THE VIRGIN-BIRTH OF OUR LORD

A PAPER READ (IN SUBSTANCE) BEFORE THE CONFRATERNITY OFTHE HOLY TRINITY AT CAMBRIDGE

BY

B. W. RANDOLPH, D. D. 

PRINCIPAL OF ELY THEOLOGICAL, COLLEGE

HON, CANON OF ELY

EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN

Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem: non horruistiVirginis uterum. 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND Co. , 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1903

WITH RESPECT AND AFFECTION TO

VINCENT HENRY STANTON, D. D. 

ELY PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Dedisti Jesum Christum, Filium tuumunicum, ut . . . Pro nobis nascereturqui, operante Spiritu Sancto, verusHomo factus est ex substantia VirginisMarie matris sue. 

Pref. In Die Nat. Dom. 

PREFACE

This paper was read before the S. T. C. (Sanctae TrinitatisConfraternitas) on March 10th of this years at one of theordinary meetings of the Brotherhood. It is published now inthe hope that it may thus reach a wider circle. 

To suppose that any one can hold the Catholic doctrine of theIncarnation without believing the miraculous Conception and Birth, is, in the writer's opinion, a delusion. There is no trace inChurch History, so far as he is aware, of any believers in theIncarnation who were not also believers in the Virgin-Birth. Themodern endeavour to divorce the one from the other appears to bepart of the attempt now being made to get rid of the miraculousaltogether from Christianity. 

Professor Harnack appears to urge us to accept the "Easter message"while we need not, he thinks, believe the "Easter faith. "* Hemeans apparently by this that we can deny the literal fact ofour Lord's Resurrection, while we may believe in a future life. What St. Paul would really have said to a Christianity such asthis seems to be plain from his words to the Corinthian convertswho were denying the Resurrection in his day: "If Christ be notrisen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. "(I Cor. Xv. 14. )

--* Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 160. --

Deny the Resurrection of our Lord, and you take away the key-stonefrom the Apostolic preaching, and the whole edifice falls to theground. Any unprejudiced reader of the sermons and speeches ofSt. Peter and St. Paul in the Acts will surely recognize how truethis is. 

Similarly in regard to the human Birth of our Lord. Once admitthat He was born as other men, and the Incarnation fades away. A child born naturally of human parents can never be God Incarnate. There can be no new start given to humanity by such a birth. Theentail of original sin would not be cut off nor could the Christso born be described as the "Second Adam--the Lord from heaven. "Christians could not look to such a one as their Redeemer orSaviour, still less as the Author to them of a new spiritual life. 

Another man would have appeared among men, giving mankind theexample of a beautiful human life, but unable in any other wayto benefit the race of men. Further, a Christ such as this wouldnot be a perfect character, for if the Gospels are to be believed, He said things about Himself and made claims which no thoroughlygood man could have a right to make unless he were immeasurablymore than man. While these pages were passing through the press, the eye of the present writer was caught by the following wordsin a letter of Bishop Westcott, which seem to have a specialsignificance at this time:--"I tried vainly to read----'s book . .. . He seems to me to deny the Virgin-Birth. In other words, he makesthe Lord a man, one man in the race, and not the new Man--the Sonof Man, in whom the race is gathered up. To put the thought inanother and a technical form, he makes the Lord's personality human, which is, I think, a fatal error. "*

--* Life of Bishop Westcott, vol. Ii. P. 308. --

It is sometimes said, in opposition to the mystery of theVirgin-Birth, that there is a tendency in the human mind, notwithout its illustrations in history, to "decorate with legend"the early history of great men. In reply, it may be enough hereto say that legends analogous to the pagan legends of the birthsof heroes, false and absurd legends, did gather round the infancyof Jesus Christ. The Apocryphal Gospels are full of such legends. They tell us how the idols of Egypt fell down before Him; how Hisswaddling-clothes worked miracles; and how He made clay birdsand turned boys into kids, and worked other absurd miraclesof various kinds. But there is a world of difference between these"silly tales" and the restraint, purity, dignity, and reserve whichcharacterize the narratives of the first and third Evangelists. "The distinction between history and legend, " says Dr. Fairbairn, "could not be better marked than by the reserve of the Canonicaland the vulgar tattle of the Apocryphal Gospels. "*

--* Quoted in Gore, Dissertations, p. 60. --

I wish to take this opportunity of thanking my colleague, theRev. G. W. Douglas, and my friend the Rev. Canon Warner, Rectorof Stoke-by-Grantham, for their kind help in revising theproof-sheets of this paper. 

B. W. R. 

THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, ELY, Feast of St. Mark, 1903. 

[Note on transliteration of Greek quotations: o = omicron(short o); e = epsilon (short e); ô = omega (long o);ê = eta (long e)]

THE VIRGIN-BIRTH OF OUR LORD

There are two miracles confessed in every form of the Creed--themiracle of the Conception and Birth, by which the Incarnation waseffected; and the miracle of the Resurrection. These are thefundamental miracles, and are the battle-ground upon which thedefenders and assailants of Christianity more especially meet. 

The discussion of this most sacred subject of the Virgin-Birth ofour Lord has been forced upon us at the present time. It isimpossible to ignore it or set it aside. We must be prepared, each of us, however much we may shrink from treading on suchsacred ground, to give a reason for the hope that is in us withreverence and fear. 

I will ask you here and now to consider the matter briefly underfour heads. First, I will try to give the evidence for the beliefin this article of the Creed during the second century; next, Iwill ask you to consider the evidence of St. Matthew and St. Luke;thirdly, we will consider the argument e silentio on the other side;and lastly, I will ask you to reflect on the theological aspectof the question. 

THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

I will therefore, without any further preface, plunge into themiddle of the subject, and ask you, first of all, to considerafresh that 'throughout the Church the statement of the belief inthe Virgin-Birth had its place from so early a date, and istraceable along so many different lines of evidence, as to forceupon us the conclusion that, before the death of the last Apostle, the Virgin-Birth must have been among the rudiments of the Faithin which every Christian was initiated;' that if we believe theDivine guidance in the Church at all, we must needs believe thatthis mystery was part of "the Faith once for all delivered tothe Saints. "

Bear with me, then, while I go over the evidence of the leadingwitnesses. 

