Chapter IV (2)

While Herod awaits the return of the magi, Joseph is admonished by an angelic apparition in a dream to flee with the Messianic child and its mother into Egypt for security (v. 13–15). Adopting the evangelist’s point of view, this is not attended with any difficulty; it is otherwise, however, with the prophecy which the above event is said to fulfil, Hosea xi. 1. In this passage the prophet, speaking in the name of Jehovah, says: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. We may venture to attribute, even to the most orthodox expositor, enough clear-sightedness to perceive that the subject of the first half of the sentence is also the object of the second, namely the people of Israel, who here, as elsewhere, (e.g. Exod. iv. 22, Sirach xxxvi. 14), are collectively called the Son of God, and whose past deliverance under Moses out of their Egyptian bondage is the fact referred to: that consequently, the prophet was not contemplating either the Messiah or his sojourn in Egypt. Nevertheless, as our evangelist says, v. 15, that the flight of Jesus into Egypt took place expressly that the above words of Hosea might be fulfilled, he must have understood them as a prophecy relating to Christ—must, therefore, have misunderstood them. It has been pretended that the passage has a twofold application, and, though referring primarily to the Israelitish people, is not the less a prophecy relative to Christ, because the destiny of Israel “after the flesh” was a type of the destiny of Jesus. But this convenient method of interpretation is not applicable here, for the analogy would, in the present case, be altogether external and inane, since the only parallel consists in the bare fact in both instances of a sojourn in Egypt, the circumstances under which the Israelitish people and the child Jesus sojourned there being altogether diverse. [370]

When the return of the magi has been delayed long enough for Herod to become aware that they have no intention to keep faith with him, he decrees the death of all the male children in Bethlehem and its environs up to the age of two years, that being, according to the statements of the magi as to the time of the star’s appearance, the utmost interval that could have elapsed since the birth of the Messianic child (16–18). This was, beyond all question, an act of the blindest fury, for Herod might easily have informed himself whether a child who had received rare and costly presents was yet to be found in Bethlehem: but even granting it not inconsistent with the disposition of the aged tyrant to the extent that Schleiermacher supposed, it were in any case to be expected that so unprecedented and revolting a massacre would be noticed by other historians than Matthew. [371] But neither Josephus, who is very minute in his account of Herod, nor the rabbins, who were assiduous in blackening his memory, give the slightest hint of this decree. The latter do, indeed, connect the flight of Jesus into Egypt with a murderous scene, the author of which, however, is not Herod, but King Jannæus, and the victims not children, but rabbins. [372] Their story is evidently founded on a confusion of the occurrence gathered from the christian history, with an earlier event; for Alexander Jannæus died 40 years before the birth of Christ. Macrobius, who lived in the fourth century, is the only author who notices the slaughter of the infants, and he introduces it obliquely in a passage which loses all credit by confounding the execution of Antipater, who was so far from a child that he complained of his grey hairs, [373] with the murder of the infants, renowned among the Christians. [374] Commentators have attempted to diminish our surprise at the remarkable silence in question, by reminding us that the number of children of the given age in the petty village of Bethlehem, must have been small, and by remarking that among the numerous deeds of cruelty by which the life of Herod was stained, this one would be lost sight of as a drop in the ocean. [375] But in these observations the specific atrocity of murdering innocent children, however few, is overlooked; and it is this that must have prevented the deed, if really perpetrated, from being forgotten. [376] Here also the evangelist cites (v. 17, 18) a prophetic passage (Jerem. xxxi. 15), as having been fulfilled by the murder of the infants; whereas it originally referred to something quite different, namely the transportation of the Jews to Babylon, and had no kind of reference to an event lying in remote futurity.

While Jesus and his parents are in Egypt, Herod the Great dies, and Joseph is instructed by an angel, who appears to him in a dream, to return to his native country; but as Archelaus, Herod’s successor in Judæa, was to be feared, he has more precise directions in a second oracular dream, in obedience to which he fixes his abode at Nazareth in Galilee, under the milder government of Herod Antipas (19–23). Thus in the compass of this single chapter, we have five extraordinary interpositions of God; an anomalous star, and four visions. For the star and the first vision, we have already remarked, one miracle might have been substituted, not only without detriment, but with advantage; either the star or the vision might from the beginning have deterred the magi from going to Jerusalem, and by this means perhaps have averted the massacre ordained by Herod. But that the two last visions are not united in one is a mere superfluity; for the direction to Joseph to proceed to Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, which is made the object of a special vision, might just as well have been included in the first. Such a disregard, even to prodigality, of the lex parsimoniæ in relation to the miraculous, one is tempted to refer to human imagination rather than to divine providence.

