Equally beside the mark is the attempt to ex- plain the story as in some way parallel to the sojourn of Moses in Egyjjt. The two stories are rich, not in resemblance, but in contra.st : they have absolutely nothing in common save the word ' Egypt.' The attempt to derive the one from tlie other is a triumph of misdirected ingenuity.
Quite as little avails the expedient of deducing the narrative from the prophecy of Hosea (11'), as O. Holtzmann would evidently do. ' For the story about the Lord's childhood the Gospel of Matthew seems to have drawn principally upon certain indications in the Old Testament' {Life of Jesvs, p. 86). One can readily enough understand how a Jewish Christian might see in the narrative of the Flight a richer fulfilment of the prophet's words, but It is almost incredible that the incident should be invented as a commentary on the words, and all the more so when the words in question are not a prophecy, but a historical reference. Still less credilile does the suggestion become when we find that we should require to believe not merely that the Flight was invented to explain the prophecy, but further that the Massacre of the Innocents had next to be invented to explain the Flight, and the visit of the Magi to explain the Massacre. Accept- ance of such a theory involves a much larger draft on one's credulity than does acceptance of the incident itself as historical.
The question may still arise. What motive led the Evangelist to record this event? Need we seek for any motive? He wanted to tell about Jesus : would it not be enough for him that this was a story of the childhood of the loved Master, and that he believed it to be authentic ?
' Egypt has, in all ages, been the natural place of refuge for all who w ere driven from Palestine by distress, persecution, or discontent' (Farrar, Life of Christ, ch. iv.). It need create no surprise, therefore, that it was towards Egypt the fugitives bent their steps. There they would be without Herod's jurisdiction and beyond the reach of his vengeance; the road was a' well-knowTi one, and some three days would suffice to liring them to the frontier. Of the incidents of the journey we have no reliable infoi matiim, imr are we told in what l^art id' V.-2\\'l the wanderers at l.'ii;itlL found rest and refuel'. Tiadiiion has assigned this distinc- tion to Mataii.di (the ancient Heliopolis), whjch
G02
FLOCK, FOLD
FLUTE-PLAYERS
lies a few miles north-east from Cairo ; and there is no good reason why the tradition may not be cor- rect. It is known that in that neighbourhood there was a considerable Jewish ixjpulation. That fact would liave undoubted weight with Joseph, as it held out to him the prospect of obtaining suitable employment. The duration of the sojourn in Egjpt lias been very variously stated, some reckoning it a-s having extended over one, two, three, or even seven years. But we may take it as certain that it was in reality very brief, seeing the death of Herod occurred verj' shortly after the period at which the Flight must have taken place. See also art. Egypt.
411 ;
Bethlehem,
) less than of the
; Holman Hunt's 'Triumph of the Innocents.'
Hugh Du.\c.\x.
FLOCK, FOLD.— For a general treatment of these words see Sheep, Shepherd. But it may be noted here that, whereas in Jn lO'- ''' we find in AV 'fold' three times ('he that entereth not by the door into the sheep-/o^rf ' ; and ' other sheep I have which are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and . . . there shall be one fold and one shepherd '), there is in the original a marked dis- tinction. Two words, absolutely unconnected with each other, are employed. In v.', and in the first clause of v.'*, the Greek word is ai)\^=' enclosure,' 'court,' 'fold,' in the strict sense. It is the word used of the enclosed court of the high priest's palace (Mt 26^ Mk U", Lk 22^, Jn IS'''), of the strong man's palace (Lk 11-'), and of the outer eouit of the Temple (Rev 11-). In using tliis word our Lord seems to refer to those 'walls of partition' (cf. Eph 2") which sepiirated the .Jews from the Gen- tiles and madp tliem a nation by themselves. Within \\n~. ^,^^^\^^ f,M (ai>\^), our Lord tells us that, at I lii' tiiii'- » Inn He spoke, He had a number of shuej' wliu wir.' His own ; and also that, outside of it, aiiiung the Gentiles, dark and miserable as their condition wa-s, He had other sheep, \\ho were His already, and were known to Him, even if they knew it not themselves. These, too, He an- nounces, He must bring, and put tliem along with His Jewisli-bom sheep: 'and,' He adds, 'there shall be one flock (He uses here the other word iroiiirq), one shepherd.' He does not say there will he 'owe fold' (ou\^), or, indeed, any fold at all. He has unity in view for His sheep — union ; but not such as is to be secured by the erection round His flock of such outwardly-enclosing, or constraining ' walls of partition' — geogiaphical or racial — as had hitherto divided nation from nation and .Jew from Gentile. The union whereof He speaks is to be the union of a flock, which is kept together on the one hand by its own instinct of gregariousness, or the mutual affection of the members, and on the other hand by its common subjection to its 'one Shepherd,' who loves it, died for it, and whom through all its members it knows. It does not, however, follow that this unity is not a visible unity. The unity of the flock, as it moves along the road under its shepherd's guidance, is just as visible to the beholder as the unity of the fold whose white walls gleam from the iiiilsich'. "The difference is not in regard to the visibility of the effect, but the nature of the unifying bond. The distinction is brought out in RV.