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    xtbovCy that is , from the time at which he was proclaimed from above as the Son of God , and this he says seeminglyin reference to " the many" who , in their narrative of Christ , had begun from an earlier period , namely , his birth . Conformably to his intention

    of beginning from above , Luke states , " Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Ci £ 6 ar , Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judea , and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee , and his brother

    Philip being Tetrarch of It urea , and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene , Annas and Caiaphas being the highpriests , the word of God came unto John in the wilderness . " Had Luke

    given an account of the birth of our divine Master , he would have dated that period ; whereas he hints it to be his purpose to begin with the public appearance of Jesus as the Son of God , and this he defines with a precision unparalleled in the history of past events . The cause of this precision is unknown to modern readers . The first

    teachers of his miraculous birth represented Jesus as being much older than he really was when he appeared as the messenger of heaven . They wished it to be believed that he had been brought up in Egypt , in order to account for his miracles by his having learnt the arts of magic in that country . This calumny has been handed down by the Jews . See Lard . VII . 149 .

    According to the Talmudists , he went to Egypt in the days of King Jannaeus , that is , eighty years before the Christian era . The author of the Harmony ascribed to Tatian , makes his stay in

    Egypt seven years , and as he fled into that country to avoid the anger of Herod , he must have been born some years before the death of that tyrant . This appears from the statement inserted in Matthew .

    These and many other representations equally false induced the Evangelist Luke to cut up the story of his miraculous birth by the root , by enabling every man throughout the whole Roman empire to satisfy himself that the Saviour was not born till at least

    two years after the death of Herod the Great . For he say 3 that he appeared in the fifteenth year of Tiberius , and was then near thirty years old . The fifteenth of Tiberius was the thirtysecond of Philip , who succeeded Herod in the government of It urea and Tra-

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    chonitis . This date is supplied by Josephus , A . J . 18 . 5 , 6 . Luke asserts that Philip was Tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis , when the word of God came to John , and the year of his government is defined by connecting the same event with the fifteenth year of Tiberius on one hand , and the age of Jesus on the other . Thus , with the

    utmost simplicity and precision , he represents the birth of Christ as having taken place two years after the commencement of the reign of Philip , or two years after the death of Herod his father . This is not all . The

    language of Luke carries a pointed reference to the misrepresentation of the impostors . " Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years old . " In English the word < xvto <; , himself ,

    has no meaning , and its reference to the forgers alone renders it proper and significant . Thus , as if he said , " The pretended historians of Jesus , who teach his miraculous birth , represent him as an old man at this time , but

    this was a Jesus of their own fiction . Jesus himself , the real and true Jesus , was but thirty years old / ' I beg to assure my readers , that I do not refine when I thus explain the term cevroc : for it has no other meaning but what

    is here ascribed to it , namely , emphasis or opposition to some other object expressed or implied in the context . This pronoun occurs frequently in every writer ; and this import must be assigned to it , or it has no sense or propriety at all .

    The clause cov , coq EvofAi ^ eTo , vio <; lao-y ) i }> f being understood as an insinuation that Jesus , though supposed to be the son of Joseph , was not so in reality , is a gross and shameful perversion of the original . Did the Evangelist mean to convey this idea , he would , beyond

    doubt , have used the negative , and said , cvK coy , £ <; EvofAi ^ sTo , being not , as was supposed , the son of Joseph . But as the words now stand , he positively and unequivocally asserts that Jesus was the son of Joseph . For cov means beinir and the use of it , which occurs

    so frequently in every Greek writer , is always intended to convey the idea of something positive , something founded in truth and reality . Hence 6 wv , the existing one , the great reality , Jehovah . Hence also , ovrcoq denotes really , in fact , and is synonymous with . aXfiOccq . Besides , Luke having asserted

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    278 Z > A . «/ . Jones on the first Two Chapters of Luke .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1821, page 278, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2500/page/22/