CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF JESUS, AND THE SUPERNATURAL EVENTS CONNECTED
THEREWITH
Luke i., ii.; Matt i., ii.
a. The appearances of the angel Gabriel to Zacharias and Mary. b. The appearances of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in dreams.
c. The visit of the wise men of the East.
d. The appearance of the angel and the heavenly host to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem.
FIRST TEST.—"In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established."
Mark and John pass by the birth and upbringing of Jesus in silence. John, who knew Mary, and to whose care Mary was consigned by the expiring Jesus, would have been the most competent of all to record her version of the wondrous experiences of her cousin, herself, and her husband, in connection with the births of John the Baptist and of Jesus, yet he has not one word concerning them. Matthew, who may have known Mary and Joseph, has only meagre statements, very unlike what would be derived directly from either of the parents. But there is nothing to show from whom Matthew obtained his information. The detailed narration of the angelic appearances is made by Luke, who, so far as is known, was never at Jerusalem at all, far less ever came into contact with Mary. What, then, have we here?
John, the companion and best loved disciple of Jesus, the custodian of Mary, the most competent of all to narrate occurrences within her knowledge,—Silent.
Mark, the son of a woman known to Peter and the other companions of Jesus, and himself a companion of Peter, who would have been aware of these occurrences, if they had been believed among the very earliest Christian circle,—Silent.
Matthew, the companion of Jesus, who may have known Mary and Joseph,—Records three angel-visits to Joseph in dreams, and the visit of the wise men of the East, but is silent as to-all the marvels of Luke.—Is silent as to Matthew's marvels, but sets forth, in detail, angel-visits to Zacharias and Mary, and the appearance to the shepherds at Bethlehem.
Luke, who narrates the testimony of others, and does not name his informants, merely stating that they were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, and who writes at least fifty years after the events referred to.
In the mouth of two, or in the mouth of three witnesses, nay, even in the mouth of one witness, is any one of these incidents established?
'But let them be examined separately in detail:—-
(a.) Luke states that while the Jewish priest Zacharias, in the order of his course, was burning incense in the temple, the angel of the Lord appeared, standing on the right side of the altar. The old priest was startled. The angel told him that his wife Elizabeth should bear a son, who should be great in the sight of the Lord, who should turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zacharias had a misgiving that the event predicted could not well happen, as he himself was an old man, and his wife "well stricken in years." Whereupon the angel announced himself to be Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and forthwith he inflicted dumbness on Zacharias, to last until the child was born, as a punishment for his very reasonable doubt. Hark! the clanking clog of priestcraft the harsh ring of intolerance! Punishment because of reasonable doubt of a supernatural event not verified! Are the angels, then, on the side of the persecutors? Are they so sensitive of their "ipse dixit?" Thomas the disciple, it is mentioned, dis-believed in the risen Jesus, but Jesus appeared again to satisfy his doubts. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, laughed heartily when she heard the Lord announcing to her husband that she should bear a son when her child-bearing condition was past, and was kindly rebuked. Jesus in John, and the Lord in Genesis, had a tenderness to human doubt of a reasonable character; but Luke's peremptory angel was not for one moment to be gainsaid. Is this disposition angelic or earthly? Has such a temper of mind never been known among men? But to return to the narrative. Zacharias himself was the only one who saw the angel. Aged at the date of John's birth, neither he nor his wife could have been alive when Luke wrote. Who, then, came between Zacharias and Luke? Whose report has Luke credited? This is not a question of the credibility of Zacharias or the credibility of Luke, but of some unknown go-between, one or more. And can such unknown go-between be credited in view of the silence of John and Matthew; in view of the silence of Mark, the companion of Peter, who was (John i 41) a follower of John the Baptist? Surely the hesitating Zachariases, the doubting Thomases, and the mocking Sarahs of modern times are to be dealt with tenderly.
Luke goes on to narrate that, in the sixth month afterwards, the same angel Gabriel appeared to a virgin named Mary, betrothed to Joseph, a descendant of King David. The angel hailed her as the divinely favoured among women. She was very startled, wondering what he could mean by this style of address. He proceeded to tell her that she was to be the mother of a son, to be called the Son of the Highest, who was to reign for ever. She (naturally enough, were it not that she was about to be married) asked how that could be, in view of her virgin condition. More gracious to the hesitation of the timid maiden than to that of the aged priest, he replied, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." He then told her that her Cousin Elizabeth, hitherto barren, was in her sixth month, and asserted that with God "nothing shall be impossible." She made a sweetly-submissive speech in reply, and the angel went away. Here, again, is the same lack of connecting evidence. Mary alone saw the angel. Who were the go-betweens, the transmitters of the tale to Luke? Why the silence of Matthew, Mark, and John, especially John, Mary's custodian? Matthew mentions that Mary was found with child by the Holy Ghost; that this was revealed to Joseph in a dream; but he has not one word of the angel-visit to Mary. Moreover, in the next chapter, Luke relates a circumstance quite inconsistent with this angel-visit. The aged Simeon made some striking statements with reference to the destiny of the child, whom he met in the temple; and Luke adds, "Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him." But Simeon's statements were far less strong than the angel's. Can Mary, then, have forgotten the angel's visit? Did she not tell Joseph of it? Can she have forgotten her memorable visit to Cousin Elizabeth, when they congratulated each other on their respective conditions, and when even John the Baptist, before he saw the light, leaped for joy at Mary's salutation of his mother? If not, where was there room for marvel at Simeon's vaticination?
