9^* iv T(^ ffvuTrXTipouadat rdt ij^^pai rijs dva- Xi)^ewt airroO. Again and again the same direction is emphasized in the remaining chapters. He is journeying through cities and villages, teaching and making his way to Jerus. 13-'' ; he passes through the midst of Samaria and Galilee on his journey to Jerus. 17" ; he is going up to Jerus.

18^' ; he is near Jerus. 19". It is clear that all these chapters, to the mind of the evangelist, represent a conscious working up (though not necessarily a direct journey) towards Jerus., and ' the filling up of the days of his a.ssumption ' is a phrase which cannot cover more than a tew months at the outside.

Nor is there anything to suggest that, the second group of chapters being thus limited in duration, the previous group, which occupy a shorter space in the record, extended over any much longer period. Indeed it is not im- probable that St.

Luke shared the view, widely spread from very early times, that confined the Ministry to a single year ; it is even possible that he himself, like so many of the readers of his Gospel, interpreted in this sense the reference preserved by him to Isaiah's prophecy of the 'acceptable year of the Lord' (Lk 4'"= Is 61'). c. St.

John's Gospel distinguishes itself from the other three by its careful enumeration of six notes of time, hve of them Jewish festivals, between the Baptism and the Crucifixion ; and these precise ana detailed recollections of an eye- witness must be allowed decisive weight against the apparently divergent testimony of the third SjTioptist, not to say that their very precision may have consciously aimed at a silent correction of iniiiressions erroneously derived from earlier evangelical narratives.

i 'lirovf. ^ litf 31 {f IP ratt 'ltfioro\ifd^it it ri »«#;(• it ry Ufr^. i-^ tix v/mTi Xlytrt" rt In nT^«uit'«< irTi> nm) I dtpirnit Mxiracji i3»v kiytt ufMt irmpxri rmt «^«A/MV< ttfjuit xitt dttifa^O% riit x^P'^t ^^' ^v^i vrtv wfot OtpifffA.ot. 6' Lurit r»uT» l)p itprij [or q iprii] r«p lu3«/«y mmi Jtril^n 6 I?, ii iyyi/i r« rmrx» [or omit ri v«rx«] «t ifrit r»p 7^ ?p 3i tyyvf it iapry) rvt 'I»i^^Ki'«> ii nttitrviyitt. 10^ iyiwtr riri rk lyM^itia i rt7( 'Ii^atcAi'/mk.

Of these, the first and last two are straight- forward statements which need no comment. The second admits of alternative explanations either as harvest-time or as four months before it. To the third attaches, not only a variety of reading be- tween 'the feast' and 'a feast, but, whichever reading be adopted, a doubt as to the actual feast intended by it.

'fhe fourth involves, again, a question of reading, carrying with it the dillerence of a complete year in the chronology of the Ministry ; and as this problem is at once simpler and more momentous than the other two, it will be on all grounds best to begin with it. (1) Jn 6*. If the words ri Trdtrxa are retained, three passovers are mentioned by St. John (2" 6^ 11"), so that the Ministry will extend over at least two years.

If the words are excised, ' ilie feast of the Jews,' which was ' near ' at hand, may be identified with the Feast of Tabernacles, described as ' near ' in l', and the chronology of the Ministry can then be arranged on a single-year basis : 2"' " Passover in March or April, 4" liarvest in May, 5' Pentecost in May or early June, or Trumpets in September, 6* 1'' Tabernacles in October, 10" Dedication in December, 11" Passover again.

This latter reading, in the belief that it brought the Fourth Gospel into harmony both with the Synoi>lists and with the earliest extra-canonical tradition, was championed first by Browne in his Ordo Sftclorum (London, 1844), and afterwards with more hesitation by Hort in an exhaustive note ad loc. in Westcott and Hort's Gr. Test. (App. pp. 77-81), from which manj' of the data in this article have been dra%vn.

But any primd facie presumption on such grounds in favour of the omission of t6 iriaxa would be counterbalanced by the consideration that every known MS, whether of the ori^ijinal Gr. or of tlie VSS, contains the phrase or its rendering ; moreover, the evidence of St. Mark is, as it stands, against the single-year Ministry, while the evidence of the Fathers is much more evenly divided than these two WTitera supposed.

Still, the high authority which attaches to all that Hort wrote demands a closer investi- gation of his arijunients. It will be shown that the shorter reading (a) is a phrase unlikely to have been penned by St. John ; (fi) is unsuitable, as interpreted by Hort, to the context ; (y) is un- supported by the direct witness of more than a single Father. «. If the words ri varx " not Pennine, St.

John wrote simply tY/ui ]p t] iopryi T<wp 'l0u2«'«r, anu by this he U supposed to have meant the Feust of Tabernacles, as being 1>eyond all others the feast ' of the Jews. No doubt both in the OT and as late aa the Mishna ' the feast' is used to denote Tabernacles : see Cheyiie on Is 302«. Hut even if Tabernacles retained this pre-eminence,* so that St. John as a Jew could have so used the phnuje himself, would he have done it in writing for Ocntilo Christians?

To them I'assover and Pentecost were instinct with associations from the Gospel, while Tabernacles spoke only of the Law, and ' the feast' can only have sup^^ested to them, as the same or a still vaguer phrase suggested in 5^ to Irenwus, the Feast of Passover. And the evangelist, who habitually means by 'the Jews' the enemies of Christ, can hardly have been so wedded to Jewish usage as to employ language which would have one meaning for himself and uiouier for his Ephesian disciples. fi.

The evidence of context tells the same tale. In the first place, the abundance of the grass (Jn Oio roXiij : x^^P^t '" ^lit ^^ of the same occasion) points to spring and not to autumn. Further, 'after these things Jesus was walking in CJalilee' (Jn 7 wtpiiftetTu), and yet on Ilort's hypothesis the same feast which was already near in 6^ is still only near — iyyut iu botli cases— in 72. y.

The patristic evidence for omission can be reduced from the four witnes-scs quoted by Browne and Hort — Irenieus. a heretical sect described by Kpinhanius and called by him Alogi, origen, and Cyril of Alcxanaria— to tlie single testimony of Origen. Ireuiuus brings the Gnostic theory of a one-year Ministry to the test of agreement with St. John's CJospel, where he llrida that our Lord went up to Jerus.

after the Baptism to three Passovers— the first after the miracle of Cooa, the second wtien On the one band. It Is for Passover that Joseph and Mar; are said to have gone up yearly to Jerus., Lk 2-! : on the other, Cyril Alex., probably from Origen, says oo Jn IIBS vx «i'j tt.ac^s^ H r«ira( fvtitajAUr Mt 'll/Mi/raA^^ iv rf! mdrx tit iri ni tirtorryi^. 408 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. he cured the paralytic, the third at the Crucifixion (,B<bt. n. xxii. 3).

This Father is so ea^jer, it is urped, to swell the number of Passovers that he includes the unnamed feast of 6^ and it is impossible that he should have failed to note so clear ft case 08 6 would be, if the word Passover had stood there in his text. But, in fact, lren»u8 is professing to quote only the Pass- over at which Christ was present, quoties geetnidum tempiu patdut Dmiiinug pogt baptig}iui ancetulerit in Hi^ruiaLmn • and with this aim he catalogues minutely the journeys to and fro.

He if not professing to exhaust the number of Passovers, for he goes on to ar^fue that the Ministry lasted for ten years or more. The Alotri, aocording to Epiphanius (Uan: li. 22), rejected St. John's Gosiiel u inconsistent with the rest, for the reason, among others, that instead of one Passover it records the observance of two. While they were about it, says Epiphanius, they might have accentuated the inconsistency by pointing to, not two, but three Passovers in this Gospel.

Here the answer is again that St. Joiln does not speak of the ' observance ' of more than two Passovers by visits to Jerusalem. Origen's Corrnn. on St. John is defective for chi. B-7. But on ch. 4.*&(tom. xiii.

39, 41), against the view of the Valentiniau conunentator Heracleon, that the material hanest was four months off, and the season therefore winter, he pleads for the alternative of actual harvest-time from the sequence of the events in the SBCceeding chapters, where 43fl is followed almost at once by the feast of 61, and the feast of &1 by a mention of the Tabernacles as ' nii;h at hand" (0* or 7^?)

The argument clearly postulaus the absence of any intervening Passover at 6* ; and though it is possible in the loss of the commentary on the verse iwelf to attribute this to mere oversight, yet the omission of T« rxffx^ In Origen's text is made more probable by the evidence of hla follower Cyril, the fourth and last witness alleged.

Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary, like those of w many later Fathers, is composite ; his own contributions are in- extricably mixed up with those of hie predecessors, notably of Origen. Hence, if Cyril (ed. Pusey, i.

398, 399, 404) both gives the disputed words « trotrxBt, not only in the biblical text at the head of the section (a position where, no doubt, scribes were prone to replace the more familiar reading), but in two allusions at an earlier point ; and at the same time explains our Lord's removal beyond the Sea of Galilee (Jn 61) by his desire to avoid the thronging crowds whom the near approach of the Feast (not of Passover but) of Tabernacles would attract to Jerus.

, — the simplest solution of the inconsistency is to suppose that re *«(rya rcallv stood in Cyril's own text, and that the connexion ds' the Tabernacles with the retreat beyond Tiberias is repeated from Origen. Thus of Horfft four witnesses the evidence of two, IrensDus and the Alogi, does not really hear on the point raised at all ; while the testimony of Cyril, so far as it is adverse to the words, appears to resolve itself into the testimony of urigen.

But it is much easier to suppose that Origen in his Coninientary either conjecturally emended or altogether passed over a notice that he Mw to be irreconcilable with his earlier conception of a single- year Ministry, than that he has alone preserved the apostolic "text against the concurrence of all other authorities. On no ground, external or internal, can the omission of the reference to a Passover in 6* be defended as original or genuine.

The Fourth Gospel excludes the possibility of anything less than a two-year Ministry. The result is a quite Biniple chronology for the second half of the Gospel. From 6* to 11" the space covered is exactly a year, the autumn Feast of Tabernacles (1^) and the winter Feast of Dedication (lU") being signalized in the course of it.

The earlier chapters (2" to 6') present a more complicated problem, the solution of which depends primarily on the meaning to be attached to the notices of the season in 4" and of the feast in 5'. (2) Jn 4". Allusion is here made to two seasons of the year, a period four months from harvest : 'Say ye not, There are yet four montlis, and then Cometh harvest 1 ' ; and the harvest it.self : * ' Behold the iields, for they are white already to harvest.'

Of these, only one of course can be meant in the literal sense ; and the question is, which ? The patristic exegesis of the passage shows that the dilhculty was felt from the first. Tlie earliest recorded commentator, the Valeiitinian Heracleon, Mike the majority, interpreted literally, and said tliat the material harvest was four months otf, but that the harvest of which the Saviour was speak- ing, the harvest of souls, was reatly and ripe.'

Origen answers that it was rather the middle or end of harvest-time, for the connexion of the • The tint ears of barley harvest would be ready in the most forward districti at the end of March ; the most backward wheat would be cut in June. April and Uay would be the principal hftrv«et month* narrative proves that it cannot have been winter. You cannot allow, he says, as much as eight oi nine months — April to January — after the pass- over of ch.

2, for there is nothing in the story to suggest 80 long a period, and the impression made on the Galileans at that passover was still fresh in their minds when Christ came on to Galilee after leaN'ing Samaria (4") ; nor can you allow as much again — .Tanuary to October — between this episode and the Feast of Tabernacles soon to be mentioned : * Orig. in Jn. tom. xiii. 39, 41. It is not possible at this stage to dismiss either explanation as in itself inadmissible.

The words of the verse, especially the In, 'still four months,' have, perhaps, a more natural meaning if the harvest w^as actually four months oU'. On the other hand, the immediate context, the promise of the water which should quench all thirst, has been thought to suggest a warmer season than January, the discourses in St. John's Gospel being, it is said, always fitted to their external surroundings.

On this view it has been supposed that the rerpinrivov is a proverbial phrase for the interval between seed- time and harvest, oi5x tiMf's X^7fT« standing for t4 Xeydfiei'oi', the regular idiom for a proverb. It is said in answer that no such words are elsewhere preserved ; but phrases of similar meaning, em- phasizing the interval between preparation and fruition, are common in all languages.

It is said also that a strict reckoning would make the interval rather six months than four; but the Kabbis (see Wetstein, ad loc.) were accustomed to divide the year into six stages of two months — seed- time, winter, spring, harv'est, summer, dog-days — so that four months does actually cover the period between the two.

Considering, too, the ditl'erences of climate in different parts of Palestine, and the differences of season between barley and wheat harvest, there is nothing improbable in supposing that the interval which can be described as one of six months can be described also as one of four. Origen has really hit the mark in making the relation of the passage to the general chronological arrangement of tlie Gospel the determining factor in a date which could otherwise only be left open.

This relation involves, in the first place, a dis- cussion of the third and last of the doubtful time- notices in St. John. (3) Jn 5'. Alternative readings lopr/j and ^ iopn/j, and alternative explanations of either reading.

il iopT-i) was analj'zed in the discussion of Jn 6* above, and was found to imply either Passover or Tabernacles, though the very existence of a doubt as to the relative precedence of the two feasts ma<le the use of the phrase without further defini- tion unlikely in itself. ioprii would leave the fea.st intended quite un- certain.

Origen and Epiphanius both argue rightly that the indefiniteness excludes Passover ; the former apparently made it Pentecost (as does his follower Cyril, though the text at the head of this section of the Commentary contains the article), the latter gives a choice between Pentecost and Tabernacles (Orig. in Jn. tom. xiii. 39 ; Epiph. B(er. li. 21, Dind. ).

t But just as Talicmacles is important enough to rival the claim of Passover to be meant by the definite ii iofuHi, so equally with Passover it is too important to satisfy the in- definite iofnii, which must be referred to one of the less important festivals, Pentecost (May), Trunipeta (September), Dedication (December), or Purim (February). The latter part of the arsfument is, of conn, TitUted \>j Origen's neglect of the Passover of 6^ ; see above.

t The fact that Origen, who certainly did not read the article, uses of the same feast the words «•!/> tw ir r») iom rie 'l«i/2a<M> . . ^twf^ay^JL*tttt (tom. xiil. 64). showi how eealy la oblique references the article would creep in. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 409 Am between the two readings, the article is found In M C L A 1-118 S3, the Etr.vp. VS3, Eusebius of Cajsarca, Cyril-text (per- hApe, too.

Irensjus, since he made the feast a Passover, see above CD Jn Q*) ', it iii omitted by A B D, Ori^en, Epiph. Chrys.

uid the Poichal ChronicU, The wei^rht of external evidence favours the latter group, for it has not only early but varied attestation ; whereas the other is of more liomopeneous type, oritnnally purely Alexandrine, and may easily owe its post-Nicene ■upitorters to the influence of Eusebius of Cffisarea, and tbe theory which he brought into prominence of a three years' Ministry with four Passovers.

And when to this is added the suspicious character Just shown to attach on internal grounds to i UfiTT, iif^r without the article may confldently claim to repre lent the text of tbe evangelist. Thus the first half of the Gospel gives (1) a pass- over, 2"- " ; (2) a note of time, either May or January, 4" ; (3) an unnamed minor feast, 5' ; (4) a second passover, 6. These could be combined in more than one way to fit into a single year : e.g.

(o) Passover — May — any lesser feast — Passover ; or (;3) Passover— January — Purim (February) — Passover. But, Is the minimum duration of the Ministry which results from St. John's Gospel also the maximum ? Is it to be assumed that if the notes of time in 2"-6' can be co-ordinated into a sin^'le year, and those of C^-ll" into a second, no further latitude is possible? This is the crucial question.

A negative answer is implied in Irenaeos, tbe earliest in time, the most trustworthy in position, of all extant patristic authorities (Ilxr. II. xxii. 3-6). The limitation of the Ministry by the Valentinians to a single year he disproves at once from the record of three visits to Jerus.

for the passover (see on Jn 6* above) ; but he finds also three other considerations which prove that the total length of the Ministry was far in excess, not only of one, ,but even of two or three years' duration, (i.) A priori: The Lord came to save and sanctify every age, whether of infants, children, boys, youths, or men, and to be at once the perfect example and the perfect ma.

ster and teacher of all ; their example, by passing himself through each of the stages of huiuim life ; their teacher, by attain- ing the age of teaching.* (ii.) Scriptural: St. Jonn records (8") tliat the Jews asserted that Jesus could not have seen Abraham, because he was still under fifty years old — a phrase implying that he was not far otf fifty, at any rate over forty, since to a man between thirty and forty the retort would have been, 'Thou art not yet forty years old.' (iii.)

Traditional: The elders who gathered round St. John during his long old age in Asia, disciples some of them, of other apostles as well, have all handed this down as the apostolic teaching. Of these arguments the first two do not come to much ; but the third does establish a primA facie claim, only to be rebutted by the overwhelming evidence on the other side. Is there, then, no method of explaining, or at least minimizing, this at first sight conclusive appeal to Johannine tradition ?

In a later passage ( v. xxxiii. 3) Irenajus makes a similar appeal to ' the elders who had seen John, the disciple of the Lord,' and embodies their witness to the Lord's teaching about the Millennial times in a passage which he then defines as the written testimony of ' Pa])ias, the hearer of John and companion of Polycarp ' ; and since Papias' work was primarily a commentary on sayings or oracles of the Lord.

, it is a legitimate conjecture that if the earlier passage contains a particular exegesisof the text Jn 8", accompanied by emphasis on the authority of the elders, there, too, the authority and tiie exegesis are those of Papias, and probably of Papias only. But Papias had no title beyond that of antiquity to the exaggerated deference which Irena-us pays him. A writer so 'feeble-minded' (the phrase is from Eusebius) I.t. 40 yaan ; see above on Lk S^, p. 40&.

would have been just the one to press home to its narrowest meaning the d fortiori argument, ' Thou art not yet fifty years old,' of the Jewish contro- versialists ; it is even conceivable that he attributed the ' forty and six years ' of the literal temple to the human temple of our Lord.

But because a theory which extends the length of the Ministry to ten or fifteen years is on all grounds untenable, it does not at once follow that an addition of one year, or even two, to the minimum implied by tne recorded passovers would be equally out of court. At the same time, the cumiilative etlect of the four following considera- tions seems decisive against even this amount of deviation from the stricter interpretation of St. John's narrative. a.

However widely patristic writers differ from one another in their estimate of the number of passovers mentioned, they all, save Irenajus (i.e. I'apiasT) only, ajjree in believing that the enumeration, wiiatever it is, is exhaustive. Origeu in his earlier writings appears to have reckoned no more than the two pass- overs : consequently the Ministry lasted only 'a year and some months' (de PrincipiU, iv. 6).

If Eusebius and the Paschal Chronicler find four Passovers in the text, they allot to the .Ministr.v a period of between three years and four. If Jerome, Epiphanius, and Apollinaris speak of three Passo\ers, they also deline tbe length of the Ministry as two years, or two years and so many days.

In itself too much weight must not be attached to this coiuen^us, since the natural tendency of cbronologers is to make the most of what they find in their authorities, and to build up conclusions even where tbe data are slight and insutlicient. In this case, however, the Fathers appear to be doing do violence to tbe intentions of the evangelist. 0. t'oT if St.

John wrote with earlier forms of the Goiipel tradition in bis mind or before liis eyes, and made it one of nis objects to supplement their deficiencies lay restatement of neglected facta, — as with regard to the Judeean Ministry or tbe day of tbe Crucifixion, — it is reasonable to suppose that the numerous notes of time which mark off bis narrative into stages are purposely introduced in definite contrast to the looser Synoptic account ; and he could only remove the erroneous impression wliich had perhaps been deduced already from other Gospels as to tbe length of tbe Ministry, by substituting in bis own Gospel an exact or fairly exact chronology.

The proof that St. John mentions so many passovers, and so many only, amounts, then, to a presumptive proof that there wers no more to mention. The two preceding arguments are independent of the par- ticular number of passovers recorded in St. John's Gospel ; the two which follow derive their force from tlie result above established, that three passovers, or a minimum of two years, are there assigned to the Slinistr}-. y. An early tradition, dating back certainl.

v to the Gnostics of the 2nd cent., and perhaps to St. Luke himself, limited the Ministry to a single yeir ; every year, therefore, added to the minimum of two years required by St. John makes it more difficult to understand how tifie error can have bad so ancient an origin or so wide a diffusion. i.

It the ap])arGnt narrowness of tbe framework in which the Synoptic narrative is set paved the way in part for the theory of the single year, an almost equally rapid succession of events is implied b}' two indications in the Fourth Gospel— indications which, but for the actual enumeration of the feasts, might well have seemed to bmit the Ministry to an even shorter duration than two years. Ch i*^ 'the Galileans received him, having seen all things that be did at Jerus.

at tbe feast, refers to 'Z'^ when he was in Jems, at the passover at the feast, many behcvcd on his name, beholding the signs which he was doing ' ; and ch. 721 23 One work I did, and ye are all marvelling. . I made a man sound every whit on the sabbath day,' reaches back to 51-9. Not only can there have been no visit to Galilee between 21 and 4*^, no visit to Jerus.

between 6* and 7^1, but the intervals themselves must have been relatively small : eigiit or nine months is the outside limit for the former ; and since many signs were perfonned at the first recorded visit to Jems., the impression of the one miracle which marked the Becon(i visit v^'ould scarcely stand out with unique distinctness for much more than a similar period.

