JESUS: nativity | ministry: beginning | duration | end | APOSTOLIC
AGE: absolute chronology: Paul's
flight from Damascus | death of Agrippa I | Claudius:
famine | Sergius Paulus: Proconsulship
of Cyprus | Claudius:
expulsion of Jews from Rome | Gallio: Proconsulship
of Achaia | when Festus
succeeded Felix | APOSTOLIC AGE: relative
chronology (ce):33-35 | 35-46 | 46-47 | 48-53 | 53-59 | 59-64 | bibliography.
According to Mt. 2:1 and Lk. 1:5 the death of Herod the Great
is a terminus ad quem for the Nativity.
Particulars given by Josephus indicate that Herod died early in the year beginning
1 Nisan 4 BC.
It is commonly held that the first to effect the equation 754 AUC. = AD 1,
and so to fix the Christian era, was Dionysius Exiguus (6th cent.).
But some now claim that this era was introduced by Hippolytus and adopted in
the East and that later Dionysius made it popular in the West.
Jesus was born at the time of an enrolment ordered by Augustus throughout '
all the world' (Lk. 2:1-7).
This was not the census of 8 BC.
,
for a rescript from Cyrene dated 7/6 BC. indicates that
by then no census of the non-Roman population there had been made.
That Dio points to an empire-wide census made in 11 BC. is doubtful,
and the passage itself seems untrustworthy.
Ramsay's attempt to relate the enrolment
of Lk. 2 to periodic enrolments in Egypt, has not outlived the criticism that
Egypt was not Judaea.
'All the world' may be a 'pleasant hyperbole' which 'ought not to be pressed
too far' .
Herod being a rex socius, Augustus is hardly likely to have ordered an enrolment
throughout his territory without a compelling reason.
Learning, however, in 12 BC. of an ominous state of affairs in Herod's house,
he may have proceeded by means of an enrolment to prepare for possible disorders;
and Herod, thinking of the future good of his family, may have been willing
that this enrolment should be made.
Lk. 2:2 dates the enrolment of 2:1 'when Quirinius was governor of Syria'.
But Quirinius, who became governor of Syria in 6, is not known to have held
that office at an earlier time.
Various solutions of this difficulty have been suggested.
That Quirinius governed Syria immediately before Titius is a narrow possibility.
Ramsay held that Quirinius governed Syria jointly, first with Titius and then
with Saturninus, when conducting the Homanadensian war.
But competent classical scholars now maintain that Quirinius conducted this
war when governing Galatia or Galatia-Pamphylia.
Corbishley's conclusion that
Quirinius governed Syria immediately after Titius rests on a rearrangement
of paragraphs in Josephus for which the reasons given are unsound.
Moreover all these theories are open to the objection that Quirinius is hardly
likely to have been twice appointed governor of so important a province.
The inference long made from the inscription of Tibur that he was so, is not
now allowed;
and indeed opinion is no longer unanimous that this inscription relates to
him.
The suggestion to substitute for Quirinius the name Saturninus on the authority
of Tertullian, can satisfy no-one who knows how unscrupulous Tertullian was
in chronological matters.
Lazzarato's contention that Quirinius was praepositus not Syriae but orienti goes beyond the plain meaning of Lk. 2:2.
The assumption seems inevitable that Lk.2:2 is an insertion made by a person
who wrongly identified the enrolment of Lk.2:1 with a well-known enrolment
of Judaea made by Quirinius in AD 6/7.
It is possible that about the time of Jesus' birth ( interest in Jewish
Messianic expectations was quickened in the East by a remarkable celestial
phenomenon.
The star (ἀστρήρ), of the Magi, long considered supernatural, was identified
by Ideler with
Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction in 7 BC.
But ἀστρήρ means a single star, not an assemblage of stars.
Moreover the belief that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn had Messianic
significance cannot be traced farther back than the 11th cent., and it is difficult
to see how a conjunction of planets can have suggested to astrologers the birth
of an eminent person.
Cardano's theory that the star of the Magi was a Stella nova has found new
adherents.
More noteworthy is a growing tendency to identify it with Halley's comet seen
in 12 BC.
So brilliant a spectacle may well have prompted the Magi to inquire whether
Jewish hopes had been realised.
It is doubtful if Lk.3:33 can serve any chronological purpose.
Its correct rendering is disputed;
the originality of the 'thirty' has been denied;
and the activity which Jesus is said to have begun may have been a responsibility
assumed by him in the ' silent' years and mentioned in the paragraph that preceded
the genealogy in the document from which the genealogy was extracted.