(6.) Matthew's account commences with Joseph's discovery of the condition of his betrothed. "Before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost," He does not mention how this discovery was made; if it was when Mary's condition could be no longer hid, or if Mary informed him as soon as she found herself pregnant, and then mentioned whatever grounds she had for asserting that this was the result of a supernatural "overshadowing." In any case, Matthew's account implies that at first Joseph doubted her, and thought that she had been unfaithful to him; but as he was a quiet man, averse to unnecessary scandal, he resolved to conceal her in some way. Yet, if Luke's angel-visit to Mary ever occurred, why was not Joseph informed of it at the time, for then there would have been no doubt on his mind that her conception was supernatural? Why was he not informed of the congratulatory visit to Cousin Elizabeth, of her speech and John the Baptist's joyous bound? Cousin Elizabeth, according to Luke, had no doubt that Mary was the "mother of my Lord." Joseph, her betrothed, according to Matthew, thought something quite different. While Joseph was considering the best mode of concealing Mary, the angel of the Lord appeared to him "in a dream," and directed him not to fear to take Mary to wife, for "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost" And he obeyed; but he "knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born."
Luke's angel appeared to Zacharias and Mary in some visible shape, in broad day, or, at all events, when they were fully awake; but Matthew's angel made himself known to Joseph in dreams—why the difference!—the object being to induce Joseph to become the reputed father of a child not his own, and thus to conceal from the Jewish nation what is alleged to be the fulfilment of the prophecy that a "virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," &c. Are mystery and misrepresentation, then, of divine authority? Are unbelieving Jews and Gentiles to be eternally reprobate for not allowing that a man was other than the son of his reputed parents? An Almighty maker of the universe is here represented as begetting a child by a virgin untouched by man, and so far from disposing that this should be done in a way that would be clearly verified and apparent, either to the world at large or to any select portion of it, he—eternal God—is said to have proceeded in the clandestine way of directing, by means of an angel who manifested himself in dreams, that Joseph should take this virgin to wife, and pass off the divine offspring as his own son, that thus the wondrous birth on which so much depended might be concealed.
Matthew further mentions two subsequent appearances of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in dreams, the first directing him to take the child to Egypt to be out of the way of Herod's massacre, and then, when Herod was dead, directing him to return to Judea. Luke, on the other hand, practically ignores Joseph in the whole transaction of the birth of Jesus. He makes no mention of the way in which Mary informed her lover; of the condition she was in, and merely brings him in when the birth is about to take place, as proceeding from Nazareth to Bethlehem, along with Mary, to be taxed. While Matthew avers that he was desirous of saving Mary's good name, there is nothing in Luke to show that Joseph ever knew of Mary being with child before he married her; and for all that is there stated, he may have believed that Jesus was his own son; Luke's only later reference to Joseph in connection with Jesus, is in his account of the visit to the temple, when the boy was twelve years old. Discovering that he was not among the homeward-bound company, Joseph and Mary returned to Jerusalem, and found him in the temple posing the doctors, when his mother said, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." The reply was, "How is it ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" and Luke adds, "They understood not the saying which he spake unto them." How, then, can the angel-visit to Mary be true, or the three angel-visits to the slumbering Joseph? For if these be not false, Joseph and Mary were the two human beings at the time who did understand fully who this wondrous child was.
(c and d.) The two further supernatural incidents in connection with the birth of Jesus (the wise men of the East and the appearance to the Bethlehem shepherds) remain to be considered. The details of the one are quite irreconcilable with those of the other.
