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THE DATE OF 25 DECEMBER
In 1995, the Israeli
scholar Shemaryahu Talmon published a study on the liturgical calendar
discovered in cave 4 at Qumrân (4 Q321). In this calendar he
unquestionably discovered the dates of the Temple service, which the
priests used to take it in turns to provide, as they continued to do at the
time of the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus. According to this
document, copied on parchment between the years 50 and 27 BC and
therefore contemporaneous with Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Abijah
family to which they belonged (Lk 1.5; cf. I Ch 24.10) saw their turn
come round twice a year, from the 8th to the 14th of the third month
of the Essenian calendar and from the 24th to the 30th of the eighth
month1. This second period falls
towards the end of our month of September, confirming the solid
foundation for the immemorial tradition of the Byzantine feast of the
“Conception of John” on 23 September.
Now, Saint Luke writes,
it was «in the sixth month» after the conception of John that «the
angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth, to
a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David; and the virgin's name was Mary.» (Lk 1.26-27)
Counting from the 23
September, «the sixth month» falls exactly on 25 March, the
feast of the Annunciation. In that case, Jesus was indeed born on 25 December, nine months later. Christmas
is not «the religious and
cultural consecration of a cosmic event, the winter solstice which
marks the receding of the night»2.
No! The 25th December is quite simply the anniversary of the
birth of Christ…
It nevertheless remains true that «in the pagan world
the 25th December
was the feast of the Natalis Solis invicti, the feast of the renascent
sun, ever triumphant over darkness»2. But far from being an
invention of the Roman Church, the coincidence is the work of God who
created the sun and the moon, «to separate the day from the night
and to serve as signs to mark out festivals and days and years» (Gn 1.14). It is He who willed,
in the fullness of time, this coincidence of the Natalis Solis invicti and the
Christus
natus in Bethleem, to teach us that Christ is
«the sun of justice» (Ml 3.20), «the rising sun from on high» (Lk 1.78),
«the light of the world» (Jn 8.12) which the darkness could not «put
out» (Jn 1.5), and «which enlightens every man» (Jn 1.9).
Saint Matthew and Saint Luke give us to understand that the birth took
place at night; the Magi saw His star (Mt 2.2), and the shepherds were
advised by «the Angel of the Lord» while they were «guarding their
flocks during the watches of the night» (Lk 2.8). This had also been
suggested less than fifty years earlier: «While a peaceful silence
enveloped all things and night had run the half of its swift course, down
from the heavens, from the royal throne, leapt your all-powerful Word.»
(Wisdom 18.14-15, accommodative sense)
«IN THE DAYS OF HEROD»
Saint Luke and Saint Matthew agree in dating the birth of Christ in
the last days of Herod. Father Boismard declares this to be
impossible, quoting «a professional historian» (sic!), Michel
Ginsburg. In 1928, Ginsburg had maintained that such a census was
inconceivable in Judaea, since it was an independent kingdom in the time of
Herod and only became a Roman province after the tyrant’s death
and the eviction of Archelaus, his son and successor3. How can we not bow before «a
professional historian», even if he does confuse Herod, the tetrarch of
Galilee, with the king his father, Herod the Great4!
Has not Boismard read Fr Benoit, his
superior and colleague? «The independence of Judaea was relative.
Herod, who had been made its king by the grace of Rome, remained under
the strict control of the imperial power [...]. When in 8 BC he waged
war against the Arabs without having first obtained the approval of
the Emperor, the latter had shown his irritation and had written to him
that, having treated him until then as a friend, he would now
treat him as a subject. To be a
“friend” king already implied a certain degree of subjection;
after this reprimand by Augustus, such a subjection only became more
obvious. And one understands why, in those final years of Herod in
which his numerous conflicts with his sons contributed to alienating
him from the Emperor, the latter began to exercise a stricter
supervision over this kingdom, which he hoped shortly to integrate into
the Empire.5»
Hence the census attested by Saint Luke, a
precise and well-informed historian: «The census of citizens,
inaugurated in the royal era by Servius Tullius, was continued during the
republican period, but became increasingly disorganised and finally disappeared around the end of the first century AD.» On the
other hand, the census of «provincials», which is what we are
concerned with here, was a typical feature of the imperial period:
«Reference had already been made to it in Sicily in Cicero’s
time, and it was systematically extended to the whole Empire by the Emperor
Augustus, who bequeathed the practice to his successors.6»
TO BETHLEHEM IN JUDAEA
The
“great” Loisy (!) had sarcastically compared Mary and Joseph going up from Nazareth
to Bethlehem to a «migration of peoples», something that is as impossible as
it is ridiculous. Father Benoit answers him using the most positive data:
«The proper answer to this is that the census declarations normally had to
be made in the legal or fiscal domicile of the person concerned, the
place where he was “inscribed”, which was not
necessarily his ordinary residence.»
