The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
. . . When He prepared the heavens I was there : when He set a compass upon the face of the depth . . . Then I was by him, as one brought up with him. Prov. viii. 22.
And let the Sybil of the Gentiles tell us in Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue
“ The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renewed its finished course, Saturnian times
Roll round again ; and mighty years begun
From their first orb, in radiant circles run.
The base degenerate iron offspring ends ;
A golden progeny from heaven descends."
— Dryden’s Pastoral
With reason, then, does S. Augustine exclaim, “ O miracles! O prodigies! O mysteries! Brethren, the laws of nature are changed, God is born as a Man, a virgin is pregnant . . . God who is and was the Creator becomes a creature, He who is unmeasured is held, He who makes men rich is made poor, the Incorporeal is clothed with flesh, the Invisible is seen. . . . What was it that so great a God did, lying in so small a covering of flesh in the crib? Let us hear Him as He teaches us from His Manger-Throne, — teaching not but by example." I, who with three of my fingers poise the earth’s vast mass, I who did create heaven and earth, the King of Glory and Lord of Majesty, beneath whom the columns of heaven tremble, and they that bear the globe are bowed down, — I, for love of thee alone, O man, to deliver thee from thy sin and from the eternal flames of hell, and to bring thee to the happiness of heaven, have come “ leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills ; ”— from heaven have I leapt down upon earth, from the bosom of the Father to the Virgin’s womb. Through the bowels of My compassion have I “ the Dayspring from on high ” visited thee ; I have joined in one person the Word with flesh, a spirit with the slime of earth, God with man, and most intimate have I made the union. I have become a little child, thy bone and thy flesh, I am made man to make thee God. Within the manger, the food, as it were of the ox and the ass, I lie among the beasts, because thou wast living like unto the beasts, — wallowing in flesh and blood. Thou hadst become as the horse and the mule that have no understanding. For man when he was in honour did not understand, and was comparable to the senseless brutes and became like unto them. Therefore did I take flesh upon Me, that thou mayest eat My flesh, that joining it to thy flesh thou mayest breathe the breath of Heavenly and Divine Life.”
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If, then, thou wouldst not err, follow Me as the way to heaven ; hearken unto Me as the Truth; embrace Me as the true Life. Vain is wealth, vain are pleasures, vain the honours of this world, which foolish mortals, like silly children, follow after and covet so greedily. True riches, true pleasures, undying honours are in heaven ; — these doth God enjoy, and His angels and His saints ; — aspire after these. Am I, Christ, the King of kings, born poor and needy, and dost thou, O Christian, seek after comforts and riches ? Have I, the uncreated and illimitable Wisdom, chosen for Myself the pains of flesh and of spirit, and wilt thou indulge in the delights both of the one and of the other? I, whom the heavens cannot contain, am shut up in a tiny body and in this paltry manger, and art thou, Christian, ashamed to be despised as a little one and lowly ? Not in Herod’s palace would I be born, not in the palace of Augustus, but in a cavern, in a manger ; I chose to dwell in humble cottages, and preferred the sheepfold before the royal court, but thou dost follow after courts and the things of courts. Sons of men, why delight ye in vanity, and why seek ye after a lie ?
“The stable cries aloud” — says S. Bernard, sermon 5, “On the Nativity” — “the manger cries aloud, His tears and His clothes. The stable cries out that it is ready to be the shelter and hospital of man who has fallen among thieves; the manger, that food is ready for man that is become like to the beasts ; His tears and His clothes that with them man’s bleeding wounds are now washed and wiped dry.”
Because there was no room for them in the inn — namely, for Mary and Joseph. The reading “for Him,” adopted by some, is, therefore , incorrect. Barradius, who is among these, gives as a reason why the Blessed Virgin brought forth in the cave, and why Christ was laid to rest in a manger and not in a bed, that all the places in the inn had already been taken by the crowd of richer people who were flocking thither for the census. It is very likely that in a small town like Bethlehem there was only one inn ; as S. Luke here implies. But this came to pass by the supreme foreknowledge and providence of Christ, that he might give us an example of the greatest humility and poverty. Hiding Himself away, however, He was made manifest and glorified by God, through the star that summoned the wise men, the angels sent to the shepherds, the overturning of idols, and other miracles which Orosius, bk. vi. ch. 20, and Baronius in his annals, vol. i., recount.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. In the fields and plains about Bethlehem. St Jerome, Ep. 27, Brochardus, and others say that it was the same place where Jacob fed his flocks, and which was called the Tower of Edar, or the flock, because it is rich in pasturage; Gen. xxxv. 21. Here, then, it was that the angels sang “ Glory to God in the highest ; ” and S. Helena built on the spot a Church in honour of the Holy Angels. The place is about a mile from Bethlehem.
Abiding in the field. In Greek ἀγραυλοῦντες — passing the night or keeping their flocks in the field. For αὐλή is a fold or enclosed place, and ἀγρός is a field . Theophylact interprets singing in the fields as though from αὐλεῖν, to sing.
From these words Joseph Scaliger argues that Christ was born in September ; for it is then, he says, and not in December, the depth of winter, when everything is stiff with frost or snow, that sheep are herded and fed in the fields. However, that Christ was born on the 25th of December is the common tradition of the Church and of all ages. In answer to Scaliger’s argument, it may be urged that in warm climates, such as Palestine, flocks stay in the fields even in winter ; whether in the open air, or in sheds prepared for the purpose, such as there doubtless would have been in “the Tower of Edar.” So in Italy one sees sheep and cattle feeding on the plains the whole winter.
Keeping watch over their flocks by night. In the Greek φυλάσσοντες φυλακάς — keeping watch through the four watches of the night to guard their flocks lest they might be pillaged by wolves or robbers. Hence we gather that Christ was born in the night, probably after midnight, when the 25th day of December was beginning. And this is signified mystically (for there is another and literal interpretation of the passage) by the words of Wisdom xviii. 14: — “For while all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of Thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction.”
In memory of the event the Church of the Three Shepherds was afterwards built on this spot. Lucius Dexter in his Chronicle, which he dedicates to S. Jerome, says, “A.U.C. 752, in the consulship of Lentulus and Messala, one year before the consulship of Augustus and Sylvanus, Christ is born, and is pointed out to three shepherds who were holy men.” See Baronius, A.D. 1.
Ver. 9. — And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. “An angel,” says Titus, “in a body which he had assumed to signify that God had assumed a body, and had made Himself visible to men by means of the flesh He had taken upon Him.”
The author of the work “De Nativitate Domini,” attributed to S. Cyprian, Toletus, Francis Lucas, and others think that this angel was Gabriel, for it was he who appeared to the Blessed Virgin and to Zachariah, and he was the agent in all this matter of the Incarnation .
Came upon them. In the Greek ἐπέστη which some translate “ stood over them,” like an angel coming down from heaven. These shepherds, being Jews and believers, are called by an angel, for angels often appeared to the Jews ; the Magi, being Gentiles and astrologers, are called by a star. See S. Gregory, Hom. 10, on the Gospels. Euthymius gives four reasons why the angel appeared first to the shepherds, and not to Scribes or rich citizens. The first is that here at Christ’s crib, all things breathe poverty and lowliness, and the simple shepherds, poor and humble as they are, are more pleasing to God than proud rich men, and incredulous Scribes and Pharisees — “ I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father : for so it seemed good in Thy sight,” Matt. xi. 25. Theophylact remarks on this passage: “ He has overcome the learned by the unlearned, the rich by the poor ; and by fishermen He caught the whole world like fish.”