Chapter III (1)

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.

§ 23.

SKETCH OF THE DIFFERENT CANONICAL AND APOCRYPHAL ACCOUNTS.

There is a striking gradation in the different representations of the conception and birth of Jesus given in the canonical and in the apocryphal Gospels. They exhibit the various steps, from a simple statement of a natural occurrence, to a minute and miraculously embellished history, in which the event is traced back to its very earliest date. Mark and John presuppose the fact of the birth of Jesus, and content themselves with the incidental mention of Mary as the mother (Mark vi. 3), and of Joseph as the father of Jesus (John i. 46). Matthew and Luke go further back, since they state the particular circumstances attending the conception as well as the birth of the Messiah. But of these two evangelists Luke mounts a step higher than Matthew. According to the latter Mary, the betrothed of Joseph, being found with child, Joseph is offended, and determines to put her away; but the angel of the Lord visits him in a dream, and assures him of the divine origin and exalted destiny of Mary’s offspring; the result of which is that Joseph takes unto him his wife: but knows her not till she has brought forth her first-born son. (Matt. i. 18–25.) Here the pregnancy is discovered in the first place, and then afterwards justified by the angel; but in Luke the pregnancy is prefaced and announced by a celestial apparition. The same Gabriel, who had predicted the birth of John to Zacharias, appears to Mary, the betrothed of Joseph, and tells her that she shall conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost; whereupon the destined mother of the Messiah pays a visit full of holy import to the already pregnant mother of his forerunner; upon which occasion both Mary and Elizabeth pour forth their emotions to one another in the form of a hymn (Luke i. 26–56). Matthew and Luke are content to presuppose the connexion between Mary and Joseph; but the apocryphal Gospels, the Protevangelium Jacobi, and the Evangelium de Nativitate Mariae, [191] (books with the contents of which the Fathers partially agree,) seek to represent the origin of this connexion; indeed they go back to the birth of Mary, and describe it to have been preceded, equally with that of the Messiah and the Baptist, by a divine annunciation. As the description of the birth of John in Luke is principally borrowed from the Old Testament accounts of Samuel and of Samson, so this history of the birth of Mary is an imitation of the history in Luke, and of the Old Testament histories.

Joachim, so says the apocryphal narrative, and Anna (the name of Samuel’s mother [192]) are unhappy on account of their long childless marriage (as were the parents of the Baptist); when an angel appears to them both (so in the history of Samson) at different places, and promises them a child, who shall be the mother of God, and commands that this child shall live the life of a Nazarite (like the Baptist). In early childhood Mary is brought by her parents to the temple (like Samuel); where she continues till her twelfth year, visited and fed by angels and honoured by divine visions. Arrived at womanhood she is to quit the temple, her future provision and destiny being revealed by the oracle to the high priest. In conformity with the prophecy of Isaiah xi. 1 f.: egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet, et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini; this oracle commanded, according to one Gospel, [193] that all the unmarried men of the house of David,—according to the other, [194] that all the widowers among the people,—should bring their rods, and that he on whose rod a sign should appear (like the rod of Aaron, Numb. xvii.), namely the sign predicted in the prophecy, should take Mary unto himself. This sign was manifested upon Joseph’s rod; for, in exact accordance with the oracle, it put forth a blossom and a dove lighted upon it. [195] The apocryphal Gospels and the Fathers agree in representing Joseph as an old man; [196] but the narrative is somewhat differently told in the two apocryphal Gospels. According to the Evang. de nativ. Mariae, notwithstanding Mary’s alleged vow of chastity, and the refusal of Joseph on account of his great age, betrothment took place at the command of the priest, and subsequently a marriage—(which marriage, however, the author evidently means to represents also as chaste). According to the Protevang. Jacobi, on the contrary, neither betrothment nor marriage are mentioned, but Joseph is regarded merely as the chosen protector of the young virgin, [197] and Joseph on the journey to Bethlehem doubts whether he shall describe his charge as his wife or as his daughter; fearing to bring ridicule upon himself, on account of his age, if he called her his wife. Again, where in Matthew Mary is called ἡ γυνὴ of Joseph, the apocryphal Gospel carefully designates her merely as ἡ παῖς, and even avoids using the term παραλαβεῖν or substitutes διαφυλάξαι with which many of the Fathers concur. [198] In the Protevangelium it is further related that Mary, having been received into Joseph’s house, was charged, together with other young women, with the fabrication of the veil for the temple, and that it fell to her lot to spin the true purple.—But whilst Joseph was absent on business Mary was visited by an angel, and Joseph on his return found her with child and called her to account, not as a husband, but as the guardian of her honour. Mary, however, had forgotten the words of the angel and protested her ignorance of the cause of her pregnancy. Joseph was perplexed and determined to remove her secretly from under his protection; but an angel appeared to him in a dream and reassured him by his explanation. The matter was then brought before the priest, and both Joseph and Mary being charged with incontinence were condemned to drink the “bitter water,” [199] ὕδωρ τῆς ἐλένξεως, but as they remained uninjured by it, they were declared innocent. Then follows the account of the taxing and of the birth of Jesus. [200]

