The Adoration of the Shepherds

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ: III. The Adoration of the Shepherds

Luke ii. 8-20

To the east of Bethlehem their extend towards the Dead Sea the greenest of valleys.  In olden times there stood in that place "the Tower of the Herds,"(seeMigdal Eder. Gen. xxxv. 21)  near which Jacob had pitched his tent, there to mourn his dearly loved Rachel.  Ruth had gleaned in those happy fields, and the boy David tended there his father's flocks.  Today, in that same valley, the olive trees overshadow the lonely crypt.  consecrated to the Wholly Angels, this century marks the spot over which the heavens were opened to reveal to Birth coming of its Saviour. (Fouard favours the site of the apparition of the Angels as Deir Er-Ralouat)

Tidings of great joy unto you... J-J Tissot

"Certain of the shepherds," says Saint Luke, "were guarding their flocks and keeping their watches through the night.  Then suddenly the Angel of the Lord appeared unto them, the Glory of the Lord (Luke ii. 8-12. δόξα Κυρίον may also refer to the luminous cloud which overhung the Tabernacle; in the Old Testament, it is often called “the Glory of the Lord” (Exod. xl.32; 3 Kings vii. 10, 11 etc.) enveloped them in the light, and they were seized by a great terror." For to the sons of Israel no splendour could emanate from the skies; without recalling the flaming heights of Sinai and the dread Jehovah, Whom no man might look upon and live. (Exod xx. 18, 19.)

Straightway the Angel reassured them.  "Be not afraid," he said; " I am come to announce good tidings of great joy unto you and unto all your people.  Today, in the city of David, is born to you a Saviour, the Christ, the Lord;(Χριστὸς Κύριος : The only instance where the holy Records make use of these two titles associated in this manner) and behold the sign by which you shall know him: you shall find an Infant, wrapt in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

A manger, an infant, to work out their salvation!  What strange tidings are these!  The Wonderful, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity, the Messiah, for Whose glorious coming Israel was in expectation, has revealed Himself at last in nakedness, in abandonment, in the midst of the straw of a stable!  What a sudden reversal of the most dearly cherished dreams of the Jews!  They must needs be simple and docile hearts who could receive this Message.  And so the Angel bought the glad tidings, neither to the Doctors of the Law nor to the great ones of earth, but to these shepherds; and in them he found that which he was seeking, the Faith of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.

Their gentle souls were all aglow upon his words, and suddenly, while their eyes were still drinking in the celestial radiance, all at once they saw that the Angel was not alone; a multitude of spirits, all hosts of Heaven, surrounded them,6 and the Angelic choir entoned the chant whose echoes resound each day in the holy mystery of the Mass, –

"Glory to God in the highest of the heavens, and peace upon Earth on to all men beloved of God!" (Fouard follows Bossuet in his interpretation of hominibus bonae voluntatis, ἐν ἀνθρὡποις εὐδοκίας, as a reference to the good will God has for us)

The Adoration of the Shepherds. J-J Tissot.

The shepherds heard with rapture this concert of the Angels; and when it had faded away into the far depths of the skies, and the Messengers of God had gone from their sight, "Let us go to Bethlehem," they cried to one another immediately, "and see this which has happened, – see this which the Lord has made known to us."

And making haste to depart, they ascended the hill.  Upon its heights they found the cave; in the dumb beasts’ crib lay an Infant, wrapped in swaddling bands and laid amidst straw; over Him knelt a young Mother and a thoughtful, silent man.


It was the sign given from on High; they recognised it; and their faith bursting forth into joyous transports, they recounted to those who surrounded them all that had been said to them concerning this Child.  The sudden arrival of the shepherds, their search throughout the village had attracted attention.  Soon the throng of listeners grew in numbers, and "all were in admiration at this tale which the shepherds related."

Having rendered their testimony to the heavenly origin of the Babe, "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things which they had heard and seen, even as He had made known unto them.” Midmost of all this concert of delighted homage the Mother of Jesus was silent.  "treasuring up all these things, she pondered over them in her heart," until the day when Saint Luke wrote them down at her inspiration; for it would seem certain that in this portion of his Gospel, which is so entirely different from all the other accounts, we are reading the very words of Mary.  This story, at once so simple and so tender, betrays the Virgin's hand and the Mother’s heart.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Nativity

Fouard's Life of Christ continues with the Nativity.

Luke ii. 4-7

Nazareth to Bethlehem.    

So then, to inscribe himself in the Public Registers, the carpenter of Nazareth quit his native hills of Zabulon.  His young wife too, made the journey with him.  Everything drew her to Bethlehem; a secret inspiration from Heaven as well as her affection for Joseph.  Perhaps, too, there was some obligation for her appearance in person at the enrolling, as being the heiress of her family.

Four days of foot-travel separates Nazareth from the city of David.  Mary, as a time was so near, made the distance very slowly, for winter makes the roads rough, and the holy Family journeyed on foot, doubtless, like other poor pilgrims.  Leaving behind them the plain of Esdrelon, En-Gannim, Sichem and Sion, about two hours from the last-named town they perceived at length the dwellings of Bethlehem.

This village is located upon along and whitish hill, whose slopes, covered with fines, olive, and fig trees, forms a circle of terraces, rising one above another in regular curves, like steps in a stairway of verdure.  On the summit rests today a heavy pile of sombre building; it is the Church of the Nativity, which screens the holy Grotto, and round about it are the three convents built by the Latins, the Greeks, and the Armenians.  From these heights, at a glance of the eye, we can describe, far below us, the fertile valleys, but the ancient demesne of Boaz and of Jesse, the far-away pastures, where, protecting their herds from the mountain lions, there had grown up that intrepid race of shepherds, which once supplied Israel with the noblest of her captains.

No room. J-J Tissot

As they entered Bethlehem they would first encounter the hostelry, of which the Khan of modern Oriental villages is still a fair copy, a huge square enclosed by porticoes; here, under the shelter of some rude galleries, the ground being raised a foot or two above the level, travellers are spreading out their mats upon the narrow platform, while all about them beasts of burden block up the courtyard; such was the aspect of the place before which Joseph and Mary presented themselves.
The concourse of strangers in those busy days of the registration, the poverty of these latecomers, the very condition of Mary, all promised the humble pair a cold welcome.  So it happened that they received a reply, "that there was no room for them;" and despite their fatigue they must needs seek elsewhere for some resting-place.  The chalk-hills of Judea are hone-combed with innumerable caves.  One of these excavations, close by the inn, was used as a shelter for such beasts as the public stables were unable to accommodate.  Mary, according to the testimony of Tradition, could find no other refuge but this.  And there, amid the straw which served as bedding for the beasts, far from all assistance, on a cold winter's night, the hour came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth unto the world, Jesus.

The object of assault for nineteen centuries, this humble Birth, the adoration of some, to others has seemed but a folly and a libel.

"Preserve me from it all!" Cried the impious Marcion (2nd century heretic) in the very first centuries.  "Away with these pitiful swaddling-bands and this manger, unworthy of the God whom I adore."

In vain did Tertullian reply, "Nothing is more worthy of God than that, in order to save man, he should trample underfoot our perishable grandeur, and so adjudge these joys unworthy of Himself and His." In vain have all our Doctors who have followed him made manifest to us the High Counsel, so full of wisdom and merciful compassion, which moved the Word Incarnate to this Self-abasement; the God that was born of a woman and laid in a manger has offended the haughty spirit of man, and Marcion’s cry is repeated still from century to century.

