THE GLORY OF THE MANGER • Studies on the Incarnation • SAMUEL MARINUS ZWEMER, D.D. By

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY Twenty-oneWest Forty-sixthStreet NewYork,N.Y.

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Printed in the United States of America TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher'sPreface Foreword ...... _-...... 9 I. The Glory of the EternalPurpose . . . • . .. . 15 II. The Fullness of Time ...... 25 III. TheStumbling-Block of the Manger . . • . . . 41 IV. Mary the Mother of Jesus ...... 61 V. Joseph the Carpenter ...... 73 VI. His Glorious Names ...... 87 VII. TheStar of Bethlehem ...... 105 VIII. TheSong of the Angels ...... 119 IX. Songs on Earth ...... 131 X. The Flight into Egypt ...... 145 XI. TheWord was Made Flesh ...... 157 XII. The Word was God ...... 169 XIII. Why Christ Came to Bethlehem...... 181 XIV. The Humiliation and the Exaltation ...... 195 XV. The Second Advent ...... 209 XVI. The Glory of the Manger ...... 221 HE officers ofPUBLISHER'S the AMERICANTRACT PREFACE SOCIETY have become Tthoroughly convinced that there is an urgent, wide-spread and imperative need of scholarly, up-to-date;popular treatises of the essential evangelical doctrines. They are equally convinced that there are many conservative Christian leaders with the intellectual acumen and literary ability amply qualified to pre­ pare such treatises with convincing persuasiveness and dynamic efficiency. The Society therefore recently announced a Prize Book Con­ test requesting manuscripts, subject to certain conditions, on the fundamental principles of the Christian faith and offering prizes amounting to seventeen hundred and fiftydollars. The results of the contest have absolutely verified and justified the Society's contention for one hundred and sixteen excellent manuscripts were submitted by widely known and distin­ guished writers. The officers of the Society are not only highly gratified by the response received, but now feel fully justified in their determination to make the Society the repository of the choicest, most scholarly and popular books on gospel truth. Fortunately this decision has been made at a time when the world's need of an unadulterated and a dynamic gospel is more in evidence than for many centuries. Thirteen specially selected manuscripts are now being pub­ lished, The gospel of Christ is the only force which can save the world. The Scripture quotations taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, are used by permission of The International Council of Religious Education. FOREWORD

IN his sumptuous edition of "The Bible in Art" Oifton Harby makes the striking observation that during the middle ages "when the Church played so large a part in the destiny of nations, art was religious because the people were religious, and this goes far to explain why all the museums of Europe are crowded with Madonnas and Crucifixions." The artists felt the pulse not only of their own time in these two great themes -the Incarnation and the Atonement. For these two miracles are the foci of the vast ellipse of New Testa­ ment thought and Old Testament prophecy. The Glory of the Cross and the Glory of the Manger are the two-fold revelation of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His Being. Some ten years ago, at Cairo, Egypt, I wrote a little book containing studies on the Passion of our Lord. It found many readers, and translations also appeared in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Swedish. The Glory of the Cross here finds a companion volume of medita­ tions onsome aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation -its historic setting, its implications and its lessons. Thefirst three chapters are introductory, and deal with the cosmic character of the Incarnation and the evi­ dences for the story of the Nativity. Then follow seven chapters on the story itself. The next five are more or less doctrinal and the final chapter sums up 9 10 11 FOREWORD FOREWORD the message and glory of Christmas. And what a And yet these are only two among the myriad voices story it is! of an ever-increasingand swelling chorus. For wellnigh Our hymnology enshrines it for all the churches and two thousand years all ages, races and conditions of Christmas carols are heard in all lands in many menhave been carried away captive by that Holy child. tongues. In 1922, I heard "Silent Night, Holy Night" They have laid their faith, their love, their devotion, sung by a large woman's choir of Battak converts at their learning, their lives as an offering before the Pearaja, Sumatra. Once fierce cannibals, the Chris­ Manger-Throne. For theysaw there the Word who was tian believers there now exceed a half million. When Ali God, and the Light of the World. There the brush of in London a few years ago, a book on comparative the artist, the imagination of the poet, the mind of religion by an Afghan student, Sirdar Ikbal Shah, the theologian and the emotions of the saint have arrested my attention. His chapter on Christianity ( and found their inspiration, so that the glory of the Manger the writer is still nominally a Mohammedan) has this has become the glory of Christian art, architecture, astounding opening paragraph: music, poetry and literature. To gather into one com­ "The birth of Christ is the greatest event in the pass the glory of the Advent as expressed in all these annals of time. When the dawn of the world broke ways one would have to strip the art-galleries of the and the morning stars sang together, man came forth life, world of their most costly treasures, ransack the litera­ from God; designed for dominion he became a slave; ture of all nations, and rob the hymnologies of all born for he fell into the abyss of death; offspring the churches of their choicest tributes to the Babe of of infinite goodness he stained his spirit with sin. After Bethlehem. We have gathered only fragments. long millenniums the world lay prostrate under the The Incarnation was the greatest miracle of human shadow of universal ruin. Religion had become a history. And it is true. God who fills the universe was burden, but God had not forgotten; in His heart were born a Babe. Christ at Bethlehem brought new life the purposes of love, and at last He appears among and power into the world. He took hold of the seed men in the Person of the Eternal Son. The coming of of Abraham to redeem it. The Incarnation is a reality, Christ as a Babe in Bethlehem set the Heavenly hosts wonderful, glorious and beautiful; but also a mystery to singing, because at last the poor had the good news 1 so great and so ho!y that angels veil their faces in of Eternal life preached unto them: 'Glory to God in its contemplation. "The Word was made flesh and the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men.' " dwelt among us, ( and we beheld His glory, the glory tWho Lights ofcould Asia, betterLondon, state 1924, thepage glory68. of the Manger? as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." 12 FOREWORO

We hope that the following brief chapters will afford the reader a deeper insight into the significance of these words of John, the beloved disciple, so that each of us may give glory to JesusSAMUEL Christ M. our ZWEMER. Lord.

New York City.

THE GLORY OF THE ETERNAL PURPOSE "I CANNOT tell why He whom angels worship Should set His Jove upon the sons of men, Or why as Shepherd He should seek the wanderers And bring them back, I know not how or when. But this I know, that He was bornof Mary, CHAPTER I When Bethlehem's stable was his only home, And that at Nazareth He Jived and laboured, And so the Saviour, Saviour of the world is come. THE GLORY OF THE ETERNAL PURPOSE THE birth of Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem was "I cannot tell how patiently He suffered not a fortuitous event. It did not just happen. Paul When with His peace He graced this place of tears, the Apostle speaks of "the eternalpurpose which God Or how upon the Cross His heart was broken, had in Christ Jesus." He writes in all his epistles of The crown of pain to three and thirty years. a pre-existing Christ, "who is before all things and by But this I know, He heals the broken-hearted, whom all things consist." A Christ who is the first And stays their sin and calms their lurking fear, born of every creature, the image of the invisible God, And lifts the burden from the heavy-laden, and in whom from endless ages are hid all the treas­ And so the Saviour, Saviour of the world is here. ures of wisdom and knowledge. ( Colossians 1st Chap­ ter) . Where did Paul get his ideas of such a cosmic "I cannot tell how He will win the nations, Christ who came out of eternity into time, out of the How He will claim His earthly heritage, glory of heaven to the inn at Bethlehem? And satisfy the needs and aspirations Paul is indeed very bold in that "life of Christ" Of East and West, of sinner and of sage. which we can gather from his letters. Mark begins his But this I know, all flesh shall see His glory, Gospel with the baptism at Jordan; Matthew begins And He will reap the harvest He has sown. with Abraham; Luke goes back to Adam; John tells And some glad day, His name will shine with splendour, us that the Word which was made flesh was in the be­ When He, the Saviour, Saviour of the world is ary -Anon. ginning with God. But Paul bridges the chasms of known." eternity and rises from the time-born son of M to the Christ who was in the glory of the Father before creation. "Who, being in the form of God, thought 14 it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a 15 16 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 17 servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and Christmas to him-Christ in him the hope of glory. being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, He required no Christmas card to remind him that and became obedient unto death, e\ten the death of God so loved the world. He bore in his body the the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, marks of the Lord Jesus. The only Christmas tree he and given him a name which is above every name: knew was the tree on Calvary. He was so close to that at the name of Jesus e\tery knee should bow, of the e\tent that he felt its full and aweful significance. things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under In Paul's epistles we have the most ancient documentary the earth; and that e\tery tongue should confess that evidence of what the birth of Jesus meant to early Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."' Christianity. And it is refreshing to go back to those (Phil. 2:9-11.) days and to those records. If you would know the Now- the answer to those who stumble at these stu­ length and breadth and height and depth of God's pendous implications of a Pre-existent Christ, is simply love for the world in sending His son, read Paul's the fact that the earliest records know no other Saviour. epistles. No one ever packed more meaning into words The first reference chronologically to the birth of Jesus than this dauntless missionary, writing to his early con­ in the whole New Testamentis in one of Paul's earliest verts. Here we have "good measure pressed down, epistles, Galatians 4:4. That epistle, everyone knows, shaken together and running over." There is nothing was writtenbefore Mark and Matthew penned their gos­ shallow nor superficial in Paul's Christology. pels, and long before John wrote his prologue. "When In our day Christmas has degenerated into a day of the fulness of time came, God sent forth his Son, hilarious mirth or, what is far worse, a certain dullness born of a woman, born under the law, that he might of understanding. An American college poet, Edna St. redeem them that were under the law, that we might Vincent Millay, felt this when she wrote these lines, receive the adoption of sons." (A.R.V.) This was writ­ "To Jesus on His Birthday": ten centuries before the Christian church began to observe the birthday of Jesus. Yet it tells when Christ "For this your Mother sweated in the cold,­ came, how he came, whence he came and the purpose For this you bled upon the bitter tree. of his coming. A yard of tinsel-ribbon bought and sold, The church of the first century had no need of any A paper wreath, a day at home for me. external ceremony to recall the stupendous fact of the The merry bells ring out, the people kneel­ incarnation. To Paul the observanceof days and months Up goes the man of God before the crowd and seasons belonged to Judaism. Every day was With voice of honey and with eyes of steel, 18 TIIEGLORY OF THE MANGER TIIEGLORY OF TIIEETERNAL PURPOSE 19

He drones your humble Gospel to the proud. Such was "the form of sound words" he taught Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows Timothy, perhaps the earliest creed of Christendom. Ase all your words to us! You died to save- "For," said he, to the Corinthian chur\±1, "ye know the 0 Prince of Peace! 0 Sharon's dewy Rose, grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was How mute you lie within your painted grave, rich yet for our sakes He became poor, that ye through The stone the Angel rolled away with tears His poverty might become rich." "For it was the good Is back upon your mouth these thousand years." pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fullness Not so. Christ is alive forevermore. He still speaks dwell and through Him to reconcile all things unto to those who will listen. He gave Paul the gospel of the Himself having made peace through the blood of His cosmic Christ and John the gospel of the Incarnation. cross." The one thought always present to the mind of According to both John and Paul the birth of our' Paul was the vision he saw on the road to Damascus. Saviour at Bethlehem was the one divine event in Jesus of Nazareth, risen from the dead, to whom all which all other events culminated. This was the crisis power and glory belonged, and who had this power of history, the goal of Old Testament prophecy, the and glory before He came to earth as our Redeemer. greatest occurrence since the creation and therefore Back of all thegenealogies, back of the lowly home at once again "the morning stars sang together and the Nazareth, back of Bethlehem's manger, Paul saw one sons of God shouted for joy." We shall see in our eternal "Lord Jesus Christ through whomA.R.V.). are all next chapter that Jesus was born in the fullness of time things, and we through Him" (I eqCor. 8:6, -when everything was ripe and ready for his mani­ The life of Jesusfor him had no ad uate nor ultimate, festation. Paul gives us, in scattered fragments, an conclusive explanationis save in the eternities with God outline of the Divine biography revealed to him-the Himself. He the man fromto heaven who descended, mystery of all the ages, the incarnation of the Son of but alsogifts ascended again lead captivity captive and God: give unto men. A merely human Christ does not "He was manifested in the flesh, fit into Paul's epistles nor into the Gospel of John. Justifiedin the spirit, The life and death and resurrection of Jesus had rela­ Seen of Angels, tion to the whole universe. Paul leaves Darwin far . Preached among the nations, behind in his glorious realistic philosophy! All nature Believed on in the world, as well as all humanity share in the fruits of the incar­ Received up into glory." nation and the atonement. A survival even of the unfit 20 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 21 and the unholy by Christ's redemption! "For creation "Nothing can vex the devil more itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corrup­ Than the name of Him whom we adore. tion into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Therefore doth it delight me best "We must recognize," says Gwilym 0. Griffith," that To stand in the choir among the rest, to make Christ's Bethlehem birth the upspringing out With the great organ trumpeting, of the unconscious of a life which had no antecedent Through its metallic notes, and sing: being and therefore no elective purpose, no will-to-be, Et verbum caro factum est! ' until it fashioned that will out of its own infant appe­ tites, would be to take all the colour out of Paul's These words the devil can not endure Gospel; it would muffle the majestic organ-tones of For he knoweth their meaning well! Grace which accompany and interpret the entire recita­ Him they trouble and repel tive of Paul's narration of Christ's earthly ministry; it Us they comfort and allure; would deprive us of the glow and rapture of a redemp­ And happy it were if our delight tion wrought for us at infinite cost by One who, Were as great as his afright!" though He was rich for our sakes became poor."' "And the Word was made flesh." John had a twofold The deity of Christ makes all the difference in our object in his Gospel and his Epistles, both expressed Christmas joy. He who came to the Manger was God's in the short prologue. He writes to prove the real Son. To deny this is to deny essential Christianity. If divinity and the actual suffering of Jesus Christ in his the Saviour of men is not identical with their Creator, human nature; that he was God and man, the Lamb there are no good-tidings of great joy for the human of God who taketh away the sin of the world. "For race and no help in the Cross for the sinner. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten "And the Word was made flesh,"John says, the very Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, Word which was God and in the beginning was with but have everlasting life (John 3: 16). God. At Bethlehem"we beheld His glory as of the only In our day we are told to look for "the historic begotten from the Father full of grace and truth." Jesus," the man of Galilee, a teacher sent of God, the Longfellow in his poem on Martin Luther, puts friend of the outcast and the oppressed, the critic of society and the Jewish church, very like other great those words into the mouth of the great Reformer at reformers even in his limitations. But a merely human the Wartburg: Christ, no matter how humane and tender, can not �P aul's Life of Christ, p. 91. t And the Word was made flesh. 22 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER suffice. We need the Lord of Glory, the Christ of eter­ nal love and eternal redemption, the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. We need a Saviour who is alive forevermore and who abolished death and brought life and immortality to. the world by His Incarnation. "Shakespeare is dust, and will not come To question from his Avoney tomb, And Socrates and Shell keep Aney Attic and Italian sleep. Th will not see us, nor again Shall· indignation light the brain Where Lincoln on his woodland height THE FULLNESS OF TIME Tells out the spring and winter night. They see not. But, 0 Christians, who Throng Holborn and Fifth Avenue, May you not meet, in spite of death, A traveler from Nazareth?" '

aTohnDrinkwater, To and Pro AboNt the City, CHAPTER II THE FULLNESS OF TIME Tull lesson of astronomy and of geology is the long patience of God. He could have created the whole universe instantaneous!y but we know now, from the Bible, and from the book of nature, that it was an age­ long process. When old Bishop Usher put the date Far, far away is Bethlehem, 4004 B. C. in the margin of the first verses in Genesis And years are long and dim he betrayed the fact that he had never meditated long Since Mary held the holy Child on the ninetieth Psalm or on the story of creation in And angels sang to Him: the book of Job. God lives in eternity. A thousand But still to hearts where love and faith years with Him are as one day and one day as a Make room for Christ in them, thousand years. We need to understand that God is He comes again, the Child from God, patient. He can wait without irritation and He can To findHis Bethlehem.-W. Russell Bowie work without seeing immediate results. The ninety­ ninth head on the Moslem prayer-rosary is the last and they name it, The Patient God. Christ first taught this lesson in many of his parables; and John, who knewJesus best, speaks of his patience in the Revela­ tion. After all things were ready and countless ages had laid stores of coal and oil and minerals in the bowels of the earth for man's use God created our first parents in His image and gave them dominion. So also at the coming of the Second Adam, the Saviour of mankind, all things were ready. It was the "fullness of the time." Paul uses this expression twice in his epistles and in both25 cases the words refer to 24 26 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 27 the fulness of theChrist's time first and second advent. "When the Angora assembly adopted it together with the That was come, God sent forth his Son" .(Gal. 4:4). Gregorian calendar, a few years ago. refers to Bethlehem as we saw in the preceding The four hundred years betweeµ Malachi and Mat­ chapter. "He haththe purposedfulness of intimes himself that in the thew are not adequately represented in our Bibles by dispensation of he might gather the blank page that divides the Old Testament from together in one all things in Christ, both which areThat in the New Testament. On that page we must inscribe heaven, and which are on earth" (Ephes. 1:10) . the fullness of preparation, the fullness of expectation refers to the second Advent and the consummation of and the fullness of despair before the coming of the God's plan of redemption. pleroma, Redeemer. The Greek word used in both cases is which On that page we must write the names of four great means filled up to the brim. We know what it means cities that rose to power and influence in God's eternal in nature: first the blade, then the ear and after that purpose for the spread of his gospel: Rome, Alexan­ the fully ripened grain and the harvest. We know what dria, Athens, Jerusalem. As Edersheim remarks: "The it means in physics: you can saturate a solution up reign of Augustus marked not only the climax but the to the fullness of time and then it is no longer fluid crisis of Roman history. Whatever of good or evil the but crystalizes. We know what it means in physiology: ancient world contained had become fully ripe. As

the growth of the hidden ovum to maturity and birth, regards politics, philosophy, religion and1 society the or the crisis in a fever. All these are illustrations of utmost limits had been reached. Beyond them lay as the what we mean by the nick of time, thecritical moment, only alternatives, ruin or regeneration.'' Stoicism and the finalprocess in a long series of events, all of which Epicureanism had both done their best and their worst. have vitaley relation to each other and to the goal toward There were three sad and pitiful signs of the times� which th led. the treatment of slaves, the callous attitude of the In this very sense Jesus was born at Bethlehem in luxurious rich toward the poor, and the public amuse­ the fullness of God's time for that greatest of all events ments in the arena of cruelty. Five great historic fig­ in human history. It was a happy thought of Dionysius, ures were raised up of God as harbingers of a new era a theologian and astronomer 0£ the sixth century, to and, in a sense, preparatory leaders for the coming of introduce a Christian era, dating all events not from the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace. thefounding of Rome but B. C. and A. D., making the Socrates was a contemporary of Malachi. The former manger at Bethlehem the center of history. Today thatey �died 399 of Christ, B. C. vol. and1: p. 256.the two lives overlap. The last era has become almost universal; even in new Turk 28 TIIE GLORY OF TIIE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 29 great spiritual teacher of Israel was succeeded by the all. More than all other Romans put together he made .first great spiritual teacher of the classic world. There the world-empire what it was. He gave distinctive had been many philosophers before Socrates but their character to Roman citizenship, buJlt roads across Eu­ teaching landed men the slough of despond. This rope, made travel safe and commerce international. philosopher had firmin foo ting on the road to mono­ Along Caesar's great highways his legions marched to theism, taught the dignity of manhood and was assured extend the empire and the apostles went on their mis­ of theimmortality of the soul. He prepared theway for sion of peace. As Professor Breed remarks, "Julius Plato and Paul. Alexander the Great was a pupil of Caesar made the 'Acts of the Apostles' possible." Aristotle and so became more Greek than Macedonian. Herod the Great was great cruelty and profligacy He carried Greek literature and culture to the bounds and yet he too had a place in God'sin plan. Herod cher­ of Persia and India until all the near East was Hellen­ ished the hope of Israel by rebuilding the Temple. ized. The Jews of Alexandria translated their sacred Forty-six years, the gospel tells us, he toiled to enrich books into Greek and so, by means of the Septuagint, and embellish Jerusalem, and gave it a sanctuary that the doors for the proclamation of the Gospel were rivalled Solomon's Temple. When that building was opened to all Greek-speaking Jews who mediated the completed, the Lord of the Temple came suddenly to message; as we see in the case of Philip, and Stephen the Temple of the Lord (Malachi 3: 1). Aged Simeon, and Barnabas. Alexander the Great prepared the way holding the babe of Bethlehem in his arms, cried: by his conquests and the spread of Greek culture for "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace O Lord Christ's messengers throughout Asia Minor. according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy Judas Maccabeus broke the foreign yoke from the salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of neck of the Jews in Palestine and one hundred and all peoples. A light to lighten the gentiles and the fifty years before Christ was born, kindled the flame glory of thy people Israel." of patriotism and freedom. The Jews were to be con­ All things were ready. The temple-gate Beautiful, solidated, unified, given a better hope and inspired and Solomon's porch, and the great court-yard-what with faith for their future deliverance. The prime agent were they but Herod's pulpit built for the Teacher in this work was Judas Maccabeus. For over a century sent from God who would abolish the sacrifices be­ the Jews paid tribute to no foreign master. Their leader cause He himself was the Lamb of God that taketh died in 160 B. C. but his soul went marching on. Israel away the sin of the world. waited for a King. Three languages were prepared for the word of God Julius Caesar's name and greatness are familiar to and for Pilate's inscription on the Cross. In Hebrew, in 30 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 31

