had not the culture and refinement which belonged to the richer and more luxurious inhabitants of Judea. Twenty of their chief cities had been given by Solomon to Hiram, king of Tyre,* and their inhabitants, intermarried with other races, no longer preserved a pure Jewish blood. Their religion was perhaps as pure, but it was far more simple. The elaborate ceremonialism of the later Pharisees had never taken strong hold among them. Their very speech was provincial.t The haughty aristocrats of Southern Palestine despised this peasantry. They scorned their poverty; their simplicity; their corrupted blood; their seeming irreligion. That Jesus was a Galilean was in their eyes a sufficient and conclusive condemnation of his claim to be the Messiah of the nation; while, for some reason unknown, Nazareth possessed throughout the country a particularly evil reputation. "Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" was a proverb not only in Judea, but accepted apparently even in Galilee itself. Jesus's education, whether at home or at school, was of the simplest kind. Many years before, Samuel had established the first seats of learning, the schools of the prophets. The ruins of these institutions still remained, in which the degenerate scribes were taught the theological dialectics of the time, and so, in the popular imagination, were prepared for the ministry of the Word. From them proceeded those traditions and ceremonial refinements against which Christ later brought the whole influence of his life and teaching to bear.§ These schools were mostly at Jerusalem. It is not certain that there were any in Galilee. It is certain Christ never attended them. He never sympathized with the ritualism which they inculcated; and his parents possessed neither the means to give him an elaborate education, nor the learning which they could impart themselves. But, in addition to these higher seminaries, there was a * 1 Kings ix., 11. + Matt. xxvi., 73. § Stanley's Jew. Church, i., 442. || John vii., 15. John i., 46. Smith's Bib. Dict., art. Education, 493. parochial school in every village. Common-school education we have borrowed from Judaism, though we have improved the pattern. A far larger proportion of the people could read and write in Palestine in the days of Christ than in England in the days of Henry the Eighth. The unlearned fishermen by the Sea of Galilee were not absolutely illiterate. Few were the Jews who could not read their own Scriptures. In every synagogue was established an elementary school. Here a Rabbi gathered the children of the village, taught them to read and cipher, instructed them in their own national history and in the requirements of the law, catechized them in the Jewish Scriptures, afforded them some knowledge of the later commentaries which the scribes had founded thereon, and occasionally added some little instruction on such natural history and physical science as the imperfect knowledge of the day afforded.* This parish pedagogue gave Christ his only schooling. Of Greek, Roman, and Oriental literature and philosophy he acquired no knowledge by any ordinary method of study. His mother, a devout and godly woman, taught him the Jewish Scriptures at home. The Jewish law required every parent to teach his children some trade. In compliance with this law, Jesus worked at his father's bench, learning his handicraft. He went with his parents to the village synagogue, where he would hear every Sabbath the law and the prophets read. Perhaps he would hear, too, some scribe expound them, not developing and applying their prophecies and sublime principles, but concealing them by puerile discussions concerning idle ceremonies and human traditions. Occasionally he went up with his parents to the Temple at Jerusalem on the Jewish feast-day; but this brief journey of sixty or seventy miles was the utmost extent of his travels. One such visit is the only incident of his youth of which * For an account of the educational facilities of Christ's day, see Kitto's Life of our Lord, p. 167; Kitto's Bib. Cyc., art. Schools; and Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. i., p. 60–62. we have any authentic record. In connection with the Temple were rooms which were used by the Rabbis for higher seminaries of learning. Here they were accustomed to gather, and discuss the more difficult problems of their theological science. Jesus, though but twelve years of age, found the chief attractions of the Temple here. The magnificent courts, the imposing ritual, the solemn sacrificial service, the grand chorals from the trained choirs and accompanying orchestra, had for him no such fascination as these schools, where he might learn more fully the meaning of that law whose true meaning his village Rabbi was utterly unable to unfold to him. Leaving the crowded courts and the solemn festal service, he wandered off in search of these Temple schools, and here he was found after the feast was over and the people had dispersed, sitting in the midst of the doctors, listening to their exposition, and eagerly inquiring for some deeper and more spiritual truth than with all their learning they were able to afford him. They were astonished at the precocity of his understanding; and, if we may form any judgment of the catechizing he gave them from his later questioning, were no less puzzled than surprised.* This little incident, which impressed itself strongly upon his mother's mind, gives us glimpse enough of his childhood to know that it was no ordinary one. He certainly had an eager appetite for religious truth. He exhibited, though in a vague and shadowy way, some consciousness of his character and his mission. Increasingly he displayed that unconscious and natural grace in heart and in demeanor which in his ministry aided in drawing such crowds to listen to his words. While untaught, save by his Father, God, through the lessons of nature and the inspirations of the Divine Spirit, he grew in stature, and in knowledge, and in favor with God and with man. *Luke ii., 41-47. † Ibid., 49. Ibid., 52. CHAPTER VI. THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.* HRIST was thirty years of age before he entered upon his public ministry. The universal expectation of a prince who should re-establish the throne of David and reinstate the ruined kingdom of Israel was then intensified by the appearance of a preacher of singular character and great power, who announced, with seeming authority, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." To understand the true character and career of Jesus, we must interrogate a little the herald who preceded him and proclaimed his coming. A peculiar characteristic of the ancient Jewish Church was the prophets. Beginning with Moses, and appearing singly in certain epochs of subsequent history, they were first organized as an order under Samuel, during the reigns of Saul and David. Schools for their education were established by him. They became a numerous and influential class. In the darkest days of the Church, Obadiah hid a hundred of them in a single cave. In the reign of Jehoshaphat four hundred were gathered by the king for counsel. They were the preachers, the poets, and the political teachers and counselors of Palestine. They were subject to no ecclesiastical superior, and were bound by no rules of discipline, and by no other creed than faith in God and acceptance of his Word. * Matt. iii., 1-17; + Deut. xiii., 1–5; § 1 Sam. xix., 20. 1 Kings xviii., 4. Mark i., 1-11; Luke iii., 1-23; John i., 15-34. 1 Chron. ix., 22; xxi., 9; xxv. Compare 2 Kings ii., 3, 5; iv., 38; vi., 1. Ibid., xxii., 6. |