would have made some fresh attempt upon the life of the infant. But when
the babe was actually brought to the temple, the tyrant was no more.
Jerusalem was in a state of great political excitement, and Archelaus
had, perhaps, already set sail for Rome to secure from the emperor the
confirmation of his title to the kingdom (see Josephus' Antiq. xvii. c.
9), so that it is not strange if the declarations of Simeon and Anna did
not attract any notice on the part of the existing rulers.

Assuming, then, that Christ was born a very short time before the death
of Herod, we have now to ascertain the date of the demise of that
monarch. Josephus states (Antiq. xiv. 14, § 5) that Herod was made king
by the Roman Senate in the 184th Olympiad, when Calvinus and Pollio were
consuls, that is, in the year of Rome 714; and that he reigned
thirty-seven years (Antiq. xvii. 8, § 1). We may infer, therefore, that
his reign terminated in the year 751 of the city of Rome. He died
shortly before the passover; his disease seems to have been of a very
lingering character; and he appears to have languished under it upwards
of a year (Josephus' Antiq. xvii. 6, § 4, 5, and xvii. 9, § 2, 3). The
passover of 751 fell on the 31st of March (see Greswell's
"Dissertations," vol. i. p. 331), and as our Lord was in all likelihood
born early in the month, the Jewish king probably ended his days a week
or two afterwards, or about the time of the vernal equinox. According to
this computation the _conception_ took place exactly at the feast of
Pentecost, which fell, in 750, on the 31st of May.

This view is corroborated by Luke iii. 1, where it is said that the word
of God came to John the Baptist "in the _fifteenth year_ of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar." John's ministry had continued only a short time when
he was imprisoned, and then Jesus "began to be _about thirty_ years of
age" (Luke iii. 23). Augustus died in August 767, and this year 767,