1. St. Ignatius. 

He must have become Bishop of Antioch quite early in the secondcentury. As he passes through Asia about the year 110, he is onhis way to martyrdom, and in his Epistles he speaks emphaticallyof the Virgin-Birth. 

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, he says: "Hidden from theprince of this world were the Virginity of Mary and herchild-bearing, and likewise also the death of our Lord--threemysteries of open proclamation, the which were wrought inthe silence of God. "*

--* Eph. , 19. "Kai elathen ton archonta tou aionos toutou heparthenia Marias kai ho toketos autês, homiôs kai ho thanatostou Kuriou; tria mustêria kraugês, hatina en hêsuchiatheou eprachthê. "--

In the Epistle to the Symrnaeans, he says: "I give glory to JesusChrist, the God who bestowed such wisdom upon you; for I haveperceived that ye are established in faith immovable. .. Firmlypersuaded as touching our Lord, that He is truly of the race ofDavid according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine willand power, truly born of a Virgin, and baptized by John. .. Trulynailed up for our sakes in the flesh, under Pontius Pilate andHerod the tetrarch. "+

--+ Smyrn. , I. "Doxazô Iêsoun Christon ton theon ton houtôs humassophisanta; enoêsa gar humas katêrtismenous en akinêtô pistei. .. , peplêrophorêmenous eis ton kurion hêmôn alêthôs onta ekgenous David kata sarka, huion theou kata thelêma kai dunamintheou, gegenêmenon alêthôs ek parthenou, bebaptismenon hupoIoannou . .. Alêthôs epi Pontiou Pilatou kai Herôdou tetrarchoukathêlomenon huper hêmôn en sarki. "--

In his Epistle to the Trallians, he writes: "Be ye deaf, therefore, when any man Speaketh to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was ofthe race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born. "*

--* Trall. , 9. "kôphôthête oun, hotan humin chôris Jesou Christoulalê tis, tou ek genous Daveid, tou ek Marias, hos alêthôsegennêthê. "--

2. Aristides of Athens. 

In his Apology, written about the year 130, mentioning theVirgin-Birth as an Integral portion of the Catholic Faith, hewrites: "The Christians trace their descent from the Lord JesusChrist; now He is confessed by the Holy Ghost to be the Son ofthe Most High God, having come down from heaven for the salvationof men, and having been born of a holy Virgin+ . . . He tookflesh, and appeared to men. "#

--+ Another reading here is "a Hebrew Virgin, " and the Armenianrecension has the name "Mary. " See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, p. 4; and Harnack's Appendix to the same work, p. 376. # Apol. , ch. Xv. The quotation is from the Greek text preservedin the History of Barlaam and Josaphat. See The Remains of theOriginal Greek of the Apology of Aristides, by J. ArmitageRobinson. Texts and Studies (Cambridge, 1891), vol. I. Pp. 78, 79, 110. "hoi de Christianoi genealogountai apo tou Kuriou JesouChristou, houtos de ho huios tou theou tou hupsistou homologeitaien Pneumati Hagio ap' ouranou katabas dia ten sôtêrian tonanthrôpôn; kai ek parthenou hagias gennêtheis . .. Sapka anelabe, kai anephanê anthpôpois. "--

3. Justin Martyr. 

In his Apologies and in his Dialogue with Trypho he has threesummaries of the Christian Faith, in all of which the Virgin-Birth, the Crucifixion, the Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascensionare the chief points of belief about Christ. 

In his First Apology (written between 140 and 150) he says: "Wefind it foretold in the Books of the Prophets that Jesus our Christshould come born of a Virgin . . . Be crucified and should die andrise again, and go up to Heaven, and should both be and be calledthe 'Son of God. '" * And a little later in the same work he says:"He was born as man of a Virgin, and was called Jesus, and wascrucified, and died, and rose again, and has gone up into heaven. "+

--* Apol. , i. 31. "En dê tais tôn prophêtôn biblois heuromenprokêrussomenon paraginomenon gennômenon dia parthenou . . . Stauroumenon Iesoun ton hemeteron Christon, kai apothnêskonta, kai anegeiromenon, kai eis ouranous anerchomenon, ai huion theouonta kai keklêmenon. "+ Apol. , i. 46. "Dia parthenou anthrôpos apekuêthê, kai Iesousepônomasthê, kai staurôtheis kai apothanôn anestê, kaianelêluthen eis ouranon. "--

In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (written after the FirstApology) he says: "For through the name of this very Son of God, who is also the First-born of every creature, and who was born ofa Virgin, and made a man subject to suffering, and was crucifiedby your nation in the time of Pontius Pilate, and died, and roseagain from the dead, and ascended into heaven, every evil spiritis exorcised and overcome and subdued. "#

--# Dial. , 85. "kata gar tou omonatos autou toutou tou huiou toutheou, kai prôtotokou pases ktiseôs, kai dia parthenou gennêthentoskai pathêtou genomenou anthrôpou, kai staurôthentos epi PontiouPilatou hupo tou laou humôn kai apothanontos kai anastantos eknekrôn, kai anabantos eis ton ouranon, pan daimonion exorkizomenonnikatai kai hupotassetai. "--

4. St. Irenaeus. 

Writing not later than 190, he makes constant reference to theVirgin-Birth as an integral portion of the Faith of Christendom. He says: "The Church, though scattered over the whole world tothe ends of the earth, yet having received from the Apostles andtheir disciples the Faith--

 In one God the Father Almighty. .. And in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was incarnate for our salvation: and in the Holy Ghost, who by the Prophets announced His dispensations and His comings; and the birth of the Virgin (kai tên ek Parthenou gennêsin), and the Passion, and Resurrection from the dead, and the bodily assumption into heaven of the beloved Jesus Christ our Lord, and His appearance from heaven in the glory of the Father . . . 

having received, as we said, this preaching and this Faith, theChurch, though scattered over the whole world, guards itdiligently, as inhabiting one house, and believes in accordancewith these words as having one soul and the same heart; and withone voice preaches and teaches and hands on these things, as ifpossessing one mouth. For the languages of the world are unlike, but the force of the tradition is one and the same. "*

