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

ae important conclusions have been reached in the preceding chapter. The two New Testament accounts of the birth of Jesus, it has been shown, are on the one hand completely independent, but on the other hand not at all contradictory. So far as the relation between them could lead us to judge, they might be regarded as two independent and trustworthy accounts of the same event.

But now the question arises whether this favorable judgment is borne out by a separate examination of each of the two narratives. The relation - between them does not prevent us from regarding both as trustworthy; but how is it when they are considered (1) in themselves and (2) in relation to secular history and to the rest of the New Testament? These questions must now be considered in order. We shall in the present chapter consider the narratives in themselves. Is the content of them such that they can plausibly be regarded as trustworthy? Then we shall consider them in comparison with secular history and with the rest of the New Testament.

When we examine the narratives in themselves, one fact, of course, stares us in the face. It is that the content of the narratives is strikingly supernatural; the New Testament accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus are suffused with the miraculous.

This fact has often been held to settle the question at the start. If miracles have never happened and never can happen, or if, granting the abstract possibility of their happening, the presumption against their having happened in any particular case is so great that the evidence could never be sufficient to establish them, then of course a narrative that contains miracles can hardly be historical.

Conceivably, indeed, such a narrative might be historical in part; it might be held to reproduce the facts except where the miraculous intrudes, In that case, all that would be necessary in order to arrive at the historical content would be to subtract the miracles and nothing else. This method of treatment was applied to the infancy narratives by the rationalizing treatment of one hundred years ago. The infancy narratives, it was held, contain accounts of real events; only these events were not really supernatural: the narrators, or even the witnesses upon whose testimony the narratives are ultimately based, have put a false, supernaturalistic construction upon purely natural happenings. Thus, according to the rationalizing treatment of Paulus,’ Zacharias really went into the Temple at the hour of incense, as he is said to have done in the first chapter of Luke; while he was there, the glow of the fire or something of that sort seemed to him to take the form of an angel; when he came out, he did not use his voice, because, thinking that dumbness was the punishment that had been imposed upon him for his unbelief, he did not even try to speak.

The most formidable criticism of this whole way of treating the narratives came not, perhaps, from conservative or orthodox scholars, but from David Friedrich Strauss in his famous “Life of Jesus.”? The polemic of Strauss was turned not merely against the supernaturalistic view, that the narratives are historical as they stand, but also (and with equal sharpness) against the rationalizing method of Paulus and others. If, Strauss said in effect, the miracles are rejected, it is useless to seek a factual basis for the details of the narratives; for in the narratives as they stand the miracles are really central, and the other details are brought in merely for their sake. Rather, said Strauss, the narratives must be regarded as the embodiment in narrative form of certain fundamental ideas. In other words, these stories of the birth and infancy of Jesus are not misunderstood accounts of real happenings, but they are “myths.”

This “mythical” theory of Strauss has been dominant throughout the whole course of subsequent criticism, except so far, of course, as it has been rejected by the advocates of the supernaturalistic view. It was not, indeed, always applied, even with respect to the infancy narratives, so thoroughly as was done by Strauss himself; and here and there attempts were made® to rescue many details in the narratives as historical even though the central miracle was given up. Nevertheless, it did seem as though the rationalizing method of Paulus had succumbed permanently to Strauss’s vigorous attack. Instead of seeking any factual basis for the miracles narrated in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke, subsequent scholars applied themselves to the task of understanding historically the origin of the myths. Strauss, it was thought, had performed a necessary negative task: he had disposed of the view that the miracles really happened as they are said in the Gospels to have happened; and he had also shown how useless it is to look for a factual basis in the details of a narrative whose main point, for which the details exist, had already been rejected. He had, therefore, it was thought, been quite correct in regarding the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke as “myths’—that is, as the embodiment in historical form of certain religious ideas. But he had failed to show in sufficient detail just what these ideas were; he had failed to exhibit positively the full meaning of the myths. This positive task, therefore, it was held, needed to be undertaken by others.

The most impressive effort at such a positive understanding of the New Testament “myths”—the motives that led to their formation and their place in the history of thought—was the construction of F. C. Baur and his associates of the “Tiibingen school.” But the leaders of the Tubingen school for the most part devoted comparatively little attention to the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. In that field, the positive evaluation of the supposed myth was undertaken particularly by Ch. Hermann Weisse, in a book which in some respects deserves much more attention than it is receiving at the present time.‘ - Weisse observed that the virgin birth, far from being an excrescence in the infancy narrative of Luke, is at the very centre of the whole, as of course it is also in the first chapter of Matthew; in the story of the virgin birth, he supposed, we have a poetic expression of a great idea—the idea of the incarnation of the Divine. But this central idea had to build around it its own mythical cycle. The details of the infancy narratives are, therefore, not to be explained by any dependence upon facts, but by their relationship to the central idea.

Exception may well be taken to the way in which this relationship is set forth in detail: Weisse saw in the details of the infancy narratives a wealth of symbolism which certainly goes far beyond what later scholars have for the most part been willing to detect. A profound symbolism, for example, underlies, according to Weisse, the genealogy in Matthew, especially Mt. i.16: Judaism, as symbolized by Joseph, stands merely in the relation of stepfather to Christianity; it was not able actually to beget the divine Son, but was only able to foster the Son who had been immediately begotten by the Spirit. John the Baptist, Weisse says further, represents Jewish prophecy and the Jewish nation in general, which stand in connection, but also in contrast, with Christ and with Christianity; * Zacharias and Elisabeth are represented in the narrative as aged, because new ideas come up only when the ideas from which they immediately sprang are old and powerless; Zacharias was dumb, because the priestly wisdom of the Israelites was made dumb in the time just before the coming of Christ on account of their failure to believe in the promises of the Lord; their tongue was loosed when the ancient prophecies began to be fulfilled.’ In the story of the magi, Weisse found the crown of all these mythical representations: the spirit of old-world priests and poets, he said, is here represented as bringing gifts of symbolic poetry and art to the new religion; the magi failed to return to Herod, because the worldly power was deserted by the religious substance, by the priestly wisdom, of ancient heathenism®

In many of these details, Weisse has not been followed by more recent adherents of the mythical theory. But the mythical theory itself, as over against the rationalizing method of a Paulus or a Venturini,® has been dominant throughout the whole course of subsequent naturalistic criticism. It has seemed quite clear to most of those who deny the entrance of the supernatural in connection with the birth and infancy of our Lord that the supernatural elements are quite central in the narratives as we now have them, and that it is useless to seek for non-miraculous events as forming the basis upon which a false supernaturalistic construction was built up.

One objection to such a view would be found in an early date of the narratives; for the production of myths ordinarily requires a certain lapse of time. This objection was expressly urged by Paulus in 1828.1° We might, he said, be inclined to think that the Lucan infancy narrative is a mythical story; but such a view is excluded by the early date of the Third Gospel. The Book of Acts was written at the end of the two-year period in Rome with which the narrative of the book closes; and the “we” shows that Luke, the author, spent a considerable time in Palestine, where he would have had opportunity to gather material. Hence, Paulus concludes, the mythical interpretation must be given up; and the events narrated in the infancy section must be understood

7 Weisse, op. cit., pp. 190-196. In the discovery of such symbolism in the narrative, Weisse was anticipated to some extent by-the great exponent of allegorical exegesis in the third century— namely, by Origen. So, for example, Origen (hom. in Luc., v, ed. Lommatzsch, v, 1835, pp. 100-102) says that the silence of Zacharias is the silence of the prophets in the people of Israel (the word of prophecy having passed over to the Christians), and that the making of signs at the time of the circumcision of John the Baptist represents the ceremonies of the Jews for which they can give no reason. It is scarcely necessary to remark, however, that the view of Origen as to the way in which the symbolism is supposed to have entered into the narrative has no affinity with the mythical theory of Weisse.

