1:9 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES DISSERTATIONS Oxforb HOKACB HAKT, t'KlNTlCk TO THK UNIVERSITY DISSERTATIONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE INCARNATION BY CHARLES GORE, M.A. CANON OF WESTMINSTER OF THE COMMUNITY OF THE RESURRECTION, RADLEY Neque sit milii inutilis pugna verborum sed incunctantis fidei constans professio LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1895 FRATR! ADMODUM DILECTO RICARDO RACK HAM HKXKVOI.KNTISSIMO I.ABORUM ADIUIdKr IN VERITATK EXPLORANDA CLIRIOSISSIMO 2066614 PREFACE These dissertations are the fulfilment, after a much longer delay than I anticipated, of an intention expressed in the preface to the Bampton Lectures of 1891 to prepare a supplementary volume addressed to a more strictly theological public. Circumstances however have now led to the selection of a set of subjects not altogether identical with those then indicated. The amount of discussion which arose in connexion with my lectures as to our Lord's human consciousness has rendered necessary a prolonged treatment of the theology of the New Testament and of the Church on this subject. A dis- sertation on the rise of the transubstantiation dogma followed naturally from this special treatment of the theology of the Incarnation ; and recent controversy has rendered desirable a more elaborate discussion viii Preface. of our Lord's birth of a virgin. Under these circum- stances 'the early Greek theology of the supernatural in its relation to nature' and 'the relation of Ebion- ism and Gnosticism to the theology of the New Testament and of the second century' only come in for incidental treatment. In the first dissertation — on our Lord's birth of a virgin — I have tried to give the first place to the presentation of the positive case for this article of the Christian creed, and only the second to resolving objections or considering possible rival theories. Hence I have said nothing about such a theor}' as that of Holtzmann \ of different documents used by .St. Luke in his first two chapters and of interpo- lations and alterations made in the use of them — a theory which seems to rest on purely a pi-ioi'i grounds. It seems to me that, to justify a distinction (jf various ' sources ' used by a compiler, we need either very distinct evidences of style (such as the difference between St. Luke's own style, i. 1-4, and that of his ' source ' beginning at i. 5), or very violent inconsistencies, or phenomena apparent over a large area, as in the case of the Ilexateuch. If the area is small, the difference of st3'le not plain, and the narrative fairly self-consistent, the proposed distinction becomes at once arbitrary-. Critics of ' ilaiuUominentar zuin N. T. (^Freiburg, i.SSy; bd. i. pp. 13, 46. Preface. ix documents, especially biblical documents, appear to me very seldom to know where to stop in their analysis. I owe to the Rev. G. A. Cooke, of Magdalen, the substance of the note on pp. 39-40. His diligent investigation of the sources of a statement current in modern apologetic literature has, I fear, decisively pricked a small but somewhat interesting bubble. In the second dissertation — on our Lord's con- sciousness as man — my excuse for so much quotation lies in the necessit}'' for bringing under the eye of the reader the inadequac}^ /// one respect of much of the patristic and all the mediaeval theology. There has not hitherto existed any adequate catena of theologians on this subject. I hope I shall be pardoned if a lack of complete consistenc}^ is noticed in regard to the translation of patristic passages. In any case I have produced all important passages or phrases in the original language. I cannot but hope that in this dissertation I shall have satisfied one or two of those whose approval I am most anxious to keep or to regain. In regard to the third essay, I have thought that the lack of sufficiently exact histories of eucharistic doctrine justified a detailed statement of the rise of the theory and dogma of transubstantiation. But 1 must ask that it should be remembered that, if information outside the period professedly covered is X Preface. incidentally given, I do not profess to cover more in detail than the period from a.d. 800 to 1215. In the preparation of these dissertations for the press I owe thanks for help to my brothers, the Rev. Thomas Barnes and the Rev. Richard Rackham. To the latter I owe more than I can well express, and particularly the appended note on the Codex Sinaiticus and the preparation of the Table of Con- tents and of the indices of scriptural passages and of names. He has added to the latter a few dates which will, it is hoped, increase its usefulness. C. G. Raim.ey Vicarage, St. James Day, 1895. CONTENTS THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF OUR LORD Subject and aim ....... § I. The silence of St. Mark, St. John, and St. Paul St. Mark St. John St. Paul § 2. The narrative of St. Luke its origin and trustworthiness . objections: (i) the census (2) angelic appearances . § 3. The narrative of St. Matthew its origin ...... objections : (i) massacre of the innocents (2) influence of prophecy § 4. The relation of the two narratives (i) the historical outline (2) the genealogies .... § 5. The tradition of the churches importance of tradition consensus of tradition found in Irenaeus Justin Ignatius Aristides . Alexandrians non-Catholic writings discordant teaching found in Cerinthus Ebionism . § 6. The theory of legend the miraculous birth not due to legendary tendency . a repetition of O. T incident derived from Philo's language . 6 7 10 12 19 21 28 29 31 36 n 41 43 46 47 49 55 60 61 xii Contents. PACK vj 7. The connexion of dnctrine and fact is inevitable 63 ((j) birth and personality .....> 64 (/3) the Second Adam and a new creation ... 65 Conclusion and its relation to church authority 67 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR LORD IN HIS MORTAL LIFE The subject . . . . . . . . . • 7^ its relation to Christian faith ..... 72 spirit in which it should be studied (Hilary) . . 73 L The view of our lord's consciousness during his human and iniortal life which is presented in the new testament. § I. The evidence of the (jospels picture of a human growth .....']'] with assertion of divine sonship and infallibility . 78 but evidence of a limitation of knowledge (1) human experiences— interrogation, prayer . 81 (2) St. jNIatt. xxiv. 36 iieiihcr the Son ... 83 {3) testimony of St. John's Gospel ... 84 (4) argument from silence 87 § 2. The language of St. Paul self-emptying (Phil ii. 5-11) 88 self-beggary (2 Cor. viii. 9) ..... 89 § 3. An absolute Ktvuxris not affirmed in the N. T. the eternal Word in St. John, St. Paul, the Hebrews 91 silence as to an arrest of the Word's divine functions 93 ^ 4. Provisional conclusion the Incarnation involves a real limitation ... 94 as opposed to dogmatical repudiation of ignorance ... 95 humanitarian assertion of fallibility . -95 Contents. Xlll II. The history of christian opinion outside the canon on the subject of our lord's human consciousness. §2 § § I. Preliminary. On the permanence in the Incarnation of the Godhead of Christ as taught by Irenaeus Origen . Eusebius Athanasius Proclus . Early tradition and speculation on the special subject of the human consciousness of Christ tradition not definite on the subject . doctrine of Irenaeus ..... Clement of Alexandria . Origen The anti-Arian writers who admit a human ignorance Trinitarian controversies . doctrine of Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen Basil Ambrose Anti-Arian writers, especially of the west tendency of anti-Arian theology protest of Theodoret .... doctrine of Hilary . . . , Jerome . . . , Augustine The Apollinarian controversy lack of interest among Catholics doctrine of Gregory Nyssen § 6. The Nestorian controversy Theodore of Mopsuestia . zealous repudiation of Ncstorianism doctrine of Hilary .... Cyril .... §4- i^5 98 100 100 103 104 106 108 113 114 122 123 126 127 127 130 131 133 135 136 138 140 144 145 147 149 xiv Contents. PAGE § 7. The Monophysite controversy (l) vindication of the manhood not fruitful in result 154 the Agnoetae and Leontius Eulogius Gregory. John Damascene ..... Agobard and the Adoptionists in the west (2j the Definition of Chalcedon leaves the two natures in simple juxtaposition . . .162 155 158 159 160 161 § 8. Mediaeval and scholastic theology determined against a real ignorance . . . .166 refinements of Thomas Aquinas .... 