evangelist makes strongly against any such supposition), or even to his kindred the officiating priesthood, it would no doubt have caused a great sensation, falling in, as it would, with the prevailing tone of the public mind. For it was the general belief that some messenger would, in the language of Isaiah, "prepare the way of the Lord;" and the last words which had, as it were, sealed the book of prophecy, intimated, as many supposed, the personal reappearance of Elijah, the greatest, and, in popular opinion, a sort of representative of the whole prophetic community. The ascetic life to which the infant prophet was to be dedicated, according to the Nazaritish vow of abstinence from all wine or strong drink, was likewise a characteristic of the prophetic order, which, although many, more particularly among the Essenes, asserted their inspired knowledge of futurity, was generally considered to have ceased in the person of Malachi, the last whose oracles were enrolled in the sacred canon (1). Zachariah It does not appear that dumbness was a legal disqualification for Return of the sacerdotal function, for Zachariah remained among his bre- to Hebron. thren, the priests, till their week of ministration ended. He then returned to his usual residence in the southern part of Judæa most probably in the ancient and well-known city of Hebron (2), which was originally a Levitical city; and although the sacerdotal order do not seem to have resumed the exclusive possession of their cities at the return from the captivity, it might lead the priestly families to settle more generally in those towns; and Hebron, though of no great size, was considered remarkably populous in proportion to its extent. The divine promise began to be accomplished; and during the five first months of her pregnancy, Elizabeth, the wife of Zachariah, concealed herself, either avoiding the curious inquiries of her neighbours in these jealous and perilous times, or in devotional retirement, rendering thanks to the Almighty for the unexpected blessing (3). tion. It was on a far less public scene, that the birth of Christ, of whom Annunciathe child of Zachariah was to be the harbinger, was announced lo the Virgin Mother. The families which traced their descent from the house of David had fallen into poverty and neglect. When, after the return from the Babylonian captivity, the sovereignty had been assumed, first by the high-priests of Levitical descent, subsequently by the Asmonean family, who were likewise of the priestly (1) The mythic interpreters (see Strauss, p. 138.) assert that this "short poem," as they call it, was invented out of the passages in the Old Testament, relating to the births of Isaac, Samson, and Samuel, by a Judaising Christian, while there were still genuine followers of John the Baptist, in order to conciliate them to Christianity. This is admitting very high antiquity of the passage; and unless it coincided with their own traditions, was it likely to have any influence (2) Yet, as there seems no reason why the Judah. (3) Luke, i. 23-25. 4 line, and finally, by the house of Herod, of Idumean origin, but engrafted into the Maccabean line by the marriage of Herod with Mariamne, it was the most obvious policy to leave in the obscurity into which they had sunk, that race which, if it should produce any pretendant of the least distinction, he might advance an hereditary claim, as dear to the people as it would be dangerous to the reigning dynasty. The whole descendants of the royal race seem to have sunk so low, that even the popular belief, which looked to the line of David, as that from which the Messiah was to spring (1), did not invest them with sufficient importance to awaken the jealousy or suspicion of the rulers. Joseph, a man descended from this royal race, had migrated, for some unknown reason, to a distance from the part of the land inhabited by the tribe of Benjamin, to which, however, they were still considered to belong. He settled in Nazareth, an obscure town in Lower Galilee, which, independent of the general disrepute in which the whole of the Galilean provinces were held by the inhabitants of the more holy district of Judæa, seems to have been marked by a kind of peculiar proverbial contempl. Joseph had been betrothed to a virgin of his own race, named Mary, but according to Jewish usage, some time was to elapse between the betrothment and the espousals. In this interval took place the annunciation of the divine conception to the Virgin (2). In no part is the singular simplicity of the Gospel narrative more striking than in the relation of this incident; and I should be inclined, for this reason alone, to reject the notion that these chapters were of a later date (3). So early does that remarkable characteristic of the evangelic writings develope itself; the manner in which they relate, in the same calm and equable tone, the most extraordinary and most trivial events; the apparent absence either of wonder in the writer, or the desire of producing a strong effect on the mind of the reader (4). To illustrate this, no passage can be more striking than the account of her vision, "And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail thou that art highly