birth without human father, such as that of Jesus, is by no means an
—certainly not within the limits of pure Judaism.74 In general, modern criticism has learned to be much more skeptical than formerly about the omnipotence of Old Testament prophecy in creating stories simply in order to fit the predictions. There must be something to support before Old Testament prophecy can /pg. 68/ be dragged in to support it, even though the form of the prophecy may have some effect in altering details.75 Nor is it true that parthenogenesis was "in the air" at the time of Christ. It is not true that, as has been said, "To the narrator the miracle is simply a more impressive instance of what God wrought in the case of Elisabeth, Rebekah and Sarah, without affecting the paternity of John the Baptist, Jacob or Isaac."76 It is not true that Jewish-Christians, on account of the examples of Isaac, Samson and Samuel, etc., would already be expecting something like a virgin birth, so that the Septuagint translation of Isaiah, even though not very convincing, would still be able to supply a strong enough impulse to lead to the definite formulation of the doctrine as we find it in Matt. 1 and Luke 1. For the step from a birth by promise, such as that of Isaac, to a birth without human father, such as that of Jesus, is by no means an "easy step," as is often asserted, but involves practically the whole of the mystery. The conception by means of an extraordinary power given to men is quite in accord with the workings of God in Providence—though it may exceed them in degree—whereas it is just the exclusion of the human agency that gives the miracle of the virgin birth that peculiar character which is so difficult to explain. Such cases as Isaac and Samson do not really go very far in explaining the origin of the unique idea as reflected in the narratives of Matthew and Luke. To bridge the gap is especially hard upon Jewish ground. For, in the first place, the noun 9&M(H is feminine, so that it is hard to see how the idea could among Jews ever have found expression in just the form in which it appears in both our narratives )begotten "of the Holy Spirit"(. Of course, it may be said that we should not take the phrase "Holy Spirit" as personal here, but merely as expressing the general idea of the power of God )cf. Luke's conjunction of B<,L$:" and *b<":4H). Still the form of statement would naturally have been different—e.g., ¦6 J@L$ 8`(@L F@L, a phrase which
actually occurs in this connection in early Christian literature. That the representation of the present narratives of Luke and Matthew would hardly have originated on Jewish ground is shown by the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which made the Holy Spirit the mother of Jesus. Furthermore, attention has often been called to the fact that the idea of the direct action of God in the way described in Matthew and Luke is not at all in harmony with the strict Jewish monotheism of that day, with its sharp separation /pg. 69/ of the Divine Being from the world of sense.77 In order to avoid these difficulties, or rather in order to demonstrate the existence of a force capable of overcoming them, recourse has been had to that peculiar development of Judaism, the sect of the Essenes, or to the ascetic tendency prevalent in the Christian Church and observable in ascending degree in Paul and in the writer of the Apocalypse (so Hilgenfeld). But aside from all questions as to the date of our narratives, and as to the possible influence of the Essenes upon the writers of the narratives if those writers were ordinary Jews, this theory of an ascetic impulse to the doctrine of the virgin birth receives its deathblow from the entire absence of an ascetic tendency in the birth narratives themselves. (Cf. the expressions "father and mother" and "parents" in Luke.) In general, it may be mentioned as a remarkable fact—if the origin of the myth was Jewish—that it was just from Jewish-Christians (the Ebionites) that the conspicuous denial of the virgin birth in the early Church proceeded.78
It seems, therefore, reasonable to conclude that if the idea of the conception from the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin were to be received by the Jewish mind, there must have been some overpowering impulse to overcome the prepossessions of the current theology. The only such impulse that has been discovered is the impulse that would have been in evidence had the virgin birth been a fact; so if we are to deny the fact, we must go farther afield for the origin of the idea. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that very many recent scholars who deny the fact of the virgin birth are obliged to admit the inadequacy of the purely Jewish-Christian explanation of the origin of the myth.
