would an ally's or his own. Superior efficien- | conflagration of Bazeilles, horrible though cy and superior skill would still retain their ad- they be, are the theme of our remonstrance, vantages; and let him not supplement deficien- because the German authorities seem to have cies in force or vigilance by a system of terrorism, but restrict his enterprises to the given up the plea of military execution. space which he can protect, or extend them at The fate of that unhappy village is now set his own peril, not at that of the population. down to the same cause which has produced Commanders have already abandoned some of similar though less terrible events at other their privileges in deference to the progress of places and in other wars, namely, the lawless civilization-they no longer make slaves of their excesses of the soldiers, who had become incaptives, nor encourage indiscriminate plunder, toxicated. But the question of principle nor massacre the inhabitants of cities taken by only arises when such things are done, not storm; let still further concessions be required from laxity of discipline, the cases of which of them. To say this is to argue in the interests of all the world against the victorious inwe gladly acknowledge to have been rare, vader-nay, I will not even except the victo- but also under the superintendence of officers, rious invader himself. It is better that new in obedience to specific orders. And it is the restrictions should be placed on conquerors latter class of outrages that constitute the than that laws should be perverted, humanity most peculiar feature of the late war. We outraged, and prosperous provinces converted do not envy the Germans the spoils, nor is into frightful deserts. To the plea that the ours the voice that shall swell the chorus of custom of war authorises these acts, the reply is that the custom is not of our time; it is de- the curses, under the weight of which they rived from periods which are the stigma of naare taking their way homeward out of France. tions and the blots of history; from times of Our sole object has been to bring out the general rapine and violence; from the French points in which their mode of warfare seems Revolution, the Middle Ages, and epochs yet to differ from that dictated by the first prinnearer to barbarism. That we should repudi- ciples of humanity and civilization, not for ate and denounce it is the more necessary be- exposure on the pillory of international opicause this method of making war can never be nion, but for discussion in the clear light of f even temporary advantage to ourselves. It is impossible to suppose that England, engaged reason upon what is right and wrong in men in a foreign war, would tolerate the infliction towards their fellow men, and in the serene by her troops of the rigours which France un- but all pervading atmosphere of Christian dergoes. Still more impossible would it be to charity and brotherhood. admit that we should be suffering no more than the just penalties for opposing invasion, in the slaughter of our citizens goaded into resistance by intolerable injuries, and in the conversion of whole counties into wastes, of aspects far more horrible than they bore in times when their in-only been faithful to the restraints imposed habitants painted themselves blue and worshipped the sanguinary gods of (what we fancied to be) an extinct theology.' We cite one last authority, to which some readers will attach peculiar weight, drawing the like conclusion from the highest principles: 'Here, then, is the prohibition to all mortal feuds; mercy to a submissive foe is to be no longer an exceptional and admirable reach of human goodness, but a plain duty. Human beings have henceforth, in all cases, a right to terms, a right to quarter.' Our case is stated, unless readers conversant with the facts should complain that it is understated. But we repeat, for the last time, that we are discussing principles, with a view to a remedy, not framing an indictment against Germany. We abstain, therefore, from dwelling upon acts of mere individual disorder, however harrowing many of the details, or upon acts which have been perpetrated by the German armies, but which their superior authorities do not defend in principle. Not even catastrophes like the Happily, this spirit has shone forth, even in the late terrible war, and borne fruit never before seen in the blood-stained annals of the world. The belligerents themselves have not by the Geneva Convention on slaughter and mutilation, and on interference with the succour of the wounded; but they have employed all the resources of science to keep dered possible, with all the exigencies of sufpace, as far as such gigantic operations renfering, with the decencies due to the dead, and even with the sanitary measures needful to prevent the fields of battle becoming hotbeds of pestilence. If the political impartiality of neutrals has been resented as apathy, their humane sympathy and unstinted help to the wounded and famishing has been freely acknowledged, and has doubtless sown the seeds of a future goodwill which will help to cement the brotherhood of nations. The white cross of charity has shed over the bloodiest fields a far purer light than ever shone from the red cross of misguided zeal. Such are the blessings which we owe partly to the Geneva Convention, partly to the free uncovenanted spirit of human kindness. Why, then, should not a similar and more comprehensive agreement, guided by the same spirit, be established by all civilized nations, to clear up all that is doubtful, to hu manize all that is cruel, to restrain all that is rapacious, in the usages of war; and, instead of throwing into the seething caldron of iniquity every safeguard for life and property, for capital and industry, for domestic peace, and even for the good conscience and character of the combatants themselves, to cast the aegis of public law over the innocent and helpless, and purify the appeal to the God of battles as far as possible from human passion? The immediate and practical objects most needful and desirable to be settled by a new convention seem to be the following: 1st. To decide whether forces like the Prussian Landsturm, the Francs-tireurs, the Garde Nationale Sédentaire, and our Volunteers, are to be recognized or not; and to enact uniformity in this respect; so that a State may not lay down one law at home and practise another abroad. 