[16:1] Matt. ii. 16.  The estimates formed at a subsequent period of the number of infants in the village of Bethlehem and its precincts betray a strange ignorance of statistics.  “The Greek Church canonised the 14,000 innocents,” observes the Dean of St Paul’s, “and another notion, founded on a misrepresentation of Revelations (xiv. 3), swelled the number to 144,000.  The former, at least, was the common belief of our Church, though even in our liturgy the latter has in some degree been sanctioned by retaining the chapter of Revelations as the epistle for the day.  Even later, Jeremy Taylor, in his ‘Life of Christ,’ admits the 14,000 without scruple, or rather without thought.”—­Milman’s History of Christianity, i. p. 113, note.

[16:2] Matt. ii. 11.

[16:3] Luke ii. 38.  It is a curious fact that in the year 751 of the city of Rome, the year of the Birth of Christ according to the chronology adopted in this volume, the passover was not celebrated as usual in Judea.  The disturbances which occurred on the death of Herod had become so serious on the arrival of the paschal day, that Archelaus was obliged to disperse the people by force of arms in the very midst of the sacrifices.  So soon did Christ begin to cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.  See Greswell’s “Dissertations,” i. p 393, 394, note.

[17:1] Luke ii. 40.

[17:2] Luke ii. 52.

[17:3] Mark vi. 3.

[17:4] John vii. 15.

[18:1] Luke ii. 46, 47.

[18:2] Luke iv. 16.

[18:3] Luke iii. 21-23.  “It became Him, being in the likeness of sinful flesh, to go through these appointed rites and purifications which belonged to that flesh.  There is no more strangeness in His having been baptized by John, than in His keeping the Passover.  The one rite, as the other, belonged to sinners, and among the transgressors He was numbered.”—­ALFORD, Greek Testament, Note on Matt. iii. 13-17.

[18:4] See Greswell’s “Dissertations upon an Harmony of the Gospels,” vol. i. p. 362, 363.  John probably commenced his ministry about the feast of Tabernacles, A.D. 27.

[18:5] See Josephus, “Antiq.” xviii, 5, Sec. 2.

[19:1] Matt. iv. 23.

[19:2] Matt. iv. 24, 25.

[19:3] Isaiah xlv. 15.

[19:4] 1 Kings viii. 10-12.

[19:5] John v. 13, vi. 15, viii. 59, xii. 36; Mark i. 45, vii. 24.

[19:6] Mark ii. 1, 2; Matt. xiv. 13, 14, 21, xv. 32, 38, 39.

[20:1] Matt. iv. 13.  Hence it is said to have been “exalted unto heaven” in the way of privilege.  Matt. xi. 23; Luke x. 15.  It was the residence as well of Peter and Andrew (Matt. xvii. 24), as of James, John (Mark i. 21, 29), and Matthew (Mark ii. 1, 14, 15), and there also dwelt the nobleman whose son was healed by our Lord (John iv. 46).  It was on the borders of the Sea of Galilee, so that by crossing the water He could at once reach the territory of another potentate, and withdraw Himself from the multitudes drawn together by the fame of His miracles.  See Milman’s “History of Christianity,” i. 188.