THE EVIDENCE FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistles make no mention of a Virgin Birth, and such comparatively few references as there are to Jesus in these, the earliest writings of our New Testament, do not in any case support the doctrine of his Virgin Birth, and sometimes appear quite incompatible with any such doctrine.
Neither the Epistles, nor the Acts, nor the Revelation refer either explicitly or even implicitly to a Virgin Birth. Some of the references which are made to Jesus in these books are compatible with the Gnostic doctrines, which will be discussed later, of a divine soul incarnate in an ordinary human body.
"But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Here and in the following verses we are told that through the redemption, and by the Spirit, of One who was (not begotten, but) "sent forth" by God, other men might also receive the "adoption of sons" and cry "Abba Father."
Others plainly set forth the doctrine of a pre-existing divine being who has no taint of humanity:-
" Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God."
" . . . . our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . Lord of Lords; who alone hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see."
Others are compatible with the Gnostic "docetic" doctrine, already referred to, of a spiritual being clothed in the apparent likeness of man:-
"God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh."
Others again, and these the most numerous, teach the doctrine, which apparently at an early period was held by all Christians, that Jesus was a man who became the divine Christ when God raised him from the dead, up till which time he had been entirely human:-
"Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."
"Jesus Christ of the seed of David"
The divinity of Jesus is even plainly denied, and he is said when he became "The Christ" not yet to have been wholly divine:-
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
The most striking thing about these and a great many other passages of similar purport, which might be quoted from the Epistles, is that the Virgin Birth is never mentioned, though they, above all others, lend themselves to an explicit statement of the fact, if it was known to the writers. They are intended as explanations of the nature of Christ. Would it not have been simpler, if the authors knew that such was the case, to state that God had actually begotten Jesus?
Moreover, no references can be found in the Epistles to Mary or to Joseph, or to any other details of the birth story, though we are in one passage warned "neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies," by a writer who may have heard rumours of some new teaching.
The Gospels, it is admitted by every one, were not yet in existence when these Epistles were written, and it is evident that the writers of the Epistles had either never heard of or did not believe in these stories of the birth and infancy of Jesus.
The Acts of the Apostles, too, is written by an author who either knows or cares nothing about the birth of Jesus, and regards his life only as beginning with the baptism by John. This is distinctly stated in i, 22, in which the beginning is said to be "from the baptism of John"; and again in x, 37, in which it is stated that "the word" began "after the baptism which John preached."
If, as is generally admitted, the author of the Acts is identical with the author of Luke's Gospel, this is further proof of the lateness of the introduction of the birth story into the Gospel. All the emphasis laid upon the baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit would be unnecessary if the incarnation was a fact; yet not only Mark and John, but even Matthew and Luke, so emphasize the miraculous nature of this baptism by John.
According to the Acts, it is not only Paul who preaches that Jesus is descended from David-"Of this man's [David's] seed hath God, according to his prophets, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus "-but also Peter, the usually accepted teacher of the gospel story as opposed to the transcendentalism of the Epistles, who so preaches. He too is described as teaching that the man Jesus, the fruit of David's loins, according to the flesh, became inspired by the Holy Spirit at his baptism-"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him," and how Jesus was not born, but eventually made, Christ. "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." As Mary was not of the line of David, all references to a descent from David must mean through Joseph.
Again, in "The Revelation" we find nothing about the Virgin Birth, but some texts which imply a natural descent through Joseph from David, as, for example, "I am the root and the offspring of David."
When we turn from the Epistles to the earliest of the Gospels, that "according to St. Mark," we still find no reference to the Virgin Birth, or even to the parentage or childhood of Jesus. The story related by this evangelist begins with the appearance of Jesus "from Nazareth of Galilee," to be baptized by John in the Jordan, and at that ceremony to receive the Christ spirit which distinguished him from other men.
Mark never mentions the name of Joseph, and refers to Jesus himself as the carpenter, in the passage corresponding to the one in which Matthew speaks of the carpenter's son, and to the one in which Luke speaks of the son of Joseph. He appears to know nothing at all of the birth of Jesus, either natural or supernatural. He is concerned only with explaining how Jesus became imbued with the Christ spirit.
The dove was a symbol, in many Oriental religions, of the Holy Spirit, or of some deity who corresponded with what the Christians afterwards called the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, as it is frequently translated in our Bibles). "The Christ" means "The Anointed One," just as "The Buddha" means "The Enlightened One"; and by this anointment with the Holy Spirit, Jesus was believed to have become The Christ par excellence.
The dove descending on the head of Jesus, and his consequent inspiration of the spirit of Christ, corresponds with the Buddhist story of Gautama lying down under the Bo Tree and attaining to Buddhahood. The Christ spirit entered into Jesus in the same way as the Buddha spirit, on very rare occasions, enters into mortals. From the purely spiritual idea of a Buddha, the latter gradually came to be identified with a human being. Thus do all religions tend to materialize their spiritual conceptions, and to make idols out of their ideals.
