CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

258 (so the Philocalian calendar, a.d. 354). Clement of Rome (jCar. 5) mentions them in the same connexion as examples of patience ; Ignatius, writing to the Romans (§4), says: ' I do not enjoin you as Peter and Paul did ' ; TertuUian says that they were both martyred at Rome under Nero {Scorp. 15, de Prcescr. 36 [Patr. Lat. ii. 174 f., 59]), and so Origen (Euseb. HE ill. 1); Dionysius of Corinth says 'about the same time' (Euseb. HE 11. 25); Caius (c. A.D. 200) describes their graves near Rome (Euseb. lb.). Prudentius (Peristeph. xli. S), in the 4th cent., is the first to say that they died on the same day. Eusebius puts their death at the very end of Nero's reign, i.e. not long before a.d. 68. The determining consider-ations are: (o) the connexion of their deaths with the fire at Rome in July a.d. 64; (6) the necessary interval after St. Paul's acquittal for his later travels, which would take some three years; and this, if we took Llghtfoot's chronology (Clement, i. 75 n.), would probably prevent us from fixing on a.d. 64 as the year of St. Paul's death; (c) the date of St. Peter's First Epistle, if a genuine work; and (d) the fact that St. Mark attended both Apostles, the suggestion being that he served St. Peter after St. Paul's death. The last consideration, if true, would make St. Peter's martyrdom the later of the two. The date of 1 Peter Is a difficulty. It makes Christianity a crime (1 P 4", so in Rev.), and it Is said by Pfleiderer not to have been so before the reign of Trajan. At first Christians were accused of ill doing; at a later period they were put to death as Christians. Ramsay gives reasons for believing that the change was made by Nero, and developed in the interval a.d. 68-96 under the Flavian emperors (CA. in Rom. Emp. pp. 245, 252 ff., 280). The fact of persecutions being mentioned makes it unlikely that 1 Peter was written before a.d. 64 (Lighttoot, Clement, 11. 498 f.), and its indebtedness to some of St. Paul's Epistles implies some interval after they were written. Dr. Bigg, however (Inlernat. Crit. Com.), pleads for a much earlier date, in an argument that will not bear abbreviation: he thinks that the persecutions mentioned were not from the State at all, but from the Jews. Ramsay, on the other hand, thinks that the provinces of Asia Minor cannot have been so fully evangelized as 1 Peter impUes before a.d. 65, and that the Epistle was written c. a.d. 80, soon after which date St. Peter died. But this is against all the Patristic testimony, which there is little reason to reject. Probably, then, we must date the death of both Apostles in Nero's reign. Two of the arguments mentioned above — on the one hand that the two martyrdoms must have been in close connexion with the Roman fire; and, on the other hand, that St. Mark can only have attended on the one Apostle after the other's death — appear to have little weight. If, as seems likely from what has already been said, the general scheme of chronology adopted by Lighttoot and Wieseler places the events of Acts a year or two too late all through, the argument for postponing the date of St. Paul's death, to allow for his travels, falls, although the later date for the death is in itself quite probable. On the whole, the conclusion seems to be that the martyrdoms may have taken place at any time between a.d. 64 and a.d. 68, more probably towards the end than towards the beginning of that period, though not necessarily in the same year.

(2) The Apocalypse. — This work gives us our last chronological indications in NT. Like 1 Peter, it implies persecution for the Name; but, unlike 1 Peter, it implies emperor-worship. The tone of antagonism to the Empire is entirely diiferent from that of St. Paul's Epistles and the Acts. Rome-worship was greatly devel-oped by Domitian, and was scarcely at all prominent In Nero's time. 'This feature in Rev., then, points to the scene being laid in the Domltianic persecution; and that date is argued for by Swete (Apocalypse, p. xcv. ff. — the most complete English commentary on the work) and Ramsay (Ch. in Rom. Emp. p. 295 fit.). It

