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addition or title. And this title, belonging to him at the time of writing the account, was naturally enough fubjoined to his name, though acquired after the transaction which the account describes. A modern writer who was not very exact in the choice of his expreffions, in relating the affairs of the Eaft-Indies, might easily say, that such a thing was done by Governor Hastings, though, in truth, the thing had been done by him before his advancement to the station from which he received the name of governor. And this, as we contend, is precifely the inaccuracy which has produced the difficulty in St. Luke.

At any rate, it appears from the form of the expreffion, that he had two taxings or enrollments in contemplation. And if Cyrenius had been fent upon this business into Judea, before he became governor of Syria (against which supposition there is no proof, but rather external evidence of an enrollment going on about this time under fome perfon

person or other*), then the cenfus on all hands acknowledged to have been made by him in the beginning of his government, would form a second, so as to occasion the other to be called the first.

II. Another chronological objection arises upon a date assigned in the beginning of the third chapter of St. Luket. “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæfar-Jesus began to be about thirty years of age;" for supposing Jesus to have been born, as St. Matthew, and St. Luke also himself, relate, in the time of Herod, he muft, according to the dates given in Josephus and by the Roman historians, have been at least thirty-one years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. If he was born, as St. Matthew's narrative intimates, one or two years before Herod's death, he would have been thirty-two or thirty-three years old at that time.

* Josephus (Ant. xvii. c, 2. fec. 6.) has this remarkable passage-" When therefore the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Cæfar, and the interests of the king." This transaction corresponds in the course of the history with the time of Christ's birth. What is called a cenfus, and which we render taxing, was delivering upon oath an account of their property. This might be accompanied with an oath of fidelity, or might be mistaken by Josephus for it.

† Lard. part i, vol. ii. p. 768.

This is the difficulty: the solution turns upon an alteration in the construction of the Greek. St. Luke's words in the original are allowed, by the general opinion of learned men, to fignify, not "that Jesus began to be about thirty years of age," but " that he was about thirty years of age when he began his miniftry." This construction being admitted, the adverb "about" gives us all the latitude we want, and more, especially when applied, as it is in the present instance, to a decimal number; for fuch numbers, even without this qualifying addition, are often used in a laxer sense than is here contended *III. Acts v. 36. "For before these days rose up Theudas, boafting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves; who was flain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to nought."

for*.

III. Acts

* Livy, speaking of the peace which the conduct of Romulus had procured to the state during the whole

Jofephus has preserved the account of an impostor of the name of Theudas, who created fome disturbances, and was flain; but, according to the date affigned to this man's appearance (in which, however, it is

very poffible that Jofephus may have been mistaken*), it must have been, at the least, seven years after Gamaliel's speech,

reign of his successor + (Numa), has these words" Ab illo enim profectis viribus datis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem haberet :" yet afterwards in the fame chapter, " Romulus (he says) septem et triginta regnavit annos, Numa tres et quadraginta."

:

* Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh's tranflation), vol. i. p. 61

* Liv. Hift. c. i. fec. 16.

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of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection*, that there might be two impoftors of this name : and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the fame thing appears to have happened in other instances of the same kind. It is proved from Jofephus, that there were not fewer than four persons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten years, who were all leaders of infurrections: and it is likewife recorded by this historian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great (which agrees very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time "before these days") there were innumerable disturbances in Judeat. Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that one of the three Judase's above mentioned was Gamaliel's Theudas ; and that, with a less varia

* Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 922.

† Ant. l. xvii. c. 12, fec. 4. ‡ Annals, p. 797.

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