Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (710 page)

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Authors: George Eliot

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* K. Ch. L. Schmidt, exeg. Beitriige, 1, S. 150 f. Comp. Fritzsche and De Wetle in loc. f IIofi’mann thinks that Herod shunned this measure as a breach of hospitality; yet tills very Herod he represents as a monster of cruelty, and that justly, for tlie conduct attributed to tlie monarch in chap. ii. of Matth. is not unworthy of his heart, against which
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‘- -’’ t-=- 1..-...4+ Q,,LmiiU lit. aim. n. 155 f.
 
BIRTH AND EAKLY LIFE OF JESUS.
 
161
 
The magi leave Jerusalem by night, the favourite time for travelling in tlie cast. The star, which tlicy seem to have lost siglit of since their departure from home, again appears and goes before them on the road to Bethlehem, until at length it remains stationary over tlie house that contains the wondrous child and its parents.
The way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem lies southward; now tlie true path of erratic stars is either from west to east, as tliat of tlie planets and of some comets, or from east to west, as that of other comets; the orbits of many comets do indeed tend from north to south, but tlie true motion of all these bodies is so ereativ surpassed by their apparent motion from east to west produced by the rotation of tlie earth on its axis, that it is imperceptible except at considerable intervals. Even tlie diurnal movement of tlie heavenly bodies, however, is less obvious on a short journey than the merely optical one, arising from the observer’s own change of place, in consequence of which a star that he sees before him seems, as long as he moves forward, to pass on in tlie same direction through infinite space; it cannot therefore stand still over a particular house and thus induce a traveller to halt tlicre also; on. tlie contrary, tlie traveller liimself must halt before tlic star will appear stationary. Tlie star of the magi could not then be an ordinary, natural star, but must have been one created by God for that particular exigency, and impressed .by him with a peculiar law7 of motion and rest.* Again, this could not have been a true star, moving among tlie systems of our firmament, for such an one, however impelled and arrested, could never, according to optical laws, appear to pause over a particular liouse.
It must therefore have been something lower, hovering over the earth’s surface: lience some of tlie Fathers and apocryphal writers!
supposed it to have been an angel, which, doubtless, might fly before the magi in the form of a star, and take its station at a moderate lieiglit above tlie house of Mary in Bethlehem; more modem theologians have conjectured that the phenomenon was a meteor.^:
 
Botli these explanations are opposed to the text of Matthew: the former, because it is out of keeping with the style of our Gospels to designate any thing purely’ supernatural, such as an anp-clic appearance, by an expression that implies a merely iiatural object, as darflp (a star’); tlie latter, because a mere meteor would not last for so long a time as must have elapsed between tlie departure of the magi from their remote home and their arrival in Bethlehem. Perhaps, however, it will be contended that God created one meteor for the first monition, and another for the second.
 
Many, even of tlie orthodox expositors, liave found tliese difficulties in relation to tlic star so pressing, that they have striven to escape at any cost from tlie admission that, it preceded the magi in their way towards Bethlehem, and took its station directly over a
* This was the opinion of some of the Fathers, e. g. Euseb. Demonstr. evang. 9, ap.
Suicer, 1, S. 559; Joann. Damasc. de fide orthod. ii. 7.f Chrysostomus and others ap.
 
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
particular house.
 
According to Suskind, whose explanation has been much approved, tlie verb -^poTjyEv (went before) (v. 9) which is in the imperfect tense, docs not signify that the star visibly led th”
magi on tlieir way, but is equivalent to the pluperfect, which would imply tliat. tlie star liad been invisibly transferred to the destination of tlie ma^-i before their arrival, so that tlie Evangelist intends to say: the star which tlie magi liad seen in the east and subsequently lost sigl’.t of, suddenly made its appearance to them in Bethlehem above the house they were seeking; it liad therefore preceded them.*
But thia is a transplantation of rationalistic artifice into the soil of orthodox exegesis.
 
Not only tlie word -rpo»)yev, but tlie less flexible expressions e^c iA-Swv it. r. X. {till if. came, &c.) denotes that tlie transit of the stai\was not an already completed phenomenon, but one brought to pass under tlie observation of tlie magi. Expositors who pcrsL?t in denying tills must, to t»e consistent, go still farther, and reduce the entire narrative to tlie standard of merely natural events.
 
So when Olshauson admits that the position of a star could not possibly indicate a single house, that hence the magi must have inquired for the infant’s dwelling, and only with child-like simplicity referred tlie issue as well as tlie commencement ot tlieir journey to a, heavenly guide :f lie deserts his own point of view for that of tlie rationalist?, and interlines the text witli explanatory particulars, an expedient wliieli lie elsewhere justly condemns in Paulas and others.
 
Tlie magi then enter tlie house, offer tlieir adoration to tlie infant, and present to him gifts, the productions of tlieir native country.
One might wonder tliat there is no notice of tlie astonishment wliieli it must have excited in these men to find, instead of the expected prince, a child in quite ordinary, perhaps indigent circumstances, j:
 
It is not fair, however, to heighten tlie contrast by supposing, accordin”‘ to the common notion, that the mao’i discovered the cliild in
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a stable lying in tlie manger; for this representation is peculiar to Luke, and is altogether unknown to Matthew, who merely speaks of a house, olnia, in which tlie cliild was found. Then follows (v. 10.)
the warnin”‘ given to tlie magi in a dream, concerning wliieli, as before remarked, it were only to he wislied tliat it had been vouchsafed earlier, so as to avert tlie steps of tlie magi from Jerusalem, and thus perchance prevent the whole subsequent massacre.
 
