Journey in the Desert—Destruction of Idols

Scripture does not tell us by what road the Holy Family fled into Egypt, but there can be little doubt that it was by the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which, as we read in Acts 8:26, was desert. It was by that road that the minister of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, was returning to his country when Philip overtook him. But he was a great man, seated at ease in his chariot, where he could beguile the way by reading, and surrounded by his servants, ready to minister to his wants. How different was the case of the Holy Family, alone, without attendance, and with the most scanty provision for their needs! But they had to face a worse desert after leaving Gaza. Passing through the land of the Philistines, they directed their steps, as is commonly believed, to Heliopolis. This was the easiest, shortest, and least perilous road; nevertheless, the holy travelers would have to traverse full seventy leagues, of which, about fifty were solitary and desert.

Many wonders are related of this journey which are here omitted, as lacking sufficient proof, but there is one which cannot be passed over in silence, abundantly supported as it is by tradition. Gaume, in his admirable Life of the Good Thief, gives several versions of this incident, but in the main points they agree. It is related by many learned writers, and therefore must not, as Pope Benedict XIII.¹ observes, be laid aside as apocryphal or doubtful. True, it is first mentioned in one of the earliest apocryphal writings, but, as we have already observed, this, if not in itself sufficient authority, is far from being a reason for its rejection; and its adoption in one form or another by so many early ecclesiastical writers furnishes a strong ground for believing that the tradition was based on fact. When we find the story accepted by such great saints and scholars as St. Augustine and St. Anselm, not to speak of others, we may be sure that the evidence in its behalf was satisfactory in their days. It runs thus: The Holy Family having crossed the torrent Besor, which is the torrent of the desert, and entered a thick forest of ancient trees, found themselves suddenly in presence of a band of robbers. Men of this class were ready to seize on unprotected travelers, and pitilessly spoil, if not murder them. If this could happen on the frequented road between Jerusalem and Jericho, where, according to our Lord’s parable, which possibly embodied a true incident, a certain man fell among thieves, who stripped and wounded him, leaving him half dead, well might the like occur in this lonely and trackless wilderness; nevertheless, these ferocious ruffians, strangers to compassion, were arrested by the sight which met their eyes. They stayed their hands; and their leader, stepping forward, was so much struck by the majestic sweetness of the Infant, the beauty and modesty of the Mother, and the simple dignity of Joseph, that he not only forbade his followers to injure a hair of their heads, but treated them with courtesy, and conducted them to his own tent, where he harbored them for the night. On the following morning, having furnished Joseph with provision for the way, he accompanied them a certain distance, and, in taking leave of them, having discerned, bad man as he was, the holiness of his guests, he asked for their prayers, and the Virgin benignantly promised him that for the charity which he had shown them God would not leave him unrewarded. And this man, the same story asserts, was Dismas the Good Thief, who, having years afterwards fallen into the hands of justice, was condemned to be crucified in punishment of his many crimes. His cross was on the right of that of Jesus, the side on which Mary stood; and, then and there repenting of his sins, he confessed Jesus as the true Messias, and besought Him to remember him when He came into His kingdom; to which Jesus replied: “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise”.²

The Holy Family cannot have traversed the desert in less than fifteen days, and that, too, amidst continual perils of wild beasts and robbers, and all the sufferings of exposure and privation incidental to traveling through so desolate a region. This was the desert in which Elias took refuge when he fled from the vengeful wrath of Jezabel, and in which he was comforted by an angel, who brought him a hearth-cake and a vessel of water, in the strength of which miraculous food he walked forty days and forty nights to the Mount of Horeb.³ God also poured down manna on the people of Israel to feed them in the wilderness. Would such favors be wanting now at His hand? For here it was no longer to supply with sustenance a prophet of the Lord, or an ungrateful and stiff-necked people, but to preserve the natural life of Him on whom the eternal life of the whole human race depended, and the life of His Blessed Mother and of His holy foster-father, to whose charge He had been committed. It would not seem to have been possible for the Holy Family to have carried with them, or even to have obtained on the way, more than the scantiest provision when they entered on this trackless sandy desert of a hundred and fifty miles’ extent, so that, even granting that the charity of the Good Thief replenished their little stock, it must have been exhausted long before they could reach a land of fruits and fountains. Here, then, was assuredly a call for miraculous interposition; and we may reasonably believe that the angels, who afterwards ministered to Jesus when He had fasted forty days and forty nights in the desert, supplied the wants of the Holy Family when all natural means of support had failed them. Maria d’Agreda confirms this view in her visions of the flight into Egypt.

