The Meaning of The Manger The Significance of The Sheperds by Brown
The Meaning of The Manger The Significance of The Sheperds by Brown
The Meaning of The Manger The Significance of The Sheperds by Brown
Raymond E. Brown
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528
are one of the most difficult sections of the New Testament for mod-
ern readers to understand, but at the same time one of the most
rewarding. The easiest way to see both the difficulties and the
wealth intrinsic to these narratives is to survey the chronological
growth of pertinent scholarship. Let me summarize in a paragraph
the analysis of three stages of growth which I gave in the previous
article: [1] A realization that the birth material has a different origin
from the material concerning Jesus' ministry none of the apostolic
eyewitnesses was present for the events narrated at Bethlehem. [2]
A recognition that Matthew and Luke tell two very different stories
of Jesus' conception, birth and infancy stories that agree in very
few details and almost contradict one another in other details. This,
plus the recognition of the extent to which the infancy narratives
echo Old Testament stories, raised doubt among most scholars
about the historicity of the infancy narratives. [3] A renewal of inter-
est in the theological value of the infancy narratives as magnificent
vehicles of the good news of salvation. This more positive approach
is the stage of present scholarship; and while it should not lead to a
neglect of the historical difficulties, it is making a real contribution to
the pastoral utility of these miniature gospels.
The title of last year's discussion of the Matthean birth narrative,
"The Meaning of the Magi; the Significance of the Star," was meant
to exemplify the concern of this present stage of scholarship in the
import of the story. If I have given a parallel title to this article, it is
not because of a strange fancy for symmetry, but because the fun-
damental resemblance of the two narratives of Jesus' birth in
Bethlehem is a key to understanding the import of the Lucan story.
Let me emphasize that here, just as last year, I am confining myself
to a portion of the second chapter of the Gospel, the portion that
narrates with remarkable brevity the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem and
the events that surrounded it. It is possible to concentrate on the
second chapter thus because nothing in Luke 2:1-20 (or in Mt 2:1-12)
presupposes anything that happened in Chapter One. The reader
can test this by reading 2:1-20 and seeing how self-understandable
the narrative is, even to the point of reintroducing and identifying
Joseph and Mary as if nothing had been said of them previously.
This has led many to argue that the material in Luke 2 was originally
independent of the material in Luke 1, even as the Matthean story of
the magi was probably once independent of the Matthean story of
the dream visions of Joseph.
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530
the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the
child to be born will be called holy Son of God.
Now if the christological insight of Jesus' identity has been moved
back from the resurrection to the conception and birth, the aftermath
of that christological revelation has also been retroverted. Histori-
cally, when the good news was revealed through the resurrection,
there was a sequence: it was proclaimed by preachers, and some of
those who heard the proclamation believed and worshiped. So also
in the second chapters of Matthew and Luke there is a proclamation
of the christology revealed in Chapter One. It is a proclamation by a
star to the magi and by an angel to the shepherds; and both
shepherds and magi believe and worship. 1 Even the departure of
the shepherds and the magi is dictated by the logic of christological
revelation. The two evangelists know that, when the public ministry
of Jesus began, there was no surrounding chorus of adoring believ-
ers, treasuring the memories of the marvels that surrounded the
birth at Bethlehem. And so these forerunners of the later Christian
believers have to be removed from the scene. The magi "went away
to their own country," and the shepherds "returned" to their fields.
If the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke share the same chris-
tology, they also share the tendency to dramatize that christology
against a background of the Old Testament, mixed in with an antici-
pation of Jesus' ministry. Let me show how Luke does this in 2:1-20.
The center of the narrative is the proclamation to the shepherds
and their reaction, and Luke introduces this in two steps. In verses
1-5 he tells us of a census which brings Joseph and Mary to
Bethlehem; and in verses 6-7 he tells us that while they were there,
Mary gave birth to Jesus, swaddled him, and laid him in a manger.
Luke needs the story of the census because he believes that Mary
and Joseph lived in Nazareth ("their own city," according to 2:39),
and so he has to explain what they were doing in Bethlehem. (Mat-
thew's problem was just the opposite: he pictured Mary and Joseph
living in a house in Bethlehem [2:11], and he had to explain why
1
In Christian history there is also a negative reaction to the proclamation, i.e., of
those who refuse to believe and then seek to destroy. In Matthew's infancy narrative
these are represented by Herod, the chief priests, and the scribes; in Luke's infancy
narrative it is prophesied that the child is set for Uve fall and rise of many in Israel and
for a sign to be contradicted (2:34).