As 7-' was spoken at Tabernacles, and a Passover intervenes at 6, this is 90 far an argument lor not putting back tbe visit of 6^ beyond the previous Purim (February). The cumulative effect of these considerations warrants the conclusion that while two years 7nust, not more than two years can, bo allowed for the interval from Jn 2''' "* to Jn 11"; and it now remains only to ask how far the results establisheil from St. John's Gospel agree with the more tentative results deduced from .St.

Mark's. a coiiiparca with c. St. Mark's Gospel was shown (p. 400), if its order of events can be taken as chronological, to imply, exactly like St. John's, a 410 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. two-year Ministry. Its second note of time, the springof the miracle of the 5000, corresponds exactly to the Passover mentioned as ' nigh ' on the same occasion in St. John (Mk 6''=Jn 6*).

Its first note, the harvest of the ears of com (Mk 2"), must; if recorded in its proper place, belong to the months immediately succeeding the passover of .In 2. It would follow at once that the visit welcomed by the Galileans (Jn 4''''), being the first visit to Galilee after Jn 2, must precede Mk 2^ ; and St. John's note of time in Samaria (Jn 4"') must be placed between the passover and the episode of the ears of com, i.e. at the actual harvest season.

Very soon after the passover — room has only to be found for the visit of Nicodemus — per- haps about April 20, since passover in A.D.

27 fell on April 11 or 12, Christ leaves Jems, with his disciples and makes a stay in the ' land of Jud,'ea ' while John was still preaching ; but the Baptist's arrest probably followed shortly, and may actu- ally have been the cause of our Lord's removal through Samaria to Galilee, at a time when at least the barley was ripe, say about the middle of May (Jn S^ »* 4', and Westcott, ad loc). 'After the arrest of John, Jesus came into Galilee ' is St. Mark's description of the same moment, 1".

So far the chronology is smooth enough ; the difficulty is to know wnether the six weeks, which is the utmost that can be allowed between the middle of May and the end of wheat harvest, are enough to cover the opening stages of the Galilean Ministry down to the episode of the ears of corn. It haw been shown above (p. 406"") that within his first section St.

Mark certainly groups events by subject- matter rather than by time, so that there is no d priori reason against placing the episode of the com during, or even before, the circuit of the village- towns (xoi^oirAXetj, i. 38), which is almost the only distinctively marked occurrence in these chapters.

No doubt, however, such a scheme as this would crush the early GalUean Ministry into an tm- comfortably narrow space ; the double call of the apostles, for instance, is more appropriate if a sub- stantial interval, during which they had returned to their ordinary avocations, elapsed between the return to Galilee in May and the second and final call. But if the harmonization is thought im- possible, it is the chronological order of the events m St.

Mark, and not the limitation of the Ministry to two years, which must be given up. The corn episode must be transferred to the second year of the Ministry, and placed after the miracle of the Five Thousand. d.

A secure result being thus established from the Gospels for the length of the Ministry, want of space compels the omission of the section on the evidence of antiquity, — evidence the less essential that it is wholly secondary, being based on deductions, some correct, some incorrect, from the Scriptures themselves. Suffice it to say briefly, that among ante-Nicene writers, against the evidence for a single year of ihe Ptolemajan Valentinians, the Clementine Homilies (xvii. 19), Clem. Al.

(Strom, i. 145, vi. 279), Julius Africanus (Routh, Rel. Sac. ii. pp. 240, 306), Hippolytus' later works (Paschal Cycle and Chronicle), and Origen's earlier (in Levit. Horn. ix. 5, de Princ. iv. 5), are to be set, for a two to three years' Ministry, Melito (Routh, Rel. Sac. i. p. 121), Heracleon (to judge from his interpreting Jn 4^ of winter), Tatian's Dintessaron, Hippolytus' Fourth Book on Daniel, and Origen (c. Celsam ii. 12, Comm. in Matt. xxiv. 15, and probably in the lost Comm. on Is.

xxix. 1). No writer before Eusebius maintains a three to four years' Ministry. E. The Date of the Crucifixion.— a. The Four Gospels. — 1. The dating by officialt: a, the governor ; p, the high priest. a. All the Gospels besides the Acts and Pastoral Epistles name PUate (Pontius Pilate in Mt 27^, Ao 4", 1 Ti 6'*) as the governor before whom Christ was tried. His tenure of the procuratorship ia approximately fixed by Josephus, Ant. XVIII. ii. 2, iv.

2: (1) he came as successor to Valerius Gratus, whose eleven years, since they fell wholly under Tiberius, must have extended at least to A.D. 25 ; (2) he left after ten years of office, and was still on his way to Kome when Tiberius died, March A.D. 37, so that he can hardly have reached Palestine before a.d. 27 ; and as Lk IS^ 23" (not to speak of Lk 3') show that he was not quite newly come at the time of the Crucifixion, the possible passovers for the latter are reduced to nine, A.D. 28-36.

j3. As high priest Caiaphas is named by St. Matthew (26^- '"), and so emphatically by St. John (11** 18"- ■^) as to suggest that he is correcting the less technically accurate statement of St. Luke, who includes under the title both Caiaphas and his sometime previously deposed predecessor Annas (3' ivl apx^piui 'Avva ncoi Kaid0a ; but in Ac 4' Annas to the exclusion of Caiaphas, 'Avfat i dpxifpdi Koi Ka(d0as). Caiaphas was appointed under Valerius Gratus before Pilate's time.

He was deposed by Vitellius, legate of Syria, on the occasion of a visit to Jerus. for the passover, the year of which can be established within certain limits, for (1) his successor Jonathan was deposed by the same Vitellius during anotlier visit for one of the festivals of A.D. 37 — probably Pentecost,* since the newsof Tiberius' death on March 16 arrived at the same time ; at latest, therefore, Caiaphas' deposition was at the passover of A.D. 36, and the Crucifixion at the passover of A.D.

35 ; (2) the death of Herod Philip in the 20th year of 'Tiberius, A.D. 33-34, is mentioned by Josephus a page or two after the account of Caiaphas removal, with the fairly precise indication totc, ' at that time,' so that, if this order of events is correct, the Passover of A.D. 34 is the terminus ad quern for Caiaphas, and that of A.D. 33 for the Crucifixion. See Josephus, Ant. XVIU. ii. 2, iv. 3-v. 3. The Crucifixion under Pilate and Caiaphas can hardly then lie outside the years A.D. 28-33.

2. The dating by the calendar : a, the day of the week ; /3, the day of the (Jewish) month. o. Since the Ilesurrection admittedly falls on the first day of the week, Sunday, the Crucifixion, wliicli was according to Jewish reckoning on the 'third day' before, took place on a Friday. No j)roof of this would be needed were it not that it has been strangely suggested (by Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels', appendix to ch. vi. p.

348) that the day of the Crucifixion was not Friday but Thursday, on the ground of the Srediction that the Son of man was to be three ays and three nights in the heart of the earth, Mt 12*'. But against this view tradition and the NT are equally decisive: (1) The Wednesday and Friday fast is now traced back as far as the Didache, 8'. (2) The most common NT phrase for the day of the Resurrection in comparison with the Crucifixion is r^ rplr^ (Gospels eight times, besides 1 Co 15'), which in Gr.

never did or could mean anj'thing but ' on the second day,' whet liei the day after to-morrow or the day before vester- day ; cf. Lk 13'», Ac 27'«- '». Ex lO'"-", 1 Mac 9«. Even the apparently stronger phrases iicriL rpeis ilfUpas (Mk 8^', Mt 27"-*') and Toeit iiiifpat icoi rpeij KixTas (Mt 12"), mean exactly the same thing ; cf.

Gn 42"' ' <toi (Bero airroii tr (pvXaK^ ijfUpat rptis" ilirev If it had been the passover, Josephus would probably have mentioned the fact, as he does on the prenous occasion ol Caiaphas' deposition. If the passover of A.D. 37 fell on March 20-21 , I'ent^H^ost was about May S-9, seven to eight weeks after Til>eriuM" «ieatli. CKKOXOLOGY OF SEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 411 Si a^ott rp ijfjJfx^ t^ rpiro, Est 4^« firi <p6.yrrr€ nijSi TlifTt ^l rjfUpas Tpth vvicra.

Kal jj^fXLv^ taken up in 5^ ( = 15* Vulg.) Koi iyiptro iv t^ ^m^P^ t^ TpirQ . . ■repi(3d\ero -njy S6^(iv aCrr^s. (These exx. mostly from Field's admirable note on Mt 16-' — misprinted" — in hia Otium NorvicensCf iii. p. 7.) 8. But the day of the week must be combined ■with the day of the month before any further results can be attained. On what day, then, of the (Jewish) month did the Crucifixion fall ?

The passover was kept at the full moon of Nisan, the first month of^ the Jewish ecclesiastical year ; and the months being lunar and commencing with the new moon, the mil moon fell about the 15th. On the 14th, in the afternoon, the paschal lamb was killed, Ex 12* explained by Josephus, BJ VI. ix. 3, 6,t6 iydrrji Cipas fUxpts ivStKaT-qs^ and Philo (ed. Mangey, ii.

292) icard ^aij^^piav fws iavipas ; it was eaten on the evening of the same natural day, but as the Je\N'ish day began at sunset, that was already Nisan 15. On the 16th the first-fruits of the barley harvest were oirered or 'waved' before the Lord (Lv 23"-"; Jos. Ant. III. x. 5). The whole feast of unleavened bread lasted seven days, from the 15th to the 21st inclusive.

Whether the Crucifixion fell on the 14th or on the 15th, whether (that is) the passover by a few hours followed it or preceded it, has always been a question. For the present purpose, however, it is only an important one in so far as it may happen that in any one of the possible years Friday might be reconcilable with one but not with the other of the two days.

But the observation of the Jewish months often cannot be restored with such absolute certainty that if Friday could be Nisan 14 in any particular year it could not be Nisan 15, or vice versd. Moreover, the arguments on each side (unlike most of the points treated hitherto) are well represented in accessible author- ities : see in favour of the 14th — Sanday, Author- ship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel^ ch. xii., or Westcott, Introduction to the Gosjicls^ appendix to ch.

vi, : for the 16th — Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah f u. 479-^82 ; Le>vin, Fctsti Sacri^ p. xxxi; M'Clellan, New Testament^ pp. 473-494. No more then need be said here upon tne Gospels than that, while primd facie the evidence of St. John tells for the 14th and that of the Synoptists for the 15th, indications are not wanting in the synoptic narrative {e.g. the episodes of Simon of Cyrene and of the deposition from the Cross, Mk l^ai. 43. 4flj which confirm the Johannine view.

