Luke 2:2

Luke 2:2. And this was the first enrolment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. This is the natural sense of the verse, Luke having in mind the second and more noted enrolment under Quirinius, mentioned by himself (Acts 5:37) and by Josephus. The man referred to undoubtedly is P. Sulpicius Quirinius (not Quirinus); the office was that of president or governor of a Roman province (technically, ‘proconsul,' although in chap. Luke 3:1 the term is applied to Pilate, who was only procurator). According to Josephus, this Quirinius was made governor of Syria eight or ten years after the birth of Christ, while according to the statement of Tertullian (isolated, however), Christ was born when Q. Saturninus was governor of Syria.

THE ENROLMENT UNDER QUIRINIUS. We hold that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria, the first time about the date usually assigned to the birth of Christ 1. An old monumental inscription speaks of a second governorship (according to the authority of the celebrated historian and antiquarian Mommsen), and this is confirmed by a passage in Tacitus (Annal. iii. 48, as interpreted by Zumpt and Mommsen). 2. We have no definite record of the governors of Syria between B. C. 4 and A. D. 6 ten years. Now during this time Quirinius must have been proconsul somewhere (he had been consul in B. C. 12), and most probably in Syria, since it can be proven that it was not in the other eastern provinces, and he was in the East before B. C. 4 (so A. W. Zumpt). The statement of Tertullian is at once outweighed by the thrice repeated assertion of Justin. Martyr that our Lord was born under Quirinius, and his appeal to the register then made for confirmation. A mistake on the part of so careful an investigator is out of the question. If Quirinius had not been governor of Syria at that time, there were many persons living who could and would have pointed out the mistake.

Other explanations: (1) Some take the word translated ‘was governor' in a more general sense, and suppose that Quirinius acted as an extraordinary legate of the empire, or as questor, in conducting this census, not as proconsul. This view is preferable, if that of Zumpt cannot be sustained. (2) The translation of the E. V. ‘This taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria,' implying that the decree was made at the time of the birth of Christ, but not carried into effect until the governorship of Quirinius, a number of years afterwards. But this meaning would be brought out by a very different phrase from the one used. (3) Similar to this, but more grammatical, is the interpretation, ‘The taxing itself was made for the first time when,' etc. Neither of these meets the difficulty, since the execution of the edict is implied in the coming of Joseph to Bethlehem. Some suppose that the death of Herod caused an interruption, so that the enrolment was made complete, under Quirinius. But ‘was made' does not mean ‘was completed,' and there is no historical proof of such interruption. (4) It is barely possible that the passage means: ‘this taxing took place before Quirinius,' etc. But what purpose could there be in such a statement? (5) The supposition that it was a mere priestly taxing which Luke confounds with the Roman census is utterly unwarranted.