The spiritual Christ of the Gnostics was only figuratively an "anointed one," but the spiritual being and the human Messiah, the real anointed one, were eventually combined into one conception.
After Mark the next Gospels in order of appearance were Matthew and Luke; but before we consider these we will refer to John, the latest of our Canonical Gospels. John too makes no reference to the Virgin Birth, and has texts which preclude it. In his preamble (i, 1-14) he explains his doctrine that Jesus is the Logos (Word), the pre-existing eternal Being who had come down from heaven and would eventually return to heaven; not human, though temporarily "made flesh." That is the doctrine of the Gnostic who wrote the Gospel according to St. John; but he recounts that others regarded Jesus as the son of Joseph. Philip says (i, 45): "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." The Jews say (vi, 42): "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" On these sayings the evangelist passes no comment, such as might be expected if the Virgin Birth story was known to or believed in by him.
If we assume, as the Churches most unwarrantably assumed, that John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," wrote the Gospel and the Epistles which bear his name, the silence of the evangelist is still more strange. He, above all others, would have been the disciple most intimately acquainted with the history of Jesus; yet he says nothing about any supernatural birth-an event most worthy of notice had he known of it, or even ever heard it mentioned.
According to John and to the other evangelists, all the disciples and followers of Jesus looked upon Joseph as his father; and Jesus himself makes no claim to a supernatural origin, unless his reference to his metaphorical Father be strained to imply such a claim.
Thus neither the authors of the Epistles which are the earliest of our New Testament books, nor the authors of the earliest and the latest of our four Canonical Gospels, make any mention of a Virgin Birth.
The Gospels according to St. Matthew and St. Luke are our only authorities for the story, and they, as we have already seen, were not written until about the middle of the first half of the second century.
Then for the first time, more than a century after the date assigned to the birth of Jesus, and nearly a century after the date assigned to his death, appears the first mention of the Virgin Birth-a dogma which the Catholic Church subsequently made orthodox, and a belief in which most Christian Churches to this day still insist on treating as a test of orthodoxy, in spite of the fact that the bulk of educated modern opinion is against it. No man can take orders in the Established Church of England unless he avows his belief in this miracle, although many of the better-educated clergy have ceased to credit it, and although even the Bishop of one of the most important dioceses put forward an appeal that it should no longer be regarded as an essential part of the creed.
Even if a much earlier date be assigned to the publication of these two Gospels, the argument against the doctrine on the score of lateness is not impaired. No scholar, however orthodox, denies that the Epistles are the earliest Christian documents in our Canon, or that the Epistles contain no reference to the Virgin Birth story, or that the Gospels were not written until at least three-quarters of a century after the date assigned to the birth of Jesus. So even the most conservative confess that the story first appears in two comparatively late documents, and that it is peculiar to these two out of all the other New Testament scriptures. Our "witnesses" are two. As we have already seen, neither of them is a first-hand witness. Let us, however, examine their evidence.
The accounts given of this event by Matthew and by Luke differ in almost every single detail, so it will be more convenient to consider each Gospel separately, except in so far as they have any correspondence. Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus showing his descent-the expected descent of the Messiah who would, according to the literal interpretation of the prophets, resuscitate the ancient glories of Israel as a conquering king-through Solomon and David (by the wife of Uriah the Hittite), and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham.
This genealogy must have been in existence before the Virgin Birth story was thought of, as, if the latter be true, the genealogy is worthless. Unless Joseph was the father of Jesus, there could be no object in tracing the pedigree of Joseph; and if Joseph was the father of Jesus, the Virgin Birth story is not true.
The genealogy begins as "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ," and ends (in its present form) with the words: "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."
Now, if Joseph was only the husband of Mary and not the father of Jesus, the genealogy has no value or meaning as an account of the generation of Jesus; and Jesus is not shown to be "the son of David," as is insisted upon throughout the Gospel. Verse sixteen has evidently been altered to suit the new doctrine of the Virgin Birth; and that this was the case is made all the more certain by the fact that in many old manuscript versions of Matthew it is actually stated that "Joseph begat Jesus."
In what is probably the oldest surviving manuscript version of "the Gospel according to St. Matthew," verse sixteen runs: "Jacob begat Joseph; and Joseph, to whom the Virgin Mary was betrothed, begat Jesus who is called the Christ"-a version which makes the genealogy applicable to Jesus, but which contradicts the virginity of Mary. Moreover, in this Sinaitic Syriac version the words, "to whom the Virgin Mary was betrothed," are undoubtedly an interpolation. The original must have been simply "Joseph begat Jesus," as in the other later manuscripts to which reference has already been made.
Evidently the original genealogy was written when the Virgin Birth story was unknown, and verse sixteen is an attempt to reconcile the older story of a descent from David with the later story of a Virgin Birth. Further evidence that this was the case will appear as we continue our study of the Gospel.
