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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

Foreign Religious Series

Edited by
R. J. COOKE, D. D.

First Series. i6mo, cloth. Each 40 cents, net.

THE VIRGIN BIRTH
By Professor Richard H. Grutzmacher, of the
University of Rostock

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
By Professor Eduard Riggenbach, of the University
of Basle

THE SINLESSNESS OF JESUS
By Professor Max Meyer, Lie. Theol., Gottberg,
Germany

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS
By Professor Karl Beth, of the University
of Berlin

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN AND THE
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
By Professor Fritz Barth, of the University
of Bern

NEW TESTAMENT PARALLELS IN
BUDDHISTIC LITERATURE
By Professor Karl Von Hase, of the University
of Breslau

The Virgin Birth

By
RICHARD H. GRUTZMACHER
Professor of T.beology in the University of Rostock

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM

Copyright, 1907, by
EATON & MAINS.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this series of booklets is
to present in briefest form the best thought
of some of the foremost teachers in Euro
pean universities on such subjects, Religious
and Theological, as are at this time of special
interest to Christian believers. Such books,
we think, are both useful and necessary. In
these days of restless energy, of infinitely
varied and ceaseless demands on body and
mind, few people, comparatively, have either
time or inclination for close and patient
study of voluminous works defending the
historic faith of the Church — works which,
while they may be monuments of skill and
of modern critical scholarship and amply
refute the erroneous findings of rationalistic
thought, are nevertheless too far removed
by reason of their minutely critical charac
ter from the practical needs of all except ex
perts in particular lines of scientific investi
gation. To the laity such works present no
clean, clear-cut image. They cannot see the
wood for the trees. Such handbooks as
these, therefore, and by such eminent au-

6 The Virgin Birth
thorities as we have selected, cannot be other
than helpful to earnest Christian readers
who are not insensible to the widespread in
fluence of rationalistic literature which is
now being popularized in this country
through cheap translations of French and
German originals.
The first numbers of this series include
such subjects as The Virgin Birth, by Pro
fessor Griitzmacher, of the University of
Rostock ; The Gospel of John and the Syn
optic Gospels, by Professor Barth, of Bern;
The Resurrection of Jesus, by Professor
Riggenbach, of Basel; New Testament
Parallels in Buddhistic Literature, by Pro
fessor von Hase, of Breslau; The Sinless
ness of Jesus, by Professor Meyer, of Gott-
berg; The Miracles of Jesus, by Dr. Beth,
of Berlin. These will be followed by The
New Message in the Teaching of Jesus;
Paul as a Theologian ; Do We Need Christ
in Our Communion with God?; Our Lord;
The Peculiarity of the Religion of the Bible.
While it is not necessary for us to indorse
every word and statement in the several
books of this series, since some margin must
be allowed for freedom of expression and

The Virgin Birth 7
something left to the saving grace of com
mon sense on the part of the reader, never
theless these booklets will be found in har
mony with evangelical belief, and will serve
to show that scholarship of tlie highest grade
is not wholly on the side of radicalism, as is
often asserted, but that, on the contrary, the
essential doctrines of the Christian faith still
have in the foremost seats of learning faith
ful teachers and stalwart defenders.
The translation of the series has been
made by the Rev. Bernhard Pick, Ph.D.
A comparison of his work with the orig
inals, some of which are extremely difficult
to render into good idiomatic English,
will show that he has faithfully rendered the
thoughts of the writers. Here and there
without taking any liberties with the argu
ment of the author I have omitted some un
necessary matter and have appended such
notes as were necessary to a clear under
standing of the text, or such as may be found
useful to any one desiring reference to Eng
lish works on the same subject.
R. J. Cooke,
Book Editor.

THE VIRGIN BIRTH
There is hardly any other question which
is made so perplexing through partisan
hatred and favor as that of the virgin birth
of Jesus Christ. On this account its discus
sion demands of both compiler and reader
an unusual degree of balance and self-re
straint. This is best attained by a keen
working out of the subject and its separate
treatment from each of the different points
of view from which its consideration must
take place. As in all elements of the Chris
tian religion and religious preaching desig
nated as "salvation-facts," so also in the
virgin birth, distinction must be made be
tween the historical fact and its religious
meaning. On this account we first inquire
into its historicity and then into its reli
gious significance. The results are not alto
gether independent of each other. In keep
ing with the now generally accepted belief
that parts of the life of Jesus and the history
of primitive Christianity have only a reli
gious standing and value provided they
have an authentic historical basis, a positive

io The Virgin Birth
discussion of the second part can only be
entered into under the supposition of posi
tive results of the first.
Since the obtaining of historical knowl
edge is never entirely independent of the
views, of the presuppositions, and the meth
ods with which the inquirer enters upon his
work, the acknowledgment of a miracle
like that of the virgin birth as agreeing with
the facts can only be expected provided one is
personally and on principle convinced of the
possibility of the miracle. It must be de
nied to an otherwise dogmatical attitude
toward the miracle. The end which can be
attained from historical considerations must
in such case be measured essentially lower;
the historicity, in the sense of historical
reality, cannot be proved, but only a possi
bility. The acknowledgment of such a pos
sibility, will, again, depend on two things:
on the statement of the sources, and on its
origin. In accordance with this we pro
pound two questions :
I. Is the proof of the virgin birth of
Jesus Christ possible historically (a) accord
ing to the statement of the sources, (&) ac
cording to its origin ?

The Virgin Birth i i
II. From what religious motives can the
virgin birth be acknowledged as real ?
I. (a) As immediate sources for all facts
in the life of Jesus those writings have to
be taken into account which are gathered
together in the New Testament, and this
in the form in whicii we now have them.
We therefore consider in the first place
what the New Testament says on the sub
ject. Express mention is made of this only
in the introductory chapters of the Gos
pels of Matthew and Luke. In the Gospel
of Luke all ancient texts agree in their rec
ord of the virgin birth (chapter I. 27, 35) ;
the attempt of some scholars to eliminate
these verses, of which we shall speak later on,
has not the least support in any text. With
Matthew it seems to be otherwise. It is
true that in all texts, without an exception,
Matthew records the birth of Jesus of a vir
gin (1. 18, seq.), but recently a strange
reading of verse 16 has appeared. In a
Syriac translation of the gospel found in a
monastery on Mount Sinai some years ago,
and designated as Syrus Sinaiticus, Matt.
1. 16, reads, in a literal translation, "Jac°b
begat Joseph, Joseph, to whom Mary the vir-

12 The Virgin Birth
gin was betrothed, begat Jesus, who is called
the Messiah." In the same sentence it is
asserted that Jesus was begotten by Joseph
and also allusion is made to his virgin birth,
which the following verses attest in the same
positive manner as the common text. The
text of the Syrus Sinaiticus accordingly
represents a mixed form, contradictory in
itself, which cannot be original. How did it
occur ? We have no reason to suspect a later
insertion — either of the natural generation
in verse 16 or for^the virgin birth here and
in the following verses. There remains only
one possibility: to explain the Syriac text,
which is, after all, only a translation from
its Greek original. From many old Latin as
well as from another Syriac translation the
existence of a Greek text in the following
form necessarily suggested itself, which was
found also as really existing: "And Jacob
begat Joseph to whom betrothed Mary the
virgin begat Jesus Christ (laKufS 6t kyiwqos.
rdv laorjij) <L fivTjOTevdsiv Mapia fj nap&evog
tyevvrjae \i\aovv Xpiardv, minuscle 346 in
Gregory, Prolegomena, pp. 528, 1251).
This text f ormed the basis of the translation
of the Syrus Sinaiticus, whose peculiarity

The Virgin Birth 13
consists in writing Joseph twice successively.
Thus it came to pass that the second Joseph
became a nominative out of an accusative
and a subject of the begetting of Jesus. We
have consequently a false double seeing and
writing of the one word Joseph in the trans
lation from the Greek into the Syriac ; an ex
ceedingly harmless but very frequent occur
rence in the history of the text, which only a
biased scientific semi-outline could present to
the unknowing as if it were an old text of
Matthew, which clearly attested the genera
tion of Jesus through Joseph. Evidently we
have an old Syriac translation which Jn one
half verse makes Jesus the son of Joseph
while in the other half the narrative presents
the virgin birth. And this conflated form in
verse 16 originated most probably through a
vicious duplication of the word Joseph from
a corresponding Greek text, actually extant,
which, like all other Greek texts, has only
the virgin birth.1 So far as we can follow
up the text of the first chapters of Matthew
and Luke they record the virgin birth in the
same form and in the same connection in
1 See Gore on Subjects connected with the Incarnation.
Appendix. Also the International Critical Commentary on
Matthew, p. 6.

