CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS--HIS IDEAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE RELIGION--FIRST DISCIPLES.
Joseph died before his son had taken any public part.

Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called the "son of Mary."[1] It seems that having, by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally.

Cana[3] was a little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at the foot of the mountains which bound the plain of Asochis on the north.[4] The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth, extends over all the plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris.

Jesus appears to have resided some time in this place.

Here he probably passed a part of his youth, and here his greatness first revealed itself.[5] [Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi.