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pain? Your father and I have been seeking you throughout the city, with almost broken hearts!" But he answered quietly, as one who feels that his answer leaves no room for blame : 66 But, mother, why did you not come straight to the temple? Did you not know that I must be in my heavenly Father's house?" 1

They did not understand his words. The child had outgrown his parents. But, at any rate, they had found the dear one they had lost; and, without thinking of opposing them, without so much as asking leave to stay a little longer in the place he found so fascinating, Jesus followed them. Then they began their homeward journey in earnest; and neither then nor in after years as long as he remained beneath his parents' roof, did he ever fail in respect or obedience, or give them the smallest cause to complain of him. This event made a deep impression, especially upon Mary. When she thought it all over afterwards, she felt that some great destiny must surely be in store for her son.

No one can say that this story is impossible. The remarkable and early development of intellectual and religious power it is meant to illustrate is far from improbable. Similar traits have been observed in the childhood of far less mighty spirits than that of Jesus, and the Israelitish boys were well instructed in the Law. To take a single instance: Josephus tells us that when he himself was about fourteen years old his diligence was universally commended, and that the high priests and chief men of Jerusalem constantly came to him for exact information and guidance in cases of difficulty! This is doubtless an exaggeration, and a specimen of the historian's ridiculous vanity (excessive modesty was never one of his failings), but it shows at least that it was considered nothing unnatural for a mere boy to be a kind of authority on points of learning. Similar stories are told by other contemporaneous authorities of boys of ten, thirteen, and fourteen.

But, on further reflection, all sorts of difficulties occur to us, and throw great doubt upon the story. We can hardly understand the parents of Jesus being so careless as to set off without exactly knowing where he was; for the Evangelist evidently does not mean to imply any intentional disobedience on his part. And how unnatural is the conduct of the boy towards his parents! for Mary says they have been looking for him for three days," and if this does not include the

1 After an amended version.

journey to and from Shiloh, it must have been five days since he had seen them, and yet he evinces no delight when they meet again! And where had he been all the time? Not at his parents' former lodgings, or with acquaintances, for in that case Joseph and Mary would have heard of him at once; not with any true friends, or they would have taken care to send him after his parents in suitable company. There are other difficulties, too. We find him in the midst of the Scribes. There is some ambiguity in the expression. Did he come to them as a pupil, or as one of themselves? And we are struck at once by the prominence assigned to Mary, in this as in the earlier stories of Luke,' whereas in reality the father's authority was every thing among the Jews. Nor should we expect Jesus, in his thirteenth year, to speak of the temple as the house of his Father.

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The story is hardly to be reconciled with the history of the birth of Jesus, but of course that is nothing against it. It is somewhat suspicious, however, that the childhood of Jesus should be described in the same words as that of John. But our doubts rise higher when we begin to ask whence Luke, or his authority, derived the story. We cannot help suspecting that here, too, the desire to lift the veil that hung over the youth of Jesus made the later Christians fly to the traditions concerning the heroes of the Old Testament. Not to speak of the wonders reported of Moses, it is obvious that Samuel has served in some measure as the model for the story. In almost the words that Luke uses of Jesus it is said of Samuel: "He increased and grew, and was in favor with the Lord and with men." Samuel's mother, too, comes up to the sanctuary every year, and is a more prominent figure than her husband, just as Mary is here. And, lastly, we know from Josephus that Samuel was supposed to have completed his twelfth year" when he experienced his prophetic call.

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We will not pronounce any very decided opinion, however. The story certainly rises in our estimation when we compare it with the later elaborations of the Apocryphal Gospels. that of Thomas we are told that, after the party had started, Jesus secretly returned to Jerusalem; that he silenced the elders and the teachers of the people by his questions; that he himself expounded the most important parts of the Law and the similitudes of the Prophets; and that the Scribes 3 Compare Luke ii. 40 with i. 80. 5 See p. 55. 6 1 Samuel iii.

1 See p. 72. 2 See pp. 56-58. 41 Samuel ii. 26, i. 21 ff., ii. 19.

and Pharisees congratulated Mary on being blessed with a child who had given such an unexampled proof of glorious virtue and wisdom. In the Gospel of the "Infancy of the Redeemer" we learn that Jesus disputed with the Rabbis as to the descent of the Messiah,' expounded the secrets of the Law and Prophets, explained to an astrologer and a student of physical science the secrets of their studies, — things which no created intellect had ever traced out, understood, or penetrated, and thereby excited their wonder and even

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their adoration.

