“Behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream,
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and
flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word:
for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he
arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and
departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod:
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the
prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod,
when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding
wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were
in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years
old and under, according to the time which he had diligently
inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was
spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice
heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel
weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because
they are not.”
The Flight into Egypt is generally believed in the West to have
occurred a few days after the birth of our Lord. The Eastern Churches
on the other hand extend the interval which is supposed to have elapsed
to a period of nearly two years.
The considerations which influenced the choice of age for the Saviour
in the picture are therefore not simply artistic. The view of the
Eastern Churches can scarcely be rejected with reasonable regard to the
circumstances of the visit of the Magi, and of the terms of Herod’s
fiat for the murder of the male children of two years old and under,
“according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise
men.” In the Gospel of St. Luke, however, it is said that after the
Purification in the Temple, which was forty days after the birth, St.
Joseph and the Holy Virgin returned to Nazareth with the Child, and
that there, speaking in general terms after the accomplished fact,
Jesus grew up. An apparent discrepancy is thus pointed out by some
critics, but it is one such as often presents itself in all honest
evidence of facts; and the report in St. Matthew simply requires it to
be understood that the Holy Family came back again to Bethlehem from
Nazareth. Indeed, the residence in the latter city does not seem to
have been chosen as a permanent one, for, on the return from Egypt,
it was only accepted because safety was still not so certain in the
dominion of Archelaus. The motive which had operated in bringing St.
Joseph and the Virgin to Bethlehem from the north, before the birth
of our Lord, is generally understood to be the securing of claim,
under the enrolment of Quirinius, to the genealogy, and perhaps to
some share of family inheritance. This would operate more powerfully
after the birth of Jesus in influencing the parents to make the city
of David their permanent home. There is therefore no contradiction
between the two Gospels, but the comparison of the evidence given by
the two Evangelists in my mind strongly establishes the view of the
Eastern Churches, that the Saviour’s birth took place more than one
year earlier than the flight. Herod’s estimate of the age of Him who
was born King of the Jews was not made without careful calculation of
the date from the birth, so as fully to include the Child whom he had
determined to destroy, that he might thus, like the typical politician
of the great reader of human nature,
“Circumvent God,”
and it follows accordingly that Jesus was not fully two years of age.
Whatever reserve of feeling there may be towards a reading which
conveys a disputable view of a fact in Holy Writ, let it be remembered
that an artist treating a subject in which such is offered cannot
delay to make his choice. The first part of his study in making his
design is to form a theory in harmony with the intention of the records
illustrated, as read by the fullest light, and to leave an exploded
theory with confidence that his rendering will be approved as either
correct or unobjectionable. In this case no special pleading is needed,
seeing that St. Augustine puts the Massacre of the Innocents in
connection with the Passover. Perhaps he regarded it as an antithesis
to the slaying of the first-born in Egypt, and understood the quotation
by St. Matthew from Hosea, “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” as
having a fuller purpose than at first appears. In any case he regarded
the festival as not fixing the date of the massacre, and the fact
argues that neither the date given in the Western Church for the
commemoration, nor in the Greek Church, is understood as the date of
the sacrifice of the first Christian Martyrs.
The journey has been across the mountains from Bethlehem towards Gaza.
The birth-place of Christ is on the further side of the range, about
five miles beyond the highest elevation, somewhat to the right of the
point where the star is rising above the distant curve of the hill;
the nearer mountains are about 1,500 feet in height. These, with
intervening valleys, are further on in the highlands overtopped by
rolling waves of the limestone rocks until they reach the watershed of
the country, which is about 2,400 feet in height. Bethlehem lies beyond
this 500 feet lower, on a spur overlooking the eastern country, thus
falling gradually to the plain of the Dead Sea.
The ass is of the Mecca race――so called from the fact that they are
brought from the Arab city of pilgrimage as descendants from one which
Mohammed rode. They were necessarily always costly, being much sought
for on account of their power of endurance, and their surefootedness.
It is quite within licence to assume that St. Joseph may have provided
himself with such an animal for his journeys. The route taken has been
by bye-paths across the mountains and fields to the plain with beaten
tracks from all other cities to Gaza, which, once passed, will put the
fugitives in safety.
