Division 
 Section 
 
LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 Carter (T. T.) : Our Lord's Early Life. 
 CoNDER : Handbook to the Bible. 
 Delitzsch : Artisan Life in Nazareth. 
 DiDON : Life of Christ. 
 
 Edersheim : Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. 
 „ Sketches of Jewish Social Life. 
 
 „ The Temple, its Ministry and its Servicee. 
 
 Farrar (F. W.) : Life of Christ. 
 Geikie (C.) : Life and Words of Christ. 
 GouLBURN : The Gospel of the Childhood. 
 Hausrath ; Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte. 
 Keim : Jesus of Nazara. 
 Kuenen : The Religion of Israel. 
 LiGHTFOOT : Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae (Gandell's 
 
 edition). 
 Merrill (Selah) : Galilee. 
 MoNOD (Adolphe) : L'Enfance de Jisus. 
 Neubauer : La Geographic du Talmud. 
 Eobertson (F. W.) : Sermon XV., in Sermons, 2nd Series. 
 Schurer : The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. 
 Schwab: Le Talmud de Jerusalem (11 vols.). 
 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible ; various articles. 
 Simon (Joseph) : L'Education, etc., chez les anciens Juifs. 
 Stanley (A. P.) : Sinai and Palestine. 
 Staffer (E.) : La Palestine au temps de Jesus-Christ. 
 
 „ Jesus-Christ avant son Ministere. 
 
 Thomson : The Land and the Book. 
 Tristram : Eastern Customs in Bible Lands. 
 
 „ Natural History of the Bible. 
 
 Vallings (J. F.) : Jesus Christ the Divine Man. 
 Van Lennep (H. J.) : Bible Lands. 
 
THE EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD' 
 
rUl.NTED BY 
 
 SPOTTlSWOonB AKD CO., KEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
;* OCT 7 18Q9 >* 
 
 iSiChl SEU*^^ 
 
 THE EAELY LIFE OF 
 
 OUE LOKD 
 
 BY^HE 
 
 BEV. J. BEOUGH, M.A. 
 
 CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET 
 
 1897 
 
PEEFACB 
 
 This book is an attempt to realise the 
 surroundings in which the child of Mary 
 grew to be the man Christ Jesus, in order 
 the better to understand His person and 
 His work. 
 
 It used to be said that Providence has 
 drawn a veil over our Lord's earlier years. 
 But what man can know, God has not 
 meant to hide. If there is little said by the 
 Evangelists, it may well be because their 
 business was to tell of what in their Master 
 marked Him off from other men, and not to 
 describe details of life which were common 
 to Him and everyone else at the time. 
 We, of another race and a later age, have 
 to go back, by inquiry and imagination, 
 into the past, if we are to fill in the picture 
 which they barely sketched. 
 
[6] EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD 
 
 Such works as contain matter related to 
 our subject, either do not deal with it in 
 the biographical spirit, or have too little of 
 this and too much of other things to be 
 read for this special purpose. They are 
 either treatises on Jewish matters, or 
 complete Lives, or sermons. It is hoped 
 that the present volume may be full enough 
 to serve as a handbook for the teacher of 
 religion, and simple enough to be suitable 
 also for the learner. 
 
 The main sources of knowledge are : 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, the Gospels, the 
 works of Josephus, and the Talmuds ; 
 and the present condition of the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 For though the direct notices of the 
 childhood of Jesus are scanty, they are 
 suggestive, while everything is valuable 
 that tells us what were the thoughts and 
 ways of the people among whom He was 
 brought up ; and the records of His short 
 and busy public career throw light back 
 upon His earlier experiences. 
 
 What our inquiries can yield us is not, 
 
PREFACE [7] 
 
 as are those records, certain truth, but 
 reasonable probabihty. 
 
 It will be understood that we are 
 considering, throughout, His development 
 as man only, without prejudice to the 
 perfection of His nature and powers as 
 God. The knowledge of which we speak 
 is a human knowledge, different in source 
 and form and sphere from the divine 
 knowledge, co-existing with it, and, if not 
 unaffected, yet not ordinarily superseded, 
 by it. 
 
 A list is appended p. [11] of some of the 
 more useful modern books which bear upon 
 the subject. 
 
 J. B. 
 
 September, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 JHAPTE 
 
 a 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 . . [5] 
 
 I. 
 
 BIRTH AND INFANCY . 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 THE HOME .... 
 
 15 
 
 III. 
 
 CHILDHOOD .... 
 
 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 FIRST LESSONS .... 
 
 43 
 
 V. 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 50 
 
 VI. 
 
 RECREATION .... 
 
 71 
 
 VII. 
 
 FOOD 
 
 86 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE VISIT. TO JERUSALEM . 
 
 92 
 
 IX. 
 
 FURTHER EDUCATION 
 
 131 
 
 X. 
 
 RELIGIOUS DUTIES . 
 
 . 157 
 
 XI. 
 
 WORK 
 
 . 182 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE MAN IN THE HOME . 
 
 . 188 
 
 XIII. 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 . 204 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE PROVINCE .... 
 
 . 217 
 
 XV. 
 
 INFLUENCES .... 
 
 . 239 
 
 
 INDEX 
 
 . 251 
 
THE 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD 
 
 CHAPTEK I 
 
 BIKTH AND INFANCY 
 
 It was in the stable of an inn at Bethlehem 
 that Jesus was born. Mary, and Joseph 
 her husband, had left the village of Nazareth, 
 which was their home, and journeyed four 
 days southwards to where, among rich fields 
 and olive-trees and vineyards, the hill of 
 Bethlehem stood ; he, because it was his 
 native city, and hither must he come to be 
 enrolled in the census which, in obedience 
 to the general ' decree of Caesar Augustus,' 
 Herod had directed to be made ; and she 
 with him, because perhaps they thought it 
 would be happier now to change their place 
 
 b 
 
2 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch, i 
 
 of abode and settle in 'his own city.' 
 When they arrived there, near the close of 
 a short winter day, the Httle town was 
 already crowded with those who had come 
 on the same errand, to be registered, and 
 the leewans (raised recesses) of the khan 
 were occupied, and the courtyard where the 
 cattle were tied was the only lodging they 
 could get. Tradition places this khan in 
 a cave. And here, at some time during 
 their stay, the Virgin ' brought forth her 
 first-born son ; and she wrapped Him in 
 swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a 
 manger.' ^ 
 
 Usually a new-born child was bathed 
 and rubbed with salt to harden the skin, 
 and then wrapped in calico bandages about 
 three yards long and six inches wide. St. 
 Luke's words seem to imply that whatever 
 was done now, Mary had to do it herself, 
 without the help or sympathy of neighbour 
 or of nurse. The child would not be un- 
 necessarily exposed : the Jews were shocked 
 at that practice. 
 
 Before the iiight was gone some shep- 
 herds came in, and, finding Mary and 
 
 ' Luke 2, 7. 
 
CH. I BIKTH AND INFANCY 3 
 
 Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger, 
 began to tell how, watching their flocks 
 out upon the hills, they had seen the 
 * glory of the Lord ' and heard the voice of 
 an ' angel ' announcing to them that this 
 day, in the city of David, was born a 
 Saviour, the anointed Lord, and how, sud- 
 denly, there was with the angel a multitude 
 of the heavenly host, praising God and 
 saying, ' Glory to God in the highest, and 
 on earth peace.' And then they went away, 
 glorifying God ; and Mary kept these say- 
 ings, and pondered them in her heart. 
 
 On the eighth day from His birth He 
 would be circumcised. Every boy in Israel 
 was by this rite dedicated to God, and 
 always on this day. 
 
 He who performed the rite said : ' Blessed 
 be the Lord our God, who hath sanctified 
 us with His precepts and hath given us 
 circumcision.' The father responded : ' Who 
 hath sanctified us with His precepts, and 
 granted to us to introduce our child into 
 the alliance of Abraham our father.' Now, 
 •too, the name was given ; for God, it was 
 said, changed Abraham's and Sarah's names 
 at the same time that He instituted circum- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 cision. Usually one of the parents' names 
 was chosen ; but the angel Gabriel had 
 announced to Mary, ' Thou shalt bring forth 
 a son, and shalt call His name Jesus.' ^ 
 It was the name of the warrior who 
 led Israel into the promised land, of the 
 High Priest who brought them home from 
 Babylon, and of many hundred others 
 unknown to fame. Henceforth it was to 
 be the name above every name, at which 
 every knee should bow. So was Jesus 
 admitted in due form into the congrega- 
 tion of Israel, and made one of Jehovah's 
 people. 
 
 The ceremony over, what friends were 
 present sat down to a repast. 
 
 For forty days after the birth of a son, 
 or sixty-six after the birth of a daughter, 
 the Jewish mother remained at home, and 
 was not allowed to touch any sacred thing, 
 or to take any part in social life. Then she 
 had to go to the Temple, partly to thank God 
 for her safety, as now in Christian lands 
 women come to be churched, but specially 
 to receive the legal rite of purification. So, 
 her forty days expired, Mary took her way to 
 
 ' Luke 1, 31. 
 
CH. I BIRTH AND INFANCY 5 
 
 Jerusalem. She would ride on an ox or 
 ass, that she might not by any chance be 
 defiled, say by passing over a grave on the 
 road. Only a few miles, and she was 
 passing through the narrow streets of the 
 lower town, and across the bridge over the 
 valley, to Mount Moriah and the Golden 
 Gate, and into the Court of the Women. 
 There, under the great porch of the Nicanor 
 Gate, which led into the Court of the 
 Israelites, were other women waiting till 
 the morning incense had been offered, and 
 the nine blasts of the trumpets had sounded 
 the signal for morning prayer. Soon the 
 gate opened, and Levites came out and 
 took their offerings, to be burned on the 
 altar in the Court of the Priests after the 
 morning sacrifice. A lamb was the proper 
 offering for those who could afford it ; but 
 the poor brought a pair of doves or two 
 young pigeons, just purchased from an 
 official dealer. That Joseph and Mary, 
 though of good family — he, at least, de- 
 scended from King David, and she related 
 to the priestly caste — were in a humble 
 position, is made certain to us by the fact 
 that on this occasion the offering they 
 
6 EAULY LIFE OF OUE LORD ch. i 
 
 brought was that of the poor. The women, 
 while the sacrifice was being offered within, 
 remained outside, giving thanks to God for 
 their recovery, and by-and-by a priest came 
 and sprinkled them with some of the blood 
 and pronounced them clean. 
 
 But there was another purpose to be 
 served by this visit of Mary's to the Temple. 
 The eldest son of a family had in the patri- 
 archal age been the assistant of the father 
 in his priestly capacity. When the tribe of 
 Levi was set apart to act as priests for the 
 whole nation, the first-born was still re- 
 garded as sacred to God, and had to be pre- 
 sented before Him, and then bought back by 
 a money payment. The Eabbis qualified 
 the original law of Moses so far as that no 
 child should be presented that had any phy- 
 sical blemish. And so we know that Jesus, 
 being thus brought and presented, was a 
 sound and whole and healthy child, the 
 ' perfect man ' that our Creeds declare Him. 
 What were the details of the ceremony then 
 we do not know. What happens now among 
 the stricter Jews is this : On the thirty-first 
 day after birth the first-born is laid on a 
 table before a Eabbi, with a small sum of 
 
CH. I BIRTH AND INFANCY 7 
 
 money, about ten or twenty shillings. 
 ' Which would you rather do,' says the 
 Eabbi, ' give up your first-born, who is the 
 first child of his mother, to Jehovah, or 
 redeem him for five shekels, after the shekel 
 of the sanctuary, which is five gera ? ' The 
 father answers that he wishes to redeem the 
 child. He hands the money to the Eabbi, 
 praising God in a set form of words. The 
 Eabbi passes the coin round the child's head 
 with one hand, and laying the other on his 
 brow, says : ' This (child) is instead of this 
 (money), and this (money) instead of this 
 (child) ; may this child be brought to life, 
 to the law, and to the fear of heaven ; and 
 as he has been brought to be ransomed, so 
 may he enter into the law and good deeds.' 
 Then, with both hands on the child's head, 
 he pronounces words of blessing, and the 
 rite is ended. 
 
 This custom of to-day may give us some 
 idea of what took place nineteen hundred 
 years ago, when Joseph and Mary at the 
 Nicanor Gate presented and redeemed their 
 first-born son. 
 
 On this same morning, also, in the 
 Temple court, two other incidents occurred 
 
8 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 of which the EvangeHsts make special note. 
 An old man, Simeon by name, 'righteous 
 and devout, looking for the consolation 
 of Israel,' and expecting before he died 
 to see the Anointed One of the Lord, 
 had come ' by the Spirit ' into the Temple, 
 and, as Mary stood presenting her child, 
 knew somehow that this was He for whom 
 he hoped. He took the child in his arms 
 and burst into the impassioned thanks- 
 giving which we use daily in our Evening 
 Prayer : — 
 
 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, 
 
 according to thy word. 
 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 
 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, 
 ^0 be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the 
 
 glory of thy people Israel. 
 
 And as Joseph and Mary stood amazed at 
 his words, he turned to them and gave them 
 his blessing, and told Mary that her child 
 would be the occasion ' for the falling and 
 rising up of many in Israel ' (we know 
 now how the acceptance or rejection of 
 Jesus, as the revelation of God, proved to 
 be the test of a good or an evil heart, the 
 Earnest of spiritual life or death), ' and for 
 
CH. I BIRTH AND INFANCY 9 
 
 a sign which is spoken against ' (all down 
 the ages since have there been those who 
 have denied that that human life was the 
 true setting forth of the divine will). 'Yea, 
 and a sword shall pierce through thine own 
 soul ' (the hatred and persecution which 
 Jesus met with, the doubt in her own mind 
 as to His mission, and then His shame and 
 death, must have been to the mother's heart 
 worse than any wound of Thracian lance), 
 * that thoughts out of many hearts may be 
 revealed ' (the light of Jesus' life and words 
 exposed the hidden ugliness of hypocrisy 
 and formalism). 
 
 So clearly did the venerable saint foresee 
 the inevitable earthly sorrow, and the as- 
 sured spiritual light and salvation, that were 
 to be the portion both of Christ Himself 
 and of His Church. 
 
 And now an aged woman approaches. 
 It is Anna the prophetess, well known here 
 in the Temple courts, daughter of Phanuel, 
 of the tribe of Asher. A wife long ago, for 
 seven happy years, she has remained a 
 -widow since, faithful to her husband's 
 memory. Now she is eighty-four, and so 
 absorbed in rehgious duties that, as St. 
 
10 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 Luke puts it, she ' departed not from the 
 Temple, worshipping with fastings and sup- 
 plications night and day.' Not that she 
 actually lived in the Temple — no one did 
 so ; but that she was, so to speak, always 
 there. She comes up at this moment and 
 sees the child, and she too gives thanks to 
 God, and goes on to tell of Him to all those 
 who, like herself, were looking for the re- 
 demption of Jerusalem. 
 
 Such was the reception of the child 
 Jesus by a typical man of earnest purpose 
 and a woman of religious feeling. 
 
 It must have been an exciting day for 
 Mary and her husband, and they would have 
 much to think about as they made their 
 way back in the evening to the quiet village 
 of Bethlehem. 
 
 One day they had some unusual visitors. 
 In countries east of Palestine there existed 
 at this time a religious caste called Magi, 
 followers of Zoroaster, students of the 
 heavens. A group of them arrived in Jeru- 
 salem saying that they had observed the 
 rising of a new star, which they believed to 
 be connected with the birth of the Jewish 
 Messiah King. ' Where is He ? ' they asked, 
 
CH. I BIRTH AND INFANCY 11 
 
 ' for we are come to do Him homage.' At 
 once King Herod called together the priestly 
 caste and the learned Eabbis, and asked 
 them where it was that the Messiah should 
 be born ; and they, thinking of Micah's 
 words, answered 'Bethlehem.'^ And the 
 Magi he asked at what time precisely 
 the star was first seen. They now left 
 Jerusalem on their way to Bethlehem, and 
 as they did so the star again appeared, 
 and seemed to lead them on, and to stand 
 over the village. Once there, they would 
 easily find Joseph's abode. At this point 
 in the narrative it is first spoken of as a 
 ' house,' so we gather that he must have 
 removed Mary and the infant from the 
 stable where the birth took place. 
 
 We have no details of the scene that 
 followed, except that to the infant lying 
 there in His mother's arms, helpless, poor, 
 a Hebrew, these Eastern sages offered gold, 
 frankincense, and myrrh, the products of the 
 country whence they came, the tokens of 
 homage to their new-found King, and God, 
 and brother-man. They at least were not, 
 as were the Jews, blinded to dignity and 
 
 1 Micah 5, 2. 
 
12 EAKLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 majesty and deity by meanness of earthly 
 surroundings, 
 
 A dream that one or other of the wise 
 men had, acted as a warning to them not to 
 go back to Jerusalem, to Herod, to tell him 
 about their having found the child. They 
 returned to their own country by another 
 way. Baffled so, and yet determined at all 
 cost to secure himself, for he was jealous 
 of another king rising up to replace him, 
 he had all the male children under two 
 years old in Bethlehem put to death (now 
 we see why he had asked the Magi when it 
 was they first noticed the star) ; and per- 
 haps as many as twenty (Bethlehem was 
 but a small place) ^ innocent little ones 
 were the first martyrs for Christ. But 
 Jesus Himself was not among the number : 
 for Joseph, too, had had a dream, and had 
 stolen off with Mary and the child, far away 
 into Egypt. There they would be safe, for 
 Herod could not reach them. And they 
 would not be entirely among strangers, for 
 many Jews had settled in the Nile valley, 
 and they had a temple, and their sacred 
 books and Eabbinic comments had roused 
 
 ^ Farrar. 
 
CH. I BIRTH AND INFANCY 13 
 
 great interest in the minds of the educated 
 Egyptians of LeontopoHs, and their Scrip- 
 tures had been done into Greek at Alexan- 
 dria, and their Eabbis were founding a 
 distinctively Egyptian school of Jewish 
 theology. Joseph would have occupation, 
 too, for there were trade-guilds, of gold- 
 smiths and silversmiths and nail-makers 
 and needle-makers, and no doubt of wood- 
 workers also, just as there are trades unions 
 now, which supported a stranger newly come 
 and helped him to find work. 
 
 But Egypt was not a place to stay in 
 long, for the people at large hated the Jews, 
 both for their religion and for their rivalry 
 in trade, and spoke harshly of them and 
 treated them with contempt, and it seemed 
 as though a crisis might at any time occur, 
 and they be all expelled. 
 
 So when Joseph heard of Herod's death 
 — a horrible death it was — he set out for 
 his native land. He would have liked to 
 settle in Bethlehem, ' his own city,' as no 
 doubt he intended when he left Nazareth to 
 go there for the enrolling. But the new 
 ruler of Judaea, the Ethnarch Archelaus, was 
 as vicious and cruel as his father, and had 
 
14 EAKLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 begun his reign with bloodshed. So Joseph 
 kept to the coast-Hne, and went on further 
 north. He had not wished to settle at 
 Nazareth, where his own and Mary's friends 
 lived, and where no doubt unkind things 
 had been said about them, but now he will 
 pluck up courage and go home. In Galilee 
 a son of Herod's was ruling — Antipas, a 
 man, like the rest of his family, of low 
 principle and shameless life, but not likely 
 to concern himself about a possible claimant 
 to the throne of the other province, Judasa. 
 Jesus was probably still only a few months 
 old, and would know nothing of the dangers 
 which He had escaped, or the strange lands 
 through which He had been journeying. His 
 more conscious life began in the village home 
 in Nazareth, which we must now try to 
 picture. 
 
CH. n 16 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE HOME 
 
 Bounding the great plain of Esdraelon, on 
 the north, is a range of Hmestone hills, 
 which opens here and there into little gaps 
 or bays. Nazareth stands within one of 
 these. In the distance it is seen ' clinging 
 like a whitewashed wasps' nest to the hill- 
 side.' ^ It is reached from the plain below 
 by a crooked path, so steep and narrow that 
 every traveller has a bad word for it. The 
 village lies in and reaches a little upwards 
 from a hollow, 1,144 feet above sea level.^ 
 Clustering hills rise to 1,602 feet behind. 
 There is but little pasturage upon them. 
 In the spring season wild flowers grow — 
 mignonette, larkspur, anemones, and roses 
 — and in the cultivated gardens of the 
 village are clumps of olive-trees and palms» 
 
 ^ Mark Twain. ^ Survey of Western Palestine. 
 
16 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ii 
 
 But at other times there is only barren 
 rock. 
 
 From the village itself there is no land- 
 scape to be seen, for it lies secluded in its 
 saucer-shaped basin, ' enclosed by mountains 
 as a flower is by leaves.' ^ To get the view 
 you must go on and up to the summit of the 
 cliffs. There it is magnificent. But for 
 the present let us keep to Nazareth itself. 
 
 The streets, if such they can be called, 
 are narrow and not very clean. The paving 
 is of irregular flat stones, sloping inwards so 
 as to form a sort of gutter in the middle, 
 down which the rain-water (when there is 
 rain) carries away the filth. The houses on 
 either side present a blank wall, unbroken 
 save here and there by recesses used for 
 shops. 
 
 There are some buildings at the present 
 day which are modern — a mosque, a con- 
 vent, and a Church of the Annunciation — 
 but, except for these, the general appear- 
 ance of the place cannot be very unlike 
 what it was in New Testament times. Not 
 that these are the same walls and roofs as 
 then : the limestone of which they were built 
 
 ^ Quaresmius. 
 
CH. II THE HOME 17 
 
 is much too soft to have lasted so long. 
 The guides show to tourists what they say 
 are the sites of Mary's kitchen and Joseph's 
 workshop, and the dining-table of Jesus and 
 His Apostles, and the synagogue where He 
 read from the book of the Prophet Isaiah ; 
 but it is not probable that any of these 
 remains are authentic. The ' Virgin's Well,' 
 however, we may suppose to be the same 
 which Mary used. They show, too, a 
 certain precipice as the one from which the 
 people were going to cast Jesus down head- 
 long : its bold and striking appearance has 
 evidently been the reason for its being 
 selected, but it is a long way from the 
 village. 
 
 The houses in Eastern villages are, and 
 were, of the simplest construction. That in 
 which Joseph and Mary lived would be very 
 small ; it was only the well-to-do who had 
 large ones, or had them built of brick or 
 stone. The dwellings of the poor were mere 
 square huts of clay dried hard in the sun 
 .and whitewashed. Out of the clay walls 
 and roof there grew patches of grass and 
 even wild flowers ; but, with so scanty and 
 hard a bed, a few days' sunshine dried them 
 
 c 
 
18 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ii 
 
 up, and the housewife pulled them to start 
 the fire in her oven. Sometimes a ' leprosy ' 
 came out on the walls, a fungous growth per- 
 haps, or an exudation of saltpetre ; it had to 
 be got rid of, or the house broken down.^ 
 Stairs on the outside led up to the roof, which 
 was flat, and was used almost as much as 
 the ground floor. Here lay drying in the 
 sun vegetables and fruit for winter consump- 
 tion. It was a promenade also, where the 
 inhabitants enjoyed a fresher air than in the 
 stufly streets, or watched the flocks and 
 herds pasturing in the plain ; and in summer 
 it was often a sleeping place. Some people 
 who were better of! than Jesus' parents 
 seem to have been would cover in a portion 
 of the roof, and make of it a guest-chamber. 
 
 There was only one room below — this 
 was the whole house of the poor — one room 
 for kitchen, living-room, bedroom, tool-house, 
 everything. 
 
 It had no windows ; what light there 
 was came through the open doorway, and 
 in some houses from a hole in the centre of 
 the roof, which served as chimney. 
 
 There was very little furniture. The 
 
 ^ Lev. 14, 33-53. 
 
CH. II THE HOME 19 
 
 mode of life of Orientals was simple ; the 
 climate being warm, they lived much in 
 the open air ; and the houses were as 
 scantily furnished as they were lightly 
 built. 
 
 The bedding of the family consisted of a 
 few carpets, rolled up and put in a corner 
 during the day, or, in the summer, packed 
 away in a big box, to keep them from 
 insects. Some houses had a wooden couch 
 (Kpa^^aTos), but this was a luxury. Night- 
 dresses were not used ; people slept in their 
 day-clothes, or with only the outer garment 
 removed. The being without this outer 
 garment was all that was implied when a 
 person was said to be ' naked.' 
 
 There were no chairs ; a few mats and 
 cushions served the purpose. 
 
 The father's bench and tools were here 
 also, when he was not using them outside ; 
 and it was troublesome in winter to keep 
 the iron from rusting, for there was not 
 much protection against damp air in an 
 open clay hut whose floor was the bare 
 ground. 
 
 Some earthenware jars and pots held all 
 that was wanted for cooking. 
 
 c2 
 
20 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ii 
 
 In cold weather a charcoal fire was 
 kindled in a pan of earthenware, narrow at 
 the bottom and spreading to eighteen inches 
 in diameter at the top ; but better houses 
 had a brazier, or stand of brass or copper, 
 two feet high, with a chafing dish in the 
 upper surface to hold the fire. Where char- 
 coal was scarce, dried dung was used 
 instead. 
 
 There was not much need for artificial 
 light ; it was bedtime when it was dark. 
 Still, each house had a lamp, and a stand to 
 set it on. The lamp was of earthenware, in 
 the shape of a rather deep saucer, with a 
 lip, like that of a cream-jug, to hold the 
 wick. It stood sometimes on a high ledge 
 in the wall, but usually on the floor, and 
 therefore its stand had to be a high one, so 
 that it might, as Jesus said, ' give light to 
 all that are in the house.' ^ An earthen 
 jar held the oil with which to replenish 
 it when the light grew dim. The foolish 
 virgins in the parable left this at home ; 
 the wise ' took oil in their vessels with their 
 lamps.' ^ 
 
 The measure (or 'bushel,' as our A.Y. 
 
 1 Matt. 5, 15. - Matt. 25, i. 
 
CH. II THE HOME 21 
 
 has it, though the word /aoSto? was used in 
 a general sense as well as for a specific 
 quantity) stood ready to hand. It was useful 
 in all sorts of ways. Things were put into 
 it, as into a drawer or bag ; it was turned 
 upside down and the lamp set upon it ; now 
 it made a convenient little table, and now 
 it was a plate. 
 
 There was also a besom with which the 
 housewife might sweep the floor, as did the 
 woman in the parable who had lost a piece 
 of silver.^ 
 
 Water, fetched from the one fountain in 
 the village street, was kept in large jars ; 
 and there were perhaps a few bags or bottles 
 of goat-skin to hold wine. I say perhaps, 
 because the sour wine of the country, though 
 poor stuff, was not in every home a common 
 beverage. 
 
 Then there was a hand-mill to grind the 
 corn. It was made of two stones, the lower 
 one convex, and the concave surface of the 
 upper fitting loosely over it. The grain 
 trickled down a hole through the centre of 
 the upper stone, and was ground by the 
 upper being turned round and round upon 
 
 1 Luke 15, 8. 
 
22 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ii 
 
 the lower one. A peg near the run was the 
 handle. The mother did the grmding ; she 
 sat on the ground with the mill before her, 
 and turned the handle with her right hand 
 while with her left she kept up the supply 
 of grain.^ Some people had larger mills, 
 which required two to turn them. The 
 grain was kept in two stone pots ; it was 
 generally barley ; wheat was a luxury, for 
 rich folk. There was nothing to hold the 
 meal ; that was ground fresh each time it 
 was required. It was a pleasant sound in 
 the ears of the Jewish peasant, this grinding 
 of the corn, for it meant food to eat. A 
 long silence from it was a mark of desola- 
 tion in the land. The ' sound of the mill- 
 stones ' ^ was one of the things which 
 Jehovah once said He would take away 
 from His people because they would not 
 hear His words. 
 
 Lastly, in the doorway hung the Mesusah, 
 a little oblong box containing a roll of parch- 
 ment on which were written in twenty-two 
 lines tw^o passages of the Law.^ 
 
 Such was the humble home to which the 
 
 1 Matt. 24, 41. 2 jer. 25, lo. , 
 
 3 Deut. 6, 4-9, and 11, 13-21. 
 
CH. II THE HOME 23 
 
 parents of Jesus brought Him when still an 
 infant, and in which He lived and learned 
 during those thirty years of quiet prepara- 
 tion for the great work that He was destined 
 to do. 
 
24 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iii 
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 One token of the interest with which children 
 were regarded in Jewish homes is found in 
 the number of different names given to 
 them for successive stages of their growth. 
 
 The first was ' jeled ' (fem. ' jaldah '), i.e.^ 
 ^ born.' The child whose mother, when she 
 could no longer hide him, took for him an 
 ark of bulrushes, and put him in it, and laid 
 it in the flags by the river's brink, was a 
 jeled.^ Jesus was so called by anticipation 
 in the prophetic passage, ' Unto us a child 
 (jeled) is born, unto us a son (ben, a term of 
 more general meaning) is given.' ^ And He 
 would be actually so called when He lay a 
 helpless babe upon His mother's knee. 
 
 Next came the ' jonek,' or ' suckling.' 
 This word was used also, figuratively, of 
 
 1 Ex. 2, 3. 2 isa. 9^ 6. 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 25 
 
 plants, for a sucker or sapling ; and in the 
 latter sense was prophetically applied to 
 Jesus — ' He grew up before him as a tender 
 plant ' (jonek).^ 
 
 When the child, satisfied no longer with 
 the breast alone, began to want other and 
 more solid nutriment, it was called ' olel.' 
 That was a sad state of famine and desola- 
 tion when ' the tongue of the jonek cleaveth 
 to the roof of his mouth for thirst ; the olalim 
 ask bread, and no one breaketh it unto 
 them.' 2 
 
 At two years of age he was weaned, and 
 a family feast was held to mark the event.^ 
 Now he was called ' gamul,' the ' finished ' 
 or ' weaned ' one. And perhaps Jesus, like 
 many other child at this stage in its history, 
 longed for the breast, and sobbed with dis- 
 appointment to find His comfort taken away, 
 till, humbled and chastened, He cried and 
 fretted no longer, but found peace in the 
 soft embrace of His mother's arms, and lay 
 still and was content ; even as that royal 
 ancestor of His ceased from busying his 
 ' heart with pride, and from lifting up his 
 eyes to what was not for him to have, and 
 
 1 Isa. 53, 2. - Lam. 4, 4. ^ Gen. 21, 8. 
 
26 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iii 
 
 ' stilled and quieted his soul, like a weaned 
 child with his mother.' ^ 
 
 Still in the East children are not weaned 
 until they are two or three years old. For 
 they are liable to such things as dysentery 
 and small-pox, and a late weaning is thought 
 to lessen the risk. They have their common 
 infantile disorders, as Western children have. 
 And the teething time is as much a trouble 
 to them as to us. 
 
 Another year passes. Up to this time 
 the child had been carried by His mother in 
 her arms, or slung on her hip, or over her 
 shoulder. It was only very great people 
 who employed a nurse. ^ Now He began to 
 walk at her side, holding on to her skirts, 
 or with His hand in hers, and ' taph,' or 
 little brother, was His name. 
 
 Next He became an ' elem,' or firm and 
 strong one. After that, growing self-reliant, 
 He was a ' naar,' or youth, one who shakes 
 off, or shakes himself free. And, lastly, the 
 young man, who could bear arms and fight, 
 was called ' bachur,' the ripened one. 
 
 On the day that He reached three years of 
 age, and was no longer ' gamul,' but ' taph,' 
 
 1 Ps. 131, 2. 2 2 Kings, 11, 2. 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD . 27 
 
 something would take place which will show 
 us the sort of religious training a Hebrew 
 child received. He would be put for the first 
 time into a little coat, such as we read that 
 Samuel's mother made and brought up to 
 Shiloh year by year for her boy to wear. 
 To its hem were fastened four tassels 
 (tsitsith), with a thread of bright blue inter- 
 woven. And He would be told that the blue 
 thread had a meaning : Jehovah had bidden 
 the children of Israel wear it, ' that ye 
 may look upon it, and remember all the 
 commandments of the Lord, and do them ; 
 and that ye go not about after your own 
 heart and your own eyes, after which ye 
 use to go a whoring : that ye may remember 
 and do all my commandments, and be holy 
 unto your God.' ^ And He would be told 
 that He must be very careful of His tassels, 
 and not let them get torn or dirty, because 
 they were a sign, given by Jehovah himself, 
 that He belonged to Him. 
 
 In this and many another way did He 
 begin to learn, long before any set lessons 
 'were given Him. It would be difficult to 
 say when His religious education com- 
 
 ' Num. 15, 38-41. 
 
28 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ni 
 
 menced. He was from the first surrounded 
 with object-lessons in rehgion ; the ordinary 
 Hfe of the home was full of symbolism. 
 
 On the doorpost hung a small cylindrical 
 case of bright metal with some letters on 
 which everyone who came in or went out 
 touched with his finger, and then kissed the 
 finger and said a prayer. Even before He 
 could speak the child would notice this, and 
 when He happened to be carried near it, in 
 His mother's arms, would put out His hand 
 to touch it. And as He grew older and could 
 talk, He would ask what it was, and Mary 
 would tell Him that it was the Mesusah, 
 and that the letters on the case were 
 ' Shaddai,' the name of the Most High, and 
 that inside was a little square of parchment 
 folded lengthwise, on which were written 
 two passages from the Law. And she would 
 say them to Him, that He might begin to 
 know them for Himself. 
 
 'Hear, Israel: the Lord our God is 
 one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thine heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy might. And these 
 words, which I command thee this day, shall 
 be upon thine heart ; and thou shalt teach 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 29 
 
 them diligently unto thy children, and shalt 
 talk of them when thou sittest in thine 
 house, and when thou walkest by the way, 
 and when thou liest down, and when thou 
 risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a 
 sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for 
 frontlets between thine eyes. And thou 
 shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy 
 house, and upon thy gates.' ^ 
 
 ' And it shall come to pass, if ye shall 
 hearken diligently unto my commandments 
 which I command you this day, to love the 
 Lord your God, and to serve Him with all 
 your heart and all your soul, that I will give 
 the rain of your land in its season, the former 
 rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest 
 gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine 
 oil. And I will give grass in thy fields for 
 thy cattle, and thou shalt eat and be full. 
 Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be 
 deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other 
 gods, and worship them : and the anger of 
 the Lord be kindled against you, and He shut 
 up the heaven, that there be no rain, and 
 that the land yield not her fruit, and ye 
 perish quickly from of! the good land which 
 
 1 Deut. 6, 4.9. 
 
30 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iii 
 
 the Lord giveth you. Therefore shall ye 
 lay up these my words in your heart and in 
 your soul ; and ye shall bind them for a sign 
 upon your hand, and they shall be for 
 frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall 
 teach them your children, talking of them, 
 when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
 thou walkest by the way, and when thou 
 liest down, and when thou risest up. And 
 thou shalt write them upon the doorposts 
 of thine house, and upon thy gates : that 
 your days may be multiplied, and the days 
 of your children, upon the land which the 
 Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, 
 as the days of the heavens above the 
 earth.' ^ 
 
 They had done as He had commanded, 
 and written these His words upon the door- 
 posts of their house, and He had promised, 
 ' The Lord shall preserve thy going out and 
 thy coming in from this time forth, and even 
 for evermore.' " 
 
 And there were those, she would tell 
 Him, who bound the words for a sign upon 
 their hand, and for frontlets between their 
 eyes ; and would describe to Him the tephil- 
 
 1 Deut. 11, 13-21. ^ Ps. 121, 8. 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 31 
 
 lin or phylacteries which the strict Pharisees 
 wore — tiny leather boxes containing the two 
 passages quoted above and two others.^ 
 
 He would notice how every member of 
 the family said prayers both morning and 
 evening, how before every meal they washed 
 their hands and prayed, and after it gave 
 thanks. 
 
 On the evening before the Sabbath the 
 mother prepared the best supper that she 
 could afford, and lit the Sabbath lamp, ready 
 for when the father should come in from the 
 service at the synagogue, and bless each 
 child with the blessing of Israel before sit- 
 ting down to meat. A portion of the dough 
 she set apart, when baking the household 
 bread, for the stranger, the poor, the widow, 
 or the fatherless. Wine and spices or sweet- 
 smelling herbs were placed on the table, and 
 they, too, and the lamp were blessed. 
 
 On the next evening again the lamp, 
 wine, and spices appeared on the supper 
 table ; and when the sun set, at once all rose 
 and washed their hands, and the father pro- 
 nounced the words of separation — the sepa- 
 ration of the Sabbath from the ordinary day. 
 
 ^ Ex. 13, 1-10 and u-ie. 
 
32 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. hi 
 
 And the meaning of it all, the divine in- 
 stitution of the day of rest, would be ex- 
 plained to the inquiring boy. 
 
 One night He would see His mother light 
 some candles (as many as there were persons 
 in the family), next night twice as many, on 
 the third night three times the number, and 
 so on for eight nights, until the house was 
 brilliant with the unwonted illumination ; 
 and He would be told how Judas the Mac- 
 cabee caught up the standard of revolt as it 
 dropped from his father's aged hand, beat in 
 battle again and again the Syrian generals, 
 and, while they were gathering fresh troops 
 to crush him, blockaded the Syrian garrison 
 in Jerusalem, purified the Temple that An- 
 tiochus three years before had polluted with 
 foul heathen rites, put in good order the 
 ground on which it stood, then overgrown 
 wdth shrubs, erected a new altar, and held a 
 solemn Feast of Dedication, which lasted 
 for eight days, and had ever since been kept 
 up each year by pious Jews. 
 
