Our purpose in the final chapter is to co-ordinate the results we have reached, and to discuss their bearing upon the historical question of the Virgin Birth. We have also to determine how far strictly historical considerations can take us; to ask, that is to say, within what limits the problem is historical at all. It will be well first to summarize the conclusions to which we have already come.
(1) The Virgin Birth was not the subject of Apostolic preaching, and apparently was unknown to St. Paul and St. Mark.
(2) St. Luke became acquainted with the tradition for the first time, either when he was in process of writing his Gospel, or immediately afterwards.
(3) The First Gospel presupposes the Virgin Birth tradition, which had probably been known to its readers for some time, sufficiently long for problems to be started and for difficulties to be raised.
(4) No satisfactory proof is forthcoming to show that the Fourth Evangelist definitely rejected the tradition. The most we can say is that his doctrinal sympathies lay in another direction.
On the positive side our most important result is that we can prove from the New Testament itself that belief in the Virgin Birth existed in influential Christian communities at the time when the First and Third Gospels were written. We have no further need, therefore, to consider theories which assign the belief to a later age, and which, by various interpolation-hypotheses, deprive the doctrine of New Testament support. Those who have stated such theories have rendered service in that they have explored an alternative path. On the view we have preferred this path proves to be a cul-de-sac. We have [pg 116] therefore, to recognize that, whether we accept or reject the Virgin Birth, we must do this in full acknowledgement of the fact that among early witnesses to the belief are two outstanding New Testament Writings.
Can we go further than this? To do so we must consider the First and Third Gospels, in respect of their mutual relations and of what they conjointly imply.
In considering the relation in which the First and Third Gospels stand to each other and to the Virgin Birth three questions are of the greatest interest and importance. (1) To what extent do the two Gospels imply a common tradition and belief? (2) How far back can we trace this tradition? (3) In what relation does the public tradition stand to the theory of an earlier tradition of a private and restricted character?
(1) In answer to the first question, our view is that each Gospel, in a different way, is a witness to the same tradition. Too much has frequently been made of the theory that in Mt. and Lk. we have two independent accounts of the Virgin Birth tradition. It may seriously be questioned if this theory is true. Mt. i. 18-25 is misunderstood if it is explained as a Virgin Birth tradition. Like the rest of cc. i, ii, its character is Midrashic, and it is written from an apologetic standpoint. It would therefore be much truer to say that it implies the existence of a Virgin Birth tradition as known to the readers of the Gospel. What form that tradition took we are of course unable to say. It is possible that it was similar to the tradition as it appears in Lk. On the other hand, it may be that even in Lk. the form in which the tradition is presented owes something to the Evangelist's craftsmanship. If this is so, it would seem that the narratives of both writers point back to a simpler tradition or belief, from which, in different ways, they came to assume their present form. What is of chief importance is the view that in both Gospels we have, not so much two independent narratives of the Virgin Birth, as rather two independent witnesses to what originally was one and the same tradition.
It cannot escape our notice that, in spite of their obvious differences, Lk. i. 34 f. and Mt. i. 18-25 contain what is substantially [pg 117] the same statement, a statement which in each passage is central. In Mt. i. 20 we read: “That which is conceived (τὸ ... γεννηθέν) in her is of the Holy Spirit”; and in Lk. i. 35, after the reference to the Holy Spirit, we read: “That which is to be born (τὸ γεννώμενον) shall be called holy, the Son of God”. There is much to be said for the view that both expressions point back to a common original, to a primitive belief that Jesus was “born of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Harnack, Date of Acts, &c., pp. 142 ff.).
If then we are unable to accept the view that in Mt. and Lk. we have two independent accounts of the Virgin Birth, we may well ask if the loss is a real one. It is probably nothing of the kind. There was indeed a certain advantage in feeling able to point to two diverse traditions which converged upon one fact. Nevertheless, the argument always had a certain weakness. We had to account for the two different traditions, and the explanation was a theory we could never prove. It may be that St. Luke's story goes back for its authority to Mary; it is very doubtful if St. “Matthew's” has any historical connexion with Joseph; but in either case neither assumption is justifiable in an historical inquiry. It must be allowed, we think, that our view has sounder advantages. Instead of claiming validity for two diverse traditions, we can point to two very different narratives, which arise out of the same belief and are independent witnesses to its existence in the primitive Christian community.
