(St. Matthew i. 25; St. Luke ii. 1-20.)
Such then was 'the hope of the promise made of God unto the fathers,' for which the twelve tribes, 'instantly serving (God) night and day,' longed, with such vividness, that they read it in almost every event and promise; with such earnestness, that it ever was the burden of their prayers; with such intensity, that many and long centuries if disappointment have not quenched it. Its light, comparatively dim in days of sunshine and calm, seemed to burn brightest inthe dark and lonely nights of suffering, as if each gust that swept over Israel only kindled it into fresh flame.
To the question, whether this hope has ever been realised, or rather, whether One has appeared Whose claims to the Messiahship have stood the test of investigation and of time, impartial history can make only one answer. It points to Bethlehem and to Nazareth. If the claims of Jesus have been rejected by the Jewish Nation, He has at least, undoubtedly, fulfilled one part of the Mission prophetically assigned to the Messiah. Whether or not He be the Lion of the tribe of Judah, to Him, assuredly, has been the gathering of the nations, and the isles have waited for His law. Passing the narrow bounds of obscure Judaea, and breaking down the walls of national
prejudice and isolation, He has made the sublimer teaching of the Old Testament the common possession of the world, and founded a great Brotherhood, of which the God of Israel is the Father. He alone also has exhibited a life, in which absolutely no fault could be found; and promulgated a teaching, to which absolutely no exception can be taken. Admittedly, He was the One perfect Man, the ideal of humanity, His doctrine the one absolute teaching. The world has known none other, none equal. And the world has owned it, if not by the testimony of words, yet by the evidence of facts. Springing from such a people; born, living, and dying in circumstances, and using means, the most unlikely of such results, the Man of Nazareth has, by universal consent, been the mightiest Factor in our world's history: alike politically, socially, intellectually, and morally. If He be not the Messiah, He has at least thus far done the Messiah's work. If He be not the Messiah, there has has at least been none other, before or after Him. If He be not the Messiah, the world has not, and never can have, a Messiah.
To Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah, not only Old Testament prediction, [a Micah v. 2] but the testimony of Rabbinic teaching, unhesitatingly pointed. Yet nothing could be imagined more directly contrary to Jewish thoughts and feelings, and hence nothing less likely to suggest itself to Jewish invention [1 The advocates of the mythical theory have not answered, not even faced or understood, what to us seems, on their hypothesis, an insuperable difficulty. Granting, that Jewish expectancy would suggest the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, why invent such circumstances to being Mary to Bethlehem? Keim may be right in saying: 'The belief in the birth at Bethlehem originated very simply (Leben Jesu i. 2, p. 393); but all the more complicated and inexplicable is the origination of the legend, which accounts for the journey thither of Mary and Joseph.], than the circumstances which, according to the Gospel-narrative, brought about the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Acounting of the people, of Census; and that Census taken at the bidding of a heathen Emperor,and executed by one so universally hated as Herod, would represent the ne plus ultra of all that was most repugnant to Jewish feeling. [2 In evidence of of these feelings, we have the account of Josephus of the consequences of the taxation of Cyrenius (Ant. xviii. 1.1. Comp. Acts v. 37).] If the account to the Gospel-narrative, brought about the birth of the Bethlehem, has no basis in fact, but is a legend invented to locate the birth of the Nazarene in the royal City of David, it must be pronounced most clumsily devised. There is absolutely nothing to account for its origination, either from parallel events in the past, or from contemporary expectancy. Why then connect the birth of their Messiah with what was most repugnant to Israel, especially if, as the advocates of the legendary hypothesis contend, it did not occur at a time when any Jewish Census was taken, but ten years previously?
