The obviously mythological figure in Rev 12 of the woman 'arrayed with the sun' who 'was delivered of a son,' if it is derived from an earlier Jewish source, shows that the Baby- lonian myth was not unfamiliar among apocalyptic circles within Judaism. It can hardly, however, have influenced or suggested the Jewish-Christian tradition of the virgin birth. ' But,' to use Mr. Allen's words, ' it is worth while raising the question whether the author of the book [of Revelation] did not incorporate this section with direct reference to the tradi- tion of the supernatural birth of Christ, with which he must therefore have lieen acquainted' (Interp., Feb. 1905, p. 123). It is possible, of course, that in Is 7'-* the prophet makes use of current eschatological ideas, and by the ' young woman ' means the mother of the coming Deliverer (whom he expected to appear at the same time as the Assyrian invasion). 'The wonderful child of whom you all know, of whom the ancient prophecy speaks, whose name is Immanuel, is already on the way to being born.' The prophet is not thinking so much of the circumstances of the birth as the time. What was gener- ally regarded as a vague possibility of the unknown future is announced by the prophet to be a present reality. No stress, it will be noticed, is laid upon the virginity of the mother. The point does not arise. And this remark applies to the later Jewish transformations of the idea (the origin of the Messiah is often pictured as mysterious and obscure); and the 'woman' of Rev 12 is no exception.
It is important to remember that the Nativity narrative of the First Gospel is governed by an apologetic and (partly) polemical purpose. The compiler is meeting Jewish objections and (pro- bably) Jewish calumny, which finds its explanation in a distorted version of the virgin birth. The prominence of Joseph is also noticeable. This may also, perhaps, be due to the compiler's desire to meet Jewish calumny. It was important to show what exactly Joseph's relations were to his espoused wife, to make clear that Mary and her <hild enjoyed his protection, in order to meet Jewish slander. Another motive, too, may have been at work. The Jews were at no time dis- posed to exalt the unmarried state above the married. The story of the Virgin, with Joseph
* Cf. for traces of this idea in the LXX, Bousset, Relig. d. Judent.'i 303 f.
completely subordinated, miglit easily lead to such a result, which, from the strict Jewish point of view, it was important to avoid.
2. The sources of the two Nativity narratives. —The present writer's conclusion, arrived at in- dependently, closely approximates to that of Pro- fessor Briggs, who points out that the material of which the ' Gospel of the Infancy ' is composed is in the form of poetry embedded in prose narrative. This poetry is of the same kind as the poetry of the Old Testament. It was translated from Hebrew originals,* and in its Greek form embodied by St. Luke in his oi^ening chapters. ' It is probable that the prose which encompasses this poetry comes from the authors of the Gospels, the poetry from other and probably several difierent authors. Therefore we are not to look for an earlier written Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, but are to think of a number of early Christian poems with reference to that infancy from which the author of our Gospel [St. Luke] made a selection. . . . These songs which have been selected for use in the Gospel of Luke doubtless represent reflexion upon these events by Christian poets who put in the mouths of the angels, the mothers and the fathers, the poems which they composed. But the inspired author of the Gospel vouches for their propriety and for their essential conformity to truth and fact. ' t In the Matthsean narrative the annuncia- tion to Joseph (Mt P"- -') is probably a citation from one of these Hebrew hymns, which has been translated into Greek. All the hymns were, per- haps, composed for liturgical use, and were so used in the early Jewish-Christian community in Palestine. As we have seen, they will probably have been in existence at least as early as the middle of the 1st cent. A.D. Their whole tone — so intensely Jewish and Messianic, but yet so spiritual — and their primitive Christology suggest early conditions. Their authority must therefore rank exceedingly high. It has often been re- marked that the narrative in the First Gospel is written from the standpoint of Joseph, that in the Third from the point of view of Mary. The delicacy of feeling, the exquisite reserve, the in- timate touches which mark each narrative, well accord with this conclusion. Sanday's conjecture, that the Lukan material is based upon a tradition derived from the mother of Jesus through one of the women mentioned in Lk 8* 24^", is a suggestive and valuable one.
3. Heathen analogies. — As early as the time of Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph. Ixvii.), the mytho- logical tales of virgin birth were cited to discredit the Christian doctrine. 'Amongst the Grecian fables,' says Trypho, * it is asserted that Perseus was born of the virgin Danae ; Jupiter, as they call him, coming down upon her in a shower of gold.' Such tales are widespread. 'We can no longer ignore the fact,' says Mr. Estlin Carpenter, ' that the idea of a wondrous birth without human fatherhood appears in a multitude of tales which can be traced literally round the world "from China to Peru." ' % A large collection of these has been made in Hartland's Legend of Perseus. But for purposes of comparison here the great majority of them can be dismissed. The Greek fables, which impute the physical origin of great men (heroes and benefactors) to the gods (not only to Zeus, but to Apollo, Mars, Mercury), doubtless are the ex- pression of popular feeling which finds in splendid endowments and achievements something mar- vellous and inexplicable on natural grounds. The