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DivisioQ 
 Sectioa 
 
The Childhood 
 OF Jesus Christ 
 
 ACCORDING TO 
 
 The Canonical Gospels 
 
 With an Historical Essay on 
 
 The Brethren of the Lord 
 
 A. DURAND, S. J. 
 
 SSvSToFlffJi^ 
 
 ff;^ (* JAN 27 1911 
 
 AN AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH 
 EDITED BY 
 
 REV. JOSEPH BRUNEAU, S. S., D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 JOHN JOS. McVEY 
 
 1910 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Nihil Obstat: 
 
 JACOBUS F. LOUGHLIN, S. T. D., 
 
 Censor Librorum. 
 
 February ist, 1910. 
 
 Imprimatur : 
 
 4. PATRITIUS JOANNES RYAN, 
 
 Archiepiscopus Philadelphiensis. 
 
 February 12th, 1910. 
 
 COPYRIGHTED,',1910, BY JOHN JOS. McVEY 
 
PREFATORY WORDS. 
 
 When the work of Pere Durand, S. J., The 
 Childhood of Jesus Christ, appeared in book form 
 it was a joy to all those who had followed his 
 learned articles in the Revue pratique d'Apolo- 
 getique, as well as those published in the Revue 
 Biblique* — especially the last on The Lord's 
 Brethren (January, 1908), reprinted as a fitting 
 conclusion to the study on the Childhood of 
 Christ. 
 
 The writer of this preface was then engaged 
 in refuting the errors of Modernism on the Gos- 
 pel, before a well-loved and never-to-be-forgotten 
 class of eager students of Scripture at St. John's 
 Seminary, Brighton, Mass. He had found so 
 precious a help in the articles of Pere Durand, 
 that he hailed in advance the day when the little 
 book would be translated into English. It would 
 be such an excellent volume to read at Christmas 
 time! And of more than passing interest would 
 this book prove to ecclesiastical students working 
 in the field of Biblical Science, or to teachers of 
 Bible classes or reading circles. 
 
 Should he have had any leisure at the time, he 
 would have gladly availed himself of the oppor- 
 
 *i898, pp. 74-77, 452-3; 1903, PP- SSo-570; 1908, p. i. 
 
iv Prefatory Words. 
 
 tunity of doing good by translating the book of 
 Pere Durand. 
 
 Prater qui adjuvatur a fratre, quasi civitas 
 firma. Some one took the suggestion readily and 
 did the work. His excellent translation is now 
 offered to the public. 
 
 The tendency, or rather the tactics, of modern 
 opponents of the Gospel is to admit readily the 
 sincerity of the Evangelists, but to contend that a 
 process of idealization of Christ's figure, of trans- 
 formation, embellishment and, as it were, of 
 transfiguration of the primitive tradition, took 
 place under the influence of the faith of the Infant 
 Church. Especially all that is supernatural in 
 the Gospel would belong to that legendary accre- 
 tion. The narratives of the childhood of Christ 
 would therefore be foremost among such legends 
 due to the creative imagination of a sect bound 
 to worship its founder and to assign to him a 
 more than human origin.* 
 
 The result of this system would be that all the 
 irradiations of Christmas night, the sublime con- 
 descension of the Son of God deigning to be 
 
 *As these pages are going to press, we just receive the 
 new edition of Father Tanquerey's Apologetics — De Vera 
 Religione, 13th edit, 1909; it is very gratifying to note 
 that his chapter on the authority of the Gospels contains 
 (pp. 181, ff.) a strong refutation of this Modernistic 
 theory. 
 
Prefatory Words. 
 
 made flesh and to dwell among us would be but a 
 dream. Christianity indeed would disappear if we 
 were justly denied the right to retain in our Creed 
 the words which we recite on our knees, "Ex 
 
 INCARNATUS EST DE SpIRITU SaNCTO EX MaRIA 
 
 ViRGiNE : ET HOMO FACTUS EST."" And this is 
 why with a truly strategic sense those who are 
 bound to destroy Christian Faith and overthrow 
 the supernatural concentrate their attacks on the 
 Gospel of the Infancy of Christ. 
 
 The recital of these recent attacks would show 
 how a book like this is needed. Let it suffice to 
 allude to an article, in the North American Re- 
 view for October, 1909, too weak and too narrow 
 that we should do the writer the honor of men- 
 tioning his name, but which is supposed to ex- 
 press the attitude of many. Christ in Modem 
 Thought is the title of that article, in which not 
 even an allusion is made to the existence of Cath- 
 olic Belief and Theology, but which tells us, as 
 the last word on the question, that "the truth of 
 the Incarnation is that humanity raised to its 
 highest power becomes divinity!" This is called 
 modern thought ! Evanuerunt in cogitationes 
 suas! 
 
 This affords us a new reason to rejoice over 
 the fact that in TJie Childhood of Jesus Christ 
 
vi Prefatory Words. 
 
 we have, from a Catholic pen, a scientific, pene- 
 trating and peremptory demonstration that there 
 is not one single serious reason to reject the Gos- 
 pel of the Infancy as legendary; that there is 
 every reason to accept the first-rate historical 
 authority of St. Luke, and that the theology of 
 St. Paul, far from excluding and leaving no room 
 for the Virgin-Birth of Christ, supposes and even 
 explicitly teaches the supernatural origin of the 
 Son of Mary, Jesus Our Lord, born in Bethle- 
 hem, in the city of David. So that we may, as 
 safely as ever, proclaim our faith around the 
 crib of the Divine Child: ''Credo in Jesum 
 Christum, Filium ejus unicum, qui concep- 
 Tus est de Spiritu Sancto^ natus ex Maria 
 
 VlRGINE.'^ 
 
 The author and the translator have conferred 
 a great service upon the Christian world. The 
 book will help, for many years, to render effect- 
 ive and real the wish that we address to all the 
 readers for a Happy and Blessed Christmas. 
 
 J. Bruneau, S. S. 
 
 St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin, 
 1909. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The name Gospel of the Infancy is now com- 
 monly given to the narratives that make up the 
 first two chapters of the Gospels of St. Matthew 
 and St. Luke, adding moreover, for the latter, 
 the genealogy contained in the third chapter: 
 these narratives refer to the birth of Jesus and 
 to His life until the time of His baptism. 
 
 The value of these documents has become the 
 object of most special attacks. Many scholars 
 readily look upon them as a kind of prehistoric 
 Gospel story written according to the law set forth 
 by Heine in the preface of his edition of Apollo- 
 dorus. At the beginning of all ancient historical 
 records we find some myths. Those professors 
 in the chief universities of Germany are few, in- 
 deed, who have not struck out of their Creed the 
 belief in Christ's Virgin-Birth.* How many are 
 the ministers of the Evangelical Churches who 
 still hold the Christmas night as a night with an 
 
 * "Two of the Gospels do, it is true, contain an intro- 
 ductory history (the history of Jesus' birth) ; but we 
 may disregard it; for even if it contained something more 
 trustworthy than it does actually contain, it would be as 
 good as useless for our purpose." A. Harnack, What is 
 Christianity f p. 33. 
 
viii The Author's Preface. 
 
 historical significance? Until our own times, it 
 is true, the Church of England had quite success- 
 fully withstood the blows of unbelieving critics, 
 but it cannot be denied that, within the last ten 
 years or so, the traditional views have lost ground 
 even at Oxford and Cambridge : a fact that is, 
 moreover, only too plainly paralleled by Prot- 
 estantism in the United States also. Parsons and 
 ministers entrusted with the care of souls among 
 common people are influenced by the decrease of 
 belief in the higher spheres of Universities. 
 
 As to the situation in the Catholic Church, she 
 has nothing to fear for her dogma. The humblest 
 of her children know well that under pain of the 
 wreck of their faith, they must believe from the 
 depth of their souls and profess with their lips, 
 that "J^sus Christ was conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." However, in 
 spite of the precision and of the vigor of their 
 belief; those Catholics who read cannot but notice 
 the noise of the fight raging around them, and 
 they feel instinctively the need to take up the 
 defensive. On what historical grounds do they 
 hold in its integrity that Christian dogma which 
 Liberal Protestants throw away so light-heart- 
 edly ? The purpose of this little book is precisely 
 to help them to answer that question. 
 
The Author's Preface. ix 
 
 Since the chief interest of the Gospel of the 
 Infancy lies in the fact that in it Christ is set 
 forth as born of a Virgin-Mother, it is against 
 that belief that the efforts of a critical school, 
 which styles itself independent — although, as a 
 matter of fact, it has surrendered itself to old 
 naturalistic prejudices — are especially directed. 
 Hence we shall make the Virgin-Birth the chief 
 object of our inquiries; the other questions are 
 here of secondary importance, and will gather 
 spontaneously, as it were, around this central 
 point. 
 
 Nor must our readers forget the special diffi- 
 culties met by the apologist in the Gospel of the 
 Infancy. The latter has to deal with facts the 
 Evangelists did not witness; even the testimonies 
 on which they rely may not be as closely con- 
 nected with these events in question, as with the 
 rest of the Gospel record. Besides, by their very 
 nature, these early facts were witnessed only by 
 a few, and took place at a time when Jesus of 
 Nazareth had not as yet become an object of 
 public attention. 
 
 Again, this, too, must not be overlooked; in 
 the present case, still more than in many others, 
 attacks against the Christian belief are sure to 
 find a ready help in the reader's ignorance and 
 
The Author's Preface. 
 
 shallowness. By working upon his fondness of 
 simple and easy solutions, by appealing to the 
 mentality of a twentieth-century Westerner, some 
 critics, coming forward with an objection, can 
 easily move him. How accept the notion that 
 Jesus was bom of a Virgin? — he is asked — for 
 admitting a wonder of that kind, undeniable 
 proofs are necessary. But the subject in question 
 does not allow them. Again, the earliest wit- 
 nesses are unacquainted with the Virgin-Birth; 
 nay, the Gospels set forth Jesus as the son of 
 Joseph. Mary always a Virgin? But does not 
 the New Testament often speak of the fratres 
 of the Lord? 
 
 In vain does the apologist recall the customs 
 and the language of the Jews of old, who called 
 a cousin a brother, f rater, and held a merely legal 
 filiation just as real as natural filiation; in vain 
 does he appeal from the cursory reading of the 
 texts to a deeper study, that takes into account 
 not only what they expressly affirm, but also 
 what they imply: his explanations, well-founded 
 as they are, do not produce in many readers a 
 decisive and final impression. To a most simple 
 difficulty the apologist gives a complex answer, 
 laboriously prepared; he uses distinctions, and 
 we all know how little the public mind is able to 
 grasp the meaning and import of distinctions. 
 
The Author's Preface. xi 
 
 This, Father Lagrange remarked but a few 
 months ago, precisely in connection with the topic 
 on which we are engaged : "True, in order to 
 reahze these things, one must possess a refined 
 sense of discrimination, and use it for appreciat- 
 ing properly ages most remote from us. For 
 Herzog all this, no doubt, is "mere gossip."* 
 Of a similar instance, H. Loriaux wrote recently 
 as follows : "Well, well ! here is a religion far 
 beyond the comprehension of the common people, 
 if, in order to believe in the Virginal Conception, 
 one must know 'that the word cousin is not found 
 in Semitic languages.' " * That is not the ques- 
 tion. The rank and file — and the learned, too — 
 are guided in their faith by the authority of the 
 Church ; but I think we are not unfair in demand- 
 ing some smatter of ancient languages and cus- 
 toms, even of those who impugn the dogma 
 of the Church in the name of scepticism. Other- 
 
 * The word is actually uttered by G. Herzog. In his 
 article on Christ's virginal conception, Revue d'Hist. et 
 de Litter, religieuses, 1907, p. 127, he styles "mere gossip" 
 the explanations proposed by Catholic theologians regard- 
 ing Mark, 3 21. si. 
 
 * L'Autorite des Evangiles, by H. Loriaux, p. 53. We 
 need not draw the reader's attention to the rather great 
 confusion made by Loriaux, who speaks of Jesus' Virgin- 
 Birth, when the question is about the fratres of the Lord. 
 
xii The Author's Preface. 
 
 wise, the "rank and file" might be led into error. 
 Arguments like that of Herzog put on and claim 
 the appearance of logical rigor and of simplicity 
 and straightforwardness. To answer them we are 
 obliged to make use of explanations, and then our 
 opponents reply that we treat them with "subtle- 
 ties," "shifts," "gossip"; they boldly appeal to 
 evidence, "perfect clearness," "the genealogical 
 lists," "there is but one explanation, not two." 
 Let us repeat once more that this is simply to 
 reckon on the shallowness of the readers. The 
 public at large can judge only after its own 
 criteria; but in our days, it knows hardly any 
 sonship but the physiological, and therefore never 
 dreams of putting on, as it were, the mental atti- 
 tude of the men of old, the more so that it may 
 be imposed upon by the writer's perfect self- 
 assurance. Better-informed judges — over-exact- 
 ing, of course — will think successes of that kind 
 are too easily obtained." * 
 
 Again, the apologist is at times expected to 
 bring forward more than he is able and intends 
 to do. He writes first of all for believers, in 
 order to maintain them in their faith, by showing 
 that the difficulty is groundless, or at least is 
 
 * Revue Biblique, 1907, p. 448. 
 
The Author s Preface. xiii 
 
 such that it must not shake their legitimately 
 acquired certainty. 
 
 As to unbelievers, if they reject altogether the 
 historical value of the Gospel of the Infancy, be- 
 cause miracles are related therein, the only apolo- 
 getical method that can be used with them is 
 merely to refer them to the fundamental problem 
 of the supernatural, its possibility and its presence 
 in the world. To dismiss a priori the existence 
 of Angels, is to bind oneself beforehand to hold as 
 legendary the narratives that tell us of their ap- 
 pearing to Zachary, Mary and the shepherds of 
 Bethlehem. 
 
 On the other hand, the solution of the funda- 
 mental problem regarding the divine character of 
 Christianity does not necessarily rest on the truth 
 of the Gospel of the Infancy; whether Jesus was 
 born of a Virgin or not, adored by the Magi or 
 not, carried into Egypt and thus taken away from 
 Herod, or not. These are so many questions out- 
 side the scope of the treatise on Revealed Reli- 
 gion: in that treatise, the theologian's only object 
 is to prove, by solid arguments, that Christ came 
 in the name of God, to teach us with authority 
 the way of salvation. 
 
 Likewise, taken as a whole, the historical au- 
 thority of the Gospels can stand without a per- 
 
xiv The Authors Preface. 
 
 emptory defence of the Gospel of the Infancy. 
 We have just said that the merely human testi- 
 mony of these first chapters does not come before 
 us in conditions as favorable as the narrative of 
 Jesus' public life. Even though the former were 
 a history written beforehand, partly legendary or 
 mythical, the latter would not necessarily, on that 
 account, be unworthy of belief, it would follow 
 merely that our Evangelists were no more exact- 
 ing than the best profane historians. Does this 
 imply that Christian scholars must give up al- 
 together any critical defence of the authenticity 
 and truthfulness of the documents that pertain 
 to Jesus' origin and childhood? Not at all, 
 otherwise, we would not have composed this little 
 work. But it does imply that it is of real impor- 
 tance for the Christian scholar to state accurately, 
 beforehand, the method and limits of that de- 
 fence. 
 
 History proves satisfactorily that our belief 
 regarding Jesus' origin and infancy continues the 
 early Christian faith, that of the generation which 
 witnessed the apparition of the canonical Gospels. 
 
 The orthodox Church has always looked upon 
 Christ's virginal conception, as well as the events 
 with which it is accompanied in the narrative of 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke, as historical realities. 
 
The Author's Preface. xv 
 
 In that belief, was she right or was she wrong? 
 Put in these words, the question admits of two 
 answers. The first, which has a broad bearing, 
 rests on the general proofs appealed to by Chris- 
 tianity in behalf of its truth. The Church of 
 Christ comes from God, and if, by special pre- 
 rogative, her faith has remained free from error, 
 we have no right to distinguish in her Creed what 
 is to be held and what, in the name of the so- 
 called requirements of the modern mind, some 
 claim should be dropped. 
 
 The second answer, more direct, although less 
 conclusive as regards this or that point, consists 
 in the historical justification of what is contained 
 in our documents. The facts related therein are 
 sufficiently guaranteed for their truth to remain 
 unchallenged, in spite of the character of the 
 marvelous with which most of them are stamped. 
 The continuity of the testimonies and their con- 
 nection with the facts do away with the strictly 
 so-called mythical hypothesis ; yet in spite of what 
 we have just said, the narrative of the Infancy 
 gives rise to a certain number of special difficul- 
 ties which a merely critical exegesis cannot solve 
 so as to bring to all minds complete satisfaction. 
 
 On the other hand, to grant the possibility of 
 a supernatural intervention is not to bind oneself 
 
xvi The Author's Preface. 
 
 to admit as actually real all possible miracles, but 
 only those of which the existence is legitimately 
 attested ; and on this ground, many questions arise 
 even for believers, which we cannot solve merely 
 by saying that all these texts regarding the In- 
 fancy are inspired and free from any kind of 
 error. Even then, we must know their meaning 
 and exact bearing: for instance, to the question 
 as to what value the Evangelists attached to the 
 genealogies of Jesus, the traditional interpreta- 
 tion has given no firm and consistent answer: 
 this is one point — out of many — which comes 
 within the province of historical inquiry and 
 exegesis. 
 
 The subject has been divided as follows : ( i ) 
 General Attack and Defence; (2) History of the 
 Dogma of Jesus' Virgin-Birth; (3) Its Modern 
 Opponents; (4) Detailed Criticism of the Gospel 
 Texts; (5) Comparison between the Gospels and 
 the other Parts of the New Testament; (6) 
 Positive Credibility and Historical Value of the 
 Canonical Texts relating to Jesus' Infancy. 
 
 This little work is more than a mere reproduc- 
 tion of the articles published in the Revue pratique 
 d'Apologetique, from October, 1906, to July, 
 1907. In several places the primitive text has 
 been done over again and completed. In order 
 
The Author's Preface. xvii 
 
 that the reader may easily follow the discussions 
 we are about to expose, we give, first, a literal 
 translation of the first two chapters of St. Mat- 
 thew and of St. Luke, according to the critical 
 edition of Eb. Nestle (1906).* 
 
 Ore Place, Hastings. 
 
 September 8, 1907. 
 
 *As may be seen at p. i, note, our English translation 
 is that of Father Spencer. However, anything special to 
 Father Durand's translation has been introduced into the 
 text.— T. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Prefatory words iii-vi 
 
 The author's preface vii-xvii 
 
 What is understood by the Gospel of the Infancy vii 
 
 Attitude of critics toward it vii 
 
 The Virgin-Birth, a dogma of the Catholic 
 
 Church. Aim of this study viii-ix 
 
 Special difficulties met by the Apologist, in the 
 
 Gospel of the Infancy ix-xiii 
 
 Relations between the Gospel of the Infancy on 
 one hand, and the divine character of Chris- 
 tianity, and the historical authority of the 
 
 Gospels, on the other xiii-xiv 
 
 Questions to be answered : Is the Church right, 
 when holding as historical the Gospel of the 
 
 Infancy ? xv 
 
 First answer, based on the general proofs of the 
 truth of Christianity; second answer, his- 
 torical justification of the contents of the 
 
 documents xv-xvi 
 
 Division of the subject xvi 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT. 
 
 St. Matthew. Chapters I-II i-ii 
 
 St. Luke. Chapters I-II, III (23-38) 12-33 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 General Attack and Defence. 
 
 Attack : Wonderful character of the events re- 
 corded in the Gospel of the Infancy 34 
 
 The witnesses of Jesus' Infancy had passed away 
 
 at the time Matthew and Luke wrote 34-35 
 
Contents. xix 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Disagreement between Matthew and Luke 35 
 
 Comparisons between the Gospel of the Infancy 
 
 and the rest of the New Testament 35-36 
 
 Defence: The Gospel of the Infancy, historical 
 on the same grounds as the other parts of 
 
 the Gospels 37 
 
 Answer as to supernatural interventions 37-39 
 
 Difference between the wonderful in the canonical 
 Gospels, and the wonderful in the apocryphal 
 
 Gospels 39-41 
 
 Artistic form of the Canticles, granted 41 
 
 Discrepancies, but not contradictions in the Gos- 
 pel of the Infancy 42 
 
 The Virgin-Birth not necessary a priori, but ac- 
 cepted, because resting on a solidly established 
 Apostolic tradition 43-44 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 History of the Dogma of Jesus' Virgin-Birth. 
 
 Strauss' mythical explanation, cannot be held... 45 
 Explicit statements of Matthew and Luke re- 
 garding Jesus' miraculous conception 45-46 
 
 The earliest opponent of that belief, Cerinthus 
 
 (end of the first century) 46-47 
 
 Survival of his teaching, among the Ebionites... 48-51 
 In the second century, the Virgin-Birth held as 
 
 a necessary article of Christology 51 
 
 St. Ignatius of Antioch (about 106) 52-53 
 
 Aristides (about 125) 54-55 
 
 St. Justin: First Apology (between 138 and 161) 55-s6 
 
 Dialogue with Trypho 56-60 
 
 St. Iren^us, Against Heresies (about 180) 60-63 
 
 The Apostles' Creed 63-64 
 
XX Contents. 
 
 The faith of the second century passes in its en- 
 tirety to the following generations. Nay, the 
 variations of the Jews in their accounts of the 
 Gospel narrative are due to the firm charac- 
 ter of that belief 64-66 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Modern Opponents. 
 
 Attacks until the rise of the Encylopaedists 66-67 
 
 GoTTLOB Paulus (works : 1800-1828). Funda- 
 mental principle of his method of criticism.. 67 
 His explanation of the Gospel of the Infancy.... 68-69 
 Criticism of that explanation by Olshausen and 
 
 Hengstenberg 69 
 
 David Frederick Strauss (Life of Jesus, 1835) : 
 
 Gospel Myth 71-73 
 
 Rules for distinguishing what is mythical, from 
 
 what is historical 73 
 
 Difficulties met in the application of the system 
 
 to the New Testament 74-76 
 
 Application of Strauss' system to the Gospel of 
 
 the Infancy 76-81 
 
 However, Strauss claims to preserve Christianity 81-82 
 Strauss and the actual critical schools : the latter 
 
 affect to abide by the texts only 82-84 
 
 P. W. ScHMiEDEL, on Matthew 84 
 
 Harnack and others on Luke 85-87 
 
 Inconsistencies in the texts, due to interpolations 87-88 
 
 Loisy's view in this regard 88-89 
 
 Two problems of Higher Criticism: Is the tradi- 
 tion found in Matthew prior to that found in 
 Luke? Greek or Judceo-Christian origin of 
 the Catholic belief? Solution set forth by 
 Otto Pfleiderer -. 90-94 
 
Contents. xxi 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Herzog's solution 94-96 
 
 Other mythological instances of virgin-births 96 
 
 Expansion of the conclusions advanced by the 
 
 radical critical schools of Germany : T. K. 
 
 Cheyne, Fred. Conybeare 98-99 
 
 Refutations to which they have given rise : on the 
 
 part of Conservative Protestants 99-100 
 
 On the part of Catholics 101-102 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Detailed Criticism of the Text of the Gospels. 
 
 Matthew i and 2 is neither a subsequent addition: 103 
 Objections drawn from the copy used by the 
 
 Ebionites 103-104 
 
 From the Diatessaron 105 
 
 From some readings of Matthezv, i ^^ 106 
 
 Nor a juxtaposition of two sections (Virgin- 
 Birth, Genealogy) : 107 
 
 Objections drawn from Matthew, i ^^ : reading 
 
 of the Syriac MS. of 1894 108 
 
 Quotation in Timothy and Aqtiila 111-116 
 
 No reason for distinguishing in Luke, 1-2 20 from 
 
 2 21-52 119-122 
 
 Nor for suppressing 134-35. Harnack 122-133 
 
 Conybeare 133-134 
 
 Answer to the objections drawn from the ab- 
 sence of the narratives of the Gospel of the 
 
 Infancy: in Mark 134-142 
 
 In John 142-146 
 
xxii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Comparison Between the Gospels and the Other Parts 
 OF the New Testament. 
 
 pages 
 Explanation of Paul's relative silence as to the 
 
 Virgin-Birth 147-149 
 
 Go/. 4 lyevofievov Ik yvvaKKO^ I49"I5I 
 
 Is the Virgin-Birth a corollary of Paul's teaching 
 
 on Redemption ? 151-152 
 
 Compatibility between the Pauline statement: 
 Christ, according to the flesh, is David's pos- 
 terity, and the belief in the Virginal Con- 
 ception 153-160 
 
 Answer to the difficulty drawn from Acts 13 ^^ 
 and Rom. i 2-* : "Made the Son of God . . . 
 by His resurrection from the dead" 161-165 
 
 Answer confirmed by a comparison between 
 
 Paul's Epistles and Peter's discourses 165-167 
 
 Last objections drawn from another appeal to the 
 Gospel of Mark, and to the Incarnation of 
 the Word, in John 168-171 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Positive Trustworthiness and Historical Value of the 
 Texts Concerning Jesus' Infancy. 
 
 Luke, 1-2. The first two chapters of Luke are 
 historical on the same grounds as the other 
 
 parts of his Gospel 172-175 
 
 Luke's sources 175-182 
 
 Internal guarantees of authenticity 182-184 
 
 Differences, favorable to Luke's authenticity, be- 
 tween his narratives of Jesus' Infancy, and 
 the narratives of the Apocryphal Gospels 182-189 
 
Contents. xxiii 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Comparison, favorable to Luke, between his Gos- 
 pel on one hand, and Jewish legends and 
 
 heathen myths, on the other 190-195 
 
 The analogies drawn by the Apologists between 
 Christian mysteries and the myths of heathen- 
 ism are an argument ad hominem 196-197 
 
 Proofs as to details : The Canticles : Magnificat, 
 
 Benedictus, Nunc Dimittis 197-203 
 
 Census of Cyrinus 204-21 1 
 
 Jesus in the Temple 211-212 
 
 The Angels' apparition 212-213 
 
 Matthew, 1-2. Cohesion of the narrative in these 
 
 two chapters 213-214 
 
 Matthew's sources 214-215 
 
 Palestinian inspiration of these chapters 216-217 
 
 Evident purpose to show in Jesus' birth and in- 
 fancy the fulfilment of the Messianic proph- 
 ecies, Isaias 7 1* : iSou 'n- irap9ivoi 2l8-226 
 
 Wonderful character of Matthew's narratives 226-228 
 
 The dreams 228-231 
 
 The Magi 231-237 
 
 The murder of the Innocents 237-238 
 
 The flight into Egypt 238-239 
 
 Genealogies of Jesus Christ {Matthew i ^'^^ ; 
 Luke 3 23-38) Difficulty raised by their dis- 
 agreement: (a) no solution fully satisfactory 240 
 
 (b) Attempts at solution, in the past 240-241 
 
 (c) Explanation proposed in our days 241-244 
 
 (d) The genealogy of Luke more historical than 
 
 that of Matthew 244-245 
 
 (e) Sources of these genealogies 246-247 
 
 (f) Importance of these genealogies for the 
 Evangelists 247-250 
 
xxiv Contents. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The accidental discrepancies between Luke and 
 Matthew confirm their agreement regarding 
 the essential data of the tradition they record. 250-252 
 
 That tradition, proved historical on other grounds 252-253 
 
 Explanation of Luke's and Matthew's silence on 
 
 some points 253-255 
 
 We must not be more exacting for Biblical than 
 
 for profane documents 255-257 
 
 And study them carefully, but with an unbiased 
 
 mind 257-258 
 
 THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD. 
 The problem. Purpose of this study 259-260 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 The Facts. 
 The "Brethren of the Lord" are mentioned : 
 (i) by the Four Evangelists, the Acts, Paul; 
 
 (2) by JosEPHUS, Hegesippus 260-265 
 
 Concerning the fragment ascribed to Papias 266 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 Explanations. 
 
 1. Explanation of Hegesippus 266-269 
 
 2. View of Tertullian 269-270 
 
 Of Clement of Alexandria 271-272 
 
 Of Origen ( St. Hilary) 272-274 
 
 3. Controversy, at the end of the fourth century, 
 
 concerning Mary's perpetual virginity : its 
 
 origin 274-276 
 
 Helvidius : refutation by St. Jerome ; Jovinian : 
 refutation by St. Jerome; by St. Ambrose: 
 excommunication of Jovinian and of Bonosus 276-278 
 
 4. Analysis of St. Jerome's De perpetua Virginia 
 
 tate MaricE, adversus Helvidium: (a) The 
 views of Helvidius opposed to the traditional 
 faith 278-280 
 
Contents. xxv 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (b) The texts 281-286 
 
 (c) Explanation of the formula "Brethren of the 
 
 Lord 286-288 
 
 (d) Grounds on which the traditional belief in 
 Mary's perpetual virginity rests : implicit 
 affirmation, in the narrative of the Annuncia- 
 tion 288-289 
 
 The legacy of His Mother made by Jesus to 
 
 John 290-291 
 
 The appellation of Son of Mary 291-293 
 
 The attitude of those called in the Gospel 
 
 "Brethren of the Lord," toward Jesus 294 
 
 5. St. Jerome upheld by the Fathers of the East 
 
 and of the West 294-295 
 
 The definitions by Popes and Councils 295-296 
 
 Attempts at stating with accuracy the degree of 
 relationship between Jesus and those whom 
 the documents call the "Lord's Brethren." 
 The "Lord's Brethren" may be children of 
 
 St. Joseph by a former marriage 296-298 
 
 Cousins of Jesus (St. Jerome) 298-300 
 
 St. Jerome's sentiment on St. Joseph's virginity 
 
 is adopted by several other Fathers 300-301 
 
 Complementary explanations of St. Jerome's view 301-304 
 St. Joseph's virginity in the Latin Church 304-305 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 
 Criticism and Conclusions. 
 
 (i) Dogmatic tradition as to the vieaning not to 
 be given to the texts referring to the 
 "Brethren of the Lord" 305-312 
 
 (2) No dogmatic statement regarding the degree 
 of relationship between Jesus and those called 
 in the texts the "Brethren of the Lord" 313-316 
 
TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT.* 
 
 ST. MATTHEW. 
 I. 
 
 I. GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST/'^®. 
 
 ^ The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
 David, the son of Abraham. f 
 
 ^ Abraham begot Isaac ; Isaac begot Jacob ; 
 Jacob begot Judah and his brothers ; ^ Judah begot 
 Peres and Zerah by Tamar ; Peres begot Hesron ; 
 Hesron begot Ram ; * Ram begot Amminadab ; 
 Amminadab begot Nahshon ; Nahshon begot Sal- 
 mon ; ° Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab ; Boaz begot 
 Obed by Ruth; Obed begot Jesse; ® Jesse begot 
 David the King. 
 
 David the King begot Solomon by her zvho 
 was the wife of Uriah ; ^ Solomon begot Re- 
 hoboam; Rehoboam begot Abijah; Abijah begot 
 
 * The translation is given from Spencer's "The Four 
 Gospels : New Translation, igoo." 
 
 f'Bipxoi yeveiTfws, Liber generationis may be translated by 
 "genealogy." The appellation "Ijjo-oOs xp''<^'^°^ is seldom used in 
 the Gospels ; outside this passage, it is found also in Mark 
 I 1 and Matthew i ^^, i6 ^i ; and even the texts vary as to 
 the last two passages. In John i ''■'^ and 17 ^, xpi^To^ seems 
 to be used always as a proper name. Concerning xpurrds and 
 wlbs AovetS as Mcssianic titles, cf. Dalman, The Words of 
 Jesus (English translation), p. 289-324. 
 
2 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Asa ; ® Asa begot Jehoshaphat ; Jehoshaphat begot 
 Joram ; Joram begot Uzziah ; * ^ Uzziah begot 
 Jotham; Jotham begot Ahaz; Ahaz begot Heze- 
 kiah ; ^° Hezekiah begot Manasseh ; Manasseh 
 begot Amon ; Amon begot Josiah ; " Josiah begot 
 Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the 
 removal to Babylon, f 
 
 * Between Joram and Uzziah (Ozias) three interme- 
 diaries have been omitted. According to IV Kings, these 
 are Ahaziah (Ochozias), Jehoash (Joas) and Amaziah, 
 whose names, as a matter of fact, are here introduced, in 
 some Greek and Syriac MSS. According to / Paralipome- 
 non 3ii'i2 (Sept.), Uzziah (Ozias) is truly the son of 
 Joram, so that the three kings omitted would be Jehoash 
 (Joas), Amaziah and Azariah. The discrepancy comes ap- 
 parently from the fact that in the LXX 'Oiiat (b -o^eta) 
 designates sometimes Ahaziah (Ochozias) and sometimes, 
 too, Azariah {^=Uzziah, Ozias). Confusions like this are 
 not uncommon in the Greek transcription of Hebrew 
 names. Cf. W. C. Allen, A Critical and Excgetical Com- 
 mentary on the Gospel according to St. Matfhezv, 1907, 
 p. 4- 
 
 t According to I Parol, 3 ^^ Jechoniah had only one 
 brother named Zedekiah. On the other hand, Jechoniah is 
 not the son, but the grandson of Josiah. Finally, in the 
 actual text, this second series of the genealogy C^"^^) 
 counts only thirteen names instead of fourteen, as should 
 be the case, according to verse 17, unless Jechoniah be 
 counted both in the second and in the third series ; but 
 this is abnormal and arbitrary. Hence, some have thought 
 that because of an alteration of the primitive text, the 
 
St. Matthczv, I. 
 
 " After the removal to Babylon, Jechoniah be- 
 got Salathiel ; Salathiel begot Zerubbabel ; ^^ Ze- 
 riibbabel begot Abiud; Abitid begot Eliakim; 
 Eliakim begot Azor ; ^* Azor begot Sadok ; Sadok 
 begot Achim ; Achim begot Eliud ; ^^ Eliud begot 
 Eleazar; Eleazar begot Matthan; Matthan begot 
 Jacob ; '^^ Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of 
 Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called 
 Christ.* 
 
 name of Jehoiakim (the son of Josiah) has been left out, 
 so that we must read ; Josiah begot Jehoiakim and his 
 brothers; Jehoiakim begot Jechoniah at the time of the 
 removal to Babylon. In fact, this is the reading of some 
 comparatively recent Greek and Syriac MSS. ; nor must we 
 forget that, according to St. Irenseus, III, xxi, 9, the 
 genealogy given by St. Matthew sets forth St. Joseph as the 
 descendant of Jehoiakim and of Jechoniah. The confusion 
 may have occurred the more easily that Jechoniah is called 
 also Jehoiakim. For the defence of this sentiment, of. 
 Th. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthaeus, pp. 48-56. In 
 this hypothesis reference is made, in verse 11, to Jehoiakim 
 and his two brothers: Jehoahaz (Joachaz) ( = Shallum) 
 and Zedekiah (=Mattaniah), who ruled successively in 
 Judaea; history has left us nothing about a fourth son of 
 Josiah, named Johanan. Cf. IV Kings, 23 30.248: / Parol., 
 
 * The Syriac version of the Gospels found in 1894 on 
 Mount Sinai reads at verse 16 as follows : "Joseph to 
 whom the Virgin Mary was betrothed, begot Jesus, who 
 is called Christ." Between this reading and that of the 
 
4 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ^^ So all the generations from Abraham to 
 David are fourteen generations; and from David 
 to the removal to Babylon fourteen generations, 
 and from the removal to Babylon unto Christ 
 fourteen generations. 
 
 Christ's virginal conception/®"^^. 
 
 ^^ Now in this wise was Jesus Christ begotten : 
 His mother Mary having been espoused to Joseph, 
 before they came together she was found with 
 
 Received Text, taken as two extremes, various other read- 
 ings have been noticed in the MSS. Those readings may 
 be reduced to two types : 
 
 iyfvvriaev 'lri<Tovv represented by five MSS. of the so-called 
 Ferrara group, 346, 788, 543, 826, 828; by the old Latin 
 MSS. a g^, k [virgo is omitted in q]. 
 
 (b) Joseph, cui desponsata virgo Maria, Maria autem 
 genuit Jesum represented by the old Latin MSS. c [b, 
 cui desponsata erat virgo Maria, virgo autem Maria genuit 
 Jesum] d, cui desponsata virgo Maria peperit (Chris- 
 tum) Jesum; and with this reading the Curetonian version 
 agrees : To whom was betrothed the Virgin Mary zvho begot 
 Jesus. — Cf. K. Lake, in the Journal of Theo. Studies, 1899, 
 Vol. 1, p. 119; R. Harris, Further Researches into the 
 History of the Ferrara group, 1900, p. 7. 
 
 Later on, in chapter iv, we shall discuss which of these 
 readings may be held as primitive. 
 
St. Matthciv, I. 
 
 child [by the power] of the Holy Ghost.* '' And 
 Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not 
 willing to expose her to public notice, was minded 
 to put her away privately. ^° But while he thought 
 over the matter, an angel of the Lord appeared 
 to him in a dream, saying : "Joseph, son of David, 
 fear not to receive Mary thy wife ; for that which 
 is conceived in her is [the work] of the Holy 
 Ghost. ^' And she shall bring forth a son ; and 
 thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save 
 his people from their sins." " Now all this has 
 
 *The writers of old do not agree as to whether Mary 
 was married or betrothed, at the time of the Annunciation ; 
 modern scholars generally hold that she was only be- 
 trothed, and therefore they understand the verb <TvviX6tlv, 
 not of the conjugal relation, but of cohabitation: Mary 
 had not as yet been brought to Joseph's house. Among 
 the Jews, the young bride still remained one year with 
 her parents, until the day she was solemnly taken to the 
 bridegroom's house. This was the chief marriage cere- 
 luor.y {Dent., 20''). However, the contract of betrothal 
 sufficed to establish the fundamental right of the marriage- 
 union : it made the names, husband, wife, legitimate, nor 
 could it be broken but by a repudiation put down in writing, 
 just as for a marriage-union strictly so called. Unfaithful- 
 ness on the part of the bride was punished like adultery; 
 on the other hand, in case the bride would become the 
 mother of a child nor her prospective husband protest, the 
 offspring~was looked upon as legitimate. Deut., 22-24. 
 
6 The Childhood of Jesus Christ 
 
 come to pass, that that which was spoken by the 
 Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled : 
 
 ^^ "Behold the Virgin shall he with child, and 
 shall bring forth a son, 
 
 And they shall call his name Emmanuel; " 
 which translated means "God with us." * ^* And 
 Joseph rose up from his sleep, and did as the 
 angel of the Lord commanded him, and received 
 her as his wife. ^^ And he knew her not till she 
 brought forth a [first born] son: f and he called 
 his name Jesus. 
 
 * The Hebrew text of Isaias 7 ^* reads literally : Behold, 
 the Virgin is with child, and beareth a son, and shall call 
 his name Emmanuel. More intent on the meaning than on 
 the words, the Evangelist agrees rather with the LXX who 
 had translated like this : Behold, the Virgin shall conceive, 
 and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. 
 
 t The knowledge designated by the words oix iyivuxTKtv avrriv 
 is that which results from the consummation of marriage. 
 The Vatic, and the Sinait. leave out npmroTOKov, primo- 
 genitum, which is probably a gloss, borrowed from 
 Luke 2 '^. 
 
St. Matthew, II. 
 
 II. 
 
 3. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGi/"". 
 
 ^ When Jesus was born at Bethlehem in Judaea 
 in the days of King Herod, there came wise men 
 from the East to Jerusalem, " saying : "Where is 
 he that is born King of the Jews ? for we saw his 
 star in the East, and are come to worship him." 
 ^ When King Herod heard this he was troubled, 
 and all Jerusalem with him. * And he assembled 
 all the chief priests and scribes of the people, and 
 inquired of them where the Christ should be born. 
 ® They told him : "At Bethlehem in Judaea : for 
 thus it is written by the prophet : 
 
 ^ ''And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, 
 
 Art in no wise least among the princes [or : chief 
 
 cities'\ of Judah: 
 For out of thee shall come forth a Leader, 
 Who shall ride my people Israel." * 
 
 * In the Hebrew text, the prophecy of Micheas 5 ^ 
 reads literally: But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, art little 
 to be reckoned among the "thousands" of Judah. (The 
 cities of about one thousand citizens and, as such, ruling 
 over the neighboring towns.) Yet out of thee shall one 
 come forth unto tne that is to he ruler in Israel. Free as 
 
 3 
 
8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 '' Then Herod, privately calling the wise men, 
 ascertained of them the time when the star ap- 
 peared to them. ^ And he sent them to Bethle- 
 hem, and said : "Go and search out carefully con- 
 cerning the child ; and when you have found him, 
 bring me word that I too may come and worship 
 him." ® They, having heard the King, went their 
 way; and lo, the star, which they had seen in the 
 East, went before them, till it came and stood 
 over where the child was. ^° When they saw the 
 star they rejoiced with very great joy. ^^ And 
 they went into the house and saw the child with 
 Mary his mother; and they fell down and Avor- 
 shipped him; and opening their treasures they 
 offered him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and 
 myrrh. ^' And being warned in a dream that 
 they should not return to Herod, they departed 
 to their own country by another way. 
 
 the quotation may be, it expresses the main idea of the 
 text, viz., That from Bethlehem an unparalleled leader, the 
 King Messias, shall come to rule Israel. The prophet sets 
 off the contrast between the honor paid to Bethlehem and 
 its small political importance, while the Evangelist draws 
 attention to the Messianic glory, which makes the city of 
 David a most unique city among all the cities of Juda. 
 
St. Matthezv, II. 
 
 4. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND THE MASSACRE 
 OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN AT BETHLEHEM/^"^®. 
 
 ^^ Now when they had departed, an angel of 
 the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying : 
 "Rise and take the child and his mother and flee 
 into Eg}^pt, and live there till I tell thee; for 
 Herod is about to seek the child to destroy him." 
 ^* He [or : Joseph] rose, and took the child and his 
 mother by night, and withdrew into Egypt ; ^^ and 
 was there until the death of Herod : that that 
 which was spoken by the Lord through the 
 prophet might be fulfilled : "Out of Egypt I called 
 my Soil." * 
 
 ^^ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been 
 played upon by the wise men, was exceedingly 
 enraged, and sent and killed all the male children 
 that were in Bethlehem, and in all its surround- 
 ings, from two years old and under, according to 
 the time which he had ascertained of the wise 
 men. ^^ Then that which was spoken through 
 Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled : 
 
 * Here the Evangelist quotes Osee ii ^ according to the 
 Hebrew text, and not according to the LXX, who had 
 
 translated ef Aiyvtttov /oicTtKaAe<ra ra riKva auroD* 
 
lo The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ^^ "A voice was heard in Ram ah, 
 Weeping and great mourning, 
 Rachel [zuas] weeping for her children; 
 And she wotdd not be comforted, because they 
 are not." * 
 
 5. THE RETURN FROM EGYPT TO NAZARETH/^"^^. 
 
 " But when Herod was dead, an angel of the 
 Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 
 ^° saying : "Rise, and take the child and his 
 mother, and go into the land of Israel ; for they 
 who sought the child's life are dead." ^^ And he 
 rose and took the child and his mother, and came 
 into the land of Israel. ^" But having heard that 
 Archelaus was reigning over Judaea in the place 
 of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there; 
 and being warned in a dream, he withdrew into 
 the country of Galilee, ^^ and came and dwelt in 
 a city called Nazareth; that that which was 
 
 *Jerem. 31 is. According to the Hebrew: "A voice is 
 heard in Raiiiah, lamentation and hitter weeping; Rachel 
 is zveeping for her children and she refuseth to be com- 
 forted for her children, because they are not." The Evan- 
 gelist seems to quote by heart the translation of the LXX 
 38 1^ : "A voice was heard in Ramah [a voice] of lamenta- 
 tions, of zveeping and of groans: Rachel is weeping over 
 her children and she refuses to be quieted, because they are 
 not." 
 
St. Matthczu, II. II 
 
 spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, 
 that he should [or : since he was to] be called a 
 Nazarene.* 
 
 * In His lifetime, Jesus was commonly called the Naza- 
 rene o Na^upoeos. Matt. 2^^, 26 ^i; Luke 18 ^^ ; John 18 ^.^^ 
 191^; or o Na^opiji'ds, Mark i ^*, 14^''^, 16^; Luke 43*. Evi- 
 dently this adjective is used in the same meaning as the 
 periphrase 6 orrb Na^ape'e, the one from Nazareth, Matt. 21 ^^ ; 
 John i'*^; Acts 10 ^s. The Palestinian Christian com- 
 munity was first called "the sect of the Nazarenes," 
 Acts 24^. How far this designation was ironical and con- 
 temptuous for Jesus and His disciples, St. John intimates 
 in Nathaniel's question to Philip : "Can any good thing 
 come out of Nazareth?" John i*^; cf. 7 1*. A Christ 
 from Nazareth of Galilee ! As to the Evangelist, not only 
 he is not ashamed of his Nazarene Christ, he even remarks 
 that the prophets, particularly Isaias, had foretold concern- 
 ing the Messias all that this name meant on the lips of the 
 Jews : The Christ was to appear humble, ignored and 
 despised ; now Jesus was all that : and this is why the 
 Jews rejected Him; this is why, too, God intended He 
 should grow and live at Nazareth, although He was born 
 at Bethlehem. Hence, He shall be called Nazarene, and 
 this name, even taken by itself, will express the lack of 
 worldly prestige, which is, according to the prophets, one of 
 the characteristics of the true Messias. Thus the words 
 Na^uparos (cA))e))o-€Tai are not a quotation from the Old Testa- 
 ment, but rather a personal thought of the Evangelist about 
 the surname given to Jesus by the Jews, His contempo- 
 raries. Cf. Th. Zahn, Das Evang. des Matthaeus, pp. 
 112-117. 
 
12 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ST. LUKE. 
 I. 
 
 1. THE prologue: the purpose of the evan- 
 
 gelist/"*. 
 
 ^ Since many have undertaken to draw up a 
 narrative of the things which have been accom- 
 pHshed among us, ^ according as those, who from 
 the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers 
 of the word, delivered them to us ; ^ it seemed 
 good to me also, having carefully traced the 
 course of all things from the beginning, to write 
 them to you in their order, most excellent The- 
 ophilus, * that you might know the certainty of 
 those things [or: teachings] in which you were 
 instructed. 
 
 2. AN ANGEL APPEARS TO ZACHARY TO ANNOUNCE 
 HIM THE BIRTH OF JOHN^ THE PRECURSOR,^'^. 
 
 ° There was in the days of Herod, King of 
 Judaea, a certain priest named Zachary, of the 
 course of Abijah : his wife was of the daughters 
 of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. ® They 
 were both righteous before God, walking in all 
 the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
 
St. Luke, I. 13 
 
 without blame ; ^ and they had no child, because 
 Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced 
 in years. 
 
 * Once, while he was officiating as priest before 
 God in the order of his course, ^ according to the 
 custom of the priesthood it fell to his lot to enter 
 the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. 
 ^° And all the multitude of the people were pray- 
 ing outside at the hour of incense. " And there 
 appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing 
 at the right side of the altar of incense. ^^ And 
 Zachary was troubled when he saw him, and fear 
 fell upon him. ^^ But the angel said to him : "Fear 
 not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard, and thy 
 wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou 
 shalt call his name John. ^* And thou shalt have 
 joy and gladness; and many will rejoice at his 
 birth. ^^ For he shall be great in the sight of the 
 Lord; and he shall drink no wine nor strong 
 drink * and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost 
 even from his mother's womb. '^^ And he shall 
 turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord 
 their God. ^'^ And he [himself] shall go before 
 his face in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn 
 
 * These are the very words used in the Old Testament 
 for describing an obligation of the Nazarite vow. Cf. Lev. 
 10 9 ; Numb. 6 ^ ; Judg. 13 *• 7. i* ; 7 Saml. 1 n. 
 
14 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the hearts of the fathers to the children/^ and 
 the unbelieving to walk in the wisdom of the just; 
 to make ready for the Lord a people prepared 
 for him." ^^ And Zachary said to the angel: 
 "How shall I know this? for I am an old man, 
 and my wife is advanced in years." ^® And the 
 angel answered and said to him: "I am Gabriel, 
 who stand in the presence of God; and I was 
 sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good 
 tidings. ^'* And behold, thou shalt be silent and 
 not able to speak, until the day that these things 
 come to pass, because thou didst not believe my 
 words which shall be fulfilled in their time." 
 ^^ And the people were waiting for Zachary, and 
 wondered while he tarried in the sanctuary. 
 ^^ And when he came out, he could not speak 
 to them; and they perceived that he had seen a 
 vision in the temple; and he continued making 
 signs to them, and remained dumb. ^^ And when 
 the days of his ministration were completed, he 
 departed to his house. 
 
 * Malachy 3 23. 24 . "Behold, I ivill send you Elijah the 
 \f>rophet, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah 
 come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the 
 children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." 
 The quotation reproduces literally neither the Hebrew 
 text, nor the LXX, but it comes nearer to the former. 
 
St. Liikc, I. 15 
 
 ^* After these days Elizabeth his wife con- 
 ceived; and she hid herself five months, saying: 
 " "Thus has the Lord dealt with me in the days 
 when he looked upon me to take away my re- 
 proach among men." 
 
 3. THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BIRTH OF 
 JESUS,^^"^^ 
 
 ^* Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel 
 was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named 
 Nazareth, " to a virgin espoused to a man whose 
 name was Joseph, of the House of David; and 
 the virgin's name was Mary. '* And [the angel] 
 came in to her, and said : "Hail, full of grace ! 
 the Lord is with thee: [blessed art thou among 
 women]."* ^^ But she was much troubled at 
 his [or : this] language,! and was pondering what 
 kind of salutation this might be. ^*^ And the angel 
 
 * As the Vulgate, the Received Text reads here : Blessed 
 art thou among women; but excellent MSS., and some, 
 too, among the oldest, like the Vatic, and the Sinait., 
 leave out this member, which is found the same in the 
 texts and in the versions at verse 42. At verse 28, the 
 words, ev\oyniJ.€vn av iv yvvai^iv, Constitute a Western and 
 Syriac reading. 
 
 t After A, the Received Text has iSov<ra, which the Latins 
 translated by cum audisset or cum vidisset. 
 
i6 The CJiildJwod of Jesus Christ. 
 
 said to her : "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found 
 grace with God. ^^ And behold, thou shalt con- 
 ceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and 
 shalt call his name Jesus. ^^ He shall be great, 
 and shall be called the Son of the Most High: 
 and the Lord God will give him the throne of 
 David his father : and he shall reign over the 
 house of Jacob for ever, ^^ and of his kingdom 
 there shall be no end." ^* And Mary said to the 
 angel : "How shall this be, since I know not 
 man?" ^^ And the angel answered and said to 
 her: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and 
 the power of the Most High shall overshadow 
 thee: and therefore that [or: the holy (one)] 
 which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son 
 of God. ®® And behold, Elizabeth thy kinswoman, 
 she, too, has conceived a son in her old age : and 
 this is the sixth month with her who is called 
 barren. ^^ For no word from God shall he void of 
 pozver (or: nothing is impossible to God).''^ 
 ^^ And Mary said : "Behold, the handmaid of the 
 Lord: be it done to me according to thy word." 
 And the angel departed from her. 
 
 * In a similar circumstance, Abraham had been told re- 
 garding Sara: "Is anything too wonderful for Yahweh?" 
 
 Mj) aSwaTTiaei napa to! ©ew prjtia ', LXX, Gen. lo . 
 
St. Luke, I. ly 
 
 4. MARY VISITS ELIZABETH ; THE Magnificat, ^^'^^. 
 
 ^^ In those days Mary rose and made a hasty 
 journey into the hill-country, to a city of Judah, 
 *° and entered Zachary's house, and saluted Eliza- 
 beth. *^ And it came to pass, when Elizabeth 
 heard the salutation of INIary, the babe leaped in 
 her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy 
 Ghost ; *" and she raised her voice with a loud 
 cry, and said : "Blessed art thou among women, 
 and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. " And 
 whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord 
 should come to me ? ** For lo, when the voice 
 of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the babe 
 leaped in my womb for joy. *^ And blessed is 
 she who believed; for there shall be a fulfillment 
 of the things which have been spoken to her by 
 the Lord." * " And Mary said : f 
 
 * Attempts have been made to give to the greeting of 
 Elizabeth the rhythmical form, noticed in the other canti- 
 cles of this first chapter: 
 
 Blessed art thou among women, 
 
 And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 
 
 And whence is this to me, 
 
 That the mother of my Lord should come to me? 
 
 For lo, when the voice of thy salutation sounded in 
 my ears, 
 
 The babe leaped in my womb for joy. 
 
1 8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 "My soul magnifies the Lord; 
 
 *^ And my spirit rejoiced [or: rejoices] in God, 
 
 my Savior, 
 *® Because he looked upon the lowliness of his 
 
 handmaid : 
 For behold, from henceforth all generations shall 
 
 call me blessed. 
 
 And blessed is she who believed; for the things shall 
 be fulfilled, 
 
 Which have been spoken to her by the Lord. 
 
 t The Magnificat is ascribed to Elizabeth in three Latin 
 MSS. of the prehieronymian version: a (verc), h (veron.), 
 / (rhed.) ; in the De Psalmodice Bono, chapter ix, xi, of St. 
 Niceta of Remesiana. Origen, or perhaps his translator 
 St. Jerome, knows that reading which, however, he does not 
 adopt, Homil. VII in Luc. Some have endeavored, unsuc- 
 cessfully however, to add to these testimonies that of St. 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. xvii, 6, 7. Cf. The Journal of 
 Theological Studies, 1906, pp. 449-453. — The authority of 
 these witnesses cannot prevail against that of most of the 
 MSS. (both of texts and of versions) and most of the 
 Fathers, especially St. Irenaeus, P. G., vii, 873 and 991 
 (except one MS.); Origen, P. G., xiii, 1819; Tertullian, 
 P. L., ii, 694; St. Ambrose, P. L., xv, 1562; St. Jerome, 
 P. L., xxix, 611; St. Augustine, P. L., xxxiv, 1081, and 
 elsewhere. As to the considerations drawn from internal 
 evidences, they are still more favorable to the reading of 
 the Received Text. Cf. P. Ladeuze, in Revue d'Hist. 
 Eccles., 1903, p. 623 ; J. H. Bernard, in The Expositor, 
 1907, p. 193- 
 
St. Luke, I. 19 
 
 *^ For he that is mighty did great things to me : 
 
 And holy is his name. 
 
 ^° And his mercy is from generation to genera- 
 tion 
 
 On those who fear him. 
 
 ^^ He has shown might with his arm; 
 
 He has scattered the proud in the imagination of 
 their heart. 
 
 ^^ He has put down princes from their throne, 
 
 And has exalted the lowly. 
 
 ^^ The hungry he has filled with good things, 
 
 And the rich he has sent empty away. 
 
 °* He has received Israel his servant, 
 
 That he might remember mercy, 
 
 ^^ (As he spoke to our fathers), 
 
 Toward Abraham and his seed for ever." * 
 
 ^^ And Mary remained with her about three 
 months, and returned to her house. 
 
 * This canticle which is made up of reminiscences from 
 the Psahns and from the Prophets, recalls especially the 
 canticle of Anna, Samuel's mother, / Sam. 2 i"io. It may- 
 be divided into three strophes: (o) 46b-50. Cf. / Sam. 
 2 1, I 11 ; Gett. 30 13 ; Dent. 10 21. (b) 51-53. Cf. Ps. Ixxxix, 
 11; Job, 12", 5"; / Sam. 2 7. (c) 54-55. Cf. Is. 418; 
 Ps. 98 3 ; Mich. 7 20 ; // Sam. 22 ^i. 
 
20 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 5. THE BIRTH OF JOHN; THE Beuedictiis, ""**'. 
 
