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THE VIRGIN BIRTH
AND THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY
By C. C. Martindale, S.J.
That Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin is part of
the Catholic faith.1 All admit that the Gospels, in
their present form, assert it (M i16,18'25 and L I34-35 3 23).
The Church has again and again formally declared it,
explaining her assertion as implying not only t1
negative doctrine that Jesus Christ had no h’
father, but that His Mother remained virginHis birth as before it, throughout the
life. No further commentary upon, nor
deductions from, her doctrine does sh£ ' ‘
That the doctrine is untrue was, however
' aa&d
both in ancient and modern times ; and of t/U-i attack
we shall first give an outline.
I
i. Cerinthus (c. ioo), herald of the Judaizing
Gnostics, declared that Jesus was not virgin-born
because (Irenaeus says with simplicity2) “ it seemed to
1 The formula Born of the Virgin Mary recurs in the creeds. Pope
Siricius in 392 approves the condemnation of Bonosus’ assertion that
Mary, virgin at Christ’s birth, bore other children ; Leo I. in 449
dwells, against Eutyches, upon the miracle of a virginity inviolate by
child-bearing; in 539 John II. repeats this, using as normal the title
ever-virgin ; the Lateran Council of 649 proclaims Mary ever-virgin
and immaculate, her virginity persisting indissoluble even after her Son’s
birth, and Toledo XI. (675) expands its stately paradoxes. Paul IV. in
1544 reaffirms against the Socinians that Mary “ever persevered in
integrity of virginity, that is, before the Birth, in it, and after it.” This
tradition is undisputed. Bannwart-Denzinger, Enchiridion, ed. IO,
1908, 2 etc., 86, 91, 144, 202, 256, 282, 993.
2 Adu. Heer., I. xxvi. 2, P.G., 7689 [we shall thus refer to the volume
and column of the Patrologia Grceca (P.L. = Pair. Latina} of Migne].
�2
History and Dogma
him impossible.” Deity could not be sullied by human
contact: the Christ, therefore, or the Spirit, descended
at the Baptism on the son of Joseph and Mary.
So too Carpocrates (y. 125).1 Justin (y. 150) shows
that the modern arguments were, in all essentials,
anticipated.
In Justin’s Dialogue the Jew Trypho attacks the Virgin Birth :
Isaiah’s famous prophecy,2 he argues, is mistranslated: the
Hebrew ’•almah means “young woman” (so Theod., Aq.), not
“virgin” (LXX.). The promise was fulfilled in Hezekiah(7VW.,67).
A pre-existent Christ, born in time, is “ disconcerting prap^o^ :
contrary to (general) expectation ?] and indeed nonsense ” (48).
In short, “do not dare,” he says, “to tell fairy tales, lest
you be proved as frivolous as the Greeks’’—referring to the
hero-births to which Justin, as an argumentum adhominem, had
compared (in 1 Apol., 54: 6409) Christ’s.3
Origen puts into the mouth of Celsus (r. 180)
language which many a modern rationalist would not
disavow.
The Isaian prophecy is denied (r. Cels., i. 34); hero
births (e.g. Plato’s) alleged (c. 37); and especially the
blasphemy, already current, that Jesus was born of
Mary and Panthera—a legend which in some shape
or other survived for centuries.4 To refer to this, says
Origen, is mere ribaldry (c. 32, 37 : 1 1719,733).
But Jerome’s controversy with Helvidius (who
denied Mary’s perpetual virginity, c. 383) is even
more striking. Helvidius argues as follows :—
Mary is Joseph’s “espoused wife”; destined, therefore, to
full wedlock. Mi18 implies that in time the marriage was con1 For the Ebionites, infr., p. 5, n. 2.
2 714: Ecce uirgo concipiet Vulgate ; lSoi> yirapOevos LXX. ;. . . veavis
Theodotion, Aquila.
3 P.G., 6629- 58°. Cf. Irenaeus’ opponents, 7943, etc. A few Gentile
converts believed Christ of human parentage. Ir., 6381; cf. Orig. in
Mt. xvi. 12 : I3141S. They were formally disapproved.
4 Panthera (or Pandera): the name is genuine and not an anagram
(Deissmann, Noldeke): usually represented as a centurion. The story is
highly involved, and may be connected with pre-Christian legend. It
is taken up in the Talmud, reappears in the thirteenth-century pamphlet
Toledoth fesu, and in modern literature of a scurrilous description.
See Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, pp. 35, 348;
Lagrange, Messianisme chez les fuifs, p. 288, 1909,
�The Virgin Birth
3
summated (c. 3). Joseph knew her not until she brought forth
her first-born ; he did so, therefore, afterwards (c. 5), and she
had later sons (c. 9). Indeed, the Gospels speak of Jesus’
brethren (c. 11). Finally, virginity is no holier than wedlock
(c. 18): P.L., 23185- 189, 1921 202. The arguments adduced in the
controversy with Jovinianus, c. 385, and by Ambrose against
Bonosus, c. 390 (De institutions uirginum, c. 5 : 16314) add
nothing new.
2. The modern attack 1 begins with Voltaire, and
takes definite form first in the system which deals
with the Gospels as with historical or poetical “ myths,”
according as it conceives the objective, historical facts
to have been distorted by the author’s tendency to
account supernaturally for natural events, or at least
to idealize them.2 Genuine “ myth ”—the dressingup of a doctrine in historical guise, though no, or
barely any, objective fact corresponding to the
tale exist at all—is the system of D. F. Strauss’ Life
(1838).3 Popular feeling, individual writers, moulded
the myth round the memory of a man who may not
even have existed. Gradually the legend grew—and
here the system profited by Chr. Baur’s new theory,
that the Gospels were but second-century productions.
Not only had an O.T. “ Messiah-myth ” long been in
existence, and needed but to be applied to a popular
name; but a century and more was to elapse, during
which it might grow into the full, familiar Gospel.
Thus, it was foretold Messiah should be born at
Bethlehem, and work miracles. Jesus, therefore, must
have been born there, and shall be credited with miracles.
The Shepherds, the Magi, are complementary stories
picturing the universality of His influence.
He
dies, but this influence survives, indestructible ; His
1 Cf Durand, D Enfance de Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1908 (Engl, tr.,
Philadelphia, 1910), c. 3, p. 35. We warmly recommend this little
book, to which we are throughout deeply indebted.
2 Cf, e.g., Gottlob Paulus, Leben Jesu, 1828. The application of his
method is often clumsy—angelic apparitions he explains as dreams;
Gabriel, as a flesh-and-blood adventurer.
3 Thus, “Jesus denounces the spiritually barren synagogue. This may
be fact. He describes it as a barren, withered fig-tree. This is parable.
Soon the myth grows up that He cursed and shrivelled a real fig-tree.”
�4
History and Dogma
name is exalted—that is, He is risen and ascended.
Historically, a virgin birth, a resurrection, are false;
“ religiously,” they are eternally true.—Now that Baur’s
theory is universally abandoned, literary criticism
dissects the Gospel texts, assigning to “ editors,”
or interpolation, the passages teaching the Virgin
Birth. Thus, the “ original ” genealogy in Matthew
made Joseph the father of Jesus;1 in the “ earliest ”
form of Luke I, verses 34-35 were missing;2 and the
theories are many and complicated—too much so for
M. Loisy, who allows the Gospels to be no patchwork :
the Evangelists wrote what we read and meant what
we believe, but only because the “ faith ” of even that
early date dictated this.3
To this “faith” Prof. O. Pfleiderer assigned 4 three stages : first,
men felt that Jesus was the Saviour-Messiah—was made God’s
“ Son ” by adoption, at the Resurrection or else at the Baptism.
So Mark ; so the earlier parts of Acts and of Paul. But afterwards
Paul remembered the Rabbinic notion of the ideal Man, the pre
existent Image and “ Son ” of God—he it was who revealed
himself in flesh ; while John, under the spell of Alexandrian
theosophy, acknowledges a genuine “incarnation” of the Word.
But though Jesus was thus morally and metaphysically “ Son of
God,” neither Synoptists, nor Paul, nor John felt this to conflict
with His purely human descent. A virgin birth is not yet above
the horizon. Quite late, in the second century, it was asked,
If He be Son of God, why give Him a human father? Heroes,
born of gods and women, abounded in mythology. A synthesis
was made : physically, too, Jesus should be God’s Son, and His
mother, a virgin. The Gospels were then “emended” at the
bidding of this now completed “ faith.”5
We propose succinctly to consider the authenticity
of the Gospel “ Infancy ” record, especially in view of
1 Schmiedel, Biblical Encycl., iii, 2962 ; infr., p. 13.
2 Cf. Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, vol. i. p. 100, n. 1, Engl, tr., 1897 ;
infr., p. 6.
3 A. Loisy, L' fa-vangile et Ffaglise, ed. 2, 1903, p. 31.
4 Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens, 1903.
5 See Cheyne’s Biblical Encyl., art. Mary, Nativity, etc.; and
F. C. Conybeare, the Standard, nth May 1905, for examples of popular
sentiment. The Declaration on Biblical Criticism by 1725 Anglican
Clergymen, ed. H. Handley, 1906, asks that the historicity of the
narrative of Christ’s conception be kept an open question.
�The Virgin Birth
5
early Christian belief, and in relation to the rest of
the New Testament, with, which it is considered to
conflict: we shall examine a few particular points on
which Matthew and Luke are said to contradict them
selves, or one another, or to be intrinsically at fault;
finally, we shall discuss the sources given as those of
the Infancy narrative by those who do not believe it
reposes upon fact.
