Alexander, i.e. in A.D. 46 or 47, occurred the great famine which Agabus had foretold, and in which the Antiochene church sent help to that of Jerusalem by the ministry of Barnabas and Saul (Acts xi. 30. xii. 25). Thus the earliest date at which the commencement of the first missionary journey (Acts xiii. 4) can be placed is the spring of A.D. 47. The journey extended from Salamis" throughout the whole island" of Cyprus as far as Paphos, and on the mainland from Pamphylia to Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, at each of which places indications are given of a prolonged visit (xiii. 49, xiv. 3, 6, 7, 21). The same places were visited in reverse order on the return journey, as far as Perga on the Pamphylian coast; but instead of revisiting Cyprus the voyage to Syria was this time made direct. In estimating the length of time occupied by this first missionary journey, it must be remembered that a sea voyage could never have been undertaken, and land travel only rarely, during the winter months, say November to March; and as the amount of the work accomplished is obviously more than could fall within the travelling season of a single year, the winter of 47-48 must have been spent in the interior, and return to the coast and to Syria made only some time before the end of autumn A.D. 48. The succeeding winter, at least, was. spent again at Antioch of Syria (xiv. 28). The council at Jerusalem of Acts xv. will fall at earliest in the spring of A.D. 49, and as only" certain days" were spent at Antioch after it (xv. 36) the start on the second missionary journey might have been made in the (late) summer of the same year. The "confirmation" of the existing churches of Syria and Cilicia, and of those of the first journey beginning with Derbe (xv. 41, xvi. 5), cannot have been completed under several months, nor would the Apostle have commenced the strictly missionary part of the journey in districts not previously visited, before the opening of the travelling season of A.D. 50. No delay was then made on the Asiatic side: it may still have been in spring when St Paul crossed to Europe and began the course of preaching at Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea and Athens which finally brought him to Corinth. The stay of eighteen months at the last-named place (xviii. 11) will naturally begin at the end of one travelling season and end at the beginning of another, i.e. from the autumn of A.D. 50 to the spring of A.D. 52. From Corinth the Apostle went to Jerusalem to "salute the church," and then again to Antioch in Syria, where he stayed only for "a time" (xviii. 22), and soon left-on the third missionary journey, as conventionally reckoned -proceeding "in order" through the churches of the interior of Asia Minor. These journeys and the intervening halts must have occupied seven or eight months, and it must have been about the end of the year when St Paul established his new headquarters at Ephesus. The stay there lasted between two and three years (xix. 8, 10, xx. 31), and cannot have terminated before the spring of A.D. 55. From Ephesus he went into Europe, and after "much teaching " given to the churches of Macedonia (xx. 2), spent the three winter months at Corinth, returning to Philippi in time for the Passover (xx. 3, 6) of A.D. 56. Pentecost of the same year was spent at Jerusalem, and there St Paul was arrested, and kept in prison at Caesarea for two full years, until Festus succeeded Felix as governor (xx. 16, xxiv. 27), an event which, on this arrangement of the chronology of the missionary journeys, would therefore fall in A.D. 58.

Care, however, must be taken to remember exactly what this line of argument amounts to-what it can fairly be said to have proved, and what it still leaves open. It has been shown, firstly, that the missionary journeys cannot have commenced before the spring of A.D. 47, and, secondly, that between their commencement and the end of the two years' imprisonment at Caesarea not less than eleven full years must have elapsed. Consequently A.D. 58 appears to be the carliest date possible for the arrival of Festus. On the other hand, a later date for Festus is not absolutely excluded. It is possible that the first missionary journey should be placed in A.D. 48 instead of A.D. 47; and it is possible, though not probable, that the missionary journeys should be spread over one year more than has been suggested above. At any rate, then, the alternative is open that every

date given above, from A.D. 47 to A.D. 58, should be moved ca one year, with the result of placing Festus's arrival in A.D. 59. It is now time to run to the direct evidence for the date of Festus's arrival as procurator, in order to test by it the result already tentatively obtained.

