The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 52

as we bRve it. Wl\9 not then written-that e11.11tom of the feast. When I\ Jewish boy thPB<' ,ktn.ils. tbo ,·isit or tbo MRgi and WIU! three years old he wl\s given the tRa- the flight into Egypt, were facts already aelled garment directed by the LRw(Numb, well known to those whom this Gospel wu xv. 88-41: Dent. xxii. 12). At five he eepPcially designed to inetruot. usually began to learn portions or the Law, Ver. 40.-And the Child grew, and waxed under hie mother's direction: these were strong in spirit, filled with willdom : and passages written on scrolls, such as the the grace of God wu upon him. Another shame. or creed of Dent. vi. 4, the Hallol of this evangdiet's solemn pe.uece in hie Pee.Ima (Ps. cxiv., cxviii., cxxxvi.), When narrative. In this ehort statement the etory the boy was thirteen yen.re old he wore, for of tweh-e qniet years is told. From these the first time, the phylnoteries, whioh the few words St. Luke evidently understands Jew always put on at the recital of the the hume.nity of Jesus II.I! a reality. The daily prayer. In the well-known and ste.tement that " be waxed strong, filled most ancient • Maxims or the Fathers• with wisdom'' (the words, "in spirit," do not (' Pirke A voth '), we rend thnt, at the age ooour in the older authorities), tells us that, of ten, a boy we.a to oommcmee the study of in the teaching of SS. Paul and Luke, the the MiRhna (the Mishna was a compilation Boy len.rnt ae others learnt, snbject to the of traditional interpretations of the Law): ordinnry growth and development or burue.n at eighteen he was to be instruoted in the knowledge; thus condemni11g, as it were, by Gemara (the Gemnm was a vast collection anticipation, the strange her<"BY of Apolli- of interpretations of the Misbna. The narius. who taught that the Divine Word Miehna and GemAm together make up the (tile Logos) took, in our Lord's humanity, Talmud. The Mishna may roughly be the plac,, of the bume.n mind or intelh,ct. krmed the text, the Gemam the com- And the grace of God t01U upon him. The mentary, of the Talmud). legendary apocryphal Gospels are rich in Ver. 43.-A.nd when they had fulfilled stories of the Child Jeeue' doings during the days, as they returned, the Child leans these many years. l"lnt the silenoe of the tarried behind in l ernaalem, 'I'he feast holy four, whose testimony he.s been re- lasted seven days. Now, a boy in the East, ceived now sinee the last yeo.rs of the first twelve years old, is usually fe.r more ad• century by the whole Church, is our au- vanced than is ever the case in our Northern thority for assuming that no work of power ncttione, where development is much slower, wae done, and probably that no word of We may well suppose that the Boy wne left tcsching wae spoken, until the public minis- much to himself during these days of the trv commenced, when the Messiah had feast. It requires no stress of imngination reached his thirtieth year. "Tnke notice to picture him absorbed in the temple and her6," wrote Bonaventura, quoted by Farrar, all that WII.I! to be seen and learned there. " that his doing nothing wonderful was It was, doubtless, his first visit since infancy it,elf a kind of wonder. , .. As there was to the glorious house. Slowly, surely, had power in his actions, so is there power in he been growing up into the consciousness hi,; silence, in his ine.ctiTity, in his retire- of tokat he wo.s and whence he came: may ment.'' we not in all reverence assume that bis Yers. 41-52.-ThB <Jlti"ld Ju,u at Jeru- self-recognition first really burst forth from aalem. the depths of his ohildhood'e unconsoious- Ver. 41.-Now his pareI!.ts went to 1eni- ness in that solemn week spent in the storied Balem every year at the Feast of the Pass- temple courts? When Joseph and Mary and over. The Law required the attendance of their friend-, ae was usual after the seven all men at the three great Feasts of Pass- days, commenced their return journey, the over, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Dent. Boy, instead of joining this bomewlll'd-bound xvi. 16). The dispersion and subsequent company of pilgrims, went as usual to the residence of so many Jews in distant lands temple and the great tt,acl,ers there, wholly had much broken up the regular observance e.Lsorbed in the new light which was break- of these directions. Still, many devout Jews ing in upon him. There they found him. were con;,taotly present 11.t these feasts. This Strange that they should have for so long Mos11,ic ordinance was only binding upon searnhed in other pLices. Had they only men but R. Hille! recommended women called to mind the aacred seoret of the alwdys to be present at the Passover. The Child, surely they would have gone at once con.stant yenrly presence of J ose~b the car- to the temple; was it not, after all, his earthly pcuter and Mary at this feast 1B another home, that holy house of his Father in indie1<tion of the rigid obedience of the Jerusalem? holy family of NP.zareth to the ritual of the Ver. 46.-A.nd it came to pa11, that after Law of Moses. three days they found him in the temple, Ver. 42.-And when he was twelve years Aecording to the common way of reckoning old, the7 went up io 1eruaa.lem after the among I.he Hebri,ws, this oxprossion, " ;i.fl11r OB. II. 1-62.] TUE GOSPEL ACCOHDING TO ST. LUKE. 43