Leaving this question aside for the moment, we will examine the genealogy itself and compare it with the genealogy given in Luke. Including God, who is put down as the father of Adam, Luke specifies seventy-seven names, whereas Matthew, who omits the first twenty-one of these names, specifies only forty-one. Thus the pedigree given by Matthew, even after making allowance for the omission of the pre-Abrahamite ancestors, is fifteen generations shorter than that of Luke.
Matthew, presumably in an attempt to obtain the symmetry of three groups of fourteen generations each, to which he refers in i, 17, misses out some of the names given in the corresponding genealogy in Chronicles, and mentions Rachab (Rahab) as the mother of Booz, thus erroneously connecting as mother and son persons who, according to the Old Testament, lived three hundred years apart from each other.
Still more important is the fact that after the name of David, whose pedigree is in both cases taken from the Old Testament, the two lists differ almost entirely. Between David and Joseph there are only two names common to both lists, Zorobabel and Salathiel; and these, which are taken from the Old Testament genealogies, come nine generations further back in Luke than in Matthew.
It would, indeed, be an extraordinary thing if the carpenter Joseph could trace an unbroken line of descent for about four thousand years back to Adam; but the authors of these two Gospels pretend that they could do so for him, and as-ex hypothesi-they were inspired, both their genealogical trees are correct! How both can be correct and true, when they differ almost entirely in their versions from David downwards, the orthodox have never succeeded in explaining. Both seek to show that Jesus, as the son of Joseph, descended from David, as it had been foretold that the Messiah would be; yet both subsequently or previously explained that Jesus had no earthly father.
Such minor incongruities as the inadequate number of generations to fit in with Biblical chronology it is unnecessary to deal with, as the genealogies are obviously pure inventions and utterly incompatible with each other or with any possible facts. They are the work of messianic enthusiasts who thought that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the Messiah ought to be descended from David. The requisite genealogy they themselves supplied, as hundreds or thousands of other pedigrees have been supplied, and have passed muster even in the days of colleges of heralds.
After supplying us with the genealogy of Joseph, Matthew gives an account of "the Annunciation." Here again the version of Matthew (i, 18-21) differs entirely from the version of Luke (i, 26-35).
In Matthew it is Joseph who is informed by an angel of the expected miracle, whereas in Luke it is Mary herself who is so informed. Matthew does not tell us how or when Mary heard the news; Luke is equally silent as regards Joseph, who apparently accepts the situation described in chap. ii, 5, without having ever received any explanation of it.
Matthew proceeds to explain that the event which is to take place is the fulfilment of a prophecy in Isaiah (vii, 14) as to a "virgin" who would bring forth a son. This explanation is based upon a mistranslation. Matthew (or rather the pseudo-Matthew) is quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. In the original Hebrew the word "almah" is used, and this word means only a "young woman." In the Greek text the word "parthenos" (virgin) is used, but probably only in its metaphorical sense. The original prophecy merely foretold that some young woman would give birth to a son from whom great things might be expected. The Hebrew word for "virgin" is frequently used in the Old Testament, and would, presumably, have been used in this passage of Isaiah if a virgin had really been meant. But the word for "young woman" having actually been used, the misleading translation in the Septuagint cannot give the "prophecy" a new meaning.
Moreover, Isaiah is speaking to Ahaz, and is obviously referring to some event very shortly to take place. Ahaz would hardly be comforted by an assurance that an event, however desirable, would take place about seven hundred and fifty years later. He wants to know whether there is any prospect of his present troubles coming to an end, and Isaiah foretells that a child will shortly be born, and that before it grows up both Syria and Ephraim shall have fallen. The "prophecy" might be considered fulfilled when Ahaz or Isaiah himself had sons born to them-events which took place soon after the interview between them that is recorded in this chapter of Isaiah.
The desire to drag in, however irrelevantly, any Old Testament text which could be looked upon as prophetic is noticeable throughout the New Testament and similar writings of the same period; and this habit of quotation is nowhere more striking than in the stories of the Virgin Birth and of the Crucifixion. Matthew especially is prone to quote "the scriptures" as evidence of the facts which he relates. These quotations are used as arguments for the facts stated, and the inconsequent nature of such arguments must now be apparent to every one.
In those days it was different. The Church Fathers, in their arguments with those who did not believe in the Virgin Birth story, do not adduce evidence about the facts, but quotations from "the prophets" as to what facts should, if the prophets competence was admitted, be expected. To Jews these "prophecies" were sacred, and, by paralogism, proofs of any event which was said to be a fulfilment of them. When Justin's opponent, imaginary or real, is not convinced by his first arguments, he hurls a few more quotations at him. So too Matthew. Because Isaiah had said "A virgin [?] shall conceive and bear a son," and because some Jews thought that this might refer to the birth of a future Messiah, and because he-the evangelist-is setting out to prove that Jesus was that Messiah, therefore Jesus must have been born of a virgin. That is his argument.
It would be unseemly to ridicule those who accepted such quotations for arguments. Paralogisms are too often, even to-day, accepted for syllogisms. But it is necessary to notice that such fallacious substitutes for logic were, for many centuries, the chief stock-in-trade of theologians, and even of those theologians who, in other respects, were astute and skilful dialecticians. Then we shall be able to understand how it was that the writers of the introductory chapters of Matthew and Luke told two entirely different stories about the same alleged event.
