Of the early life of Jesus very little is known. He never referred to it Himself, and two of the four Gospels are silent regarding it. He must have known, of course, the place of His birth, but He never spoke of it. One of the objections made to the validity of the claims He put forth was that He was not born in that part of the nation where, as a matter of fact, He was born; but neither He nor His disciples ever corrected the erroneous impression that prevailed (John 7: 41, 42, 52). He never mentioned, in the records of His life which are preserved, the wonderful stories of the manner of His birth which are told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke; nor is any allusion made to it in the other writings of the New Testament.
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| Jesus in the temple as a child. |
We know, however, that He made His home with the humble people who were known as His father and mother (Matt. 13: 55) in a little country village in the province of Galilee, and there grew up (Luke 4:16). There are few places better than such a village for the strong and true development of a life. Its interests are not so pretentious and extensive as those of city life, but they are deep and thoughtful. In such surroundings the power of true vision and honest action is not discouraged as in a city by the conventional conceptions which obscure the truth, and the life of personal irresponsibility which leads to the toleration of that which is questionable or wrong. No rugged prophet was ever produced by city life. In the simple social life of a country town, with its sympathy, its purity, its kindliness, its blunt honesty, Jesus grew up, an integral part of the community life as no boy is in a city.
He was from the beginning, evidently, an observant boy. He studied the life of His town, and He took special delight in the unending beauty of mountain and river and sea, and the vast instruction of plants and flowers, of sky and cloud, of bird and beast.
His home was one of the best class of the simple homes of the poor. It preserved, evidently, the primitive godliness of the nation. His parents (Luke 2: 48) were of the most devout spirit (Matt. 1:19 ; Luke 1: 46-55), free from the bigotry which reigned in Judea, and not contaminated by the laxity of Galilee, which was to Judaism "the court of the Gentiles," and which presented the temptations of foreign life as introduced by the Gentile traders on their constant visits, and by a large foreign community in the Decapolis. It was nevertheless the province "of generous spirits, of warm, impulsive hearts, of intense nationalism, of simple manners, and of earnest piety" (Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. I, pp. 223, 225).
Jesus was the eldest child in the family. He had four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matt. 13: 55 ; Mark v6: 3), and at least two sisters (Matt. 13: 56). Joseph, His mother's husband, seems to have died before Jesus entered upon public life, and He may have been called upon even in His youth to share with His mother the cares of the home (John 2:12). If Edersheim's view of the opinions of James and Jude and of the relationship of Simon Zelotes to Jesus be correct, then in His own home circle Jesus must have felt the influence of the three purest Jewish tendencies: the earnestness of the Shammaites represented in James, the buoyancy of the Messianic watchers represented in Jude, and the fervor of the nationalist idea represented in His cousin, Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15). Stronger than all such influences, however, must have been the force of His mother's example and teaching. Everything indicates that she was one of those rare women whose glory it is to prepare a noble life, losing themselves in it, and desiring to be glorified only in its usefulness (Heb. 11: 40).
Jesus did not have what was regarded as a liberal education, the Pharisees of Jerusalem counted this a reproach (John 7:15), but what educational advantages Nazareth afforded were doubtless placed at His disposal. There was, of course, a village school, to which He was probably sent after he had reached the age of six (Geikie, The Life of Christ, p. 173); but much of His training He must have received at home from His mother. Early in life He learned to read and write. He must have been an eager scholar, for besides Aramaic, which was the vernacular of the Jews (Matt. 5: 41), and Greek, which was widely used, especially in Galilee, and which He Himself used in His teaching, He also mastered Hebrew a dead language in His day, but the vestment of the Old Testament Scriptures, which He was a close and earnest student. Up to his tenth year it was held that the Bible should be the exclusive text-book of a Jewish boy; from ten to fifteen the Mishnah should the chief text-book; and after the age of fifteen the higher theological discussions were open to him. Jesus' public life, when He had no opportunity whatever for study, showed a mastery of all branches of a Jewish boy's education, which was proof of careful training in His early days.
Even if His family had not been very poor, Jesus would probably have learned a trade. It was a good Jewish custom. Jesus followed the trade of Joseph and became a carpenter (Mark 6 : 3). Justin Martyr says He made plows and yokes, and we must believe, from the character of His later work, that they were very excellent plows and yokes which were turned out from His shop.
Wandering along the Sea of Galilee or over the hills; watching the blue sky, the springing flowers, the husbandman and the shepherd; in the shop of Joseph, in the home of Mary, and in the school of Nazareth, Jesus spent His childhood. "And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him" (Luke 2: 40).