--* Contra Haeres. , I. X. 1, 2. "Hê men gar Ekklêsia, kaiper kath'holês tês oikoumenês heôs peratôn tês gês diesparmenê, para detôn Apostolôn kai tôn ekeivôn mathêtôn paralabousa tên eis henatheon Patera pantokratora . . . Pistin; kai eis hena ChristonJêsoun, ton huion tou theou, ton sarkôthenta huper tês hêmterassôtêrias; kai eis Pneuma Hagion, to dia tôn prophêtôn kekêruchostas oikonomias, kai tas eleuseis, kai tên ek Parthenou gennêsin, kai to pathos, kai tên egersin ek vekrôn, kai tên ensarkon eistous ournous analêpsin tou êgapêmenou Christou Iêsou tou Kuriouhêmôn, kai tên ouranôn en tê doxê tou Patros parousian. . . . Touto to kêrugma pareilêphuia kai tautên tên pistin, hôsproephamen, hê Ekklêsia, kaiper en holô tô kosmô diesparmenê, epimelôs phulassei, hôs hena oikon oikousa; kai homoiôs pisteueitoutois, hôs mian psuchên kai tên autên echousa kardian, kaisumphônôs tauta kêrusse kai didaskei, kai paradidôsin, hôs henstoma kektêmenê, kai gar hai kata ton kosmon dialektoi anomoiai, all' hê dunamis tês paradoseôs mia kai hê autê. "--

He goes on to say that in this Faith agree the Churches ofGermany, Spain, Gaul, The East, Egypt, Libya, and Italy. Hiswords are: "No otherwise have the Churches established in Germanybelieved and delivered, nor those in Spain, nor those among theCelts, nor those in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, northose established in the central parts of the earth. "+

--+ Contra Haeres. , I. X. 2. "Kai oute hai en Germaniais hidrumenaiEkklêsiai allôs pepisteukasin, ê allôs paradidoasin, oute en taisIbêriasis, oute en Keltois, oute kata tas anatolas, oute enAiguptô, oute en Libuê, oute hai kata mesa tou kosmou hidrumenai. "--

Again, in the same work we read of the many races of Barbarians"who believe in Christ . . . Believe in one God, the Framer ofheaven and earth and of all things that are in them, by ChristJesus the Son of God, who for His surpassing love's sake towardsHis creatures, submitted to the birth which was of the Virgin, Himself by Himself uniting man to God. "#

--# Contra Haeres. , III. Iv. X, 2. "Qui in Christum credunt. .. In unum Deum credentes, Factorem coeli et terrae, et omniumquae in eis sunt, per Iesum Christum Dei Filium; qui proptereminentissimam erga figmentum Suum dilectionem, eam quae essetex Virgine generationem sustinuit, ipse per se hominem adunans Deo. "--

5. Tertullian. 

His writings represent the teaching of the Churches of Rome andCarthage, and, writing a little later than Irenaeus (c. 200), heassures us again and again that the Virgin-Birth is an integralportion of the Catholic Faith. "The rule of faith, " he says, "isaltogether one, alone firm and unalterable; the rule, thatis, of believing in One God Almighty, the Maker of the world;and His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucifiedunder Pontius Pilate. "*

--* De Virg. Veland. , 1. "Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, solaimmobilis et irreformabilis, credendi scilicet, in unicum DeumOmnipotentem, mundi Conditorem; et Filium ejus Jesum Christum, nature ex Virgine Maria, crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato. "--

"Now the rule of faith . . . Is that whereby it is believed thatthere is in any wise but one God, who by His own Word first ofall sent forth, brought all things out of nothing; that thisWord called His Son, was . . . Brought down at last by the Spiritand the power of God the Father into the Virgin Mary, madeflesh in her womb, and was born of her. "+

--+ De Praescript. Haeret. , cap. Xiii. "Regula est autem fidei, . . . Illa scilicet qua creditur: Unum omnino Deum esse quiuniversa de nihilo produxerit per Verbum suum primo omniumdemissum; id Verbum, Filium ejus appellatum . .. . Postremodelatum ex Spiritu Patris Dei et virtute, in Virginem Mariam, carnem factum in utero eius, et ex ea natum. "--

Again, speaking of the Trinity, he writes that the Word, "by whomall things were made, and without whom nothing was made, was sentby the Father into a Virgin, was born of her--God and Man--Son ofman, Son of God, and was called Jesus Christ. "#

--# Adv, Prax. , cap. Ii. "Per quem omnia facta sunt, et sine quofactum est nihil. Hunc missum a Patre in Virginem, et ex ea natum, Hominem et Deum, Filium hominis et Filium Dei, et cognominatumJesum Christum. "--

6. Clement. 

Clement about the year 190, and Origen about 230, represent thegreat Church of Alexandria. Their testimony to the place whichthe Virgin-Birth holds in the Church is clear and unhesitating. Clement speaks of the whole dispensation as consisting in this, "that the Son of God who made the universe took flesh and wasconceived in the womb of a Virgin . . . And suffered androse again. "*

--* Strom. Vi. 15. 127. "Hêdê de kai hê oikonomia pasa hê peri toukuriou prophêteutheisa, parabolê hôs alêthôs phainetai tois mêtên alêtheian egnôkosian, hot' an tis ton huion tou theou, touta panta pepoiêkotos, sarka aneilêphota, kai en mêtra parthenoukuoporêthenta . . . Teponthota kei anestramenon legei. "--

7. Origen. 

In the De Principiis, Origen writes: "The particular points clearlydelivered in the teaching of the Apostles are as follows: First, that there is one God, . . . Then that Jesus Christ Himself whocame [into the world] was born of the Father before all creation;that after He had been the minister of the Father in the creationof all things--for by Him were all things made--in the last times, emptying Himself He became man and was incarnate, although He wasGod, and being made man He remained that which He was, God. Heassumed a body like our own, differing in this respect only, thatit was born of a Virgin and of the Holy Spirit. "*