168 quaUfications (i) hesitation as to what is de fide . . . 169 (2) decisions only as to matter of fact . . 169 scholastic theology (ij mistaken in its use of church dogmas . .170 (2) based on one-sided metaphysical idea of God 171 derived from Greek philosophy . . -173 through Dionysius Areop. and Erigena . 173 resulting in nihilianism .... 175 as expressed in Peter Lombard . . -175 § 9. The theology of the Reformation a return to Scripture 179 theories of Luther . . . . . . .181 the Reformed 182 modern views (i) absolute kenotic — Godct . . . .184 (2) partial kenotic— Fairbairn . . . 1S9 (3) double life— Martensen . . . 192 (4) gradual incarnation— Dorner . . . 193 § 10. Anglican theology its characteristics . 196 utterances of Hooker Andrcucs Jeremy Taylor . . 196 Bull 15everidgc Waterland . . .198 modern authorities Church Westcott Bright . . -199 Contents. XV III. The conclusion of this inquiry: the relation OF this conclusion to church authority : its RATIONALITY. PAGE § I. Conclusion from our inquiry a real self-limitation in the Incarnation . . . 202 without abandonment of the divine functions in another sphere ....... 206 fourfold appeal to opponents ..... 205 § 2. The relation of our conclusion to ecclesiastical authority its consistence with ecumenical decrees . . . 207 in particular those of Nicaea ..... 208 Chalcedon and CP iii . . 210 reasons for defectiveness in patristic and scholastic theology .213 § 3. The rationality of our conclusion (i) the inconceivable not necessarily the irrational . 216 (2) the power of sympathy . . . . . .218 (3) difference between divine and human knowledge 220 (4) modern view of God's relation to His creation . 222 TRANSUBSTANTIATION AND NIHILIANISM Subject and aim ....... I. The growth of the doctrine of transubstantiation s. viii in the east, John of Damascus in the west retarding influence of Augustine reflected in Caroline theologians s. ix Paschasius Radbert's teaching Rabanus Maurus opposes it Ratramn „ Hincmar, Haimo support it s. xi the Berengarian controversy . Berengar's position Humbert's decree (a. d, 1059) 229 230 232 234 236 239 240 246 247 248 257 XVI Contents. S. XII PAG I. Lanfranc and Hugh c )f Langres . . . . 258 Witmund 258 Durandus of Troarn 263 Alger . 264 Gregory of Bergamo 265 Hildebcrt 266 Peter Lombard . 267 the Lateran decree . 268 A.D. 121 5 II. The metaphysical theory and philosophical principle inv three objections (i) no scriptural or primitive authority (2) metaphysical difficulty ...... not the same with the hovioousion doctrine doctrinal outcome of materialistic conception . (3) it violates the principle of the Incarnation . as stated by Irenaeus Leontius . . . . . oh'ed 269 270 272 271 272 273 277 III. Nihilianism the background of the theory of transubstantiation nihilianism prevalent in early middle ages . . . 279 = transubstantiation in relation to the Incarnation . 281 the dogmatic barriers of the Incarnation doctrine were wanting in the case of the eucharist . • . 2S3 reasons for not accepting transubstantiation even in a refined sense ...... 284 APPENDED NOTES A. Supposed Jewish expectation of the virgin birth B. The readings of Codex Sinaiticus C. On the patristic interpretation of St. John vi. 63 D. TertuUian's doctrine of the eucharist 2S9 292 303 308 / DISSERTATION I B THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF OUR LORD Among subjects of present controversy not the least important is the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ. It is not only that naturalistic writers frequently speak as if it were unmistakeably a fable ; but writers who do in some sense believe in the Incarnation are found at times to imply that, while the Resurrection must be held to, the Virgin Birth had better be discarded from the position of an historical fact. And even writers of a more orthodox character are occasionally found to speak of it with some considerable degree of doubt or disparagement ^. Such rejection or doubt is in part based upon the silence, or presumed silence, on the subject of two of the evangelists, St. Mark and St. John, also of the apostolic epistles, especially those of St. Paul. In part it is held to be justified by discrepancies between the accounts of the birth ^ See, as examples of these classes, Renan, Les £,vangiles (Paris, 1877) pp. 188 ff., 278 ff . ; Meyer, Commentary on St. Matthew, i. 18 (Clark's trans.); The Kernel and the Husk (Macmillan, 1886) pp. 267 ff. ; Dr. A. Harnack, Das Apost. Glatibensbekenntniss (Berlin, 1892) pp. 35 ff. This pamphlet is part of a considerable agitation in Germany, and repre- sents a widespread tendency in that country. The tendency is certainly abroad among Christians at home, though perhaps at present more in conversation than in literature. B 3 4 Dissertations. in St. Matthew and St. Luke ; and by circumstances which are supposed to render those accounts unworthy of the credit of serious critics. At the same time it is often maintained that the belief in the Incarnation is not bound up with the beHcf in the virginity of Mary : and that, even if this latter point were rejected or held an open question, we could still believe Jesus Christ to be not as other men, but the Son of God incarnated This latter belief in the person of Christ is, it is maintained, legitimate as warranted by His claims, His miracles, His resurrection, His kingdom ; but it does not therefore follow that legend may not have gathered around the circumstances of His birth. There is analogy, it is suggested, for such an accretion in the birth-stories of innumerable heroes, both Jewish and Gentile, from ]5uddha, Zoroaster, and Samson downwards to Augustus and John the Baptist. In view of this tendency of thought, I will endea- vour — ( i) to account for the silence of St. Mark, St. John, and St. Paul, so far as it is a fact, while at the same time indicating evidence which goes to show that these writers did in reality recognize the fact of the Virgin liirth ; (2) to justify the claim of Luke i-ii to contain .serious history ; (3) to do the same for Matt, i-ii taken by itself; (4) to indicate the relation of the two accounts; ' Sec quotations in Dr. A. B. Bruce's Apologetics (Clark, 1892) pp. 408, 409; and cf. Dr. Fairbaim, Christ in Modern Theology ^Hodder & .Stoughlon, 1S93) pp. 346, 347. I do not umlerstand Dr. Fairbairn to express any doubt as to the fact of the virgin birth. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 5 (5) to show cause for believing- that the Virgin Birth has in Christian tradition from the first been held insepar- able from the truth of the Incarnation ; (6) to deal with the argument derived from the birth-legends of heroes ; (7) to show cause for believing that the doctrine of the person of Christ is in reality inseparable from the fact of His birth of a virgin. First however it is necessary to make plain the point at which this argument begins, and the class of persons towards whom it is addressed. I am assuming the substantial historical truth of the evangelical narrative common to the three synoptists and supplemented by St. John : I am assuming the reality of the physical resurrection and, accordingly, the possibility of miracles and their credibility on evidence : I am assuming that Jesus Christ really was the Son of God incarnate. One who entertains doubts on these matters must satisfy him- self by considerations preliminary to our present under- taking \ just as in the beginning of Christianity the belief in Jesus as the Son of God was, as will be presently explained, prior to the knowledge of His Virgin Birth. The question now is, — granted the miraculous personality of Christ and His resurrection, granted the idea of the Incarnation to be the right interpretation of His person, is there still reason to doubt the historical character of the miracle of the birth, and is it reasonable to imagine that such doubt will be compatible with a prolonged hold on the belief in the Incarnation itself? ' Such considerations 1 have endeavoured to present in summary in tlie Bampton Lectures for 1891 (Murray) lect. i, ii, iii. Dissertations. §1. The silence of St. Mark, St. John, and St. Paul The original function of the apostles was mainly that of eye-witnesses. It was therefore necessarily limited by the period of the public ministry of our Lord, during which period alone they had ' companied with him,' i. e. from the days of John the Baptist till the time when He was taken up into heaven ^. To have allowed their original preaching to go behind the limit of this period would have been to abandon a real principle of Christianity, the principle that it was to rest upon the personal testimony of men who in company with one another had passed through a prolonged experience of the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth, of the circumstances of Mis death and the reality of His resurrection. To have gone outside this period of personal witness would have been, I say, to abandon a principle ; and there can therefore be no question that the original ' teaching of the apostles ' did not and could not include the Virgin l^irth'-. If wc accept the trustworthy tradition which ' See Acts i. 8, 21, ii. .