14 The Virgin Birth
which they are still extant. And since the
historical method by no means requires that
both narratives be burdened with absurdi
ties, and it is rather more probable that each
has a sense and connection, it is well first
of all to understand the conception which
Matthew and Luke had of the virgin birth,
without the least regard to the further ques
tion whether they thereby repeat actual his
tory or only their own ideas and trains of
thought. Matthew puts at the head a gene
alogy of Jesus, which he supplements with
clear references to the following history and
which is permeated by the entire tendency of
his book. This shows his arrangement ac
cording to certain numbers ; more clearly yet
his beginning with Abraham, the ancestor of
the Jewish people ; the marking the height of
the Israelitish history in the kingship of
David as its decay in the exiles — answering
the Judeo-Christian apologetic character of
his Gospel. He alludes to the special form of
the birth of Jesus, and mentions four women
who, notwithstanding religious and moral
stain— Ruth a heathen, Tamar, Rahab, and
the wife of Urias, adulteresses — are never
theless found worthy by God to become

The Virgin Birth 15
ancestresses of the Messiah. In an anti-
typical manner, and perhaps in a conscious
opposition to the Jewish blasphemies of the
illegitimate birth of Mary, the special part
which the virgin mother plays at the birth of
the Messiah is already pointed out in the
genealogy. Yet the pedigree ends not with
Mary, but with Joseph. In how far this
pedigree of Joseph, according to the opinion
of the evangelist, can be of importance for
Mary and also for her own child, he indi
cates in an unmistaken name by calling
Joseph the "husband" of Mary (verse 16),
who, hesitating at first, took her as wife in
marriage (verse 25).1 As wife Mary, ac
cording to Jewish custom, shared in all the
rights, as also in the tribality of her hus
band. Through her matrimonial connection
with a descendant of David she became one
belonging to the race of Joseph and thereby
also of David. In consequence of this, ac
cording to Matthew, the child Jesus which
she had borne appears also as a legitimate
child of Joseph. Like Mary, the child too
obtains a part in all the rights of his legiti-

•In a prophetic manner he is thus also designated in
verse 19.

1 6 The Virgin Birth
mate matrimonial father; above all in his
race, into whose registry as a matter of
course it could only be entered according to
existing right. The miracle of the birth of
Jesus consists, according to Matthew, in
this: that Jesus as the legitimate son of
Joseph is not at the same time also his
natural child begotten by him in sexual in
tercourse with his wife. The beginning of
Mary's pregnancy is transferred before the
beginning of her marriage (verse 18), and
every carnal communion in wedlock before
the birth of the child Jesus is precluded
(verse 25). The pregnancy of Mary and
the generation of the child Jesus is derived
"from the Holy Ghost" without giving to
this notion within the history of the birth
any dogmatical qualification or mythological
setting. In like manner the characteristic
of the child born of the Holy Ghost, by the
virgin Mary, is confined to the explanation
of his name, Jesus, as of one who "shall
save his people from their sins" (verse 21).
The virgin birth of this Saviour is looked
upon as a necessary outcome of a prophetical
word (Isa. 7. 14). This will be considered
farther on. The second chapter contains no

The Virgin Birth 17
contradiction to the narrative of the first,
but also no new observations which were
important for Matthew's conception of the
virgin birth.
Luke presents the history of the birth of
Jesus in a larger, world-historical and at the
same time more intimate Jewish compass.
He shows himself very conversant with the
ideal of the Israelitish cult and piety, as his
description of the parents and of the birth
of John the Baptist proves. Mary is intro
duced by him as an espoused virgin (1. 27),
and at the close of the verse she is once again
called a virgin ; indicating thereby the theme
which rules the entire following narrative.
The man to whom she is espoused is of the
house of David (verse 2p, comp. 2. 4),
whereas nothing is said of Mary's origin,
much less that she is of the house of David.
The connection of the child born of Mary
with David is founded rather, by the Gospel
of Luke just as by that of Matthew, upon
his relations to Joseph, the husband of
Mary. Like the genealogy of Matthew, that
exhibited by Luke in chapter 3 ends with
Joseph, as whose son Jesus is indeed to be
considered according to the currgat "Opinio^

1 8 The Virgin Birth
(verse 23) ; whereas Luke and his readers
by the narratives of chapters 1 and 2 are
differently informed, and know that he is
indeed a legitimate but not a natural son of
Joseph. The child Jesus is an heir to the
throne of David his father (1. 32), because
Joseph, by marrying the mother, has law
fully and rightly taken the place of a father
and — this is a peculiar view of Luke — be
cause Christ was besides born in Bethlehem,
the city of David (chapter 2.4, 11).
The virgin Mary is saluted by an angel,
Gabriel: "Hail, thou that art highly fa
vored, the Lord is with thee" (1. 28). At
this word "she was troubled, ;.. . . and
cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be." The angel said unto her:
"Fear not, Mary : for thou hast found favor
with God, and behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great,
and shall be called the Son of the Highest;
and the Lord God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David: and he shall
reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; and
of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then
said Mary unto the angel : How shall this be,

The Virgin Birth 19
seeing I know not a man? And the angel
answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke
1. 28-35). In this colloquy between the an
gel and Mary the second answer of Mary
can elicit a reflection. She is only told that
she shall conceive and bring forth. She is
betrothed, and matrimony is impending, and
yet motherhood seems to be to her something
entirely remote. She even asserts that she
knows nothing of a man, whereas she is
acquainted with her betrothed. A little
familiarity with the situation and a more
accurate linguistic understanding of the
text allows this difficulty to exist only
for the superficial observer. The address of
the angel and the reply of Mary followed
each other in rapid succession. By reason of
the appearance of the angel and of all his
words from beginning to end Mary becomes
afraid and astonished. She stands not — as
many book-worms imagine the situation —
like a probationer before an examiner, who
coolly weighs, carefully examines her mem-

20 The Virgin Birth
ory as to the past and future, and slowly
gives her measured answers. She rather
answers in quick, timid, embarrassed, impul
sive manner. Now the angel had said to her
that she shall conceive in the womb, and this
with such certainty that she transfers this
miracle to the immediate present hour,1
where she is surrounded by miracles and in
the presence of the messenger of the heavenly
power. Her betrothed is absent ; how soon
the marriage was to be consummated we
know not ; it might have been soon but also
at some distant period. In this her perplexity
the exclamation is well intelligible, "How
shall this be!" And the further addition
rightly explained is also entirely appropriate.
The Greek word yiyv&oiceiv, like the corre
sponding Hebrew yada, may mean simply
to know in the sense of acquaintance as well
as to know in the sense of sexual inter
course. In the latter meaning it also oc-
"This is also the opinion of the narrator. For in the
course of his further narrative we nowhere find an indi
cation when the otherwise announced miracle could have
taken place. Rather we see that after the annunciation
of the angel Mary very soon, "in those days," leaves
Nazareth (i. 39), visits her relative, Elizabeth, and is at
once received by her with the words, "Blessed are thou
among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And
whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should
come to me?" (1. 42-43.)

The Virgin Birth 2 1
curs, that is, in the genealogy (Matt. 1. 25).
This term is mostly used of man's behavior
toward his wife, but there are instances in
which it is applied to the wife. The word
yada occurs three times in the Hebrew Bible
with reference to the wife and three times
it is translated by the Seventy — whose lan
guage, according to most recent researches,
has influenced the usage of the New Testa
ment by the word yiyvuaneiv (to know)
used in Luke 1. 34, namely, Gen. 19. 5;
Num.31. 17; Judg. n.39.
According to this — and there is nothing
which can be adduced against it — the ex
clamation of Mary obtains the following lin
guistically justified meaning which answers
the entire situation as well as the connection :
How is it possible that I should now con
ceive, having no intimate connection what
ever with a man ! This explanation still gains
in certainty when one convinces himself of
the inadmissibility and uselessness of other
efforts to remove the difficulty in question.
Of these we shall only mention one, which,
though the most arbitrary, has nevertheless
found favor with many expositors. One
explains verses 34, 35, simply as a later in-

22 The Virgin Birth
terpolation and addition, and thus removes
the virgin birth from the angelic address.
Aside from the consideration that the con
nection between verses 33 and 36 is by no
means improved through this erasure, a
fact to which a prominent scholar (Hilgen-
feld) calls attention although he rejects the
virgin birth, the unsuitableness of Mary's
answer and the interruption of the connec
tion become still more evident. A sensible
interpolator — and the question can here only
be of such a one — is the very man who, be
fore and after doing his work of interpola
tion, once more very carefully examines the
correction and smoothes the seams.
The desire to erase verses 34 and 35
can only be understood from the tendency to
remove a tout prix from the text of Luke
the record of the virgin birth; that — again
without any textual or contextual reason
< — one also undertakes to remove in chapters
1. 27, ndpSevog, virgin, and in 3. 23, <J>?
kvofii^ero, "that shall be called," cannot sur
prise him who again and again observes how
the Roman principle, to correct history by
the dogma, unscrupulously guides many
"virtually" Protestant works.