While Herod awaits tlie return of the magi, Joseph is admonished by an angelic apparition in a dream to rice witli tlie Messianic child and its mother into Egypt for security (v. 13--15.).
Adopting the evangelist’s point of view, this is not attended witli any difiiculty: it is otherwise, however, witli the prophecy which the above event is said to fulfil, Hosea, xi. 1. In tills passage the prophet, speaking in tlie name of Jehovah, says: When Israel was a child, then. I loved him, and called IWJ son out of Egypt.
We may venture to attribute, even to the most orthodox expositor,
BIETH AND EARLY LIFE OF JESL-S.163
 
enough clear-siglitedness to perceive that the subject of tlie first half of tlie sentence is also tlie object of the second, namely tlie poepic of Israel, wlio here, as elsewhere, (e. g. Exod. iv. 22. Sirach xxxvi, 14.) arc collectively called tlie Son of God, and wliose past deliverance under Moses out of tlieir Egyptian bondage is the fact referred to: tliat consequently, the prophet was not contemplating either tlie Messiah or his sojourn in Egvpt.
 
Nevertheless as our evangelist says, v. 15. tliat the flight of Jesus into Egypt took place expressly tliat the above words of Hosea, might be fulnlted, he must have understood them a,s a prophecy relating to Christ-must, therefore, have misunderstood them.
 
It lias been pretended tliat tlie passage lias a iwofold application, and, though referring primarily to the Israchtish pocple, is not tlie less a prophecy relative to Christ, because the destiny of Israel “after the flesh” was a type of the distiny of Jesus. But tills convenient method of interpretation is not applicable here, for tlie analogy would, in tlie present case, he altogether external and inane, since the only parallel consists in tlie bare fact in botli instances of a sojourn in Egypt, tlie circumstances under which the Israel itish pocple and the child Jesus sojourned there being altogether diverse.*
 
W^icn tlie return of tlie magi lias been delayed long enough for Herod to become aware tliat they have no intention to keep faith witli him, lie decrees tlie death of all tlie 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 tlie tune of the star’s appearance, the utmost interval that could have elapsed since tlie birth of the Messianic cliild. (16-18.) Tin’s was, beyond all question, an act of tlie blindest fury, for Herod might easily have informed himself whether a cliild who liad received rare and costly presents was yet to be found in Bethlehem : but even granting it not inconsistent witli the disposition of the aged tvrant to the extent tliat Schleiermaclier supposed, it were in any case to be expected tliat so unprecedented and revolting a massacre would be noticed by other historians than Matthew, f But neither Jo::cphus, who is very minute in Ins account of Herod, nor the rabbins, who were assiduous in blackening his memory, give tlie silghte.st hint of this decree. The latter do, indeed, connect, tlio High; of Jesus into Egypt with a murderous scene, the author of which, however, is not Herod but King Janna’uM, and tlie victims not children, but rabbins. \ Their story is evidently founded on a confusion of the occurrence gathered from the Christian history, with an earlier event; for Alexander Jannseus died ^40 years before tlie birth of Christ. Macrobius, who lived in tlie fourth century, is tlie only author wdio notices tlie slaughter of the infants, and lie introduces it obliquely in a passage which loses all credit by confounding the execution of Antipater, who was so far
* llns is shown in opposition to Olshauaen liv Stenrtrl in Brnp-l’s Archiv. vii. ii.
*-> f. viii, iii. 4S7.
 
•;- ycliinidt, lit sup, p. l.-iO.”
} B.iliylon. Sanhcilr. f. cvii, 2, ap.
^IR’htt’uot. u. Wl. Cniiin S,.l.,.lt,wn ii n .-i’t:^ A rrnrflills.- 10 JoarllllllS Antici. xiii. xiii.
 
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
from a child tliat lie complained of his grey hairs,* with tlie murder of the infants, renowned among the. Christians.!
 
Commentators have attempted to diminish our surprise at, the remarkable silence in question, by reminding us tliat the number of children of the given age in the petty village of Bethlehem, must have been small, and by remarking tliat 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. \ But in tliese observations tlie specific atrocity of murdering innocent children, however few, is overlooked;
 
and it is tills that must liave prevented tlie deed, if really perpetrated, from being forgotten. § Here also the evangelist cites (v. 17, 18) a prophetic passage (Jerem. xxxi. 15), as having been fulfilled by tlie murder of the infants ; whereas it originally referred to sometiling 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 Judasa, was to be feared, he has more precise directions in a second oracular dream, in obedience to which lie fixes his abode at Nazareth in Galilee, under tlie 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 tlie vision might from tlie beginning have deterred the magi from going to Jerusalem, and by this means perhaps have averted tlie massacre ordained by Herod. But tliat the two last visions are not united in one is a mere superfluity; for tlie 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 parsimonies in relation to the miraculous, one is tempted to refer to human imagination

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