Probably, here as elsewhere St. John in repeatedly implying that the passover was still future (13 irpb Si ttJj (opT^i Tou wdaxo., 13^ dyOpaaoy we Xfi^ia^v tx_op.€v tU riji' iopHjyf IS'" tva firj ^avOuiaiv dXXA tpdydiaiv t6 rdffxoi) is intending to correct silently a false im- Eression to which other accounts had, or might ave, given rise.* For the decisive evidence of Christian antiquity, reaching back probably to St. Paul himself, in favour of Nisan 14, see oelow, p. 412.

In which years, then, between tlio already estab- lished limits A.D. 28-33, could Friday have fallen on the 14th — regard being also hau to the less probable 15th— of Nisan?

The matt«r is not so simple as it looks ; for It Is never possible to be Certain which day was re<;koncd as the new moon or • The regular B3moptic use of ri wirx 'or the supper on the evenlntf of Nisan 13-14 is potwibly Illustrated by passages in Philo, 9tf) r>ir l&iofj^t mmt xHf i«/7r^r, which seem to distinguish the «««-x« of the 14th from the k^ufMtt of the 16th-2l8t (ii. 278, 292, 293) : €.g. 0) r|r«^ l\ [iyn^] rw h»$a.-ni^imt q Ha>j[»va., %\ m^ufjM..

(2) my\rau 31 li 9CLtii\u{ fivfitL rirrxfim^uiiMMTV rev M<ix. (3) rufaiWTU H r«7c ittr^m-Tupittt i^ri) . . mvfAa.. Does 8t. Mark, Cf )i r rar%dt s«) rk k^viut U4rm iC itu4fitt4 (14^), imply a consciousoeae of this distinction 7 Contrast, however, Mt 2ei7, &lk 1413. Lk 221- 7. flrat of any given month, and not alwaj-s possible to be certain which month was reckoned as the NL>an or first of anj given year. (1) How was the beginning of a Jewish month fixed?

Theo- retically, no doubt, by simple obsen'ation ; and since astronomers can calculate the true time of conjunction for any new moon, it is possible, by adding so many hours (not less than about 30) for the crescent to become visible, and by taking the first sunset after that, to know when each month ought to have begun, if the Jewish observations were accurately made. But wtnt was to happen when obsen'ation was impossible?

Was the new month to be put off as long as eveify night happened to be cloudy? Were the Jews of the dispersion from Babylon to Home to be left ig^norant on what day the new month was com- mencing in Jerusalem? Elmpiric methods must have been qualifi^ by the permanent rules of some sort of calendar. It must at least have been recognised that, the average length of a lunation being 2<Ji days, no month could be less than 29 or more than 30 days. The subjoined table (of. Salmon, Introd. to NT.

appendix to Lect. XV. ; Mas Lairie, Tr68or de Chronologie, p. 94) gives, flrat, the terminus pofickalit or 14tb of the paschal moon according to the present Christian calendar ; 8etx>ndly, the beginning of the 14tb day, reckoned from the time of the astronomical new moon of Nisan ; and thirdly, the fourteenth day, reckoned from the first appearance of the new moon at sunset (it being remem* bered that the Jewish day began at that hour)— LD. 28 Sa. 27 M. 29 F. 15 A. 30 Tu. 4 A. SI Sa.

24 M 32 Sa. 12 A. 33 W. 1 A. 28 M., 2 a.m. 16 A., 8 p.m. 4 A., 8 p.m. 26 M., 1 a.m. 11 A., 11 p.m. 1 A., 1p.m. or ( 3-) 4 A. The first and third colomni may safely be taken to represent the possible extremes in any j'ear, and it will be seen at once that Friday cannot have fallen on Nisan 14 or 16 in the three years A.D.

28, 31, 32— in each of these the choice lies from Saturday to Monday or Tuesday for the 14th, and from Sunday to Tuesday or Wednesday for the 15th— and must be sought for therefore in one of the remaining years, A.D. 29, 30, 33. (2) But how is it certain that the full moons just given wer« those of Nisan rather than of some other month?

Nisan was ori^'inally that lunation before the middle of which the first ears of barley har\'est were ripe (pt 16^, Lv 23^0) ; and if, when the previous month Adar ended, Uie earliest barley was not within a fortnicht of being ripe, a 13th month, Veadar, was intercalated.

But as ^^ith the month, so also for the com- mencement of each year, a syMtematic calendar must soon have replaced simple observation, for strangers from the Dispersion could not visit Jems, for the passover unless they knew before- hand whether a 13th month were to be intercalated or nut.

Such a method as was wanted for correlating the lunar months with the solar year exists in the still familiar rule that the paschal full moon is that immediately following the spring equinox ; and this was certainly in use — nor is there any traoe of any rival system of harmonization — before the Christian era.* But the equinox itself, though the reckoning of it varied only within narrow limits, was not an absolutely fixed point.

Tlie computation ultimately accepted by the whole Christian world, that of the Alexandrians of the 4th cent., fixed it on March 21. But Anatoliua of Laodicea (see the padsaye of his *a.i-ett( reu ta.ffx'^% A-D- 277, preserved in Eus. IIE vii. 32), assigning the first new moon of the first year of his cycle to Phamenoth 26 = a.d. xi kal. Apr. = March 22, says that the sun Is then already in the 4th day of the first ru.

^'^^ (or 12th part of his annual course from equinox to equinox), which he therefore placed on March 19. Moreover, according to the same authority, there were those who, disregarding the equinoctial limit, erroneouslv took for the paschal month what was really not the first month of one year but the last of the preceding— and that against the testimony of the old Jewish authorities, Philo, Josephus, MussBus, and the still earlier AgathobuU and Aristobulus.

Who these people were whom he is attacking, Anatolius in the extant fragment does not say ; but the evidence of various 4th cent, writers makes it all but certain that they were the Jews of his day. liie Encyclical Letter of Oonstantine at Nicau dissuade from imitation of the Jewish poscha, celebrated as it is twice in one year' : the ApoHolic CoiMtitutiont recommend independence of Jewish calculations and careful attention to the equinox, lest the feast should recur 'twice In one year* — i.

«. once rightly, Just after the one spring equinox, and once wrongly. Just before the next ; and the Paschal Uomily of pseudo- Chrysostom (a.d. 3h7) appeals from the contemporary Jews and their neglect of the equinox to their wise men of anticui*y, I'hilo, Josephus, and others, in terms which seem to be borrowed direct from Anatolius. (Socrates, UB L 9; Apost. Const. V. 17 ; Chn-'sostom. ed. Bened. viii. Appendix, p. 277 ; cf., too, Epiphanius. Z/"T. 1. 3.)

It is quite likely tliat this supposed error of the Jews simply meant that they reckoned the equinox t-arlier than their Christian contemporaries, better equipped in ostronomicid • Philo {op. cit. ii.

2U3) connects tlie title of ' first munlh ' given to Nisan in the UT with the concurrence of the soring L-quinox as an annual reminder of the beginning of all things ; and see below for the catena of Jewish authorities appealed to by Anatolius, who quotes the acttuJ lani^uage of ' Ariatobulus one of the Seventy.' 412 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST.

knowledge, had learned to do ; with the result that the Jews would be sometimeB keeping the passover when the Christians, holding that the equinox w;is not yet past, waited for Hie next full moon. In any caae the fartheV back the Church's paschal calculations c*n be traced, the earlier does the equinox appear to have been set. Anatoli\i3 himself put it two days before the Alexandrian reckoning, just aa Hippolytus, the first known author of a Christian cycle (a.d. 2'.

i2), put it a day before Anatolius. And both Jews and Christians of primitive times may quite possibly have reckoned it a day earlier even than the March 18 of Hippolytus. Nor, in the list of the six passovers of A.D. 28-33 there was one year, a.d. 29, in which the new moon of Nisan is placed as late as April 2, 8 p.m.

, and the 14th as late as April 15-18; but the argument of the last two paragraphs shows that the previous lunation, if its new moon fell in the early hours of March 4 and its 14th on March 17-19, has an equal or superior claim to he con- sidered the month of Nisan. The 14th in this case, if it fell on March 18, would actually he a Friday ; and March 18 is really the most probable of the alternatives.

It is true that calciuation from the phasis of the new moon after sunset would make Nisan 1 = March 6, Nisan 14= March 19. But the caution has already been given that simple obser- vation must have been superseded before A.D.

29 by calendar rules ; and one of these rules, which may well go back to our Lord's time, was that Adar never consisted of more than 29 days ; Nisan therefore commenced a day sooner in relation to the new moon than if it had followed a month of 30 days, so that in this year Nisan 1 would rather be March 5. Suppose, further, that the equinox was calculated one day earlier than by Hippolytus, two days earlier than by Anatolius, and Nisan 14 = March 18, A.

Ek 29, satisfies the equinoctial limit also. Three years then, A.D. 29, 30, 33, satisfy the Gospel evidence for the date of the Crucifixion : and the choice between them must now be made by recourse to other authorities. b. Tradition outside the Gospels. 1. The Jewish Date.

— Though the evidence ob- tained from these supplementary sources deals, as a rule, with Roman or other civil computations, the question as between Nisan 14 and 15 is definitely answered by a continuous chain of tradition from the let cent, to the 4th. St. Paul wrote his First Epistle to the Corinth- ians about passover-time (5 fiiore ioprdj^uifiev, cf. 16), and paschal symbolism underlies his allusions both to the Crucifixion, 5' (KKaSaptu-e rijv TraXaidv ^VfiTjr , , . Kal y^p rb iraaxo.

ijfjiwv irvdrj Xpttrr^y, and to the Resurrection, IS'" vwl Si XpurrAs iyitytprai {k weKpuip avapx^ tuv KfKot^n^pAvojv, On Nisan 14 and 16, then, the days of the sacrifice of the passover and of the offering of the first-fruits, St. Paul's Churches appear to have kept the memorials of the Crucifixion and of the Resurrection.

In the next century the Quartodecimans, as their name implies, observed Nisan 14, not 15 : the theory of the Tiibingen school, that what these Johannine Churches observed on the 14th was not the Cruci- fixion but the Last Supper, is too preposterous to call for refutation. Definite testimony for the 14th, from lost writings of three ' holy Fathers of the Church,' is quoted in the Paschal Chronicle (A.D. 641 : ed. Ducange, pp. 6, 7). (i.) Claudius ApoUinaris of Hierapolis, c. A.D.

180, in his irep! ToC ricrxa Xtryot accused of ignorance those who connected the 14th, not with the true Lord's pass- over, the great Sacrifice, but with the Last Supper,* ajid put the Crucifixion on the 15th, on the sup- ' strictly, of course, the Last Supper and the Cniciflxion were on the same Jewish day ; hut early Christian usage soon began to use, even for these days of the lunar month, not the Jewish reckoning from sunset to sunset, but the ordinary reckoning from midnight to midnight.

Apollin&ris distingiii^bes the two days just in the same way as Clement puts the washing of the feet on the 13th, the Passion on the 14th. posed authority of St. Matthew's Gospel : a view, he says, which is out of harmony with the law, — apparently because the paschal lamb is an OT type of Christ, — and sets the Gospels at variance with one another, obviously because St. John wag admitted to give the quartodeciman date, (ii.)