Since these apocryphal narratives were for a long period held as historical by the church, and were explained, equally with those of the canonical accounts, from the supranaturalistic point of view as miraculous, they were entitled in modern times to share with the New Testament histories the benefit of the natural explanation. If, on the one hand, the belief in the marvellous was so superabundantly strong in the ancient church, that it reached beyond the limits of the New Testament even to the embracing of the apocryphal narratives, blinding the eye to the perception of their manifestly unhistorical character; so, on the other hand, the positive rationalism of some of the heralds of the modern modes of explanation was so overstrong that they believed it adequate to explain even the apocryphal miracles. Of this we have an example in the author of the natural history of the great prophet of Nazareth; [201] who does not hesitate to include the stories of the lineage and early years of Mary within the circle of his representations, and to give them a natural explanation. If we in our day, with a perception of the fabulous character of such narratives, look down alike upon the Fathers of the church and upon these naturalistic interpreters, we are certainly so far in the right, as it is only by gross ignorance that this character of the apocryphal accounts is here to be mistaken; more closely considered, however, the difference between the apocryphal and the canonical narratives concerning the early history of the Baptist and of Jesus, is seen to be merely a difference of form: they have sprung, as we shall hereafter find, from the same root, though the one is a fresh and healthy sprout, and the other an artificially nurtured and weak aftergrowth. Still, the Fathers of the church and these naturalistic interpreters had this superiority over most of the theologians of our own time; that they did not allow themselves to be deceived respecting the inherent similarity by the difference of form, but interpreted the kindred narratives by the same method; treating both as miraculous or both as natural; and not, as is now usual, the one as fiction and the other as history.

§ 24.

DISAGREEMENTS OF THE CANONICAL GOSPELS IN RELATION TO THE FORM OF THE ANNUNCIATION.

After the foregoing general sketch, we now proceed to examine the external circumstances which, according to our Gospels, attended the first communication of the future birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph. Leaving out of sight, for the present, the special import of the annunciation, namely, that Jesus should be supernaturally begotten of the Holy Ghost, we shall, in the first place, consider merely the form of the announcement; by whom, when, and in what manner it was made.

As the birth of the Baptist was previously announced by an angel, so the conception of Jesus was, according to the gospel histories, proclaimed after the same fashion. But whilst, in the one case, we have but one history of the apparition, that of Luke; in the other we have two accounts, accounts however which do not correspond, and which we must now compare. Apart from the essential signification the two accounts exhibit the following differences. 1. The individual who appears is called in Matthew by the indefinite appellation, angel of the Lord, ἄγγελος Κυρίου: in Luke by name, the angel Gabriel, ὁ ἄγγελος Γαβριὴλ. 2. The person to whom the angel appears is, according to Matthew, Joseph, according to Luke, Mary. 3. In Matthew the apparition is seen in a dream, in Luke whilst awake. 4. There is a disagreement in relation to the time at which the apparition took place: according to Matthew, Joseph receives the heavenly communication after Mary was already pregnant: according to Luke it is made to Mary prior to her pregnancy. 5. Lastly, both the purpose of the apparition and the effect produced are different; it was designed, according to Matthew, to comfort Joseph, who was troubled on account of the pregnancy of his betrothed: according to Luke to prevent, by a previous announcement, all possibility of offence.

Where the discrepancies are so great and so essential, it may, at first sight, appear altogether superfluous to inquire whether the two Evangelists record one and the same occurrence, though with considerable disagreement; or whether they record distinct occurrences, so that the two accounts can be blended together, and the one be made to amplify the other? The first supposition cannot be admitted without impeaching the historical validity of the narrative; for which reason most of our theologians, indeed all who see in the narrative a true history, whether miraculous or natural, have decided in favour of the second supposition. Maintaining, and justly, that the silence of one Evangelist concerning an event which is narrated by the other, is not a negation of the event, [202] they blend the two accounts together in the following manner: 1, First, the angel makes known to Mary her approaching pregnancy (Luke); 2, she then journeys to Elizabeth (the same Gospel); 3, after her return her situation being discovered, Joseph takes offence (Matthew); whereupon, 4, he likewise is visited by an angelic apparition (the same Gospel [203]).

But this arrangement of the incidents is, as Schleiermacher has already remarked, full of difficulty [204]; and it seems that what is related by one Evangelist is not only not presupposed, but excluded, by the other. For, in the first place, the conduct of the angel who appears to Joseph is not easily explained, if the same or another angel had previously appeared to Mary. The angel (in Matthew) speaks altogether as if his communication were the first in this affair: he neither refers to the message previously received by Mary, nor reproaches Joseph because he had not believed it; but more than all, the informing Joseph of the name of the expected child, and the giving him a full detail of the reasons why he should be so called, (Matt. i. 21) would have been wholly superfluous had the angel (according to Luke i. 34) already indicated this name to Mary.

