(4) The Census of QuiriniusLuke 2:2.^121 Luke gives us another chronological date by the
incidental remark that Christ was born about the time of that census or enrolment, which was ordered
by Caesar Augustus, and which was "the first made when Quirinius (Cyrenius) was governor
[enrolment] of Syria."^122 He mentions this fact as the reason for the journey of Joseph and Mary to
Bethlehem. The journey of Mary makes no difficulty, for (aside from the intrinsic propriety of his
company for protection) all women over twelve years of age (and slaves also) were subject in the
Roman empire to a head-tax, as well as men over fourteen) till the age of sixty-five.^123 There is
some significance in the coincidence of the birth of the King of Israel with the deepest humiliation
of Israel. and its incorporation in the great historical empire of Rome.
But the statement of Luke seems to be in direct conflict with the fact that the governorship
and census of Quirinius began a.d. 6, i.e., ten years after the birth of Christ^124 Hence many artificial
interpretations.^125 But this difficulty is now, if not entirely removed, at least greatly diminished by
archaeological and philological research independent of theology. It has been proved almost to a
demonstration by Bergmann, Mommsen, and especially by Zumpt, that Quirinius was twice governor
of Syria—first, a.u. 750 to 753, or b.c. 4 to 1 (when there happens to be a gap in our list of governors
of Syria), and again, a.u. 760–765 (a.d. 6–11). This double legation is based upon a passage in
Tacitus,^126 and confirmed by an old monumental inscription discovered between the Villa Hadriani(^121) See the literature till 1874 in Schürer, p. 262, who devotes 24 pages to this subject. The most important writers on the census
of Quirinius are Huschke (a learned jurist, in 2 treatises, 1840 and 1847), Wieseler (1843 and 1869), and Zumpt (1854 and 1869).
Comp, also the article "Taxing," by Dr. Plumptre, supplemented by Dr. Woolsey, in Smith’s "Bible Dictionary" (Hackett and
Abbot’s ed.), IV. 3185, and J. B. McClellan, New Test., I. 392.
(^122) This is the proper meaning of the original (according to the last text of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, who with B D omit
the article ἡ) αὔτη ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου–β̈.–ͅβ̈ Vulg.:Haec descriptio prima facta est
a praeside Syriae Cyrino.The English version, " this taxing was first made when,"is ungrammatical, and would require πρῶτον,
or, πρῶτα instead of πρώτη. Luke either meant to say that there was no previous enrolment in Judea, or, more probably had in
his mind a second enrolment made under Quirinius at his second governorship, which is noticed by him in Acts 5:37, and was
well known to his readers. See below. Quirinius (Κυρήνιος) is the proper spelling (Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Justin M)—not
Quirinus, which was also a Roman name; hence the confusion. (See Weiss, in the 6th ed. of Meyer on Luke, p. 286.) His full
name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (Tacitus, Annal., iii 48; Suetonius, Tiber., 49). He was consul a.u. 742, at the head of an
army in Africa, 747, and died in Rome, a.d. 21. Josephus speaks of him at the beginning of the 18th book of his Archael. See,
a full account of him in Zumpt, pp. 43-71.
(^123) Ulpian, quoted by Zumpt, Geburtsjahr Christi, p. 203 sq.
(^124) Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 13, 5; xviii. 1, 1. The census here referred to is evidently the same which Luke means in Acts 5:37:
"After this man arose Judas the Galilaean in the days of the enrolment." Josephus calls him "Judas, a Gaulanite," because he
was of Gamala in lower Gaulanitis; but in Ant., xx. 5, 2, and Bell. Jud., ii. 8, 1, he calls him likewise a Galilaean. In this case,
then, Luke is entirely correct, and it is extremely improbable that a writer otherwise so well informed as Luke should have
confounded two enrolments which were ten years apart.
(^125) The usual solution of the difficulty is to give πρώτη the sense of προτέραbefore Quirinius was governor; as πρῶτός τινος
is used (though not in connection with a participle) in the sense of prior to, John 1:15, 30; 15:18. So Ussher, Huschke, Tholuck,
Wieseler, Caspari, Ewald. But this would have been more naturally and clearly expressed by πρίν or πρὸ τοῦ ἡγεμενεύειν (as
in Luke 2:21; 12:15; Acts 23:15). Paulus, Ebrard, Lange, Godet, and others accentuate αυτή (ipsa) and explain: The decree of
the census was issued at the time of Christ’s birth, but the so-called first census itself did not take place till the governorship of
Quirinius (ten years later). Impossible on account of Lk 2:3, which reports the execution of the decree, Lk 2:1. Browne (p. 46)
and others understand ἡγεμονεύειν in a wider sense, so as to include an extraordinary commission of Quirinius as legatus
Caesaris.
(^126) Annal., iii. 48, as interpreted by A. W. Zumpt in a Latin dissertation: De Syria Romanorum provincia ab Caesare Augusto
ad T. Vespasianum, in Comment. Epigraph., Berol. 1854, vol. ii. 88-125, and approved by Mommsen in Res gesstae divi Augusti,
121-124. Zumpt has developed his views more fully in Das Geburtsjahr Christi, 1869, pp. 1-90. Ussher, Sanclemente, Ideler
(II. 397), and Browne (p. 46) had understood Tacitus in the same way.
A.D. 1-100.