CHURCH

is accepted by Sanday iJThSt viii. 481 ff., July 1907). Lighttoot, however (BiU. Ess. p. 61, Sup. Rel. p. 132), and Westeott (St. John, Introd. p. Ixxxiv.) argue for a date during Nero's persecution, mainly because of the difference of style between Rev. and Jn., the latter being dated late in the century; this argument assumes identity of authorship, and makes little allowance for a, possible difference of scribes. Other arguments for the Neronic date have been taken from the number of the Beast, which is supposed to spell, in Hebrew letters, the names Nero Caesar, and from the indication as to the 'kings' (emperors) in 17"i. The earUer date was in fashion a generation ago, but a reaction has lately set in, and the opinion of Irenseus is now largely supported, namely, that the book was written towards the end of the reign of Domitian, who died a.d. 96 (Iren. Haer. V. 30. 3; Euseb. HE ill. 18). The evidence seems to preponderate largely in favour of the supposition that the last decade of the 1st cent. Is that illustrated by the last book of the NT Canon.

III. Results. — The following table gives the dates arrived at by Harnack, Turner, Ramsay, and Lighttoot, respectively. The results of Llghtfoot are in the main also those of Wieseler, Lewin, and Schllrer. To the present writer the intermediate dates seem to be the only ones which fulfil all the necessary conditions; but Turner's year for St. Paul's conversion appears less probable than Ramsay's. In view, however, of the confusion in reckoning Imperial years, lunar months, and the like, it would be vain to expect anything like certainty in determining NT dates. [In the table w = winter, sp=spring, s = summer, a=autumn.]

H. T. R. L.

Nativity of Christ, B.C. .. 7«ior6sp 6s Baptism of Christ, A.D. .. 27sp 25ioor26sp ..

Crucifixion . . . 29 or 30 29 29 30

Conveision of St. Paul 30 35 or 36 33 34

First Visit to Jerusalem 33 38 35 37

Second Visit ... 44 46 45aand46sp 45

First Miss. Journey . 45-46 ? 47-48 47-^9 48-49 Council (Third Visit) . 47 49 49u) and 60sp 51

Second M. J. and

Fourth Visit . . 47-50 49-52 50-53 51-54 Third Miss. Journey . 50-54 52-56 53-57 64-58 Fifth Visit and arrest . 54 56 57 58

Festus succeeds . . 56 583 69s 60 or 61

St. Paul's arrival in

Rome . . . 57sp 59sp 60sp 61sp

Acquittal 61sp 61u)or62sp 63sp

Death of St. Paul .64 64 or 65 67 67

Death of St. Peter .64 64 or 65 80 64

A. J. Maclean.

CHRYSOLITE, CHRYSOPRASE.— See Jewels and Precious Stones.

CHURCH. — 1. The word ecdesia, which in its Chris-tian application is usually tr. 'church,' was appUed in ordinary Greek usage to the duly constituted gathering of the citizens in a self-governing city, and it is so used of the Ephesian assembly in Ac 19='. It was adopted in the LXX to tr. a Heb. word, qahal, signifying the nation of Israel as assembled before God or considered in a reUgious aspect (Jg 218, i Ch 29>, Dt 318" etc.). In this sense it is found twice in the NT (Ac 788 rv ■ church,' He 212 B,v 'congregation'). The term Is practically equivalent to the familiar ' synagogue ' which, however, was more frequently used to translate another Heb. word, 'Mhah. This will probably explain our Lord's words in Mt 18". For 'synagogue' was the name regularly applied after the Babylonian exile to local congregations of Jews formally gathered for common worship, and from them subsequently transferred to similar congregations of Hebrew Christians (Ja 2'). 'Tell it to the ecdesia' can hardly tefer directly to communities of Jesus' disciples, as these did not exist in the time of the Galilaean ministry, but rather to the Jewish congregation, or its representative court, in the place to which the disputants might belong. The renewal of the promise concerning binding and loosing

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