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
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
Christ therefore was born in Bethlehem at the time when Augustus Caesar gave orders that the first enrolment should be made. But what necessity was there, some one may perhaps say, for the very wise Evangelist to make special mention of this? Yes, I answer: it was both useful and necessary for him to mark the period when our Saviour was born: for it was said by the voice of the Patriarch: "The head shall not depart from Judah, nor a governor from his thighs until He come, for Whom it is laid up: and He is the expectation of the Gentiles." That we therefore might learn that the Israelites had then no king of the tribe of David, and that their own native governors had failed, with good reason he makes mention of the decrees of Caesar, as now having beneath his sceptre Judaea as well as the rest of the nations: for it was as their ruler that he commanded the census to be made.
