A4 - The Wise Men and the Flight into Egypt

HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE FRAMEWORK

Hardly any biblical narrative has so caught the imagination or stimulated so much research and reflection as the account of the “Magi” from the “land of the sunrise,” which the evangelist Matthew adds directly after the story of Jesus’ birth: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him’ ” (Mt 2:1f.).

To begin with, Matthew clearly establishes the historical setting by the references to King Herod and to Bethlehem as the place of birth. A historical figure and a known geographical location are named. Yet these factual details already include elements of interpretation. Rudolf Pesch in his short book Die matthäischen Weihnachtsgeschichten highlights the theological significance of the figure of Herod: “Just as the Christmas Gospel (Lk 2:1 - 21) begins by naming the Roman Emperor Augustus, so the narrative in Mt 2 begins by naming the ‘king of the Jews’, Herod. If in the former case, the Emperor, with his claim to have brought peace to the world, is the total antithesis of the newborn child, so too is the king who reigns by the Emperor’s favor - with his quasi-Messianic claim to be the redeemer at least of the Jewish kingdom” (pp. 23f.).

Bethlehem is the birthplace of King David. In the course of the narrative, further light will be shed on the theological significance of this place through the answer given by the scribes to Herod’s question where the Messiah would be born. Matthew’s addition of the qualifying phrase “of Judea” to the geographical location of Bethlehem could suggest a subsidiary theological theme. In the context of Jacob’s blessing, the patriarch prophesies to his son Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen 49:10). In a narrative concerned with the coming of the definitive David - the newborn king of the Jews who is to redeem all peoples - there are echoes of this prophecy in the background.

Another passage to be read alongside Jacob’s blessing is a saying attributed in the Bible to the pagan prophet Balaam. Balaam is a historical figure, for whom there is extrabiblical confirmation. In 1967, on the East Bank of the Jordan, an inscription was discovered in which Balaam, son of Beor, is named as a “seer” of autochthonous deities: various oracles, both of doom and salvation, are ascribed to him (cf. Hans-Peter Müller, “Bileam”). The Bible presents him as a soothsayer in the service of the king of Moab, who asks him to curse Israel. Balaam intends to do so, but God himself intervenes, causing the prophet to proclaim a blessing upon Israel instead of a curse. In the biblical tradition he is nevertheless dismissed as an agitator for idolatry and executed (cf. Num 31:8; Jos 13:22). All the more important, then, is the saving prophecy ascribed to him, a non-Jew and a worshipper of other gods, and it is a prophecy that was evidently known outside Israel: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17).

It is surprising that Matthew, who is usually so eager to present events in the life and ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, does not actually quote this text, which features prominently in the history of the exegesis of the Magi story. It is true that Balaam’s star is not a celestial body: the coming king is himself the star that shines upon the world and determines its fate. Still, the context of star and kingship could have influenced the idea of a star that pertains to this king and points toward him.

Hence we may freely assume that this non-Jewish, “pagan” oracle would have circulated outside Judaism in some shape or form and would have set people thinking. The question how people outside Israel were able to recognize in a “king of the Jews” the bearer of a salvation destined also for them, is one to which we will return.

WHO WERE THE “MAGI”?

First, though, we have to ask what sort of people they were, these “Magi” from the “land of sunrise,” as Matthew calls them. In the relevant sources, the concept of Magi (mágoi) encompasses a wide range of meanings, from the wholly positive to the wholly negative.

According to the first of the four principal meanings, Magi are understood to be members of the Persian priestly caste. In Hellenistic culture they were regarded as “rulers of a distinctive religion,” but at the same time their religious ideas were thought to be “strongly influenced by philosophy,” so that the Greek philosophers have often been portrayed as their pupils (cf. Delling, “mágos” p. 356). No doubt this view contains some not easily definable element of truth: after all, Aristotle himself spoke of the philosophical work of the Magi (cf. ibid., p. 357).

The other meanings listed by Gerhard Delling are as follows: possessors and users of supernatural knowledge and ability, magicians, and finally deceivers and seducers. In the Acts of the Apostles we find an example of this final meaning: a Magus named Bar-Jesus is described by Paul as “son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness” (13:10) and he suffers a corresponding fate.

The ambivalence of the concept of Magi that we find here illustrates the ambivalence of religion in general. It can become the path to true knowledge, the path to Jesus Christ. But when it fails, in his presence, to open up to him and actually opposes the one God and Saviour, it becomes demonic and destructive.

In the New Testament, then, we encounter two contrasting types of “Magi”: in Saint Matthew’s Magi story, religious and philosophical wisdom is obviously an incentive to set off in the right direction, it is the wisdom that ultimately leads people to Christ. In the Acts of the Apostles, though, we find the other type of Magus: one who pits his own power against the messenger of Jesus Christ and thereby sides with the demons, even though Jesus has already defeated them.

Clearly, for the Magi in Mt 2, it is the first of the four meanings that applies, at least in a broad sense. Even if they were not exactly members of the Persian priesthood, they were nevertheless custodians of religious and philosophical knowledge that had developed in that area and continued to be cultivated there.