In support of this
statement, Father Benoit cites an edict of the prefect of Egypt, dated
104 AD. «Since the census is being taken house by house, those who
are absent from their nomes [administrative division of ancient
Egypt], for whatever reason, must be advised to return to their homes
in order to complete the usual census form and devote themselves to
the cultivation required of them.»
Having emphasised that
«this text unmistakably confirms a practice which is entirely natural
and which is evidenced elsewhere», Father Benoit recalls that Saint Luke’s
account is centred on Joseph’s davidic ancestry: «Luke does not say
that Bethlehem is his legal domicile, but one may suppose it. Nor does
he say that Joseph was from Nazareth, as many exegetes make him say.
He simply says that he married Mary at Nazareth. Joseph may very well
have come to that town for reasons of work, or quite simply to marry
his young fiancée there. This in no way contradicts the possibility
that he may normally have lived at Bethlehem, as Matthew clearly
supposes when he has Joseph staying at Bethlehem for quite some time
after the birth (Mt 2.6) and only leaving Bethlehem out of fear of Herod
(2.13 and 15) and taking refuge in Nazareth out of fear of Archelaus (2.22-23).»
MAGI HAILING FROM THE EAST
If we follow the
indications of Flavius Josephus, the census of Quirinius took place in
«the thirty-seventh year» after Augustus had defeated Antony at the
battle of Actium, that is year 6 after Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, by this date, again according to the statements of the
Jewish historian, Herod had been dead for ten years.
The first consequence of
this chronology is to set Luke in contradiction with Matthew. If the
census of Quirinius took place ten years after the death of Herod, as
Flavius Joseph gives us to believe, then Saint Matthew’s account of
the visit of the Magi and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents cease to
have any historical value. This is a golden opportunity for Father
Boismard:
«What are we to make of that magnificent star which led the Magi to
the place where the Infant Jesus lay? They saw “his star at its
rising” (or “in the East”), they understood that the King of
the Jews had just been born and they came to pay him homage (Mt 2.2).
On leaving Herod, who had requested them to return to Jerusalem so
that he might have information about this “king of the Jews”
who disturbed him, “lo, the star which they had seen in the East
went before them till it came to rest over the place where the child
was” (2.9). We have here a theme that is well known to
Roman antiquity.7»
This last remark, made
in passing, insinuates that Saint Matthew had only to imitate Virgil,
for example, in the Æneid: «And falling from the sky through
the darkness sped a star with a torch-like train and a blaze of light.
We behold it gliding over the roof of our house and then, still
burning bright, plunge into the forests of Mount Ida, lighting up the
roads as it did so. It left a long luminous streak in its wake.» Immediately,
«Aeneas invokes the gods and adores the holy star: “Now no more
delay! I will follow you, and wherever you lead, there will I be, O
gods of my father”.8»
But how could anyone believe that Saint Matthew applied this mythology to
Christ’s infancy and that it was accepted by the whole Church as
true history… until Father Boismard came along?
Father Boismard
continues: «What should a modern reader make of this star which
appears in the East, seeming to disappear during the Magi’s journey
since they rejoice when they see it again (2.10), halting
above Jerusalem, then moving ahead of the Magi, leading them to
Bethlehem and stopping just above the place where the infant Jesus
lay?»
We can confidently
answer: A «modern» reader who is not a “modernist” will think: it
is a miracle! At Pontmain, were not three stars
seen, unknown to the astronomers and forming a triangle above and at
either side of the Blessed Virgin? And did not a host of others “imprint”
themselves on Her blue robe before taking their place beneath Her
feet, while one of them entered the blue oval where the Blessed Virgin
stood in order to light the four candles at the moment when She presented
the Crucifix for the adoration of Her people?
Not to mention Fatima,
where seventy thousand people saw the sun hurtle down onto the crowd!
As for proof of the
miracle, it is again brought to us by unimpeachable witnesses: the
rabbis of Yabné! They could not restrain themselves from corrupting the
prophecies of Balaam: «A star will arise» (Nb 24.17)
according to the Septuagint, which agrees with the Document of
Damascus (CD 7.19) and the Scroll of the War (1 QM 11.6-7),
but changed by the Masoretic text into «A star will trample»
and thus made unintelligible!