At the age of twelve came an experience, the story of which is the only direct information we have of all the sweet life of these thirty years (Luke 2: 41-51). He was taken to Jerusalem to attend the Passover. Strictly, He did not be come a " son of the law " until the age of thirteen, but the legal age was often anticipated by a year or two. Upon becoming a "son of the law," the young Jew began regularly to observe the ceremonial law and to attend the three great festivals. It was therefore a solemn epoch in Jesus' life. Moreover, this was probably Jesus' first visit to Jerusalem since He was taken there as a babe from Bethlehem. For the first time the boy from Nazareth of Galilee, with its freedom and sweet air and sky, and the liberal, loving life of Mary's home, was brought into contact with the formalized religious life of His nation: the Holy City of David, kept scrupulously free from all ceremonial uncleanness; and the mighty, in violate Temple, thronged now with the tens and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who, from many lands and many thousands of cities had come up to worship at Jerusalem. It must have been a wonderful sight to Jesus, and have quickened all the pulses within Him. Yet, though He was a country boy, the strange sights had no fascination for Him not even the historic places made famous by the stories with which His mother had made His heart swell with the pride of His famous nation in the twilight of the Sabbath evenings in Nazareth. His boyish meditations had already carried Him beyond the outward show, and He spent His days at the Temple listening to the doctors. So interested was He in what He heard that He remained behind when the rest of the party left Jerusalem on their way home. When they sought Him, He was found in the midst of a group in the Temple, earnestly asking questions of the learned men, who at the Passover came out of the Sanhedrin and taught the people colloquially, and as earnestly explaining to them His own boyish opinions, to their amazement and delight; for there was about Him nothing forward or impertinent, but only the intense eagerness of a child to whom God had given serious vision, and from whom a wise mother had withheld folly.
When they sought Jesus, Joseph and Mary were surprised to find Him so engaged. They had taken it for granted that He was among the other children of their caravan. He had evidently kept to Himself, in the years at Nazareth, the grave thoughts and questions which the fascination of the Temple, and the wise and not unkindly doctors, had encouraged Him to express. When His mother, with some reproof, asked Him for an explanation of His conduct, He replied that He did not think it was necessary to make a search for Him; that He might have been expected to be in His Father's house, about His Father's business. It was a strange reply, one which His parents did not understand. But He went at once with them back to Nazareth, where He was subject to them, though His mother kept in mind and heart His strange conduct and words at Jerusalem, and wondered at His unlikeness to other boys who had gone up with them, and who had spent their time in seeing the wonderful sights of the great city.
In Nazareth He seems to have resumed again the old life, though year by year He must have shown the growth which ended in His appearance as the One whom the Baptist heralded. His religious life was deepening, broadening, strengthening, gathering volume and fullness, rising up into the infinite comprehension of His first public utterances. He evidently spent much time in the little synagogue of Nazareth, whose rabbi knew Him, and where He probably had access to rolls of the Old Testament Scriptures, which neither Joseph nor He had money to buy for use in their own home. He was one of the readers or expositors at the Monday, Thursday, and Sabbath services in the synagogue, and when He came back to Nazareth, at the beginning of His public life, was at once invited to read and explain some passage of Scripture (Luke 4: 1-6).
His growth after His first visit to Jerusalem was as quiet and symmetrical as before. He "advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2: 52).
This is a most attractive picture of a young life. It is represented as perfectly normal and quiet. The silly apocryphal accounts of Jesus' childhood given in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy (The Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 8., pp. 405 ff.) are wholly foreign to the spirit of the authentic story. Yet the temptation to introduce overstatements and exaggerations is irresistible to all who write an account of such a childhood, except those who, as personal witnesses, are telling a story of fact. Even Josephus introduces such elements into his account of the childhood of Moses (Works, book 2., chap, 9., 6, 7). But Jesus, beginning life, as the gospels represent, as a perfect child, yet began it as a perfect child:
"He comes, but not in regal splendor drest
The haughty diadem, the Tynan vest;
Not armed in flame, all glorious from afar,
Of hosts the Captain, and the Lord of war"
but as a simple Galilean child.
That the influences which surrounded Jesus' childhood, and His early training in the freedom of open air and the liberty of a loving home, will explain some of the features of His life and conduct, will be plain; but whether they in any way account for Him will be more manifest after a study of His plans and methods of work, the traits of His character, His bearing and the bearing of others toward Him in the relations of life, His extraordinary personality, His conduct in the persecution which ended in His unjust death, and His posthumous influence. Robert E. Speer
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