A Layman's Life of Jesus. Samuel H. M. Byers
the young Galilean. He, though a Jew, lived all his life in Egypt. There he wrote maxims worthy of the Master himself. He was twenty years older than the Galilean. He had studied Plato, and spent his life in trying to harmonize religious Greek thought with the thoughts of Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews.
We will hear little in our Testament writers of these two wise men, who must have had a tremendous influence on the youth at Nazareth. Indeed, as already said, the Testament anyway tells us not much of the life at Galilee, or elsewhere. The larger part of the Testament story relates to the deeds of the passion week, or the last days of the Master's life. One-third of the book is taken up with that single week. It has been guessed that had the details of the Galilean's whole life been written out fully, it would have made a book eighty times as big as our Bible.
The things that the Galileans heard in the village synagogue, the things that He read in the old Scriptures, all, all that found its way to the village from Hillel, from Philo, and other men renowned then, and forgotten now, were reflected in Him. More, He beautified all, simplified all, glorified all. Most of all, however, His divine instinct enlarged itself from scenes in nature. The young carpenter was a poet. No beauty of the fields, the hills, the brooks, the lovely lake escaped His eye, or failed to feed His soul. He was an outdoor man. Scarcely one of His miracles later, but would be performed out of doors. The wedding at Cana was probably on the green lawn of a peasant's home. The stilling of the tempest, the feeding of the five thousand, the transfiguration, the numberless wonders and cures in all the Galilean villages were nearly always performed out of doors. Half His parables have to do with things out of doors. To Him God was in everything – the rocks, the trees, the blue sky of Galilee, the very desolation of the Dead sea inspired Him. How often the Testament tells of His flying away from crowds to be alone with nature. Is it not altogether possible, almost certain, that these long absences were in the wilderness of the desert? His long stay in solitary places, later, communing with God at first hand, may they not account for so much of the silence of history as to much of His life? It need not seem strange to us at all. In the old Jewish days half a lifetime of contemplation in the solitude of the desert was regarded by every one a first step to leadership.
Whoever sought a high religious calling, or sought to be a founder of a new belief, went through this solitary preparation in the desert. Even Moses did it, and spent forty years as a shepherd on the plains. John did it, Jerome did it, Mahomet did it. Why not Jesus? Even great teachers of modern times locked themselves up in the desert of cloister cells for years. Savonarola did it – Martin Luther did it – Assisi did it – so did a thousand other luminaries of the religious world.
Certainly most of the Galilean's life is a blank to human history, otherwise not explained. Why should He not have been absent in some desert solitude, some wilderness, preparing for immortal deeds, immortal words? There is absolutely no other explanation for these silent years.
How little the youth at this moment is dreaming of all that future as He works by His father's side, or goes about the village encouraging and helping by His gentle smile! He is healing by His strong faith and His pure soul. The poor love Him, not yet knowing who He is. He himself does not know. We even wonder if He knows how it is that He helps so many. He is no magician, no doer of wonders just to make a show. Perhaps He only knows as yet that goodness and kindness and love and extreme faith can do everything. Anyway He is the loved of every one. How easy it all is to be loved. One can be just a carpenter, and yet by love do everything. Of all things He is a helper of the poor, the unfortunate. Sometimes the very ignorant adopt the notion that salvation is for the poor only. They, too, misunderstand and exaggerate. A little later a sect of the overzealous poor build a church on the theory that the poor only, go to Heaven. They call themselves "Ebionites," or "The Poor." Of course, these sects in a few years ended in religious suicide. They had forgotten that the Galilean could be no respecter of class or persons.
To-morrow this young carpenter, this village doctor, will again disappear in the wilderness of the desert; who knows how long? Old church writings say that He was seven years in the desert of Egypt as a child. He is used to solitude. Legends tell, too, that He studied law in these days – by law they meant the books of Moses and the prophets. Likely enough He took the parchment rolls with Him, and in the long days there in the desert learned them all by heart. Later He will tell all the people to go and read the same great Scriptures.
What His life may have been at such times in the desert we can more than guess. It was a meditation, an inspiration. It is told of John the Baptist, whose coming birth like that of Christ was announced by an angel, that he also spent years as a hermit of the desert, and in its solitude learned a language and received a revelation not vouchsafed to ordinary man. What then must the great soul of the Galilean not have absorbed there alone with the voice of the great creation speaking to Him all the day – the night there with the "floor of Heaven inlaid with patines of bright gold, and the music of the spheres sounding in his ears forever." His was a soul to enjoy and to be inspired with such a scene.
Little as the sacred writings tell of Him, silent as history is in the Galilean days, we have other glimpses of the times, and of what He was doing, by reading the old books, now called Apocryphal, that were discarded from our present Testament in the fourth century. Why all of them were discarded, is hard to imagine; for, though buried in an ocean of nonsense and legend, there was still at the bottom of them a grain of pure gold. Besides, for over three centuries these discarded books were regarded as part of the sacred writings.
CHAPTER III
Christ still a Jew. Is the Child's escape at Bethlehem still a secret? Performing wonders. A strange age. Rome still in the thrall of Heathendom. Augustus dead. Tiberius the Awful. Palestine itself half Heathen. A Religious Enthusiast. Jesus is ceasing to be a Jew. A church tyranny. Subjects of Caesar. Human suffering counted for nothing with the Romans. The Jews are longing for the New Time when God might come and rule the world in Pity. An age of Superstitions and Magic. Laws of Science unknown. Nobody even knew that the world was round.
But let us go back there to Galilee and stay yet a while with the village carpenter. The youth is older now. Perhaps He is going back and forth between Galilee and the solitude of the wilderness. This so-called "wilderness" is nothing more than the secret hills beyond the Jordan, or the mysterious edge of the near-by desert coming up to them like a speechless sea. At this moment He is again in Nazareth, and the wondering villagers again see Him at His daily toil. He is still learning by rote the striking maxims and proverbs of the Jewish masters. He is yet a Jew. Like all Israel He is counting on the completion of prophecy; a new world is sure to come soon – and with it a king from Heaven. It will be a glorious thing, that new world, that great king. The villagers familiarly call Him Jesus – but they know nothing of the beautiful tradition of His birth – how an angel had announced it to Mary, and how His name was fixed in Heaven.
No – Mary had meditated much on the angel's visit and on what the angel had said to her, but steadily she had kept the great secret in her own heart. She had not even whispered to the villagers about the shepherds and the star at Bethlehem, nor the sudden flight of herself and the child to far-off Egypt. Why, her secrecy is just now hard to guess. Is it possible that Herod or his successor, who would have slain the child, is still watching for Him – not knowing even of the return from Egypt years ago? Even now one indiscreet word from her might cause His death. We wonder if now, on this day, there in His father's workshop, the youth dreams that some day He is to be a king, and that of his kingdom there will be no end? I think not. He is not publicly preaching now. That, Luke says, will come much later. But what delightful whisperings go about Galilee concerning Him already. Possibly these beautiful heart-stories about Himself were as familiar to the young carpenter then as they now are to every reader of the sacred book. He may have known of them, thought of them, but He, too, kept them largely to Himself. It was an age of prophecies, of dreams, of visions, of fables, and of superstitious tales. Perhaps He was waiting to see if the angel's words to Mary were to be fulfilled. Two thousand years have not dimmed the beauty of the wondrous tale told of Mary and the child. If parts of it were only the longings of a few persons' imaginations, we may never clearly know, nor is it of the least importance that we should know. The happenings at the birth of the world's great ones have little to do with the grandeur of their lives.
Yes, the young carpenter, with the tender eyes