OUT OF THE EARTH

OUT OF THE EARTH
By Professor EM Blaiklock MA Litt D

CHAPTER ONE
ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BIRTH OF CHRIST
Census Night in Bethlehem
The discovery of writing paper-the papyrus plant-the preservation of papyrus documents-the methods of the Roman census—proclamation of Gaius Vibius-the genealogies of Joseph and Mary-the census documents— notifications of birth-Ramsay's use of the census documents.
IN a moment of humour, a branch of self-expression at which he did not shine, Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote:
About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reigned in Babylon. He united all the characteristics of an excellent sovereign.
He made good laws, won great battles, and whitewashed long streets. He was, in consequence, idolized by his people, and panegyrized by many poets and orators. A book was then a serious undertaking.
Neither paper nor any similar material had been invented. Authors were therefore under the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks.
Some of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; but the language in which they are written has never been deciphered. Gomer Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the Euphrates could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his eulogists. It is recorded in particular that Pharonezzar, the Assyrian Pindar, published a bridge and four walls in his praise.
Macaulay, needless to say, wrote his essay on the Royal Society of Literature, before the Babylonian script was deciphered, and his history and archaeology are quite sadly awry. On his main point, however, there is little doubt. A vast blessing was conferred on men by the unknown Egyptian who invented ink, and found that the stem of a river plant could be sliced into writing paper.
The plant which, in James Baikie's phrase,
" was destined to be the instrument of so great a deliverance," was the cyperus papyrus, a sedge, which still grows plentifully in the Sudan, where it reaches the height of twenty-five feet. In ancient days, as abundant evidence proves, the papyrus grew also in the northern Nile valley, especially in the rich swamp-lands of the delta. Very early in Egyptian history it was adopted as an emblem in Lower Egypt, to match the lotus emblem of the upper division of the land. The papyrus is a graceful plant, and may be seen in pictures of Egyptian goddesses, held in the hand as symbol of divinity; its clustered buds gave the architect a theme for decoration.
The papyrus stem had manifold uses. Bound in bundles, for example, it provided handy rafts or canoes, for use in those bird-hunting expeditions in the fenlands, beloved of Egyptian sportsmen. But above all the tough pellicles of the stem gave mankind its first cheap an practicable writing material. The interesting process by which the raw material of the papyrus was prepare smoothed, and rolled, need not detain us. Two poir only need preliminary reference. First, it is a fact th the papyrus, when kept dry, endures for ever. South Cairo it never rains, and in fortunate consequence writings of dwellers in Egypt under five empires — Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Islamic-have survived to charm, amuse, or instruct the modern world.
The second point is that papyrus rolls when burned on a camp-fire fill the desert night with a pleasant aroma, and that the Beduin have earned the wrath of scholarship by burning countless rolls of literature for which most scholars would today exchange the Koran, and all else the Arabs have written.
There are papyri in Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. There are literary papyri which have proved
important contributions to the corpus of Aristotle, to Greek elegy, and Greek comedy. The non-literary papyri date from 311 B.C. to the seventh century. They come from the wrappings of mummies, the stuffed bodies of sacred crocodiles, and from mere waste-paper heaps, all manner of documents which have the same degree of unity one might find in the sacks of waste-paper sent to any paper-mill for pulping.
They have proved, wrote J. H. Moulton, half a century ago, a treasure which has been perpetually fruitful in surprises. The attention of the classical world has been busy with the lost treaty of Aristotle and the new poets Bacchylides and Herodas, while theologians everywhere have eagerly discussed new Sayings of Jesus. But even these last must yield in importance to the spoil which has been gathered from the wills, official reports, private letters, petitions, accounts, and other trivial survivals from the rubbish heaps of antiquity.
These "trivial survivals" have provided the documents which throw vivid light on the Nativity, for from their number come the enrolment returns which were used by Sir William Ramsay to establish the periodic nature of the Roman census, and the historical realities behind the magnificently told story in the third gospel.

