Saint Luke - Chapter 2
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| Jesus lost. J-J Tissot |
And when he was twelve years old, they going up into Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast,
And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. The Syriac has “as they had been accustomed on the feast”—namely, of the Passover.
[43] consummatisque diebus, cum redirent, remansit puer Jesus in Jerusalem, et non cognoverunt parentes ejus.
And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not.
And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem. In the Greek, after they had finished, or gone through, the days—namely, of the Passover; for this feast was kept for seven days, and S. Luke here implies that Mary and Joseph kept all these days at Jerusalem, though they were not bound by the law to remain so long—tarried behind in Jerusalem, there to shed some little ray of His wisdom and Divinity, as though longing to begin the ministry for which His Father had sent Him For at the age of twelve childhood ends, and youth and perfect judgment begin. So says Bede.
And Joseph and his mother knew not of it, because Jesus asked leave of His parents, who were lingering a little in Jerusalem from motives of devotion or business, to visit His relations, as if he were about to go on with them, and, having obtained permission, went to them, but soon withdrew quietly to the Temple—God so directing—in order that His parents, though at other times always solicitous about Him, should be unaware of this, and think that He was in the company of His kinsfolk,
[44] Existimantes autem illum esse in comitatu, venerunt iter diei, et requirebant eum inter cognatos et notos.
And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day's journey, and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance.
But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, who had gone on, and with whom Mary and Joseph, who were about to follow a little later, would that evening lodge and, as they thought, there find Jesus,
[45] Et non invenientes, regressi sunt in Jerusalem, requirentes eum.
And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him.
And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking Him. Jesus having been seen by none of His kinsfolk on the way, His parents understood that He must have remained in Jerusalem; and so they sought Him there with great anxiety. Origen gives the reason, and Theophylact and Titus follow him. “But did they seek Him so anxiously? Did they imagine that the Child had been lost, or had wandered from the way?” Far otherwise, “For this would not have been characteristic of Mary’s wisdom (she knew that Jesus was full of wisdom, yea, that He was God), and they could never have thought that the Child was lost, when they knew that He was Divine, but they sought Him lest by any means He might have gone away from them; lest perchance He had left them;” lest He should wish to remain not with them at Nazareth, but with others in Jerusalem, that He might there make haste to begin the ministry of teaching for which He had been sent by God. Origen adds, “They sought Him, lest perchance He might have gone away from them, lest He might have left them and betaken Himself elsewhere—or as seems most probable—lest He might have returned to heaven, to descend from thence when it should please Him … but she mourned because she was a mother, and the mother of a Son worthy of her immeasurable love—because He had departed without her knowledge, and quite contrary to her expectation.”
S. Antoninus adds that the mother of Jesus feared lest He might have fallen into the hands of Archeläus, the son of Herod the Infanticide, who would slay Him. Euthymius and Francis Lucas think she feared lest Christ might have wandered from the road, since He did not thoroughly know all the way. For, though He knew its turns and windings by His Divine and infused wisdom, yet, according to the experimental knowledge which He, as a child, was following, He did not know it. Whether this be correct I leave to theologians to decide.
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| Jesus in the midst of the Doctors. J-J Tissot |
And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple,[1] sitting in the midst of the doctors,[2] hearing them, and asking them questions.
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. After three days, that is, on the third day. The first day was that on which they left Jerusalem; the second, that on which, not finding Him at the inn, they returned; and the third, when they sought and found the Holy Child in the Holy Temple. So S. Ambrose, Euthymius, and others. Just as we read in ver. 21, “When the eight days were accomplished”—that is, on the eighth day—Jesus was circumcised. And in S. Mark 8:31, “The Son of Man must suffer many things … after three days (that is, on the third day) to rise again.”
[1] In the Temple—For the place of God Incarnate is in the Temple. There is He to be sought, there shall He be found—not in the market-place, not in the tavern, not in the theatre. S. Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen imitated Christ, for they, according to Ruffinus, when they were studying at Athens, knew but two streets in the city—one led to the church and the other to the school.
