What were the external conditions under which Jesus lived, from the scene just considered up to the time of his public appearance? On this subject our canonical gospels give scarcely an indication. First, as to his place of residence, all that we learn explicitly is this: that both at the beginning and at the end of this obscure period he dwelt at Nazareth. According to Luke ii. 51, Jesus when twelve years old returned thither with his parents, and according to Matthew iii. 13, Mark i. 9, he, when thirty years old (comp. Luke iii. 23), came from thence to be baptized by John. Thus our evangelists appear to suppose, that Jesus had in the interim resided in Galilee, and, more particularly, in Nazareth. This supposition, however, does not exclude journeys, such as those to the feasts in Jerusalem. The employment of Jesus during the years of his boyhood and youth seems, from an intimation in our gospels, to have been determined by the trade of his father, who is there called a τέκτων (Matt. xiii. 55). This Greek word, used to designate the trade of Joseph, is generally understood in the sense of faber lignarius (carpenter); [480] a few only, on mystical grounds, discover in it a faber ferrarius (blacksmith), aurarius (goldsmith), or cæmentarius (mason). [481] The works in wood which he executed are held of different magnitude by different authors: according to Justin and the Evangelium Thomæ, [482] they were ploughs and yokes, ἄροτρα καὶ ζυγὰ, and in that case he would be what we call a wheel-wright; according to the Evangelium infantiæ arabicum, [483] they were doors, milk-vessels, sieves and coffers, and once Joseph makes a throne for the king; so that here he is represented partly as a cabinet-maker and partly as a cooper. The Protevangelium Jacobi, on the other hand, makes him work at buildings, οἰκοδομαῖς, [484] without doubt as a carpenter. In these labours of the father Jesus appears to have shared, according to an expression of Mark, who makes the Nazarenes ask concerning Jesus, not merely as in the parallel passage of Matthew: Is not this the carpenter’s son? οὐκ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός; but Is not this the carpenter? οὐκ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τέκτων (vi. 3). It is true that in replying to the taunt of Celsus that the teacher of the Christians was a carpenter by trade, τέκτον ἦν τὴν τέχνην, Origen says, he must have forgotten that in none of the Gospels received by the churches is Jesus himself called a carpenter, ὅτι οὐδαμοῦ τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις φερομένων εὐαγγελίων τεκτων αὐτὸς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀναγέγραπται. [485] The above passage in Mark has, in fact, the various reading, ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός, which Origen must have taken, unless he be supposed altogether to have overlooked the passage, and which is preferred by some modern critics. [486] But here Beza has justly remarked that fortasse mutavit aliquis, existimans, hanc artem Christi majestati parum convenire; whereas there could hardly be an