or

able in one already betrothed; yet it does not (like that of Zacharias 18-20) expose her to rebuke penalty; the doubt seems introduced only to give occasion for the explanation in 35. The real reply of Mary to the original announcement 30-32 36-37, follows in 38, be it unto me according to thy word,' and her submission to the heavenly will wins the blessing of Elizabeth 42. It must be confessed that there is much that is attractive about this bold suggestion; and it at once harmonises the story in Luke 1 with the view in 2 that Mary was Joseph's wife, and that he was the father of Jesus. Neither of the two narratives, it may be added, could have been known to Mark. It is incredible that the mother, who alone possessed the secret of his birth, could have joined his brothers in endeavouring to put him under restraint on the ground that he was mad,' Mark 321 31.

The stories of the Virgin-birth are not only, however, inconsistent with each other, with the genealogies, and with the tenor of the rest of the Evangelic representations, they are also really incompatible with the meaning of the divine words at the Baptism. Mark, who relates no wondrous entry into the world, depicts Jesus as endowed for his high function by

1 This statement is omitted by Matth. 1246 and Luke 819. Mr. Pullan, The Christian Tradition, p. 10, thinks that S. Mark 'possessed little or no attraction for Christians immediately after the apostolic age. When all the eyewitnesses of the ministry of Christ were dead, orthodox Christians wanted most of all something which helped them in preaching the Gospel, it did not particularly help them to know that our Lord's relatives once thought him mad,' etc. Evidently, the inconvenient testimony of the earliest Gospel is to be disparaged because it does not support a more developed orthodoxy. But in that case, what becomes of its inspiration?

the descent of the Spirit on his coming up out of the Jordan, 110-11 ; when the heavenly voice declares— Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. This, then, according to the earliest Synoptic tradition, is the moment when Jesus becomes the Messianic Son of God. This was the true 'Epiphany,' the manifestation of God upon earth, in which the Church long commemorated the double festival of the baptism and the birth of Christ.' The testimony of the Third Gospel (according to one important tradition) was even stronger: for in Luke 322 the famous codex of Beza applies to Jesus the words of Psalm 21

Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

2

In this form it is quoted from the 'Memoirs of the Apostles' by Justin; it is cited by Clement and by Origen; Lactantius and Hilary confirm it; Faustus the Manichean and Augustine the orthodox both employ it. This can be harmonised with the language of 133, but not with the announcement of 95 and the suggestion that this latter is really an addition to the story thus receives some additional support.

That the doctrine was not within Paul's view may be inferred from the terms in which he describes Jesus as born of the seed of David according to the flesh,' but determined [or 'defined'] to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of

1 Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, i. (1889).

2 Usener, ibid. pp. 40-45. Other forms of the divine utterance are cited in the First Three Gospels, 2nd ed., p. 166.

It

holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.'1 Neither with the Virgin-birth, nor with the heavenly voice at the baptism, does he seem acquainted. is difficult to suppose (with Usener 2) that the story was unknown to the Fourth Evangelist'; it appears more likely, as Prof. Gardner interprets the signs, that he wished to convey a protest against it. When he ascribes to Jesus such sayings as It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing,' or 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh,' he strives to lift the question of origins on to another plane, where a miracle of physical generation is altogether out of place.

5

On the other hand, we can no longer ignore the fact that the idea of a wondrous birth without human fatherhood appears in a multitude of tales which can be traced literally round the world 'from China to Peru.' The incidents of folk-lore are doubtless unsuitable for comparison with narratives like those in our Gospels; they are part of a common stock of imaginative material reproduced without purpose or authority from age to age and land to land, destitute of historic significance. But they are the founda

1 Romans 134. The words of Psalm 27 are apparently applied in Acts 133 to the resurrection.

2 Encl. Bibl. iii. 3347.

3 It is commonly admitted that he used both Matthew and Luke, see ante, Lect. VII. p. 398.

4 Exploratio Evangelica, p. 239.

5 Miraculous conception of the founder of the house of Chow, Sacred Books of the East, vol. iii. p. 397: cp. another story of the wondrous birth of the founder of the house of Shang, ibid. p. 307. Peru, cp. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, i. p. 118-9.

tion of other cases which cannot be dismissed so
lightly; the wide-spread acceptance of the folk-
tale supplies a form for more serious doctrine. The
idea appears already under the Middle Empire of
ancient Egypt'; and earlier still the kings of the
Fifth and Sixth Dynasties called themselves sons of
the sun-god. In the case of Amon-hotep III. (of
the Eighteenth Dynasty) it was wrought out with
amazing realism on a wall of the temple of Luxor.
Amon himself2 descended from heaven and stood
beside the virgin who should become a mother3:

'Amon-hotep,' he is made to say, 'is the name of the son
who is in thy womb. He shall grow up according to the words
that proceed out of thy mouth. He shall exercise sovereignty
and righteousness in this land unto its very end. My soul is in
him, (and) he shall wear the twofold crown of royalty, ruling the
two worlds like the sun for ever.'

This is only the natural sequel of the language
in which again and again the Egyptian kings are
described as filially related to a paternal god.
Tahutmes IV. paid great honour to the sun-god
Ra in the form of Harmachis. To this deity the
Sphinx at Gizeh was dedicated, and Tahutmes
cleared its vast form of the accumulations of the

1 Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 491.

2 To Amon are dedicated some of the noblest of the Egyptian hymns. He
is 'lord of eternity, Maker everlasting'; from his eyes proceed mankind, of
his mouth are the gods; he is maker of grass for the cattle, and of fruitful
trees for men, 'lying awake when all men sleep to seek out the good of his
creatures'; see C. W. Goodwin, Records of the Past, ii. 129.

3 Sayce, ibid. p. 249.

4 1423-1414 B.C., Petrie, History of Egypt, vol ii. (1896), p. 166.

5 A hymn to Ra-Harmachis is translated by Dr. E. L. Lushington in
Records of the Past, viii. p. 131.

desert sand in memory of a noon-day dream beneath its shadow, when he had rested there once during the chase in his youth:

'A rest he made in the shadow of this god, sleep fell upon him, dreaming in slumber in the moment when the sun was overhead. Found he the majesty of this noble god, talking to him by his mouth, speaking like the talk of a father to his son, saying, Look thou at me! Behold thou me! My son Tahutmes, I am thy father, Hor-em-akht, Khepra, Ra, and Tum, giving to thee the kingdom. On thee shall be placed its white crown ard its red crown, on the throne of Seb the heir. There is given to thee the land in its length and in its breadth, which is lightened by the bright eye of the universal lord. . . Draw near, and behold I am with thee.'1

A little later, Rameses the Great is engaged in his campaign against the Hittites of Syria; and the court-scribe Pentaüra describes his appeal to the great Theban deity Amun-ra in the crisis of battle 2:

'Shouldst thou be my father, O Amun? And, behold, should a father forget his son? Have I then put my trust in my own thoughts? Have I not walked according to the word of thy mouth? Has not thy mouth directed my marches, and have not thy counsels guided me? Amun will bring low them that know not God.'

The religious motive in such passages as these is transparent. Of course it may be dismissed as insincere or conventional. But the analogy to modes of thought in the line of Israel's development is strongly marked. And the transition from

1 Jacob dreams at night, Gen. 2811-16, and receives a similar promise of land for himself and his seed, with a similar declaration of divine protection 15, 'and behold I am with thee.' But no paternal care is here implied, as in the case of David, 2 Sam. 714 ‘I will be his father, and he shall be my son.'

2 Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion (1882), p. 152.