The Origin of Paul's Religion; What Is Faith?; The Virgin Birth of Christ

4 bie book may be regarded as containing in substance, though not in form, the Thomas Smyth Lectures which the author had the honor of delivering at Columbia Theological Seminary in the spring of 1927. The subject is here treated with much greater fullness than was possible in the lectures as they were delivered, and use is made of certain special studies which have been published from time to time in The Princeton Theological Review— particularly “The Virgin Birth in the Second Century,” “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” and “The Origin of the First Two Chapters of Luke,” which appeared in 1912, and “The Integrity of the Lucan Narrative of the Annunciation,” which appeared in 1927. The author is greatly indebted to John E. Meeter, Th.M., to whose careful scrutiny of the proof and correction of references and quotations the book owes much of whatever accuracy it may have attained. Profit has been received from Mr. Meeter’s suggestions at many

N THIS second edition, typographical errors have been corrected; additional references to recent discussion have been inserted here and there; and a number of other slight changes have been made. Page 121 has been partly re-written. The author is grateful to his brother, Arthur W. Machen, Jr., and to others who have made helpfyl suggestions.

It is impossible to comment here mn any detail upon the way in which the book has been received; but in general it may be said that even those reviewers who disagree sharply with the author’s position have for the most part been generous in according to the book at least some value as a compendium of information. The author is encouraged by such recognition, since he believes that truth is furthered by full and open debate.

If the book presents any distinctive feature, it is to be found, perhaps, in the argument for the integrity of the Lucan narrative which is contained in Chapter VI. That argument cannot, indeed, advance any particular claim to originality: even the stress which it lays upon the parallelism between the

accounts of the annunciations to Zacharias and to Mary has been anticipated, as is indicated on pp. 152, 158, by other writers; and to the references there made should be added V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, ii, 1909, p. 226. But the somewhat comprehensive presentation of the argument may, we hope, produce a certain cumulative effect.

At any rate, whatever distinctiveness there may be or may not be in this presentation of the argument, we do not think that the argument has been successfully answered. A careful literary criticism does, we think, in an extraordinarily decisive way, show that the belief in the virgin birth is an integral part of the Palestinian narrative underlying Lk. i.5-ii.52; and this fact has an important bearing upon the ultimate historical question as to the origin of the belief.

Our argument at this point has, indeed, been subjected to an able and extended criticism by Ferd. Kattenbusch, in an article entitled “Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu als Haggada der Urchristologie (Zu J. Gr. Machen, The virgin birth of Christ)”, in Theologische Studien und Krittken, cii, 1930, pp. 454-474. The distinguished church historian, after certain bibliographical sug: gestions which we have found very useful in the preparation of the present edition, and after an exceedingly sympathetic and generous treatment of the book as a whole (despite disagreement with its main thesis), has here given renewed expression to essentially the same view as that which he adumbrated in 1900 in his comprehensive monograph on the Apostles’ Creed. Two stages, he still maintains, are to be distinguished in the formation of the Lucan birth narrative. In the former stage, there was still no thought of a birth without human father, but the Spirit of God was regarded merely as connected with the very being of Jesus the Messiah in a peculiarly intimate way that could not be predicated of the Spirit’s connection with any prophet. In the later stage, which appears with clearness only in the words, “seeing I know not a man,” in Lk. i.34b, there was at least a suggestion of the virgin birth.

In reply to this article, the reader may still be referred to pp. 156-160, 317-319, below. Some parts of these pages would no doubt have to be re-written if the later rather than the earlier presentation of Dr. Kattenbusch’s hypothesis were in view. For example, what is said on p. 318 regarding the doctrine of the preéxistence of Jesus does not apply to the recent article; and it should be observed also that Dr. Kattenbusch now suggests that in the formation of the idea of the virgin birth pagan stories of supernatural births, in addition to Is. viit4, may have had a part, though only in providing a stimulus by way of contrast and not in providing anything like genuine models for the

Christian story. But, in the first place, the earlier form of the hypothesis is still interesting, both in itself and because of its effects upon subsequent criticism; and, in the second place, the main outlines of our objections to Dr. Kattenbusch’s view remain as they were before. Particularly unconvincing, we are compelled to think, is what he says (on pp. 464f.) regarding the relation between the account of the birth of John the Baptist and that of the birth of Jesus in Lk. i.5-ii.52. He thinks it significant that the relation is not represented, more clearly than it is, as a relation between a lesser wonder and a greater one. But, as a matter of fact, it is difficult to see how anything could be clearer than Lk. i.36. According to Dr. Kattenbusch’s theory, the angel ought to have been represented as saying to Mary: “And, behold, thy kinswoman Elisabeth, she also hath conceived a son who will be filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb; understand, therefore, that thy Son will be connected with the Spirit in an even more intimate way.” As a matter of fact, what the angel did say, according to the narrative, is: “And, behold, thy kinswoman Elisabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age.” Evidently the meaning is that the wonder in the case of Mary, though far greater, is analogous to the wonder in the case of Elisabeth in that it has to do with the physical fact of the conception of the child in the womb.

It is encouraging to observe that R. Bultmann (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2te Aufl, 1931, p. 322) expresses agreement with our insistence upon the intimate connection between Lk. i.34f. (including, of course, Lk. i.34b) and Lk. i.36f.; but his own hypothesis—that Lk. i.34-37 was composed by the author of the Gospel in imitation of Lk. i18-20—is faced by serious special objections (which are set forth on pp. 138, 148, below) in addition to the objections that apply equally to all forms of the interpolation hypothesis.

The book has been criticized by a number of writers (for example, in The Times Literary Supplement, London, for April 10, 1930) on the ground that it weakens its case by attempting to prove too much—by attempting to establish a thoroughgoing trustworthiness for the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, instead of admitting the presence of a “midrashic” element as does G. H. Box.

In reply to this criticism, the author desires to say how very highly he values the work of Canon Box (whose important book on the virgin birth has recently been supplemented, in a very interesting way, by two articles entitled “The Virgin Birth, A Survey of Some Recent Literature,” in Laudate, ix, 1931, pp. 77-88, 147-155); and he also desires to say how sharply he dis- tinguishes the view of this scholar, who accepts as historical the central miracle in the birth narratives and rejects details, from the views of those who accept only details and reject the central miracle. The author has taken occasion, moreover, to say (in British Weekly, for August 21, 1930), in reply to a very sympathetic review by H. R. Mackintosh (in the same journal, for July 17, 1930), that he does not adopt the apologetic principle of “all or nothing,” and that he rejoices in the large measure of agreement regarding the birth narratives that unites him with scholars like Canon Box and the late Bishop Gore, who reject many things in the Bible that he regards as true. Nevertheless, the author still believes that a thoroughgoing apologetic is the strongest apologetic in the end; and, in particular, he thinks that when the objections to the supernatural have once been overcome, there are removed with them, in a much more far-reaching way than is sometimes supposed, the objections to the birth narratives as a whole.

Finally, the author desires to say how greatly encouraged he has been by - the manner in which the book has been received by Roman Catholic scholars —for example, by the learned Abbot of Downside, Dom Chapman (in The Dublin Review, xcv, 1931, pp. 150-153), to whom students of the New Testament and of patristics have long been deeply indebted. The author is not, indeed, inclined to accept the dictum of John Herman Randall and John Herman Randall, Jr.. when, from the point of view of those opposed to all traditional Christianity, they say (Religion and the Modern World, 1929, p. 136): “Evangelical orthodoxy thrives on ignorance and is undermined by education; Catholic orthodoxy is based on conviction, and has an imposing educational system of its own.” He makes bold to think that the scholarly tradition of the Protestant Church is not altogether dead even in our day, and he looks for a glorious revival of it when the narrowness of our metallic age gives place to a new Renaissance. But if he disagrees with what these writers say about Protestantism, he agrees to the full with their high estimate of the Roman Catholic Church; and he rejoices greatly in the important contributions made by Roman Catholic scholars to the subject dealt with in the present book.

CCORDING to a universal belief of the historic Christian Church, Jesus of Nazareth was born without human father, being conceived by the

Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary. It is the purpose of the following discussion to investigate the origin of this belief. Whatever may be thought of the virgin birth itself, the belief of the Church in the virgin birth is a fact of history which no one denies. How is that fact to be explained?

Two explanations are possible.

In the first place, it may be held that the Church came to believe in the virgin birth for the simple reason that the virgin birth was a fact; the reason why the creed came to say that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary is that He was actually so conceived and so born.

In the second place, it may be held that the virgin birth was not a fact, but that the Church came to accept it as a fact through some sort of error. This second explanation, obviously, is capable of many subdivisions. If the idea of the virgin birth is not founded on fact, how did that idea originate? Whatever the final answer to this question may be, the question itself must certainly be raised by everyone who denies the historicity of the virgin birth. If the virgin birth of Christ was not a fact, the idea of the virgin birth certainly was; and as a fact it requires some explanation.

The former of the two hypotheses—the hypothesis that the belief in the virgin birth was founded upon fact—will be considered in Chapters I-XI; the latter, in Chapters XII-XIV.

The consideration of the former hypothesis consists essentially in an examination of the positive testimony to the virgin birth and of the objections that have been raised against it; the consideration of the latter hypothesis consists in an examination of the alternative theories that have been proposed to explain the origin of the idea of the virgin birth on the supposition that it was not founded upon fact.

chy HE examination of the testimony to the virgin birth will deal principally, of course, with the New Testament. But a consideration of the patristic evidence is not altogether without value. Can we be certain that the belief of the Church in the virgin birth came exclusively from the New Testament? May there not in the early period have been a tradition as to the birth of Jesus that was independent of Matthew and Luke? The question cannot be answered offhand. Certainly it is quite conceivable that belief in the virgin birth existed prior to the time when it was put into writing in our First and Third Gospels, and conceivably that oral tradition may still have made itself felt to some extent even after our Gospels appeared. So long as such a possibility exists, whether it may or may not be discovered finally to be in accordance with the facts, we shall not be treating our subject fairly unless we prefix to our consideration of the New Testament evidence some consideration of the other testimony of the early Church. Indeed, that testimony would be important even if it should prove to be altogether based upon the New Testament; for in that case it might at least serve to establish the early date and wide acceptance of the New Testament narratives and the absence of any alternative story of the birth of Jesus that could raise effective opposition to those narratives. From various points of view, therefore, it is important to investigate the attitude toward the virgin birth of Christ which was assumed by the Christian Church in the period immediately subsequent to the time when the Gospels were written.