As Father Nodet
remarked, «the verb “trample” [“fouler” in French], which
also means “to stretch a bow”, expresses rather adversity and
violence»9, to the detriment of the traditional messianic sense. Why this «negative
evaluation of the “star”», to quote Nodet again, if not to
devalue the application which Christians have made of it to Jesus on
account of a well attested miracle: the miracle of the star
that guided the Magi to the feet of this divine Infant and His divine
Mother?
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS
As for the slaughter of
the Holy Innocents, Father Boismard does not believe in it any more
than he does in the miraculous star: «It would be astonishing, he
writes, if Flavius Josephus, who is keen to emphasise Herod’s cruelty
during the last years of his reign, had nothing to tell us about the
massacre of the children “in Bethlehem and the whole of its
region”. No doubt he does not speak of it because such a massacre
never took place.10»
Which amounts to treating Saint Matthew as a liar and regarding
Flavius Josephus as the only one worthy of belief!
We have long since
suspected the testimony of Flavius Josephus, for example over his
presentation of John the Baptist11.
In truth, the silences of Josephus are as eloquent as are those of the
Masoretic text. Father Nodet’s book adds further proofs: noting in
his turn that «Josephus took care to keep silent concerning any
connection between John and Jesus», he highlights a fact which should have
opened the eyes of Father Boismard. In his autobiography, «Josephus
presents himself as possessing a good genealogy (priestly and not davidic),
he portrays himself as precociously brilliant before the learned men
of Jerusalem, he industriously follows the baptist Bannous before
striking out in his own direction, and finally he talks at length of his desire to
reconstruct the nation starting with the Galileans»12.
As Nodet says, «one may
discern a certain parallelism with Jesus»… that is the least one
can say! One may be more specific: it is an antithetical parallelism. It is
clear that, after
the catastrophe of the year 70, Flavius Josephus draws a portrait of himself which depicts him as
the saviour of his people, in opposition to Christ.
In an article, which we
have already had occasion to quote, Jean-Daniel Dubois writes that «in
order to speak of the birth of Jesus, the first Christians had no
difficulty borrowing from certain Jewish childbirth accounts of biblical figures»13.
In support of this statement, this Professor of Religious Sciences at
the Practical School of Higher Studies quotes Flavius Josephus’ Jewish
Antiquities, in which a scribe predicts the birth of Moses and Pharaoh’s
fear makes him order the massacre of the newly
born, in accordance with the text of Exodus 1.15-22: «One of the scribes,
who are expert in accurately predicting the future, told the king that around
this time there would be born one who would undermine the Egyptians'
sovereignty and exalt the Israelites when he grew up; he would surpass
every other man in virtue and would earn for himself a name that would
never perish. In alarm, the king, acting on this scribe's advice,
ordered that every newborn male Israelite should be destroyed by being
thrown into the river, and that pregnant Hebrew women should be kept
under observation and their delivery supervised by Egyptian
midwives.» In this same Midrash recounted by Flavius Josephus, Dubois adds,
the birth of Moses is also announced in a dream to Amram, Moses’
father.
In order to defend the
historicity of Saint Matthew’s account, the Abbé Laurentin does his
best to minimise the parallelism: «The model of Moses’ childhood,
according to Jewish literature, might have had an influence on the second chapter, but only a very
distant influence, certainly not a decisive one. It is one allusion among
many which shows Christ as summing up the whole of history.14»
And he refers to the article by Renée Bloch published by the Cahiers sioniens in 1954:
Certain aspects of the figure of Moses in the
rabbinical tradition15.
A SHAMELESS PLAGIARISM
It has to be recognised,
contrary to what Laurentin states, that the points of contact between Saint Matthew
and the rabbibical Haggada are massive. What is the point of denying
it? Either Laurentin has misread the texts or he is in bad faith.
«Jesus, like Moses,
will be the “saviour of Israel” (…). The birth of Jesus, like that
of Moses, is foretold by a dream.16»
Unless it is
the other way round: the saga of Moses revised in order to
imitate the
true history of Jesus.
Pharaoh is warned of the
imminent birth of a child who is going to save Israel and destroy Egypt.
Josephus, who relates this Palestinian Haggadic tradition in its
entirety, «guarantees its antiquity». He also relates a dream had by
Amram, Moses’ father.
Herod, like Pharaoh, is
gripped with fear at the announcement of the birth of the child. To
him he sounds like an adversary or a rival who is going
to remove the people of Israel from his power. «In both cases, one
sees that the courts of the two kings are seized with alarm.» Pharaoh
then consults his advisers and his astrologers; and Herod, his
high priests and his scribes. «In both cases, the king decides to
kill all the young children capable of verifying the prediction, in
order to destroy for certain the future liberator or king. The
cruel decision is carried out in both cases. Finally, in both cases,
the future liberator, – whose life is thus marked by contradiction
and trial from the very first hour –, is providentially preserved
and escapes the slaughter.»
