'And his mother kept all these sayings in her heart' (Sierripu occurs in NT only here and Ac IS^''; cf. Gn 37" of Jacob concerning Joseph, o Si Trarrjp oiiroO SicT-fipriaev t6 pyjixa, where E has the same tense as here Sierijpei, perhaps by assimilation). But Jacob lost hope (Gn 37'^), while Mary kept these sayings in her heart. It was a close, persistent, faithful keeping, but a keeping in silence, even when it might have changed the attitude of His kinsmen towards Him, or indeed have saved His life. She spoke, no doubt, when the right time came. Stress is laid on her faithfulness and meditation also in Lk 2"!'. We may ask whether to. pmara included other sayings than the pijfia of Lk 2™. The TrdvTo. of some MSS in the place of the TaOra of others leads us to think either of other sayings of Christ, or of the remarks of the Rabbis and others about Him (as in Lk 2'^). And though He ' was subject unto them,' the goodness of Joseph and Mary, His own wisdom and advancing years, and now the deepened thoughts Mary had about Him, would surely prevent their making His subjection an obstacle or a hindrance to His development.
Again we read of His progress (Lk 2^'), though this refers to a time beyond the Boyhood. The statement about wisdom is a continuation of that in 2^". The next word i]\iKi<f is ambiguous. If we take the meaning ' stature ' (AY and RV text), it applies only to a part of the time between twelve years of age and thirty. But the margin of AY and RY 'age' would seem to be preferable. Though increase in age is as inevitable as increase in stature, yet St. Luke, having spoken of Christ's twelfth year, goes on to speak of His thirtieth, and characterizes by his transitional passage the whole of those eighteen years as a period of de- velopment. He cannot mean our thoughts to stop at the period when adult height was reached. The advance in i^XiKi'a must grammatically have the same duration as the advance in wisdom, and in favour with God and man.*
2. Dogmatic conclusions. — The doctrines of the Incarnation, of the Union of the two Natures in one Person, and of the Kenosis are beyond the limits of this article, though it is impossible to avoid bearing them in mind in dealing with our subject. But an exegetical study of Lk 2'"'-«' shows a genuine human development of Christ in His boyhood. Body, soul and spirit made regular progress. With other children it is often the irregularity which troubles their older friends. Childishness (in the bad sense), where we expect some measure of intelligence ; stupidity, which is sometimes the result of imperfect mental growth, and sometimes the result of the childish sins of laziness and self-will, are the common faults of children. Later on, the desire tiot to be subject to parental, or other restraint, and the premature longing for freedom (not necessarily for evil) are marks of sinful imperfection which we all recog- nize. Christ was free from them. When He was a child He lived, spake, and no doubt thought as a child, but as a sinless one. The awakening of the human consciousness was gradual. As Oosterzee (on Lk 2) says : ' His recognition of Himself (we add 'and of His mission') formed part of His filling with wisdom. His public ministry did not begin with a su<lden impulse, but was prepared for
* Mere comparisons with otiier passages, even in ttiis Gospel, cannot outweigh the above considerations. In lE)^* no doubt the stature of Zacchgeus is referred to ; Vl'^ and Mt G-'7 are doubtful. In Eph 4" 'stature' is probably right. Jn 921'23 and certainly He 11" mean ' age.' In the LXX, Ezk 1318, 2 Mac 4*), Job 2918 seem to bear the same meaning. But Symmochus in Ca 7^ must have meant ' stature.'
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by His whole life. It was the forgetting or over- looking this which led some early heretics to date the Incarnation from the Baptism. But we see that at the age when chUdliood passes into youth, Christ was already aware (in part perhaps) of His mission.' 'The consciousness of His Divine Nature and power grew, and ripened, and strengthened, until the time of His showing unto Israel.'
Those who in times of controversy have most firmly held the Divinity of Christ have sometimes found a difficulty in admitting the ideas of growth and development in our Lord. Tliis was specially so in the time before the careful .statements of the Great Councils and the Fathers of that period. So Epiphanius (Htcy. li. 20) states that 'some Catho- lics were inclined to admit the miracles of the Infancy (as in tlie Apocr. Gospels) as affording an argument against the Cerinthians, and a proof that it was not at His Baptism that Christ was first united to the man Jesus.' Jeremy Taylor (Life of Christ, pt. i. § 7) has a passage which is worth quoting : ' They that love to serve God in hard questions use to dispute whether Christ did truly, or in appearance only, increase in Avisdom. For, being personally united to the Word, and being the Eternal Wisdom of the Father, it seemed to them that a plenitude of Wisdom was as natural to the whole Person as to the Divine Nature. But others, fixing their belief upon the words of the story, which equally affirm Christ as properly to have " increased in favour with God as with man, in favour as in stature," they apprehend no incon- venience in affirming it to belong to the verity of human nature, to have degrees of understantling as well as of other perfections ; and although the humanity of Christ made up the same Person with the Divinity, yet tliey think the Divinity stUl to be free, even in those communications which were imparted to the inferior Nature, and the Godhead might as well suspend the emanation of all the treasures of -wisdom upon the humanity for a term, as He did the beatifical vision, which certainly was not imparted in the interval of His sad and dolorous passion.' * See art. CHILDHOOD.