CHAPTER VIII. Back
to Top
"MESSIAH THE PRINCE"
JUST as we find that in certain circles people who are reputed pious are apt
to be regarded with suspicion, so it would seem that any writings which claim
Divine authority or sanction inevitably awaken distrust. But if the evangelists
could gain the same fair hearing which profane historians command; if their
statements were tested upon the same principles on which records of the past are
judged by scholars, and evidence is weighed in our courts of justice, it would
be accepted as a well-established fact of history that our Savior was born in
Bethlehem, at a time when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria, and Herod was king in
Jerusalem. The narrative of the first two chapters of St. Luke is not like an
ordinary page of history which carries with it no pledge of accuracy save that
which the general credit of the writer may afford. The evangelist is treating of
facts of which he had "perfect understanding from the very first;" (Luke 1:3) in
which, moreover, his personal interest was intense, and in respect of which a
single glaring error would have prejudiced not only the value of his book, but
the success of that cause to which his life was devoted, and with which his
hopes of eternal happiness were identified.
The matter has been treated as though this reference to Cyrenius were but an
incidental allusion, in respect of which an error would be of no importance;
whereas, in fact, it would be absolutely vital. That the true Messiah must be
born in Bethlehem was asserted by the Jew and conceded by the Christian: that
the Nazarene was born in Bethlehem the Jew persistently denied. If even today he
could disprove that fact, he would justify his unbelief; for if the Christ we
worship was not by right of birth the heir to David's throne, He is not the
Christ of prophecy. Christians soon forgot this when they had no longer to
maintain their faith against the unbroken front of Judaism, but only to commend
it to a heathen world. But it was not forgotten by the immediate successors of
the apostles. Therefore it was that in writing to the Jews, Justin Martyr
asserted with such emphasis that Christ was born during the taxing of Cyrenius,
appealing to the lists of that census as to documents then extant and available
for reference, to prove that though Joseph and Mary lived at Nazareth, they went
up to Bethlehem to be enrolled, and that thus it came to pass the Child was born
in the royal city, and not in the despised Galilean village.
[1]
And these facts of the pedigree and birth of the Nazarene afforded almost
the only ground upon which issue could be joined, where one side maintained, and
the other side denied, that His Divine character and mission were established by
transcendental proofs. None could question that His acts were more than human,
but blindness and hate could ascribe them to Satanic power; and the sublime
utterances which in every succeeding age have commanded the admiration of
millions, even of those who have refused to them the deeper homage of their
faith, had no charm for men thus prejudiced. But these statements about the
taxing which brought the Virgin Mother up to Bethlehem, dealt with plain facts
which required no moral fitness to appreciate them. That in such a matter a
writer like St. Luke could be in error is utterly improbable, but that the error
would remain unchallenged is absolutely incredible; and we find Justin Martyr,
writing nearly a hundred years after the evangelist, appealing to the fact as
one which was unquestionable. It may, therefore, be accepted as one of the most
certain of the really certain things of history, that the first taxing of
Cyrenius was made before the death of Herod, and that while it was proceeding
Christ was born in Bethlehem.
Not many years ago this statement would have been received either with ridicule
or indignation. The evangelist's mention of Cyrenius appeared to be a hopeless
anachronism; as, according to undoubted history, the period of his governorship
and the date of his "taxing" were nine or ten years later than the nativity.
Gloated over by Strauss and others of his tribe, and dismissed by writers
unnumbered either as an enigma or an error, the passage has in recent years been
vindicated and explained by the labors of Dr. Zumpt of Berlin.
By a strange chance there is a break in the history of this period, for the
seven or eight years beginning B.C. 4. [2]
The list of the governors of Syria, therefore, fails us, and for the same
interval P. Sulpicius Quirinus, the Cyrenius of the Greeks, disappears from
history. But by a series of separate investigations and arguments, all of them
independent of Scripture, Dr. Zumpt has established that Quirinus was twice
governor of the province, and that his first term of office dated from the
latter part of B.C. 4, when he succeeded Quinctilius Varus. The unanimity with
which this conclusion has been accepted renders it unnecessary to discuss the
matter here. But one remark respecting it may not be out of place. The grounds
of Dr. Zumpt's conclusions may be aptly described as a chain of circumstantial
evidence, and his critics are agreed that the result is reasonably certain.
[3]
To make that certainty absolute, nothing is wanting but the positive
testimony of some historian of repute. If, for example, one of the lost
fragments of the history of Dion Cassius were brought to light, containing the
mention of Quirinus as governing the province during the last months of Herod's
reign, the fact would be deemed as certain as that Augustus was emperor of Rome.
A Christian writer may be pardoned if he attaches equal weight to the testimony
of St. Luke. It will, therefore, be here assumed as absolutely certain that the
birth of Christ took place at some date not earlier than the autumn of B.C. 4.
[4]
The dictum of our English chronologer, than whom none more eminent or
trustworthy can be appealed to, is a sufficient guarantee that this conclusion
is consistent with everything that erudition can bring to bear upon the point.
Fynes Clinton sums up his discussion of the matter thus. "The nativity was not
more than about eighteen months before the death of Herod, nor less than five or
six. The death of Herod was either in the spring of B.C. 4, or the spring of
B.C. 3. The earliest possible date then for the nativity is the autumn of
B.C. 6 (U. C. 748), eighteen months before the death of Herod in B.C. 4. The
latest will be the of B.C. 4 (U. C. 750), about six months before his death,
assumed to be in spring B.C. 3." [5]
This opinion has weight, not only because of the writer's eminence as a
chronologist, but also because his own view as to the actual date of the birth
of Christ would have led him to narrow still more the limits within which it
must have occurred, if his sense of fairness had permitted him to do so.
Moreover, Clinton wrote in ignorance of what Zumpt has since brought to light
respecting the census of Quirinus. The introduction of this new element into the
consideration of the question, enables us with absolute confidence, adopting
Clinton's dictum, to assign the death of Herod to the month Adar of B.C. 3, and
the nativity to the autumn of B.C. 4.
That the least uncertainty should prevail respecting the time of an event of
such transcendent interest to mankind is a fact of strange significance. But
whatever doubt there may be as to the birth-date of the Son of God, it is due to
no omission in the sacred page if equal doubt be felt as to the epoch of His
ministry on earth. There is not in the whole of Scripture a more definite
chronological statement than that contained in the opening verses of the third
chapter of St. Luke. "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and
Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the
word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness."
Now the date of Tiberius Caesar's reign is known with absolute accuracy; and his
fifteenth year, reckoned from his accession, began on the 19th August, A.D. 28.
And further, it is also known that during that year, so reckoned, each of the
personages named in the passage, actually held the position there assigned to
him. Here then, it might be supposed, no difficulty or question could arise. But
the evangelist goes on to speak of the beginning of the ministry of the Lord
Himself, and he mentions that "He was about thirty years of age when He began."
[6]
This statement, taken in connection with the date commonly assigned to
the nativity, has been supposed to require that "the fifteenth year of Tiberius"
shall be understood as referring, not to the epoch of his reign, but to an
earlier date, when history testifies that certain powers were conferred on him
during the two last years of Augustus. All such hypotheses, however, "are open
to one overwhelming objection, viz., that the reign of Tiberius, as beginning
from 19th August, A.D. 14, was as well known a date in the time of Luke, as the
reign of Queen Victoria is in our own day; and no single case has ever been, or
can be, produced, in which the years of Tiberius were reckoned in any other
manner." [7]
Nor is there any inconsistency whatever between these statements of St.
Luke and the date of the nativity (as fixed by the evangelist himself, under
Cyrenius, in the autumn of B.C. 4; for the Lord's ministry, dating from the
autumn of A.D. 28, may in fact have begun before His thirty-first year expired,
and cannot have been later than a few months beyond it. The expression "about
thirty years implies some such margin. [8]
As therefore it is wholly unnecessary, it becomes wholly unjustifiable,
to put a forced and special meaning on the evangelist's words; and by the
fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar he must have intended what all the world would
assume he meant, namely, the year beginning 19th August, A.D. 28. And thus,
passing out of the region of argument and controversy, we reach at last a
well-ascertained date of vital importance in this inquiry.
The first Passover of the Lord's public ministry on earth is thus definitely
fixed by the Gospel narrative itself, as in Nisan A.D. 29. And we are thus
enabled to fix 32 A.D. as the year of the crucifixion.
[9]
This is opposed, no doubt, to the traditions embodied in the spurious
Acta Pilati so often quoted in this controversy, and in the writings of
certain of the fathers, by whom the fifteenth year of Tiberius was held to be
itself the date of the death of Christ; "by some, because they confounded the
date of the baptism with the date of the Passion; by others, because they
supposed both to have happened in one year; by others, because they transcribed
from their predecessors without examination." [10]
An imposing array of names can be cited in support of any year from A.D.
