CHRONOLOGY
reigned 17years. In this way the sum of the years of
reign in the lines of Israel and Judah, according to the
synchronisms, would be increased in each case by two
years-for Jehoahaz would have reigned, according to
the synchronism, 16 years instead of 14, and Jehoash
39 instead of 37-while the traditional numbers would
undergo no alteration. Even without this slight enien-
dation-adopted in the Aldinc edition of the LXX, and
demanded by Thenius, Klosterniann, and Kamphausen
-it is apparent that it is the sum of the Judean years
of reign that forms the basis on which the synchronistic
numbers are calculated. In this process, however,
though the individual sums have not been disregarded,
it has been impossible, especially in the case of the
kings of N. Israel, to avoid important variations.
Care however has been taken not to alter the synchronism of
e v e n h i I t is \;orthy of note that the following reqnirements
are satisfied :-Jerohoam’s reign runs parallel with those of
Rehohoam and Ahijah ( I K. 14 30 15 7) ’ Raasha is king during
khe reign of Asa ( I K. 15 16); Jehoihaphat survives Ahah
and Ahaziah and reigns contem oraneonsly with Jehoram
of Israel (I K’22 2 8 50 ; 2 K.3 7 x 5 ; the deaths of Jehoram of
Israel and Ahaziah of Judah fall in the same year (2 K. 9).
Amaziah and Jehoash of Israel reign contemporaneously ( z K.’
148fi) : and Pek;th is a contemporary of Jotham and Ahaz ( z K.
1537 18 5 3 ) .
Although the synchronistic dates have thus not been
attained without regard to tradition, they are obviously,
as belonging to the youngest parts of the text, not a
standard for chronology. They apply to the past a
method of dating with which it was quite unacquainted.
This is true not only of the practice, which could never
be carried out in actual life, of connecting the years of
one kingdom with reigns of kings in a neighbouring
kingdom, but also of the methodical practice, pre-
supposed in such a custom, of indicating in an exact
and regular way the years within one and the same
kingdom, by the years of reign of its king for the time
being. In such texts as we can, with any confidence,
assign to pre-exilic times, we find nothing but popular
chronologies associating an event with
8. First
attempts at some other important event contem-
chronology. porary with it (cp Is. 6 I 1 4 ~ 820~I).
The few dates according to years of
kings given in the.older history (as, e.g., I I<. 1425 ; z K.
127) may be ignored. They are too isolated, and must
rest (eg., in the writings and portions which treat of the
latest pre-exilic times) on subsequent calculation, or be
due to interpolation (cp also the dates introduced by
the Chronicler in deference to the desire felt at a later
date for exacter definition of time, of which the Books
of Kings still knew nothing : z Ch. 1323 151o-rg, and
especially 16 1)-though it is perhaps possible that,
even without there being a settled system, some pro-
minent events might, occasionally and without set
purpose, be defined by years of reign. In any case,
dating by native kings must be regarded as at least
older than the artificial synchronism between Judah and
Israel.
Dating by the years of kings was thus never sys-
tematicallv used bv the Hebrews so lonr as thev had
9.Babylinian n&tional kings. The; learnei this
useful method from the Babylonians,
method. and then introduced it
~ ~.
~~~~ into their _his-
~~~ ~~~~~ ~ ~ _ kings of Israel down to Jehoram, we find an arerage reign of 12
~~~~~~
torical works compiled during the exile (cp Wi. A T
Unterszlch., especially pp. 87-94). Thus the question
how the Hebrews dealt with the year of a king’s death
-Le., whether they reckoned the fraction of a year that
remained before the beginning of the next year to the
deceased king, or made the first year of the new king
begin at once-disappears. There can be no doubt
that the synchronisms, as well as the dates and years
of reign in general, presuppose the Babylonian method
(the only satisfactory one), according to which the rest
of the year in which any king died was reckoned to the
1 \lie need take no account of the indeoendent narratives of
C HRONICLES (q.71. 8 5); they do not agree even with the
traditional years oireign.
2 Whether the account is correct need not here be considered.
781
CHRONOLOGY
last of his reign, and the first year of the new king was
the year at the beginning of which he already wore
the crown,
By giving up the synchronisms we are thrown back
for the chronology of the monarchy on the sums of the
years years of reign of the individual kings.
The hope of finding in these numbers
Of reign‘
trustworthy material for chronology, and
thus solving the singular equation -hereby about 242
Israelitish years represent 2150 Judean years, could he
realised only on one condition. One might simply sub-
tract the 242 Israelitish years from the total for Judah, and
regard the exce.ss of 18 ycars as falling after the conquest
of Samaria. Nor is there anything in the synchronism
to prevent this operation, for that may have started from
an incorrect calculation in putting the fall of Hoshea as
late as the reign of Hezeltiah. A clear veto, however, is
laid on this procedure on other grounds. If we subtract
the superfluous 18 years ( 6 years of Hezekiah and the
last 12 of Ahaz) from the total for Judah, all that is left of
Ahaz’s reign parallel with the Israelitish years of reign
is the first 4 years. Therefore Pekah, who was murdered
nine years before the fall of Samaria ( 2 K. 176), must, at
the accession of Ahaz, have been already five years dead,
which is impossible, since, according to 2 IC 1 6 5 8 , this
king was attacked by him. The expedient of simple
subtraction, therefore, fails ; the embarrassing equation
remains, about 242 Israelitish years = 260 Judean : nay,
since no objection can be raised against the contem-
poraneousness of the deaths of Jehoram of Israel and
Ahaziah of Judah, 144 Israelitish years= 165 Judean.
If the totals are thus unequal, very great inequalities
appear, naturally, in the details. Efforts have been
made to remove them ; but this has not been achieved
in any convincing way.
z I<. 15 5 a g . states that during the attack of leprosy from
yhich his h h i r Azariah suffered in the last years of his life,
Jotham was over the palace and judged the people of the land.’
Even were we to found 011 this statement the theory that the
years of reign of father and son that ran parallel t o each other
were counted twice over in the nunihers 5 2 and 16 assigned to
their respective reigns, and also to suppose that during all
these 16 years the father was still alive, there would still remain
744 Israelitish years=149 Judean.
Mistaken attempts of this kind are, moreover, the less
to be taken into consideration that, as will appear ( § 356),
even the lowest total of 144 years for the interval from
Jehu to the fall of Samaria is more than 20 years too high.
From all this it results that the individual numbers of
years of reign, as well as the totals, are untrustworthyand
useless for the purposes of a certain chronology, even if
it be admitted thnt, within certain limits or in some
points, they may agree with actual fact.
The untrustworthiness of the numbers
11’ Basis Of becomes plainer when the principle ac-
cording to which they are formed is
clearly exhibited.
In 1887 E. ICrey (see below 5 85) argued that at least in the
case of the Israelitish kings ’the several sums &signed to the
respective. reigns rest in g e k r a l on an artificial fiction. H e
then thought that the series of kings of Jndah and indeed those
also of the house of Jehu, ‘show no such artifr‘ciality’ ’ hut (acc.
to Bleek-We. EbL(4) 265) he soon observed a playing with
figures also in the items for Judah. To begin with the
years. I n the case of Omri and Jehoram this is the exact
nnmher, whilst for Jerohoam, Uaasha, and Ahab we ‘have 22 1
(i.e. in round numbers z X r z ) , and for the rest-Nadab, Elah
and’ Ahaziah (the immediate successors of the kings provided
with the douhle period)--2 years each. This is as if we had 8
kings with 12 years each, making a total of 96-more exactly 98
years. Moreover, the totals for the first and the last four of
these are each almost exactly 48. In the next part of the series
as We. emphasises we have for the g kings from Jehu to Hoshe;
a total of 144 ye&, which makes an average of 16 for each.
One might also urge the remarkable fact that, even as Jehu
with his z8 years reigned ahout as long as his two successors
so the 41 years of Jerohoam 11. also exactly equal the sun;
of the reigns of his successors. In the Judean line, on the
other hand a similar role is played by the figures 40 and 80.
Thus dow; to the destruction of Samaria in the 6th year of
Hezekiah, we have Rehohoam+Ahijah 20, Asa 41,Jehoshaphat
1 Strictly, Baasha has exactly 24 assigned him.
782
 CHRONOLOGY
+Jehoram + Ahaziah + Athaliah
Arariah 81 Jotham+Ahaz+Hezekiah
40, Jehoash 40, Amaziah +
38 years ; and from thls
point onwdrds till the last date the 37th year of Jehoiachin, we
have Hezekiah+Menasseh+A&on 80, and also Josiahj-Joahaz
+Jehoiakim+ Jehoiachin 7 9 i years: If we might stlll, wlth
Kamphausen, be inclined to find in all this only a freak of
chance, our suspicion would be raised on comparing the total
for the kings ut Israel (circ. 240) with the number in I K. 6 I
(480), and still more on observing that 480 is also the total of
years from the building of the temple of Solomon to the begin-
ning of a new epoch-the epoch that opens with the conquest of
Babylon hy Cyrus and the coniequentpossibility of founding the
second Theocracy and setting about the building of the second
temple. (The 36-7 years of Solomon from t h e building of the
temple +260 years, to the fall of Sainaria +r33: years, t o the fall
of Jerusalem +5o years 0: the Exile, give exactly qto years )
There ran hardly, then, be any mistake about the
artificiality of the total as well as of the various
items. If so, the origin of the present numbers for the
years of reign of the individual kings, on which the
synchronistic notices are founded, must fall in a
period later than the victory of Cyrus over Babylon,
and chronology cannot trust to the correctness of the
numbers.
For all that, it may be conjectured the numbers in
individual instances are correct; but which are such
12. Result. cases, can be known only in some way
independent of the numbers. Sometimes,
indeed, the narrative of Kings or a prophetic writing
can decide the point ; but without help from outside we
could not go far. I n itself it cannot be more than
probable that the last kings of Judah appear with the
correct numbers. These numbers give Hezekiah zg
( z K. 181 z ) , Manasseh 55 (211), Amon z (2119).Josiah
31 (221), Jehoahaz (2321)~Jehoiakim 11 (2336),
Jehoiachin & (248), and Zedekiah 11 years (2418); thus,
1399 years in all, embodying an estimate of 133 years
from the fall of Saniaria to the conquest of Jerusalem.
Thus, the earliest that the dates according to years of
kings can lay claim to consideration is in Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. Here grave mistakes in retrospective calcula-
tion (for even they rest on that) seem to be excluded by
the nearness of the time. Naturally no account can be
taken of the statements of the Book of Daniel, which
did not originate till the second century B.C. ; it knows
the history of the fall of the kingdom of Judah and of
the exilic period only from tradition, and cannot be
acquitted of grave mistakes (see D ANIEL, ii. J 9f.).
For the last period, reaching from the fall of Jerusalem
to the beginning of the Christian era, we have in the
Hebrew OT itself but few historical re-
13. From cords. Beyond the introduction of the law
JGl& in the restored community the historical
onwards, narrative does not conduct us. For the
short interval preceding it we are referred
to the statements in the prophets Haggai and Zechariah
and in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These, how-
ever, show that the Jews had learned in the interval
how to date exactly by years of reign. The writings
mentioned give dates by years of the Persian kings.
All difficulties in the way of a chronology of this period,
however, are not thus removed. The names Darius and
Artaxerxes leave us to choose between the several bearers
of these names among the Fersian kings. Hence both
the first and the second of the three Dariuses have been
regarded as the DariHwesh mentioned in the OT, and
even all three Artaxerxes have been brought into con-
nection with the ArtahSasta of Ezr. -Neh. Then, again,
the transpositions and actual additions that the Chronicler
allows himself to make increase the difficulty of knowing
the real order of events. I n the case of Darius,
indeed, only the first can, after all (in spite of Havet and
Imbert), be seriously considered.
The chief interest, accordingly, lies in deciding as to
the date in Ezra77f: which sets the return of Ezra in
14. Advent the seventh year of ArtahSasta. It is
to be noted that this passage ( 7 1-10) has
of Ezra. been revised by the Chronicler (see EZRA
A N D N EHEMIAH, Books of), and in both verses the
783
CHRONOLOGY '
iate is open, from its position' or lick of coniiection, to
he suspicion of not being original. Kosters accordingly,
eaving this datum wholly out of account, Ir,aintained
HersteZ, '94) that Ezra made his first appearance in
lerusalem with the Gola (see ISRAEL, J 57) immediately
Lfter Nehemiah's second arrival there, while Artaxerxes
1. was still on the throne, and introduced the law tsen.
Jan Hoonacker, on the other hand, accepted the datum
)f Ezra77f:, but believed that it had reference to
Qtaxerxes II., and accordingly set down the date of
Ezra's arrival as in the seventh year of that king
397 B . c . ) . [Marquart ('Die Organisation der jiid.
sememde nach dem sogenannten Exil,' Fundamente
Csv. u. jiid. Gesch., ' 9 6 ) l thinks that the careers of
Nehemiah and Ezra can fall only a few decades earlier
.han the reported de?ortation of Jews to Hyrcania
mder Artaxerxes III., Ochns. Nehemiah's Artaxerxes
,vas, he thinks, Artaxerxes II., Mnemon. He finds no
.race of Ezra's presence in Jerusalem during the
welve-years' governorship of Nehemiah ; the reference
to Ezra in Neh. 1236 is an addition of the Chronicler.
Nehemiah, too, is nowhere mentioned in Ezra (Neh.
59 102 are interpolated). Internal evidence alone can
ietermine the date of Ezra. Neh. 13 is connected
naturally with Ezra 9 1-1044. Ezra's arrival then
rollows in the time after Nehemiah's return to Susa;
the text of Ezra 7 7 (which belongs to the redactor) has
;uffered in transmission ; 368 or 365 was the original
iate reported. Nehemiah's second arrival, at any rate,
Fell after the promulgation of the Law (Neh.131);
Marquart proposes to read in Neh. 136 ' a t the end of
his days' (iw),implying a date between 367 (364) and
359. Cheyne, in a work almost devoid of notes, but
called 'the provisional summing up of . special re-
searches,' differs in some respects in his chronological
view of the events alike from the scholars just referred
to, and from Ed. &?eyer,who is about to be mentioned.
(See his 3ewish ReLifious Lzye after the ExiZee, '98,
translated, after revision by the author, by H. Stocks
under the title D a s religiose Leben der Judex nnch denz
ExiZ, '99). Like Marquart he doubts the correctness
of the text of Neh. 514 ; but he is confident that the
Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is Artaxerxes I., and
that Nehemiah's return to Susa precedes the arrival
of Ezra with the Gola. The incapacity of Nehemiah's
successor (the Tirshatha?) probably stimulated Ezra to
seek a firman from the king, though the terms of the
supposed firman in Ezra7 cannot be relied upon.
Ezra seems to have failed at the outset of his career,
and it was the news of this failure, according to
Cheyne, that drew Nehemiah a second time from Susa.
Klostermann's treatment of the chronology in Herzog
cannot be here summarised.-ED.]
Ed. Meyer's thorough discussion (Entst. '96), how-
ever, has convinced the present writer that we are not
entitled to call in question the arrival of Ezra before
Nehemiah, and consequently that the datum of Ezra
7 7 3 may be right after all. If so, Ezra returned to
Jerusalem with the Gola in 458 B. c . , having it for his
object to introduce the law there. I n this, however, he
did not succeed. I t was not until after Nehemiah had
arrived in Jerusalem in 445 B.C. clothed with ample
powers, and had in the same year restored the city walls
with his characteristic prudence and energy, that Ezra
was at last able to come forward and introduce the law
under Nehemiah's protection (445 B.c.). From this
date onwards till 433 B.C. (cp Neh. 136) Nehemiah
continued in Jerusalem. Shortly after 433 B.C.-
perhaps in 431 ~ . c . - h e obtained a second furlough.
How long this lasted we do not know ; but its import-
ance is clear from Neh. 134-31.
The O T offers no further chronological
16' Later material for determining the dates of the
times' last centuries before Christ.
1 But the essay was 'completed zgth August 1895' (p. 28).
784
 CHRONOLOGY
The apocalypse of Daniel cannot he held to bridge over the
gap between Ezra and the time of the Maccabees with any
certainty, for it is the peculiarity of these apocalypses to point
to past events only’in a veiled way and it is in fact only what
we know otherwise of the compiications detween’ Syria and
Egypt and of the doings of Antiochus Epiphanes that makes
an unherstanding and an estimate of the descripkons in the
Book of Daniel possible. Besides, its intimation (9 2 4 8 ) that
from the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar (586) to
the death of Antiochus Epiphanes (164), we are to reckon a
period of 70 year-weeks-4go years-shows how inaccurate
the chronological knowledge of the writer was, and how much
need we have to look around for other help.
Astronomy would furnish the surest means for deter-
mining the exact year and day of events, if the OT con-
16. Supposed rnirietl iiidubirable :iccouiits of solor or
Astronomical luuar cclipscs. Unhappily, howcver,
such accounts are 1;tcl;ing. Onc might
UitUiC.
be tempted to go so f& as to suppose
a solar eclipse to explain the sign on the-sun-
dial of Ahaz given to Hezekiah by Isaiah (Is. 3 S 8 ) ;
-perhaps- also the ‘standing still of the sun at Gibeon’
~
CHRONOLOGY
is to he made for this eclipse Mahler reckons as’ 430 years
before the Exodus, since Rabbinic tradition thus explains the
number 430 assigned in Ex. 1240 to the stay in Egypt, whilst on
the other hand it makes the 400 years assigned in Gen. 1513
to the bondage begin with the birth of Isaac. The desired
eclipse Mahler finds on 8th Oct. 1764 B.C. about 430 years
before the Exodus (1335 B.C . see above). Even more artificial
if possible is the Rahhinic’dxegesis of Gen. 28 TI and 3232 01;
which Maker relies for the determination of the beginning and
the end of the twenty-years’ stay of Jacob in Haran. The
solar eclipse indicated according.to him in Gen. 28 11 (‘because
the sun was set ’) must have been, he argues, in the evening, and
would thus be the eclipse that occurred on the 17th Feh. 1601
B .c., whilst Gen.3232 (‘and the sun rose upon him’) must
indicate a morning eclipse, which occurred on 30th May 1581
B.C. If we add that for the victory of Joshua a t Gibeon (Josh.
10 12-14) he has found a solar eclipse calculated to have occurred
on 3rst Jan. 1296 B.c., we have for the earliest period the following
items :-
MAHLER’SSUPPOSED EARLY DATES.
Abraham’s BErith hen hab-bgthirim (Gen. 15 5 6)1764 B.C.
Jacob‘s journey to Haran (Gen. 28 IT) .
. 1601 ,,
Jacob‘s return home (Gen. 32 31 [32]). . . .1581 ,,
Exodus (Ex. 1021) . . . 27th March 1335 ,,

Rationalistic as this
17.. lahler,s (Josh. 1012-14).
system. may seem, Ed. Mahler (see 38 for
title of work) has not been content to
stop here, but has discovered many solar eclipses in-
timated in the OT : he even finds them in every pro-
phetic passage that speaks of a darkening of the sun. In
this way he has been able to determine astronomically
a whole series of events. Before we can accept these
results, however, we must examine more carefully the
foundation on which they are reared.
For example, Mahler assigns the Exodus to the 27th March
1335 B.C. which was a Thursday, because fourteen days before
that day there occurred a central solar eclipse. This calculation
rests on Talmudic d a t a l that assign the darkness mentioned in
Ex. 1021 to the 1st of Nisan, and explain that that day, and
therefore also the 15th of Nisan was a Thursday. In Ex. 10 2 2
indeed we read of a darkness df three days ; hut Mahler argue:
that tl;is note of duration really belongs not to II. 22 hut to I/. 23,
and is meant simply to explain how ‘intense and terrifying was
the impression which the darkness produced on the inhabitants
of Egypt’-‘so that no one dared for three days to leave his
house. I t is just as arbitrary to assume in Gen. 15 5 8 an eclipse
enabling Abraham to count the stars before sunset, and then to
use the eclipse for fixing the date of the covenant then con-
cluded (BZrith hen hah-hZthirim). The time a t which search
Joshua’s victory a t Giheon (Josh. 10 12-14) . .1296 ,,
The attempt to do justice to Is. 38 8 by the assumption of a
solar eclipse is at least more interesting. According to this
theory all the requirements of the narrative would be met if a
solar lclipse had occurred ten hours before sunset, since in that
case the index could have traversed over again the ten degrees
which owing to the eclipse, it had ‘gone down,’ and thedial would
have :gain made its usual indication. Such an eclipse has, more-
over, been found for 17th June 679 B.c., whence since the sign in
question belongs to Hezekiah’s fourteenth ye;;, his reign must
have covered the years 693-664 B.C.
The further calculations which fix a whole series of dates on
the ground of misunderstood passages are likewise quite unsatis-
factory. Thus, Amos is made (8gJ) to announce to Jerohoam
11. the solar eclipse of 5th May 770 B.C. ; Is. 163 and Micah36
are made to refer to that of the 11th Jan. 68 B c. in the time of
Hezekiah ; and Joel who is represented as ?iv;ng in the time of
tb
Manasseh, is made indicate no fewer than three solar eclipses
(z1st Tan. 662. 27th Tune 661. and rxth A n d 6<7 B .c.: CD Toe1
2 I O 3‘1 4 4 15): it ib further ’nrged <hat w’e sh&d refer’E>ek.
30 18 and 328 to the solar eclipses of 19th May 557 and 1st Nov.
556 ; Nah. 1 8 to that of 16th March 581 ;1 Jer. 4 23 28 to that on
21st Sept. 582 (in the time of Josiah); and Is. 8 2 2 to that on 5th
March 702 B.C. (in the time of Ahaz); and, finally, that even the
fight against Sisera can. accordins - to T- u. 5 20. be with certaintv
fixed f& 9th Aug. 1091 B.c.
Bv combinine these ‘results’ with the nukbeks of the O T
MaAler believes himself justified in p r o d u c w t h e following
chronological table for the time of the Monarchy :-

TABLE II.-MAHLER’S REMARKABLE CHRONOLOGY : DIVIDED MONARCHY.

K IN GS OF TUDAH. KINGSOF ISRAEL.
945-928 Rehoboam . .-
..
928-925 Ahijam (=Abijah)
17 years 945-924 Jerohoam. . . . .
925-884Asa . . ,
3
41
I,
924-922 Nadab . . . .. ..
.. . ...
91
922-8ggBaasha . .
899-898 E l a h .
Zimri .
I .. ..
g 8 g 2 Omri and Tihni
892-887 } . . .
883-858 Jehoshaphat . , ,, 887-866Ahab . . . . .
.. ......
25
866-864 Ahaziah . . . . .
860(&)-852 Joram
Ahaziah .. 8 1)
year
864-852 Jehorani . . . . .
852
852-845Athaliah
.. . . I
7 years 852-824 J e h u . . . . . .
.. ..
845-805 Joash 40 3, 824-807Jehoahaa . . . . .
805-777 Amaziah 807-792 Joash . . . . .
777-725 Uzziah . . . 29 1 ,
52 I , 792-751 Jerohoam 11 . . .
....
.
739 .
Zechariah 6 months, Shallinn
7z7-726 Pekahiah. . .. .. ...
738-728 Menahem hen Gadi
.
.. .. ..
725-709 Jotham 16 726-706 Pekah hen Remaliah
709-693 Ahaz. 16 ,, ....
693-664 Hezekiah .. .. .. 29 >t 697-688 HosheabenElah . . .
664-610 Manasseh 55
610-609Amon . . . ,I

609-579.rosiah
. ... .
579 Joah?
.. .
.
.
..
2
31 1 9
I,

3 months
579-568 Jehoiakim . 11 years
Jehoiachin
$-557’Zedekiah . .. .. 3 months
X I years

It is only a pity that the imposing edifice thus erected
in the name of astronomical science rests on a founda-
tion so unstable-an artificial phantom, dependent on a
Rabbinical exegesis, itself a mere creation of fancy.
The OT itself having thus failed to give sufficient
1 B. Talm. Shaddath, 876, etc. ; see Mahler, BidL Chron.
4 8
78.5
1 Mahler finds here a reference to the fall of Nineveh. H e
argues that the battle against the Lydians in which the day
became night (cp Herod. 1103),-a battle which preceded the
fall of Nineveh-fell not on 30th Sept. 610 B.C. but on 28th May
585 B.C. Again thk solar eclipse with the announcement of
which Zephaniai (115) connects an allusion to the expedition
undertaken by Phraortes against Nineveh a t least twenty-five
years before its final fall is (acc. to Mahler) one that happened
on 30th July 607.
786
 CHRONOLOGY
foreign nations, which so often come
Egyptian contact with Israel, can help us. In
chronolOgy' so doing we must consider in the first
place the Egyptians. It is to Egypt that the narrative
of the origin of the people of Israel points; thither
escaped the remnant of the community of Gedaliah ;
and in the interval between these times, as also later,
the fortunes of Palestine were often intertwined with
those of Egypt.