(c) Matthew states that on the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, in the reign of King Herod, certain wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. They announced that the object of their visit was to worship the new-born King of the Jews, whose natal star they had seen in the East. On hearing this Herod was much troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Herod sent for the priests to inquire of them where Christ, the anointed one, was to be born. On the authority of the prophecy, Micah v. 2, they informed him that the Ruler of Israel was to come out of Bethlehem. Herod then had a private conference with the wise men, eagerly asked when the star appeared, charged them to proceed to Bethlehem and search for the child, and when they had found him to bring him word again that he himself might go and worship him. On leaving Herod, the very star they had seen in the East made its appearance again, and went: before them until it became stationary above the house where Jesus was. They entered the house, found Mary and her infant boy, fell down and worshipped him, and offered him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they went back by another route to their own country. After this, and again in a dream, Joseph was warned to take Jesus to Egypt, to avoid a massacre which Herod ordered, "when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men," of all the children in Bethlehem two years old and under, "according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men." After Herod's death, Joseph was directed, in another dream, to return to Judea; but when he learned that Herod's son was reigning there he settled in Nazareth of Galilee.
Luke's account is that Joseph and Mary dwelt in Nazareth before the angel-visit to Mary; that he and Mary went up from there to Bethlehem to be taxed; that Jesus was born while they were at. Bethlehem; that he was circumcised on the eighth day; that when Mary's purification—thirty-three days—was at an end they took the babe to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord in the temple; and that when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, "to their own city Nazareth."
The glaring contradiction here between Luke and Matthew need scarce be dwelt on. Luke states that Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem from Nazareth: Matthew's account implies that they were not in Nazareth until the return from Egypt, and that going to Nazareth at all was because of a warning from God in a dream. Matthew states that they fled from Bethlehem to Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod: Luke, that they brought the child to Jerusalem, where Herod, according to Matthew, was, and that he was openly acknowledged in the temple by Simeon and Anna. Matthew states that, at Herod's death, they went from Egypt to Nazareth, avoiding Judea; Luke, that they went straight from Jerusalem to Nazareth in a very short time after the birth of Jesus.
Matthew places the birth of Jesus in the reign of King Herod; Luke, during the taxing made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, which, following Josephus, was not till after the death of Archelaus, Herod's successor. This discrepancy has given much anxious concern to the "reconcilers" and critics, the latest solution being a conjecture, stated to rest "on good grounds," that Cyrenius was twice governor of Syria, first towards the close of Herod's life, afterwards on the death of Archelaus. For the present purpose, it is assumed that Matthew and Luke refer to the same period.
The tale of the wise men suggests many questions. What came of them afterwards? How many were there? Where did they come from? How, when they saw the star in the East, did they know that it indicated the birth of a King of the Jews? What special Jewish appearance did it present? and what end was their heaven-directed visit to serve? Not to proclaim Jesus to the Jews as their king and ruler; not to accredit them as witnesses to proclaim his divinity far and wide; not, so far as is stated, to bring their own minds to the saving belief that he was the Saviour of the world; not even to confirm Mary and Joseph's faith—for if the angel-visits are true that would have been unnecessary; but to offer to him, the professed Lord of heaven and earth, such trumpery gifts as were laid upon the altars of the old gods, or presented to baby princes of this world.
(d.) Luke narrates that, at the birth of Jesus, a company of shepherds—how many is not mentioned—were watching their flocks at night in the fields, when "lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men." The shepherds forthwith hastened to Bethlehem, and discovered Mary, Joseph, and the infant boy lying in a manger. Finding the vision they had seen thus exactly realised, they spread abroad, among their wondering countrymen, "the saying that was told them concerning this child." "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."
The question here again arises: between the shepherds, the eye-witnesses of this event, and Luke, who wrote at least fifty years after, who were the go-betweens? Or if the information came from Mary, why are Matthew, Mark, and, above all, John silent? And what became of the shepherds? When Jesus began his public ministry, where were they? Where those they informed? Joseph and Mary, by Luke's account, had come from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be taxed, and returned. Thus they would have been known in Bethlehem as belonging to Nazareth, and of the house and lineage of David. There would not then have been difficulty in keeping them in view. And would men who had seen so remarkable an appearance, to whom the angel of the Lord had spoken, who had heard the heavenly host singing, manifestations more glorious than before or since have been vouchsafed to any one, have lost sight of the wondrous child, or would those whom they informed have lost sight of him? Yet, during the three years' public appearance of Jesus, not one of them, so far as can be gathered, is to be found among his followers.
