been at least thirty-one years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. If he was born, as St. Matthew's narrative intimates, one or two years before Herod's death, he would have been thirty-two or thirty-three years old at that time.

This is the difficulty: the folution turns upon an alteration in the conftruction of the Greek. St. Luke's words in the original are allowed, by the general opinion of learned men, to fignify, not "that Jefus began to be about thirty years of age," but "that he was about thirty years of age when he be gan his ministry." This conftruction being admitted, the adverb "about" gives us all the latitude we want, and more, especially when applied, as it is in the present instance, to a decimal number; for fuch numbers, even without this qualifying addition, are often used in a laxer sense than is here contended for*.

*

III. Acts

Livy, fpeaking of the peace which the conduct of Romulus had procured to the ftate during the whole

III. Acts v. 36. "For before thefe days rofe up Theudas, boafting himself to be fomebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves; who was flain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to nought."

Jofephus has preserved the account of an impoftor of the name of Theudas, who created fome difturbances, and was flain; but, according to the date affigned to this man's appearance (in which, however, it is very poffible that Jofephus may have been mistaken *), it must have been, at the least, seven years after Gamaliel's fpeech,

reign of his fucceffort (Numa), has these words "Ab illo enim profectis viribus datis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem haberet :" yet afterwards in the fame chapter, "Romulus (he fays) feptem et triginta regnavit annos, Numa tres et quadraginta."

Michaelis's Introduction to the New Teftament (Marsh's translation), vol. i. p. 61.

† Liv. Hift. c. i. fec, 15.

of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection*, that there might be two impoftors of this name: and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the fame thing appears to have happened in other inftances of the fame kind. It is proved from Jofephus, that there were not fewer than four perfons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten years, who were all leaders of infurrections and it is likewife recorded by this hiftorian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great (which agrees very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time "before these days") there were innumerable disturbances in Judeat. Archbishop Ufher was of opinion, that one of the three Judaíes above mentioned was Gamaliel's Theudas; and that with a less varia

* Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 922.

† Ant. 1. xvii. c. 12, fec. 4.

† Annals, p. 797.

tion of the name than we actually find in the gospels, where one of the twelve apoftles is called, by Luke, Judas; and by Mark, Thaddeus *. Origen, however he came at his information, appears to have believed that there was an impoftor of the name of Theudas before the nativity of Christ †.

IV. Matt. xxiii. 34.

"Wherefore, be

hold, I send unto you prophets, and wife men, and scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and fome of them fhall ye fcourge in your fynagogues, and perfecute them from city to city that upon you may come all the righteous blood fhed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, fon of Barachias, whom ye flew between the temple and the altar."

There is a Zacharias, whofe death is related in the fecond book of Chronicles, in

*Luke vi. 16. Mark iii. 18.

+ Orig. con. Celf. p. 44.

a man

a manner which perfectly supports our Sa3 viour's allufion*. But this Zacharias was

the fon of Jehoiada.

There is alfo Zacharias the prophet; who was the fon of Barachiah, and is fo defcribed in the fuperfcription of his prophecy, but of whose death we have no ac

count.

I have little doubt, but that the first Za→ charias was the perfon fpoken of by our Saviour; and that the name of the father has been fince added, or changed, by fome one, who took it from the title of the prophecy, which happened to be better known to him than the hiftory in the Chronicles.

* "And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the fon of Jehoiada the priest, which ftood above the people, and faid unto them, Thus faith God, Why tranfgrefs ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot profper? Because ye have forfaken the Lord, he hath also forfaken you. And they conspired against him, and ftoned him with ftones, at the commandment of the king, in the court of the house of the Lord.” 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21.

There