Greek .and in Latin the story of the Saviour-King .would of Messianic times which is generally admitted to have soon be heard in three continents, Europe, Asia and formed the basis of Virgil's remarkable description in Africa; three worlds-the world of Roman law, of his Fourth Eclogue of a coming Golden Age, under a Greek civilization and of Jewish tradition. Messiah-child sent by the gods. The following portion Harnack puts fu:st among the factors that ushered of this Fourth Eclogue is from the rendering by· John in "the fullness of the time," the Dispersion of the Dryden and reminds us of the Spanish saying, The Jews. This was God's providential preparation. Here eyes of Virgil were the first to see the Star of Beth­ was a wide field partly tilled in every great city; a lehem: preliminary knowledge of the Old Testament promises; the habit of public worship to One true God and su­ "The Father banished virtue shall restore, perior ethical standards in contrast with paganism; and And crimes shall threat the guilty World no more, last but not least an innate urge to win proselytes-the The Son shall lead the life of Gods, and be zeal of Zion. By Gods and Heroes seen, and Gods and Heroes see. The Jews were inter-racial merchants and traveled The jarring Nations he in peace shall bind, everywhere. One in Phrygia is mentioned who made And with paternal virtues rule Mankind. the voyage to Rome seventy-two times in the course of Unbidden Earth shall wreathing Ivy bring his life. In short we may sum up these preparatory And fragrant Herbs ( the promises of Spring) events in the words of the great church historian: As her first offerings to her infant King." "The narrow world had become a wide world, the An even more remarkable indication of this longing rent world had become a unity, onethe barbarianone world for a world-mediator, one who could restore peace and had become Greek andone Roman; empire, uni­ righteousness, is found in Plato. He almost echoes the versal language anl civilization; a common devel­ prophecy of Isaiah regarding the servant of Jehovah opment toward monotheism and a common yearning who would suffer for the transgressions of His people for Saviours.''' and by whose stripes we are healed ( Isaiah 5 3). Here are the astonishing words: "The perfectly righteous There was a fullness of expectation among Jew and man, who without doing any wrong may assume the Gentile for the coming of a redeemer. The third book appearance of the grossest injustice; yea who shall be of the Sibylline Oracles ( which for the most part dates scourged, fettered, tortured, deprived of his eyesight, from2 Harnack' the firsts Missien century and Expansion before Christ)of Christendom, presents vol. 1:a p.picture -22. and after having endured all possible sufferings, fast­ ened to a post, must restore again the beginning and THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 32 33 prototype of righteousness" (Politia 4:74). It is imma­ A Second Adam to the fight terial to ask where Plato got his idea of a just man And to therescue came." J suffering for the unjust. The idea is there and gave Then the promise was that the coming deliverer would rise to the hope for a redeemer. belong to the Semitic Race (Gen. 9:26-27). After­ Waiting disciples were looking for the Consolat10n wards God appeared unto Abraham (Gen. 12) and of Israel; Simeon, Anna and Zacharias are only three gave him the promise: "I will bless thee, and make out of many, whose names are not recorded by Luke. thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing ...and in The pious Jew and the Greek Proselytes of the Gate thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (like the Ethiopian eunuch) read the prophecies of This promise was reiterated and made more definite Isaiah and other promises of a golden age yet to be. ey to Isaac and to Jacob. Then on his death-bed Jacob The exceeding great and precious promises of the Old singled out Judah in his prophetic blessing as the Testament scriptures were not yet clear but th saw ancestor of the coming deliverer: "The sceptre shall them as from afar and rejoiced with Abraham the not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between father of the faithful "who saw Christ" s day and was his feet, until Shiloh ( the rest-giver) come; and unto glad." (John 8: 56.) him shall the gathering of the people be." (Gen. Not without reason did our Saviour challenge the 49:10.) Scribes and Pharisees to search the Scriptures because Later we have the remarkable prophecy of Balaam they testified to his coming, his character and his mis­ (Numbers 24:17) when he fell into a trance and saw "the seed sion. The earliest Messianic promise was given at the a vision of the Almighty: "I shall see him, but not gatesof the of woman" a lost Paradise to our firstparents, now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall shall bruise the head of the serpent. come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out That expression occurs nowhere else in the Bible and of Israel, and smite the corners of Moab, and destroy is deeply significant. all the children of Sheth ...out of Jacob shall come "Praise to the Holiest in the height he that shall have dominion." And in the depth be praise These are Messianic prophecies of the Kingship of In all His words most wonderful Christ. Moses spake of him as the prophet: "The Lord Most sure in all His ways. thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the "O loving Wisdom of our God! midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him When all was sin and shame, shall ye hearken . . . I will raise them up a Prophet THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 34 35 from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will Hopes and expectations were also expressed, some­ put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto times wildly and without restraint in the apocalyptic themall that I shall command him" (Deut. 18:15-18) . literature of this period, such as the Book of Enoch When Jesus spake with the two disciples on theway and the Psalter of Solomon. But we think chiefly of to Emmaus, he himself, .. beginning at Moses and all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. These the prophets expounded unto them in all the scrip­ are not on! y more numerous than the average reader tures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27.) imagines, they are cumulative and together form a And, he said to another group of his disciples after his full-length pen-portrait of the coming Deliverer that is resurrection, "All things must be fulfilled, which were amazing in its distinctness and glory. Dr. Charles A. written in the Jaw of Moses, and in the prophets, and Briggs in his great work on Messianic Prophecy, after in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44) . a critical study of all the Old Testament passages gives When we search the Old Testament we find the a synopsis in a final chapter. The Messianic ideal ad­ promised Messiah in types and ceremonials in symbols vances through the long centuries from the germ of the and ritual-a picture-book of the Christ who came at protevangeliUII\ in Genesis 3: 15 to the magnificrnt the fullness of the time. Especially in the Psalms ( 2, chapters of Isaiah and Daniel. The coming of the Re­ 22, 72, 110, etc.) and in Isaiah and Daniel we have deemer is to be a conflictwith evil until he is victorious pen-pictures of the coming Messiah so distinct and and returns upon the clouds of heaven to triumph over definite that they seem to have been written after the the Anti-Christ (Daniel). The new Jerusalem is to event instead of centuries before Christ"s birth. Like a surpass the glory of the Tabernacle, with its Shekinah, pyramid these prophecies rise from a wide base and become more definite and glorious as they rise higher and the Temple. Its gates, open to all nations, are and higher on the lips of the prophets-the suffering for salvation and praise. The gentiles are to bring their Servant, the Consolation of Israel, the victorious De­ glory and honor as tribute to the Messiah King ...He liverer, the Prophet, the Priest and the King .. who shall shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the have dominion from sea to sea and from the River to River unto the ends of thegm earth." (Psalm 72 A. R. V.). the ends of the earth." The King comesgm for jud ent as well as for salvation. In view of such promises and the general expecta­ The great jud ent will be a battle, a harvest and a tion of the Jews it is no wonder that the apostles put treading of the wine-press. (Zephaniah 1:14-18; 3:1-3.) the question to Jesus, "Wilt thou at this time restore The great and terrible day of the Lord (Malachi) is again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6.) also a day of redemption and the outpouring of God's 36 TIIE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FULLNESS OF TIME 37 spirit .(Joel) . Israel will rise from the dead and her ignorant of the general import of prophecy and the dry bones live (Ezekiel). significance of the symbols and types of their religion. The Messiah will come as prophet (Moses) priest When John the Baptist cried out "Behold the Lamb of (Ezekiel) and King (Isaiah). He will reign on the God.. he spoke a language that was understood be­ throne of David in righteousness forever. A twig from cause of the temple-sacrifices and the great prophecy the stump of Jesse will fill the whole earth with its of Isaiah. When Jesus called himself the Light of the fruitfulness (Isaiah). A Ruler will be born in Beth­ World or the Bread of Life no Jew could fail to think lehem. He will fulfill all the ancient promises and of the seven-branched candlestick ever-burning in the become great to the ends of the earth ( Micah 5: 1-4) . sanctuary or of the table of shew-bread in the Taber­ Zechariah tells how the Messiah will build the spiritual nacle. templeof Jehovah and become its capstone; combining The fact is that without the promise of a coming the priestly and royal offices in his noble crown and Deliverer ( a Prophet like unto Moses, a priest after become the perpetual channel of the divine grace (Zech. the order of Melchizedek, and a King whose dominion 3:8-4: 14). Jeremiah unfolds the doctrine of the New and power would be greater than that of Solomon) Covenant which the Messiah will introduce-written the Old Testament prophecies lack a key and a solu­ not on stone but on the heart. What a portrait! tion. All of the Old Testament pointed to Christ and "In Jesus of Nazareth," says Dr. Briggs, "the key some knew it and understood. They were waiting for of the messianic prophecy of the Old Testament has the consolation of Israel. Oose students of Messianic been found. All its phases find their realization in His prophecy gathered from the Old Testament that the unique personality, in His unique work and in His Messiah would spring from the tribe of Judah and unique kingdom. The Messiah of prophecy appears in the house of David; that he would be born at Bethle­ theMessiah of history ...For it was the same divine hem of Judea as Micah foretold; that the time of his Being who devised the redemption of the world, who appearance was dimly but no less surely indicated in revealed it in prophetic prediction, who prepared for the remarkable prophecies of Daniel; and that while it in the development of history, who accomplished it in the Messiah would somehow exercise the offices of time and eternity."• prophet, priest and king he would also be a Servant It is inconceivable that the Scribes who made such of Jehovah "despised and rejected of men, a man of meticulous study of the Old Testament and the best sorrows and acquainted with grief." This paradox of a minds among the Pharisees should have been totally coming Deliverer who would himself suffer in redeem­ • Op. ,it., pp. 497-498. ing Israel is admitted by Jewishwriters before the birth 38 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER of Jesus and was the stumbling-block of Israel when he came to his own and his own received him not. So "they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name" (Mal. 3:16, A. R. V.). Then, in the fullness of time, to those that were waiting and expecting like Anna, Zacharias, and aged Simeon and many more, theIn Sun of righteousness arose with healing in his wings. the power of Elijah the prophet, John the Baptist came as herald of the King to THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers" (Mal. 4:6). Daniel's dream and vision must have been of great comfort to the generations just before Christ came, an age of confusion and ruthless"In conquest when men· s hearts failed them forfear. the days of those Kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall breakit in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and shall stand forever" (Daniel 2:44, A. R. V.). This was the ideal kingdom of which David told in the Psalms. It was the coming Messiah who would ''judge the people with righteousness and the poor with justice." He would break in pieces the oppressor. His name would endure forever and all nations would call him blessed. Even as God promised to Abraham at the first so would he fulfill it all in the fullness of time. That time had come. HYMN XXXII The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ "Where is this stupendousstranger CHAPTER Ill Swains of Solyma, advise Lead me to my Master's Manger THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER Shew me where my Saviour lies? ey THE Manger has always been a stumbling-block to 0 most Mighty! 0 most holy unbelief even as has the Cross. From the days of Far b ond the seraphs thought, Celsus to the Modernists of our time the early chap­ Art thou then so mean and lowly ters of Matthew's Gospel and Luke's narrative of the As unheeded prophets taught? birth of Jesusey were put aside as unworthy of accept­ O the magnitude of meekness! ance. Th were cunningly devised fables and not Worth from worth immortal sprung; actual history. Those who repudiate all that is super­ O the strength of infant weakness natural in the Bible could not of course accept such a If eternalis so young! record of the origin of Christ. Others esteem the mode by which Jesus is reported to have begun his bodily If so young, and thus eternal, existence as unessentialey to faith. In fact, there are Michael tunes the shepherd's reed those who say th believe in the deity of our Lord Where the scenes are ever vernal and even his pre-existence but who consider the Virgin­ And the loves he loves indeed. birth as of no serious importance. But we should · write Ichabod-the glory has departed-over the God all-bounteous, all-creative Manger-if these early records of the birth, the shep­ Whom no ills from good dissuade herds, the star and the song of the angels were myths. Is incarnate, and a native The historicity of the documents, however, is evi­ Of the very world he-ChriJtopher made. Smart dent from their veryey nature. Religious myths are com­ mon enough but th were not put into the Gospels. Peter in his epistle writes: "We have not followed The Psalms of David, London, 1765 cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 40 41 42 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER 43 but were eye witnesses of his majesty." (II Peter 1:16.) statement as that made by the late Nathaniel Schmidt And Luke puts as preface to his Gospel words that of Cornell University: "It may be affirmed that we would stamp him as deliberately untruthful and un­ have no absolutely contemporary evidence preserved in historical if what he tells in his first two chapters is all its original form by which to prove that Jesus of fable: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set Nazareth ever lived!"' The fact is that Scholars of forth in order a declaration of those things which are authority, such as Burkitt, Harnack and Barnes, are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered now upholding the genuineness of the well-known them unto us which from the beginning were eye­ passage in Josephus (A. D. 37-100) which has often witnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good been discredited as having suffered from interpolation. to me also having had perfect understanding of all The passage is as follows: "Now about this time things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know Him a man. For He was a doer of wonderful works, a the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been teacher of men who received the truth with pleasure; instructed." Ramsay has shown that Luke is an accu­ and drew over to Him many of the Jews and many rate historian in all his geographical and chronological of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, references both in the Gospel andey in the Acts. When at the instigation of the leading men among us, had people write myths or fables th usually begin by condemned Him to the cross, those who loved Him saying "Once upon a time." But the Gospel records are at first did not cease to do so. For He appeared to anchored in historical references and geographical data. them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets One has only to compare, for example, the first three had foretold this and ten thousand other wonderful verses of the third chapter of Luke with the Koran or things concerning Him, and the tribe of Christians, the Book of Mormon (where chronology and geogra­ so named from Him, arc not extinct to this day."• phy are absent or absurd) to recognize the absolute Besides we have the witness of Pagan writers of the difference. As Dr. A. B. Bruce remarks, Luke's literary first century, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, and Lucian plan and methods imply "inquiry, accuracy and vouch­ of Samosata. These references to the life and death of Jesus are so important that we have quoted them at ers desired for every statement." The1 things recorded in this gospel "concern the things which have become length in an appendix, to this chapter. �b lerns Concerning the Origin of Religions in J.A.O.S., Sept. widely known among us Christians.'' 1933,Sir James Frazer, the famous author of The Golden 8 1One Expositor's marvels Greek at Testament, the credulity vol. I, p. of 459. unbelief in such a From AnJiq11ities, xxviii. iii, s. 3. 44 TIIE GLORY OF TIIE MANGER TIIE STUMBLING-BLOCKOF THE MANGER 45 Bough, ys this speaks of the folly of those who deny the da of Celsus, the great opponent of early Christianity. historicity of the Gospels: What reasons are given for the rejection of par­ "As my views on this subject appear to have been ticular article in the Apostles Creed and on what strangely misunderstood, I desire to point out ex­ grounds do those who accept the general truthfulness plicitly that my theory assumes the historical reality of Luke's gospel reject the story of Bethlehem? There of Jesus as a great religious and moral teacher, who are even those who accept the miracle of the Resurrec­ founded Christianity and was crucified at Jerusalem tion and nevertheless stumble at the doctrine of the under the governorship of Pontius Pilate . . . The Virgin birth. Yet the twofold miracles are perfectly doubts which have been cast on the historical reality congruous. The entrance and the exit of the Son of of Jesus are in my mind unworthy of serious attention. God into the world of humanity and his assuming Quite apart from the positive evidence of history and human nature are necessarily events that transcend tradition, the origin of a great religious and moral human comprehension. "Supernatural birth," as Dr. reform is inexplicable without the personal existence John McNaugher remarks, "is a most credible and be­ of a great reformer. To dissolve the founder of Chris­ fitting preface to a life consummated by rising from the tianity into a myth, as some would do, is hardly less dead; nothing could be more intrinsically congruous. absurd than it would be to do the same for Mo­ As in the resurrection the career of Jesus received its hammed, Luther, and Calvin. Such dissolving views appropriateits finale, so in the Virgin birth that career are for themost part the dreams of students who know had appropriate prelude." Trailing clouds of glory the great(The world Golden chiefly Bough, through its pale reflexion in he came into our earthly night and clouds of glory books." part vi.) received him from the sight of the eleven on the holy History is not only a part but the peculiar mark of mount when he ascended again. against the Apostles Creed. It begins with lofty theism and Concerning the Virgin birth and as the doc­ then anchors the doctrines of the Incarnation and the trine of the church universal expressed in its creeds atonement by declaring them in the realm of history: and based on the Holy Scriptures, two theories have "born of the Virgin Mary ...suffered under Pontius been proposed. Pilate." It integrates Jesus into the very chronology 1. That Jesus was born as the illegitimate child of of the Roman Empire. How different are the Sacred Mary by some other man than Joseph. records of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam from the 2. That Jesus was born in the ordinary manner as New Testament! One may well ask why the Virgin the son of Joseph and Mary. birth has been a stumbling-block to unbelief since the The first theory was invented by the Jews in the THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 46 47 second century for polemical purposesng and appears in critical Greek text of the New Testament to be con­ vinced that all the external evidence is in favor of theey the Talmudic literature. Accordi to this abhorrent caricature Mary became pregnant by a Roman soldier birth narratives of Matthew and Luke just as th stand. Panthera who seduced her. This foul aspersion was Moreover, critics are agreed that these stories fit adopted by Celsus, a pagan philosopher of the second into the narrative and that the two accounts are not century. It was rehabilitatedThe by Riddle Voltaire of theand Universe. later by contradictory but supplemental and corroborative. Dr. Tolstoi and Haeckel, in Oscar Holtzmann, himself an advanced critic, states, "A contradiction between these narratives of Matthew Today there are few indeed who give credence to this old but vulgar calumny. The. crystal Christ could not and Luke does not exist." Dr. James Orr sums up no have been the bastard son of an unchaste mother. less than twelve points in which, by a fair reading of The second theory is that of anti-supernaturalist the text, they coincide. The birth-story1 has a double Modernism, altho it was first held by the ancient witnessboth from the viewpoint of Joseph, as in Mat­ heretical sect of the Ebionites. This view does not thew, and that of Mary in Luke. Those who desire always exclude belief in the incarnation. Dr. W. N. all the evidence for the integrity of the text as given Clarke, in his "Outlines of Theology," says: "We must in the gospels may find it in Dr. J. Gresham Machen's be careful not to say that God could not have become scholarly monograph.• No reply was ever written to this incarnate through an ordinary human birth, for we massive work. Again the Modernist argues that there cannot be sure thut this is true." Obviously, that is so. is no allusion to the Virgin birth in any other part We do not know enough either about God or about • of the New Testament, and that it had no place in an ordinary human birth to make so bold an asser­ the earliest apostolic preaching. We reply that by im­ tion. There are others who deny the Virgin birth but plication there are many references to the supernatural origin of "the man Christ Jesus" in the New Testament. hold firmly to the other evangelical doctrines. We born of a woman, may well ask therefore on what grounds the Modern­ When Paul writes to the Galatian church that "God ists make this denial. The genuineness and authen­ sent forth his Son born under the ticity of Matthew's gospel and the gospel of Luke are law," what sense can we find in this pleonasm except generally assumed without argument. The objections that it is a clear reference to the birth of Jesus from are to the birth narratives in the first two chapters. But the Virgin? Paul knew the promise in Genesis with its woman"unique and peculiar emphasis that "the seed of the the reply is that these very chapters are found in all 1 The Virgin Birth by John McNaugher, Pittsburgh, 1923. the manuscripts ( uncials, and cursives), as well as in :IThe Virginwould Birth bruise of Christ, the New head York, of 1930,the serpentp. 414. . When all the ancient versions. One has only to look at a THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER 49 48 Paul writes to Timothy regarding the subordinate place born not of blood nor of the will of a husband nor of women in public assemblies and states that Adam of the will of the flesh but of God.' "' was superior to Eve he closes his exhortation with the To these rather obscure references we must add the remarkable words: "Nevertheless she"by the( that Child is believ­-bear­ fact that throughout the whole New Testament Jesus ing."ing womanhood) "shall be saved is called the Son of God in a peculiar sense. This title Surely a woman's salvation was not dependent is almost entirely unknown before Christ came. The on a numerous offspring but on the oneTim. Child of Encyclopedia Biblica says, "There is no passage in promise the virgin-born Son of God (I 2:15). Jewish literature that can be confidently dated as Again we find a reference in John's gospel to "the earlier than Christianity in which this name is given Word" which "became flesh" and "we beheld his to the Messiah." Yet it suddenly takes on supreme glory." Why does not that refer to the glory of the importance in theey Acts and the Epistles. Luke's gospel incarnation and the story of Bethlehem? In the thir­ gives us the k to this astonishing fact. It is the teenth verse of the first chapter some modern scholars, Virgin birth. (Luke 1:34-35.) In answer to Mary's of widely differing types, find a distinct reference to question, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? the Virgin birth. Here those who believe the Word the angel replies: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon are those "who were begotten not of bloods nor of thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be God." But according to the express testimony of Ter­ there/bornof ore thee shall be called the Son of God." The word tullian there was an early second century reading of "He is emphatic and decisive. this text which had the singular instead of the plural. The word Son of God as applied to Jesus the It would then read was begotten not of bloods Christundoubtedly has a threefold significance,namely, nor of the will of the fleshnor of the will of man but his physical origin, his Messiahship and his Deity. of God." If this old reading is correct, John denies Luke refers to the first, the second psalm and other any physical human paternity to Christ and asserts the Old Testament prophecies to the second and Paul in Virgin birth in the clearest possible way.' St. Augustine his epistles to the third significance of this title. But in his Confessions quotes this verse from John's gospel the first meaning is fundamental. Dr. Albertus Pieters in the singular and takes it to refer to the Virgin for many years Thea missionary Circumstantial in Japan, Evidence in a remark­of the 8 birth.Machen, "Also The IVirgin found Birth there of Christ, that pp. 'God 255-258, the Word was able articleVII, Chapter on IX. ---.iik. 50 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE MANGER 51 conclndes: "In the light of this meaning The earliest Creed of the church has no other refer­ Virginof the Birth,'words 'Son of God,' what becomes of the ence to the deity of our Lord than the statement: "His alleged silence of the New Testament with regard only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by to the Virgin Birth? If the very words 'Son of God' the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Assume carry this implication, then the New Testament, so far the Virgin birth, and the Christology of Ephesians and from being silent, is vocal with the doctrine on almost Colossians has an adequate starting point. Deny the every page. To prove the alleged silence, one must be virgin birth and such Christology is without any ade­ able to prove that this meaning, in spite of its being quate explanation. Consider the virgin birth a cun­ emphatically put forth in Luke 1 : 3 5, was unknown or ningly devised fable and the whole development of unthought of in the generation immediately after the the doctrine of Christ's eternal sonship and his cosmic death of Christ. It would take a good deal of proving significance hangs in the air. Where did Paul get his to establish that! conception of the origin of the person of Christ? Was "I would like to go one step further, and say that not Luke the physician his travelling companion? Did we have here, in my opinion, an explanation of the they never discuss this matter concerning which Luke silence of the New Testament writers so far as explicit was already gathering his material for Theophilus? discussion or detailed mention of the Virgin Birth story (Acts 1:1.). itself is concerned. If I am right, the cruel and revolt­ The Virgin birth belongs to that essential and primi­ ing accusation that Jesus was of illegitimate birth must tive and permanent Christianity which is truly Catholic. have constantly come up in discussions with unbeliev­ Evidence for it can be found in the epistles of Ignatius, ing Jews, and it became convenient to use a formula in the apologies of Aristides and of Justin, in the writ­ rather than a franker expression. Such controversies ings of Iranaeus, Tertullian, Clement, and Origen. frequently crystallize in terse formulas. Once the Subsequently we find it in all the great creeds of formula was well understood within the Christian Christendom. It was believed always by everybody, and church it would be constantly used, with full con­ everywhere in the Holy Catholic Church. This is over­ sciousness of what it meant, and just for that reason whelmingly attested by the creeds and hymnologies all further description of the event would be super­ and liturgies of the Greek, the Roman, and the Protest­ fluous. So understood, the silence of the New Testa­ ant churches. The story of the Virgin birth is en­ ment results not from lack of knowledge, or from shrined in the art and architecture and literature of rejection, but from completeness of acceptance." Christendom. Those who make it a stumbling-block • The Moslem World, Vol. XIX, pp. 3,3-368. do so through unbelief. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER Ill