favoured, the (1) This opinion revived so strongly in the time of Domitian, as, according to the Christian historian, to awaken the apprehension of the Roman emperor, who commanded diligent search to be made for all who claimed descent from the line of David. It does not appear how many were discovered, as Eusebius relates the story merely for the purpose of showing that the descendants of our Lord's brethren were brought before the emperor, and dismissed as simple labourers, too humble to be regarded with suspicion. Many families of this lineage may have perished in the exterminating war of Titus, between the birth of Christ and this inquiry of Domitian. In later times the Prince of the Capti vity, with what right it would be impossible to decide, traced his descent from the line of the ancient kings. Conf. Casaubon, Exercit. antiBaron, ii. p. 17. (2) Luke, i. 26.38. (3) I cannot discover any great force in the critical arguments adduced to disjoin these preliminary chapters from the rest of the narrative. There is a very remarkable evidence of their authenticity in the curious apocryphal book (the Ascensio Isaiæ, published from the Ethiopic by Archbishop Lawrence). Compare Gesenius, Jesaias, Einleitung, p. 50. This writing marks its own date, the end of the reign of Nero, with unusual certainty, and contains distinct allusions to these facts, as forming integral parts of the life of Christ. The events were no doubt trea sured in the memory of Mary, and might by her be communicated to the apostles. (4) I may be in error, but this appears to me the marked and perceptible internal difference between the genuine and apocryphal gospels. The latter are mythic, not merely in the matter but also in their style. Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto ber, Fear not, Mary for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. tion of the Deity. The incarnation of the Deity, or the union of some part of the IncarnaDivine Essence with a material or human body, is by no means an uncommon religious notion, more particularly in the East. Yet, in the doctrine as subsequently developed by Christianity, there seems the same important difference which characterises the whole system of the ancient and modern religions. It is in the former a mythological impersonation of the Power, in Christ it is the Goodness of the Deity, which, associating itself with a human form, assumes the character of a representative of the human race; in whose person is exhibited a pure model of moral perfection, and whose triumph over evil is by the slow and gradual progress of enlightening the mind, and softening and purifying the heart. The moral purpose of the descent of the Deity is by no means excluded in the religions, in which a similar notion has prevailed, as neither is that of divine power, though confining itself to acts of pure beneficence, from the Christian scheme. This seems more particularly the case, if we may slate any thing with certainty concerning those halfmythological, half-real personages, the Buddh, Gautama, or Somana Codom of the remoter East (1). In these systems likewise the overbearing excess of human wickedness demands the interfe (1) The characteristic of the Budhist religion, which in one respect may be considered (I de precate misconstruction) the Christianity of the remoter East, seems an union of political with religious reformation; its end to substitute purer morality for the wild and multifarious idolatry into which Brahminism had degenerated, and to break down the distinction of castes. But Budhism appears to be essentially monastic; and how different the superstitious regard for life in the Budhist from the enlightened humanity of M. Klaproth has somewhere said, that, "next Birth from rence, and the restoration of a better order of things is the object, which vindicates the presence of the embodied Deity; yet there is invariably a greater or less connection with the oriental cosmogonical systems; it is the triumph of mind over matter, the termination of the long strife between the two adverse principles. The Christian scheme, however it may occasionally admit the current language of the time, as where Christ is called the "Light of the World," yet in its scope and purport stands clear and independent of all these physical notions: it is original, inasmuch as it is purely, essentially, and exclusively a moral revelation; its sole design to work a moral change; to establish a new relation between man and the Almighty Creator, and to bring to light the great secret of the immortality of man. Hence the only deviation from the course of nature was the birth a virgin. of this Being from a pure virgin (1). Much has been written on this subject; but it is more consistent with our object to point out the influence of this doctrine upon the human mind, as hence its harmony with the general design of Christianity becomes more manifest. We estimate very inadequately the influence or the value of any religion, if we merely consider its dogmas, its precepts, or its opinions. The impression it makes, the emotions it awakens, the sentiments which it inspires, are perhaps its most vital and effective energies: from these men continually act; and the character