03 - Lecture 03
LECTURE III Sources of the Narratives-Historical and Internal Credibility In last lecture I tried to show that the narratives of the Nativity were genuine parts of their respective Gospels. To-day I am to be engaged in discussing the external and internal credibility of the narratives considered in themselves. This is an important branch of the argument. These narratives of the birth of our Lord are not, like the pagan stories of the sons of the gods to which they are sometimes compared, vague, formless myths, but are rooted down to time and place, under definite historical conditions, by reference to which they can be tested. In Marcion’s Gospel, to which I formerly referred,1 Jesus came down from heaven in the 15th year of Tiberius; in our Gospels, He was born of a human mother in Bethlehem, in the last days of Herod, the King of Judaea. In this sense also " the Word became flesh," that He has His definite place in the history of the world in a known age. He was born of a definite race, in an ordained line of descent, at a particular point ________________________________________ 1 See above, p. 47. 64. of time, and in definite circumstances, which give a concrete reality to His appearance.
But, besides this historical side, our narratives have an internal character by which their credibility can be tested, and some reliable light thrown upon their sources. I here remind you only that internal evidence is a powerful factor in determining the trustworthiness of any narrative. A fabulous or apocryphal narration betrays its false character by many signs—we have only to think of the grotesque puerilities of the Apocryphal Gospels 1—while a truthful record bears in itself many subtle indications of its authentic origin and essential credibility. I hope to make it clear that few narratives sustain a test of this kind more successfully than these accounts of the birth of our Lord.
One thing and one only I feel it necessary to premise in this inquiry: I postulate the honesty of the writers. I recall a sentence of Godet’s at the end of the Preface to his Commentary on Luke, which will bear quoting. " If I am asked," he says, " with what scientific or religious assumptions I have approached this study of the third Gospel, I reply, with these two only: that the authors of our Gospels were men of good sense and good faith." These are my assumptions also in this discussion. I do not see how any one can read these simple, straightforward records, and not feel that the writers are » See below, pp. 85, 88-90. • at least honest in their purpose—that they are faithfully setting down what they themselves believed to be true, and what they expected their readers to accept from them as true. They were not romancers, spinning their stories out of their own brains, but were narrators, who had their information from sources which they believed to be credible, and wrote with a certain sense of responsibility. Many, I am aware, go on an opposite assumption. They credit the Evangelists with incredible stupidities, and ascribe to them a freedom in concoction, and artful manipulation in the use of their materials, not readily distinguishable from knavery. Reville, e. g., quoted by Godet, thinks that Matthew did not even perceive the incompatibility between the miraculous birth and the genealogy ascribing to Jesus (according to him) a human father; while Luke did " perceive very clearly the contradiction, nevertheless he writes his history as if it did not exist." " In other words," as Godet comments, " Matthew is more foolish than false; Luke more false than foolish." 1 I hold that, in the sobriety which characterises the Gospels as a whole, we have abundant reason to ascribe to the Evangelists " good sense," and a serious purpose in what they wrote.
