244 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



to the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere and 

 to the ideals of His age, is to leave untouched the 

 question, Where did that man, who was affected 

 by such influences as no other who ever lived, get 

 His sensitive nature ? 



Physically Jesus was a Jew, and probably re- 

 sembled other Jews, although all the ideals of the 

 artists, and all the traditions concerning Him, 

 represent Him as having nothing characteristi- 

 cally national in His appearance. No conclusion, 

 however, can be drawn from this fact, and we 

 grant that in physical traits He was like other 

 men of His nation and time. When we come 

 to His personality as manifested in His ethical 

 teachings. His ideals for himself and for human- 

 ity. His intuitions of things unseen and infinite. 

 His reversals of standards of thought and conduct 

 which had behind them the authority of antiquity, 

 then the importance of our inquiry appears. 

 Renan says : " This nature at once smiling and 

 grand was the whole education of Jesus. He 

 learned to read and write, doubtless, according to 

 the method of the East, which consists in putting 

 into the hands of the child a book, from which 

 he repeats in concert with his little school-fellows 

 until he knows it by heart. It is doubtful, how- 

 ever, whether He really understood the Hebrew 



