THE BISHOP'S VISION.

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to Nazareth he knew well that they were going into seclusion as well as into safety; and that the life of the Virgin and the Holy Child would be spent, not in the full light of notoriety or wealth, but in secrecy,1 in poverty, and in manual toil.

Yet this poverty was not pauperism; there was nothing in it either miserable or abject; it was sweet, simple, contented, happy, even joyous. Mary, like others of her rank, would spin, and cook food, and go to buy fruit, and evening by evening visit the fountain, still called after her "the Virgin's fountain," with her pitcher of earthenware carried on her shoulder or her head. Jesus would play, and learn, and help His parents in their daily tasks, and visit the synagogues on the Sabbath days. "It is written," says Luther," that there was once a pious godly bishop, who had often earnestly prayed that God would manifest to him what Jesus had done in His youth. Once the bishop had a dream to this effect. He seemed in his sleep to see a carpenter working at his trade, and beside him a little boy who was gathering up chips. Then came in a maiden clothed in green, who called them both to come to the meal, and set porridge before them. All this the bishop seemed to see in his dream, himself standing behind the door that he might not be perceived. Then the little boy began and said, 'Why does that man stand there? shall he not also eat with us?" And this so frightened the bishop that he awoke." "Let this be what it may," adds Luther, "a true history or a fable, I none the less believe that Christ in His childhood and youth looked and acted like other children, yet without sin, in fashion like a man."?

1 John vii. 3-5. Work in Galilee is there called work év KрUTT. 2 Cf. St. Bonaventura, Vit. Christi, xii. "Fancy you see Him busied

St. Matthew tells us, that in the settlement of the Holy Family at Nazareth, was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophets, "He shall be called a Nazarene." It is well known that no such passage occurs in any extant prophecy. If the name implied a contemptuous dislike as may be inferred from the proverbial question of Nathanael, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"-then St. Matthew may be summing up in that expression the various prophecies so little understood by his nation, which pointed to the Messiah as a man of sorrows. And certainly to this day "Nazarene has continued to be a term of contempt. The Talmudists always speak of Jesus as "Ha-nozeri;" Julian is said to have expressly decreed that Christians should be called by the less honourable appellation of Galilæans; and to this day the Christians of Palestine are known by no other title than Nusâra. But the explanation which refers St. Matthew's allusion to those passages of prophecy in which Christ is called "the Branch" (nétser, ) seems far more probable. The village may

have derived this name from no other circumstance than its abundant foliage; but the Old Testament is full of proofs that the Hebrews-who in philology accepted the views of the Analogists-attached

with His parents in the most servile work of their little dwelling. Did He not help them in setting out the frugal board, arranging the simple sleeping-rooms, nay, and in other yet humbler offices ?"

Perhaps in this question, and in the citation of St. Matthew, there may be a play upon the possible derivation of the name from Nazôra, "despicable."

2 In the singular, Nusrâny. On the supposed edict of Julian, see Gibbon, ii. 312 (ed. Milman). If we ever passed a particularly ill-conditioned' village in Palestine, my Mohammedan dragoman always rejoiced if he could assure me that the inhabitants were not Moslim, but Nusâra-which he rarely lost an opportunity of doing. Cf. Acts xxviii. 22.

PROPHETS FROM GALILEE.

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immense and mystical importance to mere resemblances in the sound of words. To mention but one single instance, the first chapter of the prophet Micah turns almost entirely on such merely external similarities in what, for lack of a better term, I can only call the physiological quantity of sounds. St. Matthew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, would without any hesitation have seen a prophetic fitness in Christ's residence at this town of Galilee, because its name recalled the title by which He was addressed in the prophecy of Isaiah.1