I should like to press this point for a moment longer, that, if the narratives of the supernatural birth are rejected, the real alternative by which we are confronted __________________________________________________________ 1 Com. on Luke, I, p. 203. is that of deliberate -fiction—for unconscious myth and legend, as we shall by and by see, is here quite out of place. It is easy to say, with writers like Keim and Lobstein, that the idea of the miraculous birth grew up as an attempt at the explanation of the origin of so remarkable a personality as Jesus was; but it is to be remembered that it is not the bare idea of the miraculous birth we have to deal with, but the translation of that idea into long and detailed narratives, comprising, both in Matthew and in Luke, a whole cycle of connected incidents. It is easy to suggest again that the Evangelists picked up floating legends which had already begun to attain a certain cohesion and acceptance in the Church. But not to speak of the difficulty which this raises in connection with the very different character of the two narratives, it is directly contradictory of a chief point in the mythical theory, which is that the Church, in the early time, had no knowledge or story of a miraculous birth, but got it from these very Gospels. I think we may hold it for certain that our two Gospels are the sources of any public knowledge the Church ever had of the circumstances of the birth of Christ; and, if the Evangelists did not obtain their knowledge of the incidents they record from some reliable authority, there is no escape from the conclusion that the narratives are, in the main, their own creation. But this is an alternative from which, when it is fairly faced, I am sure most reverent minds will shrink. This being premised, let us look first at the historical setting or framework of these narratives of the Infancy. In both Evangelists, the date of Christ’s birth is fixed as falling shortly before the death of Herod the Great,1 which we know to have taken place in the year of Kome 750, or 4 b.c. Jesus was born, according to these narratives, at least within two years—more probably within a few months—of that event: say provisionally in 751, or 5 b.c. In the case of Luke, however, a more precise determination is given, which, as it has been, made the ground of serious objection to the narrative, must here receive attention. Luke tells us, in Luke 2:1 of his Gospel: " Now it came to pass in those days "—the days of the previous events, dated under Herod (Luke 1:5)—"there went out a decree from Csesar Augustus that all the world [i. e., the Roman Empire] should be enrolled," and he adds in Luke 2:2 : " This was the first enrolment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria." !Now it happens that we know a good deal incidentally from other quarters about this Quirinius. Quirinius was governor of Syria, and he did carry out an enrolment in Judaea; but this, according to Josephus, who is our authority for the fact, and may here be depended on,2 was not before Herod’s death, but in 6 a.d., ten years __________________________________________________ 1 Matthew 2:1; Luke 1:5; Luke 2:1.
2 Antiq., 18:1. Zahn thinks that Josephus is here mistaken, and that Luke gives the correct date (Einleitung, II, pp. 397-8). Acts 5:37 is, however, against the idea of a mistake. later. Here then, it is contended, is an obvious error on the part of the Evangelist, who unhistorically dates the governorship of Quirinius and his census ten years before the actual time. His story of the enrolment at the birth of Christ, and so his whole narrative, is thus discredited. In dealing with an objection of this kind, the high character of Luke for conscientiousness and accuracy as a historian, which Sir Wra. Ramsay has done so much of late years to establish, has to be kept in mind. Specially in dealing with governors and their titles Luke’s minute accuracy is proverbial. A new instance has recently been furnished in the vindication of the correctness of his mention in Luke 3:1 of Lysanius as " the tetrarch of Abylene," which formerly was disputed. 1 In addition, it was early pointed out (1) that Luke himself refers to this later census of 6 a.d. in Acts 5:37—" the enrolment," as he calls it2; and (2) that in the Gospel he expressly distinguishes the census at the birth of Christ as " the first enrolment," in contrast, evidently, to a second he knew of. Whatever blunder Luke perpetrates, therefore, it is clearly not that of confusing these two enrolments. 3.
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1 Cf. article by Dr. Knowling on " The Birth of Christ" in Hastings’ Diet, of Christ and the Gospels, I, p. 206; with SchmiedePs and Schurer’s admissions noted there.
2 Cf. Ramsay, Was Christ Born in Bethlehem, p. 127.
3 Schurer acknowledges that Luke knew of the enrolment in 6 a.d., yet thinks he mistakes it for one occurring at the birth of Christ {Jewish People, etc., II, pp. 131, 143). The whole subject, however, took on a new aspect, and Luke’s credibility received fresh confirmation, from the important discovery of the German antiquarian scholar Zumpt that Quirinius must have been twice governor of Syria, and that the earlier governorship must have fallen between 4 a.d. and 1 a.d.—a conclusion in which most scholars now acquiesce, and which is corroborated by a fragment of an inscription believed to relate to Quirinius. 1 To this has recently been added the discovery of actual census papers in Egypt establishing the fact of periodical enrolments in that country, and creating the high probability that Augustus did ordain periodical enrolments of his subjects in the provinces of the empire. 2.
I do not affirm that all difficulties are removed by these discoveries, for the date given for the first governorship of Quirinius — not earlier than 4 b.c., after Herod’s death—is still at least about a year too late. The governor when Christ was born cannot, it is evident, have been Quirinius, but was probably his predecessor Varus. Still, most sensible people felt that, by this discovery of Zumpt’s, the back of the objection to Luke was broken; for, even if the census was begun under Varus, it is conceivable, and indeed probable, that, owing to the troubles which we know broke out in Judaea at _______________________________________________ 1 Cf. Ramsay, op. cit., pp. 227-8, 273.