Still more incomprehensible is the conduct of the betrothed parties according to this arrangement of events. Had Mary been visited by an angel, who had made known to her an approaching supernatural pregnancy, would not the first impulse of a delicate woman have been, to hasten to impart to her betrothed the import of the divine message, and by this means to anticipate the humiliating discovery of her situation, and an injurious suspicion on the part of her affianced husband. But exactly this discovery Mary allows Joseph to make from others, and thus excites suspicions; for it is evident that the expression εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα (Matt. i. 18) signifies a discovery made independent of any communication on Mary’s part, and it is equally clear that in this manner only does Joseph obtain the knowledge of her situation, since his conduct is represented as the result of that discovery (εὑρίσκεσθαι). The apocryphal Protevangelium Jacobi felt how enigmatical Mary’s conduct must appear, and sought to solve the difficulty in a manner which, contemplated from the supranaturalistic point of view, is perhaps the most consistent. Had Mary retained a recollection of the import of the heavenly message—upon this point the whole ingenious representation of the apocryphal Gospel rests—she ought to have imparted it to Joseph; but since it is obvious from Joseph’s demeanour that she did not acquaint him with it, the only remaining alternative is, to admit that the mysterious communication made to Mary had, owing to her excited state of mind, escaped her memory, and that she was herself ignorant of the true cause of her pregnancy. [205] In fact, nothing is left to supranaturalism in the present case but to seek refuge in the miraculous and the incomprehensible. The attempts which the modern theologians of this class have made to explain Mary’s silence, and even to find in it an admirable trait in her character, are so many rash and abortive efforts to make a virtue of necessity. According to Hess [206] it must have cost Mary much self-denial to have concealed the communication of the angel from Joseph; and this reserve, in a matter known only to herself and to God, must be regarded as a proof of her firm trust in God. Without doubt Mary communed thus with herself: It is not without a purpose that this apparition has been made to me alone; had it been intended that Joseph should have participated in the communication, the angel would have appeared to him also (if each individual favoured with a divine revelation were of this opinion, how many special revelations would it not require?); besides it is an affair of God alone, consequently it becomes me to leave it with him to convince Joseph (the argument of indolence). Olshausen concurs, and adds his favourite general remark, that in relation to events so extraordinary the measure of the ordinary occurrences of the world is not applicable: a category under which, in this instance, the highly essential considerations of delicacy and propriety are included.

More in accordance with the views of the natural interpreters, the Evangelium de nativitate Mariae, [207] and subsequently some later writers, for example, the author of the Natural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, have sought to explain Mary’s silence, by supposing Joseph to have been at a distance from the abode of his affianced bride at the time of the heavenly communication. According to them Mary was of Nazareth, Joseph of Bethlehem; to which latter place Joseph departed after the betrothing, and did not return to Mary until the expiration of three months, when he discovered the pregnancy which had taken place in the interim. But since the assumption that Mary and Joseph resided in different localities has no foundation, as will presently be seen, in the canonical Gospels, the whole explanation falls to the ground. Without such an assumption, Mary’s silence towards Joseph might, perhaps, have been accounted for from the point of view of the naturalistic interpreters, by imagining her to have been held back through modesty from confessing a situation so liable to excite suspicion. But one who, like Mary, was so fully convinced of the divine agency in the matter, and had shown so ready a comprehension of her mysterious destination (Luke i. 38), could not possibly have been tongue-tied by petty considerations of false shame.

Consequently, in order to rescue Mary’s character, without bringing reproach upon Joseph’s, and at the same time to render his unbelief intelligible, interpreters have been compelled to assume that a communication, though a tardy one, was actually made by Mary to Joseph. Like the last-named apocryphal Gospel, they introduce a journey, not of Joseph, but of Mary—the visit to Elizabeth mentioned in Luke—to account for the postponement of the communication. It is probable, says Paulus, that Mary did not open her heart to Joseph before this journey, because she wished first to consult with her older friend as to the mode of making the disclosure to him, and whether she, as the mother of the Messiah, ought to marry.

It was not till after her return, and then most likely through the medium of others, that she made Joseph acquainted with her situation, and with the promises she had received. But Joseph’s mind was not properly attuned and prepared for such a disclosure; he became haunted by all kinds of thoughts; and vacillated between suspicion and hope till at length a dream decided him. [208] But in the first place a motive is here given to Mary’s journey which is foreign to the account in Luke. Mary sets off to Elizabeth, not to take counsel of her, but to assure herself regarding the sign appointed by the angel. No uneasiness which the friend is to dissipate, but a proud joy, unalloyed by the smallest anxiety, is expressed in her salutation to the future mother of the Baptist. But besides, a confession so tardily made can in nowise justify Mary. What behaviour on the part of an affianced bride—after having received a divine communication, so nearly concerning her future husband, and in a matter so delicate—to travel miles away, to absent herself for three months, and then to permit her betrothed to learn through third persons that which could no longer be concealed!

Those, therefore, who do not impute to Mary a line of conduct which certainly our Evangelists do not impute to her, must allow that she imparted the message of the angel to her future husband as soon as it had been revealed to her; but that he did not believe her. [209] But now let us see how Joseph’s character is to be dealt with! Even Hess is of opinion that, since Joseph was acquainted with Mary, he had no cause to doubt her word, when she told him of the apparition she had had. This scepticism presupposes a mistrust of his betrothed which is incompatible with his character as a just man (Matt. i. 19), and an incredulity respecting the marvellous which is difficult to reconcile with a readiness on other occasions to believe in angelic apparitions; nor, in any case, would this want of faith have escaped the censure of the angel who subsequently appeared to himself.

