Far Off and Near: The Shepherds, the Magi, and the One Corner Stone
Old Testament: Isaias 57:19
I created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, said the Lord, and I healed him.
New Testament: Luke 2:15-16; Matthew 2:11
And it came to pass, after the angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us. And they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. ... And entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him; and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
The connection
The Lord promises through Isaias "peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near" (Isaias 57:19). St Paul names the two, the Gentiles and Israel: "he is our peace, who hath made both one," and "coming, he preached peace to you that were afar off, and peace to them that were nigh" (Ephesians 2:14, 17). In Bethlehem the near come first. Shepherds "keeping the night watches over their flock" (Luke 2:8) hear the angels, and they say to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass"; "they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger" (2:15-16). The far come after. "Wise men from the east" follow a star, and "entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him" (Matthew 2:1, 11). Israel's own shepherds from the fields of the town, and strangers from beyond its borders, come to the same Child. St Augustine reads the pair as the prophet's two peoples: "Israelitish shepherds, gentile Magians, one from far, the other from near, hastened to the one Corner-stone." Neither came by merit, he says, for "ignorance belonged to the shepherds, impiety to the idolatrous Magi," and yet the one stone drew them both. St Gregory the Great explains why each was called as it was: "To the Jews who used their reason, a rational creature, i.e. an Angel, ought to preach. But the Gentiles who knew not to use their reason are brought to the knowledge of the Lord, not by words, but by signs." The same Christ, Gregory adds, was later preached in His manhood by the Apostles, but as an infant by a star, for "speaking preachers proclaimed a speaking Lord, mute signs proclaimed a mute infant." The Catechism counts the Magi the first of the nations to welcome the Good News (CCC 528).
Moral sense
Distance is no excuse in either direction. The near must not dawdle: the shepherds "came with haste," and St Ambrose says "no one indolently seeks after Christ." The far must not despair of the road: the Magi came out of idolatry, and St Augustine says the corner stone drew them both "that nothing great should exalt himself, none weak should despair." And both went home changed. The shepherds "returned, glorifying and praising God" (Luke 2:20); the Magi "went back another way into their country" (Matthew 2:12), and St Gregory the Great reads that road for every soul: "Our country is Paradise ... We have left this country by pride, disobedience ... and we must return to it by repentance, obedience, by contemning things of sight, and overcoming carnal appetite."
Anagogical sense
Bethlehem was the first gathering, not the last. St John sees "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb" (Apocalypse 7:9), and "the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall rule them" (7:17), where the Greek says the Lamb will shepherd them. The shepherds of Bethlehem, St Gregory Nazianzen says, "saw the glory over the Lamb and the Shepherd," and St Bede bids every soul go on "even to the heavenly Bethlehem ... that He whom they saw crying in the manger we may deserve to see reigning on the throne of His Father."
The Fathers
St Augustine, Sermon 202, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 2:1-2: "What were these Magi but the first fruits of the Gentiles? Israelitish shepherds, gentile Magians, one from far, the other from near, hastened to the one Corner-stone." St Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, 10, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 2:1-2: "To the Jews who used their reason, a rational creature, i.e. an Angel, ought to preach. But the Gentiles who knew not to use their reason are brought to the knowledge of the Lord, not by words, but by signs ... One and the same Christ is preached, when of perfect age, by Apostles; when an infant, and not yet able to speak, is announced by a star to the Gentiles; for so the order of reason required; speaking preachers proclaimed a speaking Lord, mute signs proclaimed a mute infant."
Warrant
Patristic. St Augustine pairs the shepherds and the Magi as the near and the far, Israel and the Gentiles, hastening to the one corner stone (Sermon 202), and says the corner stone drew them both though neither was learned or righteous (Sermon 200), both in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 2:1-2; St Gregory the Great sets the angel sent to the shepherds against the star sent to the Magi (Homilies on the Gospels, 10). Augustine's far and near are the words of Isaias 57:19, which St Paul applies to Gentile and Jew in Ephesians 2:17, and in the same sermon Augustine quotes St Paul's verse for the shepherds and the Magi (Sermon 202, 1, where the Latin reads illi prope, isti longe: the shepherds near, the Magi far). Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint promises peace tois makran kai tois engys, to those far and those near, and St Paul writes the same two words. The corner stone has its own entry in The Stone Which the Builders Rejected; this one is the first meeting at it, in Bethlehem. The pairing came to the site from Dunk's question; St Augustine and St Gregory had already made it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 528.
