The subject of the chronology of the New Testament falls naturally into
two distinct sections--the chronology of the Gospels, that is, of the
life of Christ; and the chronology of the Acts, that is, of the
apostolic age.
_The Chronology of the Gospels._
The data group themselves round three definite points and the intervals
between them: the definite points are the Nativity, the Baptism and the
Crucifixion; the age of Christ at the time of the Baptism connects the
first two points, and the duration of his public ministry connects the
second and third. The results obtained under the different heads serve
mutually to test, and thereby to correct or confirm, one another.
1. The date of the Nativity as fixed according to our common computation
of Anni Domini (first put forward by Dionysius Exiguus at Rome early in
the 6th century) has long been recognized to be too late. The fathers of
the primitive church had been nearer the truth with the years 3 or 2
B.C. (see Irenaeus, _Haer._ 111. xxi. 3 [xxiv. 2]; Clement of
Alexandria, _Strom_. i. 21, p. 147; Hippolytus, _in Danielem_, iv. ed.
Bonwetsch, p. 242; [Tertullian], _adv. Judaeos_, 8). What may be called
the received chronology during the last two centuries has pushed the
date farther back to 4 B.C. But the considerations now to be adduced
make it probable that the true date is earlier still.
(a) _Evidence of St Matthew's Gospel_ (i. 18-ii. 22).--The birth of
Christ took place before the death of Herod, and the evidence of
Josephus fixes the death of Herod, with some approach to certainty, in
the early spring of 4 B.C. Josephus, indeed, while he tells us that
Herod died not long before Passover, nowhere names the exact year; but
he gives four calculations which serve to connect Herod's death with
more or less known points, namely, the length of Herod's own reign, both
from his _de jure_ and from his _de facto_ accession, and the length of
the reigns of two of his successors, Archelaus and Herod Philip, to the
date of their deposition and death respectively. The various
calculations are not quite easy to harmonize, but the extent of choice
for the year of Herod's death is limited to the years 4 and 3 B.C., with
a very great preponderance of probability in favour of the former. How
long before this the Nativity should be placed the Gospel does not
enable us to say precisely, but as Herod's decree of extermination
included all infants up to two years of age, and as a sojourn of the
Holy Family in Egypt of unknown length intervened between the massacre
and Herod's death, it is clear that it is at least possible, so far as
the evidence of this Gospel goes, that the birth of Christ preceded
Herod's death by as much as two or three years. What is thus shown to be
possible would, of course, be necessary if we went on, with the
astronomer Kepler, to identify the star of the Magi with the conjunction
of the planets Jupiter and Saturn which occurred, in the constellation
Pisces, in May, October and December of 7 B.C.[58]
(b) _Evidence of St Luke's Gospel_ (ii. 1-8).-The birth of Christ took
place at the time of a general census of the empire ordered by Augustus:
"it was the first census, and was made at the time when Quirinius was
governor of Syria." Against this account it has been urged that we know
that the governorship of Syria from 10 or 9 B.C. down to and after
Herod's death was held successively by M. Titius, C. Sentius Saturninus,
and P. Quintilius Varus; and further, that when Judaea became a Roman
province on the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6, Quirinius was
governor of Syria, and did carry out an elaborate census. The notice in
the Gospel, it is suggested, grew out of a confused recollection of the
later (and only historical) census, and is devoid of any value whatever.
At the other extreme Sir W. M. Ramsay (_Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?_,
1898, pp. 149 ff.) defends the exact accuracy of St Luke's "first
census" as witnessing to the (otherwise of course unknown) introduction
into Syria of the periodic fourteen years' census which the evidence of
papyri has lately established for Egypt, at least from A.D. 20 onwards.
Reckoning back from A.D. 20, the periodic census should fall in 9 B.C.,
but Ramsay alleges various causes for delay, which would have postponed
the actual execution of the census till 7 B.C., and supposes that
Quirinius was an imperial commissioner specially appointed to carry it
out. The truth seems to rest midway between these extremes. St Luke's
statement of a general census is in all probability erroneous, and the
introduction of the name Quirinius appears to be due to confusion with
the census of A.D. 6. But the confusion in question would only be
possible, or at any rate likely, if there really was a census at the
time of the Nativity; and it is no more improbable that Herod should
have held, or permitted to be held, a local census than that Archelaus
of Cappadocia in the reign of Tiberius (Tacitus, _Ann_. vi. 41) should
have taken a census of his own native state "after the Roman manner."
But St Luke's account, when the name of Quirinius is subtracted from it,
ceases to contain any chronological evidence.
(c) _Evidence of Tertullian._--Strangely enough, however, the missing
name of the governor under whom the census of the Nativity was carried
out appears to be supplied by an author who wrote more than a century
after St Luke, and has by no means a good reputation for historical
trustworthiness. Tertullian, in fact (_adv. Marcionem_, iv. 19), employs
against Marcion's denial of the true humanity of Christ the argument
that it was well known that Sentius Saturninus carried out a census
under Augustus in Judaea, by consulting which the family and
relationships of Christ could have been discovered. This Saturninus was
the middle one of the three governors of Syria named above, and as his
successor Varus must have arrived by the middle of 6 B.C. at latest (for
coins of Varus are extant of the twenty-fifth year of the era of
Actium), his own tenure must have fallen about 8 and 7 B.C., and his
census cannot be placed later than 7 or 7-6 B.C. The independence of
Tertullian's information about this census is guaranteed by the mere
fact of his knowledge of the governor's name; and if there was a census
about that date, it would be unreasonable not to identify it with St
Luke's census of the Nativity.
The traditional Western day for the Christmas festival, 25th December,
goes back as far as Hippolytus, _loc. cit_.; the traditional Eastern
day, 6th January, as far as the Basilidian Gnostics (but in their case
only as a celebration of the Baptism), mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria, _loc. cit_.