Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/111

 CHRONOLOGY,

BIBLICAL

85

ministry of Barnabas and Saul (Acts xi. 30, xii. 25), Thus to be the earliest date possible for the arrival of Festus.. the earliest date at which the commencement of the first On the other hand, a later date for Festus is not absolutely missionary journey (Acts xiii. 4) can be placed is the excluded. It is possible that the first missionary journey spring of a.d. 47. The journey extended from Salamis should be placed in a.d. 48 instead of a.d. 47 ; and it is “ throughout the whole island ” of Cyprus as far as Paphos, possible, though not probable, that the missionary journeysand on the mainland from Pamphylia to Pisidian Antioch, should be spread over one year more than has been Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, at each of which places suggested above. At any rate, then, the alternative is open indications are given of a prolonged visit (xiii. 49, xiv. 3, that every date given above, from a.d. 47 to a.d. 58, should 6, 7, 21). The same places were visited in reverse order be moved on one year, with the result of placing Festus’s on the return journey, as far as Perga on the Pamphylian arrival in a.d. 59. It is now time to turn to the direct evidence for the coast; but instead of revisiting Cyprus the voyage to Syria was this time made direct. In estimating the length date of Festus’s arrival as procurator, in order to test by itof time occupied by this first missionary journey, it must the result already tentatively obtained. 2. The replacement of Felix by Festus. This is the be remembered that a sea voyage could never have been undertaken, and land travel only rarely, during the winter pivot date of St Paul’s later life, but unfortunately twomonths, say November to March ; and as the amount of the schools of critics date it as differently as a.d. 55 and work accomplished is obviously more than could fall within a.d. 60 (or 61). The former are represented by Harnack, the travelling season of a single year, the winter of 47-48 the latter by Wieseler, whom Lightfoot follows. It can must have been spent in the interior, and return to the be said confidently that the truth is between these twocoast and to Syria made only some time before the end extremes (though in what exact year it is not easy to of autumn A.D. 48. The succeeding winter, at least, was say), as will be evident from a consideration of the arguspent again at Antioch of Syria (xiv. 28). The council at ments urged, which in each case appear less to prove one Jerusalem of Acts xv. will fall at earliest in the spring of extreme than to disprove its opposite. Arguments for the Later Date, a.d. 60 or 61.—(a) St Paul, at a.d. 49, and as only “ certain days ” were spent at Antioch after it (xv. 36), the start on the second missionary journey the time of his arrest, two years before Felix’s recall, addresses as “for many years past a judge for this nation” (Acts might have been made in the (late) summer of the same him xxiv. 10, 27). It is certain that Felix succeeded Cumanus in year. The “confirmation” of the existing churches of a.d. 52, for Tacitus mentions Cumanus’s recall under that year ; Syria and Cilicia, and of those of the first journey Josephus immediately before the notice of the completion of beginning with Derbe (xv. 41, xvi. 5), cannot have been Claudius’s twelfth year [January, A.D. 53]; Eusebius probably Claudius 11, that is, between September 51 and September completed under several months, nor would the Apostle under 52 (for the meaning of the regnal years in the Chronicle of Eusehave commenced the strictly missionary part of the bius see the present writer’s article in Journal of Theological journey, in districts not previously visited,^ before the Studies, January 1900, pp. 188-192). It is argued that “many opening of the travelling season of a.d. 50. No delay was years” cannot mean less than six or seven, so that St Paul must been speaking at earliest in 58 or 59, and Felix will have lelt then made on the Asiatic side : it may still have been in have Judaea at earliest in 60 or 61. But this argument overlooks the spring when St Paul crossed to Europe and began the fact that Felix had been in some position which might properly course of preaching at Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, and be described as that of “judge for this nation” before he became Athens which finally brought him to Corinth. The stay governor of all Palestine in a.d. 52. In the words of Tacitus, Felix at the time of that appointment iampridem ludaece impositus of eighteen months at the last-named place (xviii. 11) will was {Annals, xii. 54); he certainly supposes Felix to have been already naturally begin at the end of one travelling season and governor of Samaria, and apparently of Judsea too, and only end at the beginning of another, i.e., from the autumn of recognizes Cumanus as governor of Galilee ; and Josephus, though a.d. 50 to the spring of a.d. 52. From Corinth the he says nothing of this, and treats Cumanus as the sole procurator to A.D. 52, implies that Felix had been in some position Apostle went to Jerusalem to “salute the church,’ and down where Jewish authorities could judge of his fitness when he then again to Antioch in Syria, where he stayed only for tells usthe that the high priest Jonathan used to press on Felix, as “ a time” (xviii. 22), and soon left—on the third missionary a reason for urging him to govern well, the fact that he had asked journey, as conventionally reckoned—proceeding “in order” for his appointment to the procuratorship {Ant. XX. viii. 5). If acted in some position of responsibility in Palestine through the churches of the interior of Asia Minor. These Felix had 52 (perhaps for some time before), St Paul could well have journeys and the intervening halts must have occupied before spoken of “ many years ” at least as early as 56 or 57. seven or eight months, and it must have been about the (/3) Josephus enumerates after the accession of Nero (October end of the year when St Paul established his new head- 54) a long catalogue of events which all took place under the of Felix, including the revolt of “ the Egyptian^ quarters at Ephesus. The stay there lasted between two procuratorship which was already “before these days at the time of St Paul sand three years (xix. 8, 10, xx. 31), and cannot have arrest, two years from the end of Felix’s tenure. This suggests, no terminated before the spring of a.d. 55. From Ephesus doubt, that the Egyptian rebelled at earliest in 54-55, and makes he went into Europe, and after “ much teaching ” given it probable that St Paul’s arrest did not take place before (the of) A.D. 56 ; and it implies certainly that the main or to the churches of Macedonia (xx. 2), spent the three Pentecost most important of Felix’s governorship fell, in Josephus’s winter months at Corinth, returning to Philippi in time view, under Nero.partBut as two years only of Felix’s rule (52-54) for the Passover (xx. 3, 6) of a.d. 56. Pentecost of fell under Claudius, this procedure would be quite natural on the same year was spent at Jerusalem, and there St Josephus’s part if his recall were dated in 58 or 59, so that four or Paul was arrested, and kept in prison at Caesarea for five years fell under Nero. And there is no need at all to suppose all the incidents which the historian masses under his two full years, until Festus succeeded Felix as governor that account of Felix were successive: events in Emesa, Chalcis, (xx. 16, xxiv. 27), an event which, on this arrangement of Caesarea, and Jerusalem may easily have been synchronous. The arguments, then, brought forward in favour of a.d. 60 or the chronology of the missionary journeys, would there61 do not do more than bring the rule of Felix down to 58 fore fall in a.d. 58. Care, however, must be taken to remember exactly what Arguments for an Early Date, a.d. 55 or 56. {a) Eusebius s this line of argument amounts to—what it can fairly be Chronicle places the arrival of Festus in Nero 2, October 55-56, said to have proved, and what it still leaves open. It has and Eusebius’s chronology of the procurators goes back probably been shown, firstly, that the missionary journeys cannot through Julius Africanus (himself a Palestinian) to contemporary like the Jewish kings of Justus of Tiberias. But (i.) have commenced before the spring of a.d. 47, and, secondly, authorities Nero 2 is really September 56-September 57 ; (n.) it is doubtful that between their commencement and the end of the whether Eusebius had any authority to depend on here other two years’ imprisonment at Caesarea not less than eleven than Josephus, who gives no precise year for Festus Julius full years must have elapsed. Consequently a.d. 58 appears Africanus is hardly probable, since we know that his chronicle