II
It is said, first, that the Gospels, as they stand, give
us no true presentment of the facts. The text has
been tampered with.1 We hear :—
(i.) (a) The Ebionites’2 copy of Matthew began
only at c. 3, the Mission of the Baptist.—But we
know this only from Epiphanius ;3 if then we accept
it, we must also accept his statement (ibi) that they
had struck off cc. 1 and 2 in the interests of their
heresy. He also says (zb.) that the Nazarene Ebionites
used the full text, as did the early heretics Cerinthus
and Carpocrates.4 So there is no extrinsic evidence
that Matthew began, originally, with the Mission of
John.
(b) The unity of M’s “ Childhood Gospel ” is only
1 We must here disregard the argument that the Gospels must be
untruthful because they relate miracles, and miracles cannot happen.
Eliminate the miracles, it is suggested, and you will find the historical
substratum of fact. Be that as it may, all we assert, here, is that there
is no evidence of an “original ” Gospel of which ours is a later edition
modified in the interests of the Virgin Birth.
2 A vague name attached to very early heretics of Judaizing tendencies
or (Duchesne, Hist, anc.de VEglise, i. 124) a survival of Judseo-Christians,
in a state of “arrested” development, or retrogression, as to dogma.
Some admitted, some rejected, the Virgin Birth. Origen, c. Cels., v. 6l :
n1277 ; Eus., H.E., iii. 27: 20273. Those rejected it who believed
Jesus to have become Messiah at His baptism. Epiph., Adu. Heer.
I. xxx. 16: 41432.
3 TA, 14.
4 Tatian’s Harmony of the Gospels omits M’s genealogy (as it does
L’s), not because it did not exist, but because Tatian aimed at giving,
not a complete but a continuous account of the contents of the Gospels
(though infr,, p. 13); anyhow, he keeps i18-25, which contain the
Virgin Birth. Though in some MSS. M I18 begins in capital letters,
that may be merely because the genealogy was omitted in public readings.
�6
History and Dogma
artificial. The genealogy originally made Jesus the
son of Joseph, and was clumsily altered by an editor
to fit the Infancy stories, which in their turn were
affixed to the pristine record. This centres wholly
round i16, on which cf. infr., p. 15, n. 3.
(ii.) The internal unity of Luke’s “ Infancy ” seemed,
till recently, obvious to all, and its homogeneity with
the rest of his Gospel to most; though the heretic
Marcion, unable to believe, not, like the Ebionites,
that Jesus had God for His Father, but that He had
a woman for mother, struck out of his text the
whole Infancy record ;1 while Schmiedel2 would, on
the a priori assumption that the earliest Gospel must
have been Ebionite, assign 221'52, where Christ seems
but an ordinary Jewish child, to an ancient document,
while the “supernatural” 1-220 is a later addition.—
But 221 clearly supposes i31—the flow of the chapters
is quite continuous. To put this down to “ editorial
touching up” which conceals original divergences,
and then to tell us what those divergences were, is
perverse.
Prof. Harnack is, however, contented if L i34*35 be suppressed
as interpolated. («) L is consistent in his use of particles. But
here appear 8tJ> (wherefore}, else only in f (which H. considers
doubtful), and «rel (seeing that}, found perhaps nowhere else in
the Third Gospel. But all critical editions keep 8d> in 77; and H.
(who argued thus in 1901) has since (1906) proved Acts to be by
the same author as that Gospel, namely, Luke. But in Acts, Sto
occurs frequently 1—(b} Verses 34-35 are said to break the flow of
the chapter, adding a new and discrepant explanation of the
Child’s origin to that in 31-32. They add to it, granted : they do
not contradict it. Mary’s question, “ How shall this be ?” etc., is
natural enough, when all the circumstances, so far, had been so
strange ; doubly natural if she had resolved to remain a virgin,
as Catholics piously believe.3
1 Iren., Adti. Heer., I. xxvi. 2 : 7s88, III. xii. 12 : zA906 ; Tert., Adv.
Marc., i. 1: 2247, ix. 2 : zA363 ; cf. Plummer, who (Gosp. acc. to St. Luke,
1900, p. lxix.) shows Marcion’s text was mutilated, not ours added to.
2 Encycl. Bibl., iii. 2960.
3 We are told, too, that if Jesus is to be virginally conceived,
Gabriel accredits that greater miracle by quoting a lesser one (the con
ception of John by the aged Elizabeth). —There is here no difficulty.
�The Virgin Bzrth
1
But the Childhood narratives have positive claims
to belief. Luke’s preface (iw) is a revelation of the
writer’s industry, common sense, and real feeling of
a historian’s duty and responsibility.
He seeks
“ eye-witnesses from the beginning ”; he claims to
surpass, in order and accuracy, contemporary ac
counts ; his object is the historical grounding of the
doctrine preached. What were his authorities? Many
have thought, Mary herself.* The whole of this part
1
of Luke is written from her point of view (Matthew,
from Joseph’s). Delicacy of touch, intimacy of detail,
are felt everywhere. Women (to whom Luke, the
physician, will have had easier access) figure much in
his pages, especially those holy persons who were much
in Mary’s company.2 Then the events he records,
though lost sight of in the “ hidden ” thirty years, must
have had some publicity, at any rate. From these and
other sources he may have gained his oral tradition.
Moreover, it is acknowledged that, so markedly Hebraic in
their structure (as contrasted with the rest of his Gospel and the
Acts) are the first three chapters of Luke, both linguistically and in
local colour, so minutely accurate and prolific in details of place,
person, cult,3 that it is practically clear he is here using an
older Hebrew (or Aramaic) document.4 This brings us very close
to the beginnings! Anyhow, that “faith working on history”
In the O.T., Yahweh constantly gives a marvellous sign to guarantee
His future performance of a yet greater thing. And to this the Angel’s
concluding words look forward.—But, Zachary is punished for his
“ How shall I know?” Mary praised for her “How shall this be?”
Surely contradictory ?—No : Mary believes, accepts, asks the “how ” of
what is to be. Zachary hesitates : is he to believe ? How feel sure ?—One thing is clear : Mary never supposes that the promised child will be
Joseph’s {cf. Plummer, adloc.').—Harnack’s contention that this “con
versation” (I34, 35) takes Mary out of her role of “silence” may be
neglected. Of course, it forces him to assign the Magnificat to Elizabeth.
On this, see C.T. S. The Magnificat: Its Author and Meaning, by M. N.
1 So W. Ramsay (ITas Christ born at Bethlehem? 1898, p. 74: we
cordially recommend this excellent book) and others.
2 Sanday, Hastings’ Diet. Bibl., ii. 644.
3 Especially those connected with Zachary (L alone in the N.T. uses
the technical word “course,” I8 : he knows the angel stood “at the
right ” of the incense-altar), Anna, etc.
4 Plummer, op. c., p. 45 ; Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 1898, p. 31.
�8
History and Dogma
should have created this sober, profoundly “ Palestinian ” narra
tive 1 and the canticles in particular,2 is a gratuitous hypothesis.
What pious imagination did create, was a library of “ apocryphal
gospels.” A single page of their insipid anecdotes, gross realisms,
and vulgar wonder-lust convinces us that between them and our
Gospels is the gulf between human and Divine.
As for the story in Matthew, its homogeneity is
generally admitted — each part presupposes what
precedes—and above all, its Palestinian colouring,
its insistence on the fulfilment and applicability of
prophecy, proclaim a Palestinian origin and audience.
Certain details we shall examine below.3*
We have therefore the right to conclude that
Matthew and Luke are homogeneous, authentic docu
ments, intrinsically intact. There is no evidence from
tradition or even legend that they were added to or
interpolated. On the contrary, we know that those
who tampered with them did so to excise, not to
expand, in favour of their own theories. And we
urge that those who, by internal, literary criticism,
1 Lepin, Jdsus Messie, etc., 1906, p. 62; Rose, 5. Luc, 1904, P2 On their “ essentially Hebraic and pre-Christian character,” to
gether with their exclusive appropriateness to the occasion to which L
assigns their utterance, see Durand, pp. 158-165, and the references
in note 1 there. L may have cast the traditional sentiments into shape :
scarcely, have adapted older Jewish, or even Christian, liturgical
hymns. For the special question of the Enrolment, and of the reputed
pagan origins of this story, cf. infr., p. 17.
3 P. 19. It is said, we saw, that the phrase, “he knew her not until
shehad brought forth her [first-born: omitted by excellent MSS.; probably
a gloss from L 27] son,” implies that Mary lived afterwards with Joseph.
—It need not do so (in Hebrew idiom, what is denied until an event is
not thereby asserted as happening after it; cf. M 2820, 1 Co 1528, Ps 1223,
already quoted by Jerome, 23189); and must not be so interpreted, if it
clash thus with other evidence. — “ Her first-born son,” L 27, is taken
as implying that Mary had other children.—Again, it need not, and in
these circumstances must not, be so taken. “ First-born,” to a Jew,
connoted, not later births, but the privileges legally due to one who
“ opened the womb.” L looks only to the typical value of the word as
applied to the Eldest-born, the heir of Yahweh’s promises. So Israel
is constantly called, in O.T., Yahweh’s first-born, without implying in
the least that the other nations were His later born. That M and
L freely speak of the “brethren” of Jesus, and L of Joseph as His
father, e.g. 2®, is psychologically true and no contradiction. So do the
apocryphal Gospels, which insist violently on Mary’s virginity.
�The Virgin Birth
9
affirm that they detect joints and rivets in the text,
have no right to do so: only a conviction that the
doctrine of the Virgin Birth must be a late develop
ment, while it is agreed that the Gospels are fairly
early, can account for the discovery of reasons for
the excision of those passages in which that doctrine
is mentioned.
