'Christ's family were refugees too'

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Speaking of the "flight into Egypt," do you know what I've always wondered? How come God could warn Joseph and Mary, so as to save their child, but kind of forget to mention it to all the other families whose children were then supposedly slaughtered in the "Massacre of the Innocents?" Clerical oversight? Lack of interest?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Speaking of the "flight into Egypt," do you know what I've always wondered? How come God could warn Joseph and Mary, so as to save their child, but kind of forget to mention it to all the other families whose children were then supposedly slaughtered in the "Massacre of the Innocents?" Clerical oversight? Lack of interest?

They weren't Jesus and didn't matter to the story, so there was no point in saving them.

 

[Shad]

Its not actually.

When Jesus was born, Judea was not yet an annexed and forcibly carved up buffer province of the Roman Empire - but rather a unitary client state under a nominally independent ruler, King Herod the Great (and then his sons in a Tetrarchy after his death), which had, until very recently, been an entirely sovereign state under the Hasmonean Dynasty and an ally of the Roman Republic.

Okay fleeing to PR then. Neither are independent

 

[Vouthon]

Okay fleeing to PR then. Neither are independent

The point is that Herod had no jurisdiction in Egypt and since his kingdom was not technically part of the Roman Empire at this point, it made the border an international border between separate states.

Mary, Joseph and their child were fleeing across it to evade persecution by the Herodian regime. That's a refugee.

So, no - Puerto Rico isn't a client state but a territory of the U.S., like a colony really. Again, Judea wasn't a colony at this point but a client state that Rome didn't yet directly run.

 

[Shad]

The point is that Herod had no jurisdiction in Egypt and since his kingdom was not technically part of the Roman Empire at this point, it made the border an international border between separate states.

Point is Herod was not independent as per client state status. The jurisdiction boundaries were due to the Roman system itself. Ergo like fleeing from PR to Florida

Mary, Joseph and their child were fleeing across it to evade persecution by the Herodian regime. That's a refugee.

Of a client state not an independent one, fleeing to a province under the same authority as the client state. They didn't flee to a foreign state nor from one. Herod's sole authority is via Rome.

Toss in the flight was ordered by God thus not a refugee.

 

[Audie]

Point is it is a made-up story.

 

[Shad]

Point is it is a made-up story.

Beside that there is an axiom regarding Jesus while there is no such axiom at play with modern refugees.

 

[TheresOnlyNow]

Jesus and family were 'refugees,' Ocasio-Cortez points out in Christmas message

Ocasio-Cortez gets abuse on Twitter for saying 'Christ's family were refugees too' in Christmas message

“The émigré Holy Family of Nazareth, fleeing into Egypt, is the archetype of every refugee family.”

– Pope Pius XII, 1952, in Exsul Familia Nazarethena

“Arise, and take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt….” (Matthew 2:13).

'Jesus was a refugee', Pope Francis says ahead of World Refugee Day

And Jesus said unto us: I am the hope for them that are in despair, the helper of the helpless, the treasure of the poor and the doctor of the sick. (The Epistula Apostolorum: Epistle of the Apostles (140 - 150 A.D.))

​

Do you remember that passage from the Gospel of Matthew, where the Holy Family are attempting to flee into exile across the border from a mad ruler...and Mary and Joseph are detained as criminals and separated from the infant Jesus, who is subsequently put in a cage in a detention centre?

Of course, the actual Nativity we are all familiar with - through endless kindergarten and school plays, and festive greeting cards - doesn't end like that. While King Herod is off slaughtering the innocents to try and kill future claimants to his throne, Mary and Joseph safely cross the border into Egypt, where they are given sanctuary far away from the Judean monarch's infanticidal policies.

But sadly, in this day and age, such a fate - separation of refugee children from their families at a border - became a stark reality, as the world looked aghast at the ugly face of the Trump administration.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - who is a practising Catholic, as well as being a democratic socialist and progressive politician - recently became embroiled in a heated media storm with Trump supporting American pundits, over a Christmas tweet in which she said that Jesus and his parents were refugees fleeing persecution - and so implicitly comparing the plight of modern-day refugees on the U.S. border and in Europe with that of the Holy Family. Apparently, this is tantamount to sacrilege and blasphemy - judging by the reaction she received from certain quarters.

Her 'crime' was to remind her twitter followers of the bare facts of the original Christmas story and what befell the family of Jesus.

I, for one, completely agree with her and found myself feeling somewhat embittered by the vitriolic claims that she was exploiting the Nativity story and the festive holiday in the interests of narrow political opportunism and just couldn't give it a break to honour the sacred day.

The fact is that in fleeing Judea for Egypt - with nursing mother and child in toe - to escape the despotism and paranoia of King Herod in Judea, as he set about murdering baby boys, the Holy Family did become prototypes for families the world over and throughout history, who are forced by war, famine, discrimination or desperation to uproot themselves and seek shelter in an alien land for their personal safety.

There is undeniable social commentary at the heart of the Christmas story and of Christianity more generally. This is is evident to everyone who studies the texts in detail.

When the pregnant Mary contemplates the significance of her role as the future Mother of the Redeemer of the Human Race, in Luke's literary narrative, with the potent words, "God my Saviour...has looked with favour on the lowliness of his maidservant...He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." (Luke 1:47-53), this should be a red-alert to readers that conventional societal norms are being called into question and that the Christ-child represents the birth of a hope that, while transcending this earthly world, radically inverts its values and oppressive structures.

This is the longest speech delivered by a woman in the New Testament and it has proved to be massively influential in the history of Christian thought. Mary begins by glorifying the greatness of God (Luke 1:46), acknowledges her devotion to the Lord (Luke 1:48), and then promises deliverance to the poor and oppressed through the reversal of unjust social structures, courtesy of the salvific hope she carries in her womb: the as-yet-unborn Jesus (Luke 1:50-53).

It is indisputable that the wealthy and prideful authority, alluded to in the Magnificat and foremost in the mind of the Evangelist, was King Herod.

Regardless of its historicity or lack thereof, the Nativity story as it has passed down to us is a powerful and truly beautiful parable. The Creator of the universe incarnates in the womb of a powerless Jewish peasant girl, wife to a humble carpenter. His first hours are spent in a manger intended for animal feed because there is no space for his family in the village inn or upper rooms, and his parents then, for his own safety, are compelled to flee their homeland for an uncertain future in another country to escape the clutches of a power-hungry monarch. His coming is announced first to shepherds (powerless country folk, on the peripheries of Judean society) and foreigners (the Magi), symbolising the focus of his mission as an adult to the excluded and marginalised. This baby boy, the victim of so much misfortune at his birth - the polar opposite of a royal upbringing or heroic origins, as with an ancient Greek or Roman aristocratic hero - grows up to be (according to the Evangelists) the "Prince of Peace" and true King of Kings, friend of prostitutes, sinners, the disabled, the poor, sick, the alien and the oppressed.

Yes, the Holy Family were refugees. And this is essential to understanding the intended meaning of the story. The Holy Family, denied any welcome and giving birth to Jesus in a stable, until finally given sanctuary not in their own country but in a foreign land by people of another race. The word to focus on is pheuge, “flee,” from which comes the word “refugee,” the one who flees. Thus even Matthew’s angel labels the Holy Family as refugees.

As Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., a New Testament scholar, reminds us in his commentary on Matthew in the Sacra Pagina series:

Egypt, which came under Roman control in 30 B.C., was outside the jurisdiction of Herod. Egypt had been the traditional place of refuge for Jews both in biblical times (see 1 Kgs 11:40; Jer 26:21) and in the Maccabean era when the high priest Onias IV fled there.

​

Why do some people strive to blunt the sharp social commentary-aspects of the Gospel message, yet claim fidelity to Christ?

His teaching:

'I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in...For truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:38)
​

According to Ms Ocasio-Cortez's religion, the principles of the natural law dictate that due to the “unity of all mankind, which exists in law and in fact, individuals do not feel themselves isolated units, like grains of sand” for which reason “the nations are not destined to break the unity of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing of their own peculiar gifts and by that reciprocal interchange of goods” (Pope Pius XII, 1939), meaning that "the natural law itself, no less than devotion to humanity", urges that “ways of migration be opened to people forced by revolutions in their own countries, or by unemployment or hunger to leave their homes and live in foreign lands” because “the sovereignty of the State cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations” (Pope Pius XII, 1952).

Good on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for preaching and living by these principles this Christmastime! Thank you for reminding us all of the events of the Christmas story.

We need more politicians like her.

It is precisely because of politicians like herself that America is in the dilemma it is currently in matters of illegal alien invasion. And those who defend that.

The so called caravan south of our border now and trying to gain entry are not refugees.
If Ms.Ocasio-Cortez was an informed law maker she'd know this.
International law declares a refugee must seek sanctuary in the nearest nation free of conflict outside of the point of threat the refugee has fled.
That would make the caravan people to seek refugee status well south of our border. Depending on what nation the individual alien claims to hail from as a refugee seeking sanctuary.

Citing the holy family as the former example of the illegal aliens caravan seeking to trespass our borders is reprehensible.
And shows ignorance of Biblical history as pertained to the times described as the angel of God and his command to Joseph in Matthew 2:13“Arise, and take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt….”
Egypt was part of the Roman empire at that time. Joseph and Mary therefore were not fleeing from one country to another as refugees. Joseph and Mary were still Roman citizens due to Rome's conquest of lands.
Joseph and Mary were taking flight in today's terms as one would flee from California to Oregon. That does not constitute refugee status.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Refugee:“someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”

 

[Audie]

Beside that there is an axiom regarding Jesus while there is no such axiom at play with modern refugees.

