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of a kingdom, or some new ample province, but to answer for his conduct in his late government. Nor was he sent express; nor was he recalled by the emperor himself: but he was sent away by Vitellius, a fellow-subject, though a superior officer. Josephus says, that Pilate hastened away to Rome.' I have given his words the strongest sense in the translation; but I think, the meaning is no more than that he went away out of Judea. And Josephus intimates very plainly, the reluctance with which Pilate obeyed Vitellius, when he says, that he went, not daring to refuse.' There was, if I mistake not, some law under the commonwealth, which required the governors of provinces to be at Rome in three months time after their term of government was expired; but whether that law was in force now, I cannot say. However, it is plain it was not observed: Piso's conduct is a proof of it. Germanicus died in November, or sooner; as may be inferred from Suetonius, who says, 'that the public sorrow for his death at Rome con'tinued even through the holy days of December:'t meaning, I suppose, the Saturnalia, which were celebrated in the middle of that month. And as Germanicus died in Syria, some time must be allowed for the carrying the news of his death from thence to Rome. Piso was gone from the province of Syria before the death of Germanicus; it is most probable, that he was turned out by Germanicus ;" and yet he was not come to Rome at the time of the Megalensian games of the next year, which were kept on the fifth of April. It is true, the people of Rome were very uneasy at these delays of Piso; because they wanted to have him brought to his trial for the death of Germanicus, whom he was thought to have poisoned; but yet I do not perceive, that when his trial came on, his long absence from Rome is reckoned up amongst his other crimes.

And to add no more, the slowness of Tiberius in all his

Basnage [Ann. Pol. Ec. Vol. i. p. 221.] supposes he died in July. Decimo quinto Julii Germanicum vitam cum morte commutâsse ex Tacito conjecturam facimus. Equester ordo instituit, uti turmæ idibus Juliis imaginem ejus sequerentur. Ann. lib. ii. cap. 83.

Sed ut demum fato functum palam factum est, non solatiis ullis, non edictis ullis inhiberi luctus publicus potuit, duravitque etiam per festos Decembris mensis dies. Suet. in Calig. cap. 6.

"Addunt plerique jussum [Pisonem] provincia decedere. Tacit. Ann. lib. ii. cap. 70. ▾ Et quia ludorum Megalensium spectaculum suberat, etiam voluptates resumerent. Tum exuto justitio, reditum ad munia; et Drusus Illyricos ad exercitus profectus est, erectis omnium animis petendæ a Pisone ultionis; et crebro questu, quod vagus interim per amona Asiæ atque Achaiæ, adroganti et subdolà morâ scelerum probationes subverteret. Tacit. Ann. 1. iii. cap. 6, 7. Id. ibid. cap. 13

proceedings may help us to account for Pilate's delays in going to Rome, though it be supposed that he made a year and a half of it.

Josephus says, that Tiberius was the most dilatory prince that ever lived. His conduct toward Herod Agrippa affords a strong proof of it. A servant of Agrippa waited upon the prefect of Rome, assuring him he had some informations of great consequence to give the emperor relating to his master: the prefect sent him to Tiberius, but he, without making any particular inquiry into the matter, only keeps the man safe in custody. Agrippa lying under the emperor's displeasure, was forced to make interest to have his servant heard and though he then informed the emperor of words spoken by Agrippa, which were little less than treason, and Agrippa was immediately thereupon confined; yet he was never called for again, though Tiberius lived six inonths after. Tacitus has mentioned another instance well nigh, or quite as remarkable. This slow way of thinking and acting was visible in Tiberius in his very youth; and no historian of those times is silent about it. Pilate, who had served Tiberius ten years, could not be ignorant of what all the world knew; he might have many probable reasons to think, that if he did not come in the emperor's way, he should never be called for; if inquiry was made for him, an excuse might be found out that would serve for some time: sickness might be pretended, as a reason for his stay in Asia, Achaia, or some other place where he was got. Perhaps this was really the case. To be put out of his government by Vitellius, upon the complaints of the people of his province, inust have been a very grievous mortification: Eusebius assures us, that not long after this, Pilate made away with himself, out of vexation for his many misfortunes.b

There is another note of time mentioned in St. John's gospel, which ought also to be considered. Chap. ii. 20,

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Μελλητης ει και τις ἑτερων βασιλεων η τυραννων γενομενος. Antiq. lib. xviii. p. 811. v. 3. y Joseph. Ant. lib. xviii. cap. 7. Consultusque Cæsar an sepeliri sineret, (De Asinio Gallo loquitur,) non erubuit permittere, ultroque incusare casus, qui reum abstulissent antequam coram convinceretur. Scilicet medio triennio defuerat tempus subeundi judicium consulari seni tot consularium parenti. Tacit. Ann. lib. vi. cap. 23.

