To appreciate the methods of Roman administration in Palestine in the days of Christ one must look back to the beginnings of Roman control in Palestine in 63 B.C. and forward to the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 A.D. Three phases of Roman administration appear in this period of a hundred years: (1) The almost complete suppression of the Jewish State; (2) The Restoration of the Jewish Kingdom under Roman supervision; (3) The administration of Palestine as a province. The birth of Christ falls in the second phase. The Public Life of Christ and the preaching of the Gospel in the whole Mediterranean world belong to the third phase.

For the history of the period there is abundance of material-Palestinian and otherwise. For no phase of Roman administration anywhere is there such an objective--one might say, such an unintentional-record as that contained in the books of the New Testament. These books have no immediate concern with Roman policy; but it can be felt at work, as it were, in the background of their narrative; and occasion ally-but never for its own sake-it is expounded in a revealing word or phrase. The writings of Josephus and Philo, o the other hand, present a partisan view of Palestinian histor in the century in question. But, however partisan that story is, it is vivid, arresting and helpful. The whole century is packed with swiftly-moving events, and its stage is crowded not only with Oriental Princes and Princelets but with the greatest figures of the Roman world