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dour which survive we can trace an agricultural people in no way gifted in art, caring little for luxury, indifferent to the beauties of form, exclusively idealistic. The country abounded in fresh streams and fruits; the large farms were shaded with vines and fig-trees; the gardens were a mass of apple, walnut, and pomegranate trees. The wine was excellent, if it may be judged from what the Jews still obtain at Safed, and they drank freely of it. This contented and easily satisfied life was not at all like the sordid materialism of a French peasantry, or the coarse jollity of wealthy Normandy, or the heavy mirth of the Flemings. It expanded in mysterious dreams, in a kind of poetic mysticism, blending heaven and earth. Leave the austere Baptist in his desert of Judæa, to preach repentance, to inveigh unceasingly, and to feed on locusts in the company of jackals! Why should the companions of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? Joy will be a part of the kingdom of God. Is she not the daughter of the humble in heart, of the men of good-will?

The entire history of infant Christianity has in this way come to be a delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage supper, the harlot and the good Zacchæus called to his feasts, the founders of the kingdom of heaven like a bridal procession, - this is what Galilee has dared to offer, and what she has caused to be

1 We may fancy them from several enclosures near Nazareth (cf. Cant. ii. 3, 5, 13; iv. 13; vi. 6, 10; vii. 8, 12; viii. 2, 5; Antoninus the martyr, as above). The aspect of the great farms is still well preserved in the southerly region of Tyre (old tribe of Asher). Traces of the ancient agriculture of Palestine, with its threshing-floors, press-rooms, silos, stalls, mills, etc., cut in the rock, appear at every step.

2 Matt. ix. 17; xi. 19. Mark ii. 22. Luke v. 37; vii. 34. John ii. 3-10.

accepted. Greece has drawn admirable pictures of human life in sculpture and poetry, but always without receding backgrounds or distant horizons. Here are wanting the marble, the practised workmen, the exquisite and refined language. But Galilee has created for the popular imagination a far sublimer ideal; for behind its idyll the fate of humanity moves, and the light which illumines its picture is the sun of the kingdom of God.

Jesus lived and grew up under the quickening influence of these surroundings. From his infancy, he went almost every year to the feasts at Jerusalem (Luke ii. 41). The pilgrimage was for the provincial Jews a solemnity of sweet associations. Several entire series of psalms were devoted to celebrate the joy of thus journeying in family society (Luke ii. 42-44) during several days in springtime across the hills and valleys, all having in prospect the splendours of Jerusalem, the awe of the sacred courts, the delight of brethren dwelling together. The route which Jesus usually followed in these journeys was that which is taken in the present day, through Ginæa and Shechem.2 From Shechem to Jerusalem the way is very toilsome. But the neighbourhood of the old sanctuaries of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the pilgrim passes, keeps the mind awake. Ain-el-Haramié, the last halting-place, is a melancholy and yet charming spot; and few impressions equal that

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1 See especially Psalms lxxxiv. cxxii. cxxxiii. 2 Luke ix. 51-53; xxii. 11. John iv. 4. Josephus, Antiquities, XX. vi. 1; Wars, II. xii. 3; Life, 52. Pilgrims, however, often went by way of Perea to avoid Samaria, where they might be in danger (Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1).

According to Josephus (Life, 52) it was a three days' journey. But the stage from Shechem to Jerusalem must often have been divided.

which one feels when encamping there for the night. The valley is narrow and sombre, while a dark stream issues from the rocks, honeycombed with tombs, which form its banks. It is, I believe, "the valley of weeping," or of dripping waters, which is in song one of the stations on the way in the delightful eighty-fourth Psalm; and it became, to the sweet and sad mysticism of the Middle Age, an emblem of life. The next day, at an early hour, the traveller would be at Jerusalem; this expectation, even at the present day, sustains the caravan, rendering the night short and slumber light.

These journeys, during which the assembled nation exchanged its ideas, creating centres of great excitement in the capital every year, put Jesus in contact with the mind of his countrymen, and doubtless inspired him from his youth with a lively antipathy to the faults of the official representatives of Judaism. It is further implied that the desert was for him another school, and that he made long sojournings there (Luke iv. 42; v. 16). But the God he found there was not his God. It was at best the God of Job, severe and terrible, who gives account of himself to no man. Sometimes Satan came to tempt him. He would then return into his beloved Galilee, where he found again his heavenly Father, amidst the green hills and the clear fountains, among the crowds of women and children who, with joyous soul and the song of angels in their hearts, waited for the salvation of Israel.

CHAPTER V.

EARLIER TEACHINGS.

JOSEPH died before his son had assumed any public position. Mary accordingly remained the head of the family; and this explains why Jesus, when it was desired to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called "son of Mary." It would seem that, having through her husband's death become friendless in Nazareth, she retired to Cana,2 which was possibly her native place. Cana was a little town about two or two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at the base of the hills which bound the plain of Asochis (El-Buttauf) on the north The pros

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pect, less grand than that at Nazareth, extends over the whole plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris.

1 This is the expression of Mark vi. 3 (cf. Matt. xiii. 55). Mark does not speak of Joseph: the Fourth Gospel and Luke, on the other hand, prefer the expression "son of Joseph " (Luke iii. 23; iv. 22. John i. 46; vi. 42). It is singular that the Fourth Gospel never calls the mother of Jesus by her name. The name "Ben-Joseph" in the Talmud, indicating one of the Messiahs, is suggestive.

2 John ii. 11; iv. 46. John is the only writer who seems informed on this point.

8 Now Kana-el Djelil, the same with Cana Galilé of the times of the Crusades (see Archives des missions scientifiques, ser. 2, vol. iii. p. 370). Kefr Kenna, an hour or hour and a half north-northeast from Nazareth (Capharchemmé of the Crusades) is distinct from this.

Jesus appears to have resided in this place for some time. Here he probably passed a part of his youth, and his first manifestations were made at Cana.1 He followed the same occupation as his father, that of a carpenter. This was no humiliating or vexatious circumstance. The Jewish custom required that a man devoted to intellectual work should learn a handicraft. The most celebrated doctors had their trades: 3 thus Saint Paul, whose education was so elaborate, was a tent-maker, or weaver of carpets (Acts xviii. 3).

Jesus never married. All his power of loving was spent on what he considered his heavenly vocation. The extremely delicate sentiment which one observes in his manner towards women did not interfere with the boundless devotion he cherished for his idea. Like Francis of Assisi and Francis de Sales, he treated as sisters the women who threw themselves into the same work with himself: he had his Santa Clara, and his Françoise de Chantals. However, it is probable that they loved him better than his work; he was certainly more beloved than loving. As happens frequently in the case of very lofty natures, his tenderness of heart grew to an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, a universal charm. His relations-free and intimate, but purely moral in tone-with women of doubtful character are also explained by his devotion to his Father's glory, which made him jealously anxious for all beautiful creatures who could contribute to it.5

1 John ii. 11; iv. 46. One or two of his disciples were from Cana (John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18).

2 Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; Justin, Tryph. 88.

For example, R. Johanan the shoemaker; R. Isaac the blacksmith. 4 See chap. ix., below.

Luke vii. 37-50. John iv. 7-27; viii. 3-11.