Luke 3:1

ἐν ἔτει δὲ πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς ἡγεμονίας Τιβερίου Καίσαρος. St Luke here gives a sixfold intimation of the date,—a method characteristic of his learned and careful research. If the accession of Tiberius be dated from the death of Augustus, Aug. 19, A.U.C. 767, this would make our Lord thirty-two at His baptism. St Luke, however, follows a common practice in dating the reign of Tiberius from the period of his association with Augustus as joint Emperor A.U.C. 765. (Tac. Ann. I. 3; Suet. Aug. 97; Vell. Paterc. 103.) Our Lord’s baptism thus took place in a.u.c. 780. By thus giving precise dates St Luke becomes, as Ewald says, “the first writer who frames the Gospel History into the great history of the world.”

τῆς ἡγεμονίας. Wieseler (Beiträge 191) is perhaps hypercritical in seeing in this word an indication that only the regency of Tiberius is implied; but he shews from coins and medals that at Antioch (the probable home of St Luke) it was customary to date the accession of Tiberius from A.U.C. 765.

Τιβερίου Καίσαρος. Winer takes Καίσαρος to be an appellative—“of Tiberius as Emperor” (Winer, p. 173). Tiberius was the stepson and successor of Augustus. At this period of his reign he retired to the island of Capreae (Tac. Ann. IV. 74), where he plunged into horrible private excesses, while his public administration was most oppressive and sanguinary. The recent attempts to defend his character break down under the accumulated and unanimous weight of ancient testimony.

Ποντίου Πιλάτου. He was Procurator for ten years, A.D. 25–36). His predecessors had been Coponius (A.D. 6–10), M. Ambivius, Annius Rufus, and Valerius Gratus (A.D. 14–25). He was succeeded by Marcellus, Fadus, Tiberius Alexander, Cumanus, Felix, Festus, Albinus and Florus. For an account of him see on Luke 23:1.

ἡγεμονεύοντος. His strict title was ἐπίτροπος or Procurator (Jos. Antt. xx. 6, § 2), which does not however occur in the N. T. except in the sense of ‘steward’ (Luke 8:3). Ἠγεμών was a more general term. (Matthew 10:18; 1 Peter 2:14.) His relation to the Herods was much the same as that of the Viceroy of India to the subject Maharajahs.

Ἡρώδου. Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great and the Samaritan lady Malthace. He retained his kingdom for more than 40 years, at the end of which he was banished (A.D. 39) to Lugdunum (probably St Bertrand de Comminges), chiefly through the machinations of his nephew Herod Agrippa I. (the Herod of Acts 12:1). See the Stemma Herodum on p. li, and for further particulars of his character see on Luke 13:32.

τετραρχοῦντος. The word properly means the ruler of a fourth part of a country, but afterwards was used for any tributary prince or ethnarch. At this time Judaea, Samaria and Galilee were the provinces of Palestine. Antipas, Philip and Lysanias are the only three to whom the word ‘tetrarch’ is applied in the N. T. Antipas also had the courtesy-title of ‘king’ (Mark 6:14, &c.), and it was in the attempt to get this title officially confirmed to him that he paid the visit to Rome which ended in his banishment. He was tetrarch from B.C. 4 to A.D. 39. Herod the Great, in his will, divided his kingdom between Archelaus as ethnarch, and Antipas and Philip as tetrarchs.

τῆς Γαλιλαίας. This province is about 25 miles from North to South, and 27 from East to West,—about the size of Bedfordshire. Lower Galilee included the district from the plain of Akka to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and was mainly composed of the rich plain of Esdraelon (or Jezreel). Upper Galilee included the mountain range between the upper Jordan and Phoenicia. Galilee was thus the main scene of our Lord’s ministry. It was surpassingly rich and fertile (Jos. B. J. I. 15, 5, III. 10, §§ 7, 8). See on Luke 1:26. Herod’s dominions included the larger though less populous district of Peraea; but the flourishing towns of Decapolis (Gerasa, Gadara, Damascus, Hippos, Pella, &c.) were independent.