 ^' Now Elizabeth's time for her deHvery was 
 completed ; and she brought forth a son. ^^ And 
 her neighbors and her relatives heard that the 
 Lord had shown his great mercy toward her; 
 and they rejoiced with her. ^^ And on the eighth 
 day they came to circumcise the child, and they 
 were for calling him Zachary, after the name of 
 his father. ®° And his mother answered : "Not 
 so; but he shall be called John." ®^ They said to 
 her : "There is none of your kindred who is called 
 by this name." ^^ So they made signs to his 
 father, what he would have him called; ^^ and 
 demanding a writing-tablet he [or: Zachary] 
 wrote: "His name is John:" and they all won- 
 dered. ^* And his mouth was opened immediately, 
 and his tongue [loosed], and he spoke, blessing 
 God. ^^ And fear came upon all their neighbors : 
 and all these things were noised abroad over all 
 the hill-country of Judrea : ®^ and all who heard 
 them laid them up in their heart, saying: "What 
 then will this child be?" for the hand of the 
 Lord v^'as with him. ®^ And his father Zachary 
 was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, 
 saying : 
 
St. Luke, I. 21 
 
 ®* Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; 
 
 For he has visited and wrought redemption for 
 
 his people, 
 ®® And raised up a horn of salvation for us 
 
 In the house of his servant David 
 ^° (As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets 
 
 who have been since the world began), 
 ^^ Salvation from our enemies, 
 And from the hand of all that hate us; 
 ^^ To show mercy to our fathers 
 And to remember his holy covenant; 
 ^^ [according to] The oath which he swore to our 
 
 father Abraham, that he would grant us 
 ^* That we being delivered out of the hand of 
 
 our enemies 
 Should serve him without fear, 
 " In holiness and righteousness before him all 
 
 our days. 
 ^^ And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of 
 
 the Most High 
 For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to 
 
 prepare his ways ; 
 " To give knowledge of salvation to his people 
 In the remission of their sins, 
 " Through the tender mercy of our God, 
 
22 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Whereby [as] the Dayspring from on high [he] 
 
 has visited us,* 
 ^^ To shine upon those who sit in darkness and 
 
 in the shade of death; 
 To guide our feet into the way of peace." f 
 
 ^° And the child grew, and became strong in 
 spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his 
 manifestation to Israel. 
 
 11. 
 
 6. THE BIRTH OF JESUS IN BETHLEHEM, ^"^°, 
 
 ^ Now it fell out in those days, that a decree 
 went out from Csesar Augustus, [commanding] 
 that all the world should be enrolled. " This was 
 the first enrolment [or: This first enrolment was] 
 
 * 'E7ri<rK«i|/eTai in KB, Syr., Arm., Goth., Boh. and L (thi.s 
 last with the spelling infa-K4<paiTai) : however Tischendorf 
 and Godet prefer sTreo-Kei/zoTo, which is the reading followed 
 by the Latin Vulgate. 
 
 t The Benedictus is naturally divided into two chief 
 parts. The first, from verse 68 to verse 75, may be sub- 
 divided into three strophes: (0) 68, 69; (6) 70, 71; (c) 
 72-75. The second part, from verse 76 to verse 79, has 
 only two strophes: (a) 76, 77; (b) 78, 79. Cf. A. Plum- 
 MERj The Gospel according to St. Luke, p. 39. 
 
St. Luke, II. 23 
 
 made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.* 
 ^ All went to enroll themselves, every one to his 
 own city ; * and Joseph also went up from Galilee, 
 from the city of Nazareth, [to go] into Judaea, 
 to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem 
 (because he was of the house and family of 
 David), ' to enroll himself with Mary his espoused 
 wife, who was with child. ® And it came to pass, 
 while they were there, that the days were com- 
 pleted for her delivery, ^ and she brought forth 
 her first-born son, and wrapped him in swathing- 
 
 * Various readings of verse 2 : B, followed by 81, 131, 203, 
 
 OUT7J aiTOypa<j>r) ffpoinj eyei'tTO ; X, airriv airoypa^riv iyevtTO ; D, f ollowed 
 by the Latin translation of Origen, aiiTrj iyivtro anoypaifiri npiirr). 
 A, C^, L, R, H, avr>) 17 anoypa<f>ri irpuiTi) eytvero. 
 
 By reading out^ with the soft accent, and understanding 
 a-iroypa4>ifi of the levying itself of the tax, distinct from the 
 census, which had taken place under Herod, some have 
 attempted to translate : "The levying of the tax it- 
 self (avrrt) took placc, for the first time (irpuT») ), not before 
 the rule of Quirinius." But that reading is rather arbi- 
 trary, and the translation is still more so. The best is 
 to abide by the Received Text : ovtt) ri diroYpa<^>) n-pioTij iyevtro, 
 and translate : "This enrolment, [zvhich was'l the first, was 
 made when Quirinius was governor of Syria." The fre- 
 quent recurrence of the name Quirinius (Kvplvo^) among 
 the Latins has led the copyists to introduce into the Latin 
 versions the form Cyrinus (or Quirinus). B has KvptCvov 
 for the same reason. Undoubtedly the right spelling is 
 either Kvpriviot or Kvpivioi. 
 
 4 
 
24 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 bands; and she laid him in a manger, because 
 there was no room for them in the inn. 
 
 ^ There were shepherds in the same country, 
 dwelHng out in the fields, and keeping the night- 
 watches over their flock. ^ And lo, an angel of 
 the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the 
 Lord shone round about them; and they were 
 sorely afraid. ^^ And the angel said to them : 
 "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings 
 of great joy which shall be to all the people; " for 
 there is born to you to-day in the city of David 
 a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ^^ And this 
 is the sign to you; you will find a babe wrapped 
 in swathing-bands, and lying in a manger." 
 ^^ And suddenly there was with the angel a multi- 
 tude of the heavenly host praising God, and say- 
 ing: 
 
 ^* "Glory to God in the highest, 
 And on earth peace to men in whom he is well 
 pleased." * 
 
 * EvSoKias is found in X« A B D, Latt. (Vet. Vulg.) 
 Goth. Iren. (lat.) Origen (lat.) and the hymn Gloria in 
 excehis. mSoxCa is read in LP taAe, etc., Syr. (Pesch. Sin. 
 Harcl.) Boh. Arm. ^th. Orig. Euseb. Bas. Greg.-Naz. Cyr.- 
 Jerus. Did. Epiph. Cyr.-Alex. and the Greek text of the 
 Gloria in excehis. Should we abide only by the data of 
 internal evidence, we could hardly decide for either read- 
 ing; but the testimony of the texts, of the versions 
 
St. Luke, II. 25 
 
 ^^ When the angels departed from them into 
 heaven, the shepherds said to one another : "Let 
 us go over to Bethlehem, and see this thing that 
 is come to pass, which the Lord has shown us." 
 ^^ And they came with haste, and found Mary 
 and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. 
 ^^ When they saw it, they made known the word 
 which had been spoken to them about this [little] 
 child.* ^^ And all who heard marveled at the 
 
 and of the Fathers seems clearly to favor the reading 
 euSoKias, which is adopted, as a matter of fact, in most 
 modern critical editions. With evSoxCa words may be cut 
 as follows : 
 
 Glory to God in the highest 
 
 And on earth, Peace ; 
 
 To men, divine Good will. 
 This is, in fact the stichometry of several MSS. With 
 euSoKc'os the most acceptable, as well as the most common 
 punctuation is the one given in the text; how- 
 ever Hort suggests another construction : Glory to God 
 in the highest and on earth, Peace to men [the objects] 
 of divine good-will. At all events, whether we read 
 eirSoict'as OT euSoKi'a it is no Qucstion of men's, but of God's 
 good will, of which we have just received an unparalleled 
 token in the birth of Jesus the Savior. Cf. Westcott and 
 Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Intro- 
 duction, Appendix, pp. 52-56. 
 
 * The Vulgate translates eV'^pio-a" by cognoverunt. True, 
 yviapiim may have that meaning (cf. Philip, i 22) ; but the 
 context, vis., the following number, calls here for the 
 meaning of notuni facere, as the Vulgate itself translates 
 at verse 15. 
 
26 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 things which were told them by the shepherds. 
 " But Mary kept all these words, [or : things] 
 pondering them in her heart. ^° And the shep- 
 herds returned, glorifying and praising God for 
 all the things which they had heard and seen, as 
 it was told them. 
 
 7. THE CHILD IS CIRCUMCISED, AND PRESENTED 
 IN THE TEMPLE/^'^*. 
 
 ^^ And when eight days were completed for 
 circumcising the child his name was called Jesus, 
 which was so-called by the angel before he was 
 conceived in the womb [of his Mother]. 
 
 ^^ When the days of their [or : the] purifica- 
 tion according to the law of Moses were com- 
 pleted, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present 
 him to the Lord ^^ (as it is written in the law 
 of the Lord: "Every male that opens the womb 
 shall be called holy to the Lord"),* ^* and to 
 offer a sacrifice, according to what is said in the 
 law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves, or two 
 
 * This is not a quotation strictly so called, but the state- 
 ment of a most certainly Mosaic prescription. Cf. Exod. 
 13 2> i2_ 'Yhe text of Genesis accounts for the words n-av 
 apaev, which are often mentioned in it, in connection with 
 circumcision. 
 
St. Luke, II. 27 
 
 young pigeons.* ^^ Now there was a man in 
 Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and this 
 man was just and devout, looking for the Con- 
 solation of Israel ; and the Holy Spirit was upon 
 him. "^ It had been revealed to him by the Holy 
 Spirit, that he should not see death, before he 
 had seen the Lord's Christ. " And he came in 
 the spirit into the temple; and when his parents 
 brought in the child Jesus, that they might do 
 according to the custom of the law in his regard, 
 ^^ then he received him into his arms, and blessed 
 God, and said : 
 
 ^® "Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, 
 
 According to thy word, in peace ; 
 
 ^° For my eyes have seen thy Salvation, 
 
 ^^ Which thou hast prepared before the face of 
 
 all peoples; 
 ^^ A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
 And the glory of thy people Israel." 
 
 ^^ And his father and mother were marveling 
 at the things which were spoken about him. 
 ^* And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary 
 his mother : "Behold, this [child] is set for the 
 falling and rising of many in Israel, and as a 
 standard which shall be opposed : ^^ and a sword 
 
 * Levit. 12 8. 
 
28 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 shall pierce through thy own soul, that thoughts 
 out of many hearts may be revealed." ^^ And 
 there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter 
 of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher (she was of 
 great age, and lived with a husband seven years 
 from her virginity, ^^ and had been a widow for 
 eighty- four years), who used not to depart from 
 the temple, worshipping with fastings and sup- 
 plications night and day. ^® And coming up at 
 that very hour she gave thanks to the Lord, and 
 spoke of him to all who were looking for the re- 
 demption of Jerusalem.* 
 
 8. RETURN TO NAZARETH ; JESUS IS LOST AND 
 FOUND IN THE TEMPLE/^"". 
 
 ^® And when they had performed all the things 
 that were in accordance with the law of the Lord, 
 they [or: Joseph and Mary] returned into Galilee, 
 to their own city Nazareth. *° And the child 
 grew, and became strong, full of wisdom; and the 
 grace of God was upon him. 
 
 * All agree that the authentic text reads Aurpwo-n' "lepouaax^/a ; 
 the substitution of Israel for Jerusalem (which passed 
 into the Clem. Vulg.) may probably be accounted for by 
 those many O. T. passages, in which reference is often 
 made to the "redemption of Israel." The reading Avrpwo-n' 
 iv 'lepova-aKriii IS Hkewisc an alteration, in spite of the testi- 
 mony of A D, etc. 
 
St. Luke, II. 29 
 
 *^ Now his parents used to journey every year 
 to Jerusalem, at the feast of the Passover. 
 *^ When he was twelve years old, they went up 
 to Jerusalem according to the custom of the 
 feast ; *^ and when they had completed the days 
 [of the solemnity], as they were returning, the 
 boy Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and his 
 parents knew it not ; ** but supposing him to be 
 in the caravan, they went a day's journey, and 
 were seeking him among their relatives and ac- 
 quaintances ; " and not finding him they returned 
 to Jerusalem, looking for him. *'' And after three 
 days they found him in the temple, sitting in the 
 midst of the doctors [of the law], both hearing 
 them, and asking them questions. *'^ All who 
 heard him were amazed at his understanding and 
 his answers. ** And when they [or : his parents] 
 saw him, they were astonished; and his mother 
 said to him: "Son, why have you done so to us? 
 see, your father and I have sought you sorrow- 
 ing." *® And he said to them : "How is it that 
 you sought me ? did you not know that I must 
 be about my Father's business ?" ^° And they 
 did not understand the word which he spoke to 
 them. 
 
 ^^ And he went down with them, and came to 
 Nazareth; and he was subject to them. And his 
 
30 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 mother kept all these things in her heart. ^^ And 
 Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and in grace 
 with God and men. 
 
 III. 
 
 9. THE GENEALOGY OF JESUS^ "^'^^. 
 
 ^^ And Jesus himself, when he began [to teach], 
 was about thirty years of age, being (as was 
 supposed) * the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, 
 
 * Owing to the difiiiculty of the text, several attempts to 
 smooth the construction have been made. ><BL.Or., 
 Euseb., Athan., Epiph., and others read s>v v\.6^, <is cro/oti^ero, 
 whilst AxrAAn and most ancient versions, including the 
 Vulgate, have read wv ws ivoixiitTo ulos. These tvi^o readings, 
 with intermediary variations, are found in prehieronymian 
 Latin versions. Cf. J. Wordsworth, Nov. Test. D. N. 
 J. C, latine . . . 1893, P- 2^^- 
 
 The incidental phrase is e^o/m'^eTo, wf piitahatur, is a paren- 
 thesis. All the proper names are here in the genitive, as 
 well as that of Joseph. ToO is not an article defining the 
 name that follows, but a pronoun related to the preceding 
 name ; it stands for vIoO according to the well-known 
 Hellenic idiom 6 <i>iAi7rirou, that of Philip, i. e., Alexander : 
 e, f rightly translated toC by filii. 
 
 Moreover, there are in classical authors genealogies drawn 
 up absolutely like that in St. Luke. Cf. Herodotus, 
 viii, 131. 
 
 Those scholars who hold that in St. Luke we have the 
 Blessed Virgin's genealogy suggest the following con- 
 struction : "Jesus . . . being the son (as w^as supposed of 
 
St. Luke, III, ''-'\ 31 
 
 the son of Matthat, "* the son of Levi, the son 
 of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 
 ^^ the son of Mattathiah, the son of Amos, the 
 son of Nahum, the son of EsH, the son of Naggai, 
 ^^ the son of Mahath, the son of Mattathiah, the 
 son of Semei, the son of Joseph, the son of Juda, 
 "the son of Joanna [or: Joanan], the son of 
 Resa,* the son of Zerubbabel, 
 
 Joseph, but in reality) of Heli . . ." For them, toD 
 becomes before each name, all through the genealogy, an 
 article depending immediately on the ulos found in verse 
 23. Cf. Bacuez, Man. Bibl., (new edit, by Brassac) Vol. 
 Ill, p. 293. But this construction is rather strained, and 
 unusual in genealogies, in which each term is generally 
 connected with the preceding one. If it is suggested to 
 make the first toO before -HKei an article, whilst before the 
 other nouns it would be a pronoun, we have 'HAei toC MarfloT, 
 Heli, that of Matthat, a construction which cannot be 
 grammatically upheld. According to Kruger, Griech. 
 Sprachlehre, ii, §47, 5, 3, KOpos toC Ka/^i^vVov is a solecism. 
 
 *Rhesa, who appears in Luke, but neither in Matthew, 
 nor in I Chron., [Paralipom.] is probably not a name at 
 all, but a title, which some Jewish copyist mistook for a 
 name. "Zerubbabel Rhesa," or "Zerubbabel the Prince" 
 has been made into "Zerubbabel (begot) Rhesa." A. 
 Plummer, The Gospel according to St. Luke, p. 104. This 
 is a mere conjecture, which does not rest upon any positive 
 textual datum. At any rate, the name Rhesa is most 
 appropriate in St. Luke's text, from which it can be re- 
 moved, only at the expense of the numerical harmony 
 of the septenaries, according to which the genealogy seems 
 
2^2 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the son of Salathiel, the son of Neri, ^* the son 
 of Melchi, the son of Adcli, the son of Cosam, 
 the son of Ehnadam, the son of Er, ^^ the son of 
 Jesus, the son of Ehezer, the son of Jorim, the 
 son of Matthat, the son of Levi, ^° the son of 
 Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the 
 son of Jonam, the son of Ehakim, ^^ the son of 
 Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, 
 the son of Nathan, 
 
 the son of David, ^" the son of Jesse, the son of 
 Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sahiion, the 
 son of Nahshon, ^^ the son of Amminadab, the 
 son of Ram [or: Oram], the son of Hesron, the 
 son of Peres, the son of Judah, ^* the son of 
 Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, 
 the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, ^^ the son 
 of Sarug, the son of Reu [or: Ragan], the son 
 of Peleg [or: Phalech], the son of Heber, the 
 son of Shelah, ^^ the son of Cainan,* the son 
 
 framed and drawn up. Cf. F. Prat, at the word Genea- 
 logies, in ViGOUROUX, Diet, de la Bible. In the translation, 
 the genealogy has been divided into four series of three 
 septenaries each, excepting the third series which counts 
 only two septenaries. 
 
 * In the LXX, Gen. 102*, n 12^ and probably, too, I Par. 
 I ^^, Cainan is the father of Shelah, and the son of 
 Arphaxad : but he does not appear in the Hebrew text. 
 In St. Luke, D alone leaves him out; Ksr have KaiVafi 
 
St. Luke, III, ''-'\ 33 
 
 of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, 
 the son of Lamech, ^^ the son of Methuselah, the 
 son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of 
 Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, ^^ the son of Enos, 
 the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of 
 God. 
 
 instead of KaiVa^', which is the more common spelling. 
 Here, again, the name Cainan is called for by the numer- 
 ical harmony of the genealogy; with it, we obtain three 
 septenaries of generations between Thare and God. 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE CANONICAL 
 
 GOSPELS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL ATTACK AND DEFENCE. 
 
 The critics who are opposed to our position 
 first attack the character of the events related in 
 the Gospel of the Infancy. Angelic apparitions, 
 Magi coming from the East amidst wonderful 
 circumstances, King Herod ordering to murder 
 at Bethlehem all the children of two years and 
 under, the flight into Egypt, last and chiefly, a 
 Virgin-Mother, — all these are as many features 
 that smack most strongly of legend and would be 
 most appropriate in the apocryphal Gospels. 
 
 And, then, how did the origin and childhood 
 of Jesus come to be known? At a time when 
 public attention had not as yet fastened upon 
 them, when His relatives themselves were far 
 from surmising the destiny in store for the car- 
 penter's son, His lonesome and obscure life was 
 being spent at Nazareth. When the first and 
 third Evangelists wrote, about the year 70, there 
 must have been left but few witnesses of the 
 childhood of Jesus. The persons introduced by 
 Luke — Zachary, Elizabeth, Joseph, Simeon, Anna 
 
36 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 — had been gone for a long while. Whether 
 Mary herself was still alive can well be doubted. 
 
 Besides these surmises, there are positive data 
 that tend to throw some discredit on the his- 
 torical authority of the Gospel of the Infancy. 
 Here St. Matthew and St. Luke disagree from 
 beginning to end; there are found in their text 
 incoherencies that can be fully accounted for only 
 by successive and biased after-touches. St. 
 Luke's artificial method, especially in his Canti- 
 cles, leaves the impression that he meant to write 
 a religious poem rather than a page of history. 
 
 In fine, by comparing the Gospel of the Infancy 
 with the rest of the New Testament, the reader 
 becomes firmly convinced that all that narrative, 
 the episode of the Virgin-Birth included, does not 
 represent a primitive tradition. Hence do we 
 find it absent from the Epistles of St. Paul and 
 from the Gospel of St. Mark, the genuine type 
 of the Apostolic preaching. Here we come across 
 a later product of the belief, first rather vague, 
 in Christ's divine origin. That creation of re- 
 ligious sentiment Strauss called myth, because 
 in his mind it was the setting forth of an idea 
 under the shape of a seemingly historical fact. 
 His successors are inclined, rather, to speak of 
 a reaction of faith upon history; but, after all, 
 
General Attack and Defence. 37 
 
 this is but another expression of the same thought. 
 At all events, that reaction, at least as far as what 
 pertains to the Virgin-Birth, did not simply adorn 
 the narrative; it created that narrative. Whilst 
 Strauss frankly confessed that his first and chief 
 motive for denying the historical character of 
 those texts was the supernatural character they 
 have and profess to have,* nowadays men are 
 fond of appealing exclusively to textual and to 
 historical criticism. f 
 
 * Cf. Life of Jesus, critically examined, London, 1892, 
 (translated by George Eliot), pp. 39-87. 
 
 t HouTiN, La Question biblique au XX^"^e siecle, 1906, p. 
 241, writes in this connection : "Heterodox critics discard that 
 interpretation, not because they deny the possibility of a 
 more or less extraordinary fact of 'parthenogenesis,' or even 
 the possibility of one miracle, but because in the written 
 accounts of the testimonies they find marks of after-touches, 
 which do away altogether with the value of those accounts, 
 or even make them formally contradict the designs of the 
 correctors themselves." This is nothing but over-anxiety 
 of impartiality towards unbelieving critics, especially in a 
 book from which any sympathy for Catholics seems unmer- 
 cifully and wilfully excluded. Personally, I feel convinced 
 that the a priori denial of the supernatural has influenced, 
 far more than is confessed, textual and chiefly historical 
 criticism. This I will show when the opportunity comes. 
 Besides, that proceeding perfectly agrees with the historical 
 method, as understood by teachers whose word at the Sor- 
 bonne is authority. (Cf. Langlois & Seignobos, Introduc- 
 tion to the Study of History, English translation, pp. 205- 
 208.) 
 
38 The Childhood of Jestis Christ. 
 
 To this wholesale indictment, the cogency of 
 which we have lessened in no way, orthodox and 
 even merely conservative critics have not failed 
 to give replies. 
 ./ The narratives of the Infancy form a whole 
 together with the remaining parts of the Gospels, 
 and cannot be separated from them: they must 
 share in the general credit enjoyed especially now 
 by the Gospel history. Nowhere do the Evangel- 
 ists hint that for them this portion of their narra- 
 tive has only a problematic value. Nay, we may 
 believe that St. Luke's purpose — a purpose ex- 
 plicitly stated — of taking up again everything 
 from the very beginning with order and accuracy, 
 had for its chief object those facts which he is the 
 only one to relate. 
 
 Thus, if we are willing to give to that part of 
 the canonical text the name of "Gospel of the 
 Infancy," it is not because we look upon it as 
 less valuable than the rest of the Gospel history, 
 but merely because, on one hand, that appellation 
 is of ready use, and, on the other, because it 
 describes accurately the contents of the passages 
 of which we are speaking. 
 
 That narrative is made up, it is true, of super- 
 natural interventions, but are they more numer- 
 ous here than in the other parts of the Gospels? 
 
General Attack and Defence. 39 
 
 The history of thirty years has been gathered 
 up and compressed, as it were, into two pages, 
 and it is but natural to surmise that the most 
 wonderful events alone have been retained. 
 
 Apparitions of Angels and of personages who 
 had passed away many years before are to be 
 found in the very midst of the narratives of the 
 public life, and even in the Acts of the Apostles, 
 which many are fond of styling the most his- 
 torical book of the New Testament. After all, 
 is the star of the Magi a more wonderful phe- 
 nomenon than the voices that came from Heaven 
 to glorify the Christ, one of which impressed 
 the hearers in such different ways that some 
 said : "It has thundered" ; others said : "An Angel 
 has spoken to him" ? * Miracles, like that of the 
 swine of Gerasa, and that of the half-shekel found 
 by St. Peter in the mouth of a fish, have at least 
 as great a taste of legend as the wonders with 
 which the cradle of Jesus was surrounded. 
 
 These comparisons, it is true, have only the 
 strength of arguments ad Jwminem; but they tell 
 against those Christian scholars who would fain 
 grant the presence of the mythical element in the 
 narratives that refer to Our Lord's infancy. 
 
 * Luke 9 ss ; John 12 28, 29, 
 
 5 
 
40 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 From this point of view, viz., that of historical 
 probability, some have quite overrated the differ- 
 ence between the beginnings and the sequel of 
 the Gospel History. 
 
 Besides, granting that the life of Jesus was all 
 that the Evangelists say it actually was — and we 
 know that life only from their testimony — is it 
 any wonder that His childhood also should have 
 been surrounded with prodigies, and that a 
 prophet, a wonder-worker who spoke and acted 
 as no other had ever done, should have come into 
 this world, accompanied by signs that foretold His 
 mission ? Had the contrary occurred, there would 
 have been incoherence in His life upon earth. 
 But God is wont to lay harmony and continuity 
 at the basis of His works. 
 
 It has been said by some that the narratives of 
 our canonical Gospels regarding the childhood of 
 Jesus would not be out of place in the apocryphal 
 Gospels. This is an assertion expressly gainsaid 
 by other scholars, who have brought out the 
 character of moderation and reasonableness ex- 
 hibited on this subject by St, Matthew and St. 
 Luke. What the Evangelists recorded about 
 Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Egypt, Herod, 
 Archelaus, Caesar Augustus, and others, reflects 
 most accurately the light of the times and the 
 
General Attack and Defence. 41 
 
 customs of the surroundings ; and even the census 
 of Cyrinus, difficult as it may be to determine its 
 precise date, has very little to fear from historical 
 criticism. 
 
 The data of our canonical Gospels have been 
 indeed resumed after the original plan, but with 
 certain alterations, in some of the apocryphal 
 works, particularly in the Protevangelium of 
 James, the Gospel of Thomas and the Arabic 
 Gospel of the Infancy; * but it is easy to ascertain 
 these clumsy additions. Even setting aside many 
 historical, or, rather, unhistorical, mistakes and 
 inaccuracies, we find, as the staple of these pro- 
 ductions, the marvelous — and a marvelous that is 
 useless, childish and void of any moral bearing 
 and significance. St. Luke simply tells us that 
 "the Child grew, and became strong, full of wis- 
 dom; and the grace of God was upon Him." 
 (2*°.) This statement, of course, seemed to 
 lovers of miracles altogether too short and simple, 
 and so they chose to set forth Jesus during His 
 childhood as a wonder-worker who spreads life 
 and death as He passes along. When sought for 
 its own sake, the supernatural is no longer a sign 
 of the divine, but a means of amazing the reader, 
 
 * On the origin of those Gospels, see an article of LepiNj 
 in the Revue pratique d'Apologetique, Dec. i, 1905, p. 199. 
 
42 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 or even of putting him in good humor. Indeed, 
 the Jesus as exhibited in the apocryphal narra- 
 tives is precisely the one Herod Antipas was so 
 anxious to see.* 
 
 Nor are we slow to concede, on the other hand, 
 that a considerable share is to be granted to arti- 
 ficial composition in the form of the Canticles 
 found in St. Luke ; however, the substance itself 
 remains plausible, and we have no serious reason 
 why it should be challenged. The pious Jews of 
 those times were wont to express, on the spur of 
 the moment, their religious feelings in formulas 
 borrowed from the Old Testament. The senti- 
 ments set forth in the Magnificat, the Benedictus, 
 the Nimc Dimittis are in perfect harmony with 
 the religious aspirations and literary methods of 
 the surroundings where St. Luke says they were 
 composed. And here the form itself tends the 
 less to discredit the substance, that, according to 
 the best critical scholars, the Evangelist follows 
 closely in his first two chapters an Aramean writ- 
 ing : and this places the composition of the Canti- 
 cles at an epoch very close to the events. 
 
 That the texts concerning the childhood of Jesus 
 differ among themselves is an ascertained fact; 
 
 * Luke 23 ^. 
 
General Attack and Defence. 43 
 
 but a divergence is not necessarily an irreconcil- 
 able contradiction. Catholics and conservative 
 Protestants are not at all the only ones who have 
 attempted to harmonize the narrative of the first 
 and of the third Gospel ; independent critics them- 
 selves feel obliged to confess that it is not impos- 
 sible to complete one by the other, and thus to 
 combine them into a whole. For instance, we can 
 show in St. Luke the joint, as it were, where the 
 flight into Egypt ought to have come in, had he 
 aimed at giving us a complete record of the facts. 
 Whatever may be the explanation of that 
 divergence — and none of the explanations that 
 have been given so far is altogether satisfactory, 
 so as to bar the way to another — it must be 
 granted that from such a divergence a solid proof 
 can be drawn in behalf of the historical substance 
 itself identical in both narratives. Jesus, the 
 Messias and the Son of God, was supernaturally 
 conceived of the Holy Ghost, He was born of the 
 Virgin Mary, the wife of the just Joseph; Christ 
 came into this world at Bethlehem of Juda during 
 the reign of King Herod, and spent His youth 
 at Nazareth, in Galilee. Did not these essential 
 data rest on a primitive and uniform tradition, 
 how account for the fact that they are found most 
 plainly in narratives that differ in the other re- 
 
44 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 spects? To this question radical critics have so 
 far given no satisfactory reply. 
 
 If the supernatural conception of Jesus is 
 merely the symbol of the belief in His heavenly 
 origin, why is it that, for the faithful, that belief 
 was uniformly expressed in the precise shape of 
 a physical action of the Holy Ghost, the purpose 
 of which was to withdraw Christ's humanity from 
 the ordinary laws of generation? There were 
 many other ways, indeed, to keep the stains of 
 the flesh off God's Holy One: the Valentinians 
 and generally all the Docetse found it quite easy 
 to account for His original purity without appeal- 
 ing to the hypothesis of the Virgin-Birth; they 
 advanced the view that Christ had not been be- 
 gotten in the womb of Mary, but had merely 
 passed through it. 
 
 Orthodox belief has always kept equally dis- 
 tant from the two views it has always deemed 
 equally false: the view of those Judaizers, who 
 held that Jesus was born in the same way as the 
 rest of men, and that of the Docetse, who denied 
 He had a human birth, properly so called. Now, 
 that middle position did not impose itself a priori, 
 as though it was a necessary deduction or the 
 rigorous conclusion of the fundamental dogma of 
 Redemption. Taking the point of view of mere 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 45 
 
 possiblity, Christ, even granting He was Man- 
 God, might have been brought forth according to 
 the ordinary laws; or, on the contrary, a second 
 Adam, He might have come into this world like 
 the first Adam, through a creative action. If 
 almost all Christians have always professed that 
 Christ became a member of the human family by 
 being really born from a virgin-mother, it is be- 
 cause that belief rested on a well-ascertained 
 Apostolic tradition. In spite of the opposition 
 it met on the part of some from the very begin- 
 ning, it has remained an integral part of Chris- 
 tian dogma, and is set forth by all the Creeds 
 in identical terms. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE DOGMA OF THE VIRGIN-BIRTH OF 
 JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 In whatever way the belief in the Virgin- 
 Mother got hold of the Christian conscience, if it 
 does not correspond to some real fact, evidently 
 there must have been a time when, throughout 
 the whole Church, men thought that Jesus was 
 born of Joseph and Mary; and then, later on, the 
 idea of supernatural conception must have grad- 
 
46 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ually won universal assent and set aside altogether 
 the primitive data : those of history. 
 
 Myth, as well as an intense exaltation of re- 
 ligious feeling, needs time to grow, and still more 
 to get universal acceptance. This, Strauss frankly 
 admitted; hence did he declare that his system 
 of Gospel mythicism would fall into ruins, v/ere 
 it ever demonstrated that the Gospels were written 
 by eye-witnesses or, at least, by men who were 
 not far distant from the events.* He did not look 
 upon that concession as compromising, since, when 
 he wrote, critics were wont to place the composi- 
 tion of the Gospels as late as the middle of the 2d 
 century and even still later. But times have 
 changed : nowadays scholars quite generally admit 
 that the Synoptic Gospels date from the ist cen- 
 tury, between the years 60 and 80; nay, many 
 claim that the Evangelists made use of several 
 written sources ; this brings back the document on 
 which they immediately depend, to a time very 
 close indeed to the facts themselves. 
 
 Judging from the words of the first and third 
 Evangelists' explicit statement, the conception of 
 the Savior was miraculous and took place beside 
 the ordinary laws of nature. Moreover, in this 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 69. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 47 
 
 instance the divine action did not simply impart 
 fecundity to a woman naturally barren, as was 
 the case with Sara, Anna, and Elizabeth; but 
 Jesus was conceived, was born of a Virgin 
 through the immediate operation of the Holy 
 Ghost. The just Joseph, united to Mary in the 
 bonds of a lawful wedlock, remains the witness 
 of God's mystery, the protector of the Virgin- 
 Mother and the foster-father of the Child. And 
 that prodigy the Evangelists relate with all the 
 calmness of a faith that knows on what grounds 
 it stands. When reading their narrative we feel 
 that their belief has obtained an undisturbed hold 
 on their minds; hardly do we detect in St. Mat- 
 thew a faint apologetical preoccupation as re- 
 gards the Jews; at all events, that preoccupation 
 is no more noticeable here than in the other parts 
 of his Gospel. He observes, but in passing as it 
 were, that the wonderful character of that birth 
 had been foretold by Isaias: "Behold the Virgin 
 shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, 
 and they shall call his name Emmanuel, i. e., God 
 with us." (I'^) 
 
 According to the positive testimony of history, 
 the earliest opponent we know of the belief re- 
 corded in the Gospels was Cerinthus, the fore- 
 runner of the Judaizing Gnostics, who was 
 
48 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 spreading his doctrinal views toward the end of 
 the 1st century. He taught that until His bap- 
 tism Jesus had been merely the son of Joseph and 
 Mary; it was in the waters of the Jordan that He 
 became the Messias, because the Christ (accord- 
 ing to St. Irenaeus) or the Holy Ghost (according 
 to St. Hippolytus) then came down upon Him 
 and remained with Him until the time of His 
 passion. On the whole that view was also held 
 later on by the Judaizers of Palestine, vaguely 
 styled Ebionites by the early orthodox historians 
 and opponents of heresies.* 
 
 ♦The Latin translation of St. Irenaeus, I, xxvi, 2, — the 
 Greek text being lost — is as follows : " Qui autem dicuntur 
 Ebionaei, consentiunt quidem mundum a Deo factum: ea 
 autem, quae sunt erga Dominum, non similiter ut Cerinthus 
 et Carpocrates." 
 
 Some scholars have proposed to read consimiliter instead 
 of non similiter. Dom Massuet, who retains this latter 
 reading, thinks that St. Irenaeus intends to speak of those 
 among the Ebionites, who admitted the Savior's Virgin- 
 Birth. I am inclined to suppose that here the Bishop of 
 Lyons refers to the Ebionites in general, and that, agree- 
 ably to what we learn from antiquity in their regard, he 
 reckons them among the opponents of the Virgin-Birth. 
 (Cf. EusEB., H. E., Ill, xxvii; St. Epiph., Adv. Hcer., 
 XXX, 2; Theodor., Hcer. fab., II, cap. i; St. Iren^us him- 
 self, III, xxi, I ; V, i, 3) 
 
 To make the present text agree with all those testimonies, 
 it suffices to point as follows : ea autem qua sunt erga 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 49 
 
 Mgr, Duchesne * looks upon the Eblonism of 
 the 2d and 3d centuries as some kind of a late 
 survival of an undeveloped primitive Judaic 
 Christianity; and he adds that as to whether or 
 not the Savior was the son of Joseph, there were 
 among them various opinions. According to 
 Origen, followed by Eusebius and Theodoret.f 
 the Virgin-Birth was held by a certain number of 
 Ebionites. 
 
 Dominum non similiter, [sed^ ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates. 
 Had we the Greek text, the worth of my conjecture might 
 be better judged. In Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, 
 Vol. n, p. 640, Sanday comes, though by another way, to the 
 same conclusion as to the proper understanding of the 
 text of St. Irenseus. By comparing together Adv. H ceres., 
 I, xxvi, 2 and Pkilosophumena, VH, xxxv, i, (with which 
 Dom Massuet was not acquainted), he proposes to omit 
 noti before similiter, as an alteration of the authentic text. 
 
 * The Early History of the Christian Church, p. 91. 
 
 t Origen, Contra Cels., v, 61; Euseb., H. E., HI, xxvii; 
 Theodor., Har. fab., c. I. As late as the middle of the 2d 
 century, St. Justin still knows some orthodox Judaizers ; 
 at least this is his personal view. (Dialogue, 47.) Now, 
 by comparing this passage with what follows in the Dia- 
 logue, one becomes convinced that those Judaizers probably 
 held Christ's virginal birth. As to St. Epiphanius (Adv. 
 Hcer., 30), he looks upon Ebionism as some Proteus; and 
 as a matter of fact he was unable to draw out its outlines 
 with anjrthing like precision. 
 
 Cf. Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, p. 304. 
 
50 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Did those heretics of a milder kind — identified 
 by some scholars with the Nazarenes, distin- 
 guished by others from that sect — escape the 
 notice of St. Irenaeus and of Tertullian, who do 
 not speak of them; or did their sect arise only 
 later on from coming nearer to orthodox Chris- 
 tianity, especially as regards Christ's conception? 
 Rose * is inclined to believe — rightly, we think — 
 that they are rather the authentic remnants of 
 the early Judaizers. Hegesippus, a Judaeo-Chris- 
 tian, who wrote toward the middle of the 2d 
 century, favors apparently that view when he 
 states that, until Trajan's time (98-117), the 
 
 * Studies on the Gospels, pp. 80-81. 
 
 A few lines further on, (p. 82), the same writer con- 
 cludes as follows : "However this may be, from the point 
 of view of history, the importance of this small sect ap- 
 pears quite secondary. It is only one limb of little value 
 severed from the great Judaeo-Christian community. If 
 its faith was ever the primitive faith, it is to blame for not 
 having completed and vivified it with the evangelical riches 
 which little by little came to light. Perhaps, and indeed 
 very probably, its error was only a relapse ; a simple return 
 to the Messianic ideas of Pharisaic Judaism." 
 
 However it must be granted that St. Epiphanius, (Adv. 
 Hcer., XXX, 3), hardly favors this last hypothesis. Besides, 
 St. Jerome writes to St. Augustine (Epist., cxxii, 13,) 
 regarding the Nazarenes : "Qui credunt in Christum filium 
 Dei natum de virgine Maria, in quem et nos credimus." 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 51 
 
 Church of Jerusalem remained unspotted in her 
 faith : this brings us back to the age of Cerinthus. 
 But now, how reconcile the view of the hetero- 
 dox Ebionites about the purely human origin of 
 Jesus with the fact, attested by St. Irenseus,* that 
 they admitted St. Matthew's Gospel, where the 
 supernatural conception is expressly related? St. 
 Epiphanius gives us the answer, I believe, when 
 he says that the text received by the Ebionites did 
 not include the first two chapters. f Later on we 
 will try to find out the origin of that textual 
 difference and appreciate its bearing ; here we may 
 simply observe that nowhere are we told that 
 those Judaizers opposed the common belief in the 
 name of a primitive tradition. Their view on this 
 subject was a consequence of their attitude toward 
 Jesus' Messiaship and Divinity : since He had be- 
 come Christ only on the day of His Baptism, He 
 had been, until then, a plain, ordinary man. This 
 St. Epiphanius expressly remarks : on this point, 
 the Ebionites were influenced by their erroneous 
 views about Christ's preexistence and the part 
 He had played in the creation of the world. | 
 
 * Contra Hcer., Ill, x, 7. 
 fAdv. Hcer., XXX, 13, 14. 
 tibid., 16. 
 
52 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Cerinthus pushed still further the logical conse- 
 quences of his system. Professing, as all Gnostics 
 did, the essential impurity of all that was bodily, 
 he could not admit in Jesus an intimate and close 
 union between the divine and the human nature; 
 hence he distinguished in Him the man and the 
 Son of God to such a degree that he actually dis- 
 united them. Whilst the latter was born of God, 
 the former could be but the offspring of Joseph 
 and Mary, because, in the words of St. Irenseus, 
 "the contrary seemed to him impossible." * 
 
 During the whole of the 2d century, even at its 
 beginning, most Christians believe in the super- 
 natural birth of Jesus Christ, as can be proved 
 from explicit testimonies, which are compara- 
 tively many, if we take into account the very small 
 number of the documents of that epoch that have 
 reached us. It is not in passing, as it were, that 
 the apologists who wrote them allude to the ques- 
 tion; they dwell upon it, and their explanations 
 are such as to lead us to believe that what is at 
 stake is no mere pious opinion, in favor of some- 
 thing deemed more worthy of Christ, but a neces- 
 sary teaching, closely connected with that doc- 
 
 * Contra Hcer., I, xxvi, i. "Jesum autem subjecit non 
 ex virgine natum, impossibile enim hoc ei visum est; fuisse 
 autem Joseph et Marise filium" . . . 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 53 
 
 trinal system bearing on the person of Jesus, 
 which we now call Primitive Christology. 
 
 True it is that the orthodox met a certain num- 
 ber of opponents : but were perfect unanimity re- 
 quired that one may have the right to affirm that 
 a belief is part and parcel of Christian Dogma, 
 where, we ask, is the article of the Creed that 
 would stand the trial? As early as St. Paul's 
 time, there were heresies, which, besides, bore on 
 most important points : and far from being sur- 
 prised and put out, the Apostle declares that this 
 is a condition of things which enters into the 
 divine plan.* Moreover, that the Virgin-Birth 
 should have been called in question or flatly denied 
 is not to be wondered at, especially as its his- 
 torical attestation, owing to the nature of the fact 
 itself, involves special difficulties. 
 
 Toward the year 106 an immediate disciple of 
 the Apostles, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, 
 which was then the metropolis of the East, puts 
 on the same level the Virgin-Birth and the aton- 
 ing death of the Son of God. 
 
 "And hidden from the prince of this world 
 were the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing 
 and likewise also the death of the Lord — three 
 
 ♦/Cor., II". 
 
54 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 mysteries to be cried aloud — the which were 
 wrought in the silence of God." (Lightfoot's 
 transl. ) * 
 
 St. Ignatius means that at the moment Mary 
 conceived and then brought forth, the mystery of 
 the Virgin-Mother was known but to God and to 
 the only creature who was to be necessarily asso- 
 ciated with it ; men and devils thought that Jesus 
 was a plain, ordinary man coming into this world ; 
 the just Joseph himself was let into the divine 
 plan only some time after. Likewise, when Jesus 
 breathed His last, very few indeed were those who 
 knew that on that infamous gibbet the Son of 
 God was dying. 
 
 Now, against the authenticity of this text, 
 which was well known all through the early ages 
 of Christianity, not even the least doubt can be 
 raised, t 
 
 * 'H napdeveia Maptaf kuI 6 roxerof avTTJ^^ ifioiu^ koL 6 davaro^ 
 Toi) Kvpiov Tpia fivffv^pia Kpavyrj^ ariva kv yavx^a deoii iirpdxOr] 
 {Ad Ephes., xix.) 
 
 In the previous chapter, the holy Martyr affirms that 
 "Our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb 
 of Mary according to a dispensation, of the seed of David, 
 but also of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 In chapter vii, 2, he declares Him "Son of Mary and Son 
 of God," "koX £k Mapiac Kal ck Oeov " ', cf. Epist. ad Trail., ix. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Smyrnseans, I, he writes : yeytvTjfikvov 
 alrjOuq EK Trapdivov^ "truly born of a virgin." 
 
 t See F. X. Funk, Patres Apostolici, i, p. 187. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 55 
 
 During the Emperor Hadrian's sojourn in 
 Athens, toward the year 125 — perhaps a few 
 years later — the philosopher Aristides handed him 
 an apology in behalf of the Christians. That 
 writing, which was thought irremediably lost, has 
 been wholly recovered in a Syriac translation.* 
 Now, among the essential points of Christian 
 teaching, that are there enumerated, the Virgin- 
 Birth stands side by side with the Incarnation, the 
 death on the Cross, the Resurrection and the 
 Ascension. "The Christians reckon the beginning 
 of their religion from Jesus Christ, who is named 
 the Son of God most High ; and it is said that God 
 came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew 
 virgin took and clad Himself with flesh, and in 
 a daughter of man there dwelt the Son of God." f 
 
 *J. Rendel Harris, The Apology of Aristides, Cam- 
 bridge, 1891, in the collection Texts and Studies, Vol. I, 
 fasc. I. 
 
 t Op. cit., p. 36. This passage is reproduced almost word 
 for word in a fragment of the Armenian version: "He is 
 Himself Son of God on high, who was manifested of [or 
 with] the Holy Spirit, came down from heaven, and being 
 bom of a Hebrew virgin took on His flesh from the virgin, 
 and was manifested in the nature of humanity the Son of 
 God. . . . He it is who was according to the flesh born 
 of the race of the Hebrews, by the God-bearing virgin 
 Miriam [Mary]." 
 
 Compare the fragment published in the Anal. Sacra of 
 Dom Pitra, 1882, Vol. IV, pp. 8 and 284. 
 
 6 
 
56 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Most scholars think that this passage of Aris- 
 tides' Apology was borrowed from a symbol of 
 faith used in the Churches of Achaia ; some even 
 have attempted to restore its primitive formula 
 by means of the whole text; all agree on assigning 
 a prominent part to the article that refers to the 
 supernatural conception of Christ through the 
 action of the Holy Ghost.* 
 
 After Aristides, another philosopher, who was 
 born in Palestine, took up also the defence of 
 Christianity; he addressed his work to the Em- 
 peror Antoninus Pius (138-161) ; and this super- 
 scription enables us to date St. Justin's First 
 Apology from the middle of the 2d century. 
 
 After enlarging upon the argument ad homi- 
 nem, which amounts to telling the Greeks that 
 they ought not to take exception to some Chris- 
 tian doctrines, since their own theogonies present 
 features that are similar to those of the Christian 
 system, he adds: "If we even affirm that He 
 
 ♦ The following is the restoration proposed by R. Har- 
 ris, p. 25 ; "We believe in one God, Almighty Maker of 
 Heaven and Earth : and in Jesus Christ His Son — Born 
 of the Virgin Mary: — He was pierced by the Jews : He died 
 and was buried : the third day He rose again : He ascended 
 into Heaven ; — He is about to come to judge." 
 
 Another attempt of the same kind may be seen in 
 Resch, Kindlieitsevangelium, p. 295. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 57 
 
 was born of a Virgin, accept this in common 
 with what you accept of Perseus." * As a mat- 
 ter of fact, there is an essential difference between 
 the miraculous birth of Jesus and the legend about 
 the origin of the Greek heroes. The former was 
 foretold many ages before by the Hebrew Proph- 
 ets, especially by Isaias ; as to the fabulous stories 
 of poets, given out to children in schools, without 
 any reason in their support, they arise from the 
 skill of the demons who are bent on drawing 
 mankind into error. As they knew beforehand, 
 from the Prophetical writings, that Christ was to 
 be born of a Virgin, they devised a story, that of 
 Perseus, so as to decrease the reasonableness of 
 the true prophecy : in that attempt at falsification, 
 however, they have poorly succeeded, f 
 
 Whatever may be the value of this explanation, 
 we have quoted this passage of St. Justin not for 
 its own sake, but simply because it proves that the 
 belief in Christ's Virgin-Birth had gone beyond 
 the narrow limits of the Church's circle, since it 
 had to be defended against attacks from the out- 
 side. 
 
 Yet, it is chiefly in the Dialogue zvith the Jew 
 Trypho that the Christian polemic dwells on the 
 
 */ Apol., 22. 
 
 ^ Ibid. J 21-22; cf. 54. 
 
58 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 dogma of the Virgin-Mother. That insistency 
 was needed in Palestine, for that country had 
 witnessed the rise of the Judaizing sects, which on 
 that topic gave the he to the orthodox creed. 
 After recalhng the prophecy of Isaias (7 ^*), St. 
 Justin remarks that Christ is the only descendant 
 of Abraham that has ever been maintained to 
 have been born of a Virgin ; * and as the Greek 
 scholars of the time, whether Jews or Judaeo- 
 Christians, did not read in the version napdivoq 
 (virgin), but vsav:? (maiden), and understood 
 of King Ezekias the whole passage, the Apol- 
 ogist promises to give a demonstration on this 
 point,t a promise which he actually fulfills a 
 few lines below.| Trypho objects that the Jews 
 expect a Christ who will be only a mere man, and 
 who will be born of men.§ Justin applies himself 
 to prove directly that the prophecy of Isaias refers 
 only to Christ,! I and in this connection draws a 
 graceful parallel between Eve and Mary. The 
 former, having conceived the word of the ser- 
 pent when she was still a virgin and undefiled 
 (a^ffopo?), brought forth disobedience and death; 
 
 *Dial., 43. ^ 
 
 fibid., 43. 
 t Ibid., 66-67. 
 § Ibid., 49. 
 II Ibid., 66, 84. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 59 
 
 on the other hand, the latter received faith and joy 
 when the Angel Gabriel brought her the good tid- 
 ings that the Spirit of the Lord would come down 
 upon her, and that the power of the Most High 
 would overshadow her ; then "she answered : 
 'Be it done unto me, according to thy word.' 
 And by her has He been born of whom so many 
 Scriptures affirm that He conquered the ser- 
 pent." * As Trypho taunted the Christians for 
 reproducing the ridiculous stories of the Greeks, 
 especially that of Perseus, who was represented 
 as the offspring of the virgin Danse and of Jupiter, 
 St. Justin comes back to the theory of the falsi- 
 fication of the divine mysteries attempted by the 
 demons, t 
 
 We come now to the passage of the Dialogue 
 to which modern critics have paid a most special 
 attention. We shall give it almost entire. "Now 
 assuredly [the proof] that this man is the Christ 
 of God does not fail, though I be unable to prove 
 that He existed formerly as Son of the Maker of 
 all things, being God, and was born a man by 
 the (or 3.) Virgin. . . . For there are some, 
 
 my friends, amongst us (rtv^? ctto rod rjfieripou 
 
 *Ibid., 100; cf. also 113, 120, 127, for incidental references 
 to the same subject. 
 fibid., 67. 
 
6o The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 yivouq) who admit that He is Christ, whilst 
 holding- Him to be a man born of men ; * 
 with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even 
 though most of those who have the same opinions 
 as myself should say so; since we were enjoined 
 
 * Our quotation and translation are from the text of Dom 
 Maranus, reproduced in Migne, P. G., vi, 581. — The learned 
 editor chose the reading r/^erepov yevovc, nosiri generis, 
 thus referring the pronoun to those Christians who were 
 of Jewish origin; i. e., to the Ebionites. In a footnote, he 
 attempts to show that St. Justin uses elsewhere the word 
 yevog in a broad sense, so as to designate not only those 
 of the same race, but also those of the same category. 
 Cf. Dial., 35, 82, and / ApoL, 26. In his History of Dogma, 
 Vol. I, p. 297, n. 3, after comparing the printed editions 
 with the Codex Paris., Harnack thinks we should read 
 vfierepov yh'ov?, generis vestri, thus referring the pronoun 
 to the Jews. However, he also grants that the opponents 
 of the Virgin-Birth, to whom the Apologist alludes, are 
 Judaeo-Christians. — The question is unimportant as to the 
 use we intend now to make of St. Justin's words. What- 
 ever the authentic reading may be, this much is beyond 
 doubt, that toward the middle of the 2d century, very 
 few indeed are those who deny the belief in the Virgin- 
 Birth. At all events, the text of St. Justin does not entitle 
 critics to affirm, as Herzog does in the Revue d'Hist. et de 
 Litter. Relig., 1907, p. 132, that "the Ebionites alone had 
 preserved the teaching received in the genealogical lists." 
 Origen, on this point a far more competent judge than 
 we are, affirms that some Christians who had come from 
 the Gentile world took exception to this dogma. Comm. 
 in Matt., Vol. xvi, 12; Migne, P. G., xiii, 1413. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 6i 
 
 by Christ Himself to put no faith in human doc- 
 trines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed 
 Prophets and taught by Himself," * 
 
 This text shows most explicitly that for St. 
 Justin the Virgin-Birth is not a mere opinion, 
 but a certain and essential article of the Christian 
 faith; that this doctrine is not the conclusion of 
 an argument, nor a teaching necessarily called for 
 by a system, but an assertion, a part of the tradi- 
 tion both of ancient Jews and of Christians; 
 finally, that most Christians, nay, almost all 
 {nXeTazot ) Christians, even in Palestine, hold that 
 belief. True, some {rtvi^) think differently: 
 but their view may be passed by, since they are 
 outside true tradition. f 
 
 St. Irenaeus has been called the earliest theo- 
 logian of the Virgin-Mother, because he has de- 
 scribed, better than any one of his contemporaries, 
 Mary's share in the mystery of the Incarnation of 
 the Word. 
 
 * Dialog., 48. 
 
 t Hence when Fred. C. Conybeare, in the Standard, May 
 II, 1905, translates rivec by many, he strains the meaning of 
 the term. That mistake becomes still more serious when 
 Houtin, La Question Bihlique au XX^»^e Siecle, p. 248, 
 renders the English word many by the French beaucoup. 
 
62 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the summary of the Catholic faith he gives 
 at the beginning of his great work, Against Her- 
 esies, the Virgin-Birth holds its fitting place, 
 between the article regarding the Incarnation in 
 general and that regarding the Savior's Passion.* 
 For Irenseus that point is so important that he 
 does not separate it from his belief in Our Lord's 
 divinity. "But, again," he says, "those who assert 
 that He [Jesus] was a mere man, begotten by 
 Joseph, remain in the bondage of the old dis- 
 obedience and are in a state of death; not having 
 been as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, 
 nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does 
 Himself declare : 'If the Son shall make you free, 
 you shall be free indeed.' But, being ignorant of 
 Him who, being born from the Virgin, is Em- 
 manuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is 
 eternal life."t 
 
 A few lines afterwards, whilst dwelling on the 
 prophecy of Isaias (7"), St. Irenseus manifestly 
 alludes to the fourth Gospel (i^^);J then he 
 
 * I, X, I ; ((icai. Trji' cK Tiap9ivov yivvqciv)), 
 
 t III, xix, I. 
 
 J We shall come back later on to this peculiar reading 
 "qui ex Deo natus est," instead of "qui ex Deo nati sunt." 
 Cf. p. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 63 
 
 adds : "If He were the Son of Joseph, how could 
 He be greater than other men? How could St. 
 Peter have proclaimed Him the Son of the living 
 God ? * Those who hope in a Jesus begotten of 
 Joseph fall under the curse directed against 
 Jechoniah and his seed. As Adam was formed by 
 God from virgin soil, so the Christ was made by 
 God of a Virgin-Mother. "t 
 
 The contrast between Eve and Mary, which 
 had been only outlined by St. Justin, is now taken 
 up and developed in such a way that it becomes 
 a distinctive feature of the teaching of St. Ire- 
 nseus. "Just as, through her disobedience, Eve, 
 being espoused to a man, but still a virgin, brought 
 death to herself and to all mankind; so, also, 
 through her obedience, Mary, who had also a 
 predestined husband, and was also a virgin, 
 brought salvation to herself and to all humanity. 
 . Just as the former was led astray by the 
 word of an angel, so that she fled from God when 
 she had transgressed His word; so did the latter 
 by an angelic communication receive the glad 
 tidings that she should sustain God, being obedient 
 
 * III, xxi, 8. 
 
 t This is a mere summary of a long passage, the whole 
 of which should be read : III, xxi, i-io. 
 
64 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 to His word. And if the former did disobey God, 
 yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God 
 in order that the Virgin Mary might become the 
 advocate of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the 
 human race fell into bondage to death by means 
 of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin." * 
 
 This, then, is the way in which the tradition 
 brought into Gaul from the East set forth, toward 
 the year i8o, the Christian dogma. Nay, even 
 the theological explanations with which it is ac- 
 companied are already traditional; at least, they 
 were current as early as the first half of the 2d 
 century, as may be inferred from their presence 
 in St. Justin. 
 
