It is well to remember that there are stories, more or less analogous to what is told by the two Evangelists, in heathen mythologies. The his- torical probability of the Gospel narratives is not weakened but strengthened by such comparisons. St. Luke's Gentile readers must have felt the un- speakable diflerence between tlie coarse impurity of imagined intercourse between mortals and divinities, in the religious legends of paganism, and the dignity and delicacy of the spiritual narra- tive which St. Luke laid before them. And St. Matthew's Jewish readers, if they compared his story with their own national ideas, as illustrated in the Book of Enoch (6. 15. 69. 86. 106), would find a similar contrast. Nor should the legendary additions to the Gospel story, Avhich are found in the Apocryphal Gospels, be forgotten. These show us what pitiful stuff the imagination of early Christians could produce, even w^en the Canonical Gospels were there as Buodels. All these three classes of fiction, heathen, Jewish, and Christian, warn us that we must seek some source for the Gospel narrative other than the fertile imagina- tion of some Gentile or Jewish Christian whose curiosity led him to speculate upon a mysterious
ANNUNCIATION, THE
ANNUNCIATION, THE
subject. We should have had something very different, l)oth in details and in tone, if there had been no better source than this. And this applies even more strongly to St. Luke's narrative than to that of St. Mattlle\^•. It required more delicacy to tell the story of the vir,L;in birth from Mary's side than from Joseph's ; and tliis greater delicacy is forthcoming. And it is all the more conspicuous because St. Luke's narrative is the richer in details. We conclude, therefore, that St. Luke had good authority for what he has told us, viz. an authority well acquainted with the facts. For if he was incapable of imagining what he has related, equally incapable was his informant. The narrative wliicli he has handed on to us is what it is because in tlie main it sets forth what is true.
Then who was St. Luke's autlioiily? Assuming the truth of the narrative, it i^ (>lAi.)iis ihat, in the last resort, the authority f'lr il imi-t have
been Mary herself. Xo one eU nl.l know what
St. Luke records. It dm's ik.i lulldw from this that he got the iidoiiii:il ion liom her directly, although there is notliinu iiiriiiiilile in the sup- position that he and slii' li.id met. And the form of the narrative leads one to think that there can- not have been many persons between her and him. By frequent transmission from mouth to mouth details about the angel's outward appearance, his beauty and brightness, and about ISIary's attitude and employment, would liave crept in, and the conversation would have been expanded ; all of which corruptions are found in the Apocryphal Gospels. Moreover, such touches as 2'''- ■'■' would be likely to drop out ; and they have dropped from the Apocryphal Gospels.
We may go a step farther, and say that if St. Luke did not get his information direct from Mary herself, the person who passed on the mys- terious story from her to the Evangelist was almost certainly a woman. Mary would be much more likely to tell it to a woman than to a man ; and, in spite of her habitual reticence, she would, after Joseph's death, be likely to confide it to some one. She would feel that such an astounding fact, so much in harmony with the life and death and resurrection of her Son, must not be allowed to die with her ; and she would therefore com- municate it to some intimate friend, who may have communicated it to St. Luke.
It is quite possible that this communication was at its first stage, or had not even started, when St. Mark composed liis ( lusprl. so Ih.-il, wlicii ]\f wroti> he was ignorant of tin- viium l.irlh. Kiit as tho
plan of his Guspfl .-xrlu.lr, :,ll that pil-rrdoj thi-
preaching of the Jjaplist, St. .Mark's silence would be natural even if he already knew it. Probably most of the first generation of Christians were ignorant of this mystery, for the Book of Acts and the Epistles show us that v\diat was preached by till' Apo^tl.'^ was not the miraculous birth, but the .1. Ml, ami ivann.rtion of Christ (Ac l-^2=3- 2^- 32 3'M"' In ■ " l:;- ' 17^^' etc.).
That the Fourth Evangelist knew the Synoptic Gospels, and sometimes silently corrects them, is certain ; but he does not correct the story of the virgin birth. On the contrary, what he says about the Incarnation and about the pre-existence of the Son of Man and His oneness with the Father, is in harmony with it. Such passages as lMsae,3a.44.o<.,., j.:«.«.58 iQ^o n'^ 2028- " are more intelligible if wrillcn by <me who believed the virgin birth, tlian if wrili.ai l,y one who knew the doctrine and r.].. I.-.I it. It is indeed urged that this Evangelists bdii'fs aliout the Christ are such, that he must have statetl the virgin birth, if he believed it. But, as the story had already been twice told, there was no need to repeat it. And the whole of his Gospel shows that he is reserved
about the Virgin Mother, whose name he alone among the Evangelists never mentions. She had become his mother {19='), and he is reticent about all things connected with himself. He nowhere names his own brother.