 And the child's heart would catch from 
 His mother's voice and look something of 
 the national pride, and would swell with the 
 first motions of that patriotism which was 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 33 
 
 in the years to come to add bitterness to His 
 cup of sorrow, when He should know more 
 fully the history of His people, and find the 
 faults which had been their ruin in the past 
 confronting Him again, and frustrating His 
 efforts to bring them deliverance : ' Jeru- 
 salem, Jerusalem, which killeth the pro- 
 phets, and stoneth them that are sent unto 
 her ! How often would I have gathered thy 
 children together, even as a hen gathereth 
 her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 not ! ' 1 
 
 In the spring came two days when every- 
 one was busy merrymaking. If the child had 
 been at the synagogue service the night 
 before. He would have noticed that during 
 the reading whenever the name ' Haman ' 
 was mentioned there were angry shouts and 
 stamping of feet. He would ask what it all 
 meant, and would be told how, five centuries 
 ago, the great Xerxes married a young 
 Jewess, Esther, and how his favourite min- 
 ister, Haman, was going to have a slaughter 
 of the Jews in the empire because Esther's 
 cousin, Mordecai, did not pay him enough 
 respect ; and how Mordecai was promoted 
 
 ^ Matt. 23, 37. 
 
34 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iii 
 
 and Haman hanged, and the Jews were 
 allowed to defend themselves, and they 
 killed thousands of those who were going to 
 kill them ; and because Haman had drawn 
 lots to find a day for the massacre, this an- 
 niversary was called the Feast of Lots. And 
 the boy would think some such thought as 
 in after years He expressed in the words, 
 ' Fear not them that kill the body,' or ' The 
 very hairs of your head are all numbered.' 
 
 A month later he would miss His father 
 and some of the neighbours : they had gone 
 to Jerusalem. One evening, that of the 
 14th Nisan,He would see His mother looking 
 all over the house with lighted candle : she 
 was searching for any leaven that might be 
 hidden. He would notice that the bread 
 given Him to eat during the days that fol- 
 lowed was close and hard. And then He 
 would be told how in the days of old their 
 forefathers were captives and oppressed in 
 Egypt, and how, on this 14th day of Abib 
 or Nisan, they killed a lamb without blemish 
 for each household, and sprinkled its blood 
 on the doorpost, and ate the roast meat with 
 unleavened bread hke this, and with bitter 
 herbs ; and how in the night the angel of 
 
CH.iii CHILDHOOD 35 
 
 the Lord passed over the houses of the 
 IsraeHtes, but in every house of their op- 
 pressors smote the eldest son that he died ; 
 and how then the Egyptians thrust them 
 out in haste, and so they got away into 
 hberty, and at last into a land of their own ; 
 and that now every year the men of Israel 
 went up to Jerusalem from all parts of the 
 world to keep the festival. Thither was 
 Joseph gone, and this was why they had 
 unleavened bread to eat. And Jesus would 
 begin dimly to apprehend that salvation was 
 linked with suffering, yea, with shedding of 
 blood, and those ideas would be already 
 forming which enabled Him in later years 
 to meet His last agony with fortitude, liken- 
 ing Himself to that innocent Paschal lamb, 
 and asking His disciples, whensoever they 
 should keep that feast, to do it in remem- 
 brance of Him. 
 
 A few weeks later, and in clear weather 
 and beautiful sunshine, the child would see 
 the labourers begin to cut the grain, the 
 barley first, and then the wheat. And when 
 the first loaves were made of the wheat, 
 again would the elder folk set off to 
 Jerusalem to offer them as a wave-offering 
 
 D 2 
 
S6 EARLY LITE OF OUR LORD ch. in 
 
 to the Lord, and also, the child would be 
 told, to keep the memory of the giving of 
 the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. 
 
 In rather more than three months' time, 
 on the 1st of Tisri, a blast of trumpets 
 ushered in the New Year. No work was 
 done that day, but the thoughts of all 
 turned to the account that was being taken 
 of their lives by God in Heaven. Ten days 
 later came ' The Day,' the solemn Day of 
 Atonement. The adults went out early 
 with white shrouds and caps to the syna- 
 gogue, and stayed there all day long. And 
 Jesus would hear how at Jerusalem the 
 High Priest, on this day alone of all the 
 year, after elaborate purifications, was enter- 
 ing the Holy of Holies, and perhaps He 
 would be told some of the details of these 
 solemn rites, and would feel even now in 
 some measure the awfulness of sin, and the 
 necessity of suffering, for that 'without 
 shedding of blood is no remission.' 
 
 Now all the crops of the year had been 
 gathered in, and the vintage was over. On 
 the 15th of the month everybody began to 
 collect the boughs of trees and twine them 
 together into tents. And Joseph and Mary 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 37 
 
 and all the family turned out of their house 
 to live for seven days in one of these leafy 
 booths. And the child, as He helped carry 
 the boughs and played about the doorway, 
 would hear the story of how for forty years 
 their forefathers wandered through the 
 wilderness, living in tents, until God brought 
 them into this their own dear land, and 
 gave them houses to live in, and fields to 
 till, and fruitful harvests ; and now, year by 
 year, they celebrate His praise in harvest 
 thanksgiving. And at night the lamps were 
 lit in the booths, and torches were carried 
 round, and there was singing and playing of 
 instruments, and Jesus would catch the 
 gladness of those about Him, and join in 
 their praise of Jehovah, who had delivered 
 the nation from bondage, and was the giver 
 of all good things. 
 
 Nor would His questions meet with any 
 rebuff. In a Jewish home the child was 
 not called a tease when he wanted to know 
 what things were, and why they were so. 
 The people of Palestine had more leisure 
 than we have, and children were not, as 
 they sometimes are with the modern house- 
 wife, in the way. They thought a great 
 
38 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. in 
 
 deal of their little ones, these Jews. He 
 who had no child was said to be ' like one 
 dead.' A miserable woman was the wife 
 who was not also a mother. And this was 
 how they spoke of one who died without 
 offspring : ' Weep sore for him that goeth 
 away, for he shall return no more.' ^ The 
 expectation that of their race should be 
 born the promised Messiah — their God, the 
 Saviour of the nation, the Ruler of the 
 world — gave a certain sacredness to their 
 posterity. No light in Israel must be put 
 out. 
 
 This was no doubt one of the causes 
 which made the position of the woman 
 better in Judaism than among other Orien- 
 tals. She was an important person, for she 
 was or might be a mother. The wife was 
 marked by her very name as the equal of 
 her husband. He was ' ish ' (man), she 
 was ' ishah ' (woman). She was his help- 
 meet, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. 
 
 The home of the Jew was home indeed. 
 The virtues that he valued most were the 
 domestic ones. The family was a sacred 
 thing, and its sanctity inviolate. Love had 
 
 » Jer. 22, lO ; Moed K. 27. 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 39 
 
 no meaning but as between parent and 
 child, husband and wife. ' A Jewess dares 
 love only God, her parents, her husband, 
 and her children.' ^ ' God could not be 
 everywhere,' it was said, ' and therefore He 
 made mothers.' And that saying seems to 
 us to be near the truth, when we think of 
 how strong and far-reaching is the influence 
 which a mother exerts upon the character 
 and destiny of her children. She is to them 
 almost as God. 
 
 'From the inexhaustible spring of 
 Jewish family love,' says a modern Jew,^ 
 ' rise the saviours of the human race.' The 
 statement would apply, at any rate, to the 
 case with which we Christians are con- 
 cerned, for it was from this spring that did 
 arise tJie one Saviour of mankind. Amid 
 such family love was He reared, and He went 
 out from it into the wider world filled with 
 piety towards the All-father, and tenderness 
 towards men His brothers. It cannot but 
 be that Jesus' character was to some extent 
 moulded by that of Mary. She must have 
 ' been a good woman to have been allowed 
 a share in the bringing up of such a son. 
 
 ^ Alexander Weill. ^ Hess, M. 
 
40 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. in 
 
 But the atmosphere of affection in which 
 He grew was not enervating. Love was 
 based on reverence. In scarce any nation 
 has the parental authority been so highly 
 exalted as in Israel. ' Honour thy father 
 and thy mother, that thy days may be long 
 upon the land which the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee,' had the finger of God himself 
 written on the tables of stone. In the Law 
 it was ordered that, ' If a man have a 
 stubborn and rebellious son, which will not 
 obey the voice of his father, or the voice of 
 his mother, and though they chasten him 
 will not hearken unto them : then shall his 
 father and his mother lay hold on him, and 
 bring him out unto the elders of his city, 
 and unto the gate of his place ; and they 
 shall say unto the elders of his city. This 
 our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will 
 not obey our voice ; he is a riotous liver and 
 a drunkard. And all the men of his city 
 shall stone him with stones, that he die : so 
 shalt thou put away the evil from the midst 
 of thee ; and all Israel shall hear, and 
 fear.' ^ 
 
 In the special service of curses and 
 
 * Deut. 21, 18-21. 
 
CH. Ill CHILDHOOD 41 
 
 blessings which Moses arranged, to be said 
 on Mounts Ebal and Grerizim, this was one 
 of the sentences : — (The Levites were to 
 say with a loud voice), ' Cursed be he that 
 setteth light by his father or his mother.' 
 (And all the people were to say), ' Amen.' 
 
 Jesus, even as a little child, would hear 
 the story of how Isaac yielded himself a 
 victim ready to die at his father's will, and 
 would think perchance that He too might so 
 submit in such a case. For Him in later 
 years the time did come when in His agony 
 He exclaimed, ' my Father, if it be pos- 
 sible, let this cup pass from me. Neverthe- 
 less, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' 
 
 He would learn, too, to repeat the com- 
 mand to honour father and mother, and, as 
 He became able to read for Himself, would 
 find that duty enjoined over and over again 
 in the Scriptures, and backed by promises 
 and threats. But with Him obedience, we 
 may think, would spring rather from love 
 than from fear. It is clear from all His after 
 life and words that filial affection was strong 
 in Him. He names it as one of the horrible 
 things that should mark the coming persecu- 
 tion of His disciples for righteousness' sake 
 
42 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iii 
 
 that ' the father shall deliver up his child, 
 and children shall rise up against parents.' ^ 
 He cannot believe that there could be a 
 father who, ' if his son shall ask him for a 
 loaf, will give him a stone, or if he shall ask 
 him for a fish, will give him a serpent.' 
 With Him men, though they be evil, know 
 how to give good gifts unto their children. 
 The son who has wasted his substance with 
 riotous living, and comes homeward, even 
 before he can speak a word of his penitence, 
 while yet afar ofi, his father sees, and is 
 moved with compassion, and runs, and falls 
 on his neck and kisses him. The fittest 
 name by which He can speak of the God He 
 worships, and whose will it is His meat and 
 drink to do, is not ' I am,' or ' Jehovah,' but 
 ' Father.' The head of the little home at 
 Nazareth must have been a good man, since 
 Jesus could associate with the idea of father- 
 hood only kindness, and watchful care, and 
 patient love. 
 
 ' Matt. 10, 21. 
 
CH. IV 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FIEST LESSONS 
 
 The education of a Jew was religious only. 
 As Judaism had much to say about the 
 home, so the home had much to say about 
 Judaism. It was in the home that the 
 instruction began, and the mother was the 
 first teacher. Indeed, she is always so, 
 whether she will or no, for by spirit and 
 example she teaches either the love of truth 
 and goodness, or the pursuit of pleasure and 
 fashion and wealth ; but she ought also to 
 be the first teacher by word of mouth of the 
 simple dogmas of the faith. To this duty 
 were Jewish women urged by their sacred 
 scriptures and by the precepts of the Rabbis. 
 And all the long series of traditions about 
 motherhood, and of stories of pattern 
 mothers, would influence them in the same 
 direction. 
 
44 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch.iv 
 
 Definite religious teaching began as soon 
 as the children could understand anything 
 at all. * From their earliest consciousness 
 they learned the laws.' ^ ' They are taught,' 
 Philo wrote of them to Caius, ' from their 
 very swaddling clothes.' 
 
 ' From a babe ' had Timothy ' known the 
 Scriptures,' and the ' unfeigned faith ' that 
 was in him had ' dwelt first ' in his grand- 
 mother Lois and his mother Eunice.^ And 
 ' from a babe ' would Jesus begin to know 
 them too. 
 
 As soon as He could speak words plainly 
 Mary would try to teach Him a verse out of 
 the Law, so training the memory of sound 
 even before He was able to recognise the look 
 of the letters. 
 
 At about three years of age the alphabet 
 was learned ; and by the time that He began 
 to spell out the words written on a scroll 
 He would already repeat several verses by 
 ear. 
 
 For the Jews, in order that the very 
 words of the Scriptures might be preserved, 
 in an age when there was no printing-press, 
 and written copies were not too plentiful, 
 
 ' Jos. contra Apion. 2, 19 "2 Tim. 3, 15 ; 1,5. 
 
CH. IV FIRST LESSONS 45 
 
 laid great stress on the cultivation of an 
 accurate memory. The Talmud likens the 
 ideal student to ' a well-plastered cistern, 
 from which not a drop escapes.' ' Take heed 
 to thyself,' the Law had said, ' and keep thy 
 soul diligently, lest thou forget,' &c.^ ; and 
 the comment in the Mishnah on the pas- 
 sage is, ' He who forgets any one thing in 
 the study of the Mishnah, Scripture im- 
 putes it to him as if he had forfeited his 
 life.' 2 
 
 So far did they carry this learning by 
 heart, that their discussions were conducted 
 not so much by logical reasoning as by the 
 ingenious application to the matter in hand 
 of passages from the sayings of the better 
 known Rabbis ; and even their ordinary con- 
 versation was freely interlarded with quota- 
 tions. To anyone who reads the literature 
 of the Hebrews and compares it with the 
 words of Jesus, it is evident that the mind 
 of the great Teacher was saturated with 
 their Scriptures and commentaries, and His 
 memory stored with the expressions that 
 they employ. And this, so far from detract- 
 ing from His reputation for originality, indeed 
 
 ' Deut. 4, 9. - Pirqey Abhoth, iii. 9. 
 
46 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iv 
 
 only enhances it. For the marvel is that 
 He did not grow up, like the rest of them, a 
 mere repeater of phrases. His divine spiritu- 
 ality is in this strikingly apparent, that His 
 vision pierced through the mist of tradition 
 in which He was reared, to the sunlight of 
 eternal truth. The growth, in such an 
 atmosphere, of an individuality so unique is 
 the mark of something that is more than 
 human. 
 
 The first words that the child would 
 learn to say were from the Shema, the Jews' 
 solemn confession of faith. It was the same 
 that was written on the little rolls of parch- 
 ment hung up in the doorway and worn on 
 the forehead and wrist — the Mesusah and the 
 phylacteries. He learned it early, and well, 
 for it was to be the most important part of 
 His daily prayers. 
 
 ' Hear, Israel,' it began : ' the Lord 
 our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love 
 the Lord with all thine heart, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy might.' And the 
 little child. He loved His mother, that He 
 knew, and, loving her, loved the Lord His 
 God also ; for did not His mother so ? 
 Sitting in the house, or busy about her work. 
 
CH. IV FIRST LESSONS 47 
 
 or walking with pitcher on her head to 
 fill it at the village well, at all hours 
 and in all places would she repeat these 
 words to Him, and make Him say them 
 after her. So they became in His mind 
 associated not with professional piety or 
 sanctimoniousness, but with His mother's 
 love and goodness, and with the sights and 
 sounds of the fresh and wonderful world 
 about Him. Grown to manhood, God was 
 to Him the All-parent, and He saw Him in 
 grass and lily and sparrow, and in men who 
 were kind and true. 
 
 While the mother was naturally the first 
 teacher, yet it was the father that by Jewish 
 law and custom was regarded as the one 
 responsible for the child's education. He 
 would have more time for it than fathers have 
 in these days. For the climate of Palestine 
 being warm and pleasant, and the habits 
 of life simple, the people had few wants 
 and could live on very little, and so there 
 was no need for men to work long hours. 
 And indeed there were religious festivals 
 enough to fill two months of the year, and 
 at such times they were not allowed to 
 work, whether they would or no. 
 
48 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. iv 
 
 The father was ' bound to teach his son.' ^ 
 This duty claimed precedence even over his 
 meals. To omit it would be to deserve the 
 name of Amhaarets, a vulgar and irreligious 
 person.^ In discharging it he felt that he 
 was blessed, for he was an ambassador of 
 the Most High. He thought of Moses going 
 up to the top of the mount, the awestruck 
 people at its base unable to see him for 
 stormcloud and smoke, and then descending 
 to repeat to them what the voice of Jehovah 
 had spoken to him there, the divine Law. 
 To himself now had come a like privi- 
 lege, on him there rested a like responsi- 
 bility.' 
 
 In that Law he was charged to teach 
 diligently to his children the words which 
 the Lord commanded, to talk to them when 
 he sat in the house and when he walked by 
 the way, when he lay down and when he 
 rose up. And if his son should ask him, 
 ' What mean the statutes which the Lord 
 our God hath commanded you ? ' he was to 
 tell him the whole story of how their fore- 
 fathers were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, 
 
 J Qiddushin, 29, a. ^ Sotah, 22, a. 
 
 ^ Sanhedrin, 99, b. 
 
CH. IV riKST LESSONS 49 
 
 and how God had brought them out, with 
 signs and wonders, and had given to Israel 
 a land of their own, and made of them a 
 nation, and had commanded them to do all 
 these statutes for their good always.-^ 
 
 1 Deut. 6. 
 
 E 
 
50 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 The Talmuds show that it was a special 
 duty of the father to take his child to school 
 in the morning ; even men of distinction 
 would not eat their breakfast until this was 
 done. 
 
 At five years of age we may suppose that 
 Jesus began to go. Delicate children waited 
 till they were six, or even more, but it was 
 not long after Jesus' time that education 
 was made by law compulsory for those who 
 were six years old. It is not certain that 
 there did at this time exist in every town a 
 day-school as well as the Sabbath-school 
 which the minister of the synagogue taught, 
 but it is probable that there was one in very 
 many towns. 
 
 What is known is this. After the return 
 from exile in Babylon, the Scribes founded 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 51 
 
 schools, though not for young children, and 
 Ezra ordered that schoolmasters should be 
 allowed to settle in any place they might 
 choose.^ 
 
 One hundred years before Christ, Simeon 
 ben Schetach, president of the Sanhedrin, a 
 Pharisee, founded at Jerusalem the first 
 child's school, calling it Beth-hassepher (the 
 house of the book). About a.d. 64 Jesus ben 
 Gamala, who was High Priest before the 
 destruction of the Temple, ordered that 
 every town should have a primary school, 
 which should be free ; if there were not so 
 many as twenty-five children, the Chazzan 
 was to teach them, and for each twenty-five 
 pupils there was to be one master.- 
 
 But this order implies the existence of 
 such schools earlier, for a system that could 
 be made compulsory must have been already 
 in partial, if not in general, use. 
 
 If the community were too poor to build 
 a school, the synagogue might be used on 
 week-days as well as on the Sabbath. 
 
 The arrangements were peculiar. There 
 
 •were no benches or chairs. One principle 
 
 of Jewish education was that there should 
 
 1 Babha Bathra, 21, b. ^ Ibid. 21, a. 
 
 £ 2 
 
62 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 be no distinction between teacher and taught, 
 and so either they all stood or all sat on the 
 ground. From the phrase ' thine eyes shall 
 see thy teachers,' in Isa. 30, 20, it was inferred 
 that all the children in a class must be 
 so placed as to be able to see their instructor. 
 They stood, then, or sat, in a semicircle 
 with the teacher at the centre, that the Law 
 might be fulfilled. 
 
 In small schools the master was the 
 same person as the Chazzan, or officer of 
 the synagogue. He took no fees from his 
 pupils : the congregation paid him a salary 
 for his work as a whole. He was required 
 to be a married man. 
 
 For those children who had not already 
 learned the alphabet at home, it was the 
 first lesson in the school. The whole class 
 repeated the letters in musical cadence — 
 Aleph, Beth, Gimel, &c. — over and over 
 again. Each letter in turn was written with 
 chalk upon a board, and picked out in a 
 manuscript roll wherever it occurred, and 
 copied by the pupils on their own little 
 tablets. 
 
 The alphabet learned, a passage from 
 the Scriptures was written on the board, 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 53 
 
 and chanted by the children until they 
 knew it off by heart ; and then another and 
 another. And soon a whole psalm was sung 
 and learned in the same way. Gradually 
 they began to read for themselves, and one 
 of the class would read aloud from a roll, 
 and the master would ask them questions, 
 and answer theirs, and tell them stories to 
 illustrate the meaning. 
 
 The reading-book was always some por- 
 tion of the Law. For Israel there was no 
 other literature, no other learning, than 
 this. 
 
 Their belief in its inspiration was entire 
 and unwavering. ' He who says that Moses 
 wrote one verse out of his own head is a 
 liar and a contemner of the word of God.' ^ 
 ' He who affirms that the Law is not come 
 from heaven shall have no part in the world 
 to come.' ^ School and synagogue existed 
 only to spread the knowledge of the Law, 
 ' He who knows not the Law is accursed,' 
 the Eabbis said. As Hillel put it, ' The 
 schools make for wisdom, the study of the 
 Law for life.' ^ 
 
 ^ Sanh. X. i. * Pirqey Abhoth, iii, 2, 3, 
 
 ' Ibid. 99, a. &c. 
 
54 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 ' These are the things that bring forth 
 fruit in this Hfe, and whose good endures in 
 the Hfe to come — to honour your father 
 and mother, to practise charity, to follow 
 peace with all men, and, above all, the study 
 of the Law.' ^ 
 
 Jesus would have asked many questions, 
 and heard much already, at home and in the 
 synagogue, about the history of the chosen 
 people. Now that He could read for Him- 
 self, He would begin with what was the 
 written authority for the customs and cere- 
 monies which He had seen — the book of 
 Leviticus. He would go through the details 
 of the sacrificial rites, so carefully wrought 
 out, for burnt-offerings, for meal-offerings, 
 and for peace-offerings; how if anyone, 
 priest, ruler, common person, or even the 
 whole congregation, should sin, and do any 
 of the things which the Lord had com- 
 manded not to be done, though he knew it 
 not, yet was he guilty, and must bring his 
 offering to the priest — bullock, or goat, or 
 ram — to be slain, in order that atonement 
 might be made, and his sin forgiven. 
 
 What any man had taken by robbery, or 
 
 1 Peah, i. i. 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 65 
 
 got by oppression, or kept for himself when 
 deposited with him as a trust, or found and 
 concealed, or sworn about falsely, that 
 must be restored in full, and a fifth part 
 added, and a guilt-offering slain before the 
 Lord. 
 
 He read of the consecration of Aaron 
 and his sons : how they were washed with 
 water, and clothed with symbolic vestments, 
 and anointed with oil, and set apart with 
 solemn rites, that they might stand before 
 God and be priests to offer sacrifice for the 
 people. 
 
 He learned that God had made some 
 foods clean and some unclean ; that impurity 
 of whatever kind must be scrupulously 
 shunned, or with care and pains be expiated ; 
 that to God alone must sacrifices be offered. 
 He had separated them from others, and to 
 Him they should be a holy people : they 
 were to be kind-hearted, righteous without 
 respect of persons, not to carry tales, nor to 
 cherish ill-feeling against any, to keep His 
 Sabbaths and reverence His sanctuary, to 
 honour age, and to be true and just in all 
 their dealings. 
 
 They were not to walk in the evil cus- 
 
66 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. y 
 
 toms, which God abhorred, of the heathens 
 whom He had cast out before them. Espe- 
 cially holy must the priests be, in all their 
 relations ; there must be no blemish in them- 
 selves, even as there must be none in the 
 sacrifices which they offered. 
 
 Set feasts were prescribed ; a rest for the 
 land every seventh year; and every fifty 
 years a jubilee, when every man returned 
 to his possession, and the bondman went 
 free. 
 
 If they should walk in all these statutes 
 and keep His commandments, and do them, 
 then should the land yield her increase, and 
 they should eat bread to the full, and He 
 would give peace to the land, and none 
 should make them afraid : He would walk 
 among them and be their God, and they 
 should be His people. But if they would 
 not hearken unto Him and do all these com- 
 mandments, then should they consume away 
 with disease, and sow their seed in vain, and 
 be smitten before their enemies. And if 
 still they walked contrary to His will, seven 
 times more and yet again should they be 
 chastised for their sins, their cities a waste, 
 their land a desolation, themselves scat- 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 67 
 
 tered among the nations, until they should 
 confess their iniquity, and their hearts be 
 humbled; and then would He remember 
 the covenant of their ancestors whom He 
 brought forth out of the land of Egypt in 
 the sight of the nations, that He might be 
 their God. 
 
 And as the boy read there would arise in 
 His mind a high ideal of worship and of con- 
 duct, and a growing dread, yea, a hatred, of 
 sin, that was so linked with suffering and 
 death ; and already would He begin to enter 
 into that mystery of sacrifice of which Him- 
 self was by-and-by to be the ultimate ex- 
 ample. 
 
 It was not at first the whole book of 
 Leviticus that He knew, but only the first 
 eight chapters, containing the laws about 
 sacrifices. 
 
 This was one of the portions of Scripture 
 which in the time of the Talmud, if not 
 earlier, were copied on small rolls for the 
 use of children. For no other purpose were 
 extracts from the sacred books allowed to 
 be made. Other portions so copied were : 
 the Shema ; ^ the history of the Creation, 
 
 ^ Deut. 4, 4-9; 11, 13-21; Num. 15, S7-4i. 
 
58 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. y 
 
 to the Flood ; the Hallel ; ^ and the national 
 organisation.- 
 
 The use of these sections for reading 
 lessons would prepare the boy for the fuller 
 study, after Leviticus, of the remaining books 
 of the Pentateuch, which was what the Jews 
 called Torah (the Law), or Torah Mosheh 
 (the Law of Moses). Thus He learned the 
 early history of the Jewish family, the story 
 of its three great ancestors, Abraham, Isaac 
 and Jacob ; how the family grew into a 
 nation in Egypt, its dire oppression and its 
 great deliverance, its wanderings in the 
 wilderness ; the giving of the Law, civil and 
 religious, the establishment of worship and 
 the separation of the priesthood, the number- 
 ing and organisation of the people, and the 
 last solemn charges of Moses. And the 
 record so unique would kindle the fire of 
 national pride within Him, and His heart 
 would leap in response when He reached the 
 closing words : 
 
 Happy art thou, Israel : 
 
 Who is like unto thee, a people saved by the Lord ! 
 
 An ' Israelite indeed ' it would be His ambi- 
 tion to become. 
 
 1 Psalms 113-118. * ]^um_ i_io, 35. 
 
CH. y SCHOOL 59 
 
 Next in order, and almost equal in im- 
 portance, to the Law came the Prophets. 
 Of these there were two divisions — the 
 earlier Prophets, which were the purely his- 
 torical books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 
 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings ; and the later 
 Prophets, which consisted of the prophetical 
 books as they stand in our Bible from Isaiah 
 onwards, with the exception of Daniel. 
 
 In all these the boy would trace the 
 practical working out of the principles which 
 God had enunciated in the Law : how obedi- 
 ence did bring victory, and waywardness 
 defeat; how the worship of the true God, and 
 moral purity, and happiness and well-being, 
 whether of the individual or of the nation, 
 went hand in hand ; and how through all 
 reverses, yea, even through their sins, the 
 love and mercy of God ever waited to bless 
 them when they should repent and return. 
 
 That Jesus knew well the prophetical 
 writings could be shown by a list too long 
 to print here of references to them in His 
 discourses.^ And that list suggests that 
 of them all His favourite was the book of 
 Isaiah. 
 
 ^ See Queen's Printers' Aids. 
 
60 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. t 
 
 There was no definite canon of the Scrip- 
 ture in Jesus' time. Besides the Law and 
 the Prophets there were other books in exist- 
 ence, treating of the national history and 
 rehgion, which were esteemed each accord- 
 ing to its own merits. All were called 
 sacred ; a quotation from any one of them, 
 as from the Law or Prophets, is introduced 
 in the Mishnah with the words ' It is written,' 
 or 'It is said,' or 'He says.' In the New 
 Testament, and especially the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, the same is the case. Por, as 
 St. Paul puts it when writing to Timothy, 
 ' Every scripture inspired of God is also 
 profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
 rection, for instruction which is in righteous- 
 ness.' ^ 
 
 These, the Hagiographa, were read in, 
 the schools after the Law and the Prophets. 
 To some of them Jesus seems in later life 
 to refer, and especially to the Psalms. He 
 quoted often from the Psalms, and used 
 the name as a general title for all as 
 yet uncanonical Scriptures.^ ' All things,' 
 He said, ' must needs be fulfilled which 
 
 1 2 Tim. 3, 16. 21, is, 42; 22, 44 ; 23, 38, 39 ; 
 
 ^ E.g., in St.Matthev/ only, 25, 41 ; 26, 24 ; 27, 35, 43, 46. 
 
CH.v SCHOOL 61 
 
 are written in the Law of Moses, and the 
 Prophets, and the Psalms, concerning me.' ^ 
 The book of Daniel also He had read,^ and 
 perhaps Job,^ Chronicles,'^ Proverbs,^ and 
 others. 
 
 But it was not until after the time of 
 Jesus, and after the fall of Jerusalem, that 
 the Pharisean schools tried to settle defi- 
 nitely what books should be included in this 
 third part of authoritative revelation, called 
 generally the Hagiographa (Holy Scrip- 
 tures). When at length a list was drawn 
 up, it was this : — Psalms, Proverbs, Job, 
 Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, 
 Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 
 Chronicles. 
 
 What Jesus said of Judas, ' Good were it 
 for that man if he had never been born,' 
 comes from the book of Enoch, which was 
 well known and esteemed at the time, though 
 it never found a place in the canon ; but 
 as the phrase was a familiar one in the 
 
 1 Luke 24, 44. 26, 64 (cf. Dan. 7, 13) ; Matt. 
 
 * Matt. 13, 43 (cf. Dan. 28, 18 (cf. Dan. 7, 14). 
 
 12, 3) ; Matt. 21, 44, and Luke 3 Matt. 24, 28(cf. Job 39, 30). 
 
 20, 18 (cf. Dan. 2, 45) ; Matt. •* Matt. 23, 35, and Luke 
 
 24, 15, and Mark 13, u (cf. 11, 51 (cf. 2 Chron. 24, 20, 21). 
 
 Dan. 9, 27, and 12, ii); Matt. * Luke 14, io(cf.Prov.25,7). 
 
62 EAULY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 Rabbinical schools, it is possible that Jesus 
 got it from hearing it in a synagogue 
 address or in common conversation, and 
 not at first-hand from the book itself. It 
 is worth noting that James also, the Lord's 
 brother, became in some way acquainted 
 with the Apocrypha.^ 
 
 We must not suppose that copies of all 
 the Scriptures were placed in the hands of 
 every child, as primers are in our class- 
 rooms to-day. What Bible, then, did Jesus 
 use ? and where did He see it ? 
 
 As has been already pointed out, there 
 were certain sections of which copies were 
 made for the use of children, and these 
 would be the first reading-books in school. 
 It is even possible that Joseph had a set 
 at home. A complete manuscript of the 
 whole of the sacred books only a very rich 
 man could afford. There were undoubtedly 
 manuscripts belonging to private indivi- 
 duals very much earlier than the time of 
 Jesus ; ^ and the number was more likely, 
 under the influence of Scribes and Pharisees, 
 to increase than to decrease. 
 
 ^ Cf. James 1, 6,8, 25, with ^ Mace. 1,59, 60 ; Jos. Antt. 
 Ecclus. 7, 10 ; 1, 28 ; 14, 23. 12, 5, 4. 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 63 
 
 The synagogue of course had a copy of 
 the Law and the Prophets at least, and no 
 doubt of some of the Hagiographa also, from 
 which the lessons were read at the public 
 services. This copy was in the care of the 
 Chazzan, and would be available, if necessary, 
 for use in school, and Jesus might borrow it 
 when He became a man to read privately. 
 Afterwards, while living at Capernaum, He 
 would be able to consult the synagogue copy 
 of that town also. 
 
 That He did use to the utmost what 
 opportunities He had is clear from what has 
 come down to us of His discourses and con- 
 versations. 
 
 He knew the Scriptures both by hearing 
 them and by reading them Himself. 
 
 At the very beginning of His public 
 work He came to Nazareth, where He had 
 been brought up, and He entered, as His 
 custom was, into the synagogue on the 
 Sabbath day, and stood up to read, and there 
 was delivered unto Him the book of the 
 Prophet Isaiah, and He opened the book 
 'and found the place where it was written, 
 * The spirit of the Lord is upon me.' ^ 
 
 ^ Luke 4, 16, 17. 
 
64 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD cii. v 
 
 He speaks of the Hebrew letters as only 
 could one who knew them.^ 
 
 ' Have ye not read what David did ? ' ^ 
 ' Have ye not read that He which made 
 them from the beginning made them male 
 and female, and said . . . ? ' ^ ' Yea : did ye 
 never read, Out of the mouths of babes 
 and sucklings Thou hast pejf ected praise ? ' * 
 ' Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The 
 stone which the builders rejected . . . ? ' ^ 
 ' But as touching the resurrection of the 
 dead, have ye not read that which was 
 spoken unto you by God, saying . . . ? ' ^ — 
 that is the way He speaks to Pharisees and 
 Scribes. Nay, He designates Himself and 
 His disciples ' scribes ' even as they.' 
 
 The Scriptures were constantly on His 
 lips, and when He did not quote directly 
 from them, they yet coloured His thoughts 
 and supplied Him with His language. 
 
 He seems to have known them in the 
 orginal Hebrew. Though He spoke in 
 Aramaean, which was the ordinary dialect 
 
 1 Matt. 5, 18. ^ Matt. 21, 42. 
 
 2 Matt. 12, 3 " Matt. 22, 3i. 
 
 ' Matt. 19, 4. '^ Matt. 13, si, 52, in Keim 
 
 * Matt. 21, 16. 2, 151.- 
 
CH.V SCHOOL 65 
 
 of the people, He used the Hebrew text 
 in quoting the Scriptures. Translations 
 had probably not yet been made, other 
 than the extempore ones of Eabbis com- 
 menting in the synagogue on the Hebrew 
 passages that had just been read aloud; 
 indeed, the need for them would scarcely 
 arise until after the people had become 
 widely and hopelessly dispersed in foreign 
 lands. 
 
 By the time that the Gospels were 
 written the Greek Septuagint, and possibly 
 an Aramaic version somewhat resembling it, 
 had come into use ; and the Evangelists 
 made quotations often from the LXX, or 
 from something very like it, instead of 
 directly from the Hebrew text.^ 
 
 But even then, though the LXX was 
 tolerated, and Greek and Latin were learned 
 for the sake of intercourse with the larger 
 world into which Israel had become merged, 
 yet the Talmud, allowing any language to 
 be used for things that were spoken, such as 
 the Shema, or ordinary blessings or graces, 
 'Still required that the writing on the phylac- 
 teries and the Mesusah, and also the solemn 
 
 ^ Keim 1, 83 ; 2, 153. 
 
66 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 benediction pronounced by the priests, should 
 be in Hebrew.^ 
 
 The copies of the Scriptures that Jesus 
 saw were written, not in the old Hebrew- 
 Phoenician, but, like our own, in the square 
 or Assyrian characters. This is evident 
 from that expression of His, ' One jot or one 
 tittle shall in no wise pass away from the 
 Law.' For the jot (iwra) was the ' yod ' ('), 
 the smallest of the Hebrew letters, generally 
 silent, with which His own name in its 
 Hebrew form began ; and the tittle (/ce/oata, 
 a horn) was the only distinguishing mark 
 between certain pairs of letters, as, for 
 instance, between ^ (caph) and ^ (beth), or 
 between ~i (resch) and i (daleth). 
 
 And for the same reason we may infer 
 that it was the Assyrian characters which 
 the boy learned to write. It has sometimes 
 been made a question. Could Jesus write 2 
 There is little doubt about it. For though 
 there was a professional class of writers, the 
 scribes who made copies of the Scriptures, 
 yet they were not writers only, but students 
 and expounders also; and the people at 
 large were able to write, sufficiently, that is, 
 
 ^ Megil* i. 8 ; Sotah vii. i, 2. 
 
CH. T SCHOOL 67 
 
 for their own private purposes. Instances 
 are mentioned in the Old Testament of 
 writing not only by skilled scribes, but by 
 priests^ and by private individuals — house- 
 holders,- husbands,^ kings,^ prophets,^ and 
 even so early as the days of Gideon, by the 
 first young man he happened to meet." 
 
 And we know from the Gospel story how 
 Zacharias made signs for a tablet to be 
 brought, and wrote ' His name is John ' ; 
 and how Jesus himself once ' stooped and 
 wrote with His finger on the ground.' 
 
 Short memoranda were made on tablets ; 
 for longer writings paper — the Egyptian 
 papyrus — was used,^ or parchment.^ Quills 
 are mentioned in 3 John 13, and black ink 
 in 2 Cor. 3, 3; 2 John 12; 3 John 13. 
 Josephus speaks also of gold ink,^ and the 
 Mishnah ^° of red and other colours. 
 
