Chapter 5
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE
'THE SIGN,' WHICH IS NOT A SIGN.
(St. John 2:13-25.)
It has been said that Mary understood, and yet did not understand Jesus. And of this there
seems fresh evidence in the circumstance that, immediately after the marriage of Cana,
she and the 'brethren of Jesus' went with Him, or followed Him, to Capernaum, which
henceforth became 'His own city,'1 during His stay by the Lake of Galilee. The question,
whether He had first returned to Nazareth, seems almost trifling. It may have been so, and
it may be that His brothers had joined Him there, while His 'sisters,' being married,
remained at Nazareth. 2 For the departure of the family from Nazareth many reasons will,
in the peculiar circumstances, suggest themselves. And yet one feels, that their following
Jesus and His disciples to their new home had something to do with their understanding,
and yet not understanding, of Him, which had been characteristic of Mary's silent
withdrawal after the reply she had received at the feast of Cana, and her significant
direction to the servants, implicitly to do what He bade them. Equally in character is the
willingness of Jesus to allow His family to join Him - not ashamed of their humbleness,
as a Jewish Messiah might have been, nor impatient of their ignorance: tenderly near to
them, in all that concerned the humanness of His feelings; sublimely far from them, in all
connected with His Work and Mission.
1. St. Matt. iv. 13; ix. 1; St. Mark ii. 1.
2. St. Mark vi. 3.
It is almost a relief to turn from the long discussion (to which reference has already been
made): whether those who bore that designation were His 'brothers' and 'sisters' in the real
sense, or the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage, or else His cousins - and to leave
it in the indefiniteness which rests upon it.3 But the observant reader will probably mark,
in connection with this controversy, that it is, to say the least, strange that 'brothers' of
Jesus should, without further explanation, have been introduced in the fourth Gospel, if it
was an Ephesian production, if not a fiction of spiritualistic tendency; strange also, that
the fourth Gospel a lone should have recorded the removal to Capernaum of the 'mother
and brothers' of Jesus, in company with Him. But this by the way, and in reference to
recent controversies about the authorship of the fourth Gospel.
3. In support of the natural interpretation of these terms (which I frankly own to be my
view) not only St. Matt. i. 25 and St. Luke ii. 7 may be urged, but these two questions
may be put, suggested by Archdeacon Norris (who himself holds them to have been the
children of Joseph by a former marriage): How could our Lord have been, through
Joseph, the heir of David's throne (according to the genealogies), if Joseph had elder
sons? And again, What became of the six young motherless children when Joseph and the
Virgin went first to Bethlehem, and t hen into Egypt, and why are the elder sons not
mentioned on the occasion of the visit to the Temple? (Commentary on the New
Testament, vol. i. p. 117.)
If we could only feel quite sure - and not merely deem it most probable - that the Tell
Hûm of modern exploration marks the site of the ancient Capernaum, Kephar Nachum,
or Tanchumin (the latter, perhaps, 'village of consolation'), with what solemn interest