In such an investigation, the natural starting-point may be found in the great Christian writers of the close of the second century, At that time, when extant Christian literature (outside of the New Testament) first becomes abundant, the virgin birth may easily be shown to have had as firm a place in the belief of the Church as it had at any subsequent time. The doctrine was indeed denied by isolated sects—and such denials, with their roots in the preceding decades, will be considered at some length in the discussion that follows—but

1 Much of the material of this chapter will be found in an article by the present writer, entitled “The Virgin Birth in the Second Century,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 529-580. Some of the detailed evidence given in that article is here omitted, and there is added some treatment of the recent literature.

those sects that denied the virgin birth were at any rate altogether excluded from the main body of the Church. Irenzus (who lived in his youth in Asia Minor and listened there to the teaching of the aged Polycarp), Clement of Alexandria in Egypt, and Tertullian in North Africa, all not merely attest their own belief in the virgin birth, but treat it as one of the essential facts about Christ which had a firm place in even the briefest summaries of the Christian faith,

There can be no doubt, then, that at the close of the second century the virgin birth of Christ was regarded as an absolutely essential part of Christian belief by the Christian Church in all parts of the known world. So much is admitted by everyone.

But far more than this must be admitted so soon as there is any closer examination of the facts.

In the first place, even if there were no earlier testimonies, the very fact that at the close of the second century there was such a remarkable consensus among all parts of the Church would show that the doctrine was no new thing, but must have originated long before. But as a matter of fact there are earlier testimonies of a very important kind.

Among these earlier testimonies should, no doubt, be reckoned the so-called “Apostles’ Creed.” ® The form of that ciced which we use today was produced in Gaul in the fifth or sixth century, but this Gallican form is based upon an old Roman baptismal confession, from which it differs for the most part only in minor details. The virgin birth appears as clearly in the older form of the creed as in the Gallican form.? The Roman confession, which was written originally in Greek, must be dated at least as early as A.D. 200, because it is the ancestor not only of our Gallican creed, but also of the many creeds used in various parts of the Western Church.* The use of the creed by Tertullian (North Africa) and Irenzus (Asia Minor and Gaul) pushes the date well back toward the middle of the second century. At that time, therefore, the virgin birth was part of the creed of the Roman Church; belief in it was solemnly confessed by every convert before baptism.

2 The following discussion of the Apostles’ Creed is for the most part not based upon independent investigation. All that is attempted is to point out the bearing which the commonly accepted conclusions in this field have upon the question of the virgin birth.

8 The older form seems to have had simply “born of the Holy Ghost and the virgin Mary” (yerrnevra ék mvebparos dylov xat Maplas rijs rapQévov) instead of ‘‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary.” Whether the oldest form of all was simply “born of [or “ through”] Mary the virgin” (yeryndérra éx (8:4) Maplas rfis wap0évov).is an interesting question, but of minor importance for the present discussion. McGifert (The Apostles’ Creed, 1902) favors this short form. But compare Kattenbusch, Das apostolische Symbolum, ii, 1900, pp. 619 f.

The importance of this fact should not be underestimated. In the first place, it is obvious that no new and strange doctrines could be incorporated in such a creed, Belief in the virgin birth was probably universal in the Roman Church and was probably required of every candidate for baptism long before it was given stereotyped expression in a definite baptismal confession. In the second place, the central position of the Roman Church makes it probable that what was regarded as essential Christian belief at Rome was also the belief of the Church at large. Finally, the character of the creed itself doubles the weight of the considerations just adduced. The old Roman creed is no elaborate compilation, but is very brief; the only facts about Jesus to which it gives a place are the virgin birth, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the session at the right hand of God, and the future judgment. Evidently such an enumeration was intended as the very minimum of Christian belief. The virgin birth might well have been accepted by a large portion of the Church without finding a place in such a creed. Its presence there shows that it was regarded as one of the essentials, like the death and the resurrection.

The third quarter of the second century is not the earliest but almost the latest date which has been suggested by modern scholars for the origin of the old Roman creed. The question of an earlier dating depends to a considerable extent upon the question whether the creed does or does not exhibit a polemic character. McGiffert detects an anti-Marcionitic purpose in the creed, and places the date between a.p. 150 and 175; but a non-polemic interpretation is favored by Harnack ® and Kattenbusch.® The creed, says Harnack, “originated in the missionary and catechetical function of the Church, and was at first purely a baptismal creed.”" Surely this latter view is more likely to be correct. A polemic anti-Gnostic purpose would hardly have failed to appear much more clearly if it had actually been present. There is no reason, therefore, to place the creed later than the emergence of the great Gnostic systems; so far as the internal evidence goes, it might be put at a very much earlier time.

Striking parallels with the creed can be detected in writers whose activity. lies wholly or partly in the former half of the second century, especially in Justin Martyr and in Ignatius. If such parallels are to be interpreted as indicating dependence upon the creed itself, then the creed must have been produced as early as a. 100. Moreover, the simplicity of form, and especially the brevity,

7“¥s ist aus der missionirenden und katechetischen Function der Kirche hervorgegangen und war urspriinglich lediglich Taufsymbol” (Joe. est.).

of the creed speak strongly for a high antiquity. Could a compiler of a. 150 have resisted the temptation of guarding the faith definitely against heresy? ®

This question of date is not so important as might at first sight be supposed. For even if the creed itself was not produced until a later time, the parallels in the early writers show that creed-like statementS were prevalent in their day and that these creed-like statements included the virgin birth. It is merely a question, therefore, whether in those early formulations we have actual literary dependence upon the completed Apostles’ Creed, or whether they represent rather the process by which the Apostles’ Creed finally was compiled. In either case, the virgin birth appears in a central place in the faith of the Church.

Certainly if the Apostles’ Creed was produced as late as a. 150, it is by no means the earliest second-century witness to the virgin birth.°

Justin Martyr, writing at about the middle of the century, regards the virgin birth as of fundamental importance, and defends it at length against Jewish and pagan objections. If he knew the Apostles’ Creed, his insistence upon the virgin birth requires no comment. But even if he did not know the creed in its trinitarian form, he bears testimony to the existence of a Christological summary in which the virgin birth had a place.° The virgin birth comes naturally into his mind when he thinks of the fundamental facts of the life of Christ; and in one passage it appears rather clearly as part of a regular formula of exorcism2! As indicating the common belief of the Church a formula of exorcism is perhaps only less valuable than a baptismal confession. The details which it contains are mentioned not because of any particular relevancy under the circumstances, but merely as essential elements of the Christian conception of Christ. They are necessary to define His “name.”

® Such internal evidence weighs very strongly with Kattenbusch, the author of the most elaborate modern monograph on the creed, who places the date at +100 (Das apostolische Symbolum, ii, 1900, p. 328). Zahn (Das apostolische Symbolum, 2te Aufl., 1893, p. 47) supposes that the baptismal confession attained essentially the form which it has in the old Roman symbol at some time between 70 and 120.

®° For second-century testimonies to the virgin birth, see especially Gore, Dissertations on Subjects Connected with the Incarnation, 1895, pp. 41 ff.; also Swete, The Apostles’ Creed, 18945 and compare Hoben, “The Virgin Birth,” in American Journal of Theology, vi, 1902, pp. 481 ff.

10 See passages cited by Harnack in Gebhardt-Harnack-Zahn, Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, editio altera, I, ii, 1878, pp. 128-132.

11 Dial., 85 (Goodspeed, Die dltesten Apologeten, 1914, p- 197): “For every demon that is exorcised by the name of this very One, son of God and firstborn of all creation, and born through a virgin and become a man subject to suffering, and crucified under Pontius Pilate by your people, and dead, and risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, is conquered and subdued.” Compare Otto’s note on this passage (in Corpus apologetarum Christianorum, editio tertia, ii,

Aristides, whose “Apology” *? may perhaps be dated at about a.p. 140,'° regarded the virgin birth as one of the fundamental facts of Christianity.’ Rendel Harris *® supposes that the virgin birth formed part of the symbolum fidei as Aristides knew it. At any rate, it is given a place by Aristides in a very brief Christological summary. It appears clearly as one of the essential facts.

» Ignatius, bishop of Syrian Antioch, who was martyred not later than a.p. 117, mentions the virgin birth clearly in several passages.’® It is perfectly evident from these passages that Ignatius regarded the virginity of Mary as one of the essential facts about Christ. It is one of the “mysteries to be shouted aloud,” one of the mysteries which were prepared by God in silence but now proclaimed to the ages by the wondrous star in the heavens. In one passage *” the virgin birth forms part of a summary of the chief facts about Christ which is of the same general character as the summary which we detected in Justin Martyr. Harnack is therefore justified in saying that “Ignatius has freely reproduced a ‘kerygma’ of Christ which seems, in essentials, to be of a fairly

%The Apology, except for a fragment, was unknown until 1889, when a Syriac translation was discovered by J. Rendel Harris. Soon after, J. Armitage Robinson discovered that a Greek text had been preserved within the romance of Barlaam and Josaphat. For the reconstruction of the Apology and comprehensive discussions of Aristides, see especially Harris and Robinson, “The Apology of Aristides,” second edition, in Texts and Studies, I, i, second edition, 1893; Seeberg, “ Die Apologie des Aristides,” in Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanoxs, v. Teil, 1893, pp. 159 ff; Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten, 1907, pp. I-96.

13 So Seeberg. The date cannot be fixed with certainty, but the work bears marks of antiquity.

4See Harris and Robinson, of. cit., 1893, pp. 29, 325 36, 110, and p. 3 of the appended Syriac text; Seeberg, op. cit., pp. 331 ff. The virgin birth is found in all three recensions—Armenian, Syriac and Greek. Without doubt it had a place in the original text.