Naturally, attempts have been made to establish more precisely who they were. The Viennese astronomer Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo has shown that in the city of Babylon - which had once been a center of scientific astronomy but was already in decline by the time of Jesus - there was still “a small group of astronomers who were gradually dying out … Earthenware tablets, covered in cuneiform signs with astronomical calculations … are clear proof of this” (Der Stern von Bethlehem, p. 27). He goes on to say that the conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces in the years 7 - 6 B.C. - now believed to be the actual time of Jesus’ birth - is something that the Babylonian astronomers could have calculated, and it may well have pointed them toward the land of Judea and to a newborn “king of the Jews.”

We will come back to the question of the star at a later stage. For the time being, we should ask what sort of people they were, who set out on the path to the king. They could have been astronomers; but not everyone who could predict and observe the conjunction of the planets would have associated this with a king in Judea who held some significance for them. Before the star could convey a message, there had to be a promise in circulation, something akin to Balaam’s oracle. We know from Tacitus and Suetonius that speculation was rife at the time that the ruler of the world would emerge from Judah - an expectation that Flavius Josephus applied to Vespasian, consequently finding his way into the latter’s favor (cf. De Bello Judaico iii, 399 - 408).

All kinds of factors could have combined to generate the idea that the language of the star contained a message of hope. But none of this would have prompted people to set off on a journey, unless they were people of inner unrest, people of hope, people on the lookout for the true star of salvation. The men of whom Matthew speaks were not just astronomers. There were “wise.” They represent the inner dynamic of religion toward self-transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence “philosophy” in the original sense of the word. Wisdom, then, serves to purify the message of “science”: the rationality of that message does not remain at the level of intellectual knowledge, but seeks understanding in its fullness, and so raises reason to its loftiest possibilities.

From all that has been said, we can obtain some sense of the outlook and the knowledge that prompted these men to set off in search of the newborn “king of the Jews.” We could well say that they represent the religions moving toward Christ, as well as the self-transcendence of science toward him. In a way they are the successors of Abraham, who set off on a journey in response to God’s call. In another way they are the successors of Socrates and his habit of questioning above and beyond conventional religion toward the higher truth. In this sense, these figures are forerunners, preparers of the way, seekers after truth, such as we find in every age.

Just as the Church’s tradition read the Christmas story quite spontaneously in the light of Is 1:3, with the result that the ox and the ass found their way into the crib, so too the Magi story was read in conjunction with Ps 72:10 and Is 60. Hence the wise men from the East became kings, and with them camels and dromedaries were added to the crib.

While the prophetic content of these texts expands the provenance of these figures to include the extreme west (Tarshish = Tartessos in Spain), tradition has further developed this idea of universality by conceiving them as kings from all three known continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. The black king is part and parcel of this: in the kingdom of Jesus Christ there are no distinctions of race and origin. In him and through him, humanity is united, yet without losing any of the richness of variety.

Later, the three kings came to be associated with the phases of human life - youth, maturity, and old age. This too makes good sense, highlighting the fact that each of the various stages of human life finds its true meaning and its inner unity in companionship with Jesus.

The key point is this: the wise men from the east are a new beginning. They represent the journeying of humanity toward Christ. They initiate a procession that continues throughout history. Not only do they represent the people who have found the way to Christ: they represent the inner aspiration of the human spirit, the dynamism of religions and human reason toward him.

THE STAR

Now we must come back to the star which showed the wise men their path, as we read in Saint Matthew’s account. What kind of star was it? Was there a star at all?

Distinguished exegetes like Rudolf Pesch take the view that this is not a sensible question to ask. We are dealing with a theological narrative that should not be confused with astronomy. A similar position was put forward in the early Church by Saint John Chrysostom: “That this star was not of the common sort, or rather not a star at all, as it seems at least to me, but some invisible power transformed into this appearance, is in the first place evident from its very course. For there is … not any star that moves by this way” (In Matthaeum Homiliae, VI, 2: PG 57, 64). Much of the Church’s tradition has underlined the miraculous nature of the star, as in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 100 A.D.), who saw the sun and the moon dancing around the star, and likewise in the ancient Epiphany hymn from the Roman Breviary, which states that the star outshone the sun in beauty and brilliance.

Nevertheless, the question whether or not this was an astronomically identifiable and classifiable celestial apparition was not going to go away. It would be wrong to dismiss it a priori on account of the theological character of the story. With the emergence of modern astronomy, developed by believing Christians, the question of this star has been revisited.

Johannes Kepler († 1630) proposed a solution that in its key elements has been put forward again by astronomers today. Kepler calculated that in the year 7 - 6 B.C., which as we have seen is now thought likely to have been when Jesus was born, there was a conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. He himself had experienced a similar conjunction in the year 1604, with the further addition of a supernova. This is a weak or very distant star in which a colossal explosion takes place, so that for weeks and months an intensive radiance streams from it. Kepler regarded the supernova as a new star. He took the view that the planetary conjunction at the time of Jesus’ birth must also have been accompanied by a supernova, and this was how he attempted to explain the phenomenon of the bright star of Bethlehem in astronomical terms. It is interesting, moreover, that the Göttingen scholar Friedrich Wieseler seems to have discovered a reference in Chinese chronological tables to the fact that in 4 B.C. “a bright star appeared and was visible for quite a long time” (Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, p. 44).

The aforementioned astronomer Ferrari d’Occhieppo has dismissed the theory of the supernova. For him a sufficient explanation of the star of Bethlehem is provided by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces, which he believed he could determine with chronological precision. It is important here to note that the planet Jupiter stood for the principal Babylonian god Marduk. Ferrari d’Occhieppo concludes as follows: “Jupiter, the star of the highest Babylonian deity, entered its brightest phase when it rose in the evening alongside Saturn, the cosmic representative of the Jewish people” (Der Stern von Bethlehem, p. 52). We need not go into the details. From this planetary encounter, according to Ferrari d’Occhieppo, Babylonian astronomers were able to conclude that there had been a universally significant event: the birth in the land of the Jews of a ruler who would bring salvation.

What are we to make of all this? The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Pisces in 7 - 6 B.C. seems to be an established fact. It could well have pointed astronomers from the Babylonian-Persian region toward the land of the Jews, toward a “king of the Jews.” Exactly how those men came to the conviction that prompted them to set off and led them eventually to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, must remain an open question. The constellation could have set them thinking, it could have been the first signal for their outward and inward departure. But it would not have been able to speak to them, had they not already been moved in some other way, inwardly moved by the hope of the star that was to rise over Jacob (cf. Num 24:17).

If these wise men, led by the star to search for the king of the Jews, represent the movement of the Gentiles toward Christ, this implies that the cosmos speaks of Christ, even though its language is not yet fully intelligible to man in his present state. The language of creation provides a great many pointers. It gives man an intuition of the Creator. Moreover, it arouses the expectation, indeed the hope, that this God will one day reveal himself. And at the same time it elicits an awareness that man can and should approach him. But the knowledge that emerges from creation, and acquires concrete form in the religions, can also become disoriented, so that it no longer prompts man to transcend himself, but induces him to lock himself into systems with which he believes he can, in some way, oppose the hidden powers of the world.

In our story both elements can be seen: in the first instance, the star leads the wise men as far as Judea. It is quite natural that their search for the newborn king of the Jews should take them to Israel’s royal city and to the king’s palace. That, surely, is where the future king must have been born. Then they need the direction provided by Israel’s sacred Scriptures - the words of the living God - in order to find the way once and for all to David’s true heir.

The Fathers have emphasized a further aspect. Gregory Nazianzen says that at the very moment when the Magi adored Jesus, astrology came to an end, as the stars from then on traced the orbit determined by Christ (cf. Poem. Dogm. V 55 - 64: PG 37, 428 - 429). In the ancient world, the heavenly bodies were regarded as divine powers, determining men’s fate. The planets bear the names of deities. According to the concept prevailing at the time, they somehow ruled over the world, and man had to try to appease these powers. Biblical monotheism soon brought about a clear demythologization: with marvelous sobriety, the creation account describes the sun and the moon - the great divinities of the pagan world - as lights that God placed in the sky alongside the entire firmament of stars (cf. Gen 1:16f.).

On entering the Gentile world, the Christian faith had to grapple once again with the question of the astral divinities. Hence in the letters he wrote from prison to the Ephesians and the Colossians, Paul emphasizes that the risen Christ has conquered all the powers and forces in the heavens, and that he reigns over the entire universe. The story of the wise men’s star makes a similar point: it is not the star that determines the child’s destiny, it is the child that directs the star. If we wish, we may speak here of a kind of anthropological revolution: human nature assumed by God - as revealed in God’s only-begotten Son - is greater than all the powers of the material world, greater than the entire universe.

JERUSALEM - STOPPING POINT ON THE JOURNEY

It is time to return to the text of the Gospel. The wise men have arrived at the king’s palace in Jerusalem, which they presume must be the place of the promise. They inquire after the newborn “king of the Jews.” This is a typically non-Jewish expression. In Jewish circles, people would speak of the “king of Israel.” In fact, this “Gentile” title, “king of the Jews,” does not reappear until Jesus’ trial and the inscription over the Cross, in both cases used by the Gentile Pilate (cf. Mk 15:9; Jn 19:19 - 22). So we could say that here - as the first Gentiles inquire after Jesus - there are already echoes of the mystery of the Cross, a mystery that is inseparably linked with Jesus’ kingship.

These echoes can be heard clearly in the reaction to the Magi’s question about the newborn king: “Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him” (Mt 2:3). The exegetes point out that in Herod’s case, it was quite understandable that he was troubled by this news of the birth of a mysterious pretender to the throne. Less understandable, though, is the fact that all Jerusalem seems to have been troubled as well. This element could be an anticipation of Jesus’ regal entrance into the Holy City on the eve of his Passion, when Matthew says that the whole city was quaking (cf. Mt 21:10). In this way the two scenes, both in some way manifesting Jesus’ kingship, are linked to one another and to the Passion theme.

It seems to me that the reference to the troubled state of the city at the time of the Magi’s visit makes good sense. In order to clarify the question about the pretender to the throne, for him a highly dangerous question, Herod called together “all the chief priests and scribes of the people” (Mt 2:4). Such a gathering and its purpose could not have remained unknown. The supposed or actual birth of a Messianic king would inevitably bring trial and tribulation to the people of Jerusalem. They knew Herod, after all. What from the lofty perspective of faith is a star of hope, from the perspective of daily life is merely a disturbance, a cause for concern and fear. It is true: God disturbs our comfortable day-to-day existence. Jesus’ kingship goes hand in hand with his Passion.

