In the preceding chapter we have seen that, in all probability, Augustus inaugurated a series of enrollments in Egypt. Now, according to Luke, Augustus laid down the principle that “enrollments” should be made over the whole Roman world; and this assertion stands on a very different level of probability from that which it occupied before the Egyptian discovery. If Luke be wrong, his error has been to extend over the whole Roman world a practice which Augustus established in Egypt. Every one must see that such an extension is not likely to have been made without some justification by the author of Acts, whoever he was. If there is anything certain about him it is that he had neither connection with Egypt nor interest in it, and that he was entirely uninfluenced by Alexandrian thought or Egyptian ideas; he even omits from his Gospel the incident of the flight into Egypt, which a writer connected with Egypt would be most unlikely to do. Such an author is not likely to have known about institutions peculiar to Egypt; and, if he thinks that the system of periodical enrollments, which existed in Egypt, was also found in other parts of the Roman world, there is a strong presumption that such was the case at least in those parts of the world which were best known to him. The reasons stated above, chapters 6 and 7, confirm this presumption.
Other considerations, also, prove that some attempt was made in Syria, whether systematically or sporadically, to number the population Such enumerations can be traced back to the reign of Augustus and to the government of Syria by Quirinius.
An inscription, which was long the subject of keen controversy and was condemned by Mommsen and many others as a forgery,1 was recently found to be genuine, when half of the long-lost stone on which it was engraved was rediscovered in Venice. In that inscription, which records the career of Q Aemilius Secundus, a Roman officer, who served under Quirinius when governor of Syria, it is mentioned that by the orders of Quirinius he made the “census” of the population of Apameia, enumerating 117,000 citizens. The emphasis laid on the number suggests (though it does not demonstrate) that the numbering of the total population was the chief object of the Apamean “census”; in that case it would correspond to the periodic enrollment by households in Egypt rather than to the annual valuation.
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Author: William M. Ramsay
Keywords: Census, Enrolment, Enrollment, Quirinius, Cyrenius, Registration, Bethlehem census, Bethlehem enrollment, Bethlehem enrolment, Enrolled, Enroled, Taxation, Taxed
Bible reference(s): Luke 2:1-5
Source: Was Christ Born in Bethlehem?, (1898).
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.