While in St. Luke everything is grouped round ATary an.l luT kiii^w.,m:ni Elisabeth, in St. Mal'tlirw cMiylliiii.; i> ninuped round Josepli. .I(.^r|ili- 'ji'ni'.'ilii^v is ;ji\i'n by way of preface. Thr AiiimiirKitiuii' is nia.lf to him ; and all revela- tions aliont the name of tlic Child, and the provi- sions to 1)13 taken for His safoty, are made also to him. Obvimisly. if f lie story is trne, Joseph must have been the ultimate source of a great deal of it; but it may have passed through luanj' mouths before it took the form in which it appears in the First Gospel.
Doubt has been thrown upon the two narratives, because in the First Gospel the revelations are made by the angel of the l<ord in dreams, whereas in the Third they are made by angels to persons in their waking moments. It is argued that in each case the miraculous agency is due to the ima- gination of the writer. This is possible. But it is also reasonable to believe that the special method of communication was in each case adapted to tlie character of the recipients. It cannot be said that St. JMatthew always gives us dreams, or that St. Luke objects to such things. St. ^latthew men- tions the ministry of angels (4"), and communica- tions made by means of them (28'-') ; and St. Luke mentions communications made by means of visions in the night (Ac IG" IS''-'"). And if the writers had imagined tin' siil.stanic of the heavenly message, would not Si. Manias have given the promise of the Kin I'lm, aial St. I.uke the pro- mise of Salvati()n ? I!nl it is SI. Matthew who has the latter (1='). while St. Luke has the former (P- '■■'). It is worth noting that in the New Testa- ment we do not read of dreams or visions in the night anywhere but in St. Matthew and in Acts ; cf. 2 Co 12>.
Again, doubts have been raised about the two narratives, because in the one the revelation of the miraculous conception is made to Mary, in the
other to Joseph ; and either revelation, it is urged, would render the other unnecessary. On the con- trary, both are necessary. If the \'irgin birth was to take place, God in His mercy would not leave Mary in ignorance of the mj-sterious manner in which He was about to deal with her. We may reverently say that the Annunciation to Mary was a necessity in order to save her from dreadful perplexity and sutt'eriiig. And this rendered a revelation to Joseph also necessary. On the mere testimony of Mary he could not liave accepted so extraordinary a story. The fact that, in spite of his inevitable suspicions, he took her in marriage, requires us to believe that to him also had been revealed God's purposes respecting his betrothed.
It is evident that St. Matthew and St. Luke give the narratives as historical. Each believed ills own story, and expected that others would believe it also (Lk I''). Indeed, the isolation in which these two \exy different intimations of the virj;tii l>iitli slaiiil ill the New Testament makes till.' i'\|il.niai i<iii (if them very difhcult unless there is ail iii^toiiral liasis. They are not needed to exjilaiii any t liiiig else. They are intensely Jewish in tone; but we maybe sure that Judaism, with its enthusiastic estimate of the blessings of mar- riage, would not have invented them. Moreover, at the time when these Gospels were written, Judaism was antagonistic to the new faith, and would not have tolerated such a glorifying of its Founder.
In tlie Annunciation to Mary we are not told that she saw anything, for the iSoma read by A C in Lk 1-' is almost certainly not genuine. Gabriel was sent, and entered some building in which she was living at Nazareth, and there delivered his message. The eimXBiJiv is against the later tradi- tion that she >\as at the fountain drawing water (Protevangdium of James, 11; Gospel of pseudo- Matthew, 9). Tlie angelic message is given 'in three little pieces of trimeter poetry, which have become somewhat obscured by the Greek transla- tion' (Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, \>. 45 ff.), the first of which is the Ave Maria ' in the form of a distich ' —
The much discussed Kex''P"'"M^'"; must mean 'endued with grace' (Sir 18"): irlaTiv Kal x'^P"' \aliovaa Mapla (Justin Martyr, Tnj. 100); and both here and in 1** the usual translation ' grace ' should be retained for x^/"'- 'The Lord is with thee' is frequent in the Old Testament (Jos 1' G^", Jg 6'2, Is 43'). The liV is probably right in omitting ' Blessed (art) thou among women,' which may have come from I''- : N B L, with the Egyptian and Armenian Versions, omit.
By the lirst words of the angel, Mary was greatly disturbed (SicTapdx*')) both in mind and heart : then her perplexity and emotion gave place to thought {Sie\oyii€To). But, although -irorawds originally meant 'from what country or nation,' she was not deliberating, like Hamlet about the ghost, whether the message came from heaven or hell, i.e. whether it was Divine or diabolical. The Latin Versions rightly have qnalis, not cujas, as an equivalent. Nowhere in the New Testament has woTdTro^ a local signilication, but means simply 'of what kind or quality' (Trorot), and implies