of beasts to perish by the worrying of dogs, or else put on crosses to be set on fire, and when the day-light APPENDIX TO CHAPTER failed, to be burnt for use as lights by night."' Ill PLINY THE YOUNGER Witness of Pagan Writers to the Historicity of OuR second witness was a friendLetters, of Tacitus. We Jesus Christ: Correspondence with Trajan. TACITUS possess nine books of Pliny's and a separate bookCorresp containingondence his This supplies us with many interesting de­ IN the following passage Tacitus is speaking of the tails as to the government of Bithynia, and as to the burning of Rome (A. D. 64) and commenting upon relationsIt between the governor and the central au­ Nero's method (Ann.of turning public suspicion from him­ thority. reflects the greatest credit on the strict and self. He writes XV. 44) : almost punctilious conscientiousness of the governor, "So to stifle the report, Nero put in his own place and on the assiduity and the high principles which as culprits, and punished with every refinement · of animated the Emperor. ey cruelty, the men whom the common people hated for Of these letters we here quote the famous one to the their secret crimes. Th called them Christians. Christ, EmperorIt Trajan, bearing upon the treatment of Chris­ from whom the name was given, had been put to tians. was written while Pliny was governor of death in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Bithynia, and in the collection is the ninety-seventh of Pilate and the pestilent superstition checked for a the tenth book. while. Afterwards it began to break out afresh not "It is my custom, Lord Emperor, to refer to you only in Judea where the mischief first arose, but also all questions whereof I am in doubt. Who can better at Rome, where all sorts of murder and filthy shame guide me when I am at a stand, or enlightenme if I am meet together and become fashionable. In the first place in ignorance? In the investigation of Christians I then some were seized and made to confess, then on have never taken part, hence I do not know what is their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not ey the1 Suetonius crime usuallywriting some punished years later or (A.O. investigated, 120), says of orthis,event: what so much of arson as of hatred of the human race. And 'The Christi�s, a kind of name given to a. new, and criminal super­ ey stition, were put to death with grievous torments.' On the Life of tht th were not only put to death, but put to death Caesars, with insults, in that th were dressed up in the skins Nero, 16. 52 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III 55 54 ey allowances are made. So I have had no little uncer­ named by the informer said that th eywere Christians tainty whether there is any distinction of age, or and then denied it, explaining that th had been, but whether the very weakest offenders are treated like had ceased to be such, some three years ago, some a the stronger; whether pardon is given to those who good many years, and a few as many as Twenty. All repent, or whether nobody who has ever been a Chris­ these too not only worshipped your statue eyand the tian at all, gains anything by having ceased to be such; images of the gods, but cursed Christ. Th main­ whether punishment attaches to the mere name, apart tained, however, that the amount of their fault or error from secret crimes, or to the secret crimes connected had been this, that it was their habit on a fixed day with the name. Meanwhile this is the course I have to assemble before day-light and sing by turns a hymn taken with those accused before me as Christians. I to Christ as God ( or a God) ; and that they bound asked at theirey own lips whether they were Christians, themselves with an oath, not to commit any enormity and if th confessed, I asked them a secondey and a but to abstain from theft, brigandage or adultery, not third time with threats of punishment. If th kept to it, to break their word, and not to deny a deposit when I ordered them to execution;ey for I held no question demanded. After this was done, their custom was to that whatever it was that th admitted, in any case, depart, and meet together again to take food,ey but obstinacy and unbending perversity deserve to be pun­ ordinary and innocent food; and even this ( th said) ished. There were others of the like insanity, but as they had given up doing after the issue of my edict, these were Roman citizens, I noted them down to be by which in accordance with your commands, I had sent to Rome. In the course of the proceedings, as is forbidden the existence of clubs. On this I considered often the case, the mere fact that the charge was taken it the more necessary to find out from two maid­ notice of made it commoner, and several distinct cases servants who were called ministrae, and that by tor­ arose. An unsigned paper was presented, which gaveey ments, how far this was true; but I discovered nothing the names of many. As for those who said that th else than a perverted and extravagant superstition. I neither were nor ever had been eyChristians, I thought therefore adjourned the case and hastened to consult it right to let them go, when th recited a prayer to you. The matter seemed to me worth taking counsel the gods at my dictation, made supplication with in­ on, especially on account of the number of those in cense and wine to your statue, which I had ordered to danger. For many of every age, of every rank, and be brought into court for the purpose together with moreover of both sexes are already or will be sum­ the images of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ­ moned to stand their trial. For this superstition has not one of which things ( so it is said) can those who infected not only the town, but also the villages and are really Christians be made to do. Others who were THE GLORY OF THE MANGER APPENDIXTO CHAPTER III 57 country; yet it seemspossible to stop it and set it right. them to be but children, being himself alone prophet, At any rate it is certain enough that the almost de­ and priest, and convener and all rolled into one. And serted temples begin to be resorted to, that long disused of their books some he expounded and interpreted, ceremonies of religion are restored, and that fodderfor while many he actually wrote himself. They (the Chris­ victims finds a market, whereas buyers till now were tians) , in sooth, still worship that great man who was very few. From this it may easily be supposed what crucified in Palestine, because he introduced into the a multitude of men may be reformed if they are given world this new religion. For this reason Proteus (Pere­ a chance of repentance." grinus) was taken up and put into prison; which very The above is a letter from the governorof a province thing was of no small service to him afterwards, for to his Emperor asking for instructions. was written giving reputation to his impostures and gratifying his vanity. The Christians were much grieved for his in A. D. 112 less than ninety years afterIt the appoint­ ment of Pontius Pilate as procurator of Judea. imprisonment, and tried all ways to procure his liberty. Speaking of the attitude to be taken toward Chris­ Not being able to effect that, they did him all sorts tians he says: of kind offices, and that not in a careless manner, but "They are not to be sought out, but if they are with great assiduity; for even betimes in the morning accused and convicted, they must be punished-yet there would be at the prison aged widows and little with the proviso, that whoso denies himself to be a orphan children; and som!! of the chief men, having Christian, and makes the fact plain by his action, that bribed the gaolers, slept inside with him. Fine dinners is by worshipping our gods, shall obtain pardon by were taken in there and their sacred discourses were his repentance, however suspicious his past conduct carried on, and the excellent Peregrinus-for so he was may have been." still called-seemed a new Socrates to them. Even from The nexf witness was another famous pagan- the cities of Asia, some came, sent by the Christian communities to relieve, encourage, and comfort the LUCTAN OF SAMOSATA man. It is incredible what expedition they use, in deal­ In a dialogue by this writer, entitled ing with any matter that effects their body. In short we find the following sectionsThe XI. andDeath XII.: of they spare no expense. And in fact Peregrinus received Peregrinus,was about this time that he (Peregrinus) learned much money from them, and made no small profit on the"It marvellous wisdom of the Christians, having asso­ the score of his imprisonment; for these wretched ciated with their priests and scribes in Palestine. And people have persuaded themselves that they are abso­ what else could you suppose? In a short timehe showed lutely deathless, and will live forever, for which reason TIIBGLORY OF TIIB MANGER 58 they think slightly of death, andmany willingly surren­ der themselves. And then their first lawgiver has per­ suaded them that they are all brothers one of another, .vhen once they have transgressed and renounced the gods of the Greeks, and worship that crucified Sophist of theirs, and live according to his laws. Therefore they despise all things alike, holding them merely as com­ mon property, and receiving them from one another without giving any particular security; so if anyone come among them, who is a cheat, adroit, and capable MARY THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD of managing affairs; forthwith-COndensed he may from get Samuel quite E. rich Stokes' by imposing upon the simple folk."The Gospel according to the Jews and Pagans. London 1913. THE CHAPTER INCARNATION IV Yes, and to her, the beautiful and lowly, MARYTHE MOTHEROF OUR LORD Mary a maiden, separate from men, Camest thou nigh and didst possess her wholly, ON the threshold of the New Testament there stands Close to thy saints, but thou wast closer then. the figure of a mother who has been the admiration and inspiration of all Christian motherhood. Art has Not to the rich he came or to the ruling, immortalized her on canvas. Architecture has built (Men full of meat, whom wholly he abhors,) many cathedrals to her memory. The oldest creeds of Not to the fools grown insolent in fooling Christendom and its oldest litanies whisper her name Most, when the lost are dying at the doors; with awe. Nineteentimes that name occursin the Newis Nay but to her who with a sweet thanksgiving Testament and today the name of Miriam or Mary Took in tranquility what God might bring, one of the most common and most beloved names in the Blessed him and waited, and within her living households of Jew, Moslem and Christian. All genera­ Felt the arousal of a Holy Thing. tions have called her blessed and yet over the mystery of her motherhood, controversy has been carried on for Ay for her infinite and endless honour centuries. Found the Almighty in this flesh a tomb, Six Marys are mentioned in the New Testament: Pouring with power the Holy Ghost upon her, Mary the wife of Oeopas, Mary of Magdalene, Mary Nothing disdainful of the Virgin's womb. -Frederick W. H. Meyer's, of Bethany, Mary the mother of Mark,Mary theand Mother the Un­ of St. Paul fknown Mary of Romans 16:6. But esus is the greatest of them all. Some sixty Marys are found on the pages of secular history. Good Marys, bad Marys, bloody Marys and peaceful Marys, but none approach the Virgin mother in purity or in faith and devotion. No other Mary ever had, or can have, such unique and holy officeas the Virgin Mother of our Lord. 60 61 MARY THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD 62 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 63 And the historicity of the greatest of all miracles com­ Th� growth of Mariolatry is but a sad chapter in the history of the Church. Like the brazen serpent of pels us to ask who Mary was and why she was so highly Moses ( which was worshipped until the time of Heze­ favored of God. kiah) Mary was considered the instrumental(theotokos) cause of If we turn to the Scriptures as the ·only rule of faith, S vatio Mary is revealed in the gospels as a woman of deep � � _and as the Mother of God re­ ceived div1ne honors, beginning with the second century piety, poetic imagination, constant faith, and spiritual when some first taught her perpetual virginity. insight. She is above all this, and because of all this, Jerome insisted on it, and the council of Chalcedon the chosen mother of our Lord and Saviour. We hail affirmed this dogma in contradiction to the gospel rec­ her today, as the angel did 1900 years ago. She was ords which speak of the brothers and sisters of Jesus. present at Bethlehem'smanger, at the marriage in Cana, The worship of Mary reached its climax in 1854 when in thetemple at Jerusalem, beside the cross on Calvary, Pope Leo set his seal on the doctrine of her immaculate in the upper room before Pentecost and on the crest of conception. The causes of this Mariolatry were not only Olivet. Because she treasured all these experiences in the general growth of superstition but the influence of her mother-he:µt, she may well teach us to honor all an age of chivalry. The splendor of the Madonna in art motherhood. Her testimony to the virgin birth of Jesus a Christ is the only witness we have. Why should anyone _nd the music written in honor of Mary raised her posi­ tion more and more. We are not surprised, therefore, doubt this article of the Apostle's Creed? We shall see that at the Reformation the pendulum swung back too later that only those deny the virgin birth, who stumble far. The iconoclasts destroyed her images in the at all that is supernatural. churches and the Puritans refused to give her a place in Rationalists outside and inside of the Church, such as the church calendar, although her name remained in Strauss, Renan, Voltaire, Harnack, Schmiedel and many the Creed and the Catechisms. Christinas was even in our day, refuse to believe the story of Luke the physi­ considered a heathen festival. In the United States cian which he must have heard from Mary herself. among the grim old Puritans the observance of Christ­ Only she and Joseph and Elizabeth knew and knew mas was considered a Popish superstition; while the enough to be silent for many years and to speak only myth of Santa Claus· was a poor substitute in Dutch when silence regarding this divine mystery was no circles, for the beauty and poetry of Christinas Day. longer necessary. The Deity of Christ and the Incarnation are woven to­ Among modern scholars: Sanday, Ramsay, Garvie, gether with the Virgin birth so that none can maintain Briggs, Zahn, Bavinck, Orr, and Machen, have written any of these three doctrines without maintaining all. at length and convincingly regarding the virgin birth. THE GLORY OF THE MANGER MARY THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD 64 65 genuine, that They agree that the gospel records are fustChristian song. Although not mentioned in any of they are corroborative and come from the lips of Joseph the Epistles and once only in the Acts, we learn much and Mary. Mark's gospel and John's do not deny the of her character from the gospels. What purity of soul, story of the virgin birth, but take it for granted. Paul what delicate reserve, what inspired exultation, what presupposes the fact. All the great creeds of Christen­ an lowly obedience, what simple faith are revealed in the dom assert the Virgin birth. chapters of the nativity. What the annunciation meant The sinlessness of Christ d His headship of be­ er an to Mary (when betrothed to Joseph) we can only un­ lievers imp! y a miracle in his origin. He is the second d stand when we remember how she was misunder­ Adam. The doctrines of the incarnation d pre-exist­ stood. Joseph felt justified in his trust, but even he an _ ence of the Son demand a miracle in Christ's human wavered until a dream from Heaven reassured him. origin. It would be incongruous if otherwise. We must Sl der began at Bethlehem and drags its way like a not forget that most of those who deny the Virgin Birth slimy serpent in the Jewish Talmud which calls Jesus of our Lord are not positive about his sinlessness and a bastard. The Pharisees sneered "we were not bornof his Deity. Some have evensought a parallel to the story fornication;" and asked Jesus with contempt "where is of thegospel in Greek or Buddhist mythology. thy father?" Perhaps it was of his own mother Jesus But as Dr. Merrill of New York remarks: "No one was thinking when he said: "Blessed are ye, when men should say that the stories about the birth of Jesus are shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all an one in kind with the stories of the intercourse of Greek manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." Mary's gods with women, or other stories of miraculous birth. swer was: "Be it unto me according to Thy word." It is sufficientto read these stories and catch their tone, Mary was a poet. The Magnificat in Luke's Gospel and then read the infancy narratives in Matthew and is a song of triumph in which there are twenty refer­ Luke, to see that they are as far apart as the stars are ences to the Old Testament and yet it was a new song from the light of a smouldering garbage heap." on her lips-the best known, and most widely used We believe that Jesus our Lord was conceived by the hymn of Christendom: "My soul doth magnify the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. Who can Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour." forget this mystery and glory at Advent Season? Blessed Mary was also a mother. Do not forget that she had are the pure in heart for they see God incarnate at all the honor and much of the anxiety and care of every Bethlehem. an mother. Her great task was that of guiding the child We honor Mary also because of her character. She Jesus into manhood; to watch his growth and direct it was mother in the firstChristian home d gave us the as he increased in wisdom and stature and favor-to MARY THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 66 67 Mary say, "my soul doth magnify the Lord." Mary's resttain his too eager spirit and preserve his body and ey soul for their heavenly mission; to help lit the earthen soul was like a star and dwelt apart. All the mothers of ey ey saw vessel for the heavenly gifts and graces; to keep Jesus _ Israel loved Jesus. They stopped when th Him pass; th followed him; th ministered to him from being conswned by his own passion and zeal for ey ey God-the restraining hand of his mother! of their substance; they blessed him loudly; they touched his garment; th washed his feet; th annointed him "Had He not breathed His breath with oil. All of them might have cried to Mary's son Truly at Nazareth; as one did, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and Had not His very feet the breasts which thou didst suck!" But Mary loved Roamed many a hill and street; Jesus more than all others and differently from all the Had Mary's story gone others. The virgin mother suffered for our sakes from To Time's oblivion; the day of the annunciation at Nazareth and the night Had the sweet record paled of birth at Bethlehem to the darkest day and the And the truth not prevailed; blackest night that followed Golgotha. She was last at Dormant and bleak had been the Cross and if not earliest at the grave she was in the This transitory scene, upper room praying when the blessing of Pentecost And dark, thrice dark our earth came. The last we see of her she is on her knees pray­ Unknowing of His birth." ing to her risen Lord! The silent years at Nazareth were not silent for Finally, Mary can teach us today how we may share Mary. "He was subject to Joseph and Mary." They her blessedness. Two Greek adjectives are used of therefore educated him in all the duties and privileges Mary in Luke's narrative, one of which means "com­ of a true Israelite. The parables of Jesus reflect the passed about with grace or favor"-highly favored, full home-life in Nazareth. We can see Mary herself about of grace. The other, eulogized or blessed. The angel said her household tasks and gazing with Jesus across the she was full of grace, and Elizabeth called her "blessed sown fields and the blue lake, watching the birds and among women." When one of the mothers of Israel hearing at night-fall the howl of a wolf near some however, cried aloud that Mary was blessed because of her close physical relationship to our Lord, He corrected sheep fold. It was a home of poverty. Mary was the ey first teacher of Him Who taught as never man taught her and said: (Luke 11:27-28) : "Yea rather blessed before or since. The greatness of Mary was thatof her are th that hear the word of God and keep it." Mary soul. She was a real Mahatma ( a great soul) . Did not did both; and so can we. MARY THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD 69 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 68 Christian Year, "How silently, how silently John Keble, in his collection of poems called the The wondrous gift is given; reveals the childhood of Jesus and So God imparts to human hearts Mary's motherhood in touching words: The blessings of His heaven. "A son that never did amiss, No ear may hear His coming That never shamed His Mother's kiss, But in the world of sin Nor crossed her fondest prayer: Where meek souls will receive Him, still E'en from the Tree He deigned to bow The dear Christ enters in." For her His agonized brow, Her, His sole earthly care. "The Holy Family" we say when we speak of Joseph and Mary and Jesus! What a home of peace and purity and holiness it must have been! "Jesus grew in wisdom "Ave Maria! Mother blest, and stature and favor." His only nurse and teacher was To whom caressing and caressed Mary; his boyhood ideas of fatherhood and authority Oings the Eternal Child; came from Joseph. He was subject to his parents. Favoured beyond archangels' dream, All that Lemuel, King of Massa, learned from his When firston thee with tenderest gleam mother in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs must have Thy new-born Saviour smiled:- been true of Mary. The beatitudes of the Sermon on "Blessed is the womb that bare Him-blessed the Mount were lived and experienced at Nazareth be­ The bosom where His lips were pressed!­ fore they were uttered to the multitude. Mary's portrait But rather blessed are they appears again and again in the homely parables of our Who hear His word and keep it well, Lord. She took the three measures of meal to make The living homes where Christ shall dwell, bread; her lamp never lacked oil; to the poor at the And never pass away." door Mary gave good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over; she taught Jesus to read the On another occasion when his mother sought to law and the psalms and the prophets; she taught him divert him from his God-given mission, Jesus ex­ to pray! What a mother's day it must have been to her claimed: "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same when Mary and Jesus read for the first time the Old is my brother, and my sister, and my mother." Such Testament story of the prodigals, Hagar and Ishmael, kinship to Jesus is possible although it is a mystery of or the 23rd Psalm, or the 5 3rd chapter of Isaiah! His love, revealed to those who wait on the Lord! 70 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER Did the shadow of the Cross fall so early in the car­ penter's shop as it is shown in a great painting? We may surely use our imagination on such a theme, for it is a healthy climate for the soul. Of one thing we may be sure, Mary and Joseph in the home at Nazareth had love and purity and obedience; faith and hope and prayer. Does this trinity of blessing rest on your home? Have you a family altar? Are you anxious as Mary was when your boy is not in the company? Have you ever traced back all you have received to the Incarna­ tion?

The silent years at Nazareth are eloquent to all who have learned the grace of being quiet, the art of medita­ JOSEPH THI; CARPENTER tion; and who, like Mary, lay up in their hearts the mysteries of God's love. Mary indeed could say with deeper understanding than any other believer in Christ: "Jesus! I am resting, resting In the joy of what Thou art; I am findingout the greatness Of Thy loving heart. Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee, And Thy beauty fills my soul, For, by Thy transforming power, Thou has made me whole."

For her as for us there was no other name, no other way to be made pure and whole. "My spirit hath re­ joiced in God my Saviour." "My YOKE Is EAsY" CHAPTER V The yokes He made were true, Because the Man who dreamed JOSEPH THE CARPENTER Was too THE Gospel record of Matthew gives the genealogy of An artisan, "Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus The burdens that the oxen drew who is called Christ." The genealogy given by Luke Were light. At night (3:24-38) traces the lineage of Mary. This two-fold He lay upon his bed and knew record of our Lord's ancestors was not a dry list of No beast of his stood chafingin a stall names to the medieval church. Workers in stained glass Made restless by a needless gall. spent their genius in depicting the Jesse-tree. The Christ who sprang from the root of Jesse the father of David The tenets of a man had royal ancestors. So in the cathedrals of Chartres, May be full fine, York and St. Denis we have beautiful windows repre­ But if he fails with plumb and line, senting at the base the form of David's father and above Scorns care, risegur the branches of a vine, within the oval spaces are Smooth planing, fi es of kings seated accompanied by prophets, above And precision with the square, it that of Mary the Virgin mother; highest of all at the Some neck will bear terminal branch of the vine is Christ surrounded by The scar of blundering!-Gladys Latchaw seven doves typical of the sevenfold Spirit. So Pope, in his "Messiah," sings: "From Jesse's root behold a branch arise Whose sacred flower with fragrance fillsthe skies; The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move 72 And on its top descends the mystic Dove," 73 74 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER JOSEPH THE CARPENTER 75 The altar-piece in Christ Church priory near Bourne­ "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: mouth has a Jesse-tree of rare beauty. Here Joseph when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, be­ stands by Mary's side while the central figure is the fore they came together, she was found with child of Babe of Bethlehem. The Magi offer their treasures, the the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just ox and ass look on surmounted by shepherds and sheep man, and not willing to make her a publick example gazing at a group of angels. was minded to put her away privily. But while he We need to regain the vivid imagination and the thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord holy awe of the artists of the fourteenth century when appeared unto him in a dream saying, Joseph, thou son we read the list of names in the first chapter of the of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for New Testament. that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Here is the royal ancestry of Joseph the son of David And she shall bringfesus: forth a son, and thou ,(Joseph) and of Mary the mother of our Lord-three times four­ shalt call his name for he shall save his people teen generations from Abraham to the Carpenter of from their sins." Some time later, and after the visit Nazareth. of the Magi, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph The first triumph of faith in the fact of the incarna­ in a dream saying, "Arise, and take the young child tion and all its implications was that of Joseph. He and his mother and flee into Egypt; and be thou there seems a dim figurein the background of the gospel nar­ until I bring thee word." Again he was told in a rative yet his wholehearted devotion, his faith in God dream to return with the child and his mother to the and in Mary even in the face of possible slander are land of Israel, and they came and dwelt in Nazareth. indicative of great character. At the beginning of the Three times therefore God spake to Joseph in a gospel Joseph of Nazareth guards the honor of Mary dream even as he spake to the Old Testament Joseph and her babe; at the end of the gospel Joseph of Ari­ by dreams. Thomas Mann, the great novelist, has given mathea begs the body of Jesus from Pilate the gover­ us the story of this Joseph in three large volumes. But nor andis lays it in his tomb. The earthly life of our Joseph of the nativity is the forgotten man and at least Saviour thus bounded between two Josephs, one poor among Protestants he has been overlooked and neg­ but of royal blood; the other rich and secretly a disciple. lected among the great Bible characters. Three things The facts concerning Joseph and Mary are given with we know surely from Scripture. He was Joseph the such sublime brevity and chaste reticence by Luke the carpenter of Nazareth; he was the husband of Mary, Physician and by Matthew the publican, that it would and the head of the family; and he was the foster-father be sacrilege to add or subtract from them. of Jesus. THE GLORY OF THE MANGER JOSEPH THE CARPENTER 76 77 The thirty silent years of our Lord were spent at Joseph and Mary must have known that they lived in Nazareth and Joseph as well as Mary had deep influ­ a town despised by the Jews in the midst of Galilee of ence on that life which unfolded from infancy to boy­ the Gentiles. hood and manhood. Yet here Joseph toiled in poverty and Jesus learned Who can fathom the mystery of the Holy Family in his trade. their mutual relationships, in their reticence regarding the birth of the youngest member of that family, Jesus, "Silent at Joseph's side He stood, and their faith or unbelief in the significance of his And smoothed and trimmed the shapeless wood name-Saviour. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus... .'' And with firmhand, assured and slow, "Mary sat in the comer dreaming Drove in each nail with measured blow. Dim was the room and low, Absorbed, He planned a wooden cask, . While in the dark, the saw went screaming Nor asked for any greater task, To and fro. Content to make, with humble tools, Jesus and Joseph toiled together, Tables and little children's stools." Mary's thoughts were far­ The poverty of that humble home became a tradition in Angels sang in the wintry weather the early church so that Paul writing to the disciples to Under a star." stir them to benevolence appealed to it. "Ye know the What sort of a town was Nazareth and what kind of a grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich. carpenter's shop was the place where the Christ digni­ yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his fied labor and hallowed poverty? It was a small and poverty might be rich." The earliest reference to their despised village of Galilee yet it had natural beauty poverty we have is the fact that Joseph and Mary, al­ and was near to one of the great highways of Palestine tho living among village-folk and shepherds were in the days of Herod. Nature loved Nazareth and had too poor to bring a lamb for the feast of purification given it many advantages. Men despised it. and brought "a pair of turtle-doves or two pigeons." (Compare Luke 2:24 with Leviticus 12:8 A. R. V. : "Comes any good from Nazareth? "And if her means suffice not for a lamb then she shall The scornfulchallenge as of old take two turtle-doves or two young pigeons.'') Is flungon many a jeering breath It was a fairly large household for Joseph to support. From cloistered cells and marts of gold." According to early tradition he married his first wife 78 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER JOSEPH THE CARPENTER 79 when forty years of age and had four sons and two "He borrowed the ship in which to sit daughters. The Gospel record speaks of the brothers To teach the multitude; and sisters of Jesus and the apostle James was known He borrowed a nest in which to rest as "brother of the Lord." His epistle, as Vincent re­ He had never a home so rude; marks, is a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount He borrowed a room on His way to the tomb and both have many references to poverty in contrast The passover Lamb to eat; to luxury and wealth (1:9; 2:2-6; 2:15; 5:4) . James, Theyborrowed a cave for Him, a grave, perhaps, writes from his own experience of the home They borrowed a winding sheet; at Nazareth. And Jesus must have gone to market him­ But the crown that He wore and the cross self to buy "two sparrows for a farthing." His first that He bore counsel of perfection was "If thou wouldst be perfect Were His own-The Cross was His own." go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor." His Joseph the Carpenter was not only a son of toil but firstbeatitude had poverty for its background. "Blessed must have been also a man of remarkable faith. And are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of the object of his faith was Jesus. If it had not been for heaven." Jesus was born in poverty and with Joseph the dream-vision and the words of the angel he might and Mary felt its hardship but also its hardihood and at the first have doubted Mary. The gospel was first the humble happiness of simple things. preached to Joseph and he accepted it: "Joseph, thou Son of David, fear not. . . . Mary thy wife shall bring "They borrowed a bed to lay His head, ey forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he When Christ the Lord came down; shall save his people from their sins." And he believed. Th borrowed the ass in the mountain pass The writer to the Hebrews might have said of him, By For Him to ride to town; faith Joseph, thought worthy to become the foster­ He borrowed the bread when the crowd was fed father of the Christ, accepted the most delicate responsi­ On the grassy mountain side; bility ever entrusted to man and performed it with He borrowed the dish of broken fish obedience and humility. As a modern writer puts it: With which He satisfied; "As for Mary, the reward of all mothers was in her But the crown that He wore and the cross heart. Bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, her His that He bore Child was the recompense which surpasses everything Were His own-The Cross was own. else. But Joseph-this was no child of his. No pa- 81 80 TiiE GLORY OF THE MANGER JOSEPH THE CARPENTER ey ternal pride could come to him. He was either the they found him not, th turned back again to Jerusa­ step-father of illegitimacy or the step-father of deity. lem seeking him." After three days' search he was ey And if the first was disgraceful in its implications, the found in the temple sitting in the midst of the learned scribes and th were amazed. Mary reproved him,thy other was fearful in its responsibilities." And so Joseph father was a faithful husband and father every day and every "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold and I have sought thee sorrowing." Was there a hour of his life in Nazareth while the Child "grew in my wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with reproof also in the reply of Jesus, "Wist ye not that I must be about Father's business?" Nevertheless, he man." It must also have been from Joseph's heart and them." life and example that Jesus caught the first glimpse of went with them to Nazareth and "was subject unto what an earthly father could be. "If a son shall ask bread of anyif of you that is a father will he give him a As a son Jesus learned obedience during those long stone ... ye then, being evil, know how to give good years at Nazareth. He was in all points tempted like as gifts unto your children; how much more shall your we are yet without sin. And being made perfect even heavenly Father"how give much the Holymore" Spirit to them that ask in boyhood and early manhood by suffering he became him?" The was the yardstick of at the last the author of eternal salvation unto all them Nazareth and Joseph, applied to the Father in heaven that obey him. He learned from Joseph and Mary that who pitieth his children and whose loving kindness is it was more blessed to give than to receive. He learned over all his works. the dignity of labor and saw in Joseph's life an example The word father was often on the lips of Jesus. And of scorn to all slothfulness and idleness. In the parables in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel he explains to the of Jesus the slothful and unprofitable servant is cast ey into outer darkness but the faithful worker, hired at Jews who despised his earthly origin what that word twelve meant to him. Th said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of the eleventh hour, still receives the full wages. Was it Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it from Joseph that Jesus learned "are there not then that he saith I came down from heaven?" (Jno. hours in the day?" There was no eight-hour day or 6:42.) forty-hour week in the carpenter'syou shop at Nazareth. When Jesus was twelve years old Joseph and Mary "Carpenter Christ, I knowthat must understand; ey took him up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. I prize you most for work. ey Th had taken him every year (Luke 2 :41). The child Surely the hands that stripped the cedar-bough in Jesus tarried when th were returning and Joseph and Nazareth must Mary supposed him to be in their company. "And when 82 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER JOSEPH THE CARPENTER 83 Be akin to hands that love the homely touch of their unbelief (Matt. 13:58) . Here also "he came unto bread." his own and his own received him not." So sang Mildred Fowler Field and she voiced the uni­ Coleridge designates the first two chapters of Luke's versal sympathy of toiling millions for Him who came gospel as the Gospel of Mary. "We can not imagine," he says, "that St. Luke would have recourse to any other not to beis ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. person for the materials of his history nor can conceive There another picture of the home of Joseph the that she would have refused the aid which she alone of mortals could afford in a matter so highly concern­ Carpenter and Christ'searly environmentwhich we can­ ary not forget. Misunderstanding, unbelief and hatred were ing the honor of her divine Son."' not absent when the holiest of humanity walked the Of M we read that, after the Annunciation, after streets and prayed in the synagogue of Nazareth. We hearing the Song of Zacharias and the greetings of read it between the lines in Matthew's Gospel. "And Elizabeth, after the song of the angels and the visit of when he was come into his own country (Nazareth) , the shepherds-"she kept all these things and pondered he taught them in their synagogue insomuch that they them in her heart." We also read that "Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken were astonished and said, whence hath this man this But wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the car­ of him." Mary marvelled and wondered and dreamed. penter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his Joseph was a man of action and in the entire nar­ brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And tative he makes decisions and proves his faith in God ey by obedience. Like Abraham of old he, "called to go his sisters, are they not all with us? Whencethen hath ey this man all these things? And th were offended in out into a place which he should after receive for an him." inheritance, ob ed; and he went out not knowing "But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without whither he went." His obedience was unquestioned and honour, save in his own country, and in his own house" instantaneous in circumstances that try men's souls. (13:54-57) . No honor had Jesus in Nazareth or in his "Joseph ...did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, own family ( save from Joseph and Mary) for all those and took unto him his wife: and knew her not till she silent years. No honor when he came back as a prophet had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his sent of God and a worker of miracles: His own breth­ name Jesus" (Matt. 1:24, 25) . Again when commanded to1 leaveQuoted Bethlehem in Joseph Scbindler's and go theSt. long/oseph and dargestel/t lonely journeynach d1t ren did not believe in him. He could at the first, and at Heiligen Schrift, p. 59. the last, do no mighty works in Nazareth because of 84 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER to Egypt "he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt" ( Matt. 2:14). Then again he left Egypt in obedience to God's command and "turned aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth." These four journeys of Joseph, from Nazareth ninety miles to Bethlehem with a young woman about to be­ come a mother, from Bethlehem to Egypt with the Babe and his mother, then back again to Galilee and Naz­ areth, surely entitle him to a place among the heroes ofy the faith. For they that do such things declare plain­ l by their simple obedience that "they desire a better HIS GLORIOUS NAMES country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city." By faith Joseph accepted the high call of God to be­ come the husband of Mary, the foster-father of our divine Saviour and the head of the household where Jesus spent thirty years of his earthly life in obscurity. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" and for all those silent years Joseph, as well as Mary, be­ held something of His glory as He ( under their care and nurture and admonition) grew in stature and wis­ dom and favor with God and man. "O WISDOM, that comest out of the Most High, that VI reachest from one end to another, and dost mightily OIAPTER and sweetly order all things: come to teach us the way of prudence. HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 0 ADONAI, who didst appear to Moses in the burn­ ing bush, come to rec!eem us with an outstretched arm. IN the rubric for the public baptism of infants as given 0 ROOT OF JESSE, unto Whom the Gentiles seek, in the Book of Common Prayer we read: "Then the come, to deliver us, make no tarrying! priest shall take the child into his hands and shall say 0 KEY OF DAVID and &eptre of theHouse of Israel, to the godfathers and godmothers, Name this child." that openest and no man shuttest; and shutteth and no So all of us, who profess and call ourselves Christians man openeth, come to bring out the prisoners from the received a name at Baptism. But the child Jesus was prison! so named by the angel before his birth. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus for it is he that shall save his people 0 DAY- PRING, Brightness of the Everlasting Light, � from their sins." And by this personal name he was Sun of Righteousness, come to give light to them that known in Nazareth from his youth and until the day sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death! when Pilate wrote the same name over the Cross. Paul 0 KING OF THE GENTILES, yea, and Desire there­ refers to this name Jesus when he writes, "God hath of, come to save man whom thou hast made of the dust given him a name which is above every name" (Phil. of the earth! 2:9): 0 EMMANUEL, our King and our Law-giver, come to save us, 0 Lord our God!" "Join all the glorious names -The Roman Breviary Of wisdom, love and power by John, Marquess of Bute, p. 138 That ever mortals knew That angel ever bore; All are too mean to speak his worth Too mean to set my Saviour forth." Among all Orientals but especially among the Jews a 86 deep significance is attached87 to names. This is evident 88 TIIEGLORY OF TIIE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 89 from the Old Testament stories of the patriarchs and our devotion as we kneel before the Glory of the from the practice among the Arabs today. Names, sur­ Manger we transcribe here ninety-nine_ names of Jesus. names, and appellatives are bestowed upon men with Some we have from his own lips in the first person, "I the intent of expressingthe very character of the person am the Good Shepherd;" others in the second person, named. The names of God areey the revelation of his from the lips of those who confessed him, "Thou art nature and his attributes. Th portray in human the Christ;" and still others in the third person, "He language the infinite wisdom, power, holiness, good­ is altogether lovely and the Chief among ten thousand." ness and mercy of the Creator. The names of God are Some of the names are prophetic or symbolic, most of holy because He is holy. Therefore the commandment them were historically given to Jesus of Nazareth or reads "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy applied to him after his resurrection and ascension by God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless his apostles. Star that taketh his name in vain." "I see him, but not now; I behold Both Jews and Mohammedans make much of the 1...... him, but not nigh: There shall Sceptre names of God and his various attributes; the former l come forth a Star out of Jacob, in their use on talismans and amulets, the latter es­ 2...... and a Sceptre shall rise out of pecially in the use of their rosary. This Islamic rosary Israel" ...Numbers 24:17. A.R.V. has ninety-nine beads each representing one of the "But as for me I know that my willRe- excellent names of Allah as recorded in the Koran; for 3. Redeemer deemer liveth, And at last he Mohammed said, "Verily there are ninety-nine names stand up upon the earth: And of God and whoeverrecites them shall enter Paradise." .. after my skin, even this body, is In the book of Job alone, however, one could find as destroyed, Then without my flesh many attributes and names given to Jehovah and in the shall I see God" - Job. 19:25. whole Old Testament many more. Such a list of beauti­ Wonderful A.R.V. ful names is impressive and rivets attention to the Counsellor 4. . "For unto us a child is born, unto manifold aspects of God's relation to sinful humanity. 5. Mighty God.. Everlasting us a son is given; and the govern­ But the names of Jesus as recorded in the Old Tes­ 6. ment shall be upon his shoulder: tament prophecies and in the New Testamentey are 7. Father 8. Prince of and his name shall be called equally impressive and each of his names is a k to ..... Peace Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty his character in whom dwellethtour deall force the fullness of the God, Everlasting Father, Prince of godhead bodily. Not as a but to deepen ...... Peace"-Isaiah 9:6. A.R.V. 90 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 91 · 'Therefore the Lord himself will "Where is he that is born King of give you a sign: behold, a virgin 15. King of the l the Jews for we saw his star in the /ews ...... E st .. and are come to worship 9. Immanuel .. shall conceive, and bear a son, and � shall call his name Immanuel" him. -Matt. 2:2. A.R.V. (God with us) - Isaiah 7:14. 16. Shepherd of "For out of thee shall come forth A.RV. my peopie a governor, who shall be shepherd Israel . . . . . l of my people Israel"-Matt 2:6. "But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, A.RV. which art little to be among the 10. ! thousands of Judah, out of thee N "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, Ruler in shall one come forth unto me that 17. azarene . . th at h e s hou I d be caA.R.V.11 e d a N aza- Israel •.•..• is to be Ruler in Israel; whose go­ .. ings forth are from old,A.R.V. from ever- rene. -Matt. 2:23. lasting" -Micah 5:2. "What think ye of the Christ? 18. whose son is he? They say unto "And I will shake all nations; and Lord ...... him, the son of David. He saith 11. Des�re of all the Desire of all nations shall unto them, How then doth David Nattons • . . . ! come; and I will fill this house in the Spirit call him Lord?" ... with glory, saith the Lord of -Matt. 22:42, 43. A.R.V. hosts"-Haggai 2:7. ! "And lo, a voice out of the heavens, "Behold, the man whose name is 19. My Beloved saying, This is my beloved Son in the Branch: and he shall grow up Son . . . • • . • whom I am well pleased"-Matt. 12. The Branch . ! out of his place; and he shall build 3:17. A.R.V. the temple of Jehovah" - Zech- ! "The foxes have holes, and the ariah 6:12. A.R.V. 20. The Son birds of the air have nests, but the 10:11. of Man . . . . Son of man hath not where to lay 13. The Good \"I am the Good Shepherd"-John his head"-Matt. 8:20. Shepherd .. / ! "Two blind men followed him, cry• "'Thou shalt call his name Jesus for 21. Son ?f ing out, and saying. Have merer, 14. Jesus ...... { it is he shall save his peopleA.R.V. from Davrd . • • . . on us, A.R.V.thou Son of David"-Matt. their sins."-Matt. 1:21. 9:27. THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 92 93 "Ye call me master and Lord: and 31. The Holy · "I know thee who thou art; the 22. Master { ye say well; for so I am"-John One of } (or Teacher ) 13:13. God ...... Holy One of God"-Luke 4:34. "And Simon Peter answered and 23. The ChriJt . . { said, Thou art the Christ, the Son 32. A Prophet "Jesus of Nazareth which was a of the living God"-Matt. 16:16. mighty in prophet mighty in deed and word deed and { before God and all the people"- "And his mother said unto him, word ...... Luke 24:19. 24. Son of Mary . { Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?"-Luke 2:48. A.R.V. "In the beginning was the Word, 25. "And the angel said unto her: ..• 33. The Word ..{ and the word was with God, and Son of the thou shalt bring forth a son .•• the word was God"-John 1:1. Most High . ! he shall be great and shall be 34. T�e True "'�hat was the true Light which called the Son of the Most High" Ltght ...... { !tghteth every man that cometh in Luke 1:30-32. A.R.V. to the world"-John 1:9. 26. Son of God. . "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall 35. The Only be- "And the Word became flesh, and come upon thee, and the power of gotten from dwelt among us ( and we beheld 27. The Holy the Father . • his glory, glory as of the only be­ Thing ..... the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the Holy gotten from the Father), full of Thing which is begotten shall be grace and truth" - John 1:14. called the Son of God" - Luke A.R.V. 1:35. A.R.V. 36. The Only be- "The only begotten Son who is in 28. Horn of "And hath raised up a horn of sal- gotten Son .•{. the bosom of the Father"-John Salvation . . . { vation for us in the house of his 1:18. A.R.V. servant David"-Luke 1:69. 37. The Lamb "Behold, the Lamb of God that 29. Consolation l Lu ke 2=25· of God . . • • • { taketh away the sin of the world"' of Israel ...� -John 1:29. A.R.V. 30. The Day- 38. The "We have found the Messiah, spring from } Luke 1:78. Messiah on High ... • • • { which is, being intepreted, Christ." -John 1:41. A.R.V. THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 94 95 T True 39. King of "Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, 48. �e / ..1 am the True Vine"-John 15:1. Israel ••••••, thou art the Son of God; thou art Vme ...... \ j KingA.R.V. of Israel." - John 1 : 49. 49. The Prince "The Prince of life, whom God of Life . . . • • { A.R.V.raised from the dead"-Acts 3: 15. !"Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the Gift of God 40. Gift of God. . .. thou wouldest have asked of 50. Th� Holy \"Thy holy �hildJesus, wh�m Thou him, and he would have givenA.R.V. thee Child •.••• • 1 hast annomted -Acts 4.27. living water"-John 4:10. 51. Prince ....• "Him did God exalt with his right 41. The Bread "For the Bread of God is that which 52. Saviour . . . . { hand to be a Prince and a Saviour" of God. . . . . cometh down out of heaven, and -Acts 5:31. A.R.V. j giveth life unto the world"-John 6:33. A.R.V. 53. Lord of all , . \"Jesus Christ: he is Lord of all"­ !"Jesus said unto them, I am the / Acts 10: 36. 42. The Bread Bread of Life: he that cometh tome of Life . . • • •. shall not hunger, and he that be­ "Of whom is Christ as concerning 54. God blessed. the flesh, who is over all, God lieveth on me shall never thirst"- ! John 6:35. blessed for ever" - Romans 9:5. A.R.V. 43. The Light of "I am the Light of the World: he f 55. The "There shall come out of Zion the the World . . that followeth me shall not walk J in the darkness, but shall have Deliverer . . . l Deliverer; he shall turn away un- l the light of life"-John 8:12. godliness from Jacob" - Romans 11:26. A.R.V. "Jesus therefore said unto them, 44. The Door. ..l Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am 56. The Lord "Had they known it, they would the door of the sheep" - John of Glory • • • { not ?,ave crucified the Lord of 10:7. A.R.V. glory -I Cor. 2:8. 45. The Way .. " e t'f e .... "I am th . Way, and t he Trut h, and 57. Our \ "For even Christ our Passover is 46. The Truth . . } . � r 47. Th L the Life -John 14:6. A.R.V. Passove ... ( sacrificedfor us"-1 Cor. 5 :7. 97 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 96 The Only The Last Potentate "The first man Adam became a liv­ 69. Adam The King of These titles are given to God but 58...... ing soul, the Last Adam became a .. . 59. The Second Kings ...... from the context and by the New life-giving spirit ... The first man 70. Man The Lord of Testament usag� elsewhere they is of the earth, earthy; the Second Lords ...... also belong to Christ Jesus. I Tim­ ...... Man is of heaven"-! Cor. 15:45- 71. othy 6:15. The Image 47. A.R.V. n. H�ir of all heir of God things 60. \"Christ who is the image of God" "His Son, �ho� he appointed The Chie•...f / -I I Cor. 4:4. ...., { A.R.V.of all thmgs - Hebrews 1:2. Cornerstone 73. Effulgence of 61. "Built upon the foundation of the God's Glory. . apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus ! Image of ] himself being the Chief Corner­ God's Head over stone"-Ep h. 2:20. A.R.V. 74. Heb. 1:3. substance all Things 62. \I "Head over all things to the church, Author of... Image of the.. which is his body"-Eph. 1:22. Salvation Invisible God\I 75. "To make the Author of their Sal­ 63. Col. 1:15· . . . { vation perfect through sufferings" First-born of Our Great -Heb. 2:10. A.R.V. e I 64. all Cr ation. High Priest Col. 1:16· 76. "Having then a Great High Priest Creator of \ • who hath passed through the heav, n I j 65. all Thi gs ens, JesusA.R.V. the Son of God"-Heb. The Head of C0 1 · l:l6 · Author and .. �\ 4:14. 66. the B od y .... Finisher of Col . 1 :18. 77. our Faith ... First-born } Heb. 12:2. Mediator of 67. from the Dead ...... } Col. 1:18. 78. nan aCove New t } Heb. 12:24. The Only 79. The Un­ "For there is one God, one Medi­ changeable 68. Mediator ator also between God and men, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, ! • . . hhnself man, Christ Jesus" - I . { and today, and for ever." - Heb. Tim. 2:5. A.R.V. 13:8. 98 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 99 80. h The Great h h Shepherd of Heb. 13:20. 92. The Lion of "Be old, the Lion that is of the } thel tribe tribe of Juda ... ath overcome the Sheep .• h h of udah. . . . { to open the book and the seven 93, seals t ereof"-Rev. 5:5. A.R.V. "Untoh w om coming, A Living 81. A living Stone, rejected indeed of men, but The Lord Stone . . . • . . l wit God elect, precious, ye also, 94. God } Rev. 15:3. as Jiving stones, are built up" - Almighty ... I Peter 2:4, 5. A.R.V. h The Faithful / h h Witness ....S Rev. 1:5. 82. Shepherd "Ye ...are now returned unto t e souls 95. The First am! Bishop { S ep erd and Bishop of your born of } Rev. 1:5. of ...... souls."-! Peter 2:25.h 96. h the dead ... h h h 83. Advocate "Ifh any manh sin, we ave an Advo- King of "Rig teous and true are thy ways, with cate ith the Fat er, Jesus Christ Rev. the { :,v .. 97. the Ages . . . { t ou King of t e Ages" - 84. Father . . . . . t e rig teous -I John 2:1. 15:3. A.R.V. h The Root an The;'���� . . . 1;}f 98. Offspring of } I Jo n 2: 1. David ..... h h in The Bright Rev. 22:16. and Morning 85. The Alpha . am Alp a and Omega, t e beg ­ h h h Star ...... 86. The Omega . ning andh h the ending, saith the 99. h 87. The Lord, which is, and which was, "T ese things sait t e Amen, the 88. ·1"1 h lf Beginning . . and w ic is to come, the Al­ The Amen . . l faithful and true witness t e be­ 89. The End . . . mig ty"-Rev. 1:8. h ginning of the creation of God" -Rev. 3:14. A.R.V.

