Читать книгу The Life of Jesus Critically Examined - David Friedrich Strauss - Страница 67

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To avoid the many difficulties which beset us at every step in interpreting this chapter after the manner of the supranaturalists, it is quite worth our while to seek for another exposition which may suffice to explain the whole according to physical and psychological laws, without any admixture of supernaturalism. Such an exposition has been the most successfully attempted by Paulus.

How could heathen magi, in a remote country of the east, know anything of a Jewish king about to be born? This is the first difficulty, and it is removed on the above system of interpretation by supposing that the magi were expatriated Jews. But this, apparently, is not the idea of the evangelist.

For the question which he puts into the mouth of the magi, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” distinguishes them from that people, and as regards the tendency of the entire narrative, the church seems to have apprehended it more correctly than Paulus thinks, in representing the visit of the magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, as we have above remarked, this difficulty may be cleared away without having recourse to the supposition of Paulus.

Further, according to the natural explanation, the real object of the journey of these men was not to see the new-born king, nor was its cause the star which they had observed in the east; but they happened to be travelling to Jerusalem perhaps with mercantile views, and hearing far and wide in the land of a new-born king, a celestial phenomenon which they had recently [170]observed occurred to their remembrance, and they earnestly desired to see the child in question. By this means, it is true, the difficulty arising from the sanction given to astrology by the usual conception of the story is diminished, but only at the expense of unprejudiced interpretation. For even if it were admissible unceremoniously to transform magi μάγους into merchants, their purpose in this journey cannot have been a commercial one, for their first inquiry on arriving at Jerusalem is after the new-born king, and they forthwith mention a star, seen by them in the east, as the cause not only of their question, but also of their present journey, the object of which they aver to be the presentation of their homage to the new-born child (v. 2).

The ἀστὴρ (star) becomes, on this method of interpretation, a natural meteor, or a comet,82 or finally, a constellation, that is, a conjunction of planets.83 The last idea was put forth by Kepler, and has been approved by several astronomers and theologians. Is it more easy, on any one of these suppositions, to conceive that the star could precede the magi on their way, and remain stationary over a particular house, according to the representation of the text? We have already examined the two first hypotheses; if we adopt the third, we must either suppose the verb προάγειν (v. 9) to signify the disjunction of the planets, previously in apparent union,84 though the text does not imply a partition but a forward movement of the entire phenomenon; or we must call Süskind’s pluperfect to our aid, and imagine that the constellation, which the magi could no longer see in the valley between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, again burst on their view over the place where the child dwelt.85 For the expression, ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον (v. 9), denotes merely the place of abode, not the particular dwelling of the child and his parents. This we grant; but when the evangelist proceeds thus: καὶ εἰσελθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, (v. 9), he gives the more general expression the precise meaning of dwelling-house, so that this explanation is clearly a vain effort to abate the marvellousness of the evangelical narrative.

The most remarkable supposition adopted by those who regard ἀστὴρ as a conjunction of planets, is that they hereby obtain a fixed point in accredited history, to which the narrative of Matthew may be attached. According to Kepler’s calculation, corrected by Ideler, there occurred, three years before the death of Herod, in the year of Rome 747, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign Pisces. The conjunction of these planets is repeated in the above sign, to which astrologers attribute a special relation to Palestine, about every 800 years, and according to the computation of the Jew Abarbanel (1463) it took place three years before the birth of Moses; hence it is probable enough that the hope of the second great deliverer of the nation would be associated with the recurrence of this conjunction in the time of Herod, and that when the phenomenon was actually observed, it would occasion inquiry on the part of Babylonian Jews. But that the star mentioned by Matthew was this particular planetary conjunction, is, from our uncertainty as to the year of Christ’s birth, and also as to the period of the above astrological calculation, an extremely precarious conjecture; and as, besides, there are certain particulars in the evangelical text, for instance, the words προῆγεν and ἔστη, which do not accord with such an explanation,—so soon as another, more congruous with Matthew’s narrative, presents itself, we are justified in giving it the preference. [171]

The difficulties connected with the erroneous interpretations of passages from the Old Testament are, from the natural point of view, eluded by denying that the writers of the New Testament are responsible for the falsity of these interpretations. It is said that the prophecy of Micah is applied to the Messiah and his birth in Bethlehem by the Sanhedrim alone, and that Matthew has not committed himself to their interpretation by one word of approval. But when the evangelist proceeds to narrate how the issue corresponded with the interpretation, he sanctions it by the authoritative seal of fact. In relation to the passage from Hosea, Paulus and Steudel86 concur in resorting to a singular expedient. Matthew, say they, wished to guard against the offence which it might possibly give to the Jews of Palestine to learn that the Messiah had once left the Holy Land; he therefore called attention to the fact that Israel, in one sense the first-born of God, had been called out of Egypt, for which reason, he would imply, no one ought to be astonished that the Messiah, the son of God in a higher sense, had also visited a profane land. But throughout the passage there is no trace87 of such a negative, precautionary intention on the part of the evangelist in adducing this prophecy: on the contrary, all his quotations seem to have the positive object to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus by showing that in him the Old Testament prophecies had their fulfilment. It has been attempted with reference to the two other prophecies cited in this chapter, to reduce the signification of the verb πληρωθῆναι (to be fulfilled) to that of mere similitude or applicability; but the futility of the effort needs no exposure.