Without going as far as this in their impatient scorn, the Christians of the same era sought to dignify the humility of their God by fanciful prodigies.  They would have us believe that the glory, which Jesus rejected, enveloped His cradle; that Mary, upon her entrance into the sombre grotto, filled it with a noontide radiance; that the Angels, in robes of splendour, hung over them in trailing legions; that the stars retarded their own motions to contemplate the Birth of God, to shed upon Him their gentle rays; that the manger itself was resplendent with a great lustre, and that all eyes were veiled, unable to sustain the gorgeous glare.

Very different from this is the simple story of the Gospel; here there is no outward pomp; all the Glory of the crib lies in its initiate and loveliness.  It is only the soul that is illumined by it; it is to the heart alone it speaks.  Furthermore, we must not forget that here, by anything we add to the Majesty of the Christ,  we detract just so much from His Love.  The Word, in order to save us, has not disdained the womb of a Virgin; why, then, should we blush at the loneliness of our God?  These are more profound it appears the more it forces us to love Him.

Nevertheless, though Mary knew all the natural cares of motherhood, she was yet unacquainted with all those evils which are the penalty of sin, the sorrows and the heavy heartedness into which all daughters of Adam must fall.  We should not even say that her Motherhood was like that of Eve, in the age of innocence; for as she was a greater than the Eve so hers was the unparalleled happiness of preserving her Virgin purity in bearing the Divine Child.  When Jesus was born, it was as when the ripe fruit is parted from the branch that bore it, so cheerful, so comfortable, and attended with all joys was the coming of the Christ-Child into the of world.

The Nativity. J-J Tissot

So Saint Luke shows us this Virgin Mother, immediately upon her deliverance, lavishing upon her Holy Infant the cares ordinarily left to strangers; she envelopes Him in swaddling-bands and lays Him to rest amid the straw of the manger.  "She must cloak the New Adam from the cold winter air; reverence, too, bade her clothe the Babe, as well as did necessity.  Cover Him, Mary; cover that tender Baby body; shield Him in thy maiden bosom!  Dost understand thy Motherhood?  Hast thou not any perturbation at beholding this thine infant One?  Hast thou no fear to bare unto Him thy maternal breasts?  For what Child is this, Who reaches up His divine hands?  Adore Him even whilst thou dost nourish Him, while the Angels summon new hosts of invisible worshippers."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Appearance of the Angel to Joseph and the Census of Quirinus

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter IV: The Nativity

I. The Appearance of the Angel to Joseph. — The Census of Quirinus.

Matt. i. 18-25; Luke ii. 1-15.

Joseph's anxiety. J-J Tissot

After nearly three months passed in her cousin's home, Mary returned to Nazareth.  That she was soon to be a mother was, of course, at once made known, and Joseph was made acquainted with the bitterest of all human sorrows.  He could not hesitate as to the duty of repudiating this is the affianced maiden, whom honour would not permit him to retain; yet, as "he was just," and knew the severity of the Law towards the sinning woman, he resolved to spare Mary.  The betrothments, considered among Jews as sacred as the marriage tie, like it could be broken by divorce; but although the Act of Separation was public in its nature, yet, in certain cases, usage allowed of its being drawn up in secret.  Joseph chose this plan, in accordance with his duty and his grief.

Joseph's vision. J-J Tissot

But while he was sadly pondering this step the Angel of the Lord appear to him and a dream and said to him, "Joseph, son of David, be not afraid to take unto you Mary, your espoused; for That which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.  She shall bring for a Son, and you shall give to Him the name of Jesus,1 which means a Saviour; He it is Who shall save His people from their sins." "This," adds Saint Matthew,2 "was done to accomplish what the lord had said by the mouth of the Prophet:3 "Behold a Virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bring forth a Son, and He shall be called Emmanuel, that is, God with us."[1]

[1] ΄Εμμαουὴλ. Nowhere is it ever recorded that Jesus was called by this name; a mystical title, given in a spiritual sense.

When Joseph had arisen from his sleep, he had no other thought beyond the desire to fulfill the command of the Angel.  Nuptial ceremonies at once ushered the young spouse into his house, but "he knew her not," pursues the sacred texts, "until the day wherein she brought forth a Son and he gave to Him the name of Jesus."[1] Not that after His birth Joseph ceased to respect the virginal temple in which Jesus was incarnate.  Christian tradition has always shrunk with horror from the thought that Mary, who stained taintless blood had mingled with the blood of God, could ever have forfeited the purity of God's Tabernacle, the habitation of His overshadowing cloud, and the Ark of the Lord.  Saint Matthew's only thought here was to emphasise the miraculous nature of her maiden Motherhood, and to declare the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prediction that "a Virgin shall conceive and bring forth a Son."

[1] Ιησοῦς : is the same as Jehoshua in the law and the prophecies; signifying “the Salvation of the Lord.”

Nazareth, which was to be the abode of Jesus for many long years, did not witness His birth.  The prophecies had reserved that glory for Bethlehem; and the whole world, at the destined hour of His birth, was disturbed, that these predictions might be accomplished.  "In those days," says the sacred text, "an enrolment of the empire brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, the edict which prescribed it emanating from Augustus." This prince, at that time, held the whole world in his sovereign grasp.  The adopted son of Caesar, he had inherited his projects, and of these the most considerable and wide reaching in its consequences consisted in a registration of the Roman world.  This general taking of statistics was to include a valuation of all the resources of the provinces, and a reapportionment of the tax-list.  Interrupted for a while, the work of Caesar was pushed forward again by Augustus, who, besides a description of the various lands, added a recapitulation of their subjects.  Twenty Commissioners, whose probity had recommended them to the favour of the prince, were despatched into the countries which bore the yoke of obedience to him, and there they devoted 25 years to this work.  The result was inscribed by the hand of Augustus himself, in a book called by Suetonius, "Statistics of the Empire." "It was," says Tacitus, " a pictorial reflection of the Imperial acquisitions: herein one might see how many of the citizens and of the allies were under arms, the number of fleets, kingdoms, provinces, the revenues from tribute and toll gatherers, an estimate of necessary expenditures as well as of perquisites."



In what year did the Decretal for this universal census become operative?  It is difficult to decide.  The three censuses attributed to Augustus upon the bas-relief at Ancyrus seem to refer simply to the regular numbering of the people of Rome, made by the Censors once every five years.  Apparently Augustus promulgated this edict when, feeling himself to be at last absolute master of the Empire, he forthwith devoted all his energies to its consolidation.

Even the allied kingdoms must needs makes this act of submission, and Saint Luke informs us that its performance was brought about in Judea at the time in which Jesus was born.  "This first enrolling," he adds, "was made by Quirinius, Governor of Syria;" in other words it was made authoritative by a Saturninus, as Tertullian tells us; was continued under his successor Varus; and hence it could not have been consummated until the time when Quirinius first took in hand the government of Syria.

Ten years later this same distinguished ex consul, having been dispatched to Judea to reduce it to the condition of the Roman Province, found himself obliged to rectify his earlier efforts, and to make a new census in order definitely to regulate the tribute.  From this factor comes the care with which Saint Luke would distinguish between the two enrolments.  If the first has left fewer traces among Jewish annals, and caused no such bloody revolts as did the second, it is because it was merely a description of the peoples and their goods, involving neither any levy of taxes nor military service; but most of all it is due to the fact that Herod was still alive, and, by shrewd political address, was able to manipulate the workings of this enforced enrolment.  In fact we can see how this Roman Census, taken under the eyes of the Imperial Commissioners was, notwithstanding, administered according to Jewish forms.

