ntries.]

[Footnote 4: The census effected by Quirinus, to which legend
attributes the journey from Bethlehem, is at least ten years later
than the year in which, according to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born.
The two evangelists in effect make Jesus to be born under the reign of
Herod (Matt. ii. 1, 19, 22; Luke i. 5). Now, the census of Quirinus
did not take place until after the deposition of Archelaus, _i.e._,
ten years after the death of Herod, the 37th year from the era of
Actium (Josephus, _Ant._, XVII. xiii. 5, XVIII. i. 1, ii. 1). The
inscription by which it was formerly pretended to establish that
Quirinus had levied two censuses is recognized as false (see Orelli,
_Inscr. Lat._, No. 623, and the supplement of Henzen in this number;
Borghesi, _Fastes Consulaires_ [yet unpublished], in the year 742).
The census in any case would only be applied to the parts reduced to
Roman provinces, and not to the tetrarchies. The texts by which it is
sought to prove that some of the operations for statistics and tribute
commanded by Augustus ought to extend to the dominion of the Herods,
either do not mean what they have been made to say, or are from
Christian authors who have borrowed this statement from the Gospel of
Luke. That which proves, besides, that the journey of the family of
Jesus to Bethlehem is not historical, is the motive attributed to it.
Jesus was not of the family of David (see Chap. XV.), and if he had
been, we should still not imagine that his parents should have been
forced, for an operation purely registrative and financial, to come to
enrol themselves in the place whence their ancestors had proceeded a
thousand years before. In imposing such an obligation, the Roman
authority would have sanctioned pretensions threatening her safety.]

[Footnote 5: Chap. XIV.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.
The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages,
Matt. xiii. 54, and Mark vi. 1, where Nazareth figures as the
"country" of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent from the
primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present
Gospels of Matthew and Mark. It was to meet oft-repeated objections
that there were added to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew
reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was
not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages
which had at first been written from quite anothe