1 Tgnatius, Eph., xviii.2—xix.1: “For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary, according to a dispensation, of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost; and He was born and was baptized that by His passion He might cleanse water. And hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing and likewise also the death of the Lord—three mysteries to be cried aloud—the which were wrought in the silence of God.” (‘0 yap Ocds Hudv "Incods & Xpiords éxvopophbn bird Maplas xar’ olxovoulav, €K omépuaTtos per Aaveld mvebuaros 68 dylou- 8s éyerv}On kal EBarrlotn a 7G wéber 7d Bdwp Kabaclon. Kat €dabev Tov &pxovra rod alGvos robrou %} mapbevla Maplas kal & roxerds abrijs, duolws kat 6 Odvaros Tod Kuplovtela prorhpia. Koavyiis, &riva ev houxla Geod érpaxOn). Smyrn., i.1, 2: “... fully persuaded as touching our Lord that He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine will and power, truly born of a virgin and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch....” (aerAnpogopnuévous els rv Ktpiov hudv &dnOas bvra ex yévous Aaveld kara odpxa, vidy Ocod Kard Oédnua Kal Shyauw, yeyervnuevov &AnOds &x mapSévov, BeBarric pever brd "Iwavvov Wa mrAnpwIf waca dixavoctvyn br’ abrod, &dnOds ert Wovrlov WiAdrov Kal ‘Hpwdov Terp&pxov Kalyrwuévov brep yudv év capkl......) In Eph. vii.2 also (kat &e Maplas xat & cod), and in Eph., xx (ro vig dvOpdrou Kat vl Ocod), Ignatius probably has the virgin birth definitely in mind. Text and translation in this note are derived from Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Revised Texts with Short Introductions and English Translations, 1907.

definite historical character and which contained, inter alia, the Virgin Birth, Pontius Pilate, and the dréBaver.” 18

The full importance of the testimony which Ignatius bears to the virgin birth can be appreciated only when the general purpose of his epistles is borne in mind.’® Ignatius is arguing against docetists; to refute them it was not necessary to prove the virgin birth of Christ, but only to prove His real birth. “Born of a woman” would have been sufficient; indeed it might seem to be a more emphatic contradiction of docetism than “born of a virgin.” Yet in Smyrn., it it is the latter phrase which Ignatius uses. The phrase seems to slip naturally from his pen.?° He does not appear to be under the slightest necessity of defending it; apparently the opponents themselves accepted the virgin birth as over against an ordinary birth, but regarded it, as they did every other event in the earthly life of Christ, as a mere semblance. Ignatius clearly gives the impression that in his day the virgin birth was far beyond the reach of controversy, both in Antioch and in Asia Minor. Other errors had to be combated, but not an error which would make Jesus the son of Joseph by ordinary generation.

The testimony of Ignatius, therefore, is unequivocal. At about a.p. 110 belief in the virgin birth was no new thing; it was not a thing that had to be established by argument, but had its roots deep in the life of the Church. The value of this testimony, moreover, is enormously enhanced by the position and character of the person by whom it is borne. Ignatius was no neophyte, but bishop of the church at Syrian Antioch, the mother church of Gentile Christianity. The memory of such a person would of course stretch back for many years; and when we find him attesting the virgin birth not as a novelty but altogether as a matter of course, as one of the accepted facts about Christ, it becomes evident ° that the belief in the virgin birth must have been prevalent long before the close of the first century.

The other “Apostolic Fathers” do not mention the virgin birth, but their silence is entirely without evidential value.** The only extensive book among this little group of writings is the Shepherd of Hermas, and that curious work

20 At other times, itis true, he does speak simply of the birth without mentioning the peculiar manner of it. See Magn., xi, Trall.,ix.1.

2 To call it “a uniform and notable silence’ (Hoben, “The Virgin Birth,” in American Journal of Theology, vi, 1902, P. 481) is misleading. The passages where Hoben supposes the virgin birth would have been mentioned if it had been accepted do not really lead to this con- scarcely mentions Christ at all. The other writings of the group are brief, and present no passages. where it can be said that the virgin birth would have had to be mentioned if the writers accepted it. It is quite preposterous to expect the doctrine to be mentioned inevitably in every brief epistle and every moral treatise. How often is it mentioned today in the sermons and in the devotional writings even of those who insist most strongly upon it? The early Christian writers were not conscious that posterity would be dependent upon a few brief writings of theirs for its entire knowledge of the second-century Church. They were not concerned, therefore, to give a complete summary of their views about Jesus, but addressed themselves to special needs. Ignatius mentioned the virgin birth because the reality of Jesus’ earthly life had been assailed. Against the docetic errorists, it was necessary to insist upon the birth of Jesus; and insistence upon the birth of Jesus meant insistence upon a virgin birth. Ignatius and his opponents were apparently not aware that any other kind of birth was being attributed to Jesus in the Church. The virgin birth of Christ, he says, is one of the great mysteries, and he insists upon the greatness of the mystery in order that his readers may see how important it is to hold, against the Docetists, that the mystery is a real thing and no mere semblance. The more marvellous the birth of Christ, the more important it becomes to vindicate its reality. Justin Martyr, on the other hand, mentioned the virgin birth because, in the first place, his plan was more comprehensive than that of the Apostolic Fathers. He was attempting a defence of Christianity as a whole, and therefore could not ignore such an essential element in Christian belief as the virgin birth of the Lord. In the second place, the virgin birth required special defence, because it was the object of special attack. But the attack came from outside the Church, The virgin birth was attacked by outsiders just because it was known as one of the characteristic Christian beliefs. The silence which early Christian writers preserve about the virgin birth when they are writing against schismatics and heretics, and Justin’s elaborate defence of it against professed unbelievers, are alike indications of the firm position which it held in the faith of the Church.”?

The preceding investigation has shown that a firm and well-formulated belief in the virgin birth extended back at least to the early years of the second century, and that the belief appears so much as a matter of course at that time that it could not possibly have been of recent origin.

The question arises, however, whether the testimony to the virgin birth was unanimous, even from the beginning of the second century on. May it not be

3 Swete (The Apostles’ Creed, 1894, pp. 46 f.) has rightly called attention to the testimony borne to the virgin birth even by heretics. Compare Bauer, Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, 1909, pp. 37 ff. Those heretics who denied the virgin birth will be discussed below.

balanced by counter testimony to an ordinary human birth? Obviously the investigator must institute a careful search for positive denials of the virgin birth in the early period of the Christian Church.

Such denials are not hard to find; and they may be divided into two classes: (1) denials by opponents of Christianity, and (2) denials by professing Christians.

The denials that belong to the former of these two classes?8__denials, that is, by opponents of Christianity—are not in themselves significant. No one could very well believe that Jesus came into the world by a stupendous miracle, and at the same time reject His lofty claims; opposition to Christianity as a whole necessarily involved opposition to the virgin birth. Denials by opponents of Christianity would, therefore, become significant only if the opponents should give evidence of possessing, positively, some alternative story of the birth of Jesus which might be regarded as historical as over against the New Testament story.

ue a matter of fact, this condition is not satisfied by any of the denials of which we have knowledge. We should certainly not expect it to be satisfied by pagan denials ** of Christianity; for it is hardly likely that at the time when Christianity had begun to claim the serious attention of the Greco-Roman world, the opponents would be able or willing to institute historical investigations in Palestine with regard to the birth of Jesus. Such a method of attack would be contrary to all that is known of the religious controversies of antiquity.

The case is a little different, however, with regard to the denials which proceeded from the Jews. From the very beginning, the Jews were in close contact with Jesus and with His followers, and the relation was for the most part one of active opposition. If the real facts of the birth of Jesus were concealed by the Christians, it is conceivable that the Jewish opponents could have handed down the true story. The Jewish view of the birth of Jesus must, therefore, be examined with some care.

The chief extant sources of information regarding early Jewish polemic against Christianity (in addition, of course, to the New Testament) are three in number: (1) Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, (2) Origen’s treatise against Celsus, (3) the Talmud. In the earliest of these sources, Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, which was written about the middle of the second century, the Jew, Trypho, is not represented as adducing any concrete facts in opposition to the Christian story. The inconsistency of the virgin birth with the common

Jewish Messianic hopes is emphasized,”* exception is taken to the Septuagint rendering at Isa. vii.14,”° a discrediting similarity of the virgins birth to heathen myths such as the myth of the birth of Perseus from Danaé”’ is noticed, positive evidence against a virgin birth of the Messiah is adduced from the Old Testament.* But there is no alternative Jewish story of the actual circumstances of the birth of the man Jesus.”

Origen’s treatise against Celsus®° supplies what is lacking in Justin. The Jew whose anti-Christian polemic Celsus is repeating does not content himself with ordinary objections to the virgin birth or mere ridicule of it,** but seeks also to substitute for it an account of the true course of events, which Jesus Himself is said to have concealed by the miraculous story. Jesus, according to this Jewish polemic, was really the fruit of an adulterous union of Mary with a certain soldier whose name was Pantheras, and on account of her adultery His mother had been cast out of her home by her husband, the carpenter. Similar stories appear in the Talmud (but with wide divergences so far as names and circumstances are concerned), and reach their climax in the medizval Tol’doth Jéshd. The same slander is also possibly alluded to by Tertullian.2?

The Jewish polemic used by Celsus can hardly be put much later than the middle of the second century, and although the parts of the Talmud where the stories about Jesus occur are late, they are based upon earlier tradition. Furthermore, traces of this kind of Jewish polemic against the virgin birth have been discovered by some scholars in the Protevangelium of James,®** and even in

20 It has been suggested that there is an allusion to such an alternative story (which would resemble the one that will presently be examined) in Dial., 23. There Justin calls Jesus, according to the manuscript reading, rév xard riv Bovdjvy rod beod Sixa duaptlas rijs dad yevous Tod ABpadp wapbévov yevryndivra vidv beod ’Incody Xpiordv. If Slxa duaprias is to be read, there may perhaps be an allusion to a story of a birth of Jesus out of wedlock; in saying that Jesus was born “apart from sin,” Justin may perhaps be opposing that Jewish slander. But such an interpretation is very uncertain. Compare Otto’s note. Goodspeed reads 6:4 Maplas instead of dixa duaprtlas.