(2) To what point, then, can we trace this tradition?
We have argued that the Virgin Birth tradition first began to gain currency in the circles in which St. Luke moved at the time when the Third Gospel was being written. We have also seen that the tradition was already known to the readers of the First Gospel. If these conclusions are valid, it is evident that the relative order in which the two Gospels were written will determine the farthest point to which we can trace the Virgin Birth tradition as publicly known. What, then, is the order of composition in the case of Mt. and Lk.?
We may frankly admit that if priority must be assigned to Mt., it becomes difficult to understand how St. Luke could have no knowledge of the Virgin Birth at the time when he first took up his pen. For, on this view, we ask, Must not the tradition have already reached the circles in which he was moving at the [pg 118] time? It would certainly be more favourable to our theory if we could assign priority to the Third Gospel. In this case we should have a very simple account to give of the history of the tradition. We should discover it emerging for the first time in St. Luke's Gospel, and we should have a ready explanation (in the fact of the interval between the two works) for the apologetic note in the later Gospel.
But the priority of the two Gospels is not a question to be decided simply by the attitude which the Evangelists display towards the Virgin Birth. Mt. and Lk. must be compared throughout. When this is done there do not appear to be sufficient grounds for giving a vote in either direction (cf. Stanton, GHD., ii, p. 368). All that we can say is that the two Gospels are independent works, and must have been written about the same time. If there was an interval, it cannot have been great, for there are no sufficient signs that either writer was acquainted with the work of the other. It is especially difficult to think that St. Luke would have neglected the First Gospel, if it had been accessible to him (cf. Lk. i. 1-4).
If, however, we accept, as a working hypothesis, the view that the two Gospels were written independently of each other, and more or less simultaneously,104 it will still follow that the Virgin Birth tradition was already known in at least one influential primitive Christian community (that to which the First Gospel was addressed) while it was unknown to St. Luke.105 Is this a fatal objection, or does such a position represent what may well have been the actual situation? We do not think that the difficulty is too great.
The tides by which traditions flow in different places are not simultaneous; they differ in time, in height, and in volume. No practice could be more mischievous than the habit of dating the relative spread of early beliefs simply by the dates of contemporary documents. Regard must be paid to local conditions.
[pg 119]In life as in nature there are variations of current and of coast formation. There are limits, of course, within which this caveat holds good; but, provided the interval of time is not too great, the view that St. Luke could begin to write in ignorance of a tradition already known elsewhere is not self-condemned. After all, St. Luke himself had access to much tradition which presumably was unknown to the First Evangelist (witness St. Luke's special matter).
Concerning the length of time we can allow the Virgin Birth tradition to have been already known elsewhere, when St. Luke began to write, there is room for difference of opinion. If, as we have contended, he became acquainted with it in the process of writing or immediately afterwards, the period can scarcely have been considerable. Perhaps it ought to be estimated in months rather than in years, but to say more would be idle speculation.
The farthest point therefore to which we can trace the existence of the Virgin Birth as a public tradition is some little time previous to the composition of the Third Gospel.
(3) It is a perfectly fair assumption to make that the public tradition must have had a private vogue before, and perhaps for some time before, it became public property. This view becomes especially probable in the light of what we have just seen, viz. that the spread of the public tradition among the primitive Christian communities covered an appreciable period of time. The question of the historical truth of the Virgin Birth is precisely the question of how far back the private tradition can be traced; whether it can go back to Mary the mother of Jesus, and whether satisfactory reasons can be given for a silence which extends beyond the period covered by the Pauline Epistles and the Second Gospel, and is broken only at last in the interval which shortly preceded the composition of the Gospels of Mt. and Lk. In this lies the real historical problem. Can the theory of a private authoritative tradition be vindicated? There are several questions which bear upon this problem. They are: (1) The question of the date of the First and of the Third Gospels; (2) The extent to which the credibility of the Gospels permits of the possibility of error; (3) The Alternative Theories of the origin of belief in the Virgin Birth; (4) The theological aspect of the tradition.