 That at that time the belief in Christ's Virgin- 
 Birth was already considered a tradition of 
 Apostolic origin necessarily follows from the 
 fact that this belief is recorded in the various 
 formularies of faith that were then current, and 
 that all depend on a common type commonly 
 called the Apostles' Creed.j The formula, "Con- 
 ceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin 
 
 * V, xix, I ; cf . IV, xxiii, where he sums up the first 
 chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. 
 
 t Regarding the origin and history of that Creed, and 
 also regarding its wording in the 2d century, cf. Vacant's 
 Dictionnaire de Thcologie Catholique, vol. I, col. 1660-1680. 
 
History of Dogma of the Virgin-Birth. 65 
 
 Mary," which seems to have prevailed as early as 
 the second half of the 4th century, at least in the 
 West, is merely the legitimate development of 
 another more ancient : "born of the Holy Ghost 
 through the Virgin Mary" ; * or, again: "born of 
 the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary." As 
 far as may be gathered from the writings of the 
 2d century, the primitive formula was probably, 
 "born of the Virgin Mary." Thus reduced to its 
 most simple expression, this article exposes sub- 
 stantially the Christian dogma, which will be later 
 on stated more accurately by means of a few 
 changes, called for by the denials or the wiles of 
 heresy. 
 
 The faith held during the 2d century passes on 
 whole and unquestioned to the following genera- 
 tions. In the midst of the long and momentous 
 turmoil of Arianism, Mary's privilege is left in- 
 tact ; and when, during the 4th century, Helvidius 
 and the "Antidikomarianites"! deny the perpetual 
 virginity of the Mother of God, they never call 
 in doubt the fact that she conceived Christ super- 
 naturally. The Jews themselves then realized 
 that a belief so deeply rooted must be taken into 
 
 *'E/c is used instead of iu, against the Valentinians. 
 t The word is from St. Epiphanius. Cf. SchafFj History 
 of the Christian Church, Vol. Ill, p. 417. 
 
66 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 account, and instead of representing obstinately 
 Jesus as the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary, 
 they chose to look upon Him as an adulterous 
 offspring-. At least, that is the gross slander 
 placed on the lips of a Jew by Celsus, who wrote 
 between the years 177 and 180: a mere insult, 
 says Origen,* which is still more incredible than 
 the early denials. What makes us believe that 
 the introduction of the Jew into the "True Dis- 
 course" is not simply a literary fancy on the part 
 of the author, is that the legend exposed by the 
 Jew is found later on in Jewish writings, par- 
 ticularly in the Talmud, f and in the libel entitled 
 Toledoth Jesu.% 
 
 The coarse tale concocted by the Jews was 
 almost confined to the Ghetto; the opposition of 
 the Judaizers soon disappeared or changed to- 
 
 * Contra Celsum, i, 28, 32-37. After discussing in detail 
 all the assertions of Celsus or of his Jew, Origen adds 
 that such a fancy is more worthy of a buffoon than of 
 a writer who has any sense of self-respect : ToCra pufio\6x<» 
 
 inptnt Ta pjjuara, xai ov anovSa^ovrC iv tjj anayytkia . 
 
 t Cf. Sank., f. 67, i; Schabb., f. 104, 2; Chaghiga Jems.. 
 f. yy, 4; Babyl., f. 4, 2. Dr. Sam. Strauss, Das Lehen Jesu 
 vach jildischen Quellen, p. 214, has quite recently reedited 
 all those slanderous reports. Cf. Laible, Jesus Christus 
 im Talmud; Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash. 
 
 t A work of the 13th century. 
 
Modern Opponents. 67 
 
 gether with the sect itself, so that never, from 
 the middle of the 3d to the end of the i8th cen- 
 tury, do we hear the Virgin-Birth of Our Lord 
 called in question.* 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MODERN OPPONENTS. 
 
 No UNBELIEVERS, down to the Encyclopaedists 
 themselves, did more than to rehash the attacks 
 of Celsus, Porphyry and Julian the Apostate 
 against the authority of the Gospels. These at- 
 tacks amount to affirm that the Evangelists' testi- 
 mony cannot always be received : on many points, 
 they are either deceived or deceivers. Their nar- 
 rative is cut into two parts, as it were: all that 
 tends to reduce Christ to man's level is retained 
 as true ; as to His wonderful deeds, they are sim- 
 ply dismissed as the products of lie or of legend. 
 How arbitrary such a proceeding is and how dam- 
 
 * The history of the early Christian belief in Christ's 
 supernatural conception has been exposed by Swete, The 
 Apostles' Creed, ch. iv; and still more recently by T. 
 Allen Hoben^ The Virgin-Birth, in the American Journal 
 of Theology, July and October, 1902. The definitions of 
 the Church on this point may be read in Denzinger. 
 Enchiridion, nn. 113, 132, 204, 229, 880 (new edit., 1908, nn. 
 19, 143, 256, 282, 993). 
 
68 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 aging to the moral character of the Founder of 
 Christianity, Origen did not fail to point out in 
 his criticism of Celsus.* 
 
 However, Voltaire's witty sarcasms soon 
 proved unable to hold successfully in check rec- 
 ords as venerable as the Gospels. The Deists, 
 who prided themselves on using what they styled 
 the right method in matters of history and phi- 
 losophy, wished to get rid of the supernatural in 
 a far more dignified manner. Their spokesman 
 was first Gottlob Paulus.f The fundamental prin- 
 ciple of his criticism consists in distinguishing, 
 in the Gospel history, the facts themselves from 
 the judgments that are passed on their nature. 
 In the time of Jesus almost all were inclined to 
 look upon any striking occurrence as the result 
 of an unseen and superhuman cause. Both writers 
 and readers believed in the supernatural, that is 
 to say in the immediate intervention of the First 
 Cause; and they thought they could, in this way, 
 reduce to unity all the various phenomena that 
 take place in this world. If we only leave aside 
 
 * Contra Celsum, ii, 33, 2>7- 
 
 t The work of Paulus, which began about the year 1800 
 with some exegetical studies on the Gospels, is summed up 
 in a Life of Jesus, which appeared in 1828, with the sig- 
 nificant title : Lehen Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen 
 Geschichte des Urchristentums. 
 
Modern Opponents. 69 
 
 the appreciations dictated by religious prejudice, 
 we shall get what remains of the true history of 
 Jesus : His merely natural life, such as it actually 
 occurred. 
 
 What became of the Gospel in this exegetical 
 system can be seen in any text-book of Biblical 
 Criticism ; * here we shall recall to our readers' 
 mind but one detail, which pertains to the very 
 heart of the question. It will suffice for our pur- 
 pose to manifest the scantiness and clumsiness of 
 that naturalistic criticism which would keep the 
 Gospels, whilst excluding the Gospel historians 
 themselves. 
 
 In St. Matthew's Gospel, the Angel — who, by 
 the way, was but a fictitious personage — did not 
 mean to tell Joseph that Mary had become preg- 
 nant without man's cooperation, but only that, in 
 spite of her pregnancy, she was to be looked upon 
 as perfectly stainless. The dialogue between 
 Gabriel and Mary, in St. Luke, offered still more 
 resistance to that fanciful exegesis. Hence, in 
 this case, Paulus does away with any half-meas- 
 ure; he boldly introduces into the scene of the 
 Annunciation a third person; the Angel Gabriel 
 is nothing else than a man in full flesh and blood ; 
 
 *Cf. Vigouroux, Les Livres Saints et la Critique Ratio- 
 naliste, 3d edit., Vol. II, p. 436. 
 
70 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Mary was simply deceived ; Elisabeth is suspected 
 to have been the prime mover of the pious plot. 
 Venturini goes still further ; he modestly surmises 
 that the hero of all this intrigue is none but Joseph 
 of Arimathea,* and in order to confirm his con- 
 jecture he fondly relates a trick of opera-comic 
 he has read in the historian Josephus.f Here we 
 are again in presence of the old Jewish slander 
 which we had already met for the first time in 
 Celsus and in the Talmud, 
 
 Protestant theologians, like Olshausen and 
 Hengstenberg, were not slow to point out from 
 the very first to fair-minded Germans the radical 
 defects of Paulus' hypothesis. It was soon real- 
 ized that for any one to attempt to reduce to 
 natural proportions a history constantly thought 
 out and written from a supernatural point of 
 view was not unlike attempting to unsalt the sea. 
 The attack had been so unreasonable that, in- 
 stead of being overthrown, the authority of the 
 Gospel records had been but enhanced by it. 
 
 Then it was that David Frederick Strauss set 
 out to interpret the Bible, including the New 
 
 * In his Natural History of the Great Prophet of Naza- 
 reth. 
 
 ■fAntiq. Jud., XVIII, iii, 4. 
 
Modern Opponents. 71 
 
 Testament, according to the mythological method 
 which had been already applied to the profane 
 history of the nations of old. The title Life of 
 Jesus, he gave to his work (1835) * is not well 
 chosen, for the author is more intent on stating 
 with precision the historical value of the Gospels 
 than on relating the life of Christ. His predeces- 
 sors, in this respect, had done honor to religious 
 feeling. t Afraid, as they were, of putting the 
 Gospels on the same level as other books, they 
 spoke of historical myth, by which was meant 
 the narrative of facts that were real indeed, but 
 colored, as it were, by ancient opinion, which was 
 fond of associating the divine with the human. 
 They admitted, too, the poetical myth — that is, a 
 kind of poem substantially historical, in which, 
 however, the primitive fact is modified, though 
 not altogether done away with, by and under the 
 fancies of a youthful and rich imagination. On 
 the other hand, the same scholars denied that in 
 
 * [Strauss' work has been translated into English by 
 George Eliot. The subsequent references are to the second 
 edition of that translation, London and New York, 1892. — 
 T.] 
 
 t Especially Gabler, Bauer, Schelling, Schleiermacher, 
 de Wette, and the anonymous author of the work on 
 Religion and Mythology (1799). 
 
 7 
 
'J2 The Childhood of Jestis Christ. 
 
 the Gospels there was the myth strictly so called — 
 whether philosophical or religious does not mat- 
 ter — which consists in setting forth an idea or a 
 doctrine under an historical form, and in giving 
 it the turn, as it were, of an actual occurrence, 
 although the narrative, as such, corresponds to 
 nothing real and concrete. Most of those schol- 
 ars spoke of legend rather than of myth, and even 
 then, restricting legendary narratives to the first 
 pages of the Gospels, they appealed almost ex- 
 clusively to them, as an explanation of the origin 
 of Jesus' infancy. 
 
 All those attempts seemed to Strauss as many 
 clumsy compromises; he thought that, after all, 
 they were mere modifications of Paulus' view, 
 since, according to those hypotheses also, the 
 exegete had only to separate the more or less 
 disfigured fact from what popular fancy had 
 added to it. Therefore he will be radical and 
 speak of the Gospel myth, just as others spoke of 
 the Greek myth. He defines it "a narrative re- 
 lating directly or indirectly to Jesus, which may 
 be considered not as the expression of a fact, but 
 as the product of an idea of his earliest follow- 
 ers." * 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 86. Even thus understood, the myth 
 is distinct from the parable. The latter claims to be a 
 
Modern Opponents. 73 
 
 Is the Gospel myth the result of an individual 
 conception or a creation of the popular view? 
 Strauss admits that the tradition recorded in the 
 Gospels formed and developed gradually under 
 that twofold influence; he speaks even of later 
 additions, which must be ascribed to the Evangel- 
 ists themselves and have for their purpose to 
 place the things more vividly before the reader, 
 to give them more connexion and development. 
 However, he confesses that it is no easy task 
 accurately to discriminate between wilful fiction 
 and spontaneous legend. 
 
 As may be seen, Paulus' view is given up; the 
 wonderful character of the Gospel narrative de- 
 pends no longer on the judgment of the contem- 
 poraries, who, we are told by Paulus, attempted to 
 connect the facts with a supernatural cause; for 
 
 fiction, having only a didactic value, the former essentially 
 implies a kind of equivalence between the idea and the 
 fact in which that idea is expressed and moulded, as it 
 were. On one occasion Jesus described by means of a 
 fiction the fate that awaited the unbelieving Synagogue : 
 this is the parable of the gardener and of the barren fig- 
 tree (Luke 13^); some mythologists maintain that popu- 
 lar imagination soon transformed that parable into a 
 fact, the one related in Mark ii i^; according to them, we 
 have here a myth strictly so called. Although their 
 hypothesis has no sufficient grounds, still it serves to illus- 
 trate the difference between a parable and a m3rth. 
 
74 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Strauss, the belief of subsequent generations casts 
 itself back, as it were, into the field of history. 
 Then, too, Strauss admits that here and there 
 we find in the Gospels narratives and features that 
 are not void of reality ; they represent all that 
 has been transmitted to us of the true life of 
 Jesus. 
 
 How can we distinguish these historical data 
 from the mythological fancies with which they 
 are woven up? To this important question the 
 author of the Life of Jesus devotes the last para- 
 graph of his introduction ; and there he sets forth 
 a certain number of rules which he himself felt 
 were lacking in precision. The following is the 
 most striking passage: "Where not merely the 
 particular nature and manner of an occurrence is 
 critically suspicious, its external circumstances 
 represented as miraculous and the like ; but where 
 likewise the essential substance and groundwork 
 is either inconceivable in itself, or is in striking 
 harmony with some Messianic idea of the Jews of 
 that age, then not the particular alleged course 
 and mode of the transaction only, but the entire 
 occurrence must be regarded as unhistorical. 
 Where, on the contrary, the form only, and not 
 the general contents of the narration, exhibits the 
 characteristics of the unhistorical, it is at least 
 
Modern Opponents. 75 
 
 possible to suppose a kernel of historical fact; 
 although we can never confidently decide whether 
 this kernel of fact actually exists, or in what it 
 consists; unless, indeed, it be discoverable from 
 other sources." * 
 
 Before this system of interpretation is minutely 
 applied to the New Testament, a most momentous 
 difficulty has to be removed. That difficulty comes 
 from the fact that, at the time of Jesus, the 
 mythical ages had long ceased to exist; men 
 moved and deeds were accomplished in the full 
 light of history; Jewish literature is rather con- 
 siderable; that of the Christians reckons, in less 
 than fifty years, twenty-six books which are said 
 to have been written by contemporaries. "It 
 would be," says Strauss, "most unquestionably 
 an argument of decisive weight in favor of the 
 credibility of the biblical history, could it indeed be 
 shown that it was written by eye-witnesses, or 
 even by persons nearly contemporaneous with the 
 events narrated."! Hence the followers of the 
 mythical theory profited most gladly by the cur- 
 rent of thought which was started at that time by 
 a Tubingen scholar, Christian Baur, who assigned 
 
 * Life of Jesus^ p. 91. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 69. 
 
y^ The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 to a late period the composition of the Gos- 
 pels. Another circumstance which, according to 
 Strauss, could be put to the best account, comes 
 from the nature of the Messianic myth itself. In 
 his eyes, that myth existed already in the first 
 century of our era, and the only thing that re- 
 mained to be done was to apply it to Jesus of 
 Nazareth. Under the influence of an exegesis, 
 erroneous according to Strauss, although common 
 among the Jews, the best part of the Old Testa- 
 ment was applied to the Messias that was to come. 
 This is the chief source of the Messianic legend 
 which is manifest in popular views. 
 
 "The Messiah was to come of the race of 
 David, and as a second David take possession of 
 his throne; and therefore in the time of Jesus it 
 was expected that He, like David, should be born 
 in the little village of Bethlehem. ... In 
 general, the whole Messianic era was expected to 
 be full of signs and wonders. The eyes of the 
 blind should be opened, the ears of the deaf should 
 be unclosed, the lame should leap, and the tongue 
 of the dumb praise God (Isaiah 35 ^ ; cf. 42 ^; 
 32^'*). These merely figurative expressions 
 soon came to be understood literally (Matt. 
 II ^; Luke 7 ^^) ; and thus the idea of the Mes- 
 siah was continually filled up with new details. 
 
Modern Opponents. yy 
 
 even before the appearance of Jesus. Thus 
 many of the legends respecting Him had not to 
 be newly invented; they already existed in the 
 popular hope of the Messiah, having been mostly 
 derived with various modifications from the Old 
 Testament, and had merely to be transferred to 
 Jesus, and accommodated to His character and 
 doctrines. In no case could it be easier for the 
 person who first added any new feature to the 
 description of Jesus to believe himself its genuine- 
 ness, since his argument would be : Such and such 
 things must have happened to the Messiah; Jesus 
 was the Messiah; therefore such and such things 
 happened to Him." * 
 
 These are the broad outlines of the mythical 
 system proposed by Strauss; now we may see 
 how he applies it to the Gospel records that per- 
 tain to the infancy of Jesus.f 
 
 The Precursor's miraculous birth is a mere re- 
 production of those narratives of the Old Testa- 
 ment referring to barren couples which in spite 
 of their advanced age became fecund because of 
 a special divine blessing. John the Baptist is one 
 more late child, such as were Isaac, Samson, and 
 Samuel. The whole narrative in St. Luke was 
 
 * Life of Jesus, pp. 83-84. 
 t Life of Jesus, pp. 93-205. 
 
y8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 composed by a Judaizing Christian when there 
 were still some disciples who clung to John alone ; 
 the author's purpose is to draw them to Chris- 
 tianity by representing their Master as the great- 
 est of all Prophets sent by God to prepare the 
 way for the Messias. The only certain historical 
 fact is merely this : By his authority and preach- 
 ing, John made so powerful an impression that 
 subsequently Christian legend was led to glorify 
 his birth and to associate it with that of Jesus. 
 The genealogies given in the first and in the 
 third Gospel are unhistorical : both were devised 
 in order that the title of Son of David, commonly 
 given to the Messias in Jewish literature, might be 
 legally claimed in behalf of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 The birth of several illustrious men of the Old 
 Testament had been announced beforehand by a 
 heavenly apparition; could less be done for the 
 Messias? . . . and here it was that Chris- 
 tians remembered that, according to Isaias, the 
 Emmanuel was to be born of a Virgin. The 
 whole narrative of Matthew and Luke was built 
 up from this point of view. However, Strauss 
 remarks, that hypothesis cannot be held, for "Plu- 
 tark's remark : 'Never has a woman been reported 
 to have begotten without man's help,' and Cerin- 
 thus' impossible become applicable." 
 
Modern Opponents. 79 
 
 Our author knows well that some scholars have 
 accumulated examples of virginal birth, taken 
 from Grseco-Roman mythology : Hercules, Castor 
 and Pollux, Romulus, Alexander, above all 
 Pythagoras and Plato, were looked upon as born 
 of a god and of a mortal mother. Although his 
 view needs all the support it can get, Strauss at- 
 taches little value to these analogies, for he is 
 fully conscious of the essential differences that 
 are to be found between the Judseo-Christian re- 
 ligion and Heathenism. 
 
 St. Luke takes Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, 
 merely to be able to invoke in behalf of Jesus the 
 prophecy of Michseas (5 ^). "Thus we have here 
 neither a fixed point for the date of the birth of 
 Jesus, nor an [historical] explanation of the occa- 
 sion which led to his being born precisely at 
 Bethlehem. If then — it may justly be said — no 
 other reason why Jesus should have been born at 
 Bethlehem can be adduced than that given by 
 Luke, we have absolutely no guarantee that Beth- 
 lehem was his birthplace." * 
 
 "The x^ngels did not appear to the Scribes and 
 Pharisees of Jerusalem, who were full of all 
 malice, but to the shepherds, in the fields, on 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 156. 
 
8o The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 account of their simplicity and innocence, and be- 
 cause they by their mode of Hfe were the suc- 
 cessors of the patriarchs. It was in the field by 
 the flocks that Moses was visited by a heavenly 
 apparition; and God took David, the forefather 
 of the Messiah, from his sheepfolds (at Beth- 
 lehem) to be the shepherd of his people." (Psalm 
 78 ^^)* 
 
 The story of the Magi, related by Matthew, is 
 only an equivalent for that of the shepherds, told 
 by St. Luke. In these two stories we have two 
 ways of introducing the Messianic child : one has 
 for its purpose to announce the birth of Jesus to 
 the neighborhood, the other to announce it to far- 
 distant countries. Besides, neither of these two 
 narratives is historical at all. When announcing 
 that a star was to rise out of Jacob, Balaam's 
 prophecy did not refer to a genuine star ; it merely 
 compared to a star the expected prince; but be- 
 cause of the growing belief in astrology, the 
 passage soon came to be literally understood. 
 Hence the birth of Jesus must have been an- 
 nounced by a star; and who could have observed 
 the phenomenon better than professional astrol- 
 
 *Ibid., p. 160. [It may be observed that the first part 
 of this quotation is a quotation, though distorted, from 
 Theophylactus. — ^T.] 
 
Modern Opponents. 8i 
 
 ogers, of whom the East was the classical home ! 
 The gifts which we are told were made by the 
 Magi, were suggested by the text of Isaias 
 (60 ''•«). 
 
 "To represent a murderous decree as having 
 been directed by Herod against Jesus, was the 
 interest of the primitive Christian legend. In all 
 times, legend has glorified the infancy of great 
 men by persecutions and attempts on their life." * 
 Again, the murders committed by the hateful 
 Idumsean even in his family gave an appearance 
 of probability to the part assigned to him in the 
 Bethlehem massacre. As to the choice of Egypt, 
 as a place of refuge for Jesus, we can easily ac- 
 count for it : because owing to its proximity, that 
 country was the most convenient asylum for any 
 one fleeing from Judsea. And then was not the 
 Messias to be brought back from Egypt, accord- 
 ing to Osee's prophecy (11 ^) ? 
 
 The circumcision and the presentation in the 
 Temple are performed in fulfilment of the 
 Mosaic Law. Influenced by the same predomi- 
 nant thought, St. Paul also wrote that Christ was 
 "born under the law" (Gal. 4 *) . As to the Canti- 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 175. Strauss instances Cyrus (Herod- 
 otus, i, 108) ; Romulus (Livy, i, 4) ; Augustus (Suet., 
 Octav., 94) ; Moses (Exod., i). 
 
82 The Childhood of Jestis Christ. 
 
 cles found in St. Luke, they remind us of those 
 of the Old Testament : for instance, of the Canti- 
 cle of the mother of Samuel ; they are hymns bor- 
 rowed from the earliest liturgy of the Christian 
 communities. The ending of Matthew's narrative 
 is intended to shield Jesus, as it were, from the 
 popular prejudice that "nothing good can come 
 out of Nazareth." The scene of Jesus in the 
 Temple and in the midst of the Doctors is not 
 without precedents in the Old Testament. Wit- 
 ness Samuel's precocious wisdom and prophetical 
 utterances, or what the historian Josephus relates 
 of himself, even though his was but an ordinary 
 talent. * 
 
 The reader who has followed that exposition 
 of mythological exegesis applied to the Gospels, 
 surely thinks that its upholders are resigned to 
 give up Christianity altogether. Against such a 
 conclusion Strauss raises a protest. "The author," 
 he writes, "is aware that the essence of the Chris- 
 tian faith is perfectly independent of his crit- 
 icism. The supernatural birth of Christ, his 
 miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain 
 eternal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on 
 their reality as historical facts. The certainty of 
 
 See his Autobiography, II. 
 
Modern Opponents. 83 
 
 this can alone give calmness and dignity to our 
 criticism, and distinguish it from the naturalistic 
 criticism of the last century, the design of which 
 was, with the historical fact, to subvert also the 
 religious truth, and which thus necessarily became 
 frivolous." * Here again, Strauss is the ancestor 
 of those Hegelian critics who in our days, leave 
 to philosophy and fiction the task to rebuild what 
 they themselves have overthrown in the name of 
 history, t 
 
 We have exposed with some length Strauss' 
 mythical system, because the unbelieving critics 
 who came after him added to it nothing really 
 essential. Nowadays, it is true, some speak of re- 
 ligious idealization of history, instead of myth; 
 but after all, the result is the same, vis., to deny 
 all historical value to the narratives that refer to 
 the childhood of Jesus, at least in as far as they 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 30. 
 
 t "The charm of these Nativity stories does not depend 
 on their historical truth, but on their inner significance. 
 . . . Since all these ideas are true and remain true, we 
 are not obliged to call these narratives false, even though 
 historically speaking they are not in keeping with reality." 
 O. HoLTZMANN, Lebcti Jesu, p. 68. 
 
84 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 bear a supernatural character. But contemporary 
 critics are afraid to appear to be led by prejudices 
 of a doctrinal kind, as in the time of Paulus and 
 Strauss : this is why they pretend to abide by the 
 study of the texts alone. 
 
 On the other hand, and precisely for that 
 reason, their task is more difficult than some fifty 
 years ago, owing to the recent reverse of senti- 
 ment in behalf of the traditional dates, as regards 
 the composition of the Gospels, How can we 
 explain that within so few years the Christian 
 legend came to be formed, and especially suc- 
 ceeded in being accepted? Renan who depends 
 on Strauss to a large extent, although he is not 
 unwilling now and then to borrow from Paulus, 
 thought that the working out of which the "ideal 
 legend" originated, took place during the thirty 
 or twenty years which followed immediately the 
 death of Jesus. Even, he adds, during His life- 
 time, some may have begun to ask themselves if 
 He was not born of a Virgin; at all events, those 
 who looked upon Him as the Messias must have 
 held for certain, even then, that He was born at 
 Bethlehem. * 
 
 * Life of Jesus (transl. by Charles E. Wilbour, New 
 York, 1881), pp. 40, 218. 
 
Modern Opponents. 85 
 
 These conjectures have since appeared more 
 worthy of a novehst than of a critic. It is to the 
 texts themselves, to their history and contents, 
 that scholars nowadays have recourse, there to 
 seek for the means of gainsaying the truth of 
 the narratives which those texts contain. What 
 processes they use for that purpose, we shall tell 
 our readers; for the time being, our only aim 
 will be to grasp and set forth accurately the view 
 of our adversaries. 
 
 According to Professor P. W. Schmiedel, most 
 probably no mention of the supernatural concep- 
 tion was made in the primitive writing, of which 
 the author of the first Gospel made use in com- 
 posing his first chapters. This document-source 
 began certainly with the genealogy (Matt, i ^'"), 
 which was joined immediately with the subject- 
 matter of the second chapter; and it is precisely 
 to weld more closely the section about the vir- 
 ginal conception (i ^^"") with a genealogy which 
 set forth Joseph as the father of Jesus, that Matt. 
 I ^^ came later on to be gradually modified. The 
 earliest reading of that verse was probably: 
 "Jacob begot Joseph and Joseph begot Jesus"; 
 but the actual reading, now commonly received, 
 "Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of 
 whom was born Jesus" was adopted, after passing 
 
86 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 through an intermediary reading "J^-c^^^ begot 
 Joseph and Joseph, to whom the Virgin Mary- 
 was espoused, begot Jesus." This last reading, 
 moreover, is attested by the Syriac version re- 
 cently found at Sinai. * 
 
 The text of the third Gospel is still more em- 
 barrassing, because of the detailed precision of 
 the message brought to Mary by the Angel 
 Gabriel. Hamack has at last succeeded in get- 
 ting the better of it, by making use of a process 
 which has not even the merit of novelty: as he 
 cannot unravel the Gordian knot, he simply cuts 
 it.f Luke probably borrowed from Matthew 
 (i ^^'^^) the idea of the supernatural conception, 
 which he introduced, by means of i ^*' ^^, into the 
 
 * Encyclopedia Biblica, Vol. Ill, Col. 2962. 
 
 t Zu Luc I 3* in the Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wusen- 
 schaft, 1901, p. S3 ; Hillmann and Schmiedel admit also 
 that insertion, which Conybeare calls "a pious fraud." On 
 the contrary, A. Hilgenfeld, Die Geburts und Kindheits- 
 Geschichte Jesu, refutes Harnack's arguments in the 
 Zeitschrift fiir wissetisch. Thcologie, 1901, pp. 184, 222; cf. 
 313-317- J- Haecke, Die Jungfrauen-Geburt und das N. T., 
 has recently taken up the whole question in the same re- 
 view, 1906, pp. 18-26. — In Loisy's eyes, Harnack has raised 
 rather than answered the question. Revue d'Hist. et de 
 Litter, relig., 1903, p. 292. Likewise H. Gunkel, Zum re- 
 ligions-geschicht. Verstdndnis des N. T., sees no reason 
 why Luke i 3*. 35 should be deemed an interpolation. 
 
Modern Opponents. 87 
 
 Jiidaeo-Christian document he was using. Ac- 
 cording to Harnack, the insertion of these two 
 verses seems to be the work of St. Luke himself ; 
 other critics, however, prefer to see in it the work 
 of a reviser who came after the EvangeHst : they 
 claim to have found witnesses of the primitive 
 reading of the text. Before the 3d century, the fol- 
 lowers of a certain Theodotus quoted Luke (i ^^) 
 against the belief in Christ's supernatural concep- 
 tion, and this fact cannot be reconciled with the 
 hypothesis of the actual reading which favors 
 manifestly that belief. Now a MS. of the oldest 
 Latin translation of the Gospels, instead of the 
 words "How shall this be since I know not man?" 
 has the words that are read in verse 38 "Behold, 
 the handmaid of the Lord : be it done to me ac- 
 cording to thy word." * 
 
 This addition necessarily called for another; 
 i. €., the incidental phrase, (3 ^*) "Being, as was 
 supposed, the son of Joseph." Hence, according 
 to these critics, the primitive document used by 
 St. Luke set forth Jesus merely as invested with 
 the Messianic calling, even when still in His 
 Mother's womb, just as John had been invested 
 with his calling of Precursor. H. Holtzmann 
 goes even farther : in his eyes, two documents may 
 
 ♦Cf. CoNYBEARE, in the Standard, May 11, 1905. 
 
88 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 be distinguished in the third Gospel: (2^^'") — 
 the circumcision, the presentation and Jesus in the 
 midst of the doctors — would be of Ebionite ori- 
 gin; whilst the first part, (i and 2 ^"^°) — the an- 
 nunciation both of Jesus and of John, the nativity 
 — is inspired mostly by the idea of the super- 
 natural conception. Luke then idealized an Ebion- 
 ite narrative.* 
 
 As a result of these additions and corrections, 
 several incoherencies necessarily crept into the 
 actual text of the Gospels, Even though these 
 Gospels teach explicitly the Virgin-Birth, yet all 
 the personages who appear in the Gospel narra- 
 tive, even Mary, speak and act as if Jesus was 
 
 * Cf. Hand-Comm. sum N. T., Die Synoptiker, pp. 37-44. 
 
 P. W. Schmiedel also admits that the first two chapters 
 of Luke lack unity, and holds as probable that the second 
 is older than the first; we may even suppose, he adds, 
 that at the beginning neither Matthew nor Luke had the 
 Gospel of the Infancy, and both, like Mark, took up their 
 narrative with John's baptism. The discourses of Peter pre- 
 served in the Acts (i 22, 10 37) would make it quite sure that 
 the Apostolic Catechesis began with the preaching of John 
 the Baptist. Strauss (p. 95) had already brought to task 
 the Rationalists of his time for denying the authenticity of 
 those texts, so as to get rid more easily of their contents. 
 
 According to Wellhausen, Das Evangel. Lucae uhersetzt 
 und erkldrt, 1904, the virginal conception is not mentioned 
 at all in the second chapter of the third Gospel, and came 
 into the first chapter by way of addition. 
 
Modern Opponents. 89 
 
 the son of Joseph, the carpenter. His brethren, 
 nay His Mother first do not beHeve in Him: an 
 attitude which cannot be accounted for, had His 
 infancy been accompanied with all the wonders 
 actually recorded. That conviction endured so 
 long that it inspired an apocryphal writing of the 
 end of the 2d century,* in which the Apostle 
 Thomas is represented as the twin-brother of 
 Jesus. The Gospel of Nicodemus, or in other 
 words the Acts of Pilate, seems to have been 
 written from the same point of view. The judges 
 of Jesus taunt Him for being bom of adultery; 
 and the author merely repels the charge, by saying 
 that Joseph and Mary were joined in legitimate 
 wedlock. 
 
 Loisy thinks that this is to handle the texts in 
 a most arbitrary fashion, and looks upon Har- 
 nack's arguments as too weak to warrant his con- 
 clusions. Personally he will not deny the literary 
 unity of the narratives Luke and Matthew have 
 left us, regarding the Infancy and particularly 
 regarding the Virgin-Birth. The Evangelists 
 pictured to themselves the things just as we do 
 now; they believed that Jesus had been super- 
 naturally conceived, because this was already the 
 
 * Acts of Judas-Thomas. 
 
90 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 faith of the Church * This dogma, Herzog- adds, 
 had made its appearance in Christian conscious- 
 ness, about the year 80 : and the Gospels, in which 
 it is recorded, date from the end of the first cen- 
 tury, f 
 
 Then too, neither the literary unity of the nar- 
 rative, nor its tone of sincerity allows us to infer 
 the historical reality of the events, as is plainly 
 stated by Loisy in these words : "The narratives 
 of the childhood of Christ are for the historian 
 only an expression and an assertion of faith in 
 the Messiah, that faith which is affirmed at the 
 beginning of the Gospel of Mark, and transfig- 
 ured the memories of the Apostles, which is also 
 affirmed and developed in Paul, and then in the 
 fourth Gospel. This faith is, as it were, the 
 reply made by the generations of believers in suc- 
 cession, to the proposition of the Gospel of Jesus ; 
 it increases, yet remains the same, like an echo 
 which, reverberating from mountain to mountain, 
 becomes more sonorous the further it travels from 
 its point of origin." j 
 
 * Revue d'Hist. et de Litter, relig., 1903, pp. 290-292. 
 
 t Ibid., 1907, p. 121. 
 
 tThe Gospel of the Church (English translation), p. 50. 
 This is also the stand taken by Gunkel, Zurn religions- 
 geschichtlichen Verstdndnis des N. T. (1903), p. 69. The 
 
Modern Opponents. 91 
 
 Is the tradition recorded in the first Gospel 
 anterior to that recorded in the third? Did the 
 belief in Christ's supernatural conception orig- 
 inate in Hellenic surroundings rather than in 
 Jndaeo-Christian communities ? These two points, 
 which are somewhat related, are disputed.* In 
 
 question has already been treated from the same point of 
 view and on the whole with similar conclusions by P. 
 LoBSTEiN, Die Lehre von der iibeniatiirl. Geburt Christi, 
 published originally in French in the Revue de Thiol, et de 
 Phil. (1890), p. 205, and recently translated into English 
 under the title The Virgin Birth of Christ, 1903. This is 
 perhaps the most complete work ever written on that sub- 
 ject. Since then Hillmann, Die Kindheitsg. Jcsu nach 
 Luk., 1891 ; and Soltau, Die Gehurtsgeschichte Jesu Christi, 
 1902, have also appeared. 
 
 *The dogma of the Virgin-Birth is rather of Hellenic 
 origin, according to Hillmann, op. cit., p. 231 ; H. Holtz- 
 MANN, Lehrbuch der Neutestam. Theologie, 1897, Vol. I, 
 p. 414; UsENER, Religionsgesch. Untersuchungen, 1889, p. 
 69, and in Cheyne's Encyclopctdia Biblica, col. 3350; 
 ScHMiEDEL, ibid., col. 2963; B. Weiss, The Life of Christ, 
 (English transl), Vol. I, p. 229. H. Gunkel, op. cit., pp. 
 36, 63, 70, would admit rather a Babylonian origin, whilst 
 he insists at the same time on the tendency of Judseo- 
 Christian surroundings to welcome that idea : a view which 
 appeals to T. K. Cheyne in his Bible Problems; in fine, 
 judging from the Revue d'Hist. et de Litter, relig., 1903, 
 p. 292, A. LoiSY favors the Hellenic origin. 
 
 On the contrary, A. Harnack, H. of Dogma, Vol. I, p. 
 105, cf. p. 100, and P. LoBSTEiN, op. cit., pp. y^, seq., main- 
 tain that the belief arose in Judaeo-Christian surroundings, 
 and is based above all on Isaias 7 1*. 
 
92 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 this conjuncture, textual criticism calls for the 
 help of higher criticism; i. e., of that criticism 
 which is bent on determining with accuracy the 
 sense and bearing of the contents of the texts. De- 
 pending on the comparative study of the Gospels, 
 and, in general, of the New Testament, the schol- 
 ars of whom we are speaking, feel justified in 
 drawing the following conclusions of which I 
 borrow the summary from Otto Pfleiderer *, be- 
 cause I think it expresses quite accurately the 
 views that are now current among liberal 
 critics. 
 
 (a) The oldest belief was that the man Jesus 
 had been raised through adoption to the dignity 
 of Son of God. Christians first thought that this 
 Sonship had begun with the resurrection; this is 
 the Christology which betrays itself in the dis- 
 courses of Apostles recorded in the first chapters 
 of the Acts and in the earliest writings of St. 
 Paul.f Later on, Christ's divine investiture was 
 referred to the day of His baptism, and the Chris- 
 tians of that time meant to convey this thought 
 through the descent of the Holy Ghost in the 
 
 * The Early Christian Conception of Christ (English 
 transl.), 1903, pp. 16 and ff. ; cf. Loisy, The Gospel and the 
 Church, pp. 48-49. 
 
 t Acts 2 30-36, 5 30-31^ 13 33 ; Rotmns, I 4, 
 
Modern Opponents. 93 
 
 shape of a dove, and through the voice from 
 Heaven which authoritatively presents Jesus as 
 God's beloved Son. The Gospel of Mark does 
 not go beyond this second step of the primitive 
 idea. The doctrine of a God who saves the world 
 through His Chosen One, His Lieutenant, His 
 Christ, His Son, is borrowed from Jewish Mes- 
 sianism; and the latter itself was a mere expres- 
 sion of the theocratic idea which pervades all the 
 Old Testament.* 
 
 (b) Over against this view and in a par- 
 allel direction, as it were, there arose gradually 
 another view in the earliest Ethnico-Christian 
 communities ; it was spread in their midst by Paul 
 of Tarsus, who had brought over its elements 
 from the rabbinical schools of Palestine. He 
 acknowledges in Jesus of Nazareth the presence 
 of a spiritual and personal being, which existed 
 in Heaven before He became man. The Apostle 
 does not yet look upon Him as God, but he sees 
 in Him the first-begotten of the Father, (His 
 image, His own Son), the human ideal: a second 
 Adam, who came down from Heaven, instead of 
 being taken from the earth, as the first Adam was. 
 He appeared in the flesh, to deliver us from sin, 
 
 *// Kings 7^^; Ps. 131 ^i; Psalms of Solomon. 
 
94 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 from the Law and from death. That idea, to 
 which a few new additions are made both in the 
 Epistle to the Colossians and in that to the He- 
 brews, reaches its full development in the fourth 
 Gospel, where under the influence of Judgeo- Alex- 
 andrian theosophy the Messias becomes nothing 
 short of a divine Being incarnate. Besides, the 
 doctrine of Christ's preexistence does not at all 
 consider the human origin of Jesus. Nowhere is 
 He exhibited by St. Paul and St. John as the Son 
 of a Virgin; nay, there are details that positively 
 enable us to think that not a few believed that He 
 belonged to the race of David, according to the 
 ordinary laws of natural descendance. 
 
 (c) Later on, during the 2d century, there was 
 a synthesis of these two views. H Christ was the 
 Son of God before He was Man, why seek for 
 Him a man as His father? The doctrine of the 
 Virgin-Birth became the popular formula used 
 by Christians to affirm His altogether divine 
 origin. Jesus is surely the Son of God, no longer 
 in a moral sense, nor simply because of His meta- 
 physical being; He becomes so, even from a 
 physical point of view, because His human gen- 
 eration is the work of the Holy Ghost.* Accord- 
 
 * Cf. A. LoiSY, The Gospel and the Church, p. 49. 
 
Modern Opponents. 95 
 
 ing to Holtzmann*, in this particular case the 
 blending of these two views was unskilfully made : 
 men tried to combine things that are incom- 
 patible. The synthesis apparently took place and 
 was actually received in Ethnico-Christian sur- 
 roundings, although it was prepared by Jewish 
 writings, like the Book of Enoch and the Apoca- 
 lypse of Esdras. At all events, these scholars 
 add, the belief in the Virgin-Birth closely de- 
 pends on Greek Mythology, as well as on the 
 religious literature of the Jews ; whilst it profited 
 by the rabbinical speculations about the preexist- 
 ence of the Messias, and perhaps too by a cur- 
 rent exegesis which applied Isaias, 7 ^*, to the 
 Messias, it is also indebted, and greatly indebted, 
 to the tradition of the Greeks who were wont to 
 deify their great men and to ascribe to their heroes 
 divine ancestry. 
 
 For Herzog this solution is altogether too 
 complex. His solution can rightly claim to be, 
 if not original, at least simple and radical. y 
 
 * Lehrhuch der N. T. Theologie, 1897, Vol. I, pp. 415, 
 376, 381 ; Vol. 11, p. 458. 
 
 t Those who may have read H. Holtzmann, op. cit., pp. 
 409-415, and SoLTAu, Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu Christi, 
 1902, will easily acknowledge that Herzog's thesis has not 
 even the merit of novelty. 
 
g6 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 These are its fundamental points. The Hebrew 
 mind was adverse to the idea of virginal concep- 
 tion, and, as a matter of fact, that idea was never 
 a part of the Messianic idea of the Jewish people, 
 either in the prophetic or the apocalyptic school. 
 "We can unhesitatingly affirm that this belief was 
 not the work of the Judaeo-Christian Church. 
 . . . It was the product of the Hellenic mind. 
 When the Christians of Gentile birth were told 
 that Jesus was both the Messias and the Son of 
 God, they did not receive these two notions ex- 
 actly in the same manner. . . . True, the 
 faithful became soon accustomed to call Jesus, 
 Christ — which is the Greek translation of the 
 Hebrew term, Messiah — but that word remained 
 for them a mysterious and sealed formula. Such 
 was not the case with the title, Son of God. On 
 this subject the Christians who were born in 
 Heathenism gave free scope to their imagination. 
 On hearing that Jesus, the Savior of the World, 
 was also the Son of God, those men who had been 
 brought up, from their infancy, in the legends of 
 Paganism, could not but recall the poetic narra- 
 tives with which their souls had been filled. Son 
 of God! But Greece and Rome had possessed 
 several of them. All those who had surpassed 
 their fellowmen by their strength and power and 
 
Modern Opponents. gy 
 
 genius, had they not surpassed them in their birth 
 also? Leaving aside the warriors of the heroic 
 ages, was it not a common report that Pythagoras, 
 Plato, Scipio, Augustus had had a god for their 
 father?" * 
 
 Evidently mythologists nowadays are not so 
 scrupulous as Strauss : with the view to increase 
 the number of men who were said to have been 
 born of a woman and of a god,t they have not 
 only dived carefully into all the classical authors, 
 they have also consulted the literature of the Far 
 East. It is especially in the Buddhistic books that 
 some scholars claim to have found a certain num- 
 ber of specified and unquestionable cases of 
 virgin-birth. Quite recently Albert Edmunds 
 has published a book on this topic :| in his eyes 
 the Christian dogma was borrowed from some 
 
 * La Conception Virginale du Christ, in the Revue d'Hist. 
 et de Litter. Relig., 1907, pp. 121-123. Besides the author 
 admits that Christians later on appealed to the text of 
 Isaias 7 1*, which they misunderstood. 
 
 tCf. P. RoHRBACH, Geboren von der J ungf rati, .iS^. 
 
 t Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Tokj o, 1905. 
 
 On the same subject our readers may be referred to 
 Seydel, Evangelium von Jesu, 1882; Buddhalegende, 1884; 
 Das dlteste Evangelium, 1897. W. Bousset, Theolog. Rund- 
 schau, Feb. 1899, has shown the "partial and even out- 
 landish" character of those publications. 
 
98 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Eastern religion; and, probably, the Buddhistic 
 legend of Queen Maya, who saw in a dream 
 Buddha entering her womb in the shape of a 
 white elephant, there to become incarnate, is at 
 the basis of Luke's narrative. Finally, the author 
 is inclined to appeal rather to Persia, as it seems 
 that the Avesta is exceptionally rich on the sub- 
 ject of virgin-mothers. 
 
 Besides, an Anglican Canon of Rochester, Pro- 
 fessor T. K. Cheyne, aimed in a sensational book, 
 at diffusing among the public at large the radical 
 conclusions of the German critical school against 
 the historical authority of the Gospel of the In- 
 fancy.* At the same time, another Oxford 
 scholar, Fred. Conybeare, sent to The Standard 
 a most bitter denunciation of the traditional senti- 
 ment regarding Christ's Virgin-Birth. f How 
 disastrous such examples coming from high places 
 
 * Bible Problems, 1905 ; and with the same tendencies 
 Beeby, Doctrinal Significance of a Miraculous Birth, in 
 the Hibbert Journal, Octob., 1903. A similar attempt to 
 vulgarize in France the same conclusions has been made 
 by GuiGNEBERT^ Manucl d'Hist. Ancienne du Christianisme, 
 Les Origines, 1906, pp. 163-169. 
 
 t The Standard, May 11, 1905, p. 5. This article has 
 been summed up in French by Abbe Houtin, La Question 
 Biblique au XX^'ne Sieclc, ch. xiii, in a tone which, to say 
 the least, is offensive to Christian faith. 
 
Modern Opponents. 99 
 
 were, became soon manifest. One of the most 
 alarming symptoms of that destructible influence 
 is the declaration published at the beginning of 
 1906 by one hundred and one members of the 
 Anglican clergy, and signed by almost two thou- 
 sand clergymen both in England and the United 
 States.* Now, one of the topics for which free 
 inquiry is claimed, is precisely the historical char- 
 acter of the narrative about the conception of 
 Jesus. 
 
 These bold views, it is true, have called forth 
 refutations, chiefly to America, from conservative 
 Protestants. t The most solid is perhaps that of 
 
 *A Declaration on Biblical Criticistn by 172^ Clergymen 
 of the Anglican Communion, etc., edited by H. Handley, 
 M. A,, March 1906. 
 
 t The authority of the Gospel of the Infancy, especially 
 as to what pertains to Christ's Virgin-Birth, has been 
 maintained among Protestants (a) in English-speaking 
 countries, by A. Wright, A Synopsis of the Gospels in 
 Greek, 1903, Introd., p. xli; Gore, Dissertations on Subjects 
 connected with the Incarnation, pp. 12-40, and also in his 
 Bampton Lectures, 1891, p. 78; then too in Church Times, 
 1902, Dec. 24; 1903, Feb. 6; in Christian World, 1901, Dec. 
 26, etc. ; SwETE, The Apostles' Creed, ch. iv ; W. Ramsay, 
 Was Christ born at Bethlehem?, 1898; Randolph, The 
 Virgin Birth of Our Lord, 1903 ; Sanday, The Virgin Birth 
 of Our Lord J. C, in the Christian World Pulpit, Feb. 4, 
 1903 ; Outlines of the Life of Christ, 1905, p. 191 ; The 
 Standard, May i6, 1905; The Daily Mail, August i and 8, 
 
lOO The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Dr. Briggs,* the purport of which is that the be- 
 lief in Christ's Virgin-Birth is above historical 
 criticism; and although the Christian Church 
 should not strike out this article of her Creed, she 
 is not bound, on the other hand, to present it as es- 
 sential to the faith and to the religious life of indi- 
 viduals. He concludes by saying that believers 
 
 igos; Knowling, Our Lord's Virgin Birth and the Crit- 
 icism of to-day, 1903 ; Macken, in Princeton Theolog. Review, 
 1906, pp. 37-81 ; Cooke, in Methodist Review, 1906, pp. 248- 
 261 ; James Okr, The Virgin Birth of Christ, 1907. In the 
 American Journal of Theology, a symposium has been 
 opened on this subject, January, 1906, pp. 1-30: it begins 
 with an article by Warfield, whose conchision is that the 
 Virgin-Birth is demanded by the work of Christ. The 
 same review had already given, July and October, 1902, 
 two articles of T. Allen Hoben^ The Virgin Birth. 
 
 (b) In Germany, by Hase, Geschichte Jesu (1891 ed.), 
 p. 280, he refutes the objections raised by Strauss, but 
 partly admits the mythological explanation; Resch, Das 
 Kindheitsevangclium, 1897; Hilgenfeld, loc. cit.; Zahn, 
 Das Apost. Symb., 1893, p. 57 ; Das Evangel, des Matthdus, 
 1905, P- 66; Grutzmacher, Die Jtmgfraugeburt, 1906. 
 
 (c) In France — or rather in French — by Godet, Com- 
 ment, sur S. Luc, Vol. I, pp. 186-196 (English translation 
 from the second French edition, N. Y., 1881, pp. 41-104) ; 
 Introd. au N. T., 1900, Vol. II, p. 483 ; Roehrich, La Com- 
 position des Evangiles, 1897, pp. 81-89; Bovon, Theologie 
 du N. T., p. 214. 
 
 * North American Review, June, 1906, "Criticism and 
 the Dogma of the Virgin Birth." 
 
Modern Opponents. loi 
 
 are free to refuse a positive assent to this dogma 
 and especially to decline to defend it in the field 
 of controversy. 
 
 Until these last years, Catholics had not been 
 led to treat the subject from an apologetic point 
 of view; recent attacks, however, have prompted 
 them to publish, in rapid succession, several 
 studies on this topic. Some of these studies make 
 it their chief point to prove that the first two 
 chapters of St. Matthew and of St. Luke deserve, 
 just as well as the other parts of the Gospels, to 
 be looked upon as history and indeed truthful 
 history; the others show how arbitrary and even 
 impossible are the explanations given by myth- 
 ologists.* 
 
 *J. M. Lagrange, in the Revue Biblique, 1895, p. 160; 
 Le Recif dc I'Enfance de Jesus dans S. Luc, ibid., 1899, p. 
 618; 1906, p. 502; V. Rose, Etudes sur les Evangiles, p. 39, 
 (English transl., p. 41); M. Lepin, Jesus, Messie et Fils 
 de Dieu, 1906, 3d edit., p. 55, and in the Diet, de la Bible 
 (Vigouroux), Vol. IV, col. 1386, 1414; V. McNabb, 5"/. 
 Mark's Witness to the Virgin Birth, in the Journal of 
 Theological Studies, April 1907 ; E. Mangenot, La Concep- 
 tion Virginale de Jesus, in the Revue de I'lnstitut Cath. de 
 Paris, May-June 1907; L. de Grandmaison, La Conception 
 Virginale du Christ, in the Etudes, May 20, 1907, p 503; 
 O. Bardenhewer, Die Geburt Christi aus der Jungfrau und 
 die moderne Theologie, in Monatsbldtter fur den Kath- 
 olischen Religionsunterricht, 1907, pp. 84-91; S. Protin, 
 La Conception Virginale du Christ, in the Revue Augustin., 
 
I02 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 We have just set forth all that has been urged 
 by independent critics against the Gospel of the 
 Infancy; and we have not consciously lessened in 
 any way the point and cogency either of each one 
 of their objections taken separately or of all taken 
 as a whole. This we had to do, were it merely to 
 force our opponents to give up once for all the 
 ever ready but stale accusation that Catholic apol- 
 ogists hide from the public the true state and bear- 
 ing of those questions.* That believers should not 
 take alarm at all that display of erudition, and 
 still less be overawed by the self-confident bold- 
 ness of the negations, a somewhat close and accu- 
 rate study of the problems will sufficiently prove. 
 
 July 15, 1907, p. 5 ; E. Vacandard, Saint Marc et la Con- 
 ception Virginale, in the Revue Prat. d'Apolog., July 1907, 
 p. 412; P. Camuset, ibid., Sept. i, 1907, p. 701; H. Lesetee, 
 La Vierge Mere, in the Revue du Clerge Francois, July 15, 
 1907, p. 113. 
 
 * The same charge is made by Abbe Houtin, op. cit., p. 
 242, note I, when, speaking of these objections, he writes 
 "that now theologians are almost the only ones who do 
 not know them, because they are unwilling to know them." 
 He knows them indeed, but it is easy to see he has drawn 
 his knowledge from newspapers. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 103 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DETAILED CRITICISM OF THE TEXT OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 Shocked by the supernatural character of the 
 narratives about the origin of Jesus, independent 
 critics first thought that the best means for them 
 to subdue, as it were, these embarrassing texts, 
 was flatly to deny their authentic character. Some 
 writers — who are openly boasting that they accept 
 only well-ascertained facts — are not slow to dis- 
 credit beforehand the Gospel of the Infancy. They 
 look on it as a latter addition. Why? Because 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke mtdst have begun, like 
 St. Mark, with the preaching of John the Bap- 
 tist.* 
 
 Strauss has already treated this conjecture as 
 it deserves, when he writes f that it is an "un- 
 critical assumption." True, the copy of St. Mat- 
 thew adopted by the Ebionites began with the 
 preaching of John the Baptist; but St. Epiphanius, 
 who gives us this information, adds that they 
 
 *J. Haecker, Die Jungfrauen-Gehurt und das N. T. in 
 the Zeitschr. fiir wissenchaf. Theologie, 1906, p. 26, starts 
 frankly his inquiry about the origin of the belief in the 
 Virgin-birth, by rejecting a priori the supernatural ex- 
 planation, because it implies a miracle. Cf. Renan, Life 
 of Jesus, Introduction. 
 
 t Life of Jesus, p. 95. 
 9 
 
I04 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 had done away with the foregoing verses, because 
 these verses were plainly opposed to their own 
 views regarding Christ's human generation.* 
 Then too, he observes that the moderate follow- 
 ers of this sect, those whom he calls Nazarenes, 
 made use of a text that was most complete; the 
 only point he does not know is whether or not 
 they have retained the initial genealogy, which 
 descends from Abraham down to Christ, f What 
 follows is still more significant. The same St. 
 Epiphanius assures us that Cerinthus and Car- 
 pocrates appealed to the genealogy of St. Mat- 
 thew, as a proof that Jesus had been begotten 
 by Joseph. I Again we learn from Eusebius that 
 the Judaizer Synmachus did the same.§ St. 
 Jerome also tells us that the first chapters of St. 
 
 * UapaKdipavre^ yap napa rw MaTdalu y€vea7.nyiac, apxovrat Trjv 
 apxvv noieiadai, uf npoeiKov, ?.eyovTE^, on 'EyeveTo, (priaiv^ kv raiq 
 ^/iepaig 'UpMov. ..Adv. Hares., xxx, 14; cf. 13. 
 
 f Adv. Hceres., xxix, 9. St. Epiphanius mentions that 
 difference of attitude as a sample of the inconsistency of 
 the Ebionites. 
 
 %Ibid., xxx, 14. 
 
 ^Hist. Eccl., vi, 17. True, the meaning of Eusebius is 
 equivocal ; Rufinus, Nicephorus and others adopt the mean- 
 ing we give in the text; Henry of Valois rejects that 
 interpretation, but it is easy to see how intricate his own 
 explanations are. (Migne, P. G., xx, col. 559.) 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 105 
 
 Matthew were contained in the Gospel according 
 to the Hebrews.* 
 
 Whatever may be the value of these testimo- 
 nies owing to the distance of the witnesses from 
 the events themselves, if they are used at all, they 
 must be wholly retained. There is no 2d or 3d 
 century text that allows us to affirm that, at the 
 beginning, the first Gospel did not contain the 
 first two chapters. All the information respecting 
 this point dates from the 4th century, and tells us 
 of subtraction, not of addition. Tatian's Diates- 
 saron, which belongs to the 2d century, passes by 
 the genealogy of St. Matthew, simply because 
 that omission is quite in keeping with the method 
 of the author: his purpose is not to give the 
 whole text of the Four Gospels, but to compose 
 a narrative of the life of Jesus, drawn literally 
 from the canonical writings. Again, the gene- 
 alogy of St. Luke also is absent from the Diates- 
 saron, and yet, to my knowledge, nobody has ever 
 argued from that fact, that Tatian was unac- 
 
 *De Viris III., iii; Comment, in Matt., ii, 5, 15, 23; in 
 Isaiam-, xi, i ; cf. Zahn, Geschichte des Neutesf. Kanons, 
 ii, 1891, p. 686, whose conclusions have nothing to fear at 
 all from their a priori and most unsatisfactory criticism by 
 E. Hennecke, Neutest. Apokrypyhen, 1904, pp. 15, 17. 
 
io6 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 quainted with that genealogy or excluded it as 
 unauthentic* 
 
 Some have observed that in several MSS. the 
 eighteenth verse of St. Matthew's first chapter 
 begins with uncial letters, or again with letters 
 written in red lead: even several of those MSS. 
 have at that verse these words: "Incipit evan- 
 gelium secundum Matthccum." f Is this not a 
 trace of the primitive condition of the texts when 
 the Gospel began with the words : "Christi autem 
 generatio . . . "? This fact has been ac- 
 counted for satisfactorily. It is quite probable 
 that in several churches the genealogy was not a 
 part of the public reading; so that as far as the 
 liturgical usage was concerned, the first Gospel 
 began with the narrative of the Nativity. | 
 
 * The copy of the Arabian translation, to be found in 
 the Vatican Library, gives the two genealogies at the end 
 of the codex. Cf. Ciasca, Tatiani Evangeliorum Harmonia 
 Arabice, Rome, 1888; Preface. 
 
 t For instance, Y and Z, according to J. Wordsworth ; 
 these two Latin MSS. are comparatively recent, and date 
 from the 7th and 8th centuries. 
 