The next step to take is that from primitive Jewish Christianity to Gentile Christianity, and this step was taken by Pfleiderer.79 He supposed that the ideas which lie at the basis of the birth narratives came specifically from the theology of Paul, and only the details from the Old Testament. The Pauline dogma of "Christ Jesus declared to be the Son of God according to the spirit of holiness" led to Luke's poetical narrative of the virgin birth, while the accompanying dogma "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" led to the narrative of the journey to Bethlehem. Against this derivation of the birth stories from Pauline ideas might be urged, in the first place, the absence of any trace in Pauline writings /pg. 70/ of the beginnings of such a development of dogmatic interest in the mode of Christ's entrance into the world.80 In the second place, as we have remarked in another connection, Pfleiderer's theory necessarily attributes to the Gentile Luke an historical imagination and a dramatic power—a power of making purely imaginary circumstances appear to be real— which is utterly foreign to the literary habits of those days (especially to dogmatically motived narratives), and which would be worthy of a Defoe. Pfleiderer's theory therefore runs directly counter to what we have established as to the genuinely Jewish spirit of the narrative in the third Gospel.81
Being defeated on purely Jewish and Christian ground, those who deny the fact of the virgin birth betake themselves next to Alexandria, and seek to derive the idea from that mixture of Greek philosophy and Old Testament religion which we find best exemplified in the writings of Philo. So Conybeare and Völter. The latter82 develops his theory in connection with the narrative of Luke. He begins with the observation that it is remarkable that in a Christian writing so much space should be occupied with John, who was regarded as a mere forerunner. So the first chapter embodies a tradition about John which was not Christian, but purely Jewish, and regarded John as of independent importance. The Christian compiler was not able to do away with this tradition entirely, but used it by making John subordinate to Christ. This he did simply by inserting the middle portion (vers. 26–56) of the first chapter of Luke (in
which middle portion, however, some elements of the original tradition can still be observed), without troubling the text of his Jewish source in the other portions. But this did not suffice for the second redactor, who transcended the narrow Jewish standpoint of his predecessor. So the second redactor interpreted 1:27 as referring to Mary rather than to Joseph, put Elisabeth's song into the mouth of Mary, inserted 1:34, 35, and made some changes in the song of Zacharias. The second chapter was written by Redactor I of the first chapter, and was altered at 2:15 /pg. 71/ and 2:32 by Redactor II, who was probably identical with the redactor of the third Gospel. Both the original writer of the first chapter and Redactor I were Jews pure and simple, and wrote in Aramaic (or Hebrew). Redactor II interpreted Isa. 7:14 according to the Septuagint and in other ways transcended the narrow Jewish standpoint, and therefore was no Palestinian Jew; but, on the other hand, he must have understood Aramaic in order to translate the writings of his predecessors, and so could not have been a mere Gentile. So he must have been a Hellenist. This conclusion is confirmed by his dogmatic position. For on account of the gender of the word 9&M(H, and the current Jewish conception of God, the belief in the virgin birth could scarcely have arisen on Jewish ground. But influenced by the heathen notions of "children of God," some such conception had entered into the thought of the Hellenistic Judaism of the Dispersion, as we can show from the writings of Philo.
Of course, Völter's elaborate theory of redactors is interesting only as a curious example to show how easily theories of interpolation may run mad. Every one of the main steps in the argument is based almost entirely upon subjective reasoning, and lacks even such show of support as is possessed by arguments such as that of Harnack for regarding 1:34, 35, as an interpolation. If we have refuted even these latter arguments, then it will hardly be worth while to mention the numberless difficulties that spring up on every hand against Völter.83 One criticism only may be mentioned here as being particularly in point at the present stage of our discussion. Völter mentions two grounds for supposing that the narrator of the virgin
birth in Luke was a Hellenist: (1) He transcends the narrow Jewish point of view and, for example, holds to the non-Jewish conception of the virgin birth; so he can be no Jew. This argument, at least so far as it refers to the virgin birth, we gladly allow (always supposing the virgin birth not to be a fact). (2) He was able to translate an Aramaic document, and was therefore no mere Gentile. But was the document really written in Aramaic? And if so, had it not already been translated? These are questions which need much more careful examination than Völter seems to have given them. We may safely conclude that, whether or no the original spring of the doctrine of the virgin birth was, as a matter of fact, Hellenistic Judaism, Völter's reasoning has not proved it. His attempt to show by literary criticism the actual course of development going on before our eyes in the /pg. 72/ text itself has after all been a failure. If we look to Alexandria we must be led to do so by more general considerations—for example, by some striking similarity of thought between Alexandrian philosophy and our canonical birth narratives.
Such an argument has been most fully developed by Conybeare.84 According to Conybeare, such of the followers of Jesus as were Aramaic-speaking Jews recognized Jesus as the Messiah, while those followers who were Greek Jews and proselytes recognized in Him the Divine Logos. "But viewed as the Logos in human form, how should his birth be represented except as from a virgin?" For these followers among the Greek Jews lived in much the same intellectual atmosphere as Philo. And Philo regarded the Logos as born of Sophia, an "ever-virgin, gifted with an incontaminate and unstainable nature." In the second place, these same Hellenist disciples "believed that many of their holiest men had been born of the Holy Spirit, when God visited from on high their mothers in their solitude." "Thirdly, there was in that age a general belief that superhuman personages and great religious leaders were born of virgin mothers through divine agency."85 "Fourthly, in Philo we have not a few indications of how those who held the belief that Jesus was the incarnate word would be likely to formulate the other
belief which inevitably went therewith—namely, that he was born of a virgin."