Their evidence, in both cases, consisted of "prophecies." So that it might be fulfilled which was written by some ancient author, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Egypt had to play their respective parts in the story. Each editor had the same evidence-the ancient Jewish scriptures of the last seven centuries or more-and each used that evidence as he thought best.
The really remarkable thing is that later generations should accept two entirely conflicting sets of evidences as both being correct.
In chapter ii Matthew goes on to relate how Herod the King sends for the chief priests and the scribes-the very people who live in hopes of the advent of a Messiah who will deliver them from the rule of foreigners and of kings selected by foreigners-and asks them where their deliverer is, according to the prophets, to be born; and they, in their innocence of heart, tell him where his future rival ought to be found.
Luke knows nothing of all this, nor of the "slaughter of the innocents," which Matthew next tells of. Neither does Josephus, the great Jewish historian who lived so soon after this time, and who wrote at such great length about Herod's reign, make any mention of this murder of all children of two years old and under. No historian appears ever to have heard of this wholesale massacre, though it would hardly have escaped notice if it really took place. Later on we will consider some of the numerous parallels to this story, and note how in a very large number of mythologies the divine hero narrowly escapes from such an attempt on the part of a king to destroy his predestined rival. For the present we will content ourselves with continuing to examine Matthew's story.
Matthew goes on to relate how the holy family flee to Egypt, a journey unknown to Luke, and how, when Herod the Great dies, Joseph fears to return to Judeea because Archelaus, a son of Herod the Great, was "king" of that country ("did reign in Judaea" in Authorized Version).
Yet he goes to Galilee, which was ruled over by Antipas, another son of Herod's, because the prophecy, "He shall be called a Nazarene," had to be fulfilled.
With this episode ends the second chapter of Matthew and all reference to a Virgin Birth. In chapter iii the story starts again with an account like Mark's of Jesus becoming the Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit at his baptism From this point onward we hear nothing of the miraculous birth, but much, as we shall see later, that is quite irreconcilable with it. The first two chapters of Matthew are an addition to a story which would be complete without them, and which is inconsistent with them.
If we now turn to the Gospel according to St. Luke, we find a totally different story of this Virgin Birth. Luke piles wonder upon wonder.
First the angel Gabriel, who usually stands in the presence of God (verse 19), appears to Zacharias and announces that his wife Elizabeth, though, like Sarah, hitherto barren and now stricken in years, will give birth to a son, and that Zacharias himself will be struck dumb for venturing to doubt that this wonder will come to pass. Then follows the annunciation to Mary that she will give miraculous birth to a son, who will be given "the throne of his father David," and will "reign over the house of Jacob for ever."
Then the miraculous foreknowledge of Elizabeth, and of her unborn babe, about Mary's great destiny.
Then the beautiful magnificat, certainly a remarkable literary production if really the words of Mary.
Then Zacharias' recovery of his voice and the miraculous naming of the child John (the Baptist), and another beautiful literary production, the Benedictus, curiously resembling in style the outpouring of Mary recorded a few verses earlier. Then the story of the census, the announcement to the shepherds, the angel, and the multitude of the heavenly host; to all of which we shall refer later.
Then the miraculous recognition of "the Lord's Christ " by Simeon, who, again in the same literary style as Zacharias and Mary, speaks the Nunc Dimittis, another beautiful little poem.
Finally another miraculous recognition, this time by the "prophetess Anna"; and then the anecdote about the child Jesus' precocity in the temple.
After that chapter iii begins, and the story makes a fresh start-at the same moment in the life of Jesus as that in Mark-with John the Baptist's preaching in the wilderness and the baptism of Jesus.
So in Luke, as in Matthew, it is the first two chapters alone which mention the Virgin Birth. But, as Luke's account of that event differs so widely from Matthew's that both cannot be correct, let us examine it more closely, so as to see whether it be the more or the less credible of the two. Some of Luke's statements have already been referred to while we were examining Matthew's account. Of the others the first which we need notice is verse 32 of chapter i. The angel here states that Jesus will be given "the throne of his father David.'' Now, it is only through Joseph that Jesus is said to be descended from David, so this statement of the angel is inconsistent with the Virgin Birth story.
Why, moreover, should the betrothed Mary ask the angel, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" ? Nothing has been said about any immediate birth: she has only been told that at some future date she will give birth to a son who will become a great personage. The natural conclusion to which she would come would be that this son, with the great destiny in store for him, would be the fruit of her approaching union with Joseph. There is no apparent reason for her question. It seems to be introduced merely for the sake of the answer, and to give an opportunity definitely to state the virginity, and to infer that the physical process of generation was carried out by God. Otherwise the overshadowing by the power of the Highest might be taken metaphorically, and the story thought to differ from that in Mark only in the fact that the Holy Spirit entered into Jesus before, instead of after, birth. This interpretation would be all the more likely, as the Holy Spirit was generally regarded as feminine. Luke is here emphasizing the doctrine that the divinity of Jesus was obtained physically and not spiritually.