The statement 'Thou art not yet fifty years old' (Jn.8:57) admits of several
explanations.
But had Jesus been in his thirties, the Jews, seeking to give their reply all
possible point, would have said not 'fifty' but 'forty';
and the Asian elders quoted by Irenaeus affirmed
thatJesuswas at least forty when he taught.
Irenaeus was convinced of the trustworthiness of this testimony, and it ought
not to be rejected because of the impossible conclusions he came to in combining
loyalty to it with loyalty to the Gospels.
Nor ought these conclusions to be fathered on the Asian elders.
Unlike Irenaeus they may have rejected the 'thirty' of Lk. 3:23 and have carried
Jesus' birth farther back than that verse taken with Lk.3:1 admits.
As the year of the Nativity, 11 or 10 or 9 B.C. seems probable.
Its month-date is unknown.
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To date this, two passages are examined,
The Synoptics refer to only one Passover,
that of the Passion, in the period of Jesus' ministry.
This suggests that the
ministry lasted only one year, and no Synoptic passage bears unquestionable
evidence that it lasted any longer.
Jn, on the other hand, mentions three Passovers
in the same period (2:13,6:4, 11:55), and that number cannot be reduced.
Attempts
to identify two of these Passovers have not succeeded nor has the attempt to
show that the reference to a Passover in 6:4 was not read by certain patristic
authorities and ought therefore to be deleted.
According to Jn the ministry
thus lasted at least two years.
This divergence between the Synoptics and John
is, however, not real, being due to the fact that the former concentrate, apart
from their Passion and Resurrection narratives, on the Galilean ministry.
'There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest' (Jn 4:35a) cannot
be a proverbial saying.
Such a saying would have given the actual interval
between seedtime and harvest, which was six months .
Some
understand the words literally, but maintain that Jesus was looking on fields
of summer grain.
Biblical and Rabbinical writings refer, however, only to the
harvest gathered at the Passover season, and the kinds of grain which are sown
today in spring were unknown in Palestine in NT times .
Jesus must then have passed through Samaria
four months before the usual harvest, therefore in winter.
The feast of Jn 5:1 has been identified with Purim, but that seems impossible.
The time-note 'after this' indicates a considerable interval between the
events of chs. 4 and 5;
but Purim, falling in Adar, was celebrated soon after
Jesus' return to Galilee.
Two attempts are made to identify the feast of Jn.5:1
with the Passover of Jn.6:4.
(1) In Jn.6:4 'nigh' is said to mean 'recently
past'.
That, however, the μετὰ τοῦτα of Jn.6:1 makes impossible.
(2)
Jn.6
is read between Jn.4 and Jn.5.
But the μετὰ τοῦτα of Jn 5:1 then dates the
feast of that verse a considerable time after the Passover said to be nigh
in Jn.6:4, and this rearrangement of chapters, while found in Tatian, Diatessaron,
has no manuscript authority.
Now there was no feast except Purim between the
time of Jesus' return to Galilee and the following Passover.
Consequently,
since the feast of Jn.5:1 cannot have been Purim or the Passover of Jn 6:4,
it must have been either the Passover of the year preceding that of the Passover
of Jn.6:4 or some feast of the interval between these Passovers, and is perhaps
best identified with Tabernacles.
This necessitates a Passover between those
of Jn.2:13 and Jn.6:4.
Jesus' ministry thus lasted three years plus the time-two
months at least (Mk.1:13;
Jn.1 :29, 35, 43, 2:1, 12) -
from his baptism to the first
Passover.
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All four Gospels put the
Crucifixion on a Friday.
According to John this
Friday was 14 Nisan, the day in the evening of which
the Passover was eaten, but according to the Synoptics
it was 15 Nisan.
There is no satisfactory resolution of this difference.
'The passover'
in Jn.18:28 cannot mean the Chagigah made ordinarily on 15 Nisan,
nor can
the Passover of Mk.14:17ff. have been a passover-Kiddush observed
in the evening of 13 Nisan, for that Kiddush was observed at the beginning
of the Passover meal.
The thesis that there was an observance of Passover
at different times by different parties is attractive but cannot be substantiated.
According to Chwolson ,
when 14 Nisan was a Friday, owing to the proximity of the Sabbath the passover
lambs were slaughtered on 13 Nisan, and some ate the Passover in the evening
of that day, others twenty-four hours later.
But present-day Samaritan practice
indicates that when 14 Nisan was a Friday, the killing began earlier than
usual on that day.
Billerbeck maintains that,
owing to a dispute in the year of the Crucifixion between the Pharisaic and
Boethusean-Sadducaean parties regarding the commencement of Nisan, its fourteenth
day was for the former a Thursday and for the latter the Friday following.