Sæva ac lenta natura ne in puero quidem latuit. Sueton. in Tiber. cap. 57. Sed mitigavit Sejanus, non Galli amore, verum ut cunctationes principis aperirentur; gnarus eum lentum in meditando. Tacit. Ann. lib. iv. cap. 71.

b Ποντιος Πιλατος επι Γαϊς Καισαρος ποικίλαις περιπεσων συμφοραίς, ὡς φασιν οἱ τα Ρωμαίων συγγραψαμενοι, αυτοφόνευτης ἑαυτε εγενετο. Euseb. Chron. p. 78.

"Then said the Jews, forty and six years was this temple in building and wilt thou rear it up in three days?"

I suppose, that the objection to be formed upon this text is to this effect: these words were spoken by the Jews at the first passover of our Saviour's public ministry, and the next after his baptism by John. The temple which the Jews spoke of, was the temple then before their eyes, and which Herod had rebuilt or repaired. But Herod did not make the proposal for rebuilding it till the eighteenth year of his reign, reckoning from the death of Antigonus. Therefore, if the fifteenth of Tiberius's reign, mentioned by St. Luke, be the fifteenth of his proconsular empire, and not of his sole empire after the death of Augustus, this temple could not have been so long as forty-six years in building, at the time these words were spoken.

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To this I might answer, that an objection taken from Josephus's account of the time when Herod repaired the temple can be of little moment; because in one place he says, that Herod repaired the temple in the fifteenth, and in another the eighteenth year of his reign. As the fifteenth year from the death of Antigonus is supposed to be coincident with the eighteenth year from the time in which Herod was declared king of Judea by the senate of Rome; some may be disposed to conclude, that when Josephus says, Herod's proposal to rebuild the temple was made to the Jews in the eighteenth year of his reign, he computes from the time in which Herod was declared king by the Roman senate.

But I do not insist upon this, and am willing to allow, that Herod made the proposal to the Jews of building their temple, in the eighteenth year of his reign from the death of Antigonus.

And I think it is as likely, that the Jews, in these words recorded by St. John, refer to the time of Herod's proposal, as to the time in which he began actually to repair the temple. It is most probable, that Herod made this offer to the Jewish people, when assembled together at one of their great feasts; this therefore would be the most solemn and remarkable epoch of rebuilding the temple, which work undoubtedly he set about as soon afterwards as he could.

And it is very common to say, that men do things, when they propose to do them, or begin to do them. Thus Josephus says in his War of the Jews: In the fifteenth year of his reign he [Herod] repaired the temple itself, and inclosed a spot of ground about it, of double the compass De Bell. lib. i. cap. 21. init. d Ant. lib. xv. cap. 11. init.

with that which surrounded it before: this was done at a ' vast expence, and is a proof of his uncommon magnifi6 cence.'e We will allow, that the fifteenth year in this place ought to be corrected by his Antiquities, where he says, that in the eighteenth year of his reign Herod pro'jected [or undertook] the rebuilding of the temple, which was the greatest of all his works." But then it appears from bence, that Herod is said by Josephus in one place to do, what in another he is only said at the same time to purpose or begin.

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Supposing that the Jews, in this text of St. John, refer to the time in which Herod made the proposal of rebuilding the temple, we will see how this term of forty-six years will agree with the supposition, that St. Luke's fifteenth year of Tiberius is the fifteenth of his proconsular empire.

- If the fifteenth of Tiberius's proconsular empire began the 28th of August, A. U. 778, A. D. 25, (according to Dr. Pagi's opinion,) and if John the Baptist began to preach in November that year, but did not baptize Jesus till after he had preached a year and some months, then the passover at which these words were spoken was the passover A. U. 780, A. D. 27.