What answer did the illustrious assembly give to the question about Jesus’ birthplace? According to Mt 2:6, the answer combined a passage from the prophet Micah with one from the Second Book of Samuel: “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the leading cities of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler (cf. Mic 5:1) who will govern my people Israel (cf. 2 Sam 5:2).”

Matthew has made two slight adjustments to the quoted text. Whereas the greater part of the textual tradition, particularly the Greek translation (LXX), says: “You are the smallest among the clans of Judah,” he writes “You are by no means least among the leading cities of Judah.” Both versions of the text, each in its own way, illustrate the paradoxical element in God’s way of acting, which runs through the whole of the Old Testament: greatness emerges from what seems in earthly terms small and insignificant, while worldly greatness collapses and falls.

So it is, for example, in the account of the call of David. The youngest of Jesse’s sons, who was busy looking after the sheep, has to be summoned and is anointed king: it is not outward appearance or height of stature that counts, but the heart (cf. 1 Sam 16:7). One of Mary’s sayings from the Magnificat sums up this perennial paradox in God’s action: “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree” (Lk 1:52). The version of the Old Testament text that describes Bethlehem as small among the clans of Judah, clearly expresses this divine modus operandi.

Yet when Matthew writes: “You are by no means least among the leading cities of Judah,” he only appears to resolve the paradox. This small city, considered insignificant in itself, can now be recognized in its true greatness. Out of her comes the true shepherd of Israel: human estimation and divine response are combined in this version of the text. In Jesus’ birth in a cave outside the city, the paradox is once again confirmed.

So now we come to the second adjustment: Matthew has added to the prophetic text the aforementioned phrase from the Second Book of Samuel (5:2), originally applied to the new King David, and now brought to fulfillment in Jesus. The coming ruler is portrayed as the shepherd of Israel. In this way, Matthew highlights the loving care and tenderness that mark out the true ruler as a representative of God’s kingship.

The answer given by the chief priests and scribes to the wise men’s question has a thoroughly practical geographical content, which helps the Magi on their way. Yet it is not only a geographical, but also a theological interpretation of the place and the event. That Herod would draw the obvious conclusion is understandable. Yet it is remarkable that his Scripture experts do not feel prompted to take any practical steps as a result. Does this, perhaps, furnish us with the image of a theology that exhausts itself in academic disputes?

THE WORSHIP OF THE WISE MEN BEFORE JESUS

The star had evidently receded from view in Jerusalem. After their encounter with the words of Scripture, it shone for the wise men once more. Creation, interpreted by the Scriptures, speaks to humanity again. In describing the wise men’s reaction, Matthew reaches for superlatives: “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (2:10). It is the joy of one whose heart has received a ray of God’s light and who can now see that his hope has been realized - the joy of one who has found what he sought, and has himself been found.

“Going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him” (Mt 2:11). Strikingly absent from this sentence is any mention of Saint Joseph, even though Matthew’s infancy narrative was written from Joseph’s perspective. We meet only “Mary, his mother” by the side of Jesus at the scene of adoration. I have yet to find a completely convincing explanation. There are one or two passages in the Old Testament where particular significance is attached to the figure of the queen mother (e.g. Jer 13:18). But this is probably not enough. No doubt Gnilka is correct when he suggests that this is Matthew’s way of reminding us of the virgin birth and marking Jesus out as the Son of God (cf. Das Matthäusevangelium, p. 40).

The wise men do a proskýnesis before the royal child, that is to say they throw themselves onto the ground before him. This is the homage that is offered to a divine king. The gifts brought by the wise men may be explained in similar terms. They are not practical gifts, of a kind that the holy family might have had a use for at this moment. They express the same thing as the proskýnesis: they acknowledge the royal dignity of him to whom they are offered. Gold and incense are also mentioned in Is 60:6 as gifts of homage that the Gentiles will place before the God of Israel.

In the Church’s tradition - with certain variations - the three gifts have been thought to represent three aspects of the mystery of Christ: the gold points to Jesus’ kingship, the incense to his divine sonship, the myrrh to the mystery of his Passion.

The myrrh actually appears in Saint John’s Gospel after the death of Jesus: John tells us that Nicodemus had prepared myrrh, among other ointments, for the anointing of Jesus’ body (cf. Jn 19:39). Through the myrrh, then, the mystery of the Cross is once again associated with Jesus’ kingship and mysteriously proclaimed in the worship offered by the wise men. Anointing is an attempt to resist death, which only becomes definitive with decomposition. By the time the women came to the tomb to anoint the body on Easter morning - a task that could not be carried out on the evening of the crucifixion because of the approaching feast-day - Jesus had already risen. He no longer needed myrrh as a protection against death, because God’s life itself had overcome death.

FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND RETURN TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL

After the end of the Magi story, Saint Joseph reappears as the principal actor on the stage, albeit acting not on his own initiative but in accordance with instructions that he receives once more from the angel of God in a dream. He is asked to rise in haste and take the child and its mother, to flee to Egypt, and to remain there pending further instructions, “for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (Mt 2:13).

In 7 B.C. Herod had had his sons Alexander and Aristobulus executed, as he considered them a threat to his power. In 4 B.C. he killed his son Antipater for the same reason (cf. Stuhlmacher, Die Geburt des Immanuel, p. 85). He thought solely in terms of power. The news the wise men brought him of a pretender to the throne must have alarmed him. It was clear from his character that he would stop at nothing.

“Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men” (Mt 2:16). It is true that we have no record of this event from non-biblical sources, yet in view of all the atrocities that Herod did commit, that is not enough to prove that it did not take place. Rudolf Pesch quotes the Jewish author Abraham Schalit on the subject: “Belief in the proximate arrival or birth of the Messianic king was in the air at the time. The suspicious tyrant sensed betrayal and hostility everywhere, and a vague rumour reaching his ears would have been enough to put into his sick mind the idea of killing the newborn children. There is nothing impossible about this command” (Die matthäischen Weihnachtsgeschichten, p. 72).

The historicity of the event is admittedly questioned by a number of exegetes on the basis of a further consideration: what we encounter here is the widespread motif of the persecuted child-king, one that contemporary literature applied to Moses in a form that could have served as a model for this story about Jesus. It must be said, though, that most of the examples cited fail to convince, and most of them are later than Matthew’s Gospel. The closest to it in date and content is the Moses Haggadah handed down by Flavius Josephus, which gives a new twist to the biblical story of the birth and rescue of Moses.

The Book of Exodus relates that, as the Jewish population grew in numbers and significance, Pharaoh sensed a threat to his land of Egypt, and so he not only persecuted the Jewish minority through forced labor, but he gave orders that their newborn male children were to be killed. Moses was rescued through a ruse of his mother and he grew up at the Egyptian court as an adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter; later, though, he had to flee on account of his support for the tormented Jewish population (cf. Ex 2).

The Moses Haggadah tells the story differently: learned men had prophesied to the king that a boy would be born of Hebrew blood around that time, who in later life would put an end to Egyptian domination and make the Israelites powerful. At this, the king ordered that all Hebrew boys be thrown into the river and killed at birth. But God appeared in a dream to Moses’ father and promised to save the child (cf. Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, p. 34f.). Here, the slaughter of the Jewish boys takes place not for the reason given in the Book of Exodus, but in order to make sure that the promised leader, Moses, is eliminated.

Both the motive for the killings and the father’s vision in a dream, with a promise of rescue, bring this story close to that of Jesus, Herod and the slaughtered innocents. But these similarities are not enough to make Matthew’s account look like a mere Christian variation on the theme of the Moses Haggadah. The differences between the two narratives are too great. What is more, the Antiquitates of Flavius Josephus are almost certainly later in date than Matthew’s Gospel, even if the story itself probably belongs to an older tradition.

With a rather different end in view, Matthew himself alludes to the Moses story, hoping to find there the interpretation of the whole event. He sees the key to understanding in the prophecy: “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11:1). Hosea portrays the history of Israel as a love story between God and his people. In this passage, though, God’s favor toward Israel is presented not through the image of conjugal love, but that of parental love: “Hence Israel receives the further title ‘son’ … in the sense of an adoptive sonship. The fundamental act of paternal love is the son’s liberation from Egypt” (Deissler, Zwölf Propheten, p. 50). For Matthew, the prophet is speaking here of Christ - the true son. It is he whom the Father loves and calls out of Egypt.

For the evangelist, the history of Israel begins afresh when Jesus returns from Egypt to the Holy Land. Israel’s first homecoming from the land of slavery had in many respects been a failure. Hosea tells us that in response to the father’s call, the “son” ran away: “The more I called them, the more they went from me” (11:2). This running away from the call to liberation leads to a new form of slavery: “They shall return to the land of Egypt and Assyria shall be their king because they have refused to return to me” (11:5). Thus Israel constantly finds itself back in Egypt, as it were.

With the flight into Egypt and the return to the promised land, Jesus grants the definitive Exodus. He is truly the Son. He is not going to run away from the Father. He returns home, and he leads others home. He is always on the path toward God and thus he leads the way back from exile to the homeland, back to all that is authentic and true. Jesus, the true Son, himself went into “exile” in a very deep sense, in order to lead all of us home from exile.

Matthew ends his short account of the slaughter of the innocents, which follows the flight into Egypt, with another prophetic text, this time taken from Jeremiah: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not” (31:15; cf. Mt 2:18). Jeremiah situates these words in the context of a prophecy filled with hope and joy, in which the prophet confidently announces the restoration of Israel: “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him” (31:10f.).

The entire chapter probably dates from the early period of Jeremiah’s work, when on the one hand the decline of the Assyrian Empire and on the other the cultic reforms of King Josiah had revived hopes for a restoration of the northern kingdom of Israel - a territory populated largely by the tribes of Joseph and Benjamin, the children of Rachel. In Jeremiah’s text, then, immediately after the lament of the mother of those tribes, there is a word of consolation: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy’ ” (31:16).

In Matthew, we find two changes vis-à-vis the prophet: in Jeremiah’s day, Rachel’s tomb was situated on the Benjaminite-Ephraimite border, that is, on the border of the northern kingdom, the tribal territory of Rachel’s sons - not far, as it happens, from the home of the prophet. Still during Old Testament times, the tomb was moved south, to the Bethlehem area, and that is where it was for Matthew.

The second change is that the evangelist omits the consoling promise of a return home: only the lament is quoted, the mother remains unconsoled. So in Matthew’s version, the prophetic text - the mother’s lament without the consoling response - is like a cry to God himself, a plea for consolation that does not come and is still awaited, a plea to which only God can respond. For the only true consolation that is more than mere words would be the resurrection. Only in the resurrection could the wrong be overcome, and that bitter lament “they are not” be silenced. In our own day, the mothers’ cry to God continues unabated, yet at the same time the resurrection of Jesus strengthens our hope of true consolation.