On leaving the desert the holy exiles would enter on the fertile lands of Gessen, where large possessions were assigned to Jacob and his sons by the ancient Joseph, when Viceroy of Egypt; and here the question presents itself: Did they direct their course immediately to Heliopolis, which tradition points to as the place of their abode while in Egypt, or did they make a circuit, visiting other cities by divine direction? for it is not to be overlooked that local traditions point to their presence elsewhere. Without relying on the visions of saints as precise authorities in questions of this character, which, as we have already stated, was not our intention, it is well to allude to whatever may serve to throw a light on facts apparently contradictory, but having all a certain degree of traditionary evidence in their favor.

The flight of the Incarnate Word into Egypt, as Maria d’Agreda observes, had other ends in view besides the escape from Herod’s fury, mysterious ends which had been shadowed forth in ancient prophecy. Our Lord, so to say, made this flight the means of accomplishing them, and passed into Egypt to work in that land the miracles of which Ezechiel and Osee,⁴ and, still more expressly, Isaias, had spoken: “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a light cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof”.⁵ Now, all this came to pass when the Infant Jesus, borne in the arms of His Immaculate Virgin Mother, symbolized by a light cloud, came into that land. Maria d’Agreda says that, before settling at Heliopolis, the Holy Family was led by angelic guidance to visit various other places where the Lord designed to work wonders and pour blessings on the benighted people, for the whole land was given up to idolatry and superstition. Every little village was full of idols; many possessed temples which were tenanted by devils, whom the poor ignorant inhabitants adored with sacrifices and rites enjoined by these same demons, receiving answers to their prayers and questions, by which they were deluded and led away. It needed the strong arm of the Lord, that is, of the Word made Flesh, to rescue this people from the tyranny of Satan. To obtain this victory over the infernal enemy, and to illuminate those who lay in the region and shadow of death, the Most High was pleased that Christ, the Sun of Justice, should, only a few days after His nativity, appear in Egypt, and make a progress through the land to enlighten all by His divine power. The Infant Jesus, says Maria d’Agreda, had no sooner entered the inhabited territory with His Mother and St. Joseph than, joining His Hands, He prayed to His Heavenly Father for the salvation of these slaves of the devil, and immediately used His divine and royal authority to precipitate into the abyss the evil spirits who dwelt in the idols. At the same time, the idols themselves tottered and fell to the ground with a great noise, and the altars and temples became heaps of ruins. The cause of these wonders was well known to Mary, who inwardly accompanied her Divine Son in all His petitions, as Cooperatrix in the salvation of the human race; so also did Joseph well know that all these works were accomplished by the Incarnate Word, and with holy admiration blessed and praised Him; but the devils, although they felt the compelling force of the divine power, were ignorant whence it proceeded. So God willed. If, of old, the image of the Philistine god, Dagon, was prostrated to the ground by the Ark of God,⁶ in which the glory of the Lord dwelt only representatively by the ministry of His angels, how much more might we expect that the idols of the Gentiles should be broken to pieces by the presence of the Word of God Himself!

The Egyptians were moved to wonder by this strange event. True, some light still lingered among their wise and learned men, through a tradition come down from their ancestors, who had heard the voice of the prophet Jeremias, when he abode amongst them, declaring that the Lord was the true God, the everlasting King, before whom the earth should tremble, and that the gods, which were the work of the artificer’s hands, should perish from the earth, and from those places that are under heaven.⁷ These and many other truths concerning the great King who was to come they must have dimly known, but from the multitude they were hidden. Accordingly all was fear and confusion, and, as Isaias expresses it, the heart of Egypt “melted”; each man asked his neighbor what might this thing mean. And some, beholding with curiosity the strangers who had come amongst them, would draw nigh and accost our Lady and St. Joseph, speaking of the ruin of their temples and their gods. Mary was so sweet and gentle in all her words, which had a heavenly efficacy in them, and her countenance was so divinely beautiful, that many were attracted to listen to her as she spoke of the true God, who made all things, and the vanity and falsehood of idols. To Joseph, the head of this wandering and wonderful family, many questions were sure to be addressed; but in this case we are not left to conjecture, or to the revelations of saints, for ecclesiastical tradition confirms us in the opinion. St. Jerome, indeed, believed that Joseph frequently disputed concerning the truths of religion with the Egyptians, in order to draw them out of their gross errors. The sanctity of his life contributed equally with his conversation towards their conversion; and it was assuredly fitting that the new Joseph should be the Doctor of Egypt, as was the ancient, whom, as we read in the 104th Psalm, the King had “made master of his house and ruler of all his possessions, that he might instruct his princes as himself, and teach his ancients wisdom”. If this be so, the aureole of Doctor as well as of Apostle cannot be denied to our Joseph.