531
they moved to Nazareth, instead of returning from Egypt to
Bethlehem [2:22-23].) There are formidable historical difficulties
about every facet of Luke's description and dating of the Quirinius
census, and most critical scholars acknowledge a confusion and
misdating on Luke's part. 2 Such a confusion would offer no
difficulty to Catholics since Vatican II made it clear that what the
Scriptures teach without error is the truth intended by God for the
sake of our salvation,3 and that scarcely includes the exact date of a
Roman census. But, faithful to the purpose of this article, let us con-
centrate on the theological wealth that can be drawn from Luke's
description of the census.
Luke speaks of an edict that went out from Augustus Caesar
when Quirinius was governor of Syria. He thus gives the birth of
Jesus a solemn setting, comparable to that which he would give the
baptism of Jesus by John under Tiberius Caesar when Pontius
Pilate was prefect of Judea (3:1). In the instance of the baptism Luke
was hinting that the ripples sent forth by the immersion of Jesus in
the Jordan would ultimately begin to change the course of the Tiber.
He is hinting at cosmic significance for the birth of Jesus as well. The
name of Augustus would evoke memories and ideals for Luke's
readers. In 29 B.C., one hundred years before Luke wrote this Gos-
pel, Augustus had brought an end to almost a century of civil war
that had ravaged the Roman realms; and at last the doors of the
shrine of Janus in the Forum, thrown open in times of war, were
able to be closed. The Age of Augustus was propagandized as the
glorious age of pastoral rule over a world made peaceful by virtue
the fulfillment of Virgil's dreams in the Fourth Eclogue. In 13-9 B.C.
there was erected a great altar to the peace brought about by Augus-
tus, and this Ara Pacts Augustae still stands in Rome as a monument
to Augustan ideals. The Greek cities of Asia Minor adopted Sep-
tember 23rd, the birthday of Augustus, as the first day of the New
2
Minor difficulties are that there was no single census of the whole Roman Empire
under Augustus, and that there is no evidence that Roman censuses required one to
go to one's place of ancestry (unless one had property there). More serious is Luke's
connection between the reign of Herod the Great (1:5) and the census under Quirinius.
Herod died in 4 B.C.; Quirinius became governor in Syria and conducted the first
Roman census of Judea in A.D. 6-7 and notice it was a census of Judea, not of
Galilee as Luke assumes. In Acts 5:37 Luke mistakenly mentions the revolt of Judas
the Galilean (provoked by the census of Quirinius) after the revolt of Theudas which
occurred in A.D. 44-46. See my commentary for detail.
3
Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum on Divine Revelation, III, 11.
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532
Year. He was hailed at Halicarnassus as the "savior of the whole
world"; and the Priene inscription grandiosely proclaimed: "The
birthday of the god marked the beginning of the good news for the
world." Luke contradicts this propaganda by showing that paradox-
ically the edict of Augustus served to provide a setting for the birth
of Jesus. Men built an altar to the pax Augustae, but a heavenly
chorus proclaimed the pax Christi: "On earth peace to those favored
by God" (2:14). The birthday that marked the true beginning of a
new time took place not in Rome but in Bethlehem, and a coun-
terclaim to man-made inscriptions was the heraldic cry of the angel
of the Lord: "I announce to you the good news of a great joy which
will be for the whole people: To you this day there is born in the city
of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord" (2:10-11).
Luke's mention of the census would also have a meaning for
readers who knew Jewish history. Past censuses had been causes of
catastrophe. King David ordered a census for Israel and Judah (2
Sam 24) and incurred the wrath of God in the form of a pestilence.