of a particular age is more distinctly marked by the predominance of these silent but universal motives, than by the professed creed, or prevalent philosophy, or in general, by the opinions of the times. Thus, none of the primary facts in the history of a widely-extended religion can be without effect on the character of its believers. The images perpetually presented to the mind, work, as it were, into its (1) According to a tradition known in the West, at an early period, and quoted by Jerom (Adv. Jovin, c. 26.), Budh was born of a virgin. So were the Fohi of China and the Schaka of Thibet, no doubt the same whether a mythic or a real personage. The Jesuits in China were appalled at finding in the mythology of that country, the counterpart of the "Virgo Deipara." (Barrow's Travels in China, i.) There is something extremely curious in the appearance of the saine religious notions in remote, and apparently quite disconnected countries, where it is impossible to trace the secret manner of their transmission. Certain incidents, for example, in the history of the Indian Crishna are so similar to those of the life of Christ, that De Guignaut is almost inclined to believe that they are derived from some very early Christian tradition. In the present instance, however, the peculiar sanctity attri buted to virginity in all countries, where the ascetic principle is held in high honour as approximating the pure and passionless human being to the Divinity, might suggest such an origin for a Deity in human form. But the birth of Budh seems purely mythic: he was born from Maia, the virgin goddess of the imaginative world-as it were the Phantasia of the Greeks who was said by some to have given birth to Homer. The Schaka of Thibet was born from, the nymph Lhamoghinpral. Georgi. Alph. Tibet. Compare Rosenmuller, das Alte und Neue Morgenland, v. iv.; on Budh and his birth, Bohlen, i. 312. I am inclined to think that the Jews, though partially orientalised in their opinions, were the people among whom such a notion was least likely to originate of itself. Marriage by the mass of the people was considered in a holy light; and there are traces that the hopes of becoming the mother of the Messiah, was one of the blessings which, in their opinion, belonged to marriage; and after all, before we admit the originality of these notions in some of the systems to which they belong, we must ascertain (the most intricate problem in the history of Eastern religious opinions) their relative antiquity, as compared with the Nestorian Christianity, so widely prevalent in the East, and the effects of this form of Christianity on the more remote Oriental creeds. Jerome's testimony is the most remarkable. most intimate being, become incorporated with the feelings, and thus powerfully contribute to form the moral nature of the whole race. Nothing could be more appropriate than that the martial Romans should derive their origin from the nursling of the wolf, or from the god of war; and whether those fables sprung from the national temperament, or contributed to form it, however these fierce images were enshrined in the national traditions, they were at once the emblem and example of that bold and relentless spirit which gradually developed itself, until it had made the Romans the maslers of the world. The circumstances of the birth of Christ were as strictly in unison with the design of the religion. This incident seemed to incorporate with the general feeling the deep sense of holiness and gentleness, which was to characterise the followers of Jesus Christ. It was the consecration of sexual purity and maternal tenderness. No doubt by falling in, to a certain degree, with the ascetic spirit of Oriental enthusiasm, the former incidentally tended to confirm the sanctity of celibacy, which for so many ages reigned para-mount in the church; and in the days in which the Virgin Mother was associated with her divine Son in the general adoration, the propensity to this worship was strengthened by its coincidence with 'the better feelings of our nature, especially among the female sex. Still the substitution of these images for such as formed the symbols of the older religions, was a great advance towards that holier and more humane tone of thought and feeling, with which it was the professed design of the new religion to embue the mind of man (1). In the marvellous incidents which follow, the visit of the Virgin Visit to Mother to her cousin (2) Elizabeth (3), when the joy occasioned by Elizabeth. the miraculous conception seemed to communicate itself to the child of which the latter was pregnant, and called forth her ardent expressions of homage: and in the Magnificat, or song of thanksgiving, into which, like Hannah in the older Scriptures, the Virgin broke forth, it is curious to observe how completely and exclusively consistent every expression appears with the state of belief at that period; all is purely Jewish, and accordant with the prevalent expectation of the national Messiah (4): there is no word which seems to imply any acquaintance with the unworldly and purely moral na (1) The poetry of this sentiment is beautifully expressed by Wordsworth : Mother whose virgin bosom was uncrost |