80 This work was itself written in the third century, but the work of Celsus against which it is directed dates from the latter part of the second century. That work of Celsus, though it was written by a pagan philosopher, seems to make use of the current Jewish polemic against Christianity, in which we are now Interested.

33, Meyer, in Hennecke, Handbuch 7 den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, 1904, pp. 99 f. There seems to be no necessity for supposing, as Meyer does, that the Protevangelium is directed also against a Jewish Christian (as distinguished from Jewish) belief in the birth of Jesus from Joseph and Mary.

the canonical Gospel of Matthew.* But however early the story of the adultery of Mary may be, it is now agreed by all serious historians that far from representing any independent tradition, it is based merely (by way of polemic) upon the Christian story of the virgin birth.> Hence the early Jewish slander is simply one testimony more, and that not an unimportant one, to the general belief of early Christianity in the virgin birth, and to the absence of any positive historical tradition that could contradict it. When the Jews set out to attack Christianity, it was necessary for them to attack the virgin birth, because that was an essential part of Christian belief; but what they put in opposition to it was not independent historical tradition, but either the obvious conjecture that Jesus was physically the son of His reputed father, Joseph, or else the utterly unbelievable slanderous story which has just been set forth.

Accordingly, the early denials of the virgin birth by opponents of Christianity have no weight whatever against the historicity of the event. The oppohents presuppose the Christian doctrine, and have no historical tradition of their own to substitute for it. The mere fact of their opposition is of no importance whatever, for it is only what was to be expected. Unless they were to become Christians, they could hardly accept the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

At first sight, however, it may not seem quite so easy to account for the other class of denials of the virgin birth—denials, namely, on the part of professing Christians. What except true historical tradition could lead any Christian to deny the miraculous conception of the Lord, provided he had once become acquainted with it? It becomes evident at once that Christian denials of the virgin birth demand very careful attention.*®

When the virgin birth was denied, two possibilities were left open. If Jesus

% For example, by Zahn and by A. Meyer (op. cit., p. 49). For an exposition and criticism of the view of Zahn, see below, pp. 230 f.

85 The story of the illegitimate birth of Jesus was at least not excluded by Bahrdt (Briefe ber die Bibel im Volkston, 1782, i, pp. 130 ff.) and was expanded into an elaborate narrative by Venturini, with detailed rationalizing not only of the canonical narratives, but also of the Protevangelium of James (Venturini, Naturliche Geschichte des *rossen Propheten von Nazareth, ate Aufl., 1806). According to Venturini, the true father of Jesus was connected with the Essenes; and afterwards Jesus Himself became an Essene. Venturini’s romance was the source of the anonymous work, Historische Enthiullungen tiber die wirklichen Ereignisse der Geburt und Jugend Jesu (of which the second edition appeared at Braunschweig in 1849), which purported to be taken from an ancient manuscript! In more recent years, the biologist Haeckel has given credence to the Pandera story (Weltrathsel, Neue Aufl., 1899, pp. 377-3803 English translation, The Riddle of the Universe, 1901, pp. 328-330), but of course has not been followed by any serious historical student, Compare the refutations of Haeckel by Loofs, in Christliche Welt, xiii, 1899, columns 1069 f., and Hilgenfeld, in Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, xliii, 1900, pp. 271-277.

86 The invaluable work of Bauer (Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, 1909), which has already been cited a number of times, has been used very freely for the discussion that follows. Bauer (whose view about the fact of the virgin birth is, it is true, the opposite of our own) has collected the materials for investigation of this part of the subject with unparalleled fullness.

was not born of a virgin, He may have been begotten by Joseph, or else He may never have been born at all. Those who held the latter view *” are of little importance for the present investigation, for their denial of the virgin birth evidently proceeded not from historical tradition, but from philosophical theory. To them, any birth, even a birth from a virgin, seemed to bring Christ into too intimate relation to the world.®® If the story of the virgin birth is mythical, then Marcion’s denial is not a refutation of the myth, but (if anything) a further development of it.*°

Carpocrates and Cerinthus, who are included in Irenzus’ account of early heretics, regarded Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary. They differ from Marcion, therefore, in that what they substitute for the virgin birth is of itself easily believable. Hence their denial of the virgin birth, though it may turn out to be the product of philosophical speculation, may also turn out to be derived from historical tradition. The question cannot be quite so easily decided as in the case of Marcion.

Carpocrates *° was a Gnostic thinker of the former half of the second century. The world he held to have been created by angels far inferior to the supreme Father. Jesus, he supposed, differed from other men only in greater strength of soul, which enabled Him to remember what He had seen in the presence of the supreme God. God sent a power upon Him, in order that He might escape from the creators of the world. Every soul that will imitate Jesus may accomplish as much as He. In order to escape further incarnations, men should strive to have experience of all kinds of actions. All morality consists in faith and love; everything else is good or bad only in human opinion, not in reality.

It will be seen at once how very slight is the connection of such a system with Christianity. It is not surprising that followers of Carpocrates at Rome placed representations of Jesus by the side of those of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, very much after the manner followed at a later time by the Emperor Alexander Severus.*?

Obviously the author of such a system would not require any historical evidence to induce him to deny the virgin birth, even if it were a universally

#9 If, as was formerly supposed by some scholars, Marcion’s Gospel, which contained no account of the birth of Jesus, represented the original form of the Gospel of Luke, of which our Third Gospel is an expansion, then Marcion could not be dismissed so readily. But that hypothesis has now generally been abandoned. It is now admitted that Marcion’s Gospel is an abridgment of our Gospel of Luke.

accepted doctrine among the Christians of his day. For it was essential to his system that Jesus should start on an equality with other men, except for a greater freedom of soul. Only so could imitation of Him on the part of other men insure a success equal to His. If Jesus was born of a virgin, then a fundamental difference of nature, as well as of character, between Him and other men would have to be assumed; and His followers could have no assurance that it was not that different nature, unattainable to others, which procured Him His victory over the powers of the world. Of course, it may be held by some modern men that Carpocrates was quite correct in regarding Christianity as consisting simply in imitation of Jesus. But even then the whole character of his system, which is suffused with ideas of pagan philosophy, is hopelessly opposed to the view that such a correct interpretation of Christianity was anything more than a lucky guess. He is a bold historian who would trace the line of true primitive Christian tradition through Carpocrates rather than through Ignatius or Justin. As a matter of fact, Carpocrates cannot be regarded as a “Christian” except in a very loose sense of the word. His followers were only following out the teachings of their master when they claimed to be equal _ to Jesus or even stronger than He.*? Carpocrates’ denial of the virgin birth is perhaps not so very much more significant than that of Celsus.

Cerinthus is discussed by Irenzus** immediately after the discussion of Carpocrates. That his life must have fallen at a very early time is indicated by the familiar tradition of his encounter with the Apostle John in the bath-house at Ephesus. Like Carpocrates, he was a Gnostic, and like Carpocrates he regarded Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary. But he supposed that after the baptism the Christ descended upon the man Jesus and enabled Him to proclaim the unknown Father and to work miracles, only to leave Him again before the crucifixion. It has been widely held by modern scholars that the view which dated the Messiahship and divine sonship of Jesus from the coming of the Spirit at the baptism represented an intermediate stage between the historical, purely humanitarian view of Jesus and the fully developed doctrine of the virgin birth, which extended the divine sonship back to the very beginning of Jesus’ earthly life. If such was the development, Cerinthus may seem to be a witness to that intermediate view which had not yet relinquished the purely human birth of Jesus.**

Another explanation, however, will account at least equally well for the

“Compare Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest, 2te Aufl., 1911, pp. 122-131. Usener places the Christology of Cerinthus between that of Carpocrates and the later doctrine of the Church as it appears in the doctrine of the virgin birth.

absence of the virgin birth in the teaching of Cerinthus. It has just been observed that Cerinthus supposed the Christ to have departed from Jesus before the passion. Will it be supposed that such a view is more primitive than the view which held the Christ to have suffered on the cross in order that He might be raised up in glory? Is it not more likely that the teaching of Cerinthus on this point was due simply to a fear of bringing the Christ into too close relationship with the world? But if that is so, then the same dogmatic interest will account for Cerinthus’ rejection of the virgin birth, supposing the doctrine to have been generally accepted in the Church of his day. Upon docetic principles, it was impossible for the Christ to be born at all, even from a virgin. Therefore He must have been united with the man Jesus only subsequently. But if the man Jesus thus had no relation with the Christ until His baptism, then there was no reason why He should be supposed to have been born of a virgin. Indeed, there was a positive reason to the contrary. For birth from a virgin was felt to involve divine sonship. Hence, if Cerinthus had accepted the virgin birth he would have been obliged to accept such a real incarnation of the Son of God as his exemption of the Christ from the passion shows him to have been anxious most of all to avoid. The virgin birth, therefore, was thoroughly abhorrent to the principles of Cerinthus, and his denial of it may well have been due to philosophical prepossession rather than to historical tradition.

It may be objected that Cerinthus accepted the bodily resurrection of the man Jesus, even though he represented the Christ as having already departed from Jesus before the passion. Why should he have had any greater philosophical objection to the virgin birth of the man Jesus than he had to His resurrection? But to this objection there is a satisfactory reply. It is not true that the virgin birth was no more obviously inconsistent than was the resurrection with the dualistic principles of Cerinthus; for the virgin birth, at least toa man of Greek training, if not to a Jew, would seem to involve divine sonship far more clearly than would the resurrection. Mt. i18-25 and Lk. i.35 might well have seemed to Cerinthus—falsely, indeed, but in view of Cerinthus’ training quite naturally—to represent the supreme God as no more separate from the world than Zeus or the other divinities of Greek mythology; and if that representation were correct, then the whole dualistic system of Cerinthus would fall to the ground. We do not mean that in reading such a passage as Lk. i.35 Cerinthus would necessarily think of the divine begettings that are spoken of in Greek mythology—certainly such analogies are, as a matter of fact, exceed-

“8 Trenzus (Joc. cit.) says that Cerinthus denied the virgin birth because it seemed to him to be impossible (“impossibile enim hoc ei visum est”). Does this mean that the objections of Cerinthus were philosophical rather than historical?

ingly remote. But at any rate the passage does speak of the human child Jesus distinctly as Son of God; and to any such designation of a human child the entire system of this early Gnostic is irreconcilably opposed.*®

The denials of the virgin birth that have thus far been discussed *” are alike in that they each proceeded from a single individual. This circumstance has facilitated the psychological exhibition of the motives for such denials. The system of Marcion, for example, is a fairly definite thing, and it can easily be shown that the virgin birth was inconsistent with it. The case is different, however, with the class of denials of the virgin birth which must next be examined; for the authors of these denials can be grouped under no more specific heading than “Jewish Christians” or at the best “Ebionites.”

