The Apostolic Age · AD 4–70 · External witness
Caesar Augustus
63 BC – AD 14 · First Roman Emperor (27 BC – AD 14) · Rome
External witness
Who Caesar Augustus was
Named once in Scripture, in the sentence that sets the Nativity in world history: **“there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”** Luke’s habit is to anchor his narrative to the imperial calendar, and this is the first and widest of those anchors — the birth is placed not merely in a reign but under an administrative act of the whole *oikoumenē*.
He is the *princeps* who ended the civil wars, held power for forty-one years, and left the machinery of empire that governed every place in this archive for the next four centuries. The Roman peace under which the apostles travelled, the roads they used, the citizenship Paul claimed at Philippi and appealed to at Caesarea — all of it is his settlement.
**The decree Luke names is the beginning of the archive’s hardest chronological problem**, since the census is dated in the next verse by the governorship of Quirinius. That question belongs to Quirinius’s record, where the evidence and the proposed resolutions are set out.
One mention in this archive by design: Luke 2:1 is the single place the New Testament names him. The reign is documented at length outside the archive’s scope; the archive holds only the point at which he enters the Christian record.
Also listed in non-christian witnesses and roman emperors.
Common questions
When did Caesar Augustus live?
Caesar Augustus is dated 63 BC – AD 14 in the archive, which places Caesar Augustus in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70).
Which early sources mention Caesar Augustus?
Caesar Augustus is named in 1 primary-source passage catalogued here, drawn from Luke. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Caesar Augustus from?
The archive associates Caesar Augustus with Rome.
Who were Caesar Augustus’ contemporaries?
The archive links Caesar Augustus to 6 other figures, including Quirinius (Cyrenius), Herod the Great, Mary, the Mother of Jesus and Joseph the Carpenter. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.
Scripture record
Primary-source mentions (1)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Luke 2:1–5
c. AD 1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.Luke · read ↗
Connected in the archive
People
- Quirinius (Cyrenius)
- Herod the Great
- Mary, the Mother of Jesus
- Joseph the Carpenter
- Emperor Tiberius
- Herod Archelaus
Place
Places served
The one place the sources put Caesar Augustus.
- 1Rome