The Egyptians themselves possessed no continuous
era : for the quite unique mention, on a stele from Tanis,
'"*' of the 400th year of the king Nubti (accord-
ing to Steindorff probably none other than
fixed era* the god Set of Tanis), is too obscure and
uncertain, and would not help us at all even were it
more intelligible. Nor yet does the Sothis-period help
us much. This was a period of 1461 years, at each
recurrence of which the first days of the solar year and
of the ordinary year of 365 days once again coincided
for four years, or, what amounts to the same thing, the
Dog-star, from whose rising the solar year was reckoned,
again appeared on the 1st of Thoth. The period was
never used for chronological purposes.1 Nor have the
monuments fulfilled the expectation, not unreasonable in
itself, that by the help of inscriptions giving dates accord-
ing to two methods it would be possible, by calculation,
to reach a more exact chronology for Egyptian history.
The most learned Egyptologists, indeed, can themselves
determine Egyptian chronology only through combina-
tion with data from outside sources. The conquest of
Egypt by Cambyses in the year 525 B.C. furnishes
their cardinal point. From this event, the years of
20. Period reign of the kings of the 26th dynasty
may be fixed with certainty by the help
Of certainty* of the data supplied by the monuments,
Herodotus, and Manetho. What lies before Psamtik I.,
the first pharaoh of this dynasty, however, is in the
judgment of Egyptologists more or less uncertain, and
therefore for other chronological determinations the
records of that earlier time are either not to be used ai
all or to be used with the greatest caution.
Still, even this short period, from 6 6 6 3 (the accessior
of Psamtik I. ) to 525 B.c., is a help to us by supplying
points of reference. Through synchronisms of Egyptiar
and Judean history several events of the time are to 2
certain extent fixed. Thus Necho 11. (middle of 61c
B.C. to beginning of 594 B .c.) is admitted to be the
king who fought the battle at Megiddo that cost Josid
his life. So mention is made in the O T of Hophr;
(Apries), who reigned 588-569 B.c., and was even dowr
to 564 nominally joint ruler with Amasis (see EGYPT, !
69). Thus we get fixed points for the contemporarie:
of Necho 11.-Josiah, Jehoahaz, and Jehoiakim ;-an<
for the contemporaries of Hophra-Jeremiah, and thl
Jews in Egypt (Jer. 443o)-although neither for th'
battle of Megiddo nor for that of Carchemish can th'
year be determined from Egyptian data. On the othe
hand, these Egyptian data are sufficient to prove tha
the astronomical edifice of Mahler is quite impossible.
For the time before Psamtik I. the rulers of th
21. 25th 2jth dynasty may be fixed approximately
Tanutamon ruled alone only a short time
Dynasty* and therefore may fall out of account. T h
data for his three predecessors do not agree (cp EGYPT
§ 66f.l
Tahurku reigned according to the monuments, 26 years ; ai
cording to M&&ho 18 (var. 20).
&zbuafako'sreign, according to the monuments, was uncertain
according to Manetho it was 14 (var. 12).
1 The confirmation that Mahler (of. cit p. 56 fl.) seeks fc
1335 R.C. ai the date of the Exodus in the syattement that undc
Menephthah whom he holds to be the pharaoh of the Exodus
was celebra&d the beginning of a Sothic period, which ma
have happened in the year 1318 B.c., is certainly weak, sinc
the pharaoh who according to Ex. 14 was drowned could nt
have reigned after that for 17 years. See EXODUS.
787
CHRONOLOGY
cording to Manetho, 8 (var. 12).
ourteen) and take, as our basis for the rest, the nunibers
. the monuments, we get the following :-Tnhar+a,
90-664 B.C., Sadatako, 704.690 B.C., and Sadako,
16-704 B.C. Still, according to the view of Steindorff,
) whom we are indebted for these data, Taharka may
Lve reigned even longer than twenty-six years, perhaps
long with Sabatalco. Since, however, Ed. Meyer
ives sabako 728-716, Sabatako circ. 704, and makes
'aharka as early as 704 real master, although not till
89 official ruler, of Egypt (cp Gesch. ,4eg. 343 &),
11 sure support is already gone. Besides, although
ccording to Meyer (op. cit. 344) the identity of Sabako
pith the Assyrian Sab'i and the Hebrew NjD ( S o ' , or,
lore correctly, Save' or Seweh) in z I<. 17 4 is indubit-
ble, Steindorff has grave doubts as to the phonetic
quivalence of these names, and finds no Egyptian
atum for the battle of Altaku. It is, therefore, very
,ifficult to get from Egyptian chronology any certain
,ght on two O T statements relating to Egypt-viz.,
hat Seunacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah when he
ieard of the expedition of Taharka ( 2K. 1 9 9 ; Is. 379),
.nd that Hoshea of Israel had dealings with NiD of
Cgypt, and was therefore bound and put into prison by
ihalmaneser ( 2K. 174).
For the chronology of the O T in still earlier times,
here is. unfortnnatelv.
* . nothing at all to be pained from
kcording to- I K. 17 40
22. E&lier Egyptology.
1425 (cp 2Ch. 122), Shishak (Sheshonl!)
times' was a contemuorarv of Solomon. and in
I >
he fifth year of Rehoboam went up against Jerusalem.
n spite, however, of the Egyptian nionument at Karnalc
)caring the list of cities conquered by him, his date
:annot be determined on Egyptological grounds (on
liblical grounds it is usually given as about 930 B.C. ).
\s to 'Zerah the Cushite' (2Ch. 1 4 9 & ) , we need not
:xpect to find any mention of him in Egyptian sources
Z ERAH).
The clay tablets found at TeZZeZAmama (see ISRAEL,
i 6 ) , indeed, make some important contributions to
)ur knowledge of the relations of Palestine to Egypt ;
mt for the chronology they afford nothing certain.
We must get help from the chronology of Babylonia
2efore we can, even approximately, determine the date
2f the correspondence. Then it seems probable that
&men-botep 111. and Amen-hotep IV. reigned in Egypt
?ither about 1450 B.C. or about 1380 B.c., at which
time, therefore, Palestine must have stood under the
jceptre of Egypt : the contemporaries of Amen-hotep
111.-BurnaburiaS I. and Kurigalzu I. of Babylon-axe
assigned by Winckler to 1493-1476 and 1475-1457 B.C.
respectively, and the contemporary of Amen-hotep IV.
-BurnaburiaS 11.-to 1456-1422, whilst R. W. Rogers,
on the other hand (Outlines of the History of Ear@
BabyZonia, 1895,p. 56), gives 1397-1373 as the probable
date of BurnaburiaS II., and C. Niebuhr ( ChronoZ. der
Gesch. Is?'., Aeg., Bad. 21. Ass. von 2000-700 B.C.
untersucht, 1896) accepts only one BurnaburiaS and
places him and his contemporary Amen-hotep IV. in
the beginning of the fourteenth century B.C. As in
these tablet inscriptions the name of the Hebrews has
not so far been certainly discovered, so, in the Egyptian
monuments generally, we cannot find any reminiscence
of a stay of Israel in Egypt or of their departure.l
Theories about the pharaoh of the oppression and the
pharaoh of the Exodus remain, therefore, in the highest
degree uncertain. Neither Joseph nor Moses is to be
found in Egyptian sources : supposed points of contact
(a seven-years famine, and the narrative of Manstho
about Osarsiph-Moses in Josephus, c. Ap. 12728 ; on
this cp Ed. Meyer, Gesch. Aeg. 276f.) have proved, on
1 On the inscription of Menephthah discovered in 1896, see
EGYPT, $ 5 8 3 , and EXODUS, §§ I , 3.
788
 CHRONOLOGY ’
nearer examination, untenab1e.l Apart, therefore, from
the dates of the rulers of the twenty-fifth and the twenty-
sixth dynasties, there is very little to be gained for O T
chronology from Egyptology. On Egyptian Chronology
see also EGYPT, 5 41.
Assyriology offers much more extensive help. It is
much better supplied with chronological material, since
~~
23. Help from it possesses, for a series of 228 years,
Assyriology. inscriptions containing careful Zin’s of.
Eponyms, lists, that is, giving the name
of the officer after whom the year was called, and
mentioning single important events falling within the
year. These brief notes alone are quite enough to give
the lists an extraordinary importance. Their value is
further increased, however, by the fact that the office of
Eponym had to be held in one of his first years,
commonly the second full year of his reign, by each
king. Hence the order of succession of the Assyrian
kings and the length of their ’reign can be determined
with ease, especially as names of kings are distinguished
from those of other Eponyms by the addition of the
royal title and of a line separating them from those that
precede them (cp ASSYRIA, 5 198). The monumental
character, too, of these documents, exempting them, as
it does, from the risk of alteration attaching to notes in
books, gives assurance of their trustworthiness. Nor is
the incompleteness of the list supposed by Oppert a
fact. In regard to the order of succession no doubt is
possible.
The establishment of this uninterrupted series of 228
years can be accomplished with absolute certainty (as
24. Method. we shall see below) by the help of an
eclipse of the sun assigned by the list to
the Eponym year of Pur-Sagali of Gozan.2 In order
to be able to determine the eclipse intended, however,
and thus to fix the year astronomically, we have first to
bring into consideration the so-called Canon of Ptolemy3
-next to these Assyrian Eponym lists, perhaps the
most important chronological monument of antiquity.
This Canon is a list giving the names of the rulers of
Babylon-Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian-from
Nabonassar to Alexander the Great (the Egyptian
Ptolemies and the Romans are appended at the end),
with the number of years each of them reigned, and the
eclipses observed by the Babylonians and the Alex-
andrians-the years being reckoned according to the era
of Nabonassar-Le., from that prince’s accession. The
trustworthiness of this document is proved, once for all,
by the astronomical observations it record^,^ from which
we learn that the beginning of the era of Nabonassar
falls in the year 747 B . C 6
The Canon can be combined with the Assyrian
Eponym lists, and the establishment of the latter with
certainty effected in the following way. On the one
hand, the Ptolemaic Canon assigns to the year 39 of
the era of Nabonassar. 709 B.c., the accession of
Arkeanos (=Sargina on the fragment of the Babylonian
list of kings); and, on the other hand, Assyrian clay
tablets identify this year, the first of the rule of Sarrnkin
( L e . , Sargon or Arkeanos) over Babylon with the
1 Cp also Wiedemann’s review (TLZ, 1894, No. 25, p. 633), of
Laroche’s Questions chronol’oppes (Angers, 1892), where the
Exodus is assigned to 1492. The judgment of this competent
reviewer is that ‘the book is well-meayt, but brings the question
of the Exodus no nearer to a solution.
2 KB,1 2 1 0 3
8 I t bears the name ‘Ptolemaic Canon’ because it was in-
cluded in his astronomical work by the geographer and mathe-
matician Claudius Ptolemreus, the contemporary of the Emperor
Antoninus Pius (therefore circ. 150 A.D.).
4 The proof is strengthened by the fragments of a Babylonian
list of kings published by Pinches in PSBA G 193-205 [May, ’841,
part of which constitute an exact parallel to the beginning of the
Greek list. and cnmnletelv confirmin= its statements concerning I
the names’and reigis of the rulers.
5 More exactly (since the dates are reduced to the common
Egyptian year) on the first of Thoth (=26th Feb.), not (as
acZdrding to Babylonian official usage might have been ex-
pected) on the 1st of Nisan (=zrst March) (cp Hornmel, GBA,
488, and see below $ 26).
789
CHRONOLOGY
Eponym year of Mannn-ki-ASur-li‘ (Schr. KA TP), 491)
the thirteenth of Sargon’s rule in Assyria.l Hence we
may identify this Epocym year of Mannu-ki-ASur-li’
(the thirteenth year of Sargon’s reign in Assyria) likewise
with the year 709 B.C. ; an$, as the series is uninter-
rupted, all its dates become known. W e can, then,
obtain astronomical confirmation of the correctness of
this combination (and so also of th, trustworthiness of
the Ptolemaic Canon and the Assyrian - ~ . i mym lists) in
the way hinted at already. For, if the Epu.:ym year of
Mannu-ki-ASur-li’ is the year 709 B.c., the Eponym
year of Pur-Sagali, to which, as we saw above, there is
assigned a solar eclipse, must be the year 763 B .c.;
and astronomers have computed that on the 15th June
of that year a solar eclipse occurred that would be
almost total for Nineveh and its neighbourhood. Thus
the Assyrian Eponym list may safely be used for chrono-
logical purposes.
On the ground of the statements of this list, then,
we have, for the years 893-666 B.c., fixed points not to
25, Result. b6 called in question by which to date
the events of this period in Israel; for
the Assyrian inscriptions not only supply direct informa-
tion concerning certain events in Israel’s own history,
but also in other cases fix the date of contemporaneous
events which the narrative of the OT presupposes.
Then the Ptolemaic Canon, which from 747 B.C. on-
wards accompanies the Assyrian Eponym list, continues
when the Eponym list stops (in 666 B.C.), and conducts
us with certainty down to Roman times.
W e are thus enabled to determine beyond all doubt
the background of the history of Israel and Judah fsom
893 downwards, and obtain down to Alexander the
Great the following valuable dates :-
TABLE III.-ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN DATES
893 B.C. TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT
890-885 Tuklat-Adar.
884-860 Abr-niisir-pal.
859-825 Shalmaneser 11. (Sal-ma-nu-uggir)
824-812 SamSi-Ramman.
811-783 Ramman-nirari (111.).
782-773 Shalmaneser 111. (Sal-ma-nu-uSSir)
772-755 A b - d a n - i l u (Azurdin 111.)
754-746 Ah-niraru.
745-727 Tiglat-pileser 111. (Taklat-habal-iSarra)
726-722 Shalmaneser 111.
721-705 Sargon (Arkeaiios 09.705, king of Babylon).
704-681 Sennacherib (Sin-&-irib).
680-668 Esarhaddon (ASarhaddon. AEur-ah-iddiu= Asaridinos
in Pt. can.).
667 =first year of the reign ofAEur-bani-pal, who perhaps reigned
...__
till -.
. 696
The continuation is supplied by the Ptolemaic Canon
which specifies the rulers of Babylon :-
667-648 Saosduchinos (=Sam&-Sum-ukin).
674-626 Kinilanadanos.
625-605 Nabopolassaros (=Nabii-habal-u+ur).
604-562 Nabokolassaros (= Nabii-kudurri-usur, l!K:1?2+ and
*
Wp3+).
561-560 Illoarudamos (=Avil-Marduk, qylp h$.
559-556 Nerigasolasaros (= Nirgal.Sar-uyr).
555-539 Nabonadios (=Nabn-&’id).
538-530 Kyrus (= KumS, fd$3).
52g-522 Kambyses (=Kambuyija).
521-486 Dareios I. (=DiirayavuS, fdyJ>).
485-465 Xerxes(=KhSayBrSii, W h W i I U ) .
464-424 Artaxerxes I. (=Artakhzatr$, N C P l $ p l F ) .
423-405 Dareios 11.
404-359 Artaxerxes 11.
358-338 Ochus.
337-336 Arogos (=Arses).
335-332 Dareios 111.
Here follows Alexander the Great, who died in 313 B.C.
With regard to this summary it is to be noted that (as is a
matter of course in any rational dating by years ‘of reign-it
is certainlv the case in the Ptolemaic Canon) the vear con-
1 From the thirteenth year of his reign down to his death in
the seventeenth (and so, as the Ptolemaic Canon states, for five
years) Sargon must have reigned over Babylon also.
790
 CHRONOLOGY
sidered as the first of any king is the earliest year at the begin-
ning of which he was already really reigning : in the preceding
year he had hegun to reign on his predecessor's death. Short
reigns, accordingly, which did not reach the beginning of the
new year had to remain unnoticed, as that of Lahorosoar-
chad (Lhbagi-Marduk) in the year 556 which according to
Berassus, lasted 01.; nine Aonths. It is
26. Beginning further to he noted that the beginning of
of year. the year did not fall in the two lists on the
same day. The Eponym lists make the
year begin on the first of Nisan, the 21st of March, while
the Ptolemaic Canon follows the reckoning of the ordinary
Egyptian year of 365 days, the beginning of which, as compared
with our mode of reckoning falls one day earlier every four
years. Thus, if in the yea; 747, as was indeed already the
case in 748, the beginning of the year fell on the 26th of
February, the year 744 would hegin on the 25th. For a period
of a hundred years this difference would amount to twenty-five
days. Thus the beginning of the year 647 B.C. would fall on
the 1st of February ; and so on. Therefore for the period 747-
323 B.C. the beginning of the year would always fall somewhat
near the beginning of ours.
If, then, the chronological data of the O T were trust-
worthy, as soon as one cardinal point where the two series
-that of the O T and that just obtained
27. Care
-came into contact could be established
necessary' with certainty, the whole chronology of the
O T would be at once determined, and the insertion of
the history of Israel into the firm network of this general
background would become possible. In the uncertainty,
however, in which the chronological data of the O T axe
involved, this simple method can lead to no satisfactory
result. All points of coincidence must be separately
attended to ; and, although we may start out from a
fixed point in drawing our line, we must immediately
see to it that we keep the next point of contact in view.
Unfortunately, in going backwards from the earliest
ascertainable date to a remoter antiquity such a check
is not available.
The earliest date available, as being certain beyond
doubt, for an attempt to set the chronology of the O T
28. Earliest on a firm basis is the year 854 B .c., in
certain OT which Ahab king of Israel was one of
the confederates defeated by Shalman-
dates. eser 11. (859-825) at Karlmr (Schr.
KGF, 356-371 and Z<AlT(2),193-200). Since, how-
ever, the O T contains no reference to the event, it is
of no use for the purpose of bringing the history of
Israel into connection with general history till we take
into consideration also the next certain date, 842 B.c.,
in which year presents were offered to the same Assyrian
king, Shalmaneser II., by Jehu (KATP), zo8-zrr).
Within these thirteen years (854-842)must fall the death
of Ahab, the reigns of Ahaziah and Jehoram, and the
accession of Jehu. Of this period the most that need
be assigned to Jehu is the last year, which may have
been at the same time also the year of Jehoram's death :
for it may be regarded as quite probable that it would
be immediately after his accession that Jehu would send
presents to the Assyrian king to gain his recognition
and favour. On the other'hand, the traditional values
of the reigns require for Ahaziah two years ( I K. 2252),
and for Jehoram alone twelve years ( 2 K. 31): so there
appears to be no time left for Ahab after 854. The
death of Ahab, however, cannot be assigned to so early
a date as 854.l The reigns of Ahaziah and Jehoram,
therefore, must be curtailed by more than one year.
The course of events from 854 to the death of Ahab in
the struggle with the Syrians has, accordingly, been
ranged in different ways.
Wellhausen (ZJGP), 71)supposes that in consequence of thf
universal defeat in 854 Ahab ahanboned the relation o
vassalage to Aram that hdd lasted till then and thus provokec
a Syrian attack' on Israel. Then, by the kctory a t Aphek ir
the second year and the capture of Benhadad he compelled tht
Syrians to conclude peace and to promise io deliver up tht
Gileadite cities they had won from Israel (I K. 20). As thc
1 Victor Floigl (GA, 1882, pp. 94-96), indeed, supposes t h a
Ahah fell before Karkar (i.e in 854) and not before Ramoth
Gilead : but to accomplish tdis he ha; to treat the narratives o
the Syrian wars (I K. 20 1-3438-43 22 1-37) as quite untrust
worthy.
791
CHRONOLOGY
jyrians did not keep their promise he undertook in the third
rear of the peace the unfortunate exbedition for the conquest of
iamoth-gilead in which he met his death (I K. 22). Thus the
leath of Ahah Lould fall ahout the year 851. Schrader on the'
,ther hand, sees in Ahab's taking part in the battle of 'Karkar
L consequence of the conclusion of peace with Aram that
hllowed the battle of Aphek, and finds it thus possible to
issign Ahah's death to so early a date as 853. Even if we
nclined to follow the representation of Schrader (Wellhausen's
s much more attractive) the Assyrian notice of the battle of
garkar in 854 estab1ishes)at least one point, that the beginning
,f Jehu's reign cannot be earlier than 842,and the traditional
lumbers must he curtailed. On the question just discussed see
also AHAB.
The year 842 B.C. may, therefore, be assigned as that
If the accession of Tehu. In the same year also perished
Jehoram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah,
29. Approxi-
.
mate earlier
L
..
aaxes*
~
king of Judah, whilst Athaliah seized
the reins of government in Jerusalem.
If from this h e . equally imiortant for
both kingdoms, we try to go back; we-can'determine
with approximate certainty the year of the division of
the monarchy. The years of reign of the Israelitish
kings down to the death of Jehoram make up the sum of
ninety-eight, and those of the kings of Jndah down to
the death of Ahaziah the sum of ninety-five ; whilst the
synchronisms of the Books of Kings allow only eighty-
eight years. Since the reigns of Ahaziah and Jehoram
of Israel must be curtailed (5 28), if we assume ninety
years as the interval that had elapsed since the partition
of the kingdoms this will be too high rather than too
low an estimate. The death of Solomon may, accord-
ingly, be assigned to f 930 B.C. Wellhausen (1JU2~,
g J ) , indeed, raises an objection against this, on the
ground of a statement in the inscription of Mesha : but
the expression in the doubtful passage is too awkward
and obscure to lead us, on its account, to push back
the death of Solomon to 950 B.c., or even farther.'
In this connection it is not unimportant that the
statements of Menander of EDhesus in regard to the
I
30. lenander. Tyrian list of kings confirm the
.-
assignment of 010 B . C . as the amroxi-
mate date of the de& of Solom&.
According to the careful discussion that Franz Riihl has
devoted to this statement (see below 5 85 end), preserved to us
in three forms (first, in Josephus,'~. A p . 1 8 ; second, in the
Chron. of Euseh., and third, in Theophilnsad AlrtoZ. iii. 100 22))
we may, assuming v. Gutschmid's date of 814 B.C. for the
foundation of Carthage, fix on 969-936 as the period of reign
of EZpwpop or Hiram and on 878-866 B.C. as that of ElfIJ@ahos
or Ethha'al. Now k h a b was son-in-law of Ethha'al (I K. 16 13),
and since Ethha'ai at his accession in the year 878 B.C. was
thirty-six years old be could quite well have had a marriageable
daughter a few ye&s later when Ahab who according to I I<.
16 29 reigned twenty-two ;ears (about '872-851 B.c.), ascended
the throne. Moreover, Menander mentions a one-year famine
under Eithobalos, which even Josephns (Ant. viii.13 2) identilies
with the three-year famine that, according to IK. 17, fell
in the beginning of the rei n of Ahah. Further, Eiromos (969-
936) may he identified w i t t Hiram, the friend of Solomon (cp
I K. 5 18 24 32 9 IO j?), and, whether we adopt the opinion
that Hiram the contemporary of David (2 S. 5 IT),was the same
person as tiis friend'of Solomon's, or suppose that the name of
the better-known contemporary of Solomon has simply been
transferred to the Tyrian king who bad relations with David.
the year t 930 B.C. for the death of Solomon, agrees excellently
with this Phqnician synchronism.
1 We. translates lines 7-9thus :-' Omri conquered the whole
land of Medaha, and Israel dwelt there during his days and
half the days of his son forty years, and Kamos recovered it
in my days. H e thus &rives a t an estimate of at least sixty
years for Omri's and Ahab's combined reigns since only by
adding the half of Ahab's r e i p to the part of O m k s reign during
which Moab was tributary IS the total of forty years attained.
It is to be noted however tdat ' Israel ' ahich We. (so also Smend
and Socin, Dii Znschr.'des K. &Zeia won M o d , 1886, p . 13)
supplies as the subject to 'dwelt' ( > ~ y ) , is lacking in the
inscription, and that even with this insertion the construction is
not beyond criticism. Is it in the undoubted awkwardness of
the passage, not possible to {ranslate thus-' Omri conquered the
whole land of Medaba and held it in possession as long as he
reigned, and during t i e half of the years of m y reign Lis son,
in all forty years. But yet in my reign Chemosh recovered it.'
In that case there is no ground for ascribing so many as sixty
years to the reigns of Omri and Ahab. Nay, the pocsibility is
not excluded, that 2 K. 3 5 is right in making the revolt of Moah
follow the death of Ahah, and then the futile expedition of
Jehoram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah against Moab
could he taken as marking the end of the forty years.
792
 CHRONOLOGY
If it has been difficult to attain sure ground in the
_ _
early period of the divided nionarchv. it is even less
possible to determine anything with
. 31. Before certainty about the period preceding
the Schism. Solomon's death. If the data of the
O T concerning the reigns of Solomon and David (40
years each, I K.211 1142) have any value, David must
have attained to power about the year 1000 B.C.
Concerning Saul, even I S.131 gives us no real in-
TABLE ~~.- E S T I M A TOEF REIGNS : DEATH OF SOLOMON TO ACCESSION OF JEHU.
K I NGS O F ISRAEL.