 $ Judging from the tone of the text, does it not seem as 
 if St. Luke's Gospel originally began with the third chap- 
 ter? And yet we know from the prologue, placed at the 
 head of the first chapter, that the third Gospel has always 
 been as it is now. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 107 
 
 Again, even supposing — which we do not be- 
 lieve — that the genealogy was a kind of prologue 
 subsequently added to the work of the Evangelist, 
 the attitude of the first Gospel toward Christ's 
 supernatural conception would remain unchanged, 
 since it is in the following section (i ^*"^^), that 
 His birth from the Holy Ghost is explicitly stated. 
 
 As a matter of fact, almost all scholars now 
 grant that the Gospel of the Infancy, as related 
 in St. Matthew, makes up a perfectly connected 
 literary whole. Did we wish to disjoint it, we 
 would be obliged to do away with a certain num- 
 ber of transitions that can hardly be ascribed 
 to an interpolator.* This being the case, the 
 attack is directed against the homogeneous char- 
 acter of the contents; the unity of that piece, we 
 are told, is merely exterior and superficial; we 
 have here two documents of different ages and 
 meanings, placed side by side. In order that the 
 narrative might be welded more or less skillfully 
 with the preceding genealogy, the primitive docu- 
 ment had to be retouched, and this was actually 
 
 * Especially i^^; 2^-^^-^^; 3 1. Cf. Hawkins, Hora 
 Synopticce, pp. 4-7. 
 
io8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 done. In fact, the last verse of the genealogy pre- 
 sents, in the ancient MSS., various readings that 
 are not without their significance, inasmuch as 
 they imply that the text now received does not 
 represent the original, redaction. 
 
 The chief, or rather only testimony, to which 
 an appeal is made in behalf of this view, is a pecu- 
 liar reading of the MS. of the Syriac translation 
 of the Gospels found at Mount Sinai in 1894.* 
 At that time, some writers, more anxious to take 
 up arms against the dogmas of the faith than to 
 find out and settle a critical text of the New Tes- 
 tament, told the public at large that an ancient 
 record had been discovered that would upset al- 
 together the traditional story of the origin of 
 Jesus.f And now, after ten years' controversy, 
 the most decided opponents of the historical char- 
 acter of the Gospel of the Infancy, have to con- 
 
 * About that discovery, cf. the Etudes Religieuses, Janu- 
 ary 15, 1895, Vol. LXIX, p. 119, and Jacquier, Histoire des 
 Litres du Nouveau Testament, Vol. II, p. 496. The reader 
 may find a good summary of the question in Holzzey, Der 
 Neuentdeckte Codex Syrus Sina'iticus, Munich, 1896, pp. 
 52-58. 
 
 fRead, for instance, the English periodical, The Acad- 
 emy, from November 17, 1904, to June 24, 1895. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 109 
 
 fess that the discovery has left the question 
 untouched.* 
 
 What, then, did that so-called Sinaitic version 
 contain? The sixteenth verse of the first chapter 
 of St. Matthew reads as follows: "Joseph, to 
 whom the Virgin Mary was espoused, begot 
 Jesus, who is called Christ." It is remarkable 
 that Joseph is not called here as in the Received 
 Text, "the husband of Mary," but "he to whom 
 the Virgin Mary was espoused." Then a few 
 lines below, the Angel says to him, "She shall 
 bring thee forth a son" (21), and this the Evan- 
 gelist also repeats, when he writes : "She brought 
 him forth a son" (25). From all this we may 
 easily ascertain the narrator's tendency ; he is bent 
 on bringing out the virginity of the mother and 
 the legal title of the father. According to the 
 
 * "When the text of Syr. sin., "Joseph, to whom was 
 espoused Mary the virgin, begot Jesus who is called the 
 Christ," was first made known, great surprise at such 
 a departure from the canonical text was expressed. Some 
 thought that we had suddenly come into possession of a 
 text which completely changed the entire situation, In 
 this they were mistaken. . . . Syr. sin., however, con- 
 tains at the same time the canonical text of 1 18-20. Taken 
 as a whole, accordingly, this recently discovered transla- 
 tion brings in no new era; of an older text it contains 
 only traces, and these are overlaid by the canonical text." — 
 P. W. ScHMiEDEL, in Encycl. Biblica, Vol. Ill, col. 2961. 
 
no The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 tenor of the Jewish law, on becoming a mother 
 the Virgin Mary gave a son to her lawful hus- 
 band. 
 
 Granted, some may say, the Syriac reading is 
 orthodox, especially if the context is also taken 
 into account; but does not that reading throw 
 some doubts on the authenticity of the text now 
 received ? A question which at once becomes still 
 more urgent, when we remember that there is 
 a whole group of MSS., called Western, both 
 Latin and Greek, which contain several various 
 readings of this same verse, readings which 
 waver, as it were, between the Sinaitic version 
 and the Received Text.* 
 
 All these various readings betoken one and the 
 same predominant purpose : the purpose to affirm 
 always more and more explicity the virginal ma- 
 ternity. It is around Mary that the whole atten- 
 tion centres, and Joseph here appears only in the 
 background. Nay, in order still more to empha- 
 size the unique prerogative of the Mother, the 
 narrator adds to her name the epithet of Virgin, 
 which is not found in the Received Text. From 
 that tendency which is so pronounced, and from 
 the jerky turn of the phrase, especially in the 
 variants of the Sinaitic type, it is easy to infer 
 
 * Cf. above, pp. 3-4 and 109. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 1 1 1 
 
 that we have before us intentional alterations and 
 not a primitive text. 
 
 At all events, one thing is certain : the proposi- 
 tion : And Joseph begot Jesus, is found nowhere, 
 and yet this should be the conclusion of the gene- 
 alogy, were the bond between Joseph and Jesus 
 identical with that which exists between Jacob 
 and Joseph. 
 
 True, F. C. Conybeare claims to have found 
 that reading in a Greek dialogue of the 5th cen- 
 tury, which he published in 1898, under the title 
 Timothy and Aquila* but his claim rests, I think. 
 on a very wrong interpretation of the passage. 
 Owing to the importance of the question, we beg 
 our readers' leave to enter into some particulars. 
 
 The dialogue before us is a public dispute, 
 which is supposed to have taken place between a 
 Christian, Timothy, and a Jew, Aquila, in the 
 great church of Alexandria, in the time of St. 
 Cyril. It refers chiefly to the Virgin-Birth of 
 Jesus. As the Christian had stated that Jesus 
 "descends from Abraham according to the flesh," 
 the Jew asks immediately for His genealogy. 
 
 'Anecd. Oxon. class., series viii, li. 
 
112 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Timothy answers, with a gentle touch of irony, 
 that it is rather strange for Aquila, who prides 
 himself upon knowing both the Old and the New 
 Testament, to be unacquainted with the gene- 
 alogy of Jesus. There it is that the Jew, who is 
 anxious to show that he knows that genealogy, 
 appeals immediately to verse i6 of the first chap- 
 ter of St. Matthew : he quotes it, whilst assailing 
 at the same time the Christian belief which he 
 says is opposed to the words of the Gospel text 
 itself. These are his words in this chapter of the 
 dialogue: "J^^ob begot Joseph, the husband of 
 Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called 
 Christ; and Joseph begot Jesus who is called 
 Christ, of whom we are now speaking: he {i. e., 
 the Evangelist) says [that he] begot [Him] of 
 Mary." * 
 
 According to Conybeare, the ending words: 
 "And Joseph begot Jesus, who is called Christ" 
 still belong to the quotation from the Gospel, so 
 that — as he thinks — we have here the whole orig- 
 
 ♦'Ii7«o5 iykwijacv tov 'Iuct^^, rov av^pa Mapiac' ff VC iy£vvi]dt) 
 'Ifjaovg 6 ?,Ey6uevo( Xpiardg, koI 'Iuct^^ kyivv^oEV rbv 'Ir/aovv rbv 
 
 2.£y6/j.eVOV XpiOrdv, wepi oC viv 6 Adpo$, ^7)<ri>' iyevvi)<Tev en t^s Mapi'os, 
 
 Op. cit., p. 76. We give Conybeare's text, together with the 
 typographical variants of his edition. 
 
Detailed Crificisin of Text of Gospels. 1 1 3 
 
 inal text of St. Matthew.* But, as Schmiedel 
 rightly observed, it is improbable that a primitive 
 redaction should have been so heavily diffuse, 
 especially in a genealogy the wording of which 
 is like that of a stereotyped formula. Here the 
 words, "Jesus, called Christ, was begotten" are 
 twice repeated. Such as it is, the phrase of the 
 dialogue presents either a tautology or an an- 
 tinomy.! 
 
 Any one who takes up the study of the passage 
 brought against us, without the preconceived pur- 
 pose to find in it a denial of the orthodox belief, 
 will easily grant that Aquila's quotation stops with 
 
 * Op. cit., p. 76, and in the Introduction. Still more re- 
 cently Conybeare has brought his view before the public 
 both in the Hibbert Journal, 1902, i, p. 96, and in the 
 Standard, May 11, 1905. 
 
 t Encyl. Biblica, Vol. Ill, col. 2961. On the other hand, 
 Schmiedel's explanation can hardly also be admitted. The 
 author of the dialogue, we are told, depended on a text of 
 the first Gospel, in which a corrector, perhaps a mere 
 copyist, combined the two readings : first, the one which 
 still remains in the Received Text, then the primitive re- 
 daction, 'luay(p 6e £}£vvticev tov 'Itjoovv. This is surely a 
 groundless conjecture; nay, it is opposed to the rest of 
 the dialogue in which the Christian quotes twice Matthew 
 (i 16) precisely according to the Received Text, although 
 he does not rebuke the Jew for having put forward an 
 inauthentic quotation. 
 
114 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the first mention of the words, "who is called 
 Christ" : * what follows is but a commentary of 
 his own invention. After recording the authentic 
 words of the Gospel, he concludes : "This amounts 
 to say that Joseph begot Jesus, Him of whom we 
 are speaking; the Evangelist says that he begot 
 Him from Mary."t In that interpretation he as- 
 
 * To those unfamiliar with Conybeare's mental habits, it 
 may prove of some benefit to recall a few words of the 
 appreciation passed recently upon him by Sanday, the 
 eminent Oxford professor : "It is characteristic of Mr. 
 Conybeare's method that only the eccentric and the ab- 
 normal appear to have any weight with him. He says 
 nothing whatever as to the evidence for the belief of 
 the main body of the Church; and yet no fact is too 
 slight or too fantastic or too remote for him, if only it 
 seems to make against the orthodox belief." It is almost 
 unnecessary to say that, according to Abbe Houtin, Cony- 
 beare is the impartial critic, one who takes only texts and 
 facts into account. . . . Cf. La Question Biblique au 
 XX^^e sihle, pp. 241, 242, 245, 247, 249. 
 
 t We translate ««' by this amounts to say, because that 
 explanatory particle has often that meaning, both in classi- 
 cal Greek, and even in this dialogue of Timothy and 
 Aquila, p. 81, last line. In our interpretation, which we 
 believe is the right one, the quotation stops with the words 
 6 XeySfiEvog Xpiaroc, and the phrase is punctuated as follows : 
 'laKuji tyewfiffev tov 'Iwct/;^, tov avdpa Mofjiac, cf f/c kyEVVTjdi] 
 'Ir/ffOVt 6 Xeyo/ievo^ "KpiCToQ' [koX 'Ico<ri)<^ iyivyfvatv rov 'I»)(roCi' toV 
 Aeyo/nei'oi' XpiCTToi', irtpi oB vvv 6 k6po%- <i>r)ai.v iyevvaev €K T^s Mopi'as]. All 
 
 that follows the quotation is, as was said already, a com- 
 mentary made up by the Jew. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 115 
 
 signs to Joseph the chief part in Christ's genera- 
 tion. Timothy, who recognizes at once the abuse 
 his opponent makes of St. Matthew's text, re- 
 plies immediately: "Thou must make thy quo- 
 tations accurately (6p0aj^, as is becoming) and in 
 order ( xai. xard Td^iv ) , as wc do ourselves, when we 
 bring forward the Old Testament, for instance: 
 "There is in the hand of the Lord a cup full of 
 wine, and He inclines it on this and on that 
 side." * If thou dost strive to pass by something, 
 we notice it; now this is what is written"; and 
 then the Christian quotes the whole genealogy as 
 found in our text of St. Matthew, with this dif- 
 ference, however, that at verse 16, instead of "the 
 husband of Mary" (avdpa MapiaQ), he uses words 
 like those used in the MSS. of the so-called 
 Ferrara group, and says : "he to whom the Virgin 
 Mary was espoused." 
 
 After a digression about the Old Testament 
 prophecies and symbols that refer to the Virgin- 
 Mother, Timothy recites a second time the gene- 
 alogy of the first Gospel, and here again the word- 
 
 * Judging from the quotation of Ps. 74 9, given literally- 
 according to LXX, Timothy apparently means to say that 
 a text should be given in full, in order that the right side, 
 as it were, may counterbalance the left. 
 
ii6 The Childhood of Jesus CJirisf. 
 
 ing of verse i6 agrees with the Received Text.* 
 To resume: the Jew Aquila thinks that, from 
 Matthew, i ^®, as we have it now, he may legiti- 
 mately infer that Jesus is the descendant of 
 Joseph, by way of generation. The Christian 
 Timothy replies that, in order to draw that con- 
 clusion, one must separate this verse from its 
 context. And it is precisely that context which 
 gives him the right to smooth some expressions, 
 unless he was acquainted with some Greek copies, 
 the text of which had already been influenced by 
 an apologetical exegesis, f 
 
 Now, as to our conclusion, all the various read- 
 ings of Matthew, i ^', that are known to us, may 
 be derived from the Received Text, and there- 
 fore there is no reason why we should look upon 
 any of them as authentic^ Since their wording, 
 
 * Only with this difference, which brings out still more 
 the apologetical tendency of the whole passage, instead of 
 "the husband of Mary," he says : "who was espoused to 
 Mary" : instead of "who is called Christ," he says : "Christ, 
 the Son of God." 
 
 t These are also the conclusions of C. Burkitt. Cf. 
 Evangelion da-mepharreshe, 1904, Vol. II, p. 265. Then, 
 too, J. R. Wilkinson had immediately answered Conybeare, 
 in the Hibbert Journal, 1903, p. 354. 
 
 t Cf. these various readings above, pp. 3-4 and 109. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels, iiy 
 
 as we think, conveys an orthodox meaning, they 
 cannot represent Jesus as the son of Joseph, what- 
 ever account may be given of the origin and bear- 
 ing of His genealogy.* In the present state of 
 the question, we must affirm and maintain, in 
 the name of sound criticism, that the reading of 
 the Received Text is the primitive one. First of 
 all it is attested by all the texts and translations, 
 except those few witnesses we have just quoted 
 and discussed;! and rightly it is maintained in 
 all of the critical editions of the New Testament. 
 Then we must not lose sight of a rule found in 
 all the text books of textual criticism. Generally, 
 and unless there are proofs to the contrary, one is 
 justified to hold as primitive or as the earliest, the 
 reading that is short, vague, obscure, devoid of 
 any a priori tendency and preoccupation, rather 
 than those readings which are more developed, 
 more precise and distinct, more decidedly favor- 
 
 * These various solutions are well given by Sanday in 
 Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 645. 
 
 t The reader may observe that all these variants are 
 found in the MSS. that form the so-called Western group. 
 Formerly little attention was paid to that group, owing to 
 the strange character of its departures from the reading 
 of other MSS.; but within the last few years it has been 
 praised, precisely on account of that feature. 
 
ii8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 able to doctrinal views, especially if these views 
 refer to a topic that was formerly disputed. Is 
 this not the case of Matthew, i ^^, when compared 
 with its variants? 
 
 As soon as the Virgin-Birth became a subject 
 of controversy, the orthodox were sure to en- 
 counter difficulties arising from a genealogy 
 which connects Christ with David's family 
 through Joseph. True, Mary's name is men- 
 tioned; but so also are the names of Thamar, 
 Rahab, Ruth and Bethsabee. This is why Cerin- 
 thus, Carpocrates, and perhaps Symmachus con- 
 fidently appealed to the Gospel according to St. 
 Matthew in support of their views regarding the 
 origin of Jesus according to the flesh: they had 
 merely to follow the same line of argument as 
 that followed by the Jew in the dialogue of Tim- 
 othy and Aquila. 
 
 That here and there the text has been replaced 
 by the orthodox commentary, based indeed on 
 the text and on the traditional sentiment, is easily 
 accounted for : we know of other cases where the 
 same proceeding was adopted. However, such 
 attempts were few, nor did they succeed in sup- 
 planting the primitive reading. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 119 
 
 As found in St. Luke, the narrative of the 
 Infancy carries with itself the proofs of its 
 authenticity. The style of that narrative flows 
 with such limpidity that it conveys that impres- 
 sion of freshness we experience in contact with 
 the sources and earliest records of a fact. Can 
 we imagine a literary piece more homogeneous 
 and better connected than these first two chapters ? 
 According to Renan, the delight which St. Luke 
 felt in writing his Gospel shall never be suffi- 
 ciently realized.* If that saying of the French 
 scholar is true to any degree, it applies preem- 
 inently to the passage in question. As a matter 
 of fact, nobody as yet had ever thought of deny- 
 ing its primitive character and unity. Marcion 
 himself did not feel bold enough to make a selec- 
 tion, and dropped the whole narrative out of his 
 text. Those who tell us of this fact give us also 
 the motives by which he was prompted. Gnostic 
 and docetist as he was, he denied to Christ any 
 human birth, and therefore was inclined to get 
 rid of His genealogy and of a narrative which 
 recorded His birth from a woman, f 
 
 *"It is the most beautiful book there is. The pleasure 
 that the author must have had in writing it will never be 
 sufficiently understood." {The Gospels, p. 148.) 
 
 t St. Irenaeus, Contra Hceres., I, xxvii, 2; xii, 7, 12; 
 Tertull., Adv. Marc, i, i; ix, 2; St. Epiphanius, Hceres., 
 
I20 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It was reserved for contemporary critics to get 
 hold of the text of St. Luke and then to tear it 
 to pieces. They openly start with a hypothesis 
 which gradually assumes in their eyes the value 
 of an undisputed fact : the primitive Church must 
 have been Ebionitic; therefore her belief of the 
 origin of Jesus cannot have been the belief re- 
 corded in the text of the third Gospel (1-2^°), 
 which is so manifestly full of the idea of a super- 
 natural conception. Hence it follows that this 
 portion of the narrative does not represent the 
 earliest stage of Christian thought. On the con- 
 trary, the second part (2^^"^^), where we see the 
 Child of Joseph and Mary submit to the law of 
 Moses, and grow under the influence of divine 
 grace, most probably can rightly claim to be the 
 older and may be considered a fragment of 
 Judseo-Christian literature. 
 
 I, 3, II. Besides, from internal criticism it is easy to 
 ascertain that the text of Marcion was mutilated and that 
 our text was not formed out of his own text, by means 
 of addition. Cf. Plummer, The Gospel according to St. 
 Luke, 1900, 3d edit., pp. Ixix-lxx. As we saw before, 
 ScHMiEDEL feels inclined to repeat Marcion's attempt, 
 whilst Harnack, Sitsungsher. der Kais.-Preuss. Acad, der 
 Wiss., 1900, p. 538, maintains that the two chapters, taken as 
 a whole, come from St. Luke. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 121 
 
 All this is an assertion which is perfectly arbi- 
 trary and to which nothing in the text, neither 
 the substance nor the style, gives any support 
 whatever. No difference in style between the so- 
 called sections can be noticed. The second sec- 
 tion, which we are told is the older, supports, on 
 the contrary, the first, as may be easily seen by 
 comparing 2 ^^ with i ^\ The Evangelist observes 
 that on the day of its circumcision the Child was 
 called Jesus, "a name which was so called by the 
 Angel before He was conceived in the womb" 
 of His mother: but this is meaningless, if not 
 taken in connection with the Angel's words, found 
 in the first chapter: "Behold, thou shalt conceive 
 in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt 
 call his name Jesus." * In several other places, 
 particularly i '° and 2 ", i ""''« and 2 "■'^ the 
 similarity is just as striking. The whole narrative 
 breathes one and the same spirit: even in the 
 second part Mary holds the chief place. f If we 
 were to take into account Jewish customs, that 
 
 * Schmiedel discards most unceremoniously that com- 
 parison which deals a severe blow to his theory. "This 
 backward reference to i ^i can easily have been inserted 
 when the two chapters were being joined together." 
 (Encycl. Biblica, Vol. Ill, col. 2960.) 
 
 tCf. 2 3*' 48' 51. 
 
122 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 precedence ascribed to a woman is unaccountable, 
 were Mary an ordinary mother. I leave aside, 
 for the time being, the intimate character of the 
 details supplied by the Gospel of the Infancy, a 
 character which justifies us to associate the nar- 
 rative of those details with the witness of the 
 very persons most interested in all those happen- 
 ings : we shall take up this subject later. 
 
 Some more perspicacious and apparently un- 
 biased critics, whilst granting the literary unity 
 of the passage, as a whole, think that, in order 
 to remove from it the idea of the Virgin-Birth 
 we have merely to suppress verses 34 and 35 of 
 the first chapter: "And Mary said to the Angel: 
 'How shall this be, since I know not man ?' And 
 the Angel answered and said to her: 'The Holy 
 Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of 
 the Most High shall overshadow thee : and there- 
 fore the Holy One that is to be born of thee shall 
 be called the Son of God.' " This parenthesis 
 probably did not belong to the primitive record 
 made use of by the third Evangelist. Besides, 
 the same critics grant that it may have been in- 
 troduced by St. Luke himself or by an inter- 
 polator. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 12t^ 
 
 Nothing short of most conclusive reasons must 
 prompt one to lay hands on a text the authen- 
 ticity of which had as yet remained unquestioned. 
 Those given by Hamack may be grouped under 
 three headings : peculiarities of dialect, a break in 
 the narrative, a contradictory attitude of person- 
 ages who are introduced in these two verses.* 
 
 I — Should we ask Harnack to hold as doubtful 
 all the Biblical and classical passages in which we 
 come across a term that is not found in another 
 part of the work, he would certainly charge us 
 with overstraining his thought. Hence we shall 
 not insist, convinced as we are, that he himself 
 sets but little value on his first suggestion.! 
 
 * Zu Lc i, 34, in Zeitsch. fur die neutestam. Wissenschaft, 
 1901, p. 53. 
 
 t The verses in question contain the particles tTret and 
 i^i6. Now ETEt is not found elsewhere in St. Luke, 7 ^ can 
 be questioned. As to <5i(5, it is read another time in the 
 third Gospel, 7 "^ ; and Harnack questions its authenticity, 
 because that particle is missing in several testimonies. 
 This suggestion has seemed so weak that all the critical edi- 
 tions retain here ii-6 as authentic, and rightly so. Yet, 
 Harnack still continues to have some misgivings. "Owing 
 to the constancy exhibited by St. Luke's Gospel in the use 
 of the particles," he says, "the presence of ii-6 in the verses 
 in question (i ^s, 77) can only surprise us: as to^TrEt, it re- 
 veals unmistakably its origin." But Harnack knew in 1901 
 that Sl is found ten times in the Acts of the Apostles: and 
 
124 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 2 — Is there truly an unnatural disconnection be- 
 tween verse 3 1 and verse 36, as a consequence of 
 the so-called interpolation ? I have to confess that 
 in spite of all of my efforts I cannot see that dis- 
 connection. It would be just as fair to say that 
 Zachary's answer, at verse 18, has been disjointed 
 from the words of the Angel, found at verse 13. 
 Did not verses 34 and 35 figure actually in the 
 text, the exigencies of the narrative might justify 
 us to suppose that they might be suppressed ; but 
 we need not have recourse to any hypothesis : the 
 contested passage does actually belong to the text, 
 and there is no reason whatever why it should 
 be removed. There is only one testimony, and 
 to my mind a most insufficient and inconclusive 
 testimony, that might throw some doubts on the 
 passage in question, viz., the testimony of a Latin 
 MS., of the 6th century, which, owing to a mis- 
 take of the copyist, has verse 38 instead of verse 
 34, so that the former is given twice.* This 
 
 all know that the scholarly critic has recently published a 
 book, to show that the third Gospel and the Acts come 
 from the same author, and that this author is Luke the 
 physician. Cf. Lukas der Arst, 1906. (English translation, 
 New York, 1907.) 
 
 * This is h, cod. veronensis, edited in Migne, P. L., xii, 
 506. Cf. TiscHENDORF, Nov. Test., edit. 8a maj., 1869. 
 Those critical editions, which retain only important variants, 
 do not even mention this variant. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 125 
 
 would be indeed to overestimate altogether an 
 isolated MS., of which the archetype is to be 
 sought among those copies St. Jerome deemed of 
 no account, as we know by his words to Pope 
 Damasus: "Apud nos" (Latins) "mixta sunt 
 omnia." * 
 
 We are told that verse 35, far from being a 
 development of what precedes, introduces a new 
 explanation and thus seems to contradict verses 
 31 and 32: it is no longer question of a Savior, 
 the heir of the House of David, His Father, but 
 of the Son of God, conceived through the oper- 
 ation of the Holy Ghost. — To make the difficulty 
 somewhat plausible, it would not have been out 
 of place to tell us why a Son of David could 
 not a few lines later be represented as the Son of 
 God. Then, too, from this point of view, verse 
 35 adds nothing to verse 32, as David's heir is 
 already called "the Son of the Most High." True, 
 the supernatural conception is not mentioned 
 
 * The whole passage deserves to be given in full : "Si 
 enim latinis exemplaribus fides est adhibenda, respondeant 
 quibus : tot enim sunt exemplaria pasne quot codices . . . 
 ea quae vel a vitiosis interpretibus male edita, vel a prae- 
 sumptoribus imperitis emendata perversius, vel a librariis 
 dormitantibus aut addita sunt, aut mutata corrigimus. . . . 
 Unde accidit ut apud nos mixta sint omnia." (Migne, 
 P. L., xxix, 526-528). 
 
126 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 before verse 35. No wonder, for this second 
 explanation is called for by Mary's question: 
 "Quomodo fiet istud, quoniam virum non cog- 
 nosco?" To insist and say that, from the very 
 wording of this same verse 35, Jesus is called 
 the Son of God, precisely because He is to be 
 supernaturally conceived, is to suggest another 
 difficulty which has nothing to do with the au- 
 thentic character of verses 34 and 35, and which 
 we shall consider later on. 
 
 According to Harnack, Mary's question (v. 34) 
 is a priori incredible. She asks how the Angel's 
 prediction can be fulfilled. Mary is espoused and 
 she certainly contemplates marriage. Under these 
 conditions the promise of maternity is not at all 
 perplexing, since so far no mention of a vir- 
 ginal conception has been made. — Catholic inter- 
 preters have always answered the difficulty by 
 saying that, in spite of her betrothal and wedding, 
 Mary intended to remain a virgin. In our eyes 
 this explanation is the true one ; still it is but fair 
 to observe that some Protestant scholars do not 
 deem it necessary to uphold the a priori probable 
 character of the question expressed in verse 34.* 
 
 Loisy himself has no relish for the quick pro- 
 ceedings of those critics who issue a decree of 
 
 * Cf. Plummer, The Gospel According to St. Luke, p. 24. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 127 
 
 inauthenticity against Luke i ^*' ^^ "Harnack," 
 he writes, "seems to mind too little the words 
 *I know not man.' Even though they might 
 be intended only to prepare the Angel's answer, 
 they must be something else than an unimportant 
 and untimely artificial process of redaction. The 
 question is not if an actually married woman 
 could wonder at becoming a mother, but if the 
 writer of this passage could believe that Mary 
 could wonder. He has drawn up the ques- 
 tion in keeping with his own ideas of Mary's 
 relations with her husband, and he would have 
 expressed that question in some other way, had 
 the assertion "I know not man" been as pre- 
 posterous from his point of view as it appears to 
 Harnack. The natural meaning of those words 
 is that which has been ascribed to them by Cath- 
 olic tradition: Mary's objection has any sense at 
 all, only if her marriage has taken place, and yet 
 has not been consummated, and it is most prob- 
 able that the Evangelist himself thus understood 
 it." * 
 
 Again, we are told that another proof of the 
 interpolation of verses 34 and 35 may be found 
 in the words of the Angel regarding Elizabeth, 
 
 * Revue d'Hist. et de Litt. religieuses, 1903, p. 291. 
 
128 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 in verses 36 and ^t?- These words have no mean- 
 ing, only if nothing as yet has been said of vir- 
 ginal conception through the working of the Holy 
 Ghost; the fact of Elizabeth becoming a mother 
 in her old age can serve as a sign of Jesus' Mes- 
 sianic dignity, but not of His virginal conception. 
 A miracle of a lower order cannot be the token 
 of a miracle of a higher order ; the more so, that 
 to all appearances, verse 37, "Nothing is impos- 
 sible to God," must be understood of the case of 
 Elizabeth only. 
 
 Let us abide by the text alone. Its obvious 
 meaning, that suggested by a mere reading and 
 confirmed by a deeper study, amounts to this : 
 there is an intended parallelism between the two 
 conceptions, that of Elizabeth and that of Mary; 
 besides, the former, of which Mary is going to 
 ascertain in a few days the reality, must serve to 
 her as a proof that, according to the words of 
 the Angel, the latter will take place also. Of 
 course, the fact of a woman becoming pregnant in 
 her old age does not, in itself, conclusively prove 
 that a virgin will become a mother; hence the 
 Angel adds immediately that "nothing is impos- 
 sible to God." If these words refer to the preg- 
 nancy of Elizabeth only, they are inappropriate. 
 Why should divine "omnipotence" be invoked for 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 129 
 
 the realization of a prodigy which is by no means 
 uncommon in Jewish history? Sara, Anna, and 
 Manue's wife became mothers in similar circum- 
 stances. Nay, that intervention of divine grace 
 was deemed so frequent that the Psalmist chose 
 it as an instance of Yahweh's mercy, 
 
 "Who maketh the barren woman to keep house, 
 And to be a joyful mother of children."* 
 
 We would upset indeed the leading thought of 
 the whole narrative of the Annunciation in St. 
 Luke, did we suppose that, according to him, the 
 power of the Holy Ghost shone less in Jesus' 
 conception than in that of John the Baptist. And 
 yet they are driven to uphold this paradox, who 
 deny the virginal conception, strictly so called. 
 Elizabeth needs divine grace to become a mother, 
 whilst Mary can claim to conceive and bring forth 
 without any special intervention from God. For 
 the Evangelist, there is manifestly nothing com- 
 mon between a "late born" child, and Jesus born 
 of Mary through the action of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Finally, it need hardly be observed that the 
 words of consent uttered by Mary: "Behold, the 
 handmaid of the Lord : be it done to me, accord- 
 
 *Ps. 113 9 (Heb.) 
 
130 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ing to thy word" are neither a prayer nor a 
 thanksgiving, but an act of submission to the will 
 of God. To what does she submit? To the 
 honor of becoming the mother of the Messias? 
 No interpreter has as yet dreamt of that ex- 
 planation. Without even the shadow of doubt, 
 Mary consents to become a mother, since it is 
 the will of God, even though she had already 
 planned her life otherwise. Thus understood, 
 verse 38 implies verse 34, which some declare 
 unauthentic* 
 
 Again there is another improbability which we 
 are told was introduced into the primitive text, 
 when it was interpolated: Zachary was punished 
 for saying to the Angel : How can I know the 
 truth of what you announce? On the other hand, 
 
 * Regarding the Hebrew phraseology of the two con- 
 tested verses, i 3*. ss, the reader may be referred to G. H. 
 Box, The Gospel Narrative of Nativity and the Alleged 
 Influence of Heathen Ideas, in ZNTW, 1905, p. 92. 
 
 P. Feine's motto, quoted by Lagrange, Revue Biblique, 
 1895, p. 176, is most appropriate : "To do away with these 
 two verses (i34, 35) jg iq remove the jewel and to leave 
 the setting." Conybeare, in the Guardian, March 1903, 
 insists on the fact that Luke i 3*. ss jg not given in the 
 apocryphal writing, the Protevangelium of James, xi; but 
 the reply has been made that these two verses are implicitly 
 contained in the words of the Angel, xi, 2. Cf. Knowling, 
 The Virgin Birth, p. 94. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 131 
 
 Mary is praised for her faith (i *^), although 
 she also utters a word of mistrust. — Mary's 
 question implies no mistrust; it does not betoken 
 even surprise. Why should an affianced bride 
 wonder at the words with which Gabriel addresses 
 her: "Ecce concipies et paries fHium"? But she 
 expresses the wish to be told about a particular 
 point which she has the right to know. As she 
 intends to remain a virgin, Mary fails to see dis- 
 tinctly how she can become the mother of the 
 Messias.* 
 
 3 — Harnack thinks that Mary's question is not 
 in keeping with her character. In all that narra- 
 tive Mary's distinctive feature is a silent attitude : 
 she makes no answer to Elizabeth, nor to the 
 shepherds, nor to Simeon, nor to Jesus Himself : 
 she merely buries in her heart, as it were, what 
 she hears. But in this case, on the contrary, she 
 is so bold as to reply to the Angel : How shall this 
 
 * "She does not ask for proof, as Zacharias did (verse 
 18) ; and only in the form of the words does she ask as 
 to the mode of accomplishment. Her utterance is little 
 more than an involuntary expression of amazement : non 
 dubitantis sed admirantis (Grotius). In contrasting her 
 with Zacharias, Ambrose says, Haec jam de negotio tractat; 
 ille adhuc de nuntio dubitat. It is clear that she does not 
 doubt the fact promised, nor for a moment suppose that 
 her child is to be the child of Joseph." Plummer, loc. cit., 
 p. 24. 
 
132 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 take place? — The objection supposes that the 
 Magnificat was not said by Mary, and starts from 
 this denial as from an established principle. Some 
 ten years ago the attribution of that Canticle be- 
 came an object of dispute, and now in the judg- 
 ment of many, that dispute must be settled accord- 
 ing to the traditional view. It is almost unneces- 
 sary for us to observe that some scholars draw 
 rather hasty conclusions and are very little exact- 
 ing indeed as regards proofs.* Again, Mary sud- 
 denly ceases to abide by her attitude of silence, 
 simply because she answers in five words the most 
 extraordinary message! But then, why not sup- 
 press I ^^ "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord," 
 and also 2 *^ ? Then indeed, she would be silent ! 
 These, then, are the reasons by which some 
 scholars of no mean reputation feel justified in 
 reaching the following conclusions — (a) in the 
 earlier narrative of the third Gospel there was no 
 mention of the virginal conception; (b) the in- 
 cidental phrase w? hojiiZtro , as was supposed, 
 is an addition demanded by the interpolated verses 
 34 and 35 : (c) hence it follows that the epithet 
 Ttapdivo?^ virgo, which is read twice in 2y may 
 be set aside, and that the word ^ixvriareuiiivq, 
 betrothed, has in this last passage the same mean- 
 
 * Cf. above, p. 17. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Test of Gospels. 133 
 
 ing as in 2 ^', where it is merely a useless addition 
 joined to r^^a^'^h wife* 
 
 The reader may now judge of what remains of 
 those three assertions. 
 
 Conybeare has made an attempt to give an his- 
 torical confirmation to what we may not im- 
 properly style, quibbles based on the study of the 
 text itself of St. Luke; but it must be confessed 
 that he has not been success ful.f Theodotus the 
 tanner — whose testimony some modestly pretend 
 to have unearthed and revealed to the world — 
 Theodotus the tanner, I say, did not appeal 
 to the third Gospel (i ^^) to question Christ's 
 virginal conception — which he probably admitted 
 — but to deny His divinity. The Angel, he used 
 to observe, said: "The Holy Ghost shall come 
 upon thee," not : "shall be in thee." The text of 
 St. Epiphanius is within easy reach, and all may 
 convince themselves that this author — the only 
 one who enters into details about the texts alleged 
 by Theodotus — understood thus the error of the 
 tanner of Byzantium, and especially his attitude 
 regarding i ^^| 
 
 * UsENER, in Encycl. Biblica., Vol. Ill, col. 3349. 
 
 '\ The Standard, May 11, 1905. 
 
 % St. Epiphan., Adv. Hcer., I, liv, 3. Cf. Salmon, in the 
 Diet, of Christ. Biography, Vol. IV, p. 979; and especially 
 J. TixERONT, Histoire des Dogmes, Vol. I, La Theologie 
 Anteniceenne, p. 311. 
 
134 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 True, in the Acts of Pilate (the Gospel of 
 Nicodemus), the friends of Jesus do not appeal to 
 the fact of His miraculous conception to shield 
 Him from the slander of the Jews ; but this is 
 simply because the author supposes His friends 
 as yet unacquainted with that mystery. Besides, 
 had they actually known it, it would have been 
 for them a policy of elementary common sense 
 not to bring forward a reason of this kind before 
 the Sanhedrin or before Pilate's tribunal. This 
 time at least, the apocryphal writing has remained, 
 contrary to its custom, within the limits of plaus- 
 ibility. 
 
 In their attempts to throw doubt on the primi- 
 tive character of the Gospel of the Infancy, some 
 critics insist on the fact that it is absent from 
 the text of St. Mark, which represents the earliest 
 type of the Gospel narrative. 
 
 Scholars generally grant that the second Gospel 
 follows the primitive catechesis more closely than 
 the others do : a statement to which the words of 
 the Presbyter in Papias contribute a few more 
 precise and particular details as to the catechesis 
 of Peter. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 135 
 
 Now, the primitive catechesis, as made known 
 through the writings of St. Paul, dwelt on those 
 facts of the Savior's life which relate more es- 
 pecially to the work of salvation He had come 
 to accomplish in this world : His baptism, preach- 
 ing, miracles, above all His passion and resurrec- 
 tion.* Were the silence of Mark on this point a 
 proof of ignorance, why should we not say also 
 that all that he knows of the Savior's life is only 
 what he relates about it? — a consequence which 
 even the most advanced critics may hesitate to 
 draw. Is it plausible that Christians should have 
 waited until the last quarter of the first century 
 to make inquiries regarding the origin and in- 
 fancy of Jesus? That the information on that 
 topic remained in the background of the thoughts 
 of the Apostles, that it was a subject of private 
 conversation rather than of preaching, that not 
 
 *Just after the Ascension, St. Peter describes graphic- 
 ally in a few words the qualities of the disciple it is fit 
 to choose for the preaching of the Gospel instead of the 
 traitor Judas : he must be a witness of Christ's public 
 life. "Of the men therefore that have companied with us 
 all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out 
 among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the 
 day that he was received up from us, of these must one 
 become a witness with us of his resurrection." Acts 
 
 I 21-22_ 
 
136 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 all the details enjoyed at once and universally all 
 the credit sufficient that they might be received 
 without any reserve, we readily grant: but that 
 the narratives of Matthew and Luke arose and 
 became actually received within the space of a 
 few years, which intervene between the second 
 Gospel on one hand, and the first and third Gos- 
 pels on the other, cannot be held. 
 
 But we may offer more than an indirect answer. 
 Is the idea of Jesus' supernatural birth altogether 
 absent from the second Gospel? We can hardly 
 believe it. Whilst the three other Evangelists 
 speak of Joseph and do not hesitate to call him 
 the father of Jesus, Mark has nothing at all to 
 say about the Virgin's husband ; for him Jesus is 
 the "Son of Mary."* This is indeed a note- 
 worthy detail, and the more we think of it, the 
 more easily do we become convinced that as the 
 second Evangelist did not relate in what way the 
 Son of God had been made one of us, he watched 
 most closely over his expressions, so as to say 
 nothing that might lead astray or even merely 
 shock the faithful. 
 
 Again, it may be that the insistence with which 
 St. Mark calls Jesus "the Son of God," f must 
 
 * Mark 6 3. 
 
 t Mark i i- ", 3 " (12) ; 5 ^ 9 ^ (6) ; 14 ^^ ; 15 s^. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 137 
 
 be looked upon as an allusion to the fact of His 
 Virgin-Birth.* True, St. Mark speaks twice of 
 the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus ;t but St. 
 Matthew and St. Luke, who mention expressly 
 His mother's virginity, use the same expression.! 
 Besides, that circumstance, which is an argument 
 against Mary's perpetual virginity, has nothing to 
 do with the miraculous birth of our Lord.§ 
 
 * Cf. McNabb, O. p., St. Mark's Witness to the Virgin 
 Birth, in the Journal of Theological Studies, April 1907; 
 and also E. Vacandard, in the Revue Pratique d'Apolo- 
 getique, 1907, Vol. IV, p. 412. 
 
 t63; 332, 
 
 JMatt. 12^0; Luke 8 20. 
 
 § Unless some account is made of a Gnostic writing of 
 the 2d century, the Acts of Thomas, in which the Apostle 
 Judas-Thomas is called once, perhaps twice, "the twin of 
 the Lord." Cf. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 
 Vol. II, p. 180 (1871) ; M. Bonnet, Suppl. cod. apocr., ii, 
 p. 148 (Greek text, edit. 1903), and E. Hennecke, N cutest. 
 Apokryphen, p. 493. (German transl, 1904). If we set 
 aside that rather strange and merely incidental appellation, 
 nothing is left from that long-drawn novel — it is divided 
 into thirteen acts — to give us any hint that Thomas is the 
 Lord's twin. He is usually called the Apostle, the disciple, 
 the servant, the slave of Jesus, and he himself has cer- 
 tainly no suspicion of that relationship, when he says : "I 
 am not Jesus, but the servant of Jesus; I am not the 
 Messias, but one of those who minister in his presence ; 
 I am not the Son of God, but I pray that I may be found 
 worthy of God." Cf. Bonnet, ii, 270. True, Jesus calls 
 
138 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the Gospel according to St. Mark, Mary is 
 apparently unacquainted with the great destiny of 
 her Son: which cannot be accounted for if the 
 Angel Gabriel really spoke to her in the words 
 related by St. Luke (i s""). At the beginning 
 of the public ministry of Jesus, like His brethren, 
 
 him "His brother," but then this appellation has just the 
 same bearing as in the Gospels (Matt. 12^^, 25*0, 281°, 
 and corresponding passages in the other Evangelists.) Th. 
 Zahn (Forschungen, vi, p. 348) thinks we have to do 
 "with a mere fancy, that could originate only from one 
 who denied the extraordinary prerogative of Jesus' gene- 
 ration." Personally I believe that the whole story may 
 be accounted for by a local popular legend. That legend 
 belongs to the Syrians who give very often to Thomas the 
 name of Judas (Euseb., H. E., i, 13, 'lovi^ac kqI Gu/iag ) and 
 seems to be founded (a) on the etymology of Thomas, 
 called AMv/zof ; cf. John ii i**, 20 2*. In the Clementine 
 Homilies, ii, i, the name of his twin, Eliezer, is given; (b) 
 on the supernatural power by means of which the Apostle 
 of India can assume at times the physical features of 
 Jesus, or vice versa, so that the Lord says to the son-in- 
 law of King Gundaphoros : "I am not Judas, who also is 
 Thomas; I am his brother." (Cf. Bonnet, ii, p. 116.) 
 Those legends, far from having any regard for history, 
 do not aim even at consistency. In another story, a 
 twin sister, named Lydia, is ascribed to Thomas. Perhaps 
 the last echo of the legend of Thomas as the twin of 
 the Lord is found in Priscillian, edit. Schepss, Corp. 
 script, eccl. latin., Vindob., 1889, p. 44. "Judas apostolus 
 damans ille didymus Domini"; and yet Priscillian holds 
 Christ's Virgin-Birth. {Ibid., p. 36.) 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 139 
 
 she does not believe in Him; nay, on one occasion 
 she joins them to get hold of Him, thinking "that 
 He was beside Himself," in the words of St. 
 Mark.* 
 
 In this objection several points, which are at 
 least doubtful, are looked upon as certain; par- 
 ticularly the similarity between the two verses 
 just quoted.f However, even supposing we make 
 
 * ^j 21, Sl_ 
 
 t Mark 3 21 says oi nap' avTov, sui: does this refer to the 
 relatives of Jesus or to some of His disciples? oni^iaTTj, 
 quoniam in furorem versus est: are these words to be 
 taken literally or with a grain of allowance, as containing 
 a hyperbole? Besides, "they do not say that Jesus is out 
 of His mind, for the word used by the Evangelist has 
 not in the New Testament that definite meaning, and 
 serves to designate any outburst of surprise, of wonder, 
 of awe, of enthusiasm ; but they do believe that He is in 
 a state of mystical excitement, which deprives Him of the 
 proper sense of life and of His own condition." Loisy, 
 in the Revue d'Hist. et de Litter, relig., 1904, p. 439.— 'EAe}-oi', 
 dicebant: is this a remark of the crowd or of those who 
 were jealous of Jesus, or of His kindred? And if it 
 comes from the last mentioned, do they speak through 
 conviction or merely in order to excuse Jesus before His 
 enemies? Above all, are the kindred of the Lord, re- 
 ferred to in verse 21, to be identified with those called 
 His "brethren" in verse 31 ? — So many disputed, and some, 
 rightly disputed questions. We may abide by the sentiment 
 of Maldonatus, in Marc. 3 ^i, who looks upon verses 21 and 
 31 as parallel, and yet even after accepting that hypothesis 
 
I40 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 all possible concessions. Mary may have joined 
 the company of her relatives, worried as she was 
 at the thought of the dangers to which her divine 
 Son was exposing Himself : the indiscreet assi- 
 duity of the crowds often did not leave Him time 
 even to eat, and the Pharisees were already show- 
 ing their jealousy of the young wonder-worker.* 
 Even though St. Luke tells us expressly that Mary 
 knew beforehand from the lips of an Angel, the 
 Messianic destiny of Jesus, still he observes that 
 "His father and mother were marvelling" at what 
 
 does not hold that Mary shared the view of those who 
 say oTt E^ecTT], — ^According to HerzoGj Revue d'Hist. et de 
 Litter, relig., 1907, p. 129, Matt. 12 ^^, and Luke 8 i^, sup- 
 press on purpose the remark otI e^earr/, and thus "they 
 have left on the text of Mark a scar that cannot but 
 strike the eyes." The difficulty is entitled to some con- 
 sideration, if the opponent admits the primitive character 
 of the second Gospel; but I strongly suspect Herzog of 
 holding Loisy's actual view (in the same Revue, 1903, p. 
 513), according to which our canonical Mark is not a 
 primitive document. If that is the case and if the second 
 Evangelist has also made use of a written source, on what 
 grounds can we hold that he found 6rt Eisarri in his docu- 
 ment and reproduced it? He may have added it so as 
 to usher in what immediately follows in his text: Quoniam 
 Beelzebub habet; and so, far from "leaving a scar on the 
 text of Mark," Matthew and Luke would be nearer to the 
 primitive document than he is himself. 
 
 *Mark 320-22. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 141 
 
 was said in His regard.* In the same Gospel, 
 Mary asks her Son the reasons of His conduct, 
 the first time He takes up openly the work of His 
 Father; St. Luke does not hesitate to add that 
 His parents "did not understand the word which 
 He spoke to them.^'f Hence his would be indeed 
 a poor psychological sense, who would be puzzled 
 at the fact that Mary was surprised, in proportion 
 as she gradually witnessed the wonders that had 
 been foretold her. The description of an event or 
 of an object, made to us beforehand, does not 
 preclude feelings of admiration nor of awe from 
 arising in our souls, the first time that event or 
 that object comes actually under our eyes; and 
 this is true especially of prophecies, the subject 
 of which remains more or less obscure until their 
 fulfilment becomes a fact of experience. In 
 fine, he has failed to read into a mother's heart, 
 who wonders at the feelings which the Blessed 
 Virgin experiences, when she beholds the gradual 
 unfolding of the drama which will take Jesus to 
 Calvary. Christ's mother, supernaturally en- 
 lightened, in all their details, about all the events 
 which are to make up the life of her Son, and 
 
 *Luke 28*. 
 
 t Luke 2 49-60. 
 
142 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 then unfeelingly, with dry eyes, contemplating 
 their actual occurrence, would be a type worthy 
 of the Apocryphal Gospels. 
 
 St. John does not seem to have paid any atten- 
 tion to the human origin of Jesus, nor had he to 
 take it into account, since his purpose was to 
 write down the Gospel of the Incarnate Word. 
 His silence on this point is explained in the same 
 way as in the other points, when his text is com- 
 pared with that of the Synoptics. True, several 
 New Testament theologians look upon the In- 
 carnation as being, in the Johannine Christology, 
 the equivalent of the supernatural conception; but 
 it does not suffice to build and propose abstract 
 theories ; they must also be based on texts and his- 
 tory.* We shall take up this subject later. 
 
 * According to H. Holtzmann, Lehrhuch der neutestam. 
 Theologie, ii, 419, we should infer from John i ^^^ 542^ 
 7 28, that, in the eyes of the fourth Evangelist, Jesus was 
 born like other men. To these passages we may oppose the 
 
 following, 114,313,6 38,44,61,82, 8 38. 46, 58^ IQ 28-81^ „ 26^ 
 
 which are much better understood in the hypothesis of the 
 Virginal conception. Cf. A. Carr, The Testimony of St. 
 John on the Virgin Birth of Our Lord, in The Expositor, 
 April, 1907, p. 311 ; and The Virgin Birth in St. John's Gos- 
 pel, in The Expository Times, 1907, Vol. XVIII, p. 521. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 143 
 
 Even granting it is real, St. John's silence 
 rather confirms the traditional faith. "It is be- 
 yond all doubt that the author of the fourth 
 Gospel knew the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. 
 Luke. If his belief had been contrary to that of 
 the two writers of the 'Gospel of the Infancy 
 of Jesus,' why, we ask, did he not emphatically 
 assert his own faith in opposition to the new 
 dogma which was beginning to creep into the 
 churches? Would silence have sufficed to vindi- 
 cate his orthodoxy? Are we not justified, then, 
 in interpreting the silence of St. John as really 
 favorable to our thesis and in believing that St, 
 John accepted unreservedly the fact of the super- 
 natural birth?" * 
 
 Besides, we may add that, far from being left 
 aside, that truth is probably expressed in the 
 fourth Gospel. Contemporary critics take into 
 account a variant discovered in the Prologue of 
 St. John (i ^^), which so far had remained almost 
 unnoticed. The Received Text reads : "Who 
 not from blood, nor from the desire of the flesh, 
 nor from the will of man, but from God zvere 
 horn." Now, most of the writers of the 2d cen- 
 tury read in the last member of the phrase : "bitt 
 from God was horn" and these words they refer, 
 
 * Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 60. 
 
144 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 not to the birth of the faithful to the supernatural 
 life, but to the temporal birth of the Word of God. 
 True, Tertullian is the only one who explicitly 
 holds that reading; but St. Justin, St. Irenseus 
 and perhaps St. Hippolytus seem, on various occa- 
 sions, to imply it and even to quote it. In the 
 present state of the question, we may say that St. 
 John probably referred in that passage to the 
 most undefiled source from which the Word be- 
 come man drew its human life.* 
 
 * The reading og kyevvfjdT], (instead of ot kyEw^drjaav) is sup- 
 ported by the authority of Tertull., De Came Christi, c. 
 xix and xxiv; St. Iren., Adv. Hceres., Ill, xxvi, 2; xix, 2; 
 xxi, 5, 6; V, i, 3; the codex veron. (&) and perhaps D; 
 St. Justin, Apolog. i, 32; Dialog., 54, 61, 63, y6, 84; St, 
 Hippolytus, Ref. Har., vi, 9; cf. St. August., Confess., 
 VII, ix, 2. Nay, St. Ignatius of Antioch seems to quote 
 John 1 13 and to insinuate the reading ogiyevvydr]^ in the 
 luminous formula of the virginal conception, which he 
 gives at the beginning of his letter to the Christians of 
 Smyrna. Cf. LoisY, Le Quatrieme Evangile, p. 166, note. 
 Nowadays, that reading is held as certain or at least as 
 probable by Resch, Kindheitsevangelium in Texte und 
 Untersuch. (Harnack), x, 3, pp. 88, 89, 249, 250; Loisy, 
 Le Quatrieme Evangile, p. 177-180, although he does not 
 look upon it as an allusion to the virginal conception; 
 Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 61, Others dismiss it as 
 a textual alteration : Th. Calmes, Rev. Bibl, 1900, p. 394 ; 
 Westcott-Hort, The New Test, in the Original Greek, 
 Appendix, p. 74; Holtzmann, Handcomm. sum N. T., 
 Vol. IV 2, p. 34; Reville, Le Quatrieme Evangile, 1902, p. 
 
Detailed Criticism of Text of Gospels. 145 
 
 The well-known Anglican Bishop and scholar, 
 Dr. Gore, has suggested another consideration 
 which is not without some importance. All know 
 that Cerinthus was St. John's opponent; nay, it 
 was in order to counteract the effect of his preach- 
 ing, that the Apostle made up his mind to write 
 the fourth Gospel. Now, Cerinthus denied the 
 reality of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, 
 and consequently the supernatural birth of Jesus. 
 According to Rose, this argument is not con- 
 clusive. "We give this argument as merely 
 probable," he says, "it has not, in our judgment, 
 that certainty which is sometimes attributed to it. 
 No doubt Cerinthus, denying the reality of the 
 Incarnation did assign to Jesus a purely human 
 origin, but this is only of secondary importance 
 after all, since the Incarnation is not founded 
 upon the miraculous Conception, and does not 
 actually require it. The Apostle's object princi- 
 pally was to establish that the union of the Word 
 with the human nature was substantial, and he 
 might, therefore, have left the question of the 
 miraculous birth unconsidered." * 
 
 102, note; however, our readers may observe that these 
 last two writers frankly declare that they deny the primi- 
 tive character of this variant, precisely because it witnesses 
 in behalf of Christ's supernatural conception. 
 
 * Gore, Dissertations on Subjects Connected with the 
 Incarnation, p. 8; Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 62. 
 
146 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 If, like the author we have just quoted, we 
 consider the question merely from a speculative 
 point of view and take into account only what is 
 absolutely possible, the objection raised against 
 Gore's view cannot be answered. But is this 
 truly the way in which the question must be put? 
 In the dispute between St. John and Cerinthus, 
 was not the supernatural conception of Jesus 
 bound up de facto with the Incarnation of the 
 Word, so that to deny one point implied also, as 
 a consequence, the rejection of the other? That 
 this was the way in which things occurred actually 
 in Asia, is suggested by the texts of St. Ignatius 
 and of St. Irenasus, already quoted; the argu- 
 ment upon which the latter grounds Christ's 
 divinity is especially significant and worth notic- 
 ing.* 
 
 Now, we have examined all the Gospel pas- 
 sages to which our opponents appeal to uphold 
 their denial of the primitive character of the 
 
 * Cf. above pp. 61-62, and Harnack, History of Dogma, 
 Vol. II, pp. 27s, ff. The reader may find in Resch, Kind- 
 heitsevangelium, pp. 243-255, a suggestive comparison be- 
 tween the Gospel of the Infancy and the prologue of the 
 Gospel according to St. John. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 147 
 
 Christian belief in the Virgin-Mother. The 
 reader may judge whether or not we were right, 
 when, at the end of the preceding chapter, we 
 said that whilst all that display of erudition can 
 impress those who witness it at a distance, they 
 who examine it more closely come soon to realize 
 that it is a mere scare-crow. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GOSPELS AND THE 
 OTHER PARTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Although St. Paul mentions nowhere ex- 
 pressly Christ's supernatural Conception, yet noth- 
 ing whatever can justify us to say that he is 
 ignorant of it, and still less can we say that he 
 denies it.* On the contrary, his Christology 
 agrees much better with that hypothesis : nay, 
 there may be in some of his Epistles, for instance 
 in that to the Galatians, several texts that actually 
 imply it. With the doctrine of the Virgin-Birth 
 before our eyes, we fully account for the Apostle's 
 idea of the Heavenly origin of Jesus and His un- 
 paralleled holiness. 
 