2nd. To decide whether volunteers, not being natives of the country in whose armies they fight, are to be treated on the same footing as natives, when made prisoners of war. This question was raised in the Danish war, when the Germans refused to treat Norwegian and Swedish volunteers in the same manner as Danes. 3rd. To regulate the principles on which an invading army may obtain supplies from the inhabitants and to abolish all needless and arbitrary requisitions. 4th. To determine whether the civil population may be made to perform military work, such as digging trenches, and so forth, for the invading force, as the Prussians have compelled them to work, both in Denmark and in France. 5th. To abolish, totally and unconditionally, the system of hostages, as useless and barbarous. 6th. To forbid the system of vicarious retaliation, as exercised by the Prussians, and particularly the practice of official incen which, we have the highest authority for believing, will one day made an end of war. It has, indeed, been objected, that the effort required to obtain such an international agreement would suffice to obtain the consent of nations to substitute arbitration for war; and that, as the latter is at present hopeless, the former is impracticable. But it is only by the process of partial amelioration that a deeply rooted evil can be eradicated, and a complete and lasting reform effected. In this, as in so many other things, we are misled by truisms too plausible to be sound, by words too simply expressive to convey a full truth. It is easy to say that none but a radical remedy will avail against a radical evil; that, while civilized nations continue to make their last appeal to brute violence, which is lawless and inhuman in itself, to impose upon it humanizing laws is only breaking off a branch here and there from the upas-tree of war, which throws its deadly shade over all the world. Nay, it is even reiterated, with that affected philosophy and real love of startling paradox which marks an age of re-action against received doctrines, that the surest remedy for the love of fighting will be found in the very extremity of suffering, horror, and disgust, inspired by evil usages, just as the course of war is shortened by more deadly weapons and lavish expenditure; and we are expected to learn from recent experience that 'War is a monster of such hideous mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen.' But even things hateful and horrible have a fascination, which seems only to be stimu lated by the magnitude and intensity of its cause. For six months, from the first 'baptism of fire' to the cessation of the iron rain that fell in answer upon the famishing city of Paris, every sympathetic fibre of our hearts has been kept upon the rack; but must we not also confess to a sense of gratified curio diarism. 7th. To put an end to the system of exe-sity and excitement on a scale never felt becuting prisoners or civilians, otherwise than for armed resistance, and after investigation by court-martial. 8th. To exempt towns from bombardment where they are not used as part of a defensive position, and where the bombardment does not serve to give the attacking party immediate possession by dislodging the defenders. We are convinced that none of these proposals, if adopted, would render war less effective for its legitimate purposes; and that their adoption, besides the immediate diminution of suffering and loss, and demoralization, would tend to cherish that better spirit de fore? The harrowing details brought daily under our eyes by modern channels of intelligence, as if we witnessed them ourselves, have for the time taught every one who can read a penny paper something of what war really is, and called forth the hope that this is the monster's last revel; but those very tails have been sought with such avidity, that a morning journal without a pitched bat tle, a bombardment, or a bloody sortie, was almost a disappointment. The combative elements of our nature have been inflamed with some infection of that red haze which is said to float before the eyes of the young soldier on his first battle-field, inspiring him with a fury to shed blood. We do not doubt | So is it with war. We of the present genethat, in thoughtful minds, the love of peace ration have been told, from our childhood, has been confirmed, and new vows have been that improvement in weapons of destruction registered to oppose all needless war; but would make an end of war. They may have where is the proof that such feelings have so shortened it, but in an unforeseen way: name laid hold upon the general mind even of ly, by making the victory, already virtually won peaceful England, as to give a practical secu- by superior numbers or preparation or straterity against the passions which may break gy, more rapidly decisive. This seems to be out in future war? It was not at the begin- the lesson alike of the Italian, Danish, Ausning of the strife, when all these horrors were trian, and French wars; not, most assuredly, still veiled, but near its end, when we had that wholesale slaughter has made fighting supped full of them, that a cry was raised too destructive to be ventured on. Every for our Own entrance upon the bloody new invention has but called forth new energy to use or counteract it; the defence has kept pace with the attack in the endurance of flesh and blood, mind and nerve, as well as fire and iron; and men have no more feared to stand up against the needle-gun and chassepot, the Armstrong and the Krupp, than the rebel angels of Milton feared to face the dread artillery of heaven.' 