The Jewish Christian denial of the virgin birth appears for the first time, in our extant literature, in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho. The Jew Trypho, in that Dialogue, is represented as objecting to the preéxistence and virgin birth of Christ. These things, according to Trypho, being unlikely and incapable of proof, the whole Christian contention about Christ falls to the ground. In reply, Justin insists upon a certain division of the questions at issue. “Even if you deny the preéxistence and the virgin birth,” he says in effect, “you may still accept the Messiahship; indeed, there are certain men of your own race who hold exactly that intermediate view:”

“For indeed, my friends, there are some,” I said, “of your own race who confess that He is Christ but maintain that He was born a man from men; with whom I do not agree, nor would the majority of those who have come to the same way of thinking as I, since we have been commanded by Christ Himself to obey not human

46 Tt is no decisive objection to this argument that the Ophites of Irenzus (haer., I. xxx), though they held that the Christ descended upon Jesus at the baptism and departed from Him before the crucifixion, accepted the virgin birth (see Usener, op. cit., pp. 137-139). On the contrary, that fact merely shows that the compulsion exerted upon Gnostic sects by the Christian tradition of the virgin birth was in some cases strong enough to overcome even the strongest philosophical prepossessions. Usener himself says (0. cit., p. 138): “We observe how the virgin birth, after it had been received into the written Gospel, demanded recognition and forced even the most recalcitrant docetic systems to deal with it, and how the attempts at reconciliation were at first forced and awkward and then became more skillful.” The only question is whether the contradictions did not arise on account of Gnostic innovations rather than (as Usener thinks) on account of innovations in our Gospel narratives.

47Tt is perfectly possible that other Gnostics besides the disciples of Carpocrates and Cerinthus denied the virgin birth (see Bauer, op. cit., pp. 31 f.). With regard to the Gnostic Justin, the matter is perhaps not quite so clear as is sometimes assumed. It is not quite certain that this Justin regarded Jesus as begotten by Joseph, though he speaks of Him (Hippol., Philos. V. xxvi. 29, ed. Wendland, iii, 1916, p. 131) as son of Joseph and Mary. At any rate, any other Gnostics who may have denied the virgin birth are fully as unlikely as Carpocrates and Cerinthus to have been influenced in their denial by historical tradition.

teachings, but the things that were proclaimed through the blessed prophets and taught through Him.” 48

At the decisive point in this passage the manuscripts have until recently always been held to read “certain men of our race” instead of “certain men of your race”; and on that basis extensive use has been made of the passage in the attack on the early witnesses to the virgin birth. Justin Martyr, it has been insisted, recognizes men who deny the virgin birth as “men of our race”— that is, as Christians—hence he could not have regarded the virgin birth as one of the essential elements in Christian belief; the doctrine had, therefore, not yet become firmly established as part of the irreducible minimum of what a Christian must believe.

Other scholars, quite correctly, were unable to satisfy themselves with what in Justin would be an entirely unparalleled designation of the Christians as “men of our race”; and hence preferred, by a simple emendation of the text, to substitute “your race” for “our race.” *® “Your race” is in the Dialogue a _ common designation of the Jews, occurs in this immediate context, and is imperatively demanded by the thought. Never was an emendation more clearly required.

But then, after some scholars had based the most far-reaching arguments upon the reading “our race,” and other scholars had argued learnedly in favor of a conjectural emendation “your race,” Harnack conceived the idea of examining the basic manuscript for himself. And the result was that “your race” was found to have been the manuscript reading all along! *°

Accordingly, Justin does not say in this passage that those who denied the virgin birth are Christians. There is no contradiction, therefore, of what we have already shown to be the settled conviction of the same writer—namely,

48 Justin Martyr, dial., 48 (ed. Goodspeed, pp. 146 f.). For the translation some assistance has been received from Reith, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ii, 1867, pp. 148 f. The latter half of the sentence quoted is very obscure. For a different translation of it, see A. Lukyn Williams, Justin Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho, 1930, p. 96.

80 The primary manuscript of the Dialogue is a dated manuscript of the year 1364, which is in the Bibliothéque nationale at Paris, the only other extant manuscript being regarded as clearly secondary and without much value. Harnack’s discovery of the real reading of the Paris manuscript was reported in his Dogmengeschichte, 4te Aufl., i, 1909, p. 320. The present writer has examined the manuscript, and can report that the reading dyerépov is perfectly plain. There could never have been any doubt but that the first letter of the word is v and not ». The whole trouble was apparently caused by a mistake of the first publisher, Stephanus, which was copied by subsequent editors. Seldom has such a mistake been fraught with more disastrous consequences. Even after Harnack called attention to the error, we find such a scholar as James Moffatt (for example) drawing from the erroneous reading the conclusion that Justin recognizes as Christians those who reject the virgin birth (Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament,

3rd edition, 1918, printing of 1925, p. 10, footnote 2). Goodspeed has the correct reading in his edition of the Dialogue.

that the virgin birth was one of the fundamental things which every Christian apologist is called upon to defend. What he does say is merely that the Jew is illogical in rejecting the Messiahship of Jesus simply because he feels obliged to reject the preéxistence and the virgin birth. If the Jew could be induced to see that he was wrong at least about the Messiahship, then he might finally be convinced of his error about the virgin birth as well. Compared with full Christianity, and in itself, that mere recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus no doubt seemed to Justin entirely inadequate; but regarded simply and solely as a stepping-stone to higher things, it might serve Justin’s immediate purpose.

The information to be derived from the passage, therefore, is simply that at the time of Justin Martyr there were certain men of Jewish descent who, although they accepted Jesus as the Messiah, regarded Him as merely human and born in the ordinary human way." Certainly Justin does not say that all Jewish Christians denied the virgin birth; °? indeed, the indefinite form of expression seems to suggest the exact opposite.** In the passage °* just preceding the one here under discussion, Justin has been discussing the schismatic Jewish Christians at some length, and has divided them into two classes according _ to their position with regard to the necessity of Gentile Christian observance of the Mosaic law. Here, however, he refers to these believers in the Messiahship who denied the virgin birth as though they were entirely independent of the Jewish Christians whom he has just been discussing. If he had meant that all of the schismatic Jewish Christians, of both parties, rejected the virgin birth, surely he would have used some other expression than “certain men of your race” to designate them; he would naturally have spoken of them as “these men of your race, whom we have just been discussing,” or the like. The reader certainly receives the impression that the “certain men” of Chapter 48 are comparatively few in number, and that they were left entirely out of account in the general division of schismatic Jewish Christianity which was set up in Chapter 47. Apparently Justin has to inform the Jew, as a thing not known before, or at least not prominently known, that there were men among his own race who denied the virgin birth and yet accepted the Messiahship of Jesus. The Jew had apparently jumped to the conclusion that in attacking the virgin birth he was attacking not merely part but all of the Christian conception of Christ; it seems never to have occurred to him that a man might conceivably reject the virgin birth and yet accept His Messiahship.

8 GWpwrov...-.- && vO pmrwy yevdpevoy. ® Bauer (op. cit., p. 33) is entirely unwarranted in saying that the only Jewish Chnistians

This passage, therefore, far from indicating that Justin knew no Jewish Christians except those who denied the virgin birth, proves rather that at the time of Justin the Jewish Christian opponents of the virgin birth—if we may use the term “Christian” for a moment in a loose sense—were so insignificant as to be ignored even by their own countrymen. Even among schismatic Jewish Christians they were apparently quite insignificant. And it must always be remembered that schismatic Jewish Christians, even including both of the two great classes mentioned in Chapter 47 of the Dialogue with Trypho, did not by any means include all the Jewish Christians. Many men of Jewish race no doubt united themselves simply with the main body of the Church and so lost their separate identity altogether. But the point that we are now making is that even among those who did not thus lose their separate identity, even among those who were unorthodox or schismatic, it is by no means clear, to say the least, that any considerable number, at the time of Justin, denied the virgin birth.

The next attestation of a Jewish Christian denial of the virgin birth appears in Irenzus’ great work against heresies, which was written in the latter part of the second century. Here for the first time the term “Ebionites” occurs. The relevant paragraph is as follows: °°

Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical writings, they endeavour to expound them in a somewhat singular manner: they practise circumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God.

It is very difficult to determine from this tantalizingly brief passage what sort of sect the Ebionites were. Was their starting-point simply orthodox Pharisaic Judaism, or were they adherents of Gnostic views? In favor of the former alternative is to be placed their rejection of the Gnostic separation between a creator of the world on the one hand and a supreme God on the other, and

85 Origen (de princip., iv. 22) derives the name from a Hebrew word meaning “poor,” and interprets it of the spiritual poverty of the sect. Perhaps it was originally a term used among the Jews to designate Christians in general, or else it may have been applied in a good sense by the Ebionites to themselves. Tertullian and others supposed that Ebion was the name of the founder of the sect, but this hypothesis, despite the vigorous defense of it by Hilgenfeld (compare also Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 1898, p. 42, Anm. 2; English translation, The Words of Jesus, 1902, pp. $2 f., footnote 3), has generally been abandoned.