In eluding Herod’s cruel decree, St. Joseph would have made his route
as far from the state highway as possible. The distance still to be
traversed is about ten miles. The Flight into Egypt is one of the first
events in the life of Christ which marked the power of the Prince of
this world, whom Jesus Christ had come to combat and to conquer, by
innocence and suffering.
In Bethlehem the Holy Family, as is still the custom, had lain down
soon after dusk, and doubtless the intimation by dream was given while
the protection of night still offered the longest opportunity of
escape. It was a voice ringing out its warning after the dreamer had
started up in the darkness, “Arise, and take the young child and his
mother and flee into Egypt.” The Rabbinical writers speak of the time
anterior to the day of the expected Messiah as destitute of marvels
and miracles, these having ceased since the death of Simon the Just――a
period of nearly two hundred years――and about this date an age of
spiritual activity is witnessed to by them. Wonders in the heavens
and on the earth occur, although not of the stupendous kind that had
been expected, and which later the Doctors demanded of Christ. Dreams
of Divine inspiration are mentioned out of the Gospels as frequently
affecting the fate of men. St. Joseph had a spirit of profound
obedience to heavenly authority. The Founder of Islamism declared that
among all the ancient prophets none was greater than Jonah. To me it
seems that among the saints in the group which fostered the Christian
Church during its first perils, none was greater than Joseph, and this
for an opposite reason. He had the very soul of submission and faith,
bearing all evil report and contumely without resentment when once he
had been assured that the Heavenly Father’s purpose needed this. It
seems to us no confession of weakness in this claim for the first of
the Fathers of Christianity to state here that St. Joseph was last
of all the band of guardians of the infant Church, recognised in its
established days as a saint. It is a further proof of his humility, and
of that true trust in right doing which leaves all after-issues to God,
when his command sanctifies a course. “Pray that your flight be not on
the Sabbath, nor in the winter,” may have been said with some family
memory of the troubles suffered on the escape from Herod’s cunning.
In April short storms of severity occur; the writer has seen on the
eighth day of this month snow three inches deep which had fallen during
the night. The picture gives snow on the heights, and to be consistent
the beginning of their journey would have been under a cloud-covered
sky. Dark and forbidding would have been the scene as the travellers
emerged from the town (walled, in part at least, since remains of such
are still traceable near the tomb of the mother of Benoni) the wind
blustering through the exposed valleys and scouring over the heights,
the anger of heaven and earth alike dictating stealth and silencing all
converse.
In succeeding generations fancy decorated the story with many legends,
but although these are often innocent, and even poetic beyond the
ordinary mark of the apocryphal Gospel narratives, they are all avoided
in this conception. Here no legend is taken for authority. The attempt
is to put together the detached links of the story, and I rely only
upon my personal knowledge of the country and climate, acquired by many
years of residence throughout all its seasons, to understand how the
sorrows of that night would be intensified by the angry elements.
The looking back upon a home from which a family is driven by
oppression has ever been regarded as a motive for compassion, and to
this calamity the Holy Family had to submit. The heights to the south
of “Beit Jala”――by some writers recognised as Rama――give an extended
view, the mountains of Moab far away to the east, and the Dead Sea
below, the great plain of Philistia down in the west. A storm thence
seen produces the impression of sublime purpose. The lightning gathers
beyond the great hollow which includes Jericho and the lost Sodom
and Gomorrah, and then wavers, as the fingers of a mighty player
upon the keys of a musical instrument, collecting the errant forces
of the air, and tremulous with dancing flame in the south over the
extending table-land it seems to linger as though searching the plain
of Philistia for its special mark, and there darts down in fury; but
the sword which was to pierce the breast of the mother, “blessed withal
above all women,” was of man’s forging. According to our order of
events the noisy elements would not have endured long, for soon the
peaceful snow followed falling with its wandering flakes. It would be
then that the cry would sound, which St. Matthew quotes Jeremiah to
describe, “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping
and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be
comforted because they are not.” We are not debarred from thinking that
the mother suffered some of her pain in the wonder natural to humanity,
that the powers of evil should be able thus to prevail over the pure
and the righteous.
It is natural to follow the mind of the mother in such distraction
of love, while the wintry mountains are traversed, and the fugitives
descend into the rich plain with its genial breath, the more placid
from the cleared sky. We can understand the comfort that would be
prayed for――a higher Knowledge of the Divine mercy――and we can conceive
how this came to her through her pure maternal charity, in the form of
ever increasing tender regard for the woes of the children torn from
their mothers’ breasts for ever, and of the bereaved childless women
mourning their dearest ones. She searches her much harassed mind to
find consolation for the weeping neighbours of her home. The party pass
through the rich corn-fields, among villages of peaceful slumberers.
