would have invented after the rejection of the Christ. It contrasts very markedly with the language of St. Peter's speeches in the Acts1, or of St. Stephen 2, or of St. Paul3, or of St. James, or of St. John 5. No doubt in the language of Simeon the coming of the Christ is 'a light for revelation to the Gentiles,' as well as the glory of God's people Israel.' He too alone among the speakers of these opening chapters sees that the crisis is to be anxious and searching. He said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel; and for a sign which is spoken against; yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed ".' But these are notes so often struck in the Old Testament that they must have found some echo in the immediate anticipation of the work of the Child. They are like the warnings of John the Baptist". But they do not anticipate the disastrous result. They do not forecast wholesale rejection; they only just interpose a note of moral anxiety in the general tone of hopeful exaltation. Nor is it unnecessary to observe that the conception of the person of our Lord in these chapters is purely Messianic. He is to 'be great, and shall be called the Son of

See iii. 12-26, iv. 11, 25-28.
Acts xiii. 46; 1 Thess. ii. 14-16.

* St. James v. 6.

2 Acts vii. 51, 52.

5 St. John xii. 37-43.
7 St. Luke iii. 8.

• St. Luke ii. 31-35. The distinction however between the Messianic and the divine conception of our Lord must not be pressed too far. It is true that the Jewish thought of our Lord's time did not anticipate a divine Messiah. The Messianic king of the Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon (c. 60 B. C.) does not rise above the human limit: and the 'Son of Man' coming in glory as found in the Book of Enoch (by interpretation of Daniel vii. 13)—probably

C

the Highest.' He shall be called 'holy, the Son of God,' because the Holy Ghost shall come upon' His mother, 'and the power of the Most High shall overshadow' her1. Mary is made to understand that the child whom she is to bear is to be the product of miraculous divine agency and is to be the exalted Messiah, but the doctrine of the Incarnation, strictly speaking, is not more to be found here than in the early speeches of the Acts. Here then is an account which presents phenomena practically irreconcilable with the hypothesis that it was an invention of the early Jewish Christian imagination; an account which may well be Mary's account; which must be Mary's, in origin, if it is genuine; and which is given to us by a recorder of proved trustworthiness, who moreover makes a point of 'having traced the course of all things accurately from the first.' Finally it is an account which there is no evidence to show the imagination of any early Christian capable of producing, for its consummate fitness, reserve, sobriety and loftiness are unquestionable. Is there then any good reason against accepting it 2?

a pre-Christian idea-is neither properly divine nor properly human. But the highest Old Testament idea of the divine and human Messiah could not, we may venture to say, have been realized and combined with the idea of the servant of Jehovah, except by the eternal Son of God made very man. Thus in our Lord's own thought and language there is no line of demarcation between the Messianic and the Divine claim. To go no further, a strictly divine meaning is given to the function of the Son of Man as judge of the world. And the apostles and first disciples were carried on insensibly from the confession 'Thou art the Christ of God' to the further confession 'My Lord and my God.' See on the subject generally Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah (Clark, 1886).

1 St. Luke i. 32, 35.

"Of course discrepancies with St. Matthew might discredit either it or St. Matthew's account; but these are considered later.

1. It is often alleged that the notice of 'the first enrolment (or census), made when Quirinius was governor of Syria 1,' is unhistorical.

This objection had its full force when secular history recognized no Syrian governorship of Quirinius until just before the time when Judaea became a Roman province, when a 'census' was certainly made (A. D. 6)2. But Quirinius' earlier governorship is now, chiefly through the labours of Bergmann and Mommsen, recognized as probable. The case may be fairly stated thus 3.

Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was probably governor of Syria (legatus Augusti pro praetore) for the first time between B. C. 4-2, but certainly after, not before, the death of Herod (which occurred in B. C. 4)*.

There is no record, independent of St. Luke's, of any 'census' (amoуpapń) of the Jews till that which took place during Quirinius' second legation, and is mentioned by Josephus. But St. Luke elsewhere alludes to this later census 5, and apparently intends to distinguish an earlier one from the later by the phrase he here uses, 'the first census under Quirinius.'

6

The phrase 'there went out a decree from Caesar

1 St. Luke ii, 2.

2 Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire (Eng. trans., Bentley, 1886) ii. 185-7.

