The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

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XIII.  THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT
Section V

In Matarea, where the inhabitants had to quench their thirst with the muddy water of the Nile, a fountain sprang up as before in answer to Mary’s prayers. At first they suffered great want, and were obliged to live on fruit and bad water. It was long since they had had any good water, and Joseph was making ready to take his water-skins on the donkey to fetch water from the balsam spring in the desert, when in answer to her prayer an angel appeared to the Blessed Virgin and told her to look for a spring behind their house.

I saw her go beyond the enclosure round their dwelling to an open space on a lower level surrounded by broken-down embankments. A very big old tree stood here. Our Lady had a stick in her hand with a little shovel at the end of it, such as people in that country often carried on their journeys. She thrust this into the ground near the tree, and thereupon a beautiful clear stream of water gushed forth. She ran joyfully to call Joseph, who on digging out the spring discovered that it had been lined with masonry below, but had dried up and was choked with rubbish. Joseph repaired and cleaned it, and surrounded it with beautiful new stonework. Near this spring, on the side from which Mary had approached it, was a big stone, just like an altar, and, indeed, I think it had once been an altar, but I forget in what connection.

Here the Blessed Virgin used to dry Jesus’ clothes and wrappings in the sun  after washing them. This spring remained unknown and was used only by the Holy Family until Jesus was big enough to do various little commissions, such as fetching water for His Mother. I once saw that He brought other children to the spring, and made a cup with a leaf for them—to drink from. The children told this to their parents, so others came to the spring, but, as a rule, it was used only by the Jews. I saw Jesus fetching water for His Mother for the first time. Mary was in her room kneeling in prayer, and Jesus crept out to the spring with a skin and fetched water; that was the first time. Mary was inexpressibly touched when she saw Him coming back, and begged Him not to do it again, in case He were to fall into the water. Jesus said that He would be very careful and that He wanted to fetch water for her whenever she needed it.

The Child Jesus performed all kinds of services for His parents with great attention and thoughtfulness. Thus I saw Him, when Joseph was working near his home, running to fetch some tool which had been left behind. He paid attention to everything. I am sure that the joy He gave His parents must have outweighed all their sufferings. I also saw Jesus going sometimes to the Jewish settlement, about a mile from Matarea, to fetch bread in return for His Mother’s work. The many loathsome beasts to be found in this country did Him no
harm; on the contrary, they were very friendly with Him. I have seen Him playing with snakes.

The first time that He went alone to the Jewish settlement (I am not sure whether it was in His fifth or seventh year) He was wearing a new brown dress with yellow flowers round its edge which the Blessed Virgin had made and embroidered for Him: He knelt down to pray on the way, and I saw two angels appearing to Him and announcing the death of Herod the Great. Jesus said nothing of this to His parents, why I do not know, whether from humility or because the angel had forbidden Him to, or because He knew that the time had not yet come for them to leave Egypt. Once I saw Him going to the settlement with other Jewish children, and when He returned home, I saw Him weeping bitterly over the degraded state of the Jews living there.

The spring which appeared at Matarea in answer to the Blessed Virgin’s prayers was not a new one, but an old one which gushed forth afresh. It had been choked but was still lined with masonry. I saw that Job had been in Egypt long before Abraham and had dwelt on this spot in this place.193 It was he who found the spring, and he made sacrifices on the great stone lying here. Job was the youngest of thirteen brothers. His father was a great chieftain at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel. His father had one brother who was Abraham’s ancestor. The tribes of these two brothers generally intermarried. Job’s first wife was of the tribe of Phaleg: after many adventures, when he was living in his third home, he married three more wives of the same tribe. One of them bore him a son whose daughter married into the tribe of Phaleg and gave birth to Abraham’s mother. Job was thus the greatgrandfather of Abraham’s mother. Job’s father was called Joktan, a son of Heber. He lived to the north of the Caspian Sea, near a mountain range one side of which is quite warm, while the other is cold and ice-covered. There were elephants in that country. I do not think elephants could have gone to the place where Job first went to set up his own tribe, for it was very swampy there. That place was to the north of a mountain range lying between two seas, the western-most of which was before the Flood a high mountain inhabited by evil angels by whom men were possessed.194 The country there was poor and marshy; I think it is now inhabited by a race with small eyes, flat noses, and high cheek-bones.