"Shall the Christ come out of Galilee?" asked the wondering people. Search and look!" said the Rabbis to Nicodemus, "for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John vii. 41, 52). It would not have needed very deep searching or looking to find that these words were ignorant or false; for not to speak of Barak the deliverer, and Elon the judge, and Anna the prophetess, three, if not four, of the prophets and those prophets of the highest eminence, Jonah, Elijah, Hosea, and Nahum-had been born, or had exercised much of their ministry, in the precincts of Galilee. And in spite of

1 Isa. xi. 1. Tsemach, the word used in Jer. xxiii. 5; Zech, iii. 8, &c., also means "Branch." Hitzig, with less probability, supposed St. Matthew to allude to Isa. xlix. 6 (Heb.). The explanation of the passage as = Ναζιραίος, a Nazarite, is philologically erroneous and historically false; but something may be said for the derivation from notser, "protecting," so that "he who calls Jesus Nazarene shall, against his will, call Him my Saviour,' 'my Protector"" (Bp. Alexander, Ideas of the Gospels, p. 6).—The vague dià тŵν проητν of Matt. ii. 23 perhaps admits of more than one reference and explanation. For a fuller disquisition on the principles of the explanation offered in the text I must refer to my Chapters on Language (second edition), pp. 229–247, in which I have attempted to illustrate this difficult and interesting subject.

2 Jonah was of Gath-hepher (2 Kings xiv. 25), a town of Zebulun (Josh. xix. 10, 13); Hosea is said to have been of Issachar, and was a Northern prophet; Elkosh, the birthplace of Nahum, was probably in Galilee (Jer. ad Nah. i. 1); Thisbe, the supposed birthplace of Elijah, was believed to

F*

the supercilious contempt with which it was regarded, the little town of Nazareth, situated as it was in a healthy and secluded valley, yet close upon the confines of great nations, and in the centre of a mixed population, was eminently fitted to be the home of our Saviour's childhood, the scene of that quiet growth "in wisdom, and stature, and favour with God and man." 1

may not mean התשבי מתשבי

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be in Naphthali (Tobit i. 2, but it is exceedingly uncertain whether the stranger, from the strangers")—at any rate Elijah's main ministry was in Galilee; Elisha was of Abel-meholah, in the Jordan valley. To get over such flagrant carelessness in the taunting question of the Jews, some have proposed to give a narrower significance to the name Galilee, and make it mean only Upper Galilee, for the limits of which see Jos. B. J. iii. 3, § 1. Among other great names connected with Galilee, Keim mentions the philosopher Aristobulus (of Paneas), the Scribe Nithai of Arbela, Alexander Jannæus, Judas the Gaulonite, and John of Giscala (Gesch. Jes. i. 317). A legend mentioned by Jerome also connects the family of St. Paul with Giscala (Jer. De Vir. illustr. 5).

1 Luke ii. 52. Cf. Prov. iii, 4; Ps. cxi. 10; 1 Sam. ii. 26.

CHAPTER VI.

JESUS IN THE TEMPLE.

"Omnes venit salvare, infantes, et parvulos, et pueros, et juvenes, et seniores; ideo per omnem venit aetatem."-IREN. Adv. Haeres. iii. 18.

EVEN as there is one hemisphere of the lunar surface on which, in its entirety, no human eye has ever gazed, while at the same time the moon's librations enable us to conjecture of its general character and appearance, so there is one large portion of our Lord's life respecting which there is no full record; yet such glimpses are, as it were, accorded to us of its outer edge, that from these we are able to understand the nature of the whole.

Again, when the moon is in crescent, a few bright points are visible through the telescope upon its unilluminated part; those bright points are mountain peaks, so lofty that they catch the sunlight. One such point of splendour and majesty is revealed to us in the otherwise unknown region of Christ's youthful years, and it is sufficient to furnish us with a real insight into that entire portion of His life. In modern language we should call it an anecdote of the Saviour's confirmation.

The age of twelve years was a critical age for a Jewish boy. It was the age at which, according to Jewish legend, Moses had left the house of Pharaoh's daughter; and Samuel had heard the Voice which sum