 When considering what books of the 
 Bible Jesus read, we were anticipating a 
 little the actual course of His education. 
 
 ^ Num. 5. 23. " Judg. 8, u. 
 
 2 Deut. 6, 9. '2 John 12. 
 
 • » Deut. 24, I. « 2 Tim. 4, 13. 
 
 •» Isa. 38, 9. 9 Antt. 12, 2, 11. 
 
 -' 2 Chron. 26, 22 ; Jer. 30, 1° Meg. ii. 2, 
 2 ; Ezek. 24, 2, and 43, 11. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 We must not suppose that while still a 
 boy, and being taught, He was able to get 
 through the whole of those Scriptures with 
 which undoubtedly He was familiar at the 
 time when He began His public ministry. 
 
 Ordinary children in the country did 
 little more than learn to read (from some of 
 these Scriptures), perhaps also to write, and 
 to repeat the more important passages of 
 the Law. All that we can say of Jesus is 
 that He, with His keener intelligence and 
 more earnest character, would naturally take 
 a greater interest in His studies than others, 
 and make more rapid progress. 
 
 He would not be overworked. There 
 was no strain in Jewish education. The 
 middle of the day was free ; there were no 
 lessons between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. And in 
 the warm summer weather the hours were 
 shortened. A few years later we find a 
 rule in existence that there should be only 
 four hours' work and no chastisement 
 between 17th Thamuz and 9th Ab, i.e., 
 during our month of July. 
 
 Thus the mind of the boy kept its elas- 
 ticity and freshness. He loved to learn, 
 and when He first met with some of the 
 
CH. V SCHOOL 69 
 
 great teachers of religion, in the courts of 
 the Temple at Jerusalem, forgot friends and 
 home and all, and stayed on there, ' both 
 hearing and asking them questions.' He 
 was not, like some clever children, a mere 
 cabinet of facts and phrases, but a living, 
 thinking, truth-loving soul. 
 
 So far we have spoken only of His 
 Biblical studies. He would hear some- 
 thing also of the comments that had been 
 made by Eabbis of repute upon passages 
 read as lessons in the synagogues. Already 
 had these comments gained a considerable 
 authority and become widely known. In 
 time they became a sort of second Law, 
 and were ascribed to Moses himself, and by 
 the beginning of the second century were 
 written down and arranged and indexed 
 under the title of the Mishnah. And 
 after that there began the accumula- 
 tion of comments upon the Mishnah itself, 
 and the formation in this way of a third 
 Law, the Gemaras (complements) or Tal- 
 muds (lessons, teachings), one of Babylon, 
 and another of Jerusalem ; which Talmuds 
 are the source of a good deal of our know- 
 ledge of the later Judaism. 
 
70 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. v 
 
 But here we must leave the subject of 
 the boy's education for a while, and look at 
 some other aspects of His childhood, before 
 we come to that important crisis in His life 
 when, at the age of twelve or thirteen, He 
 put away childish things and became a 
 member of the congregation of Israel, His 
 people. 
 
CH. VI 71 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 EECEEATION 
 
 It was not all school. Everybody lived 
 very much out of doors. And there were 
 plenty of things in Nazareth to interest the 
 boy, and some to amuse Him. A great 
 gathering-place was the village well, where 
 water poured through taps in a stone slab 
 and fell into a trough below. Here the 
 girls came, their pitchers poised upon their 
 heads, and filled them, and stopped to talk 
 over the current gossip of the place. Way- 
 farers halted here awhile to water their 
 cattle and to rest, before pursuing their 
 journey on towards Cana, or Ptolemais, or 
 southward across the plain of Esdraelon. 
 To a stranger at this day they seem bold 
 and not over-modest, these Nazareth girls, 
 with their single cotton garment frayed and 
 worn, and their feet bare, and strings of 
 
72 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 old coins around their forehead and cheeks, 
 loitering by the fountain. 
 
 And the sober married women were there, 
 drawing water for household purposes. Mary 
 came, her long coloured cotton gown tied 
 round the waist, and a white kerchief or 
 wimple thrown over her head and shoulders, 
 and fastened with a plaited coil of dark wool 
 and silk. She walked erect, and the empty 
 earthen water-pot lay on its side upon her 
 head. And the boy came with her, His 
 hand in hers. He would wear a linen tunic 
 like a very long and close-fitting shirt, pro- 
 bably white with brown stripes, and a white 
 turban, tied under His chin with a cord and 
 falling on to His shoulders. His curly brown 
 locks peeping out beneath. When He grew 
 strong enough He would help to carry back 
 the full pitchers to the house. 
 
 To this day the well may be seen in 
 Nazareth ; and it is called the ' fountain of 
 the Virgin.' It is an arched recess of stone ; 
 water pours forth from a spout in the wall, 
 and a shallow pool covers the floor. One 
 woman may be holding her jar under the 
 spout to be filled, others just going away 
 with jars on their heads or shoulders ; an 
 
CH. VI EECREATION 73 
 
 ass laden with a vessel on each side is 
 taking a drink on his own account from the 
 pool, and other women again are soaking 
 garments in the water and then wringing 
 them or beating them with bats. 
 
 And what is now, was then. 
 
 When children meet together in a village 
 street in England they do not long remain 
 inactive. They soon begin some game. 
 And a favourite amusement is to imitate the 
 more serious occupations of their elders. 
 So they play at ' keeping shop,' or at a tea 
 party, or at soldiering, and even at ' church.' 
 Jewish children were like English ones : 
 they, too, had games which answered to the 
 customs of ordinary life. Sometimes, for 
 instance, they would play at a wedding. 
 One little boy was ' bridegroom,' and stepped 
 out, the ' sons of the bride-chamber ' follow- 
 ing, to fetch home the bride. And the 
 girls joined in, to accompany the bride, and 
 made believe to carry torches, and to shake 
 myrtle boughs over her head, and to beat 
 drums and play on pipes, and sing and dance 
 along the road. 
 
 Sometimes it would be a funeral. And 
 then they marched very solemnly, beating 
 
74 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 their breasts and howling, or even rolhng on 
 the ground and throwing dust over their 
 heads, away towards the tombs in the hill- 
 side beyond the town. 
 
 And from something Jesus once said it 
 seems as if He had himself taken part in 
 these games, and had seen in them the 
 same play of character as in the more 
 serious affairs of older people. There were 
 selfish children who pouted and sulked, and 
 there were bright and happy ones ; even 
 as He himself desired earnestly to bless 
 men and to do the will of God, while so 
 many of the religious and learned of His 
 countrymen were self-conscious and jealous, 
 and stood aloof. ' Whereunto shall I liken 
 this generation ? It is like unto children 
 sitting in the markets, and calling unto 
 their fellows, and saying. We have piped 
 unto you, and ye have not danced; we 
 have mourned unto you, and ye have not 
 lamented.' ^ 
 
 There is a budget of stories in the 
 apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy about 
 Jesus and His playmates. One of them is 
 perhaps familiar to many readers from its 
 
 1 Matt. 11, 17. 
 
CH. VI RECKEATION 76 
 
 use by the poet Longfellow in ' The Golden 
 Legend ' : they were playing at making 
 birds of clay, and Jesus made His to live 
 and fly. 
 
 All these stories are utterly fanciful. 
 There is not a shred of evidence to support 
 them, and they do not harmonise in the 
 least with what we know of the character 
 and ways of our Lord; but also they are 
 not even in accordance with Jewish customs 
 or ideas. Children would not try to model 
 birds of clay, because nothing could induce 
 a Jew to make a representation of any living 
 thing.^ It was regarded as forbidden in the 
 Law ^ by the words, ' Thou shalt not make 
 unto thee any graven image, or any likeness 
 of any thing,' ^ &c. 
 
 For this reason art made little progress 
 among them. They showed some archi- 
 tectural skill, and could carve bas-reliefs, 
 like that of the Temple vine, and engrave 
 vases and flowers on their coins ; but they 
 had neither of the ' cheating arts ' ^ of 
 figure-painting and sculpture. The taste of 
 
 ^ Stapfer. ^ Ex. 20, 4 {see note in 
 
 ^ Cf. Jos. Antt. 8, 7, 5. Speaker's Commentary). 
 
 * PhUo. 
 
76 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 the Greeks and Romans found no apprecia- 
 tion or response. They had in their midst 
 some specimens of Western carving, such as 
 Herod the Great's golden eagle in the 
 Temple, and the figures of animals on the 
 walls of Antipas' palace at Tiberias, and 
 they abhorred them. 
 
 In music they had always been inter- 
 ested : it formed a prominent part of their 
 worship. But this was chiefly at Jerusalem, 
 in connection with the Temple services, and 
 in a country place like Nazareth there 
 would be very little beyond the singing and 
 flute-playing at weddings and funerals. 
 The fact that Herod offered prizes for 
 music ^ shows that it was to some extent 
 practised by Jewish people in those days, 
 and that Herod wished to encourage its 
 cultivation. 
 
 In some of the large centres public 
 games, answering to our ' athletic sports,' 
 and musical and dramatic performances had 
 been established for the amusement of 
 Greek and Eoman residents. The Jews 
 took no interest in such things ; they were 
 ' contrary to their customs.' Jesus would 
 
 1 Jos. Antt. 15, 8, 1. 
 
CH. VI RECREATION 77 
 
 hear only of there being theatres and amphi- 
 theatres away at Tiberias and Tarichaea, at 
 Jericho and Jerusalem. 
 
 The same may be said of dice and of 
 other games of chance : they were known, 
 because in vogue among the strangers from 
 the West ; but Jews took no part in them. 
 
 It would be in the sights and sounds of 
 Nature that this Galilsean boy would find 
 His chief pleasure. He was fond of birds ; 
 children are now, and were more so then. 
 Even in the great towns the children of the 
 lordly Eomans had tame birds to play with, 
 and liked them better than anything else. 
 A sparrow, a jackdaw, a quail, even a duck, 
 was a great delight to a girl of noble birth ; 
 she would hold it on her lap, and tease it 
 and let it bite her finger.^ 
 
 The country boy knew them in their 
 freedom. 
 
 He marked where they built their nests,^ 
 the little owl in old buildings in the village,^ 
 the finches in the branches of the mustard- 
 tree,^ the eagle in the highest rocks.® 
 
 ^ Catullus 2, 1-4 ; Plautus, * Luke 13, 9 (Tristram, 
 
 Captivi, act v. sc. 4, line 5. Nat. Hist. Bible, p. 473). 
 
 ^ Matt. 8, 20. ^ Jer. 49, i6. 
 ' Ps. 102, 6. 
 
78 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 He saw how the blue thrush sat alone 
 upon the housetop/ how the small birds 
 swooped down upon the seed which, as 
 the farmer sowed, fell on the footpath 
 through the field,^ and how the heavenly- 
 Father fed the glossy black ravens and the 
 rock-pigeons, although, unlike men, ' they 
 sowed not nor reaped, nor gathered into 
 barns.' ^ These last are His words when a 
 man, but the keen observation and the 
 naive expression are those of childhood; 
 the older mind takes such differences for 
 granted, and either fails to notice them or 
 gives them no second thought. 
 
 He knew the sound of the whooping or 
 trumpeting of the crane, heard in the still- 
 ness of the nighb,"* the plaintive cooing of 
 the dove,^ the hooting of the screech-owl,^ 
 the cry as of pain of the swallows, appearing 
 suddenly in thousands in the spring, the 
 soft twittering of the sparrows. 
 
 The greed of the eagle and vulture 
 gathered to feast on the bodies of the dead/ 
 
 1 Ps. 102, 7. 
 
 5 Isa. 38, 14; 59, ii; Nah, 
 
 ^ Mark 4, 4. 
 
 2,7. 
 
 2 Matt. 6, 26. 
 
 « Isa. 34, 14. 
 
 * Isa. 38, 14. 
 
 ^ Matt. 24, 28 ; Luke 17, 37. 
 
CH. VI RECEEATION 79 
 
 and the gentle innocence of the dove,^ were 
 alike familiar to Him. 
 
 He saw men chasing the partridge with 
 throw-sticks on the hills,^ or enticing them 
 by means of a decoy,^ or finding their nests 
 and taking the eggs away.^ He noticed that 
 they protected the vulture, the common 
 scavenger of the country. 
 
 And there was a passage in the Law 
 which forbade the fowler or the sportsman 
 to destroy birds wholesale, or to inflict un- 
 necessary cruelty upon them. ' If a bird's 
 nest chance to be before thee in the way, in 
 any tree or on the ground, with young ones 
 or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the 
 young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take 
 the dam with the young : thou shalt in any 
 wise let the dam go, but the young thou 
 mayest take unto thyself ; that it may be 
 well with thee, and that thou mayest pro- 
 long thy days.' ^ And we may be sure that 
 the child who was one day to declare that 
 ' not one sparrow falleth to the ground but 
 your heavenly Father knoweth it ' kept 
 
 1 Matt. 10, 16. " Jer. 17, ii. 
 
 2 1 Sam. 26, 26. '^ Deut. 22, 6, 7. 
 ' Ecclus. 11, 30. 
 
80 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 more than the letter of that Law, and was 
 never cruel to any creature that God had 
 made. 
 
 Nay, He even entered into their feelings. 
 The tender solicitude of the mother-hen 
 over her hrood appealed to Him, and in after 
 years He likened to it His own earnest love 
 for men. 
 
 ' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that 
 killest the prophets, and stonest them which 
 are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
 gathered thy children together, even as a 
 hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
 and ye would not ! ' ^ 
 
 There were dogs in plenty in Nazareth, 
 hut they were not so well cared for as our 
 dogs are in England now, and were not 
 such faithful and affectionate creatures. 
 Many of them were wild, belonging to no 
 one in particular, and wandering about the 
 streets and fields devouring any offal they 
 could find. They were regarded as unclean 
 animals. A man could not show greater 
 scorn of another than by calling him ' a 
 dog.' 'Am I a dog,' said the giant to his 
 bold young adversary, ' that thou comest 
 
 1 Matt. 23, 37. 
 
CH. VI RECREATION 81 
 
 to me with staves ? ' ^ ' What is thy 
 servant, which is but a dog,' said Hazael, 
 conscious of his meanness, ' that he should 
 do this great thing ? ' ^ 
 
 Jesus shared, so far as His gentle nature 
 would let Him, the Jewish dislike of them. 
 ' Give not that which is holy to the dogs,' 
 He said. When He told the story of the 
 beggar Lazarus who lay at the rich man's 
 gate. He meant it for a touch of deep degra- 
 dation that ' the dogs came and licked his 
 sores.' He thought it improper that the 
 children's bread should be given to dogs. 
 And yet He was too tender-hearted to drive 
 them away. Even they, as the Canaanitish 
 woman argued, and He agreed, might pick 
 up the crumbs that the children dropped as 
 they sat at table. 
 
 And there were some superior dogs who 
 could watch the house and bark at an in- 
 truder,^ or who were set to guard a flock of 
 sheep.^ 
 
 There were wilder animals about Naza- 
 reth, whose traces at least He saw ; for 
 sometimes the vines that grew on the 
 
 » 1 Sam. 17, 43. 
 
 2 Isa. 56, 10. 
 
 * 2 Kings 8, i3. 
 
 * Job 30, 1. 
 
 
 G 
 
82 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 sunny slopes around the village were 
 trampled and the tender shoots eaten 
 off, and the husbandmen would tell Him 
 that it was little foxes that had done it. 
 Cunning creatures they were, mischievous 
 and sly, and hard to catch. He was 
 reminded of them afterwards when He 
 realised that there were human beings who 
 cared not what harm they did to others in 
 the gratification of their own desires, and 
 wore the smile of friendship all the while. 
 He spoke of Herod as ' that fox.' ^ Yet 
 the foxes were creatures of God's making ; 
 and He tracked them to their holes, and 
 saw that even they were not without a 
 home. ^ 
 
 Wolves, too, were not unknown, fierce 
 beasts that prowled by night, and that the 
 peasants feared. They would attack a flock 
 of sheep, and if the shepherd were a hire- 
 ling, and cared more for his skin than for 
 his duty, he would run away ; but one who 
 loved the sheep would face the intruder and 
 fight him, even though it should cost his 
 life. There was many a good shepherd on 
 those Galilaean hills who knew each ram and 
 
 ^ Luke 13, 32. 3 ]y|a.tt. 8, 20. 
 
CH. VI EECREATION 83 
 
 ewe in his flock, and to whose cluck the 
 whole flock would come running up, and 
 follow him whithersoever he should lead — 
 perhaps to a stream of water, or perhaps to 
 make them lie down in green pastures, or 
 perhaps to put them within the stone walls 
 and thorn hedge of the fold for the night, 
 and to keep watch under the stars lest wild 
 beasts should assail them or a robber climb 
 over the wall to take them. And the little 
 lambs, with their trustful ways, Jesus would 
 notice how gentle the shepherd was with 
 them, taking them up in his arms with 
 kindness, with sadness too, as he thought 
 that soon, perhaps, the little innocents 
 might be taken away to be slain and offered 
 up in the Temple, a token of sin repented 
 of and forgiven. 
 
 And the dark-skinned goats were pas- 
 tured with the sheep, browsing on the 
 coarser herbage that the sheep passed by, 
 journeying beside them in the day, and 
 lying down near them, but apart, at night. 
 
 Even in the cold weather the shepherds 
 stayed with the flock in the grassy plains 
 of Esdraelon below, and, as the spring 
 advanced, led them higher up to the hill 
 
 6 2 
 
84 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vi 
 
 slopes about and above the village, where 
 the air was cooler, though the pasturage 
 was scanty, and the barren rocks showed 
 out here and there among green herbage lit 
 with flowers. 
 
 It was a pretty place, Nazareth, in the 
 sweet spring-time, and the character of the 
 boy would be unconsciously moulded by its 
 quiet beauty, for His eyes and ears were open 
 to all the sights and sounds of Nature. 
 Having eyes. He saw ; having ears, He heard. 
 And all things spoke to Him of God. The sun 
 rising bright and warm upon the evil and 
 the good ; ^ the cloud rising out of the west, 
 which told Him that a shower was coming ; ^ 
 the sky red in the evening, that meant fair 
 weather ; the sky red in the morning, that 
 meant foul weather ; ^ the rain falling alike 
 on the just and on the unjust ; ■* the little 
 rills that with heavy showers became torrent 
 streams, sweeping all before them ; ^ the 
 wind He heard, but could not tell whence 
 it came nor whither it went,^ which shook 
 the reeds,^ and beat upon the ill-founded 
 
 ^ Matt. 5, 45. 
 
 •■^ Matt. 7, 27. 
 
 2 Luke 12, 64. 
 
 ^ John 3, 8. 
 
 » Matt. 16, 3. 
 
 •^ Matt. 11, 7. 
 
 * Matt. 5, 45. 
 
 
CH. VI RECKEATION 85 
 
 house ; ^ the grass to-day fresh and green, 
 pleasant to sit upon,^ to-morrow dried up 
 by the sun, and plucked to burn in the 
 baking-oven ; ^ the corn white unto the 
 harvest ; ^ the vines, pruned to bear finer 
 fruit ; ^ the fig-tree with its spreading 
 branches ; ^ the tares among the wheat ; ^ 
 the mustard plant that grew to be so 
 strong ^ — He knew and pondered over and 
 learned something from them all. 
 
 ^ Matt. 7, 27. 5 John 15, 2. 
 
 ' Matt. 14, 19. ® John 1, 48. 
 
 ^ Matt. 6, 30. ^ Matt. 13, 26. 
 
 * John 4, 35. 8 Matt. 13, 31. 
 
86 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD 
 
 CHAPTEK VII 
 
 FOOD 
 
 Since the life of the Galilaean villagers was 
 spent so much in the open air, their indoor 
 habits were of the simplest. We have 
 already seen how humble and poorly 
 furnished was the dwelling. The whole 
 style of living corresponded. 
 
 The food was plain. Bread was the 
 ' staff ' of life.^ It was made of barley (only 
 rich folk used wheat) kneaded in a trough, 
 raised with leaven, and made up into very 
 small round or oval cakes. The oven con- 
 sisted merely of three stones set up to hold 
 a fire of charcoal between them ; the bread 
 was baked on the embers. It was not 
 meant to be cut with a knife, but to be 
 broken with the hands. They did bake 
 biscuits also, of fine flour with oil and no 
 leaven, but chiefly for Temple oflerings, and 
 
 ^ Lev. 26, 26 ; Ps. 105, le ; Ezek. 4, 16 ; 14, i3. 
 
CH. VII FOOD 87 
 
 not for ordinary use.^ Sometimes they had 
 pancakes, fried, of flour and honey, and 
 biscuits pierced like ours with tiny holes. 
 
 And they also ate green corn, just as they 
 plucked it from the stalks, rubbing it in 
 their hands to separate the grains from the 
 husks.^ Or, again, they parched it in a 
 pan over the fire.^ 
 
 A good deal of honey used to be found 
 then, where the wild bees made their comb 
 in trees or rocks : there is none now. 
 Children were fed on it, and on curdled 
 milk. When grown people made, that their 
 diet, it was of necessity, or because they 
 were poor. So Isaiah said of Immanuel, 
 ' Milk-curd and honey shall He eat, [even] 
 when He knoweth to refuse the evil and 
 choose the good.'"* 
 
 Milk, as one of several articles of diet, 
 was of course in common use, either fresh,* 
 or more often sour. The latter is what the 
 Authorised Version calls ' butter.' ^ 
 
 ^ Lev. 2, 14, 16. * Isa. 7, is (Rev. Ver. ; see 
 
 ^ Matt. 12, 1 ; Luke 6, i ; Cheyne's note). 
 
 Lev. 23, 14 ; 2 Kings 4, 42. ^ Gen. 18, 8. 
 
 ' Lev. 23, 14 ; Kuth 2, i4 ; « Gen. 18, 8 ; Judg. 5, 25 
 
 1 Sam. 17, 17 ; 25, i8 ; 2 Sam, 2 Sam. 17, 29. 
 
 17, 28. 
 
88 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vii 
 
 With the bread a reHsh of some sort 
 was eaten, either salt/ or the common sour 
 wine, the 'vinegar,' of the country,'^ or 
 gravy, if there were any.^ 
 
 Dried fruits also formed part of the 
 ordinary diet — raisins and fig-cake. 
 
 Vegetables were not so common ; lentils 
 and beans were the ordinary ones. Leeks, 
 onions, and garlick were looked upon as 
 delicacies. 
 
 Fish was consumed in the towns and 
 villages by the Lake of Tiberias, and much 
 was exported, and there was a special 
 market for its sale at Jerusalem ; but it did 
 not find its way in any quantity to 
 Nazareth, and Jesus would begin to use it 
 only after He had left home. 
 
 It was very seldom that He would taste 
 meat, either as boy or man. The hot climate 
 made a flesh diet unwholesome, and also 
 expensive, for a whole animal had to be 
 eaten at once — it would not keep. Calves, 
 lambs, oxen, kids, deer, and birds were 
 killed, but for honoured guests, or at special 
 festivals. Eoyal households alone in the 
 East had meat every day. 
 
 1 Job 6, 6. 2 j^uth 2, u. 3 ju^g^ 6^ 19^. 
 
CH. VII FOOD 89 
 
 One curious article of food was locusts. 
 There were many varieties of them, and 
 four such were considered wholesome. 
 Sometimes they were roasted and eaten 
 with salt, tasting rather like lobsters ; or, 
 more commonly, the head and feet were 
 pinched off, and the bodies dried in the sun, 
 ground into a powder, and then mixed with 
 flour and made into bread. This bread was 
 slightly bitter, and was eaten with camel's 
 milk or honey. Locusts and honey were 
 what the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, lived on. 
 
 The drink of the poor was water. The 
 giving of a cup of cold water, of which Jesus 
 speaks, was, in so hot a country, an act of 
 real kindness. Labourers in the fields often 
 mixed vinegar or sour wine with it. 
 
 Beer, of a sort, was not unknown. Wine, 
 or wine and water, was drunk by the rich 
 people, and by all on special occasions. They 
 had it at the marriage in Cana when Jesus 
 was present. Mixed with water it played 
 a part in the Passover feast ; and Jesus 
 made it the symbol of His own self-sacrifice 
 C This is my blood '). It was offered to Him, 
 with aromatic drugs in it, when He was 
 about to be nailed to the cross. 
 
90 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. tii 
 
 But it was water that He commonly 
 drank ; and it was water that He always 
 thought of in connection with thirst and 
 fatigue.^ 
 
 At what times the meals were taken is 
 not at all certain. Nor do the Jews seem 
 to have made any difference between one 
 meal and another, or to have had any 
 separate names for them, until after the 
 country had become overrun with Western 
 arms and Western manners. The ' dine ' 
 and ' dinner ' of Gen. 43, 16, and Prov. 15, 17, 
 might just as well be rendered ' eat ' and 
 ' food.' The ' dinner ' ^ and ' supper ' ^ of 
 the New Testament are Greek words, apia-rov 
 and heiTrvov. We should probably be nearer 
 the mark if we were to call them ' break- 
 fast ' and 'dinner,' and suppose that they 
 were taken, as among the Bedouins of 
 Palestine at the present day, the principal 
 one after sunset, and the other about nine 
 or ten in the morning. 
 
 We may imagine Jesus, then, sitting 
 with the other members of the family, on 
 
 ^ Matt. 10, 42 ; Mark 9, 4i ; ' Matt. 23, 6 ; Mark 6, 21 ; 
 
 John 4, 10, 11. Luke 14, 12, 16 ; John 12, 2 ; 
 
 » Matt. 22, 4 ; Luke 11, 38 ; 13, 24 ; 21, 20. 
 14, 12. 
 
CH. vn FOOD 91 
 
 the floor, round a stool on which was placed 
 a dish containing the relish, whatever it 
 might be — perhaps curds, or sour wine, or 
 wheat porridge, or more rarely a stew of 
 meat — and dipping His thin cake of bread 
 into it to eat. 
 
 Tables and tablecloths, chairs, spoons, 
 knives, forks, glasses, plates, and all the 
 modern equipment of the dining-room, were 
 unknown. 
 
 Before and after the meal they washed 
 their hands and mouths, pouring water out 
 of the pitcher for one another. And, also 
 before and after the meal, a grace was said 
 by the head of the family. Jesus said this 
 grace in after years when He fed the multi- 
 tudes in the desert country, and no doubt 
 on many another occasion. And it was 
 sometimes His lot to dine amid more sump- 
 tuous surroundings, with couches and 
 cushions, and servants to wait on Him. 
 But that was not yet. 
 
92 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII 
 
 THE VISIT TO JEEUSALEM 
 
 When a Hebrew boy showed signs of ap- 
 proaching manhood — and with Orientals 
 that has always been at a very early age — 
 he entered upon a new phase of life ; for he 
 was regarded now as a member of the con- 
 gregation, and was expected to fulfil all the 
 religious duties which attached to that posi- 
 tion. He wore on wrist and forehead the 
 little leathern cases called phylacteries, and 
 said over from memory at stated times the 
 passages of Scriptures which were written 
 upon the rolls enclosed therein. 
 
 He fasted on the proper days, and 
 especially on the great day of the Feast of 
 the Atonement. He could attend the fes- 
 tivals at Jerusalem. And generally he was 
 made to feel that he was now responsible 
 himself for his obedience to the Law, and 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 93 
 
 privileged to be counted one of Jehovah's 
 covenanted people. 
 
 It was usually at the age of twelve 
 or thirteen that this transition from child- 
 hood to manhood took place. In later 
 times thirteen was definitely fixed, and 
 the new member of the congregation was 
 entitled Bar Mizveh, or ' son of the com- 
 mandment.' And though there was no 
 regulation as to age or style when Jesus 
 lived, yet we know that He did experience 
 such a transition, and at about that age. 
 ' When He was twelve years old ' Ms a land- 
 mark in the story of His career. 
 
 It is just at this point that the silence of 
 the Gospels is broken and the one incident 
 occurs an account of which has come down 
 to us. ' The darkness lifts for a moment, 
 and the light breaks upon a boyish figure 
 and character. He is seen in His Father's 
 house. The act is typical. It is the 
 Epiphany of the Divine Boyhood.' ^ 
 
 Joseph was going up, as a good Jew, to 
 Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover, and 
 Mary with him. Women were not bound 
 to go, but many did. And now for the first 
 
 1 Luke 2, 42. ^ Vallings. 
 
94 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 time, being twelve years of age, Jesus accom- 
 panied them. It was to Him a momentous 
 occasion. The first journey to the place 
 which God had chosen to set His name 
 there, the centre during so many generations 
 of all the affections and hopes of His coun- 
 trymen, must have had the most intense 
 interest for the young Jew, just passing from 
 the school, where He had learned the history 
 and the thoughts of Israel, to the world, in 
 which He was to exercise the duties and 
 privileges of manhood as a member of the 
 nation. 
 
 It was a great event to everyone this 
 yearly festival of the Passover. Multitudes 
 flocked to Jerusalem from all countries 
 where any Jews Hved. Jerusalem was in 
 those days twice as large as it is now, and 
 had a population of about 200,000,^ which 
 became for the Passover-week between two 
 and three millions.^ 
 
 The chief roads through the country, 
 from Damascus, from the Phoenician ports, 
 from Joppa, and across the desert from the 
 south, to the metropolis, were thronged 
 with bands of travellers, hailing from the 
 
 1 Eders. 116. ^ jQg ^^n j^^^^ g^ g^ g^ 
 
CH.Yiii THE VISIT TO JEEUSALEM 96 
 
 far East, from the provinces of Asia Minor, 
 from Egypt and Arabia, and even from 
 Eome itself. Some rode on camels or mules, 
 some marched afoot. 
 
 Booths of mats and leafy branches were 
 put up to shelter them when they rested. 
 
 Flocks of lambs also, and he-goats, were 
 on the road, destined for the sacrificial 
 feast. 
 
 The party from Nazareth would join 
 itself to other parties it fell in with on the 
 road, till a great company were journeying 
 on together, ' a multitude keeping holyday.' * 
 As they went they sang hymns, with pipe 
 accompaniment, and specially those psalms 
 known as Songs of Ascents.^ 
 
 I was glad when they said unto me, 
 Let us go unto the house of the Lord : 
 
 these words picture the start, happy and 
 hopeful. 
 
 And in joyful anticipation they con- 
 tinued : 
 
 Our feet are standing 
 
 Within the gates, Jerusalem ; 
 
 Jerusalem, that art builded 
 
 ^ Ps. 42, 4. sion. A. V. has ' Songs of 
 
 2 Pss. 120-134. (Eev. Vcr- Degrees ')• 
 
96 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 As a city that is compact together : 
 
 Whither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the 
 
 Lord, 
 For a testimony unto Israel, 
 To give thanks unto the name of the Lord. 
 
 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : 
 They shall prosper that love thee. 
 Peace be within thy walls, 
 And prosperity within thy palaces. 
 
 And when at last they caught sight of 
 the Holy City shining white in the sunlight 
 on her hills, they would shout aloud again : 
 
 I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains : 
 From whence shall my help come ? 
 My help cometh from the Lord, 
 Which made heaven and earth. 
 
 Three nights they would halt and en- 
 camp, and on the fourth day would reach 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 There was high ground on the north 
 side, and a good view of the city. Culti- 
 vated plots of ground, with figs and olives 
 growing, filled the intervening space, and 
 here and there were dotted mansions of 
 wealthier citizens. 
 
 Through orchards and gardens the pil- 
 grims descended to the New Town, and 
 
CH. Tin THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 97 
 
 entered by the Damascus Gate. The streets 
 were narrow lanes, with many shops of 
 braziers, clothiers, butchers^, and wool-dealers. 
 Just now they were crowded with strangers 
 making purchases, or arriving in parties, like 
 this from Nazareth, travel-stained and weary. 
 
 Mount Zion rose high on the right hand, 
 and the three great castles newly built for 
 Herod, each like a huge rock cut into regular 
 shape, standing as sentinels to guard the 
 beautiful palace of the king. 
 
 To the left, before them, lay the spot 
 towards which, since they had caught sight 
 of the city, their eyes had constantly been 
 turning — the Temple hill, with its terraces 
 of snow-white marble and gleaming gold. 
 
 There would be no difficulty in finding 
 a resting-place. Everyone kept open house 
 at Passover-time. No lodgings could be let 
 for hire. A curtain hanging before the 
 entrance meant, ' still there is room.' A 
 table spread was an offer of food, and the 
 passing stranger might enter and join in 
 the meal. 
 
 It was early summer — perhaps the most 
 pleasant part of the year — and most of the 
 visitors slept in the open air or under tem- 
 
 H 
 
98 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 porary booths ; large parties of them camped 
 outside the walls. 
 
 They arrived early, and would have plenty 
 of time to wander round the city and climb 
 the Temple steps, and perhaps to meet old 
 friends, before the festival rites began. 
 
 The feast lasted seven days, from the 
 15th day of the month Nisan to the 21st. 
 
 The 14th was the ' day of preparation,' 
 on which all leaven had to be put away. 
 When the sun set on the thirteenth day 
 a search was made, and every crumb 
 collected. In the morning again they 
 searched, and everything that had any trace 
 of fermented grain in it was taken outside 
 the house and burned. For the Passover 
 was a feast of unleavened bread. 
 
 There was a thorough cleansing of vessels 
 that might be wanted. Everyone washed 
 himself and trimmed his hair and nails. 
 
 Fine flour had meanwhile been mixed 
 with water and baked into thin dry biscuits. 
 Lambs without blemish had to be got ready, 
 and Josephus mentions as many as 256,000 
 being required. 
 
 With such -preparations all were busily 
 occupied until, in the afternoon, at last the 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 99 
 
 trumpets sounded from the Temple, and the 
 feast began. 
 
 The men pressed eagerly towards the 
 Temple, jostling one another in the narrow 
 streets. Each carried in his arms the lamb 
 for his household or company. The victim 
 was examined and slaughtered in the outer 
 court, the blood being passed up in bowls 
 by rows of priests and poured upon the altar. 
 Then it was prepared for food, and carried 
 back to be roasted for the meal. Cross- 
 shaped skewers of pomegranate wood held 
 it together. It was roasted whole, and not 
 a bone of it was broken. 
 
 From two to twenty persons sat down 
 together as one family. He who was the 
 head pronounced a benediction, cups of red 
 wine and water mixed were drunk, hands 
 washed, and another blessing said. Then a 
 table was brought in, on which were set 
 bitter herbs (endive, chicory, wild lettuce, 
 or nettles), the unleavened cakes, a dish of 
 sauce made of fruits and vinegar mixed into 
 a paste, and the roasted lamb. The Head 
 took a handful of the herbs, dipped it in 
 the sauce, and, saying a blessing, ate a bit 
 and passed it to the others. Meanwhile 
 
 H 2 
 
100 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 the son of the house, or the youngest boy 
 
 present (on this occasion it may well have 
 
 been Jesus himself), asked in set forms of 
 
 words the meaning of the feast, and in set 
 
 forms the Head replied : 
 
 ' This is the Passover that we eat, because 
 
 God passed over the houses of our fathers 
 
 in Egypt.' 
 
 ' We eat these bitter herbs, because the 
 
 Egyptians made the lives of our fathers 
 
 bitter in Egypt.' 
 
 ' We eat this unleavened bread, because 
 
 there was no time to raise the dough before 
 God revealed Himself to our fathers and 
 redeemed them ; we must praise, celebrate, 
 honour, magnify Him who did these great 
 and wonderful things to our fathers, and 
 brought them out of slavery into liberty, 
 from sorrow to joy, from darkness to a great 
 light. Therefore let us say Hallelujah ! 
 Praise the Lord.' 
 
 And all together sang aloud the first 
 part (Pss. 113, 114) of the great Hallel or 
 Hallelujah song : 
 
 Praise ye the Lord. 
 
 Praise, ye servants of the Lord, 
 
 Praise ye the name of the Lord. 
 
CH. vni THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 101 
 
 Who is like unto the Lord our God, 
 
 That hath His seat on high, 
 
 That humbleth Himself to behold 
 
 The things that are in heaven and in the earth ? 
 
 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 
 
 And lifteth up the needy from the dunghill ; 
 
 That he may set him with princes, 
 
 Even with the princes of his people. 
 
 The hearts of these humble GaHlaeans 
 would swell with pride that they were 
 children and servants of the Most High. 
 And the boy Jesus, how fully was the Psalm 
 to be realised in Him, poor and needy, but 
 a prince ! The history of past deliverance 
 was, all unknown to these poor pious souls, 
 the prophecy of the greater blessing that 
 He should bring who sat among them now, 
 the youngest and lowliest of them all : 
 
 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, 
 At the presence of the God of Jacob ; 
 Which turned the rock into a pool of water, 
 The flint into a fountain of waters. 
 
 After the Psalms another blessing was 
 said. A second cup of wine and water 
 followed, hands were washed again, and 
 with blessings the unleavened bread was 
 broken and passed round. In like manner 
 the lamb was carved and eaten. Next 
 
102 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vin 
 
 came a third cup, ' the cup of blessing,' and 
 then the fourth and last. The second part of 
 the Hallel (Pss. 115-18) was now sung : 
 
 Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, 
 
 But unto Thy name give glory, 
 
 For Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake. 
 