56 Trenzus, haer., I.xxvi. 2. The translation is that of Roberts and Rambaut in the Ante Nicene Christian Library, 1868.

also their strict adherence to the Mosaic law. But the matter is not so clear as is sometimes assumed. It is distinctly said that they held opinions with respect to the Lord “similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates.” ©" If this assertion is to be taken strictly, it might seem to involve the Ebionites in a Gnostic way of thinking; for Cerinthus, at least, held to the typically Gnostic separation between the man Jesus and the Christ who descended upon Him at the baptism. Carpocrates, it must be admitted, held a somewhat different view of the Lord; so that it might loox as though Irenzus’ ascription to the Ebionites of similarity to the views of Cerinthus and Carpocrates might refer only to the negative aspect of their views, especially to their rejection of the virgin birth. But even Carpocrates held that “a power descended upon him [the man Jesus] from the Father, that by means of it He might escape from the creators of the world.” °° This descent of a “power” upon Jesus may well have been essentially similar to Cerinthus’ descent of the “Christ” upon Him; so that, after all, if the Ebionites were, as Irenzus says, similar to Cerinthus and Carpocrates in their view of the Lord, they may have been representatives not of a conservative Pharisaic Judaism, but of a Gnosticizing tendency.®

Another possible indication of Gnostic views in these Ebionites is found in the assertion that they endeavor to expound the prophetical writings “in a somewhat singular manner.”® The curious expositions of Scripture here referred to may perhaps have involved Gnostic speculations. Schliemann * suggested a different interpretation. He held that what the passage really means is that the Ebionites sought to determine what things are prophetic. But this interpretation also may involve these Ebionites in affinity for Gnostic views; since it would enable us to discover a marked parallel between them and the Gnostic Ebionites of Epiphanius, who exercised criticism on the Old Testament.®? The question must be left unsettled. It is not clear whether the sect that Irenzus here mentions was or was not of a Gnostic character.

87On the removal of the “not,” which occurs in the Latin text before “similar,” see Harvey’s edition of Irenzus, i, 1857, pp. 212 f.

58 Jt is perhaps significant that Filastrius, in reproducing the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus (who is so largely dependent on Irenzus) brings the Ebionites into connection especially with Cerinthus rather than with Cerinthus and Carpocrates taken together. See Filastrius, c.ix (ed. Marx, 1898, p. 20, in the Vienna Corpus, vol. xxxvili): “Hebion discipulus eius Cerinthi, in multis ei similiter errans saluatorem nostrum hominem de Joseph natum carnaliter aestimabat, nihilque diuinitatis in eo fuisse docebat,”’ etc.

60 “Quae autem sunt prophetica, curiosius exponere nituntur.””

Dependent upon Irenzus is Hippolytus, whose description of the Ebionites is as follows: ©

But the Ebionzi admit that the cosmos came into being by the God who is; and concerning Christ they invent the same things as Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live according to Jewish customs, thinking that they will be justified by the Law and saying that Jesus was justified in practising the Law. Wherefore He was named by God Christ and Jesus, since none of them 64 has fulfilled the Law. For if any other had practised the commandments which are in the Law, he would be the Christ. And they say it is possible for them if they do likewise to become Christs; and that He was a man like unto all [men].

Here the well-known dependence of Hippolytus upon Irenzus appears in the first sentence. But in the rest of the passage the purely humanitarian way in which the Ebionites thought about Jesus is more clearly and fully expressed. Other men, Hippolytus says, could, according to the Ebionites, have been Christs, as Jesus was Christ, if like Him they should keep the law. There seems to be no hint here of Gnostic beliefs; though the notion that Jesus began on the same level with other men, so that they could emulate Him, is similar to views that Irenzus and Hippolytus attribute to Carpocrates. At any rate, the absence of any mention of distinctly Gnostic views in this passage is no clear proof that these Ebionites of Hippolytus were simple conservative or Pharisaic Jews. Other evidence may conceivably lead us to suspect that they were tinged with syncretistic if not Gnostic opinions. Certainly a view that made Jesus “Christ” only in a sense that might be possible for other men if only they should perfectly keep the law is far removed from any belief that could by any possibility be attributed to the primitive Palestinian Church.

When Tertullian ® says that “Ebion” declared an “angel” to have been in Christ, as also in Zechariah, it is possible to think of some sort of Gnosticizing view of a union of the man Jesus with a heavenly being; but the passage is obscure.

In the writings of Origen, who lived in the former half of the third century, the Ebionites appear divided clearly into two classes, of which one accepted and the other denied the virgin birth. The matter appears with special clearness in a passage where Origen, with his characteristic allegorical method of exegesis, makes the Gospel incident of the healing of the blind man (or the two blind

Wendland conjectures, “none of the others,” instead of “none of them.”

men) at Jericho refer to the ecclesiastical conditions of his own time.®* The blind beggar, Origen says, represents schismatic Jewish Christianity in its spiritual poverty. Jewish Christians show their poverty by the low view which they hold of the person of Christ; like the beggar, they address Jesus as “son of David” instead of by some higher title. They either suppose Him to have been born of Joseph and Mary, or else, admitting His birth from Mary and the divine Spirit, they deny His divinity.6’ The Gentile Christians rebuke the Jewish Christians for their low view of the person of Christ, as the crowd rebuked the beggar for his cry of “Son of David.” The beggar, however, cried out all the more, and Jesus honored his real though inadequate faith by commanding him to be brought near. Then the beggar bethought himself of a higher title than “Son of David” and said “Rabbouni,” “my Master.” Not till then did the Saviour grant the restoration of sight. That lower view of the person of Christ is, therefore, according to Origen, insufficient for salvation; but it may serve as a stepping-stone to a more adequate faith.®®

In this passage, apparently the only Jewish Christianity which Origen has in view is one which could be regarded by the crowds of Gentile Christians who were following after Jesus as an “Israelitish remnant sitting by the way.” Yet even among men who held such a low, humanitarian view of the person of Christ there were not wanting some who accepted the virgin birth.

In the fifth book of Origen’s treatise against Celsus,*° Origen answers the charge of Celsus that the Christians do not differ from the Jews as follows:

Suppose there are some who receive Jesus and on this ground boast that they are Christians, and yet wish to live according to the Jews’ law like the mass of the Jews (and these are the twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that He was begotten like other human beings) 79—what does this fact establish against those of the Church, whom Celsus has designated “those of the multitude”? 7

The name “Ebionites,” which is here applied to these heretical Jewish Christians, was alluded to in the passage just cited from the Commentary on Matthew. The incidental use of the phrase, “the twofold Ebionites,” "? seems to show that the division between those Ebionites who denied the virgin birth

87 grt yey Ex Maplas kal rod "Iwond olwuévwr abrov elvar, dré dé Ex Maplas per pdvns Kul rod Gelov wvebparos, ob pny Kal pera Tis mept aitov Beodoylas.

70 The translation of this parenthesis is that of Crombie, in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library.

1. 4rd rod wApOous. The translation of this phrase has been taken from Crombie, Joc. cit.

and those who accepted it was no mere unimportant or fluctuating one.”? The same division appears in Eusebius.’* In Epiphanius and Jerome, who lived in the latter part of the fourth century and in the beginning of the fifth, the terminology (at least) differs; for by these writers those who accepted the virgin birth are called “Nazarenes,” 75 while the term Ebionites is reserved for those who denied it.”°

Epiphanius’ terminology has been followed by some scholars (for example by Zahn), the term “Nazarenes” being used for the more orthodox and milder class of Ebionites, “Ebionites” for the less orthodox. Whatever terminology be adopted, it is at least fairly plain that from the time of Origen to the time of Epiphanius there were two parties among the schismatic Jewish Christians, one of which denied the virgin birth, while the other accepted it.” In the period before Origen, Irenzus and, following him, Hippolytus mention only Ebionites who reject the virgin birth; but their failure to mention the other division of the schismatic Jewish Christians does not prove that it did not exist at the time when they wrote. For, in the first place, the less pronouncedly heretical character of those Jewish Christians who accepted the virgin birth might well cause them to be omitted from a catalogue of heresies; 7° and, in

73 Harnack is, therefore, to say the least, venturing on doubtful ground when he says (Dogmengeschichte, ate Aufl., i, 1909, p. 323): “[There was]—syncretistic (Gnostic) Jewish Christians being left out of account—only one group of Jewish Christians (with various shadings), which named itself from the beginning both ‘Nazarenes’ and ‘Ebionites.’”” Compare Harnack, Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur,i, 1897, pp- 633 f.,Anm. 1;Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ti, 1890, p. 664, Anm. 2; McGiffert, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, on hist. eccl., III. xxvii, note 1.

76 Apparently Jerome does not say in so many words that the Ebionites denied the virgin birth. But he seems to contrast their view with the acceptance of the doctrine on the part of the Nazarenes. In one place, Epiphanius says that he does not know whether the Nazarenes regarded Jesus as a mere man or as begotten of the Holy Ghost and born of Mary (Epiphanius, haer., xxix. 7, ed. Holl, i, 1915, pp. 329 f.). But evidently that doubt is merely due to the vagueness of Epiphanius’ knowledge about this sect. The character of the sect is plainly indicated, so far as the belief in the virgin birth is concerned, by Jerome; and Epiphanius himself tells certain things about them which really imply their belief in the virgin birth.

17 It should be noted that Origen regards both classes of Ebionites as standing outside the limits of the Church: he blames Celsus for confusing these errorists with “the men of the Church” (rots &xd ris éxxAnolas). Compare in Lucam homilia, xvii (ed. Lommatzsch, v, 1835, pp. 148 f.), where, after remarking that all things which history narrates concerning the Saviour, including the virgin birth, are contradicted, Origen says that those who contradict are not those who believe in Christ.

78 Thus Eusebius (hist. eccl., VI. xvii) characterizes the Ebionites in general as those who deny the virgin birth, although in hist. eccl., III. xxvii, he has mentioned Ebionites who accept it. Origen also, in the passage just cited from the hom. in Luc., speaks of the Ebionites as those who deny the virgin birth, although he, too, as we have just shown, knew of Ebionites who accepted it. The passage is perhaps worthy of being quoted. “All things which the story about the Saviour narrates,” says Origen, “are spoken against. The virgin is a mother—this is a sign the second place, Irenzus and Hippolytus, since they lived in the West, can hardly be expected to give minute information about a Jewish Christianity that existed wholly or chiefly in the East.

