The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord | Page 6

ac tantae [ecclesiae] in unam fidem erraverint?"--Tertullian, De Praescript, cap. xxviii. # "Dies aber ist ein Element des Symbolum gewesen, so weit wir dasselbe zuruckverfolgen konnen; und wenn Ignatius als Zeuge fur ein noch ateres, aus fruher apostolischer Zeit stammendes Taufbekenntnis gelten darf, so hat auch in diesem bereits der Name der Jungfrau Maria seine Stelle gehabt . . . Man darf ferner behauften, dass wathrend der ersten vier Jahrhunderte der Kirche kein Lehrer und Keine religiose Genossenschaft, welche sich mit einigem Schein des Rechts als Erben des ursprfinglichen Christenthums betrachten konnten, eine andere Auschauung yon dem Lebensanfang Jesu yon Nazareth gehabt haben, als diese .... Dass die Annahme eines ursprunglichen Christenthums ohne den Glauben an den yon der Jungfrau geborenen Gottessohn Jesus eine Fiktion ist."--Zahn, Das Apostolische Symbolum, pp. 55-68. --
Opponents of the Virgin-Birth occur, indeed, in the person of Cerinthus, the contemporary of St. John, and later on among the Ebionites, mentioned by Justin Martyr.* But they reject the Virgin-Birth, because they reject the principle of the Incarnation. "There are no believers in the Incarnation discoverable who are not believers in the Virgin-Birth."+ The two truths have been held together as inseparable. There has never been any belief in the Incarnation without its carrying with it the belief in the Virgin-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 early years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonably expect to hear the truth about the mystery of the miraculous Conception--Mary and Joseph; and when we open the Gospels we have, as everybody knows, two narratives of the Nativity--St. Luke's and St. Matthew's.
(I) St. Luke, in describing the Nativity, is using an Aramaic document. There is a great difference in style between the preface, which is his own, and that of the narrative which follows. It was an Aramaic document (as Godet, Weiss, and Dr. Sanday agree); but more than this, as Bishop Gore has pointed out: "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 Christology of the passage is pre-Christian: "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end."+
-- * Gore, Dissertations, p. 16. + St. Luke i. 32, 33. -- "How can all this," Dr. Chase asks, "be the invention of a believer in the Messiahship of Jesus when the Jews had rejected Him, and when the Resurrection and Ascension had raised the conception of His Messiahship to the height of a spiritual and universal sovereignty? The Christology of these passages is a striking proof of their primitive character."# It is indeed difficult to see how men can read the Benedictus or Magnificat without realizing this. Every verse in them is full of Jewish thought and Jewish expressions, such as would have been impossible had they been the inventions 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 them of being what they profess to be--a true and genuine account of the human Birth of Jesus Christ, received ultimately from her who alone could be competent to give it--the Virgin-Mother herself. For it must be Mary's account if it is genuine. It is given to us by St. Luke, who tells us that he "had traced the course of all things accurately from the first," and who had gathered information concerning, be it observed, "those things which are most surely believed among the disciples."* "It is an account," says Bishop Gore, "which there is no evidence to show the imagination of an early Christian capable of producing; for its consummate fitness, reserve, sobriety, and loftiness are unquestionable. What solid reason is there for not accepting it?"+ It is extraordinarily difficult to imagine that St. Luke, whose accuracy and care have been, in recent years, so severely tested and found not wanting, should have been so careless as to append to his Gospel a spurious account of so momentous an occurrence as the human