News: At the Creation and at the manger
Posted on Monday, December 24 @ 12:29:12 PST by Norman Voss |
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By Spengler
Children around the world dress up as oxen, sheep and donkeys this week in Christmas pageants. Domestic animals appear beside the shepherds and magi in every nativity scene, introduced by St Francis of Assisi in 1223, [1] but not in the canonic Gospels, where no mention is made of the beasts’ adoration of the Christ child. This part of story is to be found in the New Testament Apocrypha, in later texts that Christian authorities consider suspect and misleading. [2] Sometimes, though, the intuition of children is more reliable than the pronouncements of scholars. What would Christmas be without the sheep and oxen?
Not long ago a Chinese diplomat asked me what his country could do to improve its image in the West. I replied that his government should take measures to suppress the sad commerce in dog and cat fur. Television footage of canine and feline victims stirred outrage last year among Westerners, who might forgive Beijing a hard hand against human dissidents, but cannot bear to watch the torment of companion animals. Judeo-Christian culture places great emphasis on kindness to animals, and the ox that kissed the Lord’s foot stood in the manger as a representative of all his fellows.
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