3. Mary remained with her kinswoman in Judah ' about three months,' probably waiting (cf. Lk 1** with Y.^) till after the birth of John the Baptist, and then returned to Nazareth. It is probably at this point that we ought to put the commencement of the narrative in Mt., which records Joseph's intention to put Marj- away privily when her condition became known to him, and speaks of his subsequent marriage with her in obedience to the angelic messages. The marriage would attbrd ' not only outward but moral protection ' both to tlie mother and to the unborn Babe. That the Virgin is still spoken of as efivrja-TevpLevi] in Lk 2^ is not to be taken as necessarily indicating that the marriage had not yet taken place. Had she not been Joseph's wife, Jewish custom would iiave forbidden her making the journey along with him. When Joseph went up to Bethlehem to get iiimself enrolled, Mary went also, not because it was necessary, but because 'she, would te anxious at all risks not to be separated from Joseph' (Plummer, in lor.). At Bethlehem, perhaps in the cave where now is the Church of tlie Nativity, she brought forth her first- born Son, and there, too, she received the visit of the shepherds, wiiose words as to the sign given them from heaven she ' kept, pondering tiiem in her heart.'
i. There is no need to linger on the next events, — the Circumcision, the Presentation and Purifica- tion in the Temple, tlie visit of the Magi, the Fliglit into and Return from Eg;spt, — for these all belong rather to the life of Christ than to that of ^Lary. Before lea%'ing this part of her historj-, it may l>e well to emphasize how much of what we
know of the Birth, Infancy, and Childliood of oui Lord we owe to accounts given by His mother. That St. Luke's source in the tirst two chapters of his Gospel was one connected with the Virgin is generally admitted. Whether he received his in- formation directly from her, as Ramsay supposes (]Vas Christ born at Bethlehem^ p. 85 tt'.), or whether the information came to him indirectlj* through another (i)erhaps, as Sanday conjectures, Joanna), may not be determinable. At least we can saj- that St. Luke believed that he wrote what he wrote on her authoritj*.
'He does not,' writes Ramsay {ib. p. T4), 'leave it doubtful whose authority he believed himself to have. "His mother kept all these sajings hid in her heart " ; " Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart " ; those" two sentences would be sufficient.'
5. The Retui-n from Egypt was followed b}' a life in retirement at Nazareth. Verj- little do we know of those years. Two verses in Lk. (2^-'*'), which tell us of the growth of the Child and the custom of His ' parents " to go every year to Jerus;ilem at the Feast of the Passover, are all we have in the way of direct statement. Here in Nazareth it was that those brothers and sisters of the Lord, of whom we read in the course of the Gospel nanative, were born to ^Llry and Joseph (for other views see art. Brethren' of the Lord). Four brothers are named (Mt 13'^, ^Mk 6^), but the sisters are men- tioned only once (^Nlk 6^), without any mention of their names.
The silence of the life at Nazareth is broken but once before the commencement of the Ministry. The scene in the Temple (Lk 2"*-"*") would claim a fuller consideration in the Life of Jesus Christ. As regards its relation to His mother, we have to notice only two points whicii emerge from St. Luke's narrati^•e. Mary did not yet understand all the meaning of the angels words to her regard- ing the Child that was to be born. The Child's own words would be a reminder to her of His true nature. He must be ' about his Father's business ' (or 'in his Father's house'). Then again we see from the passage the lasting impression which the scene left on Mary's mind. ' His mother kept ((jvveTT)peL) all these sa3-ings in her heart.' The tense of the verb covers a long period, up to, and even during, the Ministry. Yet of the Virgin's life during the interval between our Lord's twelfth year and His Baptism we know nothing but wliat is contained in the.se words and those Avhich im- mediately precede, as to her Son's subjection to her and Joseph. It is, however, an easily drawn in- ference from the absence of any mention of Josejih in the later Gospel narrative, that he died during this interval. Beyond this it is useless to con- jecture. 'The Arabic Historia Josrphi (cc. 14, 15) l)laces his tleath in our Lord's eighteenth j-ear, when Joseph had reached the age of 111' (Swete on Mk 6*).
6. The remaining allusions to the Virgin in the Gosjiels may be briefly recorded. She was present at the marriage feast at Cana (Jn 2'), after whicli she went down to Capernaum (v.^-) with Jesus and His brethren and Ilis disciples. Siie would seem to have been among 'his friends' (oi trap avrov) at Capematim, who 'went out to laj- hold on him' (Mk 3-'), for the next paragraph tells us of the coming of His mother and His brethren (v.*'). She is mentioned by tiie unknown woman out of the multitude (Lk 11^), ' Blessed is the womb tliat bare thee, and the breasts that thou didst suck.' She was present at the Crucifixion, whence the loved disciple, into whose care she had been committed,