CHAPTER XI.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

NOTHING can well be imagined more vague and unsettled than the present state of opinion with regard to the Chronology of the Acts of the Apostles. Even on such leading events as the Conversion of St. Paul, his visits to Jerusalem, his arrival at Rome &c., Chronologers are not agreed within 5 or 6 years or more, and the intervening transactions as well as the conjectural dates of the Epistles of course fall into similar confusion and uncertainty. Perfect accuracy on some of these points is apparently unattainable, but they are such as are happily unimportant to the main scheme of Chronology. Nevertheless

a near approximation to the truth must be considered desirable even in these, and may, it is conceived, be satisfactorily attained, when once the dates of real importance are fairly established.

The leading source of difficulty and consequent error in arranging the Chronology of the Acts arises from the remarkable fact, that there is but one date throughout the whole narrative, which

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we are enabled to establish with strict accuracy by a simple reference to contemporary history, viz., that of the death of Herod Agrippa, which we learn from Josephus to have occurred in the 4th year of Claudius A. D. 44; and which took place at the time of the visit of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem with alms on the occasion of the then prevailing famine.

Another fruitful source of error however is the peculiar interpretation of the seventy weeks of Daniel already adverted to, which defers the date of the Crucifixion to A.D.33, thus rendering it impossible to identify St. Paul's visit to Jerusalem "after fourteen years," which he speaks of in his Epistle to the Galatians*, with this visit of A. D. 44. The general resource is to identify it with his attendance at the council of Jerusalem†, the exact date of which is, so far as I can discover, somewhat uncertain; and this uncertainty has been taken full advantage of by contending theorists, involving, as it unfortunately does, the liberty also of placing St. Paul's conversion either soon after, or not till several years after the Crucifixion, and of altering the date even of the Crucifixion itself as their various theories require. The endless confusion and discordance of Chronological arrangement, which is thus occasioned, needs no further illustration.

My readers may now probably perceive at a glance, that the verification of A. D. 44 as the

date of St. Paul's visit to Jerusalem with the alms, together with a satisfactory proof of its identity with the visit "after 14 years", (viz. 14 years after his conversion,) must inevitably overturn every theory, which brings down the date of the Crucifixion lower than A. D. 30; a conclusion so important to our scheme of Chronology, that the proofs on which it rests demand the closest investigation.

First then with regard to the Cardinal date A.D. 44, as established by the authority of Josephus for the year of the death of Herod Agrippa. We find him at Rome enjoying the personal regard of Caligula, and almost immediately after his accession to the empire in March A. D. 37, raised to the tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, and two or three years afterwards to that also of his uncle Herod Antipas. He chanced to be again at Rome at the time of Caligula's death Jan. 24, A. D. 41, and by his encouragement and prudent counsel was even mainly instrumental in securing the succession to Claudius. His recompense on this occasion was the addition of the kingdom of Judæa and Samaria, which finally put him in possession of the full sovereignty of his grandfather Herod the Great, and fostered in him that pride of power, of which we read the awful termination in the Acts, as also in still more detail in Josephus.

At the time of his proceeding from Jerusalem to Cæsarea, Josephus says that the third year

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of his reign over all Judæa was now completed (εжλńрwτо)*, an exactness of expression which (πεπλήρωτο) clearly carries us at the least to the spring of A. D. 44. Almost immediately afterwards however in relating his death, he says less definitely, that he was in the seventh year of his reign (Tŷs βασιλείας ἕβδομον ἔτος ἄγων)*, which might have been true had he reigned but little more than six years. The first conclusion however is amply restored by his going on to explain that he reigned four years under Caius Cæsar, and three more (Tpeis de émiλáßwv) under Claudius. four years however must have been incomplete by perhaps three months, Caligula having reigned only three years and 10 months, and this perhaps may help to account for the looser calculation of Josephus in the "Wars," which states, that he reigned as king three years, after having governed three as tetrarcht. At all events however the three years of his kingly reign are in each of these instances regularly maintained, and I should argue that whatever may be said of the occasional ambiguity of the round numbers of Josephus, he leaves us on the whole no room to doubt that the death of Herod Agrippa took place in A. D. 44.

This inference may also receive some confirmation from the close connexion in point of time observable in the Acts between the visit of Paul *Josephus Antiq. XIX. viii. 2. + Joseph. Bell. II. xi. 6.

Acts xi. and xii.

and Barnabas with the alms and Herod's persecution of the Church, which last in the particular instance at least of Peter's imprisonment took place precisely at Easter. Herod proceeds immediately to Cæsarea, where he dies apparently not long afterwards. How long afterwards might be much more doubtful than it is, but that the departure of Paul and Barnabas "when they "had fulfilled their ministry*", which could have lasted at the utmost but a very few weeks, follows still later in the narrative, thus confining the time of Herod's death almost to the Easter season, but certainly not the Easter of A. D. 43, as that would have made it impossible for Josephus to have assigned him a three years' reign even on the loosest estimate. Should there remain any hesitation in admitting the certainty of the all-important date A. D. 44, let it only await the full demonstration which is yet in reserve, but which will find its more appropriate place in a further stage of the argument.

We have next to identify if we can St. Paul's visit after 14 years, which he refers to in his Epistle to the Galatians†, with that of the alms in A. D. 44 recorded by St. Luke in the Acts‡. The most natural process, that of noting the points of resemblance in each account, would probably avail us little, as from the different objects in view of these writers respectively they are few in number, and not remarkably obvious, * Acts xii. 25. + Gal. ii. 2. + Acts xi. 30