Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 35:139 (Jul 1878)
Article: On The Latin Equivalent Of The Name In Luke 2:2, Translated Cyrenius
Author: Theodore Dwight Woolsey

BSac 35:139 (July 1878) p. 499

On The Latin Equivalent Of The Name In Luke 2:2, Translated Cyrenius

Theodore D. Woolsey

Opinions have differed and fluctuated in regard to the Latin name corresponding to Κυρήνιος, in Luke 2:2. For some time, at first, after the revival of classical study in Europe, it was held by most scholars to be Quirinius. Afterwards, especially after the dissertation of Perizonius de Augustea orbis terrarum descriptione (1682 and 1690, following his treatise de praetorio, Franeker, as well as subsequently reprinted), and after the publication of Ryck’s Tacitus (Utrecht, 1687), the tide was turned, and Quirinus was regarded as the true name, although some learned men — and those the best acquainted with the results of archaeological investigation — remained true to the earlier tradition. But since the manuscripts have been examined more carefully, and new inscriptions have been brought to light, the editors of Tacitus almost in a body, all the learned antiquarians, and the best informed commentators have returned to Quirinius. It is my object in this Essay to show that this form alone has solid ground for its support.

We must, however, at the outset, remark that both names occur in Latin records and on inscriptions. Both, also, as names of men, are not earlier than the end of the Republic. Quirinius, both as a nomen and a cognomen, derived either from the name of the old Sabine god or from the tribe Quirina, one of the thirty-five Roman local divisions so-called, cannot be traced to an earlier age than the end of the Republic. The subject of this Essay was a new man of humble origin; and his cognomen, if he indeed bore that of

BSac 35:139 (July 1878) p. 500

Quirinius, began, as far as we know, with him. Quirinus is still later, but under the Empire occurs with greater frequency.

Quirinus, or the feminine Quirina, we have noticed twice among Muratori’s Inscriptions (Nov. Thesaur. pp. 1173, 1735), and several times in Mommsen’s Inscriptions of the Kingdom of Naples. Thus, in the latter collection, occur Q. Quirinus Hermes (No. 7202) and Sex. Julius Quirinus — “literis sequioris aevi,” as the editor says — with Aureli Quirini Merodoti (No. 2992), where Aureli renders the nominative of Quirini uncertain. In Mommsen’s Corpus of Latin inscriptions we find Gallia Quirina on a Spanish stone, and in the volume devoted to Britain there are three inscriptions relating to M. Aurelius Quirinus, a praefectus cohortis. Ryck, on Tac. 2:30, cites from Reinesius the name of C. Sempronius C. f. Quirinus Lucretius Junianus. In Cent. m. Cyprian addressed two books of his “testimoniorum adv. Judaeos” to “Quirinus fil...