The relation in which the question of the Date of the Gospels stands to the results reached is sufficiently clear. If we could fix the time when Mt. and Lk. were written, we could determine within comparatively narrow limits when the Virgin Birth tradition first gained currency. A conclusion upon this point would materially affect our estimate of the historical value of the tradition.
Until this stage we have deliberately refrained from assigning dates to the Gospels. The only things we have assumed are the priority of Mk. and the practically contemporaneous origin of Mt. and Lk. Our justification for this course lies in the great variety of opinion which exists on the question of date, and hence the desirability of keeping clear, as long as we can, from considerations which must vitally affect the results secured.
Unfortunately, as we have said, no sort of unanimity exists upon the question of the date of the Gospels. A glance at the extremely useful table which Dr. Moffatt prints on page 213 of his Introduction makes this clear. At first sight the position would appear chaotic, and we might well shrink from attempting to connect our results with specific dates. It is impossible, moreover, in a work like the present, to discuss the question in detail. Such a problem ought to be considered independently, and with regard to all the facts of the case. It would seem best therefore to ask what the consequences are, if we incline to any one of certain representative dates. We are at liberty, of course, to indicate our personal preferences, but, for the reasons stated, we shall have to agree to a measure of uncertainty. This is disappointing, but the responsibility must lie at the right door, and that door is the present failure of Biblical Scholarship to arrive at a consensus of opinion on the question of the date of the Gospels. Perfect agreement there will never be, but until there is substantial agreement every historical investigation into questions of New Testament origins must prove incomplete.
The problem of the date of the Gospels is not, however, so chaotic as might at first sight appear. There is a strongly marked disposition to recede from the extremes on both sides, and there is a very considerable agreement that the period from 60 to [pg 121] 100 a.d. covers the time during which the Synoptic Gospels were written. There is also a consensus of opinion that the Second Gospel cannot have been written later than about 70 a.d. Every decade, and almost every year, however, between 60 and 100 a.d. finds advocates for the composition of Mt. and Lk. There are, nevertheless, three periods which find special favour. These may be briefly mentioned.
(1) The first period we may note is the closing years of the first century. For this view the main arguments are (i) the supposed dependence of St. Luke upon Josephus, and (ii) the ecclesiastical tone of certain passages in the First Gospel.
(2) A second view brings both Mk. and Lk. within St. Paul's lifetime, and dates Mt. shortly after the fall of Jerusalem. This is the opinion of Harnack (Date of Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels). It has not won a large following, either in Germany or in this country, but it is probably nearer the truth than the previous view.
(3) A third period is the time about 80 a.d. One advantage of this view, as Dr. Plummer candidly admits (ICC., St. Lk., p. xxxi), is the fact that it avoids the difficulties which beset the other two. The main argument which commends it to Dr. Plummer is that “such a date allows sufficient time for the ‘many’ to ‘draw up narratives’ respecting the acts and sayings of Christ”.
It remains for us to indicate what bearing these representative dates have upon the Virgin Birth tradition in the light of our results.
It is clear that if we must date Mt. and Lk. in the closing years of the first century, the historical value of the tradition is reduced to a minimum. For, if that tradition is historical, we are compelled to assume that for a period of about ninety years the story was jealously guarded, first by Mary herself and then by a chosen few to whom it was revealed. But who will believe this? If we accept Harnack's dates, then the period about 60 a.d. will be the time when belief in the Virgin Birth first began to spread. While, if we prefer the third alternative, we must fix upon a time some fifteen to twenty years later, i.e. the period from 75 to 80 a.d.
It is evident that the case for the historical truth of the tradition [pg 122] is at its strongest if Harnack's dates can be accepted. Looking at the question from the sole standpoint of the time-interval, we do not believe that the third period is impossibly late. However we look at the question, we are unable to bring the public tradition within the lifetime of Mary. But, provided we are not compelled to date the Gospels at the close of the century, there do not seem to be insuperable difficulties—so far as the time-element is concerned—against connecting that public tradition with those who were near her person.