930 (?)-854 Jerohoam of Israel and his contemporaries
Nadab ,,
Ba'asha ,,
Elah
Zimri
Omri
::
Ahab " Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, contemporary with Ahab,
Ahab at battlgof Karkar
z-842 Ahab's death
Ahaziah, king of Israel
Jehoram
842 Death of J&oram 3 Israel
From 842 B.C. onwards, there is no fixed point till
we come to the eighth century. Then we have one in
33. Certaiu the eighth year of the Assyrian king
dates Tiglath-pileser 111. (745-727)-i.e., 738
B.C. In that year, according to the cunei-
842-721' form inscriptions, this king of Assyria
received the tribute of Menahem of Israec When-the
OT tells of this ( 2 I(. 15 19 8 )it calls the Assyrian king
P n l : although elsewhere ( 2 K. 1529 1610) it uses the
other name, Tiglath-pileser. Of the identity of the two
names, however, there can be no doubt (KATP) 223
3,C O T , 1 Z I ~ ) ,and we are not to think of the reference
being to a Babylonian king, or an Assyrian rival king,
or to assume that Tiglath-pileser himself, at an earlier
period, twenty years or more before he became king
over Assyria, while still bearing the name of Pul, made
an expedition against the land of Israel (so Klo. Sam.
a. KO. ['87] p. 496). If we add that Ahaz of Judah'
procured for himself through a payment of tribute the
help of Tiglath - pileser against the invading kings,
Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus ; that, accord-
ingly, the Assyrian king took the field against Philistia
and, Damascus in 734 and 733 ; and that in 732, after
the "eonquest of Damascus, Ahaz also appeared in
Damkscus to do homage to Tiglath - pileser, there
remains to be mentioned only the equally certain date
of the beginning of the year 721 R.C. (Hommel, GBA
676) for the conquest of Saniaria, to complete the list
of assured dates between 842 and 721.
The attempt to arrange the kings of North Israel
during this period is hampered by fewer difficulties in the
34. North interval 842-738 than are to be found in
8z:l. that between 738 and 721. If we assume
that Menahem died soon after paying
tribute, we shall still have in the 113 years
reckoned by the traditionary account from the accession
of Jehu to the death of Menahem a slight excess, since
for the period 842-738 we need only 104 years. Still,
we can here give an approximate date for the individual
reigns. The latest results of Kantzsch (in substantial
agreement with Brandes, Kaniphausen, and Riehm)
are the following :'-Jehu 841-815, Jehoahaz 814-798,
Jehoash 797-783, Jeroboam 11. 782-743 (or before 745),
Zechariah and Shallnm perhaps also in 743, Menaheni
742-737 (or i 745 to after 738). For the last
period, on the other hand, from the death of Menahem
to the conquest of Samaria, the traditional reckoning
gives thirty-one years, whilst from 737 to 721 we have
hardly sixteen. The necessary shortening of the reigns
1 We modify them only to the extent of giving as the first
year of a reign the year at the beginning of which the king was
already in power, and adding in parentheses the figures of We.,
in so far as they are to he found in his 1.G.
793
CHRONOLOGY
formation, and regarding the premonarchic period the
most that can be said is that, according to the
discoveries at Tell-el-Amarna the Hebrews were, about
the middle of the fifteenth century B.c., not yet settled
in Canaau.1
For the time, therefore, from the partition of the
32. Schism kingdom down to the year 842 B.c.,
we must be content with the following
to Jehu, estimate :-
KINGS OF JUDAH.
Rehohoam and Ahijah in Judah.
Asa of Judah certainly Contemporary with Ra'asha.
Ahaziah, and Jehoram.
Jehoram, king of Judah.
Death of Ahaziah of Judah.
is accomplished by Kautzsch in this way : Pekahiah
736, Pekah 735.730, Hoshea 729-721. Wellhausen
has abandoned his former theory that Pekahiah and
Pekah are identical, and makes the latter begin to
reign in zk 735. To Hoshea, the last king of Israel,
he assigns an actual reign of at least ten years, although
he assumes that according to 2 K. 174J: he came
under the power of Assyria before the fall of Samaria.
For the Judean line of kings the starting-point is
likewise the year 842 R. c., in which Ahaziah of Judah
35. Judah met his death at the handof Jehu, and
, 842-734.
Athaliah assumed the direction of the
government. On the other hand, we do
not find, for the next hundred years, a single event
independently determined urith perfect exactness by
years of the reigning king of Judah. W e must come
down as far as 734 B.C. before we attain certainty.
We know that at that time Ahaz had already come
to power, and we can only suppose (according to
2 I(. 1 5 3 7 3 ) thFt he had not long before this succeeded
his father,' during whose lifetime Pekah of Israel and
Rezin of Damascus were already preparing for war.
The presents of King Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser in the
year 734 B.C. delivered Judah from the danger
that threatened it, and in 732 B.C. in the conquered
Damascus the same king did homage to the victorious
Assyrian, and offered him his thanks (cp 2 K. 16 7 3 and
Schrader, KATP) 2 5 7 8 ) . It is still difficult, however,
to allot the intervening time to the several kings of
Judah ; for the traditional values for the reigns require
no less than 143 years from the first year of Athaliah
to the death of Jotham, whilst between 842 B.C. and
734 B.C. there are only 108 years at our dLsposa1.
It is, therefore, necessary to reduce several of the
items by a considerable amount, and it is not to be
wondered at that different methods of adjustment have
been employed. The synchronism of events between
the history of Israel and that of Judah is too inadequate
to secure unanimity, and the mention (not quite certain)
of Azariah of Judah in Assyrian inscriptions for the
years 742-740 (cp Schr. KATIY), 2 1 7 8 ) does not make
up the lack. On one point, however, there is agree-
ment: that it is in the cases of Amaziah, Azariah
(Uzziah), and Jotham that the deductions are to be
made.
The years 841-856 B .c., for Athaliah are rendered
tolerably certain by the data concerniug Jehoash, the
infant son of Ahaziah ( 2 K . 1 1I 8 3). Then we
need have no misgivings about giving Jehoash, who
was raised to the throne at so young an age, about
forty years. If we take these years fully, we obtain
1 On early traces of certain elements afterwards forming part
$3 58J ; ASHER,I I$
of Israel, see I SRAEL , 5 7J : EGYPT,
794
 CHRONOLOGY
for the reign of Jehoash 835-796 B . C . The date of
his death may, indeed, be pushed still farther back;
but in any case his time as determined by these data
cannot be far wrong, for he must have been a con-
temporary of Jehoahaz the king of Israel (814-798),
and, according to 2 K. 1218 8 ,also of Hazael of Aram
(acc. to Winckler 844-about 804 [?I ). From 795 to
734 there are left only 61 years, and in this interval
room must be found for Amaziah with twenty-nine
years, Azariah with fifty-two, and Jotham with sixteen
-no less than ninety-seven years. Even if we allow
the whole sixteen yea& of Jotham, who, according to
2 K. 15 j, conducted the government during the last
illness of his father, to be merged in the fifty-two years
of Azariah, we do not escape the necessity of seeking
other ways of shortening the interval. Amaziah’s reign
is estimated too high at twenty-nine years. The only
thing that is certain about him is that he was a
contemporary of Jehoash of Israel (797-783; cp 2 K.
14 8 3 ) . It is pure hypothesis to assign him nine
years (We.), or nineteen years (Kainph. and Kau.),
instead of twenty-nine. The smaller number has the
greater probability, since the defeat that he brought on
himself by his wanton challenge of Jehoash of Israel
best explains the conspiracy against him (2K. 14 ~ g f),.
and he would therefore hardly survive his conqueror,
but much more probably meet his death by assassination
a t Lachish not long after 790 B.C. (cp also St. GVZ,
1559). From the death of Amaziah to 734 reigned
Azariah and Jotham. T o discover the boundary between
the two, we must bear in mind the Assyrian inscriptions
already mentjoned, which apparently represent Azariah
as still reigning in the years 742-740,and must keep in
view that Isaiah, who cannot be thought of as an old
man when Sennacherib marched against Jerusalem in
the year 701, received his prophetic call in the year of
the death of Uzziah (Isa. 6 I ) . Accordingly, we cannot
be far wrong in assigning the death of Azariah and the
accession of Jotham as sole ruler to 740 B . C . More
than this cannot be made out with the help of the
materia% at our disposal up to the present time.
If now the year of the conquest of Samaria (721B .c.)
were fixed with certainty according to the year of the
36. 734-586 king then reigning in Judah, this would
appear the next resting-point after 734 B. c.
B.C. The data of the OT do not agree, how-
ever, and none of them is to be relied upon. This
is true even of the datum in z K. 1813, lately much
favoured by critics, that Sennacherib’s expedition against
Palestine in the year 701 B . C . was in the fourteenth
year of Hezekiah (so We. / D T [ ‘ 7 5 ]p. 6 3 5 3 ; Kamph.
Die ChronoZ. der Hedr. Konige [‘83]p. 28 ; Guthe, D n s
Zukunftdild des Yes. r85] p. 37, and St. G VI,1606 Jt: ).
In order to maintain the datum, it is not enough to say,
‘ The people of Judah are more likely to have preserved
the year of Hezekiah in which- their whole land was laid
waste and their capital, Jerusalem, escaped destruction
only through enduring the direst distress, than to have
preserved the year of Hezekiah in which Samaria fell.’
The unnsual (cp 2 K. 181 9) prefixing of the numeral
before m y (cp Duhm, Yesnja, 235) of itself indicates a
later origin, and this is confirmed by what we have already
found as to these chronological data not belonging to
the original narrative. The number fourteen is based,
not upon historical facts, but upon an exegetical inference
from Is. 385, and a consideration of the twenty-nine
years traditionally assigned to Hezekiah, and must there-
fore rank simply with the scribe’s note Am. 1 I : ‘ two
years before the earthquake.’
Even when we come to the seventh century, the
expectation that at least the death of Josiah in the battle
of Megiddo would admit of being dated with complete
accuracy by material from inscriptions is not fulfilled.
From Egyptian chronology, which does not mention
1 This is forcibly urged by Kau. (cp. Kamph. op. cit. 94) and
has received the assent of Duhm (Lc.) and Cheyne (Z&u. Is. 218).
795
CHRONOLOGY
the date of the battle, we gather only that it must have
been after 610 B. c., since the conqueror, Necho II., did
not begin to reign till that year. There is, therefore,
nothing left but to take as our fixed point the conquest
of Jerusalem in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar
- L e . , 586 B . C . ( 2 K.253 8). For the intervening time
we have to take into consideration, besides the death of
Josiah, the data supplied by Assyriology, which place
Sennacherib‘s expedition against Hezelciah in 701 8. c.
and imply Manassehs being king of Judah in the years
681-667(cp Schr. KAT(2),p. 466).
For the whole time from the death of Jotham to the
conquest of Jerusalem, tradition requires 155 years of
reign, whilst from 734 B .c., when Ahaz was already
s-ated on the throne of Jerusalem--which year, if not
that of his accession, must have been at least the first
of his reign-to 586 B .c., we have only 148, or, since
we may reckon also the year 734 B . c . , 149 years. ’The
smallness of the difference of seven years, however,
shows that we have now to do with a better tradition.
Where the mistake lies we cannot tell beforehand. All
we can say is that it is not to be sought between the
death of Josiah and the fall of Jerusalem, since for this
interval twenty-two years are required by tradition, and
this agrees with our datum that Josiah must have died
shortly after 610 B. C.
Let us see wnether another cardinal point can be
found. In 701 Hezekiah was reigning in Jerusalem.
When it was that he came to the throne, whether
before or after the fall of Samaria (721 B.C.), is the
question. In Is. 1428 we have an oracle against Philistia,
dated from the year of the death of king Ahaz,-a
chronological note which, like Is. 6 I , may have import-
ance, if the oracle really belongs to Isaiah. Winckler
and Cheyne [but cp Isaiah, SBOT, Addenda] regard
it as possible that the oracle may refer to agitation
in Syria and Palestine, in which the Philistines shared,
on the accession of Sargon (721 B .c.), when Hanun,
king of Gaza, induced them to rebel, in reliance on the
help of Sib‘e, one of the Egyptian petty kings (cp above
on Sabalca, Sabi, So’, Seweh, 21). On this theory
the death of Ahaz wodd have to be set down about
the year 720 B.C. As, however, the authenticity of
the oracle is not certain,-in fact hardly probable (cp
Duhm, who even conjectures that originally there may
have stood, instead of Ahaz, the name of the second
last Persian king, Arses [=Arogos])-it is not safe to
take it as fixing the death-year of Ahaz. Of greater
value is the section relating to the embassy of Merodach-
Baladan of Babylon to Hezelciah ( 2 K. 20= Is. 39).
Merodach-Baladan was king of Babylon from 721 to
710. When, later, he attempted to recover his
position, he held Babylon for so short a time that an
embassy to the west would be impossible. Thus,
Merodach-Baladan must have sought relations with
Hezekiah between 721 and 709. The beginning of the
reign of Merodach-Baladan, when in the year 721
or 720 he obtained possession of Babylon and held it
against Sargon. commends itself as the point of time
most suitable. After the battle of Diir-ilu, which both
parties regarded as a victory for themselves, it must
have seemed natural to hope that the overthrow of the
Assyrian kingdom would be possible, if the west joined
in the attack. Moreover, Sargon once describes himself
(Nimriid inscr., 1 8 ) as ‘ the subduer of Judah,’ which
seems to mean that, on the suppression of the revolt in
Philistia, Hezekiah resumed the payment of the tribute
that had been imposed. In view of this, Winckler seems
to be justified in placing the appearance of the embassy
of Merodach-Baladan before Hezelciah in the year 720
or 719. Approximately, then, the year 721 may he
regarded as assured for the year of the death of Ahaz.
The first year of Hezekiah‘s reign is thus 720 B.C.
rather than 728 (Kau.), or 714 (We, and others). The
discrepancy of four years, which is all that now remains
1 For fuller details see ISAIAH, i. B 6, SARGON.
796
 CHRONOLOGY

TABLE V.-TABULAR SURVEY : DEATH OF SOLOMON TO HERODTHE GREAT.

:ertair 'robable
Dates. Dates. ISRAEL. JUDAH.

-
1st year of Jeroboam. 1st year of Rehoboam.

Reigns of Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Reigns of Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, part of reign 01
Omri, part of reign of Ahab. Jehoshaphat.
-
854 Ahab at battle of garkar.

Rest of reign of Ahah: reigns of Ahaziah and Rest of reign of Jehoshaphat : reigns of Jehoram
Jehoram. and Ahaziah.
-

842 Death of Jehoram (at the hands of Jehu). Tribute of Death of Abaziah (at the hands of Jehu).
Jehu to Shalmaneser 11.

847 1st year of Jehu (841-815). 1st year of Athaliah (841-836).

835 1st year of Johoash (835-796).
814 1st year of Jehoahaz (814-798).
797 1st year of Jehoash (797-783).
795 1st year of Amaziah (795-790).
789 1st year of Azaiah (789740).
782 1st ear of Jeroboam II. (782-743).
743 Leciariah, Shallum.
742 1st year Menahem (742-737).
739 1st year Jotham (739734).
738 Tribute of Menahem to Tiglath-piloser III.
736 Pekahiah.

735 1st year of Pekah (735-730).

734 Triburc o f Ahnr: to Tiglath-pileser.
733 1st year of Ahaz (733-721).
732 Ahiv does homage to 'l'iglath-pilem at Damascus.
729 1st year of Hoshea (729-727).
721 Fall of Samaria.

720 1st year of Hezekiah (720493). Embassy of Merodach-haladan from Babylon.

701 Sennacherib's army before Jerusalem.
692 1st year of Manasseh (692-639).
638 1st year of Amon (638).
637 1st year of Josiah (637-608).
608 Battle of Megiddo. Jehoahaz, king.
607 1st year of Jehoiakim (607-597).
604 1st year of Nebuchadrezzar (604-562).
597 Jehoiachin king.
596 1st year of iedekiah (596-586).
586 FALL OF JERUSALEM.
- ~

Dates. The more important dates of the succeeding centuries.

561 s t year of Evil-Meroclach (561-560).

Liberator of Jehoiachin from prison.
538 st year of Cyrus (538-530).
521 s t year of Darius I. (521-486).
515 3ompletion of building of second temple.
464 st year of Artaxerxes I. (464-424).
445 st visit of Nehemiah to Jerusalem. Building of city-wall.
.433 ieturn of Nehemiah.
:irc. 43 md visit of Nehemiah to Jerusalem. On the advent of Ezra and the Introduction of the law see above, 0 14.
332 3nd of Persian Power : Alexander the Great.

Beginning of Ptolemaic dominion in Palestine, which continued with short interruptions till 198.
Beginning of the Era of the Seleucidae.
nale<tine
~~~ ~.irnder Svrian
~ ~dominion.
-~ -. ~ I ~ ~ ~

4utiochus IV. Epiphanos.

insurrection of Msttathias the pricst, of hlodein (t166).
IKeintrodiiction of regular service in the temple.
Iudas Maccnbaeus (it6--16~)fall\ in battle naainst Baccliides.
Execution of Jonathan (leader of MaccabeG revolt since 160).
limon High-priest and Prince.
3yrcanus I.
4ristobulus I. king.
lannzus.
41exancli-a.
Xyrcanus 11. and Aristobulus 11.1
Paking of Jerusalem by Pompey. Palestine a part of the Roman Province of Syria.
Xyrcanus 11. under Roman sovereignty.
'nvasion of Parthians. Antigonus made king (40-37).
Xerod the Great.

1 On the dates of the Maccabees cp We. IJG(4, 229, n. 2 ; 2nd ed. 263, n. 3 ; 3rd ed. 275, n. 2.

797 798
 CHRONOLOGY
between the sum of the years of reign from the death of
Ahaz to the conquest of Jerusalem, and the interval 720-
586 B. c . - i e . , between 139 years of reign and 135 actual
years-cannot be removed otherwise than by shortening
the reign of one or more of the kings. The account of
the closing portion of the line of kings has already been
found to merit our confidence. The shortening must
therefore be undertaken somewhere near the beginning
of the line of kings from Hezelciah to Josiah. The most
obvious course is to reduce the long reign of Manasseh
from fifty-fiveyears to fifty-one(We., indeed, assigns him
only forty-five). This, however, may seem arbitrary, and
it will be simpler as well as less violent to divide the
shortening among all the four reigns. If, that is to say,
in the case of the years of reign of the kings from
Hezekiah to Josiah, tradition included (according to
popular practice) the year of accession and the year of
death, we may reduce the numbers for Hezekiah,
Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah by one each, and assign
them twenty-eight, fifty-four, one, and thirty respectively.
Thus we get the following series :-Hezekiah 720-693
(28 years), Manasseh 692-639 (54 years), Amon 638 ( I
year), Josiah 637-608 (30 years), Jehoahaz 608 (2 year),
Jehoiakim 607-j97 (11 years), Jehoiachin 597 (a year),
and Zedekiah 596-586 (11 years). The control over
the date of the death of Josiah from Egyptian history
which is to a certain extent possible turns out to be not
unfavourable to our results, since Pharaoh Necho 11.
began to reign in 610 B.C., and, as early as the end of
606, or the beginning of 605, encountered the crown
prince Nebuchadrezzar at Carchemish (cp, on the date
of this battle which, in Jer. 462, is inaccurately assigned
to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, Winckler, A T Untemxh.
SI). Hence the year 608 B.C. for the battle of Megiddo
possesses the greatest probability. That, among the
numerous dates for the last decades of the kingdom
of Judah which the O T furnishes, little inaccuracies,
such as that in the passage (Jer. 46 z ) just cited, appear,
is intelligible on the ground (apart from others, as, e.g.,
in the case of Ezek. 3321)of their being the result of
later calculation. At all events, these variations are not
to be accounted for, with Hommel ( G B A 755), by the
supposition that the Jews reckonedtheyears of Nebuchad-
rezzar, as well as those of their own kings, from the day
on which they ascended the throne to the corresponding
day in the following year. The Jews, in adopting the
exact Babylonian chronological system, and applying it
to their own past history, did not mutilate it and render
it futile.
Beyond the points already referred to (5 13f.), the
chronology of the times after the conquest of Jerusalem
in 586 8.C. presents no difficulties worth
37. After 686 mentioning, The Canon of Ptolemy
B’c’ supplies an assured framework into
which the data that have been preserved can be fitted
without trouble.
The tabular survey on t h e preceding page gathers
together the dates we have established.
38* Summary At the end is appended a continuation
Of
- the most important dates
indicating
down to the last century B.C. K. M.
B. N E W TESTAMENT.
The chronology of the New Testament is of great
{subsidiary) importance for the study of the origins of
~~ .LTm Christianity. From the order of the
ail. IY I
chronology : events in the primitive period it will be
importance. possible to draw conclusions with regard
to the influenceof one event upon another ;
the rapidity of the historical development will enable
us to measure the power of the original impulse:
and only when the events have received their place in
contemporary history can they be fully understood.
799
CHRONOLOGY
Unfortunately, the task is attended with serious diffi;
culty, the causes of which need to be briefly described.
40. Difficulty, ( I ) The first Christians themselves had
no interest in chronology, whether with
reference to events concerning them as Christians, or
with reference to events of secular history. This was
due not only to their separation from the world and
their limited horizon, but also, and still more, to their
sense of superiority to the world (Phil. ~ z o ) ,which
seemed to them already in process of dissolution ( I Cor.
731), and to their feeling that they had already begun
to live in eternity. ( 2 ) The historical traditions of the
Christians were formed wholly with the purpose of
promoting Christian piety, and were therefore restricted
to a small number of events, the choice of which was
often, as it were, accidental, and the arrangement ac-
cording to subject rather than to time. Our chrono-
logical interest has, accordingly, to be satisfied with
inferences and combinations which often remain, after
all, very problematical : and the gaps in the traditions
prevent us from constructing anywhere a long chrono-
logical sequence. (3) Of at least a part of the traditions
the historical trustworthiness is subject to such grave
doubt that we can venture to use them only with great
reserve, if at all. (4) In the N T , apart from some
vague notices in the Fourth Gospel, the only writer who
professedly gives chronological data is the author of the
Third Gospel and Acts. He gives no account, however,
of the means by which he obtained these data. W e are,
therefore, unable to check his statements, and can treat
them only as hypotheses. As far as we know, the old
Catholic fathers-IrenEus, Tertullian, Clement of Alex-
andria, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus-were the first
to make chronological calculations. Whether they
based them on any independent tradition or limited
themselves to inferences from our Gospels is uncertain ;
the latter is the more probable view. Their data can
receive only occasional mention here.l (5) It has not
yet been found possible to give exact dates to certain
of those events of profane history which come into
question. (6) Further difficulty is caused by the
complicated nature of the ancient calendar, and by
the different usages in reckoning time and in beginning
the year. Side by side with the various eras \ \ e have
various methods of reckoning by the years of reigning
monarchs.
In the following article the years are designated by
the numbers of our current Dionysian era, on the origin
of which see Ideler (Hun&. 2 3 6 5 8 ) . By this reckon-
ing the year I B.C. coincides with the year 753 A.U.C.,
and the year I A . D . with the year 754 A.U.C. The
years are treated as beginning on 1st Jan., as was the
case according to the Varronian reckoning in the period
under consideration.
1 The facts in detail are to a large extent given by Bratke and
Hilgenfeld in articles on the chronological attempts of Hippo-
lytus in ZW?; 1892.
2 An excellent guide through this labyrinth is Ideler’s Hun&.
abridged and in part improved in his Lehrb. (see below, $ 85).
The most important tables (of the sun and moon, and of eras)
are brought together from astronomical works by Gumpach,
Hiilfsslnittel d. mcknend. Chronol. 1853. See further Bouchet,
H6~4rologieI868 ; E. Muller in Pauly’s Realencyc. d. class.
AZt. s.v. A&a- Matzat Rdin. ChronoL two vols. 1883-84.
Special service ’to N T Chronology has also been rendered by
Clinton, FastiHelZenici, 1830, 2 ed. le51 ; FastiRomnni, 1845-
5 0 . and by J. Klein, Fasti Consrlares, Leipsic, 1881. Further
bidliographical notices and many original contributions to the
subject are to he founh in Schurer GJV, i. (18go), where, in an
appendx, is given a table (taken f;om Clinton) of parallel years
by Olympiads, and by the Seleucid, Varronian, and Dionysian
eras. The third appendix discusses the months of the Jewish
Calendar, and on p. 630f: a bibliography of the very large
literature of that subject is to be found.-Important for the
chronology of the N T are also Wieseler Chronol. Syn. der vier
EuangeZien 1843. Chronol. d. a$. Zekalfers 1848 ; and art.
‘Zeitrechn&g‘ i i PRE 1866’ Beitr. Z I T dchtigen PVLirdi-
.
gzlng der Evang. 1869. ’Lewin’ Fasti Smri 1865 Lightfoot
on ‘The Chronology of bt. Paui‘s Life and Epistles”in Biblical
Essays (posthumous), 2 1 5 8 See also B. W. Bacon, ‘ A New
Chronology of the Acts,’ Exjositor, Feb. 1898.
