here is no way to ascertain
it._ By different learned men it has been fixed at each month
in the year."[360:4]

Canon Farrar writes with a little more caution, as follows:

"Although the date of Christ's birth cannot be fixed with
absolute certainty, there is at least a large amount of
evidence to render it _probable_ that he was born _four_ years
before our present era. It is universally admitted that our
received chronology, which is not older than Dionysius
Exignus, in the sixth century, is wrong. But all attempts to
discover the _month_ and the _day_ are useless. No data
whatever exists to enable us to determine them with even
approximate accuracy."[360:5]

Bunsen attempts to show (on the authority of _Irenaeus_, above quoted),
that Jesus was born some _fifteen_ years before the time assigned, and
that he lived to be nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age.[361:1]

According to Basnage,[361:2] the Jews placed his birth near a century
sooner than the generally assumed epoch. Others have placed it even in
the _third century_ B. C. This belief is founded on a passage in the
"_Book of Wisdom_,"[361:3] written about 250 B. C., which is supposed to
refer to Christ _Jesus_, and none other. In speaking of some individual
who lived _at that time_, it says:

"He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth
himself _the child of the Lord_. He was made to reprove our
thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold; for his life
is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We
are esteemed of him as counterfeits; he abstaineth from our
ways as from filthiness; he pronounceth the end of the just to
be blessed, _and maketh his boast that God is his father_. Let
us see if his words be true; and let us prove what shall
happen in the end of him. For if the _just man_ be the son of
God, he (God) will help him, and deliver him from the hand of
his enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and
torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his
patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death; for by his
own saying he shall be respected."

This is a very important passage. Of course, the church claim it to be a
_prophecy_ of what Christ Jesus was to do and suffer, but this does not
explain it.

If the writer of the "_Gospel according to Luke_" is correct, Jesus was
not b