-^2, iii. 15, x. 39 ; St. Luke i. 2 ; St. John i. 14, XV. 27, xxi. 24; Hebr. ii. 3. ' It is plain that Joseph and Mary must have Icept this event secret from the world and their neighbours. When it was known through Christian preaching, it led to slander, disagreeable even to think of, but widely current in the second century. See Renan, Lcs P.vaitgilcs, p. 189 ' La fable grossiere inventee par les adversaires du christianisme, qui faisait naitre Jesus d'une avcnture scandaleuse avcc le soldat Panthere {Acta Pilati, The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 7 makes St. Mark's Gospel represent the preaching of Peter — the part of his experience which he embodied in his primary instruction — we shall see at once why the Gospel of Mark does not carry us behind the preaching of John the Baptist. It needs to be remarked, over and above this, that St. Mark in one passage exhibits a notice- able difference as compared with St. Matthew and St. Luke. Where St. Matthew has ' Is not this the carpenter's son?' and St. Luke ' Is not this the son of Joseph ? ' St. Mark writes ' Is not this the carpenter ? ' ^ It is probable that of these two expressions, St. Mat- thew's (as corroborated by St. Luke) is primary, and St. Mark's secondary ; and that the alteration in St. Mark must be attributed to an unwillingness to suggest — even in the surprised questioning of the Jews — the proper parentage of Joseph, where nothing had been previously given to prevent misunderstanding, as in St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels^. As to St. John, it seems to me quite impossible to A. 2; Celse, dans Origene, Contre Celse, i. 28, 32; Talm. de Jer. Schab- bath, xiv. 4; Aboda zara, ii. 2 ; Midrasch Koh. x. 5, &c.), sortit sans trop d'effort du recit chretien, recit qui presentait a I'imagination le tableau choquant d'une naissance ou le pere n'avait qu'un role apparent. Cette fable ne se montre clairement qu'au II® siecle ; des le I'"', cependant, les juifs paraissent avoir malignement presente la naissance de Jesus comme ill(?gilime.' It appears that Panthera is only in fact an anagram for Parthenos: see Rendel Harris, Texts mid Studies ^Cambridge, 1891), vol. i. no. i. p. 25. ^ St. Matt. xiii. 55 ; St. Mark vi. 3 ; St. Luke iv. 22. ^ So Baur, Hilgenfeld, and Bleek, quoted by Weiss, Handbuch iiber Evajtg. Markiis und Lttkas, on Mark vi. 3. St. Luke (ii. 48) allows a parallel expression, ' Thy father and I,' where it is liable to no misconception. So also St. John (i. 45 'Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph'), writing at a later period, when, I believe, the common teaching of the Church was well established. 8 Dissertations. believe that he was ignorant of the Virgin Birth of our Lord. Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch in Syria a very few years after the writing of the fourth Gospel, calls the virginity of Mary a ' mystery of loud procla- mation ' in the Church ^ : it could not have been other- wise considering the currency which the first and third Gospels, and still more the materials of those Gospels, had already obtained. More than this : wc know on very high authority (that of Pol3^carp, John's disciple, as quoted by Irenaeus^) that St. John was in sharp opposition to the gnostic teacher, Cerinthus. Cerinthus, like all Gnostics, denied the real Incarnation. He distinguished between the higher being, the spiritual Christ, and the human Jesus. He supposed the man Jesus to have been born in the ordinary way of Joseph and Mary, and to have been the most perfect of all men ; he supposed the divine Christ to have descended upon him after his baptism and to have left him before his passion^. Cerinthus thus denied both the real Incar- nation and the miraculous birth. St. John's whole force is thrown into the affirmation of the real Incarnation. He cannot have been ignorant that the denial of the Incarnation was associated with the denial of the miraculous birth. We may ask then, (i) Was he indifferent to this latter? (2) If not, does he give any indications that he believed in it? (3) Why did he not narrate it at length? I should answer thus: (1) He was not indifferent to it, but, as in the case of the institution of baptism and of the cucharist^ he supplies the justifying ' .See b,low, p. 46. '^ con. Haer. iii. 3. 4. ' Iren. con. Ilacr. i. id. i. * St. John iii. 38, vi. 53-65. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 9 principle — in this case the principle of the Incarnation — without supplying what was already current and well known, the record of the fact. The denial of the fact had been but the result of the denial of the principle. Granted the principle, the belief in the fact would follow in- evitably. (2) He does give indications that he recognized the fact. In the scene of the marriage-supper at Cana, before the first miracle had yet been wrought, he shows Mary, our Lord's mother, manifestly expecting of her son miraculous action, manifestly regarding Him as a miraculous person ^. There is no such natural expla- nation of this as that St. John regarded her as conscious from the first of His miraculous origin and nature. Once more: St. John's mind is full of the correspondence between 'the Son' and the other 'sons' of God, be- tween Christ and the Church. One main motive of his Apocalypse is to exhibit the Church passing through the phases of the life of Christ. Like Him it is born, suffers, dies, rises, ascends^. When St. John then gives us the picture of ' a woman arrayed with the sun and the moon under her feet,' who brings forth ' a son, a male thing,' and other ' seed ' besides '"^y he is probably presenting the idea of the true Jerusalem, ' the mother of us all,' bringing forth into the world the Christ and His people. But there is a retrospect, or depend- ence, which can hardly be disputed, upon Mary the actual mother of Jesus, the Christ. The more sure one feels of this, and the more one dwells upon the parallelism exhibited throughout these chapters between the Head ' bt. John ii. 3-5. ^ Rev. xii. 5, 17, xi. 7-12. = Rev. xii. i, 5, 17. lo Dissertations. and His body, the more disposed one is to see in the picture of the dragon who watches to destroy the new- born child and the flight of the woman into the wilderness^ a mystically-worded^ retrospect upon the hostile action of Herod who sought the young child's life to destroy him ^, i.e. a recognition of the history of the nativity as given in St. Matthew. (3) It would have been impossible for St. John, consistently with the main purpose of his Gospel, to have recorded the Virgin Birth, for his Gospel is, before all else, a personal testimony. It is the old man's witness to what he saw and heard when he was young, and had brooded and meditated upon through his long life. This witness he now leaves on record, at the earnest request of those about him, and for the necessities of the Church. Such a Gospel must have begun where personal experience began. Once more with regard to St. Paul— it is a well- known fact that his epistles are almost exclusively occupied in contending for Christian principles, not in recalling facts of our Lord's life. His function was that of the theologian rather than that of the w^itness. One conclusion from this might be that St. Paul was ignorant of, or indifferent to, the facts of our Lord's life. But we are restrained from this conclusion by the evidence which * Rev. xii. 13, 14. * It should be noticed that the account of the death, resurrection, &c. of the ' two witnesses' who represent the Church in xi. 7-12 contains many, points of difference from the actual history of the parallel events in our Lord's case, as well as many points of similarity. The relation of tlie ' mystical ' and actual accounts of the death and resurrection is similar to the relation of the two accounts of the birth and early persecution. ' St. Matt. ii. 13. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. n he gives at least on two occasions when his argument compels him to recall to the Corinthians his first preaching and he recalls it each time in the form of an evangelical narrative ^ We learn from this that St. Paul's first preaching contained at least a considerable element of evangelical narrative. Of all the contents of this narrative we cannot be sure : it is not impossible that it made reference to the miraculous birth of Jesus. But it would be foolish to maintain this in the absence of direct evidence. What we can maintain, with great boldness, is that St. Paul's conception of the ' Second Adam ' postulates His miraculous birth. ' Born of a woman,' ' born of the seed of David according to the flesh V He was yet 'from heaven ^' : born of a woman. He was yet a new head of the race, sinless, free from Adam's sin ; a new starting-point for humanity ■*. Now considering how strongly St. Paul expresses the idea of the solidarity of man by natural descent, and the con- sequent implication of the whole human race in Adam's fall^, his belief in the sinless Second Adam seems to me to postulate the fact of His Virgin Birth ; the fact, that is, that He was born in such a way that His birth was a new creative act of God. On this connexion of ideas, * I Cor. xi. 23-25, XV. 3-8. ^ Gal. iv. 4; Rom. i. 3. ' I Cor. XV. 47. (5 hiVTipos dvOpojiros i^ ohpavov has been interpreted of Christ at His second coming. But it describes the origin of the second man, being parallel to 'the first man is of the earth earthy,' and must therefore be referred to His first coming. * 2 Cor. V. 21 ; Rom. v. 12-21 ; i Tim. ii. 5. ^ Rom. V. 12-21, especially the phrase k TotovToi Kal 01 \o'iKoi: Eph. iv. 22, and Col. iii. 9 6 iraKaios dv6pajTros, which is morally corrupt. 12 Dissertations. however, more will need to be said when we come to deal with the relation of the Virgin Birth to the idea of the Incarnation. The 'argument from silence' then, so far as it is based on the facts, appears to be a weak argument, because it gains its strength from ignoring the character and conditions of the ' silent ' records. At least their silence suggests no presumption against the veracity of the records that are not silent, supposing that they present valid credentials, considered in themselves. Ac- cordingly we proceed to the consideration of these records, that is, the narratives of the Virgin Birth in the first two chapters of the first and third Gospels. §2. The narrative of St. Lnke. Suppose a Christian of the earliest period instructed, like Theophilus, in the primitive oral ' tradition ' of the Christian society ; suppose him familiar with the sort of narrative that is presented to us in St. Mark's Gospel of the words and deeds of Jesus, and convinced of His Messiahship and divine sonship, — such an one would beyond all question have become inquisitive about the circumstances of the Master's birth. The inquiry must have been general and must have arisen very speedily. Let us transfer ourselves in imagination to that earliest The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 13 period, of not less than about five years, before the perse- cution which arose about the death of Stephen, when the band of Christians in Jerusalem were continuing steadfastly and quietly in the 'apostles' teaching,' and constant repetition was forming the oral Gospel which underlies the earliest evangelical documents ; we cannot conceive that period passing without inquiry, systematic inquiry, into the circumstances of our Lord's birth. Now at the beginning of that period the Mother was with the apostolic company. She may well— for all we know— have continued with them to the end of it. The Lord's 'brethren' too were there ^ There was no difficulty, then, in obtaining trustworthy information. Joseph and Mary must have been silent originally as to the conditions of the birth of Jesus, for reasons obvious enough. They could only have ' kept the things and pondered them in their hearts.' But in the apostolic circle, in the circle of witnesses and believers, the reasons for silence were gone : Mary would have told the tale of His birth. Now in St. Luke's Gospel — to take that Gospel first— we are presented with an obviously early and Jewish narrative containing an account of the birth of Jesus, incorporated and used by St. Luke. If then St. Luke is believed to be trustworthy in his use of documents, if the account given is credible considered in itself, there is no difficulty at all in perceiving from what source ^ There is, however, nothing; improbable in the hypothesis that the ' brethren' did not originally share the secret of Joseph and Mary as to the virgin birth. (The more piobable view, as it seems to me, is that which makes the ' brethren ' half-brothers of our Lord, children of Joseph by a former marriage.) 14 Dissertations. originally it could have been derived and from what epoch its information could date. Now when we examine the opening chapters of St. Luke, almost the first thing that strikes us is the contrast in style between the elaborate preface of the evangelist's own writing and the narrative to which he immediately passes. There can be no doubt that in the narrative of the nativity, St. Luke — writing, shall we say with Dr. Sanday, about A.D. 80^ — is using an Aramaic document -. But is St. Luke trustworthy in his use of early documents ? The ground on which we can best test this is the Acts of the Apostles. I assume — what I think is the only reasonable view — that St. Luke wrote the Acts as a whole : that he is the fellow- traveller of St. Paul in the later portion ^, and that for the earlier portion, the Jerusalem period, he has been dependent upon information and documents supplied by others — probably by Philip the Evangelist and by some one — possibly Manaen or Joanna the wife of Chuza — connected with the court of the Herods ^. Has he then ' See Sanday, Batnpton Lectures for 1893 (Longmans) pp. 277 ff. ; Book by Book (Isbister, 1892) pp. 366, 404. * See Weiss, Markus itnd Ltikas, p. 239 'Die hebraisiiende Diction der Vorgeschichte sticht gegen das classische Griechisch des Vorworts so augenfallig ab, dass hier die Benutziing einer schriftlichen Quelle kaura gcleiignct wcrden kann.' Godet, Saint Lice, i. 85 ' II travaille sur des documents antiques, dont il tient a conservcr aussi fidelcment que pos- sible le coloris arameen.' Sanday, Book by Book, p. 399. Cf. also Ryle and James, Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1891), p. Ix 'The writings which, in our opinion, most nearly approach our Psalms in style and character are the hymns preserved in the early chapters of St. Luke's Gospel, which in point of date of composition probably stand nearer to the Psalms of Solomon (B.C. 70-40) than any other portion of the New Testament.' ^ Acts xvi. 10-18, xx. 6 to the end. * Cf. Sanday, Book by Book, p. 399 ' Most of the occasions on which The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 15 shown himself in this collection and use of documents a trustworthy historian ? This question we answer with a very emphatic affirmative. If Prof. Ramsay has summed up the verdict of recent inquiry as to the his- torical trustworthiness of the Pauline period of the Acts, not less certainly does it seem to me that recent inquiry has gone to confirm the historical worth of the early chapters. The situation of the first Christians in Jeru- salem : their preoccupation, not with the questions of Pauline or Johannine theology, but simply with Jesus as Messiah, and as fulfilling in His death