10 Paulus, Das Leben Jesu, I.i, 1828, pp. 77 f. Compare also the very early dating advocated for the Gospel of Luke by Bahrdt, in his book, Briefe tiber die Bibel im Volkston (p. 49), which appeared anonymously in 1782. Bahrdt, like the later adherents of the rationalizing method, admitted as much of the narrative to be historical as was consistent with his rejection of the as actual, though non-miraculous, happenings upon which the observers in good faith put a supernaturalistic interpretation.

This objection to the mythical view was in the subsequent period overcome by the general denial of the Lucan authorship and early date of the Third Gospel. The Tiibingen school, in particular, adopted a very late dating for the Gospel of Luke, as also for others of the New Testament books. But it is very interesting to observe how the modern development of literary criticism has gradually led to a recession from this position, and even to a return, here and there at least, to a position regarding the date of the Third Gospel not unlike that of Paulus, A. von Harnack and C. C. Torrey, for example, have come to believe, as Paulus did one hundred years ago, that Luke-Acts was actually written by Luke, a companion of Paul, and that the second part, the Book of Acts, was written immediately after the point of time reached in the narrative itself. This conclusion about Luke-Acts, moreover, is important also for Matthew; for Harnack holds that the First Gospel was written in the same general period as the Gospel of Luke.

The question then arises what these scholars do with the objection which caused Paulus in his day to reject the mythical theory regarding the narratives and to have recourse to the rationalizing method which has made his name almost an object of opprobrium and ridicule ever since. Now certainly we are as far as possible from accusing such a scholar as Harnack of anything like the prosaic baldness which makes the works of Paulus seem such curious reading to men of the present day. Nevertheless, when we find Harnack suggesting—after some eighty years’ dominance of the mythical theory—that possibly the birth in Bethlehem and the journey to Egypt may be historical, that even the visit of the magi from the East is perfectly conceivable, and that possibly there may be a kernel of truth in the story of the massacre at Bethlehem,"* we cannot help having a feeling that naturalistic criticism is in danger of finding itself, like a man lost in a forest, back in the place where it started out. This feeling is deepened when we examine what Harnack says about the central feature of the Matthzan narrative, the virgin birth. He does not, indeed, abandon the mythical explanation of the story of the virgin birth, but holds to it in a form which will concern us at a later stage of our discussion. Nevertheless, his treatment does show, in some respects, a most interesting tendency to return to the method of Paulus and of the other rationalizers of one hundred years ago. The author of Mt. 1.18-25, Harnack says, admits, as over against the Jewish slander regarding an illegitimate birth of Jesus, that Jesus was born only a few months after Mary had gone to live in the house of Joseph. How did that admission come to be made? Conceivably it might have been made merely in the interests of the virgin birth; that is, the notion that Mt. 1.18-25 is polemic against Jewish attacks may be incorrect; and thus the “admission” would be no admission at all, but merely a thing that the writer insists upon to safeguard the truly miraculous character of the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb. But Harnack is inclined to be dissatisfied with this explanation. How could the brothers and younger relatives of Jesus have been expected to accept such a narrative if, as a matter of fact, they knew that Jesus had not been born until Mary had lived for a long time in Joseph’s house? Thus Harnack seems clearly to lean to the view that the conception took place by agency of Joseph before Mary had come to live in her husband’s house. There would be nothing immoral, he insists, in such intercourse of Joseph and Mary; for betrothal was then equivalent to marriage, and gave, in principle, to the man who had entered into the relationship a husband’s rights.

It may be doubted whether Harnack has quite succeeded in removing the opprobrium which would seem to rest upon Joseph and Mary through an acceptance of such a view. Indeed, he himself admits that a premature entrance into the marriage relationship—after betrothal, but before the reception of the bride into the husband’s house—though it was perfectly moral, did nevertheless expose the wife more readily to slander; for in such a case it might be said that she had had an adulterous union with another man. Why should Mary have been willing to expose herself to such slander? For her to have done so does seem, despite all the difference between the Hebrew notion and ours (and quite irrespective of the question how far Harnack’s view of the Hebrew notion is correct), to cast a certain stain upon her character.

Of course, the mere fact that Harnack’s suggestion is repugnant to Christian feeling will not be held by modern historians to prove that it is not true. And yet, on second thought, it does seem to be a sound historical instinct which leads the vast majority of modern scholars to shrink from any such thing. The way in which Jesus came forward in later life, and his entire character, are better explained, just on naturalistic principles, if his parents were far above any such unseemly conduct as that which Harnack is inclined to attribute to them.

At any rate, whatever may be thought of the probability of Harnack’s suggestion, the making of it involves a return to a rationalizing treatment of the narratives that was generally thought to be abandoned long ago. It may fairly be held that if David Friedrich Strauss could read Harnack’s latest book on the Lucan writings, he would think that he had lived in vain. The gradual “return to tradition” in the sphere of literary criticism has led to a method of treating the miracles which Strauss thought that he had demolished nearly one hundred years ago. And as over against Harnack we cannot help feeling that Strauss would be right. It does seem clear that the narratives of the birth and infancy must be accepted as they stand, including the miraculous element, or else must be relegated as a whole to the realm of myth. If the miracles are rejected—that is, if we reject the thing for which the narratives exist—it is useless to look for any basis of the miracle-stories in misunderstood natural events. The rationalizing treatment of the narratives, as Strauss and his successors have observed, is radically wrong.

Very different from such a rationalizing treatment is the treatment which has been applied to the narratives by such a scholar as G. H. Box.!? Like the rationalizers, Box believes that the narratives are partly historical and partly not. But the difference is that the rationalizers reject the central thing, the miracle of the virgin birth, and retain only things which to the narrator himself would have seemed quite subordinate, whereas Box retains the central thing and rejects only subordinate features. Our narratives of the birth and infancy of Jesus, Box believes, are midrashic in character—that is, they are built up by fanciful elaboration of a few central facts. But without those central facts, he thinks, they cannot be explained. The central facts in question, the facts which Box regards as the historical basis upon which the midrashic narratives have been built up, include the miracle of the virgin birth. Without that fact the narratives would be left hanging in the air; a midrashic elaboration presupposes something around which the elaboration shall grow.

This separation between fact and fancy is, we think, unnecessary, since we see no valid reason to reject the historicity of the narratives as they stand. But the theory of Box is at any rate not to be confused at all with the rationalizing treatment with which we have just been dealing. In order to understand the difference, it is only necessary to compare Box with Beyschlag, who (at a time long after the golden age of rationalism) carried out the rationalizing method in some detail. Beyschlag accepted the details of the narratives and rejected the main point; Box accepted the main point and rejected many details. That is the difference between the rationalizing treatment, on the one hand, and supernaturalism on the other—even an unduly concessive supernaturalism. As between the two, we certainly prefer the view of Box.

The alternative presented by Strauss in 1835, therefore, still, we think, holds good. Either accept the narratives as they stand, including their supernatural content; or else, without seeking a historical basis in detail, regard them

18 The Virgin Birth of Jesus, 1916.

as myths—that is, as the embodiment, in historical form, of certain fundamental religious ideas. We are not concerned here with the positive elaboration of the second of these two alternatives; we are not concerned with the question how the supposed myths came to be produced, or what are the particular ideas of which they are the embodiment. Those questions will be dealt with, to some extent at least, in the latter part of our discussion. Here we have been interested merely in showing that the supernatural element is quite at the centre of these narratives, and that if the supernatural element is rejected the direct historical value of the narratives is gone. If Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary by ordinary generation, then the New Testament account of His birth and infancy must be regarded, as Strauss regarded it, as a myth.

But are we, as a matter of fact, shut up to such a conclusion? This question, we think, should be answered in the negative; but certainly it should not be lightly answered. It is perfectly evident that an enormous weight of presumption rests against our holding that at any designated point in history there has been an intrusion, into the order of nature, of the creative power of God. And we are quite unable to comfort ourselves by any lower definition of “miracle” or any lower understanding of the virgin birth of Christ. Efforts have sometimes been made to exhibit the supernatural conception in Mary’s womb as standing in some sort of analogy with what occurs in the realm of nature; apologists for the virgin birth have sometimes pointed to the “parthenogenesis” which is said to occur among some of the lower forms of life. But such apologetic efforts really defeat their own purpose. If the virgin birth is reduced to the level of a biological triviality, it becomes quite unbelievable; the weight of presumption against it is too powerful to be overcome. Parthenogenesis certainly does not occur in the higher forms of life, and there is no conceivable reason why such a curious natural phenomenon should have appeared in the case of Jesus. But if the virgin birth represents the beginning | of a new era in the course of the universe, a true entrance of the creative power of God, in sharp distinction from the order of nature,’* then, we think, when it is taken in connection with the entire phenomenon of Jesus’ life and particularly in connection with the evidence of His resurrection, it is no longer a meaningless freak, but becomes an organic part of a mighty redeeming work of God, the reality of which is supported by a weight of evidence adequate even to overcome the initial presumption against it. As a natural phenomenon the

18 This correct definition of miracle was given, with specific reference to the virgin birth, by the ancient commentator, Chrysostom (hom. in Matt., iv, ed: Montfaucon, vil, 1836, p. 66), who says of that which was announced by the angel to Joseph that it was “above the laws of nature” (4vmrepov r&v Tis Picews vduwy). Our sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural is certainly no mere modern invention.

virgin birth is unbelievable; only as a miracle, only when its profound meaning is recognized, can it be accepted as a fact./*

We are well aware that such a definition of miracle, and such a belief in the actuality of miracle in this particular case, depend upon a certain definite type of philosophy. There is no greater mistake, we think, than to suppose that the Christian religion can get along with the most widely diverse types of philosophical theory. On the contrary, the Christian gospel has as its necessary presupposition that particular view of the world which is called, in the fullest sense, “theistic”; it presupposes not merely the existence of a personal Being, creator of all things that are, but also the existence of a real order of nature, an order of nature created, indeed, by God and forever dependent upon Him, yet at the same time possessed of a true regularity and unity of its own. Without the existence of a true order of nature, there can be no distinction between natural and supernatural; and if there be no distinction between natural and supernatural, then an event like the virgin birth loses all significance, and losing all significance ceases to be believable as a fact. We do not mean, indeed, that although supernatural events are caused by God, natural events are not caused by Him; but we do mean that He has seen fit to create a true order of nature and to make use of it in the accomplishment of certain of His purposes. Back of that order of nature there lies a creative act of God; and even after that act of creation, God has never abandoned His freedom in the presence of the things that He has made. So, at His own good time, there did enter, we think, into the course of this world a creative work for the redemption of sinful man, a creative work which was begun by the stupendous miracle of the virgin birth. It is only as such a stupendous miracle, only as a part of such a work of redemption, that the virgin birth of Christ can ever be accepted as a fact by reasonable men.

But when it is so accepted, it is accepted, we must insist, as a fact of history. We are often told, indeed, that if the virgin birth is accepted, it can only be accepted as a matter of “faith,” and that decision about it is beyond the range of historical science. But such a distinction between faith and history is, we think, very unfortunate. Underlying it, no doubt, there is a certain element of truth. It is certainly true that in order to believe in the virgin birth of Christ one needs to do more than merely examine the immediate documentary evidence; for one needs to take the documentary evidence in connection with a sound view of the world and with certain convictions as to

14 We agree thoroughly with J. J. van Oosterzee (Disputatio theologica de Jesu, ¢ virgine Maria nato, 1840, p. 13), when, in comment on Lactantius’ appeal in support of the virgin birth to the animals said by Virgil (Georgics, iii. 272-275) to conceive by wind and air, he says: ‘Quibus nisi meliora scripsisset, Lactantius non fuisset Lactantius.”

the facts of the human soul. But the sharp separation between the documentary evidence on the one hand and these presuppositions about God and the soul on the other is far from being truly scientific. A science of history that shall exist by itself, independent of presuppositions, is an abstraction to which no reality corresponds. As a matter of fact, scientific history as well as other branches of science rests upon presuppositions; only, the important thing is that the presuppositions shall be true instead of false.

So it is an unwarranted narrowing of the sphere of history when history is made to deal only with those events which stand within the order of nature, as distinguished from events that proceed from an exercise of the immediate, or creative, power of God. The true sphere of history is the establishment of all facts, whatever they are, that concern human life—the establishment of these facts and the exhibition of the relations between them. So if the virgin birth is a fact at all, by whatever means it may be established, it is a fact of history. No doubt we may sometimes find it convenient to isolate certain particular methods of research and follow those methods for the moment without using others. But ultimately, if we are to be truly scientific, there must be a real synthesis of truth; there can scarcely be a greater error than that of keeping different kinds of truth in separate water-tight compartments in the mind; there can scarcely be a greater error than that of regarding “religious truth,” for example, as in some way distinct in kind from “scientific truth.” On the contrary, all such distinctions are at best merely provisional and temporary; all truth, ultimately, is one. And we must continue to insist, even in the face of widespread opposition, that if the virgin birth is a fact at all, it belongs truly to the realm of history.

We are not afraid, therefore, of admitting the miraculous or supernatural character of the event narrated in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. There is a presumption, indeed, against the supernatural; but that presumption, in the case of Jesus, has, we think, been gloriously overcome.'®

But although the supernatural appears in these birth narratives, it does not appear in any excessive or unworthy form. In order to exhibit that fact it is necessary only to compare these narratives with those that appear in the apocryphal Gospels. When the child Jesus is represented, as in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, as striking His companions dead for slight offences, when He is represented as using His power in trivial or cruel fashion, we certainly find ourselves, as we read, in an entirely different atmosphere from that which prevails in the narratives of Matthew and Luke. Even in the Protevangelium of James, which is the earliest and by far the most interesting of these apocryphal Gospels of the infancy, we miss the wonderful sobriety and beauty of the canonical narratives. A certain impressiveness does indeed appear in this Gospel here and there; as when, for example, all nature and all of human life are represented as standing still at the moment of the birth of the holy child. But that representation, despite its grandeur, does involve a certain excessiveness of the supernatural which is very different from the restraint of the New Testament accounts. And in other particulars—for example, in the evidence of the midwife concerning the birth of our Lord—the Protevangelium enters on a path which the New Testament entirely avoids. Accdrding to the New Testament, the Jirth of Jesus, as distinguished from the conception in the womb, may be regarded as a purely natural event; in the Protevangelium we have a heaping up of the miraculous in a way that endangers the true humanity of our Lord.

Thus a comparison with the apocryphal Gospels serves to place in all the clearer light the sober and worthy form in which the supernatural appears in the narratives of Matthew and Luke. Here a wonderful simplicity prevails - throughout. A stupendous event is represented as taking place; the Saviour has entered into the world by a creative act of God. But that event takes place not with flare of trumpets or crash of forces, but in the quietness of God. Such was the divine condescension of Him who was to save His people from their sins.’

In two particulars, indeed, this sobriety has sometimes been thought to be deserted; modern readers have objected especially first to the angels and second to the star of the magi.

“When angels,” says Gressmann at the beginning of his book on the “Christmas Gospel,” “descend from heaven and appear to men, we have no historical narrative but a legend, whose historical background is painted over with the golden colors of fabulous imagination.” *7 This attitude unquestionably is shared by very many modern men. And yet we question very much whether it can stand the test of sober reflection. Why should it be thought a thing incredible that there should exist in the universe personal beings other than man?