Now the Israelites were in the habit of taking an account of their population, not in their place of residence or birth, but by assembling themselves according to the Family and the Tribe, whence each one had sprung.[1]   A muster of Judea, therefore, was nothing less than a revision of the Genealogical Tables.  These precious Archives were carefully kept and highly treasured by the particular city which was by way of being regarded as the first fatherland of each Family.  David was born at Bethlehem; it was to this town therefore that Joseph must be take himself, "for he was of the Tribe and Family" of the Great King.

[1] See Num. i. 2, where God commands Moses to number the people, according to Tribe and Family

Two of the Evangelists had held in their hands the Genealogical Tables of Bethlehem; naturally each searched therein after what would most clearly support his individual point of view.  Saint Matthew, occupied in the collection of evidence which would reveal in Jesus, the King and the Messiah promised to Israel, for his part only demanded of these archives an endorsement of Joseph's royal ancestry.  Saint Luke, writing for the Gentiles, interests himself solely in the natural filiation, and he shows us in what order of generation the second Adam traces His lineage up to the first man, and thus to God Himself.

One might very well marvel that the sacred historians, who have given us these genealogies of Joseph, should have passed over in silence that of Mary, if it were not so well known that, according to the teaching of Tradition, the Virgin was a near relative, probably the niece, of Joseph,6 and that, in consequence, her paternity corresponded with that of her husband.  The family trees of the parents of Jesus being the same, nothing could be more natural for the evangelists than to set down these pedigrees just as they found them in the records at Bethlehem; for the Jews were prone to overlook the descent of their womenfolk, by giving only that of the men.

[1]  Fouard seems to favour the following: 1) Joseph (of Panther) had two brothers, Cleophas (Alpheus) and Joachim; 2) Mary was the daughter of |Joachim, and therefore Joseph’s niece. He rejects the idea of Joseph being an old man (44 at betrothal) and refers to traditions that he was young and beardless at the time.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Annunciation and the Visitation

Continuing Fouard's Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Chapter III: The Incarnation

I. The Annunciation

Luke i. 26-38; John i. 1-18

Ave Maria, gratia plena. J-J Tissot.

Six months after the conception of John, Gabriel received of God the new Mission.  This time it was neither to the Temple nor to the holy city that he must needs be take himself, but to Nazareth,1 an obscure village of Galilee.  He was sent thither to a young kinswoman of Elizabeth, named Mary, who was betrothed to a descendant of the House of David called Joseph.  Sprung likewise from the seed of the Great King, she was, according to the testimony of Tradition, the daughter of Joachim and Anna, and had but one sister, named like herself, Mary.  Her parents, being deprived of male offspring, had been forced, in order to ensure the legal transmission of their property, to affiance the two sisters to two young men of the same lineage.

We do not know what combination of circumstances had banished these descendants of the Kings of Israel from Bethlehem, the home of their family; yet we must believe that, sharing in the destinies of their race, they had all fallen into poverty and obscurity; for neither their ancestry nor the prophecies which promised a the throne to a Son of David awoke the morbid suspicions of Herod.  The lives of the betrothed pair in the retired village of Nazareth were passed in complete separation from each other, and in a state bordering upon destitution.  Joseph was a carpenter; Mary worked, as he did, with her hands.  Thus, then, it was an humble dwelling-place, this cottage of Joachim and Anna, which the Angel from Heaven visited; for, in accordance with the custom of the daughters of Judah, Mary was expected to seclude herself in the privacy of her home from the day on which her troth was plighted.

But it was not merely for these few days that Mary had hoped to shelter her virginity within that lowly retirement.  A light, which never before shone upon the mothers of Israel, had discovered to her the value of perpetual continence and she was resolved never to know man. How or where she had to reconcile this inspiration from Heaven with the promise made for her by her parents?  It was a period of perplexity and an agonising ordeal, this to which Mary was subjected from the time of her betrothal, and it was destined to cause her an even more profound trouble on the day of the Angelic Message.

A little to the westward of Nazareth there is a fountain which bears the name of Mary. The Greeks have erected close at hand their Church of the Annunciation.  They hold that the Angel uttered his salutation to the Virgin on that spot, when at evening she had set out from the village on her way thither to draw water.  This legend, taken from the Proto-gospel of Saint James, is not based upon any reliable foundation, and Christian art is more truly inspired when it represents the Virgin as kneeling in the privacy of her chamber at the hour in which the Angel appeared to her.

Doubtless by those same vows of chastity she had hasten the day of the coming of the Messiah, when the celestial messenger appeared before her eyes and said:

"Hale, full of grace, the Lord is with you; you' are blessed among all women."

Yet, having heard this, she was troubled at his saying, and she thought within herself what could be the meaning of such a salutation.  But the angel resumed:

"Fear not at all, Mary; you have found grace in God's sight.  And behold you shall conceive in your womb and shall bear our Son, and you shall give him the name of Jesus.  He shall be great, and He shall be called the Son of the Most-High, and the Lord shall give to Him the throne of David His father: He shall remain eternally in the house of Jacob, and of His Kingdom they shall be no end."

Mary had meditated much upon the Prophecies; she could not therefore mistake the purport of the Angel’s announcement.  This child, Son of the Most-High, King and Saviour of men for all eternity, this could only be the Messiah; and to her was to accrue the honour of bringing forth the Desired of Days.  But the daughter of David had resolved to remain a Virgin for God's sake, and despite this promise that she should be the Mother of a God she continued steadfast in her inspired design.

Unable to make the Angel’s words harmonise with this vow,

"How may this be," she replied, " since I know not to man?"

Gabriel immediately enlightened her.

"The Holy Ghost shall, upon you," he said, "and the Power of the Most-High shall enfold you within His Shadow; therefore it is that the Holy One which shall be borne of you shall be called the Son of God.  And behold your cousin Elizabeth also has conceived a son in old age; and it is now the sixth month for her who is called barren, because nothing is impossible unto God."

This was sufficient to ensure Mary's entire abandonment to the Will of the Almighty.  She bowed down before the Seraphic Messenger:

"I am the handmade of the Lord," she said; " let it be done unto me according to Thy word."

And forthwith the Angel withdrew from her sight.

What happened then in the little house of Nazareth?

In one line John has expressed the unspeakable thought:

"The Word was made flesh, and took up its habitation with us."
The Word, that is to say, the Eternal and substantial Utterance of God, His own, and only Son:

"A Son who was not born at the commandment of His Father but Who, by puissance and by plenitude, flashed forth from His Bosom, God of God, Light of Light."

Of the Word we can learn little enough from the three Evangelists; so intent are they upon tracing the footsteps upon the earth of the God made Man that they speak of His Divine nature but rarely; yet this is not at all the case with John.  The beloved Disciple of Jesus had drawn from the heart of his Master a relish and a perception of the highest Mysteries.  So when, following Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he took up his pen to write "that which his eyes had seen, his ears heard, that which his hands had touched of the Word of life," stifled in the thick atmosphere of the lower world of thought, he spurns the air with strong eagle-pinions, and rising far aloft above the earth and the heavens, he penetrates to the Throne of Him Whose life he would recount.  From those fearful heights his first words rang forth like a peal of thunder upon the ears of the Christians of Ephesus, who knelt in prayer and fasting round about him.

"In the beginning was the Word,  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; He it is Who was with God in the beginning.
All things have been made by Him, and without Him is nothing made that has been made.
In Him was the life, and the life was the Light of men.
And the Word was made flesh,” adds Saint John; that is to say, has formed unto Himself a body out of the most pure blood of Mary, — the Eternal Father has produced, in the bosom of the Virgin, that same Son whom He has, from all eternity, begotten within His own Bosom.  In that all-happy moment, this blood, this virginal body found itself pervaded and absorbed by God:
"The Word was made flesh, that the flesh might become God."