--* De Principiis, Lib. I. , Pref. , 4. "Species vero eorum quae perpraedicationem apostolicam manifeste traduntur, istae sunt, Primo, quod unus Deus est . . . Tum deinde quia Jesus Christus ipse quivenit, ante omnem creaturam natus ex Patre est. Qui cum in omniumconditione Patri ministrasset (per ipsum enim omnia facta sunt);novissimis temporibus se ipsum exinaniens, homo fictus incarnatusest, cum Deus esset, et homo, factus mansit quod erat, Deus. Corpus assumsit nostro corpori simile, eo solo differens, quod natum ex Virgine et Spiritu Sancto est. "--

In his Treatise against Celsus he exclaims: "Who has not heard ofthe Virgin-Birth of Jesus, of the Crucified, of His Resurrectionof which so many are convinced, and the announcement of thejudgment to come?"+

--+ Contr. Celsum, i. 7. "Tini gar lanthanei hê ek parthenougennêsis Iêsus kai ho estaurômenos kai hê papa polloispepistreumenê anastasis autou, kai hê katangellomenê krisis. "--

Think for a moment what all this agreement--this consensus oftradition implies. The testimony of these writers clearly showsthat in the early part of the second century, and reaching backto its very beginning, the Virgin-Birth formed part of the traditionor doctrinal creed of the Church, and that this tradition wasbelieved to be traced back to the Apostles. It has a place in theearliest forms of the Creed: it is insisted upon by the earliestApologists. It is not merely in one Church or two Churches, in onedistrict or in two, that this tradition is found. It is everywhere. In East and West alike. It is so in Rome and in Gaul (by thetestimony of Irenaeus). It is in Greece (by the testimony ofAristides). It is in Africa (by the testimony of Tertullian);in Alexandria (by the testimony of Clement and Origen); in Asia(by the testimony of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Ignatius); inPalestine and Syria (by the testimony of Ignatius and JustinMartyr). Irenaeus, if any one, should know what the Apostlestaught, for before he came to Rome he had been the pupil ofPolycarp in Asia, who had himself sat at the feet of St. John. "Everything that we know, " says Mr. Rendel Harris, "of theDogmatics of the early part of the second century agreeswith the belief that at that period the Virginity of Marywas a part of the formulated Christian belief. "* How could thebelief in the Virgin-Birth have taken such undisputed possessionof so many widely separated and independent Churches unless ithad had Apostolic authority?+ What other explanation can be givenfor the fact? There is as complete a consensus of tradition as couldreasonably be asked for. It is impossible to imagine that thedoctrine of the Virgin-Birth can have been suddenly evolved in theearly years of the second century. The only adequate explanation isthat it was a substantial part of the Apostolic tradition. It maybe worth while here to quote the words of so distinguished ascholar as Professor Zahn, of Erlangen. "This [the Virgin-Birth]has been an element of the Creed as far as we can traceit back; and if Ignatius can be taken as a witness of aBaptismal Creed springing from early Apostolic times, certainly inthat Creed the name of the Virgin Mary already had its place . .. . We may further assert that during the first four centuries of theChurch, no teacher and no religious community which can beconsidered with any appearance of right as an heir of originalChristianity, had any other notion of the beginning of the [human]life of Jesus of Nazareth . .. . The theory of an originalChristianity without the belief in Jesus the Son of God, born ofthe Virgin, is a fiction. "#

--* See Texts and Studies (Cambridge, 1891), vol. I. No. I, p. 25. + "Ecquid verisimile est, ut tot ac tantae [ecclesiae] in unamfidem erraverint?"--Tertullian, De Praescript, cap. Xxviii. # "Dies aber ist ein Element des Symbolum gewesen, so weitwir dasselbe zuruckverfolgen konnen; und wenn Ignatius als Zeugefur ein noch ateres, aus fruher apostolischer Zeit stammendesTaufbekenntnis gelten darf, so hat auch in diesem bereits derName der Jungfrau Maria seine Stelle gehabt . . . Man darf fernerbehauften, dass wathrend der ersten vier Jahrhunderte der Kirchekein Lehrer und Keine religiose Genossenschaft, welche sich miteinigem Schein des Rechts als Erben des ursprfinglichenChristenthums betrachten konnten, eine andere Auschauung yon demLebensanfang Jesu yon Nazareth gehabt haben, als diese . .. . Dassdie Annahme eines ursprunglichen Christenthums ohne den Glaubenan den yon der Jungfrau geborenen Gottessohn Jesus eine Fiktionist. "--Zahn, Das Apostolische Symbolum, pp. 55-68. --

Opponents of the Virgin-Birth occur, indeed, in the person ofCerinthus, the contemporary of St. John, and later on among theEbionites, mentioned by Justin Martyr. * But they reject theVirgin-Birth, because they reject the principle of the Incarnation. "There are no believers in the Incarnation discoverable who are notbelievers in the Virgin-Birth. "+ The two truths have been heldtogether as inseparable. There has never been any belief in theIncarnation without its carrying with it the belief in theVirgin-Birth. 

--* Dial cum Tryph. , 48, 49. + Gore, Dissertations, p. 48. --

II

THE GOSPELS OF ST. MATTHEW AND ST. LUKE

But if such was the belief of Christians everywhere in the earlyyears of the second century, can we trace the evidence furtherback? In answering this question, we are brought face to facewith the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positiveevidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, bemuch more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. TheApostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonablyexpect to hear the truth about the mystery of the miraculousConception--Mary and Joseph; and when we open the Gospels we have, as everybody knows, two narratives of the Nativity--St. Luke'sand St. Matthew's. 

(I) St. Luke, in describing the Nativity, is using an Aramaicdocument. There is a great difference in style between the preface, which is his own, and that of the narrative which follows. It wasan Aramaic document (as Godet, Weiss, and Dr. Sanday agree); butmore than this, as Bishop Gore has pointed out: "It breathes thespirit of the Messianic hope, before it had received the rude andcrushing blow involved in the rejection of the Messiah. "* TheChristology of the passage is pre-Christian: "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shallgive unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reignover the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom thereshall be no end. "+

--* Gore, Dissertations, p. 16. + St. Luke i. 32, 33. --"How can all this, " Dr. Chase asks, "be the invention of a believerin the Messiahship of Jesus when the Jews had rejected Him, andwhen the Resurrection and Ascension had raised the conceptionof His Messiahship to the height of a spiritual and universalsovereignty? The Christology of these passages is a striking proofof their primitive character. "# It is indeed difficult to see howmen can read the Benedictus or Magnificat without realizing this. Every verse in them is full of Jewish thought and Jewishexpressions, such as would have been impossible had they been theinventions of a later date. 