Clement of Alexandria, in a work bearing the same title, contrasted the years before the Min- istry, when Christ ate the Jewish passover, with the year of his preaching, when he did not eat it, but suffered on the 14th, being himself the paschal Lamb of God, and rose on the third day [the 16th], on which the Law commanded the priest to offer the sheaf of first-fruits, (iii.) Hip- polytus of Portus, in his De pascha and ^ dv.

omnet luereses [to be distinguished from the now recov- ered longer treatise, Refutatio omnium ?ueresium], asserted that Christ ate a supper before the pass- over, but not the legal passover : oStos yap ijv ri Hiaxa tA xpoKtKtipvyiUvov Kal TtXeioiiUfOn t^ uiptafUvTi Vfiipif. Of other early writers Irenaens (IV. x. I) is hardly clear ; but Tertullian {adv. Jud. 8)* seems to imply Nisan 14. Africanus is quite unambiguous, trpd 5i TT}$ fuai toO xdffxa tA irepl rdv IZurT^pa avvi^Tj {Chronicon, fr.

50 ap. Routh, Eel. Sac. ii. 297). Even as late as the end of the 4th cent, three writers, all specialists on chronology, can still be cited on the same side : Epiphanius, Hcer. 1. 2, Wei yip rdi^ Xpterrdi' iv TeffffapetTKatSeKdTTj ij^Up^ dieaSai; Ps.-Chrysostora (A.D. 387: ed. Bened. viii. App. p. 281), the Crucifixion fulfils the Mosaic ordinance that the lamb should be sacrificed be- tween the evenings on the 14th ; Julius Hilarianus (A.D. 397 : de die pascha et mensis xv, ap.

(Jallandi, viii. 748), the sacrifice of a lamb from the flock is replaced by the sacrifice of the Lord Christ himself on luna xiv. Add to these Anon, in Cramer's Catena in Mt. p. 237, and Orosius, Hist. vii. 4. 15, the darkness took place iv tj i5' TnUpq TTis (rjXiJcTjs, quartam decima7n ea die lunnm, as well as the Paschal Chronicle itself and the svvToii.ot Si.-fnn'"-^, an Egyptian system incorporated Lq it (ed. Ducange, pp. 221, 225).

But by tnis time the opposite \'iew, which first emerges m the 3rd cent. — in the West, Ps. -Cyprian, Computus de pascha (K.D. 243: HartersCy/>rtan, iii. 248), § 9 manducavit pascha, % 21 passus est luna XV; in the East, Origen on Mt 26'' (Delarue, iii. 895), lesus celebravit more ludaico pasclui corpor- aliter . . quoniam . . /actus est sub lege — was beginning to be the prevalent one. So certainly Ambrose, ad epp. /Emilice (c. A.D. 386 : ed. Bened. ii. 880), Chrysostom (e.g. Horn, in Mt.

Ixxxii, ed. Field, ii. 461, the passover superseded by the Eucharist, t6 KecpaXa^ov tQiv eopruiy airruiv KaTaXvH i^' eripay airroit furaTidfis Tpdirt^ay), Proterius of Alex- andria, ad Papam Leonem (A.D. 444, printed at ep. cxxxiii. in the Ballerini Leo) xiv luna mensis primi . . pasclia tnanducans . . sequenti die XV luna crucifigituT ; and probably Theojihilus of Alexandria, ad Theodosium Imp. iv. (A.D. 386 : Gal- landi, vii.

615) ; for though the Greek has rj Tto, capeaKaidtnaTal^ the Latin decimaquinta tallies with Ambrose and Proterius, who both appear to l-e borrowing from Theopliilus. This later view appears to be derived from the use of irdcrxf in the Synoptic Gospels : Origen, its most influential supporter, is directly commenting on the text of St. Matthew. On the other hand, none of the earlier witnesses for the 14th, save ApoUinaris, the champion of the Johannine Churches of Asia Minor, appeal to St.

John's Gospel ; rather they represent an independent mid * In favour of the genuineness of chs. 1-8 of this treatise se« Fuller Diet. Chritt. Biogr. iv. 827>> ; Hamack Gach. der aitchr Litteratur, L 671 : agamst, Burkitt Old Latin and Jtaia, pp CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 413 decisive coniirmation of it by the living voice of primitive tradition. 2.

The civil year may be identified either by the consuls or by the regnal years of the emperor ; less frequently by reckoning from some one of the special eras in use in the East, such a» the Olympiada or the era of Alexander (otho/wiae called of the Greeks), B.C. 312. «. The earliest authority who appears to have fixed the Crucl- flxioD by iiuplicatioD to a dellnite year is the pa^'an annalist Phle^on, whose 'chronological collection on the ulympiiuls' ranged from Ol. I. 1 (b.o.

776) down to the times of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138. A general account of the work is given by the patriarch rhotius {cod. 97), though even he failed to get beyond che lUth book, or about B.C. 170. Pholiu:!

suuiuiarizes the la:>t chapter which he read, as a sample of the style and contents of the whole, concluding that 'the reader geta rej^ularly bored with the liste of names and of victors in the Olympic contests, and with the excessive and unseasonable details about prodigies and propheciea, which crowd out all real history.'

Probably it wu this interest in the marvellous which led Phle^on to men- tion the predictions of Jesus Christ, though his knowle^it^e was so vague that, if Urigen's phrase is rightly understood, he con- tused the personaUtica ^or perhaps oniy the miracles) of Christ and of St. Peter (c CeU. li. 14, nyx^^'t ■> ''if '*/' nir^«4< »< wtfi What gives him his interest for the present purpose is that he recorded under 01. 202. i (a.d.

32-33) the darkness which accompanit-d the Crjciflxion ; though, since the evidence is at second or even at third hand, it is dilflcult to disentangle his actual words, (i.) The reference in the middle of a fragment quoted by Syncellus from the Chronicon of Juhus Africanus(Kr. 60 ; Routh, Ret. Sac. ii. 297, 477) is, as Routh bos seen, probably an interpolation due to Syncellus' confused recollections of Eusebius. (it) The earliest genuine allusions are two in Origen : c. CeU. ii.

S3, Phlegon recorded in the 13lh or 14th book of his ChronicUs the echpse under Tiberius and the great earthquakes of that time: Comm. in ML 134 (Delanie, iii. 922), heathen opponents urge that an eclipse, such as the Gospels mention,* cannot possibly take place at full moon,— Phlegon recorded. Indeed, an echpse under Tiberius, but not an eclipse at full moon, (iii) But though he did not mention the full moon in •o many words, an Anonymtu in Cramer's Catena in Mt. p.

237 — followed by pseudo-Origen in Mt. (see Routh, op. cit. 479)— does Ojisert tliat he relat^ the echpse as a marvel, vxpx- liim y^yoTot, and the Christian writer naturally understood by thu 'paradox' the coincidence with the full moon, (iv.) A further restoration of Phlegon is possible from tho Chronicle 3f Eusebiu:* as represented in the Armenian version, in Jerome's lAtin version, and in the quotations of ticorge Syncellus. 'In the same year as the Crucifixion (i.e.

Tiberius 19; see below) the following notice occurs in pagan historians : "the sun was eclipsed ; an earthquake occurred in Ililhynia, and most of Nicoja fell to the ground " : still more precisely Phlegon, tho celebrated chronologer of the Olympiads, registers in nis 13th book, under Ol. 202. 4 [a.d.

32-33], "an eclip'je of the sun more striking than any previously on record, for it became night at the sixth hour of the day, so that stars were visible m the heavens ; and a great earthquake in Bithynia overthrew most of NiciBa,"' Obviously, these two quotations are not inde- pendent of one another; the first and more general looks like a summary by some intermediate writer of the same passage from Phlegon which Eusebius then transcribes direct and in full.

That Phlegon was here drawing again on Chriatian sources, whether the canonical Gospels or not, appears not to have been mispocted by Origen or Eusebius, but in face of the mention of the *6th hour' cannot admit of doubt. It does not, however, follow that he borrowed the year also from them ; for an annalist, if he has not found a precise date in his authorities, b bound to invent one. If he ascribed the portents of the Crucifixion to the 202nd Olympiad simply, a.d.

21>-33, he would not stand in manifest contradiction to the other early evidence. But if he really fixed them partii.-ularly to the 4th year, a.d. 33, he ia the only witness before Eusebius' time to do so ; and in that case the most probable h^'polbusis is that he knew from his Chrijttian authontics no more (and from Ihe Gospels as the^ stand he could hardly have learned more) than that the Cruci- fixion fell in the latter part of Tiberius' reign, and fixed on A.D.

83 because he may have already found reason to select that year tor the Bithynian earthquake. Eusebius, however, fuund Phlegon's date harmonize admir- ably with his own theory of the kngth of the Ministry, and so hii ChTonirie assigns the Baptist's mission (after Lk 30 to Tiberius 1&, the mission of Christ to Tiberius 10, and the Passion to Tiberius 19 (A.D. 33). f The latter item in guaranteed both by Byncellus, Int^ iV ritr TiStp-tv 0xffi>.

i'x(, and by the Armenian ; Jerome, no doubt because he allotted to the Ministry onlv two to three yearv, and not like Eusebius three to four, substitutes Tiberius 18. 0. Far more important is the tradition— found, it !■ true, In • Ht 278 = Mk 16»3 simply rxir^ iyiur; but in Lk 2.14 the tme text appears to add r»v itxitu iMXuratrct with hBCL, both Egyptian venlons, Origen '/j (rather •/,) and Cyril of Jeru- ■alem /,. t On Eusebius' reckoning^ of Imperial years see imm**diately below.

no extant authority aa ancient as Phlegon, but found in so many authorities that the common source must ascend to a remote antiquity— which fixes the Cmcitixion in the consulship of the two Gemini, or in the 16th or the 10th year of Tiberius, or in the year 340 of the Greeks. L. Rubellius Oeminus and C. Ftiflus (or Rufius, or Rufus, or Fusius) Ge minus were the consuls of a.d. 29. The Seleucid era (era of Alexander, era of the Greeks) commences Sept. B.o.

312, so that its 340th year runs from Sept. a.d. 28 to Sept. A.D. 29. But this same spring of a.d. 29 can be reckoned, according to different methods of calculation, as belonging either to the 16th or 16th year of Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus in Aug. a.d. 14, so that, on the strict reckoning, tlie passover falling in his 15th year will be that of a.d. 'Z"^. But the imperial year might sometimes be adjusted to the calendar year — to which corresponded the consul's tenure of ofiice, Jan.

1 to Dec. 31 — by beginning a second imperial year on the first New Year's day of each reign : compare the practice of Trajan and his successors in commencing a 2nd year of tribunicia potestas on the annual inauguration day of new tribunes next after their accession (Lightfoot, Jgnatiitx^, ii. 398). In this case the 16th year would be exactly equi- valent to A.D. *23, the 16th to a.d. 29.

