WHERE OUR SAVIOUR SPENT HIS BOYHOOD
To-day I am in Nazareth, the home of Christ’s boyhood. Here He was
brought as a baby after the flight into Egypt to escape the bloodthirsty
Herod, and here He spent all but about four years of His life. The town
is situated high up in the mountains of Galilee, within sixty miles of
Jerusalem as the crow flies and sixty-seven miles from Bethlehem, where
Jesus was born. It is within a day’s ride on horseback of Mount Carmel
and within four hours of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee from which our
Saviour called His apostles and where He first preached.
Nazareth lies in a nest in the mountains. It is in a little amphitheatre
of hills with a rough and ragged arena. The houses extend up the sides
of the hills and there is hardly a level spot in the whole town. It has
altogether less than twelve thousand inhabitants of whom about half are
Mohammedans. The rest of the population is made up of Greek Catholics,
Latins, and about two hundred Syrians of the Protestant faith. The town
is full of churches and convents, and there are some great monasteries
and hospices where pilgrims may stop over night.
The homes of the people are rectangular structures, which look more like
great stone boxes than houses. They are usually of one story, with a door
and two windows, and most of them have flat roofs, which in the summer
nights are used as resting and sleeping places. A number of the buildings
are in gardens. Some have cactus hedges about them and others are shaded
by cypress trees. There are many olive orchards, and figs grow here as
luxuriantly as they did when Christ was a boy.
The buildings of Nazareth are ugly, but as a whole the city and its
surroundings are beautiful. I doubt whether there is more beautiful
scenery to be found in England or Scotland, or even in the Blue Ridge
Mountains of Virginia, for which God has done much. There are many fine
views. One can stand in the city or near it and look out over the plain
of Esdraelon, and by climbing the hills he can see Mount Carmel, where
Elijah hid the prophets and later on slew the false prophets of Baal.
It is only a few hours’ ride from Nazareth over the hill to the Sea of
Galilee, where the Nazarene boys even now sometimes go fishing.
I shall not soon forget a bird’s-eye view I had of the town last night.
The moon was at its full, and its great round silver disk changed the
night into day. Its rays mellowed the yellow limestone of the houses and
transformed them to ivory. They softened the glare of the white, rocky
roads, and made a fairyland of the mountains and valleys. From the top
of the hills I could see the plain of Esdraelon, which in its fertility
vies with the Nile Valley; and away off at the west lay the mighty
Mediterranean, which stretches on for two thousand miles to Gibraltar and
the Atlantic.
Nazareth by moonlight is wonderfully peaceful. At sunset all business
stops, and within an hour or so afterward everyone is in bed. There
are few places that seem so far from the strife of the world. Business
is swallowed up in the beauties of nature. The scenery is that of old
Greece, and the stars shine gloriously out of skies which are perfectly
clear.
The sunsets are surpassingly beautiful. The other night the golden beams
of the sinking sun seemed to form a halo over this the home of our
Saviour. There were many white clouds in the sky, which changed, first to
rose and then to gold, the colour growing stronger and stronger, until
the whole west was one blaze of fire and molten copper.
Coming down into the town, after watching one of these sunsets, I met
many Nazarene children. As I stopped a few minutes, the little ones
gathered around me, and it was not hard to imagine similar groups playing
in these streets nineteen hundred years ago with the boy Jesus. The
little Nazarenes wore gowns of brown, red, or yellow. Most of them were
in their bare feet; the boys had caps of red felt, while the girls wore
handkerchiefs or shawls tied around their heads. All were running and
dancing and laughing and playing. Some of the girls were quite pretty. I
remember a rosy-cheeked baby carried by a roguish, bright-eyed maid of
eighteen. I admired the baby and chucked it under the chin, telling the
girl I would like to take it home with me to America. She promptly said I
could have it and thrust it out toward me. My face fell and I ran.
There is no doubt that this is the Nazareth of Jesus, and that the hills
and valleys about here were hallowed by His footsteps. It was here that
the Angel Gabriel appeared unto Mary when she was engaged but not yet
married to Joseph and told her that she would be the mother of Jesus,
and it was here that she came with Joseph after the flight into Egypt.
She waited only until King Herod was dead, and then came to Nazareth,
the child Jesus being still an infant in arms. It was from Nazareth that
Jesus went to the Jordan to be baptized by John, and it was here that
after He had begun His work our Lord came and preached in the synagogue.
Whereupon the Nazarenes cried out:
Is not this Joseph’s son?... And ... they ... were filled with
wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city and led Him
unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built that
they might cast Him down headlong. But He passing through the
midst of them went His way.