The false interpretations of Old Testament passages in this chapter are crowned by the last verse, where it is said that by the settlement of the parents of Jesus at Nazareth was fulfilled the saying of the prophets: He shall be called a Nazarene. Now this passage is not to be found in the Old Testament, and unless expositors, losing courage, take refuge in darkness by supposing that it is extracted from a canonical [377] or apocryphal [378] book now lost, they must admit the conditional validity of one or other of the following charges against the evangelist. If, as it has been alleged, he intended to compress the Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be despised, into the oracular sentence, He shall be called a Nazarene, i.e. the citizen of a despised city, [379] we must accuse him of the most arbitrary mode of expression; or, if he be supposed to give a modification of נזיר (nasir) we must tax him with the most violent transformation of the word and the grossest perversion of its meaning, for even if, contrary to the fact, this epithet were applied to the Messiah in the Old Testament, it could only mean either that he would be a Nazarite, [380] which Jesus never was, or that he would be crowned, [381] as Joseph, Gen. xlix. 26, in no case that he would be brought up in the petty town of Nazareth. The most probable interpretation of this passage, and that which has the sanction of the Jewish Christians questioned on the subject by Jerome, is, that the evangelist here alludes to Isa. xi. 1, where the Messiah is called נֵעֶר יִשַׁי (surculus Jesse) as elsewhere צֶמַח. [382] But in every case there is the same violence done to the word by attaching to a mere appellative of the Messiah, an entirely fictitious relation to the name of the city of Nazareth.

§ 35.

ATTEMPTS AT A NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE MAGI. TRANSITION TO THE MYTHICAL EXPLANATION.

To avoid the many difficulties which beset us at every step in interpreting this chapter after the manner of the supranaturalists, it is quite worth our while to seek for another exposition which may suffice to explain the whole according to physical and psychological laws, without any admixture of supernaturalism. Such an exposition has been the most successfully attempted by Paulus.

How could heathen magi, in a remote country of the east, know anything of a Jewish king about to be born? This is the first difficulty, and it is removed on the above system of interpretation by supposing that the magi were expatriated Jews. But this, apparently, is not the idea of the evangelist.

For the question which he puts into the mouth of the magi, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” distinguishes them from that people, and as regards the tendency of the entire narrative, the church seems to have apprehended it more correctly than Paulus thinks, in representing the visit of the magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, as we have above remarked, this difficulty may be cleared away without having recourse to the supposition of Paulus.

Further, according to the natural explanation, the real object of the journey of these men was not to see the new-born king, nor was its cause the star which they had observed in the east; but they happened to be travelling to Jerusalem perhaps with mercantile views, and hearing far and wide in the land of a new-born king, a celestial phenomenon which they had recently observed occurred to their remembrance, and they earnestly desired to see the child in question. By this means, it is true, the difficulty arising from the sanction given to astrology by the usual conception of the story is diminished, but only at the expense of unprejudiced interpretation. For even if it were admissible unceremoniously to transform magi μάγους into merchants, their purpose in this journey cannot have been a commercial one, for their first inquiry on arriving at Jerusalem is after the new-born king, and they forthwith mention a star, seen by them in the east, as the cause not only of their question, but also of their present journey, the object of which they aver to be the presentation of their homage to the new-born child (v. 2).

The ἀστὴρ (star) becomes, on this method of interpretation, a natural meteor, or a comet, [383] or finally, a constellation, that is, a conjunction of planets. [384] The last idea was put forth by Kepler, and has been approved by several astronomers and theologians. Is it more easy, on any one of these suppositions, to conceive that the star could precede the magi on their way, and remain stationary over a particular house, according to the representation of the text? We have already examined the two first hypotheses; if we adopt the third, we must either suppose the verb προάγειν (v. 9) to signify the disjunction of the planets, previously in apparent union, [385] though the text does not imply a partition but a forward movement of the entire phenomenon; or we must call Süskind’s pluperfect to our aid, and imagine that the constellation, which the magi could no longer see in the valley between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, again burst on their view over the place where the child dwelt. [386] For the expression, ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον (v. 9), denotes merely the place of abode, not the particular dwelling of the child and his parents. This we grant; but when the evangelist proceeds thus: καὶ εἰσελθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, (v. 9), he gives the more general expression the precise meaning of dwelling-house, so that this explanation is clearly a vain effort to abate the marvellousness of the evangelical narrative.

The most remarkable supposition adopted by those who regard ἀστὴρ as a conjunction of planets, is that they hereby obtain a fixed point in accredited history, to which the narrative of Matthew may be attached. According to Kepler’s calculation, corrected by Ideler, there occurred, three years before the death of Herod, in the year of Rome 747, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign Pisces. The conjunction of these planets is repeated in the above sign, to which astrologers attribute a special relation to Palestine, about every 800 years, and according to the computation of the Jew Abarbanel (1463) it took place three years before the birth of Moses; hence it is probable enough that the hope of the second great deliverer of the nation would be associated with the recurrence of this conjunction in the time of Herod, and that when the phenomenon was actually observed, it would occasion inquiry on the part of Babylonian Jews. But that the star mentioned by Matthew was this particular planetary conjunction, is, from our uncertainty as to the year of Christ’s birth, and also as to the period of the above astrological calculation, an extremely precarious conjecture; and as, besides, there are certain particulars in the evangelical text, for instance, the words προῆγεν and ἔστη, which do not accord with such an explanation,—so soon as another, more congruous with Matthew’s narrative, presents itself, we are justified in giving it the preference.

