The triumph of the Innocents

by William Holman Hunt

In eluding Herod’s cruel decree, St. Joseph would have made his route as far from the state highway as possible. The distance still to be traversed is about ten miles. The Flight into Egypt is one of the first events in the life of Christ which marked the power of the Prince of this world, whom Jesus Christ had come to combat and to conquer, by innocence and suffering.

In Bethlehem the Holy Family, as is still the custom, had lain down soon after dusk, and doubtless the intimation by dream was given while the protection of night still offered the longest opportunity of escape. It was a voice ringing out its warning after the dreamer had started up in the darkness, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt.” The Rabbinical writers speak of the time anterior to the day of the expected Messiah as destitute of marvels and miracles, these having ceased since the death of Simon the Just—a period of nearly two hundred years—and about this date an age of spiritual activity is witnessed to by them. Wonders in the heavens and on the earth occur, although not of the stupendous kind that had been expected, and which later the Doctors demanded of Christ. Dreams of Divine inspiration are mentioned out of the Gospels as frequently affecting the fate of men. St. Joseph had a spirit of profound obedience to heavenly authority. The Founder of Islamism declared that among all the ancient prophets none was greater than Jonah. To me it seems that among the saints in the group which fostered the Christian Church during its first perils, none was greater than Joseph, and this for an opposite reason. He had the very soul of submission and faith, bearing all evil report and contumely without resentment when once he had been assured that the Heavenly Father’s purpose needed this. It seems to us no confession of weakness in this claim for the first of the Fathers of Christianity to state here that St. Joseph was last of all the band of guardians of the infant Church, recognised in its established days as a saint. It is a further proof of his humility, and of that true trust in right doing which leaves all after-issues to God, when his command sanctifies a course. “Pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath, nor in the winter,” may have been said with some family memory of the troubles suffered on the escape from Herod’s cunning. In April short storms of severity occur; the writer has seen on the eighth day of this month snow three inches deep which had fallen during the night. The picture gives snow on the heights, and to be consistent the beginning of their journey would have been under a cloud-covered sky. Dark and forbidding would have been the scene as the travellers emerged from the town (walled, in part at least, since remains of such are still traceable near the tomb of the mother of Benoni) the wind blustering through the exposed valleys and scouring over the heights, the anger of heaven and earth alike dictating stealth and silencing all converse.

In succeeding generations fancy decorated the story with many legends, but although these are often innocent, and even poetic beyond the ordinary mark of the apocryphal Gospel narratives, they are all avoided in this conception. Here no legend is taken for authority. The attempt is to put together the detached links of the story, and I rely only upon my personal knowledge of the country and climate, acquired by many years of residence throughout all its seasons, to understand how the sorrows of that night would be intensified by the angry elements.

The looking back upon a home from which a family is driven by oppression has ever been regarded as a motive for compassion, and to this calamity the Holy Family had to submit. The heights to the south of “Beit Jala”—by some writers recognised as Rama—give an extended view, the mountains of Moab far away to the east, and the Dead Sea below, the great plain of Philistia down in the west. A storm thence seen produces the impression of sublime purpose. The lightning gathers beyond the great hollow which includes Jericho and the lost Sodom and Gomorrah, and then wavers, as the fingers of a mighty player upon the keys of a musical instrument, collecting the errant forces of the air, and tremulous with dancing flame in the south over the extending table-land it seems to linger as though searching the plain of Philistia for its special mark, and there darts down in fury; but the sword which was to pierce the breast of the mother, “blessed withal above all women,” was of man’s forging. According to our order of events the noisy elements would not have endured long, for soon the peaceful snow followed falling with its wandering flakes. It would be then that the cry would sound, which St. Matthew quotes Jeremiah to describe, “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.” We are not debarred from thinking that the mother suffered some of her pain in the wonder natural to humanity, that the powers of evil should be able thus to prevail over the pure and the righteous.