Ill
But Mark (whose Gospel is now considered by
nearly all to be the earliest of the Synoptists, and
indeed was probably treated by Matthew as the
nucleus of his own work), Mark, we are told, knows
nothing of the Virgin Birth, though he must have
known it had it been believed in his day, and must
have mentioned it had he known it. Paul ignores
this dogma, and indeed virtually denies it, holding
Jesus to be God’s “ Son ” because adopted by the
Father. John ignores it no less, explaining Christ’s
relation to the Father in terms of Alexandrian Logosdoctrine. Do not Matthew, then, and Luke clash
with Mark, Paul, and John ? Do we not see the
legend, with our own eyes, springing up, late, and on
Palestinian soil ?
(i.) The Gospels reflect what was currently preached,
not necessarily everything that was actually believed;
for all will grant that the articles of the faith were
not at first preached with equal emphasis or publicity.
Mark reflects this earlier preaching with accuracy.
The claim of Jesus to be Messiah, Teacher and Saviour
of men ; His ransoming death and victorious resurrec
tion ; His foundation of a Church, and the minimum
of discipline conditioning membership—this is preached
in the Acts, and Mark’s Gospel supplies a more than
sufficient historical background thereto. But none of
this presupposes, or flows from, the Virgin Birth.1
1 It cannot too emphatically be recalled that Jesus is not Son of God
because He is virgin-born ; nor does pre-existence necessitate virgin
birth. This misconception pervades and stultifies most of the theological
argument of Lobstein’s Virgin Birth of Christ (Eng. tr.), 1903, e.g.
I
2
�IO
History and Dogma
Jesus Himself but gradually unfolded His doctrine,
starting from Jewish beliefs which He was to tran
scend and transform. There was much His hearers
“ could not bear ” at first. And sheer consideration for
Mary’s feelings will have precluded too public a preach
ing of this exquisitely delicate event in her lifetime.1
(ii.) As for the “silence of John,” and indeed his
“substitution” of the Incarnation of the Logos for
the Virgin Birth as explanation of the Divine Sonship
of Jesus, we briefly say: (a) His doctrine does not
exclude that of the Virgin Birth ; indeed, (£) it in a
sense involves it, for apparently the Churches of Asia,
at anyrate, linked the Divinity and Virgin Birth more
closely together than modern theology would.2 And
{c) John, who certainly knew Matthew and Luke,
and wrote his Gospel almost entirely to assert the true
doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, would surely have
contradicted them had he thought them wrong.3
p. 88. A necessary connection between the Divinity and the Virgin
Birth, he says (p. 89), “is the official theology in all Christian confes
sions.” That is not so.
1 Mk’s phrase “son of Mary,” 63, when M, L, and J freely speak
of Joseph as “father” of Jesus, and his insistence on the title “Son
of God,” may hint that he (not having related the Birth) took special
care to use unambiguous language (V. M'Nabb, O.P., “ Mk’s Witness
to the V. Birth, ” Journal Theol. Studies, April 1907, p. 448). Anyhow,
the incident in 321-31 does not prove that his Mary is ignorant of the
nature and destiny of her Son. It is argued that 321’31 go closely
together: Mary joins with the relatives (? friends? neighbours?) who
kept saying (or was it the crowd!} that Jesus was mad (? “ beside him
self,” i.e. an enthusiast?). This interpretation is violent and against
tradition. Mary’s anxiety, and wonder, and gradual realization of the
future {cf. L 250, “and they understood not”) are no stumbling-block to
us. “ Christ’s Mother, supernaturally informed in detail of all that was
to happen in her Son’s life, and assisting unmoved at its accomplishment,
would be a character worthy only of the apocryphal gospels ” (Durand,
op. c., 105). Cf. Vasssall Phillips, Mr Conybeare on Mk. 321, Lk. 11 ,
Oxford, 1910.
2 Gore, Dissertations on the Incarnation, 1896, p. 8.
3 A. Carr, Expositor, April 1907, p. 311 ; Expos. Times, 1907, xviii.
521. If. B, the very probable reading, I13, “who not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God was born”
(eyewf)9-n : natus est), which excludes a human parentage for Christ.
Authorities in Durand, op. c., p. 107, n. I ; Tertull., De Came Chr.,
19, 24 : 2784-791, is explicit.
�The Virgin Birth
II
(iii.) But does not Paul ignore, if not exclude, our
dogma ? He has been held to leave the human life of
Christ so much in the shade, that it has been argued
he knew nothing of it—even that no human life existed,
and Christ was a “mythical person”! Yet his allu
sions to it are frequent, and he always presupposes it.
And he too is absorbed in his message—faith, forgive
ness, glorification in and through Christ, for Gentile
as for Jew. This is “his” gospel, and it neither rests
upon, nor leads to, the Virgin Birth.1 Doubtless he
maintains strongly2 that Christ is Son of David
“according to the flesh.” But he is son of David
whom Jewish law recognises as such; and Jesus, born
of the legal wife of Joseph, and not by adultery, is
Joseph's legal son, and heir of Joseph’s ancestor. Legal
sonship satisfies the prophecies without excluding
superior, Divine filiation. To this Jesus looks when
He deprecates insistence on the Davidic descent
(M 2241, Mk 1235, L 2041; cf Ro i4): that is not His
only, nor chief, prerogative.3 Nor can the two texts,
Ac 1333, Ro i2-4, prove for a moment that Paul thought
Jesus became God only at the Resurrection. The
Son pre-exists the human life from eternity. The
Divine filiation is of nature, not the result of baptism,
miracles, transfiguration, resurrection, virginal con1 We do not rely upon the expression “made of a woman,” Ga 44,
vividly though it recall I Co it13 and Gen 2s3. It does perhaps imply
birth from a mother (not merely human birth), while paternal generation
would have suited P’s argument perhaps better could he have adduced
it.—Nor will we argue that he conceives transmitted guilt as a taint in
the flesh, to be got rid of only by a break in the paternal line. The
wrong idea that Catholic doctrine (at any rate) so regards original
sin, vitiates the rest of Lobstein’s argument (<?/>. c., p. 79) that miracul
ous birth was “anecessary condition of the Saviour’s sinlessness.”
The substantial union of the Word with the humanity at once made the
Person, Jesus, true God and Son of God, and made sin (and its con
sequent subtraction of supernatural grace, which is original sin)
impossible in Him, quite independently of virgin birth.
2 Ro i3, 413, Ga 316, 2 Ti 28, etc. ; cf. Ac 230 (these are especially
strongLobstein, op. c., pp. 52, 53, thinks they necessitate human
generation. But they are conventional formulas).
3 On His so-called “rejection” of Davidic filiation, cf. Durand, pp.
118-122 ; Dalman, op. c., p. 234.
�12
History and Dogma
ception.1 Because of the filiation, these glories are
His. Because at certain crises (baptism, etc.) the
Sonship asserts itself and is recognized by God, “ this
day have I begotten thee ” is quoted ; and “ it was
impossible',' St Peter had long ago preached (Ac 224),
“ that hell should hold Him who was Captain of Life "
(315 ; cf. He 210).
All these writers were men who had known each
other intimately—Luke, at any rate, the “ beloved
physician,” the most “scientific” of the Evangelist
historians, was the close companion, and in part
biographer, of Paul. Each and all of them regarded
it as his life’s work to preach the true doctrine about
Jesus Christ. The bonds of personal devotion which
bound them to Him, bound them also to one another.
Deep divergences of doctrine in such men are un
believable. But so profoundly “individual” were their
characters and outlooks—above all, so inexhaustibly
rich, so many-sided, so infinitely communicative was
their subject—that it must not be wondered at if their
accounts are highly personal, and enlarge, illuminate,
complete, though never contradict, each other.
That any of these documents should have ignored or denied
the Virgin Birth is unthinkable, given the tradition of the
Christian Church. They did not create this : they arose within
it, according to and because of it. It is a vicious circle to say :
Christian faith created the Childhood Gospels ; and then : The
first- and second-century tradition rests merely on “ a few texts ”
in Matthew and Luke. The very earliest sub-Apostolic docu
ments2 are amazingly explicit. Ignatius, when he cried that
Our Lord is “made truly of a virgin,” is “born of Mary and
God,” knew surely that his doctrine was not at variance with his
beloved master, John’s ! Once more, the Gospels assume the
Christian faith in their readers.3
1 Phil 25-12, Col i15-21, 1 Co io4, 1545, Ga 4?, 2 Co 521, etc. And
C.T.S. Relig. of Gk. Test., C. C. Martindale, pp. 19, 20.
2 Ignatius (c. Iio), Ephes. 19, and 5; Smyrn. 1: ^ 652. 660,708. Aristides
(c. 125); Justin, 1 Ap., 31: 6377, Dial., c. 84, 100, ib. 673-709 (a magnifi
cent parallel between the virgin Eve and the incorrupt, obedient virgin
Mary, Eve’s advocate); Irenaeus, Adu. Har., i. 10. 1 ; iii. 19. 1:
7s49. 937, especially c. 21, /A 945.
3 Ramsay, op. c., p. 98, etc.
�The Virgin Birth
13
IV
We shall now consider a few points connected with
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which, it is urged,
make against the virginity of Mary (the Genealogies,
the Brethren of the Lord), or at least throw doubt
upon the value of Matthew (the Magi, the Flight) or
of Luke (the “ Census ”) as historians at all.
(<2) The Genealogies showing Christ’s descent from
David (M i2-17, L 323"28) agree in three names only :
Joseph, Zorobabel, Salathiel.1 Else, the discrepancy
is complete. This perhaps is why Tatian omitted both
lists in his Diatessaron (supr., p. 5, n. 4). Origen
(c. Cels., ii. 32: 11852) recognises it as a frequent
stumbling-block. How explain it?