The whole question is to
know who copied from whom. For Renée Bloch, and all those authors who have
followed suit, it is the Midrash that dictates chapters 1 and 2 of
Saint Matthew: «Even though Moses is not named in these two chapters,
she writes, it is clear that, in his writing, the author
constantly has in mind the story of the birth of Moses according to the
Midrashic tradition.»
And if it were the
other way round?
For the Midrash
goes even further… much too far! «Although not directly connected
with Matthew’s account, Renée Bloch again observes, we shall also
be interested to find that Moses, the future saviour of Israel, is
represented in Pharaoh’s dream by a lamb.» Pharaoh
sees a pair of scales: on one scale is the whole land of Egypt, on the
other a lamb. And the scale that bore the lamb, being heavier than the
whole of Egypt, tipped downwards! thereby signalling that Moses would
be the lamb who would conquer Pharaoh and the Egyptians.
This depiction makes
Moses a rival to Jesus and so reveals the meaning and the date of this
display of wonders around his birth. For Jesus is the spotless lamb
(Ex 12.5), «the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world»
(Jn 1.29) at the price of «precious blood, like that of a lamb
without blemish or spot» (1 P 1.19). Shall we say then
that the rabbinical Haggada inspired Saint John the Baptist and Saint
Peter? and Saint John even as he is describing, in the Apocalypse, those who have
overcome Satan, represented by Pharaoh, through the blood of this Lamb?
«And I heard a loud
voice in heaven, saying: “Now the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come,
for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses
them day and night before God. And they have conquered him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they
loved not their lives even unto death.”» (Ap 12.10-11)
The Christian tradition
designates Christ as the true Lamb of God. Isaac – and not Moses –
was His figure in the Old Testament (Gn 22.7-10); and David (1 Enoch
89.45-49) was the figure of the Messiah (ibid., 90, 6-20; Testament of Joseph 19.8)
in the “Middle Testament”. This tradition goes back to the
apostolic origins. Saint Paul bears witness to it when he exhorts
the Corinthians to live «in purity and truth», for «Christ,
our Passover, has been immolated» (1 Co 5.7). «Our
Passover» is
the paschal lamb. The Apostle refers to the liturgical traditions of
the Christian Passover, which therefore existed well before the years 55-57, the
date of his letter. According to Saint John’s Gospel, the basis of
this tradition is the death of Jesus on the Cross, on the day before Passover (Jn
18.28; 19.14-31), at the very hour in the afternoon when the
lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple: in the year 30. Flavius
Josephus was not yet born!
As for the other events
which surrounded the birth of this divine Lamb, their memory goes back to a much
earlier date and was carefully preserved during the thirty years of His hidden
life by Mary, who pondered on them in Her Immaculate Heart (Lk 2.19
and 51). She is an unimpeachable and unrivalled witness, despite the
pretensions of a supposed Haggadic “tradition” which records a
prophetic dream by Miriam, the sister of Moses. It is she who is
supposed to have received the Angel Gabriel, the herald of the
child’s birth. And it is on her advice that Amram is said to have
taken back his wife, from whom he had separated because of Pharaoh’s
decree ordering all male children to be «thrown into the river» (Ex 1.22).
Jochebed supposedly experienced a painless pregnancy and
childbirth. At the moment of the birth of Moses, the whole house was
filled with a great light, like that of a star, the sun or the moon,
etc.
It is pointless to go on
further. The case has been heard: the original account is that
of Saint Matthew. His account is historical, as is that of Saint Luke,
for the same reasons. For Matthew’s account, entirely focused on the virtues and
anxiety of Joseph, is signed, just like Saint
Luke’s, by Her who «carefully
preserved all these things, meditating upon them in Her heart.» (Lk 2.19). This
private meditation can be
guessed, for example, from this reflection: «Joseph, Her husband, who
was a just man» (Mt 1.19). One catches the real-life response of the
wife penetrated with admiration for Her spouse, as She says: «My
husband was a just man.»
THE CENSUS OF QUIRINIUS
According to Saint Luke,
the birth of Jesus dates from the census decreed by Augustus and carried
out by Quirinius, at that time governor of Syria (Lk 2.1-2). Saint Luke
was «exactly informed of everything since the beginning», less than
sixty years after the events, by «eye witnesses and ministers of
the Word» (Lk 1.2-3), in particular by the Blessed Virgin Mary who lived with John the
Evangelist (Jn 19.27). Being a native of Antioch, the capital of Syria,
Luke was able to obtain firsthand information.