A public notice will provide the first illustration. It has emerged from the rainless sand, with its first paragraph still clearly legible, and dated A.D. 104. It runs:
Gaius Vibius, chief prefect of Egypt. Because of the approaching census it is necessary for all those residing for any cause away from their own districts to prepare to return at once to their own governments, in order that they may complete the family administration of the enrolment, and that the tilled lands may retain those belonging to them. Knowing that your city has need of provisions, I desire...
At this point the document becomes too fragmentary to decipher. But such was the notice which a carpenter named Joseph found posted up in Nazareth one day, and read with a sinking heart. The Roman bureaucrats had little care for the comfort of those they ruled, and for census purposes it was convenient to gather the population in their own home towns.
It was probably legally necessary for both Joseph and Mary to present themselves, in accordance with the regulations, in Bethlehem. It was no doubt in conformity with a law mentioned twice in the closing chapters of the Book of Numbers' that Mary had been betrothed to Joseph.
Daughters, the law stated, who find themselves heirs to their father's property, must marry within the tribe.
Thus Jesus, who was "the Son of Mary," of the royal line of David, could only be "King of the Jews" if He were reckoned as the legal son of a member of the same tribe.
Hence the genealogy of Joseph in Matthew's Gospel. In Luke's Gospel, Joseph is called "the son of Eli," and this must have been Mary's father, Joseph being considered the legal heir in the absence of sons. This, according to one theory, is the explanation of the variant genealogies in the two Gospels, and it is eminently reasonable.
It may, therefore, have been obligatory for the Holy Family to journey, at that precarious hour, to Bethlehem.
Remembering the imperious Roman regulation, some have assumed the presence in the little town of sundry other personalities. Hillel, the great Pharisee, was, it appears, of David's royal line, and in spite of his great age, may have been there that day. And were his son Simeon, and his grandson Gamaliel, at whose feet Paul was to sit, also present? And did this considerable party fill the inn, leaving only the stable for the late arrivals, who had journeyed more tenderly and toilfully?
It may, incidentally, be possible to identify the inn.
Jeremiah (14: 17) speaks of a certain 'geruth', or "inn' which "is by Bethlehem." It was in the possession of one Chimham. Was this a descendant of Chimham, son of Barzillai, who, because of his father's beneficence to the exiled David (2 Sam. 19: 31-38), was treated by the king as a son? Did he become thus, as the son of a great sheep-rancher, the steward of the royal sheep lands at Bethlehem? Did he build a hostelry which remained in the family after the stable fashion of the East, to provide a refuge in Jeremiah's day, and a rendezvous for shepherds (Luke 2: 15) in New Testament times?
Pure speculation, no doubt, but there is one point in which legend and ancient art have presented us with a picture somewhat out of focus. The "lowly cattle shed" of the carol gives an incorrect impression. As a visitor of David's line, for all her poverty, Mary might naturally have expected the best accommodation, but the "kata-luma," or "the guest-chamber," which should not be translated "inn," was already occupied. The host gave his next best accommodation, without thought of slighting his guest. It would probably be a rock-cut cavern with a raised platform, where visitors could sleep in sight of their tethered beasts and stacked luggage. They would not regard themselves as hard done by.
The next morning Joseph had some documents to file with the authorities. From the Egyptian papyri come many examples of the statutory returns and declarations made by the subject of Rome in the periodic enrolments.
The following are two interesting examples. The first dates from A.D. 48, and is a document of the fourth census after the one mentioned in the Gospel of Luke:
To Dorion chief magistrate and to Didymus town clerk, from Thermoutharion, the daughter of Thoonis, with her guardian Apollonius the son of Sotades. The inhabitants of the house belonging to me in the South Lane are: Thermoutharion a freedwoman of the aforesaid Sotades, about 65 years of age, of medium height, with honey-coloured complexion, having a long face and a scar on the right knee. ... (A line is missing here which describes a second woman). I, the aforesaid Thermoutharion (the document continues with an affidavit), with my guardian the said Apollonius, swear by Tiberius Claudius Caesar Emperor, that I have assuredly, honestly, and truthfully presented the preceding return of those living with me, and that no one else lives with me, neither a stranger, Alexandrian nor freedman, nor Roman, nor Egyptian, except the afore-said.
If I am swearing truly may it be well with me,
if falsely the opposite.