It was here that Job’s first misfortune befell him, and he then moved southwards to the Caucasus and began his life again. From here he made a great expedition to Egypt, a land which at that time was ruled by foreign kings belonging to a shepherd people from Job’s fatherland. One of these came from Job’s own country; another came from the farthest country of the three holy kings. They ruled over only a part of Egypt, and were later driven out by an Egyptian king.

At one time there was a great number of these shepherd people all collected together in one city; they had migrated to Egypt from their own country. The king of these shepherds from Job’s country desired a wife for his son from his family’s tribe in the Caucasus, and Job brought this royal bride (who was related to him) to Egypt with a great following. He had thirty camels with him, and many menservants and rich presents. He was still young – a tall man of a pleasing yellow-brown colour, with reddish hair. The people in Egypt were dirty brown in colour. At that time Egypt was not thickly populated; only here and there were large masses of people. There were no great buildings either; these did not appear until the time of the children of Israel. The king showed Job great honour, and was unwilling to let him go away again. He was very anxious for him to emigrate to Egypt with his whole tribe, and appointed as his dwelling-place the city where afterwards the Holy Family lived, which was then quite different. Job remained five years in Egypt, and I saw that he lived in the same place where the Holy Family lived, and that God showed him that spring. When performing his
religious ceremonies, he made sacrifice on the great stone.

Job was to be sure a heathen, but he was an upright man who acknowledged the true God and worshipped Him as the Creator of all that he saw in nature, the stars, and the everchanging light. He was never tired of speaking with God of His wonderful creations. He worshipped none of the horrible figures of beasts adored by the other races of mankind in his time, but had thought out for himself a representation of the true God. This was a small figure of a man with rays round its head, and I think it had wings. Its hands were clasped under its breast, and bore a globe on which was a ship on waves. Perhaps it was meant to represent the Flood. When performing his religious ceremonies he burnt grains before this little figure. Figures of this kind were afterwards introduced into Egypt, sitting in a kind of pulpit with a canopy above.

Job found a terrible form of idolatry here in this city, descending from the heathen magical rites practised at the building of the Tower of Babel. They had an idol with a broad ox’s head, rising to a point at the top. Its mouth was open, and behind its head were twisted horns. Its body was hollow, fire was made in it, and live children were thrust into its glowing arms. I saw something being taken out of holes in its body. The people here were horrible, and the land was full of dreadful beasts. Great black creatures with fiery manes
flew about in swarms, scattering what seemed like fire as they flew. They poisoned everything in their path, and the trees withered away under them. I saw other animals with long hind-legs and short fore-legs, like moles; they could leap from roof to roof. Then there were frightful creatures lurking in hollows and between stones, which wound themselves round men and strangled them.

In the Nile I saw a heavy, awkward beast with hideous teeth and thick black feet. It was the size of a horse and had something pig-like about it. Besides these I saw many other ugly creatures; but the people here were much more horrible than any of them. Job, whom I saw clearing the evil beasts from around his dwelling by his prayers, had such a horror of these godless folk that he often broke out in loud reproaches of them, saying that he would rather live with all these dreadful beasts than with the infamous inhabitants of this land. I often saw him at sunrise gazing longingly towards his own country, which lay a little to the south of the farthest country of the three holy kings. Job saw prophetic pictures foreshadowing the arrival in Egypt of the children of Israel; he also had visions of the salvation of mankind and of the trials that awaited himself. He would not be persuaded to stay in Egypt, and at the end of five years he and his companions left the country.

