CHAPTER IX.

THE SETTLEMENT AT BETHLEHEM.

SCEPTICAL writers are in the habit of assuming, that in the early chapters of S. Matthew and S. Luke there are certain contradictions, which nothing but the most inveterate habit of special pleading could possibly induce theologians to attempt either to deny or to explain.

S. Matthew, they say, as clearly recognizes Bethlehem as the home of Joseph and Mary as S. Luke recognizes Nazareth; this recognition not being confined to distinct statements, but being observable in incidental notices running through the whole of both narratives.

Thus S. Matthew, when speaking of the return from Egypt, represents Joseph as taking for granted that he will make his way back to Bethlehem; whereas S. Luke equally takes for granted that it was in the natural order of things that Joseph and Mary returned at the earliest opportunity to Nazareth.

There is an amount of 'bravery' in assumptions of this sort and in the triumphant setting forth of imagined contradictions which is very apt to divert attention from what is at least the ultimate issue in such cases, viz, whether it is more probable that documents so accredited as the Gospels, and writers so nearly contemporary with the events which

they relate should be in error, or that the sceptic should be arguing without a sufficient knowledge of all the bearings of the facts on which he is prepared to pass so confident an opinion.

It is indeed quite conceivable that there may be difficulties, and even apparent contradictions in Holy Scripture, which, in the present imperfect state of Biblical knowledge, it would be only presumptuous to attempt to explain. But at any rate this question of the residence at Bethlehem does not come within this category.

On the contrary it is, I believe, perfectly possible to shew at least strong prima facie grounds for supposing that the opinions so confidently put forward rest upon entirely false data, and that those who hold them have either not recognized, or not given sufficient weight even to such simple facts as the following

I. That S. Luke's Gospel is not, as they assume, independent of, and to be read separately, from S. Matthew's, but that both documents contain overwhelming internal evidence of their having been designed to be read together.

It is not necessary to insist that S. Luke himself in his Preface states this to be the case. It is a fact of which evidences can be multiplied to an extent which places it beyond all possibility of doubt.

2. That it is an integral part of the plan of the two Gospels at one time to relate different and evidently specially selected facts, and at another to relate the same facts in a different way.

Thus in this case the more emphatic recognition by the one Evangelist of Bethlehem, and by the other of Nazareth, is only one of those phenomena of selection.

which may be shewn to recur so continually as to constitute them an integral part of the general design of their Gospels.

3. If we join together the early portions of the narratives of S. Matthew and S. Luke according to principles of construction found to prevail in every other part of their Gospels, it becomes apparent that though one Evangelist gives greater prominence to incidents of more exclusively Jewish significance, and so speaks most of Bethlehem, whilst the other deals with events having a more world-wide interest, and connects these more especially with Nazareth, yet the two narratives join to make up one complete and consistent story, which if not told exactly as ordinary writers would probably have told it, is nevertheless told according to a plan consistently pursued throughout the whole of the documents which are thus made the subject of criticism.

4. It is not correct to say that S. Luke, even when his Gospel is taken alone, fails to recognize a prolonged residence at Bethlehem.

S. Luke defines the time at which the Taxing and the Journey to Bethlehem took place by the words "in those days." The expression may of course mean within a few months, or weeks, or days of some previously-mentioned event that event being in this case the Birth and Circumcision of John the Baptist. But up to this point all S. Luke's notes of time have been exceedingly minute, so much so that the presumption is certainly in favour of his meaning within a few days.

This would make S. Luke state that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem about six months before our Lord's Birth, and immediately after the Angelic Announcement to

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Joseph, a date strongly supported by the wording of the further statement "and it came to pass while they were there the days were fulfilled."

In the above objections the residence at Bethlehem as referred to by S. Luke is assumed to have ended immediately after the Purification. But the wording of the narrative is sufficiently remarkable at this point to make it very doubtful, even apart from S. Matthew's narrative, whether S. Luke really means to say anything of the kind. What he does say is that Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth "when they had brought to an end all the things which were according to the ordering of the Lord." He does not use the expression indicating ceremonial observances which he would have done had he referred only to the Circumcision and the Purification and Presentation in the Temple, whilst the very comprehensiveness of the expression "all things" makes it difficult to apply it exclusively to these events. Some such expression as "after this," or "straitway" would have been what we should have looked for, had he been referring to the Circumcision and Purification only.

Thus, even when reading S. Luke's Gospel alone, we should see very strong reason to infer that there must have been some other events, capable of being defined as happening "according to the ordering of the Lord," which he had in his mind, but which he did not propose to relate.

When therefore we know (1) that S. Luke's usual plan was to omit certain things more peculiarly appropriate to the plan of S. Matthew's Gospel, and (2) that not only had certain events taken place between the Purification and the Return to Nazareth, but that these events were emphatically

declared by S. Matthew to be the designed fulfilment of ancient prophecies, it can hardly be unreasonable to conclude that here we have the true explanation of the peculiar wording of S. Luke's narrative, and that he does in fact recognize a residence in Bethlehem of about two years and six months, i.e. a somewhat longer period than S. Matthew's narrative taken alone would necessarily assign to it.

5. There is nothing in S. Matthew's Gospel in any way inconsistent with the above view.

It is true our Lord's birth is mentioned immediately after the Angelic Announcement to Joseph, but it is recorded in what is manifestly the very shortest of summaries, whilst the same summary carries the reader on at once to a date presumably about two years after our Lord's Birth, viz. the time of the Visit of the Wise Men. Thus no inference whatever can safely be drawn from S. Matthew as to the exact time of the visit to Bethlehem.

6. Again the inferences drawn from the use of the word which we translate 'Inn' are at best extremely uncertain. The renewed use of the same word (katáλvμa) by the same writer in describing the events of the last night before the Crucifixion, though its significance is lost in the translation Guest-chamber, strongly points to its being used in both places in a special and somewhat figurative sense. In this case it would only indicate that the placepresumably the same as S. Matthew speaks of as the 'house'—only afforded a place of temporary sojourn, even to Joseph and Mary, and not even that to Christ Himself.

The opening fact of the Gospel, viz., that when Christ first entered this world there was 'no room' for Him even in a humble lodging is thus set over against the closing fact,