800
 CHRONOLOGY CHRONOLOGY
41.Parallel TABLE VI.-NT : PARALLEL D ATES lad lived quietly at Nazareth? W e have to consider
Dates. PROM S ECULAR HISTORY. mly two passages. ( I ) J n . 857. If the foolish question,
AUGUSTUS CESAR, 30 ~ . c . - q t hAug. 14 A.D., and Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen
TIRERIIJS, 19th Aug. 14 ~ . ~ . - 1 6 tMarch
h 37 A.D. ihraham ? ' were authentic, it would only give a superior
37 n.c.-4 B.C. H e v o d the Great. imit, plainly put as high as possible on the ground of
2-19 B.c., T&ple begun (Jos. A i d . XV. 11 I ; see Schurer, he general impression from Jesus's appearance. From
1301).
4 13.c.A A.D. Archelaus ethnarch of Judrea Samaria and his no inference as to any definite number could he
Idumea (deposed and banished to Viennd in Gaul).' lrawn, for anlong, the Jews a man began to be elderly
4 ~.c.-39 A.D., Anfzjus, tetrarch of Galilee and Perrea
-
(banished to Lugdunurn). On his relations to Aretas
Gee § 78.
tt fifty years, and the remark would merely have meant,
You are still one of the younger men.' If the question
4 n.c.-34 A . D . , ~ PhiZ@, tetrarch of the north-eastern s not authentic, it either testifies to the impression made
districts. (After his death his tetrarchy was governed iy the account of Jesus in the tradition, that he was in
as part of the province of Syria.) he best years of life (cp Nu. 4 3 39 S24J ), or else the
The territoiy of Archelaus was governed
6-41 A . D . by Roiizan procurators, with their residence in ialf-century, as an age which he had not yet attained, is
Czsarea. Of these the fifth. ntended to form an ironical contrast to the many
z&begiuning of 36 A.D., was Po;ziius Pilate. :enturies from Abraham to the then present time. In
36, Pilate sent to Rome to answer for his conduct.
36 Passover Vitellius in Jerusalem. .he ancient church, Irenzus (ii. 22 5) is the only writer,
37: Vitellius'made war, at the Emperor's command, on .a make use of this passage for chronology ; he remarks
Aretas in retaliation for the latter's war against Antipas. :hat the presbyters in Asia Minor had on the ground of
At the news of the emperor's death hostiliries suspended. t ascribed to Jesus an age of forty to fifty years.
CALIGULA, 16th March 37-qth Jan. 4'.
37, Herod Agrippa I. receives from Caligiila the title of ( 2 )Lk. 323. The text is here not quite certain, and
king with the tetrarchies of Lysanias(see Schurer, 1600- :he sense of the most probable reading is obscure.
604) 'and of Philip : in What does d p ~ b p e u o smean? In the Sin. Syr. it is
40, also that of Antipns; and in
41, also the provinces of Judrea and Samaria, previously miitted from the translation. ) In any case, the presence
governed by procurators. 3f Jud ( ' about ' ) forbids us to use the number as if it were
CLAUDIUS, 24th Jan. 41~13thOct. 54. rxact. It merely tells us that Jesus stood in the begin-
44 Death ofHerodAgrippa1. at Caesarea. The territory
bf Agrippa after his death governed by procurators. ning of adult manhood, and leaves undecided the
Expulsion of Yewsfronz Ronre. question whether he had just entered on his thirtieth year
N ERO , 13th Oct. 54-9th June 68. 3r was already over thirty.
52-56/60,2 Antonius Felix Moreover, whether the number comes from actual
56/6-62 [61?], Porcilrs Festus
62[61?1-64, Albinus historical recollection at all is made uncertain by the
64, 19th July, Gu772ing of Ronze. Fact that, according to Nu. 4 3 39, from thirty to fifty was
66, Outbreak of Jewish war. the canonical age for certain ritual acts. It is significant
GALUA, OrHo, and VITELLIUS,9th June 68-20th Dec. 69. that these two gospels, from Asia Minor, in so many
VEsPnsiAN-Proclaimed Emperor 1st July 69 in Egypt while
engaged in putting down the Jewish insurrection. points similar, give for the age of Jesus in these two
Recognised as Emperor in the East at once throughout passages the two limits of this canonical term of years.
the Empire not until after the death of Vite'llius. Died 2. The Length of the Pu6Zic Ministry of 3e.rus-The
~ 3 r dJune 79.
70, Ilestmction of Jeritsalenz. evidence here points on the whole to one year. The
Trrus, 79-81. e three years ' in the parable of the fig-tree
DOMITIAN, 81-96. 44. (Llr. 1 3 7 ) are either arbitrarily chosen to
93-96, Persecutions of Christians, especially in Rome and Ministry. designate a short period or are to be
Asia Minor.
NEKVA. 06-08. connected with the fact that the fig-tree commonly bears
TRA]Ak,'98:117. fruit in three years (for the opposite view, see Wieseler,
r r r - r r 3 , Correspondence with Pliny, governor of Bithynia, Synupse, 202 f. ). The ' three days ' of Lk. 1332 express
on the subject of the Christians in that province.
HADRIAN, 1r7-r38. by a proverbial number both brief time and fixed limit
Insurrection of the Jews under Bar-kokheda. (for the opposite view, Weizsacker, Untersuchungcn,
Our investigation
u
will treat the urobleins of N T 311). From Mark and Matthew we get no light, he-
chronolom in the following order : the chronolocv of cause of the arrangement of the material by subjects
0, u "2

42. Plan of the life of Jesus ($5 43-63), that of the
life of Paul (5s 64-80), that of the churches
article. in Palestine (I81f.), other dates (0 83J).
The first and second of these divisions are wholly
separate from each other.
I. CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE O F JESUS.-The
questions here relate to the year of Jesus' birth (I 5 7 3 ) ,
the year of his public appearance (Q 47 8 ), his age at
his entrance upon his ministry (a
43), the duration of
his ministry (Q 4 4 3 ) , and the year of his death (I 50f).
I. The Age of Jeszrs at his Baptism. -It is not
surorisina that tradition is meagre.
. I - In itself, as a
"13. Baptism niere tale of years, the matter had no
Jesus. interest for the early Christians. That
Tesus was a man of mature years was
enough : why should they care to inquire how long he
1 Legates in Syria who had occasion to interfere in t-ho
eovernment of Palestine were :
G) perhaps at first 3 B.C.-Z B.c., and certainly}Quin>zius,
later 6 A.D.-(at latest) 1 1 A.D.
7 A.D. Census instituted in Judza and Samaria.
(2) 35-39 A.D., L. Yitellins.
a That Felix entered on his office in 52 (or possibly 59) and
that Albinus arrived in Palestine at latest in the summer of 62
are directly attested facts. That Festus succeeded Felix in 60
or 56 is only inferred. See below 6 5 3
3 On the day of his birth, for determining which there are no
historical data, hut for which the church, after much vacillation
finally settled on 25th Dec., see Usener, Rel-gexh. Unters:
vol. i.
26 801
The plucking of the ears in Mk. 223 may indicate the
time when the grain was ripe : but that must have been
between the middle of April and the middle of June,
before which time the harvest in Galilee is not ended.
Thus, if the incident was in the early months of Jesus'
ministry, it does not imply a duration of more than one
year. One year seems to have been the idea of the third
evangelist, who, like all the writers of the second century
except Irenzus, and like many Fathers of the third
century, may very well have understood literally the
quotation from Is. 61 ~ fwhich . he puts (Lk. 4 19) into
the mouth of Jesus.
In any case, a place can be found without difficuky
within the limits of one year for the entire contents of
the Synoptical gospels, while to fill out several years
the material is rather meagre. The feeling, shared (for
instance) by Beyschlag (Lehen Jeszr, 1 133), that it is
a ' violent and unnatural process ' to crowd the whole
development into the space of one year, is balanced by
the feeling of the men of the second and third centuries.
Even repeated visits to Jerusalem, if the Synoptical
gospels really imply them, are, in view of the nearness
of Galilee to Jerusalem and of the many feasts (cp the
Gospel of John), easily conceivable within one year.
The early Christian Fathers were not disturbed in their
assumption of a single year by the Fourth Gospel with
its journeys to the feasts.
In the Fourth Gospel, apart from 64, if we accept the
802
 CHRONOLOGY
most common interpretation of h o. p + (Jn. .. 5 I) as mean-
45. Fourth tng Pentecost, the feasts group themselves
into the course of a single year: 213
Gospel. Passover ; 5 I Pentecost ; 7 z Tabernacles ;
1022 Dedication ; 1155 Passover. Irenaeus alone
(ii. 233) finds three passovers mentioned in the public
life of Jesus ; and, since he takes the second not from 64
but from 51, he, as well as Origen (on Jn. 435
tom. 1339). must have had at 64 a different text from any
known to us. The Alogi, also, according to Epiphanius
(Hrer. 5lzz), found mentioned in Jn. only a passover
at the beginning and one at the end of the ministry.
Positive ground for assuming the later interpolation of
64 (which could well have been suggested by the
snhstance of the following conversation) may be found
in the designation of the feast there, which is different
from that in 213 and 1155, a designation combining
(so to speak) 5 1 and 72. So also the introductory
formula 3 v 6t hycis ('was at hand') is suitable only
in 213 72 1155, where a journey to the feast, which
does not here come in question, is to be mentioned.
Moreover, the meagreness of the narrative in Jn.
is much more comprehensible if the writer thought of
the whole ministry as included between two passovers.
H e can hardly have regarded the narrative in chaps. 3-5,
and again that in chaps. 7-11, as sufficient to fill out in
each case a whole year. Otherwise, if the saying with
reference to the harvest (Jn. 435) is to be regarded as
anything more than a proverbial phrase (used for
the purpose of the figure which Jesus is employing)
there would be a period of nine months for which no-
thing would be told but the conversation with Nicodemus
and the baptizing worlc of the disciples, and a stay
of six months in Galilee for which we should have
46. One year. nothing but chap. 6. If, on the other
hand, only one year elapsed from the
purification of the temple to the destruction of the
'temple of his body,' we should have: 213-51, only
fifty days ; 51-72, perhaps 127 days ; 72-1022, perhaps
fifty-eight days ; 1022-121, perhaps 119 days. In
reality,, however, even this year will have to be
shortened somewhat at the beginning ; for the purifica-
tion of the temple, which the Synoptists likewise connect
with a passover (but with the last one), cannot have
happened twice, and, while it is incomprehensible at
the beginning, it cannot be spared at the end of the
ministry. Whether, then, the baptism of Jesus was
before a passover, or whether the journey to John
in the wilderness may have followed a journey to the
passover in Jerusalem, it is wholly impossible to decide.
In the latter case the complete absence from the
narrative of the baptism of all recollection of such a
connection would be singular ; in the former it would
be strange that Jesus stayed away from the passover in
Jerusalem. On the other hand, since the forty days of
the temptation are surely a round number drawn from
O T analogies, they may safely be somewhat reduoed ;
and the walk with the disciples through the ripe corn-
fields in tialilee on the sabbath is then chronologically
quite possible, even if the baptism was not until
..immediately after the passover.
3. The Year of the PuJZic Appearunce of Yesus.-( I )
In Llc. 3 1 fi we have, as the last of Llc.'s several
chronological notes (1 5 26 2 I f: ), R
47. First
notice of the date of the public appear-
ap!?LK.
a:,?e: -313. ance of the Baptist. This notice is
clearly the product of careful investiga-
tion, and it is extremely unlikely that the evangelist
would have taken so much pains about fixing this date
if he had not supposed himself to be at the same time
fixing the year (for the Christian, the only year of real
importance in the history of the world) of at least the
beginning of the Messiah's ministry, which last, together
with the baptism of Jesus, Lk. regarded, as appears
from the whole tenor of his narrative, as the immediate
consequence of the appearance of the Baptist. Whether
803
CHRONOLOGY
he was right in this short allowance of time for the
preaching of the Baptist we need not decide; if
the ministry of the Baptist really did last longer, it is
easily comprehensible that the previous time should have
escaped his knowledge. What year, then, does Lk.
mean ? Following previous writers on the life of Jesus,
E. Weiss and Beyschlag have taken as the starting-
point for Lk.'s reckoning the year 12 A.D., in which
Tiherius was made co-regent with Augustus. There
is no proof, however, that such a method of reckoning
was ever used. Neither the coins, to which Wieseler
appealed, nor the great dignity of Tiberius, adduced by
Schegg,2 which is in any case to be ascribed to flatterers,
can establish this hypothesis ; and we shall have to take
the death of Augustus as the starting-point. Now,
Mommsen3 has proved that until the time of Nerva
the reckoning usually employed was by consuls, but
that when for any reason a reckoning by the years of
the emperor's reign was desirable, the years were
counted from the exact date of the beginning of the
reign.4 Accordingly, Lk. must have reckoned the years
of Tiberius as beginning with 19th August, 14 A . D . ~
The fifteenth year ran from 19th August 28 A . D . .
to 18th August, 29 A.D. Although we cannot control
the sources from which Llc. derived his information,6
it is plain from the table of dates given above that the
notices in Llc. 3 I do not contradict one another, and we
have no reason to doubt Lk.'s information. We say
this in spite of the fact that in one point he shows
himself not perfectly well-versed in Jewish affairs : the
Roman custom of having two consuls has perhaps led
him to misinterpret the fact that in the time of the
high-priest Caiaphas (from about 18 A.D. to Easter
36 A.D.), the latter's father-in-law, Annas, who had
been high priest in 6-15 A.D., was the real leader of the
Sanhedrim. Lk. has talcen this to mean that the two
were high priests at the same time (cp the same error in
Acts46).
( 2 )In Jn. 220, forty-six years are said to have elapsed
from the beginning of the building of the temple to the
- I I
48. The temple. beginning of Jesus' ministry and the
cleansing- of the temple. If the fortv-
six years are treated as already past, this brings us to
A.D. 28. Everything, however, is here uncertain-the
position of the cleansing of the temple at the begin-
ning of the ministry, and the authenticity of the
conversation, as well as the evangelist's method of
reckoning (on the supposition that the number comes
from him).7
( 3 ) The public appearance of Jesus was con-
1 Beitr. 190-gz.
2 Todesjahrdes Konigs Herodes und Todesjahrjew Christi,
1882, pp. 61-63.
3 'Das riimisch-germanische Herrscherjahr ' in Neues Archiv
der GeyZlschaft fiir altere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 1890,
PP. 54-65.
4 The imperial era introduced by Nerva which took as a
basis the tribunician year beginning with ;oth December, the
tribunician year in which the emperor ascended the throne
counting as the first of his reign, did not actually come into
common use until the time of Trajan.
5 The method of reckoning the years of the emperor's
reign (namely beginning with 1st Tishri 766 A.u.c.) represented
by Gumpach (Z.C. 93) as having been the universal custom
according to which he makes the fifteenth ye.ir of Tiherin:
begin with 1st Tishri 27 A . D ., no one besides himself has
veiltnred to accept.
6 Keim assunied without any foundation that Lk. had
Josephus (Ant.xvii: 3 3) before him, and that heiupposed the two
revolutions there mentioned as occurring in the procuratorship
of Pontius Pilate, which began in the twelfth year of Tiberius,
to have been in the thirteenth and fourteenth years of Tiberius,
and so hit on the fifteenth year for the Baptist. This is
however, in contradiction with the fact of the large numbe;
of single notices in Lk. 3 I, which implies careful investigation ;
and is in itself impossible, since Josephus first mentions the
Baptist in xviii. 5 2 and has already related the death of Philip,
which happened sollate as the twentieth year of Tiberius.
7 Has the evangelist perhaps used Nerva's method of
reckoning? That yields the year 28 A.D. On the different
interpretations of the number, see Sevin, ChronoL jesu(?, 1874,
pp. 11-13,
804
 CHRONOLOGY
temDoraneous with the immisonment of the BaDtist
49. The Baptist. (Mk.1 1 4 = Mt. 4 IZ ; MI<.6 17J = Mt.
143f: ; cp Lk. 3 18-20). Jesus was
baptized shortly before that (Mk. 112f. and parallels),
and the execution of the Baptist happened in the course
of Jesus' public ministry (Llc. 7 1 8 3 = Mt. 11zf. ; Mk.
6 19-29 = Mt. 145-12 ; with Mk. 6 14-16 = Lk. 9 7-9 = Mt.
14 If. ).
The execution is related also by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 6 r J ) ,
who does not give the exact date, hut is led to mention the matter
in connection with the defeat of Antipas by Aretas (in the
summer or autumn of 36 A.D.), which the nation believed to he
a judgment of God for the murder of John. Aretas's reasons
for making the war are said to have been two : (I) the divorce
of his danghth hy Antipas in order that the latter might marry
Herodias ; (2) boundary disputes. From this Keim, Holtzmann,
Hausrath, Schenkel, and Sevin have inferred that this divorce,
the rebuke of which by John led, according to the Synoptists,
to John's death, must have been not long before 36 A.D. A
judgment of God, however, may well be delayed for six years,
provided the crime which the people believe to he punished
by it is not forgotten ; whilst a favourable moment for executing
human vengeance does not always arrive immediately. More-
over, it appears that boundary disputes were finally needed to
bring about the actual contlict.1
From this war therefore, we can draw no inferences ahout the
date of the Bapkt's martyrdom. As to the marriage itself,
there is, in the first place, no reason to doubt the synoptical
tradition that the Baptist's courage occasioned his imprison-
ment. The account of Josephus neither excludes the assumption
that the tetrarch waited for a good pretext belore arresting
John nor makes it impossible that his arrest and execution
should have been separated by a short imprisonment (cp Mk.
6 20 ; Mt. 112). That Herodias's daughter was too old to dance
a t the feast is shown by A. von Gutschmid (Literarisckzs
Centra/blaatt, 1874, p. $ 2 2 ) to be wholly undemonstrable and a
banquet at Machserus I S not inconceivable. That acco;ding to
Josephus, Machserus should have been a t on: time in the
possession of Aretas and shortly afterwards in that of Antipas
we cannot indeed explain (cp Schurer, 1365) ; hut since Josephd
finds no difficulty in it, it has no force as an argument. Since,
however, we cannot fix the date of the marriage, the whole
matter does not help us much 2 and we can only say that there
is no sufficient evidence that ;he journey to Rome, on which
Antipas made the acquaintance of his brother's wife, and his
return to the tetrarchy, soon after which the marriage occurred,
were not between 27 and 30 A.D.
The history of the Baptist presents, therefore, no
insuperable obstacle to the view that the fifteenth year
of Tiberius = 29 A . D.
4. The Year of Jesus' Denth.--Since the crucifixion
60. Jesus, death. certainly happened under Pontius
Pilate, its earliest possible date is
26 A . D . , the latest 35 A.D.
The complete publicity of Jesus' death and its
,character as a civil event, its well-understood im-
portance as the starting-point of-Christianity, its unique
impressiveness, and its connection with the Jewish
passover, must have made it a chief object of the
awakening chronological interest of the early Christians,
and at the same time have given ground for believing
that the date could be fixed with reasonable certainty.
( a ) This suggests that probably the
51' Lk"s chronological interest of the third
method' Evangelist (Lk.3 I f:) was engaged as
little for the first public appearance of Jesus as for
that of the Baptist : that it was directed towards the
date of the Lord's~death. He preferred, however, not to
interrupt his narrative of the Passion by a chronological
notice, and therefore worked back from the date of the
crucifixion to the date of the beginning of Jesus' ministry,
and so to that of the beginning of the ministry of the
Baptist. This is confirmed by the fact that the date in
Lk. 31f: is, with the exception of the 'acceptable year
of the Lord' in 419, the last date that Lk. gives. If,
as we have concluded above, Lk. really had a whole
year in mind, he must have put the death of Jesus into
the next (the sixteenth) year of Tiberius-that is, at the
passover of 30 A . D . ~
1 See the account, with criticism, of Keim's theory and of
Wieseler's objections to it, in Schiuer, 1368f:
2 Clemen, C h o n . d e r +ad. Briefe, thinks otherwise, and
reckons out 33 A.D. ; but hi4 argument is wholly inconclusive.
' a A different view is held by Bratke, Stud. ?I. Krit., 1892
who holds that Lk. regarded the fifteenth year of Tiberius a;
80j
CHRONOLOGY
That Lk. had worked hack one year from the sixteenth year
If 'l'iberius was the view of Julius Africanus.1 On the other
land Clement of Alexandria took Lk.'s fifteenth year of
I.ibe;ius as the year of Jesus' death ; as did probably Tertullian,
whose statement that Christ was crucified in the consulate of
.he two Gemini (29 A.D.) doubtless rests on Lk. 3 I J ,and was
3erhaps made on purpose to avoid confusion from the later
nethod of reckoning (cp above $ 47) which would have led
iim to the year 28 A.D. The sfaternent in the received text of
rertullian that Jesus revealed himself ' anno xii. Tiberii Czsaris
:annot he harmonised with Tertullian's other notices, and looks
ike an ancient correction intended to combine the statement in
:he text that Jesus was crucified in the fifteenth year of Tiberius
with the later traditional view of a three-year miuistry.
( 8 ) .The theory explaining the conduct of Pilate at
:he trial of Jesus by the censure received from Rome
62. Pilate. between 31 and 33 A D . lacks all founda-
tion ; and so does the theory (Sevin, p.
135) that the hostility between Pilate and Herod (Lk.
2 3 1 2 ) was possible only after the complaint against
Pilate (as to the date of the complaint, cp Schiirer
l411), in which Antipas had a share. Hostility between
the Roman procurator and Herods heir must have been
the rule, not the exception.
( c ) If, in spite of what has been said above, the
63. Temple.
fourth Evangelist counted three passovers in the public
life of Jesus (cp above, § 45). and the
period of forty-six years from the be-
ginning of the- building of <he temple is to be taken
seriously (cp § 48), his chronology also would yield the
year 30 for the death of Jesus.
(d) A . final decision cannot be reached from the
Jewish Calendar. On the one hand, the Synoptists put
64. Day of the crucifixion on Friday, the 15th Nisan,
Crucimon. John on Friday, the 14th (Mk. 1542, Lk.
2854, Mt. 2762, Jn. 19y).2 On the other
hand, although the astronomical new moons have been
computed for the possible years with a difference of but
a few minutes between the computation of Wurms and
that of Oudemans, and the days of the week can be
56. Jewish found,3 difficulty is caused by various
Calendar. irregularities in the Jewish calendar-
system. First, the beginning of the month
was determined, not by the astronomical new moon, but
by the time when the new moon was first visible. which
depends partly on the weather and on the season of the
year, and is always at least from twenty-four to thirty
hours later than the astronomical new moon. In order
to prevent too great divergence of the calendar, it was
prescribed, however, that no month should in any case
last more than thirty days, and that no years should
contain less than four or more than eight such ' full '
months. Secondly, the intercalary years create com-
plication.
A thirteenth month was added to the year whenever on the
16th Nisan the barley was not yet ripe: hut this was forbidden
in the sabbatical years, and two intercalary years in succession
were not allowed. 'I'he only sabbatical year in our period (com-
puted hy the aid of I Macc. 6 49 53, and Jos. Ant. xiv. 16 2 ; cp
15 I 2 ) was, according to Schurer, 33-34 A.D. ; according to Sevin
and others," 34-35 A.D. Any one of the six preceding years
_- .
identical with the 'acceptable year,' and put the death of Jesus
into that year 29 A.D. Arguments similar to Bratke's are to be
found in Sadclemente, De 7w&an> era emendatione, 1793,
and in Caspari, ChronoZog'sch-geograjh~scheBinfertung b r das
Lebrn J e w , 1869.
1 So also Schurer, 1 369. Cp. Gelzer, S. /uZius Africanus
znd die byza~zfLzischeChi-onolbgie,1880 1 48.
2 On the attempts to reconcile this d&crepancy see the com-
mentaries and the books there mentioned.
3 Cp Wurms in Bengel's Arch.J d. TheoZ., 1886, vol. ii. ;
Ideler, Haiadb. 1 477-583 ; Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse der
~ Beitr. zur n'chtigen Wiirdi'zmng der
Vier Evv. ( ~ 8 4 3 )and
Evu. und derevnngeZischm Gesch., 1869 ; Gumpach, Ueberden
aff$2d. KaZender 1848. Oudemans, Rau. de ThLoL. 1863;
Caspari, Chroito(.~'eogv.'Ein1. 2. d. Leb. Jesu Chvisti, 1869 ;
Schwarz, DepjzH. Kaf. historisch u.astronoinisch untwsucht,
1872 ; Zuckermann, Matmialien zur Eiztwickel~~ngdera2~'~d.
Zeitrechn. im Tabztrd, 1882.
