and recounting how Herod, when his birth as the king of the Jews was made known to him by the wise men, slaughtered all the infants in that neighbourhood, hoping to destroy Jesus among them, goes on to describe the flight of Joseph with his family to Egypt, and their return thence. He shows that they were going back to Judea, meaning thereby to Bethlehem, but were turned aside to Galilee, and so settled at Nazareth. Luke places the family originally in Nazareth, and brings them to Bethlehem for a special reason, namely, there to undergo taxation. Every one, he states, had to resort to his own city to be taxed, and Joseph, being of the line of David, had to appear for the purpose at the city of David, which was Bethlehem ; and while they were thus there Jesus was born. Luke's further statement is that some forty days after the birth of Jesus, he was taken to the temple, on the occasion when Simeon and Anna publicly recognised him as the Messiah, after which the family returned to Nazareth. With the exception of Jesus visiting the temple at the age of twelve, when he entered into a discussion with the doctors and astonished all by the powers of his understanding, as recounted by Luke, we hear no more of him till he entered upon his public ministry at the age of thirty. Here his history is taken up by the other two evangelists, Mark and John, also. His precursor John was then baptizing at the river Jordan, and thither Jesus repaired and was baptized by him. Then "the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." Immediately after this Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, and "was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan." The evangelist John, however, has it that "the third day" after the descent upon him of the Holy Ghost, Jesus was at the marriage in Cana of Galilee where he changed the water into wine, Bethle P.-If I understand you rightly, there is a discrepance as Birth at to whether Bethlehem or Nazareth was the fixed home of the hem. parents of Jesus before his birth. I would ask you to open this out to me more distinctly. S.-Matthew recounts Joseph's dream without saying where he was when it occurred. He goes on to describe the birth of U Jesus at Bethlehem, and it is presumable that this was the home of the family. Then there is the flight to Egypt. "Be thou there," the angel told Joseph, "until I bring thee word;" and when the word comes, it is in this form, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life." The injunction evidently was that they were to return to the spot from whence they had fled, that is to Bethlehem, and this could only have been because there was their home. Accordingly, they "came into the land of Israel," but finding a son of Herod's ruling there, Joseph "turned aside into the parts of Galilee." This is the first we hear of the family being in that region, and the account plainly leaves it to be understood that it was owing to this incident of their being so "turned aside" thither, that they established themselves in Galilee. "And he came," it is stated, "and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Luke describes the annunciation to Mary to have occurred at Nazareth, so that the family are found there from the beginning. Then he makes them proceed to Bethlehem, specially, on account of the taxation, which was to embrace Mary as well as Joseph. He shows that there they had no home, but had recourse to an inn, and as "there was no room for them in the inn," the child had to be laid up "in a manger," so that the birth must have taken place in a stable. Matthew, however, consistently with his representation that Bethlehem was at the time the settled abode of the family, has it that the child was in a house, and it may be judged the one they usually inhabited. The wise men from the East find him there. "And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him." Being in this way at Bethlehem, they wait there, pursuant to Luke, till they had to visit the temple to make the prescribed sacrifice for the offspring when "the days" of Mary's "purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished." This was after the lapse of forty days from the birth (Lev. xii. 2-4). "And when," it is stated, "they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth." P.-In what light was Jesus looked upon when he embarked upon his mission as the Messiah, as from Bethlehem or from Nazareth? S. Always as of Nazareth. He is so designated by the unclean spirit in the synagogue (Mark i. 24; Luke iv. 34); when passing a blind man whom he restores to sight (Mark x. 47; Luke xviii. 37); and by the multitude who greet him when he made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. xxi. 11). He is arrested under that designation (John xviii. 5, 7), and transferred by Pilate to Herod as soon as he heard he was of Galilee, and thus under Herod's jurisdiction (Luke xxiii. 