Patsala, had a son whose peculiar appearance led the Brahmins at court to prophesy that he would bring evil upon his father, and to advise his destruction, Various modes of execution having failed, the boy was laid in a copper chest and thrown into the Ganges. Rescued by an old peasant who brought him up as his son, he in due time learnt the story of his escape, and returned to seize upon the kingdom destined for him from his birth. This was in B. C. 313 (G. O. M., pp. 21, 23). This universal myth—of the natural origin of which it would lead me too far to speak—was now adapted to the special case of Christ, who runs the usual risk and escapes it with the usual good fortune of dangerous children.
Having thus preserved the infant Christ from the dangers that threatened him, Matthew tells us absolutely nothing about him until he has arrived at manhood, and is ready to enter on his public life. Luke is much less reticent. True, he knows nothing whatever of the star that appeared in the East; nothing of Herod's inquiries as to the birthplace of Christ; nothing of the massacre of the innocents, nor of the flight into Egypt and the return from that country to Nazareth. On the contrary, his narrative by implication excludes all this, for he makes Joseph and Mary go up to Bethlehem for the census only, and return to Nazareth soon after it; so that Herod could have had no occasion to kill the infants up to the age of two years, for Christ could not have been above a few weeks old at most (Lu. ii. 39). Moreover, we learn definitely from one verse that his parents went up from Nazareth to Jerusalem every year at the passover (Ibid., ii. 41). But the absence of any statements like those just taken from the first Gospel is amply compensated in the third by several pleasing details relating to his infancy and boyhood. In the first place we learn that after eight days he was circumcised, and named Jesus according to the angel's desire (Ibid., ii. 21). Next, we are told that after his mother's purification—which would last thirty-three days after the circumcision—she and his step-father took him to the temple to be presented, and to make the customary offering. There was in the temple a man named Simeon who had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he should not die till he had seen Christ. This man, who came by the Spirit into the temple,