The whole of these three days, then, Jesus spent in praying and hearing and answering the doctors in the Temple; His food He received from the doctors, who, being present, and admiring His wisdom, invited Him. Others, with less probability, think that He lived by begging from door to door; such is the opinion of S. Bernard (Hom. infra Oct. Epiphan.), Bonaventura, Alensis, and others. S. Thomas, in the Summa, favours this view, proving that Christ did sometimes beg. from the words of Ps. 40:17, “But I am poor and needy.” On the other hand, Nicholas de Lyra, Dionysius the Carthusian, John the Greater, commenting on this passage, and John of Avila, on S. Matt. 17, hold that Christ never begged, begging having been unlawful among the Jews. “There shall be no poor among you,” Deut. 15:4. However, these words are not a precept, but a promise of riches, if they obey the Law of God.
[2] Sitting in the midst of the doctors. A Hebraism—among the doctors, but in a lowly position like a disciple, in order that He might rouse them to think and inquire about the advent of the Messiah, which was now nigh at hand, because the sceptre had departed from Judah, and the seventy weeks of Daniel and other oracles of the prophets were now fulfilled. It is very probable that Christ questioned the doctors about the coming of the Messiah, so that His manifestation might not be unexpected, but that, afterwards, when preaching and working miracles, He might the more readily be received by them as the Messiah, from these same indications which now flashed out like sparks upon them.
Asking them questions, (1.) Because it was fitting that the child should ask questions of these learned men, and not teach them. (2.) To teach the young modesty, and the desire to hear, to question, and to learn, “Lest,” says Bede, “if they will not be disciples of the truth, they become masters of error.” (3.) That, asking them questions, He might be questioned in turn by them, and might teach them by His replies.
[47] Stupebant autem omnes qui eum audiebant, super prudentia et responsis ejus.
And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers.
And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. That a child of twelve, the son of a carpenter, one who had never attended the schools, should be so versed in Holy Scripture, should question so wisely and answer so intelligently as to surpass even the doctors themselves, so that they said, “What thinkest thou that this child will be?”—will He be a Prophet? will He be the Messiah, whom we all anxiously expect from day to day to be the Teacher of the World?
[48] Et videntes admirati sunt. Et dixit mater ejus ad illum : Fili, quid fecisti nobis sic? ecce pater tuus et ego dolentes quaerebamus te.
And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
And when they saw him, they were amazed. His parents, who were seeking Him, wondered and rejoiced at finding him alone disputing with the doctors, manifesting such wisdom, while the doctors, and all the rest who were present, wondered at Him.
And His mother said unto Him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing—the Arabic adds, “with labour.” Such are the words of His mother, not as finding fault with Christ, but in wonder and in sorrow, and sorrowfully unfolding her grief. The reverence felt by this mother for her Child—the God-Man—assures us of this; so it is most likely that she said this to Him, not publicly in the assemblage of doctors, but privately, calling Him aside, or when the assembly had dispersed. So Jansemus, Maldonatus, and others.
Thy father and I. S. Augustine (Serm. 63 De Diversis, xi.) remarks upon the humility of the Virgin, who, knowing that she was in every sense (in solidum) the Mother of Christ, and, therefore, of God, and that Joseph had no part in begetting Him, yet modestly puts herself after Joseph as her husband. “She expresses herself always,” says an anonymous writer in the “Catena Græca,” like a mother, with trustfulness, humility, and affection.”
Tropologically, let the soul that has separated itself from Jesus by mortal sin, or from its wonted communion with Him by venial negligence, seek Him again (1) with the sorrow and tears of a penitent heart, for, as S. Gregory Nazianzen says (Orat. 3), “The tears of righteous men” (and of sinful too, if they repent) “are the flood that covers sin, and the expiation of the world, as was Noah’s flood; (2) with earnestness and solicitude, as the Blessed Virgin did, and that in the Temple, by passing some time in prayer and in spiritual reading and meditation; (3) among the doctors, among learned and good men, who shall instruct the soul as well in knowledge as in piety.
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| Jesus found. J-J Tissot |
And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father's business?