The Virgin Birth 2^
After the annunciation of the angel the
narrative makes the pregnancy of Mary
commence at once. For when she soon
afterward visits Elizabeth the latter salutes
her already as "mother of the Lord" (verse
43). Not long afterward the consummation
of the marriage must have also taken place,
for, chapter 2. 5, according to the best read
ing, Mary is called the wife of Joseph, whom
he takes with him on his journey to Bethle
hem. As the wife of the Davidic Joseph
she brings forth the Messiah in the city of
David. Since the narrator believed his
readers capable of remembering at the read
ing of the second chapter the communica
tions of the first, he does not refer again
to the miraculous promises of the birth of
Jesus. While Matthew had pointed out only
the Holy Ghost as the author of the child
Jesus, Luke explains this by the parallel
phrase, "The Power of the Highest." The
child accordingly does not owe his origin to
a mundane but to a supramundane power,
and this is then more accurately designated
as the Spirit, who brings religio-ethical
perfection. Wherever in the fore-histories the ques-

24 The Virgin Birth
tion is of the Spirit of God the power
of God is meant, which gives man a religio-
ethical perfection and qualifies him for a
corresponding practical proof. It neither
refers to the third trinitarian person nor to a
physico-sensuous procreative power of the
deity. The product of this divine effort in
the virgin Mary is, according to that, char
acterized as something "holy," dedicated to
God, religio-ethical, spotless and — Luke
brings here a view which goes beyond Mat
thew — as Son of God. The peculiar gen
eration establishes a peculiar relation be
tween the child Jesus and God; as the son
owes his entire existence to the father thus
Jesus to God, and as the son has his essence
from the father, thus Jesus has his holiness
also from the holy God. The existence of
Jesus and\his religio-ethical perfection are
most closely interlaced with his birth of the
virgin and of the Holy Ghost. The like
thought expresses with a special turn also
the genealogy of Jesus in the form given by
Luke (3. 23, seq.). It rises from the present
and leads the ancestry of Jesus through
Joseph not only to the ancestor of the
Israelitic people, but up to the first man, in

The Virgin Birth 25
order to qualify him as son of God. Jesus
thereby appears as the Son of man, being
for that very reason also the Son of God;
yea, it suggests itself to assure an intended
parallelism between the origin of Adam and
Jesus. As this came directly from God, so
also that as "the second Adam."
What the prologues of Matthew and Luke
offer for the assumption of a virgin birth
can be comprised in the following sentences :
Jesus is the natural son of the virgin Mary,
born of her in marriage with Joseph. Since
Joseph was the matrimonial father of the
child, and assumed all duties of a father to
ward him, the child actually and legally par
took of the race of Joseph and — since it was
Davidic — became himself one belonging to
David, especially as he was born also in the
city of David. The author of his natural life
was God's creative power, his Spirit, the
mediator of all religio-ethical perfection. On
this account the child which by this power
was called into existence bore the character
of holiness in the sense of religio-ethical per
fection, as well as that of divine sonship in
parallel with the direct origin of the first man
from God.

26 The Virgin Birth
Before the origin of this statement of the
sources is examined according to its literary
side, as well as to content, the attitude of
the other New Testament writings must
be established, since it is important for the
solution of the question. Beyond all con
troversy is the fact that neither a direct
testimony nor a direct denial of the vir
gin birth is to be found in the other parts of
the New Testament. We nowhere read,
Jesus is born of a virgin ; but neither do we
read, Jesus is not born of a virgin, or, which
is the same, Jesus is begotten by Joseph in a
natural manner. The inquiry is on this ac
count put upon an essentially unsafe ground,
since it alone can decide whether indirect
testimonies and allusions exist which presup
pose a knowledge of the virgin birth, or
whether opinions are expressed, opposed, to
this assumption, which could at least not
have been expressed with such knowledge.
Turning to the first task, all the passages
treating of the Davidic sonship, the divine
sonship of Christ, and designating him as
holy, sinless, as the second Adam and Son of
man, must be eliminated as inconclusive.
For, though we also asserted -that in the pro-

The Virgin Birth 27
logue all these ideas stand in a certain con
nection with the virgin birth, the inverted in
ference is not admissible that, where they are
applied, this peculiar form of Jesus's origin is
presupposed. The point of controversy is
rather to be left open. First of all the very
New Testament declarations whether Christ,
as son of David and son of God could not
also have been acknowledged as holy and
sinless without his virgin birth — yea, in con
tradiction to it.
In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we
find no passages which could be referred to.
In Mark 6. 3, the people of Nazareth are sur
prised at the teaching of Jesus, recalling to
their memory, "Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary, the brother of James, and
Joses, and of Juda, and Simeon ?" Jesus is
here only called the son of Mary. Why?
Because Joseph was already dead, we are
told; this may be possible, but we have no
certain knowledge of it. Nevertheless we
shall not adduce this passage as referring to
the miraculous birth of Jesus. For the
people will only express surprise that one
who is of their kind, whose simple family
relations they know, is such a powerful

28 The Virgin Birth
preacher. Had they known his virgin birth
there had been less cause for this surprise.
The Gospel of John describes at the begin
ning Jesus's "eternal birth" and cares not for
the earthly beginnings of his life; only
one sentence seems to rest on the notion
of the virgin birth. Of those who be
come members of the eternal Son of
God it is said that they were not "born
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God"
(i. 13). The spiritual birth is placed in
opposition to the natural birth, which is a
birth of blood and of the will of the flesh;
but the addition "of the will of man" does
not satisfactorily explain itself since the
natural birth was already fully determined
by the two preceding expressions. For that
reason another line of thought commences
at this passage. The birth of the Christian
is made parallel to the birth of Jesus Christ ;
it stands not in opposition to it, like to the
natural of man, but is similar to it, because
this itself was already supernatural; came
about without "the will of man." John al
ludes in this passage to the virgin birth of
Jesus. This is the more plausible to every-

The Virgin Birth 29
one who knows the other attitude of the
Gospel of John toward gospel tradition.
However it may be with the origin of the
notion of the virgin birth, it existed at the
time of the composition of the Gospel of
John and was known to him. Those espe
cially who place the time of the composition
of the Gospel of John in the second century
cannot possibly deny its acquaintance with
the miraculous birth of Jesus, since Igna
tius,1 who wrote about this time, repeatedly
attests it.2
It is otherwise with Paul. His epistles
were written long before the Gospels of Mat
thew and Luke, and even under the suppo-
'Thus he writes in his epistle to the Ephesians (19):
"Hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity
of Mary and her child-bearing, and likewise the death of
the Lord — Three mysteries to be cried aloud which were
wrought in the silence of God." In this passage the
virginity of Mary is as certain a point of doctrine to the
writer as is the crucifixion. Again, in his letter to the
Smyrnseans (i), he says that he is "firmly persuaded as
touching our Lord that he is truly of the race of David
according to the flesh, but Son of God by [the Divine]
will and power, truly born of a virgin . . . truly
nailed up for our sakes in the flesh."
2 Another delineation in the Gospel of John may possibly
be explained by the thought of the virgin birth. At the
marriage in Cana, the -first miracle which Jesus did, his
mother betrays a very remarkable confidence in Jesus's
miraculous power, to which she still clings after the re
fusal (2. 3, 5). Should this confidence be thought of as
founded on the miracle which Mary herself experienced
with reference to Jesus? It is by no means impossible.

30 The Virgin Birth
sition of the historicity of the virgin birth
it is not at all necessary that Paul should
have been informed of it in the early period
of his activity,1 since his knowledge in gen
eral did not comprise the entire matter of the
Gospels. In Gal. 4. 4, Paul says that in the
fullness of time God sent forth his Son,
"made of a woman, made under the law."
By this Paul means to prove that Christ en
tered into the like situation as the men, espe
cially the Jews, of his time in order to be of
real service to them. He uses an indefinite
mode of expression, more sketching than
working out. This is seen already from his
confining himself to two facts : he mentions a
law, in general, not specifically Mosaic; then
he uses the term woman instead of mother
or mentioning the name of the mother. The
mentioning of the woman is obscure and this
the more as the participle in question is not
derived from yewdv, = to bring forth, which
indeed would have required the mention of
the mother, but from yiyvetriku, = to become,
originate, which can just as well be used of
the father or of both parents. Now, since

'But see The Incarnation and Recent Criticism, chap.
v, p. 114, Eaton & Mains, New York, for the opposite view.

The Virgin Birth 31
in the preceding verses absolutely no motive
is to be discovered for the exclusive mention
of the female descent in characterizing his
true humanity, it becomes probable, after all,
that Paul knew of the special case about the
birth of Jesus. That he does not express
this more definitely is because he meant to
give here only statements in general outlines
which everyone familiar with the matter
could at once fill out for himself, those with
reference to the form of the law as well as
those with reference to the birth. If one
will not accept this interpretation, which of
course is not more than a well-founded sup
position, he must consider the choice of the
term by Paul as purely accidental.
The supposed refutals of the virgin birth
which one may find in definite statements of
the people and apostolic men and in some
events of the life of Jesus, and especially in
the manifest behavior of his natural relatives
may now be considered. Commencing with
the latter, we find the particular proofs based
on a peculiarly dogmatic view. The phenom
enon obtrudes itself plainly especially in our
case, that critics willing to be "liberal" and
"modern" find themselves unconsciously im

32 The Virgin Birth
the spell of very old and stupid orthodox
formulations of the question which they only
deny but do not affirm — an indeed not very
spirited activity. One starts on the assump
tion that the knowledge of the virgin birth
includes every other knowledge with refer
ence to the person of Jesus — for example, his
divine sonship — that it moreover makes
everyone who has this knowledge infallible
and holy and that it preserves one from
all fluctuations of the religious life and false
attitude toward Christ. One observes, for ex
ample, that the parents of Jesus, Mary be
fore all, frequently marvel at Jesus, under
stand not his words, yea, throw obstacles in
the way of his peculiar Messianic practical
proof, and, with the help of presumed dog
matics, infers therefrom contradictions to
the virgin birth. Even within the Lukanic
prologue such a trait is recorded. The par
ents are displeased that the boy Jesus, when
twelve years of age, remained alone at Jeru
salem, and Mary — though in a very tender
manner — reproaches him when he is found.
Jesus answered: "Wist ye not that I
must be about my Father's business?"
To which the account adds : "They under-

The Virgin Birth 33
stood not the saying which he spake
unto them" (Luke 2. 48-50). That
Mary because of the miraculous birth
should have resigned the education of the
child Jesus, and refrained from reproof
when she believed there was occasion for it,
is certainly more than an absurd supposition.
That the parents were amazed at the inde
pendence of the boy who till now, and again
afterward, was subject to them (verse 51),
and understood not the mysterious word is
not surprising. No one will blame them for
it especially since at present most interpre
ters, despite their knowledge of the virgin
birth, understand it otherwise. Still less
cause for surprise is afforded by the narra
tive, Mark 3. 21, 31-35, when one abandons
the wooden dogmatics and psychology char
acterized above. Jesus had displayed a very
exhausting activity among his people, with
such a result that because of the multitude
he could not so much as eat bread. His
kinsmen, no doubt his mother and brothers,
hear of it and go out to lay hold of him;
"For they said, He is beside himself" (verse
21). When his mother and brethren came
and sent a message to him — because of the