Since then, to suppose that the two accounts are parallel, and complete one another, leads unavoidably to results inconsistent with the sense of the Gospels, in so far as they evidently meant to represent the characters of Joseph and Mary as free from blemish; the supposition cannot be admitted, but the accounts mutually exclude each other. An angel did not appear, first to Mary, and also afterwards to Joseph; he can only have appeared either to the one or to the other. Consequently, it is only the one or the other relation which can be regarded as historical. And here different considerations would conduct to opposite decisions. The history in Matthew might appear the more probable from the rationalistic point of view, because it is more easy to interpret naturally an apparition in a dream; whilst that in Luke might be preferred by the supranaturalist, because the manner in which the suspicion cast upon the holy virgin is refuted is more worthy of God. But in fact, a nearer examination proves, that neither has any essential claim to be advanced before the other. Both contain an angelic apparition, and both are therefore encumbered with all the difficulties which, as was stated above in relation to the annunciation of the birth of the Baptist, oppose the belief in angels and apparitions. Again, in both narrations the import of the angelic message is, as we shall presently see, an impossibility. Thus every criterion which might determine the adoption of the one, and the rejection of the other, disappears; and we find ourselves, in reference to both accounts, driven back by necessity to the mythical view.

From this point of view, all the various explanations, which the Rationalists have attempted to give of the two apparitions, vanish of themselves. Paulus explains the apparition in Matthew as a natural dream, occasioned by Mary’s previous communication of the announcement which had been made to her; and with which Joseph must have been acquainted, because this alone can account for his having heard the same words in his dream, which the angel had beforehand addressed to Mary: but much rather, is it precisely this similarity in the language of the presumed second angel to that of the first, with the absence of all reference by the latter to the former, which proves that the words of the first angel were not presupposed by the second. Besides, the natural explanation is annihilated the moment the narratives are shown to be mythical. The same remark applies to the explanation, expressed guardedly indeed by Paulus, but openly by the author of the Natural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, namely, that the angel who visited Mary (in Luke) was a human being; of which we must speak hereafter.

According to all that has been said, the following is the only judgment we can form of the origin of the two narratives of the angelic apparitions. The conception of Jesus through the power of the Holy Ghost ought not to be grounded upon a mere uncertain suspicion; it must have been clearly and positively asserted; and to this end a messenger from heaven was required, since theocratic decorum seemed to demand it far more in relation to the birth of the Messiah, than of a Samson or a John. Also the words which the angels use, correspond in part with the Old Testament annunciations of extraordinary children. [210] The appearing of the angel in the one narrative beforehand to Mary, but in the other at a later period to Joseph, is to be regarded as a variation in the legend or in the composition, which finds an explanatory counterpart in the history of the annunciation of Isaac. Jehovah (Gen. xvii. 15) promises Abraham a son by Sarah, upon which the Patriarch cannot refrain from laughing; but he receives a repetition of the assurance; Jehovah (Gen. xviii. 1 ff.) makes this promise under the Terebinth tree at Mamre, and Sarah laughs as if it were something altogether novel and unheard of by her; lastly, according to Genesis xxi. 5 ff. it is first after Isaac’s birth that Sarah mentions the laughing of the people, which is said to have been the occasion of his name; whereby it appears that this last history does not presuppose the existence of the two other accounts of the annunciation of the birth of Isaac. [211] As in relation to the birth of Isaac, different legends or poems were formed without reference to one another, some simpler, some more embellished: so we have two discordant narratives concerning the birth of Jesus. Of these the narrative in Matthew [212] is the simpler and ruder style of composition, since it does not avoid, though it be but by a transient suspicion on the part of Joseph, the throwing a shade over the character of Mary which is only subsequently removed; that in Luke, on the contrary, is a more refined and artistical representation, exhibiting Mary from the first in the pure light of a bride of heaven. [213]

§ 25.

IMPORT OF THE ANGEL’S MESSAGE.—FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH.

According to Luke, the angel who appears to Mary, in the first place informs her only that she shall become pregnant, without specifying after what manner: that she shall bring forth a son and call his name Jesus; He shall be great, and shall he called the Son of the Highest (υἱὸς ὑψίστου); and God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever. The subject, the Messiah is here treated precisely in the language common to the Jews, and even the term Son of the Highest, if nothing further followed, must be taken in the same sense; as according to 2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. ii. 7 an ordinary king of Israel might be so named; still more, therefore, the greatest of these kings, the Messiah, even considered merely as a man. This Jewish language reflects in addition a new light upon the question of the historic validity of the angelic apparition; for we must agree with Schleiermacher that the real angel Gabriel would hardly have proclaimed the advent of the Messiah in a phraseology so strictly Jewish: [214] for which reason we are inclined to coincide with this theologian, and to ascribe this particular portion of the history, as also that which precedes and relates to the Baptist, to one and the same Jewish-christian author. It is not till Mary opposes the fact of her virginity to the promises of a son, that the angel defines the nature of the conception: that it shall be by the Holy Ghost, by the power of the Highest; after which the appellation υἱὸς θεοῦ receives a more precise metaphysical sense. As a confirmatory sign that a matter of this kind is nowise impossible to God, Mary is referred to that which had occurred to her relative Elizabeth; whereupon she resigns herself in faith to the divine determination respecting her.

