(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."^

—
+ St. John ii. 18, 19; St. Matt. xii. 40.
^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 215.
—

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.

—
+ Rackham, Acts of the Apostles, p. lxxiv.
^ Hall, The Virgin-Mother, p. 217.
—

(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."*