Why should it be thought incredible that these beings should hold intercourse

16 There is wisdom in the words of the ancient preacher Chrysostom (hom. in Mait., viii, ed. Montfaucon, vii, 1836, pp. 143 f.): “If He had exhibited marvels in His earliest years, He would not have been thought to be a man. For this cause, neither was a temple [i.c., of His body?] simply formed (ob5 drAds vads harrera:); but there was conception and ‘the nine-months time, there were birth-pangs and child-bearing and suckling and quiet throughout all that time. So He awaited the age [or stature] suited to men, in order that by all means the mystery of the divine dispensation might be capable of being well received.” The signs that were done at the beginning, Chrysostom goes on to say, were for the sake of Joseph, etc., and of the Jews.

with men? Especially in an age when spiritualism is so much in vogue as it is at present, this skepticism about the angels may seem to be out of place. We do not, indeed, desire to underestimate the objection; and our reference to spiritualism is at best an argumentum ad hominem which may conceivably be turned back against us. We ourselves do not accept as actual the phenomena with which spiritualism deals; why then, it may be asked, should we believe that in the first century of our era angels descended from heaven and held converse with men?

The answer is that it is simply a question of the adequacy or inadequacy cf the evidence in either case. The strong point of spiritualism is that it appeals to what is certainly an abstract possibility—namely, the communion of men with spirits who are in some state of existence different from ours. But we do not think—from all that we can learn—that this abstract possibility has been converted into actuality in the phenomena to which spiritualists appeal. For one thing, a certain triviality seems to affect the entire complex of supposed facts, a triviality which seems somehow to be inconsistent with what might reasonably be expected in a spirit world. But it is not our purpose here to discuss spiritualism; indeed, that discussion would be one in which we are singularly ill qualified to engage. What we are interested in observing is that in the case of the New Testament accounts concerning angels, the evidence is not limited, as it is in the case of modern spiritualistic claims, to the sheer, unrelated testimony about these particular facts, but embraces confirmatory evidence of a very convincing kind. The confirmatory evidence is found in the connection between the appearances of angels and the whole redemptive work of God culminating in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The angels appear in the New Testament, not in disconnected or trivial fashion, but as accompanying a mighty, supernatural, redemptive work. When once that work is accepted as a fact, then the appearance of heavenly messengers will no longer give offence. If Jesus was no mere man but the eternal Son of God, incarnate for our redemption, then it is altogether fitting that His birth should have been heralded by a song of the heavenly host.

When the angelic appearances are once considered in this light—as accompaniments of the redeeming work of God—certain detailed objections will seem scarcely worthy of notice. Thus the earlier opponents of miracles used to pour out the vials of their ridicule upon the name “Gabriel,” which is applied in the Gospel of Luke to the angel of the annunciation. Is Hebrew, it was asked, the language of heaven; are the angels that stand around God’s throne called by Hebrew names? This particular objection, we think, will hardly appeal very strongly to the men of the present day. It will hardly be thought necessary for us to repeat the obvious remark that the name Gabriel (“man of God” or “hero of God”) is no mere appellation, but designates in human language the nature of the heavenly being.”*

All such objections, surely, are trivial. The real objection is that angels do not appear to us today; why, then, should we suppose that they appeared to the people of Palestine nineteen hundred years ago? But to that objection the answer has already been given. The angels do not appear today—that is true. But neither does the incarnate Son of God. Once accept the incarnation, in any true, unique sense, and the angels will altogether cease to be a hindrance to faith, The real question is whether Jesus Christ was just a man like the rest of men, or a heavenly Being, the eternal Son of God, come voluntarily to earth for our redemption. Once admit the absolute uniqueness of Jesus, admit not merely that He was One who has not as a matter of fact been surpassed, but that He was One who can never by any possibility be surpassed, and you have taken the reaily decisive step. But if you take that step, you should have no difficulty in accepting the exultant supernaturalism of the New Testament narratives as they stand.

Mediating views with regard to this matter are really in a condition of unstable equilibrium. The Ritschlians, for example, tried to maintain the absolute, eternally normative uniqueness of Jesus in the moral sphere without accepting the miracles in the external world. But by an inexorable logic they are pushed in one direction or the other. If they hold to Jesus’ moral uniqueness, they will finally have no difficulty with the accompaniments of that moral uniqueness in the external world. Or else, if they insist on giving up the accompaniments of the moral uniqueness, they will soon find that the moral uniqueness itself will have to go. This latter step is being taken by the radicals of the present day. And unquestionably the radicals have the logic of the situation on their side. It is impossible to bring the supernatural in by a back door as the Ritschlians did. If it is to be brought in at all, it demands the central place.

We are not, indeed, without sympathy for those who, unlike the Ritschlians, accept the central miracle of the virgin birth, and yet have difficulty with the angelic accompaniments. Their view may be a useful stepping-stone to higher things; it is not theoretically impossible. Conceivably the New Testament narratives about angels may record inner experiences, objectified, after the manner of those days, by those who passed through them. But for our part we

18So, for example, C. J. Riggenbach (Vorlesungen tiber das Leben des Herrn Jesu, 1858, p. 163) speaks of the angel as “a messenger from heaven whose nature is indicated in human language by the name ‘Gabriel,’ ‘hero of God.’”

must discard such mediating views. If once we accept the stupendous miracle of the incarnation, the angelic appearances seem to us to be wonderfully and beautifully in place.

The other point at which the particular form of the miraculous in the birth narratives has given rise to objection is found in the star of the magi. How could a star in the heavens possibly go before men as they walked upon the earth; how could it possibly serve as their guide to point out a particular house? At this point, it is said, we have not merely what is miraculous, but what cannot even be conceived.

With regard to this objection, the first question that arises is an exegetical one. Has the objector interpreted correctly the Matthzan narrative about the star? Does the narrative really mean that the star literally went before men as they walked upon the earth; does it really mean that it pointed out to them the house in which Mary and the child were found? The answer is by no means so certain as is sometimes assumed.

It is perfectly clear, at any rate, that if the star ever served directly as a guide from one point to another, it did not do so continuously. When the magi arrived at Jerusalem, they were obliged to inquire their way; evidently they had no direct supernatural guidance to lead them to Bethlehem. As they started out on the last stage of their journey, Old Testament prophecy and not the star served as their guide.

But, it may be said, why should they ever have come to Jerusalem in the first place, unless they had been directly guided by the star? What except a moving star could ever have led them away from their own country, and particularly just to the country of the Jews? This objection is by no means so formidable as it seems. As has often been pointed out, the heavens were divided by ancient astrology into regions corresponding to regions on the earth’s surface. A celestial phenomenon in one particular part of the heavens, therefore, might well have been connected by the magi with an earthly happening in the West. But even if that were so, how could they have come to think particularly of Judea? The answer can plausibly be found in the wide spread of the Messianic expectation. Whatever may be thought of the positive testimony with regard to that, whatever view may be held of the famous assertion of Suetonius and Tacitus that there was. throughout the East an expectation of world-rulers to come from Judza,?® it may be regarded as inher-

