I
FLIGHT
601
if the Lord, they re- iiwii city Nazareth' (93»). From those wonls ,.iii' \\..uM naturally infer
that the return took jiI.mc i icdiately after the
events thus recorded, ami that mi mimi was left for the episodes of the First (iospel. Is that infer- ence necessary, or even well founded ? If the nar- rative of Acts must be so adjusted as to take in the sojourn of St. Paul in Arabia, he would be a bold critic who would maintain that the terms of the other narrative inevitably exclude the sojourn in Egypt. It is to be noted also that the time- table of the First Gospel is sufficiently elastic to embrace easily the events recorded in the Third. For we lind there that, ' according to the time •which he had carefully learned of the wise men,' Herod's inhuman edict included all the children in Bethlehem 'from tivo years old and under' (Mt 218).
"The difficulty, therefore, is not one of chron-
clog
Even if
ogy. Even i
36 both point
used it, except <
all, born in l!et
the immediate
sucli an objection would u the hands of those who (irv tiiat Jesus was, after I'or, even granting that Nazareth is the natural
inference from St. Luke's account, yet the force of any argument based upon it fails the very moment that Nazareth and not Bethlehem is made the scene of the Nativity. On that showing, St. Luke's story is itself untrustworthy, and so cannot be used to di.seredit another story which is inconsistent wth it.
The real difficulty is of quite a difterent sort : it is that we have not in St. ]\Iatthew ' an account absolutely above criticism.' It might very perti- nently be asked if we have any right to expect such an account. Stories of the childhood of a great man aie never written while he is still a child, but only after he has achieved greatness ; and even then tliey arc written, not necessarily because of their (iwii inlrin,-.ic importance, but be- cause they have cau-lil > >■ of the glory of the
afterglow. Nom-, it. was n(jt until Jesus bad already won His place in the hearts of men that our Gospels were written. In the circumstances of the case, therefore, these records could not be other than fragmentary, and a fragmentary ac- count can never be 'absolutely above criticism.'
But presumably the special criticism to which these incidents of the Infancy lie open, is that they are no more entitled to belief tlian, say, those recorded in the Apocryjihal (;on|icIs. The Gospel of the Infancy, c.f/., wea\ r^ .iiuuiid (he Flight into Egypt a" fantastic garland <.r inii.i.lc and wonder. This wreath of fairy talcs is liy ciiiiinion consent stripped off and lai'd aside as uiihistorical embel- lishment. Should not the Flight itself be laid witli them as equally unwortliy of credence ? The ques- tion opens up a subject much too large to be dis- cussed here. But one may at least ask if it is not too drastic a measure to destroy the sliip because one has had to remove the barnacles, or to remove the peg teeause a worthless coat has been hung on it. Are these narratives so much of a piece that, if we reject some of them, we must reject all? Surely the fact is not without significance that the Evangelist preserves the story of the Flight, but records none of the marvels that have clustered round it. For if these other stories were extant when he wrote, he must have been cognizant of them, and his rejection of them must have been deliberate. On the other hand, if they were of a later growth, his tradition is thereby marked as older and, to that extent, more trustworthy.
But, says Keim {Life of Jesus, ii. <I4), -"il bears all the marks of .a poetic picture.' Istli^rc, thm, no poetry in real life? If a story is iMiilic, is ii thereby 'branded as unhjstorieal ? 'Intertwined
with the narrative is a nc revelation by an angel, aim thrift of heaven.' The objc in the case of a story writtei
; than threefold ". mu. h tor the ^^..uM be valid iiudem limes by nf its f.irce when is written by an
a man of tlie West, but
one remt
Oriental
Much more a|.|i..sile is the cuntention that 'the enormous toil Mt muIi a Jnurjiey w ith a little child, was such as only legend, aided or not by miracles, could easily get over.' The toilsomeness of the journey is not denied ; no one imagines that it was ' easily got o\er.' ilay not our Lord's own words (Mt Hi-", Mk 13'^) be an echo of the hardshijjs Joseph and Mary had to endure in bearing Him to a place of refuge ? But the cogency of Keim's argu- ment vanishes when we remember that this was a flight for life (see Innocents). In sucli circum- stances, hardships are little accounted. But ' they might have found a nearer refuge among the Arabs of the south or west.' Surely this criticism is singularly inept. A temijorary and brief refuge might thus have been found, but no one knew how long it would be ere the wanderers could safely return to their own land. What was needed was an asylum in which they could quietly abide till all danger was past, and where Joseph could find employment which would enable hini to provide for his household.