--# Chase, Supernatural Elements in our Lord's Earthly Life. --

That is to say, these two chapters bear traces on the face of themof being what they profess to be--a true and genuine account ofthe human Birth of Jesus Christ, received ultimately from her whoalone could be competent to give it--the Virgin-Mother herself. Forit must be Mary's account if it is genuine. It is given to us bySt. Luke, who tells us that he "had traced the course of all thingsaccurately from the first, " and who had gathered informationconcerning, be it observed, "those things which are most surelybelieved among the disciples. "* "It is an account, " says BishopGore, "which there is no evidence to show the imagination of anearly Christian capable of producing; for its consummate fitness, reserve, sobriety, and loftiness are unquestionable. What solidreason is there for not accepting it?"+ It is extraordinarilydifficult to imagine that St. Luke, whose accuracy and care havebeen, in recent years, so severely tested and found not wanting, should have been so careless as to append to his Gospel a spuriousaccount of so momentous an occurrence as the human Birth of ourLord. "Historical accuracy is not a capricious and intermittentimpulse, " writes Bishop Alexander. "It is a fixed habit of mind, the result of a particular discipline. Historians of the schoolof the author of the Acts of the Apostles are not men to build aflamboyant portal of romance over the entrance to the austeretemple of truth. "#

--* St. Luke i. 1-4. + Gore, Dissertations, p. 18. # Bishop Alexander's Leading Ideas of the Gospels, pp. 154, 155. --

(2) The account in St. Matthew's Gospel, if genuine, must havecome from Joseph. It is his perplexities which are in question, and Divine intimations are given to him, on three occasions, how to act for the safety of the mother and the Child. The factswhich appear in the Third Gospel are clearly prior to thosereported in the First: the Annunciation, Mary's visit to Judaea, her return to Nazareth, precede Joseph's discovery and dream, which follow appropriately upon the Virgin's return. How thisaccount has been preserved in the First Gospel we do not know, for we know so very little about the authorship of that Gospel;but there is nothing at all unreasonable in Bishop Gore'sconjecture* that St. Joseph (who must have died before the publicministry of our Lord began) left some document detailing thecircumstances of the Birth of Jesus Christ; that this documentwould have been given to Mary (to vindicate, by means of it, whenoccasion demanded, her own virginity), and that after Pentecostshe may have given it to the family of Joseph, the now believing"brethren of the Lord, " and from their hands it passed into thoseof the author of the First Gospel. 

--* Gore, Dissertations, pp. 28, 29. --

The Evangelist dwells, as is well known, on the fulfilment ofprophecy; but in regard to the particular prophecy of Isaiah, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall callHis name Immanuel, "* it cannot with any probability be said thatthe prophecy suggested the event; for it does not seem at alllikely that there was any Jewish expectation that the Christshould be born of a Virgin. We can understand the prophecy beingadduced in order to attest a story already current (this would bewholly after St. Matthew's method); but the prophecy itself, withone's eye on the Hebrew text of Isaiah, + could scarcely have ledto the fabrication of this particular story about the Messiah'sbirth. Probably the notion of a Virgin-born Messiah would havebeen alien to ordinary Jewish ideas. # In any case, the Jews did notso interpret the passage, and in fact, to quote Professor Stanton, "It is an instance in which the principle would hold that it ismore easy to suppose the meaning of prophetic language to havebeen strained to fit facts, than that facts should have beeninvented to correspond with prophetic language. "^ That is to say, it is wholly reasonable and entirely in keeping with the method ofthe first Evangelist, that when once he had come to know that theMessiah had been born in Bethlehem of a Virgin-Mother, he shouldhave recognized in that wondrous birth the fulfilment of the ancientprophecy of Isaiah. He would then see that whatever primary andlesser fulfilment the words of Isaiah might have, they were onlycompletely fulfilled in Him who is the end of all prophecy, who wasconceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. |--* Isa. Vii. 14. + See Note at the end. # So Dr. Chase. ^ Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 378. | See Eck, The Incarnation, p. 87. --

It is hard to bring one's self to speak of the theory put forwardby Professor Usener, in which he says that the story of theVirgin-Birth is traceable "to a pagan substratum, and that it musthave arisen in Gentile circles. "* Surely this is wholly contraryto all probability. How can any serious student think that any butJewish hands could have penned the first two chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel? "The story, " says Professor Chase, "moves, likethat of St. Luke, within the circle of Eastern conceptions; it ispre-eminently and essentially Jewish. Moreover, if time is to befound for the complicated interaction between paganism andChristianity which this theory involves, the First and ThirdGospels must be placed at a date which I believe isquite untenable. "+

--* Encyc. Bibl. , iii. 3352. + Chase, Supernatural Elements in our Lord's Earthly Life, p. 21. --

That there are differences and even discrepancies between the twoaccounts, which are manifestly independent of one another, servessurely to strengthen their witness to the great central fact inwhich they are at one--that Christ was born of a Virgin-Motherat Bethlehem, in the days of Herod the king. 