From when should we date
the census of Quirinius? Well... quite simply from the birth of Christ!
As Louis Dupraz remarks: «It is the birth of Christ which allows us
to date the census of Quirinius, the first to be carried out in
Judaea by the Romans», and not the other way round17.
It is remarkable, in
fact, that «Luke introduces the infancy narrative by referring to a
decree by Augustus that a census be taken of all those living in the territories incorporated into the Roman
State and in territories which,
by one title or another, directly or indirectly, were in varying
degrees of subjection to Rome or the prince.» (Lk 2.1) «Luke
follows this first reference with a reference to the census itself,
recording that it took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria» (Lk
2.2).
Dupraz observes: «This was not intended
as a way of dating the birth using the Roman calendar, for the
two verses, whether taken separately or together, do not provide any synchronism»,
unlike the third chapter in which Luke «registers the beginning of
John the Baptist's preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius» (Lk 3.1). The reign of Augustus
lasted from the year 727 after the foundation of Rome (27 BC) to the year 767 (14
AD). Luke does
not locate the census decree of Caesar Augustus in any of those forty
years. «The beginning of the government of Quirinius is not dated
either, nor is its duration indicated», Dupraz stresses18.
By a strange inconsistency, Dupraz draws the conclusion that Jesus was born in the
year 6… before Jesus Christ! It is futile to enter into his calculations. With
the same kind of virtuosity, Gilbert Picard, quoted above, has
decided that the census of Quirinius took place in the year 6 of our
era and that Christ was therefore born in the year 6… after Jesus
Christ!
Saint Luke, a precise
and well-informed historian, refrains from dating the Nativity of Christ,
and he does so in
order to emphasise the fact that it opens a new era: it is not the census of
Quirinius that dates the Nativity, it is the Nativity that dates the
census, from the year 1 before Christ.
Father Benoit cites the
testimony of Tertullian (150-220) who asserted that he had seen in the
«Roman archives» proof of a census taken in Judaea under Augustus,
at the time of the birth of Christ, by Sentius Saturninus, legate of
Syria in the years 9-6 before the Christian era. The apparent discordance between this
testimony and that of Saint Luke puts it beyond suspicion. Tertullian surely
did not invent it.
But how then can Saint
Luke and Tertullian be reconciled?
By considering that they are quite simply speaking of the same census, begun under Saturninus and
completed under Quirinius.
«The length of time
required by a Roman census, especially when it formed the “descriptio
prima” of a region to be integrated into the Roman empire, is
confirmed by the facts of contemporary history. Pliny speaks of a “census… intra quadriennium”.19»
THE MUDDLE OF JOSEPHUS
The one objection is the
so-called “testimony” of Flavius Josephus who dates the census of
Quirinius in the year 6… after Jesus Christ.
We know who we are
dealing with when it comes to Flavius Josephus thanks to the works of
Father Nodet20.
Nodet claims to have established that Saint Luke was dependent on this
renegade Jewish historian. It is a dependency about which our readers
will learn nothing more. «Luke’s
Gospel, in its final form, he writes, borrows from the Antiquities,
while carefully keeping to a more realistic dating.»
In so saying, Nodet is
simply resurrecting an outdated notion which goes back to the heyday
of modernism and which, to his great credit, Robinson refuted21.
How could Saint Luke, who
completed the Acts of the Apostles before the death of James the
“brother of the Lord” in 62, have copied from the Antiquities,
published around 93, thirty years later? It is clearly the opposite that is
true: it is Josephus who is playing around with the Gospels,
overturning their chronology, with a determination to destroy the
synchronism established by Saint Luke between the events of our
salvation and the course of history, as we have already noted in
connection with the three Christian “aerolites” on John
the Baptist, Jesus and James.
Credo ergo evangelistæ22!
«Luke says nothing of
an anti-Roman rebellion, supposedly sparked off by the census of which
he speaks, Father Benoit observes. His presentation is quite different
from that of Josephus. Josephus stresses that the Jews were
definitively subject to the Romans, and it was this that provoked the
zealot reaction, the ever-mounting violence of which will lead to the
catastrophe in the year 70 AD. Luke, on the contrary, is concerned to
show that Christ’s coming among men occurred at a moment when divine
Providence gave the Greco-Roman world around the Mediterranean a
strong and tangible unity, which would greatly favour the spread of
the Gospel; see his Acts of the Apostles. This great Augustinian peace
seemed to him, and rightly so, to result from a common approach to organising the Empire,
which even benefited Palestine. It coincided
strikingly with the coming into the world of the new and true Saviour.