The difficulties connected with the erroneous interpretations of passages from the Old Testament are, from the natural point of view, eluded by denying that the writers of the New Testament are responsible for the falsity of these interpretations. It is said that the prophecy of Micah is applied to the Messiah and his birth in Bethlehem by the Sanhedrim alone, and that Matthew has not committed himself to their interpretation by one word of approval. But when the evangelist proceeds to narrate how the issue corresponded with the interpretation, he sanctions it by the authoritative seal of fact. In relation to the passage from Hosea, Paulus and Steudel [387] concur in resorting to a singular expedient. Matthew, say they, wished to guard against the offence which it might possibly give to the Jews of Palestine to learn that the Messiah had once left the Holy Land; he therefore called attention to the fact that Israel, in one sense the first-born of God, had been called out of Egypt, for which reason, he would imply, no one ought to be astonished that the Messiah, the son of God in a higher sense, had also visited a profane land. But throughout the passage there is no trace [388] of such a negative, precautionary intention on the part of the evangelist in adducing this prophecy: on the contrary, all his quotations seem to have the positive object to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus by showing that in him the Old Testament prophecies had their fulfilment. It has been attempted with reference to the two other prophecies cited in this chapter, to reduce the signification of the verb πληρωθῆναι (to be fulfilled) to that of mere similitude or applicability; but the futility of the effort needs no exposure.

The various directions conveyed to the persons of our narrative by means of visions are, from the same point of view, all explained psychologically, as effects of waking inquiries and reflections. This appears, indeed, to be indicated by the text itself, v. 22, according to which Joseph, hearing that Archelaus was master of Judea, feared to go thither, and not until then did he receive an intimation from a higher source in a dream. Nevertheless, on a closer examination we find that the communication given in the dream was something new, not a mere repetition of intelligence received in waking moments. Only the negative conclusion, that on account of Archelaus it was not advisable to settle at Bethlehem, was attained by Joseph when awake; the positive injunction to proceed to Nazareth was superadded in his dream. To explain the other visions in the above way is a direct interpolation of the text, for this represents both the hostility and death of Herod as being first made known to Joseph by dreams; in like manner, the magi have no distrust of Herod until a dream warns them against his treachery.

Thus, on the one hand, the sense of the narrative in Matt. ii. is opposed to the conception of its occurrence as natural; on the other hand, this narrative, taken in its original sense, carries the supernatural into the extravagant, the improbable into the impossible. We are therefore led to doubt the historical character of the narrative, and to conjecture that we have before us something mythical. The first propounders of this opinion were so unsuccessful in its illustration, that they never liberated themselves from the sphere of the natural interpretation, which they sought to transcend. Arabian merchants (thinks Krug, for example) coming by chance to Bethlehem, met with the parents of Jesus, and learning that they were strangers in distress (according to Matthew, the parents of Jesus were not strangers in Bethlehem), made them presents, uttered many good wishes for their child, and pursued their journey. When subsequently, Jesus was reputed to be the Messiah, the incident was remembered and embellished with a star, visions, and believing homage. To these were added the flight into Egypt and the infanticide; the latter, because the above incident was supposed to have had some effect on Herod, who, on other grounds than those alleged in the text, had caused some families in Bethlehem to be put to death; the former, probably because Jesus had, with some unknown object, actually visited Egypt at a later period. [389]

In this, as in the purely naturalistic interpretation, there remain as so many garb, the arrival of some oriental travellers, the flight into Egypt, and the massacre in Bethlehem; divested, however, of the marvellous garb with which they are enveloped in the evangelical narrative. In this unadorned form, these occurrences are held to be intelligible and such as might very probably happen, but in point of fact they are more incomprehensible even than when viewed through the medium of orthodoxy, for with their supernatural embellishments vanishes the entire basis on which they rest. Matthew’s narrative adequately accounts for the relations between the men of the east and the parents of Jesus; this attempt at mythical exposition reduces them to a wonderful chance. The massacre at Bethlehem has, in the evangelical narrative, a definite cause; here, we are at a loss to understand how Herod came to ordain such an enormity; so, the journey into Egypt, which had so urgent a motive according to Matthew, is on this scheme of interpretation totally inexplicable. It may indeed be said: these events had their adequate causes in accordance with the regular course of things, but Matthew has withheld this natural sequence and given a miraculous one in its stead. But if the writer or legend be capable of environing occurrences with fictitious motives and accessory circumstances, either the one or the other is also capable of fabricating the occurrences themselves, and this fabrication is the more probable, the more clearly we can show that the legend had an interest in depicting such occurrences, though they had never actually taken place.

