Cornelius a Lapide

And it came to pass , that after three days they found Him in the Temple , sitting in the midst of the doctors , both hearing them and asking them questions. After three days , that is, on the third day. The first day was that on which they left Jerusalem ; the Digitized by Google CHRISf QUESTIONS THE DOCTORS. 131 second, that on which, not finding Him at the inn, they returned ; and the third, when they sought and found the Holy Child in the Holy Temple. So S. Ambrose, Euthymius, and others. Just as we read in ver. 21, “When the eight days were accomplished ” — that is, on the eighth day — Jesus was circumcised. And in S. Mark viii. 31, “The Son of Man must suffer many things . . . after three days (that is, on the third day) to rise again.” In the Temple — For the place of God Incarnate is in the Temple. There is He to be sought, there shall He be found — not in the market-place, not in the tavern, not in the theatre. S. Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen imitated Christ, for they, according to Ruffinus, when they were studying at Athens, knew but two streets in the city — one led to the church and the other to the school The whole of these three days, then, Jesus spent in praying and hearing and answering the doctors in the Temple; His food He received from the doctors, who, being present, and admiring His wisdom, invited Him. Others, with less probability, think that He lived by begging from door to door; such is the opinion of S. Bernard (Horn, infra Oct Epiphan .), Bonaventura, Alensis, and others. S. Thomas, in the Summa, favours this view, proving that Christ did sometimes beg, from the words of Ps. xl 17, “But I am poor and needy.” On the other hand, Nicholas de Lyra, Dionysius the Carthusian, John the Greater, commenting on this passage, and John of Avila, on S. Matt xvil, hold that Christ never begged, begging having been unlawful among the Jews, “ There shall be no poor among you,” Deut. xv. 4. However, these words are not a precept, but a promise of riches, if they obey the Law of God. Sitting in the midst of the doctors . A Hebraism — among the doctors, but in a lowly position like a disciple, in order that He might rouse them to think and inquire about the advent of the Messiah, which was now nigh at hand, because the sceptre had departed from Judah, and the seventy weeks of Daniel and other oracles of the prophets were now fulfilled. It is very probable that Christ questioned the doctors about the coming Digitized by Google 132 of the Messiah, so that His manifestation might not be unexpected, but that, afterwards, when preaching and working miracles, He might the more readily be received by them as the Messiah, from these same indications which now flashed out like sparks upon them. Asking them questions, (i.) Because it was fitting that the child should ask questions of these learned men, and not teach them. (2.) To teach the young modesty, and the desire to hear, to question, and to learn, “ Lest,” says Bede, “ if they will not be disciples of the truth, they become masters of error.” (3.) That, asking them questions, He might be questioned in turn by them, and might teach them by His replies