2. The replacement of Felix by Festus. This is the pivot date of St Paul's later life, but unfortunately two schools of critics date it as differently as A.D. 55 and A.D. 60 (or 61). The former are represented by Harnack, the latter by Wieseler, whom Lightfoot follows. It can be said confidently that the truth is between these two extremes (though in what exact year it is not easy to say), as will be evident from a consideration of the arguments urged, which in each case appear less to prove one extreme than to disprove its opposite.

Arguments for the Later Date, A.D. 60 or 61.—(a) St Paul, at the time of his arrest, two years before Felix's recall, addresses him as "for many years past a judge for this nation (Acts xxiv. 10, 27). It is certain that Felix succeeded Cumanus in A.D. 52, for Tacitus mentions Cumanus's recall under that year. Josephus immediately before the notice of the completion of Claudius's twelfth year [January, A.D. 53], Eusebius probably under Claudius 11, that it regnal years in the Chronicle of Eusebius see the present writer's between September 51 and September 52 (for the meaning of the article in Journal of Theological Studies, January 1900, pp. 188-192). It is argued that "many years" cannot mean less than six or seven so that St Paul must have been speaking at earliest in 58 or 59, and But this argument Felix will have left Judaea at earliest in 60 or 61. overlooks the fact that Felix had been in some position which might properly be described as that of "judge for this nation" before be became governor of all Palestine in A.D. 52. In the words of Tacitus, Felix was at the time of that appointment iampridem Iudaece impositus (Annals, xii. 54); he certainly supposes Felix to have been only recognizes Cumanus as governor of Galilee; and Josephus, already governor of Samaria, and apparently of Judaca too, and though he says nothing of this, and treats Cumanus as the sole procurator down to A.D. 52, implies that Felix had been in some position where the Jewish authorities could judge of his fitness when he tells us that the high priest Jonathan used to press on Felix, as a reason for urging him to govern well, the fact he that had asked for his appointment to the procuratorship (Ant. xx. viii. 5). If Felix had acted in some position of responsibility in Palestine before 52 (perhaps for some time before), St Paul could well have spoken of "many years" at least as carly as 56 or 57.

(B) Josephus enumerates after the accession of Nero (October 54) a long catalogue of events which all took place under the procuratorship of Felix, including the revolt of the Egyptian" which was already "before these days" at the time of St Paul's arrest, two years from the end of Felix's tenure. This suggests, no doubt, that the Egyptian rebelled at earliest in 54-55, and makes it probable that St Paul's arrest did not take place before (the Pentecost of A.D. 56; and it implies certainly that the main or most important part of Felix's governorship fell, in Josephus's view, under Nera. But as two years only of Felix's rule (52-54) fell under Claudius, this procedure would be quite natural on Josephus's part if his recal were dated in 58 or 59, so that four or five years fell under Nero. And there is no need at all to suppose that all the incidents which the historian masses under his account of Felix were successive events in Emesa, Chalcis, Caesarea and Jerusalem may easily have been synchronous.

The arguments, then, brought forward in favour of A.D. 60 or 61 do not do more than bring the rule of Felix down to 58 or 59.

Arguments for an Early Date, A.D. 55 or 56.-(a) Eusebius's Chronicle places the arrival of Festus in Nero 2, October 55-56, and Eusebius's chronology of the procurators goes back probably through Julius Africanus (himself a Palestinian) to contemporary authorities like the Jewish kings of Justus of Tiberias. But (1.) Nero 2 is really September 56-September 57; (ii.) it is doubtful whether Eusebius had any authority to depend on here other than Josephus, who give no precise year for Festus-Julius Africanus is hardly probable, since we know that his chronicle was very jejune for the Christian period -and if so, Eusebius had to find a year as best he could. '

(8) Felix, on his return to Rome, was prosecuted by the Jews for misgovernment, but was acquitted through the influence of his brother Pallas. Pallas had been minister and favourite of Claudias,

