The Life of Christ

ONE mile from Bethlehem is a little plain, in which, under a grove of olives, stands the bare and neglected chapel known by the name of "the Angel to the Shepherds." It is built over the traditional site of the fields where, in the beautiful language of St. Luke-more exquisite than any idyll to Christian ears-"there were shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, when, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them," and to their happy ears

1" Angelus ad Pastores." Near this spot once stood a tower called Migdal Eder, or Tower of the Flock" (Gen. xxxv. 21). The present rude chapel is, perhaps, a mere fragment of a church built over the spot by Helena. (See Caspari, Chronologisch-Geographische Einleitung, p. 57.) The prophet Micah (iv. 8; v. 2) had looked to Migdal Eder with Messianic hopes; and St. Jerome (De Loc. Hebr.), writing with views of prophecy which were more current in the ancient than in the modern Church, ventures to say "that by its very name it fore-signified by a sort of prophecy the shepherds at the birth of the Lord."

2 By doğa Kupíov (Luke ii. 9) is probably meant the Shechinah or cloud of brightness which symbolised the Divine presence.

were uttered the good tidings of great joy, that unto them was born that day in the city of David a Saviour, which was Christ the Lord.

The associations of our Lord's nativity were all of the humblest character, and the very scenery of His birthplace was connected with memories of poverty and toil. On that night, indeed, it seemed as though the heavens must burst to disclose their radiant minstrelsies and the stars, and the feeding sheep, and the "light and sound in the darkness and stillness," and the rapture of faithful hearts, combine to furnish us with a picture painted in the colours of heaven. But in the brief and thrilling verses of the Evangelist we are not told that those angel songs were heard by any except the wakeful shepherds of an obscure village ;-and those shepherds, amid the chill dews of a winter night, were guarding their flocks from the wolf and the robber, in fields where Ruth, their Saviour's ancestress, had gleaned, sick at heart, amid the alien corn, and David, the despised and youngest son of a numerous family, had followed the ewes great with young.1

"And suddenly," adds the sole Evangelist who has narrated the circumstances of that memorable night in which Jesus was born, amid the indifference of a world unconscious of its Deliverer, "there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will."2

1 Ps. lxxviii. 71.

2 Luke ii. 14, év áv¤púñois evdokías: such is the reading of the best MSS., , A, B, D, and some of the best versions, the Vetus Itala, Vulgate, Gothic, &c. Moreover, however dear the other reading may be to us from long and delightful association, this best maintains the obvious poetic parallelism : Glory to God in the highest, Peace to men of good will on earth.

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The Life of Christ, Volumen1