Such is the theological intention of the historical concordance he
points out with the help of a particular concrete event.23»
This is all very apparent…
Unfortunately, Father
Benoit falls into the trap set by Flavius Josephus when he adds: «The
fact that he attached this event to the name of Quirinius, famous in
the popular mind for having completed in Judaea his great imperial
task, may be an inexact anticipation from a strictly historical point
of view.» Why «inexact»? Is it because the Evangelist places the
census of Quirinius in the «days of Herod», whereas Josephus places
it ten years after the death of this tyrant? But there is no reason to
prefer Josephus to Saint Luke! Quite the contrary. Josephus is on his
own here, «with no support from the ancient
historians», as Father Benoit himself admits24.
It is true that
Quirinius’ legation in Syria, affirmed by Saint Luke (2.2), is not
mentioned by «ancient historians» either. No mention of it is found in
Tacitus, Strabo or Dio Cassius. But it is necessary to believe Saint
Luke. Indeed, a certain piece of external evidence supports what he
says. An
undated Latin inscription25
states
that Quirinius began the census in the town of Apamea, in
Syria26.
For Nodet to be in agreement with us, a rare
pleasure, is decisive: «As for Quirinius himself, there is
no difficulty in making him the successor of Varus as the legate in Syria,
from the year 3 BC. The known literary and epigraphic data do not
contradict this, since, after Varus, the first reliably dated legate is
Saturninus, in the year 4 AD. We can reduce our uncertainty if we
take into account the fact that C. Julius Caesar was proconsul in the
East and in Syria from the year 1 BC to 4 AD. This would lead us to
date Quirinius’ mandate between 3 and 1 BC, which is perfectly plausible.27»
Quirinius gets the same
treatment that John the Baptist, Jesus and James do: in the War, Flavius Josephus’ first work (75-79), there is no question of
Quirinius but only of Coponius, the governor of Judaea. Twenty years
later, Josephus can no longer pass in silence over events and persons
whose notoriety has been spread throughout «the whole inhabited world»
through the apostolic writings: Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypse.
Josephus, therefore, introduces Quirinius into the Antiquities
(circa 93) as the governor of Syria, a high ranking person, a «member of the
Senate, who had become a consul after scaling all the ranks and who
enjoyed
considerable esteem»28.
Coponius is now no more than his adjutant in Judaea. Why this change?
Because, in the meantime, Josephus has had to take account of Saint
Luke’s information: «This was the first census, Quirinius
being governor of Syria.» (Lk 2.2) But he links it, in
passing, to an imperial census in the year 6 AD. And the trick is
played. He has led us on his merry-go-round for 2000 years now! Father
Nodet has pointed out that «Josephus’ sentence is complex, but one immediately sees that its awkwardness
stems from the fact that it
includes a carefully dated parenthesis concerning the census (6 AD).» Nodet
stresses the fact that «this census is not grammatically attached to
Quirinius, which seems strange, since Josephus says that he had a
commission to hold a census.29» This simple
observation is enough for us to detect a procedure that we had already
uncovered in connection with the three Christian “aerolites”
found in the Antiquities on John the Baptist, Jesus and James.
Just as Josephus had effaced every trace linking John the Baptist to
the Essenians, Jesus to John the Baptist, and James to Jesus, so he
precludes any connection between the birth of Jesus and the Roman
peace by putting a distance of ten years between Quirinius and Herod.
THE DEATH OF HEROD
Josephus states that
Herod the Great died after a reign of thirty-four years, shortly after
a lunar eclipse, just before the feast of Passover. In which year?
Strangely enough, Josephus does not specify the year30.
Having received the
title of “King of Judaea” during the consulates of Domitius
Calvinus and of Asinius Pollo, in 40 BC, Herod
did not reign effectively until after he had defeated and killed his
rival Antigone in 37. The thirty-four year reign, therefore, take us
to the year 4 BC. Since the lunar eclipse occurred that year on the
night of 12 to 13 March, exactly one month before Passover,
historians, following Émil Schürer, consider that Herod died in the
spring of the year 4 BC31.
But Jesus Christ was
born before the death of Herod! No problem! Father Boismard does not
hesitate to deny the historicity of Saint Matthew’s account, as
though all that is needed to resolve such problems is to reject any
data which is... Christian!
Although he does not say so, Father Boismard
copies Emil Schürer, using the English translation of his
work on The history of the Jewish people in the time of Jesus
Christ.