 Israel, trust thou in the Lord : 
 He is their help and their shield. 
 
 1 love the Lord, because He hath heard 
 My voice and my suppUcations. 
 
 Eeturn to thy rest, my soul, 
 
 For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. 
 
 What shall I render unto the Lord 
 For all His benefits toward me ? 
 I will take the cup of salvation, 
 And call upon the name of the Lord. 
 I will pay my vows unto the Lord, 
 Yea, in the presence of all His people. 
 
 Another short prayer and all was over. 
 
 What was not eaten of the lamb was 
 at once burned, so that none of it should 
 remain to be defiled. 
 
 Though it was now late, there was yet 
 no thought of rest ; and when at midnight 
 the Temple gates opened again, the people 
 pressed through them to present their thank- 
 offerings of a bullock, or a lamb, or a goat, 
 
CH. Yiii THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 103 
 
 for it was written in the Law, ' None shall 
 appear before me empty.' ^ The animal was 
 slain and its blood sprinkled on the altar ; 
 part of it was reserved for the priests, and 
 the rest taken away and eaten at a sort of 
 second feast. 
 
 The next day, the 15th Nisan, was a 
 day of rest, and no work was done beyond 
 the preparing of the necessary food. 
 
 On the 16th men were sent by the 
 priests to the valley of the Kedron to cut a 
 sheaf of barley for first-fruits. And the boy 
 would notice what a crowd followed them, 
 and perhaps would join in the procession with 
 which the sheaf was carried to the Temple 
 to be waved before God in thanksgiving : 
 and, turning away again, would find the 
 streets resounding with the cries of sellers 
 of bread or parched ears from the new crop, 
 only now, after that rite, permitted to be 
 sold. 
 
 The days that followed had no special 
 duties or ceremonies, and the people made 
 of them a pleasant holiday-time. The last, 
 the 21st, was again a day of rest, and in 
 the evening another Passover was held for 
 
 1 Ex. 23, 15. 
 
104 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vni 
 
 any who had not been able to be present 
 on the first day. 
 
 But by this time Jerusalem was assuming 
 its ordinary aspect again. There was no 
 need to stay during the whole seven days, 
 and many of the visitors were already on 
 their way back to their far-off homes. 
 
 During all this week the boy's mind 
 would be keenly alive to what was passing 
 around Him. 
 
 He would hear at dawn the three trumpet 
 blasts from the Temple, and the bugles of 
 the Eoman garrison in the Castle of An- 
 tonia, at its north-west angle ; and would find 
 the streets already busy with people, some 
 making their way to the Temple for the 
 morning sacrifice, some hurrying to the 
 outer court only, with money to change or 
 sheep to sell, some turning in to the syna- 
 gogues proper to their nationality, and some 
 getting their stalls or shops ready for cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 As soon as the first rays of the sun 
 shone out all, whatever they might be 
 doing, bent their heads for a few moments 
 in prayer. 
 
 Here was a group of priests ; here a 
 
CH. viiT THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 105 
 
 Pharisee, proud and solitary, with con- 
 spicuously large Tephillin bound on his fore- 
 head and his wrist ; here a white-robed, 
 spiritual-looking Essene ; here a Greek 
 merchant. 
 
 And the languages spoken were as diverse 
 as the personalities. And as the day passed 
 on a babel filled the ear, of bargaining, 
 gossip, greeting, crying of wares. 
 
 Open stalls were laden with figs, raisins, 
 bread, fish, lentils, spices, and syrups, and 
 with carvings in wood and stone. 
 
 Artisans worked away at their trades — 
 potters, weavers, flax-beaters — as busily as 
 though there were neither crowd nor noise. 
 
 The tradespeople of Jerusalem reaped a 
 rich harvest at Passover-time, and had 
 good reason to be zealous for its observance. 
 
 Jesus would wander through the city as 
 He chose. For He was a ' son of the Law,' 
 and therefore quite a man, even at twelve 
 years of age ; and the Oriental youths have 
 always been much more precocious than our 
 Western ones — they were mature at four- 
 teen ; and He was required to attend to all 
 the ordinary religious duties of the Jew. 
 For this reason, and because of His earnest 
 
106 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 religious spirit, it was the Temple and its 
 services that above all else in Jerusalem 
 would engage His interest and draw towards 
 itself His willing feet. 
 
 He was constantly in the sacred precincts 
 during this eventful week, and was surprised 
 that anyone should expect to find Him else- 
 where.^ 
 
 The Temple hill rose abruptly out of the 
 streets of the city. It was nearly five acres 
 in extent. A strong outer wall surrounded 
 what, seen from a distance, looked like a 
 great fortress of marble and gold. Within 
 was a succession of courts rising towards 
 the centre, each inner one surrounded by a 
 terrace and a flight of steps. 
 
 Passing through one of the gates in the 
 western wall, Jesus would be in the outer 
 court, surrounded by double colonnades, with 
 benches here and there to rest on. On the 
 eastern side the colonnades were called 
 ' Solomon's Porch ' ; on the south, where 
 they were triple, the ' Eoyal Porch.' The 
 floor was of stones of different colours, the 
 columns of white marble, the roof of carved 
 cedar work. Within was the Court of the 
 
 1 Liilie 2, 49. 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 107 
 
 Gentiles, where was the market for sacrificial 
 animals and the tables of the money- 
 changers. It was called the Choi, or pro- 
 fane place, and by the Eabbis the Mount of 
 the House. A low wall, the Soreg, formed 
 a barrier against the further advance of any 
 but ' clean ' Jews, who passed on through 
 openings in the wall into the inner part of 
 the court. Fourteen steps now led up to 
 the terrace, and thence another flight to the 
 wall and gates of the Temple proper. The 
 ' Beautiful ' Gate on the east side admitted 
 to the Court of the Women, called so be- 
 cause to women were allotted in this court 
 two galleries ; here also were the treasury 
 and the thirteen ' trumpets,' or alms-boxes. 
 More steps, and then the wall of the Upper 
 Court. The entrance was through the 
 Nicanor Gate, resplendent in Corinthian 
 brass, where the choir and band, consisting 
 of Levites, were placed. The Upper Court 
 was divided by a low boundary into two, the 
 Court of Israel and the Court of the Priests, 
 in which last were the great altar and the 
 laver. 
 
 Beyond the Court of Israel Jesus did not 
 go. Steps led up from the Court of the 
 
108 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vin 
 
 Priests to the Porch of the Sanctuary, 
 adorned with many a rich present, and 
 prominent among them a vine of sohd gold. 
 Within was the Holy Place with its Table 
 of Shewbread and Golden Altar of Incense 
 and Golden Candlestick, and within this 
 again, the entrance covered by a heavy 
 double veil, the Holy of Holies, glittering 
 in the sun with lavish gold, entered only 
 once a year, by the High Priest on the great 
 Day of Atonement. Alas ! it held no more 
 the sacred ark nor the brooding cherubim. 
 Those symbols of Jehovah's presence had 
 been lost in the ruin that sin brought on 
 Jerusalem six centuries ago. 
 
 And, indeed, the Temple as a whole was 
 not the one in which Solomon, and all the 
 kings and prophets that followed him in 
 Israel's most glorious days, had worshipped; 
 nor was it that which the returning exiles 
 had reared with mingled tears of regretful 
 memory and shouts of joy and hope. It was 
 an almost new building, reared by Herod, 
 and the ornamentation was still incomplete.^ 
 
 Yet was it associated in Jesus' mind 
 with all the wonderful story of His people. 
 
 1 Jos. Antt. 20, 9, 7. 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 109 
 
 It was on this hill that sacrifices had been 
 slain, and prayers said and psalms of thanks- 
 giving sung, by generation after generation 
 of His fathers ; it was still the place which 
 the Lord their God had chosen to set His 
 name there. 
 
 The youthful curiosity and the earnest 
 piety of Jesus would both lead Him con- 
 stantly to the Temple during this His first 
 visit to Jerusalem, and He would quickly 
 become familiar with the routine of its 
 services. Very early in the morning the 
 gates were thrown open, and the priests 
 blew thrice on their trumpets to announce 
 that the day's worship was shortly to begin. 
 A watchman stood the while on the pinnacle 
 at the south-east corner, overlooking the 
 Kedron valley, intently watching for the 
 dawn. This was supposed to have come 
 directly the light was good enough for him to 
 be able to discern the white walls of Hebron, 
 on the hills twenty miles away to the south. 
 
 At once the word was given, ' Priests, to 
 your ministry ! Levites, to your posts ! 
 Israelites, take your places ! ' All who might 
 gathered now in the Upper Court, the people 
 without the low barrier that divided it. 
 
110 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 A year-old lamb was slain beside the 
 great altar, its blood caught in a bowl and 
 sprinkled on the altar, and the carcase cut 
 into nine pieces ; a meat-offering of flour and 
 oil and a drink-offering of wine made ready ; 
 and within the sanctuary a censer of hot 
 coals was placed on the Altar of Incense, 
 and incense shaken over it. Then, as the 
 sun's first beams were seen on the distant 
 horizon, the flesh was laid upon the altar 
 and consumed ; the meat-offering and a 
 bread-offering from the High Priest followed, 
 and the wine was poured out. Priests and 
 people repeated proper prayers the while. 
 This was the ' morning sacrifice.' The trum- 
 pets sounded forth again nine times ; a choir 
 of Levites chanted from a raised platform 
 the psalms of the day, with instruments 
 accompanying, and the service closed with 
 the benediction, ' The Lord bless thee and 
 grant thee peace.' 
 
 Just after morning prayer was the time 
 for special offerings from individuals. It 
 was now that Mary, twelve years before, had 
 put into trumpet No. 3 the price of a dove 
 to be offered for her purification, when 
 Simeon and Anna met her and blessed her 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 111 
 
 child. Persons who had, in one way or 
 another, contractedlegal ' defilement ' brought 
 their offerings now, and were pronounced 
 ' clean.' And some were there to make 
 thank-offerings for special mercies vouch- 
 safed to them. 
 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon the 
 evening sacrifice was offered with similar 
 routine, and at sunset prayers were said. 
 
 Between the morning and evening sacri- 
 fices the Temple Sanhedrin sat, as a court 
 of appeal on questions of ritual or religion. 
 
 But on Sabbaths and feast-days they 
 used to come out upon the terrace, and dis- 
 course informally to such as might gather 
 round them.^ The listeners sat around upon 
 the pavement, and anyone might make re- 
 marks or ask questions. There would be 
 many famous Kabbis present at such con- 
 ferences during the Moed Katon, or minor 
 festival-days of the Passover week. Jesus 
 was an eager listener, and We may suppose 
 not once only, but often. And He took part 
 Himself in the discussions. 
 
 There was nothing phenomenal in a boy 
 of His age doing so ; Jewish boys not un- 
 
 ^ Eders. 1, 247. 
 
112 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 commonly showed the maturity of mind that 
 in Western races comes only with manhood. 
 Samuel, David, Herod the Great, Hyrcanus, 
 and Josephus are instances in point. Jose- 
 phus ^ says that when he himself was about 
 fourteen years of age the high priests and 
 principal men of the city came frequently 
 to him to know his opinion about points of 
 the Law ; and there is a story of how two 
 boys sitting on the ground, on a similar 
 occasion to this told of by St. Luke, showed 
 such acumen in their questions and objec- 
 tions that the Kabbis exclaimed, ' We drink 
 of their water ' (i.e. wisdom) ' and they sit 
 upon the ground ! ' And seats were brought 
 in and the children put upon them.^ 
 
 But what was phenomenal in Jesus' case 
 was the altogether exceptional mental and 
 spiritual insight which He showed. 
 
 ' All that heard Him were amazed at His 
 understanding and answers.'^ 
 
 ' Were amazed ' — the word is the one used 
 also of those who in after years saw Him 
 bring a dead girl to life at a word,^ or walk 
 upon the waters of the lake,^ or who heard 
 
 1 Vit 2. ' Babha Metsia, f. 84, b. ' Luke 2, 47. 
 
 * Luke 8, 56. ^ Mark 6, 5i. 
 
CH. vin THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 113 
 
 His disciples speaking divers tongues/ and 
 bidding the lame to walk, and the palsied to 
 rise, and the unclean spirits to be gone.^ 
 We can well believe that they had cause to 
 be amazed, for this was He who, when He 
 grew older, and Himself sat upon a high 
 seat and taught, spoke as one having autho- 
 rity,^ and His word was with power,^ and 
 even the servants of the Pharisees and 
 priests could not lay hands on Him, because 
 ' never man spake like this man.'^ 
 
 And now His pure and earnest spirit, 
 stimulated by the solemnities of the Temple 
 worship and by all the religious and historic 
 associations of the Holy City, was pressing 
 forward into clear vision of the truth. Per- 
 haps some light as to the mystery of His 
 own nature and of His relation to God and 
 to men was dawning now upon Him. 
 
 Who the doctors were on that particular 
 day, and what the subject they discussed, 
 we do not know. But it may well have 
 been that matters arising out of the feast 
 in which they were all engaged were being 
 treated. One great Eabbi perhaps present 
 
 ' Acts 2, 7. "^ Acts 8, 13. ^ Matt. 7, 29. 
 
 * Luke 4, 32. ^ John 7, 46. 
 
 I 
 
114 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viit 
 
 now, for he was still living a few years later, 
 had established his reputation by proving 
 on an occasion such as this that the Pass- 
 over was not unlawful on the Sabbath. This 
 was the famous Hillel, the teacher of toler- 
 ance, who had come a poor but eager 
 student from Babylon, and was now chief 
 of them all. Possibly his son Simeon was 
 there too, whom some have thought was the 
 same that sang his ' Nunc dimittis ' in the 
 Temple just twelve years before ; or even 
 Simeon's son, Gramaliel, the ' doctor of the 
 law had in reputation among all the 
 people,' ^ who taught St. Paul ; or that 
 Nicodemus who afterwards came to Jesus 
 by night, and who helped Joseph of Arima- 
 thaea to bury the body of his crucified Lord. 
 But who they were matters not much ; it is 
 the figure of the God-given child Him- 
 self that engages our attention, as it did 
 then the eyes and ears of those who sat 
 around. 
 
 He seems to have both inquired as to 
 the views of the Eabbis and to have ex- 
 pressed His own thoughts. The text of St. 
 Luke speaks of His ' hearing ' and ' asking 
 
 ^ Acts 5, 8^. 
 
CH. vm THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 116 
 
 questions,' of ' His understanding and His 
 answers.' We may not particularise. It is 
 unsafe to give free play to the imagination 
 in things of which we know little. Origen ^ 
 no doubt thought to express his reverence 
 for his Lord when he wrote : ' He ques- 
 tioned the Masters, and because they could 
 not answer. Himself answered His own ques- 
 tions. He questioned the Masters, not to 
 learn anything, but to teach by His ques- 
 tions.' This is a fanciful picture, and not a 
 pleasing one. It exalts His knowledge at 
 the expense of His character. We would 
 rather believe Him simple, genuine, eager 
 after truth, yes, even boyish, than forward 
 and dogmatic. His time for teaching was 
 not yet come ; He was a learner still, from 
 all sources that were open to Him. ' He 
 was subject,' says St. Luke, ' He grew in 
 wisdom,' ^ and ' in favour with man ' ; and 
 none of these pregnant phrases would well 
 agree with Origen 's pious conjecture. 
 
 Had He been other than modest and 
 teachable it would not have been amaze- 
 
 ^ In Luc. Horn, 18, 19 {nX-qpoifievov, i.e., becoming 
 954, 955. gradually filled) 'with wis- 
 
 - Cf. also 2, 40, 'filled' dom.' 
 
 I 2 
 
116 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vin 
 
 ment but anger that filled the minds of 
 those who heard Him, For they looked upon 
 impertinence as one of the gravest of faults.^ 
 
 There was, indeed, much for Him, the 
 human child, to learn. Hitherto He had 
 talked only with the unlearned Galilsean vil- 
 lagers, of whom the more cultured and self- 
 conscious southern people said, ' Can any 
 good thing come out of Nazareth ? ' The 
 beauties of Nature had been about Him and 
 had stamped their silent impress on His 
 soul. The tender influence of home had 
 made Him affectionate and dutiful. The 
 simple theology He had learned from His 
 parents' lips, in the synagogue school, and 
 from the round of fast and festival, had 
 moved Him to love His country and vene- 
 rate His God. 
 
 Now He is confronted with the sort of 
 religion in vogue at Jerusalem — a religion 
 of long and repeated prayers, of minute 
 regulation of every word and action, of 
 rigorous tyranny — a religion of word-split- 
 ting, of separatism, of outward appearance, 
 with too seldom any sufficient basis of intel- 
 lectual conviction or spiritual feeling. 
 
 ' Pirqey Abhoth v. 12, 15. 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JEEUSALEM 117 
 
 And He would want to know what it all 
 meant, and how it was to be reconciled with 
 the religion He had learned at home. 
 
 Were these directions and this casuistry 
 among the ' things of His Father ' ? Did 
 they belong to the stern righteousness of 
 the national books ? Were they steps to- 
 wards the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 Sitting on the Temple terrace He would 
 learn more than the doctors told. 
 
 Their second-hand dogmatism, their 
 logical refinements, would show Him truth, 
 even as out of darkness shines forth light. 
 Their chill selfishness and proud reserve 
 would reveal to Him love, even as cold does 
 heat. 
 
 For wisdom is attained not by the taking 
 in of known facts or safe opinions, but by 
 the working of the mind on the material, 
 bad or good, true or false, which comes 
 within its ken. 
 
 ' That conversation with miserable priests 
 and formalists called into activity the One 
 Creative Mind which was to fertilise the 
 whole spiritual life to the end of time.' ^ 
 
 Joseph and Mary meanwhile, having 
 
 1 F. W. Robertson. 
 
118 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 spent the two necessary days in Jerusalem, 
 on the third day of the feast began their 
 journeying north again, thinking that Jesus 
 also was somewhere in the company. For 
 now that the compulsory time of attendance 
 was over many of the people started as a 
 matter of course for home. And with such 
 crowds passing out of the gates, and along 
 the great highways, it would be difficult to 
 collect each individual member of a par- 
 ticular party. And Eastern boys were allowed 
 much liberty. Joseph and Mary did not 
 even notice that Jesus was not with them.^ 
 
 The caravan halted for the night at El- 
 Bireh, some nine miles north of Jerusalem, 
 called in the Old Testament scriptures 
 Beeroth ; ^ a large spring of water made it a 
 suitable camping-ground. 
 
 Edersheim thinks that Sichem or Akrabah 
 may have been the place, and Keim names 
 Sichem and Shiloh. But Bireh is the end 
 of the first stage for caravans going north 
 at the present day, and tradition says it 
 was here that Joseph and Mary stopped. 
 
 They pitched their little tent, and made 
 a fire and got supper ready. But the boy 
 
 ^ oiiK 'dyvwcrav, Ltike 2, 43. ~ Josh. 9, 17 ; 18, 25. 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 119 
 
 did not come. They looked round for Him. 
 They asked some of their fellow-travellers. 
 They began to feel anxious. They went 
 round to everyone they knew, everyone whom 
 He might possibly have joined on the road. 
 But He was not to be found. 
 
 And no one remembered having seen 
 Him anywhere that day. 
 
 An anxious night did Joseph and Mary 
 spend, searching, inquiring, and then through 
 the dark hours wondering what could have 
 become of Him. 
 
 They remembered how the great Herod 
 had meant to take His life when He was an 
 infant. That was years ago, and Herod was 
 no more ; but there were jealous, cruel men 
 in power still. Had it become known to 
 them that the child whom the wise men 
 sought was still alive, and had they found 
 Him and laid hands on Him ? 
 
 The country was in an unsettled state ; 
 some districts were infested by bands of 
 men half -robbers, half -rebels ; could He have 
 ' fallen among thieves ' ? Or had He at the 
 very start from Jerusalem, in the darkness 
 of the early morning, and amid the con- 
 fusion and noise of the mingled mass of 
 
120 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 pilgrims and camels and asses, become 
 separated altogether from the Nazareth 
 party, and gone away, all unknowing, with a 
 crowd of strangers on quite another road ? 
 Or was He still somewhere in the city ? 
 And what would He do when He knew that 
 they were gone ? 
 
 At any rate He was not there at El- 
 Bireh ; of that they had made quite sure. 
 And so before the dawn of day, while every- 
 one else was getting ready to pursue the 
 journey northwards, these two turned back 
 along the way by which they had come. 
 
 No sign of Him, no news of Him, upon 
 the road. Impatient and short would be their 
 rest during the heat of noon. But it was late 
 in the afternoon before they neared once more 
 the Holy City, not now in the joy of the 
 pilgrim ascent, but in suspense and fear. 
 
 Their temporary abode was just as they 
 had left it ; He was not there. Before they 
 could make a thorough search of the streets 
 and buildings night closed in, and they must 
 wait. Early they were up, looking every- 
 where, asking everyone, until at last in the 
 Temple courts, on the terrace, they found 
 Him ' sitting in the midst of the doctors. 
 
CH. Tin THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 121 
 
 both hearing them and asking them ques- 
 tions.' And when they saw Him they were 
 astonished ; for, hke so many other parents, 
 they had not reaHsed that their boy was fast 
 becoming a man, with thoughts and interests 
 of His own, and His simple character and 
 modest demeanour had not prepared them 
 to see Him here, taking part in religious dis- 
 cussion, and prominent among noted Eabbis 
 and their disciples, whom these reverent 
 Galilseans held in so great awe. 
 
 They drew Him aside, and Mary said 
 softly, for Him alone to hear,^ ' Son, why 
 hast thou thus dealt with us ? ' ' Son ' she 
 calls Him {t4kvov) ; the word betrays some- 
 thing of maternal tenderness, but something, 
 too, of her feeling that now He is indeed 
 grown-up ; a pet name would have har- 
 monised neither with the spiritual glow 
 upon His face, nor with the wonderment in 
 her own heart. 
 
 And yet her question has in it a touch 
 of reproach. His staying behind in the city 
 affected them. His parents, and He seemed 
 not to have thought of that. It had dis- 
 quieted their minds, it had altered their 
 
 ^ elnev npos avrov fj fJLrjTt]fj airov, Lioke 2, 48. 
 
122 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vin 
 
 arrangements, and brought them back in 
 suspense and even grief to Jerusalem. Not 
 Mary only, but see ! here is Joseph too, 
 sajdng nothing, as is his wont, but feeling 
 deeply all the same — nay, his anxiety by 
 Mary's delicate unselfishness put foremost : 
 * Behold, thy father and I sought thee 
 sorrowing.' 
 
 Three days of mental anguish have they 
 been suffering on His account ; how is it 
 that He, who at home has been so thought- 
 ful and considerate, should have caused this 
 trouble now ? 
 
 But such have been the thoughts and 
 feelings of Jesus during these days at Jeru- 
 salem that to Him his mother's words come 
 with a shock of surprise. He has been 
 absorbed in the Temple ritual, in the wor- 
 shipping crowds of His countrymen, and now 
 in the discussion of religious topics ; the 
 character and will of God have become 
 clearer to Him ; an idea of a mission has 
 perhaps been forming in His mind. 
 
 Mary's words are the intrusion of an 
 inharmonious train of thought ; and He 
 wonders to realise that she and Joseph 
 have felt so differently from Himself. Look- 
 
CH. Till THE VISIT TO JEEUSALEM 123 
 
 ing for Him ? Anxious about Him ? Surely 
 there was only one place where He could be, 
 only one matter that could detain Him. 
 ' How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye 
 not that I must be in my Father's house, 
 and about my Father's business ? ' ^ 
 
 Could it be that they were not interested 
 in the things of the Father, and so did not 
 understand His being so ? There is almost 
 a sort of shudder in Jesus' reply .^ Could 
 He, the son of the Father, be about any- 
 thing wrong? Could He, the son of the 
 Father, come to any harm ? 
 
 How true to nature these words of Jesus 
 are ! He was still scarce more than a boy ; 
 and boys do not easily see things from any 
 point of view but their own. Older people, 
 however strong may be their feeling or 
 well-founded their opinion, do not expect 
 that everyone else will think and feel in 
 the same way as themselves. Tolerance 
 comes with age and experience ; in youth it 
 would be unnatural. 
 
 Though surprised to learn that the 
 thoughts of others had not been the same 
 as His own, Jesus seems to have been con- 
 
 ' fv To'is Tov Ylarpos fiov. ~ Godet. 
 
124 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. vni 
 
 scious that the things about which He was 
 thinking were in a special way related to 
 Himself. 
 
 ' Wist ye not,' He says, ' that I must be 
 about my Father's business ? ' He had an 
 urgent duty, an engrossing interest, for the 
 Father of the covenanted people of Israel 
 was Father of Him. Every Jew, because he 
 was a Jew, might speak of God as Father. 
 But this ' my ' makes an individual claim 
 such as was made by no other Israelite. 
 Indeed, when it was in later years definitely 
 and seriously set forth, it excited their 
 strongest indignation. ' My Father ... is 
 greater than all. ... I and my Father are 
 one. Then the Jews took up stones again 
 to stone him.' ^ 
 
 It was perhaps now and here, in the 
 Temple courts at His first Passover, in the 
 Holy City, and amid types of Himself, that 
 the consciousness of His personal relation 
 to God stole upon Him. During the quiet 
 years of childhood it had been gathering, 
 growing, unheeded, like the swelling bud ; 
 now it bursts open and stands revealed. 
 And yet it shrinks away for a time into 
 
 1 John 10, 29-31. 
 
CH. VIII THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 125 
 
 obscurity again, and grows stronger and 
 more beautiful, until His hour should come, 
 and He should declare, ' I must work the 
 works of Him that sent me while it is day : 
 the night cometh, when no man can work.' ^ 
 
 To say that Jesus was at this time fully 
 conscious, not only of His relation to the 
 Father, but also of His mission upon earth, 
 would be to anticipate the course of history. 
 
 Although it is true that ' the gain of the 
 spiritual does not weaken or destroy the 
 natural affection,' ^ yet had the ray of light 
 that fell now upon His personality been other 
 than partial or temporary. He would scarcely 
 with propriety and in complete sincerity have 
 gone down again to His parents' home in 
 Nazareth, to be subject unto them, and 
 still to live and learn and grow during many 
 silent years. Even after He began His public 
 ministry we can in some measure trace the 
 gradual and tide-like advance, constant, yet 
 by marked waves of crisis, of His knowledge 
 of Himself. 
 
 And so we must not press too much of 
 meaning into the words, * Wist ye not that I 
 must be in the things of my Father ? ' 
 
 1 John 9, 4. 2 s_ A. Brooke. 
 
126 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 About His Father's business in any 
 special or Messianic sense it was not yet 
 His time to be. Nor did it ever become His 
 duty to abide always in His Father's house : 
 our High Priest ministers in a temple not 
 made with hands. ^ 
 
 No ; the plain meaning of the boy's answer 
 to His mother's ' Son, why hast thou thus 
 dealt with us ? ' is that He wondered that 
 they should have had to think twice about 
 where He would be and what He was doing ; 
 did they not know that He must be in the 
 Temple because it was the Father's house, 
 and that He must be engrossed in the Temple 
 rites, and in the discussions on the terrace, 
 because they had to do with the worship of 
 the Father and with His will. 
 
 And when to this we have added that 
 He called Him ' my ' Father, and so showed 
 that He was becoming conscious of some 
 special and personal relation, we have said 
 as much as we safely may. 
 
 At present His idea of the worship and 
 service of God was perhaps localised, within 
 the Temple walls ; it was after years of 
 communion with Him, in Nature and in men 
 
 1 Heb. 9, 11. 
 
CH.Tiii THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 127 
 
 and in His own soul, that He came to speak 
 of God as in the sun and rain and birds and 
 grass,^ of praying and giving alms as some- 
 times best done in secret,- of Jerusalem as 
 no longer the holy city, the joy of the whole 
 earth, but as a place of killing the prophets 
 and stoning them that were sent, a house 
 left desolate, trodden down of the Gen- 
 tiles.^ The hour should be when neither 
 on Gerizim nor on Moriah should men 
 w^orship the Father, but the true worship- 
 pers should worship Him in spirit and in 
 truth.* 
 
 This conversation seems to have taken 
 place aside from the crowd, or in an under- 
 tone.^ It was probably reported to St. Luke 
 in after years by Mary herself. At the time 
 neither she nor Joseph took in its full sig- 
 nificance : ' they understood not the saying 
 which He spake unto them.' How could 
 they ? They had not before them then, as 
 we have now, the story of His life and death ; 
 His discourses to men, His prayers to the 
 Father, were in the future ; to them He was 
 
 ^ Matt. 5,45 ; 6, 26, 28, so, &c. * John 4, 21-24. 
 
 ' Matt. 6, 1-6. ^ Vv. 48, 49, irpos avrov 
 
 ^ Luke 13, 34, 35 ; 21, 24. npos avrovs. 
 
128 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 still their child, happy and content in the 
 simple occupations of home, obedient and 
 affectionate to themselves. 
 
 It was best so : had they known then all 
 that afterwards was seen to be implied in 
 that pregnant phrase, ' I must be in the things 
 of my Father,' nay, had He himself known 
 its whole meaning, the ordinary life of the 
 home would have been no longer possible, 
 parental love and care would have been re- 
 placed by timid awe and lowly worship, filial 
 respect by a divine condescension, and Jesus 
 could not have received the natural human 
 training which was, for Him who was ' very 
 man,' essential. Many years were yet to 
 pass before that training should be complete, 
 and He be ready to go out from home to 
 preach the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 ' They understood not.' So soon, in His 
 very boyhood, are we face to face with one of 
 the most impressive aspects of the mission 
 of the Christ upon earth. For Him was there 
 no brilliant and immediate success : His 
 words were seed cast forth upon the world 
 of human hearts, to be snatched away or 
 trodden under foot or choked, or at the best 
 to settle and die, and only thus to bring 
 
CH.viii THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM 129 
 
 forth fruit. He told His simple stories, and 
 people ' understood not what things they 
 were which He spake unto them.' ^ His 
 very disciples, when He begged them to let 
 His words sink into their ears, for He him- 
 self should be delivered up into the hands 
 of men, understood not this saying, and it 
 was concealed from them.^ He was in the 
 world, and the world was made by Him, 
 and the world knew Him not. He came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him 
 not. 
 
 He lived not for time, but for eternity. 
 He could afford to wait. 
 
 And so now, on the threshold of His 
 manhood, and all unknowing as yet of the 
 travail and the triumph that were to be. He 
 went down, in the order of God's wise 
 providence, from the city in which all the 
 patriotic and religious sentiment of His 
 nation were centred, and which was to be 
 the scene of His own abasement and exalta- 
 tion — went down with Mary and Joseph, 
 His parents, along the road they had 
 travelled a week ago, then with pleasant 
 anticipation, now with serious and puzzled 
 
 ^ John 10, 6. - Luke 9, 44, 45. 
 
 K 
 
130 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. viii 
 
 thoughts, until they came to Nazareth once 
 more, and cHmbed the steep path up from 
 the plain, and greeted their neighbours at 
 the well, and so got home to their humble 
 dwelling and their ordinary life. 
 
131 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 FURTHER EDUCATION 
 
 Of the next eighteen years there is no 
 incident recorded in the Gospels. We may 
 suppose, therefore, that nothing uncommon 
 occurred, and that the Hfe of Jesus was in 
 its outward details that of other Jews of 
 His age and position. 
 
 But St. Luke does tell us what were 
 the characteristic features of the earlier part 
 at least of this period. His words are very 
 suggestive, and taken along with what we 
 may be able to ascertain as to the habits 
 and pursuits of young men in Galilaean 
 villages, and with what we know of our 
 Lord's character and sayings in maturer 
 life, will enable us to do much towards 
 filling this gap in the history. ' (He went 
 down with them, and came to Nazareth) ; 
 and He was subject unto them : (and His 
 
 K 2 
 
132 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 mother kept all these sayings in her heart). 
 And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, 
 and in favour with God and men.' ^ 
 
 The entire subjection of the child to the 
 parents was in accordance with the scrip- 
 tures and the customs of the Jews. 
 
 Parents were the representatives of God, 
 and honour must be paid to them.^ He 
 that should smite, or even curse, his father 
 or his mother was to be put to death : ^ it 
 was a crime of rare occurrence. Children 
 loved and respected their parents, and any 
 contrary feeling would have been regarded 
 as unnatural and horrible. Submission was 
 an essential part of a graceful and pleasing 
 character. ' My son,' said the wise man, 
 ' hear the instruction of thy father, and for- 
 sake not the law of thy mother : for they 
 shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, 
 and chains about thy neck.' ^ 
 
 Chastisement was thought necessary,^ 
 but only for the very young, and not so as 
 to destroy the child's self-respect. Jewish 
 parents were advised in the Talmud,® as 
 
 1 Luke 2, 51, 52. * Prov. 1, 8, 9. 
 
 2 Ex. 20, 12. ^ Prov. 13, 24 ; 29, 15, 17. 
 
 3 Ex. 21, 15, 17 ; Lev. 20, 9. « Moed K. 17, a. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION ]33 
 
 were Christians by St. Paul,^ not to provoke 
 their children to wrath. Correction was, 
 indeed, a mark of love.^ While in the 
 Roman State the salient feature of family 
 relationship was the patria potestas — the 
 father's absolute power — in the Jewish it 
 was rather his obligation to contribute by 
 his offspring to the character and strength 
 of the nation. 
 
 Jesus would be brought up to be dutiful, 
 and to obey. Nor did the exceptional great- 
 ness of His spirit clash with the just claims 
 of filial piety. Rather His piety was an 
 essential part of His greatness. He was a 
 born genius ; He had already won favour 
 among His friends, and had been noticed 
 even in the Temple courts ; most boys in 
 such a case would have chafed at the re- 
 straints of home, and would have become 
 self-conscious and conceited. The instinct 
 of reverence and duty kept Him in the right 
 way. ' He that ruleth his spirit (is better) 
 than he that taketh a city ' : ^ the proverb 
 was a prophecy. 
 
 Not during the simplicity of childhood 
 alone, but in the strength of maturity, with 
 
 1 Eph. 6, 4. ^ Prov. 3, 11, 12. ' Prov. 16, 32. 
 
134 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 His powers of body and mind at their best, 
 and a spiritual superiority of which He 
 could not but have been conscious, His 
 career was marked by a frank and willing 
 submission to lawful authority. 
 
 Though John would have hindered Him, 
 saying, ' I have need to be baptized of Thee, 
 and comest Thou to me ? ' He answered, 
 ' Suffer it now : for thus it becometh us to 
 fulfil all righteousness.' ^ So, too. He paid 
 the Temple tax ' lest we cause them to 
 stumble ' ; ^ and told His questioners to 
 ' render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's.'^ 
 
 He bade men listen to the authorised 
 teachers, selfish and tyrannical though they 
 were. ' The Scribes and the Pharisees sit 
 on Moses' seat : all things therefore what- 
 soever they bid you, these do and observe.' * 
 
 He allowed Himself to be taken prisoner 
 in Gethsemane by the band of soldiers and 
 officials, and when Peter would have fought 
 in His defence. He said, ' Put up the sword 
 into the sheath : the cup which the Father 
 hath given me, shall I not drink it ? ' * He 
 
 1 Matt. 3, 14, 15. 2 jviatt. 17, 27. » Matt. 22, 21. 
 
 ^ Matt. 23, 3. ^ John 18, 11 
 
cii. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 135 
 
 bore with patience the questions put, and 
 the accusations and indignities heaped upon 
 Him, in the courts of High Priest and San- 
 hedrin and Roman Governor. He submitted 
 to be bound and scourged, and crowned with 
 thorns, and arrayed in robes of mockery, 
 and buffeted, and led forth to die a cruel 
 death. He was not willing to rebel against 
 the administration of the law, even though 
 its administrators were cowardly and un- 
 just. 
 
 He was great by very reason of His 
 being submissive. His cross was His crown. 
 * He made Himself of no reputation and 
 took upon Him the form of a servant, and 
 was made in the likeness of men, and being 
 found in fashion as a man, He humbled 
 Himself, and became obedient unto death, 
 even the death of the cross. Wherefore also 
 God hath highly exalted Him, and given 
 Him a name which is above every name.' ^ 
 
 Since, then, submission to authority was 
 in His later life seen to be not inconsistent 
 with, but rather a mark of, His nobility and 
 dignity of soul, it is easy to understand 
 how in childhood, though greater than 
 
 ' Phil. 2, 7-9. 
 
136 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 His parents, He was yet ' subject unto 
 them.' 
 
 The use in His parables and discourses 
 of the word ' Father ' gives us a hint as to 
 the happy relations that existed in the home 
 at Nazareth. 
 
 That He should have commonly spoken 
 of Grod by that name is the strongest testi- 
 mony to the good influences that were about 
 him in His early years. There was authority 
 without harshness, wisdom rounded by love. 
 He could scarcely have grown up so joyous 
 in His disposition, so original in His thoughts 
 and sincere in the expression of them, had 
 there not been a wholesome elasticity in 
 the discipline of the early home. 
 
 The submission of Jesus to His parents 
 is one of the many tokens of His real 
 humanity. 
 
