tent, and of unknown origin; that the description of the virgin birth as given by them conflicts with physical science and psychology; and that their story resembles the myths of other ancient religions.

These reasons must be candidly considered by all those who desire to attain certainty as to the immaculate conception and the virgin birth of our Lord. I think they may all be sincerely met and entirely overcome.

1. The story as given by our Matthew and Luke does not come from these writers, but from their sources. They briefly remark upon it and interpret it, but they do not materially change it. These sources are poetic in form and also in substance, and have all the characteristics of Hebrew poetry as to parallelism, measurement of lines, and strophical organization.

They evidently came from a Jewish-Christian community and not from Gentile Christians. They were therefore ancient sources, different from and yet to be classed with the Gospel of Saint Mark and the Logia of Saint Matthew, rather than with our Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.

2. We have to take account of the poetic clothing of the story. The piece cited by Matthew is:

Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:
For that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus;
For it is He that shall save His people from their sins.1

We know not how much more extensive this piece of poetry was, but it implies all that the evangelist says in his context; namely, that the virgin bride of Joseph was found to be with child, and that he recognized that the child was begotten not by him but by the Divine Spirit. The evangelist may or may not be mistaken in the translation and in his interpretation of the predictions of Isaiah; 2 or he may use it as a suitable embodiment of his thought. Whatever opinion one may form on this subject, it does not affect the main question: that Matthew used a poetic source for this story and interprets it, just as he used the Gospel of Saint Mark and the Logia of Saint Matthew, and frequently interpolated them with interpretations 2 Mt. 122-23; Is. 714.

1 Mt. 120-21.

also. There is a larger use of poetic sources in Luke. Indeed, it gives a series of beautiful canticles to tell us the story of the Forerunners and the birth of Jesus, with comments of its own. The chief of the poetic extracts used by Luke is the follow

ing:

The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,

And the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee:
Wherefore also that holy thing that is to be born

Shall be called the Son of God.

And behold, Elizabeth thy kinswoman,

She also hath conceived a son in her old age:

And this is the sixth month with her that was called barren :
For no word from God shall be void of power.

- Lk. 135-37.

The virgin conception of Jesus, as here announced by the archangel, is not to be interpreted as if it were a miracle in violation of the laws of nature, but rather as brought about by God Himself present in theophany. The conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary differs from all other conceptions of children by their mothers, in that there was no human father. The place of the human father was taken by God Himself; not that God appeared in theophany in human form to beget the child, after the analogy of the mythologies of the ethnic religions; but that God in a theophany, in an extraordinary way unrevealed to us, and without violation of the laws of maternity, impregnates the Virgin Mary with the holy seed. The words of the angel imply a theophanic presence; for though it might be urged that the coming of the Spirit upon her was an invisible coming after the analogy of many passages of the Old Testament, yet the parallel statement that the divine power overshadowed her cannot be so interpreted. For it not only in itself represents that the divine power covered her with a shadow, but this is to be thought of after the uniform usage of Holy Scripture as a bright cloud of glory, hovering over her, resting upon her, or enveloping her with a halo of divinity, in the moment when the divine energy enabled her to conceive the child Jesus.1

1 The same verb, émiσkáčw, is used in the Septuagint of Ex. 4085, with reference to the cloud of glory of the Tabernacle, and also to the theophanic cloud of the Transfiguration in Mt. 175 = Mk. 97 = Lk. 984. The cloud of glory is always connected with God, and implies more than the agency of the Divine Spirit.

This representation is based upon the well-known pillar of cloud lighted with divine glory, of the story of Exodus,1 and of the erection of Solomon's temple.2 The entrance of God into His tabernacle and temple to dwell there in a theophanic cloud would naturally suggest that the entrance of the divine life into the virgin's womb to dwell there would be in the same form of theophanic cloud. The earthly origin of Jesus in the virgin's womb would thus begin with a theophany, just as theophanies accompany His birth, His baptism, His transfiguration, His crucifixion, and His resurrection.

This annunciation represents the conception of Jesus as due to a theophany. It does not state the doctrine of His preëxistence, although that doctrine is a legitimate inference. It represents an early stage of New Testament Christology. It does not go a step beyond the Paulinism of the epistles to the Corinthians.