As to the first of these points, Charles has shown how little weight can be attributed to it, for that Logos which was born of Sophia is not in Philo a personal conception. There are also insuperable objections of a literary and historical character against supposing that the account of the virgin birth came into the first and third Gospels only through the conception of Christ as the Logos. Conybeare's second point is not very clear, but seems to mean that, as he says in another place, "the Jews in the time of Christ deemed it possible for a child to be conceived of the Holy Spirit, and yet at the same time to be begotten in the ordinary way." "The one process gave his soul or reason, which was a gift of the Divine Spirit; the other process gave him flesh, blood and the faculties of sense." In Matthew, vers. 19, 20 of the first chapter represent a too literal interpretation /pg. 73/ of such a philosophy. Afterward, Conybeare, corrected by Badham, seems to substitute for this argument the more positive one that an actual virgin birth is to be found spoken of in Philo, so that the writer in Matthew did not even have to remove the idea to a lower sphere. Conybeare's really important argument is under his fourth head. Here he brings forward Philo's treatment of Sarah, Rebeka, Leah, Zipporah. E.g., Philo says—to quote Conybeare's reproduction of his words—"Moses having taken his wife findeth her with child of nothing mortal (= of the Divine Spirit)." Conybeare maintains—at any rate at first—that Philo's own idea of the marriage of virgin souls with God was wholly mystical and allegorical, but that he issued a warning against those who degraded his allegory "into the gross and fleshly meaning which it has assumed in Matt. 1:19." If this interpretation of Philo is right, then we have not found any direct parallel for Matthew. For there seems to be no evidence from the mere fact that he "warns the superstitious from the mystery he is propounding" that he is referring to those who held to a view like that of Matthew. And when Badham maintains that the correspondence between Philo's examples (Sarah, Zipporah, etc.) and Matthew's narrative is still closer than Conybeare at first
believed, it is perhaps due to Badham's impossible exegesis of Matthew's account.86
Furthermore, against the whole argument may be opposed the great gulf fixed between the strict Palestinian Judaism and the Judaism of Alexandria87—a gulf which Conybeare has not really succeeded in bridging over. Again, we ought to consider the opposition of the whole spirit of the New Testament accounts to the speculations of Philo. It is impossible to see how the two things can have sprung up out of the same intellectual atmosphere, for the difference seems almost infinite; and Conybeare does not help his position by pointing out Alexandrian elements, like the conception through the ear and by rays of light, which later affected the form of the Christian narrative. The remarkable fact is that those elements do not appear in our canonical narratives, as we should expect they would if the Christian idea of the virgin birth arose out of Hellenistic ground. The sobriety of the canonical narratives, the absence of grotesque details, is a strong proof of their independence of Alexandrian speculations. If Luke 1:34, 35, is, as we think we have proved, no interpolation, so that Luke's narrative as well as that of Matthew comprises the virgin birth, then the argument /pg. 74/ which we have just derived from the general spirit of our New Testament account becomes absolutely invincible. For Luke's narrative, at least, whatever may be said of Matthew, represents about as perfect an antithesis to Philo as could possibly be imagined.
The insufficiency of theories which would derive the idea of the virgin birth from Judaism is strikingly attested by the fact that so many recent critics feel obliged to have recourse to the heathen world.88 But just at this point we must register a decided protest. In the first place, as Harnack has stoutly maintained against Usener, we cannot lightly break through the barrier that separates the early Church from the heathen world. "Over against all this [i.e., the connections which Usener finds between heathen customs, etc., and Christian traditions]," says Harnack, "I remind the reader of the fact that the oldest Christianity strictly refrained from everything
polytheistic and heathen, and that therefore every hypothesis that will explain from heathendom a piece of the original Church tradition is subject to the greatest difficulties, and demands the most careful examination. The unreasonable method of collecting from the mythology of all peoples parallels for original Church traditions, whether historical reports or legends, is valueless."89 In another connection Harnack is even more explicit: "The Greek or Oriental mythology I should leave entirely out of account; for there is no occasion to suppose that the Gentile congregations in the time up to the middle of the second century adopted, in despite of their fixed principle, popular mythical representations." In the second place, if it is thus unlikely that heathen elements could up to 150 have been received even into the Gentile Church, it is even more unlikely that they could have been received into strongly Jewish Christian narratives, such as we have proved our canonical infancy narratives to be. It is therefore evident that every theory of the virgin birth which calls in heathen elements is absolutely dependent upon the doubtful view that Luke 1:34, 35 (or the essential part of those verses) is an interpolation.90 And even if that should be granted, the weighty objection of Harnack must still be reckoned with. It is therefore not altogether unreasonable to say that when we consent to entertain any suggestion as to the heathen origin of elements in the myth of the virgin birth, we do so merely for the sake of the argument. However, since Harnack's view of the course of early Christian history and our view of the integrity of /pg. 75/ Matthew and Luke have both been questioned (though, we think, altogether without good cause in the latter case), it will be well to examine as fairly as possible the supposed points of contact between heathen mythology and our birth narratives. Are these points of contact so evident and so important as to break down the objections that we have mentioned against any historical connection between the two fields of thought?