 *As is done by Reuss, Meyer, Sabatier, Weizsacker, 
 Pfleiderer, Lobstein, Holtzmann and others. 
 
148 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The reserve, or — if you prefer — the silence of 
 Paul about the way in which the Son of God came 
 into this world, is no puzzle for those who re- 
 member that all through his Epistles, which make 
 up one-third of the New Testament, he retains 
 but a few facts of Jesus' earthly life : the Euchar- 
 ist, the death on the Cross, the Resurrection and 
 the Ascension. It is only in the way of allusion 
 that the Apostle refers briefly to what concerns 
 the ministry of John,* the preaching and the 
 miracles of the Lord. 
 
 The Epistles are addressed to a certain number 
 of Christians, who are supposed to know the 
 essential facts and teachings of the Gospel : they 
 are no mere repetition of the cathechesis by which 
 they have been preceded. 
 
 On the other hand, we cannot suppose that the 
 Apostle was unacquainted with the Gospel of the 
 Infancy, related in detail by his disciple. Even 
 setting aside the testimony of tradition, which 
 affirms the existence of personal relations between 
 Paul and Luke, the study of the texts alone suf- 
 
 * Once, at Antioch of Pisidia, he explicitly mentions the 
 ministry of the Baptist, Acts 13 24-25_ Jhe analysis of that 
 discourse enables us to ascertain that, in his catechesis, St. 
 Paul followed the method of the Apostles: Cf. Acts a^^-^S; 
 
 o 12-26 • y l-53_ 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 149 
 
 fices to show the close connection between the 
 Epistles, on one hand, and the third Gospel and 
 the Acts, on the other.* 
 
 Most ecclesiastical writers of old saw a rather 
 definite statement of the Virgin-Birth in the 
 Epistle to the Galatians (4 *), where St. Paul says 
 of Christ that He was horn, literally "that He was 
 made of a woman." f Modern commentators are 
 less positive; the most confident of them believe 
 that, if the supernatural Conception is here 
 formulated, it is rather as a mere suggestion, as 
 a hint, that can be understood only by those who 
 believe already in the mystery. By using that 
 language, they say, the Apostle may have meant 
 to designate only the reality of Christ's human 
 nature, with an allusion to Genesis (3"), and 
 oppose beforehand the Valentinians and the 
 Docetae, who gradually came to deny that Jesus 
 had taken a true body in the womb of the Virgin 
 
 * Tertull., Adv. Marc, iv, 2; St. Iren., Adv. Hcsr., x, i ; 
 Canon of Muratori, lin. iii ;— A. Resch, Das Kindheits- 
 cvauncUum, pp. 264-276; A. Plummer, Commentary on the 
 Gospel according to St. Luke, pp. xliii-Iix ; Harnack, Luke 
 the Physician, pp. 1-25. 
 
 T Efa7T'eo"TeiA«>' 6 fleb? Toi/ v'Cov avToO, ytvofLtvov (k yvvaiKoi, ytvofitvov 
 
 vnh' I'dMoi'. The reader may find in Petau, De Incarnatione 
 Verbi, V, xvi, the Fathers' comments on this passage; that 
 of St. Irenaeus, III, xxii, i, is especially remarkable. 
 
150 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Mary. At all events, they add, the Biblical ex- 
 pression, "Begotten of woman" t'cwtjto? yuvaixd^, 
 which seems so similar to that which we read 
 here in St. Paul, Yzvd;j.e>o<; hyuvauu<}, is a mere para- 
 phrase, equivalent to avdptuTnxs, man* 
 
 We may well ask ourselves if this change of 
 position is not due to an excessive timidity in 
 face of the denials of liberal scholars. f For, 
 after all, there is a difference between the poetical 
 Hebrew idiom "son of woman" and the peculiar 
 expression "Born of woman," which is used no- 
 where else, not even by St. Paul. The LXX had 
 translated by ^swijtw? yuvauo? the Hebrew ialoud 
 ishsha, which refers to what is most infirm 
 and weak and defiled in the fruit of the 
 woman, and this shade of meaning may not be 
 
 *JoB 14 1; Matt, ii ". 
 
 t "Traditional commentators see in the qualificative 
 ytvoiLfvov €K yvvaiKOi an allusion to the supernatural con- 
 ception of Jesus in the womb of a virgin, i. e., without 
 man's cooperation. In this they are greatly mistaken. Not 
 only is this idea absent from the text, but even it is ex- 
 plicitly opposed by the thought that is in the text. The 
 being born of a woman is here called thus, in order 
 not to be distinguished from other men, but rather to be 
 likened to them." A Sabatier, L'Apotre Paul, 3d edit., pp. 
 415-416. (The English translation was made from the 2d 
 French edition and does not contain the appendix from 
 which those words are quoted.) 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 151 
 
 absent from the text of St. Matthew (11 "), in 
 which the native lowHness of the man contrasts 
 easily with the glory of the prophetical calling. 
 That St. Paul's aim is to emphasize the reality 
 of Christ's human nature, let it be granted; but 
 why does he use so typical an expression, when 
 he had at his disposal that of j'ewijro? ^'ovaad?, 
 so familiar to all? We can hardly believe that 
 this is an unimportant detail of grammar, espe- 
 cially under the pen of a writer who, in keeping 
 with Jewish notions, was most probably reluctant 
 to dwell on the maternal generation. Is it not 
 more natural to suppose that the Apostle meant 
 to insinuate that Christ's relation to His mother 
 was of a most uncommon and unique kind? * 
 
 Protestant interpreters dispute among them- 
 selves as to whether or not the Virgin-Birth is a 
 necessary corollary of the Pauline teaching on 
 the redemption. Whilst A. Sabatier holds the 
 negative, Godet claims that as St. Paul bases 
 
 * In the expression, yev6y.fvo^ Ik yvvai.Ko<;, the particle « 
 may signify the adequate material cause, just as in a some- 
 what forgotten passage, / Cor., 11 12^ where we read, with 
 a manifest allusion to Gen., 2 ^s : yvv^ u toC ovSpds, woman 
 taken out, made of man. The Fathers had already ob- 
 served that yvvrj and jrap9eVos are not necessarily incompatible. 
 Cf. St. Jerome, Comm. in Galat., iv, 4; St. August., Sermo 
 clxxxvi (al. xix), De temp., 3. 
 
 12 
 
152 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 on original sin his theological system, it follows 
 that an innocent victim alone can atone for the 
 guilty. As a matter of fact, this is the express 
 view of the Apostle.* But, then, how shall we 
 account for that native innocence of Christ, if 
 His life originated from the same defiled source 
 as the life of other men? 
 
 As we have said already, if we take the ques- 
 tion from the point of view of mere possibility, 
 the argument is not conclusive, for, rigorously 
 speaking, we can suppose a sinless Christ, sancti- 
 fied from His mother's womb, who, however, 
 would have been conceived and born just like 
 other men. But it must be confessed that this 
 hypothesis hardly agrees with the train of thought 
 found all through the system of St. Paul. St. 
 Irenseus was struck by the comparison the Apostle 
 draws between the first and the second Adam, 
 and concludes that, just as the former was drawn 
 from a virgin earth, so the latter must have been 
 born of a Virgin mother. f 
 
 ♦// Cor. 521; Eph. 2 3-5; cf. Rom. 1221. 
 
 ^ Adv. Hcer., Ill, xxi, 10; V, i, 3. The same idea has 
 been taken up by Neander, Life of Jesus, p. 17; and still 
 more recently by Lechler, Schmid and B. Weiss. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 153 
 
 How can St. Paul's explicit declaration that 
 Christ according to the flesh is the descendant of 
 David,* agree with the belief in the virginal con- 
 ception ? 
 
 The same question should be asked regarding 
 the first and third Gospels. Although they ex- 
 pressly declare that Joseph had nothing to do 
 with the human generation of Jesus, St. Mat- 
 thew and St. Luke hold it as certain that the 
 Virgin's Son is truly the descendant, the heir of 
 David, foretold by the Prophets. In this con- 
 nection most authors strive to prove at length 
 that, like Joseph, her husband, Mary belonged to 
 the family of David. Their view can be upheld f 
 
 *Rom. I 3, 4 13, 95, 15 12 (cf. Apoc. 55, 22 1«); Galat. 
 3^^; // Tim. 2^; Acts 13 ^^ where the term used by St. 
 Paul is especially significant : airipua, seed, being the ren- 
 dering of the Hebrew zera. 
 
 t On this subject the reader may be referred to Patrizi, 
 De Evangeliis, III, Diss, vi, p. 14; Keim, Jesus of Nazara, 
 Vol. II, pp. 24, ff. ; DiDON, Jesus Christ, Vol. II, pp. 430- 
 432. St. Justin, Dialog., 43, 45, 100; St. Iren^us, III, 
 xxi, 5 ; the Protevangelium of James, x ; the Gospel of the 
 Nativity of Mary; the Sinaitic version of the Gospels, 
 Luke 2 ^, hold that Mary belonged to the house of David ; 
 St. Augustine, De Cons. Evang., II, i, even says that no 
 other view can be held. Commentators usually treat the 
 question in connection with Luke i ^7. Cf. O. Barden- 
 HEWER, Maria Verkilndigung, in Biblische Studien, Vol. X, 
 1905, 5th fasc, pp. 74-82. 
 
154 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 — we grant — is even certain, but is it necessary 
 and does it suffice to account for the Davidic 
 descent of Jesus Christ, according to St. Paul's 
 meaning? We may doubt it. 
 
 In the eyes of the Apostle, as in those of his 
 contemporaries, he is a Son of David, whom the 
 Jewish Law acknowledges as such. Now, before 
 the Law, Joseph is really the father of Jesus, 
 although the natural paternity is only presumed. 
 Evidently the case of a husband whose wife con- 
 ceives supernaturally was not foreseen in the 
 Mosaic law; however, the rights of Joseph over 
 Jesus are legally just as real as those granted 
 by the law of the levirate; they are even more 
 real.* From the legal point of view, which was 
 so important among the Jews and to which alone 
 attention was paid in genealogies, Jesus is the 
 true descendant of Joseph, since He was born of 
 his lawful wife and is not a child of adultery. 
 This is why St. Matthew, and most probably St. 
 Luke himself, connect Christ with David, through 
 the genealogy of Joseph, His reputed father. 
 
 We need not insist especially on the terms used 
 by St. Paul. The incidental phrase xara adpxa, 
 
 *Cf. Grimm, Die Einheit der vier Evangelien, p. 239, 
 and Das Leben Jesu, I, 122, 206; Funk, in Zeitschrift filr 
 Kat. Theol, 1888, p. 657. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 155 
 
 secundum carnem, contrasted with xara msu/xa, 
 secundum spiritum,'*' signifies human nature in 
 all its integrity, and not merely the body of Jesus. 
 
 As man, Christ is the Son of David: but this 
 is neither His only nor His chief dignity. Be- 
 sides that prerogative, which draws its source 
 from flesh and blood, He enjoys another, of a 
 spiritual and heavenly kind : and through the 
 latter, He is connected with God as an only son 
 to his father. That passage of the Epistle to 
 the Romans clearly sets forth what is put, in 
 indistinct and half-concealed words, by the first 
 three Evangelists, on the lips of Jesus Himself, 
 on the day he asked the Pharisees whose son the 
 Messias was to be.f 
 
 According to Herzog, Jesus protested, on that 
 occasion, in the name of Holy Writ itself, against 
 the title "Son of David" bestowed on Him by 
 popular simplicity.! In this case, even more than 
 
 * Rom. I *. The text of Acts 2 3o^ j^ fructu lumbi ejus, 
 is not more conclusive than those just studied. St Peter 
 makes use of the Hebrew phrase currently used to designate 
 a descendant, an offspring. Then, too, there is a direct 
 allusion to // Kings 7 12, which must literally be under- 
 stood of Solomon. 
 
 * Matt. 22 ^i-^e ; Mark 12 35-38 j Luke 20 *i-*5. 
 
 % La Conception Virginale du Christ, in the Revue d'Hist. 
 et de Litter, relig., 1907, p. 119. 
 
156 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 in others, his exegetical method, so brief and 
 dogmatic, has led this writer to unwarranted con- 
 clusions. All grant, I suppose, that according to 
 is actually, the Son of David. Now, when relat- 
 the Synoptics the Messias must be and that Jesus 
 ing the episode just referred to — and all three 
 relate it — they have certainly no suspicion what- 
 ever that the Lord intended to deny that Davidic 
 descent. Which shall we believe, the Evangelists 
 or . . . Herzog? 
 
 Likewise, the crowd who in their acclamations, 
 used indiscriminately the terms "Messias" or 
 "Son of David," do not see at all the meaning 
 which some modern criticis ascribe to the ques- 
 tion put by Jesus to the Pharisees; they are so 
 deeply convinced of having the same thoughts as 
 the Master, that, at that very moment, as we read 
 in St. Mark, "they heard Him gladly." 
 
 But, then, what did Jesus mean when He asked 
 His opponents : Whose Son is Christ ? Why is 
 it that, against their reply that the Messias is 
 of Davidic descent, He raises the objection: "If 
 David calls Him Lord, how is He his son?" 
 The text of St. Mark supplies us with the answer. 
 The crowd has just welcomed the prophet of 
 Nazareth with the cry : * "Blessed is the kingdom 
 
 ♦Mark ii ". 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 157 
 
 of your father, David, which comes!" That 
 acclamation was a programme : Jesus is to be the 
 Messias of whom they dream, He is to raise the 
 throne of their father David and to lead them 
 to the glorious revenge they must take from the 
 oppressors of Israel. Now, that is precisely the 
 Messianic part Jesus is unwilling to play. They 
 are mistaken, who expect to find in the Messias 
 David's heir only; He is to be "greater than 
 Solomon." * His human origin does not exhaust 
 all His dignity, it is not even its predominant 
 feature. After all, His calling is grounded on 
 a title far greater than His human descent, and 
 that is why David himself calls Him his Lord. 
 
 Jesus does not infer expressly His divine Son- 
 ship, but He takes the minds of the Jews in that 
 direction. According to Dalman, if the passage 
 does not refer to Christ's origin, we must see in 
 it an allusion to the Virgin-Birth. f 
 
 * Matt. 12 *2. 
 
 ■f The Words of Jesus (English translation), pp. 285. 
 Herzog has thought it wise to place his interpretation under 
 the authority of H. Holtzmann. In reply we might appeal 
 to Dalman, Wendt, Meyer-Weiss, Zahn, Allen, etc. . . . 
 the best, however, is to appeal to Holtzmann himself. 
 True, the page quoted by Herzog (Lehrb. der N. T. Theol., 
 I, p. 244) lacks precision ; but why did he not consult p. 
 258, and especially the same author's commentary on the 
 
158 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 How can the Apostle give the name of off- 
 spring of Abraham and of David to Him whose 
 father is not to be sought among the descendants 
 of those Patriarchs? He uses these terms through 
 one of those legal fictions, that are judicially just 
 as effective as the relations based on nature itself. 
 In Deuteronomy 25 ^, he who was born of the 
 levir is called simply the offspring (zera, semen) 
 of a man who really died childless, merely because 
 in the eyes of the law the latter is his father, even 
 though in reality he had nothing to do with his 
 birth. 
 
 This view of Christ's descent is not a novelty : 
 it is met already in Origen and in St. Augustine.* 
 Hence Knabenbauer has written the following 
 words that express the same view : "St. Augus- 
 
 Synoptic Gospels (3d edit, 1901, p. 277) ? In this latter 
 passage, the narrative of the Gospels is explicitly placed 
 side by side with the Epistle to the Romans i 3*. "The 
 contrast between Christ Kara <rdp<co = eK o-irepjiaro? AoveiS, and 
 Christ Kara jr>'eCfia = Kvpios riiidv was probably present to the 
 mind of the Evangelist." Cf. Loisy, Le Quatrieme Evan- 
 gile, p. 628. True, by ascribing apparently to a subsequent 
 theology the doctrine suggested by the Synoptics, loc. cit., 
 Holtzmann and Loisy are more self-consistent than Herzog, 
 who deems historical the words of Jesus related in that 
 passage. That interpretation fitted better his thesis. 
 
 * Origen, in Rom. i ^ ; St. August., De Cons. Evang., II, 
 cap. 1. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 159 
 
 tine and Paschasiiis Radbert rightly hold that, for 
 this only reason, namely the true marriage which 
 existed between Mary and Joseph, Christ may 
 and must be called the Son of David, even though 
 the Virgin, His mother, would descend in no 
 way from David." * One of St. Luke's latest 
 Catholic commentators is less felicitous, when he 
 claims that "Jesus could not descend from David 
 unless His mother belonged to the royal race." f 
 And yet, by a kind of contradiction, the same 
 author admits a few pages after, that St. Mat- 
 thew intended to prove Jesus to be the Son of 
 David by giving St. Joseph's genealogy. $ 
 
 Not only is Mary's genealogy unnecessary to 
 explain how through His human nature, Christ 
 is the Son of David, but even, taken by itself, it 
 seems unable to prove that kinship. For, after 
 all, if we complete St. Paul by the Evangelists, it 
 was not any descent whatever — for instance, that 
 which a woman might enjoy — which is claimed 
 for Christ by our texts; it is that descent which, 
 from the historical point of view, makes Him 
 
 * Comment, in Evangel. Matthai, i, p. 43. 
 
 t P. GiRODON, Comment, crit. ct moral sur I'Evangile selon 
 S. Luc, p. 119- 
 
 top. cit., pp. 178-185. 
 
i6o The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the heir of David, His father.* Now, among 
 the Jews, the sceptre never devolved upon females, 
 it was handed on from the father to one of his 
 sons. It is then, through Joseph alone, that 
 Jesus has the right to be held as the blessed off- 
 spring, promised to the holy King, destined to 
 raise his house from its ruins and to sit forever 
 on his throne, t This is why the Evangelists in- 
 sist on Joseph's Davidic descent. $ 
 
 To hold, with some plausibility, that Christ's 
 supernatural conception remained altogether out- 
 side the horizon of St. Paul, one must prove that, 
 in his doctrinal system, Jesus of Nazareth does 
 not become Messias before the day of His resur- 
 rection, and that those relations with God are 
 considered only from the theocratic point of view 
 of the Jews, who saw in their kings Yahweh's 
 representatives upon earth. In this case, the 
 Christology of the Apostle would not go beyond 
 
 * Luke i ^2, 
 
 tLuKE 1 32; Acts 2^°, 15 ^^ ; cf. Psdni 131"; Amos 
 9". 
 % Matt, i 20 ; Luke i ^'', 2 *. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. i6i 
 
 that of Cerinthus: Jesus was first a mere man 
 {Vdbq av0pu)T:o'?),2J\6. He remained so, until the mo- 
 ment God adopted Him as His Son, by intrusting 
 Him with the Messianic mission. 
 
 Two texts are quoted in support of that theory. 
 In his discourse at Antioch of Pisidia,* St. Paul 
 declared that God had fulfilled the promise made 
 to the Patriarchs, when He raised from the dead 
 Jesus of Nazareth; Yahweh said then to Him: 
 "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
 thee." The Apostle takes up the same idea at 
 the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, when 
 he writes that "he has been separated unto the 
 gospel of God, which he had promised before, by 
 his prophets, in the holy Scriptures, concerning 
 his Son, who was made to him of the seed of 
 David, according to the flesh, who was constituted 
 the Son of God, in power, according to the Spirit 
 of holiness, hy his resurrection from the dead/'j 
 
 If the interpreters, who aim at stating with 
 accuracy the mind of St. Paul in this regard, had 
 at their disposal only the two passages just 
 quoted, their commentary might remain doubtful. 
 But the Apostle is entitled, more than many other 
 
 *Acts 1333. 
 t Rom. 1 2-4. 
 
1 62 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 writers, not to be judged merely from four lines ; 
 of all the authors of the New Testament, he is 
 the most prolific, and he has fitly developed in 
 his Epistles the leading ideas of his theology. 
 Now taking as a whole the doctrine exposed in 
 those Epistles, it is beyond question that Jesus 
 did not begin to be the Son of God on the day 
 of His resurrection, nor on any other day of His 
 mortal life. As Son of God, He existed long 
 before He showed Himself in the midst of men. 
 In the Christology of the Apostle, Christ's pre- 
 existence is a fundamental point, one we must 
 always keep before our minds, when we read the 
 Epistles. Of course, for St. Paul, as for the 
 Evangelists, the title. Son of God, is tantamount 
 to that of "Messias " ; but, because the Apostle 
 is bent on setting forth its whole bearing, he 
 strives to trace out the close connection which 
 exists between these two prerogatives: Jesus is 
 the Son of God, not because He is the Messias; 
 on the contrary. He is the Messias because He is 
 the Son of God ; the Father gives Him a share in 
 the salvation and government of the world, be- 
 cause Christ is entitled to that honor; not only 
 does He come from God, He is God. 
 
 In the eyes of St. Paul, Jesus' Divine Sonship 
 does not result from the theophanies near the 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 163 
 
 banks of the Jordan or on Mt. Thabor, nor even 
 from His supernatural conception; it is to His 
 eternal origin that Christ owes His unique posi- 
 tion as regards the Father. In Him we have 
 two natures : one makes Him the Son of David, 
 a member of the human family; the other makes 
 Him the Son of God, unspeakably associated to 
 the life of His Father. 
 
 That is the doctrine expressly taught in the 
 Epistles called "of the captivity," written from 
 the year 60 to the year 64.* 
 
 Some one may say that this group of Epistles 
 represents a later stage of St. Paul's views re- 
 garding the person of Christ. To answer at once 
 that objection, — which can be also directly re- 
 futed, — we shall simply remark that Christ's pre- 
 existence is set forth quite clearly in the pages 
 of the great Epistles, written from the year 58 
 to the year 60, and even a few years before, ac- 
 cording to Harnack; most assuredly they repre- 
 sent the primitive Christology of the Apostle. 
 Christ accompanied the Hebrews in their wander- 
 ings through the wilderness;! rich and innocent 
 as He was, He became poor, and for our sakes, 
 
 * Particularly Philip. 2 6-12 ; Coloss. i iB-21, 2 ». 
 t / Cor. 10*. 
 
164 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 was willing to be treated as a culprit ; * in Him 
 the Father gives us His own Son,t a second 
 Adam coming down from Heaven.J These few 
 thoughts are the summary of those which St. 
 Paul develops in his Epistle to the Philippians : 
 Christ annihilated Himself, since, as by nature 
 His was a divine condition, He assumed of His 
 own accord the condition of a slave, by becoming 
 one of us.§ 
 
 According to H. Holtzmann "only an exegesis, 
 swayed by the anxious desire to find in the texts 
 the Rationalistic conception, has led some to think 
 that a mere ideal existence was intended here." || 
 Again, Harnack has luminously brought out the 
 distinction between the preexistence claimed for 
 Christ by St. Paul (and by St. John), on the one 
 hand, and that kind of heavenly existence which 
 the Jews used then to ascribe to the works of 
 God upon earth, especially to the most excellent.^ 
 
 * // Cor. 5 21, 8 9. 
 
 fGalat. 4*-5; Rom. 8 3.32. !„ // Cor. 4*, Chirst is called 
 God's image, a significant appellation, if compared with 
 Coloss, 1 15. 
 
 %I Cor. 1545-48. 
 
 % Philip. 26-8; the same thought is found in Hch. i. 
 
 II Lehrhuch der neutest. Theologie, 1897, II, p. 82. 
 
 ^ History of Dogma, Vol. Ill, pp. 1-14. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 165 
 
 This being the case, we must infer that St. 
 Paul is far from looking upon Jesus of Naza- 
 reth as one who became Christ and Son of God 
 on the day of His Resurrection. Besides, the 
 text of his Epistle to the Romans (i *) is not to 
 be translated — as is done with a view to the ques- 
 tion — but rather as follows : "enthroned Son of 
 God, in [the] power [that befits Him] , according 
 to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from 
 the dead." God the Father declares He has be- 
 gotten His Christ on that day, because He then 
 bestowed upon Him the full glory and authority 
 which He deserves. Who is the only Son, the 
 heir of all. For the Apostle, Jesus' resurrection 
 is only the normal, ultimate consequence of His 
 divine origin. This is perhaps the doctrine which 
 is the most clearly taught in the Epistles; and 
 this is also the doctrine set forth by St. Peter, 
 when he states that God raised Jesus from the 
 dead because it was impossible that hell should 
 hold him.* 
 
 We may push still further the comparison be- 
 tween the Epistles of St. Paul and the discourses 
 of St. Peter, recorded at the beginning of the 
 book of the Acts. The first time that Peter an- 
 nounces to the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth they 
 
 * Acts 2 2*. 
 
1 66 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 have recently crucified, he tells them that "God 
 hath made Him {k-noiriasv) both the Lord and 
 Christ" promised to David;* and this he him- 
 self explains a few days after, by saying that 
 "God hath glorified (IWfo<rev) His Son Jesus." f 
 Elsewhere he speaks of the unction Christ has 
 received from God ; % St. John does likewise, 
 although he had expressly said before that Jesus 
 is from the beginning, or at least before His 
 baptism, the Incarnate Word of God.§ When 
 we look over these earliest attempts of Apostolic 
 catechesis, we feel that the thought goes farther 
 than the word, which purposely aims at being 
 discreet and reserved. || For these preachers of 
 
 * Ibid., 2 38. 
 
 t Ibid., 3^3. 
 
 X Ibid., 4 27 ; 10 38. 
 
 § John 129-34^ 10 36^ 1 14. 
 
 1 1 In their first discourses to the muhitudes, the Apostles 
 are wont to call Jesus a prophet, Christ, a man approved of 
 God, holy, just, a child or servant of God (wars ®fov), 
 David's offspring. These words imply a kind of peda- 
 gogical adaptation. In their first contact with the Jews, 
 who have recently rejected Jesus because He proclaimed 
 Himself the Son of God, the Apostles are fond of using 
 the current Messianic terminology. However, those ex- 
 pressions de piano have for their only purpose to introduce 
 that of Son of God. Cf. 9 20, 13 33. xhe parallelism between 
 
Gospels and Neiv Testament Compared. 167 
 
 a risen Christ, Jesus is not merely an instrument 
 of salvation in the hands of God, Him also they 
 proclaim "the prince of life, dpxrjydv rr^? C<w^9,"* 
 which is translated in the Vulgate by auctorem 
 vitcu, expressions which St. Paul would have fully 
 approved. 
 
 Those comparisons had to be made. Together 
 with the discourses found in the first chapters of 
 the Acts, the Epistles of St. Paul are the oldest 
 written records of Christian tradition. Since it 
 is there that, according to the testimony of our 
 opponents, we must look for "the primitive and 
 genuine sample of Apostolic preaching," history 
 entitles us to affirm that, in the religious knowl- 
 edge and equipment of the early Christians, there 
 was room for the faith in the Virgin-Birth, so 
 much so that, even though that belief were af- 
 firmed expressly in no part of the New Testa- 
 ment, still the texts themselves would favor that 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Luke i ^ and Acts i ^^, attempted by Corssen, Usener, and 
 others, rests on a misunderstanding. The complete narra- 
 tive which the Evangelist intends to write for the faithful 
 is one thing, and the object of the first Apostolic catechesis, 
 adapted to those whom the Apostles wished to convert to 
 the faith of Jesus, is another thing. 
 
 * Acts 3 " ; cf . Heb. 2 10. 
 
1 68 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In presence of these unquestionable facts, what 
 becomes of the theory found in many books, of 
 which the authors claim to describe the historical 
 development of the New Testament ideas? Ac- 
 cording to the formula borrowed from Otto 
 Pfleiderer,* the Christian dogma regarding the 
 origin of Jesus had a threefold stage: birth ac- 
 cording to the ordinary laws, followed by a divine 
 adoption (at the time of the resurrection or of 
 the baptism) ; miraculous birth through the action 
 of the Holy Ghost; Incarnation of the Word of 
 God. This is one of those fanciful hypotheses, 
 which subsist for awhile, resting, as they do, on 
 preconceived notions; but sooner or later they 
 must fall, because they are not founded on texts. 
 
 At this conjuncture, our opp>onents, driven to 
 their last shift, make another appeal to the Gospel 
 of St. Mark. Why has it nothing to say about 
 Jesus' infancy? Why does it typify His Mes- 
 sianic mission by the descent of the Spirit and by 
 a heavenly voice, saying: Thou art my beloved 
 Son; in thee I am well pleased? — Long before 
 the second Gospel had been written, St. Paul 
 preached the doctrine we have just exposed. Now 
 to place in his Christology a Christ who is a Son 
 ♦ Cf . above, pp. 92-95. 
 
Gospels ami Other N.T. Books Compared. 169 
 
 of God merely by adoption, is to introduce into 
 that Christology an awful blunder. 
 
 Some one may say that the text' of Mark re- 
 produces an earlier catechesis, that of Peter. 
 Granted; but how do you know that the Gospel 
 of Paul differed from that of Peter? Once in- 
 deed — toward the year 51 — this was claimed by 
 some meddlesome Judaizers. Immediately St. 
 Paul challenged them to a public test; he went 
 to Jerusalem and there submitted his preaching 
 to the control of the other Apostles. All know 
 how the test turned to his behalf.* Had Peter 
 and Paul stood for opposite traditions, most cer- 
 tainly Mark would have known it, since he had 
 been the companion of the two Apostles. 
 
 In fine, it may be objected that at the time the 
 second Evangelist wrote his narrative — between 
 the year 60 and the year 70 — that narrative had 
 a mere historical value, since it was outdone by 
 the actual faith of the Church, and especially by 
 the theories of St. Paul. — When proposing that 
 argument, the opponent loses sight of the funda- 
 mental principle of the school with which he is 
 connected, namely the principle that the Gospel 
 narrative does not portray the historical realities 
 
 * Gal. 2; cf. Acts 15. 
 
170 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 of the true life of Jesus, but only the impression 
 produced by the belief in His Messianic calling, 
 on the generation coeval with the Gospels. This 
 is, of course, a false postidatum: still, it should 
 not be overlooked by any one who has placed it 
 at the basis of his studies on the Gospels. 
 
 We are told that the Incarnation of the Word, 
 proposed in St. John, is simply another way to 
 account for the origin of Jesus, and thus attempts 
 to give the same explanation as the Virgin-Birth : 
 the synthesis of the two explanations dates from 
 the day when the fourth Gospel succeeded in be- 
 ing acknowledged side by side with the Synoptics. 
 — The assertion overlooks to such an extent the 
 concrete manner in which Christianity arose, that 
 such an explanation has not even the least shadow 
 of plausibility. First of all, our opponents think 
 that the faith of the Church was at the mercy 
 of a literary production: the apparition of the 
 fourth Gospel or of the Apocalypse sufficed to 
 change its course. They forget that that faith 
 was above all a living reality: committed by the 
 earliest witnesses to the collective consciousness 
 of the believers who feed and live on it, that faith, 
 rudimentary as it may have been, is grounded on 
 its essential elements and on the law of its devel- 
 opment. Some limits it knows already: a book. 
 
Gospels and Other N.T. Books Compared. 171 
 
 even though bearing the name of an Apostle, 
 does not suffice to add anything to it or to take 
 anything from it; the Hving tradition has exer- 
 cised a supreme control over the literary activity 
 of the early ages.* How many apocryphal Gos- 
 pels have utterly failed, when confronted witli 
 the primordial requirements of Christian dogma ! 
 Again — and this is an important and decisive 
 remark — long before the Gospel of the Infancy 
 had been written by St. Matthew and St. Luke, 
 Christians read in the Epistles of St. Paul a Chris - 
 tology equivalent to that of St. John. The terms 
 differ, but the doctrine is just the same. Him, 
 who St. John calls the "Word of God," St. Paul 
 calls the "own Son of the Father," and where 
 John speaks of "incarnation," there Paul speaks 
 of "annihilation." 
 
 *We have on this point the testimony of Papias. Cf. 
 Funk, Patres Apostolici, 1901, Vol. I, p. 354- 
 
172 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 POSITIVE TRUSTWORTHINESS AND HISTORICAL 
 
 VALUE OF THE TEXTS CONCERNING 
 
 JESUS' INFANCY, 
 
 ST. LUKE I, 2, 3 23-38_ 
 
 The first two chapters of St. Luke partake of 
 the authority which is ascribed to his Gospel, 
 taken as a whole. The author begins by stating 
 that he took carefully his information from eye- 
 witnesses {aoTOTzrai) , from those who had first 
 preached the Gospel of Christ. It is after taking 
 up all these things from the very beginning, so 
 as to control their exactness, that Luke resolves 
 on composing a new narrative. He wishes to 
 make it more orderly than that which exists al- 
 ready, and especially more fit to impart to The- 
 ophilus historical certitude as to the origin and 
 early steps of Christianity.* In these conditions, 
 why should we suppose that the third Evangelist 
 began his work by recording pious legends, the 
 spontaneous growth of religious instinct? 
 
 There is nothing in his text to prompt us to 
 believe that he ascribes to those first narratives 
 a special character, and sees in them a kind of 
 
 * Luke i i"*. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 173 
 
 prehistory of the Gospel. Christ's virginal con- 
 ception; His birth at Bethlehem, where Angels 
 reveal Him to some shepherds; the first mani- 
 festations of the divine wisdom of the Child 
 Jesus, when, at the age of twelve, He joins in 
 the Temple the Doctors of the Law: as many 
 facts which the Evangelist relates in the most 
 natural tone, just as anxious of accuracy in his 
 statements as if he were dealing with the public 
 life of our Lord; nay, we must confess that here 
 the geographical and historical surroundings are 
 much better defined than in many subsequent 
 scenes held by all as certainly historical. 
 
 It goes without saying, that St. Luke must have 
 taken very special and careful information re- 
 garding those traditions on which the Apostolic 
 catechesis was probably silent.* As he intended 
 
 ♦"Undoubtedly, this chapter of the Hidden Life of the 
 Savior did not come as a part of the primitive Apostolic 
 catechesis, as we can now reconstruct it from the Acts of 
 the Apostles and from the Epistles, and as it appears more 
 ingenuously preserved in St. Mark's Gospel : it was natural 
 that at the beginning, attention should be paid chiefly to 
 the redeeming work of Jesus, His public life. His suffering 
 and resurrection. As to the recollections of the Master's 
 infancy, which the legitimate curiosity of the faithful was 
 soon to hold in so great account, although they were not 
 first the subject of the ordinary and, as it were, official 
 preaching, yet they must have been carefully stored away 
 
174 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 not to imitate St. Mark, in this regard the third 
 Evangehst must have felt the importance of the 
 step he was taking when beginning the Gospel 
 history with the birth of Jesus. A close and 
 sifting examination was necessary, the more so 
 that, even then, fanciful and legendary narra- 
 tives regarding the earthly origin of Jesus must 
 have been current. We should, perhaps, see an 
 allusion to those attempts at adorning, as it were, 
 the cradle of Christ, in the first words of the 
 prologue, in which St. Luke speaks of those 
 "many, who have undertaken to draw up a nar- 
 rative of the things which have been accomplished 
 in our midst." Had he looked upon the work 
 of his predecessors as altogether satisfactory, he 
 would have given up the pretension to do better 
 than they had done. 
 
 Granted, some one may say, the third Evan- 
 gelist intended to relate history, but did he suc- 
 ceed ? As he lived seventy years after the events, 
 
 within the Apostolic College and within the intimate circle 
 of those who shared in some way or other in those early 
 events." Lepin, Jesus, Messie et Fils de Dieu, 1906, 
 PP- 59-60. Cf. Arthur Wright, A Synopsis of the Gospels 
 in Greek, 1903, p. xlii, who, however, supposes and does 
 not prove, that the mystery of the Virgin-Birth was re- 
 vealed only towards the last days of the Apostolic Age. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 175 
 
 how did he ascertain the truth of the facts that 
 are exposed at length in the first two chapters of 
 his Gospel? 
 
 Scholars generally admit that St. Luke devoted 
 to that self-imposed task of investigation the two 
 years of his forced stay at Csesarea of Palestine, 
 about the year 60. St. Paul was then imprisoned, 
 and his companion had all the necessary leisure to 
 travel all over Judaea and Galilee, and gather 
 what people said about the infancy of Christ. He 
 heard several witnesses relate what they had seen : 
 those who had then reached an old age may have 
 been at least twenty years old, when Jesus was 
 born. Not all those whom the Gospel calls "the 
 brethren of the Lord" were dead, and of course 
 they were not overlooked by St. Luke. Many 
 years later, during the 26. century, the faithful 
 still surrounded their descendants with special 
 regards, and called them Desposyni — i. e., the 
 "relatives of the Lord." 
 
 That the Mother of Jesus was still living, is 
 not at all improbable : judging from the most 
 plausible calculations, she was then about eighty 
 years old. At all events, there still remained in 
 the country confidants of her thoughts. Then, 
 too, before departing from this world, Elizabeth 
 and Anna had said and repeated over again what 
 
176 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 they knew of the Son of Mary. Who were the 
 privileged ones, judged worthy to hear and to 
 witness, at the proper time, the mystery with 
 which Jesus' cradle had been surrounded? Here 
 we naturally recall those holy women who, ac- 
 cording to the Gospels, followed the Savior; the 
 usual companions of Mary, they must have come 
 into close intimacy with her. That St. Luke had 
 access to this circle — an access which his medical 
 profession made still easier — is proved by his text. 
 Long ago it has been observed that women play 
 an important part in the third Gospel, especially 
 in what pertains to the childhood of Jesus. 
 
 St. Matthew's narrative is conceived from the 
 point of view of Joseph : to him the Angel of God 
 always appears; on the contrary, all through St. 
 Luke's narrative, the Mother of Jesus remains the 
 chief personage of the scene: she there appears 
 between Elizabeth and Anna, whose function it is 
 to proclaim her great blessing and privilege. Be- 
 sides Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and 
 Mary Magdalen, both of whom are known to the 
 three Evangelists, St. Luke mentions also Su- 
 sanna, Martha, the sister of Mary, and Joanna, 
 the wife of Chuza, who was the steward of Herod 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 177 
 
 the Tetrarch.* Several of the miracles recorded 
 only in the third Gospel were wrought in behalf 
 of women : the widow of Naim, the sinner of the 
 seventh chapter, the woman of Magdala, the 
 woman healed from an ailment which had afflicted 
 her for eighteen years. Besides, there are also 
 in the third Gospel several scenes in which women 
 hold the foreground : the widow's mite, the par- 
 able of the unjust judge, the daughters of 
 Jerusalem weeping over Jesus, the welcome ex- 
 tended to Him in the house of Martha and Mary, 
 the woman who openly proclaims His mother 
 blessed. The same remark has been made also 
 about the book of the Acts.-\ 
 
 To these indications there is added a more deli- 
 cate and tender touch, a peculiar blending of feel- 
 ings, which tend to show that the recollections of 
 the holy women make up one of the special sources 
 from which St. Luke drew his material. | To 
 
 * That Chuza is probably the royal officer (^aaiXiicds) 
 whose name is not given in St. John 4*8-53^ who, together 
 with his family, believed in Jesus. St. Luke shows himself 
 well acquainted, especially with what was going on at the 
 court of Herod : 3 i-ia, 8 3, 9 ^-9, 13 21, 23 7-12 ; Acts 13 1. 
 
 t Cf. I ", 5 S 6 S 12 
 
 I That is the view of Godet and Plummer, in their com- 
 mentaries of St. Luke, and still more recently as to Plum- 
 mer, in Diction, of Christ, Vol. I, p. 76; of Ramsay, was 
 
178 The CliildJiood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the mother who saw and who heard we must 
 ultimately ascribe remarks like these : "But Mary 
 kept all these words, pondering them in her 
 heart"; "His father and mother were marveling 
 at the things which were spoken about Him" ; 
 "they did not understand the word which He 
 spoke to them" ; "and His mother kept all these 
 things in her heart." * 
 
 Did it rest merely on oral traditions, the testi- 
 mony of the third Evangelist would force itself 
 already upon the historian's attention, but that is 
 not all. From the study of his text, it has been 
 clearly shown that the first chapters depend on 
 an earlier document; and by this very fact his 
 distance between the witness and the events is 
 considerably decreased. Most critics, believers 
 or unbelievers, admit that in these chapters we 
 have, if not a Greek translation, at least a quite 
 literal reproduction of a Hebrew or Arabic writ- 
 ing, which did not contain the genealogy of Jesus ; 
 and this is why that genealogy is given by the 
 
 Christ born in Bethlehem? p. 88; Lange, Life of Christ, 
 Vol. I, p. 258; W. Sanday, The Expository Times, April 
 1903, PP- 157, 297; A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, 1907, 
 p. 151, who mentions besides the witnesses appealed to by 
 St. Luke, the daughters of Philip the Deacon, Acts 21 ^-a. 
 
 * Luke 2 is- 33, 50, si. 
 
Positive TrustwortJiincss of the Texts, lyg 
 
 third Evangelist in the third chapter. Both in its 
 substance and in its form, the Gospel of the In- 
 fancy, in St. Luke, betrays its origin. Setting- 
 aside the fine sentence of the prologue, all the rest 
 is written in an abrupt style and with a most de- 
 cided Hebrew ring.* 
 
 Especially in the first chapter, we find so many 
 precise details that these cannot be ascribed to 
 merely oral information. St. Luke, who had 
 grown up in the midst of Greek surroundings, and 
 had received his education at Antioch or at Tar- 
 sus, was probably unfamiliar with Jewish institu- 
 
 * Out of 128 verses, 72 begin with the transition koX, 
 which is repeated at times in six or seven consecutive num- 
 bers. Others begin with the particle iSov or xal ISov, 
 which render the Hebrew hinneh or wehinneh. Finally 
 some phrases which open with koX Jji/, koI eyeVero, frequently 
 recall the Biblical wayehi. The phenomenon is so striking 
 that A. Resch has attempted a new translation of that 
 Hebrew Gospel of the Infancy in the collection Texfe und 
 Untersuchungen sur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 
 1897, X, 3, p. 203. G. Dalman, The Words of Jesus (Eng- 
 lish translation), p. 32, is incHned to see in it a primitive 
 Aramaic substratum. A. Plummer, in his Commentary on 
 St. Luke, p. 45, has carefully examined all the passages of 
 the third Gospel and of the Acts, in which the phrase begins 
 with lyiviTo or KM iyiviTo, and concludes that the com- 
 parison bespeaks the most decided Hebrew ring of the first 
 two chapters of the Gospel. Cf. also H. Chase, The Gos- 
 pels in the Light of Historical Criticism, in the Cambridge 
 Theological Essays, London, 1905, pp. 371-420. 
 
i8o Tiie Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 tions : the Temple, the worship, the Priesthood. 
 Now, he describes all these things with the great- 
 est ease and with the most accurate terminology. 
 Not only does he name Zachary and his wife, 
 Elizabeth, whom he calls a daughter of Aaron 
 and a cousin of the Virgin Mary, but he knows 
 that Zachary was fulfilling his functions, accord- 
 ing to the weekly course, called of Abias; and 
 here St. Luke uses the most technical term 
 i^Tj/iepia, which, besides, he is the only one to 
 use, out of all the New Testament writers. He 
 is acquainted with the arrangement of the Temple, 
 the place of the altar, the hour of incense when 
 the priest has to go within the Holy Place, whilst 
 the people pray without, until the ceremony is 
 over; nay, the Evangelist seems to see the par- 
 ticular spot where the Angel stood : — on the right 
 side of the altar of incense. He knows that the 
 prophetess Anna lived only seven years with her 
 husband, that afterward she did not remarry and 
 that she was eighty-four years old at the time of 
 the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. 
 
 That detailed description, which betrays an eye- 
 witness, is continued to the end of the second 
 chapter, and cannot well be accounted for, except 
 on the hypothesis of a primitive narrative, trans- 
 lated or used by the author. That the genealogy 
 
Positive Triisfzvortliincss of the Texts. i8i 
 
 given in the third chapter was Hkewise trans- 
 lated from a written document is self-evident. 
 Even the Evangelist may have used several docu- 
 ments in his first two chapters: three verses 
 (i *", 2*°'") apparently served as conclusions. 
 If this is the case, the Greek redactor had prob- 
 ably at his disposal three originally distinct narra- 
 tives : the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the 
 episode of Jesus in the midst of the Doctors. 
 
 Again, we must not overrate the intimate char- 
 acter of the traditions related in the Gospel of the 
 Infancy. Unless we are ready to admit that here 
 and there we have to deal with mere literary fan- 
 cies, we must grant that the rumor of those events 
 must have gone beyond the circle of the families 
 which were concerned in them. Zachary, struck 
 with dumbness before the whole people; John the 
 Baptist, born of a barren mother and of a father 
 who was advanced in age ; the cure of his father ; 
 his extraordinary life in the wilderness; the epi- 
 sode of the shepherds at Bethlehem; the predic- 
 tion of Simeon and of the prophetess Anna, who 
 repeated to all those she met that she had just 
 seen the Messias promised to Israel ; the scene of 
 Jesus in the midst of the Doctors of the Law : — 
 so many events which had been somewhat public, 
 and which we cannot suppose were completely 
 forgotten a few years after. 
 
1 82 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 True, a thirty years' period of obscurity may 
 have thrown somewhat into the shade those who 
 had been the objects of so many and so great 
 forebodings : but on the day when John, and soon 
 after Jesus, aroused Jerusalem and Judaea, men 
 must have remembered the past events. The re- 
 mark is true especially of the shepherds of Beth- 
 lehem, called by some Angels to pay their duties 
 to a child whose parents they do not know and 
 whose trace they are soon to lose. The relatives 
 of Jesus probably must have known something of 
 the wonders that had accompanied His birth ; but 
 after and by ascertaining day by day that He was 
 just like other children, they came to expect from 
 Him nothing extraordinary. 
 
 "These narratives bear in themselves tokens 
 not only of their origin, but also of their authen- 
 ticity. Among those tokens, we may mention 
 first of all the fact that in the said narratives the 
 person and the work of the Messias are set forth 
 in their primitive coloring, that is to say, in the 
 features which popular imagination ascribed to 
 the Messianic idea. "The Lord God will give 
 Him the throne of David his father; and he shall 
 reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his 
 kingdom there shall be no end." (i ^^-^^). The 
 same local color, the same national spirit, we find 
 in the canticle of Zachary: 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 183 
 
 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, 
 
 For he has visited and wrought redemption for 
 his people, 
 
 And raised up a horn of salvation [i. e., a power- 
 ful Deliverer] for us 
 
 In the house of his servant David . . . 
 
 Salvation from the hand of our enemies, and 
 from the hand of all that hate us . . . 
 
 Being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, 
 
 We should serve him without fear," 
 
 / , 68-69, 71, 73-74 \ 
 
 Judging from the discourses of the Acts and 
 from the Epistles of St. Paul, it does not seem 
 that, after Pentecost, the followers of Jesus, when 
 describing the mission of the Messias, continued 
 to use that language more or less encumbered with 
 temporal and national elements, an inheritance 
 from the pre-Christian tradition. On this account 
 the document which we are now studying should 
 be dated from the very beginnings of Christian- 
 ity." * 
 
 * Lepin, op. cit., p. 62. Rose had already made the 
 same remark: "The historical value of these first pages 
 of the Gospel is witnessed by the prologue by which 
 they are preceded, and in which, as a matter of fact, the 
 author shows himself earnest, careful and critically prudent 
 in his investigations. On the other hand, the Messianic 
 hope which inspired Zachary and Mary is not that of the 
 
184 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 On what grounds are we told that faith reacted 
 upon history? Had this been the case, the 
 Evangehst would have placed on the lips of his 
 personages discourses held really by the men of 
 his own generation, and would have most prob- 
 ably ascribed to them the theology of St. Paul. 
 Had not historical exigencies compelled him to 
 set forth Jesus in His birth as poor and despised, 
 he would have praised and glorified His cradle, 
 whom the Apostle, his master, places at the sum- 
 mit of creation, even within the Divine nature 
 itself. Prompted by the suggestions of his faith, 
 St. Luke would have made, not only the Angels 
 of Heaven, but all created nature: — men, brutes 
 and plants — proclaim His coming into this world. 
 These are the thoughts which actually inspired 
 the composition of the apocryphal Gospels. 
 
 Had not St. Luke carefully sifted and con- 
 trolled the traditions that came under his knowl- 
 edge, he would have left us a narrative most 
 
 Apostolic Age. The Galilean idyl which their canticles 
 reecho took place but once in the historical surroundings 
 and at the epoch which St. Luke describes." Evangile selon 
 S. Luc, Traduct. et Comment., p. 18. 
 
Positive Trustzvortliiness of the Texts. 185 
 
 different from that which we find in his Gospel : 
 to his painstaking fondness of historical reality 
 he owes the sobriety and delicacy of description, 
 which are, in themselves, tokens of truth. Al- 
 though the myth, strictly so called, demands more 
 than fifty years for its rise, and still more, of 
 course, for its being accepted as history — espe- 
 cially at an epoch of literary activity, like the 
 epoch of the Evangelists — yet we must grant that 
 legend, which is merely an embellishment of real- 
 ity, forestalls history, or at least closely follows 
 on its footsteps. This is a law of the psychology 
 of crowds, and there is no reason why we should 
 exempt from it the formation of narratives con- 
 cerning the childhood of Jesus. 
 
 True, the oldest apocryphal Gospels, that have 
 come down to us, date at the earliest from the 
 end of the 2d century ; * but that is no sufficient 
 reason for thinking that popular imagination 
 began to work on the earthly origin of Jesus only 
 after two centuries had elapsed : at an early date 
 
 * Very few authors pay any attention at all to Conrady's 
 fantastic theory, Die Quelle der kanonischen Kindheits- 
 geschichten Jesu, Gottingen, 1900, according to which the 
 canonical narrative of Jesus' Infancy, in St. Matthew and 
 St. Luke, depends on the apocryphal Gospels and especially 
 on the Protevangelium of James. 
 
1 86 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 it must have been unwilling to grant that such 
 an unparalleled wonder-worker had had an ordi- 
 nary infancy. The Son of God could not have 
 come unnoticed into this world ; the God of nature 
 must have there chosen a dwelling, as a master 
 who means to be obeyed. Starting from that 
 principle, any authentic word or deed of the Lord 
 Jesus became a theme for those more or less 
 plausible digressions, with which the apocryphal 
 Gospels are filled. Such are the narratives we 
 would find in the third Gospel, had its author 
 related indiscriminately all the stories that were 
 circulated. Now, even from a merely superficial 
 comparison of his text with the Apocyphals, one 
 can easily realize the distance between the super- 
 natural that is authentic and the wonderful that 
 owes its origin to fancy. The prodigies ascribed 
 in those wild productions to the Child Jesus are 
 most often improbable, and they lack almost al- 
 ways any moral bearing and religious aim, set- 
 ting aside the case when they proceed from a 
 wrong motive, like the desire for revenge. 
 
 We shall make here but a few comparisons. 
 
 The narrative of the Annunciation seemed too 
 sober to the author of the Protevangelium of 
 James. Whilst St. Matthew and St. Luke tell us 
 merely that Mary was espoused to Joseph, the 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 187 
 
 apocryphal is, of course, far better informed. 
 Mary, the daughter of a wealthy Jew, spends all 
 her childhood in the Temple, where she is fed 
 by the hands of Angels; at the age of fourteen, 
 she refuses to marry, because she has made up 
 her mind to remain a virgin; nothing short of a 
 miracle which points out her husband, the just 
 Joseph, is necessary to make her take another 
 decision; and that miracle is related in various 
 ways : according to some, flowers sprang from 
 the staff of Joseph; according to others, a dove 
 came from the staff and rested on the head of 
 the venerable old man. The Angel Gabriel salutes 
 the Virgin first at the public spring of Nazareth, 
 and then a second time in her own house, where 
 she is weaving a purple veil for the Temple of 
 Jerusalem.* 
 
 When recording the narrative of the Nativity, 
 the tradition of that apocryphal assumes a grossly 
 realistic tone. A midwife, named Salome, wishes 
 to ascertain for herself that Mary has brought 
 forth her child without any detriment to her vir- 
 ginity. Immediately she is punished for her in- 
 credulity; her hand becomes withered; she asks 
 Mary's forgiveness, and she is cured through the 
 
 * Protev. Jacobi, i-xi. 
 
1 88 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 contact with the Child Jesus.* How far we are 
 here from St. Luke's sobriety, who says in one 
 verse all that he thinks should be retained out of 
 all the detailed narratives of the Savior's birth, 
 that circulated. 
 
 Our canonical Gospel tells us merely that "the 
 Child grew, and became strong, full of wisdom, 
 and the grace of God was upon him" (2 *°) ; that 
 "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and in grace 
 with God and men" (2 "). This simple remark 
 will seem very scanty to those who may have 
 read the apocryphal Gospels. In the latter, we 
 see the Son of Joseph displaying on any occasion 
 His divine power ; and it is chiefly in these stories, 
 that the childishness of the wonderful deeds that 
 are related contrasts with the wisdom and kind- 
 ness of the miracles of the public life. When a 
 child, Jesus makes birds out of clay ; then, in order 
 to justify Himself for moulding them on a Sab- 
 bath-day, He commands them to fly away, and 
 the birds take their flight as soon as He claps 
 His hands.* A boy who has unwillingly hurt 
 Him falls dead.* Jesus' witty remarks give rise 
 
 * Protev. Jacohi, x, xi, and Pseudo-Matthaus, ix. 
 
 * Evangel. Thoma, ii, 2-5. 
 
 * Ibid., iv, I. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 189 
 
 to complaints, so that twice Joseph has to punish 
 Him. 
 
 A certain teacher, named Zachseus, had offered 
 himself to Joseph to teach his Son; but Jesus, 
 after glancing at him, says to him: *'Thou who 
 art ignorant of the nature of A, how canst thou 
 teach others B? Thou hypocrite! first, if thou 
 knowest, teach A, and then we shall believe thee 
 about B." As the master remains silent, Jesus 
 reprimands him and then, under the pretext .of 
 revealing to him the properties of A, exposes a 
 certain number of Gnostic theories.* 
 
 The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, of a later 
 date, draws its inspiration from a taste for won- 
 ders, which reminds us of the magical tales of the 
 Arabian Nights. A youth, who had been changed 
 into a mule, resumes his first state, when Mary 
 places the Child Jesus on the back of the animal, f 
 In the same apocryphal, we read how one day 
 Jesus mingles with the Doctors of the Law; but 
 instead of surprising them by the wisdom of His 
 answers, He assails them with questions on the 
 Scriptures, astronomy, medicine, physics, meta- 
 physics, etc., and takes a wanton pleasure at per- 
 plexing them. 
 
 *Ibid.,vi. 
 
 "f Evangel. Arab. Infantite, xxi. 
 
190 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The comparison of the third Gospel with Jew- 
 ish legends and Pagan myths serves also to en- 
 hance its historical character. 
 
