Lamentation

LAMENTATION (θρῆνος, θρηνεῖν).�An expression of sorrow accompanied by wailing and other demonstrations of grief. It is associated in Jn 16:20 with weeping, and also in Lk 23:27, in the case of the women accompanying the Saviour to the Crucifixion. It is applied equally to sorrow for the dead and to grief for approaching disaster (Mt 2:18, Jn 16:20, Lk 23:27), and it is referred to by the Lord as one of the common games of children.

When a death occurred, it was intimated at once by a loud wail which is described (Mk 5:38) as accompanied by a �tumult,� and this lamentation was renewed at the grave of the deceased. Oriental demonstrations of grief are very vivid. Mourners hang over the lifeless form and beg for a response from its lips. When a young person dies unmarried, part of the ceremony of mourning is a form of marriage (see art. Mourning). Lamentation

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indicated in the words, ' we have seen his star in the rising' (iv rrj dvaroXy). It seems clear that they were induced to make the journey by some sidereal appearance; but what exactly this appearance was is not conclusively determined (see art. Star). From this phenomenon, however, whatever it may have been, the Magi inferred the birth of a Messiah-king of the Jews. We cannot say precisely by what means they arrived at this inference. It is unlikely, for chronological and other reasons, that their expectations had been excited by the Zoroastrian prediction of the coming of Soshyos (SBE iv. p. xxxvii); nor is it probable that an independent tradition of Balaam's prophecy (Nu 24¹⁷) had been preserved by their ancestors and handed down to them (Origen, c. Cels. i. 60, Hom. in Num. 13. 7; Op. Imp. in Mt. 2 ap. Chrysost. vi.); nor is there any historical evidence that there was at this time among the nations any widespread expectation of the advent of a Messiah in Palestine (Tac. Hist. v. 13 and Suet. Vesp. 4 are derived from Jos. BJ viEschatology, p. 304; Toy, Judaism, and Christianity, p. 330), and a Rabbinical tradition, which may be previous to Christ's birth, declared that a star in the East was to appear two years before the Messiah's advent (Edersheim, i. pp. 211, 212; Strauss, Life of Jesus, Eng. tr. p. 174 and references; cf. the name Bar-Cochba). Hence the source whence the Magi derived their inference that a king of the Jews was born may well have been the Jews of the Diaspora, whose tenets would doubtless be known to the wise men of the lands in which they sojourned.

The time of the visit of the Magi is quite uncertain. By ancient writers it was usually supposed that they arrived at Bethlehem on the 13th day inclusive after the birth of Christ, i.e. Jan. 6 (Aug. Serm. 203. 1). Most commentators, however, place their coming after Christ's presentation in the Temple ; and some, as an inference from Mt 2¹⁶, delay it till Jesus had reached or nearly reached His second year (see Patritius, iii. 326 ff.; Spanheim, ii. p. 299 ff.; Trench, p. 109 ff.; Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? pp. 215-220). Here also the evidence is insufficient to warrant a definite conclusion.

2. The historical value of the narrative has been frequently impugned, the principal objections being as follows. The account of the Magi is found in the First Gospel only, and is not corroborated by either Lk. or Josephus or any pagan historian. (The references in Macrobius, Sat. ii. 4. 11, and Chalcidius, Tim. 7. 126, cannot be regarded as independent evidence). Moreover, it is not easy to see how Mt.'s narrative can be harmonized with that of Luke. Many of the details, again, are suspicious; the conduct of Herod, as here represented, seems inexplicable (Meyer, in loc.). Finally, the story in general is vague, and on a priori grounds may even be held to be improbable. These objections are not without force. Doubtless too much stress has been laid on the absence of confirmatory evidence, and the argument from the silence of Josephus can scarcely be sustained (Edersheim, i. pp. 214, 215; Trench, p. 102ff.). The difficulties in connexion with Herod's attitude have also been overestimated (Weiss, i. p. 269). Yet the divergence between Mt. and Lk., though certainly not incapable of explanation (Ellicott, Huls. Lect. p. 70), is sufficiently serious; and the positive evidence for the truth of the narrative is slender. It may be urged, however, that there is no reason for denying the existence in the narrative of at least a substratum of historical fact, though possibly the facts have been treated with a certain amount of freedom. Such a view, at any rate, appears to account for the story better than any rationalistic explanation hitherto put forward.