Φιλίππου δὲ τοῦ�. Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, who afterwards married his niece Salome, daughter of the other Herod Philip (who lived in a private capacity at Rome) and of his half-sister-in-law Herodias. This tetrarch seems to have been the best of the Herods (Jos. Antt. XVII. 2, § 4), and the town of Caesarea Philippi which he beautified was named from him. He also changed the name of the northern Bethsaida into Julias after the miserable daughter of Augustus. He was a devoted adherent of the Caesars but so just and generous that “in his person it is possible to become reconciled to the House of Herod.” (See Jos. B. J. II. 9, 1. 6; Antt. XVIII. 4, § 6; Ewald, Gesch. Isr. v. 46; Keim, Gesch. Jesu, I. 206.) He reigned 37 years.

Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας. His tetrarchate also included Batanaea (Bashan), Auranitis (the Hauran), Gaulanitis (Golân), and some parts about Jamnia (Jos. B. J. II. 6, § 3). Ituraea (now Jedûr) was at the foot of Mount Hermon, and was named from Jetur, son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:15-16). The Ituraeans were marauders, famous for the use of the bow, and protected by their mountain fastnesses. (Strabo, XVI. 2; Lucan, Phars. VII. 230.) Trachonitis, also a country of robbers (Jos. Antt. XVI. 9, §§ 1, 2), is the Greek rendering of the Aramaic Argob (a region about 22 miles from N. to S. by 14 from W. to E.), and means ‘a rough or stony tract.’ It is the modern province of el-Lejâh, and the ancient kingdom of Og—“an ocean of basaltic rocks and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in every direction.” Herod Philip received this tetrarchate by bequest from his father (Jos. B. J. II. 6, § 3).

Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετραρχοῦντος. The mention of this minute particular is somewhat singular, but shews St Luke’s desire for at least one rigid chronological datum. It used to be asserted that St Luke had here fallen into another chronological error, but his probable accuracy has, in this point also, been completely vindicated. There was a Lysanias king of Chalcis under Mount Lebanon, and therefore in all probability tetrarch of Abilene, in the days of Antony and Cleopatra, 60 years before this period (Jos. Antt. XV. 4, § 1, B. J. I. 13, § 1); and there was another Lysanias, probably a grandson of the former, in the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, 20 years after this period (Jos. Antt. XV. 4, § 1). No intermediate Lysanias is recorded in history, but there is not a shadow of proof that the Lysanias here mentioned may not be the second of these two, or more probably some Lysanias who came between them, perhaps the son of the first and the father of the second. Even M. Renan admits that after reading at Baalbek the inscription of Zenodorus (Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Graec. no. 4521, Jos. B. J. II. 6, § 31) he infers the correctness of the Evangelist (Vie de Jésus, p. xiii.; Les Évangiles, p. 263). It is indeed, on the lowest grounds, inconceivable that so careful a writer as St Luke should have deliberately gone out of his way to introduce so apparently superfluous an allusion at the risk of falling into a needless error. Lysanias is perhaps mentioned because he had Jewish connexions (Jos. Antt. XIV. 7, § 4). The minuteness of the effort to fix the date marks St Luke as a true historian, and Keim only shews the prejudice of hostile criticism when he asserts (Gesch. Jesu, I. 619) that “there never was but one historical Lysanias.” Augustus was fond of restoring kingdoms to young princes, whose fathers Antony had murdered, as he did to the young Iamblichus of Emesa (Godet). It may however be doubted whether St Luke meant to draw attention to the dismemberment of the Holy Land.

τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς. Abila was a town 18 miles from Damascus and 38 from Baalbek. The district of which it was the capital is probably here mentioned because it subsequently formed part of the Jewish territory, having been assigned by Caligula to his favourite Herod Agrippa I. in A.D. 36. The name is derived from Abel ‘a meadow.’