Prease exprain

 

[Vouthon]

Point is Herod was not independent as per client state status.

Perhaps we should define the precise meaning of 'client state' in this context. Officially, Herod was socius et amicus populi Romani, "King, friend and ally of the Roman people".

We know that in point of fact, Herod's regime was dependent on Rome and that if he stepped out of line the Roman Army would sweep in, Soviet style as they did during the Czechoslovak Spring in 1968, and reassert control. But so long as he obeyed Roman foreign policy, he did 'rule' Judea and it wasn't considered part of the Empire.

If Britain leaves the European Union next year but accepts Theresa May's deal involving the backstop for Northern Ireland, or decides to retain participation in the Single Market and Customs Union, it will be an independent state again for the first time in 46 years but will also be a de facto 'vassal' state (according to many commentators) of the EU, since it will remain in regulatory alignment with the Union (in its "orbit") and will not be able to conduct its own trade policy.

But Britain will still pass its own laws, has its own army and is to all intents and purposes sovereign - save that its economic life is in near-complete dependence upon its larger neighbour and it has to stay in regulatory alignment for commercial purposes.

Now, post-Brexit, free movement of persons between the EU and the Union stops. It becomes a third country. So if one seeks 'refuge' in Europe, or EU citizens seek refuge in the UK, they are seeking refuge abroad - in a foreign land, another jurisdiction.

Another, better, example is the countries behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, which were client states of the Soviet Union. Indeed, many regard American allies today as 'vassals' since U.S. military bases and armed forces operate in these countries under the auspices of NATO and it is quite unthinkable for them to act militarily independent of American support or approval.

Judea, likewise, was not yet part of the Roman Empire but it paid tribute and was in vassalage. It had a great degree of autonomy, including its own army and diplomatic relations with other states, even the Empire.

To my understanding, because it hadn't yet been annexed as a province, ttere wasn't a borderless free movement of persons between Judea and the rest of the Empire as within the EU today. It was an actual border at the time.

Of a client state not an independent one, fleeing to a province under the same authority as the client state. They didn't flee to a foreign state.

Who were they fleeing from?

Not the Romans but the Herodians.

Now, answer me this: did Herod have authority over or any jurisdiction in Egypt?

Of course not. So they were safe there from his policies. Hence....why they fled.

In Puerto Rico or Texas, one cannot escape the legal oversight and executive reach of the Federal Government.

 

[Vouthon]

Point is it is a made-up story.

Its historicity or lack thereof is entirely irrelevant.

The fact is that Trump claims to be a believer in this story. Most Americans claim to be believers in this story - because they profess Christianity.

And if you are a Christian, this story is divinely inspired and the teachings imparted by it have moral authority over your conscience - again, irrespective of whether or not it is fictional.

 

[Vouthon]

Egypt was part of the Roman empire at that time. Joseph and Mary therefore were not fleeing from one country to another as refugees. Joseph and Mary were still Roman citizens due to Rome's conquest of lands.
Joseph and Mary were taking flight in today's terms as one would flee from California to Oregon. That does not constitute refugee status.

See my prior posts, please.

Judea was not officially part of the Roman Empire under King Herod but a quasi-sovereign client state and the Holy Family were not in flight from the Romans but from the Herodian regime which had no jurisdiction in Egypt.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

They weren't Jesus and didn't matter to the story, so there was no point in saving them.

Exactly...just wish you had supplied some emphasis on that central word, "story."

 

[Windwalker]

You sure dont look very long hard or deep, but never mind.

You sure fill in blanks with your imagination. I'd say nevermind as well, but of course, you will nonetheless. It hits home to you for a reason.

 

[Shad]

Perhaps we should define the precise meaning of 'client state' in this context. Officially, Herod was socius et amicus populi Romani, "King, friend and ally of the Roman people". We know that in point of fact, Herod's regime was dependent on Rome and that if he stepped out of line the Roman Army would sweep in, Soviet style as they did during the Czechoslovak Spring in 1968, and reassert control. But so long as he obeyed Roman foreign policy, he did 'rule' Judea and it wasn't considered part of the Empire.

Irrelevant. Roman still exercised authority of Herod when it pleased. Now go look up what a refugee is via the UN.

If Britain leaves the European Union next year but accepts Theresa May's deal involving the backstop for Northern Ireland, or decides to retain participation in the Single Market and Customs Union, it will be an independent state again for the first time in 46 years but will also be a de facto 'vassal' state (according to many commentators) of the EU, since it will remain in regulatory alignment with the Union (in its "orbit") and will not be able to conduct its own independent trade policy.

Yup.