And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? S. Ambrose holds that these are the words of one administering reproof. And Christ, as the Messiah, and as a Lawgiver, might rightfully have reproved His mother had she sinned. But there was no blemish of sin in His mother, neither therefore was there any reproof on the part of Christ. Still, there is in the words a certain sharpness of tone, savouring of reproof, that He may teach them by His question and incite them the more keenly to learn the things that concerned Him, just as parents are wont to stimulate their children to zeal and diligence with sharp words, and masters their pupils. These words of Christ, then, are the words of one instructing and consoling; excusing himself, and defending what he has done:—There was no need for you to seek Me, for you might have considered that I was treating concerning the beginning of that business, the salvation of the world, for which My Father sent Me. Neither must you suppose that I shall always remain with you; some day I shall leave you and go away about this business, as I have already begun to do. And, as for My going without your knowledge, I did so purposely, to teach you that, in these matters, I depend not on you, but on My Heavenly Father, and that I must act according to His will and His plan. It is not I, then, who have given you cause for sorrow, but partly your love for Me and partly your ignorance of the mystery I have now told you of; you knew not that I was occupied with My Father’s affairs. For, though this ought to have presented itself to your mind, your tender love prevented it, and turned aside the thought. Hence Bede says, “He blames her not because she sought Him as her son, but forces her to raise the eyes of her mind to what He owes Him whose Eternal Son He is.”
In order to understand this thoroughly we must notice that Christ, besides His Divine actions, which He had as God and the Son of God, such as creating, preserving, and ruling all things, and breathing the Holy Spirit, had human actions of two kinds. (1) Of these He had some as man, common to Him with other men, eating, walking, labouring, &c.; (2) others were proper to Him as the God-Man, the Redeemer, the Christ, and these actions are called by S. Dionysius “Theandric” (Θέος ἀνηρ), being the works partly of God and partly of a man. Such actions were those of teaching, working miracles, calling His disciples, creating and ordaining apostles, &c.
In respect of the former class of actions Christ was willing to obey His parents; but as to the latter He would obey only God His Father, because these, as being of a higher order, were received by and were under the direction of God alone. Wherefore He answered His parents, when they sought an explanation of His conduct, that these things were to be done, not at their will and pleasure, but at God’s—as appears from this passage, and at the marriage at Cana, in the turning of the water into wine, S. John 2:4, and in other similar cases.
And these actions which Christ did as the God-Man He calls the actions of God His Father, and attributes to His Father, not to Himself (1) because on account of these works He was sent by His Father into the world; (2) because He had His Divinity from the Father, and these were the works chiefly of His Divinity; (3) because He did them by the Father’s command; (4) because in these matters He was subject to no one but His Eternal Father, to teach us that God’s command or counsel must come before even the tenderest love for a mother—as when God calls any one to religion, to the priesthood, to martyrdom, or to the apostolate, and his parents are opposed to the call.
[50] Et ipsi non intellexerunt verbum quod locutus est ad eos.
And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them.
And they understood not the saying which He spake unto them. Some make these words refer to the ignorance of those who stood by, who were astonished at the wisdom and the answers of Jesus—others to Joseph alone by a synecdoche. But they clearly refer both to the Blessed Virgin and Joseph; for, though they knew that their Jesus was Christ, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, still they did not understand in what manner He was going to set about the work of this His office, or what was that business of His Father which He had said that it behoved Him to be about—that is to say, whether, or when, or how He was going to teach, to live, to die, and to be crucified for the salvation of the world; for these things had not yet been revealed to them by God. However, they learnt all this in progress of time, either by experience or by revelation from Jesus. And, out of reverence for Him, they durst not ask Him curiously in this place what those mysteries were, but prudently awaited the fitting opportunity.
Going up to the Temple
[14] Tribus vicibus per singulos annos mihi festa celebrabitis.
Three times every year you shall celebrate feasts to me.
[15] Solemnitatem azymorum custodies.[1] Septem diebus comedes azyma, sicut praecepi tibi, tempore mensis novorum, quando egressus es de Aegypto : non apparebis in conspectu meo vacuus.
Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month of new corn, when thou didst come forth out of Egypt: thou shalt not appear empty before me.
[16] Et solemnitatem messis primitivorum operis tui, quaecumque seminaveris in agro : solemnitatem quoque in exitu anni, quando congregaveris omnes fruges tuas de agro.
And the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of thy work,[2] whatsoever thou hast sown in the field. The feast also in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in all thy corn out of the field.[3]
[17] Ter in anno apparebit omne masculinum tuum coram Domino Deo tuo.
Thrice a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God.
[Exodus 23]
[1] Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover. Hebrew Pesach or Greek Pascha.
[2] Feast of Weeks, Harvest or Pentecost. Hebrew Shavuot.
[3] Feast of Ingathering or Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. Hebrew Succoth or Sukkot.
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