Or if the fifteenth of Tiberius's reign began A. U. 779, A. D. 26, and John began then to preach, and Jesus was baptized by him some time before the passover next following, still these words would be spoke by the Jews at the passover A. U. 780, A. D. 27.

The eighteenth year of Herod's reign, from the death of Antigonus, is supposed to have begun some time in A. U. 734. Herod might make his offer to the Jews of rebuilding the temple at the feast of tabernacles in November that year; from November A. U. 734, to the passover, A. U. 780, A. D. 27, is almost forty-five years and a half: at this time therefore the Jews might not improperly say, the temple had been forty-six years in building. The forty-sixth year was then current, and it was to the purpose of the Jews, rather to add to than to diminish the time which had been spent in that work: so that there is no time more suitable to these words of the Jews than the passover A. D. 27, though there is no manner of inconsistence between under

• Πεντεκαιδεκατῳ γεν έτει της βασιλείας, αυτόν τε τον ναον επεσκευασε, και την περί αυτόν ανετειχισατο χώραν, της εσης διπλασιαν, αμέτροις μεν χρησαμενος τοις αναλώμασιν, ανυπερβλητῳ δε τη πολυτελειᾳ. De Bell. lib. i. cap. 21. init. f Τότε γεν οκτωκαιδέκατο της Ηρωδε βασιλειας εργον & το τυχον επεβάλετο, τον νεων το Θεό δι' αυτό Ant. lib. xv. cap. 11. init.

γεγονότος ενιαυτ8, κατασκευασασθαι.

standing the fifteenth of Tiberius, of his proconsular empire, and supposing that these words were spoken at the passover A. D. 28, and then the temple might have been above forty-six years in building.

What has been here said, may be sufficient to show, that St. Luke might compute the reign of Tiberius from the epoch of his proconsular empire; that if he did, Jesus might be said, with great exactness and propriety, to be about thirty years of age at his baptism; and that there is nothing in this supposition, inconsistent with any other notes of time mentioned in the gospels.

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IV. Another way of solving this difficulty is this. These words of St. Luke, " And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age," may be understood with some latitude. Jesus might be thirty two years of age or more at this time; the word about, woel, is often used where a precise exactness is not intended or expected, Matt. xiv. 21,TM“ And they that had eaten were about five thousand, ωσει πεντακισα Xilio, beside women and children." And the other evangelists, in speaking of this miracle, use the same phrase, Mark vi. 44; Luke ix. 14; John vi. 10; St. Luke says, Acts ii. 41, "And the same day there were added unto them about [we] three thousand souls." And with a like latitude does this phrase seem to be used in many places, as Luke i. 56; xxii. 41; xxiii. 44; John i. 39; Acts v. 36.

It is Kepler's opinion, that round and decimal numbers may be used with great latitude; and that a person may be very truly said to be about thirty years of age, if he be above five and twenty, and under thirty-five; but that, if a person be said to be about eight and twenty, or about two and thirty years of age, it is to be supposed, he is exactly so old, or not above a month or two more or less.h

And indeed many examples of this use of round num

6 Ex nostrâ quidem Chronologiâ, sequitur Christum jam annum xxxii, evasisse cum ad baptismum accessit. Nil tamen in eâ vel absurdi, vel pugnæ aliquid cum Lucâ intelligimus, cum de viro annos duos et triginta nato, cujus ætas dubitanter profertur, non incongrue dici possit, est annorum circiter triginta. Iterum iterumque monemus, ex phrasi Lucæ, Josephi de supremo Herodis anno chronologià damnari nequit. Basnage, Ann. Pol. Ec. Ante Dom. 3. n. vi. vid. etiam ad A. D. 30. num. iv.

Hic receptus mos est linguis omnibus ut circiter 5000 dicamus quicquid est inter 4500 et 5500. Quare sic etiam in nostro exemplo quicquid est inter 25 et 35, id omne circiter 30 dici potest. Alia esset voculæ ratio, si præfixisset numero non rotundo. Ut si dixisset circiter 28 annos, vel circiter 32 annos. Quæ enim infra decem nominatim exprimuntur, iis apposita vocula circiter raro unum annum solidum in dubio ponat, sed fere menses tantum aut dies aliquot numero paucos et infra quantitatem anni solidi. Keplerus de Anno C. Natali. cap. 12. p. 140, 141.