6, 7). At the place of judgment, where Peter denies him, he is referred to as of Galilee and Nazareth (Matt. xxvi. 69, 71). He is described as of Nazareth in the label placed on his cross (John xix. 19); and is so adverted to by disciples who fell in with him at Emmaus after his resurrection (Luke xxiv. 19); and invariably so spoken of by his followers and opponents in after times (Acts ii. 22; iii. 6; iv. 10; vi. 14; x. 38). We have also his own testimony to the same effect, where, referring to this locality, he says, "a prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house" (Mark vi. 1-4; Matt. xiii. 54, 57), expressions inconsistent with the idea that he, or his, could be traced to Bethlehem. Finally, an angelic messenger speaks of him at his tomb as of Nazareth (Mark xvi. 6); and he so proclaims himself from heaven when addressing Paul in the vision which effected his conversion (Acts xxii. 8). Nowhere is he associated with Bethlehem but in the accounts of his birth given by Matthew and Luke, save that Luke apparently has his own previous statement in mind as to the birth at Bethlehem, in a passage where he speaks of Nazareth as the place where Jesus "had been brought up" (Luke iv. 16). But there were occasions when, if the birth did take place at Bethlehem, the fact should have been brought out. Philip tells Nathanael, a devout man, "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son," he represents, "of Joseph." Nathanael, evidently instructed in the prophecies concerning the Messiah, replies, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" To which Philip rejoins, Now if that "good," or "Come and see" (John i. 45, 46). The taxation. as elsewhere called "holy thing," had been the offspring of the Holy Ghost, here was a time for declaring the fact; and certainly Nathanael ought to have been assured that his birth had been at Bethlehem, as required by the exigency of the prophecy. But he is simply told, "Come and see;" that is, "Come and see that a good thing can be derived from Nazareth." The same question was raised on another occasion. Some said, "This is the Christ." Then it was asked, "Shall Christ come out of Galilee ? Hath not the scripture said, that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was ? So there was a division among the people because of him" (John vii. 41-43); and yet not a soul comes forward to satisfy the inquirers with a declaration of the birth at Bethlehem, and its wondrous and important adjuncts,-the heavenly hosts appearing to the shepherds, the star guiding the wise men, and the slaughter of the infants. P. There are then these two accounts of the birth at Bethlehem, consisting of details so discordant as to make them absolutely irreconcileable; and not only a want of support to such a fact in the remainder of these histories, but everything to contradict it. The taxation, which is said by Luke to have brought the family to Bethlehem, may possibly possess the features which should belong to it as an historical event. S.--The measure is described by Josephus as resorted to solely for the estimation of property. The object would have been entirely defeated by the inhabitants transferring themselves from their usual places of abode to other quarters. The pretext, therefore, for the movement of the family from Nazareth to Bethlehem, given by Luke, could have no foundation in fact. Nor could the Roman Emperor exercise authority of this kind in the territories of an allied prince such as Herod, who, though he paid tribute to Rome, collected his own taxes. Consequently there could have been no such taxation under the orders of Cæsar Augustus in Judea, as declared by Luke, in the time the province continued under the rule of Herod.1 The census of Cyrenius, or Quirinus, according to Josephus (Ant. xvii. xiii. 5, xviii. i. I., ii. I), did not take place until after the deposition of Archelaus, the son and successor of Herod (Matt. ii. 22), when Judea became a province of Rome, 1 Giles' Christian Records, 121; English Life of Jesus, I. 50. 1 "It cannot which was ten years after the death of Herod.1 unhistorical. P.—Are there any historical characters among those who witnesses received or gave testimony to the advent of the Messiah at the time of his miraculous birth? The shepherds, to whom the angels appeared, are not named, and would probably be unknown even had they been so. Nor are the wise men, who were led by the star, specified, but being spoken of as renowned for wisdom, they should have been known characters. And then there are Simeon and Anna who recognised him in the temple. S. There is not a trace by which any of the parties can be identified so as to be ascertained to have been living personages. There is a Simeon, called Niger, spoken of in the Acts (xiii. 1; xv. 14), but this was forty-four years after the birth of Jesus, and he cannot have been the one in the temple, who was an aged man whose life had been specially prolonged that he might so see the Messiah; and Anna, the prophetess, is never heard of again. She also was then "of great age. She is said to have been the daughter of Phanuel, but who he was no one knows. of infants. P. In respect of Herod killing the young children, and Slaughter the flight to Egypt by means of which Jesus escaped, what were the measures taken by Herod to secure Jesus? and how did John the Baptist, who was an infant at the time, avoid the peril ? S. The wise men came to Jerusalem and went about asking, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we 1 Giles' Christian Records, 120, 121; Renan's Life of Jesus, 46, note. 2 New Life of Jesus, II. 28. |