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What was the medium of communication through which the will of Heaven was revealed to the participants in this drama?
Matthew: A dream ([i, 20]; [ii, 12, 13, 19, 22]).
Luke: An angel ([i, 11], [26]; [ii, 9]).
In Matthew every message respecting the child Jesus is communicated by means of a dream; in Luke every announcement is made through the agency of an angel. Yet, after all, these Evangelists differ only in terms; for Luke’s angels are created out of the same stuff that Matthew’s dreams are made of, and the world is fast coming to a realization of the fact that this whole theological structure, founded on sleepers’ dreams and angels’ tales, is but “The baseless fabric of a vision.”