Note 5 — Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

A single exception occurs in the statement about Lysanias, whom Luke makes cotemporary with Antipas and Philip as tetrarch of Abilene. Josephus, it is true, speaks of an Ἀβίλα ἡ Λυσανίου, and mentions a Lysanias as governor of Chalcis in Lebanon, near to which lay the territory of Abila; so that the same Lysanias was probably master of the latter. But this Lysanias was, at the instigation of Cleopatra, put to death 34 years before the birth of Christ, and a second Lysanias is not mentioned either by Josephus or by any other writer on the period in question.5 Thus, not only is the time of his government earlier by 60 years than the 15th year of Tiberius, but it is also at issue with the other dates associated with it by Luke. Hence it has been conjectured that Luke here speaks of a younger Lysanias, the descendant of the earlier one, who possessed Abilene under Tiberius, but who, being less famous, is not noticed by Josephus.6 We cannot indeed prove what Süskind demands for the refutation of this hypothesis, namely, that had such a younger Lysanias existed, Josephus must have mentioned him; yet that he had more than one inducement to do so, Paulus has satisfactorily shown. Especially, when in relation to the times of the first and second Agrippa he designates Abila, ἡ Λυσανίου, he must have been reminded that he had only treated of the elder Lysanias, and not at all of the younger, from whom, as the later ruler, the country must at that time have derived its second appellation.7 If, according to this, the younger Lysanias is but an historic fiction, the proposed alternative is but a philological one.8 For when it is said in the first place: Φιλίππου — τετραρχοῦντος τῆς Ἰτουραίας, κ.τ.λ., and when it follows: καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετραρχοῦντος: we cannot possibly understand from this, that Philip reigned also over the Abilene of Lysanias. For in that case the word τετραρχοῦντος ought not to have been repeated,9 and τῆς ought to have been placed before Lysanias, if the author wished to avoid misconstruction. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the writer himself erred, and, from the circumstance that Abilene, even in recent times, was called, after the last ruler of the former dynasty, ἡ Λυσανίου, drew the inference that a monarch of that name was still existing; while, in fact, Abilene either belonged to Philip, or was immediately subject to the Romans.10