It will be well to outline briefly one or two of the main theories of development, in order that we may the better judge of the likelihood that in the matter of the virgin birth heathen ideas had their place.
One of the most thorough-going representations is that of Usener.91 Usener supposes that when Jesus came to be regarded as the Messiah, it followed by logical necessity that all the Old Testament attributes of the Messiah should be applied to Him. In the first place, He had to be descended from David—hence the genealogies. In the second place, he had to be born in the city of David, Bethlehem (Micah 5:1. Cf. John 7:40, Matt. 2:6)—hence the infancy narratives transplant the parents thither, more or less at the risk of running counter to the firmly fixed Nazareth tradition. In the third place, Jesus, as the Messiah, and hence the chosen one of God, had to be brought into closer relations with God—hence the narrative of the great event at the baptism. This narrative appears in two forms: in Matthew, Jesus merely receives divine attestation; in Luke, He is divinely generated. (Usener retains the words, "This day have I begotten thee.") But as time went on, it was felt to be impossible to postpone this consecration or adoption to the thirtieth year. Rather He "must have been God's chosen instrument from his very birth." Hence the story of the nativity. This story appears in two forms, each carrying back one of the two forms of the baptism narrative. In Luke we have divine attestation (Usener regards 1:34, 35, as a later addition); in Matthew we have divine begetting. But we have also in Matthew something entirely new, the virgin birth. "Here we unquestionably enter the circle of pagan ideas," for "the idea is quite foreign to Judaism."92 "The embroidery comes from the same source as the warp and woof," for the star is paralleled by the heathen ideas of the stars /pg. 76/ that appeared at the birth of heroes, while the story of the Magi perhaps originated "in the journey of homage made by the Parthian king Tiridates to Nero in Rome." Perhaps, also, Herod is a picture of Nero.
Soltau93 gives the following account. If Jesus was to be the Messiah, the first conclusion would be that his real home must have been Bethlehem. Hence the original form of the special history of Jesus' childhood is given in Luke 2:1–7, 21–40, where Joseph always appears as the father of Jesus, but where the place of birth is changed from Nazareth to Bethlehem. In Matthew we have "a
further-developed Jewish-Christian version of the story," to the effect that Bethlehem was the real native place of Jesus, so that the difficulty is not to explain why His parents journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but why they journeyed from Bethlehem to Nazareth. Then this Jewish-Christian tradition was altered by three additions: (1) the generation of Jesus through the Holy Spirit (in Luke, and in Matthew in a different form from that in Luke), (2) the angels' song of praise (Luke), (3) the journey of the Magi (Matthew). These three ideas were probably of purely heathen origin, though the form they have taken may have been due to Jewish-Christians. The angels' song of praise is the adaptation of rejoicings at the birth of Augustus, who was hailed as the saviour of the whole human race. In the story of the Magi, perhaps the presentation of gifts may be traced back to the Old Testament. The other details are all based on heathen mythology— the star, upon the stars seen at the birth of great men; the journey of the Magi, upon the journey of the Parthian king Tiridates to pay homage to Nero. The Christians transferred spontaneously to their Prince of Peace the homage paid "to the earthly prince of peace, Augustus"; to their Messiah, the act of adoration paid to the Antichrist Nero. The story of the virgin birth may be viewed in three aspects: (1) "As regards form, the whole narrative is simply a deliberate recast of the older Jewish fable about Simon and John." (2) "As regards matter, on the other hand, it is to be explained as a transformation of Biblical conceptions due to misconception." In Paul and John we have the dualistic theory that Christ is not only born of the seed of David but also Son of God. When this dualism, "having been translated into popular language, penetrated to the lower classes of the people, it was almost bound to lead to the view becoming common among Christians untrained in philosophy that Christ, in calling God His /pg. 77/ Father, did not merely call Him so in the sense in which all are children of God, but that he was even bodily of higher derivation, of divine origin." (3) "At the same time, those elements drawn from heathen mythology can be detected, which promoted the transformation of Christian ideas and the development of a wrong conception." Especially Augustus himself was said to have been begotten of a serpent (representing Apollo). So
all the three insertions into the original story—song of praise, virgin birth and journey of the Magi—"referred to what had been handed down and proclaimed in honour of the Roman Emperor, especially of Augustus, to the true Saviour of the world."
