This question of the composition cf the Canticles in St. Luke is a very important one, because it is constantly assumed that they were the invention of the author of the Third Gospel. But in this case we have to assvune that the Greek Luke, or some unknown writer, was able to transfer himself in thought to a time when Jewish national hopes, which were shattered by the L te of the capital, were still vividly cherished in Jewish circles, and that he was able to express those hopes in the popular language current at the date of our Lord's birth with a marked absence of any later Christian conceptions, t
And yet with all this Jewish colourino; there is in these Canticles a depth and a charm which have appealed to men everywhere throughout the Chris- tian centuries. No one recognized the Jewish ele- ment in these early chapters of St. Luke more frankly than M. Kenan ; but lie could also \^-rite of the Magnificat, Gloria in E.rcclsis, Benedictns, Nunc Dimittis : ' Never were sweeter songs in- vented to put to sleep the sorrows of poor humanity ' (Les ivangiles, p. 278).
2. Objections taken to the contents of Lk 1. 2. — The extravagant assertion must, of course, not be forgotten, that we owe these opening chapters of St. Luke, or at least some of their details, to the influence of other great Eastern religions. A dis- cussion of this assertion may more properly be referred to the art. Virgin Birth. § But a word
* "The Lord's Prayer in the Earlv Church ' (.TS i. 3, p. 147 ff.).
t Harnack, in his Reden und Aufsaize, i. p. 307 ff. (1904), maintains that while St. Luke has undoubtedly used a Jewish- Christian document in chs. 1 and 2. he has also introduced touches acceptable to a Greek, and that one word, in common use to-day, was wanting in the original Christian phraseology, the word"' Saviour.' According to Harnark, we owe this word to St. Luke, a word so often used by tlu- c;rifks to designate their gods, and thus it found its \\a', iiiT' l.k J'l. St. Pau! scarcelv knew it; hut shortiv after his tiiii'. when wc come to St, Luke, it is otherwise. It is furtlji-r armuni I hat we look for the word in vain in St. Mark or St. Matthew. But, to say nothing of its use by St. John, cf. Jn 4*- and 1 Jn 4", St. Matthew (121) emphasizes the meaning of the word Jestis, ' for it is he that shall save (,r»o-<.) his people from their sins ' ; and St. Paul in his first recorded missionary address speaks of ' a Saviour Jesus ' (s-a-Tr/j 'iKo-oi;?), and connects His coming with the remission of sins (Ac 132). 3S). Cf. Ph 3-0 and Ac 531, an admittedly early source); also Ps-Sol 109 166.
! Zahn well remarks; 'Passages like Lk 1-2, which in their narrative portions and the psalms introduced can be compared for poetical grace and genuinely Israelitish spirit only with the most beautiful portions of the Books of Samuel, could not have been composed by a Greek like St. Luke ' (Einleitung, ii. p. 4W). 'The whole p.as.sage should be consulted. On the minute account of the ritual in the Temple (Lk 'Z-"), and its signifi- cance as pointing to an earlv date for the narrative, see Sanday (/.r. p. 135), and the Church Quarterly Berittc, Oct. 1904, p. 194, The whole point of St Luke's full acquaintance with the legal ritual is well brought out by B. Weiss (Leben Jesu, i. p. 237).
§ See, however, amongst the most recent writers, A. Jeremias, Babj/lonisches im ST, pp. 48, 49, and his able criticism.
BIRTH OF CHRIST
BIRTH OF CHRIST
may here be said ujion the most recent attempt to trace this alleged influence, in Indische Einjliissc mif cvangclischc Erm/ilmifjcn, by G. A. van den Burgh van Eysinga, 1904. On p. 22 ft'. a whole series of alleged parallels is quoted between the coming of the aged Simeon into the Temple and the coming of the sage Asita into the Palace to do homage to the infant Buddha. While the writer is constrained (p. 23) to admit that the whole of the story of Simeon is told in a strongly Hebraistic style, he maintains that it is not said that the original motive of the incident is also of Hebrew origin. But in this connexion it is very significant tliat, while a supposed parallel is alleged between every verse which tells of Simeon (Lk '2^-'^) and the story of Asita, there is one verse (v.-«) for which no parallel is adduced ; and it is difficult to see that any other than a motive of Hebrew origin could inspire such words as these : ' and it had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.' The contrast is rightly marked between the pious resignation of Simeon and the wail of Asita over his departure amid the ruins of old age and death. But what could be more absurd than to find a parallel {p. 22) between Asita taking his path across the sky liy the way of the wind, and the statement of St. Luke that Simeon came iy rip wpeOfiaTt into the Temple ?