There were intervals of calm between the great misfortunes that befell Job: the first interval lasted nine years, the second seven, and the third twelve. The words in the Book of Job: ‘And while he (the messenger of evil) was yet speaking’ mean ‘This misfortune of his was still the talk of the people when the following befell him.’195 His misfortunes came upon him in three different places. The last calamity—and also the restoration of all his prosperity—happened when he was living in a flat country directly to the east of Jericho.

Incense and myrrh were found here, and there was also a gold-mine with smithies. At another time I saw much more about Job, which I will tell later. For the present I will only say that Job’s story of himself and of his talking with God were written down at his dictation by two trusty servants of his, like treasurers. Their names were Hai and Uis or Ois.196 This story was preserved by his descendants as a sacred treasure, and was handed down from generation to generation until it reached Abraham and his sons. It was used for purposes of instruction, and came into Egypt with the children of Israel. Moses used it to comfort and console the Israelites during the Egyptian oppression and their journey through the desert, but in a summarised version, for it was originally of much greater length, and a great deal of it would have been incomprehensible to them. Solomon again remodelled it, so that it is a religious work full of the wisdom of Job, Moses, and Solomon. It was difficult to recognize the true history of Job from it, for the names of persons and places had been changed to ones nearer Chanaan, and it was thought that Job was an Edomite because the last place where he lived was inhabited long after his death by Edomites, the descendants of Esau. Job might still have been alive when Abraham was born.

When Abraham was in Egypt, he also had his tents beside this spring, and I saw him teaching the people here.197 He lived in the country several years with Sara and a number of his sons and daughters whose mothers had remained behind in Chaldaea. His brother Lot was also here with his family, but I do not remember what place of residence was assigned to him. Abraham went to Egypt by God’s command, firstly because of a famine in the Land of Chanaan, and secondly to fetch a family treasure which had found its way to Egypt through a niece of Sara’s mother. This niece was of the race of the shepherd-people belonging to Job’s tribe who had been rulers of part of Egypt. She had gone there to be serving maid to the reigning family and had then married an Egyptian. She was also the foundress of a tribe, but I have forgotten its name. Agar, the mother of Ismael, was a descendant of hers and was thus of Sara’s family.198

The woman had carried off this family treasure just as Rachel had carried off Laban’s household gods, and had sold it in Egypt for a great sum. In this way it had come into the possession of the king and the priests. This treasure was a genealogy of the children of Noe (especially of the children of Sem) down to Abraham’s time. It looked like a scales hanging on several chains from inside a lid. This lid was made to shut down on to a sort of box which enclosed the chains in it. The chains were made of triangular pieces of gold linked
together; the names of each generation were engraved on these pieces, which were thick yellow coins, while the links connecting them were pale like silver and thin. Some of the gold pieces had a number of others hanging from them. The whole treasure was bright and shining. I heard, but have forgotten, what was its value in shekels. The Egyptian priests had made endless calculations in connection with this genealogy, but never arrived at the right conclusion.

Before Abraham came into their country, the Egyptians must have known, from their astrologers and from the prophecies of their sorceresses, that he and his wife came from the noblest of races and that he was to be the father of a chosen people. They were always searching in their prophetic books for noble races, and tried to intermarry with them. This gave Satan the opportunity of attempting to debase the pure races by leading the Egyptians astray into immorality and deeds of violence.

Abraham, fearing that he might be murdered by the Egyptians because of the beauty of Sara, his wife, had given out that she was his sister. This was not a lie, since she was his step-sister, the daughter of his father Tharah by another wife (see Gen. 20.12). The King of Egypt caused Sara to be brought into his palace and wished to take her to wife. Abraham and Sara were then in great distress and besought God for help, whereupon God punished the king with sickness, and all his wives and most of the women in the city fell ill. The king, in alarm, caused inquiry to be made, and when he heard that Sara was Abraham’s wife, he gave her back to him, begging him to leave Egypt as soon as possible. It was clear, he said, that Abraham and his wife were under the protection of the gods.