It will be seen that the question of the date of the Gospels is an important one. The utmost, however, we are able to glean in this field is a somewhat negative advantage. Our conclusion is that no insuperable difficulty stands in the way. Obviously, the onus of proof yet remains. The long period of silence must be explained, and the truth of the tradition vindicated.
We must next briefly consider the question of the historical value of the Synoptic Gospels, so far as it bears upon our immediate problem. It is right to urge that our first aim must be to examine the Virgin Birth tradition without bias or presuppositions of any kind. But it is no less true to say that our estimate of the credibility of the Gospels as a whole must react upon that task in the end. Whether the Synoptic Gospels are but a tissue of legends, or whether they fulfil a good standard of historical value, are questions which cannot be ignored.
For those who claim infallibility, as well as inspiration, for the Evangelists, the problem is at an end: Lk. and Mt. teach the Virgin Birth; the doctrine is therefore true! But for most people to-day that short and easy path is impossible. The Gospels do not claim infallibility, and their contents do not bespeak it. There can be no question that a trained observer of to-day would have described many incidents in the life of Jesus very differently. There are parables which have been unconsciously hardened into miracles, sayings of Jesus which have been misunderstood, stories which have grown amidst the exigencies of controversy and in the process of evangelization. These things are no more than we might expect. They were inevitable; [pg 123] unless we credit the Evangelists with a mechanical preservation from error which finds no justification beyond our own preconceived notions of what a Gospel ought to be. Nor do such admissions rob the Gospels of real worth. On the contrary, they throw their historical value into strong relief. For to perceive that the natural infirmities of the human mind have left their trace upon the Evangelic Records is only to prepare the way for us to recognize how close in the main the Evangelists have kept to the real facts of history. The significant fact is not that they have made mistakes, but that they have made so few that are of real importance. We have only to compare their work with the Apocryphal Gospels to see, in the case of the Evangelists, what restraint the solid facts of history exercised upon the natural tendencies of their minds. Jülicher, who does not hesitate to say that what the Evangelists relate is “a mixture of truth and poetry” (INT., Eng. Tr., p. 368), nevertheless declares that “the Synoptic Gospels are of priceless value, not only as books of religious edification, but also as authorities for the history of Jesus” (ib., p. 371). “The true merit of the Synoptists”, he says, “is that, in spite of the poetic touches they employ, they did not repaint, but only handed on, the Christ of history”'
What bearing has such an estimate of the Gospels upon the historic truth of the Virgin Birth tradition? Obviously, it does not save us from the trouble of testing the tradition by such tests as we can apply. That the tradition has found a place in the New Testament is not in itself a certificate of truth. The Evangelists certainly believed the tradition; they were intellectually honest; but they may have been mistaken. The ultimate question is the truth of the authorities upon which they rested and of the belief they reflect. Their importance as writers is that they countersign the tradition with the high authority they possess. But, however high their authority, it is not that of infallibility. The truth of the Gospels is the truth of their sources. As regards the Virgin Birth tradition, the sources cannot be traced back to Mk. and Q, the two primary Synoptic documents, but to the later tradition of the Christian Church, at the time when Mt. and Lk. were written. The First and Third Evangelists have endorsed that tradition; the problem of the Virgin Birth is whether they were right. Nothing that we have [pg 124] said in this section must be construed to prejudge that question. That the Evangelists have accepted the tradition, for us unquestionably gives it a higher value; but it is not a determinative value. The main result is to make yet clearer the final issue, which is, we repeat, whether the story which the Evangelists endorse can be traced back to an authoritative source. Has it the sanction of Mary or of those who may be supposed to have known her mind?
In many discussions of the Virgin Birth, the question of Alternative Theories occupies a prominent place. Our purpose in the present section is to ask what place it may legitimately be given. Has it the importance which is often claimed?
