The Jews having but one name for each man, seldom gave all of a Roman’s name, unless of a very eminent man, as Pontius Pilate, Sergius Paulus, and other official characters; but selecting any one of the three parts which might be most convenient, they made that the sole appellative, whether _praenomen_, _nomen_, or _cognomen_. As in Luke ii. 2: Acts xxiii. 24: xxv. 1: xxvii. 1: xxviii. 7, &c. Illustration: JERUSALEM, FROM THE LATIN CONVENT. Luke xxi. 24. _The Italian cohort._――The word Σπειρα (_Speira_) I translate “_cohort_,” rather than “_legion_,” as the older commentators did. Jerome translates it “_cohortem_,” and he must have known the exact technical force of the Greek word, and to what Latin military term it corresponded, from his living in the time when these terms must have been in frequent use. Those who prefer to translate it “legion,” are misled by the circumstance, that Tacitus and other writers on Roman affairs, mention a legion which had the distinctive appellation of “_the Italian Legion_;” while it has been supposed that these ancient authors make no mention of an Italian _cohort_. But the deeply learned Wetstein, with his usual vast classical research, has shown several such passages, in Arrian and others, in which mention _is_ made of an Italian cohort; and in Gruter’s inscriptions, quoted by Kuinoel, there is an account of “a volunteer cohort of _Italian_ soldiers in Syria;” and Palestine was at this time included with Syria, under the presidency of Petronius. This inscription, too, justifies my remark as to the high character of those who served in this corps. “Cohors militum Italicorum _voluntaria_” seems to imply a body of soldiers of a higher character than the ordinary mercenary mass of the army, being probably made up of _volunteers_ from respectable families of Italy, who chose to enlarge their knowledge of the world by foreign military service, in this very honorable station of life-guard to the Roman governor, as Doddridge and others suppose this to have been. (See Doddridge on this passage; also C. G. Schwartz in Wolff, Cur. Philology in loc.) It is considered also as fairly proved that the “Italian _legion_” was not formed till a much later period; so that it is rendered in the highest degree probable and unquestionable, that this was a _cohort_, and, as Schwartz and Doddridge prove, not a mere ordinary cohort, making the tenth part of a common legion of 4200, but a distinct and independent corps, attached to no legion, and devoted to the exclusive honorable service above mentioned. (See Bloomfield, Kuinoel, Rosenmueller, &c.)