In Matthew, where the main point is to dissipate Joseph’s anxiety, the angel begins at once with the communication, that the child conceived by Mary is (as the Evangelist had already stated of his own accord, chap. i. 18), of the Holy Ghost (πνεῦμα ἅγιον); and hereupon the Messianic destination of Jesus is first pointed out by the expression, He shall save his people from their sins. This language may seem to sound less Jewish than that by which the Messianic station of the child who should be born, is set forth in Luke; it is however to be observed, that under the term sins (ἁμαρτίαις) is comprehended the punishment of those sins, namely, the subjection of the people to a foreign yoke; so that here also the Jewish element is not wanting; as neither in Luke, on the other hand, is the higher destination of the Messiah left wholly out of sight, since under the term to reign, βασιλεύειν, the rule over an obedient and regenerated people is included. Next is subjoined by the angel, or more probably by the narrator, an oracle from the Old Testament, introduced by the often recurring phrase, all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet [v. 22]. It is the prophecy from Isaiah (chap. vii. 14) which the conception of Jesus after this manner should accomplish: namely, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel—God-with-us.

The original sense of this passage in Isaiah is, according to modern research, [215] this. The prophet is desirous of giving Ahaz, who, through fear of the kings of Syria and Israel, was disposed to make a treaty with Assyria, a lively assurance of the speedy destruction of his much dreaded enemies; and he therefore says to him: suppose that an unmarried woman now on the point of becoming a wife [216] shall conceive; or categorically: a certain young woman is, or is about to be with child (perhaps the prophet’s own wife); now, before this child is born, the political aspect of affairs shall be so much improved, that a name of good omen shall be given to the child; and before he shall be old enough to use his reason, the power of these enemies shall be completely annihilated. That is to say, prosaically expressed: before nine months shall have passed away, the condition of the kingdom shall be amended, and within about three years the danger shall have disappeared. Thus much, at all events, is demonstrated by modern criticism, that, under the circumstances stated by Isaiah in the introduction to the oracle, it is only a sign having reference to the actual moment and the near future, which could have any meaning. How ill chosen, according to Hengstenberg’s [217] interpretation, is the prophet’s language: As certainly as the day shall arrive when, in fulfilment of the covenant, the Messiah shall be born, so impossible is it that the people among whom he shall arise, or the family whence he shall spring, shall pass away. How ill-judged, on the part of the prophet, to endeavour to make the improbability of a speedy deliverance appear less improbable, by an appeal to a yet greater improbability in the far distant future!—And then the given limit of a few years! The overthrow of the two kingdoms, such is Hengstenberg’s explanation, shall take place—not in the immediately succeeding years, before the child specified shall have acquired the use of his reason, but—within such a space of time, as in the far future will elapse between the birth of the Messiah and the first development of his mental powers; therefore in about three years. What a monstrous confounding of times! A child is to be born in the distant future, and that which shall happen before this child shall know how to use his reason, is to take place in the nearest present time.

Thus Paulus and his party are decidedly right in opposing to Hengstenberg and his party, that the prophecy of Isaiah has relation, in its original local signification, to the then existing circumstances, and not to the future Messiah, still less to Jesus. Hengstenberg, on the other hand, is equally in the right, when in opposition to Paulus he maintains, that the passage from Isaiah is adopted by Matthew as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus of a virgin. Whilst the orthodox commentators explain the often recurring that it might be fulfilled (ἵνα πληρωθη), and similar expressions as signifying: this happened by divine arrangement, in order that the Old Testament prophecy, which in its very origin had reference to the New Testament occurrence, might be fulfilled;—the rationalistic interpreters, on the contrary, understand merely: this took place after such a manner, that it was so constituted, that the Old Testament words, which, originally indeed, had relation to something different, should admit of being so applied; and in such application alone do they receive their full verification. In the first explanation, the relation between the Old Testament passage and the New Testament occurrence is objective, arranged by God himself: in the last it is only subjective, a relation perceived by the later author; according to the former it is a relationship at once precise and essential: according to the latter both inexact and adventitious. But opposed to this latter interpretation of New Testament passages, which point out an Old Testament prophecy as fulfilled, is the language, and equally so the spirit of the New Testament writers. The language: for neither can πληροῦσθαι signify in such connexion anything than ratum fieri, eventu comprobari, nor ἵνα ὅπως anything than eo consilio ut, whilst the extensive adoption of ἵνα ἐκβατικὸν has arisen only from dogmatic perplexity. [218] But such an interpretation is altogether at variance with the Judaical spirit of the authors of the Gospels. Paulus maintains that the Orientalist does not seriously believe that the ancient prophecy was designedly spoken, or was accomplished by God, precisely in order that it should prefigure a modern event, and vice versa; but this is to carry over our sober European modes of thought into the imaginative life of the Orientals. When however Paulus adds: much rather did the coincidence of a later event with an earlier prophecy assume only the form of a designed coincidence in the mind of the Oriental: he thus, at once, annuls his previous assertion; for this is to admit, that, what in our view is mere coincidence, appeared to the oriental mind the result of design; and we must acknowledge this to be the meaning of an oriental representation, if we would interpret it according to its original signification. It is well known that the later Jews found prophecies, of the time being and of the future, everywhere in the Old Testament; and that they constructed a complete image of the future Messiah, out of various, and in part falsely interpreted Old Testament passages. [219] And the Jew believed he saw in the application he gave to the Scripture, however perverted it might be, an actual fulfilment of the prophecy. In the words of Olshausen: it is a mere dogmatic prejudice to attribute to this formula, when used by the New Testament writers, an altogether different sense from that which it habitually bears among their countrymen; and this solely with the view to acquit them of the sin of falsely interpreting the Scripture.