'To suffer as to do, our strength is equal;' and human nature shews as yet no sign of being frightened out of war. But human nature is apt to yield to gentleness, where it only hardens itself to resist force. game. How little a far more intimate acquaintance with the evils of war has influenced the combatants themselves, whose tenacity of resistance on the one side, and stern perseverance on the other, were only intensified by all the experience of that bloody August which ended with Sedan-bear witness Paris -bear witness Berlin. The capacity of human passion seems unbounded for suffering as well as for glory. We need not dwell upon that spectacle of renewed war, this time of citizen against citizen, which we can only view with our hearts failing us for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth.' This reawakening of warlike frenzy may be temporary; but does either nation appear to shrink from the future conflict of revenge, which the one side loudly proclaims, and for which the other promises to be ready, or even cynically provokes it? The strain of domestic suffering upon the citizen army of Germany has no more wrought a cure than has the exhausting misery of France; and the promise of Prince Bismarck to the Frankfort burgess there will not be another war in our time'is only the boast of the resolved conqueror, holding his enemy in a grasp which he feels strong enough to maintain: though the irony of fate has often a Nemesis for such resolves. The truth is that human nature, especially in these later ages of the world, seems to have a limitless ambition for at least striving to overcome every new force of moral as well as physical resistance to its desires. In material progress, the quickened pulse of civilization is answered by the acceleration of our own; the work of weeks is crowded into days, and every abridgement of labour cuts out new tasks. In our moral and speculative lives, every triumph over old bonds and prejudices makes the claim for liberty more grasping, and the temptation to dare and do grows stronger with its gratification Audax omnia perpeti Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.' On this principle we look to the mitigation of the stern military law, not only as good in itself, not only as a right claimed by humanity, not only as sound policy in warriors, but as the most hopeful means of putting an end to war. Those who will only hear of radical reforms are misled, as we have hinted, by the fallacies which hang about words and figures of speech. To answer in their own language, let them see how a gardener practises eradication. The weed that springs up in an hour, with no depth of root, is easily plucked up, or turned over with spud or hoe; but the deep-rooted parasite or tenacious bindweed, which has spread its fibres through all the soil, must be scotched and killed by cutting off, with unceasing diligence, every leaf from which its life is fed. The upas-tree, whose root we cannot even reach, so deeply is it struck in the hardened soil, may be destroyed by lopping off its boughs and plucking away each new shoot, till Shorn of its strength, the giant growth, Stands on the blasted heath'- What So it may be with war; and that it may be so we invoke, at this crisis, before indifference again steals over us, the co-operation of all humane, of all Christian men. soever ye will that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for THIS IS THE LAW.' We shrink not from ending thus, since we are writing of and for CHRISTIAN NATIONS. ART. VIII.-1. Das Geburtsjahr Christi; | 6 of the Common Era, Judæa was reduced to a geschichtlich-chronologische Untersuchun- Roman province, and Publius Quirinus, who gen von A. W. Zumpt. Leipzig, 1869. 2. Fasti Sacri, or a Key to the Chronology of the New Testament. By Thomas Lewin, Esq., of Trinity College, Oxford, M.A., F. S. A. London, 1865. ALL Biblical students have long since been aware that the Common Era, computing events from the Nativity of Christ, and fixed in the 753rd year from the foundation of Rome, is altogether untrustworthy. It was first devised by Dionysius, an abbot of the sixth century, and first brought into general use under the Carlovingian Kings. But, however well it might pass muster in an uncritical age, a very slight examination sufficed to show that it was wholly at variance with the first chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel. This a very few words will make plain. We may deduce from Josephus that Herod the Great died in the spring of the year 4 before Christ according to the Dionysian Era.* Taking then into account the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of the Innocents as recorded by St. Matthew, it is impossible to place the Nativity of Christ later than five years before the period that is commonly assigned. Thus far there is no difficulty. Nor is there any other connected with chronology in the whole first Gospel. But on passing to the third, we find ourselves greatly perplexed. St. Luke tells us at his outset that his narrative begins in the days of Herod, the King of Judæa.' When, however, he comes to the taxing of the Roman empire, or at least of the province of Judæa, which brought Joseph and Mary to be taxed at Bethlehem, he makes mention of Cyrenius, more properly according to the Roman form Quirinius, or, if we desire to be most accurate of all, Quirinus. The words of St. Luke in this passage are rendered as follows in our Authorized Version: And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria.' It is at this point that our perplexities begin. We learn from