6

This annunciation knows nothing of the incarnation of the Logos, of the prologue of the Gospel of John; or of the Son of man from heaven, of the Gospel itself; or of the effulgence of the glory of God, of Hebrews; or of the firstborn of all creation, of Colossians; or of the epiphany of the Messiah, of 2 Timothy; or of the Kenosis, of Philippians; but represents an earlier Christology than any of these writings. Holzmann 9 truly states that Rom. 13, 83, Gal. 44, do not imply a virgin birth, but may be interpreted of a birth of Joseph and Mary, in accordance with the reference to Joseph as the father of Jesus in the primitive Gospels. But, as Schmiedel shows, 10 the epistles to the Corinthians teach an early stage of the doctrine of the preexistence of Jesus in the second Adam from heaven, 11 and the head of humanity, 12 of 1 Corinthians; and especially in the self-impoverishment of the rich Messiah, of 2 Corinthians. 13 This more primitive form of the doctrine of the preexistence of the Messiah is still in advance of the doctrine of this annunciation. This annunciation of a theophanic birth is really a

10 Die Briefe an die Thess. und an die Korinther, s. 168.

11 1 Cor. 1545-47.

12 1 Cor. 113.

18 2 Cor. 89.

simpler conception and one more in accordance with the representations of the Old Testament than the sending of the Son of God, born of a woman, of the epistles to the Romans1 and Galatians. It is true that none of these passages teach a virgin conception and birth; but they teach or imply more than the virgin birth, namely, the preexistence of the Messiah. before His entrance into the world.3

Thus I explained the story in its connection in 1894. I shall only add that the doctrine of the preëxistence of the Messiah and the doctrines of the Kenosis, of Saint Paul, and the incarnation, of the Prologue of John, are more difficult doctrines than the doctrine of the virgin birth. If the preëxistent Messiah was to enter the world and become a man, what was the most natural and reasonable and divine way of doing it? Would He enter and take possession of a full-grown man, as, for example, the human Jesus at His baptism? The ancients who taught this were regarded rightly as heretics. Would He enter and take possession of a boy or an infant after birth? Or would He clothe Himself in an unconscious foetus in the womb of a mother?

It is only sufficient to raise these questions in order to be pressed back by an inevitable necessity of logical consistency from every kind of dualism, such as would be involved in any other mode of incarnation except the one described in the story of the virgin birth; namely, the theophanic entrance of the preexistent Christ into the womb of the virgin as the primal germ of a living individual. It does not seem incredible that He, who is immanent, omnipresent, and omnipotent, should concentrate His real presence, for His work on earth as the Messiah, in the womb of a virgin; and there is no violation of physiology or psychology if that concentrated presence should assume the form of the first beginning of a human organism and attach itself for substance and growth to the maternal springs of vital

energy.

1 Rom. 83.

2 Gal. 44.

3 Briggs, Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 48-51.

4. Legends

We have seen that the best Christian scholars recognize that there are legends in Holy Scripture. The only question is as to the number and extent of them, and the way in which we may distinguish them from the reality that underlies them. There can be no doubt that the story of Jannes and Jambres used in the Second Epistle to Timothy 2 is such a legend. Few find difficulty in recognizing that; but what shall we say as regards the story of the angel stirring the waters, in the Gospel of John in the Authorized Version?3 The Revised Version omits this story, although it gives it on the margin as contained in many ancient authorities. There can be little doubt that it is a legend which crept into some ancient texts.

The Revised Version also brackets the story of the woman taken in adultery, and states on the margin that "most of the ancient authorities omit John 753-811. Those which contain it vary much from each other." This is a beautiful story, and there is nothing in it that seems unnatural or inconsistent with the character and teachings of Jesus. Indeed, it is a story that is a favourite among many who would gladly reject other parts of the Gospels as mythical or legendary. And yet, while it may be a true story, it is probably a legend.

Some have thought that the stories of the dream of Pilate's wife and the washing of Pilate's hands 5 are legendary. They are peculiar to Matthew. This Gospel has inserted them in the midst of the narratives derived by it from Saint Mark. They are just the sort of things of which legends are made. The Gospel according to Peter adds to the washing of Pilate's hands the statement: "But of the Jews none washed his hands, neither Herod nor any one of His judges. And when they wished to wash them Pilate rose up."6 The question, whether such incidents are legendary or not, does not in the slightest degree impair the holy character of the Bible or the particular narrative, or in any way discredit the genuineness of the great historic facts of the religion and faith of the Bible.

1 See pp. 335 seq. 5 Mt. 2724b-25

2 2 Tim. 38.

3 John 53-4.

4 Mt. 2719.

* 11; Robinson and James, Gospel according to Peter, p. 16.