And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
All Commentaries on Luke 2:1 Go To Luke 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And it came to pass in those days (in which John the Baptist was born) there went forth a decree, &c. The Syriac for "all the world," has "all the people of his dominion," subject that Isaiah , to Augustus and the Romans. For we have the authority of Suetonius that Augustus did not rule over the Goths, the Armenians, or the Indians. This enrolment was made, both that the number of men under the sway of Augustus might be known, and also with a view to collecting the tribute to be taken to the Roman treasury, exhausted by so many wars; for each person gave in an account of his income. It is probable that the Jews gave what they otherwise gave in taxes according to their law, half a shekel apiece, that is two reals. Exodus 30:11-16; Matthew 22:19.
From Cæsar. The true name of this Cæsar was Octavius or Octavian, the sister"s son of Julius. He being the first Monarch of Rome, extended the glory of the empire and added to it in a wonderful degree; hence he received the surname of Augustus in the eighteenth year of his reign (from which date Censorinus reckons the years of Augustus, and calls them the Augustian or Augustæan years) as though he were some divinity come down from heaven. For he reigned in the greatest peace, plenty, splendour, and felicity for fifty-seven years. Hence the proverb, "Happier than Augustus, better than Trajan." This census was taken by Augustus when he had the whole world in a state of peace, and had therefore closed the temple of Janus for the third time, in the fortieth year of his reign. And all this happened under the guidance of God, that He might signify that Christ was now born, who was to bring peace to all the world. So Bede, "A lover of peace, He would be born in a time of the most profound quiet. And there could be no plainer indication of peace than that a census should be taken of the whole world, whose master Augustus was, having reigned at the time of Christ"s nativity for some twelve years in the greatest peace, war being lulled to sleep throughout all the world." Wherefore the Virgin Mother of God appeared to Augustus in the Capitol bearing the Infant in her arms, Augustus himself having already learned from the Oracle of Apollo that a Hebrew child was born who had imposed silence upon the Oracles of Idols, and having erected an altar in the Capitol with the title, "The Altar of the Firstborn of God." Hence Constantine the Great built on that spot a temple to the memory of Mary, Mother of God, which exists to this day, and is commonly called the "Ara CÅ“li." There too the place is shown where Augustus saw the vision. So Baronius, following Suidas, Nicephorus, and others, in the materials of his "Annals." Moreover, in the same reign there flowed out of the earth, in the shop of a certain deserving Prayer of Manasseh , at Rome, a plentiful fountain of oil, which lasted the whole day; and the spot is still shown in the Church of St. Maria in Trastevere. "By this sign" says Osorius, book vi. ch20 , "what more plainly declared than the birth of Christ in the reign of Caesar Augustus?" "For "Christ" being interpreted is "The Anointed""—because He hath anointed us, and doth anoint us with the oil of grace and of gladness through all the days of our mortal life. The question arises, In what year of Augustus was Christ born? The opinions of the learned and of chronologists differ on this point. The first opinion is that Christ was born in the41Julian year, the40th of the reign of Augustus, the36th of Herod, that Isaiah , A.U.C749 , the fourth year of Olympiad193. The Julian years date from that in which Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, the last year but one of his life. This opinion agrees very well with Sacred and Profane histories. The only objection to it is that in S. Luke iii1,23. It is said of Christ that when He was baptized He "was beginning to be about thirty years old," while according to this view He must have been thirty-two, or nearly as much, for Augustus reigned fifty-seven years. The answer given to this is that Christ is called about thirty years, because He was thirty-two. In the same way S. Augustine is said in the old Breviaries to have been baptized in his thirtieth year, when he really was thirty-three, as the lately corrected Breviaries have it.
The second opinion is that Christ was born in the41st year of Augustus, A.U.C750. So think Sulpicius Severus and S. Jerome; Irenus and Tertullian also are inclined to this opinion.
The third places the date in the42nd year of Augustus, A.U.C751. So Clement of Alexandria and Cassiodonus among the ancients, Scaliger and the Martyrologium Romanum for the25th December among the moderns. I have accordingly taken this date in the Chronological Chart which I have prefixed to the Pentateuch.
The fourth is the43d of Augustus, A.U.C751. So S. Epiphanius, Eusebius, Nicephorus, and others. Francis Suarez, Maldonatus, and others incline to this opinion.
The fifth makes it the44th of Augustus, A.U.C753. So Joannes Lucidus, and Dionysius Exiguus with their followers.
The sixth is the45th of Augustus, A.U.C754. So Paul of Middlesburgh, Bishop of Sempronia, Peter of Aliacum, Bellarmine, and Bede; and very recently, but with great exactitude, our own Petavius, in the "Rationarium Temporum."
All these opinions have their probabilities and also their difficulties. In a matter of so much doubt there can be no certainty of definition. With the first the early Annals in Epiphanius expressly agree, the old, Chronicle in Eusebius, and an anonymous chronologist writing1400 years ago. In its favour there is also, first, that in that year the temple of Janus was shut, and there was the greatest peace in the world, as I have said. Secondly, that Herod in the37th year of his reign (the41st of Augustus), and a little before his death, ordered the children under two years to be slain, Matt. ii. Christ must, therefore, have then been in His second year. This argument is strong, and can scarcely be solved except by torturing the expression "a bimatu" [Greek α̉πὸ διετου̃ς]. Thirdly, Christ must have been born in a leap year, as is clear if we count back from the present to the birth of Christ, for every hundredth year is a leap year. But the40th year of Augustus was a leap year, and the41st and42d were not. For the first year of the Julian Era was a leap year, as Macrobius, Censorinus and others tell us, and therefore the tenth leap year of the Era must have been the year41—or the40th year of Augustus. Besides which, it is clear from Josephus, Dion, Hegesippus, and others, that Herod ruled altogether thirty-seven years, and died in the year43of the Julian Era, before the Passover. Therefore Christ could not have been born under him in that or any following year in the end of the year namely, in December.
Lastly, this was the year in which Augustus introduced to the Forum, with great pomp, his grandson Caius Caesar,—the son of his daughter Julia and his Song of Solomon -in-law Marcus Agrippa— Hebrews , on that occasion, laying aside the "toga prætexta," and putting on the "virilis"—according to the Roman custom. For Caius was born A.U.C734 , in the consulship of M. Apuleius and P. Silius—as Lipsius shows from Dio, from the stone of Ancyra, and from other documents. Therefore A.U.C749 must have been that in which he assumed the "toga virilis"—he then entering on his sixteenth year.
In this same year it was that God the Father introduced to the world His Son Jesus Christ, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, that through Him He might adopt as sons all that believed in Him, and make them heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.
From this view likewise we may easily understand why Christ did not come to Jerusalem before the twelfth year of His age; namely, because Archelaus, the son of Herod, reigned there until that year, and Hebrews , like his father, was a source of danger to Christ. Archelaus reigned ten years, add to these the two last years of Herod and we have the twelve years, after which Archelaus was driven into exile, and then Christ freely and without fear went to the Temple at Jerusalem.
