A HOLY YEAR.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18874, 18 February 1933, Page 14 (Supplement)

A HOLY YEAR.

jTHE DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. b" a BAFFLING PROBLEM. r ' The Pope's announcement of a Holy Year beginning on April 2 next (Paseion Sunday) to commemorate the nineteenth-hundredth anniversary of /the chuciflxion of .lesus lias once more roused interest. In the exact date of that event, ■which is one of the most Interesting and most baffling of chronological problems, says a correspondent. of the London 'limes. 'I lie comparative indiflerouce of Ihc Evangelists to maUs of time —a characler!jstic which they shared with nearly ; all ancient historians —makes the problem very lI iHi cull, and perhaps insoluble. jesus was crucified when Pontius Pilate was Procurator of Judaea and ■Caiapbas High Priest. Pdatc was deposed after id years' rule and soil to Rome, arriving shortly alter liberius’s death in March, A.D. 31. _ Ho therefore took up olllce. late in 20 or early in 2 1 Josepuus, wiltaig chronologically, relalcs Hie deposition of Caiapltas at, a Passover which cannot bo later than the Passover of 31. Luke xiii. i and xxiii. 12 show that Pilate was no newcomer at the Lruciiixion. Tiio interval thus gives the widest poss.ble interval in vvliic.il the Grucillxnn can have taken place. in that interval the exact date must be sought by astronomical considerations. " Tim Gniriiiximi look place on i Fridav and that Friday was the i-ith or lilV day of tin- Jcwisli month &isan. This was tim llrst month m Hie Jewish year and was iietcrmiiu.il by the tlrst full moon after Iho vernal equinox. Throo Possible Years. Working on ~ r < "bservapous made at Alliens by Julius Schmid! Hr... K. Fnl hrnn -hum Ins I'fm jnc<’tl a l.if'K which is perhaps the most valuable conlrilmlioii H» Hie siihjed. ip P'ccu times. H" shows iii.it ■'.!>. 27 and 33 Pprc are three years mi whirl, Ni'im foil mi a Friday nameiy 27. 30, and 33. lu none oi Hu'sc years did Nisan 1 3 I'M! "n a Friday. p| John's Gospel is emphatic Inal Lie CnirilM.m I place mi Hie Hay of the Passover. Nisan ! i • dim SJHoptic Gospels have been Himmlit to gay that llie Last Supper was the Pnssov or. and i'nal consequently the Crucitlxion took place. on Nisan Jo.. Perhaps I here is no real contradiction, the Fvm.ptic aero, mis being merely coloured by the L.d that lho Last Supper took Ho’ 1 1 of lho Passover in tlic minds of tlm early Jewish Christians. in any case, the above astronomical consider,P ems arc clearly In civour of the i'.rucilixion taking piece \i;;m t i hi otic of the years 27, 3d, V! 33.

At this point astronomy can help us no more, and we have to make choice of a date by correlation with other circumstances, as has been ably done by the Rev. D. R. Fotheringham, vicar of Charing. Among these circumstances is the beginning of the Baptist's ministry and subsequent Baptism of Our Lord, which Is placed in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. According to a strict reckoning, that would run from August, 28, to August 29, A.D. But the Romans reckoned their years by consuls, not regnally, and “ the fifteenth year of Tiberius ” probably designates simply the year 28. Tills is in agreemet with the statement of the Jews in John ii 20, at a Passover not long after the Baptism, that the Temple had been 46 years In building. The Temple was begun In Herod’s eighteenth year, 2019 8.C., and so the statement of the Jews was made in A.D. 27-28. Our Lord’s Ministry. Further, St. Luke states that Jesus was about 30 years of age when he began Ills ministry, but the expression allows so much latitude, and the dale of Christ’s birth is so big a problem, that the correlation need not now be attempted. From the Baptism the date of the Crucifixion could be calculated if the length of tlie Ministry were known. Unfortunately, that length has been variously estimated from one to 10 years. St. John mentions three Passovers definitely, and possibly a fourth. As a two-year Ministry would place the Crucifixion in A.D. 30, one of the three years astronomically possible, there seems good ground for accepting it. In that case the exact date of the Crucifixion was April 7, A.D. 30.

What of the oilier two years astronomically possible? The earlier, A.D. 27, is ruled out by the date of the Baptism. The later, A.D. 33, the basis of the proposed Holy Year, oan be defended if “ the fifteenth year of Tiberius ” is taken as 29, if the Baptism of .lesus is placed early in 30, and if Our Lord’s Ministry Is made to rover four Passovers. But It Is impossible to correlate it with the Birth of Our Lord, and the Templebuilding reference is lost. It must also bo remembered that a strong patristio tradition placed the Crucifixion in A.D. 29, which is more likely In lie wrong by one year than by four. •Phlegon, a pagan chronicler writing under Hadrian, gave A.D. 33 for the date of the Crucifixion, but there is no support for that date until the fourth century.