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And now, after this necessary introduction to our proposed history of
the Church, we can enter, so to speak, upon our journey, beginning
with the appearance of our Saviour in the flesh. And we invoke God,
the Father of the Word, and him, of whom we have been speaking,
Jesus Christ himself our Saviour and Lord, the heavenly Word of
God, as our aid and fellow-laborer in the narration of the truth.
It was in the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus and the
twenty-eighth after the subjugation of Egypt and the death of Antony
and Cleopatra, with whom the dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt came
to an end, that our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was born in
Bethlehem of Judea, according to the prophecies which had been
uttered concerning him. His birth took place during the first census,
while Cyrenius was governor of Syria.
Flavius Josephus, the most celebrated of Hebrew historians, also
mentions this census, which was taken during Cyrenius' term of
office. In the same connection he gives an account of the uprising of
the Galileans, which took place at that time, of which also Luke,
among our writers, has made mention in the Acts, in the following
words: "After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the
taxing, and drew away a multitude after him: he also perished; and
all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed."
The above-mentioned author, in the eighteenth book of his
Antiquities, in agreement with these words, adds the following,
which we quote exactly: "Cyrenius, a member of the senate, one who
had held other offices and had l passed through them all to the
consulship, a man also of great dignity in other respects, came to
Syria with a small retinue, being sent by Caesar to be a judge of the
nation and to make an assessment of their property."
And after a little he says: "But Judas, a Gaulonite, from a city
called Gamala, taking with him Sadduchus, a Pharisee, urged the
people to revolt, both of them saying that the taxation meant nothing
else than downright slavery, and exhorting the nation to defend their
liberty."
And in the second book of his History of the Jewish War, he writes
as follows concerning the same man: "At this time a certain
Galilean, whose name was Judas, persuaded his countrymen to revolt,
declaring that they were cowards if they submitted to pay tribute to the
Romans, and if they endured, besides God, masters who were
mortal." These things are recorded by Josephus.
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