and the Via Tiburtina.^127 Hence Luke might very properly call the census about the time of Christ’s
birth "the first" (πρώτη) under Quirinius, to distinguish it from the second and better known, which
he himself mentions in his second treatise on the history of the origin of Christianity (Acts 5:37).
Perhaps the experience of Quirinius as the superintendent of the first census was the reason why
he was sent to Syria a second time for the same purpose.
There still remain, however, three difficulties not easily solved: (a) Quirinius cannot have
been governor of Syria before autumn a.u. 750 (b.c. 4), several months after Herod’s death (which
occurred in March, 750), and consequently after Christ’s birth; for we know from coins that
Quintilius Varus was governor from a.u. 748 to 750 (b.c. 6–4), and left his post after the death of
Herod.^128 (b) A census during the first governorship of Quirinius is nowhere mentioned but in Luke.
(c) A Syrian governor could not well carry out a census in Judaea during the lifetime of Herod,
before it was made a Roman province (i.e., a.u. 759).
In reply to these objections we may say: (a) Luke did not intend to give an exact, but only
an approximate chronological statement, and may have connected the census with the well-known
name of Quirinius because be completed it, although it was begun under a previous administration.
(b) Augustus ordered several census populi between a.u. 726 and 767, partly for taxation, partly
for military and statistical purposes;^129 and, as a good statesman and financier, he himself prepared
a rationarium or breviarium totius imperii, that is, a list of all the resources of the empire, which
was read, after his death, in the Senate.^130 (c) Herod was only a tributary king (rex sosius), who
could exercise no act of sovereignty without authority from the emperor. Judaea was subject to
taxation from the time of Pompey, and it seems not to have ceased with the accession of Herod.
Moreover, towards the end of his life he lost the favor of Augustus, who wrote him in anger that
"whereas of old he had used him as his friend, he would now use him as his subject."^131
It cannot, indeed, be proven by direct testimony of Josephus or the Roman historians, that
Augustus issued a decree for a universal census, embracing all the Provinces ("that all the world,"
i.e., the Roman world, "should be taxed," Luke 2:1), but it is in itself by no means improbable, and
was necessary to enable him to prepare his breviarium totius imperii.^132 In the nature of the case,(^127) First published at Florence, 1765, then by Sanclemente (De vulg. aerae Emendat. Rom. 1793), and more correctly by
Bergmann and Mommsen: De inscriptione Latina, ad P. Sulpicium Quirinium referenda, Berol. 1851. Mommsen discussed it
again in an appendix to Res gestae Augusti, Berol. 1865, pp. 111-126. The inscription is defective, and reads: "... Pro. Consul.
Asiam. Provinciam. Op[tinuit legatus]. Divi. Augusti[i]terum i.e., again, a second time]. Syriam. Et. Ph[oenicem administravit,
or, obtinuit]. The name is obliterated. Zumpt refers it to C. Sentius Saturninus (who preceded Quirinius, but is not known to
have been twice governor of Syria), Bergmann, Mommsen, and Merivale to Quirinius (as was done by Sanclemente in 1793,
and by Ideler, 1826). Nevertheless Mommsen denies any favorable bearing of the discovery on the solution of the difficulty in
Luke, while Zumpt defends the substantial accuracy of the evangelist.
(^128) Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 11, 1; Tacitus, Hist., v. 9: "post mortem Herodis ... Simo quidam regium nomen invaserat; is a
Quintilio Vare obtinento Syriam punitus," etc.
(^129) .Three censuses, held a.u. 726, 748, and 767, are mentioned on the monument of Ancyra; one in Italy, 757, by Dion Cassius;
others in Gaul are assigned to 727, 741, 767; Tertullian, who was a learned lawyer, speaks of one in Judaea under Sentius
Saturninus, a.u. 749; and this would be the one which must be meant by Luke. See Gruter, Huschke, Zumpt, Plumptre, l. c.
(^130) Suetonius, Aug. 28, 101; Tacitus, Annal., i. 11; Dio Cassius, lii. 30; Ivi. 33. The breviarium contained, according to Tacitus:
"opes publicae quantum civium sociorumque in armis [which would include Herod], quot classes, regna, provinciae, tributa
aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones. Quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus, addideratque consilium coërcendi
intra terminos imperii, incertum metu anper invidiam"
(^131) Joseph. Ant. xvi. 9, § 4. Comp. Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I.249.
(^132) Such a decree has been often inferred from the passages of Suetonius and Tacitus just quoted. The silence of Josephus is
not very difficult to explain, for he does not profess to give a history of the empire, is nearly silent on the period from a.u.
A.D. 1-100.