a

3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called

a Acts 5. 37.b 1 Sam. 16. 1, 4; John 7. 42.

sus, though it is very likely that so vast an enrolment as the whole civilized world would require years, would be executed by different provinces quite separately, and completed by each in accordance with its own customs and institutions.

2. Cyrenius was governor--This verse affirms that the birth of Christ took place at the time of a census which was completed during the rule of Cyrenius. Now the historical fact is that Cyrenius was governor some ten years after the birth of Christ and the death of Herod. This has been for centuries a celebrated difficulty. Some have endeavoured, without authority, to change the text. Plausible but not quite satisfactory interpretations, consistent with the known facts of history, have been put upon the words, which may be found in Clarke's Commentary. The clear meaning is, that that enrollment, being the first that took place, was completed during the governorship of Cyrenius. | The early fathers of the Christian Church did indeed affirm that this census took place under Cyrenius; and Justin Martyr, in the second century, confirms his affirmation thrice made by an appeal to the public registers.

But it was reserved for a German scholar of our own day, A. W. Zumpt, to solve this memorable difficulty and vindicate the accuracy of Luke. By combining a great number of passages from the Roman literature of those times, he proves that not only was Cyrenius governor of Syria ten years

David,)

5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

c Matt. 1. 16; chap. 1. 27.-d Matt. 1. 18; chap. 1. 27.

after the birth of Christ, but that he was also so at a previous period which probably included that event; or at least might have had such later management of the taxing as that it went under his name. Cyrenius, it is proved, was honoured with a triumph for subduing a tribe of Cilicians; by another train of passages it is shown that Cilicia belonged under the governorship of Syria; so that Cyrenius must have then been governor of Syria. By another series of deductions it is shown that this triumph must have taken place before A. D. 1 or 2; but as the birth of Christ was really four years earlier than our popular A.D. 1, the birth and the governorship are found able to coincide in time.

3. Every one into his own city-The census in Judea was doubtless conducted in Jewish modes. The enrolment must be made at the place of the lineage of the head of the family. Mary goes probably under the protection of her husband in her present condition. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about sixty miles.

4. Went up-Bethlehem was indeed high ground; but anciently any going to a capital or superior place was a going up. House and lineage-The

house included the entire body of ancestors and descendants. The lineage was a direct line of descent.

6. They were there-In Bethlehem, where the royal David was born and had spent his boyhood, these two descendants of his rega! lineage have now arrived. But though their family

e Matt.

register attests their birth, they are too poor to obtain not merely a palace but an inn.

7. Her first born-See note on Matthew i, 25. Van Oosterzee says, "The question of the brethren of Jesus must be decided independently of the phrase first born." Not independently, we reply; the argument is far from standing as it would if Jesus were not twice called first born long after it was known, if true, that there was no second born. The proof though not conclusive of itself is cogent. In swaddling clothesThe verb to swathe or swaddle signifies to wrap tightly round with bandages or cloth. This custom of tightly binding the new-born infant was formerly practiced with injurious severity until medical men grew wiser.

Manger...inn-It seems clear from the text that the manger was not in the inn or kahn. If the stable itself were in the khan it would hardly be said that there was no room for them in the khan. Hence there is good reason to believe with Dr. Thomsou, "That the birtli actually took place in an ordinary house of some common peasant, and that the babe was laid in one of the mangers, such as are still found in the dwellings of the farmers of this region." Manger It is common," says Dr. Thomson, "to find two sides of the one room, where the native farmer resides with his cattle, fitted up with these mangers, and the remainder [of the room] elevated about two feet higher for the accommodation of the family. The mangers are built of small stones and mortar in the shape of a box, or rather of a kneading trougli, and when cleaned up and whitewashed, as they often are in summer, they do very well to lay little babes in. Indeed, our own children have slept there in our rude summer retreats on the mountains."

Dr. Thomson well says that the word rouse used by Matthew (ii, 11) "does

1. 25.

not much favour the idea" held by many that the birth took place in a cave. Yet as this idea is as old as the middle of the second century, it is entitled to profound respect. Over the cave selected by that primitive tradition the empress Helena, mother of Constantine, erected the magnificent Church of the Nativity, which still stands, (or rather its successor built by Justinian,) as an object of profound interest to the Christian traveler in the East. It is the oldest Christian Church in the world. The cave which it encloses is 38 feet by 11, and at the eastern end a silver star in a mar ble slab designates the spot of the birth.

That a native tradition should have selected a cave as the "house" of the Saviour's birth is good proof that there is nothing in the supposition unnatural or improbable. In the soft limestone rock of Judea, easily cut and usually dry, caves, either natural or artificial, abound, and they are used for a great variety of purposes. They are used for dwellings, inns, stables, fortresses, refuges, and sepulchers. Pococke mentions a cave capacious enough to hold thirty thousand men; and Dr. Bonar (quoted in Andrew's Life of Christ) says of the cave of Adullam, "You might spend days in exploring these vast apartments; for the whole mountain seems excavated, or rather honeycombed." Mr. H. B. Tristam (The Land of Israel; or, Travels in Palestine: London. 1865) says of Endor: "It is full of caves, and the mud-built hovels are stuck on to the rocks in clusters, and are for the most part a mere continuation and enlargement of the cavern behind, which forms the larger part of this humau den." In other parts these cave-houses abound of a more eligible quality, and the traditionary cave of the Nativity bears, therefore, we may admit, strong marks of genuineness.

Inn-Called a khan when belonging

KHAN.

rows of apartments are so constructed as to enclose a large yard, with a well in the centre, where the cattle may be kept. The outer wall is usually of brick upon a stone basement. The apartments are entered by the guest from the yard, and are elevated two or three feet above the level of the yard. Below and behind the row of the travellers'

the rural region.

The khan is not like an American tavern or hotel, a place where all the wants of a traveler or boarder are richly supplied for pay. It is a building erected at public expense, where merely the bare room for man and beast exists; but the traveler must bring his own equipments, furnishings, food, and fodder. In earlier ages, with a scanty population, the hospitable tent-dweller, like Abraham, hastened to entertain his guest with a gratuitous banquet, partly to maintain that law of hospitality which, in the absence of all inns in the country, was necessary to make traveling practicable, and partly because a guest in the desert was a rarity to be accepted and enjoyed. But as a denser population grew, this became too expensive an enjoyment. A single building was set apart for strangers who had no friends in town; and the old habit of hospitality showed itself merely in erecting the khan by town expense.

The khan is usually much on the model of the eastern house, but of much larger extent, as described in our first volume, pp. 121, 326. Four

long room, of stables, into which the floors of the apartments, being a little extended, formed a platform upon which the camels could eat. (See the section, next page.) The animals stood with their heads towards the platform, and to their noses were suspended hair-bags containing the grain which they ate, which they rested upon the platform in order to thrust their noses into the grain. If the birth took place in the khan stable this platform was the manger upon which, wrapped in his swaddling clothes, the infant Saviour was laid.

$10.-APPEARANCE OF ANGELS TO THE

SHEPHERDS SHEPHERDS' VISIT TO
JESUS, 8-20.

At hand-The gentile Magi were brought from afar, but these shepherds are brought from nigh. The former as star gazers were led by the star; the latter as shepherds were brought to the chief shepherd. And these were brought from the same fields of Bethlehem where David the typical shepherd fed his flocks, to visit David's royal son.

8. Abiding in the fields-Propably both day and night in the open air