The sentence in Saint Luke may be construed thus:  “This was the first assessment (or enrolment) of Cyrenius, governor of Syria;"* the words “governor of Syria” being used after the name of Cyrenius as his addition or title.  And this title, belonging to him at the time of writing the account, was naturally enough subjoined 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 expressions, in relating the affairs of the East 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 precisely the inaccuracy which has produced the difficulty in Saint Luke.

_________

* If the word which we render “first” be rendered “before,” which it has been strongly contended that the Greek idiom shows of, the whole difficulty vanishes:  for then the passage would be,—­“Now this taxing was made before Cyreulus was governor of Syria;” which corresponds with the chronology.  But I rather choose to argue, that however the word “first” be rendered, to give it a meaning at all, it militates with the objection.  In this I think there can be no mistake. _________

At any rate it appears from the form of the expression that he had two taxings or enrolments in contemplation.  And if Cyrenius had been sent upon this business into Judea before he became governor of Syria (against which supposition there is no proof, but rather external evidence of an enrolment going on about this time under some person or other +), then the census 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.

_________

+ Josephus (Antiq. xvii. c. 2, sect. 6.) has this remarkable message:  “When therefore the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Caesar, 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 census, 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. _________

II.  Another chronological objection arises upon a date assigned in the beginning of the third chapter of Saint Luke. (Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 768.) “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,—­Jesus began to be about thirty years of age:”  for, supposing Jesus to have been born as Saint Matthew and Saint Luke also himself relate, in the time of Herod, he must, 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 Saint 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.