disagreement with all the rest of the New Testament literature, in
narrative does not preclude the supposition that the actual execution of the decree was carried out in Judæa under Jewish auspices. If, however, Luke has merely made some blunder such as placing the first governorship of Quirinius a few years too far back (i.e., at a time when Saturninus was really governor), it does not seem reasonable to draw any very serious conclusions about the trustworthiness of the whole infancy narrative—especially if, as is very probable, the chronological note is an addition made by the author or redactor of the whole Gospel. In general, it may be said that the archæological researches of Ramsay and others have at least made it clear that our knowledge about the official history of the Augustan age has not been (and probably is not yet) so complete as to warrant us in using too confidently the argument from silence. It will not be worth while to notice here the various specific attempts to solve the difficulty—some of them are not at all unlikely, though no single one of them can be firmly established as correct. At any rate, these attempts have shown that the difficulty might not be insoluble if we had more information. Meanwhile, it does not seem unfair to regard the census passage as neutral with regard to the question of the trustworthiness of the account—at any rate, as affording no decisive evidence on the negative side. The question must be settled on the basis of other considerations.
2. It is objected further that the infancy narratives are in disagreement with all the rest of the New Testament literature, in which not only are the minuter incidents of our narrative not referred to, but even the virgin birth and the birth in Bethlehem are not mentioned. From all that we could learn from the rest of the New Testament, it is argued, Jesus was born at Nazareth of Joseph and Mary; while some passages seem even to exclude the virgin birth. In the Gospel of Mark, and in Matthew and Luke outside of the first two chapters and the genealogies, there is probably no allusion to the virgin birth; indeed, in Mark 6:1, Nazareth is evidently referred to as the B"JD\H of Jesus; in Mark 6:3 His brothers and sisters are mentioned—all of which, however, is not inconsistent with the infancy narratives. That the Spirit should be said to be the source of
Jesus' miraculous power (Matt. 12:28) is inconsistent with His activity in Luke 1:35 only on a very mechanical view of the Spirit and His activities. Furthermore, Holtzmann's objection at /pg. 659/ this point is based upon a false view of the meaning of the descent of the Spirit at the baptism. More serious, perhaps, is the argument from Mark 3:21, 31ff. where Jesus' kinsfolk are represented as thinking Him mad, and His mother is included among them, if ver. 31 is to be connected with ver. 21. The latter point is not certain, but even if it be granted, the mother might have been overpersuaded by the brethren, as Swete suggests. Or, more probably, we should have to think of another case of her failure to understand. She might have had the announcement from the angel, and, thus been, led to expect a great career for her Son—yet His actual conduct must have seemed strangely inconsistent with what she had expected of the Messiah (compare the doubts of John the Baptist). The objection that Christ would not have spoken about His mother as He does in 3:31ff. if she had been so highly favored of God as is implied in the fact of the virgin birth is, of course, frivolous. It is remarkable that Mark has Ò JX6JT< in 6:3, as against Ò J@L$ JX6J@<@H LÊ`H in Matthew 13:55 (cf. Luke 4:22, @ÛPÂ LÊ`H ¦FJ4< TF¬N @ß$J@F;). If there is any reference here to the virgin birth,25 then there can be no question but that the form of the statement in Matthew is the original one, for of course the scoffers did not know of the miracle. The form in Mark would rather be a correction made by the Evangelist to prevent misunderstanding from the absence of an account of the birth in his Gospel. But it is, after all, far more likely that the form in Mark is due to the, fact that Joseph had died.26 In the fourth Gospel, Jesus is called the son of Joseph not only by the Jews (6:42), but also by Philip (1:45); He is regarded as coming from Nazareth (7:41); His brothers did not believe on Him (7:5). Yet in no case is a suitable occasion indicated for correcting these opinions, supposing them to be false, for that Jesus should describe the manner of His birth in opposition to false ideas would be out of all harmony with His established methods, and furthermore, could give rise only to suspicion, not to faith. Beyschlag lays stress upon the objection that the statement in John 1:31, 33, 6•(ã @Û6 ·*,4< "ÛJ`<
is inconsistent with the intimacy of Mary and Elisabeth as described in Luke 1; but the objection is not necessarily fatal. If John was in the desert until the time of his public appearance, he may well have never seen Jesus the Galilean, and exactly what he would have been told is merely surmise. The view of Soltau that "throughout /pg. 660/ the Johannine writing there prevails what might be described as a polemical attitude toward those who will only believe in Jesus on condition that He is a son of David and a native of Bethlehem" is without a shadow of evidence.