and resurrection the prophecies of the Messiah : the moral brilliancy and yet simplicity of the first development of the Church : the exact relation in which Pharisees with their zeal for the law, and Sadducees in their hostility to a resurrection doctrine, and their preoccupation with the political situation, would stand to the new movement' : we hear of Si. Luke have their scene at a distance from Palestine ; but at one time he would seem to have been for fully two years within the limits of the Roman province which bore that name. He accompanied St. Paul on his last recorded journey to Jerusalem, stayed with him for some time at the house of Philip the " Evangelist " at Caesarea, went up with him to Jerusalem, and, as we infer, remained not far away from his person during the time of his later confinement at Caesarea.' Philip the Evangelist — one of the Seven — must have had an intimate acquaintance with the events of the early period of the Jerusalem Church. Again, ' St. Luke displays a special knowled;^'e of matters relating to the court of the Herods. He mentions by name a woman whom none of the other evangelists mentions, " Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward" [Luke viii. 3], and in like manner in the Acts he speaks of Manaen, "foster-brother of Herod" [Acts xiii. i, one of the " prophets" or '• teachers" at Antioch]. Here we have a glimpse of a circle from which St. Luke probably got his account of ' events connected with the Herods. * See, for the Sadducees, Acts iv. i, v. 17, 24; for the Pharisees, with the scribes and common people, v. 34, vi. 12 f., vii. 54 ff . ; for both together, ix. i ; for their divergence, xxiii, 6 ff. i6 Dissertations. the circumstances out of which arose the appointment of the Seven : the personality, work, and speech of Stephen — all this is represented in such a way as guarantees the faithful correspondence of the narrative with the actual situation ; in other words, in such a way as guarantees that St. Luke is trustworthy in his use of his information and his documents. The study of the Acts, then, sends us back to the Gospel with a greatly invigorated belief in St, Luke's trustworthiness in his use of documents. We examine further the document of the nativity, and we find not only that it is Aramaic, but that it breathes the spirit of the Messianic hope, before it had received the rude and crushing blow involved in the rejection of the Messiah. The Fore- runner is ' to make ready a people prepared for the Lord '.' The Child is to have ' the throne of his father David,' and to 'reign over the house of Jacob for ever^,' God hath ' holpen Israel his servant, that he might remember mercy (as he spake unto our fathers) toward Abraham and his seed for ever"^.' He hath ' visited and wrought redemption for his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us '*.' It is the hope of ' the redemption of Jerusalem •' ' that is to be gratified. Now all this language of prophecy does indeed admit of interpretation in the light of subsequent facts. St. Paul could justify to the Jews the actual result out of their own Scriptures". But it is not the sort of language that early Jewish Christians * i. 6S-71. s ii. 38. « Romans ix-xi. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 17 would have invented after the rejection of the Christ. It contrasts very markedly with the language of St. Peter's speeches in the Acts \ or of St. Stephen -, or of St. PauP, or of St. James ^, or of St. John '. No doubt in the language of Simeon the coming of the Christ is 'a light for revelation to the Gentiles,' as well as ' the glory of God's people Israel.' He too alone among the speakers of these opening chapters sees that the crisis is to be anxious and searching. He ' said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel ; and for a sign which is spoken against ; yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul ; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed *'.' But these are notes so often struck in the Old Testament that they must have found some echo in the immediate anticipation of the work of the Child. They are like the warnings of John the Baptist". But they do not anticipate the disastrous result. They do not forecast wholesale rejection ; they only just interpose a note of moral anxiety in the general tone of hopeful exaltation. Nor is it unnecessary to observe that the conception of the person of our Lord in these chapters is purely Mes- sianic®. He is to ' be great, and shall be called the Son of ' See iii. 12-26, iv. 11, 25-28. 2 Acts vii. 51, 52. ^ Acts xiii. 46; I Thess. ii. 14-16. * St. James v. 6. •' St. John xii. 37-43- « St. Luke ii. 31-35. ' St. Luke iii. 8. * The distinction however between the Messianic and the divine con- ception of our Lord must not be pressed too far. It is true that the Jewish thought of our Lord's time did not anticipate a divine Messiah. The Messianic king of the Pharisaic Psalms of Solovion (c. 60 B. C.) does not rise above the human limit: and the 'Son of Man' coming in glory as found in the Book of Enoch (by interpretation of Daniel vii. 13) — probably i8 Dissertations. the Highest.' He shall be called 'holy, the Son of God,' because 'the Holy Ghost shall come upon' His mother, 'and the power of the Most High shall overshadow' her ^. Mary is made to understand that the child whom she is to bear is to be the product of miraculous divine agency and is to be the exalted Messiah, but the doctrine of the Incarnation, strictly speaking, is not more to be found here than in the early speeches of the Acts. Here then is an account which presents phenomena practically irreconcilable with the hypothesis that it was an invention of the early Jewish Christian imagina- tion ; an account which may well be Mary's account ; which must be Mary's, in origin, if it is genuine ; and which is given to us by a recorder of proved trust- worthiness, who moreover makes a point of 'having traced the course of all things accurately front the first! Finally it is an account which there is no evidence to show the imagination of any early Christian capable of producing, for its consummate fitness, reserve, sobriety and loftiness are unquestionable. Is there then any good reason against accepting it ^ ? a pre-Christian idea— is neither properly divine nor properly human. But the highest Old Testament idea of the divine and human Messiah could not, we may venture to say, have been realized and combined with the idea of the servant of Jehovah, except by the eternal Son of God made very man. Thus in our Lord's own thought and language there is no line of demarcation between the Messianic and the Divine claim. To go no further, a strictly divine meaning is given to the function of the Son of Man as judge of the world. And the apostles and first disciples were carried on insensibly frfim the confession ' Thou art the Christ of God ' to tlie further confession ' My Lord and my God.' See on the subject generally Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah (Clark, 1886). ' St. Luke i. 32, 35. * Of course discrepancies with St. Matthew might discredit either it or St. Matthew's account ; but these are considered later. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 19 I. It is often alleged that the notice of ' the first en- rolment (or census), made when Ouirinius was governor of Syria ^,' is unhistorical. This objection had its full force when secular history recognized no Syrian governorship of Ouirinius until just before the time when Judaea became a Roman province, when a ' census ' was certainly made (a. d. 6) -. But Ouirinius' earlier governorship is now, chiefly through the labours of Bergmann and Mommsen, recog- nized as probable. The case may be fairly stated thus^. Publius Sulpicius Ouirinius was probably governor of Syria {legatns Aiigusti pro praetore) for the first time between B. C. 4-2, but certainly after, not before, the death of Herod (which occurred in B. c. 4) *. There is no record, independent of St. Luke's, of any ' census ' (d7roypa(jf)7/) of the Jews till that which took place during Ouirinius' second legation, and is mentioned by Josephus. But St. Luke elsewhere alludes to this later census ^, and apparently intends to distinguish an earlier one from the later by the phrase he here uses, ' the first census" under Ouirinius.' The phrase ' there went out a decree from Caesar * St. Luke ii. 2. ^ Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire (Eng. trans., Bentley, 1886) ii. 185-7. •' The matter has been discussed ad 7iausea>n, as by Zumpt, Godet, Keim, Edersheim, Farrar, Geikie, Didon. See Diet, of Bible, s. v. Cyre- Nius. In Farrar's St. Luke (' Cambridge G. T. for Schools') there is an excellert brief discussion of the matter. * Mommsen, Kes gestae D. Augusti i, Berlin, 1883) p. 177 ; Keim, Jesus of Nazara (Eng. trans., Williams & Norgate) ii. pp. 116 f. * Acts V. 37 iv rats fjixipais rrjs dTToypa, TrafSds T€ 01 (l(v avToh . . . Kal o ^acn\(vs tuv re ^apiffaiojv roiis alriajTarovs dvaipfi Kal Baywav tov (vvovxov, k.t.K. KTfivei b\ Kal ndv otl tov oiKiiov (TvvftffTTjKd oTs 6 ^apiaaioi i\(y(u. This incident was shortly before Herod's death. ' The momentary glimpses which we gain of him in the New Testament,' says the late Dean Stanley, ' through the story of his conversation with the 3© Dissertations. last days were, as Josephus records, marked by wild ferocity and brutality. Josephus' story of his shutting up in the hippodrome the elite of the nation and taking measures to cause them to be murdered directly after his own death, in order that it might not be unaccom- panied with mourning^, may be a slander, but at least illustrates the impression he left of his character in his last days. Thus the history of the massacre of the few babes of Bethlehem and its district is wholly consistent with the man and the occasion. There is no one who could corroborate the evangelist except Josephus, and the silence of Josephus about all that concerns Chris- tianity is so nearly complete- that it can hardly be otherwise than intentional. Christianity was an object of hatred and suspicion to the masters of the world, when Josephus was writing -^ and he may well have wished to say as little about it as possible in a work expressly intended to conciliate Gentile readers. Herod's ' massacre of innocents ' is thus an exceed- ingly credible and natural incident. As to the visit of the Magi — which (we may notice) is introduced into the narrative chiefly as accounting for the threatened Magi and his slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, are quite in keeping with the jealous, irritable, unscrupulous temper of the last " days of Herod the king," as we read them in the pages of Josephus ' {Hist, of Jewish Church, iii. p. 380). ' Joseph. Ant. xvii. 6. 5. He describes the king as ' rabid with guilty and innocent alike' ; or (c. 8. i) ' fierce to all alike, the slave of passion.' ^ I am assuming that the famous passage {Aitt. xviii. 4. 3) about Jesus Christ is at least greatly interpolated. ^ The Antiquities was finished about A. i). 94, in Domitian's reign. On Domitian as a persecutor, see Ramsay, The Church and the Roman Empire (Hodtlcr & Sloughlon, 1893) p. 259. Josephus would be anxious to disso- ciate his race from the Christians. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 31 massacre, and consequent flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt — it has its basis at least in what is natural and well known. The diffusion of Jews in the remoter East, the wide spread of the Jewish Messianic hope \ the attraction of all sorts of men towards Jewish synagogues — all this makes it not improbable to those who believe in a divine providence that some oriental astrologers should have had their thoughts directed towards Jerusalem, and should have paid a visit there, under the attraction of some celestial phenomenon, to seek a heaven-sent king. It is not improbable because God works upon men by His inspirations through their natural tendencies and occupations- — the supernatural, in this as in other cases, operating through the natural. It was said above that the narrative of Joseph had been worked over by the evangelist in his predominant interest in the fulfilment of prophecy. It is of course maintained that this is less than the truth, and that the prophecies have in fact created the supposed events : so * Suetonius' words are well known and often quoted {Vespas. 4) ' Percre- bruerat oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis ut eo tempore ludaea profecti rerum potirentur. Id de imperatore Romano, quantum postea eventu patuit, praedictum ludaei ad se trahentes rebellarunt.' But it is doubtful whether he has any source of information other than similar pas- sages in Joseph. Bell. Jud. vi. 5. 4 and Tac. Hist. v. 13, which attribute such expectations only to \}nQjews. ( Josephus, the Jew, originated the idea that the prophecy really referred to ' the government of Vespasian.') However, the universal diffusion of the Jews meant the universal diffusion of the Jewish expectations amongst themselves and their more or less attached proselytes. - See St. Chrysostom's excellent commentary on the event. God influ- ences men through their national customs and ideas. As the whole Jewish ritual system was only an instance of national Semitic rites taken as they were and made the vehicle of divine leading, so now God led the Magi through their astrology : 5ta twc avvi]Oojv aiiToiis KaKuoipoSpa avynaTalSaifcuv, n.T.\. (on St. Matt. vi. 3). 32 Dissertations. that in particular the Virgin Birth at Bethlehem is a mere reflection of the prophecies of Micah and Isaiah, as represented in the Septuagint version, and that the visit of the Magi with the events following from it is a merely imaginative construction out of materials supplied by the anticipations and incidents of the Old Testament. It must be observed at starting that what we are asked to admit is more than the unconscious modifica- tion of some detail of history by adjustment to the language of prophecy. It is quite possible that the intro- duction of the ' ass ' beside the ' colt ' in Matt. xxi. 2, the specification of ' thirty pieces of silver ' in Matt, xxvi. 15 (cf. xxvii. 3-10), the mingling of 'gall' with wine in Matt, xxvii. 34 — details where St. Matthew is unsupported by the other evangelists, may be modifica- tions due to the influence of the language of Zechariah and the Psalmist respectively. But in all these cases the historical event stands substantially the same when the modification is removed. Christ rode into Jerusalem upon the foal, and was betrayed for a sum of money, and was given a drink of wine mingled with m\Trh before His crucifixion. In the cases to be discussed in these two chapters the prophecies, if they had any effect on the supposed event, created them altogether. Jesus was in effect born naturally and at Nazareth : there was no visit of Magi or massacre of innocents or flight into T^gypt. Now in general the argument from the influence of prophecy is weakened in proportion as the pro- phecies in question arc such as would not to the pious The Virgin Birtli of our Lord. 33 imagination of a Jew have required fulfilments such as are found for them : in other words, the argument is weakened in proportion as the application of the pro- phecy is not such as would have suggested itself prior to the event. Now there are five prophecies of which the fulfilment is discovered in these two chapters. Of these the last\ ' He shall be called a Nazarene,' finds its fulfil- ment in an undoubted event, but as a prophecy cannot be identified with any passage in the Old Testament. The fourth" is a passage from Jer. xxxi. 15 which describes Rachel, as the mother of Israel, weeping for her children, carried away into captivity to Babylon. It is an historical passage ; and while the association of Rachel with Bethlehem, her burial-place ^, naturally sug- gested its application to the ' massacre of the innocents ' — Rachel again weeping over her children — it could hardly by any possibility have S2tggested this latter event. The third ^ is again an historical passage from Hosea xi. I : ' When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them : they sacrificed unto Baalim,' &c. The identification of the Christ with the true Israel no doubt would suggest the appropriateness of Christ, like Israel, being delivered from Egypt, when once the event had occurred or when a narrative of it was before the evan- gelist. But the historical passage cannot in this