Note 6 — Chapter V · THE FIRST VISIT TO THE TEMPLE, AND THE EDUCATION OF JESUS.

Returned to Jerusalem, they find their son on the third day in the temple, doubtless in one of the outer halls, in the midst of an assembly of doctors, engaged in a conversation with them, and exciting universal astonishment (v. 45 f.). From some indications it would seem that Jesus held a higher position in the presence of the doctors, than could belong to a boy of twelve years. The word καθεζόμενον (sitting) has excited scruples, for according to Jewish records, it was not until after the death of the Rabbi Gamaliel, an event long subsequent to the one described in our narrative, that the pupils of the rabbins sat, they having previously been required to stand6 when in the school; but this Jewish tradition is of doubtful authority.7 It has also been thought a difficulty, that Jesus does not merely hear the doctors, but also asks them questions, thus appearing to assume the position of their teacher. Such is indeed the representation of the apocryphal Gospels, for in them Jesus, before he is twelve years old, perplexes all the doctors by his questions,8 and reveals to his instructor in the alphabet the mystical significance of the characters;9 while at the above visit to the temple he proposes controversial questions,10 such as that touching the Messiah’s being at once David’s Son and Lord (Matt. xxii. 41), and proceeds to throw light on all departments of knowledge.11 If the expressions ἐρωτᾷν and ἀποκρίνεσθαι implied that Jesus played the part of a teacher in this scene, so unnatural a feature in the evangelical narrative would render the whole suspicious.12 But there is nothing to render this interpretation of the words necessary, for according to Jewish custom, rabbinical teaching was of such a kind that not only did the masters interrogate the pupils, but the pupils interrogated the masters, when they wished for explanations on any point.13 We may with the more probability suppose that the writer intended to attribute to Jesus such questions as suited a boy, because he, apparently not without design, refers the astonishment of the doctors, not to his questions, but to that in which he could best show himself in the light of an intelligent pupil—namely, to his answers. A more formidable difficulty is the statement, that the boy Jesus sat in the midst of the doctors, ἐν μέσῳ τῶν διδασκάλων. For we learn from Paul (Acts xxii. 3) the position that became a pupil, when he says that he was brought up at the feet (παρὰ τοὺς πόδας) of Gamaliel: it being the custom for the rabbins to be placed on chairs, while their pupils sat on the ground,14 and did not take their places among their masters. It has indeed been thought that ἐν μέσῳ might be so explained as to signify, either that Jesus sat between the doctors, who are supposed to have been elevated on chairs, while Jesus and the other pupils are pictured as sitting on the ground between them,15 or merely that he was in the company of doctors, that is, in the synagogue;16 but according to the strict sense of the words, the expression καθέζεσθαι ἐν μέσῳ τινῶν appears to signify, if not as Schöttgen believes,17 in majorem Jesu gloriam, a place of pre-eminent honour, at least a position of equal dignity with that occupied by the rest. It need only be asked, would it harmonize with the spirit of our narrative to substitute καθεζόμενον παρὰ τοῦς πόδας τῶν διδασκάλων for καθ. ἐν μέσω τ. δ.? the answer will certainly be in the negative, and it will then be inevitable to admit, that our narrative places Jesus in another relation to the doctors than that of a learner, though the latter is the only natural one for a boy of twelve, however highly gifted. For Olshausen’s position,18—that in Jesus nothing was formed from without, by the instrumentality of another’s wisdom, because this would be inconsistent with the character of the Messiah, as absolutely self-determined,—contradicts a dogma of the church which he himself advances, namely, that Jesus in his manifestation as man, followed the regular course of human development. For not only is it in the nature of this development to be gradual, but also, and still more essentially, to be dependent, whether it be mental or physical, on the interchange of reception and influence. To deny this in relation to the physical life of Jesus—to say, for example, that the food which he took did not serve for the nourishment and growth of his body by real assimilation, but merely furnished occasion for him to reproduce himself from within, would strike every one as Docetism; and is the analogous proposition in relation to his spiritual development, namely, that he appropriated nothing from without, and used what he heard from others merely as a voice to evoke one truth after another from the recesses of his own mind—is this anything else than a more refined Docetism? Truly, if we attempt to form a conception of the conversation of Jesus with the doctors in the temple according to this theory, we make anything but a natural scene of it. It is not to be supposed that he taught, nor properly speaking that he was taught, but that the discourse of the doctors merely gave an impetus to his power of teaching himself, and was the occasion for an ever-brightening light to rise upon him, especially on the subject of his own destination. But in that case he would certainly have given utterance to his newly acquired knowledge; so that the position of a teacher on the part of the boy would return upon us, a position which Olshausen himself pronounces to be preposterous. At least such an indirect mode of teaching is involved as Ness subscribes to, when he supposes that Jesus, even thus early, made the first attempt to combat the prejudices which swayed in the synagogue, exposing to the doctors, by means of good-humoured questions and requests for explanation, such as are willingly permitted to a boy, the weakness of many of their dogmas.19 But even such a position on the part of a boy of twelve, is inconsistent with the true process of human development, through which it behoved the God-Man himself to pass. Discourse of this kind from a boy must, we grant, have excited the astonishment of all the hearers; nevertheless the expression ἐξίσταντο πάντες οἱ ἀκούοντες αὐτοῦ (v. 47), looks too much like a panegyrical formula.20