Usener and Soltau have thus made two attempts to trace more or less definitely the actual course of development through which our present narratives have been produced; but in this attempt, at any rate, they can hardly be said to have attained success. For they have been obliged to rely upon hypotheses to support hypotheses. To take merely one example, Usener can establish his parallelism between the two separate forms of the baptism story (divine attestation and divine generation) and the two forms of the birth narrative (Luke and Matthew) only by choosing a doubtful reading in Luke's account of the baptism in order to differentiate that account from Matthew, and by removing 1:34, 35, from Luke's account of the infancy so that it suits that representation.94 Of course, these are merely details; but one problem for those who would see in our narratives the outcome of a course of mythical or legendary development is to show how that outcome came to be represented in just the way it is expressed in Matthew and Luke. Therefore, we have accomplished something when we have recognized that it is not possible to see the details of the course of development actually crystallized in our narratives.
Perhaps, however, we can yet discern the main outlines of such a course of development. In such a more cautious way the matter is discussed by Holtzmann.95 He despises none of the supposed starting-points which have been suggested by various writers for the idea of the virgin birth. He even begins with ascetic tendencies in Judaism (e.g., among the Essenes), and then uses all the other arguments for the Jewish origin of the idea, as well as for the origin /pg. 78/ from the dogmas of the Pauline theology. But, he continues, the idea could never on Jewish ground have ripened into its present form; for on Jewish ground the abstracttranscendent notion of God and the Jewish doctrine of the Spirit stood effectually in the way. But when the report of the "Son of God" was spread abroad in the Gentile
world,96 it found an atmosphere friendly in the highest degree to the development of such a story as we have in Matthew and Luke. For in the heathen world there were many "children of God," as Justin insists. Among them may be mentioned Hermes, Æsculapius, Dionysius, Hercules, etc., as well as Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander, Augustus.97 These heathen representations "of the coming of the great from above needed only to strip off their coarsely sensuous forms in order to be transferred to the world-conquering Son of God from the East." We answer that, after all, at least in the case of the mythological examples like Hercules, etc., when you have stripped off the coarsely sensuous form of the heathen representations you have changed their very essence. It is perfectly natural that the Greek gods should beget children, because they are simply enlarged men. It could not be said that the birth of demigods was regarded as a miracle; it was in the same sphere as an ordinary human birth. But there can be little doubt that in Matthew and Luke we have the narration of a miracle—and a miracle because the Hebrew notion of God is not lowered in the slightest degree. In the case of such heroes as Augustus and Alexander this objection is not quite so strong, because there it is hard to see how the human father could be definitely excluded. After all, however, the same merely anthropomorphic view of God prevails there too; so that the comparison with Matthew and Luke seems almost grotesque. At any rate, the parallel is certainly not so close as to overcome the grave objections which we mentioned against any theory of heathen influence.
We have thus far examined the theories that account for the origin of the idea of the virgin birth by means of Jewish, of Hellenistic, and of heathen elements. One possibility remains, namely, that the idea is Jewish, but that the Jews themselves received it from heathen nations. Such is the theory advocated recently by Cheyne.98 Cheyne supposes that by means of his Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian parallels (cf. Rev. 12), he can show that "the /pg. 79/ passage in the prelude to the first gospel is a Jewish Christian transformation of a primitive story, derived ultimately, in all probability, from Babylonia,
and analogous to the Jewish transformation of the Babylonian cosmogony in the opening section of Genesis." Rev. 12 is derived ultimately from the same sources, and in Matthew we have certain parallels with that chapter (e.g., Herod = the dragon; the flight to Egypt = the flight into the desert). Into Cheyne's teamed discussions of Dusares, Tammuz, etc., we cannot now enter; but we can point out one general line of criticism. Cheyne apparently admits that by a study of the undoubtedly and narrowly Jewish writings approximately of the time of Christ, we can find no sufficient basis for the idea of the virgin birth. But there is a basis, says Cheyne, for that idea in the mythology of other Eastern peoples, and we know that the Old Testament has, as a matter of fact, been in various ways influenced by those mythologies. Therefore, concludes Cheyne, the influence may well have extended to the present case. But is not that argument rather indirect and unconvincing? Cheyne would probably not maintain that absolutely everything in the Babylonian mythology had an influence on Hebrew thought; for he recognizes the fact that the Hebrews gave a new meaning even to that which they did actually accept. So how can we be at all sure that the Babylonian B"D2X<@H idea in particular had such an influence? We find no such proof of this idea in the Old Testament, as we find even of the other Babylonian ideas which Cheyne thinks were imported into Israel. It is therefore a rather doubtful proceeding to determine the content of Judaism by writings not of the Jews but of other nations.99 Of course, if we do not share Cheyne's confidence that Babylonian ideas were in general easily carried into Hebrew thought, we shall be still less likely to accept his theory in the present case.