In chapter ii we come to what should be, from the point of view of chronology, one of the most important texts in the Gospel. It collates the birth of Jesus with a census of the people taken by Quirinius, Governor of Syria-the Cyrenius of our Bibles.
According to Matthew, the parents of Jesus go on a journey so as to avoid a massacre of young children; according to Luke, they go on a journey so as to conform with the regulations for a census.
Now, the only census to which this can refer took place in 6 or 7 A.D., and we have already heard in chapter i that the birth of Jesus was announced to Mary during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C.
According to Matthew, the death of Herod was announced to Joseph some time after he had arrived with the infant Jesus in Egypt. How long after they first arrived we are not told; but, according to this account, Jesus must have been born in the year 5 B.C. at the latest, and probably earlier.
According to the first chapter of Luke, Jesus must have been born in 3 B.C. at the very latest; according to the second chapter, in 6 A.D. at the very earliest. The interval of about ten years, or even a great deal more, cannot be bridged by any explanation. Either one account or the other is wrong, or both are wrong. Both chapters cannot possibly be correct.
Only for the purpose of the story-so that a Galilean should be born at Bethlehem, and thus three distinct and contradictory prophecies be fulfilled at once-had the parents of Jesus to leave their native home in semi-independent Galilee and travel to Bethlehem in Judaea to be numbered. Such a journey would really be no more necessary than it is now for an English-born Canadian to return to the home of his ancestors whenever a census is taken in England. Joseph would have been under no compulsion, legal or moral, to undertake the journey, and still less so would his future wife in a country and at a time when women counted for nothing. The census was believed to be taken for purposes of taxation (whence the word "tax" in the Gospel), and would therefore be unlikely to attract those who were not compelled to attend.
Returning once more to the question of chronology, we find at the beginning of chapter iii another date-mark which only makes confusion worse confounded. "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius " (verse 1) "Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age" (verse 23).
Now, the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius was 28-29 A.D.; so, according to this chapter, Jesus was born about 2-1 B.C. However, in view of the word translated "about," we need not lay too much stress upon this. The thirty years of age is apparently specified so as to indicate that Jesus had reached an adult age from the Jewish legal and canonical point of view.
The chronological discrepancies of Luke, and in a less degree the absence of definite chronology in Matthew, are principally of importance as showing the vagueness of tradition at the time when our Canonical Gospels were compiled and the impossibility of both such contradictory accounts being inspired or true.
The only explanation of all these contradictions is that the stories were written, long after the events had taken place or were supposed to have taken place, by men who were unacquainted at first-hand with the history of the times, and even at third- or fourth-hand not very well informed about them, and who therefore confused together several members of the Herod family, misdated the census, misunderstood its locality, and made various other mistakes.
It is remarkable that, after all these details about the events surrounding the birth and a brief account of one episode in childhood, no further information is supplied about the life of Jesus until he is about thirty years of age.
Luke in his third chapter, like Matthew in his, passes on to the baptism, which formed the starting-point of the original Gospel-that of Mark. After this one episode in Jerusalem (to which we shall refer later) there is an absolute blank, and then the story begins again with an episode which fits in well with Mark's story, or with the remainder of Luke's own story, but which joins on very badly to the Virgin Birth story which precedes it.
At the baptism a voice from heaven proclaims, "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased"; thus paraphrasing the words of Psalm ii, 7, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." The paraphrase, which is the work of some late editor, was necessitated by the Virgin Birth story. Originally this chapter of Luke taught, as Mark teaches, that Jesus became the divine Son by the descent of the Holy Spirit into him. Eventually the text was altered so as to conform, as far as possible, with the Virgin Birth story. "This day have I begotten thee" became "In thee I am well pleased."
The original words are, however, still to be found in the Acts (xiii, 33) and in the Epistles (Hebrews i, b). In the former they are connected apparently with the Resurrection, by which, according to many primitive Christians, Jesus became Christ; in the latter they are used as an explanation of God's promise: "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a son." The same words are again quoted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in v, 5.
The idea of God metaphorically begetting a son by inspiring a man at his baptism is, it is hardly necessary to add, totally distinct from the idea of God physically begetting a son from a human mother. But the editors who attempted to bring the Gospel into conformity with its first two (new) chapters could not, it appears, harden their hearts sufficiently to eliminate the last sixteen verses of the third chapter; and so we now come to Luke's genealogy, and find it preceded by the curious "being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph." Evidently the "as was supposed" is an interpolation, as the whole genealogy is without any bearing on the story unless it is that of Jesus through his father Joseph.
