The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 1 · Section 8
SECTION VIII. LUKE Chap. II. from Ver. 40. to the end of the Chapter. CHRIST at twelve years old sheweth his wisedom among the Doctors: At the same age had Solomon shewed his wisedom in deciding the controversie between the two harlots. Ionic. Martyr. in Epist. ad Mignos.
World. 3939 Rome. 765 Augustus. 42 CHRIST. XII Archelaus. 10 IT is very easie to see the subsequence of this Section to that preceding: Since there is nothing recorded by any of the Evangelists concerning Christ from his infancy till he began to be thirty years old, but only this Story of his shewing his wisedom at twelve years old among the Doctors of some of the three Sanhedrins that sate at the Temple; for there sate one of 23. Judges in the East-gate of the Mountain of the house called the gate Shushan; Another of 23. in the gate of Nicanor, or the East-gate of the Court of Israel. And the great Sanhedrin of 71. Judges, that sate in the Room Gazith, not farre from the Altar.
Though Herod had slain the Sanhedrin, as is related by Iosephus and divers others, yet was not that Court, nor the judiciary thereof utterly extinguisht, but revived again, and continued till many years after the destruction of the City.
His Story about this matter is briefly thus given by the Babylon Talmud, in Bava Bathra fol. 3. facic. 2. Herod was a servant of the Armenian Family; He set his eyes upon a girl of it. One day the man heard a voice from Heaven [Bath Kol] which said, Any servant that rebelleth this year shall prosper. He riseth up, and slayeth all his Musters: but left that girl, &c. And whereas it is said, Thou shalt set a King over thee from among thy brethren [which as the glosse there tells us, their Rabbies understood, of the chiefest of thy brethren] he rose up and slew all the great ones, only he left Baba ben Bora to take counsell of him. The glosse upon this again tells us: That he slew not utterly all the great ones, for he left Hillel and the sons of Betirah remaining: and Iosephus relateth also, that he spared Shammai: to which Abraham Zaccuth addeth, that Menahim and 80 gallant men of the chief of the Nation were gone over to his service and to attend upon him. So that these of themselves, and by ordination of others, did soon repair that breach that his sword had made in the Sanhedrin, he not resisting its erection again, when he had now taken away the men of his displeasure.
Hillel was president, and sate so fourty years, and died [by the Jews computation applied to the Christian account] much about this twelfth year of Christ. For they say that he lived an hundred and twenty years, the last fourty of which he spent in the Presidency of the Sanhedrin, entring upon that dignity an hundred years before the destruction of the City.
Menahem was at first Vicepresident with him, but upon his going away to Herods service, Shammai came in his room: and now two as eminent and Learned men sate in those two chairs, as ever had done since the first birth of traditions. Hillel himself was so deserving a man, that whereas in the vacancy of the Presidentship, by the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion, R. Iudah and R. Ieshua the sons of Betirah might have taken the chairs, they preferred Hillel as the worthier person, Talm. Ierus. in Pissachin. fol. 33. col. 1. He bred many eminent scholers, to the number of fourscore, the most renowned of which by name were, Ionathan ben Vzziel the Chaldee Paraphrast, and Rabban Iocanan ben Zaccai: both probably alive at this year of Christ, and a good while after. The latter was undoubtedly so, for he lived to see the destruction of the City and Temple, and sate President in the Sanhedrin at Iabneh afterwards. And till that time also lived the sons of Betirah mentioned before.
Shammai was little inferiour to Hillel in learning or in breeding learned men: and their equall learning and schools, bred differences between them in point of learning, and determination about some things in their traditions. The two Masters controverting about a few Articles, but their Schollers about very many, and their differences very high.
This contention of the Schollers grew so very high even in the Masters time, that it is recorded that the Schollers of Shammai affronted and bandied against Hillel himself, in the Temple court. Ierus. in Iom. Tobh. fol. 61. col. 3. And the quarrellings of these Schools were so bitter, that as the same Talmud relateth, it came to effusion of blood and murdering one another, Shabb. fol. 3. col. 3. These are some of the Traditions that were made or setled in the Chamber of Hananiah the son of Ezekia, the son of Baron. The persons were numbred, and the Schollers of Shammai were more then the Schollers of Hillel. That day was a grievous day to Israel as was the day of the making of the golden Calfe. The Schollers of Shammai stood below and slew the Schollers of Hillel. Nor did these animosities cease, but they were ever crossing and jarring, till at the last the Schools of Hillel carried it, by the determination of a divine voice from Heaven, as was pretended [for to such fictions they glad to betake themselves.]
Till the divine voice [Bath Kol] came forth, it was lawfull for any one to practise according the weighty or light things of the School of Shammai, or according to the weighty or light things of the School of Hillel. There came forth a divine voice at Jabneh and said, The words of the one and of the other are the words of the living God, but the certain determination of the thing is according to the School of Hillel. And whosever transgresseth against the words of the School of Hillel, deserveth death. Ibid. in Beracoth fol. 3. col. 2.
At these times then that we are upon, their School-Learning was come to the very height, Hillel and Shammai having promoted it to a pitch incomparably transcendent above what it had been before; and accordingly now began the Titles of Rabban and Rabbi; Rabban Simeon the Son of Hillel being the first President of the Sanhedrin that bare a Title, for till these times their great and Learned men, had been called only by their bare proper names. So that now in a double seasonablenesse doth Christ the divine wisdome of God appear and set in among them, at twelve years old beginning, and all the time of his Ministry after, going on to shew them wisdome fully, and his own Word and Doctrine the divine oracles of wisdome. In a double seasonablenesse I say, when their Learning was now come to the height, and when their Traditions had to the utmost made the word of God of no effect.
This twelfth year of Christ, was the last year of the reign of Archelaus the Sonne of Herod, of whom is mention, Matth. 2.22. He is accused to Augustus for male-administration, and thereupon banished by him to Vienna, as was mentioned before. And Coponius comes Governour of Iudaea in his stead.
CHRIST. XII. XIV. AUGUSTUS Caesar dieth this fourteenth year of Christ, on the nineteenth day of August: duobus Sextis, Pompeio & Apuleio. Coss. Suet. in Augusto. cap. 10. He was 75 years, 10 moneths and 26 dayes old, having been Monarch since his victory at Actium 44 years, wanting 13 dayes. Dion Cass. lib. 56. TIBERIUS Caesar reigneth in his stead.
CHRIST. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. All this space of Christs life, from his twelfth year of age, to his twenty ninth, is passed over by all the Evangelists in silence, because they were not so much to treat of his private life and imployment, as of his publike Ministry. And here they follow the same course that the Angel Gabriel had done, in his foretelling of the time of his appearing. Dan. 9.24, 25, &c. where speaking of the years that should passe, from his own time unto Messiah the Prince, he beginneth the story of Messiah, from the time of his Ministry only, or from the latter half of the last seaven years there mentioned, the time when he should confirm the Covenant with the many, &c.
These years he spent with his Parents at Nazaret, Luk. 2.51. following his Fathers trade of Carpentry, Matth. 13.55. with Mark. 6.3. And these two things were they especially, that did so mainly cloud him from the eyes of the Jews, that they could not own him for the Messias, namely because he was of so poor condition and education, and they looked for the Messias in a pompous garb, and because his first appearing in his Ministry was not from Nazaret: his birth at Bethlehem so many years ago, either having been out at all taken notice of when it was, or if it were, by this time worn out of notice and remembrance.