This argument is equally valid against the attempt, lately made from the supranaturalistic point of view, to separate the true from the false in the evangelical narrative. In a narrative like this, says Neander, we must carefully distinguish the kernel from the shell, the main fact from immaterial circumstances, and not demand the same degree of certitude for all its particulars. That the magi by their astrological researches were led to anticipate the birth of a Saviour in Judea, and hence journeyed to Jerusalem that they might offer him their homage is, according to him, the only essential and certain part of the narrative. But how, when arrived in Jerusalem, did they learn that the child was to be born in Bethlehem? From Herod, or by some other means? On this point Neander is not equally willing to guarantee the veracity of Matthew’s statements, and he regards it as unessential. The magi, he continues, in so inconsiderable a place as Bethlehem, might be guided to the child’s dwelling by many providential arrangements in the ordinary course of events; for example, by meeting with the shepherds or other devout persons who had participated in the great event. When however they had once entered the house, they might represent the circumstances in the astrological guise with which their minds were the most familiar. Neander awards an historical character to the flight into Egypt and the infanticide. [390] By this explanation of the narrative, only its heaviest difficulty, namely, that the star preceded the magi on their way and paused above a single house, is in reality thrown overboard; the other difficulties remain. But Neander has renounced unlimited confidence in the veracity of the evangelist, and admitted that a part of his narrative is unhistorical. If it be asked how far this unhistorical portion extends, and what is its kind—whether the nucleus around which legend has deposited its crystallizations be historical or ideal—it is easy to show that the few and vague data which a less lenient criticism than that of Neander can admit as historical, are far less adapted to give birth to our narrative, than the very precise circle of ideas and types which we are about to exhibit.

§ 36.

THE PURELY MYTHICAL EXPLANATION OF THE NARRATIVE CONCERNING THE MAGI, AND OF THE EVENTS WITH WHICH IT IS CONNECTED.

Several Fathers of the Church indicated the true key to the narrative concerning the magi when, in order to explain from what source those heathen astrologers could gather any knowledge of a Messianic star, they put forth the conjecture that this knowledge might have been drawn from the prophecies of the heathen Balaam, recorded in the Book of Numbers. [391] K. Ch. L. Schmidt justly considers it a deficiency in the exposition of Paulus, that it takes no notice of the Jewish expectation that a star would become visible at the appearance of the Messiah; and yet, he adds, this is the only thread to guide us to the true origin of this narrative. [392] The prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 17), A star shall come out of Jacob, was the cause—not indeed, as the Fathers supposed, that magi actually recognized a newly-kindled star as that of the Messiah, and hence journeyed to Jerusalem—but that legend represented a star to have appeared at the birth of Jesus, and to have been recognized by astrologers as the star of the Messiah. The prophecy attributed to Balaam originally referred to some fortunate and victorious ruler of Israel; but it seems to have early received a Messianic interpretation. Even if the translation in the Targum of Onkelos, surget rex ex Jacobo et Messias (unctus) ungetur ex Israele, prove nothing, because here the word unctus is synonymous with rex, and might signify an ordinary king—it is yet worthy of notice that, according to the testimony of Aben Ezra, [393] and the passages cited by Wetstein and Schöttgen, many rabbins applied the prophecy to the Messiah. The name Bar-Cocheba (son of a star), assumed by a noted pseudo-Messiah under Hadrian, was chosen with reference to the Messianic interpretation of Balaam’s prophecy.

It is true that the passage in question, taken in its original sense, does not speak of a real star, but merely compares to a star the future prince of Israel, and this is the interpretation given to it in the Targum above quoted. But the growing belief in astrology, according to which every important event was signalized by sidereal changes, soon caused the prophecy of Balaam to be understood no longer figuratively, but literally, as referring to a star which was to appear contemporaneously with the Messiah. We have various proofs that a belief in astrology was prevalent in the time of Jesus. The future greatness of Mithridates was thought to be prognosticated by the appearance of a comet in the year of his birth, and in that of his accession to the throne [394]; and a comet observed shortly after the death of Julius Cæsar, was supposed to have a close relation to that event. [395] These ideas were not without influence on the Jews; at least we find traces of them in Jewish writings of a later period, in which it is said that a remarkable star appeared at the birth of Abraham. [396] When such ideas were afloat, it was easy to imagine that the birth of the Messiah must be announced by a star, especially as, according to the common interpretation of Balaam’s prophecy, a star was there made the symbol of the Messiah. It is certain that the Jewish mind effected this combination; for it is a rabbinical idea that at the time of the Messiah’s birth, a star will appear in the east and remain for a long time visible. [397] The narrative of Matthew is allied to this simpler Jewish idea; the apocryphal descriptions of the star that announced the birth of Jesus, to the extravagant fictions about the star said to have appeared in the time of Abraham. [398] We may therefore state the opinion of K. Ch. L. Schmidt, [399] recently approved by Fritzsche and De Wette, as the nearest approach to truth on the subject of Matthew’s star in the east. In the time of Jesus it was the general belief that stars were always the forerunners of great events; hence the Jews of that period thought that the birth of the Messiah would necessarily be announced by a star, and this supposition had a specific sanction in Num. xxiv. 17. The early converted Jewish Christians could confirm their faith in Jesus, and justify it in the eyes of others, only by labouring to prove that in him were realized all the attributes lent to the Messiah by the Jewish notions of their age—a proposition that might be urged the more inoffensively and with the less chance of refutation, the more remote lay the age of Jesus, and the more completely the history of his childhood was shrouded in darkness. Hence it soon ceased to be matter of doubt that the anticipated appearance of a star was really coincident with the birth of Jesus. [400] This being once presupposed, it followed as a matter of course that the observers of this appearance were eastern magi; first, because none could better interpret the sign than astrologers, and the east was supposed to be the native region of their science; and secondly, because it must have seemed fitting that the Messianic star which had been seen by the spiritual eye of the ancient magus Balaam, should, on its actual appearance be first recognized by the bodily eyes of later magi.

