Page:Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 1842.djvu/71

39 as also, that he having lost his kingdom after ten years, his brothers Philip and Herod the younger, together with Lysanias, received their respective tetrarchies. The same author, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, says, " that about the twelfth year of the reign of Tiberius, (for he succeeded to the empire after Augustus, who had reigned fifty-seven years,) Pontius Pilate was appointed over Judea, and remained there ten years, almost to the death of Tiberius. Hence the fraud of those persons is plainly proved, who lately, and at other times have given currency to certain spurious acts against our Saviour. In which the very time of the date proves the falsehood of the inventors. For in the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which was in the seventh year of his reign, those things are said to have occurred, which they have dared to say respecting his salutary suffering. At which time, indeed, it is plain, that Pilate was not yet appointed over Judea, if Josephus is to be credited, who plainly says, in the work already cited, that Pilate was appointed procurator of Judea, by Tiberius, in the twelfth year of his reign.

It was about the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, according to the Evangelist, in the fourth year of Pilate's procuratorship, Herod, Lysanias, and Philip, as tetrarchs, holding the government of the rest of Judea, when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was in his thirtieth year, that he came to the baptism of John, and then began to promulgate his gospel. The holy Scriptures, moreover, relate that he passed the whole time of his public ministry under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas; intimating that during the years of their priesthood, the whole time of his ministry was terminated. For, beginning with the pontificate of Annas, and continuing after