Ill regard to the Matthiean document we are in the dark. The curious gravitation of statement towards Joseph has a reason ; but beyond this there is not much th.at we can say. It would not follow that the immediate source of the narrative was very near his person. In the case of Lk we can see farther down the vista. We have already had grounds for connecting the source from which he draws ultimately with the Jlother of Jesus. Through what channel did it reach the evan- gelist •" Probably through one of the women
* ' If we are rijrht In thts view as to Luke's authority, nnrl as to the way in which that authority reached him. viz. by oral eointnuuication, it appears that either tlie Viri;in was still living when Luke was in Palestine durinjj the years f>T and ."is ... or I^uke b.'Mi conver.sed witli srmie one very intimate with her, who knew her heart and could give him what was almost as pood as first-hand information. Beyond that w-e cannot safely go; but yet one may venture" to state the i[n|>ression — though it may be generally considered fanciful — that the intermediary, if one existed, is more likely to have been a woman than a man. There is a womanly spirit in the whole naiTative. which seems inconsistent with the transmission from man to man, and which, moreover, is an indication of Luke's character ; he had a marked sympathy %vith women ' (Kamsay. op. cit. p. SS). In view of the close resemblance between much that appears in the text and Prof. Iianisay"s admirable chapter, it is perhaps right to explain that this had not been read at the time when the text was written, and that it rejiresents an opinion formed long ago. The question as to whether the source was written or oral is left open, because there is reason to think that .St. Luke used a special (written) source which may have been connected with the women men- tioned below, and through them \vith the Virgin Marv. The writer could not speak i|uite so confidently as Prof, itamsay as to the nearness of this source to the Virgin, but he does nut think that it could be more than two or three degrees removed from her. It must have been near enough to retain the line touches which Prof. Kamsay so well brings out.
mentioned in Lk8'24''' ; and as Joanna is the least known of the group, f.nd therefore the most likely to drop out for any one not personally acquainted with her, perhaps we may say, by pre- ference, through her (cf. p. 630 su)).). We learn from Jn lit-^ (cf. Ac I'*) that the Mother of .Jesus was thrown into contact with this group, — perhaps not for any great length of time, but yet for a time that may well have been sullicieiilly long for the purpose. And we believe that tl.us the secret of what had passed came to be disclosed to a syin- jiathetic ear.
Such an inference, if sound, would invest the contents of these chapteis with high authority. Without enlarging more on this, we may perhaps be alloweil to refer in confirmation to what has been alreiidy .saitl as to the appropriatene.ss of the picture given of the kind of circle in which Christ was born, and in which His birth was most spon- taneously greeted (see p. 008 above). It wa.s just the Symeons and Annas, the Klisabeths and Zachariahs, who were the natural adherents of such a Messiah as Jesus. And the jilira.ses used to describe them are beautifully apiirnpriate to the time and circumstances, ' looking for the consola- tion of Israel,' 'looking for the redemption of Jerusalem' (Lk2^-38).
The elaborate and courageous attempt of Resch ( TC Iv. Ileft .S, IS'.i") to reconstruct even to tlie point of restoring file Hebrew original, a KiiKlltt^itH-evauyeUuiti, which shall embrace the whole of the first two chapters of Lk anil Mt with some extra-canonical parallels, is on the face of it a paradox, and, although no doubt containing useful mutter, has not made converts.
ii. The Text of Mt l".— Within recent years certain phenomena have come to light in the text of the first chapter of St. Matthew which demand consideration in their bearing upon this part of our subject.
Tho peculiarities of the Curetoninn Syrlac, the (so-called) Ferrar group, and some MSS of the Old Latin, had been known for some time, but in themselves they did not seem of very great importance. A new and somewhat startling element was introduced by the publication of the Sinal-Syriac In 1^94. More recently still a further authority has appeared, which coiitAins the eccentric reading. This is the curious <Iinlogue imblished by Mr. F. C. Cunybeare under the nauies of Tiiiuithy nnil AijHila (llxford, Is!'^). It professes to be a public debate between a Christian and a -lew held in the time of Cyril of Alexandria {a.d. 4i"i— i-Wl. and it is in the main a string of tenfiriion/a commonly adduced in the Jewish controversy. It is a question how far some of this material comes from a work older than the date assign, -d. The criticism of the dialogue has been acutely treated b,v Mr. ('onybeare, but the subject needs further examination. We will set" forth the evidence at length, and tlien make some remarks upon it.