This particular, however, as well as the journey of the magi into Judea, and their costly presents to the child, bear a relation to other passages in the Old Testament. In the description of the happier future, given in Isaiah, chap. lx., the prophet foretells that, at that time, the most remote people and kings will come to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah, with offerings of gold and incense and all acceptable gifts. [401] If in this passage the messianic times alone are spoken of, while the Messiah himself is wanting, in Psalm lxxii. we read of a king who is to be feared as long as the sun and moon endure, in whose times the righteous shall flourish, and whom all nations shall call blessed; this king might easily be regarded as the Messiah, and the Psalm says of him nearly in the words of Isa. lx., that foreign kings shall bring him gold and other presents. To this it may be added, that the pilgrimage of foreign people to Jerusalem is connected with a risen light, [402] which might suggest the star of Balaam. What was more natural, when on the one hand was presented Balaam’s messianic star out of Jacob (for the observation of which magian astrologers were the best adapted); on the other, a light which was to arise on Jerusalem, and to which distant nations would come, bringing gifts—than to combine the two images and to say: In consequence of the star which had risen over Jerusalem, astrologers came from a distant land with presents for the Messiah whom the star announced? But when the imagination once had possession of the star, and of travellers attracted by it from a distance, there was an inducement to make the star the immediate guide of their course, and the torch to light them on their way. This was a favourite idea of antiquity: according to Virgil, a star, stella facem ducens, marked out the way of Æneas from the shores of Troy to the west [403]; Thrasybulus and Timoleon were led by celestial fires; and a star was said to have guided Abraham on his way to Moriah. [404] Besides, in the prophetic passage itself, the heavenly light seems to be associated with the pilgrimage of the offerers as the guide of their course; at all events the originally figurative language of the prophet would probably, at a later period, be understood literally, in accordance with the rabbinical spirit of interpretation. The magi are not conducted by the star directly to Bethlehem where Jesus was; they first proceed to Jerusalem. One reason for this might be, that the prophetic passage connects the risen light and the offerers with Jerusalem; but the chief reason lies in the fact, that in Jerusalem Herod was to be found; for what was better adapted to instigate Herod to his murderous decree, than the alarming tidings of the magi, that they had seen the star of the great Jewish king?

To represent a murderous decree as having been directed by Herod against Jesus, was the interest of the primitive christian legend. In all times legend has glorified the infancy of great men by persecutions and attempts on their life; the greater the danger that hovered over them, the higher seems their value; the more unexpectedly their deliverance is wrought, the more evident is the esteem in which they are held by heaven. Hence in the history of the childhood of Cyrus in Herodotus, of Romulus in Livy, [405] and even later of Augustus in Suetonius, [406] we find this trait; neither has the Hebrew legend neglected to assign such a distinction to Moses. [407] One point of analogy between the narrative in Exod. i., ii., and that in Matthew, is that in both cases the murderous decree does not refer specially to the one dangerous child, but generally to a certain class of children; in the former, to all new-born males, in the latter to all of and under the age of two years. It is true that, according to the narrative in Exodus, the murderous decree is determined on without any reference to Moses, of whose birth Pharaoh is not supposed to have had any presentiment, and who is therefore only by accident implicated in its consequences. But this representation did not sufficiently mark out Moses as the object of hostile design to satisfy the spirit of Hebrew tradition, and by the time of Josephus it had been so modified as to resemble more nearly the legends concerning Cyrus and Augustus, and above all the narrative of Matthew. According to the later legend, Pharaoh was incited to issue his murderous decree by a communication from his interpreters of the sacred writings, who announced to him the birth of an infant destined to succour the Israelites and humble the Egyptians. [408] The interpreters of the sacred writings here play the same part as the interpreters of dreams in Herodotus, and the astrologers in Matthew. Legend was not content with thus signalizing the infancy of the lawgiver alone—it soon extended the same distinction to the great progenitor of the Israelitish nation, Abraham, whom it represented as being in peril of his life from the murderous attempt of a jealous tyrant, immediately after his birth. Moses was opposed to Pharaoh as an enemy and oppressor; Abraham held the same position with respect to Nimrod. This monarch was forewarned by his sages, whose attention had been excited by a remarkable star, that Tharah would have a son from whom a powerful nation would descend. Apprehensive of rivalry, Nimrod immediately issues a murderous command, which, however, Abraham happily escapes. [409] What wonder then, that, as the great progenitor and the lawgiver of the nation had their Nimrod and Pharaoh, a corresponding persecutor was found for the restorer of the nation, the Messiah, in the person of Herod;—that this tyrant was said to have been apprised of the Messiah’s birth by wise men, and to have laid snares against his life, from which, however, he happily escapes? The apocryphal legend, indeed, has introduced an imitation of this trait, after its own style, into the history of the Forerunner; he, too, is endangered by Herod’s decree, a mountain is miraculously cleft asunder to receive him and his mother, but his father refusing to point out the boy’s hiding place, is put to death. [410]