The genealogy differs in several respects from that given in Matthew. Of the differences, the most important is that by Luke the descent is traced through David's son Nathan instead of through his son Solomon, as it is by Matthew, and that consequently from that point downwards the pedigrees differ in all the names but two- Salathiel and Zorobabel-which are (in such lists unaccountably) the same. The father of Joseph and seventeen more of his predecessors before we reach Zorobabel in Luke differ every one of them in name from the father of Joseph and the eight other predecessors before we reach Zorobabel in Matthew. Both authors agree that Salathiel was the father of Zorobabel, but they differ in the name given to the former's father and in the names given to all his ancestors until David is reached. From David to Abraham the lists agree. Then Matthew ceases, but Luke continues up to "Adam, which was the son of God," following, with but one small slip, the lists given in 1 Chronicles i, 1-4 and 24-27.
But the disagreement between Matthew and Luke about the names of the ancestors of Jesus, noteworthy though it is as showing that these evangelists could not both have been inspired or even well informed, is not so important as the mere fact that the genealogy of Joseph is given in spite of the assertion in the first chapter that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. We are evidently dealing with an earlier tradition, which the editor of the later Gospel is loth to part with, even when the Virgin Birth story has been added.
That the earliest edition of Luke did not contain the Virgin Birth story is now admitted by most commentators. The Gospel according to St. Luke, which Marcion used, began-like Mark's-with the baptism of Jesus. It did not contain anything about the birth of Jesus. Irenaeus complains that Marcion "mutilated the Gospel according to Luke, taking away all that is recorded of the generation of the Lord, and many parts of his discourses in which he recognizes the Creator of the Universe as his Father"; but Justin Martyr, though he made a fierce attack upon Marcion, does not refer to any such mutilations, and seems to have himself been ignorant of any Gospel according to St. Luke.
Now, Marcion-afterwards branded as a heretic-was the leader, even on the admission of the "orthodox" Tertullian (150-220) himself, of a very large proportion of the Christians of his day, and for two hundred years more Marcionites were the closest rivals of the sect which was subsequently called Catholic.
Marcion and Justin Martyr were contemporaries, flourishing in the first half of the second century, and Irenaeus lived in the second half of the second century, so it appears highly probable that the Gospel used by Marcion formed the foundation of the Gospel afterwards known as "according to St. Luke." Instead of Marcion excising passages from Luke, it was the redactor of Luke who added passages to the Gospel used by Marcion. This is the conclusion at which many commentators have arrived, though others still dispute it. We need not here further consider the arguments about that, but only note that the Marcionites rejected the early chapters of Luke, if indeed they had ever heard of them. And not only the Marcionites, but other sects of Christians -afterwards to be classed as heretics- had likewise never heard of this story of Luke's, or repudiated it as a fiction when they did, saying that it was full of errors and self-contradictions. And, similarly, many men, even in later days, who accepted the Gospel of St. Matthew as "Holy Scripture," repudiated the first two chapters, and believed that the man Jesus became Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit at his baptism. The first two chapters were regarded as evidently late additions to the original text, which began, as Mark also did, with the baptism of Jesus, the old Gnostic explanation of his Christhood. Epiphanius records that the Matthew Gospel used by the Ebionites had not got the first two chapters. He also wrote about Cerinthus, a Christian author of the early second century, who had taught that "at the baptism God caused a real divine force which is named Christ to descend upon Jesus of Nazereth, the son of Joseph and Mary."
Justin, in the middle of the second century, and other early Fathers of the Catholic Church, continually refer to those Christians who deny the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, who believed that Jesus was a man and not a god, who use versions of Matthew which state that "Joseph begat Jesus," and who repudiate the Virgin Birth story as an after-thought of the Gospel editors.
In connection with the genealogies given by Matthew and Luke, it is worth noting that Justin Martyr, who wrote-apparently in ignorance of our Canonical Gospels -in the middle of the second century, also gives a pedigree of Jesus, but traces it through Mary and not through Joseph, and thus makes his genealogy compatible with the story of the Virgin Birth, which, however, he relates differently from both the stories in our Gospels. Other Gospels, now classed as apocryphal, do the same.
We are therefore faced with the choice of discarding the Canonical Gospels and accepting the apocryphal works which give a story that at any rate does not in this respect contradict itself, or of accepting a self-contradictory story from the recognized Gospels, or of discarding all the stories of the Virgin Birth and not believing that this stupendous miracle ever took place.
The evolution of the Virgin Birth story from the earlier Gnostic story of the inspiration by Jesus of the Christ spirit at his baptism may be traced in the now apocryphal, but then accepted, Gospels. At first we find the episode of the baptism by John much as it is described by Mark; but, instead of the voice from heaven saying "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," it says "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." That is to say, that by the descent of the "Spirit like a dove" upon him he becomes the spiritual Son of God; that he was not born the Son of God, but only became so metaphorically on "this day" when the Christ spirit descended upon him.
The "this day I have begotten thee" is the older version, to be found in "The Memoirs of the Apostles" and in various other works founded perhaps upon these "memoirs." It is of course a quotation from Psalm ii, 7, and was therefore probably introduced into the narrative, like so much else, in order to show that a "prophecy" had been fulfilled. The birth stories are full of such episodes and sayings introduced for that purpose. Many of the Apocryphal Gospels state that the birth took place in a cave, as that would, the authors attempted to show, be a fulfilment of certain Old Testament prophecies. Every manner of permutation and combination of Nazareth and Bethlehem as Joseph's permanent home or temporary dwelling place is tried in different Gospels, so as to show that the Messianic prophecies had been fulfilled.
