On His visit to Nazareth, described in Lk 4, ' He entered, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day ' (v.'^) : and that custom, we may be sure, was a growth from His earliest years. Children, in those days, were admitted to religious celebrations in the Temple at an early age. A boy's religious life was considered to begin at the age of four. Both boys and girls accompanied
their mothers to the synagogue when very young. And Sabbath by Sabbath, throughout His early peaceful years, Jesus was found in the synagogue
with His mother Mary ; and a benediction and a joy it must have been to all the frequenters of that synagogue at Nazareth to look upon the fair, winsome, earnest face of the Child. When we read, as we do, of boys playing in the synagogue during worship and causing annoj'ance to their elders, it interests us to recognize the eounteri)art of a familiar experience in modern times; but Avitliovit taking anything from the naturalness of our Lord's boyhood, it is impossible to think of Him in any such association. We can only think of Him as showing forth a spirit of wondrous grace, a growing responsiveness towards the prayers and praises, becoming more and more familiar and dear, a deepening love of the noble words in which He heard the laws, the hopes and the faith of Israel set forth. The whole unfolding of His life in all the religious discipline and edu- cation of the home, the -synagogue and the whole round of the Jewish year of feasts and fasts, must have been beautiful to those to whose care He was entrusted. When a boy became har-niizvah, there was a lightening of the paternal responsibility regarding him, and a sense of relief surely found expression in the benediction pronounced by the father on that occasion — ' Blessetl be He for having freed me from this punishment.' There could have been no room for such an utterance when Jesus left His mother's side, henceforth to take His place among the men in the congregation.
Our most profitable reflections on the childhood of our Lord, however, are best summarized in the saying of Irenieus, to the effect that, in com- pletely participating in the conditions of human life. He became a child for the sake of children, and by His own experience of childhood He has sanctified it {.mh: Hun: ii. xxii. 4).
ii. Ciiii.iiiKM.ii IN Tin; ieaching of Jesus.— It w;i^ 'iiil\ to \n- cxii.iird that Jesus would exhiliit .ui 1111411. ■-(lunalilr love for children ; audit is in coiui'li-t^- utcoid \\it|. the whole tenor of His teaching that He should specially emphasize the importance and value of the child. The well- known words of Juvenal, ' Maxima debetur puero reverentia' (Sat. xiv. 47), gain their profoundest significance when the attitude assumed by our Lord towards children is considered. The story of Jairus' daughter (t6 BvyirpLdv fiou is tlie father's
appealing exprooinn in Ml tenderness in .lc-iis tnw.MiN ( healing was m.u-Iii ; He <omI appeal as, 'Sii-. i umr ili.w n 11 /iov) die' (Jii t^'i ; :iu'[ il w difference to tin' \\'ii- oi .-i Hii
T/M0l/,Mk7^)«lllrl, m.Hl.'ilun
to yield to the •chIumi ir- .. woman. Sucdi (■usiw, we m; representative of many more. Himself had a singular att admits of no doubt. His ti Jerusalem and the Temple c
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only time when He had child-friends to greet and attend Him (Mt 2V''). It was no new thin" for parents to seek a Rabbi's blessing for their children, but it was a unique charm in Jesus which led mothers — surely mothers were at least among ' those that brought them ' — to desire His blessing for their little ones (Mk lO''"'" and parallels). St. Mark's special touch in describing how He welcomed them (ivayKaXuTd/ji.ei'oi, v.^') is entirely true to the spirit of the Master. His benediction was as remote from the perfunctory as it could be.
The teaching of Jesus concerning children and childhood gathers round two occasions— when He blessed the little ones (as above), and when He rebuked the ambition of the disciples, — see Mk 9»-^, Lk Q'"'-^, and Mt 18'"", with notable amplifi- cations.
(a) In the former instance the untimely inter- position of the disciples leads to the saying, ' Of such is the kingdom of God.' In Mark and Luke this is followed by a further solemn saying— ' Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein.' Though Matthew lacks this in this connexion, he has a corresponding utterance in 18'- ■*. Wendt (Lehre Jesu, Eng. tr. ii. pp. 49, 50) considers that all the stress of these words lies on the receptivity dem.uuUd liy J(s\is on the part of those who would entt'v the k'ln-duiiL. 'Not the reception of the kiniiiliiiii of (lod at a childlike age (sic), but in a childlike chanirfrr, He declares to be the indis- pensable condition of entering the kingdom of God ; and under this childlike character He does not understand any virtue of childlike blamelessness, but only the receptivity itself. . , .' And no doubt in the second of these .sayings the manner in which men are to receive the kingdom is set forth with emphasis. Those who find themselves for one reason and another outside the kingdom, can obtain admission thereinto only when the otter of its gracious blessings is received, not with ' blamelessness ' indeed (which is out of the question here), but, with the simple trust, the un pretentious- ness, the earnest desire and the reality which are characteristic of a child. But there is something more than this in the words of Jesus. The first saying has hardly its due weight given to it if we stop here. ' Of such is the kingdom of God.' Tlie kingdom belongs to such. And we cannot accept ' the childlike' as the complete equivalent of ' such.' Wendt, it is true, acknowledges children to be ' susceptible subjects for the preaching of the king- dom of God ' (as above, p. 50) ; but are we to under- stand that they are to be invited to receive it as having been outside from t/mjirst ? We verge here on controversies that have loomed large on the troubled way of the diversified development of Christian thought and opinion. But the saying of Jesus, as it stands, surely implies that the king- dom comprises not only the cliildlike, but little children qua children as well. They are its in- heritors. They may forfeit its blessings subse- quently by their own act, or others may ue speci- ally responsible for their failing to retain their inheritance (Mt 18") ; but that is another matter. As Bengel says (on Mt 19"), 'toioOtos notat sub- stantiam cum qualitate.' And the relation of our Lord to humanity at large makes this but the natural interpretation of His words. ' If they who lire like little children belong to the kingdom of lii'aviii, why should we for a niument doubt that the little children themselves belong to the king- dom ■.'' So .Morison, wlio is alto^'cthev adniirable