34 The Virgin Birth
multitude they could not get inside — intima
ting the purpose of their coming to with
draw him from his work, Jesus answered:
"Who is my mother, or my brethren?" And
with a glance at those which sat about him :
"Behold my mother and my brethren. For
whosoever shall do the will of God, the same
is my brother, and my sister, and my
mother" (31-35). Mary experienced here,
what John the Baptist and many thousand
"orthodox" followers of Jesus experienced,
that despite the knowledge of the miracle
of his life she nevertheless cannot accommo
date herself to all details of his work and is
offended at him. Yes, one can say, just be
cause she experienced a miracle in him she
expected other miracles from him, and not
a wearing in continual low service. Mary
was mistaken, and took offense at the man
ner of Jesus, because of the very miracle
of his birth. And Jesus himself, with the
icy coolness which he observed toward all
purely natural family relations as soon as
they conflicted with his divine relations and
Messianic calling, asserts that those only
have a claim to the closest communion with
him who do the will of God. Since the vir-

The Virgin Birth 35
gin birth did in no wise hinder Mary at
times not to do the will of God, his knowl
edge of that fact did also not hinder Jesus
from hinting at it.
It is claimed that the baptism of Christ
cannot be consistent with the virgin birth.
In order to state a very substantial contra
diction, a special text of the word which the
Father addresses to the Son must indeed first
be supposed with the close, "This day have
I begotten thee," which, however, though
suitable — besides being an Old Testament
quotation, from Psalm 2 — is after all to be
understood figuratively and not literally.
The baptism of John is said to describe in
the oldest form how the birth of Jesus as the
Son of God was thought of. True, it is un-
demonstrable that it once had this signifi
cance for Christendom, but otherwise its al
leged duplication by the virgin birth and its
combination with that in two Gospels is in
conceivable. Having a sufficient proof of
the divinity of Christ why did one seek for
another? — and how was it conceivable that
two men still made room for it in their Gos
pels after having already premised the virgin
birth, which seemed to them more pertinent?

36 The Virgin Birth
Should one say that the evangelists united
with each other, the supposition lies near that
on the whole the narratives belong together
because they do not contradict themselves —
which is true.
Each time the Spirit is connected with
Jesus. At the birth he appears as the author
of the entire existence of Jesus and as crea
tor of his religio-ethical perfection; at the
baptism, he is given to him as the leading
principle of his public activity, which now
commences. The Spirit at baptism leads
Jesus to the true conception of his Messianic
activity and to the rejection of all wrong
ways in it; this proves clearly the conse
quent history of the temptation. The dif
ference is best explained by a glance at a
kindred view by Paul. Paul knows a two
fold mission of the Spirit and therefore also
a twofold endowment of the Christian with
it. At one time the Spirit is the creator of
the new religio-ethical personality and again
he is the principle, the power, qualifying the
individual for special wondrous practical
proofs. With the first the second is by no
means yet given, whereas the second only
takes place where the first exists. Thus there

The Virgin Birth 37
is also a difference between the deduction
of the personality of Christ from the
case in the stories of the birth, and the
foundation of his office upon the Spirit. This
had indeed never fallen to his lot had that
not already existed, so that the baptism with
Spirit presupposes the birth by Spirit. Over
him only who by birth was the Son of God
the voice could be heard at the baptism,
"Thou art my son" ; to him only whose ex
istence descended from the Holy Ghost could
the Holy Ghost come in such form, as he
came at the baptism for the Messiah's calling.
It may be that, from, this twofold matter of
fact, no irrelevant difficulties may arise for
the dogmatical total conception of the person
of Christ; in the historical tradition of the
evangelists and in history itself the virgin
birth and John's baptism do not contradict
each other.
Some statements conflicting with the vir
gin birth one notices in Luke's prologue
itself. Joseph is called the father of Jesu9
(2- 33) J mention is made of the parents
of Jesus (2. 27, 41), and even of the
days "of their purification" in the plural.
According to the above expositions on the

38 The Virgin Birth
view of the two fore-histories concerning
the lawful paternity of Joseph, the entering
of Joseph upon the full place of father and
parent of the child Jesus something is said
that is a matter of course. Exactly the same
is the case with the opinion of the people,
frequently recorded in the Gospels (John
1. 45; 6. 42; Luke 4. 22), that Jesus is the
son of Joseph. The people could never have
been of another opinion since it never could
have occurred either to Jesus or to his rela
tives to deliver up this delicate secret to the
masses, who were no less fond of ridicule
then than today. Whoever imagines that
the evangelists should every time have cor
rected the erroneousness of the popular view
— at least perhaps in a small annotation —
has no idea of the way the people are treated
in the Gospels and also in other historical
books. According to the evangelists the
people, and partly also the disciples of Jesus,
have mostly an erroneous opinion of him
which is entirely superficial and does not
penetrate the depths. The false opinion of
the masses as to the natural origin of Jesus
is in line with their misunderstandings of
him in other particulars. And the conten-

The Virgin Birth 39
tion that Jesus might best have won the
people to himself by revealing to them his
supernatural birth also misses the mark,
since Jesus never produced, nor wished to
produce, faith by his public miracles. This
being the case, how could he expect an effect
from a past miracle and one of such unique
character ?
Thus only two passages remain which
seem to preclude the idea of the virgin birth.
In Acts 2. 30, Peter quotes a word of David,
from Psa. 132. 11, that God hath sworn
with an oath to him that "of the fruit
of his loins" one should sit on his throne — a
promise which Peter sees fulfilled in Jesus.
In the beginning of the Epistle to the Ro
mans Paul characterizes Jesus as one who
"was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh" (Rom. 1. 3). From both pas
sages the inference is made that Jesus, as to
his human nature, must be begotten from the
Davidic race by a Davidic descendant. And
this conception would be, indeed, the natural
one under the supposition that there existed
no other tradition concerning the way by
which Jesus belonged to the house of David.
But we have such a tradition in Matthew

40 The Virgin Birth
and Luke ; and the question arises whether
these declarations conflict with each other.
He who is acquainted with the Greek and,
moreover, with Scripture usage, will decide
that they do not. In the quotation of Peter
a citation is involved. The term "fruit of
his loins" is not ooined by any New Testa
ment writer, but simply accepted; and it is
in keeping with the peculiarity of the New
Testament, to be observed in uncounted pas
sages, to apply Old Testament phrases in
circumstances where every expression,
every figure, does not apply, and with such
we are concerned here. Peter simply es
tablishes the close connection between Christ
and the house of David by an Old Testament
figure, without thinking of its minute ad
justment. When Paul uses the term "seed," also in
conformity with Old Testament usage, it re
quires only a look into the lexicon to ascer
tain that with him the thought of the man
as the bearer of the seed has receded behind
the general meaning "offspring." Paul
therefore states that Christ in his human
nature belongs to the posterity of David,
without prejudicating, or asserting to a

The Virgin Birth 41
"how" in the sense of the evangelists, be
cause the question has never occurred to
him.. Study of the New Testament shows that a
direct and detailed attestation of the virgin
birth is found only in the introductions of
Matthew and Luke; that John, probably,
and Paul, perhaps, allude to it, each in one
passage. Facts and statements which pre
clude it are nowhere found in the New Tes
tament, but two figures and formulas on the
Davidic sonship, voiced in connection with
the Old Testament, neither affirm it nor
deny it. To infer anything from this for or
against the historicity of the virgin birth is
not possible from the standpoint of the his
torian. The frequently expressed opinion
that a story plainly attested only in two pas
sages of the New Testament, and nowhere
else, is open to suspicion, if laid down as a
rule would consistently entail consequences
which no one is willing to take upon himself.
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is recorded
only twice in the Gospels, otherwise no
where ; the same is the case with the Lord's
Prayer. The parables of the prodigal son
and the good Samaritan we read in one

42 The Virgin Birth
Gospel only. If one is not willing to assume,
on the basis of these observations, the in
credibility of all those narratives, let him
also do it no more with the story of the
virgin birth; the reproach of -inconsiderate
and illogical thinking were otherwise not to
be avoided.
As little is it possible to deprive the
sources of credibility on account of the dif
ferences existing. Luke and Matthew state,
indeed, so many particulars concerning the
birth of Jesus, and the first years of his life,
that their combination in an harmonious
whole is difficult, and, perhaps, in every de
tail impossible. The newer historical
method advocates, however, the principle —
Lessing was its inventor — that the trust
worthiness of an historical fact increases
with the number of independent accounts,
varying in details which testify of it. Would
Matthew and Luke harmonize completely as
to details, in place of independent sources,
we should have only one authority for the
virgin birth which might excite the sus
picion of having been artificially adjusted, or
"worded." From the New Testament itself,
therefore, from a purely historical stand-