And this union was not to be transitory; for the purpose of the Word is to consummate His union with man, "to dwell amongst us," "to pitch His tent in our midst," which is the force of the words used in the original text.  This last word of the Evangelist carries an allusion to the luminous cloud which had enveloped the Tabernacle long ago to show that Jehovah sojourned in the midst of His people.  In the time of Jesus, the sanctuary of Herod was empty of its Ark of the Covenant, nor did its curtain of glory any more screen the Holy Receptacle.  John shows how the Word did take up its abode in the midst of Israel, of a truth.  "He has pitched his tent in our midst," he says, "and we have seen His Glory," not blazing by brilliant intervals, as did that of the ancient Cloud, but streaming upon the world in rays of splendour, which are the effulgence of grace and truth, — Grace, by which we mean the Life divine that animates our souls; Truth, by which we mean the Light of God that illuminates them.

"We have all received of this fullness," he pursues; "a grace more abounding has succeeded the ancient gifts of Jehovah to the Jews." "Moses did but give us the Law, we have gained grace and truth by Jesus Christ.  Moses had never beheld Jehovah save through the splendrous mists of Sinai, — for never has anyone seen God; He, the one and only Son, (the only-begotten God, according to another reading), — He who, in the Bosom of God, exists in His very Presence, — He alone can declare to us, of Himself, what He is."

Such, in the eyes of Saint John, was the Salvation which the Son of Mary came to accomplish.  The Truth must, then, at Its Incarnation, illumine the eyes long blinded to the light; grace must flow in cleansing streams there where sin had soiled the very springs of our natural life; and the gaps word, embodied in our flesh, must repair the ruined handiwork of the Creative Word, of the cats word Which ones in the beginning.

II. The Visitation

In those days Mary, rising up, went in haste towards the mountainous country, to the city of Youttah.  What prompted her to undertake so long a journey? — one so unusual, too, when we recall how strict was the seclusion which custom had imposed upon a young Jewess after her betrothal?  Are we to believe that Joseph, having had a knowledge of Mary’s state, rejected her, and that she sought consolation in the society of Elizabeth, as well as escape from the hard-heartedness of men; or, better still, was she not led by a longing to unbutton her heart, which was now over-brimming with this new gladness, and so sought the company of a soul capable of understanding her?  Elizabeth shared with her in these bountiful blessings of the Lord; for she had been designated by the Angel as Mary's natural confidant.  Was there not in all this an adequate motive for the Virgin's disregard of those rigorous Jewish customs?

It took only a few days for Mary to go from Nazareth to Youttah.  She traversed Judaea, screening herself beneath the veil of a humility already perfect, indeed, so forgetful was she of the eminence to which she had been elevated over all Creation, that she gladly humbled herself thus, in order to discourse with her kinswoman of the divine honours vouchsafed to them.  Wherefore, so soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s salutation within her dwelling, the child leaped within her, and revealed to her the presenceof the Incarnate God.

The Visitation. J-J Tissot.

"You are blessed from among all women," she cried out, "and the fruit of your womb is blessed.  And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come unto me?"

This knowledge of the secrets of Heaven Elizabeth owed to the Precursor, who was aroused within the maternal bosom, that so he might salute Jesus; this is what she declared, adding,

" So soon as the voice of your salutation it came to my ears, the child that I bear leaped in my breast." Then reflecting upon the incredulity and chastisement of her husband, which set the serene faith of Mary in so much higher relief,

" Blessed," she cried, "is she who hath believed that the word which the Lord has spoken to her shall be accomplished."

Amid these transports of surprise and joy Mary remained calm and recollected; her lips opened at last, but it was to praise God for this new largess of His bounty toward her, for His providence toward the world, for His merciful goodness to all Israel; these three ideas sustain the burden of the whole Magnificat.

Magnificat anima mea. J-J Tissot

"My soul doth glorify the Lord,
And my spirit is made exceeding glad
In God my Saviour.
Because He hath regarded the lowliness
Of His handmaid:
and behold all generations
shall proclaim me Blessed.
For the All-Powerful has done great things to me:
and Holy is His Name;
and His mercy reacheth from age to age,
unto those who fear him."

Turning from the marvellous effects of the Eternal Holiness, the Love Eternal, in her regard, Mary’s glance sweeps over the world; it seems to her flashing vision as lying prostrate at the feet of that Almighty One, Whom she knew she was soon to bring forth and unto it.


"He hath showed forth the Might of His arm,
He hath scattered those who were proudly elated
in the thoughts of their hearts.
He casteth the powerful headlong from their thrones,
and hath lifted up the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with food,
and sent away the rich with empty hands."

This great upheaval in human destinies must result in the triumph of the veritable Israel, and in this thought the sacred Canticle finds its final note of joy.

"He hath taken under His protection
Israel, His servant,
Being mindful of His mercies to Abraham
and to His people, from generation to generation."

Nor need we marvel at the sight of Mary pouring forth her feeling under this poetic form.  In the East, where song is the natural expression of every emotion, only a few thoughts are requisite to the development of a poem.  Inspired simply by the remembrance of the hymns of Israel, and by the grace of which she was a spotless Vessel, the Virgin, uplifted upon the wings of the Divine Spirit, drew from her enraptured soul the measure of this Canticle, as simple as it is sublime.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Birth of the Precursor and His Circumcision

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ Our Lord: Book I, Chapter II

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Chapter II: The Birth of the Precursor

I. The Vision of Zachary

Luke i. 5-25

For four centuries the world had waited for the fulfilment of these Prophecies.  The rain of Herod had almost reached its end; and the old King, beginning at last to realise that he was descending slowly, surely to the tomb, stands out a lonely figure in the palace which his blood stained hands had made so bare and empty.  Uneasy forebodings disturbed the souls of men.  Suddenly from Jerusalem, and from the Temple, a voice broke the silence of suspense in words that spoke deliverance and salvation.

Among the many Levites of that time, there was a priest named Zachary, of the family of Abia, the eighth of the divisions which, by turns, took part in the divine service.  Reduced as they were upon the return from captivity, the sons of Levi were not slow to increase in number; and thus they were soon forced to seek a residences outside of Jerusalem, in the ancient sacerdotal cities.  Hebron and Youttah had seen their levitical population returning to the old homes, and it was probably the latter of these towns which was the dwelling place of Zachary.  Situated to the south of Hebron, and at some considerable distance from it, Youttah stretches along the slope of the hill, in the heart of the mountains of Judea.  In this retreat Zachary lived with his wife Elizabeth, who was also of the sacerdotal tribe.  The sequestered pair "were just in the sight of god, and walked without reproach in the commandments and laws of the Lord." Yet they found their piety put to a severe test; for, childless while they were both far advanced in age, they had finally lost all hope of God's ever blessing them by raising up offspring to the barren daughter of Levi.

The time drew round for Zachary to join his associates of the Class of Abia, and to fulfil his functions in the Temple; he therefore took his way to Jerusalem.  Each Class was accustomed to decide the division of the various offices by lot; that of Incense-Burner fell to the husband of Elizabeth.  It was the highest of all the sacerdotal duties, and was performed with a solemnity of ritual which it behoves us to describe more in detail.