Heliopolis, at any rate, seems to have been the terminus of the Holy Family’s journey, whatever may have been the extent of their wanderings. In this city was the famous Temple of the Sun,⁸ so celebrated by ancient writers, in which no less than three hundred and sixty-five deities are said to have been worshiped. When Joseph, then, with the most holy Virgin and the Divine Infant entered this city and paused awhile in front of the temple, it is a constant tradition, authorized by many Fathers and Doctors of the Church,⁹ that all the images of those lying gods which it contained were shaken, and fell to the ground; as if to demonstrate, says P. Segneri,¹⁰ that in presence of the true God no false god can stand. Tostatus adds that, when the idols in Heliopolis fell down, the same catastrophe occurred in all the other temples throughout the land of Egypt. We have given the two accounts without pretending to examine, still less to decide, which may be the more accurate statement as to the order of events, of which the substance remains the same whichever view we adopt. The learned Cartagena’s words might, indeed, be applicable to either, for he says, in a general way, that when Christ entered into Egypt there was no temple throughout the land in which the idols were not cast down.¹¹ Tradition also relates how Aphrodisius, the High-Priest of the Sun, having heard the fatal news, hastened to the spot full of wrath, but that when he saw Jesus in the Virgin’s arms and the humble Joseph, he was struck with such awe and reverence that he at once recognized in this Babe the true God, and, casting himself on his knees, adored Him, saying to all the people who had flocked to the scene of destruction, “If this were not the God of our gods, they would not have prostrated themselves before Him, and, if we do not the same, we shall incur the peril of Pharao”.¹² We are also told that he offered the Holy Family hospitality under his roof, but that Joseph would not accept it, and retired with Jesus and Mary to a neighboring village; nevertheless his house, it is said, would always have been open to them. This same Aphrodisius was subsequently instructed by St. Paul, and, after being pontiff of an idolatrous worship, became a priest of the New Law, and was ultimately ordained Bishop of Béziers, in Gaul, where he closed his holy life by a glorious martyrdom at the age of 101, along with three companions, whose names have also been recorded: Caralippus, Agapitus, and Eusebius. The Gallican Martyrology assigns their united feast to March 12th, saying that Aphrodisius hospitably received as guests for seven years the Divine Infant with His Mother and St. Joseph. But this statement can hardly be accepted literally, believing, as we do, that Joseph knew that it was he who was commissioned to support the Child and His Mother, and that he would therefore not have consented to see this obligation discharged by another. It is, however, reconcilable with the supposition that Aphrodisius placed his house at their disposal, which gave him the merit of a hospitality which he was not permitted to exercise. Some also say that he gave the Holy Family the cottage which they occupied. The Roman Martyrology fixes the feast of St. Aphrodisius and his companions on April 28th.

There is a village between Heliopolis and Memphis called Matarieh by the Arabs. Here is a garden of balsam shrubs, and, as olive trees still survive in the Garden of Gethsemane, we may well imagine that this sweet and salutary plant, fit emblem of Him who was come to be the Healer of the Nations, flourished in the days when Joseph took the Child and His Mother to dwell in its vicinity. In this village they remained until the angel signified to Joseph the divine command to return to Judea. Memphis and even Hermopolis and Alexandria are said by some writers to have been the abode of the Holy Family, as well as old Cairo, situated between Memphis and Matarieh. At this place the spot to which they are believed to have retired is now enclosed within the monastery of St. Sergius; and in order to see it a descent of twelve steps must be made, which recalls to mind the grotto of Bethlehem. Very likely, as has been observed, they may have made a passing sojourn in these various places, but the many religious memories which have clung to Matarieh, and which cannot be recognized elsewhere, seem to confirm the most reliable tradition which we possess on this subject. In Matarieh there still exists a sycamore of enormous girth, standing in a vast garden—it might rather be called a forest—of orange trees. Under its spreading shade the Holy Family are said to have rested.¹³ This tree is much venerated in the East, Mahometans even calling it the tree of Jesus and Mary. Fifty paces from it is the Fountain of the Virgin, to which a miraculous origin is attributed. God caused it to spring forth to allay the thirst of Mary and Joseph in a country parched by the burning rays of the sun. The water of this spring was pure and sweet, whereas that of all the rest in the neighborhood was brackish and bad. Here Mary used to go to draw water in her little amphora, and here, too, tradition says, she used to wash the swaddling-bands of the Infant Jesus; for which reason the sick and infirm come to drink thereat, and often, it is said, recover their health. A short way from it is a large stone upon which the Virgin Mother used to spread the linen to dry. All these spots are reverenced by Mahometans as well as by Christians.¹⁴ The Empress Eugénie, when she visited Egypt after the opening of the Suez canal, went to see the ancient sycamore, and expressed a desire to possess it. The Viceroy of Egypt complied with her wish, and made a present of the tree to France. Eugénie had it surrounded with a handsome iron fence for its protection, and two guardians were appointed to keep it, and to cultivate lilies and jessamine within the enclosure.