St. Matthew that, upon the death of Herod, his son Archelaus was appointed to reign in Judæa in his room. We learn from Josephus that, after ruling for not quite ten years, Archelaus was deposed and banished by the Emperor Augustus. Then, and then only, that is in the year Ant. Jud.,' lib. xvii. c. 8. See the Essay by M. Freret in the Mémoires de l'Académie des In scriptions,' vol. xxi. p. 278. was sent over as Governor of Syria, proceeded to take in hand the business of the Census. Or, as Josephus states it, 'Moreover, Quirinus came himself into Judæa, which was now added to Syria, to take an account of their substance and dispose of Archelaus's money.' It would seem, then, at first sight, as though St. Luke had placed the birth of our Lord some ten or twelve years later than the date which other and equal authorities compel us to assign. But supposing this difficulty solved-and we will presently show how many attempts have been made to solve it-there is still a subsequent text which is far from being clear. St. Luke goes on to give a precise date-the only precise date, we may observe in passing, that is given by any one of the four Evangelists. He adduces the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judæa.' Now, Augustus, having died in his own month of August, A. D. 14 of the Common Era, the fifteenth year of Tiberius may be taken to point to A. D. 29. In that year, continues St. Luke, 'the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.' A period somewhat later, by a few months at least, must be ascribed to our Lord's own baptism and the commencement of his ministry. At that time, says St. Luke, 'Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age.' So it stands in our Authorized Version, but, perhaps, more accurately, as follows, in the note to Tischendorf's edition: And Jesus himself, when he began, was about thirty years of age.' Now, then, taking his Nativity for the reasons already given, not later than the year 5 before the Common Era, it would follow that at the commencement of his, ministry he must have been, not as St. Luke states, about thirty '-woeì Tv Tрlákovтa-but at least thirty-four or thirty-five years of age. These difficulties-and above all those connected with the 'taxing' of Quirinushave exercised in no small degree the ingenuity of commentators. Most various have been their expedients. Some have declared the whole parenthesis about Quirinus to be an early gloss and interpolation of the text. Others, observing that Sentius Saturninus had been Governor of Syria some time before the death of Herod, desired, although with no authority from manuscripts, to substitute his name for that of Cyrenius in St. *Ant. Jud.,' lib. xviii. c. 1. We give the words from Whiston's version. Mr. Luke. This, it appears, no less an authority | favourably noticed in this country. Lewin has adopted it in his able and com- On the whole, then, this parenthesis of St. Luke about Cyrenius has remained obscure. Strauss, in his 'Life of Jesus,' points to it with exultation as to one of those points in which he desires to convict the Gospels of contradiction or inaccuracy. On the other side the ablest commentators have been willing to allow that the passage is difficult, and has not yet received that full elucidation of which it would doubtless admit. It is therefore with especial pleasure that we welcome this publication of Dr. Zumpt. We gather from the Dedication that the author was a favourite pupil of Dr. Twesten, the eminent Professor of Theology in the University of Berlin; and we are informed that, as a classic scholar and exponent of Roman History, he enjoys a very high reputation in Germany. This gentleman has devoted a whole volume to the point at issue, and propounded a careful and consistent theory upon it. 6 On neither occasion, however, has the Dean gone into the case at all fully. Zumpt,' he says, in his Commentary, by arguments too long to be reproduced here, but very striking and satisfactory.' But this Latin Dissertation of Dr. Zumpt― only known, as we imagine, to the highest class of Biblical scholars-has been recently succeeded by a book from the same hand .n a living language. Here the theory in question is both more fully stated and more forcibly defended. As it stands before us in its full proportions, we cannot but acknowledge its force and power. Proceeding, as it does, by the way, not of vague conjecture, but of sound historical deduction, it seems to us to explain the entire difficulty, and to establish the accuracy of the Gospel narrative on this point beyond the reach of future cavil. It is not, however, the date of the Nativity that is alone concerned. Dr. Zumpt, in this volume, points out that, on his first theory, combined with another which he urges, the exact date of the Passion also may be probably deduced. Under these circumstances, it has seemed to us that a fuller exposition of the case than has hitherto been afforded in this country, might perhaps be welcome to many English readers. In this attempt we do not propose, however, to follow through every wandering the footsteps of Dr. Zumpt. So great-so very great-are his stores of learning and his powers of research, that they have sometimes led him into collateral narratives or illustrations not at all essential to his argument. We, neither possessing his vast erudition nor That theory, indeed, is not altogether new. inclined to make so unmerciful a use of it, It was first propounded by Dr. Zumpt, in a shall confine ourselves to the main proofs by Latin essay which appeared at Berlin in which his positions are defended. We hope, 1854 Commentatio de Syriâ Romanorum therefore, while giving an account of his provincia ab Cæsare Augusto ad T. Vespasi-discovery,' as Dean Alford has justly termed anum. Since that time it has been most *Advers. Marcion,' lib. iv. c. 19. *Fasti Sacri,' p. 132, ed. 1865. VOL. CXXX. L-18 |