This necessity for proving that the prophecies had been fulfilled is naively confessed by Justin Martyr in his "Dialogue with Trypho." The latter is supposed to ask why it was necessary, if Jesus was already the Son of God, that he should again receive the Holy Spirit at his baptism, to which Justin replies that it was only necessary because the prophecies must be fulfilled.
At the time when this dialogue was written-about the middle of the second century-the Gnostics and other Christians were disputing the new theory of the divine birth, and maintaining that Jesus was a man born like other men, but imbued, at his baptism, with the divine spirit.
The next step was, apparently, to quote both versions of the words spoken from heaven, as is done in the Gospel according to the Hebrews; and finally the present canonical version of the episode was written and retained by the increasingly powerful sect which was afterwards to call itself Catholic.
Thus the story is evolved. At first a story about a follower of John the Baptist who becomes a great teacher, imbued with religious genius; then an episode added of a human voice which proceeds from God announcing that this teacher is divinely endowed; then the complete story, in various versions, of a divine birth. As the (subsequently) Catholic sect becomes all-powerful, the older narratives are discarded and classed as apocryphal, and the narratives which give support to the "orthodox" doctrine are accepted as canonical. The former are, as far as possible, suppressed; the latter encouraged and copied and edited for the purpose of making the doctrine known to all Christians.
If we take the Canonical Gospels as a guide to the time when the Virgin Birth story was first introduced into the history of Jesus, and the evidence of the "Fathers of the Church," who first mention them, for the dates of these Gospels, we are justified in stating that the Virgin Birth doctrine was certainly unknown until the middle of the first half of the second century at the very earliest, and probably until considerably later than that. As we have already seen, Marcion, the founder (according to the Catholics of later days) of the Marcionite heresy, the upholder (according to himself) of the pure primitive faith, rejected the Virgin Birth story, or had never even heard of it. His doctrine was that Jesus was a pre-existent spiritual being devoid of any human nature except in appearance That was one second-century Christian doctrine.
According to the Clementine Homilies (and Clement is regarded as a "Father"), St. Peter is said to have affirmed that Jesus never claimed to be God, and to have argued that "the begotten cannot be compared with that which is unbegotten or self-begotten." This apparently is an expression of the point of view of the Ebionites, one of the oldest sects, if not indeed actually the very oldest sect, of Christians That Jesus was neither miraculously born nor a god was another second-century Christian doctrine.
Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, about the same time as or just after our Canonical Gospels were first published, himself admits that many Christians did not believe in the supernatural birth of Jesus. Although he himself believes in the divine birth, and although he classes as heretics many sects of Christians whose orthodoxy as regards "eating meats sacrificed to idols," insistence upon the observance of the law, and other kindred matters, is suspect, he does not so class those who believe in the normal and natural generation of Jesus. Indeed, he was quite ready to compromise with those who regarded Jesus as a man and not a god, and with those who regarded him as a spiritual being never clothed in flesh, and ready too to adapt his argument to Pagan ideas. In his apologia he writes:-
"But when we say that the Word (Logos), which is the first begetting of God, was begotten without intercourse-Jesus Christ, our Master- . . . . we bring forward no new thing beyond those known among you who are called sons of Zeus."
He then refers to Hermes, the Logos of the Gnostics, and to Asclepius the healer, both sons of the most high God, and proceeds:-
"But as to the Son of God called Jesus-even though he were only a man born in the common way, yet because of his wisdom is he worthy to be called Son of God; for all writers call God "Father of men and gods." And if we say further that he was also in a special way, beyond his common birth, begotten of God as Word (Logos) of God, let us have this in common with you who call Hermes the Word (Logos) who brings tidings from God."
The doctrine of the Virgin Birth was evidently still an open question among even that sect of Christians which was afterwards called "orthodox." It certainly so remained up till at least the end of the second century, and even at the beginning of the fourth century it was, apparently, not considered seriously heretical to deny it.
It is hardly surprising that the Jews, among whom the primitive form of Christianity arose, abjured the Catholic form of that religion, and either remained Gnostics or Ebionites until those faiths were suppressed as heresies, or reverted to Judaism. By the time when Christianity arose the better-educated Jews had arrived at a higher conception of the Supreme God than that portrayed in the anthropomorphic tales of the Old Testament, and the idea of a physical generation by that spiritual being appeared to them not only blasphemous, but absurd.8 To the pagans of Asia Minor, on the other hand, the idea of the virgin birth of a man-god was-as we shall soon see-familiar, plausible, and even necessary; and it was among these Gentile Christians of the unphilosophic classes that the doctrine, which was afterwards incorporated in Christianity, first arose.