2 The details about the enrolments may be studied in Prof. Ramsay’s book above named. For the general facts, cf. Schurer, I, pp. 351ff.
Herod’s death,1 it was not completed till the time of Quirinius, with whose name it is accordingly officially connected. If, on the other hand, the earlier governorship of Quirinius was not, as some, including Ramsay, have thought, an ordinary, but an extraordinary one, which may have included this very matter of the census, the difficulty disappears altogether. Even the particular mode of conducting the enrolment — each one going to his own city 2—to which some have taken exception, is entirely consonant with what we might expect in a subject kingdom like Judaea, where naturally respect would be paid to Jewish usages and ideas, as far as possible. 3.
I need not wait on the other objections derived from the history of the period, as, e. g., that drawn from the silence of historians on the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem. The story connects itself with the other incidents in the narrative, and is in perfect keeping with the jealous, crafty, cruel spirit of Herod, and with his ready resort to massacre, as history discloses it. But it would be too much to expect that, with so many greater crimes to record, historians would deem the murder of a few babes in Bethlehem worthy of their notice. To be perfectly exact, a late pagan writer, Macrobius, does _________________________________________________
1 Tacitus, Hist.,5:9. Cf. Josephus, as above. It is to be remembered that the census would be under Herod himself as long as he lived.
2 Luke it. 3, 4.
3 Ramsay lays stress on this, seem to allude to it,1 but I attach no importance to the reference.
I now come to a subject which has always occasioned a real difficulty—I mean the two genealogies. These are found in Matthew 1:1-17, and in Luke 3:23-38. In Luke, it will be observed, the genealogy occurs, not in the introductory chapters, but in the body of the Gospel—a fact which connects the one part with the other. I do not, of course, enter into the details of the discussion, but confine myself to the principles involved, so far as they bear on the credibility of the chapters. On two points there is very general agreement with regard to these genealogies:—
1. That the genealogies formed an original part of the Gospels. 2 The female names and artificial arrangement into three fourteens, along with grounds of style,3 prove this for Matthew: the ascending order of the genealogy proves it for Luke 4:1-44.
2. That nevertheless they are not free inventions of the Evangelists, but were found and used by them. As Lobstein puts it: " Our Evangelists evidently found these genealogies in older documents." 5.
__________________________________________________ 1 Cf. Ramsay, p. 219.
2 Dr. Charles is an exception in making the genealogy of Matthew a later addition. F. C. Conybeare controverts him in the Academy, Dec. 8, 1894.
3 Cf. on style, Burkitt, Evang. da Mepharreshe, p. 258.
4 Cf. Godet, Luke, I, p. 197.
5 The Virgin Birth, p. 46; cf. Godet, p. 203. Burkitt dissents on this point (p. 260).
3. A third point may be added in which most agree, viz.: that, in form at least, the genealogies are both genealogies of Joseph—not one of Joseph, and one of Mary. As respects aim, the object of Matthew is obviously to establish or confirm the Davidic descent of Jesus: i. e., the aim is legal or theocratic. The genealogy of Luke, on the other hand, carries back the lineage of Jesus beyond David and Abraham to Adam, " the son of God " —i. e., it appears to give the natural descent
Certain preliminary objections need not detain us, as that it is unlikely that family genealogies of this kind would be preserved. We are not without some evidence to prove that they were. Luke may be supposed at least to know something of the customs of the Jews; and when he speaks of every one going " to his own city " for the enrolment, and of Joseph going with Mary to Bethlehem " because he was of the house and lineage of David," 1 he takes it for granted that people did have some knowledge of their tribal and family descent. That tribal knowledge was in certain cases preserved we see from such instances as Anna the prophetess, who is described as " of the tribe of Asher," 2 and Paul, who was " of the tribe of Benjamin." 3 Josephus was able to give his own genealogy as he " found it described in the pub- _______________________________________________________
1 Luke 2:3-4. It may occur to us that the genealogies in the Gospels would not themselves have been produced, unless such things as genealogies were known to exist.