The First ... \"I am The First and T e Last"- h h 90. The Last ... / Rev.h 1:17. h h As we recall all these glorious names-ninety-nine h h h h glimpses in human language of im w om not having h h "He t at openet , and no man s ut­ seen we love--we realize that even all t ese names 91. The Opener . { tet ; a�? s uttet and no man toget er do not suffice to portray t e majestic sweet­ openeth -Rev. 3:8. ness of the Child who once lay in the Manger. 100 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER HIS GLORIOUS NAMES 101

"No mortal can with Him compare shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast Among the sons of men; striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed. Fairer is He than all the fair And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, That Jillthe heavenly train." thy name? And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessedey him there." (Gen­ And we agree with the anonymous poet in his effortto ymn show that Christ remains a mystery and a question still: esis 32:24-29.) Charles Wesl in one of his least known h s gives us an interpretation: "We place Thy sacred name upon our brows; "Come, 0 Thou Traveller unknown! Our cycles from Thy natal day we score; Whom still I hold but cannot see. Yet spite of all our songs and all our vows, My company before has gone We thirst and ever thirst to know Thee more. And I am left alone with Thee. Still Thou art Question-while rings in our ears Alone with Thee I mean to stay Thine outcry to a world discord-beset: And wrestle till the break of day. Have0 I been with thee all these many years I need not tell Thee who I am,­ world-dost thou not know me yet?" My sins, my miseries, declare­ Each of these many names and titles of our Saviour Thyself hast called me by my name; can be used to address Him in prayer. This was done in Look on thy hands and read it there. the early church liturgies and we give an ancient ex­ But who O Traveller art Thou? ample at the head of this chapter from a Roman Tell me Thy name, and tell me nowr' Breviary. In the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling with the angel we have an illustration of how, in these theophanies, God concealed and revealed his name and character. Undoubtedly this wrestling with the angel at Penuel had Messianic import. "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day . . . And he said, Let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM "From the Eastern mountains, Pressing on they come, Wise men in their wisdom CHAPTER VII To His humble home; Stirr' d by deep devotion, THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM Hasting from a-far, EACH of the great religious faiths of mankind has its Ever journeying on-ward, symbol in art and architecture. The Lotus-blossom and Guided by a star. Wheel of Buddhism, the Swastika of Hinduism, the "There their Lord and Saviour Yin-Yang of Taoism, the Crescent of Islam, the Star Meek and lowly lay, of Judaism and the Cross of Christianity. Wondrous Light that led them The star was used as a Hebrew symbol long before Onward on their way, the birth of Christ. The six-pointed star is very ancient Ever now to lighten and the Jews say it was placed upon the ark of the Nations from afar, covenant, was engraved on David's shield and formed As they journey homeward, Solomon's seal. To this day it may be seen on By that guiding Star. Jewish synagogues and tombs throughout the world. The symbol of the star whether six-pointed or Jive­ "Thou Who in a manger pointed has received Christian significance because it Once hast lowly lain, is associated with the feast of Epiphany and the visit Who dost now in glory of the Magi. It is far more appropriate as a Christmas O'er all kingdoms reign, symbol than the yule-log, the tree, the holly and mistle­ Gather in the heathen, toe. All of these have no real Christian significance Who in lands afar but were associated with pagan festivals which occurred Ne'er have seen the brightness at about the same time of the year. Of Thy guiding Star." The visit of the wise men from the East to the new­ -G. Thring born Saviour of the world has kindled the imagination of poet and painter as no other incident in the mar­ velous story of the advent. Francis Thompson, author of the incomparable poem, The Hound of Heaven, 104 105 106 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 107

speaks of the naturalness of such a phenomenon as a in the east, and are come to worship hint." The first thou?" star to announce the coming of the Redeemer: question in the Old Testament is that put by God to Adam, "Where art TheHe?" fi_rst question of the "Does the fish soar to find the ocean, New Testament is "Where is The entire Old The eagle plunge to findthe air­ Testament answers the question of man's fall and all That we ask of the stars in motion If they have rumour of Thee there?" its tragic consequences. Every book of the New Testa­ ment answersHe the question of the Magi and tells us The poet adopts as his text, "The Kingdom of God where is who came to save the lost-in the manger, is within you," and argues that the divine nearness on the cross, risen from the tomb, ascended, seated at can be barricaded out by our blindness in spiritual God's right hand and interceding till He comes again things. in glory. "The angels keep their ancient places; "Where is He? ...we have seen his star." The Turn but a stone and start a wing! whole human family and all the ages have been asking 'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, 1 that question. G. K. Chesterton has knelt with frank­ That miss the many-splendouredthing." incense before the Babe of Bethlehem. 1n Househis own of Christmas Poets and artists are our best interpreters of the advent robust manner and in the last lines of his story. Sir Edward Burne-Jones was asked by a young he writes of Bethlehem as the goal: girl who watched him painting "the Star of Bethlehem" "To an open house in the evening whetherhe believed that the story was true. He replied, Home shall men come, "It is toobeautiful not to be true." To an older place than Eden In twelve short verses we have the whole story as And a taller town than Rome. told by Matthew. But scores of poems, dozens of fa­ To the end of the way of the wandering star, mous paintings and many volumes record the interpre­ To the things that cannot be and that are, tation of that visit of the Magi and the glory of the star. To the place where God was homeless "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea And all men are at home." in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise Who were the Magi? What was the star? How did it men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he point out the road to Bethlehem? What did their gifts that1 Sidney is born Adamson,King Christ of the in Jews?Modem forPoetry we (Life have and seen Work, his Edin­ star burgh, July 1939). of gold and frankincense and myrrh signify? The oldest opinion traces the Magi (perhaps on in- 108 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 109 sufficient grounds) to Arabia. They were priest-sages This is the origin of the three crowns in the city's whose researches led them to study astrology. There is arms. The fact is that no one knows who the Magi this in favor of the theory that close intercourse existed were or whence they came. between Palestine and Arabia, that the kings of Yemen Regarding their guidance by a star, however, there is professed the Jewish faith and the gifts presented were much to be said. From the days of the great astronomer all Arabian products from antiquity. Moreover, there Kepler who first recorded the fact, it has been held was Jewish expectancy of the Messiah with the rising that in the year 747 of the Roman era, two years before of a star. Edersheim, after rejecting a number of other the birth of Christ, a most remarkable conjunction of Talmudic statements and traditions that connect the planets occurred possible only once in eight hundred appearance of the Messiah with sidereal conjunctions, years, namely that of Saturn and Jupiter in the constel­ goes on to say, "There is however testimony which lation Pisces. It was not only extraordinary but, as seems to us not only reliable but embodies most ancient astronomers state, it presented a most brilliant spectacle Jewish tradition ....The so-called Messiah-Haggadah in the clear sky of the orient. In the year following opens as follows: 'A star shall come out of Jacob ... (748 A. U. C.) another planet, Mars, joined this con­ and the star shall shine forth from the East and this junction. This would surely account for the attention is the star of the Messiah. And it will shine from the of the Magi being aroused even if they had no knowl­ East for fifteen days, and if it be prolonged it will be edge of any Jewish expectation or prophecy. We may for the good of Israel.' " A similar statement, he says, add that Pingre and other astronomers state that in the occurs in a collection of three Midrashim where we read astronomical tables of the Chinese the appearance of an that a Star in the East was to appear two years before evanescent star is recorded at this very time. The evi­ the birth of the Messiah.' dence has been collected and commented on by a num­ According to another tradition the Magi were three ber of writers, Munter, Idler, Wieseler and Gold­ Gentile kings, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, whose schmidt.• tomb in the cathedral of Cologne has become a costly It is not at all improbable, moreover, that the prophecy shrine studded with precious stones and less precious of Balaam already referred to and the prognostication legends. The story is that the bones of the Magi were of Virgil in his fourth Eclogue were widely known. In brought by the Empress Helena to Constantinople, his essay on Virgil, F. W. H. Myers speaks of it as afterwards to Milan and in 1164 removed to Cologne. follows: "In every age of Christianity from Augustine to 2 Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. I, pp. 210· 213. 8 Edersheim, Vol. I, pp. 212, 213. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 111 110 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER they Abelard, from the Christmas sermon of Pope Innocent had opened their treasures, they presented unto III to the Praelectiones Academicae of the late Mr. him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.'' Keble, divines and fathers of the Church have asserted Prudentius, an early Christian poet interpreted these the inspiration, and claimed the prophecies of this mar­ three-fold gifts symbolically. vellous poem. It was on the strength of this poem that "The gift of gold Thee, King, proclaims: Virgil's likeness was set among the carven seers in the Thee, God, the fragrant incense names: Cathedral of Zamora. It was on the strength of this The myrrh proclaimsthat Death shall thrust poem that in the Cathedrals of Limoges and Rheims Within the tomb Thy body's dust." the Christmas appeal was made, 'O Maro, prophet of Not only were their gifts symbolic but the Magi arc the Gentiles, bear thou thy witness unto Christ,' and said to have worshipped the Babe of Bethlehem. Some the stately semblance of the Roman gave answer in the one has remarked that "as kings of the East they owned words which tell how "the new progeny has descended Him as sovereign King. Priests of an ancient faith they from heaven on high.' " "'In reality," says Mr. Myers, accept Him as the High priest of a new. covenant. "the link between Virgil and Christianity depended not Preachers and star-gazers they acknowledge Him as the on a misapplied prediction but on a moral sequence and prophet of the Gospel and the bright and morning Star. spiritual conformity ....It is not true, as the Spanish As wise-men they see in Him the wisdom of God.'' legend tells us, that Virgil's eyes first saw the star of Nor is it mere fancy that sees in this worship of the Bethlehem, but it is true that in none more fully than wise-men a prophecy of the coming of all nations to in him is found that temper which offers all worldly the King of the Jews and bringing their tribute of wealth, all human learning at the feet of Purity and spiritual riches into the City of God. Moreover, we for the knowledge of Truth." have here a beautiful picture of true worship which And so we find the Wise men on their way to Beth­ includes not only obedience and humility but sacrifice. lehem and rejoicing with great joy when their guiding Our gifts to the King must not be trivial or paltry. He star appeared again. Their quest and long journey were is worthy to receive "power, and riches, and wisdom, at an end. They had reached their goal the sacred spot and strength and honor and glory and blessing." where was born the King of the Jews. They kneel in "Shall we not yield Him, in costly devotion, eastern fashion and lay their tribute of love and honor Odors of Edom, and offerings divine, at were come the feet of the Saviour. "When they Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean, into the house they saw the young child with Mary his Myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mine? mother, and fell down and worshipped him: and when 113 112 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM "Vainly we offer each ample oblation, Merv and Rai, south of the Caspian. The Magi were an Vainly with gifts would His favour secure; indigenous priestly tribe much resembling the Brah­ Richer by far is the heart's adoration, mans. They worked their way into the Persian religion Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor." after the reforms of Zoroaster "who preached a spiritual monotheism" with purer ethics than is found in any Because the gifts were in three kinds, some have in­ other of the non-Christian faiths. ferred that there were three Magi; and that they were When these Persian Magi came to Bethlehem, Moul­ kings is deduced from the Old Testament passages pre­ ton says, "they gave Him gifts of their own country's dicting that kings would bring gifts (Psalm 72: 10, and treasure. But it was not material gold and frankincense Isa. 60: 3) . The legend of the three kings dates back and myrrh that the angels saw as the Magi opened their as far as Origen, and although beautiful it is historically caskets. They saw pure gold of a great Prophet's un­ baseless. Grotius interpreted their gifts as being gold shakable faith in God-the fragrant incense of his for works of mercy, incense for prayer and myrrh for powerful prayer-the myrrh of self-denial and upward purity. striving, that sought to provide an anodyne for the But the offerings of the Magi were intended as speci­ woes of men. And in this, the purest offering that the mens of the products of their native country and ex­ Gentile world had to give, they recognized a Divine pressive of loyal homage to the new-born king. If they manifestation that in every nation he that feareth God were Gentiles they were the first to bring their glory and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him." ... and honor to the Saviour of the world. In them we see "Nineteen hundred years ago-and still there are the earliest fulfillment of the promise that the Messiah Magi ministering before the sacred fire, and chanting was to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles" as well as the same hymns, that were hoary with antiquity even the glory of his people Israel. when their ancestors chanted them every sunrise as The late Dr. James Hope Moulton, the New Testa­ they travelled towards Bethlehem. But very few in­ ment scholar, offered a new interpretation of the visit deed, priests or people, have set foot on that pilgrim of the wise men in his book, The Treasure of the Magi. road. Like the Jews, though with more excuse, they It is a study of modern Zoroastrianism but also tells of missed their Saviour when He came, and languidly they the origin of that ancient and pure faith. He believes look for another who may come some day." that the Magi came from Persia and were, like Cyrus, The Parsis of India are the direct descendants in that followers of Zoroaster (660-583 B.C.); the center of case of the Magi and they still worship before the ever­ whose life and teaching was in ancient Media, now burning sacred fire. When they shall turn to the Lord 114 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 115 the veil shall be taken awayHis and then the treasure of the Magi will be poured at feet. is Jesus. In this very chapter he is by implication called the Son of God; "That it might be fulfilled which was "So from the blaze wherein Thy glories dwell spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt Once more athwart the sunless gloom a star have I called my son." Shall flash its guiding message, and from far The names given to our Saviour in this one brief The Sage of Iran answer to the spell, narrative are very suggestive: King of the Jews, gov­ And speed with trophies of a faith long dim ernor and Ruler of Israel, My Son, and, the Nazarene. To find his Lord and bow the knee to Him." ' This last name offers difficulties as it is not clear to It is very clear that in Matthew's account of the visit what prophecy the words refer "he shall be called a of the Magi the Young Child Jesus is the center of the Nazarene." Jerome believed the reference was to Isaiah Natzer) picture and of the story. There is no halo for either XI where the Messiah is spoken of as "the branch," Joseph or Mary or the Magi. When the Wise men (Hebrew, which shall spring from the root of were come into the house at Bethlehem "'they saw the Jesse. This view is now accepted by many modern Young ChildHim" with Mary his mother, and fell down and scholars. The word is used in a double sense or by a worshipped not them. They presented their play upon the name of the town Nazareth. "It is with Him."treasures not to Joseph the head of the house but, "unto the prophetic references in the Gospels," says Dr. The chief priests and scribes were agreed that Bruce, "as with songs without words." The composer the Bethlehemey was the place where the Christ should has a certain state of mind and writes under its inspira­ be born. Th appealed to the prophecy of Micah: tion. But you are not in his secret and cannot tell when "Out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be you hear the musicey what it means. The propheciesey are ruler in Israel." It was to be a spiritual monarchy, not the music, the k is the history. "Let the k be given a triumvirate. Neither Mary nor Joseph were referred and immediately you find new meaning in the music." to by the prophet. The star went before the Magi "till Two of the names given to Jesus in this chapter are it came and stood over where the young child was." his very own until the last. Pilate's superscription on the Mariolatry and the worship of St. Joseph as the Cross was "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews." Ar­ patron of the working-class may find support in medie­ tists have abbreviated this title and on many paintings val art but not in the gospel-records. The only center of the crucifixion you may read the Latin letters, of4 Thethe Treasurepicture, of the the Magi,only pp.Orie 1·2. who is worthy of worship I.N.R.I. The same letters might have been written over the crib of the young child, Jesus, the Nazarene, King of the Jews. But during the thirty hidden years no one 116 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER in Nazareth, save perhaps Mary and Joseph dreamed of the coming King and Kingdom even after the royal tribute by the Magi to 1 "The Babe whose Birth Was the great business both of Heaven and Earth."