The various directions conveyed to the persons of our narrative by means of visions are, from the same point of view, all explained psychologically, as effects of waking inquiries and reflections. This appears, indeed, to be indicated by the text itself, v. 22, according to which Joseph, hearing that Archelaus was master of Judea, feared to go thither, and not until then did he receive an intimation from a higher source in a dream. Nevertheless, on a closer examination we find that the communication given in the dream was something new, not a mere repetition of intelligence received in waking moments. Only the negative conclusion, that on account of Archelaus it was not advisable to settle at Bethlehem, was attained by Joseph when awake; the positive injunction to proceed to Nazareth was superadded in his dream. To explain the other visions in the above way is a direct interpolation of the text, for this represents both the hostility and death of Herod as being first made known to Joseph by dreams; in like manner, the magi have no distrust of Herod until a dream warns them against his treachery.

Thus, on the one hand, the sense of the narrative in Matt. ii. is opposed to the conception of its occurrence as natural; on the other hand, this narrative, taken in its original sense, carries the supernatural into the extravagant, the improbable into the impossible. We are therefore led to doubt the historical character of the narrative, and to conjecture that we have before us something mythical. The first propounders of this opinion were so unsuccessful in its illustration, that they never liberated themselves from the sphere of the natural interpretation, which they sought to transcend. Arabian merchants (thinks Krug, for example) coming by chance to Bethlehem, met with the parents of Jesus, and learning that they were strangers in distress (according to Matthew, the parents of Jesus were not strangers in Bethlehem), made them presents, uttered many good wishes for their child, and pursued their [172]journey. When subsequently, Jesus was reputed to be the Messiah, the incident was remembered and embellished with a star, visions, and believing homage. To these were added the flight into Egypt and the infanticide; the latter, because the above incident was supposed to have had some effect on Herod, who, on other grounds than those alleged in the text, had caused some families in Bethlehem to be put to death; the former, probably because Jesus had, with some unknown object, actually visited Egypt at a later period.88

In this, as in the purely naturalistic interpretation, there remain as so many garb, the arrival of some oriental travellers, the flight into Egypt, and the massacre in Bethlehem; divested, however, of the marvellous garb with which they are enveloped in the evangelical narrative. In this unadorned form, these occurrences are held to be intelligible and such as might very probably happen, but in point of fact they are more incomprehensible even than when viewed through the medium of orthodoxy, for with their supernatural embellishments vanishes the entire basis on which they rest. Matthew’s narrative adequately accounts for the relations between the men of the east and the parents of Jesus; this attempt at mythical exposition reduces them to a wonderful chance. The massacre at Bethlehem has, in the evangelical narrative, a definite cause; here, we are at a loss to understand how Herod came to ordain such an enormity; so, the journey into Egypt, which had so urgent a motive according to Matthew, is on this scheme of interpretation totally inexplicable. It may indeed be said: these events had their adequate causes in accordance with the regular course of things, but Matthew has withheld this natural sequence and given a miraculous one in its stead. But if the writer or legend be capable of environing occurrences with fictitious motives and accessory circumstances, either the one or the other is also capable of fabricating the occurrences themselves, and this fabrication is the more probable, the more clearly we can show that the legend had an interest in depicting such occurrences, though they had never actually taken place.

This argument is equally valid against the attempt, lately made from the supranaturalistic point of view, to separate the true from the false in the evangelical narrative. In a narrative like this, says Neander, we must carefully distinguish the kernel from the shell, the main fact from immaterial circumstances, and not demand the same degree of certitude for all its particulars. That the magi by their astrological researches were led to anticipate the birth of a Saviour in Judea, and hence journeyed to Jerusalem that they might offer him their homage is, according to him, the only essential and certain part of the narrative. But how, when arrived in Jerusalem, did they learn that the child was to be born in Bethlehem? From Herod, or by some other means? On this point Neander is not equally willing to guarantee the veracity of Matthew’s statements, and he regards it as unessential. The magi, he continues, in so inconsiderable a place as Bethlehem, might be guided to the child’s dwelling by many providential arrangements in the ordinary course of events; for example, by meeting with the shepherds or other devout persons who had participated in the great event. When however they had once entered the house, they might represent the circumstances in the astrological guise with which their minds were the most familiar. Neander awards an historical character to the flight into Egypt and the infanticide.89 By this explanation of the narrative, only its heaviest difficulty, namely, that the star preceded the [173]magi on their way and paused above a single house, is in reality thrown overboard; the other difficulties remain. But Neander has renounced unlimited confidence in the veracity of the evangelist, and admitted that a part of his narrative is unhistorical. If it be asked how far this unhistorical portion extends, and what is its kind—whether the nucleus around which legend has deposited its crystallizations be historical or ideal—it is easy to show that the few and vague data which a less lenient criticism than that of Neander can admit as historical, are far less adapted to give birth to our narrative, than the very precise circle of ideas and types which we are about to exhibit.