^ The words recall, and are meant to recall, three othei childhoods :
(1) First, the childhood of John the Baptist. Of him too St. Luke has told us that " the child grew and waxed strong in spirit " ; and still earlier he has related that many were led to ask, " What manner of child shall this be ? And the hand of the Lord was with him." The parallel between the two children nearly of the same age is purposely worked out — the pious parents, the annunciation by the angel, the naming before birth, the prophecies of greatness, the long period of silent preparation for a unique mission. In each case the childhood was natural, the development slow and gradual, not forced and premature. In each case " the child grew and waxed strong in spirit."
(2) And in drawing these pictures St. Luke had his models in the past. Look at Samson's birth and childhood. His birth is announced beforehand by an angel, with the promise that " he shall begin to save Israel out of the hands of the Philistines " —
^ H. E. Scudder, Childhood in Literature, 48. ' J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood, 35.
ST. LUKE II. 40 87
words with which we may compare the language of the hymn in St. Luke, " that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us." Samson was to be " a Nazirite unto God from the womb," even as the Baptist was to " drink neither wine nor strong drink," but was to be " filled witli the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb." And of Samson too it is written, "The child grew, and the Lord blessed him, and the spirit of the Lord began to move him." Those were wild times, and it was wild work which Samson had before him, and he was not always faithful in his doing of it. But his childhood was a strong and natural childhood, with its occasional intimations of a destiny.
(3) And if Samson's childhood is a forecast of St. John's no less clearly is Samuel's gentler childhood the prefiguration of our Lord's. Here, again, we have the child promised beforehand, and dedicated before birth. In each case " the handmaid " of the Lord utters her " Magnificat." " Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord " ; and " Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord." A difference we find in early training ; for the child Samuel is given to the service of the sanctuary as a child. But in similar terms we read of his quiet growth : " The child Samuel grew before the Lord " ; and again, " The child Samuel grew on, and was in favour with the Lord and also with men." Then comes the story of the voice of God in the house of God, itself a notable parallel to the Gospel of to-day ; and then the words come once again that tell of holy growth — for this crisis did not suddenly bring the fulness of ripe knowledge of God and of life — " Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground." ^
5. We have seen that the growth of Jesus was natural. But the question remains, How could that growth take place without sin? There are two conceivable kinds of development; one development through antagonism, through error, from stage to stage of less and less deficiency. This is our development ; but it is such because evil has gained a lodgment in our nature, and we can attain perfection only through contest with it. But there is another kind of development conceivable, the development of a perfect nature limited by time. Such a nature will always be potentially that which it will become ; i.e. everything which it will be is already there, but the development of it is successive, accord- ing to time ; perfect at each several stage, but each stage more finished than the last. The plant is perfect as the green shoot
' J, A. Robinson, Unity in Chrint, 157.
SS THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS
above the earth, it is all it can be then ; it is more perfect as the creature adorned with leaves and branches, and it is all it can be then ; it reaches its full perfection when the bud breaks into flower. But it has been as perfect as it can be at every stage, of its existence; it has had no struggle, no retrogression; it has realized in an entirely normal and natural way, at each successive step of its life, exactly and fully that which a plant should be. Such was the development of Christ. He was the perfect child, the perfect boy, the perfect youth, the perfect flower of manhood. Every stage of human life was lived in finished purity, and yet no stage was abnormally developed ; there was nothing out of character in His life. He did not think the thoughts of a youth when a child, or feel the feelings of a man when a youth ; but He grew freely, nobly, naturally, unfolding all His powers without a struggle, in a completely healthy progress.