The ox and ass

Graham MacFarlane

Sermon from the Eucharist service on Christmas morning

Nativity, stone relief from Naxos, 4th or 5th century, Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens

As a child my favourite part of setting up the house for Christmas was laying out the creche scene. It was wooden, hand carved and unpainted, the biggest figures about five or six inches tall. And I would play with it all the time over Christmas - I would set it up in different configurations: Now Joseph takes the Magi’s camels go on an adventure, now the angel and Mary and the shepherd boy have something to discuss, now the ox and the ass are eating out of the manger. I loved all the elements in this scene, but I knew which ones were the central characters and which were more peripheral. When it was all set up, Christ was the middle, in the manger, with Mary beside him, and with Joseph beside her. Everyone else - human, angel, or animal, gathered around the holy family. If you had asked me to start taking figures out of the scene until all that was left was the bare minimum, I would have taken away everyone except for Jesus in the manger, and Mary, and maybe Joseph. Isn’t it always in question whether Joseph will make the cut? In any case, as a child I knew that the basic, essential nativity scene is the holy family, and most essentially, mother and son. 

Now if you look at the history of how Christians have portrayed the nativity in their images and art, you will find that the scene didn’t start out with all of these different characters, it developed into that familiar creche. It started simple and grew from there. And you would think that it started with just Mary and Jesus, and that then Joseph would be added, and then the angel, and then the shepherd, and so on. But that’s actually not what happened. The most basic and primitive image of the nativity has just the baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling cloths and laying in a manger, attended by an ox and an ass. For a good example of this most primitive type, see the picture above. It is a slab of marble, it’s pretty big, almost a meter by a meter, and it has a relief sculpture of the nativity. It was made in the late 300’s, and is from the Greek isle of Naxos, and it’s now housed in the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. This is a good example of the most primitive type of nativity scene. So you see when 4th century Christians asked themselves, what is really essential for a nativity scene, Mary didn’t make the cut, but the ox and ass did. You could even imagine that the most basic nativity scene would be just the baby in a manger. But historically that’s not what happened. Whenever there’s a baby in a manger, there’s always the ox and ass too. The ox and ass are the single most consistent element through the history of the nativity image, in both the Western and Eastern traditions of the church – they’re always there, until modern artists started to deviate from the established iconography. But here’s the thing: they’re not is in the gospels. The gospels make no mention of an ox and ass at the nativity of Christ. And yet historically speaking they are as essential a part of the nativity image as the Christ-child himself. Now I am about to tell you why this is, and how it came about, but right now I’m just dwelling for a moment on how bizarre that is. 

I mentioned that the nativity scene developed in complexity. So here is the historical order in which the other elements and characters were introduced into the basic scheme of babe, manger, ox and ass. First, a single shepherd was added. Then, a single prophet, usually taken to be Isaiah. Then, a shed. Really. Not so much a barn as a shed. Then, Mary and the Magi show up together. Joseph was introduced at a later stage, after the prophet has been phased out. How and why did the nativity image develop in this way? What were they thinking?! Well we don’t need to guess what they were thinking; We know, because they wrote it down in the sermons and commentaries. There are only three surviving commentaries on Luke from the patristic period - by Origen, Ambrose, and Cyril of Jerusalem - but there are also various Christmas sermons, and all of these sources mention the ox and ass, and interpret them as symbols of the Israel and the Nations. 

The ox and ass come from Isaiah. Isaiah, recall, has sometimes been called the fifth gospel; think of just how much of Handel’s Messiah consists of passages from Isaiah. Isaiah showed up in the nativity scene before Mary or Joseph. The Latin church’s great set of prayers leading up to Christmas, the O Antiphons, are based on passages from Isaiah. When Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth and said that the prophecy was being fulfilled in their sight, it was from Isaiah. The early church thought that if you wanted to properly understand the meaning of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, the first thing to do was to turn to Isaiah. Now this is how Isaiah begins: The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzzi′ah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezeki′ah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.”

“The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.”

Luke says that an angel told shepherds that they find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger, and that that would be a sign to them, and so they went and they found a babe in a manger. Origen comments: "Thus they found Joseph, and Mary, and the Saviour himself, lying in a manger. That was the manger of which the inspired prophet said, ‘the ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s manger. The ox is a clean animal, the ass an unclean animal.” Do you see? Origen doesn’t take the ox and ass from Luke; he regards Isaiah as just as good a source as Luke about Christ - about his life and about what it all means. And this is the very first thing that Isaiah says: the ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s manger. And the first connection that Origen makes: The ox is kosher because it has cloven hooves and chews the cud; the ass is not kosher because it has uncloven hooves. The ox stands for Israel, and the ass stands for the nations. All three surviving patristic commentaries on Luke contain this interpretation, as do a number of patristic Christmas sermons, and it is found in all the medieval commentaries as well. This wasn’t just one person’s reading, it was the whole church’s reading. 

