The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord | Page 8

pre-eminently and essentially Jewish. Moreover, if
time is to be found for the complicated interaction between paganism
and Christianity which this theory involves, the First and Third Gospels
must be placed at a date which I believe is quite 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 two
accounts, which are manifestly independent of one another, serves
surely to strengthen their witness to the great central fact in which they
are at one--that Christ was born of a Virgin-Mother at 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 by St. Joseph, "worked
over by the Evangelist in view of his predominant interest--that of
calling attention to the fulfilments of prophecies."* Wherever, therefore,
these two Gospels had reached in the second half of the first century,
there the story of the Virgin-Birth was known. If the story thus attested
by the first and third Evangelists were really a fiction, it is hard indeed
to believe that it would not have been contradicted by some who were
still living, and who knew that the story was different from that which
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 reception of the
Gospel in the very earliest ages sufficiently demonstrates that no

objection to this part of the sacred narrative had been heard 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 legends
independently circulated in the ancient Church. "So artificial an
explanation would probably have found little favour with scholars if
there had been no miracle to suggest it. It is too commonly assumed
that evidence which would be good under ordinary circumstances is
bad where the supernatural is involved."*
Certainly it would seem to be in a high degree improbable that two
such accounts as those of the Birth of Jesus Christ which we have in
these two Gospels should be the work of forgers; and this improbability
is further heightened when we compare them with the legendary
accounts of His infancy which were actually current in the 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 main
objection 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 sort of
argument from silence is most precarious. Are we to infer that because
there is no mention of the Cross or the Crucifixion in the Epistles of St.
James or of St. Jude, that it was unknown to this group of writers, and
that they were unaware of the manner of Christ's Death?
"We might much more naturally infer it than we may infer that the
Virgin-Birth was unknown because St. James speaks of Christ's Death,
and it would therefore have been quite natural for him to speak of the
exact mode of it, whereas our Lord's Birth is very seldom referred to in
the New Testament, and when it is referred to it would not have aided
the argument, or been at all to the point 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 the Holy
Eucharist, are we to suppose that he knew nothing of that Sacrament?
(2) The subject of the Virgin-Birth was not one which the Apostles
would be likely to dwell on much. They were above all witnesses of
what they had seen and heard. They come before us insisting, therefore,
on what they could themselves personally attest--especially on the
Resurrection. They had seen and heard the risen Christ, and the
Resurrection was at once a vindication of His Messianic claims, and a
manifestation of the dignity of His Person. "This praeternatural fact, the
fulfilment of the 'sign'+ which He had Himself promised, a fact
concerning the reality of which they offered themselves as witnesses,
would carry with 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,