The altar of gold, whereron was offered the sacrifice of perfumes, stood in the midst of the Holy Place, between the Seven-branched Candlestick and the Table of the Bread of Proposition; only a single veil separated it from the Holy of Holies, despoiled in Zachary’s time of its Ark of the Covenant.  Everything about the Sanctuary must be made ready beforehand, the flames of the lamps trimmed and brightened, the ashes removed from the altar, and a fresh fire enkindled upon it before the entrance of the priest.  Upon his appearance all stood aside, and the people, crowding back beneath the porches, prayed there in silence. The officiating minister alone advanced within the Holy Place, and, at a signal given by the prince of the priesthood, must cast the precious perfumes upon the flame; then having bowed down before the Holy of Holies, he receded slowly, stepping backwards, that he might not turn his face away from the altar.  A bell gave warning of his withdrawal and the Benediction which he bestowed upon the people.  Immediately Levites intoned the sacred hymns, and the music of the Temple, combining with their voices, formed a symphony so powerful (the Rabbinical writers say) that it could be heard in Jericho.

Although this ceremonial was observed twice every day, in the morning and at evening, the Jews never assisted thereat without a secret tremor of anxiety; for the priest, who entered within the Sanctuary, was their Representative, and the incense burned beneath his hands was for a figure of the prayers of all.  Should Jehovah reject his offering, if He should strike him to the earth for some legal impurity, then indeed would Israel be overwhelmed by the same blow.  It was from this cause the impatience of the crowd arose, and the promptitude with which the Minister acquitted himself of his functions, that he might not prolong the general emotion.

But on this day these fears were quickened to terror; for Zachary tarried much longer than the wanted time in the Holy Place.  He appeared at last, trembling, dumb; his lips so suddenly sealed, his gesticulations, his agitation, all declared that some portentous spectacle had burst upon his sight.  Did he write down his marvellous vision at once?  "He remained dumb," it says; as if it was signify that his heart, as well as his tongue, refused to reveal immediately the celestial apparition, or that he would await that hour for disclosing it in which God Himself would open his lips.  This, then, is what Zachary at last made known.

He was about to enter within when, to the right of the altar from which arose white clouds of incense, of a sudden an Angel appeared.  Seeing this, terror overwhelmed the priest; but the Angel spoke to him: —

"Fear not at all, Zachary!  Your prayer is heard; your wife Elizabeth shall conceive a son, and you shall give him the name of John.  This child shall be your joy and your delight, and the multitude shall rejoice at his nativity.  For he shall be great before the Lord; he shall not drink of wine nor of aught that doth inebriate, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.  He shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and he himself shall walk before Him in the spirit and might of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers on to the children,9 the unbelieving unto to the wisdom of the righteous, and prepare for the Lord a perfect people."

Malachy, whose prediction the Angel here recalls, had foretold that two Forerunners should herald the Messiah’s appearance: one, John the Baptist, was to announce His first Advent;1 Elias, the other Envoy of Heaven, in the latter days of the world, shall descend from his chariot of fire to prepare men for the return of the Christ.  Yet in spite of the diversity of their missions, John was to be another Elias, because in him would be enkindled the very soul of the Thesbite, the same strong spirit, the same glowing genius, a fiery nature which should lead captive the sons of Israel by word and example, and bring them back to the virtues of their fathers.  Engrossed in the contemplation of so perfect a resemblance, the Jews had never, in their thoughts of them, separated these two forerunners of the Messiah.

God did not demand of Zachary a more illuminated intuition, nor that he should foresee clearly everything that the Angel’s announcement implied; all that was required of him was that he should believe implicitly in the Message, however mysterious it might seem.  Too haughty for such simple faith, the Levite still demurred; he dared to demand a sign before he would yield any credence to the divine communication.

"How shall I know the truth of these words?" he answered.  "I am old, and my wife is advanced in age."

To overcome and dissipate this incredulity, the Angel deigned to disclose his own dignity.

"I am Gabriel," he said, "one of the ministering Spirits, standing ever in the presence of God, whom the Lord has sent to speak to you and to announce to you these good tidings.  Look you, therefore, you shall be dumb and shall not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall take place, because you have not believed my words, which shall be accomplished in the time."

Zachary must needs have humbled himself under the hand which chastised him.  He retreated from the Sanctuary dumb; only by his signs of awe and terror could he respond to the breathless throng, now quite disquieted by his long delay, and at once all the people knew that he had seen a vision in the Temple.

The days of his ministry being fulfilled, he betook himself to his home.  A little later Elizabeth, his wife, conceived, and for five months secluded herself, "because," as she said, "the Lord hath dealt thus with me, since he has willed to take away my reproach among men." Nothing could be more natural than this desire to retreat from the world.  It was but seemly, indeed, to prevent the curiosity and malice of rumour from busying itself with such a marvel as was this on hoped-for conception.

II. The Circumcision of John the Baptist

Luke i. 57-80

"The time being come for Elizabeth to be delivered,16 she brought forth a son; and her neighbours and kinsfolk being made aware that God had manifested His mercy towards her, shared in her joy, and on the eighth day they all gathered unto the circumcision of the infant."

This consecration to the God of Abraham was celebrated in every family with solemn festivity.  Ten witnesses surrounded the child; while the father, or some other of the relatives present, made with an instrument of stone the bloody incision.  Zachary did not perform the sacred rite in person, for his moveless lips could not pronounce the benedictions incidental to it.  So also, when at the close of the ceremony they desired, according to the ancient custom, to confer a name upon the child,17 and would have called him Zachary after the father, the latter neither heard nor comprehended.18

Elizabeth, however, withstood them.  "No," she said; "he shall be called John."

"But," it was objected, "non of your kindred bear that name."

She persisted nonetheless in her design.  Turning toward the father, who stood before them a mute and wistful spectator of this scene, she asked him by signs what name he wished to give the child.

Zachary, taking up his tablets, wrote thereon, "John is his name."

Then while they were still filled with astonishment, suddenly the lips of the old man were opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spoke aloud in thanksgiving to the Lord.20  At this prodigy their wondering delight gave place to fear and awe.  From that dwelling, endeared to God, the thrill of emotion spread swiftly throughout the surrounding country; so that shortly, among the mountains of Juda, nothing else was spoken of beside these marvels; and those who heard the tale treasured it up in thoughtful silence, musing in their breasts, " What an one, think he, shall this child be?" For the hand of God was upon him.
With his hearing and speech Zachary recovered the divine favour, and, filled with the Spirit, he prophesied.  As sung every night in our churches, the Hymn of the holy old man is like an echo of the ancient prophecies of Israel.  Jehovah visits His people to save them from their enemies, from the hand of those who hate them; the Redemption is revealed under the eyes of this Levite, even as the dying Moses beheld it, and as Ezechiel and countless others had represented it, ‒ mighty and resistless as the horned frontal of the savage beast which spreads terror around about its path.  Yet, beneath this rude imagery, ‒  the last vestiges of an almost vanished era, ‒ there is a tenderer tone which predominates withal.  The salvation of Israel is no longer that which the carnal-minded Jews had fancied, ‒ the triumph of their race, the joys and riches of this world.  It is Salvation in righteousness and holiness, won by penitence and the remission of sins.  The God of Zachary is no longer a Jehovah who, as He moves among men, sows horror and death about Him, but the God with bowels of merciful compassion, shining upon the world like a holy beneficent Light.  It is as if, very different from the mornings of earth, this marvellous Orient, this great New Dawn, would be made visible, not on the horizon, but on high, within the heavens, thus to make it manifest to the world that He came, not to consume it with the scorching heat of noontide, but to spread about His pathway the pure light of a clear, cloudless daybreak.  Hence, though Jewish in its form, this chant is essentially Christian.  Struck with its beauty in the original Arameän, Saint Luke sought to reproduce, not only the thoughts, but the figures as well, foreign as they are to the genius of the Greek tongue.  To this fact is due the obscurity and, at the same time, the peculiar charm of this hymn:

The Benedictus

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
because He had looked down upon His people,
and hath wrought their Redemption;
He hath raised up, in the house of David His son,
an invincible power (as it were an horn),
to be our Salvation :
(according to that which He had promised us,
by the mouth of the holy Prophets,
from the beginning of Time;
a Salvation whereby He will preserve us
from our enemies,
out of the hands of them that hate us :
for the accomplishment of His Loving-Kindness
unto our fathers;
and as a remembrance of His holy Covenant,
the Oath which He swore to Abraham our father;
so that, delivered from the hands of our enemies,
and freed from fear, we may worship Him,
in righteousness and holiness in His sight,
even all the days of our life.
And thou, child, shall be called
the Prophet of the Most High.
Thou shalt walk before the Lord,
to prepare his ways,
to declare unto His people Salvation,
in the pardon of their sins,
pardon through the bowels of mercy
of our God:
whereby a Star, rising to the heights of heaven,
hath visited us;
illumining them that sit in the shadow
and in the darkness of death,
leading our steps within the paths of peace.

The halo which overhung the cradle of John might not last in all its early splendour; for the design of God was, in silence and in solitude, to form of him the greatest of the children of men.  The glorified dwelling place of Zachary disappears immediately from a range of vision.  All that we know is that God's Spirit came upon the Baptist even in his childhood and impelled him to retire to the Desert.  "The child grew," says Saint Luke, "and his soul was strengthened, and he was in the Desert until the day of his manifestation in Israel."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Sanhedrin, the Sects and the Spiritual Remnant

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ Our Lord: Book I, Chapter I

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The Sanhedrin


Amid this universal demolition of Judaic institutions, one body alone withstood the tempests and retained its authority; this was the Sanhedrin, the National Council, established by Moses according to some, while according to others it was first convened after the Captivity.  The ascendancy which the prophets and doctors possessed over the people in those days of exile, the absence of the priests and of all external surroundings of their worship, the debasement into which the royal family had fallen after the return from Babylon, the difficulties surrounding any political and religious restoration, all these considerations had led Jews to regard this sovereign assembly as a substitute for the monarchy.

The functions of the Sanhedrin were to interpret the Law, to adjudge more important cases, and to exercise an exact surveillance over the administration of affairs.  Hence it became at one and the same time Parliament, High Court of Justice, and the supreme resort of instruction in Judaea.  Its 71 members represented the three classes of the nation: the Priests, that is to say the chiefs of the 24 sacerdotal classes, with whom were associated, under Herod and the Romans, the Pontiffs who were in this manner deprived of any temporal authority by their foreign masters; and the Scribes, as doctors and interpreters of the Law; together with the Ancients, chosen from among the elders of each tribe and family.

During 400 years the authority of this Council had remained absolute.  Herod was the first to sap its strength; but shrewd as he showed himself in use her finger all other powers, he could not entirely cripple the Sanhedrin.  That mighty assembly continued its sittings in the very face of the tyrant, and survived his dynasty; for we see it, under the Romans, asserting its right to settle all questions of doctrine, to administer justice, and to direct and secret the movements of the people.

This, then, is the poor ghost of authority to which the power of Israel was finally reduced; yet what must be said of the deterioration of religion and manners?  The last of the Machabees had allowed the Pontificates to be dishonoured by permitting the Scribes to assume a predominant influence.  Relinquished to these doctors, so zealous to discuss in their elaborate commentaries the most trivial minutiae, the laws became mere matter for futile argument; and the numerous Sects, each one arrogating to itself the right of interpreting the Law, furnish a most striking proof of the decline of Israel.  The fame of three of these great parties has lived up to this day, the Pharisees, Saducees, and Essenes, and according to the testimony of Josephus, to be acquainted with this trio is to understand the ethics and the morals of all their contemporaries.

The Pharisees

As to the origin of Pharisees, we believe it sources should be sought in that isolation which the Law of Jehovah imposed upon the Jews as a nation.  To shun contact with idolatrous peoples, in order to preserve the worship of God in its purity, was one of the precepts constantly reiterated by Moses and the Prophets.  On the return from Babylon, Esdras and Nehemiah insisted upon this point with all the more earnestness because the defences which they could erect about the Holy Land were so feeble and so frequently infringed upon.  This exclusiveness became a duty still more rigorous when the Syrian Kings made apostasy obligatory, and when the High Priests Menelaus and Acimus betrayed the faith by becoming the allies of their persecutors.  All the generous hearts that Israel could count upon henceforth entrenched themselves in their despair, forming a band of picked souls whose zeal procured them the name of the Pietists, — the Assideans.

Under the leadership of Mathathias and his sons these children of Abraham had proved themselves invincible.  Nothing was wanting of all that goes to make true heroism, austere, indomitable courage, a noble scorn of death, a living faith in the God who was their Protector, and in the Angels, who were there ministers and His.  But peace once re-established, this impetuous virtue knew not how to restrain itself; zeal developed into fanaticism;; to fly from their impure contact became the law for these Assideans, a law which they desired to impose upon all Israel.  From this, in fact, came the Aramaic name of Parousch, Pharisee (that is to say, a separatist), which is given them by those Jews who oppose the teachings.

The Sadducees

Neither the Machabees nor the Priests who surrounded them followed the Pharisees in these views.  Obliged to maintain political relations with other countries, yielding moreover to the attractions of power and wealth, the new princes of Judea rejected the maxims prescribed by the zealots; they confined their observance to the letter of the law, to the sedacha, so highly praised in the holy Books, and it was from this trait that they got the name of Sadducees or the Just, to whom they were fond of likening themselves.  Such, in the days of the Machabees, were the diverse tendencies of the Pharisees and Sadducees; there to see how far they have developed their theories of the time of the birth of Jesus.

Each proceeded along the downward path it had marked out for itself.  The Pontiff Kings and the chiefs of the sacerdotal body fortify themselves in their holdings, endeavouring, in the administration of public business, to conserve the tottering forces by intrigue and shrewdly-planned alliances; while, with the neighbouring nations, they maintained their reciprocal relations with more rigour in proportion as the independence of Judea began to be more generally menaced.  From this habitual intercourse with the Pagan world the faith of the Sadducees grew weaker, and the Epicurean doctrines, which so largely on pertained at Rome, attained an influence over them also.  If they really retained their belief in the Creator, God, they did not concede to Him any active participation in the government of the world.  "The Law once given to the people," they said, "Jehovah withdrew into the repose of Eternity, and abandoned man to his own free will, unchecked and unheeded." Very soon they came to deny the Immortality of the Soul, the Resurrection of the body, and the existence of the Angels.  Priests of Jehovah, for the most part, they still continued to observe the laws, and acquitted themselves of the sacred functions; but, even so, they railed against the scrupulosity of the zealots.

"The Pharisees," they would say ironically, "torment themselves to no purpose in this life of ours, since they will gain nothing for their pains in this world or any other."

The laxity of this aristocracy, full of disdain for the people and a friendly toleration for the Gentiles, had been at all times a scandal to the Pharisees, who therefore showed themselves the more ardent to protect the orthodoxy which was thus threaten.  According to the Rabbinical expression, they multiplied "hedge after hedge" about their Law, and would have had their prescriptions as strictly obligatory upon all as were the Precepts of the Lord.  To lend some show or reason to their pretensions, they asserted that there was no commandment of which Moses had not given an oral interpretation.  To collect these traditions and from them to construct a complement to the entire Mosaical ordinance, became their aim.  Colleges of learned doctors were formed to enter into the minutiae of these Rules, and the people who, since the Captivity, had ceased to understand the original Hebrew of the holy Books, received these decisions as the words of God himself.  The instruction which they received from the Pharisee-Scribes is, therefore, at this epoch, all the religion that Israel retained; to discover what that Doctrine was, it suffices simply to open the Talmud.

