Pope Benedict is just about to publish a scholarly book on the various stories relating to the nativity of Jesus examining how they come to be included in the gospels. Matthew for example only tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and fails to suggest that there was anything miraculous or unusual about his birth. Rather more interestingly the apocryphal gospels suggest that Jesus had a twin brother in which case of course the traditional nativity scene should present two babies in the manger but convention dictates that there is only ever one child in the Madonna's arms. This is because the scene is not meant to be a historical representation of the facts surrounding the birth of Jesus but is an effective bit of allegorical symbolism. The Holy Family represents the Trinity - God the Father represented by Joseph, God the Holy Ghost or Spirit of Holy Wisdom represented by Mary and God the son represented by the infant Jesus. It's an easy visual image to enable Christians to grasp the very tricky philosophical principles of Trinitarianism, one that even small children understand.
So what about the shepherds and angels? If Jesus was actually born one of twins in a regular house in Bethlehem where did they come from?
The shepherds and angels occur only in the gospel of Luke which is believed to have been written down somewhere between 100AD and 150AD, quite some considerable time after the events the writer was describing. I believe the date is significant. In 110AD the Emperor Hadrian is recorded as having become confused between the followers of Horus in Alexandria and the Christians in the same city. Possible the two had combined as it was common practice for the early Christians to work alongside their pagan counterparts and gradually try to achieve a merger.
The introduction of the followers of Horus into the Christian community is significant because at least two features of the story of Horus have found their way into the nativity. It was Horus who was born in a stable and whose birthday was celebrated on 25th December. Jesus, it is believed, was actually born around 4BC and on 6th January. The Celts too seem to have had a corresponding myth regarding the birth of the sun-god Lud. The Venerable Bede tells us that 25th December was known to the Celts as 'Mother's Night' suggesting a corresponding nativity myth associated with that date. The mother goddess was Dana or Don, depending on whether you are British or Irish. However we have no record of any shepherds or angels appearing in either the Egyptian or Celtic versions.
So where did Luke come by his beautiful story? I believe the answer is he pinched it. Luke's gospel is deliberately fashioned to appeal to a western audience. You will note that in his account of the sermon of the mount he omits the obviously Jewish features such as the tradition of circumcision which appear in Matthew. Luke knew that his western readers would not be interested in this and it might put them off accepting the more universal aspects of Jesus's teachings. Instead he slips in to the narrative key symbols that they would find familiar. Luke lifted the story, not to put too fine a point on it, from one of the Roman masters of literature, Virgil.
Why do I think this? I have no proof as such but around forty years before the birth of Jesus Virgil wrote a great series of poems called The Eclogues which tell the tale of shepherds in northern Italy and recount the details of their lives living in the fields and on the hillsides. In Book 4 of the Eclogues Virgil announces the arrival of a 'prince of peace' in terms which have long been thought to foreshadow the coming of Christ. In fact the passage was so well-known in the Middle Ages Virgil was deemed to be a prophet or a wizard.
Eclogue 4 describes a Golden age 'foretold in prophecy' when the 'first-born' of Justice comes down from heaven and is born in human form beginning an era in which 'hearts of iron cease and hearts of gold inherit the whole earth'. In this age mankind will be freed from fear and all the stain of past sins will be cleansed. The child will eventually return to the life of the gods. The parallels with the Christian story are obvious. But Virgil adds a bit more to his prophecy that is not contained in Judaic Messianic tradition. His Prince of Peace will receive as his first birthday presents 'nature's small presents'. He will be surrounded by the fruits of the natural world, the kind of gifts that in the Christmas tradition are represented by the shepherds. Virgil seems to echo Isaiah when he writes that 'the ox will have no fear of the lion'. Small wonder that mediaeval Christians believed he was foretelling the birth of Jesus.
At the end of Eclogue 4 Virgil observes that the baby is already overdue and the birth is imminent but then he returns to his original narrative and we hear no more of it. Of Virgil's original ten Eclogues survive but he framed his poem according to an earlier Greek poem by Theocritus which has eleven books. I have a theory - and it is only a theory - that Virgil did in fact write eleven books and in his final book - because this is the way the story has been tending - his shepherds visit the new-born prince of peace. Whether Virgil included angels or whether they were Luke's invention I couldn't say - except to note that the Egyptian Coptic gospels are full of angels - but by slipping Virgil's shepherds into his narrative of the nativity Luke achieved a literary masterstroke suggesting that the much-revered Latin poet had predicted the birth of the Christian Son of God thus giving him a western provenance to match that of earlier Jewish tradition. In Mediaeval Britain which was heavily economically dependent on the wool-trade shepherds abounded and it is no surprise to find that this is the most popular gospel story in mediaeval literature. Mediaeval Europeans knew Luke and they knew Virgil. What happened to Virgil's final Eclogue if it existed? Now there's the mystery.
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