consciousness - or, perhaps, when for the first time taking part in the feast of the Lord's
House - may, and, learning from His example, should, make this the hour of decision, in
which heart and life shall be wholly consecrated to the 'business' of our Father. But there
was far more than this in the bearing of Christ on this occas ion. That forgetfulness of His
Child-life was a sacrifice - a sacrifice of self; that entire absorption in His Father's
business, without a thought of self, either in the gratification of curiosity, the acquisition
of knowledge, or personal ambition - a co nsecration of Himself unto God. It was the first
manifestation of His passive and active obedience to the Will of God. Even at this stage,
it was the forth-bursting of the inmost meaning of His Life: 'My meat is to do the Will of
Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.' And yet this awakening of the Christ-
consciousness on His first visit to the Temple, partial, and perhaps even temporary, as it
may have been, seems itself like the morning-dawn, which from the pinnacle of the
Temple the Priest watched, ere he summoned his waiting brethren beneath to offer the
early sacrifice.
69. Jos. Ant. xv. 8. 5.
70. According to Jer. Ab. Z. 44 d, the soil, the fountains, the houses, and the roads of
Samaria were 'clean.'
71. Maas. Sh. v. 2.
72. This is implied in the use of the present participle.
73. The first day would be that of missing Him, the second that of the return, and the
third that of the search in Jerusalem.
74. The expression εν τοις του πατρος µου may be equally rendered, or rather
supplemented, by 'in My Father's house,' and 'about My Father's business.' The former is
adopted by most modern commentators. But (1) it does not accord with the word that
must be supplemented in the two analogous passages in the LXX. Neither in Esth. vii. 9,
nor in Ecclus. xlii. 10, is it strictly 'the house.' (2) It seems unaccountable how the word
'house' could have been left out in the Greek rendering of the Aramĉan words of Christ -
but quite natural, if the word to be supplemented was 'things' or 'business.' (3) A
reference to the Temple as His Father's house could not have seemed so strange on the
lips of Jesus - nor, indeed, of any Jewish child - as to fill Joseph and Mary with
astonishment.
From what we have already learned of this History, we do not wonder that the answer of
Jesus came to His parents as a fresh surprise. For, we can only understand what we
perceive in its totality. But here each fresh manifestation came as something separate and
new - not as part of a whole; and therefore as a surprise, of which the purport and
meaning could not be understood, except in its organic connection and as a whole. And
for the true human development of the God-Man, what was the natural was also the
needful process, even as it was best for the learning of Mary herself, and for the future
reception of His teaching. These three subsidiary reasons may once more be indicated
here in explanation of the Virgin-Mother's seeming ignorance of her Son's true character:
the necessary gradualness of such a revelation; the necessary development of His own
consciousness; and the fact, that Jesus could not have been subject to His Parents, nor had
true and proper human training, if they had clearly known that He was the essential Son
of God.