Or again, the example of the chronographers suggests that the converse might be done and the fractional year simply omitted, each emperor's first year beginning on some fixed day : thus, for instance, it will be shown (see below in part li. of this article, Tmk Ai'OsroLic AOB, under Felix and Kestus, p. 418) that Eusebius appears to commence each emperor's 1st year in the .Sept. follow- ing his accession. Either year then is compatible — but the 16lh mure normally — with the spring of A.D.

29, under the consul- ship of the Gemini. (i.) Clement of Alexandria, ' With the Ifith year of Tiberius and 15th of Augustus, so are completed the 30 years to the Passion ; and from the Passion to the destruction of Jerusalem are 42 years 3 months,' Strom, i. 147 (Potter, i. 407). (ii.) Origen, perhaps copying Clement, If you examine the chronology of the Passion and of the fall of Jerusalem . . from Tiberius 15 to the razing of the temple, 42 years are completed,* Horn, in Uierem. xiv.

13 (c. a.d. 245; Delarue, iii. 217), and compare c. Cels. iv. 22. (iii.)TertulUan, 'In the 15th year of (Tiberius') reign Christ suffered ; the Passion . . under Tiberius Casar in the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Rufius [al. Fufius] Geminus,' ado. Jud. 8 (but the authorship is doubtful), (iv.) Hippolytus, in his early 4th book on Daniel (ed. Bratke, p. 19), gives two irreconcilable dat^, Tiberius 18 [ = a.d.

31, 32] and the consulship of ' Rufus and Rubellio,' the former doubtless his own combination of a thr:e years ^linistry (for he also says that Christ suffered in his 33rd year, luc. cit.) with St. Luke's 15 Tiberius, the latter already traditional ; and this year, 29 A.D., alone reappears in his other works. His Chronicle (Chronica Minora, ed. ^^lommsen, I. i. p. 131) reckons 206 years from the Passion to the 13th of Alexander Severus, a.

d, 234-2^5 ; his Paschal Cycle marks the 32nd year as that of the Passion, and since it was a recurring cycle of 112 years beginning in a.d. 222, the 32nd year will be equivalent to a.d. 253, or 141, or 29. (v.) Juhus Africanus, as represented in the Greek of Eusebius' Di'jnonstratio Evanjrlicn and Eclojce Prophcticce, and in that of Syncellus— Routh. /iV;.,S'af;.ii. pp. 301.302,304— wrote Tiberius 16, as represented in the Lat. of Jerome, Corrnn. in Dan. ix. (Vallarsi, v.

663), Tiberius 15; but since all authorities agree in the equation to 01. 202. 2 [ = a.d. 30, 31], it is practically certain that the 16th is correct, (vi.) Pseudo-Cvprian, Computus de Patcha, 20 (a.d. 243: Hartel, iii. 207) places the Passion of Christ in the 3l8t year of his age, and 16th of Tiberius Cassar^s reign, (vii.) Lactantius, Div. iit£t. iv. x. 18, 'In the 6th of Tiberius, that is, the consulship of the two Gemini ' ; Mort. vers. 2, 'in the consulshii* of the two Gemini.' (viii.)

The Aogar legend as given in Eusebius, HE i. 13, dates the Resurrection and the preaching of Thaddaeus in the 3-luth year (i.e. of the Greeks: a.d. 28-29]. (i.x.) Of one other authority, the apocr. Gospel narrative entitled ' Acts of Pilat*?,' tlie value turns en- tirely on the date of its composition, and on the true reading of its chronology of the Crucifixion ; and both these points call (or fuller discussion. Date of the Acts of Pilate.

— Tischendorf , the latest editor {EvawjHia Apocrypha, ed. 2, 1876. pp. 312-410), concludes for the beginning of the 2nd cent. ; Lipsius, the latest critic {Die Pilatutt-Acten, 1886. pp. 33, 40), 'not before about the middle of the 4th,' 'probably in the reign of Julian'(A.D. 3'U-:f6.'{). Appeal is made to these Acts for the day of the Crucifixion by pseudo- Chrysostom (a.d. 387; ed. Bene<l. viii. App. p. 277); so, too, Epiplianius (a.d. 376: Ucer 1.

1) states that certain of the t^uartodeciinans coininemoroted the Passion always oo March 2.') in deference to these Acts, though he himself had found copies of them where tho date given was not March 25 but .March 18. Now, if in a.d.

376 these Acta were being claimed as the authoritative sanction for a practice unique in the Christian world, and if there existed already divergent tni<litions of tho text on this very point for which they were cited, they must surely have had at that date a history behind them.

So far from having been written under Julian, a presumption is raised that they dre earlier than tho lost Acta published under • But the lOth year — see below under Africanus and pseudo- Cyi)rian— may also be a combination of Lk 3' (Tib. 15), as g^'ing the beginning, not of the Baiilist's niinistrv only, but of Clirist's, with tho estimate of one year for the duration of tho Ministry to which both these writers adhered. Julius Hilari- anus, however {ijtfra, p.

414'), givea both Tiberius 16 and A.D. 29. 414 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. r^*;o?Xrrd-tr; pSkri^.'K.io,.te tend. «iS copies while two ot them still betraym their ' 16th ot •"'HTre'ihen,''^e nln, ante-Nicene authorities, »' whom four /.^ I ■' u\,[„ rlrt Act -Pil ) (rive the consulship <.f the Gemini, i^^'J^i'^'^^V-Tert' Act ra.) Tiberius 16, two (Afr., Ps.- C™%SiEerius 16 F?vep1,?t.NiceneWes,erT, authorities o^^ CjTir.) iioeriuo »"• v,p „otaloirued : Libenan ChrvmcU (a.d. S?

-%tht?oot Sint' r263T under Tiberius, ^nsuls the ^^o'J^liini Mkr?h25^Julius&larianus Demu^id^^^^^ xvi and De die pascha et mensis icv (both a.d. 397 , "»"»>.™l'' S^"<m 7481 'Tiberius 16,' but De mund. dur. xvu., also 669 ;irs^im ?he ?^s"'n to the consulate o. C^nu"- -d han'l d rfVwi which clearly cannot mean anj-thing late''"''" *;;• ?utSoritv'S^JefomeTcK.^i..-tUl upheld the traditional date '"I'^f ?oTS"t^''ot??

;s, the earliest after PWefon-not fwy reckoning two years as from the Baptism m Tibenus 16. Summan, of Patristic Evider^e /"t, <f « ^'';^ Year -A re>-iew of this witness from Phlegon to Epiphanius, from Tertullian to Augustine and Prosper, sums itself up in t«o questions : (i.) Is it TpLrl probable that tradition «ouldpre.eve independent evidence for the date of the Crua_ fixW (ii.) If so, do the data suggest that such has actually been the case ? filing l''rt"A>ir''^.)'^s?rsei;ru?

^^ron^^rfirs,Vori"^n5 SSSS-t^^d-t^gSJeSS ?atr ofT^>0 RubcUius Gcnunus and Fuflus Geminus, named Fn fa? to?' the cVucUl.ion the consuls of ad. 30. ' is possible toal behind the confusion lies some older '"'"ority who rwkonlKl a riiorter Ministry with the Passion under Vinicius • He counterbalances hU omission ot the consuls <>' •■>•• i^ius Catvis and Scntius Saturninus, by insertmg between fn 6 and 7 the fictitious pair C»sar and Capito. His consuU fe?

A D 13 Flacous and Silvanus, are only a corrupt form ot tie real names Plancus and SiUus Cscma. a\ Patristic evidence for the duration of the Ministry wa. a ssimilar and indeed unique in respect to the date ol tne nTiJI \^ ilagn. 11 (With Lightfoofs note) i. ~yj' <w 1I,>.«T«/, ^P'- "'"" . ,^' ^,i„ Roman Creed, «. i«-< 11. O.

"■'^'"'LtL^ Uiannottherbe considered improbable that a p/ biwel ,'^'therr^ytSng in the review of -thonti^JJa ^X^Si^e^elXlt witnesses for the oonsulship^hed^^^^^^ indefinitely earUer. It U '■^^..^hal PWe on w^ ^ ^^^^ .^ itrnorant ot the tradition, but it nceo noi ""= ""i f ,, pv,,„,nn tor as a mere deduction from the Gospe^s.

J "■'is'^Tiberius (tKe consulship is a secondary date developed out of » Tibenu^^(t _^ date for the Passion "> Cl™en /nd Onten , an ^^^ ^^^ ^ Christ's Bapt sm, but also as far as ms *^assi"u. i u , ?to,ema.nJ-a.entm^^^^^^^^^ oi ChrJst"Jh?<i. is really the Gospel reckoning to his sje a the commencement of his ."}"'?'r-Vn'^Bole iTnis r/. leave out of account the period of John » sole ministrj 3 A iS review, tinally. of the evidence for the day of tlie civil vionth.

Perhaps the earliest witne«e, »", B^^.^^'tarieTb^weeS Clement (Strom, i. 147, ed. P"''^'' Ppl'ri'nuthi 19 ISIarch 21. Phamenoth 26, Pharmutlu 26- »"d Phannurti^ 19 P arc ■ April 20, April U), To M««h 25 » J^'f L^,™ ^^^^ i„ tnnpon" subscribes : in Latin, 'Tert.' <«'», '"i,?;,?^'.''and (or a.d nil knl. Apr. simply, 'he Libenan catalogi«oIA.D.^ __ HUarianus Ve die pofchas xv (Gallandi, viu. imh -"^"B CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 41S rrlU.

54, aod the MartyTX>logium Hierrmymianum : in Greek, rf w^ imTm »«Aa*3»v 'AvpiKX^ttt, Hippolytus. Vomm. in Dan., ed. Bratke, p. 19 (so, too, the radt XfinoZ in hin paachal tables ia attacheo to this day); Acta /'v/a(i, according to the Quarto- decimans In Epiphanius, Hcer. 1, 1, and to pseudo-Chrysoetom (ed. Bened. riii. App. p.

277)— mo8t of Tischendorf' a Greek MSS, •upported by the Latin and Armenian versions add nrn irrit Cxatt wifAWTn Ma>>T<«/ : ^xMtmS md' , in the ^CrrofMt liviy^fif in- corporated In the Chronicon Paachale, ed. Ducanife, ^p. 224, 225. For March 23 are three witnesses : Lactantius, uiv. xiut. iv. X. 18, ante diein dtcimum kaleiidarmn Aprilium ; persona known to Epiphanius, I.e., Ttt'is 3i t^ wpi 2t«» »MtA»f>ii> 'Awfikkimr ; and the Paschal Chronicler (op. eit. p. 221), r^ %y wv Mx»Ti9v it)»»f.