In general we may conclude that the virgin birth was, according to the Gospels, not generally known during the lifetime of Jesus; indeed, was not known even within the circle of His neighbors and kinsfolk. On the other hand, there is no satisfactory evidence to show positively that Jesus Himself or His mother did not know it; for even if they had known it, they could not be expected to correct the current impression. It was not the habit of Christ to reveal sacred mysteries to those whose hearts were hardened.
As to the Evangelists themselves, we should not expect that Mark would mention the virgin birth even if he knew it, since he is concerned to give only the events of the public ministry of Jesus things which formed the basis of the earliest preaching. Luke and Matthew would not need to express themselves again on the matter if they included in their Gospels the infancy narratives giving a full account of the event. But how is it with John? The Prologue might be interpreted in three ways: as presupposing the virgin birth (Zahn), as containing a polemic argument against it, or as saying nothing about it one way or the other. The verse especially referred to is 1:13. It has been suggested that the author urges against the view that Jesus was born in a peculiar way the consideration that all Christians may be said to be born "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Schmiedel27 has suggested this view of the matter only to reject it, for, he says, the meaning of the verse is simply that in the case of the elect it is not their human birth that matters so much as their election. We are thus led to the view of
Zahn that ver. 13 presupposes the virgin birth.28 According to Zahn, John means to say in vers. 13, 14, that what is true of the new birth of the children of God is true of the real birth of Christ. Thus the reading of Irenæus and Tertullian and of some Latin authorities, ÔH…¦(,<<Z20, though not original [as Resch supposes], yet exhibits a proper sense of what is the true meaning of the juxtaposition of ver. 13 and ver. 14a. Such an interpretation, however, attributes to the Evangelist a confusion between the spiritual and physical spheres, or rather an elaborate parallel between them, which, if intended, would have to be more clearly indicated. Furthermore, there is a good connection between /pg. 661/ ver. 13 and ver. 14a other than that suggested by Zahn. In ver. 13 the two spheres—the heavenly and the earthly sphere—are contrasted, and this leads the author to speak in ver. 14a of the descent of the Logos from the heavenly to the earthly. Ver. 14 describes the connection formed between the two spheres, by means of which the new birth described in ver. 13 is made possible. We must conclude, therefore, that, although the interpretation of Zahn is possible, it is not proved. On the other hand, the objection that the preëxistence of the Logos excludes the virgin birth is even more unprovable. In the Prologue, then, John does not clearly imply the virgin birth, though his exalted doctrine of the Incarnation seems rather to favor some such event than to exclude it. How explain his silence? It should be noticed that some of those who deny the early date and historicity of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke yet feel constrained to put the fourth Gospel still later, so that the temporal relation between the two is the same as upon the most "conservative" view. For these critics, therefore, the silence of John is a problem as well as for those who accept the virgin birth, and they can only say with A. Sabatier29 that, whereas the other Evangelists did not mention the virgin birth because they did not know of it, John did not mention it because he had something better, i.e., the doctrine of the Logos. Now if the two doctrines were exclusive of each other, then we should have here what Schmiedel calls a "tacit rejection" of the virgin birth by the fourth Gospel. But if the two doctrines cannot be shown to be inconsistent, then there is a sense in which we can heartily accept Sabatier's statement of the matter. John
omitted in his Gospel what had already been related in the others. Accordingly, he omitted the account of the birth, and went on to speak of what had not been touched upon by his predecessors, i.e., the preëxistence of Christ. It is therefore true that he omitted the virgin birth, if not because he had something better, at least because he had something more. Again, if the purpose of his Gospel was to bring forth testimony (20:31), it is natural that he should not mention the virgin birth, for from the very nature of the case it never could and never can be a proof that Jesus is the Son of God. In the Apocalypse, chap. 12 seems to show a knowledge of Matt. 2, but the matter is not at all certain, and the relation has even been reversed.