4 Cp, besides the ahove-mentioned work of Gumpach, Caspari,
21-25 ; Sevin, 58-61 ; Anger, De t e r i ~ p o r z min Artts Ajosfo-
lorain ratione, 1833, p. 38; Herzfeld, Gesclz. d. Isr. 2 4 5 8 8 : ;
Zuckermann Ueber Sabhathjahrcycbs und JobeZ+enode,
Breslau, 18;7; Gratz, Gesclz. d. Jud. iii. 1878, p. 636-639;
Rbnsch, in Stud. u. Krd. 1870, p. 36rJ, 1875, p. 589 8;
806
 CHRONOLOGY I CHRONOLOGY
might have been an intercalary year. At the end of 28-29 A.D.,
however, there was no need of an intercalated month, because
the 15th N i s n fell on 16th April 29 A.D., and on 5th April 30
A.D. (so according to Wurms : according to Gauss and Schwarz
one day later). At the end of 30-31 there may have been an
intercalary month for the r5th Nisan would otherwise have
fallen on 26th or k7th March, 37 A.D., but with an intercalary
month on 24th April. In 32 A.D., the 15th Nisan fell on 12th
April; in 33 A D . , on and April. If, however, 33-34 was a
sabbatical year an extra month would have had to be inter-
calated at the eiid of 32-33, and then the 15th Nisan would have
fallen on 1st May, 33 A.D., and ZIst April, 34 A.D. ; wherzas if
34-35 was the sabbatical year, the extra month would not have
been inserted until the end of 33-34., Thus, in 33 A.D. the 15th
Nisan would have remained and Apnl. The Jewish empirically
determined dates all fell, however, one or two days later than
these astronomical dates.
If we take the days of the week into account, in the
years 29, 32, and 35 A.D., neither the 14th nor the
56. Days of 15th Nisan could possibly have fallen on
Friday. On the other hand, if 33-34
week' was not a sabbatical year (and so 32-33
not an intercalary year), the 14th Nisan may have been
celebrated on Friday, 4th April 33, which would corre-
spond to the view of the Fourth Gospel. This year,
however, is excluded if Jesus died on the 15th Nisan,
and it is impossible in either case if, as is more likely,
33-34 was the sabbatical year, and so 32-33 had
thirteen m0nths.l There is, therefore, no great prob-
ability on the side of 33 A.D. On the other hand,
the 15th Nisan may have fallen on Friday, 23rd April
34 A.D. This is hardly possible for the 14th Nisan, as
the astronomical new moon occurred at 6.42 p.m., 7th
April, so that the 1st Nisan can have been put at the
latest on 9th April (so Sevin, 144). No other line of
evidence, however, points to the year 34, and this reclion-
ing by the calendar suits just as well the year 30 of Lli.
3 1 J , for in that year the astrononlical new moon
occurred at 8.08 p.m.,' 22nd March, so that the 1st
Nisan niay have been put on Friday, 24th March, and
the 15th have fallen on Friday, 7th April.2
5. The Year of Jesus' Birth.-Dionysius Exiguus,
according to the proofs given by Sanclemente ( L c . 4 8 )
and confirmed by Ideler (Handbmh,
57* Jesus' 2383 J ) , started in his reckoning from
Birth ; Dion' the incarnation, and followed the common
methodfor the years of reigning monarchs.
His view was that Jesus was born on the 25th De-
cember, 754 A.u.c., and so he counted the whole year
754 a.s 1 A.D. The view defended by Noris and Pagi,
that he assigned the nativity to 25th December 753, and
ignored the five following days, is wrong.
In this reckoning, which gradually came to be
universally accepted, Dionysius departed from the
dating for which Irenzus ( A d z hay. iii. 2 5 ) and Ter-
tullian ( A h . Jzrd. 8) are the oldest witnesses; which
dating, based only on the information given in the
Gospels, put the nativity in 751 A.u.c. = 3 B.C.
Dionysius, perhaps because he had no means of fixing
the date of the census under Quiriiiius in Lli. 2, or the
death of Herod in Mt. 2, seems to have reached his
result by putting the public appearance of Jesus one
year later than that of John (15th year of Tiberius, Lk.
3 r J ) , and reckoning back thirty years. Since we have
seen that the thirty years of Lli. 3 I J is a round number,
perhaps drawn from the OT, we are thrown back on the
narratives of the nativity.
( u ) Lk. gives two points. ( i . ) He says ( 1 3 6 ) that
Jesus was six months younger than the Baptist, whose
58. The Baptist. conception happened under Herod
(15). It- does not, however, follow
that the birth of Jesus fifteen months later was alsc
under Herod, and, even if the evangelist thought so,
Wieseler in Stud. u. Kvif. 1895, p. 5 2 7 3 ; Caspari in Stud,
u. Kvit. 1877, pp. r8r-rgo; Riess, Gabuvtsjahu C h i s t i , 1880
p. 45f: 229-236 ; and other works mentioned in Schiirer, 1 2 g J
1 See for the year 33 A . D . the exact reckoning in Schegg
P. 49f:
2 So also Gnmpach, HiiLfsm. d. vechnand. CJzronoL 1853
P. 94.
807
tis view cannot have rested on documentary evidence.
'erhaps Lk. may have drawn his inference from the
act that the Baptist died six months before Jesus.
(ii.) Lk. says (21-5) that Jesus was born at the time
vhen a census, ordered by Augustus for the whole
i9. The Census. empire, was being talcen in Judrea and
Galilee, and that this was while Cyrenius
undoubtedly Publ, Sulpicius Quirinius) was governor
n Syria.' Such a census, however, was legally im-
)ossible in the reign of Herod, and a governorship of
2uirinius in Syria before Herod's death is chronologically
nipossible, since at the time of Herod's death ( 4 B. c. )
luinctilius Varus (who put down the insurrection follow-
ng that event) was still governor in Syria, whilst his
lredecessors were Sentins Saturninus (9-6 B. C. ) and
ritius (attested for I O B.C.). Josephus, who relates the
ast years of Herod in much detail, has no knowledge
If such a census, but says that the census of 7 A.D. was
.he first, and something altogether novel for the Jews.
[t may be that Quirinius was governor .of Syria for a
jhort time (3-2B. C. ) as successor to Varus, as he cer-
:airily was afterwards from 6 A.D. until (at the latest)
I I A. D. ; but in his first (problematical) governorship a
:ensus for Judxa, which had fallen to the share of
4rchelaus, is likewise impossible. On the other hand,
:he census in J u d e a under Quirinius in 6-7 A. D., after
,he deposition of Archelaus, is well attested (cp Jos. A%?.
rvii. 125 xviii. 1 I and 2 I xx. 5 2, E/, xi. 1I , Acts [ = Lk.]
5 3 7 ) , and may have been in fulfilinent of a general
imperial command intended to be executed as occasion
should arise in the several provinces. This could, how-
ever. have applied only to imperial provinces (including,
therefore, Judza), not to senatorial provinces : that is, it
would not be universal. Further, ( I ) even this census
could not have inclilded the Galileans, who were subjects
3f Antipas; and ( 2 ) it must have been taken as the
basis for a poll and property tax, at the actual, not at
the ancestral, home of the subject, for the latter would
have been in most cases hard to determine, and such a
procedure was in general impracticable. ( 3 ) Moreover,
Mary could not possibly be affected by it, because she
was not of the lineage of David (cp G ENEALOGIES, ii.),
and in such cases the authorities dealt with the male
representatives of the women.
The account in Lk. rests, therefore, on a series of
niistakes, and the most plausible view is that the evange-
60. Lk,,s list, or the tradition which he followed, for
method. somereason combined the birth of Jesus with
the census under Quirinius, and assigned to
the latter a wrong date.z
Perhaps Lk. simply confused Archelaus with his
father, for the former was very probably, like Antipas.
occasionally called Herod. This confusion of the two
Herods would have been all the easier if after Herocl
the Great's death Qiiirinius really was for a while
governor of Syria. The same confusion may have
caused Irenzus and Tertullian to adopt the year 3 B.C.
for the birth of Jesus. The imperial census of Lk. is
perhaps a confusion of the census under Quirinius, put
incorrectly into the year 3 B. c., with the remembrance
of the census of Roman citizens throughout the empire
which was actually ordered by Augustus in 6 B.C., for
the two events lay only two years apart. Lk., who
(cp 47 above, on the two high priests in Lk. 32)
was none too well informed on Jewish matters, may
have inferred from ' the family of David' that Joseph's
home was really in Bethlehem, and have supposed this
fact to be the true means of combining the already
current tradition of the birth in Bethlehem with the
incontestable tradition that Jesus was a Nazarene. If
1 See the concliisive investigation by Schiirer, 1 4 3 3 3
2 A chronological error is not without analogies in 1.k. The
case of Thendas (Acts3 3 6 J ) is well known, and the collection
for the poor in Acts 11283 ,is perhaps confused w!th that of
Acts 21 whilst the cornhaation of the various famines in the
time ofklaudius into one world-wide famine (Acts 1128) is very
closely analogous to the case of the census.
808
 CHRONOLOGY
these suppositions are admissible, the kernel of truth in
the narrative would be that Jesus was born not far from
the end of the Herodian period, and that the Roman
rule was set up in his earliest childhood. In both these
political occurrences an inner connection with the events
which brought in the Kingdom of,God was doubtless
observed in very early times, and the interest in making
the closeness of this connection as clear as possible may
have led to the enrichment of the narrative.
( a ) From Mt. we have as chronological evidence the
star and the slaughter of the innocents. Rationalis-
61. The Star. ing attempts, however, to subject this
star to astronomical laws do violence to
the idea of the narrator. ‘The star moves in its own free
paths, appears and disappears, travels and stands still.
Even if the evangelist is wrong, and a conjunction or a
comet lies at the basis of the story, it is impossible to
determine froni what phenomena astrologers of ‘theEast’
supposed themselves able to draw such inferences. The
star shines only in the legend, and derives its origin from
Nu. 2417 and the apocalyptical imagery (cp Rev. 121).
It has been matched by similar legendary stars at the
birth and at the death of many of the great men of the
heathen world.
As to the murder of the innocents, if it were a
historical fact, Jesus must be supposed, since the male
62. The children were killed ‘ from two years old and
Innocents.under,‘ to have been not less than a year
old, even if the murder was just before
Herods death: and in that case, since Herod died
shortly before the Passover of 4 B . c . , Jesus must have
been born at the latest in 5 B.C. Josephus, however,
although he narrates with the most scrupulous exactness
all the horrors of Herods last years, has no knowledge
of the murder of the children. On the other hand, he
gives almost exactly the same story as relating to Moses
(Ant.xi. 9 2).
All the other suspicious circumstances in the narrative
in Mt. 2 cannot be set forth here. In view of the
natural tendency of legends to connect important events
with one another and to mirror their mutual relations,
we cannot infer from Mt. more than that Jesus was
probably born shortly before or after the death of
Herod-the same result that we reached from Lk.
The only results which have a very high degree of
probability are the date 30 A.n. for the death of Jesus,
63. on- and the period of about one year for the
elusions, F g t h of his public ministry. Besides this,
it is also probable that Jesus was born in
the agitated times when death was snatching the sceptre
from the hand of Herod the Great, and when with his
successors the Roman rule in J u d z a was coming again
in sight.
TABLE VII.-LIFE OF JESUS, PROBABLE DATES.
circa 4 H.C. ?-Birth of Jesus.
circa 28/29 n.D.-Beginning of public work.
30 A.D.-Death of Jesus.
11. CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF P A U L . - T ~ ~ is not conclusive, and, on the other hand, the rise of
starting - point for Pauline chronology must be the
journey to Rome, for here we can make
64.
connection with the dates supplied by
journey oman history. The events immediately Felix should hold over the prisoner for the chance of a
to Rome‘ preceding-namely, the arrival of Festus in having come about, should finally leave him in prison
Palestine, the Seginning of the proceedings against
Paul (Acts 251-6), the hearing and the appeal (256-IZ),
and (27 I ) the shipment of the prisoner-probably
followed one another rapidly; but the actual date of
65. Festus, the arrival of Festus is matter of dispute
(see the literature in Schurer, G J V , I Ephesus. That a provisional imprisonment of two
484J n. 38, to which must now be added 0. Holtzmann,
N T Zeit,esch., 1895, p. 125 8 248 : Blass, Acta Ap.
1895, p. 21f. ; Harnack, Die Chron. deraltchrist2. Lit.
1 [‘97]). For the most part the preference is given
to the year 60 or 59 A n . , since it was at the latest in
the summer of 62 (more probably in that of 61) that
809
CHRONOLOGY
llbinus succeeded Festus, and for the events related
)f Festus’s term of office one year will suffice. The
)bjection to an earlier date ‘is that it might not leave
‘oom for the events of the life of Paul, and that, ac-
:ording to Acts2410, at the imprisonment of Paul,
j’elix had already been in office ‘many years’ ( 6 ~
rohhGv ~ T G Y ) . (That the courtly Josephus casually
nentions PoppEa as Nero’s wife, which she did not
lecome till several years later, cannot be adduced as a
ierious argument in the same direction. )
By the side of this commonly received date, however,
L much earlier one has been advocated recent1y.I
Thus Kellner proposes Nov. 54 A . D . : Weber and
3. Holtzmann, the summer of 55 ; Blass and Harnack,
j6 (Harnack, 55?). Whilst 0. Holtzmann takes his
itart from Tacitus, Harnack starts from the chronology
if Eusebius, the claims of which to our confidence his
abours have materially enhanced. He shows that there
s no ground for the common suspicion of the dates
Tiven by Eusebius for the procuratorships preceding and
Ollowing that of Festus.
Eusebius s date for the year preceding the accession of Felix
iiffers from that of Tacitus by only one year. Nor is the difference
my greater in the date of his removal. According to Tacitus
Pallas fell into disfavour a few days before the fourteenth birth!
lay of Britannicus, which fell in the middle of Feb. 55 A.U.
kccording to Josephus Pallas obtained of Nero an acquittal for
lis brother Felix from Hn accusation made by the Jews after his
.ecall. Now, as Nero ascended the throne on the 13th Oct.
i4 A.D., the time left under him by these two dates is clearly too
,hart for the events narrated hy Josephus. Two solutions are
mssible. Tacitus may he wrong by a year in the age of
Britanuicus ; it may have been his fifteenth birthday, so that it
Mas not till 56 that Pallas fell into disfavour ; or else even after
lis fall Pallas may still have had access to the Emperor. Now,
Eusebius in his Chronicle supports the year 56 as that of the
rccession of Festus, since he assigns it to the second year of
Yero (Oct. 55 to Oct. 56; on the textual certainty of this date
iee Harnack, 236, n. 2). If Felix entered on his office as
iccording to Eusebius he did, between Jan. 51 and Jan.’ 52
‘according to Tacitus between Jan. 52 and Jan. 53), he could in
.he summer of 56 be described in case of need, if we compare
:he average length of procuratorships, as having been in ofice
!K rrohhiuv B&Y.
Any objection, in fact, to this number 56 for the
accession of Festus, supported by Tacitus and Eusebius,
could come only from the requirements of the life of
Paul. We shall, therefore, leave the question open for
the present.
From the date thus obtained for the relegation of the
prisoner to the tribunal at Rome, let us in the first
place make our way backwards.
If, as we shall see to be probable, Paul carried out
the plan mentioned in Acts 2 0 16, his arrest must have
66. Felix. been a t Pentecost under the procurator
Felix, who (2427) prolonged the proceedings
for two years until his retirement from office. This
mention of Felix and the two-years imprisonment in
Caesarea are, indeed, regarded as unhistorical by
Straatman (Paulus, 1874),van Manen ( P a u b s , 1, De
handelin.pz der Apostebn, 1890); and especially by
Weizsacker (A?. Zeitalter, 1886, pp. 433-461); but
the improbability of certain details, on which they rely,
this circumstantial narrative cannot be explained on
the ground that it is a doublet to Acts 25f. That
change of sentiment in Jerusalem, and, this change not
in the hope of leaving one popular deed to be remem-
bered by, agrees with his character and the habit of
procurators. That Acts tells nothing about these two
years is much less surprising than its silence about the
year and a half in Corinth and the three years in
years could be imposed even on a Roman citizen is
1 By Kellner (the article ‘Felix’ in Hergenrtither’s KiYcFwz-
Ze.%.(z) [Roman Catholic], 1887 ; 2.3 kath Theol. 1888), Weber
(Kritische Gesch. der Exegese des 9. Kap. des Ratnerbyiefs
1889, p. 177&), 0. Holtzmann (/.c.), Blass (Z.C.), Harnack (Z.c.$
following such older scholars as Bengel, Siiskind, and Rettig.
810
 CHRONOLOGY
shown by the two-years imprisonment in Rome. It
is likewise obvious that Paul would not have had his
case transferred to Rome except in dire necessity.
The dry notice in Acts 24 27 is, therefore, without
doubt trustworthy, and the arrest of Paul is to be put
two years earlier than the arrival of Festus---that is, at
Pentecost 54 or 58.
For the events before the arrest in Jerusalem we
give the dates in two numbers : one on the assumption
67. philippi that this happened at Pentecost 54 ; the
toJemsalem. other, that it was in 58. The journey to
Jerusalem from Philippi (Acts 204-21 16),
which is related, with the exception of the episode at
Miletus (2016-38), from the ' we-source,' was begun
after 'the days of unleavened bread,' and there is no
reason for supposing that Paul did not carry out his
plan (20 76) of arriving at Jerusalem by Pentecost. The
itinerary from the beginning of the Passover is given
us as follows :-At Philippi (Passover) seven days ; to
Troas five days ; a t Troas seven days ; to Patara eight
days,-in all twenty-seven days. This leaves twenty-
two days before Pentecost, which was ample for the
journey to Jerusalem except in case of a very exception-
ally nnfavourable passage from Patara to the coast of
Syria. Of these t,wenty-two days twelve were occupied
as follows :-At Tyre seven days, to Ptolemais one, to
Czsarea one, to Jerusalem two to three; so that ten
days remain for the voyage from Patara to Tyre (which
in ordinary weather required four to five days) and
for the stay at Czsarea, the duration of neither of
which is stated. From the stops, which in view of
the brisk coasting-trade were surely not necessary,
we may infer that satisfactory progress was made by
the travellers. The departure from Philippi, which was
the conclusion of Paul's missionary career, is, therefore,
to be put just after the Passover of the year of the arrest.
For the dates earlier than this point, the chronologist
would be wholly at sea without Acts; and no good - For the journey thus barely mentioned in Acts one year
68. Ephesus reason appears for not trusting the
to philippi. information which it gives. On the
great iourney which ended at Ternsalem,
Paul had started from Ephesus ( I Cor. 168f.; Acts
IS), and journeyed by way of Troas, where he carried
on his work for a short time (Acts201 does not
mention Troas at all), to Macedonia (zCor. 212 f . 7 5 ) .
That he stayed there long is not likely ; for, if he had
done so, the length of his stay would probably have
been given as in the case (Acts203)of Greece (Corinth).
Moreover, the plans made in Ephesus ( I Cor. 1 6 5 ;
z Cor. 115f. ) had in view only a short stay in Mace-
donia, for ( I Cor. 168 cp n. 6 ) Panl expected to leave
Ephesus after Pentecost (which fell somewhere between
15th May and 15th June) and to be in Corinth so early
that, even if he should not decide to pass the winter
there, his visit should, nevertheless, not be too short.
This would allow at most three months on the way.
Now, he may have waited rather longer in Macedonia,
in order to learn the impression made by Titus (the
bearer of z Cor. ) ; but, even so, we cannot reckon more
than from four to five months for the whole journey.
In Corinth itself he stayed (Acts203) three months,
and then rcturned to Macedonia, where he surely did
not stay long, since he had been there just three
months earlier. Moreover, he had, no doubt, formed
in Corinth his plan of being in Jerusalem by Pentecost,
and the additional time which the unexpectedly long
journey (occasioned by Jewish plots, Acts203, which
made the direct route impossible) must have cost him
would of itself have forbidden an unnecessarily long stay.
H e probably, therefore, reached Philippi but little before
the Passover ; and we have for the whole journey from
Ephesus through Troas, Macedonia, Greece, and back
to Macedonia perhdps eight to ten months-namely,
about the space of time from Pentecost 53/57 to Pass-
over 54/58. In the summer1 of 53/57 in Macedonia
1 Or autumn ; see C ORINTHIANS , B 3.
811
CHRONOLOGY
Paul wrote z Cor.; at the end of this year or the
beginning of the next in Corinth, Romans, and the
letter of introduction for Phoebe to the Christians at
Ephesus (Rom. 161-20). About this time may belong,
too, the undoubtedly authentic note Tit. 3 12-14 ; in
which case the Macedonian Nicomedia is meant, and
the plan for the winter was not carried out.
The stay in Ephesus had lasted, according to Acts19
8 1 0 2 2 , over two years and a quarter (Acts2031 speaks
69. Epheius. of three years), s o that Panl must-have
come to Ephesus at Pentecost or in the
summer of 50/54. From there, after he had already
sent one letter to Corinth ( I Cor. 5 g ) , he wrote in the
beginning of 53/57 our I Cor., and later had occasion
to write to Corinth for yet a third time (zCor. 7 3 : the
letter is perhaps preserved in z Cor. 10-13).l
From this long stay in Ephesus, which doubtless
formed the second great epoch in Paul's missionary
70. Corinth. activity in the Greek world, we go back to
the first-namely, the first visit to Corinth
(Acts181-18 ; cp I and z Cor.). This appears to have
lasted about two years, since to the one year and a half
of 1811 must be added, in case 1811refers only to the
time spent in the house of Titius Justus, the previous
time, in which Paul was trying to work from the synn-
gogne as a base, as well as the later i ~ a v a ltpdppar of
1818. How much time lay, however, between the
departure from Corinth and the arrival at Ephesus in
50/54 we cannot tell, although the very sketchiness of
our only authority (Actsl818-191) makes it easier to
believe that the author is drawing here (except for the
words, n. 19, eimhS3v-v. ZT, Bdhovros) from a written
source than that he relies on oral tradition or his own
imagination. Oral tradition would either have omitted
the journey altogether, or have narrated what happened at
Jerusalem in some detail. All suspicion of ' tendency ' is
excluded by the brevity and obscurity of the passage.
would be ample time. In that case Pan1 would have left
Corinth in the summer of 49/53, having arrived there in
the summer of 47/51. In the beginning of this period
of two years ~ T h e s s .was written. (The genuineness
of z Thess. must be left undetermined. )
Before the long stay in Corinth falls the Macedonian
mission, with the necessary journeys, which, however,
occupied hut one day each (Actsl611-181). For the
whole journey from Troas to Corinth a few months would
suffice. It is, therefore, possible that Paul set out after
the opening of navigation in March of the same year
in the summer of which he arrived for his long stay in
Corinth.
U p to this point the probability of the chronolom -_is
71. Results. very considerable. The results may be
summarised as follows :-
TABLE VIII. -LIFE O F P AUL : ENTRANCE INTO
EUROPE TO IhlPRISONMENT AT ROME.
Spring 47/5r.--Departure from Troas, followed by mission
in filacedonia.
Summer 47/5~-Summer49/53.-Corinth and Acbaia. I Thess.
Summer ~,g/53-Siimmer 50/54.-Visit to Jerusalem and An-
tioch ;journey through Asia Minor to Ephesus.
Summer 50/5.+-Pentecost 53/57,-Ephesus.
Pentecost s3/y-Passover 54/58.-Journey by way of Troas
and Macedonia to Achaia and return to Philippi.
Passover-Pentecost 5&8.-Journey, with the contribution,
from Philippi to Jerusalem.
54/58-56/6o.-Impr1sonment in Czesarea.
Autumn 56/6o-.Spring 57/61. -Journey to Rome.
5716~-5g/63.-Imprisonmeiit in Rome.
Passing now to the period before 47/51 A.D., we find
that Acts supplies us with far less trustworthy accounts
and is wholly without dates ; nor have we
"'
any Pauline epistles written in these years.
period' Highlyprobable, nevertheless (jnst because
of the peculiar way in which it is given), although not
1 See, however, C ORINTHIANS , 0 18.
812
 CHRONOLOGY
without editorial additions, is the representation preserved
in Acts1540-168, that Troas was the goal of a zigzag
journey from Antioch in Syria through the interior of
Asia Minor. The seeming restlessness (Acts 1664)-
a t any rate in the latter part of the inland journey-may
imply that the time occupied was comparatively short.
In that case, the start from Antioch might fall in the
year 46/50 ; but even that is very problematical. We
are, therefore, thrown back for the chronology wholly
f. on Gal. If. Here, however, it is not
,3. Gal. perfectly plain whether the fourteen years
in 2 I include or follow the three years in 118. For the
former view may be addiiced the change of prepositions
p u d ( ' after') and 616 ( ' in the course of,' RVmg.) ; but
this can be explained better thm. An ~ T E L T U ( ' then ' )
having been introduced in 1 2 1 between the two ~ T ~ L T
of 118 and 2 I , aid was used, instead of p e ~ d ,in order
not to exclude the space of time between the two ZTECTU
of vv. 18 and 21-namely, the fifteen days in Jerusalem.
(Perhaps, also, in 21 the three years had completely
elapsed before the first visit, whereas the second visit
may have been made in the course of the fourteenth
year. ) On this view seventeen years would have elapsed
from theconversion of Paul to the conference in Jerusalem,
out of which time he had spent three years in Arabia and
fourteen in Syria and Cilicia (117 21). The latter period
was certainly, the former (at leastfor Damascus)probably,
occupied in the work of an apostle (Gal. 123 27 f.).