 One of the recent commentators of St. Luke 
 has well described the impression left in the mind 
 by the comparison of those parts of Christian 
 belief, which are first expressed in the Gospel of 
 the Infancy, wath the Graeco-Roman mythology, 
 or even the wonders of Jewish apocalyptic writ- 
 ings. "It is well to remember that there are 
 stories, more or less analogous to what is told 
 by the two Evangelists, in heathen mythologies. 
 The historical probability is not weakened but 
 strengthened by such comparisons. St. Luke's 
 Gentile readers must have felt the unspeakable 
 difference between the coarse impurity of imag- 
 ined intercourse between mortals and divinities, 
 in the religious legends of paganism, and the dig- 
 nity and delicacy of the spiritual narrative which 
 St. Luke laid before them. And St. Matthew's 
 Jewish readers, if they compared his story with 
 their own national ideas, as illustrated in the Book 
 of Enoch (c, 6, 15, 69, 86, 106), would find a 
 similar contrast." * 
 
 A Christian of the earliest ages of the Church, 
 
 * A. Plummer, in Diet, of Christ and the Gospels, Vol. I, 
 PP- 74-75- 
 
Positive Tnistzcorthincss of the Texts. 191 
 
 recently converted from Paganism, would have 
 wondered in the extreme, had he been told that 
 his belief in Christ's Virgin-Birth did not really 
 differ from the legend according to which Plato 
 was born of Perictione and Apollo; so sure he 
 was that, comparing the two cases, everything — 
 witnesses, testimony and the public at large — was 
 altogether dissimilar. From this point of view, 
 the history of Diogenes Laertius, written more 
 than two centuries after the events, cannot be 
 compared at all with the Gospel of St. Luke.* 
 
 How conceive and bear the idea that, in order 
 to express their thoughts on a preeminently chaste 
 mystery. Christians should have had recourse to 
 the formulas of the most repugnant and shameful 
 lewdness : — that of the Olympian gods ? All pos- 
 sible subtleties shall not be able to fill up the chasm 
 between the Gospels and the Greek poetry. In the 
 churches, where that compromise between light 
 and darkness is supposed to have taken place quite 
 early, the Epistles of St. Paul were read every 
 Sunday. Now, in these Epistles, the Apostle 
 
 * That the legend about Plato's divine origin was already 
 current during the lifetime of Speusippus, his nephew and 
 eulogist, has not been proved. True, Diogenes Laertius, 
 iii, I, affirms it, but all know what to think of his ac- 
 curacy. 
 
192 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 praises the faithful for having completely cast 
 aside the superstitions and shameful wanderings 
 of a merely human science.* 
 
 Again, most of the comparisons that have been 
 attempted so as to show the literary dependence 
 of the narratives of Jesus' Infancy upon some 
 profane texts, cannot bear a careful examination. 
 The following instance may be added to those 
 already given. There is a story to the effect that 
 the mother of Augustus, when asleep in Apollo's 
 temple, was visited by the god, in the shape of a 
 serpent. From this Soltau infers a Greek influ- 
 ence upon the narrative of the Annunciation in 
 St. Luke.f With a method like this, it would be 
 easy to derive from one source all similar narra- 
 tives, which, after all, are quite numerous. J We 
 
 * Ephes., S- 
 
 t Op. cit., p. 49. 
 
 XCi. above, pp. 77 and ff. The objection is not new; 
 all these comparisons had been already dealt with by 
 St. Jerome, Adv. Jovin., i, 42; Migne, P. L., xxiii, 273. For 
 the comparisons made between the Gospel of the Infancy 
 and the narrative concerning the birth of Buddha, the 
 reader may be referred to a recent article by a learned 
 professor, a specialist on this question, Louis de La Vallee- 
 PoussiN, Le Bouddhisme et les Evangiles Canoniques, in 
 the Revue Bihlique, 1906, p. 353- The author shows the 
 weakness and arbitrary character of the thesis that affirms 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 193 
 
 must ask ourselves whether or not we have to take 
 as serious the view of those critics who think 
 they have contributed something to the solution 
 of the problem regarding the origin of Jesus, be- 
 cause they have most solemnly recalled that one 
 of the titles given to Augustus was that of Son of 
 God and Savior of the World. Truly, we are 
 tempted to fancy that hypercriticism is destructive 
 of the sense of fitness and of measure! 
 
 Far from appealing to a Jew, the dogma of the 
 Virgin-Birth raised objections in his mind, as 
 may be seen from the lengthy and detailed dis- 
 pute on this subject between Trypho and St. 
 Justin. This is a point which will be treated 
 later on, in connection with St. Matthew's narra- 
 tive. That circumstance is actually one of the 
 chief reasons that have been advanced to prove 
 that the idea of Jesus' supernatural conception 
 
 that the Evangelical narrative was borrowed from the 
 Buddhistic story, as was recently maintained, especially by 
 Albert J. Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels, 1904; 
 moreover, one of his friends, he tells us, is soon to pub- 
 lish a more complete study of the question, both from the 
 Biblical and from the Buddhistic point of view. As to the 
 so-called virgin-birth of Moses, all know that this is but 
 a rabbinical legend, much later than the New Testament 
 writings. In The Interpreter, July 1908, p. 398, CI. F. 
 Rogers gives a complete list of all the explanations that 
 have been advanced. 
 
194 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 was of Hellenic origin.* For converts from 
 Paganism, Jesus, Son of God, could have no 
 father upon earth ; consequently they came to look 
 upon Him as conceived by the operation of the 
 Holy Ghost; this, we are told, is precisely what 
 St. Luke himself means to say, when he places 
 on the lips of the Angel Gabriel words like this : 
 "Therefore the holy child that is to be born of 
 thee shall be called the Son of God." f 
 
 True, the text connects Jesus' supernatural con- 
 ception with His divine Sonship ; % but it is just 
 as true and evident that that relation is the reverse 
 of the relation which the objection implies. Ac- 
 cording to St. Luke, Jesus is born of a virgin, 
 not because He is the Son of God, but He shall 
 be called the Son of God because He is born of 
 a virgin. Besides, we must not understand the 
 consequence marked by the particle dib xal, as 
 though Christ's divine Sonship depended, for its 
 existence itself, on the Virgin-Birth. He whom 
 
 * Herzog, loc. cit., pp. 120-123. 
 
 i Ibid., pp. 120, 121, 127. 
 
 t However, Blass, Granimatik dcs neut. Griechisch, n. 
 78, 5, observes that the subordination expressed by the 
 particle Si6 koX is not always strict, and he refers the 
 reader precisely to Luke i ^^ : Aib khX to ysvvu>it.ivov ayiov kAtjAijo-- 
 
 eroi vtbs Qeov, 
 
Positive Tnistzvortliiness of the Texts. 195 
 
 Mary is to conceive and bring forth is called 
 "Son of God" even in verse 32, before any men- 
 tion of supernatural conception has been made. 
 
 Some may say that verse 35 is an interpolation 
 introduced into the primitive document of the 
 Annunciation. We have already shown that this 
 hypothesis cannot be held, even on merely textual 
 considerations.* We might add that St. Mat- 
 thew's text states expressly that Jesus was born 
 of a Virgin, and makes not even the faintest 
 allusion to His divine Sonship. Now, most critics 
 rightly look upon the Gospel of the Infancy in 
 St. Matthew as representing a primitive tradition, 
 still earlier than that of St. Luke. We are told 
 even that on that former tradition the third Evan- 
 gelist depends, in what refers to the belief in the 
 Virgin-Mother. Hence it may be inferred that 
 that belief is independent of the connection made 
 here by St. Luke. 
 
 The words of Gabriel have for their chief pur- 
 pose to give an explanation to Mary who fears 
 for her virginity : Let the Virgin not be disturbed, 
 the Son of the Most High does not enter into this 
 world like other men. Nay, that privilege, by 
 which from His very birth He is set apart, shall 
 serve, at the proper time, to declare the origin 
 of Christ, Son of God. 
 
 * Cf. above, pp. 86-89, 122-133. 
 
196 TJic Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 When the Christian apologists of the 2d cen- 
 tury insist on the similarities between Christian 
 mysteries and the myths of Heathenism, it is evi- 
 dently for them a mere argument ad hominem: 
 Why should the Greeks ridicule and condemn 
 those points of our doctrine, which they praise 
 and approve in their own doctrine? In their at- 
 tempt to account for those analogies, some have 
 had recourse to the influence of Satan the inspirer 
 of heathen poets, who did his utmost to ape the 
 works of God, so as more effectively to deceive 
 and lead men astray. This is but a particular 
 application of the view then quite current in Jew- 
 ish and Christian circles, viz.: that Greek wisdom 
 was to be subservient to the Law and to the 
 Prophets. Fortunately, the historical authority 
 of our sacred Writings is not bound up with the 
 failure of that very simple attempt to account for 
 a feature often common to truth and falsehood : — 
 plausibility. The Ancients readily looked upon 
 myth and legend as a mere degradation of his- 
 tory; but this view is itself a proof of the distinc- 
 tion they made between the various manifestations 
 of reality.* 
 
 * The question of the so-called influence of heathen 
 mythology on the Gospel of the Infancy has been studied, 
 quite at length, by G. H. Box, The Gospel Narratives of 
 the Nativity and the alleged Influences of heathen Ideas, 
 in the Zeitschrift fiir die neutestam. Wissenschaft, 1905, pp. 
 80-101. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 197 
 
 Although the authority of St. Luke's witness 
 extends to the contents of his Gospel, taken as 
 a whole, yet all readers, even orthodox readers, 
 are perfectly entitled to ask here for more par- 
 ticular justifications bearing precisely on the 
 meaning and import the Evangelist meant to give 
 to his text. 
 
 The first question refers to those Canticles 
 found in St. Luke : the Magnificat, the Benedictus, 
 the Nunc dimittis, with which the greeting ad- 
 dressed by Elizabeth to Mary may be joined. 
 
 The same spirit seems to breathe through these 
 pieces; at all events, their literary make-up un- 
 questionably implies some common origin. In 
 their sentiments and in their language, they recall 
 the Canticles of the Old Testament. Synoptical 
 tables have been drawn up for the purpose of 
 showing in a parallel way and verse by verse the 
 Gospel text and its sources; the Magnificat espe- 
 cially has been compared to the Canticle of Anna, 
 Samuel's mother.* 
 
 Should we infer that these Canticles are the 
 exclusive work of the Evangelist or of an earlier 
 
 * Cf. above, p. 19, note. 
 
198 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 writer whose compositions he used, — and that 
 they have no greater historical value than the 
 speeches ascribed by ancient historians to their 
 heroes ? Did we go even to that length and grant 
 that St. Luke interpreted and expressed the senti- 
 ments of the persons he presents to his readers, 
 we would not "ipso facto" deny any historical 
 value to his narrative : Livy and Polybius still 
 deserve to be reckoned among historians, even 
 though they took that liberty. From the mere 
 point of view of possibility, inspiration itself is 
 not incompatible with that literary process, pro- 
 vided it is discovered by textual analysis. When 
 relating a long and continued dialogue between 
 Joshua and the whole people of Israel, the sacred 
 writer construes the real sentiments of those who 
 were there present, although he does not claim 
 to attach a strict historical meaning to the words 
 with which the discourse is actually introduced: 
 "Responditque populus et ait: . . ." * How- 
 ever, we are not at all obliged to have recourse 
 here to that extreme and radical explanation. 
 
 It may be held that the Canticles of the third 
 Gospel were actually uttered, at least in their sub- 
 stance, by those to whom they are ascribed by 
 
 ♦JosuE, 24 1^ 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 199 
 
 the Evangelist. And why not? We must not be 
 surprised at the stereotyped form which gives 
 them a tone of artificial compositions. The Jews 
 were then wont to borrow from Holy Writ the 
 formula of their prayers, and of their constant 
 fidelity to this tradition, even their modern 
 euchologions contain many a proof. The practice 
 was the easier that at an early age they used to 
 become familiar with the Law and the Prophets, 
 the Bible being their whole and only national 
 literature. Nay, Jesus Himself followed in this 
 regard the traditions of His country. Not only 
 does He, in the wilderness, drive away Satan's 
 suggestions by means of a Biblical quotation, and, 
 on the Cross, borrow from the Psalmist His last 
 words, but the Our Father itself, which was to 
 remain His Prayer, is His own far more by the 
 new spirit with which it is filled, than by the nov- 
 elty of the words, taken in their material reality. 
 Again, it is a law of human psychology that, at 
 the solemn moments of life, when great emotions 
 have to be expressed, all men spontaneously recur 
 to the most sacred formulas they may know. 
 Classical antiquity always thought that the natu- 
 ral and fit language of prophetic utterances was 
 poetry, and even versified poetry.* 
 
 ♦This has been remarked by Father Didon: "Poetry is 
 the language of strong impressions and lofty ideas ; among 
 
200 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Does this mean that the strophic construction 
 of the Canticles in St. Luke comes, in its present 
 state, from those who uttered them? Not neces- 
 sarily so. The author who wrote them down, 
 whoever he was, may have given to those pieces 
 their actual regular and rhythmic form, perhaps 
 in order to make them hymns suited to the use 
 of Christian liturgy. Some have inferred from 
 that artificial construction that the Canticles in 
 question are mere formulas of prayers, already 
 current among the Jews, and used by St. Luke's 
 personages as an expression of their own senti- 
 ments: just as we do, for instance, when we say 
 the Miserere or the Te Deiim. Considered in 
 itself, this hypothesis is somewhat plausible; but 
 two apparently unanswerable difficulties may be 
 raised against it. 
 
 the Jews, as among all Eastern nations, it was full of 
 inspiration: every soul is poetic, and sings in joy or sorrow. 
 If ever a full heart gave vent to an inspired hymn, it was 
 the heart of the maiden elected by God to be the mother 
 of the Messiah. She borrowed, from the histories in the 
 Bible, of those women who before her had felt the awe 
 of motherhood, as Leah and the mother of Samuel, ex- 
 pressions which she enlarged and transfigured. The 
 national hymns which had celebrated the glory of her peo- 
 ple, the mercy, power, wisdom and faithfulness of God, 
 rose naturally to lips accustomed to song." (English 
 translation), Vol. I, pp. 38-39. 
 
Positive Tnistzvortliiiicss of the Texts. 201 
 
 The first difficulty is the perfect agreement of 
 those Canticles with the circumstances of persons 
 and times, which introduce them in the Gospel. 
 A current formula always corresponds but 
 vaguely to the soul-attitude and inner dispositions 
 of him who makes use of it; here, on the con- 
 trary, the agreement is as perfect as can be 
 imagined. This is evident as regards the greeting 
 of Elizabeth: of the four distichs of which it is 
 made up, there is not one that does not apply to 
 the Mother of the Messias, and to her alone : 
 "Blessed art thou among women, 
 And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 
 And whence is this to me, 
 That the mother of my Lord should come to me?" 
 
 On the other hand, of herself and of herself 
 alone Elizabeth intends to speak, when she 
 adds : "For lo, when the voice of thy salutation 
 sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb 
 for joy." 
 
 What woman, besides Mary, could have 
 thanked God for having favored her so much and 
 so highly, that she sees already all nations pro- 
 claiming her blessed? Some one may say that, 
 in the primitive text of the Magnificat, the hero 
 was Israel. But then why do we read in St. 
 Luke that God "looked upon the lowliness of 
 
202 Tlic Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 His handmaid" ? It must be granted at least that 
 this is an adaptation. To whom should we 
 ascribe it ? To the Evangelist, some answer. 
 Why not to Mary herself? * 
 
 The stamp of concrete and particular circum- 
 stances is less distinct and visible in the Bene- 
 dictus: but here again it must be confessed that 
 several verses can be understood only of the son 
 of Zachary : for instance : "And thou, child, shalt 
 be called the prophet of the Most High ; for thou 
 shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare 
 his ways." As to the Ntmc dimittis, it is suited 
 only to the lips of the venerable old man, who has 
 just met the Messias, for whom he was longing. 
 His song is the utterance of the last prophet: 
 now that he has seen the dawn of the Messianic 
 era, the last watchman in Israel wishes to be 
 relieved from his duty. 
 
 * This present question has nothing to do with the dis- 
 pute that has been going on for more than ten years, about 
 the attribution of the Magnificat to Elizabeth, in some 
 MSS. Whether the canticle comes from Mary or from 
 Elizabeth, is a point of textual criticism the solution of 
 which leaves the subsequent question intact : does the 
 Magnificat correspond to an historical reality or must it be 
 looked upon as a composition of the Evangelist? Cf. 
 above, p. 42. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthincss of the Texts. 203 
 
 Again, the hypothesis of the transformation of 
 Jewish hymns into Christian songs is open to 
 another difficulty, which is always most serious 
 from an historical point of view : that hypothesis 
 is merely gfratuitous. In the whole Hebrew lit- 
 erature, whether canonical or not, there is nothing 
 whatever like these Canticles. Really they are 
 found in St. Luke alone. 
 
 Some critics suggest that the Evangelist bor- 
 rowed those pieces from Christian liturgy. This 
 view is just as gratuitous as the preceding, and 
 besides far more improbable. We can hardly 
 fancy an author openly claiming to relate the 
 beginnings of Christianity more accurately than 
 his predecessors, and then, from the very start, 
 taking such liberties with history. We might just 
 as well look upon as earnest and believe an his- 
 torian of the French Revolution who would put 
 the Marseillaise on the lips of J. J. Rousseau. 
 The hypothesis in question becomes less improb- 
 able, if we suppose that, in the liturgy which was 
 used as a source by the Evangelist these Canti- 
 cles were said by the same persons as in the 
 Gospel. But the question comes again : To whom 
 should their composition be ascribed ? * 
 
 * About the essentially Hebrew and pre-Christian charac- 
 ter of St. Luke's canticles, the reader may consult with 
 
204 The CJiildJiood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 For a long time past St. Luke has been accused 
 of being mistaken, when he claims that Joseph 
 and Mary went to Bethlehem where Jesus was 
 born, in order to comply with an edict of the 
 Emperor Augustus, who had prescribed a uni- 
 versal census of the Roman world. The Evan- 
 gelist adds that this census took place in Pales- 
 tine, when Cyrinus was the governor of Syria. 
 
 This statement, we are told, is false for two 
 reasons. First of all, there was no census in 
 Palestine the year Jesus was born. Anyhow, 
 Cyrinus was not at that time the legate of Syria. 
 Then, even granting that there was a census in 
 that year, Joseph was not obliged on that account 
 to go to Bethlehem, the cradle of his family, since 
 censuses were not taken by families.* 
 
 profit Ryle and James, Psalms of Solomon, especially pp. 
 xci, xcii; about their connection with the eighteen prayers 
 of the Synagogue : Chase, The Lord's Prayer in the Early 
 Church, in the collection Texts and Studies, i, 3, p. 147; 
 concerning the Benedictus: W. Sanday, Critical Questions, 
 p. 131, and Nebe, Die Kindheitsgeschichte unseres Herrn 
 Jesu Christi, p. 166. 
 
 * These objections are still urged, on the whole, by 
 Pfleiderer and Schmiedel, and chiefly by E. Schurer, 
 Geschichte des jUdischen Volkes im Zeitalter J. C, 1, pp. 
 501-543. (English translation of the previous edition, ist 
 
Positive Triistworfhiness of the Texts. 205 
 
 To that difficulty we might reply first that an 
 actual mistake of that kind would not do away 
 altogether with St. Luke's authority, nor espe- 
 cially with the historical character of his work. 
 What historian could stand the test, if to be 
 deemed trustworthy, his work must contain no 
 error, not even in the details? 
 
 But here again there is no need to have re- 
 course to such an extreme solution : St. Luke's 
 accuracy can be upheld. Apologists have carefully 
 studied and treated the question of Cyrinus. The 
 reader will find in what follows not indeed all 
 their explanations, but merely the certain or at 
 least the most probable conclusions that now can 
 be drawn from these explanations.* 
 
 (a) It is certain that the Emperor Augustus 
 had contemplated taking up and actually did take 
 up a whole system of censuses, the purpose of 
 which was the drawing up of all the forces and 
 resources of the Roman World. 
 
 (b) It seems equally certain that some period- 
 ical census by families took place in Egypt about 
 
 division, Vol. II, pp. 108-143). St. Luke's accuracy is up- 
 held by Ramsay, Zockler, Chase, Knowling, Kenyon, etc. 
 
 ♦For the quotations of the texts and the reference to 
 authorities, cf. especially W. Ramsay's excellent work: 
 Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? 1898. 
 
2o6 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 that time, in keeping with the imperial edict. 
 From an inscription found at Lyons we learn that 
 this was also the case in Gaul. But, then, why 
 not in Palestine ? There, as in all other tributary 
 kingdoms, people paid to the Roman treasury a 
 personal tax, which was really a poll-tax ; * and 
 it goes without saying that its perception required 
 an assessment based on a census other than that 
 according to which the land-tax was levied. The 
 census by families is accounted for in Palestine 
 the more easily that it was in keeping with Jewish 
 customs. The census which took place in a. d. 6 
 gave rise to a popular revolt led by Judas of 
 Gamala, precisely because on that occasion the 
 officials of the census attempted to take it accord- 
 ing to the Roman method, which consisted merely 
 in recording on the spot the civil status of each 
 individual. This is at least the view of scholars 
 worthy of consideration.! 
 
 * This tribute is referred to in Matt. 22 1'^. 
 
 '\ Acts 5 2^, iv TaZs iitiipaii t^s inoy pa<f>rii. This CCnSUS tOOk 
 
 place the same year that the Ethnarch Herod Arche- 
 laus was deposed and that Judaea began to be ruled by a 
 Roman procurator. St. Luke knows of that census, since 
 he mentions it in the Acts, and he distinguishes it so clearly 
 from that which, some ten years before, had brought Joseph 
 and Mary to Bethlehem, that he prevents any mistake by 
 saying expressly in the Gospel that he speaks of the first 
 
Positive Triistzvorthiness of the Texts. 207 
 
 - 
 
 A measure resorted to by Tiberius in the subse- 
 quent census — a. d. 20 — seems to have been 
 taken as a consequence of the unfortunate results 
 of that attempt at romanization. The Emperor 
 commanded that the census should be taken in 
 the Roman way, only in the provinces strictly 
 so-called ; whilst in the countries that were merely 
 tributary, current customs should be followed. 
 It may rightly be surmised that thirty years 
 earlier, when the Roman power in Palestine was 
 far less sure of itself, the imperial officials did 
 not even think of another course of action. And 
 then, must not the feelings of King Herod be 
 spared ? 
 
 census, i) airoypa<pr) ■n-purrj. The census, understood and ap- 
 plied in the Jewish way, was not only by families, but even 
 by tribes. We should not exaggerate the exacting character 
 of the measure. The Jews, who had been commanded by 
 the Mosaic law to go three times a year to Jerusalem, could 
 not find it too hard to be called upon, from time to time, to 
 appear in the birthplace of their forefathers. Besides, only 
 they who were living in Palestine were obliged to leave their 
 abode momentarily, and, as is well known, three or four 
 days sufficed to take them from one end of the country to 
 the other. From a statement of St. Luke, we gather that 
 David's descendants had not been slow to comply with the 
 imperial decree : the inns of Bethlehem were filled with 
 people when Joseph and Mary got there. Probably they 
 had made their journey coincide with the solemn feast of 
 the Dedication, which always brought many visitors to 
 
2o8 The Childhood of Jestis Christ. 
 
 (c) If the regular order of censuses was fol- 
 lowed, the census which preceded that of the year 
 6 A. D.^ must have occurred fourteen years before, 
 
 Jerusalem. In case some one would wonder that a poor 
 mechanic like Joseph was able to justify his claims of 
 Davidic descent, he may recall that, a century later, under 
 Domitian (81-96), the two grandsons of St. Jude, who 
 were introduced to the Emperor as descendants of David, 
 were husbandmen (Euseb., H. E., Ill, xx). — Again, Joseph 
 may have had, besides his genealogy, a more urgent reason 
 for being inscribed at Bethlehem, although residing at Naza- 
 reth. Since his recent marriage with Mary, he may have 
 had his legal domicile at Bethlehem. Had this little town 
 been for him only the cradle of his ancestors, we could 
 hardly understand why his first thought was to go back 
 there, when the Angel told him in Egypt that he could 
 bring back to Palestine the Child and Its mother. Nothing 
 less than the fear of Archelaus and a new warning from 
 Heaven made Him give up his intention. Why did Mary 
 accompany Joseph? Women paid the poll-tax, but it does 
 not seem that they were obliged personally to be inscribed. 
 In a census by families, the husband made a declaration of 
 his wife and children. Hence it is unnecessary to have 
 recourse to the explanation which has passed, in the shape 
 of a gloss, into the text of the Syriac version, called 
 Sinaitic: "Because both of them were of the house of 
 David." The text of St. Luke, ivepr) Se koI 'luajj"^ 
 . . . ivoypa\pa<T6ai. <ri)v Mapii/it, strictly Speaking, can be trans- 
 lated: "And Joseph also went up with Mary to be in- 
 scribed." The important fact here is Mary's journey to 
 Bethlehem with Joseph; the census was mentioned in the 
 narrative, merely because it was the occasion of that 
 journey. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthincss of the Texts. 209 
 
 i. e., in the year 8 b. c* This last date does not 
 agree with St. Luke's statement, since the birth 
 of Jesus cannot be placed earlier than 6 b. c. 
 True, but are we forbidden to suppose that the 
 operations of the census demanded at least two 
 years? The census by families required neces- 
 sarily a great deal of time, owing to the journeys 
 it imposed. Besides, we know that at that time 
 the relations between Augustus and Herod were 
 rather strained. Moreover, the slow process of 
 the census perhaps accounts for the mention of 
 Cyrinus made by St. Luke. 
 
 In the year 6 b. c, the province of Syria was 
 not governed by Cyrinus, but by Sentius Satur- 
 ninus, or by Quinctilius Varus, who replaced him 
 that same year. The latter held his office until 
 the year 4 b. c, the latest date that can be ascribed 
 to the birth of Jesus, since it took place before 
 the death of Herod, which occurred toward the 
 spring of the year 750 u. c. To help along the 
 slothful Varus, especially in the taking of the 
 census, the Emperor may have associated with 
 him Cyrinus, of whom Tacitus writes he was 
 "impiger militice et acribus ministeriis." Had not 
 
 * That there were periodical censuses, every fourteen 
 years, rests on positive proof from documents, at least as 
 regards Egypt. 
 
2IO The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Augustus done likewise when with the preceding 
 legate, Saturninus, he had associated Volumnius? 
 We may remark, too, that St. Luke calls Cyrinus 
 neither a legate nor a proconsul ; to designate his 
 function the Evangelist uses a rather indefinite 
 term of which he seems to be fond when speaking 
 of the government of Palestine.* 
 
 This is no mere hypothesis. Most scholars 
 grant that Cyrinus exercised twice a public func- 
 tion in Syria. Now, it is certain that in the year 
 6 A. D. Cyrinus was sent as legate to the im- 
 perial province of Syria. When was he sent for 
 the first time? To this question the text of St. 
 Luke gives a satisfactory reply, for it enables us 
 to affirm that between the year 8 b. c. and the 
 year 4 b. c. Cyrinus had a share in the govern- 
 ment of Syria. Nay, it is most probable that in 
 
 * 'Hyejutovtu'oi'Tos t^s Supias Kvpijvi'ov, ii, 2', cf. iii, 1 ', XX, 20 J 
 
 xxi, 12. St. Justin says that Cyrinus was epitropus 
 (procurator) at the time of the census (/ ApoL, 34). 
 Likewise Josephus (Antig., XVI, ix, i) gives to Volumnius 
 the title of Koiaapos riyiij.u,v, the official title of those who, 
 like Pontius Pilate, for instance, governed Palestine by 
 imperial delegation. The hypothesis according to which 
 Cyrinus was associated with the legate of Syria in the gov- 
 ernment of that province accounts fully for a passage of 
 Tertullian, Adv. Marc, iv, 19, where he says that Jesus 
 was born under the rule of Sentius Saturninus, although 
 he knew the text of St. Luke and received its authority. 
 
Positive Trustivorthiness of the Texts. 211 
 
 the year 3 b. c, perhaps even before the end of 
 the year 4 b. c, he succeeded Varus, with the 
 title of legate. Between Varus, who gave up his 
 office shortly after Herod's death, and C. Caesar, 
 the grandson of Augustus, who obtained in the 
 year i b. c. the legation of Syria and held it until 
 the year 4 a. d., there is, in the series of legates, 
 a period of three years, covered by the adminis- 
 tration of an officer whose name has not reached 
 us. Better than anybody else, Cyrinus seems to 
 be the man fit to fill that gap. If this is the case, 
 then we understand why the Evangelist says ex- 
 pressly that he intends to speak of the first census, 
 whether the census which took place toward the 
 end of Herod's reign was the first attempted by 
 the Romans in Palestine, or rather the first taken 
 by Cyrinus, who was also to preside over the 
 census taken in the year 6 a. d. 
 
 The episode of Jesus in the Temple is a puzzle 
 for those who as yet have failed to understand 
 how a child twelve years old could have been 
 conscious of His Messianic destiny. Is not their 
 amazement due, after all, to naturalistic preju- 
 dices, or at least to a kind of spontaneous and 
 
212 TJic Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 instinctive mistrust they feel regarding any text 
 that records supernatural manifestations? 
 
 Even though they profess that Jesus was not 
 a man like other men, some Christian critics 
 reluctantly admit that at times and in some places 
 He did not act as other men. On the contrary, 
 to the Evangelist who wrote it, also to all his 
 readers, — who were exempt from that morbid 
 fear of the supernatural to which hypercriticism 
 gives rise, — both to him and to them the episode 
 of that narrative seems a most normal occurrence. 
 For is it not fitting that the Messias — especially 
 if it is granted that He is the Son of God — 
 should with full consciousness approach gradu- 
 ally the work He came to do in our midst ? At all 
 events, the tradition of the Child Jesus amongst 
 the Doctors of the Law rests on solid historical 
 testimony, and this is quite enough to hinder 
 sound critics from consigning that tradition to 
 the realm of legend. 
 
 The same should be said of the Angels' appari- 
 tion to the shepherds of Bethlehem, on the night 
 of the Nativity. Is it not natural that, when the 
 Son of God entered into this world to save all 
 men, the Heavens should have made His presence 
 known to a few pure, simple souls? Mankind 
 could have devised nothing better to welcome its 
 Redeemer. In the eyes of some, that tradition is 
 
Positive Trustivorthiness of the Texts. 213 
 
 a mere equivalent of that other tradition, recorded 
 in St. Matthew, according to which the Magi 
 came from the East to adore the King of the 
 Jews. This question we shall take up after prov- 
 ing the historical authority of St. Matthew's nar- 
 rative. This particular case comes under the gen- 
 eral problem of the differences found in our 
 canonical texts as regards the Gospel of the In- 
 fancy. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW, CHAPT. I AND 2. 
 
 That the contents of these two chapters are 
 well connected, must be granted. St. Joseph's 
 perplexity gives rise to the apparition of the Angel 
 of the Lord, who manifests to him the mystery 
 of the Virginal Conception (i i^*-^). As soon 
 as Christ is born in Bethlehem of Juda, some 
 Magi come from the East to adore Him, and this 
 precisely awakens the jealousy of old Herod. To 
 strike more surely the King of the Jews, he 
 orders the massacre of all the children under two 
 years of age, at Bethlehem and in the neighbor- 
 hood. Acting on a command from Heaven, 
 Joseph flees into Egypt and thus saves the Child 
 and its Mother. After the death of Herod, under 
 
214 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the reign of his son, Archelaus, he comes back 
 and takes again his abode at Nazareth (2). 
 
 Whatever may be its origin, that narrative 
 flows from one and only one source. We can take 
 nothing away from it without disturbing deeply 
 its harmonious limpidity. Even the genealogy 
 (i ^"'^) is here in the right place; the point of 
 view from which it was written is truly that of 
 the first Gospel, since verse 20, in which the Angel 
 greets Joseph as the son of David, supposes the 
 first and the last verse of that genealogy. Some 
 have said that, strictly speaking, the second chap- 
 ter can be understood independently of the first, 
 but this is a groundless statement, opposed by 
 verse 13, which brings St. Joseph before us and 
 does not introduce him to us, simply because this 
 is already done in the first chapter. 
 
 What is the source used here by St. Matthew? 
 There is neither in tradition nor in the text any- 
 thing from which we may gather a positive 
 answer to this question. All that can be affirmed 
 is that that source differs from the source made 
 use of by St. Luke. Even though Jesus and His 
 Mother continue to be, in the main, the centre of 
 the whole narrative, still its author manifestly 
 intends to bring into prominence the part played 
 by the just Joseph in the history of the Savior's 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 215 
 
 Nativity and early childhood, and this has led 
 some critics to conclude that the tradition recorded 
 by St. Matthew is of Galilean origin and that it 
 probably originated in the circles where Joseph 
 was well known. 
 
 That the source of these first two chapters is 
 different from that of the rest of the Gospel, 
 can be well supposed, but their historical value is 
 neither destroyed nor even decreased by that 
 hypothesis.* One thing which is certain, because 
 we find its echo, as it were, in all the phrases of 
 the text, is this : as they are read here, the narra- 
 tives of the Infancy originated in Palestine and 
 were transmitted to us by communities of Chris- 
 tians, who had come over from the Synagogue. 
 
 * Wellhausen begins his commentary of St. Matthew 
 (1904) with Chapter III, as if the first two chapters did 
 not exist at all. To do this, one must be conscious of 
 soaring far above the rank and file of men ! The most 
 recent commentator of St. Matthew, W. C. Allen, in the 
 collection The International Critical Commentary (1907), 
 is more conservative. For him the narratives of the In- 
 fancy belong integrally to the first Gospel, although St. 
 Matthew holds them from a tradition which is peculiar to 
 him. These narratives were most probably current in 
 Palestinian communities as early as the middle of the first 
 century. Cf. pp. xiii, lix-lxiii, 21. 
 
 16 
 
2i6 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 We find in the Gospel very few pages as replete 
 with allusions to Holy Writ, to Jewish customs 
 and preoccupations, as these pages actually are. 
 The reader is supposed to know that, according to 
 the wording of the Law,* betrothal is juridically 
 equivalent to marriage itself (i ^^). The author 
 lays stress on the meaning of the name Jesus, 
 which signifies in Hebrew, God's Salvation (i ^^) ; 
 he plays upon the word, Nazarene (2 ^^), and in 
 such a way that, probably, he knows he can be 
 understood only by those whose ears are able to 
 catch the similarity of sounds which exists, in 
 Hebrew, between Nazareth and Nazir. To what 
 Christians could this comparison appeal but to 
 those of Nazareth itself, and to those of Pales- 
 tine, who were commonly called Nazarseans ? f 
 Of all the Biblical texts quoted here — and the 
 Messianic import of which is taken for granted, — 
 there is at least one that would have escaped the 
 attention of an author writing far away from the 
 scene of the events (2 ^®). At Bethlehem alone 
 the tears of the Holy Innocents' mothers could 
 recall the lamentations of Rachel, whose grave 
 
 * DeUt 22 23, 24, 
 
 t Cf. Acts 24 5. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthincss of the Texts. 217 
 
 lay near the gates of the little town.* The paral- 
 lel drawn between the national destinies of Israel 
 and the personal destinies of Jesus (2 ^^) is based 
 on an exegesis which is quite in the manner of 
 St. Paul, and which he had learned at the feet 
 of Gamaliel, The way in which the text of 
 Michaeas is quoted and used by the members of 
 the Sanhedrim (2 °) recalls also the method then 
 in vogue in Rabbinic Schools. f That solicitude 
 for accuracy, shown in the expression "Bethlehem 
 in Judaea" (2 ^) betrays a Palestinian who knows 
 that here a confusion can be made. The few 
 touches that vividly describe Herod's suspicious, 
 false and cruel character, would meet with Jo- 
 sephus' approval. The first Evangelist knows 
 that Archelaus replaced his father, only over 
 Judaea (2"). This mere detail, thrown by the 
 way, as it were, betokens a witness who speaks 
 pertinently of the men and things of his country, 
 for all know how easy it is to get confused re- 
 garding the history of the Herods and of the 
 Roman procurators in Palestine. 
 
 * Nay, the Evangelist probably intended to state accu- 
 rately the special Messianic meaning he ascribed to that 
 text of Jeremias 31 ^^, by using here t6t€ instead of iva. 
 
 t Cf. ScHECHTER, Some Rabbinic Parallels to the N. T., 
 in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. XII, p. 418. 
 
2i8 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 All through the narrative, we feel a certain 
 anxiety to state and prove the Messianic claims 
 of Jesus of Nazareth. He is Son of God, He 
 was supernaturally conceived of Mary, He was 
 born and spent His early years in the way the 
 Prophets had announced of the Christ who was 
 to come. Where and for whom could these words 
 have ever been written? Until now, interpreters 
 had unanimously granted that, judging merely 
 from their contents, the narratives of the Infancy 
 in St. Matthew betrayed their unquestionably 
 Judcco-Christian origin. The critics of the Tu- 
 bingen school, including Strauss, even maintained 
 that the Jewish Messianic ideal alone accounted' 
 sufficiently for the Christian faith: in the long 
 run the hope had created its object.* But now 
 some critics are found who declare that view 
 inadmissible, at least as regards the Virgin-Birth ; 
 they hold that this last belief could not have 
 grown on Jewish soil; that it was transplanted 
 thither from the soil of Hellenic thought. 
 
 How strange, groundless and improbable this 
 opinion is, we have already seen ; f — here, we 
 shall merely draw the conclusion that naturally 
 
 * Cf . above, pp. 76 and ff. 
 t Cf. pp. 91-97- 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 219 
 
 flows from the critical analysis of the first two 
 chapters of St. Matthew. Those pages have so 
 distinct a Palestinian coloring, and moreover they 
 form so intimate a unit, that we can hardly think 
 of bringing in from the outside what is their very 
 soul : the Virgin-Birth of Christ. Our opponents 
 agree that here we are on the ground where the 
 question must receive a definitive answer, since 
 they hold and fondly repeat that here St. Luke 
 depends on St. Matthew : so that when we deter- 
 mine accurately the source of the first Evangelist, 
 at the same time we find the gate, as it were, 
 through which that belief made its way into the 
 New Testament and into the Symbol of the Chris- 
 tian Faith. 
 
 Does this mean that the idea of the Virgin- 
 Mother was one of the Messianic doctrines, that 
 were current in the century which immediately 
 preceded the Christian era? The texts do not 
 seem to justify a decidedly affirmative answer. 
 The first words of Mary to Gabriel who in the 
 name of God, proposes to her to become the 
 Mother of the Messias, expressed the wish to 
 know how that could be done. To the claims of 
 the Christian apologists of the 2d century the 
 Jews answer that the Prophets, including Isaias, 
 never made such a prediction. Hence, in their 
 
220 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Greek translations of that time, they fondly ren- 
 der the Hebrew word 'alma by vtavn;, young 
 maiden, instead of napdivo?, virgin. In his de- 
 bate with St. Justin, the Jew Trypho repeatedly 
 and vehemently affirms that the Messias expected 
 by his countrymen is to be a man, born like all 
 other men.* This is also the view of most of 
 those modern critics who have studied with special 
 care the doctrines of the Synagogue of old.f 
 
 In spite of their conclusion, it still remains to 
 explain why the LXX translated Isaias (7 ") by 
 Idob ij napdivoq. To Say that in this case, as 
 in others, they contented themselves with an ap- 
 proximately accurate translation, and that Chris- 
 tian Dogma has much benefited by their blunder, J 
 
 * Dialogue, 48. 
 
 t Weber, Jildische Thcologie, 1897, pp. 354, 357; Orelli, 
 in Herzog's p. R. E., 1903, Vol. XII, p. 736; Dalman, The 
 Words of Jesus, p. 226. They purposely extenuate, it is true, 
 the bearing of some texts which witness in behalf of the 
 contrary view. The Book of Enoch calls twice the Mes- 
 sias the Son of the Woman; but this reading they look 
 upon as inauthentic, even though, in chapter 62 ^, it is 
 upheld by all MSS., except G. Now, this last witness, pre- 
 ferred here to all others, is declared to be in the wrong 
 at chapter 69 29, precisely because in this place, it favors 
 the condemned reading. See R. H. Charles, The Book 
 of Enoch, p. 164. 
 
 t This is the opinion of Herzog, loc. cit., p. 126. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthiness of the Texts. 22 1 
 
 is not to unravel the knot, but to cut it off heed- 
 lessly. The best-balanced critics will most prob- 
 ably still continue to believe that this translation 
 may reecho some ancient tradition about the 
 meaning of the text of Isaias : a text the bearing 
 of which may have been determined more accu- 
 rately, when compared with the parallel text of 
 Michaeas. 
 
 The little esteem entertained by the Jews for 
 the state of virginity may have been the motive 
 why among them the public mind never took up 
 resolutely the direction pointed out by the Proph- 
 ets. But here again, we must avoid any exaggera- 
 tion, lest we might run counter to other texts. It 
 seems quite certain that, in the first century of our 
 era, celibacy was deemed by many Jews a state 
 more perfect and more favorable to the worship 
 of God, since, according to Philo and Josephus, 
 there were, during their lifetime, more than 4000 
 Essenes who made a public profession of con- 
 tinence.* The Jews dreaded barrenness in wed- 
 lock far more than celibacy, because the former 
 was looked upon as the result of some divine 
 chastisement. 
 
 * Philo, edit. Mangey, ii, 457 ; Josephus, Ant. Jud., 
 xviii, I, 5. 
 
222 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Whatever may be the right view as to the 
 Jewish state of mind regarding virginity, it is 
 certain that the meaning of the prophecy of Isaias 
 was not self-evident nor cogent from the mere 
 text ; * on the other hand, it was too faintly sup- 
 ported by tradition, to have exercised on the be- 
 lief of Christians in the virginal conception of 
 Jesus the decisive influence which Keim and Har- 
 nack, and before them Strauss ascribed to that 
 text. That belief remains a distinctly Christian 
 dogma, even though it originated in surroundings 
 where a certain number of ideas of Jewish origin 
 may have prepared the way for it. 
 
 From this instance, the reader may infer the 
 bold and biased character of the affirmation of 
 Baur and of his disciples, when they claimed that 
 the picture of the Messias was to be found ready 
 made in the Old Testament, and that what the 
 Christians had to do, was merely to apply it to 
 Jesus of Nazareth, through a kind of retrospec- 
 tive exegesis. 
 
 The Messianic prophecies, and still more the 
 interpretation they received, had neither the sim- 
 plicity nor the clearness which that theory sup- 
 poses. Made of various details found here and 
 
 * CoRLUY, Spicilegium, Vol. I, p. 406. 
 
Positive Tnisfzvorthiucss of the Texts. 227, 
 
 there, they acquire some distinctness only when 
 seen as a whole. Now the difficulty lies precisely 
 in making the synthesis of elements the mutual 
 relations of which are far from self-evident, and 
 which seem even to exclude one another. Hence 
 we find among the Jews contradictory views con- 
 cerning the origin of Christ and the character of 
 His work. Whilst the Scribes declare that the 
 Messias shall spring from the family of David 
 and be born at Bethlehem,* the people at large 
 believe that He shall manifest Himself suddenly 
 and that the place from which He is to come shall 
 not be known, t 
 
 Some indeed there are who think they can solve 
 that antinomy by saying that "during the century 
 which preceded the Christian era, the Messianic 
 idea assumed among the Jews two different 
 shapes. The Messias of the prophetical school 
 was to issue from the family of David, the Mes- 
 sias of the Apocalyptic school was to appear on 
 the clouds of Heaven." | 
 
 * Matt 2 ", 22 ^^. 
 t John 727. 
 
 t Herzog, La Conception virgin, du Christ, loc. cif., p. 
 118. 
 
224 ^^^^ Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is indeed a simple and easy work to speak of 
 a prophetical and of an apocalyptic school, of a 
 Davidic and of a Heavenly Christ : these general- 
 izations may seduce those who are not familiar 
 with the texts; but others they cannot deceive. 
 Bousset, whose competence on this subject is be- 
 yond question, warns us that here hasty classifica- 
 tions must be carefully avoided : "These new con- 
 cepts (the apocalyptic concepts) are combined and 
 welded with the old ones, under the shape of 
 strange and contradictory images. In those com- 
 promises, the latter are often predominant, whilst 
 at times the former impart their peculiar character 
 to the (Messianic) hope taken as a whole, and 
 then there remain but few vestiges of the national 
 Hope of God. In fine, toward the close of the 
 period of which we are speaking, the two cycles 
 of Hopes proceed altogether confused." * 
 
 * W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums in neutestam. 
 Zeitalter (2d edit.), p. 278. After quoting the passage 
 given in the text, Father L. de Grandmaison adds these 
 significant words: "As a matter of fact, among the docu- 
 ments of that time whether they come from Palestine or 
 from the Dispersion; whether from the Hellenizing Jews 
 or from the Jews who remained Jews only, all those 
 which tell us of a personal Messias, have the apocalyptic 
 features combined with the traditional features. Even in 
 the 17th Psalm of Solomon, which expresses almost with- 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 225 
 
 Distinct as these two views may be, still they 
 do not differ so much as to entitle us to say that 
 the Christ of the Prophets belonged exclusively 
 to a school, whilst the Christ of the Apocalypse 
 was that of the people at large. In the same 
 chapter of St. John, where some Jews who had 
 come to Jerusalem for the feast profess to expect 
 a Messias whose origin will not be known, others 
 recall that, according to the words of Holy Writ, 
 He is to be born at Bethlehem and to descend 
 from David.* 
 
 This being the case, how could Christians have 
 seriously thought of drawing up and composing, 
 by means of the Scriptures alone and without any 
 historical ground and support, a kind of Life of 
 the Messias, which would just fit the character of 
 Jesus of Nazareth ? Besides, even supposing they 
 had made the attempt, we may think that their 
 text would be quite different from what it actually 
 
 out alloy the national idea of the Messias, as a king 
 and as a son of David, we find traces of ideal representa- 
 tion, pointed out most appositely by the authors to whom 
 Herzog refers. In his final conclusion the latter passes 
 by also the unequivocal restrictions made by H. Holtz- 
 MANN (Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologie, I, 411) and W. 
 BoussET, loc. cit., p. 493, note." Etudes, May 20, 1907, p. 
 506. 
 *JoHN 727.42. 
 
226 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 is : for what purpose would they have given rise — 
 deliberately, it would seem — to difficulties against 
 their own thesis, by quoting texts of which it 
 is no easy task to defend the Messianic character, 
 whilst they do not mention other texts which 
 apparently should have called their attention ? * 
 
 It is chiefly in connection with St. Matthew 
 that some critics have spoken of myth and legend 
 in the narratives of the Savior's Infancy. The 
 angel of God, who always appears in a dream, 
 some Magi called and led by a star, the slaughter 
 of all the children of Bethlehem, that were two 
 years old and under that age, the flight into 
 Egypt : all these events do not tally with the usual 
 tone of the Gospel history and seem to have their 
 parallel in the legends of heroes. 
 
 Some liberal Protestants, whose criticism, how- 
 ever, was not without conservative tendencies, 
 were so much impressed with those considera- 
 tions, that they came to discard here the historical 
 character of the narrative, and to preserve only 
 its religious value. This was the view taken, for 
 instance, by E. Reuss.f Others do not go to that 
 
 * For instance, why does St. Matthew 2 1^, quote Jerem. 
 31 1^, and omit Numbers 24 ^^ and Isaias 60^? 
 
 ^ Hist, cvangelique, p. 157. 
 
Positive Tnisfworthincss of flic Texts. 227 
 
 length. Still they think they can solve the diffi- 
 culty, through the theory of the Hebrew midrash: 
 we have, it seems, a history related with a great 
 deal of freedom, for the purpose of edification, 
 and chiefly for that of imparting to the Messianic 
 faith, a concrete and popular expression.* 
 
 Even though we grant that some popular way 
 of relating facts may have influenced here and 
 there the form of the narrative, for instance in 
 what refers to the star of the Magi, we maintain 
 that the method of strictly historical criticism is 
 not here so deficient as is claimed by some schol- 
 ars. The Evangelist intends to relate; he distin- 
 guishes the meaning and bearing of his tradition 
 from the didactic character of the parables which 
 he records some pages after, in chapter xiii. From 
 a mere reading of the text it is easy to gather 
 that such is his state of mind in that regard ; 
 and, as a matter of fact, it has always been 
 thus understood. In these circumstances, a be- 
 liever will take unhesitatingly the narrative of the 
 sacred writer in the sense the latter intended to 
 assign to it, and look upon it as true history. 
 When dealing with unbelievers, the apologist will 
 show merely that the history of Jesus' infancy 
 
 * Cf . G. H. Box, loc. cit., p. 80. 
 
228 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 must have seemed plausible to the Evangelist, 
 and that, through his text, it has come down to 
 us, with all the necessary guarantees, so that no 
 serious historian may, a priori, relegate it in the 
 lump to the class of legends. 
 
 I. The Dreams. — Five times, in these two 
 chapters, we find the Divine will manifested in 
 dreams : four times to Joseph, and once to the 
 Magi. All know that among the Ancients, dreams 
 played a great part in divination. The Jews also 
 must have looked upon sleep, as favorable to 
 Yahweh's communications. Did they not read 
 in Holy Writ that several of their ancestors had 
 been blessed with Divine dreams? True, Jere- 
 mias raises at times his voice against the "proph- 
 ets diviners," * because self-illusion and deceit 
 can more easily creep into night visions than into 
 the waking state ; but for that reason he does not 
 mean to set aside altogether that mode of heav- 
 enly revelations. Had he done so, he would have 
 gone against Jewish traditions and the text of the 
 Law itself.f 
 
 Divine dreams occur more seldom in the New 
 than in the Old Testament; but still even there 
 
 * Jerem. 23 25, 27 9, 29 8. 
 
 t Numbers 12 «, Deut. 13 ^'^ ; cf. / Kings 28 «• i^. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 229 
 
 they do occur. We find them not in the Gospel 
 of the Infancy alone; the author of the Acts 
 relates some that are closely connected with St. 
 Paul's history : * St. Luke would not have re- 
 ceived those night visions into his narrative, had 
 he not deemed them sufficiently grounded. In 
 his eyes, the thing itself was possible; and it was 
 worthy of belief, because of the credit of those 
 by whom it was related. Why would St. Joseph's 
 dreams be more open to suspicion than those of 
 St. Paul ? As the Apostle, so the foster-father of 
 Jesus was able to control and ascertain their 
 divine origin by means of the events which fol- 
 lowed and agreed with the prediction of which 
 those events were the object. Taking the text as 
 it is — and this we must do, since that text is the 
 only ground of positive information — the reader 
 does not feel the need even to guard against the 
 suspicion of deceit, because of the manifest candor 
 and sincerity of the witness: it is indeed from 
 that page that the traditional portrait of the "just 
 Joseph" has been drawn. Illusion? But here 
 the so-called visionary is not one of those who 
 are easily worked up : far from making use of the 
 revelation he has just received regarding Jesus' 
 
 *Acts 16 9, 18 9, 23 11, 2723; cf. Matt. 27 i^ 
 
230 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 unique destiny, to rely presumptuously on some 
 miraculous help from Heaven, Joseph fulfills the 
 orders given him, just as though the safety of 
 the Child and of Its mother depended only on his 
 exertions. 
 
 Why does the Angel of God appear, in St. 
 Luke, during the day, whilst in St. Matthew, he 
 appears in dreams ? * The most plausible ac- 
 count will always be that the narratives differ, 
 simply because as a matter of fact the events 
 occurred differently. The first Evangelist is a 
 priori neither ignorant of nor averse to heavenly 
 manifestations that may occur during the state 
 of wake; at least seven are mentioned in his 
 Gospel ; f therefore St. Joseph's dream does not 
 depend at all on his special way of looking at the 
 events and of relating them. 
 
 Only those critics who have made up their 
 minds to ignore psychology, only they can claim 
 that the revelation made to St. Joseph is a mere 
 repetition of the revelation made to the Blessed 
 Virgin, in St. Luke. Mary's testimony, in a 
 
 * However, taking only the letter of St. Luke's text, we 
 cannot say with certainty whether the Angel Gabriel ap- 
 peared to Mary in her waking time or not. 
 
 tMATT. 4", 173, 2753, 28 5' 9'". 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 231 
 
 matter which concerned her so closely, could not 
 suffice her husband; and, on the other hand, it 
 was not titting that the Incarnation should take 
 place without the knowledge and consent of the 
 one, who was to be most intimately associated 
 with that work of God. 
 
 A last remark may be made in behalf of the 
 objective character of the narrative. Had they 
 yielded to their respective natural tendency and 
 genius, St. Matthew would have ascribed to the 
 Heavenly Messenger the announcement of a King 
 Messias, coming into this world to set up the 
 Kingdom of God, whilst St. Luke would have 
 ascribed to the same messenger the promise of a 
 Messias, author of Salvation for all mankind. 
 Now, we have just the contrary : in St. Matthew, 
 the x\ngel speaks of Salvation (i ^^), and in St. 
 Luke, of a Kingdom (i ^-' ^^). 
 
 2. The Magi. — Kepler suggests that we iden- 
 tify the star of the Magi with a natural phenom- 
 enon, the conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and 
 Mars, which occurred probably in the year 747- 
 748 u. c* In spite of that attractive supposition, 
 
 *Th. Zahn, Das Evang. des Matthdus, 1905, pp. 98-102, 
 upholds the hypothesis of a merely natural phenomenon, 
 described by the Evangelist, not with scientific accuracy, 
 but in a popular language and from the point of view of 
 the astrology of the Magi. 
 
232 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 interpreters hold generally that the sign given to 
 the Magi took place outside the laws of nature, 
 and that therefore it is beyond the field and reach 
 of astronomy. Besides, the apologist has now 
 to justify his claims no longer before the tri- 
 bunal of science, but before that of history. 
 
 Some claimed to have found how the narrative 
 of the adoration of the Magi originated. That 
 narrative, we are told, was a mere adaptation of 
 an event which made some sensation in the Roman 
 Empire, toward the middle of the first century.* 
 Some Magi came to Rome to adore Nero, under 
 the leadership of the king of the Parthians, Tiri- 
 dates. . . . But what about the star? It 
 may have found its way into the narrative from 
 two sides : Christians may have remembered the 
 star of Jacob, foretold by Balaam, or still more 
 readily, the profession of the Magi, who were 
 Astrologers. — Even with a big grain of good- 
 will, one can hardly find a real analogy between 
 the Gospel, and Pliny's narrative, except that 
 
 *Dio Cassius, Ixiii, 1-7; Pliny, Hist, nat., xxx, 6; 
 Suetonius, Vita Neronis, XIII. Our readers may find in 
 SoLTAu, Die Geburtgeschichte J. C, 1902, p. 27, the exposi- 
 tion of that bold hypothesis. — G. A. van den Burgh van 
 Einsinga, Judische EinflUsse auf evangel. Erzahlungen, 
 1904, insists especially on the story of the wise man Asita 
 coming to do homage to the child Buddha. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 233 
 
 both refer to some Magi; whilst a radical dif- 
 ference between them can be easily perceived. It 
 is not of his own accord that Tiridates wends his 
 way to Rome, he is not led by faith nor does he 
 come prompted by love, to seek after a Savior: 
 he comes to appease a tyrant. In vain some insist 
 on these two features of the narrative, that the 
 Parthian king knelt before Nero and went back 
 to his country by a way different from that by 
 which he had come. The former detail has noth- 
 ing striking and extraordinary in that occasion; 
 as to the latter, it lacks precisely the feature 
 which is characteristic in St. Matthew, namely, 
 the intention of the Magi to spoil the designs 
 of Herod. What would be the results, if, in 
 order to infer the literary dependence of two 
 writings, we would apply to classical authors the 
 proceedings which "hypercritics" take the liberty 
 to use when dealing with the Gospel? 
 
 That the prophecy of the star which was to 
 come out of Jacob has always been understood 
 allegorically, of the person itself of the Messias; 
 and not of a star which was to manifest His birth, 
 is witnessed by the Tar gums of the Jews of old. 
 This was also the interpretation given to it by the 
 Pseudo-Messias Barcokebas when he claimed to 
 apply to himself Balaam's prediction. Again, had 
 
234 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 the text of Numbers played in the rise and growth 
 of the so-called legend about the wise men's star, 
 the part assigned to it, why is it that our Evan- 
 gelist, who is so anxious to notice the fulfilment 
 of the prophecies in Jesus of Nazareth, does not 
 even allude to it? He seems to have no knowl- 
 edge of it. 
 
 Rightly indeed does Christian Liturgy comment 
 upon the adoration of the Magi by means of the 
 passages in which Isaias extols the glory of Sion, 
 on the day when the Gentiles shall come and pay 
 her their homages, and the men from the East 
 drive toward Jerusalem the long file of their 
 dromedaries laden with gifts.* But, to draw 
 from these poetical descriptions St. Matthew's 
 narrative, with its concrete and special details, no 
 exegesis, not even the most fanciful exegesis, can 
 suffice : of that narrative at least some historical 
 support and background must be sought in the 
 real occurrence of the events. Here again, why 
 does the canonical Gospel quote neither Isaias 
 nor the Psalms, as was done by the Apocryphals ? 
 
 A recently found document enables us — so we 
 are told — to determine the epoch when the legend 
 of the adoration of the Magi was arranged or at 
 least found its way into the Gospel : is this true ? 
 
 * Isaias 6o and 6i ; cf. Psalms 72 lo- "• is, 68 29. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 235 
 
 A Syriac text (of which the author is unknown, 
 although it has been ascribed to Eusebius), pub- 
 lished in 1866 by W. Wright, tells us of Balaam 
 foretelling the destruction of the Assyrians by 
 the Greeks, and the rise of a star in Israel. The 
 prophecy was communicated by Balaam to the 
 Assyrian king then in power, and deposited in the 
 royal archives. When the proper time came, 
 under the rule of Pir Shabour, the star did actu- 
 ally appear, and some Magi were sent to the Jews' 
 country. The text itself of that document was 
 later on sought and found by men "well read in 
 the Sacred Books," who had been struck by the 
 agreement between the inspired text and the nar- 
 rative of the wonderful events, related to them. 
 From the inscription placed at the end of the 
 MS., we may gather that this occurred in the 
 year 430 (according to the era of the Seleucids), 
 under the rule of Hadrian Caesar, and the epis- 
 copate of Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, i. e., in the 
 year 118-119 a. d.* 
 
 * The Syriac text was published in the Journal of Sacred 
 Literature, New Series, Vols. IX and X, April and Octo- 
 ber, 1866. It was set forth as the source of Matt, i and 2, 
 by CoNYBEARE, in the Guardian, April 29, 1903, and by 
 ScHMiEDEL, in Encycl. Biblica, Vol. II, pp. 1892-1893; and is 
 discussed by Nestle and Hilgenfeld, in Z. W. T., 1893, 
 p. 435, and 1895, p. 447- 
 
236 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 First of all, why would not the "Sacred Books" 
 mentioned in that document, be the Christian 
 writings of the New Testament? The researches 
 made for the purpose to find the text of a letter 
 which, according to the legend, had been written 
 by Balak, may have been prompted by the desire 
 to give a confirmation to St. Matthew's narrative, 
 as is maintained by Th. Zahn and W. C. Allen.* 
 That is a mere hypothesis, but what follows is 
 certain: before the year 107, St. Ignatius looks 
 upon the episode of the Magi as so well known, 
 that he dwells with frequency and even with 
 some exaggeration on the greatness and brilliancy 
 of the sign given by Heaven, to reveal the birth 
 of the Son of the Virgin.f 
 
 The adoration of the Magi has not the same 
 purport as that of the shepherds. The revelation 
 made to those men of the East, who were foreign 
 to the Jewish religion, distinctly proclaims, at the 
 start of the Gospel, the universal character of the 
 salvation brought by Jesus. Now, since that uni- 
 versal character of Christianity is not particularly 
 
 *Th. Zahn, Introd. to the Nezv Test., 1909, vol. II, p. 
 527; W. C. Allen, Commentary on the Gospel according to 
 St. Matthew, p. 22. 
 
 ^Ad. Ephes., XIX. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 237 
 
 emphasized in what follows, it may be that in 
 this circumstance we have another proof that St. 
 Matthew drew from a special source the contents 
 of these two chapters. In the person of the shep- 
 herds called to the crib of Jesus, the third Gospel 
 intends to represent those privileged ones, who 
 owe this favor to the simplicity of their social 
 condition and to the uprightness of their hearts : 
 "good-will" is found chiefly among them. Here 
 again St. Luke remains the "Evangelist of the 
 poor" : between the two Epiphanies, his choice 
 went to that of the lowly. 
 
 3. The Massacre of the Innocents. — This is a 
 rather strange event; had it occurred, it would 
 have been mentioned by Flavins Josephus, who 
 dwells at length on Herod's cruel deeds : that is 
 the objection. 
 
 The so-called lack of plausibility rests chiefly 
 on an overestimation of the number of the chil- 
 dren that were killed at Herod's command. Judg- 
 ing from the population of the little town of 
 Bethlehem, the children under two years of age 
 must not have been more than twenty or thirty. 
 Josephus may have known the fact, and yet not 
 felt obliged to relate it : to give an idea of the 
 savage deeds coolly perpetrated by the old tyrant, 
 the historian had but the difficulty of choosing. 
 
238 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 As it is, his arraignment is most severe, since 
 he imputes to Herod the murder of his wife, 
 Mariamne, of his mother-in-law Alexandra, of 
 three of his sons : Aristobulus, Alexander and 
 Antipater, of his brother-in-law Costobar and of 
 his uncle Joseph, to say nothing of a hecatomb of 
 Pharisees, and of the command he gave, when 
 dying, to put to death many men of note, who 
 were to be gathered in the hippodrome of Jericho. 
 
 In view of such deeds, the killing of some 
 twenty little children, most of them born of 
 obscure peasants, must not have appealed much 
 to public attention ; the more so that St. Matthew's 
 text does not say that the execution took place 
 everywhere on the same day, nor that only one 
 mode of bloody death was resorted to : let us not 
 be deceived by the representations of traditional 
 iconography. 
 
 4. The Flight into Egypt. — Usener asks him- 
 self why Egypt is said to have been the place 
 where the Holy Family retired for refuge.* In 
 his answer he remarks first that at that time, when 
 there were many and prosperous Jewish colonists 
 at Alexandria and in the whole Delta of the Nile, 
 it was natural for a mechanic driven from Judaea, 
 
 * Encyclop. Biblica, Vol. Ill, p. 3351. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 239 
 
 to take the road to Egypt : a remark which is 
 most judicious. The same cannot be said at all 
 of what follows in the article referred to: "Myth- 
 ological ideas also, however, may have had their 
 unconscious influence; it is to Egypt that, when 
 attacked by the giant Tryphon, the Olympian 
 gods take their flight" : a statement like this is 
 at least fifty years behind the age ! 
 
 5. The Genealogies of Jesus (Matt, i ^'^'' ; 
 Luke 3 2338). — xhe fact that this has always been 
 a bone of contention between interpreters, has 
 not made the task of the apologist easy.* How 
 explain that here Jesus is connected with David 
 through two lines of ancestors, in which but three 
 identical names are found ? As was said already, 
 whatever may be their import and bearing, these 
 documents do not give the lie to Christ's Virgin- 
 Birth ; t in the following pages we intend to sum 
 up, in a few strong statements, a fitting answer 
 to the difficulty that arises from the divergence 
 in the two g^enealogies. 
 
 * Cf. Origen, Cont. Cels., ii, 32; Migne, P. G., xi, 852. 
 tCf. above, pp. 107-118; pp. 158-160. 
 
240 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (a) First, it may be granted that none of the 
 proposed solutions is altogether satisfactory ; how- 
 ever, it must be observed, too, that to uphold the 
 value of those genealogical documents taken as 
 a whole, we need not a perfectly satisfactory ex- 
 planation. 
 
 (b) Of all the attempts of defence, known to 
 us, the oldest is that of Julius Africanus, at the 
 beginning of the 3d century. According to him, 
 Jacob is the real father of St. Joseph (Matt. 
 I ^®), whilst Heli is his legal father, according to 
 the Jewish law called of the levirate (Luke 3 ^^). 
 This exegetical view — Julius Africanus looks 
 upon his sentiment as nothing more* — does not 
 seem to have met first with great success, but in 
 the course of time, perhaps owing to the authority 
 of Eusebius, it became currently accepted and so 
 it remained from the 5th to the 15th century.f 
 Then it was that Annius of Viterbo (1490) 
 thought he would do away with it in its founda- 
 tion, by proposing to see in St. Matthew the 
 genealogy of St. Joseph, and in St. Luke that 
 
 * '' Kai Yi/Jilv oiiTi} jAtAeTw, Ci KaX fJuTi e/x,uapTvpot ecrrt, to) fir) KptiTTOva 
 i) aK-q9t<TTipa.v, eX'"* «»"■<'•'■ To iiivTOi EiayyiKiov jroi/Tdit a\r)9evti, 
 
 in EusEB., H. E., i, 7 ; Migne, P. G., xx, 97. 
 t Cf. EusEB., loc. cit., col. 89. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 241 
 
 of the Blessed Virgin; an hypothesis which was 
 favorably received, during the i6th and 17th cen- 
 turies, by many theologians, chiefly among Prot- 
 estants, and is still taken up by Bacuez and Bishop 
 Le Camus.* However, its weak point is mani- 
 fest : the Jews were not wont to draw up a gene- 
 alogy of their maternal ancestors; and then — this 
 is the chief reason — no ancient writer, not even 
 St. Iren3eus,t ever doubted that both were St. 
 Joseph's genealogies. The only advantageous 
 feature of the modern view is its handiness : it 
 does away with the trouble of reducing to unity 
 the genealogies in question and thus suppresses 
 the difficulty. 
 
 (c) In our days, there is a noticeable tendency 
 to preserve the starting point of the ancient sys- 
 tem, that is, to see St. Joseph's genealogy both in 
 St. Luke and in St. Matthew. However, instead 
 of ancestors according to the flesh (Matthew) 
 and ancestors according to the Law (Luke) — or 
 
 * Bacuez, Manuel Biblique, Vol. Ill, n. 116 (ne\y edit., 
 by Brassac, n. 184) ; Le Camus, The Life of Christ (Eng- 
 lish translation). Vol. I, p. 151; cf. also Vogt, Der Stamm- 
 baum Christi bei den heil. Evangelisten Matthaus und 
 Lukas, in the Biblische Studien, 1907, Vol. XII, fasc. 3. 
 
 t III, xxi, 9. 
 
242 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 vice versa, according to some modern authors* — 
 the first Gospel would set forth the legitimate suc- 
 cession, according to which the Davidic rights 
 came through St. Joseph down to Jesus, whilst 
 the third Gospel would aim at giving the list of 
 the real and legal ancestors who, through St. 
 Joseph, connect Jesus with David. The former 
 genealogy would show how Jesus is the heir of 
 the promises made to David; hence it is framed 
 from the juridical point of view. A successor is 
 not necessarily a son: Joseph may be the heir 
 of Solomon and of Jechonias, even whilst re- 
 maining, either by nature or by the law of the 
 levirate, the real offspring of the other line which 
 reaches David through Neri and Nathan, f 
 
 * Cf. VCXJT, op, cit., p. X. 
 
 t The detailed exposition of this system hinges partly 
 on the link between Zorobabel and Jechonias. Ac- 
 cording to Jeremias (2220; cf. 36^^), Jechonias and his 
 descendants are rejected by God, and no longer shall they 
 have any authority over Juda : this, however, is not the 
 same as saying that the cursed king was actually childless. 
 As a matter of fact, the contrary seems to be implied by 
 the text of Jeremias, and the author of Paralipomenon 
 (7 Paral., 3'^'^), who knew the prophecy, mentions seven and 
 perhaps even eight children of Jechonias. Hence it may be 
 surmised that in St. Matthew (i ^2), 'lexo""'*? tyeVfijo-ev toi' 
 SoAafli^x means Jechonias was succeeded by Salathiel, whose 
 father is Neri, according to St. Luke (3^''). The son of 
 
Positive Trnstzvortkiness of the Texts. 243 
 
 At the time our canonical Gospels were drawn 
 up, there was a current dispute in the rabbinic 
 schools whether the Messias was to come from 
 David through Solomon or through Nathan.* 
 Solomon had died in idolatry ; Jechonias, the last 
 of his descendants on the throne before the cap- 
 tivity, had been rejected in God's name by the 
 Prophet Jeremias (22^"). The Gospel geneal- 
 ogies would thus satisfy both points of view, 
 either of which, considered separately, contains 
 a part of truth. 
 
 Grotius seems to have first proposed that theory 
 which soon found acceptance on the part of many 
 Catholics. It was developed by Father Poussines, 
 
 Neri, descendant of David through Nathan, must have 
 been substituted, by a disposition of God, for the de- 
 scendants of David who belonged to Solomon's branch, 
 and were rejected in the person of Jechonias. There still 
 remains a difficulty. In / Parol., 3 i», Zorobabel is the son 
 of Phadaia and not of Salathiel, as in St. Matthew and 
 St. Luke. Granting that the name Phadaia is authentic 
 and designates a personage distinct from Neri — which is 
 disputed — can we not suppose here a case of levirate? 
 One of the two names, for instance, Phadaia, would be 
 that of the legal father of Zorobabel, the other, Neri, that 
 of his real father. 
 
 * Cf. in EusEB., Quasi. Evang. ad Stephanum, iii, 2 ; 
 MiGNE, P. G., xxii, 896. 
 
244 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 S.J.,* and a few years later adopted by the Bol- 
 landists in 1646 in their short biography of St. 
 Joseph for March ip.f 
 
 {d) In this last hypothesis, which seems to be 
 the most plausible, St. Matthew's genealogy has 
 but a kind of conventional value, whilst St. Luke's 
 genealogy is looked upon as more historical. 
 Moreover, the artificial character of the gene- 
 alogical document found in the first Gospel, be- 
 trays itself in many ways ; and first in its ternary 
 division into several series, each of two sep- 
 tenaries. After comparing the forty-two genera- 
 tions summed up in verse 17, with the parallel 
 genealogies of the Old Testament, one gets con- 
 vinced that in the Gospel, intermediary genera- 
 tions had been purposely omitted, so as to obtain 
 a mnemo-technic, perhaps symbolical symmetry, 
 which was intended and therefore artificial. % On 
 
 * De Concordia Evangelist, in genealogia Christi, Tou- 
 louse, 1646. 
 
 t This theory has been exposed with favor, quite recently, 
 by P. GiRODON, Commentaire Critique et Moral sur I'Evan- 
 gile selon S. Luc, p. 182, and thoroughly defended by F. C. 
 BuRKiTT, Evangelion da Mepharrashe, ii, pp. 258-266. 
 
 4: According to Gfrorer, Die heilige Sage, ii, p. 9, note the 
 arrangement of the genealogy in St. Matthew is based 
 on a process of gematria, current among the Jews for the 
 
Positive Trustzvorthiness of the Texts. 245 
 
 the other hand, and against the Hterary customs 
 of the Jews, St. Matthew mentions four women, 
 three of whom were sinners and one, a foreigner, 
 to emphasize the fact that God's merciful designs, 
 as regards the salvation of the world, did not 
 always follow the way to which they would have 
 been readily confined by the legalistic spirit of 
 the Pharisees. The genealogy was evidently 
 framed from a most definite doctrinal point of 
 view : and this is a new proof that St. Matthew 
 takes here the verb kyiwrigev in a rather broad 
 sense. 
 
 The same preoccupations are not found in St. 
 Luke : from his text we gather the impression 
 that the Evangelist merely reproduced a document 
 he had at his disposal.* 
 
 drawing up of documents of that kind. The numeral value 
 of David's name — in Hebrew DWD — is 14: hence, several 
 series of 14 generations ; and as the same name, David, 
 counts three letters, the whole genealogy has been divided 
 into three homogeneous series. Cf. Allen, op. cit., p. 6. 
 
 * Even St. Luke is not altogether free from artificial 
 arrangement. "It is not by chance that his genealogy con- 
 tains yy names, seven times eleven, and that the various 
 sections are divided according to the same law." Girodon, 
 op. cit., p. 183. As to the various systems of redaction, in 
 connection with the Old Testament genealogies, cf. F. Prat, 
 in the Etudes, Vol. LXXXVI, pp. 488-494 ; Vol. XCIII, pp. 
 617-620. 
 
246 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 {e) What is the source of these genealogies? 
 Most certainly the Evangelists did not devise 
 them. In St. Matthew, the names of the first 
 series (i^"') are taken from the first book of 
 Paralipomenon (2 ^"^°) ; those of the second se- 
 ries (i ^"") are from the same source (3^'^"), 
 but with some omissions. As to the names of 
 the third series, only two, the names of Salathiel 
 and Zorobabel, are found in the Old Testament. 
 Although we cannot determine with certainty the 
 source from which St. Luke drew the half of his 
 genealogy, from St. Joseph to Nathan, the son 
 of David, still we may suppose that, for want 
 of official documents, the Evangelists probably 
 had recourse to family records. Julius Afri- 
 canus relates, indeed, that, prompted by jealousy, 
 Herod had all these genealogies destroyed:* but 
 this seems hardly probable, and besides, Josephus 
 does not mention it at all. What Julius Af ricanus 
 adds, deserves greater consideration : the relatives 
 of the Lord, with whom he conversed, told him 
 that they had reconstructed their genealogy as 
 well as they could, with the help of tradition and 
 of written documents.! This took place during 
 
 * EusEB., H. E., i, 7 ; Migne, P. G., xx, 96. 
 
 ^ Ibid., col. 93 and 97, the Desposyni or relatives of the 
 Lord came chiefly from two places :. Na,zareth an4 Cochaba. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 247 
 
 the 3d century. We may reasonably suppose 
 that one hundred and fifty years earHer, the 
 Evangehsts had at their disposal still better means 
 of information. 
 
 (/) In the minds of the Evangelists, what 
 was to be the bearing of those genealogies? Of 
 course, the Christian belief in the Davidic descent 
 of Jesus is not based on those documents : we find 
 it just as emphatically taught by St. Mark and 
 St. Paul, even though they appeal to no docu- 
 mentary proof. Considered in their contents, 
 those lists of names have no special dogmatic 
 importance, and were they not a part of an in- 
 spired text, their study would be a matter of 
 mere curiosity. For the early Christians, Christ's 
 human origin was an object of belief, even before 
 historians had attempted to prove it. Jesus was 
 the Messias and therefore the Son of David. 
 Again, all knew that Jesus belonged to a family 
 which had sprung from David, just as the same 
 prerogative was acknowledged in those of His 
 relatives who, on that very account, were brought 
 before Domitian's tribunal.* As far as we can 
 judge, that title was never denied to Jesus, dur- 
 ing His lifetime, not even in St. John 7 "' *^' *^. 
 
 * EuSEB., H. E., iii, 20. 
 
 18 
 
248 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But, a fact known to the public at large is one 
 thing, and the value of a writen document that 
 claims to prove that fact is another. 
 
 In the eyes of St. Matthew and St. Luke, the 
 genealogies evidently could and did answer the 
 purpose which these two Evangelists had respec- 
 tively in their minds when recopying them. Does 
 this mean that our Evangelists positively assure 
 us that these genealogies express, even in the least 
 details, the reality of things? Here we are con- 
 fronted with the delicate question of implicit 
 quotations incompletely endorsed by the sacred 
 author. It is generally granted that, if that 
 theory can be held in any case at all, it is in 
 matter of genealogy.* Can we use it in this par- 
 ticular instance? Have we sufficient grounds to 
 believe that St. Luke merely quoted his document ? 
 
 * "By the very fact that he gives us these documents in 
 their special, hieratic, conventional form, and that he 
 leaves them outside and, as it were, in the margin of his 
 narratives — the sacred historian tells us quite plainly, it 
 seems to me, that we may look upon them as documents he 
 quotes, chiefly on account of their interest for Jewish 
 readers, although he did not deem it necessary to ascer- 
 tain their exact value, nor ascribe to them any authority 
 but that of the tradition and of the public records from 
 which they were taken." J. Brucker, S. J., in the Etudes, 
 Jan. 20, 1903, p. 229; cf. Dec. 20, 1906, p. 801. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthincss of the Texts. 249 
 
 The question may be asked in connection with 
 Rhesa at v. 27, and chiefly in connection with 
 Cainan, at v. 2>^. Father Pesch, for instance, 
 thinks that the difficuhy can be settled, even 
 though no recourse is made to an imphcit quota- 
 tion incompletely endorsed ; but he adds immedi- 
 ately : "However, I do not blame the sentiment 
 of those who believe that St. Luke merely records 
 the genealogy which the Gentile Christians used 
 to read in the LXX, without in any way detract- 
 ing from or adding to the authority of the state- 
 ments that are contained in it. Few indeed are 
 those who, within the last centuries, have up- 
 held that view, but still they are no mean in- 
 terpreters and theologians. All however unan- 
 imously affirm that, when 'quoting' in that 
 way, Luke did not fall into any formal error. 
 Hence the upholders of implicit quotations may 
 place themselves under the cover of those theo- 
 logians and interpreters. Besides, there is in this 
 particular case, some reason to admit a quotation 
 of that kind." * 
 
 Eusebius goes much further. When mention- 
 ing the various ways of accounting for Christ's 
 
 * Ch. Pesch, S. J., De Inspiratione Sacrw Scripturce, 
 1906, p. 547. 
 
250 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 genealogies in the Gospels, he proposes to extend 
 to all the Lucan document the meaning of the 
 short incidental phrase found at the beginning 
 of the list, w? kvofxiCero, as zvas supposed: the 
 Evangelist would have merely recorded the senti- 
 ment of the Jews, and left them the responsi- 
 bility of their statements.* That opinion, which 
 is based on a misconception, has never been favor- 
 ably received : but it has at least the advantage 
 to show that the theory of implicit quotation is 
 no novelty in Catholic Exegesis. 
 
 The Gospel of the Infancy differs, according as 
 we read it in St. Matthew or in St. Luke. Does 
 it follow that its historical value, as a whole, 
 must remain doubtful for those critics who claim 
 to follow a strictly accurate and scientific method ? 
 
 Most certainly, the difference is real. And 
 yet, we must ever remember that, as was observed 
 already, the substance of the narrative is in both 
 the same, especially as regards the Virgin-Birth. 
 The actual condition of these first chapters prove 
 once more that, in his narrative of the Infancy, 
 Luke had access to a source different from the 
 
 * MiGNE, P. G., xxii, 896. 
 
Positive Trustzvorthiness of the Texts. 251 
 
 one used by Matthew, — both being distinct from 
 the other sources used in the rest of the Gospel. 
 It proves also that the traditions concerning the 
 Savior's infancy grew and were transmitted inde- 
 pendently. Besides, it is worthy of notice that 
 in this case the differences arose by way of omis- 
 sion : one Evangelist relates that on which the 
 other is silent. In these conditions, a difference 
 is not a contradiction. 
 
 The substantial agreement of several witnesses, 
 in spite of the secondary divergences of their 
 testimony, is a proof that they do not create the 
 whole story out of their minds, nor misrepresent 
 in the main the actual fact : only a previous objec- 
 tive reality can account for their agreement. This 
 is a canon of historical criticism. The Evangel- 
 ists then rest on a tradition about the human 
 origin and childhood of Jesus. 
 
 That this remark, which had been made by the 
 writers of old, is appropriate, is granted by some 
 modern critics. "Granted our Gospels do not 
 depend on one another, we are thereby justified in 
 trusting their historical value. For in this case 
 we have to deal with three independent forms of 
 one and the same tradition, and even by the diver- 
 gences which do not alter their fundamental unity 
 
252 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 and which betoken their mutual independence, 
 they confirm one another." * 
 
 What is the value of that tradition? Is it 
 myth, legend, or history? The differences found 
 in the narratives by which it is transmitted, 
 do not impair its historical character; from this 
 point of view, they have either but little or even 
 no import at all. Not infrequently does history 
 pass to posterity, just as well as legend itself, in 
 many and diverse narratives, all of which can 
 really be reconciled with the truth of the fact. 
 Even the best classical historians supply us with 
 many unquestionable instances of the kind. On 
 the other hand, legend assumes at times so char- 
 acteristic a shape that it remains uniform and 
 unchangeable. The perfect agreement of the 
 Evangelists would not suffice, then, to prove the 
 historical value of the Gospel of the Infancy; 
 nor should their differences cause us to look upon 
 that Gospel as a legend. It is by the means of 
 critical study of the contents, by means of the 
 history of the surroundings where our texts were 
 composed, that the problem must be solved; and 
 to its solution all the previous pages have been 
 devoted. 
 
 * H. MoNNiER, La Mission historique de Jesus, 1906, 
 p. xiv. 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 253 
 
 However, a more direct answer is expected 
 from us. Why did St. Luke say nothing of the 
 adoration of the Magi, which would have been 
 so appropriate in a Gospel, the aim of which is 
 to manifest the Savior of the world? Shall we 
 account for that omission, by ignorance or by 
 wilful silence on the part of the Evangelist? 
 Again, why does St. jMatthew, who, in the course 
 of his Gospel, expressly observes that Christ came 
 to fulfil the Law, omit the performance of the 
 Mosaic rites, at the circumcision of Jesus, and 
 at His presentation and recovery in the Tem- 
 ple? These are the only omissions which really 
 make a difficulty. The silence of the third 
 Evangelist about the adoration of the Magi 
 easily accounts for his not having mentioned the 
 massacre of the Innocents and the flight into 
 Egypt : these last two events can be understood 
 only in connection with the first. Likewise we 
 can readily understand why St. Matthew is silent 
 regarding the Angel's apparition to Mary, and 
 records only that granted to St. Joseph : as. the 
 first Evangelist looks at the Incarnation from the 
 point of view of Jewish law, Joseph, Mary's hus- 
 band, remains, in his eyes, the centre of the whole 
 mystery. 
 
254 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to solve the 
 problem of the harmony to be established here 
 between the first and the third Gospel. The 
 reader may find those combinations in the Lives 
 of Jesus written by Catholics or by non-Catholics. 
 They are no novelties, since, as early as the 2d 
 century, Tatian and St. Irenaeus made the attempt 
 to complete one Evangelist by the other; most of 
 these attempts are clever; some seem even to be 
 most plausible : however, after all, they are mere 
 hypotheses. It may be that the right solution has 
 not yet been found. 
 
 When we attempt to state, not what an author 
 knew, but what he did not know, why he put this 
 here rather than there, and especially why he 
 remained silent, when in all probability he might 
 have spoken, — then indeed we need a great deal 
 of discretion and reserve. Historians — the serious 
 ones — those who have become familiar with the 
 critical study of documents, know that in matters 
 of that kind, one is often wiser in not knowing 
 than in pretending a knowledge of questionable 
 value. We are a priori unfavorably impressed by 
 easy solutions and by a peremptory tone. 
 
 Besides the narrative of the Infancy, there are 
 in the Gospels many other passages that call for 
 moderation in our judgments. Let me refer only 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 255 
 
 to the instance already pointed out by Rose. 
 "According to all critics, St. Luke knew the 
 journey of Jesus to Tyre and to Sidon, and 
 yet he has not recorded that excursion which 
 favored his thesis. We must then seek for 
 another explanation of those omissions. Even 
 though the author tells us that he writes "in 
 order," we must not infer that he intends to recall 
 all the events he knows. To my mind, the careful 
 study of his method of narration throws more 
 light on the divergences of his exposition." * 
 
 Had we two narratives agreeing point by point, 
 some would not be slow to affirm that their testi- 
 mony is after all but one, since they depend' on 
 each other, either because they quote each other, 
 or because they use each other's materials. But 
 they do differ! Does this give us the right imme- 
 diately to denounce error, even before we study 
 closely into the details? 
 
 There is noticeable in many critics, even among 
 those who do not deny a priori the philosophical 
 possibility of the supernatural, a decided tendency 
 to take up the study of Biblical texts with a kind 
 of distrust, and to be more exacting for them 
 than for the texts of profane authors. If that 
 
 * Evangile selon Saint Luc, p. 28. 
 
256 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 wariness is only requiring proofs before acknowl- 
 edging the existence of a miracle, it deserves to be 
 praised on condition, however, that one does not 
 require a process of arguing not adapted to the 
 special nature of the subject, and that one bears 
 in mind that, after all. Holy Writ will always 
 remain a book of its own kind. Although sub- 
 ject to the rational laws of criticism, the close 
 study of supernatural facts — a study which must 
 come as a most important element in the solution 
 of the religious problem — that study, I say, finds 
 either opposition or help on the part of the ob- 
 server's intimate dispositions — dispositions which 
 do not belong exclusively to the realm of the his- 
 torical method. 
 
 Besides, the foregoing remark finds still more 
 its application, when we have to appreciate the 
 facts or to examine critically the document that 
 relates them. After all, it is in the mysterious 
 depths of the human soul that the conflict between 
 dogma and history receives its solution. 
 
 In this connection, the following page of Father 
 de Grandmaison seems most appropriate : "The 
 dogma of the Virgin-Birth is a part of a doc- 
 trinal system which goes beyond it and thus sanc- 
 tions it, and the acceptance of that system depends 
 on the attitude one adopts regarding Jesus and 
 
Positive Trustworthiness of the Texts. 257 
 
 His Church. If the Savior's history, studied 
 with all fair-mindedness, if the infinite fecundity 
 of His work still living in the midst of men, leads 
 us to look upon Him as the Messenger and the 
 Son of God, if the authority of the Catholic 
 Church alone is seen to be capable of interpreting 
 the words of life and opening up the ways of 
 salvation, then indeed we feel no need to discuss, 
 with a captious subtlety, the various details, nor to 
 restore, whilst groping about, as it were, a more 
 or less coherent symbol ; no longer is our faith at 
 the mercy of researches that can be taken up only 
 by a few select individuals. 
 
 Moreover, minute researches about the origin, 
 preservation and historical bearing of the docu- 
 ments, will be most useful, provided they are 
 carried on with fairness and method. It is un- 
 worthy of a genuine scholar to start those re- 
 
 * Etudes, May 20, 1907, p. 526. According to St. Thomas, 
 the miracle of the Virgin-Birth, far from being given us 
 as a proof of the truth of Christianity, is rather a mys- 
 terious object of our faith: "Sciendum quod miraculorum 
 Dei qusedam sunt, de quibus est fides : sicut miraculum 
 virginei partus et resurrectionis Domini, et etiam Sacra- 
 menti Altaris; et ideo Dominus voluit ista occultiora esse, 
 ut fides eorum magis meritoria esset; quaedam vero 
 miracula sunt ad fidei comprobationem : et ista debent esse 
 manifesta." Summa Theol, iii pars, q. 29, a. i, ad 2. 
 
258 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 searches with the set purpose to turn against the 
 historical value of the Gospel any circumstances 
 at all, even the most insignificant. This is not a 
 suggestion dictated merely by our Christian con- 
 victions : some critics, who are far from over- 
 scrupulous in maintaining the inerrancy of Holy 
 Writ, loudly and emphatically protest against the 
 exceptional way with which the sacred historians 
 have been treated. In the book of Acts (5 ^®) 
 there is found a statement that seems incompatible 
 with the narrative made by Josephus. At once, St. 
 Luke is declared to be in the wrong. But why 
 not Flavins Josephus? . . . asks Harnack.* 
 The same remark might be applied to many other 
 cases. 
 
 In Biblical criticism, even more so than in other 
 departments of knowledge, any explanation that 
 does not rest on an accurate and impartial analysis 
 of the texts raises many more difficulties than it 
 answers ; it is doomed sooner or later to disappear. 
 
 * Luke the Physician (English transl.) p. 123, note I. 
 
THE LORD'S BRETHREN.* 
 
 The question of the "Lord's Brethren" is sus- 
 ceptible of no new solution, and all that could 
 have been written on the subject has been actually 
 written. It remains for scholars only to state 
 with accuracy in what measure these explana- 
 tions square with the texts. Now, this is far 
 from being an easy task : both from the num- 
 ber and from the character of its data, the 
 problem is one of the most complex of the 
 New Testament, and owing to that complexity 
 itself, any one who gives his preference to this 
 or that solution may easily allow himself either 
 to be deceived or to deceive. H we take into 
 account only one part of the elements of the 
 dispute, and lose sight of the language of our 
 Gospels, and of the customs and belief of the 
 circles where they were written, we may easily 
 do away with the difficulty arising from the ex- 
 pression, "the Brethren of the Lord"; it suffices 
 to say that Jesus was not the only son of His 
 mother ; but that brief solution which recommends 
 itself by its simplicity is merely a deception, nay 
 a snare ; for we may come soon to realize that 
 
 * This essay was first published in the Revue Biblique, 
 January, 1908. 
 
26o The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 instead of one real, though not unsurmountable 
 difficulty, several other difficulties have been 
 raised which, taken all together, make on the 
 mind a far more decisive impression. 
 
 In order to treat this question v^ith some order, 
 w^e divide it into three parts : Firstly, the facts ; 
 secondly, the explanations given of those facts; 
 thirdly, criticism and conclusion. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FACTS. 
 
 The four Evangelists, the author of the Acts 
 and St. Paul speak of the "Brethren of the 
 Lord." * According to St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
 they are named James, Joseph, Simeon and Jude. 
 In the same passage mention is made of the sisters 
 of Jesus, who dwelt in Nazareth, f The first three 
 
 * Matthew 12 *^, 13 ^s ; Mark 3 3^, 6 ^ ; Luke 8 20 ; John 
 2 12^ 75 J ^cts i"; // Cor. 9^. 
 
 t Matthew 13 ^^ ; Mark 6 ^, whose testimony regarding 
 James is confirmed by that of St. Paul, Galat., 1 1». The 
 Greeks at times translated the Hebrew form of the name 
 Joseph into the softer form iioo-^s, 'luo-^rbi (Mark 6^ 
 1^40,47)^ as may be seen by comparing, in a critical edi- 
 tion, Matthew 13 ^^ with 27 ^^. Lightfoot, Epistle to the 
 Gal. (Dissert. II, The Brethren of the Lord) p. 268, calls 
 in question — ^wrongly, I think — the identity of the two names 
 (■iai<r^<<> and 'iwo-ijs). Cf. Dalman, Grammat. arani., p. 175; 
 Allen, Comment, on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 
 pp. 156, 299. 
 
The Facts. 261 
 
 Evangelists reckon among the pious women who 
 followed Jesus and stood at the foot of the Cross, 
 Mary the mother of James, who, according to the 
 still more explicit statement of St. Matthew and 
 St. Luke, was the mother of James the Less and 
 of Joseph.* On the other hand, St. John writes 
 of that same Mary, that she was the sister of the 
 mother of Jesus; then, in order to designate her 
 with still more precision, he adds ^ mu KXwTza, 
 "that of Clopas." f 
 
 ♦Matthew 27^6; Mark 15**'; Luke 241°. We re- 
 serve here the adjective, Less, without pretending to define 
 its import; the text of St. Mark reads toO 'laKw/SouToujxiKpoC, 
 which does not necessarily imply a comparison with another 
 James. That James may have been called the Short, on 
 account of his small height. 
 
 tJoHN 1925. The identity of Mary of Clopas with the 
 woman the Evangelist calls the sister of Jesus' mother — 
 whatever may be the true import of the word k^tXi^r,— 
 seems to be beyond reasonable doubt. In fact, this is the 
 view most generally held. Cf. Th. Calmes, L'Evangile 
 selon S. Jean, 1904, p. 440; Loisy, Le Quatrieme Evangile, 
 Too.^, p. 877 ; C. Harris, in the Diction, of Christ and the 
 Gospels, Vol. I, 1906, p. 234. In order to exclude the hy- 
 pothesis of a strictly so-called sister of the Blessed Virgin 
 (a hypothesis which is not necessary) it has been sug- 
 gested that two sisters could not have had the same name. 
 Cf. LiGHTFOOT, op. cit, p. 264. That is no conclusive rea- 
 son : among the children of Herod the Great, two bear the 
 name of Philip. At Rome, Octavia, the sister of the Em- 
 peror Augustus, had four daughters, two of whom were 
 named Marcella and two, Antonia. 
 
262 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 The brethren of the Lord did not believe in 
 Him during His public life; * however, after the 
 Resurrection they are reckoned among His dis- 
 ciples, f Nevertheless, when the Evangelists give 
 a list of the Apostles, they always place together 
 those names which rightly or wrongly have 
 seemed to be those of the Lord's brethren : James 
 of Alpheus, Jude of James and Simeon the Ca- 
 nansean or Zelotes. In St. Matthew and St. 
 Mark, instead of Jude, we find Lebbseus or Thad- 
 daeus.J In fine, we must bear in mind that one 
 of the Catholic Epistles claims to be the work 
 of Jude, the brother of James. § 
 
 To those data of the canonical writings, we 
 must add what is said by Josephus and by Hege- 
 sippus. 
 
 Josephus relates that, toward the year 62, there 
 was put to death "J^^nes, the brother of Jesus, 
 who was called Christ." || Eusebius, who was 
 
 ♦ John 7 ' ; Mark 3 21 ; cf. 6 *. 
 
 ^ Acts I 1*; / Cor. 95. 
 
 X Matthew 10^'*; Mark 3 i^ ; Luke 6 1^. le ; Acts i ^'. 
 
 § Jude 1 1. 
 
 II Ant. Jud., XX, ix, i. It goes without saying that the 
 authenticity and integrity of this passage, as well as of two 
 other passages of the same author bearing on Christ and on 
 the beginnings of Christianity, have been disputed. 
 
The Facts. 263 
 
 acquainted with the passage of Josephus, appeals 
 for a confirmation of the same fact to two other 
 documents : the Recognitioncs Clementina: and the 
 histor}- of Hegesippus. From the details of their 
 narration, one sees that these last two witnesses 
 do not exclusively depend on the testimony of the 
 Jewish historian.* 
 
 Toward the year 160, Hegesippus gathered on 
 the spot the Palestinian traditions regarding the 
 Lord's brethren : he probably conversed with their 
 descendants. Julius Africanus affirms he met 
 some of them fifty years later. f Now, we may 
 sum up as follows the details given by Hegesip- 
 pus, as preserv'ed by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical 
 History. 
 
 James, the brother of the Lord, named the Just, 
 took up, with the Apostles, the government of the 
 Church of Jerusalem (ii, 23). "After James the 
 Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had 
 also on the same account, the son of His paternal 
 uncle, Simeon, the son of Clopas, was appointed 
 bishop (of Jerusalem) ; all preferred him as next 
 bishop, because he was another cousin of the 
 
 * EusEB., H. E., ii, 23. 
 t EusEB., H. E., i, 7. 
 
 19 
 
264 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Lord" * (iv, 22). That same Simeon was cruci- 
 
 Mera to iJiapTvprj<Tai 'laK(o/3ov Tov Sixaiov tuy xal 6 Kuptos eiri TW auTCf 
 Aoyo), jraXii' 6 6k toC Beiov aiiTov 'Xv/xeiav 6 Toi) KAuTra Ka9t<rTaTai «7ri(rKOiros, 
 Of irpoeflej'TO jraires ovTa dvei^ibi' toO Kvpiov SevTfpov. AnOthcr transla- 
 tion has been suggested. Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 276, translates 
 as follows : "After the martyrdom of James the Just on the 
 same charge as the Lord, his paternal uncle's child Symeon, 
 the son of Clopas, is next made bishop (of Jerusalem), who 
 was put forward by all as the second (bishop) in succes- 
 sion, being cousin of the Lord." That text is so important 
 that we feel the need to justify the wording of our trans- 
 lation, (a) The adverb niXiv which is here put into promi- 
 nence, cannot emphasize the insignificant fact that James 
 was given a successor, whilst it brings out appropriately 
 this remarkable circumstance, that the second bishop of 
 Jerusalem was, like the first, a cousin of the Lord, (b) 
 
 In the construction ov wpoeSevro Trai/res ovTa a.ve\liiov tou Kvpiov SevTtpov 
 
 the word Stvrepov refers to ai'ci^ibi' rather than to eTn'o-Kon-os: 
 an interpretation which seems necessary when one bears 
 in mind that the verb TrpoTiflij/m is not synonymous with 
 
 irpoi<rTT|fi.i, »cafli(TTr)M'. e/cAeyco Or xeipoToveio (^tO estobltsh, tO Consti- 
 tute, to set, to command), but signifies to prefer. Now the 
 reason why Simeon was preferred to any one else, was that 
 another cousin of the Lord might thus occupy the see of 
 Jerusalem, (c) When connecting ovtoO with Kvpi'ov, not to 
 'i(ucei/3ov, we merely follow the general cadence of the 
 phrase; yet, strictly speaking, Simeon might be the son 
 of lames' paternal uncle, and still remain the cousin of 
 the Lord. Later on we shall speak of the sentiment of 
 those who look upon Mary, the mother of James, as sister 
 both of Clopas, the father of Simeon, and of Joseph, the 
 foster-father of Jesus. That Clopas was the brother of 
 
The Explanations. 265 
 
 fied under Trajan (98-117), at the age of one 
 hundred and fourteen. From his advanced age, 
 Eusebius infers that he may have seen and heard 
 the Lord ; the more so, he adds, that the Gospel 
 mentions a certain Mary, (wife) of Cleophas 
 (= Clopas), of whom Simeon was born. There 
 were still living at the same epoch, other relatives 
 of the Lord, for instance, the grandsons of Jude, 
 "who is said to have been the Lord's brother ac- 
 cording to the flesh" (iii, 32; cf. 11, 20). Once 
 already under the rule of Domitian (81-96), they 
 had been taken before the imperial tribunal, as 
 descendants of David and relatives of Christ ; but 
 the Emperor had bidden they should be released, 
 for he thought that those peasants could in no 
 way endanger his authority in Judaea (iii, 20).* 
 
 To the texts of Josephus and Hegesippus, some 
 authors added unhesitatingly a fragment ascribed 
 
 Joseph, is affirmed by Eusebius, on the testimony of Hege- 
 sippus. (Ill, 11; cf. 2)2.) 
 
 It follows that, for Hegesippus and consequently for 
 Eusebius, the term a&i\<i>6<; is here equivalent to <iv£i/(id«, 
 and that the relationship of James to the Lord does not 
 essentially differ from that of Simeon. 
 
 *0f the four personages called in the New Testament 
 "Brethren of the Lord," Joseph is the only one not referred 
 to in the tradition of the 2d century, perhaps because he 
 died at an early age. 
 
266 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 to Papias of Hierapolis ; * but now that document 
 is generally declared inauthentic* 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 I. At the beginning, the appellation "Brethren 
 of the Lord" must have been understood by all. 
 Until about the end of the 2d century, there is no 
 trace of any divergence, still less of any discussion 
 on this topic. 
 
 The earliest explanation of the term is found in 
 Hegesippus, who, besides, does not pretend to 
 solve a difficulty, but merely to state what all 
 knew. Simeon was chosen to succeed James in 
 the see of Jerusalem because he had the privilege 
 of being another cousin of the Lord ; now James 
 is commonly called by Hegesippus the brother of 
 the Lord: which shows that under his pen, the 
 
 * Cf. No. 2397 of the MSS. of the Bodleian Library 
 at Oxford; given in Migne, P. G., v, 1261-1262. 
 
 * Its authenticity, accepted by Mill, The Accounts of 
 O. Lord's Brethren in the N. T., p. 238, is deemed very 
 doubtful by Corluy, Les Freres du Seigneur, in the Etudes, 
 1878, Vol. I, p. 15. After Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 273, 
 ViGOUROUx, Les Livres saints et la Critique rationaliste, 
 Vol. IV (1891), p. 497, sees in it the work of a gram- 
 marian, named Papias, who lived in the nth century. 
 
The Explanations. 267 
 
 two expressions are equivalent.* Besides, he tells 
 us that Simeon was the cousin of Jesus through 
 his father, Clopas. 
 
 From the tenor of the texts, as well as from 
 the way in which they are made use of by Euse- 
 bius, it is evident that, for the Palestinian chron- 
 icler, James and Simeon are identical with the per- 
 sonages of the same name, reckoned in the Gospel 
 among the brethren of the Lord. Were they, in 
 his mind, two brothers instead of cousins? The 
 few and scanty fragments of Hegesippus that 
 have come down to us, do not enable us to give 
 to this question a positive answer. Certain it is, 
 though, that he never calls Simeon "brother of 
 James." 
 
 The same writer says also of Jude: "He who 
 is said to have been the Lord's brother according 
 to the flesh." f Had Jude been the brother of 
 
 * This conclusion is important. Hence attempts have 
 been made to explain in various ways the testimony of 
 Hegesippus, as may be seen from LightfooTj op. cit., p. 
 278; C. Harris, in Diction, of Christ and the Gospels, Vol. 
 I, P- 234; J. B. Mayor, in Diction, of the Bible (Hastings), 
 Vol. I, p. 320 ; Renan, The Gospels, pp. 27, 28, 277, ff. ; 
 CoRLUY, in Etudes Religieuses, 1878, Vol. I, p. 22. 
 
 TToC Kara <rdpKa Xeyonevov avToC aSeK4>ov, H. E., HI, 20. Likc- 
 
 wise we read in the Clementine Homilies, xi, 35, in con- 
 nection with James : 6 KexBeXi <i5eA</.bs ToC KvpCov. Jesus has a 
 father, He has "brothers," but in a very special sense : 
 this is why the current appellation needs explanation. 
 
268 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Jesus in the strict sense of the word, why remark 
 that he was called His brother f That was self- 
 evident. Perhaps some one may say that of all 
 the "brothers" of the Lord, Jude was the most 
 prominent, and that, on this account, he was called 
 antonomastically d8eXfd<i too xopiou ? That hypothe- 
 sis cannot be held for the following reason : All 
 know that the "brother of the Lord" by way of 
 eminence, was James, the first bishop of Jeru- 
 salem; so much so that at the beginning of his 
 letter Jude himself assumes merely the title of 
 "brother of James." As to the qualifying words 
 xara ffdpxa, according to the flesh, they mean quite 
 enough, even if their only purpose is to empha- 
 size the fact that, unlike the Apostles and Dis- 
 ciples, Jude was not the brother of Jesus accord- 
 ing to the spirit only. 
 
 In those primitive ages, the appellation "breth- 
 ren of the Lord" may not have been so much a 
 title of honor as an easy means to distinguish 
 from one another the many important personages 
 of the Church of Jerusalem, who bore the same 
 name: according to some authors, there were 
 four, perhaps five, Jameses. 
 
 The Gospel of James and the Gospel of Peter, 
 which are apocryphal works of the end of the 
 2d century, look upon the brethren of the Lord 
 
The Explanations. 269 
 
 as children born to St. Joseph of a first mar- 
 riage, before he became the husband of Mary.* 
 Whilst according to Hegesippus they were the 
 paternal cousins of Jesus, according to these docu- 
 ments they were His half -brothers, f 
 
 2. At the threshold of the 3d century, we find 
 Tertullian. Did he hold that the brethren of the 
 Lord were born of Mary, mother of Jesus? Hel- 
 vidius and St. Jerome believed he did,| whilst 
 this is questioned by some modern scholars, such 
 as J. B. Lightfoot, for instance. § 
 
 In the passages where the great polemic takes 
 up the subject incidentally, he is arguing against 
 the doctrines of the Marcionists, who misused the 
 words of Christ recorded in the Gospels : "Who is 
 my mother, and who are my brothers?" || In 
 
 * Evang. Jacohi, ix, xvii, xv ; cf. Pseudo-Matt., xxxii ; 
 Evangel. Nativ. Maria, viii ; Historia Josephi, xxxv. As 
 to the Gospel of Peter, cf. Origen, In Matt., xiii, 55. 
 
 t According to St. Jerome, Coiiunciit. in Matt., xii, 49-50, 
 the Apocryphals gave to Joseph's first wife the name of 
 Melcha or Escha : she was — so they say — the daughter of 
 Ancheus, brother of Zachary, John the Baptist's father. 
 
 t Contra Hclvid., 17. — Father d'Ales, La Thelogie de 
 Tertullien, 1905, pp. 196-197, seems to adopt St. Jerome's 
 view. 
 
 § Op. cit., p. 278. 
 
 \\De Virginibus velandis, vi ; Adv. Marc, iv, 19; De 
 Came Christi, vii, xxiii ; De Monogamia, viii. 
 
270 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 order to prove the reality of the human nature 
 in Jesus, TertulHan insists on Mary's maternity. 
 Jesus is a man just as really as we are : He has a 
 mother, who gave Him her own flesh, the Law 
 gives Him a father in the person of St. Joseph,* 
 the Gospel speaks of His "fratres." The Virgin 
 conceived Jesus, it is true, when she was only "be- 
 trothed" — this is Tertullian's view — ; but the 
 Law puts on the same level the betrothed maiden 
 and the wife. And thus, after bringing forth the 
 Word of God, Mary was to become really the 
 "wife" of Joseph, semel nuptura post partum. 
 Why should we not take in the same sense this 
 expression, the strongest TertulHan ever used as 
 regards Mary : virum passamf The Virgin bore 
 the yoke of man, since by the law of marriage she 
 was subject to Joseph. We must bear in mind 
 that we have to deal with a lawyer, for whom 
 legal realities carry a great deal of weight. 
 
 These considerations are not to be overlooked; 
 however, they can hardly stand before the fact, 
 that, toward the middle of the 3d century, Origen, 
 in a passage soon to be quoted, apparently ranged 
 TertulHan among the opponents of Mary's per- 
 petual virginity. 
 
 * TertulHan holds the virginal conception of Jesus. 
 
The Explanations. 271 
 
 It seems as though Clement of Alexandria 
 (+215) wished to combine the view of Hel- 
 vidius with that of the apocryphal Gospels. In a 
 passage of the Hypoty poses, quoted by Eusebius 
 (H. E., ii, i), he apparently identifies James, the 
 brother of the Lord, with the Apostle of the same 
 name, James, son of Alpheus. On the other hand, 
 in a fragment which originally belonged probably 
 to the Latin translation made at the suggestion of 
 Cassiodorus, he looks upon Jude, the author of 
 the Catholic Epistle, both as the brother of James 
 and as one of the sons of Joseph.* The contra- 
 diction may be here only on the surface. The 
 brethren of Jesus are called the sons of Joseph. 
 On what ground? It is neither impossible nor 
 improbable that, in the eyes of Clement of Alex- 
 andria, they were only his nephews, entrusted to 
 his care by their dying father — either Clopas, his 
 brother, or Alpheus, his brother-in-law. This is 
 
 *The fragment is given in Migne, P. G., ix, 731-734- 
 "Jude, who wrote the Catholic Epistle, was one of Joseph's 
 sons and the Lord's brother, a man of deep piety; although 
 conscious of his relationship with the Savior, he does not 
 say that he was His brother; but what does he say? Jude, 
 the servant of Jesus Christ, because He was his Lord, and 
 brother of James. This also is true, he was James' brother, 
 since he was the (son) of Joseph." Cf. Cassiodorus, De 
 Instit. Div. Lit., 8. 
 
272 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 a mere supposition; but it may be we must have 
 recourse to it, instead of charging with incon- 
 sistency one who could so easily have all the pos- 
 sible inforniation about the historical tradition 
 of the 2d century, concerning the brethren of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Origen (-f 254) is conversant with the fact 
 that some one whose name he does not know, or 
 prefers not to mention, has been so foolish 
 as to say that, after the birth of Jesus, Mary 
 had from Joseph other children : and that on this 
 account, Jesus publicly disowned her as His 
 mother (Mark 3^^"^*). That is a heresy, he adds, 
 which is most plainly refuted by the text of Holy 
 Writ.* Who is the personage thus aimed at 
 
 * The passage is known to us only through St. Jerome's 
 translation : "Debemus in hoc loco, ne simplices quique 
 decipiantur, ea quae solent opponere hseretici, confutare. 
 In tantam quippe nescio quis prorupit insaniam, ut assereret 
 negatam fuisse Mariam a Salvatore, eo quod post nativi- 
 tatem illius juncta fuerit Joseph; et locutus est, quae quali 
 mente dixerit, ipse noverit qui locutus est. Si quando 
 igitur haeretici vobis tale quid objecerint, respondete eis 
 et dicite : Certe Spiritu Sancto plena Elisabeth ait : Bene- 
 dicta tu inter mulieres. Si Sancto Spiritu benedicta canitur 
 Maria, quomodo earn Salvator negavit? Porro quod as- 
 serunt earn nupsisse post partum, unde approbent non 
 habent. Hi enim filii qui Joseph dicebantur, non erant 
 orti de Maria, neque est ulla Scriptura quae ista com- 
 
The Explanations. 273 
 
 by the great Alexandrian interpreter? Naturally 
 we think of Tertullian. Of all those predecessors 
 of Origen, whose works have come down to us, 
 he alone is open to suspicion on that point. More- 
 over, it is to be observed that Helvidius and St. 
 Jerome knew, for the same period, of no other 
 opponent of Mary's perpetual virginity. To this 
 one fact must be added that twice Tertullian 
 writes that Jesus publicly disowned His mother 
 and His fratres owing to their unbelieving spirit.* 
 Besides, Origen unmistakably favors the ex- 
 planation we read in the Apocryphals of James 
 and of Peter: — the brethren of the Lord are the 
 children of St. Joseph. f 
 
 memorat." Homil. vii in Lucam, in medio. Migne, P. G., 
 xiii, 1818; cf. Contra Celsum, i, 47. One phrase of Abbe 
 Lesetre, in the Revue du Clerge frangais, July 15, 1907, 
 p. 117, might suggest that Origen must be reckoned among 
 the opponents of Mary's virginity post partum. But 
 the same author tells us, a few pages after, p. 129, 
 that Origen must be looked upon as one of those "who 
 held most strongly the doctrine of Mary's virginity." As 
 a matter of fact, the text which first was alluded to, con- 
 cerns the virginity in partu. Cf. Horn, xiv in Lucam; 
 MiGNE, P. G., xiii, 1834. Understood from a merely 
 juridical point of view, Origen's statement seems to be, 
 in this place, susceptible of orthodox meaning. 
 
 * De Came Christi, vii ; Contra Marc., iv, 19. 
 
 t In Matt., xiii, 55 ; In Luc, Horn, vii, in med. ; In Joan., 
 Vol. I, 6; II, 12, in the Catena Corderii. 
 
274 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Likewise St. Hilary (about 355) knows of ir- 
 religious and presumptuous men, out of all sym- 
 pathy with the spiritual view, who think and speak 
 of Mary in a wrong and unbecoming manner, and 
 assume that they are justified by what is written 
 regarding the fratres of the Lord. The per- 
 sonages in question were not born of Mary, 
 rather they are children Joseph had from a pre- 
 vious marriage." * 
 
 3, It was toward the end of the 4th century 
 that started the first controversy regarding Mary's 
 perpetual virginity : that controversy was con- 
 nected with a very widespread movement which 
 then carried Christendom toward monachism. 
 Virginity was extolled, of course, above the state 
 of matrimony. Many fondly recalled that Jesus 
 and Mary had been the first to raise in the world 
 the standard of Virgins. f That in this chorus 
 of praises there was some exaggeration is quite 
 probable. At times St. Jerome himself did not 
 keep within proper bounds : for this his opponents 
 
 * Comment, in Matth., i, 3-4. 
 
 t "I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was 
 the premices among men of the purity which consists in 
 chastity, and Mary among women ; for it were not pious 
 to ascribe to any other than to them (or : to her) the 
 premices of virginity." Origen, In Matth.; Migne, P. G., 
 Vol. X, 17. 
 
The Explanations. 275 
 
 reproached him, and his friends had to admit that, 
 in his defence of virginity against Jovinian, there 
 were erroneous and misleading expressions: in 
 their eyes he lowered marriage altogether too 
 much.* 
 
 At all events, a reaction soon set in. It was by 
 appealing to Holy Writ that the opponents of 
 monachism strove, this time, to extol marriage. 
 Is not Mary described in it as the honest mother 
 of a family? After the Virgin-Birth of her First- 
 born she had from Joseph other children, those 
 called in the Gospel, the "fratres" of the Lord. 
 