The whole air is balmy and soothing. They feel the comfort of peace
after a storm. The torrents would no longer be in broken cascades but
flowing along in deep channels to the sea, the further from the uplands
the greater the change in the temperature. Recently the travellers have
made a turn in their course to find a crossing sure to be provided in
Roman days over the deep river which has to be crossed in the path to a
village on the road. The garments which the Mother is about to arrange
have been carried with other needful gear in the saddle-bags. Her own
under-garment is the wedding-dress of Bethlehem, worn by a bride until
it is past service. While her Child is being re-dressed, and is thus
engaging her solicitude, He calls her attention to the holy company
around them. The spirits of the children of Bethlehem troop along by
the side, they bear the signs of their martyrdom. Garlanded as were
ancient sacrifices and bearing branches of blossoming trees; like
enrolled saints they appear “in habit” as they lived, the forward ones
already rejoice in the knowledge of their high service. Midway there
is an infant bewildered to find that his new spiritual body bears no
trace of the fatal wound. Behind in the air are babes; this sleeping,
grieving group is the only one in the picture which in its sorrowing
aspect connects the idea of human pain with the fate suffered, for the
rest, in degrees differing, death is already seen to have no sting, the
grave no victory.
The foal accompanies the mother ass, in a long journey the young
creature lags behind whinnying in remonstrance at the ceaseless steps,
and only hurrying on in bounds when there is fear of the parent ass
getting beyond reach and sight. The glorified infants are encircling
the weary laggard, who is thus brought up to the onward group. The wild
dogs which have come out of the mill-house to bark――as is their wont
with nocturnal travellers striving to pass a homestead in silence――are
cowed at the unusual apparition and steal away in fear. The leader and
father of the party, St. Joseph, regards not the ghostly attendants.
He is engaged in securing the best means of safety while passing the
near village. He watches the distant fires to discover any signs there
might be of pursuit. He is passing over the shallow stream supplied for
irrigation by the creaking water-wheel. The liquid surface is
“Pavid with the image of the sky,”
and burdened lightly with the fallen flower from the hand of one of
the foremost seraphic children. In contrast to this mundane reflection
of Heaven――which takes the leader’s steps for the moment――are the
waves on which the children dance along. They are not clouds such as
angels may be portrayed upon. They are from the fountain of the water
of life, given to them that are athirst freely (athirst for fuller
life). It is the spiritual eternal stream provided in exchange for
the life that perisheth which has been to them so brief. These first
Christian martyrs no longer walk on the earth, but they travel on the
living waters of life, bringing comfort to their late fellows and to
all future disciples who have yet their burdens to bear and their
victory to win. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy
God reigneth.”
The stream is portrayed as ever rolling onward and breaking――where it
might if real water be dissipated in vapour――into magnified globes
which image the thoughts rife in that age in the minds of pious Jews,
particularly of those in great tribulation, of the millennium which was
to be the mature outcome of the advent of the Messiah. The promises to
the Patriarchs are progressive as is all the teaching of Revelation.
The dream at Bethel first clearly speaks of the union of Earth and
Heaven. This was the dawn of the exaltation of the Jewish faith, and
accordingly the large orb reflects dimly the Patriarch asleep with
a twofold ladder or pathway up and down, which is traversed by the
servants of God. The intention is to combine with the first beautiful
dream of the Patriarch other ideas of Messiah’s reign which harmonise
with this, and which were developed later. Heaven is indicated by the
adoration by the elders of the spotless Lamb, and the brokenheartedness
of those who turn towards Heaven is illustrated by the fallen penitent,
by the burden-bearing of the faithful pilgrim, and the leading of the
lion by the young child, while the tree of life in the midst bears the
fruit for the healing of the nations.
