THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
—
exposition of this passage as signifying ‘‘ virgin,” or of an expectation that the Messiah was to be miraculously conceived (cf. V. H. Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 377, London, 1887). Jews contemporary with Justin, Tertullian, and Jerome interpreted ‘almah in Is’. vii. 14 as a young woman (ef. Justin, Dialogus, xliii., xvi—Ixvii.; Tertullian, Adv. Judeos, ix.; Adv. Marcionem, iii. 13; Jerome, Adv. Helvidium, v. 2).. The medieval passages cited by F. P. Badham in the Academy, June 8, 1895 (pp. 485-487), are without critical support. We have, therefore, to look to the Septuagint as the source from which Matthew derived his idea of the ‘“‘ Virgin,’’ which he appears to have done with deliberate intent. The opinion of Lobstein is that the new faith in Christ was led to an imaginative interpretation of the beginning of the person of Christ which should correspond to its experience of his divine character, and in this procedure hit upon this passage from the Septuagint, which offered to religious feeling its precise formula. On the other hand, Orr and those in agreement with him maintain that in reporting the virgin birth Matthew, following his custom of seeking in the Old Testament for either predictions or illustrations of what he narrates, deliberately selected this passage, and was Justified in finding a fulfilment of the prophet’s word, not alone to Ahaz, but in a far distant period when the child ‘‘ Immanuel” should be finally established upon the throne of David. In the first case, faith and prophecy have given rise to a symbolic myth; in the second, the narrative of a fact seeks its parallel or its divine intimation in a word of prophecy.
According to Lobstein, the idea of the person of Christ as the Son of God underwent a development in the early Christian community (see Son oF Gop).
The first stage was the ethical or theo- 13. Devel- cratic sonship which is the common opment of presentation of the Synoptic Gospels.
Sonship The term“ Son ”’ is equivalent to “ Son
Idea. of God,” and that in the Messianic sense (cf. Mark iii. 11, v. 7, xiii. 32, xiv. 61; Matt. xi. 27, xvii. 25-26). This was followed by another step, due to Rabbinic or Alexandrian speculation, seen in Paul’s doctrine of a celestial being who was manifested in Christ on earth; in the Apocalypse, where an Alexandrian influence is evident; and, finally, in John, where the Logos idea culminates in one in whom is gathered up the meaning of humanity and the world; this is the metaphysical Sonship. Midway between the earliest and the latest conception arose that of the first two chapters of Matthew and the nativity stories in Luke—a real divine paternity for Jesus, even that of physical generation (cf. Luke i. 35, with Matt. i. 20; Lobstein, ut sup., pp. 58 sqq.). Bornemann designates the three stages differently: (1) supernatural birth; (2) preexistence (Paul); and (3) Logos doctrine (John; ef. his Unterricht im Christentum, p. 92, Berlin, 1891). This, of course, presupposes that the story of the virgin birth is a myth; and, on the ground that it arose early, it would have to come to an understanding with the question of sufficient time for the myth to develop.
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Virgin Birth
The attitude of the inner circle of the disciples is of interest. They apparently regarded Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; Luke iv. 22; John i. 45, vi. 42)—a judgment which is based on the common tradition preserved in all the Gospels. However, it would perhaps be truer to say that they had formed no opinion on the
subject, since it had never presented it-
14. Atti- self tothem asa problem. There may
tude of the bea wide difference between an attitude
Disciples. and a mature judgment. A given at-
titude may represent only a traditional and unreflective aspect of feeling or action; a mature judgment is the result of critical inquiry, and rests on reasons more or less explicit and well founded. No one would claim that Jesus’ followers had in this respect any other attitude toward him in relation to Joseph and Mary than they had toward his brothers. Even Peter, in his great confession at Czesarea Philippi (Acts x. 34 sqq.), neither affirmed nor denied anything concerning the natural sonship of Jesus as related to Joseph and Mary.
Concerning the virgin birth the remainder of the New Testament is silent. Mark, the oldest Gospel, makes no allusion to it, and apparently knows nothing of it. This silence is, however, explained on the hypothesis that the infancy narrative lay outside the scope of his design, which was to report the common apostolic testimony from the beginning of the Baptist’s ministry to the ascension (Swete, ut sup., p. 48; Orr, ut sup., pp. 106 sqq.), so that it is implied that Mark had knowledge of the fact, although the aim of his writing precluded any report
of it. That his home was in Jerusalem, that the church met in his mother’s house (Acts 15. No xii. 12), and that he often saw Jesus’
References mother contain no presumptions of in Mark value on this subject. Paul is our or Paul. earliest witness to the tendency of the
early Church to arrive at an explanation of the deeper origin of the person of Christ. In his conception are two elements which he has made no attempt to coordinate or fathom. First, of the concrete person of Jesus he affirms all the moral qualities which constitute true and perfect humanity. Secondly, he alleges that a superhuman, preearthly being became incarnate, who thus lived and died under the identical conditions in which human life is passed (II Cor. viii. 9; Phil. 11. 5 sqq.).
