orn until about A. D. 10, for he explicitly tells us that this
event did not happen until Cyrenius was governor of Syria.[361:4] Now it
is well known that Cyrenius was not appointed to this office until long
after the death of Herod (during whose reign the Matthew narrator
informs us Jesus was born[361:5]), and that the taxing spoken of by the
Luke narrator as having taken place at this time, did not take place
until about ten years after the time at which, according to the Matthew
narrator, Jesus was born.[361:6]

Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian,[361:7] places his birth at
the time Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and therefore at about A. D.
10. His words are as follows:

"It was the two and fortieth year after the reign of Augustus
the Emperor, and the eight and twentieth year after the
subduing of Egypt, and the death of Antonius and Cleopatra,
when last of all the Ptolemies in Egypt ceased to bear rule,
when our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, at the time of the
first taxing--Cyrenius, then President of Syria--was born in
Bethlehem, a city of Judea, according unto the prophecies in
that behalf premised."[362:1]

Had the Luke narrator known anything about Jewish history, he never
would have made so gross a blunder as to place the taxing of Cyrenius in
the days of Herod, and would have saved the immense amount of labor that
it has taken in endeavoring to explain away the effects of his
ignorance. One explanation of this mistake is, that there were _two_
assessments, one about the time Jesus was born, and the other ten years
after; but this has entirely failed. Dr. Hooykaas, speaking of this,
says:

"The Evangelist (Luke) falls into the most extraordinary
mistakes throughout. In the first place, history is silent as
to a census of the whole (Roman) world ever having been made
at all. In the next place, though Quirinius certainly did make
such a register in Judea and Samaria, it did not extend to
Galilee; so that Joseph's household was not affected by it.
Besides, _it did not take place until ten years after the
death of Herod_, when his son Archelaus was deposed by the
emperor, and the districts of Judea and Samaria were thrown
into a Roman province. Under the reign of Herod, nothing of
the kind took place, nor was there any occasion for it.
Finally, at the time of the birth of Jesus, the Governor of