After the conference in Jerusalem followed a stay in
Antioch ( 2 11-21). Since 3 I ,f is introduced without any
sign of transition, the simplest supposition is that this
~ p o y p d + w (31 ; RV 'open setting forth') and its
results (that is, the mission in Galatia) come chrono-
logically after, but not too long after, the events
narrated previously. This would agree, also, with the
most natural interpretation of Gal. 25.
If we look now at the parallel narrative in Acts, there
is, in the first place, no doubt that in 151-35 we have
,4. Acts. the same events described as in Gal. 2. Jn
Acts, as in Galatians, Paul and Barnabas
come with others in their company to Jerusalem, and
return to Antioch after arriving at an understanding with
the church in Jerusalem. To Antioch come also, in both
cases (although in Acts no mention is made of a visit of
Peter), members of the Jerusalem church, who might in
Acts also, just as in Galatians, have been said to come
from James. In Acts 1127-30 l 2 ~ 4 f . ,however, we find,
besides, mention of another earlier journey of Paul and
Barnabas from Antioch to Jerusalem and back again,
after the journey from Damascus to Jerusalem (Acts
9 26-30 =Gal. 118). Since Gal. 120-2T makes this im-
possible as a separate visit to Jerusalem, the two visits
from Antioch (Acts 111.: and Acts 15) must have been
really one ; and this would explain the further points of
resemblance that on both occasions (in one case after,
in the other before, the journey of the apostles) prophets
come from Jerusalem to Antioch 1 1 2 7 153z), and that
both times, although in different ways, a contribution of
money plays a part (Actsll 281.: Gal. 210). Cp also ' to
the elders' (Acts1130 152). Now, although this visit
is in general more accurately described by Actsl5, there
are many reasons for thinking that it is chronologically
placed more correctly by Acts 1127 8
T h e insertion by mistake at the end of chap. 1 4 is easy to under-
stand ; for whilst large parts of chap. 1 3 s and the whole ofchap.
15 are certainly the work of the final author of Acts (notice that
the style is the same as in Acts 1-12), at the same time the 'we
source' can he detected (as is now more'and more widely held)
as far hack as 13 I , and we can ascribe to it the return to Antioch
(1426~)as well as the later departure for the journey of 1 G 6 8
(without the intervening narrative), although we can no longer
restore the original connection. Accordingly, since the author
had not been able before Acts 13J to give a concrete account of
any Gentile mission, an undated account (perhaps not perfectly
accurate) of a conference in Jerusalem (to which the missionaries
came from Antioch) which treated the subject of Gentile
missions could be inserted after 13f: better than earlier. The
author may have bad some reason to suppose that the contri-
bution of money (the fact but not the date of which be had
learned : it was not mentioned in his source as the occasion
813
CHRONOLOGY
If the last visit of Paul to Jerusalem; Acts21) must have
>een brought on the occasion of the earlier stay in Antioch. If
io we can see bow, in consequence of the two periods of
xhdence in Antioch, he was led to suppose that there had been
wo visits to Jerusalem and so to create a contradiction to Gal.
lj: All this becomes itill more probable if the districts visited
n Acts 13 f: could. be called Galatia hv Paul : a nossibilitv which
:an now b> regarded as proved as is the impos;ibility thkt Paul
,hould have called them Cificia (Gal. 121) (see GALATIA).
3n the other band, it can be seen in Acts 15 13?oft: that at the
:onference the great question Wac. ahout the Syrian Christians.
iot about those whose conversion is related in Acts 1 3 s
If these hypotheses are correct, between the con-
lerence in Jerusalem (Gal. 2 I j? ) and the journey from
rroas to Macedonia (Actsl68-11) lie the missionary
journey (Actsl3f.) begun and ended at Antioch, and
the zig-zag tour through Asia Minor (Acts1536-168),
U the beginning of the original account of which has been,
3oubtless, somewhat confused by the insertion of Actsl5.
One year, however, is not enough for these journeys.
The hindrance hinted at in Acts166 f. may perhaps
have been connected with the winter season, if the date
[March 47/51) which we have ventured to give above
for the passage from Troas to Macedonia is correct. In
that case the missionaries would perhaps have passed
the preceding winter in Antioch (Acts1426) ; the
missionary journey of Acts133 would then fall in the
open season before this winter ; and thus the departure
from Antioch related in Acts 131 lp: would have been
two years before the passage from Troas to Europe
(that is, in the spring of 45/49), and the conference
in Jerusalem immediately before-perhaps (if we may
infer from analogies) at the time of the Passover.
The conversion of Paul would fall (Gal. 1 1 8 21)
fourteen or seventeen years earlier-that is, in the year
31/35 or 28/32. When Gal. was written is for the
general chronology a matter of indifference.l
-,5. Results. TO the table given above should there-
fore be prefixed :-
TABLE ~ ~ . - L IOFFE P AUL : CONVERSION TO
ENTRANCE INTO E UROPE.
31/35 or z8/32.-Conversion of Paul.
Three-years stay in Arabia and Damascus.
34/38 or 31/35.-First visit to Jerusalem.
Eleven- or fourteen-years work in Syria and
Cilicia.
+5/49.-Conference in Jerusalem, mission in Galatia.
One-yearjourney through AsiaMinor toTroas.
Three further passages can perhaps serve as proof of
the results reached above.2 The first (Actsll 2 8 ) , con-
,6. Famine. taining the mention of the famine under
Claudius, loses, indeed, its significance,
if the visit there mentioned had as its object the agree-
ment abcut the mission-fields, not the bringing of a
contribution ; but it perhaps explains the mistaken
combination (Acts1130 121) of this journey (of 45/49
A . D . ) with the death of James the son of Zebedee, which
happened (Actsl21q-23) between 42 and 44. Josephus
tells (Ant.xx. 5 2 and 26 iii. 153) of a famine in Judzea,
which can well be put in one of these years, and so
could have been foreseen in the preceding year (cp
Schiirer, 1 474. n. 8). By a singular coincidence there
was in 49 also, one of the alternative years for the
journey of Pan1 and Barnabas to Jerusalem, a much
more widely extended famine (see, for authorities,
Schiirer, i b . ) . It is possible, then, that the author
knew that the conference was in a famine year, but
connqcted it, by mistake with the famine of 44 instead
of that of 49, and that this assisted the confusion
which resulted in the creation of an extra visit to
1 For the different possibilities see the Introductions to the
N T ; for the latest hypotheses, Clemen, Chronol. d. padin.
Briefe, 1893.
2 We can make nothing of the statement in ActsZ138.
Even were its authenticity beyond dispute we have no means
whatever of determining the year of the :edition referred to
and Wieseler's choice of 56 or 57 A . T X ( C h o n . 79) is devoid c
d
any solid foundation. Nor is it possible to infer any date from
the acconnt in Acts 2 5 3 of Agrippa and Berenice's presence in
Cmarea at the time when Paul's case was desided.
 CHRONOLOGY
Jerusalem. The confusion of the two famine years is
the more pardonable because both fell under Claudius ;
the transformation of the two local famines into one
which affected the whole empire is easily explicable.
All this, however, is simply a possibility. If the year
of the conference was 45 A . D . , the two journeys dis-
tinguished by Lk. would fall so close together that we
can easily understand their being regarded as distinct,
on the supposition that Lk. knew nothing of the raising
of a collection and its delivery on the occasion of Paul's
last journey to Jerusalem, but did know of a famine
about the time of the conference and of succour given
to the primitive church through Paul.
The second notice is that of the expulsion of the Jews
from Rome under Claudius, which was (Acts 181J ),
77, Expulsion before Paul's arrival at Corinth. The
year, however, of this edict, which
ofJews. Suetonius ( CZuzd. 2 5 ) also mentions,
is not certain. Wieseler (Chronol. 120.128) conjectures,
without conclusive arguments, that it was issued in the
year of the expulsion of the mathematici (Tac. Ann. xii.
5 2 ; Dio Cassius 606)-that is, in 52 A.D.-whilst Orosius
(76, 15 ed. Zangemeister, 1882) gives as the date, on
the authority of Josephus (in the existing text of whose
writings we find no mention of the matter), the ninth
year of Claudius=49 A.D.-a date not favourable to
the earlier alternative reached above for theyear of Paul's
arrival in Corinth, the summer of 47/51. Orosius's
statement, however, cannot be verified.
Finally, from Acts924 8 and z Cor. 1132 f:, it
appears that Paul's first visit to Jerusalem was
78, occasioned by a persecution at a
time when a viceroy' of Aretas, king
con- of the Nabatzans, resided at Damascus.
version' The latest Damascene coins with the
head of Tiberius (which form one of the proofs brought
together by Schiirer, 1615 f. n. 14, to prove, against
Marquardt and Mommsen, that Damascus was not all
the time under Arabian rule) belong to the year 33-34,
and it is in itself not probable, though it is possible,
that Damascus was given to Aretas by Tiberius, who
died in March 37 A . D . , while under Caligula such
favours are well known. If Caligula's reign bad
already begun, the flight of Paul would have fallen a t
least two years later than all but one of the dates assigned
for it above. However, the argument is uncertain.
Nothing known to us makes the possession of Damascus
by Aretas in the last years of Tiberius actually impos-
sible. If that should be excluded by discoveries of
coins or other new evidence, we should then (the
often assailed genuineness of 2 Cor. I l p J being pre-
supposed) have to combine the numbers in Gal. 118
2 1 (so that there would be only fourteen years between
Paul's conversion and the conference in Jerusalem),
or to shorten the time estimated for the mission in
Asia Minor and Europe, or else to omit from the
life of Paul the two-year imprisonment in Czesarea
under the procurator Feiix.
'At the same time, the coins of Tiberius for the year
33-34 exclude the year 28 as that of Paul's conversion.
If we assign the imprisoninent to 54, the data of Gal. 16
must be explained as referring to the total of fourteen
years, so that I'aul's conversion would fall in 31. In
favour of this is its nearness to the death of Jesus.
For I Cor. 1.53 8 does not w-ell permit an interval of
any length between Jesus' death and Paul's arrival at
Damascus. Conversely, the same consideration de-
mands that, if we regard 58 as the date of the imprison-
ment, we should calculate from the statements in Gal. 1.f:
a period of seventeen years, so that 32 would be the
year of Paul's conversion. Neither series, accordingly,
conflicts with what we know of those times ; but it may
readily be asked : Are we warranted in casting discredit
on the statements of Eusebius?
How now stands the case with reference to the
close of Paul's life? The travellers set out for
815
CHRONOLOGY
Rome in the autumn of 56 or 60, and arrived in the
79. closing spring of the subsequent year (Acts
period. 27f.). For the next two years Paul
was kept in easy imprisonment, and to
this period belong Colossians and Philemon, though
wme assign them to the Czsarean imprisonment.
After the lapse of the two years began the trial,
about which we have some information from a note
to 'Timothy now incorporated in 2 Tim., and from
Philippians. Of its duration and issue we know
nothing. The prediction that Paul would die without
meeting his friends again (Acts2025-38), the sudden
breaking off of Acts, and the utter absence of all trace
of any later activity on the part of the apostle, will
always incline one to believe that Paul's presentiment
was fulfilled, and that his trial ended in a sentence of
death. If so, the great apostle died in the course of
the year 59 or 63. In either case his martyrdom
was before the persecution of Nero, and had no
connection with it. Nor does any of the older
narratives conflict with this. When Eusebius in his
Chronicle assigns the death of Peter and Paul to the
fourteenth or thirteenth year of Nero (the number
varies in different texts)-Le., 68 or 67 AD.-he is in
conflict with himself, for he elsewhere sets this event in
the beginning of the persecution of Nero, which beyond
all question was in the summer of 6 4 ; and more-
over, as Harnack insists (Lc. 241 f:), his date lies under
the suspicion of being occasioned by the legendary
twenty-five years stay of Peter at Rome, in combination
with the story that the apostles left Jerusalem twelve
years after the death of Jesus : 304- 12+ 25 make
67. But neither is the tradition of the con-
teniporaneous death of the two apostolic leaders by
any means so well grounded as Harnaclr assumes
(IC.). In Eusebius, the contemporaneousness lies
under the same suspicion as the date. Clem. Rom.
chap. 5 gives no hint of it, and the summary introduction
of other sufferers in chap. 6 gives us no right, in face of
the enumeration of the sufferings endured by Peter and
Paul during the whole of their apostolic activity, to
apply all that is said in chap. 6, and therefore the death
of these apostles, to the persecution of Nero. The
testimony of Dionysius (Eus. H E ii. 26 8), Bp$w EIS ~ $ 1 )
'IraXiav dp6m BiBci.5avrEs EpaprLpquav Karh rbv abrbv
Kacpbv ( ' After both teaching together as far as to Italy,
they suffered martyrdom at the same time') is to be
taken cum grnno salis. If the two great apostles
died a violent death for their faith in Rome under Nero,
it is easy to see how tradition might lose sight of the
interval of one year or five years, and bring the two
martyrdoms together. The rapidity with which in the
popular memory Paul receded behind Peter, a pheno-
menon already noticeable in Clem. Roni. and Ignat.
(ad Rom. 4), admits of a peculiarly simple explanation
if Paul was withdrawn from the scene so much sooner.
Whatever testimony can be found in thP literature
down to Eusebius for the liberation of Paul from his
first imprisonment at Rome has been
so. Was collected anew by Spitta (ZurGesch. u.
liberated ? Lit. des L'tzhrist. 1). In truth, all
that can be taken account of before Eusebius is the
apostle's intention intimated in Rom. 15 24 and mentioned
in the Muratorian fragment (except that the apostle's
plans were so often upset by events), the Pauline
fragments of the Pastoral Epistles (if they ought not
also to be brought within the period of missionary
activity known to LIS. since otherwise they would present
the post-captivity labours as a strange repetition of
%hat preceded the captivity), and the expression rQppa
773s Gduewr ' boundary of the west ' in Clem. Rom. It
is only the last that we can take seriously. Since,
however, Ignatius speaks of Rome as Bduis ( ' west,' ad
Rom. 2 z ) , and Clement himself has immediately before
opposed 8LIuis to dvaroh?j ( ' east ' ), meaning therefore
at least Rome among other places, it is not at all
816
 CHRONOLOGY
difficult, especially keeping in view the Pauline metaphor
of the d y h v (conflict), to suppose that it is this 6du,s,
( i e . , Rome) that is indicated as ~ i p p ~ a .If, in spite of
this, the hypothesis of the liberation of Paul should be
accepted, we should have to add to our chronological
table : 59/63. -Liberation of Paul; July-Aug. 64.--
Martyrdom. The apostle's eventful life would thus
end with a period completely obscured in the popular
memory, a period the events of which have not left a
trace behind.
TABLE X.-LIFE OF PAUL : LAST PERIOD.
56/60 (autumn).-Paul set out for Rome.
57/61 (spring).-Arrival in Rome.
57/61J--Easy imprisonment ; Col. Philem.
59/63.--Death of Paul.
[otherwise]
[59/63.-Liberation of Paul.]
[64 July-Aug.-Martyrdom.]
111. CHRONOLOGY OF THE CHURCHES IN PALES-
T I N E . - ~ .If the dates so far accepted are correct, the
51. Earliest whole Palestinian development described
by the author of Acts (almost our only
events. authority for this period) between the
death of Jcsus and the conversion of Paul, finally
culminating in the death of Stephen and the dispersion
of the church in Jerusalem, must be crowded into the
limits of two years, or possibly even of a single year.
The traditions are, however, very scanty. According
to I Cor. 151-7 there happened in this space of time the
appearance of Jesus to Peter and the twelve (as to the
time and place of which it is not possible to reach a
certain conclusion, but with which the return to Jerusalem
is most clearly connected), his appearance to the 500
brethren (perhaps to be identified with the occurrence
narrated in Acts 2, which in that case was in Jerusalem,
and, if Acts 2 is correct, fifty days after the death of
Jesus), the conversion of him who afterwards became
head of the church of Jerusalem, James the Lord's
brother (since this beyond doubt happened at the time
of the appearance to him mentioned in I Cor. 1571, and
the conversion (by the same means) of many who after-
wards became missionaries. The necessity of a repre-
sentation of the Hellenists (Acts 6 1-6) suggests that from
the return of the twelve until that time a considerable
period had elapsed, which is, however, very insufficiently
filled out by the narratives in chaps. 3-5.
2. As to the later events, in the narratives in Acts
84-40 9 1-30 931-11 18 1119-24 illustrating the geographical
82, Later extension of Christianity, the author
plainly does not mean to assert that the
events. events described followed one another in
mutually exclusive periods of time. If the accounts are
historical, the missionary operations of Philip and Peter
were undertaken while Paul was working in Damascus
and Antioch (including Syria) in 31/35 or 3 4 3 6 8 A. D .
The anonymous beginnings of Christianity in Damascus
and Antioch belong, of course, to the time before Paul
took hold in those places. If the recollections lying at the
basis of Acts 1122-26 are approximately correct, Barnabas
must have left Jerusalem finally for Antioch not very
long after Paul's first visit to Jerusalem in 34/38 or
35/39 A . D ., and Philip may by that time have already
removed to Caesarea (Acts 840).
3. After these events we hear nothing until the death
of James the son of Zebedee between 41, the year in
which Herod Agrippa I. began to rule over Judza, and
44, theyearof hisdeath(Actsl21f:). Iftheaccountin
Acts is correct, about this same time Peter left Jerusalem
permanently (Actsl217), and James the Lord's brother
must have already berome the leader of the church
(Acts12 17). With this agrees excellently the abun-
dantly attested old Christian tradition that the twelve
left Jerusalem twelve years after Jesus' death (see reff.
in Harnack, Chrunulop'e, 243). It may be in error
simply in transferring to the twelve what applied only
to their head, Peter. At all events, Acts tells us nothing
817
CHRONOLOGY
of the ten left after the death of James. The twelfth
year would be 42 A.D. In that case Ilerod must have
sought, immediately after his accession, by his proceed-
ings against the Christians to secure the confidence of
the Jews.
4. If the results reached above with reference to what
we read in Acts15 1 1 2 7 3 and 13f. are right, our next
information relates to the year 45 or 49, when Peter,
Paul, and Barnabas gather again at the conference
round James, at whose side (Gal. 29) appears John, the
son of Zebedee. Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch ;
Peter leaves Jerusalem again very soon, and lives for a
while among the Christians at Antioch (Gal. 2 1 1 3 ) .
5. In 54/58, when Paul comes to Jerusalem with the
contribution, James is master of the situation (Acts
21 18). This is the last information from the N T about
the church in Palestine.
6. According to the received text of Josephus (Ant.xx.
9 I), James suffered martyrdom in 62-that is, under the
high priest .4nanos (son of the high priest of the same
name known to us from the Gospels)-but before the
arrival in J u d z a of Albinus, the successor of the pro-
curator Festus. (After Festus's early death Annas had
been appointed high priest by Agrippa 11.) The passage
is not free, however, from the suspicion ofChristian inter-
polation. Hegesippus (Eus. HE ii. 23 11-18) seems to
have put the death of James somewhat nearer to the
destruction of Jerusa1em.l
Shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem ( A . D . 70)
the Christians removed to Pella in Perzea. The year is
not certain, but was probably 67, when, after the down-
fall of Cestius, Jewish fanaticism overreached itself.
I v . OTHEK DATES I N T H E HISTORY O F PRIMI-
53. Other TIVE CHRISTIANITY. -Here can be men-
dates. tioned .only those few points on which a
stray ray of light happens to fall. I n the
nature of the case, detailed discussions can be given only
in the special articles.
I. Peter.-That Peter, the last trace of whom we
found in A. D . 45/49, or somewhat later, at Antioch,
was later a travelling missionary after the manner of
Paul, is to be inferred from the allusions to him in
I Cor. 112 322 95. I Pet. 5 my., even if the epistle was
not written by Peter, iniplies his intimate association
with Paul's former companions Silvaiius and Mark, and
I Pet. 1~ fhis . missionary activity in the provinces of
Asia Minor. For this latter there was room at any rate
after the imprisonment of Paul in 54/58, and for most of
the provinces even before that time : namely, from the
moment when Paul transferred his chief activity to
Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. In regard to Peter's stay
in Rome, for which I Pet. 5 13 is an argument (it is
certainly to be put later than the end of Paul's trial),
and in regard to the question whether it was in the
persecution after the fire in Rome (July 64) that he
suffered martyrdom (cp Clem. Rom. 5). see PETER.
The assumption of a contemporaneous martyrdom
of Paul and Peter finds 110 support in the earliest
documents : see above, § 79.
2. 1uhn.-As to John's residence in Ephesus and his
end, see JOHN.
3. Whilst the persecution under Nero was doubtless
in the main limited to Rome, the last years of Domitian,
especially in Asia Minor, in consequence of the insistence
on the worship of the Emperor, may have been a period
of many conflicts with Christianity.2
T o this time (say 93-96) many scholars assign Hebrews
and I Peter (while others carry them down to the reign
of Trajan), as well as the Apocalypse of
84. NT
ohn (see the special articles). Not much
writings. ater, perhaps about the end of the first
1 For further discussion, with references to sources and biblio-
graphy see Schiirer, 1486f:
2 C G especially Neurnann, Der r&ziFclre Staat 16. die a@-
nreine Kirche. 1840. 1 7 e: Ramsav. The Church in the
818
 CHRYSOLITE
century, were written Ephesians, the Third Gospel, and
Acts. Our Gospel of Mark must, apart possibly from
some later additions, have been written before this;
there is no need to suppose a much later date than 70.
The Fourth Gospel, after which, probably, came the
Johaunine epistles, can well, by reason of its near rela-
tion to Llc. and for other reasons, have been written at
the same time as, or not long after, the Third Gospel.
The first third of the second century best suits the latest
books of the NT-Matthew, the Pastoral Epistles, and
James, all of them doubtless products of the Roman
church. Jude may have been written somewhat earlier,
2 Peter somewhat later. See the Introductions to the
N T and Harnack, ChonoZogie, 246-50,245$, 451-64,
475-91,651-81.
TABLE XI.-SOME OTHER DATES
(z4PPROXIYATIONS).
31/35 or 32/36#.-Work of Philip and Peter in Palestine.
34/38 or 35/39&--Barnabas removes to Antioch.
Between 41 and 4q.-Death of James, son of Zebedee; Peter
leaves Jerusalem ; James leader.
45/49.-Conference (Gal. 2 g).-Peter soon resides a t Antioch
(Gal. 2 118).
54/58.-Paul brings contribution to Jerusalem (Acts 21 18).
Later.-Peter becomes a travelling missionary.
62 or later?-Death of James.
671 Christians remove from Jerusalem to Pella.
7o.-Destruction of Jerusalem.
Not much after 70.-Our Gospel of Mark written.
93-56 ( ? t H e b . and I Pet. (acc. to many): Apoc.
About end of century.-Kph. Lk Acts Jn. Epp. of Jn.
First third of znd century.-fude,”Mt., Past.’Epp., Ja., z Pet.
H. V.S.
B IBLIOGRAPHY . A. Old Testaamnent.-Ideler, Ffand6. der
arath. u. tech. Chron. 2 vols. 1825.26 and Lchrb. d e r C’hrorc.
1831 ; H. Braodes, Adhmzdlutgen zur
85. Gesch. des Orients i?n Alterthnm, 1874 ;
Schrader, I<eilimchvi/ten u. Geschichtsforschung, 1878 ; B.
Neteler, Zusamnzenhang deer A Tlichen Zeitrechnung mit der
Profncesch. Miinster, 1879, pt. ii. 1885, pt. iii. 1886: Hommel,
Adriss derdad.-ass. n. israelit. Gesdz. in TabellenfoomE Leipsic,
1880. Floigl Gesch. des senzit. Alterthums Leipsic, 1882‘
SchrLder, Kh TP) 1883 (COT, 188988); d a h l e r , BibLiscd
Chron. u. Zeitrech&gder Hebr. 1887 ; Lederer, Die Bidlischa
Zeitrechnutig, 1888 ; Winckler, A T Untersuch. 1892; Kautzsch,
HS 1894 Beilagen, pp. 110-135 (atabular chronological iummary
fro; Nlokes to the end of the second century B.C ’ ET by J.
Taylor) ’ ‘Zeitrechnung’ by Kiehm in his NWB &4 pp. 1800-
1825 ; aAd by Gust. RSsch P R E P ) 17444-484. CAI Niibuhr Die
Chronol. der Gesch. Z s r a h , Aeg. Bab. u. A’ss. vou 2000-7& 21.
Chr. untersucht, 1896.
