These journeys, in which the assembled nation exchanged its ideas, and which were almost always centres of great agitation, placed Jesus in contact with the mind of his countrymen, and no doubt inspired him whilst still young with a lively antipathy for the defects of the official representatives of Judaism.  It is supposed that very early the desert had great influence on his development, and that he made long stays there.[1] But the God he found in the desert was not his God.  It was rather the God of Job, severe and terrible, accountable to no one.  Sometimes Satan came to tempt him.  He returned, then, into his beloved Galilee, and found again his heavenly Father in the midst of the green hills and the clear fountains—­and among the crowds of women and children, who, with joyous soul and the song of angels in their hearts, awaited the salvation of Israel.

[Footnote 1:  Luke iv. 42, v. 16.]

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS—­HIS IDEAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE RELIGION—­FIRST DISCIPLES.

Joseph died before his son had taken any public part.  Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called the “son of Mary."[1] It seems that having, by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally.  Cana[3] was a little town at from two to two and a half hours’ journey from Nazareth, at the foot of the mountains which bound the plain of Asochis on the north.[4] The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth, extends over all the plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris.  Jesus appears to have resided some time in this place.  Here he probably passed a part of his youth, and here his greatness first revealed itself.[5]

[Footnote 1:  This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf.  Matt. xiii. 55.  Mark did not know Joseph.  John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the expression “son of Joseph.”  Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]

[Footnote 2:  John ii. 1, iv. 46.  John alone is informed on this point.]

[Footnote 3:  I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of Galilee with Kana el Djelil.  We may, nevertheless, attach value to the arguments for Kefr Kenna, a place an hour or an hour and a half’s journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]

[Footnote 4:  Now El-Buttauf.]

[Footnote 5:  John ii. 11, iv. 46.  One or two disciples were of Cana, John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]