Into the Land – of Egypt

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 227, 24 August 1938, Page 11

Into the Land - of Egypt

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

BY H. V. MORTON

(In the twelfth article in his series “Into the Land of Egypt,” the author gives the historical background of the journey of Jesus, Joseph and Maiy.)

BEHOLD, the Angel of the Lord ap peared to Joseph in a dream, say J ing, “Arise, and take the younf child and His' mother, and flee inti Egypt, and be thou there lintil I briffj thee word: for Herod will seek tin young child to destroy Him.” "When he arose, he took the younj child and His mother by night, and de parted into Egypt: and was then until the death of Herod: that 1 might be fulfilled which was spoken o the Lord by the Prophet, saying Ou of Egypt have I called My Son.’ But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in dream to Joseph in Egypt, sayin “Arise and take the young child am His mother, and go into the Land o But when he heard that Archelau did reign in Judea in the room of hi father Herod,, he was afraid to g thither; notwithstanding being warr ed of God in a dream, he turned asid into the parte of Galilee: and he cam and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which wa spoken by the prophets, He shall u called a ftazarene. t „ THAT is the story of the Flight int I Egypt as told in the Gospel of t>i Matthew. This writer is the onl one of the four Evangelists who mer tions the flight of the Holy Eanul from the wrath of Herod. It is true that there are other ac counts, as full of detail as the accouri of St. Matthew is brief a.nd reservec but these are to be found in the api cryphal gospels, which are compos tions of a later time, and have no hi; to This incident in the life of Chris Has always captured the imaginatio of artiste. Some of the most beautiti

- great crowd which comes shouting • down a street beside a mighty temple. , And in the centre of the crowd, ! lifted high on the shoulders of shaven r priests, is the image of an Egyptian 5 god. Clouds of incense blow aboiit him priestesses strew flowers in' his r patli; and Jesus and His Mother move I to the side of the road to let this idol i go past. . , b Who can say that a meeting such as f this did not, "in fact, take place? t The question which anyone who studies the Flight into Egypt must ask himself is: where did the Holy I'amily i go when they entered the country, r There are legends in the Coptic I Church that they visited several f places, even towns and villages far up the Nile. But such stories are obvis ously the imaginings oP devout monks s of a later time. , - ANLY legend which bears the signs b U of probability, and it is the best e known and the oldest, claims that Joseph lived for a time at a place calls ed Matarieh, not far from Cairo. Here e for centuries an* immense sycamore tree has been venerated as the tree under which the Virgin rested with the o Child in her arms. ~ When I saw this tree, its gigantic y boughs were covered with rags pilaci- ed there by Moslems as well as Chrisy tians. but the followers of Mohammed equally believe the legend, and seek to - establish contact by attaching to the t boughs of the tree some fragment of , their clothing. . i- There is a well in this garden in L- which, it is believed, the Infant Christ i- was washed. And this was the garden mentioned by mediaeval travellers as ,t the .Garden of Herbs, in which grew n trees that were to be found nowhere ilelse in Egypt —the balsam.

pictures in. Christian art show the Holy Family travelling -under cover of ni"ht, or passing beneath the shadow of°the Pyramids in starlight, as indeed, they may well have done. Those monuments were already ancient and the bodies buried m them had long since been, robbed, when Jesus, Marv and Joseph journeyed 'into the of Egypt. *

It is an historical fact that for centuries balm from the balsam trees m the garden at Matarieh was necessary for the complicated manufacture of the holy chrism of tlio Coptic Church. Such trees no longer grow at Matarieli, and I am unable to discover the last occasion on which the balm was Now, it is a curious fact, which seems to have escaped the notice of writers on this subject, that there a definite and historical link between, Matarieh in Egypt and Jericho in PalAmong the rich gifts which Antony lavished on Cleopatra during the years of his triumphs were the balsam groves at Jericho. . Balsam was a valuable commercial commodity, and Cleopatra rented these groves for a large annual sum to xiGroci the Great. This must have annoyed him considerably, because, after all they lay in his territory. Cleopatra, once visited these groves, and Josephus (the historian who was born in A.D. 37, and was living near to the events he described) tells us that during this visit Herod considered the advisability of having the queen murdered. She was, however, allowed to return to Egypt, taking with her balsam trees from Jericho, which she planted at Matarieh. When dho Holy Family entered Egypt, these balsam gardens had been in existence for about thirty years. y It seems probable that Jews from Jericho were brought to Egypt to look after these gardens. If so, they must have formed part of the Orthodox Jewish community which, it is gener--1 ally assumed, existed in the neighbour‘hood of Heliopolis. What is more natural than that, when Joseph was commanded te seek refuge in Egypt, his thoughts should have turned to a community of fellow countrymen such as this? These points give colour to the ancient Coptic tradition which singles out the little of Matarieh as the home of the Holy l'amily m Egypt. * * *

WHAT is the historical background W of the Flight into Egypt? Herod the Great is believed to have died not later than 4 8.C., at which time Jesus was already one or two years of age. It may seem strange to a newcomer to New Testament chronology to be told that Christ was born '‘before Christ,” but this is easily explained by the fact that the system by which we date the Christian Era is based on a sixth century error of about four ye if rS the Flight into Egypt occurred, therefore, in the year 4 8.C., Egvpt was a Roman province within the empire of Augustus. Its ruler was the Prefect Turranius, whose capital was the Greek city of Alexandria. The race of the Pharaohs had come to an end about 27 years before the Holy Family entered Egypt, for the naval battle of Actium m which the combined fore* of Antony and Cleopatra ivere defeated, brought itgyp within the Roman Empire. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide (though it has beensu g g«tel that Cleopatra may. have been aesas sinated) hnd with her death the Phar aonic dynasties, which stretched ba v into the pre-Pyramid age/ came to an end. * * * * * * *

ALTHOUGH the country which sheltered the Holy Family was in. mental and spiritual decadence, it was still the Egypt of vast templefb o tombs, of the worship of animalheaded gods. The Pharaohs had gone, but the gods remained.- , , . The Teal life of the country had not been altered by the rich and fashmnable Greek cities, such as Alexandria, and the Roman occupation was purely military and administrative. _ Augustus was interested in Egypt, simply as a corn-growing country, _ capab e of feeding the .increasingly idle mobs or No wonder that artists always seized with eagerness on this incident in the life of Jesus, for what a curiously significant picture it makes; the Infant Christ journeying through a ianu where the Egyptian the Greek and the Roman civilisations, the three (Treat empires of antiquity, were living side by side in the last years of pag- & "There is a picture—l cannot now remember where. I have seen it-whmh shows the Virgin Mary with the Child in her arms, drawing aside from a

EVEN to-day the. ancient garden is still visited by pilgrims. The old grey sycamore tree is propped with timber, but the last balsam tree has dl< The Jesuit Fathers have built a modern little church, the Churcßof the Holy Family, just outside the garden Bright frescoes on its walls tell the story of the Flight into Egypt. As I walked over this ground, beneath whose rich fertility the ruins of Heliopolis still slumber, I could see a monument which was standing when Jesus came to Egypt—the obelisk, now lonely among the fields, which once fronted the great Temple of the sun. (To be continued.)