Many theologians of the present day are sufficiently impartial to admit, with regard to the Old Testament, in opposition to the ancient orthodox interpretation, that many of the prophecies originally referred to near events; but they are not sufficiently rash, with regard to the New Testament, to side with the rationalistic commentators, and to deny the decidedly Messianic application which the New Testament writers make of these prophecies; they are still too prejudiced to allow, that here and there the New Testament has falsely interpreted the Old. Consequently, they have recourse to the expedient of distinguishing a double sense in the prophecy; the one relating to a near and minor occurrence, the other to a future and more important event; and thus they neither offend against the plain grammatical and historical sense of the Old Testament passage on the one hand, nor distort or deny the signification of the New Testament passage on the other. [220] Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah under consideration, the spirit of prophecy, they contend, had a double intention: to announce a near occurrence, the delivery of the affianced bride of the prophet, and also a distinct event in the far distant future, namely the birth of the Messiah of a virgin. But a double sense so monstrous owes its origin to dogmatic perplexity alone. It has been adopted, as Olshausen himself remarks, in order to avoid the offensive admission that the New Testament writers, and Jesus himself, did not interpret the Old Testament rightly, or, more properly speaking, according to modern principles of exegesis, but explained it after the manner of their own age, which was not the most correct. But so little does this offence exist for the unprejudiced, that the reverse would be the greater difficulty, that is, if, contrary to all the laws of historical and national development, the New Testament writers had elevated themselves completely above the modes of interpretation common to their age and nation. Consequently, with regard to the prophecies brought forward in the New Testament, we may admit, according to circumstances, without further argument, that they are frequently interpreted and applied by the evangelists, in a sense which is totally different from that they originally bore.

We have here in fact a complete table of all the four possible views on this point: two extreme and two conciliatory; one false and one, it is to be hoped, correct.

1. Orthodox view (Hengstenberg and others): Such Old Testament passages had in their very origin an exclusive prophetic reference to Christ, for the New Testament writers so understand them; and they must be in the right even should human reason be confounded.

2. Rationalistic view (Paulus and others): The New Testament writers do not assign a strictly Messianic sense to the Old Testament prophecies, for this reference to Christ is foreign to the original signification of these prophecies viewed by the light of reason; and the New Testament writings must accord with reason, whatever ancient beliefs may say to the contrary.

3. Mystical conciliatory view (Olshausen and others): The Old Testament passages originally embody both the deeper signification ascribed to them by the New Testament writers, and that more proximate meaning which common sense obliges us to recognize: thus sound reason and the ancient faith are reconcilable.

4. Decision of criticism: Very many of the Old Testament prophecies had, originally, only an immediate reference to events belonging to the time: but they came to be regarded by the men of the New Testament as actual predictions of Jesus as the Messiah, because the intelligence of these men was limited by the manner of thinking of their nation, a fact recognized neither by Rationalism nor the ancient faith. [221]

Accordingly we shall not hesitate for a moment to allow, in relation to the prophecy in question, that the reference to Jesus is obtruded upon it by the Evangelists. Whether the actual birth of Jesus of a virgin gave rise to this application of the prophecy, or whether this prophecy, interpreted beforehand as referring to the Messiah, originated the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, remains to be determined.

§ 26.

JESUS BEGOTTEN OF THE HOLY GHOST. CRITICISM OF THE ORTHODOX OPINION.

The statement of Matthew and of Luke concerning the mode of Jesus’s conception has, in every age, received the following interpretation by the church; that Jesus was conceived in Mary not by a human father, but by the Holy Ghost. And truly the gospel expressions seem, at first sight, to justify this interpretation; since the words πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς (Matt. i. 18) and ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω (Luke i. 34) preclude the participation of Joseph or any other man in the conception of the child in question. Nevertheless the terms πνεῦμα ἅγιον and δύναμις ὑψίστου do not represent the Holy Ghost in the sense of the church, as the third person in the Godhead, but rather the רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, Spiritus Dei as used in the Old Testament: God in his agency upon the world, and especially upon man. In short the words ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου in Matthew, and πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σὲ κ.τ.λ. in Luke, express with sufficient clearness that the absence of human agency was supplied—not physically after the manner of heathen representations—but by the divine creative energy.

Though this seems to be the representation intended by the evangelists in the passages referred to concerning the origin of the life of Jesus, still it cannot be completed without considerable difficulties. We may separate what we may term the physico-theological from the historical-exegetical difficulties.