So far it has been recognised that for the guidance of spectators who
have no unlimited time to work out for themselves the intention of
the picture, an explanation of my purpose was necessary. I however
remember with gratification that when the picture was yet incomplete,
the main intention of the design was apprehended by some of the few
visitors to my studio, and that Professor Ruskin on seeing it, while
the principal group was then only crudely expressed, in the impulse of
generous appreciation, alluded to the purpose of the children in the
picture in words of such correctness as well as exquisite expression
and measure that, had they described the complete design, the painter
might well have dreaded to provide any other. Shortly afterwards I had
to abandon the first painting from defects in the canvas on which it
was painted, after excessive loss of time and repeated disappointments
which then nearly disposed me to give up the subject and turn to some
other. Without the spontaneous appreciation of our great writer on
art, to whose championship in the early days of preraphaelitism I owe
so much, I should scarcely have persevered to save the work of so many
alternating feelings of joy and pain. The Art Professor now kindly
permits me to quote from his _Lectures on the Art of England_:
“For all human loss and pain, there is no comfort, no interpretation
worth a thought, except only in the doctrine of the Resurrection; of
which doctrine, remember, it is an immutable historical fact that all
the beautiful work, and all the happy existence of mankind, hitherto,
has depended on, or consisted in, the hope of it.
“The picture of which I came to-day chiefly to speak, as a symbol of
that doctrine, was incomplete when I saw it, and is so still; but
enough was done to constitute it the most important work of Hunt’s
life, as yet; and if health is granted to him for its completion, it
will, both in reality and in esteem, be the greatest religious painting
of our time.
“You know that in the most beautiful former conceptions of the Flight
into Egypt, the Holy Family were always represented as watched over,
and ministered to, by attendant angels. But only the safety and peace
of the Divine Child and its mother are thought of. No sadness or wonder
of meditation returns to the desolate homes of Bethlehem.
“But in this English picture all the story of the escape, as of the
flight, is told, in fulness of peace, and yet of compassion. The travel
is in the dead of the night, the way unseen and unknown;――but, partly
stooping from the starlight, and partly floating on the desert mirage,
move, with the Holy Family, the glorified souls of the Innocents. Clear
in celestial light, and gathered into child-garlands of gladness, they
look to the Child in whom they live, and yet, for them to die. Waters
of the River of Life flow before on the sands: the Christ stretches out
His arms to the nearest of them;――leaning from His mother’s breast.
“To how many bereaved households may not this happy vision of conquered
death bring in the future, days of peace.
“I do not care to speak of other virtues in this design than those of
its majestic thought,――but you may well imagine for yourselves how
the painter’s quite separate and, in its skill, better than magical,
power of giving effects of intense light, has aided the effort of his
imagination, while the passion of his subject has developed in him a
swift grace of invention which for my own part I never recognised in
his design till now. I can say with deliberation that none even of the
most animated groups and processions of children which constitute the
loveliest sculpture of the Robbias and Donatello, can more than rival
the freedom and felicity of motion, or the subtlety of harmonious line,
in the happy wreath of these angel-children.
“Of this picture I came to-day chiefly to speak, nor will I disturb
the poor impression which my words can give you of it by any immediate
reference to other pictures by our leading masters.”
A brief explanation of the history of the production of this picture
is called for both as an apology for the long interval since last I
exhibited a large picture, and also of the fact that the painting
now shown is a repetition of my first attempt to illustrate this
imaginative episode in “The Flight into Egypt,” which before long,
will also be exhibited, cured of its defect. I may be allowed, perhaps,
to state that first in the year 1854, I acted upon a resolution formed
earlier to go to Palestine. This was to revivify on canvas, if it were
possible to me, the facts of Scripture History, by study not made in
sketches to be incorporated in subject pictures afterwards in England.
My aim was rather to advance nearer to the truth than had yet been
done, by patiently working out a whole picture, surrounded by the very
people and the circumstances of the life in Judea of old days. To
strive――while not forgetting the vital ambition of an artist, which is
to serve as high priest and expounder of the excellence of the works
of the Creator――choosing the highest types and combinations of His
handiworks, as the Greeks taught the after-world to do, so that men’s
admiration may be fascinated by the perfections of the works of the
Great Author of all, and men’s life thus may be a continual joy and
solace, and at the same time to embody the events by which God in His
providence led the foremost of the people Israel to be prepared to act
as teachers and prophets to the whole Gentile world. I did not――let me
say――wish to condemn any artistic manly treatment of similar subjects
by others. My idea suggested the experiment to me as worth making for
myself. The attempt was beset with difficulties beyond expectation, and
being away for long, put me at many disadvantages in my profession,
but I have many reasons for rejoicing at the course taken, and I have
now to gratefully acknowledge the recognition of the public who,
from the time of the exhibition of the first result of my Eastern
labours――“The Scapegoat,” have ever given exceptional attention to my
paintings, produced only, I regret to say, at long intervals, owing to
circumstances external to the limits of this statement.