There appears, then, to be no reason for doubting that in St. Luke's Gospel we have a genuine account derived from Mary herself, and that in St. Matthew's Gospel we have an account left bySt. Joseph, "worked over by the Evangelist in view of hispredominant interest--that of calling attention to the fulfilmentsof prophecies. "* Wherever, therefore, these two Gospels had reachedin the second half of the first century, there the story of theVirgin-Birth was known. If the story thus attested by the first andthird Evangelists were really a fiction, it is hard indeed tobelieve that it would not have been contradicted by some who werestill living, and who knew that the story was different from thatwhich the Mother herself had delivered them. "If, " says Dean Alford, speaking of the Third Gospel, "not the mother of our Lord herself, yet His brethren were certainly living; and the universal receptionof the Gospel in the very earliest ages sufficiently demonstratesthat no objection to this part of the sacred narrative had beenheard of as raised by them. "+

--* Gore, Dissertations, p. 29. + Greek Test. , vol. I. Prolog. Sect. Viii. P. 48. --

There is no other alternative but to regard both stories as legendsindependently circulated in the ancient Church. "So artificial anexplanation would probably have found little favour with scholarsif there had been no miracle to suggest it. It is too commonlyassumed that evidence which would be good under ordinarycircumstances is bad where the supernatural is involved. "*

Certainly it would seem to be in a high degree improbable thattwo such accounts as those of the Birth of Jesus Christ which wehave in these two Gospels should be the work of forgers; and thisimprobability is further heightened when we compare them with thelegendary accounts of His infancy which were actually current inthe early centuries. +

--* Swete, Church Congress Report (1902), p. 163. + See Preface, p. Xi. --

III

THE SILENCE OF OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS

What are the objections brought against all this evidence? The mainobjection is the silence of the other writers of the New Testament. To reply--

(I) First, we may surely ask--Why should they mention it? This sortof argument from silence is most precarious. Are we to infer thatbecause there is no mention of the Cross or the Crucifixion in theEpistles of St. James or of St. Jude, that it was unknown to thisgroup of writers, and that they were unaware of the manner ofChrist's Death?

"We might much more naturally infer it than we may infer thatthe Virgin-Birth was unknown because St. James speaks of Christ'sDeath, and it would therefore have been quite natural for him tospeak of the exact mode of it, whereas our Lord's Birth is veryseldom referred to in the New Testament, and when it is referredto it would not have aided the argument, or been at all to thepoint to mention how that Birth was brought about. "*

--* A. J. Mason, in the Guardian, November 19, 1902. --

Or, because St. John omits all mention of the institution of theHoly Eucharist, are we to suppose that he knew nothing of thatSacrament?

(2) The subject of the Virgin-Birth was not one which the Apostleswould be likely to dwell on much. They were above all witnesses ofwhat they had seen and heard. They come before us insisting, therefore, on what they could themselves personallyattest--especially on the Resurrection. They had seen and heardthe risen Christ, and the Resurrection was at once a vindicationof His Messianic claims, and a manifestation of the dignity ofHis Person. "This praeternatural fact, the fulfilment of the'sign'+ which He had Himself promised, a fact concerning thereality of which they offered themselves as witnesses, would carrywith it a readiness to accept a fact like the Virgin-Birth, concerning which the same sort of evidence was not possible. "^

--+ St. John ii. 18, 19; St. Matt. Xii. 40. ^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 215. --

Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, belief in His Life, inHis Death, in His miracles, in His Resurrection, --these came first, and these were the subjects of Apostolic preaching, * and beliefin His Virgin-Birth (ultimately attested by Mary and Joseph)easily followed. 

--* Acts i. 22; ii. 32. --

It is instructive in this connection to draw attention to the Actsof the Apostles. As every one knows, it is St. Luke's secondvolume--the Third Gospel being his first. Now, the Gospel beginswith the account of Christ's miraculous Conception and Birth, butthere is no reference to these mysteries in the rest of the Gospelor in the Acts. "The reason for the silence in the Acts is the sameas for the silence in the subsequent chapters of the Gospel. TheJews had to learn the meaning of the Person of Christ from His ownrevelation of Himself in His words and works. To have begun withproclaiming the story of His miraculous Birth would have createdprejudice and hindered the reception of that revelation. 

"Similarly, in the Acts, both Jews and Gentiles had first to learnin the experience of the life of the Church what Jesus had done andsaid. Only when they had learned that, was it time to go on and askwho He was and whence He came. "+

The same point is illustrated by St. Mark's silence. "Had he givenany account of our Lord's early years, there would be some groundfor pitting him (so to speak) against St. Matthew and St. Luke. "^But this Gospel begins, as every one knows, with the publicministry of our Lord. It is, in fact, the Gospel which reflectsthe oral teaching and preaching of St. Peter, and so it beginsnaturally enough at the point where that Apostle first came incontact with Christ. 

--+ Rackham, Acts of the Apostles, p. Lxxiv. ^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 217. --

(3) If in these writers of the New Testament expressions had beenused inconsistent with the Virgin-Birth, it would be a veryserious matter: but what are the facts? In the few cases wherethe Birth is mentioned, there is nothing said which implies thatHis Birth in the flesh was analogous in all respects to ours. 

Consider St. John's Gospel. The silence on the Virgin-Birth canoccasion, one would think, no real difficulty. His Gospel is asupplementary record, and he does not, for the most part, repeathistorical statements already made by the other Evangelists. Itseems altogether impossible to suppose that St. John was ignorantof the Virgin-Birth. Ignatius, who was Bishop of Antioch quite atthe beginning of the second century, and therefore only a fewyears after the writing of this Gospel, calls it (theVirgin-Birth) a mystery of open proclamation in the Church. (Eph. , 19. ) Indeed, on any theory of the date or authorship ofthis Gospel, there is every reason for believing that theVirgin-Birth was, at the time it was compiled, part and parcel ofthe tradition of the Church. But when St. John does speak of theIncarnation, in the prologue to his Gospel, when he says, "TheWord was made flesh, and dwelt among us, " (St. John i. 14. ) thereis nothing in these words to suggest anything inconsistent withthe miraculous story related by St. Matthew and St. Luke. In fact, we may say more than this. We may say that his teaching about thePre-existent Divine Logos who "was made flesh, and dwelt amongus, " is felt to be a natural explanation of St. Matthew'snarrative as well as of St. Luke's; for, as we shall see, it isthe question of the Divine Pre-existence of the Logos on which thereasonableness of the doctrine of the Virgin-Birth really turns. St. John does, in fact, in connection with this mystery of theVirgin-Birth, what he does in the case of Baptism and the HolyEucharist, "he supplies the justifying principle--in this case theprinciple of the Incarnation--without supplying what wasalready current and well known, the record of the fact. "*