Epiphaniua had further seen copies of the Acta Pttati which ^ave March 18, while his own view is decided In favour of yet another date, March 20 : ll<jer. I. 1, in ti i£ffi«iuuf mtriypttC<t ix riit [lege itJtTtto] thXetrov iv •!{ rrptci,iti wfii iiM»wi»n mxXmtiit 'AwpiXXimt ri Tocf^ef ■yiyior^Oeu' raXrOii it, it ix rtXXiie Axpi0tt9( tyntix4f, i> rji Tpo itXATpiHv xctXeLiaif 'AwfiikXtmr rit rttTTpet wtvtttiittu MariiXr.^stf^tr ; cf. Hcet. li. 23.

The first reflection su^jgested by this catena la the unanimity with which (apart from some of the Basilidjans) Christian antiquity attributed the Crucifixion to a day not later than March 26 ; the second, that if a confusion between the ra-x«» rruupirifAst and the wstffx'- attaa-rettrifj^t be allowed for, the dates, March 23 and 25, March 18 and 20, pair off with and explain one another — i.e.

if March 25 was understood, not of the Crucifixion but of the Resurrection, March 23 became the day of the Crucifixion ; or by a similar hut converse process, March 20 might be transferred from the Resurrection ^with tlie Crucifixion on March 18) to the Crucifixion. Thus ehminating the three Boflilidian dates as probably mere Gnostic fancies, of the two pairs that alone are left, March 18-20 and 23-25, March 25 (TertulLian, Hippolj-tus, Acta of Pilate?

etc) haa clearly older and better testimony than March 23 (Lactantius, some known to Epiphanius, Paschal Chronicle), and March 18 (irriy^x^a of Acta of Pilate older than Epiphanius) than March 20 (Epiphanius hicuelf). But these ultimate days, March 18 and 25, iire exactly ft week apart, and very likely the one is to be explained as a OonsciouB alteration of the other ; but which of which ? For that day of the two for which authority is vastly pre- ponderant, March 25, Dr.

Salmon in an admirable article on Hippolytus {Diet. Christ. Biogr. iii. 926) looks upon that writer's Paschal Cycle, published about a.d. 221, as the single source. Hippolytus there (very erroneously) supposes that after each eight years the full moon comes round to the same day of the solar month again ; and accepting the traditional date A.D. 29 for the Crucifi.vion, he naturally assumes that, since the full moon in a.d. 221 did actually fall on March 25, tiie full moon in A.D.

29, 192 or 8x24 years earlier, must have t&Uen on the same day. * Actually this is a week astray, the true day being March 18. We are safe in presuming that whenever Marcn 2.S is mentioned as the day of tne Passion, th« Cyeie of Hippolytus is the source of the account." Yet this theory, simple and attractive as it is, hardly satisfies all the elements of the problem.

It might be possible to explain the wide acceptance of March 25 in Doth East and West by the dual _po8ition of Hippolytus, a Greek writer on Western soil ; but 'Tert.,' Adv. Judieos, if genuine, and Hippolj-tus' own Com- mentary on Daniel, would still stand in the way of deducing March 25 as the day for the Passion directly from March 25 as the day of the full moon in a.d. 221. For Tertullian's Mon- tanlst writings commence about a.d.

200, and his whole literary activity was almost at an end by a.d. 22U, so that if the first portion of the advernus Judceos is 'certainly Tertullian's, and Tertullian's while still a churchman' (Puller in Diet. Chrint. BioffT. iv. 8276), its chronology cannot be due to the Paarhal Cycle of A.D. 221. In the same way Hippolytus' Fourth Book on Daniel 'was apparentlv written much earlier than the' Chronicle and Paschal Tables (Lightfoot, Clement, ii.

392) ; and as It, too, gives March 25 for the Passion (from which also ultimately comes its Dec. 25 for the Nativity, see above, p. 405'*), • second reason is supplied for pushing back the origin of the tradition of March 26 into the 2nd cent. Genuine, of course, the tradition cannot be, because, as Balmon says — see also the table given earlier in this article — not the 25th but the 18th was the March full moon in a.d. 29.

But this is exactly the day remaining still for discussion, that, namely, which was given in copies Epiphanius had seen of the Acts of Pilate. It is true that even in these Acts March 25 is supported (\.) by all existing MSS and versions; ^i.) by those Quartoaecimans who regularly kept the Pascha on March 26 on the authority of the Acts : (iii.) by pseudo- Chrysostom in a.d. 387, who accepts the date as historically true on the same authority.

It is possible, therefore, that the 18th is simply an accidental corruption, IE instead of H' before the kalends of April ; but it is possible also tliat it is the genuine reading of the Acts, altered intentionally at some early period, whether because the 25th was already then the more popular date, or because the iHth was increasmgly open to the suspicion of falling before the equinox.

And' if genuine in the Acts, it Is a really curious and remarkable confinna- tion of a possible date for the Crucifixion, Friday Nisan li of the year a.d. 29. Dr. Salmon Indeed says (foe. cit.) that * It Is obvious that if early trustworthy tradition had preserved the day of the solar year on which our Ixird sufTcrca, the Church would not have rrjilexed herwelf with calculations of paschal full moons.'

But ) not all traditions which mav in fact bo true wore necessarily known to bo true to the ancients ; (ii.) after all, what the Church was aiming at in paschal cycles was a system for cal- culating beforehand in terms of the solar year a lay that was not solar but lunar.

As pseudo-Chrv-sostom lucidly points out, the different data of the chronology of the Crucifixion will not converge in ordinary years ; the Church could only imitate the season as far as was practicable, combining elements from the solar year (the equinox as a first term a qiio), from the lunar year (the full moon as a second term a tjuo), and from the week (Friday).

But if the day of the solar year bad been considered alone, the full moon would necessarily have been thrown over, and the full moon was the one point which all Christians united in treating as essential to a proper paschal celebration.* It is not unreasonable, then, to hold that the solitary datrtm preserved by Epiphanius does add a slight a<lditional weight to the probability that the Cruciflxiou should be placed ou Friday March 18, a.d. 29. Conclusion.

— To sura up briefly : the separate results of live lines of enquiry harmonize with one another beyond expectation, so that each in turn supplies frebh security to the rest. The Nativity in B.C. 7-6 ; the aj;e of our Lord at the Baptism 30 years more or less ; the Baptism in A.D, 2(5 (26-27) ; the duration of the Ministry between two and three years ; the Crucitixion in A.D.

29 : these live strands, weak no doubt in isolation, become, when woven together, the stron;:^ and stable support of a consistent chronology of tlie Life of Christ, Literature. — For all the preliminarj- chronological matter which underlies subjects such as that of this article, Ideler, Uandbuch der matfteinatinchen und technischen Chronologic, 2 vols. 1825, is still standard.

Of books more especially devoted to the chronology of the life of Christ special mention should perhaps be made of Wieseler, Chrmiol. St/nopa. der Eoang. (Eng. tr. by Venables), and Caspari, Chronol. u. geog. Einlett. (E.T. by Evans). The writer of the present article — some points of which had been adumbrated in previous studies oi hia own. Patristic ejndejice and the (josj>el Chronology in the Church Quarterly Review for Jan. 1S92. pp.

390-415, and A Paschal Uoinily printed in the Works of St. Chrysostom, in Studia Bihlica, ii. pp. 130-149, Oxford, 1890— has learnt much, and derived many references in certain parts of his work, from three writers (though with their general conclusions he in each case disagrees): H. Browne, Ordo Stvclonim, London, 1844 , Hort on .Jn O*, in Westcott and Uort's Greek Testament, 1>-S1, App pp. 77-81; and R. A. Lipsius, Die Pilattts-Acten, Kiel, 1886. II. THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

The Apostolic A^e may be detined, for the pur- po.ses of this article, as the period I^'in,' between the Crucitixion [a.d. 29, less probably A.D. 30] anil the destruction of tlie teimde. (Jutside these limits lie, no doubt, .several of the NT wriih^gs^ for the chronology of whicli see the articles on them ; l)ut NT history may htly be said to close with the great catastroplie of A.D. 70. Tliese first 40 years of Christian history are roughly conterminous with the labours of St. leter and St.

Paul, and the principal documents con- cerned are, on the one hand, tlicir Kpistles, on the other, the Acts, one half of which book is in efVcct devoted to each of the two great apostles. But the wriLmgs in question do not bear on the face of them any continuous system of notes of time ; and the chronology must be based, in the first instance, on such synchronisms as are given, principally in Acts, with Jewish or Roman history, namely — (1) The reign of Aretas of Damascus (*2Co 11^, cf.

Ac Q'-^). (2) The reign and death of Herod Agrippa i. (Ac l2'-=»). (3) The famine under Claudius (Ac 1 1-"*' 12^). (4) The proconsulship of Sergius I'anlus in Cyprus (Ac 13'). (5) The cx|iulsion of the Jews from Konic under Claudius (Ac 18). (6) The proconsulship of Gallio in Acliaia (Ac 18*"^). • The only exceptions to which Dr. Salmon might api>eal are om late as the 4th cent.: (i.) tlie tiuartodecinians and Capi'Jidocians, said by Epiphanius, IJ(cr. 1.

1, always to observe March 25 aa their «#■;(; > (''■) ^^^^ Montanists of Asia Minor, said by pseudo- Chrvsostom to observe the 14th, not of a lunar but of the 'vVsintic' solar month beginning on March 24, to that tneir ▼«rx« fell always on April 0. 416 CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TESL mar- Felix (Ac (7) The reign of Herod Agrippa li., and riage of his sister Drusilla to Feli 24^25'»-26"). (8) The procuratorships of Felix and Festus (Ac 21» 23-'' 24i»-^).

(9) The Days of Unleavened Bread (Ac 20'-'). (10) The persecution under Nero. Two preliminary notes may be offered here. o. Imperial Chronology.— Augnstua died Ang. 19, A.D. 14 ; Tiberius died March 16, a.d. 37 ; Gaius Calipila died Jan. 24, i.D. 41; Claudius died Oct. IS, a.d. 54; Nero died June 9, *■()' AtUharUut for the Period outside NT Writers.

— Ttiese are principally three : tor Jewish affairs, Joscphua ; (or Roman, Tacitus and Suetonius: and as they are occasionally incon- sistent with one another, it is important to define their position and opportunities as historians, (i.) Tacitus, born not lat-.-r and probably not much earlier than A.D.

64, published hio latest work, the AmiaU, or history of the empire from the death of AuCTistus to the death of Nero, at the end of Trajan s reign, c A D 116 ; but the work as now preser\'ed is imperfect, being deficient for the ten yearn a.d. 37-17, besides two shorter iaciiJUE in A D 30 and 66-68.

The materials at his command for all at least that passed in Rome were ample, though his anti-impenal tendencies may colour his version of the facts m relation not only to the emperors, but to their ministers or favourites, (ii ) Suetonius, the junior of Tacitus by some 20 years, wrote his Lives of the Ccesart (from Julius to Domitian) under Hadnan, probably about A.D. 120.

