Youth and Education
Jesus was born at Nazareth, a small town in Galilee, which before his time was not known to fame. The precise date of his birth is unknown. It took place in the reign of Augustus, probably some years before the year one of the era which all civilised peoples date from the day of his birth. Jesus came from the ranks of the common folk. His father, Joseph, and his mother, Mary, were people in humble circumstances, artisans living by their handiwork in the state, so usual in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty. The family was somewhat large. Jesus had brothers and sisters who seem to have been younger than he. They all remained obscure. The four men who were called his brothers, and among whom one at least, James, became of great importance in the early years of the development of Christianity, were his cousins-german. Thesisters of Jesus were married at Nazareth, and there he spent the early years of his youth.
The town must have presented the poverty-stricken aspect still characteristic of villages in the East. We see to-day the streets where Jesus played as a child in the stony paths or little lanes which separate the dwellings from each other. No doubt the house of Joseph much resembled these poor domiciles, lighted only by the doorway, serving at once as workshop, kitchen, and bedroom, and having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest. But the surroundings are charming, and no place in the world could be so well adapted for dreams of perfect happiness. If we ascend to the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, above the highest houses, the landscape is magnificent. An enchanted circle, cradle of the Kingdom of God, was for years the horizon of Jesus, and indeed during his whole life he went but little beyond these, the familiar bounds of his childhood.
No doubt he learnt to read and write according to the Eastern method; but it is doubtful if he understood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make him cite translations in the Aramean language. Nevertheless, it would be a great error to imagine that Jesus was what we should call an ignorant man. Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call education. In all probability Jesus did not know Greek. His mother tongue was the Syrian dialect, mingled with Hebrew. No element of secular teaching reached him. He was ignorant of all beyond Judaism; his mind kept that free innocence which an extended and varied culture always weakens. Happily, he was also ignorant of the grotesque scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and which was soon to constitute the Talmud. The reading of the books of the Old Testament made a deep impression on him, especially the book of Daniel, andthe religious poetry of the Psalms was in marvellous accordance with his lyrical soul, and all his life was his sustenance and support. That he had no knowledge of the general state of the world is evident from every feature of his most authentic discourses, and he never conceived of aristocratic society, save as a young villager who sees the world through the prism of his simplicity. Although born at a time when the principles of positive science had already been proclaimed, he lived in entirely supernatural ideas. To him the marvellous was not the exceptional but the normal statf of things, since to him the whole course of things was the result of the free-will of the Deity. This led to a profound conception of the close relations of man with God.
Idyllic Surroundings
A mighty dream haunted the Jewish people for centuries, constantly renewing its youth. Judaea believed that she possessed divine promises of a boundless future. In combination with the belief in the Messiah and the doctrine of an approaching renewal of all things, the dogma of the resurrection had emerged and produced a great fermentation from one end of the Jewish world to the other. Jesus, as soon as he had any thought of his own, entered into the burning atmosphere created in Palestine by these ideas, and his soul was soon filled with them. A beautiful natural environment imprinted a charming and idyllic character on all the dreams of Galilee. During the months of March and April that green, shady, smiling land is a carpet of flowers of an incomparable variety of colours. The animals are small and extremely gentle--delicate and playful turtle-doves, blackbirds so light that they rest on a blade of grass without bending it, tufted larks which almost venture under the feet of the traveller, little river-tortoises with mild bright eyes, storks of gravely modest mien, which,casting aside all timidity, allow men to come quite near them, and indeed seem to invite his approach. In no country in the world do the mountains extend with more harmonious outlines, or inspire higher thought. Jesus seems to have had an especial love for them. The most important events of his divine career took place upon the mountains. This beautiful country in his time was filled with prosperity and gaiety. There Jesus lived and grew up. True, every year he knew the sweet solemnity of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and it is believed that early in life the wilderness had some influence on his development, but it was when he returned into his beloved Galilee that he once more found his Heavenly Father in the midst of green hills and clear fountains, and women and children who with joyous soul awaited the salvation of Israel.
A Character to Love
Jesus followed the trade of his father, which was that of a carpenter. In this there was nothing irksome or humiliating. The Jewish custom required that a man devoted to intellectual work should learn a handicraft. Jesus never married. His whole capacity for love was concentrated upon that which he felt was his heavenly vocation. He was no doubt more beloved than loving. Thus, as often happens in very lofty natures, tenderness of heart was in him transformed into an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, a universal charm.
Through what stages did the ideas of Jesus progress during this obscure early period of his life? A high conception of the Divinity, the creation of his own great mind, was the guiding principle to which his power was due. God did not speak to him as to one outside of himself; God was in him; he felt himself with God, and from his own heart drew all he said of his Father. The highest consciousness of God which ever existed in theheart of man was that of Jesus; but he never once gave utterance to the sacrilegious idea that he was God. From the first he looked upon his relationship with God as that of a son with his father. Herein was his great originality; in this he had nothing in common with his race. Neither Jew nor Musselman has understood this sweet theology of love. The God of Jesus is our Father. He is the God of humanity. The Jesus who founded the true Kingdom of God, the kingdom of the humble and meek, was the Jesus of early life--of those chaste and simple days when the voice of his Father re-echoed within him in clearer tones. It was then, for some months, perhaps a year, that God truly dwelt on earth.