The triumph of the Innocents

by William Holman Hunt

DESCRIPTION IN DETAIL.

“Behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

The Flight into Egypt is generally believed in the West to have occurred a few days after the birth of our Lord. The Eastern Churches on the other hand extend the interval which is supposed to have elapsed to a period of nearly two years.

The considerations which influenced the choice of age for the Saviour in the picture are therefore not simply artistic. The view of the Eastern Churches can scarcely be rejected with reasonable regard to the circumstances of the visit of the Magi, and of the terms of Herod’s fiat for the murder of the male children of two years old and under, “according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.” In the Gospel of St. Luke, however, it is said that after the Purification in the Temple, which was forty days after the birth, St. Joseph and the Holy Virgin returned to Nazareth with the Child, and that there, speaking in general terms after the accomplished fact, Jesus grew up. An apparent discrepancy is thus pointed out by some critics, but it is one such as often presents itself in all honest evidence of facts; and the report in St. Matthew simply requires it to be understood that the Holy Family came back again to Bethlehem from Nazareth. Indeed, the residence in the latter city does not seem to have been chosen as a permanent one, for, on the return from Egypt, it was only accepted because safety was still not so certain in the dominion of Archelaus. The motive which had operated in bringing St. Joseph and the Virgin to Bethlehem from the north, before the birth of our Lord, is generally understood to be the securing of claim, under the enrolment of Quirinius, to the genealogy, and perhaps to some share of family inheritance. This would operate more powerfully after the birth of Jesus in influencing the parents to make the city of David their permanent home. There is therefore no contradiction between the two Gospels, but the comparison of the evidence given by the two Evangelists in my mind strongly establishes the view of the Eastern Churches, that the Saviour’s birth took place more than one year earlier than the flight. Herod’s estimate of the age of Him who was born King of the Jews was not made without careful calculation of the date from the birth, so as fully to include the Child whom he had determined to destroy, that he might thus, like the typical politician of the great reader of human nature,

“Circumvent God,”

and it follows accordingly that Jesus was not fully two years of age.

Whatever reserve of feeling there may be towards a reading which conveys a disputable view of a fact in Holy Writ, let it be remembered that an artist treating a subject in which such is offered cannot delay to make his choice. The first part of his study in making his design is to form a theory in harmony with the intention of the records illustrated, as read by the fullest light, and to leave an exploded theory with confidence that his rendering will be approved as either correct or unobjectionable. In this case no special pleading is needed, seeing that St. Augustine puts the Massacre of the Innocents in connection with the Passover. Perhaps he regarded it as an antithesis to the slaying of the first-born in Egypt, and understood the quotation by St. Matthew from Hosea, “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” as having a fuller purpose than at first appears. In any case he regarded the festival as not fixing the date of the massacre, and the fact argues that neither the date given in the Western Church for the commemoration, nor in the Greek Church, is understood as the date of the sacrifice of the first Christian Martyrs.

The journey has been across the mountains from Bethlehem towards Gaza. The birth-place of Christ is on the further side of the range, about five miles beyond the highest elevation, somewhat to the right of the point where the star is rising above the distant curve of the hill; the nearer mountains are about 1,500 feet in height. These, with intervening valleys, are further on in the highlands overtopped by rolling waves of the limestone rocks until they reach the watershed of the country, which is about 2,400 feet in height. Bethlehem lies beyond this 500 feet lower, on a spur overlooking the eastern country, thus falling gradually to the plain of the Dead Sea.

The ass is of the Mecca race—so called from the fact that they are brought from the Arab city of pilgrimage as descendants from one which Mohammed rode. They were necessarily always costly, being much sought for on account of their power of endurance, and their surefootedness. It is quite within licence to assume that St. Joseph may have provided himself with such an animal for his journeys. The route taken has been by bye-paths across the mountains and fields to the plain with beaten tracks from all other cities to Gaza, which, once passed, will put the fugitives in safety.