The concluding section of Matthew’s infancy narrative ends with a further proof-text, intended to unlock the meaning of the entire event. Once again the figure of Saint Joseph looms large. Twice he receives instructions in a dream, and thus he is presented to us once again as the listening and discerning one, the obedient one who is also decisive and acts wisely. At first he is told that Herod has died and that the time has therefore come for him and his family to return home. The return journey is presented with a certain solemnity: “He went to the land of Israel” (2:21).

Straight away he is caught up in the tragic situation that afflicted Israel at that stage in its history: he learns that Archelaus, the most brutal of Herod’s sons, is ruling Judea. So it cannot be there - that is to say in Bethlehem - that the family of Jesus is to live. Joseph is now instructed, in a dream, to go to Galilee.

The fact that Joseph, on becoming aware of the problems in Judea, did not simply continue on his own initiative into Galilee to live under the less brutal regime of Antipas, but was instructed by the angel to go there, is intended to show that Jesus’ Galilean origin corresponds to God’s design for history. In Jesus’ public ministry, any reference to his Galilean origin was always seen as a proof that he could not be the promised Messiah. Matthew almost imperceptibly rebuts this argument here. Shortly afterward, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, he returns to the theme and argues, on the basis of Is 8:23 - 9:2, that the place where the “great light” is to rise is where the “land of darkness” is - the former northern kingdom, the “land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali” (cf. Mt 4:14 - 16).

Yet Matthew has to respond to an even more concrete objection, namely that no mention is made of Nazareth in any of the promises: surely the Saviour could not come from there (cf. Jn 1:46). To this the evangelist responds: “Joseph went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’ ” (Mt 2:23). By this he means: the label “Nazarene,” applied to Jesus with reference to his place of origin - already an established fact by the time the Gospel was written down - reveals that he is indeed the heir to the promise. Here, in contrast to the earlier proof-texts, Matthew is not referring to any particular Scriptural passage, but to the prophets overall. Their hope is summed up in this designation of Jesus.

In this verse, Matthew presents exegetes of every era with a difficult problem: where among the prophets is the source for this word of hope to be found?

Before we examine this question, a few linguistic observations may be helpful. The New Testament uses the two labels Nazõraios and Nazar?nos in reference to Jesus. Nazõraios is used in Matthew, John and the Acts of the Apostles, Nazar?nos is used in Mark; Luke’s Gospel has both forms. In the Semitic linguistic world, Jesus’ disciples were known as Nazõraioi, whereas in the Graeco-Roman world they were called Christians (cf. Acts 11:26). So now we must ask quite specifically: is there any trace in the Old Testament of a promise linked to the word Nazõraios that could be applied to Jesus?

Ansgar Wucherpfennig in his monograph on Saint Joseph has carefully summarized the difficult exegetical debate. I will attempt to draw out only the most important elements. There are two principal approaches toward a solution.

The first is based on the prophecy of the birth of the judge Samson. Of him, the angel who announces his birth says that he will be a “Nazirite,” consecrated to God from his mother’s womb “to the day of his death,” as his mother recounts (cf. Judg 13:5 - 7). One argument against this suggested etymology of the label Nazõraios as applied to Jesus is that he did not fulfill the criteria of a Nazirite that are given in the Book of Judges, especially the alcohol prohibition. He was no Nazirite in the classical sense of the term. Nevertheless, it could be said of him, in a manner far surpassing such external details, that he was totally consecrated to God, completely made over to God, from his mother’s womb to the day of his death. If we recall what Luke says about the presentation of Jesus - “the first-born” - to God in the Temple, and if we keep before our eyes the way John’s Gospel portrays Jesus as the one who comes completely from the Father, lives wholly from him and for him, then we see with extraordinary clarity that Jesus was indeed consecrated to God, from his mother’s womb until his death on the Cross.

The second approach sets out from the idea that at the root of the name Nazõraios one may detect the Hebrew word nezer, which is found at the heart of the prophecy of Is 11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot (nezer) from the stump of Jesse.” This prophetic saying has to be read in the context of the Messianic trilogy formed by Is 7 (“a virgin shall conceive”), Is 9 (light in the darkness, “unto us a child is born”) and Is 11 (the shoot from the stump, over whom the Spirit of the Lord rests). Since Matthew refers explicitly to Is 7 and Is 9, it makes sense to assume a reference in his text to Is 11 as well. The unusual element in this promise is that it extends back beyond David to Jesse, the father of the tribe. From the stump that seemed already dead, God brings forth a new shoot: he launches a new beginning, albeit one that remains in profound continuity with the earlier history of the promises.

How could one fail to be reminded here of the ending of Matthew’s genealogy, which on the one hand is steeped in the utter continuity of God’s saving action, and yet breaks off at the end and speaks of an entirely new beginning, as God himself intervenes and brings about a birth that is no longer the fruit of human “begetting”? Indeed, we have good reason to suppose that Matthew detected in the name of Nazareth a prophetic reference to the “shoot” (nezer), and that he saw the use of the designation Nazõraios for Jesus as a sign of the fulfillment of God’s promise to draw new life from the dead stump of Jesse, upon whom the Spirit of God would rest.