The Roman Catholics now own what is said to be the site of the shop where
Joseph worked as a carpenter. The place is in the Mohammedan quarter,
not far from a bazaar where the Moslem merchants sit cross-legged and
sell to the Christians. When I visited it I met Father Kersting, who came
here to superintend excavations on the site of an old church built by the
Crusaders.
Under his direction a grotto was uncovered which many believe to be the
place where Joseph had his carpenter shop, and where, if this is true,
the little Christ must have played among the shavings.
The various sects here make all sorts of claims. The Latins allege that
they own the table upon which Christ supped with His disciples both
before and after the Resurrection. It is a block of hard chalk eleven
feet long and nine feet in breadth. In another place in the Latin
monastery is what is known as the Angel’s Chapel and the Chapel of the
Annunciation, where the Virgin received Gabriel’s message. There is
also an old cistern which is called the Kitchen of the Virgin, and in
the centre of the town is Mary’s Well, or, as it is sometimes called,
Jesus’s Spring, or Gabriel’s Spring. This is undoubtedly authentic,
for it is the only spring or watering place Nazareth now possesses or
ever has possessed. It is therefore certain that the child Jesus and the
Virgin frequented it, and that Mary came here daily for water. This is a
fountain rather than a well. The water gushes forth in two streams into a
stone basin, whence it flows into a stone-inclosed pool. There are always
women with water jars about it, and the scenes of to-day are probably the
same as those of Christ’s time.
[Illustration: Fish from the Sea of Galilee are an important factor in
the food supply of the Holy Land. Large catches are common]
[Illustration: Capernaum to-day is the city of prophecy fulfilled, for of
it Christ said: “And thou, Capernaum, ... shall be brought down to hell”]
[Illustration: For centuries the Jews have been city-dwellers and
traders, but the colonists are doing the manual labor on the lands they
have taken up, though at first they brought down on themselves the
reproaches of their neighbours by hiring Arabs]
Thousands of pilgrims come to Nazareth every year to visit the places
hallowed by the Saviour, and it is also on the main route from the
mountains of Lebanon to Jerusalem. Caravan routes from Damascus to Egypt
wind about it, and it has always been an important point on the chief
travel routes.
The bazaars are of about the same character as they were in Jesus’s
day. They are narrow, cave-like stores lighted only from the front. The
merchants sit there walled around with goods, while the customers stand
out in the cobblestone roadway and bargain. The streets are dirty and
camels and Bedouins are continually moving through them. The men wear
turbans and gowns, and the women are veiled or unveiled, according to
whether they are Mohammedans or Christians.
I was interested in the mechanical work going on in these bazaars. I
stopped in a carpenter’s shop, and photographed a workman of just about
the age Joseph must have been when our Lord was a boy and passed as his
son. I asked about carpenter’s wages, and was told they ranged from fifty
cents to one dollar per day. In another business street I stopped awhile
with the blacksmiths who were making knives, razors, plough points, and
the long, thin, crescent-shaped sickles used here for harvesting. The
sickles have teeth like a fine saw. I lingered to watch a blacksmith shoe
a horse. He used a plate of iron the shape of the hoof about an eighth of
an inch thick. With the exception of a hole as large as a finger ring in
the centre, it was solid. There were three small holes on each side for
the nails, which were driven into the hoof. When shod the horse’s foot
was entirely covered by iron except for the small hole in the centre.
Since I have been here I have paid especial attention to the children.
They are the best part of the Holy Land and are as full of fun and as
delightful as our children at home. I have seen families which recall
that of Joseph and Mary, and many boys with innocent faces which suggest
that of Jesus. Here in Nazareth I see the little ones everywhere playing.
There is a threshing-floor on one side of the town, a place where the
earth has been stamped down and where the grain is flailed or trodden
out after harvest. This is one of the great playgrounds, where the boys
come with their marbles and where they play ball. In one of their games
the boys try to throw the ball so as to hit a stone mark set up for the
purpose. They also strike the ball with a club and send it beyond the
threshing-floor to be caught by the boys outside. They play blind man’s
buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek, and as I went through the streets the
other day I saw two little ones rising and falling on a board resting on
the edge of a sharp stone, making a seesaw.
One of the games played is like our “Button, button, who has the button?”
The boys stand in a row with hands folded and the one who is “it” goes
along and rubs his two hands, holding the pebble over each pair of
folded hands and endeavouring to drop it into one without being caught.
Then the others must guess who has the pebble. We play the same game with
the button.
Another game is known as the “tied monkey.” In this the boy who is “it”
catches hold with one hand of a rope fastened to a peg in the ground
while the others beat him with handkerchiefs or ropes in which knots are
tied. If he can catch one of them without letting go his hold on the rope
the boy caught takes his place.