19 Suetonius, vit. Vesp., iv; Tacitus, hist. v. 13. Zahn (Das Evangelium des Matthaus, 1903, p. 91, footnote 80), for example, thinks that the value of this testimony is diminished by its evident dependence upon Josephus, de bell. Jud., VI. v. 45 III. vit. 9: but he also thinks that the expectation among Eastern astrologers of a world ruler to appear in the West is otherwise well ently very probable that Hebrew prophecy should have been widely known throughout many regions of the Eastern world. Ever since the time of the exile, there had been Jews in Babylonia; and it may well have been from Babylonia that the magi came. But in the possession of a Jewish population Babylonia was by no means unique; almost everywhere a Jewish dispersion was to be found. It should never be forgotten, moreover, that in the first century of our era and in the preceding century Judaism was an active missionary religion; through the agency of its synagogues it was making converts in many parts of the world. But its influence was by no means limited to the winning of proselytes in the full sense. Also very important was the effect which it had upon those who were by no means ready to take the decisive step of becoming Jews. The Book of Acts repeatedly mentions such persons—the “God-worshippers” or “God-fearers,” who attended the Jewish synagogues and accepted some features of the Jews’ religion without becoming circumcised or giving up their own national affiliations. But there is not the slightest reason to think that this Jewish influence was exerted always to the same degree or in the same way. An almost infinite variety, no doubt, characterized the effect which Judaism had upon the Gentile populations with which it came into contact in the Hellenistic age. So there is abundant room, in the life of that period, for Gentile astrologers who either directly, by a perusal of the Old Testament, or more probably indirectly, had heard of the Messianic hope, had on the basis of it come to expect the appearance of a world-ruler in Judza, and thus were able to interpret a celestial phenomenon, astrologically connected with the West, as announcing the birth of the promised “king of the Jews.”

So far, therefore, it is quite possible, in perfect loyalty to the meaning of the narrative, to regard the star of the magi as being merely a natural phenomenon, a conjunction or a comet or a new star, which the magi interpreted by the principles of their art as referring to the Messianic king. This interpretation is admirably in accord with the account of what happened in Jerusalem. The narrator seems at that point to have no thought that the star might have been a guide to the magi to direct them to the exact spot where the child was born. On the contrary, they had to inquire their way; and it was only on the basis of Messianic prophecy, interpreted by experts, that they started out for Bethlehem.

When they started out, they saw the star again; and, seeing it, they rejoiced. Then it “went before them until it came and stood over the place where the young child was.” ”° It is these words alone which really give any serious difficulty to the natural, as distinguished from the supernatural, way of interpreting what is said about the star. How could the star “go before” them, how could it stand over a particular place, if it was a natural phenomenon in the heavens? Do not these words clearly indicate that the narrator conceives of the star as a phenomenon near to the earth, and thus (to use our modern terminology) as clearly supernatural? 74

Plausible though such considerations are, we do not think that they are at all decisive. They fail to take account of the poetical, oriental way of describing events that we should describe in very different terms. Do Matthew’s words mean anything more than that when the magi started out by night upon their journey to Bethlehem they were cheered on their way by the star which shone down upon them from the heavens? Does the narrator intend to do more than picture for us that last stage of the long journey and describe for us the joy that filled the magi’s hearts? Or even if a fresh appearance of the star is meant, as distinguished from an appearance that had been taking place every night, might that not be explained by the reappearance of a phenomenon which had been invisible for some months? They had been in doubt whether they were really on the right way; the star had appeared in the East, but then had disappeared; and in Jerusalem they had been obliged in their perplexity to go about seeking advice. But now when they started out for Bethlehem, perhaps uncertain whether the information that had been given them was correct, the star which they had seen in the East was up there again in the heavens, lighting them on the way. It seemed to go before them while they journeyed, as celestial bodies do when one moves upon the earth; and at last, when they came to Bethlehem and had found by inquiry the house where there was a new-born babe, there stood the star in the heavens still, shining down upon them as they entered into the house.

No doubt, when we propose such an interpretation, we may be faced by a charge of inconsistency. We have been very severe, it may be said, upon the rationalizers, who regarded the narratives as historical but explained the

*1 Modern objections to the explanation of the star as a natural phenomenon were anticipated by Chrysostom (hom. in Matt., vi, ed. Montfaucon, vii, 1836, pp. 101-103). It was not an ordinary star, says Chrysostom, for the following reasons: (1) it moved from north to south, (2) it appeared in the daytime, overcoming the rays of the sun, (3) it appeared and disappeared (disappearing when the magi were in Jerusalem, appearing again when they needed it, and thus showing intelligence), (4) it must have come down low in order to indicate the place where the young child lay. Of these arguments, only the last is really worthy of consideration. With respect to it, we may remark that Chrysostom has a very extreme view of the nearness of the star to the ground; he supposes (of. cit., vii, ed. Montfaucon, vii, 1836, p. 127) that the star stood over the very head of the child. The second argument is based upon the assumption that the star appeared in the daytime, for which there is no evidence in the text.

miracles away; and now here we are ourselves proposing a natural interpretation which shall make the story of the magi more palatable to modern men!

In reply, we may say that we never denied the possibility of a wide range of figurative interpretation, especially in oriental books. What we objected to in Paulus and the rationalizers was something quite different. It was not by figurative interpretation that they endeavored to remove the supernatural from the New Testament books; on the contrary, so far as exegesis was concerned, they held a thoroughly supernaturalistic view. They held that the narrators for their part were quite convinced that the happenings were supernatural, but that this view which the narrators held was false. We, on the other hand, if we really decide to adopt the interpretation set forth above, are maintaining that the narrator himself intended to designate a star in the heavens rather than one that actually moved along with travellers upon the earth, and that if we incerpret his expressions in a literal sense we are simply failing to get his meaning. It is rather strange that we defenders of the Bible should often be designated as “literalists,” and still more strange that we should be said to ~ favor “literalistic interpretation.” As a matter of fact, in many cases it is those who deny the truthfulness of the Bible who are the real literalists; in many cases they insist upon a baldly literal interpretation which is really quite absurd. To indicate what we mean, it is only necessary to point to those popular opponents of Christianity who ridicule the representation of “the Lamb’s wife” in order to discredit the Book of Revelation. But we might also point, perhaps, to more academically respectable examples of what we mean. Thus when Old Testament scholars interpret such an utterance as “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” as indicating opposition on the writer’s part to the sacrificial system, we are bound to say that that seems to us to be an extreme literalism which is quite unjustified in the interpretation of an oriental book—and indeed for that matter in the interpretation of any book. The truth is that there can be no hard and fast rule for the decision between literal and figurative interpretation. What we must try to do in any individual case is to read the passage in question sympathetically, so as to enter into the mind of the writer. When we do so, we may perhaps be able to decide with perfect impartiality whether the passage was literally or figuratively meant.

So it is in the present case. We have suggested a figurative interpretation which would permit us to regard the star of the magi as a natural phenomenon. But we are not conscious, in doing so, of any apologetic bias. The reason why we are not conscious of any apologetic bias is that if the figurative interpretation should prove to be wrong and the literal interpretation right—that is, if the writer of the second chapter of Matthew regarded the “star,” not as a conjunction or the like, but as something so near to the earth that it could actually go along with an observer as he walked from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and could actually stand still over a particular house—we should still have no objection of principle against regarding the narrative as true. When once we have accepted the entrance of the supernatural in connection with the appearance of Jesus in this world, we are no longer interested in setting exact limits to the extent to which the supernatural is to be found. Of course it would be different if in any particular the supernatural element in the narrative appeared in a form that could be regarded as unworthy of God. But that would not be the case with the star, even if it was supernatural in the fullest sense. If a sound exegesis of the Gospel of Matthew should show that the Evangelist regarded the star as having literally gone before the magi as the pillar of fire went before the Israelites in the desert, we should have no objection of principle against accepting that as a fact. But, as it is, we think that the matter is in doubt. The figurative interpretation is, on the one hand, by no means certain; but on the other hand it cannot be called impossible. If, unlike ourselves, any modern readers hold that the historicity of the narrative can be maintained only if the figurative interpretation is right, and if (as we think they ought to do) they find independent reasons for maintaining the historicity of the narrative, then we think they are perfectly justified in adopting the figurative interpretation. For ourselves, we cannot find, on the basis of either interpretation, anything in the narrative that is unworthy of God.