If we add that in the inscription above the Cross, Jesus is called ho Nazõraios (cf. Jn 19:19), then the title acquires its full resonance: what at first sight refers simply to his origin, actually points to his essence: he is the “shoot,” he is the one completely consecrated to God, from his mother’s womb to the day of his death.

At the end of this lengthy chapter, the question arises: how are we to understand all this? Are we dealing with history that actually took place, or is it merely a theological meditation, presented under the guise of stories? In this regard, Jean Daniélou rightly observes: “The adoration of the Magi, unlike the story of the annunciation [to Mary], does not touch upon any essential aspect of our faith. No foundations would be shaken if it were simply an invention of Matthew’s based on a theological idea” (The Infancy Narratives, p. 95). Daniélou himself, though, comes to the conclusion that we are dealing here with historical events, whose theological significance was worked out by the Jewish Christian community and by Matthew.

To put it simply, I share this view. In any case, it should be noted that over the last fifty years there has been an about-turn in thinking on this question of historicity, based not on new historical knowledge, but rather on a changed attitude to sacred Scripture and to the Christian message in general. While Gerhard Delling in the fourth volume of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1942) was still convinced of the historicity of the Magi story on the basis of historical research (cf. p. 358, n. 11), since that time, even exegetes as ecclesially minded as Ernst Nellessen and Rudolf Pesch have rejected historicity, or at least they have left the question open.

An interesting comment, in the light of this situation, is the carefully argued position presented by Klaus Berger in his 2011 commentary on the whole of the New Testament: “Even when there is only a single attestation … one must suppose, until the contrary is proven, that the evangelists did not intend to deceive their readers, but rather to inform them concerning historical events … to contest the historicity of this account on mere suspicion exceeds every imaginable competence of historians” (Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, p. 20).

With this view I can only agree. The two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel devoted to the infancy narratives are not a meditation presented under the guise of stories, but the converse: Matthew is recounting real history, theologically thought through and interpreted, and thus he helps us to understand the mystery of Jesus more deeply.

EPILOGUE - The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple

Besides the story of Jesus’ birth, Saint Luke has preserved for us one further small and precious element of tradition regarding our Lord’s childhood, in which the mystery of Jesus is illuminated in a very particular way. It is recounted that Jesus’ parents went on pilgrimage every year to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. Jesus’ family was devout: they observed the law.

In some portrayals of the figure of Jesus, the emphasis is placed almost exclusively on the radical aspects, on Jesus’ challenge to false piety. Thus Jesus is presented as a liberal or a revolutionary. It is true that in his mission as Son, Jesus did introduce a new phase in man’s relationship to God, opening up a new dimension of human intimacy with God. But this was not an attack on Israel’s piety. Jesus’ freedom is not the freedom of the liberal. It is the freedom of the Son, and thus the freedom of the truly devout person. As Son, Jesus brings a new freedom: not the freedom of someone with no obligations, but the freedom of someone totally united with the Father’s will, someone who helps mankind to attain the freedom of inner oneness with God.

Jesus came not to abolish, but to complete (cf. Mt 5:17). This link between radical newness and equally radical faithfulness, rooted in Jesus’ sonship, emerges clearly in the short narrative about the twelve-year-old: indeed, I would say it is the actual theological content that this story is intended to convey.

Let us return to Jesus’ parents. The Torah laid down that every Israelite was to make an appearance in the Temple for the three great feasts - Passover, Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and Feast of Tabernacles (cf. Ex 23:17; 34:23f.; Deut 16:16f.). The question whether women were also obliged to make this pilgrimage was a matter of debate between the schools of Shammai and Hillel. As for boys, the obligation applied to them once they had completed their thirteenth year. But it is also laid down that they were to accustom themselves gradually to the commandments. One way of doing this was to make the pilgrimage at the age of twelve. The fact that Mary and Jesus also took part in the pilgrimage once again demonstrates the piety of Jesus’ family.

We should also note the deeper meaning of the pilgrimage: by going up to the Temple three times a year, Israel remains, as it were, God’s pilgrim people, always journeying toward its God and receiving its identity and unity increasingly from the encounter with God in the one Temple. The holy family takes its place within this great pilgrim community on its way to the Temple and to God.

On the journey home, something unexpected happens. Jesus does not travel with the others, but stays behind in Jerusalem. His parents become aware of this only at the end of the first day’s journey. For them it was evidently quite normal to assume that Jesus was somewhere among the group of pilgrims. Luke uses the word synodía - “pilgrim community,” the technical term for the traveling caravan. Given our perhaps unduly narrow image of the holy family, we find this surprising. But it illustrates very beautifully that in the holy family, freedom and obedience were combined in a healthy manner. The twelve-year-old was free to spend time with friends and children of his own age, and to remain in their company during the journey. Naturally, his parents expected to see him when evening came.

The fact that he was absent when evening came no longer has anything to do with the freedom of young people, but points to a different level, as was to become clear: it points toward the particular mission of the Son. For the parents, this was the start of days filled with fear and anxiety. According to the evangelist, it was only after three days that they found Jesus again in the Temple, where he was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions (cf. Lk 2:46).