case either be conceived to have produced the event. Critics are at liberty to say that the evangelist's method of interpreting prophecy is unconvincing. They cannot say he forced the event to the prophecy. ' ii. 23. - ii. 17, 18. ' Gen. xxxv. 15. * ii. 15. D 34 Dissertations. On the other hand, there was a prophecy, or set of prophecies, which might have suggested the episode of the Magi, but if it had suggested it, would have suggested it in a different shape. There was a pro- phecy^ that 'Gentiles should come to Israel's light, and kings to the brightness of his rising,' and another^ that ' the kings of Tarshish and of the isles should bring pre- sents : the kings of Sheba and Seba should offer gifts.' These prophecies, working in the imagination of later Christendom, did in fact transmute the visit of the Magi into the visit of the three kings. But they could not have produced the event as St. Matthew records it, and St. Matthew neither modifies the event to suit them nor refers to the prophecies at all ^. Such considerations as these must be with us in approaching the first two of the five 'fulfilments ' pointed out by St. Matthew in these chapters. The second refers us back to a real prophecy of Bethlehem as destined to the glory of producing the heaven-sent ruler of Israel * : ' But thou, Bethlehem P^phrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.' It does not appear to have originally meant more than that the Messianic king should come of David's line, and so indirectly of David's city. But it ' Is. Ix. 3. 2 ps ]^,.ii jQ ' It should be noticed, as bearing on the date of St. Matthew's narrative, that the story of the star, as it appears in Ignatius (c. A. D. no), Eph. 19, already shows the influence of mythical exaggeration. It shone astonishingly above all the stars, and the sun and moon and heavenly bodies were atten- dant upon it. Here the accretion manifestly reflects the story of Joseph's dream in Gen. xxxvii. ' Micah V. 2. The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 35 did suggest to the Jews, and apparently before our Lord's time \ that the Christ was to be himself born at Bethlehem. Did then the prophecy, thus interpreted, produce the event, and was Jesus really born, as Strauss, Renan, Keim, and others affirm, at Nazareth ? The suggestion can only be entertained by those who on other grounds have arrived at a low estimate of the historical trustworthiness of the evangelist altogether. The entirely independent narratives of the first and third Gospels agree in placing the birth at Bethlehem, and in St. Luke's gospel this is not connected at all with pro- phecy. The same argument applies to the first prophecy- referred to by St. Matthew (Is. vii. 14). As rendered in the Ixx version the prophecy ran, ' Behold, the virgin shall conceive,' &c. It does not appear that the Hebrew word need necessarily mean more than ' young woman ^ ' : nor does it appear that there was any Jewish expectation that the Christ should be born of a virgin*. Did, then, the text as rendered in the Greek suggest the idea ? It is impossible to think this if these early narra- tives are anything better than imaginary productions at all. For again St. Luke's and St. Matthew's independent accounts are at one on this point ; and if any informa- tion from Joseph and Mary underlies them, this is the point on which their information must have centred ; and if St. Matthew's interest is absorbed in prophecy, ^ See Edersheim, /. c. i. 206 ; Geikie, Life a7id IVoi ds ^' C'/^r/j-/ (Strahan, 1878), i. 148. Cf. St. John vii. 42. 2 St. Matt. i. 23. ^ See, among recent Roman Catholic scholars, the Abbe Loisy,, V Enseignemciit Bihliqtie (Paris, 44 Rue d'Assas, 1893), n". 11, p. 54. * See api'ended note A. D 2 36 Dissertations. St. Luke makes no mention of it. Moreover, it may be said generally that the study of the origiiics of the Church will convince any candid student that the truth is rather that the actual events taught the first Christians to read prophecy afresh, than that prophecy induced them to imagine events — at any rate, important events — which did not occur ^. On the whole, then, (]) the character of St. Matthew's applications of prophecy in these chapters, (2) the fact that he does not modify the account of the Magi to suit obviously applicable prophecies, (3) the agreement with St. Matthew of St. Luke, who is without any special interest in prophecy, prevent us from imagining that the Virgin Birth of Jesus at Bethlehem was a romantic and unhistorical idea suggested by the forecasts of the Old Testament. An exact examination of the pro- phecies and their fulfilment may tend to weaken a certain form of the argmnent from prophecy, but not the historical truth of the evangelic narrative. § 4. The relation of the two narratives. What then is the relation of the two narratives? They are indeed obviously independent, but arc they incompatible? The present writer is disposed to reply that they arc indeed incompatible in certain details as they stand, but that the incompatible elements are ' Cf. \J\^i{oo\!% Biblical Essays, p. 193. TJie Virgin Birth of our Lord. 37 explicable quite easily by the use which the evangelists made of the earlier documents upon which they relied. Thus St. Matthew is apparently ignorant that Joseph and Mary had been at Nazareth before the occasion of their going there from Egypt ^. This is simply explained by the previous residence there not having been alluded to in the document which he used, as it was in that used by St. Luke. On the other hand, St. Luke is probably ignorant of the flight into Egypt and supposes that Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth from Jerusalem imme- diately after the Presentation ^. The flight into Egypt was not in his document, and he let the narrative run on as a compiler would who was ignorant of its having occurred ^. Granted these two points, the narratives are quite compatible with one another — St. Luke i St. Matt. i. 18-25'^; St. Luke ii. 1-21 [St. Matt. i. 25''] St. Luke ii. 22-38 ; St. Matt, ii [St. Luke ii. 39] St. Luke ii. 40-52, forming a more or less continuous series of pictures. But hitherto we have left out of consideration the genealogies. That two apparently incompatible genea- logies should have been left to stand in the Gospels and create difficulties from the second century downwards, is indeed valuable evidence of the independence of our first and third Gospels, and that they were not modified to suit one another after composition. But what is to be said as to their origin ? We should judge that St. Matthew's genealogy was attached to the account of the birth ^ St. Matt. ii. 23. ^ St. Luke ii. 39. ^ St. Luke's account of the interval from the resurrection to the ascen- sion in c. xxiv, as compared with Acts i, is suggebtive of indifference to verbal accuracy in note of time and place. 38 Disserfaiions. which supplied him with his material. As already mentioned, we believe it to have been, probably, the work of our Lords relatives. However unknown to us are the fortunes of David's family after the return from the captivity, it appears that the great Hillel, grand- father of Gamaliel, who belonged to a family of Jewish exiles in Babylon and came to Jerusalem about B.C. 50, was recognized as of David's family, and that appeal was made in vindication of his claim to 'a pedigree found in Jerusalem ^ ' : it is certain also that the claim of Jesus to be of the royal house was acknowledged at the time and by the later Jews -. Under these circumstances it appears probable that the relatives of Jesus constructed for him in the early days of the Church a genealogy from the best sources, written or traditional, which were open to them^. Jewish ideas of genealogy were XdiVgeXy putative : it was thought that a man by marrying his deceased brother's wife could raise up seed unto his brother^. It is therefore more ihan likely that it would have * See T>t\\Usch, Jesus and fft'/kl {'BzgsteT''s trans., 1877) P- I39- The statement is based on Bcrcschith Rabba, § 98. Cf. Renan's j^z'a//^. p. 60, who refers lo Talm. de Jer. Kilaiiii ix. 3 (Derenbourg, p. 349), from which he infers 'La preoccupation de la race de David est assez vive vers Tan 100.' Josej)hus gives us valuable information as to the keeping of the genealogies of the priests in Jerusalem and in their own families (FiV. i,con. Apion. i. 7). ^ See (i) Rom. i. 3. St. Mark xi. 10, Rev. xxii. 16, Hebr. vii. 14 npuSrjKov on. (2) Euseb. //. E. iii. 20 for Hegesippus' narrative of our Lord's kinsmen being summoned to satisfy Domitian that though of the house of David they made no dangerous pretensions: cf. Renan, llvang. p. 61. (3) The proof which Renan gives (/. f.) that from the beginning of the third century the Jews recognized the royal origin of Jesus (Talm. de Bab. Sanbt'drin 43 a: cf. Derenbourg, p. 349, note 2). ' Cf. Africanus in Euseb. H. E. i. 7. 