The second document is dated something like a century later, and it is chosen because it speaks of a woman who, like Mary, if tradition is correct, must have been a mere girl when her son was born. Tausiris was thirty-four when her son is returned as aged seventeen:
To Julius Saturninus, officer of the Heracleopolite nome, from Petesouchos son of Pisiotis of the village of Ancyronon. I make my return in the 9th year of Antoninus Caesar, the lord, in accordance with the order of Valerius Proclus the prefect. Myself, Petesouchos aged 42, my wife Tausiris daughter of Pareitis, aged 34, Pnephorus my son aged 17. I swear by the fortune of the emperor that I have presented the aforesaid return honestly and truthfully and have told no lie nor omitted anyone who ought to have been returned by me, nor taken an advantage of identity of names. Otherwise may I endure the consequences of the oath.
At the same time Joseph had another document to fill in for the satisfaction of a bureaucratic age. It was a notification of birth. Many of these documents survive, and the one chosen speaks of a young mother with a husband very considerably older than herself. It dates from the year A.D. 150:
To Socrates and Didymus scribes of the metropolis from Ischyras son of Protas son of Mysthes, his mother being Tasoucharion, daughter of Didas, of the district of Hermonthrace, and from his wife Thiasarion, daughter of Ammonius, son of Mysthes of the same district. We register the son who was born to us, Ischyras, being one year of age in the present year, the I4th, of Antoninus Caesar the lord. I therefore present this notification of birth. Ischyras, aged 44, without distinguishing marks. Thiasarion, aged 24 without distinguishing marks. Written for them by Ammonius, public scribe.
These ancient relics of officialdom will suggest the atmosphere of Bethlehem on the night of the Nativity.
As the returning people of the town sat round David's Well to renew old acquaintance and exchange tales of life abroad, there would be much fierce talk of Rome.
Palestine was a turbulent province, and in many hearts smouldered that fierce resentment which blazed out sixty years later into the fire and passion of the Great Rebellion
—a savage and hopeless struggle against the might of the Empire, which ended only with the destruction of Jerusalem, and the decimation of a race. Christ was born in occupied territory, and anyone who would understand what men were thinking in the world to which He came must take that fact into account. Men and women have not changed essentially in two thousand years and the bitter experience of alien rule was a commonplace of life in the world of the first century. "O little town of Bethle-hem," runs the carol, "how still we see thee lie." Bethlehem was anything but quiet on that crowded night.
These documents have something more than human interest. In the course of this book we shall have frequent occasion to mention the life and work of William Mitchell Ramsay. He it was who, convinced by his studies in the Acts of the Apostles that Luke the Evangelist was an historian of first-rate integrity and accuracy, set out to establish the historical truth of the complex of events surrounding the Nativity.
"Obviously," he wrote in his remarkable book Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? " the story in Luke One and Two can never be demonstrated. There will always remain a large step to be taken in faith... But it is highly important to show that the circumstances with which Luke connects this marvellous event are true, and that, in things which can be tested, he does not fall below the standard of accuracy demanded of ordinary historians."
This Ramsay did. We have already quoted the decree which illustrates the obligation under which the Holy Family found themselves to proceed to Bethlehem.
Ramsay made use of the enrolment returns to establish the fourteen-year rhythm of the Roman Census, and to show that an enrolment took place in Palestine between the years 9 and 6 B.C. The Census mentioned by Luke was thus satisfactorily related to the first governorship of Quiri-nius, itself strongly supported by archacological dis-covery,' over the years 10-7 B.C.
To date the birth of Christ somewhere about 7 B.с. demonstrates a slight inaccuracy in a dating scheme first invented in A.D. 525," but solves all the problems connected with the governorship of Quirinius, or Cyrenius, ' which once occasioned such difficulties in the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel. The exact date of the Nativity of course, it is impossible to establish from papyrological evidence.
Enrolments, for all their periodic certainty, would no doubt cover two or three years, especially in remoter provinces.
Ramsay's method of establishing the historical accuracy of surrounding events was based entirely on material provided by archaeology. His remarkable book, like so many of the major works of half a century ago, is long out of print, but the results have found their way into reputable commentaries, and are now the common possession of the church.