--* Gore, Dissertations, p. 8, seq. --

And it may be added, further, that Mary's word at Cana of Galilee:"They have no wine, " and her subsequent order to the servants:"Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it, " (St. John ii. 3, 5. )are a clear indication that in the view of St. John she regardedHim as a miraculous Person, and expected of Him miraculous action. +I think that, in regard to the Gospels, their relationship toone another may be summed up in the words of Bishop Alexander:"The fact of the Incarnation is recorded by St. Matthew andSt. Luke; it is assumed by St. Mark; the idea which vitalizesthe fact is dominant in St. John. "^

--+ Gore, loc. Cit. ^ Bishop Alexander's Leading Ideas, Introd. , p. Xxiv. --

Consider next St. Paul's references to the Incarnation:--

"God sent forth His Son, born of a woman. " (Gal. Iv. 4) He doesnot say, "born of human parents. "

"His Son our Lord, who was born of the seed of David accordingto the flesh. " (Rom. I. 3. )

"Being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal withGod; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the formof a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. " (Phil. Ii. 6, 7. )

These are the passages in which St. Paul refers to the Birth ofJesus Christ. Not one of them is inconsistent with the fact thatHe was born of a Virgin. But one can say more than this. Everyone of these passages infers that He who was born in time hadexisted before. They either assert or imply a Divine pre-existence. He who was "made in the likeness of men" was already pre-existentin the "form of God, " and was, in fact, "equal with God. " Thisbeing the case, does it not prepare us for the further truth that, when He entered into the conditions of human life, He entered itnot in all respects like us? I should mar if I ventured toabbreviate Dr. Mason's admirable words, in which he pressesthis argument--

"Like causes produce like effects. In similar circumstances, youmay expect the same forces to operate in the same way. But whensome new force is introduced, you cannot expect the same results. The Birth of Christ, if He is what all the writers of the NewTestament believed Him to be, was necessarily unlike ours in thatone great respect. We had no existence before we were born, however poets and poetical philosophers may play with the notion. But the New Testament writers believed that He whom we know asJesus Christ was living with a full, vigorous, personal life forages before He appeared in the world as man. They maintained thatHe was present and active in the making of the world, andimmanent in the development of human history, which formeda new beginning at His Birth. They said He was God, the OnlyBegotten Son of the Eternal Father, who came down from heaven, and voluntarily entered into the conditions of human life. Admitthe possibility that they were right, and you will no longerask that His mode of entrance into our conditions should bein all things like our own. If you acknowledge that Jesus Christwas Divine first and became human afterwards, you cannot but saywith St. Ambrose, when you hear that He was born of a Virgin:'Talis decet partus Deum'--a birth of that kind is befitting toone who is God. We do not--no one ever did--believe Christ to beGod because He was born of a Virgin; that is not the order ofthought [and we have seen that it was certainly not the order ofApostolic preaching]; but we can recognize that if He was God, itwas not unnatural for Him to be so born. No sound genuinehistorical criticism can deny that the Virgin-Birth was part ofthe Creed of Primitive Christianity, and that nothing that can betruly called science can object to that belief, unless it startswith the assumption, which, of course, it cannot even attempt toprove, that Christ was never more than man. "*

Similarly Professor Stanton: "The chief ground on which thoughtfulChristian believers are ready to accept it [the miraculous Conception]is that, believing in the personal indissoluble union between God andman in Jesus Christ, the miraculous Birth of Jesus Christ is the onlyfitting accompaniment for this unions and, so to speak, the naturalexpression of it in the order of outward effects. "+

--* Guardian, November 19, 1902. + Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah p. 376. --

IV

OUR LORD AS THE SECOND ADAM

But we may surely go further than this, and say that, in regard toSt. Paul, his language as to the Second Adam seems to necessitatethe Virgin-Birth. In St. Paul's view there are, so to speak, onlytwo men: "The first man is of the earth earthy; the second man isthe Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. Xx. 47. )--a new starting-point forhumanity. This doctrine of the Second Adam, of this fresh startgiven to the human race by Jesus Christ, would seem to require HisBirth of a Virgin, for the Virgin-Birth is bound up with any reallyCatholic notion of the Incarnation. For what is the Catholicdoctrine of Incarnation? Do we mean by Incarnation that on analready existing human being there descended in an extraordinarymeasure the Divine Spirit, so that He was by moral association soclosely allied to God that He might be called God? Do we mean thatsome preminent saint, called Jesus, responded with such "signalreadiness" to the Divine Voice, "and realized more worthily thanany other man 'the Divine idea' of human excellence, so that to Him, by a laxity of phrase not free from profaneness, men might thusascribe a so-called 'moral Divinity'"? Then, I say quite freely, if that is what we mean, that the Virgin-Birth is, so far as we cansee, an altogether gratuitous addition, an unnecessary miracle. Thatis, so far as I can understand it, the idea of Incarnationentertained by moderns who reject or question the Catholic Faith. 

But let me say as clearly as possible that this is not, and neverhas been, what the Christian Church means by Incarnation. The NewTestament does not tell us of a deified man: no, we begin with aDivine Person. "The 'I' in Him, His very self, is Divine, nothuman; yet has He condescended to take our humanity into unionwith His Divine Person, to assume it as His own. " He who was fromall eternity a single Divine Person took upon Him our nature, andwas "made man;" and if this be so, what other entrance intoour condition is imaginable save that which we confess in theCreed--that He was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of theVirgin Mary"? "The Creeds pass immediately from confessing JesusChrist to be 'the only Son of God' to the fact that He was 'bornof the Virgin Mary, ' and neither of those articles of the CatholicFaith can be abandoned without disturbing the foundations ofthe other. "*

--* Swete, Church Congress Report (1901), p. 164. --

If Christ was born naturally of human parents, He must, one wouldthink, have taken to Himself a human personality; He must haveexisted in two persons as well as in two natures. But what we areto insist on in thinking of and teaching this mystery is thistruth of the single Divine Personality of our Lord. The oldNestorian heresy (with certain important modifications) isbeing resuscitated among us. Nestorianism, new and old, beginsfrom below, and speaks of a man who by moral "association"became "Divine;" it speaks, that is to say, of a deified man. The Christian Faith begins from above-it speaks of Him who fromall eternity was God, taking upon Him our flesh. He took upon Himour nature, but He did not assume a human personality. He wrappedour human nature round His own Divine Person. On the Nestoriantheory, God did but benefit one man by raising him to a uniquedignity; on the Catholic theory, He benefitted the race of men, by raising human nature into union with His Divine Person. 