A moral objection is, indeed, sometimes raised against the story of the magi. If, it is said, the magi were guided aright by astrological calculations, if their conception of the relation between the movements of the heavenly bodies and events upon the earth actually led them in this case to the feet of the new-born king, then the stamp of God’s approval would be put upon a harmful pseudo-science; the magi and those who came into contact with them would be confirmed in their superstition. Such confirmation of what is false, it is said, would be unworthy of the God of truth.

This objection has had a great vogue all through the course of modern naturalistic criticism. But we are unable to regard it as very serious. Who can say how far God could or could not stoop to human weakness in his treatment of the wise men from the East? In countless cases, as we know, error has become the stepping-stone to truth; even astrology, as has often been observed, was the ancestor of true astronomical science. No, we are unable to regard it as unworthy of God when these strangers were led by their searching of the heavens to bring their gifts to the infant Saviour. It was not astrology, moreover, which played the decisive part; what really led the magi to the feet of

Jesus was not astrological calculation, but the prophecies of God’s Word—the prophecies which spread abroad throughout the East the expectation of a Messianic king.”

We shall not pause here to examine the various hypotheses which have been proposed regarding the star. Many attempts have been made to identify it with some known phenomenon of the heavens, and thus to fix the year of Jesus’ birth. The most famous of such attempts was that of Kepler, who thought that a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of the Fish, which took place in the year 7 8.c., was the occasion of the magi’s journey.”* This hypothesis has recently been defended as altogether possible, with abundant references to astrological speculation, by the Roman Catholic scholar, Steinmetzer.** Certainly something is to be said for it; and the date which it fixes for Jesus’ birth is not at all impossible.

We do not at all unite in the scorn which some modern scholars have expressed for such attempts to identify the star of the magi. But certainty has at any rate not been attained by any one of them. And the present writer is quite without the expert knowledge which would be necessary in order that he might enter fruitfully into the discussion. Many views are possible with regard to this matter; but enough perhaps has been said to show that, whether the star be regarded as natural or as supernatural, there is no decisive reason why the appearance of it should not be regarded as historical.

Neither the miraculous character of the narratives in general, therefore, nor the account of the angels or the star in particular, is sufficient to cast discredit upon the New Testament accounts of the birth and infancy of our Lord. There is, indeed, a presumption against the supernatural; but that presumption has, in this case, we think, been overcome. The supernatural happenings recorded in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke would no doubt be unbelievable if they stood alone; but it is different when they are taken in con-

% With regard to the moral objection against the story of the magi, Chrysostom (hom. tn Maitt., vi, ed. Montfaucon, vii, 1836, pp. 103-107) is still worth reading. The purpose of the star, Chrysostom says, was that the Jews might be deprived of all excuse if they did not believe in Christ. They rejected great prophecies; the magi believed a lesser witness. God used the star, because He desired to use what the magi would heed. It was an act of extreme condescension (c¢65pa avyxaraBalywv). Compare, Chrysostom continues, Paul’s speech on Mars Hill. And compare the whole Jewish dispensation. The sacrifices, etc., originated in the dullness of the nations; but God used them, with changes, to lead up gradually to a higher religion. So God led the magi up from the star to an angel. [It must be admitted that here Chrysostom departs a little from what is surely given in the text.] Compare, also, Chrysostom says further, the way in which God answered the Philistine soothsayers about the Ark of the Covenant; and compare also other analogous acts of God. The knowledge was brought to the magi not only by the star, but also by God who moved their soul.

% See Box, art. “Star,” in Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ii, 1908, DOTS

™ Die Geschichte der Geburt und Kindheit Christi und thr Verhaltnis xur babylonischen Mythe, 1910, pp. 84-109.

nection with the entire New Testament representation of the person of the Lord.

But even if we have thus overcome the initial presumption against the supernatural, are there not independent objections against the historicity of these infancy narratives? Or do the narratives, irrespective of the supernatural, look as though they might be correct? Are they in accord with what might reasonably be expected? Is the information that they contain, even about what is not supernatural, of a kind that might have been founded in fact? Are the actions attributed to the characters in accordance with psychological probability?

These questions were partly answered when we considered, for example, the integrity of Lk. i-ii and the relation between that narrative and the narrative in the Gospel according to Matthew. But a few points still call for brief comment.

In the first place, what shall be thought of the genealogies? We have considered the relation between them, and have endeavored to show that they are not contradictory. But aside from the relation between them, are they inherently likely to be correct? Is it probable that genuine information should have been preserved about the lineage of Joseph, and that such information has actually been recorded in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke?

There is really no reason whatever for answering these questions in the negative. At first sight, indeed, it may perhaps seem strange that a person in such humble circumstances as was Joseph should have had preserved to him the record of his ancestors for many generations back. But such an objection ignores the remarkable tenacity of genealogical traditions in the East. Whatever may be thought of the assertion by Julius Africanus to the effect that Herod the Great had commanded the public genealogical records of the Jews to be destroyed, such a command would not affect private records.”* That there were genealogical records after the time of Herod is shown by the matter-ofcourse way in which Josephus speaks of his own ancestry.”* Certainly it is not at all antecedently improbable that a tradition of Davidic descent could have been preserved in the family of Joseph, and that such a tradition would be correct.”

There is nothing improbable, moreover, in the actual genealogies as they

26 Josephus, vita, i (ed. Niese, iv, 1890, pp. 321 f.). Josephus, it may be remarked in passing, appeals to public records in support of his genealogy, despite what Julius Africanus says about the destruction of such records by Herod. See also contr. Ap., i.7. Compare E. L. Curtis, art. “Genealogy,” in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, ii, 1906, p. 121.

stand in the Gospels. If, indeed, the genealogy in Matthew were intended as a complete record of actual physical descent, it would present serious difficulties; for the number of generations between the Exile and the time of Christ is much smaller than would be expected in view of the length of the time. But as a matter of fact that genealogy is not intended to be taken in any such way. In the genealogy in Luke, on the other hand, the number of generations is just about what might naturally be expected.

It has often been asked whether the genealogies existed separately before they were incorporated in the Gospels. And if they did exist separately, did they in their separate form contain any reference to the virgin birth or did they simply make Jesus the son of Joseph without hint of anything peculiar in that relationship? Did the Matthzan genealogy, for example, simply end with the words, “Joseph begat Jesus”?

Even if this question should be answered in the affirmative, we should not have any denial of the virgin birth; for, as has already been observed, the words, “Joseph begat Jesus,” could be understood in the same putative. or legal sense as that in which similar words are to be understood elsewhere in the genealogy. Moreover, even if the person who compiled this genealogy thought, when he included the words, “Joseph begat Jesus,” that Jesus was in a physical sense the son of Joseph, that fact would not militate against the fact of the virgin birth; for there certainly was a time—during the earthly ministry of Jesus—when the virgin birth, even if it was a fact, was unknown among Jesus’ disciples.

But we think that the question whether the genealogies existed in separate form prior to their incorporation in the Gospels is wrongly put when the separate genealogies are regarded as being necessarily genealogies of Jesus. Rather should it be said that the genealogies were genealogies of Joseph before they became genealogies of Jesus; they represented a family tradition which was added to from generation to generation.

A special question is raised by the mention of four women in the Matthzan genealogy; Thamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah. The view- has often been held that these women are mentioned by way of answer to a Jewish slander regarding Mary the mother of Jesus; 28 the Jews, it is said, had maintained, in caricature of the Christian story of the virgin birth, that Jesus was born out of wedlock; and now Matthew answers this slander by

28 This hypothesis was held so early as the middle of the eighteenth century, by Wettstein (Novum Testamentum Graecum, i, 1751, pp. 226 f.). See Ebrard (Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte, 3te Aufl., 1868, p. 250), who rejects the suggestion. A prominent recent advocate of the hypothesis in question is Th. von Zahn (Das Evangelium des Matthéus, 3te Aufl., 1910, pp. 64-67.

pointing to the irregularities which had already prevailed in the case of certain women in the kingly line; Thamar and Rahab and the wife of Uriah were connected with shameful stories, and Ruth was a foreigner; hence there was no reason for the Jews to reject the Messiahship of Jesus even if they were right in supposing that there was something shameful about his birth.

