III
THE SILENCE OF OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS
What are the objections brought against all this evidence? The main objection is the silence of the other writers of the New Testament. To reply—
(I) First, we may surely ask—Why should they mention it? This sort of argument from silence is most precarious. Are we to infer that because there is no mention of the Cross or the Crucifixion in the Epistles of St. James or of St. Jude, that it was unknown to this group of writers, and that they were unaware of the manner of Christ's Death?
"We might much more naturally infer it than we may infer that the Virgin-Birth was unknown because St. James speaks of Christ's Death, and it would therefore have been quite natural for him to speak of the exact mode of it, whereas our Lord's Birth is very seldom referred to in the New Testament, and when it is referred to it would not have aided the argument, or been at all to the point to mention how that Birth was brought about."*
— * A. J. Mason, in the Guardian, November 19, 1902. —
Or, because St. John omits all mention of the institution of the
Holy Eucharist, are we to suppose that he knew nothing of that
Sacrament?
(2) The subject of the Virgin-Birth was not one which the Apostles would be likely to dwell on much. They were above all witnesses of what they had seen and heard. They come before us insisting, therefore, on what they could themselves personally attest—especially on the Resurrection. They had seen and heard the risen Christ, and the Resurrection was at once a vindication of His Messianic claims, and a manifestation of the dignity of His Person. "This praeternatural fact, the fulfilment of the 'sign'+ which He had Himself promised, a fact concerning the reality of which they offered themselves as witnesses, would carry with it a readiness to accept a fact like the Virgin-Birth, concerning which the same sort of evidence was not possible."^
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+ St. John ii. 18, 19; St. Matt. xii. 40.
^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 215.
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Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, belief in His Life, in His Death, in His miracles, in His Resurrection,—these came first, and these were the subjects of Apostolic preaching,* and belief in His Virgin-Birth (ultimately attested by Mary and Joseph) easily followed.
— * Acts i. 22; ii. 32. —
It is instructive in this connection to draw attention to the Acts of the Apostles. As every one knows, it is St. Luke's second volume—the Third Gospel being his first. Now, the Gospel begins with the account of Christ's miraculous Conception and Birth, but there is no reference to these mysteries in the rest of the Gospel or in the Acts. "The reason for the silence in the Acts is the same as for the silence in the subsequent chapters of the Gospel. The Jews had to learn the meaning of the Person of Christ from His own revelation of Himself in His words and works. To have begun with proclaiming the story of His miraculous Birth would have created prejudice and hindered the reception of that revelation.
"Similarly, in the Acts, both Jews and Gentiles had first to learn in the experience of the life of the Church what Jesus had done and said. Only when they had learned that, was it time to go on and ask who He was and whence He came."+
The same point is illustrated by St. Mark's silence. "Had he given any account of our Lord's early years, there would be some ground for pitting him (so to speak) against St. Matthew and St. Luke."^ But this Gospel begins, as every one knows, with the public ministry of our Lord. It is, in fact, the Gospel which reflects the oral teaching and preaching of St. Peter, and so it begins naturally enough at the point where that Apostle first came in contact with Christ.
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+ Rackham, Acts of the Apostles, p. lxxiv.
^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 217.
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(3) If in these writers of the New Testament expressions had been used inconsistent with the Virgin-Birth, it would be a very serious matter: but what are the facts? In the few cases where the Birth is mentioned, there is nothing said which implies that His Birth in the flesh was analogous in all respects to ours.