Julianus Africanus (ap. Eus., H.E., i. 7 : 2097) suggested (he
owned he had no evidence) that Joseph was born of levirate
marriage,2 Jacob and Heli being brothers, one his legal, one his
real father. But even so, we must assume that they had different
fathers ; and would not this uterine-levirate marriage (in itself of
doubtful possibility) have to be conjectured anew to explain
Salathiel, son of Jechonias (M) and of Neri (L), and yet again, if
indeed Matthan (s. of Eleazer, M) is Matthat (s. of Levi, L) ?
Though Matthew’s deliberate omission of steps in the descent
might account for these differences.—Annius of Viterbo (c. 1490)
suggested that L’s genealogy was that of Mary.3 But this is
against universal ancient belief: Jewish law disregarded maternal
ancestry: when it was felt Mary should be of David’s house,
her pedigree was linked artificially with that of Joseph (Eus., ib. ;
cf. 4881); while the Proteuangelium Iacobi makes her daughter
of Joachim. Moreover, we should have to construe L323, “ being
the son (as was supposed, of Joseph, [but really]) of Heli” [using
1 M’s Matthan »z«y = L’s Matthat.—If Rhesa, L 3s7 ( = “prince,”
and absent from the lists in M and 1 Paralip. 3), were really a title of
Zorobabel, but treated by some earlier copyist whom L reproduces as a
separate proper name, L would here fit with M and also with 1 Par. ;
for L’s Ionas is the Hananiah of 1 Par 319 (omitted by M), and his
Iuda is M’s Ab-iud — 1 Par 3s34 Hodaviah {cf. Ezra 39, 240 ; Neh. 119;
I Par 97. u, where the names interchange).
’
2 One in which a childless widow marries her deceased husband’s
brother, his and her children being legally accounted to the first
husband (Dt 25s).
3 Victorinus {c. 300) says M gives Mary’s genealogy : 5s24.
�14
History and Dogma
whs =son in regard of Joseph,=grandson in regard of Heli] ; or
else, “ son of Joseph the son-in-law of Heli.”
not tolerate this violence.
But the text will
What matters to the Evangelists, is the claim of
Jesus to Davidic rights. That He was “descended
from David ” was tacitly assumed by contemporaries
(M 2241"46) and explicitly recognized by early
preaching;1 while the “Desposyni” (kindred of
Christ—Symeon, son of Clopas His uncle, and two
grandsons of Judas His brother) were in danger
under Domitian as claiming royal, because Davidic,
descent.2 Our genealogies commend, but do not
prove, this claim. It was currently discussed (Eus.,
Ad Steph., iii. 2: P.G., 22896) whether Messiah was to
descend from David through Solomon (dead in
idolatry; his house, in the person of Jechonias,
rejected by God, Jer 2230) or Nathan. Matthew and
Luke satisfy, respectively, the two opinions ; for while
it is through Solomon that the Davidic rights descend
to Joseph and his (legal) Son Jesus; through Nathan
Christ’s true Davidic ancestry may be traced.
Matthew shows Jesus as legal heir of David; Luke,
that He is his Son by physical descent.3 Matthew’s
genealogy is indeed highly conventional. It claims to
consist of three groups of fourteen names.4 To obtain
this, many names had to be omitted ; thus Matthew’s
“ begat ” need never mean “ was father of.” Contrary
to Jewish custom, he inserts women—Rahab, Tamar,
Ruth, Bathsheba—perhaps to suggest that God
1 Ro I3, 2 Ti 28, Ac 2s8, 1323, etc. —M 1522, 2030, <p; 219 show that
in popular opinion (1) Messiah descends from David, (2) Jesus is
Messiah.
2 See this charming story in Africanus, ap. Eus., z'A, and Hegesippus,
ib., iii, 19-32.
3 Durand, p. 201: Comely, Introd. N.T., p. 201, n. 6; F. C.
Burkitt, Evangelion da Mepharrashe, Cambridge, I9°4> & PP- 258-266.
This theory is increasingly accepted. Clearly we have no space to
discuss minor difficulties.
4 In the third, thirteen only occur, making it additionally likely
that M used an existing, already slightly disfigured document. His
symbolism may well allude to the numerical value {fourteen) of the {three')
letters (th) of the name David.
�The Virgin Birth
i5
excludes neither sinner nor stranger from His plan
of mercy. Doctrine, then, dictates his scheme: Luke
keeps closer to “history” in our sense. For while
we may never become sure on what precise system
these lists were drawn up, it is certain that, if the
Evangelists composed them, they did so according
to contemporary ideals as to the construction of
genealogies;1 and if they are quoting official docu
ments, we may assume they do so “ without attribut
ing to them other authority than that of tradition
or of the public registers which provided them.”2
Eusebius actually applies the “ as was supposed ” of
L 323 to the whole list; Luke offers it simply as the
popular opinion as to Jesus’ ancestry !3
1 On various O.T. systems for editing genealogies, cf. Prat, Etudes,
1901, lxxxvi. pp. 488-494; 1902, xciii. pp. 617-620.
2 Cf. Durand, p. 207 ; Brucker, Eludes, 1903, xciv. p. 229 ; 1906, cix.
p. 801.
3 m x 16 reads. “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom
was born Jesus,” etc. [tV.B. in Latin and Greek the same word stands for
to bear and to beget (gignere, yevvav}]. One group of MSS. accentuates
the virgin-motherhood. “. . . Joseph, to whom being betrothed, the
Virgin Mary bare,” etc. “. . . Joseph, to whom was betrothed the
Virgin Mary ; but the Virgin Mary bare,” etc. The Sinai-Syriac MS.
(admirably edited 1894 by Lewis) astonishingly reads: “Jacob begat
Joseph ; Joseph, to whom was betrothed the Virgin Mary, begat Jesus, ”
etc.—a heterodox text, yet containing, interpolated, the “virgin”
additions. Finally, the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (F. C.
Conybeare, Oxford, 1898), a work of c. 430 discovered in 1898, is said
to quote the heterodox phrase; thus: “. . . Joseph, the husband of
Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. And Joseph
begat fesus who is called Christ.”—But it is clear that the Jew Aquila’s
quotation stops at the first Christ. He resumes, sophistically : “ And
so (koI often bears this meaning; and indeed in this very dialogue)
Joseph,” etc. The Christian Timothy immediately rebukes him:
“ Quote,” he says, “ correctly and in the right order”; he then him
self quotes M i16, substituting “to whom was betrothed the Virgin
Mary” for “the husband of Mary,” and finally, the ordinary text,
save that ‘ ‘ who was betrothed to Mary, ” and ‘‘ the Christ the Son of
God,” replace “the husband of M.,” and “who is called Christ.” The
dialogue, then, does not support the Sinai-Syriac, whose erratic reading
may be due to (i.) an Ebionite ‘ ‘ correction ” ; (ii.) a copyist’s error, due
to a mechanical continuation of the formula, And X begat Y ; (iii.) the
form in which the original document genuinely stood. No doubt an
official record would put Joseph as father of Jesus. Notice that Sin. Syr. leaves, e.g., verse 18 (which clearly asserts the Virgin Birth) intact,
�16
History and Dogma
(If) The relationship of the “ brethren ” of the Lord1
cannot be defined with certainty. We summarize
possible interpretations as briefly as possible, premising
that the answer to this question can, of course, only
affect the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
(i.) The “ brethren ” are children of Mary.2
(ii.) They were children of Joseph by a former
marriage. So the Gospel ofJames, and that of Peter
(end of second century); cf. Jerome, Comm, in Mt.,
xii. 4984, and perhaps Clement of Alexandria (9731);
Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa,
and, hesitatingly, Origen and Hilary, and others per
haps, follow these. Jerome (zA) says that they who
so conjecture are following the dreams of the Apo
cry phas : he proclaims, too, the “virginity” of Joseph
(Adu. Helu., 19: 23203). It is unnecessary to follow
the history of his opinion, which is dear to Catholic
conviction.
(iii.) The “ brethren” were cousins of Jesus.
There is no doubt that
rater, and (what is
of most importance), HS' (ah) in Hebrew and Aramaic
can quite easily mean “ relative,” not strictly brother
and that no one would dream of using this MS. to correct the rest of
the Gospel text; why then insist that its unique reading must alone be
right here ? Read Durand, 74-82; Burkitt, op. c., ii. 265 ; Academy,
17th Nov. 1894-24^ June 1895.
1 James, Jude, Joseph, Simeon. M 1246, 1365, Mk 331, 6s, L 820,
J 212, 75, Ac I14, 2C095: M and Mk speak too of His “sisters.” Cf.
Lightfoot, Ep. to Gal., Dissert. II. ; C. Harris, Diet, of Christ and the
Gospels, 1906, i. 232 ; Corluy, Etudes religieuses, 1878, i. 22; Durand,
221-276 (excellent account). Fl. Josephus, Ant. Iud., xx. 9. 1,
Hegesippus and Julianus in Euseb., H.E., ii. 23, i 7, also refer to the
kinsfolk of the .Lord {supr., p. 14). Their testimony relates to the
years c. 62, 160, 210.
2 Tertullian, already half-heretic, may have taught this {De Carn.
Christi, 7, 23 : 7766.79°.