29 to A.D. 33; but such testimony is of force only so long as no better can be
found. Just as a seemingly perfect chain of circumstantial evidence crumbles
before the testimony of a single witness of undoubted veracity and worth, and
the united voice of half a county will not support a prescriptive right, if it
be opposed to a single sheet of parchment, so the cumulative traditions of the
Church, even if they were as definite and clear as in fact they are
contradictory and vague, would not outweigh the proofs to which appeal has here
been made.
One point more, however, claims attention. Numerous writers, some of them
eminent, have discussed this question as though nothing more were needed in
fixing the date of the Passion than to find a year, within certain limits, in
which the paschal moon was full upon a Friday. But this betrays strange
forgetfulness of the intricacies of the problem. True it is that if the system
by which today the Jewish year is settled had been in force eighteen centuries
ago, the whole controversy might turn upon the week date of the Passover in a
given year; but on account of our ignorance of the embolismal system then in
use, no weight whatever can be attached to it. [11]
While the Jewish year was the old lunisolar year of 360 days, it is not
improbable they adjusted it, as for centuries they had probably been accustomed
to do in Egypt, by adding annually the "complimentary days" of which Herodotus
speaks. [12]
But it is not to be supposed that when they adopted the present form of
year, they continued to correct the calendar in so primitive a manner. Their use
of the metonic cycle for this purpose is comparatively modern.
[13]
And it is probable that with the lunar year they obtained also under the
Seleucidae the old eight years' cycle for its adjustment. The fact that this
cycle was in use among the early Christians for their paschal calculations,
[14]
raises a presumption that it was borrowed from the Jews; but we have no
certain knowledge upon the subject.
Indeed, the only thing reasonably certain upon the matter is that the Passover
did not fall upon the days assigned to it by writers whose calculations
respecting it are made with strict astronomical accuracy,
[15]
for the Mishna affords the clearest proof that the beginning of
the month was not determined by the true new moon, but by the first
appearance of her disc; and though in a climate like that of Palestine this
would seldom be delayed by causes which would operate in murkier latitudes, it
doubtless sometimes happened "that neither sun nor stars for many days
appeared." [16]
These considerations justify the statement that in any year whatever the
15th Nisan may have fallen on a Friday. [17]
For example, in A.D. 32, the date of the true new moon, by which the
Passover was regulated, was the night (10h 57m) of the 29th March. The
ostensible date of the 1st Nisan, therefore, according to the phases, was the
31st March. It may have been delayed, however, till the 1st April; and in that
case the 15th Nisan should apparently have fallen on Tuesday the 15th April. But
the calendar may have been further disturbed by intercalation. According to the
scheme of the eight years' cycle, the embolismal month was inserted in the
third, sixth, and eighth years, and an examination of the calendars from A.D. 22
to A D. 45 will show that A.D. 32 was the third year of such a cycle. As,
therefore, the difference between the solar year and the lunar is 11 days, it
would amount in three years to 33 3/4 days, and the intercalation of a
thirteenth month (Ve-adar) of thirty days would leave an epact still
remaining of 3 3/4 days; and the "ecclesiastical moon" being that much before
the real moon, the feast day would have fallen on the Friday (11th April),
exactly as the narrative of the Gospels requires. [18]
This, moreover, would explain what, notwithstanding all the poetry
indulged in about the groves and grottoes of Gethsemane, remains still a
difficulty. Judas needed neither torch nor lantern to enable him to track his
Master through the darkest shades and recesses of the garden, nor was it,
seemingly, until he had fulfilled his base and guilty mission that the: crowd
pressed in to seize their victim. And no traitor need have been suborned by the
Sanhedrin to betray to them at midnight the object of their hate, were it not
that they dared not take Him save by stealth. [19]
Every torch and lamp increased the risk of rousing the sleeping millions around
them, for that night all Judah was gathered to the capital to keep the Paschal
feast. [20]
If, then, the full moon were high above Jerusalem, no other light were
needed to speed them on their guilty errand; but if, on the other hand, the
Paschal moon were only ten or eleven days old upon that Thursday night, she
would certainly have been low on the horizon, if she had not actually set,
before they ventured forth. These suggestions are not made to confirm the proof
already offered of the year date of the death of Christ, but merely to show how
easy it is to answer objections which at first sight might seem fatal.