"Marvel not," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "if the whole world has been redeemed; for He who has died for us is no mere man, but the Only Begotten Son of God."^ "Christ," says St. Cyril of Alexandria, "would not have been equivalent [as a sacrifice] for the whole creation, nor would He have sufficed to redeem the world, nor have laid down His life by way of price for it, and poured forth for us His precious Blood, if He be not really the Son, and God of God." #

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^ Catech., xiii. 2.
# De Sancta Trinitate, dial. A. (quoted Liddon, B. L., p. 477).
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How different is all this from the language of those who would deny or question the Virgin-Birth! With them the Resurrection is denied as a literal fact; the whole meaning of the Atonement as being a real sacrifice for sin, a real propitiation, is eviscerated of its meaning, and is reduced to a moral appeal to man; and finally, we find that whereas Christians have been thinking and speaking of Christ as truly God, who in becoming man "did not abhor the Virgin's womb," modern writers really mean a very good man who does not, however, differ in kind but only in excellence of degree from any saint; and by Incarnation they mean that moral union which a good man has with God, only illustrated in the case of Christ in an altogether unique degree. If, however, the Incarnation be what Christendom believes it to have been; if the Son of God did really take flesh in the womb of Mary, and became man, not by assuming a human personality, but by assuming human nature, by entering into human conditions of life,—it is indeed difficult to imagine any other way of such an Incarnation save by way of the Virgin-Birth, by which the entail of original sin was cut off, and humanity made a fresh start in the Eternal Person of the Second Adam. And if He is indeed sinless, the sinless Example, the sinless Sacrifice, how could He be otherwise born? Adam, at his fall, passed on to the human race a vitiated nature, which we all share—a nature biassed in a wrong direction. It descended—this vitiated nature—from father to son to all generations of men. If this entail of original sin was to be cut off, if there was really to be a new Adam, a second start for the human race, how could it be contrived otherwise than by a Virgin-Birth? The Son of Mary was indeed wholly human—completely man—but "in Him humanity inherited no part of that bad legacy which came across the ages from the Fall."*

When a modern writer says, "We should not now, h priori, expect that the Incarnate Logos would be born without a human father,"+ we may reply that we are hardly in a position to expect anything a priori in the matter; but when once we have learnt that this Incarnate Logos was to be the Second Head of the human race—the sinless Son of Man—and that in Him humanity was to make a fresh start, it is indeed difficult to see how this could be without the miracle of the Virgin-Birth.

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* Liddon, Christmas Sermons, p. 97.
+ See Contentio Veritatis, p. 88.
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I should like to say, in conclusion, that I cannot disguise my conviction that just as in the early days we find no denial of the Virgin-Birth except among those who denied and objected to the principle of the Incarnation (on the ground, apparently, of the essential evil of matter), so, conversely, that the attempt now being made (or the suggestion put forward) to separate the Incarnation and the Virgin-Birth will prove to be an impossibility. Once reject the tradition of the Virgin-Birth, and the Incarnation will go with it. For a few years, indeed, men will use the old language, the word "Incarnation" will be on their lips; but it will be found before long that by that term they do not mean God manifest in human flesh, but they mean a man born naturally of human parents, who most clearly manifested to men the Christian idea of a perfect human character. Such a conception as this brings no solace to human hearts. No saint, however great, could be our Saviour; no saint could have atoned for sin; and assuredly no saint could be to any of us the source of our new life—the well-spring and fountain of Divine grace.

NOTE ON ISAIAH VII. 14

THE word for "the Virgin" in the Hebrew text is ha-almah. It is an ambiguous word, and does not necessarily imply, though it certainly does not necessarily exclude, the idea of virginity. Etymologically it means puella nubilis—a maiden of marriageable age.

In four* out of six other places in the Old Testament where it is employed, it is used of virgins. Its use in the two other passages+ is doubtful, but does not with any certainty imply virginity.

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* Gen. xxiv. 43; Exod. ii. 8; Ps. lxviii. 25; Cant. i. 3.
+ Prov. xxx. x 9; Cant. vi. 8.
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