Consider St. John's Gospel. The silence on the Virgin-Birth can occasion, one would think, no real difficulty. His Gospel is a supplementary record, and he does not, for the most part, repeat historical statements already made by the other Evangelists. It seems altogether impossible to suppose that St. John was ignorant of the Virgin-Birth. Ignatius, who was Bishop of Antioch quite at the beginning of the second century, and therefore only a few years after the writing of this Gospel, calls it (the Virgin-Birth) a mystery of open proclamation in the Church. (Eph., 19.) Indeed, on any theory of the date or authorship of this Gospel, there is every reason for believing that the Virgin-Birth was, at the time it was compiled, part and parcel of the tradition of the Church. But when St. John does speak of the Incarnation, in the prologue to his Gospel, when he says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," (St. John i. 14.) there is nothing in these words to suggest anything inconsistent with the miraculous story related by St. Matthew and St. Luke. In fact, we may say more than this. We may say that his teaching about the Pre-existent Divine Logos who "was made flesh, and dwelt among us," is felt to be a natural explanation of St. Matthew's narrative as well as of St. Luke's; for, as we shall see, it is the question of the Divine Pre-existence of the Logos on which the reasonableness of the doctrine of the Virgin-Birth really turns. St. John does, in fact, in connection with this mystery of the Virgin-Birth, what he does in the case of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, "he supplies the justifying principle—in this case the principle of the Incarnation—without supplying what was already current and well known, the record of the fact."*
— * Gore, Dissertations, p. 8, seq. —
And it may be added, further, that Mary's word at Cana of Galilee: "They have no wine," and her subsequent order to the servants: "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it," (St. John ii. 3, 5.) are a clear indication that in the view of St. John she regarded Him as a miraculous Person, and expected of Him miraculous action.+ I think that, in regard to the Gospels, their relationship to one another may be summed up in the words of Bishop Alexander: "The fact of the Incarnation is recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke; it is assumed by St. Mark; the idea which vitalizes the fact is dominant in St. John."^
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+ Gore, loc. cit.
^ Bishop Alexander's Leading Ideas, Introd., p. xxiv.
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Consider next St. Paul's references to the Incarnation:—
"God sent forth His Son, born of a woman." (Gal. iv. 4) He does not say, "born of human parents."
"His Son our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Rom. i. 3.)
"Being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." (Phil. ii. 6, 7.)
These are the passages in which St. Paul refers to the Birth of Jesus Christ. Not one of them is inconsistent with the fact that He was born of a Virgin. But one can say more than this. Every one of these passages infers that He who was born in time had existed before. They either assert or imply a Divine pre-existence. He who was "made in the likeness of men" was already pre-existent in the "form of God," and was, in fact, "equal with God." This being the case, does it not prepare us for the further truth that, when He entered into the conditions of human life, He entered it not in all respects like us? I should mar if I ventured to abbreviate Dr. Mason's admirable words, in which he presses this argument—
"Like causes produce like effects. In similar circumstances, you may expect the same forces to operate in the same way. But when some new force is introduced, you cannot expect the same results. The Birth of Christ, if He is what all the writers of the New Testament believed Him to be, was necessarily unlike ours in that one great respect. We had no existence before we were born, however poets and poetical philosophers may play with the notion. But the New Testament writers believed that He whom we know as Jesus Christ was living with a full, vigorous, personal life for ages before He appeared in the world as man. They maintained that He was present and active in the making of the world, and immanent in the development of human history, which formed a new beginning at His Birth. They said He was God, the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father, who came down from heaven, and voluntarily entered into the conditions of human life. Admit the possibility that they were right, and you will no longer ask that His mode of entrance into our conditions should be in all things like our own. If you acknowledge that Jesus Christ was Divine first and became human afterwards, you cannot but say with St. Ambrose, when you hear that He was born of a Virgin: 'Talis decet partus Deum'—a birth of that kind is befitting to one who is God. We do not—no one ever did—believe Christ to be God because He was born of a Virgin; that is not the order of thought [and we have seen that it was certainly not the order of Apostolic preaching]; but we can recognize that if He was God, it was not unnatural for Him to be so born. No sound genuine historical criticism can deny that the Virgin-Birth was part of the Creed of Primitive Christianity, and that nothing that can be truly called science can object to that belief, unless it starts with the assumption, which, of course, it cannot even attempt to prove, that Christ was never more than man."*
Similarly Professor Stanton: "The chief ground on which thoughtful Christian believers are ready to accept it [the miraculous Conception] is that, believing in the personal indissoluble union between God and man in Jesus Christ, the miraculous Birth of Jesus Christ is the only fitting accompaniment for this unions and, so to speak, the natural expression of it in the order of outward effects."+
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* Guardian, November 19, 1902.
+ Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah p. 376.
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