But two killings were sanctioned, and each party ate the Passover on its
own 14 Nisan.
All this appears, however, to be conjecture.
According to Jaubert
, in the year of the Crucifixion 14 Nisan of the
official year was a Friday, but Jesus observed Passover on 14 Nisan according
to an old Jewish year, which 14 Nisan was Tuesday in Passion week.
If, however,
the meal of that Tuesday evening was a Passover, there must have been two
killings, and of that at any time there is no evidence.
Moreover, for the
Jewish consciousness before 70 a Passover without a lamb that had been ritually
slain would have been inconceivable.
Of these chronologies the Johannine
is the more likely for several reasons.
The year of the Crucifixion is determined mainly in three ways.
Of the Nabataean official whom he mentions
in 2 C. 11:32 Paul says that he was the ethnarch of Aretas and also that he
guarded 6 the gates of Damascus to arrest him.
The only conclusion consistent
with both these statements is that Aretas then possessed Damascus and that
this official governed there in his name.
This use of 'ethnarch' for 'governor'
is explained by Schurer .
Coins
show that Damascus was in Roman hands until 33-4.
When in 37 Vitellius the
legate of Syria marched against Aretas, he left Damascus in his rear.
Apparently
it was still in Roman hands.
Accordingly the terminus a quo of Paul's flight
is 37, and of his conversion 34 (Gal.1:18).
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Agrippa
received the tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias with the title king shortly
after Caius' accession on 16 March 37.
As 1 Nisan 37 was 5 March, the second
year ofAgrippa's reign began on 1 Nisan 38.
When he had reigned three years,
therefore in his fourth year, 40(1 Nisan)-41, he received the tetrarchy of
Antipas.
On 25 January 41, on Claudius' accession, he received Judaea and Samaria.
He then reigned over all the territory that had belonged to his grandfather.
Since he did so for three full years and died in the seventh year of his reign,
his death occurred between 25 January and 1 Nisan 44.
This conclusion, based
on Jos. , suggests that a coin of Agrippa's eighth
year discussed by Reifenberg , 80 was minted in anticipation.
Agrippa's persecution of the church, which took place at Passover (Ac. 12:3),
cannot be dated later than 43;
and Ac. 12:19b refers perhaps to no more than the interval from Passover 43
to Agrippa's death.
The festival in progress in Caesarea when Agrippa died may have marked Claudius' triumphant return from Britain or have been a celebration
of quinquennalia instituted in 9 BC. by Herod the Great and commencing on
5 March, the foundation-day of Caesarea .
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was apparently the famine of Jos. Ant.
xx, 101 which oppressed Judaea in the procuratorship of Tiberius Alexander
(46-48).
Helena, Queen of Adiabene, coming to Jerusalem, found it at its height
and, moved with compassion, fetched much corn from Egypt.
Now papyri from Tebtunis
indicate that there were famine conditions in Egypt in 45 .
The high price of corn in August, September, and November
of that year must be put down to a bad harvest in the preceding spring or to
an anticipated bad harvest in spring 46.
The fact that Helena's servants secured
much corn quickly indicates that by the time they went to Egypt the situation
there had improved.
It is then to be concluded that in Judaea there was a bad
harvest in 46 or 47, and that Helena showed her generosity about Passover 47 or 48 shortly before the new harvest in Judaea and so when
the situation there was at its worst.
The Antiochian Christians doubtless sent
relief immediately, but not before, they knew that it was needed.
The Famine
Relief Visit of Ac.11:30 must accordingly be dated winter 45/46 or 46/47.
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The name
L. Sergius Paullus occurs in an inscription containing a list of curators of the Tiber in Claudius' reign.
But the inscription cannot be dated more closely, nor is it known that this
man was appointed to Cyprus.
The concluding lines of ar. inscription from Soloi
, dated 25 Demarchexousios and
year 13, mention a reform when Paulus was proconsul.
But the epoch of the
year-reckoning is unknown;
and these lines being almost certainly a postscript,
the date of the proconsulship of this Paulus may differ considerably from that
of the inscription proper.
At present the only certainty which inscriptions
give regarding the Paulus of Acts is that he was not proconsul in 51 or 52
.
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This is mentioned but not dated in Suetonius, .
Orosius puts it in Claudius' ninth year, 25 Jan. 49-24
Jan. 50. He errs apparently in saying that he found this date in Josephus.
His actual source of it may have been trustworthy-Julius Africanus has been
suggested, but it remains unknown.
