36. The purely mythical explanation of the narrative concerning the Magi. (Chapter 4. Birth and Earliest Events of the Life of Jesus.) (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined) (Strauss, David Friedrich)

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 inight have been drawn from the prophecies of the heathen Balaam, recorded in the Book of Numbers. K. Ch. L. Sclnuidt 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 narrativc. The prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxlv. 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 sonic 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 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; and the passages cited by Wetstein and Schocttgen, many rabbis applied the prophecy to the Messiah. The name Bar-Cochba, 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 bo prognosticated by the appearance of a comet in the year of his birth, and in that of his accession to the throne; and a comet observed shortly alter the death of Julius Csrsar, was supposed to have a. close relation to that event. These ideas were not without influence on the Jews; at ^{P.171} 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. 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. The narrative of Matthew is sillied 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. We may therefore state the opinion of K. Ch. L. Schmidt, recently approved by Fritzsche and De Wette, as the nearest approach to truth on the subject of Matthew's star in the cast. 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 story 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. 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 cast 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 foretels that, at that time, the most remote people and kings will come to Jerusalem to worship Jeliovah, with offerings of gold and incense and all acceptable gifts. If in this passage the Messianic times alone are spoken of, while the Messiah himself is wanting, in Psalm Ixxii. we read of a king who is to be feared as long as the sun and moon endure, in whose times the righteous shall nourish, 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 Isai. 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 lia'ht,+ which mio'ht 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 conse.quen.cc 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 marked out the way of Aeneas from the shores of Troy to the west; Thrasybulus and Timoleon were led by celestial fires; and a star was said to have guided Abraham on his way to Moriah. 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 latter 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 ^{P.173} 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 story of the childhood of Cyrus in Herodotus, of Romulus in Livy, and even later of Augustus in Suetonius, we find this trait; neither has the Hebrew legend neglected to assign such a distinction to Moses. 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 hiin the birth of an infant destined to succour the Israelites and humble the Egyptians. 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 Israelite 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 exited by a remarkable star, that Sarah 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. 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, howevcr, he happily escapes? The apocryphal legend, indeed, has introduced an imitation of this trait after its own style, into the story of the Fore-runner; 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 hidingplace, is put to death.

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, chide 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 night into a foreign land; not, however, during his childhood, but after he had slain the Egyptian, whe.n, fearing the vengeance of Pharaoh, he takes refuge in Midian (Exod. il. 15.). That reference was made to this night of the first God 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 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, come from Egypt; however, that his history might not be destitute of so significant a feature as a connection 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 clucid'.ition of this particular in our narrative.

Against this mythical derivation of the narrative, two objections have been recently urged. First, if the story 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? 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, The other objection is this: how could the communities of Jewish Christians, from which this pretended myth must have sprung, ascribe so high an importance to the heathen as is implied in the star of the magi?

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 story of his childhood received a Messianic form.

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, so that. both the accounts might be essentially correct. Of late, only one of the Evangelists ^{P.176} 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. 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 bo 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.