Which of these two classes of Jewish Christians seems more likely to have preserved the correct tradition about the birth of Jesus? Unfortunately, the earliest detailed information, at least about the less heretical group, dates only from the latter half of the fourth century. It will be necessary to start from that point and work backwards.

In the latter half of the fourth century, the Ebionites, the less orthodox class of schismatic Jewish Christians, are described in some detail by Epiphanius.” His account is far from clear, and must be used with caution. Despite his faults, however, he has evidently preserved valuable information about the Ebionites which without him would have been lost.

According to Epiphanius, Ebion started from the sect of the Nazarenes, and began his special teaching after the destruction of Jerusalem, east of the Jordan, where the Nazarenes also had their seat. The Ebionites followed the Jewish law, and in washings even went beyond the Jews. In general the Ebionitic sect is divided into factions; a certain “Elxai” ®° introduced confusion. The Ebionites regard the sexual relation as impure,* and therefore do not partake of animal food.*? Jesus they hold to have been begotten of a human father; * the Christ came down upon Him in the form of a dove. The Christ was not that is spoken against. The Marcionites contradict this sign, and say that he was not born ofa woman at all. The Ebionites [or “Ebionites,” since Latin has no article] contradict the sign, saying that he was born of a man and a woman in like manner as we also are born.” This passage is instructive as showing the way in which facts important in one connection may be left out of sight in another. There was no designation other than “Ebionites” for those schismatic Jewish Christians who believed that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary; and here, in the broad contrast with the Marcionites who believed that Jesus was not born at all, the less characteristic body of Ebionites who accepted the virgin birth naturally do not come into Origen’s mind. Compare McGiffert, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, on Eusebius, hist. eccl., III. xxvii, note 5.

80 The Elkesaites have generally been regarded as Gnostic Jewish Christians. But according to Brandt (Elchasai, 1912) the sect. was at first not Christian at all, but simply Jewish. Elxai himself, Brandt believes, was a real individual, who in the days of Trajan produced, at least in substance, the book which was attributed to him. If the older view be held—that the Elkesaites were Christians—it is not quite impossible that the virgin birth was taught in the Elxai book (Hippol., Philos., IX. xiv.1; X. xxix.1, 2, ed. Wendland, ili, 1916, pp. 252, 284).

2 eudbxwvr. 8 tx omépuaros avbpés. Bauer (op. cit., p. 31) is apparently mistaken when he says that Epis phanius represents the Ebionites as divided on the question of the birth of Jesus.

begotten by God the Father, but was created like one of the archangels, though He was greater than they; Christ came to abolish sacrifices. The Ebionites repudiate the work of Paul, and reject some of the Old Testament prophets.

The Ebionites use exclusively a single Gospel, which Epiphanius describes as a mutilated Matthew. They themselves call it the Hebrew Gospel or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. One of the fragments which Epiphanius has preserved refers to the apostles in the first person; the apostles are therefore perhaps represented as the authors of the book. Hence the Gospel might well be called the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles; and so it has often been identified with the work which is mentioned under that title by Origen.™* The same fragment explains how the Gospel came to be called a Gospel of Matthew: Matthew is singled out by Jesus for direct address,*° and so could be regarded as the representative of the other apostles in the composition of the book.®¢

The fragments which have been preserved by Epiphanius are amply sufficient to indicate the character of the Gospel. It is a Greek compilation based on our canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke. That it is dependent on our Greek Gospels and was itself originally written in Greek is proved—among other indications—by the rather amusing substitution of the word “cake” for the word “locust” in the description of the food of John the Baptist; John the Baptist is said to have eaten, not locusts and wild honey, but “wild honey, whose taste was that of manna, as a cake with oil.” The change is due to the vegetarian principles of the author.*” But if some vegetable food was to be selected for John the Baptist, why were just cakes chosen? The reason is simply that the Greek word for “cake” happens to be very similar to the Greek word for “locust.” °° The same vegetarian principles of the author led him to change Lk. xxii.15, “With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you,” into, “Have I with desire desired to eat this passover in the form of meat with you?” *° The Ebionite opposition to sacrifices appears in the Gospel in. the

& See Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ii, 1890, pp. 728 ff. Schmidtke (“Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien,” in Texte und Unter suchungen, Xxxvii. I, I911, pp. 170 ff.) protests vigorously against the identification; but it seems to be generally maintained by those who have written on the subject even after Schmidtke’s book appeared.

My ErBuula emeOiunoa xpéas toiro 7d waoxa payelv pel’ dudv. The apposition of xpéas and rotro 76 wéoxa is difficult to translate into English.

saying attributed to Jesus: “I came to put an end to sacrifices; and unless ye cease sacrificing, wrath shall not cease from you.” °°

This Gospel of the Ebionites contained no account of the birth and infancy of Jesus; but incidentally it displays dependence upon the first chapter of Luke, and perhaps also upon the second chapter of Matthew." In the account of the baptism of Jesus, the three forms of the voice from heaven which were current in the early Church are simply placed side by side.

From the confused and contradictory assertions by Epiphanius, at least so much would seem to be clear—that the Ebionites as he describes them were not simply Pharisaic Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, but were strongly affected by peculiar (perhaps Gnostic or syncretistic) ideas. Their rejection of parts of the Old Testament, their views about sacrifice, and their interpretation of the event at the baptism would seem to place the matter beyond doubt.®

Hence the question arises whether the sect which is described by Epiphanius is or is not entirely distinct from all of the Ebionites mentioned by Jerome and by the earlier writers, Irenzus, Hippolytus, Origen, and Eusebius. The Ebionites of Jerome are not charged with any peculiarly Gnostic doctrines: so far as we could judge from what Jerome actually says about them, they might be held to differ from the Nazarenes merely by a stricter Judaism and by a lower view of the person of Christ. A similar absence of any definite mention of Gnostic doctrines appears in the descriptions of both of Eusebius’ two classes of Ebionites. And both of Origen’s two classes seem to be blamed for a grovelling, inadequate opinion rather than for unlawful speculations. In Irenzus, as we have already seen, the matter is not quite so clear; there may possibly be an

90 Schmidtke (0. cit., 1911, pp. 193 ff.) supposes that this citation was constructed by Epiphanius out of materials provided by the Clementine Journeys of Peter and that therefore it does not properly belong among the fragments of the Gospel of the Ebionites.

Tt is said of John the Baptist, “who was said to be of the race of Aaron the priest, and a child of Zacharias and Elisabeth.” Perhaps the historical error at the beginning of the Gospel: “Tt came to pass in the days of Herod the king of Judza, John came baptizing,” arose from a thoughtless repetition of the words “in the days of Herod the king” in Mt. ii.1. Since the author omitted the first two chapters of-Matthew, the “in those days” with which Matthew introduces his account of John the Baptist became meaningless, and hence, apparently, the author turned back to Mt. ii.1 for an explanation of the word “those,” in the phrase “those days,” without stopping to think that Mt. ii.1 really referred to a very much earlier time. See Nicholson, The Gospel According to the Hebrews, 1879, p. 15.

#3 “ Anda voice came out of heavensaying, ‘Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased’ {approximately Westcott and Hort’s text in Mark and Luke], and again, ‘I this day have begotten thee’ [Western text in Luke]. And immediately there shone around the place a great light. Which having seen (it says) John says to him, ‘Who art thou, Lord?’; and again a voice from heaven to him: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ [approximately Westcott and Hort’s text in Matthew].”:;

# Schmidtke (09. cit., 1911, pp. 175-242) attributes the apparently Gnostic character of the Ebionites of Epiphanius simply to the undue use which Epiphanius made of the Clementine Journeys of Peter as a source of information about the sect.

allusion to Gnostic doctrines in what he says about the Ebionites. And even in the case of Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, failure to mention Gnostic doctrines does not prove that those doctrines were not there.

At any rate, the evidence for the common view—that there was in addition to the Gnostic Ebionites of Epiphanius an entirely different sect of conservative, purely Pharisaic Ebionites existing at least from the second century on—is very far from amounting to positive proof. The other view, which would attribute to the Ebionites of Irenzus, and perhaps even to the deniers of the virgin birth who are mentioned by Justin Martyr, the germs of the peculiar doctrines described by Epiphanius, is also possible. It should be remembered that the extant descriptions of the Ebionites from the period before Epiphanius are very scanty, and that some of them come from men who had little opportunity for observation. To an outsider, the insistence of the Ebionites upon forms and ceremonies in general might be more noticeable than the exact difference of their ceremonies from those of the ordinary Jews; and their humanitarian views about Jesus might be more noticeable than their peculiar speculations about the Christ. Thus it is not quite impossible that all the Ebionites who denied the virgin birth were adherents of the Gnostic sect which is described, in its later manifestations, by Epiphanius. The Elxai book was probably produced at an early time; so that Gnostic Ebionism, even if based from the beginning upon that book,®* may have originated before the time of Justin Martyr.®

The Nazarenes, of the time of Epiphanius and Jerome, must next be considered. Epiphanius’ account of them is evidently not based upon personal observation; but Jerome, during his residence in the East, may well have come into close contact with them,®* and therefore the scattered remarks about them in his writings deserve careful attention.

“Tf on the other hand, Ebionism, though at first independent of Elxai, accepted the Elxal book later on, that fact would seem to indicate some original affinity for that book, so that even pre-Elkesaite Ebionism would perhaps not be altogether unlike the Ebionites of Epiphanius. The whole question is, however, very obscure.

%® Compare the combination of an insistence upon Jewish observances with docetism in the errorists of the Ignatian Epistles. See Magn., viii, with Lightfoot’s note (in The Apostolic Fathers, second edition, II, ii, 1889, pp. 124 f.). The elimination from the pages of history of all non-Gnostic Jewish Christianity that denied the virgin birth is apparently favored by Zahn (Das apostolische Symbolum, ate Aufl., 1893, p. 56). In opposition, see Harnack, Chronologie, i, 1897, p. 633, Anm. 1. For the view of Schmidtke, see below pp. 35-37. Whether Symmachus, who translated the Old Testament into Greek (perhaps about A.D. 200) was an Ebionite, is apparently not altogether certain. Schmidtke (op. cit., p. 236, Anm. 2) regards him simply as a Jew. Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, 4te Aufl., i, 1909, pp. 322, Anm. 2, 327, Anm. 1) assigns him to the Gnostic branch of the Ebionites.