Britain will still pass its own laws, has its own army and is to all intents and purposes sovereign - save that its economic life is in near-complete dependence upon its larger neighbour and it has to stay in regulatory alignment for commercial purposes.

Laws which can be overruled by the EU when still within it.

Now, post-Brexit, free movement of persons between the EU and the Union stops. It becomes a third country. So if one seeks 'refuge' in Europe, or EU citizens seek refuge in the UK, they are seeking refuge abroad - in a foreign land, another jurisdiction.

Yup. Key word. Sovereign.

Another, better, example is the countries behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, which were client states of the Soviet Union. Indeed, many regard American allies today as 'vassals' since U.S. military bases and armed forces operate in these countries under the auspices of NATO and it is quite unthinkable for them to act militarily independent of American support or approval.

Not sovereign

Judea, likewise, was not yet part of the Roman Empire but it paid tribute and was in vassalage. It had a great degree of autonomy, including its own army and diplomatic relations with other states, even the Empire.

Not sovereign.

There wasn't a borderless free movement of persons between Judea and the rest of the Empire as within the EU today. It was an actual border at the time.

Borderless free movement is not required

Who were they fleeing from?

No one. It was an order by God to go to Egypt.

Not the Romans but the Herodians.

No God told them to.

Now, answer me this: did Herod have authority over or any jurisdiction in Egypt?

Irrelevant. Does the governor of PR have authority in Texas?

Of course not. So they were safe there from his policies. Hence....why they fled.

To Texas from PR

In Puerto Rico or Texas, one cannot escape the legal oversight and executive reach of the Federal Government.

Same with Herod's case as he can not escape the oversight of Rome.

 

[TheresOnlyNow]

See my prior posts, please.

Judea was not officially part of the Roman Empire under King Herod but a quasi-sovereign client state and the Holy Family were not in flight from the Romans but from the Herodian regime which had no jurisdiction in Egypt.

That matters little to the factor of refugee status. Egypt, even if Herod had no jurisdiction, was still a co-Roman province with Judea.

 

[Vouthon]

That matters little to the factor of refugee status. Egypt, even if Herod had no jurisdiction, was still a co-Roman province with Judea.

Only that Judea wasn't a province but a client state that on the surface was meant to appear independent and was in fact quasi-independent.

There was an actual border between Judea and Egypt that didn't exist between Egypt and the rest of the Empire, because Egypt was actually a province of the Empire.

I struggle to understand why the distinction appears to be lost on many.

 

[Vouthon]

Irrelevant. Roman still exercised authority of Herod when it pleased. Now go look up what a refugee is via the UN.

The UN definition: "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution"

Mary and Joseph fled their country into another country - fleeing from one persecuting government, that of the Herodian regime, to a place directly under Roman rule which wasn't implementing such policies. Thereby making it a safe haven, because Herod had no jurisdiction outside the borders of Judea but did within his kingdom, which was not part of the Roman Empire.

No one. It was an order by God to go to Egypt.

Because it wasn't safe for them to remain in Judea while Herod was in power and intent on killing their child.

 

[TheresOnlyNow]

Only that Judea wasn't a province but a client state that on the surface was meant to appear independent and was in fact quasi-independent.

There was an actual border between Judea and Egypt that didn't exist between Egypt and the rest of the Empire, because Egypt was actually a province of the Empire.

I struggle to understand why the distinction appears to be lost on many.

Likely because of the false corollary a Twitter member and Congress person hoped to make as a Liberal at Christmas.
Thinking the holy family and their flight from Judea unto Egypt was like unto illegal alien caravans traveling from parts of south America to the U.S.. When in fact the holy family's flight was more like a family traveling from California to Washington state. Or, from Utah to Puerto Rico.

To put it concisely, the holy family were not refugees. They were citizens traveling and fleeing Herod's edict. But they were always in Roman territory.

 

[Shad]

The UN definition: "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution"

Which uses the Westphalia definition of nation-state. Jesus is still not a refugee as Judea is not sovereign by that standard. The standard used in your quote above.

Mary and Joseph fled their country into another country - fleeing from one persecuting government, that of the Herodian regime, to a place directly under Roman rule which wasn't implementing such policies. Thereby making it a safe haven, because Herod had no jurisdiction outside the borders of Judea but did within his kingdom, which was not part of the Roman Empire.

It was not a nation thus not a country. They fled by order to God. Read the Bible. Herod's plans were a secret. An angel told the family to flee not by an act of Herod. So how do you think this would play out at the border.

"God told to that my government is plotting against me. I have no knowledge of this beside through God, no evidence, etc, etc,."

The Bible provides information no normal person would actually know as a reader. The family has knowledge no normal person would have via God.

Because it wasn't safe for them to remain in Judea while Herod was in power and intent on killing their child.

By order of God not an act of Herod. See the above.