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Luk_2:1-5
What Luke says is: “There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria). And all went to be taxed, every one unto his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David); to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”
The leading objection taken to this is that the “taxing’’ (or rather census, registration, or enrolment,) Note: The word may signify simply the act of numbering or enrolling the people, or of this enrolling together with the assessment or taxation founded thereon. under Cyrenius, here said to have taken place at the time of our Lord’s birth, and in the reign of Herod, did not really occur till ten years later, in the time of his son Archelaus; and that this is the only census taken by the Romans in Judea of which we have any information.
The circumstances of this census are made known to us by Josephus. Archelaus had been deposed by Augustus, and banished to Vienne in Gaul, leaving much property behind him in Judea, and the land without a king. The emperor proposed to secure this property, and to bring the people under the condition common among the subject-provinces of the empire—of direct tribute to the imperial government. To accomplish these objects, Augustus appointed as president of Syria, Cyrenius or Quirinus—a man of consular rank, who stood high in his favor; with orders to sell the property of Archelaus, and to take a census of the Jewish people. At the same time, Judea was deprived of the forms of independent government which it had enjoyed, through Roman favor to the Herod family, and was made an integral part of the province of Syria, and so of the Roman empire, with a ruler or procurator accountable to the president of Syria—to which office one Coponius was in the first instance appointed. In obedience to his instructions, Cyrenius proceeded to make a census, in accomplishing which he experienced great difficulty. One Judas of Galilee invited the people to resist, on the ground that the intended assessment was an invasion of the national freedom. Great excitement ensued; and although the right of the strongest prevailed, a popular sect or party was called into existence, the presence of which is recognized in the New Testament history, and which used every effort, and scrupled not at any means, to withstand the Roman domination in Judea, and in which originated the occasional struggles against its authority—the final issue of which was the erasure of Jerusalem from the face of the earth.
This census was notorious, and Luke himself, in Act_5:37, records an allusion to it as an event from which men dated—Gamaliel being represented as speaking of “Judas of Galilee,” who “rose up” in “the days of the taxing;” and it is certainly incredible, at the first view, that one who speaks in such accurate conformity with history of this event, should commit in another book so grievous an error in reference to it as the charge presumes. If the fact were so notorious as this second reference implies, it is morally impossible that he could have anywhere said that it took place in the days of Herod, when everybody knew when, and under what circumstances, and with what results, it actually did take place. The same census is also indirectly alluded to in its results in the Gospels; for “the tribute money,” Note: Mat_22:19; Mar_12:14; Luk_20:22. rendered to Caesar, was that which was imposed in connection therewith.
But does not the evangelist distinctly say, in the text before us, that the enrollment which took place at the birth of Christ, was that of Cyrenius? We have seen that Luke shows himself in the Acts to have been well acquainted with that transaction; and that its circumstances were too well known for any contemporary historian to have stated anything so absurd, and so capable of instant detection.
But if this be not his meaning, what does he mean? and how comes the name of Cyrenius to be connected with a transaction that took place ten years before? If we look closely, we shall see that so far from committing the blunder which has been imputed to him, the imputation itself grows out of the care which he took to prevent any such misconception. What he positively affirms is, that, in or about the time of our Lord’s birth, a decree for a general registration was issued by Augustus, in consequence of which Joseph went, accompanied by Mary, to Bethlehem, to be registered there. In recording this, it seems to have occurred to the evangelist that, in order to prevent confusion, he should specify that the registration, though then decreed, was not executed or not carried out to its full results till some years later, when Cyrenius was president; and therefore he interposes parenthetically the information, that this registration, though decreed, was not fully made until “Cyrenius was governor of Syria.”
But we may be told that there is no record of any previous decree for registration taking place at the time mentioned. In reply it may be asked, where we might expect to find such a record. Certainly not in the Roman historians, who do not even mention the great census under Cyrenius, which undoubtedly did take place. Josephus does mention that census, and to him, it may be urged, we may look for some notice of this earlier registration. But Josephus continually manifests a disposition to exaggerate whatever tended to the exaltation of his nation, and to suppress whatever tended to its disparagement. The completed registration under Cyrenius he could not forbear to mention, as it was too notorious, and involved consequences too essential to the current of his history. As, therefore, the earlier decree was by circumstances rendered abortive, and had not become historically memorable, while it inflicted upon the nation a serious humiliation at the time when it seemed in the enjoyment of high distinction, there was every reason why Josephus should take no account of it. No Greek or Roman reader would remember a circumstance so obscure, and Josephus was the last man to produce it to them; and there was no Jewish reader, keenly alive to the national honor, but would applaud him for the suppression.
It so happens, however, that Josephus, without expressly mentioning this decree for registration, does state some circumstances which point to this enrolment, and which fix the time for it in perfect conformity with the statement of the evangelist.
He states, “that towards the close of Herod’s reign, he excited the deep displeasure of the emperor, in consequence of some misrepresentations of his conduct which had reached the imperial ear, and which seemed to imply a claim to the exercise of more independent powers than became one who was really a vassal of the empire. On this Augustus wrote him a very sharp letter, to the effect, that although he had hitherto treated him as a friend, he should henceforth deal with him as a subject.” Herod sent an embassy to excuse or justify his conduct; but it was repeatedly refused a hearing, and Herod was obliged to submit to all the injuries inflicted on him. The chief of these were the initiatory steps for the formal reduction of his realm to the condition of a Roman province; for soon after Josephus lets it transpire, that “the whole nation took an oath to Caesar and the king jointly,” the date of which transaction entirely coincides with that of the one before us, and is no doubt really the same, as it is known that the custom of the Roman census required a return of the ages and properties of the persons subject to its operation, to be made upon oath. The reason for registering ages was, that by the Roman law, males in the subject-provinces were liable to a capitation-tax from the age of fourteen years, and girls from the age of twelve; both up to sixty-five years being subject to a capitation-tax, or tribute-money.
The reason that the matter did not at this time proceed any further than the issue of the decree, and the initiatory steps taken therein, was that Herod, having sent to Rome a trusty ambassador, Nicolaus of Damascus (from whose account Josephus confessedly derived his information), the latter contrived to gain the ear of Augustus, and placed the conduct of his master in such a light, as mollified his anger, restored his old regard for Herod, and, as a consequence, must have induced him to recall (or rather to suspend the operation of) the decree which had been intended for his punishment, and which had in fact inflicted a deep humiliation upon him. Ten years after, however, the intention indicated in this decree was carried into full effect by Cyrenius under the circumstances already described.