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An inscription from Delphi (1.)
enables this to be determined with considerable exactness.
It is a rescript
of Claudius regarding the boundaries of the sacred domain of Delph.
In it
the number of his imperatorial acclamation, K C = 26, is clearly legible.
Now his 27th acclamatio is mentioned in an inscription on an arch of the Aqua Claudia which
was consecrated on 1 August 52, and his 22nd acclamatio in an inscription side by side with the eleventh year of his tribunicial
power (25 January 51-24 January 52).
Claudius was thus acclaimed for the 23rd,
24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th times within the period 25 January 51-1 August
52;
and it being unlikely that he was so all five times in 51, he was in all probability
acclaimed for the 26th time in the first half of 52.
Gallio had already investigated
the boundary question and communicated his findings to Claudius before the
rescript was issued.
Accordingly it is almost certain that it belongs to the
closing months of Gallio's year of office and that that year was 51 (summer)-52.
The Jews brought Paul before Gallio not when the latter became but when he
was proconsul (Ac.18:12).
They waited apparently until they had such knowledge
of him as seemed to warrant the hope that he would decide in their favour.
But they doubtless also sought to avail themselves of his inexperience, and
combined dispatch with caution.
It may then be assumed that they acted within
a couple of months of Gallio's arrival.
Paul's coming to Corinth eighteen months
earlier (Ac.18:11) is accordingly to be dated early in 50.
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is in Eusebius, Chronicle, Armenian
Version, the last year of Claudius, and in Jerome's Version the second year
of Nero.
Josephus assigns the events of Felix's procuratorship to Nero's reign
, but apparently adopts a story which, ignoring the fact
that Nero early in his first year dismissed Pallas from court , gave a false reason for the failure of the Jews to secure Felix's
condemnation,
namely the intervention of his brother Pallas' who
was at that time held in the greatest honour ' by Nero.
According to Jos. Felix succeeded Cumanus, apparently in 52.
But according to Tacitus,
, for some time prior to 53 he governed a part of Judaea, while
Cumanus governed the rest, and then in 52 became governor of the whole.
This
opens the possibility that much of what happened during his stay in Judaea
occurred under Claudius and that he was recalled soon after Nero's accession.
But here Tacitus probably follows a tradition which
in hatred of Felix sought to involve him in responsibility for the enormities
of his predecessor's administration.
Certainly Josephus, presumably the better
informed, knows nothing of a twofold procuratorship of Judaea.
The time-indications of these authorities thus provide an insecure basis
for the so-called antedated chronology advocated by Petavius and adopted by Harnack , Schwartz , Lake, etc. which
assigns the change of office to 55 or 56.
According to the more obvious interpretation
of Ac.24:27 Paul was arrested at Pentecost two years before Felix was recalled.
If then his first visit to Corinth ended in autumn 51 and his arrest was
in 53 or 54, the events of Ac.18:18-21:16 occupied less than three years.
But the Ephesian ministry alone was nearly three years in length (Ac.20:31).
Festus died in office.
Thereafter lawlessness reigned for at least three
months, and the new procurator was in Jerusalem at Tabernacles 62 .
Festus thus succeeded Felix in one of the five years 57 to 61.
Most scholars adopt 59 or 60, but some now prefer 61.
According to Jos. an embassy which with Festus' permission carried a dispute about buildings
to Rome received help from Poppaea, Nero's wife.
Now she became his wife in
May 62, also the buildings referred to may have been begun in Felix's procuratorship,
and the few other events of Festus' period of office need have occupied no
long time.
It is thus probable that Festus was still alive in April 62 and
that he succeeded Felix in 61.
Those who favour an earlier year maintain that
Poppaea is here called Nero's wife euphemistically or proleptically.
The reasons
based on Ac. 24:10 and Jos. often given for putting the change
of office not earlier than 60 are reasons for assigning it to 61.
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In its early pentecostal days the church grew rapidly and
soon came into conflict with Jewish authorities.
While it may be doubted if
passages such as Ascension of Isaiah, ix, 16 and Irenaeus, Adversus
haereses,
i, 30,14 embody trustworthy tradition regarding the period from the Resurrection
to Paul's conversion, the events of Ac. 1-8 may have occupied but one and a
half years and Paul's conversion have taken place in 34 or 35.
From Damascus Paul returned to Jerusalem 'after three years' (Gal.1:18).
Leaving Jerusalem he sojourned in Syria and Cilicia until called to Antioch,
a year before the Famine Relief Visit to Jerusalem.
Of its possible dates only
the earlier, winter 45/46, allows sufficient time for the events following
up to Paul's first arrival in Corinth.