THE SONG OF THE ANGELS

�h atd Crashaw in Jane: T. Stoddatt's New Testament in Life and literdtllre. THE GLORIA IN EXCELSIS Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men. CHAPTER VIII We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, THE SONG OF THE ANGELS we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee as "the for thy great glory. ERNEST RENAN spoke of the Gospel of Luke most beautiful book in the whole world." In the early 0 Lord God, heavenly king, God, the Father chapters poets, painters and sculptors have found in­ Almighty. spiration for some of their finestand most daring inter­ 0 Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, pretations of the mystery of the Incarnation. Here 0 Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, heaven and earth meet, the holy and the lowly are found very dose together; the shepherds with their That takest away the sins of the world, have mercy sheep, the night with its stars, the angel of the an­ upon us. nunciation and the heavenly host with celestial music, Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have the lowly manger and its beasts of the stall, and the mercy upon us. Christ-child with Mary and Joseph. All this kindled the imagination of devout artists arid was then trans­ Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive ferred to canvas, portrayed in cathedral windows, our prayer. carved in stone or put into hymns and carols for the Christmas, Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Advent season. Father, have mercy upon us. George Herbert in his quaint song, voices the aspiration of his own day and of us all: For thou only art holy, thou only art the Lord. "O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted light, Thou only, 0 Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most W rapt in night's mantle, stole into a manger; high in the glory of God the Father. Since my dark soul and brutish, is thy right, Amen. To Man of all beasts be not thou a stranger: Furnish and deck my soul, that thou mayst have 118 A better lodging, then119 a rack, or grave." 120 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SONG OF THE ANGELS 121 "The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be? Harke, what a heavenly Qurre of Angells sing My God, no hymne for thee? Sweet carrols, at the birth of this new King." My soul's a shepherd too; a flockit feeds On themargin of the wood-cut we have all the tools Of thoughts, and words, and deeds. of the betrayal and death of our Saviour: Judas' purse. The pasture is thy word: the streams, thy grace the lanterns, the Roman scourge, the nails, the spear Enriching all the place. and the crown of thorns. And so the simple artist tells Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers the whole story of God's redeeming love. Out-sing the day-light houres." The Incarnation is so great a miracle that it is There is an old English wood-cut, a broadside printed fittingly accompanied by display in the supernatural in London in 1631 and preserved in the collection of world. We read: the Society of Antiquaries, which illustrates the ancient "And there were shepherds in the same country abid­ legend that even dumb animals could not keep silent ing in the field and keeping watch by night over their on the Holy Night. In the center of the picture is the flock. And an angel of the Lord stood by them and Babe with Joseph and Mary; from above the angels the glory of the Lord shone round about them; ahGethsemane. Th were Samuel, I and II Kings, I Chronicles, Psalms, Isaiah, ey Hosea, Zechariah,eq and Daniel; in the New Testament present at the empty tomb after his resurrection and there are fr uent references to angels in Matthew, th stood on Olivet after his ascension. When he Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I and II Corin­ comes again, as he himself told us, it will be in his thians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, II Thessa­ glory with all his holy angels. (Matt. 25:31.) He lonians, I Timothy, Hebrews, I and II Peter, Jude and bade us beware of the leaven of the Sadducees who Revelation. What does Modernism do with all these believed neither in angels nor in a resurrection from the proof-texts? dead. Paul believed in both. Only Pauline Christianity Angels are constantly referred to in the Scriptures can understand the glory of that angelic song at Beth­ and by our Lord and his apostles, as actual created lehem and all its import. The echo of that song rang beings. From Hebrewsey 1 :6 and other passagesey it is down the ages and John, on lonely Patmos, heard it inferred that th were created before man. Th are in the voices of "ten thousand times ten thousand and immortal spirits (Luke 20:36) intelligent, . powerful thousands of thousands" round about the throne saying: THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SONG OF THE ANGELS 124 125 "Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive times called the greater doxology as the Gloria Patri the power and riches and wisdom and might and honor is the lesser. and glory and blessing." So the song at Bethlehem was, The first thought of the angels .is that of adoration. one might say, the brief librettoIf to the great Hallelujah Their praise of God precedes the message of peace on Chorus of the redeemed. we regard the announce­ earth. God must be worshipped and glorified before ment of the angel to the shepherds (Luke 2:10-12) as man may expect pardon or peace. "There is no peace, a song then we may view the Gloria in Excelsis as the saith the Lord, unto the wicked." (Isaiah 48:22.) The refrain sung by the multitude of the heavenly host. angel's song is God's patternof praise and his promise There are two readings of the Greek text depending of peace and good will, to those who admit the Saviour on the case ending of the word eudokia: "Glory to God into their hearts and who are born again through his in the highest and on earth peace among men in whom lowly birth. As someone has remarked, the message of He is well pleased;" or the more familiar rendering, glad tidings was first revealed not to the proud Phari­ "Glory to God in the highest, and gnon earth peace, good sees in Jerusalem nor to the worldly priests in the will to men." The former would si ify, as Meyer says, Temple, but to the humble shepherds in the field of that God's goodIn will or good pleasure rests especially Bethlehem. eyTheir hearts must have been prepared; for on the elect. either case it is a message of peace on although th were "sore afraid" at the angelic appear­ey earth through the advent of the Prince of Peace who ance and the light that shone round about them th , is the Saviour from sin. like Saul, were not disobedient to the heavenly vision How little the casual reader appreciates this snatch but immediately hastened to the manger. The Author­ of angelic song, yet the Greek orthodox church ex­ ized Version is too tame "giving no idea of the mental excitement of the shepherds and the demonstrative panded the first Christmas carol to its present form in energy with which they communicated to each other, the year 350 A.D. for use at the Lord's Supper. And comrade-fashion, the idea which had seized their we findit in the Book of Common Prayer and in many minds."' With crook in hand they started running outey other liturgies of the Protestant churches today. It is to see their new-born Saviour, Christ the Lord. Th printed in full facing this chapter. Beginning with the reached the inn and beheld the holiest of all holy angelic hymn the Gloria in Excelsis addresses the scenes-the maiden-mother and age8: Joseph kneeling Father Almighty and then the Only begotten Son, as in silent love before the eyInfant flooded i_n heavenly the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, light. Only those who had es to see beheld this glory. and entreats his mercy with earnest iteration. It is some- Only those who had ears to hear heard the voice of �Robertson Nicoll, The Expo1itot"J Greek Testament, 1, p. 473. THE SONG OF THE ANGELS 126 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 127

"O Bethlehem! 0 Bethlehem! angels. So it was then and so it will always be. The We'll hear thy choirs again, shepherds told their story and Mary believed ( while 'Glory to God on high! on earth others only wondered) "and kept all these things and Peace and good will to men!' pondered them in her heart." The countless peoples of the skies "Still through the cloven skies they come Shall seize the uplifted song With peaceful wings unfurled; And ages over ages pour And still their heavenly music floats The tidal psalm along. O'er all the weary world: "Gladone city of the angel-song, Above its sad and lowly plains Not star then shall come They bend on hovering wing, To bow in solitary pause And ever o'er its Babel sounds O'er thy bl est manger-home; The blessed angels sing." Lo, then fulfilled the Patriarch's dream, "Yet with the woes of sin and strife And none shall enviousall be, The world has suffered long; As sun and moon and the stars Beneath the angels' strain have rolled Obeisance make to thee." Two thousandyears of wrong; And man at war with man hears not The song of love they bring: Oh! hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing!" The song of the angels is indeed a reminder that the invisible world is very close to us; and that, as Jesus said, children have their angels "whoey always behold the face of my Father;" and that th are min­ istering spirits to us here on earth. Their song of peace on earth is also a prophecy of the time that is to be when peace shall Reliprevailques withof the righteousness. Christ Denis Wortman in his voices that Christian hope: SONGS ON EARTH ChristopherA SongSmart to in David1763 at the close of his remark­ CHAPTER able poem sets forth in quaint but IX pregnant words the supreme glory of the incarnation: "Glorious the sun in mid career; MATTHEW'S SONGS ON EARTH Glorious the assembled fires appear; account of the Nativity begins with ex­ Glorious the comet's train; ceeding great joy in the hearts of those who saw the Glorious the trumpet and alarm; star, but ends in the tragedy of Rachel weeping for Glorious th' Almighty stretched-out arm; her children in the Massacre of the Innocents. Luke's Glorious the enraptured main: account has no tragedy. In addition to the song of the angels and as an echo of their joy at the birth of our Glorious the northern lights astream; Benedictus, Glorious the song when God's the theme; Saviour, Luke mentions five songs on earth in his Magnificat,account of the nativity. Elisabeth'sBenedictus Mary's Glorious the thunder's roar; Nunc Dimittis Glorious hosanna from the den; the longer of Zacharias, the of aged Simeon and the Song withoutAve Glorious the Catholic amen; Maria Glorious the martyr's gore; Words of saintly Anna. All of them followed the of the angeley Gabriel (Luke 1:28-35); all are Glorious-more glorious is the crown on a different k but all unite in the note of joy. Of Him that brought salvation down By meekness, called thy Son; "Good Christian men, rejoice Thou at stupendous truth believed With heart, and soul, and voice; Determined,And now the dared matchless done."deed's achieved, Now ye hear of endless bliss: and Joy! Joy! Jesus Christ was boru for this. He hath oped the heav'nly door; And man is blessed evermore-­ Christ was born for this!"

130 Luke's gospel rings the Christmas bells at midnight 131 132 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER SONGS ON EARTH 133 even as was the custom in medieval Europe. In pre­ as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine Reformation days there was a superstition that the ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed tolling of the "Old Lad's Passing Bell" a little before is she that believed: for there shall be a performance midnight signified the death of the Devil! Then, at of those things which were told her from the Lord." the stroke of twelve, lusty lads would man all the (Luke 1 :42-45.) ropes and bells and make the welkin ring. The old It is hard to realize the feeling of the Virgin as her notion of the demise of the Devil at the hour of the own cousin saluted her with such reverence, confirmed nativity is profoundly suggestive. Christ was born to the words of the Angel's Annunciation to her and destroy the works of the Devil. In a moment of tense called Mary blessed because she believed God's prom­ and luminous hope Jesus exclaimed, "I beheld Satan ise. The word "blessed" in this earliest of the gospel falling as lightning from heaven," and in the beatitudes, points here, as elsewhere, to rare and high we read, "He hath scattered the proud in theMagnificat imagina­ felicity connected with heroic moods and achievements. tion of their hearts, He hath put down the mighty Mary was indeed blessed among women and blessed from their seat." If there was joy in heaven at the in being the mother of her Saviour and ours. She was birth of Christ there must have been dismay in hell. also most blessed because she heard the word of God But believers in the Messiah were filled with joy and and kept it. (Compare the incident in Luke 11:27, 28.) burst into song. But the song of Elisabeth seems to have been consid­ 1. When Mary arose with ered too intimately feminine and sacred to be used haste Theafter Song the ofAnnunciation Elisabeth. and came to her kins­ in the devotional liturgies of the church; although it, woman in the home of Zacharias the yet unborn John like the other three songs, contains in the germ, adora­ the Baptist acknowledged the presence of the Master, tion, thanksgiving and prophecy. also yet unborn, while Elisabeth, according to Luke's 2. Mary's hymn became as it were account, filled with the Holy Spirit gave unrestrained the triumphThe Magnificat. song of saints and martyrs and confessors utterance to her irrepressible feeling. A most natural down the centuries. It is found in the very early liturgies expression from one believing woman of Israel with a and was set to music by Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, high hope to another in similar expectancy. The mother Cesar Franck and many other musicians. A single An­ of the Herald greeting the Mother of the King. glican publishing house, Novello, lists a thousand set­ "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the tings of the "These settings run through fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the whole rangeMagnificat! of musical expression, from the sim­ the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, plest harmony up to the most elaborate dramatic 134 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER SONGS ON EARTH 135 treatment with orchestral accompaniment of the text. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: Almost every great church composer has worked often and hath exalted the humble and the meek. and zealously on this theme."' Literally, because of her He hath filled the hungry with good things : prophetic song, all generations have called her blessed, and the rich He hath sent empty away. and a whole library of books on this one song of joy is listed in the encyclopedias and commentaries. In that He, remembering His mercy, hath holpen His song we hear Mary rejoicing in the great mystery of servant Israel: as He promised to our fore­ the Incarnation and the blessing of salvation. Yet fathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever." there is not a note of self-exaltation or self-assertion. It is the song of a meek and lowly heart of a broken The song has close affinities to the Old Testament and a contrite spirit where God makes his dwelling­ song of Hannah (I Sam. 2:1-10) with which Mary place. Listen to it: doubtless was familiar: "'My heart exulteth in Jehovah ...Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let no arto­ "My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit gancy come out of your mouth ...The bows of the hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. mighty men are broken; and they that stumbled are girded with strength. Th that were full have hired For He hath regarded the lowliness of His hand­ ey out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry maiden. have ceased ...Jehovah maketh poor, and maketh rich For behold, from henceforth all generations ...He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, he lifteth shall call me blessed. up the needy from the dunghill, to make them sit with princes." No one can fail to see the similarity of For He that is mighty hath magnified me: and Hannah's paean of joy at the birth of Samuel and Mary's Holy is His Name. at the promised birth of the Saviour. Yet the inner difference is greater than the outward resemblance. And His mercy is on them that fear him: There is nothing in Mary's heart of vengeance. She does throughout all generations. not say that "the wicked shall be put to silence in He hath showed strength with His arm: He darkness" or that· Jehovah will "break them" in pieces hath scattered the proud in the imagination of with "thunder from heaven" (I Sam. 2:9-10). their hearts. The Magnificat also has a unity lacking in the song of Hannah. The first strophe expresses the singer's 1 The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IX, p. :535. 136 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER SONGS ON EARTH 137 ciosa joy. The second states its cause, while the third is the of which the sentiment is even more tender and climax describing the future moral-order of the world it interprets Mary's mother-love for the Saviour: ecy as a result of the Incarnation. It is both a song of "Full of beauty stood the Mother present joy and a proph of future days. The constant By the Manger, blest o'er other, tendency of Christ's influence on the world and on the Where her little One she lays, ages is here pictured in poetic language. He will re­ For her inmost soul's elation, 2 verse human judgments, overturn systems of oppression In its fervid jubilation and pride while exalting the humble and the meek. Thrills with ecstasyMagnificat of praise.'' From Mary's lips we have a foretaste of the Beatitudes. When we hear the rightly sung, in one The pure, the meek, those who mourn and those who of its numerous musical settings, we share in some hunger will receive blessing and bounty in that day smallThe degree Benedictus the ecstasy of Zacharias.of Mary's joy in her Saviour. when God remembers his mercy and fulfills his cove­ 3. This is the second nant to Abraham and all his spiritual descendants. of the three great canticles in Luke's gospel. It also is While the diction is largely that of the Old Testament Jewish in form but Christian in sentiment. The first and the song has the parallelism of Hebrew poetry the half has so much local color and is so nationalistic in thought rises above the bounds of Judaic nationalism character that Loisy and others believe it existed as and strikes a universal note--"all generations shall call an earlier Hebrew psalm and was uttered by Zacharias me blessed . . . his mercy is on them that fear him with additions and slight alterations. Other critics offer from generation to generation." In Abraham and his grave objections to this view. They say it refers dis­ seed all the families of the earth are to be blessed. tinctly to the promise made to Elisabeth, to the cove­ The author of such a hymn must have Jived in the nant with Zacharias and the mercy shownMagnificat, to Israel by atmosphere of Messianic promise to incorporate with­ theBenedictus birth of John the Baptist. Like the ecy the out any artificiality so much from the Psalms and the contains both praise and proph and it Prophets in a single poem. She Jived it before she also found a permanent place in the liturgies of the uttered it. Stabat Mater dolorosa, Church: Many are familiar with the "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath attributed to Jacopone and considered the most poign­ visited and redeemed His people; ant of all Latin Passion hymns. ButStabat he wrote Mater a Scon­pe- And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us 2 J.M. Neale's translatioo. Cf. Catholic Anthology, p. 73. trasting companion hymn entitled in the house of His servant David: THE GLORY OF THE MANGER SONGS ON EARTH 138 As 139 He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, so many points of contact with the Old Testament that which have been since the world began, Holtz calls it an anthology from the Psalms and the Prophets. The first believers in Christ naturally spoke That we should be saved from our enemies and the language of those whotheir foretold his coming and from the hand of all that hate us. did not scruple to quote Bible, as we do ours, in To perform the mercy promised to our fore­ prayer and praise. fathers, and to rememberHis holy covenant, Critics of the text speak of the lack of originality in the words of Zacharias. On the contrary, as Dr. To perform the oath which He sware to our Machen asserts, the hymns forefather, Abraham, that He would give us; of the first chapter of Luke are spontaneous outpourings eyof devout and thankful That we, being delivered out of the hand of hearts. Who can say that th are the products of a our enemies, might serve Him without fear; study chamber and not directly inspired by the Spirit The Nunc Dimittis. In holiness and righteousness before Him, all of God?' the days of our life. 4. On the eighth day, Jesus, who was born under the law, was circumcised. On the And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of fortieth day after the Saviour's birth Joseph and Mary the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face went to the Temple Court at Jerusalem for the pres­ of the Lord, to prepare His ways; entation of the holy Child and the ceremony of puri­ To give knowledge of salvation unto His people fication as laid down in the law of Moses (Exodus for the remission of their sins. 12:2 and 22:29). These two rites were distinct but were generally performed together. The Jewish mother Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby presented her first-born and paid the redemption money the Day-spring from on high hath visited us; to the priest. This was called the presentation. The To give light to themthat sit in darkness, and other observance required a blood-sacrifice ( in the case in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet of the poor, two turtle-doves or pigeons) together with into the way of peace." (Luke 1:68-79.) a prayer and benediction. This was the ceremonial cleansing after child-birth. This song is usually divided into Jive strophes but Joseph and Mary probably entered by the Court of it more obviouslyThe consists Messiah of twoof the parts, Gospels.) vs. 68- 75 and Women.8 The Virgin As Birlh they of Christ,stood pp.to 84,perform 85, the rite, the aged 76-79. (Briggs, It has 141 140 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER SONGS ON EARTH

Simeon went directly to meet them. Some think he was head of Simeon. The hope of the ages fulfilled in this the officiating priest. In any case, we are told he was moment of joy. "Now lettest thou Thy servant depart directed by the Holy Spirit who had assured him he in peace." would live to see the Messiah: Paul Rubens in executing rui order for a picture of "Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name St. Christopher departed from the traditional represen­ was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, tation of the legend of one who carried the Christ­ waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy child on his shoulders. Instead he gave the splendid Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him painting now in the Cathedral at Antwerp, a triptych, by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, of those who were Christ-bearers: Mary on her way to before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by Bethlehem, Simeon holding Christ in his arms at the the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents Presentation and the Disciples taking our Lord's body Nunc Dimittis brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the from the Cross. All were indeed Christophers for they custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, carried the Christ. The has become both and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou a hymn of praise and a requiem for the dead. thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: "And when around our path for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast The call of Death is heard prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten Lord let Thou us depart in peace the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And According to Thy word."' Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which 5. The Song without words. were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and wordsThere were words, there said unto Mary his Mother, Behold, this child is set was joy and praise; but the are not recorded for for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and us. Here is the story. for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a "And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." age, and had lived with an husband seven years from Artists have vied with each other in portraying this her virginity; and she was a widow of about four­ striking event in the life of Jesus. Simeon representing score and four years, which departed not from the the Old Covenant welcoming Jesus the Mediator of the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night New Covenant in the temple. The Law holding aloft and4 Henry day. Alford And in she The comingChurchman's in TreaJUrythat instant of Song, gave p. 415. thanks the Gospel. The Light of the World above the hoary 142 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." The last on the stage and a most striking figure, known to all in Jerusalem by name and lineage, cele­ brated for her ascetic devotion and constant prayer, she seizedBenedictus. the right moment and joined Simeon with her own She was either a widow for eighty­ four years ( Godet) or, as most think, a widow till the eighty-fourth year of her life. The former rendering would make her very old; married say at sixteen, seven years a wife, eighty-four years a widow that is one hundred andis seven years. This is, however, not impos­ sible and borne out by the expression "advanced in days many." (Bruce.) The presence of aged Simeon and Anna at the presentation of our Lord in the temple THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT may remind us of the faithfulness of God's promises to the aged. "E'en down to old age all my people shall prove My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.'" CHAPTER X

is THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT "What there hid in the heart of a rose, asks the "HE came unto his own," we read, "and his own child in The Farest of Wild Thyme. received him not." There was no room for Jesus in A man that died on a lonely hill the inn. So he was laid in the manger. And no sooner May tell you, perhaps, but none other will, had the angels ceased from singing their Gloria in answers the mother; and the persistent child goes on, Excelsis, and the Magi followed the star to Bethlehem, What does it take to make a rose? than Herod sought to kill Jesus. This was the earliest The God that died to make it knows, shadow of that persecution and rejection which were to It takes the world's eternal wars, be his lot throughout the days of his flesh. Once and It takes the moon and all the stars, again at Nazareth and at Capernaum and in Jerusalem It takes the might of heaven and hell the mob sought to kill him, and finally he was con­ And the everlasting Love as well, demned at Gabbatha and crucified on Golgotha. Little child." It is a strange and tragic episode in the story of the Windows by Amy Carmichael. nativity that Matthew relates in so few words. Here it is as translated by Weymouth: "An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the babe and His mother and escape to Egypt and remain there till I bring you word. For Herod is about to make search for the child in order to destroy Him. So Joseph roused himself and took the babe and His mother by night and departed into Egypt. There he remained till Herod's death, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my 144 Son (Hosea 11: 1). Then 145Herod finding that the Magi THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 146 147 had trifled with him, was furious, and sent and mas­ Egypt. This ancient land ( to which there are more than sacred all the boys under two years of age in Bethlehem two hundred and sixty references in the Bible) became and all its neighborhood, according to the date he had the refuge of the Christ-child t}iat He might once be­ so carefully ascertained from the Magi." (Math. 2:13· come the refuge of Egypt and of all lands. It is impor­ 16.) Comparing the account of the nativity in Mat­ tant to bear in mind the historical influence and im­ thew and Luke the chronological order of events seems portance of Egypt at that epoch. Ancient Greek to have been as follows. Soon after the birth of Christ, civilization, and through it Imperial Rome, had sprung the wise men arrived from the East. This was followed from Egypt. Out of Egypt Moses led Israel to found by the flight into Egypt. Then a very brief sojourn a theocracy; and out of that same land God's providence there, for the death of Herod occurred 4 B. C. The Jed the Christ to become the head of a new theocracy, presentationin the templemust have taken place a little His Church. later. According to the law it could not occur before Egypt was the natural, the nearest and the only pos­ the fortieth day, but not necessarily on that day. After sible place of refuge from Herod's domain. Frequented the presentation and the songs in the Temple, Joseph roads led then, as now, through the strip of desert and and Mary settled at Nazareth, where our Lord spent along the coast to Mataria in the border of the delta thirty years.' near Leontopolos. According to a very ancient tradi­ Yet, althoughit the flight into Egypt was precipitous tion, that is where Joseph went. But the exact place and brief, has a deep significance. The supposition of their sojourn is unimportant. of rationalistic commentators that this account was ecyin­ The mainis question is whether Herod's cruelty and vented for the purpose of fulfillingthe alleged proph jealousy credible? If so, then the caution of the Magi, in Hosea is entirely incompatible with the scope and the flight to a strange land, the massacre at Bethlehem meaning of the narrative. Every detail seems to be cor­ and the return to Nazareth after the tyrant's death are roborated by the character of Herod, the geographical all equally credible.' Who was Herod the Great? It is background, and the manner in which Joseph ecywas di­ a name of evil omen. He was great in energy, in mag­ rected in a dream to take the flight. The proph was nificence and in wickedness. His father Antipater was not verbal but typical. Israel of old was called out of an Edomite, his mother an Arabian; and through the Egypt, and the house of bondage, as the son of God­ influence of Anthony he was appointed King of Judea the Israelites were God's children. But now the Son of by the Roman senate about forty years before the birth God1 Lange's himself Leben was Jesu, takenvol. 11:1 into10. Egypt, and called out of of2 Cf.Christ. Bruce in The The Expositor'sevents in Greek Matthew's Te1tament. gospel therefore THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 148 149 took place at the close of his long and brilliant reign Nevertheless theseflores children martyrum were martyrs. St. eyAugus­ -a career darkened also by many deeds of cruelty. Ac­ tine calls them and says, "th diedey cording to Josephus, the horrors of his home life were not only for Christ but in his stead." That is, th in strong contrast to the splendour of his architectural died, while he escaped death by flight into Egypt. efforts. He was a slave to jealousy and ambition. The The massacre was not openly and officially ordered demon of domestic discord ruled. He put to death his ( as we know from the Greek text, says Lange) but own sons Aristobulus and Alexander, as well as other secretly perpetrated, probably by hired banditti in the rivals. He married ten wives and constantly murdered employ of Herod. And then was fulfilled the prophecy rivals to stop intrigue. of Jeremiah, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamen­ From such an Edomite ruler, a son of Jacob would tation and weeping and great mournings, Rachel weep­ expect no favors. The old enmity of Esau reappeared. ing for her children, and would not be comforted, "I will slay my brother Jacob'" (Gen. 27:4). So when because they were not" (Jer. 31:15). the Magi gave him the time of Jesus' birth, and the The words referred primarily to the deportation of Sanhedrin, the place, he arranged to slay all the young the Jews to Babylon. Rachel the ancestress of Benja­ children in the Bethlehem district so that the new-born min is introduced because her grave is near Bethlehem. King of the Jews might not escape. This massacre of It is therefore a typical prophecy of the sorrow of the the Innocents was the first chapter in the long story of mother of a tribe for the tragedy of the massacre. Christ Christian martyrs. Church historians have distinguished was numbered, at the census, among the children of a threefold martyrdom: That both in will and deed Bethlehem. They die for him to live with him forever like Stephen's; that of will though not in fact like John in glory. He lives for them in order to die for them the Evangelist in exile; and that which was martyrdom on the Cross. And so the slaughter of the Innocents in fact, though not in will, like the babes of Bethlehem. became a favorite themeit in the old English Christmas In the Church calendar the three festivals come closely carols. In one case is the subject of the Virgin's together, December 26-28. But there is as little historic Cradle Song: evidence for these dates as for the fantastic account in "Lulla, Julia, lullaby; the Greek Liturgy which asserts that Herod killed My sweet little Babe, what meanest thou to cry? 14,000 boys! Bethlehem was a small town and the total Be still my blessed Babe, though cause thou number of babes under two years could not have been hast to mourn more3 Cat holicthan Encyclopedia, one hundred.• Article, Holy Innocents. Whose blood, most innocent, the cruel King has sworn. 150 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 151