Jesus escapes from the hostile attempts of Herod by other means than those by which Moses, according to the mosaic history, and Abraham, according to the Jewish legend, elude the decree issued against them; namely, by a flight out of his native land into Egypt. In the life of Moses also there occurs a flight into a foreign land; not, however, during his childhood, but after he had slain the Egyptian, when, fearing the vengeance of Pharaoh, he takes refuge in Midian (Exod. ii. 15). That reference was made to this flight of the first Goël in that of the second, our text expressly shows, for the words, which it attributes to the angel, who encourages Joseph to return out of Egypt into Palestine, are those by which Moses is induced to return out of Midian into Egypt. [411] The choice of Egypt as a place of refuge for Jesus, may be explained in the simplest manner: the young Messiah could not, like Moses, flee out of Egypt; hence, that his history might not be destitute of so significant a feature as a connexion with Egypt, that ancient retreat of the patriarchs, the relation was reversed, and he was made to flee into Egypt, which, besides, from its vicinity, was the most appropriate asylum for a fugitive from Judea. The prophetic passage which the evangelist cites from Hosea xi. 1, Out of Egypt have I called my son—is less available for the elucidation of this particular in our narrative. For the immediate proofs that the Jews referred this passage to the Messiah are very uncertain; [412] though, if we compare such passages as Ps. ii. 7, in which the words בְּנִי אַתָּה (thou art my son) are interpreted of the Messiah, it cannot appear incredible that the expression לִבְנִי (my son) in Hosea was supposed to have a messianic signification.

Against this mythical derivation of the narrative, two objections have been recently urged. First, if the history of the star originated in Balaam’s prophecy, why, it is asked, does not Matthew, fond as he is of showing the fulfilment of Old Testament predictions in the life of Jesus, make the slightest allusion to that prophecy? [413] Because it was not he who wove this history out of the materials furnished in the Old Testament; he received it, already fashioned, from others, who did not communicate to him its real origin. For the very reason that many narratives were transmitted to him without their appropriate keys, he sometimes tries false ones; as in our narrative, in relation to the Bethlehem massacre, he quotes, under a total misconception of the passage, Jeremiah’s image of Rachel weeping for her children. [414] The other objection is this: how could the communities of Jewish Christians, whence this pretended mythus must have sprung, ascribe so high an importance to the heathen as is implied in the star of the magi? [415] As if the prophets had not, in such passages as we have quoted, already ascribed to them this importance, which, in fact, consists but in their rendering homage and submission to the Messiah, a relation that must be allowed to correspond with the ideas of the Jewish Christians, not to speak of the particular conditions on which the heathen were to be admitted into the kingdom of the Messiah.

We must therefore abide by the mythical interpretation of our narrative, and content ourselves with gathering from it no particular fact in the life of Jesus, but only a new proof how strong was the impression of his messiahship left by Jesus on the minds of his contemporaries, since even the history of his childhood received a messianic form. [416]

Let us now revert to the narrative of Luke, chap. ii., so far as it runs parallel with that of Matthew. We have seen that the narrative of Matthew does not allow us to presuppose that of Luke as a series of prior incidents: still less can the converse be true, namely, that the magi arrived before the shepherds: it remains then to be asked, whether the two narratives do not aim to represent the same fact, though they have given it a different garb? From the older orthodox opinion that the star in Matthew was an angel, it was an easy step to identify that apparition with the angel in Luke, and to suppose that the angels, who appeared to the shepherds of Bethlehem on the night of the birth of Jesus, were taken by the distant magi for a star vertical to Judea, [417] so that both the accounts might be essentially correct. Of late, only one of the Evangelists has been supposed to give the true circumstances, and Luke has had the preference, Matthew’s narrative being regarded as an embellished edition.

According to this opinion, the angel clothed in heavenly brightness, in Luke, became a star in the tradition recorded by Matthew, the ideas of angels and stars being confounded in the higher Jewish theology; the shepherds were exalted into royal magi, kings being in antiquity called the shepherds of their people. [418] This derivation is too elaborate to be probable, even were it true, as it is here assumed, that Luke’s narrative bears the stamp of historical credibility. As, however, we conceive that we have proved the contrary, and as, consequently, we have before us two equally unhistorical narratives, there is no reason for preferring a forced and unnatural derivation of Matthew’s narrative from that of Luke, to the very simple derivation which may be traced through Old Testament passages and Jewish notions. These two descriptions of the introduction of Jesus into the world, are, therefore, two variations on the same theme, composed, however, quite independently of each other.

§ 37.

CHRONOLOGICAL RELATION BETWEEN THE VISIT OF THE MAGI, TOGETHER WITH THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, AND THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE RECORDED BY LUKE.