The Virgin Birth 43
point, a proof for or against the historicity
of the virgin birth can in no direction be in
ferred. We only draw near the question by
tracing in the sequel the origin of the New
Testament ideas concerning the birth of
Jesus. (&) Inquiry into the origin of an account
must be made as to its form and as to its
contents. In our department it is always
literary-historical as well as religious-
historical. We inquire, in the first place, by
whom the introductions of Matthew and
Luke were composed and whether at some
former time they occupied perhaps a dif
ferent — possibly independent — literary po
sition and were not always, combined with
the entire Gospel books. And we consider,
in the second place, whence came the con
tents of these narratives — from the personal
experiences of the authors or from certain
historical tradition — from their imagination
or from general religious convictions of
Judaism and heathenism. Only from this
twofold mode of consideration can certain
results be expected. For showing that the
introductions inseparably belong to the
Gospels of Matthew and Luke does neither

34 The Virgin Birth
prove the trustworthiness of their contents,
nor, vice versa, does their origin from later
or earlier literary creations prove them leg
endary. It is only after the origin-possi
bilities of their contents have also been con
sidered that a true verdict can be given.
That chapters i and 2 belong to the Gos
pel of Matthew as we now have it cannot be
doubted on account of the facts already in
dicated. In them, beginning with the
genealogy, the tendency of the entire Gospel,
as well as its linguistic character, express
themselves so clearly that they must have
originated with the Gospel in the present
form. But since our Gospel of Matthew is
said to be only the later Greek compilation of
an Aramaically written proto-Matthew, it is
possible that the introduction does not yet
belong to it. But there is no> certainty about
this. The whole proto-Matthew is not the
Aramaic primitive form of our Matthew —
it is probably a fabrication which originated
in the nineteenth century — not in the first —
through the misunderstanding of an old
patristic passage, and which has, therefore,
been buried again at the beginning of the
twentieth century even by the most ad-

The Virgin Birth 45
vanced and learned scholars.1 The detailed
shaping of this proto-Matthew as a book
containing only discourses has, first of all,
no claim on historical existence, since we
have no trace of such a book in the ancient
church and her witnesses. So far as the
Gospel of Matthew stands in the light of
history, chapters 1 and 2 are connected
with it.
The case, however, seems to have been
different with Luke. About the middle of the
second century, A. D., a certain Marcion is
said to have had a Gospel similar to that of
Luke, but without our opening chapters, and
these might, therefore, be a later accretion
to that Gospel of Marcion. But investi
gations acknowledged by all competent
critics — even by the most determined op
ponents of the virgin birth — have shown
that Marcion's Gospel was rather a mutila
tion of our present Gospel of Luke, which
he treated as he did other New Testament
writings, in order to make them accord with
his doctrine.
No better is the case with a newly made

•See the third edition of Zahn's Introduction to the
New Testament, just published.

46 The Virgin Birth
discovery from which we learn that in the
additions to the Armenian translation of a
certain Ephraem Syrus, this reading is said
to be found: "The Gospel of Luke begins
with the baptism of Christ." Aside from
the uncertain and late origin of this state
ment, aside also from its uncertain text, it
will not at all separate the introduction from
the Gospel of Luke, for to it an epilogue is
appended in which it is expressly said that
Luke begins the narrative of the life of
Jesus — only in the sense of his public Mes
sianic activity — with the baptism of John —
"after he had first spoken of his incarnation,
and of the kingdom which commenced with
David, and of Abraham." This conception
is the more safe since that Ephraem in his
commentary, to which the alleged notice is
appended, has himself interpreted the in
fancy histories.
It is plain that the Gospel of Luke always
had the fore-histories, which must conse
quently be considered as the elements of two
Gospel writings composed between A. D. 60
and A. D. 80. With this assertion the lit
erary inquiry, however, is not yet completed.
Luke in his preface expressly refers to other

The Virgin Birth 47
compositions of the Gospel history known to
him, and thus it is very well possible that he
.derived his fore-history, or prologue, from
such a source. On account of the differences
already noticed, which exist between Mat
thew and Luke, two or, more correctly, three
things are impossible. Matthew can neither
have derived from Luke, nor Luke from
Matthew, nor can both have had a like com
mon source as basis. The refusal of the first
two follows so surely a careful reading of
the respective narratives that they require
no further consideration ; on the other hand,
the theory of a common source has found
two peculiar developments during the last
decade. One scholar endeavored to under
stand the narratives of Matthew and Luke
as variations of an apocryphal, still extant,
so-called Protevangelium of James. He
rightly has been left alone with this opinion.
Even the reader who is not at home in such
inquiries can, by reading the different ac
counts in succession and placing them side
by side, convince himself of the dependence
of that Protevangelium of James on Mat
thew and Luke, for which, besides, different
chronological reasons speak. But the other

48 The Virgin Birth
effort also to restore an infancy-gospel com
posed in Hebrew, said to have originated
very early, meets with insuperable difficul
ties. It is difficult to imagine how Matthew
and Luke could have taken from this gospel
selections which can only with the greatest
difficulty be made into one picture. Mat
thew and Luke, each one of them1, could
therefore have had only one special source
for their fore-histories. It is not necessary
to assume such a one for Matthew ; not even
the genealogy is to be conceived of as having
been derived by him from another author.
It exhibited the characteristic tendency of
his entire Gospel and was therefore compiled
by him alone. All the more is this the case
with the portions of the fore-history; for
example, with their framing by prophetical
proof. It must therefore be considered as an
independent and original literary production
of Matthew.
For the possibility of a separate source for
Luke, besides the indication of his preface,
is that the first chapters differ as to contents
and style from the preface as well as from
the remaining part of the Gospel, whereas
this is composed in good Greek, and with a

The Virgin Birth 49
certain Gentile-Christian tendency. The
style of the fore-history is related to the
Hebrew and reproduces inthe most pertinent
manner not only Judaico-Christian but
Jewish views; the latter to such a degree
that some of its constituent parts have been
pointed out as of direct Jewish origin. It
were indeed conceivable that Luke himself,
for the time being purposely confined him
self in language and view, to the sphere of
his historical narrative ; but a number of ol>
servations speak, nevertheless, for the sup
position that Luke incorporated here a writ
ten narrative of Jesus's infancy. To carry
out this supposition in detail, and to fix the
accuracy of the original source, the sober
historian will deny himself, who finds it not
truthful to give the semblance of historical
realities to his scientific hypotheses. For
the main question which interests us, as to
the historical credibility of the fore-history,
or prologue, the literary critical inquiry is in
no wise yet decided. If one is a product of
Matthew, and that of Luke is derived from
an Aramaic source, the story of the virgin
birth thus being told for the first time about
the year 60, nothing is thereby decided either

50 The Virgin Birth
for or against its legendary character. It
needed only a generation after the death of
Christ for the formation of such a legend
concerning his birth and of a literary de
posit, while, on the other hand, trustworthy
witnesses as well could communicate and
write down authentic information of his
origin. It is necessary, therefore, that we
find the roots from which the matter of our
fore-histories could have grown.
The supposition that we might have to
deal with intentionally fraudulent fictions
or with fancies purely, emanating from the
head of the narrators, is too decayed and an
tiquated to be considered. It were inex
plicable how two men, acting independently,
should be guilty of the same deception, or
encourage the same freak. For an eventual
formation of legend we must therefore seek
for historical points of support which can
only be found on Jewish or heathenish soil.
They have been found in both with great
certainty. To be sure, as faith in the in
fallibility of papal utterances receives a hard
blow when two "infallibles" bluntly contra
dict and curse each other, so also belief in
the "certain ( !) results of science" vanishes

The Virgin Birth 51
when one sees how its "master-spirits" con
firm the most divided opposites by their
scientific oaths. Yes, there is hardly a de
partment that, equally with ours, can shake
the naivest blind faith in the certainty of
scientific results, on the supposition, to be
sure, that one works through the entire ex
tremely comprehensive literature, even to its
details, and who extends his knowledge be
yond his own party-lattice.
Some trace with the most powerful accent
of conviction the legendary foundation of
the virgin birth back to Jewish roots, for
Matthew himself in a careless manner has
disclosed to us how he came to suppose a
virgin birth, namely, through prophecy.
The prophetical word quoted by him (Isa.
7. 14) has produced the fulfillment ; in it we
have the source of the legend. This was
formerly the opinion of Strauss and it is
still that of Harnack.1 The famous philoso
pher, Usener, on the other hand, asserts:
"It meant to turn the natural events upside
down, should one consider the prophetical
word as the cause and starting point of the
legend. It was, rather, the seal which
1 See Essence of Christianity. Translated by Saunders.

52 The Virgin Birth
was printed upon the ready matter."1
Neither the primitive form of the prophetical
word nor its conception in Judaism, shows
the author of the thought of a virgin birth.
In the Hebrew stands a word which by no
means means "virgin," but simply a "mar
riageable young woman"; in only one in
stance, to be sure, the most extended, that of
the Seventy (note Aquila, Symmachus,
Theodotion) is this Hebrew word translated
"virgin." Notwithstanding we nowhere
find this passage Messianically applied in
Judaism, never is the hope expressed that the
Messiah is to be bom of a virgin. This is
the more significant since the Messianic
hopes are otherwise developed in the most
detailed manner perhaps with reference to
the Davidic sonship and the origin of the
Messiah, and are well known to us.= And
"Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, I, 1889, p. 75.
2Comp. Baldensperger, die Messianisch-Apokalyptischen
Hoffnungen des Judentums, 1893, and already Keim, Ge
schichte Jesu, p. 355, note 2. In the book of Enoch 65. 5,
where the origin of the Messiah is spoken of from the
maternal side, he is called once only "son of the woman."
This clear designation as son of the virgin in the Testament
of Joseph, chapter 19, belongs to the undoubtedly post-
Christian insertions in the Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs, which, though composed on the basis of Jewish
copies, received their final wording, connected with, con
siderable retouches and interpolations, only in Christian
time.

