him at a distance from Judæa until the beginning of his second year at least. The expressions of Tacitus, Quæ, in alios consules egressa, conjunxi, demonstrate that Corbulo and his allies were engaged upon it at least till the summer of A. U. 808. If, after this, the high-priest Jonathan, as I consider the most probable state of the case, had been assassinated at the feast of Tabernacles, or, at the latest, at the feast of the Passover next ensuing, and both in the second of Nero, the time when a high-priest was indispensably wanted was the recurrence of the day of Atonement; and, therefore, the time, by which a successor to Jonathan would almost of necessity be appointed, would be against that recurrence, at the beginning of the third of Nero. But the arrival of St. Paul at Jerusalem was certainly at a Pentecosta; and if this was the Pentecost between these extremes, it was the Pentecost of the second of Nero, or A. U. 809. To this conclusion every note of time, and every incidental circumstance, disclosed in the history, and any how connected with this arrival, will be found exactly to agree. I. The Sicarii b, a race of men who had not started up before the first of Nero, but who continued long after, would now be in existence, and known as a distinct body. II. The regular high-priest, Jonathan, had been very recently murdered; and no successor as yet appointed in his stead: Ananias, however, who had once been high-priest (and for two or three years) himself, and was probably the vicar of Jonathan, even while he was living, was as likely as any one to be acting for him; and yet could not be known. nor recognized as the regular high-priest. III. The Egyptian impostor, whose appearance is alluded to in the Acts, and which both the Antiquities and the War mention after the death of Jonathanc, must very lately have been defeated, or at least have appeared in Jerusalem; a conclusion which the suspicion of Lysias, that St. Paul might be this same person, is enough of itself to Acts xx. 16. xxi. 27. XX. viii. 5. B. ii. xiii. 3. b Acts xxi. 38. Suidas Zipio. Ant. Jud. c Acts xxi. 38. Ant. Jud. xx. viii. 6. B. ii. xiii. 5. suggest. Josephus also shews that the impostor was not made prisoner, though his followers were attacked and dispersed. All this might have taken place between the passover and the Pentecost of A. U. 809. * IV. Felix was now the acting procurator, and he had performed such services to the community at large as might give occasion to the complimentary language of Tertullusd; for he had, before this, made prisoner Eleazar, a chief сарtain of the Aporal, who had previously infested the country with impunity for twenty years; and he was still em * As to the means of reconciling the account, which Josephus has given of this impostor, with the above allusion to his history in the Acts, I entirely agree in the solution proposed by Lardner. The interrogation of Lysias related to such of his followers, as he had originally led with him out of Jerusalem, which might be only four thousand; the account of his defeat in Josephus, to those whom he was bringing back with him thither from the wilderness, when Felix met him and put him to the rout, which might be as many as thirty thousand. It is manifest from Josephus that he was once, but only once, in Jerusalem, very probably at the feast of the Passover, A. U. 809. and that, before his departure to the wilderness; but that he was returning thither again, by way of mount Olivet, when he was attacked by the Roman governor. The statement of the numbers killed or taken prisoners, in consequence of this attack, relates to a part of his history not mentioned in the Acts; and however differently it may be represented in the Antiquities compared with the War, concerns the reconciliation of Josephus with himself, not with St. Luke; yet Dr. Lardner's solution of this difficulty also appears to me perfectly just and natural. I think, however, that at the time of St. Paul's arrival in Jerusalem, he had not yet returned, nor did so until some time afterwards. The language of Lysias clearly implies that he had been, indeed, in Jerusalem, and led out thence a body of men into the wilderness; but it also implies that, as yet, no more had been heard, or was known, about him. His defeat, then, by Felix would be properly when St. Paul was at Cæsarea. d Acts xxiv. 3. e Ant. Jud. xx. viii. 5. B. ii. xiii. 2. ployed daily in capturing, and putting to death, numbers of the same description of personsf. V. He had been many years in office, as St. Paul reminds hims; which may thus be proved. Orosius places the appointment of Cumanus in the seventh of Claudiush; nor does Josephus, as we have seen in the last Dissertation, militate against this supposition. It is more probable, however, that his appointment is to be placed actually in the summer of his eighth. On this principle the disturbance at the Passoveri, which followed soon after his appointment, may reasonably be supposed to have happened at the Passover in the ninth of Claudius, A. U. 802. Between this and the Passover mentioned in the Wark, shewing that the feast generally only alluded to in the Antiquities was a Passover, including the fresh outrage committed on Stephanus, and the insurrectionary warfare