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Indeed these Gospels, together with that of "Mary's Birth and the Childhood of the Redeemer," are full of extraordinary stories about the first twelve years of the life of Jesus. Most of them are foolish and some of them offensive stories: but we must not pass them by wholly unnoticed. One of them is this: That Jesus was once playing with companions of his own age, and they were all making clay animals, such as donkeys, cattle, and birds. Each of them boasted of his own productions, and said they were better than those of his companions. Then Jesus said to them, "I shall command the animals that I have made to walk about." The others said, mockingly, "Then you're the Creator's own son, are you?" But Jesus told his clay animals to walk or fly, to eat or to drink, and whatever he told them they did. When the children told their parents what had happened, their fathers warned them never to play with Jesus again, and to avoid his company; 'for," said they, "he is a sorcerer." Another time his playfellows had hidden in an oven, and the women standing in front of the house, when questioned by Jesus, said that there were not any children there: there were only some little three-year old goats in the oven. Upon this Jesus really turned the boys into goats, and they came jumping out! But at the repeated prayers of the women he presently restored the children to their proper shapes again. One day as he was playing about with some other boys he passed by the workshop of a certain dyer of the name of Salem. A great many pieces of cloth belonging to different inhabitants of the place were lying there ready to be dyed in various colors. But when there was no one in the shop, Jesus ran in and threw all the pieces of cloth into the same dyeing pot. Just at that moment Salem came back, and seeing what had happened burst into cries of anger, and exclaimed indignantly to Jesus: "What have you been doing,

1 From Matthew xxii. 41-46.

you son of Mary? See what mischief you have done to me and my fellow-citizens! for each of them wants the color that suits his taste, and here have you spoiled them all!" But the boy answered! "I will change the color of every piece of cloth that you want changed," and began to pull them one after another out of the pot; and behold! every one was just the color that the dyer wanted. When the Jews saw this

miracle they glorified God.

Sometimes he had to help in the work of the house. For instance, once his mother sent him to draw water from the well. But when he had filled the pitcher and was drawing it up (or, according to another tradition, as he was carrying it through the crowd) it broke. Jesus instantly spread out his handkerchief (or his cloak), caught the water in it, and brought it to his mother. At this time he was six years old.

In the month of October, when he was eight years old, his father went to sow his land with wheat, and Jesus went with him and sowed one single grain of wheat. Six months afterwards he reaped and threshed out the produce, and the grain of wheat had yielded a hundred homers (five hundred or a thousand bushels), which he distributed among the poor of the village. Sometimes he went with his father to work; and when Joseph, "who was rather a poor carpenter," had made any thing too long or too short, or too broad or too narrow, Jesus had only to put out his hand, and every thing was as it should be. For instance, when Joseph had made one of the legs of a couch for a rich man too short, Jesus stretched it out; and when the throne for the king at Jerusalem, at which Joseph had been working for two years, turned out to be short of the required dimensions by two spans each way, Jesus set it right.

He went to school under several masters, and astounded or enraged them all by his wonderful ability. Of course he would not condescend to be taught by any one. He cursed one master for striking him, and the teacher fell powerless upon the ground. Another, who had lifted his hand to strike him, was maimed and died.

He performed all manner of healings of the sick and raisings of the dead, and was especially active in restoring those that had been bitten by poisonous snakes; among others his father Joseph, and his brother James. The latter had met with the accident when sent to gather wood. Another time Jesus and his companions were playing at being kings. Jesus was the king, and the others had spread their clothes

upon the ground for him to sit upon, and had woven a crown of flowers to set upon his head. They themselves stood at his right and left, like the body-guard that surrounds a king. Whenever any one passed, the children dragged them to the throne, and said, "Come here and do homage to our king, and then you shall have a prosperous journey." By and by some people passed who were carrying a sick child with them. He had been to a mountain to gather wood, and there he had found a partridge's nest; but when he stretched out his hand to take the eggs he was bitten by a snake. He was now at the very point of death, and his friends were carrying him home. But when they came to the place where Jesus was playing, the children compelled them, in spite of their sorrow and in spite of their resistance, to approach the little king. As soon as Jesus heard what had happened he said to his companions, "Let us go and kill the snake." The parents, sorely against their will, were compelled to go with them. When Jesus ordered the snake to come out of its hiding place it obeyed him, and sucked the poison out of the wound again. Then Jesus cursed it, and it burst asunder, but the child got well again. On his beginning to cry, Jesus said, "Stop crying, for you will soon be my disciple." This boy was afterwards the Apostle, Simon the Canaanite.

This story shows a desire to bring into contact with Jesus, while he was still a boy, the people who were afterwards to be connected with him; and there are other tales of his childhood due to the same tendency. The son of Annas is cursed and dies, because when Jesus is making mud sparrows on the Sabbath he finds fault with him and spoils his play. Judas Iscariot is possessed by Satan when a child, and bites every one who comes near him, or even himself if he can get at no one else. His mother brings him to Mary to be cured, and when he is seated by the child Jesus, Satan falls upon him again and he bites Jesus in his right side; but at that very moment Satan rushes out of him in the form of a mad dog. This Judas afterwards betrayed his master, and the side which he had bitten was pierced by a Jewish lance.

Once when Jesus was coming home in the evening with Joseph a boy ran against him and knocked him down. Then the lord Jesus said to him, "As you have struck against me so shall you fall and never rise again." And that same hour the child fell down and died. On different occasions Jesus restored a dried fish to life, went into the den of a lioness,

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