And lo! alas, behold what slaughter doth "Mindful of these, the first fruits sweet he make, Borne by the suffering Church her Lord to greet; Shedding the blood of innocents, sweet Jesus, Blessed Jesus ever loved to trace for Thy sake! ey The 'innocent brightness' of an infant's face. 'A King is born' th say, which King this He raised them in His holy arms, king would kill! He blessed them fromey the world and all its harms: Oh woe, and heavy woeful day, when wretches Heirs though th were of sin and shame, have their will." • He blessed them in His own and in His Father's name. But God's judgment overtook Herod at the last. Josephusey gives a full account of his tragic death, as "Then, as each fond unconscious child from e-witnesses. The King died in his seventieth On the everlasting Parent sweetly smiled, year at Jericho of a horrible, loathsome disease, rotten (Like infants sporting on the shore, ey in body as in soul. At the hot-springs of Callirrhoe, That tremble not at Ocean's boundless roar) near Jericho, he had sought relief; and when the end Were th not present to Thy Thought, drew near he gave orders to have the principal men All souls, that in their cradles Thou hast bought? of the district shut up in the hippodrome at Jericho But chiefly these, who died for Thee, and slaughtered, as soon as he passed away, in order That Thou mightst live for them a sadder death that there might be universal mourning at his death! to see. But the barbarous command was not carried out.' "And nextto these, Thy gracious Word The flight into Egypt has been interpreted by several Was as a pledge of benediction, storedey great artists. Perhaps the best known painting is that For Christian mothers, while th moan which represents the Holy Family at rest in the shadow Their treasured hopes, just born, baptized, and gone. of the great Pyramids. The massacre of the children 0 joy for Rachel's broken heart! of Bethlehem is commemorated in the Church of Eng­ She and her babes shall meet no more to part; land calendar; and in Keble's The Christi-an Year we So dear to Christ her pious haste have a beautiful hymn interpreting the narrative spir­ To trust them in His arms, for ever safe embraced." itually."Christmas Here and areChristmas three Lore, stanzas: T. G. Crippen, p. 54. "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to i1Josephus, An1iq11i1ies XVII 6, 5. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia. come unto me: for to such belongeth the Kingdom of heaven." These words of Jesus, given in the three 152 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 153 synoptic gospels, are followed in Mark by the very sig­ The Babe of Bethlehem with the magnetism of the nificant words. "He took them in his arms and blessed manger has drawn all the world's childhood after Him. them, laying his hands upon them." Christmasis the festival of children. They love its sym­ Jesus loved little children. They had a large place bolism and the Old, Old Story is ever new to them. in his heart and in his teaching. Surely Mary must Children nestled around Jesus, they sang Hosannas in have told the boy Jesus at some time in Nazareth the Passion week when our Saviour rode into Jerusalem, story of cruel Herod who, like Pharaoh of old, tried to and we read that heaven is to be full of boys and girls destroy little children and how God saved Moses, and playing in the streets (Zech. 8:5). The holy Innocents Jesus himself from death. Is there not an echo of the of Bethlehem were only the :first fruits of the great Master's righteous indignation at the cruelty of man harvest of childhood whose reaper is death. And when to childhood from the days of Herod, when he ex­ we consider the dreadful mortality of infants ( especially such claimed: "Whosoever shall cause one of these little in non-Christian lands) we :find a deeper meaning in ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for Christ's words, "Of is the kingdom of heaven." him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, An exceeding "great multitude, which no man could and that he were cast in the depth of the sea." (Matt. number, out of every nation and of all tribes and 18:6; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2.) Three times we have peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and this terrible warning not to offend "little ones" from before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in the lips of him who is called by Peter, The Holy Child their hands." ( A.R.V.) But Matthew's story does not Jesus ( Acts 6:27). end with Rachel weeping for her children. Christ is When babes-in-arms were brought to him Jesus said the central :figure also in the flight to Egypt. "To such belongeth the Kingdom of God. Verily I say "When Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter ey therein" (Luke 18:16-17. A.R.V.). go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life." Then Joseph ob ed "I think when I read that sweet story of old and began the long return journey but when he heard When Jesus was here among men. that Archelaus, a man of kindred nature, suspicious and How He called little children as lambs to truculent, was reigning in Herod's place, he feared to His fold, go to "the land of Israel" and settled in Galilee of the I should like to have been with them then." Gentiles making his home at Nazareth, "that it might 154 TIIEGLORY OF TIIE MANGER be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." What this meant we shall see in the next chapter.

THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH CHAPTER XI

THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH WHEN John, in his prologue, speaks of Christ as "Never a sigh of passion or of pity, "the Word' which was in the beginning with God and Never a wail for weakness or for wrong, was God " the climax is reached in the statement, to Has not its archive in the angel's city, which all that precedes is directed, namely the mani- Finds not its echo in the endless song. festation of the Logos, as Incarnation: "The Word be­ "Not as one blind and deaf to our beseeching, came flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his Neither forgetful that we are but dust, glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, Not as from heavens too high for our up-reaching, full of grace and truth." The word fleshhere expresses Coldly sublime, intolerably just:- human nature as a whole. God became man. The Logos, retaining his personality, assumed human flesh "Nay but thou knowest us, Lord Christ thou knowest, and dwelt among men as man. Well thou rememberest our feeble frame, In his incarnation Christ did not identify himself Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest, with a part of the human race or with elect members Pulses of nobleness and achesH. of shame." of that race but with the whole family of humanity. -F. W. Myers' Saint Paul By the incarnation Christ the eternal Word became THE SoN oF MAN. That was his own characteristic and favorite title which is used again and again in the gos­ pels. Its origin goes back to the great prophecy of Daniel in the seventh chapter where the final judgment by the Son of Man is contrasted with the Wild-beast kingdoms of worldly history. (vs. 9-14). That this is the origin of the name is evident, as Dr. Charles A. 156 Briggs says, because Jesus157 "not only uses the term Son THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH of158 Man, 159 abominationof Daniel, with of desolation reference to himself but also Same was worshipped by angels, and sat down with the term of thesame Daniel, publicans. . . . He was nailed to the Cross and the and the very language. 'They shall see the Son Inof Man Throne of glory was not vacated. I see the miracles coming in clouds with great power and glory.' other and I proclaim the Godhead. I see the sufferings and words, he predicts that he will come again in the clouds I deny not the Manhood. Immanuel opened the gates as the Son of Man of Daniel to judge the world and of nature as man, but as God he broke not the seal set up the everlasting kingdom." ' of Virginity."• But Jesus also represents himself to be the Son of This doctrine of the Catholic church was expressed Man in his earthly ministry: "The Son of man hath not by great theologians and formulated in the creeds. The where to lay his head" (Matt. 8:20, Luke 9:58), and eternal son of God by personal union assumedary human uses the same title in his utter identification with the nature, body and soul, from the Virgin M by the common people: "The Son of man came eating and Holy Spirit. The two natures of Christ do not mix, nor drinking, and they say, Behold, a man gluttonous and a interpenetrate but always remain distinct, each retain­ winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.'' He is ing its own peculiar attributes, yet the union is such the Son of Man because he is the friendof all humanity. that what can be predicated of eitherIn nature can be predi­ Made like unto his brethren in all things, except sin. cated of the person of Christ. our next chapter we It was the greatness of his loving heart that expressed deal more fully with this mystery of the God-man. itself by saying to Zaccheus, "The Son of man came to Suffice it here to give the words of Athanasius in the seek that which was lost" and to vengeful James and well-known Creed: is . John in rebuke, "Ye know not what manner of spirit "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God and ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy Man; God of the substance of the Father, begotten Hisbe­ men's9:55-56.) lives, but to save them." (Luke 19:10 and fore the worlds: and Man of the substance of Mother, born in the world; Perfect God and Perfect "The Word was made flesh"-that is the deepest Man: of a reasonable soul and humanHis flesh subsisting. meaning of the incarnation. Proclus the Patriarch of Equal to the Father, as touching Godhead: and Constantinople ( died 447) beautifully expressed it inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood. Who many centuries ago. "The Same was in the bosom of although He be God and Man, yet He is not two but the Father and in the Virgin's womb. The Same was in one Christ; One, not by conversion of tht'IGodhead into his1.The mother's Incarnation arms of the and Lord, on p. the7. wings of the wind. The Flesh,• Quoted but in byA. C.taking Knowles' of Thethe HolManhoody Chri!t-Child, into p God;. 17. one al- 160 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH 161 together, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity itself had grown conscious of a universal mission. diaspora of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Recent historic criticism has emphasized anewthe enor­ Man, so God and Man is one Christ." mous importance of the on the history of early In this chapter we emphasize his real humanity and Christianity. The Old Testament, ·although it was com­ his consciousness of that humanity in the title, Son of posed by and addressed to the Jews as a chosen race, is Man, and of his universal mission. He is the Light universal in its outlook and conceives of humanity as of all the world. He is the Bread of Life to all who a whole in its origin and its goal. One recalls not only hunger. God is not a God of the Jews only but of the book of Genesis, the only ancient Scripture that the human race, and Jesus the Christ "is the Saviour of professes to give a world history from the very begin­ all men, specially of them that believe" (I Tim. 4:10 ning, but striking passages in the Psalms, Isaiah, Jere­ A.R.V.). The fact of the Incarnation is the only ade­ miah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, and Jonah. quate basis for belief in the Fatherhood of God and the Out of this background Christ came to destroy race-­ brotherhood of man. The Christmas-spirit cannot exist barriers and race-hatred. He gave womanhood its where there is race-prejudice or class-hatred. John, who place, childhood its rights, the slave his freedom, and leaned on Jesus' bosom, tells us what it all meant to the barbarian welcome. In the fellowship of Jesus him: Christ, His love, His mercy, His kingdom, there is "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free, ey know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Roman nor Barbarian. Wherever His followers have ...If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, disob ed this law of His kingdom through race-hatred he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom and prejudice they have misrepresented that kingdom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not which has no frontier, and in which the humble alone seen? . . . He that loveth God should love his brother receive citizenship. The founder of Christianity is not also." the Son of any nation or people, but the Son of man, Jesus came from heaven to Bethlehem nineteen hun­ the Perfect Man. Mohammed was an Arab; that is his dred years ago. Knowing whence He came and whither boast, and the result has been that as long as his re­ He was going He not only loved little children, but ligion abides, it is tied hand and foot to a civilization washed Judas' feet, touched lepers, welcomed strangers, based upon the Arabian institutions of the seventh cen­ was a friend of sinners and had dealings with the tury. To be a true Moslem one must copy the pattern Samaritans. Jesus was the Son of man and had no race­ once for all laid down, and it is an arabesque--without prejudice. He came in the fullness of time. Judaism life. Confucius was a Chinese scholar, Buddha an THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH 162 163 Indian ascetic, Socrates a Greek philosopher. The sys­ "'May none, then, call on me for understanding, tems of thought and philosophy, to which they gave May none, then, turn to me for help in pain, birth, are therefore indelibly national. But Jesus of And drain alone his bitter cup of sorrow, Nazareth, although a Jew by lineage, was not a Jew Or findhe knocks upon my heart in vain." in His limitations or ideals or teachings. He was super­ national; he was neither an Occidental nor an Oriental The present-day race-myth of Aryan superiority or Nor­ in the popular meaning of these words. He combined dic supremacy are the very antithesis of Christianity. in Himself all the ideals of East and West, without The term Aryan-race seems to have been first used by any of their limitations. In Him we see the Alpha and the great linguist Max Miiller though like a true Omega of ideal manhood (and of ideal womanhood) scientist he repudiated its present-day use. "I have because He is the Son of Man and the Son of God. declared again and again that, when I say Aryans, I Most of the racial prejudicegn in the past and some of I mean neither blood, nor bones, nor hair, nor skull; it today is due to sheer i orance of the essential unity I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language.. . . of the human family-the solidarity of the race which To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan Christ always took for granted in His teaching. He blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a came as the Light of the world; and commissioned His. linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or apostles to go into all the world and make disciples of a brachycephalic grammar. It is worse than a Baby­ all nations. He anticipated no barriers which would lonian confusion of tongues-it is downright theft." prove unsurmountable to those who loved Him. When Madison Grant's "The Passing of a Great Race" and the Jews accused him of being a Samaritan and having Lothrop Stoddard's "The Rising Tide of Color" are a devil (John 8:48), he passed by in scorn the first still fresh in our memory as we read the fulminations accusation because he considered all humanity poten­ of the German press against the Jewish people. The tially the family of God. All are lost in sin and He chief trouble with any race-theory is that no one knows came to seek and to save the lost. just what a race is. "God hath made of one blood all If wegn have the mind of Christ nothing human can nations." This statement of Paul on Mars' hill is con­ be forei to us. firmed by the latest science, in two volumes that ap­ peared from the press this year.• Both writers practically "Who is so low that I am not his brother? agree8 Race that: A Studyall mankind in Modern consists Superstition of butby Jacques one species; Ban:un• thatNew Who is so high that I've no path to him? York, 1939. Race: A History of Modem Ethnic Theories by Louis L. Snyder' New Who is so poor I may not feel his hunger? York, 1939. Who is so rich I may not pity him? THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH 164 ey 165 there are no pure races; that there are no inferior Charles WeslGreenHill Pastures used to play the part of the Angel peoples, only inferior individuals; that the differences Gabriel in and when he was killed in a between various peoples, both physical and psychical, traffic accident, one of the New York dailies remarked: are by no means as great as those between individuals "Hill was a colored man, a great actor and a fine of the same so-called races. Neither shape of skull nor human being. In that section of New York where most color of eyes or hair are permanent or universal char­ of the people of his race live, he wasand beloved off the because stage. acteristics of any group. Houston Chamberlain, who he played the part of Gabriel both on sincerely believed that Jesus was not a Semite but a All of his race, and white people, too, are better for his Nordic, gave currency to the pseudo-scientific theory having lived amongst us, because he had religion in of Gobineau.The Outlook, Theodore Roosevelt reviewing this book him and he was sincere in his wish that, after life, he in said: "The author"s brilliant lapses wanted to go to that city called heaven where thereis into sanity are fixedin a matrix of fairly bedlamite pas­ no color-line.'" sion and non-sanity!'" We in America, as well as those And therePonti/ is exno Maximuscolor-line in the Gospel. Jesus Christ who live in the Germany of Hitler, need to beware of was the for the whole human race. race-antagonism and narrow race-prejudice based on The Romans gave this title to the chief bridge-builder, false premises. A great multitude of all racial groups the highest religious authority in the state. Christ of every nation and tribe and people and tongue have bridges all chasms of race and language and culture and found their ideal of humanity in Jesus of Nazareth. social position because he is ptheontif Sonex of Man. Around his manger they gather at Christmastide and hail him whom Sidney Lanier called the Crystal Christ: "Well has the name of been given "O perfect life in perfect labor writ, Unto the Church's head as the chief builder 0 all men'sif yet, Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,­ And architect of the invisible bridge What or what mole, what flaw,what lapse, That leads from Earth to Heaven.'" • What least defect or shadow of defect, The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in speaking What rumor, tattled by an enemy, of the Word that became flesh says: "He giveth help to Of inference loose, what lack of grace the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved him in all Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,­ things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, be' Longfellow'sa merciful Goldenand faithful Legend, V.high priest in things pertain- Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?" 166 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER ing to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." .(A.R.V.) Because the Word became flesh, he shares with us in our temptations and in our vic­ tories. He has a fellow-feeling for us all in our in­ firmities and trials. He went through it all-and did it for our sakes. The incarnation was in order to make atonement. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world. The Son of Man lives to intercede. "Then tho' our foul and limitless transgression Grows with our growing, with our breath began, Raise Thou the arms of endless intercession, Jesus, divinest when Thou most art man!" THE WORD WAS GOD CHAPTER XII

THE WORD WAS GOD "I say, the acknowledgement of God in Christ Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee To the attentive reader of the gospel records He who All questions in the earth and out of it, was born in the Manger is and remainsa paradox. He And has so far advanced thee to be wise. is both God and man, truly human and yet as truly Wouldst thou unprove this to reprove the proved? divine. For He who is the Bread of Life began his min­ In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof, istry by suffering hunger in the wilderness. He who Leave knowledge, and revert to how it sprung? succors the tempted was himself tempted. He who is Thou hast it; use it, and* forthwith, or die! the Water of life ended His ministry thirsting. He * * * hungered as man, He fed the thousands as God. He was weary and yet is our rest. He paid tribute and the How shall ye help this man, who knows himself Temple tax and yet he was Lord of the Temple and of That he must Jove and would be loved again, the sabbath. He was called a devil and cast out devils. Yet owning his own love that proveth Christ, He prayed in agony of tears and blood and yet He Rejecteth Christ through Avery Death need in of the Him?" Desert answers prayer. He wept, and wipes away all tears. -Robert Browning He is sold for thirty pieces of silver and redeems the world. He is Jed as a lamb to the slaughter, and is himself the Good Shepherd. He dies and destroys death. He is buried to bring life and immortality by His resurrection. It is this very paradox of One who is most divine when He is most human that has been the comfort of the sorrowing, the hope of the hopeless, the haven of the tempest-tossed. Felicia Hemans put it for us all in 168 a beautiful prayer: 169 170 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS GOD 171 demented "O by His love who, veiling Godhead's light and face the dilemma that he was if not To moments circumscribed the Infinite, Divine. And Heaven and earth disdained not to ally In the Gospel of John we have the story of how Jesus By that dread union-man with Deity; himself faced this question when he was talking to the Immortal tears o'er mortal woes who shed Jews in Solomon's porch (Jno. 10: 19-39) . "Many of And, ere He raised them wept above the dead; them said, He hath a demon, and is mad.... Others Save or we perish! Let Thy word control said, these are not the sayings of eyone possessed with The earthquakes of that universe-the soul." a demon. Can a demon open the es of the blind?" ( A.R.V.) And when Jesus carried forward his argu­ The mystery of the Incarnation also sets its seal on the onement, and said, "I and the Father are one" ( Greek text, high origen of man and his high destiny. Those who substance), the Jews took up stones again to stone deny the deity of our Lord, frequently also assert that him. Jesus answered them, "Many good works have I man is the mere product of biological evolution and showed you from the Father; for which of those works deny that he was created in God's image. We Christians do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, For a good believe that in the historic Jesusis oflike Nazareth we see work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because one of whom we shouldcan say, God that. And also that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus an­ say of him, man be like that. Nothing to us swered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye today is God-like which is not Christ-like. And nothing are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word to us today is truly human and humane which cannot of God came ( and the Scripture cannot be broken), bear the challenge of Christ's humanity. Christ is the say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent God-man. Of course there are difficulties in believing into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I this but these difficultiesare not due to lack of sufficientnot am the Son of God?" ( A.R.V.) In these words Christ evidence in the Scriptures. The difficulties of be­ asserts the essential divinity of man by his origin and lieving in the deity of our Lord are far greater. Because destiny, and his own essential deity. Nor are we limited they are not, as in the former case, subjective but objec­ to this one outstanding testimony in John's gospel. The tive. Those who disbelieve must explain the extraor­ deity of our Lord is woven into the very substance, the dinary personality, influenceand power of Jesus during warp and the woof, of each of the four &ospels; it is his life on earth andey for the past nineteen centuries in boldly proclaimed in the book of Acts; it forms the human history. Th must deal with the self-conscious­ basis of the entire message of the epistles and shines ness and self-assertion of Christ in the Gospel records forth as the glory of the risen Redeemer in the book 172 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS GOD Lord 173 of the Revelation. More than a hundred years ago 3. He is called in more than fiftyNew Testament Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Table poet Talk and: philosopher spoke passages. John 13: 13 and Rev. 19: 16 are two ex­ of this evidence in his amples. works "I think Priestly must be considered the author of modernUnitarianism. I owe, under God, my return to 4. He performs the of God. In creating (John 1:3); preserving (Col. 1:17); forgiving sin (Mark the faith, to my having gone much further than the 2:5) and (Lnke 5:26) ; bestowing spiritual blessings Unitarians, and so having come round to the other side. (Luke 23:43 and John 14th Chapter are examples) ; I can truly say, I never falsified the Scriptures. I always in raising the dead (John 5:21; 11:25); and in told them that their interpretations of Scripture were judging the world (Matt. 25:31; John 5:22; Rom. intolerable,ey on any principles of sound criticism; and 2:16). that if th were to offer to construe the will of their attributes neighbour, as they did that of their Maker, they would 5. Christ possesses the of God: eternity be scouted out of society. I said plainly and openly that (John 1:2; Rev. 1:17) ; omnipresence (Matt. it was clear enough John and Paul were not Unitarians. 18:20) ; omniscience (Luke 6:8; John 1:48; John I should deal insincerely if I said that I thought Uni­ 16:30) ; omnipotence (Matt. 28:18) ; immutability tarianism was Christianity. No, as I believe and have (Heb. 13:8) ; sinlessness and holiness (John 8:29; faith in the doctrine, it is not the truth in Jesus Christ." I Peter 2 :22-23). worship The scriptural evidence to which Coleridgenames, refers canat­ 6. Christ receives the of men and angels. tributes,be summarized because,works, first of worshipall, the (Matt. 2:2; Matt. 12:6; Luke 25:52; Acts 7:59; peculiar and the due to the Phil. 2:10; Heb. 1:6; Rev. 5:13.) Creator1. Names. are also ascribed to Christ. Now these classified references are only a very small God, John 1:1; Acts 20:28; Heb. 1:8. portion of the evidence in the New Testament which Mighty God, Isaiah, 9:6; Jehovah, Isaiah 40:3 cf. shows that the writers considered Jesus Christ equal in Mark 1: 3. And scores of the names given to Jesus power and glory to God the Father. From the Manger Christ as notedthe inSon an of earlier God chapter of this book. to the Cross the testimony is the same and after the Resurrection and the Ascension the Apostles and the 2. He is called in a peculiar sense and early church knew no other Saviour than Jesus Christ as eternally begotten. Luke 1:35; John 5:18; Gal. who was Lord of all and the Lord of Glory. Thomas 4:4. confessed the faith of the eleven in the upper room THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS GOD 174 175 when he saw the print of the nails and the mark of the did not do justice to the humanity of our Saviour. The spear, exclaiming, "My Lord and my God." humanity was incomplete and the church rejected this Sir John Bowring ( 1792-1872) was a very distin­ view; for if Christ assumed a human body but not a human soul He was not truly man. guished English linguist and diplomat. Most people re­ Humanity member him for his great hymn "In the Cross of Christ A second attempt to explain the Incarnation began I Glory" and some refer to him as a Unitarian. Never­ with the of Christ. His humanity is perfect theless, he expressed his own deeper faith in these and his personality is human. There cannot be, they Christmas lines: said, a physical union between his Manhood and his Godhead. Such union would produce confusion. There "Carry me, Babe, to Bethlehem now can only be a moral union. The union of God and For I would look on Thee, my God! Christ is a sort of divine indwelling. This theory, how­ Thou art alone my goal-and Thou, ever, involved the coexistence of two distinct persons, Thou to that goal my only road." ' The Son of God and the Son of Mary. What tookplace was the adoption by deity of a human person not a We have already seen in chapter ten that the earliest real Incarnation. So the church Catholic also rejected Catholic creeds, accepted by all Christendom, empha­ this theory. After these controversies the decree of sized the two natures of Christ as distinct, yet insepa­ Nicaea was supplemented by that of Chalcedon which rable. "Very God of very God, Begotten not made and declared our Lord to be perfect in Deity and perfect of one substance with the Father." But granted that in humanity, manifested in two natures but one person, Christ was as truly God as he was man it was inevitable the God-Man. This faith was embodied in the creeds that the mind of the Church should for centuries and West, grapple with the problem of how the Godhead and and liturgies and hymnologies, both East and prevailed for centuries. It was only challenged by manhood were combined. It The first attempt to explain began with the Godhead Modernism.' of Christ. Hold to the deity of Christ at all cost. He Itis would be difficult to find a clearer account of the assuredly God. Then what about the Manhood? Church's Doctrine of the Incarnation than the famous was suggested that this did not consist of body and passage of the great Anglican theologian, Richard soul but of body alone. In Christ the ordinary human Hooker. "There were four points which the Church mind was replaced by the divine mind of the Son of was1 W. compelled J. Sparrow toSimp maintain.son-Modernism First, and that the JesusPerson wasof ChriJt Di- London, 1923. God.1 J. H. ThisBums", effortThe Churchman's was very Treasury earnest of Song,and p.sincere 37. but it 176 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE WORD WAS GOD 177

