[52] This interval does not depend upon a mere list of Eponym years; we have in the annals of Sargon and Sennacherib full particulars of the events in all the intervening years.
[53] The date of this epistle is rather uncertain. Something depends upon the vexed question as to the identity of the Galatian churches. The epistle may be placed conjecturally early in the stay at Ephesus (c. A.D. 52-53). It is to be noted that the chronological grouping of the epistles by minute comparison of style is apt to be deceptive; resemblances of this kind are due more to similarity of subject than to proximity in date.
[54] E.g. from the preface to the Acts: “Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, a very ancient writer, quoted by Eusebius, writes that Peter and Paul obtained the crown of martyrdom by the command of Nero on the same day.” And again: “Some industrious critics have added (to the narrative of Acts) that Paul was acquitted at his first trial by Nero .... This conjecture they make from the 2nd Ep. to Timothy....”
[55] The phrase is Chillingworth’s (1637), who may be described as a Broad High-churchman.
[56] J. Wellhausen, Einl. in die drei ersten Evangelien (1905), p. 57.
[57] If Luke used Josephus, as F.C. Burkitt and others believe, the later date must be taken; otherwise the earlier date is more probable, as in any case it must fall within the lifetime of a companion of St Paul.
[58] It is a curious coincidence that a medieval Jew, R. Abarbanel (Abrabanel), records that the conjunction of these particular planets in this particular constellation was to be a sign of Messiah’s coming. It is just conceivable that his statement may ultimately depend on some such ancient tradition as may have been known to Chaldaean magi.
[59] If the Passover celebration could be anticipated by one day in a private Jewish family (and we know perhaps too little of Jewish rules in the time of Christ to be able to exclude this possibility), the evidence of the synoptic Gospels would no longer conflict with that of St John.
[60] Dr C. Erbes (Texte and Untersuchungen, new series, iv. 1) attempts to interpret the evidence of Eusebius in favour of the later date for Festus as follows: Eusebius’s date for Festus is to be found in Nero 1, by striking a mean between the Armenian, Claudius 12, and the Latin, Nero 2; it is really to be understood as reckoned, not by years of Nero, but by years of Agrippa; and as Eusebius erroneously antedated Agrippa’s reign by five years, commencing it with A.D. 45 instead of A.D. 50, his date for Festus is five years too early also, and should be moved to Nero 6, A.D. 59-60. The whole of this theory appears to the present writer to be a gigantic mare’s nest: see Journal of Theological Studies (October 1901), pp. 120-123.
[61] This date appears to be satisfactorily established by Ramsay, “A Second Fixed Point in the Pauline Chronology,” Expositor, August 1900.