Jerome believed he did {cf. Contr. Helu.,
17: 23201; d’Ales, TI1A0I. de Tert., 1905, p. 196). Lightfoot (p. 278)
is against it. Origen (ap. Jer., Hom. 7 in Luc., P.L., 7233) seems to refer
to Tertullian, and possibly Hilary {Comm, in Mt., i. 3-4: 9921). But
about 350, in Syria and Arabia, the denial of Mary’s perpetual virginity
became explicit : in 380 Helvidius, and a little later Jovinianus. both at
Rome, provoked Jerome’s vigorous attacks. Condemned at Milan, they
were excommunicated by Siricius in 390. Bonosus of Myria was
condemned a little later {supr., pp. 2, 3).
�The Virgin Birth
17
(Gen 3716, 1 Par 2321, Lev io4: Cicero, Tacitus:
Euripides: it is quite common). Hegesippus, who
calls James “the Lord’s brother,” calls Simeon
“ another cousin ” of the Lord. The words are then
convertible. Of Jude he says that “ he was called the
brother of the Lord according to the flesh.” Probably
(Durand, p. 229), at this very early period, that phrase
was not so much honorific, as meant to distinguish
between the several prominent disciples of the same
name. Jerome (c. Helu., 12-17) insists on this solution,
alleging that (#) Mary had vowfed virginity;1 (fi) that
Mary was confided from the Cross to none of the
“ brethren,” but to John. The brethren were not,
then, her sons.2 (c) Jesus is often called “ Son of
Mary ”: the brethren never; nor she their mother.
Moreover, had Mary been mother, afterwards, of six or
seven children (of whom several will have held high
rank in the Church), and lived long as widow, the
most perverse tradition could scarcely have succeeded
in fixing on her, as uniquely distinctive title, that of
Virgin. (So even Renan.) Finally, the “brethren”
seem definitely older than Jesus.
(c) The “ Census.”—Luke says, 21-3, that an enrolment,
imposed by the Emperor on the whole Empire,3 was
carried out in Palestine by tribal and household enumer
ation. Thus Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, and
Jesus was born there. “This happened [I translate
literally] as a first enrolment when Quirinius was in
office in Syria.” But we are told :—
The Roman census was based on property, not persons ; and
when Christ was born (B.C. 6-4: for His birth preceded
1 So too Aug., Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose ; cf. Harris, l.c. i. 235.,
2 So Jerome, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Hilary, Ambrose, Siricius.
To Lightfoot this argument seems conclusive : l.c., p. 272.
3 “ In the whole world ” means this. The plan was quite in keeping
with Augustus’ ideals. He wished to assess the poll-tax fairly and
accurately. That contemporary records do not mention it is unim
portant : they are silent, too, about local enrolments known to us
from inscriptions and papyri. Roman historians scorned the recurrent
details of provincial administration.
�18
History and Dogma
Herod's death, 4 B.C.), there was no census.in Palestine, nor was
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius then in office. Sentius Saturninus
governed Syria 9-6 B.C. ; Quinctilius Varus, 6-4 ; 1 B.C.-4 A.D.,
Gaius, the Emperor’s grandson, was legate, the intervening
years being unaccounted for. But Quirinius was legate 6 A.D.,
and did indeed effect what Ac 537 calls “ the enrolment.” If
Christ, then, was born 6-4 B.C., and Quirinius held office, and
had the enrolment in 6 A.D., Luke is clearly wrong.
Even were he wrong in this detail of chronology,
that scarcely should impair his general value as a
historian. Still, mistake on this point were odd in
one who so accurately had sought out the “ origins ”
(i2; sup?.., p. 7). But (i.) it is acknowledged (from
inscriptions) that Quirinius twice held office in Syria.
But when ?
May not Augustus, who associated
Volumnius with Saturninus, have similarly added the
notoriously energetic (so Tacitus) Quirinius to the
indolent Varus in some semi-official (probably military)
office?1 Thus he may well have been “in office”
in Syria 6-4 B.C., and (possibly) even have succeeded
Varus in 4. (ii.) Recent discoveries2 make it certain
that family enrolments besides the land-assessments
were held in Egypt every fourteen years. Enrolment
papyri for A.D. 90, 104, etc. till 230 were unearthed ;
then for 76 ; then, 62 ; then, 20! Now Luke says the
enrolment was general; and we know that Syria was
enrolled in 34 A.D., also in 6 : Clement of Alexandria,
too (Strom., i. 21, 147: 8885), implies that it had
its periodical enrolments like those he knew in
Egypt. Tertullian actually says (Adv. Marc., iv. 19,
P.L., 2405) one happened under Saturninus (9-6),3 and
that Christ was born during it. This is quite possible
1 L says ^ye^ovevovros, “holding office,” an untechnical word
applied to various positions, and by Josephus, Ant., XVI. ix. I, to
Volumnius. Justin, 1 Apol., 34, calls Q. neither legate nor proconsul,
but eirirpoiros, procurator.
2 Read the romantic account of this triple simultaneous independent
discovery by Kenyon {Class. Rev., 1893, P- IIO)> Wilcken {Hermes,
1893, p. 203), Viereck {Philologus, 1893, p. 563), in Ramsay, op. c.,
preface.
3 In fact, 8 B.C. is fourteen years before 6 a.d., as 34 a.d. is twenty
eight years after it.
�The Virgin Birth
19
if a clumsy household numbering in 8 B.C. was dragged
out till 7-6 B.C.—as was practically inevitable owing to
the chaotic political situation.1 11 is thus, independently
of Luke, almost certain that there was such an en
rolment in 6 B.C. in Palestine, the first of its sort,2
Quirinius being in office.
The displacement of so many families is no difficulty. Only
Palestinian Jews would be bound : the whole land could be
crossed in three or four days : all devout Jews went thrice a
year to Jerusalem.—Why does Mary accompany Joseph ? We
are not sure. Perhaps Joseph feared to leave her at such a
crisis. Anyhow, in Syria, women, too, paid the poll-tax.
How idle, then, is the theory that this story is forged to get the
Holy Family from Nazareth (where L knew they lived) to
Bethlehem (where the prophets said Messiah must be born):
and alas for Mr Robertson, who says 3 of household enumeration,
“ There was no such practice in the Roman world” 1
(d) Of the story of the Magi we are told that its
details are vague; its incidents improbable; that
it clashes with Luke.
It was invented to satisfy
Messianic prophecies, or is the echo of pagan myth.
Indeed, the date of its insertion into the Gospel is
given. We deal with this first.
A Syriac document entitled “ Concerning the Star : showing
how and through what the Magi recognised the star,” etc., says
that Balaam’s prophecy (Nu 2417) was written by Balak to
Assyria, and there kept till the star appeared, and King Pir
Shabur sent the Magi to do homage to the Messiah. “ And in
the year 430 (118-119 A.D.) . . . this concern arose in [the minds
of] men acquainted with the Holy Books, and through the pains
of great men in various places this history was sought for and
found, and written in the tongue of those who took this care ”
(W. Wright, Journ. of Sacr. Lit., ix., x., 1866). Hence M 21-12,
1 Ramsay, p. 174.
2 The fourteen-years cycle being reckoned, Romanwise, from 23 B. c.,
the year of Augustus’ reception of the Tribunician Power. In that year
no enrolment will have occurred. 8 B.c. will therefore be the first.
A. d. 6 is called “ the enrolment,” because Judea having just become
a province, an enrolment consequently on purely Roman lines (local—
not familial and tribal) made the Jews realize their subjection, and
accordingly revolt. In 20 a.d. (end of the next cycle) Tiberius forbids
interference with local customs.
3 Christianity and Mythology, 19CO, p. 194.
�20
History and Dogma
based on this legend, was added to the Gospel in 119 a.d.—But:
certainly before that time Ignatius of Antioch assumes the story
to be universally popular (he rhetorically expands it ad Eph.
xix., P.G., 5652). So it is clear that the “ Holy Books ” are not the
O.T. with its story of Balaam, but the Gospels with that of the
Magi; while what was first written in 118 a.d. is not the latter
story, but the legend of Balaam’s message to Assyria.1
Of the Magi (probably priests ; perhaps astrologers;
certainly heathen), as to number, nationality, rank,
and later history, nothing is known. The star which
they saw “ at its rising ”2 has been identified (first by
Kepler, 1605) with astronomical phenomena, eg. the
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, B.C. 7. To pursue
such investigations leads nowhere.3
No merely
natural phenomenon could have seemed “ to travel,”
to “ stand over ” a house, etc., though the Magi may
(conceivably) have heard from Jews of the Dispersion
of the expected birth of a Deliverer, and have (inde
pendently) interpreted what they saw as a sign that
this had happened. But their information will not
have been based on Nu 2417: still less was the
whole story invented to satisfy that prediction ! The
star in Numbers, as in Isaiah 60,4 uniformly
means the Messiah himself: it was not his herald.
The pseudo-Messiah Simeon actually called himself
Bar-Kokeba, Son of the Star. And that Matthew,
eager to quote O.T. prophecy whenever he can, should
not here have cited Nu, Is, and Ps 7210, 6829, had he
seen their fulfilment in his story, is unthinkable.
V
We must now notice those writers who try to
find the origin of the Gospel history in mythology,
and shall, owing to the great popularity of this
system, give it far more space than its intrinsic value
merits. I am anxious to emphasize this. It is popular
1 Cf. Allen, Commentary on St. Matthew, p. 22, 1907 ; Plummer,
idem., 1909, ad loc.
2 “In the east" would probably need the plural ava-roKdis.
3 Though see Ramsay, op. c., pp. 215-218.
4 Cf., later, Test. XII. Pair., Judah 24 (Gk.), etc.
�The Virgin Birth
21
polemic, not serious scholarship, that attaches real
weight to these pagan “parallels.” With the Magi,
however, mythologists have no easy task. Cheyne 1
and others quote the stars which constantly herald
the birth of great men.