2 Ibid., Luke 2:36.
3. Php 3:5.
74 THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST lie records " 1 (there were public records then) ; and he speaks of the great care with which the pedigrees of the priests were preserved, not only in Judaea, but in Egypt, Babylon, and " whithersoever our priests are scattered." 2 If, however, there was any family of which careful pedigrees would be preserved, it would assuredly be that of David, and we know that, in some cases at least, such registers existed. 3 Even in Domitian’s time there were relatives of Jesus who were known to be of David’s race, and on that account were brought before the emperor. 4. The real difficulty about the genealogies is that which lies upon the surface, viz., that, while both profess to be genealogies of Joseph, they go entirely apart after David—one (Matthew’s) deriving the descent from Solomon, the other (Luke’s) deriving it from Nathan,5 the lines only touching at one or two points (e. g., Zerubbabel). Erom Celsus down6 this alleged contradiction of the genealogies has been urged as an objection to the Gospels. The fact of the divergence is not questioned ; how is it to be explained ?
One solution, as I have hinted, is to suppose that the ____________________________________________________
1 Life, i.
2 Against Apion, 1:7. Cf. Plummer, Luke, p. 102; Godet, I, p. 204.
3 Cf. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, I, pp. 265-6; Godet, as above.
4 Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., 3:20.
5 This is an interesting corroboration of the connection of the house of Nathan with that of David in Zec. 13:12 (cf. Dalman, I, p. 265).
6 Origen, A gainst Celsus, 2:32. genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel is that of Joseph, and that the other, in Luke’s Gospel, is Mary’s. The idea is a modern one, but while influential names may be quoted for it, it has not, in this form, generally commended itself. Yet probably in reality, if not in form, as many also admit, this explanation comes very near the true one. We shall see, when I come to speak of the Davidic descent,1 that there is strong reason to believe that Mary was a descendant of David, as well as Joseph; that they were near relations; and that their betrothal was an inter-tribal one. 2 This also, it will appear, was the persistent tradition of the early Church, though the Church did not directly apply either of the genealogies to Mary. If this be so, it is to be expected that at a point near the end of the genealogies the two lines will coalesce, and they probably do so in Matthan (Matthew 1:15), called by Luke Matthat (Luke 3:24), two removes from Joseph. This view harmonises with the character of Luke’s Gospel, which has been happily described as " the woman’s Gospel," 3 and in its opening chapters is certainly Mary’s Gospel: which does not concern itself, like Matthew’s, with theocratic descent, but, as already indicated, traces back the lineage of Jesus to Adam, the father of the race. For the various ways in which the combination of the two lines may be conceived to be ___________________________________________ 1. See below, p. 104.
2Cf. article "Genealogies" in Diet, of Christ and Gospels, I, p. 639.
3 Thus Sanday, Ramsay, etc. effected, I must refer you to the books dealing with the subject. 1 So far from the genealogies reflecting on the credibility of the narratives of the Virgin Birth, it seems to me more correct to say, with Godet, that it is really the peculiarity of Christ’s birth which furnishes the key to the striking divergence of the genealogies. 2.
Leaving these external questions, I advance to what is the main subject of my inquiry to-day: the internal credibility of the narratives, and the light cast by their character and contents on their probable sources and origin.
There is one fact about these narratives to which I would, at the outset, solicit your careful attention. It is that, in each of the Gospels, the cycle of incidents goes together as a whole. Beyschlag, as I remarked before, in his poetic way, thought he could pick and choose in these birth-narratives. He would retain the birth at Bethlehem, the pious shepherds, the visit of the astrologers to Christ’s cradle—most of the accessories of the narratives, in short, without the fact round which they all gather, the Virgin Birth itself. But, as every one else admits, this attempt to save portions of the narratives as historical, while rejecting their most essential feature, is an impossible one. The nucleus of the narrative—the fact which dominates all the rest—is, in ___________________________________________________ 1 Cf. Lord Hervey in Smith’s Diet, of Bible; Andrews, Life of Our Lord; Godet, etc. See further below, pp. 104-5.
