more originality. Their names were so completely unknown, that, when the evangelist puts into the mouth of the men of Nazareth the enumeration of the brothers according to natural relationship, the names of the sons of Cleophas are the first that occur to him.

Jesus' sisters were married at Nazareth (Matt. xiii. 56; Mark vi. 3), and he spent there the first years of his youth. Nazareth was a small town situated in a hollow, opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which close the plain of Esdraëlon on the north. The population is now from three to four thousand, and it can never have varied much. The cold is keen there in winter, and the climate very healthy. Nazareth, like all the small Jewish towns at this period, was a huddle of huts built without plan, and must have shown that withered and poor aspect offered by villages in Semitic countries. The houses, it would seem, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without exterior or interior elegance, found to-day throughout the richest parts of the Lebanon, which yet, surrounded with vines and fig-trees, are always extremely pleasing. The neighbourhood, besides, is charming; and no place in the world was so well adapted for dreams of absolute happiness. Even to-day, Nazareth is a delightful abode, perhaps the only spot in Palestine where the soul feels a slight relief from the burden which oppresses it in the midst of that unparalleled desolation. The people are kindly and cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. Antoninus the Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, gives an enchanting picture of the fertility of the environs, which he compares with Paradise

1 According to Josephus (Wars, III. iii. 2) the smallest Galilean town had at least 5000 inhabitants. This is doubtless exaggeration.

(Itin. 5). Some valleys on the western side fully bear out his description. The fountain, where once gathered the life and gaiety of the little town, is destroyed; its broken channels yield now only a turbid stream. But the beauty of the women who meet there in the evening that beauty already remarked in the sixth century, which (says Antoninus) was looked upon as a gift of the Virgin Mary -is still most strikingly preserved. It is the Syrian type in all its grace, so full of languor. There is no doubt that Mary was there almost every day, and took her place, with her jar on her shoulder, in the file of her forgotten companions. Antoninus further remarks that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful of Christians, are here full of courtesy. Even at the present day, religious animosity is less pronounced at Nazareth than elsewhere. ·

The prospect from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little and reach the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which overlooks the highest houses, the view is splendid. On the west are displayed the fine outlines of Carmel, terminated by an abrupt spur which seems to plunge into the sea. Next are spread out the double summit which dominates Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal age; the hills of Gilboa; the small picturesque group to which cling the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its rounded form, which antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a gap between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peræa, which on the east side form a continuous line. On the north, the mountains of Safed, inclining toward the sea, conceal St. Jean d'Acre, but

reveal the outline of the Gulf of Khaïfa.

Such was the horizon of Jesus. This enchanted circle, this cradle of the kingdom of God, made his picture of the world for years. Even his later life did not widen much from the limits familiar to his childhood. For yonder, to the north, on the flank of Hermon, a glimpse is almost caught of Cæsarea-Philippi, the farthest point he ever reached in the Gentile world; and southward, the more sombre aspect of those Samaritan hills foreshadows the dreariness of Judæa beyond, parched as by a scorching wind of desolation and death.

If the world, remaining Christian but with a better idea of the reverence due to the sources of its higher life, should ever wish to substitute authentic shrines for the mean and spurious fanes to which the piety of ruder ages clung, it will build its temple upon this hill of Nazareth. Here, at the spot where Christianity appeared, and at the centre of its founder's activity, should arise the great cathedral in which all Christians might worship. Here also, on the spot where sleep Joseph the carpenter and thousands of forgotten Nazarenes who never passed beyond the outskirts of their valley, would be a better station than any in the world for the philosopher to contemplate the course of human events, to console himself for the disappointments that befall our most cherished instincts, and to reassure himself as to the divine end which the world pursues through endless falterings, and in spite of the universal vanity.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY EDUCATION.

NATURE here, at once smiling and grand, was the whole education of Jesus. He learned to read and to write (John viii. 6), no doubt, according to the Eastern method, which consists in putting into the child's hands a book, which he repeats rhythmically with his little schoolfellows, until he knows it by heart.1 It is, however, doubtful whether he understood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make him quote them from translations in the Aramean language; 2 and his methods of interpretation, so far as we can make them out from his disciples, were much like those then current, which form the spirit of the Targums and the Midrashim.3

The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the hazzan, or reader in the synagogues. Jesus had little to do with the higher schools of the scribes or sopherim (Nazareth had perhaps nothing of them); and he had none of those titles which, in the eyes of the vulgar, confer the privileges of learning.5 Still, it would be a great error to imagine that Jesus was what we call ignorant. School education among us draws a great

1 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi 6.

2 Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.

8 Jewish translations and commentaries of the Old Testament books 4 Mishna, Schabbath, i. 3. 5 Matt. xiii. 54; John vii. 15.

distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received it and those who are without it. It was not so in the East, or, in general, in the good old days. The rude state in which one remains among us who has not passed through the schools (owing to our estranged and wholly individual life) is unknown in those societies where moral culture, and especially the general spirit of the time, is transmitted by incessant contact with men. The Arab, who has never had a teacher, is often, nevertheless, a very superior man; for the tent is a sort of academy always open, where, from meeting with well-educated people, a considerable intellectual and even literary activity springs up. Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect have in the East nothing in common with what we call education. The men of the schools, on the contrary, pass for pedants and ill-trained. In this social state, ignorance, which among us at once degrades a man to a lower rank, is the very thing that favours a great and original career.

It is not likely that Jesus knew Greek. This language was but little diffused in Judæa beyond the classes that had a hand in the government, and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Cæsarea.1 The mother tongue of Jesus was the Syriac dialect mixed with Hebrew, then spoken in Palestine. There is still greater reason to conclude

1 Mishna, Schekalim, iii. 2. Jerusalem Talmud, Megilla, halaca xi.; Sota, vii. 1. Babyl. Talmud, Baba kama, 83 a, Megilla, 8 b et seq.

2 Matt. xxvii. 46. Mark iii. 17; v. 41; vii. 34; xiv. 36; xv. 34. The expressionárρios own in the writers of this time, always signifies the Semitic dialect spoken in Palestine (2 Macc. vii. 21, 27; xii. 37. Acts xxi. 37, 40; xxii. 2; xxvi. 14. Jos. Antiq. XVIII. vi. 10; XX. at the end; and Wars, Prooem. 1; V. vi. 3, ix. 2; VI. ii. 1. C. Apion. i. 9; de Macc. 12, 16). It will be shown, later on, that some of the documents serving