This hypothesis, if correct, would only increase, if anything, the weight of the Matthzan testimony to the virgin birth of Jesus; for it would show that belief in the virgin birth had had a considerable history before this infancy Narrative was written; it would show that the Jew:sh opponents of Christianity had already recognized the doctrine of the supernatural conception as one of the essential beliefs of the early Church against which they needed to direct their attack. Such a development—thesis, attack, answer to the attack—could not already have been completed if the belief of the disciples in the virgin birth was any new thing. As a matter of fact, however, we doubt very much whether the hypothesis, so far as it is based upon the names of the women in the genealogy, is correct. Would the compiler of the genealogy, or the author who inserted it at the present place, ever have consented, even for the moment and for the sake of the argument, to compare the mother of Jesus with women in whose lives any shameful thing could be found? Perhaps it might be said in reply that the reference would be one of contrast rather than of analogy: if even shameful relationships with women could be used by God in the transmission of the kingly line, the author might be intending to say, how much more the creative action of the Holy Spirit! But this reply would not be altogether satisfactory. After all, the writer would still be bringing Mary the mother of Jesus into a sort of connection with shameful things; and that he would probably have shrunk from doing. On the whole, therefore, it is at least very doubtful whether the mention of the women in the genealogy has any polemic reference against Jewish slander. It remains perfectly possible that the women were mentioned even before the last link of the genealogy was added, and that they were mentioned not because they were shameful, but merely because for one reason or another they were UNA The problem presented by. the mention of these women is as yet unsolved.

29 Origen (hom. in Luc., xxviii, ed. Lommatzsch, v, 1835, p. 191) finds in the mention of the women (“Thamar, quae cum socero fraude concubuit: et Ruth, Moabitis, nec de genere Israel: et Raab, quae unde sumta sit scire nequeo: et conjux Uriae, quae violavit mariti torum) the thought that since Jesus was to bear our sins, He was born of a sinful race (as is shown also by the mention of Solomon, Rehoboam, etc.). Similarly, Jerome (com. in Maitt., i, on Mt. 1.3, ed. Vallarsius et Maffzius, vii, 1845, col. 21): “Notandum in genealogia Salvatoris nullam sanctarum assumi mulierum; sed eas quas Scriptura reprehendit, ut qui propter peccatores venerat, de peccatoribus nascens, omnium peccata deleret.” Compare also Chrysostom (hom. in Mait., iil,

Another minor problem is presented by the division of the Matthzan genealogy into three groups of fourteen generations each. We are not concerned here with the purpose of this division, but only with the fact that the last of the three groups seems at first sight to contain only thirteen generations instead of the specified fourteen. One solution of the problem is to say that Mary is counted as a “generation”—that is, as a link in the genealogy—between Joseph and Jesus. There is really nothing preposterous about this suggestion, in view of the author’s broad use of the term “generation” and of the related term translated “begat.” On the whole, however, it seems better to adopt the solution which was favored by Edward Robinson, in his Harmony of the Gospels.®° According to that solution, David is counted both at the end of the first division and at the beginning of the second. The second division then ends with Josias, and the third division begins with Jechonias and, including Jesus, embraces the fourteen “generations,” or members of the genealogy, that are sought. There is justification for this hypothesis in the language that is employed when the enumeration is — made. The first division is said to include the generations from “Abraham to David”; the expression names both Abraham and David and thus indicates that both are to be counted. Similarly, David is named in the expression designating the second group, and so is to be counted there also. But what designates the end of the second group and the beginning of the third is not a person but an epoch—“the exile to Babylon”—and therefore “the persons who are reckoned as coeval with this epoch... are not reckoned before it. After the epoch the enumeration begins again with Jechoniah, and ends with Jesus.” *

Certainly, therefore, when the true character and purpose of this genealogy are understood, there is no objection against supposing that the information that it contains is correct, as there is no objection to a similarly favorable estimate of the genealogy in Luke. Bolen ee ie Bie ee a ee ee ee ee ed. Montfaucon, vil, 1836, pp. 40-42), who says that the shameful women are mentioned to show the humiliation undergone by Christ for our salvation, and who also develops the edifying thought that what is really important is not that a man should come from good ancestors, but that he should be good himself. In passing, it may be remarked that even if the hypothesis of Zahn and others regarding the women be rejected, one may still hold to the polemic reference of the first chapter of Matthew as a whole. It is quite possible that this author, in recounting Joseph’s doubts about Mary and the way in which they were overcome, is intending to refute the Jewish slander which attributed the birth of Jesus to an adulterous union. But although that is possible, it is certainly not proved. The writer’s own interest in establishing the legal Davidic descent of Jesus and the inherent importance of the facts would no doubt explain the choice of material without any anti-Jewish polemic reference.

Robinson, 4 Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek, revised edition, with additional notes by M. B. Riddle,, p. 206.

But if the genealogies appended to the narratives contain nothing that may not well be true, what shall be said of the narratives themselves? Do they contain psychological or historical absurdities, or do they bear the marks of truth?

The latter estimate, we think, should be adopted. There are, of course, points in these narratives where some things are left unexplained; there are places where the motives of the characters are not perfectly clear. But such difficulties often constitute an argument not against, but in favor of, the historicity of a narrative. A manufactured narrative tends to be perfectly plain: since it is the product of invention, one point in it naturally grows out of another. But a true narrative, on the other hand, often gives rise to many questions; the characters in it do not move in accordance with the logic of the narrator’s mind, but in accordance with the infinite complexity of actual life, of which only a fraction can ever be recorded. Thus if in these infancy narratives there are some things that are not perfectly clear, that fact in itself does not show at all that the narratives are not true.

What are the points that have been thought to be unnatural? Some of them have already been considered in connection with our discussion of the integrity of the Lucan narrative. We showed in that connection that the attitude of Mary the mother of Jesus, though unnatural if Jesus was the son of Joseph, is perfectly natural on the basis of the virgin birth. Objection has, indeed, sometimes been raised to her going to Elisabeth as recorded in Lk. i.39. How could a merely betrothed Jewish maiden make a long journey like that alone? Would such a journey have been in accord with the custom of those days? Because of such objections, some scholars have supposed that the events recorded in Mt. i.18-25, including the marriage of Joseph and Mary, are to be put before instead of after Mary’s visit to Elisabeth.*? But in that case are we to suppose that Joseph accompanied Mary to Elisabeth’s home? He might have been expected to do so if the marriage had already taken place; but then it becomes strange that he is not mentioned in Lk. i.39-56. This latter consideration is perhaps not altogether decisive; it is barely possible that in view of the subordinate place of Joseph in the whole narrative his presence on this occasion might be passed over without mention—just as even Zacharias is here -out of view. On the whole, however, the hypothesis of a marriage prior to the visit of Mary to Elisabeth will be felt to raise more difficulty than it removes; the natural impression which the reader of Lk. i.39 receives is that Mary visited Elisabeth at once after the annunciation and without waiting for any determination regarding her relations with Joseph. The events of Mt.

i.18-25 are in all probability to be put not before, but after, Mary’s three months in Judza.