2 Godet, I, pp. 201, 204. each case, the conception by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Birth. The centre of the story in Luke, e. g., is precisely that verse, Luke 1:35; which Harnack and others would expunge—" The Holy Ghost [lit. " Holy Spirit," no article is used] shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God." With this the other incidents are connected in inseparable relation. The story of Zacharias and Elisabeth leads up to the Annunciation to Mary; the birth of the forerunner prepares for that of Jesus; the shepherds are guided to the manger by the songs of the angels; Simeon and Anna in the temple hail the Lord’s Christ. It is not otherwise in Matthew. Here again the central fact is the miraculous birth at Bethlehem. The Magi are led by a star to Christ’s cradle, and the subsequent events form a series arising out of that visit With this is to be taken the other fact, commented on in last lecture, that the two narratives, while independent, are not contradictory, but are really complementary. Matthew supplements Luke’s silence about Joseph and the removal of his difficulties; Luke supplies what is lacking in Matthew about the thoughts and feelings of Mary. We must treat the series of incidents in both Gospels, therefore, together; they stand or fall as one set of facts. But let us look more closely at these narratives—particularly at the singularly beautiful and delicately told story in Luke’s Gospel. Luke incorporates these narratives of the birth of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus; but where did he get them? Now there are two features in these narratives which practically all scholars are agreed in recognising. (1) They are in Greek—and in Luke’s Greek; and (2), they exhibit unmistakable marks of dependence on a Hebraic or Aramaic source. It may be regarded as demonstrated that the narratives bear the marks of Luke’s distinctive style. 1 The contrast is not less evident between the pure Greek of Luke’s Preface (Luke 1:1-4)—one of the finest pieces of Greek in the New Testament—and the sections that follow, steeped in Hebraic sentiment and idiom. 2 Prof. Harnack acknowledges the fact, though he strangely thinks it may be due to a deliberate change of style in Luke himself. 3 Plainly Luke is using in these sections an Aramaic source; the only question that can arise is, whether this source was oral or written. Prof. Ramsay inclines to the former view; most scholars prefer the latter. Gunkel, who has a good feeling in these matters, says the chapters are probably a translation from a Hebrew original, described by him as " a genuine document of a very primitive Jewish-Christian type."4.
_____________________________________________________ 1 Cf. Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, p. 73 and Appendix.
2 Cf. Sanday, Critical Questions, pp. 129-35; Plummer, Luke, p„ 7; Swete, Apostles1 Creed, pp. 49-50; Ramsay, etc.
3 Op. cit, p. 73.
4 Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstandniss des N. T., p. 67. With this view of the Aramaic character of the source, the contents of the sections entirely agree. We are transported in these narratives into the midst of a purely Hebrew circle—of that holy company " that were looking for the redemption in Jerusalem " 1 — and never once throughout the chapters do we leave the Old Testament standpoint, or transcend the Old Testament horizon. We see the aged pair, Zacharias and Elisabeth, both of Aaronic descent, " walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless"; 2 we wait with Zacharias at his altar; we hear the promise of a son, on whom, as in the case of Samson, the Nazirite vow is to be laid; we are greeted with the last refrain of Old Testament prophecy in Malachi: 2 we listen to holy canticles in the old style of Hebrew parallelism; the long-sealed fountain of prophetic inspiration begins again to flow. But the language used, the salvation looked for, the predictions given, are all genuinely Old Testament in character and outlook. " When we look at the Benedictus at all closely," says Dr. Sanday, " how intensely Jewish it is! And not only is it Jewish, but Jewish of the period to which it is ascribed." 4 It would, indeed, be strange if a Hellenist like Luke, imbued with the universalistic spirit of Paul, and writing a Gospel intended to bring out the universal note in Christ’s sayings and acts, could, from amidst his Gen- _________________________________________