Now the church’s original sin is its anti-judaism, the degree to which the church saw itself as replacing Israel, the idea that Israel had had its chance and squandered it, and so the offer of election was rescinded from Israel and passed instead to a mostly Gentile church. That is manifestly not the view of St Paul, but it is a view that has been kicking around from pretty much the beginning, as evidenced for example in non-canonical works like the Epistle of Barnabus. This is the direction that Origen begins to go with his interpretation. And this kind of thinking - that the Gentile church replaces Israel - is represented over and over in Medieval art in a whole variety of ways - but here’s the thing, always by way of a visual contrast between the two. For example they’ll show Synagoga as an old blindfolded woman with a broken staff, and Ecclesia as a young woman with an unbroken staff. The point is their unlikeness. But if the point of the ox and ass in our nativity pictures was to show that the gentile church replaces Israel, then we should expect a visual contrast between them - the ox failing to know its master, and the ass succeeding in doing so. The nativity picture as we have it is not about replacement - and in this sense it differs from Origen’s interpretation; instead it agrees with the interpretation given by Gregory of Nazianzus in a Christmas sermon: the ox (that is Israel) is yoked to the law, the ass (that is the nations) is burdened with sins; Christ brings freedom to both Israel and the Nations. In Gregory’s interpretation, the ox and ass aren’t about replacement, but about the fact that Christ is saviour of Israel and of the Nations. That is, in Gregory’s interpretation, the ox and ass are basically about a universal recognition of Christ as Lord. And this is the interpretation that best explains the nativity image as it developed historically. 

The arrival of the Magi from foreign Nations, to pay homage was taken to signal the same thing. But interestingly, from the earliest period, the image of the visit of the Magi was integrated into the nativity image - they collapse the timeline in order to make this theological point - because they wanted to show the Jewish shepherds alongside the Gentile Magi - the point being that the Christ-child was symbolically received by the whole world at the moment of his arrival in the world, to signal a future, universal reception of Christ as Saviour by the world. And this is also the basic theme of the O Antiphons, taken as a series. They, like this stone relief from Naxos, appear to date from before the devotional shift of the meaning of Christmas to a focus on the holy family (which I think took place gradually from about the early 6th century). The antiphons mention Mary precisely zero times. Nor Bethlehem, manger, shepherds, angels. But Israel and the Nations are (between them) mentioned in five of the seven antiphons. Two of the antiphons refer to Christ as the desire of the nations. The antiphons are very interested in the fact that the Lord of Israel is one and the same as the desire of the Nations. And in ‘O Rex Gentium’, when it says, “who makest both one” but without every specifying both what are the two things that he makes one; it’s a quote from Ephesians where Paul is talking about Christ as having broken down the wall of hostility between Israel and the Nations. In other words, the antiphons, taken all together, are about a future universal acclamation of Christ as saviour of the world.

The creation, as Isaiah prophesied, shall ultimately recognize its Lord - both Israel, in whom all nations are blessed, and the nations, for whom Israel was made a blessing. Not one without the other, but both together, the entire family of man. And this agrees with the rest of the patristic interpretation of the nativity story, which concerns what Christ has done for man. The swaddling cloths they took to prefigure the burial shroud, to show that Christ was born in order to die for us. But about the burial shroud, they say – he was bound up in order that we might be loosed from our bindings of sin and death. It was therefore fitting that upon his entry into the world he should be bound, for it was for this purpose that he came into the world – to loose us. As to the manger, they say: He is the bread of life, he came to feed us with the bread of life, which is his very body. It is fitting that upon his entry into the world he should be placed in a feed trough, for it was for this purpose that he came into the world - to feed us. Indeed, to my mind, on the Naxos relief, the manger looks something like a bread oven, and I wonder whether that is accidental. Medieval commentators would later point out that ‘Bethlehem’ in Hebrew means ‘house of bread.’ 

You’ll recall that I said that the first extra element that gets added to the nativity image, after the child in the manger and the ox and ass, is a shepherd. Why was the shepherd next? This, I think, is the likely answer: the shepherds were taken to mean the church in this present age, the first recipients of the Good News, who are tasked with announcing the news and shepherding others toward the Lord. Here is Cyril: To shepherds first of all, at Bethlehem, who were thus the earliest to receive the knowledge of this mystery. And the type answers to the truth. For reveals himself to the spiritual shepherds, that they may preach him to the rest, just as the shepherds also then were taught his mystery by the holy angels, and ran to bear the glad tidings to their fellows.

So the ox and the ass do not symbolize the current acclamation of Christ; it remains the case (as the Gospel of John repeatedly emphasizes) that the Israel and the World failed to properly recognize and receive their Lord. Isaiah’s admonition remains in effect “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.” And who could possibly argue at this point in history that the church does understand? But the early church, as evidenced in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Christmas sermon and in every image of the nativity, took Isaiah’s prophecy as referring to a future universal acclamation. The present limited recognition and acknowledgement of Jesus as the Christ is symbolized by the annunciation to the shepherds, whose task it is to announce it to the world and thereby shepherd the peoples of the world toward their Lord. The ox and ass symbolize not the present, limited, preliminary recognition of Christ, but the future, unlimited, universal acclamation by the race of man - Israel and the Nations alike. 

The way that Luke tells the nativity story, the only image we’re given of Christ at the nativity is that he is swaddled and lying in a manger. And yet that image is repeated three times. Because first Luke tells us that Mary swaddled him and laid him in a manger. Then the angel appears to the shepherds, and tells them: Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And then the shepherds go and sure enough they find the babe in the manger. 

Now in the most primitive, basic, and essential type of nativity image, this is what we see. This sign. Not an entire scene but just a sign. That is, the shepherd is there, it is us. We are the shepherds to whom the good news is being announced. It is a sign given to us, and the sign is just this – a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, and lying in a manger – recognized by ox and ass according to Isaiah’s prophecy. Anyone who truly receives this sign is thereby transformed into a shepherd, we cannot help but run and tell our fellows, and do our part in shepherding the world toward its Lord. So Behold the child in the manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths. For this is given as a sign to us. A sign that We too can be shepherds. A sign that He came to loose us from the bonds of sin and death. A sign that he is the proper bread for man, both Israel and the Nations. A sign that he shall be recognized by the family of man, Israel and the Nations together. This is the mystery of Christmas. And the great sign of this mystery is just this: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.