Thus the Magi, on seeing Alexander’s, declared that the
destroyer of Asia was born; the star of the Julian family was
famous (Verg., Aen.). The Pushya, on the horizon when the
Buddha was born, was, however, a regular annual phenomenon
(an asterism consisting of 7, 8, 0 of the constellation Cancer) and
served to mark a date, not to glorify the infant.2 The Magi
may indeed have deduced a new birth from what they considered
adequate evidence {N.B. “ his star”) ; but Matthew draws no con
clusion as to Christ’s preternatural character from it; it merely
guided the Magi to Bethlehem.3
But we hear: In 66 a.d. Tiridates, king of Parthia (Pliny,
H.N., xxx. 6, calls him a magus') came with magi (Dio. Cass., lxiii.
1-7) to do homage to Nero, and went home “another way”
(Suet., Nero, 13). Nero is anti-Christ: even as incidents of
Christ’s life attached themselves to Nero’s {e.g. His expected
return), so incidents of Nero’s life accrued to Christ’s.4
We prefer to admit a score of miracles rather than
so grotesque an explanation. How, and why, were
the stories so utterly transformed in detail ? so
Judaized in tone? so raised in religious value? why
inserted in this peculiarly un-Hellenic part of the
Gospel?5 And how dissociate the Magi from the
1 Bible Problems, 1904.
2 C. F. Aiken, Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha, Boston, 1900, p. 240.
3 Prof. R. Seydel {Evangel v. Jesu, 1882, p. 139) quotes a (postChrfstian) tale that the god Brahman gave the unborn Buddha a
dewdrop containing all power; the babe Buddha received perfumes
from nymphs and palaces from princes; Mr Lillie adds {Buddhism in
Christendom, 1887, p. 30; cf. Aiken, p. 243) that the young hero was
escorted to a garden, eclipsing with his bodily brilliance the jewels
that smothered him. Hence the tale of Magi with gifts !
J. M. Robertson, in Christianity and Mythology, p. 199, however,
has to misinterpret the famous representation of the Magi (Northcote
and Brownlow, Roma Sotteranea, 1879, ii. 258), universally recognized
as Christian, as “surely Mithraic,” “since there is really no other way
of explaining the entrance of the Magi into the Christian legend.”
4 Cf. Soltau, Geburtsgesch. J.C., 1902, p. 73 ; Usener, Encyl. Bibl.,
iii. 3351.
5 These considerations are in place whenever pagan myth is offered
as origin for the Gospels.
�I
22
History and Dogma
organically connected Massacre and Flight, for which
these pagan “sources” cannot be used? But other
sources ain? suggested! Persecution of infant-heroes by
jealous kings is a mere ‘ myth-TzztfZz/’; Josephus should
have mentioned the Massacre, had it occurred ; hence
no doubt the murdered Innocents but picture ‘the
disappearance of the stars at morning before the sun.’1
Finally, Jesus is said to fly to Egypt because thither
the giant Typhon drove the Olympian gods (Usener,
Encycl. Brit., l.ci).
But in the same place Usener agrees that Egypt, with its
large Jewish colonies, its numerous synagogues, its vicinity, etc.,
was exactly the natural place for a Palestinian Jew to fly to :
Josephus, who has to relate Herod’s murder of wife, mother-inlaw, three sons, brother-in-law, uncle, and numbers of Pharisees,
may be forgiven for omitting the obscure murder of a score
(at most) of babies in a tiny town : the quaint solar parallel would
be more perfect did the stars flee before an eclipse (for such,
rather than sunrise, is the Child’s flight)! Finally, because
Herod’s action is so natural, and naturally has its parallels in
legend and popular tales, it need not therefore be mythical, or
else we should have to accept for true only the unnatural events
narrated in history.2 As for the Loss and Finding in the Temple,
one set of critics 3*
8
assigns the tale of the Buddha and the ploughing
match as “pattern” (the baby hero, left under a tree by his
nurses absorbed by the spectacle of a ploughing match, lapsed
into meditation, and was found there, hours after, still sheltered
by the stationary shadow of the Jamba ; other versions put the
incident quite late in the Buddha’s life) ; while another (J. M.
Robertson, Chr. and Myth., p. 334, quoting Strabo, xvi. 2. 38,
and Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 14), says that the story of parents
{who had exposed their children} going to Delphi to inquire of
the oracle if the child yet lived, and there being met by
the child himself (who had gone to inquire about the parent)
1 J. M. Robertson (momentarily all for solar myth), op. c., p. 333.
2 Observe the Buddhist “prototype” (dating, moreover, from the
sixth century A.D.), adduced by Seydel, op. c., p. 142 ; Lillie, Infhience
of Buddhism on Christianity, 1893, p. 28 ; cf. Aiken, p. 244. King
Bimbiskara is advised to send an army to crush the increasing power
of his neighbour the Buddha, now a young man. He refuses, and is
converted to Buddhism !
8 E. v. Bunsen, The Angel Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and
Christians, 1880, p. 30; Seydel, p. 48; Lillie, B. in Chr., p. 25 ; cf.
Aiken, p. 245.
�The Virgin Birth
23
“ supplies the source of the first part ” of our story ; while
Plutarch mentions that in Egypt the cries of children at play in
temple-courts were held for prophetic ; and this accounts for
the second part 1—We prefer Luke’s history to modern myth.
Yet Matthew contradicts Luke ?—Not at all. Grant
that the Magi’s visit followed the Purification (not
necessarily soon), and we need only assume that
Luke did not mix his sources. For if the Magi-tale
was current as in Matthew, Luke did not insert it
into what he had learnt (probably) from Mary
(supr., p. 7), nor repeat it in a new form when the
old was satisfactory. The Magi are no “ doublet ” of
the Shepherds. The spirit of Matthew’s tale which
shows the universality of Christ’s saving power is
quite different from that which relates the homely
incident so suited to the “ Gospel of the Poor.”
We are constantly told, quite generally, that Jesus
is but one among many virgin-born gods, and that
His myth is discredited by theirs. Especially to the
BUDDHA Sakyamuni are we pointed as origin of the
Christian dogma.1 Doubtless the tangled question
of the dates of the Buddhist “ scriptures ” makes it
difficult to criticize this briefly, but our references will
supply details of evidence. We may say : The tradi
tions of the Buddha’s birth are contradictory, and, es
pecially the earlier, assign no “virginity” to his mother
1 Bunsen, op. c. : “Zoroastrian magi invented an angel-messiah ; the
Buddha imported this into India, the Essenes into Palestine ; Christ
was an Essene ; thus Buddhist legends reached and fastened on Him.”
Sharply criticized by Kuenen, Natural Religion, etc., 1882.—R. Seydel,
op. c., maintains : A pre-Synoptic Jewish apocalyptic gospel existed
(highly “Buddhized” by traditions journeying westwards by traderoutes opened up by Alexander), utilized by the Synoptists. —All
imagination work, supposing an impossibly late date for the Gospels.
Criticized by Oldenberg, Hardy, and even J. E. Carpenter (who
patronizes the theory that Christianity borrowed from Buddhism),
XIXth Century, viii. 971. A. Lillie, opp. citt. These three books
well discussed by C. F. Aiken, op. c. A. J. Edmunds, Buddhist and
Christian Gospels, etc., London, 1904, is admirably considered by
L. de la V. Poussin, Revue Biblique, 1906, iii. pp. 355-381. See, too,
the latter’s Bouddhisme, Paris, 1909, p. 239 sqq., and C.T.S. Buddhism,
by the same.
�24
History ana, Dogma
Maya. Later speculation held her to be virgin.1 But
note: for Buddhists, all birth is rebirth.
A pre
existing being, a ghandarva, escaped from a previous
life, is reincarnated.
Ordinary mortals are born
where necessity dictates : superior beings—e.g. future
Buddhas—can choose their moment, and their parents.
This is why Maya dreams that the future Buddha
enters her side, of his own accord, as a six-tusked white
elephant. She had lived some thirty-three years with
her husband, and only after the conception of the
Buddha resolves to abandon earthly love. The Buddha
chose Maya, because she was doomed to die ten months
seven days afterwards: now’, all mothers of Buddhas
must die seven days after their child’s birth, lest another
child should occupy what had been a Buddha’s shrine.
There is in all this no hint of virgin birth. Indeed,
feminine virginity was of little interest to Hindus or
earlier Buddhists.2* When the Mahavastu does at
last insist on Maya’s virginity, it is at the cost of
the birth, for the Buddha is now represented as
remaining in heaven, sending only a phantom self
to be seemingly born of Maya. Thus the birth is, at
the first, marvellous, but not virgin.
Once Maya is
virgin, the birth has ceased to be real.
The sage Asita, on the Buddha’s birthday, sees “ the gods of
shining vesture forming the band of the thirty-two (gods),” [not
“angels white-stoled” : Edmunds] rejoicing. Ascending into the
sky, he asks the reason. They answer : “ The Buddha-to-be, the
excellent jewel, the incomparable, is born in the world of men
[leaving, that is, that of gods] to save [creatures] and to make them
happy, in the village of the Sakyas,” etc. Asita magically flies
thither, and “ because he knew the [32] signs ” [set. the webbed
fingers, etc., which marked the child a superior being] exclaimed
“ with faith,” “ This is the unsurpassed, the excellent among men.”
He weeps, indignant that he will be dead before the child begins
1 Jerome, Adu. Iou., i. 42 : 23s73, on doubtful evidence calls the
Buddha virgin-born. The extremely late writings of the Mongol
Buddhists, and one other very late document, are our only sources here. 4
2 Even the Lalitavistara {-possibly as early as the Christian era) only
asks how the Buddha could live without being defiled by (physical) «
contact with Maya’s womb. The answer is, that tents of jewels and
perfumes enveloped him therein.
