Religion: Behind The First Noel

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How do the experts interpret these lines? As you might guess, they wonder where Luke got them. The first angel's language, some note, was less biblical than ... imperial. Brown called it "a christology phrased in a language that echoes Roman imperial propaganda." Recent scholars have said it is a near parody of one of the Emperor's titles at the time: "Son of God, Lord, Savior of the World, and the One Who Has Brought Peace on Earth."

Was the resemblance accidental? Some of the more left-leaning interpreters doubt it. They claim that as Luke's Nativity went on, it became more openly critical of the Roman system and supportive of the struggles of its poorer Palestinian subjects. Mary's Magnificat, for instance, reprises some of the more radical sentiments of the Hebrew Bible: "[God] hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree/ He hath filled the hungry with good things;/ and the rich he hath sent away empty."

Exegetes like Eden Theological Seminary's Patterson think the angel's birth announcement embodies the hope that Jesus' coming kingdom will turn political as well as religious worlds upside down. "Luke can't be saying anything other than 'You think you have a son of God in Augustus?'" he says. "'You think you have a savior in the Emperor? It's all foolishness. If you want to know the peace of God, not the Pax Romana, you have to look somewhere else.'" Since the '60s, such readings have inspired Christian social activists from civil rights preachers to Catholic liberation theologians.

Other scholars think this interpretation is significantly overdrawn, and suggest that the angel's language may be a straightforward homage to the Augustan official style. However anti-Roman the Gospels' undertones, they point out, they were certainly not offensive enough to prevent Constantine from eventually adopting Christianity as an official religion of his empire in A.D. 313 and exporting it around the world.

MOST CHRISTMAS WORSHIPPERS, OF COURSE, are not currently focusing tightly on the Gospels' backstory. In this holiday season, they will be less interested in analyzing Matthew's message than in celebrating it, less concerned about parsing Luke's sentiments than in singing them. The beauty of Christmas carols is that they can retrieve the drama that the eye may quickly skip over on the page. Luke's description of "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God" is certainly vivid. But does it truly express--the way, perhaps, the single word glory, extended in five-part harmony over four delirious musical measures in Angels We Have Heard on High can--the awesome irruption of heaven's fearful and beautiful phalanxes into our modest reality? As both Matthew and Luke were well aware, it is not enough just to have a Gospel. You need a congregation to truly contemplate the event. Even among congregations inclined toward the most politically progressive analysis of Scripture, when the angel in their pageants intones, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord," valid issues of Christianity's relationship to empires (past and present) recede; hearts hear a simple joyous proclamation of salvation.