1 Dr C. Erbes (Texte und Untersuchungen, new series, iv. 1) attempos to interpret the evidence of Eusebius in favour of the later date for Festus as follows: Eusebius's date for Festus is to be found in Nero 1, by striking a mean between the Armenian, Claudius 12, and the Latin, Nero 2; it is really to be understood as reckoned, not by years of Nero, but by years of Agrippa; and as Eusebius erroneously antedated Agrippa's reign by five years, commencing it with A.D 45 instead of A.D. 50, his date for Festus is five years too carly also, and should be moved to Nero 6, A.D. 59-60. The whole of this theory appears to the present writer to be a gigantic mare's nest: see Journal of Theological Studies (October 1901), pp. 120-123.

but was removed from office in the winter following Nero's accession, 54-55. Felix must therefore have been tried at the very beginning of Nero's reign. But this argument would make Felix's recall-if Festus came in summer, as Acts xxv. 1, xxvii. 1, 9, seem to provefall actually under Claudius. And, in fact, it would be a mistake to look upon, Pallas's retirement as a disgrace. He stipulated that no inquiry should be made into his conduct in office, and was left for another seven years unmolested in the enjoyment of the fortune he had amassed. There is, therefore, every likelihood that he retained for some years enough influence to shield his brother.

Of these arguments, then, the first, so far as it is valid, is an argument for the summer, not of A.D. 55 or 56, but of A.D. 57 as that of the recall, while the second will apply to any of the earlier years of

Nero's reign.

In the result, then, the arguments brought forward in favour of each extreme fail to prove their case, but at the same time prove something against the opposite view. Thus the point that Josephus catalogues the events of Felix's procuratorship under Nero cannot be pressed to bring down Felix's tenure as far as 60 or 61, but it does seem to exclude as early a termination as 56, or even 57. Conversely, the influence of Pallas at court need not be terminated by his ceasing to be minister early in 55; but it would have been overshadowed not later than the year 60 by the influence of Poppaca, who in the summer of that year' enabled the Jews to win their cause in the matter of the Temple wall, and would certainly have supported them against Felix. Thus the choice again appears to lie between the years 58 and 59 for the recall of Felix and arrival of Festus.

If St Paul was arrested in 56 or 57, and appealed to Caesar on the arrival of Festus in 58 or 59, then, as he reached Rome in the. early part of the year following, and remained there a prisoner for two full years, we are brought down to the early spring of either 61 or 62 for the close of the period recorded in the Acts. That after these two years he was released and visited Spain in the west, and in the east Ephesus, Macedonia, Crete, Troas, Miletus, and perhaps Achaea and Epirus, is probable, in the one case, from the evidence of Romans xv. 28, Clem. ad Cor. v. and the Muratorian canon, and, in the other, from the Pastoral Epistles. These journeys certainly cannot have occupied less than two years, and it is more natural to allow three for them, which takes us down to 64-65.

Early evidence is unanimous in pointing to St Peter and St Paul as victims of the persecution of Nero (Clem. ad Cor. v. vi., Dionysius of Corinth ap. Eus. H.E. ii. 25, &c., combined with what we know from Tacitus of the course of the persecution, and from Gaius of Rome, ap. Eus. ii. 25, of the burial-places of the two apostles); and tradition clearly distinguished the fierce outbreak at Rome that followed on the fire of the city in July 64 from any permanent disabilities of the Christians in the eye of the law which the persecution may have initiated. There is, therefore, no reason at all to doubt that both apostles were martyred in 64-65, and the date serves as a confirmation of the chronology adopted above of the imprisonment, release and subsequent journeys of St Paul.