�The Virgin Birth
25
its work of salvation.—Graceful as are many incidents of this tale,
not even in the words of the devas is a source found for Luke’s
narrative, though “ peace on earth to men [objects] of [God’s]
goodwill ” is not unlike the “ utility and pleasantness ” for which
the Buddha is born.—The pre-existence of the Son is not like
that of the Buddha in the Tusita heaven, which many odd in
carnations (as king, pigeon, god, jackal, etc.) had preceded.
Nor is Maya’s visit to a royal garden, surrounded with un
imagined luxuries, like Mary’s to Bethlehem, that we should
say “both children were born when their mothers were on a
journey.” Such suggestions destroy the real charm of the
Buddhist legends.1
The god Krishna2 is declared3 to have been born of
a virgin Devakl. Now, not only is there a well-defined
modern Indian movement to assimilate the legend
of Krishna “ the Black ” to the life of Christ, while of
the books which contain it “the earliest are at the
very least several hundreds of years later than the
composition of the Gospels,” 4 but even in the Hindi
version of that part of the documents which relates
it we read that Devaki had already, before Krishna's
conception, borne seven children to her husband
Vasudeva. Considering too that Krishna had “ eight
specially beautiful wives of his own, besides over
16,000 others, and by them he had a family of
180,000 sons, all of whom finally killed one another,
or were murdered by their father,”5 virginity would
seem low enough in the esteem of the Black God’s
evangelists; and that Mr Vivian should include him
among those “ suffering Saviours ” whose stories had
been “ for ages past similar in all essentials to the
Gospel narratives” (p. 161) is amazing.
Of Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra,
CHRIST, Mr Robertson says 6 “ all six deities were born
of a virgin.” “ In Persia, Zoroaster was miraculously
1 Seydel, pp. 295, 136 ; Bunsen, p. 34; Lillie, Influence, etc., p. 26 ;
W. St. C. Tisdall, Mythic Christs and the True, 1909, p. 36.
2 C.T.S. Hinduism, E. Hull, pp. 12, 14, 27.
3 P. Vivian, The Churches and Modern Thought, Watts, 1910,
p. 121, etc.
4 Tisdall, Mythic Christs, p. 27.
6 Tisdall, p. 28.
6 Short History of Christianity, 1902, p. 63.
�26
History and Dogma
conceived.”1 “ In Parsi mythology, Saoshyant is
virgin-born.”2 We need but glance at these assertions.
Dionysus3 was the son of Zeus and a woman, Semele. While
pregnant, she was shrivelled to death by the sight of her lover’s
glory. The unborn infant was snatched from her womb, stitched
into Zeus’s thigh, and ultimately “born” in circumstances which
the poets easily made absurd.—Zoroaster4 is said in the Avesta
(much of which is extremely late) to be the son of Pourushaspa,
a man whose genealogy was traced back for ten generations.
His mother’s name is not even mentioned. Even in the latest
mythologizing documents {cf. Zaratusht-Namah, c. A.D. 1278),
the most we hear is that Pourushaspa had drunk some haoma
uice in which Zoroaster’s fravashi (genius) had been placed. The
conception was normal; the child was the third of five brothers.—
Saoshyant and his two brothers, prophets to appear before the
end of the world, are (literally) to be conceived of Zoroaster’s
seed—Saoshyant by a woman bathing in a lake.5 Here I cannot
transcribe the details ; still less, in the case of Attis and Adonis.
Adonis was the son of Cinyras in one myth, of Phoenix in
another, but (in the commonest version) of King Theias by his
own daughter, Myrrha. The whole of this story, like Adonis’
career and worship, is one of sexual abnormalities. Even more
so is that of Attis, son of Nana and the androgynous monster
Agdestis, itself offspring of Zeus and Earth.6 The cults of
Adonis and Attis became bywords even among pagans for
unbridled licence and hysterical perversities. In them, as in
Krishna’s, vice became of the essence of worship.
That Mithra7 was virgin-born is argued by Mr
J. M. Robertson as follows:8 Mithra is often coupled
with the goddess Anahita. But an inscription men
tions “the tree of Zeus-Sabazios and Artemis-Anahita.”
Therefore Mithra = Sabazios.
But Strabo says
Sabazios “is in a sense the son of the Mother” (set.
the Eastern goddess, Cybele, etc.). Therefore Mithra
was son of a mother. But this mother must be
1 P. Vivian, op. c., p. 128.
2 Robertson, Pagan Christs, p. 339.
3 C.T.S. Relig. of Anc. Greece, J. Huby, pp. 4, 21, etc.
4 C.T.S. Relig. of Avesta, A. Carnoy,passim.
5 Tisdall, p. 86.
6 Pausan., vii. 17. 5 > Arnob., Adu. Gent., v. 9. 4, P.L., 51100; Minuc.
Felix, 21 ; on Adonis and Attis, C.T S. Relig. of Syria, G. S. Hitch
cock, pp. 10, 23 ; of Imper. Rome, C. C. Martindale, pp. 12, 14.
7 C.T.S. Mithra, C. C. Martindale.
8 Pagan Christs, 1903, p. 337 sqq. Every step of the argument
might be disputed.
�The Virgin Birth
27
Anahita, for not only is she goddess of fertilizing
waters, and hence " must necessarily figure in her cultus
as a mother,” but Mithra, “ who never appears ... as
a father,” “ would [therefore] perforce rank as her son?
Astounding logic! But all this apparatus to get
Mithra born of a mother at all, has not yet shown
she was virgin.—Simplicity itself! "It was further
practically a matter of course that his divine mother
should be styled Virgin, the precedents being uni
form” (p. 337). Precedents? He quotes Agdestis,
Attis, and Saoshyant (supr., p. 26), and unexpectedly
concludes: "Asa result ... we find Mithra figuring in
the Christian Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries
as supernaturally born of a Virgin Mother and of the
Most High God ” (p. 340). We find nothing of the
sort. Mithra was invariably regarded as “ rock-born,”
that is, sprung from the Petra Genetrix, “mother
rock,” imaged by a conical stone (representing the
sky-vault in which, or the mountains over which, the
light-god first appears). Mithra had no human mother
at all, virgin or otherwise.1
It is idle to urge : Mithra was worshipped in crypts; but
Mithra=Adonis, who was “born and worshipped in a cave”
[surely not, and anyhow these identifications are ludicrously
inexact]; Adonis = Tammuz, who was adored (Jerome says) in
the unreclaimed Cave of Bethlehem; therefore Mithra was
born in a cave.—He was not virgin-bctrn, nor yet cave-born. If
anywhere, the rock-birth occurred (as bas-reliefs suggest) under
a tree by a river.2
1 Mr Robertson oddly appeals to two savage myths, known to us
third or fourth hand, in which Mithra is found born of a god and a woman,
or (incestuously) of that god’s own mother. Of these, M. Cumont (the
leading authority on Mithraism) says: “Their character is radically
different from the dogmas accepted by the Western believers in the
Persian god.” Reff. in The Month, Dec. 1908, p. 582 sq.
2 Much has been made of a group of “adoring shepherds” some
times sculptured near the rock-birth. . They appear but rarely, and in no
obvious connection with the birth. They are not clearly shepherds,
and certainly do not adore. C.T. S. Mithra, p. 12. It is (with probabil
ity) conjectured that Mithra’s birthday was kept on Dec. 25. Pie was
indeed closely identified with the Sun, whose birthday was then kept.
For Dec. 25, cf. C.T.S. Ret. Imper. Rome, p. 29; Cath. Encycl.,
Christmas, Martindale, iii. 726.
�28
History and Dogma
OSIRIS1 comes to us, like his pictures, enswathed in
mummy-clothes of myth—in this case of contra
dictory, irreconcilable myths. A turn, first of gods, but
also Primeval Man, engenders from the substance of his
own heart the Heliopolis Ennead of gods, one of whom
was Osiris. Elsewhere, Osiris is son of Seb (Earth)
and Nuit (Sky), and rules as frankly human Pharaoh,
married to his sister Isis. He certainly is not virginborn. Isis herself, though in some very late syncre
tistic myths of great beauty she is virgin, is not so
in relation with Osiris; indeed, one legend shows
her losing that quality in her mother’s womb by
union with her twin-brother.
As for her son
Horus, he was conceived by the murdered Osiris
(triumphantly “surviving himself”), but normally.2
Nor were the Pharaohs “virgin-born.” True, they
first have gods for ancestors; then, God for father;
then, are gods. But notice: the god is explicitly
said to be incarnate in the Pharaoh’s human father.
Each reigning Pharaoh is the god’s physical instru
ment in the conception of the next.3 In conscious
imitation of this, Alexander the Great and others—
often deliberately, to gain influence in an Egypt
accustomed to have gods’ sons for governors—claimed
as ancestor or sire Zeus or Apollo. Popular romance
and court flattery elaborated the legend, which few if
any took seriously. Nor did anyone believe the
3 C.T.S. Relig. Anc. Egypt, A. Mallon, pp. 15, 30.
2 La relig. de Fane. Egypte, Virey, Beauchesne, 1910, p. 96;
Budge, Book of the Dead, Introd., pp. cxxxiv. and lxxx. All the
Osiris myths focus in the idea of life victorious over death : new wheat
springs from the rotting grain ; dawn from the dead day. But Isis, as
Earth fertilized by the flooding Nile, affords no hint of virginity.
