These comparisons—I forbear to use the word assimilations—are entirely without foundation. These men, who, as it is pretended, anticipated the career of Jesus, were simply men who opposed the Roman dominion, and who stood up, like the Maccabees before them, in the name of national independence, and in a spirit of reaction in favor of the Mosaic government. Jesus was not so anticipated: His mission had no relation with any previous essay; and his sole forerunner was John the Baptist, as strange as himself to any political view or conspiracy, and as humble before Him—before the true, the sole Messiah—as Judas the Gaulonite and his adherents were bold and daring towards the Emperor.
There is an interval of thirty years between the birth of Jesus and the day when He enters actively on the performance of his divine mission. [Footnote 86]
[Footnote 86: The question as to the precise epoch of the birth of Jesus Christ, as well as of the commencement and the duration of His public career, has been well and concisely considered in the Synopsis Evangelica of M. Constantin Tischendorf (p. 16-19. Leipzig, 1864). The preferable conclusion from these researches is, that Jesus Christ was born in the year of Roma 750, that he commenced his divine mission towards the end of the year of Rome 780, and that his death took place in the fourth month of the year of Rome 783.]
These thirty years, however, were not idly passed, nor were they without their peculiar testimony to Christ and the future in store for Him:—
"And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. …
"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
"Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.
"And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
"And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
"But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
"And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
"And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
"And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
"And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
"And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
"And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." [Footnote 87]
[Footnote 87: Luke ii. 33, 40-52.]
Thus begins that manifestation in the person of the child Jesus Christ, that mixture of humanity and divinity, of natural life and miraculous life, which is his peculiar and sublime characteristic. In the opinion of the men who, in principle, reject the supernatural, this mixed divine-human nature, and consequently Jesus Christ himself, is at once incomprehensible and inadmissible. What wonder if Christ has in these days to encounter such adversaries? Had He not to do so when invested with the attributes of humanity, among contemporaries, and even in his own family? In his first days of human existence, his mother, Mary, saw Him and understood Him not. And nevertheless "Mary kept all these sayings in her heart." Expression, at once profound and touching; revealing the mysterious complication of the nature of man! Man is not content to resign himself to the limits imposed by the actual laws of the finite world; his aspirations tend elsewhere. And still, when called upon to rise above the present order of nature—that order which he is able to appreciate—he experiences a certain astonishment, a certain hesitation; he does not know if he ought to believe in that supernatural that he was recently invoking, and that he never ceases to invoke; for, like Mary, he preserves the instinct in his heart! It is just at the present day as it was nineteen centuries ago. Jesus has ever to encounter such contradictory moods of human nature: He is confronted at once by the hope of, the thirsting after, the supernatural inherent in the human soul, and by all the objections, all the doubts that the supernatural itself suggests to the human mind. He has to satisfy that hope, to surmount those doubts. The Gospel opens the history of this solemn struggle, that gave rise to Christianity, and is the source of all those agitations which afflict Christians at the present day.