where the Rabbis and those learned in the law were wont to assemble for teaching or argument Jesus was in the midst of them asking questions, and answering those put to Him by the astonished Rabbis, who had not expected much understanding from this boy from Galilee. His parents themselves were amazed when they saw Him there; and Mary, who seems to have had no difficulty in approaching Him, spoke to Him chidingly.
‘Son,’ she said, ‘why hast Thou dealt thus with us? behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.’
The question fell upon Him as the first dimness upon the glory and gladness of His sojourn in the Temple. The poor home at Nazareth, His father Joseph, the carpenter’s shop, the daily work, pressed back upon Him in the place of the Temple music, the prayer, the daily sacrifice. There they stood, His supposed father, weary with the long search, and His mother looking at Him with sorrowful, reproaching eyes. He was ready to go back with them, but He could not go without a pang.
‘How is it that ye sought me?’ He asked, sadly; ‘did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’
But He had not come to this earth to dwell in His father’s house; and He must leave it now, only to revisit it from, time to time. ‘He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.’
Eighteen more years, years of monotonous labour, did Jesus live in Nazareth. Changes came to His home as well as to others. Joseph died, and left His mother altogether dependent upon Him. Galilee was still governed by Herod Antipas; but in Judea the King Archelaus had been dethroned, and the country was made a province of Rome, under Roman governors. This had happened whilst Jesus was a boy, and a rebellion had been attempted under a leader called Judas of Galilee, which had caused great excitement Though it had been put down by the Romans, there still remained a party, secretly popular, who used every effort to free their country from the Roman yoke. So strong had grown the longing for the Messiah, that a number of the people were ready to embrace the cause of any leader, who would claim that title, and lead them against their enemies and masters.
There was a numerous class of His fellow-countrymen to whom Jesus must have been naturally drawn during His youth, and to whom He may have attached Himself for a time. This was the sect of the Pharisees, noble and patriotic as our Puritans were, in the beginning; and at all times living a frugal and devout life, in fair contrast with the Sadducees, who were wealthy, luxurious, and indifferent The Pharisees were mostly of the middle classes; and their ceaseless devotion to religion gave them great authority among the common people. To the child Jesus they must have appeared nearer to God than any other class. There were among them two parties: one following a Rabbi of the name of Hillel, who was a gentle, cautious, tolerant man, averse to making enemies, and of a most merciful and forgiving disposition. Some say that he began to teach only thirty years before the birth of Christ; and it is certainly amongst his disciples that Jesus found some friends and followers. The second party was that of Shammai, who differed from the other in numberless ways. They were well known for their fierceness and jealousy, for stirring up the people against any one they hated, and for shrinking from no bloodshed in furthering their religious views. They were scrupulous about the fulfilment of the most trivial laws which had come down to them through tradition. These had grown so numerous through the lapse of centuries, that it was scarcely possible to live for an hour without breaking some commandment.
Yet among the Pharisees there were many right-minded and noble men, to whom Jesus must have been attracted. ‘The only true Pharisee,’ said the Talmud, that collection of traditions which they held to be of equal authority with the Scriptures—‘the only true Pharisee is he who does the will of his Father which is in heaven because he loves Him. Such Pharisees, when He met with them, as He did meet with them, won His love and approbation. It was the ‘Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites whom He hated.
BOOK II.
THE PROPHET.
CHAPTER I.
JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Jesus was about thirty years of age when a rumour reached Nazareth of a prophet who had appeared in Judea. It was more than four hundred years since a prophet had arisen; but it was well known that Elias must come before Messiah as His forerunner. Such a prophet was now baptizing in Jordan; and all Judea and Jerusalem itself were sending multitudes to be baptized by him. Before long his name was known: it was John, the son of Elisabeth, Mary’s cousin, whose birth had taken place six months before that of Jesus.
We have no reason to suppose that any person living at this time, except Mary, knew Jesus to be the Son of God. Those who had known it were Joseph, Zacharias, and Elisabeth; and all these were dead. John, to whom we might suppose his parents would tell the mysterious secret, says expressly that he did not know Him to be the Messiah until it was revealed to him from heaven. He was familiar with his cousin Jesus, and felt himself, with all his stern, rigid life in the wilderness, to be unworthy to stoop down and unloose the latchet of His sandals; although he was a priest, who was known throughout the land as a prophet, and Jesus was merely a village carpenter, whose life had been a common life of toil amidst His comrades. Mary alone knew her son to be the promised Messiah; and though the long years may somewhat have dulled her hopes, they flamed up again suddenly when the news came that John the forerunner had begun to preach ‘The kingdom of God is at hand,’ and that multitudes, even of the Pharisees, were flocking to his baptism, so to enlist themselves as subjects of the new kingdom.
But this news did not make any change in our Lord. There was not less tenderness and pity in His heart when He lived among His neighbours in Nazareth than when He healed the sick who came to Him from every quarter. Neither was there any more ambition in His spirit when He passed from town to town, amid a throng of followers, than when He climbed up into the loneliness of the mountains about His village home. How could He be touched by any earthly ambition, who knew Himself to be not only a Son of God, but the only-begotten Son of the Father? He had been waiting through these quiet, homely years for the call to come, and now He was ready to quit all, with the words in His heart, ‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God!’
It may well be that Mary went with Him a little way on His road towards Jordan, on that wintry morning, when He quitted His workshop, and the familiar streets of Nazareth, to dwell in them no more. There was no surprise to her in what had come to pass; but there must have been a thrill of exultation mingled with fear. He had been her son all these years, but now He was to belong, not to her, but to the nation. What sorrow and triumph must have been in her heart when at last He bade her farewell, and she watched Him as long as He was in sight, clad in the robe she had woven for Him without seam, like the robe of a priest Was He not a priest and a king already to her?
It was winter, and though not cold in the valley of the Jordan, the heavy and continuous rains must have dispersed the multitudes that had gone out to John, leaving him almost in solitude once more. There could have been no crowd of spectators when Jesus was baptized. Yet even in January there are mild and sunny days when He and John might have gone down into the river for the significant rite which was to mark the beginning of His new career. But John would not at first consent to baptize his cousin Jesus, declaring that it would be more fit for himself to be baptized by one whose life had been holier and happier than his own. The rich and powerful and pious Pharisees John had sent away with rebukes, yet when Jesus came from Galilee, he forbade Him.
But Jesus would not take his refusal For some months John had been waiting for a sign promised to him from heaven, which should point out to him the true Messiah; and the people of the land looked to him to show them the Christ, whose kingdom he was proclaiming. Now, after he had baptized his cousin in the waters of the Jordan, already troubled with the rains from the mountains, and they were coming up again out of the river, he saw the pale, wintry sky above them opening,