But if it be impossible rationally to account for any legendary origin of the narrative of Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem, the historical grounds, on which its accuracy has been impugned, are equally insufficient. They resolve themselves into this: that (beyond the Gospel-narrative) we have no solid evidence that Cyrenius was at that time occupying the needful official position in the East, to order such a registration for Herod to carry out. But even this feeble contention is by no means historically unassailable. [3 The arguments on what may be calledthe orthodox side have, from different points of view, been so often and well stated, latterly by Wieseler, Huschke, Zumpt, and Steinmeyer, and on the otherside almost ad nauseam by negative critics of every school, that it seems unnecessary to go again over them. The reader will find the whole subject stated by Canon Cook, whose views we substantially adopt, in the 'Speaker's Commentary' (N.T. i. pp. 326-329). The reasoning of Mommsen (Res gestae D. Aug. pp. 175, 176)
does not seem to me to affect the view taken in the text.] At any rate, there are two facts, which render any historical mistake by St. Luke on this point extremely difficult to believe. First, he was evidently aware of a Census under Cyrenius, ten years later; [a Comp. Acts v. 37] secondly, whatever rendered of St. Luke ii. 2 may be adopted, it will at least be admitted, that the intercalated sentence about Cyrenius was not necessary for the narrative, and that the writer must have intended thereby emphatically to mark a certain event. But an author would not be likely to call special attention to a fact, of which he had only indistinct knowledge; rather, if it must be mentioned, would he do so in the most indefinite terms. This presumption in favour of St. Luke's statement is strengthened by the consideration, that such an event as the taxing of Judaea must have been so easily ascertainable by him.
We are, however, not left to the presumptive reasoning just set forth. That the Emperor Augustus made registers of the Roaman Empire, and of subject and tributary states, is now generally admitted. This registration, for the purpose of future taxation, would also embrace Palestine. Even if no actual order to that effect had been issued during the lifetime of Herod, we can understand that he would deem it most expedient, both on account of his relations to the Emperor, and in view of the probable excitement which a heathen Census would cause in Palestine, to take steps for making a registration, and that rather according to the Jewish than the Roman manner. This Census, then, arranged by Augustus, and taken by Herod in his own manner, was, according to St. Luke, 'first [really] carried out when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria,' some years after Herod's death and when Judaea had become a Roman province. [1 For the textual explanation we again refer to Canon Cook, only we would mark, with Steinmeyer, that the meaning of the expression, in St. Luke ii. 2, is determined by the similar use of it in Acts xi. 28, where what was predicted is said to have actually taken place at the time of Claudius Caesar.]
We are now prepared to follow the course of the Gospel-narrative. In consequence of'the decree of Caesar Augustus,' Herod directed a general registration to be made after the Jewish, rather than the Roman, manner. Practically the two would, indeed, in this instance, be very similar. According to the Roman law, all country-people were to be registered in their 'own city', meaning thereby the town to which the village or place, where they were born, was attached. In so doing, the 'house and lineage' (the nomen and cognomen) of each were marked. [1 Comp. Huschke. Ueber d. z. Zeit d. Geb. J. C. gehalt. Census pp. 119, 120. Most critics have written very confusedly on this point.] According to the Jewish mode of registration, the people would have been enrolled according to tribes, families or clans, and the house of their fathers. But as the ten tribes had not returned to Palestine, this could only take place to a very limited extent, [2 The reader will now be able to appreciate the value of Keim's objections against such a Census, as involving a 'wahre Volkswanderung' (!), and being 'eine Sache der Unmoglichkeit.'] while it would be easy for each to be registered in 'his own city.' In the case of Joseph and Mary, whose descent from David was not only known, but where, for the sake of the unborn Messiah, it was most important that this should be distinctly noted, it was natural that, in accordance with Jewish law, they should have gone to Bethlehem. Perhaps also, for many reasons which will readily suggest themselves, Joseph and Mary might be glad to leave Nazareth, and seek, if possible, a home in Bethlehem. Indeed, so strong was this feeling, that it afterwards required special Divine direction to induce Joseph to relinquish this chosen place of residence, and to return into Galilee, [a St. Matt ii. 22.] In these circumstances, Mary, now the 'wife' of Joseph, though standing to him only in the actual relationship of'betrothed,' [b St. Luke ii. 5.] would, of course, accompany her husband to
Bethlehem. Irrespective of this, every feeling and hope in her must have prompted such a course, and there is no need to discuss whether Roman or Jewish Census-usage required her presence, a question which, if put, would have to be answered in the negative.
The short winter's day was probably closing in, [3 This, of course, is only a conjecture; but I call it 'probable,' partly because one would naturally so arrange a journey of several days, to make its stages as slow and easy as possible, and partly from the circumstance, that, on their arrival, they found the khan full, which would scarcely have been the case had they reached Bethlehem early in the day.] as the two travellers from Nazareth, bringing with them the few necessaries of a poor Eastern household, neared their journey's end. If we think of Jesus as the Messiah from heaven, the surroundings of outward poverty, so far from detracting, seem most congruous to His Divine character. Earthly splendor would here seem like tawdry tinsel, and the utmost simplicity like that clothing of