with the Samaritans, there could have been only one year's interval; for which conclusion there is this additional reason, that the feast, in going up to which the Galileans were waylaid by the Samaritans, is called ἁπλῶς, ἡ ἑορτή. The degree of estimation, in which the feast of Tabernacles more particularly was held, justifies us, a priori, in supposing the allusion to be to this feast. Τῆς Σκηνοπηγίας ἐνστάσης· ἑορτὴ δ ̓ ἐστὶν αὕτη παρ' ἡμῖν εἰς τὰ μάλιστα τηρουμένη Ὁ τῆς Σκηνοπηγίας καιρός· ἑορτῆς σφόδρα παρὰ τοῖς ̔Εβραίοις ἁγιωτάτης καὶ μεγίστης—Μηνῶν δὲ ὁ ἕβδομος, κατὰ πᾶν ἔτος, ἑοςTãy tλaxe TÙY μeylorny m_The usage of Josephus", and the similar usage of the Rabbinical writers, a posteriori, confirm the supposition. On this principle it would be the feast of Tabernacles A. U. 802. or in the ninth of Claudius also, when this event too happened. The next Passover, which was going on when Quadratus paid a visit to Jeru f B. ii. xiii. 2. V. 3. B. ii. xii. 1. iii. 3. viii. iv. 1. 8 Acts xxiv. 10. h vii. 6. 1 xx. vi. 2. 1183. xx. ix. 3. i Ant. Jud. xx. Ant. Jud. xv. n Aut. xiii. xiii. 5. i. xxii. 2. Com B. i. iv. 3. Ant. xiv. xi. 5. 3. 4. B. i. xi. 6. pare also Plut. Moralia i. 514. Wyttenbachii. and Ant. Jud. xiii. viii. 2. Plut. Convival. Quæst. iv. 6. • Maim. De Edificio Templi. i. 16. Annott. salem, was consequently the Passover of A. U. 803. the tenth of Claudius. Now, before he paid this visit, he had already sent the former high-priest Ananias, if not also the newly-appointed high-priest Jonathan, and the procurator Cumanus, all to Rome, to answer for themselves before Claudius in common P: they were sent, therefore, between the feast of Tabernacles, A. U. 802. and the Passover, A. U. 803. The result was that not only did the Jews obtain a favourable hearing from the Emperor, but Jonathan, by his personal intercession, is said to have got Felix the appointment to the procuratorship in the room of Cumanus 9. If so, he would be appointed in the tenth of Claudius, A. U. 803. from which time to A. U. 809. in the second of Nero, he would have been six years in office; a longer period than had fallen to the lot of any governor since Gratus, or Pilate; and, perhaps, to be attributed in part to the influence of his brother Pallas (through Agrippina) with Claudius. VI. Drusilla was now the wife of Felix. Drusilla was one of the daughters of Herod Agrippa and Cyprus, and, consequently, by both her parents a Jewess; and at the time of her father's death, A. U. 796. she is said to have been six years old, which probably means in her seventh year: in the thirteenth of Claudius, A. U. 806. ten years after, she had been married to Azizus, King of Emesa, who, however, died A. U. 807. or 808. in the first of Neros: and even before his death Drusilla had been persuaded to leave him, and to marry Felixs; to whom she continued united until A. U. 832. in the reign of Titus, when both she, and a son whom she had borne him, perished by the eruption of mount Vesuviust. Suetonius, in allusion to this marriage among others, calls Felix, Trium reginarum maritum". It is certain, then, that he and Drusilla were living together in marriage, in the second of Nero, A. U. 809. VII. St. Paul had not been in Jerusalem for some years before this time. When he last was there, it was, as I shall prove hereafter, A. U. 805. at the Passover in the twelfth of Claudius; from whence to the Pentecost in the second of Nero, there would be four years' and two months' interval: and he came now, as we shall also see, charged with the contributions of the Churches of Asia Minor, and of Achaia, towards the necessities of the Church of Jerusalem; that is, of his nation. VIII. Felix, who left Paul in confinement behind him, with a view to conciliate the Jewsw, had some reason for wishing to oblige them: the dispute about Cæsarea, in which he had taken so decided a part against the Jewish inhabitants, and in behalf of the Greeks, and when so many lives were lost, must have happened in the fourth year of Nero, and in the last year of his administration*. IX. When Paul was tried before Festus, Ishmael had been some time appointed, and was certainly the acting high-priest. And it is observable that this high-priest, whosoever he was, is no longer called the high-priest Ananias, as he had been repeatedly beforey; but simply the high-priest. Yet Festus speaks still of the high-priests, as if there were still more than one of them; and this also would be literally the case; since, though Ishmael might be titular and acting high-priest, Ananias might yet be his vicar, and the next in dignity to him. He is called highpriest by Josephus, even after the appointment of Jesus, the son of Damnæusa; and he is still so called, even when Paul's prophecy against him was accomplished, in his being assassinated by the partisans of Manahem, at the outset of the Jewish wara. Nor must he be here confounded with the younger Ananus, whose death is also mentioned, but at a later period, and in a different wayb. I have said nothing hitherto concerning the discrepancy respecting the successive administrations of Cumanus and of ▾ Acts xxiv. 17. y Acts xxiii. 2. xxiv. I. w xxiv. 27. * Ant. Jud. xx. viii. 7. B. ii. xiii. 7. Ant. xx. ix. 2. z XXV. 2. XXV. 15. |