14 ti's oaov I^ikvovvto. But 1 do not pause to discuss the details of the narrative of Africanus. * St. Matt. xxii. 24. The Virgin BirtJi of our Lord. 39 been held that the espousal of Joseph and Mary con- stituted Jesus Joseph's son for all the purposes of Jewish reckonin^^ ^ Luke's genealogy, on the other hand, if we judge from the place where it occurs, appears not to have been attached to the document of the birth ^. We can make no guess as to its origin. We do not venture to commit ourselves to any existing attempt to conciliate it with St. Matthew's. We only emphasize the fact that the Davidic origin of Jesus was acknow- ledged, that His family and disciples made honest and independent attempts to draw up the record of His genealogy, and that putative ideas of descent are pro- bably at least in part responsible for the divergence in their results. If indeed it were the fact, as Godet and other modern writers affirm, that in the Talmud Mary is spoken of as the daughter of Heli, it would be natural to identify this Heli with the person who is mentioned as the father of Joseph in St. Luke's genealogy ; and to suppose that this genealogy was intended by its un- known compiler as the genealogy of Mary, though it was apparently misunderstood by St. Luke to be the genealogy of Joseph. But in fact the statement, which is originally derived from Lightfoot, is based on a quite untenable translation ^. ^ It is not, I think, possible to argue from the fact that genealogies are traced through Joseph against the original belief in the virgin birth, when these genealogies are in immediate connexion with the account of the virgin birth. If the Evangelists who put them there did not think they were incom- patible with the virgin birth, it cannot be argired that their original compilers did. Cf. Loisy, I.e. p. 50 '[Les evangelistes] ont evidemment pense que Joseph avait transmis a Jesus le droit davidique, par cela seul qu'il avait tenu a I'egard de Jesus le role de pere. lis ont cru qu'une filiation legale et interpretative suffisait pour Taccomplissement des propheties.' - See Horae Hebraicac (Oxford, 1859) ''•• P- 55- The phrase in Ilieros. 40 Dissertations. To go on answering objections made to the historical trustvvortb.iness of documents is apt to give an appear- ance of weakness. People complain, ' There is so much that needs answering. Can a document which gives rise to so many objections be really true? ' We return there- fore in conclusion to our positive position. The belief in the general trustworthiness of the evangelical records, and in particular the belief in the trustworthy use which St. Luke makes of the documents at his disposal, is well established by the facts. The particuLir documents of the infancy bear upon them unmistakeable traces — while at the same time undesigned traces — of coming ultimately from Joseph and Mary : the objections made against their historical truth do not really stand, or at least do not stand to any extent which affects the sub- stantial truth of the narrative : in particular the idea that prophecies of the Old Testament created the story that Jesus was born at Bethlehem and born of a virgin will not hold in the light of the use which St. Matthew on the whole makes of prophecy in his first two chapters, nor in the light of the independent testimony which St. Luke affords to these events without exhibiting any interest in prophecy. We conclude then that in all essential features we are justified in taking these narratives for real history. Chagig. fol. 77, col. 4, is as follows, uh^i^ "hv T\-\2 D^ID Nf:m. Light- foot renders I/e saw Aliriain the daughter of Hell among the shades (D^pV? ''7V) '^"^ ^ ^^ assured that the only legitimate translation is He saw Miriam the daughter o/^ Onioti- Leaves^ (D'^pifQ ^bj? — a nickname of a kind not iincomm, xi. 23 ff. ; cf. Acts ii. 38. ' St. Luke i. 4 ' tliat thciu niightest know the certainty concerning the things in which thou wast orally instructed.' * It is important to distinguish variations in the words of creeds from variations in the substance of tradition. Thus, for exam])le, the creed of the church of Caesarea, as it was jjresented in the Council of Nicaea (see .Socrates, //. E. 1.8, and Heurtley, de Fide el Symbolo, p. 4), and the actual creed of Nicaea itself, stale the fact of the Incarnation, but make no specific mention of the virgin hiith, through which the Incarnation took place : ■niOTivoiitv tis iva \\.vpiov 'Itjaovu Xptarui', tov Xiijv rov &tov, . . . tov Si' fi/xas The Virgin Birth of our Lord. 43 Thus (i) Irenaeus, writing, as he tells us, while Eleutherus was bishop of Rome, i. e. not later than A. D. 190, assures us of the place the Virgin Birth held in the traditions of the whole Church. ' The Church,' he says, ' though scattered over the whole world to the ends of the earth, yet having received from the apostles and their 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, and the passion, and resur- rection 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, the Church, though scattered over the whole world, guards it diligently, as inhabiting one house, and believes in accordance with these words as having one soul and the same heart ; and with one voice preaches and teaches and hands on these things, as if possessing one mouth. For the languages of the world are unlike, but the force of the tradition is [everywhere] one and the same ^.' Tovs dvOpwTTovs Kai Sta ttjv rj^iripav acorrjpiav KareXOuvra Kal aapKajQfvra, (vaudpanrrjcrafTa, -naOovra, k.t.X. This however does not mean any lack of importance attached to the virgin birth. Eusebius, the bishop of the church of Caesarea, shows us in his writings that the virgin birth was supposed to be involved in any statement of the Incarnation. Thus in contra Marcellum de Eccl. Theol., after much discussion of the Incarnation in ii. 1 (Gaisford, p. 199), the virgin birth is incidentally mentioned — ii. 4 (p. 205) 6 iv T^ dyiq ■napOtvw -ytvufitvos, Kal aapKcuOels Kal fvavOpanTTjaas Kal vaOwv. ' i-on. Haer. i. 10. i 77 \iXv yap iKKXrjala, Kaiirtp Ka9' oXtjs ttjs olKOvp.(vtjs iajs ntpdrcuv t^s 7^$ 5i(aiTapfi(Vj], irapd 8i rwv d-noaruKcuv Kal twv kKUvmv 44 Dissertations. So he proceeds to specify as agreeing in this faith the churches of Germany, Spain, Gaul, the East, Egypt, Libya, and Italy'. In the creed of Tertullian, who represents Rome and Carthage, a little later than Irenaeus, the Virgin Birth holds the same secure and prominent place. ' The rule of faith,' he sa}'s, ' is altogether one, single, unalter- able ; the rule that is of believing in one God Almighty, the maker of the world ; and His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, &c.^' The summary of faith which Irenaeus gave belongs, he says, to all the churches, and is preserved by the epis- copal successions everywhere. Rut he lays special stress upon the representative witness of two churches : upon that of the Church of Rome, in which he enumerates the succession of bishops from the time of the founda- tion of the episcopate by Peter and Paul ; and upon that of the Church of Polycarp, Smyrna, with the other churches of Asia. For before Irenaeus came to Rome he had been brought up in Asia as the pupil of Polycarp, ^aOrjrSjv irapa\aPov(ra ttjV e's tva Otbv narepa -navroKpaTopa . . . tticttiV ical (h tva XpirjTiv 'Irjaovv, tuv vluv tov 6(ov, tvv aapKcuOivra innp TTJi fjfj.i7(fvXa(raei, tus tva ohcov otKovaa' Kal ufiolcos ntaTeiifi TovTOfs, uis jxtai' ifv\f]V Kal ttjv avri^v t\i>vaa KapZiav, Kal avfxipwvws ravra Krjpvaati Kal htSdoKd Kal vapaSiSwcriv, wi tv aropta KfKTrjftfvt], Kol ycip at Kara tov KuapLov 5ia\fKToi ut'opioiot, dWci 77 Svvapn TTJs irapa5u