Tool Beta
Fact Book
The same name traced across the biblical canon and the Second Temple texts, side by side.
Augustus
The first Roman emperor, under whom Christ was born. His decree that all the world should be taxed is what put the birth in Bethlehem. The name is a title, majesty, first given him by the senate, and later emperors carried it too.
The first Roman emperor, under whom Christ was born. His decree that all the world should be taxed is what put the birth in Bethlehem. The name is a title, majesty, first given him by the senate, and later emperors carried it too.
Named exactly once, for the census that puts Joseph and Mary on the road to Bethlehem (2:1). Josephus's Augustus (still Octavian here) is the same emperor deciding Herod's fate after Actium, the decree in Luke and the patronage in Josephus are two small views of the same distant, absolute power over Judea.
The cognomen of the first Roman emperor, C. Julius Caesar Octavianus, during whose reign Christ was born (Luke 2:1). His decree that “all the world should be taxed” was the divinely ordered occasion of Jesus’ being born, according to prophecy (Micah 5:2), in Bethlehem. This name being simply a title meaning “majesty” or “venerable,” first given to him by the senate (B.C. 27), was borne by succeeding emperors. Before his death (A.D. 14) he associated Tiberius with him in the empire (Luke 3:1), by whom he was succeeded.
G828
- Luke 2:1