In concluding our discussion of mythical theories of the virgin birth, we call attention to the fact that such theories have by no means attained their end when they have shown that there was a logical motive leading the early Christians to look for something miraculous about Jesus' entrance into the world. If Jesus' was believed to be divine, then we freely admit that it was perfectly natural to conclude that He came into the world by a miracle. Furthermore, the conclusion is just as natural to-day as it was in A.D. 100, and it
always will be natural, as long as sound reasoning /pg. 80/ continues. So—to borrow the thought of a recent writer100—the heathen myths that we have been considering, so far from involving in suspicion anything at all similar to them, even illustrate a truth necessary to our argument. If Alexander was divine, then probably his birth was marvelous. The argument is sound, but the premise is false. If Jesus was divine, then probably His birth was marvelous. Here, too, the argument is sound, the only question being whether in this case the premise is true. Lobstein is correct in supposing that there might well have been a natural impulse in the early Church to invest Jesus' birth with the miraculous. But neither he nor any one else has shown how that impulse could have manifested itself in just the particular form in which it is now crystallized, unless in dependence upon fact. If Jesus was really divine, then we can say that probably there was something miraculous about His birth. Starting from that position, the most probable conclusion is that the canonical infancy narratives correctly inform us as to what that "something" was. For, otherwise, it is hard to see how they could have been evolved.
It is time to sum up our result. We examined, first, the hypothesis that the New Testament narratives of the birth of Jesus are to be explained as based upon facts. We showed that the narratives have very early attestation, and themselves give clear evidence that they are not pure inventions, but are based upon earlier sources. We then showed that the events narrated are not impossible unless all miracles are impossible; and that the supposed contradictions with the rest of the New Testament, and within the limits of the narratives themselves, have not been firmly established. We then examined the alternative hypothesis that the narratives are to be explained in other ways than as based upon facts. We showed that such an explanation cannot be assisted by any convincing independent proof that the narratives are composite in character; and that many theories about the origin of the idea of the virgin birth depend almost necessarily upon such unfounded interpolation theories. Finally we passed in review the various attempts to explain the origin of the account in
Matt. 1:18ff., and Luke 1:34, 35, and found that the Jewish explanations fail on psychological grounds, whereas the heathen explanations must in addition face the gravest literary difficulties.
So we have found that there are grave objections both to the historical and to the mythical explanations of our narratives, What decision ought we to make? To this question we believe that /pg. 81/ there is but one just answer, namely—that on the basis of a narrowly historical and critical examination of this one account, we can make no decision at all. The decision depends upon our point of view with regard to the miraculous in general. If, after an examination of all the other evidence, we are convinced that no miracle has occurred, then the New Testament account of the birth of Jesus can produce no sufficient reason for altering our opinion; but, if we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then we shall avoid the greater difficulties if we accept the miracles in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. For there, are two almost insurmountable difficulties connected with the mythical theory. In the first place, it is hard to see how the idea of the virgin birth arose unless based upon fact, and in the second place it is hard to see how the narratives could have attained such an appearance of trustworthiness unless substantially historical. The virgin birth is not one of the evidences of Christianity like the resurrection; but neither is it a stumbling-block. If Christ rose from the dead, then there is no reason to doubt that He was born of a virgin. Such, in brief, is the result of our examination. Ultimately, the decision lies in a field even more remote—namely, in the field of ethics. If we believe that there is nothing worse than imperfection in the world, then we shall be content with the ethical Christ of Lobstein or Harnack; but if we believe that there is such a thing as guilt, then we shall be predisposed to accept the miraculous Christ, who, among other things, was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."
The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke*
THE outward form of Lk 1:5–2:52 invites investigation of sources. The prologue of the Gospel (Lk 1:1–4) is a genuine Greek period, clearly indicative of the literary culture of its author; yet it is followed by one of the most Hebraistic portions of the New Testament. Lk 1:5–2:52 exhibits throughout a marked affinity for the better portions of the Septuagint; while in the brief compass of the prologue there are no less than five words1 that do not occur at all in the Septuagint, and six others that occur only rarely.2 No greater contrast in style could be imagined than that which exists between Lk 1:1–4 and the passage which immediately follows. The contrast has usually been explained by supposing that the author of the Gospel is closely following a source in Lk 1:5–2:52. The prologue represents Luke's own style; the following passage represents the style of one of his sources.