In 1875 I returned to Jerusalem after an absence of two years. I had
taken the care usual with experienced travellers to have all my luggage
studiously packed and directed before leaving England. It was, however,
an omission of mine, which seemed a trivial one at the time, not to see
them delivered into the hands of the agent for the carriers to Jaffa.
On my arrival in Syria the cases containing all my precious materials
for my work had not arrived. Every effort possible was made to obtain
information of my missing boxes, and I delayed for months to commence
my picture. The excitement during this period, fanned by fanatical
Moslems, grew very fierce. The miseries caused by the conscription
for the Russian war, and still more those caused by the rapacity of
governors who found the opportunity a good one for increasing their
dishonest exactions, drove the poor fellaheen well nigh mad with
ferocity, and it was easy then, as it was in Alexandria, and as it will
ever be under similar circumstances, to make the poor people believe
that all such miseries are sent by Heaven as a curse on them for not
extirpating the enemies of Islamism. We lived always in doubt as to
what a day might bring forth. Had the people been less dangerous I
would have left my family for two weeks or so, and purchased canvas
in Naples or Rome. As it was I dared not leave them. When first
the uncertainty about my materials seemed serious and altogether
inscrutable, I felt forced to purchase the best piece of linen to be
found in Jerusalem. This I prepared with the tempera ground, which
before had proved to be perfect. When this was ready, however, I still
lingered over my preliminary work, in hope that the proper canvas would
arrive; but months further went by mocking my hopes, and eventually
I had to undertake my deferred labours upon the sheeting which the
fortune of the day had compelled me to choose.
It was a chapter of accidents bearing pain and long long trial to
me. The earliest part of my work was the sketching in of the whole
composition and the painting of the background. No test of the
suitability of my surface could have been more satisfactory as far as
was needed for the point reached. I almost dismissed anxiety about the
final results, and I had advanced considerably with my work before
the missing boxes arrived. It seemed a great and needless waste to
recommence my labours when so much apparently had been done. It would
have been well for me, however, had I thrown all my work aside, and
begun again, and this indeed it would have been even years later, for
from the moment when I suspected with what fatal consequences my first
start had been beset, until the moment, when in England, at the end of
1882, I gave up the picture, I always had reason to persuade myself
that a little more patience――perhaps even the perseverance further of
two more weeks――might overcome the difficulty intervening between the
stage arrived at and the entire completion of the picture. I will not
weary the reader with a statement of all the vexatious incidents of my
trouble, but it is only a needful excuse for me to state that a studio
built specially for me by German instead of Arab builders, let in the
rain as though the roof had been made of open wire, and that when
this worry had passed, I was under summons to come back to London by
a certain date, and this made the difficulty greater of deliberately
estimating the amount of danger which I incurred in advancing my work
on the imperfect surface.
When I opened the picture in London and placed it in a fair light I
could not fail to see how much precious time had been wasted from the
fact that all my drawing and modelling and colour indeed was marred
by irregularity of the plane on which they were given. I called in an
expert to help me in the course to be followed, and he, as it happened,
urged me still to trust to the means already used to overcome the evil,
expressing the opinion that it was then nearly at an end. Alas! this
proved to be far from the case, although I called in the best judgment
to guide me at intervals, and I confided the work for relining on the
strongest sailcloth canvas to the hands of one of the most skilful of
restorers. Every revived hope ended in disappointment, until I having
persevered with it for seven years and a half, finally abandoned it,
and commenced on the new painting on January 1st, 1883. Since then,
when away for my health, the reliner again had the old picture to treat
on a plan of a radical character agreed upon between us. It was to cut
out the central part of the sheeting containing the group of the Virgin
and Child, to lift up the surrounding cloth, to fray out its edges,
to insert a piece larger by an inch than the opening, with margins
also frayed in the opposite direction, and to place the whole already
relined picture upon another sailcloth. Unlimited time was given
for this experiment, and I am happy to say that now the picture is
thoroughly sound, and that it will soon be ready. The present exhibited
painting is about four inches broader and two inches higher than the
Jerusalem picture: it is also changed in several points, some of which
modifications I have since adopted as improvement for the old picture:
other additions, however, are only in the present painting.