In Acts, the speeches of Peter and Paul would indicate that the virgin birth was no part of the earliest missionary preaching; but to regard these speeches before hostile or uninstructed audiences /pg. 662/ as fine opportunities for mentioning the virgin birth is to stifle the historical sense.30
In Paul, Rom. 1:3 and Gal. 4:4 are the loci classici, and have been claimed with equal futility as involving the virgin birth and as excluding it. In Rom. 1:3, 4 (J@L$ (,<@:X<@L ¦6 FBXD:"J@H )"L,Â* 6"J( FVD6", J@L$ ÒD4F2X<J@H LÊ@L$ 2,@L$ ¦< *L<V:,4 6"J( B<,L$:" ,(4TFb<0H ¦> •<"FJVF,TH <,6DT$<), it is claimed that since Paul is contrasting the earthly physical life of Jesus with His heavenly life after the resurrection, if he believed in the virgin birth, it would not have been true to say that Christ was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. The Spirit would have had a part even in His physical life. But is this not an over-refinement? Paul is simply saying that Christ took upon Himself the form of a man—that is just as true on the theory of the virgin birth as on the opposite theory— and that in so far as He was a man, He was of the seed of David. In Gal. 4:4 ((,<`:,<@< ¦6 (L<"46`H, (,<`:,<@< ßBÎ <`:@<), it is absurd to expect Paul to say (,<`:,<@< ¦6 B"D2X<@L, since the matter in hand is the likeness of Christ to men, not His difference from them.31 On the other hand, Zahn is claiming too much when he argues that if Paul had not known the virgin birth, it would have
served his purpose far better, according to Jewish ideas, to have mentioned not the mother but the father. For "born of a woman" is just a paraphrase for "human," as the commentators prove, especially from Matt. 11:11. As to Paul's doctrine, it can hardly be used one way or the other with any degree of certainty. How preëxistence is incompatible with the virgin birth it is difficult to see. If anything, it rather favors the doctrine. The comparison of Christ with the second Adam might seem to suggest something in the nature of a creative act to correspond with the creation of Adam.32 In general it may be said that while Paul's doctrine agrees better with the virgin birth than with a birth from Joseph and Mary, yet he does not say any thing definite one way or the other. With regard to his silence, it is of great importance to notice that, in general, "his epistles are almost exclusively occupied in contending for Christian principles, not in recalling facts of our Lord's life." Where Paul does relate facts of Christ's life (1 Cor. 9:23ff., 15:3ff.), he does it in so purely incidental a way as to suggest that he actually knew a great deal more than he tells in his Epistles.33 /pg. 663/
The net results of our examination, therefore, are the two propositions: (1) that the New Testament, outside of the infancy narratives, does not affirm the fact of the virgin birth, and
(2) that it does not deny it. In order rightly to understand the significance of this we must ask the question whether the spread of the report about the virgin birth might have taken place in a way consistent with this silence. If the virgin birth were true, must it have been mentioned in any place where as a matter of fact it is not mentioned?
Let us suppose the narratives of Matt. 1, 2, and Luke 1, 2, to be substantially correct, and ask ourselves what we should expect the course of development to be. According to those narratives, there were only two persons who at first knew of the virgin birth—Joseph and Mary—nor is there any record that they confided in any one else. The report of the shepherds (Luke 2:20) and of Anna (Luke 2:38)
need not have reached a very wide circle, and like the visit of the Magi (in which case there were special reasons for silence), took place in Judæa, far from Nazareth, the subsequent home of the family, and several years before their return. It has been further suggested by Ramsay that fear of Antipas may have been a special reason for silence after the return.34 Probably Joseph died before Jesus reached maturity, in which case Mary was left as the sole keeper of the secret. True, this "secret" is denounced as an apologetic expedient, but a little exercise of the historical imagination will remove the odium. One great fault of the treatment of this subject is that too little account has been taken of the personal equation. For it seems hardly in accord with the character of Mary, as it is painted in such distinct colors in the infancy narrative of Luke (the truth of which we are assuming for the sake of the argument), that, after she had undergone experiences of the most mysterious kind and had submitted to a command which ran counter to every instinct of her soul, she should proceed to engage in idle gossip about the matter, thereby subjecting herself to the blackest slander. Some women might have done so; the Mary who "kept all these sayings pondering them in her heart" certainly would not. There is every reason to suppose that she would keep the secret even from her younger children—or, rather, most carefully of all from them. So the years went by, and He who was to rule over the house of Jacob forever continued to labor at a carpenter's bench until the time of His majority had come and gone. Must not the miraculous events of /pg. 664/ thirty years ago have come to be to Mary like a wonderful dream? Must not her faith have undergone a terrible trial? And then when her Son did come before the nation, how different was His coming from what she had pictured to herself! It does not seem at all surprising that, like John the Baptist, she should have been puzzled, and should have begun to wonder whether she had interpreted those far-off mysteries aright. But she learned like the rest, and after Pentecost had come, and the little company of Christians were praying together, comforted by the Spirit whom Jesus had sent, she must have continued to ponder over all those things, though in a far different spirit. Then, at last, within the little circle of believing and