Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

QUIRINIUS

Roman governor of Syria at the time of Jesus’ birth (Lk 2:2). According to the Roman historian Tacitus (Annals 3.48), Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was elected consul of Syria in 12 BC. He was appointed around 7 BC, along with Varus, legatus (or governor) of Syria. His duties concentrated on military and foreign affairs, while Varus concerned himself with civil matters. Quirinius’s first administration as governor lasted several years, during which time he led a successful expedition against the Homonadenses, an unruly group of rebel mountaineers who lived in the Cilician province of Asia Minor, and superintended in his region the empire-wide census decreed by Caesar Augustus. Luke records that Jesus’ birth took place at the time of this first enrollment “when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Lk 2:2), and according to Matthew, during the days of King Herod the Great (Mt 2:1)—presumably in 4 BC.

Quirinius became rector to Gaius Caesar in 1 BC and married Aemilia Ledipa in AD 2, whom he subsequently divorced. In AD 6, he was reappointed legatus of Syria, perhaps serving in this position for a couple of years. In this second administration Quirinius again supervised a census of Judea. However, the second census was not administered according to Jewish custom, as was the first. The second census taxed the Jews as a subservient people to the Roman state, thus causing Jewish opposition and rebellion toward Rome. This is probably the census referred to by the Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities 17.13.5) and Gamaliel (Acts 5:37). The remainder of Quirinius’s career was probably spent in Rome, where he died at an advanced age (c. AD 21).