But in the second German edition, Schürer added:
«Two other eclipses
were visible in Jerusalem: on 15 September in the year 5 and on 9
January in the year 1 BC. But they cannot be taken into consideration,
in view of the other data of the problem.»
Does not Father Boismard
read German? Or perhaps he avoids mentioning a hypothesis that raises
questions about his own system? For Schürer, as an honest scholar,
refers the reader to the work of F. Riess. Riess considered it
impossible to date the death of Herod in the year 4 BC for one
compelling reason: in that year there were only four weeks between the
eclipse and Passover, and it is impossible for all the events to have
taken place in that interval. Riess concluded that Herod had died in the year 1 BC
and not in the year 432.
Since then, other
authors have taken up this conclusion with renewed interest. W.E. Filmer
points out that another eclipse happened on the evening of 29
December in the year 1 BC, three months before the Passover of the
year 1 AD. It is a sufficient time lapse to contain not only the
events related by Josephus, but also what he passes over in silence:
the birth of Christ on 25 December, followed shortly afterwards by the
eclipse of the moon on 29 December, then the visit of the Magi,
which caused a stir in Jerusalem in the early days of January,
followed by the flight into Egypt and the slaughter of the Holy
Innocents. «In conclusion, writes W.E. Filmer, everything we can
deduce from the fact of this lunar eclipse leads us to state that Herod
might have died in the years 4 or 1 BC, or indeed in the year 1 AD.33» Which is of consequence, as is shown by the chronology we
have been able to establish from the single, necessary and sufficient,
piece of information provided by Saint Luke: Saint John the Baptist
began preaching «in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar»
(Lk 3.1). Tiberius succeeded Augustus on 19 August of the year 14
AD. The fifteenth year, therefore, stretches from 20 August 28 (year 781
after the foundation of Rome) to 19 August 29 (782), or, according
to the manner of calculating reigns used in Syria, from
September-October 27 (780) to September-October 28 (781).
CHRONOLOGY
Since we know that the civil
Roman year runs from 1 January to 31 December, Jesus was
born at Bethlehem on 25 December of the year 1 “before
Christ”.
Dionysius the Little, a
Scythian monk who lived in Rome and died there around 540, inaugurated
the computation of the Christian era starting from the date provided by
Saint Luke. The fifteenth year of Tiberius, in which the preaching of John
the Baptist began (Lk 3.1), is the year 782 after the foundation of
Rome, as determined by a simple process of addition: Augustus died on 19 August
of the year 767:
767 + 15
= 782.
Jesus was baptised the
following year, therefore in 783. As Saint Luke further writes that «Jesus,
when He began His ministry, was about thirty years of age» (Lk 3.23), the
date of His birth results from a simple subtraction:
783 –
29 = 754.
As Dionysius did not
insert the year zero to mark the very day of the Nativity, we have to
mark “the year 1” of Jesus Christ with a negative sign: “less one”.
But the year 2000, with its triple zero, is unambiguous: the 25th
December 2000 will mark the exact bimillennium of the birth of Christ.
As for Saint Luke, as a
scrupulous historian, he insists on specifying that Jesus was not
exactly «thirty years old», but only «about»
that age. But then, why
round up to thirty, instead of indicating the true age of Jesus? For a reason
that eluded Canon Osty, according to whom he expression «about»
means «perhaps simply that Jesus was old enough to
exercise a public mission». That is really rather flimsy!
It is clear that Saint
Luke follows the parallel with the books of Samuel, sketched in his first two chapters (cf. Lk 1.56). It is written of the holy King: «David
was thirty years old at his accession» (2 S 5.4). On the day of His
baptism, which marks His “anointing” and His entry into public
life, Jesus is like David.
The chronology of His «beginnings» is well known to us. After a fast of forty days in the
desert, He returns to «Bethany beyond the Jordan», where John
testifies to Him (Jn 1.28-34). There He recruits His first five
disciples (Jn 1.35-51), and leaves for Galilee. He stops at Cana then
goes down to Capernaum. From there, He goes up to Jerusalem for the
first Passover of His public life. His altercation with the Jews
provides an unexpected verification of our chronology: «It has
taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you restore it in
three days?» (Jn 2.20) Herod undertook the work of building the
Temple in the year 19 BC, and it was still far from complete! The
scene is therefore situated at the Passover of the year 28…
As for the third
Passover, that of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is solidly
dated in the year 30, due to the fact that the feast of Passover fell
on the Sabbath that year (Jn 19.31).