In recent years this conclusion has been disputed by Holtzmann,3 by Dalman,4 and especially by Harnack.5 Harnack /pg. 2/ would explain the difference in style between the prologue and the passage that immediately follows by the conscious art of the author. In the prologue, Luke is writing according to his own natural style; in the following narrative, he is imitating the style of the Septuagint. At first sight the hypothesis seems very unlikely. It attributes to Luke a refinement of art which hardly seems natural in an ancient writer. But first impressions must be modified. For as a matter of fact imitations of the Septuagint in the Lucan writings cannot altogether be denied. For example, despite his literary affinities, Luke uses the Hebraistic ¦(X<,J@ far more than it is used by any other New Testament writer. Evidently Luke had a keen appreciation for what might be called the "Bible style" of the Septuagint, and felt that it was peculiarly fitted to be the vehicle of his own sacred narrative. Harnack's contention amounts to this: In treating in a poetical manner the events connected with the Saviour's birth, Luke simply
carried the imitation of the Septuagint style somewhat further than he did when he was narrating in a more matter of fact way the wellknown events of the public ministry. In the latter case, the subjectmatter did not lend itself so readily to artistic imitation of the Old Testament, and furthermore Luke was hindered by his sources from carrying out his plans with perfect freedom. The hypothesis of Harnack cannot therefore be regarded as inherently impossible.
In a very careful way, Harnack has gone through representative sections of Lk. 1:5–2:52 pointing out Lucan peculiarities—that is, words or usages which occur only in Luke and Acts among the New Testament writings or else occur more frequently there than in the rest of the New Testament and especially in Matthew and Mark. The work of Harnack has received a valuable supplement from /pg. 3/ Zimmermann.6 Zimmermann examined in detail those portions of the passage in question which were left unexamined in Harnack's former discussion. In Harnack's more recent work he has carried the examination through part of the sections that had been covered by Zimmermann .7
Harnack and Zimmermann agree in excluding a Greek written source for Lk. 1:5–2:52. The style of the passage, /pg. 4/ after making due allowance for peculiarity of the subjectmatter and for imitation of the Septuagint, is found to be so totally Lucan, that Luke must have been something more than the mere editor. He must have been the first to treat the material in a Greek narrative. If he had used a Greek source, the style of the source would necessarily appear in the use of words that are not characteristically Lucan. So far Harnack and Zimmermann agree. But they differ in what they substitute for the hypothesis of a Greek source. Zimmermann supposes that Luke used an Aramaic written source which he translated himself; Harnack, while admitting the possibility of an Aramaic source, thinks it probable that Luke depended merely upon oral tradition.
Harnack began his investigation with the Magnificat (which he supposes to have been attributed by the author to Elisabeth, not to Mary) and the Benedictus. These hymns, despite first appearances, he maintains, are so totally Lucan in style that in the case of them even the hypothesis of an Aramaic source, possible for the rest of the narrative, is excluded. Luke himself composed the Magnificat and the Benedictus, and [after the manner of ancient historians] put them into the mouth of the characters of his narrative. Of course, Luke did not compose the poems in his own language; he pieced them together from the Septuagint. But subtract the Septuagint passages which he used, and the little that remains is sufficient to reveal quite clearly the hand of Luke. This argument, which has been elaborated in Lukas der Arzt, but appeared in essentials in 1900, was subjected to an acute criticism by Spitta.8 Spitta pointed out that the Septuagint materials out of which Harnack thought the Magnificat was composed were arbitrarily limited. /pg. 5/ The supposed Lucan words which Harnack detected, are really derived from the Septuagint just as truly as the rest of the poem—only they are derived from passages other than those which Harnack arbitrarily chose to regard as the basis of the composition. Thus Harnack claims as Lucan such characteristic Septuagint words and phrases as :, ("8b<,4<, (v. 46), ¦B4$8XB,4< ¦B\ (v. 48),9 •BÎ J@L$ <L$< (v. 48), ¦>"B@FJX88,4< (v. 53). It is unfortunate that before writing his Lukas der Arzt Harnack did not notice the criticism of Spitta.10 For it is not too much to say that Spitta's criticism amounted to a complete refutation. Subtract the Septuagint words and phrases from the Magnificat, and really nothing remains to indicate Lucan authorship. It will not be necessary to go over the ground already traversed by Spitta; and in his subsequent discussion of the Magnificat Harnack has added nothing of real significance. It should only be remarked (1) that JÎ §8,@H (v. 50)11 can hardly be claimed as specifically Lucan, since it occurs not at all in Acts and only once in Luke outside of the first two chapters, while it is very strongly attested in Mt. 9:13 (citation), 12:7 (same citation), and 23:23,12 and occurs very frequently in the Septuagint;13 (2) that @Ê N@$@b:, <@4 (J@4$H N@$@L:X<@4H) JÎ< 2,`< is simply an Old
