The writer principally made use of in the inquiry is Josephus.  Josephus was born at Jerusalem four years after Christ’s ascension.  He wrote his history of the Jewish war some time after the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in the year of our Lord LXX, that is, thirty-seven years after the ascension; and his history of the Jews he finished in the year xciii, that is, sixty years after the ascension.  At the head of each article I have referred, by figures included in brackets, to the page of Dr. Lardner’s volume where the section from which the abridgment is made begins.  The edition used is that of 1741.

I. [p. 14.] Matt. ii. 22.  “When he (Joseph) heard that Archclaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither:  notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.”

II.  In this passage it is asserted that Archclaus succeeded Herod in Judea; and it is implied that his power did not extend to Galilee.  Now we learn from Josephus that Herod the Great, whose dominion included all the land of Israel, appointed Archelaus his successor in Judea, and assigned the rest of his dominions to other sons; and that this disposition was ratified, as to the main parts of it, by the Roman emperor (Ant. lib. xvi. c. 8, sect. 1.).

Saint Matthew says that Archclaus reigned, was king, in Judea.  Agreeably to this, we are informed by Josephus, not only that Herod appointed Archclaus his successor in Judea, but that he also appointed him with the title of King; and the Greek verb basileuei, which the evangelist uses to denote the government and rank of Archclaus, is used likewise by Josephus (De Bell. lib. i. c. 3,3, sect. 7.).

The cruelty of Archelaus’s character, which is not obscurely intimated by the evangelist, agrees with divers particulars in his history preserved by Josephus:—­“In the tenth year of his government, the chief of the Jews and Samaritans, not being able to endure his cruelty and tyranny, presented complaints against him to Caesar.” (Ant, lib. xii. 13, sect. 1.)

II. [p. 19.] Luke iii. 1.  “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—­Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea, and of the region of Trachonitis—­the word of God came unto John.”

By the will of Herod the Great, and the decree of Augustus thereupon, his two sons were appointed, one (Herod Antipus) tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, and the other (Philip) tetrarch of Trachonitis and the neighbouring countries. (Ant. lib. xvii. c. 8, sect. 1.) We have, therefore, these two persons in the situations in which Saint Luke places them; and also, that they were in these situations in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; in other words, that they continued in possession of their territories and titles until that time, and afterwards, appears from a passage of Josephus, which relates of Herod, “that he was removed by Caligula, the successor of Tiberius;” (Ant. lib. xviii. c. 8, sect. 2.) and of Philip, that he died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, when he had governed Trachonitis and Batanea and Gaulanitis thirty-seven years. (Ant. lib. xviii. c. 5, sect. 6.)