The Virgin Birth 53
not this alone ; rather of "the thought of the
generation of the Messiah by God in the vir
gin, or of a passing of the preexistent
through the Virgin Mary, something wholly
foreign to Judaism, not the least indication
is here found."1 For Judaism influenced by
Greek thought, as by Philo, friends of the
Jewish exposition on the passage in question
could therefore adhere only to the purely
allegorico-spiritualistic designation of the
ancestresses of Israel as virgins, in which
Philo beholds the incarnation of virtues.
From this position of Judaism those circles
also among the later Jewish Christians who
remained Jewish, the Ebonites, who were the
strictest, could not accustom themselves to
the notion of a virgin birth, but rejected it.
In the second century after Christ the Jews
were still opposing the Messianic interpreta
tion of Isa. 7,2 and asserted that the Chris
tians mistranslated the passage. Matthew
is therefore the first, and for a long time the
only, author who understands Isa. 7 as a
prophecy of the virgin birth. This under-

•Illmann in Jahrbflcher fur Protestantische Theologie,
1891, p. 243.
2Justin, Dialogue against Trypho, 71.

54 The Virgin Birth
standing came to him only frorm his other
wise established faith in the virgin birth.
Fulfillment only learned to find and under
stand prophecy — an observation whose
truth may be observed in the New Testa
ment, and most frequently in Matthew.
This fact has induced a number of very
learned and especially conscientious scholars
to give up this interpretation from Judaism
and has taught them to adopt another one
essentially more unimpressive. In a certain
smaller and secluded circle of Judaism,
called the Ebonite, also Essenic — in the time
of Jesus and before him. — a certain predilec
tion for asceticc-monkish ideals, and, there
fore, also a certain opposition to marriage,
had become predominant. Out of these dis
positions the idea of a virgin birth is said to
have developed itself. It is true that there is
a long step between a dislike to marriage and
sympathy with the virgin birth; but, aside
from this, not a trace of dislike for such mar
riage is to be seen in the Gospel fore-history.
The words "to beget" occur nowhere else so
often as in this prologue. Think only of the
genealogies. Mary's and Joseph's inter
course is only rejected till the birth of the

The Virgin Birth 55
child Jesus; the relations of Zacharias and
Elizabeth show no trace whatever of Ebonit-
ism. In short, the explanation of the story
of the virgin birth as a legend springing
from Jewish roots has not the least historical
support at the present stage of scientific
inquiry. The more the knowledge of this fact ad
vanced the more energetically the effort has
'been renewed to discover in heathenism the
sufficient motives for the idea of the virgin
birth. To be sure, the question is here only
of the repetition of observations which were
made in the second century by the heathen
on the one hand and ecclesiastical writers on
the other, and which were again resumed in
the eighteenth and almost completely in the
first half of the nineteenth century. One
can distinguish among those notions which
were taken from Oriental and those from
Occidental heathenism. Of the former we
first consider Buddhism.1 Since one part of
this series, treating of the relation of Bud
dhism to Christianity, and containing all the
necessary material, has already been pub-

"The analogies found in the Mahahharata have nothing
to do with the virgin birth.

'56 The Virgin Birth
lished,1 we can be brief. In a work composed
many centuries after Buddha's death, treat
ing of the beginnings of his life up to the
preaching in Benares, Lalita-Vistara, we
read also of the miraculous circumstances of
the birth of Buddha. He appears as the son
of a married queen — not of a virgin — who
conceived him not through intercourse with
her husband but through the entering "of a
small white elephant into her side," or ac
cording to another tradition, through that of
a ray of light. The affinity of this notion
and that of the New Testament confines it
self to the separation of the human father
in the origin of Christ and that of Buddha.
When the question is asked as to a common
historical dependence of the mutual notions
nothing can be decided thereon. For in
fluence on the Judaico-Christian circles in
the first and second third of the first post-
Christian century not the shadow of a proof
is offered. He who asserts it either knows
not the circumstances or falsifies them..
Besides, in our case it were not so easy to
explain how a married queen became a be-
1See New Testament Parallels in Buddhistic Litera
ture in this series.

The Virgin Birth 57
trothed virgin and a small elephant the
Spirit of God. The fact — to be explained
later on — only remains that also in another
religion, in the course of its history, the
thought has been conceived that its founder
originated miraculously.
According to Gunkel1 Saoshyant, corre
sponding in Parseeism to the future Christ
who is to appear at the end of the world, is
"bora of a virgin in a supernatural man
ner." In tracing the sources we find, indeed,
something entirely different, an offensive
narrative.2 From the cornucopia of the Babylonian
religion, which in other directions has of
late distributed so many gifts, our depart
ment has been presented with only one.
King Sargon narrates of himself : "Sargon,
the mighty king of Agade, am I. My mother
was a Vestal ( ?), my father of low descent.
. My Vestal-mother (?) conceived
me, in secret she begat me."3 In this pas-

>Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstandnis des Neuen
Testaments, p. 65.
2Windischmann: Mittra abhandlungen fur die Kunde
des Morgenlandes, vol. I, No. 1 (1857), p. 80.
9 Jeremias : das altes Testament in Lizt des Alten Orients,
1904, p. 255.

58 The Virgin Birth
sage the word "enitu" translated "Vestal,"
immaculate temple virgin, is linguistically
not yet satisfactorily explained.1 Its objec
tive application in some passages of the
newly discovered Hammurabi code seems to
speak for its meaning as "Vestal."2 It is,
however, entirely unimportant for the con
ception of our narrative, and for its under
standing we will even suppose that King
Sargon in the first instance calls his mother
a temple virgin. But he also expressly
states that he has a father and that his
mother conceived him. Sargon, accordingly,
does not call himself a son of a virgin, but at
the most the son of a woman who was a
temple virgin but afterward a wife. We
have here a parallel to the birth of Romulus
and Remus, who also descended from a ves
tal who is said to have had unlawful inter
course with the war god Mars. Only those
readers can combine it with the narrative of
Matthew and Luke who finished their read
ing at the first time of the Sargon discourse
•See Delitzsch, Assyrisches Handworterbuch, 1896;
Grossmann: Der Ursprung der Israelitsch-Judischen
Eschatologie, 1905, p. 271, who renders the above trans
lation only with a point of interrogation.
2Comp. Winckler: Die Gesetze Hammurabis, 1904, p.
30, note 1.

The Virgin Birth 59
and did not continue reading. Babylon also
only offers us the help1 that the origin of
prominent personalities was somehow con
ceived! as unique; thus, for example, the
kings — may be this was even "court style" —
were readily made tlie sons of the mother of
a god, which was thought of as everything
else but original.
And this very same thought we also find
in the Grseco-Roman culture circle. Not
only religious figures, but prominent men of
history in general are conceived of as having
originated in an especially wonderful man
ner. Usener2 mentions a whole series of
sons of gods ; Pythagoras was considered a
son of Apollo; Apollonius of Tyana, a son
of Zeus ; in like manner it is said that Plato's
mother had not her son by her husband, but
by Apollo. The like opinion was entertained
of Alexander, whose mother is said to have

•Babylonian Astrology helps no further. For neither is
the connection of the heavenly goddess with the zodiaic
image of the virgin established, still less the transference
of that notion of the heavenly goddess to the New Testa
ment Mary, and least of all that Jesus Christ is born at the
rising of the sign of the virgin. Jeremias, who inclines
toward these directions, quotes as a proof citations from
Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, who lived more than
a thousand years after, not before, Christ! (Babylonisches
im Neuen Testament, 1905, p. 48).
JReligionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 1, p. 70, seq.

60 The Virgin Birth
been visited by a god in the shape of a ser
pent; it is especially significant that the
emperor Augustus was also made the son of
Apollo. On the basis of these and many other
proofs Usener is well entitled to the asser
tion "that the belief in the love of gods for
the daughters of men, and personal relation
with them, was generally diffused in an
tiquity."1 With these examples Usener con
nects also two others according to which
certain mien are said to have been born of a
virgin. One refers to Simon the Magician,
in the Clementine Recognitions, ii. c. 14;
the other to a certain Terebinthos, men
tioned in the Acta Archelai et Manctis,
c. 52.2 This juxtaposition is in so far
very characteristic — Usener himself has
unfortunately forgotten to call attention
to it — since the notices of virgin sons
belong to circles which were influenced
by Christianity and to post-Christian
writings. The Clementine Recognitions,
like the Acta Archelai, were under the
influence of the primitive Christian gos-
•Suetonius, Book xxxiv.
2Ibid., p. 74.

The Virgin Birth 6i
pel literature and also of the prologues of
Matthew and Luke. They are therefore
not their roots but their excrescences.
Although Graco-Roman heathenism in
forms us only of carnally procreated sons of
gods, Usener asserts, nevertheless, "The
notion that our Saviour was the Son of God,
born of a pure virgin, was the unintentional
(!), yea, physically necessary reflection of
the divinity of Christ in the souls of con
verted Greeks."1 In reality, the notion only
existed in the Grseco-Roman world that
prominent men, closely connected with the
deity, were begotten by it in a natural man
ner, and serious discussion must accord
ingly ask the question whether this view
•Suetonius, Book xxxiv, p. 75. Jeremias (Babylon
isches im Neuen Testament, 1905, p. 47) asserts : "Demeter,
the mother of Dionysius, is called in the Eleusinian mysteries
. . . holy virgin," unfortunately, however, without any in
dication of the place, which would enable a control. The
most comprehensive and newest article on Demeter, by
Kern, in Pauly-Wissowa (Real-Encyclopa;die der classischen
alterhumswissenschafe, Tr.) knows nothing thereof.
The title of a virgin is opposed in a most decided manner
to the very nature of Demeter as the goddess of mothers
and midwives. Still less is anything said of a virgin birth
of Dionysius. It may be, as has been supposed by most
competent authority, that in the expression mentioned
above we have the record of a Christian church father, who
carried his world of perception into that of the mysteries —
for which we have repeated examples. That the . . .
the virgin of the world, has nothing to do with our ques
tion, see Archiv fur Religionsgeschichte, vol. 8 (1906);
p. 356, seq.