Onparticdaarpui~zfsalso the following:-For the time of the
Judges: Noldeke, Uniersuch. ZUY Krifikdes A T , 173-198. For
the Monarchy (besides the histories of Israel): Wellhausen, f Die
Zeitrechniing des Buchs der Kbnige seit der l’heilung des Relchs
in the<?T, ,1875, p? 607-640; Krey, ‘Zur Zeitiechnnng des B.
der Konige in ZWT 1877, pp. 404-408 ; W. R. Smith, Pro&
1882, pp. 145-151, 401i404 (2nd ed. 403-406), 413-419 (znd ed. 415’
421); Kamph. Uie Chron. der hetry. fCoz+?, 1883, cp ZA C’W,
3 ~ g y z o zC831; Klostermann Smn. u. KPn. r871, pp. 493-498 :
Riihl, ‘Die Tyrische K6nigs)liste des Menander von Ephesus
in the Rlreila. iMus.,Gr Phil. n.s. 1931, pp. 565-578, and ‘Chron.
der Konige von Israel u. Juda,’ in Deutsche 2t.f: Gcschichts.
u‘iss. 1244-76, 171 [‘9jl: Benzinger, ‘Kbn.,’ 1899 (I<HC).
For the ChronoloKy uf the Pe*sia+z times.-Kuenen ‘De
chron. van bet Perz. tijdvak der Joodsche geschied.’ in h o c .
Anuterdnm Royal Academy Literature Section, 1890, trans.
lated into German in Ru.’s ddition of Kue.’s Biblical essays.
Gesumnelte Abhandlungen, etc. [‘941, 212-251 : A. van Hoo,
nacker Zorobabel e t le second temple Ltude sur la clrron. de:
s i x p r h e r s chapitres du &re BE&as 1892 and NdhLmit
en Pan 2 3 d’Artaxerx2s I.; Esdras en Id 7 dlriaxerx2s I(.
(reply to Kue.), 1892 ; Kosters, Nrt /iersteZ wan Israel in he,
Perz. tijdvak, 1894 ; Ed. Meyer, Die Entstehung des Judex
izims, 1896 : Charles C . Torrey, The Cutlepos~tionand B i s t
VaZue of Ezra-Neh., 1896.
B. New Testa7?re?zt.-See the literature cited in the course o
the article, especially B 40 (note) and §$ 51-56 (notes). Cp a h
C. H. Turner in Hastings’ DB.
K.M. H.v.S. (9s39-84).
($5 1-38,85) ;
CHRYSOLITE (Xpycohieoc), one of the found
ations of the wall of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalyps,
(Rev. 21 IO). It is not improbable that in ancient time
the term was applied to a particular shade of BERYI
(7.n.). See PRECIOUS STONES. In modern usagt
Chrysolite is the name generally given to the yellow o
yellowish-green varieties of olivine, the transparen
varieties being known as peridote (cp TOPAZ).
819
CHURCH
Xpuu6AiBos in 6 is used to translate tars3 in Ex. 2820 3931
kek. 28 13 (cp Ezek. 116 Aq. [BAQ transliterate], Dan. IO6
’heod. [see Sw.]). I n Ezek. 28 13 AVnX. has ‘chrysolite,’ but
lsewhere E V ‘beryl,‘ which more probably represents 38ham;
ee BERYL, § 3, TARSNISH, S T ONE ON.
CHRYSOPRASE,CHRYSOPRASUS ( X P Y C O ~ ~ P A -
;oc), one of the foundations of the wall of the New
erusalem in the Apocalypse (Rev. 21 IO?). In ancient
imes the term was perhaps applied to a shade of B ERYL ;
:p PRECIOUS S‘rONES.
The word does not occur in 6 ;I but AVmg. has ‘ chrysoprase’
or ,373, hau‘hk8dh, in Ezek. 21 16 where AV has ‘agate’ and
ZV ‘ruby’ (see CHALCEDONY); and haa ‘chrysoprase’ also for
pj,niphehh, in Ezek. 28 13, where EV has ‘ emerald’ and R V w .
carbuncle’ (see C ARBUNCLE , EMERALD). In mod. mineralogy
he chrysoprase is an agate coloured apple-green by the presence
,f oxide of nickel.
CHUB, RV C U B (293 ; Aq., Syrn., Theod. xo BAA),
f correct, is the name of a people (Ezelc. 30511 ; but
gBAQ has AiBysc, and Cornill is doubtless right in
.egarding 1113,Cub, as a corruption of xi$, Lud, which
xcurs repeatedly in the plural form LUBIM (4.v.). See
~ l s oMINGLED PEOPLE.
CHUN,R V CUN(PI>, I Ch. 1 8 8 ) , an Aramaean city
,dentified by Ges.-Buhl (following ZDP V 8 34) with the
modern Kuna (Rom. Cunne) between Laodicea and
Hierapolis. The reading Chun is, however, certainly
iorrupt (cp IG. in S B O T ) . See BEROTHAI,and, for a
suggested emendation, MEROM.
CHURCH ( G K K ~ H . C I A ) . I. Name and Zdeu.-The
word Ecclesia has an important history behind it when
1. History it first appears in Christian literature. It
was the regular designation of the as-
offord.
sembly of the whole body of citizens in a
free Greek state, ‘called out’ or summoned to the
transaction of public business. It had then been
employed by the Greek translators of the OT as a
natural rendering of the Hebrew $np (see ASSEMBLY),
the whole ‘congregation’ of Israel, regarded in its
entirety as the people of God. A less technical Greek
usage, current in the apostolic age, is illustrated by the
disorderly assemblage in the theatre at Ephesus (Acts
19 3241), where we find also by way of contrast a reference
to ’ the lawful assembly’ (v.39, 6v 6 Pvv6py PrtrtA?p~l$).
The Jewish usage is found in Stephen’s speech when
he speaks of Moses as having been ‘ in the church in
the wilderness’ (738). Thus the traditions of the word
enabled it to appeal alike to Jews and Gentiles as a
fitting designation of the new people of God, the
Christian society regarded as a corporate whole.
In this full sense we find it in Tesus’ declaration to
Peter, ‘ I will build my church’ ( O ~ K O ~ O ~ $ UpoG
W rhv
BxKhgulau : Mt. 1618). Here it is re-
2. NT usage
as the divine home that is to
in Gospels. garded
be bnilded, ‘ the keys ’ of which are to
be placed in the apostle’s hands : see B INDING AN D
LOOSING. It is thus equated with ‘the kingdom of
heaven’ which Christ has come to establish, each of
the designations being derived from the past hisrory of
the sacred commonwealth. The force of the phrase,
as well as the emphasis given by the position of the
pronoun in the original, comes out if for a moment we
venture to substitute the word ‘ Israel’ for the word
‘ church ’ (Hort) ; and the thought thus finds a parallel
in the quotation of Amos 911f: in Acts 1516 f., I will
build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen
down. ’
The only other passage where the word occncs in the
Gospels is Mt. 1817, where ‘the church’ is contrasted
with the ‘ one or two more ’ whom the erring brother
has refused to hear. We are here again reminded of
the whole congregation of Israel from which offenders
were cut off: the delinquent becomes henceforth as one
who belongs to the ‘nations’ outside, and as a traitor
1 Though d A& d rp&mvos represents 07V (BERYL) in Gen.
2 12.
820
 CHURCH
to the chosen people (&rep 6 2 O v i K b s Kal 6 TeXhvqs).
It is possible indeed that the primary reference in this
place may be to the Jewish ecclesiu; but if so, the
principle remains unchanged for the Christian eccksiu ;
and i n either case, while some local embodiment of the
Church is thought of as the means by which action is
taken, the meaning is that the whole weight of the
divine society is to be brought to bear upon the offender.
While the Christian society is still confined within the
walls of Jerusalem, ' the church' is the designation of
3, In Acts. the whole body of the believers, as con-
trasted with the other residents in the
city (Acts 511 cp 8 I 3) ; but it is possible that the
appellation ,is here due to the historian himself, reconnt-
ing the events many years later. When, as the result
of Stephen's testimony and death, believers are to be
found in all parts of Palestine, they are still summed up
in the same single word : ' the church (RV ; not ' the
churches,' AV) throughout the whole of J u d z a and
Galilee and Samaria had peace, being builded' (Acts 9 31 ;
cp Mt. 1618 as above). The same full sense of the
4. In Paul. word is found in Paul's epistles at a time
when Christian communities were estab-
lished in various cities of Asia Minor and of Greece :
apostles, prophets, and teachers are set ' in the church '
by God ( I Cor. 1228) ; 'the church of God' is con-
trasted with Jews and Greeks (1032).
The Church is thus the new chosen people: it is
' the Israel of God' (cp Gal. 6 16). Jews and Gentiles
who enter it are merged into unity ; the two are made
one (Eph. 214 16). It is ' the body of Christ,' and as
such inseparable from him. Christ and the Church
are not two, but one-as it was written of earthly
marriage, ' they twain shall be one flesh ' (Eph. 5 3 ~ j ) .
The main practical anxiety of Paul's life appears to
have been the preservation of the scattered communities
of Christians, which had sprung up under his preaching,
in a living unity with the earlier communities of Palestine,
so as to form with them a single whole, the undivided
and indivisible representative of Christ in the world. .
It is noteworthy that Peter never uses the word
e c c h i a . Yet, in spite of the absence both of this
5. In Peter. word and of the Pauline metaphor of
'the body,' no writer displays such a
wealth of imagery in describing the holy society. Once
he speaks of it as ' a holy nation ' ( I Pet. 29), twice as
a 'people' (29 I O ), twice as a 'house' (25 417),twice
as a ' flock ' ( 5 2 3), twice as a ' priesthood ' (25 9), and
twice again, in a word wholly his own, as a ' brother-
hood' ('Love the brotherhood,' 217 : 'your brotherhood
which is in the world,' 59).
Side by side with the full sense of the word eccZesiu
we find another and a wholly natural use of it, which
6. Of local seems at first sight to conflict with the con-
churches, ception of unity which is dominant in the
passages we have hitherto examined. The
new ' Israel of God,' like its predecessor, was scattered
over a wide area. Wherever Christians were gathered
as such, there was the Church of God. Hence we find
such an expression as ' at Antioch, in the church, there
were prophets and teachers ' ( K a d r+p oi7uav 2 K K h v r l a v ,
the participle throwing emphasis upon the noun, ' i n
what was the church,' Acts1.31); and again, 'the
church of God which is in Corinth' ; and even, ' the
church that is in their house' (Rom. 165). In all these
cases the sense of unity may be felt : it is the one
Church, thought of as existing in various localities.
From this, however, it is an easy passage to speak of ' the
church of the Thessalonians ' ( I Thess. 1I z Thess. 1I) ;
and even to use the word in the plural, ' the churches
of Galatia ' or ' of Asia ' ( I Cor. 16 I 19), ' the churches
of God' ( z Thess. 14). The transition is naturally
found on Greek ground, where the use of eccZesiu in
the plural would be helped by its common employment
for the ecclesim of Greek cities ; whereas in Palestine,
where the Jewish connotation of the word was more
821
CHURCH .
sensibly felt, it was more natural to speak of the local
representative of the eccZesiu under the designation of
ynag@ (cp Jas. 22).
The churcheg, then, are the local embodiments of
the Church : the distribution of the one into many is
7. Outside purely geographical. The unity remains
unaffected : there is no other Church than
Canon. 'the church of God.' When we pass
outside the canon we find the same conception of the
Church both as a living unity and as the divinely pre-
ordained successor to the ancient Israel. Thus in the
Shepherd the Church appears .to Ilermas as an aged
woman, even as Sion had appeared to Esdras as a
barren woman (4 Esd. 938 10 44). She is aged, because
she was created first of all things, and for her sake the
world was made' (Herm. Vis.24). Again, in the
ancient homily formerly ascribed to Clement of Rome
(chap. 14), we read of the pre-existent, spiritual Church,
'created before sun and moon,' and manifested at
length in the flesh. In the Valentinian system, more-
over, EccZesia appears as one of the zons. Cp.
too, Clem.Alex. Protre?t. 8, Strom. iv. 8. The earliest
use of the term ' the Catholic Church ' (Ignat. Smym.
8 : circa 117, Lightf.) emphasises the unity and
universality of the whole in contrast with the individual
congregations ; not, as in the later technical sense, its
orthodoxy in contrast with heretical systems : ' Wherever
Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church' ( ~ K E ? 3
K a e O h l K 3 8KKh?lUh).
11. Orgunisution.-The primitive conception of the
Church thus regards it ( u ) as essentially one, admitting
8. Primitive of no plurality except such as is due to
conception. local distribution, and ( a ) as succeeding
to the peculiar position of privilege
hitherto occupied by the sacred Jewish Commonwealth,
so that even Paul in writing to Gentiles thinks of it as
' the Israel of God.' In correspondence with the two
parts of this conception it is natural to expect in the
development of its organisation (u)a general unity in
spite of local and temporary variety, and ( b ) a tendency,
both at the outset and from time to time afterwards, to
look back to the more prominent features of Jewish
religious institutions. Weekly gatherings for liturgical
worship, the recognition of holy seasons and holy books,
are examples of elements of religious life which passed
over naturally and at once from the Jewish to the
Christian Church ; and these were elements which the
experience of the scattered Judaism of the Dispersion
had proved and warranted as amongst the strongest
bonds of practical unity.
Had. the apostles separated immediately after Pente-
cost for the evangelisation of the world, it might easily
9. Earliest have happened that, while the general
needs of the societies founded by their
period. labours were, to a large extent, the same
in various districts, the institutions developed to meet
those needs might have presented a most astonish-
ing variety. As a matter of fact such a mode of pro-
cednre on their part was impossible. The direct
command of Christ had indicated Jerusalem as the
first scene of their work; but, even apart from this,
the very clearness with which from. the first they
recognised the new society to be the divinely appointed
issue and climax of the old, must have hindered them
from perceiving at once all that was involved in the
complementary truth of its universality. As a matter
of fact they clung to the sacred centre of the old
national life until the development of events gradually
forced them into a wider sphere. Hence a periocl of
years was passed within Jerusalem itself, and in the
most intimate relation with the religious institutions of
the Jewish people, of whom, at that time, all the
believers formed an integral part. Accordingly the
new society had time to grow into a consciousness of its
own corporate life within a limited area ; the pressure
of practical difficulties led to the experi.ment of institu-
822
 CHURCH
tions specially designed to meet them ; and, when the
earlier limitations began gradually to disappear in
consequence of Stephen’s wider conceptions and the
crisis which they brought upon his fellow-believers, and
the society w-as now scattered like seed over the
countries, this corporate life had already given signs of an
organised growth, and the home church at Jerusalem
had become in some sense a pattern which could not
fail to influence all subsequent foundations. These first
years in Jerusalem, then, demand careful study, if the
development of Christian institutions is to be securely
traced.
The brotherhood which was formed by the baptism
of the earliest converts was, at the outset, practically a
A Jewish guild of Judaism, faithful to the ancient
guild. creed and worship, and with no thought
of a severance from the religious life of
the nation. Its distinctive mark was not the neglect of
Jewish ordinances, bnt the adherence to new duties and
privileges of its own. ‘They were continuing stead-
fastly in the teaching of the apostles and the fellowship,
the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2 42).
The temple worship was not forsaken ( 3 I ) ; hut it was
supplemented ( 2 4 6 ) by the ‘ breaking of bread at home.’
The first note of this brotherhood was its unity : ‘ they
had one heart and soul’ (432) ; they claimed nothing
that they possessed as their private right, but held all as
a trust for the good of the whole ; they would even on
occasion sell their property and bring the proceeds to
~ the apostles for distribution to the needy (432-35). As
the numbers increased, these simple and extemporaneous
methods were found to be inadequate. Thus the
common tables, at which the poorer dependents re-
ceived their daily provision, proved an occasion of
friction between the two elements of Hebrew and Greek-
speaking Jews, of which the brotherhood, from the
ll. The ontset, was composed. Organisation was
necessitated, if the unity of the body was
‘seven” to remain unimpaired ; and seven men were
accordingly appointed to ‘ serve tables ’ ( 6 1-6). [On the
criticism of these narratives cp COMMUNITY O F GOODS. ]
Thus was made the first essay in providing for the
discharge of the functions of the whole body through
representative members. No distinctive title is given
by the historian to these seven men. Their office was
to serve ( 6 r a ~ o v s 5;) in respect of it, therefore, they
could be’ termed servants ( ~ L ~ K O Y O ;L )but it is probable
that the word ‘ deacon ’ remained for some time a mere
description of function, rather than a title such as it
afterwards became. The naturalness of this institution
-the response to a new need which was certain in some
form or other to recur, wherever the society was planted
-is a most important feature of it. There is no r e a o n
to suppose that it was suggested by any Jewish institu-
tion. The number of the persons chosen was a natural
number in a community consisting of Jews; but the
institution itself was a purely spontaneous development,
designed to meet a necessity which was wholly new.
Thus far we find but two kinds of distinction which
in any way mark off individual members of the society
12. The from the general mass. The apostles are
the natural leaders : to them all look, both
for religious teaching and for practical
guidance ; through them discipline on one memorable
occasion is enforced ; it is they who suggest a remedy
for the first difficulty which was occasioned by increas-
ing numbers ; and their hands are laid on the seven
men whom, at their bidding, the whole brotherhood
has selected to serve on its behalf. The seven, on the
other hand, are ordained to humble duties ; their
function is not to rule, but to serve ; through them the
society fulfils its common responsibility of providing for
the needs of its poorer members.
The dispersion after Stephen’s death distracts our
1 On the fact that they are nowhere styled G L ~ K O V O Lsee
, alsc
C OMMUNITY OF GOODS,$ 5 . ’
823
CHURCH
itention from the Church in Jerusalem for a while.
13. The, Some years later, when the apostles had
begun to evangelise other parts of Palestine,
‘elders. we get another glimpse of it at a time of
hreatened famine. Contributions are sent from the
lisciples at Antioch to aid the poorer brethren in
udzea ; it is not to the apostles, however, that the gifts
ire brought, but to ‘the elders’ (Actsl130), a class of
vhich we now hear for the first time in the Christian
:hnrch. Thus it would seem that the necessity of
eaving the apostles free for wider work had issued in a
urther development of organisation in Jerusalem ; but
t is only incidentally that we learn that a new step has
Ieen taken. W e have no indication in Acts of the
elation of ’ the seven ’ to these ‘ elders. ’
Peter’s imprisonment, which immediately follows, is
.he occasion of a further notice bearing on the practical
14. James. government of the church in Jerusalem.
‘Tell these things to James and to the
xethren,’ says the apostle after his release (1217).
The position of prominence thus indicated for ‘ t h e
brother of the Lord’ prepares us for the leading part
which he subsequently takes in the conference of the
apostles and elders, when a question of vital import-
ance has been referred from Antioch to Jerusalem
(1513). Many years later, when Paul arrives on an
important errand, his first act is thus described by an
:ye-witness : ’ On the morrow Paul entered in with us
unto James, and all thc elders came together’ (2118).
It is clear, then, that James had come to occupy a
unique position in the church at Jerusalem-a position
gained, it may be, by no formal accession to power,
resulting rather from his relationship to Jesus and
his well-known sanctity of life ; yet a position clearly
recognised by the apostles, and foreshadowing the
climax of a series of developments in the universally
established rule of the monarchical episcopate,
W e have thus, in the early history of the church in
Jerusalem, notices, for the most part merely incidental,
15. Summary. of the gradual development of organi-
sation in response to the growing
necessities of a corporate life. The humblest offices of
the daily service (5 K U E ~ , U L E ~ ~GV~$U K O V ~ Uby
) which the
bodily needs of the poorer members were supplied, are
discharged by the church through seven representatives.
The guidance of the whole body is found to have
devolved upon men whose title of ‘ elders ‘ reminds us
of the elders of the Jewish people; and in this case
there is no reason for doubting that the new institution
was directly suggested by the old. These elders are
the medium by which the church in Jerusalem holds
formal intercourse with the church elsewhere. Lastly,
at the head of all, but acting in close concert with the
elders, we see James holding an undefined but unmis-
takable position of authority.
We must be careful to avoid a confusion between
this development of administrative organs of the body
16. Teachers, and that other form of service, rendered
to it by those who discharged the various
etc.
functions of evangelisation, exhortation,
and instruction (6 GiaKovia TOO ?&you, Acts 6 4 ) . The
two kinds of service might often meet in the same
persons : thus, at the outset, the apostles themselves
were, necessarily, at once the instructors and the
administrators of the society-at their feet, for example,
gifts for the community were laid, as at a later time
they were brought to the elders-and, on the other
hand, we read of ‘ Philip the evangelist, who was one
of the seven‘ (218). Quite apart from these, however,
we have a mention of ‘prophets,’ of whom Agabus is
one, as coming from Jerusalem (1127).
The incidental nature of the references to those who
discharged these functions of administration and instruc-
tion prevents us from knowing to what extent the
church in Antioch resembled in its organisation the
church in Jerusalem. We only learn that it contained
824
 CHURCH
' prophets and teachers ' (13I) : we hear nothing of its
elders or other officers. When, however, Paul and
Barnabas, going forth from the church in
lchurches.
,. Antioch, founded communities in various
cities of Asia Minor, they appointed, we are
expressly told, elders to administer them (1423). In
this they probably reproduced an institution already
known at Antioch, with which both of them had together
been brought into contact in Jerusalem (1130).
As Paul travelled farther west, and Christian societies
sprang up in a more purely Greek soil, the Church's
independence of Judaism became continually clearer ;
and we might reasonably expect to find elements of
Greek social life exerting an influence upon the develop-
ment of Christian organisation. At the same time
we must bear in mind that Paul himself was a Jew, that
to the Jews in every place he made his first appeal,
that his epistles indicate that there was a considerable
Jewish element among those to whom he wrote, and
that we have clear evidence that, at first, at any rate,
his organisation of administration was based upon a
Jewish precedent. In his earliest letters to a European
church Paul urges the recognition and esteem of ' those
who labour among you and preside over you in the
Lord, and admonish you,' thus implying a local
administration, though not further defining it ( I Thess.
512); but at the same time he demands absolute
obedience to the injunctions which he sends them in
the joint names of himself and Silvanus and Timotheus
z Thess. 314).
If we try to draw from the study of Paul's epistles a
picture of a Christian society in a Greek city, we may start
by observing that the members of it are distinguished
one from another mainly by their spiritual ' gifts '
) . these the highest is prophecy, which
( X U ~ ~ L T ~ U T UOf
is freely and sometimes distractingly exercised, by any
who possess it, in the ordinary meetings of the society.
Other gifts too, such as those of healing, give a certain
natural pre-eminence to their possessors. Over all we
recognise the undefined but overshadowing authority of
the apostolic founder. Such is the most elementary
stage, and we cannot sharply distinguish it from that
which immediately follows. Leading men fall into
classes, with obvious divisions (not in any sense
stereotyped orders) separating them from the general
mass : apostles, prophets, teachers-clear grades of
spiritual prestige, though by no means marked off as a
hierarchy. The teachers are mainly local in the exercise
of their functions ; the prophets are local to some
extent, but moving from church to church, and recog-
nised everywhere in virtue of their gift; the apostles
are not local, but essentially itinerant, belonging to the
whole Church.
This ministry expresses the more distinctly spiritual
side of the Church's activities. But the community
needs, besides, to be governed ; and discipline must be
exercised in the case of unworthy members. It must
have representatives who can formally act on its behalf,
either in dealing with individuals or in carrying on com-
munications with sister communities.
Again, there are other functions of the Church's life
which call for executive officers. The care of the sick
and the poor was a primary duty ; so, too, was the exer-
cise of the Chcrch's hospitality to travelling brethren.
These duties involved an administration of the common
funds collected for such pnrposes, and generally of
corporate property. Servants of the Church were thus
called for to perform these humble but necessary
functions, and responsible superintendents to see that
they were duly performed. This class of executive
ministers we find in the ' bishops and deacons' ( 6 d -
CKOTOL K U ~~ L ~ K O Y O whom
L) Paul greets in the opening
words of his epistle to the Philippians ; and the qualifi-
cations demanded of them in the Pastoral Epistles
afford valuable indications of the nature of their service.
All these elements of moral or formal authority would
825
CHURCH
be more or less distinctly present in every community,
expressing the activity and life of '-the community itself
in various forms. In different localities development
would proceed at different rates of progress ; but in all,
the same general needs would have to be met, and inter-
commnnication would help towards a comparatively
uniform result. The earlier and the more rapidly
developing societies would serve as a natural model
to the rest.
I n speaking thus we do not lose sight of the control-
ling inspiration of the divine Spirit promised by Jesus
to be the Church's guide. W e rather recognise the
presence of a continuous inspiration, developing from
within the growth of a living organism, not promulgating
a code of rules to be imposed from without upon each
community at its foundation.
The scanty and scattered notices of church organisa-
tion in the N T need, for their interpretation, all the
light that can be thrown upon them by the
'*. The ,practice of Christian communities, so far as
'Didache' it can be ascertained from the remains of
their earliest literature. . Here again, however, the
evidence is still sparse and incidental, though of late
years it has been increased, especially by the recovery
(1883)of the Teachixg of the Apostles. The date of
this book is quite uncertain. It is of a composite nature
and preserves very early documents in a modified form.
There is no agreement among scholars as to the locality
to which it belongs. It may represent a community
lying oiitside the general stream of development and
preserving, even to the middle of the second century, a
primitive condition which had elsewhere, for the most
part, passed away. This view does not materially lessen
its value as an illustration of an early stage of Christian
life; but we must be careful not to generalise hastily
from its statements when they lack confirmation from
other quarters.