God willing, a forthcoming study will establish the chronology and geography of Our
Lord’s movements during His public life. We have transferred to
our table the results of our study of “the Church’s testing years
(62-68)”, begun last November34
and completed in this issue (infra, p. 18-22). The vision
related by Saint John in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse is dated
in 68, by reason of the parallelism between the Dragon «with seven heads
and ten horns» (Ap 12.3) and the Beast, «bearing seven heads and ten
horns» (Ap 17.3) «This calls for a mind having wisdom!
The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is seated. They are
also seven kings, of whom five have passed away, one is here now, and the
other has not yet come.» (Ap 17.9-10) The first “king” is
Augustus, the fifth, who has “passed”, is Nero. The sixth is Galba,
presently reigning (April 68 to January 69). The seventh, «not yet come»,
will be Otho, who will succeed Galba between January and April 69.
Brother Bruno de Jésus
[ Back
to main text ]
1. Shemaryahu Talmon and Israel Knohl, A calendrical scroll from a
Qumran cave: Mismarot Ba, 4Q 321, in Pomegranates and Golden
Bells, Eisenbrauns 1995, p. 292. – 2. Catholicisme,
IX (1982), 1310. – 3. M.-É. Boismard OP, L’Évangile de l’Enfance (Luc 1-2) selon le
proto-Luc, Gabalda 1997, p.249. – 4. Michel Ginsburg, Rome et la Judée, contribution à l’histoire de leurs
relations politiques, Paris University thesis, Paris 1928. «This
unfortunate blunder, however, detracts nothing from the value of what
Ginsburg demonstrates», states Gilbert Picard, correspondent of the
Academy, in his communication on La date de naissance de Jésus du
point de vue romain, in the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature,
taking account of the sessions in the year 1995, July-October, p.
801. The self-assurance of these gentlemen is unshakeable, even
going as far as to incriminate Saint Luke; yes, Ginsburg’s error,
writes Picard, is «simply due to the fact that Saint Luke did not judge
it useful to give the tetrarch his surname of Antipas», another howler!
Antipas is his… brother. –
5. Benoit, SDB IX (1979), col. 698. – 6. Ibid.,
p. 695. – 7. M.-É Boismard, op. cit., p. 258. –
8. Aeneid, II, 693-697, quoted by Lagrange, Évangile
selon saint Matthieu, Gabalda, 1923, p. 28. – 9. Ét.
Nodet and J. Taylor, Essai sur les origines du christianisme,
Cerf 1998, p. 236. – 10. Boismard, ibid., p. 259. – 11.
B. Bonnet-Eymard, Bible, Archéologie, Histoire (BAH), vol. 1,
p. 84; vol. 2, p. 125-126. – 12. Nodet, ibid., p. 164.
– 13. Cf. B. Bonnet-Eymard, The ox and the ass at the crib,
English CRC no 316, Feb 1999, p. 29. – 14. R. Laurentin, Les Évangiles de l’Enfance du
Christ, DDB 1982, p. 307. – 15. Cahiers sioniens,
VIII (1954), p. 211-285). – 16. Ibid., p. 282. – 17.
Louis Dupraz,
De l’association de Tibère au principat à la naissance du Christ,
Studia Friburgentia, 43 (1966), p. 144. – 18. Ibid.,
p. 145. – 19. A census that took four years. Benoit, 714. – 20.
Cf. our study: Three Christian
aerolites? In Flavius Josephus, English CRC no 318, p. 17-28. – 21. John
T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, 1976. – 22.
Therefore, I believe the Evangelist! – 23. Benoit, op. cit.,
p. 715. – 24. Ibid., p. 703. – 25. Contrary to
what M.-F. Baslez states in his work Bible et Histoire, Fayard
1998, p. 190. –
26. Ibid., p. 702. – 27. Ét. Nodet, Flavius
Josèphe, Baptême et Résurrection, Cerf 1999, p. 147. – 28. Quoted
by Nodet, op. cit., p. 138. – 29. Ibid., p. 141.
– 30. An anomaly noticed by Ormond Edwards, Herodian chronology,
Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1982), p. 30. – 31. Emil
Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen
Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (“ History of the Jewish
people in the time of Jesus Christ, 175 BC - 135 AD”), 1874. – 32.
F.Riess, Das Geburtsjahr Christi (“The year of Christ’s
birth”) 1880. – 33. W.E. Filmer, The chronology of the reign of
Herod the Great, in the Journal of Theological Studies, XVII
(1966), p. 284. – 34. English CRC no 324, November 1999, p.
7-15. |
1. From Nazareth to Bethlehem, around 120 km, the journey must have
taken four hours. Mary joyfully bore Her divine burden without any of
the inconveniences that befall the daughters of Eve.