 And another is found in the next ex- 
 pression which St. Luke uses about him.^ 
 
 ' And Jesus increased ' (Revised Version 
 ' advanced,' Greek irpoiKoirTe). The word is 
 one that pictures pioneers making their way 
 through rough country or forest land, cutting 
 down trees and undergrowth, leaving as 
 
 ^ Luke, 2, 52. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 137 
 
 they go a path for those who follow. It 
 implies patience : He did not burst at once 
 into the fulness of His powers ; body, brain, 
 and character, by steady gradual develop- 
 ment, became what they were destined to be. 
 
 He slept and rose night and day, and 
 the seed sprang up and grew. He knew not 
 how.^ 
 
 Life was to Him as it should be to us all, 
 a continual lesson. And His progress was 
 not merely physical and mental, but moral 
 and spiritual also. He ' increased in wisdom 
 and stature, and in favour with God and 
 man.' ' Though he were a son, yet learned 
 He obedience by the things which He 
 suffered.' ^ 
 
 In the quiet home-life of Nazareth Jesus 
 ' waxed strong in spirit,' as did John, His 
 forerunner, who was ' in the deserts till the 
 day of His showing unto Israel.' The fire 
 of youthful ardour, too much fanned, is apt 
 to burn itself aw^ay. A premature publicity 
 might have exposed Him too early to the 
 temptations of fame and flattery, which, 
 after thirty years of steady growth. He met 
 and put aside. 
 
 ^ Mark 4, 26, 27. ^ Heb. 5, 8. 
 
138 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 He grew, not as the hothouse plant that 
 shoots up quickly to its perfection, but as 
 the modest wild flower that takes root firmly 
 in some shaded hollow, and lifts a tiny shoot 
 slowly from the soil, and braces itself against 
 the buffets of the wind, and endures the 
 plashing rain and the chills of night, and 
 only then, when it is well-formed and strong, 
 opens its petals to the sunshine, and reveals 
 its beauty to all eyes, and makes the air 
 sweet with its perfume. 
 
 The conception of Christ's natural de- 
 velopment as a child, and His lowliness of 
 heart as a man, which we get from St. 
 Luke's pregnant words, and from the general 
 tenor of all four canonical gospels, does 
 not agree in the least with the portrait of 
 Him which the writers of the apocryphal 
 gospels tried to draw. Zeal to assert the 
 Lord's divinity, united with the vulgar idea 
 that divinity must be shown in uncommon 
 phenomena rather than in the ordinary ways 
 of God's world, and in the physical rather 
 than the moral and religious sphere, led 
 them to give the reins to a wild imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 What is presented to their readers is a 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 139 
 
 seeming child who is already a man, who 
 knows no development, who can learn 
 nothing from teachers or from experience. 
 Wonders attend Him from His cradle on- 
 wards. He raises the dead, and gives life 
 to things of clay ; He enters a lions' den 
 and is worshipped of them ; Jordan divides 
 as He draws near ; He drives out a dog- 
 devil from Judas Iscariot ; from one grain 
 of wheat he raises a thousand bushels ; 
 He lengthens in an instant a bedstead and 
 alters a throne that Joseph had made ; He 
 throws a dyer's clothes into blue water, and 
 draws them out dyed each its proper colour ; 
 He changes His playmates into goats ; He 
 strikes dead with a Avord those who do not 
 honour Him. 
 
 His position in the home and the school 
 is that which His finished life and work 
 alone would warrant. It is He who speaks 
 the blessings ; they will not eat unless He 
 eats, or begin a meal without Him. They 
 see a glory shining ever about Him, and pay 
 Him reverence. In the Gospel of Thomas 
 Joseph does attempt discipline, and is re- 
 buked with ' Thou hast not done wisely, 
 grieve me not ' ; but in that of Matthew 
 
140 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 he leaves the duty to Mary, who addresses 
 the boy as ' My Lord.* 
 
 His teachers are one after the other 
 scorned and put to shame. 
 
 Those who wish to read such fancies at 
 length will find a translation and a critical 
 account of them in B. Harris Cowper's 
 ' Apocryphal Gospels ' (London, 1870). 
 
 For any purposes of history or religious 
 faith these books are quite worthless. They 
 are interesting only as specimens of the 
 foolish things that men will write who for 
 faith's sake abjure reason, and in the name 
 of religion try to make unto themselves a 
 God after their own heart. God's facts make 
 better theology than do man's fancies. 
 
 There would be no more actual schooling 
 for Jesus after he became a ' son of the 
 commandment.' He would have now to 
 observe the Law that He had learned ; to 
 wear the phylacteries in prayer, to keep the 
 proper fasts, and to attend with the men 
 the great festivals at Jerusalem. 
 
 Some youths at the age of fifteen became 
 students at academies conducted by well- 
 known Eabbis in Jerusalem, where those 
 things were taught which afterwards became 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 141 
 
 the written Gemara or Talmud, and the art 
 of debating was practised. King Izates 
 of Adiabene sent his five sons to such a 
 Beth Midrash, or house of instruction. 
 Gamahel had one, and Saul of Tarsus sat 
 at his feet. The instance of Hillel, whp 
 listened outside the door, when he could not 
 afford to pay the fee, shows that evep. poor 
 lads sometimes came up for this purpo§!|s' 
 
 But we know that Jesus stayed at Naza- 
 reth with His parents. The people of His 
 own part of the country, when they heard 
 Him teach in the synagogue, were astonished, 
 and said, ' Whence hath this man this wis- 
 dom ? ' ^ And when He taught in the Temple 
 courts, the Jews marvelled, saying, ' How 
 knoweth this man letters, never having 
 learned ? ' ^ i.e. How can he discuss with 
 Scribes when He has never set foot in their 
 schools ? 
 
 His parents were poor, and also, being 
 Galilseans, showed the northern distaste for 
 the theological refinements in vogue at 
 Jerusalem ; and either of these facts would 
 account for His not being sent to attend a 
 Eabbinic school. It was well for Him that 
 
 1 Matt. 13, 54 ; Mark, 6, 2. 2 j^^^ 7^ jg_ 
 
142 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 He was not. He could scarcely have been 
 so fresh and independent in His way of 
 thinking had He been subjected to the 
 cramping influence of the teaching of the 
 Eabbis, the effect of which is traceable in 
 the best men of the age, and even, some 
 have thought, in St. Paul himself. 
 
 Yet it is clear that He was familiar with 
 their methods, and with many of their 
 actual sayings. A medium by which these 
 could filter through to Him would be the 
 discourses which He listened to in the 
 synagogue of his own village. Frequently 
 in the course of His after-teaching did He 
 quote from Scribes, in order to contrast with 
 their dicta some sounder and more spiritual 
 truth. 
 
 But it is interesting to notice that, when 
 He does so. He does not mention, as most 
 Jews would have done, the name of the 
 author of the saying. To Jesus a senti- 
 ment was true or false of itself, and not 
 because of the person who uttered it. 
 
 Some such quotations are preserved in 
 the Grospels, and no doubt there were many 
 similar ones which are not recorded.^ 
 
 1 John 21, 25. 
 
CH. IX FUETHER EDUCATION 143 
 
 * Ye have heard that it was said by them 
 of old time,' ' Ye have heard that it hath 
 been said,' are the phrases with which He 
 introduces Eabbinic sayings : and ' But I 
 say unto you ' is the preface to His own 
 comment.^ The discourses in Matthew 15 
 and 23 show an intimate acquaintance 
 with the views of contemporary Jewish 
 teachers. What He said about giving 
 tribute to Caesar imphes that He was 
 acquainted with the nationalist propaganda 
 of patriots like Judas the Galilsean.^ 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that He 
 learned all these things while He was still 
 a youth at Nazareth, before the busy days 
 began of His public ministry. He was not 
 a student in the schools of the Sopherim ; 
 but an earnest and intelligent spirit does 
 more for the acquisition of knowledge than 
 the most favourable external conditions. 
 
 His attendance at the Nazareth syna- 
 gogue, where He would sometimes hear 
 teachers from the south, and His visits to 
 Jerusalem for the great festivals, would pro- 
 vide material enough to His inquiring and 
 reflective disposition. It may be added 
 
 ^ Matt. 5, 21, 27, 33, 38, 43. " Matt. 22, 17-21, 
 
144 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 that His sociable nature would make the 
 community in which He lived a school for 
 Himself, and that, being a true Oriental, 
 He would spend a great deal of time in 
 reverie. 
 
 But, by whatever means He gained His 
 knowledge, it is evident that when Jesus 
 went forth from Nazareth to fulfil His 
 mission in the larger world He not only 
 knew thoroughly the history of Judaism in 
 the past — its rise, its Law and other Scrip- 
 tures, its reverses and its glories — but under- 
 stood well the actual condition of the 
 Judaism of the present. 
 
 Let us try to form an idea of what this 
 was. 
 
 The period of prophetic inspiration had 
 passed away. The popular ideal of the 
 Messiah was no longer the Scriptural one. 
 The hereditary priesthood had become 
 secular in tone. 
 
 Eeligious influence in the nation belonged 
 now to Rabbinism. 
 
 Under the early kings a Scribe was a sort 
 of Secretary of State. In Hezekiah's reign 
 a number of men were employed to copy 
 records and write down traditions. During 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 145 
 
 the Captivity it was an important matter 
 that the sacred writings should be preserved 
 and explained, especially as the language was 
 changing from Hebrew to Aramaic. Ezra 
 the priest was known as ' Ezra the Scribe.' 
 ' To seek the Law of the Lord, and to do 
 it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judg- 
 ments,' ^ became the work of a rising class. 
 It is to them that we owe our possession 
 to-day of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 As varying circumstances required fresh 
 advice, or special decisions, these were 
 made as on the authority of the Law. A 
 system of casuistry, the ' Words of the 
 Scribes,' began, as being more modern, to 
 take the place of the written precepts. 
 They were to be a ' hedge ' around the 
 ' enclosed garden ' of the Law, to prevent 
 in whatever case any breach of it. 
 
 They were quoted as authoritative. They 
 were of two kinds : — 
 
 First, Halakhah, or ' goings ' (' the rule 
 of the spiritual road '),''^ directions as to 
 conduct and observances, which were legal 
 ordinances, later and greater than those in 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 ^ Ezra 7, lO. 2 Edersheim. 
 
 L 
 
146 EARLY LITE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 Second, Haggadah, or ' sayings,' which, 
 though not so binding as the Halakhah, 
 were all there was of what may be called 
 theology ; and silly stuff on the whole it was, 
 legendary, coarse, and irreverent. 
 
 It was not till long after Christ that the 
 words of the Scribes began to be collected in 
 book form. The Mishnah, or second Law, 
 dates from the end of the second century. 
 
 Comments on the Mishnah in turn were 
 made into the Jerusalem Talmud about 
 400 A.D., and the Babylon Talmud about 
 500 A.D. For Babylon had been a great 
 centre of Jews and Judaism in the past, 
 and was so again after the fall of Jerusalem. 
 
 In Jesus' time the Scribes were very 
 highly honoured : they were the official 
 teachers of the national religion, the 
 authority on all matters of faith and prac- 
 tice. Some of their body were associated 
 with the ' chief priests ' and with ' elders ' in 
 the Sanhedrin, which sat in the Temple pre- 
 cincts as the great judicial and adminis- 
 trative court of Judaism. ' Lawyers,' they 
 sometimes were, and ' doctors of the law. ^ 
 
 They were thick in Judaea, and were to 
 
 1 Matt. 22, 35 (cf. Mark 12, 28) ; Luke, 5, i7 ; &c. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 147 
 
 be seen also in Galilee. Much deference 
 was paid to them : they were addressed as 
 Eabbi or ' my master ' ; everyone made 
 way for them, and listened to what they 
 would say. The priestly body who con- 
 trolled the Temple services and its vast 
 revenues, and filled the highest offices in 
 the nation, were yet in popular estimation 
 inferior to the Eabbis, and were glad on 
 occasion to respect their views in order to 
 gain their support. 
 
 For the test of merit was the study of 
 the Law. This it was that marked off the 
 pious man from the Amhaarets or ' country 
 fellow.' The Patriarchs had learned and 
 kept the ordinances. In the study of the 
 Law Jehovah himself was supposed to be 
 occupied. 
 
 Scribes often appear in the Gospels 
 along with Pharisees. The latter were the 
 members of the religious party which prac- 
 tised the observances laid down by the 
 former. Indeed, a Scribe was usually, 
 though not of necessity, a strict Pharisee. 
 The Pharisees were professional pietists : 
 the details of their art being studied, settled, 
 and taught by the Scribes. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 Very minute were the directions they 
 had to follow, and which were regarded as of 
 utmost importance. Every possible bearing 
 of the Mosaic Law had been considered and 
 dealt with. 
 
 If only a man conformed to that Law, or 
 rather to the Halakhah upon it, he might 
 think and say very much what he pleased. 
 Eeligion stood in externals. Litelligence 
 and faith, and love of God and of man, were 
 not included. 
 
 Two objects were kept in view : the 
 careful observance of Levitical purity, and 
 the strict payment of religious dues. 
 
 He who undertook the latter obliga- 
 tion only was a Neeman, an accredited 
 one, and might be traded with. He who 
 undertook both was a Chabher, or full 
 associate. 
 
 What the doctors taught, and the people 
 believed, with regard to the Messiah was 
 that He would free Israel by might in arms, 
 break the power of the nations and divide to 
 Israel their treasures, and found a universal 
 kingdom, with a splendid metropolis, and a 
 people all strong in body, and in soul all 
 prophets. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION U9 
 
 A special, but small, religious party was 
 that of the Sadducees. They represented 
 a reaction against what was irrational in 
 Pharisaism, a reaction that tended to 
 become rationalistic itself. They did not 
 reject the authority of tradition, but pro- 
 tested against the extreme use made of it. 
 They disbelieved in, or at any rate denied 
 that there was in the Law any proof of, the 
 life after death. They seem to have believed 
 more in man's free will, and less in pre- 
 destination, than did the Pharisees. There 
 were some differences also as to details of 
 ritual. 
 
 It was only a rather small number of 
 people, and they of the highest, the priestly, 
 class, who were Sadducees. Pharisaism 
 was the religion of the masses, and the 
 Scribes were their teachers. 
 
 Pharisees and Sadducees were parties 
 within the synagogue. Outside it was a sect, 
 the Essenes, ' outsiders,' numbering about 
 4,000 men, who attracted some notice by 
 their unworldliness and self-denial. Their 
 ideal was purity, as consisting in separation 
 from material things. 
 
 They lived under rigid rule, celibates, 
 
150 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 having all things in common. Their largest 
 settlement was at Engaddi, on the eastern 
 shore of the Dead Sea, but in the towns 
 also some of them were to be fomid, who 
 had not taken the full vows, and were a sort 
 of secular clergy. 
 
 Their doctrines were mystical, and were 
 kept a secret within the order. 
 
 In the period of the Herods another 
 party arose, who longed for national freedom. 
 They would call no man their lord ; Jehovah 
 alone was to be lord. Zealots (or in Hebrew 
 Cananaeans) was their name, and in Galilee 
 their home. Ezekias, the first leader of 
 their guerilla bands, was put to death by 
 Herod the Great, and Judas his son suffered 
 in the same cause while Jesus was a child. 
 
 The leading Eabbis, awed by Herod's 
 severity, gave them neither sympathy nor 
 support ; the interest of the Hillelites at any 
 rate lay rather in the subtleties of the Law 
 than in political enterprise ; but the school 
 of Shammai contributed a few comrades to 
 their ranks. Jesus' brother Simon was a 
 Zealot. Possibly James also had some 
 leanings in that direction ; his tone is that 
 of Shammai rather than of Hillel. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 161 
 
 It may be said that all parties in 
 Judaism, even though abstaining from 
 hopeless agitation, were intensely national 
 in feeling. Only in the Temple could the 
 Shekhinah dwell. Palestine was ' the land ' ; 
 and it was so because it was the abode of 
 Israel. The ' children of Abraham ' held the 
 same relation to God as the great patriarch 
 himself. For them was the world created. 
 
 The lesson of their past history, and 
 especially of the Captivity, had been burned 
 deep into the Jewish spirit. Never again 
 should there be for them any friendship 
 with heathens. 
 
 Eoman writers noted this characteristic. 
 Tacitus charges them with 'bitter hatred 
 towards all aliens.' ^ 
 
 Juvenal speaks of — 
 
 All that which Moses m his mystic volume handed 
 
 down, 
 To show the way to none but fellow-worshippers, 
 To guide none but the circumcised to the stream they 
 
 seek. 2 
 
 And although it was, in the condition of 
 the country — subject to Kome, and trading 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. 5, 5. 
 
 ^ Juv. Sat. 14, 103, Strong and Leeper's translation. 
 
152 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 with Phoenicians and Greeks — impossible to 
 maintain a real abstention from Western 
 affairs, yet such was their ideal and their 
 profession. It was a virtue to be ignorant 
 of everything not Jewish. 
 
 Another religious movement, within the 
 pale of Judaism, was meanwhile germi- 
 nating, which was destined to influence all 
 parties, and to be the precursor of a purer 
 and fuller revelation in Christianity itself. 
 No doubt Jesus heard of the life that His kins- 
 man, the son of Zacharias, was leading in the 
 wilderness south of Jericho. Self-discipline, 
 and study of the prophets, and solitude with 
 God, were making the future Baptist strong 
 in spirit, and fitting him to ' go before the 
 face of the Lord to make ready His ways.' 
 Jesus seems not to have known John per- 
 sonally yet,^ but it counted for something 
 to know of the earnest faith in Jehovah, 
 and the eager expectancy of a coming 
 Messiah, in one who was so nearly con- 
 nected with His mother and Himself. 
 
 So far our account of Jesus' education 
 has been all religious. It has been so of 
 necessity. No other learning was there for 
 
 ^ John 1, 31. 
 
CH. IX FUETHER EDUCATION 163 
 
 the Jew but in theology — the Hebrew 
 Scriptures and the current sayings of their 
 interpreters. He could graduate neither in 
 arts nor sciences. 
 
 Mathematics were unknown ; there is no 
 indication even of anything like arithmetic 
 in the Bible. We do find allusions to the 
 habits of various animals, but the only 
 approach to classification is that some are 
 domesticated or ' cattle,' and others wild or 
 ' beasts of the field,' and that some — those 
 that chew the cud and have divided hoofs — 
 are regarded as clean and fit for food, and 
 all the rest as unclean : there is nothing 
 worthy of being called zoology. And though 
 references are made to the parts of the 
 body, and diseases are mentioned, there was 
 no systematised physiology or anatomy or 
 pathology. Indeed science was heathen, 
 and to be abhorred. 
 
 And the same may be said of foreign 
 literature — it was forbidden.^ 
 
 So Jesus, we may suppose, never read 
 those books which, written four hundred 
 years before His time, are still to-day 
 masterpieces in the world's literature : the 
 
 > Sanhedrin, 90. 
 
154 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 epic poems of Homer ; the gossipy chronicles 
 of Herodotus, the ' father of history ' ; the 
 more studied and philosophic compositions 
 of Thucydides; the conversations and dis- 
 courses of that brave and earnest truth- 
 seeker, Socrates, as preserved by Xenophon 
 and Plato, his disciples. 
 
 The soul-stirring plays of the Greek 
 dramatists, the graceful verses of Virgil and 
 Horace, His contemporaries, were, so far as 
 we can tell, unknown to Him. 
 
 There is not, in what has come down to 
 us of His teaching, any allusion to the history 
 or the literature of either Greece or Rome. 
 
 It may be that of the Grecian tongue He 
 was not ignorant. 
 
 A Galilssan would at any rate be more 
 likely to know something of it than an 
 inhabitant of Judaea ; for some of the routes 
 by which commerce passed between East 
 and West lay across the province of 
 Galilee. 
 
 Jesus did speak with certain Greeks who 
 came up to worship at the feast,^ with the 
 centurion whose servant He healed,^ and 
 with Pilate the Eoman Governor :^ He would 
 
 1 John 12, 20-26, '•* Matt. 8, 6-9. » Matt. 27, u. 
 
CH. IX FURTHER EDUCATION 165 
 
 do SO the more easily if He understood the 
 language which was at that time the 
 ordinary one of travellers, of officials, and of 
 courtiers. 
 
 The fact that He knew the value and 
 meaning of certain Greek coins is of no 
 significance in this respect, for those coins 
 had been current in the country for years, 
 and were well known by everybody. 
 
 He does not seem to have read the 
 Greek version of the Scriptures which during 
 the last two hundred years had been pre- 
 pared by learned Jews of Alexandria — the 
 Septuagint — and which became the standard 
 Bible of the Apostles. The native Jews 
 had not yet got over their prejudice against 
 anything foreign ; they preferred their own 
 Hebrew tongue.^ It was an easier tran- 
 sition from the Aramaic, which they spoke, 
 to the Hebrew of their Scriptures, than it 
 was from Aramaic to Greek. And so the 
 Septuagint was not readily received in 
 Palestine ; and even Greeks who became 
 converted to Judaism learned the ancient 
 Hebrew for their Bible-reading.^ 
 
 That the Old Testament quotations in 
 
 1 Acts 22, 2. - Jos. Antt. 20, 3, 4. 
 
166 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. ix 
 
 the Gospels are mostly from the LXX does, 
 not show that Jesus himself quoted that 
 version, but only that the Evangelists used 
 it. They would do so the more readily 
 because they knew Greek well, and wrote 
 their own account of their Lord's life and 
 words in Greek. 
 
 The Scribes acknowledged only the 
 Hebrew text, and this text it must neces- 
 sarily have been that formed the basis of His 
 disputations with them. To the people He 
 rendered Scripture in the dialect of the 
 people and of Himself, the Aramaic. 
 
 Therefore we must conclude that even 
 if Jesus did learn any Greek, He could have 
 had but little use for it. And for Latin still 
 less. The current words for measure, 
 farthing, legion, were Latin, and He used 
 them ; but no knowledge of the language 
 was necessary for that. 
 
157 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 KELIGIOUS DUTIES 
 
 Practical religious duties were meanwhile 
 being constantly attended to. The ordinary- 
 life of the Jew was full of them. And 
 Jesus was now a Bar Mizveh, and had to 
 observe the Torah like all other members 
 of the congregation. 
 
 Every morning and every evening the 
 Shema was said. 
 
 The Talmud gives precise directions as 
 to the time.^ In the morning it was to be 
 some time between daybreak and the third 
 hour (9 A.M.), preferably as soon as one 
 could distinguish blue from white, but 
 Eabbi Eleazar preferred to wait until he 
 could distinguish blue from green. In the 
 evening the limits were the moment when 
 the priests entered the Temple to eat of 
 
 ^ Berakhoth, i. 
 
168 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 the heave-offering and the end of the first 
 watch. Wherever the Jew happened to be 
 at the time, in the synagogue, in the house, 
 .in the street, even at work, he turned 
 towards Jerusalem, bent his head and 
 looked on the ground, and so repeated the 
 Shema, with certain forms of thanks- 
 giving before and after it : before, praising 
 God for His majesty in the heavens, and 
 then for His love to Israel ; after, recalling 
 the mighty works done for their forefathers, 
 and, in the evening, praying for national 
 deliverance. 
 
 There was, besides, already partially in 
 use a series of benedictions, which were said 
 three times a day — morning, afternoon, and 
 night. ^ Though attributed to Ezra, they 
 were not finally completed until a hundred 
 years after Christ's time, and they contain 
 allusions to the fall of Jerusalem and the 
 destruction of the Temple. These in the 
 earlier form (the first three and the last 
 three of the series) and the Shema formed 
 part of the synagogue service, and might 
 be said there. 
 
 That there was merit in the frequent 
 
 1 Schurer, p. 372. 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 169 
 
 repetition of such prayers, appropriate and 
 beautiful though they might be, was an 
 idea against which Jesus, when He became 
 a teacher, found it necessary strongly to 
 protest. He said nothing against the 
 prayers themselves ; nay. He used like 
 words Himself, and called God ' our 
 Father,' even as did they. 
 
 Similarly, though He condemned those 
 who made broad their phylacteries, and 
 enlarged the borders of their garments 
 to be seen of men, He said not a word 
 against the sincere use of the Tephillins 
 and the Tsitsith. He had, no doubt, the 
 little rolls Himself, to wear sometimes on 
 wrist and forehead, and well He knew by 
 constant repetition the words that they 
 contained, but He did not have the cases 
 conspicuously large. 
 
 The blue fringe was at the four corners 
 of His robe,^ as the Law directed,^ the sign 
 of Jehovah's covenant with His people, 
 but it was not over-long in affectation of 
 superior piety. 
 
 So, too, while He blamed those who 
 made long prayers for a pretence. He 
 
 ^ Matt. 9, 20 ; 14, 3g. - Num. 15, 37-11 ; Deut. 22, 12. 
 
160 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 did pray long and earnestly and often 
 Himself. 
 
 He was brought up to pray. Prayers 
 were spoken before and after every meal, 
 and even during the course of it/ on 
 rising in the morning, and on retiring at 
 night. There were special prayers for 
 festival and fast days. Daily, weekly, 
 monthly, yearly observances, in ceremonial 
 rite or in forms of words, filled the life of 
 the Jew. ' Would to God that man prayed 
 all day long,' was the aspiration of Eabbi 
 Johanan ; and Paul, the Jew-taught Chris- 
 tian, urged his Thessalonian converts to 
 ' pray without ceasing.' ^ 
 
 The synagogue was at this time the 
 usual place of public prayer. 
 
 That Jesus frequented its services is 
 clear, not only from the existing custom and 
 law of the people, but from the allusions in 
 the Gospels to His own habit during His 
 ministry. 
 
 He began very early. The Jewish mother 
 was recommended to take her children, and 
 might do so as soon as they were five years 
 old; when they were thirteen they were 
 
 1 Matt. 26, 26, 27. 2 I Thess. 5, 17. 
 
CH. X EELIGIOUS DUTIES 161 
 
 expected to go, as being now themselves 
 members of the congregation of Israel. 
 
 The period of the rise and spread of 
 synagogue worship lies between the Testa- 
 ments. There is no mention of anything of 
 the kind in the Law or the Prophets. The 
 ceremonial and sacrificial system of Judaism 
 was complete, and did not need to be 
 supplemented. But during the exile, when 
 there was no longer any Temple, meetings 
 for instruction and mutual encouragement 
 were just what was wanted. And in at- 
 tributing the definite establishment of the 
 synagogue to Ezra, tradition is probably 
 right. It was a stroke of genius.^ Judaism 
 could not have lived without it. Jerusalem 
 and the sacrifices were lost, the nation 
 seemed destroyed, but the survival of the 
 national religion was secured when the 
 people were got together regularly to listen 
 to the reading and exposition of the Law. 
 
 The institution proved so useful that it 
 did not cease to exist when the Temple 
 worship was restored. Eather, it spread the 
 more, and became in turn a medium for the 
 diffusion of Christianity. 
 
 » Stapfer. 
 
 M 
 
162 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 In Jesus' time, wherever there were 
 Jews there was a synagogue. It was called 
 Beth-hakeneseth, or in Aramaic Beth-keni- 
 cheta (meeting-house), or Beth-ha-tephila 
 (house of prayer), or Moed-el (house of God). 
 
 Ten men were enough to form a minian 
 (number) or representative congregation of 
 Israel.^ And if one man alone should build 
 a house, and dedicate it to public prayer, it 
 was regarded as a synagogue." 
 
 The expense of erection was usually 
 provided for by voluntary contribution. 
 
 An elevated and conspicuous site was 
 chosen, and if possible near water, so that 
 purifications might be easily carried out. 
 The one in Nazareth was probably on the 
 rising ground at the back of the village.^ 
 The words ' Wisdom crieth in the chief 
 place of concourse '^ were taken as a 
 direction ; and Jesus spoke of some whose 
 habit it was ' to pray standing in the 
 synagogue, and in the corners of the streets.' 
 The Lord's house, the Jews thought, should 
 be ' established in the top of the mountains,' 
 and * exalted above the hills. '^ 
 
 ^ Megil. i. ^ Sanhedrin, i. 6. 
 
 ' Luke 4, i'8, 29. * Prov. 1, 21. '•> Isa. 2, 2. 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 163 
 
 They were rectangular, or sometimes 
 round, buildings of stone, quite plain in 
 appearance, except for a portico with a carv- 
 ing of a symbol — in some a seven-branched 
 candlestick, in others a pot of manna — over 
 the entrance. Inside, two rows of columns 
 divided it into three parts. (In the larger 
 synagogues of populous towns there were 
 four rows, and so five aisles.) A wooden 
 partition with gratings in it shut off a part 
 of the room, near the entrance, in which the 
 women stood. Just beyond the middle was 
 a platform (N.T. Bema), and on this a 
 lectern, from which lessons were read and 
 addresses delivered. At the end, behind a 
 veil meant as an imitation of that in the 
 Temple, was a wooden chest, an ark, in 
 which, wrapped in linen cloths, were kept 
 the rolls of the Law (Torah) and other 
 sacred books (Sepharim). Over the ark 
 hung a lamp, always burning, and close by 
 stood an eight-branched candlestick, used 
 during the Feast of Dedication. The only 
 other articles of furniture were the trumpets 
 on which the Chazzan sounded from the roof 
 the entry of the Sabbath Day, the new moon, 
 the feasts, and the new year, and perhaps 
 
 m2 
 
164 EARLY LIPE OF OUR LORD ch. i 
 
 any specially liberal act of almsgiving;^ 
 and the benches. Most of these last were 
 placed in the main part of the building, 
 and the men sat on them facing the bema 
 and the ark. But the ' chief seats,' which 
 were claimed by the ' rulers of the syna- 
 gogue,' were beyond the bema, and their 
 occupants faced the rest of the congregation. 
 The best seats were paid for. The poor and 
 the proselytes stood near the door, a custom 
 against which James, the brother of the 
 Lord, afterwards protested very warmly 
 when writing to Christian Jews.^ 
 
 To sweeten and perfume the air the 
 floor was strewn with mint. 
 
 Services were held on Sabbaths and on 
 festival-days, and also on the second and 
 fifth days of the week — Monday and Thurs- 
 day — which were market days and Sanhe- 
 drin days. 
 
 Everybody went. It was a privilege as 
 well as a duty. To be forbidden to come 
 by the three representative rulers was a dire 
 disgrace ; it was as bad as excommunication 
 was in the Middle Ages in Western Europe. 
 Civil rights and property were forfeited. 
 
 J Matt. 6, 2. * Jas. 2, 2, 3. 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 165 
 
 The men went with their phylacteries 
 tied on their forehead and wrist. The 
 women wore white veils, and stood humbly 
 in the appointed place, their children in 
 their arms. All put off their sandals at the 
 door. 
 
 The order of service was as follows : — 
 Pirst came the Shema with its accom- 
 panying benedictions, said in the common 
 Aramaean dialect, at the lectern, by a priest 
 if one were present, or otherwise by the 
 leader of devotions (Sheliach zibbur, legate 
 of the congregation), someone deputed for 
 the purpose by the chief ruler of the 
 synagogue. The ' rulers of the synagogue ' 
 seem to have been the same persons as the 
 members of the local tribunal ; they were 
 elected by the people, and set apart by the 
 laying on of hands. 
 
 (Benedictions before the Shema) : — 
 I. ' Blessed be Thou, Lord, King of 
 the world, who formest the light and 
 createst the darkness, who makest peace 
 and createst everything ; who, in mercy, 
 givest light to the earth and to those who 
 dwell upon it, and in Thy goodness day by 
 day and every day renewest the works of 
 
166 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD CH. x 
 
 creation. Blessed be the Lord our God for 
 the glory of His handiwork and for the light- 
 giving lights which He has made for His 
 praise. Selah ! Blessed be the Lord our 
 God, who hath formed the lights.' 
 
 II. ' With great love hast Thou loved us, 
 Lord our God, and with much over- 
 flowing pity hast Thou pitied us, our Father 
 and our King. For the sake of our fathers 
 who trusted in Thee, and Thou taughtest 
 them the statutes of life, have mercy upon 
 us and teach us. Enlighten our eyes in Thy 
 law ; cause our hearts to cleave to Thy 
 commandments ; unite our hearts to love 
 and fear Thy name, and we shall not be put 
 to shame, world without end. For Thou 
 art a God who preparest salvation, and us 
 hast Thou chosen from among all nations 
 and tongues, and hast in truth brought us 
 near to Thy great name — Selah — that we 
 may lovingly praise Thee and Thy oneness. 
 Blessed be the Lord, who in love chose His 
 people Israel.' 
 
 (The Shema itself) :— Deut. 6, 4-9 ; 11, 
 13-21 ; Num. 15, S7-41. 
 
 (After the Shema) : — 
 
 ' True it is that Thou art Jehovah our 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 167 
 
 God and the God of our fathers, our King 
 and the King of our fathers, our Saviour and 
 the Saviour of our fathers, our Creator, the 
 Rock of our salvation, our Help and our 
 Deliverer. Thy name is from everlasting, 
 and there is no God beside Thee. A new 
 song did they that were delivered sing to 
 Thy name by the seashore ; together did all 
 praise and own Thee King, and say, Jehovah 
 shall reign world without end ! Blessed be 
 the Lord who saveth Israel ! ' 
 
 (At evening prayer) : — 
 
 ' Lord our God ! cause us to lie down 
 in peace, and raise us up again to life, our 
 King ! Spread over us the tabernacle of 
 Thy peace ; strengthen us before Thee in 
 Thy good counsel, and deliver us for Thy 
 name's sake. Be Thou for protection round 
 about us ; keep far from us the enemy, the 
 pestilence, the sword, famine, and affliction. 
 Keep Satan from before and from behind us, 
 and hide us in the shadow of Thy wings, for 
 Thou art a God who helpest and deliverest 
 us ; and Thou, God, art a gracious and 
 merciful King. Keep Thou our going out 
 and our coming in, for life and for peace, 
 from henceforth and for ever ! ' 
 
168 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 The leader then went up before the ark, 
 and said six eulogies of those eighteen 
 which are known by Ezra's name. 
 
 I. ' Blessed be the Lord our God and 
 the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, 
 the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ; 
 the great, the mighty, and the terrible God ; 
 the most high God, who showeth mercy 
 and kindness, who createth all things, who 
 remembereth the gracious promises to the 
 fathers, and bringeth a Saviour to their 
 children's children, for His own name's sake, 
 in love. King, Helper, Saviour, and 
 Shield ; Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, the 
 shield of Abraham.' 
 
 II. ^ Thou, Lord, art mighty for ever ; 
 Thou, who quickenest the dead, art mighty 
 to save. In Thy mercy Thou preservest the 
 living ; Thou quickenest the dead ; in Thine 
 abundant pity Thou bearest up those who 
 fall, and healest those who are diseased, and 
 loosest those who are bound, and fulfillest 
 Thy faithful word to those who sleep in the 
 dust. Who is like unto Thee, Lord of 
 Strength, and who can be compared unto 
 Thee, who killest and makest alive, and 
 causest salvation to spring forth? And 
 
CH. X KELIGIOUS DUTIES 169 
 
 faithful art Thou to give life unto the dead. 
 Blessed be Thou, Jehovah, who quickenest 
 the dead.' 
 
 III. ' Thou art holy, and Thy name is 
 holy, and the holy ones praise Thee every 
 day. Selah ! Blessed art Thou, Jehovah 
 God, the holy One.' 
 
 XVI. * Take gracious pleasure, Je- 
 hovah our God, in Thy people Israel, and 
 in their prayers. Accept the burnt -offerings 
 of Israel and their prayers with Thy good 
 pleasure ; and may the services of Thy 
 people Israel be ever acceptable unto Thee. 
 And that our eyes may see it, as Thou 
 turnest in mercy to Zion ! Blessed be 
 Thou, Jehovah, who restorest Thy 
 Shechinah to Zion ! ' 
 
 XVII. ' We praise Thee because Thou 
 art Jehovah our God, and the God of our 
 fathers, for ever and ever. Thou art the 
 rock of our life, the shield of our salvation, 
 from generation to generation. We laud 
 Thee, and declare Thy praise for our lives 
 which are kept within Thine hand, and for 
 our souls which are committed unto Thee, 
 and for Thy wonders which are with us 
 
170 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 every day, and Thy wondrous deeds and 
 Thy kindnesses which are at all seasons 
 — evening, morning, and midday. Thou 
 Gracious One, whose compassions never 
 end; Thou Pitying One, whose grace never 
 ceaseth — for ever do we put our trust 
 in Thee. And for all this be Thy name 
 blessed, our King, and extolled always, for 
 ever and ever ! Let all things that have life 
 bless Thee — Selah — and praise Thy name 
 in truth, God, our salvation and our help. 
 Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, Thy name is 
 the Gracious One to whom praise is due.' 
 
 XYIII. ' our Father, bestow peace, 
 prosperity. Thy blessing and favours. Thy 
 grace and pity upon us, and on all Thy 
 people Israel. Bless us all with the light 
 of Thy countenance, for by this light, 
 Jehovah our God, hast Thou given us an 
 eternal law, the love of right and justice, 
 blessing, mercy, life, and peace. May it 
 seem good in Thine eyes to bless Thy 
 people Israel in all times and in all places, 
 and to grant them Thy peace. Blessed art 
 Thou, Jehovah, who givest peace to Thy 
 people Israel.' ^ 
 
 * Edersheiui. 
 
CH. X EELIGIOUS DUTIES 171 
 
 The priestly benediction followed : — 
 
 ' The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : 
 
 ' The Lord make His face to shine upon 
 thee, and be gracious unto thee : 
 
 * The Lord lift up His countenance upon 
 thee, and give thee peace.' 
 