It is natural to follow the mind of the mother in such distraction of love, while the wintry mountains are traversed, and the fugitives descend into the rich plain with its genial breath, the more placid from the cleared sky. We can understand the comfort that would be prayed for—a higher Knowledge of the Divine mercy—and we can conceive how this came to her through her pure maternal charity, in the form of ever increasing tender regard for the woes of the children torn from their mothers’ breasts for ever, and of the bereaved childless women mourning their dearest ones. She searches her much harassed mind to find consolation for the weeping neighbours of her home. The party pass through the rich corn-fields, among villages of peaceful slumberers. The whole air is balmy and soothing. They feel the comfort of peace after a storm. The torrents would no longer be in broken cascades but flowing along in deep channels to the sea, the further from the uplands the greater the change in the temperature. Recently the travellers have made a turn in their course to find a crossing sure to be provided in Roman days over the deep river which has to be crossed in the path to a village on the road. The garments which the Mother is about to arrange have been carried with other needful gear in the saddle-bags. Her own under-garment is the wedding-dress of Bethlehem, worn by a bride until it is past service. While her Child is being re-dressed, and is thus engaging her solicitude, He calls her attention to the holy company around them. The spirits of the children of Bethlehem troop along by the side, they bear the signs of their martyrdom. Garlanded as were ancient sacrifices and bearing branches of blossoming trees; like enrolled saints they appear “in habit” as they lived, the forward ones already rejoice in the knowledge of their high service. Midway there is an infant bewildered to find that his new spiritual body bears no trace of the fatal wound. Behind in the air are babes; this sleeping, grieving group is the only one in the picture which in its sorrowing aspect connects the idea of human pain with the fate suffered, for the rest, in degrees differing, death is already seen to have no sting, the grave no victory.

The foal accompanies the mother ass, in a long journey the young creature lags behind whinnying in remonstrance at the ceaseless steps, and only hurrying on in bounds when there is fear of the parent ass getting beyond reach and sight. The glorified infants are encircling the weary laggard, who is thus brought up to the onward group. The wild dogs which have come out of the mill-house to bark—as is their wont with nocturnal travellers striving to pass a homestead in silence—are cowed at the unusual apparition and steal away in fear. The leader and father of the party, St. Joseph, regards not the ghostly attendants. He is engaged in securing the best means of safety while passing the near village. He watches the distant fires to discover any signs there might be of pursuit. He is passing over the shallow stream supplied for irrigation by the creaking water-wheel. The liquid surface is

“Pavid with the image of the sky,”

and burdened lightly with the fallen flower from the hand of one of the foremost seraphic children. In contrast to this mundane reflection of Heaven—which takes the leader’s steps for the moment—are the waves on which the children dance along. They are not clouds such as angels may be portrayed upon. They are from the fountain of the water of life, given to them that are athirst freely (athirst for fuller life). It is the spiritual eternal stream provided in exchange for the life that perisheth which has been to them so brief. These first Christian martyrs no longer walk on the earth, but they travel on the living waters of life, bringing comfort to their late fellows and to all future disciples who have yet their burdens to bear and their victory to win. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.”

The stream is portrayed as ever rolling onward and breaking—where it might if real water be dissipated in vapour—into magnified globes which image the thoughts rife in that age in the minds of pious Jews, particularly of those in great tribulation, of the millennium which was to be the mature outcome of the advent of the Messiah. The promises to the Patriarchs are progressive as is all the teaching of Revelation. The dream at Bethel first clearly speaks of the union of Earth and Heaven. This was the dawn of the exaltation of the Jewish faith, and accordingly the large orb reflects dimly the Patriarch asleep with a twofold ladder or pathway up and down, which is traversed by the servants of God. The intention is to combine with the first beautiful dream of the Patriarch other ideas of Messiah’s reign which harmonise with this, and which were developed later. Heaven is indicated by the adoration by the elders of the spotless Lamb, and the brokenheartedness of those who turn towards Heaven is illustrated by the fallen penitent, by the burden-bearing of the faithful pilgrim, and the leading of the lion by the young child, while the tree of life in the midst bears the fruit for the healing of the nations.

So far it has been recognised that for the guidance of spectators who have no unlimited time to work out for themselves the intention of the picture, an explanation of my purpose was necessary. I however remember with gratification that when the picture was yet incomplete, the main intention of the design was apprehended by some of the few visitors to my studio, and that Professor Ruskin on seeing it, while the principal group was then only crudely expressed, in the impulse of generous appreciation, alluded to the purpose of the children in the picture in words of such correctness as well as exquisite expression and measure that, had they described the complete design, the painter might well have dreaded to provide any other. Shortly afterwards I had to abandon the first painting from defects in the canvas on which it was painted, after excessive loss of time and repeated disappointments which then nearly disposed me to give up the subject and turn to some other. Without the spontaneous appreciation of our great writer on art, to whose championship in the early days of preraphaelitism I owe so much, I should scarcely have persevered to save the work of so many alternating feelings of joy and pain. The Art Professor now kindly permits me to quote from his Lectures on the Art of England: