July 31

Flight into Egypt

Matthew 2:13-15

Herod probably rested in the notion, that his object had been accomplished, and that the dreaded child had perished among the infants slain at Bethlehem. But it was not for his breath to quench the orb of day, or for any decree or act of his to frustrate the purposes and acts of God. Joseph had been timely warned in a dream to take the young child and his mother, and withdraw with them to Egypt; and they were either there, or on their way thither, at the time when the cries of mothers, bereft of their little ones, rang piteously through the narrow streets of Bethlehem. Not this sword, but another as sharp, was the one destined, at a later day, to “pierce through the soul” of the mother of Jesus.

The evangelists furnish none of the incidents of this journey. This silence of authentic history has been actively supplied by legends and traditions, which are, in a certain point of view, interesting, or rather curious, as showing what kind of narratives of our Lord’s life we should have had, in exchange for the noble simplicity of the gospels, if men had been left to their own devices under the influence of the exaggerations of the oriental and the legendary spirit. If the narrative of our Lord’s life and death had not been furnished by contemporary historians, but had been produced a generation or two later; and if the then writers had been left to themselves, we certainly should not have had accounts so impregnable to all the assaults of adverse criticism as the narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We shall occasionally show this by citing some of the legendary anecdotes, which, of course, are most abundant where the Scripture is silent, as the legendary spirit could not so well work upon the facts recorded by the evangelists, as in supplying information which they might be supposed to have omitted, or in adding to the existing narrative details which they might be conceived to have passed over.

The painters, who are great conservators of traditions, have made us familiar with the idea that the journey was performed by the aid of an ass, on which the mother and child rode, while Joseph trudged on beside, before, or behind it. This is not unlikely; as it is usual for a woman to ride upon an ass, while a man drives it along. They are always driven from behind, not led by a halter, and, therefore, this circumstance of the pictured “flight into Egypt” is not true to nature. An ass, or even a mule, might easily have been purchased for the journey with the gifts of the magi; and the probability is, that they travelled not alone, but in company with others journeying in the same direction, whom they may have joined on the road, if they did not start with them. Such journeys are scarcely ever performed but in companies; and as the intercourse between Egypt and Palestine was in that age very active, companies of travellers were continually passing one way or the other.

The local traditions are the most curious, because, being connected with places, they retain a stronger hold than any other. The only traditions of this sort that we know have been matters of firm belief among Latin and Greek Christians, which has not been the case with the merely written traditions as embodied in Apocryphal gospels and the like accounts.

One of these, however, concerns rather the journeys between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, than the flight into Egypt. About midway on this road stood formerly an old terebinth tree, which travellers, who saw it standing three hundred years ago and upwards, declare to have been the noblest and loftiest tree of the kind they ever beheld. Note: So Rauwolf, who saw it in 1575, and is, we think, the last traveller who saw it actually growing.—Ray’s Collection of Travels, i. 374. London, 1693. A tree like this, in such a place, could not fail to have some tradition connected with it. Indeed, we should not have been surprised had we been told that David had rested under its shade, with his bread and cheese laden ass, on his way to the camp of Saul. All that was affirmed, however, was, that beneath the spreading branches of this very tree, the virgin mother and her Divine child rested on the way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem; and in this belief the tree was highly reverenced by pilgrims for many ages. Not content with this simple statement, which had probability enough in its favor on the supposition (itself untenable), that the tree had been equally conspicuous and magnificent at an era so remote—the tradition goes on to spoil all by informing us, that the tree bent down its branches as if in adoration of, or as if more effectually to shade its Creator, whom it recognized in that infant child nestled in his mother’s arms.

The Terebinth Tree

Nor was this the only marvel related of the tree; for we are assured by Romish travellers that it was avouched by a Moslem shepherd, that he had seen it covered with flames, but they speedily disappeared; and when he proceeded to examine it, he found it not only uninjured, but the foliage more freshly green than it had been before. This tree is not to be seen now; for what the fire of heaven had respected, the fire of earth had not. Some mischievous shepherds had kindled a fire around the trunk, whereby the tree was killed, and in great part consumed. The remainder was manufactured by the monks into crosses and chaplets, and distributed as articles of great worth and value. The prime mover in the profanation died the right after, as if by the judgment of Heaven. It is added that many attempts to plant another terebinth tree upon the spot had been made without effect, as the young plants would not take root; but an olive tree had sprung up of its own accord, and had at length been accepted as a substitute. We owe this curious information to persons who travelled towards the close of the seventeenth century, in the early part of which the tree seems to have been destroyed. Note:
Relatione Historique d’un Voyage Nouvellement fait au Mont de Sinai et a Jerusalem. Par le Sieur A. Morison. 1704.
Voyage Nouveau de la Terre Sainte. Par le R. P. Nau, de la Compagnie de Jesus. Paris, 1744. The journey was made in 1675.

Another memorial of the holy family’s travels was also supposed to be found on the same road, nearer to Bethlehem, in a locality where the small stones or pebbles bore some resemblance to chick-peas—a fact which, no doubt, suggested the legend. It was alleged that a whole crop of this useful legume was turned to stone, because the churlish proprietor refused a handful of the peas to the Virgin upon one of her journeys between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Rauwolff, whom we lately cited, gives a somewhat different version of the story: “About half way, you pass over a hill, on the top whereof you may see both towns, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Before you is a large valley, which, although it be rocky, yet it is fruitful, both of corn and wine. In it, towards the right hand, near the road, is an acre [a field], called the Cicer Field, which had its name (I was informed) from the following transaction: It is said that, when Christ went by at a certain time, and saw a man that was sowing cicers, he did speak to him kindly, and asked him what he was sowing there; the man answered scornfully, and he said, ‘He sowed small stones.’ ‘Then let it be,’ said our Lord, ‘that thou reap the same seed thou sowest.’ So they say that, at harvest time, he found, instead of the cicer peas, nothing but small pebbles in shape, and color, and bigness, like unto them exactly. Now, whether there be anything of truth in it or no, I cannot affirm; but this I must say, that there are to this day such stones found in the field. For as we went by, some of us went into it, and did gather a great many of them, that were in bigness, shape, and color, so like unto these cicers (by the Arabians called ommos, and in Latin cicer arietanum), that we could hardly distinguish them from natural ones.”

Sycamore Tree at Matarieh

Another local memorial, like to the first of these, was found at Matarieh, on the border of Egypt, in a tree beneath which the holy family reposed upon their arrival in that country, and which like the terebinth, bent down its branches in homage to them. This tree, which is a sycamore, still exists, and we have succeeded in finding a representation of it, being, we apprehend, the only one extant, in Dr. William Holt Yates’ work on Egypt, Note: Modern History and Condition of Egypt. By W. Holt Yates, M.D. London, 1848. from which the figure we give is copied. Near this is a celebrated well, called Ain Shems, or Fountain of the Sun, concerning which there is a superstitious legend of the Latins, that it suddenly appeared to meet the wants of the holy family in the retreat they had chosen. “In order to visit this well,” says Dr. Yates, “we turned a little out of the beaten track, and entered a tolerably thick plantation on the right, where, in the midst of date trees, citrons, etc., we reclined beneath a venerable sycamore, supposed to be the identical tree whose wide-spreading branches afforded shelter to the holy fugitives from the parching rays of the sun. It is cut in all directions, and has been denominated ‘the tree of the Madona.’ Its shape is singular; it is very large, and the upper part of it has been blown down or struck by lightning; a number of young branches grow out from the top of that which remains. It is, beyond all doubt, very aged, and there is nothing inconsistent in the idea, that the Virgin did seek an asylum beneath its branches. She was as likely to chose this tree as any other; and we know very well that the sycamore sometimes lives to a most astonishing age.” On this we have to remark only, that a tree may be of “great age,” without being 1850 years old, which is an utterly improbable duration for such a tree as the sycamore. Besides, although of great age now, and, consequently, of great size, it must, if it existed at all, have been young at the time of the flight into Egypt, and there must then have been older and larger trees, long since perished, more likely to be chosen for the purpose of shade and shelter. But it is useless to examine critically questions respecting which no real evidence exists. It may be added, however, the local legend merely assumes this to be the same tree which is mentioned in the Apocryphal gospel of the Infancy, which, with other spurious productions of the same class, is known to have existed in the early ages of Christianity. In this curious performance we read: “Hence they went into the sycamore which is now called Matarea; and in Matarea the Lord Jesus caused a well to spring forth, in which St. Mary washed his coat; and a balsam is produced, or grows, in that country, from the sweat which run down there from the Lord Jesus.” And this is, no doubt, the same legend to which Sozomen, in his Ecclesiastical History, refers: They say, that at Hermopolis, which is a town of Thebais, there is a tree called Persis, of which either the fruit or leaves, or any small piece of the bark, brought near to sick persons, has cured many. For it is said that Joseph, when he fled with Christ and Mary for fear of Herod, came to Hermopolis, and that, as soon as he came near the gate, that tree, though a very great one, was moved at Christ’s coming by, and bowed down to the ground and worshipped Christ.” He adds, that he supposes the tree was an idol [trees often were idols], and that the devil was affrighted at Christ’s coming, and fled the tree; and satan being thus cast out, the tree remained to be a witness of the fact, and to cure believers of their diseases. To this, and to the alleged downfall of the idols of Egypt on the same occasion, this writer and others apply the text Isaiah 19:1—“The idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence.”