If he had reflected upon the way in which this ce-
lestial being “‘ took upon himself the form of a ser-
vant,’ he has left no trace of it (cf. Rom. i. 3-4;
I Cor. viii. 6, xv. 45, 47; II Cor. viii. 9); and the
claim is made that it was not necessary for Paul to
be aware of the mode of Jesus’ birth, since his knowledge embraced only a portion of the Gospel (but ef. R. J. Cooke, The Incarnation and Recent Criticism, New York, 1907). Yet it is inferred that there is an allusion to the virgin birth in Gal. iv. 4, on the ground that Paul mentions only a law in general, while instead of mother or the name of the mother, he uses the term “‘ woman,” and refers
Jesus’ true humanity exclusively to ‘‘ female de-
scent ” (Griitzmacher, ut sup., pp. 30-31). That
Paul speaks of Christ as the ‘‘ heavenly man,” and
asserts his perfect sinlessness, is alleged as further
evidence in the same direction (Swete, ut sup., pp. 54-55; cf. Orr, ut sup., p. 116). On the contrary, birth from a woman and under the law signifies that Christ was real man, subject to the conditions of flesh and the discipline of law (cf. Job xiv. 1; Matt. xi. 11; see also Lightfoot, Galatians, ad loc., London, 1865; Lobstein, ut sup., pp. 52-53). Rom. vili. 3 does not necessarily exclude the paternal agency in the generation of Jesus. For Paul the peculiar character of Jesus depended wholly upon the inner nature of his being, and, as far as can be seen, not at all upon an exceptional mode of his entrance into human conditions. There is, indeed, little or nothing in the language of the Apostle inconsistent with the virgin birth of Jesus, but the argument from silence is of no value. The fact that he does not contradict it, but that his association with Luke appears to presuppose some knowledge of the fact, rests upon an assumption that Luke was himself cognizant of the story during the lifetime of the Apostle—an assumption unsupported by evidence.
The Gospel of John is also silent as to the virgin birth. In his prologue John is occupied with two ideas: first, the essential, eternal divine nature of the being who became incarnate, secondly the true humanity of the Word in the earthly life. Several reasons are alleged to show that John, who is thus supposed to be the author of the Fourth Gospel, was not ignorant of the virgin birth: (1) he wrote
at atime when this was generally be-
16. Silence lieved in the Christian community;
of the Rest (2) he must have been acquainted
of the New with the other Gospels containing the
Testament. nativity stories, and must have silently
accepted, perhaps presupposed, them;
(3) in his residence at Ephesus he was a contemporary and antagonist of Cerinthus, who taught that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary; (4) Mary, whom Jesus entrusted to the care of John, probably lived in his house until her death (Orr, ut sup., p. 109); (5) inhis Gospel John accords Mary special prominence, probably due to his knowledge of her supreme privilege (Swete, ut sup., p. 48); (6) John vii. 42 is an undoubted proof that John knew of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem (Sanday, ut sup., p. 97); (7) John i. 13 is also adduced in support of the virgin birth, especially if an exceedingly ancient reading is followed: ‘‘ who was born not by mixing the blood of a man and a woman, and not by the will of a man ’’—a type of the new birth of believers (T. Zahn, in Orr, ut sup., pp. 271-273; cf. p. 111); (8) “ Only begotten ”’ (monogenous) in John i. 14 refers not to the eternal generation of the Son, but to his human birth (Allen, Interpreter, Oct., 1905, p. 52). The seventh point is not warranted by textual criticism, and the sixth may be allowed without involving any conclusions concerning the mode of the birth. The remaining points presuppose that John wrote the Gospel. In any case, no dogmatic use is made of the nativity story either for the person of Christ or for the contents of Christian belief. The same affirmation must be made as to the remainder of the New-Testament writings. Neither the Acts nor the Epistle to the Hebrews, nor the Epistles of James, Peter, and John, nor the
Virgin Birth