II. them with sufficient importance to awaken the CHAP. 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 ob scure 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 contempt. 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. 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.t So early does that remarkable cha * 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 Captivity, with what right it would be impossible to decide, traced his descent from the line of * Luke, i. 26. 38. + 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 CHAP. racteristic of the evangelic writings develope itself; II. the manner in which they relate, in the same : the Ethiopic by Archbishop Law- might by her be communicated to the apostles. 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. 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." IL of the The incarnation of the Deity, or the union of Incarnation some part of the Divine Essence with a material or Deity. 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 state 11. CHAP. any thing with certainty concerning those halfmythological, half-real personages, the Buddh, Gautama, or Somana Codom of the remoter East.* In these systems likewise the overbearing excess of human wickedness demands the interference, 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. Birth from a virgin. Hence the only deviation from the course of nature was the birth of this Being from a pure The characteristic of the Budhist religion, which in one respect may be considered (I deprecate 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 Christianity! See Mahony, in Asiat. Research. vii. p. 40. M. Klaproth has somewhere said, that, "next to the Christian, no religion has contributed more to ennoble the human race than * II. virgin. Much has been written on this subject; CHAP. 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 the Buddha religion." Compare likewise the very judicious observations of Wm. Humboldt, über die Kawi Sprache, p. 95. * 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 same 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 attributed 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. |
