The Adoration of the Shepherds—The Circumcision

On this blessed Christmas night our great patriarch St. Joseph entered on the exercise of his high prerogative of father of Jesus. That paternity, as has been shown, was far superior to a mere legal, that is, adopted paternity. Jesus, although not his true son, was much more than his adopted son. An adopted son is one who, born of strangers, is received into another house where the marriage has been unfruitful, and formally invested with this title. Not so Jesus. Jesus was born miraculously from the virginal espousals of Joseph and of his true and legitimate spouse. He was born in Joseph’s house, not by a legal fiction, but by a divine ordinance. Joseph, therefore, is more than the putative or reputed father of Jesus; and, if the Church calls him so, it is, says the learned Estius, to exclude the idea of natural generation.¹ On the night of the Nativity he entered practically on all the essential prerogatives and attributes of paternity imparted to him by God, which, as the Blessed Canisius, a profound theologian who was at the Council of Trent, observes, are chiefly three: affection, care, and authority.² He had paternal affection; for, as the Abbot Rupert assures us, the Holy Spirit, who formed the members of Jesus of Mary’s blood, infused into Joseph’s heart the most tender love for the Divine Infant who was about to be born.³ Also the Eternal Father, who begets His Son from all eternity, willing, in a certain sense, to share with Joseph His paternity of Jesus born in the fullness of time, caused, as it were, a spark of the infinite love which He bears to His Divine Son to descend into the bosom of Joseph; and this new paternal affection, joined to his already boundless charity, began from this moment to kindle in his heart such a flame of love towards Jesus that, next to that of Mary, its like was never found among men, nor ever shall be, not even among the angels themselves. His solicitude and care for this Divine Son were inexpressible; for no father ever did so much or endured so much for his children as did Joseph for Jesus. And, finally, he had paternal authority. This is why Jesus was always submissive and obedient to Joseph, and why Joseph himself, notwithstanding his deep reverence for Jesus, ventured to fill the father’s position of command.

In virtue of his paternal rights Joseph had also become the head, the arbiter, and administrator of the Holy Family. The devout Bernardine de Bustis says that it is of Joseph, set over this sovereign family of God, that these words of Jesus reported by St. Luke and St. Matthew may be understood: “Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward whom his lord setteth over his family?”⁴ It is almost as if He had named Joseph. Now, who can measure the greatness of this dignity, to be head, and ruler, and administrator of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and of her who is Queen of heaven and earth? This dignity, says the learned Cartagena, without doubt far surpasses all principality, whether human or divine; and clearly did the Eternal Father mark that to Joseph was committed the care and rule of this most Holy Family, when to him alone, through His angels, did He dispatch His messages from Heaven, telling Joseph what he was to do, whither he was to go, and what road he was to take in order to place those most dear pledges, Mary and Jesus, in safety. In him, in short, was fulfilled what had been prefigured in the ancient Joseph, who by the great king Pharao was made “master of his house, and ruler of all his possession”.⁵

In that blessed night also Joseph became the patron, the vicar, and the patriarch of the whole Catholic Church. It is certain, St. Athanasius tells us, that the stable where Jesus was born is “a figure of the Church, whose altar is the manger, whose vicar is Joseph, whose ministers are the shepherds, whose priests are the angels, whose great High-Priest is Jesus Christ, and whose throne is the Blessed Virgin”.⁶ Since, then, this grotto and crib is the figure of the Church, and Joseph is its vicar, as representing the High-Priest, Christ Jesus, and acting in His place, well did it become our late venerated Pontiff, Pius IX., to proclaim Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. There is yet another reason. The Church took its beginning from Jesus Christ, who was its Divine founder. The first to form part of that Church was Mary; the second was Joseph. But of this nascent Church, limited as yet to the Holy Family, who was the tutor, the protector, the head? Joseph. And, if he filled this office towards the Church at its birth, he did not cease to exercise it after its birth and diffusion throughout the world. Wherefore, with greater reason than Abraham can he be called, as truly he is, the Father of the Faithful.

But we will now return to contemplate the grotto of the Nativity, where Mary and Joseph are adoring the new-born Infant. The first exercise of Joseph’s paternal solicitude (to which allusion has already been made) was the endeavor to render the hard bed of the manger more tolerable to the tender limbs of the Babe. Nor can we doubt that he lost no time in employing his carpenter’s skill in constructing out of such rude materials as were available a more suitable cradle for the Divine Child. That he did so is certain, for this is the cradle which is still venerated at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, called on this account Santa Maria ad præsepe.⁷

While the mystery of the Nativity was being accomplished in the stable of Bethlehem, there were at the distance, perhaps, of a thousand paces, near the Tower of Edar (or the Flock), some simple shepherds “keeping the night-watches over their flock,” in that fair plain where Jacob of old pastured his sheep,⁸ where Booz, the great-grandfather of David, commanded his reapers to drop some corn, that the beautiful Ruth might return from gleaning with her hands full,⁹ and where David, tending his sheep, was called to be anointed king by Samuel.¹⁰ Suddenly, in the midst of the darkness, a great light flashed upon them, illuminating the whole heavens. “And behold,” says the Evangelist, “an angel of the Lord stood by them, and they feared with a great fear. And the angel said to them: Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; for this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will.”¹¹

God had promised by the mouth of His prophets that He would send a Redeemer to the world, and that He should be born in Bethlehem; and He had now punctually fulfilled His promise. But, as this promise had been made to His chosen people, so also was the chosen people the first called to know and adore the new-born Messias. The first manifestation which Jesus made of Himself was to the shepherds of Bethlehem; the second was to the Gentiles, that is, to the Magi, the first fruits of the Gentiles. Jesus revealed Himself first to simple and blameless shepherds, because He loves to converse with the simple; and it was to shepherds that He made Himself known, to show that He, the Pastor of pastors, came to call new pastors, who were to feed His new flock, the Church. He surrounded them with a bright light, to signify that with His heavenly doctrine He came to enlighten all men. And, finally, He called and instructed them by the mouth of an angel, because they were believers, whereas He called the Gentiles to Him, that is, the Magi, by means of a star, a thing unendowed with reason, and a miraculous sign, because (as St. Gregory observes) to the faithful the language of faith is the most fitting, but to non-believers the language of miracles. And St. Paul, before him, had already clearly said that the voice of prodigies was not for the faithful, but for the unfaithful in order that they might believe, and the voice of revelation is not for the unfaithful but for the faithful, who already believe in God.¹²

We need not suppose that this refulgent light which struck the eyes of the shepherds was limited to the spot where they were keeping their night-watches. It probably illuminated the whole neighborhood, and shone all around the city of David, so that, if any had been awake, they might have supposed that a new sun had arisen in Bethlehem, and that night had been turned into day; but the Bethlehemites were plunged in profound sleep, and none saw it, or none noticed it. This light may have been visible even as far as Jerusalem, which is not many miles distant, giving a literal application to the words of the prophet Isaias, when he cried, “Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee”.¹³ But we do not hear that a single living soul gave heed to that heavenly portent save a few poor shepherds, for all were sunk in sleep, symbol of the gross darkness in which the world was plunged.

But who was that glorious angel who announced the good tidings to the shepherds, and who seems to have been the leader of the angelical army which suddenly burst upon their sight? According to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, it was the Archangel Gabriel. He who was to announce the highest of mysteries must needs be an angel of highest dignity, as St. Gregory the Great observes. Gabriel was also the special angel of the Incarnation (as Cornelius à Lapide points out) to whom all the solemn embassages connected with that sublime mystery were entrusted, beginning with the revelation to the prophet Daniel of the period of the seventy weeks.

When the angels had departed, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath showed to us”. They lost no time, for the Evangelist adds, “they came with haste”.¹⁴ The angel had, perhaps, indicated to them the precise spot where they would find the new-born Savior, or the angelic light issuing from the cave may have guided their steps. “And they found Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the manger, and seeing, they understood of the word that had been spoken to them concerning this child.”¹⁵ How much is comprehended in that word “understood”! They saw, and they adored with undoubting faith. It is to the simple and the child-like, such as were these shepherds, that the Lord unveils the mysteries of His kingdom. We are reminded here of those words which He afterwards uttered: “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth; because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father; for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight.”¹⁶ We may imagine with what grace and kindness Mary and Joseph received these good men, listened to their narration, replied to their questions, and gave them what further instruction they needed.

Nor can we suppose that this was the only visit which these shepherds paid to the stable in the rock, or the only time that they had the happiness of adoring the Divine Infant. During the remainder of the time that Mary and Joseph tarried there they would surely return again more than once, bringing probably some little offering out of their scanty means. When the Gospel says that “all that heard wondered, and at those things that were told them by the shepherds”; and that “the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen,”¹⁷ the action alluded to was probably their return to their own homes, and after the departure of the Holy Family from the cave. So, at least, thinks Maria d’Agreda, and that Divine Wisdom so decreed it. Had their report been immediately published and generally believed—which in the first instance, however, it was perhaps not likely to be, coming from ignorant rustics, as they would have been reckoned—there would, if only from curiosity, have been some concourse of other inhabitants of the neighborhood, of which we hear nothing, and which would have entailed a publicity which did not enter into the designs of God. Maria d’Agreda says that among those who credited the report which subsequently spread was Herod, and that among the martyred innocents were some children of these holy men, who offered them with joy to suffer for the Savior whom they already knew. But how many in number were these shepherds, and what were their names? Scripture does not inform us, but, as we know from the authority of ancient writers that near to the Tower of Edar was subsequently built a church in honor of the holy angels and the three shepherds, it would appear that those who went that happy night to Bethlehem were three in number. And when that church had fallen, on its site remained the grotto called after the shepherds, nearly a mile distant from Bethlehem. The descent into it is by a few steps, and the memory of the shepherds is still venerated there. Baronius, on the authority of the Venerable Bede, says that there was a church or oratory there, containing memorials of the three shepherds who had knowledge of the Divine Nativity.¹⁸ Tradition has not preserved to us their names, but between the grotto of the shepherds and Bethlehem there is a little village called Bethsaur, that is, House of the Dawn, and this is supposed by some to have been the native place of the three shepherds who had the honor of beholding and adoring the Sun of Justice on His first rising, and being now numbered among the saints.

There is no reason to suppose that the Holy Family immediately removed into a house within the town. Tradition is adverse to any such idea; neither has it been adopted, we may say, by the Church, which always supposes the Circumcision and the visit of the Magi to have taken place where Jesus was born. Joseph, no doubt, made every endeavor to render their humble abode as habitable as possible. There was, however, no water in the immediate vicinity of the cave; and we have already alluded to the tradition of a miraculous issue from the rock of a spring of water, for the supply of the Holy Family, and that the Venerable Bede mentions its existence in his day.

We must not omit to add that, according to the authority of Tertullian, it was at the coming of Christ that the waters of the Probatic Pool in Jerusalem acquired their curative virtue. When Jesus was conceived, says Genebrard,¹⁹ this pool, which previously had only served for washing the sheep intended for sacrifice, was shaken as by an earthquake, and poured forth a prodigious quantity of water. Then the Archangel Raphael began to make his descents into it, which ceased after our Lord’s Death. Voices, indeed, were heard in the air, saying, “Let us depart hence, let us depart”.²⁰ Near the Probatic Pool was the house of Joachim and Anna (as has already been observed), where, in the sixth century, during the reign of Justinian, a beautiful church was erected. Some of the learned even say that the ground on which was the pool had been their property, and, consequently, afterwards that of Mary.

When the eighth day after her delivery had come, the time had arrived for the circumcision of the Infant. It was prescribed by God to be performed on that day, although it might be postponed for any serious reason. But Mary and Joseph were too exact observers of the Law to wish to delay it for an instant beyond the appointed time. Circumcision might be performed in any place, even in private houses, and by any person, the father or mother of the child, or by a stranger; it was not necessary to have recourse to the priest. Thus we read that Sephora, the wife of Moses, circumcised her son;²¹ and the Apostle Paul circumcised Timothy.²² That Jesus was in no way bound by this law of circumcision is plain, inasmuch as that rite was a remedy for sin, and He was essentially holy, nay, Holiness Itself, and had come to cancel sin in others. Nevertheless, as He had come, not to destroy but to fulfill the Law,²³ He willed to submit Himself to this painful and humiliating rite in order to give to all a sublime example of obedience, mortification, humility, and purity; and He, no doubt, interiorly made known to His Blessed Mother that such was His desire. The Angelic Doctor points out further reasons for which Jesus willed to be circumcised like others: namely, to prove the reality of His Human Nature against heretics, who would have said that He had but an apparent, shadowy body, an ethereal body brought from Heaven, not formed in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin; in order also to mark the importance of the divine precept given to Abraham, and to prove that He was truly of the race of Abraham, thereby removing all pretext from the obstinate Jews not to recognize Him as the true Messias promised to Abraham, and demonstrating that, being come to cancel the sins of the world, He did not refuse to submit Himself for our sakes to the remedies of sin.²⁴ St. Leo adds another reason, namely, that the devil should not discover that Jesus was the looked-for Messias; and St. Ambrose, in order that the Mosaic law should be buried with honor; finally, St. Augustine, in order that all carnal concupiscence should be circumcised, and Christian virginity and chastity reign in us. That Jesus was circumcised where He had been born, we have the authority of St. Epiphanius: “Born in Bethlehem,” he says, “circumcised in the cave, presented in Jerusalem”.²⁵ This is the opinion generally embraced by the Doctors of the Church.

But who was the minister of the rite? The Evangelist is silent on this point. Imagination has accordingly allowed itself full scope, and painters have been pleased to introduce into their representations a priest in his sacerdotal vestments; but we have no authority for supposing that any priest came to the stable of Bethlehem to circumcise Jesus. The opinion of those doctors who believe that the minister of the circumcision of Jesus was Joseph appears the most probable. St. Ephrem the Syrian, a most ancient writer and contemporary of St. Basil, one who was well acquainted with the traditions of his native land, and highly esteemed both for his learning and his piety, says expressly that it was Joseph who circumcised Jesus. Writing in confutation of those heretics who ascribed to our Lord a phantastic body, he says: “If Jesus Christ had not true flesh, whom did Joseph circumcise?”²⁶ Thus he refers to it as to an unquestioned fact. St. Bernard, Suarez, and many others also believe that Joseph circumcised Jesus, because he who circumcised an infant was the same also who imposed the name; and it was Joseph who gave Jesus His name. This opinion, then, has been generally adopted. The precept of circumcision was addressed to the heads of families; it was the office of the father, unless a priest took his place. Joseph, then, as Isolano says, circumcised Jesus as his son.²⁷ On him we may believe devolved this solemn and painful duty. Jesus was circumcised by Joseph on Mary’s knees, no other eyes beholding the first drops of the Precious Blood flow except those of the holy angels, and no other ears save theirs hearing the wail of the Divine Infant. In this act Joseph accomplished three sacrifices in one: the sacrifice of Jesus, who began the great work of our redemption by suffering in His innocent members; the sacrifice of Mary, who with indescribable sorrow, but with perfect resignation, offered her Son to the Eternal Father, and held, as it were, the victim bound; and the sacrifice of himself, who had to nerve his hand to perform an act so painful and repugnant to his tender heart. It was an act of heroic obedience and fortitude on his part, greater, St. Bernard says, than was that of Abraham in sacrificing his son Isaac; for Joseph loved Jesus incomparably more than Abraham did his son Isaac, and well knew the difference between the son of any mortal man and the Son of the Eternal God. Thus the knife which cut the flesh of Jesus wounded the heart and pierced the soul of Joseph. Here there was no angel to stay his hand. The act must be accomplished, and in performing it Joseph was, indeed, more than a martyr.

Then, too, was that name pronounced over the Divine Infant at which “every knee,” as the Apostle tells us, should bow of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth;²⁸ and it was by the lips of Joseph that it was pronounced. St. Luke only says that His name was called Jesus,²⁹ without specifying by whom; but from St. Matthew it would appear that it was Joseph; for the angel had said to him: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus”.³⁰ It was, indeed, no little glory to Joseph to receive an embassage from Heaven commissioning him to confer this name. Jesus is the Son of the Eternal Father; to the Eternal Father, therefore, it belonged to impose the name; and yet He commissioned St. Joseph to exercise that right in His place. Joseph, says Isidoro Isolano, is the Enos of the New Testament, who first began to invoke the Name of the Lord.³¹ That profound theologian, Salmeron, who was present at the Council of Trent, did not scruple to say that in this sole act of giving to Jesus His name was declared the whole paternal office of Joseph, as by the sole act of feeding the sheep of Christ was signified the full power and jurisdiction of Peter over the Church. Whence Isidoro Isolano draws the conclusion that Joseph in God’s sight is superior to all the other saints, because no other was exalted to so high a dignity.