Attention has frequently been called to the inability of those who reject the Virgin Birth to agree upon an alternative theory. The failure is patent. Harnack and Lobstein, on the one side, plead for a Jewish-Christian origin for the doctrine, in which the influence of Isa. vii. 14 played a decisive part; on the other side, Soltau, Schmiedel, Usener, and others, trace the tradition to the effect of non-Christian myths. Not only so; the advocates of each theory specifically reject the other. Lobstein, for example, thinks that “it would be rash to see direct imitations or positive influences” in the analogies “between the Biblical myth and legends of Greek or Eastern origin”. While there was mutual action between the worship or doctrine of paganism and advancing Christianity, “nothing warrants historical criticism in considering the tradition of the miraculous birth of Christ as merely the outcome of elements foreign to the religion of Biblical revelation” (The Virgin Birth of Christ, p. 76). Schmiedel, on the other hand, rejects the Jewish-Christian origin of the tradition, “Nor would Isa. vii. 14 have been sufficient to account for the origin of such a doctrine unless the doctrine had commended itself on its own merits. The passage was adduced only as an afterthought, in confirmation.... Thus the origin of the idea of a virgin birth is to be sought in Gentile-Christian circles” (EB., col. 2963 f.).106
It is not strange, perhaps, that some writers have pressed these [pg 125] contradictions into the service of Apologetics. Thus, for example, Dr. Orr does not scruple to say: “As in the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim, ‘neither so did their witness agree together’ ” (op. cit., p. 152). He even presents the remarkable argument that Dr. Cheyne's theory “gives the death-stroke to all the theories that have gone before it”, and yet is itself “absolutely baseless” (ib., p. 178). Sweet's argument is more cautiously introduced. He recognizes that the contention has its limits. He instances Bossuet's argument against the Reformation drawn from the Variations of Protestantism and G. H. Lewes's inference from the History of Philosophy that philosophy is impossible (op. cit., p. 299). But, having said this, Sweet argues that the critics agree in nothing “save dislike and depreciation of the documents”, and that “their theories are mutually destructive”.
It appears to us that this line of argument is open to serious objection; it is unfair, and it is unwise.
It is unfair, because it is neither uncommon nor unreasonable to find men agreed in rejecting a tradition or belief, and yet at variance in respect of theories of origin. It is one thing to say that a belief is untrue; quite another thing to account for its existence. That men agree upon the one point is more significant than that they differ upon the other. The view we have mentioned is unwise, because its triumph may be short-lived. There is always room for the emergence of a better alternative theory, which shall combine the excellences, and avoid the weaknesses, of pioneer attempts.
It does not need a prophet to suggest that the next alternative theory will be psychological and eclectic. If the tradition is not historical, it is not likely that we can account for its rise by one factor alone. We may regard it as established that prophecy alone did not create the tradition, and that it was not invented on the analogy of non-Christian myths. Nevertheless, it may be that Isa. vii. 14, together with the idea that underlies non-Christian legends, played an important part in the formation of the Christian tradition. If the tradition is not historical, its ultimate origin must be sought in the overwhelming impression which Jesus left upon believing hearts and minds; in the conviction that from the time of His Birth, and not only at His Baptism and Resurrection, Jesus Christ was the Son of God by the anointing of the Holy [pg 126] Spirit. The presumption that His Birth must have been remarkable would be strengthened by the Old Testament stories of the birth of Isaac, of Samson, and of Samuel, and especially by the tradition which already had gathered round the birth of John. It may also have been stimulated by the belief, found the whole world over, that the origin of great men is supernatural and miraculous. Even amongst the Jews the idea was present, that the Messiah's origin would be strange, and that no man would know from whence he came (Jn. vii. 27). If there is reason to presuppose such a point of view, we can easily imagine the electric effect which such a passage as Isa. vii. 14 would have upon those who studied Old Testament prophecies in the light of their experience of Jesus. It is vain to object that it is only in the LXX that this connexion could be established, and that in the Hebrew the word rendered “virgin” means a young woman of marriageable age. The First Gospel (i. 23) shows that it was the LXX rendering which was already read, and doubtless preferred, in the primitive Christian community. Still more fatuous is it to say, as it has been said again and again, that no Jew ever interpreted Isa. vii. 14 of the Messiah. As well might we say of other passages that no Jew would have interpreted them Messianically! The question is not how Jews regarded Isa. vii. 14, but how it may have appeared in the eyes of Jews who had come under the spell of Jesus. The passage cannot have created belief in the Virgin Birth, but it could have crystallized a belief for which wonder and speculation had prepared the way. “So it must have been!” men could well have argued. On this supposition the belief antedated the tradition. But that beliefs have created traditions again and again is enough to show that it could have been so here. Nor is the time-element the insuperable difficulty it has been supposed to be. The idea that a myth would require fifty years to grow is absurd.107 Provided the parents of Jesus were already dead, the myth could have sprung up new born.