 All these prayers were said by the same 
 person — a priest, if one were present, or, 
 otherwise, anyone deputed by the rulers. 
 The people meanwhile remained standing, 
 and said ' Amen ' to each prayer. 
 
 Then they sat down for the reading of 
 the Law. Eeaders were called up from the 
 congregation. Three were required on week- 
 days, seven on Sabbaths. 
 
 The Chazzan, or officer of the synagogue, 
 took a roll from the ark and handed it to the 
 first reader. Each reader read one section. 
 There were 153 sections (sedarim) in the 
 Torah, and they lasted for three and a half 
 years. The manuscript was of course in 
 Hebrew ; an interpreter (meturgeman) stood 
 by the reader's side and translated what he 
 read, verse for verse, into the Aramaic, 
 which was the dialect of the people. 
 
 On week-days the service ended here. 
 
 On the Sabbath a passage was read also 
 
172 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 from the Prophets (the Haphtarah). There 
 was at this time no fixed course of lessons ; 
 the reader selected what he pleased. In 
 the instance which St. Luke mentions, when 
 Jesus went into the synagogue at Nazareth 
 on the Sabbath-day, and stood up to read, 
 ' There was delivered unto Him the book of 
 the prophet Isaiah. And He opened the 
 book, and found the place where it was 
 written,' &c. 
 
 Again the interpreter translated. 
 
 And then came some comments on the 
 passage, made sitting. Darshan, the speaker 
 was called, and his remarks Derashah. 
 When he was a distinguished Eabbi, he 
 merely whispered his words into the ear of 
 an Amora, who gave a popular rendering 
 of them to the congregation. The Darshan 
 might be the reader himself, or a ruler 
 of the synagogue, or a member of the 
 congregation, or a visitor called up for the 
 purpose. When Paul and his company 
 came to Antioch of Pisidia, and went into 
 the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and sat 
 down, ' after the reading of the Law and the 
 Prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent 
 unto them, saying. Brethren, if ye have 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 173 
 
 any word of exhortation for the people, say 
 on.'i 
 
 Usually these addresses were doctrinal 
 discussions, consisting largely of quotations 
 from the sayings of eminent Kabbis. 
 
 "When Jesus acted as Darshan, and 
 uttered His own thoughts with freshness 
 and force, ' the people were astonished at His 
 teaching, for He taught them as one having 
 authority, and not as their scribes.' ^ 
 
 Except in the liturgical part of the 
 service there was not always silence. If a 
 speaker hesitated in a quotation the hearers 
 would sometimes help him, or correct him 
 in a blunder ; and applause or murmurs 
 were not thought indecorous. Expressions 
 of surprise broke out when Jesus spoke so 
 forcibly in the synagogue of His native 
 village ; ^ and Paul was opposed and railed 
 upon when reasoning at Corinth.^ 
 
 The address in the synagogue was the 
 origin of the sermon in the Christian Church. 
 
 With the address the service closed. A 
 final blessing was said, and the people went 
 their way. 
 
 1 Acts 13, 15. 5 Matt. 13, 54. 
 
 ^ Matt. 7, 28, 29. * Acts 18,6 (R.V. margin). 
 
174 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 Besides the set services on the Sabbath, 
 and on the market and court days, the 
 synagogue was open for private prayer every 
 morning, midday, and evening. 
 
 "We can imagine how large a part this 
 institution played in the early life of our 
 Lord. 
 
 It had been His school in childhood, 
 and the Chazzan had been His teacher ; as 
 He grew up it was His library, where were 
 kept the only books He knew ; and it was 
 His constant place of prayer. Nay, it was 
 His school still. He would learn about 
 God there, in the praises to which He said 
 * Amen,' and in the Scriptures that He heard 
 read. And He would learn about man. 
 The religion of His race touched and in- 
 spired Him. He felt with them the joy of 
 being Jehovah's chosen people, the dignity 
 of relationship with the great ones of the 
 past, the shame of national sin and ruin, 
 the hope of deliverance and restoration to 
 come. He was an Israelite indeed. 
 
 And He saw there, too, some of its less 
 pleasing aspects. Even in the North the 
 proud Pharisee made his long prayers, and 
 gave his ostentatious alms, and sat in the 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 175 
 
 front seats. Even of these His honest- 
 hearted neighbours there were many who 
 found in the majestic sentences of Holy 
 Writ little else than material for word- 
 splitting arguments, or pegs to hang 
 Rabbinical sayings upon. 
 
 The synagogue, established everywhere 
 where there were any Jews, and in numbers 
 where the population was large, became 
 afterwards a medium by which the Gospel 
 was preached, and a model on which 
 Christian worship was formed. Indeed, 
 great as were the real differences of thought 
 and of ultimate custom, it was from the 
 synagogue that the church was developed, 
 and the transition was not violent. 
 
 There were other religious observances 
 than those of the ordinary public and 
 private prayer. And Jesus would take part, 
 as became Him, in all. Not that He was a 
 formalist. In the South, where Pharisees 
 abounded, the whole life of the devout Jew 
 was regulated with minutest detail. There 
 was no room for individuality : to think, to 
 feel, to act of oneself was impossible under 
 so strict a regime. Those who found such 
 a religion wearisome and did not force 
 
176 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LOED ch. i 
 
 themselves to carry out its rules were all 
 * sinners.' Said the Pharisees, ' This multi- 
 tude which knoweth not the Law are 
 accursed.' ^ 
 
 But in the North, though there was an 
 equally strong sentiment of loyalty to the 
 national faith, there was a comparative 
 freedom from rigorous formalism. They 
 read the Scriptures, these Galilaeans, and 
 prayed in their synagogues, and fasted and 
 gave alms, as good Jews should, and went 
 up to the great festivals at Jerusalem with a 
 simple enthusiasm which the colder if more 
 cultured religionists of Jud^a affected to 
 despise. 
 
 And so Jesus, though He learned in 
 those earlier years that it became Him to 
 fulfil all righteousness, yet had not His 
 spiritual life crushed by the heavy burdens 
 which the narrower Judaism laid upon the 
 shoulders of its devotees.^ 
 
 "What was prescribed by the Law 
 Jesus knew and practised, but not the 
 voluminous directions of Eabbinic tradi- 
 tion as embodied later in the Mishnah. 
 He observed the rules as to purifications, 
 
 » John 7, 40. * Matt. 23, 4. 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 177 
 
 made in the first instance, no doubt, for the 
 sake of pubHc health in so warm a climate, 
 but by this time regarded as ceremonial 
 duties. He did not eat forbidden foods, and 
 was careful not to spread disease by 
 unnecessary contact with a leper or with a 
 dead body. But it is evident that He looked 
 rather to the original intention of the Law 
 than to the ideas of it current in His time, 
 for we read in the Gospels of His touching 
 a leper to heal him.^ 
 
 According to the ' tradition of the elders,' 
 all meat was ' unclean ' which had not paid 
 tithe, and so was any article of food pur- 
 chased from a Gentile. The Essenes with- 
 drew entirely from ordinary life, in order 
 to be sure of avoiding defilement. The 
 Pharisees exercised a ceaseless vigilance ; 
 and if ever it happened to them to touch 
 anything of whose ' cleanness ' they were 
 not quite sure, they were restored only by 
 repeated purifications. They had water 
 poured over their wrists and hands when 
 they came in from the market-place, and 
 always before they would eat. In other 
 cases total immersion of the body was 
 
 1 Mark 1, 4i. 
 
 N 
 
178 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 required. About the different kinds of 
 water, and different manners of washing, 
 there were endless discussions : twelve 
 whole treatises of the Mishnah are occupied 
 with the subject of defilements and puri- 
 fications. But to Jesus it must have 
 seemed already in His youth, as we know it 
 did in His manhood, that it was the evil 
 things that come out of the heart that 
 defile a man, and not the eating with 
 unwashen hands. ^ 
 
 The practice of fasting, though by the 
 Mosaic Law enjoined for one day only in the 
 year — the great Day of Atonement — had be- 
 fore the close of the Old Testament period 
 become generally customary. During the 
 Captivity four fasts were held in the year ; ^ 
 others were proclaimed when special cir- 
 cumstances called for them ; ^ and indivi- 
 duals sometimes fasted for personal sorrows. 
 On two days of the week — the second and 
 the fifth — fasts might be held. And some 
 strict Pharisees regularly fasted on these 
 days without any particular reason, but 
 merely as a mark of devoutness. There 
 
 ^ Matt. 15, 19, 20. 2 1 Sam. 7, 6 ; 2 Chron. 
 
 ^ Zech. 7, 1-7 ; 8, i9. 20, 3 ; Jer. 36, 6-io, &c. 
 
CH. X EELIGIOUS DUTIES 179 
 
 were different degrees of fasting. To ab- 
 stinence from food some added a disordered 
 toilet, and some to that again the passing 
 their acquaintances without recognition. 
 
 No doubt Jesus fasted when other people 
 did, and perhaps sometimes for Himself alone, 
 as a token of humiliation and an opportunity 
 for prayer. It is clear, from what He said 
 later on, that He knew no merit in making 
 one's face grimy with ashes, and being uncivil 
 to one's friends. ' Thou, when thou fastest,' 
 He said, ' anoint thy head and wash thy 
 face ' as at any other time, ' that thou be 
 not seen of men to fast, but of thy Father 
 which is in secret.' ^ And He did not teach 
 His disciples, as the Eabbis did theirs, to 
 fast oft.^ 
 
 The giving of alms was an established 
 custom in Nazareth, as elsewhere. A tenth 
 of each third year's produce was given ; the 
 grain in the corners of the fields, and some- 
 times a sheaf, and the gleanings, whether of 
 cornfield, olive-yard, or vineyard, were left ; 
 and collections were made of money or of 
 kind at the synagogue services. It was the 
 poor, the stranger, the fatherless, and the 
 
 1 Matt. 6, 16-18. - Matt. 9, u. 
 
 n2 
 
180 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. x 
 
 widow whose benefit was contemplated. 
 Jesus, no doubt, gave His humble contribu- 
 tion according to His ability. They were 
 poor themselves, the Holy Family, but they 
 were pious Jews and charitable. In His 
 after-life He always thought of the poor, 
 and helped them as best He could, and told 
 others to do so too. The common purse of 
 the disciples, which Judas kept, had some- 
 thing in it for the poor.^ He advised the 
 rich young man to sell all that he had and 
 to give. He praised the poor widow who 
 cast her two mites into the treasury. He 
 did not disapprove of the tithing even of 
 mint and anise and cummin.^ He only 
 condemned the ostentation which marred 
 so much of the almsgiving of His day. 
 
 The habit of consideration for the poor, 
 learned and practised first in His early 
 home, was one medium through which the 
 divine charity that was in Him reached 
 down to men. 
 
 He would take part in the great 
 religious festivals as they came round. 
 In His childhood he had noticed some of 
 the incidents belonging to them, and had 
 
 1 John 12, 5 ; 13, 29. ^ j^^tt. 23, 23, 
 
CH. X RELIGIOUS DUTIES 181 
 
 inquired their meaning ; now that He was 
 an adult He would have an actual share in 
 them Himself. 
 
 That visit to Jerusalem of which 
 St. Luke tells was only the first of many. 
 Eegularly each succeeding year would He 
 go up with the other Nazarenes to keep the 
 Passover, and perhaps also to the Feast of 
 Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles 
 (strict Jews attended them all), and the 
 impressions made upon him by His first 
 visit would be deepened and confirmed. 
 
182 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xi 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 WOEK 
 
 Though with the Jews religion was the 
 principal thing, and much time was spent 
 in the prayers and meditations and dis- 
 cussions which it involved, and though 
 their life had none of the anxiety and 
 bustle and strife that mark our Western 
 civilisation, yet there were not many idlers. 
 
 Few worked hard ; none had nothing to 
 do. Young people were brought up to 
 work. It was a father's duty not only to 
 have his son circumcised and taught the 
 Law, but also to find him a calling. To 
 neglect this was as bad as it would be to 
 make a brigand of him.^ 
 
 It used to be said in Gamaliel's house 
 that study alone was dangerous, but that 
 study and a trade kept away sin.- 
 
 ' Tosaphot IB Kiddus- - Pirqey Abhoth, ii. 2. 
 
 chin, 1. 
 
CH. XI WORK 188 
 
 And so it was that, in whatever class of 
 life, every man was conversant with some 
 trade or other. There were differences, of 
 course, as there are with us to-day. There 
 were callings which were avoided as much 
 as possible : no one, for instance, wanted to 
 be an ass-driver, or a camel-driver, or a 
 boatman, if he could be something better, 
 for these occupations were dirty and toil- 
 some. But manual labour as such was not 
 thought to be degrading. 
 
 It happens that we know, in the case of 
 some of the great and learned men of the 
 time, what were the trades they followed. 
 The famous Eabbi Hillel was a wood-splitter 
 (' Love handiwork ' his teacher Shemaiah 
 had said).^ So, too, was Aquila. Johanan 
 was a shoemaker ; Nanacha a metal-worker 
 or smith ; Phineas was a mason before he 
 became high priest ; and Paul the Apostle 
 of Christianity was a weaver of tent-cloth. 
 
 The most natural trade for a boy to take 
 to is that of his father. In the East this 
 has always been the custom. It is interest- 
 ing to notice in this connection that the 
 exclamation reported by St. Matthew, ' Is 
 
 ^ Pirqey Abhoth, i, lO. 
 
184 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xi 
 
 not this the carpenter's son ? ' is with St. 
 Mark, ' Is not this the carpenter ? ' ^ So 
 much a matter of course was it for the 
 son to be of the same trade with the 
 father, that the two EvangeHsts, in teUing 
 their story of Jesus' visit to Nazareth, 
 use two different expressions without any 
 thought of inaccuracy. 
 
 We deduce, at any rate, from the passage 
 in St. Mark's gospel that Jesus did learn 
 from Joseph the trade of carpenter, and 
 continued it after Joseph's death. And 
 further evidence is found in the universal 
 tradition of the Church. Justin Martyr 
 says, ' He did carpenter's work while He was 
 among men, and made ploughs and yokes. '^ 
 
 Justin was a little more definite than he 
 need have been. Ploughs and yokes would 
 be wanted in an agricultural neighbourhood 
 such as Nazareth, but so would some other 
 things which would have to be made by the 
 same craftsman. 
 
 The trade of the ' carpenter ' was not, 
 indeed, strictly confined to articles of wood. 
 In the Old Testament the word ' harash ' is 
 employed for anyone who uses cutting tools, 
 
 1 Matt. 13, 35 ; Mark 6, 3. ^ C. Tryph. 88. 
 
CH. XI WORK 185 
 
 even on metals or stones. And the Greek 
 word TeKTCDv, with which St. Mark translates 
 the Hebrew ' harash,' has a wider sphere than 
 joiners' work. 
 
 The Hebrew carpenters must have been 
 skilled workmen, for they are described, in 
 Isa. 41, 7, 44, 13, as carving images of the 
 human figure. 
 
 The ploughs themselves that Jesus made 
 had iron shares. They were just like those 
 which are used there to-day by the Arab 
 farmers, but more were wanted then than 
 now, for agriculture has become neglected 
 in Palestine. 
 
 He would make spades too, or mattocks 
 (most people had something to dig with),^ 
 and large three-pointed forks, and axe-hafts 
 and goads, and threshing-sledges, and heavy 
 wooden harrows. 
 
 For tools He would have, among other 
 things, a rule, a measuring line, a compass, 
 a plane, a saw, and an axe." 
 
 Jesus learned His trade from His father, 
 and worked for some years as his helper ; 
 and later it is probable that He took his 
 place. 
 
 ' Deut. 23, 13. ^ Isa. 10, is ; 44, i3. 
 
186 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xi 
 
 The tradition is that Joseph died when 
 Jesus was in His nineteenth year.^ There is 
 nothing in the gospels to contradict this. 
 The question, ' Is not this Joseph's son ? ' - 
 does not imply that Joseph was living at the 
 time it was asked, for a son was known by 
 his father's name after, as well as before, the 
 father's death. The form of the question in 
 the other gospel is different : ' Is not this 
 the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother 
 of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ? 
 and are not His sisters here with us ? ' ^ 
 This does seem to imply that Joseph was no 
 longer working in the home nor worshipping 
 in the synagogue at Nazareth, and was 
 beginning to be forgotten by the townsfolk. 
 
 Had he been living during Jesus' 
 ministry we should have expected to hear 
 of him during some of these visits to 
 Nazareth, and at the marriage feast of a 
 relative at Cana. 
 
 But neither in Galilee nor in the south 
 country does Joseph appear. And so we 
 judge that he did die before, and some years 
 before, Jesus went out from home. 
 
 1 Hist. Joseph, 14, 15. ^ Luke 4, 22 ; Matt. 13, 55. 
 
 3 Mark 6, 3. 
 
CH. ii WORK 187 
 
 This being so, we may suppose that one 
 reason for Jesus staying so long in Nazareth 
 was that He might support Mary, and 
 perhaps others of the family, by His own 
 labour. Other men married, and made 
 homes of their own. Jesus' home was His 
 mother's house, and the world of men whose 
 sorrows claimed His devotion. 
 
188 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD cii. 5ii 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MAN IN THE HOME 
 
 Jesus was a man years before He began His 
 public work. Among Orientals the appear- 
 ance of youth is early lost, and its garb put 
 off. Before Jesus was out of His teens He 
 was head of the house and bread-winner for 
 the family. And at home He continued to 
 stay. 
 
 The seclusion of His early life is one of 
 the most striking facts in His history. It 
 gives force and dignity to His after-work ; 
 it suggests a good deal as to His personal 
 character. 
 
 Intelligent as a boy above His fellows, 
 and causing amazement even among aged 
 and learned men by His understanding and 
 His answers, His sayings treasured though 
 not understood by His parents, and advanc- 
 ing continually in wisdom and stature and 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 189 
 
 in favour with God and men, He yet stayed 
 quietly on in the home at Nazareth, and 
 was ' subject unto them.' ^ Thus, by 
 cherishing His aspirations without giving 
 vent to them, by a gradual realisation of 
 His personality and of His mission before 
 being called upon to assert them, by 
 cheerful subjection to religious and parental 
 authority, and by willing discharge of every 
 duty. His character became amiable as well 
 as noble. His powers were matured, con- 
 trolled, and directed. He was master of 
 Himself. In quietness was His strength. 
 His convictions deepened. His sympathy 
 increased, love of God and interest in men 
 grew warmer within Him ; yet He kept 
 silence, waiting the Divine summons to 
 action. His hour was not yet. He was 
 learning now what the great men of His 
 nation had learned in olden time, what He 
 expressed afterwards in that command to 
 His disciples : ' Tarry ye . . . until ye be 
 endued with power from on high.' ^ His 
 heart was as a flower not yet giving forth 
 its fragrance, but opening, maturing, colour- 
 ing, in the sunshine of the favour of God 
 
 ^ Luke 2, 51, 52. ^ Luke 24, 49, 
 
190 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch, xii 
 
 and man. His mind was as a fount not yet 
 flowing forth, but filling drop by drop from 
 a thousand sources. 
 
 To us the silence of those years is 
 eloquent. The power of His later works 
 and the authority of His words belong to a 
 more than human sphere, but the humility, 
 submissiveness, diligence, and piety of His 
 early life we may fitly try to copy. 
 
 The silence was not idleness. His days 
 were filled with duty. The family, the 
 home, claimed His service ; the ways and 
 ideas of the villagers, the beauty and 
 mystery of Nature, the history and hopes of 
 the nation, the occasional tidings from the 
 great world, His thoughts. 
 
 'Faithful over a few things,' He was 
 made * ruler over many things.' ^ The words 
 are His own, and are illustrated by His life. 
 God even in youth. He shows Himself truly 
 man ; man. He proves by His very lowliness 
 His deity. 
 
 The greatness of His spirit necessarily 
 set Him apart from His fellows. Not even 
 those nearest and dearest could enter into 
 His feelings and hopes : His mother herself, 
 
 1 Matt. 25, 23. 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 191 
 
 noble and saintly as she was, did not un- 
 understand Him. 
 
 Yet Jesus is portrayed to us in the 
 gospels as the very ideal of friendliness and 
 sociability. His solitariness was certainly 
 not that of cynicism, selfishness, or dis- 
 appointment. He loved all men, even His 
 enemies : yea, as His disciple testified, He 
 was love.^ The young men of Nazareth 
 were His brothers, the maidens His sisters. 
 
 He was no misogynist. He neither 
 despised nor disliked woman. He was con- 
 siderate for her needs,^ compassionate for 
 her sorrows,^ respectful for her characteristic 
 traits, even when they were not quite 
 reasonable,'* jealous for her honour,^ pitiful 
 for her sin.^ He regarded her as man's 
 helpmeet,'^ not as the enemy of his better 
 self ; she too was a human soul, the sister 
 in the family of the heavenly Father. 
 There have always been people to say 
 that they are the pure-hearted men who 
 
 ^ 1 John 4, 16. * Luke 7, 36-50 ; John 12, 
 
 ^ John 19, 26, 27. 3-8. 
 
 " Luke 7, 12-10 ; Luke 8, ^ John 8, 7. 
 
 43-18 ; John 11, 35 ; John 20, * Luke 7, 36-50 ; John 4, 
 
 13-15. 7-26. 
 
 •^ Gen. 2, 20. 
 
192 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. hi 
 
 have nothing to do with women. There 
 was in Jesus' time a well-known Jewish 
 sect, the Essenes, who said so. But He 
 was not one of them. He talked with 
 women simply and about other things than 
 trifles ; women were among his most in- 
 timate friends. 
 
 With His mother His relations, once 
 those of the dependent babe and boy, 
 needing her constant care and patient 
 teaching, had become those of the grown-up 
 son, trusted and true. Now He thought 
 for her. 
 
 Whatever may have been His nominal 
 position in the household, it was to Him 
 that His mother turned in any difficulty, of 
 her own or of another's, with perfect con- 
 fidence in the soundness of His judgment 
 and the kindness of His heart. At the 
 marriage feast in Cana, when she noticed 
 that the wine was failing, she mentioned it 
 to Him, and though He was not willing to 
 do anything prematurely which might be 
 taken as a display of miraculous power, she 
 yet told the servants ' Whatsoever He saith 
 unto you, do it.' ^ 
 
 ^ John 2, 3-5. 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 198 
 
 She felt that she did not fully under- 
 stand Him, either in His boyhood/ or now, 
 or in His public ministry ; ^ and some have 
 thought that she regarded Him as mistaken 
 in His aims and methods, and wanted to 
 prevent Him from offending the rulers and 
 endangering His safety,^ and that she did 
 not join herself to His disciples until after 
 His death. 
 
 But trust Him she did, for she loved 
 Him. 
 
 And herein is suggested to us our proper 
 attitude towards the God-man. ' the 
 depth of the riches both of the wisdom and 
 knowledge of God : how unsearchable are 
 His judgments, and His ways past finding 
 out ! ' What is life, and what is death, we 
 know not ; nor whence we come and whither 
 we go ; nor why we sin and why we suffer. 
 Nor can we define the Christ, or say how 
 and when He saveth us. Yet are we sure 
 that in Him is life ; that He is the true 
 light ; that God is love. And blessed are 
 they that have not seen and yet have be- 
 lieved. 
 
 1 Luke 2, 48. 3 Matt. 12. . ; ; Mark 3,31 ; 
 
 * Matt. 12, 46. Luke 8, i9. 
 
194 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD cii. xii 
 
 She trusted Him and loved Him, even 
 while wondering at Him, and treasured up 
 His sayings in her memory.^ From her it 
 must have been that St. Luke in later years 
 got those details, which he alone of the 
 Evangelists records, of how the angel ap- 
 peared to her to announce His birth, how 
 Elisabeth her kinswoman blessed her, and 
 she herself broke forth into her glad Magni- 
 ficat ; of the aged Simeon taking the child in 
 his arms and thanking God that now he had 
 seen His salvation; of Anna, the prophetess, 
 speaking of Him to all them that were 
 looking for the redemption of Jerusalem ; 
 and of that eventful visit to the Feast of the 
 Passover when they lost Him, and lo ! He 
 was in the Temple, listening to the doctors 
 and asking questions. 
 
 With the other members of the family, 
 the simplicity and affectionateness of His 
 disposition would tend to prevent or to 
 modify the jealousies which so often arise 
 where one is more gifted or more cherished 
 than another. 
 
 Who exactly these others were that are 
 spoken of as His brethren is a question 
 
 ^ Luke 2, 61. 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 195 
 
 upon which much argument has been 
 lavished. And as might be expected in a 
 matter of minor importance, with scarcely 
 any direct evidence to turn to, the conclusion 
 of each writer has been that which best 
 agreed with his own theological position. 
 
 The passages in the New Testament 
 that are most often quoted are the follow- 
 ing :— 
 
 ' (Joseph) took unto liim his wife ; and knew her not 
 till she had brought forth a son : and he called His 
 name Jesus.' — Matt. 1, 24, 25. 
 
 ' And she (Mary) brought forth her first-born son.' 
 — Luke 2, 7. 
 
 * After this (the marriage in Cana) He went down to 
 Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren, and 
 His disciples.' — John 2, 12. 
 
 • ... Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not His 
 mother called Mary ? and His brethren James, and 
 Joseph, and Simon, and Judas ? And His sisters, are 
 they not all with us ? . . .' — Matt. 13, 55, 56. 
 
 ' Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and 
 brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ? 
 And are not His sisters here with us ? ' — Mark 6, 3. 
 Compare Luke 4, i6-30 ; John 6, 42. 
 
 ' His mother and His brethren stood without, seeking- 
 to speak to Him.' — Matt. 12, 46. See also Mark 8, 
 20-22, 31-33; Luke 8, 19-21. 
 
 ' Now the feast of the Jews was at hand. His 
 brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go 
 into Judaea. , . . For even His brethren did not believe 
 
 o2 
 
196 EARLY LIFE OF OUE LORD ch. xii 
 
 on Him. . . . But when His brethren were gone up 
 unto the feast, then went He also up.' — John 7, 2-10. 
 
 ' And many women were there (at the Crucifixion), 
 beholding from afar, which had followed Jesus from 
 Galilee, ministering unto Him : among whom was Mary 
 Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, 
 and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.' — Matt. 27, 55, 56 ; 
 * Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the 
 less and of Joses, and Salome.' — Mark 15, 40 ; compare 
 15, 47 ; 16, 1 ; Luke 24, 10. Compare also John 19, 25-27 : 
 ' . , . His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the 
 wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. . . .' 
 
 ' These all with one accord continued steadfastly in 
 prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, 
 and with His brethren.' — Acts 1, 14. 
 
 * Have we no right to lead about a wife . . . even as 
 the rest of the Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, 
 and Cephas ? ' — 1 Cor. 9, 5. 
 
 (At Jerusalem) * James, the Lord's brother.' — 
 GaL 1, 19. 
 
 There were, then, * brothers ' (dSeXc^ot) 
 and ' sisters.' 
 
 Four brothers are mentioned by St. 
 Matthew : James, afterwards Bishop of 
 Jerusalem and the author of the epistle ; 
 Joseph, called by St. Mark Joses ; Simon ; 
 and Judas. 
 
 The ' History of Joseph,' an Arabic book 
 of the fourth century, gives a Justus ; and the 
 * Gospel of James,' the work of a Christian 
 Jew in the second century, a Samuel. 
 
OH. xii THE MAN IN THE HOME 197 
 
 Of the sisters, we meet with the names 
 of Mary and Salome ^ ; Esther, Thamar, 
 and Salome ^ ; Assia and Lydia.^ 
 
 From a cursory reading of the above 
 passages, one would take it for granted that 
 Jesus being the eldest, born before the 
 marriage, these others were the children, 
 born later, of Joseph and Mary. But this 
 is obnoxious to the sentiment with which, 
 in all ages of the Church's history, large 
 numbers of her members have regarded the 
 mother of their Lord. They have desired to 
 believe, as in her miraculous motherhood, 
 so in her perpetual virginity. Two main 
 theories, sometimes spoken of as traditions, 
 have been advanced : — 
 
 I. That they were cousins of Jesus, 
 children of the Virgin's sister mentioned in 
 John 19, 25. 
 
 This supposes (a) that 'His mother's 
 sister ' is the same person as ' Mary the 
 wife of Clopas,' because there is no ' and ' 
 between them ; (b) that the James and 
 Joses in Matt. 27, 66, are the same as those 
 in Matt. 13, 66, and as the James the son of 
 
 1 Epiph. Adv. Hcsr. 28, 7. ^ Sophr. Fragm. 
 
 ^ Hist. Joseph, 2. 
 
198 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xii 
 
 Alphaeus in Luke 6, 15, 16, and Acts 1, 13, the 
 Judas of this Hst of Apostles being also a 
 brother, and the writer of the epistle,^ and 
 that Alpheeus is the same name as Clopas ; 
 and (c) that the word ' brethren ' means in 
 this connection merely 'kinsmen.' 
 
 This is the view adopted by Hegesippus 
 and Clement of Jerusalem (second century), 
 and by Papias, Jerome,^ Augustine, and the 
 Latin Church generally, and among modern 
 theologians by Mill, Pearson, Lange, Didon. 
 
 Its difficulties are : — (a) That James, 
 Joseph, and Jude are common Jewish 
 names, and might well occur in each of two 
 related families, so that there is no need to 
 identify them ; while it does look unlikely 
 that two Marys should be sisters, (b) That 
 though the word dSeX^os is used in the New 
 Testament rather vaguely — for disciple, 
 fellow-worker. Christian — yet when it does 
 define a relationship it means ' brother,' and 
 a cousin is called ' cousin,'^ or ' sister's 
 son ' "* ; i.e., that the cousins of our Lord in 
 every passage in which they are mentioned 
 
 1 Jude 1. ^ Col. 4, 10. 
 
 ^ Jerome, Contra Helvi- * Acts 23, I6. 
 
 dill m. 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 199 
 
 are called 'brethren,' while no other cousins 
 or kinsmen are in any so called, (c) Tha-t 
 the James and the Jude with whom they 
 are identified were Apostles/ but Jesus' 
 brethren did not believe on Him )^ that their 
 neighbours associated the ' brethren ' and 
 ' sisters ' with Joseph and Mary and Jesus f 
 and in several places they appear along with 
 Mary,^ no mention being anywhere made of 
 another Mary their mother, though the wife 
 of Clopas was all the time living, for she 
 appears at the Crucifixion. 
 
 II. That they were children of Joseph 
 by a former marriage, and so that Mary was 
 their stepmother and Jesus their half- 
 brother. 
 
 This theory appears first in the apocry- 
 phal Gospel of Peter, Gospel of James, and 
 ' History of Joseph.' Jerome scouted it, 
 but it was adopted by Epiphanius, Hilary, 
 and Ambrose, and became the general belief 
 of the Greek Church. 
 
 It fits in, better than the theory of 
 cousinship, with the language of the gos- 
 
 ^ Luke 6, 16, 16. * Matt. 12,46; Mark3, 3i; 
 
 ^ John 7, 5, 10. Luke 8, 21 ; John 2, 12 ; 
 
 ^ Matt. 13, 55, 56. Acts 1, 14. 
 
200 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xii 
 
 pels. There is no evidence at all as to its 
 truth. 
 
 As against these two theories, Helvi- 
 dius, in the fourth century, advocated a 
 return to a natural reading of the words in 
 question, and he had many supporters. 
 
 They were dubbed Antidicomarianitae, or 
 ' enemies of Mary,' a name which itself 
 shows what was the real thought in the 
 minds of those who argued against them. 
 
 This view relies upon the language of 
 Matthew 1, 25, and Luke 2, 7, on the 
 ordinary meaning of ahe\4>6s, and on the 
 general tone of the gospels, in which the 
 ' brethren ' constantly appear with Mary, 
 and without any hint that they are not her 
 own children. Jesus, as though head of the 
 family, stays long at home and works, and 
 Mary seems to rely on Him. 
 
 Its difficulty is that it conflicts with 
 the idea of the perpetual virginity of the 
 ' Mother of God,' and so can be accepted 
 only by persons whose reverence for Mary 
 and for Jesus would not be diminished by 
 her having been a wife and mother in the 
 ordinary sense of the words. 
 
 The matter has been very much 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 201 
 
 discussed, not only in the earlier but in 
 these later years of Church history; and 
 among commentators and biographers, even 
 within our own Church of England, there 
 is no sort of agreement. 
 
 This is not the place to attempt to 
 decide a matter involving details so com- 
 plicated, and that will be settled, after all, 
 chiefly by our personal prejudices. 
 
 Those who wish to read the arguments 
 at greater length will find them stated 
 in : — 
 
 Smith's * Diet, of the Bible ' : articles on 'Brother,' 
 ' James,' ' Joseph.' 
 
 ' Pearson on the Creed,' art. iii. 
 
 Alford : Comm. Matt. B. 56 ; Greek Test. iv. 87. 
 
 Davidson : ' Intr. N.T.' vol. iii. 
 
 Mill : * Accounts of our Lord's Brethren vindicated.' 
 
 Lightfoot ; ' Epistle to the Galatians,' Appendix. 
 
 Joseph B. Mayor : * Epistle of James.' Introduction, 
 pp. viii.-xxxvi. 
 
 F. W. Farrar : ' Early Days of Christianity,' ch. xix. 
 
 For our present purpose it is enough 
 that we know that James and Joses and 
 Judas and Simon, and the rest, whoever 
 they were, were brought up in the home at 
 Nazareth, and lived as members of the 
 family; that to Jesus, at any rate, they were 
 
202 EARLY LIPE OF OUR LORD ch. xii 
 
 brothers and sisters. And though the 
 material is scanty for forming an opinion 
 as to what sort of relations existed between 
 Himself and them, we are not without 
 some ground for surmising that these were 
 happy and harmonious. They did not at 
 first sympathise with the aims and methods 
 of His ministry, or believe in His divine 
 commission ; but that very fact serves to 
 emphasise the frequent mention of them as 
 His brethren, and their apparent concern 
 for His safety.^ And knowing what we do 
 of the affectionateness and modesty of His 
 matured character, it is impossible to sup- 
 pose that in the earlier years there arose, 
 on His part at least, anything to mar the 
 peace and good-will of life in the home at 
 Nazareth. 
 
 What cause of difference there was in 
 after years — His assertion of His mission, 
 and His attack upon the prevailing abuses 
 of religion — had not then arisen, and even 
 the consciousness of His call was as yet 
 only growing, and was so tempered with 
 humility as to give no offence to others. 
 
 Possibly it was the very simplicity and 
 
 ^ Matt. 12, 46 ; Mark 3, 3i ; Luke 8, 19. 
 
CH. XII THE MAN IN THE HOME 203 
 
 amiability of His character as a boy, and 
 their intimate knowledge of Him in all the 
 petty details of humble life, that made it so 
 difficult for His brethren to believe on Him 
 as the Messiah. Familiarity bred contempt. 
 The neighbours also were incredulous from 
 a similar cause. ^ And, indeed, the Jews 
 generally thought to see God only in out- 
 ward demonstrations of miraculous power, 
 rather than in poverty of spirit and merci- 
 fulness and purity of heart. Except they 
 should see signs and wonders they would 
 not believe. They are to-day the race — His 
 own — that denies Him. It is a human 
 weakness to think great what is strange. 
 * A prophet is not without honour save in 
 his own country and in his own house.' 
 
 ^ Matt. 13, 64-68 ; Mark 6, i-g. 
 
204 EAKLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 The family at Nazareth, humble as was 
 their station, must have had many Mends ; 
 for in these Eastern villages everybody 
 knew everybody. Their manners were easy 
 and their intercourse free. Though there 
 were differences in wealth, the differences 
 were not so great as to make wide social 
 distinctions, and there was none of the 
 class feeling which in our Western civilisa- 
 tion shuts off one set from another, and 
 limits our knowledge, and narrows our 
 sympathies. 
 
 So Jesus grew up without prejudices. 
 He knew all sorts and conditions of men, 
 and saw that human nature was the same 
 in all. He was ready in after years to feel 
 for the anxieties of the rich as weU as for 
 the deprivations of the poor ; to take for 
 
CH. xm SOCIETY 205 
 
 His disciples fisherman, customs officer, and 
 physician ; to treat with equal graciousness 
 the bUnd beggar by the wayside and the 
 wealthy tax-gatherer in the city^; to bear 
 himself before Eoman governor and Jewish 
 tetrarch with quiet dignity.- 
 
 The life of Jesus shows how the mark of 
 the true gentleman is not the standing aloof 
 from any, but the being just and kind to all. 
 
 It was not when He had gone out from 
 the home into the larger world of the south 
 and Jerusalem that His social experience 
 began. Already in the Galilaean village He 
 would see something now and again of 
 strangers from far countries. But it was 
 not this that made His behaviour so easy 
 and courteous under all circumstances. 
 It was partly the wholesome goodness of 
 His nature, and partly also the fact that 
 His interest lay in man himself rather than 
 in his externals, and that from the very 
 first that interest was deep and constant. 
 Man is man wherever he be. Customs, 
 ideas, habits of Hfe, education, vary with 
 different countries and stations ; but the 
 underlying passion and nobihty, folly and 
 
 ^ Luke 18, 35-19, lO. * Luke 23, i-i5. 
 