vine. Secondly, that He was human. Thirdly, that He the Unity of God" concluded his comparison of Islam was both united; and fourthly, that the two were not and New England Unitarianism with these words: confused and merged into something neither human "All attempts to simplify the metaphysical basis of nor divine. The Church, in order to make its meaning our faith have, under the test of time and life, failed. dear, adopted the distinction between Nature and Deists and theists have come and gone. Ethics and Person. In Christthe natures were two, the Person was natural theology have claimed their own and more, one, and that Person was Divine. The human nature have had, for a time, their claims allowed and then. of Christ had no human personality of its own. The have vanished. In many ways the Christian church Son of God adopted manhood, though not a man. has moved; the guidance of the Spirit has not failed it. There are not two Persons in Christ. The Son of God Its faith has seen many hypotheses, has been enfolded is not one person and the Son of Mary another. The in many garments. But to the seeker in the great space Son of God did not assume a man's person unto His that lies between materialism and Pantheism the presen­ own. He took the very first original element of our tation that still expresses most adequately the mystery nature, before it had come to have any personal human behind our lives is that in the Christian Trinity, and subsistence." • the words that come the nearest are those of the Nicene We confess that the Person of Christ remains a Creed." ' mystery. Jesus himself asserted that no man could fully understand it. "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father." (Matt. 11:27. A.R.V.) Yet this mystery is precious beyond all other mysteries of the Bible because it reveals the mystery of God's redeeming love. The Incarnation was in order to the Atonement, as we shall see later. Meanwhile, it is well to remember, as Coleridge re­ minds us, that to deny the essential deity of Christ is to throw overboard historical Christianity and to stultify the plain teaching of the New Testament. Professor Duncan B. Macdonald of Hartford, in a remarkablet Hooker, V:52:3. address on "One Phase of the Doctrine of 8 Annual Address, September, 1909 (Hartford Seminary Record). WHY CHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM THE BAG "Hast thou not heard, what my LordJesus did? Then let me tell thee a strange storie. The God of power, as he did ride In his majestick robes of glorie, Resolv' d to light; and so one day CHAPTER XIII He did descend, undressing all the way. "The starres his tire of light and rings obtain'd, WHY CHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM The cloud his bow, the fire his spear, "AT BETHLEHEM," said Leo the Great, "two natures The sky his azure mantle gain'd. met together in one Redeemer. Nothing is wanting in And when they ask' d, what he would wear; either; entire majesty and entire littleness; his the in­ He smil'd and said as he did go, firmitywhose is the power. The selfsame person is both He had new clothes a making here below. capable and conqueror of death. God knit himself to "When he was come, as travellers are wont, manhood in pity and in power; either 11ature was in the He did repair unto an inne. other; and yet neither in the other lost its own prop­ Both then, and after, many a brunt erty." What a rebuke such a magnificent theological He did endure to cancell sinne: statement is to the frivolous and superficial words we And having giv'n the rest before, often use at Advent season when we speak of a Merry Here he gave up his life to pay our score. Christmas! "But as he was returning, there came one The purpose of God in the birth of any babe is a That ran upon him with a spear. baffling mystery. And yet if we may believe that every He, who came hither all alone, man's life is a plan of God how much more was there Bringing nor man, nor arms, nor fear, a holy and eternal purpose in the birth of Jesus of why Receiv'd the blow upon his side, Nazareth. And straight he turn'd, and to his brethren cry'd, When we ask Christ came to earth to be born a "If ye have any thing to send or write, babe in the manger we find the answer in the Gospels. ( I have no bag, but here is room) John puts it all into a single sentence which has been Unto my fathers hands and sight translated into over a thousand languages, is learned ( Believe me) it shall safely come, by heart in every Christian home and contains the very That I shall minde, what you impart; marrow of the Gospel: "For God so loved the world, Look, you may put it 180very neare my heart." that He gave his only begotten181 Son, that whosoever -GeorgeHerbert 182 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER WHYCHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM 183

believeth in him should16). not perish, but have everlast­ his account of Jesus' talk with Nicodemus gives us ing life" (John 3: Here we have th� p�pos�, the motive, and the result of the Incarnation m sunple the purpose of the Incarnation, so we have it also i� the words of the angelhe shall to Joseph: save his "Thou peopie shalt from call their his words. Christ came that whosoever believeth in him namesins." Jesus: for should not perish. The motive that impelled him to Christ came to save from sin. He came come was God's surpassing love for sinners. The result to die, the just for the unjust. He was announced by John of his coming is everlasting life to those who believe. the Baptist at the very beginning of his ministry as The Incarnation was in order to the Redemption. The "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the glory of the manger has the dark background "of man's world." He did not come to be ministered unto but to first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree, minister and give his life a ransom for sin. This is the whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all testimony of all the gospels and all the epistles. 'f!tls our woe." Christ came to Bethlehem to restore man's is the message of the book of Acts. In the Revelation lost Paradise. For thousands of years the Old Testa­ given to John the early title of our Saviour, occurring ment recordsgm tell the old, old story of sin and death again and again, is, the Lamb of God. "Wo thy is the and jud ent. There is no song of the angels. Only � Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and there was, as we have seen, the promise of a Deliverer wisdom, and strength,12.) and honour, and glory and ever growing more distinct and glorious in its progres­ : blessing." (Rev. 5: Therefore, Bethlehem 1s not sive revelation. "John three-sixteen" is easily learned far from Calvary and the Wise Men could have read by heart,in but not so easily do we realize its full mean­ the answer to their question "where is he that is born ing our hearts. God so loved the whole world. Dare King of the Jews?" in Pilate's inscription over the Cross. you love any less? Is your love narrow and parochial? The oldest English Christmas carols do i;,ot separateCross. Christmas bells should ring the death-knell to race theey glory of the Manger from the glory of the prejudice and class hatred. God thought the world Th see it even in the symbol of the holly. was lost and that men would perish but for the gift of his Son. Do you believe that too? Is Jesus the only "The holly bears a blossom hope of the world? God loved the world enough to As white as lily-flower. give his very best-his only begotten Son. Will you And Mary bore sweet Jesus give of your best to carry the message of God's love To be our sweet Saviour. to other hearts and distant lands? "The holly bears a berry Even as John in the prologue to his gospel and in As red as any blood THE GLORY OF THE MANGER WHYCHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM 184 ary 185 And M bore sweet Jesus multitudes. But his great commission from the Father To do poor sinners good." w�s to lay down his life as a ransom. (John 10:17, 18.) G rge Herbert (1593-1633) the English poet and His death was the culmination of his life and suffer­ � ing. He did not die as a martyr but as a Saviour. a friend of Isaak Walton and Francis Bacon, had a "Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, small parish near Salisbury where he held services twice that Christ) Jesus came into the world to save sinners." daily. He was passionately fond of music and of the (A.R.V. common people. We read that the farmers "would let And Jesus was conscious from the beginning of his their plough rest when Mr. Herbert's saint's bell rung public ministry that he would lay down his life for for prayers." His collection of poems is full of epi­ the salvation of the world. "As Moses lifted up the grammatic expressions and quaint conceits. He loved serpent in the wilderness," he said, "even so must the to illustrate the spiritual by the homely. Yet in none Son of man be lifted up." (John 3:14.) He could not of his many poems does he strike so deep and poignant have been ignorant of the great Messianic prophecies a note as in that of '"The Bag."why We have put it facing in the twenty-second Psalm and in the fifty-third chap­ this chapter because it tells Christ came to Beth­ ter of Isaiah regarding the Suffering Servant of Jehovah. lehem. "He did descend, undressing all the way" -that He foretold his own death, and its very manner, on was his humiliation. Then he put on the form of a several occasions. He saw the approaching shadow. Babe and in manhood "gave up his life to pay our At the outset he defined discipleship as bearing-a-cross score." His broken heart and riven side are the bag after him. From the day when Peter made his bold in which he carries messages to His Father for us. confession at Caesarea Philippi "he began to show his "Look you may put it very neare my heart"-Was there disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem and be ever a bolder or more touching interpretation of the killed." That which characterized the last months of Incarnation? Read the whole poem once again thought­ our Lord" s earthly life ( according to the synoptic gos­ fully-"the strange storie" of God's condescending love. pels) was a deliberate and thrice repeated attempt to Jesus came to die. That was his supreme mission. It teach his dull disciples the certainty and the signifi­reason is true he came to live the perfect life as our example. cance of His approaching violent death. And the He came also to teach, as no man ever taught, the of his death is the heart of the gospel that Paul things of the Kingdom and the laws of the Kingdom. preached. "I delivered untothat youChrist first died of allfor that our which sins He came also to heal both body and soul. His healing I also received, how ministry was not incidental nor casual. It was the expres­ according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, sion of his own personality. He had compassion on the WHY CHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM 187 186 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER

and that he rose again the third day according to the of coming tragedy in the life of the Babe of Bethlehem. Scriptures." (I Cor. 15:3, 4.) Whento aged Simeon blessed Joseph and Mary he turned The real joy of Christmas is the joy of sins forgiven, her and said: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel;(Yea anda sword for a shallsign of life eternal through the Saviour. In the earliest pierce through thy own soul also), Christmashymn of the Greek Orthodox Church, writ­ which shall be spoken against. ten by Cosmos760 A.D.,of Jerusalem we have this same note. that the thoughts Written in it was translated by J. M. Neale of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:34.) That and sets forth the reason for the Incarnation. parenthesis is a strange note in a blessing and must have been one of the "sayings" which Mary kept in "Christ is born, tell forth His fame, her perplexed heart until that day when it was filled Christ from heaven! His love proclaim. Stabatfull of Matermeaning, Dolorosa as she stood beside the Cross. The Christ on earth! Exalt His name might well be sung reverently Sing to the Lord, 0 world, with exultation, at Christmas-tide for it answers the question why Jesus Break forth in glad thanksgiving every nation. came at all. For He hath triumphed gloriously." "For her people's sin chastised "Man in God's own image made; She beheld her Son despised Man by Satan's wiles betrayed; Scourged and crowned with thorns entwined." Man on whom corruption preyed; Shut out from hope of life and of salvation. The sword that pierced Mary's soul was to see the Today Christ maketh him a new creation Innocent suffer for the guilty and the Holy One num­ For He hath triumphed gloriously." bered with sinners as he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Mary's sorrow "For the Maker, when the foe is compared vividly to the thrust of a sword-a figure Wrought His creature death and woe Materstrong enoughDolorosa to cover the bitterest experiences of the Bowed the heavens, came below; without necessarily implying that And in the Virgin's womb His dwelling making, Simeon had prevision of the Cross. Nevertheless if he Became true man, our very nature taking, had pondered the prophecies in Isaiah he might well For He hath triumphed gloriously." have had a premonition of some coming tragedy in the No one can read the entire account of the nativity life of One who was to be "a light to lighten the Gen­ in Luke's gospel without being conscious of the note tiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." 188 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER WHY CHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM 189 The glory of the Manger is the glory of the Cross; face, with limbs and body torn. All this for thee, for God so loved the world that he spared not his only 0 man." begotten Son but delivered him up for us all. He came that by his death we might have life and by his stripes The testimony of this Egyptian believer, although he be healed. still follows Christ afar off, goes to the very root of A Moslem-convert in Cairo spent a vacation in Pales­ faith and hope and love. God sent his Son that we tine and, from Nazareth, he wrote a series of prose­ should believe in him. (John 3: 16.) He is the sole poems on the birth of Jesus. He too finds the shadow object of faith. Christ's advent has no relation to of the Cross resting on the Manger. But the shadow our sins we are hopelessIf and of all men most miserable. gives light: Christ's coming is not the supreme manifestation of God's love for the lost and his mercy to the undeserv­ "My beloved. My little one. How lovely the If ing in Christ we have no adequate motive for love memories. Let us laugh over them, and weep. toward our fellow men. "We love, because He first Silence. Stillness. Here is Jesus before our eyes loved us," as John puts it. in the bosom of the Virgin. The heaven is not rent In his first epistle the same Apostle of love gives asunder. No thunder peals out. The silence is not three distinct reasons why God sent his Son. "To be the stirred. The stars are not extinguished. The horizon Saviour of the world." (I John 4: 14.) That was the is left unbroken. first and great reason. His name at birth was Jesus, Jesus enters silently, without uproar into our i.e., Saviour. The second reason given is that "God sent clamorous, excited life. In the humble decrepit his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live cottage of a carpenter He wakes and sleeps. through him." (I John 4:9.) He came that we might In the bosom of little Nazareth, unknown to have life and have it more abundantly. And the third the great world he lives. In her forgotten ways reason given in the same chapter of that epistle is: he grows. "God . . . sent his Son to be the propitiation for our Why are you weeping my child? sins." (I John 4:10.) As we sing in that beautiful He humbled Himself for thee. For thee He children's hymn: endured. For thee He suffered. They spread before "There was no other good enough Him sceptre and majesty, a world great, wide and To pay the price of sin; spacious and He the Lord of it. And He refused He only could unlock the gate it that He might carry a cross, with bloodstained Of heaven and let us in." 190 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER WHY CHRIST CAME TO BETHLEHEM 191

In these three verses from John's epistle we have a in the parish; so much so thatey they had a notice put up threefold cord, not easily broken, to bind us to the to the effect that 'This grav ard is reserved exclusively ey heart of Jesus. He is our Saviour. He is our Life. He for the dead who are living in this parish.' There are is our Propitiation. He is at once the High-priest and a great many folkey like that. Th are living in a parish ey the Altar, and the victim. The Epistle to the Hebrews all right, but th are dead. Jesus said, 'I am come that makes this mystery plain. Bethlehem's Manger held th might have life, and that they might have it more what Paul called "the unspeakable gift" of God to abundant!y .' " humanity-Incarnate Love. "O dearly, dearly, has He loved And we must love him too And trust in his redeeming blood And try His works to do." Because the world was dead in trespasses and sins Christ came to give new life. That life was the light of men. Both life and light came to the world, in the Manger at Bethlehem. Not the star of the Magi but the Holy Child Jesus was the true light that can lighten every man. A new kind of life was manifested in that Babe on Mary's bosom. Not only physical life and soul-life but life eternal. As Mr. A. Lindsay Glegg ex­ pressed it so vigorously in one of his Keswick addresses recently: "The Bible, as you know, speaks about people with plenty of physical life as being dead, dead spiritually. They walk about our streets, they may have a great deal of physical energy, but they are dead in trespasses and sins. 'She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.' There is a graveyard in Ayrshire where once a stranger was buried, and it greatly distressed the folk THE HUMILI ATION AND THE EXALTATION "Who can forget, never to be forgot, The time that all the world in slumber lies: When, like the stars, the singing angels shot To earth, and Heaven awakened all his eyes, To see another Sun at midnight rise CHAPTER XIV On earth? Was never sight of pareil fame. THE HUMILIATION AND THE EXALTATION For God before, man like Himself did frame, But God Himself now like a mortal man became. THE surpassingly beautiful story of Christ washing the "A Child He was, and had not learned to speak, feet of his disciples on the night of his passion as told That with His word the world before did make; in John's gospel is introduced by these words: "Jesus His Mother's arms Him bare, He was so weak, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart That with one Hand the vaults of heaven could shake. out of this world unto the Father, ... and ...knowing See how small room my Infant Lord doth take, that the Father had given all things into his hands, and Whom all the world is not enough to hold. that he came forth from God, and goeth unto God, Who of His years, or of His age hath told riseth from the supper, and layeth aside his garments; Never such Age so young, never a Child so old! and he took a towel and girded himself ...and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the "He is a path, if any be misled; towel wherewith he was girded." ( A.R.V.) The super­ He is a robe, if any naked be; ficial reader of this chapter draws the obvious lesson of If any chance to hunger, He is Bread; the humility of Jesus and his example of lowly service. If any be a bondsman, He is free; But the writer of the Gospel calls our attention to a far If any be but weak, how strong is He! deeper truth. Namely, the consciousness of Jesus that To dead men life He is, to sick men health; he came from the glory of heaven and was soon return­ To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth; ing thither. His consciousness of his own origin and A pleasure without loss, a treasure without( stealth." destiny--of whence he came and why he came and -Giles Fletcher d. 1623) whither he was going. Then he took a towel and girded himself. In this episode of our Saviour's life we have an epitome of the doctrine of Christ's humiliation and exaltation as nowhere else in the gospels. He stooped to conquer. "He loved his own unto the end"-in 194 195 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 196 THE HUMILIATION AND THE EXALTATION 197

Greek it reads, "up to the limit." In the words of Shake­ The humiliation of Christ through his Incarnation, speare "love bears it out even to the edge of doom" his utter condescension in dealing with publicans and (Sonnet CXVI). He washed the feet of his disciples sinners, and his consequent and subsequent exaltation who were even then quarrelling for the place of honor. and glory in heaven form the theme of one of Paul's Nay, as George Marion McClennan the Negro poet, prose-poems that so often shine forth in his epistles. reminds us, he even washed the feet of Judas: He is writing to the Philippian church, beset with the "Christ washed the feet of Judas! dangers of pride and boastfulness together with cen­ The dark and evil passions of his soul, soriousness born of their earnestzeal ( Phil. 2:3- 5). He His secret plot, and sordidness complete, advises them to look at the things of others and not to His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole, be preoccupied with their own interests. Then comes And still in love he stooped and washed his feet. the great passage on the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. We give it in two parallel translations; the first Christ washed the feet of Judas! by Weymouth and the second by Moffatt: Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him, "Let the same disposi- "Treat one another with His bargain with the priest, and more than this, tion be in you which was the same spirit as you ex­ In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim, in Christ Jesus. Although perience in Christ Jesus. Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss. from the beginning He Though he was divine by Christ washed the feet of Judas! had the nature of God nature, he did not snatch And so ineffable his love 'twas meet, He did not reckon His at equality with God but That pity fill his great forgiving heart, equality with God a Trea- emptied himself by taking And tenderly he wash the traitor's feet, sure to be tightly grasped. the nature of a servant; Who in his Lord had base!y sold his part." Nay, He stripped Himself born in human guise and Himof His glory, and took on appearing in human form, The whole astounding episode made a strong impres­ the nature of a bond- he humbly stooped in his sion on the disciples. John records it in greatest detail servant by becoming a man obedience even to die and and Peter refers to it later in his epistle. In the fifth like other men. And be- to die upon the cross. chapter of his first epistle there are a dozen references ing recognizedas truly hu- Therefore God raised him to the Gospel story and among them, "Gird yourselves man, He humbled Himself high and conferred on him with humility to serve one another." Peter could not and even stooped to die; a Name above all names, forget that night. It "poured contempt on all his pride." yes to die on a cross. It is so that before the Name 198 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE HUMILIATION AND THE EXALTATION 199 in consequence of this that of Jesus every knee should himself, "the glory which I had with Thee before the God has also so highly ex­ bend in heaven, oi;i earth world was." (John 17:5.) He then draws the unspeak­ alted Him, and has con­ and underneath the earth, able contrast between that heavenly state and his ferred on Him the Name and every tongue confess earthly exile. This constitutes his humiliation, that He which is supreme above that Jesus Christ is Lord who was so rich, for our sakes became so poor (II Cor. every other, in order that to the glory of God the 8:9) . According to Paul, Christ always shared in the in the Name of JESUS Father." Divine nature, but it is only as the result of His Incar­ every knee should bow of nation, Atonement, Resurrection, Ascension and Session beings in Heaven, of those at the Father's right hand that he appears to men as on the earth, and of those on an with God and that he is by in the underworld, and them inequality the way in which Jehovah is worshipped.worshipped He that every tongue should is now Lord of all as the reward and crowning-point of confess that JESUS CHRIST his voluntary humiliation.1 is LoRD to the glory of The humiliation of Christ "consisted in being born God the Father." and that in a low condition, made under the law, under­ going the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the A comparison of these two translations with that of the cursed death of the cross; in being buried and con­ standard authorized English Bible will show how full tinuing under the power of death for a time."' This of meaning is the Greek original- thoughts that can­ brief statement is a mere skeleton. The Creator took not be packed into any one translation. Volumes have the form of a helpless Babe. The King left his throne been written on this short passage in Paul's letter to and crown of glory to wear a crown of thorns. The the Philippians and all are agreed that altho this is possessor of all things became subject to the laws of not a discussion in technical theology but a practical nature and of man. He endured poverty, obscurity, admonition, it nevertheless contains some of Paul's hunger and thirst. He was tempted by Satan all deepest thought regarding the person of Jesus Christ through his earthly life (Luke 4:13). He was despised and his twofold state. The careful rhetorical structure and rejected by his own people. One of his own circle ( in two strophes of four lines each) shows that the betrayed him. All his chosen followers forsook him in thought has been patiently formulated. the hour of his greatest need. He was betrayed in Paul begins with the pre-historic Christ who had the 1 Kennedy in Expositors Greek Testament III, p. 436. very nature and glory of God. In the words of Jesus 2 Westminster Catechism, Question 27, THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE HUMILIATION AND THE EXALTATION 200 201 Gethsemane, unjustly condemned at Gabbatha and above all the heavens, that he might fill all things" crucifiedon Golgotha. After being buffeted, spat upon, Eph. 4:9, 10. And to Timothy he summarizes this scourged, crowned with thorns, he was nailed to the mystery: tree as a malefactor to die the most disgraceful death "God was manifested in the flesh known in his day. He was alone in his agony and his Justified in the spirit, cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Seen of angels, can only be fathomed in such words as Paul uses: "He Preached among the nations was made sin for us who knew no sin" for on the cross Believed on in the world he made atonement for the sin of the world. On the Received up into glory." cross he humbled himself unto the deepest reproach While Peter in his epistle lifts the veil of the unseen and pains of hell both in body and soul. world for a moment when he writes: "Christ also suf­ "Yea, once Immanuel's orphan-cry His universe hath fered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, shaken, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in It went up single, echoless, My God I am forsaken the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also he It went up, from the holy lips amid the lost creation, went and preached unto the spirits in prison." (I Peter That of the lost no son should use those words of 3:18-19, A.R.V.) "For unto this endey was the gospel desolation."' preached even to the dead, that th might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according We must add to the humiliation of such a death, that to God in the spirit." (I Peter 4:6, A.R.V.) of his burial in a borrowed sepulchre and his descent There are various interpretations of this preaching into Hades, the invisible world of the dead. While his in Hades. Some critics say that Peter is dependent on soul welcomed that of the repentant thief in Paradise the current Jewish tradition found in the Book of Enoch. (Luke 23:43) his body was laid to rest in the grave. According to this story "they were spirits eternal and There are other reterences in the New Testament immortal who transgressed the line of demarcation be­ which are germane in this connection, altho perhaps tween men and angels" ( Gen. 6: 1-4) . But Christians not easy to understand or interpret. To the Ephesians, believed that Christ came to seek and save the lost. Paul writes "Now this, He ascended, what is it but So Peter supplements the old tradition as the greatest that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? proof of Christ's complete victory over sin and the Hes Elizabeth that descended Barrett Browning's is the Poem same on thealso Grave that of Cowper.ascended far grave.''Expositors' Greek Testament, vol. 5, p. 68. 202 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE HUMILIATION AND THE EXALTATION 203 There are other interpretations. But in any case, tion. He that descended also ascended. "As we have Christ's humiliation found its climax in his death and borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the burial and descent into Hades, as we have it in the image of the heavenly." ( A.R.V.) Apostles' Creed. After that begins the glorious con­ The Ascension of Christ was foretold in his dis­ fession of His resurrection and ascension: "On the courses to the eleven on the night before his Cruci­ third day He arose again from the dead, ascended into fixion. "I go away, and I come unto you . . . I go heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I." from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the (John 14:28, A.R.V.) Christ's work as high-priest on dead." These are the successive steps in the exaltation earth was ended and he was now to enter within the of Christ. His Resurrection was the necessary climax veil to appear before God. He was to intercede. He to his work as mediator and the seal of God's accept­ was to send the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In the Holy ance of that finished work. was the fulfillment of the Place, He is the Lamb before the throne, the Redeemer promises of the Old TestamentIt (Psalm 16:10) and of his church and the center of worship and adoration Christ's own promise to his disciples (Matt. 27:63). for all the saints and angels. was a manifest victory over death and hell and The simplicity of the Ascension as recorded in the Itproof of his ability to deliver his people. The angels New Testament (Luke 24:50; Acts 1:9-12) should not were present at the Resurrection as they were at the blind us to the fact that beyond the cloud, which took Incarnation. The infallible proofs He gave of His iden­ him away from the vision of the apostles, there may tity during the forty days in his repeated appearances have been an inconceivably magnificent welcome for to the disciples and to "more than five hundred breth­ the Son of God by the same angels that sang at his ren" were evidence that He arose from the dead in birth, Glory unto God in the highest. For '"the chariots complete humanity to carry forward mediatorial of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; work. Best of all, his resurrection is aHis sure pledge of the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. the resurrection of all his people. (I Cor. 15.) "But Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first­ captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the fruits of them that are asleep. For since by man came rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among death, by man came also the resurrection from the them." (Psalm 68:17, 18.) "Lift up your heads, 0 ye dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors : and be made alive." ( A.R.V.) If there had been no Incar­ the King of glory will come in. Who is the King of nation we would have no hope of a glorious Resurrec- Glory? Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty '!'HE GLORY OF '!'HE MANGER '!'HE HUMILIATION AND '!'HE EXAL'l'ATION 204 1 :20-23.) 205 in battle. Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; Yea, lift of Him that filleth all in all." (Eph. All this them up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of Glory we should remember at Advent season; for the glory will come in. Who is this King of Glory? Jehovah24:7-10, of of the Manger is closely linked to the threefold glory A.R.V.)hosts, He is the King of Glory." (Psalm of the Cross and the Empty Tomb and the Great The earlier words from the Old Testament White Throne. are applied to Christ by New Testament writers (Eph. "His Mother's arms Him bare, He was so weak, 4:8) and we know that when Christ comes again it That with one Hand the vaults of heaven could will be with all his holy angels to sit on the throne shake. of his glory to judge all the nations. (Matt. 25:31.) See how small room my Infant Lord doth take, That will be the manifestation and the consummation Whom all the world is not enough to hold." • of his exaltation before the whole world. "The head that once was crowned withthorns Is crowned with glory now; A royal diadem adorns The mighty Victor's brow. "The highest place that heaven affords Is His by sovereign right; The King of Kings and Lord of Lords He reigns in glory bright." The Ascent into heaven and the Resurrection were, as Paul reminds us, wrought by the exceeding greatness of God's power, "Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all prin­ cipality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things 6 under his feet and gave him to be the head over all From the poem by Giles Fletcher, facing this chapter. things to the church, Which is His body, the fulness THE SECOND ADVENT UiAPTER XI/