Most recently the census of Quirinius in Judea in A.D. 6-7 had pro-
voked the rebellion of Judas the Galilean which was the beginning
of the Zealot movement. It was this ultranationalistic movement
which culminated in the Jewish revolt against Rome and the disas-
trous destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Those evangelists who
wrote after 70 were aware that Jewish revolutionary movements had
"bad press" in the Roman Empire; and so Luke went out of his way
in the passion account to insist that Pilate three times acknowledged
Jesus' innocence of the political and revolutionary charges against
him (23:4, 14, 22). Luke's picture of the census at Jesus' birth may
have had the same goal. If Judas the Galilean revolted because of the
Roman census under Quirinius, the parents of Jesus were obedient
to it; thus even from birth Jesus was never a party to a rebellion
against Rome. Instead of being a disaster for Roman-Jewish rela-
tions, the census of Quirinius, if one understood it correctly, pro-
vided the setting for the birth of a peaceful Savior who would be a
revelation to the Gentiles and a glory for the people of Israel (2:32).
Indeed, this was the census foretold in Psalm 87:6 where God says: 4
"In the census of the peoples, this one will be born there."
4
The Hebrew of the psalm refers to the registering of people from various nations
in Jerusalem which now becomes their spiritual home; the Septuagint refers to
princes being born there; the (late) Aramaic targum speaks of a king being brought up
there. I have cited the psalm according to Origen's Quinta or fifth Greek column,
533
The fulfillment of the Old Testament becomes a stronger motif
when Luke moves on from the census to the actual birth, or rather
to what Mary does after the birth (2:6-7). Like Matthew, Luke is
laconic about the birth itself: simply, "She gave birth to a son, her
first-born." What is of importance is the description which follows:
"She swaddled him in strips of cloth and laid him down in a man-
ger, since there was no place for them in the lodgings." 5 Luke will
keep coming back to this description, for the angels will tell the
shepherds: "This will be your sign: You will find a baby swaddled in
strips of cloth and lying in a manger" (2:12). The shepherds will
know that they have come to their goal when they have found
"Mary and Joseph, with the baby lying in the manger" (2:16). Specu-
lations as to why there was no room in the lodgings erroneously
distract from Luke's purpose, as do homilies about the supposed
heartlessness of the unmentioned inn keeper or the hardship for the
impoverished parents equally unmentioned. Luke is interested in
the symbolism of the manger, and the lack of room in the lodgings
may be no more than a vague surmise in order to explain the men-
tion of a manger. This manger is not a sign of poverty but is proba-
bly meant to evoke God's complaint against Israel in Isaiah 1:3: "The
ox knows its owner and the donkey knows the manger of its lord; but
Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me."
Luke is proclaiming that the Isaian dictum has been repealed. Now,
when the good news of the birth of their Lord is proclaimed to the
shepherds, they go to find the baby in the manger and begin to
praise God. In other words, God's people have begun to know the
manger of their Lord.6
To modern romantics the shepherds described by Luke take on
the gentleness of their flock and have even become Christmas sym-
which we now suspect was an early recension of the Greek, somewhat parallel to the
kaige revision of the Septuagint known to us through Dead Sea discoveries (see The
Jerome Biblical Commentary, article 69, nos. 57, 60, 61). D. Barthlmy, Les devanciers
d'Aquila (Leiden: Brill 1963) 148, argues that Luke may have known the Quinta Greek
version.
5
It is probable that phatn is better translated by "manger" than by "stall"; it is
quite unclear whether katalyma means "the home," "the room," or "the inn."
6
This suggestion is well defended by C. H. Giblin, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 29
(1967) 87-101. He suggests that Luke's reference to the lodgings echoes Jeremiah 14:8,
addressed to the Lord and Savior of Israel, "Why are You like an alien in the land,
like a traveler who stays in lodgings?" For Luke this dictum too is repealed, for the
Lord and Savior of Israel no longer stays in lodgings.
Worship Jubilee
534
bols for the common man. 7 But such interests are again foreign to
Luke's purpose. The basic Old Testament background seems to be
the memory that David was a shepherd in the area of Bethlehem
the city Luke refers to as "the city of David." The mention of the
shepherds' flock (2:8) may betray more complicated biblical reflec-
tions. The primary passage used to relate the Messiah's birth to
Bethlehem is Micah 5:i[2]: "And you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
small to be among the clans of Judah, from you there will come forth
for me one who is to be a ruler in Israel." In the immediate context
Micah mentions Migdal Eder, the "Tower of the Flock," which he
identifies with Jerusalem/Zion: "O Tower of the Flock, hill of the
Daughter of Zion, to you will come back the former dominion, the
kingdom of the Daughter of Zion" (4:8). Now, it is noteworthy that
Luke has shifted over to Bethlehem a terminology formerly applied
to Jerusalem/Zion. In 2:4 he tells us, "Joseph went up from Galilee
. . . into Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem." Not
only is the verb "go up" a standard Old Testament expression for
ascent to Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is "the city of David," never
Bethlehem. Has Luke also shifted over the designation "Tower of
the Flock" (Migdal Eder) from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, so that
Micah's promised restoration of the former kingdom and dominion
has not been fulfilled in Bethlehem? This would explain the em-
phasis in the proclamation given to the shepherds who are pasturing
their flock near Bethlehem: "To you this day there is born in the city
of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord" (2:11) a proclamation
to which they respond, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see the
event that has taken place" (2:15).
Other evidence supports this suggestion that the Lucan mention
of the shepherds and their flock may be associated with reflection
upon Bethlehem as the Tower of the Flock. The only other biblical
reference to Migdal Eder, the "Tower of the Flock," besides Micah
4-5, is Genesis 35:19-21, where after Rachel has died on the way to
Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem, Jacob journeys on to Migdal Eder. In
his infancy narrative Matthew used both Micah 5 and Genesis 35:19
by way of reflection on the birthplace of Jesus,8 so it is not impossi-
ble that these two passages which mention both Bethlehem and
7
Later rabbinic writings often considered shepherds as dishonest, for they grazed
their flocks on other people's lands (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhdrin 25b).
8
Mt 2:5-6 directly cites Micah 5:1(2); and Mt 2:17-18 presupposes Gen 35:19 where
Rachel dies on the road to Bethlehem.
535
Migdal Eder were part of an earlier reflection on the Messiah per-
haps an earlier Christian reflection antedating both Matthew and
Luke, or perhaps a pre-Christian Jewish reflection. In a passage that
can scarcely have been borrowed from Christians, the Targum
Pseudo-Jonathan9 offers as an Aramaic translation of Genesis 35:21:
"The Tower of the Flock, the place from which it will happen that
the King Messiah will be revealed at the end of days/ 7
The Lucan story has a twofold proclamation of the Messiah by
angels. The first and most important is: "I announce to you good
news of a great joy which will be for the whole people: To you this
day there is born in the city of David a Savior who is Messiah and
Lord" (2:10-11). We have seen that this proclamation echoes in its
style the imperial propaganda of Augustus, but Luke has borrowed
the precise titles from his accounts of early Christian preaching. In
Acts 2:32, 36 Peter says that God raised Jesus and "made him both
Lord and Messiah"; in Acts 5:31 he says that God exalted Jesus as
"Savior." Now that the christological understanding has been
moved back from the resurrection to the conception/birth, the same
titles are applicable to the newborn child.
The second angelic proclamation is of a different nature; it is the
canticle Gloria in Excelsis (2:13-14):
Glory in the highest heavens to God,
and on earth peace to those favored by Him.
This is one of the four poetic canticles in the Lucan infancy narrative;
like the other three (Magnificat, Benedictus, Nunc Dimittis) its struc-
tural connection with its immediate context is very loose.10 A good
case can be made for the thesis that Luke added these canticles after
he wrote the main body of the infancy narrative, and that they came
to him already composed from a collection of hymns sung by Jewish
Christians in praise of what God had done in the death and resur-
rection of Jesus. 11 A very close parallel to the Gloria is found in the
praise sung by the disciples as Jesus enters Jerusalem to begin his
passion (Lk 19:38):
9
The dating of this targum is uncertain, and in its present form it may be as late as
the third century A.D.
10
One can omit the canticles in 1:46-55; 1:67-79; and 2:28-33 and never miss them.
This is also true of 2:13-14 if one reads "angel" rather than "angels" in 2:15, as do
some Old Latin witnesses.
11
In this thesis Luke would have added a few lines to the canticles, such as 1:48
and 1:76-77 (lines remarkably Lucan in style), in order to adapt them to their present
setting.
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Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest heavens.
These may even be antiphonally recited lines of the same hymn,
with the heavenly host imagined as proclaiming peace on earth,
while the disciples proclaim peace in heaven. Jewish scholars have
recognized a similarity between the Gloria sung in honor of Jesus
and the Sanctus sung by the seraphim to the Lord of Hosts in the
Jerusalem Temple (Is 6:3), especially when we realize that in Jewish
prayer tradition each of three "Holies" ("holy, holy, holy") was ex-
panded: "Holy in the highest heavens; . . . holy on earth, etc." 12 If
the Gloria resembles the Sanctus, Luke is again shifting the focus
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem: the hosts of angels have moved from
the Temple to praise the new presence of the Lord in Bethlehem.
The Lucan birth scene closes with the reactions of three different
participants (2:15-20). First, there are the shepherds, the main
characters of the birth scene, who come and find the angelic sign
verified: the infant Messiah lies in the manger. As I have explained
above, they symbolize an Israel who at last recognizes its Lord; and
they glorify and praise God for all they have seen and heard (2:17,
20).13 Second, Luke introduces unexpectedly a group of hearers who
are astonished at all the shepherds report (2:18). Astonishment is a
standard reaction in the Gospel (see also 1:21, 63; 2:33), and it does
not necessarily lead to faith. These hearers in the infancy narrative
are like those in the parable of the seed who "hear the word, receive
it with joy, but have no root" (Lk 8:13).
But there is one exception among the astonished hearers, and she
constitutes the third participant in the scene, namely Mary who
"kept with concern all these events, interpreting them in her heart"
(2:19). She is not above being astonished (2:33), but her hearing is
more perceptive. In the same parable of the seed she exemplifies
"Those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good
heart" (8:15).14 Luke's description of Mary keeping with concern all
these events has often been misused for the implausible thesis that
12
See D. Flusser, "Sanktus und Gloria/' in Abraham unser Vater, ed. O. Betz et al.
(Festschrift O. Michel; Leiden: Brill 1963) 129-152.
13
Bystanders glorify and praise God for what they have seen and heard both in the
Gospel (Lk 7:16; 13:13; 17:15; 18:45; 19:37) a n d i n Ac *s (2:47; 3:&-9; 4:21; 11:18; 21:20).
14
Mary makes her only appearance in the Lucan Gospel account of the public
ministry immediately after these words (8:19-21) and is praised for hearing the word
of God and doing it.
537
she narrated the infancy narrative to Luke.15 The idea of "keeping
events with concern" appears in Genesis 37:11; Daniel 4:28; and Tes-
tament of Levi 6:2, not with any suggestion of eyewitness tradition,
but for attempts to discover the hidden meaning behind marvelous
happenings. The Lucan Mary is making a similar attempt, and Luke
mentions this because Mary is the only adult in his infancy narrative
who will last into the public ministry and even into the Church. In
the Gospel (8:21) she will appear with the "brothers" of Jesus among
those who hear the word of God and do it, and in Acts (1:14) she
will again appear with the "brothers" of Jesus as part of the believ-
ing community awaiting Pentecost. Thus Luke knows that Mary
must have sought to interpret these events surrounding the birth of
Jesus and ultimately have succeeded, for she became a model Chris-
tian believer.
15
The implausibility is most visible when we consider Lucan inaccuracies about the
census and the customs of presentation and purification.
Chronicle
LITURGIA SEMPER R E F O R M A N D A
"In order that tradition be retained, and yet the way remain
open to legitimate progress, a careful investigation theological,
historical, and pastoral should always be made into each part of
the liturgy which is to be revised."
How well was this prescription of the Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy of Vatican II (23), with regard to liturgical reform, observed
in the revision of the rites?
There can be no doubt that the revision of the rites was based on
adequate theological and historical research. But what about the pre-
scribed pastoral research? Those responsible for the revision of the
rites certainly did engage in pastoral research of a sort. There was
wide consultation of people with pastoral experience concerning the
advisability of contemplated reforms, and provisionally elaborated
rites were tested in certain designated centers.
But "pastoral" means people. The methodologies of contemporary
human sciences provide scientific means of studying people and
theirritualbehavior. Some of us have been much concerned, for the
last ten years, about the relative failure to exploit these
methodologies in liturgical reform.
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538
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