 The cradle of that doctrinal campaign seems to 
 have been Laodicasa in Syria: St. Epiphanius 
 tells us that, in his time, that view was ascribed 
 to Apollinaris (-j- 390) ; at least it was put forth 
 by some of his disciples. f Thence it passed prob- 
 ably to Arabia and spread among the Antidi- 
 comarianites, who not only opposed the exces- 
 sive view of the Collyridians, but fell into an 
 opposite error. I Whilst Epiphanius was en- 
 
 * Cf. Epist. Hieron. ad Pammachium, xlviii, xlix ; ad 
 Domnionem, 1. 
 
 t Adv. Hceres., Ixxviii, i. 
 
 I In the treatise of St. Epiphanius, Adv. Hceres., the 78th 
 heresy is that of the Antidicomarianites ; the following 
 chapter (79) refers to the heresy of the Collyridians who 
 went evidently too far in the honors they paid to Mary. 
 
276 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 gaged in refuting them, their ideas were making 
 their appearance in Rome. In 380, an obscure 
 and untalented man, Helvidius, published there a 
 pamphlet, in which he plainly denied Mary's per- 
 petual virginity. The book caused scandal, and 
 St. Jerome, then in Rome, was asked to refute it. 
 This task he took up, about the year 383, in his 
 treatise De perpetua Virginitate MaricE, adversus 
 Helvidium* 
 
 But this was not a decisive blow. A few years 
 later, a Roman monk, Jovinian, resumed the thesis 
 of Helvidius. As soon as he heard of it, St. 
 Jerome sent from Bethlehem another refutation, 
 in which he merely defended virginity in general 
 from the attacks directed against it, deeming that, 
 as to Mary's virginity, he had exhausted the sub- 
 ject in his preceding treatise.f 
 
 St. Jerome has been charged with having in 
 that controversy "disclosed all the depths of irony 
 and bitter sarcasm with which his soul was filled, 
 and with having replied to his opponent by un- 
 
 * MiGNE, P. L., xxiii, 183-206. Cf. Grutzmacher, Hiero- 
 nymus, i, p. 269. 
 
 ■f Ibid., 211-388. W. Haller has gathered in one volume 
 all the texts that refer to Jovinian. Cf. Texte und Unter- 
 suchungen, new series, ii, 3. 
 
The Explanations. 277 
 
 seemly jokes." * The author of this judgment, 
 which is more than justly severe, forgets the char- 
 acter of the literary customs of those times, nor 
 does he take into account the excuse made by St. 
 Jerome himself at the end of his writing against 
 Helvidius. "I have become rhetorical, and have 
 disported myself a little like a platform orator. 
 You compelled me, Helvidius ; for, brightly as the 
 Gospel shines at the present day, you will have it 
 that equal glory attaches to virginity and to the 
 marriage state." f 
 
 As Jovinian had recruited some followers in 
 Northern Italy, St. Ambrose also wrote a refuta- 
 tion of his errors. J Moreover, soon they were 
 officially condemned at Milan in an episcopal 
 synod. Pope St. Siricius immediately sanctioned 
 the sentence and put Jovinian, with eight of his 
 partisans nominally under the ban of excommuni- 
 cation. § The following year, the Council of Capua 
 
 ♦Hekzog, in the Revue d'Hist. et de LittSr. relig., July- 
 August, 1907; pp. 325, 331. 
 
 ^ Adv. Helvid., 22. 
 
 XDe Institut. Virg., written toward the year 392; the 
 question of Mary's perpetual virginity is treated in chap- 
 ters v-xv; MiGNE, P. L., xvi, 313-328. 
 
 §MiGNE, P. L., xvi, 1 123; with the answer of the Synod 
 of Milan to Pope Siricius. Ibid., 1125. 
 
278 The Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 dealt in the same way with Bonosus, bishop of 
 Sardica in Illyricum, who had compromised him- 
 self by professing the same erroneous views. * 
 
 4. St. Jerome's treatise against Helvidius has 
 remained the storehouse of information regarding 
 Mary's perpetual virginity. The author resumes 
 the arguments of Origen and of St. Epiphanius, 
 and adds much that is his own. His opponents 
 had thought they could shake the belief of the 
 faithful with three or four texts of the Gospel. 
 Jerome's exegetical learning and skill enable him 
 to silence his adversaries in the name of the Gospel 
 itself. The work is worth a close study : its mere 
 analysis will show that, after all, little has since 
 been added to its material. 
 
 (a) The view of Helvidius is a novelty, an im- 
 piety, a bold denial of the faith of the whole 
 world, t "Might I not array against you the 
 whole series of ancient writers: Ignatius, Poly- 
 carp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other 
 apostolic and eloquent men, who against Ebion, 
 Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held 
 
 * Epist. Siricii ad Anysium de causa Bonosi, after the 
 S6th letter of St. Ambrose, Migne, P. L., xvi, 1172; cf. 
 Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. 1781 (new edit., n. 91). 
 
 t§§ 1-14, 17-19, 22. 
 
The Explanations. 279 
 
 these same views and wrote volumes replete with 
 wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, 
 you would be a wiser man." * St. Jerome has 
 been blamed for appealing wrongly to the authors 
 of the 2d century. True, the controversy in which 
 the latter were engaged referred directly to 
 Christ's Virgin-Birth, but the reasons they 
 brought forward have really a more extensive 
 bearing. Thus, for instance, they commonly call, 
 without any hesitation, Mary the Virgin: an un- 
 qualified appellation that would hardly have be- 
 come the mother of a family, even were she a 
 most honorable woman. 
 
 At an early date, the faith in the perpetual vir- 
 ginity of the Mother of God was expressly em- 
 bodied in the epithet, aecndpffsvoq, semper virgo. 
 This term is already found in that wording of the 
 Apostles' Creed, which was proposed at Antioch 
 to those who would apply for Baptism; it is also 
 found in the exposition by St. Athanasius, of the 
 formula of faith used at Alexandria.! 
 
 Of all the ecclesiastical writers of the first 
 four centuries, only two could Helvidius quote in 
 
 t Kai ytwrfOivTa eic Mapiaf ttj? ayia? t^s atinapOivov . DeNZINGER, 
 
 Enchirid., 12; cf. 10, 142, 143 (new ed., nn. 12, 10, 201, 202). 
 
 30 
 
28o The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 support of his view : Tertullian and Victorinus of 
 Pettau (+about 303). St. Jerome gives up Ter- 
 tullian as a heretic who has no more authority on 
 this point than on many others. As to Victorinus, 
 "like the Evangelists, he spoke of the brethren of 
 the Lord, not of the sons of Mary." * On the 
 other hand, the defender of Mary's perpetual vir- 
 ginity might have appealed to the explicit testi- 
 mony of Origen and St. Epiphanius, The former 
 had already styled heretics those who, in his life, 
 did not hold on this point the common sentiment 
 of the faithful ; the latter uses the terms rashness, 
 blasphemy, unheard of madness, unbearable nov- 
 elty.^ A few years later St. Ambrose will charge 
 with sacrilege the attempt made by Bonosus to 
 gain credit for the views of Helvidius.J 
 
 * "Et de Tertulliano quidem nihil amplius dico, quam 
 Ecclesise hominem non fuisse. De Victorino vero id assero 
 quod et de Evangelistis, fratres enin dixisse Domini, non 
 filios Marise. Fratres autem eo sensu, quern superius expo- 
 suimus, propinquitate, non natura" (§17)- As a matter 
 of fact, all the passages of Tertullian that bear on the 
 question are found in works which he composed after he 
 had become a Montanist, or at least a semi-Montanist. 
 
 t Origen, Homil. vii in Lucani, in med. ; St. Epiphan., 
 Adv. Hcer., Ixxviii, 1-7. 
 
 %De Instihit. Virginis, V. 35. 
 
The Explanations. 281 
 
 {h) It is in the field of Gospel texts that Jerome 
 displays against his opponents all the treasures of 
 his learning and all the refined keenness of his 
 mind. 
 
 We read in St. Matthew (i^^): Cum esset 
 desponsata mater ejus Maria Joseph, priusquam 
 convenirent inventa est in utero habens de Spiritu 
 Sancto. What does this mean? Helvidius asked. 
 Mary not only is entrusted to Joseph's care, she 
 becomes really his spouse ; and, had not the union 
 been consummated later on, the Evangelist would 
 not have said, priusquam convenirent. If we 
 speak of some one who is not to take supper, we 
 do not say that this or that event occurred before 
 his supper. Besides, the same Evangelist speaks 
 still more plainly a few verses below, when he 
 adds : Et non cognoscebat earn, donee peperit 
 filium suuni (i ^^) ; and this is emphasized by St. 
 Luke's words {2'') \ Et peperit filium suuni primo- 
 genituni. * Texts like these, Helvidius affirmed, 
 do away with any ambiguity, not only because of 
 the definite meaning of the term cognoscebat, 
 which here designates the conjugal act, but also 
 
 * The received text of St. Matthew i ^s reads rhv npuToroKov. 
 primogenitum; but that is an interpolation suggested by 
 Luke 2 7. St. Jerome, as well as Helvidius, had under his 
 eyes an unadulterated text. 
 
282 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 because it can be no question of a first-born son 
 except in a family in which there are at least two 
 children. 
 
 St. Jerome proves first to Helvidius that the 
 latter has uttered just as many sophisms as words, 
 unless he prefers to admit that he has confused 
 everything. A young woman who is entrusted 
 is not affianced, nor, if she is affianced, is she 
 thereby a wife (although the Scriptures call her 
 uxor) : all this is beyond question; whilst it is 
 equally certain that a w^ife becomes such, only 
 through the consummation of the marriage.* 
 Later on, St. Ambrose will add that a contract 
 that is done according to rule, suffices to make a 
 couple husband and wife.f The difficulty taken 
 from the words of the Evangelists : priusqiimn 
 convenirent, donee peperit,X St. Jerome answers 
 by quoting many a Biblical passage in which 
 priusquain and donee do not imply the subsequent 
 occurrence of the thing which is said not to have 
 as yet taken place at a particular time.§ Then, in 
 
 *§ 4. 
 
 f De Institut. Virginis, vi. 
 
 J The actual Latin Vulgate has antequam convenirent, 
 which conveys the same meaning. 
 
 §Matt. 28 20; / Cor. 1523-26; ps, 122 2; Qgn. 354 (ac- 
 cording to the LXX) ; Deut. 34 «. 
 
The Explanations. 283 
 
 order to state accurately the meaning of these ex- 
 pressions, he appeals to the every-day language; 
 and it is in this connection that the polemic indul- 
 ges in an application which to some delicate critics 
 seems rather uncourteous. "If I choose to say: 
 'Helvidius, before he repented, was cut off by 
 death,' must Helvidius repent after death?" * 
 These words were a mere sally of wit, aimed at an 
 opponent who had also made use of examples that 
 were just as inconclusive. For, after all, if I say 
 of some one that, before he sat down to supper, 
 he was warned that there was poison in the food, 
 I do not necessarily mean that, on that very same 
 evening, he took his supper. The instances taken 
 from Holy Writ were more appropriate, especially 
 that of Deuteronomy 34® : No man knoweth of his 
 sepulchre (Moses') unto this day. Would any 
 one be bold enough to infer from that text that 
 the tomb of Moses was found afterward or even 
 that, in the writer's mind, it could ever be found, 
 even after the researches of the Jews? 
 
 Some have said that the instances chosen with 
 the purpose to counterbalance the rather unpleas- 
 ant impression made by St. Matthew's text i ^^, 
 were not exactly ad rem. True it is that, in those 
 
 *§ 4- 
 
284 TJie Childhood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 passages where the circumstances themselves show 
 plainly enough that the case does not admit of 
 any subsequent change, donee implies no idea of 
 change. But it is quite otherwise, when on the 
 contrary the circumstances invite us to look out 
 for a change, after the term pointed out by donee. 
 Did we read in the second book of Kings, 6 ^^, 
 that "Michol, the daughter of Saul, had no child, 
 until she left David and became the wife of 
 Phaltiel" (instead of iisque in diem mortis stue, — 
 as the text really has), we would rightly conclude 
 that, after leaving David, Michol became a 
 mother, because maternity is both the end and 
 natural result of marriage.* 
 
 "Still the argument, as applied to this particular 
 case," C. Harris writes, "is not convincing. The 
 Evangelist is not, even by implication, compar- 
 ing together the connubial relations of Joseph and 
 Mary before and after the birth of Jesus (as, in 
 the case supposed, Michol's connubial relations 
 with David and Phaltiel are compared), but sim- 
 ply affirming in the strongest possible way that 
 Joseph had no share in the procreation of Jesus. 
 Bengel's laconic comment is, therefore, upon the 
 whole justified — donee: Non sequitur, ergo 
 
 ♦ Hastings' Diet, of Christ, Vol. I, p. 235. 
 
The Explanations. 285 
 
 post." The subsequent mention of the brethren 
 of Jesus does not affect the question, because it 
 was well known, when the Evangelist wrote, who 
 the brethren were, and there was no need to guard 
 against misconception."* 
 
 Moreover, St. Jerome grants to Helvidius that 
 the term cognoscrbat must be understood here of 
 the conjugal act; he even upbraids him for losing 
 his time in disproving senses of which nobody 
 ever dreamt, f 
 
 The Gospel calls Jesus the First born of Mary. 
 However, St. Jerome observes, whilst every only 
 son is a first-born, not every first-born is an only 
 son, although he may be so. For any to be called 
 first-born, it is enough to have been brought forth 
 the first, even though he has no younger brothers 
 and sisters. This is why the Mosaic Law regard- 
 ing the first-born $ found its application, as soon 
 as the mother had given birth to a son, whether 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
 t St. Jerome either exaggerates or is mistaken. St. 
 Epiphanius, Adv. Hcer., Ixxviii, 17, and St. Hilary, In 
 Matt, i, 3, understood that word of an act of purely intel- 
 lectual knowledge. After Jesus' birth, St. Joseph knew 
 Mary, i. e., had a full knowledge of the mystery that had 
 just taken place in her. 
 
 X Exodus 34 19-20, 
 
286 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 he was to be the only one or to be followed by 
 several others. Is it not commonly said that a 
 mother died when bringing forth I ler first-born ? * 
 
 Helvidiiis asked why Joseph and Mary entered 
 into a betrothal, if they did not intend to consum- 
 mate the marriage. St. Jerome answers that the 
 honor of Jesus and of His mother demanded that 
 she should be looked upon as Josepiis legitimate 
 wife. The veil of the Law was to conceal the 
 mystery of God, until that mystery could be be- 
 lieved : then only was it to be revealed. Again, 
 the Virgin-Mother needed a protector, and the 
 Divine Child, a foster-father. f 
 
 (c) Even after those explanations, the fact re- 
 mains that the text of the New Testament men- 
 tions several times the fratres of the Lord, and it 
 was on that fact Helvidius especially dwelt.J 
 
 * 8 9, 10. 
 
 fin his Convienfary on St. Matthezv, St. Jerome adds a 
 third reason, that brought forward already by St. Ignatius, 
 Ephes., xix, and developed by Origen, Homil. vii in Lucam, 
 namely that Mary's marriage had hid from the evil spirit 
 the fact of her virginal childbirth, and consequently, too, 
 the mystery of her Divine maternity. Of Herzog, w^ho, in 
 Revue d'Hist. et de Litter. Relig., 1906, pp. 337-440, jeers 
 quite clumsily at the ideas entertained by the ancients about 
 Satan's psychology, we merely observe that in the most 
 serious things he sees and takes in only the most insig- 
 nificant aspects. 
 
 $8 II. 
 
The Explanatioyis. 287 
 
 St. Jerome's lively wit had here full scope ; nor 
 did he miss his opportunity. Were his opponent 
 better acquainted with Biblical topics, he would 
 know that Holy Writ calls fratres, not only those 
 who were born of the same father and mother, 
 but also ordinary relatives, particularly nephews 
 and cousins: hence let Helvidius learn that this 
 appellation may rest on four different titles: 
 nature, nationality, relationship and friendship.* 
 
 * § 12-17, 14- Certain it is that in the Old Testament 
 the word px, translated a««x<<.ds by the Ixx, applies not 
 only to brothers strictly so-called, and to half-brothers, 
 Genes. 27 ^^ ', but also to nephews, Gen. 13 ^, 14 ^* ; to first 
 cousins, / Paral. 23 21 ; to more distant cousins, Levit. 10 ♦, 
 to relatives in general, IV Kings 10 ^^ ; and even to mere 
 fellow-countrymen, Gen. 19 «. Hence Renan, who cannot 
 be charged with not knowing Hebrew, merely imposed on 
 his readers, when he wrote : "The assertion that the 
 word ah (brother, frcre) has in Hebrew a broader mean- 
 ing than in French is altogether false. The meaning of 
 the Vvford ah is absolutely the same as that of the word 
 "frere." The fact that a word is used metaphorically or 
 allusively or wrongly, proves nothing against its proper 
 meaning." {Life of Jesus, 13th French edit., p. 25.) Never 
 is the term "brothers" (freres) used in French to designate 
 nephews and cousins, and yet this is done in Biblical texts. 
 That extension of ah was due not to a metaphor, but to 
 the significance which custom had imparted to that word. 
 No one identified the "fratres of the Lord" with the 
 Apostles, even though Jesus Himself called the latter 
 "fratres." St. Augustine appropriately remarks in this con- 
 
288 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 It might have been objected to St. Jerome that 
 this extensive meaning of the Aramaic word ah 
 is not preserved in Greek by the word d8el4>6?; 
 but he would have rightly answered that the 
 Evangehsts translated literally the Aramaic term 
 and withdrew from it none of the various mean- 
 ings it had in the language spoken by Jesus' con- 
 temporaries. This had already been done by the 
 LXX. 
 
 Besides, in the same page where the Evangelists 
 state that St. Joseph has nothing to do with the 
 conception of Jesus, they call him His "father" : 
 why then can they not have given the name of 
 "fratres" to those relatives of Jesus who were not 
 children of His mother ? * 
 
 {d) Hence the "brethren of the Lord" may 
 have been, not His full brothers by the mother's 
 side, but only His more or less distant relatives. 
 It remains for us to examine whether we have 
 some positive reasons for affirming that, in fact, 
 they were not Mary's children. 
 
 nection : "Quomodo loquitur sic intelligenda est. Habet 
 linguam suam : quicumque banc linguam nescit, turbatur et 
 dicit: Unde fratres Domino? Num enim Maria iterum 
 peperit? Absit ... !" In Joan., tract, x, cap. ii, 2. 
 
 *§i6. 
 
The Explanations. 289 
 
 The ecclesiastical writers of old, and especially 
 St. Jerome, have reduced to four chief headings 
 the motives on which the traditional belief in Our 
 Blessed Lady's perpetual virginity is grounded. 
 
 That virginity is implicitly affirmed in the nar- 
 rative of the Annunciation. Mary asks the Angel : 
 How shall this he, since I knozv not man? Which 
 does not mean merely : As yet I have known no 
 man; for, by itself, that circumstance was no 
 sufficient obstacle to her becoming a mother, the 
 more so that she was already betrothed, and that 
 her betrothal itself entitled her to the hope of 
 motherhood. The only explanation that fully ac- 
 counts for those words is this : Mary had made up 
 her mind to preserve her virginity, even in mar- 
 riage, should circumstances ever lead her to em- 
 brace that state of life. That is the sentiment of 
 most of the ancient writers who have commented 
 on St. Luke's narrative of the Annunciation; and 
 this view has been adopted also by the Scholastics, 
 by modern Catholic interpreters and by a certain 
 number of Protestant divines.* 
 
 * St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory of Nyssa; 
 amongst modern scholars, Schanz, Comment, iiber das 
 Evang. des heil. Ltikas, p. 88, is one of those who have 
 treated the subject best. On the Protestant side, Grotius, 
 and nearer to us, C. Harris, in the Dictionary of Christ 
 and the Gospels, Vol. I, p. 235, may be quoted. 
 
290 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Again, if other children were born to Mary, 
 why should Jesus, when about to die, have en- 
 trusted His mother to an outsider, to "the disciple 
 whom He loved"? This consideration, which in 
 the eyes of Lightfoot deals a conclusive blow to 
 the opinion of Helvidius,* is simply scoffed at 
 by Herzog, who writes as follows: "St. John's 
 Gospel afforded them (the ancient Church writ- 
 ers) a valuable text. There it was said that, 
 whilst hanging from the cross, the Savior had 
 addressed the beloved disciple in these words, 
 pointing out Mary to him: Behold, thy mother! 
 and that He had added, pointing out the disciple 
 to His mother : Behold, thy son ! Christians thor- 
 oughly and thoughtfully sifted His words and 
 found a mysterious meaning concealed under the 
 surface." f Not at all : they had merely to take 
 the letter of the words. The "mysterious mean- 
 ing," a meaning most deeply "concealed under 
 
 * Op. cit., p. 272. 
 
 ^ Revue d'Hist. et de Litter. Relig., 1907, p. 326. The 
 ancient Church writers, so easily disposed of are St. Je- 
 rome, Adv. Helvid., §13; St. Epiphanius, Hceres. Ixxviii, 
 10; St. Chrysostom, In Matt., v, 3; St. Hilary, In Matt., 
 i, 4; St. Ambrose, De Velandis Virginihus, 47, 48; Pope 
 St. Siricius, Epist. de Bonoso, quoted above. That thought 
 is already found in Origen, In Joannem, ii, 12, in Catena 
 Corderii, p. 75. 
 
The Explanations. 291 
 
 the surface," would be the one proposed by Loisy, 
 when he claims that, in that scene of the fourth 
 Gospel, the Mother of Jesus is simply the allegori- 
 cal personage of converted Israel, the Judaeo- 
 Christian community, whilst the disciple is the 
 type of the perfect believer, of the Johannic 
 Christian, of the Greco-Christian Church ! * 
 
 I do not mean to say that the fact of Jesus 
 entrusting His mother to St. John, taken by itself, 
 proves conclusively that Mary had no other son, 
 but I do say that this is a circumstance to be taken 
 into account for the solution of the problem con- 
 cerning the brethren of the Lord. 
 
 In the third place, unless Jesus was the only 
 Son of His mother, why did His contemporaries. 
 His countrymen of Nazareth, call Him so em- 
 phatically the Son of Mary? If the "brethren 
 of the Lord" were the sons of His mother, how 
 account for the fact that nowhere in the Gospels 
 Mary is called their mother ? f 
 
 True, the name of the Savior's mother is joined 
 with the names of His brethren : % but this admits 
 of an easy explanation. After the death of St. 
 
 * Le Quatrieme Evangile, p. 879. 
 
 t§ IS. 
 
 JMatt. 12*'^; John 2 12. 
 
292 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Joseph, and chiefly during the pubHc Hfe of Jesus, 
 Mary probably dwelt under the same roof as 
 her nearest relatives ; that community of life may, 
 perhaps, have started even some years before. As 
 a matter of fact, several ancient ecclesiastical 
 writers thought that the brethren of the Lord had 
 been brought to the home of Mary, on account 
 of their relationship with her husband, whatever 
 its degree may have been. 
 
 How explain, but for the fact of Mary's per- 
 petual virginity, that she has always been called 
 a Virgin f As has been already remarked, that 
 title dates back from the earliest Christian an- 
 tiquity. If Mary had seven children, one of whom 
 at least was bishop of Jerusalem (leaving aside 
 several others who played important parts in that 
 same Church), can we believe that Christians 
 forgot, very quickly indeed, so notable a fact, 
 and henceforth never ceased to see in her Jesus* 
 Virgin-Mother ? 
 
 Renan himself felt so strongly the objections 
 against the view he had first embraced in his Life 
 of Jesus, * that some ten years later, he decided 
 to give it up: "J^sus," he writes, "had true (full) 
 brothers and sisters. Only it is possible that these 
 
 * Pp. 67-69. 
 
The Explanations. 293 
 
 brothers and sisters were but half-brothers and 
 half-sisters. Were these brothers and sisters like- 
 wise sons and daughters of Mary? This is im- 
 probable. In fact, the brothers appear to be much 
 older than Jesus. Now Jesus was, as it would 
 appear, the first-born of his mother. Jesus, more- 
 over, was, in his youth, designated at Nazareth 
 by the name of "Son of Mary." For this we 
 have the most undoubted testimony of the Gos- 
 pels. This assumes that he was known for a 
 long time as the only son of a widow. In fact, 
 such appellations were only employed when the 
 father was dead, and when the widow had no 
 other son. Let us instance the case of Piero della 
 Francesca, the celebrated painter. In fine the 
 myth of the virginity of Mary, without excluding 
 absolutely the idea that Mary may have had after- 
 ward children by Joseph, or have been remarried, 
 fits in better with the hypothesis that she had only 
 one son." * 
 
 For, as a matter of fact, had the texts to be 
 explained by the mythical interpretation, I would 
 still prefer the "myth of Mary's virginity" to the 
 myth of a virgin, mother of seven children and 
 perhaps twice married ! 
 
 * The Gospels, p. 280. 
 
294 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Finally, those who in the Gospel are called "the 
 fratres of the Lord" seem to have been older than 
 Jesus. They are jealous of His popularity ; * they 
 criticise Him and give Him advice ; f nay, on 
 one occasion they endeavor to get hold of Him, 
 under the pretext that He is out of His senses.J 
 That attitude is hardly possible on the part of 
 younger brothers, especially if we take into ac- 
 count the customs of the East. But if the fratres 
 of the Lord are sons of Mary, they cannot be 
 older than Jesus, since, according to St. Matthew 
 and St. Luke, Mary was still a virgin when she 
 conceived Him: Jesus was the First-born of His 
 mother. 
 
 5. In that campaign which he undertook to 
 defend Mary's perpetual virginity, St. Jerome had 
 the approval and support of all the learned and 
 distinguished men of the time : in the East, St. 
 John Chrysostom,§ St. Cyril of Alexandria, |1 
 Theodoret,^ Theophylactus,** leaving aside St. 
 
 ♦Mark 6*. 
 
 tJOHN 71//. 
 
 t Mark 3 21. 
 
 § In Matt., horn, v, 3. 
 II In Joan., vii, 5. 
 
 ^ In Epist. ad Galat., i, in fine. 
 
 ** In Matt., xiii, 55 ; in Epist. ad Galat., i, 19. 
 
The Explanations. 295 
 
 Epiphanius * and St. Basil f who had preceded ; 
 in the West, St. Ambrose,! St. Augustine, § the 
 Ambrosiaster || and Pelagius himself.^ 
 
 Then, the expHcit definitions of Popes and 
 Councils soon came to proclaim authoritatively 
 that the opponent of Helvidius had defended the 
 traditional faith. In his rescript to Anysius (391), 
 
 * Loc. cit. 
 
 tThis is an allusion to the writing entitled Homilia in 
 Sand. Christi generationem (Migne, P. G., xxxii, 1468). 
 Its authenticity has been called in question : according to 
 Dom Gamier, it is not St. Basil's work; according to 
 Bardenhewer, it has been interpolated. Dififerently from 
 J. B. LiGHTFOOT, op. cit., p. 284, we believe that Mary's per- 
 petual virginity is here presented as an article necessary 
 for the integrity of faith ; what the author does say is that 
 the contrary view would not do away with the faith in the 
 mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 X Loc. cit. 
 
 § Haller has gathered in his Jovinianiis, pp. 88-109, all 
 the numerous texts of St. Augustine on this subject. We 
 may quote merely what the holy Doctor wrote in the year 
 420 about the Pelagian Julian: "More illius Joviniani, qui 
 aute paucos annos hsereticus novus virginitatem sanctae 
 Marise destruebat, et virginitati sacrse nuptias fidelium 
 coasquabat." Contra duas Epist. Pelag., i, 4. 
 
 II In Epist. ad Galat., printed generally at the end of the 
 works of St. Ambrose, Migne, P. L., xvii, 338. 
 
 fl In Epist. ad Galat., ii, 19; at the end of the works of 
 St. Jerome, Migne, P. L., xxx, 808. 
 
 21 
 
296 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 Pope St, Siricius declares that Bonosus was 
 rightly rebuked, and that his judges did well when 
 rejecting and condemning his view. During the 
 7th century (649) the Council held by Martin I 
 in the Lateran, puts under the ban any one who 
 does not confess that "the ever virgin and spotless 
 Mary . . . did not bring forth the Word of 
 God, without any detriment for her virginity, 
 which remained intact after her child-bearing.'' 
 Nearer to us (1555), Paul IV solemnly affirmed 
 against the Socinians that Mary's virginity ante 
 par turn, in partu, post par turn, is a part of Cath- 
 olic dogma.* 
 
 
 Orthodox apologists have not only declared, 
 in the name of tradition and of the texts, that 
 the brethren of the Lord were not born of Mary : 
 they have also attempted to define with precision 
 
 * Siricii Papae Epistola ad Anysium de perpetua Vir- 
 ginitate Maria, (Denzinger, Enchir., n. 1781 ; new ed., n. 
 91) ; Concilii Lateran. sub Martino i, Can. 3 (Denzinger^ 
 Enchir., n. 204 ; new ed., n. 256) ; PauH iv Constitutio Cum 
 quorumdam, confirmata a Clemente viii (Denzinger, En- 
 chir., n. 880; new ed., 993). 
 
The Explanations. 297 
 
 the degree of their relationship with Jesus. As 
 might be expected, they have not agreed on this 
 latter point. 
 
 St, Epiphanius, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. 
 Cyril of Alexandria follow the view that had been 
 made current by the apocryphal Gospels. The 
 brethren of the Lord were St. Joseph's children 
 by a former marriage.* Origen and after him 
 St. Hilary had also accepted that view, though 
 with hesitation.! That Clement of Alexandria, 
 Eusebius and the Ambrosiater inclined to this 
 opinion is probable, but not certain. $ True, they 
 say that, in the Gospel, some personages are called 
 the brethren of the Lord because they were, or 
 rather because they were called the sons of Joseph ; 
 
 * St. Epiph., Adv. Hcer., Ixxxviii, 7 ; St. Gregory of 
 Nyssa, In Christi Resur., orat. ii ; St. Cyril of Alexand., 
 In Joan., vii, 5. Nay, St. Epiphanius adds a few more pre^ 
 cise details not found in his predecessors. He knows that 
 St. Joseph, the brother of Clopas, was son of Jacob sur- 
 named Panther ; that he had first married a woman of the 
 tribe of Juda who gave him six children : four sons (James, 
 Joseph, Simeon and Jude), and two daughters (Mary and 
 Salome). Esther and Thamar or Martha are also men- 
 tioned by others in this connection. 
 
 t Cf. above, p. 274. 
 
 I Father Corluy, op. cit., p. 15, grants that Eusebius 
 favors the sentiment of St. Epiphanius. 
 
298 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 this is the expression used by Eusebius in connec- 
 tion with James, the first bishop of Jerusalem.* 
 With all respect due to Lightfoot, both the con- 
 struction of the phrase and the wording of the 
 context prompt us to believe that, for Eusebius, 
 Jesus and James were brothers, because both of 
 them zvere called sons of Joseph. It remains to 
 inquire by what title they were sons of Joseph. 
 We believe it more probable that in this case 
 Eusebius depends on Hegesippus, whose writings 
 he used so frequently. Now, as was said already, 
 the latter sees in the Lord's brethren paternal 
 cousins of Jesus.f 
 
 It can hardly be supposed that St. Jerome did 
 not know how the tradition stood. He is so 
 unconscious of having departed, in his dispute 
 with Helvidius, from a well-grounded and gen- 
 erally accepted view that, twenty years later, 
 he writes again : "Some suppose the Lord's breth- 
 ren to be the sons of Joseph by a former wife, 
 following the ravings of the Apocryphals."t Per- 
 
 * H. E., II, I : oTi Jt) K.a\ ouTos ToC 'l»)<r»)(J) livo/ioaro ira.1%. 
 
 t Cf. above, pp. 266, and //. 
 
 % Comment, in Matt., xii, 49, 50; written in the year 398. 
 From what has just been said, the reader may judge 
 whether or not Herzog gives a fair account of the ques- 
 tion when he writes: "In those words (which affirm St. 
 
The Explanations. 299 
 
 sonally he stands by what he has already written 
 in his book Adversiis Helvidiimi. The Lord's 
 brethren are His cousins, born of that Mary whom 
 the Gospel calls the mother of James the Less 
 and of Joseph; she was the wife of Alpheus and 
 the maternal aunt of Jesus, since she was the 
 sister of the Blessed Virgin. She is also called by 
 St. John Mary of Clopas (Cleophas among the 
 Latins), because she was his daughter or perhaps 
 merely his relative. Hewever, in the eyes of St. 
 Jerome this last point is secondary and hardly of 
 any importance ; hence he will not argue about it. 
 What he claims against Helvidius, in the name 
 of the texts, is that this Mary should not be iden- 
 tified with the mother of Jesus.* Above all, he 
 
 Joseph's virginity and represent the brethren of the Lord 
 as maternal cousins of Jesus), St. Jerome departs from 
 a tradition two centuries old. At the time he lived, the 
 narrative of the Gospel of James had in the long run been 
 received by all, except by a few who were still behind the 
 age, like Helvidius ; now Jerome sets aside that narrative 
 which almost all held in respect, and represents as cousins 
 of Christ, I. e., as sons of Mary's sister — as he explains in 
 his Commentary on St. Matthew — those who were called 
 the brothers of Jesus in the Gospel text, and who, during 
 the last two centuries, had been looked upon as His step- 
 brothers." Revue d'Hist. et de Litter. Relig., July-August, 
 1907, p. 331- 
 
 * Adv. Helvid., 13, 14. True, St. Gregory of Nyssa, In 
 Christi Resurrectionem, orat. ii (Migne, P. G., xlvi, 648), 
 
300 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 proclaims emphatically St. Joseph's virginity: 
 "You say that Mary did not continue a virgin : 
 I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account 
 of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wed- 
 lock a virgin son was born." * 
 
 This view St. Jerome does not ground on the 
 authority of his predecessors, but on reasons of 
 great fitness : reasons which are the more plausible 
 that the texts of the Gospel, far from opposing 
 it, can be much better understood in that hypothe- 
 sis. It is only of the view concerning St. Joseph's 
 virginity, but not of the view according to which 
 the brethren of the Lord were cousins of Jesus 
 that the statement of Baronius must be under- 
 stood: "Hujus (opinionis) f or tissimus stipulator 
 seu potius auctor Hieronymus."^ 
 
 St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine had favored 
 first the view of St. Epiphanius, but they soon 
 adopted that of St. Jerome. $ They were followed 
 
 makes that confusion, though in a very different sense : the 
 Blessed Virgin is called Mary, mother of James and Joseph, 
 because they had become her step-sons, through her mar- 
 riage to St. Joseph, their father. 
 
 * Adv. Helvidium, 19. 
 
 ^ Apparat. ad Annales, xli. 
 
 t St. Chrysostom sides with St. Epiphanius, in his Com- 
 ment, in Matt, hom. v, 3; with St. Jerome, in his Com- 
 ment, in Epist. ad Galat., in fine. St. Augustine sides 
 
The Explanations. 301 
 
 a short while after by Theodoret and Theophy- 
 lactus, among- the Greeks; as to the Latins, they 
 mention the hypothesis of a former marriage of 
 St. Joseph, but only to declare it cannot be ac- 
 cepted.* 
 
 Moreover, it was not long before complemen- 
 tary explanations were added to St. Jerome's 
 opinion. Not only James, the brother of the Lord, 
 was identified with the Apostle James, son of 
 Alpheus, but Alpheus himself was then identified 
 with Clopas, so that the appellation "Mary, that 
 of Clopas" must be translated by "Mary, wife of 
 Alpheus." 'Ak<paio<s and A'AwTra? could be only two 
 Greek transcriptions of the same Hebrew name 
 'flSn. This hypothesis will be accepted for many 
 years, though, in our day, the number of those 
 who question its truth is on the increase, f 
 
 with St. Epiphanius, in Quasi, xvii in Matt., iii, 2 ; with St. 
 Jerome, In Joan., tract, x, cap. ii, n. 2 ; tract, xxxviii, 3 ; 
 in his Comm. in Epist. ad Galat., he combines both views. 
 
 * Theodoretus, In Epist. ad Galat., i, towards the end ; 
 Theophvlactus In Matt., xiii, 55 ; In Galat., i, 19, where 
 he attempts to combine both views : James is the brother of 
 Jesus, since he is the legal son of Joseph who, by complying 
 with the law of the Levirate, had given children to his 
 brother Clopas. 
 
 fThat identification, which seems to be first found in 
 St. Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Galat., i, 19, and later on by 
 
302 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 A few more identifications were made later. 
 In the Apostolic College, side by side with James, 
 another brother of the Lord took his rank : — Jiide, 
 the author of the Epistle, became the Apostle 
 Thaddeus, called also Lebbeus. Nay, some 
 authors have asked themselves whether Simon, or 
 Simeon, the second Bishop of Jerusalem, was 
 truly distinct from the Apostle Simon, called the 
 Canaansean or Zelotes, styled by St. Jerome tri- 
 nomius. Those identifications, which are found 
 in some way or other in all the Western liturgies, 
 including the Roman liturgy, are unknown to the 
 Orientals.* The Council of Trent itself identifies 
 
 Theodoretus, In Epist. ad Galat., i, 19, has been exposed 
 and defended at length by Corluy, op. cit., pp. 146-148. 
 The objections that may be raised against it may be seen 
 in ViGOUROUx' Diction, de la Bible, i, 419. Renan upheld 
 successively the two opinions. "These two names appear 
 to designate the same person." Life of Jesus, p. 68. "Peo- 
 ple have often identified the name of 'AA<^oros with that of 
 KAwTToi by means of "'ijbn. This is indeed a reconcile- 
 ment which is altogether false." The Gospels, p. 283. 
 
 * The Greek, Syriac and Coptic Ordines distinguish James, 
 the brother of the Lord, from James of Alpheus. The 
 Greeks celebrate the feast of the Apostle, son of Alpheus, 
 on October 9, and that of the Lord's brother on the 23d 
 of the same month. It may be observed that in the oldest 
 Roman martyrologies James, son of Alpheus, is mentioned 
 on June 22 ; whilst as to James of Jerusalem, his ordination 
 is commemorated on December 28 and his death on 
 March 25. 
 
The Explanations. 303 
 
 in passing James, the author of the Catholic 
 Epistle, with the brother of the Lord.* Joseph, 
 then, would be the only one among the brethren 
 of the Lord who would not have had the honor 
 of being reckoned among the Twelve. 
 
 However, that view is far from being universal. 
 Regarding the question whether or not some 
 Apostles were recruited from the brethren of 
 Jesus, critics are divided into two schools, whose 
 respective arguments Corluy has carefully exposed 
 and discussed. These two schools, he says, "may 
 be called, one the Patristic school, the other the 
 exegetical school. The former, relying chiefly on 
 the authority of the Fathers, denies altogether to 
 the cousins of Jesus the quality of Apostles: the 
 latter thinks it can find in the Biblical texts suffi- 
 cient indications to affirm, in spite of the con- 
 trary view of several of the holy Fathers, that 
 two, and even perhaps three of the 'brethren' of 
 Jesus belonged to the Apostolic College. There 
 are found in both of these schools distinguished 
 scholars. The former is represented chiefly by 
 the Bollandists Henschenius, Stiltinck and Van 
 Hecke; the latter includes, besides the illustrious 
 
 *Sess. iv, decret. Sacrosancta; Sess. xiv, cap. i, De Ex- 
 trema Unci. (Denzinger, Enchirid, n. 786; new ed., n. 908). 
 
304 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 critic Le Nain de Tillemont, most weighty inter- 
 preters like Patrizi, Toletus, Lucas of Bruges, 
 Maldonatus, Beelen, Liagre, Adalbert Maier, 
 Drach, Windischmann, Hengstenberg, and 
 others." * 
 
 On the other hand, St. Joseph's virginity, which 
 had been upheld by St. Jerome, soon became com- 
 monly held in the Latin Church; so that during 
 the nth century St. Peter Damian could write 
 that "this was the expression of the faith of the 
 Church." t St. Thomas dismisses peremptorily as 
 "false" the exegesis according to which the Lord's 
 brethren are children of St. Joseph.^ 
 
 Petau is less positive: for him the doctrine 
 of St. Joseph's virginity is only more probable. § 
 Now, that for the space of two centuries, the 
 piety of the faithful has come to confirm that 
 pious belief, the view of the learned theologian 
 seems excessively timid and even unsatisfactory. 
 Corluy goes then, much farther, when he writes : 
 "The Catholic mind has definitely sided with the 
 
 * Corluy, op. cit., p. 145. 
 
 t "Ecclesiae fides est, ut virgo f uerit et is qui simulatus 
 est pater." Opusc. xvii, 3. Migne, P. L., cxlv, 384. 
 
 % Comment, in Epist. ad Galat., cap. i, lect. 5. 
 
 %De Incarnatione, XIV, iii, 13; Vol. VII, p. 254. 
 
Criticism and Conclusion. 305 
 
 idea of the great interpreter (St. Jerome). It 
 would, therefore, be rash to call in doubt the per- 
 petual virginity of Mary's husband." * 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 (i) Regarding the texts that refer to the 
 brethren of the Lord, there is a dogmatic tradition 
 of a negative character, bearing on the sense to 
 be given to those texts. The exegesis, according 
 to which these personages are the brothers of 
 Jesus, born of the same mother, is incompatible 
 with the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity. 
 Hence it is in the name of the traditional faith 
 that Christians have constantly opposed the view 
 of the Antidicomarianites, of Helvidius, Bonosus 
 and Jovinian. 
 
 On the other hand, the sentiment of Helvidius 
 is not satisfactorily grounded on the texts nor on 
 the merely historical tradition. True, it solves 
 the difficulty raised by the expression fratres of 
 the Lord; but it introduces into the texts im- 
 probabilities, inconsistencies which a correct exe- 
 gesis cannot successfully explain away. It is pre- 
 cisely these arguments based on the Gospel nar- 
 
 * Op. cit., p. 16. 
 
3o6 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 rative which St. Jerome brought forward in be- 
 half of the opposite view and which have been 
 looked upon as forcible by subsequent interpre- 
 ters. 
 
 As to the tradition of the first three centuries, 
 it was so little favorable to the view of Helvidius 
 that the latter dared appeal only to Tertullian and 
 to Victorinus of Pettau; even the latter's opinion 
 was doubtful, according to St. Jerome. Nay, the 
 faith in Mary's perpetual virginity is emphatically 
 proclaimed in the name of Virgin which the 2d 
 century apologists ascribe antonomastically to 
 Mary, and it becomes soon explicit in the ap- 
 pellation d£i7:dp0£vo<}, found in the old formulas 
 of faith. 
 
 It is easy to affirm that when growing and grad- 
 ually gaining in intensity the religious sentiment 
 went, by an irresistible law, beyond the primitive 
 meaning of the texts; it is also easy to add that 
 in the long run the Christian conscience became 
 proof against the protest of history. This is a 
 mere gratuitous assertion. Consciously or uncon- 
 sciously it rests, partly at least, on the prejudice 
 of a radical religious evolutionism. For most of 
 those who now follow the exegesis of Helvidius, 
 any belief in the supernatural must start from a 
 natural fact, which faith has transfigured through 
 
Crificisiii and Conclusion. 307 
 
 a process of allegorical or mythical sublimation. 
 Then, on what grounds does the affirmation 
 rest that the conscience of the early Christian 
 generations lacked, as regards the primitive facts 
 of Christianity, both intelligence and honesty? 
 The study of the literature of that age, to begin 
 with St. Paul's Epistles, contradicts that assertion 
 most plainly. The reverence for the boundaries 
 set by the primitive data of Christian doctrine is 
 most clearly perceived in the long and painful 
 struggle which orthodoxy had to bear against the 
 Gnostic Docetse. However attractive for Chris- 
 tian souls may have been the theory of a Christ 
 who had been made in Heaven and who, like the 
 manna of old, had come down upon earth, the 
 Church remained firm in her belief in the Christ 
 of the Gospels, whose life is so much encom- 
 passed with the weaknesses of our nature that 
 human wisdom is, so to say, confounded and 
 scandalized at the sight. With dispositions like 
 these, the Christian conscience must have had 
 strong reasons indeed to profess Christ's Virgin- 
 Birth and His mother's perpetual virginity, the 
 more so especially that the contrary seemed to be 
 affirmed by some passages of the Gospels. 
 
 Some one has claimed that "the dogma of 
 Christ's virginal conception demanded, as its natu- 
 
3o8 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 ral and necessary complement, Mary's perpetual 
 virg-inity, and that the latter followed up the 
 former so closely that they must stand or fall 
 together." * This is indeed a very free manner 
 of writing the history of Christian doctrines. 
 With a method like that, one can bring forward 
 any explanation whatever of the actual Creed; 
 but one can just as easily, even far more easily, 
 show that, on these principles, that Creed should 
 be quite different from what it is actually. 
 
 True, ancient ecclesiastical writers, particularly 
 St. Epiphanius, likened the Virgin's womb to the 
 new sepulchre where the body of Jesus was 
 laid; they exposed at length how fitting it was 
 that the door, which had been opened to the 
 Divine King, should be closed to any one else. 
 However, they do not exaggerate the bearing of 
 those considerations which, whilst making the 
 dogma more plausible, are not able by themselves 
 to create it. 
 
 Some have also surmised that the belief in 
 Mary's perpetual virginity probably began in the 
 2d or in the 3d century, just as we witness in the 
 4th century the rise of the belief in St. Joseph's 
 virginity : a belief which was to be the doctrinal 
 
 * Her20g, Revue d'Hist. et de Litter. Relig., July-August, 
 1907, p. 320 ; cf ., p. 327. 
 
Criticisin and Conclusion. 309 
 
 profit of the controversy of St. Jerome with Hel- 
 vidius : to the conquests previously made a new 
 conquest was added. The example just quoted 
 will enable us to point out most plainly the great 
 and ever-enduring difference there is between a 
 dogma and a pious belief. 
 
 When Mary's perpetual virginity was denied, 
 there arose a unanimous voice of protest, in the 
 name of traditional faith, all over Christendom, 
 in the East and in the West. The innovators 
 were styled senseless, froward, wicked. Origen 
 had already called them heretics. The dogma was 
 chiefly insisted on, the explanation of the texts 
 that might give rise to objections being left in the 
 background. On several occasions the Church 
 came forward and sanctioned by her definitions 
 the protest of the Christian conscience. On the 
 contrary, when St. Jerome speaks of St. Joseph's 
 virginity, he carefully abstains from invoking tra- 
 dition; he knows — and he confesses, too — that 
 several ancient writers — and not of the least — 
 had different views on the same subject.* It is 
 
 ♦According to the treatise Adv. Helvidium, 19, those 
 who before him held an opinion contrary to his own, are 
 the majority, plerique. But, as is well known, that word 
 has not, under the pen of St. Jerome, a very definite sense. 
 In the De Viris illustr., 2, plerique becomes nonnulli, and 
 in the Comm. in Matt., xii, 49, quidatn. 
 
3IO The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 in the name of the texts and for the purpose of 
 satisfying the piety of the faithful, that he op- 
 poses his exegesis to the rash affirmation of those 
 who look upon St. Joseph as the real father of 
 the Lord's brethren.* St. Jerome's sentiment has 
 become current in the Church, and some have 
 rightly said that, owing to the action of the Holy 
 Ghost that directs the piety of the faithful and 
 Christian worship, it would be rash to call that 
 sentiment in question, and scandalous to speak 
 against it; but no theologian ever claimed it was 
 a dogma, nor even a doctrine that was to be 
 defined. This the judicious Tillemont had already 
 observed at length, several centuries ago.f 
 
 * "Quod plerique non tarn pia quam audaci temeritate 
 confingunt." Adv. Helvid., 19. How did St. Epiphanius 
 fail to notice that, unless he gainsays the text of the Gos- 
 pel, he must admit that, when St. Joseph was the fiance or 
 the husband of the Blessed Virgin, he had still that first 
 wife whom the apocryphal Gospels assigned to him? For 
 it is evident that the mother at least of two of the Lord's 
 brethren, Mary of Clopas, is one of the holy women who 
 accompanied Jesus. 
 
 t These are his words : "Cardinal Peter Damian goes 
 even farther and says that it is the faith of the Church ; 
 which, of course, must be understood of that common 
 belief. For that great man was too well-read not to know 
 that it would overthrow the foundation of the Church, to 
 decree and range among the articles of faith a point on 
 
Criticism and Conclusion. 311 
 
 Did the increasing regard and veneration for 
 virginity — of wliich monachism was in the 4th 
 century the pubHc and social expression — did that 
 regard and veneration exercise a telHng influence 
 on the doctrines pertaining to the marriage of 
 Mary and Joseph? It cannot be doubted that 
 the sympathies or antipathies for monachism 
 added a new fuel to the controversy on that sub- 
 ject. The followers of either view sought in the 
 Bible for texts that might either extol or under- 
 value the state of virginity. Some found their 
 interest in representing Mary as the type of the 
 Christian wife, who differed from the honest 
 mother of a family, merely by the honor of Divine 
 maternity; the others were glad and proud to be 
 able to place under the patronage of the "ever 
 virgin" the practice of virginity, which was for 
 them the ideal of Christian life. We grant that, 
 under the sway of these contrary preoccupations, 
 excesses took place even on the part of the Ortho- 
 dox, that some texts were explained in a mean- 
 ing which was not their real meaning. But it is 
 
 which Holy Writ is silent; for several of the Fathers have 
 taught against it and it is held by none of the ancient 
 writers, except St. Jerome. It is to be observed also that 
 St. Jerome maintained it in the heat of controversy, on very 
 insufficient grounds, and not as the belief of his time." 
 Memoires pour servir a I'Hist. Eccles., 1693, Vol. I, p. 505. 
 aa 
 
312 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 manifest — and this we intended to show in our 
 essay — that neither those influences, nor the so- 
 called strain inflicted by Christian exegesis on the 
 primitive sense of the texts of the Gospel, can 
 fully account, from a strictly historical point of 
 view, for the origin of the dogma of Mary's per- 
 petual virginity. 
 
 Besides, why wait until the 4th century for signs 
 of the possible reaction of practice upon doctrine? 
 Christ Himself and St. Paul after Him, early pro- 
 claimed the superiority of virginity over matri- 
 mony, and all know that in the Church there has 
 always been an elite of men and women who have 
 striven to put their lives in harmony with that 
 Gospel ideal. Were the dogma of Mary's per- 
 petual virginity the spontaneous outcome of that 
 esteem for continence, why is it that Tertullian, 
 whose excessive encratism is a well-known fact, 
 was actually the ancestor of Helvidius? Again, 
 why is it that the ascetic spirit and tendencies of 
 St. Epiphanius, which were at least as strong as 
 those of St. Jerome, did not suggest to him the 
 idea of St. Joseph's virginity? These and many 
 other questions on similar subjects cannot be satis- 
 factorily answered. Hence it is much better to 
 abide by the facts and the texts than to make one's 
 thoughts subservient to a preconceived theory. 
 
Criticism and Conclusion. 313 
 
 (2) What is the exact degree of relationship 
 for which James, Joseph, Simon and Jude have 
 been called the "brethren of the Lord" ? On this 
 point there is no strictly dogmatic tradition and 
 statement ; the historical tradition itself is neither 
 uniform nor constant. The view of St. Jerome, 
 who looks upon them as the cousins of Jesus, has 
 long supplanted the view of St. Epiphanius; but 
 that success does not suffice to make the point 
 altogether certain. Besides, in the course of ages, 
 his exegesis has undergone many a modification. 
 Instead of maternal cousins, nowadays paternal 
 cousins are more currently spoken of. Those rela- 
 tives of Jesus are divided into two groups : a 
 division which seems to be allowed by the text of 
 the Gospels. In some passages the brethren of the 
 Lord are merely four in number, but in other 
 passages, when their mother is mentioned, only 
 two are reckoned : James and Joseph.* Does not 
 this sufficiently show that not all were related to 
 Jesus in the same degree? 
 
 Hence some scholars, whose number is daily 
 increasing, hold that Joseph (the husband of the 
 Blessed Virgin) had a brother, Clopas, and a 
 sister, Mary, wife of Alpheus.f Of course, this 
 
 * Matt. 27 5«. 
 
 t In that hypothesis, Mapi'a ^ toO KKiani is translated Mary, 
 sister of Clopas, and uapia 17 toC 'iokw/Sov, Mary, mother of 
 James. 
 
314 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 view rejects the identification of Clopas with Al- 
 pheus. Simeon and Jude are sons of Clopas: 
 James and Joseph, sons of Mary.* That group- 
 ing is suggested by the testimony of Hegesippus, 
 and, moreover, agrees with the texts of the New 
 Testament more fully than any other explanation. 
 As to the subsequent identifications, they are 
 still more doubtful. Are James and Jude, breth- 
 ren of the Lord, to be identified with the Apostles 
 St. James the Less and St. Jude? The question 
 is open. Even we must confess that the affirm- 
 ative answer squares most unsatisfactorily with 
 the texts of the Gospel, which present the Lord's 
 brethren as not believing His mission.* True, 
 the answer is given that the Evangelist intends 
 to speak only of a relative unbelief : or, again, 
 that those incredulous brethren are to be sought 
 
 *For a detailed justification of that view, cf. Calmes, 
 Evangile selon S. Jean, p. 175. According to Baronius, 
 Appar. ad Annal., Ixi-lxvi, pp. 457-459, Mary, wife of AI- 
 pheus, sister of Clopas and St. Joseph, remains distinct 
 from the other Mary, wife of Clopas. On the other hand, 
 the latter was cousin {iit\<t>ri) of the Blessed Virgin; so 
 that Simeon and Jude are cousins of the Lord for two 
 reasons. — Others have attempted to combine the views of 
 modern scholars with that of St. Jerome: Joseph and 
 Clopas, two brothers, had married two sisters who had the 
 same name, the Virgin Mary, and Mary, wife of Clopas. 
 
 * John 7^; Mark 321. 
 
Criticism and Conclusion. 315 
 
 outside the group of the four brethren, mentioned 
 in the Gospel* These explanations are not ab- 
 surd: it remains to know whether or not they 
 can be received, taking the wording of the texts 
 as it is. 
 
 The hypothesis of the identity agrees hardly 
 better with the book of the Acts {i^*),\n which 
 the brethren of the Lord make up a group, dis- 
 tinct from that of the Apostles. f As to the text 
 of the Epistle to the Galatians (i ^^), erepov Se twv 
 
 dTzoffTokwv oux eJSev el fxTJ ^IdxtuSov rov ddsX^ov too xupiou, 
 
 all scholars grant that it can be interpreted in a 
 meaning favorable to either view. The decisive 
 words el fiTj do not necessarily imply that St. Paul 
 saw, besides St. Peter, some other Apostle; that 
 particle may just as well convey an exclusive 
 meaning: I saw no other Apostle, nobody at all, 
 except James, the brother of the Lord.$ 
 
 It is an unquestionable fact that some apolo- 
 gists take up too easily the hypothesis of the iden- 
 tity, anxious as they are to find in it a final 
 
 *Cf. Calmes, op. cit., in Joan., 7^; Corluy, op. cit., p. 
 148; CoRNELY, Introd. in Lihros N. T., iii, p. 596. 
 
 t Cf. / Cor., 9 5. 
 
 t Cf. Corluy, op. cit., p. 147. 
 
3i6 The Lord's Brethren. 
 
 solution of the difficulty raised by the "brethren 
 of the Lord." If James, the son of Mary, "that 
 of Clopas," is to be identified with the Apostle 
 James, son of Alpheus, evidently he was not born 
 of Mary, the mother of Jesus. But this is an 
 "a priori" and biased consideration, which must 
 be excluded from the debate. Mary's perpetual 
 virginity and the precise character of the relation- 
 ship which united Jesus to those whom the Gospel 
 calls His "fratres," are and must remain two 
 distinct questions.* 
 
 * Cf. CoRNELY, Comment, in Epist. ad Gal., p. 412, n. i. 
 
 [the end.] 
 

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