Raymond E. Brown's THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH

Rev. R. Roy Baines, Jr., rector of St. David's Episcopal Church, provided Vivace with Rev. Raymond E. Brown's The Birth of the Messiah, an inspiring commentary on the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. Each segment of the story is newly translated, analyzed, and carefully related to Old Testament antecedents, the development and function in the early church, and current thought.

A Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Brown's work has been received widely. A lecturer throughout the world in Protestant and Catholic Universities, he served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association as well as the Protestant-Catholic-Jewish Society of Biblical Literature. He is an international expert on the Gospel of John, particularly well known for the Anchor Bible volumes, and his general commentaries are widely used. Published in 1977, The Birth of the Messiah is still considered the most comprehensive treatment of the subject. From this tome, we share with you a few observations on the Visitation and, in particular, the Magnificat.

BACKGROUND

• The Magnificat is a canticle that Luke brought into the birth narrative at a later date as a "hymn that describes Israel, specifically the poor and oppressed remnant," with which Mary is identified.
    
• Both Elizabeth and Mary receive "a revelation of what God has done for the other, and so Luke gives each a canticle of praise with which to respond to God's mercy."
    
• "The Magnificat cannot be discussed in isolation from the other three canticles of the Lucan infancy narrative: the Benedictus (1:67-79), the Gloria in Excelsis (2:13-14), and the Nunc Dimittis (2:28-32)." [All of these are texts that choral singers know well.]
    
• The canticles "are all highly evocative of OT and intertestamental passages."
    
• The canticles "were composed in a non-Lucan circle and ... praised the salvific action of God without any precise reference to the events that Luke was narrating ... They have their closest parallel in the Jewish hymns and psalms attested in the literature from 100 B.C. to A.D. 100."
    
• " ... a tremendous sense of salvation accomplished through the House of David ... plus the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham ... are very common Christian themes and are better explained if the canticles arose in a Jewish Christian community."
    
• "... the religious atmosphere of this community was the piety of the Anawim ... those who could not trust in their own strength but had to rely in utter
  confidence upon God: the lowly, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the widows and orphans. The opposite of the Anawim were not simply the rich, but the proud and self-sufficient who showed no need of God or His help."
    
• "The existence of these Jewish Christian Anawim is not purely hypothetical. In Acts 2:43-47; 4:32-37 Luke describes with nostalgia ... the Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem."

STRUCTURE OF THE MAGNIFICAT

• "... the Magnificat resembles in many ways the psalm type known as the hymn of praise. This usually consists of three parts:
  (a) An introduction praising God.
  (b) The body of the hymn listing the motives of praise.
  (c) The conclusion ... may recapitulate some of the motives, may include a blessing, or make a request."
    
• "The poetic parallelism of lines is very clear in several parts of the Magnificat ..."
    
• "The poverty and hunger of the oppressed in the Magnificat are primarily spiritual, but we should not forget the physical realities faced by early Christians."
    
• "... the Magnificat anticipates the Lucan Jesus in preaching that wealth and power are not real values at all since they have no standing in God's sight. This is not an easy message, even for those who profess credence in Jesus."
    
• "Mary's canticle ... in response to Elizabeth's canticle ... ends the saga of the two annunciations. The dramatis personae of the annunciation scenes have now been brought together. Elizabeth in the shorter canticle has praised Mary the mother, but Mary in the longer canticle has transferred the praise to God who has the principal role in the drama of salvation."