In the Teaching (chaps. 7 8 ) ,then, we have instruc-
tions relating to BAPTISM ( q . u . , 5 3), fasting, and the
E UCHARIST (4.v.). The following chapters introduce us
toppostles and prophets ; they provide tests for their
genuineness, and instroctiom as to the honour to he
paid to them. The apostles travel from place to place,
making but the briefest stay ; the prophets appear to be
the most prominent persons in the community in which
they reside (see PROPHET). In comparison with them,
bishops and deacons seem to hold but a secondary
place. The community is charged to appoint fit persons
to these offices, and not to despise them ; ' for they too
minister the ministry of the prophets and teachers.'
There is no mention whatever of presbyters. In all this
we seem to be on the verge of a transition. The ministry
of extraordinary gifts is still dominant ; but the abuses
to which it is liable are keenly felt : the humbler local
ministry, though despised by comparison, has the future
before it.l
Other illustrations from the early literature will be
found under BISHOP (5 14f.). It must suffice here to
19. End of say in conclusion that, before the close of
znd cent. the second century, the long process of
development had issued in a threefold
ministry-a bishop, presbyters, and deacons-being at
length generally recognised in all Christian churches.
In point of time, as well as of method, we have an
exact parallel to this development both in the settlement
of the canon and in the formulation of the Apostolic
Creed. The more abundant literature of the end of the
second century shows us a generally accepted standard
of ministry, of canon, and of creed. In each case the
need of definiteness and of general uniformity had
gradually made itself felt, and the Christian con-
sciousness, guided and expressed by eminent leaders,
had slowly solved the problems presented to it. In
each case we have evidence of that growth which is the
1 Cp Harnack on 3 Jn., St. KY.15.
826
 CHURNING
prerogative and proof of life in the social as in the
individual organism. J. A. R.
CHURNING (Y’P), Prov. 30 33 ; see MILK.
CHUSHAN BISHATHAIM (Dln@l ]d.)3), Judg.
3 8 ; RV CUSHAN-RISHATHAIM.
CHUSI (xoyc [BH],- C E I [A], a u ) , a Iocalitjr men-
tioned in Judith 7 IS to define the position of Elrrebel
(see A KRARATTINE). It may possibly be the mod.
[Cuzah, 5 m. W. of ‘Alsrabeh.
CHUZA (xoyza [Ti, W H ] ; Amer. RV prefers
CHUZAS),the house-steward of Herod (Lk. 8 3 ) ,
husband of J OANNA . The name is probably identical
with the Nabataean ~ 1 1 1 . The steward may well have
been of foreign origin as were the Herods themselves.
See Burkitt. B x p x . Feb. 1899, 118-122.
CIELING. See CEILING.
CILICIA ( K I A ~ K I C \ [Ti. WH]). From southern
Cappadocia the range of Taurus descends in a SW.
1.Physical. direction to the sea, reaching it in a com-
plex of mountains constituting that pro-
jection of coast which divides the bay of Issus
(Skandertin) from that of Pamphylia. The Cilicians
extended partly over the Taurus itself, and partly be-
tween it and the sea (Strabo, 6 6 8 ) , thus bordering upon
Pamphylia in the W., and Lycaonia and Cappadocia
in the N. ; in the E. the lofty range of Amanus separated
them from Syria. The country within these boundaries
falls into two strongly marked sections.
‘Of Cilicia beyond Taurus a part [W.] is called Tracheia
(rugged), and the rest [E.] Pedias (plain). T h e former has a
narrow seaboard, and little or no level country : that part of it
which lies under Taurus is equally mountainous, and is thinly
inhabited as far as the northern flanks of the range-as far, that
is,,- Isaura and Pisidia. This district hears thename Trachei-
Otis. Cilicia Pedias extends from Soli and Tarsus as far as
Issus, and as far N. as the Cappadocians on the N. flank of
Taurus. This section consists for the most parr of plains and
fertile land’ (Z.C.).
Four considerable streams-Pyramns, Sarus, Cydnus,
and Calycadnus-descend from Taurus to the bay of
Issus. For a long time the rude W. district remained
practically outside the pale of civilisation : we are here
concerned only with the eastern part, Cilicia Pedias or
Campestris. Difficult passes, of which there are only
a few, lead through the mountains into the neighbonring
districts. The famous Pylx Cilicix, some 30 miles N.
of Tarsus, gave access to Cappadocia and W. Asia
Minor ; in the other direction the Syrian Gates and the
pass of Beihm communicated with Syria ; through
these two passes ran the E. trade route from Ephesus.
The military importance of the Cilician plain thus in-
cluded within the angle of the Taurus and Amanus
ranges is finely expressed by Herodian (34).
Owing to the barriers of Mount Taurus, the geographi-
cal affinity of Cilicia is with Syria rather than with Asia
2. In OT. Minor. It would be only natural. therefore,
that there should be references to it in O T
(cp also A ~ R - B A N I - P A§L 4,
, end). Nor are these
wanting. Archaeological criticism indicates three O T
names 1 as more or less certainly meaning Cilicia. The
first is CAPHTOR ( p . w . , 4). which, however, probably
had a more extended application, and referred to
coast-regions of Asia Minor besides Cilicia. Caphtor
was the first home of the Philistines ; it probably repre-
sents the Egyptian KeftB. Thesecond is I$u@or Kuah
(nip)-;.e., E. Cilicia3-from which Solomon imported
horses, as we learn from the emended text of I K. lOz8
(see H ORSE, 3, n.). The third is Helak, the Hilakku
1 Josephus identified with Cilicia the Tarshish of Gen. 104,
Jon. 1 3 ( A n t . i. B I).
2 The land of Muyi also, which adjoined Kue (Wi. Gesch.
O d . u. Ass. 175)~ must have included a part of Cilicia (cp
MIZRAIM5 2 a).
3 Accoiding to Maspero (Recueil, ~OZIO), Cilicia is the Keti
(cp K+F) which is often mentioned with Naharin in the
Egyptian inscriptions. Is this name connected with Kue?
827
CINNAMON,
of the Assyrians, which has been restored by Halevy
(MdZunge.s, ‘74,p. 69), Geiger (Jiid. ZI ll242), and
Lagarde (AlitfhiZ.1211) in Ezek. 2711 ( M T has the
impossible q$*c‘ thine army ’ ; read ‘ the sons of Arvatl
and of Helak‘). The same name probably occnrs in
Egyptian inscriptions under the form Ka-ra-ki-Sa,
originally Kilakk(u).l I t follows from Halevy’s res-
toration that there was, according to Ezekiel, a Cilician
as well as a Phoenician and a Syrian element in the
garrison of Tyre in 586 R. c.
The close physical relation of Cilicia and Syria
explains their political connection during the early
3. Later. Roman Empire. Cilicia was usually under
the legatus of Syria (Dio C a s . 53 IZ where
Ccele-Syria, Phcenicia, C
Kaluapos p p 1 & ; cp Tac. Ann. 278).
under a separate governor, however, in 57 A.D. (Tac.
Ann. 1333), perhaps as a ternporary measure after the
disturbances of 5 2 A . D . (Ann. 1255). Vespasian is
credited with its reconstruction as a distinct province,
in 74 A.D. ; but his action was apparently confined to
the reduction of part of Cilicin Tracheia to the form of
a province, which was united with that o
Cilicia (Suet. Yes?. 8). In 117-138 A.D. C
cluding Tracheia, was certainly an imperial province,
under a prztorian Zegntur Augusti; but in what year
this state of things began is not knowm N o infer-
ence can be drawn from the use of the word ‘pro-
vince’ ( t a a p x ~ i ain
) the question of Felis (Acts 2334).
The connection between Cilicia and Syria is illustrated
in the N T by such passages as Acts162341 Gal. I z r ,
where ‘ Syria and Cilicia’ are almost a single term ;
and conversely the omission of Cilicia from the super-
scription of I Pet. 1 I , where the enumeration of provinces
sums up all Asia Minor N. of the Taurus, is based
upon the close connection between the churches in
Cilicia and the chnrch of Antioch in Syria
The presence of Jews in Cilicia must date principally
from the time when it became part of the Syrian king-
doni (cp Jos. Ant. sii. 34). It must have been the hill-
men of Cilicia Tracheia that served jn the guard of
Alexander Jannxus (Jos. Ant. xiii. 1 3 5 , BJ i. 43). In
apostolic times the Jewish settlers were many and
influential (Acts 69).
Paul visited his native province soon after his con-
version (Acts 9 30 Gal. 121), and possibly founded then
the churches of which we hear in Acts 152341. It is
probable that in his ‘second missionary journey’ he
followed the usual commercial route across the Taurus
to Derbe (Acts 1.541 ; cp Str. 537):
One article of Cilician export IS interesting to the
student of the NT. The goats’-hair cloth called
CiZiciunz was exported to be used in tent-making (cp
Varro, R.X. 211). Paul was taught this trade, and
supported himself by means of it in the house of Aquila
at Corinth (Acts 1 8 3 and elsewhere; cp Acts 2034).
(See Sterrett, ’ Routes in Cilicia,’ in Arch. Insl. Amel-.
36.) W. J. W.
CINNAMON (t\D$g; KINN&MWMON[-OC][BHAFL:
Ti. WH] ; Ex. 3023 Pr. 7 17 Cant. 4 14 Rev. 18,13f) hears
the same name in Hebrew as in Greek and English, and
this is almost certainly a word borrowed from the farther
East.2 Lagarde ( Uebers. 199) maintains that Hebrew
borrowed the name from Greek ; but against this there
is the statement of Herodotns (3111) that the Greeks
learned the word from the Phaenicians.
Kinniinidn is the fragrant inner bark of Cinnanzonzumzeylani-
cuGz Nees that is now called cinnamon. As is correctly stated
by Fliick. and Hanh. (szo), however, ‘none of the cinnamon of
the ancients was obtained from Ceylon,’3 and ‘the early notices
of cinnamon as a product of Ceylon are not prior to the
thiiteenth century’ (i6. 468). Accordingly, it is probable that,
as these writers suggest, the cinnamon of the ancients was
1 W. M. Miiller, As. u. Elm 352.
’
2 The derivation from ?IC is most unlikely.
3 Cp ‘l‘ennent, CeyZon 1575.
828
 CINNEROTH
Cassia Zignea, which was obtained, as it is still, from S. China.1
The source of this is Cinnamornunz Cassia, Bl., as has been
shown by Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer in /Ourn. Linn. SOC.20 1 9 s
The name cinnanzomlfera rrgio, given to the district W. of
Cape Goardafui, must be taken in a loose sense as referring to
the commerce of the Erythrean Sea. Like lign-aloes cinnamon
was thus brought along the regular trade-route froh E. Asia.
See A LOES , 5 3.
From whatever source cinnamon was obtained, it
appears thrice in the O T among aromatic spices, and
in Rev. 18 13 among the merchandise of the apocalyptic
Babylon. Thus the Jews must have been tolerably
familiar with it. See CASSIA, INCENSE, 1 6.
N. M.-W. T. f . - D .
CINNEROTH (niijip),I K . 1520, RV CHINNEROTH.
CIRAMA ( K I ~ A M A [A]), I Esd. 520 AV=Ezra226
RAMAH.
CIRCLE OF JORDAN (1ll";l l??), Gen.1310.
See P LAIN (4).
CIRCUIT (129;1),
Neh. 322, RVmg. See P LAIN (4).
CIRCUMCISION (aim, TTEPITOMH), the cutting
away of the foreskin (nhp, A K P O B Y C T ~ A ) . For surgical
1. Adminis- and other details of the operation as
tration of practised in later Judaism, reference may
he made to the Mishna (Shabb. 192
lite'
Yire die& § 264) and to the literature
cited at the end of this article. It was performed not
only on the (male) children of the Israelites, but also
.upon all slaves (as being members of the household and
sharers in its worship), whether born within the house
or brought in from abroad (Gen. 17 z z 8 ) - a usage which
plainly points to a great antiquity. In P it is enjoined
that all aliens ( o ~ who) desire to join in the Passover
shall be circumcised (Ex. 1248) ; in the Greco-Roman
period it was also the condition for the admission of
proselytes.
The age for receiving the rite is fixed by the Law for
the eighth day after birth (Lev. n3,cp Gen. 214 [PI,
etc. ) ; even on the sabbath the sacred ordinance had tc
be observed (Jn. i z z Shabb. 1 9 2 8 ) , although in case
of sickness of the child a short delay was permitted
(cp ZDJZG 20529 [66]). For the performance of the
office all adiilt male Israelites were fully qualified ; bul
customarily the duty fell to the head of the house (Gen.
17 2 3 8 ) . That in the earlier times it could be performed
(of course only in exceptional cases) by women appear2
from Ex. 425 ; but this was not allowed by later custom.
According to Josephus (Ant.xx. 2 4 ) it was not unusua
to employ the physician; at the present day it is thc
business of a specially-appointed official, 'the m5hhdZ.
At the close of the first century B.C. the naming o
the child accompanied his circumcision (cp Lk. 159 2 21)
but there is no indication of any such usage in the O T
indeed, in the older times, the two things were who111
dissociated, the child receiving its name as soon as i
was born (cp, for example, Gen. 213 2 9 3 1 8 3 0 6 8 3!
18 38 2 8 3 , etc..).
The origin of the rite among the Hebrews is obscure
One of the views represented in the O T is that it wa:
2. Hebrew introduced by Joshna (Josh. 5 2 f ) , who, a
the ' Hill of the Foreskins,' by divine com
legends' mand circumcised the people with knives o
flint, and thereby rolled away ' the reproach of Egypt,
' wherefore the name of that place was called Gilgal (z.e
' rolling") unto this day.' Verses 4-7 are an interpolatioi
designed to bring the narrative into conformity with htm
view of P that circumcision had merely been in abeyanc
during the years of wandering; cp Hollenberg in Si
Kr., '74, 493 zr St. in Z A T W 6132 8 ('86). an(
see J OSHUA, j C 7. The 'reproach of Egypt,' unless w
1 Hence in Persian and Arabic it is called Dargini (Chines
wood).
a So E V E V w . Gibeath La-araloth; povvbs TGV ~ K ~ O ~ V V T L G 1 The facts of its present diffusion have been collected most
[RAF]. According t o @BAL in Josh. 243oa the knives c
flint referred to were buried with Joshua in l'imnath-serah.
829
CIRCUMCISION
re to do violence to the narrative, can only be inter-
reted as meaning that in that country the children of
jrael had been uncircumcised, and therefore objects of
ontempt and scorn. It is impossible, however, to
sgard the narrative in Joshna as strictly historical ; it
,elongs rather to the category of etymologizing legend,
seing designed to explain the name and origin of the
anctuary of Gilgal. Possibly Stade is right in his con-
xture (see above) that the legend arose from the circum-
tance that in ancient times the young men of Benjamin
fr of certain Benjamite families were circumcised on the
<ill of the Foreskins at Gilgal. See GILGAL.
Another view of the origin of the rite is given in the
ccount of the circumcision of the son of Moses (Ex. 4
5 8 [J]), for here also the intention manifestly is to
lescrihe its first introduction among the Israelites ; there
s no suggestion of any idea that it had been a long-
,tanding Hebrew custom. The general meaning of the
,tory is that Moses had incurred the anger of YahwB,
md made himself liable to the penalty of death, because
le was not ' a bridegroom of blood'-ie., because he
lad not, before his marriage, submitted himself to this
,ite. Zipporah accordingly takes a flint, circumcises the
;on instead of her husband, and thereby symbolically
nakes the latter a ' bridegroom of blood,' whereby the
math of Yahw&is appeased (see We. ProZ.(*)345).
Both narratives notwithstanding, it is necessary to
:arry back the origin of this rite among the Hebrews to
3. earl^ a much earlier date. True, it is no sufficient
proof of this that P (Gen. 1 7 ) carries it back
origin. to Abraham, and that everywhere in the Law
the custom is assumed to be of extreme antiquity. More
to the point are the facts that Gen. 34 also represents it
IS pre-Mosaic, while the use of knives of flint (which was
Long kept up ; see Ex. 425 Josh. 5 2 8 ) also indicates a
high antiquity. What most of all compels us to this
conclusion, however, is the well-ascertained fact that
circumcision was in no way a practice peculiar to the
Israelites. It was common to a number of Semiticpeoples
in antiquity: Edom, Ammon, Moab all were circumcised
(Jer. 9 25 1261) ; of the nations of Palestine the Philistines
alone were not (cp, for example, Herod. 236 f: 104) ;
the Arabs also practised this rite, which, in the Koran,
is taken for granted as a firmly-established custom. Nor
is it less widely diffused among non-Semitic races.l Of
special interest for us here is its existence among the
Egyptians ; for from a very early period we meet with
the view that, within thelands of the ancient civilisations,
circumcision had its native home in Egypt, from which
it had spread not only to the other peoples of Africa,
but also to the Semites of Asia (so Herod. 236204 Diod.
Sic. 331 Strabo 17824). It certainly was known in
Egypt from the earliest times (Ebers, Egypt u. d. Bb.
MOS.3 283), and we have the express testimony of
Herodotus (236) and Philo (2210, ed. Mangey) that
all Egyptians were circumcised (cp Josh. 5 2 8 , where the
same thing is presupposed ; Erman, &ypt, 3 2 J , 539 :
Ebers, op. cit. 278 fl),although, it is true, their testi-
mony has not been allowed to pass wholly unquestioned.
One piece of evidence for the Egyptian origin of the rite
would be the fact that to the Semites of the Euphrates,
who had no direct contact with Egypt, circumcision was
unknown. In any case, however, it would be illegitimate
to suppose that it was borrowed from Egypt directly by
the Hebrews-say, for example, at the time of the sojourn
in Egypt ; for the nomads of the Sinaitic peninsula
appear to have practised it from a very remote period.
As to the original meaning of the rite equally divergent
views have been held. The explanations offered fall in
4. Views of the main into two groups- (I) The
meaning. y i t a r y : Herodotus asserts that the
avutians had adouted it simulv for the
- , I <
sake of cleanliness, whilst other ancient writers regard it
fully by Ploss, Das Kind in Brauch u. Sitte der Y#lkw(Z),1
3 4 2 5 ['szl.
830
 CIRCUMCISION.
as a prophylactic against certain forms of disease (Phil.
de Circumcis. 2210, ed. Mangey ; Jos. c. Ap. 2 1 3 ) .
A similar theory is still put forward here and there by
various nations (cp Ploss, op. cit.), and it was in great
favour with the rationalists of last century (see, e g . ,
Michaelis, MOS. Recht, 4 186 ; also Saalschutz, Mos.
Recht, 1246). Recent anthropologists, such as Ploss,
give greater prominence to the fact that with many
peoples (if not with most) circumcision stands, or origin-
ally stood, closely connected with marriage, and regard
it as an operation preparatory to the exercise of the
marital functions, suggested by the belief that fruitfulness
is thereby promoted (so. already Philo, loc. cit. ; cp
C UTTINGS OF TI<&FLESH, $ 4). ( 2 ) The religious : It
is impossible to decide the question by mere reference
to the present conditions, or to the explanation which
ancient or modern peoples themselves give. On the
one hand, it is not to be expected that the original mean-
ing of the act should be permanently remembered ; on the
other hand, evidence can be adduced in support of either
theory. There are broad general considerations, how-
ever, which lead inevitably to the conclusion that, in the
last resort, the explanation is to be sought in the sphere
of religion. All the world over, in every uncivilised
people, whether of ancient or of modern times, practices
such as this are called into existence, not by medical
knowledge, but by religious ideas. It is to the belief
about the gods and to the worship of the gods that all
primitive ethics must be traced. In this there is nothing
to prevent practices, grown unintelligible through the
religious motives having gradually faded into the back-
ground, being supplied with other reasons, in this case,
sanitary. On the other hand, inasmuch as, to judge by
its wide diffusion, circumcision must have arisen spon-
taneously and independently in more places than one,
there is nothing -to exclude the possibility of diverse
origins.
The primarily religious nature of circumcision being
granted, we must nevertheless be careful not to carry
back to the earlier times the interpretation put upon it
by later Judaism. According to P the rite is a sym-
bolical act of purification (in the ritual sense) ; the
foreskin represents the unclean. This conception of
circumcision is presupposed in the symbolical applica-
tions of the expression to be met with in the discourses
of the prophets (see below, 5 7). For the earlier period,
however, we have no evidence of the presence of
any such idea, nor is there any analogous conception
to make its existence probable. The notion so fre-
quently brought forward in explanation of the idea,-
that the sexual life, as such, was regarded as sinful,-is
in truth nowhere to be met with in the OT. The
ancient conceptions of clean and unclean are all of them
of a wholly different nature ; see CLEAN AND U N -
CLEAN.
In general, circumcision is to be regarded as a ritual
5.*
tribal mark. This view is favoured by several con-
siderations. Not only among the Jews,
but also among the Egyptians and most
badge. other peoples by whom circumcision is
practised, the uncircumcised are regarded as unclear-
; . e . , as aliens from the tribe and its worship-and as
such are looked upon by the circumcised with contempt.
Amohg peoples who do not practise circumcision we
find analogous tribal marks ; filing or removal of teeth,
special tattooings, in some cases still more drastic muti-
lations of the sexual organs (semi-castration and the
like). Finally, with most peoples, circumcision used
to be performed at the age of puberty. By its means
the grown-up youth was formally admitted among the
men, received all the rights due to this position, and,
in particular, the permission to marry (hence the fre-
quent connection already alluded to between circum-
cision and marriage). The full-grown man becomes
for the first time the fully-invested member of the tribe,
and, in particular, capable of taking part in its religious
831
GIRCUMGISION
'unctions. It is fitting then that he should wear the
mdge of his tribe.
Snch a badge has always a ' religious significance,
since membership of a clan carries with it the right to
participate in the tribal worship (see G OVERNMENT ,
$ 8 ) , and, for early times, to be outside the tribe and
outside its worship meant the same thing. Thus the
act of circnmcision had, in the earliest times, a sacral
meaning. Like all other initiation ceremonies of the
kind in the Semitic religions, circumcision had attributed
to it also the effect of accomplishing a sacramental
communion, bringing about a union with the godhead.
To this extent the explanation of circumcision as of the
nature of a sacrifice (Ewald) is jnst ; originally circum-
cision and sacrifice served the same end.
For the old Israelite, in particular, the view just stated
is confirmed by the identification of the two conceptions
' uncircumcised ' and ' unclean ' ; see
*' Z$ly especially, in this connection, Ezek. 31 18
3219-32, where in the under-world the
uncircumcised have assigned to them a place by them-
selves, away from the members of the circumcised people.
The receiving of the tribal mark is a condition of con-
nubium (Gen. 34). Among the' Israelites also it was
the marriageable young men who were circumcised
(Josh. 52 3,see above, 2). In like manner, as
already noticed, in Ex. 425 circumcision, as a token of
marriageability, is brought into connection with marriage
itself ; cp the expression ' bridegroom of blood.' The
same narrative also explains the circumcision of young
boys as a surrogate for that of men (cp We. ProZ.W
3453 ). This custom-of circumcising boys when quite
young-may have arisen very early, as soon as the
political aspects of the rite fell into the background.
'When the &e loses political significance, and becomes
purely religious, it is not necessary that it should be
deferred to the age of full manhood ; indeed the natural
tendency of pious parents will be to dedicate their child as
early as possible to the god who is to be his protector
through life' (WRS ReZ. Sem.C2) 328). This last
general statement is particularly apposite in the case of
circumcision.
N o mention of circumcision is made either in the
decalogue or in any other of the old laws. This silence
7. Later. cannot be explained on the ground merely
that as a firmly established custom the rite
did not require to be specially enjoined ; rather does it
prove that, for the religion of Yahw& in the pre-exilic
period, circumcision had ceased to possess the great im-
portance which we are compelled to assume for it in the
old Semitic religion : nor was the same weight assigned to
it which it subsequently acquired in Judaism. In par-
ticular the prophets took up towards it the same
attitude as they held towards sacrifice, that is to say,
they looked upon it as of no consequence so far as the
worship of Yahwb was concerned. Such a prophet as
Jeremiah, for example, sets himself in the most marked
manner against the high appreciation of circumcision
still prevalent among the masses in his day, when he
places the circumcision of the Israelites exactly on the
same level with that of the Egyptians, Edomites,
Ammonites, and Moabites, and threatens all alike with
the divine judgment as being ' circumcised in uncircum-
cision ' or as ' uncircumcised '-that is, as not having
the circumcision of the heart (Jer. 92s [z4]f., cp 4 4 6 IO
Lev. 2641). By this very fact-that they contrast with
the circumcision of the flesh that of the heart, the ears,
the lips-the prophets gave the first impulse to the
later symbolical interpretation of the rite as an act of
pnrification.
This last, as already stated, is dominant in Judaism.
In the post-exilic period the rite acquired a quite differ-
8. In Judaism. ent position from that which it had
previously held. As substitutes for
the sacrificial worship, no longer possible, the sab-
bath and circumcision became the cardinal com-
832