206 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiii 
 
 ambition, are always present, and can be 
 noticed in the smallest hamlet as well as 
 in the most populous city. 
 
 Observation may be very instructive 
 though you have only a few specimens, but 
 these constantly before your eyes. In the 
 country one's social experience is closer, 
 even if in town it be wider. 
 
 And Jesus was essentially sociable. He 
 did not isolate Himself, as did His cousin 
 John. When He was lost. His parents 
 ' sought Him among their kinsfolk and 
 acquaintance.' His life all through was 
 lived with others. When He sent His 
 disciples out, it was not separately, but two 
 and two. ' That they may be one ' was His 
 prayer for them.^ Where two or three 
 should be gathered together in His name, 
 there would He be in the midst of them.- 
 
 This sociability of Jesus was one reason 
 why He 'grew in favour with men.' 
 Another lay in His simplicity. He was 
 Himself what He called Nathaniel, an 
 Israelite indeed, 'in whom is no guile. '^ 
 He was the ' lamb ' of God. Even if wise 
 as a serpent, He was harmless as a dove. 
 
 ' John 17, 22. 2 Matt. 18, 20. » John 1, 47. 
 
CH. XIII SOCIETY 2Q7 
 
 And also He was good. His conduct was 
 without reproach. Even His enemies, after- 
 wards, and the fierce opponents and critics 
 of His Church, could bring no personal 
 charge against Him. 
 
 And yet another reason was that He 
 appreciated and respected and liked people. 
 It is a common fault of young men, 
 especially if they be clever, to under- 
 estimate the knowledge and ability of others 
 and to think lightly of character and 
 experience, to look for faults rather than 
 for excellencies, to be critical, irreverent, 
 supercilious. And so they are tolerated as 
 being young yet, but there is not much 
 pleasure in their company. Jesus, on the 
 other hand, was humble, or rather self- 
 forgetful, being genuinely interested in 
 whatever person He was talking with, and 
 showing no sign of haughtiness. 
 
 The Christ, with all His keen insight 
 into the human heart, its concealed 
 passions and its mixed motives (' He knew 
 what was in man '), was ever sympathetic in 
 His attitude and kindly in His judgments. 
 Stern towards sin. He was pitiful to the 
 sinner. And He did not look for sin ; He 
 
208 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xui 
 
 sought rather for the better feehngs, to 
 draw out and encourage them. 
 
 With prophetic inspiration did Isaiah 
 sing of the Messiah, celebrating at once 
 His modesty and His kindhness : 
 
 He shall not strive, nor cry aloud ; 
 
 Neither shall anyone hear His voice in the streets. 
 
 A bruised reed shall He not TDreak, 
 
 And smoking flax shall He not quench.^ 
 
 In what we moderns would call the 
 * public ' life of Nazareth, Jesus does not 
 seem as yet to have taken any prominent 
 part. In the synagogue He was a worship- 
 per and hearer only, in urban and national 
 affairs an inhabitant and subject. Hence 
 the astonishment of the Nazarenes when 
 (during the first year of His ministry) they 
 saw Him appear as ' darshan,' stand up to 
 read the final lesson, and then sit down and 
 discourse upon it.^ 
 
 In the celebrations of festivals and fasts 
 — the joyous feasts of Dedication, of Purim, 
 of Weeks, and of Tabernacles, and the 
 solemn Passover and Day of Atonement — 
 He was a participant and not a leader. An 
 
 1 Isa. 42 3 ; Matt. 12. 20. 2 ^^g 4^ ^g.gg. 
 
CH. xm SOCIETY 209 
 
 observer yet, He was reaping the ' harvest of 
 a quiet eye.' 
 
 He worked at His carpenter's bench, and 
 He saw and spoke to His neighbours as they 
 went out to their work, to dig their gardens, 
 or prune the vines and ohve-trees, or sow 
 corn-seed in the field-patches lower down 
 the hill. He watched the oxen ploughing 
 in the plains, and turned to note the beasts 
 of burden — asses, mules, or camels — laden 
 with merchandise passing slowly through 
 the village street on their way to the sea. 
 
 His mother and other women came out 
 to carry water from the well, or to buy food ; 
 they ground corn in their little mills, and 
 baked cakes, and did the work of the house,, 
 and spun wool from the fleece and wove it 
 up into garments. 
 
 And the family met again indoors at 
 meal-times and for prayers. 
 
 His observations took yet a wider range. 
 He saw not only the humble homes and 
 simple habits of His own friends, but also the 
 palaces where princes dwelt, and the purple 
 and fine linen of the great. Prisoners ; 
 beggars sitting by the wayside or haunting 
 the doors of the rich ; stewards, faithful or 
 
 p 
 
510 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xin 
 
 selfishly crafty ; merchants keen on good in- 
 vestments ; absentee landowners ; employers 
 of labour; Roman soldiers, rough but dutiful; 
 sick folk, demoniacs and paralytics ; tax- 
 gatherers, hated of all ; learned Scribes, 
 proud and saintly Pharisees — He seems in 
 the gospels somehow to be familiar with the 
 ways and the thoughts of them all. 
 
 From the records of His later life we 
 gather that then, at any rate, and therefore 
 earlier, He was a man with whom all sorts 
 of people entered at once and freely into 
 conversation. Within the compass of two 
 chapters, for example, we read of his being 
 spoken to by a leper, a centurion, a Scribe, 
 some disciples of John, a ruler, and two 
 blind men.^ 
 
 It would be a quiet life, but not a dull 
 one. Ennui arises more from disposition 
 than from circumstances. There may be 
 as much happiness in a lowly position as in 
 an exalted one, in a hamlet as in a metro- 
 polis. There is no dearth of interest 
 anywhere if only we be interested. And 
 Jesus was interested in everybody and 
 everything. And though His position was 
 
 1 Matt. 8 and 9. 
 
CH. XIII SOCIETY 211 
 
 humble, that did not imply — as it too often 
 does in our Western towns — squalor and 
 coarseness and pauperism. Wants were 
 few, the climate genial, and the land fertile ; 
 the neighbours all lived plainly, and He 
 had His trade. In the towns where the 
 Eoman officials lived there were examples 
 of brutish self-indulgence and lavish ex- 
 penditure ; Nazareth was as yet uncorrupted. 
 The dress of the villagers was simple, 
 and their general appearance plain, though 
 picturesque. The man's wardrobe con- 
 sisted of but three articles. The white 
 sudar or turban, tied to the chin with a 
 cord and falling on to the shoulders, was 
 his head-gear, and he wore it everywhere, 
 even in the synagogue. The tunic (x^t(ov, 
 chalouk) was like a long shirt of linen, 
 reaching to the knees or to the ankles, and 
 with rather short sleeves. Some tunics 
 were seamless ; they were common among 
 foreigners from the West. Jesus had one,^ 
 though perhaps not yet ; it may have been 
 given to Him by one of those who ' minis- 
 tered to Him of their substance.'- Many 
 men possessed two or even more tunics. 
 
 ^ John 19, 23. "^ Luke 8, 3. 
 
 p2 
 
212 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiii 
 
 Jesus, during His ministry, and His disciples 
 had apparently only the one they wore.^ 
 A person wearing the tunic only was spoken 
 of as naked ; ^ though usually nothing else 
 was worn indoors. 
 
 The outer garment, called cloak (t/Actrtoz/, 
 talith), was a large piece of woollen cloth, 
 in shape like a Scotchman's plaid, wrapped 
 loosely over the shoulders, and held in by a 
 girdle at the waist. It was often white with 
 broad stripes of colour. The one that Jesus 
 had could not have been all white, for in 
 the account of the Transfiguration it is said, 
 as something to be noticed, that ' His 
 garments became white.' Eed was worn 
 by soldiers only. Blue was a not uncommon 
 colour at that time ; but perhaps white 
 with brown or other stripes was, as it is 
 now, first favourite. 
 
 At the four corners of the cloak were 
 the tassels (Kpda-ireSay tsitsith), of sacred im- 
 port.^ 
 
 The girdle was either of linen, like Jere- 
 miah's,^ or of leather, like John the Baptist's.^ 
 
 1 Matt. 10, 10 ; Mark 6, 9 ; ' Luke 8, 44. 
 Luke 9, 3. * Jer. 13, i. 
 
 2 John 21, 7. ^ Matt. 3, 4. 
 
cii. XIII SOCIETY 213 
 
 It was only the wealthier class who had 
 shoes. Jesus and His neighbours wore 
 sandals, with wooden soles and leather straps. 
 
 The dress of the women was very similar. 
 A white cotton kerchief covered the head 
 and shoulders ; but in their case it was tied 
 on by a strip of brighter colour edged with 
 silver coins. Their tunic was larger than 
 the men's. If the Nazareth girls then were 
 like those you see there now, it was not very 
 smart in appearance, being without any 
 definite shape or colour, and not always in 
 the best repair. 
 
 Their cloak also, which was not worn 
 always, was made very full. When it was 
 drawn in by the girdle, a great fold hung 
 loose, large enough to hold grain. ^ Kuth 
 carried six measures of barley in hers." 
 
 There was not among men or women in 
 Nazareth any great attention to toilet. They 
 never cut their hair ; it hung down in curls 
 upon their shoulders. ' His locks are bushy' 
 is part of the description of one who is 
 'altogether lovely.'^ The men let their 
 beards grow long and untrimmed. 
 
 ^ Luke 6, 38. * Song of Songs, 5, ii 
 
 * Ruth 3, 15. (R.V. marg. 'curling'). 
 
214 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiii 
 
 In the matter of cleanliness the Jews 
 had as a race not a high reputation among 
 the Eomans.^ We know, however, that their 
 religion had a good deal to say about wash- 
 ings ; and that they did bathe in Jordan 
 and other rivers,^ and in their own houses ; ^ 
 and that they had a sort of soap.'* The 
 Arab peasant of to-day is dirty. Perhaps 
 the Jew of Jesus' time was so too, not 
 only in the slums of Rome, but in those 
 country districts which had no streams at 
 hand. In the larger towns there were 
 public baths, and private ones in the houses 
 of some of the wealthier citizens. 
 
 The language spoken was that called 
 Aramaic or Syro - Chaldean. It was to 
 Hebrew what modern is to classical Greek, 
 or Italian to Latin. Their books were in 
 the old language, their common speech was 
 in the new. We have seen already how in 
 the synagogue the lessons were read from 
 the Hebrew manuscripts, and paraphrased 
 by the reader verse by verse into the tongue 
 of the people. The theological discussions 
 of the Rabbis were still held in Hebrew, but 
 
 1 Seneca, Epist. 5. ^2 Sam. 11, 2. 
 
 2 2 Kings 5, 12. * Jer. 2, 22 ; Mai. 3, 2. 
 
CH. XIII SOCIETY 215 
 
 that was in the schools and in the Temple, 
 not in the villages of Galilee. 
 
 There are plenty of Aramaic words 
 among the Greek of the gospels to show 
 that this was the language which was being 
 spoken : — 
 
 Abba, Gabbatha, Golgotha, Ephatha, 
 Corban, Mammon, Messiah, Pascha, Kaca, 
 Satan, Talitha koumi, Eloi eloi lama 
 sabacthani, Cephas, Martha, Tabitha, Bar- 
 jona, Bartimaeus, Bartholomew, Barabbas. 
 
 The use of Aramaic was common to the 
 whole of the country. But the people of 
 Galilee did not speak it exactly as did the 
 Jews of the south. There is no evidence 
 to support the statement so coihmonly made 
 that the Galilseans were despised on this 
 account, but there is some evidence as to 
 the fact that they could be distinguished 
 by their pronunciation. They confounded 
 the sounds of the letters ain and aleph, beth 
 and caph, cheth and he, and ludicrous 
 stories are told in the Babylonian Talmud 
 of their mistakes. Peter might deny with 
 an oath that he knew not Jesus, but his 
 speech betrayed that he was a Galilaean.^ 
 
 1 Matt. 26, 73. 
 
216 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xm 
 
 And the devout Jews from every nation 
 under heaven, gathered for the Feast of 
 Pentecost, when they marvelled that they 
 heard the disciples speaking in foreign 
 tongues, yet knew they were Galilseans.^ 
 
 As to Galilaean and Judaean speech, see 
 Lightfoot, ' Horse H. et T.', Gandell's edition, 
 vol. i., ch. 87 ; Deutsch, ' Eemains,' pp. 357, 
 358 ; Merrill, ' Galilee,' pp. 106-8. 
 
 1 Acts 2, 7. 
 
217 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 THE PEOVINCE 
 
 It was a magnificent view that caught the 
 eye as one got out of the town and on to 
 the top of the hill behind. 
 
 ' Watcher ' or ' watched ' was probably 
 the meaning of ' Nazareth ' ; its hill was 
 seen from far, and commanded a wide pros- 
 pect of land and sea. 
 
 A land ' full with the blessing of 
 Jehovah ' was Galilee.^ Its air was always 
 bright and fresh. It was well watered, ' a 
 land of water-brooks,' and well wooded, 
 ' the unparalleled garden of God.' 
 
 ' It is throughout rich in soil and pastur- 
 age, producing every variety of tree, and 
 inviting by its productiveness even those 
 who have the least inclination for agricul- 
 ture ; it is everywhere tilled, no part allowed 
 
 1 Deut. 33, 23. 
 
218 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xit 
 
 to be idle, and everywhere productive.' ^ 
 And the natural fertility of the soil was 
 then, as it is not now, developed by careful 
 cultivation. Crops paid better on this rich 
 land than sheep or goats.^ In the open 
 fields the plough was used, in no slovenly 
 fashion.^ They were sometimes so sub- 
 divided into small holdings that only the 
 spade was suitable, and the digging was 
 well done.'^ 
 
 So the valleys and gentle slopes were 
 crowded with vineyards, olive-groves, fruit- 
 orchards, cornfields, and many even of the 
 mountains with forests. 
 
 The bay-tree, the myrtle, the almond, 
 the pomegranate, the citron flourished ; the 
 fir, and pine, and sycamore ; the cedar, 
 cypress, and balsam ; the palm, the tere- 
 binth, the walnut, and the oak. And also 
 there was a large variety of wild flowers 
 springing up in profusion : the red anemone, 
 the pink phlox, the convolvulus, marigolds, 
 geraniums, mignonette, white and pink 
 cyclamen, and rock roses, lit up the bare 
 patches of the limestone hills. 
 
 ^ Jos. Wars, 3, 2. ^ Luke 9, 62. 
 
 ^ Talmud, quoted byHausrath, 1, 8. ^ Luke 16, 3. 
 
CH. XIV THE PEOVINCE 219 
 
 Looking southward, then, over the town, 
 with its flat roofs and terraced gardens, 
 Jesus would see an expanse of rich and 
 well-cultivated country, its bright green 
 verdure varied only by the deeper hues of 
 trees and fruit-orchards, and by patches of 
 golden grain. Far away, closing in the 
 plain of Esdraelon, were on the right the 
 wooded heights of the Carmel range and the 
 hills of Samaria; then Mount Gilboa, behind 
 which in the distance could just be 
 discerned the mountains of Gilead ; and then 
 Little Hermon, and the wooded Tabor, with 
 its fortress, ' a city on a hill,' close to on 
 the left. The hill-country east of Nazareth 
 was known for its heavy dews, which ac- 
 counted, no doubt, for the richness of the 
 vegetation. 
 
 Just beyond these eastern hills, some 
 twelve or fifteen miles away, out of sight 
 from here, lay the famous Sea of Galilee, 
 the centre of northern Jewish life and 
 activity. 
 
 One portion of its western shore, where 
 the mountains recede inland, the plain of 
 Gennesareth, a patch of only two and a half 
 miles by one, was remarkable even in Galilee 
 
220 EAELY LITE OF OUR LORD cu. xiv 
 
 for its beauty and fertility. Its trees were 
 in leaf all the year round. It yielded the 
 finest wheat in the land. Scented rushes 
 that were much thought of grew here.^ The 
 fruit-gatherers lodged in bowers of branches, 
 or ' tents of Gennesareth.' ' Such is the 
 fertility of the soil,' says Josephus,^ ' that it 
 rejects no plant, and accordingly all are here 
 cultivated by the husbandman, for so genial 
 is the air that it suits every variety. The 
 walnut, which delights beyond other trees 
 in a wintry climate, grows here luxuriantly, 
 together with the palm-tree, which is 
 nourished by heat ; and near to these are 
 figs and olives, to which a milder atmo- 
 sphere has been assigned. ... It not only 
 possesses the extraordinary virtue of 
 nourishing fruits of opposite climes, but also 
 maintains a continual supply of them. 
 Thus it produces those most royal of all, 
 the grape and the fig, during ten months, 
 without intermission, while the other varie- 
 ties ripen the year round.' 
 
 The lake itself was famed for its choice 
 and abundant fish. So plentiful was the 
 supply that only the best kinds were kept ; 
 
 ^ Strabo. * Jos. Wars, iii. 3, 2, 3. 
 
CH. xiT THE PROVJNCE 221 
 
 the rest that were in the nets were thrown 
 away.^ The fishing was free. Every city 
 on the shore was the home of hundreds of 
 fishermen. At Tarichaea fish were packed 
 and sent away even as far as to the great 
 cities of the West. 
 
 There were passenger and traffic ships 
 also. Some were of considerable size, for 
 Josephus, in describing a sea-fight here, has 
 the phrase ' climbing up into their ships.' 
 Merchants crossed from Tiberias on the 
 west coast to Hippos on the east. ' The 
 surface of the lake was dotted with white 
 sails of vessels flying before the mountain 
 gusts, as the beach sparkled with the houses 
 and palaces, the synagogues and temples of 
 the Jewish or Koman inhabitants.' ^ 
 
 For on its shores were nine ' cities,' and 
 large villages besides, whose names meet us 
 constantly in the later life of our Lord. 
 Just about this time, while He was still at 
 home, a new and magnificent city was being 
 built by Herod Antipas, to be his own 
 capital and to be called Tiberias. 
 
 Up to now the principal city in the pro- 
 vince had been Sepphoris, a fortified place, 
 
 ^ Matt. 13, 48. * Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 367. 
 
222 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 with an upper and a lower town, ' the security 
 of all Galilee,' which stood on a solitary 
 height, only four miles north from Nazareth. 
 
 To the east of Sepphoris, on the northern 
 slope of the upland plain of El Battauf, 
 was the village of Cana, where some of 
 Mary's friends were living. 
 
 Beyond lay the highlands of Galilee, 
 hills rising behind hills for sixty miles or 
 more, back to the white peaks of Hermon, 
 10,000 feet above sea-level. 
 
 The snow-ice of Hermon added another 
 beauty to the colouring of the landscape, 
 and freshened, even at this distance, to the 
 fancy the warm summer air. It was known 
 afar ; it was sold in the Phoenician cities on 
 the coast, and in Damascus, where wealthy 
 merchants lived ; and no doubt the ruler of 
 the province, Herod Antipas, had bowls of 
 it at the banquets which he gave in his 
 palace at Tiberias. 
 
 It was beneath Hermon's ' eternal tent 
 of snow,' amid most magnificent scenery, 
 that the royal city of Caesarea Philippi 
 stood, the seat of Herod Philip, Antipas' 
 brother, with its royal castles and palaces, 
 its grotto sacred to Pan, and the marble 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 223 
 
 temple which the tetrarch's father, Herod 
 the Great, had built. Jesus and His 
 disciples in the time to come were to spend 
 in this locality hours of intense spiritual 
 exaltation.^ 
 
 Turning now to the north-west, there 
 lay before the eye a fertile plain, varied 
 with gentler hills, and studded with towns. 
 Prominent among these was Zabulon, the 
 largest city of the north, and of great 
 beauty, its storeyed houses rising high like 
 those of Tjnre and Sidon.^ 
 
 And the plain ended with the sandy 
 shore of what we now call the Bay of Acre. 
 Accho, or Ptolemais, at its northern end, 
 where Belus emptied itself, was not visible. 
 The blue waters of the Mediterranean 
 stretched away into the distance, flecked 
 with white sails of ships. There at the 
 southern extremity of the bay, by the 
 mouth of Kishon, were the houses of Haifa, 
 and towering above them the bluff pro- 
 montory of Carmel. 
 
 Like a great wall the mountain stood, 
 reaching S.S.E. for over twelve miles, 
 clothed with thick foliage of shrubs and 
 
 1 Matt. 16, 13-20 ; 17, i-8. - Jos. Wars, ii. 18, 9. 
 
224 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 trees. Beyond it lay the plain of Sharon 
 and the sea. On this side Kishon wound 
 along its base, coming across the wide plain 
 of Jezreel from the foot of Tabor. 
 
 What patriotic thoughts and feelings 
 must have stirred the soul of Jesus, well 
 instructed as He was in the history of His 
 people, when He stood and saw where 
 Barak had led down the Israelitish fighting 
 men from Tabor into the plain, to attack 
 the host of Canaanite oppressors, lured to 
 encamp over there by Megiddo, and Kishon, 
 swollen by rains into an impassable morass, 
 had entangled and swept away the foe ! 
 
 There, where the river runs close to 
 the mountain,^ was it that the priests of 
 Baal were hurried down that precipitous 
 ravine to their doom, when on the plateau 
 above, in answer to Elijah's prayer, the fire 
 from heaven had fallen on his sacrifice, 
 that men might know that Jehovah was 
 God.'-^ 
 
 And across on the eastern side of the 
 plain, on that rocky mound, had stood the 
 royal city Jezreel, into which Elijah ran 
 before Ahab's chariot, while the sky grew 
 
 1 Van de Velde, 1, 324. « j gi^gg ^g. 
 
CH. XIV THE PKOVINCE 225 
 
 black with clouds, the rain-clouds that were 
 the sign of God's mercy vouchsafed to His 
 erring people at the prophet's intercession. 
 
 As He gazed on these historic sites, and 
 His mind wandered through scenes in the 
 national drama of sin and suffering, of re- 
 pentance and relief, did He, we wonder, 
 realise how soon He too would be agonising 
 in prayer, and yielding up Himself a sacrifice 
 for a larger Israel, to bring them back to the 
 Father ? 
 
 But the country was not of historical 
 and antiquarian interest only. It was at 
 this very time teeming with life ; its towns 
 were many and flourishing, its people enter- 
 prising and earnest. 
 
 Josephus, who was military governor of 
 Galilee, said that it contained 204 cities 
 and villages, the smallest of which had over 
 15,000 inhabitants. Doubt has been thrown 
 upon this estimate ; but it must be remem- 
 bered that Josephus was a capable man, and 
 in a position to know, and that the statement 
 occurs in a letter written to rivals of his, 
 sent to supersede him, who also knew the 
 country. The numbers got together for 
 various emergencies of war, the evident 
 
 Q 
 
2-26 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 abundance of towns in the surrounding 
 districts of Northern Syria, Phoenicia and 
 Peraea, and Decapohs, and the closeness 
 with which people were packed, as illus- 
 trated, e.g., by the two and a half millions 
 present for a Passover at Jerusalem, all 
 incline us to believe that the population of 
 Galilee has not been much exaggerated.^ 
 
 The population of Nazareth itself could 
 not have been less than 10,000,'^ and in view 
 of the above statement of Josephus may 
 be put at 15,000 or 20,000. It is spoken 
 of in the gospels, not as kw/at;, or hamlet, 
 but as TToXt?, or city. 
 
 Jews generally, in whatever part of the 
 world, were a fairly well-to-do class ; and 
 these countrymen of Jesus were, on the 
 whole, in prosperous, or at least comfortable, 
 circumstances. The numerous and flourish- 
 ing towns, some of them finely built, indi- 
 cate a by no means poverty-stricken con- 
 dition of the people. The province yielded 
 a large sum in tithes, and paid, on occasion, 
 very heavy tribute to Eoman governors. 
 It was only in Judaea and Jerusalem that 
 
 ^ For fuller arguments see Merrill's Galilee, pp. 62-67. 
 - Keim, 1, 3i8. 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 227 
 
 the saints had to be helped by their brethren 
 of the Dispersion.^ 
 
 A great income was derived from the 
 cultivation of the olive. ' Let him dip his 
 foot in oil,' Moses had foretold of Asher.^ 
 Gischala was a well-known centre of the oil 
 industry, yet it was but one of many. John 
 of Gischala made an enormous fortune in 
 Josephus's time by acquiring a monopoly of 
 the local trade ; he was actually able to sell 
 oil at Caesarea at ten times the cost price. At 
 Jotapata there was such a store that, when 
 the city was besieged by the Romans, the 
 people drove back the storming party by 
 pouring boiling oil upon them. 
 
 So fine were the olives of Bethshean 
 that the Rabbis spoke of it as the gate of 
 Paradise. Syrians, Phoenicians, even the 
 peoples of Asia Minor, got their oil from 
 Galilee. 
 
 Centuries back, Solomon had paid to 
 Hiram of Tyre 200,000 gallons of oil a year, 
 and as much wine, and immense quantities 
 also of wheat and barley.^ 
 
 The wide plain that lay spread out before 
 
 ^ Acts 11, 29; Rom. 15,26. ^ 1 Kings 5, ii ; 2 Chron. 
 
 2 Deut. 33, 24. 2, lO. 
 
 q2 
 
228 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 Nazareth on the south produced heavy crops 
 of wheat, and so too did the one on the 
 north, in which Sepphoris stood. Grain was 
 stored in the towns of Upper Gahlee, to be 
 paid as tribute, when due, to the Emperor 
 of Eome. Arabah, a few hours north of 
 Nazareth, was one of the principal corn 
 markets. 
 
 Flax also was grown, and the women 
 wove from it fine linen fabrics. 
 
 Two towns quite close to Nazareth, 
 Sichin and Kefr Chananyah, were busily 
 engaged in the manufacture of pottery, such 
 as oil- jars and water-vessels. There were 
 beds of a dark-coloured clay in that neigh- 
 bourhood, out of which a hard and black 
 ware was made. 
 
 Of the fisheries which were so profitable 
 we have already spoken. 
 
 Another reason which would account for 
 the prosperity of Galilee was its geographical 
 position. Through it or near it passed the 
 trade-routes between the great East and the 
 greater West. An ever-present market for 
 all it could produce, whether flax, timber, 
 pottery, corn, wine, or oil, was close at hand 
 in the manufacturing and commercial cities 
 
CH. XIV THE PKOVINCE 229 
 
 of Phoenicia. They were thickly populated 
 with glass blowers, dyers, and weavers, 
 sailors, and shipbuilders, and their own 
 needs were large; but also they did the 
 carrying-trade of the world, their ships went 
 everywhere, and so they would require even 
 more for export than for home use. 
 
 Syria, too, bought largely of the necessa- 
 ries of life from Galilee. 
 
 And much business was done at the 
 stations on the great trade-routes. The rich 
 fabrics and the spices of farther Asia could 
 not well pass on to Egypt and to Kome 
 w^ithout leaving something of their value by 
 the way. 
 
 The road from Damascus through 
 Caesarea Philippi to Tyre and Sidon lay 
 perhaps too far north (some forty or fifty 
 miles) for Jesus to see much of it as yet. 
 
 But another principal highway between 
 East and West was that from Damascus to 
 Ptolemais or Akka, called by the prophet 
 ' the way of the sea,' ^ and this, passing 
 through Capernaum, Tiberias, and Nain, 
 crossed the plain of El Battauf just behind 
 Nazareth, only five miles to the north. 
 
 1 Isa. 9, 1, 
 
230 EAELY LIFE OF OUH LOED ch. xiv 
 
 And the road from Damascus to 
 Csesarea-on-the-Sea and Gaza — i.e.^ from 
 Syria to Egypt — wound round the near side 
 of Mount Tabor, and crossed the plain of 
 Jezreel in full view from Nazareth, and 
 about six miles away. 
 
 Lastly, passing through Nazareth was 
 a Koman road, which ran due north and 
 south, and linked the cities of Phoenicia 
 and the Syrian province with Samaria and 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 So, then, Jesus and His fellow-townsmen 
 were by no means isolated from the larger 
 world. Their talks with travellers and 
 business transactions with merchants, or 
 their own journeys to Sepphorisor Ptolemais, 
 to Tiberias, Capernaum, or Damascus, kept 
 them in touch with the centres of commerce, 
 and told them the news of the day. 
 
 The ' world ' of their time was the 
 Eoman Empire, and they were in a repre- 
 sentative and important part of it. 
 
 In some of the cities round there was 
 a marked foreign element. Scythopolis 
 (Bethshean) in the Jordan valley was 
 largely a Syrian settlement ; Gadara and 
 Hippos on the lake were instances near by 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 231 
 
 of what were now not uncommon in Pales- 
 tine — Hellenic cities with senates and 
 magistrates of their own. The Herods, for 
 the very purpose of strengthening their 
 position as against the Jews, built towns 
 with quasi-independent constitutions and 
 inhabited chiefly by Gentiles. Such were 
 Sebaste (Samaria), Caesarea on the coast, 
 Gaba near the plain of Jezreel, Caesarea 
 Philippi, Bethsaida Julias, and Tiberias. 
 Their religious worship was mostly of Greek 
 deities, with an admixture of Syrian. The 
 first Herod, though a Jew, built temples to 
 Augustus the Emperor at Sebaste and 
 Caesarea, placed a golden eagle — the Roman 
 ensign — over the gate of the Temple at 
 Jerusalem, held games in honour of Augustus 
 every four years, and generally endeavoured 
 to infect the people with Western manners 
 and ideas. 
 
 There were, of course, numbers of Eoman 
 soldiers and officials in Jesus' time, both at 
 Tiberias (where Antipas lived) and at other 
 centres. Nay, there would be some passing 
 through Nazareth itself on their way be- 
 tween Phoenicia and the south. 
 
 The words used in business were largely 
 
232 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 Greek. The coins current were either 
 Greek or Eoman, e.g., the assarion, lepton, 
 drachma, denarius, dupondius, talanton. 
 
 The supply of Jewish produce, as to kind 
 and as to quantity, was regulated by the 
 Greek demand. Many articles hitherto un- 
 known to them were introduced in the course 
 of trade, from foreign parts. 
 
 ' Galilee of the Gentiles,' Isaiah had 
 called the country, and the people a ' people 
 that walked in darkness ' and who dwelt in 
 the land of the shadow of death ; ^ and the 
 Evangelist, in telling how Jesus began His 
 work, quotes the Prophet's words. - 
 
 Indeed, it has commonly been supposed 
 that they had to suffer some affectation of 
 contempt on the part of the Jews of Judaea, 
 on the ground that they had become cor- 
 rupted by their contact with heathenism. 
 ' Can any good thing come out of Naza- 
 reth ? ' said Nathanael.^ ' Art thou also 
 of Galilee ? ' asked Scribes and Pharisees 
 of Nicodemus ; ' Search, and see that out 
 of Galilee ariseth no prophet.'^ Jesus was 
 not the only teacher who met with prejudice 
 
 ' Isa. 9, 1, 2. ^ John 1, 46. 
 
 ^ Matt. 4, 15, 16. * John 7, 52. 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 233 
 
 and opposition on that account. ' Gali- 
 laean '^ was a significant term with the 
 southerners : it indicated criticism of the 
 northern pronunciation, although their own 
 was none so pure, and scorn of minds that 
 were not occupied with the same quibbles 
 as themselves. ' Galilaean ! fool ! ' was the 
 taunt flung at the learned Eabbi Jose by 
 a Judaean woman.^ 
 
 But the evidence of contempt is not 
 quite conclusive, and by some recent writers^ 
 its existence is denied. If there was such a 
 feeling, it was at any rate not deserved. 
 The social ideas, the secular habits, the 
 workday occupations and business enter- 
 prises of the Galilaeans, were no doubt largely 
 influenced, and even changed, by their 
 dealings and intercourse with Gentile 
 nations. Their patriotism and religion (the 
 two were one) only stood out more marked 
 by the contrast. The advance of Western 
 manners and ideas set all Israel more than 
 ever on its guard against contagion. The 
 subtle influence of the Hellenic culture and 
 spirit of inquiry was as yet affecting only the 
 
 1 Luke 22, 59 ; Acts 2, 7. ' E.g. MerrUl, Galilee 
 
 ^ Erub. 53, b. chap. xvii. 
 
234 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 Dispersion, and that but slightly. They 
 were Jews : foreigners were free to settle in 
 their land, and some of themselves might be 
 found settled, and doing well, in every city 
 of the known world ; but, at home or abroad, 
 they were Jews still. 
 
 They were perhaps not so completely 
 prejudiced against outsiders as were the 
 Judseans. Jesus, who talked with the 
 Samaritan, and granted a Canaanite's 
 prayer, and healed a Roman's servant, and 
 was sought after by Greeks, would have been 
 an unnatural son of Judaea ; and so would 
 that disciple of His, a fisherman from 
 Capernaum, to whom, and thereby to the 
 world, God showed that he ' should not call 
 any man common or unclean.'^ But they 
 none the less believed in their own Jehovah, 
 and in themselves as His people, and in 
 Moses as their teacher. They studied well 
 the Law; they worshipped devoutly in 
 the synagogues ; they strongly maintained 
 the sanctity of marriage (indeed, their ideas 
 on this subject were more refined than 
 those of the Judasans) ; they would have 
 nothing to do with images and statues, and 
 
 1 Acts 10, 28. 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 235 
 
 in certain details of practical religion were 
 more strict than the people of the south. 
 
 It was said of them, and by Kabbis, 
 that they cared for honour, and the 
 Judasans cared for money. 
 
 The chief point of divergence, however, 
 was this, that while the Jud^eans followed 
 tradition, and busied themselves with the 
 subtleties of the Halakhah, the Galilseans 
 were zealous for the Law itself. ' Ye leave 
 the commandment of God,' said the 
 Nazarene to the Pharisees and Scribes 
 from Jerusalem, ' and hold fast the tradition 
 of men.' ^ 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount, with its 
 freshness and vitality, and its enunciation 
 of great principles, found some to listen to 
 it in the country where it was spoken. 
 Judffia would have produced at that time 
 neither hearers nor preacher of it. 
 
 Galilee was too flourishing and too busy 
 to become the home of the religious ab- 
 straction and bigotry of Eabbinism: that 
 suited better the barren bleak hills and 
 decayed cities of the south. 
 
 There were Scribes learned in the Law 
 
 1 Mark 7, 8. 
 
236 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 teaching at Capernaum and Magdala and 
 Tarichaea and Sepphoris, and even at 
 Nazareth ; the priests and Levites fulfilled 
 their functions at Jerusalem. Yet to 
 Jerusalem, which Israel's God had chosen, 
 did every Jew's thoughts turn, wherever in 
 the world his home might be. At the 
 festival seasons, thousands of them flocked 
 through Nazareth in large companies along 
 the great south road. And one of the 
 twenty-four ' courses ' of priests, whose 
 duty it was by turns to minister in the 
 Temple, had Nazareth for its centre, and 
 met there to proceed together at the 
 appointed time to the Holy City.^ 
 
 They are said to have been a people of 
 quick and passionate feeling, with some 
 poetical imagination and intellectual acti- 
 vity, and also with a desire for novelty. 
 Perhaps their excitability may have assisted 
 the spread of that strange disease that they 
 called ' possession,' cases of which meet us 
 so frequently in the gospel story. 
 
 They were earnest patriots, but their 
 patriotism was not as a rule associated with 
 rebellion. There was a turbulent faction, 
 
 * Neubauer, p. 190. 
 
CH. XIV THE PROVINCE 237 
 
 the Zealots, who had given trouble at times. 
 As outlaws in the caves the first Herod had 
 dispersed them, and while Jesus was an 
 infant a revolt had been led by Judas the 
 Galilaean. Indeed, Jesus' brother Simon 
 belonged to the party before he became a 
 disciple. 
 
 But as a whole they were a law-abiding 
 people. The Herods, though not good men, 
 were shrewd enough or fortunate enough to 
 win and keep their favour. The Galilaeans 
 had declared their satisfaction when Herod 
 their tetrarch became, in b.c. 37, king of the 
 whole Jewish country. They threw no 
 difficulties in the way of the judicious 
 government of Antipas, and he held the 
 tetrarchy forty-three years. They had a 
 certain spirit of fidelity to their leaders, as 
 Josephus was able afterwards, from personal 
 experience, to testify. 
 
 They could be warlike enough when the 
 occasion arose. ' Zebulun and Naphtali 
 were a people that jeoparded their lives unto 
 the death in the high places of the field.' ^ 
 The province was crowded with famous 
 battle-fields, where the forces of Canaan, 
 
 ' Judges 5, 18. 
 
238 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xiv 
 
 and Midian, and Moab had been put to 
 flight. 
 
 And in the not far distant future they 
 would be foremost to oppose Vespasian's 
 legionaries, and, beaten again and again, 
 would still battle on, careless of suffering, 
 defending desperately one fortress after 
 another, until within the walls of their 
 beloved Zion they should perish, crushed by 
 the invincible might of Kome, but with 
 hearts unconquered still. 
 
 At present all was quiet. Judaea indeed 
 was restless, under the tyranny of the 
 Roman governors, but Galilee was blessed 
 with peace. 
 
CH. XV 239 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 What we have been considering has been 
 the outward circumstances of the childhood 
 and youth of our Lord, in order that we 
 may be the better able to understand the 
 development o£ His character, and to appre- 
 ciate the significance of His words and life 
 as Teacher and Saviour of men. 
 