Certain scholars consider, however, that in Ac.11:27-12:25 this visit is
put before the persecution by Agrippa.
This raises the problem of Paul's Jerusalem
visits recorded in Acts and of the identification with them of the visits mentioned
in Galatians.
The
principal more recently suggested solutions of it are the
following:
Cyprus,
to which Paul and Barnabas sailed on their First Journey, had a considerable
Jewish population, and Ac.13:5f. indicates that they visited most of its synagogues.
Landing in spring 46, they may have stayed until autumn and then, crossing
to Pamphylia, have reached Pisidian Antioch before winter. In Phrygia and Lycaonia
they founded several churches and may have returned to Syria in autumn 47.
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After attending the Jerusalem Council early in 48, the fourteenth
year after his conversion, Paul started on his Second Journey and first visited
Lycaonia.
He then entered a new field described as 'the region of Phrygia
and Galatia' (Ac.16:6).
The part of it which he traversed first was Phrygian
in population;
the other part was Galatian and so was the territory in the heart of Asia Minor
which, since the time of Attalus I, had been the home of certain Gallic tribes.
The verb διῆλθον rendered 'they went through', may denote a journey
in the progress of which missionary work was done , and here that
meaning is made likely by the words 'having been forbidden to speak the word
in Asia'.
Paul, it appears, stayed in this new field sufficiently long to found
churches there and did not proceed to Troas until spring 49.
Crossing then
to Europe, he reached Corinth early in 50.
After the Gallic incident he remained
in Corinth 'many days longer ' (Ac.18:18).
But that expression cannot here
denote more than one or two months .
Paul's return to Antioch is accordingly to be dated
autumn 51.
Its cause is unknown.
It may have been sickness, and his stay in
Antioch, given as 'some time' (Ac.18:23), may have extended until spring
53.
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Starting then on his Third Journey, Paul passed through the Cilician
Gates and proceeded to Galatia (in the ethnographical sense) by a road east
of the one he took on his previous visit .
Traversing the country
from east to west he may have made a considerable stay.
From Galatia he proceeded
to Phrygia and thence to Ephesus.
A recapitulating reference to this journey
in Galatia and Phrygia appears in the words 'Paul passed through the upper
country' (Ac.19:1), and there the verb suggests an extensive missionary labour
which may have occupied eighteen months.
The arrival in Ephesus may then be
dated autumn 54.
The Ephesian ministry lasted for three years (Ac.20:31), i.e. two years and
several months.
The riot of Ac.19:23ff., of the occurrence of which during
a celebration of the Artemisia there is no indication, probably obliged him
to leave Ephesus somewhat sooner in 57 than he had purposed, and he spent the
autumn in Troas and then crossed to Macedonia.
Early in 58 he received heartening
news about the church at Corinth and, relieved of anxiety, moved southwards
evangelising as he went and going perhaps as far west as Illyricum (Rom.15:19).
He spent three months, those of winter (Ac.20:6), in Greece and was back in
Jerusalem by Pentecost 59.
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Arrested then, he remained a prisoner in
Caesarea for two years (Ac.24:27).
On Festus' arrival in 61 he appealed
to Caesar and, as Ac.27:9 indicates, sailed for Rome in the autumn.
Shipwrecked
on Malta, he wintered there and, early in 62, reached Rome, where he continued
in easy imprisonment for ' two whole years ' (Ac.28:30), therefore until 64.
What followed is uncertain.
But it seems probable that he suffered in the Neronian
persecution or that he was tried, condemned and executed shortly before it
so that in tradition his death was ascribed to it.
Cullmann concludes that Peter came to Rome towards
the end of his life, worked there for a short time and suffered under Nero.
Katzenmayer puts
his arrival in Rome and martyrdom there very early in Nero's reign.
But Heussi
denies that Peter ever went to Rome and, making a large
use of the 'were' (ῆσαν of Gal.2:6, concludes that he died c.55 or 56
.
Robinson suggests that the other place to which in Ac.12:17 Peter is
said to have gone may have been the place of glory, and consequently that he
may have died in Jerusalem in 44.
In Jos. Ant. xx, 200, in a passage which may be an interpolation, the martyrdom
of James the Lord's brother is put in the period of anarchy that followed the
death of Festus in 62.
In a passage ofHegesippus. quoted by Eusebius and clearly legendary in character, it is apparently put nearer
the Fall of Jerusalem.
Debate continues as to whether the tradition of a long
residence of the apostle John in Asia ought to be accepted or his death
put with that
of his brother in the persecution by Agrippa.
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