62 The Virgin Birth
can have historically suggested the notion of
the virgin birth.
Exactly as with reference to Buddhism:
and the other Oriental religions, so it is here.
Not the least proof has been given by what
agencies, by aid of what bridges, heathenish
mythology could have come into the se
cluded Jewish-Christian circles. That it
existed not among the Jews has been shown
above, from which the prologues of Mat
thew and Luke originate. The effort to de
rive essential moments of the Lukanic pro
logue — not, however, the virgin birth — from
inscriptions by municipal authorities of
cities like Priene and Halicarnassus in honor
of Augustus,1 besides causing hilarity, has
already found a sufficiently crushing rebuff.2
But it is by no means impossible that a man
like Luke, in his travels in the Roman em
pire, became acquainted with the Grseco-
Roman belief in the sons of the gods. The
decision can only depend upon the considera
tion whether the inner relationship of the
mutual ideas is large enough to explain the
•Soltau, Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu Christ.
2See Nosgen, Zur Geburtsgeschichte Christi, in Studier-
stube, 1902, p. 168.

The Virgin Birth 63
origin of the one from, the other. To be
sure, to discover at all a relationship between
the history of the birth of Augustus and that
of Jesus Christ requires, on the whole, a rich
"religious-historical erudition," which the
simple, unperverted reader hardly has at his
command. He will — and rightly so — dis
cover little more than abysmal differences.
In heathenism he sees a drawing down of
the deity into the rudest sensuality, its trans
formation into animals — particularly into a
serpent, or as in Buddhism an elephant. The
whole supernaturalness consists simply in
this, that a so-called god performs a physical
act in place of a man. On the other hand,
the least trace of sentient ideas is wanting.
God takes not the part of man, but that of
the Creator. The very application of the
spirit-idea in the manner in which it occurs
in the birth stories, and as it is analogous to
the Old Testament, renders wholly impos
sible the thought of the Deity as sensual
progenitor of the child Jesus. The Hebrew
word for spirit, "ruach," is feminine, and if
Jesus should be thought of as standing in
some natural relation to the Spirit, the Spirit
could only appear as his mother. And this,

64 The Virgin Birth
too, is not an empty supposition, but as dis
tinguished from the many learned fancies,
is to be supported by the declaration of an
old source. In the so-called Gospel accord
ing to the Hebrews, an apocryphal writing
related to the Gospel of Matthew, the child
Jesus calls the Holy Ghost his "mother."1
Since the child Jesus, according to the pro
logues, is not regarded as the sensually
begotten son of God, yea, since his concep
tion in the circles of the two Gospels would
have been conceived as the greatest degra
dation of God, and is precluded by their con
ception of the Holy Spirit, the biblical and
heathenish narratives have not so much
relationship with one another as the Bud
dhistic elephant and the Grgeco-Roman ser
pent. Common to both sides only is the
opinion that a great, wondrous man, es
pecially in the realm of religion, must also
have a wondrous origin. The more fre
quently, however, a thought springs up
independently, the greater the possibility
that it expresses something necessary and
real. As often as the hope of a new German
•For the passage see Pick, The Extra Canonical Life
of Christ, New York, 1903, p. 270.

The Virgin Birth 65
emperor and a new German empire was
active, it was not fancy, but anticipation of
something which had to come and which
was come. While in many phenomena the
looked-for emperor of the future did not at
once appear, signs were erroneously inter
preted, and eventually one came who was
ruler in reality. When, therefore, in the his
tory of religion and intellect the assertion of
the miraculous origin of the great men was
made again and again, it is by no means to
be deduced from this fact in itself that we
have to deal with something unreal in every
case. Rather is the supposition just as valid
that it is frequently realized.
More, indeed, than the concession of such
a possibility cannot be obtained from the
stand of the pure historian. For the ac
knowledgment of its realization, and that,
indeed, in Jesus Christ and not in Buddha,
Plato, or Augustus, presupposes a certain
religious attitude which can only be men
tioned and established in our second part.
For the present we have still the task to in
dicate briefly a more suitable origin of the
New, Testament sources on the virgin birth
than we have thus far known. After all

66 The Virgin Birth
other suppositions have failed for its eluci
dation it is scientifically admissible, and, in
deed, imperative, to assume for once the
reality of the virgin birth, and from this
point study the New Testament record. The
mystery of the virgin birth was revealed
only to Joseph and Mary, and the aged
priestly couple, Zacharias and Elizabeth,
were probably also taken into confidence.
The very nature of this miracle necessitated
silence. The consequences of its communi
cation would have caused, and afterward
did cause, indeed, the Jewish blasphemies of
Mary, who is said to have had illicit inter
course with a Roman soldier, Panthera;
an imputation as empty as malicious, yet
which has the semblance of credibility for
Haeckel.1 Elizabeth and Zacharias prob
ably died soon, and Joseph also, and with
them the secret was buried. For Mary the
thought of the miracle receded, since during
sixty years — aside from the behavior of the
Boy in the temple, which she did not fully
understand — she saw nothing wonderful in
him. Neither did the work of Jesus answer
to the picture which she made to herself of
•See Loof, Anti-Haeckel.

The Virgin Birth 67
the deeds of this Son of her virginity. She
rather took as much offense at his appear
ance as others ; nor did Jesus encourage her,
when she alluded to his wondrous character
at the marriage feast in Cana, to communi
cate more particulars about him. Thus
Mary kept silent also during the public min
istry of Jesus, during which the people gen
erally, and even the disciples of Jesus, knew
of nothing extraordinary. When and where
Jesus heard of his virgin birth we know not.
That he made it not a part of his Messianic
preaching everyone perceives who has even
a slight knowledge of its principles. Jesus
never came before men as the one he really
was, but in personal intercourse under the
influence of his preaching he led them grad
ually to the knowledge and confession of the
truth of his nature. Jesus also never ex
pected to produce faith in himself by his
miracles, still less by communicating a
miracle once wrought on him. And, if it
shall be shown farther on that the belief in
his preaching, in his deity, and his sinless
ness presupposed belief in his virgin birth,
it could not be proclaimed on a basis of de
velopment of revelation, when even those

68 The Virgin Birth
presuppositions were only nascent. Jesus
died. Under his cross Mary stood also.
Jesus was raised. Now the multitude per
ceived in the living as in the historical
Christ its Lord and God, to whom it prayed ;
the sinless One who redeemed it. The days
of which Jesus himself had spoken now com
menced, in which the Spirit reminded his
own of all which stood in connection with
him1.. To the first Jerusalem congregation
Mary also belonged, and the position which
she there occupied seems to have been a
prominent one (Acts I. 14). In a different
sense from before she had now become "the
handmaid of the Lord" (Luke 1. 38), be
cause she submitted to the Lord Christ and
in full religious faith, became subject to him
as to her God. With sanctified pride she
remembered the relation she bore to the
Christ ; the aging woman feared no more the
reproach of men, and the Spirit disclosed to
her the deepest and true understanding of
her experiences. Thus more than once she
told of the infancy of Jesus. In the virgin
birth her discourses had the firm center.
These narratives went from mouth to mouth.
Almost a generation later Matthew fixed

The Virgin Birth 69
them in a form which harmonized with the
setting and the whole aim of his Gospel.
Before or at the same time, another Jewish-
Christian believer, who especially felt at
home in the birth-narrative, fixed the stories
of Mary in a free form in the Aramaic lan
guage. This "flying leaf" — science likes to
speak of such — among other things came
also into the hand of Luke, who was eagerly
looking around for sundry sources. He took
it in hand and revised it and made it the in
troduction to his Gospel. And in all this the
Spirit of God ruled, taking the human into
the service for the attainment of his pur
poses and objects. As the entire historical
life of Jesus became by no means the object
of the apostolic-missionary preaching — we
never read, for example, that the Sermon on
the Mount or the parable of the prodigal
son formed its contents, but mainly his cross
and his resurrection — thus, also, not his
virgin birth. In this manner we perfectly
understand that we find at most only vague
allusions to the virgin birth by Paul and in
the other missionary-sermonic literature of
the New Testament. But when, at the turn
of the first to the second century, it was de-

70 The Virgin Birth
termined to put together as a confession,
those facts of the life of Jesus which had
become of religious importance for the con
gregation, the virgin birth had been al
ready received into the ancient apostolism.
The certainty of its historicity and religious
importance, of its harmony and connection
with the facts of the life of Jesus, had been
felt. This attempt to explain the New Tes
tament statements of the virgin birth is, the
propounded form, a suggestion, and pre
tends to be no more than such. It must be
admitted that it claims to explain and com
bine somewhat more pertinently and more
connectedly the well-established historical
individual cognitions than the rejected
known to be unhistorical. From the stand
point of the impartial historian it is conse
quently proven that the New Testament ac
count of the virgin birth has historical
reality as its basis.
II. Only the view of life, the faith of the
individual man, can change this historical
possibility of the virgin birth into a reality
or unreality. Whoever acknowledges no
God, or he who fails to make his nature
coincide with that of the world or its inner-