Of these attempted explanations the most important may briefly be summarized, (a) The older school of critics sought for the basis of the history mainly in the prophecies of the OT. Thus Strauss laid great stress on Nu 24¹⁷, while Keim emphasized Is 60. From these and other prophetical passages (e.g. Is 9² 42⁶ 49^{6. 7}, Ps 68^{29, 31} 72), supplemented possibly by Jewish or pagan tradition, the Evangelist is supposed to have built up his story. But it is incredible that the history could have been constructed from such material, or that such a fulfilment could have been deliberately devised for prophecies which at the time were understood to have so different a significance (Edersheim, i. p. 209). Moreover, it should be noted that 'the Evangelist who at other times searches zealously for the fulfilment of OT predictions, nowhere refers in this narrative to one of these prophetical passages, from which it is said to have arisen' (Weiss, i. p. 267). (b) A different, and very fanciful explanation has been offered by W. Soltau, Usener, and others (Soltau, Birth of Jesus Christ; Usener in Encyc. Bibl. art. 'Nativity,' cf. his Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, i. 'Das Weihnachtsfest'). According to this, Mt.'s account is the outcome partly of the operation of heathen superstitious ideas, partly of the transformation of a story recorded by Dio Cassius and Pliny. Thus, for the incident of the star, Soltau appeals to the widespread belief that such portents were manifested in connexion with the birth and death of kings and heroes (for instances see Wetstein, in loc.; Winer, Biblisches Realw�rterbuch, vol. ii. p. 613); and, for the Massacre of the Innocents, Usener refers to the story of Marathus concerning the birth of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 94). The visit of the Magi is represented as a Christian transformation of the story related by Dio and Pliny about the visit of Tiridates and his Magians to Nero (see the passages quoted by Soltau, op. cit. pp. 73, 74). In the year a.d. 66 the Parthian king Tiridates, the Magus, bringing other Magi with him, journeyed to Rome, worshipped Nero as the sun-god Mithra, and afterwards travelled home by another way through the cities of Asia. Now to the Christians of the East Nero was Antichrist: hence it is argued that just as, in the early legends, the miraculous events of Christ's life were transferred to Antichrist, so the story of being worshipped by Magi may have been transferred from the Antichrist Nero to the Christ. The whole narration of the Magi, then, Soltau dismisses as an insertion 'of Hellenistic origin' (op. cit. p. 49). But he does not explain how this insertion received so characteristic a Jewish form, or why such alien elements should have 'crystallized themselves in just the most markedly Jewish part of the New Testament, while they are passed over in silence elsewhere' (Interpreter, Jan. 1906, pp. 195-207). On the whole it is easier to suppose that the events recorded actually took place, than to believe the far-fetched explanations of them offered by Soltau and Usener. (c) Other critics, again, resort to a mythological solution, and regard the adoration of the Magi and the attendant events as 'not history, but pious transformations of current mythic stories.' R�ville believes that it was suggested by the Mithraic legend, though he admits that the supposition is incapable of proof (�tudes publi�es en hommage � la facult� de th�ologie de Montauban, 1901, p. 339 ff.). Pfleiderer and Cheyne maintain that the star, the worship of the wise men, and the persecution of the Holy Child have many prototypes in tales concerning heroes of old, and belong to a pre-Christian international myth of the Redeemer (Pfleiderer, Early Christian Conception of Christ; Cheyne, Bible Problems); on which it may be remarked that although striking parallels can undoubtedly be produced, yet resemblances do not necessarily presuppose an imitation. (d) Another suggestion is that the narrative exhibits the characteristic features of Jewish Midrash or Haggādā, and is governed by an apologetic purpose. The writer's object is to show that the prophecy of Dt 18¹⁵ was fulfilled in Jesus, and he endeavours to do this by drawing a parallel between the early career of Moses and that of the Christian Messiah (see the Midrash Rabbā to Exodus in the section which deals with the birth of Moses, and cf. Jos. Ant. II. ix. 2). Jesus is throughout represented as the antitype of Moses. This is the underlying motive of the narrative, to which may be added another influential idea, viz. the desire to suggest the homage of the Gentile world (G. H. Box in Interpreter, loc. cit.). The simplicity of the Gospel story, however, seems to be at variance with this hypothesis.

Allusion may here be made to the theory that the history of the Magi was added to the Gospel as late as the year A.D. 119. The evidence for this is a Syriac document, ascribed to Eusebius of C�sarea, which was published with an Eng. translation by W. Wright in the Journal of Sacred Literature, vols. ix., x., 1866, from a 6th cent. British Museum codex, Add. 17, 142. The title is, 'Concerning the star; showing how and through what the Magi recognized the star, and that Joseph did not take Mary as his wife.' This tractate relates that the prophecy of Balaam about the star was recorded in a letter written by Balak to the

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