1 Luke 2:38.
2 Ibid., Luke 1:6.
3 Ibid., Luke 1:17.
4 Critical Questions, p. 132.
80 THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST tile surroundings, throw himself thus completely back into the atmosphere, thoughts, and speech of a purely Old Testament circle, at a time when Christ had not yet come, but was only hoped for, or rather at the transition-point when the day-spring from on high was just breaking, and its first beams were illuminating the sky! All this attests that we are here dealing with material of a very primitive kind, reproduced by Luke, yet preserved by him with its essential characters unchanged. 1 It is fitting that I should refer in this connection to the interesting studies of Dr. Briggs, who finds in Matthew and Luke evidence of the existence of Hebrew poems—probably of " two original poems "—giving accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus. Matthew 1:20-21 is taken from a longer poem. " This piece has the parallelisms and measures of Hebrew poetry." The story of Luke, he notices, " is composed of a number of pieces of poetry "—seven in all. " These seven pieces of poetry are a series of annunciations and of songs of gratitude and praise, all with marked characteristics of Hebrew poetry, not only in form, but in the style and substance of the thought." Six of them are trimeters; " one of them is a pentameter, like the pentameter preserved in Matthew." " So far as Luke is concerned, his
1 Principal Adeney says in his essay on The Virgin Birth: "The infancy narrative in this Gospel is extremely Jewish. Even the language at this part is very Hebraistic—a sign that the Evangelist was drawing on Hebrew or Aramaic sources, and that without very materially altering them." (" Essays for the Times," No. xi, p. 24.) story of the Infancy is nothing more than a prose setting for these seven poetic pieces given by him." He says: " Making every allowance for the poetic form, style, and conception, these poems are sources of the highest value, and of the first degree of historic importance "; and, generally, he claims for this Gospel of the Infancy: " There is no sound reason to reject it as merely legendary in its material. There is every reason to accept it as giving a valid and essentially historic account of the Infancy of our Lord, so far as it could be reasonably expected in poetic forms." 1 I am not competent to judge of Dr. Briggs’s metrical theories, but his investigations afford at least strong corroboration of the Hebraic character of this source as a whole—not only of its poetic parts, but of its prose portions as well. It will be observed that Matthew as well as Luke is involved in Dr. Briggs’s investigations, and other scholars have pointed out indications of the Hebraic form of Matthew’s narrative.
There are two ways, I would now ask you to consider, in which this fact we have ascertained of the Hebraic and primitive character of these early sections in Matthew and Luke bears on their historic trustworthiness. One is that they give us very early, and to all appearance first-hand, evidence of the events to which they relate. I shall come back to that immediately. The other is, that they leave no place for a late and legendary 1 New Light on the Life of Christ, pp. 161-6. origin of the idea of the Virgin Birth. I do not wish to anticipate, but there is a point here which I should like for a moment to emphasise. With all that is said of the facility with which legend can grow up, it is very certain—I should say almost demonstrable—that this is not a kind of legend which would naturally grow up on Jewish soil, especially in such intensely Hebraic surroundings as are here pictured. The idea of a Virgin Birth, as has often been shown, and will hereafter be proved more in detail,1 was one entirely foreign to Jewish habits of thought, which honoured marriage, and set no premium on virginity. Hence, indeed, the zeal of most recent theorists to seek for it a Gentile origin. 2 There was no precedent for such an idea in the Old Testament. The children of promise there — Isaac, Samson, Samuel—were in every case children born in marriage. The prophecy in Isaiah 7:14; as we shall see, could not, despite Lobstein and Harnack, suggest it; for, apart from the ambiguity of the Hebrew word, of which more hereafter, it is certain that no Jew of that age applied the prophecy to the Messiah. The very severity of the Hebrew idea of God was unfavourable to the notion of a divine paternity. How then could this conception originate in the bosom of the simple, pious-minded, conservative community that gave rise to these stories and hymns, saturated with the purest Old Testament feelings and hopes? Even if the narrators had ___________________________________________ 1 See below, pp. 125-G. 2 See below, pp. 125, 132. been ever so much given to romancing, this was not the kind of romancing they would have indulged in. On this ground also we are compelled to deal with the narratives on the assumption of the honesty of the narrators, and of their belief that what they recorded was true. And so I am brought to the last important stage