Those who speak, somewhat incautiously surely, of Incarnation, while they deny or question the Virgin-Birth, should be asked toconsider what they say and to reflect what their words imply. Aman born naturally of human parents but taken up, on account ofa wonderfully high moral character, into close union with God, can never differ in kind from any saint. He can never benefitthe race of men save by way of example. His death can nevereffect our redemption, for it does not differ in kind from thedeath of a martyr. Being only a great saint himself, he cannotrepresent mankind either on the Cross or before the Throne. Oneman has been assumed into heaven. But this is wholly a differentthing from the Faith of Christendom, which is that God has takenhuman nature into union with His Divine Person, in that natureGod died upon the Cross, and in that nature He pleads before theThrone for the race of men. It is because Christ's Person is Divine, that His life means to us Christians what it does. 

"No person, " says Hooker, "was born of the Virgin but the Son ofGod, no person but the Son of God baptized, the Son of Godcondemned, the Son of God and no other person crucified; which oneonly point of Christian belief, the infinite worth of the Son ofGod, is the very ground of all things believed concerning lifeand salvation by that which Christ either did or suffered as manin our behalf. "* "That, " says Bishop Andrewes, "which setteth thehigh price upon this sacrifice is this, that He which offerethit to God is God. "+

--* Eccl. Pol. , v. 52. 3. + Second Sermon on the Passion. --

"Marvel not, " says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "if the whole worldhas been redeemed; for He who has died for us is no mere man, but the Only Begotten Son of God. "^ "Christ, " says St. Cyrilof Alexandria, "would not have been equivalent [as a sacrifice]for the whole creation, nor would He have sufficed to redeem theworld, nor have laid down His life by way of price for it, andpoured forth for us His precious Blood, if He be not really theSon, and God of God. " #

--^ Catech. , xiii. 2. # De Sancta Trinitate, dial. A. (quoted Liddon, B. L. , p. 477). --

How different is all this from the language of those who woulddeny or question the Virgin-Birth! With them the Resurrection isdenied as a literal fact; the whole meaning of the Atonement asbeing a real sacrifice for sin, a real propitiation, iseviscerated of its meaning, and is reduced to a moral appeal toman; and finally, we find that whereas Christians have beenthinking and speaking of Christ as truly God, who in becoming man"did not abhor the Virgin's womb, " modern writers really mean avery good man who does not, however, differ in kind but only inexcellence of degree from any saint; and by Incarnation they meanthat moral union which a good man has with God, only illustratedin the case of Christ in an altogether unique degree. If, however, the Incarnation be what Christendom believes it to havebeen; if the Son of God did really take flesh in the womb of Mary, and became man, not by assuming a human personality, but byassuming human nature, by entering into human conditions oflife, --it is indeed difficult to imagine any other way of such anIncarnation save by way of the Virgin-Birth, by which the entailof original sin was cut off, and humanity made a fresh start inthe Eternal Person of the Second Adam. And if He is indeedsinless, the sinless Example, the sinless Sacrifice, howcould He be otherwise born? Adam, at his fall, passed on to thehuman race a vitiated nature, which we all share--a naturebiassed in a wrong direction. It descended--this vitiatednature--from father to son to all generations of men. If thisentail of original sin was to be cut off, if there was really tobe a new Adam, a second start for the human race, how could itbe contrived otherwise than by a Virgin-Birth? The Son of Marywas indeed wholly human--completely man--but "in Him humanityinherited no part of that bad legacy which came across theages from the Fall. "*

When a modern writer says, "We should not now, h priori, expectthat the Incarnate Logos would be born without a human father, "+we may reply that we are hardly in a position to expect anythinga priori in the matter; but when once we have learnt that thisIncarnate Logos was to be the Second Head of the human race--thesinless Son of Man--and that in Him humanity was to make a freshstart, it is indeed difficult to see how this could be withoutthe miracle of the Virgin-Birth. 

--* Liddon, Christmas Sermons, p. 97. + See Contentio Veritatis, p. 88. --

I should like to say, in conclusion, that I cannot disguise myconviction that just as in the early days we find no denial ofthe Virgin-Birth except among those who denied and objected tothe principle of the Incarnation (on the ground, apparently, ofthe essential evil of matter), so, conversely, that the attemptnow being made (or the suggestion put forward) to separate theIncarnation and the Virgin-Birth will prove to be animpossibility. Once reject the tradition of the Virgin-Birth, and the Incarnation will go with it. For a few years, indeed, men will use the old language, the word "Incarnation" will be ontheir lips; but it will be found before long that by that termthey do not mean God manifest in human flesh, but they mean a manborn naturally of human parents, who most clearly manifested tomen the Christian idea of a perfect human character. Such aconception as this brings no solace to human hearts. No saint, however great, could be our Saviour; no saint could have atonedfor sin; and assuredly no saint could be to any of us the sourceof our new life--the well-spring and fountain of Divine grace. 

NOTE ON ISAIAH VII. 14

THE word for "the Virgin" in the Hebrew text is ha-almah. It isan ambiguous word, and does not necessarily imply, though itcertainly does not necessarily exclude, the idea of virginity. Etymologically it means puella nubilis--a maiden of marriageable age. 

In four* out of six other places in the Old Testament where it isemployed, it is used of virgins. Its use in the two other passages+is doubtful, but does not with any certainty imply virginity. 

--* Gen. Xxiv. 43; Exod. Ii. 8; Ps. Lxviii. 25; Cant. I. 3. + Prov. Xxx. X 9; Cant. Vi. 8. --

The Septuagint translators, some two hundred years before Christ, translated the word hê parthenos. 

Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, in the second century of ourera (apparently in order to vitiate the Christian appeal tothis passage), translated the word neanis. 

THE END