But even if that be so, the journey of Mary does not become incredible. To say that a betrothed Jewish maiden of the first century could not under any circumstances make a journey unaccompanied by the man to whom she was betrothed is to claim a degree of familiarity with the customs of that day that far transcends our actual knowledge. And it must always be remembered that the circumstances of this case were very peculiar; Mary had just passed through a stupendous experience, and the heavenly messenger who had appeared to her had himself suggested by implication her visit to her relative in Judza.

Even less important are the objections that have been raised against the story of the birth and circumcision of John.

If it is asked, for example, how Zacharias could have continued his ministrations at the Temple, in accordance with Lk. i.23, if he was dumb and so could no longer satisfy the Mosaic requirements of physical perfection for. the priests, we may simply say two things. In the first place, Lk. i.23 does not necessarily mean that Zacharias continued active in the Temple ministry, but may mean only that he continued in Jerusalem during the week’s period of service of his course; and, in the second place, it may well be doubted whether a lack of the power of speech which was unaccompanied by any obvious physical imperfections and which might be regarded as purely temporary, would unfit a priest even for active service.

In connection with Lk. i.60, it is quite trivial to ask how Elisabeth could know that the child’s name was John, since Zacharias was dumb and so could not tell her of the directions given him by the angel. The context provides a sufficient answer. The answer simply is that the art of writing was not unknown in those days! Then it is asked why the bystanders should have had to make signs to Zacharias,** since we have been told only that he was dumb and not that he was deaf. But surely that difficulty also is trivial. As has often been observed, it is natural to use signs in communicating with one who can reply only with signs. Moreover, the signs in this case would be of the very simplest sort; it would only be necessary to turn to Zacharias with a gesture of interroga ‘on. Such little touches as that tell in favor of the historicity of the narrative rather tan against it: they are really very natural as describing an actual scene, but might have been avoided in a fictitious account.

In the second chapter of the Lucan narrative, objection has sometimes been raised against Mary’s journey with Joseph to Bethlehem at the time of the enrolment. If the notion of the writer is that an enrolment of women was necessary, as well as of men, that, we are told, is contrary to all historical probability. And otherwise how could Mary have decided to make such a journey just before the birth of her child; would not her condition have made it natural for her to stay at home? An obvious answer to this question is that it was just her condition that made it natural for her not to stay at home, but to go with Joseph to Bethlehem. In the first place, she would desire not to be deprived of the protection of Joseph at such a time: in the second place, she expected her son to be the Messiah, and so might naturally desire that He should be born at Bethlehem. Her journey, moreover—whether this last point was in her mind or not—may actually have served the purpose of averting the slander which might have come upon her at Nazareth because of the apparently premature birth of her child. We are not saying that these are just the considerations that determined Mary’s journey.** But they are sufficient, at least, to show that various motives for the journey may be suggested; the representation in the narrative at this point, therefore, presents no psychological or historical improbabilities.

Such improbabilities, however, are often found especially in the story of the magi. We have already discussed those difficulties—real or supposed—in that story which concern the supernatural element; but now we must consider the difficulties that are found in the realm of psychology. Quite aside from the question of the supernatural, it is said, the actions of the characters in the story, especially of Herod, are quite out of accord with all psychological probability.

In the first place, when the magi came to Jerusalem with their inquiry for a king of the Jews, would Herod have fanned the flames of Messianic hopes by calling a meeting of the “chief priests and scribes” ** to ask where the Messiah was to be born? And, indeed, before that, would the magi have been naive enough to ask so politically dangerous a question in such a public way under the very eyes of a suspicious king? Then, after the scribes had pointed to Bethlehem, why did Herod use secrecy in calling the magi to him? The whole city, according to Mt. ii3, had already been set in an uproar; what possible purpose, therefore, could secrecy now serve? And did Herod actually think the magi childlike enough to suppose that he would really want to wor-

4B, Weiss (Leben Jesu, ate Aufl., i, 1902, pp. 231 f.; English translation, The Life of Christ, i, 1883, p. 252) suggests that Joseph took Mary with him to Bethlehem because he wanted the child to be listed at once as his in the public registers.

35 We cannot be certain that the author regards it as a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin. See ship a king of the Jews who would be a claimant to his own throne? Why did he not simply send spies after them, so that when they reached their destination he could put the child out of the way?

These difficulties are not so formidable as at first sight they may seem to be. They are all based upon the etroneous assumptions that the magi were animated by motives of worldly wisdom and that Herod in his declining years was as cool and calculating as a modern psychological expert. No doubt the magi were very incautious in making their inquiry in Jerusalem. If they had employed the intelligence service of whatever country it was from which they came, they might have learned enough about Herod to know that he would not look with favor upon inquiries about a king of the Jews. But then it must be remembered that the thoughts of those magi were centred upon the heavens and not upon political conditions on this earth. There were many impractical men in the strange, complex religious life of those days; in such an age, we may well find room for these children of the East with their disconcerting questions. Incautious, moreover, as their questions no’ doubt were, we have no right to assume that Herod would have thought it safe just to kill them out of hand. The Messianic hope, after all, was very widely held in those days; and Herod knew that it could not possibly be put down by force. Harsh and cruel though he was, he never altogether relinquished the pose of being a Jewish, rather than a foreign, king. Who can say what trouble he may have had if he had stopped the mouths of the magi by a public act of violence? On the whole, there was something to be said for the cunning method that he actually adopted—a method, moreover, which is quite in accordance with his character as it appears in the pages of Josephus. He pretended to be devout in his attitude toward Old Testament prophecy, but meanwhile planned to make Old Testament prophecy harmless by secret measures of his own.

As for the reason why he used secrecy in calling the magi to him, that is fairly obvious. He did not want to let the people know of his hypocritical words about worship of the new-born child; such words might deceive these strangers, but it would hardly deceive those who knew Herod well. And in general he did not want to give the matter any greater publicity than it already had. The meeting of the chief priests and scribes may have been necessary in order that he might show his devoutness as a Jew; and then it may also have been necessary because of his own superstitious fears. He really feared, perhaps, the rise of a Messianic king; and perhaps he really thought that the expert judgment of the scribes would help him to find that king in order that he might kill him when he was still a child. Hence the meeting may have seemed to him to be necessary for the accomplishment of his plan. But that meeting over, the less publicity that should be given to the magi the better it would be.

But why did not Herod have the magi “shadowed” instead of trusting them so naively to bring back word to him after they had found the child? No doubt that other plan might have appealed to the modern police. But there may have been difficulties connected with it. If the magi had observed that they were being followed, might they not have been discouraged in their search, and so might not the chance of finding the dangerous child have been lost? Why, then, did not Herod send some one along with the magi under pretence of friendly assistance? 8* That ruse also might have been detected. Something may perhaps be said, here again, for Herod’s plan. Perhaps indeed he was unwise; but then was Herod always wise in his mad closing years? *” Who can say, moreover, whether an attempt may not actually have been made to spy upon the magi as they went to the house where they found the child, and whether such an attempt may not have failed? If it failed, then Herod’s purpose could be accomplished only by wholesale murder; and from such murder no one who knew Herod in that last period of his life could suppose that he would shrink.

There is no reason, therefore, for saying that this narrative contains psychological absurdities. The actions, no doubt, are not in all cases what modern men would have done, and in some cases, no doubt, they are very foolish or incautious; but as attributed to men of that time, and to those particular persons, they cannot be shown to be impossible.

37 There is perhaps some truth in the remark which Chrysostom (hom. in Mait., vii, ed. Montfaucon, vii, 1836, p. 126) makes to explain Herod’s failure to see that the magi would detect his deceit: “A soul made captive by wickedness becomes more foolish than all things else.” Compare also Calvin (Joc. cit.), who appeals, in explanation of Herod’s folly, to the stupor which God inflicted on him for the protection of the infant Christ. Bruno Bauer (Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker, i, 1841, pp. 108-110) praises Calvin for his recognition of the difficulty but does not think highly of his solution.