 For externals do have some effect in 
 the moulding even of the strongest nature 
 as it grows from infancy toward maturity. 
 And they are the material on which the 
 mind of the genius, the soul of the prophet, 
 work. When we know how and amid what 
 surroundings Jesus spent His early years, 
 we know better what He meant when He 
 went forth to preach the kingdom of heaven. 
 Externals do not tell us much ; it is a 
 low-lived career that can be adequately 
 
240 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD CH. xv 
 
 described in terms of outward events ; yet 
 that is nearly all the description that is 
 possible, even for the noblest men. It is 
 not given to eyes to see, and pens to set 
 down, the whole thoughts and motives and 
 hopes and affections of a human soul. And 
 who shall do it for a divine one ? Externals 
 are not much, but they are what we have, 
 and they are something. 
 
 In the character of Jesus there is a 
 well-balanced harmony of the outward and 
 the inward life. He was Jewish in the 
 brooding thoughtfulness which took Him 
 apart from men, even from the nearest and 
 most loved, up to the lonely hills, to pray ; 
 He was Galilaean in His readiness to see 
 and hear all that came in His way. His 
 was the impressibility of the north, and of 
 His own youthfulness. Eyes had He, and 
 He saw ; ears had He, and heard. 
 
 The home-life was the earliest and the 
 most powerful element in His environment. 
 For it was a Hebrew home, where parent's 
 passionate love of child was answered with 
 deep respect of child for parent. The re- 
 finement, tenderness, and devout spirituality 
 of His mother, the simple modesty of 
 
CH. XV INFLUENCES 241 
 
 Joseph and his conscientious discharge of 
 duty, the companionship of brothers and 
 sisters, the first lessons in rehgious truth, 
 and the example of pious observances, 
 would tend, we may venture to think, to 
 develop His trustfulness, obedience, rever- 
 ence, and love. 
 
 The lessons at school, the learning to 
 know the Scriptures, the services of the 
 synagogue, the visits to festivals, would 
 draw out intelligence, patriotism, and faith, 
 and exercise Him in habits of worship. 
 His mother's domestic duties. His own 
 working with His hands, and perhaps the 
 necessities of the household, the everyday 
 converse with neighbours who all had some- 
 thing to do, the industrious habits of Jews 
 generally, and specially of the people of 
 Galilee, would help to make Him practical 
 and reliable, to give simplicity to His bear- 
 ing, and reality to His teaching of religion. 
 
 His residence in beautiful and varied 
 scenery, and amid country pursuits, would 
 contribute to His own knowledge of Nature 
 and of God, and to His capacity for teach- 
 ing His fellow-men with freshness and 
 effect. 
 
 R 
 
242 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xt 
 
 All that He saw about Him spoke to 
 Him of the power and wisdom, the justness 
 and mercy of God. He felt that Nature, 
 and not man alone, was a sphere in which 
 the divine purpose was being carried out, 
 and the divine character revealed. 
 
 The many-sided life of Galilee — com- 
 mercial, agricultural, manufacturing, mili- 
 tary, legal — would be a means of acquaint- 
 ance with the thoughts and habits of 
 different sorts of people. In His after-life 
 He appears always at His ease, whoever it 
 may be that He meets ; His divine intuition 
 penetrates at once their character and the 
 story of their life. ' He knew what was in 
 man.' ^ 
 
 The ideas of the different religious parties 
 came under His notice, and His heart 
 vibrated in sympathetic response to what 
 in them rang of truth. 
 
 Like the Pharisees, He felt deeply the 
 duty of complete obedience in everything to 
 the will of God, and He used in His teach- 
 ing their conception of a spiritual world 
 peopled with angels good and bad. 
 
 Their slavish fear and scrupulosity, their 
 
 1 John 2, 25. 
 
CH. XV INFLUENCES 243 
 
 dictatorial claims, their desire to seem to be 
 holy, were repugnant to Him. 
 
 It has been suggested that His brother 
 James was a follower of Shammai, the 
 founder of the less philosophic but more 
 intensely national of the two rival schools, 
 and might have had some influence upon 
 Himself. 
 
 Eabbis were sometimes heard in the 
 towns of Galilee, but the people were not 
 so much taken up as were those of the 
 south with their utterances. Jerusalem was 
 the ring for their dialectic contests. And 
 the difference between the popular Eabbinism 
 and the thoughts of Jesus as shown in His 
 public teaching was deep and wide ; it was 
 a difference of principle. The former stood 
 upon close attention to details of ritual 
 observance. Jesus' starting-point was 
 rather the older Hebraism of Moses and the 
 Prophets, the knowledge and love and ser- 
 vice of God. 
 
 He would hear a great deal also about 
 the political aspects of Judaism. The ques- 
 tions which were afterwards put to Him He 
 seemed to have already thought over and 
 settled for Himself. 
 
 B 2 
 
244 EARLY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xy 
 
 He was as proud of His nation as was 
 His brother Simon, for Jehovah had chosen 
 them to bear His name ; and as ready to die 
 in their behalf. But His ambition for them 
 was not that they might win back by arms 
 the temporal power, but that by repentance 
 and faith they might enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven. His kingdom was not of 
 this world.^ 
 
 Nor was he unacquainted with that 
 small sect of extreme puritans — the Essenes 
 — who lived as monks at Engaddi, on the 
 western shore of the Dead Sea. There may 
 have been some of the secular brothers of 
 the order living in His own neighbourhood. 
 
 Like them, He said that the kingdom 
 of God was for the poor,^ that it was hard 
 for a rich man to enter it,^ that God and 
 Mammon cannot both be served,'* that it 
 were better not to be anxious about such 
 things as food and clothing f and He advised 
 a man once to sell all he had and give it to 
 the poor.^ 
 
 Like them. He preferred simple lan- 
 
 1 John 18, 36. ■* Matt. 6, 24. 
 
 2 Luke 6, 20. ' Matt. 6, 31. 
 
 3 Matt. 19, 23. ^ Luke 18, 22. 
 
CH. XV INFLUENCES 245 
 
 guage : ' Swear not. . . . Let your yea be 
 yea, and your nay, nay ' ^ 
 
 He and His disciples lived, as did they, 
 with great simplicity ; they had a common 
 purse ; they carried nothing superfluous 
 with them. 
 
 The personal habits of James His 
 brother were, in his later days, when 
 bishop of Jerusalem, similar to those of the 
 Essenes. ' He drank not wine, or strong 
 drink, nor did he eat animal food ; a razor 
 came not upon his head ; he did not 
 anoint himself with oil ; he did not use 
 the bath. He alone might go into the 
 holy place, for he wore no woollen clothes, 
 but linen.' - But James was not an Essene, 
 nor was John his kinsman. 
 
 Except for small matters of habit and 
 some coincidences of language, Jesus had 
 little in common with the sect. Their lead- 
 ing idea, that of the spiritual efficacy of 
 external purification, He condemned. Nor 
 did He share in their superstition and mys- 
 ticism. And to Him it seemed foolish to 
 put the lamp under the bushel, as they did 
 by their withdrawal from society. 
 
 ^ Matt. 5, 34-38. ^ Hegesippus, in Euseb. ii. 23. 
 
246 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xv 
 
 The Hebrew Scriptures, the only Hte- 
 rature He had, were His constant study. 
 Their great principles of worship and right 
 doing, the feeling, in them shadowed forth, 
 of Jehovah for His people Israel, and the 
 persistent trend of law and history and 
 prophecy toward some fuller revelation of 
 His mercy, engaged and formed His mind. 
 They were, indeed, a sort of outward 
 expression of His own nature and mission. 
 And it may be that the written Word 
 served in some measure to reveal to Himself 
 the Eternal and Divine Word. 
 
 Not that any estimate of surroundings 
 can account for Jesus. 
 
 He was what He was, not because He 
 was Mary's babe, and Jewish boy, and 
 carpenter in Nazareth, but because He was 
 Son of God. The religion of Christ rests 
 neither upon Hebrew Scriptures, nor 
 Judaistic theology, nor Eoman conquest, 
 nor Grecian commerce, but upon His own 
 personality. 
 
 ' The world could only give Him what 
 He would freely take.' His observation 
 was a ' dialogue between the within and 
 the without.' ^ 
 
 ^ Keim. 
 
CH. XV INFLUENCES 247 
 
 Yet it is certain from all we know of 
 Him that He was, more than most men, 
 open to impression. If His was the 
 noblest power of will. His too was the 
 most delicate sensibility. Soul was united 
 with intelligence, heavenward aspiration 
 with delight in the material world, love of 
 God with love of man. 
 
 Strong and independent in His convic- 
 tions, He was meek and lowly of heart ; 
 unique, but most human. 
 
 Yet how little, after all, can we know. 
 Who shall venture even to imagine, much 
 less describe, the history of the mind 
 and heart of Jesus, even on its human 
 side ? The growth of the inward life ; 
 His thoughts towards man ; His thoughts 
 towards God; His knowledge of Him- 
 self ; the speaking of the Father to 
 Him — in such things as these silence is 
 our part. 
 
 ' The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
 thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
 not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
 goeth: so is everyone that is born of the 
 Spirit.' 
 
 1 John 3, 8. 
 
248 EAELY LIFE OF OUR LORD ch. xr 
 
 And so the years passed on, until John 
 came preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 
 saying, ' Eepent ye, for the kingdom of 
 heaven is at hand.' ' I indeed baptize you 
 with water unto repentance : but He that 
 Cometh after me is mightier than I, whose 
 shoes I am not worthy to bear : He shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire.' 1 
 
 Pharisee, Sadducee, tax-gatherer, soldier, 
 the hearts of all were touched by his appeal 
 to the secret longing — crusted over, perhaps, 
 with formalism or worldliness or greed or 
 sin, but smouldering still in them all — 
 the longing that the ' hope of Israel,' the 
 ' root of Jesse,' might at length really come. 
 
 He travelled northward up the Jordan 
 valley proclaiming his message, and bap- 
 tizing the multitudes who flocked to him 
 out of every city and village. And when 
 he reached Bethany, or Bethabarah,^ a well- 
 known ford only twenty miles from Nazareth,^ 
 then Jesus, seeing, perhaps, that this baptism 
 was of God, and because it became Him 
 ' to fulfil all righteousness,' went down 
 there ; and, though John protested, ' I have 
 
 ^ Matt. 3, 1, 2, 11. - John 1, 28. ^ Conder. 
 
CH. XY INFLUENCES 249 
 
 need to be baptized of Thee, and comest 
 Thou to me ? ' was baptized ; and, as He 
 came up from the water praying (perhaps 
 ' Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed 
 be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy 
 will be done '), the Spirit of God descended 
 as a dove upon Him, and a voice out of the 
 heavens said : ' Tliis is my beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased.' 
 
 The silence of the years past was broken : 
 the waiting-time was over. 
 
 Now at least, now at last. He knew who 
 He was, and what He had to do. 
 
INDEX 
 
 academies 
 Academies, 140, 141 
 Accho (Akka, Ptolemais), 71, 
 
 223, 229, 230 
 Agriculture, 85, 103, 184, 185, 
 
 209, 217-220, 227, 228 
 Alms, 164, 176, 179, 180 
 Alphabet, 44, 62 
 Amazement, 112, 141 
 Amhaarets, 48, 147 
 Amora, 172 
 
 Animals, Kindness to, 79, 80 
 Anna, 9, 194 
 Annunciation, 194 
 Antidicomarianitse, 200 
 Antipas, 14, 76, 221, 231, 237 
 Apocrypha, 62 
 Apocryphal Gospels, 74, 
 
 138-140, 199 
 Arabah, 228 
 Aramaic, 64, 145, 155, 171, 
 
 214-216 
 Archelaus, 13 
 
 Architecture, 17, 75, 221, 223 
 Arithmetic, 153 
 Ark, 163 
 
 Art, 75, 76, 105, 185 
 Artisans, 19, 105, 185, 229 
 Ascents, songs of, 95 
 
 BESOM 
 
 Asia, 229 ; Minor, 227 
 Asses, 120, 209 
 Assia, 197 
 Assyrian letters, 66 
 Atonement, Day of, 36, 92, 
 108, 208 
 
 Bachur, 26 
 
 Baking, 18, 31, 209 
 
 Barak, 224 
 
 Barley, 86, 103, 213, 227 
 
 Bar Mizveh, 93, 105, 140, 
 
 157 
 Baths, 214 
 Battauf, 222, 229 
 Battles, 237, 238 
 Beans, 88 
 Bedouins, 90 
 Beds, 19 
 Beer, 89 
 Bees, 87 
 Belus, 223 
 Bema, 163, 164 
 Benches, 164 
 Benedictions, 31, 66, 99, 173 ; 
 
 of priests, 110, 171; of 
 
 Ezra, 158, 168-170 
 Besom, 21 
 
252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 BETHABARAH 
 
 Bethabarah, 248 
 
 Bethhakeneseth, 162 
 
 Bethhatephila, 162 
 
 Bethkenicheta, 162 
 
 Bethlehem, 1 
 
 Beth Midrash (academy), 141 
 
 Bethsaida Julias, 231 
 
 Bethshean, 227, 230 
 
 Bible, 53-65 ; see also Scrip- 
 tures 
 
 Birch, 118 
 
 Birds, 77-80 
 
 Biscuits, 87, 98 
 
 Booths, 37, 95, 98 
 
 Bread, 22, 31, 34, 35, 86, 89, 
 98, 103 
 
 Breakfast, 90 
 
 Brothers of our Lord, 195- 
 202, 241 
 
 Bullocks, 102 
 
 Butter, 87 
 
 C^SAREA, 227, 230, 231 ; 
 
 (PhUippi) 222, 229, 231 
 Camels, 120, 209 
 Cana, 71, 89, 222 
 Canaan, 237 
 Cananseans, 150 
 Candles, 32, 34, 163 
 Candlestick, 163; see also 
 
 Lampstand 
 Canon of Scripture, 60, 61 
 Capernaum, 63, 229, 230, 
 
 236 
 Caravans, 95, 118 
 Carmel, 219, 223 
 Carpenter, 19, 184 
 
 DEFILEMENT 
 
 Castles, 97, 104, 222 
 Chabher, 148 
 Chairs, 19 
 
 Chastisement, 68, 132 
 Chazzan, 51, 52, 63, 171, 174 
 Children, development of, 
 
 24; treatment of, 37, 38, 
 
 132 ; games of, 73, 74, 75 
 Chimney, 18 
 Choi, 107 
 Circumcision, 3 
 Cities of Galilee, 221 ; Gen- 
 
 tUe, 231 
 Climate, 19, 88, 89 
 Cloak, 212, 213 
 Collections, alms, 179 
 Commerce of GalUee, 154, 
 
 209, 222, 227, 230; of 
 
 Greeks, 152, 232, 246; 
 
 of Phoenicians, 152 
 Congregation of Israel, 162 ; 
 
 member of, 92, 93, 157, 
 
 161 
 Cooking, 99 
 Corn, ground, 22, 209 ; green, 
 
 87 ; parched, 87, 103 
 Couches, 19, 91 
 Courts of Temple, 5, 107 
 Cup at Passover, 99, 101, 102 
 Curds, 91 
 Cushions, 19, 91 
 
 Damascus, 94, 222 
 Daniel, 61 
 Darshan, 172, 208 
 Dedication, Feast of, 32, 208 
 Defilement, 5, 177 
 
INDEX 
 
 253 
 
 DERASHAH 
 
 Derashah, 172 
 
 Dinner, 90 
 
 Diseases, 26, 236 
 
 Dogs, 80, 81 
 
 Dress, 36, 71, 72, 211-213 
 
 Drink, 89, 90 
 
 Drugs in wine, 89 
 
 Egypt, 12, 13, 230 
 
 El Battaiif, 229 
 
 Elem, 26 
 
 Elijah, 224 
 
 Engaddi, 150 
 
 Enoch, book of, 61 
 
 Esdraelon, 15, 71, 83, 219 
 
 Essenes, 105, 149, 192, 244 
 
 Esther, 197 
 
 Exclusiveness of Jews, 151 
 
 Ezekias, 150 
 
 Ezra, 145, 158, 161, 168 
 
 Family love, 38, 39 
 
 Fasts, 34, 36, 176, 178, 179 ; 
 
 observed by Jesus, 92, 140, 
 
 176, 179 
 Father, goodness of, 42, 136 ; 
 
 duties of, 47, 48, 182 
 Festivals, 32-37, 47, 56, 140, 
 
 181, 236; Passover, 98-103 
 Figs, 96, 220 
 FUial piety, 40-42 
 Fhe, 18, 20, 86, 224 
 First-fruits, 103 ; feast of, 35, 
 
 36 
 Fish, 88, 220, 221 
 Flax, 105, 228 
 Flesh meat, 88 
 
 GLEANINGS 
 
 Flour, 21, 22, 87 
 Flowers, 15, 218 
 Food, 55, 86-91 
 Fowls, 80 
 Foxes, 82 
 
 Fruit, 88, 96, 99, 218, 220 
 Funeral in play, 73, 74 
 Furnitiure, 19 
 
 Gaba, 231 
 
 Gadara, 230 
 
 Galilaeans, character, 236, 
 
 237,242; ideas, 141,234; 
 
 religion, 176, 234, 235; 
 
 patriotism, 150, 233, 234, 
 
 236,238; speech, 215, 216; 
 
 despised, 116, 232, 233 
 Galilee, population, 225, 226; 
 
 produce, 217, 218, 220, 227, 
 
 232; prosperity, 226-229; 
 
 trade-routes, 154, 228 
 Gamaliel, 114, 141, 182 
 Games, of children, 73, 74 ; 
 
 of chance, 77 ; public, 76, 
 
 231 
 Gamul, 25 
 
 Gardens, 15, 96, 209, 219 
 Garlick, 88 
 
 Gates of Temple, 7, 107 
 Gaza, 230 
 Gemara, 69, 141 
 Gennesareth, 219 
 Gilboa, 219 
 Gilead, 219 
 Girdle, 212, 213 
 Gischala, 227 
 Gleanings, 179 
 
254 
 
 INDEX 
 
 GLOKIA 
 
 Gloria in excelsis, 3 
 
 Goats, 83, 95, 102 
 
 Gospels, Apocryphal, 74, 138, 
 199 
 
 Grace at meat, 31, 91 
 
 Grapes, 220 
 
 Gravy, 88 
 
 Greek art, 76; coins, 155, 
 232 ; commerce, 105, 152, 
 232, 246; language, 65, 
 154, 156, 231 (see also 
 Septuagint) ; literature, 
 154, 233; residents, 76, 
 231 
 
 Growth of Jesus, 136, 137 
 
 Haggadah, 146 
 
 Hagiographa, 60 
 
 Haifa, 223 
 
 Hair, 98, 213 
 
 Halakhah, 145, 235 
 
 HaUel, 58, 100-102 
 
 Haphtarah, 172 
 
 Harash, 184 
 
 Harvest, 35, 37, 103 
 
 Head of family, 100 
 
 Hebrew language, 64, 66, 
 145, 155, 171, 214 
 
 Hellenes, 231, 233 ; see also 
 Greeks, and Western cus- 
 toms 
 
 Helvidius, 200 
 
 Herbs, 31, 34, 99 
 
 Hermon, 219, 222 
 
 Herod (the Great), 1, 11, 12, 
 13, 76, 108, 112, 119, 223, 
 231,237; (Antipas),14,76, 
 
 JAMES 
 
 221,222,231,237; (PhiUp) 
 
 222 
 High-priest, 108 
 HiUel, 53, 114, 141, 150, 183 
 Hills, 222, 223 
 Hippos, 221, 230 
 Hu-am, 227 
 
 History of Joseph, 196, 199 
 HoUdays, 68, 103 
 Home, love of, 38 
 Honey, 87, 89 
 Hospitality at Passover, 97 
 Houses, 16, 17, 18, 223; of 
 
 rich, 17, 96 
 Humanity of Jesus, 136, 247 
 Hymns, 95 
 
 Influences on Jesus, 116; 
 home life, 240 ; school and 
 services, 241 ; nature, 241 ; 
 society, 242 ; rehgious 
 parties, 242-245 ; Scrip- 
 tures, 246 
 
 Ink, 66 
 
 Innocents 'slaughtered in 
 Bethlehem, 3 
 
 Inspiration of Scriptures, 
 53, 144 
 
 Interpreter, 171, 172 
 
 Isaiah read by Jesus, 59, 63, 
 172 
 
 Israel, greatness of, 151 ; 
 hopes for, 148, 246 
 
 Israelite, Jesus an, 58, 174 
 
 James (the brother of our 
 Lord), 150, 164, 195-202, 
 243, 245 
 
INDEX 
 
 266 
 
 JAMES 
 
 James, Gospel of, 199 
 Jeled, 24 
 Jericho, 77 
 
 Jerusalem, 77, 88, 94, 96-99, 
 104, 105, 109, 236; see 
 also Temple 
 Jesus, birth, 2; circumcision, 
 3 ; the name, 4 ; redemp- 
 tion, 6 ; Simeon and 
 Anna's words, 8-10 ; visit 
 of Magi, 10, 11 ; in Egypt, 
 12 ; at Nazareth, 14 ; 
 weaning, 25 ; at school, 
 50 ; Bar Mizveh, 93 ; in 
 Temple, 106-117, 122- 
 127; in Synagogue, 63, 
 160, 173, 174 ; trade, 184- 
 187; baptism, 248, 249; 
 His reading, 54, 57-68, 
 174 ; writing, 67 ; lan- 
 guage, 64, 65, 66; know- 
 ledge of Scriptures, 57-68, 
 144 ; use of symbols, 159 ; 
 Jesus and animals, 79-82 ; 
 His observation, 77-85, 
 143, 174, 190, 209, 240, 
 242, 247 ; relations with 
 Mary, 121, 192, 193, 200 ; 
 brethren, 202; woman, 
 191, 192; John, 152; Law, 
 140, 157, 176; Essenes, 
 244, 245; Pharisees, 242; 
 Scribes, 134, 141-143, 178, 
 243; Zealots, 243, 244;, 
 not understood, 129, 190, 
 191; almsgiving, 180; 
 development, 136, 137, 189, 
 
 JUDAISM 
 
 239 ; divinity, 46, 124, 135 
 190, 247; humanity, 136 
 247; kindliness, 180, 210 
 lowliness, 115, 129, 189 
 194, 202, 207, 208, 247 
 interest in man, 205, 207 
 208, 210; patriotism, 58 
 174; prayer, 158-160, 241 
 reflectiveness, 144, 240 
 simplicity, 206 ; sociability 
 144, 191, 206, 241; sub 
 mission, 132-136, 189, 248 
 249; wide sympathy, 204 
 205, 234, 242; interest in 
 worship, 106, 113, 122-127, 
 174, 241 ; see also In- 
 fluences 
 Jezreel, 224, 230 
 John Baptist, 89, 152, 248 
 Jonek, 24 
 Joppa, 94 
 
 Joseph enrolled, 1 ; royal 
 descent, 5 ; in Egypt, 12, 
 13 ; at Passover, 35, 93, 
 117-122, 127 ; as teacher, 
 47, 48 ; character, 42, 122, 
 136, 240, 241 ; death, 186 ; 
 History of, 196, 199 
 Josephus quoted, 67, 98, 112, 
 
 221, 225 
 Joses, 195-202 
 Jot, 66 
 Jotapata, 227 
 
 Judseans, . religion of, 116, 
 117, 175, 235; pride and 
 prejudice, 116, 176, 234 
 Judaism, 144-152, 161, 246 
 
256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 JUDAS 
 
 Judas (the Galilaean), 143, 
 150, 237 ; (the brother of 
 our Lord), 195-202 
 
 Justin Martyr quoted, 184 
 
 Justus, 196 
 
 Juvenal quoted, 151 
 
 Kedron, 103, 109 
 Kefr Chananyah, 228 
 Kishon, 223 
 
 Lambs, 93, 95, 98, 99, 102, 
 
 110, 206 
 Lamp, 20, 31, 37, 163 ; stand, 
 
 20 
 Languages ; see Aramaic, 
 
 Greek, Hebrew, Latin 
 Latin, 154, 156 
 Law, 22, 28, 29, 36, 147, 159, 
 
 161, 163, 171; inspired, 
 
 53, 54 ; read in school, 58 ; 
 
 observed by Jesus, 140, 
 
 157, 176 
 Leaven, 98 
 Leeks, 88 
 Lentils, 88 
 Lessons, 28-37, 43-70; (in 
 
 services) 171, 172 
 Letters, Hebrew, 66 
 Levites, 107, 109, 110 
 Leviticus, 54-57 
 Library, 62, 63, 174 
 Light, 20, 31, 37, 163 
 Lights, Feast of, 31 
 Linen, 105, 228 
 Literature, 153, 154 
 Liturgy, 165-171 
 
 MILK 
 
 Locusts as food, 89 
 Lots, Feast of, 33, 34 
 Luke, 194 
 Lydia, 197 
 
 Magdala, 236 
 
 Magi, 10, 11 
 
 Magnificat, 194 
 
 Manhood, when reached, 93 
 
 Manuscript ; see Reading- 
 books, Rolls 
 
 Market days, 164 
 
 Marriage, 73, 89, 187, 234 
 
 Mary (the mother of our 
 Lord), 1, 2, 4-10, 72; as 
 teacher, 27-39, 43-47 ; 
 character, 39, 122, 240; 
 at Passover, 93, 117-122, 
 127 ; attitude towards 
 Jesus, 121, 192, 193, 200 ; 
 perpetual virginity, 197, 
 200 ; (sister of our Lord), 
 197 
 
 Mathematics, 153 
 
 Mattocks, 185 
 
 Meals, 31, 90, 91, 97, 209 
 
 Measure, 20 
 
 Megiddo, 224 
 
 Memory, training of, 44, 45, 
 53 
 
 Messiah, hope of, 38, 144, 
 152, 248 ; Rabbinic ideas 
 of, 148 
 
 Mesusah, 22, 28, 46, 65 
 
 Meturgeman, 171, 172 
 
 Midian, 237 
 
 Milk, 87 
 
INDEX 
 
 257 
 
 MILL 
 
 Mill, 21, 209 
 
 Mishnah, 45, 60, 67, 69, 146, 
 
 178 
 Moab, 238 
 Modelling, 75 
 Money, changing, 104, 107 ; 
 
 Greek, 154, 232 
 Mother, influence of, 39, 240, 
 
 241 ; first teacher, 28, 43- 
 
 47 
 Mountains, 222, 223 
 Mules, 209 
 Music, 37, 73, 95 ; in Temple 
 
 worship, 76, 107, 110; 
 
 prizes for, 76 
 
 Naar, 26 
 
 Nain, 229 
 
 Naming of the child, 4 
 
 Naphtali, 237 
 
 Nathanael, 206, 232 
 
 Nature, Jesus' interest in, 
 77-85, 242 
 
 Nazareth, 14, 15, 130, 236, 
 248 ; beauty of, 83 ; popu- 
 lation of, 226 ; a priest- 
 centre, 236 ; travellers 
 through, 71 ; view from, 16, 
 217, 219, 222-225 ; well of, 
 71, 130 
 
 Neeman, 148 
 
 New Town, 96 
 
 New Year, 36, 163 
 
 Nicodemus, 114, 232 
 
 Nisan, 34, 98, 103 
 
 Nimc Dimittis, 8 
 
 PHOENICIA 
 
 Nurse, 26 
 
 Object Lessons, 28 
 Offering: at purification, 5, 
 
 111 ; for sin, 54, 111 ; aa 
 
 thanks, 102, 111 
 Ofiicials (Jewish), see Chaz- 
 
 zan, Rulers, Sanhedrin, 
 
 Levites, Priests, Scribes ; 
 
 (Eoman), 211, 231, 234 
 Oil, 20, 227 
 Olel, 25 
 
 Olives, 96, 209, 218, 220, 227 
 Onions, 88 
 
 Orchards, 96, 218, 220 
 Origen quoted, 115 
 Oven, 18, 86 
 Oxen, 209 
 
 Painting, 75 
 
 Palaces, 97, 209, 222 
 
 Palm-trees, 220 
 
 Pancakes, 87 
 
 Paper, 67 
 
 Passover, 34, 35, 89, 98-103 
 
 208 
 Patriotism of Galilaeans, 150 
 
 233, 234, 236; of Jesus 
 
 32, 58, 174, 224, 244; o 
 
 Jews, 109, 150-152 
 Paul, in synagogue, 172, 173 
 Pentateuch, 58 
 Peter, Gospel of, 199 
 Pharisees, 31, 105, 147, 149 
 
 174, 175, 176, 178, 248 
 Phoenicia, 94, 152, 227, 229, 
 
 230 
 
 S 
 
258 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PHYLACTERIES 
 
 Phylacteries, 31, 46, 65, 105, 
 
 165 ; worn by Jesus, 92, 
 
 140, 159 
 Pilgrims, 95, 118, 236 
 Play, 68, 73, 74 
 Ploughs, 185, 218 
 Poor, Mary and Joseph, 5 ; 
 
 in synagogue, 164 ; aided, 
 
 179 
 Porches, 106, 108, 168 
 Porridge, 91 
 Possession, 236 
 Pottery, 19, 20, 105, 228 
 Prayer, family, 31, 209; 
 
 morning, 104, 157, 158; 
 
 evening, 111, 158, 167 
 Precocity, 105, 112 
 Priests, 56, 104, 144, 149; 
 
 duties of, 99, 109, 147,236; 
 
 of Baal, 224 
 Produce of Galilee, 221, 227, 
 
 232 
 Prophets, 59, 60, 172, 243 
 Proselytes, 164 
 Psalms, read by Jesus, 60, 
 
 61 ; sung, 95, 96, 100-102 
 Ptolemais, 71, 223, 229, 230 
 Purification, 55, 176, 177, 
 
 245 ; of mother, 4, 5 ; see 
 
 also Washings 
 Purim, 33, 208 
 
 Questions of children, 37, 
 48, 53, 100, 112 
 
 Eabbis, 6, 7, 111, 113, 146, 
 150, 156, 233, 236 ; heard 
 
 SAMUEL 
 
 by Jesus, 69, 141, 143, 235 ; 
 
 respect for, 146, 147 ; 
 
 sayings of, 45, 65, 140, 141, 
 
 145, 173, 175, 176, 179, 
 
 227; schools of, 140; 
 
 theology of, 116, 117, 141, 
 
 148, 235 
 Eeaders in synagogue, 171 
 Eeading-books, 52, 53, 58, 
 
 62 
 Redemption of first-born, 6 
 Eehshes, 88, 91, 99 
 Eetired life of Jesus, 137, 138 
 Eeverence taught, 40, 41 
 Eitual, 54, 55, 109-111, 165- 
 
 175, 243 
 Eoads, 15, 94, 229 
 Eobbers, 119 
 Eobertson quoted, 117 
 EoU of parchment, 22, 57, 
 
 62, 67, 92 
 Eoman dominion, 151, 226, 
 
 230, 238, 246 ; ensign, 231 ; 
 
 garrison, 104,231,234,238; 
 
 residents, 76, 221 
 Eulers of synagogue, 164, 
 
 165 
 
 Sabbath, 31, 56, 164 
 Sacrifice, 54, 55, 57, 104, 111, 
 
 225 
 Sadducees, 149, 248 
 Salome, 197 
 Salt, 88 
 Samaria, 219, 230 ; see also 
 
 Sebaste 
 Samuel, 196 
 
INDEX 
 
 2S9 
 
 SANDALS 
 
 Sandals, 213 
 
 Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, 111 ; 
 local, 164, 165 
 
 Sauces, 88, 91, 99 
 
 School, 50-70, 174 
 
 Science, 153 
 
 Scribes, writers, 66, 144 ; rise 
 of, 145-147 ; see also 
 Rabbis 
 
 Scriptures, in Hebrew, 155, 
 156 ; history of, 60, 61, 144, 
 145 ; known by Jesus, 45, 
 63, 64, 68, 246; read in 
 schools, 53, 57-62 ; read in 
 synagogue, 63, 65 ; rever- 
 ence for, 44, 45, 53, 54. 
 
 Sculpture, 75, 76 
 
 Scythopolis ; see Bethshean 
 
 Sea (of Galilee), 219-221; 
 (Mediterranean), 223 
 
 Seats, 19, 164 
 
 Sebaste, 231 
 
 Sepharim, 163 
 
 Sepphoris, 221, 222, 228,230, 
 236 
 
 Septuagint, 13, 65, 155, 156 
 
 Sermons, 173, 235 
 
 Servants, 91 
 
 Shammai, 150, 243 
 
 Sharon, 224 
 
 Sheep, 82, 83 
 
 Shekhinah, 151, 169 
 
 Sheliach zibbur, 165 
 
 Shema, 46, 57, 65, 157, 165, 
 166 
 
 Shepherds, 3, 82, 83 
 
 Ships, 221, 223 
 
 SYNAGOGUE 
 
 Shoes, 213 
 
 Shops, 16, 97, 104 
 
 Sichin, 228 
 
 Sidon, 229 
 
 Simeon, 8, 114, 194 
 
 Simon (brother of our Lord), 
 
 150, 195-202, 237, 244 
 Sin, 54, 57 
 
 Singing, 78, 95, 100, 110 
 Sinners, 176 
 Sisters of our Lord, 195-202, 
 
 241 
 Soap, 214 
 Social position of Mary and 
 
 Joseph, 5 
 Soldiers, 210, 212, 224, 231, 
 
 248 
 Solomon, 227 
 Sopherira, 141 ; see also 
 
 Eabbis and Scribes 
 Soreg, 107 
 Spades, 185, 218 
 Spices, 31 
 Spinning, 209 
 Sports ; see Games 
 Streets of Nazareth, 16, 209 ; 
 
 of Jerusalem, 97, 104, 105 
 Sudar, 211, 213 
 Supper, 90 
 Symbols, 27,28,31, 32, 34, 
 
 36, 163 
 Synagogue, books of, 63 ; 
 
 description of, 163 ; history 
 
 of, 161 ; Jesus in, 63, 160, 
 
 173, 174 ; names of, 162 ; 
 
 model for church, 173, 175 ; 
 
 services of, 36, 158, 160, 
 
260 
 
 INDEX 
 
 SYRIA 
 
 164-174 : various, 104, 
 
 221 
 Syria, 230 
 Syrians, 227, 229, 230 
 
 Tabernacles, Feast of, 36, 
 
 37, 181, 208 
 Tabor, 219, 224, 230 
 Tacitus quoted, 151 
 Talmud, 45, 50, 69, 141, 146, 
 
 215 
 Taph, 26 
 
 Tarichaea, 77, 221, 236 
 Tassels, 27, 159, 212 
 Taxes, 134,228,248 
 Teething, 26 
 
 Temple (at Jerusalem), de- 
 scription, 97, 106-108 ; 
 eagle, 76, 231 ; reverence 
 for, 109, 151 ; services, 
 109; tax, 134; vine, 75; 
 visit of Mary, 5-10 ; visit 
 of Jesus, 106-117 
 Temples, 221, 223 
 Tents ; see Booths 
 TephUlin, 31, 46, 105, 159 
 Tetrarch ; see Herod 
 Thamar, 197 
 Thank-offerings, 102 
 Theatres, 77 
 Tiberias, 76, 77, 221, 229, 
 
 230, 231 
 Tisri, 36 
 Tithes, 179 
 Tittle, 66 
 Tools, 19, 185 
 
 WESTERN 
 
 Torah, 58, 157, 163, 171 ; see 
 
 also Law 
 Trades, 182, 183, 184; see 
 
 also Commerce 
 Trees, 15, 218, 219, 220, 224 
 Tribute, 228 
 Trumpets, for alms, 107, 110 ; 
 
 of synagogue, 163 ; of 
 
 Temple, 99, 104, 108 
 Tsitsith, 27, 159, 212 
 Tunic, 211 
 Turban, 211, 213 
 Tyre, 227, 229; see also 
 
 Phoenicia 
 
 Uncleanness, 5, 177 
 
 Vegetables, 88 
 
 Vespasian, 238 
 
 View from Nazareth, 16, 217, 
 
 219, 222-225 
 Vinegar, 88, 89, 99 
 Vines, 209, 218, 220 
 
 Walnut-tree, 220 
 Ware, 19, 20, 228 
 Washings, 31, 91, 98, 177, 
 
 178, 214, 245 
 Water, 89, 90 ; jars, 21, 91 
 Weaning, 25, 26 
 Weather, 84 
 Weaving, 105, 209, 228 
 Weeks, Feast of, 35, 36, 181, 
 
 208 
 WeU, 17, 47, 71, 72, 209 
 Western art, 75, 76, 281; 
 
 customs, 77, 90, 231, 233 
 
INDEX 
 
 261 
 
 WHEAT 
 
 Wheat, 86, 227, 228 
 
 Windows, 18 
 
 Wine, 21, 89, 227 ; and water, 
 
 89, 99, 101 
 . Wolves, 82 
 
 Woman, position of, 38 ; 
 work of, 21, 22, 26, 38, 43, 
 72, 86, 228; at Passover, 
 93 ; in synagogue, 163, 
 165 ; in Temple, 107 
 
 Words of the Scribes, 145 
 
 ZION 
 
 Work, 182, 183 
 World, 230 
 
 Worship ; see Hellenes, Syna- 
 gogue, Temple 
 Writing, 66, 67 
 
 Zabulon (town), 223 
 Zealots, 150, 237 
 Zebulon (tribe), 237 
 Zion, 97 
 
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