96 Schmidtke (0. cit., pp. 246 ff.), itis true, denies with very considerable show of reason that Jerome had ever really come into contact with the Nazarenes at all.

According to Jerome, the Nazarenes, who are scattered throughout all the synagogues of the East,’’ continue the observance of the Jewish law; % they try to be both Jews and Christians, and therefore fail of being either; they seek to put new wine into old bottles.°® Yet they are to be estimated higher than the Ebionites, who merely pretend to be Christians.°° While the Ebionites repudiate Paul as being a transgressor of the law,’®’ the Nazarenes regard the preaching of Paul as a manifestation of the light that lightened the Gentiles.1° And they recognize the divine sonship and virgin birth of Jesus.?

The Nazarenes used only one Gospel, which was written in Aramaic.?4 A copy was preserved in the library at Czsarea, and Jerome was also permitted to copy the Gospel by the Nazarenes at Bercea in Syria. Indeed, he even says that he made both a Greek and a Latin translation of it. Despite the knowledge of its contents which he claims to possess and the frequent mention of it in his writings, his various designations of the Gospel have given a great deal of trouble. At times, he calls it the Gospel according to the Hebrews or the Gospel which is called that according to the Hebrews; at other times he speaks of it as though it were the Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew. Once he designates it as the Gospel which is called by many *°* the authentic Gospel of Matthew. The fullest single description of it is the following:

In the Gospel according to the Hebrews which is written in the Chaldzan and Syrian language but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes use until today, according to the apostles or, as very many think, according to Matthew, which also is kept in the Cesarean library.... 1°

104 “ Chaldaico quidem Syroque sermone, sed Hebraicis litteris’’ (adv.) Pelagianos, iii. 2, ed. Vall. et Maf-., ii, 1845, col. 570). For the materials for studying the Gospel according to the Hebrews, see especially Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ii, 1890, pp. 642-723. The materials have also been collected by Schmidtke and by others.

106 “Tn Evangelio iuxta Hebraeos, quod Chaldaico quidem Syroque sermone, sed Hebraicis litteris scriptum est, quo utuntur usque hodie Nazareni, secundum Apostolos, sive ut plerique autumant, iuxta Matthaeum, quod et in Caesariensi habetur bibliotheca...”” (adv. Pelagianos,

The following is a possible explanation of this vacillation in Jerome’s manner of speaking of the Gospel.’ Jerome, we may suppose, had found an Aramaic Gospel, in use among the Nazarenes, which in part was parallel to our Greek Matthew. According to an early and, widespread tradition, Matthew had written his Gospel originally in Aramaic (“Hebrew”). It was therefore natural at first sight for Jerome to suppose that the Nazarene Gospel was nothing less than the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew. Yet as a matter of fact—so our supposition runs—there were wide differences between that Nazarene Gospel and our Matthew; so that if that Gospel were the original Matthew, then our Gospel must be anything but a faithful translation. Jerome did not venture to draw this conclusion. Yet he could not bear to relinquish the appearance of being the only man in the Church who had in his hands the genuine Aramaic Matthew. And indeed in many cases the Greek Matthew could really be interpreted in a very plausible way by regarding the corresponding passages in the Nazarene Gospel as the original. Accordingly, where our Matthew and the Nazarene Gospel are parallel, Jerome treats the Nazarene Gospel as the original. Aramaic Matthew; but where the two Gospels differ decisively, he calls the Nazarene Gospel by some other name, such as “Gospel according to the Hebrews.”

We are far from regarding this hypothesis as being certainly correct. But at least it will explain the phenomena fairly well.

The Gospel according to the Hebrews is cited by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius, all of whom had first-hand acquaintance with its contents. It was also used by Hegesippus and perhaps even by Ignatius. Origen evidently distinguished it from that “Gospel of the Twelve Apostles” which we have already discussed. The latter Origen reckons among the apocryphal Gospels—it is one of the “attempts” *°* to which Luke alludes in his prologue, while the Gospel according to the Hebrews is apparently treated by Origen with respect,)"® though not as equal in authority to the four canonical Gospels. Formerly it was supposed that a connection of some kind existed between the two Jewish Christian Gospels—for instance, that the Ebionite Gospel was a later recension of the Nazarene Gospel, or that the two were different recensions of a common ancestor—but the investigations of Zahn, Handmann*° and Harnack have caused the two to be regarded as entirely separate works.

108 Ag a matter of fact, this derogatory interpretation of the word éxexelpnoay in Lk. i.1 is probably not correct.

The external evidence makes it natural to suppose that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was written not later than the early part of the second century; and Harnack favors even a first-century date."*1 With regard to the relation of the work to the canonical Gospels, widely different views have been held. F. C. Baur supposed that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was the starting-point for the whole development of the Gospel history; others have held it to be based on our canonical Gospels; others have held intermediate views of various kinds. Zahn supposes that it was developed from the original Aramaic Matthew, but that, except from the purely linguistic point of view, it reproduces the original far less faithfully than our Greek Matthew. Harnack would regard it as independent of the Greek Matthew—partly more original, partly less original. Handmann identifies it with the Logia (designating by that term one of the two supposed common sources of our Matthew and Luke).

The problems of the book cannot here be solved. But at least so much seems to be clear—despite some things that look like fantastic elaborations of the Gospel history,’” the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains tradition at least of great antiquity and is perhaps the most interesting of the noncanonical Gospels of which any considerable fragments have been preserved. It cannot, therefore, be a matter of complete indifference whether this Gospel did or did not contain an account of the virgin birth; and this question must now be briefly considered.*¥*

In the first place, the designation of the Gospel as the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome and Epiphanius is better explained if it contained something corresponding to Mt. i-ii. The omission of two chapters at the beginning would have a far greater effect in producing the impression of a different work than very much greater divergences in the middle.’** If the Gospel began with the baptism, like Mark, why should the report of it which came to Epiphanius have connected it so specifically with Matthew, and represented it, furthermore, as a “very complete” Matthew? It is true that Epiphanius himself did not understand wherein the completeness consisted—he is doubtful whether the Gospel contained the genealogy and does not know whether the readers of it accepted the virgin birth—but this very lack of understanding shows that

11 Harnack (of. cit., i, pp. 635 ff.) is probably right in his contention (against Zahn) that a Greek translation of the Gospel existed long before Jerome, though Jerome did not see it.

12 A primitive character has probably never been successfully vindicated for the remarkable fragment (the fourth in Zahn’s list), preserved both by Origen and by Jerome: “Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me [Jesus] by one of my hairs and bore me away into the great mountain Tabor.” rors ie;

3 For a fuller discussion, see ‘‘The Virgin Birth in the Second Century,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 562-570.

Epiphanius did not invent the designation “very complete”; it must have been part of the indefinite report which was his only source of information about the book. As for Jerome, in order to explain his half conviction that the Gospel was nothing less than the Aramaic Matthew, the presence of a beginning corresponding to Mt. i-ii is even more imperatively required,

This requirement would perhaps be partially satisfied if the Gospel, though omitting all mention of the virgin birth—having, that is, nothing corresponding to Mt. i.18-25—contained the genealogy of Mt. i1-16.1"° This hypothesis, however, is certainly incorrect. For if the Gospel contained the genealogy without alluding to the virgin birth, then the genealogy must have ended with some such sentence as “Joseph begat Jesus.” But if the Gospel contained such a sentence as that without correction or explanation, it certainly could not have been treated with favor by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, every one of whom had independent and first-hand acquaintance with its contents.'*® Even if Hilgenfeld is correct in supposing that those Jewish Christian readers of the Gospel who accepted the virgin birth could explain the words, “Joseph begat Jesus,” in harmony with the virgin birth,” certainly Origen and Eusebius (who had accepted the fourfold Gospel canon and were in no way prejudiced in favor of the Gospel according to the Hebrews) and the many Catholic Christians to whose opinion they seem to bear testimony could not and would not have done so. At the time of Eusebius no Catholic Christian would have placed a Gospel which closed the genealogy with “Joseph begat Jesus” in any

15 This view has been held by Hilgenfeld (“Das Evangelium der Hebrder,”’ in Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, vi, 1863, p. 353; Evangelium sec. Hebraeos, etc., 1884, pp. 15 ff.), and by Handmann (op. cit., 1888, pp. 123, 138). Aside from the considerations mentioned in the text, the presence of the genealogy in the Gospel according to the Hebrews is thought to be favored by the assertion of Epiphanius (haer., xxx, 14, ed. Holl, i, p. 351) that Cerinthus and Carpocrates used the genealogy of Matthew to prove that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary. But there is no real reason whatever for supposing that Cerinthus and Carpocrates used the Gospel according to the Hebrews. See Bauer, op. cit., pp. 33 f.; Zahn, of. cit., ii, pp. 730 f., Anm. 1; and especially Schmidtke, op. cit., pp. 209 ff.

17 Hilgenfeld, Evangelium sec. Hebracos, etc., 1884, p. 19: “qui partum virginis concedebant Matth. hebr. I, 16 ad arbitrium interpretati videntur esse.” The possibility of such an interpretation must certainly be conceded. For a Jew it was perfectly possible to understand the word “begat” in a putative rather than a physical sense. Indeed, we shall point out at a later stage of our discussion that even “if the Genealogy had ended with the uncompromising statement ‘and Joseph begat Jesus’ it would not prove that the Evangelist believed that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus” (Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe, ii, 1904, p. 261). See below, pp. 185 f. But it is another question whether Jewish Christians who accepted the virgin birth, and who knew of Gospels that contained an account of it, would have been satisfied permanently with a Gospel which said nothing about the birth of Jesus except “ Joseph begat Jesus.” The use of the Gospel according to the Hebrews by the Nazarenes, who accepted the virgin birth, does, therefore, remain a strong argument in favor of supposing that it contained an account of the virgin birth— or at least a strong argument against supposing that, though not containing an account of the virgin birth, it contained a genealogy.