Whereas Matthew’s Infancy Narrative is characterized by
his frequent use of Old Testament scripture, Luke’s is distinctive for its use
of poetic interludes that his characters utter at pivotal points in the story. These
are generally known as “canticles,” a word which comes from the Latin term canticulum, a diminutive meaning
“song.” The term is generally used in
the liturgies of some churches for any religious song taken from a biblical
passage, usually from the Old Testament, other than the psalms. The name is
also applied to four passages in Luke’s Infancy Narrative that are known by
traditional Latin titles that reflect their opening lines: the
Magnificat (Mary, “My soul doth magnify
the Lord,” 1:46–55), the Benedictus
(Zacharias, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” 1:68–79), the Gloria
in Excelsis (the angels, “Glory to God in the Highest,” 2:14), and
the Nunc Demittis (Simeon, “Lord, now
lettest thy servant depart in peace,” 2:29–32, emphasis added).
While
Luke wrote in Greek—and indeed, elsewhere in his Gospel and Acts his writing is
the most literary Greek in the New Testament—the canticles reflect significant
Semitic influence, meaning that they reveal Hebrew or Aramaic influences or
prototypes behind the Greek text. This, together with the question of how Luke
could have known the exact words that characters uttered at those particular
moments, has raised important compositional questions. What were Luke’s
sources? Did he simply translate
verbatim reports of the songs of Mary, Zacharias, the angels, and Simeon that
were somehow reported to him, or did he exercise creative license in crafting
the canticles as they now appear?
Further, all of the canticles echo important Old Testament passages,
suggesting that either the original characters, Luke’s sources, or Luke himself
knew these passages and applied them to the situations that Luke describes.
Many
scholars suggest that the canticles were preexisting Hebrew songs that Luke
simply translated and adapted to his story. Their reasons for this theory are
because the canticles interrupt the context, use different vocabulary than the
surrounding narrative, exhibit a poetic style that is more Hebrew than Greek,
and sometimes seem to be only loosely connected to the story that Luke is
telling. This theory suggests that the themes of deliverance and God’s coming
salvation would have been common in the first century, and Jewish groups could
have used Old Testament scripture to craft prayers or songs.[1] While
this is possible, it is just as likely that the characters whom Luke describes,
who are all righteous Israelites, would have known the same scriptural passages
and had those same aspirations and hopes. As a result, the basic sense of the
canticles could, in fact, have originated with the characters themselves, even
if their utterances were subsequently rephrased and even elaborated as they
were retold by early Christians, who became the Hebrew or Aramaic sources for
Luke, who then translated them into Greek.
Regardless
of their compositional history, the canticles as we have them today play an
important and powerful role in Luke’s narrative. They effectively illustrate
the feelings of the characters, draw the reader into the story, and movingly teach broader doctrine. Like Matthew’s
formula quotations, Luke’s canticles connect his story with the Old Testament
past and draw upon its promises. Clearly inspired, they witness that the same
spirit that moved the original Old Testament authors, likewise filled Luke’s
characters, the early Christians who passed on the stories, and Luke himself as
he wrote.
[1] Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 346–55; Reid, Choosing the Better Part, 75; Vermes, The Nativity, 137–38.
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