It has been already remarked, that the narratives of Matthew and Luke above considered at first run tolerably parallel, but afterwards widely diverge; for instead of the tragical catastrophe of the massacre and flight, Luke has preserved to us the peaceful scene of the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple. Let us for the present shut our eyes to the result of the preceding inquiry—the purely mythical character of Matthew’s narrative—and ask: In what chronological relation could the presentation in the temple stand to the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt?

Of these occurrences the only one that has a precise date is the presentation in the temple, of which it is said that it took place at the expiration of the period appointed by the law for the purification of a mother, that is, according to Lev. xii. 2–4, forty days after the birth of the child (Luke ii. 22). The time of the other incidents is not fixed with the same exactness; it is merely said that the magi came to Jerusalem, τοῦ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν Βηθλεὲμ (Matt. ii. 1)—how long after the birth the Evangelist does not decide. As, however, the participle connects the visit of the magi with the birth of the child, if not immediately, at least so closely that nothing of importance can be supposed to have intervened, some expositors have been led to the opinion that the visit ought to be regarded as prior to the presentation in the temple. [419] Admitting this arrangement, we have to reconcile it with one of two alternatives; either the flight into Egypt also preceded the presentation in the temple; or, while the visit of the magi preceded, the flight followed that event. If we adopt the latter alternative, and thrust the presentation in the temple between the visit of the magi and the flight, we come into collision at once with the text of Matthew and the mutual relation of the facts. The Evangelist connects the command to flee into Egypt with the return of the magi, by a participial construction (v. 13) similar to that by which he connects the arrival of the oriental sages with the birth of Jesus; hence those, who in the one instance hold such a construction to be a reason for placing the events which it associates in close succession, must in the other instance be withheld by it from inserting a third occurrence between the visit and the flight. As regards the mutual relation of the facts, it can hardly be considered probable, that at the very point of time in which Joseph received a divine intimation, that he was no longer safe in Bethlehem from the designs of Herod, he should be permitted to take a journey to Jerusalem, and thus to rush directly into the lion’s mouth. At all events, the strictest precautions must have been enjoined on all who were privy to the presence of the messianic child in Jerusalem, lest a rumour of the fact should get abroad. But there is no trace of this solicitous incognito in Luke’s narrative; on the contrary, not only does Simeon call attention to Jesus in the temple, unchecked either by the Holy Spirit or by the parents, but Anna also thinks she is serving the good cause, by publishing as widely as possible the tidings of the Messiah’s birth (Luke ii. 28 ff., 38). It is true that she is said to have confined her communications to those who were like-minded with herself (ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ πᾶσι τοῖς προσδεχομένοις λύτρωσιν ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ), but this could not hinder them from reaching the ears of the Herodian party, for the greater the excitement produced by such news on the minds of those who looked for redemption, the more would the vigilance of the government be aroused, so that Jesus would inevitably fall into the hands of the tyrant who was lying in wait.

Thus in any case, they who place the presentation in the temple after the visit of the magi, must also determine to postpone it until after the return from Egypt. But even this arrangement clashes with the evangelical statement; for it requires us to insert, between the birth of Jesus and his presentation in the temple, the following events: the arrival of the magi, the flight into Egypt, the Bethlehem massacre, the death of Herod, and the return of the parents of Jesus out of Egypt—obviously too much to be included in the space of forty days. It must therefore be supposed that the presentation of the child, and the first appearance of the mother in the temple, were procrastinated beyond the time appointed by the law. This expedient, however, runs counter to the narrative of Luke, who expressly says, that the visit to the temple took place at the legal time. But in either case the difficulty is the same; the parents of Jesus could, according to Matthew’s account, as little think of a journey to Jerusalem after their return from Egypt, as immediately previous to their departure thither. For if Joseph, on his return from Egypt, was warned not to enter Judea, because Archelaus was Herod’s successor in that province, he would least of all venture to Jerusalem, the very seat of the redoubted government.

On neither of the above plans, therefore, will the presentation in the temple bear to be placed after the visit of the magi, and the only remaining alternative, which is embraced by the majority of commentators, [420] is to make the incident noticed by Luke, precede both those narrated by Matthew. This is so far the most natural, that in Matthew there is at least an indirect intimation of a considerable interval between the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the magi. For we are told that Herod’s decree included all the children in Bethlehem up to the age of two years; we must therefore necessarily infer, that even if Herod, to make sure of his object, exceeded the term fixed by the magi, the star had been visible to these astrologers for more than a year. Now the narrator seems to suppose the appearance of the star to have been cotemporary with the birth of Jesus. Viewing the narratives in this order, the parents of Jesus first journeyed from Bethlehem, where the child was born, to Jerusalem, there to present the legal offerings; they next returned to Bethlehem, where (according to Matt. ii. 1 and 5) they were found by the magi; then followed the flight into Egypt, and after the return from thence, the settlement at Nazareth. The first and most urgent question that here suggests itself is this: What had the parents of Jesus to do a second time in Bethlehem, which was not their home, and where their original business connected with the census must surely have been despatched in the space of forty days? The discussion of this question must be deferred, but we can find an ample substitute for this argument, drawn from the nature of the fact, in one which rests on the words of the evangelical narrative. Luke (v. 39) says, in the most definite manner, that after the completion of the legal observance, the parents of Jesus returned to Nazareth, as to their proper home, not to Bethlehem, which, according to him, was merely a temporary residence. [421] If, then, the magi arrived after the presentation in the temple, they must have met with the parents of Jesus in Nazareth, and not in Bethlehem, as Matthew states. Moreover, had the arrival of the magi really been preceded by the presentation in the temple, together with the attention which must have been excited by the language of Simeon and Anna; it is impossible that at the period of that arrival the birth of the messianic child could have been so much a secret in Jerusalem, that the announcement of it by the magi should be, as Matthew relates, a source of general astonishment. [422]

