57
What announcement did the angel make to the shepherds?
“For behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” ([Luke ii, 10]).
According to Luke the visit of the angels is to proclaim to the world the birth of the new-born Messiah. Had the celestial phenomenon reported by this Evangelist really occurred the news of it would have quickly spread over Palestine. Yet the people of Jerusalem, only a few miles away, learn nothing of it; for, according to Matthew, the first intimation that Herod has of Christ’s birth is from the wise men who visit him at a much later period. The inhabitants of Bethlehem themselves are ignorant of it. Could they have discovered to Herod this wonderful babe, or the place where his parents abode while there if they had departed, it would have saved their own children from the wrath of this monarch. But they knew nothing of him.
58
What effect had the announcement of Christ’s birth upon Herod and the people of Jerusalem?
Matthew: “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” ([ii, 3]).
According to Matthew the announcement filled with alarm the entire populace, and the most diligent efforts were made to discover and destroy the babe. In strange contrast to this statement of Matthew is Luke’s narrative ([ii, 22–27]), which declares that Jesus, when forty days old, was brought to Jerusalem and publicly exhibited in Herod’s own temple, without exciting any alarm or provoking any hostility.