Testament phrase, common, for example, in the Psalms;14 (3) that ¦<B\:B80:4 (v. 53) occurs in one of the Septuagint passages which /pg. 6/ Harnack himself15 cites as parallel, and is very frequent in the Septuagint in general; and (4) that •<J48":$V<,F2"4 (v. 54)16 also occurs in one of Harnack's own parallels and elsewhere in the Septuagint. With regard to the rest of Lk. 1:5–2:52, a method of investigation somewhat similar to that of Spitta should be pursued. The words and phrases which Harnack, Zimmermann and other investigators regard as Lucan characteristics should be examined as to their occurrence in the Septuagint.17 If it be discovered that the supposed Lucan characteristics are also characteristic of the Septuagint, the argument for Lucan authorship will be decidedly weakened. Luke imitated the style of the Septuagint. But he need not have /pg. 7/ been the only early Christian writer who imitated it.18 Even Harnack will admit that the similarity to the Septuagint is far more striking in Lk. 1–2 than in any other part of the Lucan writings. If this Septuagint element be subtracted, are there enough Lucan peculiarities left to prove anything more than Lucan editorship?19 /pg. 8/
In the rest of the present article not all of Lk. 1–2 but only the Benedictus (Lk. 1:68–79) can be discussed.aaa
Verse 68. ¦B4F6XBJ@:"4 (¦B,F6XR"J@)20 is used of the activity of God frequently in the Septuagint21 and in Ps. Sol. iii. 14.22 It is also sometimes used absolutely in the Septuagint. Neither of these uses of the word, therefore, is peculiarly Lucan.23 Verse 69. That ¦(,\DT is substituted for ¦>"<"JX88T (Ps. 132:17) or ßR`T (1 Sam 2:10) or •<"JX88T (Ezek. 29:21) in view of the resurrection of Christ24 is an unproved assertion. Cf. Judg 3:9 ³(,4D, 6bD4@H FTJ0$D" Jå$ FD"Z8. In his earlier work Harnack himself cited this passage.
FTJ0D\"25 can hardly be called a "favorite expression of Luke," since besides the three occurrences in Lk. 1–2 it occurs only once in Luke and six times in Acts (once in a Septuagint citation). It is true that it occurs only once in John and not at all in Matthew and Mark.
But it occurs about nineteen times in Paul. In the Septuagint it is very frequent. See also Ps. Sol. x. 9; xii. 7.26 Its use here in Lk. 1:69 is clearly derived from the Septuagint. Verse 70. *4( FJ`:"J@H27 occurs elsewhere, it is true, only in Acts and probably in Mt. 4:4.28 Furthermore the /pg. 9/ phrase is rare in the Septuagint. It should be noticed, however, that the occurrences in Acts fall without exception in speeches placed in the mouth of Jewish Christians. Very probably those passages were derived from Jewish Christian sources. At any rate, Luke must have felt the phrase to be Jewish in character— otherwise he would not have confined his use of it to the speeches. It must therefore have been in use in Jewish circles or in Jewish writings. This coincidence in usage, therefore, between Lk. 1 and Acts does not necessarily prove unity of authorship. It may also be explained by a common adherence on the part of two authors to a Jewish Christian usage. However, the argument of Gersdorf and Harnack is not altogether without significance.
The addition of "(4@H (,(\T<)29 can hardly be called specifically Lucan. The word is exceedingly common in the Septuagint.
The remarkable clause, 6"2ãH ¦8V80F,< *4( FJ`:"J@H JT$< ,(\T< •B, "ÆT$<@H BD@N0JT$< "ÛJ@L$30 is strikingly similar to Acts 12:21, ñ$< ¦8V80F,< Ò 2,ÎH *4( FJ`:"J@H JT$< ,(\T< •B, "ÆT$<@H "ÛJ@L$ BD@N0JT$<. First, however, the question must be raised whether the coincidence is not due simply to a harmonistic correction of the text by a scribe. In Lk. 1:70, "B "4T<@H is certainly genuine; for, although its position varies, it is omitted by no witness.31 In Acts 3:21, however, "B "4T<@H is omitted by D etc. The various readings may be exhibited as follows:aaa
JT< "(4T< "LJ@L JT< BD@N0JT<. D, supported at least in the omission of "B "4T<@H by 19. [Souter cites 28, instead of 19] h gig p [these three are cited by Souter] arm Cosm503 /pg. 10/ [according to Souter, Cosmas places the phrase before "LJ@L BD@N0JT< as in ! B[ Irint 194 Tertres carn 23 Origlat ]Souter[. JT< "(4T< "B "4T<@H