The physiological difficulties amount to this, that such a conception would be a most remarkable deviation from all natural laws. However obscure the physiology of the fact, it is proved by an exceptionless experience that only by the concurrence of the two sexes is a new human being generated; on which account Plutarch’s remark, “παιδίον οὐδεμία ποτὲ γυνὴ λέγεται ποιῆσαι δίχα κοινωνίας ἀνδρὸς,” [222] and Cerinthus’s “impossible” become applicable. [223] It is only among the lowest species of the animal kingdom that generation takes place without the union of sexes; [224] so that, regarding the matter purely physiologically, what Origen says, in the supranaturalistic sense, would indeed be true of a man of the like origin; namely, that the words in Psalm xxii. 7, I am a worm and no man is a prophecy of Jesus in the above respect. [225] But to the merely physical consideration a theological one is subjoined by the angel (Luke i. 37), when he appeals to the divine omnipotence to which nothing is impossible. But since the divine omnipotence, by virtue of its unity with divine wisdom, is never exerted in the absence of an adequate motive, the existence of such, in the present instance, must be demonstrated. But nothing less than an object worthy of the Deity, and at the same time necessarily unattainable except by a deviation from the ordinary course of nature, could constitute a sufficient cause for the suspension by God of a natural law which he had established. Only here, it is said, the end, the redemption of mankind, required impeccability on the part of Jesus; and in order to render him exempt from sin, a divinely wrought conception, which excluded the participation of a sinful father, and severed Jesus from all connexion with original sin, was necessary. [226] To which it has been answered by others, [227] (and Schleiermacher has recently most decisively argued this side of the question, [228]) that the exclusion of the paternal participation is insufficient, unless, indeed, the inheritance of original sin, on the maternal side, be obviated by the adoption of the Valentinian assertion, that Jesus only passed through the body of Mary. But that the gospel histories represent an actual maternal participation is undeniable; consequently a divine intervention which should sanctify the participation of the sinful human mother in the conception of Jesus must be supposed in order to maintain his assumed necessary impeccability. But if God determined on such a purification of the maternal participation, it had been easier to do the same with respect to that of the father, than by his total exclusion, to violate the natural law in so unprecedented a manner; and consequently, a fatherless conception cannot be insisted upon as the necessary means of compassing the impeccability of Jesus.

Even he who thinks to escape the difficulties already specified, by enveloping himself in a supranaturalism, inaccessible to arguments based on reason or the laws of nature, must nevertheless admit the force of the exegetical-historical difficulties meeting him upon his own ground, which likewise beset the view of the supernatural conception of Jesus. Nowhere in the New Testament is such an origin ascribed to Jesus, or even distinctly alluded to, except in these two accounts of his infancy in Matthew and in Luke. [229] The history of the conception is omitted not only by Mark, but also by John, the supposed author of the fourth Gospel and an alleged inmate with the mother of Jesus subsequent to his death, who therefore would have been the most accurately informed concerning these occurrences. It is said that John sought rather to record the heavenly than the earthly origin of Jesus; but the question arises, whether the doctrine which he sets forth in his prologue, of a divine hypostasis actually becoming flesh and remaining immanent in Jesus, is reconcilable with the view given in the passages before us, of a simple divine operation determining the conception of Jesus; whether therefore John could have presupposed the history of the conception contained in Matthew and Luke? This objection, however, loses its conclusive force if in the progress of our investigation the apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel is not established. The most important consideration therefore is, that no retrospective allusion to this mode of conception occurs throughout the four Gospels; not only neither in John nor in Mark, but also neither in Matthew nor in Luke. Not only does Mary herself designate Joseph simply as the father of Jesus (Luke ii. 48), and the Evangelist speak of both as his parents, γονεῖς (Luke ii. 41),—an appellation which could only have been used in an ulterior sense by one who had just related the miraculous conception,—but all his contemporaries in general, according to our Evangelists, regarded him as a son of Joseph, a fact which was not unfrequently alluded to contemptuously and by way of reproach in his presence (Matt. xiii. 55; Luke iv. 22; John vi. 42), thus affording him an opportunity of making a decisive appeal to his miraculous conception, of which, however, he says not a single word. Should it be answered, that he did not desire to convince respecting the divinity of his person by this external evidence, and that he could have no hope of making an impression by such means on those who were in heart his opponents,—it must also be remembered, that, according to the testimony of the fourth Gospel, his own disciples, though they admitted him to be the son of God, still regarded him as the actual son of Joseph. Philip introduces Jesus to Nathanael as the son of Joseph, Ἰησοῦν τὸν υἱὸν Ἰωσὴφ (John i. 46), manifestly in the same sense of real paternity which the Jews attached to the designation; and nowhere is this represented as an erroneous or imperfect notion which these Apostles had subsequently to relinquish; much rather does the whole sense of the narrative, which is not to be mistaken, exhibit the Apostles as having a right belief on this point. The enigmatical presupposition, with which, at the marriage in Cana, Mary addressed herself to Jesus, [230] is far too vague to prove a recollection of his miraculous conception on the part of the mother; at all events this feature is counterbalanced by the opposing one that the family of Jesus, and, as appears from Matt. xii. 46 ff. compared with Mark iii. 21 ff., his mother also were, at a later time, in error respecting his aims; which is scarcely explicable, even of his brothers, supposing them to have had such recollections.

