Jesus: A Biography From a Believer. (2 page)

The cultural efflorescence of Jesus’s day was made possible by the stability imposed by Caesar’s heir, Octavian, who became Rome’s first emperor as Augustus Caesar, following the civil war. He died when Jesus was eighteen, but under his successor, Tiberius, Rome was so terrified of his Praetorian Guard that the emperor was able to live on the island of Capri, amid its pleasures, while his guard’s commander, Sejanus, kept all in peace. In what we now call Palestine, a similar calm prevailed at the time of Jesus’s birth, under the plutocratic tyranny of Herod the Great. For more than thirty years, this astute financier, who had made himself the richest individual in the entire empire, had by his subservience to the rulers of Rome (and by princely gifts) made himself master of the ancient kingdom of the Jews. He was the greatest builder of his age, creating a new port at Caesarea in Samaria, rebuilding and enlarging the Temple in Jerusalem, and building public baths, aqueducts, and what we would call shopping centers in half a dozen cities, as well as a ring of powerful fortresses, including the massive Antonia (named after Mark Antony) in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple and his own enormous palace. He was a benefactor of the Jews on a colossal scale. But he was not popular among them. Only half Jewish by birth, and wholly Greek in his cultural tastes, he was regarded as heretical by the Jewish religious authorities for sponsoring Greek-style games, theaters, and music. He also had numerous wives and concubines, some of them Gentiles, and sired many children. Suspicious and cruel, he slaughtered over forty of his wives, children, and close relatives, often in circumstances of peculiar atrocity, for conspiracies, real or imaginary, against his rule and person. As his reign drew to a close—the last year of his life was the year of Jesus’s birth—his suspicions increased, and an atmosphere of paranoia prevailed at his court.

Yet Herod’s kingdom was prosperous, and Galilee, though regarded as wild and primitive by the sophisticated urban Jews of Jerusalem, was not backward economically. Galilean Jews ate well. There was an abundance of sheep, bred for wool as well as meat. The ubiquitous presence of sheep and shepherds is the background of Jesus’s life and the source of his most frequent images. Grain, grown in abundance, was cheap and exported through Caesarea. Bread, “the staff of life,” was eaten at all meals, and it, too, was a source of constant imagery for Jesus. Olive trees were plentiful, and a variety of olives, black, green, and white, was part of the daily fare and made into oil for cooking. There was a wide range of vegetables, salads, and spices. Wine was drunk at the principal meals.

Jews helped one another, and their communities ran privately organized welfare schemes for the sick, the infirm, and orphans. Needy widows were assisted. There were poor Jews, who received doles from their brethren, but most of those referred to in the Gospels as “the poor” or “beggars” were non-Jews, for all parts of Palestine were mixed-race societies, with immigrants, detribalized peasants, and nomads forming a large part of the population. Giving to “the poor” was part of the duty of every self-respecting Jew, and it, too, was part of the imagery of Jesus’s life.

Nazareth was a small Galilean town in 4 BC, home to many small workshops and craftsmen. One was Joseph, a carpenter, who believed himself descended from King David and could recite his pedigree. He was probably literate (in Aramaic, the vernacular, and sacred Hebrew), as were the majority of Jews. He had taken as his future bride a teenager, aged sixteen or so, called Mary, also from the house of David and very likely related to him. She lived behind or above his workshop but was still a virgin. Their marriage was to take place in the following year. She came from a respectable home, could read and write, cook, weave, and sew, and was preparing to be a diligent wife to a prosperous tradesman. She had a capacious memory, and many years later was to be a principal source for St. Luke, the Greek-speaking doctor whose Gospel deals most fully with Jesus’s birth and childhood.

All well-nurtured Jews read the scriptures, especially the Torah, which were the nation’s record of its history, its spiritual guide, and its book of prayer. Mary was thus occupied when the angel Gabriel appeared and, according to Luke (1 : 28-38), said to her: “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” This astonishing greeting troubled and puzzled her. But Gabriel said, “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.” The angel went on: “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

We can be sure that Mary remembered these words exactly. She also recalled her first, anxious question—“How shall this be, since I am still a virgin?” (or, as she put it, “seeing I know not a man?”)—and the angel’s explicit reply: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

To these dramatic words the angel added a personal note. Her cousin Elizabeth, he informed Mary, had also, in her old age, conceived a son, and was now six months pregnant. It was this startling piece of family news which finally brought home to Mary the reality of the angel’s message. She now submitted to her destiny in memorable words reflecting a proud humility: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

There is no more touching scene in the whole of history than Gabriel’s disclosure to the trembling Virgin that she is pregnant, and her brave acceptance of the fact as an honor: no wonder so many of the greatest Western artists have endeavored to bring the episode to life as “the Annunciation.” For a teenager, Mary was notably energetic and decisive. She wanted the news of her cousin Elizabeth’s condition confirmed, and she immediately set forth, alone, on a long journey into the hill country of Judah, where Elizabeth lived with her husband, Zacharias, a priest who was a part-time official of the Jerusalem Temple.