Investigation, then, of that part of the book of Acts which follows the death of Agrippa, recorded in chap. xii.-i.e. of that part of the apostolic age which follows the year 44-has shown that apparent difficulties can be to a large extent set aside, and that there is nowhere room between A.D. 44 and 64 for doubt extending to more than a single year. The first missionary journey may have begun in 47 or 48; the arrival of Festus may have taken place in the summer of 58 or of 59; the two years of the Roman imprisonment recorded in the last chapter of Acts may have ended in the spring of 61 or 62; and the dates which fall in between these extremes are liable to the same variation. The present writer leans to the earlier alternative in each case, 47, 58, 61; but he willingly concedes that the evidence, as he understands it, is not inconsistent with the later alternative. But if the events of A.D. 44-64 can thus be fixed with a fair approximation to certainty, it is unfortunately otherwise with the events of A.D. 29-44. Here we are dependent (i.) on general 1 This date appears to be satisfactorily established by Ramsay, "A Second Fixed Point in the Pauline Chronology," Expositor, August 1900.

indications given in the Acts; (ii.) on the evidence of the Epistle to the Galatians, which, though in appearance more precise, can be and is interpreted in very different ways.

(i.) The book of Acts is divided, by general summaries from time to time inserted in the narrative, into six periods: i. 1-vi. 7, vi. 8-ix. 31, ix. 32-xii. 24, xii. 25-xvi. 5, xvi. 6-xix. 20, xix. 21xxviii. 31. Of these the three last extend respectively from the death of Herod to the start for Europe in the second missionary journey (A.D. 44 to the spring of 50 [51]), from the start for Europe to the end of the long stay at Ephesus (A.D. 50 [51] to the spring of A.D. 55 [56]), and from the departure from Ephesus to the end of the two years' captivity at Rome (A.D. 55 [56] to the beginning of A.D. 61 [62]). It will be seen that these periods are of more or less the same length, namely, six (or seven) years, five years, six years. There is, therefore, some slight presumption that the three earlier periods, which together cover about fifteen years, were intended by so artistic a writer as St Luke to mark cach some similar lapse of time. If that were so, the preaching of the apostles at Jerusalem and organization of the Church at the capital-the preaching of the seven and the extension of the Church all over Palestine-the extension of the Church to Antioch, and the commencement of St Paul's work-might each occupy five years more or less, that is to say, roughly, A.D. 29-34, 34-39, 39-44. The conversion of St Paul, which falls within the second period, would on this arrangement fall somewhere between five and ten years after the Crucifixion. Such conclusions are, however, of course general in the extreme.

(ii.) A nearer attempt to date at least the chronology of St Paul's earlier years as a Christian could be made by the help of the Galatian Epistle if we could be sure from what point and to what point its reckonings are made. The apostle tells us that on his conversion he retired from Damascus into Arabia, and thence returned to Damascus; then after three years (from his conversion) he went up to Jerusalem, but stayed only a fortnight, and went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Then after fourteen years (from his conversion? or from his last visit?) he went up to Jerusalem again to confer with the elder apostles. Now, if either of these visits to Jerusalem could be identified with any of the visits whose dates have been approximately settled in the chronology of A.D. 44-64, we should have a fixed point from which to argue back. Unfortunately, even less agreement exists on this head than on the question whether the fourteen years of the last-mentioned visit are to be reckoned from the conversion or from the previous visit. Most critics, indeed, are now agreed that the fourteen years are to be calculated from the conversion; and most of them still hold that the visit of Galatians ii. is the same as the council of Acts xv., partly, no doubt, on the ground that the latter visit was too important and decisive for St Paul to have omitted in giving even the most summary description of his relations with the twelve. This ground would, however, be cut away from their feet if it were possible to hold (with J. V. Bartlet, Apostolic Age, 1900, and V. Weber, Die Abfassung des Galaterbriefs vor dem Apostelkonzil, Ravensburg, 1900) that the epistle was actually written just before the council, i.e. in the winter of 48-49 [49-50]. In that case, of course, the two visits of Galatians i. and ii. would be those of Acts ix. 26 and xi. 30. The fourteen years reckoned back from the latter (c. A.D. 46) would bring us to A.D. 32-33 as the latest possible date for the conversion. With the older view, on the other hand, the fourteen years reckoned from the council in A.D. 49 [50] would allow us to bring down the conversion to A.D. 36. The new view clears away some manifest difficulties in the reconciliation of the Epistle and the Acts, and the early date for Galatians in relation to the other Pauline epistles is not so improbable as it may seem; but the chronology still appears more satisfactory on the older view, which enables the conversion to be placed at least three years later than on the alternative theory. But it is clear that the last word has not been said, and that definite results for this period cannot yet be looked for.

To sum up: an attempt has been made, it is hoped with some success, to provide a framework of history equipped with dates from the time of St Peter's arrest by Herod Agrippa I. at the

Im

AUTHORITIES.-The views stated in this article are in general (though with some modifications) the same as those which the present writer worked out with more fulness of detail in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, i. (1898) 403-424. Of older books should be mentioned:-Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie (2 vols., 1825); Wieseler, Chronologie des apostolischen Zeitalters (1848); Lewin's Fasti Sacri (1865). portant modern contributions are to be found in Prof. (Sir) W. M. Ramsay's various works, and in Harnack's Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, i. 233-244. Mention should also be made of an article, containing much useful astronomical and Talmudical information, by Mr J. K. Fotheringham, "The Date of the Crucifixion," in the Journal of Philology, xxix. 100-118 (1904). Mr Fotheringham is of opinion that the evidence from Christian sources is too uncertain, and that the statements of the Mishnah must be the starting-point of the inquiry: taking then the phasis of the new moon as the true beginning of Nisan, he concludes that Friday cannot have coincided with Nisan 14 in any year, within the period A. D. 28-35, other than A. D. 33 (April 3rd). But in one of the two empirical tests of the value of these calculations that he was able to obtain (loc. cit. p. 106, n. 2), the new moon was seen a day earlier than his rules allowed. This being so, it would be premature to disregard the convergent lines of historical evidence which tell against A.D. 33. Among the latest German works may be cited the chapter on New Testament chronology in the Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte of Dr Oscar Holtzmann (2nd ed., 1906), pp. 117-147: regarded as a collection of historical material this deserves every praise, but the mass is undigested and the treatment of the evidence arbitrary. As might be expected, Dr Holtzmann's conclusions are clear-cut, and alternatives are rigidly excluded: the Crucifixion is dated on the 7th of April A.D. 30, and St Paul's arrest (with the older writers) at Pentecost A.D. 58. (C. H. T.)

BIBLE, ENGLISH. The history of the vernacular Bible of the English race resolves itself into two distinctly marked periods-the one being that of Manuscript Bibles, which were direct translations from the Latin Vulgate, the other that of Printed Bibles, which were, more or less completely, translations from the original Hebrew and Greek of the Old and New

Testaments.

Cadmon.

1. The Manuscript Bible.-The first essays in Biblical translation, or rather paraphrasing, assumed in English, as in many other languages, a poetical form. Even in the 7th century, according to the testimony of Bede (Hist. Eccl. iv. 24), Cædmon sang "de creatione mundi et origine humani generis, et tota Genesis historia, de egressu Israel ex Acgypto et ingressu in terram repromissionis, de aliis plurimis sacrae Scripturae historiis, de incarnatione Dominica, passione, resurrectione et ascensione in coelum, de Spiritus Sancti adventu, et apostolorum doctrina." It is, however, doubtful whether any of the poetry which has been ascribed to him can claim to be regarded as his genuine work.

The first prose rendering of any part of the Bible-and with these we are mainly concerned in the present inquiry

Bede.

originated in all probability in the 8th century, when Bede, the eminent scholar and churchman, translated the first portion (chs. i.-vi. 9) of the Gospel of St John into the vernacular, but no part of this rendering is extant. His pupil Cuthberht recorded this fact in a letter to a fellow-student, Cuthwine: "a capite sancti evangelii Johannis usque ad eum locum in quo dicitur, 'sed haec quid sunt inter tantos?' in nostram linguam ad utilitatem ecclesiae Dei convertit " (Mayor and Lumby, Bedae Hist. Eccl. p. 178).