(e and d.) That the visit of the wise men of the East, and the appearance to the shepherds, can both be true, is impossible. Luke is very precise as to the length of the stay of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. It extended to the eighth day for circumcision, and to the thirty-third day after this for Mary's purification. Then they left Bethlehem for Jerusalem, there "performed all things according to the law of the Lord," and returned straight to Galilee. During the forty or forty-one days of the stay at Bethlehem—five miles from Jerusalem—the shepherds were spreading abroad "the saying that was told them concerning this child." That he was a "Saviour, born in the city of David, Christ the Lord." The visit of the wise men must have occurred in the course of these forty-one days. Their inquiry put all Jerusalem in a ferment, roused Herod's jealousy, set him inquiring where Christ should be born, induced the most eager desire to find the new-born babe, that he might remove such an obstacle from his path, all the while that the shepherds in the neighboring district were publishing the glad tidings of his birth. The wise men were guided by a star to the house where Joseph and Mary stayed, saw and worshipped the wondrous child, and were warned of God in a dream to depart to their own country privately; but no such admonition to keep silence restrained the outspoken shepherds in the close vicinity of Herod. To avoid Herod's wrath, Joseph "took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt," just at the time "when the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord," Herod being at Jerusalem, and having had his jealousy roused by the tale of the wise men. Can aught more utterly irreconcilable be imagined? As, then, the falsehood of the accusers of Susanna in the Apocrypha was detected, when they were examined apart by Daniel, on the one affirming that her crime was committed "under a mastic tree" and the other "under a holm tree," so such contradiction as that between Matthew and Luke wholly destroys the credit of both narratives. What is there for a conscience-satisfying belief to rest upon?
SECOND TEST.—The claim of the New Testament to represent the Jewish Jehovah.
1.. The deity begetting a mortal child by a mortal woman, was this a Jewish or a Gentile idea? That it was not a Jewish idea will be shown when the alleged fulfilment of Isaiah vii. 14,—"Behold a virgin shall conceive" &c., is considered. That it was a common Gentile idea is most manifest. A glowing account of Jupiter's commerce with the fair ones of the earth is to be found in his amorous address to his sister-wife Juno (Iliad, Book xiv. 280-353). The other gods and goddesses in like manner bestowed their favours on mortals, and begat mortal children. Plato was said to be the child of a virgin by Apollo. Apollo appeared to her betrothed in a dream, and told him his bride was with child, on which he delayed his marriage. What is this but the tale of Mary and Joseph in another form? Which is the original? Plutarch also mentions that a similar notion was held by the Egyptians, but of male gods only. "The Egyptians, indeed, make a distinction in this case, which they think not an absurd one, that it is not impossible for a woman to be impregnated by the approach of some divine spirit, but that a man can have no corporeal intercourse with a goddess." This is an exactly similar notion to Luke's "overshadowing" of Mary. "Out of Egypt have I called my son," is perfectly true in a sense. Confucius also, in one of the sacred books of the Chinese, refers to the great Holy One, who would appear in the latter days, born of a virgin, whose name shall be the Prince of Peace.
Similar, too, are the legends of the fabled founders of some, to whom so many of the civil and religious institutions of the city were ascribed. Romulus and Remus were sons of the war-god Mars. Their mother Rhea took refuge in a cave: the meeting of the god and the mortal was attended by prodigies: the heaven was darkened, the sun eclipsed: her celestial lover announced to Rhea that she should bear twin-sons, to be renowned in arms, and then ascended in a cloud from the earth. Servius Tullius, also, had a like origin. His mother, a slave in the household of Tarquin, beheld a divine appearance on the hearth, and afterwards was "found with child" by the god. The child, when born, was named Servius, from his mother's condition. During its sleep she saw its head surrounded by flames, which were extinguished when she awakened it. The founder, likewise, of the Sabine town of Cures was a son of Mars. His mother, a virgin of noble family, seized with divine favour, while dancing in the temple, entered the shrine, and became pregnant by the god. Her son, she is told, would be of superhuman beauty, matchless in deeds of arms. So that a Roman on his conversion had merely to transfer to Jesus a like belief to those in which he had been nurtured with reference to the births of the fabled founders and ancient kings of his own city, up to whom the political and religious practices which he had been taught to regard as sacred were traced. To him there would have been nothing incredible in the story of Mary's conception. The claim of the church of Rome to be the true church of Christ may thus, in a certain sense, be cordially acquiesced in.
2. The Son of God, by a mortal woman, brought up as the child of that woman and her husband,—Is that a proceeding proper to the deity of the Old Testament? The writings and the spirit of Moses and the prophets emphatically answer, No.
But it exactly corresponds with the Grecian legends of the "father of gods and men." The suffering hero Hercules, son of Jupiter and Alcmena, brought up by her and her husband Amphitryon, is a memorable pagan tale of a kindred character.
3. The birth of an illustrious personage made manifest by a star,—Is that consistent with the attributes of the Jewish Jehovah? The stars in the Old Testament are ever referred to as witnesses to the might of the Eternal, and those who sought to divine earthly events by their courses, conjunctions, or appearances, were treated with derision. "Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." This is addressed by Isaiah, xlvii. 13, to the daughter of the Chaldeans, Babylon. Matthew's stargazing wise men would thus have been "spued out of the mouth" of the Jewish Jehovah.