In sketching the foregoing theory our purpose is not to assert its truth, but rather to illustrate its by no means inherent improbability. It could be true; or, at any rate, this judgement [pg 127] might any day have to be passed upon some alternative theory, superior to any that has yet been stated. The agreement of the Virgin Birth tradition with historic fact may be the true solution of the problem, but it is not the only solution that is possible, nor can its superiority be established by the comparative method alone. We therefore work along wrong lines if we attempt to argue the historic character of the Virgin Birth tradition by dwelling upon the incongruities and contradictions of alternative theories. The baleful attractiveness of such a method ought strenuously to be resisted. It may yield a few showy triumphs, but few, if any, solid results. Of course, if we have first satisfied ourselves that the Virgin Birth is historically true, the practice is less objectionable; but it is doubtful if even then it adds much to results otherwise obtained. To include the method in the process of proof is to build upon sand.
On the other hand, this view is equally sound, if our solution of the problem is one of the alternative theories to which we have referred. We have sketched a theory which we have claimed might be true. But what more could be claimed by the comparative method? Its justification or lack of justification lies elsewhere. The possible may not be the probable, nor the probable the true. The importance of the question we have discussed in the present section is that it reveals what are the by-paths and what is the high-road of a true investigation. The question of alternative theories is purely secondary. The high-road is where we left it at the end of Section II. Can the tradition, endorsed by the First and Third Evangelists, be vindicated?
The ultimate considerations which determine a true estimate of the Virgin Birth tradition are doctrinal. It is one of the chief merits of Lobstein's well-known book that he so clearly recognizes this fact: “What must finally turn the scale ... are reasons of a dogmatic and religious order” (op. cit., p. 79).
We need make no apology for not having dealt with the question of the possibility of the Miraculous Birth from the standpoint of Science. We do not propose to consider the question at length even now. The objection that miracles are impossible [pg 128] has long been exploded. In a famous letter to the Spectator (February 10, 1866) Huxley wrote: “... denying the possibility of miracles seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative Atheism”, and Atheism, he said, is “as absurd, logically speaking, as polytheism”. What we call a “miracle” may be no more than the divine operation within the domain of law itself. We have therefore no ground for saying that a virgin birth is impossible; while, in the case of One so unique as Jesus Christ, such an assertion would be utterly absurd. We do not really need any support which may be gained from the question of Parthenogenesis. The question is in the first place one of evidence.
But if primarily the question is one of evidence, it does not stop there. The historical and the theological aspects of the problem overlap; we cannot determine the question by weighing evidence alone.
If we attempt to confine ourselves to a purely historical inquiry, the verdict must be “Not proven”.108 It is true, on the one hand, that the late appearance of the tradition is not an insuperable difficulty. The theory of a long-treasured secret has a logic of its own. On the other hand, by the conditions of the case, we are unable to interrogate the witnesses. We cannot ask them whence they derived what they tell us. We cannot demonstrate that the story they relate has the ultimate authority of Mary. All that we can reach is a primitive belief, generally accepted within New Testament times, which presumably implies an earlier private tradition. Beyond that point we cannot travel—within the limits of the evidence alone.
Substantially this position is recognized by Dr. Gore in Dissertations. While affirming his belief that the historical evidence is “in itself strong and cogent”, he says frankly that “it is not such as to compel belief”. “There are ways to dissolve its force”, he continues. The last sentence is not very happily phrased, but it need not detain us. The point that is of greatest importance is expressed by Dr. Gore as follows:
“... to produce belief there is needed—in this as in almost all other questions of historical fact—besides cogent evidence, also a perception of the meaning and naturalness, under the circumstances, of the event to which evidence is borne. To clinch the [pg 129]historical evidence for our Lord's Virgin Birth there is needed the sense that, being what He was, His human birth could hardly have been otherwise than is implied in the Virginity of His mother” (ib., p. 64).