"Earth breaks up, time drops away, THE SECOND ADVENT Christmas In flows heaven, with its new day ROBERTEve BROWNING reminds us in his poem Of endless life, when he who trod, that Christ "who, very roan and very God, trod Very roan and very God, this earth in weakness shall come again." The Advent This earth in weakness, shame and pain, season indeed has always a double message. It looks Dying the death whose signs remain backward across the centuries to the coming of the Up yonder on the accursed tree,- Saviour at Bethlehem and it looks forward, according to Shall come again, no more to be his own promise, to the day when he shall come again Of captivity the thrall, "in a cloud with power, and great glory" (Luke 21:27). But the one God, All in all, "Ye men of Galilee," said the angels, "why stand ye King of Kings, Lord of lords, gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken As his servant John received the words, up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner 'I died, and live for evermore.'Christmas " Eve as ye have seen him go into heaven" ( Acts 1: 11). -Robert Browning's The second coming of our Lord Jesus is the only article in the Apostles' Creed which has a reason added to it. "He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead." The first coming was for salvation; the second is for judgment. The first was in humility; the second, in glory. The first was to manifest our Saviour's true humanity; the second to show forth His deity. All the events of the future life are connected with the glory of Christ's return to earth. He brings immortality to light and ushers in the Resurrection. His second com­ ing is the triumph of truth over error and the final 208 209 210 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SECOND ADVENT 211 victory over the powers of darkness. He is King of to the signs of the last days and the glorious appearing the day of Judgment and apportions reward and pun­ of the LordIn and Saviour at the consummation of human ishment. (Matt. 25:31 ff.) The second advent of Christ history. John's gospel these eschatological P!ophecies is at "the end of the world;'" it is the consummation of are wanting, but in his last discourse to his disciples human history; it is "the one far off divine event,'" as Jesus refers again and again to his approaching depar­ Tennyson said, "to which the whole creation moves.'" ture from this world and his return after "a little The Old Testament prophets foretold not only the while.'" "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and first but also this second coming of the Lord and nearly again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I every book of the New Testament refers to it as the go to the Father.'" (John 16:16.) In the Greek text hope of the believer and the comfort of those who look two different verbs are used for "see me,'" which also for His appearing. emphasize the promise of his real and visible return. That coming is to be personal, visible, sudden and Bernard states that the verse first refers to Christ's yet accompanied as well as preceded by disturbances forty days on earth, "a little while,'" and then to his in the world of nature and in society. second advent at the resurrection. "The discrimination In Matthew's gospel we have the words of Christ in the verbs employed affords sufficient guidance and himself: "Immediately after the tribulation of those leads us to interpret as follows. A little while ( it was days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not but a few hours) and then ye behold me no longer. give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, I shall have passed from the visible scene, and from and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And the observation of spectators. Again, a little while then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; ( of a little longer duration) and ye shall see me with and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of another kind of seeing, one in which the natural sight heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send becomes spiritual vision.'" ' his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they In the Acts and in nearly all of the epistles there is shall gather together his elect from the four winds, constant reference to the Second Advent. We note a from oneIn end of heaven to the other.'" (Matt. 24: few of the important passages: Acts 1:11; 3:20; I Cor. 29-31.) the following chapter we have the stu­ 1:7; 4:5; 11:26; Philippians 3:20; Colossians 3:4; pendous account of the final judgment of the nations, 2 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 9:28, etc. The two earliest "when the Son of man shall come in his glory.'" epistles,1 Expositors' which Greek Paul Testament, wrote vol. to I, the p. 836. Thessalonian church, Mark and Luke also each devotes an entire chapter 212 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SECOND ADVENT 213 are chieflyconcerned with the second corningof the Lord. cadence and rhythm of the original. One must hear it sung As for the book of the Revelation it is also largely in a great cathedral, or read the hymn carefully concerned with the last judgment of doom on the and prayerfully to be moved by itswhole poi gnant message: world and the reappearance of our Saviour. "Behold "Day of wrath, oh day of mourning! he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, See fulfilled the prophet's warning, and th also which pierced him: and all kindreds of ey Heaven and earth in ashes burning! the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen" 0 what fear man's bosom rendeth (Rev. 1:7). The final promise and the fiual prayer in the New Testament read: "Surely I come quickly. When from heaven the Judge descendeth Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20). On whose sentence all dependeth." In view of all these promises and the teaching of Charles Kingsley has given us a more modern inter­ the church universal for nineteen centuries it is indeed pretation of the Day of the Lord, which in these dark surprising that there are some in our day who deny hours of international strife and confusion sounds a this doctrine and with the rationalists and modernists note of hope as well as of solemn warning: of Peter's age exclaim, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things "The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand: continue as they were from the beginning of the crea­ The storms roll up the sky: tion" (2 Peter 3:4). The apostle calls them scoffers The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold; and willingly ignorant of the Scriptures; he solemnly All dreamers toss and sigh; answers them that "the day of the Lord will come as The night is darkest before the morn; a thief in the night." The visible world will be dis­ When the pain is the sorest, the child is born, solved when the elements melt in fervent heat. "Never­ And the Day of the Lord is at hand. theless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous­ "Gather you, gather you, angels of God­ ness" (2 Peter 3:13). Freedom, Mercy and Truth; One of the greatest hymns of the Medieval church Come! for the earth is grown coward and old, is based on the doctrine of our Saviour's return to Come down, and renew us her youth. judge the world in righteousness. The was Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring and Love, composed by Thomas of Celano in 1250Dies and therelrae are Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above several English translations but none have the solemn To the Day of the Lord at hand. THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SECOND ADVENT 215 214 "Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell­ again to judge the quick and the dead. As F. W. H. Famine, plague and war; Meyers expressed it, Idleness, Bigotry, Cant and Misrule, "Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices Gather, and fall in the snare! Shout to the saints, and to the deaf are dumb; Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave, Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave, Glad in His coming, who hath sworn,I come." In the Day of the Lord at hand. For Christ is coming to judge the world in righteous­ "Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold, ness. The great, white throne of the day of judgment While the Lord of all ages is here? speaks of majesty, integrity and authority. This sublime True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God, doctrine of a general judgment of the whole human race is altogether unique. The Greek-Roman world And those who can suffer can dare. karma, Each old age of gold was an iron age too, taught a judgment of the dead in the underworld and And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do, conducted by inferior gods. Hinduism has its In the Day of the Lord at hand." the relentless reaping of what was sown of good or evil, in endless reincarnations. IslamMunkir tells of aNaktr. judg­ gm Modernists who reject the Virgin birth and stumble ment in the grave by the two angels and at belief in the resurrection of the dead, naturally do But only the Bible reveals a general jud ent by the not have any faith in the personal and visible return Lord who descends from heaven in the open daylight of Christ. For them the spiritual experiences of the and in the presence of the whole universe. "When the disciples who felt Jesus near them was the only resur­ Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy rection; and at Pentecost Jesus came back by his spirit angels with him ... and before him shall be gathered to cheer and encourage his group of faithful follow­ all nations ...Then shall the King say unto them on ers! ' We prefer to hold to the supernatural account his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit in the gospels and to confess, with the Holy Catholic the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of Church of all the centuries, that Christ arose again the world" (Matt. 25:31-46) . from2 For theexample, dead, the ascendedteaching of intoLeslie heaven D. Weatherford and shall in his come book The contemplation of that hour is indeed a most After Death, pp. 169-173. powerful motive to dissuade from sin. It will be a manifestation of the righteousness and mercy of God, 216 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE SECOND ADVENT 217 a revelation of the moral order of the universe and in the gradual but certain influence of the Word and of God's purpose in history. the Church upon all humanity.ey They oppose the pre­ This blessed assurance has kept the church looking millennial theory because th believe it is essentially upward in the darkest days with an undiscourageable Judaistic and bases its thesis only on certain portions and glad hope of deliverance. This has been the com­ of the Scriptures which professedly deal in symbolism. fort in the hour of martyrdom from the day of Stephen Again there are those who reject both of theseey views to the present. This was the bow of promise in the and call themselves "a-millennial," that is, th deny darkest periods of church history. "Surely I come the millennium idea and yet hold just as firmly that quickly ... even so come Lord Jesus." Christ will return from heaven to judge the world. time The belief in the proximity of Christ's return has, The greatest danger is not the discordance between however, led to a twofold interpretation of all the these views of the of the Advent but rationalistic many scripture passages that deal with the subject. unbelief which denies Christ's second coming altogether. His return is connected with his millennial reign. Some We have seen that the fullness of time for the com­ hold that this reign-the periodafter of peace and right­ ing of our Saviour was a fullness of preparation, of eousness on earth-will be Christ's return from expectation and of despair. So doubtless will be the heaven. These are called Pre-millenarians. Their argu­ signs of the approaching end of the age and the second ments are based upon a belief in a twofold resurrec­ appearing of our Lord from heaven. tion. Christ's servants occupy as stewards till he comes. Were men's hearts ever so expectant of a climax His coming will usher in "the first resurrection" and and a crisis in history as now? Was the world ever the "rapture" of those who are living and belong to in greater need of a Deliverer and Judge? Are not the His own. Wickedness and evil will triumph more and signs of which Jesus spoke in the gospels, and which more until after this event and therefore the return of usher in the day of the Lord, on the front page of our Christ is imminent and sudden. newspapers? Apart from His coming is there hope for The other theory is called Post-Millennialism. It, this disillusioned, stricken, war-torn world? too, is based on Scripture passages, which, to those who Jesus came; Jesus is coming again. To accept these hold it, seem to teach that the present dispensation is two statements, which are the shortest summary of the to be undisturbed except by the increasing conflict of New Testament, with all theyimply of faith and hope and love, would fill us with the joy of the early truth against error. The Holy Spirit through the gospel Second Advent will make righteousness to prevail until finally the Christian church and their devotion. millennium is ushered in. This school puts its hope Dr. Brown's book on the (Glasgow, THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 218 1839), was a reply to those who held the Pre-millen­ nial view. But we may all agree with his concluding paragraph: "May the Lord keep the eye of his Church on 'That Day' when He shall be 'revealed from heaven in flam­ ing fire,' to the terror of his enemies and the joy of his waiting people; when 'from His Face the earth and the heavens shall flee away, and no place shall be found for them'; but instead of them shall be 'new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous­ ness,' and 'the righteous shall shineIf this forth be our as habitualthe sun attitude,in the kingdom it will of matter their Father.'comparatively little 'whether He shall come in the second watch,' as one class think, THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 'or come in the third or fourth watch,' as others think; for in either case, 'when he cometh, we shall open to him immediately!' "

"How long, 0 Lord? Our hearts are sad and weary, Our voices join the whole creation's groan; With eager gaze we watch for Thine appearing, When wilt Thou come again and claim Thine own? "Return! return! come in Thy power and glory With all Thy risen saints and angel throng; Bring to a close Time's strange, mysterious story, How long dost Thou delay?-0 Lord, how Jong?"'

8 Jane Bothwick in The Churchman's Treasury of Song, p. 4. CHAPTER "BECAUSE of a stall in Bethlehem, XVI Where a Prince of Peace was laid, I try to fashion a childlike heart, THE GLORY OF THE MANGER For the difference He has made. IN the prologue of John's Gospel he sums up all the "Because of a shop in Nazareth, glory of the Nativity, because he asserts that in the Where a King!y craftsman wrought, manger of Bethlehem, where Jesus Christ had his I try to follow my simple tasks human origin, dwelt all the fullness of Deity. "In the With reverence, care, and thought. beginning was the Word ...and the Word was God "Because of a cross on Calvary, . ..and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among Where hung the crucified One, us ( and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only I try to shoulder my load of grief, begotten of the Father,), full of grace and truth." The And bear it till set of sun. whole glory of the Manger is the glory of the Christ who was laid in it. He was and is and always will be "Oh, life it would be a fruitless quest, the central figure in the Christmas story. All the rest And hope but a lampgrown dim, are utterly subordinate-Joseph and Mary, the Shep­ And the fairest joys would bloom in vain, herds and the Magi, the angelic host and the star of If it were not for sake of Him." Bethlehem-all worship Him. What the Shekinah was -Barbara Ross M'Intosh. to Israel in Tabernacleand Temple,the token of God's In Life and Work, Aug., 1939. ineffable glory, Christ became by his Incarnation. It is no wonder that Harnack asks in the opening chap· ters of his History of Dogma: "Where in the history of mankind can we find anything resembling this, that men who had eaten and drunk with their Master, should glorify Him not only as the Revealer of God but as the Prince of Life, as the Redeemer and Judge 220 of the world, as the living221 power of its existence, 222 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 223 and that a choir of Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and bar­ Ruskin, "write their autobiographies in three manu­ barians, wise and foolish, should, along with them, scripts,-the book of their deeds, the book of their immediately confess that out of the fullness of this words, and the book of their art. Not one of these One man they have received grace for grace." books can be understood unless we read the two others. The matchless but simple story of the Nativity in But of the three the only quite trustworthy one is the Matthew and in Luke must be laid side by side with last." All the fine arts, music, painting, sculpture, archi­ the prologue of John's Gospel and with Paul's portrait tecture, have laid their finest tributes at the feet of of Jesus Christ in Ephesians and Colossians if we Jesus. Many of them were tributes to the Babe of would grasp something of the mystery and the mag­ Bethlehem. This is true of modern art as well as netism of the Manger. medieval; it is true of all lands and all peoples who Why has this old story such wonderful fascination have heard of the Christ. for old and young? Why has it drawn all men, rich The earliest representation, perhaps, is a picture in and poor, high and low, until today at Christmas­ the Catacombs showing Jesus in swaddling clothes on tide the whole world gathers at Bethlehem's Manger? a small bed with outlines of an ox and an ass in the It is not too much to say that the Nativity affects background.' All the early religious painters tried to every soul born into a Christian community and that express in colors what the poets and saints had painted the coming of the Christ Child has changed the whole in words. The general treatment, Farrar tells us, varied world. Unless the Babe in the manger was God mani­ but little. We find always the joyous Mother, the grave, fest in the flesh, one cannot explain the age-long, silent, aged Joseph, the shepherds and the angels. The world-wide, tremendous influence of this event. quaint reason why the ox and the ass are also intro­ The birth of Jesus, we note first of all, became the duced is due to the strange Septuagint rendering of favorite subject in art wherever the gospel was pro­ Habakkuk 3 :2. "In the midst of two animals thou claimed. The art of the Catacombs, the galleries of shalt be recognized." ("In the midst of the years make Europe and America, the more recent work of Japanese, it known.") Cf. also Isaiah 1:3. Chinese, Indian, and African artists all bear witness The paintings of the Nativity are legion. A score to this fact. To read the story of the Nativity in these of the world's greatest artists have here exercised their sculptures, drawings and paintings is like turning the vivid imaginations: Angelico, Baldinovetti, Pierodel leaves of some precious ancient parchment, each page Franceschi, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Borgognone, illuminated in gold and color, every stroke revealing Signorelli, Tintoretto, Albrecht Diirer, Lorenzo Lotto, the devotion of the craftsman. "Great nations," says �eric W. Farrar, The Life of Christ as represented in Art, pp. 233. 224 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 225

Titian, Paul Veronese, Correggio, Rembrandt, Velasquez formed by tbe young motber and her Child." ' The andIn many otbers of later date. whole picture with its brilliant colors and lively multi­ Farrar's book there are examples of sculptures tude of figures seems a melody on canvas. portraying tbe visit of tbe Magi from a fourth century "Joy to tbe world tbe Lord has come, sarcophagus, and from the Church of St.ry Vitalis in Let earth receive her King. Ravenna, which belongs to the sixtb century. Here tbe Let every heart prepare him room tbree Magi are represented dressed in Ph gian caps, And heaven and nature sing." tunics and long robes each carrying a gift. The sole ry In One year ago I received a Christmas-card from Robert object of these very early carvings was to recall the E. Speer. OnNativity one side was a beautiful reproductionry of sto with absolute simplicity. later centuries the Botticelli's from the National Galle in scenes all became more exotic and magnificent, some­ London. On the other side Dr. Speer expressedry hisry times witb splendid anachronism-transferring the Na­ their faitb that "the Incarnation with its myste , its glo tivity to Italy or Germany or Spain. Nor can we blame and its reality holds the answer to all human prob­ tbe painters, for they merely expressed joy in lems;" and also these lines: tbeir own way, as tbe Shepherds did "when they found tbe young child witb Mary his motber." "All real "This night, tbis hut, all secrets hold. art," as Carlyle said, is "tbe disemprisoned soul of Come quickening cup or chastening rod! Repose in Egypt. My soul is justly overbold fact." One example, which must suffice us, is that of -Father John J. Burke, C.S.P. Albrecht Diirer's It is supposed to Since Christ has brothered us in God." repres�nt . the . village of Mataria where the Virgin's fountam 1s still shown to tourists."In But tbe scene and Those who are art-critics assert tbat there is no deeper the persons are all German! an open courtyard in and more interesting picture of the Nativity than this of Botticelli. Canon Farrar states tbat it is "one which are cocks and hens and from which is seen a of the hill crowned witb towers, Joseph stands at work at his sweetest and most far-reaching sermons on the inmost meaning of Christmas Day." Then he goes on to de carpentering. The chips of wood are being playfully "In collected in a basket by boy-angels, one of whom has scribe its beauty: the upper part of the picture is a sky, of which roguishly set his master's hat upon his little head, and ry other puts a long splinter to his moutb as tbough the exquisite colours melt by dewy graduations from :m tbe golden glo of the celestial heavens to tbe blue 1t were a trumpet ...Joseph is pausing from his toil. 2 Op. dt., p. 275. He gazes thoughtfully, axe in hand, at the group of our lower horizon. In this sky is a wreatb of twelve THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 226 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 227 angels, joined hand in hand in enraptured dances. picture, devils, small, and ugly, and contemptible, strive They are clad like the angels of Fra Angelico, in robes to hide themselves 'in the clefts of the rocks and the of the most tender vernal colourings, and their atti­ holes of the ragged rocks.' And thus the picture ex­ tudes are full of grace and charm. Their wings, like presses the effects of the Advent ori the good and the their robes, are alternately of red, green, and white. evil. The inscription, in bad Greek, at the top, shews Each of them holds a branch of olive and myrtle, and the tension of feeling under which this picture was a banderole, with the inscription, GLORIA IN ExCELS!S painted at the end of A.D. 1500, 'in the troubles of DEo, from which hangs a light golden crown . . Italy, in the half-time after the time during the fulfill­ "Directly underneath them is a dark grove of pines, ment of John xi, in the Second Woe of the Apocalypse, Dante's symbol of the tangled forest of human life. in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. But, in the midst of the dark wood, on a mass of Afterwards he shall be chained, and we shall see him white rock- symbol of the purity and impregnable trodden down, as in this picture.' " strength of the Gospel-rises the stable of Bethlehem. "Can anyone who has learned to understand this On its pent-house roof, three angels in the crimson picture look without delight upon its subtle colouring robes of Love, the white of Innocence, the green of and lovely forms? And when we grasp its mystic sym­ Hope, chant their new carols. On the ground lies the bolism, can we be wholly untouched by the hope and Holy Babe in all the joyous life of infancy, with finger holiness which it breathes into the soul?" pointing to His mouth as though to say, 'I am the Word We have quoted this description at length for it of God.' At His feet kneels Mary worshipping in some­ illustrates what untold wealth of meaning and mystery thing of sad bewilderment, and at His head, leaning and glory the thoughtful observer can find in the paint­ against a pack-saddle, Joseph bendsin deep humility, his ings that tell the story of the Nativity. face shrouded by his mantle. Behind him are the ox, the Although Isaac Watts had never seen the paintings ass, and the manger. Thus was indicated the truth that of Botticelli or Diirer, the same exuberant joy filled his even for the lower animals the Heavenly Father cares." heart because of the Advent, when he wrote, "Joy to "On either side of the manger are the three Magi the world the Lord has come!" and the three shepherds, representing mankind, both The glory of the Manger in the hymnologies of the Jews and Gentiles, at each age and of every rank, who Greek, the Latin and the Protestant churches is too are being brought into the presence of Christ by ardent well known to need emphasis. Advent hymns, carols, angels, who crown their brows with olive, the symbol Christmas anthems, and Nativity oratorios occupy a of fruitfulness, and gladness ...At the bottom of the larger place in the liturgies and books of public wor- 228 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 229 ship than any other event in the life of our Lord. Read, for example: the Manger Throne, Good King More than fifty advent hymns are listed in one Church Wenceslas, The Seven Joys of Mary, T'was in the Hymnal. Carols and carol singing go back to the thir­ Winter Cold, The Incarnation, the Cherry-Tree Carol, teenth century. Here are two in Middle English from Emmanuel, and We Three Kings ·of Orient- nearly the commonplace Book of John Grimes tone ( 1372) ; all these are as evangelical in their message as Luther's the first is entitled, Christ Weeps in the Cradle for famous Christmas Carol in fifteen stanzas, of which Man's Sin; the second, A lullaby to Christ in the Cradle. the last reads: "Lullay, for wo you little thing! "To God on high all glory be, You little barun you little King! Who gave His only Son for me, Mankindde is cause of thy mourning, For which the Angels carol clear That thou hast loued so sore." And sing us such a glad New Year!" • "Child, it is a weping dale that thou art comen inne Thi pore clutes it prouen we!, thi bed mad in the binne Among Negro spirituels ( wrung from their hearts Cold and hunger thu must tholen, as thu were geten in the days of slavery) two are beautiful nativity songs, in senne De Newborn Baby and Yonder Comes Sister Mary wid And after deychen on the tre for loue ov all Mankenne. de Keys of Bethlehem. So we find Christmas joy ex­ Lullay, lullay lite! child! No wonder thou thu care, pressed by all nations in their own tongue and swell­ Thu are comen amongst hem that thi detgh sulen ing the chorus of the Gloria in Excelsis first heard at ghare." ' Bethlehem. From the earliest Christmas hymn of Am­ We do not translate into modern English as the mean­ brose, V eni Red emptor Gentium, and the one better ing is fairly clear. ( Detgh = death; ghare = prepare.) known, by Prudentius, Of The Father's Love Begotten, There is nothing wrong with the doctrine of these there is an unbroken succession of melodies until we early poems. They enshrine the creeds of the Church come to Phillips Brooks' 0 Little Town of Bethlehem. and the piety of the saints. In going over a collection The entire story of the Nativity of our Lord is found of ancient Christmas carols for use today we were im­ in the songs of the Church Universal-and the chorus pressed with their quaint interpretation of the old, old has gone around the earth, through the Book of a story of Jesus' love. His atonement for sin, and the Thousand Tongues.' Incarnation as the mystery of Christ's twofold nature. " Christmas Carols New and Old by Henry R. Bramley. 5 "Being some Account of the Translation and Publication of all or 8 Nos. 59 and 65 in Carleton Brown's Religious Lyrics of the XIVth part of the Holy Scriptures into more than a thousand languages and Century. dialects." American Bible Society, New York, 1938. 230 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER THE GLORY OF THE MANGER 231 Another glory of the Manger is the fact that it has Alive from the dead in the power of love: led to the observance of the day of Christ's birth with And mercy and Truth are assembling now all its exuberant joy, and good will toward men. The With Justice and Peace at the mistletoe bough." date we observe as Christmas, December twenty-fifth, is of course without historical basis. No one knows the The ringing of bells and the singing of carols, we have exact month or day in the Calendar. Christmas was already referred to as indicative of great joy that has not among the earliest festivals of the Church and come to all peoples through our Saviour's birth. We before the fifth century there was no general agreement today have church-services or family gatherings, but in whether it should be held on the sixth of January, the the middle ages it was the Mystery play and the twenty-fifth of March or the twenty-fifth of December. Miracle-Play that drew the crowds to the public squares The first certain mention of December 25 is in the and the churches. These often had the Nativity for calendar of Philocalus in 354. Chrysostom refers to the theme, especially the visit of the Magi and the adora­ same date as the correct day in a sermon preached on tion by the Shepherds. From such beginnings grew the 0 rich and choice treasury of song and poetry in English December 20, 386. The fact is far more important literature in praise of the Christ-child and his mission than the date. The joy of the festival, the origin of The Yule-log and Christmas candles were in use very which is lost in obscurity, is testimony to the glory of early in the British Isles, in France, in Germany, and the Manger. in Scandinavia. These lands of the cold north associated The widespread use of evergreens, holly, ivy, mistle­ the festival with light and warmth and good-cheer.' toe, and laurel has a symbolic meaning far transcending For them there was also the lavish Christmas feast and the origin of the customs connected with their display. the lighted Christmas-tree by which young and old ex­ As T. G. Crippen points out, the symbol of life is most pressed their joy and extended their hospitality and appropriate at the birth of the Prince of Life: good-cheer. Nor can we forget Christmas gifts to the "The mistletoe bough at our Christmas board poor and the beautiful Scandinavian custom of the Shall hang to the honor of Christ our Lord; Christmas Sheaf placed out in the fields of snow and ice for cattle and birds. Saint Francis of Assisi was not For He is the evergreen Tree of Life, the only one to think of sharing with birds and beasts Whom the old blind world, amid hate and strife the bounty of his Lord. Rejected and slew. But He soared above One has only to watch the celebration of Christmas 6 Epiphany Christmas Encyclo­ For detail see the Articles and in the 7 /Jedia Britannica. For these and other customs see, Wm. M. Auld's Chrhtmas Tradi­ tions, pp. 99-135. 232 THE GLORY OF THE MANGER

in one of our great cities to become convinced that, although wickedness and worldliness abound, the Christ-child has a universal magnetism and far-reach­ ing inJluence. Men may deny our Lord's Divinity, they may affect toey doubt the miracles connected with hi� birth, but th are forced to admit that the coming of Christ has stamped an indelible impress on the world and its history, while at the same time they are unable to give any reasonable explanation for ita fact so unique and remarkable. One cannot explain except by the GospelThoughts records on Relig andion: then declare with Pascal in his "Jesus Christ is the center of everything and the object of everything, and he who does not know Him knows nothing of the order of the world and nothingof himself. In Him is all our felicity and virtue, our life, our light, our hope; apart from Him there is nothing but vice, misery, darkness, despair, and we see only obscurity and confusion in the nature of God and in our factown." If we face the of the Christ we shall observe Christmas and approach the Advent season in the spirit of the poem that faces this chapter. His coming makes all the difference in our hearts and lives and thoughts. This is the glory of the Manger. "Because of a stall in Bethlehem Where a Prince of Peace was laid I try to fashion a childlike heart For the diffeFINrenceIS He has made."