Except (perhaps) in art, her worship has not affected ours, though
Prof. Petrie—talia talis?—asserts “that it became the popular
devotion of Italy ; and after a change of name due to the growth of
Christianity, she has continued to receive the adoration of a large part
of Europe down to the present day as the Madonna” {Relig. Anc.
Egypt, 1906, p. 44, cf. 91).
3 Inscriptions at Deir-el-Bahari and Luqsor make this certain.
Virey, pp. 95-98 ; Moret, Caractere relig. de la royauti pharaoniqtie,
pp. 50-52, there quoted.
�The Virgin Birth
29
stories about Apollo, father of Plato, or Proteus, of
Apollonius. They were literary imitations of the
old myths which made Zeus visit Alcmene in the
shape of her husband, or Europa, Leda, Danae as
bull, swan, or golden shower, thereby glorifying
(and explaining) their heroic offspring, Herakles,
Perseus, etc. There is no question here of virginity.1
From this point of view it is a pity that some
Fathers (Origen, Jerome, Justin) use these tales
as an argumentum ad hominem against pagan critics
of the miraculous conception of Christ. “You,”
they argue, “ account for heroes by saying: A God
was their sire. Why then cavil if we teach that a
greater far than heroes was Son of God ? ” But that
Justin, e.g., had no faith in the pagan virgin births is
clear from the words he puts in the mouth of Trypho
{supr., p. 2). Even he saw that the difference between
the stories was profound. We may add that the
title Diui Filius, Yto? 0eov, “ Son of God,” taken by
emperors, in no sense denies human parentage, still
less claims virgin birth (C.T.S. Imper. Rome, p. 4;
King-Worship, C. C. Lattey, p. 31).
Indeed, the stories which approach nearest to a suggestion of
the Virgin Birth—where maid becomes mother by treading in a
giant’s footsteps, eating a fruit, by the action of sunbeams, or (as
did Chimalma, mother of Quetzalcoatl) by the god’s breath—
nearly all belong to levels of civilization where no one will look
for the origin (at any rate) of the Gospel story. They are folk
lore so inferior even to myth, that interaction, causal influence,
is unthinkable. They have been used2 as basis of a theory that
primitive savages were ignorant of the “ true cause of offspring,”
an ignorance which resulted in tales of virgin birth, some still
surviving in a purified form. But (i.) it is quite unlikely that the
Australian savages (who alone can be quoted) are really so
ignorant of the cause of birth as the authors suppose—the exist1 Farnell, Cults of Gk. States, ii. 447, and others make it clear that
the name Parthenos itself need not imply virginity. It often means
just “ unmarried,” and is compatible with great licence.
2 Cases accumulated in E. S. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, 1894
(a chaos simplified by “ P. Saintyves,” Vierges mires et naissances
miraculeuses, 1908), and argued from by Dr. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and
Osiris, 1907, ii. 169.
�History and Dogma
ence among savages of complicated marriage tabus and legisla
tion, and of widespread sex-worships, is quite against such
(antecedently unlikely) ignorance—but (ii.) there is no sort of
reason for supposing such ignorance to have been universal,
especially as “ primitive ” savages are often probably “ degener
ates,” not just embarking on a career of improvement.1
To sum up. In nearly all these cases (and there are
scores of others) the birth may be preternatural, but
is not virgin. In important examples, it remains
obscure when the traditions embodying the analogies
are to be dated (Buddha) ; or borrowing from Chris
tianity is actually certain (Krishna). As a rule the
legend is attached to a mythical, not historic, person
(Herakles, Perseus), or was never taken seriously
(Plato, Alexander, Augustus). The whole setting is
usually frivolous, often obscene. The Gospels are
profoundly Judaic, and uncoloured by pagan, especi
ally Hellenic, tradition.
Conscious adaptation of
myth by their writers is a grotesque supposition,
neglected by reputable scholarship; there was no
time for an unconscious deformation of historical
events in view of the early date now generally
admitted for the composition of the Gospels.2
Dr. Abbott (Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1778) seeks the origin of our
tradition in Philo’s allegorical treatment of certain O.T. stories
—thus : Yahweh is the true father, e.g. of Isaac, because Isaac
= “laughter,” and “God sows and begets happiness in souls.”
(The reff. to Philo are i. 131, 147, 215, 273, 598, ed. Mangey.)
But even if Philo sometimes “allegorized” the Patriarchs, he
never implies their historical virgin birth, still less could he
foster an opinion that the Messiah (whose role he almost
1 A. H. Sayce, Relig. oj Anc. Egypt and Babylon, 1902, p. 17.
Instances of “degeneration,” C.T.S. Lectures on Hist. Relig., vols. i.
and ii., Relig. of Hindus, Early Rome, Buddha, etc., etc.
2 Harnack vigorously says: “ The conjecture of Usener, that the idea
of the birth from a virgin is a heathen myth which was received by the
Christians, contradicts the entire earliest development of Christian
tradition, which is free from heathen myths so far [he adds] as these
had not already been received by wide circles of Jews, . . . which in the
case of that idea is not demonstrable.'” [Usener himself says (Encycl.
Bibl., ii. 3350): “The idea is quite foreign to Judaism.”] Hist, of
Dogma, Engl, tr., i., 1897, p. 100, I; cf. Chase, Cambridge Theol.
Essays, ed. H. B. Swete, 1905, p. 412: “ The solution of Prof. Usener
is directly at variance with the primary conditions of the problem.”
�The Virgin Birth
3i
obliterates) was to be virgin-bom;1 and anyhow Alexandrian
(Philonic) Judaism was very different from the purely Palestinian
religion of the Gospels.2
Finally, Harnack himself (cf. note 2,p. 30) argues that
the source of our belief was but a misinterpretation of
Is. 714 (Ecce uirgo concipiet, etc., Vulgate). It is impos
sible here to discuss the true interpretation of the
text. The Fathers with practical unanimity saw in
it from the first a prophecy of the actual event, but it
could only support, not generate, a belief or story.
For, once more, virgin birth was not an idea to which
the Jewish mind was accustomed. Whatever floating
myths or confused- traditions or indistinct expecta
tions may have at times occupied it, we cannot
suppose that a sudden, mysterious misinterpretation
of a single and not well-known text should have been
so general and potent as to impose, as true, a belief
such as the virgin birth of Jesus upon His almost
immediate disciples.
The Gospels, then, as we have them teach that Jesus
was born of a Virgin. So too the early Church believed.
Either, then, the belief was founded upon the Gospels,
or the Gospels were the literary expression of the
belief. The dogma must be assailed, if the former be
the case, by an attack upon the value of the Gospel
narrative; if the latter, by discrediting the value of
the belief. We saw (i.) that there is no external or
1 Whether a virgin-mother ever, or still, appeared on a purely
Jewish, horizon remains doubtful. Trypho, we saw (p. 2), practically
denies it. That Enoch, 62®, 6929,fcalls the Messiah son of the woman
does not help. Could we be sure that the LXX. meant their itapQl-vos
(virgin) (later modified by Theodotion and Aquila to veavis, “young
woman ”) in Is. 714 to be taken in its complete sense, and that the
virgin as virgin was to bear, the argument for a Jewish virgin-mother
tradition would be stronger ; but cf. Condamin, Isaie, p. 67 ; Lagrange,
Messianisme, p. 222 sqq.
f Lobstein, op. c., p. 68, maintains the gradual adornment of Christ’s
child-life, like that of Moses, Samuel, etc. This is far more plausible ;
but is yet (i.) unprovable, (ii.) improbable: even had the Childhood
been “embroidered,” virgin birth would not have been chosen as a
motif. Except among the Esaenes, the unmarried state was not esteemed
by the Jews,
�32
History and Dogma
internal evidence that the Gospels are late, or patch
work, or interpolated as regards the Childhood-story.
Their mutilation can only be attempted in obedience
to a priori conviction that miracle is impossible.
Incriminated episodes, like that of the Magi, have no
evidence against them ; or even, like that of the enrol
ment, are amazingly accredited by modern research,
and reflect honourably upon the Evangelist as
historian. Finally, neither is Matthew in conflict with
Luke, nor yet with the “ silence ” of Mark, nor the
doctrine of Paul or John: (ii.) while one group of
critics, rejecting as absurd the hypothesis that the
Gospels are indebted to pagan sources for their
narratives, seeks their origins in Jewish prophecy
or myth or allegory, another group, insisting that a
virgin birth was wholly alien to Jewish expecta
tion or ambition, assigns Indian, Persian, Greek, nay
“ savage ” cult and fancy as the fountain-head of the
Christian dogma.
We, while acknowledging that the serene and
universal faith of the early Church makes the back
ground of the Gospels, and that they must be inter
preted according to it, and could not have denied it
without being detected and flung aside, yet realise
that those Gospels were written, or at least reproduce
a doctrine existing long before alien influences of what
ever sort could enter to violate the primitive traditions,
and even memories, of the early disciples. Not the
conflicting, apocryphal forecasts of the Messiah, not
perverse misreadings of the sacred books, not the
unclean or grotesque or (at best) romantic and graceful
legends of pagandom could create the simple, pure,
and fragrant Gospel of the Childhood, so purely
Jewish and of its own time, yet so potent to reach the
love of the children of our distant day ; nor need the
older and more learned readers of that record hesitate
still to refresh their eyes with the gentle mysteries of
Bethlehem, or fear for the honour of the Virgin whom
all generations shall name blessed.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The virgin birth and the gospel of the infancy
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Martindale, C. C. (Cyril Charlie)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publication details from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). Some of the text on the first page has been torn away and rewritten by hand.
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Catholic Truth Society
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[1911]
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RA1549
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Jesus Christ
Bible
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The virgin birth and the gospel of the infancy), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ
Virgin Birth