Just as little as in the Gospels, is anything in confirmation of the view of the supernatural conception of Jesus, to be found in the remaining New Testament writings. For when the Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus as made of a woman, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικὸς (Gal. iv. 4), this expression is not to be understood as an exclusion of paternal participation; since the addition made under the law, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον, clearly shows that he would here indicate (in the form which is frequent in the Old and New Testament, for example Job xiv. 1; Matt. xi. 11) human nature with all its conditions. When Paul (Rom. i. 3, 4 compared with ix. 5) makes Christ according to the flesh, κατὰ σάρκα, descend from David, but declares him to be the son of God according to the Spirit of Holiness, κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης; no one will here identify the antithesis flesh and spirit with the maternal human participation, and the divine energy superseding the paternal participation in the conception of Jesus. Finally when in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vii. 3) Melchisedec is compared with the son of God, υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, because without father, ἀπάτωρ, the application of the literally interpreted ἀπάτωρ to Jesus, as he appeared upon earth, is forbidden by the addition without mother, ἀμήτωρ, which agrees as little with him as the immediately following without descent, ἀγενεαλόγητος.

§ 27.

RETROSPECT OF THE GENEALOGIES.

The most conclusive exegetical ground of decision against the supernatural conception of Jesus, which bears more closely on the point than all the hitherto adduced passages, is found in the two genealogies previously considered. Even the Manichæan Faustus asserted that it is impossible without contradiction to trace the descent of Jesus from David through Joseph, as is done by our two genealogists, and yet assume that Joseph was not the father of Jesus; and Augustine had nothing convincing to answer when he remarked that it was necessary, on account of the superior dignity of the masculine gender, to carry the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, who was Mary’s husband if not by a natural by a spiritual alliance. [231] In modern times also the construction of the genealogical tables in Matthew and in Luke has led many theologians to observe, that these authors considered Jesus as the actual son of Joseph. [232] The very design of these tables is to prove Jesus to be of the lineage of David through Joseph; but what do they prove, if indeed Joseph was not the father of Jesus? The assertion that Jesus was the son of David, ὑὸς Δαβὶδ, which in Matthew (i. 1) prefaces the genealogy and announces its object, is altogether annulled by the subsequent denial of his conception by means of the Davidical Joseph. It is impossible, therefore, to think it probable that the genealogy and the history of the birth of Jesus emanate from the same author [233]; and we must concur with the theologians previously cited, that the genealogies are taken from a different source. Scarcely could it satisfy to oppose the remark, that as Joseph doubtlessly adopted Jesus, the genealogical table of the former became fully valid for the latter. For adoption might indeed suffice to secure to the adopted son the reversion of certain external family rights and inheritances; but such a relationship could in no wise lend a claim to the Messianic dignity, which was attached to the true blood and lineage of David. He, therefore, who had regarded Joseph as nothing more than the adopted father of Jesus, would hardly have given himself the trouble to seek out the Davidical descent of Joseph; but if indeed, besides the established belief that Jesus was the son of God, it still remained important to represent him as the son of David, the pedigree of Mary would have been preferred for this purpose; for, however contrary to custom, the maternal genealogy must have been admitted in a case where a human father did not exist. Least of all is it to be believed, that several authors would have engaged in the compilation of a genealogical table for Jesus which traced his descent through Joseph, so that two different genealogies of this kind are still preserved to us, if a closer relationship between Jesus and Joseph had not been admitted at the time of their composition.

Consequently, the decision of the learned theologians who agree that these genealogies were composed in the belief that Jesus was the actual son of Joseph and Mary, can hardly be disputed; but the authors or compilers of our Gospels, notwithstanding their own conviction of the divine origin of Jesus, received them among their materials; only that Matthew (i. 16) changed the original Joseph begat Jesus of Mary—Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ της Μαρίας (comp. verses 3. 5. 6) according to his own view; and so likewise Luke (iii. 23) instead of commencing his genealogy simply with, Jesus—the son of Joseph—Ἰησοῦς υἱὸς Ἰωσὴφ, inserts being as was supposed, ὢν, ὡς ἐνομίζετο κ.τ.λ.

Let it not be objected that the view for which we contend, namely, that the genealogies could not have been composed under the notion that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, leaves no conceivable motive for incorporating them into our present Gospels. The original construction of a genealogy of Jesus, even though in the case before us it consisted simply in the adapting of foreign already existing genealogical tables to Jesus, required a powerful and direct inducement; this was the hope thereby to gain—the corporeal descent of Jesus from Joseph being presupposed—a main support to the belief in his Messiahship; whilst, on the other hand, a less powerful inducement was sufficient to incite to the admission of the previously constructed genealogies: the expectation that, notwithstanding the non-existence of any real relationship between Joseph and Jesus, they might nevertheless serve to link Jesus to David. Thus we find, that in the histories of the birth both in Matthew and in Luke, though they each decidedly exclude Joseph from the conception, great stress is laid upon the Davidical descent of Joseph (Matt. i. 20, Luke i. 27, ii. 4); that which in fact had no real significance, except in connexion with the earlier opinion, is retained even after the point of view is changed.