As private secretary to that emperor, he may have bad access to additional personal details about the earUer sovereigns, such as distinguish his anecdotal biographies from the more ambitious and more orderly history of Tacitus, (iii ) JosephuB, the historian of Judaism, was more strictly a contemporary of the infancy of the Christian Church than Suetonius or even Tacitus. Born in A.D. 37-38 and brought up in Jerus., be left that city for three years' stay among the Esscnes, a.d.

53-56, and left Pal. on a mission to Rome in A.D. 63-64. His share in the Jewish revolt— for he commanded in Galilee, and was taken prisoner at Jotapata— did not prevent him from espousing at once the Roman cause,or attaching himself tothp fortunesot Vespasian and Titus. Thus his works on the Jewish War (written before a.d. 79) and on the Anii'piitifs (completed in Uomitian's 13th year, a.d.

93-94) arc dominated by the distinct punwse of presenting himself and his countr>Tiien m as favourable a light as possible to the Romans. On the ot/icr hand, a writer in Rome enjoying impenal patronage, who »an spent in Pal. most of the years with whose events this article is concerned, was unusually well placed for ascertaining the facts, and, except where his ' tendency ' has to be discounted, his testimony cannot be dismissed off-hand even when con- fronted with that of Tacitus. 1.

Aretasat DorTnniCJi^.— This Aretas (the fourth Aretas in the line of Nabatiean kings, on which dyna-sty see Schurer, HJP I. ii. 348 ff.) reigned within the rough limits B.C. 9- A.D. 40 ; the e.\act dates are unknown, but it is certain (a) that he reigned over 47 years, inscriptions being extant of his 48th ; (|3) that he died somewhere between the death of Tiberius— which brought to a close operations begun against him at that emperor's order by the legate of Syria, Vitellius (Ant. xvill. V.

1, 3)— and the middle of the reign of Claudius, when his successor Abias is found waging war on Izates of Adiabene (about A.D. 48 ; Ant. XX. iv. 1). But Damascus did not belong to Nabataja, and was certainly under direct Roman administration in A.D. 33-34, and in A.D. 62-63, for Damascene coins of these years are extant and bear the heads of Tiberius and Nero respectively, without any such allusion to the local prince as was invariable in the coins of client states.

It must have come, then, into the hands of Aretas after A.D. 33-34 ; if by force, the empire would hardly have suffered the Nabatffian line to reign unmolested till A.D. 106 ; if by grant, the donor must almost certainly have been, not Tiberius, whose quarrel with Aretas has just been mentioned, but Caligula, who, unlike Tiberius (see the instance of Uerod Philip in tlie next section), encouraged the dependent prince- lings of the East.

[Tlie silence of Tacitus will then admit of easy explanation, the Annals being defective throughout Caligula's reign.] In this case, St. Paul's escape from the ethuarch of the city must be placed not earlier than the middle ot A.D. 37 ; in any case not earlier than A.D. 34. 2. Reign and Death of Herod Aqrippa /.—The tetrarchy of Herod Philip (Lk 3') was on his death, about A.D. 33-34.

incorporated by Tibenus into the province of Syria, but 'not many days after the accession of Gaius (March 16, A.D. 37) was conferred with the title of king on Herod Agrippa, son of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great, who was then living in Kome ; and to this territory the tetrarchy of Antipas was added in A.D. 39-40, and Judsa, Samaria, and Abilene on Claudius' accession, early in A.D. 41.

Agrippa reigned altogether, according to BJ, three years over the whole kingdom, and three years over the tetrarchies, according to Ant., four years under Gaius,— three over Philip's tetrarchy and the fourth over Antipas' as well,— and three imder Claudius over all Pal., the year of his death being ' the 7th of his reign and 54th of his life.' The dis- crepancy concerns Gaius' reign only (Ant.

, the later and fuller work, appears the more accurate), and ' three years ' under Claudius are common to both accounts. But Ant., as has just been said, also speaks of 'the 7th year,' which (reckoned from the spring of A.D. 37) suggests A.D. 43-44 rather than 44 simply.

Against this, however, may be set the evidence of Agrippa's coinage, which appar- ently goes on to a 9th year ; * for even if, as la likely enough, the Jewish kings commenced a fresh year on the 1st of Nlsan following their accession,t the 9th year cannot possibly have begun before Nisan 1, A.D. 44, and even then only if the original grant from Caligula preceded Nisan 1, A.D. 37, so that Agrippa's second year may have begun on that day. flie comage reck- oning by itself would suggest rather A.

D. 45 than 44 ; Josephus would be compatible with the latter part of A.D. 43 ; the two in combination are most easily reconciled by a date in A.D. 44 after Nisan [BJ II. xi. 6 ; Ant. XVUI. iv. 6, vi. 10, vu. 2, XIX. V. 1, viii. 2). „ . . 3. The Famine under Claudius.— On Agnppaa death Juda-a is made again into a procuratorship under Cuspius Fadus.

He intervenes in a quarrel between the Jews of Persa and the "ty of Pliiladelphia, seizes and executes the brigand leader Tholomaus, and from that time forward keeps Judiea clear of similar disturbances ; then (rim) enters on a dispute with the authorities at Jerus. over the custody of the high, priestly robes.

J 'About this time,' Kara roxhov rbv Koapov, Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates become con- verts to Judaism ; the story and antecedent circum- stances are related at length, and it is added that Helena, seeing that their kingdom was at peace and her son envied even by foreigners for the divine pro- tection he enjoyed, desired to go up to the temple at Jerus., while Izates made great preparations ot gifts to be offered there.

Her arrival was pecu- liarly well-timed, for famine was raofing ' at that moment,' (card rbv naipiv iKc'ti'ov. But Josephus does not say that all this happened under badus. On the contrary, having digressed to relate what • See Madden, Coins of the Jews. ed. 2 (1881), p. 130. Th« ascription of these coins to Herod Agrippa li. is impossible, dc Saulcv, however, thinks them Jewish rorgeries, and Madden speaks hesiUtingly, not having seen the coins themselves.

But if'^the electrotjTes may be trusted, the figure is <4Uite cert^n and there appears no reason except the chronolo^cal djthculty '"t S°ee"t"e'''oerara of Babylon, Tractate /|c.A.A« J. nafto, the yeu, year, fol. 2a: 'Our rabbis teach that a king who micends the throne on the _29th Adar bm completed a J ear as soon as he reaches Nisan 1." , , ■>„„-„„ 1 The emperor's answer to the deputation sent U> Rome on this subject is dated in the consulship of Kulus and Pompeiua Silvani.

s ; and if these were, as is generally assumed cOT«tUc. »H "<•.•(■ of A. I). 45, the letter will (all somewhere alter the early months of that year. (Older editors read wp, "«•'«?«' ".^'"m •I.^x,.„, but the latter word is simply a retrunslation of luia in the interior Latin MSB ; Niese o.ii.ls it. and marks " If """•l But to date by other than the coimites orcfi«<iro would be so uniral, it not unexampled, that (especially ■" the absence of anv other proof of the existen.'

e ot these particular «u.:fecti) the cenuineness of the letter must be considered doibtful. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. CHRONOLOGY OF NEW TEST. 4]^ was contemporary with Failus, namely, tlie con- version of Helena ami Izates, lie continues the digression through the long chapters XX. ii. iii. iv.

, bringing the history of Ailiabene down to a point much later even than this visit: and then, after returning to Fadus and recording the revolt snd death of Theudas under him, he goes on to bay that his successor was Tiberius Alexander, ' in whose time it clianced that the great famine in Jud.Ta occurred in which ' Helena acted so gener- ously.

After Alexander, of whom nothing further is related except the execution of the sons of Judas the Galilean, Cumanus comes as the new procurator ; in the 8th year of Claudius [A.D. 48], Herod king of Chalcis dies. These two last events are reversed in liJ : ' after Herod of Chalcis' death Claudius gives his kingdom to the younger Agrippa, and Cumanus succeeds Alexander.'

Both accounts, in fact, treat the two changes as practically sim- ultaneous, so that Josephus certainly places Cumanus' arrival in A.D. 48. Thus the whole tenure of both Fadus and Alexander falls within the limits of the years 44—18 A.D. ; and since the bulk of the events recorded under the former is considerably the greater, Alexander cannot have arrived before, saj', the spring of A.D. 46.

This is the terminus a quo for Helena's visit ; and as Helena had not apparently heard of the famine before she arrived, it is the terminus a quo for the famine also, while Josephus' language leaves no doubt that 'the great fiimine' ran its whole course under the same governor. It is therefore possible that it should be placed, or placed partly, in A.D. 47 ; it is certain that even the earlier part of the crisis cannot be placed before A.D. 46 (Ant. XX. i. 1, 2, ii. 1, 5, V. 1, 2; BJ U. xii.

1). 4. The I'ruionsulshij) of Sergius Paulus in Cyprus. — The name of this governor has been found in a Cypriote inscription i-rl llavKov [di'S]wrdTou ' in Paulus' proconsulship,' but unfortunately without any sj-nchronism which would lix the year. On the other hand, a dedication to Claudiu.s in the name of the city of Curium in Cyprus by the proconsul L. Annius Bassus, 'in accordance with a decision previously taken by the proconsul Julius Cordu.s,' is signed 'in the 12th year,' i.e.

of the emperor, A.D. 52. Cordus' tenure, if, as seems to be iHiplied, he was Bassus' immediate predecessor, will cover the year 51, so that in neither of those two years can place be found for Paulus. (Ces- nola, Cyprus, p. 425; Boeckh, CIG 2632.) 5.

The Expulsion of t/ie Jexos from Rome, under Claudius is recorded in Suetonius {Claudius 25), ludwos impuiiore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Soma expulil ; but as this writer's method is to group together the events in any one reign of similar character — in this case dealinj^s with the provincials — no suggestion of a date la given at all. Tacitus, whose Annals, however, are extant during the last seven years only of Claudius' reign, A.D.

47-54, says nothing of the Jews, though he mentions, under A.D. 52, the expulsion of the astrologers from Italy, a measure at once 'cruel and ineirective.' Orosius, A.U. 417 (Hist. vil. vi. 15), is the earliest authority to give a date, Claudius IX. = A.D. 49, quoting it as from .Josephus ; but, in fact, Josephus is as silent as Tacitus, not about the date only, but about the whole matter.

Nor is there any reason to believe that Orosius had access to Josephus direct ; the only other reference to him (vil. ix. 7) appears to Ixi repeated from Jerome's Chronicle. It must therefore remain uncertain whether or not Orosius' source in this case is trustworthy. [Ramsay (St. Paul, p. 68) supposes that all Orosius' dates for events under Claudius are a year too early (as miglit easily be the case if, for instance, he was copying a chronicler like Eusebius, whose Ist of Claudius