Note 45 — Chapter V · THE FIRST VISIT TO THE TEMPLE, AND THE EDUCATION OF JESUS.

What were the circumstances of Jesus and his parents as to fortune? The answer to this question has been the object of many dissertations. It is evident that the ascription of pressing poverty to Jesus, on the part of orthodox theologians, rested on dogmatical and æsthetic grounds. On the one hand, they wished to maintain even in this point the status exinanitionis, and on the other, they wished to depict as strikingly as possible the contrast between the μορφὴ θεοῦ (form of God) and the μορφὴ δούλου (form of a servant). That this contrast as set forth by Paul (Phil. ii. 6, ff.), as well as the expression ἐπτώχευσε, which this apostle applies to Christ (2 Cor. viii. 9) merely characterizes the obscure and laborious life to which he submitted after his heavenly pre-existence, and instead of playing the part of king which the Jewish imagination attributed to the Messiah, is also to be regarded as established.45 The expression of Jesus himself, The Son of man hath not where to lay his head, ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ (Matt. viii. 20), may possibly import merely his voluntary renunciation of the peaceful enjoyment of fortune, for the sake of devoting himself to the wandering life of the Messiah. There is only one other particular bearing on the point in question, namely, that Mary presented, as an offering of purification, doves (Luke ii. 24),—according to Lev. xii. 8, the offering of the poor: which certainly proves that the author of this information conceived the parents of Jesus to have been in by no means brilliant circumstances;46 but what shall assure us that he also was not induced to make this representation by unhistorical motives? Meanwhile we are just as far from having tenable ground for maintaining the contrary proposition, namely, that Jesus possessed property: at least it is inadmissible to adduce the coat without seam47 (John xix. 23), until we shall have inquired more closely what kind of relation it has to the subject.