I observe that the boys here usually play by themselves. They rather
look down on their sisters, and the average family considers the girl
of but little account. When a girl is born no fuss is made, but when a
boy comes the friends of the family run through the streets crying out:
“Good tidings! Good tidings!” The father prepares a feast, and all the
friends of the family give presents of money for the benefit of the boy.
Immediately after the child is born it is rubbed over with salt and then
wrapped in swaddling clothes so tight that it cannot move. After it has
been bound up thus for about a week, it is unfastened, washed with fresh
oil, salted, and bound up again. This wrapping, oiling, salting, and
re-wrapping goes on for about forty days, at the end of which time the
child is ready to wear the ordinary clothing of babyhood. This usually
consists of one garment, but in the summer, if the child be poor, that is
omitted, although a naked baby may wear a skull cap. The usual garment is
a shirt reaching to the knees, and as the children grow older they may
have jackets over their shirts.
One of the important ceremonies is naming the boy. To the child’s given
name that of the father is always added. In olden times if the son of
James was named John, his name would be John, son of James, but now the
words “son of” are omitted and he is known as John James.
I am surprised at the beauty of the Nazarene girls, and especially of the
little ones. They have rosy cheeks and bright eyes and are quite as good
looking as our American babies. They dress in bright colours and some
have rows of coins on their headdresses and rings on their fingers.
I see many little girls at the fountain of Mary, each with a jar in which
to bring water home. This is the work of almost every woman in the land.
The little ones are taught by beginning with a tiny jar which they steady
on the head with the hand. As they grow older they use larger jars, until
at last they are able to walk through the streets carrying four or five
gallons of water on the head without touching the jar. This work gives
them erect figures, and there are no stooped shoulders or curved spines
among them.
When a girl reaches ten or eleven years of age she begins to think of
marriage, and it is not an uncommon thing for her to be a mother at
thirteen or fourteen. After marriage the wife becomes a member of her
husband’s family, and, for a time at least, lives with her mother-in-law.
For this reason people believe in early marriages, so that the girl may
be trained by her husband’s mother into a suitable wife when she grows up.
I wonder if the boys of our Saviour’s time studied as do the Nazarene
boys of to-day. As half the town is Mohammedan, many of them are taught
by the sheiks. They sit on the floor, swaying back and forth as they
scream out the verses and texts they are trying to learn. The teacher is
sometimes blind, but he knows the voices so well that when one stops he
can strike with his stick the place where that boy should be sitting to
start him again. In our Lord’s time the Bible was probably taught in the
same way to the Jewish children. Most of the slates used here are made of
cast-off kerosene oil cans, the tin being cut into squares and pounded
out flat. The Arabic characters are painted upon such tins with brushes
and India ink.
The chief study of the Mohammedan boys is the Koran, while the Jews learn
the Psalms. At harvest time the schools close and the children go out
into the fields, gardens, and vineyards. They are accustomed to work, and
everywhere I go I see them herding the sheep. The boys use slings just as
David did and are skilful in sending the stones just where they please.
Some of these Palestine children are polite, but others are just the
reverse. When the good boy comes into a room full of older people he goes
around and kisses the hand of each one and places it on his forehead.
He can be so sweet that you might think him the soul of innocence and
piety, but take him outside and he will fight, kick, and scratch with
his fellows. A great deal of slang is used, and in a quarrel the most
common expressions are those cursing your enemy’s ancestors. One boy will
say to another, “Curse your father!” and the other will reply, “And your
grandfather!” And so they will go on to the fourth and fifth generations,
each cursing the various branches of the other’s family. Here at Nazareth
we find the children very polite, but at Nablus they threw stones at me
and called me a “Nazarene,” the name used by the Mohammedans of Samaria
to express contempt for all not of their faith.
From Nazareth, Joseph and Mary went every year to Jerusalem. They tramped
over the hills of Galilee and across the plain of Esdraelon, then climbed
the mountains of Samaria. There is a trail, part of which has been made
into a macadamized road. Such trips were usually made in large companies,
and when I crossed Samaria a short time ago I met scores of these people
from Galilee on their way to Jerusalem. The parties consisted of men,
women, and children, most of whom were on foot. Now and then one found
a woman riding a donkey, with her husband trudging beside her, and
sometimes whole families on donkeys. It was in such a party that Jesus
went to Jerusalem when He was about twelve years of age. He was then
thought to be old enough to take care of Himself, for the Bible relates
that when they departed Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and
His mother knew not of it. They had already gone a day’s journey before
they missed Him, and then turned back to find Him. Only after three days
was He discovered in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both
hearing them and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and
answers.
And when they saw him they were amazed. And his mother said
unto him: Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy
father and I have sought thee, sorrowing.
And he said unto them: How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not
that I must be about my father’s business?
And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her
heart.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with
God and man.