Aleph, the Chaldean; or, the Messiah as Seen from Alexandria

by E. F. Burr

The Jew readily consented: and this was the substance of his narrative.

When he was scarcely more than a boy there came to the khan on the east of the city, then kept by his father, a large caravan of eastern people, on their way home from Judea. It was led by three men—all remarkable for dignity of manner, richness of apparel, and other signs of great distinction, if not of princely rank. Two of them were old men; but old after the manner of Moses. Their eyes were as bright, their forms as erect, their steps as firm and elastic as one ever sees in the young. But the third was comparatively young: and a finer specimen of humanity in all respects the khan had never seen, though it had seen, first and last, a wide variety of people from all nations.

Ah, that young man knew how to walk—how to ride too! When he came and went, whether on foot or on his Arabian, the servants would run to every convenient outlook to wonder at the easy grace and majesty of his movements.

On the arrival of the caravan the khan happened to be quite without guests. The pilgrims at once took all the vacant rooms, and remained several days in the city—examining it fully in every direction; its temples, palaces, harbors, markets, warehouses, manufactures, libraries, schools. They evidently were very devout persons; not as the idolaters are, but after the Hebrew manner. Every morning and evening they gathered all their servants, and read from copies of the Law and Prophets, and prayed most reverently to the Invisible; and on the Sabbath they went separately to the synagogues; and when they left the city they carried away with them many copies of the Greek Scriptures—also, it was said, a Greek young man, well taught in all the western learning and accomplishments, but who had lost his parents and other near relatives, and so had few ties to detain him here. This was what was said: the Jew could not vouch for it, as he had never seen the young Greek.

But these were not the most important facts about the pilgrims. Some in the caravan spoke the Greek language and the people of the inn used to listen with wonder to the story that gradually came to them.

For generations it had been widely understood in parts of the East that a great king would some day appear in Judea in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. But lately it was revealed to each of the three chiefs that the birth of this king was about to take place, and that when it had taken place the fact would be signified to them by the appearance of a new star-like body in the western sky, and that on seeing it they should journey westward to carry the homage and presents of the East to the new-born monarch. So they conferred together, made ready their caravans, and watched the heavens nightly for the promised sign.

At last it came. The day had faded away into the night, when lo, a glorious beam shot to the watchers, and they saw a great star hanging low in the west—a star wholly unlike the evening star, or any other star ever seen in that quarter of the sky. The signal was promptly and joyfully obeyed. Meeting at a place before agreed upon, the chiefs joined caravans and proceeded toward Judea—the star appearing and going before them whenever their journey needed special guidance. So at last they came to Bethlehem, where the meteor sank low and blazed over the house where a young child was. Then they knew that they had found the King; though it was in no palace, but in a very humble home bare of all but the barest necessaries.

Was it a beautiful child? Even as Moses, exceeding fair. Was he afraid of the bearded men as they kneeled before him and presented their gold and frankincense and myrrh? Not at all. There were the dawnings of a kingly repose and welcome in his eyes as he fearlessly stretched out his little hand and laid it on the thin white hairs and on the dense brown locks that were successively bowed low before him.

And then they heard of things even stranger than those they had themselves experienced. For the mother told them of angels who came to predict the Messiah and his forerunner: and many people of Bethlehem, attracted by the star and the stately caravan, came hastening up and told how their shepherds had seen and heard on the night of the Birth a glory of angels that shone and sang above them like a descending heaven, and sent them to a manger to find their long expected King.

The youngest of the three chiefs was so much impressed by the story of the shepherds that he put it into a song which some in the caravan learned and often chanted.