3 The matter has been discussed ad nauseam, as by Zumpt, Godet, Keim, Edersheim, Schürer, Geikie, Didon. See Dict. of Bible, s. v. CYREIn Farrar's St. Luke (‘Cambridge G. T. for Schools') there is an excellent brief discussion of the matter.

NIUS.

* Mommsen, Res gestae D. Augusti (Berlin, 1883) p. 177; Keim, Jesus of Nazara (Eng. trans., Williams & Norgate) ii. pp. 116 f.

5 Acts v. 37 ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς ἀπογραφῆς.

* St. Luke ii. 2 αὕτη ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου.

Augustus that a census be taken of all the world' may well refer to the rationarium or breviarium of the empire which Augustus busied himself in drawing up, and which included allied kingdoms1. Herod, who was not only a 'rex socius,' but wholly dependent on the emperor2, may well have been forward to supply a census of his kingdom to please his master. At a somewhat later date we read in Tacitus of the subjects of an allied king (of Cappadocia) who were 'compelled to submit to a census after our [the Romans'] fashion and to pay tribute3. On the other hand, it is exceedingly improbable that any Christians would have invented such an ignoble reason as an imperial census for bringing Joseph and Mary up to 'the city of David.'

It must be remembered that the chronological data of St. Luke ii and iii were in all probability supplied by himself and not by his sources.' We are, therefore, not at all concerned to deny that St. Luke may have been slightly wrong in his date; for our Lord must have been born some months before the death of Herod and

1 Cf. Suet. Augustus, cc. 28, 101 rationarium imperii; breviarium totius imperii.' Tac. Ann. i. II' opes publicae continebantur, quantum civium sociorumque in armis, quot classes, regna, provinciae, tributa aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones, quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus.'

2 The evidence of the entire subjection of Herod to Augustus may be found in Josephus, Ant. xvi. 4. I, II. I (he seeks leave to try his sons, &c.), xvii. 2. 6 (παντὸς γοῦν τοῦ Ἰουδαϊκοῦ βεβαιώσαντος δι ̓ ὅρκων ἢ μὴν εὐνοῆσαι Καίσαρι καὶ τοῖς βασιλέως πράγμασιν). Herod was often under the displeasure of Augustus, cf. xvi. 9. 3-4 (he threatens that having treated him as a friend, he shall in future treat him as a subject).

3 Tac. Ann. vi. 41 (A. D. 36) ‘Clitarum natio Cappadoci Archelao subiecta, quia nostrum in modum deferre census, pati tributa adigebatur, in iuga Tauri montis abscessit.'

therefore, as would seem certain, before the first governorship of Quirinius. It is noticeable that Tertullian1 in fact attributes the 'census' to Sentius Saturninus, not to Quirinius. But it seems to me, especially in view of the deficiency of historical authorities for the period, that we display an exaggerated scepticism if we deny that so well-informed a writer as St. Luke may have been quite correct in ascribing the movement to Bethlehem of Joseph and Mary to some necessity connected with a census' of Judaea which Herod was supplying at the demand of Augustus 2.

2. Again, angelic appearances such as occur thrice in these chapters-to Zacharias, to Mary, and to the shepherds, are a scandal to some minds, and tend to discredit the whole narrative by giving it an air of ideality, that is, unreality.

Now it is important not to allow this matter to assume an exaggerated importance. For to suppose such angelic appearances and communications as are related in these chapters to be imaginative outward representations of what were in fact real but merely inward communications of the 'divine word' to human souls, is both a

1 adv. Marc. iv. 19' Census constat actos tunc [at the time of our Lord's birth] in Iudaea per Sentium Saturninum.' [B. C. 8-6].

2 It is remarkable how critics, like apologists, are apt to go for 'everything or nothing.' St. Luke's credibility is not disproved, if it is made probable that our Lord's birth took place not at the beginning of Quirinius' governorship but at the end of that of his predecessor. I ought to add, as I have quoted Mommsen in proof of the earlier governorship of Quirinius, that he denies that any census took place at that time. Indeed he uses somewhat strong language to express his resentment at his labours having become in any way available for apologists-'homines theologi vel non theologi sed ad instar theologorum ex vinculis sermocinantes' (op. cit. p. 176).