19. St. Luke's date, isth of Tiberius' (iii. I), in terpreted by the constant rule of the imperial annals (and also of the Canon), denotes the year begin ning August A.D. 2S, and ending in the same month of A. D. 29. Referred to the current con sular year, it may mean either A. D. 28 or 29. Taken in the Jewish sense, it may be the year beginning either i Nisan or 1 Tisri A. D. 28, or even I Tisri A.D. 27. The hypothesis of a dating of the years of Tiberius from an epoch earlier by three years than the death of Augustus, which, from the 76th century downward, has found favour with many learned men, will not bear examination: it is unknown to the early ecclesiastical writers, and nowhere in histories, on monuments, or coins, is a trace of any such epoch of Tiberius to be met with. The utmost latitude is that which arises from the question of technical use—imperial, con sular, or Jewish ; and when this is decided, there remains the further question, Whether the evan gelist intended by this date to mark the commence ment of the Baptist's ministry, or the baptism of our Lord, or the crowning event of the whole nar rative—the crucifixion and resurrection. All these views have their advocates.
20. The note of time (John ii. 70) connected with the Passover after the Baptism, points, if the `forty and six years' are reckoned from Herod's announcement of his purpose in his eighteenth year (Antiq. xv. TT. 1) to 27 A. D. : if from the actual commencement, after all the materials were pro vided, it may denote either 28 or 29, or 30 A.D., according to the length of time supposed to he spent in preparation. But here, again, besides dis crepant statements in Josephus as to the epoch of Ilerod's reign, it chances that the earlier account of the same proceedings in Bell. .7nd.i. 21. 7, dates this undertaking of Herod in his fifteenth year. It does indeed admit of proof, even from the context, that the 75th year is too early, but it may, plausi bly enough, be urged by those who wish to do so, that, if Josephus is wrong in the one statement, he is just as likely not to be right in the other.
27. The CrIteifiXiOn certainly cannot be placed earlier than A.D. 2S, in which year the 75th of Tiberius began, and it has never been proposed by inquirers of any note to place it later than A.D. 33. The astronomical element of the question—namely, that in the year of the Passion, the 74th of Nisan fell on a Friday—if it be rigorously applied, i.e., according to a definite rule of Jewish usage and the results of strict lunar calculation, indicates only one of the six years mentioned, viz., A.D. 29, in which 14 Nisan was 78 Mar. and Friday. If a certain laxity as to the rule be allowed, the 14th Nisan may possibly have fallen on 3d April, Friday, in A.D. 33. But if, in compliance with the apparent
import of the first three Gospels, without explana tion from the fourth, it is contended that the cruci fixion took place on the clay after the Passover, the year may have been A.D. 30, in which the 15th Nisan fell on Friday 7 April, or A.D. 33, in which it was (in strictness) Friday 3 April. Lastly, if it he maintained that the Jewish Passover-day was regulated, not by actual observation of the moon's phases, but by cycles more or less faulty, any year whatever of the series may be available in one form or other of the hypothesis.
22. Ancient testimony, if that is to have weight in this question on the supposition that the year was known, either by tradition or by access to pub lic records (the Acta Pilati, to which the ancients so confidently appeal), certainly designates the Passover of the year 29, toss. duobles Ceminis, the 75th year of Tiberius. In the Western Church the con sent to this year is all but general ; in the Eastern, the same year is either named or implied in the two earliest extant testimonies, Clem. Alex. (Strom. i. 21, sec. 101-143 ; see yournal of Class. and Seer. Philol. u. s.), and Julius Africanus. Those of the ancients who assign a different year, do so, either because they placed the baptism in that year, and the ministry necessarily occupied at least one year, or because they were misled by erroneous consular fasti, or because they wished to make out a term of three and a half years from the baptism to the Passion, with a view to a fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy, which at an early period was impor ted into this question. As the fourth Gospel specifies three Passovers, implying a ministry of at least two entire years, it follows that, if the year of the Passion was A.D. 29, the baptism of our Lord did not take place, in any sense, in the 15th of Tiberius. But the earliest writers, with great consent, hold that the Lord's ministry occupied little more than one year. The first three Gospels, by naming only two Passovers, favour this view. The text of John vi. 4, as it appears in all known MSS. and versions, is conclusive against it ; but there is strong reason to believe that the words rb 7rriaxa were not found in the text of that passage in early times. It is inexplicable that with these words in their copies the ancients should have failed to see that three Passovers imply at least two years: Irenwus, in making out a list of the Passovers for a controversial purpose, takes no notice of John vi. 4 ; Origen and Cyril of Alexandria demonstrably held ' the feast of the Jews' there mentioned to be the Feast of Tabernacles (Ordo Sa'cl., sec. 85-94).