The second notable scene in the story of Jesus occurred when Mary arrived there, recorded by Luke. Upon seeing Mary, Elizabeth felt her child, the future St. John the Baptist, leap in her womb, and the Holy Spirit intimated to her, at once, that Mary, too, was pregnant and carried God’s son within her. “[W]ith a loud voice” Elizabeth said, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:41-43).

Mary’s reply to this salutation is one of the most striking passages in the New Testament. She replied in words which fall easily into verse, the form in which I have taken the liberty of transcribing them, and they have often been set to music (Lk 1:46-55):

This great hymn of exaltation, rightly known as the Magnificat, lifts the spirits of the poor and humble, and adumbrates one of the central themes of Jesus’s ministry. Within the Gospel story there is not only truth but its fruit, beauty, and here was Mary, while still carrying Jesus in her womb, creating poetry of mighty power.

Luke says Mary stayed three months with Elizabeth. She then returned to Nazareth and told Joseph of her condition. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew (1:19-25), which in many respects is the most detailed and is based upon Aramaic sources, her fiancé, who had treated her as a virgin, was shocked by her news. “[B]eing a just man,” however, he was “not willing to make her a publick example, [but] was minded to put her away privily. . . . [W]hile he thought on these things,” an angel appeared to him “in a dream” and said, “[F]ear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matthew says that Joseph did as the angel bid “and took unto him his wife.” Matthew says that Joseph did not cohabit with Mary until Jesus was born. Indeed, the most ancient traditions insist that Mary remained a virgin all her life, though Joseph gave her and her child all the love and care of a devoted husband.

The next episode occurred four or five months later, when a decree of the emperor, Augustus, for a census needed for taxation was passed on to all Herod’s subjects by Cyrenius, the governor of Syria. They were commanded to register at their native towns. As both Joseph and Mary were of David’s house, they went (Mary “great with child,” as noted in Luke 2:5) to Jerusalem, the city David had added to the Jewish kingdom by conquest, and in particular to Bethlehem, a small, one-street town six miles away, which was particularly associated with David’s name. Mary was a sturdy teenager. This was her third long journey while pregnant. Once in Bethlehem, “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Lk 2:6-7). About a century later, Justin Martyr, who came from about forty miles away and repeated local tradition, said the manger was a cave; that is not unlikely, for there are many in the limestone ridge on which Bethlehem perches.

There is no mention of a doctor or midwife, and Joseph seems to have been Mary’s only attendant. But she had no need of help. She ministered to herself, and her baby was, and remained throughout his life, healthy. But there were visitors (Lk 2:8-18; Mt 2:1-12). According to Luke, local shepherds, “keeping watch over their flock by night,” were startled by an astonishing light, which they recognized as an angelic vision— “and they were sore afraid.” But they were told by the angel: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. . . . For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. . . . Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was a heavenly chorus singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The shepherds decided to go to Bethlehem, and they found Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, just as the angel said, in a stable. They explained all this to local people, and “all they that heard it wondered.” They also told Mary of the light, and the angel, and the chorus, so that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

What Luke did not describe, but Matthew did, were the next visitors, “wise men from the east.” They brought gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, “treasures” as Matthew called them, fit for a king. For the wise men were astrologers, used to studying the heavens and prognosticating from the changing configurations of the stars. One star in particular they believed denoted by its position that a king had been born to the Jews. They came to Jerusalem and presented themselves at Herod’s court, asking to be given directions. Herod “gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together” and asked them to indicate from the scriptures where the king, or savior, or Christ, as prophesied, would be born. They replied: Bethlehem. Herod saw the wise men “privily” and sent them to Bethlehem: “Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.”

The wise men, and their story of the newborn baby who was to be king of the Jews, aroused all Herod’s paranoia. Matthew says that “being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.” Joseph, too, was warned in a dream that he, Mary, and the child were endangered by Herod. He was told, “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.” Joseph did as he was told. The “flight into Egypt” has become another of those memorable episodes which has inspired artists over the ages—it is the subject of Caravaggio’s finest work, now in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome. The little party is seen resting. Joseph holds up a musical score for a young angel to play a lullaby, while Mary and the baby sleep.

Herod’s terror that the infant king would steal his kingdom led to his greatest crime in his long life of misdeeds. He dispatched armed assassins “and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Mt 2 : 16). It was his last act. Within weeks he was dead. His territories were divided, and his son Archelaus inherited Judaea. Joseph was told this, and returned with his family. But he was careful to avoid Judaea, for fear Archelaus would have inherited his father’s suspicious nature, and returned to Nazareth in Galilee by a roundabout route, through Gaza and Samaria.

The story of the birth of Jesus, and the visits of the shepherds and the wise men, is the idyllic side of the Nativity, giving Jesus’s infancy a delightful storybook quality which has entranced everyone, young and old, for two thousand years. But the massacre of the innocents, as it came to be known, reminds us of the darker side of life in an obscure province of the Roman Empire in the first century AD: the atrocious, unbridled cruelty of power, the absence in practice of any rule of law to restrain the powerful, and the contempt for human life, even the tenderest, shown by the mighty. This was the reality of human wickedness which Jesus was born to redress, against which he spoke, and which finally engulfed him. The massacre of the innocents is a foretaste of Calvary.