Let us begin with the gospel of Matthew, bearing in mind that it does
not profess to be the evidence of an eyewitness. It is a chronicle,
founded, like other chronicles, on such evidence and records as the
chronicler could get hold of. The only one of the evangelists who
professes to give first-hand evidence as an eyewitness naturally takes
care to say so; and the fact that Matthew makes no such pretension, and
writes throughout as a chronicler, makes it clear that he is telling the
story of Jesus as Holinshed told the story of Macbeth, except that, for
a reason to be given later on, he must have collected his material and
completed his book within the lifetime of persons contemporary with
Jesus. Allowance must also be made for the fact that the gospel is
written in the Greek language, whilst the first-hand traditions and the
actual utterances of Jesus must have been in Aramaic, the dialect of
Palestine. These distinctions were important, as you will find if you
read Holinshed or Froissart and then read Benvenuto Cellini. You do not
blame Holinshed or Froissart for believing and repeating the things they
had read or been told, though you cannot always believe these things
yourself. But when Cellini tells you that he saw this or did that, and
you find it impossible to believe him, you lose patience with him, and
are disposed to doubt everything in his autobiography. Do not forget,
then, that Matthew is Holinshed and not Benvenuto. The very first pages
of his narrative will put your attitude to the test.
Matthew tells us that the mother of Jesus was betrothed to a man of
royal pedigree named Joseph, who was rich enough to live in a house in
Bethlehem to which kings could bring gifts of gold without provoking any
comment. An angel announces to Joseph that Jesus is the son of the Holy
Ghost, and that he must not accuse her of infidelity because of her
bearing a son of which he is not the father; but this episode disappears
from the subsequent narrative: there is no record of its having been
told to Jesus, nor any indication of his having any knowledge of it.
The narrative, in fact, proceeds in all respects as if the annunciation
formed no part of it.
Herod the Tetrarch, believing that a child has been born who will
destroy him, orders all the male children to be slaughtered; and Jesus
escapes by the flight of his parents into Egypt, whence they return to
Nazareth when the danger is over. Here it is necessary to anticipate a
little by saying that none of the other evangelists accept this story,
as none of them except John, who throws over Matthew altogether, shares
his craze for treating history and biography as mere records of the
fulfillment of ancient Jewish prophecies. This craze no doubt led him to
seek for some legend bearing out Hosea's "Out of Egypt have I called my
son," and Jeremiah's Rachel weeping for her children: in fact, he says
so. Nothing that interests us nowadays turns on the credibility of the
massacre of the innocents and the flight into Egypt. We may forget them,
and proceed to the important part of the narrative, which skips at once
to the manhood of Jesus.