An intolerable yoke

No speculative theology, no considerations concerning the Divine Being, or the Soul, or the end of man, or the things of Eternity; only ardent discussions as to puerile observances; scrupulosity as to what was lawful pushed to the last extreme of absurdity, while but faintly and infrequently does some inspired sentence recall the God of Horeb and Sinai.  Past all doubt the Pharisees guarded the Law of their God most faithfully; yet, in that Law, the exact payment of Tithes interminable ablutions, and especially the observance of the Sabbath, absorbed all their attention.  It would be useless to enumerate the 1279 Rules which issue must have always before his eyes, if he would not violate the "Quiescence of Sanctity," the Precepts ordained for the conduct of guests at public banquets, the innumerable Contaminations to which all were declared to be exposed.

Such a yoke as this was intolerable; the Sadducees threw it off openly, the Scribes resigned themselves to enduring it, merely for the sake of appearances; but, for the most part, under their religious exterior, they concealed nothing but bigotry and hypocrisy.  The Talmudic writers have torn the mask from the true features of the Pharisaism of their times; nothing could be imagined more mind-deadening and wretched in its effects then the rules are observed by the zealots in order to regulate their comportment and to overawe the masses.  And so we see them, presently, in order to give an added gravity to their carriage, shortening their steps so that their feet might always meet in their mincing gait.  Again, that they might never look upon the woman, some kept their eyes so obstinately fixed upon the ground has often to result in sudden collisions with the walls, while others, preserving a still more exact modesty, enveloped their heads in sacks and walked the streets like blind men.

If disposed to believe that these are but satirical exaggerations, that this picture overdoes the reality, you need only turn over a few pages of the Talmud to discover how far hypocrisy was elaborated into a practical science.  Read the ten chapters devoted to the "Eroubin," that is, the expedients to which it was permissible to resort in evading the Law, in the event of its becoming too inconvenient.  For example, the " Sabattic Rest" forbade the transporting of any load or burden further than 2000 cubits.  In order to double this measure, it was enough to have deposited some food, the night before, at the furthest point in the legal distance.  By this act a presumptive domicile was conferred, from which it was allowed to proceed again for another to 2000 cubits in any direction.  Should the Pharisee perceive that one of these animals was about to die, he was permitted to kill the creature, without violating the holy Sabbath Rest, provided he swallowed a morsel, of the size of an olive, taken from the beast’s carcass, thus indicating that he had been obliged to butcher it for nourishment.  It was allowable for him to buy and sell also; the only precaution he must observe was not to pay until the morrow.  We would not venture to add to this list the licentious excesses tolerated by the rabbis, me on condition that they were concealed under an impenetrable mask of secrecy.

Noble exceptions

Is it necessary to mention the fact that, however widespread among the masses was this decadence, there were many noble exceptions still to be found in Israel, many Scribes who were were the descendants of the Assideans, true areas of their faith and virtues.  The Gospels speak the praises of more than one, the cap still more had names still others, and, among the first of all, stands Hillel.  His poverty, born with such dignified serenity, his steadfast, unswerving constancy, he's as zeal, his charity have rendered him justly celebrated.  It was he, indeed, who instructed the contemporaries of Jesus in maxims almost Christian in spirit:

"Love and strive after peace."
"Love mankind and reconcile it to the Law."
"He who magnifies is own worth debases it."
"What am I, if I neglect my soul?  If I have no care for heat, who will take care of it for me?  If I do not think of these things now, when shall I do so?"

Dazzled by his epic grammatical brilliancy, many have unreasonably exulted this Rabbi by attempting to make him an historical peer of the Christ.  They forget that Hillel never accomplished anything which can be compared to the works of the Saviour.  Like the other Doctors of his day, while commentating upon the Pharisaic laws, he confined his efforts to making that yoke bearable, and spoke only in the schools of Jerusalem to a small group of chosen disciples.  Indeed he even shared in the disdain of the Scribes for the poor and humble; this haughty saying comes from him: "no man without education can escape evil doing; no man of the common people has ever attained unto piety." In a word, Hillel was an illustrious Scribe, Jesus is God.  Between such there is no comparison possible.

The Essenes

And finally, we have still to speak of the strangest of all the Jewish sects, the Essenes.  On the western borders of the Dead Sea, where the streams of Engedi1 empty into the lake, a verdant gladdens the eye, wearied with those desert stretches of land, devastated by the fire of divine retribution. In its green recesses there lived quoting the words of Pliny "an eternal people, where there was never any one born." No woman, no child, was ever found among them; youths only were admitted, and only after longer probation.  The Essene, on the day of his reception, received the white garment in which he was robed at all the repasts of the community, the towel-cloth needed for his numerous submissions, and an instrument which served as axe or spade, and designed for cutting and digging trenches and sewers, in which all refuse was buried with the greatest care, lest by any uncleanness they should sully the purity of the sun's rays.  A rigorous discipline was imposed upon all; absolute obedience, perpetual abstinence and mortification were obligatory; the only punishment was excommunication, by which the condemned man was constrained to live upon herbs, and thus die slowly of hunger.

What were the hopes, what were the fanetic dreams which could sustain the Essene in his rude life?  It is hard indeed to tell, for the terrible law sealed their lips and on the rack of torture they refused to expose their mysteries.  All that anyone knows today is that they worshipped the Sun; that they believed, like the Pythagoreans, in an ethereal soul, which is, for a time, confined within the body.  Their aversion to the sacrifices of the Temple, and for the flesh of animals, their linen vestments, their prohibition of speech, all remind one of the Orphics whom Plato knew.  Yet what was, in reality, the teaching of this sect?  No one can say with any certainty, for it was not long-lived, and it kept its secret to the end inviolate.  However, it matters little or nothing so far as it affects the history of Jewish religions, since the doctrine of these ascetics was never popular; being confined to the initiated, it had but feeble influence upon the general populace of Israel.

Carnal Israel

If we wish to understand the feelings and thoughts of these average Jews, we must look to the writings of that period, so, listen to this paragraph, found in the Book of Enoch:
"In those days there shall be a wondrous change for the elect.  The light of day he shall shine for them without shadow and without night; all majesty, all honour shall attend upon them.  In those days the earth shall render up of the treasure which she possesses; the Kingdom of Death also, Hell itself, and all that has been entrusted unto them...  The elect shell build a dwelling within the land of delight; a new Temple shall be erected for the Great King, more spacious, more resplendent than the first, and all the flocks of the earth shall be led thither unto sacrifice." In that place, pursues the author of these Messianic dreams, “I see a never-failing fountain of justice, whence flow innumerable streams of wisdom on every side, and all those who have thirst shall come hither and drink....  From over that new Earth the ancient heavens shall fade away, to give place unto another heaven, wherein the stars shall give forth sevenfold more light than before; and thenceforth the innumerable days shall succeed each other in a happiness that shall know no end."

Their Sybilline Oracles have added to this description, so flattering to the senses, further promises of a felicity more terrestrial still.  "The people of the Mighty God shall bathe in seas of gold and of silver, their garments shall be of purple; all lands and oceans shall pour their treasures at their feet, and the Saints shall reign amid unceasing delights.  The tiger shall graze side by side with the kid; the olive tree shall be crowned with imperishable fruit; milk, whiter than the snow, shall spring up from the fountains, and the young child shall play with the asp and the serpent without fear." It would be easy to multiply quotations.  The Fourth Book of Esdras, the Psalms of Solomon, the Jewish writers of Alexandria, bear witness everywhere to the same longings; everywhere we find these dreams of a people aspiring to a higher destiny, to a fuller fruition, yet looking for it only amid the things of earth and from temporal pleasures.

Spiritual Israel and the true Messiah

All, indeed, as we have pointed out, did not partake of these material sentiments.  In this degenerate people, in the midst of this carnal Israel, the spiritual Israel was still alive, are chosen band, predestined to be of the Kingdom of the Christ, holy souls who, by piously pondering the inspired truths, had there been discovered the proper lineaments of the picture which Prophecy had painted of the true Messiah.

In the very hour of man's fall God had declared to Adam that One should be borne of the seed of the woman2; and thereafter He set apart, from the race of Sem, one people, of the stock of Abraham, and from that people one tribe, the tribe of Juda, — from which was to be born the Messiah.

That mysterious Figure stands for still more clearly, more perspicuously, as the years hasten on toward the realizing of all expectation of Him.  As Moses sees Him, He is a Prophet, his equal in power; in David's eyes He is a King, His Son, heir to his glorious, as well as his misfortunes.  His very name is discovered to the Psalmist; this King of all times to come and have the timeless Eternity is to be called the Anointed of God, the Christ, the Messiah.  One after another the prophets added each a line to the limning of this portraiture which foreshadowed the advent of Divinity.  Bethlehem is to be His birthplace, Galilee His native land, a Virgin His Mother.  He will preach the Good News to the pure and humble of heart.  He will enter Sion mounted upon the foal of an ass.  He shall be despised and rejected, led to the slaughter as a Lamb; His vestment shall be parted, lots shall be cast for His tunic, His hands and His feet pierced; vinegar shall moisten His lips.  Yet shall He become subject to the malefactor’s death only that He may show forth the glory of His resurrection; His soul snatched from the deep pit, and His body from corruption, that He may seat Himself upon the right hand of Jehovah, henceforth to reign for ever in the world of human hearts.

Prophecy had been advanced to this point of certainty when Malachy appeared, the last of the Seers.  It was he who finished the painting, by his foretelling of the precursor of Jesus.  This Herald of the Messiah would arise from among the children of Levi; so then the prophet fixes his gaze upon that tribe.  If he scourges the vices of the priesthood, their scandalous alliances with the daughters of Gentiles; if he proclaims the New Sacrifice, offered from the rising unto the setting of the sun,11 and casts aside as worthless the defiled oblations of Israel, it is to prefigure the Forerunner, has he was to separate himself from the Levites, going forth before the face of the Messiah, preparing the way for Him: "Presently shall He come to His Temple, the Saviour whom you see, and the Angel of the Testament whom you desire. Behold, He cometh, sayeth the Lord of Hosts."

Such was the Messiah for Whom are all true Israelites waited in expectation; such was the Precursor, to be sent before Him, and of whose birth Saint Luke will give us the account.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

Corpus Christi

The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord:
and thou givest them meat in due season.

Today on this great Feast, we are launching a new project:

The Christ, The Son of God

This is a life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ based on the original French text by the Abbé Constant Fouard.

Fouard (1837-1903) was a remarkable scholar known for his mastery of Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He was, moreover, personally familiar with the geography of the Holy Land. He was a man of deep faith and it was only fitting that his work should receive recognition at the highest levels. In 1881, for example, Pope Leo XIII conferred his Apostolic Benediction on Fouard and the Theologian's congratulations. Fouard himself was to write: (as quoted in Cardinal Manning's Introduction to the 1905 edition):

"This Life of Jesus is an act of faith."

I have used the English translation by George FX Griffith (1890). Fouard used Bossuet's French text for Scriptural excerpts and Griffith translated these excerpts into English rather than incorporating an official English version of the Sacred text.

I have added notes and a number of illustrations to the work. For those able to read French, you will find Fouard's original text here:

La Vie de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ.

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Book First: The Childhood of Jesus

Chapter One: Judea in the time of Jesus

The Machabees and Herod

Judea in the time of the Christ was despoiled of all her splendour. The Machabees,[1] Pontiffs and Kings of Israel during one century, had in that time seen their glories vanish, together with their virtues.  The power, so nobly exercised by Judas and his brothers, degenerated into despotism under their successors; their religious zeal became ambition; and the concord which had existed among the sons of Matthathias gave place to such profound divisions that, sixty-six years before the Christian era, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, two brothers sprung from this illustrious stock, were compelled to invoke the arbitration of Pompey [106-48 BC] to adjust their feuds and dissensions.  The Roman general, already master of Syria, solemnly adjudged their differences at Damascus, and pronounced in favour of Hyrcanus.  Resorting to arms, Aristobulus hazarded a desperate defence from the Mountain of the Temple; but in vain, the defeat was inevitable.  Hyrcanus remained sovereign of Judea, but under the authority of the governors of Syria and with a simple title of Ethnarch.  Jerusalem for the first time saw the eagles within her walls.  Pompey crossed the threshold of the Holy of Holies, and gazed in astonishment upon that Sanctuary, devoid of idol or image.  The sovereignty of Juda had run its course; the servitude of Israel was begun.

Very soon Hyrcanus lost even the shadow of command which had been spared him.  Caesar,[100-44 BC] the conqueror of Pompey, united Palestine to the kingdom of Edom, and he gave the government of these countries to an Idumean of noble race, Antipater.  Phasaël and Herod, two sons of this prince, lent him their aid in the administration of affairs, one assuming the government of Galilee, the other that of Judea; but their united efforts were ineffectual for the maintaining of a peace of any long duration.  A descendant of the Machabees, Aristobulus, the brother of Hyrcanus, made his escape from Rome, where he was held as a captive, and essayed to regain the throne of his fathers, aided by his sons, Alexander and Antigonus.  The arms of the last-named prince alone achieved any success; he made Phasaël a prisoner, and constrained him to take his own life.  Herod, more fortunate than his brother, eluded their conqueror, hurried to Rome, and was declared by the senate King of Judea.  After three years of conflict, the victorious Latin legions re-established his rule in Jerusalem.  This was in the year 37 before Jesus Christ.

The patronage of Rome, which never belied its promises, Herod's own native genius for ruling, his union with Mariamne, the daughter of Hyrcanus, there former ethnarch, all seemed to insure him a tranquil reign.  Yet the Idumean found in his nationality, his unhoped-for successes, his own restless and suspicious nature, too many sources of disquiet to permit of any peaceable enjoyment of his power.  He could take no repose while the remnant of the Machabean line remained alive.  Two princes of that family, as well as his father-in-law, Hyrcanus himself, broken down by years and misfortunes, were the first victims of Herod’s distrust; then came the turn of Mariamne, the only one of his wives whom he had really loved; and finally, neither the two children he had had by her, nor Antipater (son of Doris and his first-born), was spared the penalty of such suspicions.  Only the death of the tyrant could set a limit to these cruelties.

In vain did Herod beautify Judea with splendid monuments, in order to divert attention from the bloody tragedies which encrimsoned his marble palaces.  To the Jews, his vast amphitheatres were the scenes of spectacles as detestable as they were abhorred.  The Baths and the Porticoes introduced novel customs; and the Roman eagle which spread its wings within the Temple profaned its sanctity.  During thirty-four years the prince wearied himself in fruitless endeavours to make the people forget his origin and their servitude.  Everything did but remind this nation, shuddering under his yoke, that the sceptre had indeed passed from the sons of Jacob to those of Esau.

[1]  From the Hebrew word for "hammer," because they were said to strike hammer blows against their enemies. Jews refer to the Maccabees, but the family is more commonly known as the Hasmoneans.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam