ARTICLE V.

ON THE LATIN EQUIVALENT OF THE NAME IN LUKE II. 2, TRANSLATED CYRENIUS.

BY THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, LATELY PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE.

OPINIONS have differed and fluctuated in regard to the Latin name corresponding to Kupnvios, in Luke ii. 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.

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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

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. ii. 30, cites from Reinesius the name of C. Sempronius C. f. Quirinus Lucretius Junianus. In Cent. III. Cyprian addressed two books of his "testimoniorum adv. Judaeos" to "Quirinus filius." In Cent. VI., near the end, we meet with a letter of Pope Gregory I. to an Irish bishop Quirinus. See Archbp. Usher's works (iv. 601, Dubl. 1864), who also mentions a Quirinus Comes.

An inscription in Muratori (p. 1395) speaks of a M. Quirinius Coeladus, and another mentions C. Quirinius. Both forms, then, are found as nomina and cognomina; and it is probable that all the examples come from the times of the Empire, after the old system of Roman names had begun to be undermined.

Confining ourselves, now, to the subject of this Article, whose full name is P. Sulpicius Quirinius, or Quirinus, we will look at the name as it stands in Greek writers, in Latin writers, and on inscriptions.

I. In Luke ii. 2, with some various readings; in six places of Josephus (Antiq. xvii. fin., xviii. 1 (bis), 2 (bis), Bell. Jud. vii. 8, 1); in Justin Martyr (Apol. i. § 35 § 46 Dial. cum Tryph. §78); and in Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. i. 5, after Josephus, Antiq. xviii. init.) it is spelled Kupývos; but in Strabo (xii. p. 569), Kupívios.1

1 The various readings ought to be noticed. In Luke ii. 2 the Alexandrian

In the Chronicon Paschale (or Fasti Siculi) of L. Dindorf's ed. of 1832, followed by Migne, 1860, we find as consuls together, of the year 742 of Rome, Meoσáλa and Kupivíou. Mommsen (Corp. Lat. inscr. i. 546) prefers this to a various reading Kupívov, which Dindorf does not notice. In the chronological list of consuls prefixed to Dio Cassius, Book liv., we find the full name Π. Σουλπίκιος Π. υἱ. Κυρίνιος, which Mommsen and others receive without mentioning any various reading, and which Sturz also has in his text, although L. Dindorf, in the Teubner ed. of Dio Cass. (vol. v. p. xxiii.), has Kupivos. Finally, George Syncellus (Chronograph. 316 B. ed. W. Dindorf i. 598) has Kupivios, in an extract, it is probable, from the Chronicle of Eusebius (comp. Euseb. Chron. ed. Maii, 1833, under Olympiad 194, and the year of the world 5500). These are all the places in Greek, known to the present writer, which bear on the decision between the endings us and -ius in Latin. Whether the argument from them can be set aside we shall presently consider. We add, in this place, that the eta in the penultimate of the name in Luke and Josephus finds analogies in the common form Σκηπίων for Σκιπίων, and Μηνύκιος, more frequent than Mivúxtos, in Dionys. Hal. This, however, has little or nothing to do with our present inquiry.

There are no genuine coins on which either name occurs, although one published by Goltz and accepted by Vaillant (Numism. Fam. Rom.) for some time imposed on the earlier scholars. Nor are there any coins in existence which show Ms. has κηρυνίου, a few have κηρηνίου, the Vatican Ms. pr. manu κυρείνου, tert. man. Kupívov, but this reading does not deserve consideration in comparison with the vulgar text, although Lachmann was in favor of it. Tischendorf adopts the vulgar text, so do Tregelles and Westcott and Hort, (although with Kupeívov in the margin); and considering the support for that text in Josephus and Justin, it can hardly be doubted that they are in the right. In two mss. of Strabo, x and z of Cramer, kuphvios is the reading, but Kupivios has far better manuscript support. Of Josephus there is no critical edition. In W. Dindorf's corrected reprint of Hudson's edition, the reading Kuphvios remains; so too in Bekker. I find in Heinichen's Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. i. 5, a note of the author, citing a translation of Rufinus in which Cyrinus represents the Kuphytos of his original. 1 Marini says (Frati Arvali, ii. 786): "Della medaglia del Golzio con Quirino sanno gli antiquari qual conto debba farsi."

that any Roman gens bore the cognomen of Quirinus. There is, indeed, a coin of the Memmii with the words " C. Memmii C. F." on the obverse, together with a head and the name Quirinus, and on the reverse, as Eckhel gives it (Doctr. Num. v. 252)," Memmius Aed. Cerialia (sic) preimus (sic) fecit," i.e. when Aedile first instituted the games in honor of Ceres. In Mommsen's Corpus inscr. i. 140, No. 490, the reverse appears with the legend "C. Memmius Imperator

Quirinus Memmius Aed. Cerialia Preimus Fecit." But Quirinus here is the god, as Eckhel, Borghesi (Opere i. 94), and Mommsen regard it; just as the head of Roma appears on another coin struck by a magistrate of the mint of the same family, and as Brutus Libertas appears on another, probably struck by one of the Junii.

II. We come next to the third name of our P. Sulpicius as it appears in the manuscripts of the early Latin writers. These are Florus (iv. § 12, 41), Suetonius (Tib. 49), Tacitus (Ann. ii. 30; iii. 22, 23, 48).

Florus says of him that he could have returned from Africa with the title (or agnomen) Marmaricus, on account of his successful victories over the Marmaridae and Garamantes, "sed modestior in aestimanda victoria fuit." The Mss. differ greatly about his name. The best of them, the liber Nazarianus (comp. Mommsen, res gestae Augusti, p. 119), reads Qurinio (sic); the ancient editions, the second Palatine Ms. and the MSS. used by Vinetus give Curinio; the first Palatine, Quirinio; others, Turmio, which may be for Turinio, and that for Quirinio; and Jordanes (Jornandes), with the third Palatine, Quirino (see Duker's note). On the whole, the evidence preponderates in favor of the longer ending -io.

Suetonius speaks of Lepida, a lady of very high family and the wife of this man, as condemned "in gratiam Quirini consularis praedivitis et orbi," who, Suetonius goes on to say, divorced her after a marriage of twenty years, on the charge that she had formerly tried to poison him. Tacitus makes the crimes adultery, poisoning, and consultation of the Chaldaean soothsayers to the prejudice of the emperor's

house. The reading here is Quirini, which is ambiguous, and often occurs as i for II.

For Tacitus-i.e. for the six first books of the Annals the only original manuscript is the Mediceus or Corbeiensis (Laurent. Plut. 68, 1). This was discovered at Corbei at Westphalia by an agent of Leo X., and after the pope's death was taken to Florence to be deposited in the Laurentine or Medicean library. An edition containing only these books, then called five, was published at Rome by Philipp Beroaldus, and was soon succeeded by the editions of Rhenanus(in 1519 and later), of Junta (Flor. 1527), by the Aldine (Ven. 1534), by the editions of Lipsius (1574 and later), by that of Curtius Pichena (Flor. 1607), by Ryck's (Utr. 1687), and by that of J. Gronovius (1721), - to mention none of more recent date. The text owes most to Pichena and J. Gronovius, and in modern times to Fr. Furia, whose collations were placed at the disposal of Immanuel Bekker for his edition of 1831. As for the reading of the name with which we are concerned, there seems to be some confusion in the statements of the earlier editors. Ryck, on Annal. ii. 30, has these words: "Beroaldus eumque secutus Rhenanus hic ediderunt P. Quirino: reliqui post hos editores (quos quidem vidi) P. Quirinio. Restitui primitivam lectionem," etc. J. Gronovius, as cited in Ernesti's edition, adds the Aldine also as reading Quirino, states it to be the manuscript reading, and adopts it himself. Bekker, in his brief way, after mentioning this, adds, “ Si Furiae fides M. [the Medicean codex] et hic et infra iii. 22, et 48, Quirinium vocat hominem." There seems to be no doubt that this is true, as it has been verified since; and this reading, wherever the name occurs in the Annals, is now adopted by Ritter (second ed.), in Orelli's second ed., by Doederlein (1841), by Halm, by Nipperdey, and by a number of other editors. The disregard by Beroaldus of his manuscript — and that the only witness to the text can be accounted for by his undertaking to judge over its testimony. For the mistake of Gronovius we cannot account; for he seems to have spent a long time in Tuscany, and he inspected the manuscript himself.