in the present part of my argument. We have seen that these narratives bear in themselves the signature of their primitive and genuine character. But now one thing is certain. If the stories are true at all, there are, in the nature of the case, only two persons from whom they can ultimately have come in their details, viz.: Joseph and Mary themselves. This also, as we saw before, is precisely the conclusion to which we are pointed by the internal structure of the narratives. When we look carefully into the two narratives, we find that they have just this character—that this, indeed, is the most remarkable thing about them—that the narrative of Matthew is given throughout from the standpoint of Joseph, and the narrative of Luke from the standpoint of Mary. This is undoubtedly the fact about the two histories, explain it as we may. Romancists could hardly have kept up so perfect a distinction; yet, apparently without design, it is kept up here. In Matthew, as I showed, the whole story is concerned with Joseph. It tells of his shock at the discovery that Mary was about to become a mother; of his perplexity and proposed action, of which no one could have known but himself; of the divine disclosure to him in a dream; of his taking Mary to wife, his naming of Jesus, and his subsequent conduct as the guardian of mother and child. Mary, as I said, has no independent place in the narrative. She appears only in her relation to Joseph, and as the mother of the babe whose protector Joseph became. Even the birth of Jesus is not narrated in an independent sentence, but in subordination to the statement of Joseph’s relation to his wife. 1 In the incidents that follow Joseph takes the lead. This is the more striking that, quite evidently, it is the miraculous conception and Virgin Birth of Christ which is the pivot on which the whole narrative turns. In Luke’s narrative, as I likewise before indicated, these relations are precisely reversed. Joseph does not appear in Luke’s story except incidentally, as the person to whom Mary is betrothed. The story, led up to by the account of Zacharias and Elisabeth, is all about Mary. We are told of the Annunciation to Mary by the angel, and of her reply; of her visit to her kinswoman Elisabeth, and of what passed between the friends; of Mary’s Magnificat] of the birth of Jesus; of the visit of the shepherds; of how Mary "kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." 2 It is she that Simeon specially addresses in the Temple; she who, when Jesus is found in the Temple, with the doctors, speaks the gen- _____________________________________________________________________ 1 Matthew 1:24-25.
2 Luke 2:19. tie word which drew from Him the answer: " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house ?"1 And again it is recorded that she " kept all these sayings in her heart." 2 In these chapters, in short, we seem looking through a glass into Mary’s very heart. Her purity of soul, her delicate reserve, her inspired exultation, her patient committing of herself into God’s hands to vindicate her honour, her deep, brooding, thoughtful spirit —how truth-like and worthy of the fact is the whole picture; how free from everything sensational; how far removed from the legendary Mary of the Apocryphal Gospels, pictured as dancing when three years old on the steps of the Temple, fed by the hand of an angel till she was twelve, etc.
What shall we say is the explanation of all this? What explanation can be given but the one which most believing scholars—practically all who do not dispute the good faith of the records—do give: that Joseph himself is ultimately the informant in the one case, and Mary in the other ? The narratives, on this view, come from the holy circle itself: secondary agencies may be considered after. This accounts for their circumstantiality, their delicate reserve, their primitive standpoint, their literary peculiarities, as nothing else can do. Is not this, I might further ask, exactly what we might expect on the supposition that these things did actually happen ? Consider. Every one, I think, will ___________________________________________________________
1 Luke 2:49.
2 Ibid., Luke 2:51. feel that, while these were things that would not, and could not, be gossiped about, but that would be long kept by Mary as a secret buried deep in her own heart; yet both she and Joseph must have realised that they were not things that could be treated as entirely private to themselves—that it was necessary, both for the clearing of Mary’s honour and for the right understanding of Jesus Himself, that the facts of His birth should at some time become known—and that a sacred responsibility rested on them both to see that the knowledge of events so transcendent did not pass away with themselves. This could only be done by solemn deposition, or other form of communication made to some person or persons in their lifetime. For myself, I confess I cannot form a conception of how these narratives in the Gospels obtained the unchallenged reception in the Church they did, unless it was understood or believed that such was their origin.
Against this account of the sources and credibility of the history objections drawn from the supernatural character of the occurrences seem to me vain. The Incarnation, in whatever way we conceive of it, is a stupendous miracle—" the mystery of godliness "—and the astonishing thing would have been, had such an event taken place, and nothing of the nature of miracle been associated with it. The narratives, I grant, are steeped in the supernatural. But look to the form of that supernatural. It is not the supernatural of the puerile, extravagant kind you find in the Apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy, or in the birth-stories of the Buddha—late products of imagination. It is the kind of supernatural which connects the Old Testament with the New—a revival of the spirit of prophecy, sacred hymns, men and women filled with the Holy Spirit, monitions by dreams, angelic appearances. Oh, but, you say, these very things—especially the angels — are sufficient to relegate the narratives to the domain of poetry and fiction. Is it so? The presence of these elements does imply that there is a divine idealism in the story. It does imply that there exists a spiritual world which may manifest itself. It does imply that the shepherds on that first memorable Christmas night were not dreaming when they heard those celestial voices telling them of Christ’s birth, and singing, " Glory to God in the highest."1 But, seriously, is this incredible in the beginning of the life of Him who said: " Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and He shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels ? " 2 Is it not too much to find a world, which at this hour is busily engaged in investigating scientifically the border-region between the natural and the supernatural—instituting " Psychical Research" societies, and the like, to explore and test the phenomena of apparitions, of telepathy, of spiritism _______________________________________________
1 Luke 2:14.
—too much to find it asking us to reject a narrative of the greatest supernatural event of time, because it records that, for a few brief moments, the veil was drawn aside, and that heavenly forms were seen, and voices . from heaven heard, by men on earth ? When this fundamental objection is set aside—and I grant that the root of the matter is here—not much difficulty of a serious kind remains. Why, it is asked, knowing all she did, did Mary wonder at His wisdom ? Why did she join His friends, when they sought to lay hold of Him, because they thought He was beside Himself ? It is all very human, if we only think of it; though it is not said, and is hardly to be believed, that Mary joined in the thought that Jesus was mad. 1 She may well have had other reasons for being there, and, in her maternal anxiety for His safety, for trying to get Him to come away. 1 The difficulty, remember, is the same, if we suppose Mary to have believed in the divine mission of her Son at all, which I think we may assume beyond question that she did. Who ever said of Mary, as it is said of the brethren of Christ—" Neither did His mother believe in Him " ?
I have just spoken of the contrast between the super-naturalism of the Gospels, and the false, tinselly super-naturalism of the Apocryphal Gospels. A word may be said on these in closing, as showing in the clearest way __________________________________________________
1 Mark 3:21, Mark 3:31. John’s Gospel shows that Mary had a belief in Christ’s supernatural powers from the beginning (John 2:3-5). See below, p. 112. the difference between a true and a merely legendary history. Here is seen at a glance what the legendary spirit can do, when it takes up work like this, even with stories like those of our Gospels as models to go upon. The chaste delicacy, the reserve, the long thirty years’ silence, broken only by one incident, the restraint and sobriety of tone, of the canonical Gospels—all is gone. Instead you are in the midst of prodigies of the crudest and most puerile kind. As I have written about these elsewhere: " Time, place, propriety, even ordinary consistency, are recklessly disregarded. Jesus has and exercises from His cradle all divine powers—is omniscient, omnipotent, etc.—yet plays with children in the street, and amuses Himself by making pools of water and moulding clay sparrows. When challenged for breaking the Sabbath, He claps His hands, and the sparrows fly away. He is the terror of the place in which He resides. If man or boy offends, injures, or contradicts Him, He smites the offender dead, or otherwise avenges Himself. He confounds His teachers, and instructs them in the mysteries of the Hebrew letters. When His pitcher breaks, He carries home the water in His lap. He aids Joseph in his carpentry by lengthening or shortening the pieces of wood at pleasure." 1 Look on _________________________________________________
1 Apocryphal Writings of the N. T. ("Temple" Series), p. xii. Cf. Ignatius (Eph. 19) on the star at Christ’s birth. "A star shone forth in heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, and all the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus," etc. this picture and on that, and the proof of the verisimilitude of our Gospels will be nearly complete!
Why is there nothing of all this puerility in the Gospel narratives ? Why no attempt to fill up the vacuum of the long period of Christ’s boyhood and early life ? Is it not simply because the truth was already there to forestall the error, and check its entrance ? To adapt a phrase of Sabatier’s, used by him for a different purpose, they " had something better." The ground was already occupied: weeds had no room to grow.