The Virgin Birth 71
most kernel, must, as a matter of course, on
this basis refuse to assent to the virgin birth
Or, whoever believes his God capable of
"spiritual" but not of "natural" miracles,
and besides sees in the miraculous birth no
meaning and value for the reception of sal
vation in the person of Christ, necessarily
fails in the appreciation of the historical nar
rative. He must either be content with this
lack of discernment or, with new courage
search for stronger "natural" explanations
and deductions. On the other hand, belief
in God, and in him as the Lord who, for the
sake of man's salvation, wonderfully mas
ters the ways of history as well as of nature,
together with the inner religious conviction
that the virgin birth is necessary to the full
understanding of the life of Jesus as Re
deemer — this belief allows firm and sincere
adoption of the virgin birth as a fact in
salvation. The right of belief in God, and of the
conviction of the necessity of the miracle on
account of sin and redemption, and its ad
justment to the lawful order of creation, can
neither be explained nor proven in this place.
Only two things are possible to prove,

72 The Virgin Birth
namely, how unfounded is the difference be
tween natural and spiritual miracles, and
what deep religious roots the affirmation of
the virgin birth has. That keen separation
of nature and spirit, body and soul, is the
inheritance of a certain older one-sided
conception of the world. The German
idealistic philosophy had placed a wide
chasm between natural and spiritual hap
penings; yea, it presented the latter as al
most belonging to another world (so Kant).
To it alone freedom and morality and — so
far as it was considered necessary — religion
also were to belong. But when, with the
advancement of the natural sciences, the es
sence of nature and its worth were better
understood, the materialistic world-concep
tion arose again, which on its part depre
ciated with the spiritual life all domains like
morality and religion. In the emergency
produced thereby, a number of theologians
went back again to the old idealism, above
all things to Kant. They again bluntly
separated the natural and the spiritual life
from each other, and assured to religion and
also to God, but only in the realm of the
spiritual, a modest place. In the spiritual

The Virgin Birth 73
and especially in the moral life he was al
lowed to perform a miracle. This whole
world-picture is, however, outstripped in all
departments by modern science. Psychology,
sociology, history, especially also that of re
ligion, show in like manner how nature, as
the material and lawful, reaches into all
provinces of the spiritual life and jointly
rules their happenings. On the other hand,
the belief becomes ever stronger that tran
scendental factors control the most elemen
tary events of nature-happenings. If, there
fore, the coincidence of nature and spirit-
happening is indissoluble, the interworking
of both has this effect for the modern man in
his present world-picture, that he cannot
debar from one of these domains his religion,
his God. At present, therefore, for anyone
who takes part in the scientific advances of
our time, only the denial of every miracle
or acceptance of nature and spirit-miracles
is possible, since this distinction, in the sense
of a contrariety excluding itself, is obsolete.
If I am sincerely of the opinion that in the
spiritual realm: God is able to call forth plain
ly new things which are not themselves de
rived from the forces of the inner worldly

74 The Virgin Birth
existence, and if the term, "miracle" is not
merely an idle phrase, I must extend this
view also to nature, which is completely
filled with the Spirit. Consequently, the con
nection with modern science allows us to
assume a prodigy quite as well as a spiritual
wonder when — this is here again the inevi
table supposition — there is cause for it in
religion. Our last statements concern the discovery
of the religious reasons which speak for a
belief in the virgin birth. ^SThe Christian be
lief is founded on the person of Jesus Christ
as its Lord and Redeemer. In that is con
tained the acknowledgment of his deity and
sinlessness.1 He who arrives not at both
shows that he has not realized the religious
experiences which, according to the history
of primitive Christianity, specifically belong
to it. He may, nevertheless, have religion ;
perhaps a better, higher, and more purified,
but certainly not the Christian. Only those
who experience Christ as the divine Lord
and sinless Saviour are Christians, and have
a right to speak when it concerns the re-

•For the connection of both, see Seeberg: Warum
glauben wir an Christus, 2d cd.

The Virgin Birth 75
ligious worth of a certain fact of the Chris
tian religion. Competence in our depart
ment is also the supposition of judgment.
Christ's divinity and sinlessness fill the
whole being and full life of faith. Divinity
or holiness adheres not merely to his words
and thoughts, to his will and actions, but
whatever appears or stands behind as the
contents of his life and its expression, has
part in both.1 As little is a time in the life
of Jesus consistent with the religious expe
rience in which he was not yet God, or only
a nascent saint, both rather existed in all
phases of development in the forms answer
ing the same. As sex and race, temperament
and genius, never belong to only one part of
the human personality, and come to it only
during the duration of its later life, but are
devised from the beginning in an all-com
prehending sway, thus it is also with
Christ's divinity and holiness. If both be
long to him at all, they belong to him from
the beginning, from his birth. The Christ
of faith is from his birth divine and holy.
Natural birth never produces anything holy

•These few suggestions must suffice since neither a total
iew of the person
here be developed.

view of the person of Christ nor even of his deity can
elot

y6 The Virgin Birth
and divine, but human and sinful; conse
quently Jesus's origin must have been
miraculous. This wonderfulness consists in
this: in place of a child in whom a sinful
man originates, a Child is created who be
comes a holy and divine Redeemer. In the
religious experience of the individual Chris
tian, which he realizes in his Christ-God,
this is immediately concluded. If the Chris
tian were thrown upon his imagination, he
could fancy different forms in which. God
had brought about this miracle. Even one's
own child, of a human father and a human
mother, could have been formed divine and
sinless by God. This would have been a par
ticularly great and incomprehensible miracle.
Reverence prohibits the Christian to assert,
even subsequently, with reference to any
fact, that God had to consummate it exactly
so; he never puts himself as counselor and
judge above his God. Thus he does not as
sert that God could only have sent the holy
and divine Redeemer by birth from a virgin,
for the form of a virgin birth has not in it
self sinlessness and holiness as necessary
consequence. If the natural sexual pro
creation according to biblico-evangelical

The Virgin Birth pj
ideas is not sinful, and if the sexual act itself
by no means procreates the sin, sinlessness is
not given with its omission. Rather is sin
transferred by the association of the sexes,
and had Mary also part in it as a parturient
virgin, the child would have also become
sinful without any specifically purifying
operation on the part of God. Son of the
virgin and Son of God do also not coin
cide necessarily. The virgin could have
borne a singularly wondrous man, such for
example, as the Koran thinks Jesus to have
been — which makes him the son of the vir
gin but not of God. The Christian who
does not dictate to his God and put God un
der the compulsion of his human logic and
dogmatics, finds in the revealed history the
knowledge of forms in which God has
actually accomplished his miracles. If the
Christian who, in his experience of his faith
is certain of the miraculous origin of his
divine Saviour, obtains from history the
authentic proof that it was consummated in
the form of the virgin birth, he thankfully
accepts it, and surrounds it with his religious
certainty. He rejoices that history con
firms this and makes more real to him that

78 The Virgin Birth
to which his inner life responds. He pos
sesses the inner reasoning. We continually
experience the saving power of the death of
Jesus Christ, and see in history its peculiar
form — that of the crucifixion ; but the fuller
form of his resurrection story makes known
to us that he is with us as the living One.
Thus our religious certainty of the miracu
lous birth of Jesus receives its historical
form through the prologues of Matthew and
Luke. In our personal knowledge of Christ lies
also the last reason for our belief that only
in him, and not in other great men, the prev
alent thought that they should originate in a
miraculous manner, has been realized.
Buddha and Plato, Alexander and Augustus,
have not so inwardly influenced us that we
say to them : "Ye are the sons and the saints
of God" ; and for this reason we also do not
believe that their birth was accomplished by
a wonderful creative act of God. In Christ,
however, we can see the Son of the virgin,
because he becomes to us God and Lord.
Jesus's divinity and sinlessness are so closely
woven together with the virgin birth, as con
cerning our religious life and also that of the

The Virgin Birth 79
church, that they can no more be separated
from one another. This shows how, on
the one hand, the giving up of the virgin
birth almost always leads to the giving up
of the perfect divinity and sinlessness of
Christ; and how, on the other hand, the
Christian belief in both has always found
a stronghold and a firm foundation in the
miraculous origin of Christ. We can very
clearly observe this as in Luther, whose re
ligious life still recommends itself chiefly, as
a rule, for evangelical religious works. In
his sermons and hymns he continually con
centrates and impregnates his belief in
Christ and redemption through the glance at
the manger and the Son of the virgin in it.
If one, therefore, indicates the virgin birth
as valueless for his religious life, we shall
acknowledge, indeed, "the sincerity" but not
the truth of his confession, and seek its
cause in a still imperfect religio-ethical
experience. Only with a certain maturity
and a certain richness, in the experiences of
the Christian life with the sinless and divine
Lord is given the belief in the virgin birth.
But whoever has it, or strives after it, and
at the same time possesses the necessary in-

80 The Virgin Birth
sight into the historical facts, can acknowl
edge the reality of the virgin birth of Jesus
from fully sufficient religious motives, and
will be supported by the results of unpreju
diced science.1
•On this subject see in addition to The Incarnation and
Recent Criticism, published by Eaton and Mains, New
York; The Virgin Birth, by Professor Orr; The Birth and
Infancy of Jesus, by Rev. Louis Matthew Sweet, M. A.

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