The Egyptians were a strange people. On the one hand they were extremely arrogant and considered themselves to be the greatest and wisest among the nations. On the other hand they were excessively cowardly and servile, and gave way when they were faced by a power which they feared was greater than theirs. This was because they were not sure of all their knowledge, most of which came to them in dark ambiguous sooth-sayings, which easily produced conflicts and contradictions. Since they were very credulous of wonders, any such contradiction at once caused them great alarm.

Abraham approached the king very humbly with a request for corn. He won his favour by treating him as a ruler over the nations, and received many rich presents. When the King gave Sara back to her husband and begged him to leave Egypt, Abraham replied that he could not do this unless he took with him the genealogy that belonged to him, describing in detail the manner in which it had come to Egypt. The king then summoned the priests, and they willingly gave Abraham back what belonged to him, only asking that the whole transaction might first be formally recorded, which was done.199 Abraham then returned with his following to the land of Chanaan.

I have seen many things about the spring at Matarea right down to our own times, and remember this much: already at the time of the Holy Family it was used by lepers as a healing well. Much later a small Christian church was built on the site of Mary’s dwelling. Near the high altar of this church one descended into the cave where the Holy Family lived until Joseph had arranged their dwelling. I saw the spring with human habitations round it, and I saw it being used for various forms of skin eruptions. I also saw people bathing in it to cure themselves of evil-smelling perspirations. That was when the Mohammedans were there. I saw, too, that the Turks always kept a light burning in the church over Mary’s dwelling. They feared some misfortune if they forgot to light it. In later times I saw the spring isolated and at some distance from any houses. There was no longer a city there, and wild fruit-trees grew about it.

193. The Book of Job gives no clue to the ancestry, offspring, or homeland of Job, and (as AC remarks, infra) it is difficult to recognize the true history of Job from it. Job is only mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament as a just man, together with Noe and Daniel (Ezekiel 14.14, 16, 20). Rabbinic lore has, however, many accounts of the circumstances of Job’s family; some texts place Job as a contemporary of Abraham, while others place him earlier or later. There are several accounts of his visit to Egypt. The list of such Rabbinic texts is too great to insert here, but a general account of them will be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia, art. Job, p. 193b. (SB)

194. It is remarkable that she said on another occasion that the Black Sea had been before the Flood a high mountain on which evil angels held sway. This seems to show that the mountain range behind which Job’s first dwelling-place was situated must have been the Caucasus. (CB)

195. The phrase ‘while he was yet speaking’ occurs in Job 1.16, 17, 18. The text certainly suggests a quick succession of calamities, but if AC’s statement of intervals of nine, seven, and twelve years between the calamities is correct, it is easier to suppose the story to have been telescoped for the purpose of the drama as we know it, than to interpret the text (as AC suggests) as meaning ‘while it was still the talk of the people’. (SB)

196. In 1835 the writer heard that the founder of the Armenian race was so named. (CB)

197. Flavius Josephus (lib. I, Antiquitat. Jud., c. 8) and others state that Abraham instructed the Egyptians in arithmetic and astrology. (CB)

Abraham in Egypt: Gen. 12.13. That Lot was with him is shown by 13.1. He pretended that his wife was his sister a second time (20.2) after which the explanation referred to is given (20.12). That Abraham taught the Egyptians is an old Jewish tradition, preserved in Josephus, Ant., I, viii, 2, and there are many Rabbinic stories about his sojourn in Egypt, especially in the Midrash (e.g. Genesis Rabba, XLI and XLIV). (SB)

198. Catherine Emmerich says elsewhere of Agar: ‘She was of Sara’s family, and when Sara herself was barren, she gave Abraham Agar for his wife and said she would build from her and have descendants through her. She looked upon herself as one with all the women of her tribe, as if it were a female tree with many blossoms. Agar was a vessel, or flower of her tribe, and she hoped for a fruit of her tribe from her. At that time the whole tribe was as one tree and each of its blossoms formed part of it. (CB)

Gen. 16.1 simply states that Agar was an Egyptian. (SB)

199. Gen. 12.20 (literally from the Hebrew): ‘And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and sent him away, and his wife, and all that belonged to him.’ (SB)