9th and

tury

The 9th century is characterized by interlinear glosses on the Book of Psalms, and towards its close by a few attempts at independent translation. Of these "glossed Psalters" 10th cen twelve MSS. are known to exist, and they may be ranged into two groups according to the Latin text glosses. they represent. The Roman Psalter is glossed in the following MSS.: (1) Cotton Vesp. A. 1 (Vespasian Psalter); (2) Bodl. Junius 27; (3) Univ. Libr. Camb. Ff. 1. 23; (4) Brit. Mus. Reg. 2. B. 5; (5) Trin. Coll. Camb. R. 17. 1 (Eadwine's Psalter); (6) Brit. Mus. Add. 37517. The Gallican Psalter in the following: (1) Brit. Mus. Stowe 2 (Spelman's text); (2) Cotton

The oldest and most important of these MSS. is the so-called Vespasian Psalter, which was written in Mercia in the first half of the 9th century. It was in all probability the original from which all the above-mentioned Old English glosses were derived, though in several instances changes and modifications were introduced by successive scribes. The first verse of Psalm cr (Vulg. xcix. 2) may serve as a specimen of these glosses.

To the late 9th or early roth century a work may be assigned which is in so far an advance upon preceding efforts as to be a real translation, not a mere gloss corresponding word for word with the Latin original. This is the famous Paris Psalter,; a rendering of the first fifty Psalms (Vulg. i.-l. 10), contained in the unique MS. lat. 8824 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The authorship of this version is doubtful, being by some scholars attributed to King Alfred (d. 901), of whom William of Malmesbury writes (Gesta Regum Anglorum, ii. 123), "Psalterium transferre aggressus vix prima parte explicata vivendi finem fecit." This view is, however, denied by others.

farme

Gospels.

In the course of the 10th century the Gospels were glossed and translated. The earliest in date is a Northumbrian Gloss interesting MS. variously known as the Durham on the Gospels, contained in a beautiful and highly Lindis Book, the Lindisfarne Gospels, or the Book of St Cuthbert (MS. Cotton, Nero. D. 4). The Latin text dates from the close of the 7th century, and is the work of Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne (698-721). The English gloss was whom Dr Charles O'Conor (Bibl. Stowensis, 1818-1819, i. 18c) added about a century and a half later (c. 950) by one Aldred, supposes to have been the bishop of Durham of that name. The Lord's Prayer is glossed in the following way:—

(13) ne inlæd usih in costunge ah gefrig usich from yfe et ne inducas nos in temlationem sed libera nos @

1 See A. S. Cook, Biblical Quotations in Old English Prose Writers, with an introduction on Old English Biblical Versions (London, 18931903), vol.i.pp.xxvi. ff.; H. Sweet, The Vespasian Psalter in Oldest English Texts" (E.E.T.S., No. 83, London, 1885): F. Harslev, Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter (E.E.T.S., No. 92, London, 1892): John Spelman, Psalterium Davidis Latino-Saxonicum Vetus (Londen, 1640); Fr. Roeder Der altengl. Regius Psalter (Reg II. B. 5), Halle, 1904).

Benjamin Thorpe, Libri Psalmorum versio Antiqua Latina cum paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica (Oxford, 1835); cf. J. D. Bruce. The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms... known as the Paris Psalter (Baltimore, 1894).

K. W. Bouterwek, Die vier Evangelien in all-nordh. Sprache (Gütersloh, 1857), id. Screadunga (Elberfeld, 1858, prefaces to the Gospels); J. Stevenson and E. Waring, The Lindisfarne and RuchGospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old Mercian Versions worth Gospels (Surtees Soc., 1854-1865); W. W. Skeat, The Hay (Cambridge, 1871-1887)..