{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/007/0070362.htm","path":"chr/ecf/007/0070362.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/007/0070362.htm","text":"(On the tenth of the kalends of April, p. 301.)\nSerious difficulties are encountered by the learned in reconciling Lactantius with himself, if, indeed, the fault be not one of his copyists rather than his own. In the fourth book of the Institutes 1999 his language is thus given by Baluzius: 2000 \u2014\n\u201cExtremis temporibus Tiberii C\u00e6saris, ut scriptum legimus, Dominus noster Jesus Christus, a Jud\u00e6is cruciatus est post diem decimum kalendarum Aprilis, duobus Geminis consulibus.\u201d\nLactantius was writing in Nicomedia, and may have quoted from memory what he had read, perhaps in the report of Pilate himself. The expression post diem decimum kalendarum Aprilis is ambiguous: and Jarvis says, \u201cMy impression is, that it means \u2018after the tenth day before the kalends of April;\u2019 that is, after the 23d of March.\u201d 2001\nBut here our author says, according to the accurate edition of Walchius 2002 (a.d. 1715),\u2014\n\u201cExinde tetrarchas habuerunt usque ad Herodem, qui fuit sub imperio Tiberii C\u00e6saris: cujus anno quinto decimo, id est duobus Geminis consulibus, ante diem septimam Calendarum Aprilium, Jud\u00e6i Christum cruci affixerunt.\u201d\nBut here, on the authority of forty manuscripts, Du Fresnoy reads, \u201cante diem decimam,\u201d which he labours to reconcile with \u201cpost diem decimum,\u201d as above. Jarvis adheres to the reading septimam, supported by more than fifty manuscripts, and decides for the 23d of March.\nHe cites Augustine to the same effect in the noted passage: 2003 \u2014\n\u201cIlle autem mense conceptum et passum esse Christum, et Pasch\u00e6 observatio et dies ecclesiis notissimus Nativitatis ejus ostendit. Qui enim mense nono natus est octavo kalendas Janvarias profecto mense primo conceptus est circa octavum kalendas Aprilis, quod tempus passionis ejus fuit.\u201d\nThis, Augustine considers to be \u201cseething a kid in mother\u2019s milk,\u201d after a mystical sense; cruelly making the cross to coincide with the maternity of the Virgin, who beheld her Son an innocent victim on the anniversary of her salutation by the angel.\nAs cited by Jarvis, Introd., p. 379.\n322:2001\nBaluz, Miscellanea, tom, i. p. 2.\n322:2002 322:2003\nQu\u00e6stt. in Exod., lib. ii., Opp., tom. iii., p. 337.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Lactantius: Elucidation","type":"page"}