The earliest and by far the largest of the Jewish sects of Christians was the Ebionite, and the Ebionites rejected the Virgin Birth story and laid great stress upon the descent of Jesus from David through his father Joseph. Jesus they regarded as a man, and only divine in so far as he was imbued with the Christ spirit, an emanation from God.
The more closely we examine these two Gospels of Matthew and Luke the more surprising it appears, not that the Virgin Birth story was rejected by so many sects of early Christians, but that it was ever accepted by any of them. After the first two chapters in each of them, there is never a single word of reference to this proof of the divinity of Jesus, and there are many passages which cannot possibly be reconciled with the birth story.
The contradictions involved in a story which frequently refers to Joseph as the father of Jesus, and yet begins by the Virgin Birth episode, can be accounted for only by assuming that the original Gospels did not contain the earlier chapters of our present Gospels, and that when these chapters were added the editors omitted to make all the alterations in the text of the original chapters which would be necessary to bring these into accordance with the new commencement. Some small modifications seem indeed to have been made, but much remains which is absolutely inconsistent with the Virgin Birth story.
According to Mark (chapter iii), Jesus is believed by "his friends " to be mad-"He is beside himself" (verse 21); and those friends, we learn from verse 31, included "his brethren and his mother." If he were regarded as a prophet or religious reformer, there would be nothing surprising about this, the usual fate of reformers; but his mother, if he were miraculously born, could hardly have believed him to be mad. Matthew, having introduced the Virgin Birth story, tones down this, "He is beside himself," to "all the people were amazed" (xii, 23); and Luke, in our versions, altogether omits the incident.
Mark (vi, 4), "A prophet is not without honour but among his own kin," is also altered by Matthew (xiii, 57), who quotes the same words with the omission of "among his own kin," and by Luke, who in our versions quotes only the first part of the saying. In these passages, therefore, the original Matthew and the original Luke may have been modified. In others the alterations are more certain still. In several old manu- script versions of Luke ii, 5, we find the reading, "to be taxed with Mary his wife"; the word "espoused" being omitted.
The original form of the words given in our Authorized Version as "Joseph and his mother" (Luke ii, 43) is "his parents." In verse 48 the words, "thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing," remain unaltered. These passages show that the chapter was written before the doctrine of the Virgin Birth had been added to the story. In the former case "his parents" is altered to "Joseph and his mother"; in the latter, Joseph is still referred to as the father of Jesus. The editing was not efficiently done. Even the words "the parents" are retained in verse 27; and in verse 33 it is said that "Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him." Though the name "Joseph" has been substituted for "his father," the episode-incompatible with the Virgin Birth story though it is-has been retained.
When Jesus, metaphorically or literally, claims to have been about his Father's business, Joseph and Mary "understood not the saying" (verses 49, 50). According to both Matthew and Luke, Mary the Virgin knows that her son Jesus is a supernaturally-born god. It is not pretended that, in her innocence, she regarded parthenogenesis as normal. And, apart from that natural knowledge that the birth was miraculous, there was the Annunciation-to Mary herself according to Luke, though to Joseph according to Matthew-and other events so remarkable that "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."
Neither she nor Joseph could readily forget or minimize the miracle if it occurred as related; yet, according to both Matthew and Luke, Joseph and Mary regard Jesus, after his birth, as an ordinary though very precocious child, treat him throughout his life as an ordinary man, and "marvel" whenever he in any way distinguishes himself above his fellows. The whole of the remainder of these Gospels is inconsistent, in this respect, with the stories of the Virgin Birth as related in their early chapters.
Matthew's and Luke's first chapters show how John the Baptist himself and the respective mothers of John and of Jesus recognize from the beginning that the latter is the Messiah. Yet in Matthew xi, 2, 3, and in the corresponding Luke vii, 19-20, we read how John was still doubtful as to the divinity and Messiahship of Jesus.
When Jesus preaches "in his own country," and his listeners say "Is not this the carpenter's son?" neither his relatives nor his disciples deny the fact.
According to John (vii, 5), his immediate relatives did not believe in him. Is it credible that their mother Mary, who, according to Matthew and to Luke, must have known that he was divinely born, would bring up her other children in ignorance of the divine nature of their brother? Is it credible that she herself should forget all about these wonderful events, and join a party who attempted to "lay hold on him" because they think that "he is beside himself"? Is it not clear that the Virgin Birth story was subsequently added to a story which had had no such beginning-a story in which the divinity of Jesus was not said to be suspected until after his death?
Many even of the orthodox critics acknowledge that the early chapters of the Gospel according to St. Luke must have been added long after the Gospel was first written. These, then, if they still maintain the truth of the Virgin Birth story, must rely upon Matthew alone- one solitary record of such a miraculous event out of all the writings in our New Testaments, and one, moreover, just as open to suspicion of being a late addition as Luke's itself.
Is it surprising that some of them reject both stories, and privately confess that there is no adequate reason for believing that this stupendous miracle ever occurred?
Next: THE POSSIBILITY AND IMPROBABILITY OF A VIRGIN BIRTH