The Politics of the
Christmas Story
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe
The
single most important fact about the birth of Jesus, as recounted in the
Gospels, is one that receives almost no emphasis in the American festival
of Christmas. The child who was born in Bethlehem represented a drastic
political challenge to the imperial power of Rome. The nativity story is
told to make the point that Rome is the enemy of God, and in Jesus, Rome's
day is over.
The
Gospel of Matthew builds its nativity narrative around Herod's
determination to kill the baby, whom he recognizes as a threat to his own
political sway. The Romans were an occupation force in Palestine, and
Herod was their puppet-king. To the people of Israel, the Roman
occupation, which preceded the birth of Jesus by at least 50 years, was a
defilement, and Jewish resistance was steady. (The historian Josephus says
that after an uprising in Jerusalem around the time of the birth of Jesus,
the Romans crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels.)
Herod was
right to feel insecure on his throne. In order to preempt any challenge
from the rumored newborn "king of the Jews," Herod murdered "all the male
children who were 2 years old or younger." Joseph, warned in a dream,
slipped out of Herod's reach with Mary and Jesus. Thus, right from his
birth, the child was marked as a political fugitive.
The
Gospel of Luke puts an even more political cast on the story. The
narrative begins with the decree of Caesar Augustus calling for a world
census - a creation of tax rolls that will tighten the empire's grip on
its subject peoples. It was Caesar Augustus who turned the Roman republic
into a dictatorship, a power-grab he reinforced by proclaiming himself
divine.
His
census decree is what requires the journey of Joseph and the pregnant Mary
to Bethlehem, but it also defines the context of their child's nativity as
one of political resistance. When the angel announces to shepherds that a
"savior has been born," as scholars like Richard Horsley point out, those
hearing the story would immediately understand that the blasphemous claim
by Caesar Augustus to be "savior of the world" was being repudiated.
When
Jesus was murdered by Rome as a political criminal - crucifixion was the
way such rebels were executed - the story's beginning was fulfilled in its
end. But for contingent historical reasons (the savage Roman war against
the Jews in the late first century, the gradual domination of the Jesus
movement by Gentiles, the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth
century) the Christian memory deemphasized the anti-Roman character of the
Jesus story. Eventually, Roman imperialism would be sanctified by the
church, with Jews replacing Romans as the main antagonists of Jesus, as if
he were not Jewish himself. (Thus, Herod is remembered more for being
part-Jewish than for being a Roman puppet.)
In modern
times, religion and politics began to be understood as occupying separate
spheres, and the nativity story became spiritualized and sentimentalized,
losing its political edge altogether. "Peace" replaced resistance as the
main motif. The baby Jesus was universalized, removed from his decidedly
Jewish context, and the narrative's explicit critiques of imperial
dominance and of wealth were blunted.
This is
how it came to be that Christmas in America has turned the nativity of
Jesus on its head. No surprise there, for if the story were told today
with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about
America's new self-understanding as an imperial power. A story of Jesus
born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an
examination of the American occupation of Iraq. A story of Jesus come
decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption.
A story of the Jewishness of Jesus might undercut the Christian theology
of replacement.
Today the
Roman empire is recalled mainly as a force for good - those roads,
language, laws, civic magnificence, "order" everywhere. The United States
of America also understands itself as acting in the world with good
intentions, aiming at order. "New world order," as George H.W. Bush put
it.
That we
have this in common with Rome is caught by the Latin motto that appears
just below the engraved pyramid on each American dollar bill, "Novus Ordo
Seculorum." But, as Iraq reminds us, such "order" comes at a cost, far
more than a dollar. The price is always paid in blood and suffering by
unseen "nobodies" at the bottom of the imperial pyramid. It is their
story, for once, that is being told this week.
21 December 2004
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