during the period of religious revival which followed the triumph of the Maccabees,

such copies of the Bible would have greatly multiplied. It is by no means an

exaggeration to say that, if perhaps only the wealthy possessed a complete copy of the

Old Testament, written out on parchment or on Egyptian paper, there would scarcely be

a pious home, however humble, which did not cherish as its richest treasure some

portion of the Word of God--whether the five books of the Law, or the Psalter, or a roll

of one or more of the Prophets. Besides, we know from the Talmud that at a later period,

and probably at the time of Christ also, there were little parchment rolls specially for the

use of children, containing such portions of Scripture as the "Shema"39 (Deut 6:4-9,

11:13-21; Num 15:37-41), the "Hallel" (Psa 113-118), the history of the Creation to that of

the Flood, and the first eight chapters of the book of Leviticus. Such means of

instruction there would be at the disposal of Eunice in teaching her son.

And this leads us to mention, with due reverence, the other and far greater New

Testament instance of maternal influence in Israel. It is none less than that of the mother

of our blessed Lord Himself. While the fact that Jesus became subject to His parents,

and grew in wisdom and in favour both with God and man, forms part of the

unfathomable mystery of His self-humiliation, the influence exerted upon His early

education, especially by His mother, seems implied throughout the gospel history. Of

course, His was a pious Jewish home; and at Nazareth there was a synagogue, to which,

as we shall by-and-by explain, a school was probably attached. In that synagogue

Moses and the Prophets would be read, and, as afterwards by Himself (Luke 4:16),

discourses or addresses be delivered from time to time. What was taught in these

synagogue-schools, and how, will be shown in another chapter. But, whether or not

Jesus had attended such a school, His mind was so thoroughly imbued with the Sacred

Scriptures --He was so familiar with them in their every detail--that we cannot fail to

infer that the home of Nazareth possessed a precious copy of its own of the entire

Sacred Volume, which from earliest childhood formed, so to speak, the meat and drink of

the God-Man. More than that, there is clear evidence that He was familiar with the art of

writing, which was by no means so common in those days as reading. The words of our

Lord, as reported both by St. Matthew (Matt 5:18) and by St. Luke (Luke 16:17), also

prove that the copy of the Old Testament from which He had drawn was not only in the

original Hebrew, but written, like our modern copies, in the so-called Assyrian, and not

in the ancient Hebrew-Phoenician characters. This appears from the expression "one

iota or one little hook" --erroneously rendered "tittle" in our Authorised Version--

which can only apply to the modern Hebrew characters. That our Lord taught in

Aramaean, and that He used and quoted the Holy Scriptures in the Hebrew, perhaps

sometimes rendering them for popular use into Aramaean, there can be little doubt on

the part of careful and unprejudiced students, though some learned men have held the

opposite. It is quite true that the Mishnah (Megill. i. 8) seems to allow the writing of

Holy Scripture in any language; but even Simeon, the son of Gamaliel (the teacher of St.

Paul), confined this concession to the Greek--no doubt with a view to the LXX, which

was so widely spread in his time. But we also know from the Talmud, how difficult it was

for a Rabbi to defend the study or use of Greek, and how readily popular prejudice burst

into a universal and sweeping condemnation of it. The same impression is conveyed not

only from the immediate favourable change which the use of the Aramaean by St. Paul

produced upon the infuriated people (Acts 21:40), but also from the fact that only an

appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures could have been of authority in discussion with the

Pharisees and Scribes, and that it alone gave point to the frequent expostulations of

Christ: "Have ye not read?" (Matt 12:3, 19:4, 21:13, 16, 42, 22:31).

This familiarity from earliest childhood with the Scriptures in the Hebrew original also

explains how at the age of twelve Jesus could be found "in the Temple; sitting in the

midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions" (Luke 2:46). In

explaining this seemingly strange circumstance, we may take the opportunity of

correcting an almost universal mistake. It is generally thought that, on the occasion

referred to, the Saviour had gone up, as being "of age," in the Jewish sense of the

expression, or, to use their own terms, as a "Bar Mizvah," or "son of the commandment,"