If, then, the presentation of Jesus in the temple can have taken place neither earlier nor later than the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt; and if the flight into Egypt can have taken place neither earlier nor later than the presentation in the temple; it is impossible that both these occurrences really happened, and, at the very utmost, only one can be historical. [423]

To escape from this dangerous dilemma, supranaturalism has lately been induced to take a freer position, that by the surrender of what is no longer tenable, the residue may be saved. Neander finds himself constrained to admit, that neither did Luke know anything of what Matthew communicates concerning the childhood of Jesus, nor did the Greek editor of Matthew (to be distinguished from the apostle) know anything of the events detailed by Luke. But, he contends, it does not therefore follow that both the different series of incidents cannot have happened. [424] By giving this turn to the matter, the difficulties arising from the words of the Evangelist are certainly avoided; not so, the difficulties arising from the nature of the facts. The first Evangelist ranges in close succession the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt, as though no change of place had intervened; the author of the third Gospel represents the parents of Jesus as returning with the child, after the presentation in the temple, directly to Nazareth. We cannot, on this ground, argue from one evangelist against the other; for it is inadmissible to maintain that certain events never happened, because they were unknown to a remote narrator. But viewing the two narratives in another light, we perceive how improbable it is that, after the scene in the temple, the birth of the messianic child should be so entirely unknown in Jerusalem as the conduct of Herod on the arrival of the magi implies; how incredible (reversing the order of the events) that Joseph should be permitted to go to Jerusalem, with the child which Herod had just sought to kill; how inconceivable, finally, that the parents of Jesus should have returned to Bethlehem after the presentation in the temple (of which more hereafter). All these difficulties, lying in the nature of the facts, difficulties not less weighty than those connected with the words of the Evangelists, still subsist in Neander’s explanation, and prove its inadequacy.

Thus the dilemma above stated remains, and were we compelled to choose under it, we should, in the present stage of our inquiry, on no account decide in favour of Matthew’s narrative, and against that of Luke; on the contrary, as we have recognized the mythical character of the former, we should have no resource but to adhere, with our modern critics, [425] to the narrative of Luke, and surrender that of Matthew. But is not Luke’s narrative of the same nature as that of Matthew, and instead of having to choose between the two, must we not deny to both an historical character? The answer to this question will be found in the succeeding examination.

§ 38.

THE PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE.

The narrative of the presentation of Jesus in the temple (Luke ii. 22) seems, at the first glance, to bear a thoroughly historical stamp. A double law, on the one hand, prescribing to the mother an offering of purification, on the other, requiring the redemption of the first-born son, leads the parents of Jesus to Jerusalem and to the temple. Here they meet with a devout man, absorbed in the expectation of the Messiah, named Simeon. Many expositors hold this Simeon to be the same with the Rabbi Simeon, the son of Hillel, his successor as president of the Sanhedrim, and the father of Gamaliel; some even identify him with the Sameas of Josephus, [426] and attach importance to his pretended descent from David, because this descent makes him a relative of Jesus, and helps to explain the following scene naturally; but this hypothesis is improbable, for Luke would hardly have introduced so celebrated a personage by the meagre designation, ἄνθρωπός τις, (a certain man). [427] Without this hypothesis, however, the scene between the parents of Jesus and Simeon, as also the part played by Anna the prophetess, seems to admit of a very natural explanation. There is no necessity for supposing, with the author of the Natural History, [428] that Simeon was previously aware of the hope cherished by Mary that she was about to give birth to the Messiah; we need only, with Paulus and others, conceive the facts in the following manner. Animated, like many of that period, with the hope of the speedy advent of the Messiah, Simeon receives, probably in a dream, the assurance that before his death he will be permitted to see the expected deliverer of his nation. One day, in obedience to an irresistible impulse, he visited the temple, and on this very day Mary brought thither her child, whose beauty at once attracted his notice; on learning the child’s descent from David, the attention and interest of Simeon were excited to a degree that induced Mary to disclose to him the hopes which were reposed on this scion of ancient royalty, with the extraordinary occurrences by which they had been called into existence. These hopes Simeon embraced with confidence, and in enthusiastic language gave utterance to his messianic expectations and forebodings, under the conviction that they would be fulfilled in this child. Still less do we need the supposition of the author of the Natural History with respect to Anna, namely, that she was one of the women who assisted at the birth of the infant Jesus, and was thus acquainted beforehand with the marvels and the hopes that had clustered round his cradle; she had heard the words of Simeon, and being animated by the same sentiments, she gave them her approval.