In order to overcome this difficulty. Professor Cheyne is driven to conjecture ' that in some of the early Jewish versions of the Oriental myth of the Divine Redeemer (which has not, so far as we know as yet, been preserved) the mother of the Holy Child was called a " virgin " ' (Bible Problems, p. 81). And, further, it is necessary to suppose that wapdevos ('virgin'), which in its original appli- cation {e.g. to the great mother-goddess of Asia Minor) meant one who was not bound by the marriage tie (and therefore connoted anything but the virginity of Lk 1**), in the process of transition to the conjectured Jewish version of the myth, lost its original connotation, and was interpreted in the strict sense ; ' for nothing is easier than for Divine titles to pass from one religion to another, and for their original meaning to be forgotten ' {ib. ). This, however, is hardly a plausible explanation of the idea of virgin birth in its various heathen forms. Some at least of these inherently possessed a high religious value (cf. the Egyptian examples cited by J. Estlin Carpenter, op. cit. p. 491 f.). On the whole question, some weighty words of Professor Sanday may well be pondered. ' If we believe that the course of human ideas, however mixed in their character — as all human things are mixed — is yet part of a single development, and that development presided over by a Providence which at once imparts to it unity and prescribes its goal, — those who believe this may well see in the fantastic outgroAvth of myth and legend something not wholly undesigned or wholly unconnected with the Great Event which was to be, but rather a dim unconscious preparation for that Event, a groping towards it of the human spirit, a prophetic instinct gradually moulding the forms of thought in which it was to find expression ' (op. cit. p. 647).
It is, however, all-important to remember that the Gospel narratives belong to the sphere of history, and were produced under the limitations that condition the record of historic facts. The creations of the mythopoeic fancy flourish in a difiigrent atmosphere. ' They are part of a common stock of imaginative material reproduced witliout purpose or authority from age to age and land to land, destitute of historic significance. ' *
i. Results of the discussion. — Is tlie Gospel story of the virgin birth a legend ? If so, it must have grown up within the Jewish-Christian community of Palestine, and must represent a primitive Christological dogma expressing the idea of the perfect moral and spiritual purity of Jesus as Son of God. The Christian consciousness, it might be urged, working on such a passage as ' Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee ' (Ps 2'), togetlier with the Scripture promise of the fulness of the Spirit that should rest upon the Messiah (Is IP), may liave been led to transfer these ideas to the * J. Estlin Carpenter, ib. 490.
VIRGIN BIRTH
VISITATION
809
physical beginnings of Jesus' life.* But in the absence of any analogous developments in the Christian consciousness elsewhere, this is liard to believe. Why did the Christological process assume just this form, and in this [a priori mo.st unlikely) quarter ? The impulse must have been given from without. But the hypothesis that it was imported from heathen sources into so strictly Jewish a circle is incredible ; consequently it must have grown out of a conviction, cherished originally within a limited Palestinian circle of believers, that the traditional belief among them was based upon facts, of which some members of that com- munity had been the original depositaries and witnesses.
When subjected to the criteria properly ap- plicable to it, such a tradition would seem to possess high claims to historical credibility. The restrained character of both narratives of the virgin birth, the verisimilitude of small details, the reserve that characterizes them, their very inconsistencies, argue against the hypothesis of invention or of their being mere mythical figments. And these characteristics distinguish them as much from the apocryphal Christian versions as from heathen myths. Everything, indeed, suggests their ' essential conformity to truth and fact. ' The essential truth embodied in the Christian tradition has been admirably stated by Professor Briggs : t
' The virgin conception of Jesus ... is not to be interpreted as if it were a miracle in violation of the laws of nature, but rather as brought about by God Himself present in theophany. The conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary differs from all other conceptions of children by their mothers, in that there was no human father. The place of the human father was taken by God Himself ; not that God appeared in theo- phany in human form to beget the child, after the analogy of the mythologies of the ethnic religions, but that God in a theophany in an extraordinary way, unrevealed to us, and without violation of the laws of maternity, impregnates the Virgin Mary with the holy seed. The words of the angel imply a theophanic presence ; for though it might be urged that the coming of the Spirit upon her was an invisible coming, after the analogy of many passages of the Old Testament, yet the parallel statement that the Divme power overshadowed her cannot be so interpreted. For it not only in itself represents that the Divine power covered her with a shadow, but this is to be thought of, after the uniform usage of Scripture, as a bright cloud of glory, hovering over her, resting upon her, or enveloping her with a halo of Divinit}', in the moment when the Divine energy enabled her to conceive the child Jesus.'