The three days may be explained in quite practical terms: Mary and Joseph had spent one day traveling north, a further day was needed in order to retrace their steps, and on the third day they eventually found Jesus. While the three days are thus a perfectly plausible chronological indication, one must nevertheless agree with René Laurentin when he detects here a silent reference to the three days between Cross and resurrection. These are days spent suffering the absence of Jesus, days of darkness, whose heaviness can be sensed in the mother’s words: “Child, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously” (Lk 2:48). Thus an arc extends from this first Passover of Jesus to his last, the Passover of the Cross.

Jesus’ divine mission bursts through the boundaries of all human criteria and repeatedly becomes, in human terms, a dark mystery. Something of the sword of sorrow of which Simeon had spoken (cf. Lk 2:35) becomes palpable for Mary at this hour. The closer one comes to Jesus, the more one is drawn into the mystery of his Passion.

Jesus’ reply to his mother’s question is astounding: How so? You were looking for me? Did you not know where a child must be? That he must be in his father’s house, literally “in the things of the Father” (Lk 2:49)? Jesus tells his parents: I am in the very place where I belong - with the Father, in his house.

There are two principal elements to note in this reply. Mary had said: “Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” Jesus corrects her: I am with my father. My father is not Joseph, but another - God himself. It is to him that I belong, and here I am with him. Could Jesus’ divine sonship be presented any more clearly?

The second element is directly linked with this. Jesus uses the word “must,” and he acts in accordance with what must be. The Son, the child, must be with his father. The Greek word dei, which Luke uses here, reappears in the Gospels whenever mention is made of Jesus’ readiness to submit to God’s will. He must suffer greatly, be rejected, be killed, and rise again, as he says to his disciples after Peter’s confession (cf. Mk 8:31). He is already bound by the “must” at this early hour: he must be with the Father, and so it becomes clear that what might seem like disobedience or inappropriate freedom vis-à-vis his parents is in reality the actual expression of his filial obedience. He is in the Temple not as a rebel against his parents, but precisely as the obedient one, acting out the same obedience that leads to the Cross and the resurrection. Saint Luke describes the reaction of Mary and Joseph to Jesus’ words with two statements: “They did not understand the saying which he spoke to them,” and “his mother kept all these things in her heart” (2:50, 51). Jesus’ saying is on too lofty a plane for this moment in time. Even Mary’s faith is a “journeying” faith, a faith that is repeatedly shrouded in darkness and has to mature by persevering through the darkness. Mary does not understand Jesus’ saying, but she keeps it in her heart and allows it gradually to come to maturity there.

Again and again, Jesus’ words exceed our rational powers. Again and again, they surpass our capacity to understand. The temptation to reduce them, to bend them to our own criteria, is understandable. Yet good exegesis requires of us the humility to leave intact this loftiness that so often overtaxes us, not to reduce Jesus’ sayings by asking to what extent we can take him at his word. He takes us completely at our word. Believing means submitting to this loftiness and slowly growing into it.

Mary in this passage is presented quite consciously by Luke as the model believer: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord,” as Elizabeth had said to her (Lk 1:45). With the observation that appears twice in the infancy narratives - that Mary kept the words in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19, 51) - Luke is pointing, as we have said, to the source on which he drew for his account. At the same time Mary appears not only as the great believer, but as the image of the Church, which keeps God’s word in her heart and passes it on to others.

“Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them … and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:51f.). After the episode highlighting Jesus’ higher obedience, he returns to his normal family situation - to the lowliness of the simple life and obedience toward his earthly parents.

To the saying about Jesus’ growth in wisdom and stature Luke adds a formula taken from the First Book of Samuel, which in that context was a reference to the young Samuel (cf. 2:26): he grew in favor (grace, good pleasure) with God and man. The evangelist is once again making a connection between the story of Samuel and the story of Jesus’ childhood, a connection which had first appeared in the Magnificat, Mary’s hymn of praise sung on the occasion of her encounter with Elizabeth. This joyful hymn in praise of the God who loves the “little ones” is a new version of the prayer of thanksgiving with which Hannah, Samuel’s hitherto childless mother, gave thanks for the gift of her son, by which the Lord had put an end to her affliction. In the story of Jesus - so the evangelist is telling us with this citation - the story of Samuel is being repeated on a higher plane, in a definitive manner.

It is also important to note what Luke says about Jesus’ growth not only in stature, but also in wisdom. On the one hand, the answer of the twelve-year-old made it clear that he knew the Father - God - intimately. Only he knows God, not merely through the testimony of men, but he recognizes him in himself. Jesus stands before the Father as Son, on familiar terms. He lives in his presence. He sees him. As Saint John says, Jesus is the only one who rests in the Father’s heart and is therefore able to make him known (cf. Jn 1:18). This is what the twelve-year-old’s answer makes clear: he is with the Father, he sees everything and everyone in the light of the Father.

And yet it is also true that his wisdom grows. As a human being, he does not live in some abstract omniscience, but he is rooted in a concrete history, a place and a time, in the different phases of human life, and this is what gives concrete shape to his knowledge. So it emerges clearly here that he thought and learned in human fashion.

It becomes quite apparent that he is true man and true God, as the Church’s faith expresses it. The interplay between the two is something that we cannot ultimately define. It remains a mystery, and yet it emerges quite concretely in the short narrative about the twelve-year-old Jesus. At the same time, this story opens a door to the figure of Jesus as a whole, which is what the Gospels go on to recount.