The present work is, in part, a foot-note to, or illustration of, this principle. We may therefore be pardoned for a further reference to it in a passage from F. C. Burkitt's Gospel History and its Transmission, in which it finds an almost classic statement:
“Our belief or disbelief in most of the Articles in the Apostles' Creed does not ultimately rest on historical criticism of the Gospels, but upon the general view of the universe, of the order of things, which our training and environment, or our inner experience, has led us severally to take. The Birth of our Lord from a virgin and His Resurrection from the dead—to name the most obvious Articles of the Creed—are not matters which historical criticism can establish” (p. 350 f.).
It is clear, then, that if further advance is to be made, we must enter the realms of doctrine. What doctrinal purpose, we must ask, does the Virgin Birth serve? Does it explain the sinlessness of Jesus? Is it necessary to the doctrine of the Incarnation? Is it congruous with the doctrine of the Person of Christ? It is not contended that an answer to these questions in the affirmative would prove the event to have happened. Nevertheless, such an answer would unquestionably invest the New Testament tradition with a yet higher probability, sufficiently great, in our judgement, to make belief in its historical character reasonable. If, however, we have to answer the doctrinal questions in the negative, then the historical character of the tradition receives a fatal blow. The opinion, so frequently expressed, that, in any case, the Virgin Birth is not a doctrine of essential importance, is one that calls for scrutiny. If it means that a man may be a sincere follower of our Lord, whether he believes the doctrine or not, it is, of course, a truism. But if it means that the doctrine is of no importance in relation to the Incarnation and the Person of Christ, that is perhaps the strongest argument that can be adduced against the credibility of the miracle. What is doctrinally irrelevant is not likely to be historically true.
It does not fall in with the scope of this work to enter fully [pg 130] into the theological question. Our purpose has been to examine the historical and critical questions and to show where the real problem lies. Criticism cannot solve that problem. Nevertheless, its contribution is not barren. It can discuss interpolation theories; it can treat of the literary form which the tradition has assumed in the Gospels. It can date—imperfectly it is true—the time when the belief became current. It can apply broad tests of credibility. We ourselves believe that it can say the miracle may have transpired. But it cannot say more. The last word is with Theology.
On the theological side, the question is probably more far-reaching than is commonly supposed. Individual Christian doctrines can never be treated in vacuo; they are inter-related one with another. It is often said that those who reject the Virgin Birth reject also the physical Resurrection of Jesus, the Ascension, and many of the miracles reported in the Gospels. The statement is largely true; it is possible we ought also to include in it the doctrine of the Pre-existence of Christ. The reason is that these denials belong to the same general habit of mind; they are part of the content of what has been called a “reduced Christianity”. It is impossible, therefore, adequately to discuss the question of the Virgin Birth on its theological side, without raising the larger question, whether this so-called “reduced Christianity” is not the true faith, as distinguished from a “full Christianity” which in reality is florid and overgrown. Sweet can scarcely be said to go too far when he writes: “In short, and this is the gist of the whole matter, in this controversy concerning the birth of Christ, two fundamentally different Christologies are groping for supremacy” (ib., p. 311). This fact has not always been recognized by those who think of the Virgin Birth, but there can be no question of its truth. The Virgin Birth is part of a larger problem; it must ultimately be established, if at all, as a corollary, not as an independent conclusion. The larger problem is whether we can still hold the Trinitarian Theology and the Two-Nature Doctrine of the Person of Christ, or whether we must give to the Immanence of God a place greatly in excess of any it has yet held in Christian thought; whether, indeed, we can feel it adequate to speak of Christ as One in whom the Immanent God revealed and expressed Himself [pg 131] in an altogether unique and ultimately inexplicable way. In any case, the conflict is one of Christologies. The purely naturalistic interpretation of Jesus holds a more and more precarious place in the field. This, then, is the problem of the present and of the immediate future. It is nothing less than the problem which every age has had to face since the days of Jesus of Nazareth—the problem of the Incarnation.
The present writer takes no shame to say that upon the theological aspect of the Virgin Birth he has not yet been able to satisfy his mind. The longer the question is studied the less easy it becomes airily to brush the miracle aside and call it myth. We speak of those who are impressed by the unique spiritual greatness of Jesus, and who cannot explain for themselves His Person in terms of humanity alone. The hesitation does not spring from vacillation, nor, we hope, from lack of courage and strength of mind. It springs out of a sense of the uniqueness of Jesus. Have we adequately grasped His greatness? Can we say what is, or what is not, congruous with His Person? It is open to serious question whether the individual can expect, or ought to expect an answer to these questions out of his experience and thought alone. Brief discussions of the Virgin Birth by individual writers do not carry us very far. What is needed more than anything else is a yet fuller disclosure of the unfettered mind of the Christian Church; and for this we must wait.
This last statement may perhaps seem strange. Has not the Church already expressed her corporate mind? Has she not committed herself to the Virgin Birth tradition? Can we not find it in Ignatius, in Justin, and in the Creeds of the Undivided Church? That these things are so is too patent to be denied. But has the Church expressed her unfettered mind? Has she said her final word? Has she, indeed, ever been in a position to do these things? The appeal to the almost unbroken external witness of the Catholic Church does not carry us so far as we might think. Once the Gospels had attained canonical authority the rest was a foregone conclusion. The status given to the Gospels carried everything else with it, and the Church was no longer free to judge. It is written, therefore it was so! Moreover, the question of the Virgin Birth was largely overshadowed [pg 132] in the struggle with Docetism. It is only in modern times that a more intelligent attitude towards the Gospels permits the Church freely to ponder the Virgin Birth tradition in the light of her experience of Christ. We may cherish the hope that she has yet greater things to say of Christ than any she has yet uttered. It is in its relation to that voice that the Virgin Birth will find its place.
Where, then, shall we look for this expression of corporate mind? Not perhaps again in Consiliar Decrees, though who can say? There is, however, a corporate mind that finds expression in the affirmations of simple believers, and in the writings of Christian thinkers the world over. The affirmations are neither the medley nor the babel they are sometimes thought to be. There is no colourless uniformity, but there is a real and growing unity, a harmony in which varied voices blend. No one can survey Christendom without seeing that everywhere denominational walls become less and less forbidding, and that every year it is more difficult to classify Christian thinkers under the prim labels of exclusive schools. Thought is unbound, but it is not chaotic. The thousand streams fall to the rivers which flow onward towards the sea that is never full. Those only may be pessimistic who cannot take long views. We may believe that the Spirit will yet guide His Church into all the truth. The individual thinker whose voice breaks the silence will ever be needed. Yet his task is but a limited one; he too must listen. For unless, beneath his affirmations, we hear the undertone of a corporate faith and experience, his voice will be but the echo that rings among the empty hills.
One thing is certain. Whatever the ultimate issue, it must be gain, even if gain through loss. Whether it be historical or not, the Virgin Birth tradition must always be full of beauty and of truth.
If, on the one hand, the tradition is involved in the corporate experience of Christ, if it is congruous with what He was and is, then, admittedly, the gain is great. For this means increased confidence in the facts which the Evangelists relate and the primitive community believed: there is no breach with the past. It means too another foothold in history for the theological interpretation of the Person of Christ. And these are things not lightly to be surrendered, save at the command of Truth.
[pg 133]If, on the other hand, the story is a legend of the Christian Faith, that is not an end. Strangely enough, if the tradition is not historical, it thereby becomes a valuable piece of Christian apologetic. Who was this Jesus, we ask, of whom men dared to believe that He was born of a virgin? The faded wreath is no less the tribute of undying love. That Jewish Christians could explain the unique divine personality of Jesus by the miracle of a virgin birth is—if we must solve the problem so—the highest tribute they could pay. If we find it hard to understand how they could think of Him in this way, without the warrant of the fact, it may be that our difficulty is just the measure of our failure to grasp the wonder of their love. If, in the end, we must call poetry what they called fact, it will not be because we are strangers to their faith. They too were bound by the spell of that Transcendent Face in which is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.